GE has a system already in place at some airports (I've seen it at the Logan's Delta terminal) which puffs air at people to detect explosives. It sounds like this technology being "developed" is just an extension of that. The GE product is for people and is similar (and I think also acts as) a metal detector instead of being only for luggage. http://www.geindustrial.com/presscenter/home?actio n=pressReleaseDetail&business=infra&newsId=352&Dt_ Lo=YES
Most computers from HP and Dell come with some sort of office applications. I think people will be more apt to use those than work through a web browser just because web apps tend to be less responsive. I've used plenty of specialized web based graphical tools but only for fun. I'd use Photoshop, Gimp, or even MS Paint before I'd go looking for an online graphics tool. So that knocks out most users right away.
I work for a company, which like most technology companies, has tons of proprietary information. I'm pretty sure that regardless of how secure this "online office" is supposed to be it will be completely unacceptable to do ANY work in such an environment. So that knocks out many tech savvy users.
Finally, I'm sure that I'm missing something but Open Office is already available for free download and then you don't even have to keep a live internet connection. So that knocks out pretty much everyone else once the novelty wears off (which will be the first time a hiccup in the connection or scripting causes a loss of data).
Generally for a new product to take off and stay successful it helps if it offers some improvement over the previous product. Google's reputation might be able to encourage some early success but what will make Joe and Jane computer user to login to Google Office six months from now?
I don't think their point was to demonize the government. I think the point was that if the governement CAN spend less money and continue with the same quality of service then in most cases they probably should. In this case there is a free alternative to an expensive product that the government uses. Naturally the government should try to save (tax payer) money and use the free alternative. I would guess the hold up was due to suites like OpenOffice being a lower quality offering. Apparently MA has decided OO good enough to replace MS now.
I work in engineering and have to analyze piles of data. I use perl every day to convert, filter, move around, and format data. It works better than Matlab for large files. I also use it to write large run files. In short I think perl is still useful for doing many simple scripting tasks. Many of the people on/. are looking at it more from the web developer view point. I've never even learned how to use perl for that purpose.
Well hopefully I'll fall into just such a job. Some of the people I graduated with got jobs at Raytheon but beyond that I don't know of any getting jobs in the Boston area. That's in part because most people went back to their home towns or went into grad school. I've leaned towards networking and hardware design type stuff although my current job has me doing pretty random government projects concerning oil debris sensors and prognosis health management for jet engines.
Have you tried the mid-west? My impression has been that there is work here. I'm FAR from anything like UNIX administration but prospects seem better all around out here than they are in the northeast (at least).
Apparently you feel I'm unloading some responsibility here. I'm very aware I was lucky to get this job. I don't feel lucky about where it is. I took it and I'm going to stick with it for a year to get experience. I will then go back east and accept going back to shitty retail jobs or whatever I can get until something else comes up.
Probably what I dislike most about this job is that hard work is not rewarded and is often not even an option. That's nothing new though so I'll live with that with whatever job I end up at. My pay rate is actually much more than I asked for. That doesn't mean it is worth me staying out here and being unhappy.
The point of my original post was not that "my life is so shitty omg feel bad for me" it was that there seem to be a lot of tech jobs in the mid-west (at least in this area) although lots of young people aren't interested in moving here. This might be why there are many opennings in tech fields while many people in other regions still claim to have trouble finding/getting jobs.
I went to BU because I got in and it was better than the other schools I got into. Recruiter? Are there still recruiters?
I've worked since before it was even legal for me to be working. Last summer I worked 60 hour weeks outside in weather ranging from pouring rain to blazing sun AND that was the BEST job I had ever had at the time. My current job is the first where I haven't been given actual work to do but instead I'm expected to sit quietly by and "spend" money just because someone has to log the hours to do so. Seems wasteful to me. I prefer an honest days work and the feeling that I've done something of at least some value. Otherwise I'd take the job again back east.
I'm not sure where the harsh political statements are coming from but generally the people here just have different values which is fine but I don't share them so I'll happily go back to what I guess you consider to be a "flaming liberal" place.
I was refering to the woman who sits at the opposite end of the building with the title Human Resource Manager and sends 10-30 emails a day about stuff we (everyone I've mentioned it to) don't care about. Often the emails center on some "amazing" new thing she just did which will have no effect on the lives me or my fellow cube dwellers. It makes me wonder if I should be emailing her every time I go to the bathroom.
While they may be classified as HR people I wasn't including the people who setup our websites which handle all the things you mentioned. I haven't interacted with a single person while setting up direct deposit, health care, or benefits. I'm pretty sure it goes from our corporate site directly to the providers, banks, etc. I would like someone to talk to about health care too because I currently don't have a dentist or PCP. None of the HR people I've contacted have accepted responsibility for that kind of human resourcing though. Must have been outsourced...
That seems to be the common impression among people out here who have never been to the northeast. People ARE friendlier out here. While we're making generalizations though they're also more close minded and there are many more religious zealots.
I agree. This is not something that will pass though. I work with a woman who moved out here from the northeast and she can't wait for her kids to be old enough for her to get out. My girlfriend has no interest in moving here either and I don't blame her.
I actually was very happy to be done with college which is why I didn't go for a graduate degree. I just don't mesh well with the culture here although I am glad that I've experienced the mid-west and if nothing else I've learned about the culture that differs greatly from what I grew up with.
The job is really a joke though. I've worked harder at EVERY other job I've EVER had including selling tickets!! I've told my manager and my manager's manager that I need work to do when I'm at work but a project is given a certain amount of money and that money needs to be spent even if no constructive work is really being done.
That's what I'm hoping. I will have a year of experience working for a very large and well respected company.
I'm not so sure I've learned much except that large companies waste a huge amount on stupid over head (those HR people have no purpose) and that our tax dollars are often wasted by the millions on stupid projects that everyone knows will go nowhere from the start.
The jobs don't pay as well out here. That's part of why they ARE out here. Companies assume it is cheaper to live (which it is) so they can pay less.
I really wouldn't mind it here if it weren't 900 miles from my friends and family.
It doesn't help that I'm fairly liberal leaning and Cincinnati is the conservative end of Ohio.
I don't intend to start a family for a very long time and even on what I make now and where I live now it would be a LONG time before I could support a family.
I got a job in the mid-west straight out of school and moved from the Boston area to the Cincinnati are. There are TONS of engineering/tech jobs here from what I gather. I talked to a co-op from an Ohio college and he said their career fairs are packed while the career fairs at my school (Boston University) was pathetic.
Apparently the mid-west is in fact "tech-filled" at least from what I've seen. The cost of living and the cost of doing business out here is just cheaper I guess.
I graduated last May from Boston University with a BS in EE and was one of the few "lucky ones" in my group of friends who was able to find a job...in Cincinnati. So I up and moved to Cincinnati and took this "great job."
Now I'll only comment quickly that the job is mediocre on a good day and Cincinnati blows. The mid-west it seems is teaming with tech jobs though. That doesn't mean I'll stay here but apparently there are co-op jobs a plenty out here that go un filled while I spent last summer mowing lawns for lack of a co-op position.
From my experience techs jobs are mostly only available in certain areas which are cheaper to operate a business in. People my age don't want to move to the mid west though (I'm moving back [someone give me a job in the Boston area]) and older people have already put down roots somewhere else.
Agreed. I had better than 20/20 at my last appointment and have spent WAY too much time looking at CRT monitors for well over a decade. Maybe it takes longer but then I would probably say it is more a result of age. Everyone else in my family uses computers less but also wears glasses. I agree, it varies person to person. I have laptop and I don't notice a difference in eye strain when using it instead of my desktop either.
I run an FTP server and things went all wacky when I (and my users) upgraded to SP2. Before you start assuming it was a fire wall issue let me state that it was NOT. Command line ftp worked fine so I didn't notice anything wrong but other people complained they couldn't get in. It took me a while to find out that in Internet Explorer there is a setting that was changed from off to on that basically breaks GUI ftp using IE. Just annoying as it drove me crazy for days trying to figure out if it was a client or server problem.
Corporate webcasts. We usually get a couple a month. Some are just "our company is great" talks but others are "what is going on" talks and are worth watching. And my employer is the DEFINITION of "ONE big corporation."
This "article" just shows some pictures of what I can only assume is the touch sensitive plates under the wheels. It doesn't explain anything about them and how they work, nor does it really talk about the "design process."
Capewind is trying to use private land to make public money and raise the cost of power for people in an area that already produces a power surplus even during the peak summer months. With all the maintenence that these turbines would require their energy output would be minimal and the cost of that energy would be high. Due to state legislation power providers would be required to buy it though and people on the Cape (most of whom are not wealthy [especially those that live there year round and would have to pay higher energy bills year round]) would be forced to pay higher energy bills so this private company can destroy a natural resource. There's a nuclear plant in Plymouth. We aren't relying only on fossil fuels. Wind farms in this region might be viable some day but I work for a company that makes turbines and in the salt water environment there are still problems. This is all a money making scheme for Capewind in the guise of clean energy possibilities. Instead of just reading the Capewind spin on how great they are go look at http://www.saveoursound.org/.
I don't know what group you run with but I grew up on the cape and worked jobs ranging from landscaping to waiting tables starting when I was 15. The majority of the people on the cape aren't wealthy. In fact there are many people who JUST get by. It is only a country club if you go to a country club where there are hundreds of working class people for every rich member. These working class people are the people who actually make use of the area the wind farm would be located in. These are also the people who would be paying the higher energy bills year round. Try looking out the window of your Lexus sometime and notice the people who cut your grass. Those people live on the cape too and they aren't making $150k.
I find it amusing that people think the only people that live on the Cape and islands are super wealthy. I've been fishing exactly where the wind farm is supposed to go. Not with a super wealthy white collar business man but with the owner of a landscaping company I worked for last summer. He barely gets by supporting his wife and kid and there were dozens of others enjoying the exact same spot for fishing. Not only would the wind farm take the simple pleasure of fishing there away but it would raise his cost of living through higher energy bills. People are so quick to assume that EVERYONE on cape cod is rich and that EVERY clean energy proposition is for the greater good. Nevermind that Capewind wants to take advantage of clean energy legislation to make a quick buck off the consumer by building a private business on public land and forcing people to pay for it EVEN THOUGH the Cape's region already produces power surplus even during the peak summer months. And for the record most rich people that do come to the cape are only there in the summer and wouldn't be paying the higher energy bills that we'd have to pay year round.
I lived on the Cape for my entire childhood. I've fished exactly where the wind farm is supposed to be located. I've worked as a landscaper, waiter, host, sales person, etc. I'm not what you would call affluent. The area these things are supposed to go is actually very busy for fishing and not just by rich friends to the stars. I went out there with my boss last summer who was a struggling owner of a small landscaping business. He was anything but rich. So get those "rich people just don't want these int heir yard but it's fine for the poor" ideas out of your head. The proposed wind farm really would mean the destruction of a very real natural resource. In addition the required maintenence and resourced reduce the effectiveness of these turbines more than Capewind is going to tell you. The Capewind company wants to use public land to make private money while the public still ends up paying higher energy bills. This is a perfect example of someone trying to use "clean energy" legistlation to make a quick buck off the public. I also don't think you people understand how large these things are. Each one is like a spinning football feild. Personally I think they'd be neat looking but they'd probably waste more resources than they'd save in energy production.
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GE has a system already in place at some airports (I've seen it at the Logan's Delta terminal) which puffs air at people to detect explosives. It sounds like this technology being "developed" is just an extension of that. The GE product is for people and is similar (and I think also acts as) a metal detector instead of being only for luggage. http://www.geindustrial.com/presscenter/home?actio n=pressReleaseDetail&business=infra&newsId=352&Dt_ Lo=YES
Most computers from HP and Dell come with some sort of office applications. I think people will be more apt to use those than work through a web browser just because web apps tend to be less responsive. I've used plenty of specialized web based graphical tools but only for fun. I'd use Photoshop, Gimp, or even MS Paint before I'd go looking for an online graphics tool. So that knocks out most users right away.
I work for a company, which like most technology companies, has tons of proprietary information. I'm pretty sure that regardless of how secure this "online office" is supposed to be it will be completely unacceptable to do ANY work in such an environment. So that knocks out many tech savvy users.
Finally, I'm sure that I'm missing something but Open Office is already available for free download and then you don't even have to keep a live internet connection. So that knocks out pretty much everyone else once the novelty wears off (which will be the first time a hiccup in the connection or scripting causes a loss of data).
Generally for a new product to take off and stay successful it helps if it offers some improvement over the previous product. Google's reputation might be able to encourage some early success but what will make Joe and Jane computer user to login to Google Office six months from now?
I don't think their point was to demonize the government. I think the point was that if the governement CAN spend less money and continue with the same quality of service then in most cases they probably should. In this case there is a free alternative to an expensive product that the government uses. Naturally the government should try to save (tax payer) money and use the free alternative. I would guess the hold up was due to suites like OpenOffice being a lower quality offering. Apparently MA has decided OO good enough to replace MS now.
I work in engineering and have to analyze piles of data. I use perl every day to convert, filter, move around, and format data. It works better than Matlab for large files. I also use it to write large run files. In short I think perl is still useful for doing many simple scripting tasks. Many of the people on /. are looking at it more from the web developer view point. I've never even learned how to use perl for that purpose.
Well hopefully I'll fall into just such a job. Some of the people I graduated with got jobs at Raytheon but beyond that I don't know of any getting jobs in the Boston area. That's in part because most people went back to their home towns or went into grad school. I've leaned towards networking and hardware design type stuff although my current job has me doing pretty random government projects concerning oil debris sensors and prognosis health management for jet engines.
Have you tried the mid-west? My impression has been that there is work here. I'm FAR from anything like UNIX administration but prospects seem better all around out here than they are in the northeast (at least).
Probably what I dislike most about this job is that hard work is not rewarded and is often not even an option. That's nothing new though so I'll live with that with whatever job I end up at. My pay rate is actually much more than I asked for. That doesn't mean it is worth me staying out here and being unhappy.
The point of my original post was not that "my life is so shitty omg feel bad for me" it was that there seem to be a lot of tech jobs in the mid-west (at least in this area) although lots of young people aren't interested in moving here. This might be why there are many opennings in tech fields while many people in other regions still claim to have trouble finding/getting jobs.
I've worked since before it was even legal for me to be working. Last summer I worked 60 hour weeks outside in weather ranging from pouring rain to blazing sun AND that was the BEST job I had ever had at the time. My current job is the first where I haven't been given actual work to do but instead I'm expected to sit quietly by and "spend" money just because someone has to log the hours to do so. Seems wasteful to me. I prefer an honest days work and the feeling that I've done something of at least some value. Otherwise I'd take the job again back east.
I'm not sure where the harsh political statements are coming from but generally the people here just have different values which is fine but I don't share them so I'll happily go back to what I guess you consider to be a "flaming liberal" place.
While they may be classified as HR people I wasn't including the people who setup our websites which handle all the things you mentioned. I haven't interacted with a single person while setting up direct deposit, health care, or benefits. I'm pretty sure it goes from our corporate site directly to the providers, banks, etc. I would like someone to talk to about health care too because I currently don't have a dentist or PCP. None of the HR people I've contacted have accepted responsibility for that kind of human resourcing though. Must have been outsourced...
OH and don't forget the race riots.
I actually was very happy to be done with college which is why I didn't go for a graduate degree. I just don't mesh well with the culture here although I am glad that I've experienced the mid-west and if nothing else I've learned about the culture that differs greatly from what I grew up with.
The job is really a joke though. I've worked harder at EVERY other job I've EVER had including selling tickets!! I've told my manager and my manager's manager that I need work to do when I'm at work but a project is given a certain amount of money and that money needs to be spent even if no constructive work is really being done.
I'm not so sure I've learned much except that large companies waste a huge amount on stupid over head (those HR people have no purpose) and that our tax dollars are often wasted by the millions on stupid projects that everyone knows will go nowhere from the start.
I really wouldn't mind it here if it weren't 900 miles from my friends and family.
It doesn't help that I'm fairly liberal leaning and Cincinnati is the conservative end of Ohio.
I don't intend to start a family for a very long time and even on what I make now and where I live now it would be a LONG time before I could support a family.
Apparently the mid-west is in fact "tech-filled" at least from what I've seen. The cost of living and the cost of doing business out here is just cheaper I guess.
This job would be great if it were in the Boston area (where there is another plant).
Now I'll only comment quickly that the job is mediocre on a good day and Cincinnati blows. The mid-west it seems is teaming with tech jobs though. That doesn't mean I'll stay here but apparently there are co-op jobs a plenty out here that go un filled while I spent last summer mowing lawns for lack of a co-op position.
From my experience techs jobs are mostly only available in certain areas which are cheaper to operate a business in. People my age don't want to move to the mid west though (I'm moving back [someone give me a job in the Boston area]) and older people have already put down roots somewhere else.
Agreed. I had better than 20/20 at my last appointment and have spent WAY too much time looking at CRT monitors for well over a decade. Maybe it takes longer but then I would probably say it is more a result of age. Everyone else in my family uses computers less but also wears glasses. I agree, it varies person to person. I have laptop and I don't notice a difference in eye strain when using it instead of my desktop either.
I run an FTP server and things went all wacky when I (and my users) upgraded to SP2. Before you start assuming it was a fire wall issue let me state that it was NOT. Command line ftp worked fine so I didn't notice anything wrong but other people complained they couldn't get in. It took me a while to find out that in Internet Explorer there is a setting that was changed from off to on that basically breaks GUI ftp using IE. Just annoying as it drove me crazy for days trying to figure out if it was a client or server problem.
Corporate webcasts. We usually get a couple a month. Some are just "our company is great" talks but others are "what is going on" talks and are worth watching. And my employer is the DEFINITION of "ONE big corporation."
If I hadn't already commented I would mod you up.
This "article" just shows some pictures of what I can only assume is the touch sensitive plates under the wheels. It doesn't explain anything about them and how they work, nor does it really talk about the "design process."
Capewind is trying to use private land to make public money and raise the cost of power for people in an area that already produces a power surplus even during the peak summer months. With all the maintenence that these turbines would require their energy output would be minimal and the cost of that energy would be high. Due to state legislation power providers would be required to buy it though and people on the Cape (most of whom are not wealthy [especially those that live there year round and would have to pay higher energy bills year round]) would be forced to pay higher energy bills so this private company can destroy a natural resource. There's a nuclear plant in Plymouth. We aren't relying only on fossil fuels. Wind farms in this region might be viable some day but I work for a company that makes turbines and in the salt water environment there are still problems. This is all a money making scheme for Capewind in the guise of clean energy possibilities. Instead of just reading the Capewind spin on how great they are go look at http://www.saveoursound.org/.
I don't know what group you run with but I grew up on the cape and worked jobs ranging from landscaping to waiting tables starting when I was 15. The majority of the people on the cape aren't wealthy. In fact there are many people who JUST get by. It is only a country club if you go to a country club where there are hundreds of working class people for every rich member. These working class people are the people who actually make use of the area the wind farm would be located in. These are also the people who would be paying the higher energy bills year round. Try looking out the window of your Lexus sometime and notice the people who cut your grass. Those people live on the cape too and they aren't making $150k.
I find it amusing that people think the only people that live on the Cape and islands are super wealthy. I've been fishing exactly where the wind farm is supposed to go. Not with a super wealthy white collar business man but with the owner of a landscaping company I worked for last summer. He barely gets by supporting his wife and kid and there were dozens of others enjoying the exact same spot for fishing. Not only would the wind farm take the simple pleasure of fishing there away but it would raise his cost of living through higher energy bills. People are so quick to assume that EVERYONE on cape cod is rich and that EVERY clean energy proposition is for the greater good. Nevermind that Capewind wants to take advantage of clean energy legislation to make a quick buck off the consumer by building a private business on public land and forcing people to pay for it EVEN THOUGH the Cape's region already produces power surplus even during the peak summer months. And for the record most rich people that do come to the cape are only there in the summer and wouldn't be paying the higher energy bills that we'd have to pay year round.
I lived on the Cape for my entire childhood. I've fished exactly where the wind farm is supposed to be located. I've worked as a landscaper, waiter, host, sales person, etc. I'm not what you would call affluent. The area these things are supposed to go is actually very busy for fishing and not just by rich friends to the stars. I went out there with my boss last summer who was a struggling owner of a small landscaping business. He was anything but rich. So get those "rich people just don't want these int heir yard but it's fine for the poor" ideas out of your head. The proposed wind farm really would mean the destruction of a very real natural resource. In addition the required maintenence and resourced reduce the effectiveness of these turbines more than Capewind is going to tell you. The Capewind company wants to use public land to make private money while the public still ends up paying higher energy bills. This is a perfect example of someone trying to use "clean energy" legistlation to make a quick buck off the public. I also don't think you people understand how large these things are. Each one is like a spinning football feild. Personally I think they'd be neat looking but they'd probably waste more resources than they'd save in energy production.