Their approximation is taken from a dark place...located below the belt line.
In other words, that number is crap. It's shows a divine lack of future planning for capacity...and a stoic belief that, contrary to all historical evidence, applications and operating systems will not continue to grow in size. Assuming a ROI of at least 3 years, perhaps 5 years for some machines...you're looking at at least one major OS upgrade, possibly two, which tend be larger with each iteration; additionally, individual applications are likely to undergo new versions, which will add new features, requiring more space.
But more importantly, the cost difference between adding a SSD, or SSD + second HD combo, to any machine, is rather minimal. It's so trivial, provided you buy from the right suppliers, and your business is not on the chopping block, that it warrants not further discussion.
In other words...if you are conditioned to using a 5400 RPM HD, then the spinup / access times seem normal to you. If you've had better, and for only a few dollars difference (7200 RPM) or more (SSD), then it's the difference between getting something done, then getting your morning coffee, versus making a doughnut run, as your machine will still be loading up the desktop by the time you get back.
The thing is...while you may be conditioned, as well as others, to believe this slow access time is 'normal'...the rest of the world, that has upgraded, will just continue on without you. It took your sales guys 15 minutes to log into their desktops...my guys logged in in 3 minutes, and are already making their second or third calls. My guys have the potential to do a little more volume, in the same time, than your guys...and the cost to my business would be minimal (who cares about saving $80, when the sales guy is bring in a contract worth many times that amount, even accounting for costs?).
And as an American, let me warn our Russian colleagues, that no way will the United States be outdone in this realm. We have consultants standing by, with suitcases filled with newly printed money, ready to get out there and spend, spend, spend to make us #1!
Not so much. Just a matter of buying the right equipment, and making sure it plays together.
For instance, full-disk encryption on a 5400 RPM laptop HD = pain; full-disk encryption on a 480 GB SSD from a decent manufacturer = hardly noticeable when compared to a regular SSD.
Trying to do a VPN with only a 24 Mbps Wan-to-Lan encryption / decryption? That will be painful. Trying to use Firewall with only 50 Mbps Wan-to-Lan (no VPN)? Also painful, especially when your WAN connection is way faster (and I'm assuming you are running Gig-E or faster on the inside).
And tapping fiber is a PITA. Regular UTP/STP is trivial (alligator clips?); doing it to fiber requires a little more work, especially if you're trying to do it and not be detected doing it.
How is a 100 mb connection not of economic use? The market can only move as quickly as the information that flows through it, yes?
So essentially, he's hampering the ability of the market to gather information (reports) from official and unofficial sources, to disseminate them in a timely fashion, and to react to them. Since the market, in its non-corrupt form, likes to purge inefficiency (a dirty word these days, since it has been co-opted to have certain negative emotional connotations that it shouldn't...much like when someone tries to make an organization more 'efficient' by firing the only people who know how to do anything, or by cutting away at the buffer systems (needed because of problems elsewhere)), this results in a loss of market efficiency...which seems like a boon to information providers (those who can acquire faster connections, and sell access to it, while denying others the same opportunity)...but the reality is that, on a larger scale, it probably is damaging to them as well. Think of it as breaking into the local water treatment plant to steal some copper power lines (a boon!), only to damage the plant in the process (thus denying water to everyone, including yourself in the process); now, the money you make off of that stolen copper, maybe it's enough to buy bottled water, and still come out ahead...or maybe not.
Oh, for...we've had the tech on the books, for ages, to deal with the majority of these attacks.
Let's see here...entity as large as the US government....
1.) Switch the damn ports from the standard ports to non-standard ports (go for something in the higher numbers, like 3000 for HTTP). 2.) Implement port knocking. If the knock isn't correct, the port doesn't open. (And make the knocking port different from the opening port). 3.) SSD, Full-Disk encryption (BlowFish + 3AES, or whatever), with a Lo-Jacked BIOS. 4.) VPN inside and outside, with lockdown MAC addresses and authentication. 5.) Fiber networking. 6.) VLAN. 7.) Multiple Firewalls, from different vendors, in a cascade fashion, with different firmwares, so if one is hacked, the other will not be cracked the same way. 8.) Proxy Servers (BSD or Slackware linux) running right behind those Firewalls. 9.) Mirror the ports from the Firewalls (through a Switch or something) to a passive / ghost logging server, so if someone manages to get through all the Firewalls / Proxy Servers (and destroy them), you will still have a record of the traffic / what they stole. Make this thing unaccessible except by direct console input, and with enough disk space / hot spares to run perpetually. 10.) Review the damn logs yourself, by hand, by eye, whenever is appropriate. Hell, have it light up a LED Christmas tree or something in the cage if it detects something funny.
Knowledge = Power. A doctor can harm you in such a way that an ordinary person would have trouble finding any traces; a lawyer knows how to work the laws such that you could end up in prison for five years for the simple mistake of failing to place a piece of chewed gum in the right receptacle; an engineer can devise all manner of devices that can do things, from explosives to weaponry to directed-energy weaponry, that are difficult to counter / trace for the common person; a psychiatrist can remove someone's Constitutional Rights with a single word, with no appeals; a programmer can unravel someone's life, by accessing many hidden levers and in general, relying on the general apathy that serves as modern society's bedrock.
The problem we are faced with, of course, being painted as generally adversarial by a group of beings (politicians, military) who wish to control us (programmers). The general populace, always succumbing to the bait (2000 years since the age began, right, and still not much better than in 0 AD, politics-wise), "wants something down about these 'witches' (read: doctors, engineers in earlier time periods)"; why? because every time their TV fails to turn on, it's a hacker doing it to them (just like every time Aunt Emmy came down with an illness, it was that weird old woman who lived on the outskirts of the village that had done it to her...she summons demons, that one does, so gather some stones to 'purge' the evil). History repeats itself, and the slaves remain enslaved.
Now, every learned person who has to sit through an inquisition with the village boobs probably does, at the end of it, begin to idly wonder if perhaps they are working for the wrong side. The phrase "I'm not going to jail for them" is no more often uttered than when attempting to explain to the technically illiterate why their fears are unfounded,,,imagine a doctor taking the stand, and having confirmed his Chemistry undergrad, having to then defend himself against spurious accusations that he could poison everyone in the room (possible? Yes. Motivation? No; but you can't say that in court...especially when dealing with...special judges and juries...the kinds that Justice runs away from, and weeps in the presence of).
TCP/IP is less expensive than developing your own network protocol. Using public data lines (the Internet) is less expensive than using your own private, leased lines. Using no encryption is less expensive than mediocre encryption, and a hell of a lot less expensive than serious encryption (you are either paying for developer time, or a library, or both).
Letting us know exactly how much it is costing the rest of us to subsidize this thing?
I know, I know...for people high enough up the financial food chain, money is just an abstract symbol to be manipulated. But for those who are left in bondage as indentured servants to make good on those bad promises, it is quite real.
Indeed. The theory is that they will hold some small change over his / her head, like their last paycheck...but it's a gamble, at best (do you really want to piss off the network admin who can, with a few keystrokes, just wipe out your company? or better yet, refuse to help you when a problem, not of his / her own making, does arise? you don't want them pissed off at you, not when they have nothing to lose). Think about it...the company tries to show its strength by asking for some laborious process during the network admin's final week, and threatens to withhold their last paycheck; this immediately annoys the network admin, and puts them in a bad mood; then Dave from Accounting calls to say that due to a bug in their software, they're going to need the Financial's database restored (72 hours worth of work) so that everyone (CEO included) can get paid by Friday. The network admin, now being asked to work overtime, and still having to complete this onerous task you have assigned for them...all for a paycheck that may or may not be coming (since you've already decided to play games / show your card), may decide "That's cool, I already have enough money as is, how about you people go a few weeks without payroll to see what making threats earns you?"
Remember, most IT Directors / higher-level types are not going to cross a network admin. An IT Director typically knows how badly things would go for him, and the company, if the network admin were to drop dead of a heart attack, or get hit by a bus...daily operations would grind to a halt. Most CIOs / CEOs, from what I can tell, have never been engaged in a firefight with a network admin; there simply isn't any profit in it (the CIO / network admin usually work in lock step; if they're going to fight (verbally argue about something), it's going to be inside the server room, the one with the locked doors and servers generating lots of white noise...honestly, I haven't caught any clashes, but I imagine that would be the place where it would be done). Lighting cigars with Berkshire Hathaway stock might be a better way of spending your time...and I don't know anyone that wealthy.
In other words, you're doomed. If he's working for a mid to large company, and they're giving you only a week to get up to speed...run. Something is terribly wrong.
Normally, a junior network admin is taken on for several months to years before a network admin moves on. That's to ensure that the entire amount of knowledge is successfully transferred from one individual to the other...and there is a lot to learn in many cases. Some places have multiple network admins, from senior, to mid-level, to junior, with various sub-level IT guys who have domain knowledge for various parts that can keep things going in an emergency.
Externally, it may take you just a week to crawl through all the cable ducts / walls to find out where all the cables go / where all the comms closets are. That's without tapping into the machines themselves, and finding out what services are running, why are they configured that way, who needs what permissions, and what happens when something (a service, run once a month) fails to run. Just having the passwords isn't enough; you need to know why, in many cases, it was done that way -> time, laziness, money, software / hardware limitations, etc.
If I had a network admin 'leaving' in a week, with no junior admin ready to be promoted to his position, I'd negotiate an insanely nice (his salary * 2-3) severance package to have him train his replacement up to speed. The cost, to the company, of him leaving, and having the new guy running around having to learn everything without his help is probably going to hurt the company waaaaaaay more than that severance package ever will. Network admin leaves...there is no law that says he has to continue to work for a company that he has quit; while the company, assuming it does a $1 million or more per day in sales, will lose so much revenue / profits with the new guy having to reset things / play with them...there will be outages, and that will hurt the company randomly for several quarters. It's less costly to say "Fuck it, here's ~$300,000, train this guy to do your job, and keep your phone near you for the next 6 months." I'd rather have the network admin leave on happy terms, ready to stop by and fix things if his replacement runs into difficulty, than face a week or so of intermittent outages.
Well, obviously, we need to go visit DC, en mass, with ye olde pitchforks and torches, and register our opinion of how the country is currently being run. The US military is not going to touch a few million citizens who show up to 'chat' with their elected officials...not unless they want to see where that leads (somewhere dark, I imagine); as for the police, well, their presence will, in all probability, only ignite a wildfire that should end very badly for them...because these people are already believing that they have nothing left to lose, and they're right.
Normally, the government would be fixed by kicking out the problems...but with public deficits reaching hideous levels, and personal income being taxed at a rather much higher rate than when this country was founded, that doesn't seem an option, now does it? You have the sons of senators, and grandsons of senators...being elected as senators...and the country is in shambles. Now, personally, I'd love to contribute more to this, really wish I had some solutions, but while people are protesting in DC, I plan to be on an island somewhere far away; I'm not a politician, will never run for office, and want some place quiet to enjoy a more peaceful life; but I figure that with or without this protest (those deficits / taxes will only climb as time goes on...at some point, income earned == income taxed), and that will make a very tired, skinny, and pissed people more than a little fed up with things.
I could be wrong...maybe the US will suddenly win its war on corruption, turn the tide, and bring economic prosperity from on high. Maybe the reason that things are not doing so well is because this generation is so 'lazy,' and has nothing to do with the ridiculous spending of the previous generation, nor the out of control SS tax / benefits that no one believes will remain as is well into the future. Maybe not. Personally, I see the Titanic hitting an iceberg, well, has hit one...but people claim, despite losing their pensions in the market, that that's just a load of bull, that everything is fine. I just hope that we are not seeing an entire generation of humans beings sold into slavery...if there is anything moral to this universe, a weak premise I grant you, that would not end well.
How about giving NASA the NSA's infrastructure, and offering the military dibs on a mass-driver if / when any other country becomes so troubling that they would need that kind of artillery (if you need to ask what a mass driver is, you're not allowed to be a part of this debate). Then tell NASA that if they don't have a colony on Venus, Mars, Titan, or Mercury before the decade is out, we're going to break down our cities, and live in mud huts, because it's obvious that we're never going to get those plasma fusion rockets to work correctly.
Wondered that myself. It seems people prefer lies to the truth when it conflicts with their pre-conceived social values, and they prefer truth to the lies when it acts in synchronous with their pre-conceived social values.
Took me years to figure that much out, and after countless lectures from people where I'd point out that something was true, and they'd respond that "that may be true, but..." but they will sacrifice the truth any day of the week, in exchange for not ruffling any feathers. I am convinced that even they are not really sure why they do it...only that it's expected of them; they're kind of like the servants of an old estate who's master used to beat them...and after that master died, rather than stopping the beatings, they continued on with them, from generation to generation, for the day when their master would return. They call it discipline, but the reality is, you're teaching them a form of slavery...that you are the power, and that they are the powerless.
I...they do realize how much this infrastructure is going to cost, and how even after they pay for it, it's still not going to work right, da? I mean, it's going to cripple their economy, slow down their network speeds, introduce errors and additional work for both the techs and the courts, and increase complexity of their networks (something which makes engineers very, very unhappy...especially for 'features' like these).
Just...you can't stop people from cursing in front of you, using their own mouths...what, exactly, makes you think this is somehow possible with the internet? I swear, it's like social people have zero understanding of how technology works...and even less how their own society, and human nature works, which is weird, since they're supposed to be the 'social' people. Morality can't be mandated since it's so ill-defined...every case of morality runs into scenarios where exceptions occur...hell, that's why there are so many philosophers, priests, etc. (aside from the cushy job, 3 minute work week, and nice perks) who spend such time trying to figure out, what, exactly, occurs in a moral situation where you've outlawed murder, and murder is the only way to prevent things from getting worse (hello military / police officers; was it justified, was there another way, or are we just violent animals? if non-lethal is supposed to be so effective, and better than guns, what do we do when someone uses it to torture someone else for hours? is not a gun better then, because it requires someone to really ask if they want to stand before a judge, explaining why they killed a suspect? or can no one be trusted to handle weaponry, since every situation allows for abuse?). That kind of stuff.
Hmm. Currently on Virgin Mobile, which is one of Sprint's brands, and while I enjoy the 'all you can eat' approach to data, I can't make use of it, since I have such poor signal out where I am.
It gets worse...I've repeatedly asked Virgin Mobile to offer me, sell me, anything, a micro-cell / femto-cell, so I can use their service inside my own home, using my own damn broadband connection...and they repeatedly act like they don't care. Their PR crew seems to be more focused on MyFi than addressing a serious problem which, if they just spent 5 minutes with a Sprint engineer ("Hey guys, can we offer our customers Air Raves? Thanks...."), would be fixed / go away; how am I supposed to share a cellular signal with '5 of my friends' via 802.11x if I have to go outside to place a phone call?
And it's not like there has been a lot, and I mean a lot, of noise on the boards about VM lacking a femto-cell, going back for years...I can only conclude that Sprint is a masochist, that enjoys self-sabotage.
As for the phones being offered...not bad, but they do need to work on things a little. The Samsung Galaxy 4, or what have you, is the current lead from Samsung...but VM just got the 3; and it's not like Samsung doesn't want to sell this thing, if the latest figures from El Reg are true. And it's not like VM is subsidizing these phones...because you pay for the phone in its entirety.
Hey, hey, you, get back in line. We need you to express jealousy of another's wages as some form of moral righteousness, not try to reason why one person might be paid more than another.;-)
You're arguing about how people value each other's work, and that's an entirely subjective phenomenon. And let's be honest, programmers are getting paid poorly these days, with other fields (doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.) coming under the knife. They want the doctors to be replaced with nurses to cut costs...and the lawyers? Maybe some clerks or paralegals will do them in. Oh, but engineers? Well, it's hard to replace an engineer...so they're just outright attacking their wages / salaries. I tell you, gaze upon what has happened to programmers, and you will see what is coming down the pike for the others...
Actually, he is right. I've read similar stuff to what he's referencing, as well as the hatchet job that the Ford family apparently engaged in, at a later time, because they felt their ancestor's image didn't jive with the philanthropist views that they, now sitting on a massive pile of wealth, wished to convey. Apparently, if the research is correct, the Ford family paid off some historians, or something akin to them, to rearrange things...and the rest is now a part of common lore.
And yes, high turnover was the reason given that Ford raised the wages of his workers -> it cost a month of profits to train a worker, they only stayed around for two months (something like that), his profits were as bad as his rivals. He gambled that if he increased their wages, the turnover would slow, and he could realize a better profit...which turned out to be true. Thus a new equilibrium was established...Ford would pay better wages than his rivals, his workers would linger in their employment with him, both them and him would realize better profits than trying to find someone who would work perpetually for less.
Unfortunately, this little gem has been lost to time...not many business schools, I imagine, teach this kind of history, or if they do, perhaps they are not reaching their students. I say this because it does appear that we are engaging in a bit of repeat history...businesses have, for the last decade or so, in my observation, tempted to find that fabled worker who works essentially for nothing and doesn't quit...despite history warning them of the price they'd pay for engaging in such things. As such, those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it, and it's hard to learn what has been covered up in shame...so we will relearn Ford's lesson about wages, it seems.
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Their approximation is taken from a dark place...located below the belt line.
In other words, that number is crap. It's shows a divine lack of future planning for capacity...and a stoic belief that, contrary to all historical evidence, applications and operating systems will not continue to grow in size. Assuming a ROI of at least 3 years, perhaps 5 years for some machines...you're looking at at least one major OS upgrade, possibly two, which tend be larger with each iteration; additionally, individual applications are likely to undergo new versions, which will add new features, requiring more space.
But more importantly, the cost difference between adding a SSD, or SSD + second HD combo, to any machine, is rather minimal. It's so trivial, provided you buy from the right suppliers, and your business is not on the chopping block, that it warrants not further discussion.
In other words...if you are conditioned to using a 5400 RPM HD, then the spinup / access times seem normal to you. If you've had better, and for only a few dollars difference (7200 RPM) or more (SSD), then it's the difference between getting something done, then getting your morning coffee, versus making a doughnut run, as your machine will still be loading up the desktop by the time you get back.
The thing is...while you may be conditioned, as well as others, to believe this slow access time is 'normal'...the rest of the world, that has upgraded, will just continue on without you. It took your sales guys 15 minutes to log into their desktops...my guys logged in in 3 minutes, and are already making their second or third calls. My guys have the potential to do a little more volume, in the same time, than your guys...and the cost to my business would be minimal (who cares about saving $80, when the sales guy is bring in a contract worth many times that amount, even accounting for costs?).
Yup, they missed the boat. Anyone who has used a SSD will go back to using a regular HD when they stop making SSDs, and the last available one breaks.
SSDs really are the bee's knees.
Indeed. Everyone does it, so that makes it okay, right?
And this what I think, when I think of their 'help'.
And as an American, let me warn our Russian colleagues, that no way will the United States be outdone in this realm. We have consultants standing by, with suitcases filled with newly printed money, ready to get out there and spend, spend, spend to make us #1!
Not so much. Just a matter of buying the right equipment, and making sure it plays together.
For instance, full-disk encryption on a 5400 RPM laptop HD = pain; full-disk encryption on a 480 GB SSD from a decent manufacturer = hardly noticeable when compared to a regular SSD.
Trying to do a VPN with only a 24 Mbps Wan-to-Lan encryption / decryption? That will be painful. Trying to use Firewall with only 50 Mbps Wan-to-Lan (no VPN)? Also painful, especially when your WAN connection is way faster (and I'm assuming you are running Gig-E or faster on the inside).
And tapping fiber is a PITA. Regular UTP/STP is trivial (alligator clips?); doing it to fiber requires a little more work, especially if you're trying to do it and not be detected doing it.
How is a 100 mb connection not of economic use? The market can only move as quickly as the information that flows through it, yes?
So essentially, he's hampering the ability of the market to gather information (reports) from official and unofficial sources, to disseminate them in a timely fashion, and to react to them. Since the market, in its non-corrupt form, likes to purge inefficiency (a dirty word these days, since it has been co-opted to have certain negative emotional connotations that it shouldn't...much like when someone tries to make an organization more 'efficient' by firing the only people who know how to do anything, or by cutting away at the buffer systems (needed because of problems elsewhere)), this results in a loss of market efficiency...which seems like a boon to information providers (those who can acquire faster connections, and sell access to it, while denying others the same opportunity)...but the reality is that, on a larger scale, it probably is damaging to them as well. Think of it as breaking into the local water treatment plant to steal some copper power lines (a boon!), only to damage the plant in the process (thus denying water to everyone, including yourself in the process); now, the money you make off of that stolen copper, maybe it's enough to buy bottled water, and still come out ahead...or maybe not.
Oh, for...we've had the tech on the books, for ages, to deal with the majority of these attacks.
Let's see here...entity as large as the US government....
1.) Switch the damn ports from the standard ports to non-standard ports (go for something in the higher numbers, like 3000 for HTTP).
2.) Implement port knocking. If the knock isn't correct, the port doesn't open. (And make the knocking port different from the opening port).
3.) SSD, Full-Disk encryption (BlowFish + 3AES, or whatever), with a Lo-Jacked BIOS.
4.) VPN inside and outside, with lockdown MAC addresses and authentication.
5.) Fiber networking.
6.) VLAN.
7.) Multiple Firewalls, from different vendors, in a cascade fashion, with different firmwares, so if one is hacked, the other will not be cracked the same way.
8.) Proxy Servers (BSD or Slackware linux) running right behind those Firewalls.
9.) Mirror the ports from the Firewalls (through a Switch or something) to a passive / ghost logging server, so if someone manages to get through all the Firewalls / Proxy Servers (and destroy them), you will still have a record of the traffic / what they stole. Make this thing unaccessible except by direct console input, and with enough disk space / hot spares to run perpetually.
10.) Review the damn logs yourself, by hand, by eye, whenever is appropriate. Hell, have it light up a LED Christmas tree or something in the cage if it detects something funny.
Knowledge = Power. A doctor can harm you in such a way that an ordinary person would have trouble finding any traces; a lawyer knows how to work the laws such that you could end up in prison for five years for the simple mistake of failing to place a piece of chewed gum in the right receptacle; an engineer can devise all manner of devices that can do things, from explosives to weaponry to directed-energy weaponry, that are difficult to counter / trace for the common person; a psychiatrist can remove someone's Constitutional Rights with a single word, with no appeals; a programmer can unravel someone's life, by accessing many hidden levers and in general, relying on the general apathy that serves as modern society's bedrock.
The problem we are faced with, of course, being painted as generally adversarial by a group of beings (politicians, military) who wish to control us (programmers). The general populace, always succumbing to the bait (2000 years since the age began, right, and still not much better than in 0 AD, politics-wise), "wants something down about these 'witches' (read: doctors, engineers in earlier time periods)"; why? because every time their TV fails to turn on, it's a hacker doing it to them (just like every time Aunt Emmy came down with an illness, it was that weird old woman who lived on the outskirts of the village that had done it to her...she summons demons, that one does, so gather some stones to 'purge' the evil). History repeats itself, and the slaves remain enslaved.
Now, every learned person who has to sit through an inquisition with the village boobs probably does, at the end of it, begin to idly wonder if perhaps they are working for the wrong side. The phrase "I'm not going to jail for them" is no more often uttered than when attempting to explain to the technically illiterate why their fears are unfounded,,,imagine a doctor taking the stand, and having confirmed his Chemistry undergrad, having to then defend himself against spurious accusations that he could poison everyone in the room (possible? Yes. Motivation? No; but you can't say that in court...especially when dealing with...special judges and juries...the kinds that Justice runs away from, and weeps in the presence of).
And that tells you just how misplaced power is in the US, does it not? That an ill-informed judge can ruin people's lives so easily...
How about we review our judges? Let's start with, why are they so easy to swindle?
One can only hope that they will find what they are looking for. ;-)
A Springtime Harvest is always welcome.
Random guess?
TCP/IP is less expensive than developing your own network protocol. Using public data lines (the Internet) is less expensive than using your own private, leased lines. Using no encryption is less expensive than mediocre encryption, and a hell of a lot less expensive than serious encryption (you are either paying for developer time, or a library, or both).
Letting us know exactly how much it is costing the rest of us to subsidize this thing?
I know, I know...for people high enough up the financial food chain, money is just an abstract symbol to be manipulated. But for those who are left in bondage as indentured servants to make good on those bad promises, it is quite real.
Uh...were you a network admin, or just someone from a department?
Indeed. The theory is that they will hold some small change over his / her head, like their last paycheck...but it's a gamble, at best (do you really want to piss off the network admin who can, with a few keystrokes, just wipe out your company? or better yet, refuse to help you when a problem, not of his / her own making, does arise? you don't want them pissed off at you, not when they have nothing to lose). Think about it...the company tries to show its strength by asking for some laborious process during the network admin's final week, and threatens to withhold their last paycheck; this immediately annoys the network admin, and puts them in a bad mood; then Dave from Accounting calls to say that due to a bug in their software, they're going to need the Financial's database restored (72 hours worth of work) so that everyone (CEO included) can get paid by Friday. The network admin, now being asked to work overtime, and still having to complete this onerous task you have assigned for them...all for a paycheck that may or may not be coming (since you've already decided to play games / show your card), may decide "That's cool, I already have enough money as is, how about you people go a few weeks without payroll to see what making threats earns you?"
Remember, most IT Directors / higher-level types are not going to cross a network admin. An IT Director typically knows how badly things would go for him, and the company, if the network admin were to drop dead of a heart attack, or get hit by a bus...daily operations would grind to a halt. Most CIOs / CEOs, from what I can tell, have never been engaged in a firefight with a network admin; there simply isn't any profit in it (the CIO / network admin usually work in lock step; if they're going to fight (verbally argue about something), it's going to be inside the server room, the one with the locked doors and servers generating lots of white noise...honestly, I haven't caught any clashes, but I imagine that would be the place where it would be done). Lighting cigars with Berkshire Hathaway stock might be a better way of spending your time...and I don't know anyone that wealthy.
In other words, you're doomed. If he's working for a mid to large company, and they're giving you only a week to get up to speed...run. Something is terribly wrong.
Normally, a junior network admin is taken on for several months to years before a network admin moves on. That's to ensure that the entire amount of knowledge is successfully transferred from one individual to the other...and there is a lot to learn in many cases. Some places have multiple network admins, from senior, to mid-level, to junior, with various sub-level IT guys who have domain knowledge for various parts that can keep things going in an emergency.
Externally, it may take you just a week to crawl through all the cable ducts / walls to find out where all the cables go / where all the comms closets are. That's without tapping into the machines themselves, and finding out what services are running, why are they configured that way, who needs what permissions, and what happens when something (a service, run once a month) fails to run. Just having the passwords isn't enough; you need to know why, in many cases, it was done that way -> time, laziness, money, software / hardware limitations, etc.
If I had a network admin 'leaving' in a week, with no junior admin ready to be promoted to his position, I'd negotiate an insanely nice (his salary * 2-3) severance package to have him train his replacement up to speed. The cost, to the company, of him leaving, and having the new guy running around having to learn everything without his help is probably going to hurt the company waaaaaaay more than that severance package ever will. Network admin leaves...there is no law that says he has to continue to work for a company that he has quit; while the company, assuming it does a $1 million or more per day in sales, will lose so much revenue / profits with the new guy having to reset things / play with them...there will be outages, and that will hurt the company randomly for several quarters. It's less costly to say "Fuck it, here's ~$300,000, train this guy to do your job, and keep your phone near you for the next 6 months." I'd rather have the network admin leave on happy terms, ready to stop by and fix things if his replacement runs into difficulty, than face a week or so of intermittent outages.
Well, obviously, we need to go visit DC, en mass, with ye olde pitchforks and torches, and register our opinion of how the country is currently being run. The US military is not going to touch a few million citizens who show up to 'chat' with their elected officials...not unless they want to see where that leads (somewhere dark, I imagine); as for the police, well, their presence will, in all probability, only ignite a wildfire that should end very badly for them...because these people are already believing that they have nothing left to lose, and they're right.
Normally, the government would be fixed by kicking out the problems...but with public deficits reaching hideous levels, and personal income being taxed at a rather much higher rate than when this country was founded, that doesn't seem an option, now does it? You have the sons of senators, and grandsons of senators...being elected as senators...and the country is in shambles. Now, personally, I'd love to contribute more to this, really wish I had some solutions, but while people are protesting in DC, I plan to be on an island somewhere far away; I'm not a politician, will never run for office, and want some place quiet to enjoy a more peaceful life; but I figure that with or without this protest (those deficits / taxes will only climb as time goes on...at some point, income earned == income taxed), and that will make a very tired, skinny, and pissed people more than a little fed up with things.
I could be wrong...maybe the US will suddenly win its war on corruption, turn the tide, and bring economic prosperity from on high. Maybe the reason that things are not doing so well is because this generation is so 'lazy,' and has nothing to do with the ridiculous spending of the previous generation, nor the out of control SS tax / benefits that no one believes will remain as is well into the future. Maybe not. Personally, I see the Titanic hitting an iceberg, well, has hit one...but people claim, despite losing their pensions in the market, that that's just a load of bull, that everything is fine. I just hope that we are not seeing an entire generation of humans beings sold into slavery...if there is anything moral to this universe, a weak premise I grant you, that would not end well.
How about giving NASA the NSA's infrastructure, and offering the military dibs on a mass-driver if / when any other country becomes so troubling that they would need that kind of artillery (if you need to ask what a mass driver is, you're not allowed to be a part of this debate). Then tell NASA that if they don't have a colony on Venus, Mars, Titan, or Mercury before the decade is out, we're going to break down our cities, and live in mud huts, because it's obvious that we're never going to get those plasma fusion rockets to work correctly.
Wondered that myself. It seems people prefer lies to the truth when it conflicts with their pre-conceived social values, and they prefer truth to the lies when it acts in synchronous with their pre-conceived social values.
Took me years to figure that much out, and after countless lectures from people where I'd point out that something was true, and they'd respond that "that may be true, but..." but they will sacrifice the truth any day of the week, in exchange for not ruffling any feathers. I am convinced that even they are not really sure why they do it...only that it's expected of them; they're kind of like the servants of an old estate who's master used to beat them...and after that master died, rather than stopping the beatings, they continued on with them, from generation to generation, for the day when their master would return. They call it discipline, but the reality is, you're teaching them a form of slavery...that you are the power, and that they are the powerless.
I...they do realize how much this infrastructure is going to cost, and how even after they pay for it, it's still not going to work right, da? I mean, it's going to cripple their economy, slow down their network speeds, introduce errors and additional work for both the techs and the courts, and increase complexity of their networks (something which makes engineers very, very unhappy...especially for 'features' like these).
Just...you can't stop people from cursing in front of you, using their own mouths...what, exactly, makes you think this is somehow possible with the internet? I swear, it's like social people have zero understanding of how technology works...and even less how their own society, and human nature works, which is weird, since they're supposed to be the 'social' people. Morality can't be mandated since it's so ill-defined...every case of morality runs into scenarios where exceptions occur...hell, that's why there are so many philosophers, priests, etc. (aside from the cushy job, 3 minute work week, and nice perks) who spend such time trying to figure out, what, exactly, occurs in a moral situation where you've outlawed murder, and murder is the only way to prevent things from getting worse (hello military / police officers; was it justified, was there another way, or are we just violent animals? if non-lethal is supposed to be so effective, and better than guns, what do we do when someone uses it to torture someone else for hours? is not a gun better then, because it requires someone to really ask if they want to stand before a judge, explaining why they killed a suspect? or can no one be trusted to handle weaponry, since every situation allows for abuse?). That kind of stuff.
Hmm. Currently on Virgin Mobile, which is one of Sprint's brands, and while I enjoy the 'all you can eat' approach to data, I can't make use of it, since I have such poor signal out where I am.
It gets worse...I've repeatedly asked Virgin Mobile to offer me, sell me, anything, a micro-cell / femto-cell, so I can use their service inside my own home, using my own damn broadband connection...and they repeatedly act like they don't care. Their PR crew seems to be more focused on MyFi than addressing a serious problem which, if they just spent 5 minutes with a Sprint engineer ("Hey guys, can we offer our customers Air Raves? Thanks...."), would be fixed / go away; how am I supposed to share a cellular signal with '5 of my friends' via 802.11x if I have to go outside to place a phone call?
And it's not like there has been a lot, and I mean a lot, of noise on the boards about VM lacking a femto-cell, going back for years...I can only conclude that Sprint is a masochist, that enjoys self-sabotage.
As for the phones being offered...not bad, but they do need to work on things a little. The Samsung Galaxy 4, or what have you, is the current lead from Samsung...but VM just got the 3; and it's not like Samsung doesn't want to sell this thing, if the latest figures from El Reg are true. And it's not like VM is subsidizing these phones...because you pay for the phone in its entirety.
Hey, hey, you, get back in line. We need you to express jealousy of another's wages as some form of moral righteousness, not try to reason why one person might be paid more than another. ;-)
You're arguing about how people value each other's work, and that's an entirely subjective phenomenon. And let's be honest, programmers are getting paid poorly these days, with other fields (doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.) coming under the knife. They want the doctors to be replaced with nurses to cut costs...and the lawyers? Maybe some clerks or paralegals will do them in. Oh, but engineers? Well, it's hard to replace an engineer...so they're just outright attacking their wages / salaries. I tell you, gaze upon what has happened to programmers, and you will see what is coming down the pike for the others...
Nonsense. The public will loot the public treasury...after all, it is a form of the commons!
And in general, no one cares about the commons, until they are gone.
Actually, he is right. I've read similar stuff to what he's referencing, as well as the hatchet job that the Ford family apparently engaged in, at a later time, because they felt their ancestor's image didn't jive with the philanthropist views that they, now sitting on a massive pile of wealth, wished to convey. Apparently, if the research is correct, the Ford family paid off some historians, or something akin to them, to rearrange things...and the rest is now a part of common lore.
And yes, high turnover was the reason given that Ford raised the wages of his workers -> it cost a month of profits to train a worker, they only stayed around for two months (something like that), his profits were as bad as his rivals. He gambled that if he increased their wages, the turnover would slow, and he could realize a better profit...which turned out to be true. Thus a new equilibrium was established...Ford would pay better wages than his rivals, his workers would linger in their employment with him, both them and him would realize better profits than trying to find someone who would work perpetually for less.
Unfortunately, this little gem has been lost to time...not many business schools, I imagine, teach this kind of history, or if they do, perhaps they are not reaching their students. I say this because it does appear that we are engaging in a bit of repeat history...businesses have, for the last decade or so, in my observation, tempted to find that fabled worker who works essentially for nothing and doesn't quit...despite history warning them of the price they'd pay for engaging in such things. As such, those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it, and it's hard to learn what has been covered up in shame...so we will relearn Ford's lesson about wages, it seems.