I'm no policy expert, but to some extent I too spread responsibility around. The U.S. has made several big mistakes over the past 50 years that have accelerated its fall from (super)power. First came Vietnam where the world learned that the US had an Achilles heel on the home front. Americans themselves were shocked by the realization that they could lose a war, but several MOOTWs later (think Grenada, etc) where they sent a huge force against a paltry resistance made them feel better and so they regained their confidence. The Soviet Union fell and confidence again reached a peak where Americans felt themselves invincible. The world was their oyster, and they would make sure the world was "good" and "fair" according to "baseball, Mom, and apple pie". So they went to the most messed-up anarchic place on earth, the horn of Africa, to show what they could do. Having learned well the lesson of Vietnam to which the Americans conveniently blinded themselves (can't be invincible if you have a weakness, so ignore the weakness and blame someone else!) the Somalis used the cannon-fodder approach to kill 18 soldiers and "invincible" America got queasy and went away. The world watched as the world's foremost military force was brought to it's knees for a 2nd time by some well placed PR. Attacked by Saudi terrorists supported blatantly by the Taliban, the nations of the world rallied to the Americans against Afghanistan believing that the America of WW2 would focus its wrath on the responsible parties and regain its untouchable status. But the "Prez you could drink a beer with" decided to make America's mistake of barging in where it wasn't truly needed for a 3rd time. And for the 3rd time the battle is being fought on the home front in the media and in public opinion. America the people love to think that their soldiers are off fighting the good fight ex oppreso liber. America's soldiers often view themselves in the same light (I know, I was one). And other nations of the world once slept more soundly at night because the US stood it's self-imposed watch. But Americans elected the unqualified based on glamour, party, religion, greed, and fear and in doing so have removed all semblance of true leadership from power. Today we (yes, I'm an American) are that ex-boxer who's taken one too many hits to the head. We have plenty of strength and plenty of fight, but not the ability to focus it effectively nor the judgement on when to use it at all. So we stagger from church to the bar for another brawl and reminisce about the good ol' days when we had just won the title "Superpower" and dreading the day that a smaller, meaner boxer comes to claim it.
Guns. National interest. Politics. At one point I too saw the "Law" as a codified ideal of behavior for a functional society. Then I took a few international relations courses and began to realize how lopsided the concept really is when put into practical use. Laws are arbitrarily enacted and enforced by those powerful enough to do so on those weak enough to be unable to fight (or those who are unwilling to fight for sound or unsound reasons). While the platonic ideal of Law as a social standard is a beautiful theory, it is as corruptible and inequitable as all of man's social constructs. To borrow from Churchill's comment on democracy: "Law is the worst system of social expectations we have....except for all the others." In my personal opinion, Law either applies to everybody, or it doesn't. Since so many of those in powerful positions seem to feel that laws are optional, I too see them more as "guidelines" than "rules". To do otherwise would place me at a competetive disadvantage against those who have no qualms about taking advantage of me. I see little reason to hand out freebies, although this doesn't mean I actively seek to undermine the rule of law. Of course, I have enough personal integrity to face the consequences of my actions. I am neither advocating anarchy nor providing excuses for lawbreakers. I simply advance the point that the practical construct of Law is flawed and fallible and should be examined honestly with that perspective in mind.
Interesting position. I notice however that while each of the persons in your argument have certain rights, nothing is mentioned about their individual responsibilities. The food, water, health care, etc that you would altruistically provide to each person require a certain element of work to produce and distribute. The persons doing this work likely expect to be compensated at least to the point of meeting costs (I'll assume they're altruistic too and aren't in it for the profits) meaning that each of these rights has a minimum value of the aggregate of its costs. So my question is, whose responsibility is it to pay/work for all this value that is an inherent right? (Which must now be referred to as a "granted" right as it cannot be inherent if it requires work to fulfill) You can see how the question now becomes far more complicated. Should the answer be - "each person should put out work equal to the value of their 'rights'", then why should each person not have the "right" to forgo their rights (if not, then it becomes a duty, not a right)? How would such a choice affect that person's community/society? Should the answer be some other party, what immediate motivation besides altruism or trans-generational perspective is there to work at all? Nothing of value is ever truly free. "Rights" are never inherent save in the rhetorical sense and can never be successfully granted without the assumption of an equivalent amount of responsibility by the "rights" holder.
It would actually be fairly simple. First, abolish grading and standardized testing. You'd screw over a generation, but then the demands of the workplace would force schools to come up to par or would provide the economic means for viable alternatives. Second, mandate the teacher-student ratio be 1:10 or less. Anything more and school becomes a factory rather than a learning platform tailored to the needs of each child. It could be done, but it would be painful and expensive. There's no such thing as free lunch.
I'd say it depends on how you play. I love WoW, but hate questing......so I avoid it as much as possible. Instead, I run instances undermanned or with unique group makeups (heroic shat halls with 3 mages a priest and a moonkin). We raid with 10 warm bodies and don't worry too much about forming "cookie cutter" teams. WoW is a puzzle when you take on content "fresh" - as if the guides hadn't been written. Take some friends and figure out the fights for yourself. If they're too easy, bring a smaller group. You'll find you discover some unusual techniques for defeating content (like chaining hunter misdirects off of their pets to force a non-CCable mob to run out to the boonies and back (like the bear boss pull in ZA)). The cool part is that your puzzle is fresh each time you return to the instance with a different group - requiring fresh thought and a different strategy. Games are entertainment, and like all forms of entertainment are what you make of them.
I think you're close, but in my experience the single biggest factor preventing linux adoption in the non-business world is DRM. Non-technical users simply don't want to be told that they can't watch a movie, listen to some angst-ridden teenager whine into a microphone, etc without jumping through hoops. Unfortunately, to these users it's easier to "just install windows" than to pressure the market to change. In the business world it's similar - interoperability with what all your clients are using is key. File format conflicts are a huge holdup. Get rid of these hurdles and watch the penguin fly.
Managers telling admins (not techs, but WAN admins) to rotate annually is a case of one professional telling another.
Cross training to improve skills is one thing, but even in the Navy when the crap hit the fan I'm sure you put the best person for the job on the project. Also, there were no contractor specialists on your ships? Your sailors designed, installed, and maintained the network from the ground up? Cross training at a low level is far simpler than at a high one. Just a guess, but I'm thinking your computer systems officer or whatever you had wasn't rotated annually to the radio shop to expand his horizons. The roles and expectations of a sailor, soldier, or airman (4 yrs active, 4 reserve btw) is very different than a sysadmin responsible for a citywide WAN.
I see the point you're trying to make and concede the argument, but I don't think it's quite as black & white as you seem to be implying.
Professionals don't let their emotions dictate their responses to a given platform.
True. Professionals also don't tell professionals from other fields how to do their jobs.
Professionals know how to look up the answers, or get them from subject matter experts, to even the simplest of problems.
This is circular. The professionals referenced in this thread ARE the subject matter experts - you've just moved them to areas where they have no expertise.
Professionals don't toy with production to find out what does what, they set up a lab for that purpose.
Good point. I presume this includes "professional" managers who wouldn't dream of toying with production staffing without testing its effects in a controlled environment.
Then why is the military able to do it without suffering outages? Guess they have more professionals than most IT shops.
You obviously haven't served, so let me tell you how it really works. Most specialist positions are contracted out. Multiple "specialists" in different MOSs, AFSCs, etc are needed to build/maintain systems in deployed environments, and most systems that are designed for deployment are preconfigured to "plug and play" in comparison with civilian systems that don't always have to work the first time every time.
Back to my point. Pushing nuclear energy has relatively very little do with our dependence on gasoline via crude oil. Please lets not confuse the two. There is no chance that there will be cars powered by "under the hood" nuclear reactors in the near future. Wind power will also do nothing for our dependence on oil for gasoline.
I respectfully disagree. Generating sufficient energy in static locations is required for alternative "portable" fuel options like hydrogen cells or electric vehicles. Even cellulosic ethanol takes energy to manufacture, and manufacturing plants typically don't travel around. The problem becomes one of distribution, but absolutely reduces our dependence on "gasoline from crude oil". No, we won't have reactor-powered personal vehicles, but we could have vehicles powered by a fuel produced with that energy.
1 - every soldier swears to uphold the Constitution, which flies in the face of this
but few soldiers have read it.....and we don't teach civics in school anymore
2 - By that measure, I suppose it means the military can also muzzle our speech, shut down our newspapers, and deny our assemblies; seize our arms; quarter troops in our homes; try us indefinitely until found guilty; forgo meddlesome juries in the aforementioned; sue us without jury; flay us alive; deny all rights to the people; and likewise the States.
Yep. Law, like statehood or monetary units, requires a belief by the masses that they posess inherent value (even if that belief comes at the point of a gun). Should this belief be eroded, so too erodes the authority of law and so begins the descent towards anarchy and violence until a new code is recognized or imposed. Should this belief be forcibly imposed.....well....that's nothing new, really.
Here's a true story. (and I'll mod myself off-topic for this one) - A few years ago I was an enlisted wingwiper (Air Force pile-it) stationed in Anchorage, Alaska. I was very active in my off-duty time as a medic with the local volunteer search and rescue folks and did my share of avalanche rescue and backcountry searches for wandering tourists. Needless to say, I (and my patients) relied fairly heavily on my mountaineering gear which included......an ICE AXE! (cue ominous music!). During a barracks inspection, our safety-conscious NCOs decided that my ice axe was a lethal weapon and confiscated it (I know, I know.....military, guns, bombs, but NO ICE AXES!). It took me a month to work my way far enough up the chain of command to get an exception made. How dare I use something so dangerous to save lives!
it's not for colonizing Alpha Centauri, mate, it's just while they haul you to ER
Although considering the current perception in the medical community of EMTs and Paramedics, it's very unlikely this will ever come to pass. Most Ambulances are BLS (basic life support) trucks with, at best, and EMT-Intermediate (or state equivalent) who in most jurisdictions can't hang a normal saline drip without begging medical direction. Perhaps they'd eventually allow paramedics on ALS rigs (often dispatched after a BLS rig has been on scene for a few minutes) to do something like this since it's vaguely similar to the sedation/paralysis of an RSI, but I just can't see any medical director authorizing what amounts to inhaled sedation in an ambulance without an omniscient and infallible Doctor on board.
First - the KY-58 (the KGs are a different series such as the 84, 94, and 194) is designed to encrypt radio traffic, not network data. Second, security standards HAVE changed drastically. The AF combined small computer networking (2E2) with crypto maintenance (2E3) some time ago with only limited retraining in infosec. Email is used and abused to a huge extent in the military while good crypto is too often seen as an annoyance - even for critical systems. Many of the old safeguards are gone as part of efforts to cut costs and manpower. Most of the REALLY important stuff is still adequately protected, but coming from an AF IT background, I would argue that this story is more than plausible. No matter how much we want them to be otherwise, the AF really is just another large bureaucracy with a small percentage of highly competent people who somehow make things function in a crisis despite the efforts of the majority.
Oh boy, "they don't let them die" sure is a good deal - especially considering the potential risk of discovery.
The ER in most of America is a triage center for the hospital. They provide "free" emergent and trauma care by law, but if you require a prescription that lasts longer than a few days or follow up treatment of any kind, you can and will be referred elsewhere if you don't have insurance. Having worked in many different healthcare settings, I speak from experience when I say that for all but the most dire conditions and when all other options (including non-traditional medicine) have been exhausted, most illegal immigrants will avoid presenting at the ER for fear of discovery. I've had some very interesting nights working in free medical clinics for this very reason.
Since this is slashdot, here's the disclaimer: I am not a doctor, lawyer, hospital administrator, sanitation engineer, teacher, microsoft employee, SCO stockholder, congressional lobbyist, thetan, flying meatball, or spawn of satan. My only expertise is due to the fact that an anagram of my name spells "is tiny jesus".
Umm....WoW and BC have been working on WINE for some time now. I currently run it without problems on Edgy. No Microsoft product has seen my computer for years now:0
While I agree that this is used all too often as an excuse, I still have to agree with the spirit of the parent's sentiment. To rely on GPA to measure work ethic is as prone to error as using GPA to measure knowledge. There are many students with mediocre GPAs (i.e. not dropouts, but not star pupils either) who have sufficient work ethic to meet the inane requirements set by bureaucratic administrators or professors who believe rote parroting == learning, but who have the personal initiative to go out an actually LEARN in spite of these requirements. I would prefer to hire one of these students as they will put up with the BS of an administration without wasting countless hours kissing @$$ or filing triplicate TPS reports to "make the grade" without actually accomplishing anything meaningful. Straight A's doesn't necessarily equate to a good work ethic - it might just be a high tolerance level for "busy work". My hiring preference goes to B and C students who's transcript shows an abnormally high number of classes/credit hours in difficult or interesting courses and who also is proficient in his hobbies/extracurricular activites (especially those that are unsanctioned - anybody can "join" something - I want to see that the applicant can "start" something and follow through with it). I've worked with people who's specialty was jumping through administrative hoops, and strangely enough, I got stuck doing all the actual work while they were busy buzzwording. I don't care what somebody else says you're capable of - I care what you ARE capable of, and would rather put in the effort to judge for myself rather than rely on the opinion of professors who've seen only a narrow aspect of the applicant's abilities.
Just a guess here, but you've never served in the military, have you? I've lost count of the number of computer security vulnerabilities I've pointed out to my CSSO (the guy who I'm supposed to tell about this stuff) and been put through the wringer for "questioning the integrity" of the network. (Never did get fixed) The military I served with cared more about form than function (at least in the upper echelons - most of the lower level folks really wanted things to just work). The military is not, as the movies would have you believe, this awesome coordinated organization that bends rules on a whim to save the day against the enemy-of-the-state-du-jour. Nor is it completely populated with bumbling bureaucrats who will penalize you for losing your $20 government issue coffee mug. The truth lies somewhere in between, although in this particular case I think the bureaucrats have control of the ball. Not to mention the fact that this guy wasn't that good. He didn't even bother to cover his tracks. If he'd somehow gotten into TCBS or even SIPRNET, and wandered around for a while without raising any eyebrows, I might agree with you. As it stands he needs to go to jail - in the UK - for a reasonable length of time. Just my 2 cents.
While not as vehement as you, I have to agree with your general argument. The vast majority of college students are (legally) adults and should be expected to live up to most of the societal expectations of an adult role. Regarding drinking....I'm a little more fuzzy in my opinion on this one. While I personally think that irresponsible drinking (particularly coupled with driving) is the height of stupidity, I also don't think it's fair that these "adults" are legally responsible for every one of their actions at 18 but are still not deemed adult enough to drink, rent a car, buy a handgun, etc. (Ironically they can still buy cigarettes.) If we are going to have some arbitrary age-defined cutoff for adulthood, then all the rights and benefits should come right alongside the responsibilities. Like you, I started my life at 17 - joined the military and paid my own way through college. It makes no sense that I was "adult" enough to carry a loaded automatic weapon supplemented by a 9mm on my hip, bear responsibility for national security secrets and millions of dollars in equipment while on duty; but when on leave I couldn't even rent a car (most car rental places, with a few exceptions, require you to be 23-25) or buy my own sidearm. So while I agree that those who are legally and socially decreed to be "adults" should be given enough rope with which to hang themselves, I think we need to better define just what that cutoff may be before we condemn people for interpreting our mixed messages to mean they have a few more years of irresponsibility before they have to face the "real world".
All that you have said is, of course, correct. My point, however, was merely that they would only be able to detect a limited set of preprogrammed substances (i.e. they have to know in advance what they want to find), many of which can easily be lost in the "noise" from the sheer volume of chemical substances that an individual is exposed to on a daily basis. I merely wished to counter the paranoia of some of the tinfoil hat folks who think that Joe Policeman is going to detect the presence of a random compound and jump to the wrong conclusions, or who will sniff indiscriminately and somehow be aware of all of that person's actions over the last 8 hours.
According to http://www.unitconversion.org/unit_converter/energ y.html it takes 859.85 nutritional calories to produce 1 kWh of energy. Then subtract the amount of energy it takes to heat and light the gym, and you'll quickly see how impractical this idea is.
That, and the mass spec. doesn't need to be fed, trained, and cleaned up after.
Yes, but the cops/feds/etc who use it will. For those few of you who've never had the pleasure *cough* of attending an organic chemistry class, permit me to point out that the output of a mass spec is not the easiest thing to read. A limited understanding of organic functional groups is required. This means that you either train your operators to read the output themselves (unlikely), the operator wirelessly transmits the data back to some (presumably) competent and overworked analyst, or a piece of software does the interpretation based on a pre-stored set of known compounds. Each of these methods has strengths and weaknesses, but it is unlikely that this portable device will be so "idiot proof" that any beat cop can use it in the near future. So keep your tinfoil hats on, but you can probably forgo the activated charcoal liners ---- for now.
I have worked several different sides of IT in both official and unofficial capacities, and I've got my share of stories and opinions to chip in.
First up, restrictive policies. I once was working as a networking tech in a poorly manned facility with extraordinarily harsh usage policies. Sites ranging from slashdot through msnbc were blocked (although FoxNews was allowed - go figure), there was no IM, no web based email, nobody could install software without submitting a written request signed in triplicate to us. We were loathed. Not that we cared. In the shop, we set up a "test" gaming network and plugged it in on the far side of the firewall and proxy. We had unlimited internet, chat, and webmail. We had starcraft running 24/7. Management looked the other way because of the reliability of our locked down network. After seeing how much leeway can be had by an intelligent IT staff in this environment, I can't blame users for getting pissed when they can't even look at a decent news site, much less emails from family.
My second story comes as a regular user for the same organization (but different location) after I transferred (voluntarily) out of IT. I was responsible for designing a training exercise for 150 personnel and rapidly grew frustrated with the number of blocked sites that interfered with necessary research and even purchasing. Each blocked site I wished to visit required a separate "request for access" form signed by myself, my super, and my department chief along with a statement describing in detail why I needed to access the site, what alternatives I had tried, and why the alternatives didn't work. The request would then be upchanneled to IT for consideration and after about a week, I might have the access I needed. Needless to say this was a PITA, especially when these sites were stumbled upon during a search and I wasn't entirely familiar with their contents. It wasn't long until my super and department chief were tired of all the delays and, being familiar with my former IT role, asked me to just "make it work". Over the next few weeks, work was completed extraordinarily rapidly through SSH tunnels, anonymizers, and the like. IT was thrilled to have less paperwork and my bosses loved to see work finally getting done. Then we hit another roadblock.
This time we needed to modify a large image of an aerial chart. Photoshop was an authorized program, but was deemed "too expensive" by the bean counters. Being familiar with GIMP, I submitted a request for installation to the IT department. Three weeks later, it was shot down because "legal wasn't comfortable with open licenses." To accomplish my mission, I was required to break my personal rule and use my personal laptop to modify the image. The training went off without a hitch, but I was seen with my laptop by some VIP and received the requisite lecture on "personal v. work time." Again, my sympathies lie with the user rather than an extraordinarily unhelpful IT staff.
I have other tales, but all of them have led me to the same conclusion: Either IT loosens restrictions and develops a good rapport with the average user in which everyone's needs can be met; or the user will wage war on IT through the "ask forgiveness, not permission" axiom which ultimately gets the user in hot water and gives IT far more work. In the end the driving force of a user is to accomplish their task/mission. IT and IT policy should be a tool, not an impediment.
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I'm no policy expert, but to some extent I too spread responsibility around. The U.S. has made several big mistakes over the past 50 years that have accelerated its fall from (super)power. First came Vietnam where the world learned that the US had an Achilles heel on the home front. Americans themselves were shocked by the realization that they could lose a war, but several MOOTWs later (think Grenada, etc) where they sent a huge force against a paltry resistance made them feel better and so they regained their confidence. The Soviet Union fell and confidence again reached a peak where Americans felt themselves invincible. The world was their oyster, and they would make sure the world was "good" and "fair" according to "baseball, Mom, and apple pie". So they went to the most messed-up anarchic place on earth, the horn of Africa, to show what they could do. Having learned well the lesson of Vietnam to which the Americans conveniently blinded themselves (can't be invincible if you have a weakness, so ignore the weakness and blame someone else!) the Somalis used the cannon-fodder approach to kill 18 soldiers and "invincible" America got queasy and went away. The world watched as the world's foremost military force was brought to it's knees for a 2nd time by some well placed PR. Attacked by Saudi terrorists supported blatantly by the Taliban, the nations of the world rallied to the Americans against Afghanistan believing that the America of WW2 would focus its wrath on the responsible parties and regain its untouchable status. But the "Prez you could drink a beer with" decided to make America's mistake of barging in where it wasn't truly needed for a 3rd time. And for the 3rd time the battle is being fought on the home front in the media and in public opinion. America the people love to think that their soldiers are off fighting the good fight ex oppreso liber. America's soldiers often view themselves in the same light (I know, I was one). And other nations of the world once slept more soundly at night because the US stood it's self-imposed watch. But Americans elected the unqualified based on glamour, party, religion, greed, and fear and in doing so have removed all semblance of true leadership from power. Today we (yes, I'm an American) are that ex-boxer who's taken one too many hits to the head. We have plenty of strength and plenty of fight, but not the ability to focus it effectively nor the judgement on when to use it at all. So we stagger from church to the bar for another brawl and reminisce about the good ol' days when we had just won the title "Superpower" and dreading the day that a smaller, meaner boxer comes to claim it.
Guns. National interest. Politics. At one point I too saw the "Law" as a codified ideal of behavior for a functional society. Then I took a few international relations courses and began to realize how lopsided the concept really is when put into practical use. Laws are arbitrarily enacted and enforced by those powerful enough to do so on those weak enough to be unable to fight (or those who are unwilling to fight for sound or unsound reasons). While the platonic ideal of Law as a social standard is a beautiful theory, it is as corruptible and inequitable as all of man's social constructs. To borrow from Churchill's comment on democracy: "Law is the worst system of social expectations we have....except for all the others." In my personal opinion, Law either applies to everybody, or it doesn't. Since so many of those in powerful positions seem to feel that laws are optional, I too see them more as "guidelines" than "rules". To do otherwise would place me at a competetive disadvantage against those who have no qualms about taking advantage of me. I see little reason to hand out freebies, although this doesn't mean I actively seek to undermine the rule of law. Of course, I have enough personal integrity to face the consequences of my actions. I am neither advocating anarchy nor providing excuses for lawbreakers. I simply advance the point that the practical construct of Law is flawed and fallible and should be examined honestly with that perspective in mind.
Interesting position. I notice however that while each of the persons in your argument have certain rights, nothing is mentioned about their individual responsibilities. The food, water, health care, etc that you would altruistically provide to each person require a certain element of work to produce and distribute. The persons doing this work likely expect to be compensated at least to the point of meeting costs (I'll assume they're altruistic too and aren't in it for the profits) meaning that each of these rights has a minimum value of the aggregate of its costs. So my question is, whose responsibility is it to pay/work for all this value that is an inherent right? (Which must now be referred to as a "granted" right as it cannot be inherent if it requires work to fulfill) You can see how the question now becomes far more complicated. Should the answer be - "each person should put out work equal to the value of their 'rights'", then why should each person not have the "right" to forgo their rights (if not, then it becomes a duty, not a right)? How would such a choice affect that person's community/society? Should the answer be some other party, what immediate motivation besides altruism or trans-generational perspective is there to work at all? Nothing of value is ever truly free. "Rights" are never inherent save in the rhetorical sense and can never be successfully granted without the assumption of an equivalent amount of responsibility by the "rights" holder.
It would actually be fairly simple. First, abolish grading and standardized testing. You'd screw over a generation, but then the demands of the workplace would force schools to come up to par or would provide the economic means for viable alternatives. Second, mandate the teacher-student ratio be 1:10 or less. Anything more and school becomes a factory rather than a learning platform tailored to the needs of each child. It could be done, but it would be painful and expensive. There's no such thing as free lunch.
I'd say it depends on how you play. I love WoW, but hate questing......so I avoid it as much as possible. Instead, I run instances undermanned or with unique group makeups (heroic shat halls with 3 mages a priest and a moonkin). We raid with 10 warm bodies and don't worry too much about forming "cookie cutter" teams. WoW is a puzzle when you take on content "fresh" - as if the guides hadn't been written. Take some friends and figure out the fights for yourself. If they're too easy, bring a smaller group. You'll find you discover some unusual techniques for defeating content (like chaining hunter misdirects off of their pets to force a non-CCable mob to run out to the boonies and back (like the bear boss pull in ZA)). The cool part is that your puzzle is fresh each time you return to the instance with a different group - requiring fresh thought and a different strategy. Games are entertainment, and like all forms of entertainment are what you make of them.
I think you're close, but in my experience the single biggest factor preventing linux adoption in the non-business world is DRM. Non-technical users simply don't want to be told that they can't watch a movie, listen to some angst-ridden teenager whine into a microphone, etc without jumping through hoops. Unfortunately, to these users it's easier to "just install windows" than to pressure the market to change. In the business world it's similar - interoperability with what all your clients are using is key. File format conflicts are a huge holdup. Get rid of these hurdles and watch the penguin fly.
Managers telling admins (not techs, but WAN admins) to rotate annually is a case of one professional telling another. Cross training to improve skills is one thing, but even in the Navy when the crap hit the fan I'm sure you put the best person for the job on the project. Also, there were no contractor specialists on your ships? Your sailors designed, installed, and maintained the network from the ground up? Cross training at a low level is far simpler than at a high one. Just a guess, but I'm thinking your computer systems officer or whatever you had wasn't rotated annually to the radio shop to expand his horizons. The roles and expectations of a sailor, soldier, or airman (4 yrs active, 4 reserve btw) is very different than a sysadmin responsible for a citywide WAN. I see the point you're trying to make and concede the argument, but I don't think it's quite as black & white as you seem to be implying.
Professionals don't let their emotions dictate their responses to a given platform.
True. Professionals also don't tell professionals from other fields how to do their jobs.
Professionals know how to look up the answers, or get them from subject matter experts, to even the simplest of problems.
This is circular. The professionals referenced in this thread ARE the subject matter experts - you've just moved them to areas where they have no expertise.
Professionals don't toy with production to find out what does what, they set up a lab for that purpose.
Good point. I presume this includes "professional" managers who wouldn't dream of toying with production staffing without testing its effects in a controlled environment.
Then why is the military able to do it without suffering outages? Guess they have more professionals than most IT shops.
You obviously haven't served, so let me tell you how it really works. Most specialist positions are contracted out. Multiple "specialists" in different MOSs, AFSCs, etc are needed to build/maintain systems in deployed environments, and most systems that are designed for deployment are preconfigured to "plug and play" in comparison with civilian systems that don't always have to work the first time every time.
I respectfully disagree. Generating sufficient energy in static locations is required for alternative "portable" fuel options like hydrogen cells or electric vehicles. Even cellulosic ethanol takes energy to manufacture, and manufacturing plants typically don't travel around. The problem becomes one of distribution, but absolutely reduces our dependence on "gasoline from crude oil". No, we won't have reactor-powered personal vehicles, but we could have vehicles powered by a fuel produced with that energy.
1 - every soldier swears to uphold the Constitution, which flies in the face of this
but few soldiers have read it.....and we don't teach civics in school anymore
2 - By that measure, I suppose it means the military can also muzzle our speech, shut down our newspapers, and deny our assemblies; seize our arms; quarter troops in our homes; try us indefinitely until found guilty; forgo meddlesome juries in the aforementioned; sue us without jury; flay us alive; deny all rights to the people; and likewise the States.
Yep. Law, like statehood or monetary units, requires a belief by the masses that they posess inherent value (even if that belief comes at the point of a gun). Should this belief be eroded, so too erodes the authority of law and so begins the descent towards anarchy and violence until a new code is recognized or imposed. Should this belief be forcibly imposed.....well....that's nothing new, really.
Here's a true story. (and I'll mod myself off-topic for this one) - A few years ago I was an enlisted wingwiper (Air Force pile-it) stationed in Anchorage, Alaska. I was very active in my off-duty time as a medic with the local volunteer search and rescue folks and did my share of avalanche rescue and backcountry searches for wandering tourists. Needless to say, I (and my patients) relied fairly heavily on my mountaineering gear which included......an ICE AXE! (cue ominous music!). During a barracks inspection, our safety-conscious NCOs decided that my ice axe was a lethal weapon and confiscated it (I know, I know.....military, guns, bombs, but NO ICE AXES!). It took me a month to work my way far enough up the chain of command to get an exception made. How dare I use something so dangerous to save lives!
Although considering the current perception in the medical community of EMTs and Paramedics, it's very unlikely this will ever come to pass. Most Ambulances are BLS (basic life support) trucks with, at best, and EMT-Intermediate (or state equivalent) who in most jurisdictions can't hang a normal saline drip without begging medical direction. Perhaps they'd eventually allow paramedics on ALS rigs (often dispatched after a BLS rig has been on scene for a few minutes) to do something like this since it's vaguely similar to the sedation/paralysis of an RSI, but I just can't see any medical director authorizing what amounts to inhaled sedation in an ambulance without an omniscient and infallible Doctor on board.
First - the KY-58 (the KGs are a different series such as the 84, 94, and 194) is designed to encrypt radio traffic, not network data. Second, security standards HAVE changed drastically. The AF combined small computer networking (2E2) with crypto maintenance (2E3) some time ago with only limited retraining in infosec. Email is used and abused to a huge extent in the military while good crypto is too often seen as an annoyance - even for critical systems. Many of the old safeguards are gone as part of efforts to cut costs and manpower. Most of the REALLY important stuff is still adequately protected, but coming from an AF IT background, I would argue that this story is more than plausible. No matter how much we want them to be otherwise, the AF really is just another large bureaucracy with a small percentage of highly competent people who somehow make things function in a crisis despite the efforts of the majority.
Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity.
Oh boy, "they don't let them die" sure is a good deal - especially considering the potential risk of discovery. The ER in most of America is a triage center for the hospital. They provide "free" emergent and trauma care by law, but if you require a prescription that lasts longer than a few days or follow up treatment of any kind, you can and will be referred elsewhere if you don't have insurance. Having worked in many different healthcare settings, I speak from experience when I say that for all but the most dire conditions and when all other options (including non-traditional medicine) have been exhausted, most illegal immigrants will avoid presenting at the ER for fear of discovery. I've had some very interesting nights working in free medical clinics for this very reason.
Since this is slashdot, here's the disclaimer: I am not a doctor, lawyer, hospital administrator, sanitation engineer, teacher, microsoft employee, SCO stockholder, congressional lobbyist, thetan, flying meatball, or spawn of satan. My only expertise is due to the fact that an anagram of my name spells "is tiny jesus".
Umm....WoW and BC have been working on WINE for some time now. I currently run it without problems on Edgy. No Microsoft product has seen my computer for years now :0
While I agree that this is used all too often as an excuse, I still have to agree with the spirit of the parent's sentiment. To rely on GPA to measure work ethic is as prone to error as using GPA to measure knowledge. There are many students with mediocre GPAs (i.e. not dropouts, but not star pupils either) who have sufficient work ethic to meet the inane requirements set by bureaucratic administrators or professors who believe rote parroting == learning, but who have the personal initiative to go out an actually LEARN in spite of these requirements. I would prefer to hire one of these students as they will put up with the BS of an administration without wasting countless hours kissing @$$ or filing triplicate TPS reports to "make the grade" without actually accomplishing anything meaningful. Straight A's doesn't necessarily equate to a good work ethic - it might just be a high tolerance level for "busy work". My hiring preference goes to B and C students who's transcript shows an abnormally high number of classes/credit hours in difficult or interesting courses and who also is proficient in his hobbies/extracurricular activites (especially those that are unsanctioned - anybody can "join" something - I want to see that the applicant can "start" something and follow through with it). I've worked with people who's specialty was jumping through administrative hoops, and strangely enough, I got stuck doing all the actual work while they were busy buzzwording. I don't care what somebody else says you're capable of - I care what you ARE capable of, and would rather put in the effort to judge for myself rather than rely on the opinion of professors who've seen only a narrow aspect of the applicant's abilities.
You mean by ending the civil wars and bringing about decades of peace under Octavian?
Just a guess here, but you've never served in the military, have you? I've lost count of the number of computer security vulnerabilities I've pointed out to my CSSO (the guy who I'm supposed to tell about this stuff) and been put through the wringer for "questioning the integrity" of the network. (Never did get fixed) The military I served with cared more about form than function (at least in the upper echelons - most of the lower level folks really wanted things to just work). The military is not, as the movies would have you believe, this awesome coordinated organization that bends rules on a whim to save the day against the enemy-of-the-state-du-jour. Nor is it completely populated with bumbling bureaucrats who will penalize you for losing your $20 government issue coffee mug. The truth lies somewhere in between, although in this particular case I think the bureaucrats have control of the ball. Not to mention the fact that this guy wasn't that good. He didn't even bother to cover his tracks. If he'd somehow gotten into TCBS or even SIPRNET, and wandered around for a while without raising any eyebrows, I might agree with you. As it stands he needs to go to jail - in the UK - for a reasonable length of time. Just my 2 cents.
One way or another it brings me one step closer to beer spewing volcanoes! Just shows a lawyer is a lawyer all over the world.
While not as vehement as you, I have to agree with your general argument. The vast majority of college students are (legally) adults and should be expected to live up to most of the societal expectations of an adult role. Regarding drinking....I'm a little more fuzzy in my opinion on this one. While I personally think that irresponsible drinking (particularly coupled with driving) is the height of stupidity, I also don't think it's fair that these "adults" are legally responsible for every one of their actions at 18 but are still not deemed adult enough to drink, rent a car, buy a handgun, etc. (Ironically they can still buy cigarettes.) If we are going to have some arbitrary age-defined cutoff for adulthood, then all the rights and benefits should come right alongside the responsibilities. Like you, I started my life at 17 - joined the military and paid my own way through college. It makes no sense that I was "adult" enough to carry a loaded automatic weapon supplemented by a 9mm on my hip, bear responsibility for national security secrets and millions of dollars in equipment while on duty; but when on leave I couldn't even rent a car (most car rental places, with a few exceptions, require you to be 23-25) or buy my own sidearm. So while I agree that those who are legally and socially decreed to be "adults" should be given enough rope with which to hang themselves, I think we need to better define just what that cutoff may be before we condemn people for interpreting our mixed messages to mean they have a few more years of irresponsibility before they have to face the "real world".
All that you have said is, of course, correct. My point, however, was merely that they would only be able to detect a limited set of preprogrammed substances (i.e. they have to know in advance what they want to find), many of which can easily be lost in the "noise" from the sheer volume of chemical substances that an individual is exposed to on a daily basis. I merely wished to counter the paranoia of some of the tinfoil hat folks who think that Joe Policeman is going to detect the presence of a random compound and jump to the wrong conclusions, or who will sniff indiscriminately and somehow be aware of all of that person's actions over the last 8 hours.
According to http://www.unitconversion.org/unit_converter/energ y.html it takes 859.85 nutritional calories to produce 1 kWh of energy. Then subtract the amount of energy it takes to heat and light the gym, and you'll quickly see how impractical this idea is.
That, and the mass spec. doesn't need to be fed, trained, and cleaned up after.
Yes, but the cops/feds/etc who use it will. For those few of you who've never had the pleasure *cough* of attending an organic chemistry class, permit me to point out that the output of a mass spec is not the easiest thing to read. A limited understanding of organic functional groups is required. This means that you either train your operators to read the output themselves (unlikely), the operator wirelessly transmits the data back to some (presumably) competent and overworked analyst, or a piece of software does the interpretation based on a pre-stored set of known compounds. Each of these methods has strengths and weaknesses, but it is unlikely that this portable device will be so "idiot proof" that any beat cop can use it in the near future. So keep your tinfoil hats on, but you can probably forgo the activated charcoal liners ---- for now.
I have worked several different sides of IT in both official and unofficial capacities, and I've got my share of stories and opinions to chip in.
First up, restrictive policies. I once was working as a networking tech in a poorly manned facility with extraordinarily harsh usage policies. Sites ranging from slashdot through msnbc were blocked (although FoxNews was allowed - go figure), there was no IM, no web based email, nobody could install software without submitting a written request signed in triplicate to us. We were loathed. Not that we cared. In the shop, we set up a "test" gaming network and plugged it in on the far side of the firewall and proxy. We had unlimited internet, chat, and webmail. We had starcraft running 24/7. Management looked the other way because of the reliability of our locked down network. After seeing how much leeway can be had by an intelligent IT staff in this environment, I can't blame users for getting pissed when they can't even look at a decent news site, much less emails from family.
My second story comes as a regular user for the same organization (but different location) after I transferred (voluntarily) out of IT. I was responsible for designing a training exercise for 150 personnel and rapidly grew frustrated with the number of blocked sites that interfered with necessary research and even purchasing. Each blocked site I wished to visit required a separate "request for access" form signed by myself, my super, and my department chief along with a statement describing in detail why I needed to access the site, what alternatives I had tried, and why the alternatives didn't work. The request would then be upchanneled to IT for consideration and after about a week, I might have the access I needed. Needless to say this was a PITA, especially when these sites were stumbled upon during a search and I wasn't entirely familiar with their contents. It wasn't long until my super and department chief were tired of all the delays and, being familiar with my former IT role, asked me to just "make it work". Over the next few weeks, work was completed extraordinarily rapidly through SSH tunnels, anonymizers, and the like. IT was thrilled to have less paperwork and my bosses loved to see work finally getting done. Then we hit another roadblock.
This time we needed to modify a large image of an aerial chart. Photoshop was an authorized program, but was deemed "too expensive" by the bean counters. Being familiar with GIMP, I submitted a request for installation to the IT department. Three weeks later, it was shot down because "legal wasn't comfortable with open licenses." To accomplish my mission, I was required to break my personal rule and use my personal laptop to modify the image. The training went off without a hitch, but I was seen with my laptop by some VIP and received the requisite lecture on "personal v. work time." Again, my sympathies lie with the user rather than an extraordinarily unhelpful IT staff.
I have other tales, but all of them have led me to the same conclusion: Either IT loosens restrictions and develops a good rapport with the average user in which everyone's needs can be met; or the user will wage war on IT through the "ask forgiveness, not permission" axiom which ultimately gets the user in hot water and gives IT far more work. In the end the driving force of a user is to accomplish their task/mission. IT and IT policy should be a tool, not an impediment.