Yep... that there's more to quality software design than writing good code. And you only learn the pitfalls and hazards of various techniques through time and experience.
I always want bright people like you on my staff. But I want them managed by someone who has the experience to see when things are going down the wrong path and to redirect things when they are.
When you've been in the industry five years (note that I said "in the industry", not just "programming" -- two diffent things, and two different styles of software design) you'll probably be ready to start overseeing processes like that. Not before.
-- and I certainly don't want someone managing the development process who hasn't ever taken a college level course on development methodologies. College or lack thereof doesn't necessarily guerentee success or failure, but it's a good predictor on the average.
umm... no, it's not unprofesional. It's high quality management.
What they are trying to do is help you learn. Too often in today's workplace there is no patience to take a young person with promise and help them learn... we instead say "perform or die!"
The manager that is willing to help you learn from your mistakes rather than to simply get angry at you is pure gold -- pick their brains while you are there! And learn from their people-management skills for when you're older and have people you are mentoring or managing... you'll be glad you did.
On one level I disagree cause I want to see more space exploration.
On another level I agree because basic infrastructure should come first. While we're not perfect about this in America, the recent earthquake drives home that they really have a lot of things at home that need improving. That same earthquake in CA wouldn't have killed thousands. It'd have killed a few, but not the mass-destruction we're seeing over there.
on yet another level, though, think of it this way: India isn't looking to spend money onspace, they're looking to INVEST money in space. Note that they are targeting areas where they can make a profit. So they're attempting to boost their economy to the point where the basic infrastructure things you're talking about will be very affordable. Sounds right to me.
No -- the problem is that Jobs keeps claiming he's got the equivalent of a cure for cancer. The hard-core Macheads believe it. The rest of us know better.
Apple has always made good hardware. They've always over-hyped their features. And they've always brainwashed their followers into believing everyone ELSE is trying to you off and trying to control your machine, while Apple maintains the highest profit margins of any mainstream computer company and keeps an iron grip on what can be done with their computers.
Remember Power Computing? Remember those companies who tried to do a portable Mac a few years before Apple did and got sued out of business? Remember the guy in Europe who was able to emulate the Mac ROMs on in sofware and thus was able to get MacOS to run on Intel hardware?
...oh that's right -- none of those things exist any more. And they're probably all under court order not to talk about it.
Personally I'm not anti-Mac. I like them. But seeing what they do to the companies and consumers who support them most... I can't bring myself to give them any money.
For the most part you are right -- the customer is stupid about computers. That's why they're hiring you. (I'd say ignorant, not stupid, but that's semantics.)
But a good consultancy is profitable usually because of repeat business. And businesses talk. If you recommend a $20,000 solution, and their friend at the Rotary Club starts taling about the $5,000 solution a consultant came up with for the same problem, you're eventually gonna lose that client.
The biggest problem I had as a consultant to small businesses was that I always wanted to recommend a solution that was high quality and would save the company $$ in the long-run... and they always have some 'nephew in college who's good with computers who says we can just throw together something for 1/10 the cost'. The nephew of course has no idea about maintenence or reliability. And the customer doesn't know enough about computers to realize why the best solution is the higher priced one. So I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time justifying thigns to customers... teaching them about network and systems design and maintennece.
... and I had to charge for that time. I evenatually ended up just padding my estimates because I knew I'd have to spend that time (sometimes it's more than the acutal work).
Damn I'm glad I don't do that any more. Give me a steady paycheck with big-brother any day!
I guess what I'm getting at is two-fold:
- just because the customer is ignorant doesn't protect you from losing the contract if you rip them off. They'll find out eventually. You'll probably escape a lawsuit, but you won't keep the account.
also...
- Don't judge that other consultant too harshly. Perhaps they had good reasons for charging more, or for recommending a different system. Perhaps you're experience is the problem here. Or perhaps they're making an honest mistake... that's where most of our knowledge comes from: making mistakes in the past and learning from them.
BTW -- I would regularly build computers for customers that cost more than the $1100 Dell. Why? because my computers wouldn't crash and have hardware conflicts. That extra $$ they paid was more than made up for by not paying me to come out and fix things as often. The customers who insisted on buying cheap ended up being my best accounts profit-wise.:}
> - 802.11b wireless LAN easy add-on (and first affordable base unit)
I believe that was Cisco
> - UNIX-based (BSD, Mach) mainstream OS
You've got to be kidding! Apple invented UNIX?
> - Open Postscript imaging model everywhere
Adobe
> - Open OpenGL standard for 3D imaging
SGI
> - Promoted (BTO and standard) DVD-RAM and DVD-R
Sony
> - Digital Video monitor support standard
True -- they created two of their own properiatary interfaces. But ignoring the other standards out there to create something that accomplishes the same purpose and improves upon nothing (except forcing people to buy Apple hardware with their Macs) is not innovative, except perhaps in a marketing sense.
> - Gigabit Ethernet standard
I believe that was Cisco also.
> - SMP standard (on high-end)
That's been around since the '60s
> - Darwin open source
You mean the Darwin name, or the open-source concept? Darwin is an Apple API... of course they invented it. That's like praising Microsoft for inventing Win32. What ABOUT Darwin is so innovative?
> - QuickTime Streaming open source (server)
They own the QuickTime trademark, true. But RealNetworks was the first with streaming video servers.
> - World-class industrial design (Cinema Display, G4 Cube, Pro Mouse, Titanium G4 PowerBook, etc.)
See the above message... this is just design. Nice design, but that was his point.
> - Real Java in mainstream OS (in MacOS X)
Sun
> - First mass-market, consumer-friendly application for video editing (iMovie), audion (iTunes), DVD production (iDVD).
These have been on the shelves at software stores for 10 years. iDVD has some nice features, but is most innovative in that it brings the ease-of-use of Toast to the DVD.
Apple's done some cool stuff, but don't believe their marketing lies... they're about style, not technology. Of all the ones you named up there, the only innovation was FireWire. The rest were either someone else's innovation, or something that i would never consider an innovation (like a trademarked name, rather than an idea).
BTW -- let's not forget that this is the same company that has in the past threatened to sue their OWN user groups when the user group printed something Apple didn't like... Talk about wanting total control of your lives!
But you're asking the wrong question. It's not whether or not they CAN -- we already know they can. It's whether or not they SHOULD.
An act that is legal but ethically wrong is still abhorant to me. I was on the verge of buying a cube (so I could run UNIX as well as Dreamweaver...), but this just reminded me of why I hate apple. They make good products, but historically they have the nastiest business practices anywhere, and they consistantly screw partners and customers alike, not to mention their own "community".
So OSX look-alikes built to emulate and promote an OS people like... thanks, but you've been tossed the way of the mac clone, the OpenDoc developer, and thousands of other Apple 3rd-party screwings.
They set it up so that you can't talk to the decision maker, so the only choice is to make it difficult for them to do business. Piss off their employees so much that they quit quickly and there is such massive turnover they have to spend a lot more money to get and keep employees.
It doesn't work quickly, but if enough people did this it would in the long run.
Won't make any difference at all to mac users. They are what they are. But the survival of the company is based upon attracting NEW users.
The UNIX underpinnings will attract the technical crowd. The usability and style will attract consumer/home users. The only thing remaining is the business desk -- and Windows itself proved that if people walk into an office wanting a certain machine the comapny will follow. This was how PCs replaced Wangs and other terminals on corporate desktops in the '80s.
Good points. I agree that a newbie who needs these sorts of things should definately go witha a purchased packed distro complete with support. That's why those things exist.
It's sort of like one of the big problem with PCs through the 80s and 90s IMHO... you could buy cheap parts and slap them together into a system. Some people who did that were tinkerers who enjoyed doing that -- for them it was the right thing. Others figured that was the way to do it, and didn't understnad they were playing with cheap stuff... stuff that wouldn't always work. Those people should have bought tested Gateways or Dells and stuck with them rather than suffering though lots of incompatible parts cobbled together.
If you're not going to look too far under the hood, buy a prepackaged solution.
The problem with these questions is that they are all in terms of the way Windows does it. That woudln't be SO bad, except most of the people you're looking to guide didn't acutally understand how it worked on Windows either, so a comparison is pretty useless.
Do you know how the startup folder and autoexec works? Do you now what's acutally happening when you use device manager in Windows? If not, then comparisons will be useless, cause all you know is a UI, and the UI is different.
Yeah, since the early days of the.com craziness people have been predicting that college students would see the $$ in engineering and would run to get engineering degrees in droves... and it hasn't happened. Nice for me -- job security... we can be pretty sure we'll all be in demand for a while to come.
There's another phenomenon. When I look at incoming entry-level resumes i see a LOT of people without engineering degrees. I'm one of them in fact. And many of those people -- people with 4-year or greater degrees from very good schools, just not in engineering -- are some of the best people I've hired.
I think we're seeing a dissalusionment with higher education's ability to teach what's current. I find it unfortunate -- if there's anything _I'M_ missing it's a good grounding in the basics... something I missed by not studyign computer science. But how do you let young people know that that's important? Or do you? I mean -- a good liberal-arts education gives you the bredth of character to do all sorts of things... and I've had better results hiring those people than people with CS degrees. The out-of-field people work harder at it because they feel like they have something to prove.
In terms of other countries -- i think you're the victim of lots of standard American stereotyping. India has an excellent education system. It's not training all their people equally, but those who rise to the top get top-notch educations. And unlike us, their young people HAVE jumped at the IT boom.
Comparitively with the rest of the world's educations -- America's top 10% kick ass over most of the rest of the world's top 10%. That's why so many people come to study in college here. Our bottom 10% are failures and cannot be helped (that's true everywhere else too). It's what that middle 80% do where other ountries do much better than us. In america they flounder. We let them graduate college then they have no clue where to go. In some other countries (Japan, some European countries) they are targeted -- usually toward tech fields, and toward whatever industry is dominant where they live.
What a fucking stereotype! Some of the most brilliant people I know who got way ahead academically have equally good social lives -- one does not preclude the other. That said I guess it is worthwhile to mention -- don't want to fall into the "don't waste your time with that!" trap.
As someone with a good founding in Ed/Psych, and at least a few years in front of the classroom, i've worked with some gifted kids. My advice runs similar to what I was learned in the first year of grad school about any kid: Remember that the ACTION in education is not teaching, it's learning. The person who does that action is the child, not the "teacher", which is a completely mis-labeled term. You're nothing but an assistant.
The best thing to deal with gifted kids is to expose them to huge amounts of resources that they can explore at their own pace. Then you let them go where they want, and you simply act as a coach/guide... suggesting areas tehy may want to explore first, applications of what they're seeing, and being there for discussions. Remember, they will probably soon know more than you do about any given subject -- but discussing it is usually the best way to anchor that knowledge. So being a enthusiastic sounding-board for them is important.
Don't worry about pushing them in any particular direction... in fact pushing at all is the worst thing you can do (that includes pushing them into sports, or other stuff) because any path they choose themselves is always more interesting to them than one they were forced into. Remember that they ALREADY are far enough ahead that you don't need to worry about them having the basics down. He'll graduate high school and go on to college and get a job. So anything else he does is pure gravy, and the best way to insure he keeps inerest is to let him choose.
Also -- kids are kinetic and tacticle things. Whatever path he chooses, try to figure out ways he can create and build using it. And try to figure out what other skills are needed to create whatever project he's into, and point him toward them. (...hmm... you may need a scripting language for this. Let's take a look at Python. Hmm... may need to do some metalwork on this one -- let's learn to weld!..etc...).
The thing most kids really need is a "partner in crime"... so be there for him. Do things with him. That's the important thing -- he'll do the rest.
Yes, but Henry Ford sold tons of less-performing cars because he priced them cheap. Apple is pushing to consumers by claiming high performance, delivering less expandibility and pricing at a premium. More like PT Barnum than Henry Ford.
... but I do like the box. If it had come in at around $1000 (even up to $1200) I'd have snapped one up -- it'd be my first mac. Silence is worth something.
When you drive a battery car, you are charging it from the power grid. Unless you live in an area that relies on all nuclear power or windmills or something, you are getting your power from oil or coal burning generators. Those big plants run a lot more efficiently than a typical car engine, but you are going through many transfers of power (burn fuel to turn generator to send power along wire to feed outlet to charge battery to turn motor to push car), and those of you who took physics in high school should know that the more you transfer energy, the more you lose some of it.
Sure -- but there was a time about 12 years ago when I sat down and crunched all these numbers. The economies of scale really are pretty damn good when it comes to power generation. Even assuming coal plants and long transmission of power vs. really good engines in the cars, the "power-plant to electricity to electric cars" option ended up vastly more efficient.
As others have said -- the real problem is infrastructure. Any transition needs to include creation of infrastructure, and slow transition from one to the other so that we can use up our old gas cars and infrastructure without imposing too high a cost on the lower-income groups. If the transition is anything but instant, the lost jobs in the gasoline business will be soaked up by whatever the new infrastrucutre is.
SOME environmentalists DO think in those terms. not all, but some.
I think you mistake the libertarian philosophy for that of an anarchist.
Concepts like "less government" are deliberately vague so that politicians can get away with saying it and doing the opposite. Witness the '80s Republican stance of "less government" while raising the national debt and trippling the size of the US government. It's nothing but cheap useless political rhetoric.
What the libertarian philosophy believes is very specific. A libertarian (philosophy, not party -- i'm not sure how the party stacks up with the philosophy) is that the government is needed, but it's only needed for a couple of narrow specific purposes... anything that goes beyond those purposes is bad.
Two of those standard accepted purposes: - Defending the country from attack from foreign powers. That justifies an army, but not necessarily a large standing army. The size and nature are up for debate, but when the army is used for anything OTHER than defending from attack from foreign powers it oversteps the bounds. - Mediating disputes between citizens, and assisting in enforcing contracts.
So... the FTC in THIS case is very much in line with libertarian philosophy.
Libertarianism isn't about anarchy -- it's about the rights of the individual.
Disnet is the majority stockholder, therefore on the board of directors. Companies don't make decisions like this without passing it through the board first, therefore Disney DOES bear some responsibility.
As a (I'm assuming) preferred stock-holder, I believe Disney would also be liable for a portion of the damages if Toysmart couldn't afford to pay.
> The problem with colocation is that everyone > promises the world, but non deliver.
You can say that again! The problem is bigger than that... there are lots of colos that are "big-time" colo facilities. They all suck. But mostly they suck less than doing it yourself, and some suck more than others.
> * switched ethernet (ok, if you're talking 100 > meg colos... but if you find you're on a hub, > thats a major sign they are incomentent)
Worse that that... you end up soaking up somebody else's problems. I talked to a guy just a week ago who spent three weeks diagnosing why one of his customers wasn't getting the throughput he wanted. When he was finally able to get the data center to look into it, they figured out that since the network wasn't switched, some OTHER customer had a bunch of NT boxes doing broadcasts and clogging everything up.
Make SURE it's switched. Most are, but obviously some are not.
Basically -- if all you want is hosting, go with someone who speicalizes in that -- like a verio or an Epoch. If you're going to have multiple dedicated machiens of your own in the colo, then you gotta go with a full-service colo.
Use a service like Service Metrics to investigate the colos response-time from various points around the country so that you know its weaknesses. (I think there's a freeware version of this these days too.) Also talk to other customers to find out what they think.
It's already being done. I was in New Jersey on business and we were looking for a place to eat... the guy I was with knew a chain that had a place nearby, so he called information on his cell phone. All he did was say the name of the resteraunt. The operator says "OK -- so you're on right? It should be 2 miles ahead blah blah blah..."
You should have seen the shocked look on the guy's face!:}
Slashdot Mirror
> Maybe there's something we're missing?
Yep... that there's more to quality software design than writing good code. And you only learn the pitfalls and hazards of various techniques through time and experience.
I always want bright people like you on my staff. But I want them managed by someone who has the experience to see when things are going down the wrong path and to redirect things when they are.
When you've been in the industry five years (note that I said "in the industry", not just "programming" -- two diffent things, and two different styles of software design) you'll probably be ready to start overseeing processes like that. Not before.
-- and I certainly don't want someone managing the development process who hasn't ever taken a college level course on development methodologies. College or lack thereof doesn't necessarily guerentee success or failure, but it's a good predictor on the average.
jim
umm... no, it's not unprofesional. It's high quality management.
What they are trying to do is help you learn. Too often in today's workplace there is no patience to take a young person with promise and help them learn... we instead say "perform or die!"
The manager that is willing to help you learn from your mistakes rather than to simply get angry at you is pure gold -- pick their brains while you are there! And learn from their people-management skills for when you're older and have people you are mentoring or managing... you'll be glad you did.
jim
A couple of ways to look at this.
On one level I disagree cause I want to see more space exploration.
On another level I agree because basic infrastructure should come first. While we're not perfect about this in America, the recent earthquake drives home that they really have a lot of things at home that need improving. That same earthquake in CA wouldn't have killed thousands. It'd have killed a few, but not the mass-destruction we're seeing over there.
on yet another level, though, think of it this way: India isn't looking to spend money onspace, they're looking to INVEST money in space. Note that they are targeting areas where they can make a profit. So they're attempting to boost their economy to the point where the basic infrastructure things you're talking about will be very affordable. Sounds right to me.
jim
No -- the problem is that Jobs keeps claiming he's got the equivalent of a cure for cancer. The hard-core Macheads believe it. The rest of us know better.
Apple has always made good hardware. They've always over-hyped their features. And they've always brainwashed their followers into believing everyone ELSE is trying to you off and trying to control your machine, while Apple maintains the highest profit margins of any mainstream computer company and keeps an iron grip on what can be done with their computers.
Remember Power Computing? Remember those companies who tried to do a portable Mac a few years before Apple did and got sued out of business? Remember the guy in Europe who was able to emulate the Mac ROMs on in sofware and thus was able to get MacOS to run on Intel hardware?
...oh that's right -- none of those things exist any more. And they're probably all under court order not to talk about it.
Personally I'm not anti-Mac. I like them. But seeing what they do to the companies and consumers who support them most... I can't bring myself to give them any money.
jim
For the most part you are right -- the customer is stupid about computers. That's why they're hiring you. (I'd say ignorant, not stupid, but that's semantics.)
:}
But a good consultancy is profitable usually because of repeat business. And businesses talk. If you recommend a $20,000 solution, and their friend at the Rotary Club starts taling about the $5,000 solution a consultant came up with for the same problem, you're eventually gonna lose that client.
The biggest problem I had as a consultant to small businesses was that I always wanted to recommend a solution that was high quality and would save the company $$ in the long-run... and they always have some 'nephew in college who's good with computers who says we can just throw together something for 1/10 the cost'. The nephew of course has no idea about maintenence or reliability. And the customer doesn't know enough about computers to realize why the best solution is the higher priced one. So I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time justifying thigns to customers... teaching them about network and systems design and maintennece.
... and I had to charge for that time. I evenatually ended up just padding my estimates because I knew I'd have to spend that time (sometimes it's more than the acutal work).
Damn I'm glad I don't do that any more. Give me a steady paycheck with big-brother any day!
I guess what I'm getting at is two-fold:
- just because the customer is ignorant doesn't protect you from losing the contract if you rip them off. They'll find out eventually. You'll probably escape a lawsuit, but you won't keep the account.
also...
- Don't judge that other consultant too harshly. Perhaps they had good reasons for charging more, or for recommending a different system. Perhaps you're experience is the problem here. Or perhaps they're making an honest mistake... that's where most of our knowledge comes from: making mistakes in the past and learning from them.
BTW -- I would regularly build computers for customers that cost more than the $1100 Dell. Why? because my computers wouldn't crash and have hardware conflicts. That extra $$ they paid was more than made up for by not paying me to come out and fix things as often. The customers who insisted on buying cheap ended up being my best accounts profit-wise.
jim
> Funny, I never thought a company with more than $3 billion in cash reserves was close to death,
They are if they had $10 billion just a few years ago, and are still draining it...
I think you have your creators wrong.
> - USB standard
Intel
> - FireWire standard
That one was Apple, True.
> - 802.11b wireless LAN easy add-on (and first affordable base unit)
I believe that was Cisco
> - UNIX-based (BSD, Mach) mainstream OS
You've got to be kidding! Apple invented UNIX?
> - Open Postscript imaging model everywhere
Adobe
> - Open OpenGL standard for 3D imaging
SGI
> - Promoted (BTO and standard) DVD-RAM and DVD-R
Sony
> - Digital Video monitor support standard
True -- they created two of their own properiatary interfaces. But ignoring the other standards out there to create something that accomplishes the same purpose and improves upon nothing (except forcing people to buy Apple hardware with their Macs) is not innovative, except perhaps in a marketing sense.
> - Gigabit Ethernet standard
I believe that was Cisco also.
> - SMP standard (on high-end)
That's been around since the '60s
> - Darwin open source
You mean the Darwin name, or the open-source concept? Darwin is an Apple API... of course they invented it. That's like praising Microsoft for inventing Win32. What ABOUT Darwin is so innovative?
> - QuickTime Streaming open source (server)
They own the QuickTime trademark, true. But RealNetworks was the first with streaming video servers.
> - World-class industrial design (Cinema Display, G4 Cube, Pro Mouse, Titanium G4 PowerBook, etc.)
See the above message... this is just design. Nice design, but that was his point.
> - Real Java in mainstream OS (in MacOS X)
Sun
> - First mass-market, consumer-friendly application for video editing (iMovie), audion (iTunes), DVD production (iDVD).
These have been on the shelves at software stores for 10 years. iDVD has some nice features, but is most innovative in that it brings the ease-of-use of Toast to the DVD.
> - Integrated remote storage (iTools)
XDrive, idrive, driveway, freedrive.
> - Objective C, Interface Builder, etc., in mainstream OS.
Next.
Apple's done some cool stuff, but don't believe their marketing lies... they're about style, not technology. Of all the ones you named up there, the only innovation was FireWire. The rest were either someone else's innovation, or something that i would never consider an innovation (like a trademarked name, rather than an idea).
BTW -- let's not forget that this is the same company that has in the past threatened to sue their OWN user groups when the user group printed something Apple didn't like... Talk about wanting total control of your lives!
Yes, they can and do.
But you're asking the wrong question. It's not whether or not they CAN -- we already know they can. It's whether or not they SHOULD.
An act that is legal but ethically wrong is still abhorant to me. I was on the verge of buying a cube (so I could run UNIX as well as Dreamweaver...), but this just reminded me of why I hate apple. They make good products, but historically they have the nastiest business practices anywhere, and they consistantly screw partners and customers alike, not to mention their own "community".
So OSX look-alikes built to emulate and promote an OS people like... thanks, but you've been tossed the way of the mac clone, the OpenDoc developer, and thousands of other Apple 3rd-party screwings.
jim
They set it up so that you can't talk to the decision maker, so the only choice is to make it difficult for them to do business. Piss off their employees so much that they quit quickly and there is such massive turnover they have to spend a lot more money to get and keep employees.
It doesn't work quickly, but if enough people did this it would in the long run.
...and unless you are using Windows you can simply fake your MAC address.
Exactly -- route around.
In the literal sense 'route around' is talking about packets, but the same concept can be applied at layer 4 and 5.
Faraday Cage?
Won't make any difference at all to mac users. They are what they are. But the survival of the company is based upon attracting NEW users.
The UNIX underpinnings will attract the technical crowd. The usability and style will attract consumer/home users. The only thing remaining is the business desk -- and Windows itself proved that if people walk into an office wanting a certain machine the comapny will follow. This was how PCs replaced Wangs and other terminals on corporate desktops in the '80s.
All in all it's good.
Good points. I agree that a newbie who needs these sorts of things should definately go witha a purchased packed distro complete with support. That's why those things exist.
It's sort of like one of the big problem with PCs through the 80s and 90s IMHO... you could buy cheap parts and slap them together into a system. Some people who did that were tinkerers who enjoyed doing that -- for them it was the right thing. Others figured that was the way to do it, and didn't understnad they were playing with cheap stuff... stuff that wouldn't always work. Those people should have bought tested Gateways or Dells and stuck with them rather than suffering though lots of incompatible parts cobbled together.
If you're not going to look too far under the hood, buy a prepackaged solution.
The problem with these questions is that they are all in terms of the way Windows does it. That woudln't be SO bad, except most of the people you're looking to guide didn't acutally understand how it worked on Windows either, so a comparison is pretty useless. Do you know how the startup folder and autoexec works? Do you now what's acutally happening when you use device manager in Windows? If not, then comparisons will be useless, cause all you know is a UI, and the UI is different.
Interesting comments...
.com craziness people have been predicting that college students would see the $$ in engineering and would run to get engineering degrees in droves... and it hasn't happened. Nice for me -- job security... we can be pretty sure we'll all be in demand for a while to come.
Yeah, since the early days of the
There's another phenomenon. When I look at incoming entry-level resumes i see a LOT of people without engineering degrees. I'm one of them in fact. And many of those people -- people with 4-year or greater degrees from very good schools, just not in engineering -- are some of the best people I've hired.
I think we're seeing a dissalusionment with higher education's ability to teach what's current. I find it unfortunate -- if there's anything _I'M_ missing it's a good grounding in the basics... something I missed by not studyign computer science. But how do you let young people know that that's important? Or do you? I mean -- a good liberal-arts education gives you the bredth of character to do all sorts of things... and I've had better results hiring those people than people with CS degrees. The out-of-field people work harder at it because they feel like they have something to prove.
In terms of other countries -- i think you're the victim of lots of standard American stereotyping. India has an excellent education system. It's not training all their people equally, but those who rise to the top get top-notch educations. And unlike us, their young people HAVE jumped at the IT boom.
Comparitively with the rest of the world's educations -- America's top 10% kick ass over most of the rest of the world's top 10%. That's why so many people come to study in college here. Our bottom 10% are failures and cannot be helped (that's true everywhere else too). It's what that middle 80% do where other ountries do much better than us. In america they flounder. We let them graduate college then they have no clue where to go. In some other countries (Japan, some European countries) they are targeted -- usually toward tech fields, and toward whatever industry is dominant where they live.
> What are the concrete things that I can do do
> nix this? (And don't tell me to write my
> congressman...I'm Canuck.)
Start a disk drive manufacturing company that makes drives that don't use this spec... we'll all buy from you!
What a fucking stereotype! Some of the most brilliant people I know who got way ahead academically have equally good social lives -- one does not preclude the other. That said I guess it is worthwhile to mention -- don't want to fall into the "don't waste your time with that!" trap.
..etc...).
As someone with a good founding in Ed/Psych, and at least a few years in front of the classroom, i've worked with some gifted kids. My advice runs similar to what I was learned in the first year of grad school about any kid: Remember that the ACTION in education is not teaching, it's learning. The person who does that action is the child, not the "teacher", which is a completely mis-labeled term. You're nothing but an assistant.
The best thing to deal with gifted kids is to expose them to huge amounts of resources that they can explore at their own pace. Then you let them go where they want, and you simply act as a coach/guide... suggesting areas tehy may want to explore first, applications of what they're seeing, and being there for discussions. Remember, they will probably soon know more than you do about any given subject -- but discussing it is usually the best way to anchor that knowledge. So being a enthusiastic sounding-board for them is important.
Don't worry about pushing them in any particular direction... in fact pushing at all is the worst thing you can do (that includes pushing them into sports, or other stuff) because any path they choose themselves is always more interesting to them than one they were forced into. Remember that they ALREADY are far enough ahead that you don't need to worry about them having the basics down. He'll graduate high school and go on to college and get a job. So anything else he does is pure gravy, and the best way to insure he keeps inerest is to let him choose.
Also -- kids are kinetic and tacticle things. Whatever path he chooses, try to figure out ways he can create and build using it. And try to figure out what other skills are needed to create whatever project he's into, and point him toward them. (...hmm... you may need a scripting language for this. Let's take a look at Python. Hmm... may need to do some metalwork on this one -- let's learn to weld!
The thing most kids really need is a "partner in crime"... so be there for him. Do things with him. That's the important thing -- he'll do the rest.
Yes, but Henry Ford sold tons of less-performing cars because he priced them cheap. Apple is pushing to consumers by claiming high performance, delivering less expandibility and pricing at a premium. More like PT Barnum than Henry Ford.
... but I do like the box. If it had come in at around $1000 (even up to $1200) I'd have snapped one up -- it'd be my first mac. Silence is worth something.
As others have said -- the real problem is infrastructure. Any transition needs to include creation of infrastructure, and slow transition from one to the other so that we can use up our old gas cars and infrastructure without imposing too high a cost on the lower-income groups. If the transition is anything but instant, the lost jobs in the gasoline business will be soaked up by whatever the new infrastrucutre is.
SOME environmentalists DO think in those terms. not all, but some.
I think you mistake the libertarian philosophy for that of an anarchist.
Concepts like "less government" are deliberately vague so that politicians can get away with saying it and doing the opposite. Witness the '80s Republican stance of "less government" while raising the national debt and trippling the size of the US government. It's nothing but cheap useless political rhetoric.
What the libertarian philosophy believes is very specific. A libertarian (philosophy, not party -- i'm not sure how the party stacks up with the philosophy) is that the government is needed, but it's only needed for a couple of narrow specific purposes... anything that goes beyond those purposes is bad.
Two of those standard accepted purposes:
- Defending the country from attack from foreign powers. That justifies an army, but not necessarily a large standing army. The size and nature are up for debate, but when the army is used for anything OTHER than defending from attack from foreign powers it oversteps the bounds.
- Mediating disputes between citizens, and assisting in enforcing contracts.
So... the FTC in THIS case is very much in line with libertarian philosophy.
Libertarianism isn't about anarchy -- it's about the rights of the individual.
Disnet is the majority stockholder, therefore on the board of directors. Companies don't make decisions like this without passing it through the board first, therefore Disney DOES bear some responsibility.
As a (I'm assuming) preferred stock-holder, I believe Disney would also be liable for a portion of the damages if Toysmart couldn't afford to pay.
> The problem with colocation is that everyone
> promises the world, but non deliver.
You can say that again! The problem is bigger than that... there are lots of colos that are "big-time" colo facilities. They all suck. But mostly they suck less than doing it yourself, and some suck more than others.
> * switched ethernet (ok, if you're talking 100
> meg colos... but if you find you're on a hub,
> thats a major sign they are incomentent)
Worse that that... you end up soaking up somebody else's problems. I talked to a guy just a week ago who spent three weeks diagnosing why one of his customers wasn't getting the throughput he wanted. When he was finally able to get the data center to look into it, they figured out that since the network wasn't switched, some OTHER customer had a bunch of NT boxes doing broadcasts and clogging everything up.
Make SURE it's switched. Most are, but obviously some are not.
Basically -- if all you want is hosting, go with someone who speicalizes in that -- like a verio or an Epoch. If you're going to have multiple dedicated machiens of your own in the colo, then you gotta go with a full-service colo.
Use a service like Service Metrics to investigate the colos response-time from various points around the country so that you know its weaknesses. (I think there's a freeware version of this these days too.) Also talk to other customers to find out what they think.
Good luck!
jim
You should have seen the shocked look on the guy's face! :}