I'm on my fourth SE. I already have fifth in the mail, just in case. My third Amazon refurb. I also carry around an iPhone 7 for work, so I do know some of what I'm "missing" in the newer form factor.
Since the SE, Apple has not made a better phone for me. 1 - The size of the whole phone, when including the mandatory slim case one needs, is right. If Apple wants me to buy a tablet, it shouldn't force me to have a phone that competes with that purchase. 2 - The edges are squared, not rounded. This makes holding the phone easier. Aesthetically the nicest as well - a completely subjective point of view. 3 - It supports fingerprint-based login, not face recognition. This is my strong preference. I do not want face scanning for login. I would prefer to go back to PIN entry first. 4 - The SE is still fast enough. I do not notice performance issues. The network is usually what is slow. I am on Verizon on a grandfathered unlimited plan, which occasionally suffers from Verizon's punitive congestion management.
Downsides and Improvement Opportunities 1 - Apple's Support Posture. This is an EOL device. Some app developers give it little attention, resulting in rare, but potentially frustrating UI artifacts and issues. 2 - Not Water Resistant. Water issues have killed two of my SEs. 3 - Wasted Screen Space The SE could be updated to take up the rest of the available screen real estate. 4 - Needs the standard updates new phones get. Any new spectrum support. Anything for LTE/5G. Bluetooth updates. Force touch. Face recognition should be optional.
Like the Mac Mini, Apple is mismanaging the iPhone product line. Between the Mac Mini's lobotomy in 2014 and its return to usefulness in in 2018, the best Mini you could buy was *slower* than the middle tier in 2012. During that time, an Apple executive made jokes on stage at one of the big Apple reveal events about people who used a five-year-old PC, revealing that a) Apple no longer recognized its products' oft-cited longevity as part of the brand promise and b) the executive didn't understand the irony that Apple was not being a good steward of its own products.
In the iPhone's case, Apple is using the strength of its platform, its walled garden, to force current consumers into more expensive phones. While it looks good on paper, Apple is spending on an important account - its relationships with its customers.
This is an easy problem to solve. Launch the SE2 with similar form factor and the obvious improvements to baseline. Sell it for $450-600 depending on storage. Launch new features at higher tiers with higher prices.
Not veiling the imbalance. It is obviously a factor.
Those skipping interviews after agreeing to be there are perpetuating the wrong they are crying about. In doing so, they also strengthen the practice as a norm. When we skip an interview with Company A for Company B's bad behavior, we transferring the harm when the neither we, nor Company A, deserved the treatment. If we want to improve the situation, we model the good behavior; we don't perpetuate the bad. Painting all firms with with the same broad brush is not only unfair, but ignorant. Companies are made of people, and a growing subset are adopting the bad behavior.
If we are truly committed to cordiality and responsible communication between employer and employee, no one can adopt the bad behavior and then cry about others when they do. Let's take the higher ground and be civil. We can only protest from the high ground, and I'll stand with you from that position. For anyone who wants to skip interviews without calling to cancel, you should get a free pass from employers or responsible employees.
There are imbalances, both structural and based on scale. Some of our struggle, arguably, comes from emergent properties that come from these differences. For example, we discuss as though one had a relationship with their company. But in reality, there are the individuals in the company, there is the legal relationship between 'corporate' entity and the individual, and there is the structure of the value generated by the role. I don't think we'll be able to get around describing in unbalanced terms, and yes, it is happeneing.
I focus on the applicants because they are the target of my advice. The recruiters we refer to may represent the company, but are not, in fact, the company. They often will not understand the position they are hiring for. They are just a person, and not the one most a part of the potential relationship. When they 'snub', they may be doing a mediocre job, and underperforming in what they're asked to do. My point is that we know the situation on the employer side is often more complex, and we shouldn't take things as personally (even though it sucks). Yes, it reflects badly on the employer, yes, you'll remember it, etc.
On 3 - They aren't. Both sides are dealing with a difficult reality. When, as a hiring manager, your whole day is blocked off to meet applicants, and half don't show, it is a hardship. Both sides have real stakes.
Employers' job is not to solve everyone's unemployment problem. It's not a tenable position.
We have a generation (millennials) in the US that had worse economic circumstances than many feel was fair. Despite the hard feelings that many have, I argue that taking the optimistic and deferential approach, rather than being cynical, will provide better outcomes for everyone involved.
One point I neglected to make was that there are rare times when it may be appropriate, even at a late stage, for the company to stop communicating entirely. This happened once, to me, and I was furious, but was lucky to find out why later. The company entered into merger talks and was instructed by its legal and finance teams to stop communicating 100% with outside parties that weren't operationally integral. So I got the silent treatment, and I hated it. My point is that there are reasons that we may never find out, and we need to expect that, even if it seems rude.
In many of the comments, I'm seeing folks equating not showing up for a mutually agreed interview as being a misdeed equivalent to not returning a response to an application. This just isn't the case. Once an agreement has been made, it should either be honored or the party that cannot meet its commitment should handle the commitment with due car; if you can't make it, you should inform the other and provide as much notice as possible.
In the game of employee-employer matchmaking, we should dispassionately understand a few things. 1 - Both sides show their values throughout the process, and choices made will be remembered. 2 - Many listings are semi-genuine - On the employer side, many job listings must go up, even if there are likely employees in mind for the position, due to legal and regulatory requirements. In these cases, employers often do consider applications that come in, but the candidates face an uphill battle. 3 - Many applications aren't genuine - they are filled out because the applicant is required to show evidence of having attempted to gain employment as a condition of receiving unemployment benefits.
The Non-Obligation to Return Initial Communication 4. A response to an initial direct communication is a courtesy, not an obligation. 5. If an employer tells you, "if you don't hear back, you didn't get the job" after a meaningful interview, they are doing you a favor. They mean "keep looking." If the employer follows this message with an offer or request for interviews, they are doing so from a less advantageous conversational position than if they had been more cordial. 6. Without automation, the cost of responding to each application is quite high. Many employers don't have this. Employees should understand this.
In a strong economy, a listing may receive three, ten, or twenty weak applicants to respond to. In a strong economy, it may be hundreds.
After Meaningful Communication - The duty of courtesy grows with the relationship. 7. If the employer and employee trade significant conversation, and send signals that plan to continue to pursue the other, it signals to the other that they may want to decline other opportunities or change how they allocate their time. This is where each party should consider the costs the other party may bear. At this point, either party should expect a signal to the other if the relationship is off. 8. Formal commitments, like a mutually agreed, scheduled interviews, should be kept if at all possible. Either side should take commitment failure at this stage to be indicative of the quality of the relationship if formally entered. 9. When an employer takes too long to return a response after formalities, it is sometimes less the result of values at the company, and more the result of an overly complicated consensus culture or dysfunction at that firm. Take it with an eye roll, not as a grievance. 10. Either party may provide *more* courtesy than what is described above. That reflects a higher standard in that person or organization, and the employee should recognize and appreciate it.
- Regardless of the economy, healthy relationships require continued commitment and care. Though it seems to be getting rarer, we should play our part with the expectation of achieving that aim. Otherwise, in our disillusionment, we may leave potentially great relationships on the table due to our own bad behavior.
Milk was milk before companies turned it into a brand. But you're right that trademarks are a serious and expensive game.
Still, wouldn't it be more enjoyable to watch Milk vs Melk play out in the news? What about "Mlikish" as a fallback for when Melk doesn't work? Mlikish is clearly not Milk, as is made perfectly clear by the ISH.
I personally prefer our melky, milkish options over what comes out of the cow.
And to Anonymous Coward, my apologies. *Upper Midwest*!
The problem comes down to economics. You're buying a device that requires DC power, and the manufacturer is not going to decide the converter; it is going to choose an existing DC converter and supply it with the device. They might put a sticker on it. The socket-friendly option would cost a dollar or two more, which, when included in the Amazon price, just might give the competing device the edge. You and the other buyers didn't research the socket friendliness of the device, and there would be little opportunity for the manufacturer to convey this advantage in the first place.
What incentive does the manufacturer have to improving products this way? Not enough to add $1 to the price. So there you have it.
BTW, the article was incoherent. Let me coin the term "blogspreading" to refer to an article that takes up space and makes you spend more time than necessary to figure out what it's talking about.
In business school, they taught me to value the customer relationship over its lifetime. They also taught to think of all of the folks involved in the lifecycle of the product, including impacted non-customers, as important stakeholders. Oracle's approach has always been shortsighted, but it's painting with too broad a brush to treat all of the business educated as dollar chasing world breakers. Oracle's faults are Oracle's. Their shortsightedness is the result of *not* listening to sound advice, including that of MBAs.
I don't believe this is true. There will certainly be disruption and the need to "reskill" or "retrain." And there will be some who have a hard time doing so. But the machines simply aren't going to replace certain types of work for a number of reasons.
(1) We prefer people doing some thing. (2) Our needs and consumption desires change. We always want the next thing. (3) By not being able to think like humans do, the machines aren't going to be able to address our needs. They can't deal with categorical dissonance, consciously experience and interpret sense data, relate on tough judgement call issues, define "good enough" criteria for making a choice in unprecedented circumstances, etc.
Capriguy84,
Over the last few years, I have worked with a service provider on what to an outsider would sound very similar. The organization's processes, applications, and information had been distributed throughout the company on an ad hoc and project basis, resulting in an irrational de facto architecture that contributed inefficiency to practically every activity. For any organization, addressing these systemic issues will always be a work in progress. Although my case differs in scale by more than a factor of 100, I think the lessons I've taken may apply for you as well.
1 - Dysfunction is not a product of the technical situation. It is a product of management. Thus, it can only be addressed by management. For you, this means you have the opportunity to lead the organization to the right outcome, and you will have to get management support to get folks to change their processes. It looks like this: a) Identify the outcomes the org is looking for. Not "FAQs on the same server," but "Knowledge Management - Processes and technology to get and KEEP key company information accessible when necessary and secure." b) Obtain management support on the outcome. c) Explain the steps and costs needed - technical and non-technical. Management must ensure that new knowledge lands in the right place and people to go to the right place for the info. d) Implement - the technology and the culture changes e) Evaluate.
2 - What you are doing is not unique to your organization. Practically every firm has this problem in varying degrees. Go scan through the book "Faster Cheaper Better" by Michael Hammer to see an articulation of the issue at a very high level - not specific to knowledge management.
3 - There are frameworks that help guide the architecture process. Have a look at TOGAF. These are model driven, and frankly, they are very hard to consume and live by. Nevertheless, the point of these is roughly the same. When the problem is too large, divide and conquer. Model the organization and subject matter by dividing it into its parts. Prioritize, strategize, etc. Having the model enables you to ensure that solutions at the micro level are in harmony with those at the macro, etc. TM Forum does this for telecoms.
4 - Since the most important part of the job is getting buy in from management and those having to live through the culture change, your soft skills are more important than the tech skills.
All this might look like killing an ant with a sledgehammer. I suggest that you take a little time glance through material on how this is done at large scale and apply whatever seems pertinent.
This thread already has great posts in it. I'm an amateur who has recently done a good bit of research and made some purchases.
Prior to this 2011, I usually kept a small point-and-shoot around for a few years at a time. Each one took some great photos, and plenty of throw aways. That was until I had a chance to use a friend's Nikon D40, an older 6MP DSLR. I discovered with it that I had far more control, especially over focus and depth of field. All of the sudden, I could put the subject into focus quickly, and I found I was getting better results. From this experience, I went on a research binge and ended up making two purchases soon after. I bought a Canon ELPH SD4000 IS, a Point-and-Shoot that works well in low light, for my girlfriend. I got a Nikon D3100, an entry level DSLR. Here is a quick list of what I learned.
1 - The world is full of great cameras. A good photographer can make great work with most or all of them, and the best camera can't make up for a poor photographer. 2 - The DSLR world is as much about lenses as camera bodies. Canon and Nikon seem to be the two that most folks are religious about, and both have their mutually-incompatible lens styles. Every dollar toward one lens style gets you further invested in that family of lenses. It's not a bad thing, but you'll want to school up if you go the DSLR route. Have a sense for how the UIs work, the lens options (including compatibility with cameras), the relative prices, etc. 3 - Despite my Nikon D3100 having 14MP and all around "better specs" in most regards, I have little practical benefit to having my DSLR vs. the one borrowed. I get the joy of having more control with both, and I know I can shoot photos that could be printed to be somewhat larger. Scaling images down, my photos might be slightly more forgiving than those of the D40. In truth, if I were taking the same photos with either, I would have the same keepers. 4 - DSLRs carry a stigma in crowds. Carrying a point-and-shoot, you can take your pictures and put them away. Pulling out a DSLR means everyone around knows they're on camera. 5 - The Canon SD4000 IS does the best of job of no-flash low-light shots of any point and shoot I have seen. It does better than my DSLR with stock lens due to having a lower aperture. If your shots are mainly of people indoors at their homes, in restaurants, at clubs, or in other night settings, pulling out a DSLR will not only inspire poses or turned backs, but will probably require more tuning. I am not endorsing this camera as the best at this, but only that I was satisfied that I matched the camera to the kinds of shots that would be taken. I would have been less happy with a general purpose point and shoot. 6 - I have no experience with the "DSLR-like" cameras in the mid range, except that very good photographers I know downsize to these to have a camera that they can take with them anywhere. 7 - Borrow a camera if you can. I was very happy that I did.
Once you know what you'll use it for and what it is that encourages you, you'll be in a better position to figure out what camera will fit you.
On zeroing out your drive or partition:
If you zero out a drive, whatever you use to get bootstrapping started (traditionally MBR), describing the extents of your volumes (partition table), and your filesystems themselves will not write over most of those zeros. So whether you do it to the whole drive (say../dev/sda) or the volume (/dev/sda1) should depend on what you're trying to do and what will be getting imaged.
On the use of DD at the drive or volume level: - You can back up whole drives, but you must restore to something at least the size of the original drive. Plus, you will lose any additional space when you restore to a larger drive. You may be able to add additional volumes with your partition tool or resize what you have, but you begin to erode the value of this approach. - You can image the volumes/partitions, but you'll have to ensure that the partition table describing the extent of the partition does so the same way, with the same size. - The most important thing about either approach is that you have a strong understanding of what is and isn't getting imaged when you use the DD tool.
The craziest thing I have done with this method: (Circa 2003, I think) I had 3 PATA drives set up as a Linux RAID 5. Two of the drives relied on the same cable and drive controller.. some of you already know what will go wrong here.. The cable or controller failed, and I had a failed RAID 5 volume that would be risky to rebuild. And it had important files.:) I had to find a way to rebuild it, so I needed to attempt to rebuild from copies. The three RAIDed drives were/dev/sdb,/dev/sdc, and/dev/sdd, so they were members of the RAID set as whole drives, not partitions. Using a 250G drive, I created 3 partitions/dev/sda1,/dev/sda2, and sda3, and DDed each raid set member into its respective position on the new drive. I then configured linux to see the three partitions as a raid set. Sure enough, Linux asked if I would like to rebuild the raid set. I said yes, and Linux successfully rebuilt the set into a working RAID5 volume based on 3 partitions that existed on the same disk.
A couple of lessons - 1 - There is no difference between the block device identified as the drive and those identified as partitions on the drive. They are differentiated based on their use by the OS. 2 - Don't be dumb like me. Follow best practices with RAIDs, backups, and protecting your data.
The lesson I take from this is that the local retail is doomed unless we figure out how to address the online tax advantage.
Borders is a high profile example of a brick and morter shop that can't compete in an environment where its primary competition has an unnatural advantage. Amazon doesn't pay sales tax. Sure, it had some missteps along the way, like having Amazon run its web sites. But if Borders can't compete, do you think Mom and Pop retailers will? This impacts not or future local retailing environment, but local employment, too. Sure, online stores can be more efficient, but even a local preference for local retail won't compensate for a 5-10% price penalty.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm on my fourth SE. I already have fifth in the mail, just in case. My third Amazon refurb. I also carry around an iPhone 7 for work, so I do know some of what I'm "missing" in the newer form factor.
Since the SE, Apple has not made a better phone for me.
1 - The size of the whole phone, when including the mandatory slim case one needs, is right. If Apple wants me to buy a tablet, it shouldn't force me to have a phone that competes with that purchase.
2 - The edges are squared, not rounded. This makes holding the phone easier. Aesthetically the nicest as well - a completely subjective point of view.
3 - It supports fingerprint-based login, not face recognition. This is my strong preference. I do not want face scanning for login. I would prefer to go back to PIN entry first.
4 - The SE is still fast enough. I do not notice performance issues. The network is usually what is slow. I am on Verizon on a grandfathered unlimited plan, which occasionally suffers from Verizon's punitive congestion management.
Downsides and Improvement Opportunities
1 - Apple's Support Posture. This is an EOL device. Some app developers give it little attention, resulting in rare, but potentially frustrating UI artifacts and issues.
2 - Not Water Resistant. Water issues have killed two of my SEs.
3 - Wasted Screen Space The SE could be updated to take up the rest of the available screen real estate.
4 - Needs the standard updates new phones get. Any new spectrum support. Anything for LTE/5G. Bluetooth updates. Force touch. Face recognition should be optional.
Like the Mac Mini, Apple is mismanaging the iPhone product line. Between the Mac Mini's lobotomy in 2014 and its return to usefulness in in 2018, the best Mini you could buy was *slower* than the middle tier in 2012. During that time, an Apple executive made jokes on stage at one of the big Apple reveal events about people who used a five-year-old PC, revealing that a) Apple no longer recognized its products' oft-cited longevity as part of the brand promise and b) the executive didn't understand the irony that Apple was not being a good steward of its own products.
In the iPhone's case, Apple is using the strength of its platform, its walled garden, to force current consumers into more expensive phones. While it looks good on paper, Apple is spending on an important account - its relationships with its customers.
This is an easy problem to solve. Launch the SE2 with similar form factor and the obvious improvements to baseline. Sell it for $450-600 depending on storage.
Launch new features at higher tiers with higher prices.
Not veiling the imbalance. It is obviously a factor.
Those skipping interviews after agreeing to be there are perpetuating the wrong they are crying about. In doing so, they also strengthen the practice as a norm.
When we skip an interview with Company A for Company B's bad behavior, we transferring the harm when the neither we, nor Company A, deserved the treatment.
If we want to improve the situation, we model the good behavior; we don't perpetuate the bad.
Painting all firms with with the same broad brush is not only unfair, but ignorant. Companies are made of people, and a growing subset are adopting the bad behavior.
If we are truly committed to cordiality and responsible communication between employer and employee, no one can adopt the bad behavior and then cry about others when they do. Let's take the higher ground and be civil. We can only protest from the high ground, and I'll stand with you from that position. For anyone who wants to skip interviews without calling to cancel, you should get a free pass from employers or responsible employees.
I agree with you, and my point is that the company is showing you their values by providing that response. That is the favor.
There are imbalances, both structural and based on scale. Some of our struggle, arguably, comes from emergent properties that come from these differences. For example, we discuss as though one had a relationship with their company. But in reality, there are the individuals in the company, there is the legal relationship between 'corporate' entity and the individual, and there is the structure of the value generated by the role. I don't think we'll be able to get around describing in unbalanced terms, and yes, it is happeneing.
I focus on the applicants because they are the target of my advice. The recruiters we refer to may represent the company, but are not, in fact, the company. They often will not understand the position they are hiring for. They are just a person, and not the one most a part of the potential relationship. When they 'snub', they may be doing a mediocre job, and underperforming in what they're asked to do. My point is that we know the situation on the employer side is often more complex, and we shouldn't take things as personally (even though it sucks). Yes, it reflects badly on the employer, yes, you'll remember it, etc.
On 3 - They aren't. Both sides are dealing with a difficult reality. When, as a hiring manager, your whole day is blocked off to meet applicants, and half don't show, it is a hardship. Both sides have real stakes.
Employers' job is not to solve everyone's unemployment problem. It's not a tenable position.
I have healthy relationships with those with whom I transact. If you can't, it may say more about you than it does about the job market.
Last time you went to a restaurant, how did you tip?
I agree pretty much with all of your response.
We have a generation (millennials) in the US that had worse economic circumstances than many feel was fair. Despite the hard feelings that many have, I argue that taking the optimistic and deferential approach, rather than being cynical, will provide better outcomes for everyone involved.
One point I neglected to make was that there are rare times when it may be appropriate, even at a late stage, for the company to stop communicating entirely. This happened once, to me, and I was furious, but was lucky to find out why later. The company entered into merger talks and was instructed by its legal and finance teams to stop communicating 100% with outside parties that weren't operationally integral. So I got the silent treatment, and I hated it. My point is that there are reasons that we may never find out, and we need to expect that, even if it seems rude.
In many of the comments, I'm seeing folks equating not showing up for a mutually agreed interview as being a misdeed equivalent to not returning a response to an application. This just isn't the case. Once an agreement has been made, it should either be honored or the party that cannot meet its commitment should handle the commitment with due car; if you can't make it, you should inform the other and provide as much notice as possible.
In the game of employee-employer matchmaking, we should dispassionately understand a few things.
1 - Both sides show their values throughout the process, and choices made will be remembered.
2 - Many listings are semi-genuine - On the employer side, many job listings must go up, even if there are likely employees in mind for the position, due to legal and regulatory requirements. In these cases, employers often do consider applications that come in, but the candidates face an uphill battle.
3 - Many applications aren't genuine - they are filled out because the applicant is required to show evidence of having attempted to gain employment as a condition of receiving unemployment benefits.
The Non-Obligation to Return Initial Communication
4. A response to an initial direct communication is a courtesy, not an obligation.
5. If an employer tells you, "if you don't hear back, you didn't get the job" after a meaningful interview, they are doing you a favor. They mean "keep looking." If the employer follows this message with an offer or request for interviews, they are doing so from a less advantageous conversational position than if they had been more cordial.
6. Without automation, the cost of responding to each application is quite high. Many employers don't have this. Employees should understand this.
In a strong economy, a listing may receive three, ten, or twenty weak applicants to respond to. In a strong economy, it may be hundreds.
After Meaningful Communication - The duty of courtesy grows with the relationship.
7. If the employer and employee trade significant conversation, and send signals that plan to continue to pursue the other, it signals to the other that they may want to decline other opportunities or change how they allocate their time. This is where each party should consider the costs the other party may bear. At this point, either party should expect a signal to the other if the relationship is off.
8. Formal commitments, like a mutually agreed, scheduled interviews, should be kept if at all possible. Either side should take commitment failure at this stage to be indicative of the quality of the relationship if formally entered.
9. When an employer takes too long to return a response after formalities, it is sometimes less the result of values at the company, and more the result of an overly complicated consensus culture or dysfunction at that firm. Take it with an eye roll, not as a grievance.
10. Either party may provide *more* courtesy than what is described above. That reflects a higher standard in that person or organization, and the employee should recognize and appreciate it.
- Regardless of the economy, healthy relationships require continued commitment and care. Though it seems to be getting rarer, we should play our part with the expectation of achieving that aim. Otherwise, in our disillusionment, we may leave potentially great relationships on the table due to our own bad behavior.
Milk was milk before companies turned it into a brand. But you're right that trademarks are a serious and expensive game.
Still, wouldn't it be more enjoyable to watch Milk vs Melk play out in the news? What about "Mlikish" as a fallback for when Melk doesn't work? Mlikish is clearly not Milk, as is made perfectly clear by the ISH.
I personally prefer our melky, milkish options over what comes out of the cow.
And to Anonymous Coward, my apologies. *Upper Midwest*!
Non-dairy milk alternatives have an easy solution. Adopt the midwest's pronunciation and just call it "melk". Easy enough, right?
The problem comes down to economics. You're buying a device that requires DC power, and the manufacturer is not going to decide the converter; it is going to choose an existing DC converter and supply it with the device. They might put a sticker on it. The socket-friendly option would cost a dollar or two more, which, when included in the Amazon price, just might give the competing device the edge. You and the other buyers didn't research the socket friendliness of the device, and there would be little opportunity for the manufacturer to convey this advantage in the first place.
What incentive does the manufacturer have to improving products this way? Not enough to add $1 to the price. So there you have it.
BTW, the article was incoherent. Let me coin the term "blogspreading" to refer to an article that takes up space and makes you spend more time than necessary to figure out what it's talking about.
The Quad Core Mac Mini I bought in 2012 is faster than any Mac Mini sold in 2018. Get it together, Apple.
In business school, they taught me to value the customer relationship over its lifetime. They also taught to think of all of the folks involved in the lifecycle of the product, including impacted non-customers, as important stakeholders. Oracle's approach has always been shortsighted, but it's painting with too broad a brush to treat all of the business educated as dollar chasing world breakers. Oracle's faults are Oracle's. Their shortsightedness is the result of *not* listening to sound advice, including that of MBAs.
What tech companies respect you most?
I don't believe this is true. There will certainly be disruption and the need to "reskill" or "retrain." And there will be some who have a hard time doing so. But the machines simply aren't going to replace certain types of work for a number of reasons.
(1) We prefer people doing some thing.
(2) Our needs and consumption desires change. We always want the next thing.
(3) By not being able to think like humans do, the machines aren't going to be able to address our needs. They can't deal with categorical dissonance, consciously experience and interpret sense data, relate on tough judgement call issues, define "good enough" criteria for making a choice in unprecedented circumstances, etc.
Which is why we need us.
Cheers
I make recipes for computers to follow.
Google Voice for IOS crashes on me daily. Wish you'd take some of your own medicine.
Totally agree.
In addition, zero-rated traffic types.
I'd love to see this for small business Internet Access services. Availability of static v4/v6 assignments, etc.
Batman emoji is the one I'd use the most. Surprised it wasn't isn't the original set.
Has anybody patented delivering boxes on a truck yet? Better jump on that one.
Capriguy84,
Over the last few years, I have worked with a service provider on what to an outsider would sound very similar. The organization's processes, applications, and information had been distributed throughout the company on an ad hoc and project basis, resulting in an irrational de facto architecture that contributed inefficiency to practically every activity. For any organization, addressing these systemic issues will always be a work in progress. Although my case differs in scale by more than a factor of 100, I think the lessons I've taken may apply for you as well.
1 - Dysfunction is not a product of the technical situation. It is a product of management. Thus, it can only be addressed by management. For you, this means you have the opportunity to lead the organization to the right outcome, and you will have to get management support to get folks to change their processes. It looks like this: a) Identify the outcomes the org is looking for. Not "FAQs on the same server," but "Knowledge Management - Processes and technology to get and KEEP key company information accessible when necessary and secure." b) Obtain management support on the outcome. c) Explain the steps and costs needed - technical and non-technical. Management must ensure that new knowledge lands in the right place and people to go to the right place for the info. d) Implement - the technology and the culture changes e) Evaluate.
2 - What you are doing is not unique to your organization. Practically every firm has this problem in varying degrees. Go scan through the book "Faster Cheaper Better" by Michael Hammer to see an articulation of the issue at a very high level - not specific to knowledge management.
3 - There are frameworks that help guide the architecture process. Have a look at TOGAF. These are model driven, and frankly, they are very hard to consume and live by. Nevertheless, the point of these is roughly the same. When the problem is too large, divide and conquer. Model the organization and subject matter by dividing it into its parts. Prioritize, strategize, etc. Having the model enables you to ensure that solutions at the micro level are in harmony with those at the macro, etc. TM Forum does this for telecoms.
4 - Since the most important part of the job is getting buy in from management and those having to live through the culture change, your soft skills are more important than the tech skills.
All this might look like killing an ant with a sledgehammer. I suggest that you take a little time glance through material on how this is done at large scale and apply whatever seems pertinent.
Good luck!
This thread already has great posts in it. I'm an amateur who has recently done a good bit of research and made some purchases.
Prior to this 2011, I usually kept a small point-and-shoot around for a few years at a time. Each one took some great photos, and plenty of throw aways. That was until I had a chance to use a friend's Nikon D40, an older 6MP DSLR. I discovered with it that I had far more control, especially over focus and depth of field. All of the sudden, I could put the subject into focus quickly, and I found I was getting better results. From this experience, I went on a research binge and ended up making two purchases soon after. I bought a Canon ELPH SD4000 IS, a Point-and-Shoot that works well in low light, for my girlfriend. I got a Nikon D3100, an entry level DSLR. Here is a quick list of what I learned.
1 - The world is full of great cameras. A good photographer can make great work with most or all of them, and the best camera can't make up for a poor photographer.
2 - The DSLR world is as much about lenses as camera bodies. Canon and Nikon seem to be the two that most folks are religious about, and both have their mutually-incompatible lens styles. Every dollar toward one lens style gets you further invested in that family of lenses. It's not a bad thing, but you'll want to school up if you go the DSLR route. Have a sense for how the UIs work, the lens options (including compatibility with cameras), the relative prices, etc.
3 - Despite my Nikon D3100 having 14MP and all around "better specs" in most regards, I have little practical benefit to having my DSLR vs. the one borrowed. I get the joy of having more control with both, and I know I can shoot photos that could be printed to be somewhat larger. Scaling images down, my photos might be slightly more forgiving than those of the D40. In truth, if I were taking the same photos with either, I would have the same keepers.
4 - DSLRs carry a stigma in crowds. Carrying a point-and-shoot, you can take your pictures and put them away. Pulling out a DSLR means everyone around knows they're on camera.
5 - The Canon SD4000 IS does the best of job of no-flash low-light shots of any point and shoot I have seen. It does better than my DSLR with stock lens due to having a lower aperture. If your shots are mainly of people indoors at their homes, in restaurants, at clubs, or in other night settings, pulling out a DSLR will not only inspire poses or turned backs, but will probably require more tuning. I am not endorsing this camera as the best at this, but only that I was satisfied that I matched the camera to the kinds of shots that would be taken. I would have been less happy with a general purpose point and shoot.
6 - I have no experience with the "DSLR-like" cameras in the mid range, except that very good photographers I know downsize to these to have a camera that they can take with them anywhere.
7 - Borrow a camera if you can. I was very happy that I did.
Once you know what you'll use it for and what it is that encourages you, you'll be in a better position to figure out what camera will fit you.
Good Luck!
A follow up to some comments on this approach.
On zeroing out your drive or partition: /dev/sda) or the volume (/dev/sda1) should depend on what you're trying to do and what will be getting imaged.
If you zero out a drive, whatever you use to get bootstrapping started (traditionally MBR), describing the extents of your volumes (partition table), and your filesystems themselves will not write over most of those zeros. So whether you do it to the whole drive (say..
On the use of DD at the drive or volume level:
- You can back up whole drives, but you must restore to something at least the size of the original drive. Plus, you will lose any additional space when you restore to a larger drive. You may be able to add additional volumes with your partition tool or resize what you have, but you begin to erode the value of this approach.
- You can image the volumes/partitions, but you'll have to ensure that the partition table describing the extent of the partition does so the same way, with the same size.
- The most important thing about either approach is that you have a strong understanding of what is and isn't getting imaged when you use the DD tool.
The craziest thing I have done with this method: :) I had to find a way to rebuild it, so I needed to attempt to rebuild from copies. /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, and /dev/sdd, so they were members of the RAID set as whole drives, not partitions. /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, and sda3, and DDed each raid set member into its respective position on the new drive. I then configured linux to see the three partitions as a raid set. Sure enough, Linux asked if I would like to rebuild the raid set. I said yes, and Linux successfully rebuilt the set into a working RAID5 volume based on 3 partitions that existed on the same disk.
(Circa 2003, I think)
I had 3 PATA drives set up as a Linux RAID 5. Two of the drives relied on the same cable and drive controller.. some of you already know what will go wrong here.. The cable or controller failed, and I had a failed RAID 5 volume that would be risky to rebuild. And it had important files.
The three RAIDed drives were
Using a 250G drive, I created 3 partitions
A couple of lessons -
1 - There is no difference between the block device identified as the drive and those identified as partitions on the drive. They are differentiated based on their use by the OS.
2 - Don't be dumb like me. Follow best practices with RAIDs, backups, and protecting your data.
Happy DDing.
dd is your primary tool.
zero out your drive so that when you compress it, you get a very small image.
dd if=/dev/zero of=[drive]
Install and configure your OS onto [drive]
dd if=/dev/[drive] | gzip -c > zipped_drive_image.bin.gz
to restore:
gzcat zipped_drive_image.bin.gz | dd of=[drive]
I may be a bit rusty, so the commands may need slight work. I've definitely used this method though, and it has worked well.
The lesson I take from this is that the local retail is doomed unless we figure out how to address the online tax advantage.
Borders is a high profile example of a brick and morter shop that can't compete in an environment where its primary competition has an unnatural advantage. Amazon doesn't pay sales tax. Sure, it had some missteps along the way, like having Amazon run its web sites. But if Borders can't compete, do you think Mom and Pop retailers will? This impacts not or future local retailing environment, but local employment, too. Sure, online stores can be more efficient, but even a local preference for local retail won't compensate for a 5-10% price penalty.
rhadc
Check out http://dns.comcast.net/dns-ip-addresses2.php
It's a Comcast site that provides its customers with the Opt-out DNS Servers in case they don't want the DNS Redirect functionality.