Let's see... I can program my phone to only need two keystrokes to get to functions I use the most often, there are nine available but I only have three programmed because that's all I use. All of my most often called numbers are voice enabled, and I don't have to open the phone to take calls on my blue-tooth handset. This new phone lets me can draw numbers in space, althought I cannot imagine that is easier or faster than using the keys. And I can draw 'Y' or 'N' instead of pressing soft keys.
From what I can tell, the only purpose of this is for games. And we all know how successful they have been combining phones with game systems.
Move on... nothing to see here....unless you are a gadget freak and want to buy something that will no longer be offered in 6 months due to a lack of interest.
If you report something your company is doing that is illegal, there are laws to prevent repercussions. Granted, there is nothing to stop someone from hasseling you, but there are laws in place that allow an employee to sue in those instances
In my experience, employees who are honest rarely have their integrity questioned by supervisors who are honest. If my boss started questioning my integrity, I would question his and start looking for another job. That is unless my integrity should be questioned, which means I've been caught and should start looking for another job.
I did something similar with a GPS device, and unless it was right next to the window I couldn't get a signal. As it was, I could only get 3 or 4 satellites.
I was under the impression that airlines were getting ready to offer cellular by installing the necessary repeaters. I would almost bet they will charge a fee for this, kind of like roaming. I mean, come on, they charge a fee now for some crap headphones. Do you really think they will offer this for free?
Funny how we couldn't use cell phones when the airlines couldn't make any money.
I take the output of sar -d, pretty it up using PERL so that each line looks the same and the fields are tab separated (each line contains the date/time, partition, and the associated sar output). I then bring it into a spreadsheet using the 'import external data' feature (so I can point it to different files) and see what the relative queue lengths, service times, et.al. of all the disks are relative to each other and across a given time frame. It is very quick way to find hot spots on your disk subsystems without having to install any software except what comes with Solaris. It is often more useful to provide pretty pictures when asking for additional controllers and such.
With macros and ssh scripts, this is automated and takes only a few minutes.
If I was really motivated and had the need, I would dump the sar data into a database first so I could extract the data for any time frame very quickly. But I tend to use it only when there are performance problems. The entire spreadsheet has tabs for CPU, memory, paging, and semaphore stats and a single macro runs the scripts and refreshes the data tables.
Pivot tables to have one very big limitation though... they are limited by the number of rows allowed in an Excel spreadsheet, so you can't easily analyze more than 65,000 data points. Don't think that is much?? There are 1440 minutes in a day, so a single day sar output of more than 45 partitions will overflow the spreadsheet (1440*45= 64800).
Hassle?? I made the same decision to wait, I'm going to wait until next month when the first set of patches will probably be out.
I just don't understand the drive to have everything the day it comes out. The game will be the same game 5 days (or a week or a month) from now that it was on Tuesday.
Oh wait... a sudden revelation occurs. I do understand, they don't have a life....
I used to take the small lights off the Christmas tree strands, pull them out of their little sockets, and stick the bare wires in to the outlets. They glowed REEEALLLY bright for a very short period.
And lets not forget lighter fluid. What good are matches without lighter fluid. I get nostalgic if someone uses a Zippo lighter and I get a whiff of it. I wonder if the round burn holes are still in the wood floor where I used to live....
Back in 1980 I was 'promoted' from office clerk to computer operator for a small manufacturing company, running a Burroughs B1700. I was to take over for a female computer operator who was retiring. I found out several years later that the reason I was given the job was not because they thought I would be better at it, but because I was not as good at my current job as my female counterpart was. Whether or not that was the real reason I don't know, but I do know that I was a better operator than a clerk.
As a side note, within a few weeks, it became apparent that I was a good choice (not necessarily the best since the other person never had a chance at it). They had these things called 'manuals', and after reading it discovered that the computer was capable of running more than one job at a time!!! The keypunch operator, and my backup, was terrified that I was going to mess something up because 'we have always done it that way.' The good news is that I had a lot of 'free time' after figuring out which jobs could be run together. The bad news is that the free time was quickly replaced with other tasks, and I became the finance gopher, doing all the menial tasks that the accounts payable clerk, accountant, and payroll clerk didn't have time for.
Did you see any excuse in there?? I didn't see any?? I stated my opinion that 'he who is without sin cast the first stone'. Europeans often forget that it was primarily Europeans who settled this country because they were being so ruthlessly persecuted and brought their slavery, religeous intolerance, quest for untold riches, and blood thirsty genocide with them. It was Europeans who started the tradition of sticking it to the indigineous population, they were being slaughtered and pushed aside long before the United States was founded. Many of the religeous intolerance in this country has roots in the persecution during the 17th and 18th centuries forcing those with more puritanical beliefs to flee to North America, hence instilling a moral code that is different than what was left behind.
Any mention of transgressions early in the country's history should include the Eurpoeans as responsible parties. The Americans have had to deal with the left overs and try to correct them, the methods may have been wanting, and for that on should rightly chastise them.
Yep...those Europeans were very good at getting the slaves over here too...and those Africans were very good at giving them up to us (between the times they were slaughtering each other.) And the Europeans were very good at wiping out the indigineous population when they got here. And everyone should have the right to have sex with whomever they want whenever they want because it's all about the pleasure and how we feel inside and has nothing to do with health factors or moral beliefs. And lets not forget those silly Germans during WWII and Stalin
It's all a matter of what OPINION you have, and about choosing which facts to present and which to ignore. The fact is while the US hasn't been perfect, neither has anyone else. The EU is rapidly becoming one of the most heavily regulated and largest welfare state around, Africa and the Middle East still continue to be very unstable, China's human rights record is abysmal, and on and on. The question isn't who is the best, but who is not the worst. One could just as easily point to many of the Middle East and Africa problems and lay their cause squarely on the back of 18th and 19th century European colonialism.
And another fine example of the Stern crowd and why Stern and his followers are treated the way they are. Because they present themselves as inconsiderate, selfish a**holes. 'Hey! This crap needs to be on because I LIKE IT. F*k everyone else and their opinions!'
If they could learn to speak in an intelligent manner, maybe others would take them seriously and listen instead of turning to the show from time to time, hearing yet another attempt by Howard to get some woman to take her top off, and reinforcing another opinion of why the show is worthless.
Preventing someone from saying f*ck on the air is not censorship. Preventing someone from presenting an opinion would be. Mr. Stern can use any language acceptable in public to air his opinion over the public airwaves. If he was on a street corner in Phoenix using the same language over a bullhorn I would probably not be the first one to call the cops.
But that wouldn't have the same shock value, now would it. It's a lot easier to shock people to get attention than to have intelligent conversations. And I'm sure Mr. Stern is well aware of that, hence his choice to be so lazy.
Alright.. I screwed up and tried to quote from my memory of the article I read early this morning. Clinton nominated him, 2 of the 5 boards are democrats.
Clinton put Powell on the commision, Bush just made him the head. The commision is made up of 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans. So it's a bi-partisan attempt to shut a talentless bag-o-sh*t named Stern up.
All I can say is I'm glad I have XM radio instead of Sirius, I won't accidently stumble on his worthless show like I would from time to time when it was on TV. But I guess morons need other morons to entertain them, so he has to have some home.
This will probably kill all my kharma points, but I fail to see any entertainment value in Mr. Stern other than pure shock value.
I hope you get a ton of 'funny' modifiers for your karma, because that is very, very true.
True story. Every night, at least once, my cat comes to the bed and meows. He will stay down at the side of the bed until I take my hand and rub my fingers together to make whatever sound two fingers rubbing together make. If I don't rub my fingers together, he will leave. If I do, he will jump up beside me and expect to be scratched and petted. Eventually, he will stand on my chest, at which point I stop petting him until he gets off (he weighs 15 pounds and it is not very comfortable). Repeat at least two more times. Then he will lie next to me and I will continue to pet him until I get tired of it. Then he will get down and go do whatever things cats do at night.
Did I train him to respond to my cues, or did he train me? Human ego says I trained him. Reality says otherwise.
Cats can be trained, they require a different stimulus than dopey dogs. Dogs are pack animals, and are satisifed with your affection as long as they think you are in charge. Cats want something for their efforts, like food or scratching. It took me less than an hour to train my cat to come when called for a treat, and I trained him to jump into my lap when I whistle to get scratched. It doesn't work all the time, but often enough that a few of my friends that have cats have also been able to train theirs.
You may think that this training is a waste or just for entertainment (it is pretty funny), but it comes in handy. One day my fiancee saw a black cat on the garage roof and thought that somehow my cat had gotten out. She got all panicky and searched the apartment, then ran outside. I just sat at the dining room table and yelled 'Here Bear, Here Bear', and he came walking from the bedroom with that 'where is my treat' look.
She got panicky because here in Phoenix cats are called 'coyote treats'.
That was not very helpful...how about a link to a specific study or document. All your post did was further degrade your argument. Since you didn't provide a verifiable reference, I can only assume one doesn't exist until you post it.
I don't live in Stonegate, I live in a nice apartment building. From my apartment, I can see 2 or 3 other networks. I don't broadcast my SSID, use WEP, and have MAC filtering enabled so I'm not too worried about it.
It's easy for us geeks to shout from the rooftops to just lock it down, but we are dealing with people who think putting a key inside a fake rock is a safe way of not getting locked out of their home. I am surrounded by Joe Sixpacks and Barbi Braindeads. They have no clue and no amount of education is going to fix it.
Here is an idea -- provide a USB port on the access point and configure them with a random WEP key, no SSID broadcast, and MAC filtering at the factory. Then take a USB key fob to the access point, automagically download the SSID and WEP key, and take it to each PC. The PC can install the SSID and the key, and then download their MAC. Take the fob back to the lan and plug it in to finish configure the MAC filtering. No fuss, no bother, no skills involved.
There, problem solved. No computer can connect until it's done, and the system is delivered secure. Leave the web configuration utilitiy so if someone want's to turn it off to deliver free access they have a choice. That will take skills, or at least someone who can RTFM.
The real answer to this is why did you get into the computer field.
I got into computers back in the 70s because I loved computers and had natural talent. I often wrote code for friends and families for free because I enjoyed it. Even though I started out as an operator, I wrote code for my company to help automate simple processes.
Later on I got a full time job writing NEAT/3 assembler and COBOL because one of the members of the local astronomy club was also a manager at a bank. I had written a simple mailing list system to automate our mailings and he knew I had at least some programming ability. Writing for OSS also brings you contacts and networking is more important than a resume if you are looking for a job.
Working on things that you don't get to work on at your job teaches you new things. My bank employeer didn't use BASIC or FORTRAN. Helping out friends and families let me use those skills so later on when I went to get a new job, I could at a minimum list a passing knowledge of them.
Who would you hire? Someone who has 3 years Java experience writing web applications, or someone who has the same 3 years experience but was also doing free side work for his local church, astronomy club, stock club, or writing drivers for Linux? I'll choose the second because it appears that they enjoy what they are doing and are probably not just in it for the money.
And I will probably be willing to pay them a higher salary because they have a broader range of skills and possibly more self-motivation.
I bought a cheap-ass indash CD player for a cross-country trip. Two months later, my truck was broken into and the radio was stolen (Scottsdale, AZ has one of the highest auto-theft rates in the US.)
I put the old Delco radio back and haven't had any problems since.
Know what's funny?? The stereo cost $150. I had two $300 watches in the console that needed batteries, my checkbook in the glovebox, and $750 worth of golf equipment in the back.
Oh... I no longer keep expensive items in my truck. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
Real world cases. My daughter is going to be a vet. She is living with me for 4 years. Tuition at a public school (ASU) in a pre-vet course is $5K/year. That is $20K before books, etc. I doubt if her books are more than another $1K/year. (She will not need ANY student loans because her dear ole dad is using half of her current child support to pay her tuition. Any scholarships she gets will be used to defer anything I pay until she goes to vet college.). 4 years of graduate tuition at CSU is another $20K, off campus. Know what starting pay for a vet is after 7-8 years of college? $30K. I guess that's the difference between going to school to get rich and going to school to learn something you love.
College tuition at Miami University (Oxford Ohio) was $600 a semester 25 years ago, or $1,200/year. 3% inflation would put that at around $2,500. That school now charges about $10K for Ohio residents. I couldn't tell if that was on-campus or not, but I think it is. 4 years at that school is $40K w/o books and such. Way below the 100K spouted earlier.
As to my budget, it is real world. Medical expenses are part of the 45% deduction out of your paycheck. I have spent a total of $75 so far this year on co-payments, and I'm 45 years old. As to grooming and clothes, its about living within your means, i.e. going to a barber every other month instead of a stylist every other week, getting clothes at Kohls or Target instead of Macys and Nordstroms. And my son, who was 17 and lived with me paid $150/month for car insurance in Portland, Maine two years ago. Something about being a good student, not getting into accidents and driving a POS instead of a new car kept the cost down.
BTW... after bills, my budget for personal expenses (food, clothing, gas, etc.) is $700/month. I go out for lunch almost every day ($5-$10), dinner once or twice a week (OK, IHOP visits once or twice a month) and buy my clothes at Kohls. My god, I spend about $35 a month on average on all my clothes and wear dress slacks and collared shirts every day. I cut my own hair because I don't have that much.
Your expectations are unrealistic. You expect an employer to owe you something just because you worked hard and got a degree. That is not reality, reality is an employer has a budget and needs to get work done, and will hire who he can afford, and will complain about not being able to pay $75K a year for the good people.
I have hired several people who do not have a degree, and are still in school. I did not see any difference between their skills and the grads. I do see a difference in people that have been working for 5-10 years though.
Now, you claim that the economics of a college educated employee says they should not live like S&L. Why?? Why am I obligated to pay you a higher salary just because you went to a private college? Part of starting out is this little thing called paying your dues. No one is obligated to pay you a high salary simply because you can't keep your costs down.
Or, looking at it another way, if you were willing to spend $100K and are in debt to your eyeballs instead of finding ways to keep the costs down, maybe you don't have enough common sense to warrant my hiring you. Doesn't sound like anyone I would like to have creating a project budget.
Hmm....Tuition at most public schools are in the 4-8K a year range. If you had any brains you got at least 5-10K worth of scholarships. Regardless, 4 years nets to less than $50K if you live with your parents. My college tuition was less than $1000 (went one semester and dropped out because I couldn't afford it, got my various employers to pay for it instead over the next 10 years, it's called tuition reimbursement)
How can you expect someone to pay you more than you are worth to them because you made a bad investment in yourself?
So, I ask again, why are you worth more than $45K a year?? Especially when to an employer a college degree isn't worth any more than a 2 year trade school degree. Smart people are worth it, someone being churned out by a degree program ain't....I mean isn't. I've seen good and bad people come out of all types of schools, so what school you went to doesn't mean crap to me.
Hey... if you can get a $65-75K job, go for it. But if you can't, don't blame anyone else but yourself. You have to compete with the other 10 gazillion cookie-cutter degree boys out there, some that are willing to work for $40K a year, the $10K a year off shore workers, and the $30K a year Canadians.
Guess who I hire? No, not the $40K a year one. The one that is smart and clever and has good people skills and knows when to dress well and can work under pressure. That one I'll pay $75K a year (plus a bonus) because s/he is worth it. That one will work 60 hour weeks when needed because the rest of the time they can leave early or come in late. There are a few companies out there that treat employees well, you just have to find them and be worth it.
As to your girlfriend tax, it's called living within your means. Try flowers from the grocery store ($10), not buying popcorn and soda at the matinees ($6.50 times two), and thoughtful gifts instead of expensive ones (framed photo of a special occasion $10, poem written on the back of a restaurant receipt describing the night, $0). Romance wins their hearts for the long run. Bribery is just a way of getting a BJ that night <Old man smile>
I am curious. My first job as a COBOL/NEAT3/UPL/FORTRAN programmer about 25 years ago paid $18K. Allowing for 3% inflation per year, that is about $37K now. I couldn't afford an apartment by myself, drove a 1976 Nova, had a hard time making electricity and phone payments, and used a box as a dining room table. No overtime, and I remember one month we put in about thirty 12 hours days straight because of a bank conversion (an unusual occurance, and the bank did provide pizza and other items to make all the work tolerable. It was fun for the first 3 weeks, but I digress.)
Now, this is very important and I really would like a dialog about this. What salary would you need to live like that? And if you think living like that is a crock straight out of college for 3-5 years, why do you think you deserve more?
Some math... A $40K salary would net about, oh, lets say $1800 (assume 45% taken out for taxes and benefits). $1000 apartment in Phoenix split two ways is $500. $75 for electricity (split two ways). $300 for a car payment, plus $150 for car insurance. Broadband and IP phone is another $50 apiece (we are geeks, aren't we??). That leaves about $725/month for food, gas, and student loans for one person. I could live on that very nicely, and maybe even afford to buy one of those dining-rooms-in-a-box at Walmart.
Now, this is very important and I really would like a dialog about this. If you think living like that is a crock straight out of college for 3-5 years, why do you think you deserve more?
Give it a rest. I remember interviewing a prospect a few years ago (before the.bomb) for a Unix admin position. She had two years experience, most of which was building servers using Solaris jump start. She expected a starting salary of $70K in Portland Maine.
After I stopped laughing (not really), I told her that she did not have the experience or skills to command such a salary and that $40-50K was more realistic. She was very indignant and said she could get that much in Boston
Maybe she could, I don't know. Many tech works have been abusing their employers for years demanding high wages for minimal skills. When starting Java coders fresh out of college command $50K sallaries (or more), something was wrong.
Tech workers drove the jobs overseas, and contributed to their own overtime problem because they got too expensive.
Tech people with skills and experience can still command $100K salaries. The only common thread in someone's long list of low paying, thankless jobs is themself. If they can't find someone to pay them what they are worth, maybe they aren't worth it and should look into something else, increase their skills, or accept it.
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Let's see ... I can program my phone to only need two keystrokes to get to functions I use the most often, there are nine available but I only have three programmed because that's all I use. All of my most often called numbers are voice enabled, and I don't have to open the phone to take calls on my blue-tooth handset. This new phone lets me can draw numbers in space, althought I cannot imagine that is easier or faster than using the keys. And I can draw 'Y' or 'N' instead of pressing soft keys.
... nothing to see here....unless you are a gadget freak and want to buy something that will no longer be offered in 6 months due to a lack of interest.
From what I can tell, the only purpose of this is for games. And we all know how successful they have been combining phones with game systems.
Move on
I did something similar with a GPS device, and unless it was right next to the window I couldn't get a signal. As it was, I could only get 3 or 4 satellites.
I was under the impression that airlines were getting ready to offer cellular by installing the necessary repeaters. I would almost bet they will charge a fee for this, kind of like roaming. I mean, come on, they charge a fee now for some crap headphones. Do you really think they will offer this for free?
Funny how we couldn't use cell phones when the airlines couldn't make any money.
How about one Solaris sys admins can relate to??
... they are limited by the number of rows allowed in an Excel spreadsheet, so you can't easily analyze more than 65,000 data points. Don't think that is much?? There are 1440 minutes in a day, so a single day sar output of more than 45 partitions will overflow the spreadsheet (1440*45= 64800).
I take the output of sar -d, pretty it up using PERL so that each line looks the same and the fields are tab separated (each line contains the date/time, partition, and the associated sar output). I then bring it into a spreadsheet using the 'import external data' feature (so I can point it to different files) and see what the relative queue lengths, service times, et.al. of all the disks are relative to each other and across a given time frame. It is very quick way to find hot spots on your disk subsystems without having to install any software except what comes with Solaris. It is often more useful to provide pretty pictures when asking for additional controllers and such.
With macros and ssh scripts, this is automated and takes only a few minutes.
If I was really motivated and had the need, I would dump the sar data into a database first so I could extract the data for any time frame very quickly. But I tend to use it only when there are performance problems. The entire spreadsheet has tabs for CPU, memory, paging, and semaphore stats and a single macro runs the scripts and refreshes the data tables.
Pivot tables to have one very big limitation though
Hassle?? I made the same decision to wait, I'm going to wait until next month when the first set of patches will probably be out.
... a sudden revelation occurs. I do understand, they don't have a life....
I just don't understand the drive to have everything the day it comes out. The game will be the same game 5 days (or a week or a month) from now that it was on Tuesday.
Oh wait
I used to take the small lights off the Christmas tree strands, pull them out of their little sockets, and stick the bare wires in to the outlets. They glowed REEEALLLY bright for a very short period.
And lets not forget lighter fluid. What good are matches without lighter fluid. I get nostalgic if someone uses a Zippo lighter and I get a whiff of it. I wonder if the round burn holes are still in the wood floor where I used to live....
A man's perspective...
Back in 1980 I was 'promoted' from office clerk to computer operator for a small manufacturing company, running a Burroughs B1700. I was to take over for a female computer operator who was retiring. I found out several years later that the reason I was given the job was not because they thought I would be better at it, but because I was not as good at my current job as my female counterpart was. Whether or not that was the real reason I don't know, but I do know that I was a better operator than a clerk.
As a side note, within a few weeks, it became apparent that I was a good choice (not necessarily the best since the other person never had a chance at it). They had these things called 'manuals', and after reading it discovered that the computer was capable of running more than one job at a time!!! The keypunch operator, and my backup, was terrified that I was going to mess something up because 'we have always done it that way.' The good news is that I had a lot of 'free time' after figuring out which jobs could be run together. The bad news is that the free time was quickly replaced with other tasks, and I became the finance gopher, doing all the menial tasks that the accounts payable clerk, accountant, and payroll clerk didn't have time for.
No good deed goes unpunished!
Did you see any excuse in there?? I didn't see any?? I stated my opinion that 'he who is without sin cast the first stone'. Europeans often forget that it was primarily Europeans who settled this country because they were being so ruthlessly persecuted and brought their slavery, religeous intolerance, quest for untold riches, and blood thirsty genocide with them. It was Europeans who started the tradition of sticking it to the indigineous population, they were being slaughtered and pushed aside long before the United States was founded. Many of the religeous intolerance in this country has roots in the persecution during the 17th and 18th centuries forcing those with more puritanical beliefs to flee to North America, hence instilling a moral code that is different than what was left behind.
Any mention of transgressions early in the country's history should include the Eurpoeans as responsible parties. The Americans have had to deal with the left overs and try to correct them, the methods may have been wanting, and for that on should rightly chastise them.
Yep...those Europeans were very good at getting the slaves over here too...and those Africans were very good at giving them up to us (between the times they were slaughtering each other.) And the Europeans were very good at wiping out the indigineous population when they got here. And everyone should have the right to have sex with whomever they want whenever they want because it's all about the pleasure and how we feel inside and has nothing to do with health factors or moral beliefs. And lets not forget those silly Germans during WWII and Stalin
It's all a matter of what OPINION you have, and about choosing which facts to present and which to ignore. The fact is while the US hasn't been perfect, neither has anyone else. The EU is rapidly becoming one of the most heavily regulated and largest welfare state around, Africa and the Middle East still continue to be very unstable, China's human rights record is abysmal, and on and on. The question isn't who is the best, but who is not the worst. One could just as easily point to many of the Middle East and Africa problems and lay their cause squarely on the back of 18th and 19th century European colonialism.
And another fine example of the Stern crowd and why Stern and his followers are treated the way they are. Because they present themselves as inconsiderate, selfish a**holes. 'Hey! This crap needs to be on because I LIKE IT. F*k everyone else and their opinions!'
If they could learn to speak in an intelligent manner, maybe others would take them seriously and listen instead of turning to the show from time to time, hearing yet another attempt by Howard to get some woman to take her top off, and reinforcing another opinion of why the show is worthless.
Please don't reply to my postings while I am drinking coffee...now I have to clean up my desk.
Preventing someone from saying f*ck on the air is not censorship. Preventing someone from presenting an opinion would be. Mr. Stern can use any language acceptable in public to air his opinion over the public airwaves. If he was on a street corner in Phoenix using the same language over a bullhorn I would probably not be the first one to call the cops.
But that wouldn't have the same shock value, now would it. It's a lot easier to shock people to get attention than to have intelligent conversations. And I'm sure Mr. Stern is well aware of that, hence his choice to be so lazy.
Alright .. I screwed up and tried to quote from my memory of the article I read early this morning. Clinton nominated him, 2 of the 5 boards are democrats.
Clinton put Powell on the commision, Bush just made him the head. The commision is made up of 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans. So it's a bi-partisan attempt to shut a talentless bag-o-sh*t named Stern up.
All I can say is I'm glad I have XM radio instead of Sirius, I won't accidently stumble on his worthless show like I would from time to time when it was on TV. But I guess morons need other morons to entertain them, so he has to have some home.
This will probably kill all my kharma points, but I fail to see any entertainment value in Mr. Stern other than pure shock value.
I hope you get a ton of 'funny' modifiers for your karma, because that is very, very true.
True story. Every night, at least once, my cat comes to the bed and meows. He will stay down at the side of the bed until I take my hand and rub my fingers together to make whatever sound two fingers rubbing together make. If I don't rub my fingers together, he will leave. If I do, he will jump up beside me and expect to be scratched and petted. Eventually, he will stand on my chest, at which point I stop petting him until he gets off (he weighs 15 pounds and it is not very comfortable). Repeat at least two more times. Then he will lie next to me and I will continue to pet him until I get tired of it. Then he will get down and go do whatever things cats do at night.
Did I train him to respond to my cues, or did he train me? Human ego says I trained him. Reality says otherwise.
Cats can be trained, they require a different stimulus than dopey dogs. Dogs are pack animals, and are satisifed with your affection as long as they think you are in charge. Cats want something for their efforts, like food or scratching. It took me less than an hour to train my cat to come when called for a treat, and I trained him to jump into my lap when I whistle to get scratched. It doesn't work all the time, but often enough that a few of my friends that have cats have also been able to train theirs.
You may think that this training is a waste or just for entertainment (it is pretty funny), but it comes in handy. One day my fiancee saw a black cat on the garage roof and thought that somehow my cat had gotten out. She got all panicky and searched the apartment, then ran outside. I just sat at the dining room table and yelled 'Here Bear, Here Bear', and he came walking from the bedroom with that 'where is my treat' look.
She got panicky because here in Phoenix cats are called 'coyote treats'.
That was not very helpful...how about a link to a specific study or document. All your post did was further degrade your argument. Since you didn't provide a verifiable reference, I can only assume one doesn't exist until you post it.
I don't live in Stonegate, I live in a nice apartment building. From my apartment, I can see 2 or 3 other networks. I don't broadcast my SSID, use WEP, and have MAC filtering enabled so I'm not too worried about it.
It's easy for us geeks to shout from the rooftops to just lock it down, but we are dealing with people who think putting a key inside a fake rock is a safe way of not getting locked out of their home. I am surrounded by Joe Sixpacks and Barbi Braindeads. They have no clue and no amount of education is going to fix it.
Here is an idea -- provide a USB port on the access point and configure them with a random WEP key, no SSID broadcast, and MAC filtering at the factory. Then take a USB key fob to the access point, automagically download the SSID and WEP key, and take it to each PC. The PC can install the SSID and the key, and then download their MAC. Take the fob back to the lan and plug it in to finish configure the MAC filtering. No fuss, no bother, no skills involved.
There, problem solved. No computer can connect until it's done, and the system is delivered secure. Leave the web configuration utilitiy so if someone want's to turn it off to deliver free access they have a choice. That will take skills, or at least someone who can RTFM.
The real answer to this is why did you get into the computer field.
I got into computers back in the 70s because I loved computers and had natural talent. I often wrote code for friends and families for free because I enjoyed it. Even though I started out as an operator, I wrote code for my company to help automate simple processes.
Later on I got a full time job writing NEAT/3 assembler and COBOL because one of the members of the local astronomy club was also a manager at a bank. I had written a simple mailing list system to automate our mailings and he knew I had at least some programming ability. Writing for OSS also brings you contacts and networking is more important than a resume if you are looking for a job.
Working on things that you don't get to work on at your job teaches you new things. My bank employeer didn't use BASIC or FORTRAN. Helping out friends and families let me use those skills so later on when I went to get a new job, I could at a minimum list a passing knowledge of them.
Who would you hire? Someone who has 3 years Java experience writing web applications, or someone who has the same 3 years experience but was also doing free side work for his local church, astronomy club, stock club, or writing drivers for Linux? I'll choose the second because it appears that they enjoy what they are doing and are probably not just in it for the money.
And I will probably be willing to pay them a higher salary because they have a broader range of skills and possibly more self-motivation.
I bought a cheap-ass indash CD player for a cross-country trip. Two months later, my truck was broken into and the radio was stolen (Scottsdale, AZ has one of the highest auto-theft rates in the US.)
... I no longer keep expensive items in my truck. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
I put the old Delco radio back and haven't had any problems since.
Know what's funny?? The stereo cost $150. I had two $300 watches in the console that needed batteries, my checkbook in the glovebox, and $750 worth of golf equipment in the back.
Oh
Two words --- goose poop.
Think big, cocktail weiner sized grey poop all over your yard.
If you go this route, be sure to buy a shovel.
Real world cases. My daughter is going to be a vet. She is living with me for 4 years. Tuition at a public school (ASU) in a pre-vet course is $5K/year. That is $20K before books, etc. I doubt if her books are more than another $1K/year. (She will not need ANY student loans because her dear ole dad is using half of her current child support to pay her tuition. Any scholarships she gets will be used to defer anything I pay until she goes to vet college.). 4 years of graduate tuition at CSU is another $20K, off campus. Know what starting pay for a vet is after 7-8 years of college? $30K. I guess that's the difference between going to school to get rich and going to school to learn something you love.
... after bills, my budget for personal expenses (food, clothing, gas, etc.) is $700/month. I go out for lunch almost every day ($5-$10), dinner once or twice a week (OK, IHOP visits once or twice a month) and buy my clothes at Kohls. My god, I spend about $35 a month on average on all my clothes and wear dress slacks and collared shirts every day. I cut my own hair because I don't have that much.
College tuition at Miami University (Oxford Ohio) was $600 a semester 25 years ago, or $1,200/year. 3% inflation would put that at around $2,500. That school now charges about $10K for Ohio residents. I couldn't tell if that was on-campus or not, but I think it is. 4 years at that school is $40K w/o books and such. Way below the 100K spouted earlier.
As to my budget, it is real world. Medical expenses are part of the 45% deduction out of your paycheck. I have spent a total of $75 so far this year on co-payments, and I'm 45 years old. As to grooming and clothes, its about living within your means, i.e. going to a barber every other month instead of a stylist every other week, getting clothes at Kohls or Target instead of Macys and Nordstroms. And my son, who was 17 and lived with me paid $150/month for car insurance in Portland, Maine two years ago. Something about being a good student, not getting into accidents and driving a POS instead of a new car kept the cost down.
BTW
Your expectations are unrealistic. You expect an employer to owe you something just because you worked hard and got a degree. That is not reality, reality is an employer has a budget and needs to get work done, and will hire who he can afford, and will complain about not being able to pay $75K a year for the good people.
I have hired several people who do not have a degree, and are still in school. I did not see any difference between their skills and the grads. I do see a difference in people that have been working for 5-10 years though.
Now, you claim that the economics of a college educated employee says they should not live like S&L. Why?? Why am I obligated to pay you a higher salary just because you went to a private college? Part of starting out is this little thing called paying your dues. No one is obligated to pay you a high salary simply because you can't keep your costs down.
Or, looking at it another way, if you were willing to spend $100K and are in debt to your eyeballs instead of finding ways to keep the costs down, maybe you don't have enough common sense to warrant my hiring you. Doesn't sound like anyone I would like to have creating a project budget.
Hmm....Tuition at most public schools are in the 4-8K a year range. If you had any brains you got at least 5-10K worth of scholarships. Regardless, 4 years nets to less than $50K if you live with your parents. My college tuition was less than $1000 (went one semester and dropped out because I couldn't afford it, got my various employers to pay for it instead over the next 10 years, it's called tuition reimbursement)
... if you can get a $65-75K job, go for it. But if you can't, don't blame anyone else but yourself. You have to compete with the other 10 gazillion cookie-cutter degree boys out there, some that are willing to work for $40K a year, the $10K a year off shore workers, and the $30K a year Canadians.
How can you expect someone to pay you more than you are worth to them because you made a bad investment in yourself?
So, I ask again, why are you worth more than $45K a year?? Especially when to an employer a college degree isn't worth any more than a 2 year trade school degree. Smart people are worth it, someone being churned out by a degree program ain't....I mean isn't. I've seen good and bad people come out of all types of schools, so what school you went to doesn't mean crap to me.
Hey
Guess who I hire? No, not the $40K a year one. The one that is smart and clever and has good people skills and knows when to dress well and can work under pressure. That one I'll pay $75K a year (plus a bonus) because s/he is worth it. That one will work 60 hour weeks when needed because the rest of the time they can leave early or come in late. There are a few companies out there that treat employees well, you just have to find them and be worth it.
As to your girlfriend tax, it's called living within your means. Try flowers from the grocery store ($10), not buying popcorn and soda at the matinees ($6.50 times two), and thoughtful gifts instead of expensive ones (framed photo of a special occasion $10, poem written on the back of a restaurant receipt describing the night, $0). Romance wins their hearts for the long run. Bribery is just a way of getting a BJ that night <Old man smile>
I am curious. My first job as a COBOL/NEAT3/UPL/FORTRAN programmer about 25 years ago paid $18K. Allowing for 3% inflation per year, that is about $37K now. I couldn't afford an apartment by myself, drove a 1976 Nova, had a hard time making electricity and phone payments, and used a box as a dining room table. No overtime, and I remember one month we put in about thirty 12 hours days straight because of a bank conversion (an unusual occurance, and the bank did provide pizza and other items to make all the work tolerable. It was fun for the first 3 weeks, but I digress.)
... A $40K salary would net about, oh, lets say $1800 (assume 45% taken out for taxes and benefits). $1000 apartment in Phoenix split two ways is $500. $75 for electricity (split two ways). $300 for a car payment, plus $150 for car insurance. Broadband and IP phone is another $50 apiece (we are geeks, aren't we??). That leaves about $725/month for food, gas, and student loans for one person. I could live on that very nicely, and maybe even afford to buy one of those dining-rooms-in-a-box at Walmart.
Now, this is very important and I really would like a dialog about this. What salary would you need to live like that? And if you think living like that is a crock straight out of college for 3-5 years, why do you think you deserve more?
Some math
Now, this is very important and I really would like a dialog about this. If you think living like that is a crock straight out of college for 3-5 years, why do you think you deserve more?
Give it a rest. I remember interviewing a prospect a few years ago (before the .bomb) for a Unix admin position. She had two years experience, most of which was building servers using Solaris jump start. She expected a starting salary of $70K in Portland Maine.
After I stopped laughing (not really), I told her that she did not have the experience or skills to command such a salary and that $40-50K was more realistic. She was very indignant and said she could get that much in Boston
Maybe she could, I don't know. Many tech works have been abusing their employers for years demanding high wages for minimal skills. When starting Java coders fresh out of college command $50K sallaries (or more), something was wrong.
Tech workers drove the jobs overseas, and contributed to their own overtime problem because they got too expensive.
Tech people with skills and experience can still command $100K salaries. The only common thread in someone's long list of low paying, thankless jobs is themself. If they can't find someone to pay them what they are worth, maybe they aren't worth it and should look into something else, increase their skills, or accept it.