They were only interested in billing hours, not in quality of work.
You are absolutely right. In my Job I was outsourced to CSC. (The same CSC in the article) and then offshored. CSC follows the bill more hours principle in the public sector as well.
Somehow, CEO's think outsourcing/offshoring saves money. Unfortunately as they pay more, and more IT people get laid off, no one will be able to afford their products.
A free email account that allows 10meg attachments and has a 1gig limit?
Actually for a few minutes I thought it was a joke also.
However:
It was originally posted on March 31, not April 1.
The original article linked to an NY Times article (Also dated 3/31). Somehow I doubt the NY Times posts many April Fool Jokes.
With Google coming out with a later press release stressing that the mail service is not a joke, they would end up losing a lot of credibility and have user backlash if it turns out to be a hoax.
Call me a fool if you want, but I can't wait to sign up for the service.
Actually I rarely listen to commentaries. I buy Dvd's for the movie or tv content not to hear the director critiques himself.
That said, there are only a few that I really enjoy listening to.
The Simpsons have enjoyable contents: They talk about what the censors made them cut, and when they were surprised when something made it past the censors. They mention how difficult the Halloween episodes are, and they also have a few laughs and enjoy watching what they did more than 10 years earlier.
I just started watching a few Futurama commentaries and so far they seem similar to the simpsons, so I will probably watch a few more.
They only other commentary I like is from Babylon 5. However, you need to listen to the cast's commentary. (I thought the directors commentary was boring for the most part) The cast cracks jokes at themselves and have an enjoyable time doing it. I think it was Boxleitner(Sheridan) that mentioned whenever he saw Stephen Furst(Vir Cotto) he had a hard time shaking Furst's prior role as Flounder from Animal House. And Claudia Christian(Ivanova) was talking about how she was trim and fit back on the set.
Other than that I generally don't have the time to listen to director's babble.
So do they pay relocation costs?
At the current rate of $20 million just to go to the International Space Station, I do not think I could afford the relocation cost to the Moon.
I only use M$ Office when I am forced to at the office. Two years ago I was forced to write a small application using M$ Access. (it has since been re-written using ColdFusion/Oracle) I created a few reports and sorted the output by date. I was displaying the date as Month, Day, Year. In the infinite wisdom of M$ the date was sorted by the alphabetical month, not chronological (i.e. April, August, February instead of January, February, March) This is just one of the many reasons why we changed the platform.
I do not, when I get in the field, want to work with people who are this incompetent.
Sadly, you probably will end up next to idiots like that when you "get in the field."
Now to pick apart a few things from the WIRED story: While there are plenty of clueless idiots still in the IT field the reason for the rise of offshoring is money and exploitation, not training. I personally know some good people with strong IT skills that have been out of work for 2 years now. Admittedly, I know a couple of people with weak skills that should be tossed out on their A$$. If management ever got a clue about IT they could get rid of the dead weight, all the people that got into this field for money that don't know anything, hire back all the "decent" programmers and IT staff and get the job done right for half the current cost with less bugs.
WIRED mentions about business loaning out professionals to help teach students. This won't work either. A dozen years ago I was going through the Jr. Programming training at a Fortune 500 company. It was led by a instructor and two assistants. The instructor job was full time and was someone that actually knew what she was doing. The assistants where terrible. Essintially the assistants were rotated in from the companies normal IT staff much like WIRED is proposing. Unfortunately, it was a way for Project Leaders to get rid of their people that did not know crap for six months at a time.
If nothing else they have several massive legs up on the proprietary people:
I agree OVC has multiple benefits over proprietary systems. However, the cynic in me says that it won't be used because the people the decide what to use will be in the pockets of Diebold. While kickbacks will be the real reason, you will hear them say things like "Well OVC has no proven track record, how can we trust them."
I wish this wasn't the case, but I'm sad to say democracy doesn't work against bribes and kickbacks.
Games are what are driving most new PC sales. Most games don't run on macs.
I will agree that games mean a lot when it comes to hardware and OS sales. However not everyone needs only the latest over-hyped game that just came out. There are some good games that Run on Mac. (Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, NetHack) While the number of games running on Macs will not appease the most hardcore gamer, it will satisfy the casual gamer.
There's a Morphix module (Morphix Gamer) that already provides this. Plus there are related projects like KnoppixMame.
I like the idea and I would be willing to use this myself. However, I think the point is that we should get a distro that can be published for the masses and let them play games. The legality of MAME is somewhat akin to MP3's. If you start distributing MAME with ROMs to the masses some company will have it shut down because of copyright.
Now, if you can convince a few old arcade companies to allow distribution of their original ROM's you can make it a viable plan. But, forgive me if I don't hold my breath while waiting for that to happen.
I've seen this now with a lot of companies, no more long term vision
Exactly, The company that I work for is like this. (Huge telcommunications company that everyone and their grandmother has heard about.) We had a meeting last week with my boss's boss's boss. He mentioned that they are so short-sighted that they will not implement any plan that does not impact the current calendar year. He also said on the plus side this means any outsourcing/offshoring plans that aren't done by the end of March probably won't materialize until the next year.
However, I have heard rumors of the opposite. About 6 months ago I heard that an stock analyst at ML downgraded the stock of Costco saying that Costco cares more about its employees and bringing value to its customers then it does about profit. I "voted" in the only way I know how by buying Costco stock after I heard this. Thankfully there are a few companies out there that can think long-term and realize that happy customers bring success in the long run.
My guess is that they will add all of the x-box live equipment to an x-box, maybe give it a slightly larger hard drive and call it X-box 2. When it comes out it will realy act like x-box 1.5 (or less)
However, with M$'s PR it will be over-hyped and still sell.
Yes, the numbers say unemloyment is down slightly. However, The unemployment numbers don't include everyone.
Unemployment only includes people searching for work.
It does not include:
People who do not have a job and gave up looking.
People who are older, lost their job and retired.
People who lost their job and applied for diability instead of unemployment (Disability claims have more than doubled since the dot-com bust)
Also unemployment does not distinguish the diference between jobs. I sure someone is happy flipping burgers for $5.50/hour at mcdonalds instead of making $70,000/year as a programmer. NOT!!
Honestly though, since the law took effect on Jan 1, the amount of spam I have recieved has almost doubled. It must be thanks to the part that supercedes state laws for spam.
I have an old i-1480 model (I think its a 500mhz celeron) The only problem is a loose power connection. However, The laptop is a pain to try to disassemble to get to the inner workings to fix it.
I admit though, I also like the IBM laptops, I also have an A21P that is still chugging along fine, but I expect it to break in 6 months because the warranty is up at the end of April 2004.
I have a personal theory that old station wagons appear to be moving 5-10 MPH slower than they actually are.
I'll agree with your theory. I drive huge cadillac's and I have been told the same thing about them. A friend of my that is an ex-cop would also agree with your theory. Big cars just look slower.
However, they can pack some power: My 1996 Fleetwood is huge and weighs in at 5700lbs, but it has a 5.7liter 330hp Corvette LT1 engine (stock) pushing it to speeds no one would expect that car to be able to go. My other car is a 1969 Cadillac Coupe deVille convertible with a 472ci (7.7liter) engine producing a little more than 400hp to move this 7500lb monster into 3 digit speeds without a sweat. That is a wonderfull engine, but you probably won't be able to get it to fit in many cars (like your volvo) due to its size.
Some studies showed that people owning an AIBO have the same emotional attachement to the robot than people have with pets.
If you have a dog that is truly your friend, you would never believe that. The bond between people and there pets is almost that of parents and their children. When one of my dogs died in August, I had to work from home all week because I was so out of it emotionally, I could not drive. (Before, I get flamed, I am quite stable mentally)
Note: This does not include the bond between owners that only have a pet as a status symbol. Oh, we have a dog, that makes us a normal famaily along with our SUV and white picket fence.
They won't be stopping my car anytime soon. I have a 69 Caddy Convertible, 4 barrel Carb, 472ci (7.7 liter) engine to give me about 400hp and the best feature is No Computer to mess things up!!! (Admittedly my mechanic does not like tracing back miles of vacumn hoses and electrical wiring, but it still beats having a computer.)
I live in Atlanta. I can pick up a lot of radio stations, however none are worth listening to. I listen to Rock(Metal, Hard Rock, Alternative, and Classic Rock) In the morning all of the radio stations that I even consider listen to have boring morning shows with annoying DJ's. Even when the DJ's aren't blabbing, they are playing commercials. You're lucky to here one song every 20-30 minutes and when you do it is always the same song of the month.
Am I going to get Satelite radio? Not a chance.
Why not? Because the same thing that happened to cable TV is going to happen to Satellite Radio. You start off with affordable rates, few or no commercials, and a bunch of stations worth listening to. As time goes on, the rates will go up, more commercials will be added, and the only stations worth listen too will be an additional charge.
My solution: I have a 10cd changer in my primary car and an MP3-CD player in my 69 Caddy Convertible. Its the only way to get good music in the car now and I doubt that will change in the future.
I read the description of how privacy is protected by directing traffic through "neighbors." In order to hide your IP address there are not any direct transfers. If my neighbors are using dial-up connections do I have to wait for them to upload and download each piece or is the software intelligent enough to route around the "weak" links?
Is it possible that the IT sector still has a shortage of competent workers...?
Yes, it is possible and I believe it.
With the industry losing its "golden career" status and people only coming into it because they enjoy the work not just the pay; hopefully, we will lose a lot of the clueless.
Hopefully it is the programmers that are clueless that will leave. Unfortunately in order for that to happen it will depend on management to "have a clue" which isn't very likely.
I know someone that I work with that can't program for beans (even though she has a masters in Software Engineering) but she sure knows how to "Email." I also know far too many good programmers that have been jobless for over a year which prooves management doesn't know how to tell the good programmers from the bad ones.
The first country that legalises cloning and stem cell harvesting for research will have many medical researchers flocking to it. And get lots of insults along the line of 'unethical' and 'immoral'...
The insults will only last until they have the ability to replace organs(heart lungs) and mass quantities of tissues(spinal cord nerves, skin). Then every other country will be asking "Can you show our doctors how to do that?
I agree. Ialso believe the baby killing scene says a lot about the cylons. As for the people complaining about it, at least it wasn't graphic. My first assumption was that she stole the baby not strangled him because you did not see what happened. However, it was mentioned that she was Baltar's girlfriend for two years; if she was that curious I think she would have found a baby sooner to experiment on.
Also, I also agree that the technology was a little off balanced. They had FTL technology. They also had the ability to shield the Galactica from a nuclear explosion on its hull without the EMP blast wiping out everything electronic and killing everyone. (Only 85 firefighters died after the fact). All of this and they are only using rockets and bullets?!? No lasers or any weapon more advanced than missile? Even the US military has a plane in development that can fit a chemical laser designed to knock down regionally launched balistic missiles.
Slashdot Mirror
You are absolutely right. In my Job I was outsourced to CSC. (The same CSC in the article) and then offshored. CSC follows the bill more hours principle in the public sector as well.
Somehow, CEO's think outsourcing/offshoring saves money. Unfortunately as they pay more, and more IT people get laid off, no one will be able to afford their products.
Actually for a few minutes I thought it was a joke also.
However:
It was originally posted on March 31, not April 1.
The original article linked to an NY Times article (Also dated 3/31). Somehow I doubt the NY Times posts many April Fool Jokes.
With Google coming out with a later press release stressing that the mail service is not a joke, they would end up losing a lot of credibility and have user backlash if it turns out to be a hoax.
Call me a fool if you want, but I can't wait to sign up for the service.
That said, there are only a few that I really enjoy listening to.
The Simpsons have enjoyable contents: They talk about what the censors made them cut, and when they were surprised when something made it past the censors. They mention how difficult the Halloween episodes are, and they also have a few laughs and enjoy watching what they did more than 10 years earlier.
I just started watching a few Futurama commentaries and so far they seem similar to the simpsons, so I will probably watch a few more.
They only other commentary I like is from Babylon 5 . However, you need to listen to the cast's commentary. (I thought the directors commentary was boring for the most part) The cast cracks jokes at themselves and have an enjoyable time doing it. I think it was Boxleitner(Sheridan) that mentioned whenever he saw Stephen Furst(Vir Cotto) he had a hard time shaking Furst's prior role as Flounder from Animal House. And Claudia Christian(Ivanova) was talking about how she was trim and fit back on the set.
Other than that I generally don't have the time to listen to director's babble.
So do they pay relocation costs? At the current rate of $20 million just to go to the International Space Station, I do not think I could afford the relocation cost to the Moon.
I only use M$ Office when I am forced to at the office. Two years ago I was forced to write a small application using M$ Access. (it has since been re-written using ColdFusion/Oracle) I created a few reports and sorted the output by date. I was displaying the date as Month, Day, Year. In the infinite wisdom of M$ the date was sorted by the alphabetical month, not chronological (i.e. April, August, February instead of January, February, March) This is just one of the many reasons why we changed the platform.
Sadly, you probably will end up next to idiots like that when you "get in the field."
Now to pick apart a few things from the WIRED story: While there are plenty of clueless idiots still in the IT field the reason for the rise of offshoring is money and exploitation, not training. I personally know some good people with strong IT skills that have been out of work for 2 years now. Admittedly, I know a couple of people with weak skills that should be tossed out on their A$$. If management ever got a clue about IT they could get rid of the dead weight, all the people that got into this field for money that don't know anything, hire back all the "decent" programmers and IT staff and get the job done right for half the current cost with less bugs.
WIRED mentions about business loaning out professionals to help teach students. This won't work either. A dozen years ago I was going through the Jr. Programming training at a Fortune 500 company. It was led by a instructor and two assistants. The instructor job was full time and was someone that actually knew what she was doing. The assistants where terrible. Essintially the assistants were rotated in from the companies normal IT staff much like WIRED is proposing. Unfortunately, it was a way for Project Leaders to get rid of their people that did not know crap for six months at a time.
I agree OVC has multiple benefits over proprietary systems. However, the cynic in me says that it won't be used because the people the decide what to use will be in the pockets of Diebold. While kickbacks will be the real reason, you will hear them say things like "Well OVC has no proven track record, how can we trust them."
I wish this wasn't the case, but I'm sad to say democracy doesn't work against bribes and kickbacks.
Wrong!!, gotta keep Apple afloat to proove that there is competition.
Microsoft: Apple has 3% market share, we only hav 97%, we're not a monopoly...
I will agree that games mean a lot when it comes to hardware and OS sales. However not everyone needs only the latest over-hyped game that just came out. There are some good games that Run on Mac. (Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, NetHack) While the number of games running on Macs will not appease the most hardcore gamer, it will satisfy the casual gamer.
I like the idea and I would be willing to use this myself. However, I think the point is that we should get a distro that can be published for the masses and let them play games. The legality of MAME is somewhat akin to MP3's. If you start distributing MAME with ROMs to the masses some company will have it shut down because of copyright.
Now, if you can convince a few old arcade companies to allow distribution of their original ROM's you can make it a viable plan. But, forgive me if I don't hold my breath while waiting for that to happen.
Exactly, The company that I work for is like this. (Huge telcommunications company that everyone and their grandmother has heard about.) We had a meeting last week with my boss's boss's boss. He mentioned that they are so short-sighted that they will not implement any plan that does not impact the current calendar year. He also said on the plus side this means any outsourcing/offshoring plans that aren't done by the end of March probably won't materialize until the next year.
However, I have heard rumors of the opposite. About 6 months ago I heard that an stock analyst at ML downgraded the stock of Costco saying that Costco cares more about its employees and bringing value to its customers then it does about profit. I "voted" in the only way I know how by buying Costco stock after I heard this. Thankfully there are a few companies out there that can think long-term and realize that happy customers bring success in the long run.
However, with M$'s PR it will be over-hyped and still sell.
Unemployment only includes people searching for work.
It does not include:
Also unemployment does not distinguish the diference between jobs. I sure someone is happy flipping burgers for $5.50/hour at mcdonalds instead of making $70,000/year as a programmer. NOT!!
Honestly though, since the law took effect on Jan 1, the amount of spam I have recieved has almost doubled. It must be thanks to the part that supercedes state laws for spam.
I have an old i-1480 model (I think its a 500mhz celeron) The only problem is a loose power connection. However, The laptop is a pain to try to disassemble to get to the inner workings to fix it.
I admit though, I also like the IBM laptops, I also have an A21P that is still chugging along fine, but I expect it to break in 6 months because the warranty is up at the end of April 2004.
I'll agree with your theory. I drive huge cadillac's and I have been told the same thing about them. A friend of my that is an ex-cop would also agree with your theory. Big cars just look slower.
However, they can pack some power: My 1996 Fleetwood is huge and weighs in at 5700lbs, but it has a 5.7liter 330hp Corvette LT1 engine (stock) pushing it to speeds no one would expect that car to be able to go. My other car is a 1969 Cadillac Coupe deVille convertible with a 472ci (7.7liter) engine producing a little more than 400hp to move this 7500lb monster into 3 digit speeds without a sweat. That is a wonderfull engine, but you probably won't be able to get it to fit in many cars (like your volvo) due to its size.
If you have a dog that is truly your friend, you would never believe that. The bond between people and there pets is almost that of parents and their children. When one of my dogs died in August, I had to work from home all week because I was so out of it emotionally, I could not drive. (Before, I get flamed, I am quite stable mentally)
Note: This does not include the bond between owners that only have a pet as a status symbol. Oh, we have a dog, that makes us a normal famaily along with our SUV and white picket fence.
Remember, the only built the robotic dog because they did not have time/resources to bring along the real dogs(Daggits).
They won't be stopping my car anytime soon. I have a 69 Caddy Convertible, 4 barrel Carb, 472ci (7.7 liter) engine to give me about 400hp and the best feature is No Computer to mess things up!!! (Admittedly my mechanic does not like tracing back miles of vacumn hoses and electrical wiring, but it still beats having a computer.)
Am I going to get Satelite radio? Not a chance.
Why not? Because the same thing that happened to cable TV is going to happen to Satellite Radio. You start off with affordable rates, few or no commercials, and a bunch of stations worth listening to. As time goes on, the rates will go up, more commercials will be added, and the only stations worth listen too will be an additional charge.
My solution: I have a 10cd changer in my primary car and an MP3-CD player in my 69 Caddy Convertible. Its the only way to get good music in the car now and I doubt that will change in the future.
I read the description of how privacy is protected by directing traffic through "neighbors." In order to hide your IP address there are not any direct transfers. If my neighbors are using dial-up connections do I have to wait for them to upload and download each piece or is the software intelligent enough to route around the "weak" links?
Yes, it is possible and I believe it.
With the industry losing its "golden career" status and people only coming into it because they enjoy the work not just the pay; hopefully, we will lose a lot of the clueless.
I know someone that I work with that can't program for beans (even though she has a masters in Software Engineering) but she sure knows how to "Email." I also know far too many good programmers that have been jobless for over a year which prooves management doesn't know how to tell the good programmers from the bad ones.
The insults will only last until they have the ability to replace organs(heart lungs) and mass quantities of tissues(spinal cord nerves, skin). Then every other country will be asking "Can you show our doctors how to do that?
Also, I also agree that the technology was a little off balanced. They had FTL technology. They also had the ability to shield the Galactica from a nuclear explosion on its hull without the EMP blast wiping out everything electronic and killing everyone. (Only 85 firefighters died after the fact). All of this and they are only using rockets and bullets?!? No lasers or any weapon more advanced than missile? Even the US military has a plane in development that can fit a chemical laser designed to knock down regionally launched balistic missiles.