If you can't go back and re-read my post and understand what you've proven then I'm afraid there is no real hope for you... Thanks for replying anyway.
Really? You wrote "long gone by the wayside of hollow promises" - I point out a promise kept and you think that proves your point? You'll have to explain that one.
How is this off-topic? At a certain level of government, homosexuality is enough to get you excluded from the game. That means there are likely some qualified candidates who are excluded based off a fairly arbitrary criteria.
That level is ONLY within the ranks of the military itself. It has nothing to do with civilian contractors. I personally know two trans-gendered people with clearances, deviation from the sexual norm is not a significant problem.
On monster.com I had the grand total of 11 hits for the whole US.
Don't look for job advertisements. Look for contract advertisements (not for individual contractors but actual contracts to provide services) - there is a regular (daily?) publication from the federal government that contains pretty much all federal contracts (everything except the ones that you have to be cleared to even learn exist in the first place), I think its the Federal Register, but I really can't remember the name off the top of my head.
Drug testing is not a requirement for a security clearance. Not even a TS or special access.
If program management has a valid reason to suspect illegal drug use, and cares enough to make an issue of it, then they can require a test in order to maintain your clearance. But that is discretionary and if you don't give them a reason - like coming to work high, or getting arrested for possession, or doing lines with your boss at the strip club - then they won't have a reason.
Many large employers - including DoD contractors like Lockmart, BAE, Raytheon, Grumman, etc - will do a "pre-employment drug test" but it turns out that drug testing as a condition of continued employment is generally illegal for non-safety critical jobs (and no, writing code never qualifies for that designation in this context). Small employers, including the thousands of less-than-50 employee DoD contractors, are frequently not so cowed by their corporate liability insurers as to do any drug testing at all.
The SF-86 form that you have to fill out for a background investigation does ask if you have used illegal drugs recently. It's up to you how your answer that question. Just know that for a regular secret clearance, all they do is run a criminal and financial records check. Anything more than that, they will go out and talk to your neighbors, your friends AND your friends' friends and they will ask them lifestyle questions about you and your friends.
I have a clearance, bill a generous rate, work from my home in South America, work on high-impact projects, and am always learning new technologies. Maintaining the clearance and flying up to DC every month or two are the biggest hassles.
I doubt it. Or at least I believe that you are misrepresenting your involvement. Unless you work on a US military base or the like in South America you aren't doing actual classified work there because handling classified materials requires a "secure area" - and having one of those in a personal home is about as rare as hen's teeth.
Its far more likely that your work is unclassified and is peripherally related to a classified program such that program management can justify getting you cleared for the convenience of occasionally discussing classified details in person.
Either that, or you are working on a program that is only considered 'sensitive' (for example a criminal information database) and thus only requires the most trivial of security procedures, like using a screen-saver with a password and merely promising not to share the personally identifiable information in the database with non-program people.
Anyone who has worked such a job would not be impressed. 99% of what goes on behind a security clearance is useless bullshit, just like a regular job. The only reason for restricting access is to prevent certain potentially mitigating details from being made available to those whom might find them useful.
And who wants to work for an agency that still requires a lie detector test. What a flipping joke, as if security clearance wasn't already bad enough.
Polygraphs are only used for TS and above. The majority of such work is only going to be at the secret level. In addition, the government does not require a drug test for a clearance (although all the large DoD contractors do - just like most large corps in america nowadays, the small ones don't necessarily).
Get a referrer spoofer like refcontrol and set it to make all nytimes.com URLs get a referrer of http://google.com/ and you won't have those problems. Been doing it for years.
Imagine a single-threaded game with a high CPU demand that consumes all time on a single CPU, while background processes such as the OS, drivers, pr0n downloads, etc. run on the second core.
Bingo! I can't say off the top of my head if that's how linux (or windows works) but other unices are known to work exactly like that - the extra accounting work of the OS goes to an idle cpu just like any other task, or at least stays on one monarch cpu while the others are free of it. Furthermore, with things like interrupt distribution and migration where hardware interrupts are assigned round-robin to all the cpus in the system - more cores means less interrupt handling work per core and if an app is smart enough and privileged enough to migrate interrupts off the current cpu, that's even better - the task that runs flat out and is cpu bound never gets 'interrupted' in favor of a hardware interrupt from some I/O device because another cpu has been designated to handle them instead.
Obama has done at least one of the few things that I expected of him - treat terrorists as criminals instead of super-ninjas-of-mass-destruction. Underwear bomber is getting a criminal trial, times-square bomber is getting a criminal trial, Jihad Jane is getting a criminal trial, etc, etc. Cheney, Palin and the rest of the fear-mongers practically spit nails anytime this policy change comes up, which warms my heart. Now, if only Obama would figure out a way to treat the gitmo detainees as criminals - unfortunately, the fear-mongers basically made most of the potential evidence inadmissible in a court of law due to their handling of the people there so who knows if that will ever happen.
Wow I had never heard of Raytheon until earlier this week and now I've seen them referenced in two different places for two different projects. (this and the "pain gun")
They are the largest private employer in the state of Massachusetts. Still smaller than Lockmart though.
And often, it's not worth the time trying to talk sense into people who have things completely wrong. That will just spawn an unnecessarily long sub-thread.
Just respond anonymously. You'll have to really go out of your way to come back and read any responses you get, so chances are you won't. Thus you get to put a correction out there and won't be tempted into an inane subthread.
You can not imagine that to be a shovel or a gun. You could use it as such, but it isn't one in your mind. The stick WAS everything I wanted it to be.
I think you seriously underestimate how much a play lightsaber can be repurposed. A stick is no less a stick than a lightsaber is a lightsaber.
Re:Thank God for standardized testing
on
The Creativity Crisis
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Creativity is declining because parents are washing their hands of the responsibility to shape the minds of their own kids. You don't get an inquisitive, creative mind at school - you arrive at school with one.
Where it is promptly beaten out of you.
The article didn't say creativity has disappeared. It said it's declining. It doesn't take disinterested parents to do that, all it takes is the removal of one previously encouraging environment to tip the balance in the other direction.
No mods, it's not a troll. The guy has essentially picked a totally random point to take the conversation and did so with flame-throwers at max. What he did was the equivalent of jumping into a conversation about driving from point A to point B and get all excited about why cars have four wheels instead of three or six.
email addresses used by TPB users should hopefully be throwaway addresses,
They make it difficult - for example they have banned mailinator addresses, despite themselves once offering a similar (but now defunct) service. As mailinator's admin goes to great lengths (as detailed on his blog) to stop automated use of mailinator addresses, the only reason to block mailinator is to force TPB users into more traceable mail services.
Hey, there is a word you might want to familiarize yourself with. Its pretty commonly used hereabouts, it goes like this, "wooooooooooooooooooooooosh!"
Slashdot Mirror
If you can't go back and re-read my post and understand what you've proven then I'm afraid there is no real hope for you... Thanks for replying anyway.
Pussy.
Really? You wrote "long gone by the wayside of hollow promises" - I point out a promise kept and you think that proves your point? You'll have to explain that one.
How is this off-topic? At a certain level of government, homosexuality is enough to get you excluded from the game. That means there are likely some qualified candidates who are excluded based off a fairly arbitrary criteria.
That level is ONLY within the ranks of the military itself. It has nothing to do with civilian contractors. I personally know two trans-gendered people with clearances, deviation from the sexual norm is not a significant problem.
On monster.com I had the grand total of 11 hits for the whole US.
Don't look for job advertisements. Look for contract advertisements (not for individual contractors but actual contracts to provide services) - there is a regular (daily?) publication from the federal government that contains pretty much all federal contracts (everything except the ones that you have to be cleared to even learn exist in the first place), I think its the Federal Register, but I really can't remember the name off the top of my head.
Drug testing is not a requirement for a security clearance. Not even a TS or special access.
If program management has a valid reason to suspect illegal drug use, and cares enough to make an issue of it, then they can require a test in order to maintain your clearance. But that is discretionary and if you don't give them a reason - like coming to work high, or getting arrested for possession, or doing lines with your boss at the strip club - then they won't have a reason.
Many large employers - including DoD contractors like Lockmart, BAE, Raytheon, Grumman, etc - will do a "pre-employment drug test" but it turns out that drug testing as a condition of continued employment is generally illegal for non-safety critical jobs (and no, writing code never qualifies for that designation in this context). Small employers, including the thousands of less-than-50 employee DoD contractors, are frequently not so cowed by their corporate liability insurers as to do any drug testing at all.
The SF-86 form that you have to fill out for a background investigation does ask if you have used illegal drugs recently. It's up to you how your answer that question. Just know that for a regular secret clearance, all they do is run a criminal and financial records check. Anything more than that, they will go out and talk to your neighbors, your friends AND your friends' friends and they will ask them lifestyle questions about you and your friends.
It sure does, dontchya know - if your are ShakesPalin.
I have a clearance, bill a generous rate, work from my home in South America, work on high-impact projects, and am always learning new technologies. Maintaining the clearance and flying up to DC every month or two are the biggest hassles.
I doubt it. Or at least I believe that you are misrepresenting your involvement. Unless you work on a US military base or the like in South America you aren't doing actual classified work there because handling classified materials requires a "secure area" - and having one of those in a personal home is about as rare as hen's teeth.
Its far more likely that your work is unclassified and is peripherally related to a classified program such that program management can justify getting you cleared for the convenience of occasionally discussing classified details in person.
Either that, or you are working on a program that is only considered 'sensitive' (for example a criminal information database) and thus only requires the most trivial of security procedures, like using a screen-saver with a password and merely promising not to share the personally identifiable information in the database with non-program people.
Anyone who has worked such a job would not be impressed. 99% of what goes on behind a security clearance is useless bullshit, just like a regular job. The only reason for restricting access is to prevent certain potentially mitigating details from being made available to those whom might find them useful.
And who wants to work for an agency that still requires a lie detector test. What a flipping joke, as if security clearance wasn't already bad enough.
Polygraphs are only used for TS and above. The majority of such work is only going to be at the secret level. In addition, the government does not require a drug test for a clearance (although all the large DoD contractors do - just like most large corps in america nowadays, the small ones don't necessarily).
Get a referrer spoofer like refcontrol and set it to make all nytimes.com URLs get a referrer of http://google.com/ and you won't have those problems. Been doing it for years.
Imagine a single-threaded game with a high CPU demand that consumes all time on a single CPU, while background processes such as the OS, drivers, pr0n downloads, etc. run on the second core.
Bingo! I can't say off the top of my head if that's how linux (or windows works) but other unices are known to work exactly like that - the extra accounting work of the OS goes to an idle cpu just like any other task, or at least stays on one monarch cpu while the others are free of it. Furthermore, with things like interrupt distribution and migration where hardware interrupts are assigned round-robin to all the cpus in the system - more cores means less interrupt handling work per core and if an app is smart enough and privileged enough to migrate interrupts off the current cpu, that's even better - the task that runs flat out and is cpu bound never gets 'interrupted' in favor of a hardware interrupt from some I/O device because another cpu has been designated to handle them instead.
Obama has done at least one of the few things that I expected of him - treat terrorists as criminals instead of super-ninjas-of-mass-destruction. Underwear bomber is getting a criminal trial, times-square bomber is getting a criminal trial, Jihad Jane is getting a criminal trial, etc, etc. Cheney, Palin and the rest of the fear-mongers practically spit nails anytime this policy change comes up, which warms my heart. Now, if only Obama would figure out a way to treat the gitmo detainees as criminals - unfortunately, the fear-mongers basically made most of the potential evidence inadmissible in a court of law due to their handling of the people there so who knows if that will ever happen.
Wow I had never heard of Raytheon until earlier this week and now I've seen them referenced in two different places for two different projects. (this and the "pain gun")
They are the largest private employer in the state of Massachusetts. Still smaller than Lockmart though.
And often, it's not worth the time trying to talk sense into people who have things completely wrong. That will just spawn an unnecessarily long sub-thread.
Just respond anonymously. You'll have to really go out of your way to come back and read any responses you get, so chances are you won't. Thus you get to put a correction out there and won't be tempted into an inane subthread.
That is almost true, but let us not forget the "snake oil salesmen" that sell the DRM
Absolutely, Rovi Corp (nee Macrovision Corp) has garnered over 3 billion dollars in assets selling all kinds of crazy-ass DRM schemes to hollywood.
Unrestrained creativity in a bolt monkey is a detriment when doing assembly work.
That is a poor attempt at taking an out of context quote trying to twist the meaning of the original comment
Somebody needs to calm down a little bit, because the only person that thinks flame-throwers were at max, or even on in the first place is you.
I. Don't. Fucking. Care
You're the one that brought it up, and I responded to it, how can it be pedantic?
Except I didn't bring it up - I brought up foolish obsession, you brought up tertiary issues with one specific obsession - forest and trees.
Your duty is then done. Get back to work and do exactly what you're paid to do. You get paid the same.
Excellent job of demonstrating the precise phenomenon under discussion.
Secret muslim terrorist? So you have to actually invent conspiracies to make the right sound nutty?
Apparently I do not.
You can not imagine that to be a shovel or a gun. You could use it as such, but it isn't one in your mind. The stick WAS everything I wanted it to be.
I think you seriously underestimate how much a play lightsaber can be repurposed.
A stick is no less a stick than a lightsaber is a lightsaber.
Creativity is declining because parents are washing their hands of the responsibility to shape the minds of their own kids. You don't get an inquisitive, creative mind at school - you arrive at school with one.
Where it is promptly beaten out of you.
The article didn't say creativity has disappeared. It said it's declining. It doesn't take disinterested parents to do that, all it takes is the removal of one previously encouraging environment to tip the balance in the other direction.
No mods, it's not a troll. The guy has essentially picked a totally random point to take the conversation and did so with flame-throwers at max.
What he did was the equivalent of jumping into a conversation about driving from point A to point B and get all excited about why cars have four wheels instead of three or six.
email addresses used by TPB users should hopefully be throwaway addresses,
They make it difficult - for example they have banned mailinator addresses, despite themselves once offering a similar (but now defunct) service. As mailinator's admin goes to great lengths (as detailed on his blog) to stop automated use of mailinator addresses, the only reason to block mailinator is to force TPB users into more traceable mail services.
Irrfuckingelevant.
Hey, there is a word you might want to familiarize yourself with. Its pretty commonly used hereabouts, it goes like this, "wooooooooooooooooooooooosh!"