is that there are now more hackers than there are photographers and typesetters. The next career group we hope to overtake would be unemployed nurses. (in either sense of the word...)
Remember that scene in the movie "Paint Your Wagon" where, during a funeral service at a burial site in the Old West, gold was discovered at the bottom of the 6' hole? I vividly remember people jumping in with shovels and the corpse (wrapped in a sail) flying out. I thought that was pretty funny then. I still do. I think the chances of that area remaining pristine are directly and inversely proportional to the amount of money to be made from that deposit. To seque a little, how should (or can ) one decide objectively/mathimatically between short-term and long-term benefits?
If they can keep making them phone chips smaller and smaller, maybe someday someday we get 'em put into earrings & all look like Bajorans! (Bejorans?) (Bojorans?)
There is, of course, a "simple" business solution. Rule 1. The only things that get done here are the things that we have been paid to do. We only do things that will get us paid (X times) more than it costs to do. (or, at least, *think* we will get paid to do. If we think wrong, too big or too often, we go out of business.) Rule 2. The only things we pay to get done are those things that (we think) will get us more money than we spend to do it. If you are a developer, see Rule 1. Your customer should be using Rule 2, unless it is a public entity, where they use Rule 3: Is the action perceived as contributing to a final goal or thought to contribute to a realized goal (support) that still has money on the contract?:)
eeek! The enemy is inside the gates. (Well, he would be if we had gates...) Careful, if you are not THE JackV, you might have copyright issues over your name.
Happy Friday. [When is a firewall not a firewall? When it's full of Gates. Windows = Gated Communites?]
In 1999, after 25 years of Public Service, at the height of the Internet economy, I "retired" and went to work in the Private Sector. I worked then for a few years at a very large system development company, the economy tanked, and I got laid off last fall. Now I am back working as an IT Project Manager for Uncle Sam.
Unsurprisingly, I found little or no difference between the two sectors in the levels of expertise and attitude exhibited by my fellow workers. I pretty much found equal amounts of incompetence, gold-bricking, can-do attitudes, and amazing expertise in both Sectors. People are people and they act the same everywhere. (See notes below..)
One of the best and exciting things about working for Uncle Sam, the states or a local county or city is that you can actually make a real positive difference in someone's life or lots of someones lives. IT engineers and techs often take lower pay than they would prefer to stay supporting local law, fire, and rescue personnel. (Not that they wouldn't mind the extra...) Many Scientists (including Nobel Prize winners), Engineers, and Technicians at laboratories in Agencies like NOAA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, NIST, the FDA, and others feel like that are doing some awesomely helpful things with your (and their) tax dollars. I am not a big fan of NASA's priorities, but you won't find many places with more highly qualified and motivated people from the top to the bottom.
You might also be interested to know that lots of people get fired from federal service every day. Fed Employment and Trends by Year & Month Check out the Seperation Data. (I am not really sure how to interpret the data.)
You might also be surprised to learn that experienced IT Project Managers can make $75K/year-$100K+/year. IT Program Managers can make even more. (Max. Salary for Non-Politically-appointed IT Execs. is currently ~$135K.) Fed. Pay Tables w/locality adjustments.
Every job, just like your life, is what you make it. It's what you want to DO, not BE, that counts. Good luck and have fun.
(Notes: 1. The Private Sector:
a. My Project Manager ran his own personal business from his company-owned workstation while he pretended to actually work for the company. I think he spent half to three-quarters of his day responding to e-auctions bids and submitting his own. We eventually lost the contract (or rather the follow-on task was not activated) because he and the company Program Manager never could be bothered to actually talk to the customer and ask him how things were going or what he wanted. Hence the lay-offs. I was one of the last to go.
b. It seemed to me that the newbies were not getting paid very well at all & they were the first to go in the layoffs. The VP's, however, made really big $$ & rarely had to deal with layoffs.
c. the senior managers really did not impress me at all. Mostly marketing fluff.
d. I was surprised at the level of bureaucracy in a large system development firm. Not a lot of difference from the federal sector, really.
2. The Public:
a. There is a Dept. HR Program Manager across the hall from me is overloaded in the paperwork that it takes to get people fired. It is, granted, a tedious process, but it happens and it happens a lot. )
b. There are lots of people-shaped speedbumps here, too. If you are motivated, you will learn how to find what you want to do and to get it done. Whenever I have decided that I needed a change of career in the Federal Service, I have (eventually) been able to find a way to make it happen. I have been a telecomm. tech, a network engineer, a web developer and am now a Progject Manager. I imagine opportunities are made by the individual, not vice-versa. Motivated people seem to "find" those "lucky" breaks. Good Luck!
You will, of course, be willing to work for free, too. Somehow, this sounds j-u-s-t a little too good to be true. Small western country w/o patent law? Western of what? Japan?
Reading this what-probably-is-a-very-informative article reminds me of the very interesting-looking articles in Scientific American. The first page and about a half of each article is very readable and understandable. Then, all of a sudden, like a Harold LLoyd character (the guy hanging from the way-high-up clock face) stepping from a 3" mudpuddle into a 7' mudpuddle, I find myself so far in over my head so fast that I read another half page before I even realize I have no clue what the fsck I have reading. Like the chicken running around after it has been relieved of its head (another childhood image I will never get out of my head.:P ), I have been reading just because my eyes are still moving. My brain disengaged paragraphs earlier. Whew. I want to be able to understand this sort of stuff in my next life, if there is such a thing... Go, team!
Creationism will go away when religion goes away. Religion will go away when fear goes away. Fear will go away when selfishness goes away. Selfishness goes away when the pursuit of truth becomes one's only goal. (Well, that and a truly secure wireless network...)
I wonder what percentage of the traffic in the networks they were "monitoring" was the actual pings? "Dang. Seems to happen every time we do this experiment!" Just curious...
I find it interesting that ther term "Computer Science" is really an oxymoron. Computer Science is not a Natural Science. Our chosen field does not discover the laws of Computer Science; we make them up. These "laws" are often contradictory. (Poor HAL.) Compliance with the laws is not always compulsory. Indeed, if one has the power, one may even change the law(s), thereby changing the basic structure of the universe that Computer Science purports to study. Even Psychology, the least coherent of Sciences, has a natural model to study. It is also interesting to study the behavior of those that are given the opportunity to act like a god.
Better yet: Slashdot often has questions and areas of wide interest, such as "how to hire ___", "what to consider when buying, designing and/or installing ____", etc. The occasionally insightful, sometimes brilliant, , voice-of-experience answers, though searchable, essentially just go bye-bye. If they were in an Archive of Great Stuff, mostly highly moderated answers would not be lost until the next question-of-similar-intent-and-wide-interest. Might be interesting. Maybe Archive by Mod-Type, too. Might be fun to browse through past stuff modded to +4 & +5 in the Funny Category.
So, we now have a new periodic network security procedure to put on our daily/weekly to-do calender. Go out and walk around the building(s) to see if we have been warchalked. At least, we'll get a little exercise...
I think, from reading all the answers so far, that the real answer is just go do what you think might be interesting and fun. (Usually that's the same thing.) Folk who look for what they want to DO, vice what they want to BE, usually find it while they are doing it. If anyone had ever asked me, during my 30 year IT career, what I thought I would be doing 5 years in the future, any guess I might have made, along the way, would have been wrong. I could give you all kinds of advice about balance of work and family, blah, blah, but life is for learning and loving. Have fun.
There is at least one company, SAIC, that has been installing a similar mobile product in American utility trucks for a few years. It tracks the trucks 24/7. Utility Repair/Installation Efficiency has risen dramatically in response. The Union agreed to the idea only, if I remember rightly, after the Utility agreed to include (and require) an emergency call button on a seperate keychain for the Techs. (Disclaimer: Used to work for SAIC.)
Slashdot Mirror
is that there are now more hackers than there are photographers and typesetters. The next career group we hope to overtake would be unemployed nurses. (in either sense of the word...)
Remember that scene in the movie "Paint Your Wagon" where, during a funeral service at a burial site in the Old West, gold was discovered at the bottom of the 6' hole? I vividly remember people jumping in with shovels and the corpse (wrapped in a sail) flying out. I thought that was pretty funny then. I still do. I think the chances of that area remaining pristine are directly and inversely proportional to the amount of money to be made from that deposit.
To seque a little, how should (or can ) one decide objectively/mathimatically between short-term and long-term benefits?
I really miss the old FM car radio pushbuttons. Then, again, I miss actually liking the music.
"My repetition threshold has been exceeded."
It might not be a good idea right now to use things Argentine as any sort of a role model, especially if it has anything do with money.
If they can keep making them phone chips smaller and smaller, maybe someday someday we get 'em put into earrings & all look like Bajorans! (Bejorans?) (Bojorans?)
There is, of course, a "simple" business solution. Rule 1. The only things that get done here are the things that we have been paid to do. We only do things that will get us paid (X times) more than it costs to do. (or, at least, *think* we will get paid to do. If we think wrong, too big or too often, we go out of business.) :)
Rule 2. The only things we pay to get done are those things that (we think) will get us more money than we spend to do it.
If you are a developer, see Rule 1.
Your customer should be using Rule 2, unless it is a public entity, where they use Rule 3: Is the action perceived as contributing to a final goal or thought to contribute to a realized goal (support) that still has money on the contract?
You may now shoot holes in my explanation...
As a junior CSE major, I dearly dread the day that this sort of information becomes important to me... May that day never come. :P
eeek! The enemy is inside the gates. (Well, he would be if we had gates...) Careful, if you are not THE JackV, you might have copyright issues over your name.
Happy Friday.
[When is a firewall not a firewall? When it's full of Gates. Windows = Gated Communites?]
In 1999, after 25 years of Public Service, at the height of the Internet economy, I "retired" and went to work in the Private Sector. I worked then for a few years at a very large system development company, the economy tanked, and I got laid off last fall. Now I am back working as an IT Project Manager for Uncle Sam. .
Unsurprisingly, I found little or no difference between the two sectors in the levels of expertise and attitude exhibited by my fellow workers. I pretty much found equal amounts of incompetence, gold-bricking, can-do attitudes, and amazing expertise in both Sectors. People are people and they act the same everywhere. (See notes below..)
One of the best and exciting things about working for Uncle Sam, the states or a local county or city is that you can actually make a real positive difference in someone's life or lots of someones lives. IT engineers and techs often take lower pay than they would prefer to stay supporting local law, fire, and rescue personnel. (Not that they wouldn't mind the extra...) Many Scientists (including Nobel Prize winners), Engineers, and Technicians at laboratories in Agencies like NOAA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, NIST, the FDA, and others feel like that are doing some awesomely helpful things with your (and their) tax dollars. I am not a big fan of NASA's priorities, but you won't find many places with more highly qualified and motivated people from the top to the bottom.
You might also be interested to know that lots of people get fired from federal service every day. Fed Employment and Trends by Year & Month Check out the Seperation Data. (I am not really sure how to interpret the data.)
You might also be surprised to learn that experienced IT Project Managers can make $75K/year-$100K+/year. IT Program Managers can make even more. (Max. Salary for Non-Politically-appointed IT Execs. is currently ~$135K.) Fed. Pay Tables w/locality adjustments
Every job, just like your life, is what you make it. It's what you want to DO, not BE, that counts. Good luck and have fun.
(Notes:
1. The Private Sector:
a. My Project Manager ran his own personal business from his company-owned workstation while he pretended to actually work for the company. I think he spent half to three-quarters of his day responding to e-auctions bids and submitting his own. We eventually lost the contract (or rather the follow-on task was not activated) because he and the company Program Manager never could be bothered to actually talk to the customer and ask him how things were going or what he wanted. Hence the lay-offs. I was one of the last to go.
b. It seemed to me that the newbies were not getting paid very well at all & they were the first to go in the layoffs. The VP's, however, made really big $$ & rarely had to deal with layoffs.
c. the senior managers really did not impress me at all. Mostly marketing fluff.
d. I was surprised at the level of bureaucracy in a large system development firm. Not a lot of difference from the federal sector, really.
2. The Public:
a. There is a Dept. HR Program Manager across the hall from me is overloaded in the paperwork that it takes to get people fired. It is, granted, a tedious process, but it happens and it happens a lot. )
b. There are lots of people-shaped speedbumps here, too. If you are motivated, you will learn how to find what you want to do and to get it done. Whenever I have decided that I needed a change of career in the Federal Service, I have (eventually) been able to find a way to make it happen. I have been a telecomm. tech, a network engineer, a web developer and am now a Progject Manager. I imagine opportunities are made by the individual, not vice-versa. Motivated people seem to "find" those "lucky" breaks. Good Luck!
You will, of course, be willing to work for free, too. Somehow, this sounds j-u-s-t a little too good to be true. Small western country w/o patent law? Western of what? Japan?
Reading this what-probably-is-a-very-informative article reminds me of the very interesting-looking articles in Scientific American. The first page and about a half of each article is very readable and understandable. Then, all of a sudden, like a Harold LLoyd character (the guy hanging from the way-high-up clock face) stepping from a 3" mudpuddle into a 7' mudpuddle, I find myself so far in over my head so fast that I read another half page before I even realize I have no clue what the fsck I have reading. Like the chicken running around after it has been relieved of its head (another childhood image I will never get out of my head. :P ), I have been reading just because my eyes are still moving. My brain disengaged paragraphs earlier. Whew. I want to be able to understand this sort of stuff in my next life, if there is such a thing... Go, team!
Now, if only they could figure out how to build a server that can instantly upgrade itself to prevent itself from being /.'ed.
"Watch it, buddy. I have moderation points and I am not afraid to use them!"
Java's Dead? Dang. I was gonna learn Java, too. Then I was gonna learn C#. Then I was gonna start me up a dot.com... Poo.
Creationism will go away when religion goes away. Religion will go away when fear goes away. Fear will go away when selfishness goes away. Selfishness goes away when the pursuit of truth becomes one's only goal. (Well, that and a truly secure wireless network...)
I wonder what percentage of the traffic in the networks they were "monitoring" was the actual pings? "Dang. Seems to happen every time we do this experiment!" Just curious...
"legitimate religion". Now *there's* an oxymoron, for you.
yes, and that would be Visio.
I find it interesting that ther term "Computer Science" is really an oxymoron. Computer Science is not a Natural Science. Our chosen field does not discover the laws of Computer Science; we make them up. These "laws" are often contradictory. (Poor HAL.) Compliance with the laws is not always compulsory. Indeed, if one has the power, one may even change the law(s), thereby changing the basic structure of the universe that Computer Science purports to study. Even Psychology, the least coherent of Sciences, has a natural model to study. It is also interesting to study the behavior of those that are given the opportunity to act like a god.
Better yet: Slashdot often has questions and areas of wide interest, such as "how to hire ___", "what to consider when buying, designing and/or installing ____", etc. The occasionally insightful, sometimes brilliant, , voice-of-experience answers, though searchable, essentially just go bye-bye. If they were in an Archive of Great Stuff, mostly highly moderated answers would not be lost until the next question-of-similar-intent-and-wide-interest. Might be interesting. Maybe Archive by Mod-Type, too. Might be fun to browse through past stuff modded to +4 & +5 in the Funny Category.
Servants, Guv.
So, we now have a new periodic network security procedure to put on our daily/weekly to-do calender. Go out and walk around the building(s) to see if we have been warchalked. At least, we'll get a little exercise...
I think, from reading all the answers so far, that the real answer is just go do what you think might be interesting and fun. (Usually that's the same thing.) Folk who look for what they want to DO, vice what they want to BE, usually find it while they are doing it. If anyone had ever asked me, during my 30 year IT career, what I thought I would be doing 5 years in the future, any guess I might have made, along the way, would have been wrong. I could give you all kinds of advice about balance of work and family, blah, blah, but life is for learning and loving. Have fun.
Gee, Great advertising for Active Buddy. All for the small price of a patent fee.... That couldn't be the reason for the patent, could it? could it? :)
There is at least one company, SAIC, that has been installing a similar mobile product in American utility trucks for a few years. It tracks the trucks 24/7. Utility Repair/Installation Efficiency has risen dramatically in response. The Union agreed to the idea only, if I remember rightly, after the Utility agreed to include (and require) an emergency call button on a seperate keychain for the Techs.
(Disclaimer: Used to work for SAIC.)
Hackers working in humanities departments .
Sorry, by definition, there are no hackers working in any humanities departments, anywhere. One does not "hack" part-time. Does one?