...there's no more obligation to censor/filter material for minors than a magazine store that happens to sell copies of Playboy and Penthouse.
As it happens, there are many places in the real (USofA) world where magazine and other stores ARE required to filter adult magazines. By placing them in bags that opaque all but the magazine title and price.
It caused an outrage when the law was first introduced (long before the internet), but, over time, people have gotten used to it and life goes on.
Even with the best selection of vendors, you cannot escape a certain amount of "not my problem; it's him" finger pointing. The reason is simple; when something breaks, you are not dealing with a hive-mentality supplier where everyone in that company knows everything about the company's products. You will be dealing with individuals. And usually, the first person dispached on a problem call is the lowest-ranked, -paid, and -trained. And a large percentage of such, if they can't resolve the problem, will resort to finger-pointing instead of calling their next level support.
As suggested elsewhere, you (or someone in your shop) will need to be learn enough about the entire installation that you can tell when someone is pouring lemonade in your ear and saying it's rainwater. Don't just give some surplus manager the title of "Architect" and let it go. Find a techie who knows how to back off and observe.
Other suggestions:
Getting reps from all suppliers in the same room is a good idea, but not generally possible until you have been down much longer than you want.
Don't be afraid to "escalate" the problem. If the first response body can't / won't solve the problem, ask for a manager. Managers don't like talking to customers, but the good ones like even less having unhappy customers because of untrained employees or employee attitude. Odds are that the manager may not even know about your problem (other than "there was a ticket but we closed it").
If you find a support rep who really knows her stuff, saying "thank you" never hurts. (Lots of customers think it does.) For a really good job, a note to the salesman (to be forwarded to the support boss) will be appreciated.
Sometimes, it is possible to request that a particular support rep be assigned to your account. If you find a good one, do so.
Bottom line: support reps from the suppliers are not your employees and so do not care quite as much about your company's problems as you do. Since you cannot completely avoid getting involved in problem resolution, get trained. Get multiple people trained.
After World War II, we brought German rocket engineers to the US as much to keep them out of unfriendly hands as for any possible work they could do for us.
If the Russian rocket scientists weren't working toward the peaceful exploration of space (or at least paddling around the shallows), they would have to find work elsewhere. Do you expect that they would want to stop being rocket scientists and go learn to be men's room attendants or potato farmers? Much more likely that, if they couldn't work in a Russian rocket program, they would be working on enhancements to SCUDs in one of the deserts of the north Africa or the Middle East. Working for bosses who are comfortable with the idea of a significant portion of the planet earth glowing radioactively in the dark.
Let's be happy that they are practicing their profession in a peaceful and honorable manner.
The best explanation I ever heard was the simplest.
When the gov buys a new airplane, ship, truck, whatever, they don't buy ten years worth of spare parts. Instead, they require that the supplier be able to produce same-quality spare parts for however long the original purchased item lasts.
To do this, vendors keep all of the manufacturing blueprints, documentation, assembly fixtures, test equipment etc., just so that ten years down the road, they can build a replacement left-handed widget thumper that is an absolute match for the original.
Problem is that to preserve all that documentation takes space. As in shelves and filing cabinets (capital equipment costs) in buildings (taxable real property) on land (taxable real estate) which must be monitored by security (employees). And all of these costs of keeping the part's documentation "alive" is a significant part of the high cost of spares.
It doesn't do any good to assume that, just because you can buy something today for $0.47, that you will be able to buy the identical part ten or fifteen years from now. And remember, the replacement parts must be identical. You can't go file-to-fit and paint-to-hide inside a nuclear submarine or a B-52.
Point is, it isn't so much that a hammer costs $45.00 as it is that an exact reproduction of a specially designed hammer of an exact weight with a specific length handle costs $45.00.
Pamela and some of the other lady penguins stopped for lunch. Afterwards, there was a protracted discussion of who had had which dish, who owed how much, and why hadn't anyone remembered to bring their coin purse and do you think that the establishment will take a charge card?
When they couldn't find the headwaiter, they remembered where they were and got back in motion.
Sell add-on modules to the basic package. Sell interface programs (from your package to other software packages). Sell pre-loaded database of industry-standard (non-copyrighted) data. Sell pre-loaded database of specific (licensed) data. Sell pre-loaded database/catalog of vendor-specific data with an agreement from the vendor paying you a comission on product sales due to your software. (Major opportunities here.) Sell custom code modifications. Sell installation and training. Sell services (remote application/data hosting). Sell the associated (and required) big-buck database package (i.e., be an Informix, or Oracle reseller). Sell software upgrade contracts. (Send notice/cd-rom when software is updated.) Sell software support contracts. (Dial-in and telephone.) Assumes basic package is limited or no support.
OK, that took less than five minutes to come up with.
Thing is, figure out which you can do for least up-front outlay. Then offer that product/service. If it costs you nearly nothing, you don't lose big if nobody wants to buy, and you still have an impressive product/services list. The fact that not everybody will buy a particular product/service does NOT mean that NOBODY will want it.
Add to your product list. Keep adding to it. Don't let people think that you are a "one-trick pony". There's a world of folk out there who only want (for example) general ledger and accounts payable but who will not buy unless your product sheet shows payroll also.
I spent over eight years learning these lessons. If the moron who owned the company had learned any of them, we'd have made big bucks. He didn't; we didn't.
Consistency is not only for GUIs. Even shell utilities benefit.
Think about the last time you needed to construct a pipeline of utilities linked by pipes. And remember how jarring it was when you found that one of the tools you needed to use didn't support redirection for stdin?
(Comments regarding the obvious superiority of PERL or Python will be ignored for the purpose of this thread.)
On a side note, when I first started working on PC's for the fun of it, I always carried around a DOS boot disk...
Funny that you should mention that. I think many of us did the same thing. And even after years away from the DOS world, it was only two weeks ago that I culled the DOS rescue and tool disks out of my briefcase. Just before... Nah, couldn't have been a connection.
The gentleman on the left (in the two-sizes too small white sport coat appears to be showing the "print" of a belt-mounted pager.
The person on the right in khakis with the black web shoulder-holster is wearing one of the newest accessories for PDAs. Seriously, PDA carried under one arm, pouch wireless phone under the other.
Doing the code to get the experience sounds like an excellent idea. I know that I learn a language by using it, not sitting in a class.
But I wouldn't want to count on open/free project work to be beneficial on a resume.
You would be surprised at the number of things that will cause a Human Resources droid to trashcan your resume. Basically, it's anything that is out of the ordinary. And now you want a job writing code for money, but your experience is writing code and giving it away. TILT!
Oh, and "You must realize, Mr. Jones, that once employed by ZYX Corporation, all code you write for the rest of your life belongs to ZYX. You will indicate your acceptance of this condition of employement by cashing your paycheck."
Do the code, sure. But not for the glory or recognition or even to get a job. Do it because it's right.
Next, you'll be calling them at home before school to tell them about your great new breakfast cereal.
I believe that something like this was tried within the last few years. Some company gave away pagers to kids so that they could be beeped with special product offers. Small firestorm followed and schools began collecting pagers at the metal detector.
What I mainly remember from BG is the keyboard on the console at the side of the bridge.
Did anyone else notice that it (the keyboard) was from an IBM model 29 keypunch?
For that matter, when was the last time anyone even saw a model 29? Setup a drum card? Got a pants cuff full of chads? Dropped your deck on the way to submit the job "one last time"?
Excercises for students:
1) calculate the equivalent of 80-column tab cards carried on a standard cd-rom. Assume one box/tray of cards equals 2400 cards and one case of cards equals 5 boxes. How many cases of cards on that cd-rom?
2) Assume a business environment; how much would that volume of cards weigh and how long would it take you to haul that volume from the third floor machine room to the basement archive using only a two wheeled dolly?
If they intend to use a web site as the reporting method, how do they propose to handle the reporting of entire sports squads, crossing guard patrols, or even schools on a nightly basis from random IP addresses?
Wouldn't it be neat if there was an interested Congressman who could get selected pieces of code read into the Congressional Record? (It doesn't require actually reading the document in session, just a request to include the document.) What court could order the censoring of the Congressional Record?
Anybody have any friends working in a Congressman's office?
Being unarmed is not simply being "without a gun". In some cases, it can mean not being aware that there are mean people who will hurt you for funsies. If you meet a fool with a gun, you need every skill, every sense, and sometines a good bit of luck to survive.
The original wit implied that gun owners hurt themselves. Much more likely that harm comes from the hand of another.
Slashdot Mirror
...there's no more obligation to censor/filter material for minors than a magazine store that happens to sell copies of Playboy and Penthouse.
As it happens, there are many places in the real (USofA) world where magazine and other stores ARE required to filter adult magazines. By placing them in bags that opaque all but the magazine title and price.
It caused an outrage when the law was first introduced (long before the internet), but, over time, people have gotten used to it and life goes on.
You don't get much meat on a vegan (they're skinny buggers), but it's all top-quality stuff.
Bet it tastes like chicken.
Even with the best selection of vendors, you cannot escape a certain amount of "not my problem; it's him" finger pointing. The reason is simple; when something breaks, you are not dealing with a hive-mentality supplier where everyone in that company knows everything about the company's products. You will be dealing with individuals. And usually, the first person dispached on a problem call is the lowest-ranked, -paid, and -trained. And a large percentage of such, if they can't resolve the problem, will resort to finger-pointing instead of calling their next level support.
As suggested elsewhere, you (or someone in your shop) will need to be learn enough about the entire installation that you can tell when someone is pouring lemonade in your ear and saying it's rainwater. Don't just give some surplus manager the title of "Architect" and let it go. Find a techie who knows how to back off and observe.
Other suggestions:
Getting reps from all suppliers in the same room is a good idea, but not generally possible until you have been down much longer than you want.
Don't be afraid to "escalate" the problem. If the first response body can't / won't solve the problem, ask for a manager. Managers don't like talking to customers, but the good ones like even less having unhappy customers because of untrained employees or employee attitude. Odds are that the manager may not even know about your problem (other than "there was a ticket but we closed it").
If you find a support rep who really knows her stuff, saying "thank you" never hurts. (Lots of customers think it does.) For a really good job, a note to the salesman (to be forwarded to the support boss) will be appreciated.
Sometimes, it is possible to request that a particular support rep be assigned to your account. If you find a good one, do so.
Bottom line: support reps from the suppliers are not your employees and so do not care quite as much about your company's problems as you do. Since you cannot completely avoid getting involved in problem resolution, get trained. Get multiple people trained.
What is your alternative?
After World War II, we brought German rocket engineers to the US as much to keep them out of unfriendly hands as for any possible work they could do for us.
If the Russian rocket scientists weren't working toward the peaceful exploration of space (or at least paddling around the shallows), they would have to find work elsewhere. Do you expect that they would want to stop being rocket scientists and go learn to be men's room attendants or potato farmers? Much more likely that, if they couldn't work in a Russian rocket program, they would be working on enhancements to SCUDs in one of the deserts of the north Africa or the Middle East. Working for bosses who are comfortable with the idea of a significant portion of the planet earth glowing radioactively in the dark.
Let's be happy that they are practicing their profession in a peaceful and honorable manner.
The best explanation I ever heard was the simplest.
When the gov buys a new airplane, ship, truck, whatever, they don't buy ten years worth of spare parts. Instead, they require that the supplier be able to produce same-quality spare parts for however long the original purchased item lasts.
To do this, vendors keep all of the manufacturing blueprints, documentation, assembly fixtures, test equipment etc., just so that ten years down the road, they can build a replacement left-handed widget thumper that is an absolute match for the original.
Problem is that to preserve all that documentation takes space. As in shelves and filing cabinets (capital equipment costs) in buildings (taxable real property) on land (taxable real estate) which must be monitored by security (employees). And all of these costs of keeping the part's documentation "alive" is a significant part of the high cost of spares.
It doesn't do any good to assume that, just because you can buy something today for $0.47, that you will be able to buy the identical part ten or fifteen years from now. And remember, the replacement parts must be identical. You can't go file-to-fit and paint-to-hide inside a nuclear submarine or a B-52.
Point is, it isn't so much that a hammer costs $45.00 as it is that an exact reproduction of a specially designed hammer of an exact weight with a specific length handle costs $45.00.
...posed with goats.
You will, of course, be publishing your test suite under a GNU license?
The european greens have managed to get passed laws effecting the use and disposal of lead in 2004.
Good. No more conventional war in Europe after 2004.
(Next time we'll have to use bismuth.)
Pamela and some of the other lady penguins stopped for lunch. Afterwards, there was a protracted discussion of who had had which dish, who owed how much, and why hadn't anyone remembered to bring their coin purse and do you think that the establishment will take a charge card?
When they couldn't find the headwaiter, they remembered where they were and got back in motion.
Japanese - English names would probably be more like:
Violent Squirrel Superscope
Lucky Bubblegum Nova Catcher
Purple Mountain Medusa MegaScope
Atomic Aubergine Stellar Discoverer
Or, to try to bring more fems into science:
Lunar Twilight Kiss Telescope
Dancing Starbeams Telescope
Ways to make money:
Sell add-on modules to the basic package.
Sell interface programs (from your package to other software packages).
Sell pre-loaded database of industry-standard (non-copyrighted) data.
Sell pre-loaded database of specific (licensed) data.
Sell pre-loaded database/catalog of vendor-specific data with an agreement from the vendor paying you a comission on product sales due to your software. (Major opportunities here.)
Sell custom code modifications.
Sell installation and training.
Sell services (remote application/data hosting).
Sell the associated (and required) big-buck database package (i.e., be an Informix, or Oracle reseller).
Sell software upgrade contracts. (Send notice/cd-rom when software is updated.)
Sell software support contracts. (Dial-in and telephone.) Assumes basic package is limited or no support.
OK, that took less than five minutes to come up with.
Thing is, figure out which you can do for least up-front outlay. Then offer that product/service. If it costs you nearly nothing, you don't lose big if nobody wants to buy, and you still have an impressive product/services list. The fact that not everybody will buy a particular product/service does NOT mean that NOBODY will want it.
Add to your product list. Keep adding to it. Don't let people think that you are a "one-trick pony". There's a world of folk out there who only want (for example) general ledger and accounts payable but who will not buy unless your product sheet shows payroll also.
I spent over eight years learning these lessons. If the moron who owned the company had learned any of them, we'd have made big bucks. He didn't; we didn't.
Good luck.
If an less trademarked motif is indicated, how about an homage to (random thoughts) Pearl Harbor, Nanking China, or Bataan?
Must be an incomplete list.
Or else he isn't sure enough of himself to take on IBM.
Consistency is not only for GUIs. Even shell utilities benefit.
Think about the last time you needed to construct a pipeline of utilities linked by pipes. And remember how jarring it was when you found that one of the tools you needed to use didn't support redirection for stdin?
(Comments regarding the obvious superiority of PERL or Python will be ignored for the purpose of this thread.)
Funny that you should mention that. I think many of us did the same thing. And even after years away from the DOS world, it was only two weeks ago that I culled the DOS rescue and tool disks out of my briefcase. Just before... Nah, couldn't have been a connection.
is that dude wearing a gun?
The gentleman on the left (in the two-sizes too small white sport coat appears to be showing the "print" of a belt-mounted pager.
The person on the right in khakis with the black web shoulder-holster is wearing one of the newest accessories for PDAs. Seriously, PDA carried under one arm, pouch wireless phone under the other.
See it at: http://www.eholster.com/
Doing the code to get the experience sounds like an excellent idea. I know that I learn a language by using it, not sitting in a class.
But I wouldn't want to count on open/free project work to be beneficial on a resume.
You would be surprised at the number of things that will cause a Human Resources droid to trashcan your resume. Basically, it's anything that is out of the ordinary. And now you want a job writing code for money, but your experience is writing code and giving it away. TILT!
Oh, and "You must realize, Mr. Jones, that once employed by ZYX Corporation, all code you write for the rest of your life belongs to ZYX. You will indicate your acceptance of this condition of employement by cashing your paycheck."
Do the code, sure. But not for the glory or recognition or even to get a job. Do it because it's right.
Next, you'll be calling them at home before school to tell them about your great new breakfast cereal.
I believe that something like this was tried within the last few years. Some company gave away pagers to kids so that they could be beeped with special product offers. Small firestorm followed and schools began collecting pagers at the metal detector.
In that time (shortly after the dinosaurs died), males were either wearing pants with cuffs or diapers.
Pants without cuffs (or diapers) were sufficient to see that you got neither promotion nor pay raise at work.
What I mainly remember from BG is the keyboard on the console at the side of the bridge.
Did anyone else notice that it (the keyboard) was from an IBM model 29 keypunch?
For that matter, when was the last time anyone even saw a model 29? Setup a drum card? Got a pants cuff full of chads? Dropped your deck on the way to submit the job "one last time"?
Excercises for students:
1) calculate the equivalent of 80-column tab cards carried on a standard cd-rom. Assume one box/tray of cards equals 2400 cards and one case of cards equals 5 boxes. How many cases of cards on that cd-rom?
2) Assume a business environment; how much would that volume of cards weigh and how long would it take you to haul that volume from the third floor machine room to the basement archive using only a two wheeled dolly?
I wish I had some moderator points to give you.
OK, here's a question for the pinkies.
If they intend to use a web site as the reporting method, how do they propose to handle the reporting of entire sports squads, crossing guard patrols, or even schools on a nightly basis from random IP addresses?
The more "backups", the better.
Wouldn't it be neat if there was an interested Congressman who could get selected pieces of code read into the Congressional Record? (It doesn't require actually reading the document in session, just a request to include the document.) What court could order the censoring of the Congressional Record?
Anybody have any friends working in a Congressman's office?
Most internet pornography is viewed in homes with computers. Statistics show that computer prolifaration correlates with children viewing pornography.
Actually, statistics can "prove" almost anything if you manipulate them correctly.
You jump without thinking, grasshopper.
Being unarmed is not simply being "without a gun". In some cases, it can mean not being aware that there are mean people who will hurt you for funsies. If you meet a fool with a gun, you need every skill, every sense, and sometines a good bit of luck to survive.
The original wit implied that gun owners hurt themselves. Much more likely that harm comes from the hand of another.
The easiest way to get shot is to carry a gun -- Atticus Finch
The easiest way to get shot is to meet someone else with a gun when you are unarmed.