Consider everything you've ever heard about the two best bases in the world. That's true about who you work for as well.
I did 4.5 yrs active and another 3 with the guard. I've worked in the private sector and for state and local government. Here's how I see it:
When I was "in" there was one thing I knew for certain, the USAF was the most disorganized Mickey Mouse operation in the world. Not a doubt in my mind. It's amazing how I knew everything when I was between 19 and 24.
After working for all these other places and governments I am now certain that the USAF is one of the most organized teams anywhere in the world. They have a plan, they train for the plan and they execute the plan. Nobody anywhere else does it as well as they do.
If you want organization and logic, it doesn't get any better.
This is no different than how Motorola conducts their business with LMR. Because of their "no can do" attitude (or "our way or no way") they have been losing a lot of public safety business.
I recently built a new 911 PSAP and dispatch facility and there isn't much Motorola product in there. It's not because of the quality of equipment, it's great stuff. But if you want to do anything at all with it that would be "custom", they won't support you one bit.
IMHO Motorola makes great stuff, they just need to learn to support their product with a "can do" attitude and try a little harder to make us WANT to buy it. (As opposed to trying to make you think that the choices are limited).
I think the first thing you need to do is take a step back and get a different view on things. Drop the trained computer monkey mindset and quit the geekspeek.
"Management" is exactly right that computers are a tool. Their company has a mission, it does a certain thing in order to produce profit for the shareholders (or whatever). Their computers and networks are a means to that end. You are a tools tool, it's your job to keep thier tools sharp and functioning.
Quit looking at your goals or the goals of the "IS" department. Instead try looking at the goals of the company and the goals of the individual departments. Then ask yourself what tools you can provide that will help them accomplish their goals. Also ask what you can do to improve their existing tools that might make it easier for them to accomplish their goals.
Remember why you and your IS department exist. You are a service, you are there to help them, not the other way around.
"Never really trolled before, but hell, might as well give it a try."
Welcome to Slashdot.
Now that you've started you'll find that it comes quite naturally. In fact, there will be times in which you are serious and don't believe you're trolling yet someone else will recognize it and flag as such.
Again, welcome to Slashdot.
(The second welcome, something we call a dup, is something of a tradition around here.)
Maybe they sould their souls but they don't have to sell out. I remember some joke from the grunge era in which a band refused to play the accoustic version of the electric version of a song they refused to even write in the first place. All joking aside, it can be like that. If they don't want their work associated with something as crappy as this then all they have to do is put their collective feet down and refuse. They might lose their jobs but they won't go to prison and they would send a strong message that would be heard as loud as their music would have.
If there were any justice in the world, the next step would be an artists revolt.
If I were one of the artists involved my lawyer would argue something along these lines: Obviously all this negative press will result in fewer of my art being sold. Some number of my fans (regular customers) will no longer trust my work because of this and refrain from future purchases. This is, of course, the fault of Sony. Therefore Sony should pay me the difference. In addition, Sony will immediately consider any contract with me to be null and void because I can no longer count on them to represent me and my work in a respectful manner.
But I'm betting that the artists themselves don't give a wet slap about this either way.
So I got to looking at those photos and that got me thinking. Yeah I know, I know. But it was too late.
My mind got to drifting and I figured that if I wanted to make an attack on US business interests, Sony might be a good contact to have. Notice how little was affected in Europe or Asia? Hmmmmm.
The is going to kill us all and it's all our fault!
It doesn't matter if it's nukes or global warming or grilled cheese sandwiches, the nature of the human animal is that we all believe that we're all going to die. We really are simple critters who follow simple rules:
1) Each of us may disagree on different things but we are in universal agreement that we're all going to die. 2) Whatever it is that is going to kill us can not likely be avoided. 3) We must believe that whatever is going to kill us must be our fault. If it's not our fault then it must be something we deserve as punishment from some higher power.
I like your idea of nuclear war because in your idea we have brought it on ourselves and we deserve it for being so naughty. We likely won't overcome it because we just can't quit being so naughty. It's a very "glass half empty" idea but it's bold and brash in that it doesn't hide the fact that the glass is half empty. Your idea pretty much says up front that we aren't deserving of a glass half full. We get the half empty one. Rightfully so because we created the half empty glass and we are about to use it to kill ourselves, the whole stinking race and every other living creature along with us. Your idea shows that we have big ego, we have to power to kill us all. At the same time your idea shows that we are humble and recognize that we are not worthy of such power. Because we would abuse such power and kill us all we must kill us all so that we no longer have the power.
Best yet is the way you worked in G. W. Bush. We're going to kill us all and yet.....yet.....it will be his fault. Just like taxes, war, WMD and the Kurds. If only we had had a kind hearted liberal president, then maybe we could have wielded the power in such a way that.....no, we're all going to die. It's hopeless and it's all Bush's fault.
You're right, we're no safer off today than we were 30 years ago. Now we're all going to die and it will be more than just nuclear weapons and nuclear power. It will be the terrorists, global warming, overuse of anti-biotics, asteroids, terrorists, Microsoft Windows, cold fusion, hip hop, boiled peanuts and the aliens at area 51.25. We're much worse off now and anyone who might have doubted it before will have to admit at this point that.....
When I was a kid the world was going to be destroyed by nukes. Either WWIII would happen and MAD would do us all in or a nuclear reactor would go out of control somewhere and destroy everything. Pay attention kids, that's really the way it was for us. They taught it to us in school, it was the theme of many of our Saturday morning cartoons, it was in every magazine and book and all over the TV.
That myth was slowly shattered over time. The Soviets had a couple of nuke reactor problems and so did we. Life went on. Then the USSR fell and the idea of MAD went away with it. Suddenly nukes didn't seem so frightening. People started to wake up to the fact that life was even going on in the cities that the US had nuked in WWII.
So what do we do without the threat of nukes? Without the fear of nuclear death we would have to accept the fact that the fate of every living thing might be in the hands of a higher power or, worse yet, not in the hands of anyone at all. As humans we can not accept that. Something or someone must be in control and we like it best if we can imagine it to be us as we had imagined it with nukes.
So now there is some data that can be stretched to imagine that the climate of our planet will kill us all. That's even bigger and more scary than nukes. Children can be taught to fear that with ease. Better yet, our ego will allow us to believe that we can control it, that we caused it. And most of us can accept as fact that although we caused it there is nothing we can do to correct it.
I haven't had an "office" of my own for a few years. I express the need every so often and I'm actually getting space for one now. But that didn't come about for any reason other than my boss getting tired of hearing about it.
All of the documentation for our dispatch center has been stored in a bookshelf within dispatch. That's a controlled area but the dispatchers can all view it. As I predicted, one of the dispatchers did dig through it and made copies of certain documents. She then supplied those documents to one of the deputies who is now using that information as part of a suit against the county (long story, he thinks we intentionally have bad radio coverage).
Management didn't give a shit about that. The insurance folks shook thier heads in disgust but then they've seen it all with our county so nothing shocks them anymore. When that documentation made it to the internet it still didn't phase anyone.
Privacy? You want privacy? Around here they either think you're being a prima donna or you're up to something. There can't actually be a need for privacy.
I missed the part in TFA's where it explained the link between the (soon to be former) NASA engineers and digital television. Could someone fill me in?
As I RTFA, I noticed that the finger was pointed at SAP, not Linux or RedHat. They were careful to point out that Linux works fine for them when they are allowed to apply automatic patches. They then point out that SAP forbids this.
Now it seems obvious to me that they've got something configured wrong somewhere and that it's one little stupid setting somewhere. Someone fat fingered something. It happens and it's always a little thing like that what gets ya. That's exactly the kind of mistake that happens when you get into those situations where you manually have to configure lots and lots of stuff.
So, in the end, what they really chose here wasn't an operating system, it was an automatic update system. SAP didn't allow automatic updates in Linux and that was likely the cause of their problems. OTOH, SAP did allow for automatic updates in Windows so there was less room for error (fewer fingers involved).
That's my take on it. And from my point of view, the way this story was posted on Slashdot, the whole thing is one big troll.
Or simply pay the whatever extortion they are trying to extract and fade into the background. If you do they will likely leave you alone. If you put up a struggle at all then they will consider you a player and come back for more.
It has far less to do with that and far more to do with the fact that the court (judge, officer, entire system) was embarassed. Rather than make a stink over one case they let this guy off and slammed the next 10 innocent suckers.
The reason I say this is that I have seen it in action. I've seen people (myself included) go to court and prove that police radar defied the laws of physics. I've seen people (myself included) bring in multiple eyewitnesses. I've seen officers swear in court that they can visually clock the speed of a vehicle +/- 2 mph! Puhleeze. And still they take the suckers money because the word of the officer, no matter how far fetched, is superior to yours.
The officer could make a statement like "An alien spacecraft was pulling his car at warp 5 through a 35 mph zone" and you're gonna lose sucker.
The cops know this. I work with them and I'm telling you first hand that they know they're better in you than court. They don't bother to properly document squat. They lie. They cheat. And they really don't care because they have the confidence that every time they are going to come out ahead. They win, you lose.
And in the rare case that you do win, it costs them nothing. Zero, zip, nada. Go ahead and prove they lied under oath. Maybe you'll get lucky and walk out with a "win". You know what happens to the cop? Not a damn thing. So they'll go back to business as usual.
Oh and about going to court vs. pleading: You're doing the cop a favor if you go to court. It's paid overtime for them. And while they're in court, that's easy duty. So the more tickets they write, the better their chances of being called to court. The more they go to court, the bigger the paycheck. Maybe they lie a little (lot) to improve the odds (and, therefore, the size of the paycheck) but there's no risk because if they get caught with a lie...they won't see even a reprimand from their supervisor.
You guys are writing this off a little too quickly IMHO. I never thought about this before but I just looked across the spectrum at my Gateway 600 and....wow! It's no 40 Watt transmitter but it's sure putting out far more that I would have imagined.
I also looked at my cell phone and my Uniden cordless phone, they don't compare. Those devices are pretty focused whereas the Gateway notebook is putting out lots more energy and across more of the spectrum. This thing is like a shotgun.
So many versions of free. But when you're dealing with people in the software business it seems that what's free for one must be the only form of free. What works for me is the only form of free, anything else is evil.
When are you people going to learn that ones size doesn't fit all. Some restrictions do apply and some assembly may, or may not be required. Offer might expire. Act now!
Excellent point. But now that he's already purchased the cart and put it ahead of the horse.....
The first thing to get out of your mind is that washing dishes is a bad thing. Someone has to do it, everyone should have a turn. Yes, someday you might be CEO but you'll be able to make a better impact in that job if you've learned the system from the ground up. So put a week or two in doing dishes or scrubbing toilets. You don't have to master the craft but you can at least learn how and why those things are done. Maybe you can use some of your edumacation to develop a better method for doing them.
You're asking what kind of job to take but you really need to understand what a privlige and luxury that option is. Put in some time doing the kinds of jobs most of us have no choice but to do....then you'll appreciate things so much more.
Slashdot Mirror
Consider everything you've ever heard about the two best bases in the world. That's true about who you work for as well.
I did 4.5 yrs active and another 3 with the guard. I've worked in the private sector and for state and local government. Here's how I see it:
When I was "in" there was one thing I knew for certain, the USAF was the most disorganized Mickey Mouse operation in the world. Not a doubt in my mind. It's amazing how I knew everything when I was between 19 and 24.
After working for all these other places and governments I am now certain that the USAF is one of the most organized teams anywhere in the world. They have a plan, they train for the plan and they execute the plan. Nobody anywhere else does it as well as they do.
If you want organization and logic, it doesn't get any better.
No, I'm not joking.
WTF?!?!?!
And what's this about ponys?
But that's California. You've completely missed the point.
It's all about Theo. It's always been about Theo. It always will be about Theo.
When people start paying attention to Theo and start sending cash his way.....well, I'm not sure what then. But it will be a start.
This is no different than how Motorola conducts their business with LMR. Because of their "no can do" attitude (or "our way or no way") they have been losing a lot of public safety business.
I recently built a new 911 PSAP and dispatch facility and there isn't much Motorola product in there. It's not because of the quality of equipment, it's great stuff. But if you want to do anything at all with it that would be "custom", they won't support you one bit.
IMHO Motorola makes great stuff, they just need to learn to support their product with a "can do" attitude and try a little harder to make us WANT to buy it. (As opposed to trying to make you think that the choices are limited).
I think the first thing you need to do is take a step back and get a different view on things. Drop the trained computer monkey mindset and quit the geekspeek.
"Management" is exactly right that computers are a tool. Their company has a mission, it does a certain thing in order to produce profit for the shareholders (or whatever). Their computers and networks are a means to that end. You are a tools tool, it's your job to keep thier tools sharp and functioning.
Quit looking at your goals or the goals of the "IS" department. Instead try looking at the goals of the company and the goals of the individual departments. Then ask yourself what tools you can provide that will help them accomplish their goals. Also ask what you can do to improve their existing tools that might make it easier for them to accomplish their goals.
Remember why you and your IS department exist. You are a service, you are there to help them, not the other way around.
"Never really trolled before, but hell, might as well give it a try."
Welcome to Slashdot.
Now that you've started you'll find that it comes quite naturally. In fact, there will be times in which you are serious and don't believe you're trolling yet someone else will recognize it and flag as such.
Again, welcome to Slashdot.
(The second welcome, something we call a dup, is something of a tradition around here.)
.
We're all gonna die!!!
.
Maybe they sould their souls but they don't have to sell out. I remember some joke from the grunge era in which a band refused to play the accoustic version of the electric version of a song they refused to even write in the first place. All joking aside, it can be like that. If they don't want their work associated with something as crappy as this then all they have to do is put their collective feet down and refuse. They might lose their jobs but they won't go to prison and they would send a strong message that would be heard as loud as their music would have.
If there were any justice in the world, the next step would be an artists revolt.
If I were one of the artists involved my lawyer would argue something along these lines: Obviously all this negative press will result in fewer of my art being sold. Some number of my fans (regular customers) will no longer trust my work because of this and refrain from future purchases. This is, of course, the fault of Sony. Therefore Sony should pay me the difference. In addition, Sony will immediately consider any contract with me to be null and void because I can no longer count on them to represent me and my work in a respectful manner.
But I'm betting that the artists themselves don't give a wet slap about this either way.
So I got to looking at those photos and that got me thinking. Yeah I know, I know. But it was too late.
My mind got to drifting and I figured that if I wanted to make an attack on US business interests, Sony might be a good contact to have. Notice how little was affected in Europe or Asia? Hmmmmm.
See! You are one of the few who "gets it".
We're all gonna die. All of us. The whole race.
The is going to kill us all and it's all our fault!
It doesn't matter if it's nukes or global warming or grilled cheese sandwiches, the nature of the human animal is that we all believe that we're all going to die. We really are simple critters who follow simple rules:
1) Each of us may disagree on different things but we are in universal agreement that we're all going to die.
2) Whatever it is that is going to kill us can not likely be avoided.
3) We must believe that whatever is going to kill us must be our fault. If it's not our fault then it must be something we deserve as punishment from some higher power.
I like your idea of nuclear war because in your idea we have brought it on ourselves and we deserve it for being so naughty. We likely won't overcome it because we just can't quit being so naughty. It's a very "glass half empty" idea but it's bold and brash in that it doesn't hide the fact that the glass is half empty. Your idea pretty much says up front that we aren't deserving of a glass half full. We get the half empty one. Rightfully so because we created the half empty glass and we are about to use it to kill ourselves, the whole stinking race and every other living creature along with us. Your idea shows that we have big ego, we have to power to kill us all. At the same time your idea shows that we are humble and recognize that we are not worthy of such power. Because we would abuse such power and kill us all we must kill us all so that we no longer have the power.
Best yet is the way you worked in G. W. Bush. We're going to kill us all and yet.....yet.....it will be his fault. Just like taxes, war, WMD and the Kurds. If only we had had a kind hearted liberal president, then maybe we could have wielded the power in such a way that.....no, we're all going to die. It's hopeless and it's all Bush's fault.
You're right, we're no safer off today than we were 30 years ago. Now we're all going to die and it will be more than just nuclear weapons and nuclear power. It will be the terrorists, global warming, overuse of anti-biotics, asteroids, terrorists, Microsoft Windows, cold fusion, hip hop, boiled peanuts and the aliens at area 51.25. We're much worse off now and anyone who might have doubted it before will have to admit at this point that.....
We're all going to die.
We're all gonna die!
When I was a kid the world was going to be destroyed by nukes. Either WWIII would happen and MAD would do us all in or a nuclear reactor would go out of control somewhere and destroy everything. Pay attention kids, that's really the way it was for us. They taught it to us in school, it was the theme of many of our Saturday morning cartoons, it was in every magazine and book and all over the TV.
That myth was slowly shattered over time. The Soviets had a couple of nuke reactor problems and so did we. Life went on. Then the USSR fell and the idea of MAD went away with it. Suddenly nukes didn't seem so frightening. People started to wake up to the fact that life was even going on in the cities that the US had nuked in WWII.
So what do we do without the threat of nukes? Without the fear of nuclear death we would have to accept the fact that the fate of every living thing might be in the hands of a higher power or, worse yet, not in the hands of anyone at all. As humans we can not accept that. Something or someone must be in control and we like it best if we can imagine it to be us as we had imagined it with nukes.
So now there is some data that can be stretched to imagine that the climate of our planet will kill us all. That's even bigger and more scary than nukes. Children can be taught to fear that with ease. Better yet, our ego will allow us to believe that we can control it, that we caused it. And most of us can accept as fact that although we caused it there is nothing we can do to correct it.
Yes, we're all going to die.
I haven't had an "office" of my own for a few years. I express the need every so often and I'm actually getting space for one now. But that didn't come about for any reason other than my boss getting tired of hearing about it.
All of the documentation for our dispatch center has been stored in a bookshelf within dispatch. That's a controlled area but the dispatchers can all view it. As I predicted, one of the dispatchers did dig through it and made copies of certain documents. She then supplied those documents to one of the deputies who is now using that information as part of a suit against the county (long story, he thinks we intentionally have bad radio coverage).
Management didn't give a shit about that. The insurance folks shook thier heads in disgust but then they've seen it all with our county so nothing shocks them anymore. When that documentation made it to the internet it still didn't phase anyone.
Privacy? You want privacy? Around here they either think you're being a prima donna or you're up to something. There can't actually be a need for privacy.
I missed the part in TFA's where it explained the link between the (soon to be former) NASA engineers and digital television. Could someone fill me in?
Well it worked well for the USSR. Their govt is totally irrelevant now.
As I RTFA, I noticed that the finger was pointed at SAP, not Linux or RedHat. They were careful to point out that Linux works fine for them when they are allowed to apply automatic patches. They then point out that SAP forbids this.
Now it seems obvious to me that they've got something configured wrong somewhere and that it's one little stupid setting somewhere. Someone fat fingered something. It happens and it's always a little thing like that what gets ya. That's exactly the kind of mistake that happens when you get into those situations where you manually have to configure lots and lots of stuff.
So, in the end, what they really chose here wasn't an operating system, it was an automatic update system. SAP didn't allow automatic updates in Linux and that was likely the cause of their problems. OTOH, SAP did allow for automatic updates in Windows so there was less room for error (fewer fingers involved).
That's my take on it. And from my point of view, the way this story was posted on Slashdot, the whole thing is one big troll.
Or simply pay the whatever extortion they are trying to extract and fade into the background. If you do they will likely leave you alone. If you put up a struggle at all then they will consider you a player and come back for more.
"...it showed that his story was plausible..."
It has far less to do with that and far more to do with the fact that the court (judge, officer, entire system) was embarassed. Rather than make a stink over one case they let this guy off and slammed the next 10 innocent suckers.
The reason I say this is that I have seen it in action. I've seen people (myself included) go to court and prove that police radar defied the laws of physics. I've seen people (myself included) bring in multiple eyewitnesses. I've seen officers swear in court that they can visually clock the speed of a vehicle +/- 2 mph! Puhleeze. And still they take the suckers money because the word of the officer, no matter how far fetched, is superior to yours.
The officer could make a statement like "An alien spacecraft was pulling his car at warp 5 through a 35 mph zone" and you're gonna lose sucker.
The cops know this. I work with them and I'm telling you first hand that they know they're better in you than court. They don't bother to properly document squat. They lie. They cheat. And they really don't care because they have the confidence that every time they are going to come out ahead. They win, you lose.
And in the rare case that you do win, it costs them nothing. Zero, zip, nada. Go ahead and prove they lied under oath. Maybe you'll get lucky and walk out with a "win". You know what happens to the cop? Not a damn thing. So they'll go back to business as usual.
Oh and about going to court vs. pleading: You're doing the cop a favor if you go to court. It's paid overtime for them. And while they're in court, that's easy duty. So the more tickets they write, the better their chances of being called to court. The more they go to court, the bigger the paycheck. Maybe they lie a little (lot) to improve the odds (and, therefore, the size of the paycheck) but there's no risk because if they get caught with a lie...they won't see even a reprimand from their supervisor.
It's a rigged game. You can't win. Avoid playing.
You guys are writing this off a little too quickly IMHO. I never thought about this before but I just looked across the spectrum at my Gateway 600 and....wow! It's no 40 Watt transmitter but it's sure putting out far more that I would have imagined.
I also looked at my cell phone and my Uniden cordless phone, they don't compare. Those devices are pretty focused whereas the Gateway notebook is putting out lots more energy and across more of the spectrum. This thing is like a shotgun.
There's free as in beer.
There's free as in speech.
There's free with a two year annual contract.
There's buy one, get one free.
There's free if you contribute a small donation.
So many versions of free. But when you're dealing with people in the software business it seems that what's free for one must be the only form of free. What works for me is the only form of free, anything else is evil.
When are you people going to learn that ones size doesn't fit all. Some restrictions do apply and some assembly may, or may not be required. Offer might expire. Act now!
Please see my other posts in this thread?
Please see my other posts in this thread!
Please see my other posts in this thread.
Excellent point. But now that he's already purchased the cart and put it ahead of the horse.....
The first thing to get out of your mind is that washing dishes is a bad thing. Someone has to do it, everyone should have a turn. Yes, someday you might be CEO but you'll be able to make a better impact in that job if you've learned the system from the ground up. So put a week or two in doing dishes or scrubbing toilets. You don't have to master the craft but you can at least learn how and why those things are done. Maybe you can use some of your edumacation to develop a better method for doing them.
You're asking what kind of job to take but you really need to understand what a privlige and luxury that option is. Put in some time doing the kinds of jobs most of us have no choice but to do....then you'll appreciate things so much more.
SCO still has a Unix product?