Sorry about the typos in my comment above, it won't happne agian.

We've all said that.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-- George Bernard Shaw

Although this problem needs a solution, a union is not that solution. Unions are a relic of a bygone era. The core premise of a union is that employes are all the same and can be swapped in and out of work like parts in a machine (once they are trained). This leads to collective bargaining which takes back some of the power that big employers have. However it also removes individuality from the worker. If I am smarter, stronger, or more skilled than my coworkers, I want to be able to elevate myself based on my merits. A union interferes with that. You pay a union, and the union acts only in its own best interest, not in your individual best interest.

That's an incredibly selfish attitude that puts the individual interest above the interest of the collective. The irony is that collective bargaining is much more effective and is much stronger in the long run. Your self interest is great until such time that you reach a point when other, more skilled people take your place (which is inevitable, because our cognitive capabilities decline with age, not to mention that older people have more responsibilities and find it hard to work 80 hour weeks).

Even the most meritocratic of individuals can run into unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances (e.g., an accident that has you laid up, or family issues). I worked in a strictly up or out management consulting firm, and about a year ago, my pregnant wife had some issues. My son was born, prematurely, and I was in a rough place with my personal needs and professional responsibilities. My wife was hospitalized and my son was in the NICU, unable to breathe, and I was the only one who could take care of things. My employer was understanding -- for about 6 weeks -- after which things got rather unpleasant. So, I quit and joined another firm that is not only more prestigious but was also more understanding and accommodating of my needs. But I was fortunate -- I could very well have been unable to find a job, and been unemployed for a year because I wanted to take care of my family.

Union agreements ensure that in such cases, collective bargaining agreements protect everyone.

Modern skilled workers, especially in the IT and Engineering fields, are usually very specialized. This is not a good fit for a union. It would be ill advised to take a good thing and remove all motivation for creativity and the free flow of invigorating talent.

Not really. Most of what goes on in IT today is quite commoditized, and there are very few areas that are truly specialized. And it is only going to get worse as IT matures. You may think your task is highly specialized, but the truth is, there's probably someone in another part of the world willing to do it for a tenth of what you get paid. That is not specialization.

If you want real specialization, you perhaps see it in chip design, algorithmic optimization, biotech etc. You know, all those guys with PhDs who specialize in a subject?

A better solution is to simply prevent large corporations from getting away with their bullshit. No "gentleman's agreements" to prevent poaching. Stop accepting lies regarding layoffs and market performance. Reward employers for using home-grown talent rather than rewarding them with tax loopholes for moving overseas.

And how do you propose we do that? The share market is the ultimate arbiter, and the people who are rewarding the companies and the executives are the shareholders who are in for short term profit (it's the extension of the same short term myopic outlook of looking out for oneself rather than the collective).

I find that most Americans have a poor understanding of unions almost entirely rooted in propaganda, and it gets repeated again and again as gospel. The truth is, unions are immensely helpful to the labor force, especially in a service economy such as ours. Everyone thinks their skill is specialized, until it gets outsourced and commoditized.

You are not special. And despite what you may think, unions can help you negotiate agreements that would be impossible for you to go at alone.

Did that inclusive OR gate come in TTL or CMOS?

Remember that Bergoglio worked as a bar bouncer in his younger days. I think he may know what he's talking about on this subject.

This is a great point. When I was younger and in college, I took advantage of the fact that I could coast through my engineering classes with the barest minimum effort. So, spent them drinking, playing in a band, and chasing tail. I still graduated in the top 10, but I could have easily done much, much better. Grad school and a couple of jobs later, my philosophy changed, and from somewhere, ambition crept in.

I will say that I have accomplished a lot more with drive and mediocre application of intelligence than with intelligence and little in the way of drive or hard work.

The problem is that you need them both at the right times in your life. Otherwise, it's too late. At a different period of my life, I may have gone through with a PhD and potentially been a physicist if I had had the sense to apply both grit and intelligence.

Today, I am a management consultant, where I use my analytical skills to solve mediocre problems, but where grit and drive and many other soft skills play a role. In fact, I would argue that my intelligence has taken a back seat and I bust ass to make up for gaps in my technical skills (e.g., finance).

Sadly, I am well past the point of publishing seminal papers; but at least, I can make the best of what I have and make a boatload of money for my next generation. But you're right -- it's not coming first. It's not even coming third. It's somewhere around fifth to the tenth. Above average, if you will, but definitely not great.

Yeah, Glory Road would be my choice. Hell, Clooney would be good as Old Scar.

David Brin's Existence is another very interesting take on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Existenc...

If your're playing anything under 15 IPS then it's going to be muddy.

I've never understood this one, a blockbuster is a great movie while a bomb is a bad one. But a blockbuster is a bomb. WTF?

I'm a few years south of 57 but I got lucky in my job, I get to admin the phone system. The first thing I did was disable my extension's VM. If it's that urgent, call my cell, if not send an email or put in a ticket.

I work for an aerospace cabin integrator and we're always looking for good TechPubs people. My company offers fully paid classes within our field. The great thing is that the TechPubs folks work hand in hand with the engineers. You can talk with them and figure what type of engineering work you want to do, stress, electrical, structures, flam, systems, furniture... and we just touch the inside of an airliner.

Email me if you live in the Puget Sound area.

Off-topic side note about WalMart. I've done data cable work at more than a few and found that they do one really neat trick when they build: For their main electrical room they haul in a 40' container (before the walls are up) and set it in the back of the store. All the electrical mains come in there through a wall. All the main breakers and the telco demarcation point is in there so if they catch fire the rest of the store has a chance. Off-topic but kind of cool if you're into that thing, which I am.

Good solution. I do like my pure 480GB SSD in my work laptop for the battery savings. I get 6 hours out of an i5 laptop now. It's an HP Elitebook 840 if you're interested. For pure storage I have a 2TB USB3 drive that holds things like music, software packages and all the found Doctor Who episodes, just in case, ya know.

Blame ASCII. There is no standard (7-bit) ASCII symbol for cents. Back in my day we use to just type a c and then backspace and type a / to make the US cents symbol. Of course, back then most typewriters didn't have a numeral 1 and we just used a lower case L for that.

The lack of cent and degree symbols always bothered me when it comes to the ASCII set. Before all you internationalists get upset about including a US centric symbol, remember that the A in ASCII stands for American.

Now why the author of the article decided to use a useless trailing zero...