Just a question.. How did you ftp at 80Mbps on a fractional T1? (T1 being 1.544 Mbps, and fractional being some fraction of that (usually 384Kbps, but who knows).
10Mbps is not pitifully slow. 100Mbps is becoming the standard. 1Gbps is far from standard, it's rather expensive, and far from economical to deploy for anything but backbone and high-performance computing applications.
Average pc-pc transfer speeds over FD 100mbps ethernet is about 70mbps, if only two stations are talking. This is often constrained by both the OS, the media overhead, the theory of relativity (the interframe gap on 100base is the same as on 10base, i believe (9.6 microseconds) which equates to 96 bits in 10base, and 9600 in 100base (several ethernet frames as opposed to a fraction of one frame) so efficiency goes down (when 2 stations are the only ones talking, as in a fully switched network). Of course, with multiple stations, the usage can approach 100%. The main purpose of 100base is to handle more stations at a higher rate.
And I don't know why I'm saying it.. but it occurs to me that many don't realize that the 10baseT or 100BaseT doesn't refer exactly to 'transfer rate', but the baseband signalling rate of the media itself. Bits are clocked into the ethernet at either.1 microsecond intervals or.001 microsecond intervals.
Or rather, 2 hosts can *never* transmit data at 10m\Mbps between them using 10base (I believe it is around 9.8Mbps) and around 86Mbps for 100base.
And what's odd about that? You opened it.. and now they should shoulder the cost of you wanting to return the product because you don't like it?
IANAL, but nobody *has* to take returns at all, unless they sold the product under false pretenses, ie: "Sure it'll play mp3" but then it doesn't... then they would have to give you a full refund, as it was a fraudulent transaction.
So.. always be VERY CLEAR about your intentions for the device before buying it.
Sure.. they own the broadcast.. but if the general, fair assumption that it is 'live' then it should not be edited. Period. One could launch a class action suit saying that they deliberately did *NOT* give you fair, live coverage of the event, as they claimed to have done, and, in that respect, wasted your evening.
1) The area on the disc that contains the 40 or so vendor keys is not/will not be writable on writable DVD. 2) The purpose of the codes is not to tell the writer not to write it.. the writer can write all it wants.. the purpose of the codes is that, without these codes, you cannot decode the mpeg data to watch the movie.
IN more detail... a) Each movie (title) is encrypted with a unique title key. b) The title key is then encrypted, 40 different ways with 40 different player keys (it's not exactly 40.. but I forget how many). These encrypted keys are stored in a table in a special area of the disc. c) Each DVD player is assigned a player key, and told what offset their key is at. d) When playing, the player looks up it's assigned position in the key table, decodes the key (giving it the title key) and plays the movie.
The noise we all make about it is good... tell people about it, but don't blow their ears off. Investors almost always do *some* research before sticking their money in a company.. they don't just say 'I like this stock symbol.. I'll invest'. That's what *daytraders* do.. and most of them lose money, and they don't significantly alter the market, nor do they provide much capital.
Why was redhat so successful? Well... linux seemed like a potential big thing (I can't argue with that) and redhat was fairly well respected (still is...). When investors asked their techies, or whoever, what about redhat... they would hear 'yeah.. redhat is kinda cool... '..... so it's a fairly good bet that if you were going to invest in the future of linux, redhat would be a start. Now, things might be a bit different. I dare say that, being a Nevada corporation, without much in the way of disclosure laws, and without some big names on their board, they aren't going to be looking at very much capital during IPO.
Actually, it's not the guinness 'rubbing against itself' that releases the gasses, but the guinness travelling through the tiny, laser-cut pinhole in the widget (or ball, as it were)... it 'knocks' the gas out of solution.
It actually just fills up with guinness under pressure (after the can is sealed by the elves), and releases it when the pressure is released. The small laser-cut hole the guinness is released through 'knocks' the nitrogen and co2 (it's 75/25 n2/co2) out of solution and causes that nice creamy head.
Okay. The 'widget' in the can of guinness.. here goes.
Guinness is brewed iwth a 75/25 mix of N2/CO2 (You know.. Nitrogen gas/Carbon Dioxide). CO2 apparently creates much more pressure when compared to dissolved Nitrogen... anyway...
When the publician pours you a draught guinness, usually the guinness is passed through a filter with a few tiny pinholes in it.. this causes the beer passing through it to release it's nitrogen en masse, and causes that nice creamy head we all know and love.
Now.. many say the 'widget' in guinness contains compressed gas, and releases that gas when the can is opened... but they, having had a few already, forget that beer (like water) doesn't compress really... and could not possibly hold a compressed widget closed... what really happens is this.
The widget is a plastic container with a few very tiny pinholes laser-drilled into it. This is put in the can, the can is filled most of the way up with guinness, and a drop of liquid nitrogen is placed in the can, and then it is immediately sealed. As the liquid nitrogen turns to gas, the gas is absorbed into the beer, and also increases the pressure on the beer (by increasing the gas volume in the available space) causing liquid to be forced into the widget through those little pinholes.... under pressure. Now.. when the can is opened, some of the beer vacates the little widget, and by moving through these pinholes, acts similar to the bartenders filter, and causes more of the 75/25 n2/co2 mix to be released.. giving a nice, creamy head with strange properties.
1) Fluid rises, under influence of all the rising bubbles. 2) Fluid actually goes DOWN at the edges of the glass.. forming a kind of convection-like current (but it's not convection, of course.. just looks roughly similar) 3) The *small* bubbles are carried downwards at the edges of the glass, in this current. Only the small ones.. not the big ones.
Now.. this may make little sense, but remember, the presence of bubbles also causes the density of the fluid to go *WAY* down (detonating a mine underneath a battleship can cause the ship to snap in half.. simply because of the air bubbles produced underneat the ship... the remove the buoyancy and overstress the hull...)
Okay. Some said the fact that the letter 'X', requiring 2 strokes in grafitti, makes this device not follow the patent. This could also be considered 'outside the alphabet' of unistroke characters recognized by the device, and hence, simply unimportant.
On another note, however, if it is true the the *entire* patent must mach in order to make a case... check this out.....
4. The system of claim 2 wherein
said pointer is manually engaged with, drawn across, and then disengaged from said writing surface to define the geometric shape and direction of each of said unistroke symbols;
* okay... sounds like a palm (except the X) *
said writing surface is interfaced with said sensor mechanism for inputting the geometric shape and direction of each of said unistroke symbols to said sensor mechanism;
*never seen the engineering specs, but sounds like what's probably going on in the palm*
said pointer includes a manually operable actuator for entering user commands, said user commands being communicated to said recognition unit for altering the response of said recognition unit to said unistroke symbols at the command of the user.
*Pointer includes an actuator? Pointer is a dumb plastic stick. If this is not true, then the recognition system of the pilot does *NOT* match the system described by the patent.*
ANd that's narrow minded. Xerox doesn't even *TRY* to bring most of what they find to market.. they still do pure research. They have a think-tank. They come up with ideas, and work on them. A great many are patented. Some turn into products. Some get licensed to other companies under a huge variety of terms.
Hell.. I bet a few years from now someone will say 'Heck... Digital Paper is such an obvious idea.. why the heck should Xerox deserve anything?' Well... remember, they did it *first* and they are the only ones doing it.
Or, to put it differently, it's kind of like the feeling you get when you are in a seat at the stadium for 3/4 of the game, but then the *rightful* ticketholder for that seat shows up and says 'excuse me sir, you are in my seat' and you have to move (you didn't realize you were on the wrong floor and actually had seats in the nosebleeds). You may graciously give up your seat, but you will probably feel like 'it's unfair of that guy to come in 3/4 of the waythrough the game and ask me to move... he should have been here on time' or some such thing.
Okay. But consider that when Xerox filed this patent, there *WERE* no handwriting recognition products on the consumer market, period. It seems totally simple and obvious now, but *NOBODY* was successfully doing it, though many were trying.. and Xerox *DID* it.
It does seem that way. I've looked into patent law a bit, and I believe that *every* part of the patent must be a match in order for something to be in violation. If one part is different. Rather, a bunch of statements will be made in the patent that describe the process/whatever being patented. If these do not *all* match, then someone is not in violation.
then the patent office should not have granted them the patent.
Unless it can be shown that palm (knowingly) filed a fraudulent patent.
on a patent application, it is required that you declare all patents that you know of that are similar in nature, in order to provide the appropriate perspective to show why yours is unique.
1) It is not necessary to defend a patent in order to keep it valid. (unlike trademark, where it must be vigorously defended)
2) Just because xerox had prior knowledge that 3com was using their patent does not mean they cannot choose to enforce it whenever they want. It *does* however (IANAL, btw) limit the damages they can claim. They cannot claim '3com sold a billion palm pilots, and they should have paid us' if they knowingly did not tell 3com about it. They can certainly demand that any and all future use of the patent requires a royalty or other such thing, or even prevent them from using it at all.
Actually, it's not the same thing at all. The 'lava' in your lava lamp rises because it is heated by the lamp, and falls because it has cooled.
The bubbles in guiness fall because Guiness is actually of alien origin, from a planet where the laws of physics are not exactly the same. The bubbles fall because they contain a denser-than-beer gas, give the scientific designation DTB01. The beer simply acts as a stabilizing agent.
DTB01 has been shown to have other uses, especially as a method of powering interstellar and time-shifting spacecraft. Of course, these craft tend to use lava lamps as well, mainly to appease the crew, as they have nothing better to do, especially after drinking the leftover stabilizing agent.
On another note, anyone remember how SGi has their patented method of doing random number generation, using a lava lamp and a digital camera? I believe it was for some e-commerce server they were selling at one time.
From a professional point of view, no certificate replaces experience on the resume. If you are doing Linux sysadmin, and can put some good stuff on your resume, the lack of a certificate will make little difference, compared to someone with their certificate but no experience. Now.. it could be the tie-breaker though....
I'd say that if many current linux professionals start getting certified, that will dictate the real success of the certification. If they don't... what difference will it make?
You know, I've always hated certifications.. but I can see where employers like them.
See, it's not that Mr. CIO thinks that an MCSE is *cool* or *really smart* or anything, it's just easy for him, if he has a MS based network, to say 'well, MS certifies professionals, so it makes sense that if MS certifies them, we'll get more bang for our buck.' This, of course, isn't always the case....Quite the opposite sometimes, even. The hacker kid who has *no* certifications may be a far better asset to the company... and the person with the MCSE may be so narrow-minded that you are stuck on the MS path forever. (I'm not picking on MS, the same thing applies to *any* other vendor.)
Now some certifications we may think of as more involved... certainly, if you are doing mostly network engineering, the guy with the CCIE is probably worth his weight in gold... but then again, the whole point of the CCIE was to provide a certification for an industry where there was none. Employers had *nothing* to judge a potential internetwork employee by. I must say, to this day, if someone has a CCIE, I can assume they know their stuff and are practiced... CCIE isn't one of those certifications you can study the book for for a week or two and then go pass... it was created for professionals who *already* had lots of experience. Now.. don't think I'm a cisco head... I don't mean to single them out, or to promote them, but it is a good example of what we need in the linux/unix world, and really, in the IT world in general.
To look at it a different way is that I feel that MCSE, dmCLA, LPI, CNE, A+ don't adequately certify what *I* am capable of as an IT employee. There is no overriding certification, nothing in the industry that says 'professional, well-rounded, experienced IT person.... well, except your resume, that is!
Now.. what am I (personally), as someone who is part of the hiring process, as the architect of the companies entire network, when I see on a resume LPI certified. Hmm.. Linux qualifications are part of the process. Am I going to take this person seriously? Sure. LPI looks reasonably good. Am I going to reject someone else with experience because they don't have LPI? Heck no.. I wouldn't think of it. To put it differently, most certifications are a plus to the holder, but not a necessity.
And it does feel kind of threatening, doesnt' it? I've been using linux since.8x or so... I can't even remember. It was a mess. The concept of a 'distribution' wasn't even fully solidified. I've worked with Solaris, Irix, SCO Unix, Unixware (Both Novell and Sco) and the list goes on. And add NT/unix integration to the list. I feel *burnt* if someone expects me to fork out money to pay some company to tell me that I'm qualified to work on linux... (is this like how my uncle feels burnt that now that there are SCUBA regulations, he can't go diving without going to classes and getting his ticket, even though he's been diving for 30 years?)
I'm rambling... I guess to make a long story short, certifications never make you look bad, but they are no replacement for experience. Or like the black-belt in most martial arts.. the unknowing see it as the goal to be obtained, but to those who obtain it, and to their teachers, it simply signifies the beginning. Just like an engineering degree is your ENTRY POINT into professional engineering, and just like your PH.D is your entry point into a medical practice, so is a certification in some product simply an entry point into the IT world.
Or rather, do you tell the ninja master that he cannot teach you because he cannot provide credentials?
Slashdot Mirror
Just a question..
How did you ftp at 80Mbps on a fractional T1? (T1 being 1.544 Mbps, and fractional being some fraction of that (usually 384Kbps, but who knows).
10Mbps is not pitifully slow.
.1 microsecond intervals or .001 microsecond intervals.
100Mbps is becoming the standard.
1Gbps is far from standard, it's rather expensive, and far from economical to deploy for anything but backbone and high-performance computing applications.
Average pc-pc transfer speeds over FD 100mbps ethernet is about 70mbps, if only two stations are talking. This is often constrained by both the OS, the media overhead, the theory of relativity (the interframe gap on 100base is the same as on 10base, i believe (9.6 microseconds) which equates to 96 bits in 10base, and 9600 in 100base (several ethernet frames as opposed to a fraction of one frame) so efficiency goes down (when 2 stations are the only ones talking, as in a fully switched network). Of course, with multiple stations, the usage can approach 100%.
The main purpose of 100base is to handle more stations at a higher rate.
And I don't know why I'm saying it.. but it occurs to me that many don't realize that the 10baseT or 100BaseT doesn't refer exactly to 'transfer rate', but the baseband signalling rate of the media itself.
Bits are clocked into the ethernet at either
Or rather, 2 hosts can *never* transmit data at 10m\Mbps between them using 10base (I believe it is around 9.8Mbps) and around 86Mbps for 100base.
And what's odd about that? You opened it.. and now they should shoulder the cost of you wanting to return the product because you don't like it?
IANAL, but nobody *has* to take returns at all, unless they sold the product under false pretenses, ie: "Sure it'll play mp3" but then it doesn't... then they would have to give you a full refund, as it was a fraudulent transaction.
So.. always be VERY CLEAR about your intentions for the device before buying it.
Well.. thre is an announcement there now...
Sure.. they own the broadcast.. but if the general, fair assumption that it is 'live' then it should not be edited. Period. One could launch a class action suit saying that they deliberately did *NOT* give you fair, live coverage of the event, as they claimed to have done, and, in that respect, wasted your evening.
Another reason for @home to block incoming traffic to my machine without asking me.
1) The area on the disc that contains the 40 or so vendor keys is not/will not be writable on writable DVD.
2) The purpose of the codes is not to tell the writer not to write it.. the writer can write all it wants.. the purpose of the codes is that, without these codes, you cannot decode the mpeg data to watch the movie.
IN more detail...
a) Each movie (title) is encrypted with a unique title key.
b) The title key is then encrypted, 40 different ways with 40 different player keys (it's not exactly 40.. but I forget how many). These encrypted keys are stored in a table in a special area of the disc.
c) Each DVD player is assigned a player key, and told what offset their key is at.
d) When playing, the player looks up it's assigned position in the key table, decodes the key (giving it the title key) and plays the movie.
Penenace completed, and I shall visit the tavern on the way home tonight just to make sure I still appreciate that magical little mug.
Sure. But you can't short it unless someone has shares to lend you.. which is unlikely...
The noise we all make about it is good... tell people about it, but don't blow their ears off.
Investors almost always do *some* research before sticking their money in a company.. they don't just say 'I like this stock symbol.. I'll invest'. That's what *daytraders* do.. and most of them lose money, and they don't significantly alter the market, nor do they provide much capital.
Why was redhat so successful? Well... linux seemed like a potential big thing (I can't argue with that) and redhat was fairly well respected (still is...). When investors asked their techies, or whoever, what about redhat... they would hear 'yeah.. redhat is kinda cool... '..... so it's a fairly good bet that if you were going to invest in the future of linux, redhat would be a start.
Now, things might be a bit different. I dare say that, being a Nevada corporation, without much in the way of disclosure laws, and without some big names on their board, they aren't going to be looking at very much capital during IPO.
Actually, it's not the guinness 'rubbing against itself' that releases the gasses, but the guinness travelling through the tiny, laser-cut pinhole in the widget (or ball, as it were)... it 'knocks' the gas out of solution.
The gas is a 75/25 nitrogen/co2 mix.
It actually just fills up with guinness under pressure (after the can is sealed by the elves), and releases it when the pressure is released. The small laser-cut hole the guinness is released through 'knocks' the nitrogen and co2 (it's 75/25 n2/co2) out of solution and causes that nice creamy head.
Okay. The 'widget' in the can of guinness.. here goes.
Guinness is brewed iwth a 75/25 mix of N2/CO2 (You know.. Nitrogen gas/Carbon Dioxide). CO2 apparently creates much more pressure when compared to dissolved Nitrogen... anyway...
When the publician pours you a draught guinness, usually the guinness is passed through a filter with a few tiny pinholes in it.. this causes the beer passing through it to release it's nitrogen en masse, and causes that nice creamy head we all know and love.
Now.. many say the 'widget' in guinness contains compressed gas, and releases that gas when the can is opened... but they, having had a few already, forget that beer (like water) doesn't compress really... and could not possibly hold a compressed widget closed... what really happens is this.
The widget is a plastic container with a few very tiny pinholes laser-drilled into it. This is put in the can, the can is filled most of the way up with guinness, and a drop of liquid nitrogen is placed in the can, and then it is immediately sealed. As the liquid nitrogen turns to gas, the gas is absorbed into the beer, and also increases the pressure on the beer (by increasing the gas volume in the available space) causing liquid to be forced into the widget through those little pinholes.... under pressure. Now.. when the can is opened, some of the beer vacates the little widget, and by moving through these pinholes, acts similar to the bartenders filter, and causes more of the 75/25 n2/co2 mix to be released.. giving a nice, creamy head with strange properties.
1) Fluid rises, under influence of all the rising bubbles.
2) Fluid actually goes DOWN at the edges of the glass.. forming a kind of convection-like current (but it's not convection, of course.. just looks roughly similar)
3) The *small* bubbles are carried downwards at the edges of the glass, in this current. Only the small ones.. not the big ones.
Now.. this may make little sense, but remember, the presence of bubbles also causes the density of the fluid to go *WAY* down (detonating a mine underneath a battleship can cause the ship to snap in half.. simply because of the air bubbles produced underneat the ship... the remove the buoyancy and overstress the hull...)
As they said.. it's not before they filed the patent. The patent was filed in 1993... the 1995 is a 'continuation'
Sorry. I misread.. this was only a single case, and they also make the case where the pointer is a passive device, with no actuator.
Okay. Some said the fact that the letter 'X', requiring 2 strokes in grafitti, makes this device not follow the patent.
This could also be considered 'outside the alphabet' of unistroke characters recognized by the device, and hence, simply unimportant.
On another note, however, if it is true the the *entire* patent must mach in order to make a case... check this out.....
4. The system of claim 2 wherein
said pointer is manually engaged with, drawn across, and then disengaged from said writing surface to define the geometric shape and direction of each of said unistroke symbols;
* okay... sounds like a palm (except the X) *
said writing surface is interfaced with said sensor mechanism for inputting the geometric shape and direction of each of said unistroke symbols to said sensor mechanism;
*never seen the engineering specs, but sounds like what's probably going on in the palm*
said pointer includes a manually operable actuator for entering user commands, said user commands being communicated to said recognition unit for altering the response of said recognition unit to said unistroke symbols at the command of the user.
*Pointer includes an actuator? Pointer is a dumb plastic stick. If this is not true, then the recognition system of the pilot does *NOT* match the system described by the patent.*
ANd that's narrow minded.
Xerox doesn't even *TRY* to bring most of what they find to market.. they still do pure research. They have a think-tank. They come up with ideas, and work on them.
A great many are patented. Some turn into products. Some get licensed to other companies under a huge variety of terms.
Hell.. I bet a few years from now someone will say 'Heck... Digital Paper is such an obvious idea.. why the heck should Xerox deserve anything?'
Well... remember, they did it *first* and they are the only ones doing it.
Or, to put it differently, it's kind of like the feeling you get when you are in a seat at the stadium for 3/4 of the game, but then the *rightful* ticketholder for that seat shows up and says 'excuse me sir, you are in my seat' and you have to move (you didn't realize you were on the wrong floor and actually had seats in the nosebleeds). You may graciously give up your seat, but you will probably feel like 'it's unfair of that guy to come in 3/4 of the waythrough the game and ask me to move... he should have been here on time' or some such thing.
Okay.
But consider that when Xerox filed this patent, there *WERE* no handwriting recognition products on the consumer market, period. It seems totally simple and obvious now, but *NOBODY* was successfully doing it, though many were trying.. and Xerox *DID* it.
It does seem that way.
I've looked into patent law a bit, and I believe that *every* part of the patent must be a match in order for something to be in violation. If one part is different. Rather, a bunch of statements will be made in the patent that describe the process/whatever being patented. If these do not *all* match, then someone is not in violation.
then the patent office should not have granted them the patent.
Unless it can be shown that palm (knowingly) filed a fraudulent patent.
on a patent application, it is required that you declare all patents that you know of that are similar in nature, in order to provide the appropriate perspective to show why yours is unique.
1) It is not necessary to defend a patent in order to keep it valid. (unlike trademark, where it must be vigorously defended)
2) Just because xerox had prior knowledge that 3com was using their patent does not mean they cannot choose to enforce it whenever they want. It *does* however (IANAL, btw) limit the damages they can claim. They cannot claim '3com sold a billion palm pilots, and they should have paid us' if they knowingly did not tell 3com about it. They can certainly demand that any and all future use of the patent requires a royalty or other such thing, or even prevent them from using it at all.
Actually, it's not the same thing at all.
The 'lava' in your lava lamp rises because it is heated by the lamp, and falls because it has cooled.
The bubbles in guiness fall because Guiness is actually of alien origin, from a planet where the laws of physics are not exactly the same. The bubbles fall because they contain a denser-than-beer gas, give the scientific designation DTB01. The beer simply acts as a stabilizing agent.
DTB01 has been shown to have other uses, especially as a method of powering interstellar and time-shifting spacecraft.
Of course, these craft tend to use lava lamps as well, mainly to appease the crew, as they have nothing better to do, especially after drinking the leftover stabilizing agent.
On another note, anyone remember how SGi has their patented method of doing random number generation, using a lava lamp and a digital camera? I believe it was for some e-commerce server they were selling at one time.
From a professional point of view, no certificate replaces experience on the resume.
If you are doing Linux sysadmin, and can put some good stuff on your resume, the lack of a certificate will make little difference, compared to someone with their certificate but no experience.
Now.. it could be the tie-breaker though....
I'd say that if many current linux professionals start getting certified, that will dictate the real success of the certification. If they don't... what difference will it make?
You know, I've always hated certifications.. but I can see where employers like them.
.8x or so... I can't even remember. It was a mess. The concept of a 'distribution' wasn't even fully solidified. I've worked with Solaris, Irix, SCO Unix, Unixware (Both Novell and Sco) and the list goes on. And add NT/unix integration to the list. I feel *burnt* if someone expects me to fork out money to pay some company to tell me that I'm qualified to work on linux...
See, it's not that Mr. CIO thinks that an MCSE is *cool* or *really smart* or anything, it's just easy for him, if he has a MS based network, to say 'well, MS certifies professionals, so it makes sense that if MS certifies them, we'll get more bang for our buck.'
This, of course, isn't always the case....Quite the opposite sometimes, even.
The hacker kid who has *no* certifications may be a far better asset to the company... and the person with the MCSE may be so narrow-minded that you are stuck on the MS path forever. (I'm not picking on MS, the same thing applies to *any* other vendor.)
Now some certifications we may think of as more involved... certainly, if you are doing mostly network engineering, the guy with the CCIE is probably worth his weight in gold... but then again, the whole point of the CCIE was to provide a certification for an industry where there was none. Employers had *nothing* to judge a potential internetwork employee by. I must say, to this day, if someone has a CCIE, I can assume they know their stuff and are practiced... CCIE isn't one of those certifications you can study the book for for a week or two and then go pass... it was created for professionals who *already* had lots of experience. Now.. don't think I'm a cisco head... I don't mean to single them out, or to promote them, but it is a good example of what we need in the linux/unix world, and really, in the IT world in general.
To look at it a different way is that I feel that MCSE, dmCLA, LPI, CNE, A+ don't adequately certify what *I* am capable of as an IT employee.
There is no overriding certification, nothing in the industry that says 'professional, well-rounded, experienced IT person.... well, except your resume, that is!
Now.. what am I (personally), as someone who is part of the hiring process, as the architect of the companies entire network, when I see on a resume LPI certified. Hmm.. Linux qualifications are part of the process. Am I going to take this person seriously? Sure. LPI looks reasonably good. Am I going to reject someone else with experience because they don't have LPI? Heck no.. I wouldn't think of it. To put it differently, most certifications are a plus to the holder, but not a necessity.
And it does feel kind of threatening, doesnt' it? I've been using linux since
(is this like how my uncle feels burnt that now that there are SCUBA regulations, he can't go diving without going to classes and getting his ticket, even though he's been diving for 30 years?)
I'm rambling...
I guess to make a long story short, certifications never make you look bad, but they are no replacement for experience.
Or like the black-belt in most martial arts.. the unknowing see it as the goal to be obtained, but to those who obtain it, and to their teachers, it simply signifies the beginning.
Just like an engineering degree is your ENTRY POINT into professional engineering, and just like your PH.D is your entry point into a medical practice, so is a certification in some product simply an entry point into the IT world.
Or rather, do you tell the ninja master that he cannot teach you because he cannot provide credentials?