I think now more than ever there could be a serious successful push to put Linux on the desktop at many smaller companies. Many small companies I have seen already have trouble keeping up with the software upgrade/liscence number merry go round that is the MS "corporate environment". With windows XP "unique" liscencing and it's penchant for "phoneing home" to tell Big Brother everything they want to know about your machine, more companies will be willing to take the leap to Linux.
What this article says to me is that if they can use XP they can use Linux. With the help of a skilled admin I'd say small business stands to save a good deal of money in several areas.
Software upgrade $$
Hardware upgrade $$
Less down time (depends on the skill of the administrator)
Remember Microsoft claimed they were working on a fix for DrDOS. It just never came.
The windows XP OS "phones home" and delivers information to MS headquarters (supposeldy just about your liscence data and nothing else of course). If you had a firewall program like Black Ice or ZoneAlarm you would be alerted that your computer was trying to send something over your internet connection. You could then STOP IT from transmitting data with a functional personal firewall.
When MS says they are working with vendors on an "XP" version what they really mean is
**sillymodeon**
"We are forcing vendors to allow our Big Brother program to work without your ability to disable it because we really need to know what software you are installing and whether or not you have an ext2 partition or other non-suitable for XP partitions on your harddrives. You of course have accepted us snooping into what you eat and your e-mail when you bought windows XP, merely glancing at the packaging in the store binds you to this agreement whether or not you even own XP. Our lawyers are that well paid *wink*".
**/sillymode**
I don't think I will be purchasing any computer with XP on it.
I'm sorry to say this, BUT this "tethered test" looked more like a yo-yo dangling on the end of a string. If the bloody thing had listed OFF the ground under it's own power I might be more impressed. For all I know (and what they say isn't necessarily what happened mind you) the damn thing was lifted into the air buy that large WHITE crane in the background. I will reserve judgement until something a bit more convincing is offered.
I still can't wait for my own personal air travel. It's coming, but I will believe it when I see it, or can buy it. After all how many times has the Mosler vehicle been on a the cover of Popular Mechanics or another similliar publication?
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
There is this invention, perhaps you have heard about it. It's called the parachute!
BTW ultralights probably fit into this same exact category as these machines, and again, rocket fired parachutes can save your but even from very low altitude.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
I was referring to the now elder and still often drunk Senator Kennedy. The girl killed was named Mary Jo Kopechne and her body was most defin. found. "Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
The lights flash, and a siren wails. "Damn cops, they are on to me." As I pull over I flip the face plate down so they can't see I have cajun in the car and quickly hit the hidden record button
"Do you know why I pulled you over boy?"
"No SIR!"
"You have a picture of a penguin on your car, you know the Linux operating system is illegal don't you??"
"Yes Sir I only run Microsoft product as per the constitutional amendment of 2015, Sir"
"You wouldn't be an illegal coder would you? I see the case of Jolt cola there, and I think I see an O'Reilly book on your back seat, thats damn near probable cause to search your car!"
"But sir, I'm just a lowly cleaner, see all the cleaning supplies. I found this stuff in an storage unit I was cleaning out".
I showed him my pay stub for the idiots I work for. I knew going through those old storage lockers would net me someting eventually. The cop bought it. Berated me for the penguin sign, said even though it wasn't illegal he'd take it off the car. I promised I would. Cop said owning a O'reilley book was illegal even though I knew it wasn't. I tried to argue but got a quick slap in the face. Ended up giving him the book, don't want him opening the trunk. We parted amicably, my cheek still stinging. Wow what a bitch slap that was. He probably dresses in drag on the weekends.
I'll use my new face recgonition software and cross my video with the video feed we have at dumbkin dognuts. Have to keep an eye on this one, he must of spotted that penguin sticker from 200 meters or more.
Over the top can't happen? Well at one time I would have thought that you could always record what a public official does in public. MA is interesting. I guess those laws allowed a senator from the state to get away with murder (or at least negligenct homicide), but prevent a common citizen from protecting himself from a authority figure abusing his/her power.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
Does this sound like Microsoft or what? Lets compare shall we?
MS tries to buy you or puts you out of business by stealing your product/idea and then incorperating it into Windows for "Free"
MAPS and the network that it runs routinely and IMHO illegally injected false routes into the global routing table so that ORBS was unavailable so ONLY their "free" service is accessable. See MAPS vs ORBS
MS: is now going with a subscription fee for it's software. All that "free stuff" it added to your OS which may or may not work properly now has to be paid for monthly!
MAPS: With the competition driven into the ground, you suddenly have to PAY for MAPS. (You mean they couldn't mirror those zone files on several servers across many networks that would be willing to do so for free??)
Sad, we see here dishonesty, trickery and stupidity win over the better product, and/or the better idea. "Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
Since I can't read the article (Slash Dotted) I'll have to take a wise ass guess at what it said. SO here is my view (for what little it's worth)
The number one job that you have (unless you are a consultant or outside contractor) is to do/help your company do what it does. If your company sells widgets, in the end, you are a cog in the wheel that sells widgets. (Don't loose site of this now, it gets complicated soon)
The problem many IT people see is that they forget that they are "selling widgets".
EXAMPLE
IT Dept reviews a request from sales dept, spits it back "We can't do this for at least 2 years, this doesn't make sense, you don't know what you are talking about, you fools why do you need this"
Sales really needs the ap so they go to an outside consultant (Who built the entire app in under 2 weeks) Now sales are running more effectively and the consultant is paid, and the companies IT dept didn't have to lift a finger (And of course notified 30 people in writing that they would NEVER support this outsourced ap)
The Prima Donnas
The programmer and the head of corporate IT dept are both Prima Donnas, here is how it breaks out.
The one programer working alone and un-aided is spurred on by the challenge. He/She has been given a problem, and told that many professionals in a large fortune 500 corporate IT dept. couldn't do it in 2 years time. He/She doesn't care about widgets, sales or corporate IT policy, he/she cares about the challenge and how to meet it. Therefore unconstrained he/she goes about his/her work. His/Her work and the ability to brag about it makes him/her a Prima Donna.
The corporate IT manager has a fiefdom to manage. After all many many people rely on his judgement, and he is now looked at as the great problem solver for many of the companies troubles. He is insulated by his company, and he fears no reprecussions because he knows too many people rely on him. He gets to dictate policy, and his policy is to make his life easier. He is the corporate Prima Donna. He will be saying "You can't do that" or "That won't work" or "we can't possibly do that on our budget". He is the be all end all of IT in his mind. He listens to input from no one (although he may fake listening to people from time to time) and is easily suprised when people think that he isn't doing a good job. In the end, HIS problem is that he forgot, he's just selling widgets.
If the corporate IT guy really wanted or thought he was so good that he deserved to cop the "Prima Donna atitude" he should be a consultant. He won't be, he's not secure enough in his own knowledge or lack thereof to venture out on his own (some excuse about personal responsability)
Prima Donnas exist in every facet of the corporate structure. The thing I worry about is the Prima Donna IT exec, the Prima Donna programer can actually be useful if the management team around him/her has any skill.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
Re:Science and Politics
on
Excess Heat
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· Score: 2
Oh really?
And your expertise is what? The psychic friends network? Please, if you going to guess my age or my experience you really need to find a better job, or start hawking a 900 number.
Let the flames begin, anonymous cowards are just that, cowards.
Modern science has always had it's fair amount of politics. The ego's are huge, and so are the federal grants that go with success. This tradition of convincing someone that you know what your doing so that you can get money has been going on for ages. The tradition of pummeling someone that disagrees with you has also been there. After all if your multimillion dollar fusion project can be replaced with a several thousand dollar "cold fusion" project, you as the "hot fusion" scientist have lots to loose.
In times past a "scientist" found someone that was willing to support his/her research. This usually involved convincing your new source of cash that your theory is correct. This also meant spending some time shooting down your opponents theorems. After all your sponsor was paying you to be right, so it behooved you to prove competing theorems wrong. In these times it was the court of your sponsor's opinion that swayed the science (by means of the pocket book). Sometimes when we are not careful that holds today.
People like to think of the pursuit of science as a pure ideal. You have a theory, you test and are reviewed by your peers. The truth involves a lot more money and politicking than the pure ideal, as does any human pursuit.
Good software exists, really it does. Case and point is the software that is used by the Space Shuttle. One of the only pieces of software that manages to meet the criteria put forth for "a proper program" by the association of computer scientist. To my knowledge, besides the afore mentioned "hello world" program there are no other pieces of software that meet all these criteria.
The important question to ask is "Why doesn't good software exist?". The reason is that the consumer wants it yesterday, they will pay for an unfinished and incomplete project (nee almost all windows software). This leads to cut & paste programing, re-use of lots of pre-done code supplied by various manufacturers and the like. If the customer demanded well sorted out code, and refused to "upgrade" to the next best thing then you will see better coding.
Last and not least lets not forget the customer, the US govt. The Osprey has always been considered a boondogle from the get go. The pressure from congress and media to get the progect completed has been extremely intense. I'm sure a lot of pressure was put on the coding team to "get it done now". It's too bad that they didn't learn from the Space Shuttle, over budget, and over designed, it works. It has passed all expectations and is doing things now that it was never designed to do.
There is an engineering credo there, the famous "factor of saftey". A number usually applied to equations to take into affect the "unknown". Looks like the Osprey designers didn't make their "factor of saftey" high enough.
Bill Gates is forceing you to rent his software NOW. If you don't believe me talk to the poor IT guys in a large corporate env. trying to keep up with the latest software demands of his users. Office is out every 2 years (or less sometimes) it uses a slightly newer, slighty different format that isn't read by the older format. Go upgrade. NT will no longer support XYZ, it is only available on win 2000. Of course if you just bought NT 6 months ago because win2k drivers weren't ready for your other equipment sorry. Go upgrade. Your new frontpage won't work with your old frontpage server? Oh so sorry go upgrade. You want some of the new features in exchange 2000 (now that it's not a default open relay?) we're sorry go upgrade.
The continual upgrade cycle is no more than renting software. New releases purposely break old, security updates are made available ONLY if you register with MS (outlook and SP2 for office).
MS is trying to keep this big profit wheel going. They are pulling out all the stops to try and keep one of the longest and largest growth spurts in ANY companies history going. To that end we see that NET initiative, MS has invented it's own engineers. (You memorize 150 questions and are called an engineer, and can reccomend MS upgrades for you clients).
Eventually there will be a contraction at some point. How MS handles it's current customers will dictate how big the contraction will be. Providing an ever diminishing return on their software investment may mean that the contraction will be much larger than it has to be.
Lawyers fees are more than the cc charge. CC company has more lawyers and we could wait up to 2 years to get the cash. I've simply been told by the highest person in the company to "Let it go" it costs to much to pursue it.
Sad Fact of Life, money buys you the ability to fight. Welcome to the real world.
I work for a small ISP and we have a Zero tolerance policy regarding SPAM. We clearly state that if you spam we will charger your account 500 dollars and send you on your way. We do the research (sometimes newbiews/chruch groups get a second chance) and bill the SPAMMER. The SPAMMEr then complains to his CC company and they ALWAYS give him a refund and charge for the pleasure of enforcing a CLEARLY stated policy. It doesn't matter if i provide a contract SIGNED by the customer, and have logs with phone numbers etc etc etc add nauseum. The CC people simply will not let the charge stick.
Now according to this acrticle these people use SPAM as one of their main forms of getting to victims. Hmmm how can we fight this problem?? If we were ALLOWED to enforece our AUP, and our contract that a customer signs then this activity would be less profitable and easier to trace.
For isntance, joe/badboy/hacker uses a stloen card signs up for a throw away account and start spamming. If joe is useing a stolen card a 19.95 gets looked over, but a 500 dollar charge gets noticed. So come on Credit Card people, if we can PROVE it why can't we charge these people for taking up our time, system resources etc. As this article clearly points out SPAM is used very often for illegal practices.
Why won't the credit card companies help us clean up?
Lets face it, video games are an easy target. It gets really hard (and expensive) to deal with the real issues and problems behind violent behavior. Guns will be blamed because they are easy to blame also. That will be until some kids learns to use brake fluid and Clorox with nails added for effect. Let us explore some more probable causes for violent behavior shall we?
Huge schools, large class sizes, the de-personalization of people
Parents and systems that encourage small amounts of "quality time" as opposed to just spending time with your kids.
A society that tolerates behavior that is hurtful and directed at people it hurts the most.
Treating kids and adolescents like adults
Now don't go flaming me just yet, these are broad generalizations, lets look at these in a bit more depth.
Quality Time
In our society there is a huge increase in 2 working parent families. Most day care services are staffed by some of the poorest trained lowest paid workers in the United States today. A child raised in this environment is usually introduced to other children via the law of the jungle. i.e. those that can exert their force and power will and you will bend, or go home bloody from "falling" off the jungle-jim.
A parent's time is hard to come by. Companies DEMAND more and more out of their staff (especially those of us in tech or management and on salary!) This in turn gives us less and less time for ourselves, and also less time for our families. Then comes the fabrication of quality time. The idea that spending the "right kind of time" will be ok and you won't have to spend as much time with your children. Try to find a good scientific study about quality time (good luck). The find a study about just plain old "parental involvement". Quality time is a crock designed to make over worked/stressed parents feel better about themselves.
Cost to fix? High, companies would have to stop demanding 12/15 hour days, perhaps even give mothers more time off for maternity. Help provide proper day care. this adds up to $$$$$
School Systems
School Systems Schools are designed with cost in mind, and it is cheaper to build a BIG school for thousands of students then to build several little schools for say 250-500 students. This leads to a system where students can easily get lost, be over looked and hide. There are simply too many students, and our current Jr and Sr years are nothing more than a fashion show in many schools. The fix would be to build smaller schools, and hire more teachers. This of course costs $$$, and trust me the BABY BOOMERS (i.e. the me generation) wants absolutely nothing to do with raising taxes or paying for a good education system. Of course raise taxes for Socialist security to keep it solvent, but the hell with our children! (Sorry, I live in an area with a lot of Senior Citizens, and that attitude is so pervasive it makes me sick)
Improper treatment of children and adolescents
Our society, our advertisers and to a lesser extent each of use are treating adolescents as adults. This can be seen in malicious humor directed at them, in advertisements and in their ability to commit "adult" crimes. It's so funny that our society must be PC (nee see the "re-education" of John Rocker) but we will happily laugh along with the sitcom that makes fun of the "geek", that chastises the girl that is "over wieght" (i.e. she doesn't look like she spent 8 months in Ausweitz) etc. Wow, strange world we live in.
To some extent adolescents WANT to be treated like they are older, and I did too when I was 15-16 etc. BUT this is the age when one learns coping skills, when one learns how to deal with adversity and so forth. A minor incident for an adult can feel like a life threatening tragedy to some children/adolescents. People need to keep that in mind, adolescents aren't adults yet.
Agree with me or not, the cost to solve these problems are high, they will take time, and lets face it video games and rap songs are a symptom not a cause. The politicos will point to the John Rockers of the world (and who cares what he thinks anyway???) and have him get "sensitivity" training while happily ignoring millions of school aged children. PC will simply be a way to silence different points of view, while allowing daily doses of hurtful propaganda that makes some companies rich right on through.
If they eventually find something that super conduct at resonable temperatures just thin of the applications. Maglev trains wouldn't be so electric thristy, no loss long distance power cable, super efficient turbines and of course fast processors. Which do you think is going to be the most important apllication of super conducters? Thats right, you guessed it. Slashdot fodder. I can just see it now...
"My ic2 liquied H2 chip can quick your wimpiums P10-ICE's ass" -joy-
Hmmm RH seems to have come out with an apt-get like program called up2date. It solves dependacies, goes to the internet and only updates the things that need updating. Seems to work most of the time. IT also has a ton of configuration options.
I'm all for competition. I just can't wait for the ruckus to start "aptget rawks, up2date is a come lately wannabe", or "up2date is the best cause it like has more options and stuff" and of course the ever present "f*ck you, I compile my sh*t from source cause I'm a true haxor". Let the wars begin and may the best app win.
According to many knowledgeable source, XML is my savior. You see, my new coffee machine has an ip address, and because of XML I can now program it to start my coffee before I get up!! People scoff at XML, and say what can it do, well here are some examples for the naw sayers
XML will soon be in most household appliances. Imagine not having to update the vacum cleaner OS with hard commands. Now with XML all your appliances have the updates "pushed" to them with XML.
XML will be installed into new
super sneakers by Nike. It's a proven fact that little Asian girls are the best XML coders in the world. Nike is using this great source of talent to bring us the most technically advanced pair of running shoes.
XML can toast your toast on one side!! Toaster manufacturers have for years had to design to different toasters, one for the people that want toast only toasted on one side (Sting's preference) and the rest of the world. Now with XML, set your preference and voilla, toast YOUR way.
People that explain XML carefully should be revered. These scholars are pointing the way to the future. WHO CARES if the book uses strange English. It is after all a technical document and should be as obfuscated as possible!
Quote from early car manual (Subaru 360) "if one wish to engage first gear, one is pleased to depress clutch." Who needs clarity in writing and loginc when gems such as this are produced. I'm awaiting my XML update to that great old car
Think very carefully before signing an agreement. It's not fair that something that you've worked on suddenly becomes somone elses property because you thought of an improvement. The last 2 employee agreements that I have signed had specifics ideas inventions and previous clients listed that were NOT covered by the agreement. This protected things that I was working on that had NOTHING to do with my employer. As an employee you should insist an a fair agreeement. If they want you bad enough they will bend.
Sad but true, the actual transmitters themselves can do a lot to prevent un-authorized access. Spread spectrum, especially when combined with synchronised frequency hopping is brutally effective at stopping people "listening in". The US armed forces have been useing the technologies for years. Seems a shame that with so many "off the shelf" components that could implement this technology, large manufacturers are still going for unsecure links.
When anyone imitates MS's security tactics (ignore, deny, obviscate and cover up) there is going to be a problem. It saddens me that such an important piece of "Internet software" such as bind is taking this route. I just wish there were some better alternatives taht interoperated with bind. I predict if the "members only" security list and the hog wash that will go with it comes to pass, bind will slowly die as people look for better, smarter software.
They scream, it's for geeks, no one can use it! It's for servers ACK!!
The coders code, the weak fall, and the mighty tremble.....an award winning GUI or 2 are born.
But you can't do that, GUI's are for desktops and Linux is a great server!!
the coders code, khttpd and better smp comes out, nicer memory handling, USB support. Databases that are so fast commercial apps are forced to go open source.
MS is so upset it says "Linux is going to die by the end of the year". Critics claim that "without better market penetration (i.e. Linux on the desktop) that the open source OS is going no where"
The truth is Linux can do a lot of things very well. Where you put your time coding is your choise. You choose to do something you like, or enjoy. There is no one "target" that works for the entire Linux market. It's simple too big. As far the detractors, keep bitching the coders are listening
Big DNS packets compiled in, no patch, yes some of us must relay to aol.com. the answer that "oversized dns packets are illegal don't use them" doesn't mean shit to 10,000 users who are trying to mail dear old grandma.
Big to do package needs to be a compile time options, simply put, some people have large mail servers and need the extra room.
TCP server should be included in the qmail source. It's necessary to for the smtp client (inetd sucks and is a waste of time here) and should probably be used by pop3.
.fastforward and maildrop are 2 other packages that should be included with qmail.
The ability to deliver messages to the same domain over a single SMTP connection (qmail opens up seperate connections for each message relayed)
A good IMAP client
Qmail works great if your a programmer, or if you have LOTS of time. Some people do not. Qmail works out of the box for 90% of what we do. The other ten percent could be made easier if some of the extremely common "add ons" were merged into the source.
Slashdot Mirror
What this article says to me is that if they can use XP they can use Linux. With the help of a skilled admin I'd say small business stands to save a good deal of money in several areas.
Could be interesting
The windows XP OS "phones home" and delivers information to MS headquarters (supposeldy just about your liscence data and nothing else of course). If you had a firewall program like Black Ice or ZoneAlarm you would be alerted that your computer was trying to send something over your internet connection. You could then STOP IT from transmitting data with a functional personal firewall.
When MS says they are working with vendors on an "XP" version what they really mean is
**sillymodeon**
"We are forcing vendors to allow our Big Brother program to work without your ability to disable it because we really need to know what software you are installing and whether or not you have an ext2 partition or other non-suitable for XP partitions on your harddrives. You of course have accepted us snooping into what you eat and your e-mail when you bought windows XP, merely glancing at the packaging in the store binds you to this agreement whether or not you even own XP. Our lawyers are that well paid *wink*".
**/sillymode**
I don't think I will be purchasing any computer with XP on it.
I still can't wait for my own personal air travel. It's coming, but I will believe it when I see it, or can buy it. After all how many times has the Mosler vehicle been on a the cover of Popular Mechanics or another similliar publication?
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
BTW ultralights probably fit into this same exact category as these machines, and again, rocket fired parachutes can save your but even from very low altitude.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
I was referring to the now elder and still often drunk Senator Kennedy. The girl killed was named Mary Jo Kopechne and her body was most defin. found.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
The lights flash, and a siren wails. "Damn cops, they are on to me." As I pull over I flip the face plate down so they can't see I have cajun in the car and quickly hit the hidden record button
"Do you know why I pulled you over boy?"
"No SIR!"
"You have a picture of a penguin on your car, you know the Linux operating system is illegal don't you??"
"Yes Sir I only run Microsoft product as per the constitutional amendment of 2015, Sir"
"You wouldn't be an illegal coder would you? I see the case of Jolt cola there, and I think I see an O'Reilly book on your back seat, thats damn near probable cause to search your car!"
"But sir, I'm just a lowly cleaner, see all the cleaning supplies. I found this stuff in an storage unit I was cleaning out".
I showed him my pay stub for the idiots I work for. I knew going through those old storage lockers would net me someting eventually. The cop bought it. Berated me for the penguin sign, said even though it wasn't illegal he'd take it off the car. I promised I would. Cop said owning a O'reilley book was illegal even though I knew it wasn't. I tried to argue but got a quick slap in the face. Ended up giving him the book, don't want him opening the trunk. We parted amicably, my cheek still stinging. Wow what a bitch slap that was. He probably dresses in drag on the weekends.
I'll use my new face recgonition software and cross my video with the video feed we have at dumbkin dognuts. Have to keep an eye on this one, he must of spotted that penguin sticker from 200 meters or more.
Over the top can't happen? Well at one time I would have thought that you could always record what a public official does in public. MA is interesting. I guess those laws allowed a senator from the state to get away with murder (or at least negligenct homicide), but prevent a common citizen from protecting himself from a authority figure abusing his/her power.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
Oh yeah, and I forgot EGO
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
MS tries to buy you or puts you out of business by stealing your product/idea and then incorperating it into Windows for "Free"
MAPS and the network that it runs routinely and IMHO illegally injected false routes into the global routing table so that ORBS was unavailable so ONLY their "free" service is accessable. See MAPS vs ORBS
MS: is now going with a subscription fee for it's software. All that "free stuff" it added to your OS which may or may not work properly now has to be paid for monthly!
MAPS: With the competition driven into the ground, you suddenly have to PAY for MAPS. (You mean they couldn't mirror those zone files on several servers across many networks that would be willing to do so for free??)
Sad, we see here dishonesty, trickery and stupidity win over the better product, and/or the better idea.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
The number one job that you have (unless you are a consultant or outside contractor) is to do/help your company do what it does. If your company sells widgets, in the end, you are a cog in the wheel that sells widgets. (Don't loose site of this now, it gets complicated soon)
The problem many IT people see is that they forget that they are "selling widgets".
EXAMPLE
IT Dept reviews a request from sales dept, spits it back "We can't do this for at least 2 years, this doesn't make sense, you don't know what you are talking about, you fools why do you need this"
Sales really needs the ap so they go to an outside consultant (Who built the entire app in under 2 weeks) Now sales are running more effectively and the consultant is paid, and the companies IT dept didn't have to lift a finger (And of course notified 30 people in writing that they would NEVER support this outsourced ap)
The Prima Donnas
The programmer and the head of corporate IT dept are both Prima Donnas, here is how it breaks out.
The one programer working alone and un-aided is spurred on by the challenge. He/She has been given a problem, and told that many professionals in a large fortune 500 corporate IT dept. couldn't do it in 2 years time. He/She doesn't care about widgets, sales or corporate IT policy, he/she cares about the challenge and how to meet it. Therefore unconstrained he/she goes about his/her work. His/Her work and the ability to brag about it makes him/her a Prima Donna.
The corporate IT manager has a fiefdom to manage. After all many many people rely on his judgement, and he is now looked at as the great problem solver for many of the companies troubles. He is insulated by his company, and he fears no reprecussions because he knows too many people rely on him. He gets to dictate policy, and his policy is to make his life easier. He is the corporate Prima Donna. He will be saying "You can't do that" or "That won't work" or "we can't possibly do that on our budget". He is the be all end all of IT in his mind. He listens to input from no one (although he may fake listening to people from time to time) and is easily suprised when people think that he isn't doing a good job. In the end, HIS problem is that he forgot, he's just selling widgets.
If the corporate IT guy really wanted or thought he was so good that he deserved to cop the "Prima Donna atitude" he should be a consultant. He won't be, he's not secure enough in his own knowledge or lack thereof to venture out on his own (some excuse about personal responsability)
Prima Donnas exist in every facet of the corporate structure. The thing I worry about is the Prima Donna IT exec, the Prima Donna programer can actually be useful if the management team around him/her has any skill.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth"
Thanks for some good humor I was ROFLAO!
And your expertise is what? The psychic friends network? Please, if you going to guess my age or my experience you really need to find a better job, or start hawking a 900 number.
Let the flames begin, anonymous cowards are just that, cowards.
In times past a "scientist" found someone that was willing to support his/her research. This usually involved convincing your new source of cash that your theory is correct. This also meant spending some time shooting down your opponents theorems. After all your sponsor was paying you to be right, so it behooved you to prove competing theorems wrong. In these times it was the court of your sponsor's opinion that swayed the science (by means of the pocket book). Sometimes when we are not careful that holds today.
People like to think of the pursuit of science as a pure ideal. You have a theory, you test and are reviewed by your peers. The truth involves a lot more money and politicking than the pure ideal, as does any human pursuit.
The important question to ask is "Why doesn't good software exist?". The reason is that the consumer wants it yesterday, they will pay for an unfinished and incomplete project (nee almost all windows software). This leads to cut & paste programing, re-use of lots of pre-done code supplied by various manufacturers and the like. If the customer demanded well sorted out code, and refused to "upgrade" to the next best thing then you will see better coding.
Last and not least lets not forget the customer, the US govt. The Osprey has always been considered a boondogle from the get go. The pressure from congress and media to get the progect completed has been extremely intense. I'm sure a lot of pressure was put on the coding team to "get it done now". It's too bad that they didn't learn from the Space Shuttle, over budget, and over designed, it works. It has passed all expectations and is doing things now that it was never designed to do.
There is an engineering credo there, the famous "factor of saftey". A number usually applied to equations to take into affect the "unknown". Looks like the Osprey designers didn't make their "factor of saftey" high enough.
Bill Gates is forceing you to rent his software NOW. If you don't believe me talk to the poor IT guys in a large corporate env. trying to keep up with the latest software demands of his users. Office is out every 2 years (or less sometimes) it uses a slightly newer, slighty different format that isn't read by the older format. Go upgrade. NT will no longer support XYZ, it is only available on win 2000. Of course if you just bought NT 6 months ago because win2k drivers weren't ready for your other equipment sorry. Go upgrade. Your new frontpage won't work with your old frontpage server? Oh so sorry go upgrade. You want some of the new features in exchange 2000 (now that it's not a default open relay?) we're sorry go upgrade.
The continual upgrade cycle is no more than renting software. New releases purposely break old, security updates are made available ONLY if you register with MS (outlook and SP2 for office).
MS is trying to keep this big profit wheel going. They are pulling out all the stops to try and keep one of the longest and largest growth spurts in ANY companies history going. To that end we see that NET initiative, MS has invented it's own engineers. (You memorize 150 questions and are called an engineer, and can reccomend MS upgrades for you clients).
Eventually there will be a contraction at some point. How MS handles it's current customers will dictate how big the contraction will be. Providing an ever diminishing return on their software investment may mean that the contraction will be much larger than it has to be.
Lawyers fees are more than the cc charge. CC company has more lawyers and we could wait up to 2 years to get the cash. I've simply been told by the highest person in the company to "Let it go" it costs to much to pursue it. Sad Fact of Life, money buys you the ability to fight. Welcome to the real world.
Now according to this acrticle these people use SPAM as one of their main forms of getting to victims. Hmmm how can we fight this problem?? If we were ALLOWED to enforece our AUP, and our contract that a customer signs then this activity would be less profitable and easier to trace.
For isntance, joe/badboy/hacker uses a stloen card signs up for a throw away account and start spamming. If joe is useing a stolen card a 19.95 gets looked over, but a 500 dollar charge gets noticed. So come on Credit Card people, if we can PROVE it why can't we charge these people for taking up our time, system resources etc. As this article clearly points out SPAM is used very often for illegal practices.
Why won't the credit card companies help us clean up?
Now don't go flaming me just yet, these are broad generalizations, lets look at these in a bit more depth.
Quality Time
In our society there is a huge increase in 2 working parent families. Most day care services are staffed by some of the poorest trained lowest paid workers in the United States today. A child raised in this environment is usually introduced to other children via the law of the jungle. i.e. those that can exert their force and power will and you will bend, or go home bloody from "falling" off the jungle-jim.
A parent's time is hard to come by. Companies DEMAND more and more out of their staff (especially those of us in tech or management and on salary!) This in turn gives us less and less time for ourselves, and also less time for our families. Then comes the fabrication of quality time. The idea that spending the "right kind of time" will be ok and you won't have to spend as much time with your children. Try to find a good scientific study about quality time (good luck). The find a study about just plain old "parental involvement". Quality time is a crock designed to make over worked/stressed parents feel better about themselves.
Cost to fix? High, companies would have to stop demanding 12/15 hour days, perhaps even give mothers more time off for maternity. Help provide proper day care. this adds up to $$$$$
School Systems
School Systems Schools are designed with cost in mind, and it is cheaper to build a BIG school for thousands of students then to build several little schools for say 250-500 students. This leads to a system where students can easily get lost, be over looked and hide. There are simply too many students, and our current Jr and Sr years are nothing more than a fashion show in many schools. The fix would be to build smaller schools, and hire more teachers. This of course costs $$$, and trust me the BABY BOOMERS (i.e. the me generation) wants absolutely nothing to do with raising taxes or paying for a good education system. Of course raise taxes for Socialist security to keep it solvent, but the hell with our children! (Sorry, I live in an area with a lot of Senior Citizens, and that attitude is so pervasive it makes me sick)
Improper treatment of children and adolescents
Our society, our advertisers and to a lesser extent each of use are treating adolescents as adults. This can be seen in malicious humor directed at them, in advertisements and in their ability to commit "adult" crimes. It's so funny that our society must be PC (nee see the "re-education" of John Rocker) but we will happily laugh along with the sitcom that makes fun of the "geek", that chastises the girl that is "over wieght" (i.e. she doesn't look like she spent 8 months in Ausweitz) etc. Wow, strange world we live in.
To some extent adolescents WANT to be treated like they are older, and I did too when I was 15-16 etc. BUT this is the age when one learns coping skills, when one learns how to deal with adversity and so forth. A minor incident for an adult can feel like a life threatening tragedy to some children/adolescents. People need to keep that in mind, adolescents aren't adults yet.
Agree with me or not, the cost to solve these problems are high, they will take time, and lets face it video games and rap songs are a symptom not a cause. The politicos will point to the John Rockers of the world (and who cares what he thinks anyway???) and have him get "sensitivity" training while happily ignoring millions of school aged children. PC will simply be a way to silence different points of view, while allowing daily doses of hurtful propaganda that makes some companies rich right on through.
"My ic2 liquied H2 chip can quick your wimpiums P10-ICE's ass" -joy-
I'm all for competition. I just can't wait for the ruckus to start "aptget rawks, up2date is a come lately wannabe", or "up2date is the best cause it like has more options and stuff" and of course the ever present "f*ck you, I compile my sh*t from source cause I'm a true haxor". Let the wars begin and may the best app win.
People that explain XML carefully should be revered. These scholars are pointing the way to the future. WHO CARES if the book uses strange English. It is after all a technical document and should be as obfuscated as possible!
Quote from early car manual (Subaru 360) "if one wish to engage first gear, one is pleased to depress clutch." Who needs clarity in writing and loginc when gems such as this are produced. I'm awaiting my XML update to that great old car
Think very carefully before signing an agreement. It's not fair that something that you've worked on suddenly becomes somone elses property because you thought of an improvement. The last 2 employee agreements that I have signed had specifics ideas inventions and previous clients listed that were NOT covered by the agreement. This protected things that I was working on that had NOTHING to do with my employer. As an employee you should insist an a fair agreeement. If they want you bad enough they will bend.
Sad but true, the actual transmitters themselves can do a lot to prevent un-authorized access. Spread spectrum, especially when combined with synchronised frequency hopping is brutally effective at stopping people "listening in". The US armed forces have been useing the technologies for years. Seems a shame that with so many "off the shelf" components that could implement this technology, large manufacturers are still going for unsecure links.
When anyone imitates MS's security tactics (ignore, deny, obviscate and cover up) there is going to be a problem. It saddens me that such an important piece of "Internet software" such as bind is taking this route. I just wish there were some better alternatives taht interoperated with bind. I predict if the "members only" security list and the hog wash that will go with it comes to pass, bind will slowly die as people look for better, smarter software.
They scream, it's for geeks, no one can use it! It's for servers ACK!!
The coders code, the weak fall, and the mighty tremble.....an award winning GUI or 2 are born.
But you can't do that, GUI's are for desktops and Linux is a great server!!
the coders code, khttpd and better smp comes out, nicer memory handling, USB support. Databases that are so fast commercial apps are forced to go open source.
MS is so upset it says "Linux is going to die by the end of the year". Critics claim that "without better market penetration (i.e. Linux on the desktop) that the open source OS is going no where"
The truth is Linux can do a lot of things very well. Where you put your time coding is your choise. You choose to do something you like, or enjoy. There is no one "target" that works for the entire Linux market. It's simple too big. As far the detractors, keep bitching the coders are listening
.......and the coders code......
Qmail works great if your a programmer, or if you have LOTS of time. Some people do not. Qmail works out of the box for 90% of what we do. The other ten percent could be made easier if some of the extremely common "add ons" were merged into the source.