Their flagship app is written in VB6 with Cache and AIX. To say that it isn't as bad as public opinion is a gross misunderstanding of just how bad it is.
That said, there is a dramatically different experience from implementers to support, devs, IT, and the many different roles in the organization. And not all of them suck, but from the dev pool, I know far more former Epic developers than current epic developers.
Note that the feds gave docs/hospitals $24 billion to digitalize, of which over half of went either directly to EPIC or to epic contractors.
And this is the source of success of EPIC. Their software is pretty much crap. They hire fleets of college grads, work them for 60+ hour work weeks, burn them out in under 2 years, and replace them with the next lot of inexperienced automatons. The genius isn't in the code, it's in cornering the market of a federally subsidized effort.
This was exactly my experience as well. My mother in-law has some of the initial run Phillips CFLs. Her hippy roommate installed them in the kitchen in 1994, and they are still going, but they were like $50 a pop back then. They take longer to "warm up" than the new bulbs do, but they provide solid light at a tiny wattage.
Most the the cheap-o CFLs have worked well for me. But the small socket super compact CFL and LED bulbs for my ceiling fan lights have been horrible. The line noise and vibration coming off the motor just destroys the el-cheapo caps and diodes. Same deal, individual LEDs are fine, but I've seen bad caps on the CFLs and scorches on the LED circuitry.
GDP dropped in 2007-2009. So there SHOULD be a spike right there. Not to mention that we were blowing hundreds of billions on foreign wars at the same time.
Cut off the war funding, watch the economy recover, and we will be right back down into the 30's.
Excellently put! I am familiar with the etimology of Communism, and I did take a short cut to the modern English word Community, but I'm sure you are aware that Community shares those same roots.
And my appologies for my lack of clear message. I was trying to point out that no "communist" state has ever been true communism just as no "capitalist" state has ever been true capitalism. Both are failed experiements.
What is of value though, is elements of both. The free market is incredibly powerful, but it must be contained. Just as socialist programs bring a huge benefit to the people, but must be capped to prevent excessive consolidation of power.
So what we try to achieve is a set of social programs that ensure everyone in the country can live at a minimal acceptable standard of living and an open market that allows individuals to rise and fall based on their own merits.
Some people are just so rabbidly Mcarthy about things that the word "Socialism" is immediately associated with all things evil and anti-American. While it is one of the fundamental bedrocks of our society.
Just the opposite. The theory of COMMUNism is that everything is done by the community. There is no need for a central authority once the communities are set up.
And there-in lies the rub. The central authority will always see a need for more work from the central authority. So it never goes away. But part of its duties are to remove all other authorities, which leaves it as the sole authority. And once you have a singular authority you arrive at fascism.
It's not that communism is evil, just as capitalism is not evil. It's that they are theories that will never be implemented in reality as mankind as a whole is too imperfect to reach and maintain such a state.
Right! And all state/locally funded. Once the feds get involved, things tend to go downhill
So you're OK with Socialism, just not the US Federal governments involvement in socialism? If so, you should really make that more clear.
OK, but I could use N. Korea or the former Soviet Union as counter examples
Neither of which were ever true socialist states. They took a lot more socialist ideals, but the whole concept of socialism, or to the farthest reaches of true-communism, is that there is NO central authority. In reality, that never occurs. Someone will always take power, and typically the person most willing to do so is the person you least likely want to have it.
Power corrupts. When you make the government all powerful, which is necessary for true Socialism, corruption happens.
And the exact same thing can be said for the free markets. With out the stablising force of a strong government, a free market will eat itself and collapse. See the 1920's, 1980's, 2000's, and we'll probably see it again by the 2030's.
Some would say that's why we have the world's largest economy by far. We certainly have the most production per capita of any nation in history, and we are a lazy lot.
A rank that won't be ours for much longer. The BRIC countries are expanding at such a rate that by 2020 we will no longer hold either of those records.
True Capitalism is just like true communism. Great in theory, horrible in practice. There is a healthy balance of taking elements from both theories. Taking the socialist approach to ensuring a safety net over which a capitalist driven system can opperate. Take out the safety net, and one mistake can have catostrophic results. Build too big of safety net, and the tightrope of capitalism will get tangled up in it.
And I think we can surmize, given the US's current level of social-capitalist involvement, as compared to the rest of the modern world (G7 and BRIC), that we are not anywhere remotely close to the excessively socialist side.
Every developer hits that point eventually. And your choices aren't necesarily limited. Assuming you're ok with a pay cut.
There are plenty of opportunities to move in the direction or Project/IT management. That's the direction I've gone. 15 years of seeing poorly run projects and trying to get them back on track has left me pretty well practiced for taking the reigns.
Switching over to the networking side of the house isn't a bad option either. There's some learning involved, and you're not going to start out as a senior architect, but you can get work with the ancilary skills you've developed.
All industries can benefit from exceptionally bright solution developers. Look into 6-Sigma training and advance your career into process improvement.
And if all else fails, get out of the office. Find yourself a lumbar jack gig, maybe come camp counciling in the summer, park maintenance in the Everglades, etc....
1 cubic foot of air weighs 0.0807 lbs. CO2 makes up about 0.039% of our atmosphere, so roughly 0.00315 lbs/qubic foot. 1 gram is about 0.0022 lbs.
Assuming your calculations are accurate. 1000 metric tons would be able to completely remove ALL of the CO2 in a cubic foot of atmosphere.
I am curious as to what the rate on that number is. But I think it's safe to say that in non-arid areas and places with out grey water issues, planting actual trees and grasses is a better option.
In the super dence areas, I could see this being used as a vertical solution where native plant life would be unsustainable. But I wouldn't count on it any time soon.
Most starters aren't strong enough to bust up a wrench or socket. Take out a plug maybe, possibly bend a valve, but in all likelihood, the motor would turn the engine till contact and stop.
That is assuming you are hitting the engin with the starter before hooking up the fuel and plugs. Which is usually a good idea to get the oil pump primed and heads lubricated firing it up.
That said, I have a number of wrenches that could easily fit in a cylinder with the piston at BDC. A GM 350 for instance, has a 4" bore and 3.48" stroke. On the diagonal that gives you over 5 1/4" clearance at BDC, not including the combustion chamber in the head.
9-11mm wrenches and 1/4" wrenches are common tools under the hood. Wiring brackets, trim plates, grounding lines, battery terminals, oil pan bolts, valve cover bolts, etc... They all fall into that size range.
21 year olds are still covered by their parent's insurance (Assuming the parents have insurance). 26 is the new cut off age. If you turn 27 and get diagnosed with cancer, you're likely not going to have great options.
New job means crap benefits, but too much income to qualify for state plans.
I would admit that there are too many people who fail to acknowledge their responsibilities, but I would venture that there are even more people who make a living by convincing/tricking people into failing to acknowledge their responsibility.
Silicon Valley is known to lean left--Google's Marissa Mayer had Obama as an invited guest at her home for a fundraiser, for crying out loud.
You say that as if you think Obama is some sort of left leaning political figure. I can see where you would get that impression, but it's pretty far from accurate. The left only likes him because he isn't as far right as the GOP.
Heh, if I had an answer for that, I'd be working to implement it, not dinking around on/.!:P
You can't just throw money at it, but taking money away from public education sure isn't going to make it better. Where my wife went to school while living in Mississippi the school was so poorly funded they were using books that were decades old (and incorrect!), they didn't have enough for all the students so they had to share, had missing/broken windows, and the whole place was in a substantial state of disrepair.
If folks want to cut public education funding to the bone, fine, but don't be surprised when graduation rates drop to the 40% range.
I am a bit spoiled though, my highschool (in south central Wisconsin) had a 97% graduation rate. And the school my son is going to (about 15 miles away from my old school) has had a 100% graduation rate for the last 3 consecutive years. Sure, my property taxes are astronomical compared to Mississippi, but knowing that my son, and all of the kids in his generation, are growing up with the assumption that graduating highschool and persuing secondary education and a career is the "normal" thing to do is damn well worth it!
Do you also think that the quality of public schooling is equal to private schooling or home school?
YOU aren't thinking that all public schools are equal under the current system, do you?
Not all public/private/online/home schools are equal. Some public schools are really good, some public schools are really bad. Some private schools are really good, others are complete drivel. Some homeschoolers are really focused, others wind up with mal-adjusted brats that are totally indoctrinated in their parent's beliefs.
Point being, the focus on public schools shouldn't be destroying the good along with the bad, but improving the bad to perform as well as the good.
This is actually pretty common and any manager worth his spit aught to be able to tell the difference between "Effort" and "Duration" estimates and should have a rough idea of what percent of your time is targeted at the project.
For example, if you said it would take you 240 hours to complete the project (effort), and I know that you're only going to be able to put about 50% of your time towards the project, that the total duration is likly going to be around 12 weeks.
If I really need that project done in 8 weeks, it means I've got to find ways to get 50% of your non-project time removed from your plate. If that means getting someone else on the team to look at the network issue or finding ways to mitigate the impact of the move on you, so be it, but I, as a manager, need to find a way to get you up to 75% of your time as project time.
This is actually pretty challenging. By default, under best circumstances, assume that any average employee is only going to have 90% of their time available. The other 10% goes to checking email, answering phone calls, bathroom breaks, etc... Typically, I like to estimate 80%, especially for people who have to bounce between projects or are on user-centric projects as there will inevidibly be delays and thrashing.
Even with that 80%, you're going to lose some portion of it to meetings. Heck, most folks have atleast 2 hours of meetings a week for status updates, tech reviews, performance evals, planning, etc... Each two hours of meetings is another 6 1/4% off that 80% number.
So as another Sr Dev/Jr Manager individual, I'd say keep making sure that your manager is aware that your estimates are for Effort, not duration, and make sure he/she is knoledgable about your schedule and other responsibilities.
But at 600 pages, I just don't have the time to sit and read it. What I do have is a 45 minute commute twice a day that make for some excellent listening time. If I could get this as an audio book on CD, I'd pick it up tonight.
Slashdot Mirror
Where are you looking and what are your skills? I have some positions that are about to be posted in software development and project management.
-Rick
PS: Also a former military guy ;)
Their flagship app is written in VB6 with Cache and AIX. To say that it isn't as bad as public opinion is a gross misunderstanding of just how bad it is.
That said, there is a dramatically different experience from implementers to support, devs, IT, and the many different roles in the organization. And not all of them suck, but from the dev pool, I know far more former Epic developers than current epic developers.
-Rick
Note that the feds gave docs/hospitals $24 billion to digitalize, of which over half of went either directly to EPIC or to epic contractors.
And this is the source of success of EPIC. Their software is pretty much crap. They hire fleets of college grads, work them for 60+ hour work weeks, burn them out in under 2 years, and replace them with the next lot of inexperienced automatons. The genius isn't in the code, it's in cornering the market of a federally subsidized effort.
This was exactly my experience as well. My mother in-law has some of the initial run Phillips CFLs. Her hippy roommate installed them in the kitchen in 1994, and they are still going, but they were like $50 a pop back then. They take longer to "warm up" than the new bulbs do, but they provide solid light at a tiny wattage.
Most the the cheap-o CFLs have worked well for me. But the small socket super compact CFL and LED bulbs for my ceiling fan lights have been horrible. The line noise and vibration coming off the motor just destroys the el-cheapo caps and diodes. Same deal, individual LEDs are fine, but I've seen bad caps on the CFLs and scorches on the LED circuitry.
-Rick
How to circumvent router level blocking of Facebook?
-Rick
Uhm, I think you're misinterpreting that chart.
GDP dropped in 2007-2009. So there SHOULD be a spike right there. Not to mention that we were blowing hundreds of billions on foreign wars at the same time.
Cut off the war funding, watch the economy recover, and we will be right back down into the 30's.
-Rick
Just because the taxes are paid based on regional and income data doesn't mean the programs they fund aren't socialist in nature.
Society pays to protect everyone in the society from fire, crime, and for eduction, healthcare, economic development, etc...
Like it or not, socialism is a cornerstone of the American way of life.
-Rick
Excellently put! I am familiar with the etimology of Communism, and I did take a short cut to the modern English word Community, but I'm sure you are aware that Community shares those same roots.
And my appologies for my lack of clear message. I was trying to point out that no "communist" state has ever been true communism just as no "capitalist" state has ever been true capitalism. Both are failed experiements.
What is of value though, is elements of both. The free market is incredibly powerful, but it must be contained. Just as socialist programs bring a huge benefit to the people, but must be capped to prevent excessive consolidation of power.
So what we try to achieve is a set of social programs that ensure everyone in the country can live at a minimal acceptable standard of living and an open market that allows individuals to rise and fall based on their own merits.
Some people are just so rabbidly Mcarthy about things that the word "Socialism" is immediately associated with all things evil and anti-American. While it is one of the fundamental bedrocks of our society.
-Rick
Just the opposite. The theory of COMMUNism is that everything is done by the community. There is no need for a central authority once the communities are set up.
And there-in lies the rub. The central authority will always see a need for more work from the central authority. So it never goes away. But part of its duties are to remove all other authorities, which leaves it as the sole authority. And once you have a singular authority you arrive at fascism.
It's not that communism is evil, just as capitalism is not evil. It's that they are theories that will never be implemented in reality as mankind as a whole is too imperfect to reach and maintain such a state.
-Rick
Right! And all state/locally funded. Once the feds get involved, things tend to go downhill
So you're OK with Socialism, just not the US Federal governments involvement in socialism? If so, you should really make that more clear.
OK, but I could use N. Korea or the former Soviet Union as counter examples
Neither of which were ever true socialist states. They took a lot more socialist ideals, but the whole concept of socialism, or to the farthest reaches of true-communism, is that there is NO central authority. In reality, that never occurs. Someone will always take power, and typically the person most willing to do so is the person you least likely want to have it.
Power corrupts. When you make the government all powerful, which is necessary for true Socialism, corruption happens.
And the exact same thing can be said for the free markets. With out the stablising force of a strong government, a free market will eat itself and collapse. See the 1920's, 1980's, 2000's, and we'll probably see it again by the 2030's.
Some would say that's why we have the world's largest economy by far. We certainly have the most production per capita of any nation in history, and we are a lazy lot.
A rank that won't be ours for much longer. The BRIC countries are expanding at such a rate that by 2020 we will no longer hold either of those records.
-Rick
ooh! Ohh! I'll play!!
Applied Socialism:
Public Schools
Public Roads
Public Police Force
Public Fire Departments
Applied unregulated freemarket Capitalism:
Ethiopia.
True Capitalism is just like true communism. Great in theory, horrible in practice. There is a healthy balance of taking elements from both theories. Taking the socialist approach to ensuring a safety net over which a capitalist driven system can opperate. Take out the safety net, and one mistake can have catostrophic results. Build too big of safety net, and the tightrope of capitalism will get tangled up in it.
And I think we can surmize, given the US's current level of social-capitalist involvement, as compared to the rest of the modern world (G7 and BRIC), that we are not anywhere remotely close to the excessively socialist side.
-Rick
Oh what I wouldn't give to discover an asteroid, just so I could name it:
';delete * from celestialobjects;
-Rick
Every developer hits that point eventually. And your choices aren't necesarily limited. Assuming you're ok with a pay cut.
There are plenty of opportunities to move in the direction or Project/IT management. That's the direction I've gone. 15 years of seeing poorly run projects and trying to get them back on track has left me pretty well practiced for taking the reigns.
Switching over to the networking side of the house isn't a bad option either. There's some learning involved, and you're not going to start out as a senior architect, but you can get work with the ancilary skills you've developed.
All industries can benefit from exceptionally bright solution developers. Look into 6-Sigma training and advance your career into process improvement.
And if all else fails, get out of the office. Find yourself a lumbar jack gig, maybe come camp counciling in the summer, park maintenance in the Everglades, etc....
-Rick
You have to put it into rational terms though.
1 cubic foot of air weighs 0.0807 lbs. CO2 makes up about 0.039% of our atmosphere, so roughly 0.00315 lbs/qubic foot. 1 gram is about 0.0022 lbs.
Assuming your calculations are accurate. 1000 metric tons would be able to completely remove ALL of the CO2 in a cubic foot of atmosphere.
I am curious as to what the rate on that number is. But I think it's safe to say that in non-arid areas and places with out grey water issues, planting actual trees and grasses is a better option.
In the super dence areas, I could see this being used as a vertical solution where native plant life would be unsustainable. But I wouldn't count on it any time soon.
Time to water the spider plant.
-Rick
Most starters aren't strong enough to bust up a wrench or socket. Take out a plug maybe, possibly bend a valve, but in all likelihood, the motor would turn the engine till contact and stop.
That is assuming you are hitting the engin with the starter before hooking up the fuel and plugs. Which is usually a good idea to get the oil pump primed and heads lubricated firing it up.
That said, I have a number of wrenches that could easily fit in a cylinder with the piston at BDC. A GM 350 for instance, has a 4" bore and 3.48" stroke. On the diagonal that gives you over 5 1/4" clearance at BDC, not including the combustion chamber in the head.
9-11mm wrenches and 1/4" wrenches are common tools under the hood. Wiring brackets, trim plates, grounding lines, battery terminals, oil pan bolts, valve cover bolts, etc... They all fall into that size range.
-Rick
21 year olds are still covered by their parent's insurance (Assuming the parents have insurance). 26 is the new cut off age. If you turn 27 and get diagnosed with cancer, you're likely not going to have great options.
New job means crap benefits, but too much income to qualify for state plans.
-Rick
I would admit that there are too many people who fail to acknowledge their responsibilities, but I would venture that there are even more people who make a living by convincing/tricking people into failing to acknowledge their responsibility.
-Rick
Silicon Valley is known to lean left--Google's Marissa Mayer had Obama as an invited guest at her home for a fundraiser, for crying out loud.
You say that as if you think Obama is some sort of left leaning political figure. I can see where you would get that impression, but it's pretty far from accurate. The left only likes him because he isn't as far right as the GOP.
-Rick
Silicon Valley is known to lean left--Google's Marissa Mayer had Obama as an invited guest at her home for a fundraiser, for crying out loud.
And how does that indicate a "left" leaning political ideology?
-Rick
Heh, if I had an answer for that, I'd be working to implement it, not dinking around on /.! :P
You can't just throw money at it, but taking money away from public education sure isn't going to make it better. Where my wife went to school while living in Mississippi the school was so poorly funded they were using books that were decades old (and incorrect!), they didn't have enough for all the students so they had to share, had missing/broken windows, and the whole place was in a substantial state of disrepair.
If folks want to cut public education funding to the bone, fine, but don't be surprised when graduation rates drop to the 40% range.
I am a bit spoiled though, my highschool (in south central Wisconsin) had a 97% graduation rate. And the school my son is going to (about 15 miles away from my old school) has had a 100% graduation rate for the last 3 consecutive years. Sure, my property taxes are astronomical compared to Mississippi, but knowing that my son, and all of the kids in his generation, are growing up with the assumption that graduating highschool and persuing secondary education and a career is the "normal" thing to do is damn well worth it!
-Rick
Do you also think that the quality of public schooling is equal to private schooling or home school?
YOU aren't thinking that all public schools are equal under the current system, do you?
Not all public/private/online/home schools are equal. Some public schools are really good, some public schools are really bad. Some private schools are really good, others are complete drivel. Some homeschoolers are really focused, others wind up with mal-adjusted brats that are totally indoctrinated in their parent's beliefs.
Point being, the focus on public schools shouldn't be destroying the good along with the bad, but improving the bad to perform as well as the good.
-Rick
This is actually pretty common and any manager worth his spit aught to be able to tell the difference between "Effort" and "Duration" estimates and should have a rough idea of what percent of your time is targeted at the project.
For example, if you said it would take you 240 hours to complete the project (effort), and I know that you're only going to be able to put about 50% of your time towards the project, that the total duration is likly going to be around 12 weeks.
If I really need that project done in 8 weeks, it means I've got to find ways to get 50% of your non-project time removed from your plate. If that means getting someone else on the team to look at the network issue or finding ways to mitigate the impact of the move on you, so be it, but I, as a manager, need to find a way to get you up to 75% of your time as project time.
This is actually pretty challenging. By default, under best circumstances, assume that any average employee is only going to have 90% of their time available. The other 10% goes to checking email, answering phone calls, bathroom breaks, etc... Typically, I like to estimate 80%, especially for people who have to bounce between projects or are on user-centric projects as there will inevidibly be delays and thrashing.
Even with that 80%, you're going to lose some portion of it to meetings. Heck, most folks have atleast 2 hours of meetings a week for status updates, tech reviews, performance evals, planning, etc... Each two hours of meetings is another 6 1/4% off that 80% number.
So as another Sr Dev/Jr Manager individual, I'd say keep making sure that your manager is aware that your estimates are for Effort, not duration, and make sure he/she is knoledgable about your schedule and other responsibilities.
-Rick
Nice! Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.
-Rick
Everyong knows: Fast, Cheap, or Good - pick two.
But not everyone knows its correlary:
Slow, Expensive, or Wrong - pick one.
-Rick
But at 600 pages, I just don't have the time to sit and read it. What I do have is a 45 minute commute twice a day that make for some excellent listening time. If I could get this as an audio book on CD, I'd pick it up tonight.
-Rick