This here is a prime canidate. Just because you can't find quality programming a little after noon during the weekday (or weekend, god forbid), doesn't mean that nothing else is available for free.
And look at your examples. UPN barely has enough original content to fill an evening schedule apart from their syndicated reruns, and FOX's primetime programming is pretty good, especially on Sunday's at 7PM where everyone else is News Magazines dominate.
What's on during the daytime? Informercials and Daytime Soap Operas. You might find a "Peoples Court" type show (Judge Judy, et al) hanging around there, or a talk show (Sally Jesse, Jenny Jones), but don't get high expectations. This is low-rated fare, just there to sell dishwashing detergent or maxi pads to mothers who stay at home wondering what Bo is going to doing on Days of Our Lives.
Think about what she gets during PrimeTime. All of those ABC shows, FOX's programming (American Idol, etc), and while it's surprising that she isn't getting a CBS affiliate, rest assured she wouldn't have to pay for its programming if she did.
The complaining about too many useless channels is for those who have no use for them. Some people actually like to watch ESPNews, and some really dig the seven different Discovery channels. I know its crazy, but people pay for the privilege of watching that stuff.
The loss in ad-revenue is nill at best, based on estimates that Tivo provides. During the last superbowl, the commercials were played back more than original content was (unless I'm mistaken, I read it somewhere, feel free to correct me).
This chicken little talk of free TV being over with is as goofy as saying the local water municipality is going to raise water prices because bottled water is butting in on their market.
Just because there's an alternative that may or may not be to your liking doesn't mean you have to pay for it, use it, or agree with it. But of course it doesn't limit your right to complain about it, as seen here...
Agreed. I wouldn't say things like that if I actually agreed and respected said project, because fan fiction can really work if someone tries hard enough (everyone remember that fan-funded Star Trek episode? Brilliant...).
This is a hack where a guy fills in the blanks with goofy answers in order to profit from it. That, combined with the amount of attention its received, is a terrible thing indeed.
Here's fan fiction: The Animatrix. Particularly those not written by the Wachowski's. Could this not be deemed fan fiction? Or are we going with a different moniker?
Basically he takes the movie he liked, the ideals and the perceptions, and he fills in the blanks.
Why do they use telephones?
Answer: It's a movie. His Answer: They put network addresses on all data points along the matrix and blah blah blah
How does the blue/red pills work?
Answer: It's a movie. His Answer: "the avatar's software module must be able to accept instructions to cancel out any given sensory input."
And, lastly, my favorite:
What/How does the Bugbot do/work?
Answer: It's a fucking movie. His Answer: "Trinity says that Neo is "dangerous" to them before he is cleaned. We can infer that the bugbot is actually a munition, probably a semtex device that will detonate when it hears Morpheus's voice, killing both Neo and Morpheus and everyone else in the room."
This guy is just making shit up. Yet you know somewhere somebody is going to really put some thought and invest some time into thinking about this bullshit. Jeez. Where's Penn and Teller when you need em?
One particularly amusing software package we run in the garment industry requires a seventy-five dollar upgrade for the dongle itself.
Man, I used to work for a bank and we once asked for an upgrade of our main processing server, in which they stated the cost (over $10,000) was for a dongle that they would replace in 5 minutes.
They claimed over 3x performance just by the dongle. I swear to God, I couldn't believe it. Why hold back hardware? Greed knows no bounds.
My favorite was the ole "Turn to page 37 in the manual and read the third word in the second paragraph" that X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter (and their respective titles) and X-COM used.
I can't tell you how many times I had to copy that stupid manual so my friends could play X-Wing after they lost/threw away/little brother destroyed their old one.
Real time audio streaming of town meetings, city council, public court hearings. You've got the bandwidth to setup and sustain a few hundred streaming realplayer connections.
Keep a consistent interface. I would suggest a web-based initiative, because you can find content management systems (I use this one, but there'smore of them, where you could setup a simple username and password interface to let everyone logon, use web-based email, get local alerts etc.
Think of seeing the pictures of a wanted suspect everywhere in the neighborhood in seconds. Grab a mugshot, scan it in, and boom, thanks to integrating your phone service through this (which, if you don't, you'll look at yourself in 10 years and really kick yourself) the guy won't be able to go anywhere near a residential neighborhood without getting tagged. A phone call (or special ring?) will alert you to an "emergency message" provided via email, instead of having to hear about it through the TV (and all the rigamarole that entails, compared to just sending out an email). Think of weather alerts in this same vein. A blizzard coming and you need to warn the masses?
Keep wireless access points around town. I mean, if its in the city limits and you're going to go, go all the way. That way if their notebook has a wireless card, they can still sit in the restaraunt and eat quietly while surfing the net.
Everyone gets an email address that is not spammed and can only be used for city business and contacts. This is a peculiar idea consider, but it would assure that you would never, ever, get spam from this address. This one you can throw away, but I thought I would throw it in the mix.
Teleconferencing intra-city. With video. Nuff said. (Think X-11 or something. You can push the bandwidth.)
If you integrate your phone service through this line, the shared cost would be more than enough to keep a techie or two onhand for support, a few DNS/Web/FTP servers running, etc etc.
Just a few ideas. There is no way this cannot help your town, and I congratulate you in your efforts. Good luck.
For those who don't bother to read the article...[snip]
Translation: 95% of/.
As for the other 5%:
2% skimmed it and didn't see the Crazy Hot Heat as promised and gave up on the picture. Here your work was definitely appreciated.
another 2% understands the Crazy Hot Science Geek lingo and proceeds to write insightful and informative comments on the subject. Here your work goes unappreciated.
.5% finds enlightenment amongst the Crazy Hotness and that guy's bald spot peeking through his hair.
The rest troll out, as.5% of all comments to this story end up in the dangerous -1 Troll land.
In other words, without your dilligent support, there would be readers who would have to actually Read The Article (a thing almost unheard of around here) and the unenlightened would remain unenlightenend, and the Trolls would still roam free, without the other half of the equation balancing out.
I vote for a Poon Turing Test. As if porn didn't drive enough technology, put a few hundred lonely hackers in a room, pay them well (with hot pockets and mountain dew) and watch the cybersex A.I. develop!
Turing estimated that in 50 years (year 2000), 70% of people shouldn't have been able to tell they're talking to a computer (which of course didn't happen).
But I too have noticed/. has been especially slow here in various points during the day (mainly afternoon), though it has been an all-day occurrance many times over the past few weeks.
Any insight would be appreciated, and a -1 Offtopic won't hurt my feelings.
Personally, I think that they should simply sell the printers without ink (and that it should be mandated). The printer manufacturers would probably love this, as it would let their revenue stream be the ink.
Terrible idea. Why? Think of buying a new car with no gas in it. Hey, the car company doesn't have to buy gas anymore, and can make their revenue on service and parts, cutting out a cost.
To put it on a smaller scale, think of those All In One remotes: Would you shell out another $3-4 for batteries after spending ~$10 on the thing to begin with?
Neither would any other consumer out there.
Even a low ink cartridge is better than none. If consumers were forced to buy a cartridge before they could use the printer, they would equate that into the cost. So the printer wouldn't be $99, it would be $119, ie, the printer cost with the cartridge they have to buy.
Ideas like these aren't in use not because they haven't been pitched, but because they're bad ideas.
If you've got time to burn (say, inbetween semesters), try to get internship work. Not everyone is blessed with the funds and time to afford to do it volutarily (though it would benefit you 100x in the long run), the more work you do the better.
My latest position I was in a mix of over 170 applicants. I don't have a college degree (though I did take my freshman year). I don't have a certification.
What I did have was over 4 years of experience, in both windows, unix, and in the financial industry. Considering I was applying to a credit union, I can obviously see how that would give me certain advantages, and I now know through conversations with my boss later on that there were many, many people more "qualified" than I was.
The reason I got the job was experience, plain and simple. Its one thing to take classes, but I don't know where to begin to tell you that life just doesn't fit the textbooks. But that's not the point of college.
I know through that experience how important it is for everything to be up and and operational at all costs. If you don't value this (and considering your college status, I can understand that you do not), make sure you put this at the top of your list of things to mention during an interview wherever you go. No company wants or needs downtime. Upgrades that require reboots on non-win32 systems need to be done either in the middle of the night or on the weekend, and they better be damned good ones to warrant it.
If you have time on your hands, by all means, setup test boxes and use windows 2000 (and 2003) server to setup web, ftp, and DNS. If you've already mastered win32 (and its not that hard), move on to Linux or BSD. This goes a long way in an interview, showing that you too can take control of a command line and not be overwhelmed by "What Do I Do Next." I cannot tell you how invaluable my time spent with Redhat 5.2 was, back in the day, and how it helped me setup DNS, email, and a secure proxy server later on in my first job. My boss was so impressed I got a very nice raise.
I don't want this to turn into a pep talk, but take this extra time and don't blow it on pot or booze (well, you can blow just a little of it, I certainly understand;). All those nights of recompiling kernels and adding modules along with applying security patches all paid off, and I'm living proof.
I've been sys admin'ing now, professionally, for over 5 years. I love my job.
I've had many titles over that period of time, and they include:
Computer Operator LAN Administrator Systems Administrator Systems Analyst Computer Technician Network Analyst Web Developer and finally, Network Administrator
The latter is my current title, though they're about to slap and additional one (Web Developer) on there as well. I have no problems with that, though regardless of my Network Admin/Web Dev status, I will still be called out to fix a printer, or switch out RAM, or go through old RS/6000 logs looking for some stray error message.
I've worked all of my sys admin jobs at financial institutions. I've worked for both banks and credit unions (credit unions have the edge, in my experience), in groups large and small. The largest group was about 8 guys, the smallest just me and my boss. They both have their problems. But that's not what this discussion is about.
This discussions is about how to label a guy who can't really have a label. Technician is so vague that it doesn't carry merit. Specialist too suffers from the same thing. Stick "Computer" in front of them, and you still have the vagarities that reek of any title that a job may provide you with.
Most places, unless they're Conglomerates (and all that that implies), want you to go above and beyond. This means that sometimes titles are left by the wayside as you throw a box in your car and hightail it to a destination, ready to provide that quick fix.
This discussion is moot and pointless in my opinion. Network Administrators and System Administrators will, in small shops, most likely be doing each others job at least part of the time.
No title is infallible, no title can encompass everything that you do or provide. Do not look for one to do so, because it does not, and can not, exist.
Man, you know you're hardcore when you get excited about a built in random number generator.
Sample convo after purchase:
[girlfriend] Honey, what is that? [you] (with great awe) The Vee-Eye-Aye Nehemiah C3 CPU with- [girlfriend] How much did that cost? [you] Wait, lemme finish- [girlfriend] Rent. Where is it. [you] But it has a- [girlfriend] You are not going to tell me that you spent our next month's rent on that *censored* piece of plastic. [you] (correcting happily) Silicone!
You stare off. Slowly, you speak.
[you] But it has a...random..number...generator. For strong...uh...crypto. You know, cryptography? Big numbers? Random?
The real kicker is that in the middle of what would probably be a 10-20 year project, an incredible discovery in:
* thermodynamics * plastics * transportation * energy
will cause the prior work to look old and useless.
And what would the bottom sections look like, 10 or 20 years down the road, upon completion? With that many years of weather damage, most of it would have to be replaced.
Think about this logically:
To build something of this magnitude you would need cash in the trillions (with a T), and cost overruns would be insane. The government, assuming the US would back this, would need a resource, other than Space Itself, to push this into the limelight. There would have to be oil or precious minerals on the moon, and of course the enviromentalists wouldn't allow that (plus it could potentially screw up all kinds of things, considering we depend on the moon's gravity for tides, et al).
Also, imagine the very bottom section bombed via terrorism. I'm sure it would be guarded well, but in reality someone with enough will and resources (Mr. Bin Laden, anyone?) would find a way. And in that case, would the whole thing just collapse unto itself?
Just imagine a plane getting off course and colliding into it. Say goodbye to years of construction and (depending on how low it hit), possibly the whole thing.
These are just a handful of the thousands of questions which plague this kind of project.
Just imagine starting this up, and then 8 years later the new president calling it a waste of money and time and cancelling the whole thing.
This story reminded me a movie I once saw. A long time ago, late at night, HBO aired a flick which featured a guy with a robot "wife" and his journey to find another when the first one broke. (As for how it broke, don't ask) The movie was called Cherry 2000. Think of it as a poor man's Blade Runner...without...you know..."Blades."
Ready for the mind-blowing synop?
When Sam Treadwell breaks his Cherry 2000, a robot wife/sex toy, he hires E Johnson, to guide him across a dangerous apocalyptic wasteland to an abandoned manufacturing plant where he hopes to find a duplicate model Cherry 2000 to replace it with.
My point is that all of these companies are ultimately aiming for "Robot Mate" status, so that the geeks in the world can get some tang too.
Unfortunately it would really go "Tang!" when you slapped its...uh...metal caboose.
Yet another technology moving ahead quickly with the lucrative and powerful boost of porn.
Did anyone here who has been commented at 4 or above, actually read the f*ckin article? Seriously.
This is the article, in concentrate form:
The use a Half-Life/Quake3 engine game (think America's Army) to run "simulations", no games
They tell them the story of Ender's game, about a group of soldiers who think they're fighting video game aliens but are actually killing real life forms.
This explains to them, in terms they can understand, that when you're playing America's Army (or whatever the simulation is called internally), you need to think this is real. This isn't a game.
I can't believe everyone is going on about the politics of Enders Game and how they're teaching it to the troops when all they're doing is providing a modern fable which isn't corny or written by Aesop.
There is only so much I can do. The DRM is thick in this sector, and my powers can only get me so far. The Palladium soldiers have taken the space docks, and Emperor Gates should be arriving shortly.
But I will take up the challenge, and find a vehicle that will take me to the planet of Linux, past the city of Red Hat and Space Port Debian, into the desert of Gentoo so that this code can remain free.
2003-04-01 17:32:14 Duke Nukem 3D Source Released (no kidding) (articles,games) (rejected)
Either way, I'm glad its featured here to the/. community. I can't wait to see what wild crazy network/opengl implementation this thing will get.
You can download it from 3D Gamers or Fileshack, since I'm sure that 3D Realms will be quickly hosed. It was hosed on April 1st, and that was without the help of a good slashdotting.
The readme states it will run over a network (but without sound), and the soundcode is basically crap.
From what I understand, it will take some major reworking to get it running in Windows 2000/XP.
I've worked at banks my entire professional career. They all call their main systems "mainframes." But, considering they're usually just ass-kicking unix or windows 2000 adv. server boxen, what's the difference between the homemade kind?
Could it be the cash? It certainly appears so, when's the last time you spent $50-100k on a box?
Does lots of SCSI, RAID and redudant power supplies make a mainframe? Or lots of noise? Lord knows you'll find no louder boxen than those beasts.
I've worked on all kinds of unix, from an RS6000, to an AS/400 to BSD, but nevertheless, its all *nix and they're all equipped with the same crontab that everyone else relies on. I make and run scripts all the time, and I don't feel any more leet or cool because I'm working on a "mainframe" rather than a "server."
And the pay doesn't go up for a mainframe sys admin compared to a regular sys admin either, let me tell you.
Mainframes don't require that much babying, that's normally caused by manager ignorance, which is to be expected.
As for COBOL, sure I've worked with some COBOL code, you wouldn't believe how much COBOL is still around in the banking world, but if it ain't broke...
Anyway, my point is is that mainframe is a dated term, now synonymous w/ server.
So the ISP will be using compression when a user requests a page or file. This won't help in the speed of downloading already compressed files, only web browsing.
Email speed will stay the same.
Downloading compressed files will stay the same.
Browsing will be somewhat faster, but 7x is a stretch.
More than anything, I bet most of those $28.95/mo customers will be paying for the privilege of ~5min support response calls.
Definitely file this one into the "Hype" category of Hogwash.
Not to be a prick, but if you can't take the time to verify your links, then you're in too much of a hurry. ie, I wouldn't hire you.
Also, posting your resume with your address and phone number visible to the net is a Very Dangerous Thing.
I would leave your address and telephone number off of your internet resume. If an employer really wants to get in touch with you, they'll certainly do so. Leave an email address on the resume, no more is necessary.
Good luck though, and expect to suffer in some pretty crappy jobs for awhile. Been awhile since I was in that position...
God help you if you're a sys admin. Not only do you support hundreds of users, but you also support the machines they run on, the laptops that the company might (or might not) have purchased for them, but you also get the details on their family machines, their friends machines, and their friends families machines. I don't like to be rude, and I try to cast them off as painlessly as possible. But not a week goes by that I don't get a couple sightings of a Weird Email Message, the Strange Beeping Noise or the Funny Smell They Get When Turning It On.
Then I get housecall requests, and back when I used to take them, payment usually consisted of $20 or less, and a big smile.
There was a time when people at work knew my cell phone number. No kidding, they really did. Of course the little tag of "ONLY CALL IF THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE" next to it didn't give any indication that I don't take support calls on it. I could get, on any given Weekend, up to 15 calls, but usually 1 or 2.
Sound familiar:
My Email Doesn't Work
I've Got A Blue Screen When I Turn On My Computer
What's a Bonzi Buddy?
I Used To Like These Mouse Icons, But I don't Think I Do Anymore Can You Turn Them Off?
Internet Explorer Doesn't Work. It says something about Ex-yew-pee-eye-tee-ee-are caused an illegal operation.
And the list goes on. Everyone just assumes that this knowledge, however it was gained, is a public commodity, and that your time should consist of helping them not only during business hours, but at all hours of the night.
Sure I can see helping the President of the company on a Friday night (though I'll duck out if at all possible), but if Joe Workdesk needs to get his porn screensaver, that he just has absolutely no idea where it came from, off his machine, then I tell him I've never heard of that before, and that he might want to contact an attorney;)
Slashdot Mirror
This here is a prime canidate. Just because you can't find quality programming a little after noon during the weekday (or weekend, god forbid), doesn't mean that nothing else is available for free.
And look at your examples. UPN barely has enough original content to fill an evening schedule apart from their syndicated reruns, and FOX's primetime programming is pretty good, especially on Sunday's at 7PM where everyone else is News Magazines dominate.
What's on during the daytime? Informercials and Daytime Soap Operas. You might find a "Peoples Court" type show (Judge Judy, et al) hanging around there, or a talk show (Sally Jesse, Jenny Jones), but don't get high expectations. This is low-rated fare, just there to sell dishwashing detergent or maxi pads to mothers who stay at home wondering what Bo is going to doing on Days of Our Lives.
Think about what she gets during PrimeTime. All of those ABC shows, FOX's programming (American Idol, etc), and while it's surprising that she isn't getting a CBS affiliate, rest assured she wouldn't have to pay for its programming if she did.
The complaining about too many useless channels is for those who have no use for them. Some people actually like to watch ESPNews, and some really dig the seven different Discovery channels. I know its crazy, but people pay for the privilege of watching that stuff.
The loss in ad-revenue is nill at best, based on estimates that Tivo provides. During the last superbowl, the commercials were played back more than original content was (unless I'm mistaken, I read it somewhere, feel free to correct me).
This chicken little talk of free TV being over with is as goofy as saying the local water municipality is going to raise water prices because bottled water is butting in on their market.
Just because there's an alternative that may or may not be to your liking doesn't mean you have to pay for it, use it, or agree with it. But of course it doesn't limit your right to complain about it, as seen here...
Agreed. I wouldn't say things like that if I actually agreed and respected said project, because fan fiction can really work if someone tries hard enough (everyone remember that fan-funded Star Trek episode? Brilliant...).
This is a hack where a guy fills in the blanks with goofy answers in order to profit from it. That, combined with the amount of attention its received, is a terrible thing indeed.
Here's fan fiction: The Animatrix. Particularly those not written by the Wachowski's. Could this not be deemed fan fiction? Or are we going with a different moniker?
This guy has too much time on his hands.
Basically he takes the movie he liked, the ideals and the perceptions, and he fills in the blanks.
Why do they use telephones?
Answer: It's a movie.
His Answer: They put network addresses on all data points along the matrix and blah blah blah
How does the blue/red pills work?
Answer: It's a movie.
His Answer: "the avatar's software module must be able to accept instructions to cancel out any given sensory input."
And, lastly, my favorite:
What/How does the Bugbot do/work?
Answer: It's a fucking movie.
His Answer: "Trinity says that Neo is "dangerous" to them before he is cleaned. We can infer that the bugbot is actually a munition, probably a semtex device that will detonate when it hears Morpheus's voice, killing both Neo and Morpheus and everyone else in the room."
This guy is just making shit up. Yet you know somewhere somebody is going to really put some thought and invest some time into thinking about this bullshit. Jeez. Where's Penn and Teller when you need em?
Note that Max Faget is involved in this endeavor.
Never in a thousand years could I imagine a worse name to grow up with. His school years must make prison look like playschool.
One particularly amusing software package we run in the garment industry requires a seventy-five dollar upgrade for the dongle itself.
Man, I used to work for a bank and we once asked for an upgrade of our main processing server, in which they stated the cost (over $10,000) was for a dongle that they would replace in 5 minutes.
They claimed over 3x performance just by the dongle. I swear to God, I couldn't believe it. Why hold back hardware? Greed knows no bounds.
My favorite was the ole "Turn to page 37 in the manual and read the third word in the second paragraph" that X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter (and their respective titles) and X-COM used.
I can't tell you how many times I had to copy that stupid manual so my friends could play X-Wing after they lost/threw away/little brother destroyed their old one.
Think:
Real time audio streaming of town meetings, city council, public court hearings. You've got the bandwidth to setup and sustain a few hundred streaming realplayer connections.
Keep a consistent interface. I would suggest a web-based initiative, because you can find content management systems (I use this one, but there's more of them, where you could setup a simple username and password interface to let everyone logon, use web-based email, get local alerts etc.
Think of seeing the pictures of a wanted suspect everywhere in the neighborhood in seconds. Grab a mugshot, scan it in, and boom, thanks to integrating your phone service through this (which, if you don't, you'll look at yourself in 10 years and really kick yourself) the guy won't be able to go anywhere near a residential neighborhood without getting tagged. A phone call (or special ring?) will alert you to an "emergency message" provided via email, instead of having to hear about it through the TV (and all the rigamarole that entails, compared to just sending out an email). Think of weather alerts in this same vein. A blizzard coming and you need to warn the masses?
Keep wireless access points around town. I mean, if its in the city limits and you're going to go, go all the way. That way if their notebook has a wireless card, they can still sit in the restaraunt and eat quietly while surfing the net.
Everyone gets an email address that is not spammed and can only be used for city business and contacts. This is a peculiar idea consider, but it would assure that you would never, ever, get spam from this address. This one you can throw away, but I thought I would throw it in the mix.
Teleconferencing intra-city. With video. Nuff said. (Think X-11 or something. You can push the bandwidth.)
If you integrate your phone service through this line, the shared cost would be more than enough to keep a techie or two onhand for support, a few DNS/Web/FTP servers running, etc etc.
Just a few ideas. There is no way this cannot help your town, and I congratulate you in your efforts. Good luck.
Translation: 95% of
As for the other 5%:
2% skimmed it and didn't see the Crazy Hot Heat as promised and gave up on the picture. Here your work was definitely appreciated.
another 2% understands the Crazy Hot Science Geek lingo and proceeds to write insightful and informative comments on the subject. Here your work goes unappreciated.
The rest troll out, as
In other words, without your dilligent support, there would be readers who would have to actually Read The Article (a thing almost unheard of around here) and the unenlightened would remain unenlightenend, and the Trolls would still roam free, without the other half of the equation balancing out.
So tell me, have you ever thought about politics?
I bet his real name isn't even Obiwan Kenobi!
Holy shit, how'd you get that information?!
I vote for a Poon Turing Test. As if porn didn't drive enough technology, put a few hundred lonely hackers in a room, pay them well (with hot pockets and mountain dew) and watch the cybersex A.I. develop!
Turing estimated that in 50 years (year 2000), 70% of people shouldn't have been able to tell they're talking to a computer (which of course didn't happen).
Shit...give those geeks a month...
</joke>
Yes, this is offtopic. I've got Karma to burn.
/. has been especially slow here in various points during the day (mainly afternoon), though it has been an all-day occurrance many times over the past few weeks.
But I too have noticed
Any insight would be appreciated, and a -1 Offtopic won't hurt my feelings.
Personally, I think that they should simply sell the printers without ink (and that it should be mandated). The printer manufacturers would probably love this, as it would let their revenue stream be the ink.
Terrible idea. Why? Think of buying a new car with no gas in it. Hey, the car company doesn't have to buy gas anymore, and can make their revenue on service and parts, cutting out a cost.
To put it on a smaller scale, think of those All In One remotes: Would you shell out another $3-4 for batteries after spending ~$10 on the thing to begin with?
Neither would any other consumer out there.
Even a low ink cartridge is better than none. If consumers were forced to buy a cartridge before they could use the printer, they would equate that into the cost. So the printer wouldn't be $99, it would be $119, ie, the printer cost with the cartridge they have to buy.
Ideas like these aren't in use not because they haven't been pitched, but because they're bad ideas.
If you've got time to burn (say, inbetween semesters), try to get internship work. Not everyone is blessed with the funds and time to afford to do it volutarily (though it would benefit you 100x in the long run), the more work you do the better.
;). All those nights of recompiling kernels and adding modules along with applying security patches all paid off, and I'm living proof.
My latest position I was in a mix of over 170 applicants. I don't have a college degree (though I did take my freshman year). I don't have a certification.
What I did have was over 4 years of experience, in both windows, unix, and in the financial industry. Considering I was applying to a credit union, I can obviously see how that would give me certain advantages, and I now know through conversations with my boss later on that there were many, many people more "qualified" than I was.
The reason I got the job was experience, plain and simple. Its one thing to take classes, but I don't know where to begin to tell you that life just doesn't fit the textbooks. But that's not the point of college.
I know through that experience how important it is for everything to be up and and operational at all costs. If you don't value this (and considering your college status, I can understand that you do not), make sure you put this at the top of your list of things to mention during an interview wherever you go. No company wants or needs downtime. Upgrades that require reboots on non-win32 systems need to be done either in the middle of the night or on the weekend, and they better be damned good ones to warrant it.
If you have time on your hands, by all means, setup test boxes and use windows 2000 (and 2003) server to setup web, ftp, and DNS. If you've already mastered win32 (and its not that hard), move on to Linux or BSD. This goes a long way in an interview, showing that you too can take control of a command line and not be overwhelmed by "What Do I Do Next." I cannot tell you how invaluable my time spent with Redhat 5.2 was, back in the day, and how it helped me setup DNS, email, and a secure proxy server later on in my first job. My boss was so impressed I got a very nice raise.
I don't want this to turn into a pep talk, but take this extra time and don't blow it on pot or booze (well, you can blow just a little of it, I certainly understand
Good luck man, I wish you the best.
I've been sys admin'ing now, professionally, for over 5 years. I love my job.
I've had many titles over that period of time, and they include:
Computer Operator
LAN Administrator
Systems Administrator
Systems Analyst
Computer Technician
Network Analyst
Web Developer
and finally,
Network Administrator
The latter is my current title, though they're about to slap and additional one (Web Developer) on there as well. I have no problems with that, though regardless of my Network Admin/Web Dev status, I will still be called out to fix a printer, or switch out RAM, or go through old RS/6000 logs looking for some stray error message.
I've worked all of my sys admin jobs at financial institutions. I've worked for both banks and credit unions (credit unions have the edge, in my experience), in groups large and small. The largest group was about 8 guys, the smallest just me and my boss. They both have their problems. But that's not what this discussion is about.
This discussions is about how to label a guy who can't really have a label. Technician is so vague that it doesn't carry merit. Specialist too suffers from the same thing. Stick "Computer" in front of them, and you still have the vagarities that reek of any title that a job may provide you with.
Most places, unless they're Conglomerates (and all that that implies), want you to go above and beyond. This means that sometimes titles are left by the wayside as you throw a box in your car and hightail it to a destination, ready to provide that quick fix.
This discussion is moot and pointless in my opinion. Network Administrators and System Administrators will, in small shops, most likely be doing each others job at least part of the time.
No title is infallible, no title can encompass everything that you do or provide. Do not look for one to do so, because it does not, and can not, exist.
Man, you know you're hardcore when you get excited about a built in random number generator.
Sample convo after purchase:
[girlfriend] Honey, what is that?
[you] (with great awe) The Vee-Eye-Aye Nehemiah C3 CPU with-
[girlfriend] How much did that cost?
[you] Wait, lemme finish-
[girlfriend] Rent. Where is it.
[you] But it has a-
[girlfriend] You are not going to tell me that you spent our next month's rent on that *censored* piece of plastic.
[you] (correcting happily) Silicone!
You stare off. Slowly, you speak.
[you] But it has a...random..number...generator. For strong...uh...crypto. You know, cryptography? Big numbers? Random?
*the sound of footsteps trail away from you*
[you] Honey?
The real kicker is that in the middle of what would probably be a 10-20 year project, an incredible discovery in:
* thermodynamics
* plastics
* transportation
* energy
will cause the prior work to look old and useless.
And what would the bottom sections look like, 10 or 20 years down the road, upon completion? With that many years of weather damage, most of it would have to be replaced.
Think about this logically:
To build something of this magnitude you would need cash in the trillions (with a T), and cost overruns would be insane. The government, assuming the US would back this, would need a resource, other than Space Itself, to push this into the limelight. There would have to be oil or precious minerals on the moon, and of course the enviromentalists wouldn't allow that (plus it could potentially screw up all kinds of things, considering we depend on the moon's gravity for tides, et al).
Also, imagine the very bottom section bombed via terrorism. I'm sure it would be guarded well, but in reality someone with enough will and resources (Mr. Bin Laden, anyone?) would find a way. And in that case, would the whole thing just collapse unto itself?
Just imagine a plane getting off course and colliding into it. Say goodbye to years of construction and (depending on how low it hit), possibly the whole thing.
These are just a handful of the thousands of questions which plague this kind of project.
Just imagine starting this up, and then 8 years later the new president calling it a waste of money and time and cancelling the whole thing.
Food for thought.
This story reminded me a movie I once saw. A long time ago, late at night, HBO aired a flick which featured a guy with a robot "wife" and his journey to find another when the first one broke. (As for how it broke, don't ask) The movie was called Cherry 2000. Think of it as a poor man's Blade Runner...without...you know..."Blades."
Ready for the mind-blowing synop?
When Sam Treadwell breaks his Cherry 2000, a robot wife/sex toy, he hires E Johnson, to guide him across a dangerous apocalyptic wasteland to an abandoned manufacturing plant where he hopes to find a duplicate model Cherry 2000 to replace it with.
My point is that all of these companies are ultimately aiming for "Robot Mate" status, so that the geeks in the world can get some tang too.
Unfortunately it would really go "Tang!" when you slapped its...uh...metal caboose.
Yet another technology moving ahead quickly with the lucrative and powerful boost of porn.
This is the article, in concentrate form:
The use a Half-Life/Quake3 engine game (think America's Army) to run "simulations", no games
They tell them the story of Ender's game, about a group of soldiers who think they're fighting video game aliens but are actually killing real life forms.
This explains to them, in terms they can understand, that when you're playing America's Army (or whatever the simulation is called internally), you need to think this is real. This isn't a game.
I can't believe everyone is going on about the politics of Enders Game and how they're teaching it to the troops when all they're doing is providing a modern fable which isn't corny or written by Aesop.
There is only so much I can do. The DRM is thick in this sector, and my powers can only get me so far. The Palladium soldiers have taken the space docks, and Emperor Gates should be arriving shortly.
But I will take up the challenge, and find a vehicle that will take me to the planet of Linux, past the city of Red Hat and Space Port Debian, into the desert of Gentoo so that this code can remain free.
May the force be with you.
And I tried to submit it:
/. community. I can't wait to see what wild crazy network/opengl implementation this thing will get.
2003-04-01 17:32:14 Duke Nukem 3D Source Released (no kidding) (articles,games) (rejected)
Either way, I'm glad its featured here to the
You can download it from 3D Gamers or Fileshack, since I'm sure that 3D Realms will be quickly hosed. It was hosed on April 1st, and that was without the help of a good slashdotting.
The readme states it will run over a network (but without sound), and the soundcode is basically crap.
From what I understand, it will take some major reworking to get it running in Windows 2000/XP.
I've worked at banks my entire professional career. They all call their main systems "mainframes." But, considering they're usually just ass-kicking unix or windows 2000 adv. server boxen, what's the difference between the homemade kind?
Could it be the cash? It certainly appears so, when's the last time you spent $50-100k on a box?
Does lots of SCSI, RAID and redudant power supplies make a mainframe? Or lots of noise? Lord knows you'll find no louder boxen than those beasts.
I've worked on all kinds of unix, from an RS6000, to an AS/400 to BSD, but nevertheless, its all *nix and they're all equipped with the same crontab that everyone else relies on. I make and run scripts all the time, and I don't feel any more leet or cool because I'm working on a "mainframe" rather than a "server."
And the pay doesn't go up for a mainframe sys admin compared to a regular sys admin either, let me tell you.
Mainframes don't require that much babying, that's normally caused by manager ignorance, which is to be expected.
As for COBOL, sure I've worked with some COBOL code, you wouldn't believe how much COBOL is still around in the banking world, but if it ain't broke...
Anyway, my point is is that mainframe is a dated term, now synonymous w/ server.
If I'm mistaken, please, let me know.
So the ISP will be using compression when a user requests a page or file. This won't help in the speed of downloading already compressed files, only web browsing.
Email speed will stay the same.
Downloading compressed files will stay the same.
Browsing will be somewhat faster, but 7x is a stretch.
More than anything, I bet most of those $28.95/mo customers will be paying for the privilege of ~5min support response calls.
Definitely file this one into the "Hype" category of Hogwash.
Not to be a prick, but if you can't take the time to verify your links, then you're in too much of a hurry. ie, I wouldn't hire you.
Also, posting your resume with your address and phone number visible to the net is a Very Dangerous Thing.
I would leave your address and telephone number off of your internet resume. If an employer really wants to get in touch with you, they'll certainly do so. Leave an email address on the resume, no more is necessary.
Good luck though, and expect to suffer in some pretty crappy jobs for awhile. Been awhile since I was in that position...
Just moved in, eh? ;)
God help you if you're a sys admin. Not only do you support hundreds of users, but you also support the machines they run on, the laptops that the company might (or might not) have purchased for them, but you also get the details on their family machines, their friends machines, and their friends families machines. I don't like to be rude, and I try to cast them off as painlessly as possible. But not a week goes by that I don't get a couple sightings of a Weird Email Message, the Strange Beeping Noise or the Funny Smell They Get When Turning It On.
;)
Then I get housecall requests, and back when I used to take them, payment usually consisted of $20 or less, and a big smile.
There was a time when people at work knew my cell phone number. No kidding, they really did. Of course the little tag of "ONLY CALL IF THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE" next to it didn't give any indication that I don't take support calls on it. I could get, on any given Weekend, up to 15 calls, but usually 1 or 2.
Sound familiar:
My Email Doesn't Work
I've Got A Blue Screen When I Turn On My Computer
What's a Bonzi Buddy?
I Used To Like These Mouse Icons, But I don't Think I Do Anymore Can You Turn Them Off?
Internet Explorer Doesn't Work. It says something about Ex-yew-pee-eye-tee-ee-are caused an illegal operation.
And the list goes on. Everyone just assumes that this knowledge, however it was gained, is a public commodity, and that your time should consist of helping them not only during business hours, but at all hours of the night.
Sure I can see helping the President of the company on a Friday night (though I'll duck out if at all possible), but if Joe Workdesk needs to get his porn screensaver, that he just has absolutely no idea where it came from, off his machine, then I tell him I've never heard of that before, and that he might want to contact an attorney