That's all that matters. If, by following the same steps, you arrive at the same results that he achieved, then his ideas merit attention.
I'm highly skeptical of him, because he hasn't published his work for peer review. No one can verify his results because it's a trade secret? I don't buy that.
If it is true, this is going to be a highly disruptive technology, on the same order that the railroad, the car, and the telegraph were.
Back in the 1500's the first great wave of exploration started the coloniztion of the New World.
Looks like we're on the verge of the second great wave of exploration. Hold on to your hats folks, many changes are coming that dwarf our beloved internet.
Not all computer people are the same. Not all companies are the same.
It sounds like your intent is to retain your people by compensating them for the actual work they do (your weak overtime reference). You're concerned (rightly so) that they will eventually find someone else who will pay them what the market says they are worth. You want to prevent that. That's good, most managers don't ever get to this point.
If they are still going to be employed by the company (they aren't going to be converted into contractors) then how you pay them ultimately is a 6-of-one, half-dozen type issue. Why not just give them raises? You work at a financial firm, a lot of them give out cash bonuses at the end of the year for performance. If you're trying to do an end run around HR (sometimes those people don't "get it" in time) that's understandable. Tell you people, and they'll work with you.
You might try other solutions, like trying to find ways to reduce the amount of time they have to spend at work.
However, if you're trying to re-arrange things, so that it's easy to kick your staff out the door, and bring in a bunch of H1-B's, I hope your 1 or 2 really good people find other jobs, without giving you so much as a one day's notice. If you really want to do that, just lay them all off and then institute your hourly wage plan. Don't incrementalize!
Do you think this will look like IBM (long, drawn out with no real decision made), or T (long drawn out with an eventual decision) in terms of what eventually happens to MSFT? In other words, what is the gov't most likely to do?
How long do you think it will take the gov't to make a decision on what to do?
If it takes over 1 year, how relevant do you think the decision will be?
I used to be in MIS, and I whole heartedly agree that software engineers are treated somewhat better than sysadmins. Then again system admin has been traditionally a stepping stone on the path to coding godhood. I wouldn't make a career of it, but others disagree nowadays.
I have no illusions - executive management and VCs will never be your friend, but they are not necessarily your enemy. Things are a little more complicated than that.
It's about stupidity, but also not wanting to be smart.
And if anybody's going to go first, it's going to be the weak companies that don't have their s together.
Compaq, HP, and Dell are all in trouble, their earnings just aren't growing the way they used to. They have succeeded in "managing expectations" on their earnings, but this can't last forever. You guys should read Bill Fleckenstein and his concept of "nuclear winter".
1.) Live in East Butthole, Tennesee, because 2.) They can't move to a better part of the country, because 3.) They have no marketable skills, because 4.) They dropped out of school, because 5.) Some mack daddy knocked 'em up, and they were too stupid to 6.) use birth control or have an abortion. Now they 7.) weigh over 200 lbs, because they 8.) sit on their ass while they collect a welfare check, and stuff their mouth full of potato chips while 9.) watching N'Sync
I'm surprised that women like this attract losers. Shocked, amazed. My world view has been shaken to its foundations. I wish 'em luck following that advice, I really do. Hope it helps 'em out.
Very true. Community has a lot to do with the quality of public education. There are healthy communities and sick ones, and their schools tend to reflect that fact. I never did say there was a monolithic educational system in the US. Still, government run is government run, even if it is local government. And government really has only one concern, when push comes to shove (or trigger comes to pull) - preserving order.
The general trend for public education is downward. Metal detectors. ID Badges. Armed guards. Random locker searches. Techniques and tools to preserve order amidst growing chaos. Things that go on all the time in the chaotic "public urban school" you mention are now beginning to show up in the "wealthy public suburban school". And I ask you, do you think more or less schools will have these types of measures in place, in the future?
And for every positive example of a public school delivering on quality, tens more can give examples of apathy and failure on the part of "the system". Teachers generally aren't paid very well, they aren't well respected by anyone, and if they do a good job, they're not going to get rewarded for it. There are exceptions to every rule. Competence lurks in the most unlikely places...
The real solution is to get cohesion back into the community that supports the school, but that's asking too much. About all you can do these days is protect your family from the growing levels of chaos. There is not a quick or easy answer to this problem.
Typos are a fact of life. As long as you don't burst into B1FF SP33K, I'll forgive yours if you'll forgive mine.
Schools are turning into prisons. Who cares if the kids learn anything - they're not out on the streets causing trouble. I think it really would save the taxpayers money if we just went ahead and merged public schools with juvies and state prisons. But that would be acknowledging the future, and we can't have that. Public education is education of last resort. If you really want your child to learn, you'll have to hire a private school, hire a private tutor, or do it yourself.
There are some distinct differences from being a regular employee to being a freelance agent.
Real employees have to be fired according to a procedure. There have to be reasons and justifications for it. Real employees can sue for damages if they are fired incorrectly. And there's severance pay, and other little bennies as well.
Temp contractors have none of that. One phone call, and they are out.
There are two reasons why a consultant's a consultant: 1.) They are very very good, and don't want to become enmeshed in a corporate bureaucracy. 2.) They are assholes that can't get along with people for any serious length of time. I'll add that the very very good types will also be charging a very very high rate.
I would find a smaller, less bureaucratic company to work at. Generally, the smart people of the world aren't working at large companies anymore. If you're working at a large company, and you can't get hired by a small startup, you're either 1.) inexperienced, in which case your situation is temporary, or 2.) incredibly lame.
If you are (1), then do the bare minimum to satisfy HR's requirements. Give them a few token heads on a silver platter, keep your head down, and *get* *out*. If you are (2), just use your inherent incompentence to keep everyone's privacy safe.
His case is probably on the extreme side, but it's a good illustration of what it's like to be a sysadmin.
The term for what management typically perceives you to be is "cost center". That means you don't contribute to the bottom line. You are a drain on the company budget that must be minimized and justified. Politically, you are typically invisible to the rest of the company. The only time they'll ever notice you is when things aren't working. Also, typically, development groups, if their application code stinks, will blame system performance to cover up their mistakes. Granted, you can come back with performance statistics, and shift the blame back onto them, but the burden of proof will always be on you, never them.
I don't think sysadmins work any longer or shorter hours than other computer geeks do, but the hours tend to be more odd. I'd rather work 12 straight hours and know that when I go home, I'll be left in peace than work 8 hours and know I'll get paged at 4am to work another 4.
All of you out there who are thinking about becoming a syadmin, re-read that story, and think again.
And they are a GODSEND. I really do encourage you, if you are stuck in a regular public school, and think you can qualify, to get in one. But not everyone's grades are up to it.
On convincing school boards to implement magnet schools: It is going to be tough if the district doesn't already have them. You're going to hear comments like "elitist" and people are going to question why they need to spend money on such things, when they only benefit a small minority. School bureaucrats tend to be hidebound, and narrow minded, and very very much like the old Ma Bell - they don't care, they don't have to.
It's possible to do, just as it's possible to move the earth with a lever. But it will take you a lot of effort, and a lot of time. It's much easier to move yourself around, and change yourself than it will ever be to change them. My advice is to not even try.
If you don't have a magnet school in your district, you still have options. And this is where parents come in. If you think your parents are up to it, try dropping out and home school. But you really need the right kind (ie. not screwed up) of parent to pull this off. Most kids these days don't have very good parents, unfortunately. But go for it if you do.
Otherwise, your options are junior college and GED.
The main objective is to get that 4-year college degree. How you do it isn't too important. And it is possible to get there without attending a traditional, jock infested high school.
Slashdot Mirror
That's all that matters. If, by following the same steps, you arrive at the same results that he achieved, then his ideas merit attention.
I'm highly skeptical of him, because he hasn't published his work for peer review. No one can verify his results because it's a trade secret? I don't buy that.
If it is true, this is going to be a highly disruptive technology, on the same order that
the railroad, the car, and the telegraph were.
Before we have the tools to find a second earth.
Back in the 1500's the first great wave of exploration started the coloniztion of the New
World.
Looks like we're on the verge of the second
great wave of exploration. Hold on to your
hats folks, many changes are coming that dwarf
our beloved internet.
Some of them will be good, others, well....
Not all computer people are the same. Not all
companies are the same.
It sounds like your intent is to retain your
people by compensating them for the actual work
they do (your weak overtime reference). You're
concerned (rightly so) that they will eventually
find someone else who will pay them what the
market says they are worth. You want to prevent
that. That's good, most managers don't ever get to this point.
If they are still going to be employed by the
company (they aren't going to be converted
into contractors) then how you pay them
ultimately is a 6-of-one, half-dozen type issue.
Why not just give them raises? You work at a
financial firm, a lot of them give out cash
bonuses at the end of the year for performance.
If you're trying to do an end run around HR
(sometimes those people don't "get it" in time)
that's understandable. Tell you people, and
they'll work with you.
You might try other solutions, like trying to
find ways to reduce the amount of time they
have to spend at work.
However, if you're trying to re-arrange
things, so that it's easy to kick your staff
out the door, and bring in a bunch of H1-B's,
I hope your 1 or 2 really good people find
other jobs, without giving you so much as a
one day's notice. If you really want to do
that, just lay them all off and then institute
your hourly wage plan. Don't incrementalize!
Do you think this will look like IBM (long,
drawn out with no real decision made), or T
(long drawn out with an eventual decision)
in terms of what eventually happens to MSFT?
In other words, what is the gov't most likely
to do?
How long do you think it will take the gov't
to make a decision on what to do?
If it takes over 1 year, how relevant do you
think the decision will be?
Get real, linux is a western invention. Only
the west provides the tolerance and freedom
necessary to incubate phenomena like linux.
I'd also mention that western corporations
didn't invent linux either. Again, the tolerance
and freedom isn't there either.
Just goes to show you how much power an open
standard has. Our corporations were the first
to submit. Now, red chinese must submit
to the Code.
One OS to rule them all, one OS to find them...
I used to be in MIS, and I whole heartedly agree
that software engineers are treated somewhat
better than sysadmins. Then again system admin
has been traditionally a stepping stone on the
path to coding godhood. I wouldn't make a career
of it, but others disagree nowadays.
I have no illusions - executive management and
VCs will never be your friend, but they are not
necessarily your enemy. Things are a little
more complicated than that.
It's about stupidity, but also not wanting to
be smart.
You need TWO PeeCees hooked together by serial
port. Then you put one computer in "debug boot
mode", and control the debugger using the other.
Feh.
On Solaris, you just grab the core and symbol
files, and use adb. On just one computer, with
no special boot modes, with the machine running
whatever.
Having this ability on linux will be very very
convenient.
And if anybody's going to go first, it's going to
be the weak companies that don't have their s
together.
Compaq, HP, and Dell are all in trouble, their
earnings just aren't growing the way they used
to. They have succeeded in "managing expectations" on their earnings, but this
can't last forever. You guys should read Bill Fleckenstein and his concept of "nuclear winter".
Fleck's column
We're not that far away from this dystopian
ideal. We really aren't.
This has been a trend for a while, only now has
it gotten bad enough for people to sit up and
take notice.
If we were really honest we would just merge
juvies with high schools, and be done with it.
Perhaps someone will propose it as a money
saving measure.
1.) Live in East Butthole, Tennesee, because
2.) They can't move to a better part of the
country, because
3.) They have no marketable skills, because
4.) They dropped out of school, because
5.) Some mack daddy knocked 'em up, and they were
too stupid to
6.) use birth control or have an abortion. Now
they
7.) weigh over 200 lbs, because they
8.) sit on their ass while they collect a welfare
check, and stuff their mouth full of potato
chips while
9.) watching N'Sync
I'm surprised that women like this attract
losers. Shocked, amazed. My world view has
been shaken to its foundations. I wish 'em luck
following that advice, I really do. Hope it
helps 'em out.
Very true. Community has a lot to do with the
quality of public education. There are healthy
communities and sick ones, and their schools
tend to reflect that fact. I never did say there
was a monolithic educational system in the US.
Still, government run is government run, even
if it is local government. And government really
has only one concern, when push comes to shove (or trigger comes to pull) - preserving order.
The general trend for public education is downward. Metal detectors. ID Badges. Armed
guards. Random locker searches. Techniques
and tools to preserve order amidst growing
chaos. Things that go on all the time in the chaotic "public urban school" you mention are
now beginning to show up in the "wealthy public
suburban school". And I ask you, do you think
more or less schools will have these types of
measures in place, in the future?
And for every positive example of a public school
delivering on quality, tens more can give
examples of apathy and failure on the part of
"the system". Teachers generally aren't paid
very well, they aren't well respected by anyone,
and if they do a good job, they're not going to
get rewarded for it. There are exceptions to every rule. Competence lurks in the most unlikely
places...
The real solution is to get cohesion back into
the community that supports the school, but
that's asking too much. About all you can do
these days is protect your family from the growing
levels of chaos. There is not a quick or easy
answer to this problem.
Typos are a fact of life. As long as you don't
burst into B1FF SP33K, I'll forgive yours if you'll forgive mine.
Schools are turning into prisons. Who cares if the kids learn anything - they're not out on the streets causing trouble. I think it really would save the taxpayers money if we just went ahead and merged public schools with juvies and state prisons. But that would be acknowledging the future, and we can't have that. Public education is education of last resort. If you really want your child to learn, you'll have to hire a private school, hire a private tutor, or do it yourself.
There are some distinct differences from being
a regular employee to being a freelance agent.
Real employees have to be fired according to
a procedure. There have to be reasons and
justifications for it. Real employees can sue
for damages if they are fired incorrectly. And
there's severance pay, and other little bennies
as well.
Temp contractors have none of that. One phone
call, and they are out.
There are two reasons why a consultant's a consultant: 1.) They are very very good, and don't want to become enmeshed in a corporate bureaucracy. 2.) They are assholes that can't get along with people for any serious length of time. I'll add that the very very good types will also be charging a very very high rate.
1.) It's a large bureaucratic company
2.) It's HR, the heart of the bureaucracy.
I would find a smaller, less bureaucratic company to work at. Generally, the smart people of the world aren't working at large companies anymore. If you're working at a large company, and you can't get hired by a small startup, you're either 1.) inexperienced, in which case your situation is temporary, or 2.) incredibly lame.
If you are (1), then do the bare minimum to satisfy HR's requirements. Give them a few token heads on a silver platter, keep your head down, and *get* *out*. If you are (2), just use your inherent incompentence to keep everyone's privacy safe.
His case is probably on the extreme side, but it's a good illustration of what it's like to be a sysadmin.
The term for what management typically perceives you to be is "cost center". That means you don't contribute to the bottom line. You are a drain on the company budget that must be minimized and justified. Politically, you are typically invisible to the rest of the company. The only time they'll ever notice you is when things aren't working. Also, typically, development groups, if their application code stinks, will blame system performance to cover up their mistakes. Granted, you can come back with performance statistics, and shift the blame back onto them, but the burden of proof will always be on you, never them.
I don't think sysadmins work any longer or shorter hours than other computer geeks do, but the hours tend to be more odd. I'd rather work 12 straight hours and know that when I go home, I'll be left in peace than work 8 hours and know I'll get paged at 4am to work another 4.
All of you out there who are thinking about becoming a syadmin, re-read that story, and think again.
And they are a GODSEND. I really do encourage you, if you are stuck in a regular public school, and think you can qualify, to get in one. But not everyone's grades are up to it.
On convincing school boards to implement magnet schools: It is going to be tough if the district doesn't already have them. You're going to hear comments like "elitist" and people are going to question why they need to spend money on such things, when they only benefit a small minority. School bureaucrats tend to be hidebound, and narrow minded, and very very much like the old Ma Bell - they don't care, they don't have to.
It's possible to do, just as it's possible to move the earth with a lever. But it will take you a lot of effort, and a lot of time. It's much easier to move yourself around, and change yourself than it will ever be to change them. My advice is to not even try.
If you don't have a magnet school in your district, you still have options. And this is where parents come in. If you think your parents are up to it, try dropping out and home school. But you really need the right kind (ie. not screwed up) of parent to pull this off. Most kids these days don't have very good parents, unfortunately. But go for it if you do.
Otherwise, your options are junior college and GED.
The main objective is to get that 4-year college degree. How you do it isn't too important. And it is possible to get there without attending a traditional, jock infested high school.