Bad Economy Opens Options
on
Generation Wrecked
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· Score: 4, Insightful
There are a lot of people that have lost jobs in the IT industry that are now working in smaller outfits doing consulting, programming, etc. Some have moved into other careers, but the bottom line is that this might fuel future innovations, or at least diversify the market so that you have more computer-savvy people using computers in other careers where the introduction of technology has been previously opposed.
I am not trivializing the loss of jobs, nor am I saying the economy is about to boom again. However, there are many people that used to punch a clock working harder than ever to start up new businesses or boost the technology base in old businesses. Both of these are good things!
Funny that some people look at the world and say that it proves the existence of God because how else could something come into being. My problem is that if there needs to be a god for creation, then there must also need to be something to create the god of that creation, which would recurse forever god ontop of god. It is a logic circle you cannot escape.
Take a look around, friend. Everything you see is evidence that there is a God.
The same could be proof that Greek mythology is the correct stance on "creation". Everything proves that Zeus and Hera and Mercury and Athena exist. No, wait, everything proves that Hindus have the right answer. Wait a minute, it was the Apache Indians that had it all right. Or, was that the Egyptians? "Everything" proves the Bible right no more than it proves any other religion's creation story.
SCSI versus IDE as the big differentiation is just silly: The intrinsic SCSI advantage has been disproven countless times.
This highly depends on the application. A single SCSI drive against a single IDE drive performing a single task may show the same performance. However, when you add multiple tasks and a lot of disk access , SCSI beats IDE hands down. As you add drives (don't even bring up RAID yet), tag command queing and parallel data paths blows away IDE no question. Now, add RAID into the equation, especially looking a the huge caching controllers available for SCSI with no IDE counterpart and you see that SCSI is certainly the way to go. Computer manufactures aren't idiots; IDE is cheaper and if it were on equal footing with SCSI no one would offer SCSI solutions. That having been said, no high-performance workstations or servers use IDE.
That's pretty disingenuous: Sun sells systems with tens or hundreds of those "300-400Mhz" processors, disproving your "CPU power doesn't matter" BS. I guarantee you that if Sun weren't sliding behind in the CPU game (it's hard to compete with AMD and Intel with such a small niche market) they'd sell much more powerful CPUs. Instead they compensate by clustering dozens of them together.
Sun, HP, etc., have for years sold small MHz machines that outperform the GHz machines available mainly because they use RISC technology and aligned instructions. Clustering has not been a large part of Sun's business -- ever! And, as far as multiple CPU's in a single box, yes, all these systems offer and endorse this, but then so does Intel if you read their journals. Intel ran themselves into needing GHz clocking because of poor chip design (backward compatible to x86). Sun and others don't design chips in those ranges because of the cooling requirements and heat failure rates. It is far easier for them to make lower MHz machines with multiple processors because they run OS's and software that can work UMP or SMP, where Intel has issues in the common market environment (example: Windows 95/98 unable to work SMP).
If you recall, Apple refused to use IDE technology in their systems because SCSI was better. When pricing in the market became a major issue for them, they made the switch. The same I think applies here. Motorola has always been a nice chip, but expensive as well. Intel is simply cheaper and I am sure that Apple has contemplated making the switch for some time. Besides, there are tons more programmers working on low-level (assembly, machine, embedded) with Intel than Motorola so you expenses there are lessened as well.
I was lucky to have a mother that not only stayed home with me when I was young, but also one that made learning fun. Her and her friends would record themselves reading books into a tape recorder. I would sit with the books and follow along while my mom helped me. After a while, she would have me try to read books to her. She also had me learn how to count, add and subtract using coins. Multiplication came next, and she made me learn, not just memorize, multiplication. By the time I hit kindergarten I knew how to read, write (no Big Chief for me, regular paper, regular pens), add and subtract (any size numbers, and understood negatives), multiply (for large numbers used repeating additions, times tables memorized to 13x13), and understood division. School was difficult because I was bored, but never stopped learning at home. By second grade (I remember because I switched schools) I knew how to type, write in cursive, could take even square roots, understood factoring, fractions, and was learning shorthand (my mother was from the old-school Du Pont typing and dictation pools). In school I would get into trouble for not paying attention, going too fast, etc.
The long and short is that kids today are too easily learning things before the education system can get to them. There isn't a typing class until high school in most areas. Hell, I see many kids around seven that type 30+ wpm. They learn to read online via chat rooms, websites, and other methods before they are assigned Dick and Jane or Pug. Then, the intelligent children are asked to slow down so those without computers can catch up without feeling embarassment. This is sad, and it is why many Asian and European countries continually kick the US' ass in youth aptitude.
Let the kids that excel do just that. While I think "net speak" should be counted as incorrect English for papers submitted, the knowledge the kid posesses to use the chat rooms, computer, etc., should be commended.
I think the numbers are off. We here in the states have figured out how to use NAT, and have many people sharing one connection. Add to that the number of people raping the providers by sharing wireless access points and you will see that we far outnumber the Euros.
Remember, too, that scientists have been ridiculed by other scientists throughout history. Germs? Something you cannot see that makes you ill? Have anti-septic surgery?
The atom looks like pudding? The atom cannot be made of any smaller particles. Splitting an atom wouldn't make much energy.
Fly?
Go to the moon?
More examples? And, as far as having to see something to believe -- have you travelled to every continent or just taken someone's word that those places exist? Are you sure there are other galaxies? Have you even seen Pluto? Can you "see" microwave radiation or a single atom?
I am not faithful either, but cut the faithful some slack. Their beliefs are just as strong as our non-belief. Let's at least be good-hearted athiests.
Cashier's check for a million bucks? Uhh...somehow i dont think you can buy those at the local supermarket.
Cashier's checks are drawn against a cashier at a bank. You have this confused with money orders. I see cashier's checks in excess of one million often (I work at a bank).
Anyone know how the anonymous transfer of a million dollars happens?
Usually the benefactor pays a legal firm with a cashier's check and the legal firm pays the university. The university to be sure that all is legitimate can ask who the benefactor is, but will need to sign non-disclosure agreements before they can find out. These agreements give the law firm the ability to sue the school if they leak the information (usually for more than the initial investment).
I have a problem with those hanging eBay out to dry because they have been working on buying these patents for two years.
Had I been smart enough to start eBay way-back-when, I would not have had the resources to examine patents, I would have just programmed the site and put up the business. As it grew, I might have been notified about the patent, and from there consulted a lawyer. There is no way I would have shut down, saying, "Well, I have found out about a possible infringement, and while in the process of speaking with a patent holder we are out of business." The company by this time is multi-million dollars a year.
When does the American dream come through? If I have an idea, I want to protect anyone that had a like idea, but don't kill my business while I am working with the original idea holder. All I can see from this is money in lawyers' pockets.
Installing Windows 2000 Professional is about three ten-minute jobs, separated by big gaps of free time to do other things.
Well, then setting up Red Hat takes even less time then with a kickstart diskette. Time: Put in disk and install CD, turn on computer, come back when it is done configuring everything.
Ask them to break out in percentages where they have learned most of their programming:
In school
On the job
At home
Pick the one with the highest percentage At home.
This is such a tough thing to do. I understand why there are the strange creative-thinking or logic problems offered-up to applicants (How many bricks would you guess there are in this building? How many gas stations are there in Florida? Using a 5 gallon bucket and a 3 gallon bucket, give me four gallons of water -- not sure the wording on this one). I have never been very good at logic problems like Brad has on a green shirt and is sitting next to a woman; Mindy is wearing a blue shirt and is sitting beside someone wearing a purple shirt; what color shirt is Tracy wearing? I would have never made it on the LSAT test for law school. Of course, I have never claimed to be a great programmer or anyone dedicated to reading enough to be an attorney.
Good luck in your hirings! At least it sounds like you can get rid of staff if they don't work out. I have seen terrible people get to sit on the job endlessly because the company fears firing anyone from the liabilities. I have worked with a CNE (Novell Netware certification) that had never built a Netware server, didn't know how to create/manage print queues, and could not figure out Groupwise or Netware Connect. I have worked with some "Linux experts" that didn't know what an inittab was for, could not install Linux, and were totally clueless when it came to installing software. I have also worked with programmers that used all global variables, did not put things into separate, clear functions (500+ lines of c in main() ), and couldn't figure out how to do anything from scratch. They all got to sit around while someone else (me usually) covered for them!
As a sysadmin, is there any information anywhere on what sort of machine/connection can handle a slashdot load?
Well, I had the Slashdot Effect hit me. My problem was not machine speed (well, yeah, it was), but more the bandwidth. I had a 4 meg GIF file on a webserver over a T-1 connection to AT&T. This file sat on a Pentium II with 96 MB RAM. This machine also runs many other functions, including Spam Assassin and mail for about 2,000 users. Also, my main website runs Post Nuke and so I got bandwidth Slashdotted because I had 30,000 requests for a 4 MB file by noon of day one. That is over 100 gigabytes to transfer, and a single T-1 can only handle 17 gigabytes per day! I replaced the image with a smaller images (5K), but the number of requests made the webserver go haywire. Before it ran a load average of maybe 0.70 fulfilling all its requests, but when I cut to the smaller size GIF and more requests came in, the load average went to more than 100.00!
The end result was three days of monitoring, firewalling, changing GIFs, etc. My main website (running Post Nuke) got more traffic that day than any other in its history. More than 3,000 requests came day one just from the link with my name. I feel that it is still majorly responsible for the traffic I get, and I still get many links to the 4 MB GIF file.
On another note, I had submitted a story once before that did not point to me, but the link from my name generated more than 10,000 hits in that month.
Could my webserver stand up to Slashdot? If I had more memory -- yes! However, the bandwidth was the problem. It is a marriage of the two bottlenecks that allows systems to beat the effect. If I had my site distributed across several Internet connections and many different, powerful systems it would have been no problem -- just a heavy day.
And how fitting that on the anniversary of an attack which paralyzed servers dead in their tracks, we hear the far-away screams of agony from the lone sysadmin of Missing Left Socks as 100,000 slashdotters pillage his machine simultaneously.
Do the folks from Transmeta try to find jobs with chip manufacturers like Intel, AMD, IBM, or Texas Instruments; or, do they look for software jobs? Who got canned; which division? I looked for more information, and couldn't find any.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not trivializing the loss of jobs, nor am I saying the economy is about to boom again. However, there are many people that used to punch a clock working harder than ever to start up new businesses or boost the technology base in old businesses. Both of these are good things!
The same could be proof that Greek mythology is the correct stance on "creation". Everything proves that Zeus and Hera and Mercury and Athena exist. No, wait, everything proves that Hindus have the right answer. Wait a minute, it was the Apache Indians that had it all right. Or, was that the Egyptians? "Everything" proves the Bible right no more than it proves any other religion's creation story.
to pronounce GNU -> sounds like "new"
This highly depends on the application. A single SCSI drive against a single IDE drive performing a single task may show the same performance. However, when you add multiple tasks and a lot of disk access , SCSI beats IDE hands down. As you add drives (don't even bring up RAID yet), tag command queing and parallel data paths blows away IDE no question. Now, add RAID into the equation, especially looking a the huge caching controllers available for SCSI with no IDE counterpart and you see that SCSI is certainly the way to go. Computer manufactures aren't idiots; IDE is cheaper and if it were on equal footing with SCSI no one would offer SCSI solutions. That having been said, no high-performance workstations or servers use IDE.
Sun, HP, etc., have for years sold small MHz machines that outperform the GHz machines available mainly because they use RISC technology and aligned instructions. Clustering has not been a large part of Sun's business -- ever! And, as far as multiple CPU's in a single box, yes, all these systems offer and endorse this, but then so does Intel if you read their journals. Intel ran themselves into needing GHz clocking because of poor chip design (backward compatible to x86). Sun and others don't design chips in those ranges because of the cooling requirements and heat failure rates. It is far easier for them to make lower MHz machines with multiple processors because they run OS's and software that can work UMP or SMP, where Intel has issues in the common market environment (example: Windows 95/98 unable to work SMP).
The long and short is that kids today are too easily learning things before the education system can get to them. There isn't a typing class until high school in most areas. Hell, I see many kids around seven that type 30+ wpm. They learn to read online via chat rooms, websites, and other methods before they are assigned Dick and Jane or Pug. Then, the intelligent children are asked to slow down so those without computers can catch up without feeling embarassment. This is sad, and it is why many Asian and European countries continually kick the US' ass in youth aptitude.
Let the kids that excel do just that. While I think "net speak" should be counted as incorrect English for papers submitted, the knowledge the kid posesses to use the chat rooms, computer, etc., should be commended.
It was certainly meant as a joke. I suppose the obligatory smile-face was needed for anyone to see the humor.
I am well aware that NAT is nothing new to Europe, and sorry for the comment which has sparked so many retorts.
The atom looks like pudding? The atom cannot be made of any smaller particles. Splitting an atom wouldn't make much energy.
Fly?
Go to the moon?
More examples? And, as far as having to see something to believe -- have you travelled to every continent or just taken someone's word that those places exist? Are you sure there are other galaxies? Have you even seen Pluto? Can you "see" microwave radiation or a single atom?
I am not faithful either, but cut the faithful some slack. Their beliefs are just as strong as our non-belief. Let's at least be good-hearted athiests.
Excellent interview; would like to see more with him in the future. My dream list right now would be:
Cashier's checks are drawn against a cashier at a bank. You have this confused with money orders. I see cashier's checks in excess of one million often (I work at a bank).
Usually the benefactor pays a legal firm with a cashier's check and the legal firm pays the university. The university to be sure that all is legitimate can ask who the benefactor is, but will need to sign non-disclosure agreements before they can find out. These agreements give the law firm the ability to sue the school if they leak the information (usually for more than the initial investment).
Am
Not
A
Lawyer
Click here for a glossary of these "net" terms.
Had I been smart enough to start eBay way-back-when, I would not have had the resources to examine patents, I would have just programmed the site and put up the business. As it grew, I might have been notified about the patent, and from there consulted a lawyer. There is no way I would have shut down, saying, "Well, I have found out about a possible infringement, and while in the process of speaking with a patent holder we are out of business." The company by this time is multi-million dollars a year.
When does the American dream come through? If I have an idea, I want to protect anyone that had a like idea, but don't kill my business while I am working with the original idea holder. All I can see from this is money in lawyers' pockets.
Well, then setting up Red Hat takes even less time then with a kickstart diskette. Time: Put in disk and install CD, turn on computer, come back when it is done configuring everything.
Pick the one with the highest percentage At home.
This is such a tough thing to do. I understand why there are the strange creative-thinking or logic problems offered-up to applicants (How many bricks would you guess there are in this building? How many gas stations are there in Florida? Using a 5 gallon bucket and a 3 gallon bucket, give me four gallons of water -- not sure the wording on this one). I have never been very good at logic problems like Brad has on a green shirt and is sitting next to a woman; Mindy is wearing a blue shirt and is sitting beside someone wearing a purple shirt; what color shirt is Tracy wearing? I would have never made it on the LSAT test for law school. Of course, I have never claimed to be a great programmer or anyone dedicated to reading enough to be an attorney.
Good luck in your hirings! At least it sounds like you can get rid of staff if they don't work out. I have seen terrible people get to sit on the job endlessly because the company fears firing anyone from the liabilities. I have worked with a CNE (Novell Netware certification) that had never built a Netware server, didn't know how to create/manage print queues, and could not figure out Groupwise or Netware Connect. I have worked with some "Linux experts" that didn't know what an inittab was for, could not install Linux, and were totally clueless when it came to installing software. I have also worked with programmers that used all global variables, did not put things into separate, clear functions (500+ lines of c in main() ), and couldn't figure out how to do anything from scratch. They all got to sit around while someone else (me usually) covered for them!
Wil getting anally raped by a Klingon will not be worth watching.
Well, I had the Slashdot Effect hit me. My problem was not machine speed (well, yeah, it was), but more the bandwidth. I had a 4 meg GIF file on a webserver over a T-1 connection to AT&T. This file sat on a Pentium II with 96 MB RAM. This machine also runs many other functions, including Spam Assassin and mail for about 2,000 users. Also, my main website runs Post Nuke and so I got bandwidth Slashdotted because I had 30,000 requests for a 4 MB file by noon of day one. That is over 100 gigabytes to transfer, and a single T-1 can only handle 17 gigabytes per day! I replaced the image with a smaller images (5K), but the number of requests made the webserver go haywire. Before it ran a load average of maybe 0.70 fulfilling all its requests, but when I cut to the smaller size GIF and more requests came in, the load average went to more than 100.00!
The end result was three days of monitoring, firewalling, changing GIFs, etc. My main website (running Post Nuke) got more traffic that day than any other in its history. More than 3,000 requests came day one just from the link with my name. I feel that it is still majorly responsible for the traffic I get, and I still get many links to the 4 MB GIF file.
On another note, I had submitted a story once before that did not point to me, but the link from my name generated more than 10,000 hits in that month.
Could my webserver stand up to Slashdot? If I had more memory -- yes! However, the bandwidth was the problem. It is a marriage of the two bottlenecks that allows systems to beat the effect. If I had my site distributed across several Internet connections and many different, powerful systems it would have been no problem -- just a heavy day.
That is me, and yeah *OUCH*, I am feeling it.
That is pretty sad when you can't even get first post on your own post!
Do the folks from Transmeta try to find jobs with chip manufacturers like Intel, AMD, IBM, or Texas Instruments; or, do they look for software jobs? Who got canned; which division? I looked for more information, and couldn't find any.