Big words, little substance
on
The New IT Crisis
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Marc Andreessen sounds an awful lot like a lot of IT managers these days. You know, the people who say lots and know nothing. Boardrooms are filled with the notion that IT people are an automaton army that needs to be micromanaged right to the last char and nanosecond. Andreessen sounds like the propogator of this notion.
In two paragraphs he pronounced to the world the basically all IT infrastructure and paradigms are broken. He later suggests that in order to keep up and succeed, things will have to change.
Duh.
The article is so short on details of the failure and possible solutions, I don't know why he wasted the space and bandwidth to deliver this most elegant piece of fluff.
Fortune 2000 and enterprise in general has been raping its IT payroll for well over a year, probably close to two years. In that space, technology has changed, service delivery ramped up to top up the cuts-enhanced bottom line, media reinvented itself 4 or 5 times, and customers got a whole lot pickier and smarter. So the one piece of non-fluff in the article was the mention that a lot of data centers are being held together with spit and string. Well, this is what happens when you whip 5 people to do the work of 20. Seems like thats ok to do as long as the victoms have ballpoint pens in their shirt pockets and hornrimmed glasses perched on the noses.
The biggest problem in the IT field these days is entrenched in the problems Tim Perdue experienced at SF. Every time an achievement is approached, 45000 know-it-alls with 6 digit incomes glom on, take credit, and micromanage at the DNA level. The suits, blissful in their ignorance and trusting of middlemanagement, believe the stuff that spews out of these ninnies mouths. The solution is for upper management and grassroots IT people, the folks in the trenches, to get together.
Upper management, in order to be able to do this, needs to be sensitized to the machinations of IT people. They need to know what makes us tick, or they risk finding out what makes us ticked off. They best be doing this quick too. The downturn will end, business will pick up, and a lot of these companies will be up a creek with their infrastructure decay and miniscule overmanaged IT budgets.
> Why would Bell compete with itself on so many > levels?
It's an age old marketing technique called saturation.:P
Basically, you flood a market with competing products, to give the illusion of choice. Some people hate Bell but don't mind Sympatico.
People get confused, and make impulse decisions. Better have 6 products in the competing sector than 1. More targets === better odds.
The little guy gets shut out by the big guy, who sells to the little guy anyway.
Very few companies can compete with Bell at their level. Sympatico and Bell are two distinct entities, and each has a separate group of investors demanding return.
It makes sense to do this, on so many levels. Of course, making sense doesn't always make cents.
Regards Mike Robinson
Ok, for the collective good, I'll behave. Gimme back my karma now.
> In fact, they need to prosecute every > manufacture of OCR software anyway because it > could be used to read the characters directly > off of a screenshot of an open e-book.
Use of the 'Print Screen' key violates the DMCA. Please pick up your monitor and slam it on the ground as hard as you can, and refrain from using the 'Print Screen' key any further.
At least in the US this sort of behaviour is above board. It's an open book you can respond to.
In Canada, this sort of crap is very much hidden from public view. We have no way of knowing where the payola comes from, or where the influence is exercised. Every once in a while a tidbit gets out, like Chretien and the Shawinigan fiasco, but aside from those waves of negative PR that seem to go hand in hand with an election or leaderhip race, it's all very hush hush.
Dude, you are SOL. A hand-crank generator would require so much effort to put out enough juice to charge your battery that you'll have little time for hiking, and by the time you're done parts of you will resemble Arnold Schwarzenneger depnding on your handedness.
The pedal crank generator might do it, but it'll be upwards of 50 pounds, and way bigger than your backpack. Since you'll be hiking, I'm not so sure wearing out your legs charging batteries is a good idea.
Fuel-powered generators are out. You can't carry that much fuel, and the generator is quite bulky and heavy.
That leaves solar power.
Either to charge your batteries or run your Linux-based laptop [snicker], I figure it'd take two panels of decent quality convertors, each measuring 4' x 6'. So much for the backpack.
So, buy 10 batteries, charge them all up, and plan your trip to be near civilization every 9 batteries, or hire a porter to lug your $9000 solar panels around.
Or better yet, leave the laptop at home and worry about having a good time.
> IT people think they have some right to work 4 > hours a day and get paid 200k a year. The.com > boom is dead, get over it
The.com boom is not only dead, its going bust and fast. Nonetheless, IMHO most IT jobs aren't in the.com sector, at least, not anymore.
In Toronto, huge numbers of IT positions have evaporated. The result is a glut of IT professionals (and I use that term loosely) on the market. Hell, some very qualified, talented people are driving cab between IT gigs to get by. I've met many IT people that have moved out of the IT sector altogether.
In the meantime, not only are universities cranking out record numbers of IS and CS grads, but in Ontario we also have these ripoff colleges that give a highschool dropout 8 months of programming education then kicks them out the door and calls them IT professionals.
So, 5 years ago IT people were gold. If a company managed to get there hands on a good IT person, out came the 6 digit salaries, stock options, brothel memberships, whatever.
Now, with vast swaths of unemployment ripping up the field, and with everybody and their brother being an "IT Professional", IT managers (the evil breed), headhunters, recruiters, know that IT people are a dime a dozen. It's not uncommon to see very gifted people making $14 an hour. If he gripes about working conditions, which have deteriorated accordingly, or otherwise refuses to be mismanaged or abused, well, there's the door.
Will a union do anything about this?
Nope.
Will it ever get better?
Nope.
It was only a matter of time before geekdom and the real world collided.
> This is not always possible. Some org's are
> very rigid in such matters.
Yup, and it's a real shame, because both postgresql and mysql have grown in leaps and bounds for the last couple of years. Mysql has been trying to add some sorely missed features, and postgresql's performance has been steadily improving. These two items seem to be the major gripe in the mysql/postgres wars.
I suppose there will always be that [unfounded] mentality that free-as-in-beer stuff couldn't possibly be as good or better than the expensive stuff. Oh well. They can keep spending millions unnecessarily, and we'll keep smiling because we know better.:P
Instead of "telling" your PHB, why not try "showing" your PHB. Reimplement your db in postgres, take your PHB by the hand, and demonstrate the effectiveness of your alternative.
I've always found "doing" achieves far better results than "talking".
'98 was the last time I went as well. I registered for it on their website and not a week later started getting tons of spam from them. Shortly after that started, I began getting spam at that same unique address I set up for comdex canada from all sorts of other spammers, so that address was sold in short order.
Haven't been to one since, because, well, they suck.
On British TV, its referred to as Scrapheap Challenge, but in the US it gets billed as Junkyard Wars.
Kinda wonder if it isn't representative of the value systems in each country. There has to be something to it if the marketing whizkids decide to use that sort of spin.
> It's an incentive for webcasters to look for > sources of content not controlled by a media > cartel. If you can't find decent bands who are > willing to let you broadcast their music for > free, you probably shouldn't be running an > Internet radio station.
Bingo.
When all is said and done, there are far worse things going on in the industry besides the shenanigans CARP introduces. Incredible predatory business practices and pricing models by the big streaming providers, ridiculous licensing schemes from the streaming software makers. How much is a Helix Server license for 25 concurrent streams?
The RIAA is only an obstacle when your content falls inside their domain. Stream indies and original material and kiss them goodbye.
What's left is still a nasty pile of obstacles that will kill most small webcasters.
What about the 20% of the population that live in poverty, the 40% that don't have a computer, and the 40% of those who do who don't have an internet connection. Lots of good a cert will do them.
So the Big Brother approach means the government will be able to keep track of the most affluent of our society that also happens to a) be technically inclined, b) trusts the internet with their communications, and c) trusts the government with their data.
I hope those 4 people are very happy with the service.
Slashdot Mirror
Marc Andreessen sounds an awful lot like a lot of IT managers these days. You know, the people who say lots and know nothing. Boardrooms are filled with the notion that IT people are an automaton army that needs to be micromanaged right to the last char and nanosecond. Andreessen sounds like the propogator of this notion.
In two paragraphs he pronounced to the world the basically all IT infrastructure and paradigms are broken. He later suggests that in order to keep up and succeed, things will have to change.
Duh.
The article is so short on details of the failure and possible solutions, I don't know why he wasted the space and bandwidth to deliver this most elegant piece of fluff.
Fortune 2000 and enterprise in general has been raping its IT payroll for well over a year, probably close to two years. In that space, technology has changed, service delivery ramped up to top up the cuts-enhanced bottom line, media reinvented itself 4 or 5 times, and customers got a whole lot pickier and smarter.
So the one piece of non-fluff in the article was the mention that a lot of data centers are being held together with spit and string. Well, this is what happens when you whip 5 people to do the work of 20. Seems like thats ok to do as long as the victoms have ballpoint pens in their shirt pockets and hornrimmed glasses perched on the noses.
The biggest problem in the IT field these days is entrenched in the problems Tim Perdue experienced at SF. Every time an achievement is approached, 45000 know-it-alls with 6 digit incomes glom on, take credit, and micromanage at the DNA level. The suits, blissful in their ignorance and trusting of middlemanagement, believe the stuff that spews out of these ninnies mouths. The solution is for upper management and grassroots IT people, the folks in the trenches, to get together.
Upper management, in order to be able to do this, needs to be sensitized to the machinations of IT people. They need to know what makes us tick, or they risk finding out what makes us ticked off. They best be doing this quick too. The downturn will end, business will pick up, and a lot of these companies will be up a creek with their infrastructure decay and miniscule overmanaged IT budgets.
Revenge of the nerds indeed.
> Why would Bell compete with itself on so many
:P
> levels?
It's an age old marketing technique called saturation.
Basically, you flood a market with competing products, to give the illusion of choice. Some people hate Bell but don't mind Sympatico.
People get confused, and make impulse decisions. Better have 6 products in the competing sector than 1. More targets === better odds.
The little guy gets shut out by the big guy, who sells to the little guy anyway.
Very few companies can compete with Bell at their level. Sympatico and Bell are two distinct entities, and each has a separate group of investors demanding return.
It makes sense to do this, on so many levels. Of course, making sense doesn't always make cents.
Regards
Mike Robinson
Ok, for the collective good, I'll behave.
Gimme back my karma now.
> In fact, they need to prosecute every
> manufacture of OCR software anyway because it
> could be used to read the characters directly
> off of a screenshot of an open e-book.
Use of the 'Print Screen' key violates the DMCA. Please pick up your monitor and slam it on the ground as hard as you can, and refrain from using the 'Print Screen' key any further.
Mike
Ok ok, I'll be good. Gimme back my karma.
At least in the US this sort of behaviour is above board. It's an open book you can respond to.
In Canada, this sort of crap is very much hidden from public view. We have no way of knowing where the payola comes from, or where the influence is exercised. Every once in a while a tidbit gets out, like Chretien and the Shawinigan fiasco, but aside from those waves of negative PR that seem to go hand in hand with an election or leaderhip race, it's all very hush hush.
Mike
Ok ok, I'll be good. Gimme back my karma.
History is written by those who have hanged heroes. (Sorry, couldn't resist)
Who invented the telephone again?
Mike
Ok ok, I'll be good. Gimme back my karma.
Dude, you are SOL.
A hand-crank generator would require so much effort to put out enough juice to charge your battery that you'll have little time for hiking, and by the time you're done parts of you will resemble Arnold Schwarzenneger depnding on your handedness.
The pedal crank generator might do it, but it'll be upwards of 50 pounds, and way bigger than your backpack. Since you'll be hiking, I'm not so sure wearing out your legs charging batteries is a good idea.
Fuel-powered generators are out. You can't carry that much fuel, and the generator is quite bulky and heavy.
That leaves solar power.
Either to charge your batteries or run your Linux-based laptop [snicker], I figure it'd take two panels of decent quality convertors, each measuring 4' x 6'. So much for the backpack.
So, buy 10 batteries, charge them all up, and plan your trip to be near civilization every 9 batteries, or hire a porter to lug your $9000 solar panels around.
Or better yet, leave the laptop at home and worry about having a good time.
Mike
Ok, I'll be good. Gimme back my karma.
> Therefore a good percentage of /.ers will
> think you're cooler if you use it.
Oh fuck... there's a good reason to part with $20. I mean, life just ain't worth livin if slashdot users don't think you're cool.
OTOH, Solaris coffee mugs _are_ cool.
> hours a day and get paid 200k a year. The
> boom is dead, get over it
The
In Toronto, huge numbers of IT positions have evaporated. The result is a glut of IT professionals (and I use that term loosely) on the market. Hell, some very qualified, talented people are driving cab between IT gigs to get by.
I've met many IT people that have moved out of the IT sector altogether.
In the meantime, not only are universities cranking out record numbers of IS and CS grads, but in Ontario we also have these ripoff colleges that give a highschool dropout 8 months of programming education then kicks them out the door and calls them IT professionals.
So, 5 years ago IT people were gold. If a company managed to get there hands on a good IT person, out came the 6 digit salaries, stock options, brothel memberships, whatever.
Now, with vast swaths of unemployment ripping up the field, and with everybody and their brother being an "IT Professional", IT managers (the evil breed), headhunters, recruiters, know that IT people are a dime a dozen. It's not uncommon to see very gifted people making $14 an hour. If he gripes about working conditions, which have deteriorated accordingly, or otherwise refuses to be mismanaged or abused, well, there's the door.
Will a union do anything about this?
Nope.
Will it ever get better?
Nope.
It was only a matter of time before geekdom and the real world collided.
Welcome. Come on in.
Mike
Yup, and it's a real shame, because both postgresql and mysql have grown in leaps and bounds for the last couple of years. Mysql has been trying to add some sorely missed features, and postgresql's performance has been steadily improving. These two items seem to be the major gripe in the mysql/postgres wars.
I suppose there will always be that [unfounded] mentality that free-as-in-beer stuff couldn't possibly be as good or better than the expensive stuff. Oh well. They can keep spending millions unnecessarily, and we'll keep smiling because we know better. :P
Mike
I'll be good, I promise. Now gimme back my karma.
Instead of "telling" your PHB, why not try "showing" your PHB. Reimplement your db in postgres, take your PHB by the hand, and demonstrate the effectiveness of your alternative.
I've always found "doing" achieves far better results than "talking".
Mike
Haven't been to one since, because, well, they suck.
Mr Shatner,
Of all the babes you got to snuggle up with over the course of all the original (and best) Star Trek episodes, which babe was your personal fave?
Ah, making the occasional crack is usually what gets you the 'pig' handle. :P
> (Moderators, please check the crack that you are smoking)
Pimply-faced highschoolers camping out in the basement of their daddy's house can't afford crack. It's model airplane glue I'm sure.
Tsk tsk tsk.
How sad is that?
Kinda wonder if it isn't representative of the value systems in each country. There has to be something to it if the marketing whizkids decide to use that sort of spin.
It's not OFFTOPIC.
It's bang on. You just need an IQ higher than 12 to get it.
Maybe AMD will ship the XP2600+ by then.
In addition to the Versign scams, we have these idiots to deal with.
This of course has nothing to do with the ineptitude of these idiots.
The solution to dealing with these creeps naturally is to do business with a reputable, knowledgeable outfit, and the idiots seem to be kept at bay.
> sources of content not controlled by a media
> cartel. If you can't find decent bands who are
> willing to let you broadcast their music for
> free, you probably shouldn't be running an
> Internet radio station.
Bingo.
When all is said and done, there are far worse things going on in the industry besides the shenanigans CARP introduces. Incredible predatory business practices and pricing models by the big streaming providers, ridiculous licensing schemes from the streaming software makers. How much is a Helix Server license for 25 concurrent streams?
The RIAA is only an obstacle when your content falls inside their domain. Stream indies and original material and kiss them goodbye.
What's left is still a nasty pile of obstacles that will kill most small webcasters.
So the Big Brother approach means the government will be able to keep track of the most affluent of our society that also happens to a) be technically inclined, b) trusts the internet with their communications, and c) trusts the government with their data.
I hope those 4 people are very happy with the service.
This sleeze seems to be an American phenomenon.
Land of the free, home of the brave.
sig? what the hell for?
> Maybe they will bow to even more consumer
> pressure and allow filtering of commercials.
Yeah, and maybe while they're at it they'll bow even further and fix Windows.
> so tending your "boxen" likens them to a herd
> of animals.
Are penguins animals?
> Of course, the thing that really annoys me is
> virii. Where is that second i coming from?
The second i is for the ultra-cool people.
I blame Robert Blake.
Clearly this is his doing....