Not a great idea. I spent five years working post-sales in that environment.
The problem is that the sales people typically aren't motivated and view learning the technical details mostly as a waste of time. So they don't learn it as well as they should. Also, since they've been "trained", an engineer isn't as likely to be assigned to the sales person for the engagement. What you end up with is usually a sales person who thinks they understand the details.
The end result is that the post-sales engineer who gets assigned has to clean everything up. I probably spent at least 60% of my time having to re-engage our sales team for more appropriate contracts and re-engineer the "solution" the client was sold.
There were a few times I was sent to engagements following a new sale that had involved both a sales person and a pre-sales engineer. Those engagements went much more smoothly and usually resulted in increased sales of product and services.
What you describe is a best case scenario for a stolen credit card. Things don't always go that way, and there are a million ways for the incident to be much less pleasant. There is a very real chance a lot of people will have to spend a significant amount of time and energy to get this cleaned up.
Another thing to note here is that it's a closed system. Sure, in the end you won't have to pay the bill. But, I can guaran-damn-te the suits at Sony or Visa won't pay it either. So who pays the bill? Innocent bystanders when Sony raises their prices or Sony employees when they add the loss to their budget planning and have to eliminate another position to offset costs.
And watch a lot of them get turned away. The cable companies have been hard at work introducing legislation to greatly limit competition in a lot of areas. Try asking Verizon when FiOS will be available in Tennessee for example. In the entire Memphis area, your choice is pretty much Comcast or Comcast. There is DSL, but its throughput is laughable and the service is highly unreliable, and there is no "high end" DSL to speak of.
Shouldn't be uncomfortable. There are two types of schools: public and private.
Public schools are mostly paid for and to some degree run by "government" entities. They generally could care less about profit and tend to operate much like assembly lines.
Private schools are businesses. They don't always measure their own performance in terms of dollars, but make no mistake, they operate for profit. Sometimes the profit is the schools prestige, sometimes its student enrollment, and sometimes its simply a schools political involvement. Whatever it is though, its always about advancing either the school or the people who run it.
I have nothing to support this other than my personal experience, so take this as my thought and not as fact. That being said, most of the democrats I've known in my life have tended to convert to the republican party after they've started making decent salaries. IF that is true in a wider sense, then it would seem reasonable that the agenda you describe above would be pushed by both the democrats as well. Otherwise, they educate their base, their base makes more money, and they start losing people.
This has a lot to do with hardware acceleration in the GUI, which for the most part isn't there in any Android below 2.3. I bought my Droid 2 last september and noticed exactly what you mention. In 2.3, that's no longer true. It feels MUCH smoother. In fact, my wife went out a month ago and picked up a low end device (with 2.3) that has a much better response rate and feel despite having a processor only half as fast.
Portal was the perfect example of that. It was short, but it was amazingly well designed (simple that it was) and the story was fantastic. It was a small project that exploded because it was well done.
The reason Oracle is being singled out is because they don't have enough connections in this section of the Government (Read that as no one involved with this action on the Government side has an incentive to make this disappear). A government contractor should either:
1. Have someone on the purchasing side with an investment in the company who stands to profit if things go well. 2. Provide "incentive" to make sure things like this don't happen. Hookers and blow...
Agreed, but otoh its all relative. If you've ever had any support issues with them or had to endure the "Time Warner 9th Circle of Hell Phone Menu" (tm) any browser error, no matter how bad, seems like paradise.
Stories like this help convince me that the submitter and timothy have never worked in a medium or large enterprise environment. Anyone who has knows the value of backup tapes.
No, they never went away. Yes, they will be with us for a long time to come.
To anyone who has ever had to manage or deal with a large data archiving or backup system, tapes have always been a consideration. Even if they didn't end up using tapes, they were seriously considered. Very few other options offer the raw storage space, reliability, speed, modularity, and low degradation rates of tapes.
Actually, they have an excellent data network. It is slower than AT&T's HSPA, but in my experience it is much much more reliable. With Verizon, I average about 600 - 700 kbps down almost everywhere. With AT&T I might get 1mbps down or I might get 250 - 300 kbps down depending on which wall I'm standing next to. The reason for that is Verizon's EVDO A has been rolled out all over the place and is a little older than AT&T's HSPA. AT&T's rollout of their 3G network was (and continues to be) horrendously slow.
Yes, GM did pay back 6.7 billion. Then again, they received about 52 billion. So yeah, go ahead and give them a cheer for paying some back, but they're definitely not the hero's that a lot of people are making them out to be.
By the way, the losses on the money the government gave GM look to exceed around 30 billion.
I have mobile broadband but even so would never use this. I have 5 GB a month, which is more than enough for my typical usage but it'll be a cold day in hell before I start using up a significant portion of my cap for DRM.
And before anyone says anything, ANY amount of data is a significant portion of my cap when its being used for crap like this. If this somehow enhanced the gameplay or added to it I'd have no problem with it. In fact, mobile gaming was why I originally bought mobile broadband. Multiplayer support is one thing, invasive DRM is another.
The given glide ratio of a 747 is 15:1. For every one foot you drop, you move forward 15. This is under IDEAL conditions. So, considering that commercial flights occur between 30,000 to 38,000 feet (mid-flight), that means that an unpowered 747 would have 85.2 to 102 miles of forward range before hitting the ground. Now consider the unlikely case that the 747 has an airport or suitable landing area directly in front of them and lined up and some things become obvious.
Even if you're at maximum altitude when you're 747 loses its propulsion, you.... are.... screwed... 85 to 102 miles is very little range. Add to that the fact that the plane will almost certainly need to turn to present an acceptable landing arrangement, significantly harming the glide ratio during the turn, and you end up with something very close to a nightmare scenario.
The funny thing that occurs to me is that, part and parcel with the game is the understanding that the purchase price buys a service from EA. That service is EA keeping the activation servers up and insuring that the game talks properly to the server.
In my view, you paid for a service and are not being provided that service. This opens the door to all kinds of things on your end, least of which is issuing a chargeback if you paid using a credit card.
Dead on. College textbook publishers are easily the most evil group of people around. 400 bucks a semester for books that are designed to be obsolete by the end of the semester...
I'd rather call my utility company twice a day (7 levels of phone menu, 30 minute hold times, 13 digit account number) for the rest of my life than deal with that crap again.
It's been a while since I was in math, but I believe the key is that "unpredictable == random" only when "unpredictable" is completely unbound by statistical analysis. If "unpredictable" is bound by a statistical equation, then it is not random, even if it is only loosely bound.
E.g. if some function can predict the result of said system with an average rate of success that is greater than 0% but less than 100%, then the system can be said to be not random and not predictable.
As a software automation consultant for some major institutions, I say to you "Please, for the love of God, preach your views to the world".
I often find myself reviewing application logic written and implemented by a developer that then goes on to call db interface code (usually plain sql) also written by that same dev. 90% of the time, the interface code is HORRIFIC. I can't say that loud enough. I've seen embedded sql/plsql that would make a junior dba's head explode.
I understand there are a ton of reasons to be concerned about privacy these days, but this is definitely not one of them. So a timeclock/doorlock/whatever wants your prints, get over it. This is the way it works. Employers (even one for a workstudy) do this kind of thing. They've also got your name, address, social, date of birth, etc...
Leave the freaking out to people with real privacy problems.
I understand your point here, but to me it's irrelevant. Maybe the outlaws don't need guns because there's a great chance the people they're going to assault won't have them, but what does it matter? If a person is going to assault someone else (mug, rape, hurt, etc...), then the tool they use to do so isn't the issue. Do I think that someone in the state of mind to hurt some random stranger won't try to acquire a gun because its "wrong" or "illegal"? I don't know, but I doubt it. By the definition of their actions, the person undertaking the assault has a weaker moral backbone than someone just walking down the street. That is what needs to be addressed.
This is just my opinion, and I know people will disagree with me, but when someone is being assaulted for whatever reason the person being attacked in that engagement may be shot, stabbed, or beat with a pipe but the pulp of what goes on there doesn't really change. When someone has a mind to take violent advantage of someone else, the person being taken advantage of has every right to defend themselves with whatever means.
I'm a software consultant, averaging about 80% travel with a typical meantime of about 2 weeks before changing locations. I've been doing this for about 6 years. For the first two years I was desperate for a mobile data solution because (most of the time) hotel internet connections are absolutely horrendous.
For the last 4 years I've tried both AT&T and Verizon for mobile data, and I've got to say Verizon has beat AT&T into the ground in every respect. When I was on AT&T, I achieved an honest-to-god HSDPA connection for a grand total of three wonderful weeks. But three weeks out of a 2 year span do not make for a happy consultant.
With Verizon, I've consistently received a 3G connection time and again. The only time I didn't receive a 3G connection was when I was stuck for two weeks in the middle of northern Wisconsin.
Verizon's 3G IS slower than AT&T's 3G, that much is true. But unless you live in one of the very few areas that AT&T chooses to bless with its almost mythical HSDPA, its not worth it. Verizon's 3G has a vastly superior coverage and maintains about 800Kb/sec. AT&T's EDGE (2G) will get you about 100Kb/sec if you're lucky.
That's why it's not called an "IT" department in so many large organizations. It's called "IS".
That vast majority of people working in IT need to realize that they are working to provide a service to their customers, who just happen to be the rest of the company. An IT worker's performance should be measured by how effective they are at helping the rest of the company do whatever it is they do.
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Not a great idea. I spent five years working post-sales in that environment.
The problem is that the sales people typically aren't motivated and view learning the technical details mostly as a waste of time. So they don't learn it as well as they should. Also, since they've been "trained", an engineer isn't as likely to be assigned to the sales person for the engagement. What you end up with is usually a sales person who thinks they understand the details.
The end result is that the post-sales engineer who gets assigned has to clean everything up. I probably spent at least 60% of my time having to re-engage our sales team for more appropriate contracts and re-engineer the "solution" the client was sold.
There were a few times I was sent to engagements following a new sale that had involved both a sales person and a pre-sales engineer. Those engagements went much more smoothly and usually resulted in increased sales of product and services.
What you describe is a best case scenario for a stolen credit card. Things don't always go that way, and there are a million ways for the incident to be much less pleasant. There is a very real chance a lot of people will have to spend a significant amount of time and energy to get this cleaned up.
Another thing to note here is that it's a closed system. Sure, in the end you won't have to pay the bill. But, I can guaran-damn-te the suits at Sony or Visa won't pay it either. So who pays the bill? Innocent bystanders when Sony raises their prices or Sony employees when they add the loss to their budget planning and have to eliminate another position to offset costs.
And watch a lot of them get turned away. The cable companies have been hard at work introducing legislation to greatly limit competition in a lot of areas. Try asking Verizon when FiOS will be available in Tennessee for example. In the entire Memphis area, your choice is pretty much Comcast or Comcast. There is DSL, but its throughput is laughable and the service is highly unreliable, and there is no "high end" DSL to speak of.
Shouldn't be uncomfortable. There are two types of schools: public and private.
Public schools are mostly paid for and to some degree run by "government" entities. They generally could care less about profit and tend to operate much like assembly lines.
Private schools are businesses. They don't always measure their own performance in terms of dollars, but make no mistake, they operate for profit. Sometimes the profit is the schools prestige, sometimes its student enrollment, and sometimes its simply a schools political involvement. Whatever it is though, its always about advancing either the school or the people who run it.
I have nothing to support this other than my personal experience, so take this as my thought and not as fact. That being said, most of the democrats I've known in my life have tended to convert to the republican party after they've started making decent salaries. IF that is true in a wider sense, then it would seem reasonable that the agenda you describe above would be pushed by both the democrats as well. Otherwise, they educate their base, their base makes more money, and they start losing people.
This has a lot to do with hardware acceleration in the GUI, which for the most part isn't there in any Android below 2.3. I bought my Droid 2 last september and noticed exactly what you mention. In 2.3, that's no longer true. It feels MUCH smoother. In fact, my wife went out a month ago and picked up a low end device (with 2.3) that has a much better response rate and feel despite having a processor only half as fast.
Best use ever.
Absolutely!
Portal was the perfect example of that. It was short, but it was amazingly well designed (simple that it was) and the story was fantastic. It was a small project that exploded because it was well done.
My guess: Not enough hookers and blow.
The reason Oracle is being singled out is because they don't have enough connections in this section of the Government (Read that as no one involved with this action on the Government side has an incentive to make this disappear). A government contractor should either:
1. Have someone on the purchasing side with an investment in the company who stands to profit if things go well.
2. Provide "incentive" to make sure things like this don't happen. Hookers and blow...
Agreed, but otoh its all relative. If you've ever had any support issues with them or had to endure the "Time Warner 9th Circle of Hell Phone Menu" (tm) any browser error, no matter how bad, seems like paradise.
Stories like this help convince me that the submitter and timothy have never worked in a medium or large enterprise environment. Anyone who has knows the value of backup tapes.
No, they never went away. Yes, they will be with us for a long time to come.
To anyone who has ever had to manage or deal with a large data archiving or backup system, tapes have always been a consideration. Even if they didn't end up using tapes, they were seriously considered. Very few other options offer the raw storage space, reliability, speed, modularity, and low degradation rates of tapes.
Actually, they have an excellent data network. It is slower than AT&T's HSPA, but in my experience it is much much more reliable. With Verizon, I average about 600 - 700 kbps down almost everywhere. With AT&T I might get 1mbps down or I might get 250 - 300 kbps down depending on which wall I'm standing next to. The reason for that is Verizon's EVDO A has been rolled out all over the place and is a little older than AT&T's HSPA. AT&T's rollout of their 3G network was (and continues to be) horrendously slow.
Actually, there are a lot of people who use handguns to hunt. I've known several.
Don't forget the typical 5GB data cap.
I call bullshit.
Yes, GM did pay back 6.7 billion. Then again, they received about 52 billion. So yeah, go ahead and give them a cheer for paying some back, but they're definitely not the hero's that a lot of people are making them out to be.
By the way, the losses on the money the government gave GM look to exceed around 30 billion.
I have mobile broadband but even so would never use this. I have 5 GB a month, which is more than enough for my typical usage but it'll be a cold day in hell before I start using up a significant portion of my cap for DRM.
And before anyone says anything, ANY amount of data is a significant portion of my cap when its being used for crap like this. If this somehow enhanced the gameplay or added to it I'd have no problem with it. In fact, mobile gaming was why I originally bought mobile broadband. Multiplayer support is one thing, invasive DRM is another.
To add some numbers to your argument:
The given glide ratio of a 747 is 15:1. For every one foot you drop, you move forward 15. This is under IDEAL conditions. So, considering that commercial flights occur between 30,000 to 38,000 feet (mid-flight), that means that an unpowered 747 would have 85.2 to 102 miles of forward range before hitting the ground. Now consider the unlikely case that the 747 has an airport or suitable landing area directly in front of them and lined up and some things become obvious.
Even if you're at maximum altitude when you're 747 loses its propulsion, you.... are.... screwed... 85 to 102 miles is very little range. Add to that the fact that the plane will almost certainly need to turn to present an acceptable landing arrangement, significantly harming the glide ratio during the turn, and you end up with something very close to a nightmare scenario.
The funny thing that occurs to me is that, part and parcel with the game is the understanding that the purchase price buys a service from EA. That service is EA keeping the activation servers up and insuring that the game talks properly to the server.
In my view, you paid for a service and are not being provided that service. This opens the door to all kinds of things on your end, least of which is issuing a chargeback if you paid using a credit card.
All that being said, I am not a lawyer.
Dead on. College textbook publishers are easily the most evil group of people around. 400 bucks a semester for books that are designed to be obsolete by the end of the semester...
I'd rather call my utility company twice a day (7 levels of phone menu, 30 minute hold times, 13 digit account number) for the rest of my life than deal with that crap again.
It's been a while since I was in math, but I believe the key is that "unpredictable == random" only when "unpredictable" is completely unbound by statistical analysis. If "unpredictable" is bound by a statistical equation, then it is not random, even if it is only loosely bound.
E.g. if some function can predict the result of said system with an average rate of success that is greater than 0% but less than 100%, then the system can be said to be not random and not predictable.
As a software automation consultant for some major institutions, I say to you "Please, for the love of God, preach your views to the world".
I often find myself reviewing application logic written and implemented by a developer that then goes on to call db interface code (usually plain sql) also written by that same dev. 90% of the time, the interface code is HORRIFIC. I can't say that loud enough. I've seen embedded sql/plsql that would make a junior dba's head explode.
Mod parent up.
I understand there are a ton of reasons to be concerned about privacy these days, but this is definitely not one of them. So a timeclock/doorlock/whatever wants your prints, get over it. This is the way it works. Employers (even one for a workstudy) do this kind of thing. They've also got your name, address, social, date of birth, etc...
Leave the freaking out to people with real privacy problems.
I understand your point here, but to me it's irrelevant.
Maybe the outlaws don't need guns because there's a great chance the people they're going to assault won't have them, but what does it matter? If a person is going to assault someone else (mug, rape, hurt, etc...), then the tool they use to do so isn't the issue. Do I think that someone in the state of mind to hurt some random stranger won't try to acquire a gun because its "wrong" or "illegal"? I don't know, but I doubt it. By the definition of their actions, the person undertaking the assault has a weaker moral backbone than someone just walking down the street. That is what needs to be addressed.
This is just my opinion, and I know people will disagree with me, but when someone is being assaulted for whatever reason the person being attacked in that engagement may be shot, stabbed, or beat with a pipe but the pulp of what goes on there doesn't really change. When someone has a mind to take violent advantage of someone else, the person being taken advantage of has every right to defend themselves with whatever means.
My 2 cents...
I'm a software consultant, averaging about 80% travel with a typical meantime of about 2 weeks before changing locations. I've been doing this for about 6 years. For the first two years I was desperate for a mobile data solution because (most of the time) hotel internet connections are absolutely horrendous.
For the last 4 years I've tried both AT&T and Verizon for mobile data, and I've got to say Verizon has beat AT&T into the ground in every respect. When I was on AT&T, I achieved an honest-to-god HSDPA connection for a grand total of three wonderful weeks. But three weeks out of a 2 year span do not make for a happy consultant.
With Verizon, I've consistently received a 3G connection time and again. The only time I didn't receive a 3G connection was when I was stuck for two weeks in the middle of northern Wisconsin.
Verizon's 3G IS slower than AT&T's 3G, that much is true. But unless you live in one of the very few areas that AT&T chooses to bless with its almost mythical HSDPA, its not worth it. Verizon's 3G has a vastly superior coverage and maintains about 800Kb/sec. AT&T's EDGE (2G) will get you about 100Kb/sec if you're lucky.
Exactly!
That's why it's not called an "IT" department in so many large organizations. It's called "IS".
That vast majority of people working in IT need to realize that they are working to provide a service to their customers, who just happen to be the rest of the company. An IT worker's performance should be measured by how effective they are at helping the rest of the company do whatever it is they do.