Tech support? Why don't you suggest this guy suicides right away?!
I've been continuously employed in a variety of IT roles (Sysadmin, project manager, network manager, InfoSec among others) since '92. I don't have a degree of any kind and while that's kept me from interviewing for a few jobs, it hasn't really negatively affected my career. Certs and degrees are nice, but there's no substitute for experience.
That's why I usually recommend getting a tech support/help desk job to those trying to break into IT (if you want to be as developer, tester is a good starting place) IT if you don't have a degree or prior experience. That's the advice I give most folks who want to get into IT. Since quality IT people are few and far between, IT management will pick from the best of the TS/HD folks and move them up quickly if they show they have the right attitude/skills/outlook.
Yes, tech support/help desk work blows, but we all have to pay our dues. If you don't want to pay your dues, then you should consider suicide because you're a worthless piece of shit.
And we used RFC 1149, and we liked it.
Faster then dialup when the wind was favorable.
The big problem with RFC 1149 transports is cleaning up all the bird shit. Back in the day when I was using leg-length broadband, my ISP started charging by the turd, which quickly made this mechanism uneconomical.
If Obama (for some reason we blame NASA, but put the blame on your hero) didn't cut NASA we could be talking this as well. What I find a shame are those welfare scum who take money away from projects such as these because they refuse to work. The so called poor today are just lazy thugs.
Exactly. Because Dubya was *so* committed to NASA he raised their budget, right? Not so much. In fact, as a pecentage of the total Federal budget, Dubya cut more than Obama has during a similar time frame. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA for details.
N.B. This is *not* an endorsement of the Obama Administrations handling of NASA. I think they've done a crappy job with NASA and its priorities too.
I do so despise trolling partisan AC pricks like you.
Pretty sure it isn't illegal to pretend interest in buying someone's house. All they would have to do is say the PI truly was interested, but then didn't like the price. How are you going to "prove" he wasn't interested in the house? Regardless pretending you are interested in buying a house when you aren't may be dishonest, but not necessarily illegal. It wasn't like the PI was claiming to be a cop or serviceman or something you could actually get into trouble for impersonating.
I dunno. It's only plausible deniability if there's no way to prove that the PI wasn't acting on behalf of the MPAA. But I assume he was paid for the job. And someone told him to do it. If there's a potential crime, records can be subpoenaed, people can be called to testify. At this point, and if TV court drama hasn't lied to me, I'd think that keeping up the "I was just looking for a house" premise would become perjury and/or obstruction of justice, etc.
If what you're saying is true, if I give a friend $10 to go to the car dealership, look at some cars and even (oh, my gosh!) test drive one or more, then that would be a crime no?
Geez! If it were illegal to go and look at a house that you had no interest in buying (just looking for those tasty home-baked cookies perhaps?), we'd need to build new prisons to house all those nasty felons!
If I had my child in a Tennessee school and the Teacher started using tax payer money to advance creationism, I would be the first to line up to sue the school
I don't think you've ever lived in the Bible Belt. You and your kid probably would be cut out from the community before you even got to that point. Everyone is Christian. Everyone prays together. One of the first questions people ask on meeting strangers is, "What church do you attend?" If you sued the school, expect yourself and your poor kid to be face serious repercussions.
Not very Christian by my understanding of the word, but that's the Bible Belt.
Quite right. It's already happened. Cf McCollum v. Board of Education. The activities of Mrs. McCollum's neighbors (as well as plenty of nut jobs from around the country) was reprehensible to say the least. Mrs. McCollum and her kids talk about this in Jay Rosenstein's documentary film.
Sir Peter Medawar (see below) had it nailed.
The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious
seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the
unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more
bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together.
-- Sir Peter Medawar
It sounds like you're probably misinterpreting what they said. Try the app and if you like it, post about it, and disclose your relationship as "working for the company, but not developing the product". No harm no foul. They have no way to track this.
What the coward said! If you actually use the app (if you work for these guys, why aren't you eating your own dog food?), you can make some sort of judgement about its quality. If it's a piece of garbage, you need to let the devs and managers know about it so they can make it better.
Since you work for these people, once you try the app you should (You'd hope) be able to say at least a couple of nice things about it ("It doesn't wipe my phone" or "Didn't exacerbate my diarrhea" etc, etc, etc). Then you're not astro-turfing are you?
Having a 4 year degree certainly helped me, but what's equally important are certifications. There are too many amateur IT people flooding the market, and not enough highly skilled people. Best way to get experience and name recognition is to freelance a few years. You never know what opportunities you'll come across.
Certifications (with two exceptions -- CCIE and CISSP both for different reasons) aren't worth the paper they're printed on. I've met so many "certified professionals" who couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map.
There's no substitute for experience. Period. Any certification that you can get by just studying the book and/or doing practice exams are worthless. The two exceptions I mentioned above don't fit into that category. The CCIE requires hands on problem solving and the CISSP requires at least five year of documented experience. Any certifications that don't include one or both of these are, as I said, worthless.
Based on a survey of daily reports from my employer's Ironport box, we have seen a 15-20% drop in the amount of spam at the Ironport box, from ~50-70% of all emails (ranging from ~200,000-250,000 on weekdays, about half that on weekends) received to ~30-50% of all emails received each day are tagged as spam by the Ironport appliance.
It's impossible to say with just that information whether there is less spam or if Ironport is just catching less of it. From my personal experience, spam still gets through, but our MUA filters spam out pretty effectively.
So FWIW, based on my experience, I have to agree with TFA's contention.
Not if the signature is missing on the back of the card.
Almost no one ever checks the signature. A few years back I'd routinely ask the person accepting the credit card who their favorite president was and then sign that name for the credit card charge. I must have done this at least a hundred times and not once did anyone even check the back of the card or even the name I used on the signature against the name on the card.
This is a common sense issue that those having (here he goes again) plaques on the wall don't (want to) understand. If there is enough fuel on that aircraft to reach those destinations, to the terrorist that means there is enough fuel to fly into a building somewhere in the USA.
underfuckingstand you educated and enlightened?
==//==
Common sense? Common sense says that hardened cockpit doors and increased screening of passengers has made a repeat of the 9/11 attacks nigh on impossible. What is more, as soon as someone tried to break into the cockpit, passengers as well as crew would incapacitate those individuals lickety split.
I think that American workers need to do more to stand up for themselves. As hard as it might be to do it, you need to be willing to walk away when being asked to something want to do. Some may choose to do this through collective bargaining, and that is OK if your issue applies broadly to all or most employees. But in general we need to stop looking to the government to solve problems with our employers. If more people would just take a stand and quit, businesses will change their tune quickly.
And if refusing the job or quitting in protest means you have to dumpster dive for meals and get your kids' clothes from GoodWill, that's okay? I direct your attention to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. That's how "not looking to the government to solve problems with our employers" works out. It seems that no one reads Santayana anymore. sigh!
Here is an easy way to tell how much of an 'asset' you are to the business: can your entire function be outsourced to a third party, with no impact to the business? If the answer is 'yes' (and for IT it certainly is), then you are just a cost, not an asset.
BZZZZT. Wrong. Thanks for playing. I don't know how many times I've seen IT outsourced at various companies over the years, just to see them in-sourced again because the quality and level of support drops off so precipitously that it either isn't worth it any more or becomes a significant risk to the health of the business, or both.
That's not to say that outsourcing IT can't work, but most organizations have enough quirks that having internal folks who actually understand your business model and organizational structure make it worthwhile.
In the past we were once valued as profit centers and assets as great productivity gains were realized switching to computers then desktops, then spreadsheets, email, and so on and so on. Today, a nerd is not someone who can turn on a PC and use a formula in a spreadsheet. Everyone can do this. Therefore, we do not offer anything of important value except when something blows up.
This is precisely the attitude I was talking about; management and bean counters fail to appreciate just how important IT is. You only touch on one, very small, aspect of our jobs. In fact, IT holds as much, if not more, liability as HR; we protect the company in countless ways, and accordingly, our skillsets need to be varied. I need to be at least semi-competent in every skill set necessary to successfully run a company; HR, legal, finance, project management to name the generics, not to mention the specific core competency of the business. And then, on top of all of that, I need to be an expert in various IT technologies. If I fail in any of those responsibilities, I expose the company to serious liability ( oh, you were ignorant of some obscure PCI requirement? Fined. Oh, you didn't realize employee records needed to be handled a certain way legally? Fined. ect... ).
That's what IT is about; not building workstations or servers. It's managing the information in the corp, with the goal to create an efficient organization.
I was going to mod you informative, but instead I'll pile on. I've worked as an IT resource at technology companies and at Fortune 50 companies. Then I spent more than ten years as an IT consultant at large and small consulting firms, and now I work for a medium sized professional services (not consulting) organization.
Everywhere I've worked (almost 100 different companies as a consultant including a significant fraction of the Fortune 50) IT is a key resource, well except for the plumbing factory I worked at when I was 18, for just about any company. IT *can* provide enormous value and it can be a drain on resources. In fact it can do both -- at the same time. Any way you slice it, IT is critical to just about every industry and job function. From sales where CRM, sales management tools and mobile field sales systems to mention a few, to Inventory management, JIT manufacturing, distribution logistics and other LOB systems, to time and expense management, scheduling and revenue prediction/tracking systems for professional services organizations. There are so many more of course, AP/AR systems, SCADA and factory floor control systems, personnel management and project scheduling/management systems. I could go on and on.
Those are just the tip of the iceberg, because you need Directory Services, NOS, LANs, WANs, remote access systems, systems and network management systems, etc., etc., etc.
These systems and the infrastructure they rely upon don't just run themselves. They require (but unfortunately don't always have) skilled and dedicated sys admins, network managers, project managers, DBAs, developers and specialists (and/or generalists) in email, web, security and a half-dozen other areas. Without the IT, the financial services sector would collapse. Manufacturers, distributors, aggregators, consulting firms, law firms, airlines, not to mention software companies would see their costs go through the roof. What is more, national, state/provincial and municipal governments would come to a screeching halt. Power grids would get fried on a regular basis.
To understate the issue, being short on IT these days is tantamount to a death wish for most companies unless they're a bodega or a caterer working out of the kitchen in their house or other small business which relies upon specific non-IT areas. Even those use IT (albeit on a much smaller scale) for a myriad of tasks. Does it cost money, yes? Would more money need to be spent if it wasn't there? Absolutely.
To my mind, anyone who devalues quality IT is either shortsighted or just plain dumb. I realize that to many of you I'm just stating the obvious, but apparently there are a whole bunch of folks here who don't seem to get it. sigh!
I'm suing you for useless apostrophe placement. Judging by the people here, I'll be a trillionaire by sunset. Seriously, is it *THAT* hard to understand that it's means it is?
Just so no one is confused: It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, "Edpress News"
That's a slightly different argument. With drug screening you're proving that you don't commit crimes on your personal time. Committing crimes on personal time can very much impact work performance if, for example, you get arrested for those crimes. Being a criminal is not a protected class and medical issues are considered private even if they could result in you being unable to work, so the argument doesn't hold for medical screenings for non-physical jobs.
I think that pre-employment drug screening is fine. Random testing, however is not. The way I see it is if you can't clean up long enough to pass a drug test you *know* is going to happen, then you probably have a substance abuse problem. Substance abuse issues definitely impact productivity and make an employee a security risk. Making sure that they can pass a test will at least weed out applicants who are at a much higher likelihood of hurting the employer.
That said, I think the man should keep his grimy paws off my urine! However, I understand the motivation.
I've been tested several times most of those were while I worked for a consulting company and was tested by a client -- you can't really refuse without quitting your job under those circumstances -- and I liked that job.
These days I certainly wouldn't submit to a drug test unless it was a dream job, and I certainly wouldn't give out my FB or email credentials even if it was a dream job -- just the act of asking would make it abundantly clear that I didn't want to work there. The man needs to keep his grimy paws out of my personal life.
Anyone can draft a law. Even Reddit. Even you. Then that party needs to convince a member of the House or Senate to introduce it, and then both need to pass it, and the President needs to sign it, and (if applicable) the Supreme Court needs to uphold it. Take a Civics class.
The process is supposed to be like this, but these days I guess it's a little more like this.
No, but we are going to see a lot of fighter pilots trained by the MAFIAA to shoot down these drones. Since they are in international waters there is no law from stopping the coprolites from purchasing the resources to take them down.
:) The point of my little side-note is not that I would willingly provide information to be used in an investigation against me, at least not without a lawyer's ok. My point was, If I am being investigated for a crime I did not commit, I want the investigation to be as thorough and accurate as possible in order to come away completely free of suspicion. So should you, frankly. If the investigators gather enough evidence to convince a jury, but then stop gathering more, guess who's just as fucked as if you actually committed the crime? The converse point is I also want investigations in which a suspect is actually guilty of the crime to be as thorough and accurate as possible, too, to be as sure as possible that nobody's jailing an innocent person. Since nobody knows who's guilty and who's not except the suspect, ALL investigations should be as thorough and accurate as possible, without any bias either way in the data collection. That's the absolute ideal to shoot for.
As seen in other of my posts, I, myself, strongly advocate clamming up as tight as you can the moment an investigation begins, even if you're innocent, because, basically, you are the weakest link in their case. It's all too easy to say something and then contradict yourself, even without being pressured to do so, let alone in cuffs. I stand by this even considering that I've worked side-by-side with hundreds of police agencies while supporting and maintain their law-enforcement database software. I actually trust most cops to do the best job they can, but a) I'm not going to help them convict me, b) they have too much power not to bring their A game to every single investigation, and c) mistakes are made in all professions, but in this one, a mistake can destroy a life.
I couldn't agree more. The point I was trying to make (which you also made, in not so many words) was that when the police are gathering evidence, it's to further *their* agenda to apprehend and prosecute somebody. Talking to the police without an attorney is not a good decision. The police can and do lie to suspects. The police use subterfuge and bullying tactics to get the evidence which tells the story they want to tell. Hopefully, that story is close to the truth and only includes those who are actually involved. Unfortunately, in too many cases that isn't what happens.
(Sidenote: If I'm actually innocent of a crime I'm ever accused of, I surely and truly HOPE they collect all the evidence they can, because it will eventually point AWAY from me, assuming ethical data collection).
I'd change that set of assumptions if I were you. See this for details.
Your constitution is an interesting read. If there is no supremacy law then it looks like treaties that aren't backed by constitutionally backed federal powers (under the authority of the usa) can be overridden by the states. Does anyone who actually studies this stuff agree?
The President, with advice and consent from Congress, has the authority under the Constitution to enter into treaties. Since those rights were enumerated in the constitution as being reserved for the Federal government, the states do not have the ability to object.
At one time, members of the US Senate were appointed by the state legislatures so the states had a more direct say in the doings of the Federal government, including the ratification of treaties. We now have direct election of senators, so the influence of the state legislatures has been diminished.
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Tech support? Why don't you suggest this guy suicides right away?!
I've been continuously employed in a variety of IT roles (Sysadmin, project manager, network manager, InfoSec among others) since '92. I don't have a degree of any kind and while that's kept me from interviewing for a few jobs, it hasn't really negatively affected my career. Certs and degrees are nice, but there's no substitute for experience.
That's why I usually recommend getting a tech support/help desk job to those trying to break into IT (if you want to be as developer, tester is a good starting place) IT if you don't have a degree or prior experience. That's the advice I give most folks who want to get into IT. Since quality IT people are few and far between, IT management will pick from the best of the TS/HD folks and move them up quickly if they show they have the right attitude/skills/outlook.
Yes, tech support/help desk work blows, but we all have to pay our dues. If you don't want to pay your dues, then you should consider suicide because you're a worthless piece of shit.
Simply make it illegal to sell or distribute new substances to the general public without permission from the FDA.
You mean like we do with tobacco?
And we used RFC 1149, and we liked it. Faster then dialup when the wind was favorable.
The big problem with RFC 1149 transports is cleaning up all the bird shit. Back in the day when I was using leg-length broadband, my ISP started charging by the turd, which quickly made this mechanism uneconomical.
If Obama (for some reason we blame NASA, but put the blame on your hero) didn't cut NASA we could be talking this as well. What I find a shame are those welfare scum who take money away from projects such as these because they refuse to work. The so called poor today are just lazy thugs.
Exactly. Because Dubya was *so* committed to NASA he raised their budget, right? Not so much. In fact, as a pecentage of the total Federal budget, Dubya cut more than Obama has during a similar time frame. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA for details.
N.B. This is *not* an endorsement of the Obama Administrations handling of NASA. I think they've done a crappy job with NASA and its priorities too.
I do so despise trolling partisan AC pricks like you.
Pretty sure it isn't illegal to pretend interest in buying someone's house. All they would have to do is say the PI truly was interested, but then didn't like the price. How are you going to "prove" he wasn't interested in the house? Regardless pretending you are interested in buying a house when you aren't may be dishonest, but not necessarily illegal. It wasn't like the PI was claiming to be a cop or serviceman or something you could actually get into trouble for impersonating.
I dunno. It's only plausible deniability if there's no way to prove that the PI wasn't acting on behalf of the MPAA. But I assume he was paid for the job. And someone told him to do it. If there's a potential crime, records can be subpoenaed, people can be called to testify. At this point, and if TV court drama hasn't lied to me, I'd think that keeping up the "I was just looking for a house" premise would become perjury and/or obstruction of justice, etc.
If what you're saying is true, if I give a friend $10 to go to the car dealership, look at some cars and even (oh, my gosh!) test drive one or more, then that would be a crime no?
Geez! If it were illegal to go and look at a house that you had no interest in buying (just looking for those tasty home-baked cookies perhaps?), we'd need to build new prisons to house all those nasty felons!
If I had my child in a Tennessee school and the Teacher started using tax payer money to advance creationism, I would be the first to line up to sue the school
I don't think you've ever lived in the Bible Belt. You and your kid probably would be cut out from the community before you even got to that point. Everyone is Christian. Everyone prays together. One of the first questions people ask on meeting strangers is, "What church do you attend?" If you sued the school, expect yourself and your poor kid to be face serious repercussions.
There were nasty phone calls and confrontations in restaurants and on the streets.
Not very Christian by my understanding of the word, but that's the Bible Belt.
Quite right. It's already happened. Cf McCollum v. Board of Education. The activities of Mrs. McCollum's neighbors (as well as plenty of nut jobs from around the country) was reprehensible to say the least. Mrs. McCollum and her kids talk about this in Jay Rosenstein's documentary film.
Sir Peter Medawar (see below) had it nailed.
The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together. -- Sir Peter Medawar
It sounds like you're probably misinterpreting what they said. Try the app and if you like it, post about it, and disclose your relationship as "working for the company, but not developing the product". No harm no foul. They have no way to track this.
What the coward said! If you actually use the app (if you work for these guys, why aren't you eating your own dog food?), you can make some sort of judgement about its quality. If it's a piece of garbage, you need to let the devs and managers know about it so they can make it better.
Since you work for these people, once you try the app you should (You'd hope) be able to say at least a couple of nice things about it ("It doesn't wipe my phone" or "Didn't exacerbate my diarrhea" etc, etc, etc). Then you're not astro-turfing are you?
Having a 4 year degree certainly helped me, but what's equally important are certifications. There are too many amateur IT people flooding the market, and not enough highly skilled people. Best way to get experience and name recognition is to freelance a few years. You never know what opportunities you'll come across.
Certifications (with two exceptions -- CCIE and CISSP both for different reasons) aren't worth the paper they're printed on. I've met so many "certified professionals" who couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map.
There's no substitute for experience. Period. Any certification that you can get by just studying the book and/or doing practice exams are worthless. The two exceptions I mentioned above don't fit into that category. The CCIE requires hands on problem solving and the CISSP requires at least five year of documented experience. Any certifications that don't include one or both of these are, as I said, worthless.
When you go for any IT job, the number one requirement these days is a degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
There. FTFY.
Based on a survey of daily reports from my employer's Ironport box, we have seen a 15-20% drop in the amount of spam at the Ironport box, from ~50-70% of all emails (ranging from ~200,000-250,000 on weekdays, about half that on weekends) received to ~30-50% of all emails received each day are tagged as spam by the Ironport appliance.
It's impossible to say with just that information whether there is less spam or if Ironport is just catching less of it. From my personal experience, spam still gets through, but our MUA filters spam out pretty effectively.
So FWIW, based on my experience, I have to agree with TFA's contention.
Not if the signature is missing on the back of the card.
Almost no one ever checks the signature. A few years back I'd routinely ask the person accepting the credit card who their favorite president was and then sign that name for the credit card charge. I must have done this at least a hundred times and not once did anyone even check the back of the card or even the name I used on the signature against the name on the card.
This is a common sense issue that those having (here he goes again) plaques on the wall don't (want to) understand. If there is enough fuel on that aircraft to reach those destinations, to the terrorist that means there is enough fuel to fly into a building somewhere in the USA.
underfuckingstand you educated and enlightened?
==//==
Common sense? Common sense says that hardened cockpit doors and increased screening of passengers has made a repeat of the 9/11 attacks nigh on impossible. What is more, as soon as someone tried to break into the cockpit, passengers as well as crew would incapacitate those individuals lickety split.
Is there a red under your bed? A little yellow man in your head? Paranoia will destroy you, friend.
I think that American workers need to do more to stand up for themselves. As hard as it might be to do it, you need to be willing to walk away when being asked to something want to do. Some may choose to do this through collective bargaining, and that is OK if your issue applies broadly to all or most employees. But in general we need to stop looking to the government to solve problems with our employers. If more people would just take a stand and quit, businesses will change their tune quickly.
And if refusing the job or quitting in protest means you have to dumpster dive for meals and get your kids' clothes from GoodWill, that's okay? I direct your attention to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. That's how "not looking to the government to solve problems with our employers" works out. It seems that no one reads Santayana anymore. sigh!
.
Here is an easy way to tell how much of an 'asset' you are to the business: can your entire function be outsourced to a third party, with no impact to the business? If the answer is 'yes' (and for IT it certainly is), then you are just a cost, not an asset.
BZZZZT. Wrong. Thanks for playing. I don't know how many times I've seen IT outsourced at various companies over the years, just to see them in-sourced again because the quality and level of support drops off so precipitously that it either isn't worth it any more or becomes a significant risk to the health of the business, or both.
That's not to say that outsourcing IT can't work, but most organizations have enough quirks that having internal folks who actually understand your business model and organizational structure make it worthwhile.
In the past we were once valued as profit centers and assets as great productivity gains were realized switching to computers then desktops, then spreadsheets, email, and so on and so on. Today, a nerd is not someone who can turn on a PC and use a formula in a spreadsheet. Everyone can do this. Therefore, we do not offer anything of important value except when something blows up.
This is precisely the attitude I was talking about; management and bean counters fail to appreciate just how important IT is. You only touch on one, very small, aspect of our jobs. In fact, IT holds as much, if not more, liability as HR; we protect the company in countless ways, and accordingly, our skillsets need to be varied. I need to be at least semi-competent in every skill set necessary to successfully run a company; HR, legal, finance, project management to name the generics, not to mention the specific core competency of the business. And then, on top of all of that, I need to be an expert in various IT technologies. If I fail in any of those responsibilities, I expose the company to serious liability ( oh, you were ignorant of some obscure PCI requirement? Fined. Oh, you didn't realize employee records needed to be handled a certain way legally? Fined. ect... ).
That's what IT is about; not building workstations or servers. It's managing the information in the corp, with the goal to create an efficient organization.
I was going to mod you informative, but instead I'll pile on. I've worked as an IT resource at technology companies and at Fortune 50 companies. Then I spent more than ten years as an IT consultant at large and small consulting firms, and now I work for a medium sized professional services (not consulting) organization.
Everywhere I've worked (almost 100 different companies as a consultant including a significant fraction of the Fortune 50) IT is a key resource, well except for the plumbing factory I worked at when I was 18, for just about any company. IT *can* provide enormous value and it can be a drain on resources. In fact it can do both -- at the same time. Any way you slice it, IT is critical to just about every industry and job function. From sales where CRM, sales management tools and mobile field sales systems to mention a few, to Inventory management, JIT manufacturing, distribution logistics and other LOB systems, to time and expense management, scheduling and revenue prediction/tracking systems for professional services organizations. There are so many more of course, AP/AR systems, SCADA and factory floor control systems, personnel management and project scheduling/management systems. I could go on and on.
Those are just the tip of the iceberg, because you need Directory Services, NOS, LANs, WANs, remote access systems, systems and network management systems, etc., etc., etc.
These systems and the infrastructure they rely upon don't just run themselves. They require (but unfortunately don't always have) skilled and dedicated sys admins, network managers, project managers, DBAs, developers and specialists (and/or generalists) in email, web, security and a half-dozen other areas. Without the IT, the financial services sector would collapse. Manufacturers, distributors, aggregators, consulting firms, law firms, airlines, not to mention software companies would see their costs go through the roof. What is more, national, state/provincial and municipal governments would come to a screeching halt. Power grids would get fried on a regular basis.
To understate the issue, being short on IT these days is tantamount to a death wish for most companies unless they're a bodega or a caterer working out of the kitchen in their house or other small business which relies upon specific non-IT areas. Even those use IT (albeit on a much smaller scale) for a myriad of tasks. Does it cost money, yes? Would more money need to be spent if it wasn't there? Absolutely.
To my mind, anyone who devalues quality IT is either shortsighted or just plain dumb. I realize that to many of you I'm just stating the obvious, but apparently there are a whole bunch of folks here who don't seem to get it. sigh!
I'm suing you for useless apostrophe placement. Judging by the people here, I'll be a trillionaire by sunset. Seriously, is it *THAT* hard to understand that it's means it is?
Just so no one is confused:
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, "Edpress News"
having a donor card doesn't give you any incentive to driving carelessly.
Perhaps it does...
That's a slightly different argument. With drug screening you're proving that you don't commit crimes on your personal time. Committing crimes on personal time can very much impact work performance if, for example, you get arrested for those crimes. Being a criminal is not a protected class and medical issues are considered private even if they could result in you being unable to work, so the argument doesn't hold for medical screenings for non-physical jobs.
I think that pre-employment drug screening is fine. Random testing, however is not. The way I see it is if you can't clean up long enough to pass a drug test you *know* is going to happen, then you probably have a substance abuse problem. Substance abuse issues definitely impact productivity and make an employee a security risk. Making sure that they can pass a test will at least weed out applicants who are at a much higher likelihood of hurting the employer.
That said, I think the man should keep his grimy paws off my urine! However, I understand the motivation.
I've been tested several times most of those were while I worked for a consulting company and was tested by a client -- you can't really refuse without quitting your job under those circumstances -- and I liked that job.
These days I certainly wouldn't submit to a drug test unless it was a dream job, and I certainly wouldn't give out my FB or email credentials even if it was a dream job -- just the act of asking would make it abundantly clear that I didn't want to work there. The man needs to keep his grimy paws out of my personal life.
Anyone can draft a law. Even Reddit. Even you. Then that party needs to convince a member of the House or Senate to introduce it, and then both need to pass it, and the President needs to sign it, and (if applicable) the Supreme Court needs to uphold it. Take a Civics class.
The process is supposed to be like this, but these days I guess it's a little more like this.
Sorry, couldn't resist! :)
This sounds like a job for Ham Radio, no? Two-way communication between the drones and multiple packet radios would be difficult to shut down.
No, but we are going to see a lot of fighter pilots trained by the MAFIAA to shoot down these drones. Since they are in international waters there is no law from stopping the coprolites from purchasing the resources to take them down.
There. FTFY
:) The point of my little side-note is not that I would willingly provide information to be used in an investigation against me, at least not without a lawyer's ok. My point was, If I am being investigated for a crime I did not commit, I want the investigation to be as thorough and accurate as possible in order to come away completely free of suspicion. So should you, frankly. If the investigators gather enough evidence to convince a jury, but then stop gathering more, guess who's just as fucked as if you actually committed the crime? The converse point is I also want investigations in which a suspect is actually guilty of the crime to be as thorough and accurate as possible, too, to be as sure as possible that nobody's jailing an innocent person. Since nobody knows who's guilty and who's not except the suspect, ALL investigations should be as thorough and accurate as possible, without any bias either way in the data collection. That's the absolute ideal to shoot for. As seen in other of my posts, I, myself, strongly advocate clamming up as tight as you can the moment an investigation begins, even if you're innocent, because, basically, you are the weakest link in their case. It's all too easy to say something and then contradict yourself, even without being pressured to do so, let alone in cuffs. I stand by this even considering that I've worked side-by-side with hundreds of police agencies while supporting and maintain their law-enforcement database software. I actually trust most cops to do the best job they can, but a) I'm not going to help them convict me, b) they have too much power not to bring their A game to every single investigation, and c) mistakes are made in all professions, but in this one, a mistake can destroy a life.
I couldn't agree more. The point I was trying to make (which you also made, in not so many words) was that when the police are gathering evidence, it's to further *their* agenda to apprehend and prosecute somebody. Talking to the police without an attorney is not a good decision. The police can and do lie to suspects. The police use subterfuge and bullying tactics to get the evidence which tells the story they want to tell. Hopefully, that story is close to the truth and only includes those who are actually involved. Unfortunately, in too many cases that isn't what happens.
(Sidenote: If I'm actually innocent of a crime I'm ever accused of, I surely and truly HOPE they collect all the evidence they can, because it will eventually point AWAY from me, assuming ethical data collection).
I'd change that set of assumptions if I were you. See this for details.
this alleged scumbag stole millions of $$$ and helped the housing bubble become a bubble
too bad for her the law is that you have to turn over evidence of your crime to the police if they find out you have it
Scumbag or not, we all must be entitled to the protections of the constitution or we all suffer.
I'm going to assume you're trolling, because if you're really that dumb it's too depressing.
Your constitution is an interesting read. If there is no supremacy law then it looks like treaties that aren't backed by constitutionally backed federal powers (under the authority of the usa) can be overridden by the states. Does anyone who actually studies this stuff agree?
The President, with advice and consent from Congress, has the authority under the Constitution to enter into treaties. Since those rights were enumerated in the constitution as being reserved for the Federal government, the states do not have the ability to object.
At one time, members of the US Senate were appointed by the state legislatures so the states had a more direct say in the doings of the Federal government, including the ratification of treaties. We now have direct election of senators, so the influence of the state legislatures has been diminished.
HTHAL