My company used to be very big on training. We even brought in professors from a nearby university for on-site classes, with full university credits to the employees. But then we bought out by a multinational eurocorp, and the training budget got cut, and cut, and cut again, until there's nothing left. At the same time we downsized and outsourced. Our 14% R&D budget went to 6%, and they're still griping about that "waste."
Back when it was an employer's market they could get away with it. But now it's turning around, and our specialized employees are leaving for greener pastures. The lack of any cross-training is now chomping on our ass hard...
p.s. We've had "lean and mean" for too long now. That thinking only works in a bad economy. When the economy improves all your specialized knowledge will jump ship. The huge multinationals need to get a clue soon, or "small and flexible" businesses are going to be eating their lunch with their former employees.
Most computer science students concentrate on small-computer technology, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems, or the popular alternatives Unix and Linux. Few have been trained on zOS, the operating system that runs IBM Corp.'s massive mainframes.
My how times have changed. Back when I was in University, we learned computer science, not specific operating systems. Of course we used specifica operating systems. In our case it was 4BSD and VMS. But we didn't have classes in them. We had classes in programming languages, data structures, compiler design, algorithms, etc. That was just the basics. That's what I took because I wasn't a CS major. The majors took additional specialty classes in information theory, networks, artificial intelligence, etc.
Wordstar, 123 and DOS were on the market back then, but if you wanted to take classes in them you had to go to night school at the junior college. How much of that "education" would be useful today? Why do you think classes in Windows or Linux today will be different and remain be useful twenty years from now? If you really need those classes for your job, then take a night class at a junior college. But don't waste your formal education on them.
Of course not. Go read the post again. IQ is predictive, not causitive. As a predictor it's very good. I would be quite willing to bet $100 that a person with a 120 IQ is more successful than a person with an 80 IQ. I'll even let you choose the success metric. This doesn't mean that everyone with an 80 IQ is a failure, or that everyone with a 120 IQ is a success. It only means its predictive enough that I'm willing to bet $100 on it.
My high school had a "gifted" program for students with high IQs, and a "special" program for students with low IQs. I'll let you take a wild guess as to which group has more successes today, twenty years later. Or if you prefer, you can guess as to which had the fewest failures.
If you find that frustrating, you might want to consider moving to a more narrow-minded website.
So if I disagree with the absurd notion that Bush is responsible for drug spam, it means I'm narrow-minded? Did you READ the original post? Are you claiming it's defensible? If it marks me as intolerant for not accepting moonbat guano as legitimate political opinion, then tattoo that mark in my forehead!
My understanding was Dell and other manufacturers were donating computers and other hardware?
Maybe so. But who is going to maintain all of it? Who is going to be administering the network? It's not going to run itself. And as more and more people get deluded into thinking it's free, the bandwidth requirements go up.
Or do you really think people will vountarily limit their bandwidth usage for something that's "free"?
Way I see it, its better than snarfing off your neighbors wireless
Instead, you'll snarf off of your neighbor's taxes. "It's just one penny per $100 in groceries! They'll never miss it! Make the cable and dsl users pay for my wifi!"
And before somebody says it, no, I don't think drug legalization is the answer.
Legalization will not cure the junkies. Duh.
On the other hand, prohibition isn't doing that great of a job at it either, but it brings with it a whole bunch of nasty side effects, like organized crime. We've had fifty years of narcotic prohibition in the US, and the problem has gotten worse each year.
The only time I ever had a gun stuck in my face was when some junkies mugged me to get cocaine money. They can go get high and pass out in their living rooms as much as they want and it don't bother me. But when they stick guns in my face, I tend to get upset.
It still won't be free. You might not be getting a monthly bill from a business, but you will be paying for it via your taxes. Last time I mentioned this I got screamed at for being a conservative stooge of Bush. But people still keep missing this basic fact of economics.
Politicians like Gavin Newsome use the word "free" to fool the gullible. What's sad is that there are so many gullible people. "Free" wifi might not be as expensive as "free" roads or "free" education, but it's still "free" with a monetary price tag attached to it.
The first provider is always a "monopoly" be definition. Whether you call them a monopoly or not depends on your attitude towards the company.
Take Standard Oil, for example. Before Rockefeller, no one used petroleum. He got his monopoly because he invented a new industry from scratch. I'm not excusing his later collusion with the government to prevent competition, but he started out as just an ordinary businessman with an idea.
Monopolies are generally limited to new industries. AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, etc. There are exceptions, however, but for the most part when you see a monopoly you see a company that helped start the industry. AT&T was started by the inventor of the telephone. IBM was one of mainframe's pioneers. Microsoft first marketed software as a product to the home user. Think of Alcoa. Who ever used aluminum before them?
The big question is whether you want to condem a company for being first, or condem a company for sticking around.
I live just slightly south of you. I've found that wherever you go in San Fransisco, people are rude. I've stopped seeing movies in San Fransisco. Hell, the Metreon makes rude New Yorkers blush! So head fifteen or thirty minutes south for your movies. You'll still find some rude audiences here or there, but most places will be fine.
You might prefer it, but she won't. I don't care how much money you make on that IT job, chinese takeout and a Netflix DVD aren't going to impress her.
According to your article, the US spends 10 hours more per *year* than in 1950. It's trivial. That's not even two minutes per *day*. It's also a voluntary two minutes.
By "we", I was also referring to all of capitalistic Western Civilization. That includes Germany and France, despite their socialistic leanings.
While there is legitimate debate on the usability of verbs versus nouns and left cancel versus right cancel and other dialog buttons stuff, this is woefully insufficient to make KDE the Windows clone everyone says it is.
I'm looking at CDE under Solaris. Its dialogs have "OK", "Apply", and "Close". So why isn't KDE accused of being a CDE clone? It would make sense because it actually started out that way once upon a time. And now I'm looking at Windowmaker. Holy shit! It has "Apply" and "Close" buttons too! Is Windowmaker a clone of Windows instead of NeXT as I've been led to believe?
Maybe Apple has a clue. I don't have a Mac handy, but I do have Apple's Quicktime player. Let's take a look at its preferences dialog. OMFG! It has "OK" and "Cancel"! Aaaargh! Is nothing sacred! Bill Gates must have Steve Jobs under his Mind Control Ray!
Come on people! Stop parroting the GNOME lies. If you're going to claim that KDE is a fcuking Windows clone, at least provide some evidence that would take more than two brain cells to refute.
Just look at the US and how the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.
The rich are getting richer, to be sure. But the poor are NOT getting poorer, they're getting less poor instead. We have an economic mobility in this nation that's unheard of most other places in the world.
It's not perfect. Nothing ever is. But people have been claiming that the poor are getting poorer for so long, I'm starting to wonder why we haven't imploded yet. Instead I see the barrios of my youth replaced with low income housing. That's a move up. I see our standards of living rising. We have more leisure time than ever before in history.
I don't care that much about capitalism versus socialism versus whatever. Those are just names. I do care about freedom, though. So whatever grand plans you have for the world economy, make sure they don't take any of my freedoms or my neighbor's freedoms away. That includes our freedom to engage in voluntary economic transactions with whomever we please.
I wasn't arguing against the meals. I was arguing against the idea of that employment should dominate your existance. If I'm expected to work twice as many hours as a non-stakeholder employee, then I expect twice the salary in return. Otherwise I might as well keep my present salary in my present programming job.
Using the location of the panel on the top or the bottom as an indication of Windows-ness is petty. Supremely petty. Bordering on stupidity. Did you know it takes all of three seconds to put the KDE (or Windows) panel on the top of the screen? Ooooh, maybe we could be truly innovative and put it on the side!
Fewer options that clutter the screen? In KDE I have one panel and two icons by default. On OSX I have one panel, two icons, and one menu bar. That's one more element. The panel itself may be more cluttered in KDE (since it has a clock), but it isn't any more cluttered than GNOME's.
Yes, there are more menu options in KDE. Much much more than in Windows (which is pretty sparse by default). But GNOME has many more options than Windows as well! Shame on them! Bad, bad GNOME!
But simplicity or complexity has NOTHING to do with Windows-ness. That's petty as well. "Look Ma! It has more than two buttons in the dialog, it must be that Windows thing they keep warning us about!"
So that's it? Those are the three big things that makes KDE a Windows clone? Panel on bottom, lots of icons on desktop, lots of items in menus? Pardon me if I sound skeptical.
But I don't understand why so many people feel that it's wrong for a company to operate this way.
Whatever rocks your boat! Bang your head against the wall all day if you want. People point to 19th century company "towns" as modern serfdom, but if that's what you want to do, go for it. Sell you soul to the company store if you can get a good enough price for it. It's not wrong. It's just not for me.
How can you have a social life at 80 hours per week? How can you date or support a marriage? How can you have time to see your children before they grow up and move away? Why bother with a dog if you never have time to walk it? Why bother renting an apartment or buying a house? Just rent a mailbox and sleep in your cubicle! Think of all the benefits: no more distracting hobbies, no more distracting friends, no more distracting relationships, no more distracting individualism.
I don't know why you mention multiple desktops, because Windows does NOT HAVE MULTIPLE DESKTOPS!
There is some third party software that will do it on Windows, but it's not there by default, nor is it in any way common. Your idea that OSX is different from Windows because it doesn't have multiple desktops is strange, to say the least.
p.s. Expose is *NEW* to OSX. Are you claiming that pre-Expose OSX (as in 2004) was Windows-like?
p.p.s. I'm not claiming OSX to a clone of Windows. I'm only claiming that they use the same desktop paradigm.
I keep hearing people claim that KDE is like Windows, but GNOME is not. But never is there any evidence of it. Is it the wallpaper? Every desktop has wallpaper! Is it icons? Every (modern) desktop has icons! Is it the panel? Every desktop has a panel of some sort! Titlebar on top of windows? Every desktop has that by default! W.I.M.P.? Yup! Folder/document metaphor? Yup! Yup! Yup! Yup!
Is it just because GNOME puts its panel on top instead of bottom that people think it's not Windows-like? Because it has higher contrast icons by default? WHY?!?!
On the other hand, I don't see where you see that KDE seems like OSX.
Let's see. Docker-like panel with zooming icons. I can put app menus on the top in a child panel just like Mac. And I can theme it with an Aquafresh Toothpaste style. Konqueror isn't Finder, but then again, neither is Nautilus.
Slashdot Mirror
My company used to be very big on training. We even brought in professors from a nearby university for on-site classes, with full university credits to the employees. But then we bought out by a multinational eurocorp, and the training budget got cut, and cut, and cut again, until there's nothing left. At the same time we downsized and outsourced. Our 14% R&D budget went to 6%, and they're still griping about that "waste."
Back when it was an employer's market they could get away with it. But now it's turning around, and our specialized employees are leaving for greener pastures. The lack of any cross-training is now chomping on our ass hard...
p.s. We've had "lean and mean" for too long now. That thinking only works in a bad economy. When the economy improves all your specialized knowledge will jump ship. The huge multinationals need to get a clue soon, or "small and flexible" businesses are going to be eating their lunch with their former employees.
Most computer science students concentrate on small-computer technology, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems, or the popular alternatives Unix and Linux. Few have been trained on zOS, the operating system that runs IBM Corp.'s massive mainframes.
My how times have changed. Back when I was in University, we learned computer science, not specific operating systems. Of course we used specifica operating systems. In our case it was 4BSD and VMS. But we didn't have classes in them. We had classes in programming languages, data structures, compiler design, algorithms, etc. That was just the basics. That's what I took because I wasn't a CS major. The majors took additional specialty classes in information theory, networks, artificial intelligence, etc.
Wordstar, 123 and DOS were on the market back then, but if you wanted to take classes in them you had to go to night school at the junior college. How much of that "education" would be useful today? Why do you think classes in Windows or Linux today will be different and remain be useful twenty years from now? If you really need those classes for your job, then take a night class at a junior college. But don't waste your formal education on them.
It doesn't demonstrate causality
Of course not. Go read the post again. IQ is predictive, not causitive. As a predictor it's very good. I would be quite willing to bet $100 that a person with a 120 IQ is more successful than a person with an 80 IQ. I'll even let you choose the success metric. This doesn't mean that everyone with an 80 IQ is a failure, or that everyone with a 120 IQ is a success. It only means its predictive enough that I'm willing to bet $100 on it.
My high school had a "gifted" program for students with high IQs, and a "special" program for students with low IQs. I'll let you take a wild guess as to which group has more successes today, twenty years later. Or if you prefer, you can guess as to which had the fewest failures.
If it works for the Democrats, why not?
If you find that frustrating, you might want to consider moving to a more narrow-minded website.
So if I disagree with the absurd notion that Bush is responsible for drug spam, it means I'm narrow-minded? Did you READ the original post? Are you claiming it's defensible? If it marks me as intolerant for not accepting moonbat guano as legitimate political opinion, then tattoo that mark in my forehead!
You don't have to flash the cash to get laid, but not acting like a cheapass tightwad does help.
Try not to use the word 'boobies' during this conversation.
What if the date is to the zoo and they have a Blue Footed B**bie exhibit?
So you're saying that drug spam really is Bush's fault? Or are you saying that no Slashdot post should be faulted?
My understanding was Dell and other manufacturers were donating computers and other hardware?
Maybe so. But who is going to maintain all of it? Who is going to be administering the network? It's not going to run itself. And as more and more people get deluded into thinking it's free, the bandwidth requirements go up.
Or do you really think people will vountarily limit their bandwidth usage for something that's "free"?
Way I see it, its better than snarfing off your neighbors wireless
Instead, you'll snarf off of your neighbor's taxes. "It's just one penny per $100 in groceries! They'll never miss it! Make the cable and dsl users pay for my wifi!"
The current administration would rather have the masses be medicated and docile than coherent and rebellious
No matter what the problem, someone on Slashdot will blame Bush for it.
And before somebody says it, no, I don't think drug legalization is the answer.
Legalization will not cure the junkies. Duh.
On the other hand, prohibition isn't doing that great of a job at it either, but it brings with it a whole bunch of nasty side effects, like organized crime. We've had fifty years of narcotic prohibition in the US, and the problem has gotten worse each year.
The only time I ever had a gun stuck in my face was when some junkies mugged me to get cocaine money. They can go get high and pass out in their living rooms as much as they want and it don't bother me. But when they stick guns in my face, I tend to get upset.
No, no, no! You don't understand! We will ALL get turns smacking them. So get back to the end of the line and wait your turn.
It still won't be free. You might not be getting a monthly bill from a business, but you will be paying for it via your taxes. Last time I mentioned this I got screamed at for being a conservative stooge of Bush. But people still keep missing this basic fact of economics.
Politicians like Gavin Newsome use the word "free" to fool the gullible. What's sad is that there are so many gullible people. "Free" wifi might not be as expensive as "free" roads or "free" education, but it's still "free" with a monetary price tag attached to it.
The first provider is always a "monopoly" be definition. Whether you call them a monopoly or not depends on your attitude towards the company.
Take Standard Oil, for example. Before Rockefeller, no one used petroleum. He got his monopoly because he invented a new industry from scratch. I'm not excusing his later collusion with the government to prevent competition, but he started out as just an ordinary businessman with an idea.
Monopolies are generally limited to new industries. AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, etc. There are exceptions, however, but for the most part when you see a monopoly you see a company that helped start the industry. AT&T was started by the inventor of the telephone. IBM was one of mainframe's pioneers. Microsoft first marketed software as a product to the home user. Think of Alcoa. Who ever used aluminum before them?
The big question is whether you want to condem a company for being first, or condem a company for sticking around.
I live just slightly south of you. I've found that wherever you go in San Fransisco, people are rude. I've stopped seeing movies in San Fransisco. Hell, the Metreon makes rude New Yorkers blush! So head fifteen or thirty minutes south for your movies. You'll still find some rude audiences here or there, but most places will be fine.
He said "a single ticket, drink and popcorn". One person. Not your whole family. Please read the posts you respond to.
You might prefer it, but she won't. I don't care how much money you make on that IT job, chinese takeout and a Netflix DVD aren't going to impress her.
According to your article, the US spends 10 hours more per *year* than in 1950. It's trivial. That's not even two minutes per *day*. It's also a voluntary two minutes.
By "we", I was also referring to all of capitalistic Western Civilization. That includes Germany and France, despite their socialistic leanings.
OK - Apply - Cancel
Huh? That's it?!?!
While there is legitimate debate on the usability of verbs versus nouns and left cancel versus right cancel and other dialog buttons stuff, this is woefully insufficient to make KDE the Windows clone everyone says it is.
I'm looking at CDE under Solaris. Its dialogs have "OK", "Apply", and "Close". So why isn't KDE accused of being a CDE clone? It would make sense because it actually started out that way once upon a time. And now I'm looking at Windowmaker. Holy shit! It has "Apply" and "Close" buttons too! Is Windowmaker a clone of Windows instead of NeXT as I've been led to believe?
Maybe Apple has a clue. I don't have a Mac handy, but I do have Apple's Quicktime player. Let's take a look at its preferences dialog. OMFG! It has "OK" and "Cancel"! Aaaargh! Is nothing sacred! Bill Gates must have Steve Jobs under his Mind Control Ray!
Come on people! Stop parroting the GNOME lies. If you're going to claim that KDE is a fcuking Windows clone, at least provide some evidence that would take more than two brain cells to refute.
Just look at the US and how the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.
The rich are getting richer, to be sure. But the poor are NOT getting poorer, they're getting less poor instead. We have an economic mobility in this nation that's unheard of most other places in the world.
It's not perfect. Nothing ever is. But people have been claiming that the poor are getting poorer for so long, I'm starting to wonder why we haven't imploded yet. Instead I see the barrios of my youth replaced with low income housing. That's a move up. I see our standards of living rising. We have more leisure time than ever before in history.
I don't care that much about capitalism versus socialism versus whatever. Those are just names. I do care about freedom, though. So whatever grand plans you have for the world economy, make sure they don't take any of my freedoms or my neighbor's freedoms away. That includes our freedom to engage in voluntary economic transactions with whomever we please.
I wasn't arguing against the meals. I was arguing against the idea of that employment should dominate your existance. If I'm expected to work twice as many hours as a non-stakeholder employee, then I expect twice the salary in return. Otherwise I might as well keep my present salary in my present programming job.
Using the location of the panel on the top or the bottom as an indication of Windows-ness is petty. Supremely petty. Bordering on stupidity. Did you know it takes all of three seconds to put the KDE (or Windows) panel on the top of the screen? Ooooh, maybe we could be truly innovative and put it on the side!
Fewer options that clutter the screen? In KDE I have one panel and two icons by default. On OSX I have one panel, two icons, and one menu bar. That's one more element. The panel itself may be more cluttered in KDE (since it has a clock), but it isn't any more cluttered than GNOME's.
Yes, there are more menu options in KDE. Much much more than in Windows (which is pretty sparse by default). But GNOME has many more options than Windows as well! Shame on them! Bad, bad GNOME!
But simplicity or complexity has NOTHING to do with Windows-ness. That's petty as well. "Look Ma! It has more than two buttons in the dialog, it must be that Windows thing they keep warning us about!"
So that's it? Those are the three big things that makes KDE a Windows clone? Panel on bottom, lots of icons on desktop, lots of items in menus? Pardon me if I sound skeptical.
But I don't understand why so many people feel that it's wrong for a company to operate this way.
Whatever rocks your boat! Bang your head against the wall all day if you want. People point to 19th century company "towns" as modern serfdom, but if that's what you want to do, go for it. Sell you soul to the company store if you can get a good enough price for it. It's not wrong. It's just not for me.
How can you have a social life at 80 hours per week? How can you date or support a marriage? How can you have time to see your children before they grow up and move away? Why bother with a dog if you never have time to walk it? Why bother renting an apartment or buying a house? Just rent a mailbox and sleep in your cubicle! Think of all the benefits: no more distracting hobbies, no more distracting friends, no more distracting relationships, no more distracting individualism.
I don't know why you mention multiple desktops, because Windows does NOT HAVE MULTIPLE DESKTOPS!
There is some third party software that will do it on Windows, but it's not there by default, nor is it in any way common. Your idea that OSX is different from Windows because it doesn't have multiple desktops is strange, to say the least.
p.s. Expose is *NEW* to OSX. Are you claiming that pre-Expose OSX (as in 2004) was Windows-like?
p.p.s. I'm not claiming OSX to a clone of Windows. I'm only claiming that they use the same desktop paradigm.
I keep hearing people claim that KDE is like Windows, but GNOME is not. But never is there any evidence of it. Is it the wallpaper? Every desktop has wallpaper! Is it icons? Every (modern) desktop has icons! Is it the panel? Every desktop has a panel of some sort! Titlebar on top of windows? Every desktop has that by default! W.I.M.P.? Yup! Folder/document metaphor? Yup! Yup! Yup! Yup!
Is it just because GNOME puts its panel on top instead of bottom that people think it's not Windows-like? Because it has higher contrast icons by default? WHY?!?!
On the other hand, I don't see where you see that KDE seems like OSX.
Let's see. Docker-like panel with zooming icons. I can put app menus on the top in a child panel just like Mac. And I can theme it with an Aquafresh Toothpaste style. Konqueror isn't Finder, but then again, neither is Nautilus.