Of course, they could just take that cash, distribute it to their employees, lay them all off, then sell their receivables, contracts, and customer base to some other company *cough*IBM*cough*, then split that money amongst the 'execs'.
What the hell are you talking about?! I'm a shareholder, I come first. Those guys already get paid. If cash is being distributed I want my 700 shares worth!
You just don't play with the right toys. Stop buying x86 and get something with a real backplane, e.g. anything from Sun with the Fireplane interconnect. Having a 9.6GB/s cross bar switch linking the processors, memory and I/O subsystems is where you want to be. And if you go with the entry level systems you can get this in a minimally configured (2 CPUs, 4GB RAM) V480 for under $20,000. If that's too much you can still get a single CPU 280R for under $8,000 but it only has a 4.8GB/s cross bar. If you don't like Sun go for something from IBM - the p630s are nice little boxes - you just need to be willing to put up with AIX.
Why do people talk about moving data and then bring up x86? It's just not there and won't be until Sun finishes putting Opterons onto a real backplane.
I read your first post and nearly flipped. Read the rest of the thread, got to this post and realized you're one of the few people floating around/. that actually bothers to read "negative" responses instead of just flaming back. You now get why the corp SAs may seem like jerks half the time - it's their job to keep the company running, not keep a power user happy. Most of them will even admit to using all the "unsupported software" at home that they refuse to install at work.
The RMS rant, while interesting, has little to do with what occurred here. Adam isn't being accused of logging in, copying a CD, then logging out. He allegedly made use of one companies services while billing it to another. This is more along the lines of me going into your unlocked house while you're not home and ordering/watching Pay-Per View movies. Did I steal anything from anyone? If not, who is liable for the cost of the movies? You? The Cable company? Not me, of course, I didn't take a physical object and everyone else still had access to Pay-Per View - right?
When someone, be it LexusNexus, a cable company, or a barber, provides a service they do so for a given price. Taking their service without paying them is theft.
The use of the LexusNexus service is a greyer area but in reality he didn't steal anything, he didn't hurt anyone, he didn't make a single person lift a finger. He made some machines work a little bit more instead of doing nothing. The Times won't have to pay the bill sine they didn't actually use the services they are being asked to pay for. $300,000 is a *huge* ammount of money and unless someone died, it is obviously rediculous.
WTF? Grey...? You can't be serious. Adam accessed a paid service with someone else's credentials. It seems pretty clear to me. If you still have doubts, how about sending me your Exxon/Mobil card. I guarantee I won't "make a single person lift a finger" and I'll only "make some machines [gas pumps] work a little bit more instead of doing nothing".
Seriously, are you honestly saying that what he stole (yes, taking other people's stuff without asking is still stealing in my world) was over-priced so it's ok...?
Iron Poisoning is one of the most frequent causes of poisoning death in children.
Fluitron makes their presses
on
The Diamond Age
·
· Score: 1
A buddy of mine did design work on their pressure vessels and his father's company, Fluitron, made them. I first heard about them a year ago when I was asked if I wanted a deal on some diamonds. Very cool stuff! You can get a beautiful stone and bypass DeBeers completely.
1) Your house is paid for. Your student loans are paid for. I mean, you wouldn't be so crass as to save up a million and then not pay off your debt, would you?
If I'm going to live for 250+ years, why wouldn't the bank offer me an 80 year mortgage? Same for student loans etc... If everybody can live a long time short-term rates should go to hell. Imagine CDs only offered in 10 year increments and to get a decent 3% return requires a 50+ year lock.
It's more an attempt at formalizing my gut feelings about this subject.
I don't mean this as rudely as it may sound, but I think you're not comfortable with the idea that you might just be the sum of your parts. If you can be backed-up/restored/copied, does that reduce the value of any given "self"?
When I was responsible for the Internet site of a rather large national bank, we only accepted change requests for Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It was just easier for the operators to get hold of a sober developer/administrator at 02:00 on a Tuesday or a Thursday than any other time. And getting a contact on the business side to ok a rollback that caused contract issues on the weekend was near impossible.
CS should not be about programming! Programming is a tool and, with no disrespect to the hard core coders it is a minor part of a CS. If they are learning project management, design, testing, formal specifications, AI, etc these will stand them in better stead in their careers than "just" knowing all the C++/Java/Perl... libraries.
You're half right there. C/C++/Java/Perl/etc as well as Windows/Linux/Mac are all tools. Programming is a skill. And if it is taught/learned well, it is language (tool) independent. Too many people miss the distiction and a lot of crappy code is the result.
I knew idiots that did this when rsh (ssh didn't exist at the time) was turned off on all the workstations in the UDel Sunlab way back in the day... The non-idiots made sure the file was properly PGP-signed;)
Agreed. We only add storage to the primary Mktg/Fin Oracle server in increments of ~560GB to maintain our stripe width (and it's only 8). Since we're stuck with an EMC frame (prior decision and politics beyond my control) this means we only buy in $40,000 chunks.
If you understand corporate accounting, you'll realize how badly this sucks... Making existing drives faster and more reliable is what I need - not bigger.
I've explained this to my Information Security department so many times I should make an mp3 and have it auto-emailed to them everytime CERT sends out an alert...
Don't forget that. It may take 3 months, maybe 2 years, but that's what is happening. You need to look at all changes from this perspective.
You'll see layoffs in HR, Finance, and Accounting first - these departments are nearly identical across all companies. If you mainly do work for one of these departments, get transfered. Then come the easily digestible IT departments: Networking, Desktop support, Help Desk, etc. Day-to-day Ops Application support is usually safe for a while. Developers, DBAs, and SAs it depends. I've seen a couple of companies layoff all the SAs & DBAs and add those duties to the Dev staff.
Two relavent bits of info:
1) They fired the QA department due to cutbacks over a year ago.
2) There is no "Production Control" group. The same people who develop the apps support them (with little to no oversight). They have never had a way of preventing this type of fix.
Management has crippled me with too many buzzword babbling Powerpoint-jockeys for me to take consultants seriously. It's hard to get good work out of someone who only develops/implements a project and doesn't have to live with it 6 months down the line.
Call me crazy, but I'd rather get paid for the quality of my work - not how long I've been the member of a union.
I don't even believe in tieing vacation to length of service. Give the cash and the bennies to the high performers and let the mediocre fight for the scraps.
Here's a link to a list of papers & presentations on the topic.
It's not new, company's like Sun have been pursuing this for years. Here's info on the FLEETzero prototype async chip they were showing off at the ASYNC 2001 conference last year.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do people talk about moving data and then bring up x86? It's just not there and won't be until Sun finishes putting Opterons onto a real backplane.
http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/SITE/IXO.TAP.protocol .html
TAP is what we used before web pages (and you youngsters) existed...
I read your first post and nearly flipped. Read the rest of the thread, got to this post and realized you're one of the few people floating around /. that actually bothers to read "negative" responses instead of just flaming back. You now get why the corp SAs may seem like jerks half the time - it's their job to keep the company running, not keep a power user happy. Most of them will even admit to using all the "unsupported software" at home that they refuse to install at work.
When someone, be it LexusNexus, a cable company, or a barber, provides a service they do so for a given price. Taking their service without paying them is theft.
WTF? Grey...? You can't be serious. Adam accessed a paid service with someone else's credentials. It seems pretty clear to me. If you still have doubts, how about sending me your Exxon/Mobil card. I guarantee I won't "make a single person lift a finger" and I'll only "make some machines [gas pumps] work a little bit more instead of doing nothing".
Seriously, are you honestly saying that what he stole (yes, taking other people's stuff without asking is still stealing in my world) was over-priced so it's ok...?
Iron Poisoning is one of the most frequent causes of poisoning death in children.
A buddy of mine did design work on their pressure vessels and his father's company, Fluitron, made them. I first heard about them a year ago when I was asked if I wanted a deal on some diamonds. Very cool stuff! You can get a beautiful stone and bypass DeBeers completely.
If I'm going to live for 250+ years, why wouldn't the bank offer me an 80 year mortgage? Same for student loans etc... If everybody can live a long time short-term rates should go to hell. Imagine CDs only offered in 10 year increments and to get a decent 3% return requires a 50+ year lock.
Damn straight! Mod this guy up!
I don't mean this as rudely as it may sound, but I think you're not comfortable with the idea that you might just be the sum of your parts. If you can be backed-up/restored/copied, does that reduce the value of any given "self"?
I get paid good money to come in and clean shops up after sloppy Admins have created unstable messes... :)
When I was responsible for the Internet site of a rather large national bank, we only accepted change requests for Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It was just easier for the operators to get hold of a sober developer/administrator at 02:00 on a Tuesday or a Thursday than any other time. And getting a contact on the business side to ok a rollback that caused contract issues on the weekend was near impossible.
You're half right there. C/C++/Java/Perl/etc as well as Windows/Linux/Mac are all tools. Programming is a skill. And if it is taught/learned well, it is language (tool) independent. Too many people miss the distiction and a lot of crappy code is the result.
I knew idiots that did this when rsh (ssh didn't exist at the time) was turned off on all the workstations in the UDel Sunlab way back in the day... The non-idiots made sure the file was properly PGP-signed ;)
If you understand corporate accounting, you'll realize how badly this sucks... Making existing drives faster and more reliable is what I need - not bigger.
One-dimensional characters... yeah, sounds like Crichton.
I've explained this to my Information Security department so many times I should make an mp3 and have it auto-emailed to them everytime CERT sends out an alert...
You'll see layoffs in HR, Finance, and Accounting first - these departments are nearly identical across all companies. If you mainly do work for one of these departments, get transfered. Then come the easily digestible IT departments: Networking, Desktop support, Help Desk, etc. Day-to-day Ops Application support is usually safe for a while. Developers, DBAs, and SAs it depends. I've seen a couple of companies layoff all the SAs & DBAs and add those duties to the Dev staff.
You used the wrong term, it's called "positive attrition" - been there.
If you're ever in the Newark, DE area I owe you a beer.
Two relavent bits of info:
1) They fired the QA department due to cutbacks over a year ago.
2) There is no "Production Control" group. The same people who develop the apps support them (with little to no oversight). They have never had a way of preventing this type of fix.
So go into consulting.
Management has crippled me with too many buzzword babbling Powerpoint-jockeys for me to take consultants seriously. It's hard to get good work out of someone who only develops/implements a project and doesn't have to live with it 6 months down the line.
I don't even believe in tieing vacation to length of service. Give the cash and the bennies to the high performers and let the mediocre fight for the scraps.
It's not new, company's like Sun have been pursuing this for years. Here's info on the FLEETzero prototype async chip they were showing off at the ASYNC 2001 conference last year.