Did these 8 significant figure answers actually include the requisite steps to get to these numbers, or was it just an answer? If the previous steps were present and correct, then they probably understand the concepts and just forgot about sig figs. If not, then yeah it was just calculator skill.
Yes, they had steps as the class was an undergraduate engineering class the 8 digit sig figs bothered me because as engineers they should know not to specify a precision that is not there; that was the beauty of the slide rule besides its ability to function as a birth control device when you wore it on your belt.
There is always a difference between knowing how to use a tool and knowing how a tool works (and creating your own tool is still another level). To get a nail in a wall with an hammer, you don't need to know about energy, inertia, impulse and force. And you don't need to know how to forge an hammer head. All you need to know is how to grip an hammer and how to hit the nail.
To use your nail example, if I want to find out if you know how to properly drive nails but let you use a power nailer on the test l do not know if you can actually drive a nail. So when you have to use a hammer in a situation where the nail gun isn't useable I have no idea if you can do that, despite testing your ability to drive nails.
I will never dismiss the ability to use a tool with the argument that someone doesn't know how it actually works.
Nor would I, nor would I confuse the ability to use a tool to solve a problem with understanding how the problem is solved and thus have the ability to solve the problem without the tool. This is especially true in situations where the tool automates the process and all the user does it punch in some numbers.
In the case of a multiple choice test, I would ensure each wrong answer corresponded to an answer calculated by plugging in the given values in the wrong parts of the equation. That way, at least someone who understands the concept might recognize an answer that makes no sense and check their work while a plug and play type would simply circle the wrong answer.
The ability to use a calculator to get an answer to a math problem is math knowledge. It might not be the math knowledge necessery to get an answer if you don't have a calculator. But it is math knowledge nevertheless.
Good point; it does represent knowledge of a specific type. However, there is a difference between know knowing to use a calculator and understanding the concept behind it? For example, you could know if you want to calculate the NPV of an investment by plugging in the rate, # of periods and amount and get the right answer, but do you understand what NPV represents and how to use it in a practical application? I would submit a test that merely demonstrates calculator knowledge is not a god indicator of the ability to apply the underlying concepts in a useful matter. An adjunct to that is if the answers are in ascending order plugging in the mid value and seeing how close it is can let you deduce the real answer without even understanding the question; a skill that can be useful but not what the test purports to measure. One strategy for doing well on the math part of the old GMAT was just that.
If you are a student, or (more precisely, because we pay for these devices) a parent of a student in the school system, this story has some relevance, because it's about what the bureaucracy requires whether you like it or not. This is good news for those people.
.
While I agree with you this is good from a financial perspective I wonder what data on students the calculator company gets? TINSTAAFL, and I would not be surprised if tehy "discounted" their prices in exchange for user data.
A broader question is does the test actually test math knowledge or the ability to use a calculator to get an answer? I graded papers at one point and would get 8 significant digit answers from 3 digit data and wondered if the students actually understood the concepts behind the problem or were simply relying on the calculator for an answer by plugging in numbers to a given function on the calculator. then again, I use an HP for RPN so my opinion is suspect.
BTC transactions are utterly and completely traceable, that's kind of the point. They are anonymous, though. So what these criminals will do is pay some poor sap to set up a BTC wallet, send the bitcoins to him, let him convert them to currency on his bank account, after which the criminals will simply withdraw the money from an ATM using his card. As long as you have no relationship to the middleman and if he keeps his mouth shut (or better yet: has no clue as to who you are), you're safe. Criminals use this method all the time.
One challenge may be the volume of cash being transferred. For small amounts over time a few accounts might suffice; but for tens of thousands of dollars over a short period limits on ATM withdrawals limit access to cash and either require more time or a lot of accounts; either of which increases the chances of getting caught or in the former of the funds being cutoff before you can get the bulk of them. Alternatively you could leave them as Bitcoin and dole them out over time; but I can see where at some point Bitcoin exchanges will be required to identify parties to transactions and the anonymity of Bitcoin will go away.
Until you factor in trying to hide from the FBI/Interpol for the rest of your life. Are you sure those transactions are completely untraceable? Yeah, sure, keep telling your self that. Sleep well...
Not only that, but they've pissed off a number of countries as well; some of whom may not worry as much about some of the niceties of the law.
In addition, the use of Bitcoin as payment will no doubt result in increased pressure on exchanges to make both parties of a transaction identifiable so that the recipients of ransom payments can be identified and apprehended and payments stopped; so even if they are mules the source of cash is cutoff. At some point exchanges depend on the banking system to convert Bitcoin into other currencies so that is one of the pressure points available to governments to exert control over exchanges.
2/3 of the people don't know what net neutrality is. How can you say 60% are in favor.
The short answer is because that is what the numbers showed; however your comment rightly points out a problem with surveys when it comes to making claims based o answers. The first problem is people may have no idea what you are talking about which leads to the second problem is that how you ask the question can bias a person's answer to what you want. In addition, what questions are asked and what order can also lead people to the "desired" results. Most sponsored surveys are designed to get a desired outcome to promote a cause; not get a true picture of what a group of people want or believe.
"oogle will probably pull out of the "infected" countrys." yeah fat chance that google pull out of a first world market like the EU , or Germany. That argument is put forth again and again, but it makes no sense whatsoever. That would be roughly equivalent of google pulling out of the US market because the feds added a small fee.
The question is "Who will feel more pain and thus give in first?" Google would not have to pull out from Germany, but simply not return snippets from German periodicals; which would result in less traffic to them and lower ad revenues, readership, etc. What is illustrative of the situation is when Google introduced opt-in as a result of the law one publisher who opted out changed their mind when their numbers took a dive. As for Google, other Google searches would still work so Google would still be a presence in Germany; thus I think the publishers have more to lose than Google..
Yup. Eternal September was the beginning of the tidal wave that changed the net forever. Usenet is no longer what it once was, and the net is a little bit lesser since the days of Kibo, Ludwig Plutomium, alt.folklore.urban, Seder Argic, Ted Frank, Joel Furr and the Green Card Spamming t shirts, et. al. I sold stuff to folks all over the globe on a simple promise to pay when they got it and never got screwed. Time and change...
Many games that were fun to play but are no longer available live on because of emulators. Dodging missiles and avoiding getting eaten in Space Invaders, spinning the controller like mad to shoot tube climbers in Tempest or dodging and fighting robots while saving humans in Robotron all were part of teh early gaming experience and cost many millions of quarters to be put into arcade slots. While popular ones get redone and reissued, many others would simply disappear which is a shame from ahistorical sense of how gaming has changed and showing that games can be quite fun and engaging even with simple 8 bit graphics. Games like Moon Cresta, Pipe Dream, Zaxxon, Gauntlet, Tank, Battlezone, and a host of others are as playable and enjoyable today as they were when they were in the arcades. Perhaps game companies will realize the importance of early gaming to the history of gaming and put some effort into making emulators work with them so they can be enjoyed and studied even as VR and other technologies bring new experiences to gaming.
I don't think it matters what he does, the opposite side will always disagree with what he does and find holes to poke in it. It's like when the Election was over and Ford announced they were keeping a plant here because of what Trump had hinted at as trade policies. The opposition either ignored it and said it wasn't because of Trump even when Ford's CEO said exactly that in a news conference, they claimed it was always going to stay, or they claimed it wasn't that big a deal and that it wasn't that many jobs. Further to that point if anyone tries to give him credit for anything, the "but but but" police come out with a thousand excuses til sunday as to why he had nothing to do with it or suggest that the thing they are giving him credit for is terrible. Even worse was if you disagreed with the previous administration it wouldn't take long before someone claimed you were racist for having an opinion other than the president. That's why it's so funny to here democrats claim they are so interested in the freedom of speech and open dialog. They are about as open as a bank vault at midnight.
CNN pretty much said Ford did it as a vote of confidence in Trump's pro business stance and Ford said that the decision was not part of any deal with Trump: http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/0...
It's not that easy to just drop a career and go learn a trade. You will likely have to start working more hours and make less per hour to start. That kind of adjustment is not easy on a family. It's better than starving I guess but not much. Also, if I must go learn a trade I would still want to know what my government is doing to help me achieve the same quality of living by doing so. Otherwise you are still getting screwed over.
Here's the conundrum: The same people who are against big government and Washington deciding things for them want Washington to step in and get them jobs. Of course, that's true all across teh political spectrum, people don't want the government to do things they don't like or need but to step in when they need something.
CNN? Yeah, that's a real creditable source for all things Trump. How is that Donna Brazille working out for them??
Those are numbers from the Trump administration. It would be great if Trump could deliver on his promise of bringing back jobs but they aren't coming back. he's promised a lot of people good jobs if he's elected but the type of jobs people are expecting aren't the jobs of the future. Coal demand is down and declining, factories are automating and cross border supply lines are common. He can attack the numbers as fake news but that doesn't change reality; I'd love to see him succeed in that promise but I would not bet on it. So how's O'Reilly doing at Fox?
The answers (the honest ones anyway) are going to be kind of boring too.
You brought up a number of valid points.
I'd add:
1. I can run Windows in a VM if I want for that rare occasion I need to run a Windows program or want to check to see how a file looks in the Windows version of a program.
2. There's generally an Apple store near where I am, even traveling, so if I have a problem I can get it fixed quickly or if I need something like a power supply because I lost one I can get one right away.
As for longevity, I have an early Mac Mini running as a video server and it's been up 24x7 for a few years so far. In the end it comes down to what works best for the individual. I've used Macs for nearly 20 years and they have always met my needs. YMMV.
A MacBook doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to work, I get 30 days of standby/suspend/sleep time on battery, and MacBook Pros and Airs already are i5 or i7. They say it's faster, but only because of cloud computing: the destroyer of open source. Also, good luck getting any work done without the internet and enjoy having no control over your software and Window$ spyware. There's also no way you'll be able to install Linux on it either. If I have $999 to blow on a laptop, I'll get a System76 or a Thinkpad off of Amazon. Hell, I might just buy a bunch of Raspberry Pi's and put them together.
It looks like MS is playing the "you can centrally manage the machines and only approved MS Store software can be installed so you don't have any security issues..." to school districts. They would presumably always have wireless access so using cloud based programs is not an issue. tI would guess MS will offer substantial "discounts" for volume buys. As for Alcantara, it'll be interesting to see how that stands up over time in a school environment. I'd also love to see teh data backing up the faster than Macs claim. After all, my $4 calculator is faster than the new Surface (if all I am doing is adding 2 numbers).
And your racism leaks through. Limit on one company makes sense but limit on one country?
I said that because otherwise the company will simply create wholly owned entities to skirt the requirements. I see that in cases where a company grows to big to be considered a small business and simply creates a new sub to qualify for set asides; the limit would apply to all nations and not target any one and thus prevent companies from gaming the system, but thanks for playing the racism card.
I'm an American working for an Indian company - one of Infosys' competitors.
You really can't blame the Indian companies as it's the onshore CIO who's outsourcing this stuff and the executive team who makes the decision to outsource to offshore. I've said it a buncha times - all we did was respond to an RFP.
It's not Infosys' fault - since the standard of living is lower in India than it is here salaries are also lower. If you don't want Infosys, Wipro, Accenture and the like running your IT perhaps it's the American companies that need to consider hiring American.
The other thing is that if offshore resources arrive here on an H1B visa they're free to seek other employment. IME onshore salaries are generally competitive or you lose people.
Great point. They could also actually create an in house IT org staffed with people who actual have a stake in the company's future. Anecdotally, I was talking to someone who was involved in an offshoring "train your replacement" effort. They trained the replacements on the exact procedures, which would work in 10% of the cases. They figured the offshore staff could learn on their own how to handle the other 90% once they were gone and let the company deal with the fallout. They were in compliance with the severance agreement to train them on the system and ensured they understood exactly how to operate it per the written procedures, which would work if there were no glitches in the data. It wasn't their fault if they routinely got bad data they could recognize it based on experience and besides, what good is it to tell them to call Sue and get her to fix it if she is gone as well? Another was called after being laid off to see if he'd come back to help fix the mess they were in when the new staff couldn't even do basic stuff, even though they had actually been trained in how to do it. Turns out customer relations and experience is more valuable than cheaper labor.
It's like Trump saying that he will actually donate money he raised for veterans, to veterans. Did not happen until somebody found out that he was not doing it and shamed him into following through.
These "commitments" from Infosys are about the same quality. If there is no law behind it, and they can bribe Trump by buying a condo in his tower at high price, then the matter is settled.
Some of you are under the illusion that Trump is working for you. When it is clear that he is working for himself and couldn't give two hoots about you.
Or simply lay them off once the spotlight is no longer on them. Now, if the H1B laws were changed to limit the number any one company of nation can have then we might see some substantive sustainable changes.
That's the weird thing about the Trumpster. He's a big talker and most of the things that he says are BS, but he's probably made more progress with getting companies to bring US jobs back to this country than the Obama administration did in the last 4 years.
That doesn't mean that I like him or his policies, but I have to give credit where it's due.
Except the jobs are still leaving, based on Trade Adjustment numbers some 10,000 will have left in his first 100 days. While there have been a few headline grabbing saves to which I'll give him credit, he's trying to stop the tide from going out by yelling at it and threatening to pee in it if it doesn't stop. Here's a link from CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/2...
Without those emails who gets blamed? Recently, I had someone tell me they didn't ask for what I did, what saved me? A months old email from them telling me to do exactly what I did. In another case, a judge sent a demand for a bunch of 3 year old emails(old sysadmin, old mail server), and we could not provide them the lawsuit with the customer did not go well after that.
And then there are government retention laws, For example, we are required to keep call records for some countries for 10 years and we have had demands for 7 year old information in the past.
Not to mention it's sometimes just nice to go back and see how you did something a couple of years ago when a similar project happens again
While you raise valid points, the documents I was referring to involved specific inspections for clients. The final report contained all the information needed and thus we destroyed all the working papers, inspectors notes etc. so that they couldn't be used in court and misinterpreted or otherwise used to paint a false picture of what we saw. For example, I might write in my notes while observing operations "The operator did not (do some critical step)..." only to discover in the reconstruction later that it was in fact done so it was not an issue, but a lawyer could pull my note out of context to make it seem the operators were not properly trained.
As for retention, while it may differ in our case our lawyers said as long as we had a written policy and enforced it we were OK. It's when it is done on an ad-hoc basis that problems arise.
We kept all the routine stuff it was just the inspection stuff that was carefully handled to ensure we followed our policy. That way we could reconstruct internal work and at the same time protected our clients.
This happened to a client, they received a truckload of documents. We paid an outsourcing company a couple grand to scan them into an OCR program and used text search to find the proverbial nails for their coffin. With the newest bad-ass document solutions from big printer manufacturers. This isn't really that much of an issue anymore. Just drop a thousand sheets into the loader and press the button. A few days with a few temps, and you have your digital versions.
I never understood why companies save everything; especially emails, working papers, etc. I worked for a company that had a strong document retention policy. We destroyed everything but our final inspection report once the final report was approved. Notes, electronic media, drafts, etc. were collected and shredded and HD were securely erased as well. Email was not used to discuss our inspections. This way, the only material available was our final report so nothing could be taken out of context in a suit against a client. The only exception was if a client notified us before a final report that a suit was probable. At that point all the material was turned over to our attorneys who fought against disclosure.
Slashdot Mirror
Did these 8 significant figure answers actually include the requisite steps to get to these numbers, or was it just an answer? If the previous steps were present and correct, then they probably understand the concepts and just forgot about sig figs. If not, then yeah it was just calculator skill.
Yes, they had steps as the class was an undergraduate engineering class the 8 digit sig figs bothered me because as engineers they should know not to specify a precision that is not there; that was the beauty of the slide rule besides its ability to function as a birth control device when you wore it on your belt.
There is always a difference between knowing how to use a tool and knowing how a tool works (and creating your own tool is still another level). To get a nail in a wall with an hammer, you don't need to know about energy, inertia, impulse and force. And you don't need to know how to forge an hammer head. All you need to know is how to grip an hammer and how to hit the nail.
To use your nail example, if I want to find out if you know how to properly drive nails but let you use a power nailer on the test l do not know if you can actually drive a nail. So when you have to use a hammer in a situation where the nail gun isn't useable I have no idea if you can do that, despite testing your ability to drive nails.
I will never dismiss the ability to use a tool with the argument that someone doesn't know how it actually works.
Nor would I, nor would I confuse the ability to use a tool to solve a problem with understanding how the problem is solved and thus have the ability to solve the problem without the tool. This is especially true in situations where the tool automates the process and all the user does it punch in some numbers.
In the case of a multiple choice test, I would ensure each wrong answer corresponded to an answer calculated by plugging in the given values in the wrong parts of the equation. That way, at least someone who understands the concept might recognize an answer that makes no sense and check their work while a plug and play type would simply circle the wrong answer.
The ability to use a calculator to get an answer to a math problem is math knowledge. It might not be the math knowledge necessery to get an answer if you don't have a calculator. But it is math knowledge nevertheless.
Good point; it does represent knowledge of a specific type. However, there is a difference between know knowing to use a calculator and understanding the concept behind it? For example, you could know if you want to calculate the NPV of an investment by plugging in the rate, # of periods and amount and get the right answer, but do you understand what NPV represents and how to use it in a practical application? I would submit a test that merely demonstrates calculator knowledge is not a god indicator of the ability to apply the underlying concepts in a useful matter. An adjunct to that is if the answers are in ascending order plugging in the mid value and seeing how close it is can let you deduce the real answer without even understanding the question; a skill that can be useful but not what the test purports to measure. One strategy for doing well on the math part of the old GMAT was just that.
If you are a student, or (more precisely, because we pay for these devices) a parent of a student in the school system, this story has some relevance, because it's about what the bureaucracy requires whether you like it or not. This is good news for those people.
.
While I agree with you this is good from a financial perspective I wonder what data on students the calculator company gets? TINSTAAFL, and I would not be surprised if tehy "discounted" their prices in exchange for user data.
A broader question is does the test actually test math knowledge or the ability to use a calculator to get an answer? I graded papers at one point and would get 8 significant digit answers from 3 digit data and wondered if the students actually understood the concepts behind the problem or were simply relying on the calculator for an answer by plugging in numbers to a given function on the calculator. then again, I use an HP for RPN so my opinion is suspect.
BTC transactions are utterly and completely traceable, that's kind of the point. They are anonymous, though. So what these criminals will do is pay some poor sap to set up a BTC wallet, send the bitcoins to him, let him convert them to currency on his bank account, after which the criminals will simply withdraw the money from an ATM using his card. As long as you have no relationship to the middleman and if he keeps his mouth shut (or better yet: has no clue as to who you are), you're safe. Criminals use this method all the time.
One challenge may be the volume of cash being transferred. For small amounts over time a few accounts might suffice; but for tens of thousands of dollars over a short period limits on ATM withdrawals limit access to cash and either require more time or a lot of accounts; either of which increases the chances of getting caught or in the former of the funds being cutoff before you can get the bulk of them. Alternatively you could leave them as Bitcoin and dole them out over time; but I can see where at some point Bitcoin exchanges will be required to identify parties to transactions and the anonymity of Bitcoin will go away.
Until you factor in trying to hide from the FBI/Interpol for the rest of your life. Are you sure those transactions are completely untraceable? Yeah, sure, keep telling your self that. Sleep well...
Not only that, but they've pissed off a number of countries as well; some of whom may not worry as much about some of the niceties of the law.
In addition, the use of Bitcoin as payment will no doubt result in increased pressure on exchanges to make both parties of a transaction identifiable so that the recipients of ransom payments can be identified and apprehended and payments stopped; so even if they are mules the source of cash is cutoff. At some point exchanges depend on the banking system to convert Bitcoin into other currencies so that is one of the pressure points available to governments to exert control over exchanges.
2/3 of the people don't know what net neutrality is. How can you say 60% are in favor.
The short answer is because that is what the numbers showed; however your comment rightly points out a problem with surveys when it comes to making claims based o answers. The first problem is people may have no idea what you are talking about which leads to the second problem is that how you ask the question can bias a person's answer to what you want. In addition, what questions are asked and what order can also lead people to the "desired" results. Most sponsored surveys are designed to get a desired outcome to promote a cause; not get a true picture of what a group of people want or believe.
"oogle will probably pull out of the "infected" countrys." yeah fat chance that google pull out of a first world market like the EU , or Germany. That argument is put forth again and again, but it makes no sense whatsoever. That would be roughly equivalent of google pulling out of the US market because the feds added a small fee.
The question is "Who will feel more pain and thus give in first?" Google would not have to pull out from Germany, but simply not return snippets from German periodicals; which would result in less traffic to them and lower ad revenues, readership, etc. What is illustrative of the situation is when Google introduced opt-in as a result of the law one publisher who opted out changed their mind when their numbers took a dive. As for Google, other Google searches would still work so Google would still be a presence in Germany; thus I think the publishers have more to lose than Google..
It looks like it is in some sort of time warp
Yup. Eternal September was the beginning of the tidal wave that changed the net forever. Usenet is no longer what it once was, and the net is a little bit lesser since the days of Kibo, Ludwig Plutomium, alt.folklore.urban, Seder Argic, Ted Frank, Joel Furr and the Green Card Spamming t shirts, et. al. I sold stuff to folks all over the globe on a simple promise to pay when they got it and never got screwed. Time and change ...
Many games that were fun to play but are no longer available live on because of emulators. Dodging missiles and avoiding getting eaten in Space Invaders, spinning the controller like mad to shoot tube climbers in Tempest or dodging and fighting robots while saving humans in Robotron all were part of teh early gaming experience and cost many millions of quarters to be put into arcade slots. While popular ones get redone and reissued, many others would simply disappear which is a shame from ahistorical sense of how gaming has changed and showing that games can be quite fun and engaging even with simple 8 bit graphics. Games like Moon Cresta, Pipe Dream, Zaxxon, Gauntlet, Tank, Battlezone, and a host of others are as playable and enjoyable today as they were when they were in the arcades. Perhaps game companies will realize the importance of early gaming to the history of gaming and put some effort into making emulators work with them so they can be enjoyed and studied even as VR and other technologies bring new experiences to gaming.
I don't think it matters what he does, the opposite side will always disagree with what he does and find holes to poke in it. It's like when the Election was over and Ford announced they were keeping a plant here because of what Trump had hinted at as trade policies. The opposition either ignored it and said it wasn't because of Trump even when Ford's CEO said exactly that in a news conference, they claimed it was always going to stay, or they claimed it wasn't that big a deal and that it wasn't that many jobs. Further to that point if anyone tries to give him credit for anything, the "but but but" police come out with a thousand excuses til sunday as to why he had nothing to do with it or suggest that the thing they are giving him credit for is terrible. Even worse was if you disagreed with the previous administration it wouldn't take long before someone claimed you were racist for having an opinion other than the president. That's why it's so funny to here democrats claim they are so interested in the freedom of speech and open dialog. They are about as open as a bank vault at midnight.
CNN pretty much said Ford did it as a vote of confidence in Trump's pro business stance and Ford said that the decision was not part of any deal with Trump: http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/0...
It's not that easy to just drop a career and go learn a trade. You will likely have to start working more hours and make less per hour to start. That kind of adjustment is not easy on a family. It's better than starving I guess but not much. Also, if I must go learn a trade I would still want to know what my government is doing to help me achieve the same quality of living by doing so. Otherwise you are still getting screwed over.
Here's the conundrum: The same people who are against big government and Washington deciding things for them want Washington to step in and get them jobs. Of course, that's true all across teh political spectrum, people don't want the government to do things they don't like or need but to step in when they need something.
CNN? Yeah, that's a real creditable source for all things Trump. How is that Donna Brazille working out for them??
Those are numbers from the Trump administration. It would be great if Trump could deliver on his promise of bringing back jobs but they aren't coming back. he's promised a lot of people good jobs if he's elected but the type of jobs people are expecting aren't the jobs of the future. Coal demand is down and declining, factories are automating and cross border supply lines are common. He can attack the numbers as fake news but that doesn't change reality; I'd love to see him succeed in that promise but I would not bet on it. So how's O'Reilly doing at Fox?
The 911 is pretty much the best sports car on the planet that can still be used as a daily driver
You misspelled Nissan GT-R.
This is the equivalent of arguing over page 4 vs page 5 of a Victoria Secret lingerie catalog. You both are right, both cars are works of art.
Nah, the one on page 5 has got fat ankles. Page 4, however...
The 911 is pretty much the best sports car on the planet that can still be used as a daily driver
You misspelled Nissan GT-R.
You got the R right, except it's spelt AMG GT-R
The answers (the honest ones anyway) are going to be kind of boring too.
You brought up a number of valid points.
I'd add:
1. I can run Windows in a VM if I want for that rare occasion I need to run a Windows program or want to check to see how a file looks in the Windows version of a program.
2. There's generally an Apple store near where I am, even traveling, so if I have a problem I can get it fixed quickly or if I need something like a power supply because I lost one I can get one right away.
As for longevity, I have an early Mac Mini running as a video server and it's been up 24x7 for a few years so far. In the end it comes down to what works best for the individual. I've used Macs for nearly 20 years and they have always met my needs. YMMV.
A MacBook doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to work, I get 30 days of standby/suspend/sleep time on battery, and MacBook Pros and Airs already are i5 or i7. They say it's faster, but only because of cloud computing: the destroyer of open source. Also, good luck getting any work done without the internet and enjoy having no control over your software and Window$ spyware. There's also no way you'll be able to install Linux on it either. If I have $999 to blow on a laptop, I'll get a System76 or a Thinkpad off of Amazon. Hell, I might just buy a bunch of Raspberry Pi's and put them together.
It looks like MS is playing the "you can centrally manage the machines and only approved MS Store software can be installed so you don't have any security issues..." to school districts. They would presumably always have wireless access so using cloud based programs is not an issue. tI would guess MS will offer substantial "discounts" for volume buys. As for Alcantara, it'll be interesting to see how that stands up over time in a school environment. I'd also love to see teh data backing up the faster than Macs claim. After all, my $4 calculator is faster than the new Surface (if all I am doing is adding 2 numbers).
And your racism leaks through. Limit on one company makes sense but limit on one country?
I said that because otherwise the company will simply create wholly owned entities to skirt the requirements. I see that in cases where a company grows to big to be considered a small business and simply creates a new sub to qualify for set asides; the limit would apply to all nations and not target any one and thus prevent companies from gaming the system, but thanks for playing the racism card.
I'm an American working for an Indian company - one of Infosys' competitors. You really can't blame the Indian companies as it's the onshore CIO who's outsourcing this stuff and the executive team who makes the decision to outsource to offshore. I've said it a buncha times - all we did was respond to an RFP. It's not Infosys' fault - since the standard of living is lower in India than it is here salaries are also lower. If you don't want Infosys, Wipro, Accenture and the like running your IT perhaps it's the American companies that need to consider hiring American. The other thing is that if offshore resources arrive here on an H1B visa they're free to seek other employment. IME onshore salaries are generally competitive or you lose people.
Great point. They could also actually create an in house IT org staffed with people who actual have a stake in the company's future. Anecdotally, I was talking to someone who was involved in an offshoring "train your replacement" effort. They trained the replacements on the exact procedures, which would work in 10% of the cases. They figured the offshore staff could learn on their own how to handle the other 90% once they were gone and let the company deal with the fallout. They were in compliance with the severance agreement to train them on the system and ensured they understood exactly how to operate it per the written procedures, which would work if there were no glitches in the data. It wasn't their fault if they routinely got bad data they could recognize it based on experience and besides, what good is it to tell them to call Sue and get her to fix it if she is gone as well? Another was called after being laid off to see if he'd come back to help fix the mess they were in when the new staff couldn't even do basic stuff, even though they had actually been trained in how to do it. Turns out customer relations and experience is more valuable than cheaper labor.
It's like Trump saying that he will actually donate money he raised for veterans, to veterans. Did not happen until somebody found out that he was not doing it and shamed him into following through.
These "commitments" from Infosys are about the same quality. If there is no law behind it, and they can bribe Trump by buying a condo in his tower at high price, then the matter is settled.
Some of you are under the illusion that Trump is working for you. When it is clear that he is working for himself and couldn't give two hoots about you.
Or simply lay them off once the spotlight is no longer on them. Now, if the H1B laws were changed to limit the number any one company of nation can have then we might see some substantive sustainable changes.
That's the weird thing about the Trumpster. He's a big talker and most of the things that he says are BS, but he's probably made more progress with getting companies to bring US jobs back to this country than the Obama administration did in the last 4 years.
That doesn't mean that I like him or his policies, but I have to give credit where it's due.
Except the jobs are still leaving, based on Trade Adjustment numbers some 10,000 will have left in his first 100 days. While there have been a few headline grabbing saves to which I'll give him credit, he's trying to stop the tide from going out by yelling at it and threatening to pee in it if it doesn't stop. Here's a link from CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/2...
Without those emails who gets blamed? Recently, I had someone tell me they didn't ask for what I did, what saved me? A months old email from them telling me to do exactly what I did. In another case, a judge sent a demand for a bunch of 3 year old emails(old sysadmin, old mail server), and we could not provide them the lawsuit with the customer did not go well after that.
And then there are government retention laws, For example, we are required to keep call records for some countries for 10 years and we have had demands for 7 year old information in the past.
Not to mention it's sometimes just nice to go back and see how you did something a couple of years ago when a similar project happens again
While you raise valid points, the documents I was referring to involved specific inspections for clients. The final report contained all the information needed and thus we destroyed all the working papers, inspectors notes etc. so that they couldn't be used in court and misinterpreted or otherwise used to paint a false picture of what we saw. For example, I might write in my notes while observing operations "The operator did not (do some critical step) ..." only to discover in the reconstruction later that it was in fact done so it was not an issue, but a lawyer could pull my note out of context to make it seem the operators were not properly trained.
As for retention, while it may differ in our case our lawyers said as long as we had a written policy and enforced it we were OK. It's when it is done on an ad-hoc basis that problems arise.
We kept all the routine stuff it was just the inspection stuff that was carefully handled to ensure we followed our policy. That way we could reconstruct internal work and at the same time protected our clients.
This happened to a client, they received a truckload of documents. We paid an outsourcing company a couple grand to scan them into an OCR program and used text search to find the proverbial nails for their coffin. With the newest bad-ass document solutions from big printer manufacturers. This isn't really that much of an issue anymore. Just drop a thousand sheets into the loader and press the button. A few days with a few temps, and you have your digital versions.
I never understood why companies save everything; especially emails, working papers, etc. I worked for a company that had a strong document retention policy. We destroyed everything but our final inspection report once the final report was approved. Notes, electronic media, drafts, etc. were collected and shredded and HD were securely erased as well. Email was not used to discuss our inspections. This way, the only material available was our final report so nothing could be taken out of context in a suit against a client. The only exception was if a client notified us before a final report that a suit was probable. At that point all the material was turned over to our attorneys who fought against disclosure.
It's spelled DMCA, sparky.
Yup. that was a tpyo...