As a US-ian living in Toronto, I can say that the Canadian health care system really surprised me -- in a good way. Over the past few years I've been to the doctor a few times for what was obviously a viral (flu) infection. In all cases, the doctors diagnosed it as such, and did not give me antibiotics! That totally blew me away -- in the US, I found that in similar circumstances doctors would say things like: "Well, this is probably a viral infection, but I'll give you some antibiotics just to be sure". As we all know, antibiotics serve no positive purpose for viral infections (in fact, one could argue they make matters worse).
However, I also met quite a few people that needed some sort of surgery or treatment for a non-life threatening injury. These poor people had to wait in some cases years to get the needed treatment. That's not too cool.
-I took a photo of myself in PhotoBooth. Now I want to crop it and upload it. Okay, click on iPhoto. Crop image. Great, now I have it in an album. But where's the picture file? Um, show-in-Finder option? Nope. Save cropped picture somewhere? Nope. I have to go deep into the directory, photos->iphoto library->various weird folder -> copy it to a more useful place, then upload.
Ummm, you do know that you can just click and drag the picture from iPhoto onto your desktop, right?
An OS upgrade is extremely unlikely to break any applications. There's 40+ year old code that's still running, right along with 64-bit Java code written an hour ago.
Technically true, but the GP's company may be running some ancient code which relies on ancient language compilers and such. The new version of the OS may not have these compiler versions available anymore. So, yes -- the compiled ancient code will continue to run fine in the new OS environment, but if they ever need to recompile one of those modules, they may be SOL, unless they bring the code back up to recent levels. I'm working right now with an application to bring their ANS '68 COBOL up to the "recent" ANS '85 standard.
I had the same choice all those years ago when I was entering University. Of course CMU is the superior engineering school, though PSU is pretty decent. The decision for me came down to money -- at the time I could get 4 years at PSU for the price of 2 at CMU. Due to my savings, this basically came down to: loans or no loans. I chose Penn State and have not regretted the decision at all.
In reality, college (like life) is largely what you make of it. Sure, I could have coasted through my time at PSU hiding in the back of a lecture hall, or cursing out poor TAs or profs. But instead in those cases, I networked and made connections with other professors in the department. When I did not understand my Physics 202 professor's discussion of a particular subject, I went back to my Physics 201 prof and got help from him. I found that you have to make the University work for you -- your success there is in your own hands.
I question whether you truly visited New Orleans. If you had, you would realize that this city has immense cultural significance to the USA. Did you ever see Cafe du Monde? Jean Lafitte's? Preservation Hall? The surrounding swamps? Jackson Square (including the Jackson Square Breakdancers)? Any of the surrounding plantations? Have you been to Mardi Gras? Or Jazz Fest?
Hmmm, curious choice, considering the large number of global companies that have major portions of their core business still running on mainframes -- manufacturers, banks, airlines, governments, etc.
That's true generally for mainframe operations and application developers. System administrators (sysprogs), though, are still pretty safe in the US, for the moment. I suspect its because few Indian IT shops see the mainframe (a dying tech?) as a worthwhile investment. Well, at any rate, that's what I'm hoping for...
Yeah, like maybe focusing on someone other than the Federation? Seriously, why don't they make a show that follows around a Klingon ship? Or anyone else?
I am one of those who don't like to discuss politics with friends / family. Reason being is that typically the people who really want to discuss it have made their mind up about the issues, and are not willing to have an open-minded discussion about them. So I get to the point where despite constructing a logical argument from multiple sources (BBC, CNN, Al Jazerra, etc.) the other person so firmly believes in the 'facts' from one side (Fox News, etc.), that anything else is simply wrong.
So you get to the point where you've achieved nothing after several hours of arguing. I'd rather do something more productive with my time.
Hmmm, I've seen Rollins give spoken word shows in Baton Rouge, Cleveland, and Cincinnati (3x). While I still enjoy his shows, indeed, I believe they have lost something. In his newer tours, his stories just don't seem to be as interesting as in his older shows. Maybe it's because he is not touring with Rollins Band as much, and doesn't have as many wacky adventures? But back in the day, in my opinion, a Rollins spoken word show was truly a great event. Part poetry, part stand-up comedy, part philosophy -- you got a little taste of everything.
Your second question there is actually some of the feedback I wanted to listen to, as I said, my main job, is a mainframe operator on a 1976 mainframe, no huge advances in technology there, but about all it gives me is more time to log as a "mainframe operator", which I might add is not a career option I'd like to see.
If being a mainframe operator is not a position that you want to stay in career-wise, you still might want to try moving up via the mainframe path. The step from operator to system programmer is big, but since you already have familiarity with the iron, you might be able to present a case for a promotion more easily within the mainframe tech, rather than on a new platform. (consider that in this economy, competition will be fierce for more popular platforms) Mainframe sysprogs are getting older, and it's becoming tough to find replacements when people retire. Plus, assuming you have a good reputation at your workplace, they know you are a good worker / can learn quickly, etc.
I would begin building my skills in the slow periods at work, and try to find a good sysprog to "help out". Once you complete some project work, you can begin talking promotion / salary increase to your management.
Speaking as a transplant who's lived in Cincy for the past 4 years, I can tell you that Skyline / Goldstar is in no way chili. Really it's more of a glorified spaghetti sauce -- thin, runny, and overly sweet (Did you know they put cinnamon and chocolate in there?). But the natives suck that stuff down like there's no tomorrow. Yuck.
I can't fill very sorry for these companies though as they seem to not be willing to hire in programmers/IT staff and train them up. It wouldn't be terribly hard, and any decent Computer Science graduate should be able to pick up the skills they're missing from the existing programmers quickly enough.
Indeed, few companies seem willing to invest in their people long term these days. This is very relevant for the mainframe discussion -- how many of you slashdotters in college now have any mainframe courses? If business will not train new ranks of mainframe maintainers, and colleges do not offer relevant courses, where do businesses plan to find replacement workers?
Companies need to think to the future, if they do feel the need to keep the COBOL apps on the mainframe (and I don't blame them, they do work and are quite stable), they're going to need to bring in lower-level IT/Programmers and make sure they learn the skills needed.
Right again. However, it's been my experience that few managers are willing to look that far into the future. Most want to consider things only in the short term. New workers will be trained, or the stuff will migrate off of the mainframe, but only at the last minute, when things are forced: last mainframer at the shop announces retirement / gets hit by a cement mixer.
Files are usually record oriented with fixed maximums like 80 characters per line (this comes from punched cards).
Not totally true. You are able to allocate files with any record length (or even a length which varies per record) on an MVS box. (Allocated with RECFM=VB,LRECL=xxx)
File allocations and volumes and are constantly on the verge of filling up without admin intervention.
Not totally true either. Files are allocated with a primary and 15 secondary extents (chunks of space) on a mainframe. When the primary fills, MVS starts writing to a secondary until all of those fill. At this point, MVS can add additional volumes to the file allocation, using the 16 space extents per additional volume. Volumes are less likely to be filled up due to SMS (System Managed Storage). This handles the placement of files on disk volumes automatically, using ACS (Automatic Control Statements) Routines -- basically code-like policy statements. SMS distributes file placement on groups (pools) of disk volumes to ensure performance and space policies are met. If designed properly, SMS can fail over to a "spill" pool of volumes in an emergency.
All names are limited to 8 uppercase characters.
Definitely not true. Files are limited to 8 uppercase characters per qualifier in the native "mainframe" environment. Qualifiers are separated by periods, allowing for a maxium of 44 characters. (example: SLASHDOT.SUX.BILLGS.BALLZ) However, in the USS (Unix System Services) environment, those restrictions do not hold.
Well, an internet vendor must charge you sales tax on an internet purchase if they have a "significant presence" in the state you are living in. For example, walmart.com will most likely charge sales tax directly in every state since you can't fling a dead cat without hitting one of their stores. Bob's House of Swedish Penis Enlarger Pumps, based in Nebraska only will only charge you tax if you are purchasing it while living in NE.
Actually, I heard that during the filming of this scene in Egypt, Harrison Ford was struck with a rather nasty case of "Cleopatra's Revenge". After filming multiple takes throughout the day, when it came time for this scene, he felt soo poorly that he simply drew his gun and fired. Spielberg thought that was funny, so they changed the scene to include that version.
Rejected US NextGen Blindness causing agents:
- Large box of scissors with "RUN" painted on the side
- Large box of porn (makes you go blind, you know)
Slashdot Mirror
As a US-ian living in Toronto, I can say that the Canadian health care system really surprised me -- in a good way. Over the past few years I've been to the doctor a few times for what was obviously a viral (flu) infection. In all cases, the doctors diagnosed it as such, and did not give me antibiotics! That totally blew me away -- in the US, I found that in similar circumstances doctors would say things like: "Well, this is probably a viral infection, but I'll give you some antibiotics just to be sure". As we all know, antibiotics serve no positive purpose for viral infections (in fact, one could argue they make matters worse).
However, I also met quite a few people that needed some sort of surgery or treatment for a non-life threatening injury. These poor people had to wait in some cases years to get the needed treatment. That's not too cool.
-I took a photo of myself in PhotoBooth. Now I want to crop it and upload it. Okay, click on iPhoto. Crop image. Great, now I have it in an album. But where's the picture file? Um, show-in-Finder option? Nope. Save cropped picture somewhere? Nope. I have to go deep into the directory, photos->iphoto library->various weird folder -> copy it to a more useful place, then upload.
Ummm, you do know that you can just click and drag the picture from iPhoto onto your desktop, right?
An OS upgrade is extremely unlikely to break any applications. There's 40+ year old code that's still running, right along with 64-bit Java code written an hour ago.
Technically true, but the GP's company may be running some ancient code which relies on ancient language compilers and such. The new version of the OS may not have these compiler versions available anymore. So, yes -- the compiled ancient code will continue to run fine in the new OS environment, but if they ever need to recompile one of those modules, they may be SOL, unless they bring the code back up to recent levels. I'm working right now with an application to bring their ANS '68 COBOL up to the "recent" ANS '85 standard.
Fo' shizzle...
It's not a purse! It's a ManBag!
I had the same choice all those years ago when I was entering University. Of course CMU is the superior engineering school, though PSU is pretty decent. The decision for me came down to money -- at the time I could get 4 years at PSU for the price of 2 at CMU. Due to my savings, this basically came down to: loans or no loans. I chose Penn State and have not regretted the decision at all.
In reality, college (like life) is largely what you make of it. Sure, I could have coasted through my time at PSU hiding in the back of a lecture hall, or cursing out poor TAs or profs. But instead in those cases, I networked and made connections with other professors in the department. When I did not understand my Physics 202 professor's discussion of a particular subject, I went back to my Physics 201 prof and got help from him. I found that you have to make the University work for you -- your success there is in your own hands.
I question whether you truly visited New Orleans. If you had, you would realize that this city has immense cultural significance to the USA. Did you ever see Cafe du Monde? Jean Lafitte's? Preservation Hall? The surrounding swamps? Jackson Square (including the Jackson Square Breakdancers)? Any of the surrounding plantations? Have you been to Mardi Gras? Or Jazz Fest?
My check is already in the mail.
BTW, you can still play these Apple 2 goodies thanks to emulation: http://www.emulation.net/apple2/
I strongly recommend Virtual ][ for OS X users (it even emulates the 5.25" drive seek noises!).
Game on!
Hmmm, curious choice, considering the large number of global companies that have major portions of their core business still running on mainframes -- manufacturers, banks, airlines, governments, etc.
I think 'A' would be more likely.
That's true generally for mainframe operations and application developers. System administrators (sysprogs), though, are still pretty safe in the US, for the moment. I suspect its because few Indian IT shops see the mainframe (a dying tech?) as a worthwhile investment. Well, at any rate, that's what I'm hoping for...
Yeah, like maybe focusing on someone other than the Federation? Seriously, why don't they make a show that follows around a Klingon ship? Or anyone else?
I am one of those who don't like to discuss politics with friends / family. Reason being is that typically the people who really want to discuss it have made their mind up about the issues, and are not willing to have an open-minded discussion about them. So I get to the point where despite constructing a logical argument from multiple sources (BBC, CNN, Al Jazerra, etc.) the other person so firmly believes in the 'facts' from one side (Fox News, etc.), that anything else is simply wrong.
So you get to the point where you've achieved nothing after several hours of arguing. I'd rather do something more productive with my time.
Shame this was posted by an AC. This was one of the most insightful things I've read all day.
-G
Hmmm, I've seen Rollins give spoken word shows in Baton Rouge, Cleveland, and Cincinnati (3x). While I still enjoy his shows, indeed, I believe they have lost something. In his newer tours, his stories just don't seem to be as interesting as in his older shows. Maybe it's because he is not touring with Rollins Band as much, and doesn't have as many wacky adventures? But back in the day, in my opinion, a Rollins spoken word show was truly a great event. Part poetry, part stand-up comedy, part philosophy -- you got a little taste of everything.
Your second question there is actually some of the feedback I wanted to listen to, as I said, my main job, is a mainframe operator on a 1976 mainframe, no huge advances in technology there, but about all it gives me is more time to log as a "mainframe operator", which I might add is not a career option I'd like to see.
If being a mainframe operator is not a position that you want to stay in career-wise, you still might want to try moving up via the mainframe path. The step from operator to system programmer is big, but since you already have familiarity with the iron, you might be able to present a case for a promotion more easily within the mainframe tech, rather than on a new platform. (consider that in this economy, competition will be fierce for more popular platforms) Mainframe sysprogs are getting older, and it's becoming tough to find replacements when people retire. Plus, assuming you have a good reputation at your workplace, they know you are a good worker / can learn quickly, etc.
I would begin building my skills in the slow periods at work, and try to find a good sysprog to "help out". Once you complete some project work, you can begin talking promotion / salary increase to your management.
Best of luck!
Speaking as a transplant who's lived in Cincy for the past 4 years, I can tell you that Skyline / Goldstar is in no way chili. Really it's more of a glorified spaghetti sauce -- thin, runny, and overly sweet (Did you know they put cinnamon and chocolate in there?). But the natives suck that stuff down like there's no tomorrow. Yuck.
I can't fill very sorry for these companies though as they seem to not be willing to hire in programmers/IT staff and train them up. It wouldn't be terribly hard, and any decent Computer Science graduate should be able to pick up the skills they're missing from the existing programmers quickly enough.
Indeed, few companies seem willing to invest in their people long term these days. This is very relevant for the mainframe discussion -- how many of you slashdotters in college now have any mainframe courses? If business will not train new ranks of mainframe maintainers, and colleges do not offer relevant courses, where do businesses plan to find replacement workers?
Companies need to think to the future, if they do feel the need to keep the COBOL apps on the mainframe (and I don't blame them, they do work and are quite stable), they're going to need to bring in lower-level IT/Programmers and make sure they learn the skills needed.
Right again. However, it's been my experience that few managers are willing to look that far into the future. Most want to consider things only in the short term. New workers will be trained, or the stuff will migrate off of the mainframe, but only at the last minute, when things are forced: last mainframer at the shop announces retirement / gets hit by a cement mixer.
Files are usually record oriented with fixed maximums like 80 characters per line (this comes from punched cards).
Not totally true. You are able to allocate files with any record length (or even a length which varies per record) on an MVS box. (Allocated with RECFM=VB,LRECL=xxx)
File allocations and volumes and are constantly on the verge of filling up without admin intervention.
Not totally true either. Files are allocated with a primary and 15 secondary extents (chunks of space) on a mainframe. When the primary fills, MVS starts writing to a secondary until all of those fill. At this point, MVS can add additional volumes to the file allocation, using the 16 space extents per additional volume. Volumes are less likely to be filled up due to SMS (System Managed Storage). This handles the placement of files on disk volumes automatically, using ACS (Automatic Control Statements) Routines -- basically code-like policy statements. SMS distributes file placement on groups (pools) of disk volumes to ensure performance and space policies are met. If designed properly, SMS can fail over to a "spill" pool of volumes in an emergency.
All names are limited to 8 uppercase characters.
Definitely not true. Files are limited to 8 uppercase characters per qualifier in the native "mainframe" environment. Qualifiers are separated by periods, allowing for a maxium of 44 characters. (example: SLASHDOT.SUX.BILLGS.BALLZ) However, in the USS (Unix System Services) environment, those restrictions do not hold.
Well, an internet vendor must charge you sales tax on an internet purchase if they have a "significant presence" in the state you are living in. For example, walmart.com will most likely charge sales tax directly in every state since you can't fling a dead cat without hitting one of their stores. Bob's House of Swedish Penis Enlarger Pumps, based in Nebraska only will only charge you tax if you are purchasing it while living in NE.
Ultima 8 and 9 both sucked donkey in my book...the others (I've only played from 4 on) were all excellent.
-G
Actually, I heard that during the filming of this scene in Egypt, Harrison Ford was struck with a rather nasty case of "Cleopatra's Revenge". After filming multiple takes throughout the day, when it came time for this scene, he felt soo poorly that he simply drew his gun and fired. Spielberg thought that was funny, so they changed the scene to include that version.
My personal favorite is when movie people type in commands like these:
ERASE ALL TOP SECRET FILES
Seriously, when was the last time you deleted anything like that?
Rejected US NextGen Blindness causing agents:
- Large box of scissors with "RUN" painted on the side
- Large box of porn (makes you go blind, you know)
"Look at Stalin and Lennon and Mao. All communists and socialists. Socialism leads to evil."
I hope this was just a typo, but it still made me laugh.
"All we are saying..."
"Is give communism a chance."
Only true with the enhanced VGA edition, I believe. Us old timers had no such luck with the original version!