*sniff* this is just so beautiful..*sniff* I never knew there such as place as this wonderful place called/. *sniff* All my life I have looked for a place where I could feel at home. I feel so normal here at/. *sniff, snort* I hate blogs, you see. I hate blogs, style, senior citizen car drivers, writers, fashion designers, male dancers, and Poodles. God, I hate poodles. But not as much as I hate blogs. Only writers do blogs. I suspect all writers, fashion designers, and male dancers either have or plan to have stylish Poodles. God, I hate poodles. and blogs. Thank you, very much!
If I understand the initial requirements right, these older PC's will be "supplied" (my quotes) to those unable to afford them. If so, I think you will find that having the university retain rights and/or ownership to the PC's introduces a couple of long-term pain-in-the-tail factors. The First pain factor would be the checking-in/ maintenance/ repair/ upkeep/logging in/out/checking-out process and warehousing of parts and machines. As one experienced in such a process, if you can just donate to needy users the machine donated to you (with some sort of checkout of the PC and briefing of the user), you will avoid *major* headaches, unless, of course, your goal is to learn and emulate the world of Help Desk Engineering. You would then have more time (and money!) to devote to the donees on the required/requested training on how to use (and, if asked, maybe, the configuration of) the machines and the applications. Just my 2 bits. Your school's idea is great and could even include non-technical departments in the training of the donees. (I am sure there is a better word than donee, but my brain is stuck.) I am sure the program will be greatly appreciated. Enjoy.
ps. This'll also let 'em tinker, which is how we all got where we are today. Ok, don't tell them that...it could be discouraging.:)
To expand even further, if the power and aura of Silicon Valley is/was a myth, what other myths exist in the IT world that ought to be "outed"? For instance, what percentage of the amount of all IT-related work, contract, in-house, whatever, in the last year or even ten years was devoted to the Internet? Do you think it was as big as it was thought to be? For example, I work for a "major federal department" which is just now starting to turn to the web and web-related capabilities. (I just got here. It's *not* my fault.) Most of the IT work here is contract or in-house IT software engineering of just about everything using just about everything. I doubt that the big IT customer in the world, DOD, is putting any significant amount of its "Guns" Budget into web services. Maybe in HR, Med, & Contracting, though. What do you think? Just curious. Thanks.
Ignoring the fact that I do not know whether "pressurant" is a real word or not, the fact that they were able to (ala Star Trek Enterprise, which could apparently reroute damn near anything through and to anything) "reroute" the pressurant around a blocked valve is a pretty cool thing. Promote that guy to Chief Trilithium Engineer!!
Perhaps/. needs a new Subject area, called Y10++, for stories about technological "breakthoughs" that will not (if ever) bring any actual benefit to anyone for at least 10 years, as is noted at the very end of article on this announcement in the Washington Post. I think these sorts of articles should be required to post some sort of warning message like "This information will probably never do you, nor anyone presently alive, any good." (Oddly, the Post's writers are withholding bylines toady in some sort of pre-strike action. Hate to say it, but I think the paper is vastly improved. Rather like a Generic paper, huh?)
Now, the next step. (a little off-topic but it will be taken someday, mayber sooner that later.) Are you really the guy who owns the device or account that is being used? Devices such as fingerprint and/or retinal scanning or just a card-swiper can (supposedly) add another layer of security. How does one "certify" locally or remotely that someone else is who that someone says he/she is? Remote retension of data by the gov't? Maybe, maybe not. Voice recognition? Then, there is the little problem of securing the stuff that secures the stuff that... (umm...gotta go)
Gee, after the WSJ learned that the dude didn't make the millions they thought he did, the interview kinda petered out, didn't it? Like "Move along. Nothing to see here!" being called out in the middle of a circus.
Most of these people (above/below) are not asking for a "trash can". (Tho' kudos to the guy for making it -- another choice.) These people are asking for archive capabilities. (Even *indows archives older, less-used files. Ever notice the little blue files? ) If you are afraid you might need something later on, write it to a CD instead of deleting it. (or have a cron do it by date of the file or something.) This is not so complex. What am I missing here? (I really used to like the way Novell archived your servers by the date of the files.)
Ha! My first PC was a semaphore flag. Beat that. (Sadly, it's true.) In the 70's, I learned (digital) semaphore (picture guys with flags) in the Navy a few years before I got into digital electronics (and big, big tubes -- cathodes, anodes, tetrodes, oh my!). Our ship had an analog computers for target tracking. They were room-size behemoths and had beaucoup dials and meters. Back in them days, maintenance was a full time job. The techs for those things were always re-calibrating the things on a pre-determined schedule.
Which brings me to a topic I would like to see discussed or even polled -- What is the real percentage of technical types whose work (develop, integrate or maintain) is 100% Internet-related? (me, for one) I am betting, even during the heydays, that it is/was a lot lower than most people think it is.
"The idea of Heaven and Hell was the first big power scam. If they can get you to believe that, they know they can get you to believe anything."
Effectively, Aristotle recorded what was accepted by the aristocracy as the common sense of the day. (No danger of him being asked to drink hemlock.) I am not aware that he actually performed a single experiment. Aristotle regarded experimentation 'beneath right thinkers'. His 'thought exercises' laid the foundation for idiocy that has lasted over two thousand years, culminating in the Catholic church and western religion. Essentially, he passed his opinion off as fact and the western world bought it. Plato would not have been pleased nor proud. Sorry, his science was and is bad.
Actually, it's all about marketing. At the department level, they hire for general management and marketing experience, not technical expertise. (Which is a shame.) Actually, you probably can get a job with the Fed. Govt, but you gotta be real patient, which is a problem if cash flow is low or non-existent. It usually takes 3-6 months. Check out www.usajobs.opm.gov. The career field codes you are probably interested in are (334 - Computer Specialist), (854 - Computer Scientist or Computer Engineer), or (2210 - Information Technology Specialist). There are hundreds, if not thousands, of CS openings around the USA. There are also a bunch of technician openings nationwide. (856 - ET, is one.)(part of the much larger TCO of M$) The job announcements at opm.gov use "keywords". Use those keywords in your resume, if you have that experience, or no interview. OPM also has an IT applicant db. Don't know if they use it, but it could not hurt to be on it if you are job hunting. Good luck.
Actually, the announcement is probably going to be blatantly ignored by all the DOI Bureaus/Empires. They are all their own little fiefdoms. I retired from the DOI Office of the Secretary IT network/web team team about 3 years ago. At that time, the DOI "Webmaster" did not know HTML, much less CGI or anything else; he used Front Page to build a little office home-page. It had animation bouncy things on it. He had no *nix nor any web experience of any kind when he was hired. ?? The Office of the Secretary Webmaster (my boss) needed to spend most of his day developing and maintaining a COBOL-based personnel administration application. He did not know any *nix nor did he care to learn it. (To be fair, he didn't have the time.) Each of the Bureaus headquartered in the DOI Headquarters building in DC had (has?) a seperate LAN/WAN system and seperate Internet access points. The DOI web site was funded by the Public Affairs office, which was/is not really sure what to do with the web. After working at GSA and FEMA, two orgs. with outstanding IT teams, the DOI lack of interest in IT, lack of qualified IT leadership, and the resulting mediocrity was very disappointing. However, the idea to "invest" in M$ is not very surprising. They had already begun to move that way, years ago. It's what the contractors use. It's what the contractors told them to use. Their lack of IT expertise means they must trust the contractors to provide their IT leadersthip. Apparently, they picked the wrong contractors and are just getting ate up. I could go on and on (and probably already have). Don't place too much emphasis on this "announcement". The Bureaus won't. It's just a way for that office to get its name in lights for a little while. Sad, but true.
pfS.
[Ironically, when the DOI web site was heavily attacked by the Chinese after we accidentally blew up their embassy in Bosnia, our Unix-based Apache web site, a left-over from a previous webmaster (bless his unix-loving butt), administered by a new-to-unix admin.(me), faired pretty well while the Park Service's M$ IIS4-based web site was hammered through an anonymous ftp account and was down for weeks. (Everything was secure but the gifs. I thought I had everything buttoned up, but for some reason, when I uploaded files to the server via Hummingbird, the gifs (& only the gifs) permissions were set to 'w' for everyone. So we had little Chinese flags all over DOI Home page for about 12 hours. Coulda been worse. Oddly, the Chinese sent tons of XXX-rated mail to the webmaster email address. Ow, ow. ]
A Republican federal government, champions of States Rights, tramples individual rights with impunity. Leftist Anarchists, and White-Supremists have become conservative Republicans. Democrats, in peacetime, funnel federal projects to their biggest supporters and claim to cut federal spending. Republicans shovel pork faster than our taxes can refill the barrel. I am getting so-o-o confused. Will everyone get back to their assigned places, please?!
what the hey. Let's dismantle it from the top down. What an awesome boost to the local economy that would be! They could just build another village right over the original and do everything in reverse!
Money wouldn't be a problem. Just put a tax on stupid Egyptology TV shows. A buck a show ought to do it. That, or shanghai the NASA budget. The Info on dead Pharoahs and whether stars a million light-years distant have planets seem fairly equally useless. [In fact, I would hazard to guess that every NASA "advance" that has had an actually useful result was related either to keeping the astronauts healthy or it was defense-related. (And who said astronauts were a waste of money...)]
And, yes, I watched it the bitter end. OK, I'll mod myself down for that...
And it's worse in the Fed. Govt. I know of places still using Win95. No money. Heck, in VA, at least, after 20 years, they let 'em get genuine free Antique license plates.
Ok, here's a niche for you. (& I mean that in the best possible way..) For 20 years, as a consumer, I have waited for a computer that works as well, as easily, and as cheaply as my TV. The TV signal doesn't care if I used Motorola, Zenith, or a Yugo TV. In a perfect world, everyone would be required to actually adhere to the OSI Reference Model, all 7 layers. (I am probably exhibiting much ignorance here...but the point is:) The Computer world resembles the Tower of Bable, compared to the television and telecommunications worlds. There's your "niche". Now we need to fill it.
Maybe it's the "tele-" prefix. Should we change it to telecomputing to make it work?
(Please insert a 30-min rant on stupid people saying stupid things here!!!!) I do not believe there is ever any reason to attack civilians. I believe anyone who does is a coward. I do not think the people in the Middle East (nor you, apparently) understands how most Americans view people (like you) who act in a cowardly way or condone such acts. Cowards are beneath contempt and deserve no consideration in any way. If we had the power, we would excise them from our Society as we would a disease. We will never forget. We will never forgive.
(BTW: Many Americans view both the Israeli military and the Palestinian rioters as cowards, also. )
That probably just means that the European Polltakers are more efficient that ours. I think there are a lot more Internet users in the US than most people realize. For example, until recently, I refused to buy anything over the Internet because of the security problems. I was very adamant. Then I found out that my wife had been doing it anyway, for years. Then, again, if anyone gets hold of my bank and credit card accounts, they'll be in for a rude surprise. They've already been drained. (I have children.) Maybe that's the best security measure of all -- always be BROKE! Works for me.
Slashdot Mirror
seems redundant...
*sniff* this is just so beautiful..*sniff* I never knew there such as place as this wonderful place called /. *sniff* All my life I have looked for a place where I could feel at home. I feel so normal here at /. *sniff, snort* I hate blogs, you see. I hate blogs, style, senior citizen car drivers, writers, fashion designers, male dancers, and Poodles. God, I hate poodles. But not as much as I hate blogs. Only writers do blogs. I suspect all writers, fashion designers, and male dancers either have or plan to have stylish Poodles. God, I hate poodles. and blogs. Thank you, very much!
If I understand the initial requirements right, these older PC's will be "supplied" (my quotes) to those unable to afford them. If so, I think you will find that having the university retain rights and/or ownership to the PC's introduces a couple of long-term pain-in-the-tail factors. The First pain factor would be the checking-in/ maintenance/ repair/ upkeep/logging in/out/checking-out process and warehousing of parts and machines. As one experienced in such a process, if you can just donate to needy users the machine donated to you (with some sort of checkout of the PC and briefing of the user), you will avoid *major* headaches, unless, of course, your goal is to learn and emulate the world of Help Desk Engineering. You would then have more time (and money!) to devote to the donees on the required/requested training on how to use (and, if asked, maybe, the configuration of) the machines and the applications. Just my 2 bits. Your school's idea is great and could even include non-technical departments in the training of the donees. (I am sure there is a better word than donee, but my brain is stuck.) I am sure the program will be greatly appreciated. Enjoy.
:)
ps. This'll also let 'em tinker, which is how we all got where we are today. Ok, don't tell them that...it could be discouraging.
To expand even further, if the power and aura of Silicon Valley is/was a myth, what other myths exist in the IT world that ought to be "outed"? For instance, what percentage of the amount of all IT-related work, contract, in-house, whatever, in the last year or even ten years was devoted to the Internet? Do you think it was as big as it was thought to be?
For example, I work for a "major federal department" which is just now starting to turn to the web and web-related capabilities. (I just got here. It's *not* my fault.) Most of the IT work here is contract or in-house IT software engineering of just about everything using just about everything. I doubt that the big IT customer in the world, DOD, is putting any significant amount of its "Guns" Budget into web services. Maybe in HR, Med, & Contracting, though. What do you think? Just curious. Thanks.
Yeah, the funny part is that they are doing these cute little projects, most likely, with taxpayer money. Your money, my money, funny money, huh.
(Whatever)
(the voice from the movie WarGame after the first wave of Russian missile launches hit:) "We're still here!"
Ignoring the fact that I do not know whether "pressurant" is a real word or not, the fact that they were able to (ala Star Trek Enterprise, which could apparently reroute damn near anything through and to anything) "reroute" the pressurant around a blocked valve is a pretty cool thing. Promote that guy to Chief Trilithium Engineer!!
(I registered just so I can moderate. Bahaha. )
Perhaps /. needs a new Subject area, called Y10++, for stories about technological "breakthoughs" that will not (if ever) bring any actual benefit to anyone for at least 10 years, as is noted at the very end of article on this announcement in the Washington Post. I think these sorts of articles should be required to post some sort of warning message like "This information will probably never do you, nor anyone presently alive, any good." (Oddly, the Post's writers are withholding bylines toady in some sort of pre-strike action. Hate to say it, but I think the paper is vastly improved. Rather like a Generic paper, huh?)
(Whatever)
Now, the next step. (a little off-topic but it will be taken someday, mayber sooner that later.) Are you really the guy who owns the device or account that is being used? Devices such as fingerprint and/or retinal scanning or just a card-swiper can (supposedly) add another layer of security. How does one "certify" locally or remotely that someone else is who that someone says he/she is? Remote retension of data by the gov't? Maybe, maybe not. Voice recognition? Then, there is the little problem of securing the stuff that secures the stuff that... (umm...gotta go)
(whatever)
Take your conclusion to the logical extreme and you'll be right. All transactions (commercial, personal, etc.) should be filtered in self-defense.
(Whatever)
Gee, after the WSJ learned that the dude didn't make the millions they thought he did, the interview kinda petered out, didn't it? Like "Move along. Nothing to see here!" being called out in the middle of a circus.
Bhudda-lite
(Whatever)
Ok, no trees. How about if i don't read your post nor care about you , do you matter to me? there is a difference between non-existent and irrelevant.
Linux has a kernel? of what?
Bhuddha-lite
Whatever.
Most of these people (above/below) are not asking for a "trash can". (Tho' kudos to the guy for making it -- another choice.) These people are asking for archive capabilities. (Even *indows archives older, less-used files. Ever notice the little blue files? ) If you are afraid you might need something later on, write it to a CD instead of deleting it. (or have a cron do it by date of the file or something.) This is not so complex. What am I missing here? (I really used to like the way Novell archived your servers by the date of the files.)
Dad32
whatever.
Ha! My first PC was a semaphore flag. Beat that. (Sadly, it's true.) In the 70's, I learned (digital) semaphore (picture guys with flags) in the Navy a few years before I got into digital electronics (and big, big tubes -- cathodes, anodes, tetrodes, oh my!). Our ship had an analog computers for target tracking. They were room-size behemoths and had beaucoup dials and meters. Back in them days, maintenance was a full time job. The techs for those things were always re-calibrating the things on a pre-determined schedule.
Which brings me to a topic I would like to see discussed or even polled -- What is the real percentage of technical types whose work (develop, integrate or maintain) is 100% Internet-related? (me, for one) I am betting, even during the heydays, that it is/was a lot lower than most people think it is.
"The idea of Heaven and Hell was the first big power scam. If they can get you to believe that, they know they can get you to believe anything."
Wasn't this supposed to be a feature (or even the point of?) of Novell 4.x NDS? (I could be wrong. Again.)
Effectively, Aristotle recorded what was accepted by the aristocracy as the common sense of the day. (No danger of him being asked to drink hemlock.) I am not aware that he actually performed a single experiment. Aristotle regarded experimentation 'beneath right thinkers'. His 'thought exercises' laid the foundation for idiocy that has lasted over two thousand years, culminating in the Catholic church and western religion. Essentially, he passed his opinion off as fact and the western world bought it. Plato would not have been pleased nor proud. Sorry, his science was and is bad.
Actually, it's all about marketing. At the department level, they hire for general management and marketing experience, not technical expertise. (Which is a shame.) Actually, you probably can get a job with the Fed. Govt, but you gotta be real patient, which is a problem if cash flow is low or non-existent. It usually takes 3-6 months. Check out www.usajobs.opm.gov. The career field codes you are probably interested in are (334 - Computer Specialist), (854 - Computer Scientist or Computer Engineer), or (2210 - Information Technology Specialist). There are hundreds, if not thousands, of CS openings around the USA. There are also a bunch of technician openings nationwide. (856 - ET, is one.)(part of the much larger TCO of M$) The job announcements at opm.gov use "keywords". Use those keywords in your resume, if you have that experience, or no interview. OPM also has an IT applicant db. Don't know if they use it, but it could not hurt to be on it if you are job hunting. Good luck.
Actually, the announcement is probably going to be blatantly ignored by all the DOI Bureaus/Empires. They are all their own little fiefdoms. I retired from the DOI Office of the Secretary IT network/web team team about 3 years ago. At that time, the DOI "Webmaster" did not know HTML, much less CGI or anything else; he used Front Page to build a little office home-page. It had animation bouncy things on it. He had no *nix nor any web experience of any kind when he was hired. ?? The Office of the Secretary Webmaster (my boss) needed to spend most of his day developing and maintaining a COBOL-based personnel administration application. He did not know any *nix nor did he care to learn it. (To be fair, he didn't have the time.) Each of the Bureaus headquartered in the DOI Headquarters building in DC had (has?) a seperate LAN/WAN system and seperate Internet access points. The DOI web site was funded by the Public Affairs office, which was/is not really sure what to do with the web. After working at GSA and FEMA, two orgs. with outstanding IT teams, the DOI lack of interest in IT, lack of qualified IT leadership, and the resulting mediocrity was very disappointing. However, the idea to "invest" in M$ is not very surprising. They had already begun to move that way, years ago. It's what the contractors use. It's what the contractors told them to use. Their lack of IT expertise means they must trust the contractors to provide their IT leadersthip. Apparently, they picked the wrong contractors and are just getting ate up. I could go on and on (and probably already have). Don't place too much emphasis on this "announcement". The Bureaus won't. It's just a way for that office to get its name in lights for a little while. Sad, but true.
pfS.
[Ironically, when the DOI web site was heavily attacked by the Chinese after we accidentally blew up their embassy in Bosnia, our Unix-based Apache web site, a left-over from a previous webmaster (bless his unix-loving butt), administered by a new-to-unix admin.(me), faired pretty well while the Park Service's M$ IIS4-based web site was hammered through an anonymous ftp account and was down for weeks. (Everything was secure but the gifs. I thought I had everything buttoned up, but for some reason, when I uploaded files to the server via Hummingbird, the gifs (& only the gifs) permissions were set to 'w' for everyone. So we had little Chinese flags all over DOI Home page for about 12 hours. Coulda been worse. Oddly, the Chinese sent tons of XXX-rated mail to the webmaster email address. Ow, ow. ]
A Republican federal government, champions of States Rights, tramples individual rights with impunity. Leftist Anarchists, and White-Supremists have become conservative Republicans. Democrats, in peacetime, funnel federal projects to their biggest supporters and claim to cut federal spending. Republicans shovel pork faster than our taxes can refill the barrel. I am getting so-o-o confused. Will everyone get back to their assigned places, please?!
what the hey. Let's dismantle it from the top down. What an awesome boost to the local economy that would be! They could just build another village right over the original and do everything in reverse!
Money wouldn't be a problem. Just put a tax on stupid Egyptology TV shows. A buck a show ought to do it. That, or shanghai the NASA budget. The Info on dead Pharoahs and whether stars a million light-years distant have planets seem fairly equally useless. [In fact, I would hazard to guess that every NASA "advance" that has had an actually useful result was related either to keeping the astronauts healthy or it was defense-related. (And who said astronauts were a waste of money...)]
And, yes, I watched it the bitter end. OK, I'll mod myself down for that...
And it's worse in the Fed. Govt. I know of places still using Win95. No money. Heck, in VA, at least, after 20 years, they let 'em get genuine free Antique license plates.
Ok, here's a niche for you. (& I mean that in the best possible way..) For 20 years, as a consumer, I have waited for a computer that works as well, as easily, and as cheaply as my TV. The TV signal doesn't care if I used Motorola, Zenith, or a Yugo TV. In a perfect world, everyone would be required to actually adhere to the OSI Reference Model, all 7 layers. (I am probably exhibiting much ignorance here...but the point is:) The Computer world resembles the Tower of Bable, compared to the television and telecommunications worlds. There's your "niche". Now we need to fill it.
Maybe it's the "tele-" prefix. Should we change it to telecomputing to make it work?
(Please insert a 30-min rant on stupid people saying stupid things here!!!!) I do not believe there is ever any reason to attack civilians. I believe anyone who does is a coward. I do not think the people in the Middle East (nor you, apparently) understands how most Americans view people (like you) who act in a cowardly way or condone such acts.
Cowards are beneath contempt and deserve no consideration in any way. If we had the power, we would excise them from our Society as we would a disease. We will never forget. We will never forgive.
(BTW: Many Americans view both the Israeli military and the Palestinian rioters as cowards, also. )
That probably just means that the European Polltakers are more efficient that ours. I think there are a lot more Internet users in the US than most people realize. For example, until recently, I refused to buy anything over the Internet because of the security problems. I was very adamant. Then I found out that my wife had been doing it anyway, for years. Then, again, if anyone gets hold of my bank and credit card accounts, they'll be in for a rude surprise. They've already been drained. (I have children.) Maybe that's the best security measure of all -- always be BROKE! Works for me.