=== Do you expect the feds to show up when your house is on fire? Do you expect Washington to send a team down from Ohio when you need an emt? ===
People in Southern California, and throughout the Intermountain West, do. Or perhaps you missed all those Federal figherfighters, helicopters, water bombers, etc? Friend of mine who is a US Forest Service firefighter was on the helicopter just before the one that crashed in California two weeks ago. Sounds to me like 50 states subsidizing the decision of 1/5th of one state to build a city in a area of extreme fire danger. I am sure you will be recommending abandonment of Los Angeles here in a minute.
This thread must really be touching a nerve for a group here - they are systematically going through and downrating every post that does not hew to the Radical Right line. Interesting and quite revealing in itself.
> And therein lies the problem - entitlement. Folks seem to think > that they're entitled to live wherever they want, without > repercussions. If something bad happens, the Fed will > bail them out, right? > > Folks seem to have lost an ability to take responsibility for > their actions.
And here I thought we had this thing called a "nation" which embodied some elements of teamwork and shared pain/shared gain. Certainly when elements of our society decide it is time for a war they emphasize something they call "sacrifice" and "service".
> If you choose to live in an earthquake/flood/volcano zone, > fine.
Of the major population and economic centers of the United States the only one that I can think of offhand that is not immediately vulnerable to a devastating natural disaster is Chicago. But that is only because it is so large even a 500-year tornado outbreak wouldn't do excessive damage on a percentage basis. Hmmm - forgot about devastating ice storm - that is possible in Chicago. Scratch that. So pray tell where this disaster-potential-free zone is located.
> It's the fed. The fed does NOTHING quickly. > Why this is so fucking hard to understand amazes me.
"The fed" - that is, your federal government - has agencies that are specifically designed to work quickly and effectively and do so. Unless they are deliberately staffed with managers whose assignment is to destroy them and prove that they "don't work" - which is exactly how FEMA was staffed and tasked when Katrina hit. FEMA worked quite effectively in previous disaster situations. Heck of a job.
=== Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. A million times yes! Let people live there if they want, but there's a huge time consistency problem that creates moral hazard when you give people federal money to build there again. ===
The Microsoft campus is built on solidified mud that flowed down during the last big eruption of Mount Rainer. In fact the entire Seattle/Tacoma area is at risk from such an eruption including Microsoft, the PacNorth software industry, and Boeing. Where do you suggest we move Seattle?
And while every local area should have good emergency planning in place, and Louisiana's prior to Katrina was not and did not, it was always my belief that in a true disaster situation the federal government, backed by the goodwill of the entire nation, should and would step in to help to the limits of human capability. Turned out, not so much.
=== But COBOL? Sure, there's legacy COBOL code that needs to be maintained. But answer this question: Given a clean slate and a proposal to build a new application, how many people would choose COBOL? Anybody? ===
Serious question - I am long out of touch with language design and practice - which currently used and popular language/compiler/optimizers have solid support for BCD and financial arithmetic?
=== Nuclear often comes up but the very long contruction lead time and very high capital cost renders new nuclear capacity irrelevant until the economy picks up. Large coal fired plants take almost as long. ===
Actually South Texas Project, a wholesale generator in Texas, have initiated the process of building 2 additional nuclear units. I don't think they have filed all the documents with the NRC yet but when they do it will be the first submission for a new permit since 1980.
While I am all in favor of more wind power, here's something to keep in mind: this spring the Texas control area (the organization that manages power flows in the Texas region) had an incident where the temperature stayed warm into the evening and the weather conditions were such that the wind died across the entire state. Of course the wind turbine power went to zero across the entire state as well, driving the system into yellow (risk of blackout/system collapse) and close to red before they could get enough backup gas turbines on-line.
As I said, wind is great but it needs to be backed up with hydro and probably nuclear to have a reliable system.
> You're telling him to not bother the police before > you have an address, and then you say that you should > ask the cops to help you get the address.
The IP address is only going to be a very rough guide to the physical location. To get the exact location the ISP will almost certainly ask for a subpoena, which you won't have unless you file a civil suit with the attendant costs or the police are involved with a criminal investigation.
As late as 1998 one of my former employers was running applications written in 1401 assembler in the late 50s/early 60s which in turn had been translated from IBM accounting machine commands. I can't say if they are still running since I am no longer there but given the size and resulting inertia of that entity I would not bet against at least one of those apps still being in service.
=== I've read Adventures of a Curious Character and have the utmost respect for Feynman. Every problem Feynman outlined in his analysis was a real problem that NASA should fix. But none of it really pinpointed the exact cause of the disaster. Feynman mostly chalks the failure to postpone launch to management's disconnect from engineering, from their mistakes and lack of understanding and therefore overestimating the safety of the shuttle. This puts the blame in the wrong place. The managers were no where near being so overconfident that when the engineers who designed the part that failed knew it would probably fail in exactly that way and tried to halt the launch, they'd just brush them aside and go ahead with it. They listened carefully; the engineers had data that would make a great case, but it was presented so incompetently that no one at that meeting would have thought they had a case at all, they simply appeared to be overly cautious, because they did not present any data demonstrating their point. ===
By his own admission, after he finished with the Computation Group during the Manhattan Project Feynman never managed anyone or anything and he had no desire to do so. I can respect that, but it does also mean that he never faced the situation of needing to make a management decision in a situation with incomplete information (but it is always incomplete...) and competing pressures (there are always pressures) including political factors (there are always political factors...). As a guide to system problems his report was brilliant but it always struck me as being a little too late-Dilbert in its overall conclusion.
(I will refrain from a four-step Profit post). Standard technique: latch on to an essay by a brilliant and insightful person. Extend the insights of that person slightly into a different field with usual compare-and-contrast, brand-extension writing techniques. Claim that resulting essay (and self) are as insightful as the original essayist.
It doesn't work 99.994% of the time, generally because very few people are as insightful as the original brilliant person.
I am personally not sure what value a Project Management Institute PMP certification has for a person who doesn't have 5-10 years of experience, but there is interesting material in the curriculum and many job postings will have "PMP Certified" as a checklist item. It is a lot less expensive to take the classroom portion through a college so if you have that you might want to take it.
> Also, shoving everything into the database isn't > always the best idea, and some stuff doesn't need > a db behind it.
I generally agree with your points, but I have to question this subpoint a bit. Having been on the business implementation side for 15 years now I have found very little that is kept outside a database that wouldn't have been better off in one - and some of my judgments about those few exceptions turned out to be wrong in the long run. As Tom Kyte says, fads come and go. Languages come and go. Applications come and go. Platforms come and go. But databases and the data in them can live on essentially forever (not necessarily on the same platform).
Which brings up another good point: get all of Tom Kyte's books and read and re-read them until you understand them. Although admittedly that is a bit difficult if you don't have any real business data projects to work on, so I would echo the comments above and say get an internship, preferably one that involves serious business data.
If you are thinking of technical skills only, then a deep and thorough understanding of relational databases in both theory and practice will serve you well. If you haven't already taken a class in Engineering Probability, that too. And take some 300 level classes outside the CS world (say, Mechanical Engineering) so you get some experience in solving problems that aren't within your comfort zone.
Outside of technical skills, political theory through the 300 level, some literature, and economics through the 300 level will be of more value to you than additional programming languages when you are in the 30-50 age period.
Molten salt heat exchange technology isn't new, and has been tried in various forms of electric generating plant for at least 25 years to my memory (and probably a lot longer - they tried a lot of odd stuff in the 1920s and 1950s). The think to keep an eye on is projected operating and maintenance expenses over the long term. Molten salt is nasty stuff and does a lot of damage to everything it touches. Major components such as pumps have to be considered replacement rather than repair items for example. So the O&M cost projections are critical.
=== It's funny and tragic. And by far not limited to Wikipedia. Try your average club and you'll see exactly the same development. Hell, try anything where some people who have nothing in common but the goal at hand aggregate.First, you'll see people form groups. Then you'll see (some) groups trying to gain power. No matter how petty (and in Wikipedia's case it's anything but petty. People have replaced Google with Wikipedia as a source for good links). ===
Of course the exact same thing happens in the hallowed halls of academia, and at commercial encyclopedia publishers (and other respected publishers of "factual" information). A close friend of mine used to recount stories of editing conflicts at his well-respected commercial information provider that were not in any way different from those that occur on Wikipedia. But publications from his then-employer are considered "factual" by definition.
> Hey there! I'm in an unrelated field and I don't know > how to do your job, but here's a few changes I'd like > to see anyway....
Actually, the use of radioactive seeds to treat prostate cancer, and the current statistically-based debate over which prostate cancer treatment is most effective, were both essentially triggered off by an article Mr. and Mrs. Groves and his doctor published after his research into the subject for himself. He found at that time (around 1995 IIRC) that virtually no coordination existed among the various branches of prostate cancer researchers and that basic cross-treatment statistics were _not_ being calculated even though all the leading researchers assumed that they were being done by someone else. So he has a bit of a point (which is not to say that your or other criticisms of Grove above don't also have some validity).
=== 1) the obvious, resistance from upper management. Upper management is afraid of being "bleeding edge". New stuff, and especially open source stuff, is scary. PHBs fail to realize that the F/OSS community operates on a different set of values than corporations. ===
Another way to say that would be "upper management has fiduciary responsibility for the corporation, its continued existence, and its profitability".
I haven't seen much resistance to open source tools such as gcc, linux, and apache in even the largest corporations since 1998 or so. Open sourcing of ideas, the corporate message, and the corporate brand is a whole different kettle of fish.
How did the end-users get to bypass HIPPA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Regulation FD, and general GAAP auditing, management control, and business continuity requirements? If they could teach the "IT Departments" how to do that I am sure there would be great appreciation.
Slashdot Mirror
People in Southern California, and throughout the Intermountain West, do. Or perhaps you missed all those Federal figherfighters, helicopters, water bombers, etc? Friend of mine who is a US Forest Service firefighter was on the helicopter just before the one that crashed in California two weeks ago. Sounds to me like 50 states subsidizing the decision of 1/5th of one state to build a city in a area of extreme fire danger. I am sure you will be recommending abandonment of Los Angeles here in a minute.
sPh
This thread must really be touching a nerve for a group here - they are systematically going through and downrating every post that does not hew to the Radical Right line. Interesting and quite revealing in itself.
sPh
> And therein lies the problem - entitlement. Folks seem to think
> that they're entitled to live wherever they want, without
> repercussions. If something bad happens, the Fed will
> bail them out, right?
>
> Folks seem to have lost an ability to take responsibility for
> their actions.
And here I thought we had this thing called a "nation" which embodied some elements of teamwork and shared pain/shared gain. Certainly when elements of our society decide it is time for a war they emphasize something they call "sacrifice" and "service".
> If you choose to live in an earthquake/flood/volcano zone,
> fine.
Of the major population and economic centers of the United States the only one that I can think of offhand that is not immediately vulnerable to a devastating natural disaster is Chicago. But that is only because it is so large even a 500-year tornado outbreak wouldn't do excessive damage on a percentage basis. Hmmm - forgot about devastating ice storm - that is possible in Chicago. Scratch that. So pray tell where this disaster-potential-free zone is located.
sPh
> It's the fed. The fed does NOTHING quickly.
> Why this is so fucking hard to understand amazes me.
"The fed" - that is, your federal government - has agencies that are specifically designed to work quickly and effectively and do so. Unless they are deliberately staffed with managers whose assignment is to destroy them and prove that they "don't work" - which is exactly how FEMA was staffed and tasked when Katrina hit. FEMA worked quite effectively in previous disaster situations. Heck of a job.
sPh
The Microsoft campus is built on solidified mud that flowed down during the last big eruption of Mount Rainer. In fact the entire Seattle/Tacoma area is at risk from such an eruption including Microsoft, the PacNorth software industry, and Boeing. Where do you suggest we move Seattle?
And while every local area should have good emergency planning in place, and Louisiana's prior to Katrina was not and did not, it was always my belief that in a true disaster situation the federal government, backed by the goodwill of the entire nation, should and would step in to help to the limits of human capability. Turned out, not so much.
sPh
Serious question - I am long out of touch with language design and practice - which currently used and popular language/compiler/optimizers have solid support for BCD and financial arithmetic?
sPh
Tasty.
sPh
Actually South Texas Project, a wholesale generator in Texas, have initiated the process of building 2 additional nuclear units. I don't think they have filed all the documents with the NRC yet but when they do it will be the first submission for a new permit since 1980.
sPh
While I am all in favor of more wind power, here's something to keep in mind: this spring the Texas control area (the organization that manages power flows in the Texas region) had an incident where the temperature stayed warm into the evening and the weather conditions were such that the wind died across the entire state. Of course the wind turbine power went to zero across the entire state as well, driving the system into yellow (risk of blackout/system collapse) and close to red before they could get enough backup gas turbines on-line.
As I said, wind is great but it needs to be backed up with hydro and probably nuclear to have a reliable system.
sPh
> You're telling him to not bother the police before
> you have an address, and then you say that you should
> ask the cops to help you get the address.
The IP address is only going to be a very rough guide to the physical location. To get the exact location the ISP will almost certainly ask for a subpoena, which you won't have unless you file a civil suit with the attendant costs or the police are involved with a criminal investigation.
sPh
As late as 1998 one of my former employers was running applications written in 1401 assembler in the late 50s/early 60s which in turn had been translated from IBM accounting machine commands. I can't say if they are still running since I am no longer there but given the size and resulting inertia of that entity I would not bet against at least one of those apps still being in service.
sPh
> The T60 was made under Lenovo.
Lenovo had been making the majority of IBM's laptops and desktops for years before IBM sold the division to them.
sPh
sPh
(I will refrain from a four-step Profit post). Standard technique: latch on to an essay by a brilliant and insightful person. Extend the insights of that person slightly into a different field with usual compare-and-contrast, brand-extension writing techniques. Claim that resulting essay (and self) are as insightful as the original essayist.
It doesn't work 99.994% of the time, generally because very few people are as insightful as the original brilliant person.
sPh
I am personally not sure what value a Project Management Institute PMP certification has for a person who doesn't have 5-10 years of experience, but there is interesting material in the curriculum and many job postings will have "PMP Certified" as a checklist item. It is a lot less expensive to take the classroom portion through a college so if you have that you might want to take it.
sPh
> There's only one programming language you
> need: Turing Machines
Wash U graduate by any chance?
sPh
> Also, shoving everything into the database isn't
> always the best idea, and some stuff doesn't need
> a db behind it.
I generally agree with your points, but I have to question this subpoint a bit. Having been on the business implementation side for 15 years now I have found very little that is kept outside a database that wouldn't have been better off in one - and some of my judgments about those few exceptions turned out to be wrong in the long run. As Tom Kyte says, fads come and go. Languages come and go. Applications come and go. Platforms come and go. But databases and the data in them can live on essentially forever (not necessarily on the same platform).
Which brings up another good point: get all of Tom Kyte's books and read and re-read them until you understand them. Although admittedly that is a bit difficult if you don't have any real business data projects to work on, so I would echo the comments above and say get an internship, preferably one that involves serious business data.
sPh
If you are thinking of technical skills only, then a deep and thorough understanding of relational databases in both theory and practice will serve you well. If you haven't already taken a class in Engineering Probability, that too. And take some 300 level classes outside the CS world (say, Mechanical Engineering) so you get some experience in solving problems that aren't within your comfort zone.
Outside of technical skills, political theory through the 300 level, some literature, and economics through the 300 level will be of more value to you than additional programming languages when you are in the 30-50 age period.
sPh
Molten salt heat exchange technology isn't new, and has been tried in various forms of electric generating plant for at least 25 years to my memory (and probably a lot longer - they tried a lot of odd stuff in the 1920s and 1950s). The think to keep an eye on is projected operating and maintenance expenses over the long term. Molten salt is nasty stuff and does a lot of damage to everything it touches. Major components such as pumps have to be considered replacement rather than repair items for example. So the O&M cost projections are critical.
sPh
sPh
> Hey there! I'm in an unrelated field and I don't know
> how to do your job, but here's a few changes I'd like
> to see anyway....
Actually, the use of radioactive seeds to treat prostate cancer, and the current statistically-based debate over which prostate cancer treatment is most effective, were both essentially triggered off by an article Mr. and Mrs. Groves and his doctor published after his research into the subject for himself. He found at that time (around 1995 IIRC) that virtually no coordination existed among the various branches of prostate cancer researchers and that basic cross-treatment statistics were _not_ being calculated even though all the leading researchers assumed that they were being done by someone else. So he has a bit of a point (which is not to say that your or other criticisms of Grove above don't also have some validity).
sPh
> proposed to my wife here... and she accepted
> and now years later we have a baby.
Wait until your baby creates his/her own Slashdot account - mine did this year. That made me feel both proud and old...
sPh
Of course you may have reserved userid 10 for that purpose a long time ago...
Got me beat.
sPh
I haven't seen much resistance to open source tools such as gcc, linux, and apache in even the largest corporations since 1998 or so. Open sourcing of ideas, the corporate message, and the corporate brand is a whole different kettle of fish.
sPh
How did the end-users get to bypass HIPPA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Regulation FD, and general GAAP auditing, management control, and business continuity requirements? If they could teach the "IT Departments" how to do that I am sure there would be great appreciation.
sPh