From what I recall (and it has been a very long time) the entire idea would have made conscientious objectors unnecessary. It wasn't mandatory to enter service. You just couldn't become a citizen without it. The idea explained in the book was that the people who successfully completed their duty had proven their ability to think about the welfare of others over their own welfare, and thus were best suited to vote, since that's what government is all about. I'm not sure I agree with it working out that way in practice, but the theory is interesting.
BTW: Had I wished to steal massive amounts of data, I could have still simply sent them via e-mail in a password-encrypted archive. It's a matter of trust, not only of making it difficult. So basically powerful and clueless management are equally effective as power-abusing admins.
Right, but what you forget is that "clueless management" don't impose these sort of things on a whim. They were a response to the tighter regulations imposed by the federal government in the wake of the early 00's accounting scandals (Enron, WorldCom). The companies were forced to "do something" and they did. Nevermind that it is trivially easy to bypass these sort of things...
In some cases you are right, but the company I worked for wasn't a financial company of any kind and when a couple of the management people (the son of the owner and his brother-in-law) left the company after a argument, the owner wanted the internet stuff locked down for what amounted to a whim. He was afraid people would goof off rather than work. The sad thing is that policy just destroyed morale for the employees left behind by the split and some who previously didn't bother with internet related stuff during work no longer cared, and worked to subvert the system. Eventually they were fired, but we were losing people so quickly back then no one noticed why anyone was gone, which just hurt morale even more. I left when they decided to get rid of the IT department completely. They tried an outside company for a while, but when they feel down on their faces and failed, their response was just to get rid of it completely.
...restrain them in their seats an hour before landing?
I suppose you could gas the plane with sedatives and make everyone go to sleep. Better hope they have independant atmosphere in the cockpit though. Hey, maybe that was what they discovered on that flight, perhaps it was a test run?/s
With friends like those, who needs enemies? Ok, that might be a stretch, but my friends and I all share books and we actually give them back, either when we are done with them or when they are asked for, so I have no problem seeing the difference between loaning books and deleting books on the Kindle.
I actually thought your response was pretty funny. I worked with some Professional Windows 'guys' at my last job. One was a professional programmer in his forties. Turned out he didn't know how file systems worked on Linux. No biggie (though he was converting some Perl scripts from Linux to Windows). Except he didn't know how to step through Windows file systems, either. I don't take this to mean Windows guys don't know anything about system administration. These particular guys were frauds. They didn't know as much as they said they did, and they were able to fool someone who didn't know anything about computers that they meet through church (my boss). The 'Linux pro' you worked with should have known about running 'netconfig' as root and then 'service network restart'.
I've worked with all kinds of 'pros' that didn't know their basic information about whatever they were supposed to be a pro about. It happens in every field, though computers seem to be somewhat more prone to scam artists than others, but that may just be my perception because I'm in that field. I don't take that to be a problem with the field as much as I see that as a basic problems with some people. Though I suppose the useless certifications that don't actually prove anything could be considered a problem with the field.
I switched from Windows to Linux about 10 years ago now. I still use Windows XP to play the occasional game, but that's all it is good for anymore. I started with Gentoo, though I had used Knoppix a bit before that. Even then there were so many things that were easier to do in Linux than Windows, and they worked so much better that I became a fanboy. Were there problems? Oh, yeah! But unlike the problems I had with Windows there were answers. You see, when I tried to run servers of various kinds in Windows before that I ran into problems. So what did I do? I searched for answers online. But most of the time, all I could find were other people with the same damn problem, and no one with a working solution. With Linux I would find other people with the same problem, but they had a solution, and surprisingly it almost always worked for me, too. And if it didn't, someone else had a solution that did. Sure, this is doing all kinds of things the average user would never need to do. But since I wanted to learn to program in something other than VB and PHP (and being rather cash poor) I had to be willing to work at it.
I still find somethings that work better on Linux than Windows, from printers to network cards, so I find it extremely funny when someone talks about things not working in Linux. I'm sure those things still exist, but I guess I'm just lucky because I run into the opposite more often than not.
Neither one of those is relevant with any modern distro (any more than your original points were). If he had something that exotic he'd have trouble getting any OS working on it, ever.
From my experience, there are a couple of companies that own certain aspects of accounting and inventory management for automotive dealerships and none of them seem to do any work on adding features or fixing bugs (unless you pay them handsomely for it). And since the auto companies require certain providers to be used for these aspects, there isn't much competition. The two main ones that I've had to deal with seem to be perfectly happy leaving the other be, rather than starting an arms race, they seem to like the lock-in they have right now.
Just a quick question. How long did that take you to come up with? I mean I know what it is based on, but did it just pop unbidden into your head, or did you really work on it?
You hit it on the head. The management style matters, but also the willingness to share the pain but stay out of the way. Don't distract, but don't be completely invisible, either. Management makes a difference. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. For me, the definition of a good employee is one who knows when to get in the way of things (because they are being done poorly and it needs to change) and when to get out of the way (because they would only be a hindrance), and that is regardless of position, experience, or type of work being performed. So far I haven't worked anywhere that had more than half of the positions filled by good employees, but my happiness was directly proportional to the percentage of good employees.
Here, I can wash that out of your mind with this (don't blame me for ruining your sanity though.) The really scary thing is I found this as an actual book that someone paid money to print, in a book store. It reminds me of the joke from Lewis Black about what causes aneurysms.
It only runs on an MS OS right now, and I didn't see any mention (though I may have missed it) of what he used to code it (MS tool-wise) so I think you need to reread the article. Or even the summary.
What he's saying is that doesn't happen. Not that it couldn't, but that it doesn't. Even if something is possible, if it never happens in nature, you could safely ignore the possibility (usually) as if it didn't exist.
I just wanted to let you know I feel your pain. I worked at this place a while back and I really liked my job. It didn't pay that well, but I felt important and had a massive amount of freedom. Then they hired a consultant to come in and take over IT. He knew how to run a business, but next to nothing about IT (though he knew just enough lingo to fool people who did for a few days). His 'programmer' didn't understand how to navigate file systems on Windows with Perl (and was supposedly a Perl guy). Being a Linux guy myself, I figured maybe he was, too. No, he had never even used Linux. Once I found that out I started to get rather scared and discouraged, because he was reworking a complicated, arcane, mission-critical system. I demanded all passwords be changed and that I not be given any of them because I didn't want to be blamed when they screwed everything up (plausible deniability). After assuring me that they (my bosses) wouldn't, and finally relenting another month later they finally fired the guys because they couldn't get anything working. At all. I even told them where to start to get a feel for what they needed to be able to do on it, and they still couldn't do it. They didn't even know enough to mess it up (generally the easiest thing to do). So management's answer was to just not have any sort of IT department at all. I could do all of the old IT manager's job, plus my old one, for the same pay and no possibility for advancement. So I gave them a month's notice and left. Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done (the economy tanked about 6 months later) but since most everyone else had left or been laid off around the same time, I'm not sure how much a difference it would have made to do otherwise.
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From what I recall (and it has been a very long time) the entire idea would have made conscientious objectors unnecessary. It wasn't mandatory to enter service. You just couldn't become a citizen without it. The idea explained in the book was that the people who successfully completed their duty had proven their ability to think about the welfare of others over their own welfare, and thus were best suited to vote, since that's what government is all about. I'm not sure I agree with it working out that way in practice, but the theory is interesting.
Wait... You don't walk around in constant terror wondering if you might not exist in the next moment? What kind of wacko are you?
It's also intensely stupid.
So it is entirely unlike a Hooloovoo then?
After reading your post I did some searching and found this: War of the Jesse Wall. Rather long, but an interesting read.
They're immune to search, seizure, suit, legal proceedings, taxes, and their families too.
I want to be immune to my family, too!
BTW: Had I wished to steal massive amounts of data, I could have still simply sent them via e-mail in a password-encrypted archive. It's a matter of trust, not only of making it difficult. So basically powerful and clueless management are equally effective as power-abusing admins.
Right, but what you forget is that "clueless management" don't impose these sort of things on a whim. They were a response to the tighter regulations imposed by the federal government in the wake of the early 00's accounting scandals (Enron, WorldCom). The companies were forced to "do something" and they did. Nevermind that it is trivially easy to bypass these sort of things...
In some cases you are right, but the company I worked for wasn't a financial company of any kind and when a couple of the management people (the son of the owner and his brother-in-law) left the company after a argument, the owner wanted the internet stuff locked down for what amounted to a whim. He was afraid people would goof off rather than work. The sad thing is that policy just destroyed morale for the employees left behind by the split and some who previously didn't bother with internet related stuff during work no longer cared, and worked to subvert the system. Eventually they were fired, but we were losing people so quickly back then no one noticed why anyone was gone, which just hurt morale even more. I left when they decided to get rid of the IT department completely. They tried an outside company for a while, but when they feel down on their faces and failed, their response was just to get rid of it completely.
I think you missed something. He's saying those sites are not blocked.
You sir, are an evil, evil person. Also, your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
...restrain them in their seats an hour before landing?
I suppose you could gas the plane with sedatives and make everyone go to sleep. Better hope they have independant atmosphere in the cockpit though. Hey, maybe that was what they discovered on that flight, perhaps it was a test run? /s
It made me LOL. The typical kind.
With friends like those, who needs enemies? Ok, that might be a stretch, but my friends and I all share books and we actually give them back, either when we are done with them or when they are asked for, so I have no problem seeing the difference between loaning books and deleting books on the Kindle.
I actually thought your response was pretty funny. I worked with some Professional Windows 'guys' at my last job. One was a professional programmer in his forties. Turned out he didn't know how file systems worked on Linux. No biggie (though he was converting some Perl scripts from Linux to Windows). Except he didn't know how to step through Windows file systems, either. I don't take this to mean Windows guys don't know anything about system administration. These particular guys were frauds. They didn't know as much as they said they did, and they were able to fool someone who didn't know anything about computers that they meet through church (my boss). The 'Linux pro' you worked with should have known about running 'netconfig' as root and then 'service network restart'.
I've worked with all kinds of 'pros' that didn't know their basic information about whatever they were supposed to be a pro about. It happens in every field, though computers seem to be somewhat more prone to scam artists than others, but that may just be my perception because I'm in that field. I don't take that to be a problem with the field as much as I see that as a basic problems with some people. Though I suppose the useless certifications that don't actually prove anything could be considered a problem with the field.
I switched from Windows to Linux about 10 years ago now. I still use Windows XP to play the occasional game, but that's all it is good for anymore. I started with Gentoo, though I had used Knoppix a bit before that. Even then there were so many things that were easier to do in Linux than Windows, and they worked so much better that I became a fanboy. Were there problems? Oh, yeah! But unlike the problems I had with Windows there were answers. You see, when I tried to run servers of various kinds in Windows before that I ran into problems. So what did I do? I searched for answers online. But most of the time, all I could find were other people with the same damn problem, and no one with a working solution. With Linux I would find other people with the same problem, but they had a solution, and surprisingly it almost always worked for me, too. And if it didn't, someone else had a solution that did. Sure, this is doing all kinds of things the average user would never need to do. But since I wanted to learn to program in something other than VB and PHP (and being rather cash poor) I had to be willing to work at it.
I still find somethings that work better on Linux than Windows, from printers to network cards, so I find it extremely funny when someone talks about things not working in Linux. I'm sure those things still exist, but I guess I'm just lucky because I run into the opposite more often than not.
Ah, more FUD. Do you ever run out? LOL
Neither one of those is relevant with any modern distro (any more than your original points were). If he had something that exotic he'd have trouble getting any OS working on it, ever.
He should try a distro that came out in the last 5 years. Heck, even Gentoo doesn't make it that hard anymore (though it does take that long still).
I don't think the judgment would be particularly civil in that case.
From my experience, there are a couple of companies that own certain aspects of accounting and inventory management for automotive dealerships and none of them seem to do any work on adding features or fixing bugs (unless you pay them handsomely for it). And since the auto companies require certain providers to be used for these aspects, there isn't much competition. The two main ones that I've had to deal with seem to be perfectly happy leaving the other be, rather than starting an arms race, they seem to like the lock-in they have right now.
Damn it, he's going to have to buy a crematorium or something now. Especially after the last season. 8^(
Just a quick question. How long did that take you to come up with? I mean I know what it is based on, but did it just pop unbidden into your head, or did you really work on it?
You hit it on the head. The management style matters, but also the willingness to share the pain but stay out of the way. Don't distract, but don't be completely invisible, either. Management makes a difference. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. For me, the definition of a good employee is one who knows when to get in the way of things (because they are being done poorly and it needs to change) and when to get out of the way (because they would only be a hindrance), and that is regardless of position, experience, or type of work being performed. So far I haven't worked anywhere that had more than half of the positions filled by good employees, but my happiness was directly proportional to the percentage of good employees.
Most bosses I've had already chew developers up and spit them out. This would save them that last step!
Here, I can wash that out of your mind with this (don't blame me for ruining your sanity though.) The really scary thing is I found this as an actual book that someone paid money to print, in a book store. It reminds me of the joke from Lewis Black about what causes aneurysms.
That would actually make these 'games' worth while.
It only runs on an MS OS right now, and I didn't see any mention (though I may have missed it) of what he used to code it (MS tool-wise) so I think you need to reread the article. Or even the summary.
What he's saying is that doesn't happen. Not that it couldn't, but that it doesn't. Even if something is possible, if it never happens in nature, you could safely ignore the possibility (usually) as if it didn't exist.
I just wanted to let you know I feel your pain. I worked at this place a while back and I really liked my job. It didn't pay that well, but I felt important and had a massive amount of freedom. Then they hired a consultant to come in and take over IT. He knew how to run a business, but next to nothing about IT (though he knew just enough lingo to fool people who did for a few days). His 'programmer' didn't understand how to navigate file systems on Windows with Perl (and was supposedly a Perl guy). Being a Linux guy myself, I figured maybe he was, too. No, he had never even used Linux. Once I found that out I started to get rather scared and discouraged, because he was reworking a complicated, arcane, mission-critical system. I demanded all passwords be changed and that I not be given any of them because I didn't want to be blamed when they screwed everything up (plausible deniability). After assuring me that they (my bosses) wouldn't, and finally relenting another month later they finally fired the guys because they couldn't get anything working. At all. I even told them where to start to get a feel for what they needed to be able to do on it, and they still couldn't do it. They didn't even know enough to mess it up (generally the easiest thing to do). So management's answer was to just not have any sort of IT department at all. I could do all of the old IT manager's job, plus my old one, for the same pay and no possibility for advancement. So I gave them a month's notice and left. Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done (the economy tanked about 6 months later) but since most everyone else had left or been laid off around the same time, I'm not sure how much a difference it would have made to do otherwise.