Heh, I was watching the news about 911 calls and one of the examples provided about BS calls was a lady who called 911 because the fast food restaraunt she was at refused to make the sandwich she ordered the way she wanted it.
I would have sent the police and had them arrest her for wasting valuable 911 time.
That is exactly how every department EXCEPT for the IT department wants our company (1500+ ppl) to be run. IT on the other hand, wants to consolidate all the IT and software development staff from around the company under their control. They've toyed with assigning people out to workgroups, but their yearly evaluations and perforamce reviews are still performed by IT staff who don't oversee their daily work and priorities.
The Engineering department has experimented with having our own IT subset group (called KTMT). We are fully controled by the engineering department, my boss's boss has a PE stamp in Civil. We do basic computer support (IT has locked us out of the needed admin permissions for most computers) and write software. Its fucking outstanding.
Not only are the staff very pleased with our work, by comparison our IT group looks likes a mess. I look at their huge budget, $40M for this service contract, $20M for that licensing agreement, $10M in consultants, hell we just spent millions of dollars for an electronic timecard software that I had half written for our department! I could have spent another 2 months to bring up to what they needed and saved the company several million dollars. I even gave the group of people who were responsible for the decision the source code for the program to examine. So instead of an in-house solution that was cheaper and would be more responsive (bug? OK I'll fix it now, test it the rest of the week, and push it out this weekend), instead we spend millions of dollars for some other company to come in, it wont be as responsive, but hey, no one wants to step up and take responsibilty for anything.
Then I look at our team's budget (a measly 750K incluing salaries, equipment, travel and training) and the cost to benefit ratio is insane.
I (a software guy and occasionally a support guy) have got requests from tons of other groups throughout the company asking me to write them software. We win awards, speak at conferences, and there is only 6 of us, 4 of which are full time. A few months ago we had another group in the company go to IT and ask them to transfer a program from their IT group to us because they were sick of the lackluster support and lack of features compared to a similar application we made. Boy were they pissed. And their response? Tightly integrate the application with a few choice pieces of IT infrastructure so that it can never be seperated without rewriting it from scratch (this was some of the features the customer requested, but instead of doing what the customer asked in the first place, they just made sure they keep control of the piece of software forever).
The best piece is we have a few friends inside the IT department who work on various core functions (database, file servers, enterprise software deployments like office, hardware, OS, etc) so we call them up and they get us what we need without being a pain in the ass.
So yea...
-Decentralize most IT functions and assign it to the groups where the work is done. -Leave a small core IT group in place for enterprise level functionality (database, servers, hardware certification, etc). -Try to make sure there is good communication between groups and IT, and between closely linked groups in the flow of information/food chain/product development.
I thoguht the article was bogus until I read the title of the article again and saw the word "obscure", which obviously removes games like Goldeneye from the running.
I dont suppose that the terrorists would figure out how to password protect a webpage or forum to keep the gov't out. Really its probably just some program to spy on the blogosphere, particularly those who oppose the current administration's agenda.
In Nevada and other hot climates, 1MW is really only enough to power 750-800 homes, not 1000. This is due to the demands of the air conditioners turning on. For a stretch last summer, it was so hot in LV, a/c units were running 24/7 because the nighttime low was only in the low to mid 80s (F).
Exactly the problem I have - these aren't on books (mostly) they're on individual engineering plan documents, put up on racks side by side. We fit about 50 plans in one inch, in our Multifile rack system. Thats the density I need to scan RFID's with. Right now we're looking at barcoding, but thats almost as labor intensive and just identifying the documents by number.
What I really want out of RFID tags is the ability to scan 1000s per minute. I've got a large room, a library of documents. If I RFID tag each one, I want to be able to run a wand past all the documents and inventory all 100,000 documents in 15 minutes. Right now, the people I've talked to say its not possible. That is what I am waiting for.
This reminds me of my situation at work. While our hardware guys kick ass (I ordered another GB of ram for my computer to bring it up to 2GB and it went from me ordering it, approvals up two levels, IT ordering it and getting the product in and calling me to install it in about a week - it would take me almost the same amount of time to order the part from newegg and get it in the mail).
So yea, I'm a software guy outside of the IT department (in the engineering department) on a team of five talented software developers (who all get along and work well together suprisingly). The five of us constantly embarass our IT department in terms of product quality, time to delivery, and a bunch of other factors, most importantly total cost and ROI. We've got such a good reputation that other groups within our company don't bother talking to the IT department about developing applications - they come to us in the engineering department. And boy does that piss them off. The group that is supposed to head up and be in charge of all software development hates us. And it does have reprocussions, since when we have to go work with them on a project, they drag their feet like nothing else, and we have to get senior management to poke them a few times with a sharp stick to get going (which is something else that is nice to have - one of the VPs of the company came from the engineering department and we're on very good terms with him and we can go to him with problems if someone is giving us a lot of grief). I just heard a funny story today - it turns out our IT software developers took so damn long implementing a major piece of CIS software, the version we put into production several months ago is 4+ years old and now the vendor wants a contract - in the range of tens of millions of dollars - to continue supporting beyond its original support timeframe. Do you know what kind of shitfit this is going to cause on the SMT? I hope someone loses their job over it.
For the most part, the IT group should not have as "robust" of a management structure as other parts of the organization - IT can be more flat in its management structure.
So in summary: make friends with the SMT and try to get in good with them by developing products that have a very high ROI; make sure they know the inferiority of the solutions the IT office provides (I'm sure if someone in the SMT has computer problems, they dont wait as long as you do); and finally circumvent a few noncritical IT rules - or if you're brave, use a program to get the password for the local admin account on your computer (and probably all the other computers in the company) and have fun with it.
10M P2P users in the US and Canada, not including BT (via Slyck and BigChampaigne). Possibly more.
Thats $50M USD PER MONTH in revenue direct to the labels AT VERY LITTLE COST (just the cost of collecting the money from the ISP). For the math impaired that is $600M/yr. Certainly more than they could ever hope to raise through lawsuits.
And as long as new releases are released with some sort of incentive to buy it (perhaps discounts on concert tickets, DualDiscs, etc), CD sales wont suffer any more than they're suffering now with illegal P2P.
The problem is that without DRM I could spend $5 one month, download as much as I can, and then cancel the $5 fee for another 5 months, pay another $5, download a whole lot more for that month, etc. So I download 100s of CDs within 2 months for $10/yr. Thats the problem.
The recording industry would probably need to offer it in 6-month or 12-month blocks to prevent the behavior I mentioned above.
Essentially you'd be buying immunity from RIAA lawsuits. The RIAA would ask your ISP if you're paying the tax, and if you aren't they'd sue you.
Its funny he goes into detail about what the bill isn't yet sums up what the bill is in the most vauge sentence I've ever heard...
The Academic Bill of Rights can be simply summarized as an effort to restore the principles that the academic profession has traditionally honored but in all too many cases no longer observe
It makes me think he has something to hide about ways it could be interpreted (by using vauge language, he cant be pinned down by anything).
I believe the issue you raised about the SELECT is being addressed in IE7. I had a problem with IE and SELECTs the other day and I googled around and came across a blog where it was mentioned that it is being completely rebuilt (the select objcet).
If this was about oil, it was a damned stupid financial decision.
Not if you're a Saudi oil barron (oh, and who is the Bush family friends with?). You've seen your product more than double in price for no real increase in the cost of actually getting it out of the ground.
FWIW, the attempts lobby a legislative body into something like what you're talking about have already happened. Here is a snippet from the writeup:
The bill, with language basically provided by Horowitz, would establish "free inquiry and free speech" in university classrooms throughout the state. The problem, as opponents see it, is that this free inquiry and free speech is going to come at the expense of valuable classroom time. The bill mandates that professors seriously consider and debate obscure, irrelevant, or counterintuitive theories that students might bring to class. According to Rep. Dan Gelber (D -- Miami Beach), one of the bill's opponents, opinions such as "abortion is a sin" or "the Holocaust never happened" would have to be given classroom time to discuss and debate. And, should a professor refuse to turn his or her classroom into an open-ended intellectual food fight, the bill would give students legal standing to take the school to court over the refusal.
Congress should find a way to regulate these new digital radio networks so labels can get paid when consumers keep copies of songs, as is the case with iTunes.
Last I checked it was legal to record off the radio. The AHRA covers this...
Although now that I think about it, technically the music industry is getting around this part of the legislation by not going after consumers recording digital media off the radio, but in fact threating to pull out of agreements with digital radio broadcasters if they don't implement this system. This is the kind of shit that gets them investigated by Elliot Spitzer.
I've thought about that, but what do peoople use their powerbook for? Prolly not dinking around the net. Apple holds the reins on the "pro" software and can hold off on fat binaries until the Powerbooks come out. Plus if the iBooks are minus any firewire ports, it'll keep many people from replacing powerbooks with iBooks.
Also, Intel has only released 1 single core chip in the whole Yonah lineup. It really speaks volumes as to the direction they are heading. If Apple went single core, they'd have to use the same chip (1.66GHz) for all the units.
iBook (all with 13.3" widescreen display and integrated graphics - 945GM MCH) $799: Intel Centrino Solo 1.66Ghz $999: Intel Centrino Duo 1.66Ghz $1199: Intel Centrino Duo 1.83GHz
Mini $499: Intel Centrino Duo LV 1.5Ghz $599: Intel Centrino Duo LV 1.66Ghz $699: Intel Centrino Duo LV 1.66Ghz (but with included DVD+DL burner, bluetooth, etc)
Plus the MacTV annoucement (42" and 50" Plasmas with Minis built in), and the new 1GB shuffle replacement (possibly the 1GB Nano).
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, I was watching the news about 911 calls and one of the examples provided about BS calls was a lady who called 911 because the fast food restaraunt she was at refused to make the sandwich she ordered the way she wanted it.
I would have sent the police and had them arrest her for wasting valuable 911 time.
Damn, why cant I mod up AND reply.
That is exactly how every department EXCEPT for the IT department wants our company (1500+ ppl) to be run. IT on the other hand, wants to consolidate all the IT and software development staff from around the company under their control. They've toyed with assigning people out to workgroups, but their yearly evaluations and perforamce reviews are still performed by IT staff who don't oversee their daily work and priorities.
The Engineering department has experimented with having our own IT subset group (called KTMT). We are fully controled by the engineering department, my boss's boss has a PE stamp in Civil. We do basic computer support (IT has locked us out of the needed admin permissions for most computers) and write software. Its fucking outstanding.
Not only are the staff very pleased with our work, by comparison our IT group looks likes a mess. I look at their huge budget, $40M for this service contract, $20M for that licensing agreement, $10M in consultants, hell we just spent millions of dollars for an electronic timecard software that I had half written for our department! I could have spent another 2 months to bring up to what they needed and saved the company several million dollars. I even gave the group of people who were responsible for the decision the source code for the program to examine. So instead of an in-house solution that was cheaper and would be more responsive (bug? OK I'll fix it now, test it the rest of the week, and push it out this weekend), instead we spend millions of dollars for some other company to come in, it wont be as responsive, but hey, no one wants to step up and take responsibilty for anything.
Then I look at our team's budget (a measly 750K incluing salaries, equipment, travel and training) and the cost to benefit ratio is insane.
I (a software guy and occasionally a support guy) have got requests from tons of other groups throughout the company asking me to write them software. We win awards, speak at conferences, and there is only 6 of us, 4 of which are full time. A few months ago we had another group in the company go to IT and ask them to transfer a program from their IT group to us because they were sick of the lackluster support and lack of features compared to a similar application we made. Boy were they pissed. And their response? Tightly integrate the application with a few choice pieces of IT infrastructure so that it can never be seperated without rewriting it from scratch (this was some of the features the customer requested, but instead of doing what the customer asked in the first place, they just made sure they keep control of the piece of software forever).
The best piece is we have a few friends inside the IT department who work on various core functions (database, file servers, enterprise software deployments like office, hardware, OS, etc) so we call them up and they get us what we need without being a pain in the ass.
So yea...
-Decentralize most IT functions and assign it to the groups where the work is done.
-Leave a small core IT group in place for enterprise level functionality (database, servers, hardware certification, etc).
-Try to make sure there is good communication between groups and IT, and between closely linked groups in the flow of information/food chain/product development.
Gov: In light of these recent national decertifications
Dems: HE IS A FLIP FLOPPER! He voted against this a year ago!
Good job dems, keep making yourselves look like idiots, thats a sure fire way to get control of congress back in 2006.
I thoguht the article was bogus until I read the title of the article again and saw the word "obscure", which obviously removes games like Goldeneye from the running.
I dont suppose that the terrorists would figure out how to password protect a webpage or forum to keep the gov't out. Really its probably just some program to spy on the blogosphere, particularly those who oppose the current administration's agenda.
Technically, didn't they have two before? IBM and Freescale?
Yup. We've got 50 tags per inch, if not more. Thats the problem. Too dense.
I thought GE owned Westinghouse?
At least not in Nevada.
In Nevada and other hot climates, 1MW is really only enough to power 750-800 homes, not 1000. This is due to the demands of the air conditioners turning on. For a stretch last summer, it was so hot in LV, a/c units were running 24/7 because the nighttime low was only in the low to mid 80s (F).
Exactly the problem I have - these aren't on books (mostly) they're on individual engineering plan documents, put up on racks side by side. We fit about 50 plans in one inch, in our Multifile rack system. Thats the density I need to scan RFID's with. Right now we're looking at barcoding, but thats almost as labor intensive and just identifying the documents by number.
What I really want out of RFID tags is the ability to scan 1000s per minute. I've got a large room, a library of documents. If I RFID tag each one, I want to be able to run a wand past all the documents and inventory all 100,000 documents in 15 minutes. Right now, the people I've talked to say its not possible. That is what I am waiting for.
This reminds me of my situation at work. While our hardware guys kick ass (I ordered another GB of ram for my computer to bring it up to 2GB and it went from me ordering it, approvals up two levels, IT ordering it and getting the product in and calling me to install it in about a week - it would take me almost the same amount of time to order the part from newegg and get it in the mail).
So yea, I'm a software guy outside of the IT department (in the engineering department) on a team of five talented software developers (who all get along and work well together suprisingly). The five of us constantly embarass our IT department in terms of product quality, time to delivery, and a bunch of other factors, most importantly total cost and ROI. We've got such a good reputation that other groups within our company don't bother talking to the IT department about developing applications - they come to us in the engineering department. And boy does that piss them off. The group that is supposed to head up and be in charge of all software development hates us. And it does have reprocussions, since when we have to go work with them on a project, they drag their feet like nothing else, and we have to get senior management to poke them a few times with a sharp stick to get going (which is something else that is nice to have - one of the VPs of the company came from the engineering department and we're on very good terms with him and we can go to him with problems if someone is giving us a lot of grief). I just heard a funny story today - it turns out our IT software developers took so damn long implementing a major piece of CIS software, the version we put into production several months ago is 4+ years old and now the vendor wants a contract - in the range of tens of millions of dollars - to continue supporting beyond its original support timeframe. Do you know what kind of shitfit this is going to cause on the SMT? I hope someone loses their job over it.
For the most part, the IT group should not have as "robust" of a management structure as other parts of the organization - IT can be more flat in its management structure.
So in summary: make friends with the SMT and try to get in good with them by developing products that have a very high ROI; make sure they know the inferiority of the solutions the IT office provides (I'm sure if someone in the SMT has computer problems, they dont wait as long as you do); and finally circumvent a few noncritical IT rules - or if you're brave, use a program to get the password for the local admin account on your computer (and probably all the other computers in the company) and have fun with it.
Think of it this way...
$5/mo
10M P2P users in the US and Canada, not including BT (via Slyck and BigChampaigne). Possibly more.
Thats $50M USD PER MONTH in revenue direct to the labels AT VERY LITTLE COST (just the cost of collecting the money from the ISP). For the math impaired that is $600M/yr. Certainly more than they could ever hope to raise through lawsuits.
And as long as new releases are released with some sort of incentive to buy it (perhaps discounts on concert tickets, DualDiscs, etc), CD sales wont suffer any more than they're suffering now with illegal P2P.
The problem is that without DRM I could spend $5 one month, download as much as I can, and then cancel the $5 fee for another 5 months, pay another $5, download a whole lot more for that month, etc. So I download 100s of CDs within 2 months for $10/yr. Thats the problem.
The recording industry would probably need to offer it in 6-month or 12-month blocks to prevent the behavior I mentioned above.
Essentially you'd be buying immunity from RIAA lawsuits. The RIAA would ask your ISP if you're paying the tax, and if you aren't they'd sue you.
Its funny he goes into detail about what the bill isn't yet sums up what the bill is in the most vauge sentence I've ever heard...
The Academic Bill of Rights can be simply summarized as an effort to restore the principles that the academic profession has traditionally honored but in all too many cases no longer observe
It makes me think he has something to hide about ways it could be interpreted (by using vauge language, he cant be pinned down by anything).
I believe the issue you raised about the SELECT is being addressed in IE7. I had a problem with IE and SELECTs the other day and I googled around and came across a blog where it was mentioned that it is being completely rebuilt (the select objcet).
If this was about oil, it was a damned stupid financial decision.
Not if you're a Saudi oil barron (oh, and who is the Bush family friends with?). You've seen your product more than double in price for no real increase in the cost of actually getting it out of the ground.
The UAE has so much oil and natural gas money they're building an underwater hotel.
FWIW, the attempts lobby a legislative body into something like what you're talking about have already happened. Here is a snippet from the writeup:
The bill, with language basically provided by Horowitz, would establish "free inquiry and free speech" in university classrooms throughout the state. The problem, as opponents see it, is that this free inquiry and free speech is going to come at the expense of valuable classroom time. The bill mandates that professors seriously consider and debate obscure, irrelevant, or counterintuitive theories that students might bring to class. According to Rep. Dan Gelber (D -- Miami Beach), one of the bill's opponents, opinions such as "abortion is a sin" or "the Holocaust never happened" would have to be given classroom time to discuss and debate. And, should a professor refuse to turn his or her classroom into an open-ended intellectual food fight, the bill would give students legal standing to take the school to court over the refusal.
Congress should find a way to regulate these new digital radio networks so labels can get paid when consumers keep copies of songs, as is the case with iTunes.
Last I checked it was legal to record off the radio. The AHRA covers this...
The act failed to define "noncommercial use by a consumer" however " In short, the reported legislation [Section 1008] would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use." (House Report No. 102-780(I), August 4, 1992) .
Although now that I think about it, technically the music industry is getting around this part of the legislation by not going after consumers recording digital media off the radio, but in fact threating to pull out of agreements with digital radio broadcasters if they don't implement this system. This is the kind of shit that gets them investigated by Elliot Spitzer.
Problem is, there's nowhere left to run.
Canada?
No I'm an "industry analyst" - I dont know anyone at Apple, these numbers are purely speculative.
Intel doesnt offer a Centrino Solo at 1.5GHz! The only single core chip they offer is at 1.66GHz. Read the Intel price list and educate yourself.
Yes it would be because of the thermal charecteristics of the unit. Its rumored the mini is a bit taller because of the higher TDP vs the G4s.
I've thought about that, but what do peoople use their powerbook for? Prolly not dinking around the net. Apple holds the reins on the "pro" software and can hold off on fat binaries until the Powerbooks come out. Plus if the iBooks are minus any firewire ports, it'll keep many people from replacing powerbooks with iBooks.
Also, Intel has only released 1 single core chip in the whole Yonah lineup. It really speaks volumes as to the direction they are heading. If Apple went single core, they'd have to use the same chip (1.66GHz) for all the units.
Oh, and I almost forgot, updates to .Mac (since there is scheduled downtime from 7AM-12PM for Tuesday).
The rest (powerbooks, iMac) in April! XServe and PowerMac due in next year's MWSF.
iBook (all with 13.3" widescreen display and integrated graphics - 945GM MCH)
$799: Intel Centrino Solo 1.66Ghz
$999: Intel Centrino Duo 1.66Ghz
$1199: Intel Centrino Duo 1.83GHz
Mini
$499: Intel Centrino Duo LV 1.5Ghz
$599: Intel Centrino Duo LV 1.66Ghz
$699: Intel Centrino Duo LV 1.66Ghz (but with included DVD+DL burner, bluetooth, etc)
Plus the MacTV annoucement (42" and 50" Plasmas with Minis built in), and the new 1GB shuffle replacement (possibly the 1GB Nano).