If you have a family to feed, then you might like to turn away from contracting, unless
you are really good.
It comes down to your income vs. expenses, on whether you can save 6 months pay.
My point is merely that if you are going to put money in the bank for longish terms (like
6 to 12 months, like the contract terms I get), then you may as well put it in a higher
interest, secure long term deposit account.
As a contractor with a family, I have to say I agree with this.
I would like to point out, there are banks that have "one-time withdrawal" cd's, so you get the higher interest, and have the option of withdrawing once during the term. FDIC insured, too.
It's amazing how fast one can burn through fifty grand.
Like giving 10 grand to the anonymous "database guru" who sent in a copy of an old Rdb manual page, after seeing a./ article. This was to debunk an Oracle patent application on snapshots.
They don't seem to realize that Oracle bought the rights to Rdb, so they already own this so-called "prior art!"
Finally, please do everybody in the industry a favor and send this article to a friend.
...
IF YOU WANT TO HELP PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS, AND THE CAREERS OF WRITERS WHOSE
WORK YOU ENJOY, PLEASE SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTION-A FEW BUCKS, OR A LOT OF
BUCKS-TO:
KICK INTERNET PIRACY
POST OFFICE BOX 55935
SHERMAN OAKS, CA 91413
PLEASE MAKE YOUR CHECK PAYABLE TO:
LAW OFFICE OF M. CHRISTINE VALADA
Man, this looks like a hoax to me. Unverifiable authority, plea to pass it on to everyone you know... the money part would be fraudulent, eh?
the writer should comment code, space code out etc
I'd say this code is already pretty spaced out.
It's now taped on the aisle side of my cabinet where I have been posting various interesting/funny things, waiting to see how long until someone in the government asks what it is. Should I tell them?
Re:Windows Security Sucks... Use Unix, QNX or BeOS
on
Gnutella "Virus" Roams
·
· Score: 1
I found this story on infoworld when I went there 'cause I couldn't get through to./ . So later when I could get through to./ and submitted it, I added a blurb that it was probably only a matter of time before it gets married to linsniffer or whatever...there seemed to be a large number of submissions before me when I submitted, so anonymous must have been in that group. Makes me wonder what was with/. that made everyone so busy...
People who advocate the linux model underestimate how much real-world users won't follow the implicit or explicit security rules. Even me, using it for a number of years (slackware, redhat, a few others), and following the virus news groups off and on for a decade, I got hacked recently 'cause I just don't have the time or inclination to spend all my non-work hours patching stoopidass security holes. I have a real computer job, after all. Fortunately not much damage was done because I had so much half-configured crap on there.
But I gotta say, people who blame the user for being vulnerable, ought to be mugged.
By the way, I'm not reading email until I get around to reinstalling an OS again. It seems the first thing you need to do when your unix gets hacked is get off the net.
Nuhno! Wasn't trying to be some old condescending asshole! I was just commenting on
how the ENTIRE 'net world used the term 'bandwidth'. Hell even I use it in that sense at
times. Kinda wonder where it got started...
I first heard it used in that sense 20 years ago, and it was already well established. It comes from the basic copper-wire fact that the amount of information transmittable is a function of the width of the frequencies available. Telephones, for example, don't even send the male human voice fundamental. So since you can't increase the limit of width, the only way to increase the amount of information throughput is to increase its speed. So increasing the speed became interchangeable with increasing the bandwidth. Which, if you think about it, it is.
Gotta agree with ya there. In my experience the attitude has been more "if it ain't broke
don't fix it" than "upgrade party this weekend! (as always)". In fact, most of the time you
have to go out of the way to conciously say "uhhh, yeah we've put of upgrading such
and such for too long" because the version they have been using is so moldy and stale
that it has finally started to become a problem. Any place that has done a significant
upgrade (and has any brains) learns really quickly that upgrades are a time and resource
and productivity hog and that you really need a good justification for them.
I gotta say, I've seen both places, and worse, places that do both. For example, in the year and a half or so I've been at my current workplace, they've upgraded my PC 3 times. Now, that would be cool, except each time they've treated it like some lusers PC and broken all the stuff I need to do my job ("Oh, you can't just copy it and run it under Windows 2000?"). I would really prefer just getting a nicer monitor. On the other hand, some of the stuff I work on, trying to drag them up to a current supported level is near impossible. Sheesh. I guess it's the difference between a thousand things that cost a thousand dollars, and one thing that costs a thousand-thousand dollars.
It leaves the task of tracking specific files to a completely separate piece of software
called dpkg. Or, if you use the "beta" version of apt-get, the database of files installed
would be maintained by RPM.
Does this mean that rpm and apt-get are merging anyways? That would moot Nick's whole arg.
Phone support and remote admin are two different things. They should both be done, adapted to each situation.
For example, when the help desk sees my workstation, they go "whoah!" - I've got a bunch of db admin tools and mucho obscure stuff. Every so often, management decrees changes to everyones work station, and mine inevitably gets screwed up. SMS is the worst.
Now we are getting a big contract for EDS to replace all help desk and PC support. Many of us are hunkering down and expecting to avoid calling them as much as possible. Pretty counter-productive.
Really! About 10 years ago, I worked in a computer room at Camp Pendelton. As part of an Armed Services Committee tour, she was checking out the place I worked (I guess because someone had trumpeted how great the app was, written by two guys[not me], compared to a huge mega project that failed). The computer room was a tiny, cramped place with several contractors jammed in with the hardware, and I had no idea she was coming. I just happened to have a Government Computer News which had published a letter I had written comparing GSA procurement with Sgt Bilko. So I showed it to her and the director giving the tour. She must have thought it was a setup, even though it wasn't. She seemed nice enough. You might imagine how the politics of the mil oriented folks differed, to put it mildly, from hers, though.
In the division of a big silicon valley company (who the second founder died last month)
there are 3 instances of SAP. There are only 125 staff and 1 set of business rules. Each
SAP instance is incompatable with the others because in each case there are different
core modifications.
While it is true some of the mods are ridiculously trivial (or are not and should be if the COTS were written correctly), reengineering the business process to a generic COTS is a waste - the business should be reengineered to improve quality, lower costs or some other positive reason. No COTS is perfect, and some are way out there in left field. Also, often a business in a particular industry has particular strengths that are not addressed by any COTS, and it would be counterproductive, to say the least, to through those strengths out. I don't know why your real life example company has 3 modified SAPs, but I'm sure the reason is a combination of silly and reasonable things.
I mean, would it be better if they had 3 different packages? (Certainly for the piggies at the trough, I mean consultants!)
One of the reasons the Mac has such a well-loved interface (how many PC interface
zealots do you know?) is that it's consistent from app to app. Basically, you buy a new
Mac app, you launch it, and you figure it out on the first try.
The other side of this is, there really was only one big app on the Mac - desktop publishing. Everything else is just minor detritus. When other OS's caught up on this app, Apple nearly went under - the only reason they didn't was marketing by you-know-who. And even that still might not work.
The article didn't really say much. It's basically an illustration that out of the specific killer app, none of those Apple folk know jack about computers.
Regarding interfaces on the web and so forth, as things are now no one does it right. They just all copy each other, running back and forth like wildebeests. I hope that eventually someone will actually use some ergonomic correctness based on accurate physiological research and the herd will notice and follow - but not likely.
It varied, because they were home built. Generally, someone would buy a general purpose box from a retailer or mailorder (such as Newark Electronics). The ones I saw were all black, maybe 6" x 4" IIRC, or no box at all just a breadboard.
This was in L. A. contemporaneous with the Jobs/Wozniak stuff, although AFAIK I never saw one of those.
I'll have a
pretty intersting story to tell about how that can be a self-correcting problem in a forum
like Slashdot.
Self-correction in a public forum only works if the participants are both well informed and relatively homogenous (in./'s case, we're all geeks here). In the more general case, it favors urban legendry. In the most general case (TV), it favors stupidity.
Think about what happens when you get credited with something bad that you didn't write. How do you prove a negative? That has happened to many of us on usenet, and often the only way to beat it is to both browbeat the accusers and demonstrate that someone else posted it. If you can't do both, you're TSOL.
And don't be dependent on deja or google - those are just temporary solutions which will go away "soon."
Slashdot Mirror
Don't we all know people who have been hired for a job, only to find the job disappears before they started working?
If you have a family to feed, then you might like to turn away from contracting, unless you are really good.
It comes down to your income vs. expenses, on whether you can save 6 months pay.
My point is merely that if you are going to put money in the bank for longish terms (like 6 to 12 months, like the contract terms I get), then you may as well put it in a higher interest, secure long term deposit account.
As a contractor with a family, I have to say I agree with this.
I would like to point out, there are banks that have "one-time withdrawal" cd's, so you get the higher interest, and have the option of withdrawing once during the term. FDIC insured, too.
It's amazing how fast one can burn through fifty grand.
Like giving 10 grand to the anonymous "database guru" who sent in a copy of an old Rdb manual page, after seeing a ./ article. This was to debunk an Oracle patent application on snapshots.
They don't seem to realize that Oracle bought the rights to Rdb, so they already own this so-called "prior art!"
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Finally, please do everybody in the industry a favor and send this article to a friend.
...
IF YOU WANT TO HELP PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS, AND THE CAREERS OF WRITERS WHOSE WORK YOU ENJOY, PLEASE SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTION-A FEW BUCKS, OR A LOT OF BUCKS-TO:
KICK INTERNET PIRACY
POST OFFICE BOX 55935
SHERMAN OAKS, CA 91413
PLEASE MAKE YOUR CHECK PAYABLE TO:
LAW OFFICE OF M. CHRISTINE VALADA
Man, this looks like a hoax to me. Unverifiable authority, plea to pass it on to everyone you know... the money part would be fraudulent, eh?
Didn't he write I have no mouth and I must scream? Boy, he must not have known about all caps!
the writer should comment code, space code out etc
I'd say this code is already pretty spaced out.
It's now taped on the aisle side of my cabinet where I have been posting various interesting/funny things, waiting to see how long until someone in the government asks what it is. Should I tell them?
I found this story on infoworld when I went there 'cause I couldn't get through to ./ . So later when I could get through to ./ and submitted it, I added a blurb that it was probably only a matter of time before it gets married to linsniffer or whatever...there seemed to be a large number of submissions before me when I submitted, so anonymous must have been in that group. Makes me wonder what was with /. that made everyone so busy...
People who advocate the linux model underestimate how much real-world users won't follow the implicit or explicit security rules. Even me, using it for a number of years (slackware, redhat, a few others), and following the virus news groups off and on for a decade, I got hacked recently 'cause I just don't have the time or inclination to spend all my non-work hours patching stoopidass security holes. I have a real computer job, after all. Fortunately not much damage was done because I had so much half-configured crap on there.
But I gotta say, people who blame the user for being vulnerable, ought to be mugged.
By the way, I'm not reading email until I get around to reinstalling an OS again. It seems the first thing you need to do when your unix gets hacked is get off the net.
Nuhno! Wasn't trying to be some old condescending asshole! I was just commenting on how the ENTIRE 'net world used the term 'bandwidth'. Hell even I use it in that sense at times. Kinda wonder where it got started...
I first heard it used in that sense 20 years ago, and it was already well established. It comes from the basic copper-wire fact that the amount of information transmittable is a function of the width of the frequencies available. Telephones, for example, don't even send the male human voice fundamental. So since you can't increase the limit of width, the only way to increase the amount of information throughput is to increase its speed. So increasing the speed became interchangeable with increasing the bandwidth. Which, if you think about it, it is.
Gotta agree with ya there. In my experience the attitude has been more "if it ain't broke don't fix it" than "upgrade party this weekend! (as always)". In fact, most of the time you have to go out of the way to conciously say "uhhh, yeah we've put of upgrading such and such for too long" because the version they have been using is so moldy and stale that it has finally started to become a problem. Any place that has done a significant upgrade (and has any brains) learns really quickly that upgrades are a time and resource and productivity hog and that you really need a good justification for them.
I gotta say, I've seen both places, and worse, places that do both. For example, in the year and a half or so I've been at my current workplace, they've upgraded my PC 3 times. Now, that would be cool, except each time they've treated it like some lusers PC and broken all the stuff I need to do my job ("Oh, you can't just copy it and run it under Windows 2000?"). I would really prefer just getting a nicer monitor. On the other hand, some of the stuff I work on, trying to drag them up to a current supported level is near impossible. Sheesh. I guess it's the difference between a thousand things that cost a thousand dollars, and one thing that costs a thousand-thousand dollars.
It leaves the task of tracking specific files to a completely separate piece of software called dpkg. Or, if you use the "beta" version of apt-get, the database of files installed would be maintained by RPM.
Does this mean that rpm and apt-get are merging anyways? That would moot Nick's whole arg.
The bugs are bigger than your computer
2001-03-18 08:23:07
I am an official seer
Phone support and remote admin are two different things. They should both be done, adapted to each situation.
For example, when the help desk sees my workstation, they go "whoah!" - I've got a bunch of db admin tools and mucho obscure stuff. Every so often, management decrees changes to everyones work station, and mine inevitably gets screwed up. SMS is the worst.
Now we are getting a big contract for EDS to replace all help desk and PC support. Many of us are hunkering down and expecting to avoid calling them as much as possible. Pretty counter-productive.
And imagine if a bunch of us get desktop Linux!
Sell a man a fish you get a dollar. Sell him a cert program you get thousands.
And the literary metaphors we choose to employ in debates "effect the way we see a problem and the way we solve a problem," he said.
The effect of the effect is affecting my affect.
My actions will effect change
My affect will be flat after I burn my brains on slashdot
Really! About 10 years ago, I worked in a computer room at Camp Pendelton. As part of an Armed Services Committee tour, she was checking out the place I worked (I guess because someone had trumpeted how great the app was, written by two guys[not me], compared to a huge mega project that failed). The computer room was a tiny, cramped place with several contractors jammed in with the hardware, and I had no idea she was coming. I just happened to have a Government Computer News which had published a letter I had written comparing GSA procurement with Sgt Bilko. So I showed it to her and the director giving the tour. She must have thought it was a setup, even though it wasn't. She seemed nice enough. You might imagine how the politics of the mil oriented folks differed, to put it mildly, from hers, though.
In the division of a big silicon valley company (who the second founder died last month) there are 3 instances of SAP. There are only 125 staff and 1 set of business rules. Each SAP instance is incompatable with the others because in each case there are different core modifications.
While it is true some of the mods are ridiculously trivial (or are not and should be if the COTS were written correctly), reengineering the business process to a generic COTS is a waste - the business should be reengineered to improve quality, lower costs or some other positive reason. No COTS is perfect, and some are way out there in left field. Also, often a business in a particular industry has particular strengths that are not addressed by any COTS, and it would be counterproductive, to say the least, to through those strengths out. I don't know why your real life example company has 3 modified SAPs, but I'm sure the reason is a combination of silly and reasonable things.
I mean, would it be better if they had 3 different packages? (Certainly for the piggies at the trough, I mean consultants!)
The pilot has a severe case of hiccups.
crowds facial recognition works in cars
One of the reasons the Mac has such a well-loved interface (how many PC interface zealots do you know?) is that it's consistent from app to app. Basically, you buy a new Mac app, you launch it, and you figure it out on the first try.
The other side of this is, there really was only one big app on the Mac - desktop publishing. Everything else is just minor detritus. When other OS's caught up on this app, Apple nearly went under - the only reason they didn't was marketing by you-know-who. And even that still might not work.
The article didn't really say much. It's basically an illustration that out of the specific killer app, none of those Apple folk know jack about computers.
Regarding interfaces on the web and so forth, as things are now no one does it right. They just all copy each other, running back and forth like wildebeests. I hope that eventually someone will actually use some ergonomic correctness based on accurate physiological research and the herd will notice and follow - but not likely.
We would all be interested if you would post the memo you got telling you about this discussion, stimulating you to post.
what did a blue box look like?
It varied, because they were home built. Generally, someone would buy a general purpose box from a retailer or mailorder (such as Newark Electronics). The ones I saw were all black, maybe 6" x 4" IIRC, or no box at all just a breadboard.
This was in L. A. contemporaneous with the Jobs/Wozniak stuff, although AFAIK I never saw one of those.
I'll bet they use certified NT administrators to administer their unix boxes.
.mil sites... an administrator is an adminstrator, right?
Hey, I've seen it at
But it took six months for anyone with a white hat to notice!!!
I'll have a pretty intersting story to tell about how that can be a self-correcting problem in a forum like Slashdot.
./'s case, we're all geeks here). In the more general case, it favors urban legendry. In the most general case (TV), it favors stupidity.
Self-correction in a public forum only works if the participants are both well informed and relatively homogenous (in
Think about what happens when you get credited with something bad that you didn't write. How do you prove a negative? That has happened to many of us on usenet, and often the only way to beat it is to both browbeat the accusers and demonstrate that someone else posted it. If you can't do both, you're TSOL.
And don't be dependent on deja or google - those are just temporary solutions which will go away "soon."
If you break the law, then YOU have the full responsibility - not me, not some ISP, not some guy with a cable modem or DSL line.
Care to quote the Romanian law the fellow has broken?