Coming from working about 15 of my 20 years in the Air Force as a programmer/designer/configuration manager/dba/tester (one AFSC (MOS for the Army readers) covers all aspects of programming) I'm now a QA tester for a medical software house. I'll be 45 next March and while the company really can't afford to pay me what they consider my worth they still pay a hell of a lot more than I made in the military.
Anyway, back to the point at hand... I get into many disagreements with my current manager over the amount of time we have for development and testing and what we really need. The key thing I discovered while in the military was how to disagree with tact.
And...after working for a "company" where quality was more important than quantity or speed of coding I'm finding I have to compromise with my testing. I don't like it, but as my manager explained it to me one day if we take the time to make it 100% someone else will beat us to the customers. So the concept is get it to the best you can as fast as you can so someone buys your software. Even an old Air Force guy can figure that out...especially since I like to eat.:-)
Back to your original question...When you get to that "magic age" you move on to another position. They can teach any young kid how to program but it takes talent and experience to define the requirements, design the change, and test the code. My experience as a programmer is one of the reasons I'm an excellent tester. Besides... I like breaking things.;-)
I can't honestly say I'm suprised, this is Blizzard after all. They really don't care about the players, only how many games they can sell. In the free world of Diablo II people had their accounts frozen for using a program to disable the Windows Key...do it too many times and they permanently ban you...and they don't ban you by the registration code, they ban you by the IP address so if there's two people playing from the house and one person gets banned then everyone gets banned.
Blizzard has no real customer service, once you bought the game to them it's as if you cease to exist. One of the reasons I stopped playing Diablo II and one of the reasons I'll probably not buy any of their games in the future...
Sorry they did that...I can definitely understand as I always go for the same username if I can too.
Obviously you work at a non-salary job...Here in the salaried world (courtesy of Uncle George Senior) working overtime is a privelege given to the masses out of the goodness of the company's heart. "Compensation?? But we pay you very well already! You should be glad to work the extra hours to justify your salary!"
Here in the company world I'm expected to put in 50 hours a week minimum and should expect to put in between 55 and 75 hours a week because if I don't the company isn't successful...and we want the company to be successful don't we?
Damned if it doesn't start sounding like the old Paranoia RPG...just substitute Company for Computer and College Students for the Clones and you've got just about got the game...
The last time people were worked like this (expectation wise at least) was back in the Early Industrial Age in Britain and American...back before all the lovely Equal Opportunity Laws and the laws protecting children. Oh...and if you don't like working the extra hours there are plenty of people looking for jobs that will work them...and that has been said many times in my company.
I think it would be better said that the Consitution applies to public areas and this is a private one, that being a private school's policies. The school doesn't have to be religious backed either, just a private school.
It applies to free speech in the same way is applies to peaceably assembling... Simply assembling in a location is not guaranteed, you have to do it within the guidelines of the local authorities which usually means notifying the local law enforcement and abiding by thier decision if they say you need a parade permit.
You in fact do have the right top speak freely everywhere and anywhere you are, you simply have to accept there may be certain concequences. If you really feel the need to shout Fire in a crowded theater then you have best be ready to face up to the repercussions...oh, and saying it's protected by the consitution isn't going to get you anything butt labled a smarta$$. Just remember there's a difference between Free Speech and Socially Acceptable Free Speech.
Oh...the last comment is actually not true. The Federal Government, via the courts, does get to review all of those items but that review only happens when they get challenged in the courts not before.
I seriously doubt they care about the physical key...they just want to disable the alarm and engine shutoff switch.
I'd say any vehicle thief that needed a copy of the physical key before the act was one that got caught the first time he/she tried to steal the vehicle.
This is true, but the RED HORSE units do not deal with demolitions...just heavy machinery.
And while I'm sure they could get the job done with the equipment they still have to find a landing strip to unload the C-5's, C-17's, and C-130's. Much as I am loathe to admit it they just can't compete with a helicopter assault for speed.
Oh, and the A-10 is a nice idea and highly maneuverable but even it can't compete with something that can hover.
Since many of the Soviet documents have been made public, they should be available on the web somewhere. If they are it might help quash all the arguments. As for the other documentation you are referring to a lot of those should be available under the FOA and probably aren't because no one has asked about them. Right now it's interesting history without much intelligence value so there really isn't a great (documented) need to keep them classified.
Senator McCarthy was involved in a witch hunt, nothing more nothing less. If he had accurate information it's because the people he got it from were reliable and knew it to be correct, but in the long run he wasn't really that interested in accurate information...just in what he could use to advance his own objectives and career.
That's not entirely true. Unions do have a place in the modern world just not in certain industry sectors. No...I'm not a union weenie and probably wouldn't belong to one if it existed in the software industry but the "blue collar" jobs do need somebody to make sure they aren't worked to the bone then left along the wayside.
Personally I blame the lack of overtime on the Bush administration. The Republicans in Congress and the President pushed the bill through stopping overtime for "white collar" non-management workers. If they had not done that at the urging of the Corporate world this would not be an issue right now.
So everyone that voted to keep them in office pat yourselves on the back right now, you helped make this a reality.
Just out of curiosity why is it necessary to store them in common? I've worked with lots of different tracking systems that were on a different platform than the code and I don't see the issue with it other than personal preference. In some cases the code wasn't even on the same system as the executables generated from the compile, we had to cross compile from one system to produce for a different one and the bug tracking was performed on a third platform.
Ignorance is Strength is also preferred by those trying to get the majority to do what they want. If you're ignorant of important events you are most likely to believe what those in power want you to believe.
Getting sort of Orwellian isn't it...
Remember...The Administration is your friend and you always beleive your friends. Failure to believe the Administration is punishable by re-election....
I'm deeply impressed by your level of intellect...You've taken the concept of nit picking to an entirely new dimension.
Perhaps you should set an example by learning to use both proper grammar and sentence structure when slamming someone else and by actually signing your own work instead of hiding behind Anonymous Coward.
The decline in the education system over the years certainly has a tremendous impact in this area but I feel it also has a lot to do with the trend to ship the jobs overseas. It started with manual labor jobs and has slowly worked it's way to the tech jobs.
I'm not against sending the jobs overseas even though it's probably going to impact me personally very soon (I'm a software tester) but with that happening there's little incentive to learn the tech jobs and with the current trend of patent and sue why try to innovate? Pretty soon someone is going to patent life and charge us all a fee to continue living.
"PC titles will become ports." Umm...let's think about that. Since the X-Box basically is a PC and the Playstation is basically a PC running Windows CE...well the PS-1 is at least...what's the difference?
We're pretty much getting down to a marketing ploy to sell games... new consoles = PC's without the flexibility of a PC, now why in the world would anyone want to buy that? I'd rather keep the PC and have the best of both worlds...if the game companies don't want to market a PC version then I really don't need the game...
Or on a more worldwide scale you forgot the London Bridge. I've seen pictures of the buildings on the old London Bridge, if there had been building codes then perhaps the fire there never would have occured.
Oh, and a lot of those homes built on beaches, cliffs, floodplains, etc...were built to standards, so the existence or lack of standards doesn't guarantee a thing. People will be people and will make bad decisions.
Purely in the interest of standards, I for one am glad there are building codes so I can be sure of the wiring and plumbing of my house being built...
A interesting point about the outsourcing issues...my parent company decided to outsource almost all of the software testing jobs to India...or did they...According to the official propaganda they didn't outsource any jobs, they simply created a company office in India and hired employees.
Quite an interesting viewpoint don't you think?
Actually RTF is a standard, it's just the implementation of the standard being made probably isn't very complete. RTF by the way is a standard that was created for the Navy as an alternative format to the MS DOC format so that cross compatability would not be an issue between the different word processors the Navy used at the time.
Where I'm at the jobs all seem to pay nearly the same (ie. either get paid or not at all) so a deciding factor for me would have to be working conditions and job satisfaction.
Right now I work for a place that has good job satisfaction but the conditions aren't the best...and our parent company is even worse...
I'm not looking yet though... bad work is better than no work...
The only thing I didn't like was the wired everything they seemed to have in the ship...I know they wanted to emphasize the fact that it was old fashioned and that was what saved them from the emp pulse but hey...wired comlinks that look like huge bricks?? Not a very good idea... especially with all the rest of the high tech.
I'm sorry...I guess I should have clarified...I should have said the Air Force is stopping using them. Mainly because they don't work for long when they do work and that Dell, when purposefully told to ship all 150 desktop machines with the same configuration decided we wouldn't notice.
"Hmm....Yes, now that you mention it a Celeron 500 looks a lot like a Celeron 333 in this light."
I had a Dell laptop at my last job (after retiring frrom the AF)...Dropping would be a good name for it. All the manpower in the world doesn't help when you deal with Dell.
Oh...and the tour before my last we bought 85 nice new Dells to be used as workstations at our sim center...half didn't work when first powered up.
So...keep on dropping those Dells...maybe they'll fall on top of Saddam or Osama and do something useful for a change.
I'd be curious to find out how much money has been deposited into the re-election accounts for these three. Maybe the people in each state affected should write and find out.
It's a sad thing to acknowledge the death of a democracy...especially when it's being replaced by government by the highest bidder.
I bet there'll be a lot of people doing the same, the problem I see so far is the MPAA and the Television companies haven't figured that out yet. I already miss most of the shows I am slightly interested in because I don't pay enough attention to the day of the week closely enough to turn on the TV let alone the VCR. If this regulation goes into effect I'll watch even less...
I've voiced my opinion at the FCC website and I think everyone else should do the same.
So far the comments I've read are missing the point to this whole change in the regulations...
"The MPAA agrees that the system only begins to attack the piracy problem. Making analog copies is another huge problem that the industry wants to prevent through legislation or regulation."
What's going to happen is they are going to make it impossible for you to use any device to record the shows you are missing because it's inconvenient to be home to watch them. I'm surprised the cable industry is taking this so well because that means their "new" in house recorders they are pushing won't work either...
We had this argument years ago with the use of VCR's and the MPAA let it go because the movies weren't of the same quality. Now with HDTV we're going to lose the right to copy anything for later viewing.
If she has said his job depends on him doing it and he has some proof then he has a leg to stand on, otherwise I agree with a lot of others...start looking for another job. Either that or keep puttin it off until she commits to saying his job depends on it and then he has her.
Problem is he still might not get his contract renewed...
Does he work for another corporation or for himself...if he works for a corporation have him contact his HR folks for the best solution...
Slashdot Mirror
Coming from working about 15 of my 20 years in the Air Force as a programmer/designer/configuration manager/dba/tester (one AFSC (MOS for the Army readers) covers all aspects of programming) I'm now a QA tester for a medical software house. I'll be 45 next March and while the company really can't afford to pay me what they consider my worth they still pay a hell of a lot more than I made in the military.
:-)
;-)
Anyway, back to the point at hand... I get into many disagreements with my current manager over the amount of time we have for development and testing and what we really need. The key thing I discovered while in the military was how to disagree with tact.
And...after working for a "company" where quality was more important than quantity or speed of coding I'm finding I have to compromise with my testing. I don't like it, but as my manager explained it to me one day if we take the time to make it 100% someone else will beat us to the customers. So the concept is get it to the best you can as fast as you can so someone buys your software. Even an old Air Force guy can figure that out...especially since I like to eat.
Back to your original question...When you get to that "magic age" you move on to another position. They can teach any young kid how to program but it takes talent and experience to define the requirements, design the change, and test the code. My experience as a programmer is one of the reasons I'm an excellent tester. Besides... I like breaking things.
I can't honestly say I'm suprised, this is Blizzard after all. They really don't care about the players, only how many games they can sell. In the free world of Diablo II people had their accounts frozen for using a program to disable the Windows Key...do it too many times and they permanently ban you...and they don't ban you by the registration code, they ban you by the IP address so if there's two people playing from the house and one person gets banned then everyone gets banned.
Blizzard has no real customer service, once you bought the game to them it's as if you cease to exist. One of the reasons I stopped playing Diablo II and one of the reasons I'll probably not buy any of their games in the future...
Sorry they did that...I can definitely understand as I always go for the same username if I can too.
I think you missed the sarcasm...
Obviously you work at a non-salary job...Here in the salaried world (courtesy of Uncle George Senior) working overtime is a privelege given to the masses out of the goodness of the company's heart. "Compensation?? But we pay you very well already! You should be glad to work the extra hours to justify your salary!"
Here in the company world I'm expected to put in 50 hours a week minimum and should expect to put in between 55 and 75 hours a week because if I don't the company isn't successful...and we want the company to be successful don't we?
Damned if it doesn't start sounding like the old Paranoia RPG...just substitute Company for Computer and College Students for the Clones and you've got just about got the game...
The last time people were worked like this (expectation wise at least) was back in the Early Industrial Age in Britain and American...back before all the lovely Equal Opportunity Laws and the laws protecting children. Oh...and if you don't like working the extra hours there are plenty of people looking for jobs that will work them...and that has been said many times in my company.
I think it would be better said that the Consitution applies to public areas and this is a private one, that being a private school's policies. The school doesn't have to be religious backed either, just a private school.
It applies to free speech in the same way is applies to peaceably assembling... Simply assembling in a location is not guaranteed, you have to do it within the guidelines of the local authorities which usually means notifying the local law enforcement and abiding by thier decision if they say you need a parade permit.
You in fact do have the right top speak freely everywhere and anywhere you are, you simply have to accept there may be certain concequences. If you really feel the need to shout Fire in a crowded theater then you have best be ready to face up to the repercussions...oh, and saying it's protected by the consitution isn't going to get you anything butt labled a smarta$$. Just remember there's a difference between Free Speech and Socially Acceptable Free Speech.
Oh...the last comment is actually not true. The Federal Government, via the courts, does get to review all of those items but that review only happens when they get challenged in the courts not before.
I seriously doubt they care about the physical key...they just want to disable the alarm and engine shutoff switch.
I'd say any vehicle thief that needed a copy of the physical key before the act was one that got caught the first time he/she tried to steal the vehicle.
This is true, but the RED HORSE units do not deal with demolitions...just heavy machinery.
And while I'm sure they could get the job done with the equipment they still have to find a landing strip to unload the C-5's, C-17's, and C-130's. Much as I am loathe to admit it they just can't compete with a helicopter assault for speed.
Oh, and the A-10 is a nice idea and highly maneuverable but even it can't compete with something that can hover.
(USAF, Ret.)
Since many of the Soviet documents have been made public, they should be available on the web somewhere. If they are it might help quash all the arguments. As for the other documentation you are referring to a lot of those should be available under the FOA and probably aren't because no one has asked about them. Right now it's interesting history without much intelligence value so there really isn't a great (documented) need to keep them classified.
Senator McCarthy was involved in a witch hunt, nothing more nothing less. If he had accurate information it's because the people he got it from were reliable and knew it to be correct, but in the long run he wasn't really that interested in accurate information...just in what he could use to advance his own objectives and career.
Good point, but let's not forget all the wonderful ad ware that gets installed when you visit a website...
I'm sure Microsoft could do something about that if they wanted to, but their new pop-up blocker really doesn't help all that much.
That's not entirely true. Unions do have a place in the modern world just not in certain industry sectors. No...I'm not a union weenie and probably wouldn't belong to one if it existed in the software industry but the "blue collar" jobs do need somebody to make sure they aren't worked to the bone then left along the wayside.
Personally I blame the lack of overtime on the Bush administration. The Republicans in Congress and the President pushed the bill through stopping overtime for "white collar" non-management workers. If they had not done that at the urging of the Corporate world this would not be an issue right now.
So everyone that voted to keep them in office pat yourselves on the back right now, you helped make this a reality.
Just out of curiosity why is it necessary to store them in common? I've worked with lots of different tracking systems that were on a different platform than the code and I don't see the issue with it other than personal preference. In some cases the code wasn't even on the same system as the executables generated from the compile, we had to cross compile from one system to produce for a different one and the bug tracking was performed on a third platform.
Ignorance is Strength is also preferred by those trying to get the majority to do what they want. If you're ignorant of important events you are most likely to believe what those in power want you to believe.
Getting sort of Orwellian isn't it...
Remember...The Administration is your friend and you always beleive your friends. Failure to believe the Administration is punishable by re-election....
(with apologies to Paranoia...)
I'm deeply impressed by your level of intellect...You've taken the concept of nit picking to an entirely new dimension.
Perhaps you should set an example by learning to use both proper grammar and sentence structure when slamming someone else and by actually signing your own work instead of hiding behind Anonymous Coward.
"as distinct from?" Please...
The decline in the education system over the years certainly has a tremendous impact in this area but I feel it also has a lot to do with the trend to ship the jobs overseas. It started with manual labor jobs and has slowly worked it's way to the tech jobs.
I'm not against sending the jobs overseas even though it's probably going to impact me personally very soon (I'm a software tester) but with that happening there's little incentive to learn the tech jobs and with the current trend of patent and sue why try to innovate?
Pretty soon someone is going to patent life and charge us all a fee to continue living.
(sarcasm implied)
"PC titles will become ports." Umm...let's think about that. Since the X-Box basically is a PC and the Playstation is basically a PC running Windows CE...well the PS-1 is at least...what's the difference?
We're pretty much getting down to a marketing ploy to sell games... new consoles = PC's without the flexibility of a PC, now why in the world would anyone want to buy that? I'd rather keep the PC and have the best of both worlds...if the game companies don't want to market a PC version then I really don't need the game...
Or on a more worldwide scale you forgot the London Bridge. I've seen pictures of the buildings on the old London Bridge, if there had been building codes then perhaps the fire there never would have occured.
Oh, and a lot of those homes built on beaches, cliffs, floodplains, etc...were built to standards, so the existence or lack of standards doesn't guarantee a thing. People will be people and will make bad decisions.
Purely in the interest of standards, I for one am glad there are building codes so I can be sure of the wiring and plumbing of my house being built...
A interesting point about the outsourcing issues...my parent company decided to outsource almost all of the software testing jobs to India...or did they...According to the official propaganda they didn't outsource any jobs, they simply created a company office in India and hired employees. Quite an interesting viewpoint don't you think?
Actually RTF is a standard, it's just the implementation of the standard being made probably isn't very complete. RTF by the way is a standard that was created for the Navy as an alternative format to the MS DOC format so that cross compatability would not be an issue between the different word processors the Navy used at the time.
Where I'm at the jobs all seem to pay nearly the same (ie. either get paid or not at all) so a deciding factor for me would have to be working conditions and job satisfaction. Right now I work for a place that has good job satisfaction but the conditions aren't the best...and our parent company is even worse... I'm not looking yet though... bad work is better than no work...
The only thing I didn't like was the wired everything they seemed to have in the ship...I know they wanted to emphasize the fact that it was old fashioned and that was what saved them from the emp pulse but hey...wired comlinks that look like huge bricks?? Not a very good idea... especially with all the rest of the high tech.
I'm sorry...I guess I should have clarified...I should have said the Air Force is stopping using them. Mainly because they don't work for long when they do work and that Dell, when purposefully told to ship all 150 desktop machines with the same configuration decided we wouldn't notice. "Hmm....Yes, now that you mention it a Celeron 500 looks a lot like a Celeron 333 in this light." I had a Dell laptop at my last job (after retiring frrom the AF)...Dropping would be a good name for it. All the manpower in the world doesn't help when you deal with Dell. Oh...and the tour before my last we bought 85 nice new Dells to be used as workstations at our sim center...half didn't work when first powered up. So...keep on dropping those Dells...maybe they'll fall on top of Saddam or Osama and do something useful for a change.
So Mr. Computer Expert, do you remove the spyware that comes preinstalled?
If you wanted quality you wouldn't recommend Dell, the Military stopped using them for a reason you know...
I'd be curious to find out how much money has been deposited into the re-election accounts for these three. Maybe the people in each state affected should write and find out. It's a sad thing to acknowledge the death of a democracy...especially when it's being replaced by government by the highest bidder.
I've voiced my opinion at the FCC website and I think everyone else should do the same.
So far the comments I've read are missing the point to this whole change in the regulations...
"The MPAA agrees that the system only begins to attack the piracy problem. Making analog copies is another huge problem that the industry wants to prevent through legislation or regulation."
What's going to happen is they are going to make it impossible for you to use any device to record the shows you are missing because it's inconvenient to be home to watch them. I'm surprised the cable industry is taking this so well because that means their "new" in house recorders they are pushing won't work either... We had this argument years ago with the use of VCR's and the MPAA let it go because the movies weren't of the same quality. Now with HDTV we're going to lose the right to copy anything for later viewing.
If she has said his job depends on him doing it and he has some proof then he has a leg to stand on, otherwise I agree with a lot of others...start looking for another job. Either that or keep puttin it off until she commits to saying his job depends on it and then he has her. Problem is he still might not get his contract renewed... Does he work for another corporation or for himself...if he works for a corporation have him contact his HR folks for the best solution...