rasputnik6502

...but it's too small to be seen.

It director's wife runs a foundation that gets big donations from software vendor. Every time the vendor sells to the guy's company.

I think 'cheap' comes from outsourcing. There are so many producers in China that have been only doing outsourced production, but now they want to sell their own products. But for the moment they dont have brands, dont know the market, dont know how to approach customers in the wild. So they produce cheap and hope to at least compete by price in a crowd of anonymous alike companies.

I dont think its a good idea to publicly argue with your boss, even if its a western boss. I dont think they're made of different kind of flesh and psychology works roughly the same way everywhere.

At least you seem eloquent and perfectly coherent to yourself.

I think low quality is only a result of desire to sell cheap, but Chinese producers are capable of meeting high quality standards and out-innovating other countries The bad habits from communism era will disappear eventually

Will i be able to buy Manhattan soon?

I was always wondering what is the logic behind that - pump oil from underneath the sea, sell it and buy stock or bonds with the money. Basically trading valuable resources for some paper that may be worth nothing in future.

The Sun is beaming free energy to Earth already. If it's not enough then humans should become extinct as a species unfit to live in Solar system

The system will eventually return to balance, for example few million years after all humans die out. The question is if we can keep it in such balance that allows humans to live. Maybe there's not enough space on Earth for all humans and everything they need to live + sufficient area of forests on top of that

Very sobering article. But startups are not about building a carbon concentration machine, they need money concentration machine. Thermodynamics don't apply directly here.

Run it where?

Is it possible to edit hosts file on iPhone?

[quote]Girls in tech is about recruiting and supporting female children interested in tech. That's okay, because they're children[/quote]

Ok i can swallow being accused of thoughtcrime (at least!), and will punish myself for it, but are you implying 'Girls in tech' is engaging in illegal employment of minors? That's a bold statement.

Well, if i called my coworker 'girl' in a conversation with her then it would be patronizing and belittling. But when i use 'girl' to refer to a female coworker in an internet discussion, without identifying any person, then how this can be patronizing and to whom?

Maybe we should stop using the word 'girlfriend' and say 'womanfriend' instead?

And btw what about 'girls in tech' organization? Is it patronizing?

i can call my coworkers boys and girls here, it's not relevant - as long as i dont do that when interacting with them. If you feel offended by use of 'girl' or 'boy' in such context then it's your choice, i cant do much about it.

yep, most home appliances are surprisingly easy to repair, the intimidating part is that you never did such repair and have no idea how to go about it. But there's the Internet and you can find instructions on Youtube to fix almost anything. Water pump in dishwasher, bearings in a washing machine, heaters, sensors - almost everything is replaceable. And many parts are reused between models and brands so with some searching they can be had cheaply. Usually it's not worth it to pay a service guy to fix your 15 year old device as it's probably nearing its end of life anyway, but why not give it a chance and try to fix it before throwing away..

First reality check?

And sometimes you just screw your product up by not listening to what customers need, or by assuming that you know it better than them. For now i refused to do custom branches, instead the product is made more and more configurable. And it's more successful approach so far than trying to maintain a separate version for every customer.

Haha My experience has been bit different with medium size companies. Small companies just dont buy any custom-developed software. Medium-sized have the money to pay for custom development, but not for buying SAP. And the executives are extremely sensitive to the effect of the software on work efficiency - basically this is what they pay for, the software is supposed to make employees more effective so they can avoid hiring more people. If the application gets slow and can't keep up with the business then they need to move more people to handle the slow task and the app developers get grilled. On the other hand, in large companies, management quite often ignores it, they can just hire more people and thus grow their kingdoms.

yep. worked. Good for her. In the symmetrical situation (man punching a woman in workplace) i cant imagine it would ever work. The guy would have been fired on the spot, and then have his ass beaten some more by lawyers. Bye bye career. The author of the article paints herelf here as a poor victim and i really consider this wrong.

Yes, basically agree, i'm just saying that men are trying to avoid responsibility for their actions by behaving like a child. Im not saying this is right, it's just how people behave. Boys just do stupid things to avoid admitting defeat or losing face in front of the group, and these stupid things include disobedience, provocation or bullying.

The other direction is - if you can't go this path and have your way by forcing, then play a victim, accuse others of harming you, being bad abusers or bullies while maintaining you're innocent. This also removes your responsibility from the situation so why not.

And my perception is that women will more often go with strategy #2 while men would first try #1. Is it sexism? I dont know, i dont have the knowledge necessary to tell. Maybe ask divorce lawyers, they have many real world cases. My point is that thesse kinds of behaviors are wired in humans and cannot be elliminated. You should identify bullying and harrasment at work but not by single incidents that always happen. If the negative behavior is repetitive, comes from the same person all the time then it's justified to call it abuse.

Ok, it really doesnt matter if it's a woman or a man, and some parts of your advice make sense. But i'm not yet into firing anyone, it's just first hints of potential problems. You know, nothing really happened, some technical discussion is being derailed and moved into personal ground, where they can call my behavior wrong or accuse of being mean. Ok, i got the message, and we're good for now, but next time i will avoid any discussion with them knowing that we will go again into blaming. And so such person gets special treatment from the team.

Git blame is not for blaming others

Too little we know about Dick. Apart from the fact that he touched the hair of his coworker and made some personal remarks. Then when the woman asked him to stop he couldn't, he couldn't just apologize and stop because this would mean he did something wrong. So he did it again pretending it's just a fun joke.

I dont know, i'm not a woman. I dont even know how to handle some strange situations at work. But what Dick did reminds me of kids behavior -they do something annoying, for example kick the chair, and when asked to stop they will pretend they dont understand, kick one or two more times and laugh - just to check if the situation can be transformed into harmless/no consequence and they can get out without having to admit wrongdoing.

Sometimes it's a sociopath targeting a victim while pretending it's a harmless friendly joke, but quite often its just a big child..

i dont think this is relevant, she's not the only female developer in the team and i have rather a positive rapport with everyne else. It's just how the normal work situation becomes twisted into personal, full of self-defense and finger pointing, with potential to develop into crazy if i dont back off.

PS after giving this one more thought, i dont think i ever patronized someone because of gender, but must honestly admit i assume the mentor tone when dealing with unexperienced/less skilled developers. Shoot me, but it's not about maintaining my feeling of superiority, i know my skills. It's about building a rapport - if the other person reacts properly then there's hope for cooperation, if it's just games then sorry, i dont want that.

Probably because of age difference, she's much younger than me. And also because of the way she behaves - i perceive it as a bit childish/immature

But yes, i'm afraid i might be wrongly accused and would have a hard time defending myself, and this also affects the rest of the team (as i dont think they're blind - they see and feel what's going on - but on the other side i'd rather not talk about this with anyone else from the team so it's ok we dont mention that)

PS (edit): "low performer" - this is probably the key, i have worked with some developers doing a poor job but it's first time when i'm served some manipulative crap to prevent any honest discussion of the work done.

Nice story. It takes some experience and self knowledge to identify what is a joke and what is bullying. Most men just want to be liked, seem witty and funny, and sometimes are just going a too far to show off. But there's a group of people who will belittle you to humiliate and assert their higher position in the hierarchy and this is a part of an ugly campaign to destroy any competition (which also means you're perceived as dangerous). And misunderstandings happen, with victims on both sides, but it's valuable to know some people have hidden motives.

I have a different issue, I think it has something to do with male/female relations at workplace. I'm the lead dev in a mixed team. And one of devs, who happens to be a girl, has some special attitude. Whenever I report a problem with the code, or a bug, she jumps in and exclaims it's not her code or she didn't do anything related to the problem, basically not her fault [without any suggestions that it might be her fault]. Sometimes tries to blame someone else. If anything points to her responsibility, she downplays it (oh you know I don't even remember). All while I try to avoid blaming or pointing code ownership. But the most difficult part was when I pointed out some parts were missing in her work and function wasn't completed - then I was accused of being mean and attacking her without any reason. Never had such situation, I am rather a considerate, polite person, try to remain professional and never touch personal side - but this just perplexed me. With a male dev it would not be possible, but when a woman accuses a man of harassment or bullying at work the man is considered guilty by default. I perceived this as a threat - never ever criticize my work or you will be accused. Unfortunately she's not doing that great job sometimes and so cooperation gets quite difficult - and I'm afraid it's not going to be good in future.