One of my first questions to those mandating this change is how many more people they're going to give my department to perform these duties, and how you all are going to be trained to be familiar with the other department's apps. This is a pile of work being dumped in your lap.
As for your questions, I don't think the privacy question needs to really become an issue. Pretty much every place I've worked in IT or Tech Support, I've had system privileges that gave me access to damn near anything on institution-owned equipment, from the president's e-mail to the custodian's bowling-league stats. And I've told them that... with the assurance that even though I could get at this stuff, I had no intention of doing so. I'm too busy to monitor people's private stuff and it's none of my damn business. I tell them that techies are just like janitors: we have keys to everything. {shrug}
What's likely (hell: inevitable) to become an issue is autonomy. If people have to come to you to do things they're used to being able to do themselves, they'll understandably resent you for it. The only solution I can suggest to that problem is to give them the same level of service they're used to getting from themselves. e.g. If they want some software installed, you get the software installed. ASAP. (This is why you probably need more staff.) If you make it clear to them that you're trying not to get in the way of their work, they'll resent it less. And when you can't deliver, or have to say "no", they'll hopefully be more understanding if they know it's not just you being a control freak or lazy or not caring.
Part of preparing for death (assuming you get a chance to) involves talking about it with the important people in your life, and assuring yourself that those you leave behind are going to be OK. While your co-workers probably don't rank up there with your children and beloved partner in that respect, you may very well count them among your friends, and I know that I'd hate to leave my friends in the lurch if I could prevent it.
I've never really understood the "make yourself indispensible" mindset anyway. I've always tried my best to make myself as unnecessary as I can, by making the equipment, the users, etc. as reliable and self-sufficient as possible. Not only does it make my job less stressful in the long run, but it also shows up in others' assessment of my skills, which is where real job security (or at least most of it) comes from. Of course it's never possible to make myself completely dispensible in the real world, and that's where the rest of my job security comes from.
Where are you going to get 4 female trekkies? Are there 4 female trekkies?
You're kidding, right? Trek fandom has always been notable for attracting a significant number of women (especially compared to SF fandom in general or other realms of geekdom). Historically, women have been drawn to Trek by romantically appealing captains, by the ideals of gender equality the shows represented (Uhura may not have done much, but she was a bridge officer), and the community opportunities of fandom itself. The whole genre of "slash" fanfic was invented by female trekkies fantasizing about a Kirk/Spock relationship. Fanfic is also rife with uber-competent "Lt. Mary Sue" characters who win the heart of Kirk or Spock or another character, also obviously written by women. In the TNG era, the DSPSGs (drooling, slobbering, Patrick Stewart groupies) were rampant on CompuServe (and mostly female). To cite a mass-media example, there's the woman who made the news for wearing her Starfleet uniform for jury duty. Whoopi Goldberg finagled herself a part on TNG because she was a fan. I haven't been involved in Trek fandom for a while, so maybe the women have been abandoning it for other more interesting subjects (leaving only the men who refuse to ask for directions), but the notion that female trekkies are some kind of mythical creature is simply incorrect.
In the process of trying to determine whether my current Diamond Mako (a relabeled Psion Revo) is going to have to be replaced. (The battery-recharging system in these has a tendency to fail. This is the fourth one I've owned.) The only ports it has are a power input, a (proprietary) serial port for data transfer, and an infrared port I've never used. But it has all the functionality I usually want to carry with me (e.g. a QWERTY keypad), and because of its size (it makes even a 12" PowerBook look like a cafeteria tray), I can carry it with me. The bad news is that they don't make them anymore. And no one else makes anything comparable. Even Psion was in the process of putting these things on steroids, making subsequent models bigger and "more functional" (before they sold the OS to Symbian and then quit the market). Why oh why is no one willing to make a portable computer that's truly portable?
Having everybody in a group speaking to the public from the same script is the way any good organization is run. I've frequently lost internal debates about one thing or another, and even when the boss has been flat-out brain-dead what-was-he-on wrong (IMHO) I've always been careful to keep that opinion "within the family". I may not personally endorse the decision, but I'll defend it if I have to. e.g. "The department has decided to do [whatever the boss chose] because [whatever his rationale was]."
But the day I can't tell the boss that I disagree is the day I quit. Or get fired. {wry grin}
Do they mean 'new series' as in a new season? Is this a British English - American English thing?
Because BBC TV productions haven't necessarily followed the model of annual Fall-to-Spring production schedules (as the American networks usually do), they call each batch of episodes a "series".
One of the more interesting interpretations of these "signs of the end times" is that they are meant to be useless for actual forcasting. There have always been "wars and rumors of wars", natural disasters, false prophets and leaders, etc. which means that we've been living on borrowed time all along and should always live as if these were our last days.
Yep. But it's not technically theft, either. IP theft at best, but really just copyright infringement. Your illegal download in no way prevents someone else from buying the product in question, unlike if you had just lifted a copy of whatever $$$$ software at your local software emporium. It's really all just scare mongering and FUD.
And pretty much everything you've just said is REJ (Rationalizations, Excuses, and Justifications) for why copyright infringement is supposedly harmless. It's just FUD with a different agenda.
Trademark exclusivity only applies within a registered category of commerce, and space probes don't compete with publishing houses or game developers. If your buddy's lawyer really is a good person, he'll explain that before turning on the meter for billable hours.
The new imacs now start at $1,199.00, which, if I recall, is as cheap as emacs ever were. And for $800 a school could set up a mini with an LCD display. So there doesn't seem to be much need for emacs any more.
You recall incorrectly. The eMac has been in sub-$1000 territory for the last few years, as low as $799 for the base model. I've often recommended it to our students as the best bang-for-your-buck Mac available, faster than the older PowerMac G4s we're still using in some of our labs. In an environment with kids, a self-contained unit with minimal cables is really nice. And in an environment with potential thieves, a single lockdown point and even the durn weight of the eMac CRT is advantageous compared to a Mini.
When the costs for the parts drop, so will the price of the Mini.
That's not really Apple's way of doing things, though. More likely the cost of the parts will go down, Apple will upgrade to faster/bigger parts, and the price will stay the same.
I was curious how the new Mac Minis compared to ye olde eMac in price these days (by far the cheapest complete Mac available), and noticed that they're no longer listed in the main Apple store. I know they've been back-of-the-store items for a while now, and you can still find them in the refurb section, but... when did Apple take the eMac display model off the shelf?
Yeah, even with educational discounts, the cheapest new Mac available is now $579. Granted, it's largely psychological, but they've lost the switch-enticing marketing hook of being able to say, "You can get a new Mac for under $500."
This past week a local 17-year-old got arrested for posting photos he'd snapped of two friends (16 and 17), having sex at a New Year's party. A few weeks earlier, several high school students got busted for possessing alcohol when friends posted snapshots of them with drinks in hand.
A lot of the media and community chatter in response to these incidents has been about the dangers of the internet, but really it's about these not-quite-adults learning to behave responsibly. Drinking is questionable enough; getting caught shows even more lapse of judgment. And posting what the law considers "child pornography" (with one of the subjects apparently attempting suicide over it after they got passed around at school), is even worse judgment.
The internet gives teenagers like these one more place to demonstrate their lack of maturity, and can amplify the consequences. So yeah, parents need to be concerned about it. But it's not the internet per se that's the problem; it's kids learning to be adults.
I got an entry-level office job doing clerical/spreadsheet work the summer after my freshman year in college, based on the fact that I knew my way around computers... and my father knew one of the vice presidents of the company. Connections won't usually get you a job by themselves, but it can be damn hard to get a job without them.
Pessimist that I am, I figure we just witnessed the one other intelligent life form in the universe exterminating itself. Millennia from now when we confirm this, this event will be commemorated as We Are Alone Now Day.
native versions of Photoshop and a dozen other apps important to mac users are not yet available.
This is why I'm far more interested in benchmarks that would compare performance of the MacBook with a PowerBook using actual in-the-flesh applications. Will a dual-2GHz MacBook run an x86-compiled app faster than a 1.5GHz PowerBook G4 runs the PPC-compiled version? Well, duh. But what about an (apologies) apples-to-apples comparison of Photoshop CS2 on both 'Books? Which would I rather use while waiting for the Intel-native Photoshop CS3 to ship?
Slashdot Mirror
2. Bottle the icy-cold water
3. Ship bottles to Earth
4. Sell "Enceladus Springs" at outrageous prices
5. (Need I say more?)
As for your questions, I don't think the privacy question needs to really become an issue. Pretty much every place I've worked in IT or Tech Support, I've had system privileges that gave me access to damn near anything on institution-owned equipment, from the president's e-mail to the custodian's bowling-league stats. And I've told them that... with the assurance that even though I could get at this stuff, I had no intention of doing so. I'm too busy to monitor people's private stuff and it's none of my damn business. I tell them that techies are just like janitors: we have keys to everything. {shrug}
What's likely (hell: inevitable) to become an issue is autonomy. If people have to come to you to do things they're used to being able to do themselves, they'll understandably resent you for it. The only solution I can suggest to that problem is to give them the same level of service they're used to getting from themselves. e.g. If they want some software installed, you get the software installed. ASAP. (This is why you probably need more staff.) If you make it clear to them that you're trying not to get in the way of their work, they'll resent it less. And when you can't deliver, or have to say "no", they'll hopefully be more understanding if they know it's not just you being a control freak or lazy or not caring.
Part of preparing for death (assuming you get a chance to) involves talking about it with the important people in your life, and assuring yourself that those you leave behind are going to be OK. While your co-workers probably don't rank up there with your children and beloved partner in that respect, you may very well count them among your friends, and I know that I'd hate to leave my friends in the lurch if I could prevent it.
I've never really understood the "make yourself indispensible" mindset anyway. I've always tried my best to make myself as unnecessary as I can, by making the equipment, the users, etc. as reliable and self-sufficient as possible. Not only does it make my job less stressful in the long run, but it also shows up in others' assessment of my skills, which is where real job security (or at least most of it) comes from. Of course it's never possible to make myself completely dispensible in the real world, and that's where the rest of my job security comes from.
You're kidding, right? Trek fandom has always been notable for attracting a significant number of women (especially compared to SF fandom in general or other realms of geekdom). Historically, women have been drawn to Trek by romantically appealing captains, by the ideals of gender equality the shows represented (Uhura may not have done much, but she was a bridge officer), and the community opportunities of fandom itself. The whole genre of "slash" fanfic was invented by female trekkies fantasizing about a Kirk/Spock relationship. Fanfic is also rife with uber-competent "Lt. Mary Sue" characters who win the heart of Kirk or Spock or another character, also obviously written by women. In the TNG era, the DSPSGs (drooling, slobbering, Patrick Stewart groupies) were rampant on CompuServe (and mostly female). To cite a mass-media example, there's the woman who made the news for wearing her Starfleet uniform for jury duty. Whoopi Goldberg finagled herself a part on TNG because she was a fan. I haven't been involved in Trek fandom for a while, so maybe the women have been abandoning it for other more interesting subjects (leaving only the men who refuse to ask for directions), but the notion that female trekkies are some kind of mythical creature is simply incorrect.
In the process of trying to determine whether my current Diamond Mako (a relabeled Psion Revo) is going to have to be replaced. (The battery-recharging system in these has a tendency to fail. This is the fourth one I've owned.) The only ports it has are a power input, a (proprietary) serial port for data transfer, and an infrared port I've never used. But it has all the functionality I usually want to carry with me (e.g. a QWERTY keypad), and because of its size (it makes even a 12" PowerBook look like a cafeteria tray), I can carry it with me. The bad news is that they don't make them anymore. And no one else makes anything comparable. Even Psion was in the process of putting these things on steroids, making subsequent models bigger and "more functional" (before they sold the OS to Symbian and then quit the market). Why oh why is no one willing to make a portable computer that's truly portable?
But the day I can't tell the boss that I disagree is the day I quit. Or get fired. {wry grin}
Because BBC TV productions haven't necessarily followed the model of annual Fall-to-Spring production schedules (as the American networks usually do), they call each batch of episodes a "series".
"If it's filthy and fiction, it's all there in The Sun."
One of the more interesting interpretations of these "signs of the end times" is that they are meant to be useless for actual forcasting. There have always been "wars and rumors of wars", natural disasters, false prophets and leaders, etc. which means that we've been living on borrowed time all along and should always live as if these were our last days.
"Nach0king" sounds like a competing franchise to "CmdrTaco".
How deep do you have to go
Six feet. Underground or underwater... doesn't matter which.
(IANAL, but my father, brother-in-law, and cousin are.)
And pretty much everything you've just said is REJ (Rationalizations, Excuses, and Justifications) for why copyright infringement is supposedly harmless. It's just FUD with a different agenda.
Trademark exclusivity only applies within a registered category of commerce, and space probes don't compete with publishing houses or game developers. If your buddy's lawyer really is a good person, he'll explain that before turning on the meter for billable hours.
Artemis was associated with the moon because her twin brother was associated with the sun.
You recall incorrectly. The eMac has been in sub-$1000 territory for the last few years, as low as $799 for the base model. I've often recommended it to our students as the best bang-for-your-buck Mac available, faster than the older PowerMac G4s we're still using in some of our labs. In an environment with kids, a self-contained unit with minimal cables is really nice. And in an environment with potential thieves, a single lockdown point and even the durn weight of the eMac CRT is advantageous compared to a Mini.
That's not really Apple's way of doing things, though. More likely the cost of the parts will go down, Apple will upgrade to faster/bigger parts, and the price will stay the same.
I was curious how the new Mac Minis compared to ye olde eMac in price these days (by far the cheapest complete Mac available), and noticed that they're no longer listed in the main Apple store. I know they've been back-of-the-store items for a while now, and you can still find them in the refurb section, but... when did Apple take the eMac display model off the shelf?
Because you want shoes made by foreign laborers earning $1/hour instead of by slave laborers paid 5cents/hour?
Yeah, even with educational discounts, the cheapest new Mac available is now $579. Granted, it's largely psychological, but they've lost the switch-enticing marketing hook of being able to say, "You can get a new Mac for under $500."
A lot of the media and community chatter in response to these incidents has been about the dangers of the internet, but really it's about these not-quite-adults learning to behave responsibly. Drinking is questionable enough; getting caught shows even more lapse of judgment. And posting what the law considers "child pornography" (with one of the subjects apparently attempting suicide over it after they got passed around at school), is even worse judgment.
The internet gives teenagers like these one more place to demonstrate their lack of maturity, and can amplify the consequences. So yeah, parents need to be concerned about it. But it's not the internet per se that's the problem; it's kids learning to be adults.
I got an entry-level office job doing clerical/spreadsheet work the summer after my freshman year in college, based on the fact that I knew my way around computers... and my father knew one of the vice presidents of the company. Connections won't usually get you a job by themselves, but it can be damn hard to get a job without them.
{chuckle}
Reference for the art-awareness-challenged.
Pessimist that I am, I figure we just witnessed the one other intelligent life form in the universe exterminating itself. Millennia from now when we confirm this, this event will be commemorated as We Are Alone Now Day.
This is why I'm far more interested in benchmarks that would compare performance of the MacBook with a PowerBook using actual in-the-flesh applications. Will a dual-2GHz MacBook run an x86-compiled app faster than a 1.5GHz PowerBook G4 runs the PPC-compiled version? Well, duh. But what about an (apologies) apples-to-apples comparison of Photoshop CS2 on both 'Books? Which would I rather use while waiting for the Intel-native Photoshop CS3 to ship?