Or talk to an international head hunter like Robert Half. Most of the big job sites like Dice and Monster have listings for other countries as well.
Also try talking to HR at Fortune 500 companies which have offices overseas. They're usually thrilled to find knowledgeable people who actually want to travel.
Pro: Stuff you'll never see anywhere else, even the local paper Con: Their listings are usually a few days or a week old so in today's market they're often already filled! Pro: No headhunters! Con: No headhunters... Pro: No spam! Con: Their interface is a little clumsy and sometimes the search bot doesn't grab the ad correctly. It's easy enough to just click directly to the originating site though.
How could I have forgotten the clippers?!?:)
Interesting to hear about the security paperwork. They didn't make me do that until I was in tech school.
I remember when I went home for a few days right after basic. I got pulled over for speeding at about 2am and the cop had me out of the car to see if I was drunk and I was in total "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" mode. (Amazing how brain-washed you can get in so short a time!)
He looked at my haircut, started laughing and let me go. Woo-hoo!:)
Who'da guessed the instructor would be reading Slashdot?! He'll probably super-glue the damn thing now...
(Maybe he can be bribed with a chicken MRE?:)
Though I must admit, it takes talent to craft a troll, er post, which is as anal as Jon787's one while remaining informative and on-topic!
Better add some content here quick...
True story: when I was in USAF BMT at the firing range the moron next to me shot at my target when we were sighting in. (Sighting on one clip?!? Wtf? Dumb asses). Anyway, instructor pulls targets sees what moron did, looks at the groups decides on the average between them and adjusts both sights accordingly! So I had a nice tight 1" group about 2 and a half inches to the left of the bulls eye. Thank god special ops gets real training 'cause the troops behind the lines damn sure don't!
I've only ever met three people with better ASVAB scores than my own. I am totally impressed!:)
But to stay on-topic...
Somebody suggested the Navy. In a word - don't!
Nev'r'Dull also gets stubborn scuffs off the floor (along with the wax, unfortunately).
Don't lock your knees while standing (if you're careful you can actually flex them quite a bit without your pants moving; so nobody knows).
It's "reports", not "reporting".
And yes, get your AFSC (probably a 49xxx if they haven't changed them around too much) in writing from your recruiter. They're dying for techies so it shouldn't be a problem but ya never know...
And back to the parent post, being an officer is definitely better if you don't mind getting the degree first. (I wasn't cut out for school and needed the discipline so I didn't, ymmv). And I too am making several times as much as the officers now that I've been a civilian for the last decade...:)
Been there, done that, here's what I learned
on
Nerds in the Air Force?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Don't take anything to basic besides a change or two of clothes that you don't care about. (The storage facilities at Lackland have been known to leak - mildew city!).
Make sure nothing you wear or have on your body stands out. If you have long hair cut it, but don't get a crewcut or any other military cut. (If you have a military cut now let it grow out). If you have tattoos wear clothing which will conceal them. Remove any and all jewelry (studs, ear-rings, watches, chains etc. etc.). Shave.
A trick for making your t-shirts neat - stack with the largest on the bottom, graduated to the smallest on top (you'll see what I mean). Then, iron the SIDES of the stack. Voila', perfect t-shirt stack. If you get the choice of a bunk, take the top one. It's easier to make and TI's won't hassle you as much at night (they like to be looming over you when you wake up). Reach under the frame between the wires to pull the sheets extra tight...
You'll probably be shown all sorts of tricks for getting your boots shinier (using a lighter, alcohol, heel-and-sole dressing etc.) None of them help and some will actually damage your boots (esp. the alcohol). The trick is to put only a little bit of polish on them, then let them sit for awhile and dry before you wipe and buff. And Nev'r'dull does wonders for belt-buckles (steal a teeny-tiny bit while you're on a cleaning detail).
If you can paint and keep your clothes clean doing it, then volunteer for the painting detail, everybody else'll be doing calisthenics in the sun.;)
Also, DO volunteer for KP (Kitchen Patrol), especially if your TI is a hard-ass. The first couple of weeks you don't get much time to eat. The kitchen crew will let you have extra food.
Make sure your M-16 is set to single-shot when you go to the firing range. The instructor there may be a dick and switch it to full-auto as he's handing it to you. You do NOT get another clip.
You'll get MRE's to eat that day. Chicken and turkey are good, some of the others are downright evil.;)
Wanna mess with the newbies minds when you get dorm-guard duty for another dorm? The caps on the bed posts are sometimes loose. Pull two of them off and click them together, sounds just like a TI's taps. (No, I didn't do that, it's cruel, and hell to pay if you're caught.)
When you get out of Basic, force yourself not to eat as much. You'll be in the same eating mode, but your exercise level will have dropped to about one twentieth. I put on 25 pounds in about two weeks when I got out, then looked in a mirror and said "Damn!". Took me over a month at the gym to get rid of it.
Also, buy the Samsonite briefcase at the BX. They're the toughest, and that may come in handy (you'll find out why...;) Tossing a spare flashlight in it doesn't hurt either (again, there's a reason).
Other than that military life is nothing like civilian life but some people love it. I thought it sucked, and not in a good way! But I survived and got a good job offer when I got out to go with my GI bill. For a young person with few skills/education and/or lack of discipline (I was all of the above) it's probably the best choice you could make.
Enjoy!
The answer is we evolve to resist them as we have for hundreds of thousands of years. Don't get me wrong, artifical defenses are great, but it's only been the last century or so that's had us relying on them so much.
I think the book could be condensed to about 30 pages. And 28 of those pages would be recipes...:)
I had problems with constipation as well but a few prunes cleared that right up. (Damn, I thought I'd last a few more decades before I had to start eating prunes!:)
Speaking of problems, a friend of mine had kidney stones off and on for years and was given a folklore remedy of an apple a day along with a teaspoon of olive oil.
He got sick of apples and olive oil pretty quickly but it's been a few years since he's had one. He's taken to having an apple-laden fruit salad once a week and making salad dressing with the olive oil (different salads I hope!).
Could just be coincidence or wierd body-chemistry too...
A percentage of the cost overruns for a given project comes back out of the commission.
This will be perceived as hostile by the sales team but upper management should be fine with it provided you guys keep good documentation.
The flip side is that if you do sign off on something and slip up the sales team will be all over your ass.:)
After a few months or a year the good sales people will have straightened themselves up and the dead wood will have left voluntarily.
Good luck!
P.S. This is generally easier to implement if you guys have some skin in the game too... Work out a per-project percentage-of-profit (or gross, profit figures are easy to manipulate) for you as well.
Here's a snippet from something unrelated which describes a little of the forces behind what we think we need to eat.
(Please note that they only go back to 1800's - as opposed to cave-man days when we ate a VERY different diet - and that the average Joe worked a heck of a lot harder back in "the good old days".)
On another tack, as we examine diets from different times, remember that on evolutionary terms changes only take place if something is sufficiently detrimental to affect the reproductive cycle. I.e. we could make our diets so horribly bad that we all died by the age of 40, but s'long as we kept having the same number of kids first nothing would change.
This lack of insight colors many "studies" of historical diets and health issues.
But I digress:
"...The diet of the average American has changed substantially in the last hundred years. In the 1800s, the average American ate in a similar fashion to many people in less developed countries today. The historic American diet consisted primarily of grain-based starches. Meat, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables were consumed in lesser quantities than they are today. As the economy grew, wealth increased, and transportation improved, Americans in the early part of this century began to consume more meat and dairy products, as well as more fruits and vegetables.(3)
American food habits are intimately linked with the productivity of our agricultural system. Like so many aspects of industrial society, matching production with consumption has been a chronic historic problem. Beginning immediately after the Civil War, farmers began to increase production faster than the market for food products was growing. Agricultural production grew as a result of land expansion, improved transportation, and the Homestead Act that pushed farmers westward onto new land. Consumption grew with population, but not nearly as fast as farm productivity. This circumstance put farmers of the period into dire economic straights.(4) These problems were exacerbated by the economic policies of the 1800s. Prevailing powers enforced "tight money" policies -- limiting the money supply in order to limit inflation. The wealthier classes favored tight money policies, but these policies served to limit income and consumption for the population at large.
The agricultural depression of the late 1800s continued for decades as farmers rose in protest movements including the Grange, the Farmers Alliance, Greenbackers, and Populists. These movements sought more expansionistic economic policies that would benefit farmers. Toward the close of the 1800s, farmers were at various times allied with workers' movements. Although they never succeeded in creating a viable third party, many of the reforms that these movements sought were enacted within a few years of the issues being raised. Such reforms included the regulation of railroads, popular election of U.S. senators, the graduated income tax, and rural free mail.(5)
There was to be no direct relief for farmers though. The philosophy, law, and scale of government in the 1800s was less interventionist than it is today. This is true of many aspects of social welfare and public policy. As applied to farm policy, the government let the farmers fend for themselves.
After the turn of the century, the economy grew more quickly. Combined with immigration, this caused consumption of agricultural products to grow more rapidly. Farmers experienced a period of prosperity that lasted from the turn of the century until the 1920s. There was little change in public policy toward agriculture and food in this period.
Beginning in 1920, farm prices started falling as the U.S. ended its involvement in World War I relief efforts. Prices and farm income did not recover until World War II. For the farmer, the Great Depression began early.(6) With farmers left out of the national prosperity of the 1920s, there was again pressure for government intervention. As a result, support for cooperatives was increased and farm credit was extended. By 1933, the government started offering direct price supports by purchasing agricultural surpluses. These surpluses were dispersed through school lunch and food stamp programs. By the late 1930s, policies were put into place that attempted to limit the amount of land planted, thereby limiting production.(7)
In the progressive period in the early twentieth century, government started to become more active in many social spheres. An optimism prevailed that problems could and should be solved by public intervention. In this climate, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) began giving nutritional advice. Their first food chart was published in 1917 and consisted of five food groups that were thought to provide essential nutrients. Scientists were discovering the role of vitamins and other nutrients. By 1933, concern that everyone should receive an adequate supply of nutrients led the USDA to expand their food chart to twelve food groups. By World War II, they had paired it down to the "Basic Seven."(8)
From the beginning, the USDA's role was primarily to help farmers. Giving nutritional advice was secondary. Given the prevalence of diseases resulting from nutritional deficiencies in that time period, ranging from scurvy to rickets, it was in everyone's interest for the public to consume a better diet. Farmers helped fund nutritional research because, as scientists discovered the nutritional value of the food they were producing, such research proved a valuable marketing tool.(9) Thus, it seemed that everyone's interest was served by nutritional advice and research. The public could learn how to avoid diseases of malnutrition, and farmers received government support for marketing their products.
World War II solved the problem of agricultural overproduction by creating a huge need for exports. Agricultural production soared during the war.(10) Food was rationed domestically and farmers were given financial and technical support by the government to increase production. Farmers were again prosperous.
By the 1950s, the "green revolution" was in full swing. After the war, farmers had sufficient money to invest in mechanization as never before. Improved seeds, fertilizers and other modern technologies were causing production to grow rapidly. Thus began a long, uninterrupted period of overproduction in American agriculture. The collective effect of rising production was falling prices. The more the individual farmers produced, the more they could sell. But the more they collectively produced, the more they overloaded the market.(11)
From its inception, the USDA and other organizations involved with nutritional research and education were inextricably intertwined with agricultural interests. In 1958, a funny thing happened. (Remember 1952-1958 was a conservative period under Eisenhower.) In the midst of a sustained crisis of agricultural overproduction, the USDA altered the "Basic Seven" food groups to the "Basic Four" food group chart that was to last for decades. Half of that chart was made up of animal-based foods. The timing is unmistakable. Even mainstream historians cannot help but notice that "[the] relationship between food guides and their assumptions and the food supply is particularly interesting... [T]he Basic Four was constructed considering U.S. food supplies."(12)
Why was the Basic Four so important to farmers? Half of the Basic Four food groups are animal-based foods: meat/eggs and dairy. Animal foods effectively concentrate agricultural overproduction. It takes a lot of grain to make a hamburger or a bowl of ice cream.(13) If American farmers tried to dispose of their surplus production by convincing people to eat more pancakes and corn muffins, they would not get too far. But condense that grain by feeding it to a cow, and it becomes meat and ice cream. Then people will consume, and pay for, a lot more grain. Some people who have studied the history of nutritional education are more blunt about the connection between agricultural over-productivity and dietary advice. According to some, the lobby made up of "meat, dairy, and egg industries and their academic and political allies [has] not only influenced our nation's food and nutrition policies, it has determined those policies" (emphasis in original).(14)
What about the health effects of a diet that is centered on animal foods? Over-nutrition, rather than malnutrition, has become the devil of American health. We know now that the elevated fat intake of the American diet is directly linked to the two leading causes of death in the U.S., heart disease and cancer.(15) Nothing in America kills more people than fat. Were the people who promulgated the Basic Four aware of the negative health effects of a high-fat diet?
It was discovered in 1908 -- more than eight decades ago -- that high fat intake induces arteriosclerosis. The "discovery" has been made repeatedly over the decades since that time. But these discoveries "went virtually unnoticed by nutritionists" for decades.(16) As we discussed in the section on technological change, demand drives change much more than invention. As the steam engine was invented over and over again before it was used, so the knowledge concerning the health effects of a high-fat diet were suppressed because of the economic desirability of disposing of American agricultural overproduction.
Could it be that people are simply naturally drawn to high-fat diets if such food is available? To some extent, it is probably true that human beings have a biological predisposition to eat sweet and fatty foods. This would have a clear evolutionary advantage. Gatherers who have been studied tend to be healthy, but there is not a lot of rich food in their environment. By seeking out rich food, they could maximize their chances of survival. They ran little risk of arteriosclerosis; there was simply not that much fat available. It may be true that, given our predisposition to like rich food, the average person would tend to overeat when provided with an abundant supply of ice cream and other such things. But what has happened in Western culture is something quite different. Rich foods, which are almost exclusively animal-based, are idealized in American culture to a great extent. Protein in particular is believed to be needed in large quantities for good health. High protein diets are thought to be healthy, important for bodybuilding and general well-being. This idealizing of protein is a cultural practice, not a biological reality. The favored foods among gathering cultures are meat and honey. Likewise, we Americans consume sugar readily because we like the taste. But we have not idealized sugar as we have protein. Why? Because protein, traditionally at least, comes from animals. Animal-based foods concentrate agricultural overproduction, thus feeding the inferno effect in our industrial economy. Sugar has no such economic impact.
The meat and dairy industries lobbied successfully for the four food groups chart and dietary education that emphasized the importance of consumingrich animal foods. But to say that the meat and dairy industry simply asserted their own vested interest is to miss a deeper truth about culture. Cultural selection is powerfully influenced by employment, by how different social changes affect the level of employment. The Basic Four served to dispose of agricultural overproduction, thus alleviating a serious economic problem. Vested interests had their way, but only because they had economy on their side, and some degree of biology. It is difficult to say exactly how information travels throughout a large culture, but there is no doubting that the economic effects of the Basic Four were pivotal in causing Americans to believe that they needed large amounts of animal protein to stay healthy. Cultural selection was thus pivotal in creating the protein myth as well as causing the suppression of information concerning the health effects of high-fat diets.
The creation of the protein myth occurred in a period in American history when there were a lot more farmers. Recently, the Basic Four has been replaced by a pyramid that emphasizes grains and de-emphasizes rich, animal-based foods. The Food Pyramid was stalled by protests from the meat and dairy industries, but finally its proponents prevailed.(17) Why did the Food Pyramid have to wait so long? Just as tobacco regulation and a fuller recognition of the health effects of cigarettes had to wait until the middle class stopped smoking, the pyramid had to wait until the number of farmers in this country had decreased to below 3 percent of the population.(18) Corporate agriculture is still a powerful force, but not nearly as powerful as was the agricultural lobby when farmers were much more numerous.
As a result of American accelerated consumption of agricultural products, the U.S. consumes seven times as much grain per-capita as some poorer countries...."
I've had the same resume' for years. I copied it from somebody when I was in the service (my first "real" job) because I thought it looked good. (I think he'd had it done professionally). Ever since then I've just updated it and in 15 years (and 5 jobs) never had a problem getting lots of good offers and basically being able to pick where I wanted to work.
Until this time!
Fortunately I wasn't laid off, but I did want to move on to more interesting work and it took me a freakin' year to land a good job!! (Lots of offers, all of them complete crap positions).
I used FlipDog as the best job source I could find next to my local newspaper. (Monster/Dice/etc used to be good, now the good stuff is buried a mile deep in crap that nobody wants).
But I also, finally, sent my resume' to these guys, er gals.
I paid the initial couple bucks for feedback only and decided that they at least knew what they were talking about so I gave them some more money (I think the final total was around $70) to just go ahead and do what they were talking about.
And when I got it I said Egads! That's horrible looking! Until I sat down and really read it. It wasn't a layout I would have chosen by any means, but the more I looked at it the more I realised that it was really a much more effective presentation of my skills as a recruiter or hr person would scan for them.
Any computer geek I'd ever shown my old one to said "Wow, awesome resume', come work for us!" and prior to this slowdown that was good enough - HR saw the key words, passed it on and the IT guys did the rest.
But these days it won't get past HR without that added edge.
So yeah, get it done. I really did pick these guys at random originally but they did a good job so I'm passing 'em along!
I'm a card-carrying geek from way back but I will admit, here in front of Dog and everybody online that I have never been even slightly geek-like in one critical sense.
To wit, I have always been in fantastic shape.
I ski, hike, dance and practice various forms of martial arts and I watch what I eat - voila' - physical perfection!
But a couple of years ago I gained a couple extra pounds over the holiday season and couldn't lose it!!
I mean yeah, I'm a little older now but wtf? I wasn't eating any different that I could see, exercised the same etc.
Now don't get me wrong, ten pounds is no big deal. I'd laugh my ass off if somebody were obsessing over that, but after all these years of martial arts and dance I can feel a difference as little as 5 pounds and damn it, I wanted it gone!
So I ate less and worked out harder.
To no avail.
To tell you the truth it's been driving me nuts until I happened to talk to my mother and the conversation turned to my grandmother who was diagnosed w/diabetes awhile back.
Her doctor put her on an "experimental diet" and she lost about 30# and all indicators of diabetes disappeared!! She's been on it for a couple of years now and is in great shape. I should tell you my grandmother has been fat since she was a teen and has never lost more than about 15 pounds and it's always come back as soon as she blinked. So her losing 30 and keeping it off is a minor miracle!
Turns out that diet was Atkins (and yes, you do eat carbs, read the damn book!).
So I laughed and figured what the heck, I'd try it. I've only been on it for about 3 weeks so far but I've lost 5 of the pounds that wouldn't go away and I have an energy level I haven't had for years (like, um, since not too long before I gained those 10 pounds, actually).
So don't knock it 'till you try it!
Fat boy...:)
This is an answer to all the comments saying how pointless this is.
Yes, people like you can look at the code and understand it, but you (generically anyway) cannot communicate what it means to Joe Sixpack.
If a "Linux scene whore" can say "ooh, I grok the kernel" s/he is more likely to do things like buy posters and yammer about how cool/great Linux is to non-Linux users.
Pretty pictures are as important to Open Source as they are to any other grass-roots movement.
'98 boot disk (and bootable CD) Spinrite MemCheck CheckIt/QAPlus pcAnywher e VNC WinZip Acrobat DOS version of PKZip Collection of common nic/video/printer/etc drivers Copies of major OS's (Win2K, 98 OSR2 etc.) Copies of Office Copies of SP's and patches Copies of browsers (IE, Netscape, Opera) L0pht Crack Your favorite IP scanner and other IP tools (e.g. Putty) Other tools depending on OS's you work with (e.g. JCMD for Netware, Upromote for NT, the Win2K/NT resource kits, 'Nix boot disk and utils and hundreds of other favorite need-specific utils)
- A screwdriver with #2 Phillips, flat and assorted Torx bits - A small set of little-tiny screw drivers for laptops - A penlight - A telescoping mirror - A telescoping magnetic pickup or grabber - A big (40+) CD case to carry all your utility software - A couple of blank floppies - A '98 boot diskette (for machines that won't boot off CD-ROM for whatever reason) - Spare IDE/FDD cables - Spare SCSI cables and terminators - Spare Cat-5 cables of various lengths including one short cross-over and a couple of inline couplers so you can daisy-chain them
And if you still have room: a mini-hub, spare NIC, spare video-card, HDD for imaging, laptop with PCMCIA nic and modem
Slashdot Mirror
Hehhehheh!!
I just used my last mod point in another thread or I'd have given you a +1 funny!
My boss has been telling me to get on the ball for awhile now...
I just use the handy CD in the little pocket inside the cover... :)
Or talk to an international head hunter like Robert Half. Most of the big job sites like Dice and Monster have listings for other countries as well.
Also try talking to HR at Fortune 500 companies which have offices overseas. They're usually thrilled to find knowledgeable people who actually want to travel.
What's even scarier is that it's obsolete...
FlipDog searches companies' own websites.
Pro: Stuff you'll never see anywhere else, even the local paper
Con: Their listings are usually a few days or a week old so in today's market they're often already filled!
Pro: No headhunters!
Con: No headhunters...
Pro: No spam!
Con: Their interface is a little clumsy and sometimes the search bot doesn't grab the ad correctly. It's easy enough to just click directly to the originating site though.
Not only that but it's OLD news! I've been reading about this in one journal or another for over ten years...!
How could I have forgotten the clippers?!? :) :)
Interesting to hear about the security paperwork. They didn't make me do that until I was in tech school.
I remember when I went home for a few days right after basic. I got pulled over for speeding at about 2am and the cop had me out of the car to see if I was drunk and I was in total "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" mode. (Amazing how brain-washed you can get in so short a time!)
He looked at my haircut, started laughing and let me go. Woo-hoo!
Who'da guessed the instructor would be reading Slashdot?! He'll probably super-glue the damn thing now... :)
(Maybe he can be bribed with a chicken MRE?
Though I must admit, it takes talent to craft a troll, er post, which is as anal as Jon787's one while remaining informative and on-topic!
Better add some content here quick...
True story: when I was in USAF BMT at the firing range the moron next to me shot at my target when we were sighting in. (Sighting on one clip?!? Wtf? Dumb asses). Anyway, instructor pulls targets sees what moron did, looks at the groups decides on the average between them and adjusts both sights accordingly! So I had a nice tight 1" group about 2 and a half inches to the left of the bulls eye. Thank god special ops gets real training 'cause the troops behind the lines damn sure don't!
I've only ever met three people with better ASVAB scores than my own. I am totally impressed! :)
:)
But to stay on-topic...
Somebody suggested the Navy. In a word - don't!
Nev'r'Dull also gets stubborn scuffs off the floor (along with the wax, unfortunately).
Don't lock your knees while standing (if you're careful you can actually flex them quite a bit without your pants moving; so nobody knows).
It's "reports", not "reporting".
And yes, get your AFSC (probably a 49xxx if they haven't changed them around too much) in writing from your recruiter. They're dying for techies so it shouldn't be a problem but ya never know...
And back to the parent post, being an officer is definitely better if you don't mind getting the degree first. (I wasn't cut out for school and needed the discipline so I didn't, ymmv). And I too am making several times as much as the officers now that I've been a civilian for the last decade...
Don't take anything to basic besides a change or two of clothes that you don't care about. (The storage facilities at Lackland have been known to leak - mildew city!). ;) ;) ;) Tossing a spare flashlight in it doesn't hurt either (again, there's a reason).
Make sure nothing you wear or have on your body stands out. If you have long hair cut it, but don't get a crewcut or any other military cut. (If you have a military cut now let it grow out). If you have tattoos wear clothing which will conceal them. Remove any and all jewelry (studs, ear-rings, watches, chains etc. etc.). Shave.
A trick for making your t-shirts neat - stack with the largest on the bottom, graduated to the smallest on top (you'll see what I mean). Then, iron the SIDES of the stack. Voila', perfect t-shirt stack. If you get the choice of a bunk, take the top one. It's easier to make and TI's won't hassle you as much at night (they like to be looming over you when you wake up). Reach under the frame between the wires to pull the sheets extra tight...
You'll probably be shown all sorts of tricks for getting your boots shinier (using a lighter, alcohol, heel-and-sole dressing etc.) None of them help and some will actually damage your boots (esp. the alcohol). The trick is to put only a little bit of polish on them, then let them sit for awhile and dry before you wipe and buff. And Nev'r'dull does wonders for belt-buckles (steal a teeny-tiny bit while you're on a cleaning detail).
If you can paint and keep your clothes clean doing it, then volunteer for the painting detail, everybody else'll be doing calisthenics in the sun.
Also, DO volunteer for KP (Kitchen Patrol), especially if your TI is a hard-ass. The first couple of weeks you don't get much time to eat. The kitchen crew will let you have extra food.
Make sure your M-16 is set to single-shot when you go to the firing range. The instructor there may be a dick and switch it to full-auto as he's handing it to you. You do NOT get another clip.
You'll get MRE's to eat that day. Chicken and turkey are good, some of the others are downright evil.
Wanna mess with the newbies minds when you get dorm-guard duty for another dorm? The caps on the bed posts are sometimes loose. Pull two of them off and click them together, sounds just like a TI's taps. (No, I didn't do that, it's cruel, and hell to pay if you're caught.)
When you get out of Basic, force yourself not to eat as
much. You'll be in the same eating mode, but your exercise level will have dropped to about one twentieth. I put on 25 pounds in about two weeks when I got out, then looked in a mirror and said "Damn!". Took me
over a month at the gym to get rid of it.
Also, buy the Samsonite briefcase at the BX. They're the toughest, and that may come in handy (you'll
find out why...
Other than that military life is nothing like civilian life but some people love it. I thought it sucked, and not in a good way! But I survived and got a good job offer when I got out to go with my GI bill. For a young person with few skills/education and/or lack of discipline (I was all of the above) it's probably the best choice you could make.
Enjoy!
The answer is we evolve to resist them as we have for hundreds of thousands of years. Don't get me wrong, artifical defenses are great, but it's only been the last century or so that's had us relying on them so much.
I think the book could be condensed to about 30 pages. And 28 of those pages would be recipes... :) :)
I had problems with constipation as well but a few prunes cleared that right up. (Damn, I thought I'd last a few more decades before I had to start eating prunes!
Speaking of problems, a friend of mine had kidney stones off and on for years and was given a folklore remedy of an apple a day along with a teaspoon of olive oil.
He got sick of apples and olive oil pretty quickly but it's been a few years since he's had one. He's taken to having an apple-laden fruit salad once a week and making salad dressing with the olive oil (different salads I hope!).
Could just be coincidence or wierd body-chemistry too...
A percentage of the cost overruns for a given project comes back out of the commission. :)
This will be perceived as hostile by the sales team but upper management should be fine with it provided you guys keep good documentation.
The flip side is that if you do sign off on something and slip up the sales team will be all over your ass.
After a few months or a year the good sales people will have straightened themselves up and the dead wood will have left voluntarily.
Good luck!
P.S. This is generally easier to implement if you guys have some skin in the game too... Work out a per-project percentage-of-profit (or gross, profit figures are easy to manipulate) for you as well.
Here's a snippet from something unrelated which describes a little of the forces behind what we think we need to eat.
... [T]he Basic Four was constructed considering U.S. food supplies."(12)
(Please note that they only go back to 1800's - as opposed to cave-man days when we ate a VERY different diet - and that the average Joe worked a heck of a lot harder back in "the good old days".)
On another tack, as we examine diets from different times, remember that on evolutionary terms changes only take place if something is sufficiently detrimental to affect the reproductive cycle. I.e. we could make our diets so horribly bad that we all died by the age of 40, but s'long as we kept having the same number of kids first nothing would change.
This lack of insight colors many "studies" of historical diets and health issues.
But I digress:
"...The diet of the average American has changed substantially in the last hundred years. In the 1800s, the average American ate in a similar fashion to many people in less developed countries today. The historic American diet consisted primarily of grain-based starches. Meat, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables were consumed in lesser quantities than they are today. As the economy grew, wealth increased, and transportation improved, Americans in the early part of this century began to consume more meat and dairy products, as well as more fruits and vegetables.(3)
American food habits are intimately linked with the productivity of our agricultural system. Like so many aspects of industrial society, matching production with consumption has been a chronic historic problem. Beginning immediately after the Civil War, farmers began to increase production faster than the market for food products was growing. Agricultural production grew as a result of land expansion, improved transportation, and the Homestead Act that pushed farmers westward onto new land. Consumption grew with population, but not nearly as fast as farm productivity. This circumstance put farmers of the period into dire economic straights.(4) These problems were exacerbated by the economic policies of the 1800s. Prevailing powers enforced "tight money" policies -- limiting the money supply in order to limit inflation. The wealthier classes favored tight money policies, but these policies served to limit income and consumption for the population at large.
The agricultural depression of the late 1800s continued for decades as farmers rose in protest movements including the Grange, the Farmers Alliance, Greenbackers, and Populists. These movements sought more expansionistic economic policies that would benefit farmers. Toward the close of the 1800s, farmers were at various times allied with workers' movements. Although they never succeeded in creating a viable third party, many of the reforms that these movements sought were enacted within a few years of the issues being raised. Such reforms included the regulation of railroads, popular election of U.S. senators, the graduated income tax, and rural free mail.(5)
There was to be no direct relief for farmers though. The philosophy, law, and scale of government in the 1800s was less interventionist than it is today. This is true of many aspects of social welfare and public policy. As applied to farm policy, the government let the farmers fend for themselves.
After the turn of the century, the economy grew more quickly. Combined with immigration, this caused consumption of agricultural products to grow more rapidly. Farmers experienced a period of prosperity that lasted from the turn of the century until the 1920s. There was little change in public policy toward agriculture and food in this period.
Beginning in 1920, farm prices started falling as the U.S. ended its involvement in World War I relief efforts. Prices and farm income did not recover until World War II. For the farmer, the Great Depression began early.(6) With farmers left out of the national prosperity of the 1920s, there was again pressure for government intervention. As a result, support for cooperatives was increased and farm credit was extended. By 1933, the government started offering direct price supports by purchasing agricultural surpluses. These surpluses were dispersed through school lunch and food stamp programs. By the late 1930s, policies were put into place that attempted to limit the amount of land planted, thereby limiting production.(7)
In the progressive period in the early twentieth century, government started to become more active in many social spheres. An optimism prevailed that problems could and should be solved by public intervention. In this climate, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) began giving nutritional advice. Their first food chart was published in 1917 and consisted of five food groups that were thought to provide essential nutrients. Scientists were discovering the role of vitamins and other nutrients. By 1933, concern that everyone should receive an adequate supply of nutrients led the USDA to expand their food chart to twelve food groups. By World War II, they had paired it down to the "Basic Seven."(8)
From the beginning, the USDA's role was primarily to help farmers. Giving nutritional advice was secondary. Given the prevalence of diseases resulting from nutritional deficiencies in that time period, ranging from scurvy to rickets, it was in everyone's interest for the public to consume a better diet. Farmers helped fund nutritional research because, as scientists discovered the nutritional value of the food they were producing, such research proved a valuable marketing tool.(9) Thus, it seemed that everyone's interest was served by nutritional advice and research. The public could learn how to avoid diseases of malnutrition, and farmers received government support for marketing their products.
World War II solved the problem of agricultural overproduction by creating a huge need for exports. Agricultural production soared during the war.(10) Food was rationed domestically and farmers were given financial and technical support by the government to increase production. Farmers were again prosperous.
By the 1950s, the "green revolution" was in full swing. After the war, farmers had sufficient money to invest in mechanization as never before. Improved seeds, fertilizers and other modern technologies were causing production to grow rapidly. Thus began a long, uninterrupted period of overproduction in American agriculture. The collective effect of rising production was falling prices. The more the individual farmers produced, the more they could sell. But the more they collectively produced, the more they overloaded the market.(11)
From its inception, the USDA and other organizations involved with nutritional research and education were inextricably intertwined with agricultural interests. In 1958, a funny thing happened. (Remember 1952-1958 was a conservative period under Eisenhower.) In the midst of a sustained crisis of agricultural overproduction, the USDA altered the "Basic Seven" food groups to the "Basic Four" food group chart that was to last for decades. Half of that chart was made up of animal-based foods. The timing is unmistakable. Even mainstream historians cannot help but notice that "[the] relationship between food guides and their assumptions and the food supply is particularly interesting
Why was the Basic Four so important to farmers? Half of the Basic Four food groups are animal-based foods: meat/eggs and dairy. Animal foods effectively concentrate agricultural overproduction. It takes a lot of grain to make a hamburger or a bowl of ice cream.(13) If American farmers tried to dispose of their surplus production by convincing people to eat more pancakes and corn muffins, they would not get too far. But condense that grain by feeding it to a cow, and it becomes meat and ice cream. Then people will consume, and pay for, a lot more grain. Some people who have studied the history of nutritional education are more blunt about the connection between agricultural over-productivity and dietary advice. According to some, the lobby made up of "meat, dairy, and egg industries and their academic and political allies [has] not only influenced our nation's food and nutrition policies, it has determined those policies" (emphasis in original).(14)
What about the health effects of a diet that is centered on animal foods? Over-nutrition, rather than malnutrition, has become the devil of American health. We know now that the elevated fat intake of the American diet is directly linked to the two leading causes of death in the U.S., heart disease and cancer.(15) Nothing in America kills more people than fat. Were the people who promulgated the Basic Four aware of the negative health effects of a high-fat diet?
It was discovered in 1908 -- more than eight decades ago -- that high fat intake induces arteriosclerosis. The "discovery" has been made repeatedly over the decades since that time. But these discoveries "went virtually unnoticed by nutritionists" for decades.(16) As we discussed in the section on technological change, demand drives change much more than invention. As the steam engine was invented over and over again before it was used, so the knowledge concerning the health effects of a high-fat diet were suppressed because of the economic desirability of disposing of American agricultural overproduction.
Could it be that people are simply naturally drawn to high-fat diets if such food is available? To some extent, it is probably true that human beings have a biological predisposition to eat sweet and fatty foods. This would have a clear evolutionary advantage. Gatherers who have been studied tend to be healthy, but there is not a lot of rich food in their environment. By seeking out rich food, they could maximize their chances of survival. They ran little risk of arteriosclerosis; there was simply not that much fat available. It may be true that, given our predisposition to like rich food, the average person would tend to overeat when provided with an abundant supply of ice cream and other such things. But what has happened in Western culture is something quite different. Rich foods, which are almost exclusively animal-based, are idealized in American culture to a great extent. Protein in particular is believed to be needed in large quantities for good health. High protein diets are thought to be healthy, important for bodybuilding and general well-being. This idealizing of protein is a cultural practice, not a biological reality. The favored foods among gathering cultures are meat and honey. Likewise, we Americans consume sugar readily because we like the taste. But we have not idealized sugar as we have protein. Why? Because protein, traditionally at least, comes from animals. Animal-based foods concentrate agricultural overproduction, thus feeding the inferno effect in our industrial economy. Sugar has no such economic impact.
The meat and dairy industries lobbied successfully for the four food groups chart and dietary education that emphasized the importance of consumingrich animal foods. But to say that the meat and dairy industry simply asserted their own vested interest is to miss a deeper truth about culture. Cultural selection is powerfully influenced by employment, by how different social changes affect the level of employment. The Basic Four served to dispose of agricultural overproduction, thus alleviating a serious economic problem. Vested interests had their way, but only because they had economy on their side, and some degree of biology. It is difficult to say exactly how information travels throughout a large culture, but there is no doubting that the economic effects of the Basic Four were pivotal in causing Americans to believe that they needed large amounts of animal protein to stay healthy. Cultural selection was thus pivotal in creating the protein myth as well as causing the suppression of information concerning the health effects of high-fat diets.
The creation of the protein myth occurred in a period in American history when there were a lot more farmers. Recently, the Basic Four has been replaced by a pyramid that emphasizes grains and de-emphasizes rich, animal-based foods. The Food Pyramid was stalled by protests from the meat and dairy industries, but finally its proponents prevailed.(17) Why did the Food Pyramid have to wait so long? Just as tobacco regulation and a fuller recognition of the health effects of cigarettes had to wait until the middle class stopped smoking, the pyramid had to wait until the number of farmers in this country had decreased to below 3 percent of the population.(18) Corporate agriculture is still a powerful force, but not nearly as powerful as was the agricultural lobby when farmers were much more numerous.
As a result of American accelerated consumption of agricultural products, the U.S. consumes seven times as much grain per-capita as some poorer countries...."
I've had the same resume' for years. I copied it from somebody when I was in the service (my first "real" job) because I thought it looked good. (I think he'd had it done professionally). Ever since then I've just updated it and in 15 years (and 5 jobs) never had a problem getting lots of good offers and basically being able to pick where I wanted to work.
Until this time!
Fortunately I wasn't laid off, but I did want to move on to more interesting work and it took me a freakin' year to land a good job!! (Lots of offers, all of them complete crap positions).
I used FlipDog as the best job source I could find next to my local newspaper. (Monster/Dice/etc used to be good, now the good stuff is buried a mile deep in crap that nobody wants).
But I also, finally, sent my resume' to these guys, er gals.
I paid the initial couple bucks for feedback only and decided that they at least knew what they were talking about so I gave them some more money (I think the final total was around $70) to just go ahead and do what they were talking about.
And when I got it I said Egads! That's horrible looking! Until I sat down and really read it. It wasn't a layout I would have chosen by any means, but the more I looked at it the more I realised that it was really a much more effective presentation of my skills as a recruiter or hr person would scan for them.
Any computer geek I'd ever shown my old one to said "Wow, awesome resume', come work for us!" and prior to this slowdown that was good enough - HR saw the key words, passed it on and the IT guys did the rest.
But these days it won't get past HR without that added edge.
So yeah, get it done. I really did pick these guys at random originally but they did a good job so I'm passing 'em along!
I'm a card-carrying geek from way back but I will admit, here in front of Dog and everybody online that I have never been even slightly geek-like in one critical sense. :)
To wit, I have always been in fantastic shape.
I ski, hike, dance and practice various forms of martial arts and I watch what I eat - voila' - physical perfection!
But a couple of years ago I gained a couple extra pounds over the holiday season and couldn't lose it!!
I mean yeah, I'm a little older now but wtf? I wasn't eating any different that I could see, exercised the same etc.
Now don't get me wrong, ten pounds is no big deal. I'd laugh my ass off if somebody were obsessing over that, but after all these years of martial arts and dance I can feel a difference as little as 5 pounds and damn it, I wanted it gone!
So I ate less and worked out harder.
To no avail.
To tell you the truth it's been driving me nuts until I happened to talk to my mother and the conversation turned to my grandmother who was diagnosed w/diabetes awhile back.
Her doctor put her on an "experimental diet" and she lost about 30# and all indicators of diabetes disappeared!! She's been on it for a couple of years now and is in great shape. I should tell you my grandmother has been fat since she was a teen and has never lost more than about 15 pounds and it's always come back as soon as she blinked. So her losing 30 and keeping it off is a minor miracle!
Turns out that diet was Atkins (and yes, you do eat carbs, read the damn book!).
So I laughed and figured what the heck, I'd try it. I've only been on it for about 3 weeks so far but I've lost 5 of the pounds that wouldn't go away and I have an energy level I haven't had for years (like, um, since not too long before I gained those 10 pounds, actually).
So don't knock it 'till you try it!
Fat boy...
This is an answer to all the comments saying how pointless this is.
Yes, people like you can look at the code and understand it, but you (generically anyway) cannot communicate what it means to Joe Sixpack.
If a "Linux scene whore" can say "ooh, I grok the kernel" s/he is more likely to do things like buy posters and yammer about how cool/great Linux is to non-Linux users.
Pretty pictures are as important to Open Source as they are to any other grass-roots movement.
- Spare screws and jumpers of all sizes
- Needle-nose pliers
- Canned air
- Cable tester and fox-and-hound (tracer)
- Spare power/usb/parallel cables
- Wooden pencil or tongue-depressor (for cleaning mice)
- Paperclip
- Pen
- Sharpie permanent marker
- Assorted gender changers
- SCSI cable adaptors (e.g. 68F-50F)
Probably more stuff...!
I hear you ask...
r e
'98 boot disk (and bootable CD)
Spinrite
MemCheck
CheckIt/QAPlus
pcAnywhe
VNC
WinZip
Acrobat
DOS version of PKZip
Collection of common nic/video/printer/etc drivers
Copies of major OS's (Win2K, 98 OSR2 etc.)
Copies of Office
Copies of SP's and patches
Copies of browsers (IE, Netscape, Opera)
L0pht Crack
Your favorite IP scanner and other IP tools (e.g. Putty)
Other tools depending on OS's you work with (e.g. JCMD for Netware, Upromote for NT, the Win2K/NT resource kits, 'Nix boot disk and utils and hundreds of other favorite need-specific utils)
- A screwdriver with #2 Phillips, flat and assorted Torx bits
- A small set of little-tiny screw drivers for laptops
- A penlight
- A telescoping mirror
- A telescoping magnetic pickup or grabber
- A big (40+) CD case to carry all your utility software
- A couple of blank floppies
- A '98 boot diskette (for machines that won't boot off CD-ROM for whatever reason)
- Spare IDE/FDD cables
- Spare SCSI cables and terminators
- Spare Cat-5 cables of various lengths including one short cross-over and a couple of inline couplers so you can daisy-chain them
And if you still have room: a mini-hub, spare NIC, spare video-card, HDD for imaging, laptop with PCMCIA nic and modem
Enjoy!
Or drunk?
How many hurls do you need?
We assessed the "hurl vs hurdle" question a long time ago and decided overwhelmingly in favor of hurdles...
I have never donated to an Open Source project. Why? Because none of them have interested me.
I would donate to this though!
- Michael
Has anyone tried the OSX version of SwitchRes? No guarantees but it fixes a number of OSX video settings "features".
I'd mod you as funny (I have mod points) but I already posted in this article! Damn...