sorry, but google, OF ALL COMPANIES, is not allowed to use the incompetance-card. they go around telling everyone that they have the smartest and brightest engineers. in the world. they constantly tell us this, directly and indirectly.

and so, that much hubris denies you the 'we didn't know!' card.

you knew. you FUCKING KNEW. don't give me that shit, google.

or, come clean and admit you are just another sweatshop employing drones in human skin who are just doing what they are told and have no ability to think on their own. you ready to admit that you hire yes-men and no one there would dare go against your oh-so-mighty data collection requirements?

I don't believe they hire super bright people, to be honest. they hire young kids who simly will do what they are told and will look the other way if you give them free lunch, free clothes and an employer name that still has a wow-factor to many.

the group-think is too strong to fight against the data collection monster. I dont' think any google employee would last if he/she stood up and spoke against a privacy violation on a user's data. as long as google gets to keep all your data, there is no such thing as privacy for users and its drilled into the employees, indirectly, but still drilled into them.

if you have no experience or are from a 3rd world country, sure.

if you have experience, certs are usually a waste of time. I would actually hire people who did NOT bother with certs.

I run into folks from india all the time (bay area resident, fact of life here) and more often than not, they are filled with degrees and certs and lots of memorization. still, with all that 'stuff' the output from many indians is sub-par. they don't THINK, they just have amassed lots of DATA in their heads.

sadly, those are the folks who are now, almost completely in control of the hiring. indian bosses, indian co-workers, indian ceo's. they think their methods of learning is great and they hire from their own culture, ignoring (blatantly) the locals who grew up here and who did NOT spend their time swallowing textbooks and memorizing algorithms.

not much more to say about the subject. oh, right - cheating - LOTS and lots of cheating on tests in india. its documented and known. and so, what good are certs if the culture encourages and allows cheating?

certs are useless. less than useless, in fact. give me someone who can think and that's most of an engineering job; not rote data storage in greymatter.

#include "notsureifserious.jpg"

you cannot be serious. the press are 100% owned by the powers that they should be reporting on. we have no honest or free press anymore, at least not in the english speaking countries that I'm aware of.

lets also mention the test equipment vendors that have almost all been bought by the evil danaher: tektronix, fluke and keithley being the big 3 that come to mind. why can't companies stay around, these days? oh, right, if they are honest and provide a product that lasts, that's 'no good' for the current disposable economy. sigh.

audio companies, include, too; harmon kardon and nakamichi come to mind as they are now shells. shit, even b&w (used to be high end speakers) now make fashion headphones for the apple crowd. SQ does not matter, only looks, for that audience.

everyone is engaged in a race to the bottom. pretty depressing, actually.

hey, hey, hey! watch it, there!

cold fjord is our sockpuppet.

we can usually tell him even without his signature.

yes - I am quite sure that there are many paid and unpaid (not directly) people who are doing all they can to discredit those who are the real heros.

shameful, CF. really really shameful. I am tolerant of alternate views but you sockpuppets really should just go somewhere else. your cover is blown and no one takes you seriously.

the DRM in hdmi really sucks, but its getting a bit more tolerant.

5 or 10 years ago (back when hdmi was first out) video cards were too strict and the chipsets were, too. if you didn't boot things in the right order, you'd get a race condition. would have to 'reboot the monitor' after the computer started up or you would not get hdmi.

turn off the av receiver and this might turn your tv actually off (switched ac outlet)? that might also cause hdmi to 'go away' and need your pc to be rebooted.

finally all this got worked out, mostly; but I still see remindants of strict drm. I have amazon prime and sometimes I like to fall asleep to a documentary (many of amazon's docs are boring so its a good fit, lol). I start off watching, then I put the stereo on sleep timer and turn the video display off. if amazon is playing at the time, the audio drops out for a few seconds before coming back on again (right after I turn the display off with my remote). at first, I thought there was a bug, but later realized that a few seconds after - the audio came back on. I guess they realized that it WAS a valid use case to 'watch tv' and have the video off (no hdmi link) and yet still let audio thru (spdif out on my win7 htpc).

its getting better but that audio drop out is still annoying and 100% not necessary. sigh.

anyone remember that old three stooges skit where curly dresses up like a maharaja, speaking gibberish to moe and moe 'translates'?

it would be too funny to hack one so that you would say 'Maha?" and it would respond "Aha!" and then spurt out some curly-like gibberish.

that's about all I can think of to make the 'echo' useful.

it appears that the english don't know about the underground tunne&IU9#02w9(ert78!&0wa#g780q[wfe

NO CARRIER

you fail to understand what a modern silicon valley 'contractor' is.

you don't bid on jobs. you get offered whatever the company is willing to pay. take it or leave it. you call that 'bidding' ? I don't.

here's how it works these days. you get a call from a job shop or middleman. you always must now go thru those guys, you can't 'go direct' or business to business. they want to be sure that the contract house or jobber has $1M liability and umbrella insurance and all the right papers and stuff, which you will not likely have. you will get a percent of what the jobber charges the company and you usually won't know the billing rate TO the customer.

the job shop will ask you what you made at the last job you had. if you fight with them or refuse, they walk away and go to the next suck^Hguy. you can't tell them that you'll work for market rate. they demand to know what your 'number' is and if you quote too high, they blow you off. if you quote low, you are in the running, but you just talked yourself into the below-market rate just to GET the fucking job. they all know this and they depend on this.

you really don't properly bid on jobs and you can't GET a job if you ask for market rate. it truly is a race to the bottom.

walk in my shoes before you claim to know what a modern software 'contractor' is. its not the guy who puts up wallboard or who charges a good hourly rate so he can cover the other omissions that others get when f/t. no, its the lowest rung on the ladder, only slightly higher than an h1b. oddly enough, h1b gets more respect since they are considered f/t, they DO get benefits and they DO have job security for at least a few years. they'll be worked to death but they will have a bit more security than me and perhaps even more money left over since they don't have to pay half a grand or more each month for healthcare and sick time and so on.

not in my experience! my 'contract' jobs for the last 10 or so years have ALL been below market value, every single one of them, and I'm pretty sure that my peers who were fulltime with benes had the same basic salary as me, but they DID have the benes I didn't get.

no, you are wrong; contracting stopped being a tax-advantage years ago and you cannot claim your car as an expense, your home computer as an expense (its not expensive anyway, these days) and you are really a w2 'fulltime employee' in the eyes of accountants but just without overtime, without benefits and with even less job security than the f/t guys.

I TRY to get a good enough contract rate to cover the loss of the other things; but it never works out that way. they know this and its part of the grand plan to depress wages for EVERYONE who is not in the elite or management.

its worse yet. the employer's abuse of employees includes not hiring 'full time', but only hiring you as a 'contractor'. my last gig was as a contractor; unwilling, as I refer to it, since I really wanted to have benefits.

see, in the US (for those not from here) if we call you a 'contractor' in the software field, then we can have you work 40 hours/week minimum, likely ask for more and not pay more (just guilting you into working more, the unspoken threat is to cancel your contract the very next day). but the super sweet deal they get is that they don't cover your healthcare (not one penny), they don't cover the national holidays, the religious holidays or even your actual sick days. all that costs you a day's pay for each day you take off during those times. we have a lot of US monday holidays and, as a contractor, I hated it. I got 32 hours of pay that week, other fulltime employees got their full week's pay and 1 day loss of pay is actually a lot, when you add it up. and no, as a contractor, you do NOT get paid more than the f/t guys. that stopped happening 10 or 20 years ago, at least. today, the contractor in sw is the lowest rank, the most disposable and everyone knows it.

oh, and we were told to take our laptops home with us each nite. sometimes we would have to call in to a conf call at 7am or 8am and while its nice to be able to do that from home, it still was extra hours work and even taking company property home feels wrong to me, if I'm not 'part of them' and not a full employee. in fact, if the laptop gets lost/stolen/broken, I may very well be liable for it.

contracting sucks. don't let anyone tell you its good or fun. you take it because its all that's offered, not because you want it.

we're all happy for you that your employer took you on. this time.

oh wait, that one data point is - what - ONE DATA POINT.

idiot.

yeah, this is all going to work out just fine. no one gets sick and all employers are eager to hire those who might miss a day of work here and there. and of course, they'll tell you why they are not letting you continue on that project. perhaps you'll eventually get the 'not a cultural fit anymore' once they realize you costed them money and they could get a young 'healthy' guy for much less than they pay you.

but you have a job. now. so that's all that counts, right?

I'll say it again. you're an idiot.

we (many, not just me) simply do not trust your motives.

you HAVE been called out and people know you for what you are.

deal. you made your bed, now lie in it.

as for slash taking your submissions, that speaks more against slash, I guess; but I suppose they are LOOKING for contentious click-bait and so this is why they welcome your submissions.

and so, my respect for slash is lower, still. so, you hang out here, I'll go over to the Other Site(tm) and perhaps that's a good way to work it.

slashdot is now yours. enjoy yourself. you and dice are meant for each other.

and, supposedly, the russians are returning to using type-writers instead of computers, for their secret memos and spy schtuff.

let me tell you this; the pidgeons are starting to look pretty scared, at this point...