Also a Union guy in Canada, here's how it works for me.
If on call, we are paid 1/8th our wage while on call. Any call results in 3 hours overtime based on our contract. The way our contract works is this... first day of OT (say a Sat.) is 1.5, 2nd, 3rd, etc. are at 2.5*.
Its actually not a bad system. As the RAS administrator, I often get put on call when we have clients doing weekend demonstrations. We use RSA's SecurID tokens and a lot of users have trouble remembering exactly how to use them. So, I get a call that takes 5 mins, and get 3 hours overtime. However, if that call comes at 10:00, and I get another 5 min call at 12:00, I'm still only paid for the 3 hours OT (10:00 - 1:00).
I think this is a pretty fair way of doing things though. For having to carry my phone, I get paid, if I have to do anything, I get paid OT. Of course it doesn't differentiate between solving a problem over the phone, or having to come into the office (or the client site if they're in town), but generally speaking, it works pretty well. Especially over the Y2K thing... I was on call for 72 hours straight, phone didn't ring once, and I got paid for like 9 hours of work, well, okay I took it as comp time, but anyways.
Did you ever work a McJob? I did, and I sure as hell preferred that work environment to the one I'm in now! Okay, maybe the pay wasn't as good, but I had more fun at my job and there was a hell of a lot less stress.
I currently work for a government agency. For a few weeks in a row I can go without having more than an hour's work a day, then bang, I go a week where I'd need to put in 20 hours a day to keep up. In a perferct world, I'd have 8.5hrs of work to do a day, but I can handle having a few rough days and a few lax days. But literally 3 weeks of sitting on my ass doing nothing? Do you have any idea how long these days are?
Now I do admit that techies are fairly well paid. However, in the few jobs I've had, I can't just go to work for my ~8 hours a day and expect to be able to get any new job that pops up. I have to try and keep up with technology on my own time. Sure work helps with some things that we specifically use, but not with things coming up in the future, yet I'm supposed to have working knowledge of them when they show up on my desk and need to be installed ASAP.
Then there's the stress. In the last 1.5 years, I've taken about 6 days of for stress. I've snapped at people at work who had done nothing wrong to me because others don't do their work, and thus screw up the work I have to do. I complain about it and nothing gets done!
And you know the biggest problem I have with my job? My boss. I like most of my coworkers, but we got one of those techies that was promoted to management. Whoever hired him as a techie in the first place should be shot. He thinks he knows what he's doing, but doesn't. Then he forces me to install software that doesn't meet our needs, and when our clients complain, he just picks something else out of the air, even when I've done up pro's and con's for various packages. Instead of using his training budget to send himself on Managerial courses, he takes tech classes. We were offered a seat in a tech class for a product I support every day, but have had absolutely no training on. He takes the seat. He asks me to install warez'd software in a production environment. I confront him, he apologizes, and then we go back to the same thing.
Okay, the last bit was a rant, but let's face it, Scott Adams does hit the nail right on the head, and just because we get paid a bit more, doesn't mean we give up the right to a decent work environment!
My brother in-law had a similar thing happen. Except it was his jacket at a bar. At the end of the night when he returned with his claim ticket, the jacket was gone. They of course had a sign up saying they are not responsible for lost or stolen items. Well guess what? They were. He took them to court and was awarded ~$400. (It was a pretty nice leather jacket, and he paid close to $300 for it).
The way it works is, if they force you to leave something behind before entering, they are responsible for it.
Its amazing the colossal leap people are taking with this! The parents did want another child, but the chances were to great (1/4?) of the same genetic defect appearing. They found a way to have another child. As a bonus, they were able to use typically discarded material (umbilical and placenta blood) to give their daughter a better chance at a healthy full life.
Talking about harvesting organs is a huge leap from what actually happened here. I can see absolutely nothing morally or ethically wrong with what happened here. I applaud the doctors who were able to come up with this technique! I don't see the day coming in my lifetime where an embryo is grown specifically for the purpose of having genetically matched organs. I'm sure it will be discussed to no end over the next 100 years, but lets face it, the controversy over cloning a sheep should give you a clue that this won't be happening for a LONG time.
Why not instead of companies asking for a resume, why not put out a basic test. Sure people could look up the answers, but if you keep the questions kind of vague, you'd at least know that these people can find information they don't know, which is an important quality (IMHO).
I'm having a rough time finding a new job. Okay, I am an MCSE, but when the company pays for training and test, why not? Admittedly I basically slept through most of the classes. (Leaned nothing in TCP/IP except a better way to figure out subnetting on paper. Learned like two minor details in the Accelerated NT course, and learned what IIS couldn't do in that course). I'm not huge on programming, but I do play with PERL and shell scripting. I have done some basic stuff in VB just to work with OO and understand what it is. I've been playing with Linux for about 5 years. I can do all the basics, and have setup several servers for doing web, mail, ftp, dns, etc. etc. I have about 4 years experience managing NT servers, I've done a couple years work managing HPUX and IRIX boxes. I think I have almost all the ins and outs of dialing in using any MS product (seems every job I get I end up managing a RAS box... not that I mind... they never crash once I get them setup the way I want).
I think I sound like a fairly promising individual to an employer, but I rarely get called back. I'm really only on my 2nd "real" IT job. I did a couple years consulting for a TelCom company, which I really enjoyed, but the contract ended and nothing new had come up. Now I work for the gov't. Ugh! I'd like to get back into consulting , but I'd like to get a little farther out of debt first.
Sorry about my rant there, back to my original point. Why not post an opening, ask for the resume, and instead of putting X years of work experience with Y, ask 6 or so questions on the kind of work they will be doing. I for one would be more than happy to spend 30 minutes answering a few questions for a job I was really interested in.
That's what I was thinking.
For example, I'm in Regina, Sask (Canada) which is roughly above the North Dakota and Montana border. There are only two real ISP's here. One is Roger's/AT&T and the other is Bell Canada. To do a traceroute from one to the other involves a tour of Canada and the US. Unfortunately I can't do a traceroute from here or I'd show you, but I hit both coasts. Now, if someone were to run 100' of fibre between the two, the delays would decrease, usage on the big lines out of the city would decrease, etc. etc.
It doesn't take any genius to figure this out. A little more complicated are the shortest (weighted) path algorithms, but I really don't see the big deal here. This isn't some huge new great idea. Unless I'm way out to lunch here, in which case instead of just flaming me and mod'ing as flamebait, why not post something useful, like an explanation of what I'm missing.
How about instead of a slashdot team for Junkyard Wars, a Computer Wars for slashdotters.
Imagine you're brought in, and first thing in the morning told your job is to build the best machine you can for... a car mp3 player, a C compiler, graphics design, etc. Give each team a 28.8 modem and ISP account to allow some downloading of s/w but not enough to do serious downloading of large programs.
Just think of the fun. Maybe allow each team to bring in 3 CDs or something. You know, an OS, some basic s/w, maybe some docs.
I know of several companies in my town (~200,000 people) that would have enough junk lying around to make this interesting. If nothing else, it would give the companies something to do with a bunch of the old stuff that's lying around.
Note that every article of the draft contains this phrase. Reading some of the specific articles related to things like sniffing, you'll find that you're okay, as long as you don't have criminal intent. So, as someone mentioned, they're sniffing to find people abusing bandwidth with Napster. That's fine under this draft. There is no criminal intent to destroy or copy data.
As someone else mentioned concern for ISP's that may be forced to store loads of "traffic data" for long periods of time, Article 17 seems to indicate that the gov't would be responsible for any storage of data, relieving the ISP of need for extra disk space, or liability in storing data.
There's probably more I'd like to mention, but its time to go home!
Excellent points. I was thinking more of moral/etchical and point of view type issues. Things like, "We need to cut a million bucks, should it come from health care, education, etc. etc. here are the probable effects for each." Or, should we legalize active euthanasia, or the death penalty.
I certainly shouldn't be deciding what the safety records of airplanes or automobiles need to be, but I should have a say in what my elected official spends his (her) time on. If I think there are too many deaths resulting from minor traffic accidents, then maybe I'd push to have said official look at makeing our cars more safe.
First off, I'm from Canada, but the basics of a democratic society are still the same.
What I still want to see, is a candidate run without a platform! The whole idea of a elected official is to represent the views of the people that voted for him (her). Now admittedly it would be cost prohibitive to hold a poll for every issue that came up. However, with more and more people having access to the web, you could setup a polling homepage for upcoming issues. Now admittedly, this brings up issues of people using scripts to register 10^x times for their view, but I think the idea is sound.
I mean, why should I have to pick the candidate who most closely represents my views? Shouldn't I be able to communicate my views to my elected representative easily, and knowing that when it comes down to it, majority rules? Isn't that the whole idea of democracy? If 51% of consituents of elected offical XYZ feel that law A should be passed, shouldn't that official fight for it to be passed?
I see politicians now as being individuals who have strong feelings about issues and are willing to fight for them (okay, not completely realistic, but stay with me here). Shouldn't candidates be people who listen to what the public is saying and fight for those views?
Depends on what the schools are like in your area.
Personally, I never finished my BSc (major in CS),
however, I did finish my MCSE (employer paid for it, so why not). The point is, the University I went to (University of Regina, Canada) doesn't teach much that would be useful in any type of network or sys admin type roll.
There weren't many Windows boxes around, we were pretty much a straight IRIX school. But even as far as teaching UNIX, all they told me was how to use the basic features of vi, nothing about basic system admin stuff like user/groups, permissions, services, etc. We took a little C, but no OO stuff. We have co-op students all the time, and I'm amazed at how little they know. Installing a printer is challenging, let alone doing any hardware swaps. They have little or no concept of what a network is, let alone managing user accounts.
If I were in a position to do hiring, the degree from this university,and other nearby schools, count for almost zip. Not that an MCSE counts for much more, but at least you'd know they have some understanding of the basic concepts.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Linux, and don't much care for NT. I run Linux at home for most things, except gaming. I have to run NT at work since you can't manage Banyan Vines stuff through Linux.
Ouch, feel sorry for some of you folks. Here in Saskatchewan (that's in Canada) most larger cities (10,000 or more) have ADSL, and are soon getting cable. That's not a typo either. We have a very nice infrastructure here. I've been on high speed of one form or another for about 2 years, and its been available for at least 4.
About a year ago, I mentioned to my manger that we were short a few licenses for a particular product. He asked me to get pricing and what not for this product which I did according to company rules (three quotes from different vendors). About 6 months later it was budget time, and I mentioned it to him again. Once again I was asked to get pricing as he had "lost" the stuff I sent him before. A few weeks ago, I brought it up again, he asked me to check if I still had the pricing. I told him I didn't. He said he would get it this time. Needless to say, we're still running without the proper licenses.
About a week ago, a problem cropped up on one of our servers. I checked with the company, and found that problem has been fixed in the next version of the software. What does my manager do? He asks me to install the new software from a CD he got from downloading of the internet (can everyone say pirated copy?).
All of this software is from 1 company, and one I won't mention as its not the most popular company, epecially on slashdot *grin*. Unfortunately, my manager is gone on a business trip for a few days, but I will be telling him that I won't perform the work. If he pursues the matter (someone else does the work, or he tries to force me to), I will then speak to his manager, and if nothing happens there, I will proceed to speak with the authorities.
I'm hoping he will come to his senses when I refuse to do the work, but I don't hold a lot of confidence in that, especially considering his track record.
A lot of times people accuse good players of cheating simply because they are much better. A couple of buddies and I used to play a LOT of Half-Life (Specifically TFC). All three of us were routinely accused of cheating. Most of it was that we were just good, but another factor was Battlefield Communicator.
With the three of us on one team, and constantly telling each other where snipers or other baddies were, we could act very much like a team. Some people may call this cheating, but I don't.
Now there's a wonderful idea. What happens when I get in a minor accident and the hydrogen gets loose? Hydrogen is far too dangerous for this purpose.
I still say a car that runs on water is the way to go. Never really researched this, but I seem to remember a chem prof telling me that ~25,000 Volts was enough to split a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. They you burn these. All that comes out of the tail pipe is steam. Of course those of us living in less than tropical areas might have a small problem with your fuel freezing up.
Very true, but this doesn't seem to be the type of movie to do this with. There are certain movies that almost seem to want a discussion after seeing it. Enemy of the State for instance was one that me and the guys sat down and talked about for a while afterwards. Not so much if they could do it, but how could you get away... turned into a real interesting conversation.
Now of course I haven't seen The X-Men yet, but, think of it like this: Star Wars didn't induce a lot of interesting conversations when I first saw it. Star Trek did. I forget the terms exactly, but Star Wars can be thought of as science fiction, while Star Trek is closer to science-future-fact That is, we really don't see a future of Jedi Knights and so on, but we can see a military/science effort to explore space where political decisions sometimes get in the way of better judgement.
I guess the thing is this. After I've seen the movie and we head out for a beer, I don't picture discussing the similarities between mutants and gays (discrimination). I see the conversation going more towards accuracy to the comic, questions like "Why didn't so-and-so just do this", or "Who would you be", that kind of thing. I just don't see this movie prompting the deep, philosphical, ethical, or moral issues that other movies (Sphere, Philidelphia, A Time To Kill) prompt.
(begin rant) I'm going to stop reading reviews. Personally, I don't care if the X-Men represent any group (Gay, Black, Jew, etc.) Whatever happened to just sitting down in a theatre, getting involved in the story line?
I read the X-Men for years way back when (Rogue and Dazzler were fighting). In any case, I'm starting to think we overanalyze a lot of things. I'm glad to see that X-Men looks like it won't be another Batman-sequel-type movie, but who cares if they parallel with minority groups? That's not what I'm going there for!
I want to hear the *SNIK* (or whatever the sound was) of Wolverine's claws coming out. I want to see Rogue kiss somebody and steal their powers. I want the witty chatter and excellent writing that drew me to the X-Men in the '80s.
(end rant) Okay, now that I've got that out of my system... the movie looks GREAT. I've only watched one trailer and only seen one of the commercials... I'm trying to limit my exposure so I don't ruin it for myself!!
Disclaimer: I'm not trolling or _trying_ for flamebait. First, I hate misleading information: Linux has been around for five or six years Okay, it doesn't say only but it does give that impression.
there is a small group who shepherds the contributions to the kernel to keep it stable and clean. In other words, there's a priesthood at the top of the bazaar. If you check into each successful OpenSource project, you see the same thing: a small group of referees who filter the input and weed out the bad ideas Is he proposing a new Linux distro that has a world writable FTP site where everyone uploads everything they've done, someone tars and gzips it up and makes it available for download? Please, without some type of governing body, it really would be chaos!
When you get a company the size of Apple or Microsoft......but they have one thing that the OpenSource method doesn't: they have markets to answer to. Any company, product, or software for that matter answers to the market. Back in the early 90s, Linux answered to the developers and University students (the main users). Just because Apple and Microsoft share markets much more with each other than with Linux, doesn't mean Linux doesn't have a market. Okay, I'm using Linux as a specific OpenSource product, but the point remains.
I won't go into the rest of the specific examples I have, I've only got a 1/2 hour lunch break!
The last point though is the important one. Software is developed for a target audience. Linux wasn't originally built to be installed on average user's machines! This is a relatively recent goal.
Now of course opinions are like..., well, you know how the saying goes. Mr. Lewis has some interesting opinions, but he seems to be saying why the OpenSource method has or will eventually fail. Okay, that's his opinion. Let's look at the facts though. (I don't know Mac/Apple so I won't go there). Microsoft has been developing they're user-friendly GUI for ~15 years. Linux, well, trying to get user-friendly, maybe 2 or 3 years tops. Look at the result. Microsoft has been doing this 5 times as long, yet Linux is starting to compete! Obviously something about this model of development is working.
The one point I did want to raise however, is to the developer community. I'm not a programmer. I do create shell scripts, PERL scripts, and the like, but I only know a little C, and have hardly touched object oriented stuff. But for those of you who take an active role in developing not only the kernal, but core components, where are we going with Linux? Are we aiming for a competitor to Windows? Is it still mostly devoted to the curious, not afraid to explore, computer people?? Or is it both? I think this is a question we need to answer.
If its both, maybe two 'versions' should be considered. Don't give all the wonderful command line tools to the non-technical user, drop some of the server.
I used to love physics in high school, and did very well, but lets face it, high school physics didn't touch on quantum physics, hyperspace, string theory, etc. About all I remember taking was motion, and a little bit on the nature of light (is it a particle or a wave). I have also taken some University level math (Calculus and Linear Algebra).
So, now that you know where I'm coming from, where would a good place be to start learning more? I'm not looking to get a degree in physics, but it is something I'm curious about. So what are some good books (preferably something a library would have) or websites that would start explaining things like the theory of relativity, black holes, etc. etc.
Let's say, hypothetically of course, that I downloaded an mp3 of a song I did not own the rights to, and the artist tracked me down and decided to press charges. So the police show up at my door, arrest me, grab my collection of CD's, search my apartment and car for others, not finding a CD containing said song, they go ahead and ask me for a confession, or take it to court.
First thing I do, is ask if they went to my parents though my box of old cassette tapes, and realized the song was on a tape I bought 10 years ago. Okay, lets say I through all of those out, or never had them in the first place. Well, then I just ask one of my friends to go out purchase the CD, and say I lent it to them.
I'm not saying this is a morally, ethically, or legally the right thing to do, but its going to happen. What I hate, is the idea that thousands of my tax dollars are going to be spent trying to prosecute individuals when the likelyhood of a conviction is next to nil.
Living in the midwest here in Canada (Saskatchewan) to be exact, I feel pretty lucky as far as ADSL goes. SaskTel, our Telco, is actually pretty good, except for the tech support. I called to get the line installed and within 3 weeks had it, and that was actually a very long wait (back orders from a Christmas special). Since then, I have 1 or 2 outages, usually lasting only a few hours. This is an all in one deal, as SaskTel is the ISP and Telco. The only thing contracted out is the install, which is done through local computer companies. The installer I had was pretty good. He came out, hooked up the line, and plugged in his laptop, and had a connection. They supply a cheap NIC, but I had a 3COM in my Linux box. The tech was more than willing to wait while I setup the IP info, and tested the connection. They don't support Linux, but they don't object to it. It costs about $50 a month on top of any cost for the existing line. I live in one of the larger cities in Saskatchewan, but even a lot of our smaller communities are getting ADSL. For example, Weyburn, my home town, has ADSL. Weyburn has a population of about 10,000, and is 60 miles from the nearest city. As far as the tech support goes, there are a few who have a clue, but most don't. About two years ago, SaskTel decided to move its tech support from a third party to in-house. I was one of the consultants who was brought in to start it off while they hired (and we trained) new people. However, they couldn't attract very knowledgeable people with the salary they were offering, so they got relatively unskilled people. Luckily, I know the main System Administrator from school, as well as being in a Linux Users group with him. The only other complaint I have with SaskTel is NAT. For general surfing and gaming, no problem. However, I would like to get back to having a Linux box or two on static IP's like I did on cable modem. However, my cable was routinely (several times an evening) cutting out for 30 seconds to a minute. After months of complaining and getting things like "we're working on it" I gave up. Those kind of delays absolutely kill gaming!
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If on call, we are paid 1/8th our wage while on call. Any call results in 3 hours overtime based on our contract. The way our contract works is this... first day of OT (say a Sat.) is 1.5, 2nd, 3rd, etc. are at 2.5*.
Its actually not a bad system. As the RAS administrator, I often get put on call when we have clients doing weekend demonstrations. We use RSA's SecurID tokens and a lot of users have trouble remembering exactly how to use them. So, I get a call that takes 5 mins, and get 3 hours overtime. However, if that call comes at 10:00, and I get another 5 min call at 12:00, I'm still only paid for the 3 hours OT (10:00 - 1:00).
I think this is a pretty fair way of doing things though. For having to carry my phone, I get paid, if I have to do anything, I get paid OT. Of course it doesn't differentiate between solving a problem over the phone, or having to come into the office (or the client site if they're in town), but generally speaking, it works pretty well. Especially over the Y2K thing... I was on call for 72 hours straight, phone didn't ring once, and I got paid for like 9 hours of work, well, okay I took it as comp time, but anyways.
I never realized it was the uptimer!
Does anybody else find this funny? "Yeah, my uptimer crashed my computer!"
I currently work for a government agency. For a few weeks in a row I can go without having more than an hour's work a day, then bang, I go a week where I'd need to put in 20 hours a day to keep up. In a perferct world, I'd have 8.5hrs of work to do a day, but I can handle having a few rough days and a few lax days. But literally 3 weeks of sitting on my ass doing nothing? Do you have any idea how long these days are?
Now I do admit that techies are fairly well paid. However, in the few jobs I've had, I can't just go to work for my ~8 hours a day and expect to be able to get any new job that pops up. I have to try and keep up with technology on my own time. Sure work helps with some things that we specifically use, but not with things coming up in the future, yet I'm supposed to have working knowledge of them when they show up on my desk and need to be installed ASAP.
Then there's the stress. In the last 1.5 years, I've taken about 6 days of for stress. I've snapped at people at work who had done nothing wrong to me because others don't do their work, and thus screw up the work I have to do. I complain about it and nothing gets done!
And you know the biggest problem I have with my job? My boss. I like most of my coworkers, but we got one of those techies that was promoted to management. Whoever hired him as a techie in the first place should be shot. He thinks he knows what he's doing, but doesn't. Then he forces me to install software that doesn't meet our needs, and when our clients complain, he just picks something else out of the air, even when I've done up pro's and con's for various packages. Instead of using his training budget to send himself on Managerial courses, he takes tech classes. We were offered a seat in a tech class for a product I support every day, but have had absolutely no training on. He takes the seat. He asks me to install warez'd software in a production environment. I confront him, he apologizes, and then we go back to the same thing.
Okay, the last bit was a rant, but let's face it, Scott Adams does hit the nail right on the head, and just because we get paid a bit more, doesn't mean we give up the right to a decent work environment!
Who's to say the attorney charged him $10,000. He got $10K to cover attorney's fees, but there's nothing that I read that said the fees were $10,000.
The way it works is, if they force you to leave something behind before entering, they are responsible for it.
Talking about harvesting organs is a huge leap from what actually happened here. I can see absolutely nothing morally or ethically wrong with what happened here. I applaud the doctors who were able to come up with this technique! I don't see the day coming in my lifetime where an embryo is grown specifically for the purpose of having genetically matched organs. I'm sure it will be discussed to no end over the next 100 years, but lets face it, the controversy over cloning a sheep should give you a clue that this won't be happening for a LONG time.
I'm having a rough time finding a new job. Okay, I am an MCSE, but when the company pays for training and test, why not? Admittedly I basically slept through most of the classes. (Leaned nothing in TCP/IP except a better way to figure out subnetting on paper. Learned like two minor details in the Accelerated NT course, and learned what IIS couldn't do in that course). I'm not huge on programming, but I do play with PERL and shell scripting. I have done some basic stuff in VB just to work with OO and understand what it is. I've been playing with Linux for about 5 years. I can do all the basics, and have setup several servers for doing web, mail, ftp, dns, etc. etc. I have about 4 years experience managing NT servers, I've done a couple years work managing HPUX and IRIX boxes. I think I have almost all the ins and outs of dialing in using any MS product (seems every job I get I end up managing a RAS box... not that I mind... they never crash once I get them setup the way I want).
I think I sound like a fairly promising individual to an employer, but I rarely get called back. I'm really only on my 2nd "real" IT job. I did a couple years consulting for a TelCom company, which I really enjoyed, but the contract ended and nothing new had come up. Now I work for the gov't. Ugh! I'd like to get back into consulting , but I'd like to get a little farther out of debt first.
Sorry about my rant there, back to my original point. Why not post an opening, ask for the resume, and instead of putting X years of work experience with Y, ask 6 or so questions on the kind of work they will be doing. I for one would be more than happy to spend 30 minutes answering a few questions for a job I was really interested in.
It doesn't take any genius to figure this out. A little more complicated are the shortest (weighted) path algorithms, but I really don't see the big deal here. This isn't some huge new great idea. Unless I'm way out to lunch here, in which case instead of just flaming me and mod'ing as flamebait, why not post something useful, like an explanation of what I'm missing.
Imagine you're brought in, and first thing in the morning told your job is to build the best machine you can for ... a car mp3 player, a C compiler, graphics design, etc. Give each team a 28.8 modem and ISP account to allow some downloading of s/w but not enough to do serious downloading of large programs.
Just think of the fun. Maybe allow each team to bring in 3 CDs or something. You know, an OS, some basic s/w, maybe some docs.
I know of several companies in my town (~200,000 people) that would have enough junk lying around to make this interesting. If nothing else, it would give the companies something to do with a bunch of the old stuff that's lying around.
As someone else mentioned concern for ISP's that may be forced to store loads of "traffic data" for long periods of time, Article 17 seems to indicate that the gov't would be responsible for any storage of data, relieving the ISP of need for extra disk space, or liability in storing data.
There's probably more I'd like to mention, but its time to go home!
I certainly shouldn't be deciding what the safety records of airplanes or automobiles need to be, but I should have a say in what my elected official spends his (her) time on. If I think there are too many deaths resulting from minor traffic accidents, then maybe I'd push to have said official look at makeing our cars more safe.
What I still want to see, is a candidate run without a platform! The whole idea of a elected official is to represent the views of the people that voted for him (her). Now admittedly it would be cost prohibitive to hold a poll for every issue that came up. However, with more and more people having access to the web, you could setup a polling homepage for upcoming issues. Now admittedly, this brings up issues of people using scripts to register 10^x times for their view, but I think the idea is sound.
I mean, why should I have to pick the candidate who most closely represents my views? Shouldn't I be able to communicate my views to my elected representative easily, and knowing that when it comes down to it, majority rules? Isn't that the whole idea of democracy? If 51% of consituents of elected offical XYZ feel that law A should be passed, shouldn't that official fight for it to be passed?
I see politicians now as being individuals who have strong feelings about issues and are willing to fight for them (okay, not completely realistic, but stay with me here). Shouldn't candidates be people who listen to what the public is saying and fight for those views?
There weren't many Windows boxes around, we were pretty much a straight IRIX school. But even as far as teaching UNIX, all they told me was how to use the basic features of vi, nothing about basic system admin stuff like user/groups, permissions, services, etc. We took a little C, but no OO stuff. We have co-op students all the time, and I'm amazed at how little they know. Installing a printer is challenging, let alone doing any hardware swaps. They have little or no concept of what a network is, let alone managing user accounts.
If I were in a position to do hiring, the degree from this university,and other nearby schools, count for almost zip. Not that an MCSE counts for much more, but at least you'd know they have some understanding of the basic concepts.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Linux, and don't much care for NT. I run Linux at home for most things, except gaming. I have to run NT at work since you can't manage Banyan Vines stuff through Linux.
Nothing like downloading at >100K :)
About a week ago, a problem cropped up on one of our servers. I checked with the company, and found that problem has been fixed in the next version of the software. What does my manager do? He asks me to install the new software from a CD he got from downloading of the internet (can everyone say pirated copy?).
All of this software is from 1 company, and one I won't mention as its not the most popular company, epecially on slashdot *grin*. Unfortunately, my manager is gone on a business trip for a few days, but I will be telling him that I won't perform the work. If he pursues the matter (someone else does the work, or he tries to force me to), I will then speak to his manager, and if nothing happens there, I will proceed to speak with the authorities.
I'm hoping he will come to his senses when I refuse to do the work, but I don't hold a lot of confidence in that, especially considering his track record.
With the three of us on one team, and constantly telling each other where snipers or other baddies were, we could act very much like a team. Some people may call this cheating, but I don't.
I still say a car that runs on water is the way to go. Never really researched this, but I seem to remember a chem prof telling me that ~25,000 Volts was enough to split a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. They you burn these. All that comes out of the tail pipe is steam. Of course those of us living in less than tropical areas might have a small problem with your fuel freezing up.
Now of course I haven't seen The X-Men yet, but, think of it like this:
Star Wars didn't induce a lot of interesting conversations when I first saw it. Star Trek did. I forget the terms exactly, but Star Wars can be thought of as science fiction, while Star Trek is closer to science-future-fact That is, we really don't see a future of Jedi Knights and so on, but we can see a military/science effort to explore space where political decisions sometimes get in the way of better judgement.
I guess the thing is this. After I've seen the movie and we head out for a beer, I don't picture discussing the similarities between mutants and gays (discrimination). I see the conversation going more towards accuracy to the comic, questions like "Why didn't so-and-so just do this", or "Who would you be", that kind of thing. I just don't see this movie prompting the deep, philosphical, ethical, or moral issues that other movies (Sphere, Philidelphia, A Time To Kill) prompt.
I'm going to stop reading reviews. Personally, I don't care if the X-Men represent any group (Gay, Black, Jew, etc.) Whatever happened to just sitting down in a theatre, getting involved in the story line?
I read the X-Men for years way back when (Rogue and Dazzler were fighting). In any case, I'm starting to think we overanalyze a lot of things. I'm glad to see that X-Men looks like it won't be another Batman-sequel-type movie, but who cares if they parallel with minority groups? That's not what I'm going there for!
I want to hear the *SNIK* (or whatever the sound was) of Wolverine's claws coming out. I want to see Rogue kiss somebody and steal their powers. I want the witty chatter and excellent writing that drew me to the X-Men in the '80s.
(end rant)
Okay, now that I've got that out of my system... the movie looks GREAT. I've only watched one trailer and only seen one of the commercials... I'm trying to limit my exposure so I don't ruin it for myself!!
First, I hate misleading information:
Linux has been around for five or six years
Okay, it doesn't say only but it does give that impression.
there is a small group who shepherds the contributions to the kernel to keep it stable and clean. In other words, there's a priesthood at the top of the bazaar. If you check into each successful OpenSource project, you see the same thing: a small group of referees who filter the input and weed out the bad ideas
Is he proposing a new Linux distro that has a world writable FTP site where everyone uploads everything they've done, someone tars and gzips it up and makes it available for download? Please, without some type of governing body, it really would be chaos!
When you get a company the size of Apple or Microsoft... ...but they have one thing that the OpenSource method doesn't: they have markets to answer to.
Any company, product, or software for that matter answers to the market. Back in the early 90s, Linux answered to the developers and University students (the main users). Just because Apple and Microsoft share markets much more with each other than with Linux, doesn't mean Linux doesn't have a market. Okay, I'm using Linux as a specific OpenSource product, but the point remains.
I won't go into the rest of the specific examples I have, I've only got a 1/2 hour lunch break!
The last point though is the important one. Software is developed for a target audience. Linux wasn't originally built to be installed on average user's machines! This is a relatively recent goal.
Now of course opinions are like..., well, you know how the saying goes. Mr. Lewis has some interesting opinions, but he seems to be saying why the OpenSource method has or will eventually fail. Okay, that's his opinion. Let's look at the facts though. (I don't know Mac/Apple so I won't go there). Microsoft has been developing they're user-friendly GUI for ~15 years. Linux, well, trying to get user-friendly, maybe 2 or 3 years tops. Look at the result. Microsoft has been doing this 5 times as long, yet Linux is starting to compete! Obviously something about this model of development is working.
The one point I did want to raise however, is to the developer community. I'm not a programmer. I do create shell scripts, PERL scripts, and the like, but I only know a little C, and have hardly touched object oriented stuff. But for those of you who take an active role in developing not only the kernal, but core components, where are we going with Linux? Are we aiming for a competitor to Windows? Is it still mostly devoted to the curious, not afraid to explore, computer people?? Or is it both? I think this is a question we need to answer.
If its both, maybe two 'versions' should be considered. Don't give all the wonderful command line tools to the non-technical user, drop some of the server.
So, now that you know where I'm coming from, where would a good place be to start learning more? I'm not looking to get a degree in physics, but it is something I'm curious about. So what are some good books (preferably something a library would have) or websites that would start explaining things like the theory of relativity, black holes, etc. etc.
TIA.
First thing I do, is ask if they went to my parents though my box of old cassette tapes, and realized the song was on a tape I bought 10 years ago. Okay, lets say I through all of those out, or never had them in the first place. Well, then I just ask one of my friends to go out purchase the CD, and say I lent it to them.
I'm not saying this is a morally, ethically, or legally the right thing to do, but its going to happen. What I hate, is the idea that thousands of my tax dollars are going to be spent trying to prosecute individuals when the likelyhood of a conviction is next to nil.
Living in the midwest here in Canada (Saskatchewan) to be exact, I feel pretty lucky as far as ADSL goes. SaskTel, our Telco, is actually pretty good, except for the tech support. I called to get the line installed and within 3 weeks had it, and that was actually a very long wait (back orders from a Christmas special). Since then, I have 1 or 2 outages, usually lasting only a few hours. This is an all in one deal, as SaskTel is the ISP and Telco. The only thing contracted out is the install, which is done through local computer companies. The installer I had was pretty good. He came out, hooked up the line, and plugged in his laptop, and had a connection. They supply a cheap NIC, but I had a 3COM in my Linux box. The tech was more than willing to wait while I setup the IP info, and tested the connection. They don't support Linux, but they don't object to it. It costs about $50 a month on top of any cost for the existing line. I live in one of the larger cities in Saskatchewan, but even a lot of our smaller communities are getting ADSL. For example, Weyburn, my home town, has ADSL. Weyburn has a population of about 10,000, and is 60 miles from the nearest city. As far as the tech support goes, there are a few who have a clue, but most don't. About two years ago, SaskTel decided to move its tech support from a third party to in-house. I was one of the consultants who was brought in to start it off while they hired (and we trained) new people. However, they couldn't attract very knowledgeable people with the salary they were offering, so they got relatively unskilled people. Luckily, I know the main System Administrator from school, as well as being in a Linux Users group with him. The only other complaint I have with SaskTel is NAT. For general surfing and gaming, no problem. However, I would like to get back to having a Linux box or two on static IP's like I did on cable modem. However, my cable was routinely (several times an evening) cutting out for 30 seconds to a minute. After months of complaining and getting things like "we're working on it" I gave up. Those kind of delays absolutely kill gaming!