The best way of saving American jobs isn't by shutting our borders and going back to the 1920's, it's by reducing the cost of health care and enacting tort reform to prevent frivolous lawsuits, both of which would decrease the regulator burdens that make it very hard to add new employees and be able to pay them well.
"Tort reform" as I've seen it presented would make the U.S. more "attractive to investors", true, but it would do so at the expense of making it more dangerous for consumers. Most tort-reform initiatives I've seen revolve around one of two concepts:
1) Limiting damages for all "malpractice" and liability (negligence, even wanton or blatant that maims or kills) or/and 2) Severely limiting when complaintants can be put into a "class" for a class-action lawsuit.
Perhaps in simple cases that don't represent a blatant disregard for public safety there should be a cap on damages. In cases of blatant breach of professional ethics, there should be no limit. I'm talking about a surgeon performing surgery drunk or hungover, not "slip and fall" or "crotch full o' hot coffee" incidents. So far, none of the bills I've seen have been anything but plumbs for large corporate interests.
True, these bills would've prevented "crotch full o' coffee" from reaching trial and resulting in a multi-million dollar damage award, but they also would protect that drunk surgeon, because all of the proposed bills I've seen have been blanket changes to all liability law, making no provision for malicious intent, and blatantly unsafe behavior.
Tort reform, unless re-written in a way that limits frivolous claims while allowing litigation of dangerous corporate malfeasance should never be passed. Without a safety-valve to allow legitimate lawsuits to pursue large claims (where a blatant disregard for public safety can be demonstrated,) tort reform is really a license to kill. It sets a dollar amount that a corporation can pay to settle a wrongful death, and at some point, that death and attached dollar amount will seem more palatable than eating six months profits while they redesign their car with the fatal flaws.
You can't motivate a corporation the same way you can a person. You can not, for instance, appeal to a corporation's sense of decency, for it is an entity on paper, and has no conscience to call upon. It doesn't care that dozens or hundreds of customers will die because of those faulty tire treads, or weak weld points on heart valves. It has no moral compass to consult because it isn't a person. Certainly, many individuals in a corporation would object, but the laws in this country require officers of public corporations to do everything possible to ensure a profit. Many corporate managers interpret this to mean win at all costs, which in some cases might include your life (or the life of your children.) No, the only way to motivate a corporation to change its broken ways is the threat of impending loss of a significant sum of money.
Change the tort system? Maybe. But scrapping it completely is not an option either, and most of the proposed bills I've seen would do just that: gut our tort system to the benefit of corporate interests, and the detriment of public safety.
I heard that there weren't any WMDs in Iraq and that only "dense" people thought there were.
I don't know (or care) what the original poster said. This smug "see, we told you so!" reaction that Bush supporters have every time some flake of iron tests positive for previous exposure to mustard gas was what I was responding to. If he used "dense" to describe people who equate one rusty, malfunctioning shell with the imminent and gigantic threat we were told was justification for immediate, pre-emptive invasion, then he was quite correct. Because anybody who thinks that one or two shells immediately validate the war is just that: dense. Bush told us we had a ticking time-bomb on our hands, and we wouldn't know when the clock was up until we saw a "mushroom cloud." Colin Powell said "we" knew "exactly" where the WMD were. "Team Bush" implied that they knew exactly where the weapons were, how many there were, and how they had gotten there. In fact, it turns out now that our "intelligence assets" turned out to be telling us what we wanted to hear to enlist our help in achieving their political goals. That George W. Bush just now figured out that Achmed Chalabi isn't neccessarily the best leader for a "free" Iraq is further evidence he doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.
Again, please tell me what it would take for you to acknowledge Bush deceived the public, much like clinton with his "What "is" is" statement. Why doesn't Bush's deceit call for impeachment? His deceit was part of a campaign to justify the slaughter of thousands of civillians in Iraq (as well as all the conscripted Iraqi soldiers)? Bush's lies place him in direct derelicttion of duty as president. Conrast this with Clinton's lies which, while illegal and certainly deserving of the censure he received, pale in comparison when you look at the results. Clintons lies killed nobody, really only harming himself and his immediate family. Bush's lies represent a dereliction of duty on an grand and un-precedented scale.
Why do republicans find that acceptable? Where are the calls for "moral" leadership now?
Please explain to me how the handful of rusty or unlabelled shells (many of which had leaked their contents 10+ years earlier) we've found in Iraq represents the "Vast stockpile" of banned weapons we were led to believe existed in Iraq? A stockpile, we were told, that was so vast as to allow field commanders to deploy them on "40-minutes notice." If this was true, please explain why none of the ammo caches and dumps we found during the war contained any WMD?
Please also explain to me how the handful of rusty and/or unlabelled (mostly useless) shells we've found represents an immediate threat to the security of the United States?
Please also explain how before the war, Bushie was warning us about nuclear armageddon caused by Saddam Hussein, yet we've found no evidence of an advanced nuclear weapons program. They did possess a stolen, 50-year old Chinese design for a bomb, but they weren't anywhere near the point of being able to fabricate a weapon.
Also, our (just as oppressive) ally Pervez Musharraf actually has several nuclear devices at his disposal. When will we be invading Pakistan? Or is continuity no longer part of the "Bush plan"?
When you purchase VirtualPC. Microsoft still gets their cut.
So what? He wants to use a Mac, but needs to use one PC program for one day... Seems like $200 for VPC makes more sense than spending $1000 you'd rather put towards a Powerbook...
If I had been able to use the Electronic Bluebook software in any other platform I would have, even if that meant hauling a desktop running solaris over to the exam rooms.
I'm sure somebody else has probably pointed out by now that you could have run Windows XP on your powerbook with Virtual PC... "Electronic Bluebook" doesn't sound like it's too terribly complicated.
Or is there actually a rule that says "no Macs" at the door of the exam room?
Sorry, but Home Depot is looking for cashiers, maybe you'll have better luck there.
It really disgusts me that the "pro-outsourcing" crowd loves to throw statements like this out there as if it is a realistic solution for a professional with a family to take (or, as you'll soon learn the hard way, even get offerred) a $15,000 per year job that has no benefits. Since somebody who works at Home Depot makes about 1/3 of my annual salary, what you're really saying is "If you can't beat 'em, (by working the same job for 1/3 as much money) join 'em! (by taking a different job that pays 1/3 as much.)"
So you know, I don't object to opportunities for others... But I DO object to having my income taxes subsidize the companies that want to export jobs from this country so they can hide money from the IRS in "foreign subsidiaries." The long-term effect here is that my taxes will go up to make up for revenue not collected from these robber-barons, even as my standard of living drops dramatically. Fuck, dude, I've already taken a 40% salary cut since 2001. Do you want my fucking kidney too?
What you're really saying is that since I'm not a member of the elite, ruling class here (my parents aren't millionaires, neither am I) that my entire lifestyle should be forfeit at the whim of whatever robber-baron I work for. That, since I can't afford to buy off any senators like Disney or governors like Enron, that its just "too bad for me." When I get laid off because the crooked-CEO at my company cooks the books and skates off to Barbados with a $20 million golden-parachute I'm told the CEO was just "looking out for the best interests of stockholders" so maybe I, in your words, "should go to work at Home Depot."
It upsets me to the point of nausea that all the years of taxes I've paid are now used to my direct detriment to create tax breaks and shelters that encourage companies to take high-wage jobs like mine overseas. Show me the value for Americans in this scenario, because I don't see it. And I specifically mean replacing career positions like Software Developer that pay $40k-$100k now with positions like Cashier that pay $7-$11 per hour and have no benefits.
When I was out of work (2002-2003) I applied for literally thousands of IT jobs and was having a real problem getting interviews. So I decided it would be best to also apply for various jobs of this sort ("cashier", pizza-guy, etc) so I could pay my bills and perhaps preserve SOME of my financial wealth. Response at every single one? Always "No." The people who had the balls to answer the question "Why won't you hire me?" usually responded with some variation of this statement:
"You're overqualified. You'll just quit when you can get a better job in your field."
These answers are, of course, cop-outs. Truth is, "my kind" is as welcome there as Will Smith would have been on a golf-course in 1920 (read: not at all.) (For those of you who don't get the reference, check IMDB for information about the achingly bad movie The Legend of Bagger Vance.) Pretty much all of these companies' work on thin margins, since we Americans love a bargain! This means it is crucial that they have mostly low-wage employees who have no other prospects for employment... This creates a great culture of fear, because the people who need the work most (the uneducated and poor) will stay as long as they can, and ones who don't will quit or be fired. Also, this pretty effectively eliminates the need for pay raises, since people who need the job will fear being fired as a "troublemaker" for demanding one, and so, won't.
You might want to enlarge your world-view a little to include at least some tiny corner of reality. The reality is that "managers" of organizations like that want employees they can hire cheaply, abuse as needed, and fire for taking too many toilet breaks in a week under "at-will employment" laws... Often (perhaps not coincidenta
You forget that once the house is paid off, you'll have more to invest. Plus, when tough times hit(they will) you won't have to worry about loosing your house.
The biggest advantage you have of owning a place free and clear is that banks will bend over backwards to loan you money against that property. With a house you own outright, you can invest in other properties with the flexibility of buying those properties for cash. (Remember, you're using cash from a mortgage on your first house.)
This is a best of both worlds scenario, because now you're carrying one loan, but own two houses. AND since the investment property isn't carrying the loan (its against your residence) you don't get screwed for the "investor's premium" of 1.5-2% that lenders normally charge for mortgages on "investment property." Plus you're in a better position to negotiate when buying, since your offer contains no financing contingencies and consists of 100% cash.
I just can't get angry at this. Most modern cars already have data recorders that monitor what was happening when the "Check Engine" light goes on.
If black boxes mean I have an objective witness when some a-hole hits me at 98mph, I say bring on the black boxes.
The issue isn't whether you drive too fast or not, or even whether the car has a diagnostic recorder that can provide info in the event of a crash... The issue, as it is with all privacy matters, isn't the existence of the info, but what gets done with it. I don't object to a diagnostic computer to make my car work better, not at all. But if the government can sieze that data and force its admission into the record in a court of law against my wishes, this is a really chilling and unpleasant situation.
At least in ths USA, what this comes down to is the right not to incriminate yourself in court. The question is this: Since the car's data belongs to me (my car, my data,) does forcing presentation in court violate my 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination? Some people would say yes, including me. Automatically stripping you of the right not to incriminate yourself when you turn that key is a good step towards eliminating in totality for everyone, which would be an ugly situation indeed.
Actually, most of the world is following ISO 8601 standard, which says that you should use YYYY-MM-DD instead. The ISO 8601 time format is also recommended by W3C.
I was just referring to writing dates commonly... Not about programming or computers. However, even though the format they use on the PC is different than the way they write, the point is still valid: If you have a good date conversion routine, hold onto a copy. It will probably come into play again in your future at some point.
For example (this one is a little far fetched) Lets say I wrote a function to format a date. In 1 program I may use that function to only output as mm/dd/yyyy. In another program I may use that same function to only output mm/yy.
I don't see that as farfetched. Don't forget that most of the calendar using world formats its dates as dd/mm/yyyy, not our American system of mm/dd/yyyy.... So if you plan on writing software for use outside of the U.S., this would be a really useful piece of code to keep laying around.
If you read this article carefully, it says "Sales were down in total unit terms."
But could that have something to do with the fact that the industry has been releasing fewer and fewer CDs the last few years? A better measure would be average units sold per release, rather than total units sold for all releases. To date, the record industry hasn't convinced me that their "downturn" is anything other than the intersection of a bad economy and poor business decisions on their own part.
High end car mechanic is a great job!
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· Score: 2, Informative
He started out just fixing his own...then friends of his with Ferraris would ask him to tinker with theirs...one thing lead to another.
A high-end car mechanic with a right-sized client list and his own garage can make a great living.... $100k is achievable, more in areas where the service is more in demand. (California, warm weather states, etc...) People that buy these cars will pay a premium to have an expert who knows the car inside and out work on it. For them, it is a no-brainer--make a large cash investment last longer by maintaining it with an expert--Well worth the money when needed. I mean, what, are you going to take your Testarossa to Pep Boys? Those little pimple-pusses would probably crack it up trying to take off in 1st gear...
It's also fairly financially feasible to have 1GB email accounts (something that used to drive me *nuts* with the IT people at the company I used to work for -- why do these people insist on 100MB email quotas?) 1GB is what, about 30 cents of storage in terms of physical media costs?
If you use Exchange 5.5 Standard edition your mail store is hard-coded to stop sending/receiving mail when it exceeds 16 gb. This alone is a good enough reason not to use Exchange (IMO) but if you're stuck with it, this is a good reason to limit mailbox size.
Beyond that, though, another reason that mailbox quotas are vigorously enforced is the amount of time a restore can take. If you have to rebuild your exchange server from a backup, a HUGE mail store can exponentially increase the amount of time it takes to rebuild the mail store. Ours is only ~12 gig and the last restore took almost seven hours!
I bet the majority of those happy in their profession work in smaller shops where they get to do more than a single set of tasks.
You, my friend, have hit the nail squarely on the head.
When I started my current position, it was "a little bit of everything." I did scripting, server builds, maintenance, desktop support, planning, EVERYTHING. I was quite happy. Then slowly, we started "corporatizing" our environment to conform to the rest of our company...Our happy little well-run shop didn't match up, so we had to change. Now we've assigned the more interesting things (the server builds, the planning, and whatnot) to engineers at corporate headquarters, and I'm stuck... Pigeon-holed to desktop support (I installed Bonzi Buddy again!) password monkey (I can't remember the 8-character password I made up myself!) and backup tape duties (I erased my presentation from the server again!)
While I grant you, all the things I have to do are neccessary for continued operation of our business, my job was about 100 times more interesting when there was a little variety involved. I used to love my job and wanted to stay and make a career here. Now that we've been merged into a corporate behemoth and I'm prevented by rule from solving 85% of our problems, it just isn't interesting or exciting any more. I'm looking elsewhere, and will go when I find the right position.
We're a financial services company and we banned camera/cell-phones recently after our competitors had a nightmare scenario pop-up.
A person who was running their imaging group (scanning signed loan documents into imaging DB) and would use her cell/camera to take a close-up of the docs, and harvest the personal information for later sale to organized crime. Very embarassing for them, and costly as well, as they were sued by half-a-dozen people whose info was stolen in this manner. It is getting ugly. AND the Feds might fine them for the breach of security... Ouch!
So while I agree, the IT guy needs a phone, its understandable for people to be leery of their employees cell-phones.
I'm not surprised at all... It was inevitable that U.S. businesses would figure out what we've all known all along: A guy who is 12,000 miles away on the other side of the world and only accessible via phone and e-mail is just not as valuable as somebody (equally skilled) that you can face-to-face with by the coffee/soda machine and bounce ideas off of.
What I did find surprising was that the guy had the scruples to give his best workers raises and benefits rather than telling them "Get bent! We can replace you in a heartbeat" after they had earned his trust and respect (and a raise to a fair-market wage.) A few more stories like this and I might just start having hope for the future of America again...
Comcast doesn't (I will refrain from saying can't or won't) say what a user's system is infected with, or what exactly it's doing...just that there's some "illicit traffic" coming from that IP.
It isn't the function of the ISP to support every workstation's unpatched buggy operating system(s), diganose your virus infections, or determine why you keep getting whacked in CounterStrike. Running an ISP is a support-intensive affair, and the admins and engineers at Comcast have more than enough work to do keeping their own infrastructure running to be expected to also admin your eMachines box running Windows ME. A more appropriate (and effective) course of action would be to train their techs in the operation and config of two or three basic internet firewalls and package them with the cable modems they deploy to their customers.
This would be responsible on Comcast's part and, combined with the fact that most consumer PCs come bundled with some sort of virus protection would start to stem the nightmare tide of crapola that flows out of the cable modem subnets...
That's great, now how am I supposed to diagnose the problem? It wouldn't be that difficult if the machine were in front of me, but how to I walk Mary End User through complicated tasks over the phone while she's already frustrated? If Comcast were doing more - i.e. they told you what the problem was and the steps you can take to remedy it - I would be more supportive of this.
If you're expecting Comcast to do your work for you, you'll get no sympathy from me. If your story of your customer/user having a warning before service was cut-off was true, why didn't you use PC Anywhere, RAdmin, VNC, or Remote Desktop to update her virus defs and scan the machine? Or run AdAware personal on the workstation using VNC to look for known spamware/crapware that might be generating nefarious traffic?
Your points ring hollow with this Network Admin who deals with dozens of remote users on a daily basis. It isn't always as easy as having it on my desk, but the business reality is that some functions only require one person, and require very little or no face to face interaction with co-workers. Economically, it doesn't make sense to move these people back to the office just because you can't or won't google for "Windows VNC Server."
I'm not trying to insult you, troll, or start a flame-war here, but the things you're complaining about are a standard part of my business day that I have little difficulty with.
no more Samba and its confusing config file (even with SWAT it is a nightmare).
While I certainly agree that setting up the advanced features of Samba (Samba as Domain controller) can be a little hairy for the uninitiated, if you're doing a simple implementation it isn't hard at all assuming you understand the concept of files shares in Windows and how to abstract it using text instead of the little hand.
In fact, samba was the first application I installed and configured on Linux and I am just as happy with my config today as I was two years ago when I set it up. Out of curiosity (and a little OT) did you seek help for whatever problems you had setting up Samba? Even though I didn't have many, I did find a need to consult a couple forums on one occasion... But I found the answer I needed easily enough.
Hiring a stupid lawyer is not a crime, it should not be needed in the first place on something this obvious and certainly shouldn't cost you millions of dollars.
Any medical malpractice attorney who doesn't know Down's Syndrome is a genetic disease is incompetent and guilty of (ironically) malpractice. And even if he didn't know, a brief conversation with the client would have told him what he needed to know. It isn't a crime to hire a bad lawyer, certainly not. But its certainly stupid. Its not fair that the strong can oppress the weak, but they do. You've proven that occasionally, they get away with it. This doesn't prove your point that all malpractice lawsuits are invalid. I'm not a doctor so I can't say that the vast majority of them are indeed valid claims, but I can tell you that if phony litigation was as common a problem as the doctors would have us believe, the malpractice insurerers would quit the business and do something else. The fact that they haven't pretty much tells the tale.
So: - The doctor's lawyer somehow lost what should have been an open-and-shut case - Somehow the doctor didn't win on appeal despite it being a technical impossibility that he caused the injuries cited. - Somehow the malpractice insurance company didn't hire a lawyer that knew anything about medicine or malpractice.
Sorry, but I don't believe this. Either show me your evidence (a case name and court) or go away. I think we've all been had by a very well-crafted troll. I call bullshit on the original "Downs syndrome million dollar verdict" post. Too many unbelievable leaps of logic and reality to accept without a case citation..
...but this looks like it was written by a high school kid, not some MBA...
It has been my experience that getting an MBA makes you less intelligent, not more. The marketplace appears to be bearing this out as well--I read an article this week about the MBA not being the automatic "trip to the top" that it used to be. Apparently, the proliferation of "Evening and weekend condensed" MBA programs has had the same effect on masters degrees that "Earn $60,000 per year in six months of training" had on MCSEs.
If anything, the fact that it appears to have been written by an idiot makes me believe it was written by a real MBA. So far, I haven't met one that wasn't a weasel or a liar. Of course, that doesn't mean the letter is authentic: Only the person who wrote/leaked it really knows that. BUT it could easily have been written by an executive or high-level consultant. Believe it or not, I've seen worse writing from far more high-profile senior staffers.
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"Tort reform" as I've seen it presented would make the U.S. more "attractive to investors", true, but it would do so at the expense of making it more dangerous for consumers. Most tort-reform initiatives I've seen revolve around one of two concepts:
1) Limiting damages for all "malpractice" and liability (negligence, even wanton or blatant that maims or kills)
or/and
2) Severely limiting when complaintants can be put into a "class" for a class-action lawsuit.
Perhaps in simple cases that don't represent a blatant disregard for public safety there should be a cap on damages. In cases of blatant breach of professional ethics, there should be no limit. I'm talking about a surgeon performing surgery drunk or hungover, not "slip and fall" or "crotch full o' hot coffee" incidents. So far, none of the bills I've seen have been anything but plumbs for large corporate interests.
True, these bills would've prevented "crotch full o' coffee" from reaching trial and resulting in a multi-million dollar damage award, but they also would protect that drunk surgeon, because all of the proposed bills I've seen have been blanket changes to all liability law, making no provision for malicious intent, and blatantly unsafe behavior.
Tort reform, unless re-written in a way that limits frivolous claims while allowing litigation of dangerous corporate malfeasance should never be passed. Without a safety-valve to allow legitimate lawsuits to pursue large claims (where a blatant disregard for public safety can be demonstrated,) tort reform is really a license to kill. It sets a dollar amount that a corporation can pay to settle a wrongful death, and at some point, that death and attached dollar amount will seem more palatable than eating six months profits while they redesign their car with the fatal flaws.
You can't motivate a corporation the same way you can a person. You can not, for instance, appeal to a corporation's sense of decency, for it is an entity on paper, and has no conscience to call upon. It doesn't care that dozens or hundreds of customers will die because of those faulty tire treads, or weak weld points on heart valves. It has no moral compass to consult because it isn't a person. Certainly, many individuals in a corporation would object, but the laws in this country require officers of public corporations to do everything possible to ensure a profit. Many corporate managers interpret this to mean win at all costs, which in some cases might include your life (or the life of your children.) No, the only way to motivate a corporation to change its broken ways is the threat of impending loss of a significant sum of money.
Change the tort system? Maybe. But scrapping it completely is not an option either, and most of the proposed bills I've seen would do just that: gut our tort system to the benefit of corporate interests, and the detriment of public safety.
I don't know (or care) what the original poster said. This smug "see, we told you so!" reaction that Bush supporters have every time some flake of iron tests positive for previous exposure to mustard gas was what I was responding to. If he used "dense" to describe people who equate one rusty, malfunctioning shell with the imminent and gigantic threat we were told was justification for immediate, pre-emptive invasion, then he was quite correct. Because anybody who thinks that one or two shells immediately validate the war is just that: dense. Bush told us we had a ticking time-bomb on our hands, and we wouldn't know when the clock was up until we saw a "mushroom cloud." Colin Powell said "we" knew "exactly" where the WMD were. "Team Bush" implied that they knew exactly where the weapons were, how many there were, and how they had gotten there. In fact, it turns out now that our "intelligence assets" turned out to be telling us what we wanted to hear to enlist our help in achieving their political goals. That George W. Bush just now figured out that Achmed Chalabi isn't neccessarily the best leader for a "free" Iraq is further evidence he doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.
Again, please tell me what it would take for you to acknowledge Bush deceived the public, much like clinton with his "What "is" is" statement. Why doesn't Bush's deceit call for impeachment? His deceit was part of a campaign to justify the slaughter of thousands of civillians in Iraq (as well as all the conscripted Iraqi soldiers)? Bush's lies place him in direct derelicttion of duty as president. Conrast this with Clinton's lies which, while illegal and certainly deserving of the censure he received, pale in comparison when you look at the results. Clintons lies killed nobody, really only harming himself and his immediate family. Bush's lies represent a dereliction of duty on an grand and un-precedented scale.
Why do republicans find that acceptable? Where are the calls for "moral" leadership now?
Please explain to me how the handful of rusty or unlabelled shells (many of which had leaked their contents 10+ years earlier) we've found in Iraq represents the "Vast stockpile" of banned weapons we were led to believe existed in Iraq? A stockpile, we were told, that was so vast as to allow field commanders to deploy them on "40-minutes notice." If this was true, please explain why none of the ammo caches and dumps we found during the war contained any WMD?
Please also explain to me how the handful of rusty and/or unlabelled (mostly useless) shells we've found represents an immediate threat to the security of the United States?
Please also explain how before the war, Bushie was warning us about nuclear armageddon caused by Saddam Hussein, yet we've found no evidence of an advanced nuclear weapons program. They did possess a stolen, 50-year old Chinese design for a bomb, but they weren't anywhere near the point of being able to fabricate a weapon.
Also, our (just as oppressive) ally Pervez Musharraf actually has several nuclear devices at his disposal. When will we be invading Pakistan? Or is continuity no longer part of the "Bush plan"?
It's a joke, son! You missed it! (Apologies to Foghorn Leghorn...)
I'm using the stereotype that every guy fantasizes about girl on girl sex as the premise of the joke...
I hope not... That could get embarassing!
OTOH, I might finally get word about those wild lesbian orgies in my area that I've heretofore only found out about after the fact.
So what? He wants to use a Mac, but needs to use one PC program for one day... Seems like $200 for VPC makes more sense than spending $1000 you'd rather put towards a Powerbook...
I'm sure somebody else has probably pointed out by now that you could have run Windows XP on your powerbook with Virtual PC... "Electronic Bluebook" doesn't sound like it's too terribly complicated.
Or is there actually a rule that says "no Macs" at the door of the exam room?
It really disgusts me that the "pro-outsourcing" crowd loves to throw statements like this out there as if it is a realistic solution for a professional with a family to take (or, as you'll soon learn the hard way, even get offerred) a $15,000 per year job that has no benefits. Since somebody who works at Home Depot makes about 1/3 of my annual salary, what you're really saying is "If you can't beat 'em, (by working the same job for 1/3 as much money) join 'em! (by taking a different job that pays 1/3 as much.)"
So you know, I don't object to opportunities for others... But I DO object to having my income taxes subsidize the companies that want to export jobs from this country so they can hide money from the IRS in "foreign subsidiaries." The long-term effect here is that my taxes will go up to make up for revenue not collected from these robber-barons, even as my standard of living drops dramatically. Fuck, dude, I've already taken a 40% salary cut since 2001. Do you want my fucking kidney too?
What you're really saying is that since I'm not a member of the elite, ruling class here (my parents aren't millionaires, neither am I) that my entire lifestyle should be forfeit at the whim of whatever robber-baron I work for. That, since I can't afford to buy off any senators like Disney or governors like Enron, that its just "too bad for me." When I get laid off because the crooked-CEO at my company cooks the books and skates off to Barbados with a $20 million golden-parachute I'm told the CEO was just "looking out for the best interests of stockholders" so maybe I, in your words, "should go to work at Home Depot."
It upsets me to the point of nausea that all the years of taxes I've paid are now used to my direct detriment to create tax breaks and shelters that encourage companies to take high-wage jobs like mine overseas. Show me the value for Americans in this scenario, because I don't see it. And I specifically mean replacing career positions like Software Developer that pay $40k-$100k now with positions like Cashier that pay $7-$11 per hour and have no benefits.
When I was out of work (2002-2003) I applied for literally thousands of IT jobs and was having a real problem getting interviews. So I decided it would be best to also apply for various jobs of this sort ("cashier", pizza-guy, etc) so I could pay my bills and perhaps preserve SOME of my financial wealth. Response at every single one? Always "No." The people who had the balls to answer the question "Why won't you hire me?" usually responded with some variation of this statement:
"You're overqualified. You'll just quit when you can get a better job in your field."
These answers are, of course, cop-outs. Truth is, "my kind" is as welcome there as Will Smith would have been on a golf-course in 1920 (read: not at all.) (For those of you who don't get the reference, check IMDB for information about the achingly bad movie The Legend of Bagger Vance.) Pretty much all of these companies' work on thin margins, since we Americans love a bargain! This means it is crucial that they have mostly low-wage employees who have no other prospects for employment... This creates a great culture of fear, because the people who need the work most (the uneducated and poor) will stay as long as they can, and ones who don't will quit or be fired. Also, this pretty effectively eliminates the need for pay raises, since people who need the job will fear being fired as a "troublemaker" for demanding one, and so, won't.
You might want to enlarge your world-view a little to include at least some tiny corner of reality. The reality is that "managers" of organizations like that want employees they can hire cheaply, abuse as needed, and fire for taking too many toilet breaks in a week under "at-will employment" laws... Often (perhaps not coincidenta
The biggest advantage you have of owning a place free and clear is that banks will bend over backwards to loan you money against that property. With a house you own outright, you can invest in other properties with the flexibility of buying those properties for cash. (Remember, you're using cash from a mortgage on your first house.)
This is a best of both worlds scenario, because now you're carrying one loan, but own two houses. AND since the investment property isn't carrying the loan (its against your residence) you don't get screwed for the "investor's premium" of 1.5-2% that lenders normally charge for mortgages on "investment property." Plus you're in a better position to negotiate when buying, since your offer contains no financing contingencies and consists of 100% cash.
The issue isn't whether you drive too fast or not, or even whether the car has a diagnostic recorder that can provide info in the event of a crash... The issue, as it is with all privacy matters, isn't the existence of the info, but what gets done with it. I don't object to a diagnostic computer to make my car work better, not at all. But if the government can sieze that data and force its admission into the record in a court of law against my wishes, this is a really chilling and unpleasant situation.
At least in ths USA, what this comes down to is the right not to incriminate yourself in court. The question is this: Since the car's data belongs to me (my car, my data,) does forcing presentation in court violate my 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination? Some people would say yes, including me. Automatically stripping you of the right not to incriminate yourself when you turn that key is a good step towards eliminating in totality for everyone, which would be an ugly situation indeed.
I was just referring to writing dates commonly... Not about programming or computers. However, even though the format they use on the PC is different than the way they write, the point is still valid: If you have a good date conversion routine, hold onto a copy. It will probably come into play again in your future at some point.
I don't see that as farfetched. Don't forget that most of the calendar using world formats its dates as dd/mm/yyyy, not our American system of mm/dd/yyyy.... So if you plan on writing software for use outside of the U.S., this would be a really useful piece of code to keep laying around.
If you read this article carefully, it says "Sales were down in total unit terms."
But could that have something to do with the fact that the industry has been releasing fewer and fewer CDs the last few years? A better measure would be average units sold per release, rather than total units sold for all releases. To date, the record industry hasn't convinced me that their "downturn" is anything other than the intersection of a bad economy and poor business decisions on their own part.
A high-end car mechanic with a right-sized client list and his own garage can make a great living.... $100k is achievable, more in areas where the service is more in demand. (California, warm weather states, etc...) People that buy these cars will pay a premium to have an expert who knows the car inside and out work on it. For them, it is a no-brainer--make a large cash investment last longer by maintaining it with an expert--Well worth the money when needed. I mean, what, are you going to take your Testarossa to Pep Boys? Those little pimple-pusses would probably crack it up trying to take off in 1st gear...
If you use Exchange 5.5 Standard edition your mail store is hard-coded to stop sending/receiving mail when it exceeds 16 gb. This alone is a good enough reason not to use Exchange (IMO) but if you're stuck with it, this is a good reason to limit mailbox size.
Beyond that, though, another reason that mailbox quotas are vigorously enforced is the amount of time a restore can take. If you have to rebuild your exchange server from a backup, a HUGE mail store can exponentially increase the amount of time it takes to rebuild the mail store. Ours is only ~12 gig and the last restore took almost seven hours!
You, my friend, have hit the nail squarely on the head.
When I started my current position, it was "a little bit of everything." I did scripting, server builds, maintenance, desktop support, planning, EVERYTHING. I was quite happy. Then slowly, we started "corporatizing" our environment to conform to the rest of our company...Our happy little well-run shop didn't match up, so we had to change. Now we've assigned the more interesting things (the server builds, the planning, and whatnot) to engineers at corporate headquarters, and I'm stuck... Pigeon-holed to desktop support (I installed Bonzi Buddy again!) password monkey (I can't remember the 8-character password I made up myself!) and backup tape duties (I erased my presentation from the server again!)
While I grant you, all the things I have to do are neccessary for continued operation of our business, my job was about 100 times more interesting when there was a little variety involved. I used to love my job and wanted to stay and make a career here. Now that we've been merged into a corporate behemoth and I'm prevented by rule from solving 85% of our problems, it just isn't interesting or exciting any more. I'm looking elsewhere, and will go when I find the right position.
We're a financial services company and we banned camera/cell-phones recently after our competitors had a nightmare scenario pop-up.
A person who was running their imaging group (scanning signed loan documents into imaging DB) and would use her cell/camera to take a close-up of the docs, and harvest the personal information for later sale to organized crime. Very embarassing for them, and costly as well, as they were sued by half-a-dozen people whose info was stolen in this manner. It is getting ugly. AND the Feds might fine them for the breach of security... Ouch!
So while I agree, the IT guy needs a phone, its understandable for people to be leery of their employees cell-phones.
I'm not surprised at all... It was inevitable that U.S. businesses would figure out what we've all known all along: A guy who is 12,000 miles away on the other side of the world and only accessible via phone and e-mail is just not as valuable as somebody (equally skilled) that you can face-to-face with by the coffee/soda machine and bounce ideas off of.
What I did find surprising was that the guy had the scruples to give his best workers raises and benefits rather than telling them "Get bent! We can replace you in a heartbeat" after they had earned his trust and respect (and a raise to a fair-market wage.) A few more stories like this and I might just start having hope for the future of America again...
It isn't the function of the ISP to support every workstation's unpatched buggy operating system(s), diganose your virus infections, or determine why you keep getting whacked in CounterStrike. Running an ISP is a support-intensive affair, and the admins and engineers at Comcast have more than enough work to do keeping their own infrastructure running to be expected to also admin your eMachines box running Windows ME. A more appropriate (and effective) course of action would be to train their techs in the operation and config of two or three basic internet firewalls and package them with the cable modems they deploy to their customers.
This would be responsible on Comcast's part and, combined with the fact that most consumer PCs come bundled with some sort of virus protection would start to stem the nightmare tide of crapola that flows out of the cable modem subnets...
If you're expecting Comcast to do your work for you, you'll get no sympathy from me. If your story of your customer/user having a warning before service was cut-off was true, why didn't you use PC Anywhere, RAdmin, VNC, or Remote Desktop to update her virus defs and scan the machine? Or run AdAware personal on the workstation using VNC to look for known spamware/crapware that might be generating nefarious traffic?
Your points ring hollow with this Network Admin who deals with dozens of remote users on a daily basis. It isn't always as easy as having it on my desk, but the business reality is that some functions only require one person, and require very little or no face to face interaction with co-workers. Economically, it doesn't make sense to move these people back to the office just because you can't or won't google for "Windows VNC Server."
I'm not trying to insult you, troll, or start a flame-war here, but the things you're complaining about are a standard part of my business day that I have little difficulty with.
While I certainly agree that setting up the advanced features of Samba (Samba as Domain controller) can be a little hairy for the uninitiated, if you're doing a simple implementation it isn't hard at all assuming you understand the concept of files shares in Windows and how to abstract it using text instead of the little hand.
In fact, samba was the first application I installed and configured on Linux and I am just as happy with my config today as I was two years ago when I set it up. Out of curiosity (and a little OT) did you seek help for whatever problems you had setting up Samba? Even though I didn't have many, I did find a need to consult a couple forums on one occasion... But I found the answer I needed easily enough.
Any medical malpractice attorney who doesn't know Down's Syndrome is a genetic disease is incompetent and guilty of (ironically) malpractice. And even if he didn't know, a brief conversation with the client would have told him what he needed to know. It isn't a crime to hire a bad lawyer, certainly not. But its certainly stupid. Its not fair that the strong can oppress the weak, but they do. You've proven that occasionally, they get away with it. This doesn't prove your point that all malpractice lawsuits are invalid. I'm not a doctor so I can't say that the vast majority of them are indeed valid claims, but I can tell you that if phony litigation was as common a problem as the doctors would have us believe, the malpractice insurerers would quit the business and do something else. The fact that they haven't pretty much tells the tale.
So:
- The doctor's lawyer somehow lost what should have been an open-and-shut case
- Somehow the doctor didn't win on appeal despite it being a technical impossibility that he caused the injuries cited.
- Somehow the malpractice insurance company didn't hire a lawyer that knew anything about medicine or malpractice.
Sorry, but I don't believe this. Either show me your evidence (a case name and court) or go away. I think we've all been had by a very well-crafted troll. I call bullshit on the original "Downs syndrome million dollar verdict" post. Too many unbelievable leaps of logic and reality to accept without a case citation..
Quoth my freshman year C Programming professor who said "void main() makes baby Jesus cry." I almost fell out of my chair with glee.
...It was called "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
With that said, please cue up "Wrath of Khan" to the scene where Kirk was on the radio with Ricardo Montebahn...
"KHAN!!!!!!"
Oy. I need to find something more productive to do with my afternoons...
It has been my experience that getting an MBA makes you less intelligent, not more. The marketplace appears to be bearing this out as well--I read an article this week about the MBA not being the automatic "trip to the top" that it used to be. Apparently, the proliferation of "Evening and weekend condensed" MBA programs has had the same effect on masters degrees that "Earn $60,000 per year in six months of training" had on MCSEs.
If anything, the fact that it appears to have been written by an idiot makes me believe it was written by a real MBA. So far, I haven't met one that wasn't a weasel or a liar. Of course, that doesn't mean the letter is authentic: Only the person who wrote/leaked it really knows that. BUT it could easily have been written by an executive or high-level consultant. Believe it or not, I've seen worse writing from far more high-profile senior staffers.