I hold that windows isn't a true multi user OS until 90% of the software that runs on it can be used by a limited account.
I'd go that one further and inject that an OS isn't a true multi-user OS until a developer is able to develop his software in a limited, non-system account.
XP looked like a pig shit sandwitch when it came out, too. The Fisher-Price label XP earned? Yeah, that's been around since early screenshot leaks were available.
Consider, XP provides little/nothing over 2000 in terms of desktop graphics. It's the same thing with a candy coating (and even that's debatable, as it's not exactly a 'clean' theme). Gaming graphics/3D are better, but the fundamental video system is still crap. OS X had modern scaling like a couple of the Linux window managers at around the same time (sorta). And Windows didn't catch up to Linux and OS X with relatively simple things like universal font AA/subpixel shading (even in IE).
Sorry, but XP has been a disappointment since it came out (unlike OS X, which really did change things - it's on their phones, their ipods, and their desktops/laptops, sorta. It really is a game-changing accomplishment.)
Worth mentioning is that the smarter liberal arts types aren't like this at all. For instance, smart English majors can point out the structures of literature that make it all tick, or exactly how a sentence can be better phrased. Smart history majors can provide all the major sources for a historical event, explain what biases each source had and how that affected their description of the event, piece together what probably actually happened, and are probably some of the best BS detectors out there.
Of course, a smart person with a technical degree (math, science, engineering) can reduce literary structures and historic events to numbers and explain such things, mathematically.:)
Seriously, though. My observation has been that the smart ones of any field are pretty good at "faking" cross discipline competence. That is, they're still as good in other fields as the mediocre types who specialize in said field. You know, the CS student who reads a lot of literature, or the English major who reads climate studies (not the abstracts, the studies). Generally, I think these people are probably just well-balanced individuals.
Of course, the mediocre people in the fields who aren't flipping mad are likely also cross-disciplined, just not to such great extents.
Hitler was a a homeless painter who had more natural ability in architecture... He was also up on his philosophy, so he might be better described as a liberal arts type who (illogically) followed his dreams instead of ability.
Mussolini was a journalist.
Stalin was a, for lacking a better term, marxist revolutionary. He was an anti-religious college dropout.
Lenin was a terrorist (technically, at the time) and kicked out of law school, but ultimately became a lawyer.
You are correct in that these douchbags weren't engineers; they were all most certainly megalomaniacs.
(And you group Bush with these fiends? That's either your ignorance or dogma speaking, because no logical assessment could reach this conclusion.)
It's also a lack of understanding of what "terrorism" is. Namely, international war, genocide of one's own people, and establishment/enforcement of a totalitarian regime are not terrorism. (They might be the culminative result of terrorism - see: most Muslim countries - but they are not, themselves, terrorism.)
The same could be said for the adherents of Karl Marx. The only popular dogma in the West I am aware of which doesn't do this is - ironically - protestant Christianity (not including Mormonism). The only pecking order they put themselves at the top of is the one that happens after death, and here on earth, not so much.
Except, most high-visibility terrorists come from rich upbringings, and good education paid for by their parents. Basically, they're the Islamic world's version of the spoiled hippie terrorist from the 1970s and 1980s. They've been given it all but fight against it - and their emotionally distant parents - in what way their culture has taught them.
The fact that they were "engineers" is not surprising. Look throughout history at the people who may have gotten engineering degrees, if such things had existed then:
* Thomas Jefferson (who was something like a surveyor's assistant, and a botanist of sorts) * Michelangelo (who was a tinkerer and inventor, making new things) * Edison (of the lightbulb) * Ford (of the automobile, was known as a self-taught watch repairman as a youth, and once even held the title 'engineer')
Problem is, in today's society, an "engineer" is a really wide definition. If you're getting a useful 4-year technical degree, it's an engineering degree or a technology degree. Getting a "civil engineering" or "mechanical engineering" degree would be the most likely means to gainful employment, regardless of where you live.
And in reality, many men are well suited for the role of "engineer". They're tinkerers, problem solvers, and fixers. If a man is generally competent, he's more likely to make a decent engineer - and by association, is more likely to go into that field....
As for the implications of the article, I am keenly aware of the disturbing social implications resulting from widespread dispersal of this "study". I can easily see security theater like the TSA moving to profile against, say, "religious technical people", making sure to adjust their procedure to not "unjustly discriminate against Islamic engineers with one-way tickets and no luggage.
The only thing this study really tells me is that men who are of a regimented mindset and/or an engineering background are more likely to become successful terrorists when coming from an Islamic culture. To read anything more into that is foolish, but we should at least heed that correlation.
Besides, what is the "green" cost of a car accident where oil, gas, battery acid, etc. may be spilled, as well as emergency vehicles cranking up and running to the scene, etc?
That's a bit naive. Nobody who doesn't have cash to burn, especially government, switches to something "green" because it's green. They switch because it's cheaper. Usually, in a government situation, they look at lifetime cost: cost up-front amortized over years of service, plus maintenance. That's why they're using LED lamps.
Likewise, it's also why cities will often not plow streets during the winter: they ran out of money. And if you crash because you're overdriving conditions, or your vehicle gets stuck, it's your problem, not their's. It's also your cost, not their's, which is why it doesn't matter - to them.
Just the same, it's still a 30lb belt. You've got to walk, stand, and sit differently - whether it's your hips, arms, or legs. I don't care how well-balanced it is, it's going to impact things when worn day-in and day-out for years.
Those screenshots were the first I found. I don't own a Mac (in fact, I hate the UI). But XP has nothing on OS X in terms of UI. (Maybe 10.0 vs. XP. I'd call that a tie.)
I suppose the Xbox 360 might define tech in the 2000-2010 range moreso than a Wii does if you're in the 15-25 and childless demographic. But if you're over 25 and/or have kids (especially if you have kids), a Wii is much more significant.
Also, why would I want to play games online with a dumb controller (in more ways than one) when I can play with a buddy who is sitting right next to me drinking a couple beers - AND I can hit him when he beats me? This is my preference; you're free to your own.
The Xbox 360 brought network gameplay to couch potatoes. This I will grant you. The Wii, however, is a revolution of its own akin to what the original NES did, but to a larger degree: it's got an actual innovation of tactile input, making gaming possible in ways it was not possible before. After the Wii, everything had to have its own gyroscope.
The 360 has the games and the young-somethings crowd, as well as the "breaks often and needs to be replaced" feature, but it's nothing game-changing. (And the games are fun, you are right - even though I've no idea what RRoD is.) That's what this list is about - game changing gadgets/products of the last decade.
Honestly, the only reason I think XP (changed nothing, just 2k with more candy on the turd) and the Xbox 360 were put on the list so these TechRepublic yuppies didn't come across as such massive Apple fanboys.
If you had found me right after I'd installed OS X Public Beta for the first time in 2001 and told me how dramatically the OS would change over the next decade, I'm not sure I would have believed you. There was a gigantic difference in feel between installing Windows XP and OS X Public Beta -- with XP you got that fun sense of having a whole new computer, fast and ready to take on whatever you could throw at it, while with OS X you just sort of stared at the huge icons and wondered, "Now what?" It was clear Apple had a lot of work left to do -- although by 10.3 or so I'd deleted my Classic partition and wasn't looking back. But hold up: OS X 10.3 looks and feels dated by today's standards, while XP looks and feels like... XP. Where Apple did an fantastic job of relentlessly improving and iterating OS X over the past decade, Microsoft set the bar so high coming out of the gate that the biggest threat to Windows 7 is the installed base of XP users who are still happy with their machines. That's pretty amazing. - Nilay Patel
This guy/gal needs to have their head examined. Even talking about the mere aesthetic nature of XP vs. OS X 10.3 (Panther), I can't see where he's coming from in the least:
OS X 10.3 Panther image vs. Windows XP. I'm sorry, but I fail to see how XP looks anything but "dated", the hideous colors/theming aside. 10.3 looks, even now, clean and fresh compared to XP. (Technologically, XP is way behind 10.3 in many ways.)
All I can read there is rabid fanboyism. Sorry, but "staying the same" for the better part of a decade, when you're the computer giant's flagship product, is not a benefit in any stretch of the imagination.
As for their list... not sure why/how the Xbox made the list instead of the Wii. There's nothing special about the Xbox 360, whereas the Wii is a "game changer". Hell, and even Windows Mobile devices (which, aside from the slick Marketing functionality and App store, has been largely comparable for many, many years) should top the list over the Treo.
I've never done IT in an "IT shop", whatever that means, exactly. But my experience is 1) in a larger national medical service provider, and 2) a small regional/rural hospital.
1) The national provider had approximately 250 Linux "cache" servers located remotely, about 3,000 XP workstations (with many more than 3,000 users), and approximately 25 national campus servers. The support was tiered; I was on 3rd tier with 2 others, with approximately 15 people on 1st tier and 5 on 2nd tier. I spent about half my day on support calls or fixing workstation/server problems (I was the lowest-level 3rd tier) and the rest were spent doing equipment deployments and requisitioning. In addition, there were 2 guys doing network/host security, someone who did all the Windowsy admin work, two network (Cisco) guys, a user requisition gal, and two database guys. (There were also about 8 or so guys doing the development for internal software packages.)
2) I was, essentially, the sole supporter of workstations and servers (there were two other functional staff, one doing biomed stuff and printers, the other doing support for the large monolithic terminal app everyone used.) There were 250 workstations and about a dozen servers. The servers were not maintained well in any sense of the imagination - they were spread out throughout the facility, and were a real headache. The workstations were mostly OEM XP installs with crapware installed, et cetera. Realistically, there should have been another person in my role (minimum), and we should have worked towards a better arrangement than what we had, as there simply was not enough time for me to do it on my own after triage.
So, basically: it depends. I'd say the reasonable number of support people decreases as the organization grows beyond a certain point; likewise, the number of justifiable support people increases as the organization grows from 1 up until a certain point.
A well-run shop is not going to need as many people as a poorly run shop. But, the size of the shop often dictates whether there are enough competent people to make it run smoothly, so it's a bit of a catch-22.
Case in point... I did support on a small Mac based network for a while. It was just me, and 9 users with some fairly specific needs. They were just at the point where they actually needed someone at all, but it was enough to be a FT role. After a couple months, i'd gotten rid of most of their issues and managed to get things running smoothly and trouble-free. My reward was the closing of my position.
If this phone follows the pattern of most "new" type tech items released in the last couple years, that $530 will turn into $670, and the $180 will turn into $295 - or something like that.
I swear, I'm getting sick of this false advertising. Everyone's doing it, and it's gotten to the point of being predictable: see something "coming soon for around x" and you can typically tack on $100 or 20%, whichever is greater, and be closer to the actual price than the one they provided.
Google can do a lot to bring people to their side of the fence by being honest about this kind of thing. Here's not holding my breath.
Even still, $180 (if they hit it) is a lot, considering you can get a Touch Pro 2 for, essentially, no more than shipping via special deals on T-mobile.
What you call an 'authoritative swagger', I (and most cops, I'm sure) call "damn my back and feet are killing me from carrying this 30lb gear belt". Wear one long enough, spend enough time standing or walking on hard even surfaces (ie not hiking up or down a mountain), and you, too, can have an 'authoritative' swagger!
Yep. Just like trains in the Old West: no gang was foolish enough to rob a train with Marshalls on it unless they:
a) somehow killed/injured/confined the Marshalls b) crashed the train remotely/from the exterior c) attacked the train outright, with vastly superior numbers, after it was stopped.
No, I didn't look at a history book to write that, but it's in the movies. Older movies are a good measuring rod for what's plausible. The only way someone might take a train - even 12 people - with knives is if the train were full of women and children. They'd be fucked if they attacked (with knives) a train of men. And even if they used guns, they'd need multiple gunmen to deal with a train full of mixed company.
Arming people is important, but it's a useless gesture if the mindset of the people is that of sheep. And yes, I think that still applies to a large degree - even now after 9/11, on airplanes.
Yet, Hasan and the Ft. Hood attack - which is much, much more significant in terms of body count, potential damage, etc. - is being completely overlooked as potential societal/security changes are concerned. There have been no policy changes. Troops are still not allowed weapons on base. There have been no (justifiable) increases in profiling (not stereotyping, but profiling). Nothing.
I'll stop being critical of the TSA's security masterpiece theater when there are actual efforts taken to prevent things which are actually plausible. I'm talking about: stop issuing a disproportionate number of vistas to Islamic countries; allow citizens to defend themselves
On a network, gateway security isn't enough. You need endpoint security or you're fucked. It's the same with physical security: if all they've got to do is get through the gate, they'll get through. In both cases, the threat might still get through, but if there's a better security mindset, your chances of surviving unscathed improve. I'd think Bruce, a so-called security professional, would realize that.
Would you? Welcome to the watch list, Mr. play_in_traffic. You are obviously an person of interest, on account of your unwillingness to play by the same rules everyone else must in order to Keep People Safe.
Apparently Bruce isn't paying attention. That's to be expected, as physical security of the guys-with-guns type really isn't his domain, but... uh, there have been quite a few terrorist attacks against Western countries alone (not even counting the almost-daily attacks in places like India which are closer to the front).
A cursory search will tell you that there have been quite a few - over a dozen "major" attacks (ie, of the type where security personnel from every level of gov't are involved, resulting in societal changes) have occurred since 9/11/2001. Furthermore, there have been 10s of thousands in the West; I've heard numbers as high as 100,000 passed about.
Shit, there've been 2 'significant' terrorist attacks this year alone. (Ironic, though, that when it's embarrassing, it gets swept under the carpet by the gov't - Ft. Hood - but when there's a chance to increase state power and impose new restrictions on the populace - crotchbomber - it's a fucking circus.)
So yeah, terrorism is not uncommon. It's something we've simply conditioned ourselves as a society to ignore or overlook.
To me, this just smacks of general disdain for "computer people". It's a subtle insult and an effort at class differentiation.
Do your building maintenance or janitorial workers have to wear such things?
The only way I'd say this is even remotely acceptable is if:
a) you work in a hospital environment where many of the other workers are wearing smocks or similar over their clothes. b) the shirts are partially subsidized by the company and/or inexpensive c) There is an actual reason for the uniforms aside from some managerial BS. IE, you do a lot of crawling around on the ground and get dirty throughout the day, and having a clean shirt bin to clean into to keep you presentable is necessary.
As a whole, it's a stupid idea. It decreases morale, especially in a decidedly 'independent' field like IT (even if it's just helpdesk).
Now, if the uniforms are being pushed down your throats because your 'independently minded' help desk has a repeated reputation for not dressing to 'business casual' (as i'm sure is the case with many IT types), that's another story. But then, that's also the issue which needs to be addressed - not making another, special-case rule for a certain segment of people.
That's why it's important to publicly humiliate him by his own beliefs, as well - to show him as a fraud and/or hypocrite. Child porn? Drinking problems? Sodomy? Pick something.
So it's moving east from north. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not a useful trajectory as its considered he point from which our basis of geographic location is based - the north pole. So where is it heading?
And, importantly to me and mine, where will that put the north pole in 40, 50 years at the current rate of acceleration? Could this sort of be like the 'wobble' of a top before it falls (meaning we're due for a sudden shift, soon)?
40 miles per year is incredibly fast, especially since it's apparently speeding up. I've read that significant pole shifts have occurred in the past (in 50k year increments, IIRC), and that currently, we're some time overdue for the next.
I've also read postulations that glaciers were not caused by 'ice ages' per se, so much as they were the remains of the north pole ice cap after a shift. I can't find the link right now to the information I found truly interesting (correlation of past poles with existing glaciers) but there's a fair amount of info out there about it. (Some people are correlating it with 2012/doomsday, so be forewarned.)
It's a particularly interesting topic if you look at the archaeological records of our past; specifically, the polar relation/geographic locations of Egyptian, Mayan, and other ancient peoples' religious/whatever sites. They seem to predict a pole shift, or at least make subtle suggestion to one occurring in the past.
A half a day's drive? How many hours is that? At what speed? Winding roads?
I've driven (in the US, in the least populated part of the country) on relatively "back roads" (ie not interstates) for 4+ hours and still gotten 3G signal.
Also, you have to realize that there is a lot more low-density population land out here than there is anywhere in Europe - both as a percentage wrt population as well as overall area.
Yet I've been 20 miles from the nearest town (ie somewhere with a gas station, population > 15 or so), which would put me maybe 50 miles from the nearest population center (10k+ population), and I've seen phones here in the US still get EDGE.
It really depends. Considering the swaths of unpopulated land here in teh US, it's amazing that there's signal in many places at all, nevermind good signal.
Idiot MCSEs with Linux on their resume would then also jump up the ranks of "employable", likely jumping ahead of competent people who are skilled at both Windows and Linux admins, but don't have four-letter acrostics after their name - that's a wonderful idea.
As for the underlying stuff, it would allow people already familiar with Windows (MCSEs mostly) to make an easier transition.
Yeah, that's exactly what we need. MCSEs who aren't yet (this is 2009, soon to be 2010!) familiar with Linux trying it out and flooding forums, IRC channels, and God knows where else with requests for help getting WoW installed.
Slashdot Mirror
I hold that windows isn't a true multi user OS until 90% of the software that runs on it can be used by a limited account.
I'd go that one further and inject that an OS isn't a true multi-user OS until a developer is able to develop his software in a limited, non-system account.
XP looked like a pig shit sandwitch when it came out, too. The Fisher-Price label XP earned? Yeah, that's been around since early screenshot leaks were available.
Consider, XP provides little/nothing over 2000 in terms of desktop graphics. It's the same thing with a candy coating (and even that's debatable, as it's not exactly a 'clean' theme). Gaming graphics/3D are better, but the fundamental video system is still crap. OS X had modern scaling like a couple of the Linux window managers at around the same time (sorta). And Windows didn't catch up to Linux and OS X with relatively simple things like universal font AA/subpixel shading (even in IE).
Sorry, but XP has been a disappointment since it came out (unlike OS X, which really did change things - it's on their phones, their ipods, and their desktops/laptops, sorta. It really is a game-changing accomplishment.)
Worth mentioning is that the smarter liberal arts types aren't like this at all. For instance, smart English majors can point out the structures of literature that make it all tick, or exactly how a sentence can be better phrased. Smart history majors can provide all the major sources for a historical event, explain what biases each source had and how that affected their description of the event, piece together what probably actually happened, and are probably some of the best BS detectors out there.
Of course, a smart person with a technical degree (math, science, engineering) can reduce literary structures and historic events to numbers and explain such things, mathematically. :)
Seriously, though. My observation has been that the smart ones of any field are pretty good at "faking" cross discipline competence. That is, they're still as good in other fields as the mediocre types who specialize in said field. You know, the CS student who reads a lot of literature, or the English major who reads climate studies (not the abstracts, the studies). Generally, I think these people are probably just well-balanced individuals.
Of course, the mediocre people in the fields who aren't flipping mad are likely also cross-disciplined, just not to such great extents.
Hitler was a a homeless painter who had more natural ability in architecture... He was also up on his philosophy, so he might be better described as a liberal arts type who (illogically) followed his dreams instead of ability.
Mussolini was a journalist.
Stalin was a, for lacking a better term, marxist revolutionary. He was an anti-religious college dropout.
Lenin was a terrorist (technically, at the time) and kicked out of law school, but ultimately became a lawyer.
You are correct in that these douchbags weren't engineers; they were all most certainly megalomaniacs.
(And you group Bush with these fiends? That's either your ignorance or dogma speaking, because no logical assessment could reach this conclusion.)
It's also a lack of understanding of what "terrorism" is. Namely, international war, genocide of one's own people, and establishment/enforcement of a totalitarian regime are not terrorism. (They might be the culminative result of terrorism - see: most Muslim countries - but they are not, themselves, terrorism.)
The same could be said for the adherents of Karl Marx. The only popular dogma in the West I am aware of which doesn't do this is - ironically - protestant Christianity (not including Mormonism). The only pecking order they put themselves at the top of is the one that happens after death, and here on earth, not so much.
Except, most high-visibility terrorists come from rich upbringings, and good education paid for by their parents. Basically, they're the Islamic world's version of the spoiled hippie terrorist from the 1970s and 1980s. They've been given it all but fight against it - and their emotionally distant parents - in what way their culture has taught them.
The fact that they were "engineers" is not surprising. Look throughout history at the people who may have gotten engineering degrees, if such things had existed then:
* Thomas Jefferson (who was something like a surveyor's assistant, and a botanist of sorts)
* Michelangelo (who was a tinkerer and inventor, making new things)
* Edison (of the lightbulb)
* Ford (of the automobile, was known as a self-taught watch repairman as a youth, and once even held the title 'engineer')
Problem is, in today's society, an "engineer" is a really wide definition. If you're getting a useful 4-year technical degree, it's an engineering degree or a technology degree. Getting a "civil engineering" or "mechanical engineering" degree would be the most likely means to gainful employment, regardless of where you live.
And in reality, many men are well suited for the role of "engineer". They're tinkerers, problem solvers, and fixers. If a man is generally competent, he's more likely to make a decent engineer - and by association, is more likely to go into that field. ...
As for the implications of the article, I am keenly aware of the disturbing social implications resulting from widespread dispersal of this "study". I can easily see security theater like the TSA moving to profile against, say, "religious technical people", making sure to adjust their procedure to not "unjustly discriminate against Islamic engineers with one-way tickets and no luggage.
The only thing this study really tells me is that men who are of a regimented mindset and/or an engineering background are more likely to become successful terrorists when coming from an Islamic culture. To read anything more into that is foolish, but we should at least heed that correlation.
Besides, what is the "green" cost of a car accident where oil, gas, battery acid, etc. may be spilled, as well as emergency vehicles cranking up and running to the scene, etc?
That's a bit naive. Nobody who doesn't have cash to burn, especially government, switches to something "green" because it's green. They switch because it's cheaper. Usually, in a government situation, they look at lifetime cost: cost up-front amortized over years of service, plus maintenance. That's why they're using LED lamps.
Likewise, it's also why cities will often not plow streets during the winter: they ran out of money. And if you crash because you're overdriving conditions, or your vehicle gets stuck, it's your problem, not their's. It's also your cost, not their's, which is why it doesn't matter - to them.
Just the same, it's still a 30lb belt. You've got to walk, stand, and sit differently - whether it's your hips, arms, or legs. I don't care how well-balanced it is, it's going to impact things when worn day-in and day-out for years.
You're an idiot. Did you not see me laud WinMo?
Those screenshots were the first I found. I don't own a Mac (in fact, I hate the UI). But XP has nothing on OS X in terms of UI. (Maybe 10.0 vs. XP. I'd call that a tie.)
I suppose the Xbox 360 might define tech in the 2000-2010 range moreso than a Wii does if you're in the 15-25 and childless demographic. But if you're over 25 and/or have kids (especially if you have kids), a Wii is much more significant.
Also, why would I want to play games online with a dumb controller (in more ways than one) when I can play with a buddy who is sitting right next to me drinking a couple beers - AND I can hit him when he beats me? This is my preference; you're free to your own.
The Xbox 360 brought network gameplay to couch potatoes. This I will grant you. The Wii, however, is a revolution of its own akin to what the original NES did, but to a larger degree: it's got an actual innovation of tactile input, making gaming possible in ways it was not possible before. After the Wii, everything had to have its own gyroscope.
The 360 has the games and the young-somethings crowd, as well as the "breaks often and needs to be replaced" feature, but it's nothing game-changing. (And the games are fun, you are right - even though I've no idea what RRoD is.) That's what this list is about - game changing gadgets/products of the last decade.
Honestly, the only reason I think XP (changed nothing, just 2k with more candy on the turd) and the Xbox 360 were put on the list so these TechRepublic yuppies didn't come across as such massive Apple fanboys.
From the article:
If you had found me right after I'd installed OS X Public Beta for the first time in 2001 and told me how dramatically the OS would change over the next decade, I'm not sure I would have believed you. There was a gigantic difference in feel between installing Windows XP and OS X Public Beta -- with XP you got that fun sense of having a whole new computer, fast and ready to take on whatever you could throw at it, while with OS X you just sort of stared at the huge icons and wondered, "Now what?" It was clear Apple had a lot of work left to do -- although by 10.3 or so I'd deleted my Classic partition and wasn't looking back. But hold up: OS X 10.3 looks and feels dated by today's standards, while XP looks and feels like... XP. Where Apple did an fantastic job of relentlessly improving and iterating OS X over the past decade, Microsoft set the bar so high coming out of the gate that the biggest threat to Windows 7 is the installed base of XP users who are still happy with their machines. That's pretty amazing. - Nilay Patel
This guy/gal needs to have their head examined. Even talking about the mere aesthetic nature of XP vs. OS X 10.3 (Panther), I can't see where he's coming from in the least:
OS X 10.3 Panther image vs. Windows XP. I'm sorry, but I fail to see how XP looks anything but "dated", the hideous colors/theming aside. 10.3 looks, even now, clean and fresh compared to XP. (Technologically, XP is way behind 10.3 in many ways.)
All I can read there is rabid fanboyism. Sorry, but "staying the same" for the better part of a decade, when you're the computer giant's flagship product, is not a benefit in any stretch of the imagination.
As for their list... not sure why/how the Xbox made the list instead of the Wii. There's nothing special about the Xbox 360, whereas the Wii is a "game changer". Hell, and even Windows Mobile devices (which, aside from the slick Marketing functionality and App store, has been largely comparable for many, many years) should top the list over the Treo.
I've never done IT in an "IT shop", whatever that means, exactly. But my experience is 1) in a larger national medical service provider, and 2) a small regional/rural hospital.
1) The national provider had approximately 250 Linux "cache" servers located remotely, about 3,000 XP workstations (with many more than 3,000 users), and approximately 25 national campus servers. The support was tiered; I was on 3rd tier with 2 others, with approximately 15 people on 1st tier and 5 on 2nd tier. I spent about half my day on support calls or fixing workstation/server problems (I was the lowest-level 3rd tier) and the rest were spent doing equipment deployments and requisitioning. In addition, there were 2 guys doing network/host security, someone who did all the Windowsy admin work, two network (Cisco) guys, a user requisition gal, and two database guys. (There were also about 8 or so guys doing the development for internal software packages.)
2) I was, essentially, the sole supporter of workstations and servers (there were two other functional staff, one doing biomed stuff and printers, the other doing support for the large monolithic terminal app everyone used.) There were 250 workstations and about a dozen servers. The servers were not maintained well in any sense of the imagination - they were spread out throughout the facility, and were a real headache. The workstations were mostly OEM XP installs with crapware installed, et cetera. Realistically, there should have been another person in my role (minimum), and we should have worked towards a better arrangement than what we had, as there simply was not enough time for me to do it on my own after triage.
So, basically: it depends. I'd say the reasonable number of support people decreases as the organization grows beyond a certain point; likewise, the number of justifiable support people increases as the organization grows from 1 up until a certain point.
A well-run shop is not going to need as many people as a poorly run shop. But, the size of the shop often dictates whether there are enough competent people to make it run smoothly, so it's a bit of a catch-22.
Case in point... I did support on a small Mac based network for a while. It was just me, and 9 users with some fairly specific needs. They were just at the point where they actually needed someone at all, but it was enough to be a FT role. After a couple months, i'd gotten rid of most of their issues and managed to get things running smoothly and trouble-free. My reward was the closing of my position.
If this phone follows the pattern of most "new" type tech items released in the last couple years, that $530 will turn into $670, and the $180 will turn into $295 - or something like that.
I swear, I'm getting sick of this false advertising. Everyone's doing it, and it's gotten to the point of being predictable: see something "coming soon for around x" and you can typically tack on $100 or 20%, whichever is greater, and be closer to the actual price than the one they provided.
Google can do a lot to bring people to their side of the fence by being honest about this kind of thing. Here's not holding my breath.
Even still, $180 (if they hit it) is a lot, considering you can get a Touch Pro 2 for, essentially, no more than shipping via special deals on T-mobile.
What you call an 'authoritative swagger', I (and most cops, I'm sure) call "damn my back and feet are killing me from carrying this 30lb gear belt". Wear one long enough, spend enough time standing or walking on hard even surfaces (ie not hiking up or down a mountain), and you, too, can have an 'authoritative' swagger!
Yep. Just like trains in the Old West: no gang was foolish enough to rob a train with Marshalls on it unless they:
a) somehow killed/injured/confined the Marshalls
b) crashed the train remotely/from the exterior
c) attacked the train outright, with vastly superior numbers, after it was stopped.
No, I didn't look at a history book to write that, but it's in the movies. Older movies are a good measuring rod for what's plausible. The only way someone might take a train - even 12 people - with knives is if the train were full of women and children. They'd be fucked if they attacked (with knives) a train of men. And even if they used guns, they'd need multiple gunmen to deal with a train full of mixed company.
Arming people is important, but it's a useless gesture if the mindset of the people is that of sheep. And yes, I think that still applies to a large degree - even now after 9/11, on airplanes.
Yet, Hasan and the Ft. Hood attack - which is much, much more significant in terms of body count, potential damage, etc. - is being completely overlooked as potential societal/security changes are concerned. There have been no policy changes. Troops are still not allowed weapons on base. There have been no (justifiable) increases in profiling (not stereotyping, but profiling). Nothing.
I'll stop being critical of the TSA's security masterpiece theater when there are actual efforts taken to prevent things which are actually plausible. I'm talking about: stop issuing a disproportionate number of vistas to Islamic countries; allow citizens to defend themselves
On a network, gateway security isn't enough. You need endpoint security or you're fucked. It's the same with physical security: if all they've got to do is get through the gate, they'll get through. In both cases, the threat might still get through, but if there's a better security mindset, your chances of surviving unscathed improve. I'd think Bruce, a so-called security professional, would realize that.
Would you? Welcome to the watch list, Mr. play_in_traffic. You are obviously an person of interest, on account of your unwillingness to play by the same rules everyone else must in order to Keep People Safe.
Apparently Bruce isn't paying attention. That's to be expected, as physical security of the guys-with-guns type really isn't his domain, but... uh, there have been quite a few terrorist attacks against Western countries alone (not even counting the almost-daily attacks in places like India which are closer to the front).
A cursory search will tell you that there have been quite a few - over a dozen "major" attacks (ie, of the type where security personnel from every level of gov't are involved, resulting in societal changes) have occurred since 9/11/2001. Furthermore, there have been 10s of thousands in the West; I've heard numbers as high as 100,000 passed about.
Shit, there've been 2 'significant' terrorist attacks this year alone. (Ironic, though, that when it's embarrassing, it gets swept under the carpet by the gov't - Ft. Hood - but when there's a chance to increase state power and impose new restrictions on the populace - crotchbomber - it's a fucking circus.)
So yeah, terrorism is not uncommon. It's something we've simply conditioned ourselves as a society to ignore or overlook.
To me, this just smacks of general disdain for "computer people". It's a subtle insult and an effort at class differentiation.
Do your building maintenance or janitorial workers have to wear such things?
The only way I'd say this is even remotely acceptable is if:
a) you work in a hospital environment where many of the other workers are wearing smocks or similar over their clothes.
b) the shirts are partially subsidized by the company and/or inexpensive
c) There is an actual reason for the uniforms aside from some managerial BS. IE, you do a lot of crawling around on the ground and get dirty throughout the day, and having a clean shirt bin to clean into to keep you presentable is necessary.
As a whole, it's a stupid idea. It decreases morale, especially in a decidedly 'independent' field like IT (even if it's just helpdesk).
Now, if the uniforms are being pushed down your throats because your 'independently minded' help desk has a repeated reputation for not dressing to 'business casual' (as i'm sure is the case with many IT types), that's another story. But then, that's also the issue which needs to be addressed - not making another, special-case rule for a certain segment of people.
That's why it's important to publicly humiliate him by his own beliefs, as well - to show him as a fraud and/or hypocrite. Child porn? Drinking problems? Sodomy? Pick something.
So it's moving east from north. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not a useful trajectory as its considered he point from which our basis of geographic location is based - the north pole. So where is it heading?
And, importantly to me and mine, where will that put the north pole in 40, 50 years at the current rate of acceleration? Could this sort of be like the 'wobble' of a top before it falls (meaning we're due for a sudden shift, soon)?
40 miles per year is incredibly fast, especially since it's apparently speeding up. I've read that significant pole shifts have occurred in the past (in 50k year increments, IIRC), and that currently, we're some time overdue for the next.
I've also read postulations that glaciers were not caused by 'ice ages' per se, so much as they were the remains of the north pole ice cap after a shift. I can't find the link right now to the information I found truly interesting (correlation of past poles with existing glaciers) but there's a fair amount of info out there about it. (Some people are correlating it with 2012/doomsday, so be forewarned.)
It's a particularly interesting topic if you look at the archaeological records of our past; specifically, the polar relation/geographic locations of Egyptian, Mayan, and other ancient peoples' religious/whatever sites. They seem to predict a pole shift, or at least make subtle suggestion to one occurring in the past.
A half a day's drive? How many hours is that? At what speed? Winding roads?
I've driven (in the US, in the least populated part of the country) on relatively "back roads" (ie not interstates) for 4+ hours and still gotten 3G signal.
Also, you have to realize that there is a lot more low-density population land out here than there is anywhere in Europe - both as a percentage wrt population as well as overall area.
Yet I've been 20 miles from the nearest town (ie somewhere with a gas station, population > 15 or so), which would put me maybe 50 miles from the nearest population center (10k+ population), and I've seen phones here in the US still get EDGE.
It really depends. Considering the swaths of unpopulated land here in teh US, it's amazing that there's signal in many places at all, nevermind good signal.
Replying to myself but yeah...
Idiot MCSEs with Linux on their resume would then also jump up the ranks of "employable", likely jumping ahead of competent people who are skilled at both Windows and Linux admins, but don't have four-letter acrostics after their name - that's a wonderful idea.
As for the underlying stuff, it would allow people already familiar with Windows (MCSEs mostly) to make an easier transition.
Yeah, that's exactly what we need. MCSEs who aren't yet (this is 2009, soon to be 2010!) familiar with Linux trying it out and flooding forums, IRC channels, and God knows where else with requests for help getting WoW installed.