On a pure geek/technical and humanitarian level, I'm all for manned space flight. More the better. More chance to explore, more chance to get off of the earth, more chance for humanity to survive, and more chance for us to turn our attention to something worthwhile. Plus, of course, cool technical benefits.
However, it seems to me a lot of countries are jumping into the space race, and I'm concerned about conflicts, territoriality, and inappropriate militarization. It seems it's getting awful crowded up there pretty quick.
This is an area I'm not as informed as I'd like to be, and I wonder if people know: 1) How many countries have made successful space flight and what they've done. 2) What plans they have for the future. 3) What treaties exist concerning space flight.
The problem with assessing the "State of IT jobs" is that people have far different ideas of what constitutes:
An IT job. People think IT jobs are easy to identify, but I find people have vastly different standards.
An IT professional. Is this anyone with computers as a large part of their job, or someone with more technical skills?
Employment. Are we looking at full time employment? Any employment? Do contracts count?
A good market. What is a "good" market? What is our standard?
Take these issues, then throw in the fact people and groups have their own agendas, and it's hard to say. We don't have any standards agreed upon, so it's difficult to even discuss it.
By my standards (I have high standards for what I call an IT job and a professional, employment is full time or long-term contract, and one can find an equivalent job in less than 3 months) the market seems soft.
It's very dependent on experience and skills, with the higher skilled and more experienced people (who have diverse skills or very deep specialized skills) doing much better.
The groups that lined up against the bill include the Consumer Electronics Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the American Conservative Union and public-interest advocacy group Public Knowledge, which hosted a press briefing on Friday as the opening salvo of its campaign to stop passage.
and
Hollywood's involvement has even irked the American Conservative Union, which holds considerable sway with conservative Republicans in Congress. The ACU plans a major print ad campaign this week to oppose the bill, mainly because some provisions would require the Justice Department to file civil copyright lawsuits on behalf of the entertainment industry.
"It's just plain wrong to make the Department of Justice Hollywood's law firm," said Stacie Rumenap, ACU's deputy director.
Sounds like there's some pretty good opposition lined up. Besides writing your Congressbeings, it may be worth keeping track of what these groups are up to.
I think it's fairly obvious it's a publicity stunt. I hadn't heard of any lawsuits affecting customers anyway, and it's just extending an existing policy.
It's just another tool to take on Linux and OS advocates. It doesn't make Windows any less bloated or secure.
However, this does spell out some of their battle plan - they're going to play up the IP angle more.
I'm curious as to how the Linux/OS community will respond.
My first thought? Three possibilities: 1) Just because you can teach, lecture, and relay information, it doesn't mean you can apply it or apply it well. 2) Smart people can be stupid. In fact, when stupidity is backed by intelligence (thus letting you justify your stupidity or implement it), stupidity is far more destructive than when on its own. 3) He's only human.
With all respect to this gentleman's knowledge, he seems to be thinking that the Internet won't evolve, that people won't adapt, and that technology won't change.
People are used to what the internet brings - access to information and services of various natures. They want it. They will find ways to overcome problems with the system, and folks will be glad to provide (and probably sell) them solutions.
The Internet isn't what it was when it started, what it was 10 years ago, and even what it was 5 years ago. It will be something different 5 years from now and 10 years from now.
Doesn't that INCREASE the motivation to copy it, download from the net, etc.? Get it cheaper then rip it?
Will sales of these self-destructing DVDs really be worth it? Will it really pay off? What market research has been done?
How many of these will be made with errors due to the manufacturing process and unexpected degredation? How do you do QA on something that self-destructs?
Even if the technology exists, I can't see it being worth it, and perhaps not even being applied on a large scale.
People like to compete. We like a challenge. We also like to reciprocate. We're social animals.
FunHi, using symbols, tapped into that part of us, probably to their own surprise. It's symbols, though silly, have value - in dollars. So you can "measure" how much someone spent on you (or someone else) and ignore, thank, reciprocate, or compete appropriately.
Do I think it'll last? No. But it's worth studying.
Just my 2 cents. Or, in the future, 1/50 of a Slashdollar!
(And yes, I expect FunHi's idea to be imitated to death).
"Despite our best efforts, our kids really have a hard time understanding why they might need advanced math or science in their adult lives."
I've seen this as an IT employee and seen similar experiences with a friend who is a chemical engineer - people don't care enough about science and math, especially the advanced areas so vital to a lot of our technologies.
My two cents is that it's a combination of anti-intellectualism (oh that stuff is for geeks) and people focusing on less foundational elements of the economy (they'd rather a marketing job at an electronics company than the people that design the actual goods).
So, perhaps we can focus more on education - but are we going to beat the disinterest? There's the real problem.
I'm curious if there are any previously documented experiences of technology having such a wide impact and so much adaption by people with a lack of skills to deal with it. In my limited knowledge, I can't recall anything.
That, I think, is part of the problem. Not only is it new, powerful, interconnected technology, but its adapted and being adapted at an unheard of rate. People are not keeping up with it, and we have no real comparison for it.
I recall discovering my mother-in-law's computer was overloaded with spyware and my wife asking for me to look at a co-worker's laptop infected with porn spamming software. A weekend spend educating themselves would have solved a lot of problems.
I've actually had this happen with coding solutions, sometimes solving them in my sleep. The weirdest part is dreaming a solution THEN trying to recall it when you wake up.
Overall this isn't too surprising, considering the functions of sleep, and that in many cases coming back to a problem lets you take a fresh look.
Seen this before. It's amazing how bad stuff can get. I've actually seen non-outsourced people work twelve times faster ON AVERAGE than the outsorced service. Seems like you saw something twice that;)
A lot can't be outsourced because part of what is needed is intimacy with process, people, and technology. Having a guy living 30 minutes away who knows your server means a 45 minute fix counting drive time. Having some guy in another state managing a server far, payed as low as possible, is not going to get you prime service.
I have to wonder how much business thus money was lost in those four days. Was it worth it? When you add up all the other problems? What if they have to insource, how much will that cost?
I work at a company that had a terrible experience with outsourcing and is in no mood to try it again (bringing up the subject can produce venemous rants). They got burned, they learned - and they also now save money over what they paid for outsourcing by quite a bit.
Their secret is basically to pay for very highly qualified Type-A people who are good in IT but also have other skillsets (statistics, communications, management, etc.). You know they can do the job, and they can often do the job of 2-5 entry-level people. They also push for high retention.
The end result is a smaller staff capable of doing more that they hold on to. After all you may pay 20% of the price for 5 entry-level programmers in India, but for the same total you can hire one woman who can do their work, has other skills, and is located and accessible.
So I'd say the best way to cope with outsourcing is:
Look at the companies you want to work for, and if they had any failed outsourcing experiences, that's a good sign.
Go into an area where intimate involvement in processes and needs is required (insurance, financial, scientific, Universities).
Go into a business with strong security considerations.
Keep up the skills. Do not under any circumstances rely on your IT-only skills. If you lack non-IT skills then gain some in a related area - learn a language, get some certifications, get another degree (if you have one) or a minor in something like English or statistics.
Read the Business news as well as IT news. You'll need the knowledge.
I sense what my employer has gone through is going to happen to others - getting burned on outsourcing. As much a fad as it is, I keep hearing the failure rate is very high.
IMHO opinion, and IANAS (I am Not a Statistician), I'm suspicious of this report. It sounds like they applied simplistic methods to an insanely complex issue. At BEST, it seems to be a "if current trends continue" report, that in short says "if everything stays the same, this'll happen."
That, of course, is NEVER the case.
They're trying to extrapolate a complex system with lots of variance with simple trends. It's meaningless. It ignores politics, aging, innovation, lack of innovation, economic shifts, and bloody near everything else.
A few examples from my own experience:
Some development requires intimate knowledge of process, company, and individuals. You can't outsource it (you can try, and I've seen it backfire).
Technology is evolving as well. You have to find people that can and are keeping up.
Coding is not the only skill you need to get the job done. Someone that can pound out simple VB is going to be very, very limited.
Security. Sending jobs to other companies means you loose control. Some industries won't like that.
Hidden costs. Outsourcing can have a lot of hidden costs, like the above, and more.
Predictability. A programmer at your company is in your sights, under your control.
The sad part is people are going to look at these simple numbers and base important personal and business policy off of them.
What's the future? Hell if I know. I just don't think anyone else does either.
Let's say ES5 is an MPAA/RIAA front to discredit file sharing and harm filesharers.
Now, apparently, ES5 is in Palestine.
What better way to do "double damage" than to not only have a way to attack filesharers, but also to connect it to a location people associate with terrorism?
Though the story is worth a laugh in a way (wether its true that the system got infected or was shut down to prevent infections), it really isn't funny.
It just indicates some important systems are run badly enough that they can be taken down by some avoidable exploits (or fear of said exploits). When these are government systems . ..
I used to think the idea of an electronic Pearl Harbor was unlikely. However, considering recent events, I must admit I'm revising my opinion. If we have one it will not be so much some clever virus writers/crackers, it will be because of people's own ignorance of safe and rational computing practices.
SCO goes after Linux as a marketing/gain money tool.
They get hated.
Opposing SCO becomes popular.
SCO has just handed people a new marketing tool - oppose/stand up to SCO, get attention, customers, etc.
Though in reflection, their egregeous approach to an unsubstantiated claim was bound to provoke a backlash. And it was bound to be something that people would take advantage of.
Did SCO even see this? My guess, no. They're up their in their own little world.
I'm glad for this article and for people raising red flags on electronic voting.
The truly sad part is that, from what I can tell, even if there's nothing suspicious in the realm of vote-fixing, we're still dealing with terrible software design and security.
And, sadly, that terrible design and security is all too common.
I'm hoping articles like this turns peoples eyes towards the fact that we've got lots of terribly made computer systems, applications, databases, websites, and so on doing very vital roles. In my IT career I've seen hospitals brought to a crawl by lousy patient software, websites with databases so bad that they had to be shut down for maintenance reguarly, simple applications delayed for months by bad planning and inappropriate technology, and far more.
So, sadly, in the area of voting, it's business as usual. But business as usual is pretty bad for the usual business as is . ..
Slashdot Mirror
On a pure geek/technical and humanitarian level, I'm all for manned space flight. More the better. More chance to explore, more chance to get off of the earth, more chance for humanity to survive, and more chance for us to turn our attention to something worthwhile. Plus, of course, cool technical benefits.
However, it seems to me a lot of countries are jumping into the space race, and I'm concerned about conflicts, territoriality, and inappropriate militarization. It seems it's getting awful crowded up there pretty quick.
This is an area I'm not as informed as I'd like to be, and I wonder if people know:
1) How many countries have made successful space flight and what they've done.
2) What plans they have for the future.
3) What treaties exist concerning space flight.
And people think Slashdot isn't educational.
"The Polyus was launched in May 1987 but a faulty sensor caused it to de-orbit into the South Pacific."
A lot of us call that "Crashing."
Take these issues, then throw in the fact people and groups have their own agendas, and it's hard to say. We don't have any standards agreed upon, so it's difficult to even discuss it.
By my standards (I have high standards for what I call an IT job and a professional, employment is full time or long-term contract, and one can find an equivalent job in less than 3 months) the market seems soft.
It's very dependent on experience and skills, with the higher skilled and more experienced people (who have diverse skills or very deep specialized skills) doing much better.
But then again, those are my standards . .
I found this interesting:
The groups that lined up against the bill include the Consumer Electronics Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the American Conservative Union and public-interest advocacy group Public Knowledge, which hosted a press briefing on Friday as the opening salvo of its campaign to stop passage.
and
Hollywood's involvement has even irked the American Conservative Union, which holds considerable sway with conservative Republicans in Congress. The ACU plans a major print ad campaign this week to oppose the bill, mainly because some provisions would require the Justice Department to file civil copyright lawsuits on behalf of the entertainment industry.
"It's just plain wrong to make the Department of Justice Hollywood's law firm," said Stacie Rumenap, ACU's deputy director.
Sounds like there's some pretty good opposition lined up. Besides writing your Congressbeings, it may be worth keeping track of what these groups are up to.
I think it's fairly obvious it's a publicity stunt. I hadn't heard of any lawsuits affecting customers anyway, and it's just extending an existing policy.
It's just another tool to take on Linux and OS advocates. It doesn't make Windows any less bloated or secure.
However, this does spell out some of their battle plan - they're going to play up the IP angle more.
I'm curious as to how the Linux/OS community will respond.
My first thought? Three possibilities:
1) Just because you can teach, lecture, and relay information, it doesn't mean you can apply it or apply it well.
2) Smart people can be stupid. In fact, when stupidity is backed by intelligence (thus letting you justify your stupidity or implement it), stupidity is far more destructive than when on its own.
3) He's only human.
With all respect to this gentleman's knowledge, he seems to be thinking that the Internet won't evolve, that people won't adapt, and that technology won't change.
People are used to what the internet brings - access to information and services of various natures. They want it. They will find ways to overcome problems with the system, and folks will be glad to provide (and probably sell) them solutions.
The Internet isn't what it was when it started, what it was 10 years ago, and even what it was 5 years ago. It will be something different 5 years from now and 10 years from now.
That's not death, that's evolution.
I think it's time to panic. We know virus writers always tell the truth and would never engage in deception or hyperbole. Therefore this must be true.
I reccomend we immediately declare western civilization over to beat them to the punch.
There, got my sarcasm out for the day. Now to go to work and refuel it.
Doesn't that INCREASE the motivation to copy it, download from the net, etc.? Get it cheaper then rip it?
Will sales of these self-destructing DVDs really be worth it? Will it really pay off? What market research has been done?
How many of these will be made with errors due to the manufacturing process and unexpected degredation? How do you do QA on something that self-destructs?
Even if the technology exists, I can't see it being worth it, and perhaps not even being applied on a large scale.
People like to compete. We like a challenge. We also like to reciprocate. We're social animals.
FunHi, using symbols, tapped into that part of us, probably to their own surprise. It's symbols, though silly, have value - in dollars. So you can "measure" how much someone spent on you (or someone else) and ignore, thank, reciprocate, or compete appropriately.
Do I think it'll last? No. But it's worth studying.
Just my 2 cents. Or, in the future, 1/50 of a Slashdollar!
(And yes, I expect FunHi's idea to be imitated to death).
"Despite our best efforts, our kids really have a hard time understanding why they might need advanced math or science in their adult lives."
I've seen this as an IT employee and seen similar experiences with a friend who is a chemical engineer - people don't care enough about science and math, especially the advanced areas so vital to a lot of our technologies.
My two cents is that it's a combination of anti-intellectualism (oh that stuff is for geeks) and people focusing on less foundational elements of the economy (they'd rather a marketing job at an electronics company than the people that design the actual goods).
So, perhaps we can focus more on education - but are we going to beat the disinterest? There's the real problem.
I'm curious if there are any previously documented experiences of technology having such a wide impact and so much adaption by people with a lack of skills to deal with it. In my limited knowledge, I can't recall anything.
That, I think, is part of the problem. Not only is it new, powerful, interconnected technology, but its adapted and being adapted at an unheard of rate. People are not keeping up with it, and we have no real comparison for it.
I recall discovering my mother-in-law's computer was overloaded with spyware and my wife asking for me to look at a co-worker's laptop infected with porn spamming software. A weekend spend educating themselves would have solved a lot of problems.
I've actually had this happen with coding solutions, sometimes solving them in my sleep. The weirdest part is dreaming a solution THEN trying to recall it when you wake up.
Overall this isn't too surprising, considering the functions of sleep, and that in many cases coming back to a problem lets you take a fresh look.
With my circle of IT friends, I've seen a definite upswing in hiring and offers, even to people actively NOT looking.
What seems to be a factor is again - lots of experience, and non-IT skills. Sometimes willingness to move.
As I noted in another post, an experienced person can do the job of 2-5 inexperienced people. Same savings as outsourcing really.
Seen this before. It's amazing how bad stuff can get. I've actually seen non-outsourced people work twelve times faster ON AVERAGE than the outsorced service. Seems like you saw something twice that ;)
A lot can't be outsourced because part of what is needed is intimacy with process, people, and technology. Having a guy living 30 minutes away who knows your server means a 45 minute fix counting drive time. Having some guy in another state managing a server far, payed as low as possible, is not going to get you prime service.
I have to wonder how much business thus money was lost in those four days. Was it worth it? When you add up all the other problems? What if they have to insource, how much will that cost?
Their secret is basically to pay for very highly qualified Type-A people who are good in IT but also have other skillsets (statistics, communications, management, etc.). You know they can do the job, and they can often do the job of 2-5 entry-level people. They also push for high retention.
The end result is a smaller staff capable of doing more that they hold on to. After all you may pay 20% of the price for 5 entry-level programmers in India, but for the same total you can hire one woman who can do their work, has other skills, and is located and accessible.
So I'd say the best way to cope with outsourcing is:
I sense what my employer has gone through is going to happen to others - getting burned on outsourcing. As much a fad as it is, I keep hearing the failure rate is very high.
But we have to battle the fad now.
That, of course, is NEVER the case.
They're trying to extrapolate a complex system with lots of variance with simple trends. It's meaningless. It ignores politics, aging, innovation, lack of innovation, economic shifts, and bloody near everything else.
A few examples from my own experience:
The sad part is people are going to look at these simple numbers and base important personal and business policy off of them.
What's the future? Hell if I know. I just don't think anyone else does either.
Two things to consider.
One, is this the first time something like this has happened, or just the first time it's made such a public stink?
Secondly, is this case going to create copycats? How many people out there now in a similar situation will look at this and see dollar signs?
Food for thought. Junk food, at least.
You're too kind. It's not just third party -it's fourth party, fifth party, and more. How far down the chain was the woman in the article?
I agree - people need to think of the issues.
Tinfoil hat on . . .
Let's say ES5 is an MPAA/RIAA front to discredit file sharing and harm filesharers.
Now, apparently, ES5 is in Palestine.
What better way to do "double damage" than to not only have a way to attack filesharers, but also to connect it to a location people associate with terrorism?
OK, tinfoil hat off now.
A company is doing the usual roadshow/conference routine. This isn't exactly news.
Though the story is worth a laugh in a way (wether its true that the system got infected or was shut down to prevent infections), it really isn't funny.
.
It just indicates some important systems are run badly enough that they can be taken down by some avoidable exploits (or fear of said exploits). When these are government systems . .
I used to think the idea of an electronic Pearl Harbor was unlikely. However, considering recent events, I must admit I'm revising my opinion. If we have one it will not be so much some clever virus writers/crackers, it will be because of people's own ignorance of safe and rational computing practices.
Though in reflection, their egregeous approach to an unsubstantiated claim was bound to provoke a backlash. And it was bound to be something that people would take advantage of.
Did SCO even see this? My guess, no. They're up their in their own little world.
I'm glad for this article and for people raising red flags on electronic voting.
.
The truly sad part is that, from what I can tell, even if there's nothing suspicious in the realm of vote-fixing, we're still dealing with terrible software design and security.
And, sadly, that terrible design and security is all too common.
I'm hoping articles like this turns peoples eyes towards the fact that we've got lots of terribly made computer systems, applications, databases, websites, and so on doing very vital roles. In my IT career I've seen hospitals brought to a crawl by lousy patient software, websites with databases so bad that they had to be shut down for maintenance reguarly, simple applications delayed for months by bad planning and inappropriate technology, and far more.
So, sadly, in the area of voting, it's business as usual. But business as usual is pretty bad for the usual business as is . .