1. Good Sci-fi isn't always just about science and technology. It is about people as well. Some of the best Sci-fi ever created addressed philosophical, moral, and religious issues. Look at Asimov. Look at the really good Star Trek stuff. It's about more than just spaceships and lasers.
2. When they say that they would be exploring the "religious issues surrounding the Cylons", I don't see that as exploring the religious beliefs of the Cylons. I take that as meaning exploring the implications of human beings being able to create intelligent machines that are then able to evolve on their own until they look (and in many ways behave) just like human beings. When the Cylons have gone that far, what is it that separates them from human beings? For that matter, when the humans have gone that far, what separates the humans from the gods? Are the Cylons still machines? They are certainly sentient, but are they living beings? What does it mean to be alive? Is it considered genocide for the humans to try to exterminate the Cylons?
There is a lot of potential there for some very interesting and challenging episodes, most of which revolves around the religious/ethical/philosophical issues surrounding the Cylons. It doesn't seem hokey to me at all.
That's pretty much my stance. I do this for a living, I get paid well for it. When I leave the office at night I'd rather spend quality time with friends or family than fix computers. I have sometimes had people who were very persistent about it, and I usually quote them something outrageous like $125-$150 and hour. My rationale is this:
There are a number of companies here in town who will repair your PC for $40-$50 an hour, but you have to bring it to them. Then there are the guys who come out to your place. They usually charge $80-$100 an hour. In both cases they are probably using techs who make $12-$15 an hour and are in high school or college. But I've been out of school and in the working world for 10 years. Not only do I have general PC troubleshooting experience, but I am also a network engineer that regularly fixes far more complicated issues than a virus/spyware infestation. Basically, I am far overqualified for what they want.
If they really need help, they can always find an actual business that is set up to handle their kind of work at a much lower rate than what I would charge. And if they really really want me to do it, they're gonna really reallay make it worth my time.
The Pentium M runs clock-for-clock with the Athlon64... and uses much less power. That's the news.
Which would be great if it were a 64-bit processor, but it's not. Any way you slice it, the story is about Intel's performance/clockspeed ratio finally catching up to AMD's, even if they don't mention AMD.
I wouldn't go that far. It was generally well reported at the release of the Pentium 4 CPU several years ago that an equivalently clocked Pentium III was considerably faster. The Pentium M platform is based on the Pentium III architecture, which is more performance driven than the Pentium 4. The Pentium 4 was designed so that the clock speed could be ramped high, quickly. To do that they had to take a performance hit.
But really, where's the news here? AMD has been able to create Athlon 64 CPUs that perform as well or better than Pentium 4 chips for a long time. So much so, that my 2.0 GHz Athlon 64 is faster than a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz. Now Intel is finally admitting that their Pentium M processor line scales the same way. Whoop dee friggin' doo!
I think it is partly education that is the solution, especially since the problem is obviously ignorance.
If someone walked up to you on the street and asked for your home address, or any other piece of personally identifying information, would you give it to them? What if they offered to show you a pretty picture, or give you a pretty picture in exchange for the information? Probably not. You'd probably wonder why they would be wasting money giving things away for free, and what on earth they would want your personal information for. But on the net people do this without thinking. Some people may say it's because people feel safe sitting at their computer in their own home, but not on the street. I say it's because people just don't think. Because the sad fact is that there are people out there who would give you their name, address, and SSN if you walked up to them on the street and asked for it.
If you buy a car, you know that there are some things that need to be done with it from a maintenance standpoint. You know that you need to add fuel and washer fluid occasionally, change the oil, check the tire pressures, etc. When people buy a computer they think that it's like a TV or radio and that nothing needs to be done to maintain it. People need to understand that a PC is more like a car than a TV, and it does need to be maintained.
People who sign up for broadband access think that they're getting the equivalent of cable TV for the PC. But they don't realize that they're not getting static content like on TV, and that their ISP doesn't control the information that is provided to them. And to a certain extent, it IS the ISP's fault. When they advertise broadband internet connections they spend all their time talking about all of the benefits it can provide, and any possible negatives are mentioned in a three line disclaimer at the bottom of the last page of the installers paperwork. If ISPs did a better job of preparing customers for what the internet truly is then we wouldn't have nearly as many problems. But then the ISPs probably wouldn't be making nearly as much money, either.
I guess my biggest beef is that it doens't have to be this way. I've been using PCs since the early 80s. I was actively involved in BBSes, then the Internet, and was one of the first people in my area to get broadband. I spend several hours a day of my free time online. In all my years I have never had a single spyware infiltration, and I only had a virus infection once (when a roommate used my PC to work on a file that he brought home from work). At work I use the same hardware and software as my corworkers, and while I've never had a virus or spyware infection at work I've had to clean up quite a few on other people's PCs. I don't consider myself super paranoid, and I don't think that I have been especially lucky. I just think before I click. Apparently most people don't.
I don't even recommend building your own desktops for a business environment, though I can see why some people would do it. But when it comes to something critical like a server, especially if it is likely to be around for 4-5 years (as most servers are), then it's gotta be from one of the big boys (HP, Dell, IBM, etc).
The biggest reason is that if you buy a server from one of these guys, you know that you're buying a reliable, fairly stable platform that will be supported throughout it's useful life. I personally use all HP servers, and if I have a hardware failure I know that I can make a 10 minute phone call and have an engineer onsite with a replacement part in 4 hours. If I roll my own, I may have to do some troubleshooting with a number of different component manufacturers, especially if there's any finger pointing going on. With HP (or any other big manufacturer), there's one number to call and no fingerpointing.
Also, the big three vendors tend to be better able to do troubleshooting than a number of smaller vendors. I know that HP includes software for management and monitoring with their servers. I have been saved from major downtime on multiple occasions because Insight Manager has detected an imminent failure and I was able to preemptively replace the failing component. So in that sense they are also better supported than a roll-your-own solution. When you're talking about storage systems, EMC goes even further with their call home monitoring/support system.
Finally, the major vendors all perform compatibility testing on their platforms. If you buy a server pre-built from any of the big three, you can generally choose from a number of different flavors of Windows, UNIX, or Linux and know that the server is compatible and supported on that OS. If HP releases a new driver for a fibre channel HBA you know that it won't cause problems with their SCSI HBAs. If you roll your own, you have to do all of the footwork and compatibility testing yourself.
If I need a new server, I have basically two options:
1. Go to a big three vendor, spend 10 minutes configuring it online, and place the order. I can have the server shipped to me and even receive it the next day if I want. All I have to do is unpack it, rack it, and install my applications.
2. Shop around for parts, comparing reviews and prices, and hopefully come up with a config that I can use. Then order the parts from one or more vendors. Then wait for all of the parts to arrive, because the odds of everything shipping and arriving on the same day are pretty slim. When everything arrives I have to make sure that I have all of the drivers available, and then assemble the server. Then install the OS and necessary drivers, hoping that there aren't any compatibility or configuration problems to be solved. Finally I can install apps and rack it.
In business, time is money. Option one takes less than an hour of my time from placing the order to server up. Option one also is far less likely to cause me to lose uptime or cause other headaches from a support standpoint. Option two may save me a couple bucks upfront, but in the long run it's going to cost me far more. Option two is especially bad if a part fails and that particular model is no longer manufactured.
There's a popular saying in the computer industry that goes "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." There's a reason that it's true, and it extends to the other big manufacturers as well.
Indiana has had this for years, and I've noticed it recently on Ohio tax returns as well. Not only does it apply to Internet purchases, but purchases from mail-order catalogs, magazine subscriptions, etc. Essentially anything that you buy out of state and have shipped to you.
Keeping track of it is a total nightmare. There's no way that I can recall every single instance where I've purchased something online or mail-order. And then there's the entire grey area of what counts as a taxable purchase. Is it only a tangible product that's shipped to you? What if I live in Indiana, buy something from a New York company, and have it shipped to my friend in California? What if I buy a copy of my credit report from an out of state company that is delivered digitally? What about subscriptions to pr0n sites? What about services? If I use Turbo Tax for the web, do I have to pay use tax on the $15 filing fee?
And not only is trying to keep track of your purchases a nightmare, enforcement is nearly impossible. The state would have get lists of purchases made by residents in their state from out-of-state merchants, which would be pretty much impossible. If the merchants are out of state, then there's no way to compel them to cough up the info. And if they operate in the same state, then they're already collecting sales tax.
Generally, I think it's a joke. States are worried about losing tax revenue because of online shopping, but nobody knows how to recoup the loses, so they make a crazy law that nobody will follow.
Yeah, I gotta say the same thing. I rode these things (or something nearly identical to them) in Cancun a couple years ago. There's nothing new or exciting about them.
That sounds odd, but you'd be suprised how it turns out.
The number of companies who are looking for a strictly networking skilled individual will be relatively small compared to the number of companies looking for a Network Admin who can administrator Windows boxes and Cisco equipment.
Part of the crunch was that companies began consolidating their IT department. Having wide-ranging skills instead of targetted skills became much more valuable. Some companies went from having a separate Windows NT/2000 admin and Network Engineer to having one guy who could do both. Others have shifted to having two guys who can do both (which makes a lot more sense to begin with).
If you are a purely Cisco guy, your best bets for jobs are going to be with telcom companies, ISPs, and very large companies that put a premium on network usage (insurance companies, banks, etc...basically the entire financial sector). Those are the sorts of positions listed as Network Engineer, IP Engineering, etc.
If you are a Cisco/Windows guy, your options are all of the above plus many more, usually smaller companies, some of which may have only a few people in their entire IT department. You'll also be more attractive for consulting companies and equipment resellers. I know that a lot of of people think that the heydays of consulting are over, but the consulting company that I just left grew nearly 20% in revenues and headcount in 2003, so there are still good opportunities out there. (And in case you're wondering why I left, one of their customers offerred me a position with a promotion, more pay, more responsibility, etc.)
It may not be what you're interested in doing, but IMHO, when you are unemployed "what you're interested in doing" gets trumped by "something in the same field as what I'm interested in doing that pays the bills".
I work government network security for a living. Part of the ethics instilled in us (along with federal regulations governing the position) is the broad understanding that we are here to protect the security of the network. We are not the porn police or any other type of legal official.
But what you have utterly failed to comprehend here is the third word in your post. Government. Since you are working as an employee of a government agency then you are considerably more restricted in what you can and cannot do. If a federal employee technician sneaks a peak at someone's personal files, sees kiddie porn, and reports it, then even a mediocre attorney could twist it into an illegal search and seizure because it was an agent of the government who did it. But in the private sector you're just Joe Citizen, and it would not only be legal to report it it would be mandated by law in some states to report it.
There's a huge difference in workplace regulations between government and private sector jobs (and I have worked IT in both).
If you are a consultant who happens to be the project manager, your job and reputation are on the line. You normally will have the ability to make the critical decisions in this position with a certain amount of oversight. If I know for a fact that the project will fail because of the decisions made at a level above me, then I personally think that I owe it to myself and my customer to a) make a clear, concise, and convincing case for the method that I most favor, and b) make the decision to leave if I'm being micromanaged from above into failure.
Remember that you will be associated with whatever successes or failures that you participate in. In most situations like this you will be making an initial proposal for a solution to a customer, and if they choose your solution then you'll get the job. Otherwise it will go to someone else. In this case there should already be a certain level of synergy and trust between you and the customer, so cases like you describe would be an exception to the rule.
Now there's the other side of the "consulting" coin, and that is more of a staff augmentation situation. Yes, the customer is still paying for your expertise, but they obviously are just brining you in for extra manpower on the project. In these cases, I think that it is also important to bring up any concerns that you have about potential problems (or things being done the wrong way), but do so professionally. Don't rip apart the project plan in a team meeting (unless that's what the meeting was scheduled for), but if offerred the opportunity then offer your opinion. Speak to the project manager/lead implementer one-on-one and express any misgivings. Alsways offer an alternative method/product/solution.
My personal rule is to only bring it up once. If I disagree with a product or method, I'll pitch an alternative in the appropriate forum. If it is shot down then it's a dead subject as far as I'm concerned. Repeatedly bringing it up will only make you appear like a disgruntled employee or someone who is not a team player. Remember that in this situation you were brought in for your expertise, but mainly to be an additional labor resource. Work with the project plan as directed and do your best. If it turns out that you were right and the project is starting to sink, there's a good chance that the person you spoke with will start looking for an alternative solution, and you might come out looking like a hero.
To summarize, your reaction is going to be largely influenced by the role that you are given. So long as you fulfill your role to the best of your ability you should be in decent shape.
This sniper's weakness is that he is going to do it again. And every time he does, we will get closer to catching him. People without the willpower to stop themselves from doing it the first time certainly don't have the willpower to stop themselves subsequently.
I'm not sure that that is the case this time. You've probably fallen into the trap of considering this person a typical serial killer. With a typical serial killer you've got a pattern of compulsion and escalation, but I don't see either here. I don't think that this killer feels driven to kill, I think that he wants to kill of his own free will.
What we're seeing is also the result of careful, methodical planning. We've got a case where there was a shooting about a week and a half ago, followed a few days later by 6 shootings in less than 24 hours, followed by a single shooting every couple days thereafter. There's not really been any escalation per se, unlike most serial killer cases.
What's more, the shooter obviously has a great deal of discipline. The shots that he's making aren't impossible, but without a great deal of training they wouldn't be successful so often. So that points to a current/former policeman or soldier. Either that, or someone who wanted to take the time to train for their mission. Either way, it's all far beyond your typical impulse-driven killers. I think that the killer could probably stop if he wanted to, but that he won't as long as he doesn't feel threatened (and lets face it, unless there are some latent prints on that.223 shell they found then he won't be feeling threatened). With most serial killers there is a period of association or stalking with a victim before the death. There are myriad opportunities to leave all kinds of evidence at the scene or with the victim. Serial killers also tend to take trophies from their kills. Neither of those is the case with the sniper. He's almost indifferent to his victims and whether they live or die, which leads me to wonder if his goal is really to kill people or if it is just to stir up fear in the terrorist tradition. I think that we'll all be very suprised when we find out who the shooter really is.
i havn't played in 1.5 years now, but i can say i could make these $30 characters in 2 days. trash. i make 85 magery on the first day, plus gm swords, tactics, anatomy. why spend $30 for this?
It's only because you haven't played in 1.5 years that you say these things. If you had been playing recently, you'd have known that skills have gotten harder to gain with the elimination of "power hour".
Does that make these characters any better? Not really. You're still competing in a world full of people with 7x100 skills, or even some with 125 skills (as the skill caps for some have been raised). Having 3 skills at 85 won't help you that much. Someone could build similar characters themselves for "free" in 30-40 hours. But for a lot of people like me those 30-40 hours of play may take a couple of months due to reali life obligations. But this gets you from nowhere to having a moderately playable character while saving you several days of playing (very boring, repetitive playing at that), and that's probably a good thing.
I have five characters that I've built over the years, but due to my limited playtime only three of them have managed to max out any skills at all(a total of 6 maxxed out skills between the 5 characters). I've wanted to build some other characters from time to time, but there just isn't enough time in my life to justify spending a couple months of play time to get ready to be able to have fun.
"They will not consider you unless you can carry your M16 through the physical fitness course without killing yourself in the process," Sweeny, maintainer of the PacketAttack website, said. "Most of the geeks I know view exercise as carrying the 80-ounce cola, pager and cell phone all at the same time."
and
"You won't get a position in computer security until you've worked at least five years on the beat, preferably in physical investigations," Rosenberger said. "They'll grudgingly let you past if you just do forensics, but they feel you really should chase bad guys with a gun before you chase bad guys with a computer."
Then I realize that it's no wonder that the FBI lags so far behind the terrorists that they're trying to catch, or that important pieces of information slip through their fingers with lethal side-effects. If they refuse to hire the best people for the job, or upon hiring them refuse to let them work in their chosen field then they deserve everything bad that happens to them.
The war on cybercrime and cyberterrorism is already lost because all of the smart guys are working for the other side. It seems that's the way that the FBI wants it.
You will not have time to be an effective programmer and self salesman in a slow economy.
More to the point, the salesmanship game is about contacts, contacts, contacts. Get info on local and regional trade shows, Chamber of Commerce expos, and join professional networking groups. Most moderately sized cities will have sales networking groups who meet regularly to discuss techniques and pass on leads (for example, a hardware sales rep may pass on a lead to another group member for services that he can't provide). Whatever you do, network, network, network. It's all a numbers game. The account rep that I work with at my consulting company has about five steady customers that keep him in business out of a group of several hundred local contacts.
Most people who start successful consulting businesses have been working in their field for a number of years and already have a significant number of contacts with various potential customers. Most often they end up starting their own business when an employer's customer asks them to do some work on the side. It's not so often that somebody wakes up one morning and decides to start a consulting business from scratch. If you currently do not have a client need you can expect a long dry spell while you try to drum some up. Good luck.
Your other alternative is not to go with a gem stone ring at all. Quite a few of my married friends only have wedding rings. Not because they were marring cheap guys but some for the reasons you cite. In these cases they have much more detailed metal work on the wedding band than the traditional gold band.
Absolutely. Myself being of Celtic descent, I intend to purchase wedding bands engraved with Celtic knots or other Celtic imagery rather than spend the money on a sweater-snagging diamond. In my opinion they are every bit as beautiful, and they can also convey a sense of family history and come across as much more unique than the cliched diamond solitaire.
As an aside, I found the article interesting but noted that it was written in 1982. I'm curious what sort of changes have occurred in the market during the past 20 years.
And in doing so, you'll probably make his point beautifully. If you did that at any office I've worked in, everyone would just carry on typing their letters and filling in their forms. They would do so unburdened by a flood of pointless e-mails about "funny" circulars and porn sites, and the incidental viruses that come with them.
Wow. You must work for some seriously behind the curve companies. The last 8 companies that I've done contract work for would all have screeched to a halt if they started losing connectivity. Heck, one of those 8 would have brought down large chunks of Internet backbone if someone started pulling cables.
Methinks that if you had a little more of:
IT can certainly make things much more efficient if competent people organise it, and those who use it are well-trained.
At your company then you'd probably be feeling more of a pinch in such situations.
There is one very simple thing to understand here: costs come out of IT, benefits come out of the customer department.
I think that's pretty much the sum of the problem right there. A lot of companies budget to individual departments, and they see IT as a giant sinkhole that takes up money but doesn't return any product. Sales reps spend money on sports tickets and dinners, but they generate sales. Marketing costs money, but they make pretty brochures and have a web site. Accounting spends money, but they keep the checks coming on time. Production lines cost money, but you can see completed product rolling off of them. IT costs money, but nobody sees what they produce because what they produce is everywhere. It's in the PDAs and contact management system that the sales force uses, it's in the DTP, design systems, and web site that marketing uses, it's in the ERP system that Accounting, Production, and Supply Chain use.
how can you justify paying a HS graduate with a "certification" that tells people to reboot their machine as a fix for everything souble what you would pay a marketing person with a college degree?
I assume that's "double" and not "souble". At any rate, marketing people are a dime a dozen. Good IT people are not. If your marketing person is a fuckup, they blow an ad campaign and lose their job. If an IT person is a fuckup, your web server doesn't work (resulting in the failure of your marketing campaign), your payroll and accounting system goes down, your supply chain stops running, and someone hacks into your system and steals trade secrets. So it's a considerably more important job working in IT than in marketing.
Honestly, your diatribe about a high school grad with a cert and the reboot solution sounds like it came out of the mouth of a marketing employee who feels like they're underpaid and has no idea what is involved in keeping systems running. Or it may just be that your company has a fuckup working in IT, in which case he'll be found out and eventually canned. But your post really does sound like a case of sour grapes.
And, how do you prove the value of IT? This is not as simple as it seems. Try it with a spreadsheet: as your typical CTO has to do so, every day."
Screw that spreadsheet nonsense. If I EVER hear a calculator monkey where I work say something as half-assed as:
'IT has now been proven to be a waste of money'
I'll be headed straight for the wiring closets and pulling the plugs on all the switches and routers I can find. Shortly thereafter I'm sure he'd figure out that IT actually does have value, though he may still be hard-pressed to quantify it.
The real problem with IT is that we were promising people the wrong thing. We promised them that it would make workers more efficient, allowing us to get the same amount of work done in less time. What really ended up happening is that now we get several times as much work done in the same amount of time. We don't work shorter hours, but we do get more done. That's a good thing.
The company that I work for has done several projects for businesses and government agencies that seemed prohibitively expensive at first, but usually ended up paying for themselves in savings after 6 to 12 months. We've done computerized inventory and supply chain projects and tied it all together with wireless PDAs resulting in a faster and more accurate accounting of inventory, reduced labor costs, and the near total elimination of paper documention that required costly and inefficient storage solutions.
It's can somewhat difficult to understand, so I can see where someone might deceive themselves into thinking that IT is a waste of money. It's much easier to see when you have a specific task that is being moved to a computerized system. But honestly, I have to think that someone who sees IT as a waste of money is either a) not using it properly, b) paying far too much for it, or c) not really thinking about it.
Hrmm, the thing only works two meters from the "computer" which I assume means the speakers. Oh well. In the meantime, at least I won't get malaria (or west Nile Virus here in the states)
Yes, but it you have a 4.1 or 5.1 speaker system, you can position the speakers nearly two meters away from you, which basically gives you an area with a 4 meter radius. That's a significant amount of room. I wonder what kind of range you can get from turning up the volume?
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Two points:
1. Good Sci-fi isn't always just about science and technology. It is about people as well. Some of the best Sci-fi ever created addressed philosophical, moral, and religious issues. Look at Asimov. Look at the really good Star Trek stuff. It's about more than just spaceships and lasers.
2. When they say that they would be exploring the "religious issues surrounding the Cylons", I don't see that as exploring the religious beliefs of the Cylons. I take that as meaning exploring the implications of human beings being able to create intelligent machines that are then able to evolve on their own until they look (and in many ways behave) just like human beings. When the Cylons have gone that far, what is it that separates them from human beings? For that matter, when the humans have gone that far, what separates the humans from the gods? Are the Cylons still machines? They are certainly sentient, but are they living beings? What does it mean to be alive? Is it considered genocide for the humans to try to exterminate the Cylons?
There is a lot of potential there for some very interesting and challenging episodes, most of which revolves around the religious/ethical/philosophical issues surrounding the Cylons. It doesn't seem hokey to me at all.
That's pretty much my stance. I do this for a living, I get paid well for it. When I leave the office at night I'd rather spend quality time with friends or family than fix computers. I have sometimes had people who were very persistent about it, and I usually quote them something outrageous like $125-$150 and hour. My rationale is this:
There are a number of companies here in town who will repair your PC for $40-$50 an hour, but you have to bring it to them. Then there are the guys who come out to your place. They usually charge $80-$100 an hour. In both cases they are probably using techs who make $12-$15 an hour and are in high school or college. But I've been out of school and in the working world for 10 years. Not only do I have general PC troubleshooting experience, but I am also a network engineer that regularly fixes far more complicated issues than a virus/spyware infestation. Basically, I am far overqualified for what they want.
If they really need help, they can always find an actual business that is set up to handle their kind of work at a much lower rate than what I would charge. And if they really really want me to do it, they're gonna really reallay make it worth my time.
The Pentium M runs clock-for-clock with the Athlon64 ... and uses much less power. That's the news.
Which would be great if it were a 64-bit processor, but it's not. Any way you slice it, the story is about Intel's performance/clockspeed ratio finally catching up to AMD's, even if they don't mention AMD.
I wouldn't go that far. It was generally well reported at the release of the Pentium 4 CPU several years ago that an equivalently clocked Pentium III was considerably faster. The Pentium M platform is based on the Pentium III architecture, which is more performance driven than the Pentium 4. The Pentium 4 was designed so that the clock speed could be ramped high, quickly. To do that they had to take a performance hit.
But really, where's the news here? AMD has been able to create Athlon 64 CPUs that perform as well or better than Pentium 4 chips for a long time. So much so, that my 2.0 GHz Athlon 64 is faster than a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz. Now Intel is finally admitting that their Pentium M processor line scales the same way. Whoop dee friggin' doo!
I think it is partly education that is the solution, especially since the problem is obviously ignorance.
If someone walked up to you on the street and asked for your home address, or any other piece of personally identifying information, would you give it to them? What if they offered to show you a pretty picture, or give you a pretty picture in exchange for the information? Probably not. You'd probably wonder why they would be wasting money giving things away for free, and what on earth they would want your personal information for. But on the net people do this without thinking. Some people may say it's because people feel safe sitting at their computer in their own home, but not on the street. I say it's because people just don't think. Because the sad fact is that there are people out there who would give you their name, address, and SSN if you walked up to them on the street and asked for it.
If you buy a car, you know that there are some things that need to be done with it from a maintenance standpoint. You know that you need to add fuel and washer fluid occasionally, change the oil, check the tire pressures, etc. When people buy a computer they think that it's like a TV or radio and that nothing needs to be done to maintain it. People need to understand that a PC is more like a car than a TV, and it does need to be maintained.
People who sign up for broadband access think that they're getting the equivalent of cable TV for the PC. But they don't realize that they're not getting static content like on TV, and that their ISP doesn't control the information that is provided to them. And to a certain extent, it IS the ISP's fault. When they advertise broadband internet connections they spend all their time talking about all of the benefits it can provide, and any possible negatives are mentioned in a three line disclaimer at the bottom of the last page of the installers paperwork. If ISPs did a better job of preparing customers for what the internet truly is then we wouldn't have nearly as many problems. But then the ISPs probably wouldn't be making nearly as much money, either.
I guess my biggest beef is that it doens't have to be this way. I've been using PCs since the early 80s. I was actively involved in BBSes, then the Internet, and was one of the first people in my area to get broadband. I spend several hours a day of my free time online. In all my years I have never had a single spyware infiltration, and I only had a virus infection once (when a roommate used my PC to work on a file that he brought home from work). At work I use the same hardware and software as my corworkers, and while I've never had a virus or spyware infection at work I've had to clean up quite a few on other people's PCs. I don't consider myself super paranoid, and I don't think that I have been especially lucky. I just think before I click. Apparently most people don't.
I don't even recommend building your own desktops for a business environment, though I can see why some people would do it. But when it comes to something critical like a server, especially if it is likely to be around for 4-5 years (as most servers are), then it's gotta be from one of the big boys (HP, Dell, IBM, etc).
The biggest reason is that if you buy a server from one of these guys, you know that you're buying a reliable, fairly stable platform that will be supported throughout it's useful life. I personally use all HP servers, and if I have a hardware failure I know that I can make a 10 minute phone call and have an engineer onsite with a replacement part in 4 hours. If I roll my own, I may have to do some troubleshooting with a number of different component manufacturers, especially if there's any finger pointing going on. With HP (or any other big manufacturer), there's one number to call and no fingerpointing.
Also, the big three vendors tend to be better able to do troubleshooting than a number of smaller vendors. I know that HP includes software for management and monitoring with their servers. I have been saved from major downtime on multiple occasions because Insight Manager has detected an imminent failure and I was able to preemptively replace the failing component. So in that sense they are also better supported than a roll-your-own solution. When you're talking about storage systems, EMC goes even further with their call home monitoring/support system.
Finally, the major vendors all perform compatibility testing on their platforms. If you buy a server pre-built from any of the big three, you can generally choose from a number of different flavors of Windows, UNIX, or Linux and know that the server is compatible and supported on that OS. If HP releases a new driver for a fibre channel HBA you know that it won't cause problems with their SCSI HBAs. If you roll your own, you have to do all of the footwork and compatibility testing yourself.
If I need a new server, I have basically two options:
1. Go to a big three vendor, spend 10 minutes configuring it online, and place the order. I can have the server shipped to me and even receive it the next day if I want. All I have to do is unpack it, rack it, and install my applications.
2. Shop around for parts, comparing reviews and prices, and hopefully come up with a config that I can use. Then order the parts from one or more vendors. Then wait for all of the parts to arrive, because the odds of everything shipping and arriving on the same day are pretty slim. When everything arrives I have to make sure that I have all of the drivers available, and then assemble the server. Then install the OS and necessary drivers, hoping that there aren't any compatibility or configuration problems to be solved. Finally I can install apps and rack it.
In business, time is money. Option one takes less than an hour of my time from placing the order to server up. Option one also is far less likely to cause me to lose uptime or cause other headaches from a support standpoint. Option two may save me a couple bucks upfront, but in the long run it's going to cost me far more. Option two is especially bad if a part fails and that particular model is no longer manufactured.
There's a popular saying in the computer industry that goes "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." There's a reason that it's true, and it extends to the other big manufacturers as well.
Indiana has had this for years, and I've noticed it recently on Ohio tax returns as well. Not only does it apply to Internet purchases, but purchases from mail-order catalogs, magazine subscriptions, etc. Essentially anything that you buy out of state and have shipped to you. Keeping track of it is a total nightmare. There's no way that I can recall every single instance where I've purchased something online or mail-order. And then there's the entire grey area of what counts as a taxable purchase. Is it only a tangible product that's shipped to you? What if I live in Indiana, buy something from a New York company, and have it shipped to my friend in California? What if I buy a copy of my credit report from an out of state company that is delivered digitally? What about subscriptions to pr0n sites? What about services? If I use Turbo Tax for the web, do I have to pay use tax on the $15 filing fee? And not only is trying to keep track of your purchases a nightmare, enforcement is nearly impossible. The state would have get lists of purchases made by residents in their state from out-of-state merchants, which would be pretty much impossible. If the merchants are out of state, then there's no way to compel them to cough up the info. And if they operate in the same state, then they're already collecting sales tax. Generally, I think it's a joke. States are worried about losing tax revenue because of online shopping, but nobody knows how to recoup the loses, so they make a crazy law that nobody will follow.
Yeah, I gotta say the same thing. I rode these things (or something nearly identical to them) in Cancun a couple years ago. There's nothing new or exciting about them.
That sounds odd, but you'd be suprised how it turns out.
The number of companies who are looking for a strictly networking skilled individual will be relatively small compared to the number of companies looking for a Network Admin who can administrator Windows boxes and Cisco equipment.
Part of the crunch was that companies began consolidating their IT department. Having wide-ranging skills instead of targetted skills became much more valuable. Some companies went from having a separate Windows NT/2000 admin and Network Engineer to having one guy who could do both. Others have shifted to having two guys who can do both (which makes a lot more sense to begin with).
If you are a purely Cisco guy, your best bets for jobs are going to be with telcom companies, ISPs, and very large companies that put a premium on network usage (insurance companies, banks, etc...basically the entire financial sector). Those are the sorts of positions listed as Network Engineer, IP Engineering, etc.
If you are a Cisco/Windows guy, your options are all of the above plus many more, usually smaller companies, some of which may have only a few people in their entire IT department. You'll also be more attractive for consulting companies and equipment resellers. I know that a lot of of people think that the heydays of consulting are over, but the consulting company that I just left grew nearly 20% in revenues and headcount in 2003, so there are still good opportunities out there. (And in case you're wondering why I left, one of their customers offerred me a position with a promotion, more pay, more responsibility, etc.)
It may not be what you're interested in doing, but IMHO, when you are unemployed "what you're interested in doing" gets trumped by "something in the same field as what I'm interested in doing that pays the bills".
Good luck.
I work government network security for a living. Part of the ethics instilled in us (along with federal regulations governing the position) is the broad understanding that we are here to protect the security of the network. We are not the porn police or any other type of legal official.
But what you have utterly failed to comprehend here is the third word in your post. Government. Since you are working as an employee of a government agency then you are considerably more restricted in what you can and cannot do. If a federal employee technician sneaks a peak at someone's personal files, sees kiddie porn, and reports it, then even a mediocre attorney could twist it into an illegal search and seizure because it was an agent of the government who did it. But in the private sector you're just Joe Citizen, and it would not only be legal to report it it would be mandated by law in some states to report it.
There's a huge difference in workplace regulations between government and private sector jobs (and I have worked IT in both).
If you are a consultant who happens to be the project manager, your job and reputation are on the line. You normally will have the ability to make the critical decisions in this position with a certain amount of oversight. If I know for a fact that the project will fail because of the decisions made at a level above me, then I personally think that I owe it to myself and my customer to a) make a clear, concise, and convincing case for the method that I most favor, and b) make the decision to leave if I'm being micromanaged from above into failure.
Remember that you will be associated with whatever successes or failures that you participate in. In most situations like this you will be making an initial proposal for a solution to a customer, and if they choose your solution then you'll get the job. Otherwise it will go to someone else. In this case there should already be a certain level of synergy and trust between you and the customer, so cases like you describe would be an exception to the rule.
Now there's the other side of the "consulting" coin, and that is more of a staff augmentation situation. Yes, the customer is still paying for your expertise, but they obviously are just brining you in for extra manpower on the project. In these cases, I think that it is also important to bring up any concerns that you have about potential problems (or things being done the wrong way), but do so professionally. Don't rip apart the project plan in a team meeting (unless that's what the meeting was scheduled for), but if offerred the opportunity then offer your opinion. Speak to the project manager/lead implementer one-on-one and express any misgivings. Alsways offer an alternative method/product/solution.
My personal rule is to only bring it up once. If I disagree with a product or method, I'll pitch an alternative in the appropriate forum. If it is shot down then it's a dead subject as far as I'm concerned. Repeatedly bringing it up will only make you appear like a disgruntled employee or someone who is not a team player. Remember that in this situation you were brought in for your expertise, but mainly to be an additional labor resource. Work with the project plan as directed and do your best. If it turns out that you were right and the project is starting to sink, there's a good chance that the person you spoke with will start looking for an alternative solution, and you might come out looking like a hero.
To summarize, your reaction is going to be largely influenced by the role that you are given. So long as you fulfill your role to the best of your ability you should be in decent shape.
Now let's piss in the "geoprofiling" corn flakes:
Anyone remember the "Happyface Mailbox Bomber" that was running around a few months ago?
This sniper's weakness is that he is going to do it again. And every time he does, we will get closer to catching him. People without the willpower to stop themselves from doing it the first time certainly don't have the willpower to stop themselves subsequently.
.223 shell they found then he won't be feeling threatened). With most serial killers there is a period of association or stalking with a victim before the death. There are myriad opportunities to leave all kinds of evidence at the scene or with the victim. Serial killers also tend to take trophies from their kills. Neither of those is the case with the sniper. He's almost indifferent to his victims and whether they live or die, which leads me to wonder if his goal is really to kill people or if it is just to stir up fear in the terrorist tradition. I think that we'll all be very suprised when we find out who the shooter really is.
I'm not sure that that is the case this time. You've probably fallen into the trap of considering this person a typical serial killer. With a typical serial killer you've got a pattern of compulsion and escalation, but I don't see either here. I don't think that this killer feels driven to kill, I think that he wants to kill of his own free will.
What we're seeing is also the result of careful, methodical planning. We've got a case where there was a shooting about a week and a half ago, followed a few days later by 6 shootings in less than 24 hours, followed by a single shooting every couple days thereafter. There's not really been any escalation per se, unlike most serial killer cases.
What's more, the shooter obviously has a great deal of discipline. The shots that he's making aren't impossible, but without a great deal of training they wouldn't be successful so often. So that points to a current/former policeman or soldier. Either that, or someone who wanted to take the time to train for their mission. Either way, it's all far beyond your typical impulse-driven killers. I think that the killer could probably stop if he wanted to, but that he won't as long as he doesn't feel threatened (and lets face it, unless there are some latent prints on that
i havn't played in 1.5 years now, but i can say i could make these $30 characters in 2 days. trash. i make 85 magery on the first day, plus gm swords, tactics, anatomy. why spend $30 for this?
It's only because you haven't played in 1.5 years that you say these things. If you had been playing recently, you'd have known that skills have gotten harder to gain with the elimination of "power hour".
Does that make these characters any better? Not really. You're still competing in a world full of people with 7x100 skills, or even some with 125 skills (as the skill caps for some have been raised). Having 3 skills at 85 won't help you that much. Someone could build similar characters themselves for "free" in 30-40 hours. But for a lot of people like me those 30-40 hours of play may take a couple of months due to reali life obligations. But this gets you from nowhere to having a moderately playable character while saving you several days of playing (very boring, repetitive playing at that), and that's probably a good thing.
I have five characters that I've built over the years, but due to my limited playtime only three of them have managed to max out any skills at all(a total of 6 maxxed out skills between the 5 characters). I've wanted to build some other characters from time to time, but there just isn't enough time in my life to justify spending a couple months of play time to get ready to be able to have fun.
Just file your patent. Worry about prior art and all that other stuff later. That's what everybody else does...
FileFront
Nvidia
3D Gamers
Beyond Unreal
The Shack
HomeLan Fed
Aus Gamers
File Planet
Faster Files
Blue's News
Gigex
FragLand
GameSpot.
And the fastest mirror that I've tried yet was Nvidia's, though you have to download six split files and run a script to recombine them.
When I see things like:
"They will not consider you unless you can carry your M16 through the physical fitness course without killing yourself in the process," Sweeny, maintainer of the PacketAttack website, said. "Most of the geeks I know view exercise as carrying the 80-ounce cola, pager and cell phone all at the same time."
and
"You won't get a position in computer security until you've worked at least five years on the beat, preferably in physical investigations," Rosenberger said. "They'll grudgingly let you past if you just do forensics, but they feel you really should chase bad guys with a gun before you chase bad guys with a computer."
Then I realize that it's no wonder that the FBI lags so far behind the terrorists that they're trying to catch, or that important pieces of information slip through their fingers with lethal side-effects. If they refuse to hire the best people for the job, or upon hiring them refuse to let them work in their chosen field then they deserve everything bad that happens to them.
The war on cybercrime and cyberterrorism is already lost because all of the smart guys are working for the other side. It seems that's the way that the FBI wants it.
You will not have time to be an effective programmer and self salesman in a slow economy.
More to the point, the salesmanship game is about contacts, contacts, contacts. Get info on local and regional trade shows, Chamber of Commerce expos, and join professional networking groups. Most moderately sized cities will have sales networking groups who meet regularly to discuss techniques and pass on leads (for example, a hardware sales rep may pass on a lead to another group member for services that he can't provide). Whatever you do, network, network, network. It's all a numbers game. The account rep that I work with at my consulting company has about five steady customers that keep him in business out of a group of several hundred local contacts.
Most people who start successful consulting businesses have been working in their field for a number of years and already have a significant number of contacts with various potential customers. Most often they end up starting their own business when an employer's customer asks them to do some work on the side. It's not so often that somebody wakes up one morning and decides to start a consulting business from scratch. If you currently do not have a client need you can expect a long dry spell while you try to drum some up. Good luck.
Damn...
That sounded like something I'd say. Too bad I can't mod at the moment.
Your other alternative is not to go with a gem stone ring at all. Quite a few of my married friends only have wedding rings. Not because they were marring cheap guys but some for the reasons you cite. In these cases they have much more detailed metal work on the wedding band than the traditional gold band.
Absolutely. Myself being of Celtic descent, I intend to purchase wedding bands engraved with Celtic knots or other Celtic imagery rather than spend the money on a sweater-snagging diamond. In my opinion they are every bit as beautiful, and they can also convey a sense of family history and come across as much more unique than the cliched diamond solitaire.
As an aside, I found the article interesting but noted that it was written in 1982. I'm curious what sort of changes have occurred in the market during the past 20 years.
And in doing so, you'll probably make his point beautifully. If you did that at any office I've worked in, everyone would just carry on typing their letters and filling in their forms. They would do so unburdened by a flood of pointless e-mails about "funny" circulars and porn sites, and the incidental viruses that come with them.
Wow. You must work for some seriously behind the curve companies. The last 8 companies that I've done contract work for would all have screeched to a halt if they started losing connectivity. Heck, one of those 8 would have brought down large chunks of Internet backbone if someone started pulling cables.
Methinks that if you had a little more of:
IT can certainly make things much more efficient if competent people organise it, and those who use it are well-trained.
At your company then you'd probably be feeling more of a pinch in such situations.
There is one very simple thing to understand here: costs come out of IT, benefits come out of the customer department.
I think that's pretty much the sum of the problem right there. A lot of companies budget to individual departments, and they see IT as a giant sinkhole that takes up money but doesn't return any product. Sales reps spend money on sports tickets and dinners, but they generate sales. Marketing costs money, but they make pretty brochures and have a web site. Accounting spends money, but they keep the checks coming on time. Production lines cost money, but you can see completed product rolling off of them. IT costs money, but nobody sees what they produce because what they produce is everywhere. It's in the PDAs and contact management system that the sales force uses, it's in the DTP, design systems, and web site that marketing uses, it's in the ERP system that Accounting, Production, and Supply Chain use.
how can you justify paying a HS graduate with a "certification" that tells people to reboot their machine as a fix for everything souble what you would pay a marketing person with a college degree?
I assume that's "double" and not "souble". At any rate, marketing people are a dime a dozen. Good IT people are not. If your marketing person is a fuckup, they blow an ad campaign and lose their job. If an IT person is a fuckup, your web server doesn't work (resulting in the failure of your marketing campaign), your payroll and accounting system goes down, your supply chain stops running, and someone hacks into your system and steals trade secrets. So it's a considerably more important job working in IT than in marketing.
Honestly, your diatribe about a high school grad with a cert and the reboot solution sounds like it came out of the mouth of a marketing employee who feels like they're underpaid and has no idea what is involved in keeping systems running. Or it may just be that your company has a fuckup working in IT, in which case he'll be found out and eventually canned. But your post really does sound like a case of sour grapes.
And, how do you prove the value of IT? This is not as simple as it seems. Try it with a spreadsheet: as your typical CTO has to do so, every day."
Screw that spreadsheet nonsense. If I EVER hear a calculator monkey where I work say something as half-assed as:
'IT has now been proven to be a waste of money'
I'll be headed straight for the wiring closets and pulling the plugs on all the switches and routers I can find. Shortly thereafter I'm sure he'd figure out that IT actually does have value, though he may still be hard-pressed to quantify it.
The real problem with IT is that we were promising people the wrong thing. We promised them that it would make workers more efficient, allowing us to get the same amount of work done in less time. What really ended up happening is that now we get several times as much work done in the same amount of time. We don't work shorter hours, but we do get more done. That's a good thing.
The company that I work for has done several projects for businesses and government agencies that seemed prohibitively expensive at first, but usually ended up paying for themselves in savings after 6 to 12 months. We've done computerized inventory and supply chain projects and tied it all together with wireless PDAs resulting in a faster and more accurate accounting of inventory, reduced labor costs, and the near total elimination of paper documention that required costly and inefficient storage solutions.
It's can somewhat difficult to understand, so I can see where someone might deceive themselves into thinking that IT is a waste of money. It's much easier to see when you have a specific task that is being moved to a computerized system. But honestly, I have to think that someone who sees IT as a waste of money is either a) not using it properly, b) paying far too much for it, or c) not really thinking about it.
Hrmm, the thing only works two meters from the "computer" which I assume means the speakers. Oh well. In the meantime, at least I won't get malaria (or west Nile Virus here in the states)
Yes, but it you have a 4.1 or 5.1 speaker system, you can position the speakers nearly two meters away from you, which basically gives you an area with a 4 meter radius. That's a significant amount of room. I wonder what kind of range you can get from turning up the volume?