You call going on national TV with all the details and a big shit-eating grin plastered on his iFace, smart? "Hey, Mom!! Look at me!! I just pissed off two major north american companies and screwed the warranty on that new phone you bought me!!!"
No, I call it really smart. He did his homework, found the DMCA provision/exemption that allowed him to do EXACTLY what he did, and announced it.... and as neither "pissing off companies" nor "screwing the warranty" is illegal in the US, he just assured himself a future job.
Assuming that to be true (which it may not be) then looking out at the happenings in the past 5-10 years, I'd say many more harm was done by the opinion of disgruntled employees being taken and sensationalized by the press, than was done by the logical enforcing of a clear voicebox for an organization.
May we have an example or two, please?
Also I did once have extensive knowledge of the IRQ for everything and how to debug bad expanded memory configurations in config.sys, etc., but really how much of that is relevant these days?
Couple of reasons... Believe it or not, we STILL have DOS machines coming through the shop. One recent example:A older Thai gentleman dragged in a 286. Yup. Intel 80286-based, with one of those old cases you could darn near run over with a car and not have it bend... Turn out he bought a PC-controlled engraving system in the early and had forgotten how to use it. Our job was to take this thing, configure it, and re-teach him how to make it go. How about the old-timer who still insists on using Lotus 1-2-3? Had him through....TWICE. We also handle I/M/R on point-of-sale rigs as well. LOTS of serial communication there, and believe it or not, a number of them have old-school.ini files which you have to edit manually.
Part of it, however, is also to see how to react when someone asks them a question they don't immediately know the answer to. VERY telling.
Re:Interview Questions
on
Network Warrior
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Agreed, folks. When I inquired about a job at my first shop, the owner led me to a room with a pile of parts and a case. The job was mine if I could build a working computer, with DOS 3.2 installed.
I got the job.;)
Now, 15 years later, I'm one of the ones that vet the techs we use now. It's fraggin' scary, boys and girls. Most have never worked with anything pre-2k. One saw an Ubuntu desktop and asked if it was Vista. Another kept asking what to do at "back/next/cancel" prompts when just installing XP. Yet another tech mentioned testing memory for a diagnostic, but when asked HOW to test, or what he used, he gamely answered "uh, you click that....uh, THING in Windows..." Almost every single applicant thinks a POST card is something you send home on vacation. When asked why they want to work in IS, around half tell me "they like playing games" or "Well, I watched Hackers/The Matrix and it looked fun!" Around 20% of them didn't even HAVE a PC at home. Many couldn't tell the difference between ISA/PCI/AGP slots, or serial/parallel/ firewire/video ports. There was the guy that slathered every visible surface of a CPU with thermal goo, and his evil twin that believed that thermal paste/pads were optional. Only around 30% knew what ESD was and how to combat it.
Eek.
Now I have a simple routine that I use to quickly screen out the goofs from the geeks, and it starts with this question: "Ok, what are the I/O addresses and IRQs of the first four serial ports, please?"
My second question is "Why, for the love o' pete, do you want to put with surly clients, unrealistic deadlines, PCs that refuse to work, and late and weekend work?!?" I try to look as incredulous as I can.
Third, I pick a finished PC from the last day or two and describe the problems it had when it came in. I then ask what approach they'd take, and work them through a few steps.
Finally, I tell 'em I'll play the part of the client {usually owner of the PC we just discussed} and see how they react to some of the Sheeple questions we all know 'n' love.
Their reactions speak volumes, and I can usually gauge at this point whether or not they've able to work with us. I let the the Boss-guy know, and he takes it from there. He tried a few techs from the school I mentioned earlier over our objections. He changed his mind within a week. In the last 6 months, with over 120 resumes, we've found ONE tech to fit the bill.
I'm not trying to take swipes at sheepskins, but a few bad schools are diluting the values of lower-end certs, IMHO.
Re:Interview Questions
on
Network Warrior
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The pro-cert people say that the certs serve as a measuring stick for non-techs who are looking to hire techs, a way of making sure that a candidate has a minimum level of experience before putting them through a serious evaluation.
I'd almost buy that, but for a local vocational school that is notorious for "You pay, you pass" assembly-line certs. A guy that we tried out was a card-carrying CompTIA A+-certified tech. To help test him {having had experience with this school's graduates before..} I took him to an open PC on the bench and asked him to point at the motherboard.
He pointed at the case.
I told him, no, not the case, the *motherboard*.
He blinked twice, and pointed at the case again. He didn't last the day.
IMHO, those little pieces of paper don't guarantee jack anymore. -sigh-
I think they meant that sustainable living would look sexy, not that space exploration gives you Priapism.
Speaking {out of my tailside} for the male space geeks, I'm pretty sure most of us would have a chubby upon reaching space that wouldn't die 'til we got back to Earth.
I imagine on Mars the human body would adjust to the extra 39 minutes because it will actually be bright outside, just like you adjust to a different time zone after a couple days.
Agreed, though it can take than two days at times. When we PCSed to Germany, it took the family about two weeks to feel really comfortable. As I've gotten older, however, I've noticed an odd pattern in my own rhythm: Left to itself {free of time-critical concerns} my body likes a *36* hour day. That's 24 hours awake, with 12 asleep. I'm betting that a slightly longer day won't impact the astronauts' body clocks too much...
The K6 debuted in the days of the ORIGINAL Pentium, ergo comparing it to the P4 would be akin to comparing the K6 to the 8086.
At this link, you can check the debut date for the K6. Note at the top of the article that it quite clearly states that it was designed to compete with the original Pentiums.
At this link, you can check the debut date for the P4. Note that the P4 debuted *3* years *after* the K6 series...
If you believe that AMD had the foresight, manpower, and devel skills to beat a processor not even OUT for 3 years thereafter, it's time to adjust the tin hat, sir/ma'am.
In addition to the Am386, the AMD K6s were inferiour to P4's....
Pentium 4?!? Hate to break it to you, but the K6 series was WELL before the P4 era, and they were extremely popular for providing near-comparable performance at a BIG price break... in a Socket-7 form-factor...
As long as you identify with a bunch of people who say the universe is 6k years old and the bible is without a doubt 100% true, I don't really need to discuss anything with you to know you're a moron.
Ragging me for someone ELSE's fringe belief is like telling you that you can't be trusted because of O'Hair. As long as you mistakenly believe that all Christians blindly follow what any religious leader says, you're not going to be able to debate this.
Name-calling doesn't make your case any stronger, either...
Folks, I never cease to be amazed how many people tell me what I'm 'thinking' or what I've 'blindly accepted' without ever having really discussed it with me at any length...
It's an indicator of their capacity for critical thinking. If a politician purports to be a creationist, he's either an idiot or wiling to pander to idiots. I'm not sure which is worse.
...and this is the kind of argument that makes it harder for you to prove your point. Someone examined the same evidence and worked out another solution that you disagree with, and they're instantly "idiots" without the "capacity for critical thinking."
Try another approach. Many people view the world around them as just a bit larger than can be reduced to an equation.
I wonder why so many bright kids are skeptical of school?
...maybe because some of us were thrown into alternative school for being different? For having a way of looking at life?
Example: School elections were coming up. A neo-punk and myself were musing over the morons running when it occurred to us: Why not form an "Anarchist Party", and encourage people to NOT vote? Posters went up {"I'm anarchist, he's anarchist, she's anarchist, we're anarchist, wouldn't ya like to be anarchist, too?" and were quickly torn down. Fights erupted {seriously...} until the government teacher came on the intercom:
"Attention, students. I understand that some students have formed the Anarchist Party. I can't say I approve of their message..."
{insert weak cheer here, mainly the friends of the candidates..}
"...HOWEVER, dissent IS part of the political process, and we're giving them the same right to put flyers up as those who are running."
...and after over half the school tore up their little "voter's registration cards", the school had to resort to bribing people to vote. A buck per vote.
It's the only time I've found a school rewarding students for thinking outside the box...
The rest of the time you're thrown out for being disruptive. Eek.
No, I mean he will have to wait a long time to hear it.... living dust whose life processes moves hundreds of thousands of times slower than organic chemical process will take a long time to say anything.
Fun episode! A thought, and one paralleled in the old Alpha Centauri sim:
While each lifeform may individually run slower than realtime, could a collective parallel effort achieve a real-time result?
...and as space isn't really a true vacuum, sensors as sensitive as those depicted on the shows - Voyager's were 7 light years at high-resolution, and 21 light-years at medium-low - shouldn't have trouble with an explosion right in front of the ship...
Those with hearing aids would just get free internet connections straight to their heads.
I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I could handle people constantly in my head trying to enlarge my various body parts, give me more hair, or send cash to a guy in Nigeria....
Besides, that's what the voices I ALREADY have are telling me to do!
...it's just that the BMI is a pretty useless measure of someone's health.
Agreed. F'r example, my BMI is around 17.6. By most charts, I'm underweight, but every doctor that sees me has clearly stated that I'm healthy {aside from smoking}. What I find annoying is that people my size are now banned from many catwalks, so finding clothes that fit is even harder than it was to begin with.
{Just TRY to find jeans with 27-inch waist and 34-inch length.... and if you DO find a non-custom/tailored source, PLEASE let me know...}
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No, I call it really smart. He did his homework, found the DMCA provision/exemption that allowed him to do EXACTLY what he did, and announced it.... and as neither "pissing off companies" nor "screwing the warranty" is illegal in the US, he just assured himself a future job.
Ye gads man, G3? That's SO last decade! Upgrade to G4!
May we have an example or two, please?
Why not? Hilton got time-compensated for her weekend spent at home...
Couple of reasons... Believe it or not, we STILL have DOS machines coming through the shop. One recent example:A older Thai gentleman dragged in a 286. Yup. Intel 80286-based, with one of those old cases you could darn near run over with a car and not have it bend... Turn out he bought a PC-controlled engraving system in the early and had forgotten how to use it. Our job was to take this thing, configure it, and re-teach him how to make it go. How about the old-timer who still insists on using Lotus 1-2-3? Had him through....TWICE. We also handle I/M/R on point-of-sale rigs as well. LOTS of serial communication there, and believe it or not, a number of them have old-school .ini files which you have to edit manually.
Part of it, however, is also to see how to react when someone asks them a question they don't immediately know the answer to. VERY telling.Agreed, folks. When I inquired about a job at my first shop, the owner led me to a room with a pile of parts and a case. The job was mine if I could build a working computer, with DOS 3.2 installed.
I got the job.Now, 15 years later, I'm one of the ones that vet the techs we use now. It's fraggin' scary, boys and girls. Most have never worked with anything pre-2k. One saw an Ubuntu desktop and asked if it was Vista. Another kept asking what to do at "back/next/cancel" prompts when just installing XP. Yet another tech mentioned testing memory for a diagnostic, but when asked HOW to test, or what he used, he gamely answered "uh, you click that....uh, THING in Windows..." Almost every single applicant thinks a POST card is something you send home on vacation. When asked why they want to work in IS, around half tell me "they like playing games" or "Well, I watched Hackers/The Matrix and it looked fun!" Around 20% of them didn't even HAVE a PC at home. Many couldn't tell the difference between ISA/PCI/AGP slots, or serial/parallel/ firewire/video ports. There was the guy that slathered every visible surface of a CPU with thermal goo, and his evil twin that believed that thermal paste/pads were optional. Only around 30% knew what ESD was and how to combat it.
Eek.
Now I have a simple routine that I use to quickly screen out the goofs from the geeks, and it starts with this question: "Ok, what are the I/O addresses and IRQs of the first four serial ports, please?"
My second question is "Why, for the love o' pete, do you want to put with surly clients, unrealistic deadlines, PCs that refuse to work, and late and weekend work?!?" I try to look as incredulous as I can.
Third, I pick a finished PC from the last day or two and describe the problems it had when it came in. I then ask what approach they'd take, and work them through a few steps.
Finally, I tell 'em I'll play the part of the client {usually owner of the PC we just discussed} and see how they react to some of the Sheeple questions we all know 'n' love.
Their reactions speak volumes, and I can usually gauge at this point whether or not they've able to work with us. I let the the Boss-guy know, and he takes it from there. He tried a few techs from the school I mentioned earlier over our objections. He changed his mind within a week. In the last 6 months, with over 120 resumes, we've found ONE tech to fit the bill.
I'm not trying to take swipes at sheepskins, but a few bad schools are diluting the values of lower-end certs, IMHO.I'd almost buy that, but for a local vocational school that is notorious for "You pay, you pass" assembly-line certs. A guy that we tried out was a card-carrying CompTIA A+-certified tech. To help test him {having had experience with this school's graduates before..} I took him to an open PC on the bench and asked him to point at the motherboard.
He pointed at the case.
I told him, no, not the case, the *motherboard*.
He blinked twice, and pointed at the case again. He didn't last the day.
IMHO, those little pieces of paper don't guarantee jack anymore. -sigh-Speaking {out of my tailside} for the male space geeks, I'm pretty sure most of us would have a chubby upon reaching space that wouldn't die 'til we got back to Earth.
Agreed, though it can take than two days at times. When we PCSed to Germany, it took the family about two weeks to feel really comfortable. As I've gotten older, however, I've noticed an odd pattern in my own rhythm: Left to itself {free of time-critical concerns} my body likes a *36* hour day. That's 24 hours awake, with 12 asleep. I'm betting that a slightly longer day won't impact the astronauts' body clocks too much...
Tin-foil hats aside, the US government has a rather heinous track record where nuclear safety and civilians are concerned...
To paraphrase that general from Armageddon: "I wouldn't trust that lot of morons with a potato gun..."
Ask Von Neumann... ;)
At this link, you can check the debut date for the K6. Note at the top of the article that it quite clearly states that it was designed to compete with the original Pentiums.
At this link, you can check the debut date for the P4. Note that the P4 debuted *3* years *after* the K6 series...
If you believe that AMD had the foresight, manpower, and devel skills to beat a processor not even OUT for 3 years thereafter, it's time to adjust the tin hat, sir/ma'am.
Pentium 4?!? Hate to break it to you, but the K6 series was WELL before the P4 era, and they were extremely popular for providing near-comparable performance at a BIG price break... in a Socket-7 form-factor...
Ragging me for someone ELSE's fringe belief is like telling you that you can't be trusted because of O'Hair. As long as you mistakenly believe that all Christians blindly follow what any religious leader says, you're not going to be able to debate this.
Name-calling doesn't make your case any stronger, either...Folks, I never cease to be amazed how many people tell me what I'm 'thinking' or what I've 'blindly accepted' without ever having really discussed it with me at any length...
...and this is the kind of argument that makes it harder for you to prove your point. Someone examined the same evidence and worked out another solution that you disagree with, and they're instantly "idiots" without the "capacity for critical thinking."
Try another approach. Many people view the world around them as just a bit larger than can be reduced to an equation.
...maybe because some of us were thrown into alternative school for being different? For having a way of looking at life?
Example: School elections were coming up. A neo-punk and myself were musing over the morons running when it occurred to us: Why not form an "Anarchist Party", and encourage people to NOT vote? Posters went up {"I'm anarchist, he's anarchist, she's anarchist, we're anarchist, wouldn't ya like to be anarchist, too?" and were quickly torn down. Fights erupted {seriously...} until the government teacher came on the intercom:
"Attention, students. I understand that some students have formed the Anarchist Party. I can't say I approve of their message..."{insert weak cheer here, mainly the friends of the candidates..}
"...HOWEVER, dissent IS part of the political process, and we're giving them the same right to put flyers up as those who are running."
The rest of the time you're thrown out for being disruptive. Eek.
Rephrasing: Communicating with us in a human-centric timeframe.
Here's a link discussing it, circa 1999.... AKA the "Hygiene Hypothesis".
Fun episode! A thought, and one paralleled in the old Alpha Centauri sim:
While each lifeform may individually run slower than realtime, could a collective parallel effort achieve a real-time result?
...and as space isn't really a true vacuum, sensors as sensitive as those depicted on the shows - Voyager's were 7 light years at high-resolution, and 21 light-years at medium-low - shouldn't have trouble with an explosion right in front of the ship...
I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I could handle people constantly in my head trying to enlarge my various body parts, give me more hair, or send cash to a guy in Nigeria....
Besides, that's what the voices I ALREADY have are telling me to do!
1. Build product using someone else's stable OS. ....Profit!
In short, they just paid off their Mastercard with their Visa card...2. Offer IPO.
3. Get scads of cash in to pay off OS licensers and IP lawsuits, and....
4.
...Don't forget to factor in your time spent processing the materials, talking to the shop owners, getting to and from the shop, etc...
...and that's not even considering potential gas costs...
Anyone feel like doing a breakdown on cost/profit margin on this? Urban versus rural areas?
...it's just that the BMI is a pretty useless measure of someone's health.Agreed. F'r example, my BMI is around 17.6. By most charts, I'm underweight, but every doctor that sees me has clearly stated that I'm healthy {aside from smoking}. What I find annoying is that people my size are now banned from many catwalks, so finding clothes that fit is even harder than it was to begin with.
{Just TRY to find jeans with 27-inch waist and 34-inch length.... and if you DO find a non-custom/tailored source, PLEASE let me know...}