Make sure not to use a server application or OS someone else wrote or maintains either.
Definitely don't use anything that requires a third party to provide the updates or patches.
On second thought: "Third step, don't connect the web site to the internet."
Seriously... you have to host things, or it will be very expensive to put your site up by building all the infrastructure yourself, or
you cut corners and not have the protections (like design, cooling redundancy, power redundancy), a real datacenter operation provided by a hosting provider would.
Trying to host a web site on home/business DSL is bound to be a failure.
Good luck dealing with unexpected load spikes, also.
"Not hosting the site" is not a realistic solution for most people.
You need to pick a hosting provider that will work with you to ensure security, and who had third party validations to show you,
is willing to cooperate with third parties to validate security, and will attest to / provide you some documentation of their own security
practices (esp. physical security with regards to servers you colocate), OR their practices for dedicated servers (second best security option) -- e.g. who has access, what controls exist, etc; shared servers (where multiple customers have sites on the same OS install) are potentially dangerous in some regards.
By pointing out that the kids were likely to end up in prison, thus receiving what they need, he made his argument moot.
Wouldn't it be more efficient if they bypassed the whole school thing altogether, then?
It would cost less money to not have the whole broken 'school' step involved
As several other posts mention it is against copyright law to devalue someone else's copyright.
That's nonsense.... it's not against copyright law to devalue someone else's copyright; whatever that means -- if it were true, Apple would be in trouble for devaluing some MS product lines. Copyright law carves out some very exclusive rights for the copyright owner; it is only an infringement if you improperly practice one of those exclusive rights.
Reselling or giving away a copy of the work, you legally possess, is not one of those exclusive rights.
The trademark rights for the product don't even help Apple in this case -- the device is a genuine iPod.
Retailers have fair use rights to use the name of the product they are giving away/selling.
The only thing that Apple can really stop you from giving away/selling your owned iPod legally is require a document such as a EULA (contract). Presented to you and agreed/signed at the time the hardware is sold to you, and your signature/agreement is a condition for the sale.
If you agreed to a contract not to give it away, and you gave it away -- this could be considered a breach of contract.
They could make it a violation of their copyright to distribute the item as part of a "give-away"
No... copyright does not restrict your ability to sell the copy of a work that you legally possess.
It is only infringement to copy and distribute. Distributing a copy you obtained legally
is governed by commerce laws, but copyright does not restrict your right to give away or sell the copy you own.
And you do not have to agree to any EULA to buy an iPad or iPod, if you don't actually open the box.
It is also not patent infringement to resell a product that was made and sold from the patent holder;
retailers and consumers do not need 'patent licenses'; only the manufacturers who make and first sell the product
need a license.
Where the hell did you go to school that a 3.7 is a "crappy" GPA to be "endured"?
The average GPA of college graduates is approximately 3.2 (out of 4.0).
3.7 is approximately the 70th percentile.
Given the sad state of the general public;
having approximately a third of the undergraduate college population with a GPA better than you really sucks.
3.0 or less = don't belong in college
3.1 - 3.7 is sucky.
3.75 is marginally acceptable. 3.8 is OK. 3.85 is decent. 3.9 is pretty solid, but a serious student should be getting better. 4.0 is good/respectable.
Looking at it another way, some people might consider a couple of years community service paying back the debt to the society they cheated
They don't have a debt to society. When you cheat instead of win the right way, the person you really hurt is yourself.
along with the possibility of then legitimately passing the test and having a rewarding career to be more lenient than blacklisting them and forcing them into some menial job they'd hate for the rest of their lives./em>
Realistically.... you think they will take the test a second time and legitimately pass?
This is like hoping that if you sentence an alcoholic to rehab and a few years of community service, they'll never imbibe again.
Getting blacklisted from continuing that course for a few years doesn't mean they have to take some menial job they will hate; they will just have to find a Plan B.
If they can afford medical school, they can probably afford an alternate course of study -- Law, for example.
In fact... given the legal shenanigans and tremendous liability and huge risks medical practitioners get into, even when they do nothing wrong -- it might be a blessing.
The simple fact, seems to be, that nearly all practicing medical professionals get sued eventually,
because despite the best efforts of medical practitioners, even despite following all best practices
and doing their best, bad things happen sometimes.
Imagine what would happen if someone were suing a doctor for bad medical outcomes (claimed malpractice, even when the doctor's actions are correct and the best that could reasonably be expected), and it came out in the court room that the defendant cheated on the MCAT, the first time they took it?
Fair or not.... the jury may weigh that heavily (even if the defense objected and judge instructed jury to ignore it).
So... in some respects blacklisting may be doing the candidate a favor anyways
It's not illegal to choose what you sell in your store (apart from for discriminatory reasons), and not illegal to have a monopoly.
It's not even that.... this is like Nike asking their shoelace maker(s) to pick one nylon/string manufacturer to make all their shoelaces out of,
so that the shoelaces of every Nike shoe will be the same.
Of course Nike has the right to standardize their product. Just like Microsoft has the right to standardize their product.
If their product is a Windows mobile device; they have a right to control the specifications of the end result.
It's not antitrust for Nike to insist their shoelace maker pick one string manufacturer meeting certain specifications, they can be expected to pick the one
that provides at lowest cost, a product that meets all their requirements. MS can do the same.
This reminds me of standard oil making deals with railroads, to not carry oil for companies that competed with standard oil, or to charge those other companies much more. As I understand it, these actions by the old robber barons brought about the Clayton Act, and the Sherman Act.
Maybe not... this would be more like if standard oil requested railroad companies to choose just one railroad container partner, rather than picking 5 different manufacturers to manufacture the railroad cargo pods used to carry standard oil.
They would still be free to partner with other cargo pods when shipping oil other than standard oil's.
I don't think Microsoft is asking the chip makers to only partner with one PC maker for all their work;
only for Windows device manufacturer are they limited.
And Microsoft's not choosing the partner; just asking them to only have one; to simplify matters.
Anti-trust would be Microsoft picking the partner, in order to give that 'partner' an advantage, or adding restrictions to unfairly quash competition against Microsoft's windows product.
Nothing requires Microsoft to license their Windows OS to every device manufacturer that wants it; just like a doodad designer
doesn't have to license their work to every machine manufacturer that wants to use the doodad.
If MS so chooses, they can have computer manufacturers compete, and award the contract to the company
that provides the best deal to MS (e.g. largest license revenue for MS).
Antitrust would be MS saying they will license doodads to everyone, but you have to agree to manufacture only products that use MS doodads,
and only computer products whose OS is Windows.
Studying is no guarantee of a decent GPA, and you can get a crappy GPA even if you have
good mastery of the material, due to insane testing practices of profs, or simple disagreement, or
the profs' unwillingness to be proven wrong, even when they are completely utterly in error, and you have a memorized citation of high quality, to prove it.
In college, I endured a crappy GPA of approximately 3.7 many semesters, despite ample study.
ThorGod's experience is not hard evidence that he's an idiot.
Grades do not always come from a good measure of skills/knowledge regarding a subject.
Tests are often flawwed; they are either too simple, and fail to completely test what is meant
to be learned -- or they are too elaborate in professors attempts at being "cute" or "creative",
and the test winds up including/requiring something way beyond the subject matter taught.
I don't think so. The CIA/ASIO would probably suspect they might be inclined to attempt to cheat on CIA/ASIO entrance exam
by enlisting double agents [or something like that].
In any case... cheating on the MCAT and having that become public probably hoses them.
What educational institution will trust them after that?
They should count themselves lucky if the university their bachelors/pre-med degree came from hasn't started
reviewing their degree and investigating the possibility they might have used that cheating technique on uni tests in the past.
Obviously... they did something illegal (violation of signed agreement), but not criminal.
Breach of contract is not a crime. It is an illegal act that can result in the injured party suing for recovery of damages.
On what basis would you suggest that the individuals would stop there?
Possibly on the basis that they have more to lose.
They might (or might not) stop there.
Obviously the school should not tolerate cheating, however -- IMO it's fine if the medical schools inform each other
of the student's behavior and blacklist the student from ever taking the MCAT again or ever applying to those schools again.
Trumped up criminal charges; however, are just not cool.
What's next? Throwing 1st graders caught looking at another student's paper during a test into Juvenile hall for 10 years?
They don't have the knowledge and skill to start a curriculum, how do expect them to pass without continued cheating?
You mean they don't have the knowledge and skill to compete fairly for admission in the school they wish to attend.
Someone might cheat who could pass the MCAT, but not get a sufficient score to attend their chosen school, which only admits
X people per year, and to be one of those X people, their MCAT score has to be better than X - 1 other applicants' scores.
The bar for admission is often higher than what is actually required to start and complete a curriculum.
OR the community will,
under the Foundation Trolltech assigned rights to so long ago, to address concerns of KDE developers, promote the continued development of KDE, and clear out doubts about Qt's future free status (vs. Gnome's):
The KDE project and Troll Tech AS, the creators of Qt, are pleased to announce the founding of the 'KDE Free Qt Foundation'.
The purpose of this foundation is to guarantee the availability of Qt for free software development now and in the future.
The foundation will control the rights to the Qt Free Edition and ensure that current and future releases of Qt will be available for free software development at all times.
All changes to the Qt Free Edition license will have to be approved by the KDE Free Qt Foundation which will consist of two members of Troll Tech AS as well as two members of the KDE project. One of the representatives of the KDE project will have a double vote to be used in case of a tie.
Should Troll Tech ever discontinue the Qt Free Edition for any reason including, but not limited to, a buy-out of Troll Tech, a merger or bankruptcy, the latest version of the Qt Free Edition will be released under the BSD license.
Furthermore, should Troll Tech cease continued development of Qt, as assessed by a majority of the KDE Free Qt Foundation, and not release a new version at least every 12 months, the Foundation has the right to release the Qt Free Edition under the BSD License.
Gov't of country A does a cyberattack against country C,
sourced from inside and designed to look like it originates in country B.
Country C declares war on Country B.
Country C and Country B duke it out, tear each other up, in protacted war,
and once they are both weak enough, Country A swoops in and conquers them both with minimal resistance.
I'd say ask around your local area. No point in getting a plate full of certifications if they mean nothing to the employers in your area.
No point in getting a plate full of references if they mean nothing to employers in your area, either.
I think most Employers weigh both certifications and references, with slightly more weight towards references.
As an IT employee, good professional references can be tough to get in many situations -- harder than it can be to get a cert.
You would need to actually collaborate with people in the IT field outside your organization to get the very best references.
Some random user you helped reset their password one day is probably not going to be looked on as having a credible opinion
about you as a system administrator on technical merits.
So load down the plate with neither just references nor just certs.
For maximum versatility, have a wealth of both, but probably look for references first,
constantly.
Why take a mortgage out on your brain so you can beg employers for the opportunity to be treated like a Dilbert?
There are college attendance options that don't require a student to take out a huge mortgage on the brain.
If you think you have to take a loan out for college. Find another option, or don't do college. There are plenty of other options, if you want college for personal fulfillment reasons (which are non-financial in nature); you don't have to sacrifice your financial future to attend college.
If you view college as an investment; matters will be different, you need to look at the cost of that investment and the ROI.
Taking out a loan reduces the ROI, because the cost is increased by the total of all future interest payments, which has to be contemplated to determine if the investment will meet its objective.
Not all schools are uber-expensive. All accredited colleges basically need to teach the same things -- going to a well-recognized brand name does not guarantee a better education; look for competitive quality... eg. there are very good options at selective admission schools, where the quality of the education has not (yet at least) created a disproportionately high tuition, and where the cost of living is low in the area.
ROI will be higher, the lower the tuition [and other costs] the student pays for the maximum possible benefit.
There are interesting permutations that depend on different schools policies for transfer credit -- such as starting school at a cheaper college, and transferring credits to a more expensive college to attend fewer semesters.
There are colleges in some small/mid-sized college cities where tution is around $2500 a semester for 15 hours a week, full time student, with perhaps another $1500 for room and meals, which can be afforded by getting a part time job, even at minimum wage, the $8000 a year can be earned, to keep the student out of debt, assuming the student worked before starting college to obtain $15k in savings, to avoid taking out short-term loans for meeting the lump sum payments -- since colleges require the full semester's tuition paid at once before the semester, and to provide food and shelter for 2 months every year if the dorm fees are not full-year (10 months, for 5 years of college, costing ~$6000).
With no tax liability, assuming the student pays for their own food/shelter, they take home approximately $9200.
If Tuition + Dorm Fees = $8000; and it costs ~$1000 for shelter+food for those two summer months;
the student breaks even, and only needs savings to buy books and supplies.
And honestly, a student taking 12 hours, working part time can almost certainly work 7 hours or more a day,
and probably achieve more than a minimum wage, if they are clever.
A sufficiently dedicated person should not have problems finding a college they can afford (without a loan) that will advance their college career. Granted, there are personal costs involved.
Work work work. No time, for socializing really.
Fail to plan properly, and that might degenerate into 'getting a loan anyways' out of desperation.
Small colleges are still accredited; and students still get a college degree when they graduate.
There is also such a thing as being a part time student, which is even less expensive.
If the student is a part time student, the student gets to pay as they go (much like loan payments), but are getting
education out of it, and there are no interest charges, which can mean that it is a better deal: if part time college is
not blocking them from career advancement.
There are states with programs that will pay tuition; there are grants available from the feds in some cases.
Any option that avoids creating additional costs (such as a loan) seem worthy to consider.
Failures can be fatal if you don't know what you're doing.
If you have an engineering project of such importance that a failure can be fatal,
and you as project manager allow an engineer lacking sufficient skill doing everything,
on his own, without having every single detail of the engineering work carefully
scrutinized and checked over by a team of skilled individuals, then you ought to lose your
project manager's license...
If anything, the PE creates a false sense of security.
No Engineer, whatsoever, regardless of knowledge or skill, is infallible.
Everyone can make mistakes or misunderstand something.
Even the very best will f*ck up from time to time.
The PE gives a false sense of security, because it implies by raising the floor you can prevent mistakes.
You cannot. Mistakes will still happen, unless you have rigorous controls.
It is more costly to have technical teams carefully review all engineering work, every equation, for appropriateness, accuracy, technical correctness of all engineering, and reviews for possible unforseen circumstances, etc,
BUT it is also more appropriate.
Using "one PE" and relying on the PE to prevent 'failures' sounds like cutting corners to me.
If engineering was handled correctly, there'd be no requirement for a PE.
Review teams would quickly weed out any hoky engineers that don't belong and should be fired, etc, etc
Absolutely. Until the next IT bubble spits out a Watson style auto-Lawyer that costs $2500 and runs on your desktop instead of $25 million and four racks of servers:)
IT is more likely to spit out an auto-Doctor. In any case, legal practice is way too complicated at this point for computers to do much other than regurgitate standard forms and index things.
Matters might improve, if the law could be simplified and the supreme court replaced with auto-Judge.
At the same time, the number of CS teaching faculty would have to expand to keep up with enrollment, which would drive up the cost of the degree. At least that's what my CS professor friend tells me.
It shouldn't.... more students paying the same amount = more $$$ coming in to pay for additional faculty.
If the amount each student pays is right in the first place, the addition of more students should reduce the cost, as long as the ratio of faculty to students stays in the proper balance.
The problem should be after those faculty are hired, and the bubble is over -- because now there are more faculty and fewer students; if the additional faculty have 'tenure', 'contract' or 'job security', then the avg cost per student is higher, with fewer students, until faculty are fired/laid off, or reduced in pay to restore the original ratio.
They could achieve reduction in pay by paying faculty based on how many classes they teach, in addition to their performance, and setting criteria required for a class to go ahead: such as (A) a minimum enrollment, and (B) a maximum number of sections of each course, based on the number of enrolled students required to take that section.
The most senior faculty would then be allowed to pick which classes they want to teach first.
Then, if there are not enough classes to fill all the faculty's demands for classes, some method is used to divvy them up. In any case with a per-class payment, their pay accordingly reflects the student demand for their classes.
In most cases, yes. In some situations, the setup may be so completely batshit insane that there's no way anyone else could unravel it.
Sounds like an opportunity for the new operator to redo the setup completely, to reduce ongoing maintenance costs, and increase availability... a win win win for the company.
but people step up and surprise you. Having seen this, I'd say very few people are _actually_ indispensable.
Cognitive bias. Novice/Intermediate IT admins often think they are experts. IT admins/developers often think a "replacement" would have to do the job exactly the same way they would, and use the exact same techniques. IT people think they have elaborate knowledge of the systems they administer/maintain that noone else does, that's absolutely essential for the system
to continue the way they conceived it; which is magically, somehow necessary for the system to continue to meet business requirements.
If the replacement can't figure out the super-secret file path to a shell script or function call they use to do X, the replacement won't be able figure out a way of getting X done. Not the case.
The truly indispensible person falls under a narrow set of possible categories:
(1) The owner of the company. (2) Family members [and sometimes very close friends] over the owner, if they work for the company.
(3) Employees required to retain business essential to the company's survival.
For example: an employee that is a family member or close friend of a client of the company,
that provides the company with so much business, and the company has so little other business that the company will be bankrupt within 6 months if the client is lost, AND the employee is instrumental in the company retaining that business.
(4) Contracters that the company requires a special service from that cannot ever be possibly obtained from any other source in any other form, for example: due to trade secrets, and that is practically required to keep a client meeting criteria of (3) --- an example of such a contracter would be a monopolist; a local municipal Electric company, a Software company such as Microsoft (if your business is required to support a Windows using client, then Microsoft is an indispensable contracter, and you can't fire them and refuse to keep copies of Windows and support for future Windows OSes).
If he quits, can they hire and get up to speed someone else without losing massive revenue in the mean time? Especially considering that he's the main IT guy and therefore is probably the only person who really knows their setup well?
If he decides to stop working without notice, they have no choice but to hire another in his place.
His penalty if he ups and quits without notice will be that he gets no good reference,
and his colleagues working for the co. are unlikely to recommend him to future employers.
Most likely his contract has some notification requirements, which would place the contracter
in breach in that case, and could lead to other penalties, such as no pay, even requirement for
the contracter to pay $$$.
If a contracter quits with notice, then a manager worth his salt will already have anticipated this,
and have another employee/contracter to take his place. The last 2 weeks of his employment will
be spent fully briefing his replacement or a consultant whose job is to document/audit everything,
and answering any questions the replacement has; if the contracter is not fully cooperative,
he may not get paid for work he did not do, or may get sued, for any breach of the contract.
If the manager did not anticipate this; he will have little choice but to quickly secure a consultant,
to debrief the contracter who is quitting, and assist with briefing the replacement.
You are only as indispensible as your employer wants you to be.
If they decide they wish to get rid of you, they can find a replacement, and decide to make adjustments to their business
so that the replacement will meet their needs.
Even if it seems to you that might not be worth their while --- what is (or is not) worth it, is a business decision, they make, not
you. If you continue to be indispensable, that is only the case because they choose to continue to allow it.
Some businesses have a philosophy that as soon as some contracter becomes "unreplaceable"; that means they must be replaced,
fired, or moved to a different area of the company, to help mitigate the threat to the business created by a problematic situation.
If you wanted to be an owner, you should have sought equity as compensation before the company started to succeed.
Now that it is starting to succeed, if you demand equity, you will start to look like a greedy vendor trying to get a piece of the pie.
If you believe in the company you will BUY equity with cash, or take a pay cut in exchange for receiving that amount as equity.
The purpose of the ATMS is to provide safety and sometimes emergency assistance, not a rat out rich people to newspapers system.
The FOIA should be revised to respect the privacy of these aircraft operators.
In the same manner, your driver's license details or private vacation itinery cannot be discovered under FOIA.
These kind of antics encourage private aircraft operators to not register their flights with the system (they are not necessarily required to do so), to the detriment of
their safety, in case an emergency should happen in flight (such as a crash landing in an unpopulated wilderness area).
Slashdot Mirror
Second step, don't use a hosted site
Make sure not to use a server application or OS someone else wrote or maintains either. Definitely don't use anything that requires a third party to provide the updates or patches.
On second thought: "Third step, don't connect the web site to the internet."
Seriously... you have to host things, or it will be very expensive to put your site up by building all the infrastructure yourself, or you cut corners and not have the protections (like design, cooling redundancy, power redundancy), a real datacenter operation provided by a hosting provider would.
Trying to host a web site on home/business DSL is bound to be a failure. Good luck dealing with unexpected load spikes, also.
"Not hosting the site" is not a realistic solution for most people.
You need to pick a hosting provider that will work with you to ensure security, and who had third party validations to show you, is willing to cooperate with third parties to validate security, and will attest to / provide you some documentation of their own security practices (esp. physical security with regards to servers you colocate), OR their practices for dedicated servers (second best security option) -- e.g. who has access, what controls exist, etc; shared servers (where multiple customers have sites on the same OS install) are potentially dangerous in some regards.
By pointing out that the kids were likely to end up in prison, thus receiving what they need, he made his argument moot.
Wouldn't it be more efficient if they bypassed the whole school thing altogether, then? It would cost less money to not have the whole broken 'school' step involved
As several other posts mention it is against copyright law to devalue someone else's copyright.
That's nonsense.... it's not against copyright law to devalue someone else's copyright; whatever that means -- if it were true, Apple would be in trouble for devaluing some MS product lines. Copyright law carves out some very exclusive rights for the copyright owner; it is only an infringement if you improperly practice one of those exclusive rights.
Reselling or giving away a copy of the work, you legally possess, is not one of those exclusive rights. The trademark rights for the product don't even help Apple in this case -- the device is a genuine iPod. Retailers have fair use rights to use the name of the product they are giving away/selling.
The only thing that Apple can really stop you from giving away/selling your owned iPod legally is require a document such as a EULA (contract). Presented to you and agreed/signed at the time the hardware is sold to you, and your signature/agreement is a condition for the sale.
If you agreed to a contract not to give it away, and you gave it away -- this could be considered a breach of contract.
They could make it a violation of their copyright to distribute the item as part of a "give-away"
No... copyright does not restrict your ability to sell the copy of a work that you legally possess. It is only infringement to copy and distribute. Distributing a copy you obtained legally is governed by commerce laws, but copyright does not restrict your right to give away or sell the copy you own.
And you do not have to agree to any EULA to buy an iPad or iPod, if you don't actually open the box.
It is also not patent infringement to resell a product that was made and sold from the patent holder; retailers and consumers do not need 'patent licenses'; only the manufacturers who make and first sell the product need a license.
Where the hell did you go to school that a 3.7 is a "crappy" GPA to be "endured"?
The average GPA of college graduates is approximately 3.2 (out of 4.0). 3.7 is approximately the 70th percentile.
Given the sad state of the general public; having approximately a third of the undergraduate college population with a GPA better than you really sucks.
3.0 or less = don't belong in college
3.1 - 3.7 is sucky.
3.75 is marginally acceptable. 3.8 is OK. 3.85 is decent. 3.9 is pretty solid, but a serious student should be getting better. 4.0 is good/respectable.
Looking at it another way, some people might consider a couple of years community service paying back the debt to the society they cheated
They don't have a debt to society. When you cheat instead of win the right way, the person you really hurt is yourself.
along with the possibility of then legitimately passing the test and having a rewarding career to be more lenient than blacklisting them and forcing them into some menial job they'd hate for the rest of their lives./em>
Realistically.... you think they will take the test a second time and legitimately pass? This is like hoping that if you sentence an alcoholic to rehab and a few years of community service, they'll never imbibe again.
Getting blacklisted from continuing that course for a few years doesn't mean they have to take some menial job they will hate; they will just have to find a Plan B.
If they can afford medical school, they can probably afford an alternate course of study -- Law, for example. In fact... given the legal shenanigans and tremendous liability and huge risks medical practitioners get into, even when they do nothing wrong -- it might be a blessing.
The simple fact, seems to be, that nearly all practicing medical professionals get sued eventually, because despite the best efforts of medical practitioners, even despite following all best practices and doing their best, bad things happen sometimes.
Imagine what would happen if someone were suing a doctor for bad medical outcomes (claimed malpractice, even when the doctor's actions are correct and the best that could reasonably be expected), and it came out in the court room that the defendant cheated on the MCAT, the first time they took it?
Fair or not.... the jury may weigh that heavily (even if the defense objected and judge instructed jury to ignore it).
So... in some respects blacklisting may be doing the candidate a favor anyways
It's not illegal to choose what you sell in your store (apart from for discriminatory reasons), and not illegal to have a monopoly.
It's not even that.... this is like Nike asking their shoelace maker(s) to pick one nylon/string manufacturer to make all their shoelaces out of, so that the shoelaces of every Nike shoe will be the same.
Of course Nike has the right to standardize their product. Just like Microsoft has the right to standardize their product. If their product is a Windows mobile device; they have a right to control the specifications of the end result.
It's not antitrust for Nike to insist their shoelace maker pick one string manufacturer meeting certain specifications, they can be expected to pick the one that provides at lowest cost, a product that meets all their requirements. MS can do the same.
This reminds me of standard oil making deals with railroads, to not carry oil for companies that competed with standard oil, or to charge those other companies much more. As I understand it, these actions by the old robber barons brought about the Clayton Act, and the Sherman Act.
Maybe not... this would be more like if standard oil requested railroad companies to choose just one railroad container partner, rather than picking 5 different manufacturers to manufacture the railroad cargo pods used to carry standard oil.
They would still be free to partner with other cargo pods when shipping oil other than standard oil's.
I don't think Microsoft is asking the chip makers to only partner with one PC maker for all their work; only for Windows device manufacturer are they limited.
And Microsoft's not choosing the partner; just asking them to only have one; to simplify matters. Anti-trust would be Microsoft picking the partner, in order to give that 'partner' an advantage, or adding restrictions to unfairly quash competition against Microsoft's windows product.
Nothing requires Microsoft to license their Windows OS to every device manufacturer that wants it; just like a doodad designer doesn't have to license their work to every machine manufacturer that wants to use the doodad. If MS so chooses, they can have computer manufacturers compete, and award the contract to the company that provides the best deal to MS (e.g. largest license revenue for MS).
Antitrust would be MS saying they will license doodads to everyone, but you have to agree to manufacture only products that use MS doodads, and only computer products whose OS is Windows.
You had a moral objection to studying?
Studying is no guarantee of a decent GPA, and you can get a crappy GPA even if you have good mastery of the material, due to insane testing practices of profs, or simple disagreement, or the profs' unwillingness to be proven wrong, even when they are completely utterly in error, and you have a memorized citation of high quality, to prove it.
In college, I endured a crappy GPA of approximately 3.7 many semesters, despite ample study.
ThorGod's experience is not hard evidence that he's an idiot. Grades do not always come from a good measure of skills/knowledge regarding a subject. Tests are often flawwed; they are either too simple, and fail to completely test what is meant to be learned -- or they are too elaborate in professors attempts at being "cute" or "creative", and the test winds up including/requiring something way beyond the subject matter taught.
I don't think so. The CIA/ASIO would probably suspect they might be inclined to attempt to cheat on CIA/ASIO entrance exam by enlisting double agents [or something like that].
In any case... cheating on the MCAT and having that become public probably hoses them.
What educational institution will trust them after that?
They should count themselves lucky if the university their bachelors/pre-med degree came from hasn't started reviewing their degree and investigating the possibility they might have used that cheating technique on uni tests in the past.
Obviously... they did something illegal (violation of signed agreement), but not criminal. Breach of contract is not a crime. It is an illegal act that can result in the injured party suing for recovery of damages.
On what basis would you suggest that the individuals would stop there?
Possibly on the basis that they have more to lose. They might (or might not) stop there.
Obviously the school should not tolerate cheating, however -- IMO it's fine if the medical schools inform each other of the student's behavior and blacklist the student from ever taking the MCAT again or ever applying to those schools again.
Trumped up criminal charges; however, are just not cool. What's next? Throwing 1st graders caught looking at another student's paper during a test into Juvenile hall for 10 years?
They don't have the knowledge and skill to start a curriculum, how do expect them to pass without continued cheating?
You mean they don't have the knowledge and skill to compete fairly for admission in the school they wish to attend.
Someone might cheat who could pass the MCAT, but not get a sufficient score to attend their chosen school, which only admits X people per year, and to be one of those X people, their MCAT score has to be better than X - 1 other applicants' scores.
The bar for admission is often higher than what is actually required to start and complete a curriculum.
OR the community will, under the Foundation Trolltech assigned rights to so long ago, to address concerns of KDE developers, promote the continued development of KDE, and clear out doubts about Qt's future free status (vs. Gnome's):
Gov't of country A does a cyberattack against country C, sourced from inside and designed to look like it originates in country B.
Country C declares war on Country B. Country C and Country B duke it out, tear each other up, in protacted war, and once they are both weak enough, Country A swoops in and conquers them both with minimal resistance.
I'd say ask around your local area. No point in getting a plate full of certifications if they mean nothing to the employers in your area.
No point in getting a plate full of references if they mean nothing to employers in your area, either.
I think most Employers weigh both certifications and references, with slightly more weight towards references. As an IT employee, good professional references can be tough to get in many situations -- harder than it can be to get a cert. You would need to actually collaborate with people in the IT field outside your organization to get the very best references.
Some random user you helped reset their password one day is probably not going to be looked on as having a credible opinion about you as a system administrator on technical merits.
So load down the plate with neither just references nor just certs. For maximum versatility, have a wealth of both, but probably look for references first, constantly.
Why take a mortgage out on your brain so you can beg employers for the opportunity to be treated like a Dilbert?
There are college attendance options that don't require a student to take out a huge mortgage on the brain.
If you think you have to take a loan out for college. Find another option, or don't do college. There are plenty of other options, if you want college for personal fulfillment reasons (which are non-financial in nature); you don't have to sacrifice your financial future to attend college.
If you view college as an investment; matters will be different, you need to look at the cost of that investment and the ROI. Taking out a loan reduces the ROI, because the cost is increased by the total of all future interest payments, which has to be contemplated to determine if the investment will meet its objective.
Not all schools are uber-expensive. All accredited colleges basically need to teach the same things -- going to a well-recognized brand name does not guarantee a better education; look for competitive quality... eg. there are very good options at selective admission schools, where the quality of the education has not (yet at least) created a disproportionately high tuition, and where the cost of living is low in the area.
ROI will be higher, the lower the tuition [and other costs] the student pays for the maximum possible benefit. There are interesting permutations that depend on different schools policies for transfer credit -- such as starting school at a cheaper college, and transferring credits to a more expensive college to attend fewer semesters.
There are colleges in some small/mid-sized college cities where tution is around $2500 a semester for 15 hours a week, full time student, with perhaps another $1500 for room and meals, which can be afforded by getting a part time job, even at minimum wage, the $8000 a year can be earned, to keep the student out of debt, assuming the student worked before starting college to obtain $15k in savings, to avoid taking out short-term loans for meeting the lump sum payments -- since colleges require the full semester's tuition paid at once before the semester, and to provide food and shelter for 2 months every year if the dorm fees are not full-year (10 months, for 5 years of college, costing ~$6000).
E.g. 7.20/hr * 5hrs/Dy * 22 Days/Mo * 10 months school + 7.20/hr * 10hrs/Dy * 22Days/Mo * 2 months summer = $11088.00
With no tax liability, assuming the student pays for their own food/shelter, they take home approximately $9200. If Tuition + Dorm Fees = $8000; and it costs ~$1000 for shelter+food for those two summer months; the student breaks even, and only needs savings to buy books and supplies.
And honestly, a student taking 12 hours, working part time can almost certainly work 7 hours or more a day, and probably achieve more than a minimum wage, if they are clever.
A sufficiently dedicated person should not have problems finding a college they can afford (without a loan) that will advance their college career. Granted, there are personal costs involved.
Work work work. No time, for socializing really. Fail to plan properly, and that might degenerate into 'getting a loan anyways' out of desperation.
Small colleges are still accredited; and students still get a college degree when they graduate.
There is also such a thing as being a part time student, which is even less expensive.
If the student is a part time student, the student gets to pay as they go (much like loan payments), but are getting education out of it, and there are no interest charges, which can mean that it is a better deal: if part time college is not blocking them from career advancement.
There are states with programs that will pay tuition; there are grants available from the feds in some cases.
Any option that avoids creating additional costs (such as a loan) seem worthy to consider.
There's some the
Failures can be fatal if you don't know what you're doing.
If you have an engineering project of such importance that a failure can be fatal, and you as project manager allow an engineer lacking sufficient skill doing everything, on his own, without having every single detail of the engineering work carefully scrutinized and checked over by a team of skilled individuals, then you ought to lose your project manager's license...
If anything, the PE creates a false sense of security. No Engineer, whatsoever, regardless of knowledge or skill, is infallible. Everyone can make mistakes or misunderstand something. Even the very best will f*ck up from time to time.
The PE gives a false sense of security, because it implies by raising the floor you can prevent mistakes. You cannot. Mistakes will still happen, unless you have rigorous controls.
It is more costly to have technical teams carefully review all engineering work, every equation, for appropriateness, accuracy, technical correctness of all engineering, and reviews for possible unforseen circumstances, etc, BUT it is also more appropriate.
Using "one PE" and relying on the PE to prevent 'failures' sounds like cutting corners to me.
If engineering was handled correctly, there'd be no requirement for a PE. Review teams would quickly weed out any hoky engineers that don't belong and should be fired, etc, etc
Absolutely. Until the next IT bubble spits out a Watson style auto-Lawyer that costs $2500 and runs on your desktop instead of $25 million and four racks of servers :)
IT is more likely to spit out an auto-Doctor. In any case, legal practice is way too complicated at this point for computers to do much other than regurgitate standard forms and index things.
Matters might improve, if the law could be simplified and the supreme court replaced with auto-Judge.
At the same time, the number of CS teaching faculty would have to expand to keep up with enrollment, which would drive up the cost of the degree. At least that's what my CS professor friend tells me.
It shouldn't.... more students paying the same amount = more $$$ coming in to pay for additional faculty. If the amount each student pays is right in the first place, the addition of more students should reduce the cost, as long as the ratio of faculty to students stays in the proper balance.
The problem should be after those faculty are hired, and the bubble is over -- because now there are more faculty and fewer students; if the additional faculty have 'tenure', 'contract' or 'job security', then the avg cost per student is higher, with fewer students, until faculty are fired/laid off, or reduced in pay to restore the original ratio.
They could achieve reduction in pay by paying faculty based on how many classes they teach, in addition to their performance, and setting criteria required for a class to go ahead: such as (A) a minimum enrollment, and (B) a maximum number of sections of each course, based on the number of enrolled students required to take that section.
The most senior faculty would then be allowed to pick which classes they want to teach first. Then, if there are not enough classes to fill all the faculty's demands for classes, some method is used to divvy them up. In any case with a per-class payment, their pay accordingly reflects the student demand for their classes.
In most cases, yes. In some situations, the setup may be so completely batshit insane that there's no way anyone else could unravel it.
Sounds like an opportunity for the new operator to redo the setup completely, to reduce ongoing maintenance costs, and increase availability... a win win win for the company.
but people step up and surprise you. Having seen this, I'd say very few people are _actually_ indispensable.
Cognitive bias. Novice/Intermediate IT admins often think they are experts. IT admins/developers often think a "replacement" would have to do the job exactly the same way they would, and use the exact same techniques. IT people think they have elaborate knowledge of the systems they administer/maintain that noone else does, that's absolutely essential for the system to continue the way they conceived it; which is magically, somehow necessary for the system to continue to meet business requirements.
If the replacement can't figure out the super-secret file path to a shell script or function call they use to do X, the replacement won't be able figure out a way of getting X done. Not the case.
The truly indispensible person falls under a narrow set of possible categories: (1) The owner of the company.
(2) Family members [and sometimes very close friends] over the owner, if they work for the company.
(3) Employees required to retain business essential to the company's survival. For example: an employee that is a family member or close friend of a client of the company, that provides the company with so much business, and the company has so little other business that the company will be bankrupt within 6 months if the client is lost, AND the employee is instrumental in the company retaining that business.
(4) Contracters that the company requires a special service from that cannot ever be possibly obtained from any other source in any other form, for example: due to trade secrets, and that is practically required to keep a client meeting criteria of (3) --- an example of such a contracter would be a monopolist; a local municipal Electric company, a Software company such as Microsoft (if your business is required to support a Windows using client, then Microsoft is an indispensable contracter, and you can't fire them and refuse to keep copies of Windows and support for future Windows OSes).
If he quits, can they hire and get up to speed someone else without losing massive revenue in the mean time? Especially considering that he's the main IT guy and therefore is probably the only person who really knows their setup well?
If he decides to stop working without notice, they have no choice but to hire another in his place. His penalty if he ups and quits without notice will be that he gets no good reference, and his colleagues working for the co. are unlikely to recommend him to future employers. Most likely his contract has some notification requirements, which would place the contracter in breach in that case, and could lead to other penalties, such as no pay, even requirement for the contracter to pay $$$.
If a contracter quits with notice, then a manager worth his salt will already have anticipated this, and have another employee/contracter to take his place. The last 2 weeks of his employment will be spent fully briefing his replacement or a consultant whose job is to document/audit everything, and answering any questions the replacement has; if the contracter is not fully cooperative, he may not get paid for work he did not do, or may get sued, for any breach of the contract.
If the manager did not anticipate this; he will have little choice but to quickly secure a consultant, to debrief the contracter who is quitting, and assist with briefing the replacement.
You are only as indispensible as your employer wants you to be. If they decide they wish to get rid of you, they can find a replacement, and decide to make adjustments to their business so that the replacement will meet their needs. Even if it seems to you that might not be worth their while --- what is (or is not) worth it, is a business decision, they make, not you. If you continue to be indispensable, that is only the case because they choose to continue to allow it.
Some businesses have a philosophy that as soon as some contracter becomes "unreplaceable"; that means they must be replaced, fired, or moved to a different area of the company, to help mitigate the threat to the business created by a problematic situation.
If you wanted to be an owner, you should have sought equity as compensation before the company started to succeed.
Now that it is starting to succeed, if you demand equity, you will start to look like a greedy vendor trying to get a piece of the pie.
If you believe in the company you will BUY equity with cash, or take a pay cut in exchange for receiving that amount as equity.
The purpose of the ATMS is to provide safety and sometimes emergency assistance, not a rat out rich people to newspapers system.
The FOIA should be revised to respect the privacy of these aircraft operators. In the same manner, your driver's license details or private vacation itinery cannot be discovered under FOIA.
These kind of antics encourage private aircraft operators to not register their flights with the system (they are not necessarily required to do so), to the detriment of their safety, in case an emergency should happen in flight (such as a crash landing in an unpopulated wilderness area).