How is a USER supposed to track down a bug? They're users.
Sounds to me like the developers just didn't like dealing with bugs and wanted the users to do it all and present them with a gift-wrapped solution.
Bullshit.
Asking for the most basic of useful information, as in "steps to duplicate" is not "gift wrapping". Bugs that appear at the user's hands are, almost always, bugs that developers and alpha testers did not see. It is reasonable, then, to expect the user to do what they can to document the steps that gave rise to the unexpected behavior. It is absolutely not reasonable to expect the developers to cast about blindly, guessing at how the user might have behaved.
It's only "reasonable" from the developers' side. From the user's side, they'll just wonder why the software wasn't debugged before they got their hands on it in the first place. While those of us that have worked in development understand that you simply can't account for each and every fucked up thing a user might do, the USER doesn't understand why it can't work like their car, or stove, or anything else that will work for years before it starts failing. They see the software as a "finished product", and to them that means one that's not broken. When it crashes, they consider it "broken".
I agree that the world should be a different place, but that isn't going to make it so.
You're assuming that the user cares enough to bother learning anything at all. In my experience as a support guy, it seems that about 99% of the people know the steps to do their job, and they don't rightly care about the software beyond it working properly. They would rather find an alternate tool (esp for stubborn bugs/issues) and move on, rather than learning to debug something that someone else has written.
Don't get me wrong - I understand what you're saying, and in a perfect world where everyone was curious about "how things work" your suggestion would have a lot more merit, but where the world is at right now? No, you'll, just end up with 90% of your users wondering why their software wasn't written "correctly" to begin with.
Obviously the people that speak Chinese Mandarin shouldn't be expected to learn COBOL. My point is that the infrastructure is in place for them to take 5 new geeky recruits and train them in the language the same way that they would train the voice analysts. Hiring a contractor? Don't be retarded - train someone to do the important jobs that you need done. Plus, it's much much easier to keep a leash on the leaks (although you wouldn't know it in recent years) than when dealing with a civilian.
...the NSA and the military alike are full of codebreakers and analysts. 7 million lines of code should be nothing to people that translate Chinese Mandarin and pick out buzzwords.
I will say that I was pleased to discover that my old software (my very first program, written with one of my NCO's - and it's not clear from the comment, but that wasn't anywhere close to my job...it just happened for convenience) was still being used more than 10 years after the fact, although I do admit that I was a bit dismayed as well...in retrospect it wasn't all that impressive:p
*snort* you're hilarious, but for someone that doesn't have enormous hands, yes, the clutch is far easier than reaching across the left-hand turn signal (having to readjust my hand at the same time, which, if someone is swerving into my lane I wouldn't want to have to rely on). Did around 7000 miles up the coast a few years ago, and while you might be able to do that on a Huffy, I'm pretty sure if that had been the case I'd be in better shape.
Pipes are louder, and since my hand is already on the throttle (and not riding the horn) is much faster. You really should get your logic circuits checked, STRAIGHT AWAY.
But what about all those idiots making claims that "Loud pipes saves lives"?
Oh. You mean like when I was doing the speed limit on the highway in Vegas and the woman in the lane next to me decided she wanted to be where I was, and I pulled in my clutch so I could rev the engine and she heard it and looked and freaked the fuck out realizing that she could have hit me and it would have been her fault? Like that? Or do you mean a fabricated story?
From the summary, "They didn't seem to care that I had hacked our own government years ago or that I smoked pot". I call BS on any notion that the federal government intelligence agencies would hire anyone with a background rife with illegal activity. For every Kevin Mitnick, a convicted person now with a felony record, hired there are thousands of applicants rejected because of a small infraction or deviant behavior, including a preference not to socialize outside of the workplace.
I have a story to tell. (yes, it's relevant).
When I served in the Army I was stationed with an individual that was in the process of getting kicked out. He had been an E4 and had managed to hack into some of NSA's servers (the events took place both before I arrived, and before I knew a damn thing about computers, so I don't know the vector or what his actual abilities are). He created some bogus accounts and used those accounts to send overly critical emails to Generals, signed with a pseudonym, of course. Well, by the time I got there he had already been busted - and like Manning got busted down to an E1 before they kicked him out (dishonorable discharge, of course). Within a month of him getting kicked out NSA directly hired him, paying him far more than he could have ever been paid had he stayed in the service.
The Government ignores laws when it's convenient for them to do so, even when it comes to their own hiring policies.
I call BS on that guy. He claims there are 5000 people working there. At $100k/year salaries (and it's probably more), that puts this program up to at least $1 billion dollars per year for payroll and equipment. I would assume there is some accounting for that kind of spending.
LOL, if you're assuming that there's oversight in the government then you haven't been paying attention.
This is actually not a bad idea unless it's already been done...but I haven't really heard much from the "terrorist" side. I hear the talking points of the various governments, assumptions from regular folks, and some non-involved Muslims speculating (the way the rest of us are). Has anyone outside of Government circles engaged any of these people to pointedly ask them what in the hell it is that they want? That they hope to achieve? Or are we all just hearing propaganda and assuming that's all there is to it?
Keep in mind that I am in no way validating the aggressive and violent actions...but it occurs to me that most people don't just "snap" and start committing random violence...usually there's a buildup and some semblance of twisted logic that makes it seem reasonable to that person. That "logic" is what turns these people from monsters back into people, thereby producing something like common ground that can be worked from. That's poorly stated, but hopefully makes my point:p
The only difference between "our Patriots" and "us" is that they got off of their asses and did something about it. There's no magic formula. There's no advantage that they had that we do not. They did not have special insights (at least, not any more so than we do now). The only difference is their willingness to act in their own best interests.
Understood - there's even more to it than that though, at least from the employee perspective. I've been told more than once that the quickest way to advance financially in this business is to change shop every two years. It's always very specific: Two years. Now, I've never been that brave, being the sort of person that doesn't interview very well (not good at selling myself), so I don't have the balls to do it. I will say that all of my former coworkers, who are doing much better than myself financially, have changed jobs just about 2-3 years after being hired.
I said all that to say this: If employers want to keep their employees, they should keep their employees happy (or barring that, happy enough to want to leave). Virtually every place that I've worked is shorthanded to the point where "Salary" is abused (meaning, that because I'm salary, I need to be working 60+ hours every week - and hey, I can do it all for the same price as your receptionist!) One could make the argument that IT guys should hold out for more money, but unless you're living at home with your folks that's generally not much of an option...you gotta eat. So we have a vicious cycle - Employers not wanting to invest in an employee that won't stick around because the employer isn't investing in them. Education? Certifications? How about reimbursing me for the lost evenings and weekends spent away from my family, after something that nobody wanted to pay for catastrophically fails.
This is pretty common, from what I've seen as well. With smaller companies it seems like you're a shoe-in if you don't fuck up, but I've heard that the big boys play rough with a lot of politicking and backstabbing. I have no experience with the latter though.
I think what bugs me the most about these most recent leaks is that the ONLY people surprised by it are the members of the public. The various governments know that they're being watched...mainly because they're doing watching on their own (that they're not supposed to do), that they talk about (which is monitored by other nations), rinse, repeat. Of course, it behooves all of the various countries involved to deny it...they don't want to look like douchbags, after all. But then again, how many of them look "squeaky clean" after the last round of releases that established that they were spying too. Everyone knows they do it, everyone has known that they've been doing it...so why in the fuck is anyone pretending to be surprised?
On topic, I have two answers for you depending on how your question was intended.
A1: You don't. You will never stop "leaks" of any sort, because you will inevitably be fooled into trusting the wrong person at some point. Leaks will always happen, even if there's been no wrongdoing (leaks can take the form of corporate secrets, for example).
A2: If you mean how do we stop leaks like this, as in, leaks about Governments infringing on public rights and acting like utter jagoffs the solution is far far simpler: Stop being jagoffs, stop breaking the law. Hell, that's the answer that WE get, isn't it? "You don't have anything to worry about if you're not breaking the law"...well, if they don't want people to blab about the Gubmint breaking the law, the Gubmint should stop breaking the law and they won't have anything to worry about. Right?
Employers are afraid to commit and invest in their employees any more.
You make it sound almost reasonable
I don't think "afraid" is the right word. Employees are no longer interested in investing in their employees by training them. Of course there is a good chance that well-trained and secure employees would be better for the company... but that's a long-run talk which does not generate a bonus in the current quarter.
I don't think this is about "picking the best" from the temp employees. I think it's about reducing costs.
I think you're right. The last few "big" companies that I worked for had concerns about hiring new employees for a few different reasons. One is the training time (which granted, wouldn't be diminished for a temp employee), but a bigger one is all of the benefit bullshit. Employers have to pay into unemployment for all of their "official" employees, and if they have to fire someone because they can't do the job then they're stuck for it. On top of that is the fact that during the recession a lot of people were taking a job simply because it was a paycheck, with no intention of sticking around. That's bound to make a few employers a bit gun shy, so why not make it someone elses problem (ie the temp agency).
What doesn't make any sense to me is that most of these decisions are made based on the cost, but if you've seen what temp agencies are getting paid for an employee it's hard to see how that's possible. On that same topic, it's much harder to get a reasonable salary when you're moving from temp to full time, because the employer already knows what kind of money you've *been* making (which is usually less than what you should be making because you're a temp), so they can justify dicking you on your salary when they do decide to hire you. After all, if you've been there for 6 months and you've stuck around you're probably not going to leave if they offer you a fulltime position for more money than you have been making, even if it's still significantly less than the going rate.
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Stupid racists.
Department of Redundancy Department
How is a USER supposed to track down a bug? They're users.
Sounds to me like the developers just didn't like dealing with bugs and wanted the users to do it all and present them with a gift-wrapped solution.
Bullshit. Asking for the most basic of useful information, as in "steps to duplicate" is not "gift wrapping". Bugs that appear at the user's hands are, almost always, bugs that developers and alpha testers did not see. It is reasonable, then, to expect the user to do what they can to document the steps that gave rise to the unexpected behavior. It is absolutely not reasonable to expect the developers to cast about blindly, guessing at how the user might have behaved.
It's only "reasonable" from the developers' side. From the user's side, they'll just wonder why the software wasn't debugged before they got their hands on it in the first place. While those of us that have worked in development understand that you simply can't account for each and every fucked up thing a user might do, the USER doesn't understand why it can't work like their car, or stove, or anything else that will work for years before it starts failing. They see the software as a "finished product", and to them that means one that's not broken. When it crashes, they consider it "broken".
I agree that the world should be a different place, but that isn't going to make it so.
You're assuming that the user cares enough to bother learning anything at all. In my experience as a support guy, it seems that about 99% of the people know the steps to do their job, and they don't rightly care about the software beyond it working properly. They would rather find an alternate tool (esp for stubborn bugs/issues) and move on, rather than learning to debug something that someone else has written.
Don't get me wrong - I understand what you're saying, and in a perfect world where everyone was curious about "how things work" your suggestion would have a lot more merit, but where the world is at right now? No, you'll, just end up with 90% of your users wondering why their software wasn't written "correctly" to begin with.
New Vegas?
No, but you can dress it up in a dog suit and still fool the masses.
Obviously the people that speak Chinese Mandarin shouldn't be expected to learn COBOL. My point is that the infrastructure is in place for them to take 5 new geeky recruits and train them in the language the same way that they would train the voice analysts. Hiring a contractor? Don't be retarded - train someone to do the important jobs that you need done. Plus, it's much much easier to keep a leash on the leaks (although you wouldn't know it in recent years) than when dealing with a civilian.
...the NSA and the military alike are full of codebreakers and analysts. 7 million lines of code should be nothing to people that translate Chinese Mandarin and pick out buzzwords.
I will say that I was pleased to discover that my old software (my very first program, written with one of my NCO's - and it's not clear from the comment, but that wasn't anywhere close to my job...it just happened for convenience) was still being used more than 10 years after the fact, although I do admit that I was a bit dismayed as well...in retrospect it wasn't all that impressive :p
*snort* you're hilarious, but for someone that doesn't have enormous hands, yes, the clutch is far easier than reaching across the left-hand turn signal (having to readjust my hand at the same time, which, if someone is swerving into my lane I wouldn't want to have to rely on). Did around 7000 miles up the coast a few years ago, and while you might be able to do that on a Huffy, I'm pretty sure if that had been the case I'd be in better shape.
Who said it didn't work? Or are you now trying to mandate that I use a less efficient method to stay safe?
Pipes are louder, and since my hand is already on the throttle (and not riding the horn) is much faster. You really should get your logic circuits checked, STRAIGHT AWAY.
But what about all those idiots making claims that "Loud pipes saves lives"?
Oh. You mean like when I was doing the speed limit on the highway in Vegas and the woman in the lane next to me decided she wanted to be where I was, and I pulled in my clutch so I could rev the engine and she heard it and looked and freaked the fuck out realizing that she could have hit me and it would have been her fault? Like that? Or do you mean a fabricated story?
They need the extra horsepower because we're all obese. The car doubles in weight when we climb in, haven't you been paying attention?
The medical community happens to contain a lot more idiots than most people would expect.
No football coin tosses?
Or the guy at the pawn shop.
I'm sure it's been said already, but I just wanted to say, on behalf of the remaining Internet: THANK YOU!
From the summary, "They didn't seem to care that I had hacked our own government years ago or that I smoked pot". I call BS on any notion that the federal government intelligence agencies would hire anyone with a background rife with illegal activity. For every Kevin Mitnick, a convicted person now with a felony record, hired there are thousands of applicants rejected because of a small infraction or deviant behavior, including a preference not to socialize outside of the workplace.
I have a story to tell. (yes, it's relevant).
When I served in the Army I was stationed with an individual that was in the process of getting kicked out. He had been an E4 and had managed to hack into some of NSA's servers (the events took place both before I arrived, and before I knew a damn thing about computers, so I don't know the vector or what his actual abilities are). He created some bogus accounts and used those accounts to send overly critical emails to Generals, signed with a pseudonym, of course. Well, by the time I got there he had already been busted - and like Manning got busted down to an E1 before they kicked him out (dishonorable discharge, of course). Within a month of him getting kicked out NSA directly hired him, paying him far more than he could have ever been paid had he stayed in the service.
The Government ignores laws when it's convenient for them to do so, even when it comes to their own hiring policies.
I call BS on that guy. He claims there are 5000 people working there. At $100k/year salaries (and it's probably more), that puts this program up to at least $1 billion dollars per year for payroll and equipment. I would assume there is some accounting for that kind of spending.
LOL, if you're assuming that there's oversight in the government then you haven't been paying attention.
This is actually not a bad idea unless it's already been done...but I haven't really heard much from the "terrorist" side. I hear the talking points of the various governments, assumptions from regular folks, and some non-involved Muslims speculating (the way the rest of us are). Has anyone outside of Government circles engaged any of these people to pointedly ask them what in the hell it is that they want? That they hope to achieve? Or are we all just hearing propaganda and assuming that's all there is to it?
:p
Keep in mind that I am in no way validating the aggressive and violent actions...but it occurs to me that most people don't just "snap" and start committing random violence...usually there's a buildup and some semblance of twisted logic that makes it seem reasonable to that person. That "logic" is what turns these people from monsters back into people, thereby producing something like common ground that can be worked from. That's poorly stated, but hopefully makes my point
The only difference between "our Patriots" and "us" is that they got off of their asses and did something about it. There's no magic formula. There's no advantage that they had that we do not. They did not have special insights (at least, not any more so than we do now). The only difference is their willingness to act in their own best interests.
Understood - there's even more to it than that though, at least from the employee perspective. I've been told more than once that the quickest way to advance financially in this business is to change shop every two years. It's always very specific: Two years. Now, I've never been that brave, being the sort of person that doesn't interview very well (not good at selling myself), so I don't have the balls to do it. I will say that all of my former coworkers, who are doing much better than myself financially, have changed jobs just about 2-3 years after being hired.
I said all that to say this: If employers want to keep their employees, they should keep their employees happy (or barring that, happy enough to want to leave). Virtually every place that I've worked is shorthanded to the point where "Salary" is abused (meaning, that because I'm salary, I need to be working 60+ hours every week - and hey, I can do it all for the same price as your receptionist!) One could make the argument that IT guys should hold out for more money, but unless you're living at home with your folks that's generally not much of an option...you gotta eat. So we have a vicious cycle - Employers not wanting to invest in an employee that won't stick around because the employer isn't investing in them. Education? Certifications? How about reimbursing me for the lost evenings and weekends spent away from my family, after something that nobody wanted to pay for catastrophically fails.
This is pretty common, from what I've seen as well. With smaller companies it seems like you're a shoe-in if you don't fuck up, but I've heard that the big boys play rough with a lot of politicking and backstabbing. I have no experience with the latter though.
I think what bugs me the most about these most recent leaks is that the ONLY people surprised by it are the members of the public. The various governments know that they're being watched...mainly because they're doing watching on their own (that they're not supposed to do), that they talk about (which is monitored by other nations), rinse, repeat. Of course, it behooves all of the various countries involved to deny it...they don't want to look like douchbags, after all. But then again, how many of them look "squeaky clean" after the last round of releases that established that they were spying too. Everyone knows they do it, everyone has known that they've been doing it...so why in the fuck is anyone pretending to be surprised?
On topic, I have two answers for you depending on how your question was intended.
A1: You don't. You will never stop "leaks" of any sort, because you will inevitably be fooled into trusting the wrong person at some point. Leaks will always happen, even if there's been no wrongdoing (leaks can take the form of corporate secrets, for example).
A2: If you mean how do we stop leaks like this, as in, leaks about Governments infringing on public rights and acting like utter jagoffs the solution is far far simpler: Stop being jagoffs, stop breaking the law. Hell, that's the answer that WE get, isn't it? "You don't have anything to worry about if you're not breaking the law"...well, if they don't want people to blab about the Gubmint breaking the law, the Gubmint should stop breaking the law and they won't have anything to worry about. Right?
Employers are afraid to commit and invest in their employees any more.
You make it sound almost reasonable I don't think "afraid" is the right word. Employees are no longer interested in investing in their employees by training them. Of course there is a good chance that well-trained and secure employees would be better for the company... but that's a long-run talk which does not generate a bonus in the current quarter.
I don't think this is about "picking the best" from the temp employees. I think it's about reducing costs.
I think you're right. The last few "big" companies that I worked for had concerns about hiring new employees for a few different reasons. One is the training time (which granted, wouldn't be diminished for a temp employee), but a bigger one is all of the benefit bullshit. Employers have to pay into unemployment for all of their "official" employees, and if they have to fire someone because they can't do the job then they're stuck for it. On top of that is the fact that during the recession a lot of people were taking a job simply because it was a paycheck, with no intention of sticking around. That's bound to make a few employers a bit gun shy, so why not make it someone elses problem (ie the temp agency).
What doesn't make any sense to me is that most of these decisions are made based on the cost, but if you've seen what temp agencies are getting paid for an employee it's hard to see how that's possible. On that same topic, it's much harder to get a reasonable salary when you're moving from temp to full time, because the employer already knows what kind of money you've *been* making (which is usually less than what you should be making because you're a temp), so they can justify dicking you on your salary when they do decide to hire you. After all, if you've been there for 6 months and you've stuck around you're probably not going to leave if they offer you a fulltime position for more money than you have been making, even if it's still significantly less than the going rate.