when you start to look closely at the keywords they were trying to control :
Brigham Young, Mormon, LDS, Mitt Romney, green jello, 2002 Winter Olympics, oh my heck, etc...
In addition to the racing technologies that others have mentioned, there's a whole lot more common example of this existing technology.
Saab has been selling cars to normal folks like you and me for over 20 years with this kind of technology right from the factory.
They started out using a simple(ish) analog circuit to control the turbo waste gate valve based on an engine knock sensor. Too much knock, step down the boost (by bleeding some off through the bypass valve) until the knocking goes away. It allows the tuner to crank the boost up significantly (as long as the engine seals hold) and let the circuit sort out how much boost the engine can run on, given the fuel supplied.
Saab engineers have made their careers on extracting lots of HP and torque from 2.o and 2.3 liter 4 cylinder engines by judicous application of turbos.
Uhhhh.... have you seen the girls out here since the turn of the century? Although it pains me to say it, I think Mark Twain is not relevant here. I've lived here a number of years now, and am still confounded at the number of damned hot women walking around (more so, as compared to the other places I've lived). Of course, they are almost universally toting around 3 or more kids (one in the stoller, one on their hip, and the other following behind).
As a matter of disclosure, I may be biased, since I'm married to one of the above described - sans the kids.
343 MPH is a reasonable speed once wind correction is taken into account. Remember that where he spent most of his time flying, steady winds in excess of 100 mph are not uncommon.
Although none of the articles specify, I'd guess that the 285 MPH mark is either an IAS (indicated air speed - how fast the plane is going as indicated to the pilot) or more likely TAS (true air speed - how fast the plane is moving through the surrounding air). Ground air speed takes factors like wind into account, and can either be slower (in the event of a headwind) or faster (when tail winds are present) than the TAS.
I'd suggest working as a contractor in addition to continued study and skill improvement.
The adavantages to this strategy are :
1. By working a lot of different short term jobs, you make contacts with lots of potential employers. Even if they aren't offering a job, they may be a valuable reference for you in the future.
2. Doing short term contract work builds up a wide body of experience fiarly quicky, and without the stigma of 'having too many jobs' on your resume.
3. It gives you a chance to test out diferent fields in IT so you can figure out what you're best suited for.
4. As you do more jobs and get more positive references and increase your skills, you'll be able to request and get more money per contract.
The key to making this work is making contacts with the project managers and the IT leaders that you work for on your contracts. Having them as a positive reference on your resume or as a contact in your rolodex is far more valuable (in my estimation) than any cert will be. A certification is really only valuable for a finite period of time (until the technology becomes obsolite - which is pretty quick in this industry). A good contact, hopefully, will last you your entire career.
When I moved out to Salt Lake City, I had a terrible time finding work. The local economy was terrible (Novell and Caldera had just laid of tons of people, hoardes of techies were flooding back into the state, coming home from Silicon Valley, and not many jobs were available). Add to that the fact that I'm not of the locally predominant religion, nor did I have any job on my resume that had an address in Utah, and I was pretty well on the outside. I worked through agencies (and yes, there are both valuable and worthless headhunters out there), and worked a number of short jobs until I earned a good rep with both the placement agencies and many local companies. Now headhunters and old bosses regularly call me, looking to get me to work.
When I got here, I had to radically change the way I went about finding a job. I had to learn to network better and where to look for jobs. Markets change, and the doors which lead to opportunity change constantly. You have to keep up with this or else you'll end up getting shut out.
Even before 'chips'
on
Hack Your Ride
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
My 1986 Saab turbo has a 'tweaked' boost controller in it to alter the boost profile. You simply twist a couple of pots in the APC (Automatic Pressure Control) computer to adjust base boost, peak allowed boost, and knock sensitivity (the APC system listens for knock, and retards boost in small increments until the knocking subsides), and presto! 20+ extra HP. My '92 Saab 9000 turbo has an actual digital computer in place of the old APC system, and I have chips in that one too.
Now here's the real deal : I'm currently in the R&D phase of installing a P-III 1GHz EBX format all-in-one motherboard in the car's dash, complete with 7" touch screen lcd. Not only will it play DVDs, MP3s, have GPS with moving map and wifi, but using the board's PC/104 connector and a digital IO board, I plan on integrating it into the car's electronic controls.
This particular car is at the right age where all of the components are digital, but they are not so tightly integrated (later Saabs use an actual proprietary data bus for the different embedded controllers to communicate), so this should be fairly successful.
Val Kilmer and company sported a few displays like these in the movie. It never fails to be cool when something neat from a movie makes it into production, regardless of how bad the movie may have been...
I've actually been to Chuck's house when I lived in Nashville, TN. There were cars lines up for blocks in either direction, waiting to get a look.
Now, my question is, does this increase or decrease property values for his neighbors? If someone were enterprising, they should've been selling hot chocolate car to car (and then come by 30 minutes later and offer the use of their bathroom at $5 per person per visit).
I guess people will have to alter their driving etiquette, and keep a bit more than 2-1/2 car lengths separation when they pull in behind one of these things!
This thing looks far more like a pipedream than the Moller air car. Moller's would work, if he could just get the money to get production going in high volume. This flying turd seems like a dream on paper. Just from a basic weight vs. power vs. available lift (wing size), the numbers don't seem to add up.
The lesson of the day: slapping a jet engine on the back doesn't always fix the problem!
He wanted to move from Qwest to ATT. Bought the ATT phone, ATT requested the number from Qwest, twice. Qwest denied the request both times, because the request specified a window of 3 hours, and Qwest requires a 24hr window to make the change.
He now carries 2 cell phones: 1 (qwest) to receive calls, and 1 (ATT) to make calls. This has been over a week, and they still can't get it straightened out. He's even gone to the local news and been interviewed for a story, hoping the bad publicity will prompt some action. It seems like, for all of the warning the phone co's had, they still haven't worked out a lot of the systems necessary to make the switch.
The funny thing is, the FCC only 'recommends' a timeframe for making a switch, but states right on their site that there is no required time limit. Talk about a loophole the cellphone companies can drive a truck full of cash through! My coworker could end up paying for two phones indeffinately.
Most of the NDA/Intellectual Property agreements I've signed in my career follow this paradigm. Whatever they pay me to do is theirs. What I do when I go home, so long as it isn't an infringement on their proprietary material, is mine.
Usually, though, there's a non-compete clause that says you can't quit (or get fired) and release a competing product within a certain time frame (like 1 year). There are also usually clauses intended to prevent you from stealing employees from a former employer.
The bottom line, however, is that if you approach this as creating an opportunity for yourself, rather than creating an escape route / f*#@ you maneuver, you're not likely to run into too more trouble than a semi-competent lawyer couldn't solve with a few hours of billable time.
Your main goal is to immediately quit your current job. If your goal really is to start something new, then in many cases (but not all)your dedication and discipline will weigh more heavily than your financing.
There's always the hours after your 9-to-5 (assuming it's a 9-to-5), and they are yours to spend as you wish. If you want to risk your time (and maybe a few of your buddies' time) on a venture that may or may not generate any income, the risk/benefit is pretty well in your favor.
Yes, it is hard to be disciplined enough to find the time when you go home, or to treat it like a real project rather than a hobby, but these are matters of self control, and usually within a person's own determination.
The moment you ask someone else to fund your venture, you are turning over some part of what determines success or failure to someone else.
Funding is the key, and this project's Achilles' heel. As I understand it, and I'm in a position to know a little bit about the utopia project, they've got the buy-in, but not the bucks (yet) to pull this off.
I agree, on principle, that this ought to be funded locally. For Utah, this happens to be a geographical and population distribution issue as well. 85% of the state's population live within 3 or 4 adjacent counties. The rest are largely spread out so thin, their only hope for decent internet is a sat dish. My point is, even if they decided to tax the residents not in the serviced area, the result wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. So aside from the principle of it (not that I'd bank on governments operating on principle), the practical forces at work make that sort of funding scheme highly unlikely.
Thanks! As you can tell, I've been far too long out of the left seat of an airplane. I haven't flown in about 4 years, and it is apparently affecting my memory.
Deffinately do not put diesel in your plane, unless you happen to be flying a WWII era Mescerschmitt (designed to run on deisel because more refined fuels were scarce). The reason you never see a plane gas station (though they do exist), is because fuel is usually delivered via fuel truck; a commercial vehicle with a big tank, pump, and hoses attached.
wait...
In Soviet Russia, you do not get airplane gas,
the avgas gets you!
(always wanted to do that one)
Anyhow, there are various grades of aviation fuel, everything from kerosine and derivatives that the jets burn to 110 octane Low Lead, 100 octane, and avgas (essentially what you put in your car). The fuels are injected with color-coded dyes do you can check to see if you've got the right gas in your plane. 110LL (the most comon variety for small prop planes) is blue. If you mix another fuel type in with it, the dyes are designed to combine chemically, and the fuel becomes clear.
As much as I'd love to own my own airstrip (I've been a licensed pilot longer than I've been licensed to drive a car), it's a regulatory nightmare to get one operating. Even as just a private strip, you've got everything from zoning commisions to public noise ordinances to deal with (in the U.S. anyhow).
I've had 2 TP 600's (a PII-266 TP 600, and a PII-366 600e), both used. The 600 came with a battery that it seemed wouldn't die, and the 600e came with a dead battery.
It seems this is not an unusual situation, if you spend a little time looking around on eBay. Here's how to avoid trouble:
1. Do a search for 'dead Thinkpad 600 battery', and note the FRU#'s. 2. Do not buy a replacement battery that matches one of those numbers. It's just a matter of time. If it's not dead already, it will be.
I don't know the FRU# on it (process of elimination following step 1 above will tell you which ones are ok), but it's my recollection that they fixed this problem. You just have to find the right battery.
The mechanics of insect flight have been a topic of intense research for at least 30 years, because it seems to defy our preconceived notions about aerodynamics.
As far as weaponization, I can say without a doubt that the U.S. Gov't is interested. While my wife was doing her undergrad in Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt U.; her senior project was working on a DARPA funded research project into developing mechanical dragonflies which had the ability to carry micro-sized observation equipment and sensors and transmit this data back to a command center. The PI for this project had an office on campus, and another one in the Pentagon, and split his time fairly evenly between the two - so this wasn't something the gov't cut a check for and then forgot about it.
Now, before anyone CC's this to AG Ashcroft (talk about getting modded down!); this is all public domain information. What probably would be classified is if they were able to ever put any of that research to use; which I don't know.
This happens even in an office of 12 employees (counting the 2 owners). As the only IT person, I get bombarded with requests to fix printers, explain why instant messengers are blocked by our firewall, run queries, show the boss how to use Excel, download a font and various other pidly tasks. Then the questions and glaring looks come at me about why my programming is behind schedule (yes, we are a software company!).
There are people who are not the superstar programmers and sysadmins who make a valuable and necessary contributions to getting things moving. That contribution is often taking care of the simple little distractions, and letting the big dogs get down to business and be optimally productive.
Sadly, it those very same people, as you mention, who are the first to get the axe, and the hardest to justify (why???) to top management to re-hire. You'd think with the large number of self-proclaimed business/management gurus out there, this philosophy would be well understood by now.
No matter whether you're democrat or republican (but libertarians, by virtue of their perversely compulsive adherence to an ideology are exempt), there is one immutable rule of politics : money == influence .
For better or worse, be it actual, factual, and true - or not - politicians have the same populistic view of the high-tech secor as the media and every other Joe Schmoe who has lost money (insert another rant here about the fallacy of the 'lost money' arguement here) from their 401k in the past 2 years. The tech sector isn't "hot" right now, and politicians don't want to be seen as meading out what limited special favors they have to lost causes.
That being said; there are a few out there such as Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who are at least still paying lip service to the high-tech industry. The Gov. still has his little self-empowerment council running, hell bent on making Utah the next tech hotbed.
The only thing is, I haven't seen anything but hot air for the past two years. This begs the question : is it just a lot harder these days to get tech-anything ventures moving (presumably moving to UT to save money with the dirt cheap labor force - insert other rant here about underpaid techies in Utah -), or has there been a real reduction in effort and money expended to woo tech firms into moving in state?
Outsourcing is often the result of boardroom political backbiting and palm-greasing; but I think to claim that it's because there's a lack of will to control costs over-simplifies, and misses the point.
The scenario runs like this : In tought economic times, a CEO/board of directors will decide it's time to cut costs. Corporate officers are usually more willing to cut departments that are 'cost centers' than those which are 'revenue centers'. In my opinion, the reason IT usually gets the shaft is because it's usually the youngest 'cost center' in a company. Accounting, marketing, and HR departments have all been around for ages. There's a perception on the CEO level that these are 'required' departments. Good IT departments, who have prooven themselves as 'cost reducers' are usually a lot more resistant to that perception. Average IT departments (i.e. most of them) still face that problem; especially more so if the company threw tons of money on overhyped efficiency promises in the past few years.
The VPs of all the departments know that their heads are potentially on the chopping block. I have seen it happen where the majority of them band together to throw the IT department under the bus, thereby saving their own necks. They recommend letting an outsourced IT company handle the job, since they're supposedly experts in the field (of course, the likes of IBM and GE Capitol feed this perception with their marketing strategies).
With the expensive IT department gone, the rest of the VPs then get a year or two to clean up and lean up their departments, before it becomes financially obvious that the IT department wasn't the culprit, and that outsourcing is costing a bundle. At which time, the VPs get together and say "IT costs are killing our profitability, we need our own internal IT department to keep costs down". And so goes the cycle.
Seen it happen, been laid off as a result, and will probably be re-hired in a year or two after it all shakes out...
Do you think it is possible (or even necessary) to move IT services such as application development or network design and implementation away from the 'artisan' model to a more commoditized, 'assembly line' model?
What differences exist between the current IT industry, and other once upon a time high-tech industries that went through the same process (e.g. the automotive industry)? What can we take from that type of comparison, and what must we realize is different?
If we are moving in that direction, how do you rate the current state of standard practices, and what methods might still need to be improved or changed?
Cheers!
Slashdot Mirror
when you start to look closely at the keywords they were trying to control : Brigham Young, Mormon, LDS, Mitt Romney, green jello, 2002 Winter Olympics, oh my heck, etc...
In addition to the racing technologies that others have mentioned, there's a whole lot more common example of this existing technology. Saab has been selling cars to normal folks like you and me for over 20 years with this kind of technology right from the factory. They started out using a simple(ish) analog circuit to control the turbo waste gate valve based on an engine knock sensor. Too much knock, step down the boost (by bleeding some off through the bypass valve) until the knocking goes away. It allows the tuner to crank the boost up significantly (as long as the engine seals hold) and let the circuit sort out how much boost the engine can run on, given the fuel supplied. Saab engineers have made their careers on extracting lots of HP and torque from 2.o and 2.3 liter 4 cylinder engines by judicous application of turbos.
Uhhhh.... have you seen the girls out here since the turn of the century? Although it pains me to say it, I think Mark Twain is not relevant here. I've lived here a number of years now, and am still confounded at the number of damned hot women walking around (more so, as compared to the other places I've lived). Of course, they are almost universally toting around 3 or more kids (one in the stoller, one on their hip, and the other following behind).
As a matter of disclosure, I may be biased, since I'm married to one of the above described - sans the kids.
343 MPH is a reasonable speed once wind correction is taken into account. Remember that where he spent most of his time flying, steady winds in excess of 100 mph are not uncommon.
Although none of the articles specify, I'd guess that the 285 MPH mark is either an IAS (indicated air speed - how fast the plane is going as indicated to the pilot) or more likely TAS (true air speed - how fast the plane is moving through the surrounding air). Ground air speed takes factors like wind into account, and can either be slower (in the event of a headwind) or faster (when tail winds are present) than the TAS.
I'd suggest working as a contractor in addition to continued study and skill improvement.
The adavantages to this strategy are : 1. By working a lot of different short term jobs, you make contacts with lots of potential employers. Even if they aren't offering a job, they may be a valuable reference for you in the future.
2. Doing short term contract work builds up a wide body of experience fiarly quicky, and without the stigma of 'having too many jobs' on your resume.
3. It gives you a chance to test out diferent fields in IT so you can figure out what you're best suited for.
4. As you do more jobs and get more positive references and increase your skills, you'll be able to request and get more money per contract.
The key to making this work is making contacts with the project managers and the IT leaders that you work for on your contracts. Having them as a positive reference on your resume or as a contact in your rolodex is far more valuable (in my estimation) than any cert will be. A certification is really only valuable for a finite period of time (until the technology becomes obsolite - which is pretty quick in this industry). A good contact, hopefully, will last you your entire career.
When I moved out to Salt Lake City, I had a terrible time finding work. The local economy was terrible (Novell and Caldera had just laid of tons of people, hoardes of techies were flooding back into the state, coming home from Silicon Valley, and not many jobs were available). Add to that the fact that I'm not of the locally predominant religion, nor did I have any job on my resume that had an address in Utah, and I was pretty well on the outside. I worked through agencies (and yes, there are both valuable and worthless headhunters out there), and worked a number of short jobs until I earned a good rep with both the placement agencies and many local companies. Now headhunters and old bosses regularly call me, looking to get me to work.
When I got here, I had to radically change the way I went about finding a job. I had to learn to network better and where to look for jobs. Markets change, and the doors which lead to opportunity change constantly. You have to keep up with this or else you'll end up getting shut out.
My 1986 Saab turbo has a 'tweaked' boost controller in it to alter the boost profile. You simply twist a couple of pots in the APC (Automatic Pressure Control) computer to adjust base boost, peak allowed boost, and knock sensitivity (the APC system listens for knock, and retards boost in small increments until the knocking subsides), and presto! 20+ extra HP. My '92 Saab 9000 turbo has an actual digital computer in place of the old APC system, and I have chips in that one too. Now here's the real deal : I'm currently in the R&D phase of installing a P-III 1GHz EBX format all-in-one motherboard in the car's dash, complete with 7" touch screen lcd. Not only will it play DVDs, MP3s, have GPS with moving map and wifi, but using the board's PC/104 connector and a digital IO board, I plan on integrating it into the car's electronic controls. This particular car is at the right age where all of the components are digital, but they are not so tightly integrated (later Saabs use an actual proprietary data bus for the different embedded controllers to communicate), so this should be fairly successful.
Val Kilmer and company sported a few displays like these in the movie. It never fails to be cool when something neat from a movie makes it into production, regardless of how bad the movie may have been...
I've actually been to Chuck's house when I lived in Nashville, TN. There were cars lines up for blocks in either direction, waiting to get a look.
Now, my question is, does this increase or decrease property values for his neighbors? If someone were enterprising, they should've been selling hot chocolate car to car (and then come by 30 minutes later and offer the use of their bathroom at $5 per person per visit).
I guess people will have to alter their driving etiquette, and keep a bit more than 2-1/2 car lengths separation when they pull in behind one of these things!
This thing looks far more like a pipedream than the Moller air car. Moller's would work, if he could just get the money to get production going in high volume. This flying turd seems like a dream on paper. Just from a basic weight vs. power vs. available lift (wing size), the numbers don't seem to add up.
The lesson of the day: slapping a jet engine on the back doesn't always fix the problem!
He wanted to move from Qwest to ATT. Bought the ATT phone, ATT requested the number from Qwest, twice. Qwest denied the request both times, because the request specified a window of 3 hours, and Qwest requires a 24hr window to make the change.
He now carries 2 cell phones: 1 (qwest) to receive calls, and 1 (ATT) to make calls. This has been over a week, and they still can't get it straightened out. He's even gone to the local news and been interviewed for a story, hoping the bad publicity will prompt some action. It seems like, for all of the warning the phone co's had, they still haven't worked out a lot of the systems necessary to make the switch.
The funny thing is, the FCC only 'recommends' a timeframe for making a switch, but states right on their site that there is no required time limit. Talk about a loophole the cellphone companies can drive a truck full of cash through! My coworker could end up paying for two phones indeffinately.
Most of the NDA/Intellectual Property agreements I've signed in my career follow this paradigm. Whatever they pay me to do is theirs. What I do when I go home, so long as it isn't an infringement on their proprietary material, is mine.
Usually, though, there's a non-compete clause that says you can't quit (or get fired) and release a competing product within a certain time frame (like 1 year). There are also usually clauses intended to prevent you from stealing employees from a former employer.
The bottom line, however, is that if you approach this as creating an opportunity for yourself, rather than creating an escape route / f*#@ you maneuver, you're not likely to run into too more trouble than a semi-competent lawyer couldn't solve with a few hours of billable time.
Make her your wife! Then she'll be only too eager to ignore you and what you do on a daily basis....
Your main goal is to immediately quit your current job. If your goal really is to start something new, then in many cases (but not all)your dedication and discipline will weigh more heavily than your financing.
There's always the hours after your 9-to-5 (assuming it's a 9-to-5), and they are yours to spend as you wish. If you want to risk your time (and maybe a few of your buddies' time) on a venture that may or may not generate any income, the risk/benefit is pretty well in your favor.
Yes, it is hard to be disciplined enough to find the time when you go home, or to treat it like a real project rather than a hobby, but these are matters of self control, and usually within a person's own determination.
The moment you ask someone else to fund your venture, you are turning over some part of what determines success or failure to someone else.
Funding is the key, and this project's Achilles' heel. As I understand it, and I'm in a position to know a little bit about the utopia project, they've got the buy-in, but not the bucks (yet) to pull this off.
I agree, on principle, that this ought to be funded locally. For Utah, this happens to be a geographical and population distribution issue as well. 85% of the state's population live within 3 or 4 adjacent counties. The rest are largely spread out so thin, their only hope for decent internet is a sat dish. My point is, even if they decided to tax the residents not in the serviced area, the result wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. So aside from the principle of it (not that I'd bank on governments operating on principle), the practical forces at work make that sort of funding scheme highly unlikely.
Thanks! As you can tell, I've been far too long out of the left seat of an airplane. I haven't flown in about 4 years, and it is apparently affecting my memory.
Deffinately do not put diesel in your plane, unless you happen to be flying a WWII era Mescerschmitt (designed to run on deisel because more refined fuels were scarce). The reason you never see a plane gas station (though they do exist), is because fuel is usually delivered via fuel truck; a commercial vehicle with a big tank, pump, and hoses attached.
wait...
In Soviet Russia, you do not get airplane gas,
the avgas gets you!
(always wanted to do that one)
Anyhow, there are various grades of aviation fuel, everything from kerosine and derivatives that the jets burn to 110 octane Low Lead, 100 octane, and avgas (essentially what you put in your car). The fuels are injected with color-coded dyes do you can check to see if you've got the right gas in your plane. 110LL (the most comon variety for small prop planes) is blue. If you mix another fuel type in with it, the dyes are designed to combine chemically, and the fuel becomes clear.
As much as I'd love to own my own airstrip (I've been a licensed pilot longer than I've been licensed to drive a car), it's a regulatory nightmare to get one operating. Even as just a private strip, you've got everything from zoning commisions to public noise ordinances to deal with (in the U.S. anyhow).
I've had 2 TP 600's (a PII-266 TP 600, and a PII-366 600e), both used. The 600 came with a battery that it seemed wouldn't die, and the 600e came with a dead battery.
:
It seems this is not an unusual situation, if you spend a little time looking around on eBay. Here's how to avoid trouble
1. Do a search for 'dead Thinkpad 600 battery', and note the FRU#'s.
2. Do not buy a replacement battery that matches one of those numbers. It's just a matter of time. If it's not dead already, it will be.
I don't know the FRU# on it (process of elimination following step 1 above will tell you which ones are ok), but it's my recollection that they fixed this problem. You just have to find the right battery.
The mechanics of insect flight have been a topic of intense research for at least 30 years, because it seems to defy our preconceived notions about aerodynamics.
As far as weaponization, I can say without a doubt that the U.S. Gov't is interested. While my wife was doing her undergrad in Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt U.; her senior project was working on a DARPA funded research project into developing mechanical dragonflies which had the ability to carry micro-sized observation equipment and sensors and transmit this data back to a command center. The PI for this project had an office on campus, and another one in the Pentagon, and split his time fairly evenly between the two - so this wasn't something the gov't cut a check for and then forgot about it.
Now, before anyone CC's this to AG Ashcroft (talk about getting modded down!); this is all public domain information. What probably would be classified is if they were able to ever put any of that research to use; which I don't know.
This happens even in an office of 12 employees (counting the 2 owners). As the only IT person, I get bombarded with requests to fix printers, explain why instant messengers are blocked by our firewall, run queries, show the boss how to use Excel, download a font and various other pidly tasks. Then the questions and glaring looks come at me about why my programming is behind schedule (yes, we are a software company!).
There are people who are not the superstar programmers and sysadmins who make a valuable and necessary contributions to getting things moving. That contribution is often taking care of the simple little distractions, and letting the big dogs get down to business and be optimally productive.
Sadly, it those very same people, as you mention, who are the first to get the axe, and the hardest to justify (why???) to top management to re-hire. You'd think with the large number of self-proclaimed business/management gurus out there, this philosophy would be well understood by now.
No matter whether you're democrat or republican (but libertarians, by virtue of their perversely compulsive adherence to an ideology are exempt), there is one immutable rule of politics : money == influence .
For better or worse, be it actual, factual, and true - or not - politicians have the same populistic view of the high-tech secor as the media and every other Joe Schmoe who has lost money (insert another rant here about the fallacy of the 'lost money' arguement here) from their 401k in the past 2 years. The tech sector isn't "hot" right now, and politicians don't want to be seen as meading out what limited special favors they have to lost causes.
That being said; there are a few out there such as Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who are at least still paying lip service to the high-tech industry. The Gov. still has his little self-empowerment council running, hell bent on making Utah the next tech hotbed.
The only thing is, I haven't seen anything but hot air for the past two years. This begs the question : is it just a lot harder these days to get tech-anything ventures moving (presumably moving to UT to save money with the dirt cheap labor force - insert other rant here about underpaid techies in Utah -), or has there been a real reduction in effort and money expended to woo tech firms into moving in state?
For my $0.02; I think it's a little of both.
Hey Zorak, why do seagulls fly over the sea?
Beacause if they flew over the bay, they'd be BAY-GULLS!!!!!!
Get it!?!?!?
Get it!?!?!?
I don't get it....
Dig-dug oughtta get something like 3,500 fps.
Anyone noticed how ahead of it's time Dr. Who was?
:
Examples
Stealth Technology : Chameleon Circuits (ok, so they never worked, but you can't fly a B-2 through a rain shower either).
Non-lethal Weapons : Sonic Screwdriver
Recent 'Anit-Gravity' research : The TARDIS' ability to move by manipulating time and space
Sony's Aibo : K-9 (granted, K-9 could kick Aibo's ass)
And is it just me or is Jeff Goldblum always seem like he's trying to channel Tom Baker?
Anyone care for a jelly-baby?
Outsourcing is often the result of boardroom political backbiting and palm-greasing; but I think to claim that it's because there's a lack of will to control costs over-simplifies, and misses the point. The scenario runs like this : In tought economic times, a CEO/board of directors will decide it's time to cut costs. Corporate officers are usually more willing to cut departments that are 'cost centers' than those which are 'revenue centers'. In my opinion, the reason IT usually gets the shaft is because it's usually the youngest 'cost center' in a company. Accounting, marketing, and HR departments have all been around for ages. There's a perception on the CEO level that these are 'required' departments. Good IT departments, who have prooven themselves as 'cost reducers' are usually a lot more resistant to that perception. Average IT departments (i.e. most of them) still face that problem; especially more so if the company threw tons of money on overhyped efficiency promises in the past few years. The VPs of all the departments know that their heads are potentially on the chopping block. I have seen it happen where the majority of them band together to throw the IT department under the bus, thereby saving their own necks. They recommend letting an outsourced IT company handle the job, since they're supposedly experts in the field (of course, the likes of IBM and GE Capitol feed this perception with their marketing strategies). With the expensive IT department gone, the rest of the VPs then get a year or two to clean up and lean up their departments, before it becomes financially obvious that the IT department wasn't the culprit, and that outsourcing is costing a bundle. At which time, the VPs get together and say "IT costs are killing our profitability, we need our own internal IT department to keep costs down". And so goes the cycle. Seen it happen, been laid off as a result, and will probably be re-hired in a year or two after it all shakes out...
Do you think it is possible (or even necessary) to move IT services such as application development or network design and implementation away from the 'artisan' model to a more commoditized, 'assembly line' model? What differences exist between the current IT industry, and other once upon a time high-tech industries that went through the same process (e.g. the automotive industry)? What can we take from that type of comparison, and what must we realize is different? If we are moving in that direction, how do you rate the current state of standard practices, and what methods might still need to be improved or changed? Cheers!