That horse is really most sincerely dead. And smells awful. Why beat it again? For God's Sake, isn't there ANYTHING else we could be making? Like, any of the top 100 science fiction novels that haven't already been butchered on the big screen?
That depressing, disjointed, soap-opera of a 2004 series has completely cured me of ever wanting to see anything to do with Battlestar Galactica ever again as long as I live. If the entire crew were naked redhead supermodels, I still couldn't bring myself to buy a ticket. Let it go. Please. Just let it go.
I think what really happened was that they got to the middle of season 4 and realized they didn't have an ending.
"What was the PLAN?" "Um um, I dunno, it just sounded cool." "Oh, crap. Well, we've got a few episodes left. How the hell do we write our way out of this? It has to be preachy and nebulous enough that the geeks will buy it."
I'm sorry, that answer isn't very helpful. The real answer is, you don't. There's no way of knowing. Let me find my Galactic Overlord hat... here it is. Gotta get that visor fixed. Ok ok, if I were the Ultimate Evil, and I wanted to fleece a bunch of companies, I'd set myself up as a network outsourcing service, build up a solid reputation (even if it took years), a large clientele of important companies, and quietly scoop anything valuable. And then, one day, I'd simply disappear, with a suitcase full of hard drives (on a cart, 'cause those things are heavy), exploit the data, buy a third world country, and set myself up as President for Life. Um, of course, if I were unredeemably evil, which I'm not, so I'd never do any of those things.
So, spammer creates or acquires charity. They can actually be doing charitable things, for appearance sake, but their prime reason for existence is to launder money for the spammer.
Spammer opts into centmail, choosing their own charity, and continues to blast out spam, bypassing the centmail-enabled spam filters.
How does one prove that one was denied a job because of a credit report? This question is not rhetorical.
A friend of mine, who has fallen on hard times, suffering the double whammy of unemployment coupled with massive debt, has been unable to find a job for almost three years. He often gets close -- getting past the phone screen, first and second interview, tour of the facilities, and then, at the point where one would expect either an offer or "we have decided to look elsewhere", he gets -- nothing. The prospective employer simply stops responding, as if he dropped off the face of the earth. We are pretty sure something is going on, and it's almost certainly the results of a credit check, (we know his credit is ghastly) but as the company will no longer communicate, he does not know how to proceed.
I'm a little conflicted. I'm fairly libertarian in my views, and believe a company has a right to hire whom they please, but in this case it leaves someone who has had a few setbacks absolutely nowhere to go. Except, perhaps, a life of government subsistence, or I dunno, a life of crime. He wants to work and pay back his debt, but (if this is true) his debt is what is preventing him from finding work -- a classic catch-22. Where does one go from here?
I agree except for the antenna part. Have you watched broadcast tv lately? Anything good is already available in some other form. Or will be next week.
I wrote that in jest, but on reflection, it's really true, isn't it? The only real advantage of real-time tv is to be the first on your block to see a particular episode. Like going to the movies so you can see a film a month before you could watch it in the comfort of your own home, with beer. It's a tribute to the power of marketing that we still think these are good things.
A lot of these are questions I would never ask in an interview.
"What desktop hardware/software will I be using?" could be interpreted as "I'm a hardware bigot and will whine if I don't have a huge display and four white-hot cores." or "I don't touch Winders. I plan to reimage my PC with Mepis and I refuse to use any email client except Mulberry". Unless you want to show proficiency in a particular tool -- "Lotus notes? Yes, I've got several years' experience" -- I'd leave the topic alone. Your desktop is whatever it is. You'll get used to it.
"Are there team get-togethers?" == "I expect us to spend time screwing off under the guise of 'team building'. How close is the nearest bar?"
"What are the typical hours?" == "I am concerned about working too hard."
"What is your goal for the next etc" is a question directed at the interviewee, not the interviewer.
I would say "I expect to be on-call" as an opening for the interviewer to describe the on-call process.
I would know ahead of time what the company's stock has been doing, (if publicly traded) and be prepared to ask reasonable questions about the company business. My job doesn't end at my cube doorway -- it's important to understand the big picture.
I ask about education benefits, because I want to keep on top of my game, and I want prospective employers to know that.
Questions about the environment -- promotion process, product and documentation lifecycle, -- are fine, but don't get too militant about it if the boss doesn't think these things are important. There will be time for that battle after you're hired.
Find out if there are any tools or systems with which you are not familiar, and then express eagerness to learn them.
If there's a part of the process that's in disarray, (documentation, for instance) and you get signals that the boss would like to see improvement in this area, express eagerness to help straighten it out, and come up with a few suggestions.
I ask if it's ok if I eat at my desk. This isn't as arse-kissing as it sounds. I worked for one place that forbade eating at one's desk due to ant infestation.
In general, I try to avoid questions that might raise a red flag about how well I might fit in, or which might be considered concern on my part about how much effort I will be making. I am adaptable -- I've had ASCII terminals, X-terms, Windows, Sun and SGI workstations in front of me, and a variety of tools, some really obscure. It matters less what my work environment actually is than that it match the rest of the team.
> But to produce honest-to-Gawd news? That's a quality product, produced by professionals who know how to separate fact from bias, and how to tell the difference between the two?
But, is that really what we've been getting lately from the "professionals"? Could part of the decline of traditional news sources be due to frustration from consumers over a lack of professionalism in news reporting? This isn't something that can be fixed by dunning your few remaining customers. It seems like he's working on the unspoken, natural assumption that he has a quality product that is obviously better than, say, Yahoo News. This isn't apparent to me at all, and I don't think I'm alone. I suspect he has to prove professionalism first, before he can charge extra for it.
> For an online paper, you can't charge the reader, Craigslist kills your classified section, and ads pay about a tenth of what they do in print.
All these things are true.
> Where's your income going to come from?
That's an excellent question. IANAM (I am not a mogul), but two answers occur to me. It's possible that (1) Your income comes from nowhere; you just fold. There's just no money in the business anymore. You made buggy whips, so sad, find another line of work. Or perhaps, (2) There's a lot less money to be made, but your costs are down considerably, to wit: you don't have to print and distribute a physical newspaper anymore. Have you seen the machinery, raw materials, logistics, infrastructure, and personnel it takes to print and distribute a paper every day? With an online product, most of that goes away. Enough, perhaps, that the small fraction you make with an ad-supported website will still be enough for publishing overhead and a tidy profit. Or perhaps not. But charging for a product that your competitors are not charging for, and on top of that, at a time when the credibility of traditional outlets is down, and in a down economy fer crissake, is suicide. Unless the government shoulders part of the burden, or "levels" the playing field in some other fashion.
You misunderstand my point. He thinks he can charge end users for content. His competition for web based news is ad supported, with no direct end user cost. Charging end users for content clearly puts him in a bad competitive position.
He must understand the ad supported model, because that's what supports most of the cost of any brick-and-mortar newspaper. So it's odd that he thinks he can compete on a subscription based model.
Understood, but if he's any kind of businessman at all, he'd realize that (a) ad revenues are down because readership is down, and (b) his competition is completely ad supported. It's suicide.
I remember the Windows 95 days. A good sound card might be $300 and you could spend hours, days even, trying to get it to work properly. These days, 5.1 digital sound is generic -- you get it on your motherboard -- and it works with everything.
Similarly, just because I had to fight Red Hat 7 for weeks to get sound working correctly on my laptop a few years ago doesn't mean sound still sucks on Fedora 10. Progress does get made.
How can a newspaper mogul not understand about ad supported content? Most of the cost of a newspaper is ads. You really think fifty cents a copy pays for content, printing and distribution?
Similarly how can he not understand about supply and demand? His competitors are not other newspapers who try to adopt the same business model. His competitors are the free, ad-supported news services. On a level playing field, they'll eat him alive.
I can't believe he's this stupid, so he must think he has an ace up his sleeve. And the only ace I can think of in this case is government intervention.
Seems like some enterprising individual could start putting together cheaper-than-dirt Ubuntu-based music machines by buying Dell Studio laptops (with Microsoft license rebate, naturally) and preloading everything necessary.
The complaint from non-geeks about Linux is you have to do it yourself. If you didn't have to do it yourself, and it really was that cheap, it becomes a lot more interesting.
> My whole problem with the 'I have a gun to protect me and my family' is if some guy barges into your house with the intent of killing you, do you really have the gun loaded and next to you
Yes, I really do.
> (if so then you are either paranoid or don't know how to store a gun safely or both).
You really don't have any idea. Look, for your own sake, please do some research so you don't embarrass yourself next time. You don't help your argument by indulging in this kind of hyperbole.
I do have a firearm and a flashlight right by my bed. They're in a gun safe that's bolted to the floor on my side of the bed. The case has combination buttons on the top, spaced out and designed for easy access in the dark. Yes, I do practice opening the safe in the dark. I can go from prone on the bed to fully armed with a flashlight in my off hand in less than three seconds. One one thousand two one thousand three one armed. Just like that.
These types of safes are readily available, relatively inexpensive, secure, and open very quickly if you know the combination. If not, you can punch buttons all day and not get anywhere. The fact that you don't know this tells me you've never been in a gun store or attended a gun show, and you probably don't know anyone who owns a firearm for self defense.
Parenthetically, the flashlight is in the safe so that I know it's going to be there. I used to keep a flashlight sitting on the night stand, but wife or daughter would borrow it and forget to put it back. Yes, I do test it and change out the batteries periodically, and also cycle the ammunition. It's no more onerous than rotating the tires on your car.
It's not a matter of paranoia. If you're going to arm yourself, you owe it to yourself and your family to do it right. If you're not going to arm yourself, then by all means, dial 911 and hope. Or flee. Fleeing is a good option. If you have children, fleeing becomes more complicated.
The defibrillator is a bad example -- it so happens there's one not six feet from my desk, in the first responder pack. But granted, most people don't have one handy. In any case, I'm pretty sure you can't prove the odds are higher that I will have a heart attack, without knowing my lifestyle. I can tell you that I've had four intruders in the last 25 years, three driven off by dogs before I decided to own a gun, and the fourth scampered as soon as the flash hit him. Not one heart attack yet. So I guess I'm beating the odds.
Individual rules depend on the state -- I've heard that in some areas (not where I'd want to live) you are required to attempt to vacate your home if someone breaks in. But in most places in the US, if a reasonable person would believe their life is threatened, lethal force is justified in self-defense. In most US courts, any firearm discharge is considered "lethal force", and deliberately "shooting to wound" is a pretty good sign that you did not believe your life was being threatened. Best practice, both legally and effectively, is to shoot only if you are in fear for your life, and to aim for the center of mass.
So, it is very specifically not "only the amount of force necessary". It's basically an on-off situation. In fear of your life, shoot. Not in fear of your life, do not shoot. An (presumably armed) intruder at 2:00 AM would put most reasonable people in fear of their lives. You are not required to wrestle with him, or cross knives or baseball bats. It's not a dual amongst equals, or a bar fight, or a boxing match. You are not required to try to arrest him. You may be required to flee -- check the laws in your area.
Police have more complicated rules of engagement, but they have had different training, and society has different expectations of them.
What transpires when the police show up and later in court are not nearly as important as those 60 - 90 seconds during the break-in. You have to survive that first, or what happens afterward is moot.
On a fundamental level, I don't believe that calling the police will help me and mine during a 2:00 AM break-in. It just takes too long for the police to respond. I think that if people are sleeping better at night knowing they can call 911 in the event of an armed break-in, they're probably being naive, but hey, whatever makes you feel better.
I'd probably call the police for completeness, if I have time. I have battery backed-up infrared cameras (surprisingly inexpensive to purchase and install if you do it yourself), dogs, and firearms as a first, second, and third levels of defense. I suspect that levels 1 and 2 will be enough to deter most intruders, and I practice regularly to insure that level 3 will be effective in the gravest extreme.
I sleep lightly, and come fully awake quickly. I wonder if this has anything to do with decades of after-hours on-call. I'm sure most of the geeks here have had this experience -- has carrying the pager improved the speed and alertness with which you come awake? Even if you do not choose to arm yourself, it might give you the edge you need to leave the premises quickly (which is realistically your only other option).
Slashdot Mirror
> Haven't we been saying for 40 years that fusion power is just around the corner in another 20 years?
One could debate the actual numbers, but yes, we have. A Mars mission has enough to worry about without planning on being powered by fairy-cake.
Talk is really expensive in politics. But most of the cost is hidden.
That horse is really most sincerely dead. And smells awful. Why beat it again? For God's Sake, isn't there ANYTHING else we could be making? Like, any of the top 100 science fiction novels that haven't already been butchered on the big screen?
That depressing, disjointed, soap-opera of a 2004 series has completely cured me of ever wanting to see anything to do with Battlestar Galactica ever again as long as I live. If the entire crew were naked redhead supermodels, I still couldn't bring myself to buy a ticket. Let it go. Please. Just let it go.
I think what really happened was that they got to the middle of season 4 and realized they didn't have an ending.
"What was the PLAN?" "Um um, I dunno, it just sounded cool." "Oh, crap. Well, we've got a few episodes left. How the hell do we write our way out of this? It has to be preachy and nebulous enough that the geeks will buy it."
Welcome to the world of outsourcing!
I'm sorry, that answer isn't very helpful. The real answer is, you don't. There's no way of knowing. Let me find my Galactic Overlord hat... here it is. Gotta get that visor fixed. Ok ok, if I were the Ultimate Evil, and I wanted to fleece a bunch of companies, I'd set myself up as a network outsourcing service, build up a solid reputation (even if it took years), a large clientele of important companies, and quietly scoop anything valuable. And then, one day, I'd simply disappear, with a suitcase full of hard drives (on a cart, 'cause those things are heavy), exploit the data, buy a third world country, and set myself up as President for Life. Um, of course, if I were unredeemably evil, which I'm not, so I'd never do any of those things.
So, spammer creates or acquires charity. They can actually be doing charitable things, for appearance sake, but their prime reason for existence is to launder money for the spammer.
Spammer opts into centmail, choosing their own charity, and continues to blast out spam, bypassing the centmail-enabled spam filters.
Profit!
How does one prove that one was denied a job because of a credit report? This question is not rhetorical.
A friend of mine, who has fallen on hard times, suffering the double whammy of unemployment coupled with massive debt, has been unable to find a job for almost three years. He often gets close -- getting past the phone screen, first and second interview, tour of the facilities, and then, at the point where one would expect either an offer or "we have decided to look elsewhere", he gets -- nothing. The prospective employer simply stops responding, as if he dropped off the face of the earth. We are pretty sure something is going on, and it's almost certainly the results of a credit check, (we know his credit is ghastly) but as the company will no longer communicate, he does not know how to proceed.
I'm a little conflicted. I'm fairly libertarian in my views, and believe a company has a right to hire whom they please, but in this case it leaves someone who has had a few setbacks absolutely nowhere to go. Except, perhaps, a life of government subsistence, or I dunno, a life of crime. He wants to work and pay back his debt, but (if this is true) his debt is what is preventing him from finding work -- a classic catch-22. Where does one go from here?
I agree except for the antenna part. Have you watched broadcast tv lately? Anything good is already available in some other form. Or will be next week.
I wrote that in jest, but on reflection, it's really true, isn't it? The only real advantage of real-time tv is to be the first on your block to see a particular episode. Like going to the movies so you can see a film a month before you could watch it in the comfort of your own home, with beer. It's a tribute to the power of marketing that we still think these are good things.
Even models that are supposed to support this mode. Why take the chance?
A lot of these are questions I would never ask in an interview.
"What desktop hardware/software will I be using?" could be interpreted as "I'm a hardware bigot and will whine if I don't have a huge display and four white-hot cores." or "I don't touch Winders. I plan to reimage my PC with Mepis and I refuse to use any email client except Mulberry". Unless you want to show proficiency in a particular tool -- "Lotus notes? Yes, I've got several years' experience" -- I'd leave the topic alone. Your desktop is whatever it is. You'll get used to it.
"Are there team get-togethers?" == "I expect us to spend time screwing off under the guise of 'team building'. How close is the nearest bar?"
"What are the typical hours?" == "I am concerned about working too hard."
"What is your goal for the next etc" is a question directed at the interviewee, not the interviewer.
I would say "I expect to be on-call" as an opening for the interviewer to describe the on-call process.
I would know ahead of time what the company's stock has been doing, (if publicly traded) and be prepared to ask reasonable questions about the company business. My job doesn't end at my cube doorway -- it's important to understand the big picture.
I ask about education benefits, because I want to keep on top of my game, and I want prospective employers to know that.
Questions about the environment -- promotion process, product and documentation lifecycle, -- are fine, but don't get too militant about it if the boss doesn't think these things are important. There will be time for that battle after you're hired.
Find out if there are any tools or systems with which you are not familiar, and then express eagerness to learn them.
If there's a part of the process that's in disarray, (documentation, for instance) and you get signals that the boss would like to see improvement in this area, express eagerness to help straighten it out, and come up with a few suggestions.
I ask if it's ok if I eat at my desk. This isn't as arse-kissing as it sounds. I worked for one place that forbade eating at one's desk due to ant infestation.
In general, I try to avoid questions that might raise a red flag about how well I might fit in, or which might be considered concern on my part about how much effort I will be making. I am adaptable -- I've had ASCII terminals, X-terms, Windows, Sun and SGI workstations in front of me, and a variety of tools, some really obscure. It matters less what my work environment actually is than that it match the rest of the team.
For Microsoft, there's no such thing as "waited too long to try to influence" a standard. Any standard.
> But to produce honest-to-Gawd news? That's a quality product, produced by professionals who know how to separate fact from bias, and how to tell the difference between the two?
But, is that really what we've been getting lately from the "professionals"? Could part of the decline of traditional news sources be due to frustration from consumers over a lack of professionalism in news reporting? This isn't something that can be fixed by dunning your few remaining customers. It seems like he's working on the unspoken, natural assumption that he has a quality product that is obviously better than, say, Yahoo News. This isn't apparent to me at all, and I don't think I'm alone. I suspect he has to prove professionalism first, before he can charge extra for it.
> For an online paper, you can't charge the reader, Craigslist kills your classified section, and ads pay about a tenth of what they do in print.
All these things are true.
> Where's your income going to come from?
That's an excellent question. IANAM (I am not a mogul), but two answers occur to me. It's possible that (1) Your income comes from nowhere; you just fold. There's just no money in the business anymore. You made buggy whips, so sad, find another line of work. Or perhaps, (2) There's a lot less money to be made, but your costs are down considerably, to wit: you don't have to print and distribute a physical newspaper anymore. Have you seen the machinery, raw materials, logistics, infrastructure, and personnel it takes to print and distribute a paper every day? With an online product, most of that goes away. Enough, perhaps, that the small fraction you make with an ad-supported website will still be enough for publishing overhead and a tidy profit. Or perhaps not. But charging for a product that your competitors are not charging for, and on top of that, at a time when the credibility of traditional outlets is down, and in a down economy fer crissake, is suicide. Unless the government shoulders part of the burden, or "levels" the playing field in some other fashion.
Put down the PS2 controller and go outside.
You misunderstand my point. He thinks he can charge end users for content. His competition for web based news is ad supported, with no direct end user cost. Charging end users for content clearly puts him in a bad competitive position.
He must understand the ad supported model, because that's what supports most of the cost of any brick-and-mortar newspaper. So it's odd that he thinks he can compete on a subscription based model.
Understood, but if he's any kind of businessman at all, he'd realize that (a) ad revenues are down because readership is down, and (b) his competition is completely ad supported. It's suicide.
I remember the Windows 95 days. A good sound card might be $300 and you could spend hours, days even, trying to get it to work properly. These days, 5.1 digital sound is generic -- you get it on your motherboard -- and it works with everything.
Similarly, just because I had to fight Red Hat 7 for weeks to get sound working correctly on my laptop a few years ago doesn't mean sound still sucks on Fedora 10. Progress does get made.
How can a newspaper mogul not understand about ad supported content? Most of the cost of a newspaper is ads. You really think fifty cents a copy pays for content, printing and distribution?
Similarly how can he not understand about supply and demand? His competitors are not other newspapers who try to adopt the same business model. His competitors are the free, ad-supported news services. On a level playing field, they'll eat him alive.
I can't believe he's this stupid, so he must think he has an ace up his sleeve. And the only ace I can think of in this case is government intervention.
That won't stop 'em from banning the use of tape in-flight...
Great, they removed it. But they shouldn't have done it in the first place, and there should be consequences.
Seems like some enterprising individual could start putting together cheaper-than-dirt Ubuntu-based music machines by buying Dell Studio laptops (with Microsoft license rebate, naturally) and preloading everything necessary.
The complaint from non-geeks about Linux is you have to do it yourself. If you didn't have to do it yourself, and it really was that cheap, it becomes a lot more interesting.
> My whole problem with the 'I have a gun to protect me and my family' is if some guy barges into your house with the intent of killing you, do you really have the gun loaded and next to you
Yes, I really do.
> (if so then you are either paranoid or don't know how to store a gun safely or both).
You really don't have any idea. Look, for your own sake, please do some research so you don't embarrass yourself next time. You don't help your argument by indulging in this kind of hyperbole.
I do have a firearm and a flashlight right by my bed. They're in a gun safe that's bolted to the floor on my side of the bed. The case has combination buttons on the top, spaced out and designed for easy access in the dark. Yes, I do practice opening the safe in the dark. I can go from prone on the bed to fully armed with a flashlight in my off hand in less than three seconds. One one thousand two one thousand three one armed. Just like that.
These types of safes are readily available, relatively inexpensive, secure, and open very quickly if you know the combination. If not, you can punch buttons all day and not get anywhere. The fact that you don't know this tells me you've never been in a gun store or attended a gun show, and you probably don't know anyone who owns a firearm for self defense.
Parenthetically, the flashlight is in the safe so that I know it's going to be there. I used to keep a flashlight sitting on the night stand, but wife or daughter would borrow it and forget to put it back. Yes, I do test it and change out the batteries periodically, and also cycle the ammunition. It's no more onerous than rotating the tires on your car.
It's not a matter of paranoia. If you're going to arm yourself, you owe it to yourself and your family to do it right. If you're not going to arm yourself, then by all means, dial 911 and hope. Or flee. Fleeing is a good option. If you have children, fleeing becomes more complicated.
The defibrillator is a bad example -- it so happens there's one not six feet from my desk, in the first responder pack. But granted, most people don't have one handy. In any case, I'm pretty sure you can't prove the odds are higher that I will have a heart attack, without knowing my lifestyle. I can tell you that I've had four intruders in the last 25 years, three driven off by dogs before I decided to own a gun, and the fourth scampered as soon as the flash hit him. Not one heart attack yet. So I guess I'm beating the odds.
IANAL, but I've done some reading on this.
Individual rules depend on the state -- I've heard that in some areas (not where I'd want to live) you are required to attempt to vacate your home if someone breaks in. But in most places in the US, if a reasonable person would believe their life is threatened, lethal force is justified in self-defense. In most US courts, any firearm discharge is considered "lethal force", and deliberately "shooting to wound" is a pretty good sign that you did not believe your life was being threatened. Best practice, both legally and effectively, is to shoot only if you are in fear for your life, and to aim for the center of mass.
So, it is very specifically not "only the amount of force necessary". It's basically an on-off situation. In fear of your life, shoot. Not in fear of your life, do not shoot. An (presumably armed) intruder at 2:00 AM would put most reasonable people in fear of their lives. You are not required to wrestle with him, or cross knives or baseball bats. It's not a dual amongst equals, or a bar fight, or a boxing match. You are not required to try to arrest him. You may be required to flee -- check the laws in your area.
Police have more complicated rules of engagement, but they have had different training, and society has different expectations of them.
What transpires when the police show up and later in court are not nearly as important as those 60 - 90 seconds during the break-in. You have to survive that first, or what happens afterward is moot.
On a fundamental level, I don't believe that calling the police will help me and mine during a 2:00 AM break-in. It just takes too long for the police to respond. I think that if people are sleeping better at night knowing they can call 911 in the event of an armed break-in, they're probably being naive, but hey, whatever makes you feel better.
I'd probably call the police for completeness, if I have time. I have battery backed-up infrared cameras (surprisingly inexpensive to purchase and install if you do it yourself), dogs, and firearms as a first, second, and third levels of defense. I suspect that levels 1 and 2 will be enough to deter most intruders, and I practice regularly to insure that level 3 will be effective in the gravest extreme.
I sleep lightly, and come fully awake quickly. I wonder if this has anything to do with decades of after-hours on-call. I'm sure most of the geeks here have had this experience -- has carrying the pager improved the speed and alertness with which you come awake? Even if you do not choose to arm yourself, it might give you the edge you need to leave the premises quickly (which is realistically your only other option).