I must admit, most of the people I hear trumpeting this '[insert aspersion of choice] in Washington' crap have scarcely bothered to contact them, yet have the gall to blame their reps for not representing them. If you're concerned that any rep but _yours_ is ignoring you, well, you suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of how democracy works.
Truly amazing that people expect representative democracy to work when they don't engage their representatives--and it's not like you need to be told how to do so. Chances are, their office is withing f'ing walking distance of your house. If operating pen and paper, telephone or email are all too complex and mysterious for you and you're too lazy to travel a mile to speak in person, I can't imagine what sort of contribution you could possibly make, so it's probably best that you've passively excluded yourself from the process.
I've been using SuSE almost exclusively (as linux distros go, that is) for the last six years or so and just upgraded all my machines to 10. I prefer the GNOME windowmanager, but I've been constantly amazed at how straight-forward their install process is, even for the most timid of people. They've also paid decent attention to making it pretty and, IMHO, their take on the boot/login splash is the most elegant out there, XP and OSX included, and they've carried those graphics into all the system panels--with proper naming and all.
Like I said, I only use windows at work. With SuSE 10, I can get a much more elegant, cleaner, more complete out-of-the-box solution that I can even recommend to the practically illiterate. It's also nice to get "enterprise" things like NIS, LDAP and Kerberos for $0 and not too much trouble and again, with YaST under SuSE 10, setting up NIS is so dead-simple that grandma could probably set it up. Just try to get that under Windows as cheaply and easily. But then, as naming goes, "yppasswd" oh, that's "Yellow Pages-password," which is NIS, but we can't call it "Yellow Pages" anymore because of some British trademark issue, so we've just kept all the programs named "ypxyz" for posterity's sake. See, it's intuitive! Gah!
I don't have a single windows machine at home, but at work, hovering over the MS program icons reveals, oh so unintiutively, verbatim:
-Internet Explorer--Finds and displays information and Web sites on the Internet. -Microsoft Word--Create and edit text and graphics in letters, reports, Web pages, or email messages by using Microsoft Word. -Microsoft Excel--Perform calculations, analyze information, and manage lists in spreadsheets or Web pages by using Microsoft Excel. -Windows Media Player--Plays your digital media including music, videos, CDs, DVDs, and Internet Radio. -Microsoft Access--Create databases and programs to track and manage your information by using Microsoft Access. -Microsoft Visio--Create, edit and share diagrams by using Microsoft Visio. -Microsoft Powerpoint--Create and edit presentations for slide shows, meetings, and Web pages by using Microsoft PowerPoint. -Microsoft Outlook [Express]--Sends and receives e-mail and newsgroup messages.
Perhaps it was those pesky IT types that went in to set those tooltips, but, either way, it ain't rocket surgery.
That's been bugging me as well, but the fact is, no, the majority of the uses people have for computers, especially in the office, just haven't changed in ten years. Sure, the types that would buy anything with the name "Extreme" will drop a grand for an erg or two more power just for bragging rights, but with everyone else, what's the point when your eleventy billion Ghz processor is idle 99.99999999% of the time?
The simply truth is, necessity is the mother of invention. This seems like a chicken and the egg problem, but it isn't really. We need to get out there and look around, explore, experiment.
Really, $10k/minute rocket rides and "space hotels?" Sure, there's a market for rocketing the egos of billionaires into orbit (arguably, they're already there, so why all the fuss?) and perhaps we can lower that to mere mortal millionaires being blasted into orbiting space hotels... but, necessity? Sure, there's something there for the whims of the top billionth of a percent of the population or for utopian fantasies of an even tinier percent escaping the earth and moving to Mars, but it sure as hell isn't NECESSARY.
Fortunately for us, some people have imaginations.
From the looks of it, the primary purpose of this is to suck a few hundred million dollars of public investment--from NM alone--into the pockets of people who are already richer than royalty and wrapping it all in the science fiction fantasy that everyman will be riding along in this lifetime. I'm all for the idea, but this looks like a right fleecing. Unfortunately, some people lack the imagination to see when they've being conned.
The basic theory *does* require a motivator- the only argument is over what that motivator is.
The problem here is you're defining creation, which science has yet to unravel -- but at least admits to not knowing. There is thus currently no conflict between the notions of vertical causality and theistic creation--you just have an anthropomorphized version of the same idea. The problem comes when science is perfectly willing to say "there was an external cause that we cannot yet fully explain" and religion steps up and says "No, see, the cause was this guy named Hank. I've never seen him, but I know he's there 'cause this guy Carl told me he runs the town and wants to give me a million dollars, but if I don't kiss his ass, he'll beat me up."
You make the absurd assumption that "academics and scientists" are necessarily non-religious. You are deeply wrong. What is incredibly arrogant is that people who self-identify as non-scientist/non-academic are insisting that they know what is and should be considered scientific and/or academic, shoving it down their throats even though there is not a reciprocal attack happening from the scientific/academic corner trying to define what is and is not religious. It is simply insecurity on the part of those attacking science and academia that the results of those imply the absurdity of their closely-held faith-based beliefs.
In short, you're flailing at windmills.
My CAPTCHA for this post was "stoning." Maybe there is a god after all. At least he has a sense of humor.
Christ, why the hell does PDF get people's panties in such a bunch? It has a purpose for which it serves very well--disseminating _final_ documents intended for printed output that are not intended to be edited. Basically, think of it as a 21st Century FAX.
I mean, you might as well say "How dare you send me this bottle of Chateau D'Yquem. I mean, wine in a bottle? Geez, now I need a corkscrew. Why couldn't you send me a box-o-wine so I wouldn't have to go to all this trouble?" Uhm, yeah, you need an extra tool, but really, the difference in quality is probably worth it, but go ahead and guzzle that box wine if you're so attached to that hideous wrapper.
I suppose having correct fonts, layout and pagination regardless of platform or output device must really be bothersome, to say nothing of being free from macros, much less macro viruses.
Seriously, what the hell bugs people so much about PDF?
Vonage doesn't do regular 911 dialing, but, like, it's almost the same, because your call gets routed to an EOC, which isn't a 911 call center but it's like one, except when it's closed, as it is during certain times of day in certain parts of the country.
...oh, man, the cellphone company equivalent of that has almost driven me to homicide when they try to triage.
Me: "Get me the paramedics." Them: "Sir, what seems to be the problem." Me: "I NEED AN AMBULANCE--NOW. Get me the fire department/paramedics." Them: "Sir, if you could tell me the problem, I'd be happy to route your call. Me: "I have a man dying in the street. Get me that F@#$%ING FIRE DEPARTMENT! NOW!" Them: "Sir, calm down, was there a car accident? Should I transfer you to the police?" Me: "No, goddamnit! I have a man dying on the corner of X and Y and if you don't connect me with the F!@#%ING fire deparment, he'll be dead, it will be your fault, and I'll see to it that we meet in court, now get me the damned paramedics!" Them: >Click Riiiiing.
Imagine your old, analog, circuit-switched PSTN service sniffed out modem and fax traffic, blocking it so you'd have to buy ISDN service, which would then place a per-page/KB surcharge, even though you were using the _exact_ same amount of resources operating your modems over that network as if simply making a voice call and even though you had no need or use for all the extra equipment you'd need to buy for ISDN, you'd be forced to buy it and the company would have the force of law behind them. GREAT.
Even Vonage is annoying like this. You can do VOIP without any more equipment than your computer already has, but you need to buy their blackbox appliance in order for their proprietary "soft-phone" to work, giving the illusion that the product is far more complex than it really is. It's not even their software--it's F!#%ING FREEWARE--yet they have the cajones to charge $10/month more for the privilege of using it, but they've crippled it so you need their blackbox. Yeah, we need more behavior like that. Worse, we need to codify it in law.
That currently is going on with the wireless companies. It's a bad idea. Period. They're all simply selling bandwidth. Your even the POTS in your home is probably packet-switched within a few feet of your door, and possibly to the distribution block inside your house. If there's any regulation it should be that they be mandated to provide that bandwidth at a specified rate regardless of the arrangement of the bits you throw down the pipe. That wouldn't preclude them from offering you value-added services, but it would force them to actually add value.
Coercion by definition requires the threat of physical harm. I am not currently under threat of physical harm, so someone offering me to risk death in order to feed my [non-existent] family for a couple months would not be coercing me--they'd be tempting my greed. That is not the same thing. Whether people are stupid or imprudent or whatever does not change what is going on with the other side of the offer. If there is any threat of physical harm for not accepting an offer, whether by omission or commission, that is coercion.
If you think coercion is a-okay, just say so. I find it ethically problematic, though obviously it happens every day, and yes, it happens to stupid people and intelligent people, prudent and imprudent alike. Film and eleven.
See: live organ donor trade.
Is the donor foolish? Usually, yes. Very. Does that change the fact that they were preyed upon, usually involving some manner of coercion? No. Are the stupid, the foolish, the poor and the starving easier to fool and coerce? Absolutely. Does that make it more wrong? I think so, you seem to disagree. However, I think it is safe to say that it certainly doesn't make it less wrong.
Sure, coercion is obvious at the end of a gun. However, to someone with a 1st grade education, "your family is going to die of starvation, I'll give you two months' wages if you swallow this pill. It might kill you, but your family will live," well, that's coercion. When the cost of a human life is a hundred bucks, which is less than one hour time of a researcher in the U.S., stupendously unethical decisions will be made. Give 'em all HIV and pump 'em full of Yak piss. Hey, it might work. For $100, why not give it a shot?
This is not the arena in which to test anarcho-capitalist libertarianism.
Regulation is precisely what keeps these companies from doing what they are suggesting. That is, they are operating as "common carriers," meaning they have to play well with others. They are trying to become proprietary carriers. Deregulation is what gave us, basically, two or three options. However, it is also what allowed us to give those two or three options the screws. So, we went from Bell to baby-bells in one round and in the second round, instead of going from a handful of baby bells to 400 micro-bells, we went to, basically, Bell and an evil twin (ATT & Verizon). So, that sucked, but at least they had to sell their lines to thousands of leeches like Earthlink and even garage-shops that were reselling service, so when they got difficult we could just say "screw you, I'm removing 60% of the profit from this relationship." You still had to do business with them at some point because they owned the copper/fiber. But, the REGULATIONS forced them to give up their profits when they pissed you off and chose to send your checks to someone else. Your service still sucked and came from the same company, but at least you could pretend and keep a few pennies out of their pockets.
They are trying to regulate themselves out of that little problem. Complete de-regulation, instead of explicitly permitting them to make life difficult for you would simply make it unnecessary to ask permission before screwing you blue. I choose having regulation on my side, rather than just letting an already conglomerated market run around willy nilly where I can "vote with my dollars" between one company and nothing. Yeah, rots a ruck.
Sorry to say, but #1, like it or not, is fairly universally true. However, this should not be interpreted as being looked down upon or devalued. It is a barrier put in place so that users do not turn you into their slaves. If their computer works and has network access, your job is done. This is a GOOD thing.
#2, also, is a good thing. Your job is not to sit through the endless meetings for product evaluations and internal software development. Your job is to make sure that whatever products are selected are compatible with your systems and if not, you make capacity recommendations. After they are purchased, it is your job to ensure they continue to run. Again, it is not your job to determine which products will be purchased and become the de facto 24/7 trainee/trainer. If Betty in accounting can't figure out how to use XYZ software that her boss selected, that's between Betty and her boss, not you. If they chose software because the interface was real perty, but later found out it sucks, that's their problem. If you recommended software that was flawless in functionality, but had an interface Betty couldn't figure out, guess who her boss blames? Hint: It ain't Betty. If the software installs and runs and doesn't take down the network, your job is over, enjoy your coffee and the satisfaction of knowing that Betty is the one getting fired, not you.
#3 may be a function of #1 and #2. To the degree that it is purely a function of keeping the machines running, you have a very clear case. That's a pretty large organization for one person. I've been in companies of only 200-300 people and the IS/IT department was 15-20 strong.
Basically, work within their expectations. Their perception of your department-of-one's duties is a fairly common one, but don't think that model came from management down. It is the result of the inevitable actions of people outside of IS/IT doing things that IS/IT simply does not have the time to support. If you try to insert yourself into that space, you will be crushed under the weight of stupidity -- AND YOU WILL BE BLAMED.
I'm sure you'd be hard-pressed to find people who do not "like" their gasoline or the steel used to make their cars and office buildings.
The thing is, monopolies are not illegal. "Supercompetitive" or not, when one company essentially controls an entire industry, they are a monopoly power. That doesn't necessarily mean they are _abusing_ that power or that their actions are immediately damaging to consumers, arguably the opposite could be true. The point is, the presence of a monopoly power inhibits competition.
That was my original point. Okay, patents inhibit competition. That's great, but so does capitalism itself. So, we broke up the baby bells because it was a monopoly and we had all these independent companies. That lasted about five minutes before all the mergers reduced it to one choice in any area. Same happened with Radio/TV/Cable media. I suppose you could say, well, that's just competition!
Well, think of it like a footrace. The first race is a competition. The winner comes out with the collective strength of all the losers (read: has merged and acquired them). Repeat. How many races does it take before no one bothers entering because there's one runner who is just so danged supercompetitive that you're guaranteed to be lunchmeat?
Competitition is good for consumers, anti-competitive government force is terrible. In the end, we all pay with our pocketbooks (to enforce these legal monopolies) and with our lives (when imperfect drugs/safety devices/whatever can not be perfected by competition). Let's start looking at what made this country great -- open competition.
You seem to be implying that government is the only thing that reduces competition. The bad old days of 100 years ago saw the rise of stifling monopoly powers in every industry. So, sure, patents are broken, but don't think for a second that this country's history is all about "open competition." Quite the opposite. It is a history of constantly fighting the nature of capitalism to destroy competition or at least render it impotent.
I do not think that this gilded age of which you speak ever existed.
...add to that, you don't have to be a "geek" to be a good anything. That label is already an anachronism from a time when the unwashed masses couldn't find the power switch on a TRS-80. The last few jobs I've had, I landed with those who hired me stating point blank that one of the important qualifications was _not_ being a "geek" i.e. social skills are required, perhaps also the ability to show up for a meeting and not be dressed like the janitor and possibly when chatting with the CEO, have something to talk about other than your latest schwag haul from the Star Wars convention. Unless you actually work for "Geek Squad" at Worst Buy, please stop the self-deprecation.
The difference is a product of the "Newt's Words" campaign within the "Contract [with|on]America." It was pure political posturing to align the Republican party as the _correct_ party and the Democratic party as somehow unamerican at odds not just with public opinion but with the very definition of the United States of America. That very well orchestrated and well executed plan was essentially designed with the express intention of turning the United States into a willing single-party state.
They are still at it and it should give people great pause...
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I know, it's just sooooooooooooooooo hard to get in contact with your rep.
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
I must admit, most of the people I hear trumpeting this '[insert aspersion of choice] in Washington' crap have scarcely bothered to contact them, yet have the gall to blame their reps for not representing them. If you're concerned that any rep but _yours_ is ignoring you, well, you suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of how democracy works.
Truly amazing that people expect representative democracy to work when they don't engage their representatives--and it's not like you need to be told how to do so. Chances are, their office is withing f'ing walking distance of your house. If operating pen and paper, telephone or email are all too complex and mysterious for you and you're too lazy to travel a mile to speak in person, I can't imagine what sort of contribution you could possibly make, so it's probably best that you've passively excluded yourself from the process.
I've been using SuSE almost exclusively (as linux distros go, that is) for the last six years or so and just upgraded all my machines to 10. I prefer the GNOME windowmanager, but I've been constantly amazed at how straight-forward their install process is, even for the most timid of people. They've also paid decent attention to making it pretty and, IMHO, their take on the boot/login splash is the most elegant out there, XP and OSX included, and they've carried those graphics into all the system panels--with proper naming and all.
Like I said, I only use windows at work. With SuSE 10, I can get a much more elegant, cleaner, more complete out-of-the-box solution that I can even recommend to the practically illiterate. It's also nice to get "enterprise" things like NIS, LDAP and Kerberos for $0 and not too much trouble and again, with YaST under SuSE 10, setting up NIS is so dead-simple that grandma could probably set it up. Just try to get that under Windows as cheaply and easily. But then, as naming goes, "yppasswd" oh, that's "Yellow Pages-password," which is NIS, but we can't call it "Yellow Pages" anymore because of some British trademark issue, so we've just kept all the programs named "ypxyz" for posterity's sake. See, it's intuitive! Gah!
I don't have a single windows machine at home, but at work, hovering over the MS program icons reveals, oh so unintiutively, verbatim:
-Internet Explorer--Finds and displays information and Web sites on the Internet.
-Microsoft Word--Create and edit text and graphics in letters, reports, Web pages, or email messages by using Microsoft Word.
-Microsoft Excel--Perform calculations, analyze information, and manage lists in spreadsheets or Web pages by using Microsoft Excel.
-Windows Media Player--Plays your digital media including music, videos, CDs, DVDs, and Internet Radio.
-Microsoft Access--Create databases and programs to track and manage your information by using Microsoft Access.
-Microsoft Visio--Create, edit and share diagrams by using Microsoft Visio.
-Microsoft Powerpoint--Create and edit presentations for slide shows, meetings, and Web pages by using Microsoft PowerPoint.
-Microsoft Outlook [Express]--Sends and receives e-mail and newsgroup messages.
Perhaps it was those pesky IT types that went in to set those tooltips, but, either way, it ain't rocket surgery.
That's been bugging me as well, but the fact is, no, the majority of the uses people have for computers, especially in the office, just haven't changed in ten years. Sure, the types that would buy anything with the name "Extreme" will drop a grand for an erg or two more power just for bragging rights, but with everyone else, what's the point when your eleventy billion Ghz processor is idle 99.99999999% of the time?
The simply truth is, necessity is the mother of invention. This seems like a chicken and the egg problem, but it isn't really. We need to get out there and look around, explore, experiment.
Really, $10k/minute rocket rides and "space hotels?" Sure, there's a market for rocketing the egos of billionaires into orbit (arguably, they're already there, so why all the fuss?) and perhaps we can lower that to mere mortal millionaires being blasted into orbiting space hotels... but, necessity? Sure, there's something there for the whims of the top billionth of a percent of the population or for utopian fantasies of an even tinier percent escaping the earth and moving to Mars, but it sure as hell isn't NECESSARY.
Fortunately for us, some people have imaginations.
From the looks of it, the primary purpose of this is to suck a few hundred million dollars of public investment--from NM alone--into the pockets of people who are already richer than royalty and wrapping it all in the science fiction fantasy that everyman will be riding along in this lifetime. I'm all for the idea, but this looks like a right fleecing. Unfortunately, some people lack the imagination to see when they've being conned.
The basic theory *does* require a motivator- the only argument is over what that motivator is.
The problem here is you're defining creation, which science has yet to unravel -- but at least admits to not knowing. There is thus currently no conflict between the notions of vertical causality and theistic creation--you just have an anthropomorphized version of the same idea. The problem comes when science is perfectly willing to say "there was an external cause that we cannot yet fully explain" and religion steps up and says "No, see, the cause was this guy named Hank. I've never seen him, but I know he's there 'cause this guy Carl told me he runs the town and wants to give me a million dollars, but if I don't kiss his ass, he'll beat me up."
Uhm...
You make the absurd assumption that "academics and scientists" are necessarily non-religious. You are deeply wrong. What is incredibly arrogant is that people who self-identify as non-scientist/non-academic are insisting that they know what is and should be considered scientific and/or academic, shoving it down their throats even though there is not a reciprocal attack happening from the scientific/academic corner trying to define what is and is not religious. It is simply insecurity on the part of those attacking science and academia that the results of those imply the absurdity of their closely-held faith-based beliefs.
In short, you're flailing at windmills.
My CAPTCHA for this post was "stoning." Maybe there is a god after all. At least he has a sense of humor.
Christ, why the hell does PDF get people's panties in such a bunch? It has a purpose for which it serves very well--disseminating _final_ documents intended for printed output that are not intended to be edited. Basically, think of it as a 21st Century FAX.
I mean, you might as well say "How dare you send me this bottle of Chateau D'Yquem. I mean, wine in a bottle? Geez, now I need a corkscrew. Why couldn't you send me a box-o-wine so I wouldn't have to go to all this trouble?" Uhm, yeah, you need an extra tool, but really, the difference in quality is probably worth it, but go ahead and guzzle that box wine if you're so attached to that hideous wrapper.
I suppose having correct fonts, layout and pagination regardless of platform or output device must really be bothersome, to say nothing of being free from macros, much less macro viruses.
Seriously, what the hell bugs people so much about PDF?
I'm a staaah, I'm a staaah, I'm a staaah. I'm a big, bright shining staaaah.
...and these are a few of the many reasons why I print to PDF and never, ever, ever send MS Word files.
...their website colors are so !#%@ing ghastly.
Limit libel to natural persons.
Vonage doesn't do regular 911 dialing, but, like, it's almost the same, because your call gets routed to an EOC, which isn't a 911 call center but it's like one, except when it's closed, as it is during certain times of day in certain parts of the country.
...oh, man, the cellphone company equivalent of that has almost driven me to homicide when they try to triage.
Me: "Get me the paramedics."
Them: "Sir, what seems to be the problem."
Me: "I NEED AN AMBULANCE--NOW. Get me the fire department/paramedics."
Them: "Sir, if you could tell me the problem, I'd be happy to route your call.
Me: "I have a man dying in the street. Get me that F@#$%ING FIRE DEPARTMENT! NOW!"
Them: "Sir, calm down, was there a car accident? Should I transfer you to the police?"
Me: "No, goddamnit! I have a man dying on the corner of X and Y and if you don't connect me with the F!@#%ING fire deparment, he'll be dead, it will be your fault, and I'll see to it that we meet in court, now get me the damned paramedics!"
Them: >Click Riiiiing.
Imagine your old, analog, circuit-switched PSTN service sniffed out modem and fax traffic, blocking it so you'd have to buy ISDN service, which would then place a per-page/KB surcharge, even though you were using the _exact_ same amount of resources operating your modems over that network as if simply making a voice call and even though you had no need or use for all the extra equipment you'd need to buy for ISDN, you'd be forced to buy it and the company would have the force of law behind them. GREAT.
Even Vonage is annoying like this. You can do VOIP without any more equipment than your computer already has, but you need to buy their blackbox appliance in order for their proprietary "soft-phone" to work, giving the illusion that the product is far more complex than it really is. It's not even their software--it's F!#%ING FREEWARE--yet they have the cajones to charge $10/month more for the privilege of using it, but they've crippled it so you need their blackbox. Yeah, we need more behavior like that. Worse, we need to codify it in law.
That currently is going on with the wireless companies. It's a bad idea. Period. They're all simply selling bandwidth. Your even the POTS in your home is probably packet-switched within a few feet of your door, and possibly to the distribution block inside your house. If there's any regulation it should be that they be mandated to provide that bandwidth at a specified rate regardless of the arrangement of the bits you throw down the pipe. That wouldn't preclude them from offering you value-added services, but it would force them to actually add value.
They also forgot the solenoid to bang the side of the casing with every keypress like the IBM 5251. Now _that_ was ergonomics. [shudder]
I do not see any reference to that here. Coercion doesn't require anything but that threat of harm is used to persuade. That's it.
/koerss/
u k
coerce
verb persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats.
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/coerce?view=
Coercion by definition requires the threat of physical harm. I am not currently under threat of physical harm, so someone offering me to risk death in order to feed my [non-existent] family for a couple months would not be coercing me--they'd be tempting my greed. That is not the same thing. Whether people are stupid or imprudent or whatever does not change what is going on with the other side of the offer. If there is any threat of physical harm for not accepting an offer, whether by omission or commission, that is coercion.
If you think coercion is a-okay, just say so. I find it ethically problematic, though obviously it happens every day, and yes, it happens to stupid people and intelligent people, prudent and imprudent alike. Film and eleven.
See: live organ donor trade.
Is the donor foolish? Usually, yes. Very. Does that change the fact that they were preyed upon, usually involving some manner of coercion? No. Are the stupid, the foolish, the poor and the starving easier to fool and coerce? Absolutely. Does that make it more wrong? I think so, you seem to disagree. However, I think it is safe to say that it certainly doesn't make it less wrong.
Sure, coercion is obvious at the end of a gun. However, to someone with a 1st grade education, "your family is going to die of starvation, I'll give you two months' wages if you swallow this pill. It might kill you, but your family will live," well, that's coercion. When the cost of a human life is a hundred bucks, which is less than one hour time of a researcher in the U.S., stupendously unethical decisions will be made. Give 'em all HIV and pump 'em full of Yak piss. Hey, it might work. For $100, why not give it a shot?
This is not the arena in which to test anarcho-capitalist libertarianism.
You - are - deluded.
Regulation is precisely what keeps these companies from doing what they are suggesting. That is, they are operating as "common carriers," meaning they have to play well with others. They are trying to become proprietary carriers. Deregulation is what gave us, basically, two or three options. However, it is also what allowed us to give those two or three options the screws. So, we went from Bell to baby-bells in one round and in the second round, instead of going from a handful of baby bells to 400 micro-bells, we went to, basically, Bell and an evil twin (ATT & Verizon). So, that sucked, but at least they had to sell their lines to thousands of leeches like Earthlink and even garage-shops that were reselling service, so when they got difficult we could just say "screw you, I'm removing 60% of the profit from this relationship." You still had to do business with them at some point because they owned the copper/fiber. But, the REGULATIONS forced them to give up their profits when they pissed you off and chose to send your checks to someone else. Your service still sucked and came from the same company, but at least you could pretend and keep a few pennies out of their pockets.
They are trying to regulate themselves out of that little problem. Complete de-regulation, instead of explicitly permitting them to make life difficult for you would simply make it unnecessary to ask permission before screwing you blue. I choose having regulation on my side, rather than just letting an already conglomerated market run around willy nilly where I can "vote with my dollars" between one company and nothing. Yeah, rots a ruck.
Sorry to say, but #1, like it or not, is fairly universally true. However, this should not be interpreted as being looked down upon or devalued. It is a barrier put in place so that users do not turn you into their slaves. If their computer works and has network access, your job is done. This is a GOOD thing.
#2, also, is a good thing. Your job is not to sit through the endless meetings for product evaluations and internal software development. Your job is to make sure that whatever products are selected are compatible with your systems and if not, you make capacity recommendations. After they are purchased, it is your job to ensure they continue to run. Again, it is not your job to determine which products will be purchased and become the de facto 24/7 trainee/trainer. If Betty in accounting can't figure out how to use XYZ software that her boss selected, that's between Betty and her boss, not you. If they chose software because the interface was real perty, but later found out it sucks, that's their problem. If you recommended software that was flawless in functionality, but had an interface Betty couldn't figure out, guess who her boss blames? Hint: It ain't Betty. If the software installs and runs and doesn't take down the network, your job is over, enjoy your coffee and the satisfaction of knowing that Betty is the one getting fired, not you.
#3 may be a function of #1 and #2. To the degree that it is purely a function of keeping the machines running, you have a very clear case. That's a pretty large organization for one person. I've been in companies of only 200-300 people and the IS/IT department was 15-20 strong.
Basically, work within their expectations. Their perception of your department-of-one's duties is a fairly common one, but don't think that model came from management down. It is the result of the inevitable actions of people outside of IS/IT doing things that IS/IT simply does not have the time to support. If you try to insert yourself into that space, you will be crushed under the weight of stupidity -- AND YOU WILL BE BLAMED.
I'm sure you'd be hard-pressed to find people who do not "like" their gasoline or the steel used to make their cars and office buildings.
The thing is, monopolies are not illegal. "Supercompetitive" or not, when one company essentially controls an entire industry, they are a monopoly power. That doesn't necessarily mean they are _abusing_ that power or that their actions are immediately damaging to consumers, arguably the opposite could be true. The point is, the presence of a monopoly power inhibits competition.
That was my original point. Okay, patents inhibit competition. That's great, but so does capitalism itself. So, we broke up the baby bells because it was a monopoly and we had all these independent companies. That lasted about five minutes before all the mergers reduced it to one choice in any area. Same happened with Radio/TV/Cable media. I suppose you could say, well, that's just competition!
Well, think of it like a footrace. The first race is a competition. The winner comes out with the collective strength of all the losers (read: has merged and acquired them). Repeat. How many races does it take before no one bothers entering because there's one runner who is just so danged supercompetitive that you're guaranteed to be lunchmeat?
Competitition is good for consumers, anti-competitive government force is terrible. In the end, we all pay with our pocketbooks (to enforce these legal monopolies) and with our lives (when imperfect drugs/safety devices/whatever can not be perfected by competition). Let's start looking at what made this country great -- open competition.
You seem to be implying that government is the only thing that reduces competition. The bad old days of 100 years ago saw the rise of stifling monopoly powers in every industry.
So, sure, patents are broken, but don't think for a second that this country's history is all about "open competition." Quite the opposite. It is a history of constantly fighting the nature of capitalism to destroy competition or at least render it impotent.
I do not think that this gilded age of which you speak ever existed.
...add to that, you don't have to be a "geek" to be a good anything. That label is already an anachronism from a time when the unwashed masses couldn't find the power switch on a TRS-80. The last few jobs I've had, I landed with those who hired me stating point blank that one of the important qualifications was _not_ being a "geek" i.e. social skills are required, perhaps also the ability to show up for a meeting and not be dressed like the janitor and possibly when chatting with the CEO, have something to talk about other than your latest schwag haul from the Star Wars convention. Unless you actually work for "Geek Squad" at Worst Buy, please stop the self-deprecation.
The difference is a product of the "Newt's Words" campaign within the "Contract [with|on]America." It was pure political posturing to align the Republican party as the _correct_ party and the Democratic party as somehow unamerican at odds not just with public opinion but with the very definition of the United States of America. That very well orchestrated and well executed plan was essentially designed with the express intention of turning the United States into a willing single-party state.
They are still at it and it should give people great pause...