Sure, there are legitmate places to ban cells: military bases (same reasons as for your fab site), airplanes and hospitals (interference with sensitive equipment), restaurants and medical offices (where "cell yell" is an intolerable nuisance). Not to mention movie theaters.
But we're not talking about whether or not cells should ever be banned. We're talking about specific businesses that are attemtping to micromanage their employee's behavior. That's patronizing, unfair, and above all stupid.
I'm doing a 6-week writing contract, and I just remembered some rules in the employee handbook the job shop gave me. I'm forbidden to make personal phone calls except when I am on specified breaks. I am forbidden to receive personal calls while working. All of which is totally unenforcable, because I'm telecomuting. And even if I were working on site, the client could care less about how much time I spend on the phone or doing personal stuff, as long as I report my time honestly.
So why the silly rules? Because my job shop is part of a national franchise that mainly deals in clerical and semi-skilled labor. On the assembly line and in the secretarial pool, such micromanagement is taken for granted, unlike those of us selling rarefied techie skills. A reminder that most workers can't take it for granted that they'll be treated like grownups.
Well, homophobes seem to be underrepresented in computer games (I would have thought that fag-bashing would a natural theme for violent video games, but no). But that aside, who says that games are any less accepting of gays than the population at large. Even a few years ago, I took it for granted that most people were fundamentally and irrevocably homophobic, but the everything I've seen recently seems to indicate that I'm wrong.
I think one important change is that there are now a lot of people out there who were raised by openly gay couples. An article I read last Sunday estimates the numbers are something like 15 million. A small minority, but likely to have influence disproportinate to their numbers. Once you have to as careful about fag jobs as you are about polack jokes, you know there's a fundamental change in attitude.
You seem to be assuming that people care about the future. They don't. Everybody wants to make a big gob of money and retire while they're still young enough to enjoy it. If they leave behind a smoking ruin when they leave, well, that's somebody else's problem.
Your company is run by idiots. But you already knew that.
I don't have any real basis to say this, beyond a general feeling. But I can't help but think they must be violating a labor law or two. If your cell is an unconditional work-related tool, I can't believe they can get away with making you pay for it out of your salary.
Consider consulting a lawyer who specializes in workplace law.
Then how will SCO stay in business if they have nobody to sue?
It's not about staying in business -- that's already a lost cause for SCO. It's about generating revenue. Suing people is the only way they've found to generate any revenue at all. The fact that it's not a sustainable business model is beside the point. Lots of businesses follow the model, "get in, grab the cash, get out."
Gee, maybe the movie version will have Ben Affleck and Angelina Jolie. Speaking of short term busines models...
This is obviously from the same source as the ban on web surfing you see in some companies. They don't trust the employees not to use company time and resources for personal purposes. So they ban things that can be used for personal purposes. And of course, in the process they stymie employees attempts to make themselves more productive.
I don't see what you can possibly do in this situation, short of quitting. If they don't trust their own employees, then they're not going to be receptive to employee feedback. If you dissent politely, they'll smile and ignore you. If you dissent rudely, you'll just reinforce their patronizing attitude.
And playing work-to-rule games ("I didn't know the server was down because my cell was switched off, as per policy") isn't going to help either. It's just another way of communicating something the bosses don't want to hear, except that it also makes them look stupid. Which is not likely to make them receptive.
Sometimes management falls into the mode of treating employees like spoiled children -- people who can't be communicated with, only bullied into a semblance of correct behavior. If you can figure out a way to change that attitude, you've really got something (like a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize!). If you can't, there's not a lot you can do.
Interesting article. I guess I buy the argument that the fire would have happened even if they'd been using helium. But I doubt if people will stop blaming the accident on hydrogen any time soon.
As long as we're talking Zep myths, let's debunk the common belief that the Hindenburg crash was what did in airship travel. There had been similar mishaps in other modes of transportation (the most famous of which, 9/11, makes the Hindenburg look like a stubbed toe). They didn't do in the technology involved, just made people scared of it for a while.
Charles Lindbergh predicted the demise of the airship long before the Hindenburg disaster. He pointed out that airships were intermediate in speed between airplanes and surface vehicles. If you need to move something or somebody in a hurry, you use air travel. If not, you use surface vehicles. There just isn't any demand for anything in between.
Ho hum. We got umpteen responses saying the same stupid thing the last time Google announced a location-based search engine. I'll repeat what I said then: the yellow pages web sites just query yellow pages databases, that you have to pay money to be in. A location-based search engine queries Google's huge, and free, database of web sites. I would think the difference would be obvious.
Last time I cited a bunch of examples of things you could do with a location-based search engine that you can't do with a yellow pages database. But this time I can't be bothered.
...if you're honest about it being your own service, and about what the service offers.
JVDS sounds like it would be a good option for skrysakj, since his main reason for avoiding dedicated hosting is the expense. He assumes that a non-dedicated solution means he has to take what the provider gives him. But a UML provider lets the customer have it both ways -- the cost structure is like a a shared provider, but the level of flexibility is like a dedicated provider. Which should appeal to a lot of people.
On the other hand, cost is not always the crucial issue. Even if you can afford a dedicated box, you may not want the hassle of administering such a system. Even if the provider delivers a nice turnkey solution (as you do), the whole point of having a dedicated system is being able to install your own stuff. But if you do that, you better be prepared, skillwise and timewise, to maintain that stuff. And not all of us are.
I personally would much prefer to have a provider that does all the donkey work for me. The problem with that is the provider always seems to have priorities that are not quite compatible with mine.
The closest I've come to an ideal shared provider is DreamHost, where I currently host my web site. The big points: even low-end accounts get shell access (often an expensive extra, if it's available at all), IMAP (most providers consider POP sufficient), and being CGI friendly (maybe a little too friendly). But:
They insist that users keep their mailboxes small to avoid overburdening the mail server. This is enforced by a script that moves old messages from the mailbox to a regular file. Makes sense costwise, but it also defeats the main purpose of using IMAP -- having a central mail repository that you can easily access from multiple clients and systems.
They support SSH and encourage people not to use telnet or ftp. But their web console doesn't include any key generation utility. So you have to do it on the command line. Which, since I don't do it very often, I have to study up on each time. A real pain.
They're still on Perl 5.6.1, which has a lot of libraries that aren't taint-safe. They currently have no plans to upgrade to 5.8, citing massive version dependencies in their own software. Less of an issue, as I've learned more about writing secure CGIs, but it bothers me that their Perl is 3 years old.
A lot of their docs suck. Plus it's all on SSL pages, which can be darned inconvenient.
I'm sure people can point me to other providers that do better than this on one or more points. I've found a few myself. (Love Google!) But taken as a whole, I've never found anybody who does even as well as Dreamhost. They solve some of the above problems but not others. They charge too much. They don't do IMAP. CGI support is iffy.
I'm pretty impressed with SourceForge. But they don't do web hosting except as a part of their overall service.
He became an eBay devotee, staying up late to bid on software, self-help business tapes and other items. Soon he began buying via spam as well.... "I was never anti," he said. "It's like a chase, a treasure hunt."... "I buy it and then three weeks later it sits there," he concedes. "I do a lot of impulse buys."
Not only does he encourage spammers, he's the guy who pays retail prices for second-hand stuff on eBay, making real bargains impossible to find. He deserves to die!
Five years older? I was working with OSs that were more advanced than MS-DOS ten years before.
I was never wowed by all the fancy multimedia hardware -- not my interest -- but I remember being wowed by the fundamental platform, which did seem to be a lot more advanced than MS-DOS or MacOS. I came from a Unix background, and I considered true pre-emptive multitasking (as opposed to bogus "voluntary" multitasking) to be a fundamental OS feature. It would be a very long time before Microsoft or Apple offered this feature. AmigaOS offered it from day one. And on cheap hardware! It was obvious to me that apps written to the Amiga API would be drastically more stable and robust than similar apps on competing platforms.
So why didn't Amiga succeed? Not a curse, not bad luck. They were just late to the party. In 1985, computers that an ordinary person could afford to own had been around for almost a decade, and the novelty had worn off. It was just a couple years too late to introduce a new platform and expect it to succeed on technical brilliance alone. In order to survive, the Amiga needed to acquire a critical mass of users that would keep the platform healthy. And quickly, because an industry shakeout was imminent. I'm pretty sure the people who created the Amiga didn't understand this. But even if they did understand, they didn't really have enough time to pull this off.
In 1986, my brother-in-law asked for advice on buying his first computer. I strongly recommended the Amiga, mainly because it had MIDI hardware that he needed, and that he'd have to pay extra for on any other system. But despite the extra cost, he got a Mac. Why? All his friends and colleagues had Macs. His publisher used Macs, and if he didn't get one, he'd have a hard time sharing files with them.
By 1986, the user base Amiga needed was already committed to other platforms.
No, in this particular case, it's called "looking for illegal kiddie porn."
I personally have no problem with federal agents downloading porn for personal use, but Washington is full of high officials and congresspeople who are much less tolerant. No sane DOJ employee is going to use his or her official workstation for that kind of recreational browsing. Not worth the risks. So if you get a hit on a porn link from a DOJ address, you can be quite sure it's not a recreational interest!
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Just imagine a beowulf cluster of dying BSD trolls!
But we're not talking about whether or not cells should ever be banned. We're talking about specific businesses that are attemtping to micromanage their employee's behavior. That's patronizing, unfair, and above all stupid.
I'm doing a 6-week writing contract, and I just remembered some rules in the employee handbook the job shop gave me. I'm forbidden to make personal phone calls except when I am on specified breaks. I am forbidden to receive personal calls while working. All of which is totally unenforcable, because I'm telecomuting. And even if I were working on site, the client could care less about how much time I spend on the phone or doing personal stuff, as long as I report my time honestly.
So why the silly rules? Because my job shop is part of a national franchise that mainly deals in clerical and semi-skilled labor. On the assembly line and in the secretarial pool, such micromanagement is taken for granted, unlike those of us selling rarefied techie skills. A reminder that most workers can't take it for granted that they'll be treated like grownups.
I think one important change is that there are now a lot of people out there who were raised by openly gay couples. An article I read last Sunday estimates the numbers are something like 15 million. A small minority, but likely to have influence disproportinate to their numbers. Once you have to as careful about fag jobs as you are about polack jokes, you know there's a fundamental change in attitude.
You seem to be assuming that people care about the future. They don't. Everybody wants to make a big gob of money and retire while they're still young enough to enjoy it. If they leave behind a smoking ruin when they leave, well, that's somebody else's problem.
I don't have any real basis to say this, beyond a general feeling. But I can't help but think they must be violating a labor law or two. If your cell is an unconditional work-related tool, I can't believe they can get away with making you pay for it out of your salary.
Consider consulting a lawyer who specializes in workplace law.
Gee, maybe the movie version will have Ben Affleck and Angelina Jolie. Speaking of short term busines models...
I don't see what you can possibly do in this situation, short of quitting. If they don't trust their own employees, then they're not going to be receptive to employee feedback. If you dissent politely, they'll smile and ignore you. If you dissent rudely, you'll just reinforce their patronizing attitude.
And playing work-to-rule games ("I didn't know the server was down because my cell was switched off, as per policy") isn't going to help either. It's just another way of communicating something the bosses don't want to hear, except that it also makes them look stupid. Which is not likely to make them receptive.
Sometimes management falls into the mode of treating employees like spoiled children -- people who can't be communicated with, only bullied into a semblance of correct behavior. If you can figure out a way to change that attitude, you've really got something (like a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize!). If you can't, there's not a lot you can do.
No, even the trolls are tired of "BSD is dying...".
You're right. And if people only used search engines to look up phone numbers and addresses, you'd have a point.
As long as we're talking Zep myths, let's debunk the common belief that the Hindenburg crash was what did in airship travel. There had been similar mishaps in other modes of transportation (the most famous of which, 9/11, makes the Hindenburg look like a stubbed toe). They didn't do in the technology involved, just made people scared of it for a while.
Charles Lindbergh predicted the demise of the airship long before the Hindenburg disaster. He pointed out that airships were intermediate in speed between airplanes and surface vehicles. If you need to move something or somebody in a hurry, you use air travel. If not, you use surface vehicles. There just isn't any demand for anything in between.
Done.
Last time I cited a bunch of examples of things you could do with a location-based search engine that you can't do with a yellow pages database. But this time I can't be bothered.
I don't think you want a cell tower that high. The cell would be too big. Cells need to be small in order to serve people cost-effectively.
Yeah, yeah, we all have heard of the Hindenburg. The poster's point was that this is an unmanned vehicle.
JVDS sounds like it would be a good option for skrysakj, since his main reason for avoiding dedicated hosting is the expense. He assumes that a non-dedicated solution means he has to take what the provider gives him. But a UML provider lets the customer have it both ways -- the cost structure is like a a shared provider, but the level of flexibility is like a dedicated provider. Which should appeal to a lot of people.
On the other hand, cost is not always the crucial issue. Even if you can afford a dedicated box, you may not want the hassle of administering such a system. Even if the provider delivers a nice turnkey solution (as you do), the whole point of having a dedicated system is being able to install your own stuff. But if you do that, you better be prepared, skillwise and timewise, to maintain that stuff. And not all of us are.
I personally would much prefer to have a provider that does all the donkey work for me. The problem with that is the provider always seems to have priorities that are not quite compatible with mine.
The closest I've come to an ideal shared provider is DreamHost, where I currently host my web site. The big points: even low-end accounts get shell access (often an expensive extra, if it's available at all), IMAP (most providers consider POP sufficient), and being CGI friendly (maybe a little too friendly). But:
- They insist that users keep their mailboxes small to avoid overburdening the mail server. This is enforced by a script that moves old messages from the mailbox to a regular file. Makes sense costwise, but it also defeats the main purpose of using IMAP -- having a central mail repository that you can easily access from multiple clients and systems.
- They support SSH and encourage people not to use telnet or ftp. But their web console doesn't include any key generation utility. So you have to do it on the command line. Which, since I don't do it very often, I have to study up on each time. A real pain.
-
They're still on Perl 5.6.1, which has a lot of libraries that aren't taint-safe. They currently have no plans to upgrade to 5.8, citing massive version dependencies in their own software. Less of an issue, as I've learned more about writing secure CGIs, but it bothers me that their Perl is 3 years old.
-
A lot of their docs suck. Plus it's all on SSL pages, which can be darned inconvenient.
I'm sure people can point me to other providers that do better than this on one or more points. I've found a few myself. (Love Google!) But taken as a whole, I've never found anybody who does even as well as Dreamhost. They solve some of the above problems but not others. They charge too much. They don't do IMAP. CGI support is iffy.I'm pretty impressed with SourceForge. But they don't do web hosting except as a part of their overall service.
Oh well.
But that just proves my point -- the Atari is even more thoroughly forgotten than the Amiga.
I was never wowed by all the fancy multimedia hardware -- not my interest -- but I remember being wowed by the fundamental platform, which did seem to be a lot more advanced than MS-DOS or MacOS. I came from a Unix background, and I considered true pre-emptive multitasking (as opposed to bogus "voluntary" multitasking) to be a fundamental OS feature. It would be a very long time before Microsoft or Apple offered this feature. AmigaOS offered it from day one. And on cheap hardware! It was obvious to me that apps written to the Amiga API would be drastically more stable and robust than similar apps on competing platforms.
So why didn't Amiga succeed? Not a curse, not bad luck. They were just late to the party. In 1985, computers that an ordinary person could afford to own had been around for almost a decade, and the novelty had worn off. It was just a couple years too late to introduce a new platform and expect it to succeed on technical brilliance alone. In order to survive, the Amiga needed to acquire a critical mass of users that would keep the platform healthy. And quickly, because an industry shakeout was imminent. I'm pretty sure the people who created the Amiga didn't understand this. But even if they did understand, they didn't really have enough time to pull this off.
In 1986, my brother-in-law asked for advice on buying his first computer. I strongly recommended the Amiga, mainly because it had MIDI hardware that he needed, and that he'd have to pay extra for on any other system. But despite the extra cost, he got a Mac. Why? All his friends and colleagues had Macs. His publisher used Macs, and if he didn't get one, he'd have a hard time sharing files with them.
By 1986, the user base Amiga needed was already committed to other platforms.
I personally have no problem with federal agents downloading porn for personal use, but Washington is full of high officials and congresspeople who are much less tolerant. No sane DOJ employee is going to use his or her official workstation for that kind of recreational browsing. Not worth the risks. So if you get a hit on a porn link from a DOJ address, you can be quite sure it's not a recreational interest!
I'm waiting for the Republican attack ad: "Not only does John Kerry masticate, he encourages his children to do so as well!"
So someday, somebody will discover a cure for bankruptcy. But I need a place to stash my frozen head now!