Re:That's why I like the basic Kindle
on
The eBook Backlash
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Completely agree on the text. After reading a few books on my iPhone, reading on the Kindle is like reading a normal book page. I can go for hours without any eye strain. One thing that sold me on the Kindle was the "Free Sample" you can get with most books. Could be anything from 10 to 100 pages of a book, but especially in the dodgy-writing realm of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, it's key to be able to sample the writing before buying. Bookstores let you do that, and the Kindle does as well. There are also authors giving away free books which opens up a whole other world.
Someone needs to take your IT Director by the ear and explain to him the differences between a corporation and a university.
1) University folks generally get paid less than their corporate counterparts 2) Basic research occurs on all levels, not just in the lab. Innovation in the network, software development, etc. happens and is expected to happen with the staff as well as faculty. It's a learning environment. It's a try-this environment. 3) A university's most basic tenet is access to information and that goes both ways. By inhibiting what is likely the largest fountain of information and means of transferring that information, it's a little insane. Tell your IT guy to work on better security techniques: locking your kid in the closet may keep him safe but it's not a good idea.
So sure, in real life you can look stuff up. I'm in the computer field after going through a BSEE a gagillion years ago. I've seen desktop support folks try to step into the server admin role thinking they can get by with Google and the MS Knowledgebase. Invariably screw it all up. Plugging in a mouse, troubleshooting email on the client -- sure you can flip through menus or decide that the flat end of the mouse isn't going to fit into the round port. But for more complex things, some training and theory are necessary.
In terms of exams, you want your students, especially engineering students, to have enough theory that they can go out and design stuff: create it from scratch. If all they know is the right equation for this or that and when the most likely time to plug in a number is, then you've graduated a tech, not an engineer. Don't tell the physicists, but engineers can come up with ideas too.:-)
And Best Buy needs to consider that. Drop its online prices. Up its in-store service and knowledge. Work to maintain its employees for more than 6 months. Hire people at reasonable salaries, train them regularly, don't mess with their schedules without telling them. As it stands now, most of the employees in Best Buy are high school kids who stand around and chat with each other, don't know the answer to your questions, and will be gone in 3 months. This is no way to sustain a business where knowledge is useful. Let the transitive staff wait tables. Hire real employees and pay them real money and treat them like real company employees.
The only problem with Best Buy is that management doesn't see the company's role in the new age. And since they're lost, they feel their company is lost, so they treat all their employees like a 4 year old's goldfish.
Reality is that people don't need to build cool gadgets anymore. Cool gadgets are mainstream. And fixing digital circuit boards no longer requires colored resistors. You just toss it out and buy a new product.
Re:This is why a flat tax will not work.
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
·
· Score: 2
You pay tax on your bank interest earned, should there be any. And that's yearly, because it's money in your pocket. Money in the market may as well be $0 until you actually remove it from the market into your bank account. On any particular day the value of your stock can go from $10/share to $2/share. It is the nature of agreed value versus intrinsic value. The latter would be the price you paid for it, the former, the price people know agree that it is worth. And as we've all learned over the past 5 years, that can change at the drop of a hat.
So I agree with not being taxed on stock until you remove it.
Ok...I didn't read the article. But the problem with mobile devices, cloud services, etc, isn't IT's lack of control. It's not the stability of the network. It's the security of the data itself. It's a little tricky to safeguard your patent research documents if they're sitting in your iPhone email. Even more difficult if they are up in Dropbox, unencrypted, where "mistakes happen" and other people can gain access to your account by an oops by the service provider or a sharing oops by yourself.
Believe me, I'd really rather not be responsible for managing data access. No matter how dumb people are, it's IT that gets blamed for lack of security.
A friend bought me the Game of Kings, a book by Dorothy Dunnett. She's Scottish, the hero is Scottish. It's not sci-fi or fantasy, it's slated as historical fiction -- story is fake but it's set against the real backdrop of a child Mary Queen of Scots. The writing is better than anything I've ever read in terms of prose, content (dialogue is amazing), and plot. Characters are all very well defined -- if you've read George RR Martin, who develops strong and varied characters -- it's similar here, though decidedly more subtle. People seem very real, but very distinct. Mostly it's the wit I enjoy -- she's the smartest writer I've ever read: great delivery, very re-readable, and, like Orson Scott Card, actually describes how an intelligent conclusion is reached rather than saying "Poof, he wins!"
It's a series of 6 books, and they're all excellent, but the first can be read alone. It's a tough read -- compare it with Umberto Eco, but way more fun.
Two s's. Good guy, good blog. As far as prose goes, it's better than most fantasy (which isn't saying much), but not on the level of George RR Martin or Tolkien. As far as the thought he puts behind the content, I give him an A+. He touches on a lot of quick themes that people can easily relate to, and his main character offers a lot of insight. Kind of makes you think, but also makes you feel. The first book flows a little better than the second, but the second (upon rereading it) has more of the thoughtful stuff overall. His prose is simple, but not too simple, but he delivers well: he crafts a good story over the long haul, but every piece is interesting. Very flippable (meaning after you've read it once, you'll find yourself rereading various parts on a whim).
It's not the content that's the problem, it's how it's delivered and the cost for that delivery. I'm not happy to watch just anything. I want football on Sundays, tennis during the Opens, Daily Show and Colbert, and like two other TV shows. And someone thought that was worth $700/year and I can only watch the shows when someone else tells me to. Unless I use the DVR, which is another $60/year. And there are times where I can't watch the TV shows AT ALL because they aren't available anywhere but a P2P network.
You're in IT and you're done with your work? How is this possible...
At the university we have union employees, non-union employees, and exempt employees. Union and non-union both get overtime, but they are also paid a relatively lower salary (in IT's case their classifications are always lower, ergo...) than exempt employees which do not get overtime. All that being said, this can be crazily abused in the wrong hands.
You know, I'd be okay with this as long as the costs were reasonable. Lower the base cost and put the truly heavy users in a higher bracket. I don't want to pay $80/month and then also have tiered service above that because I decided to stream a movie.
Oh, you're one of those people who buys things they can't afford? This is fixable.
(Yes, yes, everyone uses credit these days, even when you rent they generally run a credit report. If they didn't, or if you just paid by the year, my comment would be less ignorantly snarky.)
In the scenario presented, he's returning the handle and presumably the password to the company and they can do with it as they see fit. This is exactly what should have been done. Honestly, if the person has any right to keep his account, it's that work knowinglyallowed him to have a popular twitter feed that mixed personal and work topics. If he's going to defend this, that will be his defense. My thoughts are that he's going to lose anyway.
Let's drop the.com/org/edu if we're not going to regulate their use to actual Companies, non-profit Organizations, and Educational institutions. Just move to:
You're pointing out that comments on an internet news article don't appear informed? From your tone one might assume the highly improbable: that you've only recently discovered or at least bothered to read comments on the internet. People speaking opinion as fact is common. More common in the anonymous world of the internet.
Either that or your entire post is an elaborate ruse to make people believe you're new to the internet. This I find to be more believable.
User: I can get 3 TB of storage for $500 with this Buffalo NAS from Newegg Me: No. You want your data to play nice with our network. You can use our file servers or we'll configure one for you. It'll cost $1500. User: I bought the NAS, can you help me set it up? It won't let my group access any other folder than Public and file transfer seems really slow. Me: No. You bought it, you fix it. I am not your monkey.
Okay, so that last line is a bit of a pipe dream, but still. Consumer NAS's suck. That is all. Not opinion, but fact.
From the summary (I didn't RTFA), it suggests they gave out the suppression list to their marketing agents. They probably don't run their own list serve and bulk emailing in house. They send it to professionals who make a pretty email for them and bulk mail it out over a few days. The list is to ensure their own customers don't get spammed by the "BE A NEW CUSTOMER!" emails. And then the marketing agent gave the list to the wrong people.
Slashdot Mirror
Completely agree on the text. After reading a few books on my iPhone, reading on the Kindle is like reading a normal book page. I can go for hours without any eye strain. One thing that sold me on the Kindle was the "Free Sample" you can get with most books. Could be anything from 10 to 100 pages of a book, but especially in the dodgy-writing realm of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, it's key to be able to sample the writing before buying. Bookstores let you do that, and the Kindle does as well. There are also authors giving away free books which opens up a whole other world.
Chris
If it's important enough to say, it's important enough to carve into the back of your hand.
Someone needs to take your IT Director by the ear and explain to him the differences between a corporation and a university.
1) University folks generally get paid less than their corporate counterparts
2) Basic research occurs on all levels, not just in the lab. Innovation in the network, software development, etc. happens and is expected to happen with the staff as well as faculty. It's a learning environment. It's a try-this environment.
3) A university's most basic tenet is access to information and that goes both ways. By inhibiting what is likely the largest fountain of information and means of transferring that information, it's a little insane. Tell your IT guy to work on better security techniques: locking your kid in the closet may keep him safe but it's not a good idea.
What's the payout for them?
I would assume donations from the concerned parties.
So sure, in real life you can look stuff up. I'm in the computer field after going through a BSEE a gagillion years ago. I've seen desktop support folks try to step into the server admin role thinking they can get by with Google and the MS Knowledgebase. Invariably screw it all up. Plugging in a mouse, troubleshooting email on the client -- sure you can flip through menus or decide that the flat end of the mouse isn't going to fit into the round port. But for more complex things, some training and theory are necessary.
In terms of exams, you want your students, especially engineering students, to have enough theory that they can go out and design stuff: create it from scratch. If all they know is the right equation for this or that and when the most likely time to plug in a number is, then you've graduated a tech, not an engineer. Don't tell the physicists, but engineers can come up with ideas too. :-)
And Best Buy needs to consider that. Drop its online prices. Up its in-store service and knowledge. Work to maintain its employees for more than 6 months. Hire people at reasonable salaries, train them regularly, don't mess with their schedules without telling them. As it stands now, most of the employees in Best Buy are high school kids who stand around and chat with each other, don't know the answer to your questions, and will be gone in 3 months. This is no way to sustain a business where knowledge is useful. Let the transitive staff wait tables. Hire real employees and pay them real money and treat them like real company employees.
The only problem with Best Buy is that management doesn't see the company's role in the new age. And since they're lost, they feel their company is lost, so they treat all their employees like a 4 year old's goldfish.
Reality is that people don't need to build cool gadgets anymore. Cool gadgets are mainstream. And fixing digital circuit boards no longer requires colored resistors. You just toss it out and buy a new product.
You pay tax on your bank interest earned, should there be any. And that's yearly, because it's money in your pocket. Money in the market may as well be $0 until you actually remove it from the market into your bank account. On any particular day the value of your stock can go from $10/share to $2/share. It is the nature of agreed value versus intrinsic value. The latter would be the price you paid for it, the former, the price people know agree that it is worth. And as we've all learned over the past 5 years, that can change at the drop of a hat.
So I agree with not being taxed on stock until you remove it.
User: Fuuuus-DOH-sah! Healing. (Raise left hand)
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
iTunes account is required to purchase apps.
Migrate all major news and news aggregation sites to slashcode.
If you need me for anything else, I'll be playing Edgeworld.
Ok...I didn't read the article. But the problem with mobile devices, cloud services, etc, isn't IT's lack of control. It's not the stability of the network. It's the security of the data itself. It's a little tricky to safeguard your patent research documents if they're sitting in your iPhone email. Even more difficult if they are up in Dropbox, unencrypted, where "mistakes happen" and other people can gain access to your account by an oops by the service provider or a sharing oops by yourself.
Believe me, I'd really rather not be responsible for managing data access. No matter how dumb people are, it's IT that gets blamed for lack of security.
A friend bought me the Game of Kings, a book by Dorothy Dunnett. She's Scottish, the hero is Scottish. It's not sci-fi or fantasy, it's slated as historical fiction -- story is fake but it's set against the real backdrop of a child Mary Queen of Scots. The writing is better than anything I've ever read in terms of prose, content (dialogue is amazing), and plot. Characters are all very well defined -- if you've read George RR Martin, who develops strong and varied characters -- it's similar here, though decidedly more subtle. People seem very real, but very distinct. Mostly it's the wit I enjoy -- she's the smartest writer I've ever read: great delivery, very re-readable, and, like Orson Scott Card, actually describes how an intelligent conclusion is reached rather than saying "Poof, he wins!"
It's a series of 6 books, and they're all excellent, but the first can be read alone. It's a tough read -- compare it with Umberto Eco, but way more fun.
Two s's. Good guy, good blog. As far as prose goes, it's better than most fantasy (which isn't saying much), but not on the level of George RR Martin or Tolkien. As far as the thought he puts behind the content, I give him an A+. He touches on a lot of quick themes that people can easily relate to, and his main character offers a lot of insight. Kind of makes you think, but also makes you feel. The first book flows a little better than the second, but the second (upon rereading it) has more of the thoughtful stuff overall. His prose is simple, but not too simple, but he delivers well: he crafts a good story over the long haul, but every piece is interesting. Very flippable (meaning after you've read it once, you'll find yourself rereading various parts on a whim).
It's not the content that's the problem, it's how it's delivered and the cost for that delivery. I'm not happy to watch just anything. I want football on Sundays, tennis during the Opens, Daily Show and Colbert, and like two other TV shows. And someone thought that was worth $700/year and I can only watch the shows when someone else tells me to. Unless I use the DVR, which is another $60/year. And there are times where I can't watch the TV shows AT ALL because they aren't available anywhere but a P2P network.
Fix this.
I'm done! I can go home early, right?
You're in IT and you're done with your work? How is this possible...
At the university we have union employees, non-union employees, and exempt employees. Union and non-union both get overtime, but they are also paid a relatively lower salary (in IT's case their classifications are always lower, ergo...) than exempt employees which do not get overtime. All that being said, this can be crazily abused in the wrong hands.
You know, I'd be okay with this as long as the costs were reasonable. Lower the base cost and put the truly heavy users in a higher bracket. I don't want to pay $80/month and then also have tiered service above that because I decided to stream a movie.
Experian? Other credit rating companies?
Oh, you're one of those people who buys things they can't afford? This is fixable.
(Yes, yes, everyone uses credit these days, even when you rent they generally run a credit report. If they didn't, or if you just paid by the year, my comment would be less ignorantly snarky.)
In the scenario presented, he's returning the handle and presumably the password to the company and they can do with it as they see fit. This is exactly what should have been done. Honestly, if the person has any right to keep his account, it's that work knowingly allowed him to have a popular twitter feed that mixed personal and work topics. If he's going to defend this, that will be his defense. My thoughts are that he's going to lose anyway.
Let's drop the .com/org/edu if we're not going to regulate their use to actual Companies, non-profit Organizations, and Educational institutions. Just move to:
harvard
law.harvard
students.harvard
registrar.harvard
store.ibm
support.ibm
etc etc
You're pointing out that comments on an internet news article don't appear informed? From your tone one might assume the highly improbable: that you've only recently discovered or at least bothered to read comments on the internet. People speaking opinion as fact is common. More common in the anonymous world of the internet.
Either that or your entire post is an elaborate ruse to make people believe you're new to the internet. This I find to be more believable.
I'd tell a good Real Genius joke, but I'm too busy pondering the immortal words of Socrates, when he said:
"I drank what?"
I'm indifferent about using one NAS vs. Another, but I need the tools to do my job!
We offer enterprise level tools. As DeathElk said, using a consumer NAS on an enterprise network is a recipe for disaster.
Bane of my existence.
User: I can get 3 TB of storage for $500 with this Buffalo NAS from Newegg
Me: No. You want your data to play nice with our network. You can use our file servers or we'll configure one for you. It'll cost $1500.
User: I bought the NAS, can you help me set it up? It won't let my group access any other folder than Public and file transfer seems really slow.
Me: No. You bought it, you fix it. I am not your monkey.
Okay, so that last line is a bit of a pipe dream, but still. Consumer NAS's suck. That is all. Not opinion, but fact.
From the summary (I didn't RTFA), it suggests they gave out the suppression list to their marketing agents. They probably don't run their own list serve and bulk emailing in house. They send it to professionals who make a pretty email for them and bulk mail it out over a few days. The list is to ensure their own customers don't get spammed by the "BE A NEW CUSTOMER!" emails. And then the marketing agent gave the list to the wrong people.