Heck, the UAW might not even exist if the companies weren't such big pricks earlier in the last century.

Therein lies one problem with unions. At one time, long, long ago, they provided a valued and needed service. However, they're still here, only now they mainly work to perpetuate themselves.

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Scope-creep is a separate issue. I'm assuming that you've already established scope, which is a matter of specificity in the quote.

You did explicitly lay out what you will do, right? And that nothing further beyond what you did lay out is implied or can be inferred?

Maybe contracts should be on the comp. sci. curriculum.

Should I bill by the hour or provide a fixed quote on a per-project basis? What kind of assurances should I get from the client before I begin work? What is the best way to create accurate time estimates?

1. Maximize what you get from the client. Do hourly or fixed-quote, whichever is most appropriate. If you have the luxury of choosing only high-paying clients, well, nice to meetcha, Santa. How's the skiing in Hell?

2. Half up front. No exceptions.

3. Years of experience.

Had the federal government responded initially by cutting taxes and spending, lowering trade barriers and streamlining regulation, it probably would have been just a very bad recession.

Or they could have done nothing at all. One of the most helpful things for the business environment is stability. Knowing exactly what the government is going to do, because that's what it has always done, relieves a business from expending capital on adjusting to changing conditions.

Of course, no government would ever have done nothing, as the citizens wouldn't have stood for it. But, so long as we're spinning moonbeams...

I'm surprised anybody looks at the tags.

They're not good for anything, even if they were utterly correct.

I take that back--I'm sure they're good for something, but they're not at all useful. Meaningless featureitis for Slashcode.

Having access to the technology is a pretty important thing, IMO. This isn't 1980 when personal computers were a rarity. Being computer illiterate is almost as bad as being actually illiterate.

There are also several things that computers can do that even good teachers cannot do. Computer-guided instruction allows the student to go at their own pace, rather than be held behind or left behind. You don't want to lose either of these groups. Students who fall behind tend to drop out, and bored students are, if anything even worse. Computer-guided instruction may also allow for a student to wander off the beaten track to follow a particular interest. Instead of just studying when Einstein developed his theory of relativity, the student can follow the theory itself.

We broke up school into discreet subjects because that's a good method for one-to-many instruction. But learning is rarely so segmented. A few hours of clicking through Wikipedia is often better than a couple of weeks of ordinary classroom instruction.

With a well-designed computer-aided library of knowledge you could cram 50 kids into a room with one well-rounded and competent teacher without too much trouble. Going this route would radically change the way people think about education. It would, I believe, even be cheaper than our current warehouse-style, time-clocked factory schooling methods. But it would anger the teachers' unions, the textbook publishers, the thousands of people employed to service the status quo, and most of all politicians who like being in control of piles of money.

It's worth noting that Google didn't write SketchUp. Google bought SketchUp. The app's original authors deserve the credit for creating a first-rate schematic design tool.

Or stop watching TV/movies altogether.

If you read a book a day from Project Gutenberg you'd likely be dead before you exhausted it.

I find it really puzzling that some people are so exercised that they cannot watch "American Pie" without restrictions.

But as a onetime fan of Card's work, I am saddened to learn that he shares much in common with groups like the Taliban.

Hyperbole--excusing poor thinking since 4004 B.C.

If God exists, he's not talking to us, no matter how much some people would like to believe that he is.

Even in the Bible God didn't do much chatting.

Such guesswork is the entire basis of religion.

Guesswork is the basis of our understanding of how the Universe came into being, the nature of black holes, and the composition of extra-solar atmospheres. Of course, we call the guesswork "science", just as we call the guesswork on God "religion" (or spirituality, if you like). We have rational, logical and internally consistent rules for explaining the origin of the Universe, which we call science. We have something similar, if not exactly the same, with regards to religion. Neither have explained everything fully, but that doesn't make either one less valuable.

Too many see the two disciplines as utterly contradictory, often because they haven't fully studied the other side, or because they harbor instinctual hostility. It's too bad really, as both can improve the human condition.

"Why" is only a good question to ask once. You can ask "Why?" until you regress all the way back to a singularity, at which point you have to engage in guesswork.

I'd rephrase the statement "science is for understanding how we exist, spirituality is for understanding why" to, "Science is a discussion about how we exist; spirituality is a discussion about why we exist." Both science and spirituality are a process, not an end.

This explains why terrorism is not only tolerated but encouraged but many cultures around the world.

Congratulations, champ!

Having been an adult for a while now, I can safely say that, no, adults don't act that way.

I suspect either A) you hang around shitty adults, or B) there's something wrong with you.

This "bullying" meme is really catching on to Slashdot nerds. Why is that?

The solution is to stop raising a bunch of rude brats. The parents/teachers need to tell teenagers, "You have the body of an adult (reproduction, et cetera), and now it's time to start acting like one. Abuse of your peers will Not be tolerated."

Why not coordinate your hodgepodge coterie of goths, KAWAIIS! and nerds over SMS to beat the shit out of the bullies one at a time? It seems both a direct and effective evolutionary response to unsocial behavior.

IMO we don't read nearly enough sensational AP stories about jocks fagslapped to their death.