A politician cannot get elected to the highest offices unless they prioritize getting (re-)elected over achieving meaningful progress.
Get rid of career Politicians is the only solution. This means "term limits". However, I propose a lifetime term limit to serving in the public sector elected offices.
I don't know how long is too long, but I can see where serving 24 years is PLENTY long enough for someone to serve in elected office, including municipal, state and federal elected offices combined.
It would require more people involve in governance as we'd have a much higher turnover allowing a more diverse set of opinions into the marketplace of ideas.
And it would have the "vote them all out" kind of effect every few years as there would be no stagnation of leadership.
I know the complains about term limits and lobbyists, but it seems that the lobbyists already have their pound of flesh.
As it is now, I'm 100% certain that the people running our country are not the "best" we have. They only run it because they are entrenched.
Nothing in the OSS or even in the GPL precludes people from making mods and selling it for a profit. NOTHING.
However, to do so, they just have to release the source code to their product in accordance to the licenses granted to the software/product in question.
On a side note, I just ran into another stupid company that has tied their software to a USB dongle. What a crock of shit that is. The funny thing is, I have no idea why they did this, as it isn't high on anyone's "pirate" list.
Political Machine only cares about one thing.... getting re-elected. ALL other things play second fiddle to this primary fact. How else can you explain how stupid politicians keep getting re-elected? It isn't because they are doing a good job.
What I don't understand is the 10% that think our congress is doing a good job. THESE are idiots that keep voting the other idiots into office.
What makes most Sys Admins good is that they don't play politics, they tend to say exactly what they mean, and mean precisely what they say. This is 100% opposite of what political machine expects, which saying something that means everything to everyone, while actually not saying anything useful at all.
PHB are avert to change, and that is why you still have all those legacy systems in place. Those systems do exactly the same thing they did 10 years ago, and therefore "don't need to be changed".
At some level, they are right, but who wants to go back to DOS just because it did exactly what it was supposed to do?
The hardest thing an organization can do is "manage change", yet it is this "change" that drives innovation.
When I run into a PHB that is like that, I simply ask them if they are THAT opposed to innovation in all other areas of the enterprise, and mumble my answer... "that explains a lot".
It's time to drag corporations* into the modern age, even if they're kicking and screaming the entire way.
Actually, this will most likely not have ANY affect on Corporate use of IE6, as most Corporation Masters hate things like YouTube as Time wasters. So it is with great glee that they will continue to demand using IE 6 for as long as they can.
1) I learn stuff at classes. Just not useful for my job.
2) Curious you don't mention lack of budget. I guess you know this to be true
3) Updates are automatic.
4) I'm actually capable of doing more than one thing at a time. Remoting into a flakey workstation, emailing people about printer setups, setting up wireless AP systems, imaging computers all at the same time. Sometimes even doing ALL these things I'm waiting for something happen. And slashdot has given me more useful information on how to do my job than anything I've seen in training manuals. This site has saved me more time than I've wasted reading it over the years.
As for getting a life, thank you but I can go home at night knowing that 600 computers and the three networks and the WAN I manage (or help manage) is running smoothly. That means I can spend my evenings with my family. And I'd rather not spend 1 second of my day looking at stupid pictures of kids doing stupid things and getting my jollies from the random dude wanking his wang, or some cheerleader practicing cheers naked. And if I wanted to see those things, I'm sure there is enough of whatever fetish I want somewhere on the internet waiting for me to discover it.
I'm not an elf lord dragon master, like the dweeb that created this mess. Nor do I want to be.
I dunno. I should have prefaced it my statement with "Probably);) My bad. I'm just sickened by the debt being accumulated on the guise of "security", whether it be for Social or National Security. I'm not feeling all that secure these days.
How is snapping a picture of a student, with _no_ stolen laptop, following in line with their stated security policy?
Automatic snapshots, sent to the server, archived for forensic evidence.
Someone figured out where the photos were being sent, opened up Firefox and started to look through them all. Who knows what they saw. I'm sure this particular case was just what they figured they could take action on without causing a fire storm. Ooops.
I'm a school IT guy. I can assure you we have good people working in IT here at this district. Let me stipulate the following.
1)I've had a few MS trainings, and most were "theory" and otherwise worthless for my job. I've been Novel Certified way back when. Everything else I've learned on my own through some 25-30 years of IT work.
2)We don't have a budget. NONE. And that was before the current economic crisis. All spending was (is) "project" spending, meaning we had to beg to get it funded. We had no replacement cycle plans for anything until THIS year, and even that is getting shelved now.
3)Almost guaranteed that no IT guy was responsible for anything other than "can you make this feature work"... and that was probably after the laptops showed up.
4) Almost as assuredly, the IT guys don't have time to reviews pictures being archived automatically. It was probably someone else, looking for something specific (naked chicks/dudes, specific criminal activity etc).
Our High Schools have ONE analyst for 2000+ students. Our Jr Highs have one Analyst and a couple part time techs for 2400+ students. Between the three analysts and two techs they manage 1500+ machines.
We don't have time to do stupid stuff like this. However the "do-good" people in other departments would. AND they would easily justify their actions with "for the children" statements you often see. You see, it might mean a grant or increase in funding to stop/prevent/help/support (X), "for the children" of course!
I'm going to invoke Godwin's Law. "I was only following orders" is an immoral excuse to do immoral and illegal activities.
I hate it when people know the immoral and illegal consequences of bad laws, but refuse to do anything about them.
And as tragic as the plane crash was, it was a completely acceptable form of protest IMHO. Tyrants will always use the law as a cover for their tyranny.
I'm sorry. Filling out forms is not a function of my responsibility for having a job. The fact that our GOVERNMENT thinks this is ACCEPTABLE is part of the problem we have in this country. And that is regardless of whether or not you're self employed or not.
And all the regulation in the world isn't stopping the asshats from being asshats, because by definition asshats don't care about the rules, or if they do, they stay just on the edge of the right side of the rules, while screwing as many people over as they can. And me filling out a form isn't going to stop them from doing so.
Our (USA) tax law is a HUGE joke of social engineering and feigned moral authority. I'm sorry if this seems okay for everyone else, but quite frankly, I'd much prefer our tax system be completely a-moral (no morals what so ever). Not helping, not hurting, simply and completely agnostic. Anything less becomes the tools of tyrants and demagogues.
And our tax rates are confiscatory at this point. Over 50% of my income goes away in taxes, fees and government charges. REALLY, is that NECESSARY?
And don't talk about what is fair and paying my fair share or any of that crap. If you think 50% of income being taxed is "my fair share", you're psychotic.
Freedom is an illusion only because people trade security for freedom most of the time And not only that, they expect others to behave exactly the same way. And we all know that Ben Franklin quip on Freedom vs Security.
Security is the illusion, not freedom. From the security theater in airports to welfare and social programs, they are all designed to take freedom and replace it with something else.
I bet it has more to do with economics than race. Rich get better lawyers. NO, I'm not saying race isn't involved, I'm just saying economics overcomes race, and a rich black (hispanic, oriental) guy has a better chance of avoiding Death Penalty than a poor white guy.
I just don't have enough of a sample to prove my point. OJ Simpson and the Menendez brothers make for interesting data points (anecdotal evidence).
When was the last time you saw someone rich get off when everyone "knows" they did it? It happens all the time.
It all depends on what is being "served" by the TS. However, I've seen huge servers brought to their knees by processes such as Powerpoint (or OpenOffice clone), or rendering images, or whatever sucking as much CPU as possible to run. Load that up by three or four people and now you have a TS brought to its knees. A server designed to host 30 to 50 clients suddenly can't support 10, all because people didn't include "Powerpoint" in the spec, because nobody heard of it when it was implemented, and a year later, someone hear of it, and now you have computers that don't function well for ANYONE.
If someone goes down the whole Terminal Server route, they best be understanding the dynamics of how people use computers changes and evolves, almost always to use MORE computing power, rather than less.
And to compensate for these changes, one ought to budget into the specification the upgrades needed to keep up with the increasing demands. Either that or start telling people "NO" when they want Powerpoint. And good luck with that.
This is not to say I'm against Terminal Servers, because I'm not. In places that have a limited demand for applications, a TS is probably an awesome solution for managing workstations.
Just saying you haven't experience it being "too slow" doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I've seen it happen, and it sucks when people expect a system to work as designed when the parameters of the system has changed.
Yeah, because a hungry lion is exactly the same as Google. And successful software developers are exactly like a wounded gazelle. And non-rational animals are exactly like rational (debatable I know) people running corporations.
And I'd like to add another thought. That is that if you buy software, there is no implied contract that the company you're buying from will exist in three months, leaving you holding software that may or may not be functional in a very short order.
I've seen this happen with all sorts of nifty utilities that go the way of the Dodo bird, simply because the company disappears.
Actually, this is a good case for why a developer would FOSS an application in the first place. Of course, if you're in "Please Google buy me out and make me rich beyond avarice" mode, then you wouldn't.
How about creating a semi FOSS license that remains closed source, and immediately becomes FOSS or Public Domain should the company ever fold, or the software itself becomes otherwise unavailable.
Kind of a poison pill of everlasting life. It would prevent applications from ever disappearing except by natural death (nobody wants it any longer).
I propose we inaugurate a new set of weekly, monthly and yearly Streisand awards. For this, I'd like to Nominate for all three categories this most boneheaded request of the IOC.
In the meantime, lets help UVEX by directly linking their name (like I have here) with Vonn's name.
Yeah. But that was entirely caused by High Schools not preparing Students for the rigors of College level courses, but rather to make their school's scores look good for NCLB, STAR and other metrics.
You should see the "elementary" education from the 1800s and compare it to what we have today. You'd be shocked at what was required by 6th grade education.
Dumbing the process down to make everyone look good isn't working all that well. We should be challenging for excellence, and not expecting average.
Slashdot Mirror
A politician cannot get elected to the highest offices unless they prioritize getting (re-)elected over achieving meaningful progress.
Get rid of career Politicians is the only solution. This means "term limits". However, I propose a lifetime term limit to serving in the public sector elected offices.
I don't know how long is too long, but I can see where serving 24 years is PLENTY long enough for someone to serve in elected office, including municipal, state and federal elected offices combined.
It would require more people involve in governance as we'd have a much higher turnover allowing a more diverse set of opinions into the marketplace of ideas.
And it would have the "vote them all out" kind of effect every few years as there would be no stagnation of leadership.
I know the complains about term limits and lobbyists, but it seems that the lobbyists already have their pound of flesh.
As it is now, I'm 100% certain that the people running our country are not the "best" we have. They only run it because they are entrenched.
Nothing in the OSS or even in the GPL precludes people from making mods and selling it for a profit. NOTHING.
However, to do so, they just have to release the source code to their product in accordance to the licenses granted to the software/product in question.
On a side note, I just ran into another stupid company that has tied their software to a USB dongle. What a crock of shit that is. The funny thing is, I have no idea why they did this, as it isn't high on anyone's "pirate" list.
Political Machine only cares about one thing .... getting re-elected. ALL other things play second fiddle to this primary fact. How else can you explain how stupid politicians keep getting re-elected? It isn't because they are doing a good job.
What I don't understand is the 10% that think our congress is doing a good job. THESE are idiots that keep voting the other idiots into office.
What makes most Sys Admins good is that they don't play politics, they tend to say exactly what they mean, and mean precisely what they say. This is 100% opposite of what political machine expects, which saying something that means everything to everyone, while actually not saying anything useful at all.
You're right, but for the wrong reasons.
PHB are avert to change, and that is why you still have all those legacy systems in place. Those systems do exactly the same thing they did 10 years ago, and therefore "don't need to be changed".
At some level, they are right, but who wants to go back to DOS just because it did exactly what it was supposed to do?
The hardest thing an organization can do is "manage change", yet it is this "change" that drives innovation.
When I run into a PHB that is like that, I simply ask them if they are THAT opposed to innovation in all other areas of the enterprise, and mumble my answer ... "that explains a lot".
/pinky to mouth ....
It's time to drag corporations* into the modern age, even if they're kicking and screaming the entire way.
Actually, this will most likely not have ANY affect on Corporate use of IE6, as most Corporation Masters hate things like YouTube as Time wasters. So it is with great glee that they will continue to demand using IE 6 for as long as they can.
1) I learn stuff at classes. Just not useful for my job.
2) Curious you don't mention lack of budget. I guess you know this to be true
3) Updates are automatic.
4) I'm actually capable of doing more than one thing at a time. Remoting into a flakey workstation, emailing people about printer setups, setting up wireless AP systems, imaging computers all at the same time. Sometimes even doing ALL these things I'm waiting for something happen. And slashdot has given me more useful information on how to do my job than anything I've seen in training manuals. This site has saved me more time than I've wasted reading it over the years.
As for getting a life, thank you but I can go home at night knowing that 600 computers and the three networks and the WAN I manage (or help manage) is running smoothly. That means I can spend my evenings with my family. And I'd rather not spend 1 second of my day looking at stupid pictures of kids doing stupid things and getting my jollies from the random dude wanking his wang, or some cheerleader practicing cheers naked. And if I wanted to see those things, I'm sure there is enough of whatever fetish I want somewhere on the internet waiting for me to discover it.
I'm not an elf lord dragon master, like the dweeb that created this mess. Nor do I want to be.
Oh cool. I did enjoy the writeup. I don't have the patience or skill set to do what you do, so I read with semi envy your progress.
And thanks for keeping me in the loop. I'm adding your blogspot to my gBuzz feed so I can keep up with it there.
In case you want an ego boost ... "YOU DA MAN!" Otherwise, if you ever end up near me, I'll buy you a beer (or other adult beverage)
I dunno. I should have prefaced it my statement with "Probably) ;) My bad. I'm just sickened by the debt being accumulated on the guise of "security", whether it be for Social or National Security. I'm not feeling all that secure these days.
Okay. Crow being eaten as we speak.
It was the IT guy(s), all on their own, so it seems.
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html
Hang em High boys! Friggin bastard(s) And why do all the geeks that make news have to be fat dweebs?
How is snapping a picture of a student, with _no_ stolen laptop, following in line with their stated security policy?
Automatic snapshots, sent to the server, archived for forensic evidence.
Someone figured out where the photos were being sent, opened up Firefox and started to look through them all. Who knows what they saw. I'm sure this particular case was just what they figured they could take action on without causing a fire storm. Ooops.
I'm a school IT guy. I can assure you we have good people working in IT here at this district. Let me stipulate the following.
1)I've had a few MS trainings, and most were "theory" and otherwise worthless for my job. I've been Novel Certified way back when. Everything else I've learned on my own through some 25-30 years of IT work.
2)We don't have a budget. NONE. And that was before the current economic crisis. All spending was (is) "project" spending, meaning we had to beg to get it funded. We had no replacement cycle plans for anything until THIS year, and even that is getting shelved now.
3)Almost guaranteed that no IT guy was responsible for anything other than "can you make this feature work" ... and that was probably after the laptops showed up.
4) Almost as assuredly, the IT guys don't have time to reviews pictures being archived automatically. It was probably someone else, looking for something specific (naked chicks/dudes, specific criminal activity etc).
Our High Schools have ONE analyst for 2000+ students. Our Jr Highs have one Analyst and a couple part time techs for 2400+ students. Between the three analysts and two techs they manage 1500+ machines.
We don't have time to do stupid stuff like this. However the "do-good" people in other departments would. AND they would easily justify their actions with "for the children" statements you often see. You see, it might mean a grant or increase in funding to stop/prevent/help/support (X), "for the children" of course!
I can think of quite a few things you think are worth the means because of the ends. War in ME and Social Programs are just the two I'd start with.
"we're just following the law"
I'm going to invoke Godwin's Law. "I was only following orders" is an immoral excuse to do immoral and illegal activities.
I hate it when people know the immoral and illegal consequences of bad laws, but refuse to do anything about them.
And as tragic as the plane crash was, it was a completely acceptable form of protest IMHO. Tyrants will always use the law as a cover for their tyranny.
"Is that Legal"
"I will make it legal"
I'm sorry. Filling out forms is not a function of my responsibility for having a job. The fact that our GOVERNMENT thinks this is ACCEPTABLE is part of the problem we have in this country. And that is regardless of whether or not you're self employed or not.
And all the regulation in the world isn't stopping the asshats from being asshats, because by definition asshats don't care about the rules, or if they do, they stay just on the edge of the right side of the rules, while screwing as many people over as they can. And me filling out a form isn't going to stop them from doing so.
Our (USA) tax law is a HUGE joke of social engineering and feigned moral authority. I'm sorry if this seems okay for everyone else, but quite frankly, I'd much prefer our tax system be completely a-moral (no morals what so ever). Not helping, not hurting, simply and completely agnostic. Anything less becomes the tools of tyrants and demagogues.
And our tax rates are confiscatory at this point. Over 50% of my income goes away in taxes, fees and government charges. REALLY, is that NECESSARY?
And don't talk about what is fair and paying my fair share or any of that crap. If you think 50% of income being taxed is "my fair share", you're psychotic.
Freedom is an illusion only because people trade security for freedom most of the time And not only that, they expect others to behave exactly the same way. And we all know that Ben Franklin quip on Freedom vs Security.
Security is the illusion, not freedom. From the security theater in airports to welfare and social programs, they are all designed to take freedom and replace it with something else.
he was eating candy
Sounds like a Porn Movie Title right there!
I bet it has more to do with economics than race. Rich get better lawyers. NO, I'm not saying race isn't involved, I'm just saying economics overcomes race, and a rich black (hispanic, oriental) guy has a better chance of avoiding Death Penalty than a poor white guy.
I just don't have enough of a sample to prove my point. OJ Simpson and the Menendez brothers make for interesting data points (anecdotal evidence).
When was the last time you saw someone rich get off when everyone "knows" they did it? It happens all the time.
Who told you terminal servers were slow?
Experience.
It all depends on what is being "served" by the TS. However, I've seen huge servers brought to their knees by processes such as Powerpoint (or OpenOffice clone), or rendering images, or whatever sucking as much CPU as possible to run. Load that up by three or four people and now you have a TS brought to its knees. A server designed to host 30 to 50 clients suddenly can't support 10, all because people didn't include "Powerpoint" in the spec, because nobody heard of it when it was implemented, and a year later, someone hear of it, and now you have computers that don't function well for ANYONE.
If someone goes down the whole Terminal Server route, they best be understanding the dynamics of how people use computers changes and evolves, almost always to use MORE computing power, rather than less.
And to compensate for these changes, one ought to budget into the specification the upgrades needed to keep up with the increasing demands. Either that or start telling people "NO" when they want Powerpoint. And good luck with that.
This is not to say I'm against Terminal Servers, because I'm not. In places that have a limited demand for applications, a TS is probably an awesome solution for managing workstations.
Just saying you haven't experience it being "too slow" doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I've seen it happen, and it sucks when people expect a system to work as designed when the parameters of the system has changed.
Isn't that called "security through obscurity" ?
Morons also have a vote
Bush/Cheney
Obama/Biden
I see your point. Thanks for depressing me further.
Yeah, because a hungry lion is exactly the same as Google. And successful software developers are exactly like a wounded gazelle. And non-rational animals are exactly like rational (debatable I know) people running corporations.
Where's Analogy Guy when you need him?
They didn't have to kill it.
And I'd like to add another thought. That is that if you buy software, there is no implied contract that the company you're buying from will exist in three months, leaving you holding software that may or may not be functional in a very short order.
I've seen this happen with all sorts of nifty utilities that go the way of the Dodo bird, simply because the company disappears.
Actually, this is a good case for why a developer would FOSS an application in the first place. Of course, if you're in "Please Google buy me out and make me rich beyond avarice" mode, then you wouldn't.
How about creating a semi FOSS license that remains closed source, and immediately becomes FOSS or Public Domain should the company ever fold, or the software itself becomes otherwise unavailable.
Kind of a poison pill of everlasting life. It would prevent applications from ever disappearing except by natural death (nobody wants it any longer).
I propose we inaugurate a new set of weekly, monthly and yearly Streisand awards. For this, I'd like to Nominate for all three categories this most boneheaded request of the IOC.
In the meantime, lets help UVEX by directly linking their name (like I have here) with Vonn's name.
They can't stop the mob!
Yeah. But that was entirely caused by High Schools not preparing Students for the rigors of College level courses, but rather to make their school's scores look good for NCLB, STAR and other metrics.
You should see the "elementary" education from the 1800s and compare it to what we have today. You'd be shocked at what was required by 6th grade education.
Dumbing the process down to make everyone look good isn't working all that well. We should be challenging for excellence, and not expecting average.