30-odd years ago when I started in this profession, a degree was desired but not required. I started as a programmer trainee, advanced to programmer, programmer/analyst, lead systems analyst, was a consultant for a few years, and for the past dozen years have been the senior IT manager at a manufacturing company. I've worked in mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies. I've never gotten a degree. This is probably as far as I will go in corporate America; without an advanced degree (Masters, at least,) I'm either stuck in little companies or little jobs -- no CIO track.
Although I started on large systems, I implemented one of the first business microcomputer systems I've heard, of, a store inventory and accounting application using dual floppies (8 in.!) on an Exidy Sorcerer, running CP/M. I've been an advocate of PCs since before there were PCs, was an early networking implementor (Banyan Vines, Netware, token ring, etc.) and have kept up with my Microsoft education. I went the path of the developer certifications instead of the networking ones -- that may have been a mistake, too.
I've always gotten great performance reviews, been on the continuous education treadmill for most of those 30 years, have the respect of my peers, and have never made as much as the person next to me who had a degree. I have to fight harder for my position in meetings, simply because no matter how much experience and respect you have, people just don't respect you as much if you don't have the credentials. IBM and Microsoft certification is helpful but doesn't make up for it.
If this is your profession, get the degree. It may not seem to matter much now but over the long haul of a profession, it's definately worth it.
I've been an amateur astronomer since I was a little kid. I'll spare you with how long ago that was.:) You've done the Smart First Thing: you've not bought a telescope and you've located (and joined) a local group of people with similar interests. Now's the time to get the return on that initial investment: go to every group outing (star party) you can and spend as much time as possible actually looking through other people's telescopes. Tell them what you're doing (trying to figure out which of the 478 varieties is the one for you,) and help them load and unload their scopes, set them up, align them, etc. Listen to what they say but your own experience is going to be so much more valuable.
Look at it this way: would you buy a car, based solely on the manufacturer's literature and the opinions of strangers on the web, without even going to the dealer to look at it, never mind driving it? No, not if you're normal you wouldn't. Telescope is the same thing, very individual choice. Good luck and welcome to the obsession!
Remember, back when you were just starting out as a developer, when you realized the gulf between studying CS and doing it?
Yeah.
You need a mentor, someone you respect, who has done that and is willing to give you the benefit of their experience. Someone to whom you can take -any- problem and have any conversation, no matter how painful. Have there been any managers in your past for whom you had more than the usual respect? Maybe you've come across individuals from other organizations at meetings and seminars.
Good luck with that. I did this ten years ago and... well, it was a mistake for me. After a few years I realized that I had absolutely no interest in management as currently practiced in the US of A, but I hadn't kept current technically (tough to do when your're working as hard as you can at something else!) At the least, having a foot in both camps should give you more flexibility. But being lured by the money is hard to resist. Use the force, if you have to.:)
This past summer, for the first time in four or five years, I went out to find some 35mm color print film. Normally I use 4x5 or larger; I haven't used 35mm in years but I had an idea so...
All the usual suspects (camera shops, pharmacies, Wal-mart) had boatloads of ISO200, 400, and 800 color negative film in stock from a variety of manufacturers. But ISO100 film? Slide film? Forget it! I finally dug up a couple of rolls of Fuji at Wal-mart (not my first choice in film or store,) but that was it. The local camera store had some pro slide film but they only sold it in bricks, not individual rolls. Honestly, in my little town it was easier to purchase 4x5 black and white film than it was to find ISO100 color print film in 35mm! That tells the story right there, I think.
35mm film is rapidly becomming an historical relic; it has been said for decades that most consumer photographs were never printed larger than 3"x5" or 4"x6" and even the cheapest plastic point 'n shoot could make a recognizable 8x10 on those rare occasions when the consumer wanted such a 'large' print. Digital has erased that market so the film has/is/will die quickly, I think. Medium format is next and is showing the strain: the film volumn in medium format was always wedding/portrait photographers and amateurs and most of the wedding folks have gone digital, those of the portrait places that want to have already gone, and the medium format equipment makers are really hurting. MF may still have a small market with artists and amateurs but it isn't a very large market. I think that MF film will become a specialty thing, available mostly mail order for those of us who live outside of a major metropolitan area.
Larger formats may be a tougher breed, though: once the high-volumn catalog houses went digital the rest of the large format market is, I think, highly resistant to the lure of CCD chips: film still has plenty of adherents in large format. In fact, there seems to be evidence that the market for large format equipment and film is growing, for the first time since the 1970's. That will be interesting to watch. Catalog and commercial photographers were the high-volumn film and paper users here as in other formats and they're all digital so it remains to be seen how large the supply market is, but there is definately a market and seems likely to remain so: digital hasn't yet come up with an affordable and functional challenge to 4x5 and larger pieces of film yet and there are technical reasons why it may be quite a while before it does. I doubt that Kodak will continue manufacturing film forever (they dropped darkroom paper this year,) but there are plenty of worthwhile alternatives to the Great Yellow Father and I'm not worried. 'Fact is, I'm looking at a new 8x10 camera and a couple of lenses right now.
Am I a Luddite, for hanging on to film when digital is so much more convenient? No, I'm just a cheap Yankee. Why spend money on a new camera when the old one works fine? Plus, as I said above, I shoot mostly large format these days and there isn't a good digital competitor for large format yet. Another reason is that I've spent more than 25 years sitting in front of a computer terminal every working day. Frankly, when I go home I don't want to chase the electrons any more. Plus, digital output is still more expensive than my darkroom. Costs of paper and chemistry are rising but all of my darkroom equipment was paid for long ago and when you figure the costs of software, computer, high-end printer and ink and expensive photo paper... my cost per print from my darkroom is 'way cheaper. An order of magnitude cheaper. If I were just getting into it now, faced with spending money on equipment? I don't know what I'd do.
Well, yes I do: I'd still go with a traditional darkroom. Maybe there's a bit of the old Luddite in me, after all...:)
Many (many) moons ago I worked for an IT manager who's explicit instruction was, "don't use arrays." He didn't understand them and, therefore, they were bad.
The moral of the story?
A. You are not the font of wisdom. If very lucky, you are the point of the pen. Rule carefully.
B. Don't make standards based on what you learned in school. Base them on what you learned in real life.
C. If an Old Fart tells you that one of your edicts is stupid, don't assume that they're resistant to change just for the sake of being crotchety. Maybe they learned something useful over all those years and all those lines of code.
Space.com has a clarifying article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050729_large _object.html. 1. It apparently isn't larger than Pluto, regardless of how reflective its surface might be. It's mass is only about a third of Pluto. 2. It has a very small moon. 3. It was *just* too dim to have been found by Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto.
The statement that it was "discovered" by an amateur is incorrect. The New Scientist article explains that the object was discovered by professional astronomers mining old data. They calculated an orbit, which was then used by three amateurs to find it in their telescope and confirm the original observations. Amateurs had a part, but weren't the discoverers.
Could you recommend a resource (or set of resources) for learning something about this XCode tool? A book, perhaps, or something online. What have you found to be effective in learning it?
and I object most strenuously to being associated with what sounds like the noisiest bunch of whining idiots in recent memory.
Unethical? Possibly -- in the current "enlightened" academic environment where definition of terms is often left to whom screams loudest I suppose that one or more of these embarrassed campus inhabitants has enough functioning brain cells to come up with a completely irrelevant but intensely self-referrential definition which supports their childish outrage. It's highly delusional but they're obviously still children and I don't suppose we can expect actual coherent thought from them until they grow up.
Invasion of privacy"? Drugs must be a significant problem at IU. It always was known as a party school, and this is just more evidence that the description contains some accuracy. And to think that these students are often described as the "best and brightest" and the next generation of leaders. Kinda provides some background for current events, doesn't it?:)
We changed from buying to leasing hardware (desktops and servers) about three years ago. The primary reason we changed was to move the costs out of our capital equipment budget into the expense budget. We're not a huge business and prefer to reserve our limited capital for plant equipment.
On the other hand, I wanted to change to leasing anyway. I time-phased the replacement schedule, so we replace 1/3 of our desktops/notebooks every year. For desktops, everyone getting new hardware every three years not only gives us a fair chance at keeping hardware fairly capable of running new software, it also cuts down on user complaints -- "They get new computers; we have to use old stuff!" Everyone knows that there's a three year cycle and when your turn comes up, you get new kit. It does also help with the disposal problem: our society is so saturated with cheap PCs that most charities, schools, and non-profits don't want old stuff. I'm willing to sell (or give, depending,) obsolete stuff to new employees but that hasn't worked terribly well in the past. Too many folks want too much support -- "Can I put a wireless network card in this old computer? What can I do to make it run this game my son bought?" -- that sort of thing. A few employees try to take advantage -- "You sold me this computer and it won't..." yeah, we "sold" it to you for $20, including keyboard, monitor, mouse, and a Windows license.
A downside is that for most leasing companies, you have to keep the original packaging material to ship the stuff back to them three years down the road. Never underestimate how much space all those boxes are going to use up, not to mention the time you'll spend trying to match PCs, monitors, laptops, etc. to their proper box.
For servers, it means we get new servers every three years, which means that I don't have to hugely overspec the thing when I buy it in the hopes it will prove useful more than three years down the road. It also means that it gets complicated if you decide a year later that you need more memory or additional processors. The leases won't end at the same time or you buy it and end up with a box of useless kit when you return the server. It also means that for better or for worse you're going to end up doing server replacements (and all that entails, time-wise,) every three years. We time-phased this, too, so not everything gets replaced at the same time.
We recently decided to go with five year leases on the servers. The rate of cycle-eating inflation with applications hasn't been too severe lately, so we think that even if it won't be top-of-the-line three or four years down the road, we can still find something it can do. For example, if the new one gets too slow running the database, maybe it could host a different application, or a set of aplications known to play well together when hosted on the same box.
On the whole, after three years (one full cycle,) of leasing, I prefer it over buying. I spend a lot less time worrying that I'm buying too little hardware for my needs down the road and we're saving capital for other uses. I don't worry about what to do with older equipment any more and I know that when the manufacturer's warranty runs out, the hardware goes away and is replaced by new stuff with new warranties. As a smaller organization with limited resources, our little group hasn't spent noticable time on hardware issues for the past three years and that's a good thing.
I think it's nice sentiment but ultimately ineffective. You're trying to tell arrogant people with enormous egos that they're wrong. They don't want to hear that. Unless their board is energized by powerful stockholders, they don't have to hear that. Good try, though.
A. Incompetant management. No new story here, and we've all suffered under it. B. Outsource the whiners to a country where, at least if they do whine, no one here will hear them. Also something many of us have lived through.
No, they aren't going to outsource management but thanks for the suggestion. In my experience, that's like throwing gasoline on a fire. You think the bastards in *this* country are greedy incompetants, wait till you see some of the lads and lasses Over There.
Simple solution? Don't do it. At one point in my career I was good enough at fomenting revolts that even the Indian and Russian contractors joined in. The key is to pick the part of the deathmarch where hanging management actually sounds like a reasonable solution. A few weeks of 12-hour days, seven days a week makes any way out welcome.:)
IT's a free market and the program isn't illegal, so what's the beef? That this kid has different morals than you or I? Stop whining and get over it: this guy isn't you, doesn't have the same needs, skills, motivations, and it's damned unreasonable for all you hypocritical smug whiners to judge him when he hasn't broken any laws.
In my book he's demonstrating the strength of the free-market, capitalistic system: there's demand for a legal product and he has the skills to meet that demand. He's an entrepreneur. If the market doesn't agree, his product won't sell and he'll have to try something else. That's the way the system works. Would you prefer that he starve to death demonstrating the 'moral superiority' of whatever belief system those of you who disagree with him subscribe to? How disgusting!
And don't say that you wouldn't do it. Have you ever been homeless? Walked miles back and forth to a minimum wage job that *just* fed you enough to survive to the next paycheck, because that was literally the only job available? How many of you have ever sat in front of a doctor and listened to her tell you that your spouse/child isn't ever going to get better, ever, but that with expensive treatment that your insurance isn't about to pay for, they can learn to 'manage the pain'? You'd be amazed what you'll do for money, when the need is more important that whether you can afford to buy the newest game system. You haven't walked in his shoes and you ought to consider that when you're passing judgement on him.
I've always tried to do what I needed to do to meet my family's needs. Sometimes we got by and sometimes we didn't. I haven't been desperate enough to do anything illegal and I hope that I've got more faith and courage than to go that route -- but I've been close before and there's no guarantee that I won't get closer in the future. I've stared into that face and I didn't like what I saw but I'm damned well not going to condemn someone else who may or may not have made the same choices I have, when all I know about him is a few hundred words from a reporter who hasn't the vaguest comprehension of the subject of his article and the self-rightous bigotry of the over-educated Slashdot elite.
We are losing our low paying jobs to other countries and supposedly replacing them with higher paying research/science positions.
Based on current economic statistics, you have it backwards. High-paying, high tech jobs are moving overseas and being replaced by low-paying, low-or-no benefit service jobs.
My own personal belief is that this is happening because of the rise of ignorance and superstition in the ruling class (what has recently become described as the 'political class'.) History tells us that this is a typical development during the decline of a society and is a fairly reliable marker for such decline. I'm not anxious to see it, but I think that's the trend. Should serious damage occur to Canaveral, I have doubts that a manned space program would survive.
The news articles referenced dance around the problem while studiously refraining from saying it, but the issue in the US isn't geography, it's monopoly. I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction: 10mb/s+ links in the US will never -ever- achieve the market penetration rates that more advanced countries enjoy today. It's not in the Bell's economic interests for it to do so and they own the majority of the links to US homes. For a variety of reasons, Comcast is more of a contributor to the problem, not a solution. For the vast majority of us, broadband will get more expensive, not less, and what you can do with it once you have it will be increasingly restricted.
Current trends indicate that the major driving force behind widespread adoption of high-speed access is connecting with one's friends, family, and social peers. Much of that communication involves what may euphamistically be categorized as "restricted" (from the point of view of copyrights,) material. Given the current lock that monopolies of various types have on US legislative processes, I don't really see that changing, or much scope for effective, economical use of emerging communication technologies. That's why I conclude that the US is now and will remain for the forseeable future, a technological backwater.
It's also why Al Queda et. al. are already obsolete -- the US may have enjoyed the shortest run as the dominating global imperialist on record. We've been fading toward irrelevance in world affairs for a generation; the fall of the Berlin Wall destroyed both protagonists, it just took a little longer for us than for our Soviet cold war opponents. Of course, by the time it becomes obvious it will also be old history, but that's something the winners get to write. I hope someone writes it in my lifetime; I'd enjoy reading about it in my old age.
Back to the point: the US won't get all these fun toys because to most of my fellow citizens, broadband internet access isn't obviously helpful to their lives. Many technology-oriented careers, not just IT, are fading from this landscape in a gradual but inexorable migration toward the east, and while college enrollments are up in general (that is, more kids are going to college,) enrollment in technical and scientific fields of study is falling. Interior design and English may be worthy fields of study but I'm not optimistic that a healthy economy can be based on them. And the education kids are getting these days is not particularly helpful.
The sum of all the news reports of Microsoft's battles against customer defection to alternative solutions is that lieing pays, and that big lies pay big. Despite all the (apparently worthless and downright deceptive) propaganda about ethics and treating the customer right from school and the mainstream press, honesty and good products seem to be the quick way to the poorhouse.
What Microsoft is teaching future generations is that you can have the shoddiest product available and still own the market, providing that you pay enough in bribes and fake "studies" behind a thin curtain of bogus middlemen, and are willing to spread the big lie in public with a straight face.
Lesson learned, Billy-boy. Should I need a Microsoft product in the future, rest assured that I won't feel any particular ethical compulsion to pay for it.
We pay for our network administrator's broadband, cell phone, and an IBM Thinkpad with all the tools she needs to remotely administer the network from home. I started that when I hired her. It seems stupid to try to economize on essential tools, then expect her to come in during weekends and at night to perform administrative tasks when the users aren't on the system. She can do most of that just as efficiently, or more efficiently, from her deck via the wireless router we got her. She's happy and a top-notch admin. I'm happy because the network works and I don't get calls during my off time about broken crap. The company's happy because we don't have disruptive turnover of expensive professionals. It's a win-win thing.
They ought to use the shiny sides of the CDs to build giant parabolic mirrors and use them to burn the RIAA's headquarters down. Then start on the executives' homes and keep it up until someone cries "Uncle!".
Building parabolic mirrors is educational. So is using them to exterminate vermin.
Having been born and raised in Indiana, and having raised three kids here, I have a hard time believing that Indiana is first to implement any kind of worthwhile technology. If this is the first use of this thing, it's got to be so horribly screwed up that no one else would touch it with a three-meter keyboard cable.
Indiana's government and social philosophy is apparently still living in the 19th century, operating under the assumption that 90% of the kids in school are going to spend their lives farming in the same county in which they were born. Hopeless incompetance doesn't even begin to describe the public education system in this state. And the fools in charge can't figure out why Indiana loses more college graduates (moving to other states) than just about any other state in the union. If you have half a brain you probably don't want to be here. Nice place to retire to, though.
Sure, there a few exceptions -- a couple of excellent high schools, some colleges. But the vast majority of Hoosiers don't appear to comprehend the role of education or technology in life, beyond making their DVD players work. I'll bet there are few states in the Union with more appliances blinking 12:00 than Indiana.
Slashdot Mirror
30-odd years ago when I started in this profession, a degree was desired but not required. I started as a programmer trainee, advanced to programmer, programmer/analyst, lead systems analyst, was a consultant for a few years, and for the past dozen years have been the senior IT manager at a manufacturing company. I've worked in mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies. I've never gotten a degree. This is probably as far as I will go in corporate America; without an advanced degree (Masters, at least,) I'm either stuck in little companies or little jobs -- no CIO track.
Although I started on large systems, I implemented one of the first business microcomputer systems I've heard, of, a store inventory and accounting application using dual floppies (8 in.!) on an Exidy Sorcerer, running CP/M. I've been an advocate of PCs since before there were PCs, was an early networking implementor (Banyan Vines, Netware, token ring, etc.) and have kept up with my Microsoft education. I went the path of the developer certifications instead of the networking ones -- that may have been a mistake, too.
I've always gotten great performance reviews, been on the continuous education treadmill for most of those 30 years, have the respect of my peers, and have never made as much as the person next to me who had a degree. I have to fight harder for my position in meetings, simply because no matter how much experience and respect you have, people just don't respect you as much if you don't have the credentials. IBM and Microsoft certification is helpful but doesn't make up for it.
If this is your profession, get the degree. It may not seem to matter much now but over the long haul of a profession, it's definately worth it.
I've been an amateur astronomer since I was a little kid. I'll spare you with how long ago that was. :) You've done the Smart First Thing: you've not bought a telescope and you've located (and joined) a local group of people with similar interests. Now's the time to get the return on that initial investment: go to every group outing (star party) you can and spend as much time as possible actually looking through other people's telescopes. Tell them what you're doing (trying to figure out which of the 478 varieties is the one for you,) and help them load and unload their scopes, set them up, align them, etc. Listen to what they say but your own experience is going to be so much more valuable.
Look at it this way: would you buy a car, based solely on the manufacturer's literature and the opinions of strangers on the web, without even going to the dealer to look at it, never mind driving it? No, not if you're normal you wouldn't. Telescope is the same thing, very individual choice. Good luck and welcome to the obsession!
Rb
Remember, back when you were just starting out as a developer, when you realized the gulf between studying CS and doing it?
:)
Yeah.
You need a mentor, someone you respect, who has done that and is willing to give you the benefit of their experience. Someone to whom you can take -any- problem and have any conversation, no matter how painful. Have there been any managers in your past for whom you had more than the usual respect? Maybe you've come across individuals from other organizations at meetings and seminars.
Good luck with that. I did this ten years ago and... well, it was a mistake for me. After a few years I realized that I had absolutely no interest in management as currently practiced in the US of A, but I hadn't kept current technically (tough to do when your're working as hard as you can at something else!) At the least, having a foot in both camps should give you more flexibility. But being lured by the money is hard to resist. Use the force, if you have to.
Rb
This past summer, for the first time in four or five years, I went out to find some 35mm color print film. Normally I use 4x5 or larger; I haven't used 35mm in years but I had an idea so...
:)
All the usual suspects (camera shops, pharmacies, Wal-mart) had boatloads of ISO200, 400, and 800 color negative film in stock from a variety of manufacturers. But ISO100 film? Slide film? Forget it! I finally dug up a couple of rolls of Fuji at Wal-mart (not my first choice in film or store,) but that was it. The local camera store had some pro slide film but they only sold it in bricks, not individual rolls. Honestly, in my little town it was easier to purchase 4x5 black and white film than it was to find ISO100 color print film in 35mm! That tells the story right there, I think.
35mm film is rapidly becomming an historical relic; it has been said for decades that most consumer photographs were never printed larger than 3"x5" or 4"x6" and even the cheapest plastic point 'n shoot could make a recognizable 8x10 on those rare occasions when the consumer wanted such a 'large' print. Digital has erased that market so the film has/is/will die quickly, I think. Medium format is next and is showing the strain: the film volumn in medium format was always wedding/portrait photographers and amateurs and most of the wedding folks have gone digital, those of the portrait places that want to have already gone, and the medium format equipment makers are really hurting. MF may still have a small market with artists and amateurs but it isn't a very large market. I think that MF film will become a specialty thing, available mostly mail order for those of us who live outside of a major metropolitan area.
Larger formats may be a tougher breed, though: once the high-volumn catalog houses went digital the rest of the large format market is, I think, highly resistant to the lure of CCD chips: film still has plenty of adherents in large format. In fact, there seems to be evidence that the market for large format equipment and film is growing, for the first time since the 1970's. That will be interesting to watch. Catalog and commercial photographers were the high-volumn film and paper users here as in other formats and they're all digital so it remains to be seen how large the supply market is, but there is definately a market and seems likely to remain so: digital hasn't yet come up with an affordable and functional challenge to 4x5 and larger pieces of film yet and there are technical reasons why it may be quite a while before it does. I doubt that Kodak will continue manufacturing film forever (they dropped darkroom paper this year,) but there are plenty of worthwhile alternatives to the Great Yellow Father and I'm not worried. 'Fact is, I'm looking at a new 8x10 camera and a couple of lenses right now.
Am I a Luddite, for hanging on to film when digital is so much more convenient? No, I'm just a cheap Yankee. Why spend money on a new camera when the old one works fine? Plus, as I said above, I shoot mostly large format these days and there isn't a good digital competitor for large format yet. Another reason is that I've spent more than 25 years sitting in front of a computer terminal every working day. Frankly, when I go home I don't want to chase the electrons any more. Plus, digital output is still more expensive than my darkroom. Costs of paper and chemistry are rising but all of my darkroom equipment was paid for long ago and when you figure the costs of software, computer, high-end printer and ink and expensive photo paper... my cost per print from my darkroom is 'way cheaper. An order of magnitude cheaper. If I were just getting into it now, faced with spending money on equipment? I don't know what I'd do.
Well, yes I do: I'd still go with a traditional darkroom. Maybe there's a bit of the old Luddite in me, after all...
Rb
The moral of the story?
A. You are not the font of wisdom. If very lucky, you are the point of the pen. Rule carefully.
B. Don't make standards based on what you learned in school. Base them on what you learned in real life.
C. If an Old Fart tells you that one of your edicts is stupid, don't assume that they're resistant to change just for the sake of being crotchety. Maybe they learned something useful over all those years and all those lines of code.
Space.com has a clarifying article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050729_large _object.html. 1. It apparently isn't larger than Pluto, regardless of how reflective its surface might be. It's mass is only about a third of Pluto. 2. It has a very small moon. 3. It was *just* too dim to have been found by Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto.
Rb
The statement that it was "discovered" by an amateur is incorrect. The New Scientist article explains that the object was discovered by professional astronomers mining old data. They calculated an orbit, which was then used by three amateurs to find it in their telescope and confirm the original observations. Amateurs had a part, but weren't the discoverers.
Rb
Could you recommend a resource (or set of resources) for learning something about this XCode tool? A book, perhaps, or something online. What have you found to be effective in learning it?
Thank God! For once it isn't Indiana being stupid in public...
Rb
and I object most strenuously to being associated with what sounds like the noisiest bunch of whining idiots in recent memory.
:)
Unethical? Possibly -- in the current "enlightened" academic environment where definition of terms is often left to whom screams loudest I suppose that one or more of these embarrassed campus inhabitants has enough functioning brain cells to come up with a completely irrelevant but intensely self-referrential definition which supports their childish outrage. It's highly delusional but they're obviously still children and I don't suppose we can expect actual coherent thought from them until they grow up.
Invasion of privacy"? Drugs must be a significant problem at IU. It always was known as a party school, and this is just more evidence that the description contains some accuracy. And to think that these students are often described as the "best and brightest" and the next generation of leaders. Kinda provides some background for current events, doesn't it?
Rb
We changed from buying to leasing hardware (desktops and servers) about three years ago. The primary reason we changed was to move the costs out of our capital equipment budget into the expense budget. We're not a huge business and prefer to reserve our limited capital for plant equipment.
..." yeah, we "sold" it to you for $20, including keyboard, monitor, mouse, and a Windows license.
On the other hand, I wanted to change to leasing anyway. I time-phased the replacement schedule, so we replace 1/3 of our desktops/notebooks every year. For desktops, everyone getting new hardware every three years not only gives us a fair chance at keeping hardware fairly capable of running new software, it also cuts down on user complaints -- "They get new computers; we have to use old stuff!" Everyone knows that there's a three year cycle and when your turn comes up, you get new kit. It does also help with the disposal problem: our society is so saturated with cheap PCs that most charities, schools, and non-profits don't want old stuff. I'm willing to sell (or give, depending,) obsolete stuff to new employees but that hasn't worked terribly well in the past. Too many folks want too much support -- "Can I put a wireless network card in this old computer? What can I do to make it run this game my son bought?" -- that sort of thing. A few employees try to take advantage -- "You sold me this computer and it won't
A downside is that for most leasing companies, you have to keep the original packaging material to ship the stuff back to them three years down the road. Never underestimate how much space all those boxes are going to use up, not to mention the time you'll spend trying to match PCs, monitors, laptops, etc. to their proper box.
For servers, it means we get new servers every three years, which means that I don't have to hugely overspec the thing when I buy it in the hopes it will prove useful more than three years down the road. It also means that it gets complicated if you decide a year later that you need more memory or additional processors. The leases won't end at the same time or you buy it and end up with a box of useless kit when you return the server. It also means that for better or for worse you're going to end up doing server replacements (and all that entails, time-wise,) every three years. We time-phased this, too, so not everything gets replaced at the same time.
We recently decided to go with five year leases on the servers. The rate of cycle-eating inflation with applications hasn't been too severe lately, so we think that even if it won't be top-of-the-line three or four years down the road, we can still find something it can do. For example, if the new one gets too slow running the database, maybe it could host a different application, or a set of aplications known to play well together when hosted on the same box.
On the whole, after three years (one full cycle,) of leasing, I prefer it over buying. I spend a lot less time worrying that I'm buying too little hardware for my needs down the road and we're saving capital for other uses. I don't worry about what to do with older equipment any more and I know that when the manufacturer's warranty runs out, the hardware goes away and is replaced by new stuff with new warranties. As a smaller organization with limited resources, our little group hasn't spent noticable time on hardware issues for the past three years and that's a good thing.
Rb
I think it's nice sentiment but ultimately ineffective. You're trying to tell arrogant people with enormous egos that they're wrong. They don't want to hear that. Unless their board is energized by powerful stockholders, they don't have to hear that. Good try, though.
Rb
There was a time when I could understand a phrase like that. 'Scuse me, my cell phone is ringing...
EA will not retaliate against employees for exercising legal rights, including by participating in the proposed class action.
In other words, your jobs are going overseas. You have the right to look for another job, and we won't discriminate against you for that.
Was it good for you, too?
Rb
A. Incompetant management. No new story here, and we've all suffered under it.
:)
B. Outsource the whiners to a country where, at least if they do whine, no one here will hear them. Also something many of us have lived through.
No, they aren't going to outsource management but thanks for the suggestion. In my experience, that's like throwing gasoline on a fire. You think the bastards in *this* country are greedy incompetants, wait till you see some of the lads and lasses Over There.
Simple solution? Don't do it. At one point in my career I was good enough at fomenting revolts that even the Indian and Russian contractors joined in. The key is to pick the part of the deathmarch where hanging management actually sounds like a reasonable solution. A few weeks of 12-hour days, seven days a week makes any way out welcome.
Rb
IT's a free market and the program isn't illegal, so what's the beef? That this kid has different morals than you or I? Stop whining and get over it: this guy isn't you, doesn't have the same needs, skills, motivations, and it's damned unreasonable for all you hypocritical smug whiners to judge him when he hasn't broken any laws.
In my book he's demonstrating the strength of the free-market, capitalistic system: there's demand for a legal product and he has the skills to meet that demand. He's an entrepreneur. If the market doesn't agree, his product won't sell and he'll have to try something else. That's the way the system works. Would you prefer that he starve to death demonstrating the 'moral superiority' of whatever belief system those of you who disagree with him subscribe to? How disgusting!
And don't say that you wouldn't do it. Have you ever been homeless? Walked miles back and forth to a minimum wage job that *just* fed you enough to survive to the next paycheck, because that was literally the only job available? How many of you have ever sat in front of a doctor and listened to her tell you that your spouse/child isn't ever going to get better, ever, but that with expensive treatment that your insurance isn't about to pay for, they can learn to 'manage the pain'? You'd be amazed what you'll do for money, when the need is more important that whether you can afford to buy the newest game system. You haven't walked in his shoes and you ought to consider that when you're passing judgement on him.
I've always tried to do what I needed to do to meet my family's needs. Sometimes we got by and sometimes we didn't. I haven't been desperate enough to do anything illegal and I hope that I've got more faith and courage than to go that route -- but I've been close before and there's no guarantee that I won't get closer in the future. I've stared into that face and I didn't like what I saw but I'm damned well not going to condemn someone else who may or may not have made the same choices I have, when all I know about him is a few hundred words from a reporter who hasn't the vaguest comprehension of the subject of his article and the self-rightous bigotry of the over-educated Slashdot elite.
Based on current economic statistics, you have it backwards. High-paying, high tech jobs are moving overseas and being replaced by low-paying, low-or-no benefit service jobs.
My own personal belief is that this is happening because of the rise of ignorance and superstition in the ruling class (what has recently become described as the 'political class'.) History tells us that this is a typical development during the decline of a society and is a fairly reliable marker for such decline. I'm not anxious to see it, but I think that's the trend. Should serious damage occur to Canaveral, I have doubts that a manned space program would survive.
The news articles referenced dance around the problem while studiously refraining from saying it, but the issue in the US isn't geography, it's monopoly. I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction: 10mb/s+ links in the US will never -ever- achieve the market penetration rates that more advanced countries enjoy today. It's not in the Bell's economic interests for it to do so and they own the majority of the links to US homes. For a variety of reasons, Comcast is more of a contributor to the problem, not a solution. For the vast majority of us, broadband will get more expensive, not less, and what you can do with it once you have it will be increasingly restricted.
Current trends indicate that the major driving force behind widespread adoption of high-speed access is connecting with one's friends, family, and social peers. Much of that communication involves what may euphamistically be categorized as "restricted" (from the point of view of copyrights,) material. Given the current lock that monopolies of various types have on US legislative processes, I don't really see that changing, or much scope for effective, economical use of emerging communication technologies. That's why I conclude that the US is now and will remain for the forseeable future, a technological backwater.
It's also why Al Queda et. al. are already obsolete -- the US may have enjoyed the shortest run as the dominating global imperialist on record. We've been fading toward irrelevance in world affairs for a generation; the fall of the Berlin Wall destroyed both protagonists, it just took a little longer for us than for our Soviet cold war opponents. Of course, by the time it becomes obvious it will also be old history, but that's something the winners get to write. I hope someone writes it in my lifetime; I'd enjoy reading about it in my old age.
Back to the point: the US won't get all these fun toys because to most of my fellow citizens, broadband internet access isn't obviously helpful to their lives. Many technology-oriented careers, not just IT, are fading from this landscape in a gradual but inexorable migration toward the east, and while college enrollments are up in general (that is, more kids are going to college,) enrollment in technical and scientific fields of study is falling. Interior design and English may be worthy fields of study but I'm not optimistic that a healthy economy can be based on them. And the education kids are getting these days is not particularly helpful.
The sum of all the news reports of Microsoft's battles against customer defection to alternative solutions is that lieing pays, and that big lies pay big. Despite all the (apparently worthless and downright deceptive) propaganda about ethics and treating the customer right from school and the mainstream press, honesty and good products seem to be the quick way to the poorhouse.
What Microsoft is teaching future generations is that you can have the shoddiest product available and still own the market, providing that you pay enough in bribes and fake "studies" behind a thin curtain of bogus middlemen, and are willing to spread the big lie in public with a straight face.
Lesson learned, Billy-boy. Should I need a Microsoft product in the future, rest assured that I won't feel any particular ethical compulsion to pay for it.
We pay for our network administrator's broadband, cell phone, and an IBM Thinkpad with all the tools she needs to remotely administer the network from home. I started that when I hired her. It seems stupid to try to economize on essential tools, then expect her to come in during weekends and at night to perform administrative tasks when the users aren't on the system. She can do most of that just as efficiently, or more efficiently, from her deck via the wireless router we got her. She's happy and a top-notch admin. I'm happy because the network works and I don't get calls during my off time about broken crap. The company's happy because we don't have disruptive turnover of expensive professionals. It's a win-win thing.
Wired, Computerworld (for the funny stories at the end,) View Camera, Lenswork, Black & White, Astronomy, Sky & Telescope.
They ought to use the shiny sides of the CDs to build giant parabolic mirrors and use them to burn the RIAA's headquarters down. Then start on the executives' homes and keep it up until someone cries "Uncle!".
Building parabolic mirrors is educational. So is using them to exterminate vermin.
Honestly, who didn't see this coming?
Rb
Indiana's government and social philosophy is apparently still living in the 19th century, operating under the assumption that 90% of the kids in school are going to spend their lives farming in the same county in which they were born. Hopeless incompetance doesn't even begin to describe the public education system in this state. And the fools in charge can't figure out why Indiana loses more college graduates (moving to other states) than just about any other state in the union. If you have half a brain you probably don't want to be here. Nice place to retire to, though.
Sure, there a few exceptions -- a couple of excellent high schools, some colleges. But the vast majority of Hoosiers don't appear to comprehend the role of education or technology in life, beyond making their DVD players work. I'll bet there are few states in the Union with more appliances blinking 12:00 than Indiana.
rb
Not only can you turn the adds off, it actually works. I'd turned it off so long ago I forgot all about it. Haven't seen an add from AOL in ages.
A pretty sweeping statement. Do you have any evidence or proof of the veracity of your claim?
rb