I love this discussion. It goes back and forth again and again. I wonder how long it will take for people to realise that BOTH Republicans and Democrats are inherently corrupt. With the current structure of both parties almost guaranteeing that neither will be close to free from corporate interests. They've even locked up the presidential debates after chasing off the former hosts due to too much political shenanigans. Remember seeing any independents since Perot in the debates? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates#Debate_sponsorship
Their will be no change in the status quo since there is no incentive to change. Both parties get their cut and a bunch of us nameless, faceless folk get screwed. The only real change will come from transferring the power to other parties. Almost any other party at this point will be better than these two but I think the Libertarians will really give the system a good cleaning. IMO they are also the best chance of holding some of these corrupt politicians to task for the damage done by their greed.
I agree that what makes a geek is the DIY mentality. Knowledge and training can help in this but there is also usually a certain practical application portion to any successful geek. It's this portion that may be weighing in on the returns of higher education.
My personal experience included 3 years of math/physics, 2 years in electronics tech school, formal training courses on server and networking. That said almost everything I do for my job (IT) was self taught. Each school taught me valuable skills and knowledge but in today's world with ready access to information and the ability to get involved and learn real world applications of that knowledge as you go it's hard to justify the inflated and still escalating prices higher education is demanding for most subjects. Computer science, electrical engineering and theoretical subjects in particular are hard pressed. There's still justification in subjects like experimental physics and other areas that require access to expensive and rare equipment for practical experience but for most subjects the internet is as or almost as effective as the large lectures and bulk memorization that constitutes the first 2 years of many technical university studies. I've learned orders of magnitude more from internet sources than I did in school with the exception of the life lessons learned from moving away from home that coincided with going to university.
To me it seems logical a practical, get it done, more engineering-focused group would come to the conclusion there is a better return from alternate approaches than University education. I don't find it anti-intellectual in the least. After all they are not deriding learning or science just the currently suggested method of learning.
I forgot to mention I agree completely with the partner comment. I like working with people with a vested interest in success/failure of the venture and found they are much more likely to be motivated.
Where have you been? Every place I've been to has a right fit between employee and outside help (consultant/contractor). There are many reasons to get outside help:
1. Toxic in-house environments
Lots of places create just the type of employee they don't want. Lack of empowerment, endless paperwork and poor management can wear an employee down until they barely work at all. This is the major reason I try to not take full-time contracts for more than 6 -9 months. My productivity decreases to unacceptable levels by then as "win" projects draw you into more meaningless meetings and bureaucracy.
2. Broad experience background (almost every company can benefit from this)
Having a consultant take a peek at their systems every year or two just to see what they recommend is a very good idea for most medium or larger companies and even for many heavy tech small companies. Depending on the complexity of the systems, size of the company and level of documentation it may even be free and even in the most complicated environments it shouldn't take too long. The less documentation you have already the longer it takes but you should get a nice doco packet at the end which you obviously need.
I've worked in a large number of firms with over 20+ years of consulting/contracting (the difference between consulting and contracting in practice is mostly terminology and pricing). The fact that I've worked in a variety of environments means I can bring a broad view to the table that seasoned employees of a single company just can not. Almost every company does some things well and others things not so well. Each place consultants like me work at exposes us to these systems and we can help bring best practices to other companies. From Certified Cisco instructor to designing many parts of the first bi-directional TCP/IP over satellite systems to helping small/medium business leverage open source I can say there are not many people that have the combination of experience I have. I know there are many other consultants that also have a wide, varied background as well. You should be aware that if you are looking for a consultant for this purpose do not get one too specialized or that has only had a few different customers (as many governmental ones sometimes do).
3. Cost
It is less to hire a part time hot veteran than a full time pseudo competent employee. Having me work 4 - 10 hours a month is less than paying a decent sysadmin to do the work. After an upfront initial cost to get things working well with proper systems in place the ongoing savings and reliability of the systems easily pays for itself many times over. Most small/medium businesses think they are getting a deal by hiring a cheaper "windows guy". The reality is these costs are merely deferred a couple months and soon escalate until it costs many times what a properly run environment would. As a bonus you get outages, long support turn around times and finally the coup-de-grace lost data as backup systems and disaster recovery is rarely in the core of the "windows guy's" expertise.
Mind you there are some VERY good employees but start-ups and consulting seem to have a significantly higher percentage of the best talent in the industry overall. There are also a lots of bad consultants and contractors out there but if you interview properly you can avoid many of them. For this I have a few recommendations:
1. Bring technical people relevant to the work you want done along to the interview and have them ask questions
2. Have the work you want done clearly defined (even if hiring a part time IT director have the scope of what they should manage set: phones, computers, building security systems, etc)
3. Ask questions about generally how they plan to proceed with the project and pay special attention to the mention of documentation, acceptance testing and goal definition
4. This may be somewhat controversial but I also recommend avoiding consultants that have the bulk of their experience in government
The more power you concentrate in any one set of hands the more corruption that will result. Be it business or government this seems to hold true. This is the primary reason I'm a large supporter of smaller, layered government. With business you can turn elsewhere (unless there is a government supported monolpoly) but with government your only remedy is to move to another country. Businesses are much more apt to do this than natural people but immigration numbers show that even then many people are willing to make that change.
There are IMO very few things that absolutely need to be done on the federal level. Interestingly a few of those things I feel really should be done on the federal level include ecological protection (actual a global level but the federal government makes those agreements) and patent/copyright. Both areas that the federal government has been stellar in it's failure with and both due to rampant corruption/corporate influence.
Power has concentrated in DC considerably in the last 30 years and we see the results everyday (bailouts, resource driven wars, monopoly encouraging/strengthening rules, infringement of personal rights for industry gains, total perversion of patent and copyright system, legal obfuscation, complete inability to set meaningful environmental requirements). US politics are in a sad state that I think will not change until both Republican and Democrat parties are thrown out of office. IMO both parties are too dependent on corporate influence to ever make meaningful changes to eradicate the corruption.
It is true there was no comparison done on that specific area before the fracking but they did compare it to a wide are (60 miles around the drilling site) and found that the elevated methane levels were only found in wells within 1 km of the site. Additionally, according to the article, the methane bears a signature that they can use to determine it comes from deep shale. Even though more study is suggested this seems to be enough to start taking action on this issue. The problem is clearly evident so the EPA should start work on determining the source and correcting it. If the drilling is the issue then it should be dealt with and the company compensate the injured parties / pay for the cleanup. Rather simple actually. Not anti-progress at all merely problem solving and responsible citizenship by the drilling company if they are the cause.
I've worked over 20 years in IT, have been a trainer (for CIsco courses and others as well) and in my opinion a test lab should be the first stop for most training. Much of the value of the Cisco coursework comes from giving access to a test lab. Whether a test lab makes sense depends on the specifics of your company, the cost of the equipment and the quality of your staff. For example: a 2 person IT dept. that uses a lot of expensive, vendor specific equipment and both people have similar IT experience will get much lower ROI from a test lab than a company that uses mostly FLOSS on commodity hardware, has a 15 person IT dept with a varied range of experience (mentoring/cross-training available). Group one may see formal training as a more cost-effective option (although if they need to keep cold spares on hand a test lab may be viable from that). Group 2 will almost certainly gain more from a test lab than formal training.
In addition to a test lab the employees need time to use it. I would say having 15 - 25% of your time for training and decompressing is about on par with my experience. The exact amount depending on the stress level of the environment and the breadth of the technologies supported. Self-training is an inherently lower stress environment than dealing with a production network and the employee can control the pace of training. Mentoring and working in teams can speed up learning and also build teamwork at the same time. Finally, the wider the scope of technologies you have to support the more time you will need to train for them. Smaller, specialized groups can get by with less training time than a group that must support all the functions.
A dash of formal training here and there can definitely add to the benefits of a test lab, however, they may take the form of classes or discussions at a conference rather than a single longer training session on one subject. Exposure to other technologies and experiences is another advantage of conferences or formal training. That said given the choice between test lab and formal training I'd choose the test lab every time.
This all comes down to short term thinking. For most companies now 5 years is a long term plan. They do everything they can to maximize short term profits at the expense of long term business. This is the pressure shareholders put on large companies to constantly grow profits. Large "traditionally innovative" companies have dumped their R&D depts, the middle management has been let go and outsourcing was rampant without even looking at the long term effects. In the end they just end up killing the companies. I'm just glad I work in small business (even though I do some consulting for fortune 500 clients).
Because this is really about getting government funding and wider exposure for teaching religion to the masses. The proponents want government supported mass evangelism. That would never pass if it were sold this way so they market it as an "alternate scientific theory".
I can't see any reason to implement a tax like this over a gas-based tax except to encourage fuel inefficiency. Can anyone point out other benefits? There are several obvious disadvantages to this. A few off the top of my head are:
1. It encourages fuel inefficiency
2. Costs more to meter and collect (less efficient collection method)
3. Will take longer to implement (a new system / procedure will be needed to meter and collect revenues)
Looks like this might be done just to help out the poor oil companies. What are we going to do next give them subsidies during the time they are the most profitable entities in the history of the world? Oh wait, we're already doing that. Have to love our elected officials (democrats and republicans).
They did it to themselves by turning from being a news delivery system into an entertainment media that has too much influence from it's advertisers. I rarely turn to "Professional US News Organizations" to get any real, objective information about goings on in the world. There is simply too much bias ( http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=121 ) and fluff with very little fact. It's simply not worth the time investment to sort through all the crap to get the kernel of news. Maybe some more flashy intro segments and graphics will help.
US professional news often ignores major incidents completely such as the U.S. backed chemical fumigation in Columbia. Which is basically tantamount to the agent orange spraying during the vietnam war. Google us columbia chemical fumigation and not the distinct lack of "Professional US News" entries. Even Wikipedia shows up but still no major news outlets from the U.S. In addition they drastically misrepresent other major issues. The clearest example of this for me is global warming / climate change. Even now it is represented in U.S. news media as an open, still debated issue which does not at all seem to be the case (at least as far as scientific journals are concerned).
Basically they lost my trust. Having lived overseas for a number of years I can say the media in other countries (pretty much all of them) was considerably better than in the U.S. but don't fret the BBC has been on a slow but steady path toward U.S. news quality so that may not be the case for long. I no longer read German news (my German is too rusty) so only can speak to the quality of BBC news (website).
They are most likely doing this because they believe it will simplify licensing and "save" money by buying in bulk. The problem is that Mac OS and Linux really don't need anti-virus on the desktop (and likely won't for the length of this contract) so their requirement for this will limit their selection of in-essence windows desktop anti-virus and server anti-virus selection (a market that has a lot more options than those with Linux and OSX desktop versions as well). I would prefer a better solutions in each area than settling for a single vendor just because they support some edge cases (Linux/Mac Desktop) the better ones don't. Additionally, free alternatives (clamav, etc) provide a fallback solution should Linux / Mac OS desktops need AV protection during the contract.
A few posters have mentioned that having anti-virus on Linux and OSX workstations may help the Windows PCs avoid getting infected. This may be true but for the cost (in quality of vendor selection) you are getting very little return for that benefit. I suspect they have very few Mac and Linux desktops currently (this RFP screams of a Windows IT department). If they do have a large LInux / OSX desktop environment there are better ways to implement the virus scanning than adding it to all these desktops (server side real time scanning, etc).
If I were a betting man I would place money on the decision makers being windows admins that feel they are overworked. This type of RFP is the easiest for the IT management to create (basically they delegate the entire problem to a single vendor). Having consulted for fortune 500s for over 20 years, that is the environment I have seen that typically produces RFPs like this. You rarely see these coming from true heterogeneous environments (a substantial mix of non-windows infrastructure). That said, I don't know their specific motives so this is just a hunch:)
Yep, this is really about this sort of change exposing all the very poor IT decisions done before. A migration to Linux shows many of these problems but even migrations to the next version of Windows often brings a lot of them to light. Companies seem to have a never-ending ability for short-sightedness. Look at all the places that did their entire websites in Flash or coded for IE6 not to mention Small/Medium business's prolific use of Quickbooks.
US Banks (in the USA) a few years back required MS-Java in order to use their website. When MS settled with Sun and pulled MS-Java there was no easy way to get MS-java (had to hunt around for hours for a client to find and install of an old version that worked) so new online banking customers could not access the site. This lasted about 6 months as I recall until their new online banking site was done. I'm sure that decision cost them a good bit of coin and annoyed / chased off several new customers. This is pretty much par for the course for many large companies.
Even now most firms talk about following standards but ditch that idea for cost or aesthetics or implement the purchase (and acceptance) procedure so poorly that don't actually get standards compliance in the end. This of course is not helped by things like ISO treating OOXML as a standard. Now more than ever companies need good IT people to plan for tomorrow, I just wish there were more of them. It often baffles me that the corporate world even functions what with the mass of solutions held together with chewing gum and bailing wire.
Having read the PDF of the law I see no problem in it. They are merely stating that any teacher can teach the scientific strengths and weaknesses of any scientific theory "in an objective manner". To do this they will of course need to teach HOW science works, a process I think most people who've had years of science still do not understand. Maybe with a better understanding of the scientific method people will realize exactly how weak a scientific theory ID is when actually stated as a theory (it usually is stated as a catch all therefore not a true scientific theory since it can not be disproven). Should a teacher not teach HOW the scientific method works and praise ID as a viable theory I see nothing in the law to prevent disciplinary action or even dismissal on the basis they are a bad science teacher. It does after all state they must teach the relative strengths and weaknesses in an objective manner should they champion highly improbable theories over much more probable ones with no rational reasoning behind it they are displaying a considerably unscientific method. In particular challenge them to do the following with ID:
1. Use your experience: Consider the problem and try to make sense of it. Look for previous explanations. If this is a new problem to you, then move to step 2.
2. Form a conjecture: When nothing else is yet known, try to state an explanation, to someone else, or to your notebook.
3. Deduce a prediction from that explanation: If you assume 2 is true, what consequences follow?
4. Test: Look for the opposite of each consequence in order to disprove 2. It is a logical error to seek 3 directly as proof of 2. This error is called affirming the consequent.
Step 3 becomes terrible hard with ID since it really states some "invisible unknown intelligence" is responsible for everything we can not explain (basically mysticism). When this is pointed out it can be almost summarily dismissed as a viable scientific theory.
I have a friend that taught science for many years to high schoolers and it baffled me that he actually did not understand how the scientific process works and that verifiable predictions MUST be a result for any serious theory (even mutli-dimension string theory has some predicted results). Should they specify where, how, when, what form this supposed intelligence takes then reasonable experimentation would be able to look for signs of these results. IMO students should also be taught is that science never totally proves or disproves anything. It merely points out how likely or unlikely the current theories describe the world as we see it and predict future behavior. Theories that have not made predictions and been tested at all are generally considered little stronger than the theory "Godzilla did it".
The fact that this conversation about ID has gone on so long shows how bad our science education is on the most fundamental level. We learn chemistry, biology and physics but most don't understand what even makes them science. Who knows maybe ID will actually help science in this respect. I definitely do not fear it degrading science. Those who want to believe in mysticism will believe in mysticism and those who want to believe in science will believe in science.
The fact that this is even being argued shows the level of ignorance many Americans have about their government. Good thing we got rid of Civics class for Social Studies.
There is little doubt the U.S. started as a Republic (See Article 4, Section 4 of the constitution:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Preamble ) to anyone who has read the constitution or studied constitutional history.
Wikipedia contains a lot of information on the difference between Democracy and Republic specifically sighting the U.S. as a republic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
Basically, the Republic has Law as the foundation of decisions whereas Democracy has popular vote (either direct or representative) the basis for decisions. Laws such as the 17 amendment, gun control, patriot act, presidential executive orders, complete abuse of the "promote the general welfare clause" and the like clearly go above any power given by the Law. IMO, this moves us much more toward Democracy with a good measure of oligarchy thrown in (due to the corruption that has resulted from it). I should also point out this is not limited to Republican or Democrat but a result of joint effort.
Wow, someone who really seems to know what they are talking about. You sure you meant to post here?
Couldn't agree with you more, requirements come first (although I've seen them often get revised down during the budgeting phase).
Wow, I am really amazed people think that giving the Telcos a monopoly has helped them roll out increased bandwidth. Hell, the government has even given them ENORMOUS tax breaks and subsidies to do just that and still they have not done it (they did still keep the money of course).
The problem is actually quite simple there will be a monopoly(or very small number of companies) controlling the cable plant since right of way is needed for this and we don't want everyone's yard dug up every time a new company wants to offer service. Since it is a monopoly it should be regulated and the companies providing this should NOT be allowed to compete at the higher levels of service (ISP, phone, etc). That way there is no conflict of interest and the one company merely takes care of the cable plant. Other companies then provide the higher level services (internet access, phone, etc). From my understanding this is the model Japan and many other countries that have much higher broadband penetration and speeds (often with lower costs) do and it seems to be working quite well for them.
Make no mistake the U.S. is continually sliding in broadband offerings compared to other countries which seems to sharply coincide with the adoption of a mostly unrestricted duopoly (cable or DSL). When I compare that to the progress Germany and many other European countries ( I lived there for 7 years ) the U.S. seemed to have stood still. And that is just talking about broadband, don't get me started on how bad the cellphone service is in North America compared to Europe. Funny, it seems to be all the same companies though.
I just moved to Canada (GTA) and was amazed to find that the Telcos and the cable operators manage to screw the customers even more than in the U.S. The only relief has been using independent ISPs that are allowed shared access to Bell infrastructure. And with those the biggest hurdle has been Bell. For example neither Bell nor Rogers (cable company) provided static IP service to residences when I moved in last year. They did provide static IPs to a business but you needed to be in a building zoned commercial to get it (no home office). Canada will slide back another few years in Internet deployment if they stop the shared access. I really hope this does not go through.
I doubt teachers have free reign to confiscate whatever they wish from students. If the teacher thinks it is stolen ask him to prove it. During the process he will hopefully learn something about FLOSS. In the end the student should get the CDs back and the teacher should learn something. If the teacher refuses and the student is a minor ask they should ask their parents to address the issue. The teacher is within their authority to tell the student not to demonstrate it in class but outside their authority to confiscate perfectly legal CDs.
I highly doubt the issue is one of conspiracy. A much more likely cause is a closed-minded, authoritarian teacher. Taking the action described above should hopefully remedy both issues.
Maybe if the government did not create and fund monopolies there would not be so many nor would they be so complete. Would there be all controlling telcos or cable companies if the right of way that the government has were not given exclusively to individual corporations?
Under FCC Chairman Powell the government enacted more legislation to allow and encourage monopolies than under Clinton. During this time other countries (such as Germany) broke up state run monopolies (thereby increasing competition). That is why the U.S. has declined compared to other countries in both quality and quantity of broadband penetration.
Do you think recent laws restricting local municipalities from providing broadband are "shaking up companies and breaking monopolies"? I don't.
Whereas I agree that legal liabilities are one reason to close source drivers, I think one of the often overlooked reasons is that the product is not well engineered. I am continously amazed at lack of engineering for many large projects. With smaller projects the temptation to skip the engineering step is even greater. To release documentation for poorly engineered products a manufacturer would need to:
1. Fix the more embarassing hardware flaws currently compensated for in the driver.
2. Create (not just reformat) engineering documents as many likely do not exist.
To see glaring examples of this look at the comments in many of the drivers for FLOSS OS drivers. In my mind that is a more likely reason "cheap" hardware often does not provide documentation.
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I love this discussion. It goes back and forth again and again. I wonder how long it will take for people to realise that BOTH Republicans and Democrats are inherently corrupt. With the current structure of both parties almost guaranteeing that neither will be close to free from corporate interests. They've even locked up the presidential debates after chasing off the former hosts due to too much political shenanigans. Remember seeing any independents since Perot in the debates?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates#Debate_sponsorship
In short BOTH parties receive considerable funding from rich, private interests. BOTH parties serve the sources of their revenue streams.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989304575503933125159928.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052102513.html
Their will be no change in the status quo since there is no incentive to change. Both parties get their cut and a bunch of us nameless, faceless folk get screwed. The only real change will come from transferring the power to other parties. Almost any other party at this point will be better than these two but I think the Libertarians will really give the system a good cleaning. IMO they are also the best chance of holding some of these corrupt politicians to task for the damage done by their greed.
I agree that what makes a geek is the DIY mentality. Knowledge and training can help in this but there is also usually a certain practical application portion to any successful geek. It's this portion that may be weighing in on the returns of higher education.
My personal experience included 3 years of math/physics, 2 years in electronics tech school, formal training courses on server and networking. That said almost everything I do for my job (IT) was self taught. Each school taught me valuable skills and knowledge but in today's world with ready access to information and the ability to get involved and learn real world applications of that knowledge as you go it's hard to justify the inflated and still escalating prices higher education is demanding for most subjects. Computer science, electrical engineering and theoretical subjects in particular are hard pressed. There's still justification in subjects like experimental physics and other areas that require access to expensive and rare equipment for practical experience but for most subjects the internet is as or almost as effective as the large lectures and bulk memorization that constitutes the first 2 years of many technical university studies. I've learned orders of magnitude more from internet sources than I did in school with the exception of the life lessons learned from moving away from home that coincided with going to university. To me it seems logical a practical, get it done, more engineering-focused group would come to the conclusion there is a better return from alternate approaches than University education. I don't find it anti-intellectual in the least. After all they are not deriding learning or science just the currently suggested method of learning.
I forgot to mention I agree completely with the partner comment. I like working with people with a vested interest in success/failure of the venture and found they are much more likely to be motivated.
Where have you been? Every place I've been to has a right fit between employee and outside help (consultant/contractor). There are many reasons to get outside help:
1. Toxic in-house environments
Lots of places create just the type of employee they don't want. Lack of empowerment, endless paperwork and poor management can wear an employee down until they barely work at all. This is the major reason I try to not take full-time contracts for more than 6 -9 months. My productivity decreases to unacceptable levels by then as "win" projects draw you into more meaningless meetings and bureaucracy.
2. Broad experience background (almost every company can benefit from this)
Having a consultant take a peek at their systems every year or two just to see what they recommend is a very good idea for most medium or larger companies and even for many heavy tech small companies. Depending on the complexity of the systems, size of the company and level of documentation it may even be free and even in the most complicated environments it shouldn't take too long. The less documentation you have already the longer it takes but you should get a nice doco packet at the end which you obviously need.
I've worked in a large number of firms with over 20+ years of consulting/contracting (the difference between consulting and contracting in practice is mostly terminology and pricing). The fact that I've worked in a variety of environments means I can bring a broad view to the table that seasoned employees of a single company just can not. Almost every company does some things well and others things not so well. Each place consultants like me work at exposes us to these systems and we can help bring best practices to other companies. From Certified Cisco instructor to designing many parts of the first bi-directional TCP/IP over satellite systems to helping small/medium business leverage open source I can say there are not many people that have the combination of experience I have. I know there are many other consultants that also have a wide, varied background as well. You should be aware that if you are looking for a consultant for this purpose do not get one too specialized or that has only had a few different customers (as many governmental ones sometimes do).
3. Cost
It is less to hire a part time hot veteran than a full time pseudo competent employee. Having me work 4 - 10 hours a month is less than paying a decent sysadmin to do the work. After an upfront initial cost to get things working well with proper systems in place the ongoing savings and reliability of the systems easily pays for itself many times over. Most small/medium businesses think they are getting a deal by hiring a cheaper "windows guy". The reality is these costs are merely deferred a couple months and soon escalate until it costs many times what a properly run environment would. As a bonus you get outages, long support turn around times and finally the coup-de-grace lost data as backup systems and disaster recovery is rarely in the core of the "windows guy's" expertise.
Mind you there are some VERY good employees but start-ups and consulting seem to have a significantly higher percentage of the best talent in the industry overall. There are also a lots of bad consultants and contractors out there but if you interview properly you can avoid many of them. For this I have a few recommendations:
1. Bring technical people relevant to the work you want done along to the interview and have them ask questions
2. Have the work you want done clearly defined (even if hiring a part time IT director have the scope of what they should manage set: phones, computers, building security systems, etc)
3. Ask questions about generally how they plan to proceed with the project and pay special attention to the mention of documentation, acceptance testing and goal definition 4. This may be somewhat controversial but I also recommend avoiding consultants that have the bulk of their experience in government
Yep, not like this has been done before:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/820758.stm
Shocking, just shocking. Next thing we'll hear that there is no Santa Clause and all those letters are answered by the USPS!
http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2009/holiday/santa.htm
The more power you concentrate in any one set of hands the more corruption that will result. Be it business or government this seems to hold true. This is the primary reason I'm a large supporter of smaller, layered government. With business you can turn elsewhere (unless there is a government supported monolpoly) but with government your only remedy is to move to another country. Businesses are much more apt to do this than natural people but immigration numbers show that even then many people are willing to make that change.
There are IMO very few things that absolutely need to be done on the federal level. Interestingly a few of those things I feel really should be done on the federal level include ecological protection (actual a global level but the federal government makes those agreements) and patent/copyright. Both areas that the federal government has been stellar in it's failure with and both due to rampant corruption/corporate influence.
Power has concentrated in DC considerably in the last 30 years and we see the results everyday (bailouts, resource driven wars, monopoly encouraging/strengthening rules, infringement of personal rights for industry gains, total perversion of patent and copyright system, legal obfuscation, complete inability to set meaningful environmental requirements). US politics are in a sad state that I think will not change until both Republican and Democrat parties are thrown out of office. IMO both parties are too dependent on corporate influence to ever make meaningful changes to eradicate the corruption.
It is true there was no comparison done on that specific area before the fracking but they did compare it to a wide are (60 miles around the drilling site) and found that the elevated methane levels were only found in wells within 1 km of the site. Additionally, according to the article, the methane bears a signature that they can use to determine it comes from deep shale. Even though more study is suggested this seems to be enough to start taking action on this issue. The problem is clearly evident so the EPA should start work on determining the source and correcting it. If the drilling is the issue then it should be dealt with and the company compensate the injured parties / pay for the cleanup. Rather simple actually. Not anti-progress at all merely problem solving and responsible citizenship by the drilling company if they are the cause.
I've worked over 20 years in IT, have been a trainer (for CIsco courses and others as well) and in my opinion a test lab should be the first stop for most training. Much of the value of the Cisco coursework comes from giving access to a test lab. Whether a test lab makes sense depends on the specifics of your company, the cost of the equipment and the quality of your staff. For example: a 2 person IT dept. that uses a lot of expensive, vendor specific equipment and both people have similar IT experience will get much lower ROI from a test lab than a company that uses mostly FLOSS on commodity hardware, has a 15 person IT dept with a varied range of experience (mentoring/cross-training available). Group one may see formal training as a more cost-effective option (although if they need to keep cold spares on hand a test lab may be viable from that). Group 2 will almost certainly gain more from a test lab than formal training.
In addition to a test lab the employees need time to use it. I would say having 15 - 25% of your time for training and decompressing is about on par with my experience. The exact amount depending on the stress level of the environment and the breadth of the technologies supported. Self-training is an inherently lower stress environment than dealing with a production network and the employee can control the pace of training. Mentoring and working in teams can speed up learning and also build teamwork at the same time. Finally, the wider the scope of technologies you have to support the more time you will need to train for them. Smaller, specialized groups can get by with less training time than a group that must support all the functions.
A dash of formal training here and there can definitely add to the benefits of a test lab, however, they may take the form of classes or discussions at a conference rather than a single longer training session on one subject. Exposure to other technologies and experiences is another advantage of conferences or formal training. That said given the choice between test lab and formal training I'd choose the test lab every time.
This all comes down to short term thinking. For most companies now 5 years is a long term plan. They do everything they can to maximize short term profits at the expense of long term business. This is the pressure shareholders put on large companies to constantly grow profits. Large "traditionally innovative" companies have dumped their R&D depts, the middle management has been let go and outsourcing was rampant without even looking at the long term effects. In the end they just end up killing the companies. I'm just glad I work in small business (even though I do some consulting for fortune 500 clients).
Because this is really about getting government funding and wider exposure for teaching religion to the masses. The proponents want government supported mass evangelism. That would never pass if it were sold this way so they market it as an "alternate scientific theory".
I can't see any reason to implement a tax like this over a gas-based tax except to encourage fuel inefficiency. Can anyone point out other benefits? There are several obvious disadvantages to this. A few off the top of my head are:
1. It encourages fuel inefficiency
2. Costs more to meter and collect (less efficient collection method)
3. Will take longer to implement (a new system / procedure will be needed to meter and collect revenues)
Looks like this might be done just to help out the poor oil companies. What are we going to do next give them subsidies during the time they are the most profitable entities in the history of the world? Oh wait, we're already doing that. Have to love our elected officials (democrats and republicans).
They did it to themselves by turning from being a news delivery system into an entertainment media that has too much influence from it's advertisers. I rarely turn to "Professional US News Organizations" to get any real, objective information about goings on in the world. There is simply too much bias ( http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=121 ) and fluff with very little fact. It's simply not worth the time investment to sort through all the crap to get the kernel of news. Maybe some more flashy intro segments and graphics will help.
US professional news often ignores major incidents completely such as the U.S. backed chemical fumigation in Columbia. Which is basically tantamount to the agent orange spraying during the vietnam war. Google us columbia chemical fumigation and not the distinct lack of "Professional US News" entries. Even Wikipedia shows up but still no major news outlets from the U.S. In addition they drastically misrepresent other major issues. The clearest example of this for me is global warming / climate change. Even now it is represented in U.S. news media as an open, still debated issue which does not at all seem to be the case (at least as far as scientific journals are concerned).
Basically they lost my trust. Having lived overseas for a number of years I can say the media in other countries (pretty much all of them) was considerably better than in the U.S. but don't fret the BBC has been on a slow but steady path toward U.S. news quality so that may not be the case for long. I no longer read German news (my German is too rusty) so only can speak to the quality of BBC news (website).
They are most likely doing this because they believe it will simplify licensing and "save" money by buying in bulk. The problem is that Mac OS and Linux really don't need anti-virus on the desktop (and likely won't for the length of this contract) so their requirement for this will limit their selection of in-essence windows desktop anti-virus and server anti-virus selection (a market that has a lot more options than those with Linux and OSX desktop versions as well). I would prefer a better solutions in each area than settling for a single vendor just because they support some edge cases (Linux/Mac Desktop) the better ones don't. Additionally, free alternatives (clamav, etc) provide a fallback solution should Linux / Mac OS desktops need AV protection during the contract.
:)
A few posters have mentioned that having anti-virus on Linux and OSX workstations may help the Windows PCs avoid getting infected. This may be true but for the cost (in quality of vendor selection) you are getting very little return for that benefit. I suspect they have very few Mac and Linux desktops currently (this RFP screams of a Windows IT department). If they do have a large LInux / OSX desktop environment there are better ways to implement the virus scanning than adding it to all these desktops (server side real time scanning, etc).
If I were a betting man I would place money on the decision makers being windows admins that feel they are overworked. This type of RFP is the easiest for the IT management to create (basically they delegate the entire problem to a single vendor). Having consulted for fortune 500s for over 20 years, that is the environment I have seen that typically produces RFPs like this. You rarely see these coming from true heterogeneous environments (a substantial mix of non-windows infrastructure). That said, I don't know their specific motives so this is just a hunch
Yep, this is really about this sort of change exposing all the very poor IT decisions done before. A migration to Linux shows many of these problems but even migrations to the next version of Windows often brings a lot of them to light. Companies seem to have a never-ending ability for short-sightedness. Look at all the places that did their entire websites in Flash or coded for IE6 not to mention Small/Medium business's prolific use of Quickbooks.
US Banks (in the USA) a few years back required MS-Java in order to use their website. When MS settled with Sun and pulled MS-Java there was no easy way to get MS-java (had to hunt around for hours for a client to find and install of an old version that worked) so new online banking customers could not access the site. This lasted about 6 months as I recall until their new online banking site was done. I'm sure that decision cost them a good bit of coin and annoyed / chased off several new customers. This is pretty much par for the course for many large companies.
Even now most firms talk about following standards but ditch that idea for cost or aesthetics or implement the purchase (and acceptance) procedure so poorly that don't actually get standards compliance in the end. This of course is not helped by things like ISO treating OOXML as a standard. Now more than ever companies need good IT people to plan for tomorrow, I just wish there were more of them. It often baffles me that the corporate world even functions what with the mass of solutions held together with chewing gum and bailing wire.
Having read the PDF of the law I see no problem in it. They are merely stating that any teacher can teach the scientific strengths and weaknesses of any scientific theory "in an objective manner". To do this they will of course need to teach HOW science works, a process I think most people who've had years of science still do not understand. Maybe with a better understanding of the scientific method people will realize exactly how weak a scientific theory ID is when actually stated as a theory (it usually is stated as a catch all therefore not a true scientific theory since it can not be disproven). Should a teacher not teach HOW the scientific method works and praise ID as a viable theory I see nothing in the law to prevent disciplinary action or even dismissal on the basis they are a bad science teacher. It does after all state they must teach the relative strengths and weaknesses in an objective manner should they champion highly improbable theories over much more probable ones with no rational reasoning behind it they are displaying a considerably unscientific method. In particular challenge them to do the following with ID:
1. Use your experience: Consider the problem and try to make sense of it. Look for previous explanations. If this is a new problem to you, then move to step 2.
2. Form a conjecture: When nothing else is yet known, try to state an explanation, to someone else, or to your notebook. 3. Deduce a prediction from that explanation: If you assume 2 is true, what consequences follow?
4. Test: Look for the opposite of each consequence in order to disprove 2. It is a logical error to seek 3 directly as proof of 2. This error is called affirming the consequent.
Step 3 becomes terrible hard with ID since it really states some "invisible unknown intelligence" is responsible for everything we can not explain (basically mysticism). When this is pointed out it can be almost summarily dismissed as a viable scientific theory.
I have a friend that taught science for many years to high schoolers and it baffled me that he actually did not understand how the scientific process works and that verifiable predictions MUST be a result for any serious theory (even mutli-dimension string theory has some predicted results). Should they specify where, how, when, what form this supposed intelligence takes then reasonable experimentation would be able to look for signs of these results. IMO students should also be taught is that science never totally proves or disproves anything. It merely points out how likely or unlikely the current theories describe the world as we see it and predict future behavior. Theories that have not made predictions and been tested at all are generally considered little stronger than the theory "Godzilla did it".
The fact that this conversation about ID has gone on so long shows how bad our science education is on the most fundamental level. We learn chemistry, biology and physics but most don't understand what even makes them science. Who knows maybe ID will actually help science in this respect. I definitely do not fear it degrading science. Those who want to believe in mysticism will believe in mysticism and those who want to believe in science will believe in science.
The fact that this is even being argued shows the level of ignorance many Americans have about their government. Good thing we got rid of Civics class for Social Studies.
There is little doubt the U.S. started as a Republic (See Article 4, Section 4 of the constitution: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Preamble ) to anyone who has read the constitution or studied constitutional history. Wikipedia contains a lot of information on the difference between Democracy and Republic specifically sighting the U.S. as a republic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
Basically, the Republic has Law as the foundation of decisions whereas Democracy has popular vote (either direct or representative) the basis for decisions. Laws such as the 17 amendment, gun control, patriot act, presidential executive orders, complete abuse of the "promote the general welfare clause" and the like clearly go above any power given by the Law. IMO, this moves us much more toward Democracy with a good measure of oligarchy thrown in (due to the corruption that has resulted from it). I should also point out this is not limited to Republican or Democrat but a result of joint effort.
Wow, someone who really seems to know what they are talking about. You sure you meant to post here? Couldn't agree with you more, requirements come first (although I've seen them often get revised down during the budgeting phase).
Wow, I am really amazed people think that giving the Telcos a monopoly has helped them roll out increased bandwidth. Hell, the government has even given them ENORMOUS tax breaks and subsidies to do just that and still they have not done it (they did still keep the money of course).
The problem is actually quite simple there will be a monopoly(or very small number of companies) controlling the cable plant since right of way is needed for this and we don't want everyone's yard dug up every time a new company wants to offer service. Since it is a monopoly it should be regulated and the companies providing this should NOT be allowed to compete at the higher levels of service (ISP, phone, etc). That way there is no conflict of interest and the one company merely takes care of the cable plant. Other companies then provide the higher level services (internet access, phone, etc). From my understanding this is the model Japan and many other countries that have much higher broadband penetration and speeds (often with lower costs) do and it seems to be working quite well for them.
Make no mistake the U.S. is continually sliding in broadband offerings compared to other countries which seems to sharply coincide with the adoption of a mostly unrestricted duopoly (cable or DSL). When I compare that to the progress Germany and many other European countries ( I lived there for 7 years ) the U.S. seemed to have stood still. And that is just talking about broadband, don't get me started on how bad the cellphone service is in North America compared to Europe. Funny, it seems to be all the same companies though.
I just moved to Canada (GTA) and was amazed to find that the Telcos and the cable operators manage to screw the customers even more than in the U.S. The only relief has been using independent ISPs that are allowed shared access to Bell infrastructure. And with those the biggest hurdle has been Bell. For example neither Bell nor Rogers (cable company) provided static IP service to residences when I moved in last year. They did provide static IPs to a business but you needed to be in a building zoned commercial to get it (no home office). Canada will slide back another few years in Internet deployment if they stop the shared access. I really hope this does not go through.
I doubt teachers have free reign to confiscate whatever they wish from students. If the teacher thinks it is stolen ask him to prove it. During the process he will hopefully learn something about FLOSS. In the end the student should get the CDs back and the teacher should learn something. If the teacher refuses and the student is a minor ask they should ask their parents to address the issue. The teacher is within their authority to tell the student not to demonstrate it in class but outside their authority to confiscate perfectly legal CDs. I highly doubt the issue is one of conspiracy. A much more likely cause is a closed-minded, authoritarian teacher. Taking the action described above should hopefully remedy both issues.
Maybe if the government did not create and fund monopolies there would not be so many nor would they be so complete. Would there be all controlling telcos or cable companies if the right of way that the government has were not given exclusively to individual corporations?
Under FCC Chairman Powell the government enacted more legislation to allow and encourage monopolies than under Clinton. During this time other countries (such as Germany) broke up state run monopolies (thereby increasing competition). That is why the U.S. has declined compared to other countries in both quality and quantity of broadband penetration.
Do you think recent laws restricting local municipalities from providing broadband are "shaking up companies and breaking monopolies"? I don't.
Whereas I agree that legal liabilities are one reason to close source drivers, I think one of the often overlooked reasons is that the product is not well engineered. I am continously amazed at lack of engineering for many large projects. With smaller projects the temptation to skip the engineering step is even greater. To release documentation for poorly engineered products a manufacturer would need to: 1. Fix the more embarassing hardware flaws currently compensated for in the driver. 2. Create (not just reformat) engineering documents as many likely do not exist. To see glaring examples of this look at the comments in many of the drivers for FLOSS OS drivers. In my mind that is a more likely reason "cheap" hardware often does not provide documentation.