It's about sharing the spoils

You are talking about more equitable distribution when you *do* sweat, something I have quite some sympathy for. That is completely different from your original post.

(As an aside, perhaps because I would never risk my time or my money for a sliver-thin chance of success, I have very little difficulty with those entrepreneurs who do make it big being heavily rewarded for their risk.)

I don't know any Google executives in person, but I have to say that all the executives I have met, including the ones who managed in ways I *dramatically* disagreed with, worked very hard indeed.

I am also well aware that not everyone who works hard obtains a corresponding reward. There are many who work harder than I ever will for far more meager returns simply because they never had the educational opportunities that I was blessed with or faced racial/cultural/language challenges that I never will (which is why I *am* a Leftie :-)).

But without exception, all of the successful people I've met over my 50-odd years have worked hard for their success.

Basically. It's all about finding the suckers willing to sweat the most for the masters above them.

I'm certain you back up your sentiment by living "off the economic grid", but my, it's amazing how many others followed this sentiment with "and I should still be able to get all the neat stuff that everyone else sweats for..."

Well, no disagreeing with you there. However, it is somewhat removed from your original point.

Tyr07, what I was making fun of was the assumption that your ISP *is* the Internet, or in fact has any relation whatsoever to the web sites you choose to patronize.

The idea that paying Comcast should mean that the rest of the Internet world should be willing to work for free on your behalf so boggled me that I had to make fun of it. It has a sort of solipsistic quality that you don't find in most people over 16. "How could hundreds of thousands of individual parties who have no relation to each other NOT coordinate everything to provide a seamless experience for me!"

Entitled much?

After all, you are going to *them*.

(I accept ad-blocking is a necessary safety measure, but the level of entitled-ness of "how dare they charge!" (in terms of ad-eyeballs) is eye-opening from anyone who is not 16.)

Um, you realize that if you are browsing their site and using an ad-blocker, you are a net negative to them. So if you get all offended and stop visiting, he's done the business a favor...

For safety reasons, I mooch as well, but I don't try and pretend that I'm doing them a favor while enjoying their content for nothing and letting them pay for the bandwidth I use.

I know, it's so annoying. I pay for a taxi to the store, and then they expect me to pay for product in the store!.

They want me to pay twice!

Ridiculous, right?

For all their sins, ads fuel much of the Web. Cut them out and you're strangling the diversity of online voices and publishers – and I don't think consumers really want that.

Actually, consumers want everything, and they want it for free.

Plus a pony.

Consumers are going to go for the absolute cheapest venue right now, and then they're going to complain about the long-term consequences of their behavior. That's just how humans work.

And producers are going to try to maximize the amount they make right now, and then they're going to complain about the long-term consequences of their behavior. That's just how humans work.

Rather than complain about ad-blockers, we're just going to have to accept that much of the content we enjoy nowadays isn't sustainable when your audience is composed of human beings.

Internet bravery is particularly piquant when expressed by someone without the moral fortitude to log into Slashdot.

Oh but for a mod point to mod you up.

There's no effective difference. Embracing diversity is a reparation for discrimination against minorities.

I believe the justification is that the administration feels it improves the overall teaching environment for *all* the participants, not just the ones who were accepted because of this policy. (And, of course, excluding those who failed to get in because of this policy.)

I think this must be a California thing, or perhaps certain sectors. I'm not seeing my early-fifties friends having any trouble landing jobs in their area of expertise. I wouldn't want to be trying to land a job in a start-up, mind you.

Also, I imagine there's a huge amount of noise in the signal. Often landing a job is just a matter of right time/right place/right skills. Have a run of bad luck, and landing a job can seem almost impossible.

When the premise is "this tool lets you reduce the number of programmers you need from 10 to 2", that's a good premise.

I want to know about any tool that makes programmers five times more effective!

Moreover, we've probably both seen cases where the philosophy was "this tools is expensive, so it *must* be good".

But I've seen a lot more "A thousand dollars is a lot of money" when I see it add 5-10% to a 100K programmer's productivity. Admittedly, it *is* hard to measure productivity, but my general philosophy is that if you *aren't* spending a few percent of an employees salary to enhance their productivity, you should be looking carefully to make sure you're getting the most out of them.

It's amazing how often you see employees losing 30 minutes a day in cumulative 1 minute delays (which frustrates the heck out of them) because spending 2K for a decent computer is out of the question. Far cheaper to lose 15% of the employees productivity and the increased turn-over due to the frustration is just icing on the cheapness cake!

So, with respect to the topic at hand, I strongly believe if you have decent employees, then they can probably tell you what engine will work best for them. And if it costs up front, then you pay it. And no, I don't expect 500% productivity increases. But it doesn't take much of a productivity increase to have the right product pay for itself within the year.

A good businessman focusses on everything, because you can

I cannot.

I have to say that I disagree with this philosophy, because no-one I've met *can* focus on everything. Mental energy is finite, and I'd prefer that it be focussed where it can do the most good. (Over my career, my few fights with management were when their priority was "everything".)

That said, I have seen small things get bigger and bigger, but because the incremental change was so small, people didn't want to deal with it, so it's worth checking one's priorities every so often. But constantly focussing on everything - that has been a recipe for disaster for me and my mere mortal peers.

By "real programming project", I mean were all the participants are being paid at market rates and the budget is large enough to produce a product of the quality (polish, size, art quality, gameplay, etc.) that is expected by current iOS and Android customers. My suspicion is that budget is in the hundreds of thousands, but I low-balled it at $100K.

I'm not denigrating hobbyist projects, after all, that's all I've ever been involved in. But my point (which I think you agree with) is with a real programming project, the up-front engine cost is trivial compared to the cost of employees.