CEO James McDonald's comment: I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes exemplifies his misunderstanding... performance is perhaps 10% of what is important in games (I'm talking frames per second, load times, etc). What this guy should be giving is the same games or experience.
Actually McDonald is more intelligent than you are giving him credit for. Scientific Atlanta has huge pull in the cable marketplace and if they can deliver a box with gaming capabilities, it will get placed in homes for the purpose of decoding scrabled premium station signals - game capability will be seen as bonus. They also have a very very good engineering and R&D department, deep pockets and so on. Now it plays games... and the cable companies can use their already existing broadband capability to deliver them. Low distribution cost, big hard drive and captive market that is getting the HW for free (or $5.00 per month).
Good insights on most points. It's a good observation that customer support staff are deemed more essential than research and development functions when cost cutting happens.
You have to make sure your employer needs you, in order to survive.
This is one of those statements that I hear or read in intra-company email from people I fire. Why? Because they often try to rig my company so if they leave something blows up. Instead of creating systems and processes that run with minimum labor or can be taught to lower level employees, they build rube goldbergs that rely on themselves to provide the figurative boot to the bowling ball. When I see this pattern - and often it's IT people and engineers that are prone to doing this, I fire and deal with it because I can't afford to have my team controlled by the person that has to manually run their data migration script at 6:30 pm every night or we are shut down in the morning... and no one else knows how to do it (or so they say).
I actually had a sysadmin tell me that I couldn't fire him - our systems would be down next week without something he had to do.
There are three rules for keeping your job when times are tough:
1) Be a profit center. Make sure management can associate you and your actions with revenue or with big time "profit recovery" (saving money). Do not spend money unless that money will make money for the company and it is crystal clear that is the case. Ask "how does this help the bottom line" before you ask for a resource. If errors loose money in your job, then don't screw up (easy to say).
2) Be a rock of stability. Don't get caught up in change. Focus on being profitable, saving money and not making money loosing mistakes. Make sure customers are taken care of. And always be nice.
3) Stay away from cancer. People who are negative or are creating disention are cancer and will be removed by management. If you are to close to the cancer, they'll remove you with the tumor.
Finally, one thing that will make the biggest difference of all: don't be aloof from management. Talk to you seniors regularly about things that matter to them. Ask how you can help the bottom line. Be an idea source - just don't be a spending source.
Every time something really new gets posted it seems like we here this massive chorus of:
"WE CANT DO THIS BECAUSE OF _____."
in this case it's ham radio interference, or evesdropping or whatever. Most of the time the nay sayers are wrong. Usually those details are thought out and the product isn't half as bad as the naysayers here say it will be. Instead of being skeptical to the point of paddling down a certain river in Egypt, why not be a little more open to innovation?
What is killing me about this whole thing is that the internet doesn't want sitefinder! This is verisign going: you need this. You want it. And the internet at large going. No, you can keep it.
This article is a well, duh. A job board is a cattle call. They are used to get a large number of candidates quickly. In most cases, only 10 resumes out of 75 get more than a cursory look and the criteria for getting looked at isn't usually quality. It is relationship. No one buys from someone they don't trust. An employer is buying your services so they have to trust you. Most people that come from job boards don't do anything to create trust.
Here are a few ways establish trust:
- Get referred by a credible third party (often a good headhunter fits this). Have the referrer make a call to get you an interview "Hi Bill, I saw you are looking for _____. Have you talked to _____? No... Well, you need to"
- Don't overhype yourself on your resume. Just look good, use some color (it is 2004) and try to keep it to two pages.
- Your cover letter should speak to what the employer is looking for. Do your knowledge so you already know what the company does.
- REFERENCES REFERENCES REFERENCES. Have them. Name names. Put them in your resume.
- Follow up and follow up, but don't be desperate.
- Be on time and accurate. Have your schedule and facts straight.
"Are you happy with your job? Think there's better? THERE IS (cue music). Become a certified network engineer or software developer at MADSKILLZ. Technology jobs are still paying well - our graduates make as much as $100,000 per year! Student loans available, call now and we'll throw in a comlimentary scale model Porsche - just like the one you'll be driving after you become a certified network engineer or software developer at MADSKILLZ!"
Why is anyone surprised that companies that advertise get rich quick schemes like this are going under? Dear trial lawyers - better sue quick because the IT certificate industry is going to die.
Interesting topic, though I would characterize Fast Company as the "Cosmo" of tech/business publications.
That is a compliment. At least Cosmo gives good fashion advice and more than one girlfriend has got some interesting bedroom ideas from it (why this is ok for women and men's entertainment mags can't be displayed in public is another issue)...
FastCompany is written for 30 something middle managers at large corporations. Not surprisingly, it's a vehicle to sell big hats to the no cows crowd (act rich, have $1000 in the bank at the end of the month). Look at the advertisers - nearly all mutual funds and $40-$60K car ads. I would not take anything Fast Company runs seriously without researching in a real business rag.
Poorly trained in colleges that have been so embued with "political" science many of them can't even recognize a valid scientific methodology from an invalid one, and not a few now overtly claim that such isn't even necessary, that truth is the pragmatic.
Warning Karma Killing Rant Follows:
Well, whatever works:) This is so so so true. In the last 20 years I've watched colleges go from institutes of higher learning to becoming business incubators where the goal is to monetize inovation that occures on campus. No longer is the pursuit of truth the goal of most campuses. It's the pursuit of the almighty buck. How can we monetize a professor's research?
Given the trend towards commercialization of the campus, it's not surprising that the science community objects to Bush's conservative administration: They aren't handing money out hand over fist to the science establishment. We announce a Mars program. The scientific community lets out a collective squeal because they didn't get money for their pet project using embryonic stem cells that will save the world from flesh eating bacteria created increased cosmic ray exposure of blue green alge due to ozone layer thinning and acid rain exposure.
Frankly I'm glad we're going to mars. If things keep up the way they have I'll open the first off world affiliate station of the Old Curmudgeon Network.
I can telly you from sitting on the employer side of the interview table that 99% of candidates have had bad luck. If they had good luck, they would not be looking for a job at age 45! Most interviewers know this and so they are trying to sort out the good people from the people that have bad luck for a reason. As you seek your job:
* Remember that everyone else has had bad luck! * Figure out how to stand out from the other hard luck cases. Highlight your involvement in the community or using your time to help your family. * Practice your story and make sure you accentuate the positive - what you got to do, etc. Be good an answering the hard questions. * GET REFERENCES FROM THOSE SHORT TERM EMPLOYERS!
In the end, getting a job is easy:
* Have passable resume * Get interview * BE ON TIME AND LOOK GOOD! * Sell yourself and don't game people by lying or embellishing the truth * ASK FOR THE JOB! * FOLLOW UP! * Did I mention, FOLLOW UP!
Having been in the business since 1988,I've seen all kinds of ideas like Rambus come and go. Generally, the idea is:
* Create an "essential" technology that is implemented in several large manufacturer's products. * License the technology to everyone for big $
Most often what happens is that for a year or two, the "essential technology" may actually be very successful. Sometimes it even sticks around for the long haul, but the price becomes a lot lower. Then someone else comes out with "The Next Big Thing" or an open standard with simmilar functionality comes into existence. Some examples that are easy to remember:
* IBM's Microchannel Archetecture (was very cool for about two years, displaced by eisa, bus mastering ISA, then PCI) * Adobe Postscript, Type 1 Fonts * Zip drives
Rambus isn't essential any more... but they'll be aroud as much as I don't like them.
That's why I cringe when I hear phrases like "raise taxes on the rich" and "redistribution of wealth" and other such non-existent concepts. Class warfaree died a long time ago. It wasn't the rich or poor that won. The capitalists did.
That is 'funny' math And outrageously typical in a nation where we tax income. The best way to avoid paying income tax is to have no income. Capital gains on investment options can be delayed a long time by moving the investment. Jobs is a smart business man and in is not going to give up his money to the government easily. That said, he probably pays more than I make in taxes annually.
Re:Not only cost, but what about security?
on
WiFi Free-For-All
·
· Score: 1
(http://sir-draknor.net/) Hopefully, commoditized internet will encourage the adoption of better security policies & protocols.
Hopefully not. The internet's very essence is that new protocols and methods can easily be implemented without destroying existing functionality.
Yes, it can be scary out there, but at the end of the day if you want security you can have it. If you want functionality, then you can have it too. You can't have 100% of both unless you unplug.
His analysis was basically society as a whole and by consequence NASA was now too risk averse to do anything exciting in space.
THANK YOU! Our nation needs to get some backbone, understand that you only live once (that we can scientificaly verify), stop masturbating and do something positive!
Let's go to Mars. Let's master genetic engineering. Roll out some wonder drugs (recreational ones are ok too). Whenever our nation has in the past took on a national challenge we've always been better for it. Railways, electricity, telephone, aviation, highways, space - every last one was ridiculed at the time of inception and look where we are today.
All this we shouldn't do this, and we can't do that, or if we do that then it will hurt ________ (fill in with cute defenseless demographic group like children or baby seals) talk does is get nothing done. It also makes for boring TV and newspaper. I'm sick of reading about stuff like:
* Tax cuts/increases. * Who lied about what trivial non-important detail(i.e. the lewinsky thing, who's a bone fide war hero (TM) and Bush's military record) * Michael Jackson and the rest of his family friends and lackeys. * Marth Stewart - just go to jail already! * Michael Moore, Ann Coulter and other Jim Carville style hatchet people. * Bill Clinton * Carl Rove
yes, "Windows" really is a non-word, and it rightly becomes a big, relevant problem for Lindows.
This is one of the best points I've seen someone make on Slashdot. It's also one of the reasons that trademark laws are VERY VERY dangerous when you allow treaties to govern them. A term like "windows" or "toilet paper" is generic in english. Should a court decision in a country that speaks a different language be allowed to circumvent TM laws that are intended to prevent the proprietization of common language? Probably not - but right now they can - or at least might be able to.
Fortunately in the US our courts view US law as supreme and would likely find that the foreign court's decision did not apply. Being arrogant sometimes works in your favor:)
This deal is in response to AOL/Time Warner. Note to Slashdot communtiy: Comcast's internet business IS NOT THEIR CORE BUSINESS - it's a little bitty piece. Selling adds on cable television and collecting monthly checks from subscribers is. Anyhow: Time Warner has substantial cable assets and substantial content assets. Rupert Murdoch has substantial subscription assets (satellite TV) as well as FOX. See a trend?
This is a me-too deal and in the end it will suck because Comcast will be way to diversified to have a clear direction. What is nice about this deal is that perhaps Comcast can be a catalyst to causing Disney to get on a creative roll again.
As soon as CSRG started distributing BSD as a complete OS available to people who didn't pay for a UNIX license, AT&T filed suit.
AT&T lost their case. SCO is trying to say:
You bought a barn from us. You raise chickens in the barn. All your chickens, horses and pigs are belong to us - and we also own the chicken coop out back and the furniture you bolted to the wall and BTW - that tractor over there - that's ours too.
Once you toss SCO's claim they own JFS... The only claim it appears SCO's got is a few header files and possibly 10 lines of code here and 10 lines of code there.
They need to simply follow Pud's lead at F***ed Company and post the cease and desist letters. If you piss off students so bad you need to get a lawyer to shut them up, there is something wrong with you.
To translate: AT&T doesn't own those derivative works -- they're simply restricting licensees' ability to distribute derivative works.
I don't read it the same way you do. I read it that derivitive works become part of the original product. The word "distribute" does not appear at all and none of the language has anything at all to do with who you can recieve a derivative product. The ammendment made in $echo very clearly fixes this in the agreement. It very elegantly prevents me from making a derivitave of the original product while clearly exempting additions and proprietary/add on components like JFS that are derivitave, but were not part of the product as supplied by AT&T.
Also the intent as described in @echo is key. It's clear that AT&T wanted it's customers to be able to add value to SYSV and protect their property rights, too.
Slashdot Mirror
CEO James McDonald's comment: I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes exemplifies his misunderstanding... performance is perhaps 10% of what is important in games (I'm talking frames per second, load times, etc). What this guy should be giving is the same games or experience.
Actually McDonald is more intelligent than you are giving him credit for. Scientific Atlanta has huge pull in the cable marketplace and if they can deliver a box with gaming capabilities, it will get placed in homes for the purpose of decoding scrabled premium station signals - game capability will be seen as bonus. They also have a very very good engineering and R&D department, deep pockets and so on. Now it plays games... and the cable companies can use their already existing broadband capability to deliver them. Low distribution cost, big hard drive and captive market that is getting the HW for free (or $5.00 per month).
Good insights on most points. It's a good observation that customer support staff are deemed more essential than research and development functions when cost cutting happens.
You have to make sure your employer needs you, in order to survive.
This is one of those statements that I hear or read in intra-company email from people I fire. Why? Because they often try to rig my company so if they leave something blows up. Instead of creating systems and processes that run with minimum labor or can be taught to lower level employees, they build rube goldbergs that rely on themselves to provide the figurative boot to the bowling ball. When I see this pattern - and often it's IT people and engineers that are prone to doing this, I fire and deal with it because I can't afford to have my team controlled by the person that has to manually run their data migration script at 6:30 pm every night or we are shut down in the morning... and no one else knows how to do it (or so they say).
I actually had a sysadmin tell me that I couldn't fire him - our systems would be down next week without something he had to do.
There are three rules for keeping your job when times are tough:
1) Be a profit center. Make sure management can associate you and your actions with revenue or with big time "profit recovery" (saving money). Do not spend money unless that money will make money for the company and it is crystal clear that is the case. Ask "how does this help the bottom line" before you ask for a resource. If errors loose money in your job, then don't screw up (easy to say).
2) Be a rock of stability. Don't get caught up in change. Focus on being profitable, saving money and not making money loosing mistakes. Make sure customers are taken care of. And always be nice.
3) Stay away from cancer. People who are negative or are creating disention are cancer and will be removed by management. If you are to close to the cancer, they'll remove you with the tumor.
Finally, one thing that will make the biggest difference of all: don't be aloof from management. Talk to you seniors regularly about things that matter to them. Ask how you can help the bottom line. Be an idea source - just don't be a spending source.
You would actually get into a gunfight with police officers?
Why do you think the right to keep and bear arms is important? Governments are very scary unless the price of tyrrany is to high to be realistic.
It's cool to die by your principles, but would you?
Living by your principles is what matters. If you die because you live a principed life, then you die rich.
just decide they want to help, and perhaps this could snowball and create a proletariat revolution
Unfortunately, I live in a bujoise neighborhood.
Many features are excellent. Except...
Roughly once an hour clicking back would simply take my machine (windows XP portable) out. Not even the blue screen of death but a black screen.
I had a simmilar problem with my XP notebook with Firefox. Turns out the problem was a combination of:
Sun's JVM and my ATI video driver (which is a forcefit as Compaq never put out an XP driver for the model laptop I have).
The fix was a laugher... I switched video mode to 24 bit color.
Firebird works fine.
Every time something really new gets posted it seems like we here this massive chorus of:
"WE CANT DO THIS BECAUSE OF _____."
in this case it's ham radio interference, or evesdropping or whatever. Most of the time the nay sayers are wrong. Usually those details are thought out and the product isn't half as bad as the naysayers here say it will be. Instead of being skeptical to the point of paddling down a certain river in Egypt, why not be a little more open to innovation?
What is killing me about this whole thing is that the internet doesn't want sitefinder! This is verisign going: you need this. You want it. And the internet at large going. No, you can keep it.
The UN is supposed to be above all of that. I'm shattered :)
I am flabbergasted that someone would even suggest the UN would do something as underhanded as this.
Where's my check?
This article is a well, duh. A job board is a cattle call. They are used to get a large number of candidates quickly. In most cases, only 10 resumes out of 75 get more than a cursory look and the criteria for getting looked at isn't usually quality. It is relationship. No one buys from someone they don't trust. An employer is buying your services so they have to trust you. Most people that come from job boards don't do anything to create trust.
Here are a few ways establish trust:
- Get referred by a credible third party (often a good headhunter fits this). Have the referrer make a call to get you an interview "Hi Bill, I saw you are looking for _____. Have you talked to _____? No... Well, you need to"
- Don't overhype yourself on your resume. Just look good, use some color (it is 2004) and try to keep it to two pages.
- Your cover letter should speak to what the employer is looking for. Do your knowledge so you already know what the company does.
- REFERENCES REFERENCES REFERENCES. Have them. Name names. Put them in your resume.
- Follow up and follow up, but don't be desperate.
- Be on time and accurate. Have your schedule and facts straight.
"Are you happy with your job? Think there's better? THERE IS (cue music). Become a certified network engineer or software developer at MADSKILLZ. Technology jobs are still paying well - our graduates make as much as $100,000 per year! Student loans available, call now and we'll throw in a comlimentary scale model Porsche - just like the one you'll be driving after you become a certified network engineer or software developer at MADSKILLZ!"
Why is anyone surprised that companies that advertise get rich quick schemes like this are going under? Dear trial lawyers - better sue quick because the IT certificate industry is going to die.
Interesting topic, though I would characterize Fast Company as the "Cosmo" of tech/business publications.
That is a compliment. At least Cosmo gives good fashion advice and more than one girlfriend has got some interesting bedroom ideas from it (why this is ok for women and men's entertainment mags can't be displayed in public is another issue)...
FastCompany is written for 30 something middle managers at large corporations. Not surprisingly, it's a vehicle to sell big hats to the no cows crowd (act rich, have $1000 in the bank at the end of the month). Look at the advertisers - nearly all mutual funds and $40-$60K car ads. I would not take anything Fast Company runs seriously without researching in a real business rag.
Poorly trained in colleges that have been so embued with "political" science many of them can't even recognize a valid scientific methodology from an invalid one, and not a few now overtly claim that such isn't even necessary, that truth is the pragmatic.
:) This is so so so true. In the last 20 years I've watched colleges go from institutes of higher learning to becoming business incubators where the goal is to monetize inovation that occures on campus. No longer is the pursuit of truth the goal of most campuses. It's the pursuit of the almighty buck. How can we monetize a professor's research?
Warning Karma Killing Rant Follows:
Well, whatever works
Given the trend towards commercialization of the campus, it's not surprising that the science community objects to Bush's conservative administration: They aren't handing money out hand over fist to the science establishment. We announce a Mars program. The scientific community lets out a collective squeal because they didn't get money for their pet project using embryonic stem cells that will save the world from flesh eating bacteria created increased cosmic ray exposure of blue green alge due to ozone layer thinning and acid rain exposure.
Frankly I'm glad we're going to mars. If things keep up the way they have I'll open the first off world affiliate station of the Old Curmudgeon Network.
I can telly you from sitting on the employer side of the interview table that 99% of candidates have had bad luck. If they had good luck, they would not be looking for a job at age 45! Most interviewers know this and so they are trying to sort out the good people from the people that have bad luck for a reason. As you seek your job:
* Remember that everyone else has had bad luck!
* Figure out how to stand out from the other hard luck cases. Highlight your involvement in the community or using your time to help your family.
* Practice your story and make sure you accentuate the positive - what you got to do, etc. Be good an answering the hard questions.
* GET REFERENCES FROM THOSE SHORT TERM EMPLOYERS!
In the end, getting a job is easy:
* Have passable resume
* Get interview
* BE ON TIME AND LOOK GOOD!
* Sell yourself and don't game people by lying or embellishing the truth
* ASK FOR THE JOB!
* FOLLOW UP!
* Did I mention, FOLLOW UP!
1) Children age 12,
Interesting question for the lawyers that lurk: can a 12 year old license a copyrighted work?
Having been in the business since 1988,I've seen all kinds of ideas like Rambus come and go. Generally, the idea is:
* Create an "essential" technology that is implemented in several large manufacturer's products.
* License the technology to everyone for big $
Most often what happens is that for a year or two, the "essential technology" may actually be very successful. Sometimes it even sticks around for the long haul, but the price becomes a lot lower. Then someone else comes out with "The Next Big Thing" or an open standard with simmilar functionality comes into existence. Some examples that are easy to remember:
* IBM's Microchannel Archetecture (was very cool for about two years, displaced by eisa, bus mastering ISA, then PCI)
* Adobe Postscript, Type 1 Fonts
* Zip drives
Rambus isn't essential any more... but they'll be aroud as much as I don't like them.
"Ha ha, the middle class are such suckers."
That's why I cringe when I hear phrases like "raise taxes on the rich" and "redistribution of wealth" and other such non-existent concepts. Class warfaree died a long time ago. It wasn't the rich or poor that won. The capitalists did.
That is 'funny' math
And outrageously typical in a nation where we tax income. The best way to avoid paying income tax is to have no income. Capital gains on investment options can be delayed a long time by moving the investment. Jobs is a smart business man and in is not going to give up his money to the government easily. That said, he probably pays more than I make in taxes annually.
(http://sir-draknor.net/)
Hopefully, commoditized internet will encourage the adoption of better security policies & protocols.
Hopefully not. The internet's very essence is that new protocols and methods can easily be implemented without destroying existing functionality.
Yes, it can be scary out there, but at the end of the day if you want security you can have it. If you want functionality, then you can have it too. You can't have 100% of both unless you unplug.
His analysis was basically society as a whole and by consequence NASA was now too risk averse to do anything exciting in space.
THANK YOU! Our nation needs to get some backbone, understand that you only live once (that we can scientificaly verify), stop masturbating and do something positive!
Let's go to Mars. Let's master genetic engineering. Roll out some wonder drugs (recreational ones are ok too). Whenever our nation has in the past took on a national challenge we've always been better for it. Railways, electricity, telephone, aviation, highways, space - every last one was ridiculed at the time of inception and look where we are today.
All this we shouldn't do this, and we can't do that, or if we do that then it will hurt ________ (fill in with cute defenseless demographic group like children or baby seals) talk does is get nothing done. It also makes for boring TV and newspaper. I'm sick of reading about stuff like:
* Tax cuts/increases.
* Who lied about what trivial non-important detail(i.e. the lewinsky thing, who's a bone fide war hero (TM) and Bush's military record)
* Michael Jackson and the rest of his family friends and lackeys.
* Marth Stewart - just go to jail already!
* Michael Moore, Ann Coulter and other Jim Carville style hatchet people.
* Bill Clinton
* Carl Rove
yes, "Windows" really is a non-word, and it rightly becomes a big, relevant problem for Lindows.
:)
This is one of the best points I've seen someone make on Slashdot. It's also one of the reasons that trademark laws are VERY VERY dangerous when you allow treaties to govern them. A term like "windows" or "toilet paper" is generic in english. Should a court decision in a country that speaks a different language be allowed to circumvent TM laws that are intended to prevent the proprietization of common language? Probably not - but right now they can - or at least might be able to.
Fortunately in the US our courts view US law as supreme and would likely find that the foreign court's decision did not apply. Being arrogant sometimes works in your favor
This deal is in response to AOL/Time Warner. Note to Slashdot communtiy: Comcast's internet business IS NOT THEIR CORE BUSINESS - it's a little bitty piece. Selling adds on cable television and collecting monthly checks from subscribers is.
Anyhow: Time Warner has substantial cable assets and substantial content assets. Rupert Murdoch has substantial subscription assets (satellite TV) as well as FOX. See a trend?
This is a me-too deal and in the end it will suck because Comcast will be way to diversified to have a clear direction. What is nice about this deal is that perhaps Comcast can be a catalyst to causing Disney to get on a creative roll again.
As soon as CSRG started distributing BSD as a complete OS available to people who didn't pay for a UNIX license, AT&T filed suit.
AT&T lost their case. SCO is trying to say:
You bought a barn from us. You raise chickens in the barn. All your chickens, horses and pigs are belong to us - and we also own the chicken coop out back and the furniture you bolted to the wall and BTW - that tractor over there - that's ours too.
Once you toss SCO's claim they own JFS... The only claim it appears SCO's got is a few header files and possibly 10 lines of code here and 10 lines of code there.
They need to simply follow Pud's lead at F***ed Company and post the cease and desist letters. If you piss off students so bad you need to get a lawyer to shut them up, there is something wrong with you.
To translate: AT&T doesn't own those derivative works -- they're simply restricting licensees' ability to distribute derivative works.
I don't read it the same way you do. I read it that derivitive works become part of the original product. The word "distribute" does not appear at all and none of the language has anything at all to do with who you can recieve a derivative product. The ammendment made in $echo very clearly fixes this in the agreement. It very elegantly prevents me from making a derivitave of the original product while clearly exempting additions and proprietary/add on components like JFS that are derivitave, but were not part of the product as supplied by AT&T.
Also the intent as described in @echo is key. It's clear that AT&T wanted it's customers to be able to add value to SYSV and protect their property rights, too.