Ever lived thru a winter there? You might change your mind. Everyone I have ever met who left there (even those born there) said Winter Sucks. Having snow on the Ground from Nov-Mar is not my idea of fun. However, it is a lovely state Spring, Summer and Fall.
Would you do that? I asked the techs working a problem a few doors down when DSL would come to my area, and they told me when HELL freezes over. DSL switches cost a Million bucks I was told and until the area reaches a certain population density SBC isn't interested. Tell SBC that the area around the old SuperCollider on FM66 and FM 1446 (Zip 75167) would just about KILL to get DLS. I'd guarantee 90% subscription rate. Heck, we'd be happy to sign up with anyone. I hear Verizon is looking to maybe provide something out that way soon.
DSN is saturated and time slices are VERY hard to get. It needs to be upgraded, but there is not any money. NASA will spend 10's of millions on a probe but won't spend any on the data network to get the probe's data to the ground. In part, due to the saturation of DSN, most missions now have to have an on-board data recorder that holds anywhere from 24 hours to 7 days of data for compressed delivery when a slot is open. That adds costs and weight to every mission.
Re:RTFM is the fix?
on
Saving Huygens
·
· Score: 5, Informative
NASA Has an Independant Verification and Validation Center to provide technical oversight. I worked there (it's in West F'ing Virgina of all places). The folks there do a great job with what data they are given. Often to save costs, this IV&V team is not even allowed to participate in the Design Reviews, and when they are and discover issue the Project Offices sweep them under the rug. No use admitting to problems that might show someone is not thinking correctly or is not managing the project well. The theory is "Let's avoid the problems by witholding information and communication from anyone who might find a problem". Solid testing? Thats a joke too, it costs money to test things well, and who knows they might break!. Contractors will make mistakes, after all they employ humans, but the mistakes can be corrected BEFORE flight if they are found. Having an extra set of eyes, and doing extensive testing is valuable but costly. In FACT having IV&V on manned systems is the LAW since the Challenger disaster, it's just commonly disregarded at NASA for anything but ISS. Even STS has no IV&V, after all it's a "mature" system and there are no bugs left. Regardless of what you hear about NASA "changing" after Columbia it really isn't. I fully expect another STS disaster, and several more mini-disasters in unmanned systems in the near future.
will I get DSL even though I've begged them to put a DSL capable switch in my area (30 miles from Dallas and best I get is 28.8). If someone does, I'm on it!!
IMHO, VLANs should only be inside the firewall, a VPN can span inside or outside or both. VLANs should be port based and if you want extra security use SSL over a VLAN/VPN. Outside the firewall no one even knows about the VLAN. Now if someone loses a laptop with the access information that is a different matter. The theif can login and dig up information and look just like a normal user. That's one reason Laptop theft is big. Last place I worked we encrypted all our laptop drives, so at boot up you had to have the NT password and the encryption password, and there WAS NOT ANY BYPASS. Forget your password, you are toast. Reformat time and hope you can restore from the backup.
Good security is NOT that hard, it's really more of an issue of folks getting upset that can't get to EVERYTHING (as others have stated), or having a couple extra steps to get to the data.
I wouldn't say you have a liberal bias at all. I am pretty conservative and don't trust the SS system at all. I think the idea I can take at least SOME of the money and put it in a private fund *I* chose is very positive. Now if it has to be in a fund the SSA chooses, I won't support that.
As far as changes in the SS laws such as using cards for ID that doesnt take a vote of Congress. Often Agencies change the rules on thier own, which I really detest. They are like an unchecked 4th branch of Government.
I have worked at dozens of firms as an employee/consultant and always had plenty of room. Space is NOT an issue, now that all the work has been outsourced empty office BUILDINGS abound.
Crappy printer? I have no idea. I don't buy Dell, I build my own PCs and stick with name brand printers like Canon or HP.
Apple positions the G5 against the Dells. I have seen many Optiplexs and Dimensions turned into servers, but never a G5. If I want a "lightweight desktop" machine I'll go buy two $700 beige boxes, then the daughter and I don't have to fight over one machine.
Yes,some difference could be attributed to the flags Based on Benchmarks I have done in the past, I'd say its maybe 2-3%. Nothing you would notice as the end user as the apps are pretty well optimized when released.
The WSJ is full of it. I think they do a great job of reporting business but they are not techies.
Here are some facts they forgot:
1) Apple's ship time is 2-3 weeks, Dell is 24 hours on most boxes, about 5-7 days on custom orders. if your company needs a machine you are not going to wait. Lost time = lost money.
2) Who cares about ugly or bulky? It's under the desk or in a rack somewhere. I don't see it. All I have on the desk is the keyboard, mouse and monitor.
3) Why does the average user need XP Pro? That just increases the price.
4) A totally tricked out 4600 is right at $1500 and you get a FREE printer. A middle of the road 4600 is about 1100. LESS than the base G5, and equal performance. You can also now get Dell to ship the box with Linux. Add wireless and 512MB of memory to the G5 and you hit $1500.
5) The base 4600 has 512MB memory the G5 has 256MB
6) Wireless comes with the 4600, it's an upgrade to the Apple G5.
7) With Linux the 4600 will run rings around the G5. The 1.8 Ghz PPC is a good chip but its not going to beat a 2.8Ghz P4. For $27 I can up my p4 to 3.0 Ghz, I can't up the G5 CPU speed w/o spending $200. For that $200 I can get the 3.4Ghz P4 and have money left over!
If you really want to compare "bang for the buck" the Dell wins. If you want coolness factor and being different the Apple wins. Frankly being cool and different is NOT important to the business user and also is not to the average home user.
To buy the same Apple as my Compaq Laptop would cost $1799, I paid less than $1000 for my laptop on sale at a big box store. When you can get almost TWO Intel or AMD laptops for the price of one Apple thats the way most will spend the money. Now if you are after the coolness factor and will spend the extra then by all means buy the Apple. But if anything ever goes wrong, or you need upgrades, you better hope you have some money left as they are not cheap. The Apples used to be a bit more cutting edge technology but that isnt the case anymore.
Second (or third if ya count the dropped sattelite at Goddard about 18 months ago) screwup by Lockheed on a recent NASA project. Knowing NASA, they'll likely give LockMart a bonus for that performance;)
You wouldn't happen to live in a strongly Union state would you? That sort of "control" is common with labor unions. Just find out who the guy is that sets the quotas on apprentices, slip him about 5 Benjamins ($100 bills for those not in the USA) and you are in like Flynn.
Well said. Those who want to succeed will find a way even if they have to change careers. Being self-sufficient used to be the American way. I guess the Baby-Bust kids of the 70's and 80's expect the rest of us to support them like Mom and Dad did. The concept of social welfare only came into place 75 yrs ago but it sure has gone from being a safety net to a way of life very quickly.
When an apprentice Electrician gets $12-15/hr thats not a bad wage to learn a trade. Overtime is common. Once you get your license you do even beter. Start your own firm and you can do very well. I have a cousin who barely made it out of High School, he apprenticed with an Uncle (who went to the 8th grade) a who owned a electical contracting firm (he retired nicely at 55). He apprenticed 3-4 yrs, got his license, worked some more, got his Master License, started his own company. Retired at 45 a millionaire. I have a BS in CompSCi and an MBA. I still work 40+ hours a week to make it. Which one of us was "smarter"?? DO NOT knock skilled trades, they will always be in demand.
I see adds all the time for very knowledgeable programmers/designers with many years experience and salaries of 40-50K. Most of these jobs are filled by H1B's or even undocumented workers (yes, illegal aliens don't just pick fruit) because that wage is not going to get you any non H1B workers. The H1B law says they have to pay "Prevailing" wage, which as we all know means whatever the employer wants it to be since there really aren't any standards to measure against. The H1B wouldn't be so bad if the playing field was level and they competed with US programmers on SKILLS instead of WAGES. Last I heard there were like 100K unemployed IT programmers in the USA and companies were hammering Congress to UP the H1B numbers so they could get more cheap programmers from overseas. If they were going to REALLY pay prevailing wages they could get US programmers to work for them. The businesses are taking advantage of a poorly written law. You decide for yourself if that is ethical or not.
My experience as a Manager and IT Architect has been just the reverse. While Indian programmers are usually TECHNICALLY qualified, they don't seem to grasp the business nuances needed to write top notch software esp. in the user interface area. It may not be the case now, but a few years ago the development methodology was almost non-existant, more like a team of hackers not programmers. I also found a strong reluctance in Indian programmers to address security issues, test code completely, protect company IP and also to handle constructive criticisms of their work or work habits. Written and Verbal communication was also difficult if you were not having a detailed software technical conversation [must be my Southern accent, can't ya hear it in my typing]. Having had programmers from India and from Taiwan/China both on my team I prefer the Asians. There seems to be more pride in the work, a willingness to learn from peers and they seem more adaptable to US customs. Perhaps I just didn't get exposed to the right Indians and did get exposed to the best Asians but I can only state my experiences. No, I'm not a racist nor am I putting down anyone, just reporting my experiences.
I just looked at the HP LaserJet here at work and they are a very hard plastic. Replaceable I suppose but they don't seem to wear out for many tens of 1000's of pages.
Just make the print feed rollers a bit tighter where they leave a tiny imprint that was machined onto the rollers. No need for additional parts or special ink, but it would take special equipment to detect the imprints. That would mean only those with deep pockets could do the tests to see if something was faked, which kind of negates it's usefulness to anyone but the Government. Joe Clerk couldnt tell if the documents were perfectly forged. US Currency uses a combination of microprinting, watermarks, threads, special paper and special UV sensitive ink which makes it very hard to counterfeit. But give someone enough reasons and enough time and they'll figure out a way to beat just about any system.
http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf is the work on the Therac-25 problems by Nancy Leveson. If you have ever worked with software for embedded/control/fault tolerant systems you know her name. She pretty much invented the area of Software Risk Analysis. I don't doubt her explanation of the issue. Maybe Renault needs to hire her to find out IF or WHAT really happened. IIRC, she is at MIT now.
Fighter pilots are bulletproof and they play chicken with mountains and each other to prove it. It's just their mentality. The movie "Top Gun" is pretty accurate. I've worked with some of those guys.
The Gov't can read your email if they wish anyhow. This would prohibit private citizens from doing so by closing the loophole that said "if the read it while it's on the mail spooler and NOT right off the wire it's OK". It's a bad loophole, it should be closed and closing it doesnt hurt Homeland Security any. The Gov't is only going to be reading your email if you are a "bad guy" anyway. They are more likley to snoop on your cell phone calls than your email. Of course if you ARE a bad guy and give out your email addy on the cell phone you are in double trouble.
Guess Renualt's don't have ON-STAR. Based on what I hear on the radio about ON-STAR they could have switched the car off remotely with an over-ride command. I wonder what that truck was carrying that hosed the electronics on the car so badly? Perhaps they should be looking for that problem as well! Or maybe the Renault just thought it would like to be a Ferrari for a short while.
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Ever lived thru a winter there? You might change your mind. Everyone I have ever met who left there (even those born there) said Winter Sucks. Having snow on the Ground from Nov-Mar is not my idea of fun. However, it is a lovely state Spring, Summer and Fall.
Would you do that? I asked the techs working a problem a few doors down when DSL would come to my area, and they told me when HELL freezes over. DSL switches cost a Million bucks I was told and until the area reaches a certain population density SBC isn't interested. Tell SBC that the area around the old SuperCollider on FM66 and FM 1446 (Zip 75167) would just about KILL to get DLS. I'd guarantee 90% subscription rate. Heck, we'd be happy to sign up with anyone. I hear Verizon is looking to maybe provide something out that way soon.
DSN is saturated and time slices are VERY hard to get. It needs to be upgraded, but there is not any money. NASA will spend 10's of millions on a probe but won't spend any on the data network to get the probe's data to the ground. In part, due to the saturation of DSN, most missions now have to have an on-board data recorder that holds anywhere from 24 hours to 7 days of data for compressed delivery when a slot is open. That adds costs and weight to every mission.
NASA Has an Independant Verification and Validation Center to provide technical oversight. I worked there (it's in West F'ing Virgina of all places). The folks there do a great job with what data they are given. Often to save costs, this IV&V team is not even allowed to participate in the Design Reviews, and when they are and discover issue the Project Offices sweep them under the rug. No use admitting to problems that might show someone is not thinking correctly or is not managing the project well. The theory is "Let's avoid the problems by witholding information and communication from anyone who might find a problem". Solid testing? Thats a joke too, it costs money to test things well, and who knows they might break!. Contractors will make mistakes, after all they employ humans, but the mistakes can be corrected BEFORE flight if they are found. Having an extra set of eyes, and doing extensive testing is valuable but costly. In FACT having IV&V on manned systems is the LAW since the Challenger disaster, it's just commonly disregarded at NASA for anything but ISS. Even STS has no IV&V, after all it's a "mature" system and there are no bugs left. Regardless of what you hear about NASA "changing" after Columbia it really isn't. I fully expect another STS disaster, and several more mini-disasters in unmanned systems in the near future.
will I get DSL even though I've begged them to put a DSL capable switch in my area (30 miles from Dallas and best I get is 28.8). If someone does, I'm on it!!
Do you know if ADP is sending our payroll data offshore? (my company uses them too)
IMHO, VLANs should only be inside the firewall, a VPN can span inside or outside or both. VLANs should be port based and if you want extra security use SSL over a VLAN/VPN. Outside the firewall no one even knows about the VLAN. Now if someone loses a laptop with the access information that is a different matter. The theif can login and dig up information and look just like a normal user. That's one reason Laptop theft is big. Last place I worked we encrypted all our laptop drives, so at boot up you had to have the NT password and the encryption password, and there WAS NOT ANY BYPASS. Forget your password, you are toast. Reformat time and hope you can restore from the backup. Good security is NOT that hard, it's really more of an issue of folks getting upset that can't get to EVERYTHING (as others have stated), or having a couple extra steps to get to the data.
I wouldn't say you have a liberal bias at all. I am pretty conservative and don't trust the SS system at all. I think the idea I can take at least SOME of the money and put it in a private fund *I* chose is very positive. Now if it has to be in a fund the SSA chooses, I won't support that. As far as changes in the SS laws such as using cards for ID that doesnt take a vote of Congress. Often Agencies change the rules on thier own, which I really detest. They are like an unchecked 4th branch of Government.
I have worked at dozens of firms as an employee/consultant and always had plenty of room. Space is NOT an issue, now that all the work has been outsourced empty office BUILDINGS abound. Crappy printer? I have no idea. I don't buy Dell, I build my own PCs and stick with name brand printers like Canon or HP. Apple positions the G5 against the Dells. I have seen many Optiplexs and Dimensions turned into servers, but never a G5. If I want a "lightweight desktop" machine I'll go buy two $700 beige boxes, then the daughter and I don't have to fight over one machine.
Yes,some difference could be attributed to the flags Based on Benchmarks I have done in the past, I'd say its maybe 2-3%. Nothing you would notice as the end user as the apps are pretty well optimized when released.
The WSJ is full of it. I think they do a great job of reporting business but they are not techies. Here are some facts they forgot: 1) Apple's ship time is 2-3 weeks, Dell is 24 hours on most boxes, about 5-7 days on custom orders. if your company needs a machine you are not going to wait. Lost time = lost money. 2) Who cares about ugly or bulky? It's under the desk or in a rack somewhere. I don't see it. All I have on the desk is the keyboard, mouse and monitor. 3) Why does the average user need XP Pro? That just increases the price. 4) A totally tricked out 4600 is right at $1500 and you get a FREE printer. A middle of the road 4600 is about 1100. LESS than the base G5, and equal performance. You can also now get Dell to ship the box with Linux. Add wireless and 512MB of memory to the G5 and you hit $1500. 5) The base 4600 has 512MB memory the G5 has 256MB 6) Wireless comes with the 4600, it's an upgrade to the Apple G5. 7) With Linux the 4600 will run rings around the G5. The 1.8 Ghz PPC is a good chip but its not going to beat a 2.8Ghz P4. For $27 I can up my p4 to 3.0 Ghz, I can't up the G5 CPU speed w/o spending $200. For that $200 I can get the 3.4Ghz P4 and have money left over! If you really want to compare "bang for the buck" the Dell wins. If you want coolness factor and being different the Apple wins. Frankly being cool and different is NOT important to the business user and also is not to the average home user.
To buy the same Apple as my Compaq Laptop would cost $1799, I paid less than $1000 for my laptop on sale at a big box store. When you can get almost TWO Intel or AMD laptops for the price of one Apple thats the way most will spend the money. Now if you are after the coolness factor and will spend the extra then by all means buy the Apple. But if anything ever goes wrong, or you need upgrades, you better hope you have some money left as they are not cheap. The Apples used to be a bit more cutting edge technology but that isnt the case anymore.
Second (or third if ya count the dropped sattelite at Goddard about 18 months ago) screwup by Lockheed on a recent NASA project. Knowing NASA, they'll likely give LockMart a bonus for that performance ;)
You wouldn't happen to live in a strongly Union state would you? That sort of "control" is common with labor unions. Just find out who the guy is that sets the quotas on apprentices, slip him about 5 Benjamins ($100 bills for those not in the USA) and you are in like Flynn.
Well said. Those who want to succeed will find a way even if they have to change careers. Being self-sufficient used to be the American way. I guess the Baby-Bust kids of the 70's and 80's expect the rest of us to support them like Mom and Dad did. The concept of social welfare only came into place 75 yrs ago but it sure has gone from being a safety net to a way of life very quickly.
When an apprentice Electrician gets $12-15/hr thats not a bad wage to learn a trade. Overtime is common. Once you get your license you do even beter. Start your own firm and you can do very well. I have a cousin who barely made it out of High School, he apprenticed with an Uncle (who went to the 8th grade) a who owned a electical contracting firm (he retired nicely at 55). He apprenticed 3-4 yrs, got his license, worked some more, got his Master License, started his own company. Retired at 45 a millionaire. I have a BS in CompSCi and an MBA. I still work 40+ hours a week to make it. Which one of us was "smarter"?? DO NOT knock skilled trades, they will always be in demand.
I see adds all the time for very knowledgeable programmers/designers with many years experience and salaries of 40-50K. Most of these jobs are filled by H1B's or even undocumented workers (yes, illegal aliens don't just pick fruit) because that wage is not going to get you any non H1B workers. The H1B law says they have to pay "Prevailing" wage, which as we all know means whatever the employer wants it to be since there really aren't any standards to measure against. The H1B wouldn't be so bad if the playing field was level and they competed with US programmers on SKILLS instead of WAGES. Last I heard there were like 100K unemployed IT programmers in the USA and companies were hammering Congress to UP the H1B numbers so they could get more cheap programmers from overseas. If they were going to REALLY pay prevailing wages they could get US programmers to work for them. The businesses are taking advantage of a poorly written law. You decide for yourself if that is ethical or not.
My experience as a Manager and IT Architect has been just the reverse. While Indian programmers are usually TECHNICALLY qualified, they don't seem to grasp the business nuances needed to write top notch software esp. in the user interface area. It may not be the case now, but a few years ago the development methodology was almost non-existant, more like a team of hackers not programmers. I also found a strong reluctance in Indian programmers to address security issues, test code completely, protect company IP and also to handle constructive criticisms of their work or work habits. Written and Verbal communication was also difficult if you were not having a detailed software technical conversation [must be my Southern accent, can't ya hear it in my typing]. Having had programmers from India and from Taiwan/China both on my team I prefer the Asians. There seems to be more pride in the work, a willingness to learn from peers and they seem more adaptable to US customs. Perhaps I just didn't get exposed to the right Indians and did get exposed to the best Asians but I can only state my experiences. No, I'm not a racist nor am I putting down anyone, just reporting my experiences.
I just looked at the HP LaserJet here at work and they are a very hard plastic. Replaceable I suppose but they don't seem to wear out for many tens of 1000's of pages.
Just make the print feed rollers a bit tighter where they leave a tiny imprint that was machined onto the rollers. No need for additional parts or special ink, but it would take special equipment to detect the imprints. That would mean only those with deep pockets could do the tests to see if something was faked, which kind of negates it's usefulness to anyone but the Government. Joe Clerk couldnt tell if the documents were perfectly forged. US Currency uses a combination of microprinting, watermarks, threads, special paper and special UV sensitive ink which makes it very hard to counterfeit. But give someone enough reasons and enough time and they'll figure out a way to beat just about any system.
Christmas Party Season ;)
http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf is the work on the Therac-25 problems by Nancy Leveson. If you have ever worked with software for embedded/control/fault tolerant systems you know her name. She pretty much invented the area of Software Risk Analysis. I don't doubt her explanation of the issue. Maybe Renault needs to hire her to find out IF or WHAT really happened. IIRC, she is at MIT now.
Fighter pilots are bulletproof and they play chicken with mountains and each other to prove it. It's just their mentality. The movie "Top Gun" is pretty accurate. I've worked with some of those guys.
The Gov't can read your email if they wish anyhow. This would prohibit private citizens from doing so by closing the loophole that said "if the read it while it's on the mail spooler and NOT right off the wire it's OK". It's a bad loophole, it should be closed and closing it doesnt hurt Homeland Security any. The Gov't is only going to be reading your email if you are a "bad guy" anyway. They are more likley to snoop on your cell phone calls than your email. Of course if you ARE a bad guy and give out your email addy on the cell phone you are in double trouble.
Guess Renualt's don't have ON-STAR. Based on what I hear on the radio about ON-STAR they could have switched the car off remotely with an over-ride command. I wonder what that truck was carrying that hosed the electronics on the car so badly? Perhaps they should be looking for that problem as well! Or maybe the Renault just thought it would like to be a Ferrari for a short while.