That level of automation is only present in the largest or most profitable manufacturing facilities. There are still many, many smaller fabrication shops and manufacturers that rely primarily on human effort.
In many of those plants where the machines and automation are the rule of the day, there are still far fewer high-skills jobs than it was once estimated there would be. Machines are designed for the lowest common denominator, and are made to be operated by anyone (especially in plants that seek out ISO-type certifications where every machine must have an operations manual that can walk anyone through turning it on and running it). The shift to the "knowledge worker" is a short-term blip in the United States. As more and more manufacturing moves overseas, those places are the ones that will develop the hands-on knowledge and supporting educational system that will foster thought leadership in the future. This change is happening faster in some sectors and slower in others, but it is happening nonetheless.
It's not necessarily an irreversible trend, however, but reversing it will require more than just high thinkers--it will require determination.
The president where I work has been hounding my tail to get IP cameras in the building. He doesn't want them isolated to our internal LAN. He wants them to have a public IP address so he can connect to them from any browser in the world. He wants to be able to peek in and see what is going on at any hour of the day.
my personal feeling is that facebook will go the way of myspace, friendster, angelfire, geocities, etc... that social networking is just naturally cyclical. like the in club in the city for a couple of years goes belly up, to be replaced by some other in club somewhere else in the city, in endless repetition. however, i could be wrong, and facebook could have some sort of permanent lock on social networking. we'll see
Your gut feeling reflects my own, and I hope we're right. I'm pretty sure some form of social networking will stick around, but I doubt it will remain a single-site destination like Facebook. In some ways, the way FB has been trying to get everyone else to connect to them, it's as if FB wants to reinvent the AOL walled-garden, but to do so by getting people to opt-in to the model rather than by having it there from day one. They'll ride that success for some time, but then I'm pretty sure that users will grow tired of it.
Goldman Sachs can take their business and shove... [THE BODY OF THIS COMMENT WAS DELETED BY THE AUTHOR TO SAVE HIMSELF THE RIDICULE OF RECEIVING MULTIPLE -1 FLAMEBAIT MODS, OR A FEW +1 INTERSTING MODS].
So that's what I think of Goldman Sachs.
As a one-person IT department, I made a recommendation to management, reflecting a practice that is used in some other high-trust industries, like banking: audit me.
Really. Give me a couple of paid weeks off each year, and have our auditing firm come in and look at the logs, my access, and the security model. Not only would it help the company feel good about the network controls and their network administrator (yours truly), but it would also give me a couple of weeks off without being hounded every day for me to fix something or other, as usually happens on my days off.
You hit on the very reason why the U.S. founding fathers opted for a representative democracy. They were convinced that the general public would be too fickle, and that they would not understand some of the issues facing those who govern.
"'Our position has been and remains that the logs include sensitive personal information with no bearing on Wikileaks, and it would serve no purpose to publish them at this time,' writes Hansen."
That, my friends, appears to be the real difference between WikiLeaks and other more traditional news organizations: discretion.
WikiLeaks receives information and, if it is deemed good, they throw the whole lot of it out there where others can sort through and make decisions about the value of the information. The traditional media outlets will typically research and weigh what they've received, and then publish the information that is relevant to the story.
Look at the leak of diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks. Much of what was released really didn't help support any specific story. Mostly, it just proved that people often have private opinions and motivations that do not match the face of foreign policy. Haven't you ever had a conversation with someone, and then walked away while confiding in a friend that the other guy "is an idiot"? Sure, there are some topics in the stack that are newsworthy, but those are the items that should have been published, along with the framework to let people know why the information is important.
It's not whether or not someone took advantage of every possible educational opportunity at an elite school, but more likely a result of developing an using a large alumni network. I've encountered people from some of those schools and they tend to take care of their own (fellow alumni).
It was such a departure from the previous two shows that it really bore little resemblance to the other two. I realize the trappings were there--space travel, alien races, military teams--but from the start the show seemed like it wanted to be more "soap opera" than sci-fi. Some have said it was trying to copy BSG. I just think it, like SyFy, was just trying to distance itself from its original sci-fi base (and, yes, that meant that the originals appealed more to sci-fi geeks than to a general audience) and reach to an audience that it assumed would be there.
Well, I guess they couldn't get a lock on that final chevron, because this Stargate is going nowhere.
I'm surprised that retailers have been so relaxed about smartphones. Perhaps they realize that too many people would be alienated if they barred the devices.
My wife and I have tracked our grocery spend for years in an Excel spreadsheet. We keep track of the prices we pay (or see on the shelves) at each of the stores we frequent thereby knowing if a current sale price at one store is better than the price we last saw at another. It also let us flag recurring sale prices and specials (e.g., a 10# meat sale every six weeks, 12-packs at 4/$10, soups at 10/$10), and shows the cost per unit (by the ounce, pound, and per each) to aid comparisons in stores that don't have that information on the shelf tag.
The problem we've encountered has been that retailers kick us out if we try to use our laptop in the store (though I will acknowledge that I haven't tried in the past 12 months). We end up printing out the spreadsheet and carrying a clipboard with us. The retailers have no problem with that, even though we are doing the same thing. I haven't bothered trying our spreadsheet via a smartphone app, because the screen would be too small to see all the columns we want.
It just seems odd that they bar laptops as a threat, but leave the door open for smartphones. I've seen social network posts from friends who post photos of deals they find in specific stores. Most often it's to let their friends in on the deal, but I've seen some posts to the affect of "I just bought these at [other store] for twice as much!"
I concur on the security issues. Each user should be allocated encrypted storage blocks for data storage, and nothing (not even the web apps Google may provide) should have access to that data unless initiated by (or opted-in by) the user. In the cloud, the app space itself would thereby also be isolated from the data, helping to further segment and secure each portion of the environment.
It seems like commuter airships wouldn't be a bad idea--not personal airships, but airships in place of light rail or busses coming in from distant suburbs or cities. They need not achieve a high airspeed velocity--perhaps only 40 or 50 mph (~64-80 kph)--since they would not be constrained to existing roadways or infrastructure paths. To me, such mini airship busses would make a lot more sense than conventional planes designed for short-takeoff situations. Although no expert on fuel consumption between airships and planes, I'd venture a guess that airships would require less energy overall, regardless of the source (fossil fuels or renewable energy).
Correllation does not equal causation. I believe Fox simply exists to serve up news from the angle preferred by those who believe conspiracy theories (e.g., Obama being foreign-born) and who, while interested in military victory, are uninterested in details surrounding the war (especially things uncovered after the fact).
To begin with, I'll acknowledge that I'm not a serious coder or kernel geek. I'm just an all-around techie who has been around the block more than once. While I understand both the hype for Chrome OS and the arguments against it, I think there's one area where a browser-as-the-OS device can make a superior claim: its attack surface.
If running a browser on top of a general use OS--any OS--you have an attack surface against the browser, against the OS, and against any and all other apps that run on the OS. If you run a browser as the OS, you've taken away a significant amount of attack surface. Sure, the browser code itself can be attacked, and the apps that run in the cloud can be attacked, but those risks are still present everywhere else. By combining the OS and the browser (not in the way MS intertwined IE and Windows), you prevent attacks from above and below at the same time.
To me, that's a significant reason why the Chrome OS concept warrants serious consideration. True, it may not fly in the current marketplace--it may be too far ahead of its time--but I believe it is a concept that will come of age. In some regards, Google is hoping to do for the software environment what Apple did with its OSes (by limiting hardware choices)--control and limit the variables, and you find it much easier to limit and mitigate any bugs that do show up.
The reason many cite working at the kitchen table likely has to do with two factors: comfort and space. There's a certain familiarity one has with one's own kitchen, and the kitchen table (and/or countertops and/or islands) provide additional space to spread things out. Sure, companies might save some bucks by shrinking workspaces, but such an approach is a one-size-fits-all solution. It's a lot easier for someone accustomed to little space to adjust to having more, than it is for someone who had more trying to adjust to having less.
Thanks for the clarification. We approach things in a similar manner. I agree that the negatives can be an initial litmus test if that's the majority of what's there, and I, too, will often read more of the positive reviews if I'm looking to sway my choice between similar items (e.g., to purchase the standard or "pro" model).
Slashdot Mirror
That level of automation is only present in the largest or most profitable manufacturing facilities. There are still many, many smaller fabrication shops and manufacturers that rely primarily on human effort.
In many of those plants where the machines and automation are the rule of the day, there are still far fewer high-skills jobs than it was once estimated there would be. Machines are designed for the lowest common denominator, and are made to be operated by anyone (especially in plants that seek out ISO-type certifications where every machine must have an operations manual that can walk anyone through turning it on and running it). The shift to the "knowledge worker" is a short-term blip in the United States. As more and more manufacturing moves overseas, those places are the ones that will develop the hands-on knowledge and supporting educational system that will foster thought leadership in the future. This change is happening faster in some sectors and slower in others, but it is happening nonetheless.
It's not necessarily an irreversible trend, however, but reversing it will require more than just high thinkers--it will require determination.
The president where I work has been hounding my tail to get IP cameras in the building. He doesn't want them isolated to our internal LAN. He wants them to have a public IP address so he can connect to them from any browser in the world. He wants to be able to peek in and see what is going on at any hour of the day.
Your gut feeling reflects my own, and I hope we're right. I'm pretty sure some form of social networking will stick around, but I doubt it will remain a single-site destination like Facebook. In some ways, the way FB has been trying to get everyone else to connect to them, it's as if FB wants to reinvent the AOL walled-garden, but to do so by getting people to opt-in to the model rather than by having it there from day one. They'll ride that success for some time, but then I'm pretty sure that users will grow tired of it.
Goldman Sachs can take their business and shove... [THE BODY OF THIS COMMENT WAS DELETED BY THE AUTHOR TO SAVE HIMSELF THE RIDICULE OF RECEIVING MULTIPLE -1 FLAMEBAIT MODS, OR A FEW +1 INTERSTING MODS]. So that's what I think of Goldman Sachs.
. What they're requesting does nothing to keep people safe--the damage has already occurred.
As a one-person IT department, I made a recommendation to management, reflecting a practice that is used in some other high-trust industries, like banking: audit me.
Really. Give me a couple of paid weeks off each year, and have our auditing firm come in and look at the logs, my access, and the security model. Not only would it help the company feel good about the network controls and their network administrator (yours truly), but it would also give me a couple of weeks off without being hounded every day for me to fix something or other, as usually happens on my days off.
You hit on the very reason why the U.S. founding fathers opted for a representative democracy. They were convinced that the general public would be too fickle, and that they would not understand some of the issues facing those who govern.
You modded it up. Good call. Many thanks.
Related to the latter, you might drive them to spend hours each day on Slashdot...
The parent post has been the most insightful comment I've seen in this thread. Please MOD THE PARENT UP.
They didn't include Dark Star (1974, written and direted by John Carpenter), where the primary alien looks like an oversized beach ball?
That, my friends, appears to be the real difference between WikiLeaks and other more traditional news organizations: discretion.
WikiLeaks receives information and, if it is deemed good, they throw the whole lot of it out there where others can sort through and make decisions about the value of the information. The traditional media outlets will typically research and weigh what they've received, and then publish the information that is relevant to the story.
Look at the leak of diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks. Much of what was released really didn't help support any specific story. Mostly, it just proved that people often have private opinions and motivations that do not match the face of foreign policy. Haven't you ever had a conversation with someone, and then walked away while confiding in a friend that the other guy "is an idiot"? Sure, there are some topics in the stack that are newsworthy, but those are the items that should have been published, along with the framework to let people know why the information is important.
More phones than people...
Touché!
Is it?
It's not whether or not someone took advantage of every possible educational opportunity at an elite school, but more likely a result of developing an using a large alumni network. I've encountered people from some of those schools and they tend to take care of their own (fellow alumni).
It was such a departure from the previous two shows that it really bore little resemblance to the other two. I realize the trappings were there--space travel, alien races, military teams--but from the start the show seemed like it wanted to be more "soap opera" than sci-fi. Some have said it was trying to copy BSG. I just think it, like SyFy, was just trying to distance itself from its original sci-fi base (and, yes, that meant that the originals appealed more to sci-fi geeks than to a general audience) and reach to an audience that it assumed would be there.
Well, I guess they couldn't get a lock on that final chevron, because this Stargate is going nowhere.
I'm surprised that retailers have been so relaxed about smartphones. Perhaps they realize that too many people would be alienated if they barred the devices.
My wife and I have tracked our grocery spend for years in an Excel spreadsheet. We keep track of the prices we pay (or see on the shelves) at each of the stores we frequent thereby knowing if a current sale price at one store is better than the price we last saw at another. It also let us flag recurring sale prices and specials (e.g., a 10# meat sale every six weeks, 12-packs at 4/$10, soups at 10/$10), and shows the cost per unit (by the ounce, pound, and per each) to aid comparisons in stores that don't have that information on the shelf tag.
The problem we've encountered has been that retailers kick us out if we try to use our laptop in the store (though I will acknowledge that I haven't tried in the past 12 months). We end up printing out the spreadsheet and carrying a clipboard with us. The retailers have no problem with that, even though we are doing the same thing. I haven't bothered trying our spreadsheet via a smartphone app, because the screen would be too small to see all the columns we want.
It just seems odd that they bar laptops as a threat, but leave the door open for smartphones. I've seen social network posts from friends who post photos of deals they find in specific stores. Most often it's to let their friends in on the deal, but I've seen some posts to the affect of "I just bought these at [other store] for twice as much!"
I concur on the security issues. Each user should be allocated encrypted storage blocks for data storage, and nothing (not even the web apps Google may provide) should have access to that data unless initiated by (or opted-in by) the user. In the cloud, the app space itself would thereby also be isolated from the data, helping to further segment and secure each portion of the environment.
It seems like commuter airships wouldn't be a bad idea--not personal airships, but airships in place of light rail or busses coming in from distant suburbs or cities. They need not achieve a high airspeed velocity--perhaps only 40 or 50 mph (~64-80 kph)--since they would not be constrained to existing roadways or infrastructure paths. To me, such mini airship busses would make a lot more sense than conventional planes designed for short-takeoff situations. Although no expert on fuel consumption between airships and planes, I'd venture a guess that airships would require less energy overall, regardless of the source (fossil fuels or renewable energy).
Correllation does not equal causation. I believe Fox simply exists to serve up news from the angle preferred by those who believe conspiracy theories (e.g., Obama being foreign-born) and who, while interested in military victory, are uninterested in details surrounding the war (especially things uncovered after the fact).
To begin with, I'll acknowledge that I'm not a serious coder or kernel geek. I'm just an all-around techie who has been around the block more than once. While I understand both the hype for Chrome OS and the arguments against it, I think there's one area where a browser-as-the-OS device can make a superior claim: its attack surface.
If running a browser on top of a general use OS--any OS--you have an attack surface against the browser, against the OS, and against any and all other apps that run on the OS. If you run a browser as the OS, you've taken away a significant amount of attack surface. Sure, the browser code itself can be attacked, and the apps that run in the cloud can be attacked, but those risks are still present everywhere else. By combining the OS and the browser (not in the way MS intertwined IE and Windows), you prevent attacks from above and below at the same time.
To me, that's a significant reason why the Chrome OS concept warrants serious consideration. True, it may not fly in the current marketplace--it may be too far ahead of its time--but I believe it is a concept that will come of age. In some regards, Google is hoping to do for the software environment what Apple did with its OSes (by limiting hardware choices)--control and limit the variables, and you find it much easier to limit and mitigate any bugs that do show up.
The reason many cite working at the kitchen table likely has to do with two factors: comfort and space. There's a certain familiarity one has with one's own kitchen, and the kitchen table (and/or countertops and/or islands) provide additional space to spread things out. Sure, companies might save some bucks by shrinking workspaces, but such an approach is a one-size-fits-all solution. It's a lot easier for someone accustomed to little space to adjust to having more, than it is for someone who had more trying to adjust to having less.
>File Patent Infringement Claims
>You were eaten by a Grue!
Thanks for the clarification. We approach things in a similar manner. I agree that the negatives can be an initial litmus test if that's the majority of what's there, and I, too, will often read more of the positive reviews if I'm looking to sway my choice between similar items (e.g., to purchase the standard or "pro" model).