I had a prof for discrete math that work heavily on linguistice reseach... check out some of his papers and contact him for more info. http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/rodman/
There are also a couple major points to not consider leasing.
While you only lease it for 3 years, if you buy it you may own it for 5-7 years. So people that do not perform computing intensive tasks could care less about getting their PC refreshed.
Accounting can depreciate it on taxes.
When the life of the equipment is over you can donate the equipment to a needy organization for a tax write off.
Buying in large quantities will yield discounts if you create a bidding situation.
Get corporate IT involved along with accounting if you are considering a major refresh. Also start crunching numbers, look at total equipment and support costs per year for your organization. Then see if you can buy and support the equipment cheaper and for a longer period of time.
If you are spending 150 (after late fees) for a floppy that costs $15 at the local computer store or though the manufacturer of the equipment and have overruns like this consistently then something is definitely wrong in the organization.
Sure globalization is great. Corporations outsource high paying jobs to keep higher profit margins. But, when globalization interferes with region based releases it's a problem. I know it's a stretch to compare the two but it is all about a connected world.
You're on the right track... think along the lines of a preloaded Mac Mini (or similar) that has the ability to be a set top box. Plug and play to the degree that Grandma and Grandpa don't have to fuss with a lot of the overhead that comes with a computer.
Want to use that camera the kids gave you for Christmas a year ago... just plug it in (Mac being Mac, the connection will take of it's self), and the Google service that is running in the background will recognize the camera and autmotically upload to your Google share.
Far fewer problems with incompatible software and when something does go wrong you can have faith that Google will take care of it because it's affecting their whole user base.
This is a very similar concept to the movie industry. Why pay 8 bucks for a new release when I can wait a little bit and pay $5 at a discount theater, or better yet, wait a little bit longer and only pay $3 to rent the movie. Even so, I think the movie industry would profit hugely if the came up with a good digital distribution system similar to iTMS where the quality is good but not an exactly digital copy of the master for $1.50 per movie.
Floaters/Pop-up/banner ads they're just the billboards of the WWW. If I recall there are still groups that fight billboard placement and new billboard development.
What if you came up with set of criteria and ran your music library through it. Then your player could rcognize what music you are playing/skipping and automatically adjust the playlist to trend toward things you are listening to at the momemnt. Forget random... now it's an educated guess.
You didn't get the job because you forgot to protect your interests. You should have given them an executable and a CD of the source encrypted. That way you hold the key and your release of the key is contingent on the offer.
There's always going to be some need for ageing technologies. Just make sure you know what else is going on in the field. Pick up another language or two and use it in some small projects. This way you'll feel more comfortable when you have a need to use it because another technology has been EOL'd. I'm still using VB6 only because management won't spring for.NET and we're a MS partner so they don't want to use anything other than MS technology... typical uninformed management.
I've gotten to the point where I just don't care. Piss and moan all you want but I have other things that take a higher priority than what you're asking me to do. If it is a manager, or higher up, that asks for something ask them where their task falls in your prioritized list. Generally a VP will recognize that changing toner in his printer comes after replacing a bad switch that is keeping a bunch of people from doing work.
My short list would be: 1) Don't let their emotions affect you (or at least sympathize with them eg. I'm sorry you're printer is out of toner but if I don't get the network fixed 20 people aren't going to be able to meet their deadlines.) 2) Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize some features or tasks are more important than others. (e.g. being able to enter data into an application is more important that writing a report to get the info out... that can come later when you actually have data to report on.) 3) Always do the best job you can to satisfy the user's needs but if you have other pressing requests don't try to achieve perfection. 4) If it requires you to work extra hours, make sure you record that extra time. You might not get paid for it... but down the road when things get so hectic and you ask for a subordinate you can show how much extra you're having to do just to get the basics done.
I'm not exaclty a huge democrat and I don't want to see the results overturned
While overturning the current result would cause a lot of issues with people, the official counts have not been reported. Therefore, there is not an official result, just the preliminary counts.
It will be interesting to see what blackboxvoting.org turns up. Really how difficult is it to do some quick checks on the vote counts to look for irregularities on election night?
It's been my experience that the company provides the training and the employee guarantees to stay at the company for X months, if the contract is broken the employee is required to repay the company the cost of the training.
For the most part, there is no shortage of IT people, unless you live in Silicon Valley. Recently I graduated from a good engineering school, with a degree in comp sci, expecting to move to CA and find a job in a matter of weeks, well life changed that. I ended up moving to Atlanta and after three months of looking am still unemployed. What's the deal, I graduated with above average credentials and a lot of work experience but can't get a recruiter to talk to me. I've posted on a large number of job search engines, 12 to be exact, and on numerous corporate sites. I've suspended my goal of working for a startup and am willing to consider just about anything at this point, even flipping burgers.
So here is what I feel the real problem is, time after time I see the phrase 1-2 yrs. exp required and a link to an email address that often read hr@blahblahblah.com. Well I've talked to a couple of HR people and they have no clue what's going on, but they are all too willing to say, "we are looking for somebody with more experience." Another problem that I see is that companies are not willing to take a recent grad and give them the training they need, after all how many college students know how to program/use COM/DCOM, ATL, XML, Oracle, and on and on. Last I checked very few universities offer classes in these technologies.
Slashdot Mirror
I had a prof for discrete math that work heavily on linguistice reseach... check out some of his papers and contact him for more info.
http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/rodman/
I think you are thinking about the new Discovery Health reality show called "Trading Faces"
Sorry, couldn't resist.
For some reason I get the feeling that there will be a number of pranksters entering things like:
CowboyNeal's house
Latitude: 38.8975
Longitude: -77.03667
There are also a couple major points to not consider leasing.
While you only lease it for 3 years, if you buy it you may own it for 5-7 years. So people that do not perform computing intensive tasks could care less about getting their PC refreshed.
Accounting can depreciate it on taxes.
When the life of the equipment is over you can donate the equipment to a needy organization for a tax write off.
Buying in large quantities will yield discounts if you create a bidding situation.
Get corporate IT involved along with accounting if you are considering a major refresh. Also start crunching numbers, look at total equipment and support costs per year for your organization. Then see if you can buy and support the equipment cheaper and for a longer period of time.
If you are spending 150 (after late fees) for a floppy that costs $15 at the local computer store or though the manufacturer of the equipment and have overruns like this consistently then something is definitely wrong in the organization.
Sure globalization is great. Corporations outsource high paying jobs to keep higher profit margins. But, when globalization interferes with region based releases it's a problem. I know it's a stretch to compare the two but it is all about a connected world.
Let me guess... you are a Microsoft "fanboi".
You're on the right track... think along the lines of a preloaded Mac Mini (or similar) that has the ability to be a set top box. Plug and play to the degree that Grandma and Grandpa don't have to fuss with a lot of the overhead that comes with a computer.
Want to use that camera the kids gave you for Christmas a year ago... just plug it in (Mac being Mac, the connection will take of it's self), and the Google service that is running in the background will recognize the camera and autmotically upload to your Google share.
Far fewer problems with incompatible software and when something does go wrong you can have faith that Google will take care of it because it's affecting their whole user base.
This is a very similar concept to the movie industry. Why pay 8 bucks for a new release when I can wait a little bit and pay $5 at a discount theater, or better yet, wait a little bit longer and only pay $3 to rent the movie. Even so, I think the movie industry would profit hugely if the came up with a good digital distribution system similar to iTMS where the quality is good but not an exactly digital copy of the master for $1.50 per movie.
Floaters/Pop-up/banner ads they're just the
billboards of the WWW. If I recall there are still groups that fight billboard placement and new billboard development.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer until they commit suicide.
What if you came up with set of criteria and ran your music library through it. Then your player could rcognize what music you are playing/skipping and automatically adjust the playlist to trend toward things you are listening to at the momemnt. Forget random... now it's an educated guess.
You didn't get the job because you forgot to protect your interests. You should have given them an executable and a CD of the source encrypted. That way you hold the key and your release of the key is contingent on the offer.
There's always going to be some need for ageing technologies. Just make sure you know what else is going on in the field. Pick up another language or two and use it in some small projects. This way you'll feel more comfortable when you have a need to use it because another technology has been EOL'd. I'm still using VB6 only because management won't spring for .NET and we're a MS partner so they don't want to use anything other than MS technology... typical uninformed management.
I'd like to know what consistutes a bug.
I've gotten to the point where I just don't care. Piss and moan all you want but I have other things that take a higher priority than what you're asking me to do. If it is a manager, or higher up, that asks for something ask them where their task falls in your prioritized list. Generally a VP will recognize that changing toner in his printer comes after replacing a bad switch that is keeping a bunch of people from doing work.
My short list would be:
1) Don't let their emotions affect you (or at least sympathize with them eg. I'm sorry you're printer is out of toner but if I don't get the network fixed 20 people aren't going to be able to meet their deadlines.)
2) Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize some features or tasks are more important than others. (e.g. being able to enter data into an application is more important that writing a report to get the info out... that can come later when you actually have data to report on.)
3) Always do the best job you can to satisfy the user's needs but if you have other pressing requests don't try to achieve perfection.
4) If it requires you to work extra hours, make sure you record that extra time. You might not get paid for it... but down the road when things get so hectic and you ask for a subordinate you can show how much extra you're having to do just to get the basics done.
I'm not exaclty a huge democrat and I don't want to see the results overturned
While overturning the current result would cause a lot of issues with people, the official counts have not been reported. Therefore, there is not an official result, just the preliminary counts.
It will be interesting to see what blackboxvoting.org turns up. Really how difficult is it to do some quick checks on the vote counts to look for irregularities on election night?
But the beauty of this is that you _know_ that people are working on it.
But does it make phone calls?
It's been my experience that the company provides the training and the employee guarantees to stay at the company for X months, if the contract is broken the employee is required to repay the company the cost of the training.
For the most part, there is no shortage of IT people, unless you live in Silicon Valley. Recently I graduated from a good engineering school, with a degree in comp sci, expecting to move to CA and find a job in a matter of weeks, well life changed that. I ended up moving to Atlanta and after three months of looking am still unemployed. What's the deal, I graduated with above average credentials and a lot of work experience but can't get a recruiter to talk to me. I've posted on a large number of job search engines, 12 to be exact, and on numerous corporate sites. I've suspended my goal of working for a startup and am willing to consider just about anything at this point, even flipping burgers.
So here is what I feel the real problem is, time after time I see the phrase 1-2 yrs. exp required and a link to an email address that often read hr@blahblahblah.com. Well I've talked to a couple of HR people and they have no clue what's going on, but they are all too willing to say, "we are looking for somebody with more experience." Another problem that I see is that companies are not willing to take a recent grad and give them the training they need, after all how many college students know how to program/use COM/DCOM, ATL, XML, Oracle, and on and on. Last I checked very few universities offer classes in these technologies.