That's because they get part of it there, part of the time.
My former employer (who must remain nameless) went from using FedEx for all shipments, to UPS. Since I was doing hardware technical support for them, I got to hear about the results. I will *NEVER* ship anything by UPS again. Not in this lifetime. The incidence of broken equipment skyrocketed. Even to the point that a large rackmounted system that was packed in a wooden moving crate on top of a pallet, had a forklift driven THROUGH the crate, the system and then out the other side.
Maybe you still don't understand this, but playing with Nerf toys isn't *work*. Work is providing a valuable service for an employer, which they then pay you for. Unless you're testing usability of Nerf products, what you're lamenting just doesn't count as work.
Enjoying what you do for work, and being able to have fun while doing it, is something different altogether. It's something that most people never have the good fortune to experience. For most of us, having a job and making enough money to pay the bills is the most important part of a job. There are some of us (myself included) who do actually get enjoyment out of it, like what we're doing and the people we do it with. But we're few and far between. You're point of view about work is incredibly skewed, which isn't surprising since the jobs you've had before this were all for dotbombs whose only reason for existence was to burn through as much venture capital as possible before anyone ever found out they didn't have a product and never would. Exactly the kind of company I've actively avoided, while still working in the tech industry.
Welcome to the real world. I hope you're doing a good job, because otherwise someone better will be sitting in your chair soon.
I really was an addict a few years ago. Spent my time at work online, and then went home to be connected all night. It got old after a while, though and I went back to having a life and not being online nearly as much.
So why is it that losing DSL at home (thank you oh so much, Northpoint) was so traumatic? I got used to being able to look for things online, rather than elsewhere. If I needed to know the address of the audio/video store that can fix my DVD player, I automatically went online and then to mapquest when I wanted to know where it was. But suddenly all that was gone, and it's a huge adjustment. It's tough not to be able to check email 6 times during the evening, and read 16 different reviews of whatever movie I'm considering going to see. And how can I check out the latest pictures of my nieces without a web browser? When you have a constant connection, these things just become normal ways of doing things. It's part of your life, and becomes transparent. Rather than addiction, at least in my case, the ease of use has made accessing information (and all of the other activities I do online) ubiquitous.
Believe it or not, tech support is my chosen profession. I *like* helping people fix their problems. Fortunately for my sanity, I've gone from taking calls about why a cheap PC that someone bought for their kid to have for Christmas doesn't work out of the box, to managing a small group that supports extremely high-end storage on *nix servers. The difference is profound, both in the type of support offered, the business model behind the support, and the level of expertise exhibited by the end users. All of these things are important when you talk about tech support's deficiencies, or lack thereof.
The business model for the world I live in is that you pay to play. Yes, the product comes with a one year warranty, and we will cheerfully help (on the phone) anyone who's ever bought our product if they call during business hours. But that's where the good part ends, unless you've purchased a support contract. The company I work for has set up my group as a profit center. They pay us very well, and we work as hard as it takes to keep all of our customers happy. But good support (from the vendor's point of view) can't be overhead costs. Having former *nix admins man your support center is really expensive, and that's what it takes to do the type of support we provide. This cost is passed on to the customer. But in turn, the customer expects (and receives) a very high level of response.
Since the stuff we sell is fantastically expensive, and gets attached to very high-end big iron, the people who call us are never without a clue. We're pretty confident that any time the support hotline phone rings, we won't be walking someone through how to move a file off a CD and into their file system. Yes, they can still be irate, but that's a reality of the support world. But the frustration of trying to help people who really need an education, rather than tech support, doesn't come into it.
All of these things add up to a great support group, for our customers, the company I work for, and the people who actually provide the voice on the other end of the phone. Take away just one part of it, and tech support goes back to being the nightmare job that NO AMOUNT of money will make worth doing.
While I'm not surprised that Northpoint went under, it is pretty annoying. My ISP (Verio) still hasn't notified me that my DSL would be going away, even though the line went down at 10am yesterday morning and will never return. Fortunately, I heard about it through other sources last Friday and immediately ordered Sprint Broadband. They gave me an installation date of less than 2 weeks from when I ordered, the service is *LESS* expensive than the Northpoint IDSL line I had, and the speed is several times faster.
About Sprint's Broadband: They give you 1 static IP when you order the consumer-type connection. You can get up to 3 additional static IPs for $10 per month each. They don't want you serving out commercial pages and stuff with the residential service, but you can do NAT internal to your house, put up web pages, do your own DNS and mail, without a problem. My install date is April 5th, so I can't say what the actual speed will be until then, but it's GOT to be better than a 144k IDSL line.
Yup! I got mine. It took about 4 or 5 weeks. I also registered in the very first wave when it was announced. You'll get it eventually, but it might be too late to participate in the nomination process.
It's incredible to see a government agency siding against big business, and with the private citizen here. It makes me wonder if maybe there is some small amount of accountability left in the US, rather than corporations being allowed to do whatever they please, whenever they please.
Or it could just be a token gesture, done to lull the masses into complacency. It's very easy for people to not look closely at what's going on around them, as long as thing can be perceived as being ok.
I have to say, that's a pretty impressive stereotype you've managed to throw out there. I beg to differ.
You haven't seen us, because you haven't looked. We definitely exist. Wander by linuxchix.org sometime and see. Or maybe look at the engineering departments of various software and hardware companies. Or in technical support. I can't speak for all women, just for myself, so I won't make any broad, sweeping statements that put words in everyone's mouth. I do know that I'm here, reading Slashdot and occasionally posting. But I don't feel the need to be loud, call attention to myself, or prove my technical ability. My job at a software company, the things I do with my computers, and the rest of my life are enough.
It looks like another useless example of a country attempting to legislate against something that happens outside of their sphere of influence. France has now joined ranks with Australia in attempting to control what their people see and think.
Here's the rub, though. Will we still laugh at them when most countries in the world have done the same thing, and ours joins them? What then? Once there is no longer somewhere else to locate the servers, it's far too late to stand up for your rights.
Working in Silicon Valley, I've experienced the completely rabid search for IT people first hand. From both sides. There's definitely a shortage, but it's not clear cut, and it's not across the board.
When I was looking for a new job 6 months ago, I hadn't realized that there's a distinct shortage of *nix competent people. Being a sysadmin, the second I put out my resume, I got swamped with calls. But I know of other people who live in the M$ world who barely got any calls at all when they started a job search.
Now I'm trying to get more staff to fill in positions for the company I got a job with. It's REALLY DIFFICULT. We get tons of resumes, and interview dozens of people. But none of them are competent. I've seen resumes that would make you think someone is a sysadmin god, and when they're sitting in the interview, they don't know the name of HP's flavor of unix. Even though it's on their resume!
So no, there's no shortage of IT people. But there's a severe shortage of competent IT people.
Congratulations to the city of Holland. It's nice to see there are occasionally communities who choose accountability and involvement in their children's lives, over a cop out. Filtering software is simply the latest wayin which people can feel they're no longer responsible for their own actions, and don't need to pay attention to what their own children are doing. Kudos to the people of Holland for rejecting a trend that has become all too familiar in our society.
The problem is not currently one of editorial integrity. We've all amply seen that it exists, and will most likely continue to do so. The problem, as I see it, is perception.
When weekly "alternative" newspapers become mainstream, they lose credibility when they're bought by one of the media conglomerates. The very community whose voice they were created to be, is no longer who will listen to them. You've seen this any number of times when alternative TV or radio stations are subsumed into a corporate media giant, who swears they will change nothing. Inevitably, that proves to be a lie. Whether or not this happens to Slashdot, the perception that it will is quite pervasive. Personally, I hope for the best, but fear the worst. It's happened far too many times before.
And now, all involved will disappear in a puff of logic.
It's very disturbing when a court filing actually negates the substance of the actual case. Maybe the military is involved here somewhere, 'cause I can't see any other way for things to get quite this stupid.
I had to laugh after reading your post. Not because of what you said, but because of your using Lizard as an example. I know him. You inadvertantly picked someone who *is* a 'young white male' to support your point.
The other unfortunate thing, is that my experience has been the complete opposite of yours. But then, I'm on the receiving end of being female. Because I choose not to be anonymous, or use an ambiguous handle, I seem to be fair game. Good thing I have a thick skin and have been online for a long, long time. I've seen a number of people withdraw entirely from posting/discussions/etc. because of it. Of course, this is entirely anecdotal, so I could be among the unfortunate few. It seems unlikely.
Perhaps, but you're not taking into account who the majority of people now wandering about online are. They're not the technologically adept. They're (for lack of a better example) AOL users. Novices to all things online, with no idea what's going on. Will they stick around to become more knowlegeable about the community of people who are mostly pretty decent? No way. They'll stick to highly moderated or censored areas where they feel safe, and suddenly we have big divisions between the 'techno elite' and the 'idiot masses'. This stifles communication, not to mention stagnating the separate communities.
Flaming appears in every forum on the net. You can go to IRC, MUDs, or whatever your preference and it's there. And it's always self-moderated. When a thread/MUD/channel gets too vitriolic, people go elsewhere. Eventually even the most flame-crazed will get quiet when they realize there's nobody listening. Then the cycle starts over in a different place, with a different subject. I've noticed that it usually doesn't matter what the subject is. That's merely an excuse for flaming.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because they get part of it there, part of the time.
My former employer (who must remain nameless) went from using FedEx for all shipments, to UPS. Since I was doing hardware technical support for them, I got to hear about the results. I will *NEVER* ship anything by UPS again. Not in this lifetime. The incidence of broken equipment skyrocketed. Even to the point that a large rackmounted system that was packed in a wooden moving crate on top of a pallet, had a forklift driven THROUGH the crate, the system and then out the other side.
It's less expensive than a 4 bedroom house in Woodside, CA. But I sure wouldn't want to see the utility bills.
Maybe you still don't understand this, but playing with Nerf toys isn't *work*. Work is providing a valuable service for an employer, which they then pay you for. Unless you're testing usability of Nerf products, what you're lamenting just doesn't count as work.
Enjoying what you do for work, and being able to have fun while doing it, is something different altogether. It's something that most people never have the good fortune to experience. For most of us, having a job and making enough money to pay the bills is the most important part of a job. There are some of us (myself included) who do actually get enjoyment out of it, like what we're doing and the people we do it with. But we're few and far between. You're point of view about work is incredibly skewed, which isn't surprising since the jobs you've had before this were all for dotbombs whose only reason for existence was to burn through as much venture capital as possible before anyone ever found out they didn't have a product and never would. Exactly the kind of company I've actively avoided, while still working in the tech industry.
Welcome to the real world. I hope you're doing a good job, because otherwise someone better will be sitting in your chair soon.
I really was an addict a few years ago. Spent my time at work online, and then went home to be connected all night. It got old after a while, though and I went back to having a life and not being online nearly as much.
So why is it that losing DSL at home (thank you oh so much, Northpoint) was so traumatic? I got used to being able to look for things online, rather than elsewhere. If I needed to know the address of the audio/video store that can fix my DVD player, I automatically went online and then to mapquest when I wanted to know where it was. But suddenly all that was gone, and it's a huge adjustment. It's tough not to be able to check email 6 times during the evening, and read 16 different reviews of whatever movie I'm considering going to see. And how can I check out the latest pictures of my nieces without a web browser? When you have a constant connection, these things just become normal ways of doing things. It's part of your life, and becomes transparent. Rather than addiction, at least in my case, the ease of use has made accessing information (and all of the other activities I do online) ubiquitous.
Believe it or not, tech support is my chosen profession. I *like* helping people fix their problems. Fortunately for my sanity, I've gone from taking calls about why a cheap PC that someone bought for their kid to have for Christmas doesn't work out of the box, to managing a small group that supports extremely high-end storage on *nix servers. The difference is profound, both in the type of support offered, the business model behind the support, and the level of expertise exhibited by the end users. All of these things are important when you talk about tech support's deficiencies, or lack thereof.
The business model for the world I live in is that you pay to play. Yes, the product comes with a one year warranty, and we will cheerfully help (on the phone) anyone who's ever bought our product if they call during business hours. But that's where the good part ends, unless you've purchased a support contract. The company I work for has set up my group as a profit center. They pay us very well, and we work as hard as it takes to keep all of our customers happy. But good support (from the vendor's point of view) can't be overhead costs. Having former *nix admins man your support center is really expensive, and that's what it takes to do the type of support we provide. This cost is passed on to the customer. But in turn, the customer expects (and receives) a very high level of response.
Since the stuff we sell is fantastically expensive, and gets attached to very high-end big iron, the people who call us are never without a clue. We're pretty confident that any time the support hotline phone rings, we won't be walking someone through how to move a file off a CD and into their file system. Yes, they can still be irate, but that's a reality of the support world. But the frustration of trying to help people who really need an education, rather than tech support, doesn't come into it.
All of these things add up to a great support group, for our customers, the company I work for, and the people who actually provide the voice on the other end of the phone. Take away just one part of it, and tech support goes back to being the nightmare job that NO AMOUNT of money will make worth doing.
While I'm not surprised that Northpoint went under, it is pretty annoying. My ISP (Verio) still hasn't notified me that my DSL would be going away, even though the line went down at 10am yesterday morning and will never return. Fortunately, I heard about it through other sources last Friday and immediately ordered Sprint Broadband. They gave me an installation date of less than 2 weeks from when I ordered, the service is *LESS* expensive than the Northpoint IDSL line I had, and the speed is several times faster.
About Sprint's Broadband: They give you 1 static IP when you order the consumer-type connection. You can get up to 3 additional static IPs for $10 per month each. They don't want you serving out commercial pages and stuff with the residential service, but you can do NAT internal to your house, put up web pages, do your own DNS and mail, without a problem. My install date is April 5th, so I can't say what the actual speed will be until then, but it's GOT to be better than a 144k IDSL line.
Yup! I got mine. It took about 4 or 5 weeks. I also registered in the very first wave when it was announced. You'll get it eventually, but it might be too late to participate in the nomination process.
It's incredible to see a government agency siding against big business, and with the private citizen here. It makes me wonder if maybe there is some small amount of accountability left in the US, rather than corporations being allowed to do whatever they please, whenever they please.
Or it could just be a token gesture, done to lull the masses into complacency. It's very easy for people to not look closely at what's going on around them, as long as thing can be perceived as being ok.
Cynical? Me?
It could have been much, MUCH longer, but someone, somewhere, showed restraint. Don't you wish someone had done that with Dune?
I have to say, that's a pretty impressive stereotype you've managed to throw out there. I beg to differ.
You haven't seen us, because you haven't looked. We definitely exist. Wander by linuxchix.org sometime and see. Or maybe look at the engineering departments of various software and hardware companies. Or in technical support. I can't speak for all women, just for myself, so I won't make any broad, sweeping statements that put words in everyone's mouth. I do know that I'm here, reading Slashdot and occasionally posting. But I don't feel the need to be loud, call attention to myself, or prove my technical ability. My job at a software company, the things I do with my computers, and the rest of my life are enough.
It looks like another useless example of a country attempting to legislate against something that happens outside of their sphere of influence. France has now joined ranks with Australia in attempting to control what their people see and think.
Here's the rub, though. Will we still laugh at them when most countries in the world have done the same thing, and ours joins them? What then? Once there is no longer somewhere else to locate the servers, it's far too late to stand up for your rights.
Working in Silicon Valley, I've experienced the completely rabid search for IT people first hand. From both sides. There's definitely a shortage, but it's not clear cut, and it's not across the board.
When I was looking for a new job 6 months ago, I hadn't realized that there's a distinct shortage of *nix competent people. Being a sysadmin, the second I put out my resume, I got swamped with calls. But I know of other people who live in the M$ world who barely got any calls at all when they started a job search.
Now I'm trying to get more staff to fill in positions for the company I got a job with. It's REALLY DIFFICULT. We get tons of resumes, and interview dozens of people. But none of them are competent. I've seen resumes that would make you think someone is a sysadmin god, and when they're sitting in the interview, they don't know the name of HP's flavor of unix. Even though it's on their resume!
So no, there's no shortage of IT people. But there's a severe shortage of competent IT people.
Congratulations to the city of Holland. It's nice to see there are occasionally communities who choose accountability and involvement in their children's lives, over a cop out. Filtering software is simply the latest wayin which people can feel they're no longer responsible for their own actions, and don't need to pay attention to what their own children are doing. Kudos to the people of Holland for rejecting a trend that has become all too familiar in our society.
The problem is not currently one of editorial integrity. We've all amply seen that it exists, and will most likely continue to do so. The problem, as I see it, is perception.
When weekly "alternative" newspapers become mainstream, they lose credibility when they're bought by one of the media conglomerates. The very community whose voice they were created to be, is no longer who will listen to them. You've seen this any number of times when alternative TV or radio stations are subsumed into a corporate media giant, who swears they will change nothing. Inevitably, that proves to be a lie. Whether or not this happens to Slashdot, the perception that it will is quite pervasive. Personally, I hope for the best, but fear the worst. It's happened far too many times before.
And now, all involved will disappear in a puff of logic.
It's very disturbing when a court filing actually negates the substance of the actual case. Maybe the military is involved here somewhere, 'cause I can't see any other way for things to get quite this stupid.
I had to laugh after reading your post. Not because of what you said, but because of your using Lizard as an example. I know him. You inadvertantly picked someone who *is* a 'young white male' to support your point.
The other unfortunate thing, is that my experience has been the complete opposite of yours. But then, I'm on the receiving end of being female. Because I choose not to be anonymous, or use an ambiguous handle, I seem to be fair game. Good thing I have a thick skin and have been online for a long, long time. I've seen a number of people withdraw entirely from posting/discussions/etc. because of it. Of course, this is entirely anecdotal, so I could be among the unfortunate few. It seems unlikely.
Perhaps, but you're not taking into account who the majority of people now wandering about online are. They're not the technologically adept. They're (for lack of a better example) AOL users. Novices to all things online, with no idea what's going on. Will they stick around to become more knowlegeable about the community of people who are mostly pretty decent? No way. They'll stick to highly moderated or censored areas where they feel safe, and suddenly we have big divisions between the 'techno elite' and the 'idiot masses'. This stifles communication, not to mention stagnating the separate communities.
Flaming appears in every forum on the net. You can go to IRC, MUDs, or whatever your preference and it's there. And it's always self-moderated. When a thread/MUD/channel gets too vitriolic, people go elsewhere. Eventually even the most flame-crazed will get quiet when they realize there's nobody listening. Then the cycle starts over in a different place, with a different subject. I've noticed that it usually doesn't matter what the subject is. That's merely an excuse for flaming.