The goal of most employers are to keep their human resources. They've invested time and money in them: Headhunter commisions, training (on-the-job and formal), etc.
In addition, these resources house valuable corporate intellectual property. To let them leave is to give away this property to competitors.
At the same time, it's in the best interest of the shareholders, company owners, or Venture Capitalists to minimize salaries - to maximize profits.
Therefore, the best policy is to have the human resource (1) sign a non-compete agreement so that they can't work anywhere else without hiring an unaffordable lawyer, and (2) have the resource wear a bag on their head.
In that IBM is joining the venture, while 27 others are leaving.
How does this affect their "most-favored-big-company" status here on Slashdot?
Yeah, that part sucks. Sure, 27 winky companies are gone, but IBM is worth 100 of 'em.
And too bad IBM is a big drive manufacturer too... as mass storage is the core of tomorrow's consumer electronics. Geez, this is BAD news.
It only takes a few large and powerful players, along with some crazy legislation to make something like SDMI a potent industry standard.
Sure, I agree: you'll be able to break any copy protections. But the industry can make it ugly and painful to do so. Just wait for a couple generations of consumer-level home electronics, and we'll find more and more protections baked into the hardware.
Yep, the consumer will pay for all this in real dollars and in their personal freedoms. All in the name of protecting the industry's profits and obsolete business models.
Of course, it's to the record industry's advantage to speak of doom and gloom - this is a tired political response to get the artists and retailers and government to support this "important" industry in their "time of need". This has been part of their business model since the advent of the cassette.
The music industry hasn't changed. It's been 20 years since the advent of the CD, and the CD didn't change how their business works. The industry failed to take advantage of new technologies to deliver CD compilations defined by the customer in the store. And the industry failed to take advantage of the advent of the Internet beyond a marketing exercise.
And so now, let's legislate. It can be cheaper to buy some laws than to have lower profits for a couple years while their business model is repaired. The retail chains wouldn't it if the business model excluded them... and Wall Street wouldn't like and stock dips or the possibility of new competition.
Clearly, the industry needs to upgrade it's business model - one that has not changed since the introduction of music video - which is, humerously, less "art" and more "marketing vehicle " (despite the MTV Video Awards).
It won't happen. None of the players in the music industry want to lose their profits - not the artists, the labels, or the retailers. And they'll all fight hard to keep their future profits.
Compaq should just close up their design shop and take their lead from Apple, the real creative force in PC design.
Love 'em or hate 'em, Apple has driven the market in this area... at least since Steve Job's return.
Yeah, for a long while those Apples were plain-old butt-ugly beige boxes. Or some slightly different color. But since the iMac and the new notebooks, Apple has really driven design of the PC market.
Apple makes a significant effort in this area, and I don't think it's bad: make your products look good and look different. Otherwise, they're all the same!
Lots of PC manufacturers never figured that out, to their peril. Who can name more than 5 formerly-popular PC manufacturers who are now all but gone? It's easy, isn't it! And do you know what? They all made beige boxes that were hard to tell apart!
Then again, I'd never buy a Compaq for myself, no matter what its styling.
Everyone loses. I'd hate to lose yet another open source project - and I'd hate for the small guy to lose what he may think is rightfully his.
It's nearly impossible to retroactively change a license. Once you give away the farm, it's hard to take it back.
This story shows how important it is to have a good license statement, and why it's easier to make use of some of the standard licenses out there. He should of spent a little more time writing the license if retaining his rights was important, perhaps with a lawyer. He should have tried to reuse one of the popular, well-established licenses versus writing his own.
Live and learn, I suppose... well, hopefully others won't make the same mistake.
That darn Apple, still surviving after all those years - and so many said it'd be dead by 1985. Why isn't Apple long gone?
Here's why.
Apple survives only because they stole the good stuff from { Xerox PARC | Open Source Programmers | MIT | the Amiga | Bill Gates | Their Customers | Their dealers }.
As a computer geek working in an ad agency, I must say that this one worked. Whenever you get serious people to talk about IBM paying $500 fines and community service, you win. The penguin rules the streets.
OK, I admit it. I want to see Lou Gerstner (IBM's CEO) scrubbin' the sidewalks tomorrow mornin'.
Although some interesting information could pop out of the service, I don't see any real benefit for ME to submit MY logs. In fact, I only see potential harm... after all, what if their security is breached?
If I'm shown to be wrong, then I must reconsider. But for now, I'll stay on the sidelines.
Apple has me sold. With one of the most impressive laptops, and a pretty Unix-based OS, how could I say no?
The Vaio's are nice, but this new combo of hardware/software rocks. And in the end, if OS X becomes crummy, I can -still- run Linux on the hardware. I always hated the x86 platform with all its baggage.
I was wondering if you guys have any good ideas on how to go about changing our site, our videos, our presentations, and pretty much anything else that relies on one sense over another.
Now that's a pretty open-ended question.
I would:
1. Study your goal
2. Understand your current state
3. Build a plan to migrate your current state towards your goal, with the understanding of your deadline and your staff's capabilities
4. Pursue the goal.
It's really simple, but an incredible number of people can't deal with it.
The important part is to not spend all your time whining about your duties. It just makes you look like you and your organization didn't properly do your job in the first place.
Then again, I don't know who in their right mind would WANT a Win95 look and feel. Sure, it's based on a quality Macintosh design, but then bastardized and re-bastardized in Windows 98 and Windows ME.
I'm routinely TOLD to work 15-20 hours of overtime a week - UNPAID. Sure, they promise bonuses. But then again, they made me big promises with the stock options a year ago - something I now know was just a carrot to get me in the door. My last $500 "award" for 100 hours of overtime works out to $5 an hour. McD's is lookin' sweet!
I can't afford a 3 bedroom house in the city where I live.
My CEO has a $3 million house and a few nice Jags and a pricey house in the US Virgin Islands.... where he spends three out of every four weeks.
Yeah, I don't need a union - YET. But do you know what? Once the economy goes sour and they REALLY start to screw us, I'll sure wish I had a union to protect my rights.
Right now they're making a ton of money off of my labor. And I know that when the economy gets tough, they'll misuse me even more.
If unions are for paint-sniffers, bring out the paint. My company routinely screws their own "team players". Good thing for this good IT economy - otherwise, I'd be totally fucked. Happily, next friday is my last day!
Sometimes that mutually agreed upon contract spells out a "closed shop", a not ideal but sometimes necessary mechanism to prevent management from circumventing the intent of the contract agreement.
Of course, neither management nor the union is required to agree to add "closed shop" clauses in their agreement. And in most "closed shops" any eligable potential employee can join the union.
Personally, I'm in management and not in a union. But I once worked in management in a poorly operated company, and I completely understand why unions need to exist.
But if Apple let this go through, it would give Microsoft or RedHat or whomever a strong argument that the very much Mac-like themes were in the public domain, and could be integrated within their highly-profitable products - at Apple's expense.
So Apple did what it had to do... at our expense, but also, more importantly, at the expense of Microsoft and other corporations that could have simply lifted Apple's arguably impressive efforts in the name of profitablity.
But most of them are significantly less expensive than their US Citizen counterparts.
My employer has a pool of IT employees in Asia. As necessary, my employer will fly one of these people to the US to work on an H-1B contract. My company will "put up" these people in a (shared) apartment.
In the end:
1. The IT organization that that uses my employer's "H-1B" labor gets an excellent rate. Typically, I believe there is a 30% savings.
2. My employer makes a good percentage... perhaps 40%. HOwever, there is a nominal charge for the apartment, flights, and legal fees. But in relative terms, these expenses don't make the deal unprofitable! My company still makes a larger percentage per employee for an H-1B than for a citizen (in the general case).
3. THe H-1B employee makes more money than they otherwise would in their home country - plus they often learn valuable skills and get to check out the USA.
So everyone wins, except the US Citizen employee, because everyone either makes more money or gets a good deal.
The US Citizen employee loses because the supply of IT professionals is significantly increased - dropping demand, and therefore reducing salaries, training, and in the end, employability.
I have no problems with H-1B employees or with people from other lands. But let's be real: the goal of permitting more H-1B IT professionals is lower cost IT labor.
I work for a IT "consulting" company that has a great interest in connecting IT shops with H-1B workers.
The company I work for finds the people, finds an IT shop for them to work in, and then pursue the H-1B visa.
The company goes into a business with 5 to 1000 IT professionals and talks to executive management. The company I work for sells H-1B visa'd IT people by highlighting the following points:
- H-1B IT professionals are "very inexpensive"
- H-1B IT professionals are "eager to work"
- H-1B IT professionals have "great skills"
And that's it.
IT shortage? I don't know. But if you are promised a BMW for $50,000 or $35,000... virtually everyone that I know of will go for the $35,000.
Next thing you know, my employer will be calling my cubicle "home" and they'll take away my ergonomic chair and keyboard.
My company was the same one that took the full time $7/hr cleaning crew and turned it into a $7/hr part time cleaning crew so the company could could get out of paying for benefits.
A couple years ago my employer paid for my ergonomic chair and some other less significant ergo equipment for my home office.
I guess they figured it made good business sense, and in the scheme of things it was inexpensive. Heck, after all, if I got injured on the job (at work, in an airport, or at the home office), you bet I think that I deserve to be compensated. Of course, burning my hand on my toaster oven doesn't count, but carpal-tunnel (sic) certainly does.
Just because an employer wants their employees to work at home shouldn't open up loopholes where an employer can escape their responsibilities. Next thing you'd know, they'd be calling our cubicles "personal domiciles".
Email me if you're interested in working for my employer;-) They aren't all bad.
1994: VP of IT: I'd like you all to meet Jimmy, the new Intern. Jimmy is a Sophomore from State U. Don't mind his complexion - it'll clear up, he just left his job at BurgerCzar.
Jimmy, it'll be your job to maintain these old systems. Ralph, you've been here 15 years... show Jimmy the ropes.
1995: VP of IT: Ralph, we find it much cheaper to have interns maintain our code. Sorry, 3.8% raise this year.
1995: Programmer: Ralph, heard you quit! Good luck in the Consulting market... I'm sure you'll be doubling your income.
1999: VP of IT: Ralph, this is your old VP Ted. These old systems we have are screwed up! And we understand that your company manages Y2K conversions. Can you help? We'll pay anything!
2000: CEO: Good job Ted, you saved our bacon! Let's not do that again - let's think about outsourcing all our IT functions to RalphCo. They're the pros. By the way, the president's son, Jimmy, works for RalphCo.
That article sounds more like a press release for someone selling cheesey $50k software.
Them lawyers sure do have a sense of humor. There was a time when inventions had to be novel and non-obvious. A hyperlinked image that happens to contain an advertisement fits that requirement? Well, at least the rich are getting richer.
No doubt some lawyer folks would call Linus an idiot because he didn't set up a business where a bunch of laywers would be able to make a bunch of cash. It took RedHat to do that.
Slashdot Mirror
The goal of most employers are to keep their human resources. They've invested time and money in them: Headhunter commisions, training (on-the-job and formal), etc.
In addition, these resources house valuable corporate intellectual property. To let them leave is to give away this property to competitors.
At the same time, it's in the best interest of the shareholders, company owners, or Venture Capitalists to minimize salaries - to maximize profits.
Therefore, the best policy is to have the human resource (1) sign a non-compete agreement so that they can't work anywhere else without hiring an unaffordable lawyer, and (2) have the resource wear a bag on their head.
In that IBM is joining the venture, while 27 others are leaving.
How does this affect their "most-favored-big-company" status here on Slashdot?
Yeah, that part sucks. Sure, 27 winky companies are gone, but IBM is worth 100 of 'em.
And too bad IBM is a big drive manufacturer too... as mass storage is the core of tomorrow's consumer electronics. Geez, this is BAD news.
It only takes a few large and powerful players, along with some crazy legislation to make something like SDMI a potent industry standard.
Sure, I agree: you'll be able to break any copy protections. But the industry can make it ugly and painful to do so. Just wait for a couple generations of consumer-level home electronics, and we'll find more and more protections baked into the hardware.
Yep, the consumer will pay for all this in real dollars and in their personal freedoms. All in the name of protecting the industry's profits and obsolete business models.
Of course, it's to the record industry's advantage to speak of doom and gloom - this is a tired political response to get the artists and retailers and government to support this "important" industry in their "time of need". This has been part of their business model since the advent of the cassette.
... and Wall Street wouldn't like and stock dips or the possibility of new competition.
The music industry hasn't changed. It's been 20 years since the advent of the CD, and the CD didn't change how their business works. The industry failed to take advantage of new technologies to deliver CD compilations defined by the customer in the store. And the industry failed to take advantage of the advent of the Internet beyond a marketing exercise.
And so now, let's legislate. It can be cheaper to buy some laws than to have lower profits for a couple years while their business model is repaired. The retail chains wouldn't it if the business model excluded them
Clearly, the industry needs to upgrade it's business model - one that has not changed since the introduction of music video - which is, humerously, less "art" and more "marketing vehicle " (despite the MTV Video Awards).
It won't happen. None of the players in the music industry want to lose their profits - not the artists, the labels, or the retailers. And they'll all fight hard to keep their future profits.
Compaq should just close up their design shop and take their lead from Apple, the real creative force in PC design.
Love 'em or hate 'em, Apple has driven the market in this area... at least since Steve Job's return.
Yeah, for a long while those Apples were plain-old butt-ugly beige boxes. Or some slightly different color. But since the iMac and the new notebooks, Apple has really driven design of the PC market.
Apple makes a significant effort in this area, and I don't think it's bad: make your products look good and look different. Otherwise, they're all the same!
Lots of PC manufacturers never figured that out, to their peril. Who can name more than 5 formerly-popular PC manufacturers who are now all but gone? It's easy, isn't it! And do you know what? They all made beige boxes that were hard to tell apart!
Then again, I'd never buy a Compaq for myself, no matter what its styling.
Everyone loses. I'd hate to lose yet another open source project - and I'd hate for the small guy to lose what he may think is rightfully his.
It's nearly impossible to retroactively change a license. Once you give away the farm, it's hard to take it back.
This story shows how important it is to have a good license statement, and why it's easier to make use of some of the standard licenses out there. He should of spent a little more time writing the license if retaining his rights was important, perhaps with a lawyer. He should have tried to reuse one of the popular, well-established licenses versus writing his own.
Live and learn, I suppose... well, hopefully others won't make the same mistake.
That darn Apple, still surviving after all those years - and so many said it'd be dead by 1985. Why isn't Apple long gone?
Here's why.
Apple survives only because they stole the good stuff from { Xerox PARC | Open Source Programmers | MIT | the Amiga | Bill Gates | Their Customers | Their dealers }.
As a computer geek working in an ad agency, I must say that this one worked. Whenever you get serious people to talk about IBM paying $500 fines and community service, you win. The penguin rules the streets.
OK, I admit it. I want to see Lou Gerstner (IBM's CEO) scrubbin' the sidewalks tomorrow mornin'.
I don't agree that CVS sucks, but this review certainly does.
You can also get a PDF-formatted CVS quick ref card at http://www.refcards.com/
Although some interesting information could pop out of the service, I don't see any real benefit for ME to submit MY logs. In fact, I only see potential harm... after all, what if their security is breached?
If I'm shown to be wrong, then I must reconsider. But for now, I'll stay on the sidelines.
Apple has me sold. With one of the most impressive laptops, and a pretty Unix-based OS, how could I say no?
The Vaio's are nice, but this new combo of hardware/software rocks. And in the end, if OS X becomes crummy, I can -still- run Linux on the hardware. I always hated the x86 platform with all its baggage.
Sign me up.
I was wondering if you guys have any good ideas on how to go about changing our site, our videos, our presentations, and pretty much anything else that relies on one sense over another.
Now that's a pretty open-ended question.
I would:
1. Study your goal
2. Understand your current state
3. Build a plan to migrate your current state towards your goal, with the understanding of your deadline and your staff's capabilities
4. Pursue the goal.
It's really simple, but an incredible number of people can't deal with it.
The important part is to not spend all your time whining about your duties. It just makes you look like you and your organization didn't properly do your job in the first place.
Then again, I don't know who in their right mind would WANT a Win95 look and feel. Sure, it's based on a quality Macintosh design, but then bastardized and re-bastardized in Windows 98 and Windows ME.
Here's what I know.
I'm routinely TOLD to work 15-20 hours of overtime a week - UNPAID. Sure, they promise bonuses. But then again, they made me big promises with the stock options a year ago - something I now know was just a carrot to get me in the door. My last $500 "award" for 100 hours of overtime works out to $5 an hour. McD's is lookin' sweet!
I can't afford a 3 bedroom house in the city where I live.
My CEO has a $3 million house and a few nice Jags and a pricey house in the US Virgin Islands.... where he spends three out of every four weeks.
Yeah, I don't need a union - YET. But do you know what? Once the economy goes sour and they REALLY start to screw us, I'll sure wish I had a union to protect my rights.
Right now they're making a ton of money off of my labor. And I know that when the economy gets tough, they'll misuse me even more.
If unions are for paint-sniffers, bring out the paint. My company routinely screws their own "team players". Good thing for this good IT economy - otherwise, I'd be totally fucked. Happily, next friday is my last day!
Typically, unions and management form a contract.
Sometimes that mutually agreed upon contract spells out a "closed shop", a not ideal but sometimes necessary mechanism to prevent management from circumventing the intent of the contract agreement.
Of course, neither management nor the union is required to agree to add "closed shop" clauses in their agreement. And in most "closed shops" any eligable potential employee can join the union.
Personally, I'm in management and not in a union. But I once worked in management in a poorly operated company, and I completely understand why unions need to exist.
Apple seems to be anal on this one.
But if Apple let this go through, it would give Microsoft or RedHat or whomever a strong argument that the very much Mac-like themes were in the public domain, and could be integrated within their highly-profitable products - at Apple's expense.
So Apple did what it had to do... at our expense, but also, more importantly, at the expense of Microsoft and other corporations that could have simply lifted Apple's arguably impressive efforts in the name of profitablity.
Actually, it turned out that one of its software functions, used to send a beacon signal, was a little too much like one-click shopping.
NASA had to shut it down or pay the nominal fee of $1 per mile.
Not -all- H-1B employees are cheap.
But most of them are significantly less expensive than their US Citizen counterparts.
My employer has a pool of IT employees in Asia. As necessary, my employer will fly one of these people to the US to work on an H-1B contract. My company will "put up" these people in a (shared) apartment.
In the end:
1. The IT organization that that uses my employer's "H-1B" labor gets an excellent rate. Typically, I believe there is a 30% savings.
2. My employer makes a good percentage... perhaps 40%. HOwever, there is a nominal charge for the apartment, flights, and legal fees. But in relative terms, these expenses don't make the deal unprofitable! My company still makes a larger percentage per employee for an H-1B than for a citizen (in the general case).
3. THe H-1B employee makes more money than they otherwise would in their home country - plus they often learn valuable skills and get to check out the USA.
So everyone wins, except the US Citizen employee, because everyone either makes more money or gets a good deal.
The US Citizen employee loses because the supply of IT professionals is significantly increased - dropping demand, and therefore reducing salaries, training, and in the end, employability.
I have no problems with H-1B employees or with people from other lands. But let's be real: the goal of permitting more H-1B IT professionals is lower cost IT labor.
Although lawyers are
I work for a IT "consulting" company that has a great interest in connecting IT shops with H-1B workers.
The company I work for finds the people, finds an IT shop for them to work in, and then pursue the H-1B visa.
The company goes into a business with 5 to 1000 IT professionals and talks to executive management. The company I work for sells H-1B visa'd IT people by highlighting the following points:
- H-1B IT professionals are "very inexpensive"
- H-1B IT professionals are "eager to work"
- H-1B IT professionals have "great skills"
And that's it.
IT shortage? I don't know. But if you are promised a BMW for $50,000 or $35,000... virtually everyone that I know of will go for the $35,000.
Does my employer's Sun Enterprise 10000 count as a PC? Would the Sun Ultra2 on my desktop count?
Or is a PC defined in the popular sense - as a computer running Windows?
Next thing you know, my employer will be calling my cubicle "home" and they'll take away my ergonomic chair and keyboard.
My company was the same one that took the full time $7/hr cleaning crew and turned it into a $7/hr part time cleaning crew so the company could could get out of paying for benefits.
Don't think it can't happen to you.
A couple years ago my employer paid for my ergonomic chair and some other less significant ergo equipment for my home office.
;-) They aren't all bad.
I guess they figured it made good business sense, and in the scheme of things it was inexpensive.
Heck, after all, if I got injured on the job (at work, in an airport, or at the home office), you bet I think that I deserve to be compensated. Of course, burning my hand on my toaster oven doesn't count, but carpal-tunnel (sic) certainly does.
Just because an employer wants their employees to work at home shouldn't open up loopholes where an employer can escape their responsibilities. Next thing you'd know, they'd be calling our cubicles "personal domiciles".
Email me if you're interested in working for my employer
The History of Y2K Problems
1994:
VP of IT: I'd like you all to meet Jimmy, the new Intern. Jimmy is a Sophomore from State U. Don't mind his complexion - it'll clear up, he just left his job at BurgerCzar.
Jimmy, it'll be your job to maintain these old systems. Ralph, you've been here 15 years
1995:
VP of IT: Ralph, we find it much cheaper to have interns maintain our code. Sorry, 3.8% raise this year.
1995:
Programmer: Ralph, heard you quit! Good luck in the Consulting market... I'm sure you'll be doubling your income.
1999:
VP of IT: Ralph, this is your old VP Ted. These old systems we have are screwed up! And we understand that your company manages Y2K conversions. Can you help? We'll pay anything!
2000:
CEO: Good job Ted, you saved our bacon! Let's not do that again - let's think about outsourcing all our IT functions to RalphCo. They're the pros. By the way, the president's son, Jimmy, works for RalphCo.
That article sounds more like a press release for someone selling cheesey $50k software.
Them lawyers sure do have a sense of humor. There was a time when inventions had to be novel and non-obvious. A hyperlinked image that happens to contain an advertisement fits that requirement? Well, at least the rich are getting richer.
No doubt some lawyer folks would call Linus an idiot because he didn't set up a business where a bunch of laywers would be able to make a bunch of cash. It took RedHat to do that.