If you're talking about the ZA/ZP/ZT payscale, The Nat'l Institute of Standards & Tech. (NIST) has been running that for almost 10 years now.
You can think of it as having a couple pipes to funnel people in: an administrative pipe for pencil pushers, a professional pipe for the brains, and a technical pipe for the knuckle draggers (for example). Folks can get hired competitively - that's the big plus. Another plus is there are only 4 or 5 steps, not 15 like in GS, so you can advance quicker if you perform.
The minus is, no matter how they try to explain it, there are quotas on who can advance, based on your budget after hires. So you get groups hiring competetively and not holding those people because they can't keep the pay competetive. Where 40, 50 and 60 year employees were the norm - priceless experts in their field - you have churn now.
I think it could have been an improvement, and maybe it was at Mugu/CL, but not at NIST, IMHO.
I'm a federal government worker with 13 years sys admin experience on various unix boxes and a little NT, one of 3 webmasters/developers for a campus of 3500, plenty of lan/telecomm experience, a B.A. and M.S. in Comp Sci, I read/. and all I pull in is a topped out GS-13 (65K) in the DC metro area. To get more money, I need to chuck my skills and be a non-tech manager.
So figure 12-15 times turning it on, making a note then turning it off per day... unless you're also powering a modem or other doodad with it, then beware!
Do you think that voters would be served better if campaigns were not allowed (for a specified amount of time) to know what each other were saying about key issues?
For example, currently if major candidate A states "I am in favor of X", there must immediately be an other candidate who says "I oppose X". I would love to see a period of time where the candidates are not campaigning solely against each other, but instead campaign to the population.
I will not vote FOR a candidate merely because they say they oppose something I don't like - that does not tell me what the candidate favors!
Just read a short story last night in a collection. How We Lost the Moon... talks about the evacuation of lunar bases and how they saved the historic Apollo items - even digging out an Armstrong footprint. Nice read, IMHO.
About 10 years ago, as wavelets were a buzzword, fractal compression got a share of the spotlight. Michael Barnsley - author of several papers and books - brought a fractal video demo by, and it was impressive. Unfortunately, I can't remember the details.
I have the most un-stressed uncle, because he's a war-between-the-states reenactor with access to a period gatling gun and cannon. The gatling gun and piano combination can lift years of stress in minutes.
I'm waiting for the day (and I hope I never see it) when the chip in your dash records speed and GPS location, calulates you broke the law last night, and when you go put gas in the tank, adds your fine to your bill at the pump.
Is it safe to assume that a vast majority - 95% - of people in the 48 states can connect up to 56K ISPs? I can imagine a few places (Tincup, Colorado for one) where it may still be impossible, but is there a serious number that can be put on this?
Second, what's the density in your area for cable connections? I live in Carroll Co. MD, about 50 miles north from D.C. and if there aren't 100 possible cable customers in a mile stretch of road, it don't go there. My road has 3, so I'm screwed with that media.
three problems there - the railroad right-of-way is not all under the same ownership, it gets abandoned/sold a lot, and it's usually near natural geology features (rivers, ravines, etc.) that tend to see quite a few disasters. For the MOST part, though, running telecomm in that space is a good idea.
Phooey. This kind of hacking ("what's under the hood?") has been around for hundreds of years - humans can't posess a boat, guitar, auto or especially a free gizmo without putzing around with it, either to understand or improve it. It's just pure curiosity, flavored with insipration at times.
The new twist on this trait comes in the speed at which the community of hackers can swap knowledge. If it took a week for geeks in LA to get news to NY to raid the local tech store for X, and a month more for that news to hit Little Rock, the lawyers probably wouldn't notice.
Back in the good ol days, we posted stuff at 300 baud, uphill, both ways in 9 feet of snow...
We're victims of our own success, at times. Unfortunately, it just means that we have to disseminate and acquire these pearls faster, before the Big Bad Co. shuts them down. I'm getting to old to stay awake all night.:-)
I assume that the birds would completely burn up on reentry, but just in case, how accurate could they be aimed? If you wanted to drop one say, in Lake Superior, or the Gulf of Mexico, or 15 miles out from NYC - close enough to be really cool but still "safe" - would you be able to?
I definitely think the New Year's angle is a good one...
Slashdot Mirror
2001-05-17 02:11:20 - and no science used in this guess.
Shoot, the idea of flight goes back to the myth of Icarus flying too close to the sun. When was the first concept of radio transmission?
Somebody in the 1830's must have thought, "this telegraph is great, but could we do this without wires?"
*I'd* rather have Spaceman Spiff shades that sense my biorhythms and make "expressions".
Great. The 7 gazillion things you can't browse in public now include "$hi+ m0th3r fu<k3r <o<k su<k3r di<k pu$$y and +i+s."
Just give me a TTY and access to hack and trek. GOD I feel old.
You can think of it as having a couple pipes to funnel people in: an administrative pipe for pencil pushers, a professional pipe for the brains, and a technical pipe for the knuckle draggers (for example). Folks can get hired competitively - that's the big plus. Another plus is there are only 4 or 5 steps, not 15 like in GS, so you can advance quicker if you perform.
The minus is, no matter how they try to explain it, there are quotas on who can advance, based on your budget after hires. So you get groups hiring competetively and not holding those people because they can't keep the pay competetive. Where 40, 50 and 60 year employees were the norm - priceless experts in their field - you have churn now.
I think it could have been an improvement, and maybe it was at Mugu/CL, but not at NIST, IMHO.
So I'm looking around. Here's a resumé.
So figure 12-15 times turning it on, making a note then turning it off per day... unless you're also powering a modem or other doodad with it, then beware!
For example, currently if major candidate A states "I am in favor of X", there must immediately be an other candidate who says "I oppose X". I would love to see a period of time where the candidates are not campaigning solely against each other, but instead campaign to the population.
I will not vote FOR a candidate merely because they say they oppose something I don't like - that does not tell me what the candidate favors!
Damn! is it too late to patent "talk to the hand"?
I dropped a monitor out of a Corolla at 50 mph once... probably would've been okay if that truck hadn't nailed it on the bounce.
Just read a short story last night in a collection. How We Lost the Moon... talks about the evacuation of lunar bases and how they saved the historic Apollo items - even digging out an Armstrong footprint. Nice read, IMHO.
Anywho, you can find a good primer at the Waterloo Fractal Compression Project, including links off to Barnsley's new company and some other good stuff.
I have the most un-stressed uncle, because he's a war-between-the-states reenactor with access to a period gatling gun and cannon. The gatling gun and piano combination can lift years of stress in minutes.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a division in the Info.Tech. Lab that has metadata as one of their projects. Looks like they're thinking XML.
Step right up, get yer lo-tech '54 Fords here...
Except I only have a Master's, I sleep in the lunchroom and I browse /. And I run redhat not BSD (doh!)
Second, what's the density in your area for cable connections? I live in Carroll Co. MD, about 50 miles north from D.C. and if there aren't 100 possible cable customers in a mile stretch of road, it don't go there. My road has 3, so I'm screwed with that media.
three problems there - the railroad right-of-way is not all under the same ownership, it gets abandoned/sold a lot, and it's usually near natural geology features (rivers, ravines, etc.) that tend to see quite a few disasters. For the MOST part, though, running telecomm in that space is a good idea.
And when Sol snuffs it, we'll be "Stone Free"...
The new twist on this trait comes in the speed at which the community of hackers can swap knowledge. If it took a week for geeks in LA to get news to NY to raid the local tech store for X, and a month more for that news to hit Little Rock, the lawyers probably wouldn't notice.
Back in the good ol days, we posted stuff at 300 baud, uphill, both ways in 9 feet of snow...
We're victims of our own success, at times. Unfortunately, it just means that we have to disseminate and acquire these pearls faster, before the Big Bad Co. shuts them down. I'm getting to old to stay awake all night. :-)
I definitely think the New Year's angle is a good one...
I don't think I'd like the wide open space after a while, but I'd LOVE one of those desks!
What the hey - break tradition with the other Jovian satellite names and call it "Clarke".