Msft has openly declared war on foss, and has pulled numerous under-handed, maybe even downright illegal, stunts to kill off any foss competition. From bribing officials to get to OOXML passed as an open standard, to financing the scox scam, to rigging a patent lawsuit against redhat, and so much more.
If this was the first time that msft stepped out of line, I think people would find it a lot easier to forgive.
As I understand it: Microsoft has claimed they will not sue novell linux users for infringing on msft patents. Msft claims that linux infringes on several msft patents, although msft will not specify exactly which patents. If you use any linux distro other than novell, msft might sue you.
And don't forget to pay scox $699 for each CPU, if you run linux. Thank msft for that also.
Could some other company besides IBM be pushing to resist the merger? Sure. Maybe Hp? Microsoft? But I think IBM is the best guess I can come up with.
I think Microsoft has publicly protested the merger, I have not seen that from IBM. Also, doesn't msft, routinely, like to throw wrenches in anything that competitors want to do?
Up until I was 40, I was always very skinny. It was just natural, I never had to think about it.
When I started gaining weight, I stopped eating as much, especially cut down on snack foods etc. It did not help. Now, I eat a diet that, I am certain, would be called very healthy by most real experts, but I can not lose a pound. I also work-out for, at least, a few hours a week.
Everybody thinks that if your gaining weight, you much be stuffing yourself with pastries all day. But, that was not true in my case.
I am not looking for advice. I am just saying: don't assume that every person who is over-weight, is over eating.
Those people are all, at least, 100 pounds overweight. And they workout, all day long, everyday, with world-class trainers, yet they don't lose all that much weight - maybe one pound a day on average.
Such a detector would also nab people who are afraid of flying, or who are afraid they will miss their flight, or are anxious about meeting a new relative, or god-only-knows-what.
Maybe, after he gets out of prison, he should be kept in some other institution? An institution designed, not to punish, but to keep dangerous people off the streets.
I just got a wii. I also have the balance board thing.
I was hoping there would some really good golf, and skiing, games. The potential is certainly there. The fitness stuff is okay, but it seems to me that it could be so much better.
My nephew has some WWII combat game. That seems fairly mature - unless you really get off on seeing gore.
There also might be civil/criminal consequences. Leaving a company in a middle of a server upgrade where they are unable to earn income might be grounds for a crushing lawsuit and guarenteed zero unemployment due to gross misconduct.
A lawsuit would be extremely unlikely. Employment is typically an "at will" arrangement. You can leave whenever you like, employers can fire you whenever they like.
As to unemployment, you don't get unemployment when you quit a job, "misconduct" or not.
In the US, IT workers typically have a life of constant turmoil. Rather than building a career, IT workers move from one throw-away job to the next. In most professional career fields (doctor, lawyer, accountant, teacher), it is normally expected that you advance and earn more as you get older, and more experienced, in IT it's often just the opposite.
Occam's razor: off-shore labor is a lot cheaper, therefore employers will off-shore every possible job. If you do your job sitting in front of a computer, then your job can probably be off-shored - if not now, then certainly in the near future.
Practically all IT jobs that are not offshored, will be filled by guest workers.
Furthermore, the simple laws of supply and demand dictate that the few jobs that are not off-shored, will have a glut of qualified applicants. The experienced developers who have their jobs off-shored, will clearly try to leverage their existing training and experience into the few remaining IT jobs that can not be easily off-shored. This causes a glut, and drives down wages.
The IT worker glut will be increased even more by improved automation of information system maintenance, standardization of software, and non-IT specialists who are increasingly sophisticated with information technology.
There can be nothing to stop this devastating trend, due to the following:
1) Corrupt USA politicians 2) USA IT workers are not willing to organize 3) Influential corporations have effectively distorted the issues
The obvious problem with that advice is: most jobs that people are passionate about, are jobs for one percenters, i.e.: writers, musicians, actors, athletes, etc.
Also, very often, something that is fun to do as an amateur is no fun at all as a professional. I see this all the time: a guy loves playing with his garage band, becomes a professional musician, and absolutely hates every minute of it.
As IT specializations go, this may not be a bad one. Here a few things I like about it:
1) I think it would be one of the more difficult specializations to off-shore. I suppose you could have a local CCNA speaking with an off-shore CCIE, but I'm not sure if even that is practical.
2) Clearly NE is not a specialization that is not done by kids, hobbyists, or other amateurs. I believe it is a mistake to specialize in areas that are commonly done by amateurs, such as web-site development, or desktop admin. An amateur may be able to set up a home, or small business network, but a data center environment is a different sort of beast.
3) Reasonable high barrier to entry. Displaced IT workers like developers, QA testers, data analysts, and the like, will not be able to easily move into this field. Especially at the more advanced levels, this field can not be so easily glutted. I expect to see displaced developers trying to move into sysadmin, dba, and even help-desk jobs.
4) A lot of "hot" technologies are closely related to NE: SANs, VOIP, wireless, information security, and data center architecture. I know Cisco has a certification for practically everything. Of course, I'm not sure how long those specializations will remain "hot."
5) There seem to be some decent programs for learning NE. University of Colorado has a program: http://xrl.us/csf8h Also, Cisco is generally considered to have some of the better cert programs. These days, I don't think the entry level CCNA is worth much. But, some of the more advanced and/or specialized certs may be worth-while. With the exception of the CCIE, most Cisco cert exams are inexpensive, and can be passed by self-study. The CCIE, while very difficult and expensive, is also very valuable.
6) Unlike a lot of IT jobs, I think you can advance fairly steadily in NE. I would think the work environment would be stable than many developer positions, where the work load is always boom or bust.
7) Unlike many admin, and developer, NEs jobs do not seem to require those arbitrary, and seemingly endless, lists of products and technologies. For example if you a java developer, you may miss out on a particular job because you don't have professional experience with ColdFusion. If you really know your networking, and Cisco, you can probably find a job and keep it, without having to know every application, development environment, language, operating system, etc. known to man.
8) Salaries are good, although not extraordinary. Seems to me that most salaries in the Denver area are between $70K and $140K. A lack of extraordinary salaries may be a good thing. I think a lot of people want to become developers because they think they are going to get rich, this of course gluts the field.
On the other hand:
1) I don't think there is any critical shortage of NEs.
2) I don't think the need for NEs is growing all that fast.
3) Network admin tools, may decrease the need for NEs.
4) Getting started could be very difficult. Like most jobs in IT, there is practically no such thing as true entry-level. If you don't have experience, you can not get experience.
I have not worked as an NE myself. I would be interested to know what others think.
My suggestion? Find an industry which is old (and thus has well established work principles), deeply unsexy, and (if you can) look for jobs on the income side of the ledger.
I know a woman, in Denver, who works as property manager for an office building. Basically the job is hiring contractors, collecting rent, paying the bills. The job pays $90K a year, with perks up the wahzoo. She does not know anything about plumbing, electronics, hvac, or anything like that.
If you own the business, community (HOA) management, can be even more lucrative. Seems like it would hard to get started, but if you could get started, you have a very stable income.
The Government, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavouring to develop them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the Reichstag on 23 March 1933
Don't forget the health of the animals themselves. Most of the anti-hunting nuts haven't seen what rampant overpopulation does to a herd, but living in AR I've seen it first hand. You get sickly and diseased animals breeding among the healthy and bringing the health of the entire herd down.
But don't human hunters (unlike animal hunters) take out the best of the herd? So would that not just contribute to bringing down the overall health of the heard?
1) I am posting about the future. I think distributing TV over the internet could offer several advantages, and it is feasible.
2) I do know people that pay $150 a month for cable TV.
3) I very much doubt that services like hulu are considering $90 a month, since that would put hulu out of business immediately. My guess is, they are considering far lower fees.
It seems so strange to me. People will pay $150 a month for cable television, but the same people would be outraged to pay even the modest fee to get the same content over the internet.
Maybe all TV should be like hulu. You could watch what you want, when you want. Not pay for 200 channels of crap that you don't want. Not burn up all that bandwidth for those channels you don't want. Just pay for internet, and a small content fee.
Seems to me that all of these "institutes" or "think tanks" or "analysts groups" or whatever; are just paid corporate shills. In spite of what they may call themselves, they are in no way objective, neutral, conservative, libertarian, or anything else. They say whatever their corporate sponsors tell them to say, their "studies" prove whatever their corporate sponsors want them to "prove."
I consider myself to be fairly familiar with libertarian thought, and I see no reason that free software would be a problem with any real libertarian.
Furthermore, what major proprietary software company does not give away tons of free software? Microsoft gives away an "express" (i.e. free) version of practically everything.
>>Because if you default on the mortgage, they can take your house. Education repossession technology is still in beta. Even when it works it and rarely returns anything of value.
If you default on student loan the IRS can garnish your wages. This means a student loan is far more secure than a home loan. A home can lose value, or you can go bankrupt. You can not avoid student loan repayments even though bankruptcy.
Slashdot Mirror
Msft has openly declared war on foss, and has pulled numerous under-handed, maybe even downright illegal, stunts to kill off any foss competition. From bribing officials to get to OOXML passed as an open standard, to financing the scox scam, to rigging a patent lawsuit against redhat, and so much more.
If this was the first time that msft stepped out of line, I think people would find it a lot easier to forgive.
What if I put $1 million in suitcase, and the TSA found it without specifically screening for it?
Another good one:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/103759/?tag=Master+P
Just ask Microsoft.
As I understand it: Microsoft has claimed they will not sue novell linux users for infringing on msft patents. Msft claims that linux infringes on several msft patents, although msft will not specify exactly which patents. If you use any linux distro other than novell, msft might sue you.
And don't forget to pay scox $699 for each CPU, if you run linux. Thank msft for that also.
Could some other company besides IBM be pushing to resist the merger? Sure. Maybe Hp? Microsoft? But I think IBM is the best guess I can come up with.
I think Microsoft has publicly protested the merger, I have not seen that from IBM. Also, doesn't msft, routinely, like to throw wrenches in anything that competitors want to do?
I'm 50, and somewhat overweight - not obese.
Up until I was 40, I was always very skinny. It was just natural, I never had to think about it.
When I started gaining weight, I stopped eating as much, especially cut down on snack foods etc. It did not help. Now, I eat a diet that, I am certain, would be called very healthy by most real experts, but I can not lose a pound. I also work-out for, at least, a few hours a week.
Everybody thinks that if your gaining weight, you much be stuffing yourself with pastries all day. But, that was not true in my case.
I am not looking for advice. I am just saying: don't assume that every person who is over-weight, is over eating.
Those people are all, at least, 100 pounds overweight. And they workout, all day long, everyday, with world-class trainers, yet they don't lose all that much weight - maybe one pound a day on average.
Such a detector would also nab people who are afraid of flying, or who are afraid they will miss their flight, or are anxious about meeting a new relative, or god-only-knows-what.
That is what I thought.
Maybe, after he gets out of prison, he should be kept in some other institution? An institution designed, not to punish, but to keep dangerous people off the streets.
I just got a wii. I also have the balance board thing.
I was hoping there would some really good golf, and skiing, games. The potential is certainly there. The fitness stuff is okay, but it seems to me that it could be so much better.
My nephew has some WWII combat game. That seems fairly mature - unless you really get off on seeing gore.
I have been using debian for years. But, I would switch to Ubuntu, if there is some good reason to do so.
I am a bit surprised that there is not such section.
Where do you get this stuff?
There also might be civil/criminal consequences. Leaving a company in a middle of a server upgrade where they are unable to earn income might be grounds for a crushing lawsuit and guarenteed zero unemployment due to gross misconduct.
A lawsuit would be extremely unlikely. Employment is typically an "at will" arrangement. You can leave whenever you like, employers can fire you whenever they like.
As to unemployment, you don't get unemployment when you quit a job, "misconduct" or not.
In the US, IT workers typically have a life of constant turmoil. Rather than building a career, IT workers move from one throw-away job to the next. In most professional career fields (doctor, lawyer, accountant, teacher), it is normally expected that you advance and earn more as you get older, and more experienced, in IT it's often just the opposite.
Occam's razor: off-shore labor is a lot cheaper, therefore employers will off-shore every possible job. If you do your job sitting in front of a computer, then your job can probably be off-shored - if not now, then certainly in the near future.
Practically all IT jobs that are not offshored, will be filled by guest workers.
Furthermore, the simple laws of supply and demand dictate that the few jobs that are not off-shored, will have a glut of qualified applicants. The experienced developers who have their jobs off-shored, will clearly try to leverage their existing training and experience into the few remaining IT jobs that can not be easily off-shored. This causes a glut, and drives down wages.
The IT worker glut will be increased even more by improved automation of information system maintenance, standardization of software, and non-IT specialists who are increasingly sophisticated with information technology.
There can be nothing to stop this devastating trend, due to the following:
1) Corrupt USA politicians
2) USA IT workers are not willing to organize
3) Influential corporations have effectively distorted the issues
So there you go, it's as simple as that.
Take a look at this if you don't believe me:
http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=articles:news_and_commentary
I have heard that simplistic advice all my life.
The obvious problem with that advice is: most jobs that people are passionate about, are jobs for one percenters, i.e.: writers, musicians, actors, athletes, etc.
Also, very often, something that is fun to do as an amateur is no fun at all as a professional. I see this all the time: a guy loves playing with his garage band, becomes a professional musician, and absolutely hates every minute of it.
As IT specializations go, this may not be a bad one. Here a few things I like about it:
1) I think it would be one of the more difficult specializations to off-shore. I suppose you could have a local CCNA speaking with an off-shore CCIE, but I'm not sure if even that is practical.
2) Clearly NE is not a specialization that is not done by kids, hobbyists, or other amateurs. I believe it is a mistake to specialize in areas that are commonly done by amateurs, such as web-site development, or desktop admin. An amateur may be able to set up a home, or small business network, but a data center environment is a different sort of beast.
3) Reasonable high barrier to entry. Displaced IT workers like developers, QA testers, data analysts, and the like, will not be able to easily move into this field. Especially at the more advanced levels, this field can not be so easily glutted. I expect to see displaced developers trying to move into sysadmin, dba, and even help-desk jobs.
4) A lot of "hot" technologies are closely related to NE: SANs, VOIP, wireless, information security, and data center architecture. I know Cisco has a certification for practically everything. Of course, I'm not sure how long those specializations will remain "hot."
5) There seem to be some decent programs for learning NE. University of Colorado has a program:
http://xrl.us/csf8h
Also, Cisco is generally considered to have some of the better cert programs. These days, I don't think the entry level CCNA is worth much. But, some of the more advanced and/or specialized certs may be worth-while. With the exception of the CCIE, most Cisco cert exams are inexpensive, and can be passed by self-study. The CCIE, while very difficult and expensive, is also very valuable.
6) Unlike a lot of IT jobs, I think you can advance fairly steadily in NE. I would think the work environment would be stable than many developer positions, where the work load is always boom or bust.
7) Unlike many admin, and developer, NEs jobs do not seem to require those arbitrary, and seemingly endless, lists of products and technologies. For example if you a java developer, you may miss out on a particular job because you don't have professional experience with ColdFusion. If you really know your networking, and Cisco, you can probably find a job and keep it, without having to know every application, development environment, language, operating system, etc. known to man.
8) Salaries are good, although not extraordinary. Seems to me that most salaries in the Denver area are between $70K and $140K. A lack of extraordinary salaries may be a good thing. I think a lot of people want to become developers because they think they are going to get rich, this of course gluts the field.
On the other hand:
1) I don't think there is any critical shortage of NEs.
2) I don't think the need for NEs is growing all that fast.
3) Network admin tools, may decrease the need for NEs.
4) Getting started could be very difficult. Like most jobs in IT, there is practically no such thing as true entry-level. If you don't have experience, you can not get experience.
I have not worked as an NE myself. I would be interested to know what others think.
My suggestion? Find an industry which is old (and thus has well established work principles), deeply unsexy, and (if you can) look for jobs on the income side of the ledger.
I know a woman, in Denver, who works as property manager for an office building. Basically the job is hiring contractors, collecting rent, paying the bills. The job pays $90K a year, with perks up the wahzoo. She does not know anything about plumbing, electronics, hvac, or anything like that.
If you own the business, community (HOA) management, can be even more lucrative. Seems like it would hard to get started, but if you could get started, you have a very stable income.
Quote from a devote Christian:
The Government, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavouring to develop them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the Reichstag on 23 March 1933
Don't forget the health of the animals themselves. Most of the anti-hunting nuts haven't seen what rampant overpopulation does to a herd, but living in AR I've seen it first hand. You get sickly and diseased animals breeding among the healthy and bringing the health of the entire herd down.
But don't human hunters (unlike animal hunters) take out the best of the herd? So would that not just contribute to bringing down the overall health of the heard?
1) I am posting about the future. I think distributing TV over the internet could offer several advantages, and it is feasible.
2) I do know people that pay $150 a month for cable TV.
3) I very much doubt that services like hulu are considering $90 a month, since that would put hulu out of business immediately. My guess is, they are considering far lower fees.
It seems so strange to me. People will pay $150 a month for cable television, but the same people would be outraged to pay even the modest fee to get the same content over the internet.
Maybe all TV should be like hulu. You could watch what you want, when you want. Not pay for 200 channels of crap that you don't want. Not burn up all that bandwidth for those channels you don't want. Just pay for internet, and a small content fee.
I've been using Debian for years. I'm thinking about buying a new PC, if there any BFDs this black friday.
I suppose Ubuntu gives me an easier setup, although I have no problem setting up debian. I suppose Unbuntu also gives me a live cd. Anything else?
Seems to me that all of these "institutes" or "think tanks" or "analysts groups" or whatever; are just paid corporate shills. In spite of what they may call themselves, they are in no way objective, neutral, conservative, libertarian, or anything else. They say whatever their corporate sponsors tell them to say, their "studies" prove whatever their corporate sponsors want them to "prove."
I consider myself to be fairly familiar with libertarian thought, and I see no reason that free software would be a problem with any real libertarian.
Furthermore, what major proprietary software company does not give away tons of free software? Microsoft gives away an "express" (i.e. free) version of practically everything.
If I already have an iphone, or itouch, or netbook, or whatever; why should I also have to carry around a separate device just to read text?
>>Because if you default on the mortgage, they can take your house. Education repossession technology is still in beta. Even when it works it and rarely returns anything of value.
If you default on student loan the IRS can garnish your wages. This means a student loan is far more secure than a home loan. A home can lose value, or you can go bankrupt. You can not avoid student loan repayments even though bankruptcy.