On the subject of questions, most managers don't know what to ask. Ask everything: kernels, what they are, what syscalls are, how they start, what drivers are; processes, what they consist of, how shared libs work, how init works; memory, swapping versus paging; filesystems, what inodes are, what backup superblocks are for, what double- and triple-indirect blocks do; networking, ARP, TCP vs UDP, hubs vs switches, routing, subnets, firewalls, NFS, stale file handles... the list goes on, but the point is "find out what they know".
As others have mentioned, find out how they deal with stuff they don't know - give them some troubleshooting scenarios to learn how they approach problems.
SAs are an integral part of your business; it's important to be sure of what you're getting. Don't be afraid to grill them hard.
Windows already does this, but incorporates a
unique randomness factor: you might lose your
file, you might not. The function includes a
plug-in feature, allowing third-parties to write
scripts, or "viruses", that can also delete files,
randomly or not.
Erm, I haven't read the book, but seems to me
that it's still in the category of wishful thinking. I don't like MS, either, but they're still the de facto standard, they're still worth
a kajillion dollars, they have no debt, they're
a great investment... unless the gov't fines
them $100 billion dollars, a loss in the Appeals
process will probably result in lots of press
but no real changes. Convince me I'm wrong.
Erm, why is this "unexpected"? The Internet is big business, and larger companies can do it cheaper, just like they can do everything else cheaper. The majority of people want cheap. Until, of course, they have a problem, but then they've already paid for it...
Apparently, Americans cannot count. Floridian voters, in particular, cannot read,
cannot distinguish right from left, don't know what an arrow is, and can't count
to three.
You have the right to vote; you do not have the right to require the
system to hold your hand to make absolutely, positively sure your vote is counted.
For those who were confused by the ballot, they should have asked for help. For
those who "accidentally" voted for the wrong candidate, and for
those whose ballots were discarded, they should have paid more
attention to what they were doing. Obviously, they didn't care enough to make any
attempt to protect their own voting right. Except by bitching afterwards, of course.
Your vote is your responsibility, not the State's.
Speaking of the State, it looks like they can't count, either. One would expect a
recount to be pointless, since it should come up the same, modulo trivial
discrepancies. But that's not what's happening: Bush's lead of several thousand
has shrunk to several hundred, on a recount of the same ballots. This means
either the ballots have been tampered with, or that the accuracy of the count
cannot be guaranteed to less than a few thousand votes. One has to assume that
any tampering by one party will be cancelled out by the other party's tampering;
that's another issue entirely. What happens if Gore "wins" this recount? What
happens if they're within, say, fifty votes? What happened to that big lead for
Bush during the first count? How do we know the manual count will be more
"accurate" than the machine count? Which one is correct?
None of them are correct. If the count cannot be accurate to within a margin of
error less than the difference between two of the candidates, you cannot know
"the will of the people", all whining about procedure aside. And if that's true
in Florida, isn't it probably true everywhere else? Is the margin for error less
than two thousand? Why don't we recount every close State's numbers?
The current attempt to ennumerate pregnant and detached chads is the epitomy of
silliness. At the very least, I suppose, it throws into a glaring light the
need for a strict procedure to legally resolve such issues, and to clearly dictate
when a ballot gets thrown out for good.
This would be the only place "technology" (I'm coming to hate that word) would
help: a better user interface for voting, including feedback, and counting the
results. But using the 'net is a very bad idea; computers are just tools, not
Mankind's Savior. Tools can be misused, and the 'net can be misused very
easily. Just read bugtraq. With this much money and power at stake (you don't
think they're running to better humanity, do you?), technology should be applied
carefully to augment accuracy, not as a vague replacement.
I've always hated the Gartner Group. They just look at what's happening - from a non-techie point of view - and guess what's gonna happen. My six year old niece can do that, and would probably be right more often. It's like they just publish what they doodle on the train on their way to work that morning. I don't understand why they're held in such high regard.
Oh, godz, not again. Isn't anybody sick of this teen angst yet?
For many of the people writing in this book, high school was a time of trial.
Puberty is, always has been, and always will be a time of trial. For everyone. Just because you're a geek doesn't make you special, so quit with the martyr complex. As soon as you mature past that - assuming you do mature past it - you'll see that.
While we are attempting to create an accepting and tolerant society, what emerged last
May in the writings on Slashdot was a picture that was opposite of what society has tried to
paint. Instead of people being accepting of one another -- accepting of difference and of a
system that values the contributions of all people -- these writings reveal a system that
stigmatizes difference. Everyone is expected to be like the rest of their classmates, and
failure to conform to the norm is cause for being marked.
Um, hello? I've got news for you - very few people are actually interested in accepting and tolerating. I have no idea why, but it appears to be true. And a system that stigmatizes differences is the perfect tool to capitalize on that, which is why all news broadcasts are ratings-based now, and why people so readily believe whatever they see on TV. Think about that - which is the cause, and which the effect.
I wish that people
would get over their fear of young people today. They aren't any different from anyone
else-they just want someone to listen to them, someone to understand them, and most of
all, someone to be their friend. They-we-want what everyone wants: We want to be
accepted for who and what we are.
The same goes for older people - they want to be
accepted for who they are. But young people represent change, which means the destruction of what they know and what they do and how they do it.
All that being said, I still think all of this is dramatically overblown - puberty is about maturation. Grow a spine, and stand up for yourself. You won't always win, and you won't always avoid conflict, but at least you'll have self-respect. There will always be mean people and stupid people. Deal with it.
See the Crime Report on the FBI's web site: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr.htm
Serious crime decreases about 6-10% a year, and has been generally going down for the last thirty years (or some such).
Since all news broadcasts are now dependent on ratings, they all tend towards sensationalism. So we get the Columbine frenzy, and the subsequent hue and cry for gun control, when, in fact, gun control is working fine, murders are down, school shootings are down, etc.
They're just more widely broadcast, as shows try to promote themselves.
Hey, that leads to a good question for the candidates: would they support an easily-accessible, web-viewable archive for such socio-political statistics - crime, budgets, voting records, etc.?
With the fall of the Soviet Union, America is the sole superpower. The ensuing destabilization across the rest of the world's nations (not to mention our own military) is a cause for great concern: old rivalries flare up, no longer suppressed by the Big Two, and nobody in this country remembers why they're fighting; the U.S. stops supplying arms and monies to formerly "strategic" allies, and we don't understand why they dislike us; emerging democracies struggle to become viable and expunge the incumbent politicians. Peace has its own consequences; oil, despite the recent price hikes, is likely to continue dropping in price for the next several decades, further pressuring
OPEC and other oil-producing countries. Those who were displaced fight to reclaim "their" soil.
In light of these complex and delicate problems, I ask you:
Carnivore is used in sensitive criminal and foreign intelligence investigations. The need for confidentiality in such investigations long has been recognized by the Congress and Supreme Court of the United States. It is not unreasonable for the Justice Department to assure that the details of confidential criminal investigations or of foreign intelligence methods and procedures will not disclosed to the public.
He misses the point - that's not what we're worried about.
Having commissioned such a review, the interests of the Justice Department would not be served by censoring the review or otherwise acting so as to compromise its integrity and credibility. [...]It is counterintuitive to suppose that the review team would sacrifice these interests by undertaking a "whitewash."
Um, hello? This is done all the time in the courts, by "experts". Obviously the DOJ has something to gain: power. And I'm sure they could offer something to the review team to persuade them. No, I don't think this'll happen, but simply saying "it's not in our interest" doesn't convince me.
A number of members of the review team are quite familiar with sniffing technology. Sniffers are routinely used as network management tools.
Yeah, well, ping is routinely used, but that doesn't mean the users are familiar with ICMP "technology". I know plenty of people that use snoop on Solaris who don't understand protocol analysis. I don't consider this answer sufficient.
His answers appear a bit vague and "don't-worry"-ish, but maybe he didn't expect them to be examined so thoroughly, or maybe he had a bad day. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I'm still not completely conviced.
I'm looking for "good" information sources. So far I've found Foreign Affairs, a bi-monthly periodical that covers in great depth and (apparently correct) detail major world issues. Eg: the "oil crisis" doesn't exist - we're looking at an oil glut for at least the next 30 years. Natural gas is the fuel that will be getting more expensive, due to restrictions still in place from the early 70s.
But is this right? I don't know. I try to find
"authoritative sources"...
BTW, also see the FBI's Crime Reports, from their home page (http://www.fbi.gov) to "verify" that violent crime keeps going down.
Now I also need to know if there really are less trees than there were in 1492. Anyone?
"They argue that their case was 'so technical and esoteric' that Judge Jackson couldn't understand"... that they "did nothing illegal"? Pardon me, but does anybody in The Real World see that MS is just a bunch of whiners? I mean, really, I know the rule about "deny, deny, deny", but I think there's a corollary that states "try not to sound like an eighth grader while doing it".
Personally, I'm appalled at the thought of setting up "special courts" for anything. I'm also appalled at the thought that this might be a direct result of the govt's challenge of MS. I literally would not expect the citizenry to be able to tell the difference between the Tech Court and MS Justice 1.0, and I shudder to think of what precedents might be set by such a court. Come on, think, people; why do you think the courts are set up the way they are? Yes, there needs to be a solution to the problem of judges and lawyers who do not understand high-tech, but this ain't it.
Flying cars == airplanes, including small two-seaters. Many diseases and cancers have been eliminated or cured. The Cold War is over, and while regional conflicts persist, most of the world is at peace. By your logic, these things are bad.
People don't fear change; they fear the unknown. Usually they are the same thing. But if computers did things so naturally that they qualified as intuitive, you don't think that would sell? You don't even think it's worth trying? Then I leave you to direct manipulation hell.
Newsflash: it's a kid's movie, not an adult action-adventure series. If you didn't like PM, the 2nd one isn't gonna magically catapult you back to 1978, either. Quit with the nostalgia-envy and wait for Matrix 2.
An old virus has been detected coming out of remission. This virus can have several random subject lines, but they all contain the string "Amiga". It's payload is not dangerous, simply time-consuming - it causes the recipient to post nostalgic or disgusted messages to message boards. The fix, as demonstrated by Open Source advocates, is simply to roll one's eyes and move on.
Slashdot Mirror
Markets don't serve "creative vision", markets serve customers. What you want is irrelevant. Sorry.
As others have mentioned, find out how they deal with stuff they don't know - give them some troubleshooting scenarios to learn how they approach problems.
SAs are an integral part of your business; it's important to be sure of what you're getting. Don't be afraid to grill them hard.
Windows already does this, but incorporates a unique randomness factor: you might lose your file, you might not. The function includes a plug-in feature, allowing third-parties to write scripts, or "viruses", that can also delete files, randomly or not.
--
Well, it certainly speeds up the renderer if you just assign half the screen pixels to black ;-)
--
I see the formation of Gibson-esque private, encrypted virtual networks reeeeal soon now ...
--
Erm, I haven't read the book, but seems to me that it's still in the category of wishful thinking. I don't like MS, either, but they're still the de facto standard, they're still worth a kajillion dollars, they have no debt, they're a great investment ... unless the gov't fines
them $100 billion dollars, a loss in the Appeals
process will probably result in lots of press
but no real changes. Convince me I'm wrong.
--
Erm, why is this "unexpected"? The Internet is big business, and larger companies can do it cheaper, just like they can do everything else cheaper. The majority of people want cheap. Until, of course, they have a problem, but then they've already paid for it ...
--
Although the purchase price of the beer might not qualify as "zero-sum" ... ;-)
--
You have the right to vote; you do not have the right to require the system to hold your hand to make absolutely, positively sure your vote is counted. For those who were confused by the ballot, they should have asked for help. For those who "accidentally" voted for the wrong candidate, and for those whose ballots were discarded, they should have paid more attention to what they were doing. Obviously, they didn't care enough to make any attempt to protect their own voting right. Except by bitching afterwards, of course. Your vote is your responsibility, not the State's.
Speaking of the State, it looks like they can't count, either. One would expect a recount to be pointless, since it should come up the same, modulo trivial discrepancies. But that's not what's happening: Bush's lead of several thousand has shrunk to several hundred, on a recount of the same ballots. This means either the ballots have been tampered with, or that the accuracy of the count cannot be guaranteed to less than a few thousand votes. One has to assume that any tampering by one party will be cancelled out by the other party's tampering; that's another issue entirely. What happens if Gore "wins" this recount? What happens if they're within, say, fifty votes? What happened to that big lead for Bush during the first count? How do we know the manual count will be more "accurate" than the machine count? Which one is correct?
None of them are correct. If the count cannot be accurate to within a margin of error less than the difference between two of the candidates, you cannot know "the will of the people", all whining about procedure aside. And if that's true in Florida, isn't it probably true everywhere else? Is the margin for error less than two thousand? Why don't we recount every close State's numbers?
The current attempt to ennumerate pregnant and detached chads is the epitomy of silliness. At the very least, I suppose, it throws into a glaring light the need for a strict procedure to legally resolve such issues, and to clearly dictate when a ballot gets thrown out for good.
This would be the only place "technology" (I'm coming to hate that word) would help: a better user interface for voting, including feedback, and counting the results. But using the 'net is a very bad idea; computers are just tools, not Mankind's Savior. Tools can be misused, and the 'net can be misused very easily. Just read bugtraq. With this much money and power at stake (you don't think they're running to better humanity, do you?), technology should be applied carefully to augment accuracy, not as a vague replacement.
--
I've always hated the Gartner Group. They just look at what's happening - from a non-techie point of view - and guess what's gonna happen. My six year old niece can do that, and would probably be right more often. It's like they just publish what they doodle on the train on their way to work that morning. I don't understand why they're held in such high regard.
--
For many of the people writing in this book, high school was a time of trial.
Puberty is, always has been, and always will be a time of trial. For everyone. Just because you're a geek doesn't make you special, so quit with the martyr complex. As soon as you mature past that - assuming you do mature past it - you'll see that.
While we are attempting to create an accepting and tolerant society, what emerged last May in the writings on Slashdot was a picture that was opposite of what society has tried to paint. Instead of people being accepting of one another -- accepting of difference and of a system that values the contributions of all people -- these writings reveal a system that stigmatizes difference. Everyone is expected to be like the rest of their classmates, and failure to conform to the norm is cause for being marked.
Um, hello? I've got news for you - very few people are actually interested in accepting and tolerating. I have no idea why, but it appears to be true. And a system that stigmatizes differences is the perfect tool to capitalize on that, which is why all news broadcasts are ratings-based now, and why people so readily believe whatever they see on TV. Think about that - which is the cause, and which the effect.
I wish that people would get over their fear of young people today. They aren't any different from anyone else-they just want someone to listen to them, someone to understand them, and most of all, someone to be their friend. They-we-want what everyone wants: We want to be accepted for who and what we are.
The same goes for older people - they want to be accepted for who they are. But young people represent change, which means the destruction of what they know and what they do and how they do it.
All that being said, I still think all of this is dramatically overblown - puberty is about maturation. Grow a spine, and stand up for yourself. You won't always win, and you won't always avoid conflict, but at least you'll have self-respect. There will always be mean people and stupid people. Deal with it.
--
Do I get extra credit?
--
sync
--
Serious crime decreases about 6-10% a year, and has been generally going down for the last thirty years (or some such).
Since all news broadcasts are now dependent on ratings, they all tend towards sensationalism. So we get the Columbine frenzy, and the subsequent hue and cry for gun control, when, in fact, gun control is working fine, murders are down, school shootings are down, etc.
They're just more widely broadcast, as shows try to promote themselves.
Hey, that leads to a good question for the candidates: would they support an easily-accessible, web-viewable archive for such socio-political statistics - crime, budgets, voting records, etc.?
--
In light of these complex and delicate problems, I ask you:
How do you define America's National Interest?
--
He misses the point - that's not what we're worried about.
Having commissioned such a review, the interests of the Justice Department would not be served by censoring the review or otherwise acting so as to compromise its integrity and credibility. [...]It is counterintuitive to suppose that the review team would sacrifice these interests by undertaking a "whitewash."
Um, hello? This is done all the time in the courts, by "experts". Obviously the DOJ has something to gain: power. And I'm sure they could offer something to the review team to persuade them. No, I don't think this'll happen, but simply saying "it's not in our interest" doesn't convince me.
A number of members of the review team are quite familiar with sniffing technology. Sniffers are routinely used as network management tools.
Yeah, well, ping is routinely used, but that doesn't mean the users are familiar with ICMP "technology". I know plenty of people that use snoop on Solaris who don't understand protocol analysis. I don't consider this answer sufficient.
His answers appear a bit vague and "don't-worry"-ish, but maybe he didn't expect them to be examined so thoroughly, or maybe he had a bad day. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I'm still not completely conviced.
--
But is this right? I don't know. I try to find "authoritative sources" ...
BTW, also see the FBI's Crime Reports, from their home page (http://www.fbi.gov) to "verify" that violent crime keeps going down.
Now I also need to know if there really are less trees than there were in 1492. Anyone?
--
Personally, I'm appalled at the thought of setting up "special courts" for anything. I'm also appalled at the thought that this might be a direct result of the govt's challenge of MS. I literally would not expect the citizenry to be able to tell the difference between the Tech Court and MS Justice 1.0, and I shudder to think of what precedents might be set by such a court. Come on, think, people; why do you think the courts are set up the way they are? Yes, there needs to be a solution to the problem of judges and lawyers who do not understand high-tech, but this ain't it.
--
Thank you, Captain Obvious, for alerting me.
And when are they gonna increase bus speed? A 2GHz cpu is going to be spending all of its time idle on a a 100 or 133MHz bus ...
People don't fear change; they fear the unknown. Usually they are the same thing. But if computers did things so naturally that they qualified as intuitive, you don't think that would sell? You don't even think it's worth trying? Then I leave you to direct manipulation hell.