I recently saw a video review of a new computer in a box that was too small have a CD-ROM drive but came with the drivers on a CD-ROM. *face palm* Fortunately, the drivers also came on a USB stick.
I still have a few spindles of blank CD and DVD discs lying around, but I haven't burned a disc in three or four years. Have USB sticks, will travel.
I read an early computer history book about a couple of scientists who went down to Cape Canaveral to coordinate the radar system with a computer system to track data as the rocket flew down range from the launch pad. The rocket test went haywire with the top and middle stages igniting to fly off in separate directions, leaving the bottom stage sitting on the launch pad. Since the self-destruct was located only in the bottom stage, the launch pad got blown to pieces and the remaining two stages came crashing down on their own.
I don't think the future as we know it today would be the same if Zefram Cochrane didn't know about the tall statue in his honor that would marked the first test of a warp drive engine and First Contact with the Vulcans.
As an I.T. support contractor in Silicon Valley for the last ten years, I never worked more than 40 hours per week. My contract prohibits me from working overtime because no one wants to pay overtime. I also get paid federal holidays, paid time off and a full benefit package. Being in my mid-40's, I'm actually one of the younger guys in my current contract job as many of my workers are in their upper 50's.
OTOH, when they retire that last mainframe running RPG, you'll be first on the RIF-list.
IBM introduced a new mainframe this year that can "process 2.5 billion transactions a day (or the equivalent of 100 Cyber Mondays every day, according to the company)."
When I went back to community college to learn computer programming after the dot com bust, computers were still the money major of the day. That changed a few years later when everyone abandoned computers for healthcare which became the new money major. I had a friend who switched from computers to healthcare, becoming a male nurse at a major hospital. He liked the money, hated the patients he worked with. Ironically, my current I.T. support contract is for a hospital but I have no interaction with the patients and probably make more money than he does.
He was under the false impression that being a supervisor meant he was the best tester in the entire department, not realizing that the Dilbert Principle of promoting the least competent person into management was company policy. His promotion started an exodus of a dozen talented testers out the door (I was number three to leave), as he preferred younger testers who would do as he says in fear of being fired rather than challenge him when he was wrong. He kept that job until the company filed for bankruptcy several years later.
If the recruiter is an Indian and has a thick accent, they typically follow a script to ask certain questions. I would answer "yes" to all the questions. When the recruiter becomes puzzled and repeat the question near the end because the expected answer is a "no," I will say "no" and say "yes" to the remaining questions. I've gotten a couple interviews that way.
Many tech workers who are unexpectedly laid off face a unique challenge of being very good at one particular specialty.
I had the opposite problem of being a jack of all trades and a master of none. As an I.T. support contractor for contracts that lasted one day to one year, I rarely had the luxury of picking and choosing my next contract. I've always took whatever came along next. For recruiters who are looking for someone with a minimum of three years in each of the last three jobs, they declared that I've lacked focus. Never mind they were looking for someone to fill a short-term contract.
I worked at one company for six years that gave me a 50% raise after my first year, as I was doing all the odd jobs that no one else wanted to do. During my last year there my new supervisor, who started work at the same time I did, made a big deal that he was giving me a 2% raise. I laughed, told him about the 50% raise, and explained to him that I automatically got a 2% raise for being above the salary cap. He got mad because I made more money than him for five years, as he thought he was a better worker than me.
I sucked so bad that I only had 60+ job interviews during those eight months, had three job offers towards the end, and still working at the job that I accepted 14 months later.
It's probably written in their contract so they can return to India to visit family. My contract says I can only work 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, during regular business hours. I haven't worked overtime in ten years.
I did a PC refresh job where an Indian engineer had 40+ half-empty coffee cups with slime mold on the surface of each one inside his cube. My boss told me not to replace that PC. The engineer got fired and a hazmat team went over that portion of the building.
Are you kidding? I got laid off from my tech job just before the government shutdown in October 2013 and I was out of work for eight months. Meanwhile, the CEO gave himself a 60% pay raise and bought a new yacht for having a lousy fiscal year. That didn't stop the company from hiring Indian workers to replace American workers.
I recently ran into a former coworker who is still working the same job and making the same money I did when we worked together ten years ago. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the contract work I did since then paid 80% more money. Those yearly 2% raises don't add up.
Using Red Hat Linux is becoming more and more professional misconduct.
The last time I applied for a Linux job, the Red Hat Linux GUI was a requirement for remote command line work. I was unable to convince the recruiter that not knowing the GUI wasn't a disadvantage, as opening a terminal window was all I needed for the job. In fact, I prefer using a minimalist window manager on Linux. The recruiter hanged up on me.
The last time I rebuilt my gaming PC was for Windows Vista in 2007. Since then I've added a SSD, changed out the CPU twice, and went through three different video cards. I'm planning to switch out the AMD 690 (DDR2 RAM) motherboard for a AMD 990 (DDR3 RAM) motherboard to get a few more years before I rebuild again.
What makes you think you have any privacy on the roads today? Your cellphone broadcasts a signal, video cameras monitors the roadways and some police departments use license plate scanners.
My grandmother had ten kids. The first one when she was 16 and the last one when she was 50. Spaced out so far apart, she only had five kids in the house at any given time. She had a farm and the kids helped out with the chores. If they didn't, the belt came out. Even her prize-winning bull was afraid of her when she brought the belt out.
I came across an old Victorian in Silicon Valley that was originally wired for 12V DC and later 120V AC. The owner revamped the 12V DC wiring to run a CB radio from his living room and old car radios in the other rooms, running the antenna wire out nearest window to the roof.
The 4.5GHz is probably as good as its going to get as far as clock speed. If you haven't noticed, processors have multiple cores because the 5GHz barrier can't be broken at an economical price point. In fact, server processors are clocked at a lower clock speed to reduce power consumption and run far more multiple cores than consumer counterpart.
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I recently saw a video review of a new computer in a box that was too small have a CD-ROM drive but came with the drivers on a CD-ROM. *face palm* Fortunately, the drivers also came on a USB stick.
I still have a few spindles of blank CD and DVD discs lying around, but I haven't burned a disc in three or four years. Have USB sticks, will travel.
Only God knows how many Russian cosmonauts were killed in their space program. Far more than U.S. space program.
I read an early computer history book about a couple of scientists who went down to Cape Canaveral to coordinate the radar system with a computer system to track data as the rocket flew down range from the launch pad. The rocket test went haywire with the top and middle stages igniting to fly off in separate directions, leaving the bottom stage sitting on the launch pad. Since the self-destruct was located only in the bottom stage, the launch pad got blown to pieces and the remaining two stages came crashing down on their own.
I don't think the future as we know it today would be the same if Zefram Cochrane didn't know about the tall statue in his honor that would marked the first test of a warp drive engine and First Contact with the Vulcans.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Zefram_Cochrane
As an I.T. support contractor in Silicon Valley for the last ten years, I never worked more than 40 hours per week. My contract prohibits me from working overtime because no one wants to pay overtime. I also get paid federal holidays, paid time off and a full benefit package. Being in my mid-40's, I'm actually one of the younger guys in my current contract job as many of my workers are in their upper 50's.
OTOH, when they retire that last mainframe running RPG, you'll be first on the RIF-list.
IBM introduced a new mainframe this year that can "process 2.5 billion transactions a day (or the equivalent of 100 Cyber Mondays every day, according to the company)."
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/z13-mainframe/
When I went back to community college to learn computer programming after the dot com bust, computers were still the money major of the day. That changed a few years later when everyone abandoned computers for healthcare which became the new money major. I had a friend who switched from computers to healthcare, becoming a male nurse at a major hospital. He liked the money, hated the patients he worked with. Ironically, my current I.T. support contract is for a hospital but I have no interaction with the patients and probably make more money than he does.
He was under the false impression that being a supervisor meant he was the best tester in the entire department, not realizing that the Dilbert Principle of promoting the least competent person into management was company policy. His promotion started an exodus of a dozen talented testers out the door (I was number three to leave), as he preferred younger testers who would do as he says in fear of being fired rather than challenge him when he was wrong. He kept that job until the company filed for bankruptcy several years later.
If the recruiter is an Indian and has a thick accent, they typically follow a script to ask certain questions. I would answer "yes" to all the questions. When the recruiter becomes puzzled and repeat the question near the end because the expected answer is a "no," I will say "no" and say "yes" to the remaining questions. I've gotten a couple interviews that way.
Many tech workers who are unexpectedly laid off face a unique challenge of being very good at one particular specialty.
I had the opposite problem of being a jack of all trades and a master of none. As an I.T. support contractor for contracts that lasted one day to one year, I rarely had the luxury of picking and choosing my next contract. I've always took whatever came along next. For recruiters who are looking for someone with a minimum of three years in each of the last three jobs, they declared that I've lacked focus. Never mind they were looking for someone to fill a short-term contract.
I worked at one company for six years that gave me a 50% raise after my first year, as I was doing all the odd jobs that no one else wanted to do. During my last year there my new supervisor, who started work at the same time I did, made a big deal that he was giving me a 2% raise. I laughed, told him about the 50% raise, and explained to him that I automatically got a 2% raise for being above the salary cap. He got mad because I made more money than him for five years, as he thought he was a better worker than me.
I sucked so bad that I only had 60+ job interviews during those eight months, had three job offers towards the end, and still working at the job that I accepted 14 months later.
It's probably written in their contract so they can return to India to visit family. My contract says I can only work 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, during regular business hours. I haven't worked overtime in ten years.
I did a PC refresh job where an Indian engineer had 40+ half-empty coffee cups with slime mold on the surface of each one inside his cube. My boss told me not to replace that PC. The engineer got fired and a hazmat team went over that portion of the building.
I have seen ads for jobs as desktop techs, asking for a masters degree in engineering.
That should clue you in that the company doesn't want to hire American workers.
Are you kidding? I got laid off from my tech job just before the government shutdown in October 2013 and I was out of work for eight months. Meanwhile, the CEO gave himself a 60% pay raise and bought a new yacht for having a lousy fiscal year. That didn't stop the company from hiring Indian workers to replace American workers.
I recently ran into a former coworker who is still working the same job and making the same money I did when we worked together ten years ago. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the contract work I did since then paid 80% more money. Those yearly 2% raises don't add up.
Using Red Hat Linux is becoming more and more professional misconduct.
The last time I applied for a Linux job, the Red Hat Linux GUI was a requirement for remote command line work. I was unable to convince the recruiter that not knowing the GUI wasn't a disadvantage, as opening a terminal window was all I needed for the job. In fact, I prefer using a minimalist window manager on Linux. The recruiter hanged up on me.
The last time I rebuilt my gaming PC was for Windows Vista in 2007. Since then I've added a SSD, changed out the CPU twice, and went through three different video cards. I'm planning to switch out the AMD 690 (DDR2 RAM) motherboard for a AMD 990 (DDR3 RAM) motherboard to get a few more years before I rebuild again.
What makes you think you have any privacy on the roads today? Your cellphone broadcasts a signal, video cameras monitors the roadways and some police departments use license plate scanners.
My grandmother had ten kids. The first one when she was 16 and the last one when she was 50. Spaced out so far apart, she only had five kids in the house at any given time. She had a farm and the kids helped out with the chores. If they didn't, the belt came out. Even her prize-winning bull was afraid of her when she brought the belt out.
I came across an old Victorian in Silicon Valley that was originally wired for 12V DC and later 120V AC. The owner revamped the 12V DC wiring to run a CB radio from his living room and old car radios in the other rooms, running the antenna wire out nearest window to the roof.
Pity the fool who has to write C for an appliance that truly sucks.
I don't think you can blame the programming language for that one.
The 4.5GHz is probably as good as its going to get as far as clock speed. If you haven't noticed, processors have multiple cores because the 5GHz barrier can't be broken at an economical price point. In fact, server processors are clocked at a lower clock speed to reduce power consumption and run far more multiple cores than consumer counterpart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48A_Yqj965c