Re:No mental strain? I think not.
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Nostrildamus
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The company I work for is in the food business, and I happen to work at their R&D facilities. At any rate, when they are developing new products they usually do a whole range of sensory panels so that they can provide the consumer with the most pleasing experience possible. We often have sensory panels where anybody in the company can come in and do a taste/smell/sight/texture test, but we also have an elite group of sensory experts who are called in for special sensory panels. While they are the expert panel, their usual jobs are things like "Packaging Engineer," "QA Tester," "Process Development Engineer," etc. It's not anybody's full-time job, but the elite group have been given special training to allow them to be more effective. I imagine that NASA is doing something similar.
Literally, it means "You have received mail"; it's not redundant because the "got" specifically refers to the act of receiving a message.
Break out the contraction. "You've got mail" translates to "You have got mail." It should be either "You have mail" (if referring to the potential status of mail's existence) or "You have gotten mail" (when describing an action). That condenses to "You've gotten mail" or "You've mail." However, I'm pretty sure that you are not supposed to use the "have" contraction unless there's another verb in after it. I don't think that you are allowed to contract the active verb from "have" into "'ve". And even if you are, it sounds goofy as all hell.
Somebody commented that AOL mail software misses some features. That is not true.
Actually, it is true. AOL mail has none of the collaborative groupware features of any of the major commercially-oriented email solutions. Things like appointment scheduling, calendars, discussion threads/groups, contact management, etc. Those things may not mean much when you just wanna email your mom in Tuscaloosa, but they are very much critical tools in almost any large business environment.
When every Time-Warner employee starts getting an AOL-sized portion of breakfast spam every morning, maybe they will be better motivated to improve AOL's anti-spam filters.
Well, that's actually what I was thinking too. AOL mail sucks. Speaking as someone who has used Outlook/Exchange, Notes/Domino, Groupwise, and AOL mail, I have to say that AOL mail doesn't support 1/10th of the features found in the least capable of the other three. You don't even have to get into the whole "spam" argument before you start to question somebody's sanity in making this decision.
However, if you think about it logically, they probably aren't going to be using strictly AOL mail. I dunno because I couldn't get to the article, but I imagine that they'll be using an enhanced version that is aimed more towards a business environment. Heck, maybe they're working on a Netscape Communicator/AOL mail hybrid. But realistically they can't use AOL for all the workers at each site, even from just a performance standpoint. They'll want/need local mail servers at each location (anoyone who has tried accessing a mail server over a WAN link will understand why...don't even think about attachments), and AOL Mail probably won't do that very well. AOL mail has none of the groupware features common to all of the business oriented email solutions, and a mail migration of that size would cost millions of dollars. I'm sure that would give AOL/TW all the incentive that it needs to start making improvements in the mail system.
By "last 2 checks," I assume that you mean the checks being offered for January and February of this year.
BTW, IANAL.
Now, it seems to me that if they are telling you that you have to sign away your "rights" (more like expectations) to being paid for March and April in order to get the checks already owed for January and February, then I think that's a load of crap (note use of high-level legalese). I would hope that somebody in your position would have already had a contract with UGO that clearly defines how you are to be compensated for running their ads (and hopefully the timeframe of said compensation).
If that's the case, then it would seem that they're already in breach of contract. Getting you to sign away half the money they owe you in order to get any at all is just a tactic that they'll take because they think that they can get away with it. After all, most of the websites that you mentioned are run by hobbyists or young adults for whom the site is not their primary source of income (nor are they likely to file a lawsuit).
Beyond that, I would think that it seriously would call into question UGO's ability to pay you any future money that they will end up oweing you (for May, etc.). Of course, that also calls into question their ability to pay any eventual legal settlement as well. Let's face it, you're dealing with a company that is financially tapped out.
You could refuse to sign the new contract and sue for this year's money owed. Odds are you wouldn't get much for your effort and you'd have to pay lawyers fees. You could sign the contract, take the money from January and February and then tell UGO to take a hike. Or you could not sign the contract, not sue, tell UGO to take a hike and hope to get somthing out of them if they go bankrupt.
Any way you slice it, you're doinked. If this is only a hobby to you, take the money and run. If this is your profession or you really need that extra money, talk to an attorney and see what he thinks. This of course assumes that the amount of money owed is actually significant (in the thousands of dollars). Either way, wash your hands of UGO through whatever manner is stipulated in your contract and get on with life.
The White House said: White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was adamant Monday when asked whether the president would ask Americans to stop using so much energy.
"The president believes that it's an American way of life, that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one."
Wow. Let's see here...since Roe V. Wade abortion has also been an "American way of life," but I don't see him doing anything to protect it. Blessed my ass...
That just pisses me off when bone-headed leaders like Dubby can't figure out that change happens and that even "The American Way of Life" needs to change sometimes...
Yes, liability (guilt) is determined based upon a "preponderance of the evidence" in a civil case, whereas it must be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt" in a criminal case. That is how OJ Simpson was found innocent in a criminal case and liable in the civil case. They didn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but they did prove it based on a preponderance of the evidence.
But that is all irrelevant in this case as the burden of proof is still on the plaintiff or prosecution. The defendant (in the US anyways) always gets the benefit of being innocent (or not-liable) until proven (either beyond a resonable doubt or based on a preponderance of the evidence, depending on the type of case) guilty.
Beyond that it's even more irrelevant as hacking is a criminal offense.
Sure, you would know you didn't hack their site...but you'd have to prove it in court, which is expensive as hell, not to mention very hard on the reputation.
Actually, they'd have to prove in court that you did it. Remember, innocent till proven guilty. Of course, by the time it gets that far you've already suffered a pretty substantial hit to your professional reputation to begin with...
First off, don't crack their servers. Don't break them or otherwise doink with them. In fact, my first instinct is to say just let them go gracefully. It doesn't matter what you say now, it's pretty likely that you're going to come off looking as a sore loser. If you point out specific exploits to their sysadmins and later someone uses those exploits then not only do you look like a sore loser, you look like a sore loser who was out for revenge. That could be even worse.
All in all you're probably best off to just shake hands and part ways with the customer. Keep in contect on a regular basis to see if they might be interested in your services (or switching to your services), but come to terms with the fact that they're someone else's customer.
If you have a strong business relationship with this company, you might vary your approach. You might take the CIO or whoever is in charge of this deal aside and tell them "as a friend" that there is potentially a problem, but even that's iffy. If you were going to say anything to begin with you would have been better off pointing out how important security is in the stage where you were pitching the product to the company. After you've lost the sale it's too late to worry about it. Even then it can be a double-edged sword though. Badmouthing your competitors, even if it is true, is still going to look like mudslinging. A prospective client should be doing some research on people bidding for the work before they make a decision. If they aren't, then they're just asking for trouble down the road. More than likely they wouldn't end up being that good of a customer anyway if they aren't willing to do due diligence.
Just use your head. The last thing that you want is for them to go with your competitor's services and then you end up constantly giving them free security consulting.
I certainly hope... (Score:2)
by Tebriel (dontspamtebriel@opendiary.com) on Wednesday May 09, @04:13PM EDT (#37)
(User #192168 Info)
that he's reviewing these results on an individual basis. We use a similar system we wrote to check students in our CS program at school. It really can work. It can also destroy someone's academic record if wrong. This kind of stuff needs human review to insure that it's matching patterns correctly.
Great...can someone please explain to me why people post without having read the actual article? Or more importantly, why we have someone who actually modded this up who apparently also hasn't read the article (otherwise, how could they possibly think that this deserves a "+1 interesting" mod?)?
Re:H1-B visa and other issues
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IT Unions?
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H1-B visa workers are of course often abused and it would seem that a union would make a hell of a lot of sense for them.
Nah...why should we let them do that? They are coming to America in one of the finest of American traditions...indentured servitude. Rather than having them organize and give them additional protections, I'd rather see the number of H1-Bs for tech workers limited.
Wait a minnit...I just had an idea. Organize the H1-Bs and require them to be paid and treated equally to the native population. Then there is no incentive for bringing in H1-Bs becaus they cost as much as the natives butthey come with more paperwork. Hmm...of course, that would require having a scale set for domestic employees that would probably require organization on our part. Nah, I don't like it...
Re:Unions are not appropriate for IT (in general..
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IT Unions?
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Every industry seems to go through this cycle. An industry like the computer industry gets a tremendous boost by, say, the introduction of the PC, and a half a decade goes by without there being an academic curiculum available to churn out reasonably qualified people, then as soon as that curiculum is in place, companies feel that they have a never ending supply of grist for the mill. The same is true for the rapid growth of the internet. With the advent of an easy interface to information (the web), growth is spurred, and qualified people are difficult to find. The academic community lags about half a decade behind, but as soon as a curiculim is developed - and I saw a TV ad for a trade school advertising "become a certified webmaster" yesterday, so the time may be nearer than I'm suggesting - companies feel there is a never ending supply of talent out there.
IT has existed for decades, just not in its present form. Schools have had IT curriculums for many years...they're called CS, CIS, MIS, etc degrees. What you are seeing is an expression of people who still want to take advantage of the whole "dot-com revolution" by convincing people that a 2-week boot camp will allow them to earn $100,000 a year.
The IT job market will never become commoditized for the simple reason that a 2-week boot camp WILL NOT allow you to earn $100,000 a year. A great deal of education, training and experience goes into becoming a skilled IT worker. There is in effect a barrier to entry to the market. As long as that initial investment is necessary, the market will not become commoditized.
Re:Unions and what they can do for us
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IT Unions?
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unions might be large and corrupt...but that's just as much of a reaction against the similar corporate trend.
Great. So now in addition to working for an evil corporate power, you're telling me that I'm going to have to work for an evil corrupt union as well? And I have to pay them?!?!?!?
Re:It's not artificial leverage.
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IT Unions?
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This is a typical neo-conservative response. First they say free the market from regulation, then they say that employees trying to freely associate and set the price of their labor is against the free market. Whatever, dude.
Who out there is saying that unions are wrong that people shouldn't be allowed to free associate (nice use of a loaded word on your part)? There's not necessarily anything wrong with the concept of unions, they did have their place in history. They may still have their place in commodity jobs. We're just saying that they don't have a place in IT.
Beyond that, I do have a problem with unions who often practice restraint of trade against skilled individuals. Most union shops have a clause in their contract that anybody who works for that unionized company must join the union in order to work for that company. What if I don't want to join to union? What if I want to negotiate my own compensation and rights in my own employment contract? I can't do that with a union shop. I could imagine a union-ified future where every company in town has a unionized IT shop. What do you do then?
BTW, I'm speaking as a generally ultra left-wing liberal and former union member.
Unionizing is a great idea, the average union worker makes well more than minimum wage and well more than he would have otherwise made, or in teh case of some unions, had made in the past.
The average IT worker makes well more than minimum wage, and well more than he would have likely made in another trade, and most IT workers are making more money now than they did in the past.
Union workers have garunteed health benefits, garunteed retirement programs, work a maximum set of hours (how many 14 hours days have YOU pulled this year), are treated more fairly, are taken more seriously by management because numbers have clout, get liveable minimums set for a variety of other things.
IT workers (most) have health benefits, retirement programs (401K or IRA accounts), are treated better than the average worker in most of trades, and are well above liveable minimums for most other things.
On the subject of working a maximum number of set hours, I don't see an advantage to that. As a consultant I bill hourly, so the more hours I work the better. In most cases the average IT worker doesn't work more hours than he is willing to. Those that do end up working more hours than they care to usually end up going somewhere else to work, just like every other non-union workers. In most professions today you will find that most people work long hours. That's just the way of things with a professional job. When you are a tradesman long hours become an issue because you are a commodity. They don't have to have the same person there working that machine for 12 hours a day, but it's cheaper than hiring another person to work it for 4 hours.
As far as being taken more seriously by management goes, I don't know what you mean. My managers (the people I report to) always take me seriously. They are paying for my opinions and experience. The management at my consulting company takes me seriously because I am a good worker who knows his stuff (and I make them money). I think that you'll find the whole "not taken seriously" aspect to be far more prevalent in blue-collar, commoditized jobs. An expert coder is usually taken more seriously by his boss than an expert machine-stamp operator. White-collar bosses look at the employees more as equals than blue-collar bosses because they usually ARE more equal in terms of experience, education, lifestyle, etc.
Re:Umm Wait a minute not all Unions Suck
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IT Unions?
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All I am saying is that look at the long run, one day geek might go back to meaning a low life loser and not a tech stud. Just a thought
And when that day comes (if it ever comes), then that will be the time to form a union. If commoditization of our jobs occurs, then we can fight back by organizing. But by organizing now, we would be bringing about the very fate that we wish to avoid. Beyond that, I don't believe that the day will ever come that we would need a union to protect us from our employers anyway.
Re:Nothing much has changed
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IT Unions?
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Between 1990 and 1998, overall inflation was about 22.5 percent.
Average worker (non-executive) pay increased by about 28 percent (minus inflation, natch).
Corporate profits rose about 104 percent.
The S&P Index rose 224 percent (yes, we all know that's in the tank now).
And CEO compensation?
Well, that rose about 481 percent.
Interesting. Does anyone else find it odd that the study stopped in 1998? What if we extend it to include up to the first quarter of 2001? How much lower would that be due to stock market dips and cost-cutting? How many of those CEO's whose compensation rose 481% had that compensation drop to zero when they bungled some decision and ran their company out of business?
It's rise an fall...CEOs have a lot of problems. The compensation seems outlandish to us mere mortals, but as someone else pointed out it is often tied to stock performance. It's not uncommon for a CEO to have a $200,000 base salary and then options on 2 million shares. Or for there to be a performance bonus in the millions of dollars. But that's because they're driving the bus, and they'll only get them if the company does well. In that sense, the CEO's compensation is more tied to the well-being of the economy than the average workers (and 1990-1998 were GREAT years for the economy). But then we average workers don't get canned (usually) when the company's stock drops $10 and then have to spend 9 months with a headhunter to find another position that we're qualified for, so we have more security in that respect.
But beyond that, what if I found a company and am the CEO? Am I not entitled to outlandish compensation for my efforts in the company? As much as I hate Microsoft, when Bill Gates was CEO he deserved every penny of compensation that he received. When Steve Balmer took the reigns, he got a similarly large compensation package, and he deserved it too. They were both there busting their butts in the early days of Microsoft to make it into what it is today, and they certainly should be rewarded for creating such a large, powerful, and sucessful business.
Re:Why this will never work
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IT Unions?
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Some observers say negotiating with human resources on salaries, benefits, training and work-environment issues might be easier when employees' collective voices are leveraged by union membership
Thsoe observers are probably observing from the HR side. It's already somewhat obvious when dealing with large corporations or governments (or other organizations that are unionized in some aspect) that there is a similar system in place. HR posts, I have a position for a Systems Analyst II, a Tier 1 Support Technician, a Class 1 Operator, and so on. That's how I see a lot of jobs advertised (especially for state and city jobs). When they put it in a scale like that, you know what the range of pay is. You don't have to worry about negotiating with an individual for compensation. You already know that no matter how skilled that individual is, he's still only going to be a Systems Analyst II and the pay scale for that group is $55,000-$59,000 per year commensurate with experience (even if he could get $70,000 elsewhere).
If you think about it, unions only work in markets where jobs can be commoditized. IT jobs generally can't be commoditized. The exceptions to that seem to be in Tier I and Tier II support technicians (aka, Helpdesk Operators and Desktop Technicians). And you'll note that for those two positions the going rates are pretty much fixed. In my city Tier I pays from $11-$14 per hour (pending experience). Tier II pays from $13-$18 per hour (also pending experience). Period. If you finally make it to Tier III (which is considered application support or administration), the pay rates range from $20-$40 an hour, depending on the apps/systems supported and the company that you work for, skill level, etc. I just pulled those figures off of Monster.com, BTW.
But when you bring in a union, the biggest thing that they do is create a pay scale. They create a commoditization of all the jobs in the organization because they have to. You cannot have collective bargaining unless you use averages in this manner. Do you really want to take a market that really can't be commoditized very well and then try to commoditize it? That's what a union will do.
Re:Everybody's not above average!
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Every time unions come up here, people say "unions are for below average folks, and I don't need that because I'm l33t."
Well, guess what pal - the odds are somewhere around, say, 50-50 that you're below average. It reminds me of the stats that 80% or whatever of drivers say they are an "above average" driver...
Yes, but the below-average person is exactly who we DON'T want to be protected in IT. If your performance is below average (or sub-par), then you need to do something else. I've met tons of people who had certifications that they got by studying books but had no practical experience in their chosen field. People like that give skilled professionals a bad name. They degrade the value of certifications. These are the people that stand to gain the most (in the form of job security) from unions, and these are the people that shouldn't be there.
Besides, why should an exceptional employee be paid the same as a sub-par employee? I work hard to distinguish myself by the quality of my work, and my employer rewards me for that with greater compensation than some of my co-workers.
So sure, unions are designed around the average, but given that half of all employers are below average in how they treat their employees, maybe the protections a union can offer are useful.
You are mistaken here. You've confused employees and employers. Unions are designed around the average worker. Unions don't do anything to below-average employers (except force them to pay more for below-average workers). Below average employers will only get away with what the market will tolerate. Period. And the market isn't going to tolerate much nonsense, even with the recent slowdowns.
I used to work for a "consulting" firm that was below-average in every way. They treated their employees poorly, they offered no benefits, and their pay was roughly 75-80% of the going rate in my city. That was my first IT job, and I knew that there was better out there. So at the first opportunity to go to a better company I jumped ship. This company is still in business (though it's not as big as it used to be), but they have more turnover (percentage wise) than any other company I've ever seen. They have a bad reputation among the IT workers in my city, and the only way that they do manage to get new recruits is by hiring people just out of school or new to IT. They usually stick around for as long as it takes to realize that there is something better out there. So the market itself rewards above-average companies. Unions have nothing to do with it.
The tactic only works if management can replace you quickly and easily. That disqualifies most of the jobs Slashdotters have. But I think that as IT becomes larger and larger, more jobs will fall into the "replacable" category and unions may become needed.
Unions only work when dealing with workers whose positions have been commoditized is what you are saying. And you're right, that doesn't apply to IT. But beyond that, I don't think that it ever will apply to IT for the most part. Sure, there are your simple call center and desktop technicians that can probably be considered commoditized, but beyond that it's pretty much wide open.
The thing about IT is that everything is about customization. If you're a truck driver, the trucks are pretty standard. If you're a welder, the torches are pretty standard. If you're an electrician, the wiring jobs are all pretty standard. If you are a developer, everything that you do is customization. Your familiarity with the company's environment, needs, and existing codebase would probably take 6-9 months of training and "on-the-job" experience in order to replicate. You won't be commoditized anytime soon.
Unions exist to protect workers from exploitation from their employers and to promote a more equitible split of the fruits of their labor, pure and simple.
And if that's the reason that unions exist, then I agree that we don't need them in IT.
But, dealing with AT&T and Road Runner is also a pain in the posterior. Not only do they require the MAC address of each NIC, but when you mention Linux, their response is "We don't support Linux." Of course, I responded, "Did I ask for a linux command?". I set up a Win2K machine, their first response was, "remove TCP/IP and reinstall." When I asked what that would do, they didn't know, but said they were sure it would fix the problem. I asked if they would bet $1,000, but they would not put their money where their mouth is.
In Columbus, OH they don't need your MAC address. However, the system is configured to only allow 1 IP address from that cable-modem, so to switch systems you either need to a) release the IP address from the system that has it and then grab it from the second machine/NIC, or b) do some NAT.
I once had a problem where I had to call tech support too...they wouldn't let me talk to the level 2 support. I had done every troubleshooting step on my hardware and determined that there was a problem on their end, but they didn't want to hear about it. They still wanted me to go through every step in their script (which I had already done and told them the results of, prefaced with the standard 'I do this for a living' line) while on the phone with them before they finally gave up and told me that a level 2 technician would call me back. When the level 2 tech called me back he insisted that we repeat their standard script a third time (release/renew IP address, uninstall then reinstall TCP/IP, release/renew again) before he would look at anything.
My personal opinion is that if you are a technical person, you are almost better off switching ISPs altogether than trying to get tech support from your current ISP when you encounter a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
The company I work for is in the food business, and I happen to work at their R&D facilities. At any rate, when they are developing new products they usually do a whole range of sensory panels so that they can provide the consumer with the most pleasing experience possible. We often have sensory panels where anybody in the company can come in and do a taste/smell/sight/texture test, but we also have an elite group of sensory experts who are called in for special sensory panels. While they are the expert panel, their usual jobs are things like "Packaging Engineer," "QA Tester," "Process Development Engineer," etc. It's not anybody's full-time job, but the elite group have been given special training to allow them to be more effective. I imagine that NASA is doing something similar.
Do the Methodists train their members in how to give false testimony as a sacrament?
Google "TR-L"
I knew that Carson Daily had to be one of them. That's the only explanation for it. Damn you Carson Daily!!! Damn you to hell!!!
Literally, it means "You have received mail"; it's not redundant because the "got" specifically refers to the act of receiving a message.
Break out the contraction. "You've got mail" translates to "You have got mail." It should be either "You have mail" (if referring to the potential status of mail's existence) or "You have gotten mail" (when describing an action). That condenses to "You've gotten mail" or "You've mail." However, I'm pretty sure that you are not supposed to use the "have" contraction unless there's another verb in after it. I don't think that you are allowed to contract the active verb from "have" into "'ve". And even if you are, it sounds goofy as all hell.
Somebody commented that AOL mail software misses some features. That is not true.
Actually, it is true. AOL mail has none of the collaborative groupware features of any of the major commercially-oriented email solutions. Things like appointment scheduling, calendars, discussion threads/groups, contact management, etc. Those things may not mean much when you just wanna email your mom in Tuscaloosa, but they are very much critical tools in almost any large business environment.
When every Time-Warner employee starts getting an AOL-sized portion of breakfast spam every morning, maybe they will be better motivated to improve AOL's anti-spam filters.
Well, that's actually what I was thinking too. AOL mail sucks. Speaking as someone who has used Outlook/Exchange, Notes/Domino, Groupwise, and AOL mail, I have to say that AOL mail doesn't support 1/10th of the features found in the least capable of the other three. You don't even have to get into the whole "spam" argument before you start to question somebody's sanity in making this decision.
However, if you think about it logically, they probably aren't going to be using strictly AOL mail. I dunno because I couldn't get to the article, but I imagine that they'll be using an enhanced version that is aimed more towards a business environment. Heck, maybe they're working on a Netscape Communicator/AOL mail hybrid. But realistically they can't use AOL for all the workers at each site, even from just a performance standpoint. They'll want/need local mail servers at each location (anoyone who has tried accessing a mail server over a WAN link will understand why...don't even think about attachments), and AOL Mail probably won't do that very well. AOL mail has none of the groupware features common to all of the business oriented email solutions, and a mail migration of that size would cost millions of dollars. I'm sure that would give AOL/TW all the incentive that it needs to start making improvements in the mail system.
By "last 2 checks," I assume that you mean the checks being offered for January and February of this year. BTW, IANAL. Now, it seems to me that if they are telling you that you have to sign away your "rights" (more like expectations) to being paid for March and April in order to get the checks already owed for January and February, then I think that's a load of crap (note use of high-level legalese). I would hope that somebody in your position would have already had a contract with UGO that clearly defines how you are to be compensated for running their ads (and hopefully the timeframe of said compensation). If that's the case, then it would seem that they're already in breach of contract. Getting you to sign away half the money they owe you in order to get any at all is just a tactic that they'll take because they think that they can get away with it. After all, most of the websites that you mentioned are run by hobbyists or young adults for whom the site is not their primary source of income (nor are they likely to file a lawsuit). Beyond that, I would think that it seriously would call into question UGO's ability to pay you any future money that they will end up oweing you (for May, etc.). Of course, that also calls into question their ability to pay any eventual legal settlement as well. Let's face it, you're dealing with a company that is financially tapped out. You could refuse to sign the new contract and sue for this year's money owed. Odds are you wouldn't get much for your effort and you'd have to pay lawyers fees. You could sign the contract, take the money from January and February and then tell UGO to take a hike. Or you could not sign the contract, not sue, tell UGO to take a hike and hope to get somthing out of them if they go bankrupt. Any way you slice it, you're doinked. If this is only a hobby to you, take the money and run. If this is your profession or you really need that extra money, talk to an attorney and see what he thinks. This of course assumes that the amount of money owed is actually significant (in the thousands of dollars). Either way, wash your hands of UGO through whatever manner is stipulated in your contract and get on with life.
The White House said: White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was adamant Monday when asked whether the president would ask Americans to stop using so much energy.
"The president believes that it's an American way of life, that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one."
Wow. Let's see here...since Roe V. Wade abortion has also been an "American way of life," but I don't see him doing anything to protect it. Blessed my ass...
That just pisses me off when bone-headed leaders like Dubby can't figure out that change happens and that even "The American Way of Life" needs to change sometimes...
Yes, liability (guilt) is determined based upon a "preponderance of the evidence" in a civil case, whereas it must be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt" in a criminal case. That is how OJ Simpson was found innocent in a criminal case and liable in the civil case. They didn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but they did prove it based on a preponderance of the evidence.
But that is all irrelevant in this case as the burden of proof is still on the plaintiff or prosecution. The defendant (in the US anyways) always gets the benefit of being innocent (or not-liable) until proven (either beyond a resonable doubt or based on a preponderance of the evidence, depending on the type of case) guilty.
Beyond that it's even more irrelevant as hacking is a criminal offense.
Umm, that's criminal law, not civil law.
Yes, and hacking is a criminal offense.
Sure, you would know you didn't hack their site...but you'd have to prove it in court, which is expensive as hell, not to mention very hard on the reputation.
Actually, they'd have to prove in court that you did it. Remember, innocent till proven guilty. Of course, by the time it gets that far you've already suffered a pretty substantial hit to your professional reputation to begin with...
First off, don't crack their servers. Don't break them or otherwise doink with them. In fact, my first instinct is to say just let them go gracefully. It doesn't matter what you say now, it's pretty likely that you're going to come off looking as a sore loser. If you point out specific exploits to their sysadmins and later someone uses those exploits then not only do you look like a sore loser, you look like a sore loser who was out for revenge. That could be even worse.
All in all you're probably best off to just shake hands and part ways with the customer. Keep in contect on a regular basis to see if they might be interested in your services (or switching to your services), but come to terms with the fact that they're someone else's customer.
If you have a strong business relationship with this company, you might vary your approach. You might take the CIO or whoever is in charge of this deal aside and tell them "as a friend" that there is potentially a problem, but even that's iffy. If you were going to say anything to begin with you would have been better off pointing out how important security is in the stage where you were pitching the product to the company. After you've lost the sale it's too late to worry about it. Even then it can be a double-edged sword though. Badmouthing your competitors, even if it is true, is still going to look like mudslinging. A prospective client should be doing some research on people bidding for the work before they make a decision. If they aren't, then they're just asking for trouble down the road. More than likely they wouldn't end up being that good of a customer anyway if they aren't willing to do due diligence.
Just use your head. The last thing that you want is for them to go with your competitor's services and then you end up constantly giving them free security consulting.
is that they are revoking past degrees. if i wrote a paper 3 years ago and someone re-used it this year, should i have my diploma revoked?
No, but if someone wrote a paper 3 years ago and you re-used it last year and have already graduated...then yes.
I certainly hope... (Score:2)
by Tebriel (dontspamtebriel@opendiary.com) on Wednesday May 09, @04:13PM EDT (#37)
(User #192168 Info)
that he's reviewing these results on an individual basis. We use a similar system we wrote to check students in our CS program at school. It really can work. It can also destroy someone's academic record if wrong. This kind of stuff needs human review to insure that it's matching patterns correctly.
Great...can someone please explain to me why people post without having read the actual article? Or more importantly, why we have someone who actually modded this up who apparently also hasn't read the article (otherwise, how could they possibly think that this deserves a "+1 interesting" mod?)?
H1-B visa workers are of course often abused and it would seem that a union would make a hell of a lot of sense for them.
Nah...why should we let them do that? They are coming to America in one of the finest of American traditions...indentured servitude. Rather than having them organize and give them additional protections, I'd rather see the number of H1-Bs for tech workers limited.
Wait a minnit...I just had an idea. Organize the H1-Bs and require them to be paid and treated equally to the native population. Then there is no incentive for bringing in H1-Bs becaus they cost as much as the natives butthey come with more paperwork. Hmm...of course, that would require having a scale set for domestic employees that would probably require organization on our part. Nah, I don't like it...
Every industry seems to go through this cycle. An industry like the computer industry gets a tremendous boost by, say, the introduction of the PC, and a half a decade goes by without there being an academic curiculum available to churn out reasonably qualified people, then as soon as that curiculum is in place, companies feel that they have a never ending supply of grist for the mill. The same is true for the rapid growth of the internet. With the advent of an easy interface to information (the web), growth is spurred, and qualified people are difficult to find. The academic community lags about half a decade behind, but as soon as a curiculim is developed - and I saw a TV ad for a trade school advertising "become a certified webmaster" yesterday, so the time may be nearer than I'm suggesting - companies feel there is a never ending supply of talent out there.
IT has existed for decades, just not in its present form. Schools have had IT curriculums for many years...they're called CS, CIS, MIS, etc degrees. What you are seeing is an expression of people who still want to take advantage of the whole "dot-com revolution" by convincing people that a 2-week boot camp will allow them to earn $100,000 a year.
The IT job market will never become commoditized for the simple reason that a 2-week boot camp WILL NOT allow you to earn $100,000 a year. A great deal of education, training and experience goes into becoming a skilled IT worker. There is in effect a barrier to entry to the market. As long as that initial investment is necessary, the market will not become commoditized.
unions might be large and corrupt...but that's just as much of a reaction against the similar corporate trend.
Great. So now in addition to working for an evil corporate power, you're telling me that I'm going to have to work for an evil corrupt union as well? And I have to pay them?!?!?!?
This is a typical neo-conservative response. First they say free the market from regulation, then they say that employees trying to freely associate and set the price of their labor is against the free market. Whatever, dude.
Who out there is saying that unions are wrong that people shouldn't be allowed to free associate (nice use of a loaded word on your part)? There's not necessarily anything wrong with the concept of unions, they did have their place in history. They may still have their place in commodity jobs. We're just saying that they don't have a place in IT.
Beyond that, I do have a problem with unions who often practice restraint of trade against skilled individuals. Most union shops have a clause in their contract that anybody who works for that unionized company must join the union in order to work for that company. What if I don't want to join to union? What if I want to negotiate my own compensation and rights in my own employment contract? I can't do that with a union shop. I could imagine a union-ified future where every company in town has a unionized IT shop. What do you do then?
BTW, I'm speaking as a generally ultra left-wing liberal and former union member.
Unionizing is a great idea, the average union worker makes well more than minimum wage and well more than he would have otherwise made, or in teh case of some unions, had made in the past.
The average IT worker makes well more than minimum wage, and well more than he would have likely made in another trade, and most IT workers are making more money now than they did in the past.
Union workers have garunteed health benefits, garunteed retirement programs, work a maximum set of hours (how many 14 hours days have YOU pulled this year), are treated more fairly, are taken more seriously by management because numbers have clout, get liveable minimums set for a variety of other things.
IT workers (most) have health benefits, retirement programs (401K or IRA accounts), are treated better than the average worker in most of trades, and are well above liveable minimums for most other things.
On the subject of working a maximum number of set hours, I don't see an advantage to that. As a consultant I bill hourly, so the more hours I work the better. In most cases the average IT worker doesn't work more hours than he is willing to. Those that do end up working more hours than they care to usually end up going somewhere else to work, just like every other non-union workers. In most professions today you will find that most people work long hours. That's just the way of things with a professional job. When you are a tradesman long hours become an issue because you are a commodity. They don't have to have the same person there working that machine for 12 hours a day, but it's cheaper than hiring another person to work it for 4 hours.
As far as being taken more seriously by management goes, I don't know what you mean. My managers (the people I report to) always take me seriously. They are paying for my opinions and experience. The management at my consulting company takes me seriously because I am a good worker who knows his stuff (and I make them money). I think that you'll find the whole "not taken seriously" aspect to be far more prevalent in blue-collar, commoditized jobs. An expert coder is usually taken more seriously by his boss than an expert machine-stamp operator. White-collar bosses look at the employees more as equals than blue-collar bosses because they usually ARE more equal in terms of experience, education, lifestyle, etc.
All I am saying is that look at the long run, one day geek might go back to meaning a low life loser and not a tech stud. Just a thought
And when that day comes (if it ever comes), then that will be the time to form a union. If commoditization of our jobs occurs, then we can fight back by organizing. But by organizing now, we would be bringing about the very fate that we wish to avoid. Beyond that, I don't believe that the day will ever come that we would need a union to protect us from our employers anyway.
Between 1990 and 1998, overall inflation was about 22.5 percent. Average worker (non-executive) pay increased by about 28 percent (minus inflation, natch). Corporate profits rose about 104 percent. The S&P Index rose 224 percent (yes, we all know that's in the tank now). And CEO compensation? Well, that rose about 481 percent.
Interesting. Does anyone else find it odd that the study stopped in 1998? What if we extend it to include up to the first quarter of 2001? How much lower would that be due to stock market dips and cost-cutting? How many of those CEO's whose compensation rose 481% had that compensation drop to zero when they bungled some decision and ran their company out of business?
It's rise an fall...CEOs have a lot of problems. The compensation seems outlandish to us mere mortals, but as someone else pointed out it is often tied to stock performance. It's not uncommon for a CEO to have a $200,000 base salary and then options on 2 million shares. Or for there to be a performance bonus in the millions of dollars. But that's because they're driving the bus, and they'll only get them if the company does well. In that sense, the CEO's compensation is more tied to the well-being of the economy than the average workers (and 1990-1998 were GREAT years for the economy). But then we average workers don't get canned (usually) when the company's stock drops $10 and then have to spend 9 months with a headhunter to find another position that we're qualified for, so we have more security in that respect.
But beyond that, what if I found a company and am the CEO? Am I not entitled to outlandish compensation for my efforts in the company? As much as I hate Microsoft, when Bill Gates was CEO he deserved every penny of compensation that he received. When Steve Balmer took the reigns, he got a similarly large compensation package, and he deserved it too. They were both there busting their butts in the early days of Microsoft to make it into what it is today, and they certainly should be rewarded for creating such a large, powerful, and sucessful business.
Some observers say negotiating with human resources on salaries, benefits, training and work-environment issues might be easier when employees' collective voices are leveraged by union membership
Thsoe observers are probably observing from the HR side. It's already somewhat obvious when dealing with large corporations or governments (or other organizations that are unionized in some aspect) that there is a similar system in place. HR posts, I have a position for a Systems Analyst II, a Tier 1 Support Technician, a Class 1 Operator, and so on. That's how I see a lot of jobs advertised (especially for state and city jobs). When they put it in a scale like that, you know what the range of pay is. You don't have to worry about negotiating with an individual for compensation. You already know that no matter how skilled that individual is, he's still only going to be a Systems Analyst II and the pay scale for that group is $55,000-$59,000 per year commensurate with experience (even if he could get $70,000 elsewhere).
If you think about it, unions only work in markets where jobs can be commoditized. IT jobs generally can't be commoditized. The exceptions to that seem to be in Tier I and Tier II support technicians (aka, Helpdesk Operators and Desktop Technicians). And you'll note that for those two positions the going rates are pretty much fixed. In my city Tier I pays from $11-$14 per hour (pending experience). Tier II pays from $13-$18 per hour (also pending experience). Period. If you finally make it to Tier III (which is considered application support or administration), the pay rates range from $20-$40 an hour, depending on the apps/systems supported and the company that you work for, skill level, etc. I just pulled those figures off of Monster.com, BTW.
But when you bring in a union, the biggest thing that they do is create a pay scale. They create a commoditization of all the jobs in the organization because they have to. You cannot have collective bargaining unless you use averages in this manner. Do you really want to take a market that really can't be commoditized very well and then try to commoditize it? That's what a union will do.
Every time unions come up here, people say "unions are for below average folks, and I don't need that because I'm l33t." Well, guess what pal - the odds are somewhere around, say, 50-50 that you're below average. It reminds me of the stats that 80% or whatever of drivers say they are an "above average" driver...
Yes, but the below-average person is exactly who we DON'T want to be protected in IT. If your performance is below average (or sub-par), then you need to do something else. I've met tons of people who had certifications that they got by studying books but had no practical experience in their chosen field. People like that give skilled professionals a bad name. They degrade the value of certifications. These are the people that stand to gain the most (in the form of job security) from unions, and these are the people that shouldn't be there.
Besides, why should an exceptional employee be paid the same as a sub-par employee? I work hard to distinguish myself by the quality of my work, and my employer rewards me for that with greater compensation than some of my co-workers.
So sure, unions are designed around the average, but given that half of all employers are below average in how they treat their employees, maybe the protections a union can offer are useful.
You are mistaken here. You've confused employees and employers. Unions are designed around the average worker. Unions don't do anything to below-average employers (except force them to pay more for below-average workers). Below average employers will only get away with what the market will tolerate. Period. And the market isn't going to tolerate much nonsense, even with the recent slowdowns.
I used to work for a "consulting" firm that was below-average in every way. They treated their employees poorly, they offered no benefits, and their pay was roughly 75-80% of the going rate in my city. That was my first IT job, and I knew that there was better out there. So at the first opportunity to go to a better company I jumped ship. This company is still in business (though it's not as big as it used to be), but they have more turnover (percentage wise) than any other company I've ever seen. They have a bad reputation among the IT workers in my city, and the only way that they do manage to get new recruits is by hiring people just out of school or new to IT. They usually stick around for as long as it takes to realize that there is something better out there. So the market itself rewards above-average companies. Unions have nothing to do with it.
The tactic only works if management can replace you quickly and easily. That disqualifies most of the jobs Slashdotters have. But I think that as IT becomes larger and larger, more jobs will fall into the "replacable" category and unions may become needed.
Unions only work when dealing with workers whose positions have been commoditized is what you are saying. And you're right, that doesn't apply to IT. But beyond that, I don't think that it ever will apply to IT for the most part. Sure, there are your simple call center and desktop technicians that can probably be considered commoditized, but beyond that it's pretty much wide open.
The thing about IT is that everything is about customization. If you're a truck driver, the trucks are pretty standard. If you're a welder, the torches are pretty standard. If you're an electrician, the wiring jobs are all pretty standard. If you are a developer, everything that you do is customization. Your familiarity with the company's environment, needs, and existing codebase would probably take 6-9 months of training and "on-the-job" experience in order to replicate. You won't be commoditized anytime soon.
Unions exist to protect workers from exploitation from their employers and to promote a more equitible split of the fruits of their labor, pure and simple.
And if that's the reason that unions exist, then I agree that we don't need them in IT.
But, dealing with AT&T and Road Runner is also a pain in the posterior. Not only do they require the MAC address of each NIC, but when you mention Linux, their response is "We don't support Linux." Of course, I responded, "Did I ask for a linux command?". I set up a Win2K machine, their first response was, "remove TCP/IP and reinstall." When I asked what that would do, they didn't know, but said they were sure it would fix the problem. I asked if they would bet $1,000, but they would not put their money where their mouth is.
In Columbus, OH they don't need your MAC address. However, the system is configured to only allow 1 IP address from that cable-modem, so to switch systems you either need to a) release the IP address from the system that has it and then grab it from the second machine/NIC, or b) do some NAT.
I once had a problem where I had to call tech support too...they wouldn't let me talk to the level 2 support. I had done every troubleshooting step on my hardware and determined that there was a problem on their end, but they didn't want to hear about it. They still wanted me to go through every step in their script (which I had already done and told them the results of, prefaced with the standard 'I do this for a living' line) while on the phone with them before they finally gave up and told me that a level 2 technician would call me back. When the level 2 tech called me back he insisted that we repeat their standard script a third time (release/renew IP address, uninstall then reinstall TCP/IP, release/renew again) before he would look at anything.
My personal opinion is that if you are a technical person, you are almost better off switching ISPs altogether than trying to get tech support from your current ISP when you encounter a problem.