Well leaving just because you don't like your boss is cocky
Yeah, but we're not just talking about his boss. We're talking about selling a company to another company with a completely different attitude and paradigm (just to use a buzz word). I can think of a number of companies that I'd rather not work for if I had a choice.
and throwing out these kinds of attitudes can definantelly cause you to loose your job even if there is no merger
I disagree. He's made it very clear to the people making the decisions that he won't stay if they sell out. It may make them reconsider. Otherwise, he's given no indications that he's unhappy with the company in its present form. I'd say the only damage he's done to himself is if the merger *does* take place. It'll probably be a race to see whether he can resign before they terminate him.
AOL has yet to put massive controls on a company that they've acquired
I'm not sure where you get this. I'm not saying AOL is any more evil than other large companies, but there's always a good chance that large portions of employees will be dumped. The history is there. Just look at the previous/. dicussion on this issue (sorry, no link to provide). When you dump the employees, you destroy the company, and all you have is the brand and the IP.
I'd work to keep it... with or without slashdot's approval.
I'm not so sure that Slashdot's opinion matters so much. It's obvious that he feels pretty strongly about it and would probably rather starve than be associated with AOL. If he can't find a development job to his liking, there are always interim opportunities in other lines of business that he could rely on until something more favorable opened up. Hey, if I felt that strongly, I'd flip burgers before I'd let them make me stay. I understand that McDonald's has an excellent manager training program.:)
This is acceptable for most data transmissions though.
It should be more than acceptable for most browsing and streaming video. But don't try gaming or anything like that. Any application that requires significant handshaking is going to fall apart. A typical example is trying to open up files and folders on a remote NT file server somewhere. I've also had trouble with Microsoft Outlook over high-latency connections, although I'm not sure why. Finally, you should remember that the latency from the satellite is ADDED to the normal internet latency.
So try billing Qwest for your time. Describe the charge as Consulting: Troubleshooting connection db errors. When they contact you about the reason for the bill, tell them that the work you did for them helps keem them from being investigated and/or fined by the PUC.
I have a question. If I bought one of these CD's, and attempted to make a backup copy of it but couldn't (because of the copy protection), and then the CD was subsequently destored in a fire or something, would they be responsible for providing me with a new one at no cost? Would not doing so be considered a violation of "fair use?"
That is very unlikely since the chances are that the city already has bought much of its software.
A year ago, I would have agreed with you on this point. However, the latest direction in Microsoft's licensing policies leads me now to believe otherwise. Perhaps we should call it "future cost avoidance." They may not save anything over what they have currently paid, but when they start upgrading computers and have to upgrade software as well, they are sure to avoid the future costs of "renting" software.
The overwhelming probability is that most of the spending dollars on software go on low volume niche type software that would only be relevant to councils. Public sector accounting packages, pupil progress monitoring packages, police evidence management systems, court clerk management systems. The council that size might buy a hundred copies of Office a year for $40K but an accounting package might easily cost $100K plus the same again for installation, customization etc.
I agree with you here. However, I'd like to think that there may be some Open Source alternatives for even those niche products that are used. I've found that even with a niche product, only a small subset of the actual functionality is used or needed. If somebody does a careful analysis, my guess is that some of those mongo expensive niche applications could be replaced with either something free or much less expensive. Perhaps open source advocates should actually evaluate what some of those high price applications are and consider devoting some resources to providing alternatives.
Why should some open source monomaniac decide that they have to use something different because their current software offends his religion?
I didn't really get the impression that he was all that fanatical. It seemed to me that he was an advocate of open source, and was interested in seeing if there was an angle and potential cost savings that could be used in his campaign.
If you actually want to save the council money a much better approach is to look into opportunities to cut costs by outsourcing IT functions.
This is simply not true, at least not in the general sense. While many companies have gone this route recently and outsourced all or most of their IT department, I'm not aware of any of them that actually saved money at the bottom line. All it does is transfer money from the fixed costs column to the variable costs column. And you can bet that there is a multiplier that gets thrown into the mix when they make this kind of transition. The employees of IT consulting firms are generally paid at least as much as those of the company requesting the service. They have the same benefits requirements. And you can bet that the consulting company is charging those costs plus a hefty premium back to their customer. After all, THEY need to make a profit too.
Most companies outsource their payroll because it is cheaper to let ADT work out all the fiddly tax laws than have someone build that experience in house. Many companies outsource management of their email systems, it is cheaper for a company like USA.net to have 50 admins working 24x365 managing 500 companies email than it is for any of those companies to have a half time admin during business hours only.
In these special cases, I agree with you. Unless the company requesting the service is extremely large, I believe it would be better to outsource payroll than to hire people with the correct tax law knowledge. The same is almost certainly true for e-mail and other commodity services. However, as the company (or government) size grows, the cost savings on this shrinks. At some point, it becomes more beneficial to move that function back "in-house." But I don't know of any city governments that are large enough to fit that description.
The problem for small enterprises (city governments being typical) is that they are simply too small to realise the savings of scale that large companies can.
I think this statement pretty much sums up our previous discussion. It's all about economies of scale, isn't it?:)
The cost of software is really not where the pain is. The Total Cost of Ownership and Return On Investment are the metrics used.
As I said before, I think this is changing. If the cost of software rises due to changes in licensing practices, I think that it can easily push the TCO numbers to higher levels. At this point, it's anybody's guess as to what the final impact of that will be. I think businesses (and governments) should keep a close watch on this, and be ready to act when TCO becomes unacceptable.
and be prepared to answer the question: "how much will it cost to re - educate our personnel so they can use this new software"
Agreed. I personally believe that the cost of re-education will be lower than the amount saved by switching to free software. However, you'd better be prepared to back that up with a good plan and some hard figures. Such might include outlining a gradual, planned transition from applications with the highest cost-saving potential.
While I definitely agree with Richard's point of view (I hate getting Word attachments), I think we need to get a little more realistic. As several posters have pointed out, most people on the 'net these days are not programmers, Unix users or anything like that. They are merely using word because that is their word processor. When you make statements like: "You sent the attachment in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format," you might as well be a shouting it from a street corner. People are going to label you as a freak, and idiot or both. Yes, it's true. But being right doesn't necessarily change the perception of the masses.
You really need to come up with something better to tell people. There are several good reasons to avoid sending Word attachments that even the non-techie types should understand, even if they are avid Microsoft supporters.
Not everybody can read word attachments. This is probably the biggest reason. If you are a MAC user, you may not have Word installed. If you bought a computer with Microsoft Works or an older version of Word, you may not be able to read the Word file. And few people know enough to install the Microsoft Word filter that lets other programs read Word files. You are practically forcing the recipient to go out and buy Microsoft Word if they want to read your message.
Word attachments take up more space and take longer to send. By needlessly sending something as a Word attachment, you rob all of the systems between you and the recipient of network and storage resources. You also may waste your recipient's time by forcing them to sit through a longer download of their e-mail -- especially if they use dialup.
Word attachments may contain viruses. You can't expect everyone to feel comfortable about opening such attachments.
It may actually take up more of YOUR time to compose a document in Word and then attach it to an e-mail message. Just typing the thing into e-mail in the first place is usually a quicker solution.
Based on any combination of these points, it should be fairly simple to come up with a standard reply that states a good argument against sending Word attachments without alienating any of the senders.
You have sent an attachment in Microsoft Word format. Word attachments are saved in a proprietary format and may contain viruses, therefore requiring more care and effort on my part to read them. Because of this extra effort, I give messages with Word attachments lower priority when reading and responding to e-mail. Please consider re-sending your attachment in a non-proprietary format, such as Rich Text (.RTF), which handles most common formatting features and can be loaded and saved by most word processors, including Microsoft Word.
I think the point here is that they *can* ask to see your birth certificate, or a social security card, or a passport in addition to your driver's license. They usually don't because it would be *way* too time consuming to do that for everybody.
100% agreed. All it proves to me is that the only thing that overcomes greed in people is their willingness to make others suffer. I'm sorry, but this must be one of the lamest studies I've ever seen. When people are willing to pay money to watch other people beat each other up and dogs fight to the death, how can you assume that this is any different?
I've built a solar pumped nd:yvo4 laser, but it was a waste: because of those factors I could have extracted more power and probably energy from a solar electric system.
I have almost no knowledge in this arena. But I have to ask, was your solar pumped laser placed into orbit and operating outside our atmosphere? Maybe that difference would improve things?
But, this sounds like it actually holds the photons and releases them later. Or at least that's what the submission infers.
Based on the article, it appears more like the complete energy from the photons is absorbed by the atoms. The photons can then be emitted later by changing the intensity of the laser that is causing the atoms to hold onto it. I don't see this as really trapping light. It looks more to me like the energy from the "holding laser" plus the energy from the photons manages to push the electrons to a higher valence level and leave them there, even when the incoming photon supply is turned off. Then I would suspect that lowering the intensity of the holding laser would allow the electrons to drop to a less excited state and thus release the energy in the form of photons. It really sounds just like a fluorescent light except that you now have control over when the photons are actually generated by the excited atoms.
Feel free to correct me vigorously. I haven't thought about this kind of stuff in earnest for more than 15 years.
I just verified the numbers. It's 18,000 straight-line feet for full speed access. Otherwise, they give you iDSL at 144 Kbps. This comes from a Verizon competitor. I suspect that the 18,000 feet refers to 18,000 feet of wiring, vs the 3.5km radius for Canada. In fact, I'm almost certain that this is true because when I lived in that area, they told me that I was something like 22,000 feet away, and I know that my house was less than 2.5 miles from the CO.
Also, the signal may start breaking up after 3.5km, but maybe the technology can give you DSL at reduced speads (but better than iDSL) at slightly greater distances.
Look into Earthlink DSL. My parents live in Delaware County, PA
The same problem still exists. It's Verizon that provides that "last mile" service, even for the Earthlink DSL. As such, Verizon still controls who gets DSL. I think the requirement for full DSL capability is to be within about 18,000 line feet of a central office, which encompasses but an elite few. Somebody please provide the correct number is mine is wrong.
Nearly ever connected person to whom I speak has broadband/available/, if not at the price they want.
What's holding it up? Nothing, cheap-ass. Call up your phone or cable company and get it.
I'm happy that you and your brother both have broadband access. I'm also suspicious that the circle of people you speak with through the internet is rather small. If you'll step outside your front door for a little while, you'll quickly see that this is not the case for many Americans. (OK, maybe you'll have to go a little further than your front door.:) )
There are many reasons why people may not have broadband access, but the two prominant ones are cost and availability.
COST Some people are forced to pay $50 per month for broadband, and they just can't afford that. It's a big jump compared to the $9 they are used to paying for dialup.
AVAILABILITY I think this is the real big one. It's just plain not available everywhere. DSL has such extreme distance limits that many people living in suburbia are not close enough to a central office to take advantage of it. And the 128Kbps promised by iDSL (which works over longer distances) is not really what I'd refer to as high-speed. Plus, the huge monopolies possessed by companies like Verizon lead to very poor performance and customer service. I know quite a few people that have actually gone BACK to dialup in disgust because of problems with DSL and lack of customer service. I never thought I'd see that happen. I, like your brother, live in a small town. We have cable modem available. This is only because our cable company is small enough and progressive enough to be able to provide this service. Many people live in areas covered by such giants as Comcast. There has been no real incentive for these companies to hurry up their deployment because there is just no competition. If you look at where cable modem is most likely available, you'll find that it is in the same areas where DSL is available. The cable companies plan to compete with the telecomm companies first, then add other areas later. From a business standpoint, this makes sense, but it also leaves quite a few people without the broadband access they desire.
One final thought. Yes, I know that satellite is available to most people. However, be warned that satellite is nowhere near an optimal solution. The latency times caused by the amount of time it takes a signal to bounce off a satellite located outside our atmosphere are significant enough to discourage many from using it as a viable internet connection.
Why is putting an ad up to sell old hardware illegal? Or something that a law firm would want to 'entrap' someone over?
It isn't. You have to know a little more about the RESPONSE he got to know what he was talking about. In some of the other posts, you'll read that the girl's response (with her picture) was probably an attempt by the aforementioned "dirt" lawyer to entice him into "trading" copies of software. This practice, of course, would have been illegal. That's why he just threw away the letter and didn't respond.
I would personally take that approach with ANYBODY who sent their picture in a letter of that type. Either it's an attempt to trap me in something illegal, or there's something else wierd going on. Why on earth WOULD you send your picture to a perfect stranger?
No you aren't. I started my computer experience on a PDP-8 with terminal and accoustically coupled modem. I think you measured the modem speed in seconds per character. A few years later, I graduated to a PDP-11. My first "home" computer was a TI-99/4A with only 16K of RAM, NO floppy drive and NO modem. It used cassette tape for storage. Note that there were many home computers that came out prior that I passed on.
But even I don't qualify for the true old fart geek. I missed punch cards in college by one year. Learning Fortran on punch card machines would have rounded out my nostalgia-geek experience.
The book, written by Philip Francis Nowlan, accurately predicted the bazooka, the jet plane
I would assume that the bazooka is pretty much the realistic implementation of the rocket gun. I'm not sure that he described a jet plane. Instead, I think that the planes they were flying used rocket engines, although I could be wrong there. I'll have to see if I can find my well-aged copy of the book.
It was interesting in that their ships were anti-gravity ships powered by a mineral called "Upsium" or something like that in which the mineral was antigravity because it was drawn to the nearest perfect vacuum (Hoover hadn't been invented yet I guess;)
I think the mineral was known as Inertron. Interestingly enough, it didn't exist in natural form within the normal universe. The book loosely described the procedures for obtaining it as "inserting a... probe into a... reality gap," which I would assume to mean that it was obtained from a parallel universe. The other interesting aspect of this material is that it was a near-perfect insulator and the only thing that was impervious to the dreaded dis-beam (disintegrator beam).
I mean, what's it to her? She's asleep. I'm going to work. And I'm paid hourly, so I'm getting plenty of loot to spend on her. It all spells "hero", but she acts all hurt and dissed.
A few possibilities -- I'm sure there are more...
If he doesn't sleep at night, he has to sleep some other time. You can bet it won't be during the work day, so it'll probably be in the early evening when she would appreciate his presence and attention.
When you get used to sharing your bed, you're uneasy when you're alone at night.
When that pager goes off, you aren't the only one that wakes up. When I was on call, it really messed up my wife's sleep patterns.
She genuinely cares for her husband and couldn't stand the thought of him being mistreated like that. The money was not nearly as important to her as his well-being.
My guess is it kicks in some female instinct that you're just going out to find another cave that smells like estrus, because what else would make a man not stay sleeping...
This is always a possibility. I can assure you that if I was constantly getting called out in the middle of the night, my wife would probably have to suppress some fleeting doubt in her mind. I can't say that I would be any more trusting were the tables turned.
One thing that people always seem to forget is that the reason 24x7 companies have staff "on call" is because they are probably too darn cheap to hire or train full-time staff to work the night shift. It's all in the name of being competitive. You decide whether all of this raises our standard of living.
That's the problem with the cable modems, it's a shared line. So you'll notice different times of the day will be faster than others.
I'm not going to dispute your statements, but I wanted to point out that there's much more to speed considerations than the whole "shared line" concept of cable modem. Let me spell it out a bit. Both DSL and Cable employ shared sections of their network. Both can suffer when oversubscribed. The primary difference is that correcting the problem on DSL is easier and cheaper. It involves duplicating the portions of equipment (usually located at the CO) that are overloaded. Cable, on the other hand, requires a trip 'cross country to correct the problem, and could ulimately lead to the need to bury additional cable to meet demands. Cable is divided into different "nodes," which constitute the shared portion of the connection. When cable slows down, it could be (among other things) that the node is overloaded (difficult to fix), or that the pipe between the node and the cable company is not fat enough (easier to fix).
Despite all of this, my experience has been that the single biggest bottleneck for every internet service I have had is the throughput between the provider and the internet itself. Either their pipe to the internet was a "garden hose," or the section of the internet they connected to wasn't exactly running at a spanking pace. Case in point: I used to have double channel ISDN. This is in some ways similar to DSL. Even though I had a capacity of 128 Kbps, I found that I rarely jumped over 64 Kbps unless I was hitting servers at the ISP (who happened to be the phone company). Because of some changes in price structure, I decided to go with another ISP. Under their configuration, I could only achieve 56Kbps on each channel (for a total of 112Kbps), but I found that my connection was usually running at between 90 and 110Kbps. The difference? The new ISP made sure their connection to the internet was adequate for their subscriber base.
Some suggestions:
See where the bottleneck is first. Try hitting servers located at your ISP. If your throughput to them is good, you can be sure that your shared connection has nothing to do with your problems.
See if you can find somebody else, preferably in a new neighborhood who has the same provider but is on a different little-used node. If they're speed is good, then you know the problem is in your shared cable. Seek DSL.:)
What a horrible ending! CRC is the big winner here.
Absolutely agreed. I think we owe it to MathWorld to show CRC that they are really big losers. I vow to carefully check publishing companies on all books and to avoid purchasing, whenever possible, any books listing CRC or any other publisher under their parent company, Information Holdings, Inc. Get enough of the book buyers boycotting them, and they'll suffer....
Before you make another step, you need to find out the real reason why you're no longer interested. Is it because the school projects are just plain boring? Do you not feel adequately challenged? These things can be corrected -- just assign yourself a project that you find more interesting. It'll get your enthusiasm back. If that's not the reason, you may want to go see someone to help with career planning. They might be able to match up your interests better. Also, take into account any effect that the events of September 11 in the USA may have had on how you feel about what you're doing. If it is linked at all, you might want to get past that problem before pushing on, as that impact is likely to fade eventually and may leave you at another crossroads.
You have a number of options. First off, plan on completing your degree. Having a degree in SOMETHING is almost always better than NOTHING. You can find jobs that are not very related to CS, but will still respect your CS degree in its requirements.
Consider graduate school. With the economy somewhat depressed, now might be a good time to continue your eduction. If you're getting bored because you aren't adequately challenged or because you aren't getting enough "meat", you may find some relief in graduate programs. They tend to be more highly specialized, and you can really learn and do some cool stuff. You are also led by the hand much less in a graduate program. Instead, you are presenting with theories and concepts, and it's your responsibility to translate those into reality.
Consider adding another Bachelor's degree. I believe somebody mentioned this earlier, but you probably aren't far off from other degrees. If you think your interests now lie in another area, you may be able to pick up a degree in that area with only an extra year of school.
Consider jobs that allow you to use your CS degree to an extent, but that you don't find mind-numbing or boring.
Most importantly, don't forget that no job is all play. Every single job you can take will involve aspects that you find personally distasteful. I'm really good at debugging, but I hate doing it. I prefer to come up with a concept and let other hammer out the details. But unfortunately, part of my job is delivering fully functional software. Like most analysts, I abhor writing documentation. But somebody has to do it, and a technical writer isn't always readily available. I can usually do a pretty good job, but it takes me a lot more time than it would for somebody who writes for a living.
Perhaps even more important, don't feel like something is "wrong" with you because your interests have changed. This happens to people several times during their life, and it looks as though you got your change at an inconvenient time. I had a similar thing happen. After three years as an Electrical Engineering student, I decided that wasn't what I wanted to do for a living, no matter how well it paid. Instead of completing my EE degree, I switched to CS with a hardware design emphasis, and I've been much happier with that. But you can bet that when I started in EE, that's exactly what I wanted to do. After getting thoroughly involved in it though, my desires and thoughts changed. You're probably experiencing something similar.
As long as it *was* just myself. Things get much ore difficult when you're dealing with a major, multi-developer, or even worse, multi-company project.
I wholeheartedly agree! I can usually do a pretty good job of estimating my own time and involvement, but as soon as other hands are involved you get unbelievable complexity added to the project. In fact, that's why the management philosophy of providing more resources to get the job done faster almost always ends up falling apart. You eventually reach a point where additional members to a project team actually cause the project to take longer. This is because you spend longer training people and making them understand your ideas. Meetings greatly increase in length and frequency to combat this situation.
Another major problem is having a single person involved in too many projects. This usually happens when you have a development group. Each person in the group can easily be involved in 5 or more separate ongoing projects, although not necessarily with the same people. In my opinion (and it's definitely just an opinion), I feel that companies should instead devote a smaller number of project members to only 1 or 2 projects at a time. Your development group might be able to tackle the same number of projects, but I can almost guarantee you that the quality of work and timeline will be positively impacted by focusing your individual resources. I firmly believe this, even though I personally hate having only one project to work on at a time. My results are consistently better when I don't have to "task switch."
The media that something resides on does not change the identity of what it is.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. But I think Warner may have the world "by the balls" here. The DVD format does not stipulate what the contents are, but Warner could certainly include some computer software on every DVD title they sell. That would make the contents at least partly software, even if they couldn't be accessed by a home theater DVD player. I'm not sure how we could get around this, except to have video stores refuse to purchase DVD's with software on them, and for consumers to refuse to rent DVD's that have software on them. However, I don't think people will be consistent enough in this approach for it to have any real effect.
I definitely feel that the argument that a DVD is "software" because the DVD player buffers a few frames in memory is way off, and I hereby condemn any court that decides in favor of Warner based on this argument as a bunch of extreme idiots, and certainly not bright enough to be deciding law for their country.
What does being in Germany have to do with baloney?
Actually, that was just a side joke, and a pretty stupid one at that. Baloney is a sausage that originates in Balogna, Italy. But Germany has a wide variety of wurst, or sausage, including their own variety of bologna. When most people think about German food, they think about sausages. So, I was kind of indicating that I saw more "sausage" in that statement than I did the whole time I was in Germany.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but we're not just talking about his boss. We're talking about selling a company to another company with a completely different attitude and paradigm (just to use a buzz word). I can think of a number of companies that I'd rather not work for if I had a choice.
and throwing out these kinds of attitudes can definantelly cause you to loose your job even if there is no merger
I disagree. He's made it very clear to the people making the decisions that he won't stay if they sell out. It may make them reconsider. Otherwise, he's given no indications that he's unhappy with the company in its present form. I'd say the only damage he's done to himself is if the merger *does* take place. It'll probably be a race to see whether he can resign before they terminate him.
AOL has yet to put massive controls on a company that they've acquired
I'm not sure where you get this. I'm not saying AOL is any more evil than other large companies, but there's always a good chance that large portions of employees will be dumped. The history is there. Just look at the previous /. dicussion on this issue (sorry, no link to provide). When you dump the employees, you destroy the company, and all you have is the brand and the IP.
I'd work to keep it ... with or without slashdot's approval.
I'm not so sure that Slashdot's opinion matters so much. It's obvious that he feels pretty strongly about it and would probably rather starve than be associated with AOL. If he can't find a development job to his liking, there are always interim opportunities in other lines of business that he could rely on until something more favorable opened up. Hey, if I felt that strongly, I'd flip burgers before I'd let them make me stay. I understand that McDonald's has an excellent manager training program. :)
It should be more than acceptable for most browsing and streaming video. But don't try gaming or anything like that. Any application that requires significant handshaking is going to fall apart. A typical example is trying to open up files and folders on a remote NT file server somewhere. I've also had trouble with Microsoft Outlook over high-latency connections, although I'm not sure why. Finally, you should remember that the latency from the satellite is ADDED to the normal internet latency.
So try billing Qwest for your time. Describe the charge as Consulting: Troubleshooting connection db errors. When they contact you about the reason for the bill, tell them that the work you did for them helps keem them from being investigated and/or fined by the PUC.
I have a question. If I bought one of these CD's, and attempted to make a backup copy of it but couldn't (because of the copy protection), and then the CD was subsequently destored in a fire or something, would they be responsible for providing me with a new one at no cost? Would not doing so be considered a violation of "fair use?"
A year ago, I would have agreed with you on this point. However, the latest direction in Microsoft's licensing policies leads me now to believe otherwise. Perhaps we should call it "future cost avoidance." They may not save anything over what they have currently paid, but when they start upgrading computers and have to upgrade software as well, they are sure to avoid the future costs of "renting" software.
The overwhelming probability is that most of the spending dollars on software go on low volume niche type software that would only be relevant to councils. Public sector accounting packages, pupil progress monitoring packages, police evidence management systems, court clerk management systems. The council that size might buy a hundred copies of Office a year for $40K but an accounting package might easily cost $100K plus the same again for installation, customization etc.
I agree with you here. However, I'd like to think that there may be some Open Source alternatives for even those niche products that are used. I've found that even with a niche product, only a small subset of the actual functionality is used or needed. If somebody does a careful analysis, my guess is that some of those mongo expensive niche applications could be replaced with either something free or much less expensive. Perhaps open source advocates should actually evaluate what some of those high price applications are and consider devoting some resources to providing alternatives.
Why should some open source monomaniac decide that they have to use something different because their current software offends his religion?
I didn't really get the impression that he was all that fanatical. It seemed to me that he was an advocate of open source, and was interested in seeing if there was an angle and potential cost savings that could be used in his campaign.
If you actually want to save the council money a much better approach is to look into opportunities to cut costs by outsourcing IT functions.
This is simply not true, at least not in the general sense. While many companies have gone this route recently and outsourced all or most of their IT department, I'm not aware of any of them that actually saved money at the bottom line. All it does is transfer money from the fixed costs column to the variable costs column. And you can bet that there is a multiplier that gets thrown into the mix when they make this kind of transition. The employees of IT consulting firms are generally paid at least as much as those of the company requesting the service. They have the same benefits requirements. And you can bet that the consulting company is charging those costs plus a hefty premium back to their customer. After all, THEY need to make a profit too.
Most companies outsource their payroll because it is cheaper to let ADT work out all the fiddly tax laws than have someone build that experience in house. Many companies outsource management of their email systems, it is cheaper for a company like USA.net to have 50 admins working 24x365 managing 500 companies email than it is for any of those companies to have a half time admin during business hours only.
In these special cases, I agree with you. Unless the company requesting the service is extremely large, I believe it would be better to outsource payroll than to hire people with the correct tax law knowledge. The same is almost certainly true for e-mail and other commodity services. However, as the company (or government) size grows, the cost savings on this shrinks. At some point, it becomes more beneficial to move that function back "in-house." But I don't know of any city governments that are large enough to fit that description.
The problem for small enterprises (city governments being typical) is that they are simply too small to realise the savings of scale that large companies can.
I think this statement pretty much sums up our previous discussion. It's all about economies of scale, isn't it? :)
The cost of software is really not where the pain is. The Total Cost of Ownership and Return On Investment are the metrics used.
As I said before, I think this is changing. If the cost of software rises due to changes in licensing practices, I think that it can easily push the TCO numbers to higher levels. At this point, it's anybody's guess as to what the final impact of that will be. I think businesses (and governments) should keep a close watch on this, and be ready to act when TCO becomes unacceptable.
Agreed. I personally believe that the cost of re-education will be lower than the amount saved by switching to free software. However, you'd better be prepared to back that up with a good plan and some hard figures. Such might include outlining a gradual, planned transition from applications with the highest cost-saving potential.
You really need to come up with something better to tell people. There are several good reasons to avoid sending Word attachments that even the non-techie types should understand, even if they are avid Microsoft supporters.
- Not everybody can read word attachments. This is probably the biggest reason. If you are a MAC user, you may not have Word installed. If you bought a computer with Microsoft Works or an older version of Word, you may not be able to read the Word file. And few people know enough to install the Microsoft Word filter that lets other programs read Word files. You are practically forcing the recipient to go out and buy Microsoft Word if they want to read your message.
- Word attachments take up more space and take longer to send. By needlessly sending something as a Word attachment, you rob all of the systems between you and the recipient of network and storage resources. You also may waste your recipient's time by forcing them to sit through a longer download of their e-mail -- especially if they use dialup.
- Word attachments may contain viruses. You can't expect everyone to feel comfortable about opening such attachments.
- It may actually take up more of YOUR time to compose a document in Word and then attach it to an e-mail message. Just typing the thing into e-mail in the first place is usually a quicker solution.
Based on any combination of these points, it should be fairly simple to come up with a standard reply that states a good argument against sending Word attachments without alienating any of the senders.You have sent an attachment in Microsoft Word format. Word attachments are saved in a proprietary format and may contain viruses, therefore requiring more care and effort on my part to read them. Because of this extra effort, I give messages with Word attachments lower priority when reading and responding to e-mail. Please consider re-sending your attachment in a non-proprietary format, such as Rich Text (.RTF), which handles most common formatting features and can be loaded and saved by most word processors, including Microsoft Word.
I think the point here is that they *can* ask to see your birth certificate, or a social security card, or a passport in addition to your driver's license. They usually don't because it would be *way* too time consuming to do that for everybody.
100% agreed. All it proves to me is that the only thing that overcomes greed in people is their willingness to make others suffer. I'm sorry, but this must be one of the lamest studies I've ever seen. When people are willing to pay money to watch other people beat each other up and dogs fight to the death, how can you assume that this is any different?
I have almost no knowledge in this arena. But I have to ask, was your solar pumped laser placed into orbit and operating outside our atmosphere? Maybe that difference would improve things?
Based on the article, it appears more like the complete energy from the photons is absorbed by the atoms. The photons can then be emitted later by changing the intensity of the laser that is causing the atoms to hold onto it. I don't see this as really trapping light. It looks more to me like the energy from the "holding laser" plus the energy from the photons manages to push the electrons to a higher valence level and leave them there, even when the incoming photon supply is turned off. Then I would suspect that lowering the intensity of the holding laser would allow the electrons to drop to a less excited state and thus release the energy in the form of photons. It really sounds just like a fluorescent light except that you now have control over when the photons are actually generated by the excited atoms.
Feel free to correct me vigorously. I haven't thought about this kind of stuff in earnest for more than 15 years.
Also, the signal may start breaking up after 3.5km, but maybe the technology can give you DSL at reduced speads (but better than iDSL) at slightly greater distances.
The same problem still exists. It's Verizon that provides that "last mile" service, even for the Earthlink DSL. As such, Verizon still controls who gets DSL. I think the requirement for full DSL capability is to be within about 18,000 line feet of a central office, which encompasses but an elite few. Somebody please provide the correct number is mine is wrong.
What's holding it up? Nothing, cheap-ass. Call up your phone or cable company and get it.
I'm happy that you and your brother both have broadband access. I'm also suspicious that the circle of people you speak with through the internet is rather small. If you'll step outside your front door for a little while, you'll quickly see that this is not the case for many Americans. (OK, maybe you'll have to go a little further than your front door. :) )
There are many reasons why people may not have broadband access, but the two prominant ones are cost and availability.
COST
Some people are forced to pay $50 per month for broadband, and they just can't afford that. It's a big jump compared to the $9 they are used to paying for dialup.
AVAILABILITY
I think this is the real big one. It's just plain not available everywhere. DSL has such extreme distance limits that many people living in suburbia are not close enough to a central office to take advantage of it. And the 128Kbps promised by iDSL (which works over longer distances) is not really what I'd refer to as high-speed. Plus, the huge monopolies possessed by companies like Verizon lead to very poor performance and customer service. I know quite a few people that have actually gone BACK to dialup in disgust because of problems with DSL and lack of customer service. I never thought I'd see that happen. I, like your brother, live in a small town. We have cable modem available. This is only because our cable company is small enough and progressive enough to be able to provide this service. Many people live in areas covered by such giants as Comcast. There has been no real incentive for these companies to hurry up their deployment because there is just no competition. If you look at where cable modem is most likely available, you'll find that it is in the same areas where DSL is available. The cable companies plan to compete with the telecomm companies first, then add other areas later. From a business standpoint, this makes sense, but it also leaves quite a few people without the broadband access they desire.
One final thought. Yes, I know that satellite is available to most people. However, be warned that satellite is nowhere near an optimal solution. The latency times caused by the amount of time it takes a signal to bounce off a satellite located outside our atmosphere are significant enough to discourage many from using it as a viable internet connection.
It isn't. You have to know a little more about the RESPONSE he got to know what he was talking about. In some of the other posts, you'll read that the girl's response (with her picture) was probably an attempt by the aforementioned "dirt" lawyer to entice him into "trading" copies of software. This practice, of course, would have been illegal. That's why he just threw away the letter and didn't respond.
I would personally take that approach with ANYBODY who sent their picture in a letter of that type. Either it's an attempt to trap me in something illegal, or there's something else wierd going on. Why on earth WOULD you send your picture to a perfect stranger?
So let's start watching them for inclusion in Wired's 2002 Vaporware top ten.
No you aren't. I started my computer experience on a PDP-8 with terminal and accoustically coupled modem. I think you measured the modem speed in seconds per character. A few years later, I graduated to a PDP-11. My first "home" computer was a TI-99/4A with only 16K of RAM, NO floppy drive and NO modem. It used cassette tape for storage. Note that there were many home computers that came out prior that I passed on.
But even I don't qualify for the true old fart geek. I missed punch cards in college by one year. Learning Fortran on punch card machines would have rounded out my nostalgia-geek experience.
I would assume that the bazooka is pretty much the realistic implementation of the rocket gun. I'm not sure that he described a jet plane. Instead, I think that the planes they were flying used rocket engines, although I could be wrong there. I'll have to see if I can find my well-aged copy of the book. It was interesting in that their ships were anti-gravity ships powered by a mineral called "Upsium" or something like that in which the mineral was antigravity because it was drawn to the nearest perfect vacuum (Hoover hadn't been invented yet I guess ;)
I think the mineral was known as Inertron. Interestingly enough, it didn't exist in natural form within the normal universe. The book loosely described the procedures for obtaining it as "inserting a ... probe into a ... reality gap," which I would assume to mean that it was obtained from a parallel universe. The other interesting aspect of this material is that it was a near-perfect insulator and the only thing that was impervious to the dreaded dis-beam (disintegrator beam).
A few possibilities -- I'm sure there are more...
My guess is it kicks in some female instinct that you're just going out to find another cave that smells like estrus, because what else would make a man not stay sleeping...
This is always a possibility. I can assure you that if I was constantly getting called out in the middle of the night, my wife would probably have to suppress some fleeting doubt in her mind. I can't say that I would be any more trusting were the tables turned.
One thing that people always seem to forget is that the reason 24x7 companies have staff "on call" is because they are probably too darn cheap to hire or train full-time staff to work the night shift. It's all in the name of being competitive. You decide whether all of this raises our standard of living.
I'm not going to dispute your statements, but I wanted to point out that there's much more to speed considerations than the whole "shared line" concept of cable modem. Let me spell it out a bit. Both DSL and Cable employ shared sections of their network. Both can suffer when oversubscribed. The primary difference is that correcting the problem on DSL is easier and cheaper. It involves duplicating the portions of equipment (usually located at the CO) that are overloaded. Cable, on the other hand, requires a trip 'cross country to correct the problem, and could ulimately lead to the need to bury additional cable to meet demands. Cable is divided into different "nodes," which constitute the shared portion of the connection. When cable slows down, it could be (among other things) that the node is overloaded (difficult to fix), or that the pipe between the node and the cable company is not fat enough (easier to fix).
Despite all of this, my experience has been that the single biggest bottleneck for every internet service I have had is the throughput between the provider and the internet itself. Either their pipe to the internet was a "garden hose," or the section of the internet they connected to wasn't exactly running at a spanking pace. Case in point: I used to have double channel ISDN. This is in some ways similar to DSL. Even though I had a capacity of 128 Kbps, I found that I rarely jumped over 64 Kbps unless I was hitting servers at the ISP (who happened to be the phone company). Because of some changes in price structure, I decided to go with another ISP. Under their configuration, I could only achieve 56Kbps on each channel (for a total of 112Kbps), but I found that my connection was usually running at between 90 and 110Kbps. The difference? The new ISP made sure their connection to the internet was adequate for their subscriber base.
Some suggestions:
Absolutely agreed. I think we owe it to MathWorld to show CRC that they are really big losers. I vow to carefully check publishing companies on all books and to avoid purchasing, whenever possible, any books listing CRC or any other publisher under their parent company, Information Holdings, Inc. Get enough of the book buyers boycotting them, and they'll suffer....
You have a number of options. First off, plan on completing your degree. Having a degree in SOMETHING is almost always better than NOTHING. You can find jobs that are not very related to CS, but will still respect your CS degree in its requirements.
Consider graduate school. With the economy somewhat depressed, now might be a good time to continue your eduction. If you're getting bored because you aren't adequately challenged or because you aren't getting enough "meat", you may find some relief in graduate programs. They tend to be more highly specialized, and you can really learn and do some cool stuff. You are also led by the hand much less in a graduate program. Instead, you are presenting with theories and concepts, and it's your responsibility to translate those into reality.
Consider adding another Bachelor's degree. I believe somebody mentioned this earlier, but you probably aren't far off from other degrees. If you think your interests now lie in another area, you may be able to pick up a degree in that area with only an extra year of school.
Consider jobs that allow you to use your CS degree to an extent, but that you don't find mind-numbing or boring.
Most importantly, don't forget that no job is all play. Every single job you can take will involve aspects that you find personally distasteful. I'm really good at debugging, but I hate doing it. I prefer to come up with a concept and let other hammer out the details. But unfortunately, part of my job is delivering fully functional software. Like most analysts, I abhor writing documentation. But somebody has to do it, and a technical writer isn't always readily available. I can usually do a pretty good job, but it takes me a lot more time than it would for somebody who writes for a living.
Perhaps even more important, don't feel like something is "wrong" with you because your interests have changed. This happens to people several times during their life, and it looks as though you got your change at an inconvenient time. I had a similar thing happen. After three years as an Electrical Engineering student, I decided that wasn't what I wanted to do for a living, no matter how well it paid. Instead of completing my EE degree, I switched to CS with a hardware design emphasis, and I've been much happier with that. But you can bet that when I started in EE, that's exactly what I wanted to do. After getting thoroughly involved in it though, my desires and thoughts changed. You're probably experiencing something similar.
I wholeheartedly agree! I can usually do a pretty good job of estimating my own time and involvement, but as soon as other hands are involved you get unbelievable complexity added to the project. In fact, that's why the management philosophy of providing more resources to get the job done faster almost always ends up falling apart. You eventually reach a point where additional members to a project team actually cause the project to take longer. This is because you spend longer training people and making them understand your ideas. Meetings greatly increase in length and frequency to combat this situation.
Another major problem is having a single person involved in too many projects. This usually happens when you have a development group. Each person in the group can easily be involved in 5 or more separate ongoing projects, although not necessarily with the same people. In my opinion (and it's definitely just an opinion), I feel that companies should instead devote a smaller number of project members to only 1 or 2 projects at a time. Your development group might be able to tackle the same number of projects, but I can almost guarantee you that the quality of work and timeline will be positively impacted by focusing your individual resources. I firmly believe this, even though I personally hate having only one project to work on at a time. My results are consistently better when I don't have to "task switch."
I was thinking exactly the same thing. But I think Warner may have the world "by the balls" here. The DVD format does not stipulate what the contents are, but Warner could certainly include some computer software on every DVD title they sell. That would make the contents at least partly software, even if they couldn't be accessed by a home theater DVD player. I'm not sure how we could get around this, except to have video stores refuse to purchase DVD's with software on them, and for consumers to refuse to rent DVD's that have software on them. However, I don't think people will be consistent enough in this approach for it to have any real effect.
I definitely feel that the argument that a DVD is "software" because the DVD player buffers a few frames in memory is way off, and I hereby condemn any court that decides in favor of Warner based on this argument as a bunch of extreme idiots, and certainly not bright enough to be deciding law for their country.
Actually, that was just a side joke, and a pretty stupid one at that. Baloney is a sausage that originates in Balogna, Italy. But Germany has a wide variety of wurst, or sausage, including their own variety of bologna. When most people think about German food, they think about sausages. So, I was kind of indicating that I saw more "sausage" in that statement than I did the whole time I was in Germany.