So is there a good legal reason why a judge would enforce an injunction against RIM if one of the patents has been rejected, and it looks like the others will be too?
I can't imagine any lawyer worth his fees not making strained, vociferous arguments for an indefinite continuance (until the Patent Office releases its final reports on these patents) to rule on the motion for the injunction.
If the patents are all invalidated, (and there are indications that very well could happen) what needs to happen is for RIM to sue the owners and directors of NTP into corporate and personal bankruptcy. The reality is that this frivolous litigation has cost RIM plenty of money in both potential business and copious resources dedicated to upgrading RIM's infrastructure and software to sidestep the patents.
The reality is that there are businesses that were formed for the sole purpose of using lawyers to extort money from other businesses with stealth-patent portfolios. These leeches need to be discouraged, and a couple financial death penalties directed at the instigators of this scheme would go a long way towards scaring companies out of the frivolous patent lawsuit game. An outcome like that for the NTP-gang would make the patent sheistering into a risky proposition instead of easy-money for the well-heeled elite who can afford to buy up patents on the sly, only to spring them on successful entreprenuers later.
This will buy us time until we can finally get the Congress to enact reasonable patent reform. Or hell freezes over, whichever comes first.
...I don't have a quarrel with them. The recruiters that drive me nuts are the ones that don't clearly state they are a third-party, or who are slightly misleading about the position or about themselves.
THE REAL PROBLEM with job web-sites are the scam-ola "internships" and "Entry-level networking" scams... The job-sites KNOW these companies are just pitching training (that YOU pay for,) but they continue to list these fraudulent ads over and over and over again. If you could setup some kind of "crap-filter"--sort of like Slashdot's "lameness" filter--you might really have something. An effective, accurate way to see only legitimate ads would set your job-site head and shoulders above the rest. DICE, CareerBuilder, Monster.com, all suffer from "Learning Network" ads in nauseating quantities, to the point where looking at them is an exercise is skepticism: Instead of thinking "Would I be a really good fit for this position?" you are forced to wonder "Is this a real ad or an attempt to leech $1500 out of 'IT students' for training that will get them very little, if anything."
We're looking at SAN solutions, and so far SGI's was moving to the head of the pack because it is the only one we've found (so far) that offers "official" support for OS X Servers. There are articles about "making EMC work" on the Mac, but no official support. Obviously, the boss isn't going to let me do a six-figure storage project that we don't have total support for from the vendor...
Hope they survive, or I'm going to end up stuck with no SAN and instead dangling a dollar-equivalent amount of storage off of a bunch of different systems, instead of one neat, manageable, versatile pool.
You're trying to make this about property rights and trespassing, but it isn't about either of those things: Sheehan was invited to be there, and did not resist when asked to leave, so she wasn't trespassing. Further, your attempt to conflate the gallery of the House of Representatives with some mall you earn $5 an hour at is also dubious. Americans have the right to an open government, and to petition that government to redress grievances, as long as the speech they use to do it isn't prohibited (ie. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.) You refuse to acknowledge these basic facts of the situation at hand: Nobody is saying you can't throw somebody out of your house, or out of your employer's mall. But citizens of the Republic can't simply be ejected for disagreeing with the government, or in this case, doing so by wearing a certain T-shirt.
You should feel free to dislike Cindy Sheehan, and disagree with her all you want. But the attitude that the government should be able pre-empt any speech it doesn't like--squelch any dissent, even that which falls within the narrow guidelines of what is allowed in the House gallery, and not based any action or threat by the person involved, that is dangerous.
It leads to the oppressive kind of government our founding fathers fought, bled, and died to overthrow, and should not be tolerated by any thinking man, regardless of political affiliation. I'm guessing civics wasn't your strong suit in school?
ou can be kicked out of a concert too, or a movie theater.
It is YOU who should spend some time educating himself.
Protest inside the House galleries is not allowed under House rules, however, the Capitol Police Chief EXPLICITLY said that wearing a T-shirt does NOT constitute an illegal protest. Neither Sheehan nor the Congressman's wife (whose name escapes me) should have been removed. Under the rules of the House, wearing a T-shirt in the gallery with writing on it is not considered a protest. If she jumps up and starts shouting or waving a sign, THAT is a protest. If she disrupts the proceedings in any way, THAT is a protest.
But sitting quietly with folded hands and wearing a T-shirt, PER THE CAPITOL POLICE, is allowed .
Listen, your "legitemate ticket" doesn't mean shit
Actually, it does, since you earlier falsely accused her of trespassing, one of your many "distractors," designed to keep us from noticing how completely invalid and ludicrous your argument is. You refuse to acknowledge the difference between a private citizen doing something and a government agent in a public facility covered by specific regulations, doing the same thing. Don't believe me? That's ok.
from now on I'm just posting a link. too many ignorant bastards to argue with.
Posting a link to your prior invalid argument without adding any new data to make it valid is trollish and boring. Go back to your gig at mall security, you seem to have the right attitude towards others for that job, and clearly don't belong in an intelligent conversation.
You've still failed to address the fact that Sheehan was arrested for protesting in the House, NOT trespassing. She wasn't arrest for resisting arrest or refusing to leave (which then WOULD be trespassing,) she was arrested for wearing a T-shirt.
YOU are the one with the burden here, dude. The Capitol Police Officer involved, AND the Chief of Police have BOTH apologized and said the arrest was inappropriate, the Sheehan HAD NOT DONE ANYTHING WRONG.
Your dispute doesn't seem to be with me, or any of the other stupid bastards, but with reality itself, a problem all-to-common these days...
Bottom line, if I invite you to my house and then for no reason whatsoever tell you to get the fuck out, you do it immiediately if not sooner because the next step will be arresting you and having you charged with trespassing.
The House of Representatives belongs to all citizens, not just the Republicans. Sheehan did NOTHING WRONG, and Capitol Police have publicly admitted that her arrest was inappropriate, made by an officer that was in need of more training. (Or, that did exactly what he was told to do then got hung out as the scapegoat, depending on your perspective...)
When I did retail security, I used to get dumbass punks arguing with me all the time:
"Why should I leave? Huh? I'm not doing anything wrong! I have the right to be here!"
Bullshit. Your presence is tolerated at the discretion of the owner. You can be asked to leave at any time without any reason being given.
Retail security in a mall (ie. Rent-A-Cop) is totally different situation than a Federal Police Officer ejecting a citizen with a legitimate ticket who, per the chief of Capitol Police, had done NOTHING WRONG. I can't decide if you're just doing the standard right-wing troll maneuver, or if you really are this ignorant of the actual law.
Sitting quietly and wearing a T-shirt isn't against the law, nor should it be. The bottom line is that some slob in a rent-a-cop uniform and a professional police officer in a public building operate under two different sets of rules, and you clearly illustrate why most of the mall "wannabe" cops will never go to work for a professional police force: Because a real police officer must enforce the law, not his own ego-driven whims.
the reason she was arrested is because she was trespassing.
Cindy Sheehan was arrested for weearing a T-shirt while legally attending the State of the Union, with a valid and legitimately obtained ticket, as a guest of her Congressman.
Saying she was arrested for trespass is just a flat-out lie.
Both the company's free online security service, Windows Live Safety, and its in-beta OneCare Live software, however, will disinfect compromised computers, Microsoft said.
...which is totally impractical if you have more than two or three machines. It might technically be true that there is a "free fix" available, but that "Free fix" is pretty much unusable by enterprise customers, since I don't have the manpower to manually go to every machine on the network and do this "fix." For enterprise users, if it ain't available via Microsoft Update or deployable via WSUS or SMS it may as well not exist.
That is, of course, the point of these "pay" services. Enterprises will feel pressured to pay for what they used to get free, since a worm like this could potentially lead to catastrophic failure. Home-users see no difference because the advanced ones are already trained to get updates from the web for "free" and the rest just think their computer is "slow." This entire program is designed to paint a bulls-eye on the wallets of corporate customers. If you think your bill for Microsoft licensing is high now, wait until you also ahve to pay into their protection rackets to even have a hope of securing your network.
Microsoft is going down a dangerous road... If they throw up enough "gotcha!" fees for their big customers, some will simply find other solutions. Everybody said "It will never happen" about IBM, but it happened. Same will happen to MSFT eventually...
You could go on blaming him and finding fault (well, it's an Apple discussion, who expected anything else), but it doesn't change anything. How do his opinions and past comments change what Apple has done?
In your haste to use the Slashdot response du jour when responding to a hypothetical situation, (the quite tired "Strawman" response) you neglected to consider that the real point is that Winer, like the little boy in "The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf" has raised the alarm in the past when there was no threat--no wolf--endangering the community. That's how I interpreted the GP-poster, and have always taken Winer's rants with a grain of salt for the precisely the same reason.
I don't think anybody accused Apple of doing Winer's bidding, since they are also likely quite sick of his crap as well.
Overnight is about the best CDW or anyone else seems to promise anymore.
Well... sort of, but there are faster options in some circumstances. When our firewall died, we hired a UPS courier and he went to CDW in Vernon Hills, IL, picked up the package at will-call window, then delivered to the airport. It then came to the airport near my office, and a second courier picked it up and brought it to my office side-door, arriving just after midnight.
Since we ordered it at 4pm, delivery by midnight from Chicago to Indianapolis seemed like a pretty good delivery time. True, this wasn't a "default option" from CDW--but they were totally accomodating to us so it is hard for me to complain too loud.
Of course, I do agree if your point is that companies are giving their customers worse and worse service--that is easy to see whoever you call.
I was just thinking.. I could really use an operating system with serious, critical flaws in, say, a car. Current cars just don't get me from point A to point B well enough.
Really? Because I was just thinking this is one more reason to laugh and point at people stupid enough to pay more for a car than a suburban single-family home.
Under no circumstances do I agree with any user installing additional software on a box. If it's needed, it gets approved and installed for everyone who needs the functionality, not by rogue users.
This is good advice on any platform... mod parent up!
Sorry, but the idea that your "only job is connectivity" is totally antiquated, and likely comes from spending too much of your career in a large, well sub-divided corporate IS department. There is nothing wrong with working in large departments or companies, but you have to remember that the things that make those big companies possible are the controls and standards they have in place to decide how-to decide if they should hire or not. You're trying to fight a battle to hire helpers when nobody has fought the battle of a standardized methodology for deciding if you have enough workers to cover your department's responsibilities.
You're in a tough spot, and unfortunately, it will get worse before it gets better.
Two hints from a guy who is in a similar organization but slightly ahead of the spot on the curve you're at:
1) You have to sell your changes in terms that the managers understand. Don't explain why the package you picked for the marketing department is superior to the one they selected, explain why your METHODOLOGY--of IS selecting and testing appropriate tools with input from others--is superior to the end-users being sucked in by "ooh, shiny!" and decide to "let IS worry about implementing it." It is that flip assumption that IS can make anything happen that leads to selection of incorrect products and ultimately to failed projects. Regardless of how good the IS team is, they can't make wrong tools do the right job, and this should be the focus of your argument, not any one particular tool or purchase experience. Make it clear you're not trying to second-guess past decisions (even if you REALLY want to) but rather, to help make future decisions better and spend future dollars more efficiently than in the past.
2) Don't expect a landslide of change right away. Smaller companies, especially those owned by one or two people who founded the company and built it, tend to play things very conservative--especially when those founders are good at something besides computers. With this in mind, design your ultimate IS department that would provide your company with all the services it needs--even the stuff your superiors don't know they need, and then break it into stages. Do small, non-threatening things first to build your stock in their minds. When they see your small changes succeed, you can then suggest something a little more substantial, and so on and so forth until you have the perfect team, you're fired, or you quit for a better job paying twice as much money because you have demonstrated excellent leadership and critical thinking skills...
Sorry to say, but if the acronym you use is not IBM, introduce it before you use it, or you risk leaving your intended audience by the road side.
I sort of agree with you, but realistically, if you don't know, either on your own or through context clues, that IS stands for Information Systems, you shouldn't be responding to this guy's question anyway.
1. Eminem: Curtain Call--The Hits 2. Lil' Wayne: Carter II 3. Korn: See You on the Other Side 4. Various Artists: Now 20 5. Carrie Underwood: Some Hearts 6. Kenny Chesney: The Road and the Radio 7. Nickelback: All the Right Reasons 8. Mariah Carey: The Emancipation of Mimi 9. Black Eyed Peas: Monkey Business 10. Enya: Amarantine
..it doesn't suprise me that they're not selling as much as last year, especially when you consider how high fuel prices are, and how talentless the groups on the top 10 are... Think about this: CDs are discretionary purchases... Gasoline is still 40 cents per gallon higher than last year--about 12% higher than the previous year.
...this article suggests you should give one month's notice. If they terminate you immediately, at least you're in a stronger position to negotiate for your "last month's" pay... Of course, if they're doing it because they hate you then you might just get told to piss off.
Yeah, employers are not loyal to employees. He is totally right... The attitude that corporations have towards employees, and especially "IT" employees leaves much to be desired.
I'll say it again in case the middle managers can't hear me: Nobody will show you any loyalty until you show us some. You can't expect someone who has been laid off due to others' incompetence more than once to suddenly get all gung ho about a company he's worked at for a short time without a significant commitment on the company's part. Want to pitch the low-ball? Just remember that you're chipping away at that new relationship with every thing that you expect somebody to "swallow." Low-pay and bad leadership are the most frequently cited reasons in our exit-interviews--if you also later cut benefits or take away holidays or forfeiting vacation days unused on December 31.
Every little chip at the wall weakens it a little. Every chink in the armor can be exploited--by crapping on employees so mercilessly, in the end, you sour your own prospects for prosperity. Employees aren't a disease to be eradicated, they're team members whose skills must be cultivated.
Maybe. But probably not. If terrorists use a computer to do something that kills people, its regular terrorism. If somebody screws with my computer, that person is not a "cyber-terrorist," he is just a regular criminal (and also, likely, a douchebag.)
So maybe what I mean is... no, it isn't remotely credible.
This, and many other statements made in these comments come from ignorance of the issue. I can understand if you want your shoot-em up kill-em, sexual teaser, profanity lovin entertainment, it's your right as an American to go to hell as quickly as you can.
I'm not sure how wanting to preserve the integrity of films shown on cable or of dramatic programs that were written before the "New McCarthyism" era is indicative of ignorance. Further, you directly illuminate the root of the problem we're dealing with here when you pre-suppose that I believe in hell. I don't, so not "going to hell" isn't a motivating factor for me.
As for the few of us, it just makes sense to completely detact from the TV and avoid it.
(... snip...)
1. The effects of violence, sex and language can have on your behaivor.
While I don't disagree with your first point--watching less television (or none) would be an ideal thing for most people in this country--I must snort coffee out my nose and grunt "Huh?" over the "effects of violence, sex and language on" my behavior. Despite me watching years of "Bad" programming, I've never raped or murdered anybody. I haven't been in a fist-fight since I was 14-years old (I'm 30 now, so more than half-my-life without a punch thrown in anger.) And the reason for that is very simple: My parents. They took the time to explain the difference between fantasy and reality to me when I was a kid. That violence in the real-world carries consequences and results in serious injury or death, consequences rarely seen on "The A Team" or "Walker, Texas Ranger." Certainly, children should have options for programming that are age-appropriate, but it is unreasonable to think that every channel, everywhere, at every hour of the day or night, should be totally sanitized for their "protection."
To put it another way, if your kids get violent after watching "Walker, Texas Ranger" or want to hump the baby-sitter after seeing an episode of "Sex in the City" then perhaps the problem is with the way you raised them, and not with the programming they may have coincidentally watched on television in the preceding months. Maybe you should have taken the time to teach them that fantasy and reality are not the same thing--that in the real world a kick to the head is often fatal, and that in real-life 40-year-old single women who are willing to have anonymous sex with the UPS guy don't often look as good as Kim Cattrall.
Movie theaters card kids for R-rated movies, why is this so hard?
Many years ago when I worked at the movie theatre box office, I only checked for ID if I told the person they were too young to get in, and they were trying to prove otherwise. Perhaps the same policy would make sense at the video game counter? If they look too young to buy it, tell them so and ask them to prove otherwise. BUT, again, this still doesn't really stop kids from having these games... Underage kids who REALLY want these games will get them. Between BitTorrent, fake IDs, and older-looking friends, this is all a pointless waste-of-time discussion anyways... Maybe, instead, people should be raising their kids to understand the difference between reality and fantasy, and the consequences of violence in the real-world.
Am I the only one concerned that this appears to be coming about from the efforts to protect Joe Righteous from "harmful" television instead of a desire to protect the consumer from price gouging package deals?
Ultimately, it helps both groups of activists... But you're right to be concerned. Be prepared to resist a big push to enforce the same "Decency" standards on satellite television, cable, and the internet, as you see on regular broadcast television and radio in the near future--because the "harmful television" crowd is already lobbying for these types of rules. It really sticks in the craw of some evangelicals that other people have different values than them and want to see/hear different programming than they do as a result. The plan is to crush any differences that are "too different" from them and it is already in motion.
I think his point is that he could get more than $35,000 from companies outside of Houston and therefor why should he settle for less?
He said he wanted to live in Houston. If he REALLY wanted to live in Houston, he'd compromise. Anybody willing to pay a recent grad more likely has a much higher cost-of-living for the appliant to contend with. Sure, he probably could make more in Sillicon Valley, LA, or NY, but guess what: Those places have drastically higher costs-of-living than Houston. IF he moves to NY for $45k he's probably going to end up eating ramen noodles instead of the steak he'd have had in houston... But dammit, he got his $10,000...
Slashdot Mirror
I can't imagine any lawyer worth his fees not making strained, vociferous arguments for an indefinite continuance (until the Patent Office releases its final reports on these patents) to rule on the motion for the injunction.
If the patents are all invalidated, (and there are indications that very well could happen) what needs to happen is for RIM to sue the owners and directors of NTP into corporate and personal bankruptcy. The reality is that this frivolous litigation has cost RIM plenty of money in both potential business and copious resources dedicated to upgrading RIM's infrastructure and software to sidestep the patents.
The reality is that there are businesses that were formed for the sole purpose of using lawyers to extort money from other businesses with stealth-patent portfolios. These leeches need to be discouraged, and a couple financial death penalties directed at the instigators of this scheme would go a long way towards scaring companies out of the frivolous patent lawsuit game. An outcome like that for the NTP-gang would make the patent sheistering into a risky proposition instead of easy-money for the well-heeled elite who can afford to buy up patents on the sly, only to spring them on successful entreprenuers later.
This will buy us time until we can finally get the Congress to enact reasonable patent reform. Or hell freezes over, whichever comes first.
...that I have to take the "Bikini Inspector (1993-1998)" entry off of my resume? But its such a conversation starter!
...I don't have a quarrel with them. The recruiters that drive me nuts are the ones that don't clearly state they are a third-party, or who are slightly misleading about the position or about themselves.
THE REAL PROBLEM with job web-sites are the scam-ola "internships" and "Entry-level networking" scams... The job-sites KNOW these companies are just pitching training (that YOU pay for,) but they continue to list these fraudulent ads over and over and over again. If you could setup some kind of "crap-filter"--sort of like Slashdot's "lameness" filter--you might really have something. An effective, accurate way to see only legitimate ads would set your job-site head and shoulders above the rest. DICE, CareerBuilder, Monster.com, all suffer from "Learning Network" ads in nauseating quantities, to the point where looking at them is an exercise is skepticism: Instead of thinking "Would I be a really good fit for this position?" you are forced to wonder "Is this a real ad or an attempt to leech $1500 out of 'IT students' for training that will get them very little, if anything."
...Why don't they just use one of the dozens of existing, unpatched, holes--you know, like everybody else?
{rimshot}
We're looking at SAN solutions, and so far SGI's was moving to the head of the pack because it is the only one we've found (so far) that offers "official" support for OS X Servers. There are articles about "making EMC work" on the Mac, but no official support. Obviously, the boss isn't going to let me do a six-figure storage project that we don't have total support for from the vendor...
Hope they survive, or I'm going to end up stuck with no SAN and instead dangling a dollar-equivalent amount of storage off of a bunch of different systems, instead of one neat, manageable, versatile pool.
You're trying to make this about property rights and trespassing, but it isn't about either of those things: Sheehan was invited to be there, and did not resist when asked to leave, so she wasn't trespassing. Further, your attempt to conflate the gallery of the House of Representatives with some mall you earn $5 an hour at is also dubious. Americans have the right to an open government, and to petition that government to redress grievances, as long as the speech they use to do it isn't prohibited (ie. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.) You refuse to acknowledge these basic facts of the situation at hand: Nobody is saying you can't throw somebody out of your house, or out of your employer's mall. But citizens of the Republic can't simply be ejected for disagreeing with the government, or in this case, doing so by wearing a certain T-shirt.
You should feel free to dislike Cindy Sheehan, and disagree with her all you want. But the attitude that the government should be able pre-empt any speech it doesn't like--squelch any dissent, even that which falls within the narrow guidelines of what is allowed in the House gallery, and not based any action or threat by the person involved, that is dangerous.
It leads to the oppressive kind of government our founding fathers fought, bled, and died to overthrow, and should not be tolerated by any thinking man, regardless of political affiliation. I'm guessing civics wasn't your strong suit in school?
It is YOU who should spend some time educating himself.
Protest inside the House galleries is not allowed under House rules, however, the Capitol Police Chief EXPLICITLY said that wearing a T-shirt does NOT constitute an illegal protest. Neither Sheehan nor the Congressman's wife (whose name escapes me) should have been removed. Under the rules of the House, wearing a T-shirt in the gallery with writing on it is not considered a protest. If she jumps up and starts shouting or waving a sign, THAT is a protest. If she disrupts the proceedings in any way, THAT is a protest.
But sitting quietly with folded hands and wearing a T-shirt, PER THE CAPITOL POLICE, is allowed .
Actually, it does, since you earlier falsely accused her of trespassing, one of your many "distractors," designed to keep us from noticing how completely invalid and ludicrous your argument is. You refuse to acknowledge the difference between a private citizen doing something and a government agent in a public facility covered by specific regulations, doing the same thing. Don't believe me? That's ok.
You can lead a horse to water, and all...
Posting a link to your prior invalid argument without adding any new data to make it valid is trollish and boring. Go back to your gig at mall security, you seem to have the right attitude towards others for that job, and clearly don't belong in an intelligent conversation.
You've still failed to address the fact that Sheehan was arrested for protesting in the House, NOT trespassing. She wasn't arrest for resisting arrest or refusing to leave (which then WOULD be trespassing,) she was arrested for wearing a T-shirt.
YOU are the one with the burden here, dude. The Capitol Police Officer involved, AND the Chief of Police have BOTH apologized and said the arrest was inappropriate, the Sheehan HAD NOT DONE ANYTHING WRONG.
Your dispute doesn't seem to be with me, or any of the other stupid bastards, but with reality itself, a problem all-to-common these days...
The House of Representatives belongs to all citizens, not just the Republicans. Sheehan did NOTHING WRONG, and Capitol Police have publicly admitted that her arrest was inappropriate, made by an officer that was in need of more training. (Or, that did exactly what he was told to do then got hung out as the scapegoat, depending on your perspective...)
Retail security in a mall (ie. Rent-A-Cop) is totally different situation than a Federal Police Officer ejecting a citizen with a legitimate ticket who, per the chief of Capitol Police, had done NOTHING WRONG. I can't decide if you're just doing the standard right-wing troll maneuver, or if you really are this ignorant of the actual law.
Sitting quietly and wearing a T-shirt isn't against the law, nor should it be. The bottom line is that some slob in a rent-a-cop uniform and a professional police officer in a public building operate under two different sets of rules, and you clearly illustrate why most of the mall "wannabe" cops will never go to work for a professional police force: Because a real police officer must enforce the law, not his own ego-driven whims.
Cindy Sheehan was arrested for weearing a T-shirt while legally attending the State of the Union, with a valid and legitimately obtained ticket, as a guest of her Congressman.
Saying she was arrested for trespass is just a flat-out lie.
That is, of course, the point of these "pay" services. Enterprises will feel pressured to pay for what they used to get free, since a worm like this could potentially lead to catastrophic failure. Home-users see no difference because the advanced ones are already trained to get updates from the web for "free" and the rest just think their computer is "slow." This entire program is designed to paint a bulls-eye on the wallets of corporate customers. If you think your bill for Microsoft licensing is high now, wait until you also ahve to pay into their protection rackets to even have a hope of securing your network.
Microsoft is going down a dangerous road... If they throw up enough "gotcha!" fees for their big customers, some will simply find other solutions. Everybody said "It will never happen" about IBM, but it happened. Same will happen to MSFT eventually...
In your haste to use the Slashdot response du jour when responding to a hypothetical situation, (the quite tired "Strawman" response) you neglected to consider that the real point is that Winer, like the little boy in "The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf" has raised the alarm in the past when there was no threat--no wolf--endangering the community. That's how I interpreted the GP-poster, and have always taken Winer's rants with a grain of salt for the precisely the same reason.
I don't think anybody accused Apple of doing Winer's bidding, since they are also likely quite sick of his crap as well.
Well... sort of, but there are faster options in some circumstances. When our firewall died, we hired a UPS courier and he went to CDW in Vernon Hills, IL, picked up the package at will-call window, then delivered to the airport. It then came to the airport near my office, and a second courier picked it up and brought it to my office side-door, arriving just after midnight.
Since we ordered it at 4pm, delivery by midnight from Chicago to Indianapolis seemed like a pretty good delivery time. True, this wasn't a "default option" from CDW--but they were totally accomodating to us so it is hard for me to complain too loud.
Of course, I do agree if your point is that companies are giving their customers worse and worse service--that is easy to see whoever you call.
Really? Because I was just thinking this is one more reason to laugh and point at people stupid enough to pay more for a car than a suburban single-family home.
This is good advice on any platform... mod parent up!
Sorry, but the idea that your "only job is connectivity" is totally antiquated, and likely comes from spending too much of your career in a large, well sub-divided corporate IS department. There is nothing wrong with working in large departments or companies, but you have to remember that the things that make those big companies possible are the controls and standards they have in place to decide how-to decide if they should hire or not. You're trying to fight a battle to hire helpers when nobody has fought the battle of a standardized methodology for deciding if you have enough workers to cover your department's responsibilities.
You're in a tough spot, and unfortunately, it will get worse before it gets better.
Two hints from a guy who is in a similar organization but slightly ahead of the spot on the curve you're at:
1) You have to sell your changes in terms that the managers understand. Don't explain why the package you picked for the marketing department is superior to the one they selected, explain why your METHODOLOGY--of IS selecting and testing appropriate tools with input from others--is superior to the end-users being sucked in by "ooh, shiny!" and decide to "let IS worry about implementing it." It is that flip assumption that IS can make anything happen that leads to selection of incorrect products and ultimately to failed projects. Regardless of how good the IS team is, they can't make wrong tools do the right job, and this should be the focus of your argument, not any one particular tool or purchase experience. Make it clear you're not trying to second-guess past decisions (even if you REALLY want to) but rather, to help make future decisions better and spend future dollars more efficiently than in the past.
2) Don't expect a landslide of change right away. Smaller companies, especially those owned by one or two people who founded the company and built it, tend to play things very conservative--especially when those founders are good at something besides computers. With this in mind, design your ultimate IS department that would provide your company with all the services it needs--even the stuff your superiors don't know they need, and then break it into stages. Do small, non-threatening things first to build your stock in their minds. When they see your small changes succeed, you can then suggest something a little more substantial, and so on and so forth until you have the perfect team, you're fired, or you quit for a better job paying twice as much money because you have demonstrated excellent leadership and critical thinking skills...
I sort of agree with you, but realistically, if you don't know, either on your own or through context clues, that IS stands for Information Systems, you shouldn't be responding to this guy's question anyway.
The Billboard 200 Album Chart shows us the current top 10 consists of:
1. Eminem: Curtain Call--The Hits
2. Lil' Wayne: Carter II
3. Korn: See You on the Other Side
4. Various Artists: Now 20
5. Carrie Underwood: Some Hearts
6. Kenny Chesney: The Road and the Radio
7. Nickelback: All the Right Reasons
8. Mariah Carey: The Emancipation of Mimi
9. Black Eyed Peas: Monkey Business
10. Enya: Amarantine
...this article suggests you should give one month's notice. If they terminate you immediately, at least you're in a stronger position to negotiate for your "last month's" pay... Of course, if they're doing it because they hate you then you might just get told to piss off.
Yeah, employers are not loyal to employees. He is totally right... The attitude that corporations have towards employees, and especially "IT" employees leaves much to be desired.
I'll say it again in case the middle managers can't hear me: Nobody will show you any loyalty until you show us some. You can't expect someone who has been laid off due to others' incompetence more than once to suddenly get all gung ho about a company he's worked at for a short time without a significant commitment on the company's part. Want to pitch the low-ball? Just remember that you're chipping away at that new relationship with every thing that you expect somebody to "swallow." Low-pay and bad leadership are the most frequently cited reasons in our exit-interviews--if you also later cut benefits or take away holidays or forfeiting vacation days unused on December 31.
Every little chip at the wall weakens it a little. Every chink in the armor can be exploited--by crapping on employees so mercilessly, in the end, you sour your own prospects for prosperity. Employees aren't a disease to be eradicated, they're team members whose skills must be cultivated.
Maybe. But probably not. If terrorists use a computer to do something that kills people, its regular terrorism. If somebody screws with my computer, that person is not a "cyber-terrorist," he is just a regular criminal (and also, likely, a douchebag.)
So maybe what I mean is... no, it isn't remotely credible.
I'm not sure how wanting to preserve the integrity of films shown on cable or of dramatic programs that were written before the "New McCarthyism" era is indicative of ignorance. Further, you directly illuminate the root of the problem we're dealing with here when you pre-suppose that I believe in hell. I don't, so not "going to hell" isn't a motivating factor for me.
While I don't disagree with your first point--watching less television (or none) would be an ideal thing for most people in this country--I must snort coffee out my nose and grunt "Huh?" over the "effects of violence, sex and language on" my behavior. Despite me watching years of "Bad" programming, I've never raped or murdered anybody. I haven't been in a fist-fight since I was 14-years old (I'm 30 now, so more than half-my-life without a punch thrown in anger.) And the reason for that is very simple: My parents. They took the time to explain the difference between fantasy and reality to me when I was a kid. That violence in the real-world carries consequences and results in serious injury or death, consequences rarely seen on "The A Team" or "Walker, Texas Ranger." Certainly, children should have options for programming that are age-appropriate, but it is unreasonable to think that every channel, everywhere, at every hour of the day or night, should be totally sanitized for their "protection."
To put it another way, if your kids get violent after watching "Walker, Texas Ranger" or want to hump the baby-sitter after seeing an episode of "Sex in the City" then perhaps the problem is with the way you raised them, and not with the programming they may have coincidentally watched on television in the preceding months. Maybe you should have taken the time to teach them that fantasy and reality are not the same thing--that in the real world a kick to the head is often fatal, and that in real-life 40-year-old single women who are willing to have anonymous sex with the UPS guy don't often look as good as Kim Cattrall.
Many years ago when I worked at the movie theatre box office, I only checked for ID if I told the person they were too young to get in, and they were trying to prove otherwise. Perhaps the same policy would make sense at the video game counter? If they look too young to buy it, tell them so and ask them to prove otherwise. BUT, again, this still doesn't really stop kids from having these games... Underage kids who REALLY want these games will get them. Between BitTorrent, fake IDs, and older-looking friends, this is all a pointless waste-of-time discussion anyways... Maybe, instead, people should be raising their kids to understand the difference between reality and fantasy, and the consequences of violence in the real-world.
Ultimately, it helps both groups of activists... But you're right to be concerned. Be prepared to resist a big push to enforce the same "Decency" standards on satellite television, cable, and the internet, as you see on regular broadcast television and radio in the near future--because the "harmful television" crowd is already lobbying for these types of rules. It really sticks in the craw of some evangelicals that other people have different values than them and want to see/hear different programming than they do as a result. The plan is to crush any differences that are "too different" from them and it is already in motion.
(tinfoil hat-mode off)
He said he wanted to live in Houston. If he REALLY wanted to live in Houston, he'd compromise. Anybody willing to pay a recent grad more likely has a much higher cost-of-living for the appliant to contend with. Sure, he probably could make more in Sillicon Valley, LA, or NY, but guess what: Those places have drastically higher costs-of-living than Houston. IF he moves to NY for $45k he's probably going to end up eating ramen noodles instead of the steak he'd have had in houston... But dammit, he got his $10,000...