Does anyone else remember a time when the rolling own your kernel modules for devices to work properly was considered advanced? And now almost everything works out of the box. I guess I'm getting old.
Also in practice, the less-than-1% of the US in Alaska/HI can be ignored,
For my current job I do remote work for users in Alaska, Hawaii AND Manila from Silicon Valley. Manila is the most vexing because the Internet link is slower than a 56K modem, but most users are logged off their systems for the night and I can take the extra time to get the work done.
Being a video game tester sucks all around. The payscale ten years ago -- and it probably haven't changed since then -- was $10 to $16 per hour. Management always told us that we could work at Taco Bell down the street if we didn't like our pay. One coworker looked into it, quit his job to work as Taco Bell because he made more money, and management shut up about Taco Bell. Too many video game testers buy video game-related crap that they don't need.
If you're a video game tester getting paid $16/hr (which I was ten years ago before I got into IT), you're not going to have any money saved up and no one is going to offer you a $100K/yr job to negotiate relocation cost. This particular coworker found another job in Texas. AFAIK, he never came back to California.
That's assuming an ability to move in either direction. Companies will not pay for relocation costs. If you don't have the money to move, you're so out of luck. This happened to a coworker at a video game company who accepted a promotion to move from California to Texas, got a laid off a month later, and couldn't come home because he spent everything to move there in the first place.
If there aren't enough jobs where you live, then stop whining and get on the bus Gus.
When I was out of work in Silicon Valley over the last few years, commentators told me to get on a bus to get a natural gas job in North Dakota. I pointed out that North Dakota was in the boom cycle. What would happen when it goes bust? We will find out soon enough with cheap gas..
In the meantime, we are working longer and longer hours because in order to keep profits up, companies have been laying people off and making their current workforce work harder and longer.
As an I.T. contractor, my contracts over the last six years has explicitly forbidden me from working overtime. I can only work 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, during normal business hours. Which is fine with me. The contract for my current job included paid holidays and 20 paid time off (PTO) days. The perks are getting better on my end.
A plan that was supposed to help us out and get employment back to 2007 levels has horribly failed.
This isn't a normal economy. If current job growth is maintained, it would still take two years to recover to 2007.
The Dow gained 64.73 points to 18,024.17 That's up 0.4 percent from its previous high, on Monday. The latest close is the Dow's second 1,000-point milestone this year after closing above 17,000 for the first time in July. The S.&P. 500 rose 3.63 points to 2,082.17. That's a gain of 0.2 percent from its previous high, a day earlier. The Nasdaq composite fell 16 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,765.42.
It was the nurses and doctors who were laughing at the I.T. techs for having big cellphones. The only reason why the I.T. techs had big cellphones was to compensate for something in the bragging department.
My employment contract specifically states that I can only work 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, during normal business hours. My productivity is dependent on what tools I get from upper management to do my job and what the IT department do to stay out of my way.
Such people actually do exist in IT. They just aren't going to be applying for a job at a law firm.
These are the same people who asks me what it's like to be a contractor and joke about taking a six-month vacation when the company announces a round of layoffs.
One last thought of a scenario where the driverless car would shine - just getting to a mass transit station to head into work. The car could bring you to a station, then go home all by itself so you wouldn't have to pay to park or worry about the car being broken into. Then when you were coming back home you could call it back to the station to pick you up, or even just to the office if you ended up having to stay late at work... the convenience is huge.
That's one feature I would love to have in a car. My current commute on public transit takes from my front door step to the door step of where I work. I only have to cross the street twice to pick up two local buses and the express bus. If I move to someplace with affordable rent, I'll need a car to get to the nearest pickup point.
I applied for a tech job at a law firm this past summer. The recruiter submitted my resume along with a half-dozen other resumes. The hiring manager rejected them all out of hand for lacking tenure (i.e., at least three years in the last three positions). The recruiter had to explain to the hiring manager that practically no one has three years in the last three positions since the Great Recession, as everyone is doing short-term contract and getting whatever jobs they can find. Last I heard, the position was still open.
I've been with Sprint for the last 20+ years. When I needed a new phone after the contract expired, I got whatever was available for FREE (except for the sales tax on the full value). The iPhone 5C @ $99 was the first cellphone that I ever bought. However, I'm still paying $75 per month (including taxes) for service and I don't expect the price to drop over time.
Why would anyone care if stupid people laugh at them?
Because those stupid people in a hospital are nurses and doctors. Give them an opportunity to look down on you as an I.T. professional and you will never hear the end of it. As an I.T. contractor, I worked in a wide variety of companies with different cultures. A hospital is perhaps the most hostile work enviornment. Either you fall in line with the pecking order or the door hits your ass on the way out.
Google is doing research and development (R&D) into technologies that don't have established markets yet. Wall Street, however, has a short-term focus on generating profits at the expense of a long-term R&D program. Most corporations no longer have R&D budgets to build out the future.
My cellphones usually last three years before I trade-in for a new one. I got an iPhone 5C this year because my 1st gen iPod Touch (2008) could no longer hold a charge, my cellphone contract was already up, and the iPhone was cheaper than a replacement iPod Touch. I may keep it for three years -- or longer.
I was doing a PC refresh project at a local hospital in 2012 when several of the I.T. techs got phablets to replace their personal cellphones. People laughed at them for having this big ass tablet next to their ear as if it was cellphone or juggling between their work Blackberry and phablet at the same time. They went back to smaller cellphone after the novelty wore off.
When I was a lead video game tester at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple identity crisis), I had to train fresh out of high school kids as video game testers. They always think that video games don't exist before I was born. I introduced them to a tester who tested arcade games in the 1980's, and then floored them by introducing them to a tester who tested pen-and-paper games in the 1970's.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you work for a Fortune 500 company that can afford a Red Hat license, the distro is Fedora. Been there, done that.
Does anyone else remember a time when the rolling own your kernel modules for devices to work properly was considered advanced? And now almost everything works out of the box. I guess I'm getting old.
Also in practice, the less-than-1% of the US in Alaska/HI can be ignored,
For my current job I do remote work for users in Alaska, Hawaii AND Manila from Silicon Valley. Manila is the most vexing because the Internet link is slower than a 56K modem, but most users are logged off their systems for the night and I can take the extra time to get the work done.
I very much doubt that you will ever understand the point I was trying to make.
I very much doubt that NASA's budgets will get any better over the next 450,000 years.
Being a video game tester sucks all around. The payscale ten years ago -- and it probably haven't changed since then -- was $10 to $16 per hour. Management always told us that we could work at Taco Bell down the street if we didn't like our pay. One coworker looked into it, quit his job to work as Taco Bell because he made more money, and management shut up about Taco Bell. Too many video game testers buy video game-related crap that they don't need.
If you're a video game tester getting paid $16/hr (which I was ten years ago before I got into IT), you're not going to have any money saved up and no one is going to offer you a $100K/yr job to negotiate relocation cost. This particular coworker found another job in Texas. AFAIK, he never came back to California.
That's assuming an ability to move in either direction. Companies will not pay for relocation costs. If you don't have the money to move, you're so out of luck. This happened to a coworker at a video game company who accepted a promotion to move from California to Texas, got a laid off a month later, and couldn't come home because he spent everything to move there in the first place.
If there aren't enough jobs where you live, then stop whining and get on the bus Gus.
When I was out of work in Silicon Valley over the last few years, commentators told me to get on a bus to get a natural gas job in North Dakota. I pointed out that North Dakota was in the boom cycle. What would happen when it goes bust? We will find out soon enough with cheap gas..
http://www.indeed.com/
In the meantime, we are working longer and longer hours because in order to keep profits up, companies have been laying people off and making their current workforce work harder and longer.
As an I.T. contractor, my contracts over the last six years has explicitly forbidden me from working overtime. I can only work 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, during normal business hours. Which is fine with me. The contract for my current job included paid holidays and 20 paid time off (PTO) days. The perks are getting better on my end.
A plan that was supposed to help us out and get employment back to 2007 levels has horribly failed.
This isn't a normal economy. If current job growth is maintained, it would still take two years to recover to 2007.
The Dow gained 64.73 points to 18,024.17 That's up 0.4 percent from its previous high, on Monday. The latest close is the Dow's second 1,000-point milestone this year after closing above 17,000 for the first time in July. The S.&P. 500 rose 3.63 points to 2,082.17. That's a gain of 0.2 percent from its previous high, a day earlier. The Nasdaq composite fell 16 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,765.42.
It was the nurses and doctors who were laughing at the I.T. techs for having big cellphones. The only reason why the I.T. techs had big cellphones was to compensate for something in the bragging department.
My employment contract specifically states that I can only work 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, during normal business hours. My productivity is dependent on what tools I get from upper management to do my job and what the IT department do to stay out of my way.
And the silver ray-gun that looks like a dildo with a handle? That's not CIA-issued.
(If that went over your head, check out this and that.)
That makes sense. Doesn't explain the Men in Black.
Such people actually do exist in IT. They just aren't going to be applying for a job at a law firm.
These are the same people who asks me what it's like to be a contractor and joke about taking a six-month vacation when the company announces a round of layoffs.
One last thought of a scenario where the driverless car would shine - just getting to a mass transit station to head into work. The car could bring you to a station, then go home all by itself so you wouldn't have to pay to park or worry about the car being broken into. Then when you were coming back home you could call it back to the station to pick you up, or even just to the office if you ended up having to stay late at work... the convenience is huge.
That's one feature I would love to have in a car. My current commute on public transit takes from my front door step to the door step of where I work. I only have to cross the street twice to pick up two local buses and the express bus. If I move to someplace with affordable rent, I'll need a car to get to the nearest pickup point.
I applied for a tech job at a law firm this past summer. The recruiter submitted my resume along with a half-dozen other resumes. The hiring manager rejected them all out of hand for lacking tenure (i.e., at least three years in the last three positions). The recruiter had to explain to the hiring manager that practically no one has three years in the last three positions since the Great Recession, as everyone is doing short-term contract and getting whatever jobs they can find. Last I heard, the position was still open.
I've been with Sprint for the last 20+ years. When I needed a new phone after the contract expired, I got whatever was available for FREE (except for the sales tax on the full value). The iPhone 5C @ $99 was the first cellphone that I ever bought. However, I'm still paying $75 per month (including taxes) for service and I don't expect the price to drop over time.
Why would anyone care if stupid people laugh at them?
Because those stupid people in a hospital are nurses and doctors. Give them an opportunity to look down on you as an I.T. professional and you will never hear the end of it. As an I.T. contractor, I worked in a wide variety of companies with different cultures. A hospital is perhaps the most hostile work enviornment. Either you fall in line with the pecking order or the door hits your ass on the way out.
Google is doing research and development (R&D) into technologies that don't have established markets yet. Wall Street, however, has a short-term focus on generating profits at the expense of a long-term R&D program. Most corporations no longer have R&D budgets to build out the future.
My cellphones usually last three years before I trade-in for a new one. I got an iPhone 5C this year because my 1st gen iPod Touch (2008) could no longer hold a charge, my cellphone contract was already up, and the iPhone was cheaper than a replacement iPod Touch. I may keep it for three years -- or longer.
I was doing a PC refresh project at a local hospital in 2012 when several of the I.T. techs got phablets to replace their personal cellphones. People laughed at them for having this big ass tablet next to their ear as if it was cellphone or juggling between their work Blackberry and phablet at the same time. They went back to smaller cellphone after the novelty wore off.
When I was a lead video game tester at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple identity crisis), I had to train fresh out of high school kids as video game testers. They always think that video games don't exist before I was born. I introduced them to a tester who tested arcade games in the 1980's, and then floored them by introducing them to a tester who tested pen-and-paper games in the 1970's.