The human genome has less information in it than a playlist. And even at that, we share most of our genes with mice.
Our brains can store at least 5 and probably 10 or 15 orders of magnitude more information.
I'm not saying that genes don't influence our behavior, but if you pick a random human behavior, it orders of magnitude more likely to be learned than to be determined by genetics.
People who disagree with us are not somehow less evolved than we are; they just have had different life experiences that we did.
1. If it were collective code ownership, there would be collective compensation. But programmers are compensated individually at market prices. Since programmers don't own the profits from the code, Programmers do not own the code.
2. The code is owned by the company. This isn't a Marxist set-up. This is a capitalist set up. The capitalists are the owners. The programmers are not capitalists, i.e. they don't have any capital. They are laborers. They just have their labor.
3. The code is developed in such a way as to minimize costs and maximize profits. The market does not care if the code base is "consistent" or "modular" or anything like that.
4. You may be thinking to yourself that consistent, wonderful code would be the cheapest to write. Not so. Programmers are willing to work overtime, over the weekend, overnight, etc. The reason they are willing to do this is because--as labor--they do not have the power. The capitalists have the power. The programmers must work as hard as is humanly possible, or they will simply be replaced with other programmers who will.
Please actually READ SOME MARX before sounding off as to whether something is marxist or not.
What is correct when responding to scientific evidence is does not change with one's political views.
The correct response is the same as for any other scientific result: Was the experiment designed correctly? Was it executed correctly? And (most importantly) has it been reproduced by other investigators?
The tiny effects claimed per genetic variant also call the scientific validity of the result into question. If you use a large enough sample and a broken enough null model, of course you're going to see "significant" effects.
Genetic variants are correlated. If you have thing 1, then we can somewhat predict thing 2 and thing 3 and so on.
Thus the effects are not really tiny. The direct effect of a genetic variant may be tiny, but it is associated with many genetic variants with similar effects.
This is most obvious in the Ashkenazi population, which has been so strongly selected for intelligence that it now suffers from numerous recessive problems. If you have a trait found in that population, the chances are good that you have other traits found in that population.
The general principle that any problem you face, no matter how big, can be broken down into smaller and easier to solve problems, recursively, is the most important idea in human history.
Atomic theory is just a special case of this insight.
What is special about atomic theory is the supposition that there is an endpoint to recursive reduction. That at some point you cannot find anything simpler.
There is a subtle difference between this and reductionism. Suppose your big problem is you are hungry. You could break this big problem into little problems in many different ways, e.g. [drive to McDonalds, get food], or [go to fridge, eat leftovers], etc.
Either way, you have solved your original problem, but you haven't reduced your original problem. Your original problem was not that you had to go to Mcdonalds, nor was it that you had to got o the fridge. Your original problem was that you were hungry, which is distinct from the solutions.
Not a good idea. Its about 100x worse than tracking down your stolen iphone using GPS to find the guy who stole it from you and demanding it bck. Do not do this. Its not worth your life.
Mentor Graphics has private offices. When our company was acquired by them, I thought I would really love them. But to my surprise I didn't like how it changed the culture at all.
Private offices really do make developers more insular. It discourages communication to a degree I wouldn't have thought it would.
Another aspect which might not be obvious at first is that offices come in difference sizes, so when somebody comes to your office--or you go to theirs--you both immediately know your relative positions on the pecking order.
This induces an unwelcome power dynamic. Good ideas come from everywhere, but its human nature to buy into these symbols of status. "You know how I know I'm right and you are wrong? My office (and salary) is bigger than yours." Not necessarily said in as explicit terms as those, but the effect is real and pervasive.
Offices-with-doors power dynamics may be unwelcome in some company cultures. But power dynamics are unavoidable. If a company has an open plan work space or bullpen, the dynamic will be expressed in some other way that might be even more unwelcome.
This is an interesting statement. At my job over the summer, I noticed management had the window seats. Those are the best seats because you can see the sun and because you can see the city.
Back in the 90's, I was the "minister of truth" for the student group "Purdue Libertarians". Since then, I've evolved into a socialist. Both my former and current selves are appalled at this. Never in my wildest nightmares would I think that Purdue, of all places, would implement student tracking.
This isn't like the techniques described in the novel 1984. This IS a technique described in the novel 1984.
Tracking of law-abiding citizens has no place in any free society.
Our brains can store at least 5 and probably 10 or 15 orders of magnitude more information.
I'm not saying that genes don't influence our behavior, but if you pick a random human behavior, it orders of magnitude more likely to be learned than to be determined by genetics.
People who disagree with us are not somehow less evolved than we are; they just have had different life experiences that we did.