It Is Programmer Day - Why So Apathetic? 241
mikejuk writes: Programmers Day comes around every year and yet each year it seems to be increasingly ignored. Why, when we are trying to encourage children to take up all things computing, is Programmers Day such a big flop? If you've not encountered it before, the idea is that on a specific day we celebrate computer programmers. It is designated to be on the 256th day of the year, which in most years is September 13th and this year, 2015, it falls on a Sunday. If you don't know why it's the 256th day, then you probably aren't a programmer and there is no point in explaining. The usual suggestions for things to do on programmer day include telling jokes and other fairly lame stuff. How about instead: Teach someone to program just a little bit.
When (Score:5, Insightful)
When is Plumber Day? Car Mechanic Day? Kindergarten Teacher Day maybe?
What?
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When is Plumber Day? Car Mechanic Day? Kindergarten Teacher Day maybe?
What?
They all probably do exist - but it's a silly construct that deserves to be ignored.
Plus it's doubly dumb to have such a day fall on a Sunday, when most programmers won't be working (nor will their coworkers, so there can't even be any silly hallway banter about it).
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Well, I'm not a programmer by profession, but (by total coincidence) I spent a good chunk of yesterday doing some hobby programming. Unintentional celebration for the win?
Re:When (Score:5, Informative)
When is Plumber Day?
April 25th [daysoftheyear.com].
Car Mechanic Day?
November 15th [facebook.com].
Kindergarten Teacher Day
Teacher day, may 5th and 6th [nea.org].
It's hard to take an 'appreciation day' seriously. I do my job, I get paid. I don't feel unappreciated. Pie day is cool, because pies taste good.
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Hallmark hype (Score:3)
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Seems likely. America has sunk into a morass of greed. Medical doctors' every decision is colored by considerations of profit, Madison Avenue is ever seeking more ways to manipulate people into parting with their money, and our government has been captured by profiteering special interests. There is no aspect of our American Dream lives that hasn't been warped by this. Your house isn't complete until the lawn is a perfect monoculture, you have a security system with a monthly fee, double pane windows, w
Re:Hallmark hype (Score:5, Insightful)
Your house isn't complete until the lawn is a perfect monoculture, you have a security system with a monthly fee, double pane windows, water filters, Ronco Turnip Twaddlers and a chic set of stainless steel cookware with copper bottoms now that teflon is bad, a king sized water bed, a 72 inch flat screen TV and a surround sound system, etc.
WTF is wrong with double-pane windows? They're an absolutely huge improvement over old windows in insulating your house. Do you like paying higher utility bills or something?
And what's wrong with stainless steel cookware with copper layers? It conducts heat better (meaning better and more even cooking), and it's easy to clean since you can take steel wool or even oven cleaner to it if you really need to. You can even get a nice set for a mere $100 these days.
And what's wrong with water filters? Tap water in many places tastes like shit.
Water bed? I haven't seen one of those in ages. Who the fuck still has a water bed? Those things went out with the 80s.
Clotheslines project such a negative, impoverished image that they are severely discouraged, and everyone must use a power hungry clothes dryer instead.
Clotheslines are nearly useless in places where the humidity is high.
Turn the heat setting down on your dryer to save energy and help your clothes last longer.
Red light cameras can increase safety
No, they don't. They don't look to see if the person maybe ran the light because some asshole was tailgating them and they were sure they'd be rear-ended if they slammed on the brakes to stop for the light in time.
The rest of your assessment mostly spot-on, except the bit about doctors. I think that may be a problem with some doctors, but most doctors don't have any way of profiting from prescribing drugs; they give you a piece of paper and you take it to Walgreens, who profits from selling it to you. Walgreens isn't giving them a kickback. The insurance company (who pays the doctor) sure isn't giving them a kickback, because the insurance company would prefer they didn't prescribe you anything, because that just costs them more money. And I have a hard time believing the pharma companies have some way to kickback to the doctors.
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Clotheslines are nearly useless in places where the humidity is high.
Friend of mine moved to the US recently. Seems that the GP was right, hanging out your clothes is discouraged, and not for any sensible reason.
They don't look to see if the person maybe ran the light because some asshole was tailgating them and they were sure they'd be rear-ended if they slammed on the brakes to stop for the light in time.
If you have to 'slam on the breaks' to stop for a red light, then either the lights changed once you were close enough to the lights to not trigger the camera, or you're driving too fast. So either you don't get a ticket, or you do because you were breaking the speed limit. Seems ok to me.
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Tap water in many places tastes like shit.
I think there may be an error in your plumbing.
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There's nothing inherently wrong with double pane windows. They're a big improvement over single pane. And I like saving energy. The problem is retrofitting them. I've had these door-to-door salespeople pitch this idea. The lowest price they could manage was $10,000, for 2 sliding glass doors and 10 windows. I've run the numbers. We use about $1500 per year in electricity and gas. Approximately half of that is for heating and cooling, so $750. Their claim of 50% reduction in heating and cooling cos
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The $10K window job costs that much because you need to pay these scammers lots of money in profit for going door-to-door and suckering people for something that'd cost a fraction as much from a normal window business or Home Depot.
You can also do the job yourself; it isn't that hard, and the windows themselves are actually pretty cheap.
But yeah, don't do an upgrade if it isn't going to pay for itself in a reasonable amount of time. And be suspicious of those claims about how much reduction in heating and
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And I have a hard time believing the pharma companies have some way to kickback to the doctors.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/doctors-earn-3-5-billion-in-kickbacks-from-pharmaceutical-companies/
That title is very misleading. From what I can read there, none of that 3.5 billion is kickbacks to doctors for actually prescribing medicine.
That money was given to doctors who did the trials, it paid for travel expenses, it paid for doctors to come to conferences so they could come learn
about this new drug and yes, a doctor that knows about your drug is more likely to prescribe it but nowhere is there any obligation or even
incentive to prescribe it to a patient. The pharma companies do have plenty of tr
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Yeah, but these are city streets we're talking about, not a long highway. What if they just turned onto the road and started tailgating you recently, and then you come up to the light?
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Industry "representatives", who are uniformly young, attractive people of the doctors' preferred gender, whose job includes accompanying them to nightclubs after an industry-funded dinner function, and getting quite embarrassingly physically intimate with them.
WTF? Why didn't someone tell me about this before I majored in engineering instead of medicine???
What pharma (or medical device) companies *don't* have is a way to enforce compliance: they can't censure a doctor who receives a free holiday from them
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Yeah, the triple-pane windows are getting popular here in the US. Also, on the nicer windows, the spaces are filled with an inert gas, not vacuum. I haven't heard of 4-pane windows though.
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the triple-pane windows are getting popular here in the US
That's pretty sad. I live in the USA and the house I lived in 20 years ago as a child had triple pane windows. Of course the 4,000 sq-ft house has a lower electric and gas bill than my small apartment. Who need insulation when you can let someone else cover the energy bill?
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When is Plumber Day? Car Mechanic Day? Kindergarten Teacher Day maybe?
What?
Today is also Grandparent's day, which makes today doubly special for me. Started on punched cards. Get off my lawn.
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What about grandparent's day, the 13th? :P
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You would be surprised to learn that many make more than your average programmer.
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> You would be surprised to learn that many make more than your average programmer.
Almost half, I would guess!
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Depends where you live but at least for teachers there are often school boards or larger organization bodies that insure that even the new ones make better salaries than a lot of programmers. So the distribution is compressed around a high salary. A starting salary in Ontario for example is 51k + a pension, 20 sick days a year that can be banked for early retirement. There pension pays out 60% of their best 5 yrs salary (so don't want to be a principal? Well just do it for 5 years because you'll then make a
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They should. Many do more work than your average programmer.
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Probably not because they made a classic OBOB error.
No, they didn't. Zero is a value. So, the 256th day is found at index 255 in the calendar.
Re:Give a raise to overworked programmers (Score:5, Funny)
I was born on January 0th, you insensitive clod!
Re:When (Score:5, Funny)
Random capitalization Is Fun.
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Not quite so Random....
Many years ago, I was involved in a Research Project concerning Indexing.
For those who have forgotten about Books, an Index was a place at the back of a Book where significant People, Places, Events, and Ideas were collected in Alphabetical Order, with relevant page numbers listed. Depending on Edition, the page numbers varied.
This is an awful, tedious task by Hand; we were using a PDP-11.
How to determine what gets Indexed?
We started with anything Capitalized, with the exception of
Just such a stupid, stupid article (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, because the set of "${X} days/months" is a meaningless, stupid concept, curated by people without any meaningful claim to authority or unusual credibility?
This article's premise is about as sensical as asking why everyone named "Frank" isn't celebrating the fact that I live in North America.
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Um, because the set of "${X} days/months" is a meaningless, stupid concept, curated by people without any meaningful claim to authority or unusual credibility?
This article's premise is about as sensical as asking why everyone named "Frank" isn't celebrating the fact that I live in North America.
Come to think of it... why not do that?
I like several people named Frank. Who's in?
256th (Score:5, Funny)
Is that 256 counting from 0 or from 1?
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Byte me, you pendant.
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Kind of wrong.
The year is from 0 to 365. This means it starts with a day, which will complete the first day, when its 23:59:59. So 1 is the start of the second day. It's like your birthday, which counts the completed years. Otherwise the last day wouldn't be the 265th.
But the "programmers" from the article don't get it either and even write 1111.1111 instead of 1.0000.0000
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But the "programmers" from the article don't get it either and even write 1111.1111 instead of 1.0000.0000
Wow, you're right. They even have a commemorative image [i-programmer.info]. Fail. Double fail for mocking people who don't get it.
No wonder they feel the need for validation of their worth as a programmer.
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Kind of wrong.
The year is from 0 to 365. This means it starts with a day, which will complete the first day, when its 23:59:59. So 1 is the start of the second day. It's like your birthday, which counts the completed years. Otherwise the last day wouldn't be the 265th.
But the "programmers" from the article don't get it either and even write 1111.1111 instead of 1.0000.0000
Let me introduce you to ordinals, the key thing to remember is that the number in the ordinal is one lower than the index of what they describe. So for instance 19th century is the 1800s, and the 256th day of the year is day 255 (or counting from January 0, 256).
Too busy coding (Score:3)
Amazon doesn't let me take days off.
Because... (Score:2, Insightful)
we're all at work. Otherwise, we'll be replaced by several H1B's.
Not prime time yet (Score:3)
Condescending Attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
It is mostly ignored because of the condescending attitude that too many programmers have. We're supposed to be encouraging young people to get into programming, and in the same breath belittle people who dont understand why it would be on the 256th day of the year?
I'm going to link an obligatory XKCD reference now: https://xkcd.com/1053/ [xkcd.com]
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It is mostly ignored because of the condescending attitude that too many programmers have. We're supposed to be encouraging young people to get into programming, and in the same breath belittle people who dont understand why it would be on the 256th day of the year?
That assumes programming is a kind of "no child left behind" skill that we should get everybody into. Just judging by the trouble some people have using a computer, I wouldn't want to touch anything they've created with a ten foot pole. Sure a few basics won't hurt the way a little economics to manage your own finances won't hurt no matter what walk of life you end up in, but most will never be able to write code at a professional level. Believe it or not, there are worse things to be ignorant about than th
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Given how much modern society depends upon computers, it would be a good thing if there was more exposure. To use your example of managing finances, a little knowledge of programming can enable people to use spreadsheets more effectively. Likewise, a little knowledge of computer architecture can help people make their electronics purchasing decisions more effectively.
Then again, programmer appreciation day isn't about encouraging people to write professional level code (or even amateurish code). It is ab
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Just judging by the trouble some people have using a computer, I wouldn't want to touch anything they've created with a ten foot pole.
In their defense it would be pretty hard typing anything on a computer using a ten foot pole...
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There is a low barrier to entry for learning programming. The barrier to entry for getting someone to PAY you for programming is much higher.
In many cases, especially the entry-level (read: you have
" If you don't know why its the 256th day... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly, it is rude and impolite. I am not sure if that is the right strategy to help bring people to programming and science. In addition such a special day is in general not helping. If more people should pick up programming or any other engineering field, give more poor people access to engineering disciplines at university. As usually people from such background tend to go more likely into engineering than to some arts stuff.
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I'm a programmer, and I still don't understand why it's the 256th day. Why not the 16th? Because 8-bit bytes? I guess? Listen, how about we take advantage of the fact that the abbreviation for February only uses letters that are digits in hex. We could make programmers day 0xfeb+20 (111111111111b) and have it on February 20th. At least there's enough 'joke' there that we could explain it, instead of telling people that they wouldn't understand just because it's shamefully simpleminded.
Anyway, the whol
never heard of it (Score:2)
so some guys on a forum somewhere made this nonsense up? and then they wonder why no one is jumping aboard their little game?
maybe there is a butcher's day? a mechanic's day? no? or no one gives a shit?
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hah, got arsed enough to look it up on wikipedia, not even the pathetic "pedigree" I had imagined. Six years ago couple of russki code monkeys got enough signatures and the "MinComSvyaz" (the george orwell-esque slang they use for Ministry of Telecom and Communications) approved it. nuff sed
Nice Day, stupid Blogpost (Score:2)
See the logo. 1111 1111.
This is NOT 256d. The whole point of 256d is, that it is 100000000b and thus a round number.
They seem to be no programmers either.
Never knew (Score:2)
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Hah!
Programmer Day (Score:3)
1111 1111 represents 255. Celebrate Programmer Day on September 13th, the 256th day of the year.
Suggested topic of conversation: Off by one errors.
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It's also International Chocolate Day, among others [wikipedia.org].
I know why (Score:2)
It's because no-one can decide whether it's "Programmer Day", "Programmer's Day", or "Programmers Day".
I'll go out on a limb (Score:2)
It's called a paycheck. (Score:2)
Your appreciation for your job is shown by the dollar amount on your paycheck. If that's not enough, start looking for a new job.
It's not an accepted date (Score:2)
Besides, everyone knows that System Administrator appreciation day is July 29th.
And programmers and those other computer people are just considered one and the same.
Also, if it makes you feel any better... then just call it Developer / Operators Day, or DevOps day.
If I Don't Get My Watermellon (Score:2)
I'm going to give the private key ring to my Nigerian girlfriend.
Programmer's day? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Well... september 14th in 2000, Windows ME was released.
I find it ironic that programmers' day is the day before Windows ME release day.
I ignore ALL "so-and-so days" (Score:4)
I ignore all "so and so's" days. And weeks. And months.
Everyone wants to stand out and be treated special for doing what they normally do. It doesn't work that way. Being "normal" isn't "standout" in any way, size, shape, or form.
You are who you are and you don't deserve special treatment that others don't get.
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Some of these events serve as useful ways to organize multiple groups into doing events together. They are not trying to gain recognition, simply trying to organize. It's just journalists with nothing better to write about who make it into some big deal.
Sure we care (Score:5, Interesting)
I give it precisely the same attention/respect that I do for national blueberry day and national "dress up your pet" day.
Many Programmers Shouldn't Be Programmers (Score:2)
I'm not trying to encourage children to take up programming. The only child I ever mentioned computer programming to was when my dental hygienist told me her son was extremely good at math, and autistic with problems communicating with people.
In my six years of programming professionally, two and a half years in graduate school, and four years as an undergrad, I think I've encouraged maybe three people to become programmers. Most people do not have any kind of analytical inclination, and the amount of time
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Anyone that has actively worked inside computer code knows the damage that can be done when someone with the wrong level of understanding starts modifying code.
I apologize, boss. Wait, Brad? That's not you? How do you know so much about me then?
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I didn't push my son into it. He went into college planning to become a mechanical or electrical engineer, took an introductory programming course, and changed his major to Computer Science. Honest.
Hold on a sec, Programmer's day is Oct 31st! (Score:4, Informative)
One reason for people's apathy could be that the actual "Programmer's Day" is Oct 31st, also known as Programmer's X-mas because, as you're all aware, 31 Oct == 25 Dec. This has been celebrated in Sweden for a long time, since the 18th century in fact, and considered so important that Oct 31st is Edit's name day[1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_name_day_list_of_2001
Programmers Day (Score:2)
This supposed 'holiday" can be likened to Earth Day - which also should be everyday - but is only one day per year.
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It's a bit short...
Re: My 'greatest accomplishment' here? apk (Score:3)
Does he spam Slashdot as well?
Re: I don't so, I doubt it... apk (Score:2)
Why put a PS on something you can edit? Moron :-P
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Morons like you give website forums a bad name - Obvious "ne'er-do-well" morons like you pal that haven't accomplished anything worth noting in the art & science of computing (you)! apk
Physician, heal thyself.
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I was directly quoting you from this thread. How is that "off topic" unless you were already off topic? I'm sure you'll have some ranting answer. The question is, do you yourself truly believe it? You are indistinguishable from a standard USENET kook. On USENET, it was easier to put someone into my killfile. Here, I'd have to ignore every AC.
You change your imaginary rules to suit yourself in any given situation and then demand that every poster abide by your imagined yet inconsistent rules. Rules that yo
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It must be awful to KNOW you're nothing but a useless trolling "ne'er-do-well" on your part... apk
So what we're seeing here is a case of ignorance being bliss on your part. You're happy not knowing that you're a useless troll. I hope, for your sake, you never come to realize what you are; I wouldn't wish that kind of unhappiness upon you even if you do waste the time of thousands of people on /. each and every day.
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I've met some REAL imbeciles on this forums, but you take the cake & NOW
Coming from you, that's a compliment. I'd be horrified if you actually considered me to be intelligent and coherent given that you seem to use yourself as your standard.
As to the eating my words, honestly, I have no idea what the hell you're even talking about. I'm not even sure that you know what the hell you're talking about.
Seriously, you really need to up your insult game. The fact that you're responding to something I've written means, by definition, that I'm not illiterate which means you are, by d
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"The only real reason I got into this was you were so good at it. You were my inspiration..."
I got into programming because when I first saw a computer when I was 6, I thought, "I could make those do anything I can think of". I didn't need "inspiration", a role model, or any of that crap. All I saw was a screen saver running and realized it was programmatically generating images. I tried Basic, hated it. Jumped into C and ASM.
I've never understood how people don't know what they want to do. Do you enjoy this food? Do you like this picture? Come on! Do people know anything about themselves?
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What's he going to say 5-10 years down the road when he's sick of the crappy work environment, being laid off multiple times because the corporation changed their mind about something, the lack of pay raises without job-hopping, etc? Is he going to resent you?
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Not going to lie, that is a scary and all too real interpretation.
But there really are many programming projects & problems...so maybe it's not entirely true. Maybe there's a huge labor shortage in programming & bringing people on board will push production forward without costing jobs. ... Maybe.
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Massive layoffs followed by massive hires of newer and cheaper people belie that.
Re:No one cares. (Score:5, Funny)
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You should read/watch "A Christmas Carol". There's a bit where Kermit the Frog uh I mean Bob Cratchitt tells Mr Ebenezer Caine Scrooge that there's there's no point making his employees work on Christmas day because there's no one to do business with. Scrooge considers this to be robbery but concedes the point.
You may or may not wish to consider the point and how it applies to working on a national holiday.
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I worked Christmas Day a few times. Got paid 3x normal because some religious people consider it a special day or something. It's meaningless to me, but I'm happy to get paid triple because of someone else's mythology. Everything else is closed and TV is even worse than usual anyway, so I'd rather save that holiday time for the post-xmas period when I can make good use of it.
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Got paid 3x normal because some religious people consider it a special day or something
Oh come now. You're taking a sly dig at religion but you know that's not the case. Yuletide has been a day of celebration and family gathering in the midsts of the unpleastant northern winter for thousands of years.
I, like most people in my country on christmas day enjoy a day with my in-laws (I like my in-laws), roast dinners and socially acceptably day-drinking while it's thoroughly miserable outside. Ooh and I like a n
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It's certainly true that this period has been special for various different religions for thousands of years, but family gatherings are a relatively recent thing. Before cheap rail travel most people lived near where they were born their entire lives, so saw their extended family regularly.
These days I usually try to be in Japan for xmas, to avoid all the crap that goes on in the UK. I find it insufferable. In Japan they acknowledge xmas, but it isn't a public holiday.
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It's certainly true that this period has been special for various different religions for thousands of years, but family gatherings are a relatively recent thing.
Religions come and go, but the winter solstice party seems to persist. That indicates that it is important to the culture. Probably because 3 hours of cloudy, dim daylight is miserable. As for the family thing, it might be relatively recent, but it's over 100 years old.
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Dissmiss how? I mean they demonstrably exist.
Besides, correct me if I'm wrong but there's no actualy law forcing compliance with the holidays, which means essentially it's every employer and employee independently agreeing to observe it as a part of the employment contract.
Surely that's exactly the sort of thing you do believe in.
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Base 2, not base 16.
If you have a look at programmerday.info, you'll see "Programmer DaY 1111 1111"
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Point is, he wasn't wrong.
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My instructors taught me octal. I do have to admit that this was several years ago.
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This attitude has permeated programmer (not brogrammer) culture long before brogrammers, or before anyone talked about sexism in IT.
Programmers have their own attitude, their own swagger (as geeky as it may be). Exactness is part of the culture because the job is very exacting. Being correct is important.
On the other hand 'We talk about trying to attract women and children to the field' is making a lot of assumptions. I personally would rather work with people who WANT to do the job- not people who are t
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Re: Because we're tired... (Score:2)
Actually, there are many unemployed lawyers these days. Too many people seem to have taken your advice, and the field is seriously oversupplied.
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It's worse than that... (Score:2)
"Why, when we are trying to encourage children to take up all things computing, is Programmers Day such a big flop?"
"If you don't know why it's the 256th day, then you probably aren't a programmer and there is no point in explaining."
"How about instead: Teach someone to program just a little bit."
They probably meant it as a joke (right before saying there were better alternatives than "telling jokes