I agree. If businesses were paying CEOs and other top management based on performance, and they made a ton of money, good for them! It works for the CEO, it works for the shareholders, everyone's happy.
But the problem is staggeringly obvious to everyone. They're NOT paid based on performance-- if so, the top figures at Enron wouldn't have made shit.
Indeed. I am no fan of Microsoft, but I believe that one has to admire Bill Gates for his stance on compensation: a salary of $250,000/year, and all the rest in stock. Clearly his wealth is tied to the performance of his company! (yes, I know he has cashed out several billion. He did so AFTER he earned it). Most of these "uber-CEOs" manage to set things up so they take home $20 million/year or so REGARDLESS of how their organization performs. Then they want stock options too...
I was working for this company. It wasn't doing very well. In fact, it was doing terrible and had filed Chapter 13. None of us knew if we were even coming in to work the next week. But the company hired a CEO that had turned around two other chapter 13 companies, both of which are doing very well today. But he failed with our company. We lasted only another year. Was he worth what he was paid? What he worth his golden parachute?
Different situation. The company was already in distress. Anyone coming in at the top was indeed taking a big risk (to his reputation at least) and in that situation you have to pay big $$$ to get someone good. (Sort of like trying to hire Michael Jordan to turn the Washington Wizards around? Maybe a poor analogy)
What is open to question is paying huge sums of money to CEOs who have not demonstrated the ability to do anything except commission more studies from Accenture and McKinsey. These guys are around for 3 years, do no good and a lot of harm, collect a $20 million golden parachute, and move on to the next victim.
Back then yes, today I am not sure. The M1A2B weighs in at a heafty 61.4 tons ready for battle. Imagine 300 - 500 of these wonderful tanks trying to cross... the weight would be tought to handle for any bridge I imagine. Hehe.
In North America, a hopper car full of coal typically weighs 100 tons, although some railroads have experimented with 120 ton cars. Those are standard 8-wheel cars (4 axle); I believe tank transport cars have 12 wheels (6 axles). So no biggie.
In my experience, Americans attempting to work in Europe will not be taken seriously unless they speak at least three languages in addition to American English [1]. Even though your coworkers may not speak 4 languages, and even though the entire work day may be conducted in British, as an American you will not be taken seriously unless you are multi-lingual.
sPh
[1] One of the three must be English English, since that dialect is actually the "English" that is used in technical discussions in Europe.
They also built it something like 3x as strong as it had to be. That's why today, it is still quite strong and able to support enormous masses even though it is over 100 years old.
Eads Bridge here in St. Louis (world's first steel arch; first experience with cassion disease {"the bends"} in North America} is similarly over-designed, and has also lasted well over 100 years in difficult conditions.
Presumably you have worked through the basics of GPS precision, accuracy, and statistical analysis. And you are aware that unless you use a survey-grade instrument with tons of post-processing, or some form of enhanced signal (DGPS), your accuracy will be limited?
You did say +/- 5m so I am guessing you do know this, but if not you may want to be sure you are getting what you think you are getting (apologies to "The Princess Bride").
The powers that be are talking about a new super-bridge here in St. Louis (Missouri, USA, central North America for you furriners). Problem is they have pre-decided that it will be a cable-stayed design: just like the last 3 Mississippi bridges.
Now, the first few cable-stayed bridges were kind of neat, but at this point they are starting to look all alike and quite boring. Can't we have any more real suspension bridges, like the Brooklyn Bridge? How about a cantilever like the Firth of Forth? Architecturally that would fit in well with St. Louis.
But NO - everything has to be cable-stayed these days it seems.
I am afraid the precedents may not be good on this one. Parents have sued school districts in an attempt to have their children excused from watching Channel One. Channel One, you may recall, provided free video equipment and news feeds to school districts in exchange for students being forced to watch certain amounts of commercials per day. Parents objected on the grounds that the government's coercive power should not be used to force children to watch commercials.
As far as I am aware, the parents lost all of these lawsuits. Courts held that government did in fact have the power to force (pre-voting) citizens to watch commericals.
Why not just lay down new copper in the form of CAT5? It's dirt cheap. I've done it. Just look at these pics [he.net] of my neighborhood area network
Just be sure to think through the lightning protection aspect. Nothing like routing 10,000,000 volts right into your house. Gives a new meaning to high-powered router!
Basically says the union hates it and the FAA and Raytheon say it's OK. It lists a few problems, but doesn't say if it could be the result of user error.
I am aware of the high-tech world's hated for anything that smacks of unionization. However, everything I have heard from the pilot's side (particularly GA pilots) is that the FAA is, well, not doing too well these days. And that the front-line controllers are probably more right on these issues than their bosses.
The existence of the exploit in the first place is troubling, but the *really serious* problem is #3, where almost nobody installs the patch until it is too late. Basically, Microsoft may not care as much about security as the security experts do, but the sad truth is that many users and even sysadmins care even less.
Well, yes. OTOH, you missed Step 3a, where the Microsoft patch breaks numerous mission-critical non-Microsoft applications. Office 97 SP2 was a classic here: Novell Netware clients never worked the same after that one was installed. Necessary for security I am sure. And NT SP6, which broke Lotus Notes.
You also missed step 2.9, where the hapless sysadmin spends 3 days trying to figure out Microsoft's patch dependency tree, which is not published. And even M$ admits that they use different, and incompatible, patch mechanisms for different product lines. So if I pull out the install disk to add an additional function to Visio, do I have to reinstall Office XP patches? Why or why not?
Everything should be able to be done on the terminal and require no paper or anything that would even require a file cabinet.
Well, you might want to read this article from The New Yorker. The author gives a very convincing explanation of why the "clean desk" idea works for a few people, but not for most.
Personally, while I find it very efficient to search for things on-line, I find that when it comes to actually reading and absorbing the information so found, ink on paper (aks "dead trees") is about 10 times more efficient than a CRT.
My math skills are far from what they used to be, but something divided by the same thing becomes one. Hence Gnu/Gnu = 1, so it should be 1 Hurd. And who cares about that 1 anyways? So it's should be Hurd.
Unless Hurd = 0. In which case the result is undefined.
Remove the cheap solvent, and, by weight, inkjet ink is more expensive than gold.
Remove the cheap solvent (water), and the residue from your body is probably worth more than gold too, but I don't think you would be of much use to anyone if you tried doing that!
Getting the solvent right is of course one of the key design issues in inkjet printing, as anyone who remembers ink dripping down the page from the early inkjets can attest.
Clearly, I did not mean "own" in the sense of "has legal title to under the laws of the United States of America", but "own" as in the sense of "has stewardship over". As in "the United States Government owns Yellowstone National Park". Can the USG use Yellowstone as a nuclear weapon testing ground? Yes, it can. Should it or will it? I believe, and hope, the answers are no and no.
Well, that's the Paul Newman theory of celebrity, anyway.
For those who aren't auto racing followers: Paul Newman is well-known in the auto racing world for verbally (and sometimes physically) abusing anyone who hints that they might have seen him somewhere off the racetrack. Of course, without those annoying things called "movies" and "fans", he wouldn't have the money to buy lots of shiny race cars, but I guess the Golden Rule applies.
Once an artist releases a work, it becomes a much a property of the audience as of the artist. If he has the legal right to change it later (say, after it has become wildly popular?), and he does so, that is of course his business. But he shouldn't be surprised if the audience does not accept the revised work, nor if the audience villfies him for so doing.
Its exactly the systems Casino's have sucessfully deployed to keep known "cheaters" out of their casino's. The face scanning technology merely provides POSSIBLE matches, the actual decision on further investigation rests with a human operator...
An excellent example. To a casino, a "cheater" is someone who has figured out how to win more than the 48.5% that the casino has defined as "fair", and therefore puts the casino's 90% gross profit margin in jepordy. As a general rule he is doing nothing that can be considered 'wrong' or even 'illegal' - he is just doing better than the casino would prefer. So massive amounts of technology are deployed to exclude him from the casino premises.
Bash ClearChannel all you want for being a large, corrupt corporation but the odds are the station manager at your local ClearChannel station lacks the balls to stand up to management and play what his audience really wants. And there's also the possibility that your market just doesn't support your particular taste in music.
Clear Channel's entire strategy is to eliminate local managers and talent, and run everything from a centralized control center. Sort of the way Shadow Traffic and Accuweather do it now. They aren't all the way there yet, but for their smaller markets they already have regional control centers where DJ's pre-record up to 8 shows during the course of an 8 hour shift. CC have a local stringer to come on with any breaking news, and of course a local advertising manager, but other than that they have zero presence in the local area. Zip, nada, zero.
They aren't all the way to their goal of "lights out" DJ'ing yet, but they are getting close.
It is very common for packaged business apps to include a license for an RDBMS (SQLS, Oracle, etc). The vendor shows up, installs a box in the corner, and says "don't worry - we will dial in once a month to check how it is running". Which if you think about it is how most tools/equipment/systems that businesses use work. So it is not "clueless" or "irrational" for the business using the product to not know the details of how the thing works.
Slashdot Mirror
sPh
What is open to question is paying huge sums of money to CEOs who have not demonstrated the ability to do anything except commission more studies from Accenture and McKinsey. These guys are around for 3 years, do no good and a lot of harm, collect a $20 million golden parachute, and move on to the next victim.
That is what has people hot under the collar.
sPh
sPh
sPh
[1] One of the three must be English English, since that dialect is actually the "English" that is used in technical discussions in Europe.
sPh
You did say +/- 5m so I am guessing you do know this, but if not you may want to be sure you are getting what you think you are getting (apologies to "The Princess Bride").
sPh
Now, the first few cable-stayed bridges were kind of neat, but at this point they are starting to look all alike and quite boring. Can't we have any more real suspension bridges, like the Brooklyn Bridge? How about a cantilever like the Firth of Forth? Architecturally that would fit in well with St. Louis.
But NO - everything has to be cable-stayed these days it seems.
sPh
As far as I am aware, the parents lost all of these lawsuits. Courts held that government did in fact have the power to force (pre-voting) citizens to watch commericals.
sPh
Great term - hope it sticks in the popular press.
sPh
sPh
I am aware of the high-tech world's hated for anything that smacks of unionization. However, everything I have heard from the pilot's side (particularly GA pilots) is that the FAA is, well, not doing too well these days. And that the front-line controllers are probably more right on these issues than their bosses.
sPh
Avweb has also had some interesting articles about England's experiement with new ATC systems.
sPh
You also missed step 2.9, where the hapless sysadmin spends 3 days trying to figure out Microsoft's patch dependency tree, which is not published. And even M$ admits that they use different, and incompatible, patch mechanisms for different product lines. So if I pull out the install disk to add an additional function to Visio, do I have to reinstall Office XP patches? Why or why not?
sPh
But it started off a pretty good thread, eh?
sPh
Speaking as a person who used to use gopher quite a bit - how many gopher links are left on the WWW? Three?
sPh
Personally, while I find it very efficient to search for things on-line, I find that when it comes to actually reading and absorbing the information so found, ink on paper (aks "dead trees") is about 10 times more efficient than a CRT.
sPh
sPh
sPh
Getting the solvent right is of course one of the key design issues in inkjet printing, as anyone who remembers ink dripping down the page from the early inkjets can attest.
sPh
Same thing here.
sPh
Well, that's the Paul Newman theory of celebrity, anyway.
For those who aren't auto racing followers: Paul Newman is well-known in the auto racing world for verbally (and sometimes physically) abusing anyone who hints that they might have seen him somewhere off the racetrack. Of course, without those annoying things called "movies" and "fans", he wouldn't have the money to buy lots of shiny race cars, but I guess the Golden Rule applies.
sPh
sPh
Yep, we need a national ID card. We really do...
sPh
They aren't all the way to their goal of "lights out" DJ'ing yet, but they are getting close.
sPh
sPh