jbdigriz

Yes, there's certainly a definite limit to how long any living cell will last in absence of opposing stressors (though hormosis has some VERY interesting thoughts on this matter - highly recommend reading up on this theory as it's gaining a lot of traction and makes some logical sense). But life and even our discrete selves are not comprised of one set of cells that last our lifetimes (some yes, but most not). Instead our cells divide and create (mostly) identical clones throughout our lives without many perceived effects in the short term, even if obvious over long term.

The true question is why doesn't this happen perpetually? If we believe that DNA is effectively the blueprint for life, then beyond the minute minority of escaping and persistent errors and external effectors to this process, then why doesn't it continue indefinitely? There's no really strong hypothesis here but some theories about the mechanics of why this occurs have been ventured. Specifically, a lot of research has been centered on the DNA telomere, which is sort of like the opposite of a rattlesnake's rattler that grows with each shedding except that it seems to be slowly lost over successive generations of cells and it's not clear why. However, there are some exciting discoveries in this area, including an enzyme which is the FDA trial I previously alluded to - as well as a supplement company already producing a version at very high cost right now. However, it's still very early and does nothing without numerous trials - and ironically will only yield insight when the subjects expire, which one would hope occurs only after receiving some of the benefits though all but guaranteed to be the opposite as par for the course of scientific pursuit. That's soon going to be the new dilemma - is the significant lengthening of one's lifespan worth the early adopter risk that it not only fails to work at great expense, but actually exacerbated and expedited that which it sought to prevent. Then again, that perspective is very much shaped if you're on the way in our the way out I guess

EDIT: grammar and typo edits

Again, The Census Bureau is hardly an authority on this matter - they're concerned with the challenge of just logistically counting Americans every few years via surveys (the lowest order of the scientific method) and it's questionable how precisely they even do that considering I can attest to having missed one such survey myself years ago. I treat their predictions on longevity with the same skepticism I view their census stats, which is optimistic given the massive gap in expertise. This, by the way, is in no way an attempt to diminish the very real and difficult challenges this task presents - only to place their expertise accurately.

Experts very much DO NOT agree on this and the fact that literally billions of dollars in R&D are expended on this area of science in just the US is testament to that. Sure it doesn't mean any groundbreaking discovery is guaranteed to happen - but it does show that belief in the possibility is alive and well. And why not? Those immortal jellyfish share 97% of the same DNA, including long stretches of matching sequences and compatible genes that have been experimentally transferred between them and other life forms numerous times. Even Right Whales, which are conscious mammals sharing immense biological relation to people can live 200 years or more, and that's in the absence of anything remotely resembling science and the presence of numerous impediments, including us, their generic brethren. Tardigrades may end up being miniature space suits for the most advanced intergalactic life forms known - who knows? What we do know is they throw most of what we believed to be true about life and morality right out the window - and that's a good thing. All this is to say that the possibility of longetivity increases driven by scientific exploration is much greater than the likelihood of that not being the case.

Kurzweil is who he is, for better or worse. But he has made outlandish predictions over the years, many of which have come about despite the skepticism. He's a successful entrepreneur and employed in a very senior position at one of the most valuable and forward looking companies in the world. He's not everyone's cup of tea, but I don't completely dismiss him as a crank. I disagree with some of the time lines he has, though cautiously because it doesn't take many compounding discoveries to get there on his schedule. But fundamentally, I agree with much of what he says - even though I think what they mean for us as humans and the universe as a whole is much less certain, and likely as scary as they are promising.

EDIT: here are some links you might want to read to confirm that whole "experts agree" conclusion:

Henrietta Lacks - the woman whose specific cancer mutation provided the vast majority of cells used to study cancer and numerous other cellular process, to this day. Cells which are effectively immortal: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/05/there-was-on...

Immortal Jellyfish, from that disreputable rag, The New York Times..: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/magazine/can-a-jellyfish-u...

Just search HN for immortal and see what you find, then let me know if your assessment remains the same

>Kurzweil and DeGrey are arguing that it's already happening. It is not, there is no evidence to date that we've moved longevity in a meaningful way, nor that technology is involved in anything other than improvements in health and medicine and environment, further delaying death.

This is absolutely incorrect, unless you are being exceedingly facetious about the scientific process. There have been some truly remarkable advancements that span the gamut from simple behavioral changes like reduced calorie intake to advances in knowledge of certain enzymes and other compounds that have yielded statistically significant results - published results of just these two examples have yielded up to 50% increase in longevity in various animals with the latter leading to accelerated FDA approvals for human trials.

I think you're attempting to split hairs by quantifying two necessarily qualitative terms which really have a common understanding to be how long people live on average. And in doing so, you commit the same error you highlight: surely you're not suggesting that longevity decreased on average between 1920-2000? Even if you hold fast the true importance of lexical disambiguation, most would disagree on straw man grounds.

Where I do somewhat agree or at least am very open to consider is that some other force is at play that we don't yet understand. The fairly recent theory of hormosis presents some profound philosophical arguments that cannot be ignored. Life as we know it may have evolved to live less than its full potential for reasons we have yet to discover - perhaps highly interdependent relationships between co-evolved cooporative cells can only resist entropy for so long. If this is the case, then this sort of predefined balance/order would mean gains are offset by newly emerging losses - an example would be the massive increase in cancer occurrence that has mirrored increases in life expectancy, moreso when this broad category of diseases is considered by its generic definition of "uncontrolled cellular growth".

So there's certainly room for reasonable skepticism and it should shape our expectations accordingly. But that shouldn't mean the end of these pursuits nor the hope for what they could yield. And prudent scientific observation should at least suggest that greater longevity is possible. I recently read an interesting article about jellyfish and Hydra, which go through various developmental stages that actually come full circle and leading some to theorize that these somewhat basic life forms may actually be immortal. There's also tardigrades, which can live in the most extreme environments imaginable, including volcanic vents and even celestial bodies traveling through space! They've experimentally proven all our understanding of life wrong and that's only in the past few decades. Kurzweil is overly optimistic about these things because I suppose there's a degree of fear and insecurity there - he's likely predicting accelerated time lines because that's a narrative he can be part of and wants to believe that to be likely for obvious reasons. But I don't think he's wrong and fully admire anyone promoting a hopeful and tenacious outlook on life instead of the increasing opposite trend of disillusionment and cynicism - but that's an entirely different discussion.

It's funny how this video is what everyone in IT thinks work will be like before they get their first job. Meanwhile, this is what work is actually like at every IT job:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIIWX80KBUE

Not an Apple fan so genuinely curious how this unique ID is secured.

The best response to this article is a quote from the movie True Romance:

"Now, what we got here is a little game of show and tell. You don't wanna show me nothing but you're telling me everything."

Are you sure about this? As I mentioned, just a few days ago I had to manually download and install Intel HD drivers which were listed under "Recommended Updates"(note, the driver provided by Windows was indeed a later version of the one posted on Asus' own site...)

I did some searching and found this on Microsoft's own site:

Automatically get recommended drivers and updates for your hardware

Applies to Windows 7 In this page Drivers and information To have Windows automatically download recommended drivers and icons To turn on and configure Windows Update To install drivers and other optional updates from Windows Update If Windows can't find a driver for your device If Windows can’t find information about your device in Device Stage You can have Windows automatically download recommended drivers and detailed information for your hardware and devices. This is a good way to make sure all your hardware and devices work properly.

Watch this video to learn how to automatically get recommended drivers and updates for your hardware (1:13)

Drivers and information

Windows can find and download two kinds of updates for devices connected to your computer:

Drivers

A driver is software that allows your computer to communicate with hardware devices. Without drivers, the devices you connect to your computer—for example, a mouse or external hard drive—won't work properly. Windows can automatically check if there are drivers available for new devices that you connect to your computer.

For hardware that you've connected to your computer in the past, updated drivers might become available at a later date; but those drivers aren't installed automatically. To install these optional updates, go to Windows Update in Control Panel, check for updates, and then view and install driver updates that are available for your computer."

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/automatically-ge...

EDIT: has anyone confirmed if the USB drivers are in fact proprietary Samsung drivers as opposed to the generic Windows drivers? I'm curious if the support tech was merely stating a contrived example or if that is an real world scenario. So it seems pretty clear they don't install automatically and in fact not even when you install (manually or automatically) the regular crtical updates they post - which is in line with my experience over the years. The one exception might be a service pack where non-critical fixes sometimes make their way into the release (though even these have recommended and optional categories for patches which you must manually select). Ironically, despite some confusing overlap conflating the drivers installed from Windows Update when adding a new device with updating drivers to newer versions as part of the regular Windows Update patching, there are some fairly simple directions to disable drivers sourced from Windows Update for both cases:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2500967

While still unacceptable IMO, using this method would at least allow users to still receive critical security patches and other recommended/optional updates. It even mentions how MS works with third party vendors in some cases to insure only compatible drivers are ever installed (as previously mentioned) which is really the only acceptable procedure.

It seems pretty clear that Samsung chose the absolute worst option of ask those available, though it remains unclear as to why. Given a simple Google search yields plenty of high level info on the subject, I can't help but wonder if this has some other more concerning justification...

Is this even true? Windows updates only drop critical updates and can't think of a case where updated Windows drivers were automatically installed over existing drivers without explicit request or prompting to do so (except perhaps for critical flaws where the driver itself compromises security). Just yesterday I had to manually find and select an optional driver update for Intel HD graphics which one would expect to be in category of "autoupdate" if this were true...

Disabling ALL of Windows Update for this questionable reason seems entirely out of line. If their own SW Update software is already present, why not instead track said drivers and simply alert the user that vendor specific drivers must be used, offering the ability to restore them?? Makes no sense...

This is generally a problem in various forms at firms of all sizes, so running away is simply conceding that you lack the desire to develop some of the most important skills required when moving into an elevated lead or management position: the ability to compel people without forcing them and the ability to compromise.

Looking at your list of gripes, some are clearly critical issues (ie. Automated production monitoring and alerting of customer facing system) while some are obviously nitpicking (ie. Comments and documentation? Lol). Drop the "nice to have" stuff and instead pursue the "need to have" items. No CEO worth his salt is going to accept the liability of customer loss or lawsuit simply because no one thought to build some simple monitoring jobs. At the same time, I cringe at the prospect of a developer even mentioning comments or version control minutae to an executive level - definitely NOT a point to be explicitly bright up beyond some quantified metric on a regular report. It's distracting noise for him and definitely your problem to solve. Given that you mentioned being very well compensated, well that's a pretty good hint that the task ahead of you will be challenging and often not in the way you expect, as evidenced by this case.

On that note, be sure all these things are actually important for that specific business. I once worked on an in-house, Windows based C++ trading system with over 600k lines of code and there wasn't a single unit test to speak of. Granted, it was developed following SDLC and included 4 levels of testing (dev integration, ba functional, user demo and qa) but the system was running continuously for almost a decade and reaped profits in the high 9 figures. Some shops produce high quality software with deeply knowledgeable long tenured senior technologists and don't necessarily require such testing frameworks as they perform that task themselves and often far better than some pre-canned block of code ever will. I've also been in shops where testing and coverage minimums were required and tracked precisely in real time, preventing code release if standards were not met. The end result were loads of trivially passing, nonsense tests and a culture where developers often felt compelled to create even those for only the lowest hanging fruit to meet the minimum requirements for a deadline or risk a monetary impact to their bottom line. So don't just rotely follow (let alone impose) paradigms without realizing that quantifying their value is hard in many scenarios, not to mention could be construed as stepping on toes...

As some have mentioned, the best managers are those who are able to gain the trust of their teams and this is something that takes time and strings of successes along the way. At the same time, lead by example and instead of imposing your will, let the results speak for themselves. Add tests in some minor modules and if they fail, use the opportunity to demonstrate how they saved potential headaches or worse. I've found that people invariably flock to those who demonstrate not only ability and intelligence, but also civility and geniality. I can't even begin to explain how small humorous exchanges have vastly strengthened my network. I've had to lead teams of juniors and offshore folks without any official management title and its forced me to adapt and develop various methods of building repoir and ultimately compelling people to get things done, with few sour grapes to speak of and many successes (and comp increases) along the way.

Regardless of all of the above, you're still getting paid, right? By your admission, paid WELL. So why would you leave that because you believe you're not being allowed to do your job (most of which actually requires more work and maintenance)... 2 weeks in?!? Perhaps after 6-12 months, you come to the conclusion that the culture is just not for you. So, leave then - I assure you there will be just as many, if not more opportunities then, except at that point you can be confident you've shed any insecurities and gave it your best shot and have some quirky behavior tolerance to boot. That sort of techno "battle scar" is quite visible as a sort of confidence backed by wisdom and experience and makes prospective employers wet their pants. Or maybe you just kick ass and prove you're worth every penny - smiling all the way to the bank. Either alternative is far more appealing than tucking your tail and running. Food for thought

Did you have to do this on a whiteboard or paper as part of the interview process for your job? The point: not being able to do this on a interview in completely contrived circumstances with all the anxiety that comes with close scrutiny of a person who had the power to determine your future career is not a good gauge of your ability to do so when matters, given all the resources we as developers generally afford ourselves.

My biggest problem is that the vast majority of these tests is they only test two skills, neither of which is all that critical to software development beyond a certain minimum threshold: recollection and pattern matching known solutions to familiar problems. In my current level of competency with a decade of tenure in software development is this: if you're asking me to solve problems which I can easily "solve" with a few minutes of searching the web, you probably don't want or need someone like me whose spent the majority of their career on big projects which require a multitude of disciplines from being creative to quantifying results to forethought of future use to systematically testing and releasing at a minimum of risk....

What I find ironic is that I've never been tested on some of the few rote tasks which I find most developers struggle with: committing/branching/merging/commenting code, producing post release documentation, developing robust API functions, etc etc

This is highly unlikely - a company wouldn't be able to hire anyone they need after a stunt like this, which would serve no purpose for them anyway. Companies are acutely aware that you're still employed - it's likely a big part of why they are interested in you to begin with. Prospective offering companies will generally avoid contacts from your current firm in lieu of other specific document evidence, like pay checks, W2, etc. Additionally, you generally provide your own referrals if this degree of reference check is even undertaken.

Phone interviews can be tough - best to do well away from company out of respect if nothing else, but as suggested a lunch break is a good time for this and a park with maybe an ear piece or Bluetooth headset is recommended. And it may seem obvious, but don't actually eat or drink at any point while on the call...

For in person, again just from a moral stand point, these should be conducted on your own time but emphasize your desire to get as many possible done on that day. Don't try to overbook though - the worst thing you can do is miss our all for a reschedule at the last minute. But you can do so if they have a healthy buffer between, especially if one is an earlier round (ie. Phone screen after and day of in person has been doable for me, but you definitely should refuel at that point and try to take a breather.

You absolutely should be aware of the market opportunities and the relative value and respect that can factor in. It is your right, and I would say or obligation, to do so and insure both you and your employer are benefiting equally. All that being said, your current company shouldn't be paying for this pursuit, so be fair and do it on your own time. In business, being consistently courteous and reasonable in all your pursuits will genuinely help your cause and best position for you to receive the same.

I'm sorry, but the font choice on this website is horrendous and made reading the article a non-starter.

I'm assuming you chose science for the basis of this analysis because scientists would be more likely to provide thoughtful replies, if any reply at all correct? I did like the analysis, but once the proselytizing kept popping up, it started to lose value and actually stoke some some of the existing tensions on this matter (we should stop teaching Python 2??)

So now we have to come down from the clouds into reality. For one, having limited yourself to scientific fields (sort of) you have literally chosen the tip of the iceberg. Let's ignore the fact that the stats clearly show abysmal adoption of Python 3 among those who make a living by being on the cutting edge and can most afford to adopt. But 786 replies?? And we should stop Python 2 for THAT (even though ~700 in that set aren't using it)??? If you venture into the commercial world, this entire analysis becomes irrelevant. My field of finance and derivative trading is one of the big up and comers in the Python space for a number of reasons but likely to costs - rapid prototyping, powerful testing, ease of training, etc. And I can say with a fair degree of confidence that there are more Python developers at my firm than this entire set - and all of them use Python 2.6. Or at least they did until a multi year upgrade migration finally brought us to Python 2.7 just this year ( and cost millions to achieve). Most are still using 32 bit, develop in Windows (on in house built IDEs) and have some split of deployment between Window client side projects (GUIs) and Linux server deployment. This is not to say we are simpletons - we have vast and complex systems, globally distributed compute grids with tens of thousands of cores (and equivalent disaster recovery clusters), reactive caching graphs, time shifting time series, cutting edge data stores manipulating massive data sets in the tens of billions of rows and basically run huge swaths of the HUNDREDS OF TRILLIONS in notional derivatives that drive the entire global economy. These systems have BILLION dollar budgets. And mine is one firm out of thousands employing tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of well compensated software developers.

If my point isn't abundantly clear by now, then to put it frankly: WE (and many other industries like ours) ARE the Python community. And it shifts all your stats to the point where Python 3 isn't even statistically significant. So perhaps it would be wise to work with the elephant in the room instead of trying to pull the rug out from under him. Because elephants are big and don't like that shit. Moreover, as a multitude of examples can attest to, any features left out of Python 2.X ultimately just get developed in house and become closed source, with a huge inefficiency in developing the wheel again and again but also locking up the critical knowledge on the best way to do it, backed by proven production deployments with big money at stake.

I don't want to disway this sort of analytical review, but if it's going to be science, it should bear at least some resemblance to it.

After reading this article and some of the comments, its completely clear that Apple has undeniably triggered almost the exact same effects on some people as the most addictive drugs known to mankind. It's almost mind boggling to consider but I would go a step further to say this is likely the same effect reflected in Apple's recently announced profits - much like a drug kingpin entering the market with his highly addictive product would experience (ie. Crack cocaine in the 80s). It's truly beyond anything I could imagine and honestly scares the shit out of me.

The problem in such scenarios is that reason and logic become completely irrelevant - the addict falls under the trance of the drug and short of keeping them physically separated from said chemical in order to let the body clear itself of its influence and effects, few have the will to come back from the depths - and the end result is almost always painfully tragic. It's so tragic that society ends up going to the opposite extreme and attempts to ban nearly any mind altering chemical - that is how fearful the collective sentiment is and if the war on drugs is any precedent, it can last four decades and ultimately ruin even more lives than the drug itself.

I read this article and I really felt I had been directed towards a satirical article from the likes of The Onion or Clickhole. I am NOT trying to be overly emphatic or derogatory - it just seems like the first time a brand and their line of material products seems to have such a deep rooted hold on its customers. Sure, there are always fads which have a momentary grasp over their customers: Tickle me Elmo, Furbies, various pop artists, etc. But those always seemed to follow the same trajectory and never indicated any lasting effect. But this is clearly very different.

Think about this piece for a moment and the clearly Apple supportive writer and website. On one hand, he had the sensibility to write the article and even put the almost satirical title on it. That's probably a good sign. Also good is the factual recounting of the brand's position and justification of such. Reason seems to still have a far deeper rooted presence in this person's being than the brand does. But in much the same way an addict or a victim of domestic abuse reacts upon the possibility of losing said target of addiction, it quickly devolves into justifications and ultimately acceptance of such a completely untenable prospective future. Though there is certainly some sarcasm in the few commentators here, it's clear their sentiments and perceptions follow the same trajectory.

Again, I apologize and don't mean to insult or belittle, my argument is my true and honest opinion. So I must ask - is it me? So disconcerting is this notion that I'm compelled to ask if perhaps I'M the crazy one. Because I read this article and see that a company has produced a product precisely to resemble a watch in every way and even includes such in the name but then makes a draconian move to deny third parties willing to do so the ability to distribute software producing A WATCH FACE for said watch (likely thousands with no desire to even make a profit). Is this real? Am I hallucinating??? I struggle to come up with any reasonable scenario where this is a move to prevent competition, which would also be highly disturbing but not in the least surprising, especially considering the brand in question. It's simply some form of an arbitrary egomaniacal move which defies rational belief to those not completely consumed and ultimately entranced with any position held by some perceived 'god' or 'god-like' object (need to confirm I'm not the only one before fully backing this statement). But it's bizarre and the potential is as unsettling as the actual result in front of me - the same as if Apple produced the Apple Cat and then immediately barred anyone from calling our treating it as a cat while simultaneously making it appear as a dog and requiring all customers assimilate and accept the same. And the response being, "Yeah, I think it's their right to do this - I mean, it's not a REAL cat anyway, so why not call the Apple Cat a DOG..I mean it's Apple afterall, right ;)". Yes - it's Apple, the company who indirectly employs factories with such inhuman work schedules that they need to install nets to catch the numerous employees jumping from the roof to end their torture; Apple, who while hoarding tens of billions in stockpiled profits uses all its might to prevent potential extra costs by clearly colluding with and/or threatening competitors from "poaching" talent interested in reclaiming their souls and free thought by leaving - even for ex-employees years departed from their empire of misery. Holy hell, where am I and how did I get here?!?

There are a number of anecdotes describing the Microsoft antitrust investigations years ago. I recall one description of the completely defiant and confrontational tone of Mr. Gates during these times and his unflinchingly complete denial of any possibility of such a concept. There is some room for debate, but I can't imagine a rational person would see such accusations as completely baseless, especially when presented with evidence of clear internal communications showing not only obvious actions to suppress competition, but purposeful intent and rhetoric to this regard. I remember thinking then that this was delusion personified - someone so desperately self identifying with his creation that to accept such condemnation would be to accept condemnation of himself. It happens and perhaps at some point, to all of us. But the normal progression ultimately leads to a snap back to reality (thankfully the case with Mr. Gates - at least as far as one can tell from his undeniable and profound generosity). And ultimately a nostalgic look back at how entranced one had been as almost unbelievable - from the comfort of rational thought. So here's hoping the spell is broken and those held captive by their obsessive enchantment come back to reality because we really need you here.

Otherwise, if you're out there, Morpheus - I desperately need a red pill

You could make that statement, but without giving a reason its less reason and more religion. Either way, I'd counter that for someone starting out, python 2 vs 3 is irrelevant - learning core features, pythonic style, exception handling and testing should be the focus. In fact, even more so if they ultimately intend to use python 3 because they're going to have to refactor or completely rewrite the huge number of third party libraries which haven't been ported yet.

FWIW, I've been working as an enterprise dev in finance tech for a decade and have yet to see or hear of anyone using python 3 in that setting. My current firm is a global industry leader with arguably the most advanced and costly system of its kind ever conceived - it runs on 32 bit Python 2.6.

In general, if you want to have gainful employment you're best served by not being attached to any one language because most of enterprise runs everything a few versions back as they've learned the cutting edge is not a cliche - it's literal.

Yeah because once again, fueled entirely by assumption, you've come to determine what is the desired use and the appropriately powered laser. Your entire life must be one never ending, unfunny episode of Seinfeld.

Your arrogant schizophrenic replies with fictional quotes from you're own manifestations and irrational conclusions have added no value whatsoever. I provided a name of a company and some cautious advice, nothing more yet you feel the need to go on some crusade - and for what exactly?? Are you a staunch advocate for the use of high powered lasers in uncontrolled, informal circumstances?? Seriously, you ARE the personification of all your overly active insecurities - a know it all who upon reflection knows nearly nothing. Get the chip off your shoulder and realize if you don't like something, then don't engage.

And yes, my handheld spider arctic 3 blue 1W laser is under 2 lbs, can run continuously for 10 minutes and can absolutely BLIND anyone in under a second from miles away.

You seem to make an awful lot of assumptions about someone asking where to buy lasers on an semi-anonymous internet forum, in 2014. Worst advice ever? I guess because you've only seen lasers catch fire, both these statements can be taken as truths.

Irrelevant anecdotal evidence and exploding CNC straw man arguments aside, lasers are dangerous and in ways that aren't familiar to most. I certainly encourage pursuit of any worthwhile scientific or engineering endeavor, but just like I don't want intern doctors treating Ebola patients without prior explicit experience or safe equipment, I prefer not to find out what accidents a handheld device that can blind someone from miles away bring from the hands of a novice internet laser DIYer.

Laser cutter for what material exactly? Anything beyond dark paper or cardboard is going to require a very powerful (And dangerous) laser system utilizing high precision optics and expensive active cooling subsystems - not to mention it should only be used in controlled laboratory conditions by experienced researchers. Of course, if you are in that category you wouldn't be asking here...

That being said, a Chinese company named Wicked Lasers has been manufacturing and selling highly portable and relatively powerful handheld lasers at very reasonable prices - a lightsaber-like design for a few hundred dollars. By even their most powerful 1.2W laser will barely burn through cardboard and has no real functional use beyond showing off to friends. It will however blind someone permanently up to 9 miles away and even flashing it in the sky will land you in federal prison pretty quickly. There's also a good chance it gets stopped by customs during shipment as lasers fall in a grey area from a legal perspective.

These aren't toys - then can very easily maim someone unintentionally from a huge distance, even if wearing proper eyewear. Light can be reflected off a raindrop and blind you faster than your eye can even blink, literally. I strongly advise doing some research and if still interested, pursue this hobby in an academic or lab setting, if at all.

This is a completely naive and subjective approach. Please enlighten me as to how you intend to tell the time in the absence of a compatible power supply and/or power grid. Or when that severely limited lithium ion battery stops taking a charge after a year of use. Even if you had acceptable answers to those questions, it still leaves one to question the need for something which implements a subset of the features my phone has at the same cost.

Mechanical watches are moving art and are rarely purchased out of need. With the advent of perpetual automatics, they approach the ideal of mechanical perfection - a miniature machine which can accurately track time (and many other features) in extreme environments without the need of a power source. As such, they continue to appeal to many different people - with higher end, more complicated designs continuing to come about at higher prices. I'm a software developer and I love my automatics for both their technical merits as well as their aesthetic beauty. To each his own

This rant has no relevance to the article or to anything much in general, save perhaps as an obvious illustration of projection and the proverbial chip on one's shoulder.

The maladjusted low-life vagrant in the article should consider herself lucky that all she got was a slap on the wrist for this. She very much embodies the majority archetype present at those protests: the entitled, middle class out-of-town suburbanite hell bent on stirring up trouble in a city which has up until then been extremely tolerant of the juvenile, disruptive behavior of extremists it's native population largely disagrees with. These dirtbags spent six months trashing, pissing and shitting on an iconic neighborhood with no real purpose to speak of. The only mistake the city made (and forced the police force to uphold) was allowing this charade to go out beyond the first day it started, at a massive monetary and logistical cost despite an overwhelming negative sentiment against this movement from the local population - the only one's whose opinions really matter.

What's is truly amusing are the many sentiments of those in the comments immediately rushing to condemn the police - clearly, non-native arm chair judicial hobbyists drawing the entirety of their opinions based solely on one-sided articles. Its amusing because save for a few of the pre-planned, large scale "demonstrations" (read: interference of traffic/public transportation and harassment of native New Yorkers just trying to get to work) the police were there NOT to keep the OWS protesters in check; they were there to PROTECT them from the rest of New York which was irate and on the verge of tearing them apart. Had they not been around to guard these parasites and ultimately clean up the filth and squalor they had created, the NYC Vigilante justice would have been far less measured in their response.

No one took kindly to these fuckers attempting to infiltrate and occupy their backyard and rightly so. Let's have assholes fuck, shit, piss, and bang drums right outside your door for over 6 months straight and see how you feel in the end. Then let's multiply that by 100 - let's see who you call to help sort that nightmare out.

Apparently that simple idea was lost at the highest levels of management during the YEARS they wantonly colluded with other tech companies, including competitors to suppress wages and cross hiring of the most talented technologists, plundering BILLIONS from the very people they claim to hold in the highest regard. Not only is that conniving, backstabbing behavior reprehensible and the epitome of "being evil" in a modern civilized society, they managed to come off looking like weak, bumbling cowards in the process. And if their attempts to suppress explicit evidence clearly detailing their feudalistic aspirations wasn't proof enough, they come back with a blatantly laughable settlement offer to make it official. Don't be fooled by the propaganda - actions always speak louder than words and Google has made clear where they stand.

I've been working in investment banking technology for top tier firms for nearly a decade and can't recall any cases where trends of thousands of current and past employees laid a billion dollar class action lawsuit on their employers. And this in a sector which employs FAR more people and is regularly accused of working employees literally to death. You've got a lot of growing up to do, Google - and I can rightfully express that sentiment in the most condescending tone possible from the safety of my moral high ground.

"The long hours turned Velasquez off to the world of finance. He views Google as "a lot more laidback and stress-free compared with my experience at Citi." He ought to know after wrapping up a 10-week internship at the New York bank earlier this month."

And at that point, I realized this article was yet another rehashing of the same old cliched technology meme: the under-appreciated tech prodigy cursed to a Promethean existence of 3000 hr work weeks where he/she's forced to calculate all the firm’s debits and credits to the penny on an Excel spreadsheet using Visual Basic, due 3 weeks ago. Yes, of course you must throw off the shackles of those dried up old Luddites, grab what's left of the embers of your once blazing digital inferno skill set and head off into Gault's Gulch where the only true intellects of our era have gathered together with the sole intent doing serious business, solving only those really deep and meaningful problems we all face in life - you know, web search, email and social networking....all from the comfort of a well-worn hoodie. Meanwhile, the reality is the rest of us who've been around for a bit of time are doing all we can to corral their ignorance and naiveté into a safe corner where it can be used as nothing more than a perfect example of what not to do when working on something complex with real money at stake. While we'd all love for you to be the next Wozniak and actually take some of the burden off our backs, we're pretty much resigned to accepting the bare minimum - that you don't (on average) require more explanation time than the task itself would take to complete and that you don't break things which we will later be forced to fix. Usually, however, we're forced to accept some useless seat warmer whose sole contribution is logging bullshit work hours, providing meaningless status updates and generally just making sure all the various interweb news outlets are still accessible and producing the same sort of nonsense this article spews.

There is some very real technology talent on Wall Street - it is the nexus of money, afterall. But it varies greatly and often the situation is more like a desert of tedious, exhausting work only sometimes alleviated by the few oases of tenacious talent encountered along the way. But ALL WORK gets boring at some point. You're absolutely delusional if you think that all or even most of your work will be interesting enough to feed your desire to complete it. I still remember one night over drinks with some co-workers where we were lamenting one especially dreary and monotonous phase of a business wind down and were trying to get to the root purpose or meaning of what we do. I'll tell you it did sort of take the wind out of my sails when we reached the conclusion that every single software development project we have been or will be involved in boils down to four high level sub-tasks:

1. Data acquisition 2. Data transformation 3. Data presentation 4. Administrative work

And then we each went home, slept and got up to repeat the same monotonous cycle the next day. But that's it - pretty much your entire career will be doing those 4 things, with only #4 pretty much consistently increasing in percentage of time spent with the maturity of the business. Does that sound so earth shattering? Do you think it's any different at Google or Facebook? Sure, you can probably engage in fierce debates with your coworkers on the technical merits of third world internet access provided by balloons over autonomous planes from the relative safety of your respective bean bag chairs, but Spotify or Microsoft or any tech firm certainly doesn't hold the monopoly on inane, geeky chit chat. Do you really need your firm to allocate 20% of your time to "personal projects" like Google (and expect that will continue without anything to show for it) or can you simply focus your energy on becoming a multi-domain expert and perhaps apply that expertise to your own projects on your own time, like an adult. Because at the end of the day, we all work to get paid on the premise that your work produces more revenue than you cost - and the minute that comes into question, so does your job along with the respect of your colleagues.

All the PR fluff about work atmospheres and exciting new projects spouting from the likes of modern technology companies is a pipe dream - a marketing ploy to make you believe only at that firm you'll find a laborer's nirvana, where every day you love what you do AND get paid lots of money for it (and get a sweet $600 smartphone as a bonus, data plan not included). Meanwhile, many of these firms won't even discuss compensation numbers until they're ready to extend an offer - a process which usually takes a number of months of you jeopardizing your current job while sneaking off to interviews involving pointless bullshit technical interviews with whiteboards and questions like "Let's say we have a subway car that we need to fill with ping pong balls - what would be the most efficient way to determine how many it would take in the absence of exact measuring tools?" Yeah, you really get the sense that such firms are going to make a profound difference in this world. Pay no attention to the fact that they keep offshore revenues offshore to avoid dutifully paying the trillions in taxes owed to the sovereign entity enabling and protecting their commerce. Or the fact that they collude to collectively pull all your wages down, demeaning you behind your back while they sock your stolen wages away in some Mumbai cost center so their bottom line gets juiced by investors. Even better, how they do so while simultaneously lobbying to increase the number of work visas so they can, as one managing director put it to me “more closely manage the benefits that come with a 50% productivity reduction at a 70% lower cost”. Move over Aristotle, you’re getting in the way of really progressive morality! And don't get me started on the absolutely nauseating arrogance that has permeated Silicon Valley, spreading to every asshole with a smartphone, an SDK, an internet connection and a life of largely "soft landings" provided by their overly coddled upbringing. You do realize that everyone outside of "the club" sees nothing more than a textbook inferiority complex in dire need of the inevitable ground shifting setback that life tends to throw at you when things are so far out of balance, right?

Wall Street is certainly no eden but working in finance can definitely help one grow out of this sort of lame childish internet tough guy breeding ground. You are forced to work on large, incredibly complex systems with very tight deadlines often involving a multitude of technologies. You must become an expert not only in technology, but also in business and finance and all the subtleties that come with that, like office politics, team work, tight timelines and budgets, unforeseen emergencies, etc. Given the aggressive atmosphere in finance, you’re almost certainly forced to put yourself in check as the complete lack of whooshing sound from the blades of your helicopter parents flying in to save the day can be intimidating – THAT IS A GOOD THING. There are no fucking sleep pods or free bottomless paleo feeding troughs – you work hard and produce and must often do so in adverse mental, physical and social conditions if you want to get ahead. Though you can certainly neglect to break a sweat and resign yourself to being a cog in the machine and subsist quite nicely for decades with a wife, kids and dog in suburbia as the majority of people in finance do. But either way always remember you’re young and naïve and just about everyone around you knows more, has accomplished more and can teach you more than you could ever do for yourself, from the CEO to the group admin assistant to the janitor. Shut up, listen, learn and bust your ass – be critical of yourself and work with the sole intention of performing your best to a degree that it becomes objectively undeniable. You only get to participate in the really interesting, highly challenging technical projects once you’ve had a number of successful production innovations and releases. Do you think this pathetic, 22 year old know-it-all with 10 months of internship douchebaggery is going to be invited by Zuckerberg to head their deep learning initiative?? Fuck no – at best, he’ll be some bullshit “site reliability engineer “ (read: production support or QA) because dumb schmucks like him have created this fantasy aura around these firms that they have no problem easily staffing overqualified developers in utterly dead end monitoring/testing jobs, which is to them the equivalent of taking a gun to knife fight when in fact it’s more like burying diamonds in a coal mine.

I know all this because I not only working in finance tech and have been recruited by most of the big tech companies (among others) but also have a large number of current and past colleagues who have left those firms. The main reason: money. The second reason: it’s pretty much all the same shit anyway. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there’s no moral high ground to speak of when dealing with companies that steal every bit of your private information whether you like it or not OR companies which peddle adjustable rate mortgages to individuals who find difficulty calculating the cost of items on the dollar menu at McDonalds. Both eventually merge into the realm of “necessary evil”, or at least that’s what we all tell ourselves when we get up in the morning.

The grass is rarely greener on the other side – get to the point where you can thrive no matter the substrate and then it will be clear that there are no shortcuts. Because your will comes from within and your destiny must be earned, preferably the hard way.