A website expects to be running 24/7 and if it goes down, they expect you to fix it ASAP.
And yet they don't seem to have made arrangements to do so. The company described here is just relying on someone they tried to fire last year who doesn't know how to say "No" coming in and volunteering to fix it on his own time.
If he chooses not to do so, then who's to blame? The independent contractor who gets paid by the hour for not doing work he isn't being paid to do, or the idiots who pinned their entire operations on one guy whom they can't be bothered to pay for his work?
If I were "Dazed and Confused", I would read my contract carefully and see exactly what expectations are spelled out for after hours work, and then follow them to the letter. If, by some amazing and completely unprecedented oversight there is no mention of an on-call SLA, then I would respond dutifully to every page at precisely 9:00 AM the next weekday morning until the matter was clarified.
Perhaps they should try ripping the same track to FLAC and MP3. And then ripping the ripped track to FLAC and MP3 again. And then again. And again. And then compare the results.
Even if a copy of the code were provided to Eiss, he said, it would quickly be outdated. "I have council members asking me for new and interesting legislation all the time," he noted.
You know, the part which explains why having access to a current and recently updated copy would be worthwhile.
Yet the countries with the advanced high-tech military hardware still fell to the swarming hordes that out-produced them materially. A lesson the US probably should keep in mind going into the 21st century.
Arthur C. Clarke. "Superiority". First published in F&SF, 1951, and reprinted several times since then.
If you haven't read it yet, do so. It explains this lesson better than anything short of losing a world war can.
The useless things can't even intercept alien USOs in the air. And don't get me started on how enemy scouts can avoid your Barracudas just by being too deep...
What part of '[the laws will] be made available on the Web for free" didn't you understand?
This part:
At the request of staffers at City Hall, Eiss filled out a form, which he later learned was a formal request for records access under New York's Freedom of Information Law. A week later, he received a response saying his request was denied.
The reason: "Materials requested are protected by copyright and release of materials is through exclusive license only."
Where, you know, the laws are _not_ being made available to mere citizens.
That's why the city has contracted with a national company called General Code for about $20,000 to create a comprehensive, searchable electronic version of the code that eventually will be posted on the Web and available to all.
City employees have access to the current electronic version through General Code, but "that is strictly proprietary and copyrighted," Van Norden said. "They own the electronic code and we use it under an electronic licensing agreement."
In case "reading the excerpts from the article" is still too long, let me sum it up for you: When asked for a copy of the City code, L. John Van Norden, acting on behalf of the City of Schenectady, informed Arthur Eiss that he not only couldn't have it, but that he was not even allowed to access the same copy which City employees use. The fact that the company which has created this problem promised to eventually make a publicly available version doesn't help anyone right now.
Now that there are a few more details, is that part easier to understand?
One time some guy paid me to fix his car. I took out the engine and replaced the whole thing with a box full of pinball machine parts. If he had put some effort into it I'm sure he could have assembled the parts into some sort of working electric motor, or maybe a time machine, but he just couldn't be bothered.
He got pissed and tried to sue me. Can you believe it?
something happens to my parents' computer, I spend a week or two trying to non-destructively fix the problem [...] and then if it's not easily fixed I'll reformat and start from scratch.
Stop that. If you insist on holding their hands, make one clean rebuild of their workstations just the way they like it and then image it. Provide them with a restore disc which will restore that image and wipe everything else. Give them a copy and keep spares hidden where only you can find or lose them.
ANY time they come to you with some problem which even looks like they may have caused it themselves, just say "Stick in the restore disc". There will be whining about lost data, missing Solitaire high scores and having to rewrite that paper on Chinatown (and it was a really good paper), but that would be a good time to learn about something called "backups" and "not wasting your time".
If you can find them a copy of "Not Being A Dummy For Dummies" then that might help too. It has been out of print for a while, though, so good luck.
(a) you have it backwards -- you want to pick the pay first, and then the job, rather than getting paid for the work you do;
I think it's more than just having it backwards, you're looking at employment as though it was something created by the employee. First you pick the job that you need done, then you hire someone to do it. Whether you pay them and provide them with what they need to do their job helps you attract the right people and keep them from going somewhere else when their EI runs out.
(b) your argument boils down to conjectures and assumptions.
Hi, Pot, my name is Kettle. Pleased to meet you.
You have also ignored the question of whether paying adjuncts more would be the best use of teaching dollars, rather than (say) improving facilities or reducing class sizes.
While you're at it, why not have the students teach themselves? Then you could get out of hiring teachers altogether and reduce class sizes to one!
If it were a question of sessional instructors making the same as tenured or tenure track faculty then your argument would have some merit, but sessionals at many universities are working full time for less than $15,000 a year. That puts them below the poverty line in several parts of the country and well below minimum wage almost everywhere. I'm not "ignoring the question" of whether paying teachers enough to live on any more than I "ignore the question" of whether or not classes should be taught while ankle deep in kerosene.
But it's your claim that paying adjuncts more would improve education, so why don't you give me your evidence?
The concept of paying people for the work that they do has been working pretty well for us as a civilization for over three thousand years. If you're trying to argue that offering pay below the poverty line is somehow a good way to attract and retain qualified people then there's really no point in continuing this discussion.
As far as quality education is concerned, your argument would be much more compelling if you could show that faculty pay is a good predictor of teaching quality. The publicly available data I've seen suggests that it's not.
[Citation Required]
Generally, if adjuncts are willing to work for peanuts because they love it, why shouldn't we let them?
They are clearly deciding what their work is worth by not doing anything more lucrative.
Or they are deciding what their work is worth by actually doing what they are paid for, like using the ready-made PowerPoint lectures that ship with many textbooks and coming across as, shall we say, less than connected with their material.
Tons of people are willing to write code for free and give it away, just because they love it. We are not asked to pity them.
Tons of people carve tiny wooden boats and then play with them in the bathtub. I only mention this because that has exactly as much relevance as your comment about writing code for free.
In particular, whose fault is it that a contract faculty member got a Ph.D. in an oversubscribed discipline?
It's not about "oversubscribed disciplines", it's about fair employment and providing students with the education that they are paying for.
Let's take a more meaningful example from this community. Tons of companies are replacing their highly educated and competent employees and replacing them with lowest bidder "outsourced" staff. Somehow I never see anyone here cheering this as a brilliant business move guaranteed to provide everybody with a brighter future.
Now, getting back to the pedagogical issues which really are the whole point, is it a good idea for a University to put the majority of its teaching duties on the backs of people who are treated like office temps only without the office? When your teachers have to work two or three jobs just to eat every day, how can you expect them to devote the time that they need to preparing for their classes? So what does this mean for the students who are paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition and expecting the promised "excellence in education" in return?
It means the students are getting screwed. Now whose fault is that?
They are either there for doing research and thus don't care about learning or they aren't sure what they are doing there and just needed a job.
You're confusing "All University Professors" with the elusive and endangered "Tenure Track Faculty". Most professors nowadays are employed as sessional instructors. That means that they are working part time on a contract which only lasts for a single semester, have no job security, no benefits of any kind, limited access to resources such as office space or the library, and are typically paid next to nothing.
Any illusions they may have had about doing actual research in their field should have disappeared after their first semester of being exploited, and if they really "just needed a job" they would have been better off serving drinks or flipping burgers. The hours and pay are a lot better and at least there would be some possibility of career advancement that way.
This is nothing new, but it's getting worse every year. Consider Allison Dube, at the University of Calgary. Despite teaching at the same school since before many of his students were born, working full time hours and winning numerous awards for excellence in teaching, he can barely afford to continue working.
All this, and you're pissed about your professors having the temerity to not prepare elaborate Broadway productions for every single lecture? Try this: Dig around in your pockets for all the loose change you can find and put that on the table along with five pieces of paper and a broken pencil. Now, quit your job and using only the resources in front of you design and teach three full year courses on microprocessor design, quantum theory, and the history of art in the Spanish Netherlands. When you are done you may treat yourself to a cheese sandwich.
Those are the conditions that your professors are working under. They're not lazy, they're not there just for the money, they're working as teachers because they really want to. Only a complete idiot would subject themselves to that kind of job if they didn't. If you want to be annoyed at anyone for the poor quality of lectures you have been forced to sit through, get annoyed at the University administration for treating their staff like dogs.
Worse than dogs, really. At least the dog gets fed.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet they don't seem to have made arrangements to do so. The company described here is just relying on someone they tried to fire last year who doesn't know how to say "No" coming in and volunteering to fix it on his own time.
If he chooses not to do so, then who's to blame? The independent contractor who gets paid by the hour for not doing work he isn't being paid to do, or the idiots who pinned their entire operations on one guy whom they can't be bothered to pay for his work?
If I were "Dazed and Confused", I would read my contract carefully and see exactly what expectations are spelled out for after hours work, and then follow them to the letter. If, by some amazing and completely unprecedented oversight there is no mention of an on-call SLA, then I would respond dutifully to every page at precisely 9:00 AM the next weekday morning until the matter was clarified.
Don't worry. You could start a group called "Bring back Facebook!" and get everybody you know to join.
I'm sure that would help somehow.
Yeah. That was worse than failure.
Lister: Where is KDE Hol?
Holly: It's been renamed, Dave.
Lister: What has?
Holly: Everything Dave.
Lister: What the window manager??
Holy: Everything's been renamed Dave.
Lister: What, the panel?
Holly: Everything's renamed Dave.
Lister: What configuration tools??
Holly: They've been renamed, Everything's renamed Dave.
Lister: The Desktop Environment isn't is it?
Holly: Everything is renamed Dave!
Lister: Not Kicker?
Holly: Gordon Bennett! Yes Kicker, everything, everything's renamed Dave!
Lister: Karamba?
Holly: It's renamed Dave, everything's renamed. Everything is renamed Dave.
Lister: Wait, are you tryin' to tell me everything's renamed?
Holly: I should have never let him out in the first place.
Samsung could, of course, hand over a fist full of dollars to the copyright holders and walk away with a copy of the code under whatever license they ask for.
Or maybe I'm just making this up.
I did something similar this morning.
Now how hard was that?
Perhaps they should try ripping the same track to FLAC and MP3. And then ripping the ripped track to FLAC and MP3 again. And then again. And again. And then compare the results.
Only if you have the right, high performance ASCII graphics card.
And, gosh, I also missed this part:
You know, the part which explains why having access to a current and recently updated copy would be worthwhile.
I guess I just need to read more.
"Hackers Decline to Reveal That They Cracked Brazilian Voting Machines"
It's almost as if they had some incentive to keep it to themselves.
Arthur C. Clarke. "Superiority". First published in F&SF, 1951, and reprinted several times since then.
If you haven't read it yet, do so. It explains this lesson better than anything short of losing a world war can.
The useless things can't even intercept alien USOs in the air. And don't get me started on how enemy scouts can avoid your Barracudas just by being too deep...
This part:
Where, you know, the laws are _not_ being made available to mere citizens.
In case "reading the excerpts from the article" is still too long, let me sum it up for you: When asked for a copy of the City code, L. John Van Norden, acting on behalf of the City of Schenectady, informed Arthur Eiss that he not only couldn't have it, but that he was not even allowed to access the same copy which City employees use. The fact that the company which has created this problem promised to eventually make a publicly available version doesn't help anyone right now.
Now that there are a few more details, is that part easier to understand?
The technical term for that is a Speedup Loop. All good software developers use them... for certain values of 'good'.
One time some guy paid me to fix his car. I took out the engine and replaced the whole thing with a box full of pinball machine parts. If he had put some effort into it I'm sure he could have assembled the parts into some sort of working electric motor, or maybe a time machine, but he just couldn't be bothered.
He got pissed and tried to sue me. Can you believe it?
Stop that. If you insist on holding their hands, make one clean rebuild of their workstations just the way they like it and then image it. Provide them with a restore disc which will restore that image and wipe everything else. Give them a copy and keep spares hidden where only you can find or lose them.
ANY time they come to you with some problem which even looks like they may have caused it themselves, just say "Stick in the restore disc". There will be whining about lost data, missing Solitaire high scores and having to rewrite that paper on Chinatown (and it was a really good paper), but that would be a good time to learn about something called "backups" and "not wasting your time".
If you can find them a copy of "Not Being A Dummy For Dummies" then that might help too. It has been out of print for a while, though, so good luck.
if (exists(town{"Der Kommissar"})) {
exit
} else {
@ARRAY = reverse @ARRAY;
}
I think it's more than just having it backwards, you're looking at employment as though it was something created by the employee. First you pick the job that you need done, then you hire someone to do it. Whether you pay them and provide them with what they need to do their job helps you attract the right people and keep them from going somewhere else when their EI runs out.
Hi, Pot, my name is Kettle. Pleased to meet you.
While you're at it, why not have the students teach themselves? Then you could get out of hiring teachers altogether and reduce class sizes to one!
If it were a question of sessional instructors making the same as tenured or tenure track faculty then your argument would have some merit, but sessionals at many universities are working full time for less than $15,000 a year. That puts them below the poverty line in several parts of the country and well below minimum wage almost everywhere. I'm not "ignoring the question" of whether paying teachers enough to live on any more than I "ignore the question" of whether or not classes should be taught while ankle deep in kerosene.
The concept of paying people for the work that they do has been working pretty well for us as a civilization for over three thousand years. If you're trying to argue that offering pay below the poverty line is somehow a good way to attract and retain qualified people then there's really no point in continuing this discussion.
[Citation Required]
For one thing, because that leads to this.
Or they are deciding what their work is worth by actually doing what they are paid for, like using the ready-made PowerPoint lectures that ship with many textbooks and coming across as, shall we say, less than connected with their material.
Maybe someone should write an article about that.
Tons of people carve tiny wooden boats and then play with them in the bathtub. I only mention this because that has exactly as much relevance as your comment about writing code for free.
It's not about "oversubscribed disciplines", it's about fair employment and providing students with the education that they are paying for.
Let's take a more meaningful example from this community. Tons of companies are replacing their highly educated and competent employees and replacing them with lowest bidder "outsourced" staff. Somehow I never see anyone here cheering this as a brilliant business move guaranteed to provide everybody with a brighter future.
Now, getting back to the pedagogical issues which really are the whole point, is it a good idea for a University to put the majority of its teaching duties on the backs of people who are treated like office temps only without the office? When your teachers have to work two or three jobs just to eat every day, how can you expect them to devote the time that they need to preparing for their classes? So what does this mean for the students who are paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition and expecting the promised "excellence in education" in return?
It means the students are getting screwed. Now whose fault is that?
Has Glenn Beck denied having raped and murdered a young girl in 1990?
If not, why not?
You're confusing "All University Professors" with the elusive and endangered "Tenure Track Faculty". Most professors nowadays are employed as sessional instructors. That means that they are working part time on a contract which only lasts for a single semester, have no job security, no benefits of any kind, limited access to resources such as office space or the library, and are typically paid next to nothing.
Any illusions they may have had about doing actual research in their field should have disappeared after their first semester of being exploited, and if they really "just needed a job" they would have been better off serving drinks or flipping burgers. The hours and pay are a lot better and at least there would be some possibility of career advancement that way.
This is nothing new, but it's getting worse every year. Consider Allison Dube, at the University of Calgary. Despite teaching at the same school since before many of his students were born, working full time hours and winning numerous awards for excellence in teaching, he can barely afford to continue working.
All this, and you're pissed about your professors having the temerity to not prepare elaborate Broadway productions for every single lecture? Try this: Dig around in your pockets for all the loose change you can find and put that on the table along with five pieces of paper and a broken pencil. Now, quit your job and using only the resources in front of you design and teach three full year courses on microprocessor design, quantum theory, and the history of art in the Spanish Netherlands. When you are done you may treat yourself to a cheese sandwich.
Those are the conditions that your professors are working under. They're not lazy, they're not there just for the money, they're working as teachers because they really want to. Only a complete idiot would subject themselves to that kind of job if they didn't. If you want to be annoyed at anyone for the poor quality of lectures you have been forced to sit through, get annoyed at the University administration for treating their staff like dogs.
Worse than dogs, really. At least the dog gets fed.
There. Edited that down a bit for you.
...then it would have been cut out as not being sensationalist enough for an article summary.
You're new here, aren't you?