If Nissan is so interested in the vehicle and what it is that attracts owners, perhaps they should do like Consumer Reports and just buy one. Get a team of their engineers together and do a non-destructive "consumer level review" of the car. Emails from owners to a company fishing for information is one thing - but to have an actual car to analyze and see where the "bar has been set" is best.
If they want to beat the competition, they have to actually acquire the information the old fashioned way. Then just as importantly - make a conscious decision to NOT make something that falls short.
In other words - make a system that is naturally easier to use and user-centric - don't go all "Cadillac" and come up with some un-holy interface that just pisses off your customer base. Every time you see a device that hits the market that totally misses the mark of your customer, maybe you should fire the idiots designing your product and get people that f**king listen to the customers.
Even if I was getting free charging, the business is most likely not going to cover the reduced life the batteries - which is probably more in the long run than the benefit of free charging.
I probably wouldn't get an electric-only car anyway if the round-trip range of home to/from work wasn't within one nightly charge cycle...
Spies don't have to crack them if they're financial based businesses like banks. Every time the IRS expresses an "interest" in the account information, they roll over on their backs. I would expect no less from them if any other three letter agency wanted more information, especially if any of those "interests" involved doing business with the US.
To each his own. I understand the AC's sentiment, but as a contractor/consultant writing EDI applications and interfaces for healthcare entities? Well I understand it. It also depends on the customer you work with/for. If they are easy to work with, give clear specifications and don't treat every checkpoint meeting as a hostile engagement, I'll bend over backwards and cut them slack - especially if what they want is in my "bag of tricks" that I already wrote 90% of before.
If however they are a complete ass-hat, and spend more time dealing with the "adminsitrivia" of lines-of-code to payment-time ratio, then I will bleed them. Usually though it never gets that far - because I find out soon after the Proof of Concept they're ass-hats, charge my time for that and politely decline the offer to work for them. Or as was the case with a specific high-end university hospital in Sacramento, they transferred me out of a really good group that I worked well with, to another mid-level micro-manager who had a project manager that couldn't find his butt cheeks if he sat on his hands and groped really hard. Within two weeks I was like, "Thanks for the opportunity - but I'm choosing other directions" and bade them adieu in the form of a 30-day contract cancellation notice. She was such a caustic manager, that when I went to close out certain complex tasks to hand over to her people - she immediately severed my logins and said "stay away", causing her own team to suffer for it - badly. I still helped them the best I could remotely over email - but she also was one of those idiots that didn't appreciate the complexity of some of what I did and learned the hard way.
I digress, sorry....:-)
And yes - I totally get people who minimize the complexities of designing a website. I deal with 99% of the backend data conversion, writing the communication channels to trade data (HL7, X12, XML) on the back side, data-conversions, filtering, scrubbing, etc. I leave other people to make it all look pretty. My hat is off to you - I couldn't build a decent SITE to save my life. A super-simple data entry PAGE that serves as part of a workflow? Sure - but even that makes my head hurt sometimes depending on what I am supposed to code it in...:-)
I would agree with this. I am a consultant/programmer in the medical technical field that works with all manner of EDI tools and the like, making sure that patient data for various hospitals is communicated correctly and accurately between various healthcare systems. I have had to wear the varied hats of programmer, analyst, manager, documentation specialist, trainer, mentor, troubleshooter, network specialist, and a whole slew of "titles" - all of which simply mean that If I don't know how to do something - I can figure it out.
I however do not have a degree. I didn't particularly care for school growing up for various reasons, but what I did have was a knack for figuring stuff out and truly enjoying making things work. Personally with all of the online learning opportunities available I think I would enjoy going back - so getting a degree (or multiple degrees) is certainly a future possibility.
But that aside - it also means with no degree I am pretty much blocked by any/all opportunities from a cold-call perspective; as my resume, regardless of having a myriad of demonstrable skills and domain knowledge, wouldn't even pass the first educational filter to get to a human being. If I were to stay in the same niche field? That would be far easier than were I to try something completely different.
I at least make up for not having a degree by having built a network of contacts in my industry, having many positive client references - and the fact that EDI in healthcare is such a niche market, that consultants pretty much know each other in many respects. I was in the right place at the right time and ran with it with everything I had.
I do wonder sometimes if the ability still exists for younger people who starting out like I did with no degree - can make it as far or farther than I have as a general rule. I'd like to think so. I think it's still as much "who you know" as it is "what you know" that gets your foot in the door... But note that I said "gets your foot in the door". You might be a great people person but know absolutely diddly about actually doing the job...
Doing a total armchair quarterback thing, I would think an EMP would be pretty heavy itself? Then again, my vision of an EMP is hollywood-esque drama with an EMP as some giant magnet fitting in a bread truck surrounded by glowing blue neon... or something...
That and I can't help but think that even though the drones are built by the lowest bidder, that there isn't some sort of faraday cage around the most critical control parts - but again, I am clueless on how tightly you'd have to wrap something like that and still allow it to be remote piloted...
Neat idea though, nonetheless. If an EMP payload could be small and cheap enough - cool. Or maybe something like a compressed air shank with a REALLY long streamer tied to it causing serious drag as it unfolds; or a really long nylon drogue parachute? Might not take it down, but its mission will be cut short trying to make it home with all that extra drag.
For DIY I would be more inclined to go low-tech and get some ball-bearings in the turbine intake first:-) Or be like Hawk in the old Buck Rogers show and make a drone with claws that just clamps on it making its glide ratio be more closely aligned with a pig, or a really large turkey:-)
Admittedly though - EMP has that whole "Hey KITT - hit it with your microwave pulse" feel to it:-)
I still think the disablement part is easy once the interceptor gets to it - it's GETTING TO IT I think is the more difficult issue...
That would be my first thought. But considering the relative advances in the private hobbyist sector with drones, navigation, etc.?
It probably wouldn't be beyond the realm of conceivability that some smart ass "Engineer In A Garage" doesn't build a guided model rocket with visual or other acquisition tech with off-the-shelf technology - and at least manages to splash the thing with paint. No high-explosive - just a way to say "You've been pwned!"
Of course when that magical moment it dies down and this guy finds himself in Gitmo forgetting all about what it means to be human, we know who wins in the end...
Maybe put your work phone on your desk, forward calls using Google voice to your personal cell phone. Problem solved on the occasion when you need to sneak out, maybe?..I'm sure those brainiacs already covered that possibility?
Correct. Now that you know the truth, here are some options:
1 - Work as a freelance W-2 or 1099 worker. Build a reputation of doing good work, and you'll always find projects.
2 - Train yourself. Hit the books, snarf source code and figure stuff out. Do Open Source projects you can point to. Run a small web server that showcases your skills. Put up some Web Service API's that do some cool things. Take all of the costs of that off on your taxes as a business or unreimbursed employee expense.
3 - Custom tailor a resume to fit any job description you're looking for - and keep a library of them handy. Don't bullshit them in an interview - if you put it on the resume and you're just learning it - be honest. Tell them "I have that there because I am learning it on my own time, and frankly I wanted the word search of your resume engine to get a hit so I have a chance to show you." An eagerness to learn and self-starting examples speak VOLUMES of the kind of employee they would get.
The best way to take advantage of that gap is be a freelance W-2 or 1099 worker for a number of companies. If you're good and provide good results and people like you, you'll never be out of work.
The whole 'but I want a permanent job where I can have "stability"' is a self deluded crock of crap. There *is no stability*. The distance between a company letting go of the contractors and then slicing their own employees is almost an imperceptible, razor-thin line. Also being a free-lance consultant does one thing that being an "employee" does not - it lets you get paid for EVERY SINGLE HOUR YOU WORK. None of this 80 hour/week death march crap where you work for literally half of your salary where the company profits on every hour and you do not. You work 80? You get paid 80. Save for the times you don't have a contract and it's a win/win all around.
Oh, and the myth about companies keeping your skills current - whole new rant - They don't. You need to do that yourself and take all your training stuff off on your taxes as unreimbursed employee or business expenses.
I agree. One way to get a jump start on this is to become either a freelance W-2 contractor (or 1099 - but W-2 is easier to find due to liability concerns for subcontracting) and snag one or two good clients that you can work for remotely. I do hospital systems integration and have an elderly parent to care for (lives 10 minutes away). Working remote offers me the ability to still deliver excellent service at any hour, and not have to live out of a suitcase.
The trouble is, a lot of dinosaurs still inhabit middle management. They feel that if they can't see you warming a chair in a cube-farm, you're not working. Sadly they fear things like webcams and Skype. Even sadder, most times I usually got more work done in those situations when I could work from the hotel room later at night with fewer interruptions.
It also helps that I am in a niche market of healthcare where a lot of "whiz-bang kids" and all users of the new flavors-of-the-day high tech buzzword compliant crap think EDI and medical interfacing is "boring" - but I work to live, not the other way around and make damn good money at it. I'm also weird in that I actually enjoy it.
For those potential clients sitting on a fence about it, I offer them one free interface remotely. If they don't like my work, I walk away. Every time I explain that their dollars are better spent toward actual deliverables instead of paying travel, room and board for a bunch of laptop carrying suit-monkeys they usually try me out and keep using me.
And for those people saying, "well they can just offshore you", they're right. However, please keep in mind that I do good work and can communicate effectively with the client. I am affable, pleasant, and deliver what I say. I also have worked in healthcare and hospitals for 20+ years and KNOW their business intimately. Workers in India with really thick accents named "Sarah" and "Bob" can only compete with me on money. In healthcare, thankfully, accuracy, depth of knowledge of both the business and workflow, and the ability to work with a team means as much if not more than money. My repeat business is more than I can usually take on comfortably.
Working from home just takes a willingness to be available MORE often until the manager is comfortable. Let me say this - as remote technologies improve to enable extended work distances, clients embrace the use of Skype, webcams and WebEx, and more of these 50's style babysitting managerial-goons die off and retire, more opportunities to work remotely will appear. The best advice I can give really has nothing to do with working remotely - save money for the times you don't have work and for the love of all that is Holy - LIVE BELOW YOUR MEANS!
They do this here in Albuquerque. I got a couple of quotes based on whether I use poly or mono crystalline panels, different rebates, costs, etc - and just as you said - the price was jacked to cover the rebate (but of course, we would get an 18 month no-interest loan to cover that difference) - but the cost for me was still $35-75K depending on the system I want. They were also pushing the buyback rate from our utility company (PNM) and saying it used to be $0.12/KWH they would pay back - but SOOO many people were going solar that the rate for residential was down to $0.07 - and I should lock in RIGHT NOW before it goes to 6 cents! ZOMG! REALLY?!
Whatever... The fact that PNM keeps reducing the rate at which they pay you for energy you feed back into the grid is just chopping off the incentive to even go solar in the first place.
At %6.25 over 25 years for the loan to cover the cost (the length of the panel warranty with degradation rate percentage built in), it made NO sense financially for me to do it. I'd love to go green as much as the next guy, but I'm far better off re-insulating, and getting a couple of GOOD high-efficiency AC units for the first and second floor - and remembering to turn off my home office data center each night, than pumping thousands into solar panels festooning my roof:-)
Well, he's also working for Zuckerberg, right? That's worth cutting your own throat right there. I trust that guy as far as I could throw him and his stock options. I wouldn't piss in that guys mouth if his teeth were on fire.
Amen, brother. I am about the same age as you and believe life is too short to work for pinheads. I now pretty much freelance in hospital systems integration and have more work (and probably will) until I die.
Thing is I am always looking to do and try new things - I keep an open mind and try to understand the needs of the business as well as the technology. Granted I have no kids - but I am married and I do help take care of an aging parent, and I have 2 dogs, 3 Hedgehogs, 1 chinchilla and 2 parrots. Oh, and fish in our waterfall/pond when I remember to actually feed them:-)
I also figure my next step is embedded systems programming (I love hacking DIY drone stuff), and anything with iOS and Android. Just need a killer idea that will take off, I'll write it, make money - and still be pursuing my passion. It's 100% attitude. And I am with you, Warren416 - when the arrogant bastards try using me as a shield, I will have seen it coming long before those punks crafted the idea in their reptilian brain in their tail, and will be positioned to let all the crap fall on their heads and leave them wondering.
Toxic workplaces are horrid. I used to work at a well-known hospital in LA that services all the Hollywood actors and actresses - and one of the IT managers, who years earlier was so bad, one of her employees committed suicide. The manager eventually left, came back & consulted, then came back as a Director full-time. She's known by her team as Satan's Mistress. She managed to spin every meeting in such a way that her complete and total lack of technical understanding somehow became her teams total lack of business understanding - put simply she is a micro-managing tyrant. Constantly compartmentalizing information so she could stay in control. Sure - I could have stayed there and wore the golden handcuffs - the place paid rockstar salaries- but what you learned was nothing but internal petty politics. No real technology - the consultants and vendors did all the work. I had a side jobjust to keep my skills fresh - but then I left for good - and it was the absolute best decision I ever made. I now make a lot more, doing what I really enjoy (solving problems and integrating hospital systems) and I can pick and choose the people I work with to a great degree.
Either that or if I get charged by data I do not want, I will hold the cable company liable - just like junk faxes and calls to my cellphone from people trying to sell me things. Wonder if I will be able to track that data and take them to small claims court? As soon as they try controlling the content, too - I think a few lawsuits might push them into falling into common carrier status as well. I dunno - I just know I hate the fact other countries get FAR better speed and access than we do...
Someone asked me and all I told them was, "Well, back in the day it was called "timeshare", a few years back they called it "application service provider". Now it's called cloud. I said "It's that mystical foam your machine/desktop/web browser connects to in order to run things". To me personally? Nothing but a big VMWare server farm in an offsite data center that tries to blend nebulous hardware with nebulous "services" - be they webbish data (AJAX, SOAP, ) or anything else.
What scares the crap out of me is that it allows more marketing people to "nebulize" further anything specific with SLA's whereas before they had to call the ball and own it - or definitively point to who does. It turns hard lines of responsibility into vague, fuzzy outlines of shared agreements if you're not careful. Calling it a "Cloud" just makes it another way for the whole village to take blame when the local idiot does something stupid.
Technically to me Cloud just means "it's where the dude behind the curtain is throwing a bunch of levers and turning knobs you don't know about unless you have to rip open the covers and figure it out". SOMEONE owns the physical machines and disk farms that all this "magic" runs on. My guess is if I started there and branched out mapping protocols and who touches what - that the term "Cloud" can mean lots of things to lots of people.
Perhaps - for a short time I would think the fringe groups would freak out. However, I always felt that religions by-and-large are also smart enough to re-interpret their scriptures to allow for new information that is potentially damaging to their respective "flocks". Look at the Ezekiel passages in the bible. Some people theorize it describes us being visited by aliens but has been usually dismissed as being a really poor interpretation. I would think proof of external life would mean this would probably take on new life.
I for one would welcome at least the knowledge that we are not alone in all that massive space out there. Now whether they are going to dominate us, befriend us, or just basically dismiss us that is anyone's guess. I think more likely we'll discover some sort of "exoplanet" with Kepler that indicates "yeah, it can support life, and it looks like we see some stuff". That is probably as far as it would go since we wouldn't have the technology to reach out and touch them. Who knows - maybe at roughly the same time they'll see us - but both of us will be well "in the past" to each other by many years due to limitations of the speed of light - so even a conversation at any level is unlikely.
For me just knowing something IS out there? I think that would be awesome. It probably wouldn't affect my day to day dealings with other people, though - unless new industries were created and I had skills that would be needed.
Egads - it's the whole "Root Cause Analysis" crap. A mile-long report filled with BS that means nothing to anyone else and and action plan of "how to prevent this from happening again" blah blah blah. I always felt those things should be triaged first to determine if the RCA was even under our control. But whatever.
I worked for a hospital in LA that rakes in far too much money than they should and they do those a lot. Usually they would pay the most expensive consultant to write one of those things up for it to only be ignored. They would have already vilified someone (responsible or not) and then just go through the motions.
As far as the interview - deal with it. If you can't stand a little heat stay out of the kitchen. I would probably just laugh at the guy slapping the table and then play along. I would say "Good. We have some spirit here. You there - table slapper. First thing I'll say is use some of that fire and gumption to get the reatrds with their neckties on too tight to get the f**k out of my way while I fix the problem - and be advised, every time you slap the table adds another 1 minute to my problem solving because you're being annoying, and another 10 dollar Starbucks card to feed my liquid crack habit."
And as someone who had to deal with a LAMP server I built on spare parts a few years ago I encountered just such a thing - ARP flux. I still don't understand a lot about it but was able to get it working. And don't knock Google. I don't pretend to have all the answers - never do. I am a jack of all trades, master of none. If all I am is all you got, you'd do well to either have coverage I can count on or a MiFi for me to have unfettered access to resources I've built over the year. Be smart. Leverage your people and their assets they know they can reach.
As to nobody being available and it filters all the way down to me to fix a critical server? Looks like that's the FIRST thing that goes into your RCA before you even THINK of rattling my cage, Mr. Manager. "Business Continuity Planning" - learn it and love it:-)
That said, I am now and always have been happy to roll up my sleeves and try something to help regardless of the circumstances. CIO, CEO, Line Manager or Mary in accounting who blushes at the comment of "I think your mouse has a dirty ball":-)
One of my favorite things to ask is like what I read a while back on the site "Joelonsoftware". "Build me a house" and hand them a pen. If they just jump up and start writing a square - they lose. Ask questions. Probe a bit. "Who wants the house? Where? Underwater? In space? what's my requirements? I figure if you're asking ME to design a house we're pretty much open to anything."
Does the person have good troubleshooting skills? Are they well rounded? Common sense is not so common much anymore. What kind of things do they like to do as "stretch" things on their own time? I write hospital EDI interfaces for integration engines for a living and I very much enjoy it. It also means what I do touches many, many aspects of programming and system design to get things to work together. Part programmer, part analyst, part teacher, part hardware engineer, part tech support, part application setup, part network guy to help figure out VPN stuff. Being able to get iptrace running on AIX so I can grab a file for bringing in to Wireshark can be helpful too when the ass-hat on the vendor side says I'm sending him 2 of everything and I'm saying he's on crack.
So you wanna slap the table? I'll roll with it and we can laugh about it. I don't take any of that seriously. Be advised I might also stick my finger in your coffee and then taste it and say "Hmm.. A cream and sugar kind of fellow, eh? You should warm that up a bit." right in the middle of your mini flake-out. Someone did that to me years ago and I made the choice right then and there to laugh at that kind of thing. It was either that or I could have just kicked his ass. Of course he was much bigger than me so I was pretty sure I would have had to pack a lunch; since kicking his ass would have most likely been an all-day job. Lucky for both of us I was lazy.
The part that irked me was that depending upon how you focused - being good or bad, channeling the force was a capability by all with a willingness to bring forth their innate talents. In this case a Jedi for Good or a Sith for bad - both of which stronger than your average being. So in similarity to the article - believing you are good or bad can enhance certain strengths.
With that once scene alone, he reduced the magical and mystical property of that defining element everyone could relate - and aspire to, to become something that any back-woods doctor could cure with a strong dose of tetracycline or some other uber-strong, broad spectrum antibiotic.
Isn't that something even Outlook can't seem to do without setting up multiple email profiles? I find this pretty amusing, actually. I'm not talking about using them as multiple IMAP connections, but rather as native Exchange connections as configured using the Outlook setup wizard......Sorry, been stuck in Outlook Hell lately and that struck a chord...
we drove 2 feet from the car in front of us to "punish them" or to try and "force them to move" by bullying the other driver.
In the USA, a majority of the "road rage" incidents could be avoided if the "Slowmo's" stop racing each other in the left lane and get the out of the passing lane. If you are going slower than the rest of the other traffic, move over. I don't care if you are doing the speed limit or 100MPH over it - if someone is coming up behind you, get over. Not hard - lose the ego and your sense of entitlement that just because you think you are going fast enough you can ride comfortably in the left lane. I don't give a damn if you're the only person on the road for 900 miles - if you are in the left lane and I am coming up behind you get the Hell over. That one little selfless act on your part will lessen the road rage factor. This goes for all you "hyper-milers" in your Priuses, too. STAY IN THE RIGHT LANE.
Don't get me started on you idiots that can't merge to save your life. It's called an accelerator - grow a pair, get your cage up to speed and get it in there. It's the disparity of speed between drivers that usually cause accidents. I don't care if you are trying to save $0.0004 cents of gas by coasting off your batts and trying to keep your little eco-motor from kicking in - you merge on the highway, act like you mean it or stick to the side roads where people on all these new occluded streets can admire your choice of body panel colors.
Cluttering up the road and removing sight-lines reduces speed? Wow. Brilliant. As a motorcyclist that's just what I need - more obstacles to dodge.
Being a voracious reader and traveling heavily on business, I had began reading e-Books on my Compaq iPaq years ago using Windows.LIT eReader. There was also other software called Micro-book that was very nice using good fonts and an easier contrast for reading. I think the cost of micro-book was like $14 total and was well worth the price.
I eventually abandoned the iPaq and moved to the e-Ink display of the Sony PRS-500 since it was larger and a bit easier on the eyes, then to the PRS-505. There is an open-source software application called "Calibre" that is absolutely EXCELLENT for converting LIT, LRF, RTF, and even RSS feeds and websites and other formats to be readily consumable on the Sony reader (and I believe it works with many others). The only drawback I have with the Sony is that I now have lots of technical books from Wrox, Apress and Wiley in PDF format and they are simply unable to render on the smaller e-ink display of the Sony. Seriously - don't even try to do it unless you want to piss yourself off.
I've already pre-ordered an Entourage Edge since comparatively it appears to have everything I would want - a much larger (10") e-Ink display, a second LCD touchscreen display and other features that I find exciting for e-reading and playing around with programming on the Android platform. I work in the medical field doing EDI integration for hospitals using various formats and "Integration Engine Broker" tools - and the Edge looks like it would be an AWESOME dashboard platform for medical apps. I don't know yet but for under $500 to get an Android platform, wireless connectivity, etc - it seemed too good to pass up.
I wholeheartedly agree. Make it as useful as a pad of paper, take the best functions of sketching - including symbols, highlighting, etc., and annotation with audio/video. Make it so I can not only store but READ all the PDF files natively and not kill my eyes with textbooks I can load on it - and make notations, etc., on top of any document. Give me the ability when it's connected wirelessly to my desktop that I can slide the document off the side of the screen and it pops over on my desktop for storage or further updating.
As a hospital systems integrator, I use so many tools and reference guides for the various "integration engines" that having them all in one tablet that is easily accessible so I can pull up any EDI references, programming references, code snippets, manuals, etc., and have it instantly available and not requiring a laptop form-factor and be a quick-on, quick-off type device - this would be Nirvana for my work.
Reading full size manuals on the Kindle DX is close, but I want the functionality described above. I doubt Apple will come up with all of it, but I at least hope it jump-starts the competition to make one if Apple doesn't.
Slashdot Mirror
If Nissan is so interested in the vehicle and what it is that attracts owners, perhaps they should do like Consumer Reports and just buy one. Get a team of their engineers together and do a non-destructive "consumer level review" of the car. Emails from owners to a company fishing for information is one thing - but to have an actual car to analyze and see where the "bar has been set" is best.
If they want to beat the competition, they have to actually acquire the information the old fashioned way. Then just as importantly - make a conscious decision to NOT make something that falls short.
In other words - make a system that is naturally easier to use and user-centric - don't go all "Cadillac" and come up with some un-holy interface that just pisses off your customer base. Every time you see a device that hits the market that totally misses the mark of your customer, maybe you should fire the idiots designing your product and get people that f**king listen to the customers.
Even if I was getting free charging, the business is most likely not going to cover the reduced life the batteries - which is probably more in the long run than the benefit of free charging.
I probably wouldn't get an electric-only car anyway if the round-trip range of home to/from work wasn't within one nightly charge cycle...
Spies don't have to crack them if they're financial based businesses like banks. Every time the IRS expresses an "interest" in the account information, they roll over on their backs. I would expect no less from them if any other three letter agency wanted more information, especially if any of those "interests" involved doing business with the US.
To each his own. I understand the AC's sentiment, but as a contractor/consultant writing EDI applications and interfaces for healthcare entities? Well I understand it. It also depends on the customer you work with/for. If they are easy to work with, give clear specifications and don't treat every checkpoint meeting as a hostile engagement, I'll bend over backwards and cut them slack - especially if what they want is in my "bag of tricks" that I already wrote 90% of before.
If however they are a complete ass-hat, and spend more time dealing with the "adminsitrivia" of lines-of-code to payment-time ratio, then I will bleed them. Usually though it never gets that far - because I find out soon after the Proof of Concept they're ass-hats, charge my time for that and politely decline the offer to work for them. Or as was the case with a specific high-end university hospital in Sacramento, they transferred me out of a really good group that I worked well with, to another mid-level micro-manager who had a project manager that couldn't find his butt cheeks if he sat on his hands and groped really hard. Within two weeks I was like, "Thanks for the opportunity - but I'm choosing other directions" and bade them adieu in the form of a 30-day contract cancellation notice. She was such a caustic manager, that when I went to close out certain complex tasks to hand over to her people - she immediately severed my logins and said "stay away", causing her own team to suffer for it - badly. I still helped them the best I could remotely over email - but she also was one of those idiots that didn't appreciate the complexity of some of what I did and learned the hard way.
I digress, sorry.... :-)
And yes - I totally get people who minimize the complexities of designing a website. I deal with 99% of the backend data conversion, writing the communication channels to trade data (HL7, X12, XML) on the back side, data-conversions, filtering, scrubbing, etc. I leave other people to make it all look pretty. My hat is off to you - I couldn't build a decent SITE to save my life. A super-simple data entry PAGE that serves as part of a workflow? Sure - but even that makes my head hurt sometimes depending on what I am supposed to code it in... :-)
Ryan
I would agree with this. I am a consultant/programmer in the medical technical field that works with all manner of EDI tools and the like, making sure that patient data for various hospitals is communicated correctly and accurately between various healthcare systems. I have had to wear the varied hats of programmer, analyst, manager, documentation specialist, trainer, mentor, troubleshooter, network specialist, and a whole slew of "titles" - all of which simply mean that If I don't know how to do something - I can figure it out.
I however do not have a degree. I didn't particularly care for school growing up for various reasons, but what I did have was a knack for figuring stuff out and truly enjoying making things work. Personally with all of the online learning opportunities available I think I would enjoy going back - so getting a degree (or multiple degrees) is certainly a future possibility.
But that aside - it also means with no degree I am pretty much blocked by any/all opportunities from a cold-call perspective; as my resume, regardless of having a myriad of demonstrable skills and domain knowledge, wouldn't even pass the first educational filter to get to a human being. If I were to stay in the same niche field? That would be far easier than were I to try something completely different.
I at least make up for not having a degree by having built a network of contacts in my industry, having many positive client references - and the fact that EDI in healthcare is such a niche market, that consultants pretty much know each other in many respects. I was in the right place at the right time and ran with it with everything I had.
I do wonder sometimes if the ability still exists for younger people who starting out like I did with no degree - can make it as far or farther than I have as a general rule. I'd like to think so. I think it's still as much "who you know" as it is "what you know" that gets your foot in the door... But note that I said "gets your foot in the door". You might be a great people person but know absolutely diddly about actually doing the job...
Doing a total armchair quarterback thing, I would think an EMP would be pretty heavy itself? Then again, my vision of an EMP is hollywood-esque drama with an EMP as some giant magnet fitting in a bread truck surrounded by glowing blue neon... or something...
That and I can't help but think that even though the drones are built by the lowest bidder, that there isn't some sort of faraday cage around the most critical control parts - but again, I am clueless on how tightly you'd have to wrap something like that and still allow it to be remote piloted...
Neat idea though, nonetheless. If an EMP payload could be small and cheap enough - cool. Or maybe something like a compressed air shank with a REALLY long streamer tied to it causing serious drag as it unfolds; or a really long nylon drogue parachute? Might not take it down, but its mission will be cut short trying to make it home with all that extra drag.
For DIY I would be more inclined to go low-tech and get some ball-bearings in the turbine intake first :-) Or be like Hawk in the old Buck Rogers show and make a drone with claws that just clamps on it making its glide ratio be more closely aligned with a pig, or a really large turkey :-)
Admittedly though - EMP has that whole "Hey KITT - hit it with your microwave pulse" feel to it :-)
I still think the disablement part is easy once the interceptor gets to it - it's GETTING TO IT I think is the more difficult issue...
That would be my first thought. But considering the relative advances in the private hobbyist sector with drones, navigation, etc.?
It probably wouldn't be beyond the realm of conceivability that some smart ass "Engineer In A Garage" doesn't build a guided model rocket with visual or other acquisition tech with off-the-shelf technology - and at least manages to splash the thing with paint. No high-explosive - just a way to say "You've been pwned!"
Of course when that magical moment it dies down and this guy finds himself in Gitmo forgetting all about what it means to be human, we know who wins in the end...
Maybe put your work phone on your desk, forward calls using Google voice to your personal cell phone. Problem solved on the occasion when you need to sneak out, maybe? ..I'm sure those brainiacs already covered that possibility?
Correct. Now that you know the truth, here are some options:
1 - Work as a freelance W-2 or 1099 worker. Build a reputation of doing good work, and you'll always find projects.
2 - Train yourself. Hit the books, snarf source code and figure stuff out. Do Open Source projects you can point to. Run a small web server that showcases your skills. Put up some Web Service API's that do some cool things. Take all of the costs of that off on your taxes as a business or unreimbursed employee expense.
3 - Custom tailor a resume to fit any job description you're looking for - and keep a library of them handy. Don't bullshit them in an interview - if you put it on the resume and you're just learning it - be honest. Tell them "I have that there because I am learning it on my own time, and frankly I wanted the word search of your resume engine to get a hit so I have a chance to show you." An eagerness to learn and self-starting examples speak VOLUMES of the kind of employee they would get.
The best way to take advantage of that gap is be a freelance W-2 or 1099 worker for a number of companies. If you're good and provide good results and people like you, you'll never be out of work.
The whole 'but I want a permanent job where I can have "stability"' is a self deluded crock of crap. There *is no stability*. The distance between a company letting go of the contractors and then slicing their own employees is almost an imperceptible, razor-thin line. Also being a free-lance consultant does one thing that being an "employee" does not - it lets you get paid for EVERY SINGLE HOUR YOU WORK. None of this 80 hour/week death march crap where you work for literally half of your salary where the company profits on every hour and you do not. You work 80? You get paid 80. Save for the times you don't have a contract and it's a win/win all around.
Oh, and the myth about companies keeping your skills current - whole new rant - They don't. You need to do that yourself and take all your training stuff off on your taxes as unreimbursed employee or business expenses.
I agree. One way to get a jump start on this is to become either a freelance W-2 contractor (or 1099 - but W-2 is easier to find due to liability concerns for subcontracting) and snag one or two good clients that you can work for remotely. I do hospital systems integration and have an elderly parent to care for (lives 10 minutes away). Working remote offers me the ability to still deliver excellent service at any hour, and not have to live out of a suitcase.
The trouble is, a lot of dinosaurs still inhabit middle management. They feel that if they can't see you warming a chair in a cube-farm, you're not working. Sadly they fear things like webcams and Skype. Even sadder, most times I usually got more work done in those situations when I could work from the hotel room later at night with fewer interruptions.
It also helps that I am in a niche market of healthcare where a lot of "whiz-bang kids" and all users of the new flavors-of-the-day high tech buzzword compliant crap think EDI and medical interfacing is "boring" - but I work to live, not the other way around and make damn good money at it. I'm also weird in that I actually enjoy it.
For those potential clients sitting on a fence about it, I offer them one free interface remotely. If they don't like my work, I walk away. Every time I explain that their dollars are better spent toward actual deliverables instead of paying travel, room and board for a bunch of laptop carrying suit-monkeys they usually try me out and keep using me.
And for those people saying, "well they can just offshore you", they're right. However, please keep in mind that I do good work and can communicate effectively with the client. I am affable, pleasant, and deliver what I say. I also have worked in healthcare and hospitals for 20+ years and KNOW their business intimately. Workers in India with really thick accents named "Sarah" and "Bob" can only compete with me on money. In healthcare, thankfully, accuracy, depth of knowledge of both the business and workflow, and the ability to work with a team means as much if not more than money. My repeat business is more than I can usually take on comfortably.
Working from home just takes a willingness to be available MORE often until the manager is comfortable. Let me say this - as remote technologies improve to enable extended work distances, clients embrace the use of Skype, webcams and WebEx, and more of these 50's style babysitting managerial-goons die off and retire, more opportunities to work remotely will appear. The best advice I can give really has nothing to do with working remotely - save money for the times you don't have work and for the love of all that is Holy - LIVE BELOW YOUR MEANS!
They do this here in Albuquerque. I got a couple of quotes based on whether I use poly or mono crystalline panels, different rebates, costs, etc - and just as you said - the price was jacked to cover the rebate (but of course, we would get an 18 month no-interest loan to cover that difference) - but the cost for me was still $35-75K depending on the system I want. They were also pushing the buyback rate from our utility company (PNM) and saying it used to be $0.12/KWH they would pay back - but SOOO many people were going solar that the rate for residential was down to $0.07 - and I should lock in RIGHT NOW before it goes to 6 cents! ZOMG! REALLY?!
Whatever... The fact that PNM keeps reducing the rate at which they pay you for energy you feed back into the grid is just chopping off the incentive to even go solar in the first place.
At %6.25 over 25 years for the loan to cover the cost (the length of the panel warranty with degradation rate percentage built in), it made NO sense financially for me to do it. I'd love to go green as much as the next guy, but I'm far better off re-insulating, and getting a couple of GOOD high-efficiency AC units for the first and second floor - and remembering to turn off my home office data center each night, than pumping thousands into solar panels festooning my roof :-)
Well, he's also working for Zuckerberg, right? That's worth cutting your own throat right there. I trust that guy as far as I could throw him and his stock options. I wouldn't piss in that guys mouth if his teeth were on fire.
Amen, brother. I am about the same age as you and believe life is too short to work for pinheads. I now pretty much freelance in hospital systems integration and have more work (and probably will) until I die.
Thing is I am always looking to do and try new things - I keep an open mind and try to understand the needs of the business as well as the technology. Granted I have no kids - but I am married and I do help take care of an aging parent, and I have 2 dogs, 3 Hedgehogs, 1 chinchilla and 2 parrots. Oh, and fish in our waterfall/pond when I remember to actually feed them :-)
I also figure my next step is embedded systems programming (I love hacking DIY drone stuff), and anything with iOS and Android. Just need a killer idea that will take off, I'll write it, make money - and still be pursuing my passion. It's 100% attitude. And I am with you, Warren416 - when the arrogant bastards try using me as a shield, I will have seen it coming long before those punks crafted the idea in their reptilian brain in their tail, and will be positioned to let all the crap fall on their heads and leave them wondering.
Toxic workplaces are horrid. I used to work at a well-known hospital in LA that services all the Hollywood actors and actresses - and one of the IT managers, who years earlier was so bad, one of her employees committed suicide. The manager eventually left, came back & consulted, then came back as a Director full-time. She's known by her team as Satan's Mistress. She managed to spin every meeting in such a way that her complete and total lack of technical understanding somehow became her teams total lack of business understanding - put simply she is a micro-managing tyrant. Constantly compartmentalizing information so she could stay in control. Sure - I could have stayed there and wore the golden handcuffs - the place paid rockstar salaries- but what you learned was nothing but internal petty politics. No real technology - the consultants and vendors did all the work. I had a side jobjust to keep my skills fresh - but then I left for good - and it was the absolute best decision I ever made. I now make a lot more, doing what I really enjoy (solving problems and integrating hospital systems) and I can pick and choose the people I work with to a great degree.
Either that or if I get charged by data I do not want, I will hold the cable company liable - just like junk faxes and calls to my cellphone from people trying to sell me things. Wonder if I will be able to track that data and take them to small claims court? As soon as they try controlling the content, too - I think a few lawsuits might push them into falling into common carrier status as well. I dunno - I just know I hate the fact other countries get FAR better speed and access than we do...
Someone asked me and all I told them was, "Well, back in the day it was called "timeshare", a few years back they called it "application service provider". Now it's called cloud. I said "It's that mystical foam your machine/desktop/web browser connects to in order to run things". To me personally? Nothing but a big VMWare server farm in an offsite data center that tries to blend nebulous hardware with nebulous "services" - be they webbish data (AJAX, SOAP, ) or anything else.
What scares the crap out of me is that it allows more marketing people to "nebulize" further anything specific with SLA's whereas before they had to call the ball and own it - or definitively point to who does. It turns hard lines of responsibility into vague, fuzzy outlines of shared agreements if you're not careful. Calling it a "Cloud" just makes it another way for the whole village to take blame when the local idiot does something stupid.
Technically to me Cloud just means "it's where the dude behind the curtain is throwing a bunch of levers and turning knobs you don't know about unless you have to rip open the covers and figure it out". SOMEONE owns the physical machines and disk farms that all this "magic" runs on. My guess is if I started there and branched out mapping protocols and who touches what - that the term "Cloud" can mean lots of things to lots of people.
Perhaps - for a short time I would think the fringe groups would freak out. However, I always felt that religions by-and-large are also smart enough to re-interpret their scriptures to allow for new information that is potentially damaging to their respective "flocks". Look at the Ezekiel passages in the bible. Some people theorize it describes us being visited by aliens but has been usually dismissed as being a really poor interpretation. I would think proof of external life would mean this would probably take on new life.
I for one would welcome at least the knowledge that we are not alone in all that massive space out there. Now whether they are going to dominate us, befriend us, or just basically dismiss us that is anyone's guess. I think more likely we'll discover some sort of "exoplanet" with Kepler that indicates "yeah, it can support life, and it looks like we see some stuff". That is probably as far as it would go since we wouldn't have the technology to reach out and touch them. Who knows - maybe at roughly the same time they'll see us - but both of us will be well "in the past" to each other by many years due to limitations of the speed of light - so even a conversation at any level is unlikely.
For me just knowing something IS out there? I think that would be awesome. It probably wouldn't affect my day to day dealings with other people, though - unless new industries were created and I had skills that would be needed.
My god I would mod this +90 if I could.
Education is the key to firearm safety. Period.
Egads - it's the whole "Root Cause Analysis" crap. A mile-long report filled with BS that means nothing to anyone else and and action plan of "how to prevent this from happening again" blah blah blah. I always felt those things should be triaged first to determine if the RCA was even under our control. But whatever.
I worked for a hospital in LA that rakes in far too much money than they should and they do those a lot. Usually they would pay the most expensive consultant to write one of those things up for it to only be ignored. They would have already vilified someone (responsible or not) and then just go through the motions.
As far as the interview - deal with it. If you can't stand a little heat stay out of the kitchen. I would probably just laugh at the guy slapping the table and then play along. I would say "Good. We have some spirit here. You there - table slapper. First thing I'll say is use some of that fire and gumption to get the reatrds with their neckties on too tight to get the f**k out of my way while I fix the problem - and be advised, every time you slap the table adds another 1 minute to my problem solving because you're being annoying, and another 10 dollar Starbucks card to feed my liquid crack habit."
And as someone who had to deal with a LAMP server I built on spare parts a few years ago I encountered just such a thing - ARP flux. I still don't understand a lot about it but was able to get it working. And don't knock Google. I don't pretend to have all the answers - never do. I am a jack of all trades, master of none. If all I am is all you got, you'd do well to either have coverage I can count on or a MiFi for me to have unfettered access to resources I've built over the year. Be smart. Leverage your people and their assets they know they can reach.
As to nobody being available and it filters all the way down to me to fix a critical server? Looks like that's the FIRST thing that goes into your RCA before you even THINK of rattling my cage, Mr. Manager. "Business Continuity Planning" - learn it and love it :-)
That said, I am now and always have been happy to roll up my sleeves and try something to help regardless of the circumstances. CIO, CEO, Line Manager or Mary in accounting who blushes at the comment of "I think your mouse has a dirty ball" :-)
One of my favorite things to ask is like what I read a while back on the site "Joelonsoftware". "Build me a house" and hand them a pen. If they just jump up and start writing a square - they lose. Ask questions. Probe a bit. "Who wants the house? Where? Underwater? In space? what's my requirements? I figure if you're asking ME to design a house we're pretty much open to anything."
Does the person have good troubleshooting skills? Are they well rounded? Common sense is not so common much anymore. What kind of things do they like to do as "stretch" things on their own time? I write hospital EDI interfaces for integration engines for a living and I very much enjoy it. It also means what I do touches many, many aspects of programming and system design to get things to work together. Part programmer, part analyst, part teacher, part hardware engineer, part tech support, part application setup, part network guy to help figure out VPN stuff. Being able to get iptrace running on AIX so I can grab a file for bringing in to Wireshark can be helpful too when the ass-hat on the vendor side says I'm sending him 2 of everything and I'm saying he's on crack.
So you wanna slap the table? I'll roll with it and we can laugh about it. I don't take any of that seriously. Be advised I might also stick my finger in your coffee and then taste it and say "Hmm.. A cream and sugar kind of fellow, eh? You should warm that up a bit." right in the middle of your mini flake-out. Someone did that to me years ago and I made the choice right then and there to laugh at that kind of thing. It was either that or I could have just kicked his ass. Of course he was much bigger than me so I was pretty sure I would have had to pack a lunch; since kicking his ass would have most likely been an all-day job. Lucky for both of us I was lazy.
The part that irked me was that depending upon how you focused - being good or bad, channeling the force was a capability by all with a willingness to bring forth their innate talents. In this case a Jedi for Good or a Sith for bad - both of which stronger than your average being. So in similarity to the article - believing you are good or bad can enhance certain strengths.
With that once scene alone, he reduced the magical and mystical property of that defining element everyone could relate - and aspire to, to become something that any back-woods doctor could cure with a strong dose of tetracycline or some other uber-strong, broad spectrum antibiotic.
Thanks George.
Isn't that something even Outlook can't seem to do without setting up multiple email profiles? I find this pretty amusing, actually. ...Sorry, been stuck in Outlook Hell lately and that struck a chord...
I'm not talking about using them as multiple IMAP connections, but rather as native Exchange connections as configured using the Outlook setup wizard...
And for that I am deeply grateful. I've been behind some of you guys that have waved me through - it's awesome and my hat (helmet) is off to you!
Cheers! :-)
we drove 2 feet from the car in front of us to "punish them" or to try and "force them to move" by bullying the other driver.
In the USA, a majority of the "road rage" incidents could be avoided if the "Slowmo's" stop racing each other in the left lane and get the out of the passing lane. If you are going slower than the rest of the other traffic, move over. I don't care if you are doing the speed limit or 100MPH over it - if someone is coming up behind you, get over. Not hard - lose the ego and your sense of entitlement that just because you think you are going fast enough you can ride comfortably in the left lane. I don't give a damn if you're the only person on the road for 900 miles - if you are in the left lane and I am coming up behind you get the Hell over. That one little selfless act on your part will lessen the road rage factor. This goes for all you "hyper-milers" in your Priuses, too. STAY IN THE RIGHT LANE.
Don't get me started on you idiots that can't merge to save your life. It's called an accelerator - grow a pair, get your cage up to speed and get it in there. It's the disparity of speed between drivers that usually cause accidents. I don't care if you are trying to save $0.0004 cents of gas by coasting off your batts and trying to keep your little eco-motor from kicking in - you merge on the highway, act like you mean it or stick to the side roads where people on all these new occluded streets can admire your choice of body panel colors.
Cluttering up the road and removing sight-lines reduces speed? Wow. Brilliant. As a motorcyclist that's just what I need - more obstacles to dodge.
sorry for the soapbox rant... :-)
Being a voracious reader and traveling heavily on business, I had began reading e-Books on my Compaq iPaq years ago using Windows .LIT eReader. There was also other software called Micro-book that was very nice using good fonts and an easier contrast for reading. I think the cost of micro-book was like $14 total and was well worth the price.
I eventually abandoned the iPaq and moved to the e-Ink display of the Sony PRS-500 since it was larger and a bit easier on the eyes, then to the PRS-505. There is an open-source software application called "Calibre" that is absolutely EXCELLENT for converting LIT, LRF, RTF, and even RSS feeds and websites and other formats to be readily consumable on the Sony reader (and I believe it works with many others). The only drawback I have with the Sony is that I now have lots of technical books from Wrox, Apress and Wiley in PDF format and they are simply unable to render on the smaller e-ink display of the Sony. Seriously - don't even try to do it unless you want to piss yourself off.
I've already pre-ordered an Entourage Edge since comparatively it appears to have everything I would want - a much larger (10") e-Ink display, a second LCD touchscreen display and other features that I find exciting for e-reading and playing around with programming on the Android platform. I work in the medical field doing EDI integration for hospitals using various formats and "Integration Engine Broker" tools - and the Edge looks like it would be an AWESOME dashboard platform for medical apps. I don't know yet but for under $500 to get an Android platform, wireless connectivity, etc - it seemed too good to pass up.
I wholeheartedly agree. Make it as useful as a pad of paper, take the best functions of sketching - including symbols, highlighting, etc., and annotation with audio/video. Make it so I can not only store but READ all the PDF files natively and not kill my eyes with textbooks I can load on it - and make notations, etc., on top of any document. Give me the ability when it's connected wirelessly to my desktop that I can slide the document off the side of the screen and it pops over on my desktop for storage or further updating.
As a hospital systems integrator, I use so many tools and reference guides for the various "integration engines" that having them all in one tablet that is easily accessible so I can pull up any EDI references, programming references, code snippets, manuals, etc., and have it instantly available and not requiring a laptop form-factor and be a quick-on, quick-off type device - this would be Nirvana for my work.
Reading full size manuals on the Kindle DX is close, but I want the functionality described above. I doubt Apple will come up with all of it, but I at least hope it jump-starts the competition to make one if Apple doesn't.