Indeed, there are many people (myself included) that think a large part of the Big 3's reluctance to pursue electric vehicles is the loss of parts and maintenance revenue. They touch on this in "Who Killed the Electric Car", in fact.
Gasoline engines are pigs. In addition to gasoline, they require oil changes, oil filters, air filters, fuel filters, coolant changes, emissions control system maintenance, and a bazillion other items and their corresponding labor costs. (Personally, I do all that stuff myself, but I still have to pay for the parts- and I'd be willing to bet that I'm in the vast, vast minority.)
Additionally, it's been said, here and elsewhere, that Toyota doesn't make a profit on the sale of a Prius. Well, obviously they're not doing it for free, so how are they making their money?
1. Brand building (goodwill) and 2. Maintenance
Would you take your whiz-bang high-tech Prius to the corner garage? I wouldn't. You probably can't, anyway, for anything beyond tire changing type stuff. So, off to the Toyota dealer goes the Prius owner...
Fire. Theft. Lightning, if you RAID it up and leave it online.
I've been thinking about this for a while myself- this is for absolutely irreplaceable data. Offsite, secure storage is required. It can be online, but that's vulnerable to hacking. What we're really talking about is something you can put in a safe deposit box and ignore for 20 years.
Can you yank out the drive in 30 seconds when the fire starts and you're not home?
Can you yank out the drive in 30 seconds when lightning strikes and fries every single component in every piece of equipment in your house? And don't think any "surge suppressor" is going to stop it- lightning travels several thousands of feet to get to your house; that 1/16" MOV isn't going to do squat.
"It feels like the only reason half my co-workers talk to me is because I'm the only one with tits in the place... not because I'm smart, not because I can code with the best of them, not because I'm funny, or cheerful or anything else."
Maybe they _are_ talking to you because you're smart, can code with the best of them, etc etc. Maybe your choice of words "It feels like..." shows that you don't really know why they talk to you, so you're making an assumption about the cause.
Or maybe you're just really full of yourself. Personally, given your attitude, I'm not sure I'd be interested in talking to you at all.
Here's some thoughts for you to ponder: 1. If you're really certain you're being harassed, push back. 2. If your corporate culture permits obvious harassment, perhaps it's time to 1. sue or 2. look for another job. 3. If you really think that all males are salivating over your boobs, perhaps you're the sexist party here.
It's sad that you seem to define yourself by your mammaries.
This isn't valid shellscript, but should get the point across:
for ( each_jpg_in_porn_directory )
{ head filesize-1 $filename > $newfilename
rm $filename
}
All you have to do is drop one byte to change the MD5- and this will kill the last pixel, so it will be in the lower right corner. You'll never notice it.
"Because you know if it happened, it would be all over the news. They'd be shouting, "Look what we did!""
Yeah, except that's wrong. Any revelation about our capabilities provides information to those attempting to subvert them. I'm not disputing your overall distaste for our reaction- but it's a prime element of the intelligence game that you don't reveal anything unless absolutely necessary. Yes, this would include telling the media we'd stopped a plot, unless it was REALLY huge.
Yeah, that's 'cause you were at The Bellagio. The higher end places are tightening up on the booze a little. I read recently that Steve Wynn ordered no free drinks for _any_ slot players. I haven't verified this, because I don't play slots and I don't typically patronize Strip casinos.
ObRant: The Strip sucks. It's crowded, snobby, and expensive. I suppose if you want the vacation experience it's good for that, but if you want to gamble and suck down free booze Downtown is the way to go. I was at Caesar's for BlackHat in August and the freaking tables were $25 minimum. After the con I rolled into a comped room at Fitzgerald's and had my fill of free drinks and $5 tables.
However, if you must gamble on the Strip, I suggest Bill's Gamblin' Hall, Casino Royale, and The Excalibur. They usually have reasonable minimums and plenty of free booze.
"Probably about half of the Governor's Scholars and Presidential Scholars I knew failed out their freshmen year."
This. I wasn't quite that commended- I had a good GPA in a private school and a couple of scholarships. But I was pushed _hard_ when I was in school, in retrospect, to the point of absurdity. It didn't help that I was on a farm in the middle of nowhere surrounded by corn-fed morons. Thank gawd for BBSes and Metronet... but I digress.
I came very close to failing out my freshman year in college. Why?
Freedom.
For the first time in my life I was able to do as I pleased. Couple this with being surrounded by a completely foreign world to explore, interesting people, and girls(!)... academic pursuits took something of a priority hit.
Random rumination: The internet is an amazing tool. It allows anyone to learn about anything they care to be interested in. Had it been available (codger mode on) when I was young I can't imagine how different my life would be. When I was in middle school I wanted dearly to discuss memory refresh architectures while the rest of 'em wanted to debate the relative merits of Skoal vs. Copenhagen. It made for a lonely existence. Point being: you damn kids today should appreciate this internet thing we built.:)
5. The benefits suck. Is there any other employer in this day and age that doesn't have maternity leave? Ummm, legally, any company in the U.S. is required to allow you 3 months off under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), but they don't have to pay you. The feds will allow you to use your sick leave for that time to be paid your full salary. A lot of private employers won't be paying you for that time off. You're correct; FMLA guarantees you will have a job to return to after taking 3 months unpaid leave to care for a newborn. And yes, the Feds will let you burn all your sick/annual leave during that period so you still get a paycheck.
In my world, "maternity leave" means "paid maternity leave". Perhaps I'm wrong.
My experience is that the majority of private employers above a certain size offer paid maternity leave. Regardless, the gov't sells itself on how it's great benefits mitigate some of the other negatives we've already discussed- when, in fact, they aren't that great.
It's funny you should say that- my wife is still a Fed- at a very progressive agency, even- and our stock answer when asked how the gov't can be changed to be more efficient/etc is, "Everyone needs to die". Sad but true.
That, or years of glacially-paced change is what it's going to take.
As a veteran of several Federal institutions, both as a contractor and a Fed, I can tell you that there are a multitude of reasons why the government has a hard time getting people:
1. The hiring process for Federal employees sucks. It is byzantine and SLOW. One of the more progressive agencies was able to bring me on in a couple of months, but another took a YEAR. The average is somewhere in the middle. I had reasons to wait at the time (had to see what was behind that big NSA fence) but why would anyone wait under normal circumstances when contractors/the private sector moves so much more quickly? 2. The pay sucks. The GS scheme tops out at around $120K right now. There are grades that pay more (SES) but without going into detail, good luck with that. Anyone with solid experience in security/enterprise IP engineering/etc can smoke that as a contractor or in the private sector. 3. The atmosphere sucks. The government may be trying to change, but everything you've ever heard about the stereotypical gov't employee is generally true. Some agencies are better than others, but at most the fat guy with the polyester leisure suit lives on. 4. The positive reinforcement sucks. Managers have little ability to give raises or promotions. In some agencies, spot awards are used, but most still view them as evil. 5. The benefits suck. Is there any other employer in this day and age that doesn't have maternity leave? The rest (medical, 401(k)) are par. The pension is nice, if you stick around long enough to qualify. 6. The culture sucks. No matter how much they try to change, years of hiring the sub-par have infused the gov't with a culture of sluggish bureaucracy. This will take decades to undo. Also, this is precisely the kind of environment that will drive a decent technical person raving mad in short order.
Noone who [knows|can do] better would ever work for the Federal Government.
Bravo- you've touched upon one of my most favorite philosophies.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
"I wouldn't think a Chinese government supported Hacker would be smart enough to at least know how to cover their own tracks. Now I don't need to worry about them anymore."
I don't think you said exactly what you meant... Regardless, I'll clarify, because I was in a hurry when I left my initial post and I think some might find the detail interesting.
The 70% I refer to are derived from two primary sources: 1. IPS/IDS detection of incoming hack attempts from Chinese IP space 2. IPS/IDS detection of outgoing iframe accesses to Chinese IP space (browser exploits).
IP packets have to get where they need to go, so the destination address must be valid. The ultimate destination can be obfuscated by relaying through a proxy(ies), but if your home base is immune from prosecution, why bother?
The only other possible conclusion is that China is home to one buttload of machines that have been hacked to provide proxy services for some other destination. This is unlikely.
No, I didn't miss the qualifier. The point was that some of the people you have to deal with in the employment process (indeed, in the world as a whole) have opinions that aren't worth a damn. You know, there is no BA in "Human Resources"- those drones can be anything. How can ascribe any default degree of competence to them?
While there was a certain amount of hyperbole in my post, I think you'd be surprised. How many HR departments have you had to deal with? I've seen some truly stunning examples of HR stupidity.
I work in the network security field. Probably 70% of the IP space I block at the edge of my network is Chinese. The Pentagon and DoD have had repeated problems with hackers using Chinese IPs in the last two years or so. Make no mistake about it, this effort is tacitly (if not outrightly) being supported by the Chinese government.
Hm. Most of the comments here seem to focus on IPv4 and natting and torrentabiliy, rather than v6.
I've deployed IPv6 at my employer. There's plenty of v6 stuff out there, and most (all?) of the major carriers support it. Cisco's implementation is working fine for me. The Unices I've tried seem to work properly, although v6 support is definitely unpolished at this point.
What doesn't work is Windows.
Vista's support may be better, but we all know the issues with Vista. XP support is abysmal.
I'd argue that the v6 infrastructure _is_ ready, despite some misgivings I have with it. What isn't is Microsoft.
"The hydrazine tank aboard the failed satellite is about the same size as the one that was aboard the doomed space shuttle Columbia. The tank landed intact in an unpopulated wooded area in Texas after the orbiter broke up on re-entry in 2003."
However, given the unlikely chances of it landing in a populated area (let alone on land), I'll stick with my previous assertion that the primary goal of this exercise is the destruction of the interesting bits.
1. The US has shot down satellites before- in the 1980s. We've had this technology for a long time and everyone knows it. While there may be an element of dick-waving in this action, any nation with a developed intelligence infrastructure (or not, as it was in the press) has known for a long time that the US is capable of this.
2. The likelihood of the propellant tank making it to Earth in a populated area while still sufficiently intact to release hydrazine on impact is infinitesimal. The satellite was launched in 12/06, and represents the pinnacle (well, a year ago) of US spy satellite technology. There's plenty of good coverage in The Washington Post that supports both of these points.
Make no mistake about it, this is all about preventing the tech from falling into the wrong hands.
Well, I see in 2030 NASA is planning on using basically the same lift technology that Von Braun developed in the 1930s. Shouldn't they be working on hybrid aircraft/spacecraft platform technology? Good grief, even if it takes them 20 times as many missions to get the parts into orbit, it would have to be cheaper. Not to mention the fact that there would likely be some technology benefits more applicable to mass transportation into space.
I guess that's why the private sector finally had to get involved to develop something that might lead to affordable space flight. Nobody can burn money like NASA. (I used to work at Goddard- you _wouldn't_believe_it.)
Slashdot Mirror
Ah... ever heard of the draft?
Re: electrics are simpler than gas:
Indeed, there are many people (myself included) that think a large part of the Big 3's reluctance to pursue electric vehicles is the loss of parts and maintenance revenue. They touch on this in "Who Killed the Electric Car", in fact.
Gasoline engines are pigs. In addition to gasoline, they require oil changes, oil filters, air filters, fuel filters, coolant changes, emissions control system maintenance, and a bazillion other items and their corresponding labor costs. (Personally, I do all that stuff myself, but I still have to pay for the parts- and I'd be willing to bet that I'm in the vast, vast minority.)
Additionally, it's been said, here and elsewhere, that Toyota doesn't make a profit on the sale of a Prius. Well, obviously they're not doing it for free, so how are they making their money?
1. Brand building (goodwill) and
2. Maintenance
Would you take your whiz-bang high-tech Prius to the corner garage? I wouldn't. You probably can't, anyway, for anything beyond tire changing type stuff. So, off to the Toyota dealer goes the Prius owner...
You're screwed. Why?
Fire.
Theft.
Lightning, if you RAID it up and leave it online.
I've been thinking about this for a while myself- this is for absolutely irreplaceable data. Offsite, secure storage is required. It can be online, but that's vulnerable to hacking. What we're really talking about is something you can put in a safe deposit box and ignore for 20 years.
Can you yank out the drive in 30 seconds when the fire starts and you're not home?
Can you yank out the drive in 30 seconds when lightning strikes and fries every single component in every piece of equipment in your house? And don't think any "surge suppressor" is going to stop it- lightning travels several thousands of feet to get to your house; that 1/16" MOV isn't going to do squat.
I didn't think so.
"It feels like the only reason half my co-workers talk to me is because I'm the only one with tits in the place... not because I'm smart, not because I can code with the best of them, not because I'm funny, or cheerful or anything else."
Maybe they _are_ talking to you because you're smart, can code with the best of them, etc etc. Maybe your choice of words "It feels like..." shows that you don't really know why they talk to you, so you're making an assumption about the cause.
Or maybe you're just really full of yourself. Personally, given your attitude, I'm not sure I'd be interested in talking to you at all.
Here's some thoughts for you to ponder:
1. If you're really certain you're being harassed, push back.
2. If your corporate culture permits obvious harassment, perhaps it's time to 1. sue or 2. look for another job.
3. If you really think that all males are salivating over your boobs, perhaps you're the sexist party here.
It's sad that you seem to define yourself by your mammaries.
This isn't valid shellscript, but should get the point across:
for ( each_jpg_in_porn_directory )
{ head filesize-1 $filename > $newfilename
rm $filename
}
All you have to do is drop one byte to change the MD5- and this will kill the last pixel, so it will be in the lower right corner. You'll never notice it.
"Because you know if it happened, it would be all over the news. They'd be shouting, "Look what we did!""
Yeah, except that's wrong. Any revelation about our capabilities provides information to those attempting to subvert them. I'm not disputing your overall distaste for our reaction- but it's a prime element of the intelligence game that you don't reveal anything unless absolutely necessary. Yes, this would include telling the media we'd stopped a plot, unless it was REALLY huge.
Yep. Just enough time to go get some coffee and chat up the receptionist.
Yeah, that's 'cause you were at The Bellagio. The higher end places are tightening up on the booze a little. I read recently that Steve Wynn ordered no free drinks for _any_ slot players. I haven't verified this, because I don't play slots and I don't typically patronize Strip casinos.
ObRant: The Strip sucks. It's crowded, snobby, and expensive. I suppose if you want the vacation experience it's good for that, but if you want to gamble and suck down free booze Downtown is the way to go. I was at Caesar's for BlackHat in August and the freaking tables were $25 minimum. After the con I rolled into a comped room at Fitzgerald's and had my fill of free drinks and $5 tables.
However, if you must gamble on the Strip, I suggest Bill's Gamblin' Hall, Casino Royale, and The Excalibur. They usually have reasonable minimums and plenty of free booze.
No no no, it's the web site for M. C. Chocolate Cake, yo.
Word to your respective mothers.
"Probably about half of the Governor's Scholars and Presidential Scholars I knew failed out their freshmen year."
This. I wasn't quite that commended- I had a good GPA in a private school and a couple of scholarships. But I was pushed _hard_ when I was in school, in retrospect, to the point of absurdity. It didn't help that I was on a farm in the middle of nowhere surrounded by corn-fed morons. Thank gawd for BBSes and Metronet... but I digress.
I came very close to failing out my freshman year in college. Why?
Freedom.
For the first time in my life I was able to do as I pleased. Couple this with being surrounded by a completely foreign world to explore, interesting people, and girls(!)... academic pursuits took something of a priority hit.
Random rumination: The internet is an amazing tool. It allows anyone to learn about anything they care to be interested in. Had it been available (codger mode on) when I was young I can't imagine how different my life would be. When I was in middle school I wanted dearly to discuss memory refresh architectures while the rest of 'em wanted to debate the relative merits of Skoal vs. Copenhagen. It made for a lonely existence. Point being: you damn kids today should appreciate this internet thing we built. :)
In my world, "maternity leave" means "paid maternity leave". Perhaps I'm wrong.
My experience is that the majority of private employers above a certain size offer paid maternity leave. Regardless, the gov't sells itself on how it's great benefits mitigate some of the other negatives we've already discussed- when, in fact, they aren't that great.
It's funny you should say that- my wife is still a Fed- at a very progressive agency, even- and our stock answer when asked how the gov't can be changed to be more efficient/etc is, "Everyone needs to die". Sad but true.
That, or years of glacially-paced change is what it's going to take.
As a veteran of several Federal institutions, both as a contractor and a Fed, I can tell you that there are a multitude of reasons why the government has a hard time getting people:
1. The hiring process for Federal employees sucks. It is byzantine and SLOW. One of the more progressive agencies was able to bring me on in a couple of months, but another took a YEAR. The average is somewhere in the middle. I had reasons to wait at the time (had to see what was behind that big NSA fence) but why would anyone wait under normal circumstances when contractors/the private sector moves so much more quickly?
2. The pay sucks. The GS scheme tops out at around $120K right now. There are grades that pay more (SES) but without going into detail, good luck with that. Anyone with solid experience in security/enterprise IP engineering/etc can smoke that as a contractor or in the private sector.
3. The atmosphere sucks. The government may be trying to change, but everything you've ever heard about the stereotypical gov't employee is generally true. Some agencies are better than others, but at most the fat guy with the polyester leisure suit lives on.
4. The positive reinforcement sucks. Managers have little ability to give raises or promotions. In some agencies, spot awards are used, but most still view them as evil.
5. The benefits suck. Is there any other employer in this day and age that doesn't have maternity leave? The rest (medical, 401(k)) are par. The pension is nice, if you stick around long enough to qualify.
6. The culture sucks. No matter how much they try to change, years of hiring the sub-par have infused the gov't with a culture of sluggish bureaucracy. This will take decades to undo. Also, this is precisely the kind of environment that will drive a decent technical person raving mad in short order.
Noone who [knows|can do] better would ever work for the Federal Government.
Bravo- you've touched upon one of my most favorite philosophies.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-Robert A. Heinlein
Thank Glub for RAH.
"I wouldn't think a Chinese government supported Hacker would be smart enough to at least know how to cover their own tracks. Now I don't need to worry about them anymore."
I don't think you said exactly what you meant... Regardless, I'll clarify, because I was in a hurry when I left my initial post and I think some might find the detail interesting.
The 70% I refer to are derived from two primary sources:
1. IPS/IDS detection of incoming hack attempts from Chinese IP space
2. IPS/IDS detection of outgoing iframe accesses to Chinese IP space (browser exploits).
IP packets have to get where they need to go, so the destination address must be valid. The ultimate destination can be obfuscated by relaying through a proxy(ies), but if your home base is immune from prosecution, why bother?
The only other possible conclusion is that China is home to one buttload of machines that have been hacked to provide proxy services for some other destination. This is unlikely.
No, I didn't miss the qualifier. The point was that some of the people you have to deal with in the employment process (indeed, in the world as a whole) have opinions that aren't worth a damn. You know, there is no BA in "Human Resources"- those drones can be anything. How can ascribe any default degree of competence to them?
While there was a certain amount of hyperbole in my post, I think you'd be surprised. How many HR departments have you had to deal with? I've seen some truly stunning examples of HR stupidity.
I work in the network security field. Probably 70% of the IP space I block at the edge of my network is Chinese. The Pentagon and DoD have had repeated problems with hackers using Chinese IPs in the last two years or so. Make no mistake about it, this effort is tacitly (if not outrightly) being supported by the Chinese government.
Here's a sample- Google "china hacking" for plenty more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-uschina4mar04,1,3559963.story
"No one who has an opinion worth a damn will ever look at a Liberal Arts major with a 3.8 and think it's equivalent to a 3.8 in chemical engineering."
Two words: Human Resources.
What do you think they got their degrees in?
Hm. Most of the comments here seem to focus on IPv4 and natting and torrentabiliy, rather than v6.
I've deployed IPv6 at my employer. There's plenty of v6 stuff out there, and most (all?) of the major carriers support it. Cisco's implementation is working fine for me. The Unices I've tried seem to work properly, although v6 support is definitely unpolished at this point.
What doesn't work is Windows.
Vista's support may be better, but we all know the issues with Vista. XP support is abysmal.
I'd argue that the v6 infrastructure _is_ ready, despite some misgivings I have with it. What isn't is Microsoft.
Right you are- per http://www.space.com/news/080214-sn-destroy-spysat.html :
"The hydrazine tank aboard the failed satellite is about the same size as the one that was aboard the doomed space shuttle Columbia. The tank landed intact in an unpopulated wooded area in Texas after the orbiter broke up on re-entry in 2003."
However, given the unlikely chances of it landing in a populated area (let alone on land), I'll stick with my previous assertion that the primary goal of this exercise is the destruction of the interesting bits.
1. The US has shot down satellites before- in the 1980s. We've had this technology for a long time and everyone knows it. While there may be an element of dick-waving in this action, any nation with a developed intelligence infrastructure (or not, as it was in the press) has known for a long time that the US is capable of this.
2. The likelihood of the propellant tank making it to Earth in a populated area while still sufficiently intact to release hydrazine on impact is infinitesimal. The satellite was launched in 12/06, and represents the pinnacle (well, a year ago) of US spy satellite technology. There's plenty of good coverage in The Washington Post that supports both of these points.
Make no mistake about it, this is all about preventing the tech from falling into the wrong hands.
Comcast Defends Role As Internet Traffic Cop
Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 13, @11:00AM
vs. (as of 1900 2/13)
* 2008-02-13 05:14:36 Comcast admits traffic shaping (IT,Communications) (pending)
Summary:
* pending (1)
Yeah, well, did they control for hangover?
Well, I see in 2030 NASA is planning on using basically the same lift technology that Von Braun developed in the 1930s. Shouldn't they be working on hybrid aircraft/spacecraft platform technology? Good grief, even if it takes them 20 times as many missions to get the parts into orbit, it would have to be cheaper. Not to mention the fact that there would likely be some technology benefits more applicable to mass transportation into space.
I guess that's why the private sector finally had to get involved to develop something that might lead to affordable space flight. Nobody can burn money like NASA. (I used to work at Goddard- you _wouldn't_believe_it.)