This is a stupid idea, but not just because it's going to hit people who can't afford it hardest.
Already the government is beginning to notice that people are moving to more fuel-efficient cars - and tax revenues are down! To compensate, do you think they'd raise taxes? That would be unpopular with everyone, so they want to put GPS in everyone's car to tax your mileage. Now, let's think about this - why wouldn't they just use odometer readings? Now, the government can point to people and say "these few people are *stealing* from you!" and nobody notices that they can track anyone, anywhere, anytime they use a car. It's kulaks all over again, except for people who don't want to live in urban areas.
If you have so little confidence in your crew, why are they still working for you?
Generally speaking, most professional men above the age of 20 that are managed properly will behave properly. The fact that you feel your crew will not behave properly speaks volumes about your management.
This little set of "exercises" you have planned seems like a witch hunt - something you do when you need a scapegoat. I'm glad I don't work with you.
I work for a company that just did a round of hiring for Support Engineers in the Valley. For this job, we require a decent working knowledge of Linux (or relevant *nix), basic scripting, and case handling skills. There were other, more specialized skills we also looked for, but competent Unix driver would suffice. We don't need hardened sysadmin, just people who aren't helpless when they see #. Sounds easy, right?
This was the first time I interviewed candidates. We went through piles of resumes to weed out candidates that weren't a good fit (no Unix/scripting/etc) and then started interviews.
I was honestly stunned at by the sheer number of lies on resumes. Candidates would advertise "5+ years of Linux experience" when in fact they had zero Unix skills. They couldn't name 10 Unix commands, let alone how they were used. Out of 300 candidates for 8 positions, we got 3 usable hires - out of Silicon Valley! The talent shortage wasn't due to salaries - we were offering decent money, even considering west coast cost-of-living. The candidates we got weren't even as talented as I would have preferred, but they were usable, and trainable.
I can't excuse the tactics immigration attorneys are using to stuff cheap H1B visas down our throats - we've seen too much of that already. I see the job postings with "Requires 20+ years of Linux experience," "15+ years of Java experience" - for 40K. H1B visas need to pay actual, prevailing wages, and they certainly don't now. That garbage needs to be stopped, now.
The talent shortage might be due to any number of external causes, but it certainly does exist.
Atlassian makes code tracking and corporate-friendly wiki products. They're pretty nice, actually. It's pretty easy to write plugins that add flexible functionality to their products. I was and am a pretty big fan of Jira and Confluence, and they're pretty responsive to their customers. Their products are (last I checked) pretty reasonably priced, and integrate into Subversion, CVS, and other source control products pretty easily - including Git.
Last I checked, Git didn't really lend itself to project issue tracking - which is what Jira does. So if you must bitch about non-free Jira, you could at least make an *intelligent* article comparison to a open-source issue-tracker like Trac (another excellent product).
Alas, we're unlikely to see any intelligent comparisons from kdawson. The "lazy-shrug" dept is all too relevant here, but not for the reasons kdawson used it.
when I stuck my tongue out when it rained, I didn't taste any salt at all,
If I was choosing my nick again I would be the RTFT-TROLL (yes; that loud)
Here it is; the article title again, but this time a bit marked up for those of you so bloody stupid you can't see it.
First when I joined this site, it was read the summary, then it's read the article... now it's read the title too? Screw this, I'm leaving this site. I was more than content to just pick a word or three (changing a few) to base my wild speculation on (such as "Gates Salt(ing) Clouds")
When I joined this site, all you could read was "First Post!", posts about some petrified chick with grits, and rants by open-source cavemen.
I get lots of people coming into Bestbuy to get spyware/viruses cleaned off their machines. I'm very often asked about the best way to keep these problems away, and I often recommend Firefox/Mozilla.
Of course, this does nothing for the "But I gotta have my Kazaa/Weatherbug/Searchbar" types...
Despite the default config of 2k/XP to inform you that updates are available, we've been fixing hundreds of machines infected with Sasser, and even Blaster. Users simply ignore the update warning, or outright refuse to run it. One user mentioned "Why would I need to run that?"
It's all well and fine to equalize educational resources for everyone. Everyone ought to have access to quality education. Please note that I'm not talking about Harvard here, but your standard college-level education. Access to the Internet is part of that I think. However, anytime you start talking about "redistribution of wealth," this starts sounding like someone making 35K a year jealous of those who make 250k. I don't make 250k, I wish I did, but taking money out of the hands of people who rightfully earned it and just giving it to people who did not is wrong. Where do you draw the line as to "enough money?" Sure, Bill Gates doesn't need 50 billion or whatever it is now, but who are you or anyone else to say that you DESERVE his money? I look at the amount of taxes taken out of my paycheck every payday, I look at the monies spent on welfare, and I see people on welfare who could be working but are not. Why? If you give some people the means to live off the work of others, they will. You deserve what you work for. You do not deserve money because you exist. Face it, the world is not fair and never will be. It's good to keep the powerful mindful of those below them, but all this talk of taking from the successful and giving to the not-so-successful sounds like sour grapes and robbery to me.
Well, I just noticed the other day that, in true Microsoft fashion, MS seems to have developed a competing standard for audio compression. I wonder if this fellow trumpeting on ZDnet is just trying to get some good 'ole MS marketing started. Screw them, we already have a good thing. And it's ours, not theirs.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a stupid idea, but not just because it's going to hit people who can't afford it hardest.
Already the government is beginning to notice that people are moving to more fuel-efficient cars - and tax revenues are down! To compensate, do you think they'd raise taxes? That would be unpopular with everyone, so they want to put GPS in everyone's car to tax your mileage. Now, let's think about this - why wouldn't they just use odometer readings? Now, the government can point to people and say "these few people are *stealing* from you!" and nobody notices that they can track anyone, anywhere, anytime they use a car. It's kulaks all over again, except for people who don't want to live in urban areas.
Noob. You forgot the Open Source Caveman. Lame.
If you have so little confidence in your crew, why are they still working for you?
Generally speaking, most professional men above the age of 20 that are managed properly will behave properly. The fact that you feel your crew will not behave properly speaks volumes about your management.
This little set of "exercises" you have planned seems like a witch hunt - something you do when you need a scapegoat. I'm glad I don't work with you.
I work for a company that just did a round of hiring for Support Engineers in the Valley. For this job, we require a decent working knowledge of Linux (or relevant *nix), basic scripting, and case handling skills. There were other, more specialized skills we also looked for, but competent Unix driver would suffice. We don't need hardened sysadmin, just people who aren't helpless when they see #. Sounds easy, right?
This was the first time I interviewed candidates. We went through piles of resumes to weed out candidates that weren't a good fit (no Unix/scripting/etc) and then started interviews.
I was honestly stunned at by the sheer number of lies on resumes. Candidates would advertise "5+ years of Linux experience" when in fact they had zero Unix skills. They couldn't name 10 Unix commands, let alone how they were used. Out of 300 candidates for 8 positions, we got 3 usable hires - out of Silicon Valley! The talent shortage wasn't due to salaries - we were offering decent money, even considering west coast cost-of-living. The candidates we got weren't even as talented as I would have preferred, but they were usable, and trainable.
I can't excuse the tactics immigration attorneys are using to stuff cheap H1B visas down our throats - we've seen too much of that already. I see the job postings with "Requires 20+ years of Linux experience," "15+ years of Java experience" - for 40K. H1B visas need to pay actual, prevailing wages, and they certainly don't now. That garbage needs to be stopped, now.
The talent shortage might be due to any number of external causes, but it certainly does exist.
Also: way to change the article summary without an "Edit" notation, guys. That's awesome work, /. The summary is still incoherent.
Atlassian makes code tracking and corporate-friendly wiki products. They're pretty nice, actually. It's pretty easy to write plugins that add flexible functionality to their products. I was and am a pretty big fan of Jira and Confluence, and they're pretty responsive to their customers. Their products are (last I checked) pretty reasonably priced, and integrate into Subversion, CVS, and other source control products pretty easily - including Git.
Last I checked, Git didn't really lend itself to project issue tracking - which is what Jira does. So if you must bitch about non-free Jira, you could at least make an *intelligent* article comparison to a open-source issue-tracker like Trac (another excellent product).
Alas, we're unlikely to see any intelligent comparisons from kdawson. The "lazy-shrug" dept is all too relevant here, but not for the reasons kdawson used it.
This isn't about money so much as it is about the government dipping a toe into the "regulate blogging" pool.
If you have to have a license to blog, what happens when you "lose" your license?
when I stuck my tongue out when it rained, I didn't taste any salt at all,
If I was choosing my nick again I would be the RTFT-TROLL (yes; that loud)
Here it is; the article title again, but this time a bit marked up for those of you so bloody stupid you can't see it.
First when I joined this site, it was read the summary, then it's read the article... now it's read the title too? Screw this, I'm leaving this site. I was more than content to just pick a word or three (changing a few) to base my wild speculation on (such as "Gates Salt(ing) Clouds")
When I joined this site, all you could read was "First Post!", posts about some petrified chick with grits, and rants by open-source cavemen.
I've managed to be oblivious enough to wash and dry both a cellphone and a thumb drive - I still own both, and they both work.
I get lots of people coming into Bestbuy to get spyware/viruses cleaned off their machines. I'm very often asked about the best way to keep these problems away, and I often recommend Firefox/Mozilla.
Of course, this does nothing for the "But I gotta have my Kazaa/Weatherbug/Searchbar" types...
Despite the default config of 2k/XP to inform you that updates are available, we've been fixing hundreds of machines infected with Sasser, and even Blaster. Users simply ignore the update warning, or outright refuse to run it. One user mentioned "Why would I need to run that?"
Even Microsoft can't prevent ignorance.
It's all well and fine to equalize educational resources for everyone. Everyone ought to have access to quality education. Please note that I'm not talking about Harvard here, but your standard college-level education. Access to the Internet is part of that I think.
However, anytime you start talking about "redistribution of wealth," this starts sounding like someone making 35K a year jealous of those who make 250k. I don't make 250k, I wish I did, but taking money out of the hands of people who rightfully earned it and just giving it to people who did not is wrong. Where do you draw the line as to "enough money?" Sure, Bill Gates doesn't need 50 billion or whatever it is now, but who are you or anyone else to say that you DESERVE his money? I look at the amount of taxes taken out of my paycheck every payday, I look at the monies spent on welfare, and I see people on welfare who could be working but are not. Why? If you give some people the means to live off the work of others, they will. You deserve what you work for. You do not deserve money because you exist. Face it, the world is not fair and never will be. It's good to keep the powerful mindful of those below them, but all this talk of taking from the successful and giving to the not-so-successful sounds like sour grapes and robbery to me.
Well, I just noticed the other day that, in true Microsoft fashion, MS seems to have developed a competing standard for audio compression. I wonder if this fellow trumpeting on ZDnet is just trying to get some good 'ole MS marketing started. Screw them, we already have a good thing. And it's ours, not theirs.