The Greek economy is something like 2% of the EU. Germany could pay it all off alone and still be in the comfort zone. There was a time when it looked like many dominoes could fall, but Ireland, Portugal and Spain all seem to be on a slow recovery, Italy still gives grounds for concern. The reason they can't give in to Greece is because many countries have been responsible. Many countries have taken harsh steps to bring their budgets in line. The opposition against giving Greece special treatment is strong all the way from the rich countries to the other poor countries.

Just to add to that list the boss is the natural point of escalation when two people butt heads and won't agree. I don't expect my bosses to know the details or even the subject, but they need to understand technical write-ups listing the pros and cons so we can settle it and move on. If the boss clearly has no understanding of the issue and just goes with the person he likes best, of course he'll lose respect.

The other issue is representation, my boss often have to represent our interests in various formal channels. A tech explaining things to a non-tech might be hard enough but having a non-tech boss explaining to other non-techs in other departments means most will be lost in translation. And while it's natural that you need to bring back some questions or issues they raised, a non-tech will have to do it all the time creating a very long feedback loop.

That said, he does not need to be down into the nitty-gritty details. But really, would you hire a guy with no understanding of sales as sales manager? A guy with no understanding of financials as financial manager? It's very rare that you need just "generic people management" and nothing else, because usually you have a business role too not just an administrative role. And you can't do that without some understanding of the subject matter.

Ha! It WAS me!

I was a really good developer. Then a great developer (in my mind, and others) so I moved up the ranks.

I was pretty good, and made it to the top of the tech heap at a fairly large organization, with 3 levels of employees under me.

It was horrible. I did a really crappy job.

Instead of being a great developer or architect, I become a HORRIBLE business contract negotiator and director. I got involved in 2 HR actions at the same time. I completely failed. In fact I think I 'Petered Out'.

I bailed on that life, and found an organization willing to match my salary- back down at a developer position. I'm a nominal supervisor to 2 people.

I really think I am doing great work again- even better than before, because my viewpoint is even better. I love being a developer, and they love what I'm doing.

The Peter Principal is real. I was promoted beyond my abilities, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Being really good at something doesn't necessarily mean that I'm able to manage a bunch of other people.

"Did you seriously just say something that exists only in the digital realm"

Seriously are we back in the 90's? Some of the most valuable things on earth only exist in the digital realm, see microsoft office and windows, google, and everything produced by the television and movie industries.

"which solves a cryptographic puzzle nobody actually asked or cares about"

The puzzle of money that can't be counterfeited, doesn't require inflation, and doesn't depend on a central bank? I'm not sure how that falls under a cryptographic puzzle nobody cares about. Using bitcoin to trade with the Chinese would certainly solve some massive problems for the US very quickly.

Technically true even if deliberately obtuse. I will amend myself. Innate value to people. Suddenly food, shelter, and short of globally reverting to a barter system, currency, qualify.

Other things that have innate value do if they didn't bitcoin wouldn't be unique and my argument would be invalidated. Things have an innate value "to people" (qualifier for the benefit of other dude who replied to you) because they have innate properties which make them useful to us. Short of reverting to a pure barter system we will always have need of a currency and if there is one thing with innate properties that makes it most useful to function as one it becomes innately valuable in that respect.

Well, I'd agree which extends the validity of my point beyond Argentina. But for now we are talking about Argentina and it's an easier case to make.

That is the price on the speculators market not the value. Most of those involved in those price shifts aren't even utilizing bitcoin and those markets only come into play when seeking liquidity in a secondary currency. Bitcoin has innate value as the only currency (along with clones):

1. Divisible to an infinite number of units so there are always enough pieces to grow to any transaction volume. (Gold has this flaw, there aren't small enough bits to use to transact in actual gold.)
2. No known method of counterfeiting.
3. Innately digital and transmittable in all major ways.
4. De-centralized system of initial creation and distribution.
5. Innate value in the sense of a useful commodity.
6. Is universal and requires no secondary currencies exchange once critical mass is achieved.

In other words, Bitcoin is the only currency that has innate value in the form of utility where that utility is to function as a quick assured universal means of value transmission where the assurance is not subject to the interests of a third party. Fiat currencies must be valued against other fiat currencies at critical mass. If bitcoin ever reaches critical mass it eliminates the utility of all other currencies except goods with valuations based on supply and demand so the speculative currency market becomes a non-entity.

If bitcoin can be spent at businesses you don't need to convert to pesos and that is the only point the government has visibility into things. Even if you do convert to pesos no government has the resources needed to trace every transaction in every business to determine if the bitcoin funds originally came from tourists vs locals.

This is an oppressive government with immoral laws that are being circumvented. It doesn't let them avoid reporting income altogether unless bitcoin usage reaches critical mass but it does circumvent being legally forced to rely on the corrupt Argentinian fiat system by the corrupt Argentinian government.

Americans have an intriguing tendency to vote as the social class they want to be, not the social class they are which seems heavily linked in to the American Dream. When you work hard, become a big success and make lots of money they don't want socialists to come take their money and give to slackers who haven't risen above the pack. Where in other countries workers allied together to get higher wages and better conditions on the bottom of the ladder, US workers are all about getting up the ladder and into a better job, those who can't don't deserve more.

Which might not be such a bad thing, if everybody started at zero. Reality is that most people are busy just making a living, while those with lots of free cash to invest make even more money so the rich get richer and the poor rarely make their dream come true. I think it goes far beyond rich men's propaganda, it's a cultural thing deeply embedded in Americans. What you've made is your own, I don't want it and when I get mine I don't want nobody taking it either. The rich just float on that attitude.

Yes, but they are both just different sides of the corporatist party. They divide on talking points, they each use a different flavor of spin to achieve the same objectives.

Look at healthcare for example. The US spends more tax dollars per capita providing no healthcare to it's citizens than most nations with total healthcare (including dental) spend per capita without providing notably better care according to any real objective metric. Implementing real state health care neither requires outlawing private medicine nor increasing taxes. The republicans lie saying it requires both, that's their flavor of spin, the Democrats also lie and promote models that both increase taxes AND funnel money to insurance companies.

Both flavors of spin are targeted at the same result, increasing profits for the big private medical industry at the expense of the citizens. It doesn't matter which rhetoric you buy into, they are just different spins on the corporatist agenda. There is no populist party in the United States and if there were they'd get no substantial mainstream media coverage or if so popular it couldn't be avoided would be a Ron Paul comical and dismissive spin on their coverage because the mainstream media is run by massive corporations.

If you pay attention you will see the "two parties" are divided on very very carefully chosen lines.

Actually most massive organizations do exactly this. In the private sector you will find two or three major competitors with the same major stakeholders. See pepsi & coke, visa & mastercard, etc.

Running on low margins doesn't help much if the competition is undercutting you with lower costs. At least in the bragging video komplett.no made with AutoStore, they claimed going from a picker performance of 100 pieces/day to 100 pieces/hour = 8x performance as the system lines up the boxes at the picking station. Pick, scan, pick, scan, pick, scan, put in box for shipping, scan shipping box, done as opposed to running around the warehouse, particularly for new employees who have a hard time finding things. It also has other benefits like making employee theft much harder, since nothing silently disappears off the shelves or gets misplaced and they know what boxes you've had access to. The chance of accidents is vastly reduced, the storage area itself can be run in the dark and can operate colder/hotter than humans would like saving money on AC and heating.

Now obviously there's a solid investment cost but the question is how long can you afford to not make the investment? It might only be a nibble each time but higher running costs will add up and eat away at your profits too. Just look at all the other industrial robots, none of them were cheap to start with but those with money to invest will make the business case that in the long run it'll save money. Those who refuse to invest and renew themselves usually ends up on history's scrap yard.

Except it's not agile, what you're describing is iterative waterfall. You're not completing any business requirements, each component is working on a classic interface/function spec like a traditional work breakdown structure would do. When you say it's done, it's the traditional task that is done. You might get feedback from other developers, but the customer has no way to verify that it is done. Waterfall is not static, it's always had change orders and it's not like a revised spec makes it agile. You'll have all the traditional problems that the component you're building might not fit in the final picture, over-engineering to solve the general case creating inner platform effects and so on.

The whole mantra in agile is to deliver functionality, not code modules. Developers write lots and lots of code that may or may not end up actually being useful in solving the business requirements. I wouldn't go so far as saying quick and dirty but the point is to do exactly what is needed to meet the requirement, have it tested and signed off on then call it done and only generalized as needed. Once you start building big and complex components and layers that are supposed to cover all your current and possible future needs you've abandoned the core ideas.

Sure, sometimes you need a lot of plumbing to deliver the first drop of water and it makes sense that you don't dimension the system to deliver just one faucet. But it's not agile. Agile says that the only thing that's worth anything is if the user can turn the faucet and water comes out. If he wants another faucet, we'll modify that when it hits the top of the priority queue. Often a system is a total no-go until certain critical requirements are met, but it terms of building it agile wants you to do it one requirement at the time. It works best with a little moderation, build infrastructure you know you need but don't try to solve all the maybes and nice-to-haves.

Sure. But neither party actually wants you to end up with healthcare. Still it's a good example.

The actual information is that we provide a comparable or lower level of care for your average person in the United States than other developed nations. The UK spends less per person providing complete health and dental coverage than the United States spends in tax dollars per capita per person while the United States provides no healthcare. We accomplish nothing but a rigged and closed healthcare system with an FDA protection racket for pharmaceuticals companies and medical equipment manufacturers.

There is nothing magical about state provided healthcare that would suddenly make private medical institutions disappear. The costs would likely go up since you'd have reduced volume but you don't have to outlaw private medicine to have public medical staff.

The actual information is that the top 0.01 percent in this nation have 90% of the wealth in the United States, while the lower 99.99% generate 100% of that wealth and that 0.001% pay a tax rate comparable to or lower than that of the lowest income bracket. It's a bit misleading to target the top 1%, that drops the threshold low enough to include many engineers, doctors, and most lawyers. Those people work for a living, there is more than enough room to target the problem group and have a more reasonable distribution of wealth (and therefore power) without impacting those people.

The democrats are better at creating the illusion that they interested in fixing these problems than the republicans. Neither group actually wants that. Obamacare wasn't about giving everyone healthcare, obamacare was about putting money in the pockets of insurance companies while lowering the bar for the coverage they actually have to provide. Obamacare was about overpaying even more. And that is exactly how a free market system works in practice, the insurance companies can afford to buy more politicians and to pay lobbiest to whisper constantly in the ears of those politicians on every fine point of every bill than those who depend on insurance to pay their medical expenses therefore they get better representation. That is no different than someone who has more money getting better legal representation, superior medical care, or a superior education.