I have met plenty of "paper MCSE" holders in my day, but certification still gets your foot into a lot of doors. I know many on Slashdot may disagree with certification, but my MCSD and various Brainbench certs have helped quite a bit. They especially helped when I only had a couple of years of experience and was trying to prove myself. I don't believe these certs have actually ever landed me the job, but I strongly believe that my certs have helped get my resume to the top of the interview stack. Its pretty hard to get the job if you cannot even get the interview!
Without some ability to interview and prove your technical knowledge, your cert is worthless.
The same can be said about some Bachelors Degrees I have seen. While a technical trainer I once taught a comp sci grad student that did not understand for-loops. This girl had a BS in CompSci. In her case, I think the BS meant something else. The sad thing is her degree was from a reputable university.
I used to preach the "web is everything" argument from every soap box I could. I don't think HTTP and HTML will cut it for the types of interactive programs we will see in the future. Heck, in many cases they don't cut it now.
I can see technologies like SOAP enabling rich clients to interop across platforms (ok MS haters, SOAP is a mult-vendor thing so don't reply telling me some tinfoil hat story on how MS will patent SOAP and sue anyone who uses it without license). I am willing to bet some other protocols similar to SOAP, or perhaps riding on top of SOAP, will come along to allow richer communication across networks. HTML just isn't going to do it.
While I totally agree that open standards and open source make the best APIs, MS failed way before even that line. Take SMB for example. Their systems, by design or mistake, don't even follow their own standard! I am betting it is a little of both. Their APIs are this way as well. What is really hurts MS in this particular area is poor documentation and poor implimentation of their own APIs. Having worked with.NET for about 2.5 years now I can go into my office and find any number of contradictory statements about the.NET APIs, statements published my MS! I think this is hurting them quite a bit.
I can understand your point of view concerning double-tax with gasoline. I still think it is mostly false to say this is double taxation. That being said, I believe toll roads are a bad idea in general. However, no one is willing to increase taxes, or put in a decent mass-transit system. Nobody has the 20 years picture in mind. Every argument I have heard against rail, etc is "It won't help me" which is usually better stated as "I don't see how it is going to help me now". I find this kind of thinking not only greedy, but short sighted and stupid. Until we can get a decent mass-transit system in place we have to get roads up. The only way to do this is with tolls (at present).
I have also studies the economics and contracts of these particular toll-roads. I have run a lot of my perceptions by a good friend in the Austin DOT, and he really agrees. These contracts actually are costing the state a lot less than many other road projects. They are written really well. While I am not naive enough to think that someone is not getting some pork somewhere, I just don't think it is as bad of a picture as you paint.
I really appreciate the sincerity and intelligence behind your post. Those characteristics were lacking from the parent post.
They probably will without the enforcement by Austin PD - I am not sure where you came up with the 49 mile figure looking at the 130 bypass through Austin (not the full 130 far south of Austin), but if I could take a route around the decks I would. In trucking time = $$$, and they will spend the small $6.30 to get there faster.
I am trying Audible.com right now. They offer a pretty big selection of audio books and magazines. I called up and they gave me a trial membership which equated to downloading a book of my choice. Fifteen minutes later I was burning Stephen King's "The Waste Lands" to CD (all 19 hours of it). You can also store their encrytpted MP3s on a selections of MP3 players including iPod and others. And even if you quit, they said you keep the audio books forever. I am a few days into listening to "The Waste Lands" during my commute, and will probably sign up for the $14.95 or $19.95 account.
Before you get too excited about getting a mini iPod with the $100 rebate, please note that all of their merchants are on back order on that particular item.
They are ahead of schedule becuase they will be toll roads
Not true. Most roads never get ahead of schedule because contractors realize there is no profit in it. Even with most bonus programs, the contractors will end up making as much or more money with less risk by coming in on regular schedule (or over schedule). This time the TXDOT and others structured the contracts so that it would be much more financially advantageous for the contractors to get the jobs done ahead of time. In the case of 130 there is a huge bonus if they get it down 6 months + in advance.
we can all get double taxed to drive on roads we have already paid taxes to help build
You are only marginally correct. In fact I would probably call that 90% false. While some tax money goes to TXDOT and others overseeing the projects, no tax dollars are going to the actual contruction. The toll roads themselves are NOT double taxed, strictly speaking. 183A, 45 and 130 are all toll-funded - Texas borrowed the money to build them and the tolls will pay that money back.
Now, I am opposed in general to the idea of toll roads. But, it seems like this was the only solution that would work. It seems like so many people in Austin believe that if they stick their head in the sand the problem will go away.
Everyone in Austin is like, tolls roads are good but they are all ignorant folks who are part of the herd anyhow.
It would seem that it is you who has proven ignorant on the facts of the matter, and are going along with 'the herd' of FUD anti-rail/anti-road sheep who don't take time to study what is going on.
I hear the new roads (45 & 130) are way ahead of schedule, which is good news. They also mentioned they are going to add more routes. One thing that CapMetro needs to do is raise their rates. This may sound stupid at first, but check out this Statesman article. They are way below national rates in a community which can probably afford a little more than the dead minimum. Then maybe they could afford more routes.
I know you can only put so many people on an WAP, and big NY building probably mess with the signal. But I bet Austin has a lot more land to cover than NYC does.
I don't have children, perhaps I should quit paying my school district property taxes? Is this fairly equivelant to what you are saying? Or perhaps when I worked at home I shouldn't have had to pay hardly any road taxes since I only occasionaly went anywhere I couldn't walk?
Adding rail line is going to become increasing important to Austin. With the 183 extension and the new 183A (toll road through Cedar Park and Leander opening in a couple of years), more and more traffic will be getting down to IH 35 and Mopac, faster. These two are already choked with traffic. Gridlock is just going to get worse and worse. And neither highway has much room expand with more lanes, especially I 35.
With commuter rail running every 30 minutes, a lot of traffic can be taken off those roads. Even if you never want to take the train, it will benefit you in some way. If you are commuting outside your neighbooring areas, fewer cars will be on the road allowing you a faster commute. It will be more environmentally friendly that all the cars on the road. And CapMetro is going to be adding a lot of short-distance bus routes to get people where they need to go. And these are going to be green.
I would invite you to explore their new plan, perhaps you will become a convert.
These are some of the concerns I expressed as well. First, to be very clear, light-rail is not being proposed. I think the first thing that will make it on the ballet will be a commuter rail (tradditional rail) from Leander to downtown with 5 - 8 stations. Please see more of my comments here on this line. In short this line would take traffic off of 183, Mopac and 35.
One station would be the terminous in Leander. Cedar Park already has a train station built for the steam train - perhaps this could work for the commuter rail as well. When I spoke with them the also planned on having stations all the way to downtown with bus service running out of those stations.
One thing CapMetro really stressed is that they are going to be adding many more bus routes to handle the short distances people would need to travel from the train to work.
The thing that impressed me the most was that CapMetro seems to have their shiat together. I know they have had a bad past, but these people seem to have a clear vision of what could help us in our continuing population boom.
has Cap Metro figured out how to pay for the light-rail service yet?... have they come up with a route plan yet that covers more than just South Austin to downtown
The new service is called commuter rail which runs on traditional rail; the first portion of this will run on rail line that CapMetro already owns from Leander to downtown (more sections to come). This current line is used by limited freight and the Austin Steam Train. So, this line will service a large portion of the city's growth up 183.
CapMetro will need NO NEW TAXES, because building on this existing CapMetro owned rail will cost about 1/5 what other city's are paying to put in brand new rail. And this solves a major problem of getting people downtown from the north. I-35 and Mopac are already choked.
FYI, CapMetro is also considering a number of other solutions to compliment the train service, all of which (from the road show I went to) are various types of smart or clean bus technology.
You do live here! Seriously, I know I might get modded off-topic, but you should vote rail in November as we really need it. At the CapMetro Rail meeting the other night I suggested that they provide wi-fi on their trains, if the voters will approve it this time. Check out their site All Systems Go! and let them know they should put wi-fi on the trains. I also suggested bike storage, and coffee shops at the stations.
Totally with you, except the population. Austin is at around 656,562. I bet if you add Cedar Park, Pfluegeville, Round Rock, and all of the others, you might have close to 1 million.
You can hope, or you could get involved with a local WiFi club. I am already going to try to seek these guys out (Austin Free-Net) after reading the article.
The University of Texas at Austin makes up about 90%
That may have been closer to true 15 years ago, but not now. With the huge expansion of Austin during the dot com years, the UT Campus doesn't make up anywhere near 90% of the city. Heck, it didn't make up 50% 15 years ago. Have you been to Austin, and if so, did you make it out of downtown?
The "Northern Coridor" up highways US 183 and IH 35 are where many of the tech companies are located (IBM, Motorola, Dell), and where many of the techies live. It is hard not to find a coffee shop in the this area that doesn't have wi-fi, at least from my experience. And I would be willing to bet most of those campuses are WiFi.
Slashdot Mirror
I have met plenty of "paper MCSE" holders in my day, but certification still gets your foot into a lot of doors. I know many on Slashdot may disagree with certification, but my MCSD and various Brainbench certs have helped quite a bit. They especially helped when I only had a couple of years of experience and was trying to prove myself. I don't believe these certs have actually ever landed me the job, but I strongly believe that my certs have helped get my resume to the top of the interview stack. Its pretty hard to get the job if you cannot even get the interview! Without some ability to interview and prove your technical knowledge, your cert is worthless. The same can be said about some Bachelors Degrees I have seen. While a technical trainer I once taught a comp sci grad student that did not understand for-loops. This girl had a BS in CompSci. In her case, I think the BS meant something else. The sad thing is her degree was from a reputable university.
I used to preach the "web is everything" argument from every soap box I could. I don't think HTTP and HTML will cut it for the types of interactive programs we will see in the future. Heck, in many cases they don't cut it now.
.NET for about 2.5 years now I can go into my office and find any number of contradictory statements about the .NET APIs, statements published my MS! I think this is hurting them quite a bit.
I can see technologies like SOAP enabling rich clients to interop across platforms (ok MS haters, SOAP is a mult-vendor thing so don't reply telling me some tinfoil hat story on how MS will patent SOAP and sue anyone who uses it without license). I am willing to bet some other protocols similar to SOAP, or perhaps riding on top of SOAP, will come along to allow richer communication across networks. HTML just isn't going to do it.
While I totally agree that open standards and open source make the best APIs, MS failed way before even that line. Take SMB for example. Their systems, by design or mistake, don't even follow their own standard! I am betting it is a little of both. Their APIs are this way as well. What is really hurts MS in this particular area is poor documentation and poor implimentation of their own APIs. Having worked with
I can understand your point of view concerning double-tax with gasoline. I still think it is mostly false to say this is double taxation. That being said, I believe toll roads are a bad idea in general. However, no one is willing to increase taxes, or put in a decent mass-transit system. Nobody has the 20 years picture in mind. Every argument I have heard against rail, etc is "It won't help me" which is usually better stated as "I don't see how it is going to help me now". I find this kind of thinking not only greedy, but short sighted and stupid. Until we can get a decent mass-transit system in place we have to get roads up. The only way to do this is with tolls (at present).
I have also studies the economics and contracts of these particular toll-roads. I have run a lot of my perceptions by a good friend in the Austin DOT, and he really agrees. These contracts actually are costing the state a lot less than many other road projects. They are written really well. While I am not naive enough to think that someone is not getting some pork somewhere, I just don't think it is as bad of a picture as you paint.
I really appreciate the sincerity and intelligence behind your post. Those characteristics were lacking from the parent post.
I am sorry. You need to prove to me how anything Apple is cheaper. To me (ignorant fool) Apple is for the rich liberals...
Looks like I lost some karma
Nice. I was actually typing in a response and went and did something else, came back and submitted. By then I was late. Se la vi.
I think the "Coward" part of "Anonymous Coward" best describes this person.
YES, ANONYMOUS COWARD. I know. I am surprised you didn't get the lameness filter for CAPS. Dork.
Is that 5 gigs in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
They probably will without the enforcement by Austin PD - I am not sure where you came up with the 49 mile figure looking at the 130 bypass through Austin (not the full 130 far south of Austin), but if I could take a route around the decks I would. In trucking time = $$$, and they will spend the small $6.30 to get there faster.
Before you get too excited about getting a mini iPod with the $100 rebate, please note that all of their merchants are on back order on that particular item.
Not true. Most roads never get ahead of schedule because contractors realize there is no profit in it. Even with most bonus programs, the contractors will end up making as much or more money with less risk by coming in on regular schedule (or over schedule). This time the TXDOT and others structured the contracts so that it would be much more financially advantageous for the contractors to get the jobs done ahead of time. In the case of 130 there is a huge bonus if they get it down 6 months + in advance.
we can all get double taxed to drive on roads we have already paid taxes to help build
You are only marginally correct. In fact I would probably call that 90% false. While some tax money goes to TXDOT and others overseeing the projects, no tax dollars are going to the actual contruction. The toll roads themselves are NOT double taxed, strictly speaking. 183A, 45 and 130 are all toll-funded - Texas borrowed the money to build them and the tolls will pay that money back.
Now, I am opposed in general to the idea of toll roads. But, it seems like this was the only solution that would work. It seems like so many people in Austin believe that if they stick their head in the sand the problem will go away.
Everyone in Austin is like, tolls roads are good but they are all ignorant folks who are part of the herd anyhow.
It would seem that it is you who has proven ignorant on the facts of the matter, and are going along with 'the herd' of FUD anti-rail/anti-road sheep who don't take time to study what is going on.
I love it when prefectly fine technology sites slide in to useless politics.
I would feel like a real schmuck if I had paid to view this story from the mysterious future.
I hear the new roads (45 & 130) are way ahead of schedule, which is good news. They also mentioned they are going to add more routes. One thing that CapMetro needs to do is raise their rates. This may sound stupid at first, but check out this Statesman article. They are way below national rates in a community which can probably afford a little more than the dead minimum. Then maybe they could afford more routes.
Linksys
Cisco
I know many WAPs can also serve as a bridge.
Here is a link to a neat resource that can be used to find this info: Google
Spoken like a true technology worker. Never trust the user.
I know you can only put so many people on an WAP, and big NY building probably mess with the signal. But I bet Austin has a lot more land to cover than NYC does.
I don't have children, perhaps I should quit paying my school district property taxes? Is this fairly equivelant to what you are saying? Or perhaps when I worked at home I shouldn't have had to pay hardly any road taxes since I only occasionaly went anywhere I couldn't walk?
Adding rail line is going to become increasing important to Austin. With the 183 extension and the new 183A (toll road through Cedar Park and Leander opening in a couple of years), more and more traffic will be getting down to IH 35 and Mopac, faster. These two are already choked with traffic. Gridlock is just going to get worse and worse. And neither highway has much room expand with more lanes, especially I 35.
With commuter rail running every 30 minutes, a lot of traffic can be taken off those roads. Even if you never want to take the train, it will benefit you in some way. If you are commuting outside your neighbooring areas, fewer cars will be on the road allowing you a faster commute. It will be more environmentally friendly that all the cars on the road. And CapMetro is going to be adding a lot of short-distance bus routes to get people where they need to go. And these are going to be green.
I would invite you to explore their new plan, perhaps you will become a convert.
One station would be the terminous in Leander. Cedar Park already has a train station built for the steam train - perhaps this could work for the commuter rail as well. When I spoke with them the also planned on having stations all the way to downtown with bus service running out of those stations.
One thing CapMetro really stressed is that they are going to be adding many more bus routes to handle the short distances people would need to travel from the train to work.
The thing that impressed me the most was that CapMetro seems to have their shiat together. I know they have had a bad past, but these people seem to have a clear vision of what could help us in our continuing population boom.
The new service is called commuter rail which runs on traditional rail; the first portion of this will run on rail line that CapMetro already owns from Leander to downtown (more sections to come). This current line is used by limited freight and the Austin Steam Train. So, this line will service a large portion of the city's growth up 183.
CapMetro will need NO NEW TAXES, because building on this existing CapMetro owned rail will cost about 1/5 what other city's are paying to put in brand new rail. And this solves a major problem of getting people downtown from the north. I-35 and Mopac are already choked.
FYI, CapMetro is also considering a number of other solutions to compliment the train service, all of which (from the road show I went to) are various types of smart or clean bus technology.
You do live here! Seriously, I know I might get modded off-topic, but you should vote rail in November as we really need it. At the CapMetro Rail meeting the other night I suggested that they provide wi-fi on their trains, if the voters will approve it this time. Check out their site All Systems Go! and let them know they should put wi-fi on the trains. I also suggested bike storage, and coffee shops at the stations.
Totally with you, except the population. Austin is at around 656,562. I bet if you add Cedar Park, Pfluegeville, Round Rock, and all of the others, you might have close to 1 million.
You can hope, or you could get involved with a local WiFi club. I am already going to try to seek these guys out (Austin Free-Net) after reading the article.
That may have been closer to true 15 years ago, but not now. With the huge expansion of Austin during the dot com years, the UT Campus doesn't make up anywhere near 90% of the city. Heck, it didn't make up 50% 15 years ago. Have you been to Austin, and if so, did you make it out of downtown?
The "Northern Coridor" up highways US 183 and IH 35 are where many of the tech companies are located (IBM, Motorola, Dell), and where many of the techies live. It is hard not to find a coffee shop in the this area that doesn't have wi-fi, at least from my experience. And I would be willing to bet most of those campuses are WiFi.
In closing, RTFA.
I am a programmer. Enuf said about my spelling abilities.