I wouldn't call these 'confessions' nor 'sins'. They're observations I'm also making as I go through the process right now, 7 years since my last job search.
This is my experience thus far -
Context: I have over a decade of experience and a MS-CS. In the last 6 years I was part of some amazing projects (easily the most meaningful), I worked on getting a business off the ground, and spent little over a year being a full-time parent. I've been in many positions to interview, and make hiring decisions before.
I've interviewed unsuccessfully at the big employers in my area (GOOG, AMZN etc.) As I think about the places I didn't enjoy the process and wouldn't have looked forward to working at, the common theme would be that none of those groups cared to go into my past work history. They'd jump right into their academic-CS questions after introducing themselves. I can't imagine what the review process looks/sounds like afterwards, but they don't gather much data points about other qualities that separate each of us. These are also usually the places where a main reason for joining seems to be - "you'll be working with very smart, intelligent colleagues." My personality is such that the application matters more, so it doesn't matter if everyone around has high IQ if they're applying it towards the development of say, advertising platforms.
I wouldn't follow these practices put in place by MSFT/GOOG if I were to either run my own business, or were involved in at another company. There are other qualities to determine whether someone would be a good fit, and there are many groups out there who do a better job with this. What matters is if you hire/join colleagues you enjoy solving problems with, and having a civil and professional environment to do it in.
These could serve as a better tool to capture transactions than hidden cameras. It would be more convenient, the person/groups on the other side know the transaction's being recorded and make them think twice. Maybe once something like this becomes more commonplace, the authorities catch on and ban its use in official surroundings. I nstead, what would be better is, like a 3D movie where the glasses are provided at the entry to the theatre, these kinds of glasses are provided to anyone entering an office, and returned on the way out. If the patron has any grievances, it's immediately available for recall.
I'm the submitter and one of the SWE's on the project. Prepayment meters are not new, and are quite commonly available and in use. Distributing scratch cards for purchase and validation are also not a novelty, and as noted in the summary this is an option we provide. What seems to be uncommon is the use of software management systems at the sites themselves - a high-level one at that, and not logic embedded in hardware like the meters. Because of this, we're able to control several networked devices at the sites, and add on service features as we learn.
Using intermittent renewables like we do (solar), we need to know how much was generated and ensure everyone is guaranteed a fair share. The software provides us that platform. We haven't implemented demand-response [yet] that will help with better management (for eg: cloudy-day scenarios), but do ration based on how much load is plugged in and how much is being consumed by each consumer. This helps to make sure that just a few heavy-duty consumers do not hog all the resources and exhaust the supply all by themselves. Also, because this is all in software, it doesn't matter what the source is as long as we use devices that we can network and get readings from. In this sense, the generation could be from solar, wind, hydro, or even the old diesel gensets. We went with solar, hence SharedSolar, but it's really SharedSupply.
Another thing to note is that we can adapt and add more features to a service by changes in the software, without the need to make changes in the hardware configurations themselves. We can replicate the same model, or try new ones out, in different settings using different components as we see fit. For instance, we're evaluating different metering devices now but since everything about the service is in the distributed software platform, we only need to get devices that do AMR/AMI, without the need for even basic logic like prepayment. I wrote about where the software intelligence should sit depending on the quality of IP-based communications channels in a blog post here - http://sharedsolar.org/?page_id=13 .
Also, just by having the software at the site, it allows us the possibility of tuning the service remotely, along with short turn-arounds between malfunctions and fix.
The points others made about reduction in line theft etc are spot-on. One commenter asked if the consumers pay for the cellular interactions - they don't. This is actually a good case for having developed the local vendor solution the consumers seem to prefer - the entrepreneur who used to sell them kerosene is equipped with an Android device and now helps sell prepaid electricity. This was only possible because of the web services we could build on the local software platform and not because of anything inherent in the hardware/meters. Also, mobile service providers are also slowly getting interested in this space, as they have been with banking, health etc and they are our partners where we deploy. There are also interesting projects where the excess power generated at the base stations are distributed to the nearby populace.
But it's not as easy as just going down to the polling booth and putting a cross, is it?
People have to wait hours on end in long queues, some might be physically handicapped, some are based abroad, some just don't want to go through with the motions. If you can get the young people who don't vote to just get online and vote, that'd be a good thing. This isn't about addressing the lazy folks. If people can do their taxes online, buy goods, and meet their partners online, then there is absolutely no reason why voting should'nt be done online.
Around the time the elections were held in November, I'd tried to do an 'Ask Slashdot' why voting can't be done this way - it never got approved.:|
If I'm not mistaken, one needs to be a Ferrari owner to be considered for their exclusive models too... This is just making sure that ardent fans of the famous mark are rewarded!
1. single-click mouse 2. powerpc 3. metallic casing for the laptops (could fry an egg on it) 4. "please switch off your cellphones as it might affect the aircraft's nav systems."
All aimed towards those who don't know better. Obviously, we'll be able to install 3rd party apps in a later release of the iphone. We all know how short product release cycles are with apple's products. Every 6 months, their last product release gets outdated.
All the names listed there except for the last two work for some firm called Trilogy.
Knowing Indians, I won't be surprised to see that company asking for these developers to work on that product so that they could cash in on the prize amount (their yearly salaries put together would still be eclipsed by the prize.)
I don't consider this proving anything about how good Indians are at software. If these guys were not working for the same firm (like the last two listed there), it would have been a different matter.
which, after setting up your account and login details, asks if you want to download messages now? And if you said yes, it would download AND delete the messages on the server because the default setting is to "Delete messages from server on download"? Seems to be like a case of the same.:)
There is a line between computer "users" and the developers. In no circumstances should a 'user' be the one who directs the developer. All that's needed from the 'user' are the requirements. Most of the managers are these "user" who think that because they can run cracked versions of software, they know computer science. Heck, I've been told bluntly, that they aren't looking for computer science solutions to building the software (I'm a CS grad myself.) What they don't understand is that nearly all the problems they face now are precisely because they didn't have a CS person doin the work.
In my previous job, the boss was a CS grad, and never did we face the kind of issues like here - simply 'cos they account for every possibility in a logical way, rather than a "hey, we need this feature, let's have a checkbox here, and if the user checks it, they get taken to the new feature".
are the ones who setup the systems, including those who approved of it. yes, i know oxford is a really poor college, and their students all come from the english countryside for them to justify their rants of giving their students free connectivity.
as is the case with any spokesperson (in this case, university spokeswoman), bullshit has been spewed.
and where is the interview with those who were managing this setup, i wonder?
i thought the wildcard could have meant - "This guy has more balls than I." - the strongman types. "This guy has more bills than I." - guys gonna get screwed. "This guy has more bulls than I." - sounds like a compulsive bullshitter. "This guy has more bells than I." - is a complete cuckoo.
i havent been able to read that article as it wont load. but i did read a few snippets as posted by others here.
i get a feeling that the OSS model is going to lead to a drastic change in functioning for other scientific fields very soon. this is typical of any revolution with the old guards trying to kill the new ideas.
for too long has our vanities been massaged till we are fuckin blind. the OSS model is helpin reduce our egos'. it can only be a good thing.
while what this man apparently whinges about is short-time/temporary, i see many long-time/permanent boons. i don't mind what the cost is, if i can see these changes happening.
The creator of what anti-virus experts say is the fastest spreading virus ever on the Internet signed MyDoom and MyDoom.B with "andy," and left the following message in the latter version: "I'm just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry."
"Our interpretation is that he's apologizing to the general public," Jimmy Kuo, research fellow at anti-virus software maker Network Associates Technology Inc., said Friday. "Our guess is that someone is paying him to write this thing."
acute observation/interpretation. 2 paragraphs of e-paper wasted. will be reading poirot tonite - guy just piqued my interest again in deductions.
it was my first linuxworld. im a reasonably new user of linux (started a few months ago.) now, i only went on the last day (boy was it freezing here.) i didnt know what to expect, i guess - but i sure expected a lot less corporate "types". most of the big names were out with their shiny new servers, and enterprise software (both not interesting to me.)
the MS booth was as big as Redhat - and I noticed that everytime they clicked on anything a window with something on SCO would come up. they were promoting MS services for unix by saying it sits closer to the kernel, hence faster - unlike cygwin which being an app would have to go a few layers down. well, d-oh!! i wont even bother saying anything bout closed source here and how anyone could do what they did if we had the kernel cos well, they didnt seem like they were having a good time either.
gentoo had a nice lot (maybe the goth chick had some to do with that...), and so did suse, sun and amd.
i came back with lots of brochures and no freebies - maybe thats why i was disappointed.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't call these 'confessions' nor 'sins'. They're observations I'm also making as I go through the process right now, 7 years since my last job search.
This is my experience thus far -
Context: I have over a decade of experience and a MS-CS. In the last 6 years I was part of some amazing projects (easily the most meaningful), I worked on getting a business off the ground, and spent little over a year being a full-time parent. I've been in many positions to interview, and make hiring decisions before.
I've interviewed unsuccessfully at the big employers in my area (GOOG, AMZN etc.) As I think about the places I didn't enjoy the process and wouldn't have looked forward to working at, the common theme would be that none of those groups cared to go into my past work history. They'd jump right into their academic-CS questions after introducing themselves. I can't imagine what the review process looks/sounds like afterwards, but they don't gather much data points about other qualities that separate each of us. These are also usually the places where a main reason for joining seems to be - "you'll be working with very smart, intelligent colleagues." My personality is such that the application matters more, so it doesn't matter if everyone around has high IQ if they're applying it towards the development of say, advertising platforms.
I wouldn't follow these practices put in place by MSFT/GOOG if I were to either run my own business, or were involved in at another company. There are other qualities to determine whether someone would be a good fit, and there are many groups out there who do a better job with this. What matters is if you hire/join colleagues you enjoy solving problems with, and having a civil and professional environment to do it in.
Or maybe this - "Vestager said if Washington chose to tax the profits reported by Apple's Irish operation, she would reduce her demand accordingly."
See: http://www.reuters.com/article...
I'll leave this here - https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/04/28/1524230/volvo-engineer-calls-out-tesla-for-dangerous-wannabe-autopilot-system/
These could serve as a better tool to capture transactions than hidden cameras. It would be more convenient, the person/groups on the other side know the transaction's being recorded and make them think twice.
Maybe once something like this becomes more commonplace, the authorities catch on and ban its use in official surroundings. I
nstead, what would be better is, like a 3D movie where the glasses are provided at the entry to the theatre, these kinds of glasses are provided to anyone entering an office, and returned on the way out. If the patron has any grievances, it's immediately available for recall.
I'm the submitter and one of the SWE's on the project. Prepayment meters are not new, and are quite commonly available and in use. Distributing scratch cards for purchase and validation are also not a novelty, and as noted in the summary this is an option we provide. What seems to be uncommon is the use of software management systems at the sites themselves - a high-level one at that, and not logic embedded in hardware like the meters. Because of this, we're able to control several networked devices at the sites, and add on service features as we learn.
Using intermittent renewables like we do (solar), we need to know how much was generated and ensure everyone is guaranteed a fair share. The software provides us that platform. We haven't implemented demand-response [yet] that will help with better management (for eg: cloudy-day scenarios), but do ration based on how much load is plugged in and how much is being consumed by each consumer. This helps to make sure that just a few heavy-duty consumers do not hog all the resources and exhaust the supply all by themselves.
Also, because this is all in software, it doesn't matter what the source is as long as we use devices that we can network and get readings from. In this sense, the generation could be from solar, wind, hydro, or even the old diesel gensets. We went with solar, hence SharedSolar, but it's really SharedSupply.
Another thing to note is that we can adapt and add more features to a service by changes in the software, without the need to make changes in the hardware configurations themselves. We can replicate the same model, or try new ones out, in different settings using different components as we see fit. For instance, we're evaluating different metering devices now but since everything about the service is in the distributed software platform, we only need to get devices that do AMR/AMI, without the need for even basic logic like prepayment. I wrote about where the software intelligence should sit depending on the quality of IP-based communications channels in a blog post here - http://sharedsolar.org/?page_id=13 .
Also, just by having the software at the site, it allows us the possibility of tuning the service remotely, along with short turn-arounds between malfunctions and fix.
The points others made about reduction in line theft etc are spot-on. One commenter asked if the consumers pay for the cellular interactions - they don't. This is actually a good case for having developed the local vendor solution the consumers seem to prefer - the entrepreneur who used to sell them kerosene is equipped with an Android device and now helps sell prepaid electricity. This was only possible because of the web services we could build on the local software platform and not because of anything inherent in the hardware/meters.
Also, mobile service providers are also slowly getting interested in this space, as they have been with banking, health etc and they are our partners where we deploy. There are also interesting projects where the excess power generated at the base stations are distributed to the nearby populace.
Thanks.
Anyone know of any extensions to auto-complete your bookmarked URL's the way Safari does?
But it's not as easy as just going down to the polling booth and putting a cross, is it?
:|
People have to wait hours on end in long queues, some might be physically handicapped, some are based abroad, some just don't want to go through with the motions. If you can get the young people who don't vote to just get online and vote, that'd be a good thing. This isn't about addressing the lazy folks.
If people can do their taxes online, buy goods, and meet their partners online, then there is absolutely no reason why voting should'nt be done online.
Around the time the elections were held in November, I'd tried to do an 'Ask Slashdot' why voting can't be done this way - it never got approved.
If I'm not mistaken, one needs to be a Ferrari owner to be considered for their exclusive models too...
This is just making sure that ardent fans of the famous mark are rewarded!
1. single-click mouse
2. powerpc
3. metallic casing for the laptops (could fry an egg on it)
4. "please switch off your cellphones as it might affect the aircraft's nav systems."
All aimed towards those who don't know better. Obviously, we'll be able to install 3rd party apps in a later release of the iphone. We all know how short product release cycles are with apple's products. Every 6 months, their last product release gets outdated.
Bangkok Bob - The Thai Information [Tech] Minister ...
All the names listed there except for the last two work for some firm called Trilogy.
Knowing Indians, I won't be surprised to see that company asking for these developers to work on that product so that they could cash in on the prize amount (their yearly salaries put together would still be eclipsed by the prize.)
I don't consider this proving anything about how good Indians are at software. If these guys were not working for the same firm (like the last two listed there), it would have been a different matter.
which, after setting up your account and login details, asks if you want to download messages now? And if you said yes, it would download AND delete the messages on the server because the default setting is to "Delete messages from server on download"? :)
Seems to be like a case of the same.
There is a line between computer "users" and the developers.
In no circumstances should a 'user' be the one who directs the developer. All that's needed from the 'user' are the requirements.
Most of the managers are these "user" who think that because they can run cracked versions of software, they know computer science. Heck, I've been told bluntly, that they aren't looking for computer science solutions to building the software (I'm a CS grad myself.)
What they don't understand is that nearly all the problems they face now are precisely because they didn't have a CS person doin the work.
In my previous job, the boss was a CS grad, and never did we face the kind of issues like here - simply 'cos they account for every possibility in a logical way, rather than a "hey, we need this feature, let's have a checkbox here, and if the user checks it, they get taken to the new feature".
are the ones who setup the systems, including those who approved of it. yes, i know oxford is a really poor college, and their students all come from the english countryside for them to justify their rants of giving their students free connectivity.
as is the case with any spokesperson (in this case, university spokeswoman), bullshit has been spewed.
and where is the interview with those who were managing this setup, i wonder?
i thought the wildcard could have meant -
"This guy has more balls than I." - the strongman types.
"This guy has more bills than I." - guys gonna get screwed.
"This guy has more bulls than I." - sounds like a compulsive bullshitter.
"This guy has more bells than I." - is a complete cuckoo.
so, how do yoouuu know what he meant eh?
s.ballmer
no, not that product - but how we have 100 comments even when that link is wrong/bad. this a slashdot specialty?
lol.
i havent been able to read that article as it wont load. but i did read a few snippets as posted by others here.
i get a feeling that the OSS model is going to lead to a drastic change in functioning for other scientific fields very soon. this is typical of any revolution with the old guards trying to kill the new ideas.
for too long has our vanities been massaged till we are fuckin blind. the OSS model is helpin reduce our egos'. it can only be a good thing.
while what this man apparently whinges about is short-time/temporary, i see many long-time/permanent boons. i don't mind what the cost is, if i can see these changes happening.
acute observation/interpretation. 2 paragraphs of e-paper wasted.
will be reading poirot tonite - guy just piqued my interest again in deductions.
just catch hold of an indian student, and ask em to bring back the books. save at least 50 times the cost, eh? :P
it was my first linuxworld. im a reasonably new user of linux (started a few months ago.)
:)
now, i only went on the last day (boy was it freezing here.)
i didnt know what to expect, i guess - but i sure expected a lot less corporate "types". most of the big names were out with their shiny new servers, and enterprise software (both not interesting to me.)
the MS booth was as big as Redhat - and I noticed that everytime they clicked on anything a window with something on SCO would come up. they were promoting MS services for unix by saying it sits closer to the kernel, hence faster - unlike cygwin which being an app would have to go a few layers down. well, d-oh!! i wont even bother saying anything bout closed source here and how anyone could do what they did if we had the kernel cos well, they didnt seem like they were having a good time either.
gentoo had a nice lot (maybe the goth chick had some to do with that...), and so did suse, sun and amd.
i came back with lots of brochures and no freebies - maybe thats why i was disappointed.
do we need a Ph.D to get in? :P
if NASA outsources R&D to places in the East?
umm, so what exactly do YOU do? :)
ettercap more useful than kismet.