"The major ISPs all tell a similar story: A mere 5 percent of their customers are using around 50 percent of the bandwidth, sometimes more, during peak hours. While these 'power users' are sharing three-gig movies and playing online games, poor granny is twiddling her thumbs waiting for Ancestry.com to load."
...and if you use a cordless for your landline, ditch it for a corded model so that it will still work if there are power outages.
When we migrated to VoIP, we lost the redundancy we had with landline POTS since POTS has its own power system. If power goes out, so is VoIP. Cellular service is required to recapture that redundancy, in my view, for anyone with VoIP service.
This brain fart became standard procedure for one of the DoD services 2 years ago. This service implemented a plan to reduce IT personnel as a means to fund replacement of aging equipment. The result? My need for IT people has increased.
While the plan had merit at the strategic level, implementation has been poorly executed, driving up costs and manpower requirements. Mandated group policy and firewall requirements are killing my road warriors and academic researchers. Hell, even my server operators are blocked from downloading mandatory patches.
Though my current 7% ratio of IT to non-IT employees may seem high, I have strategic-level brainiacs (usually PhD types) that can't turn on a computer without assistance. I couldn't do their job, either. The brain fart plan will decrease my ratio to 4% in the next 6 months, but we will still be expectd to provide a 10-minute response to customer cries for help. Many readers here can relate, I'm sure.
As you are well aware, bureaucracy is ruled mostly by idiots. They are put into places of power with the bureaucracy for precisely this reason. Their idiocy makes them less threatening.
You mean like the ones that will be running "universal" health care?
The author makes a very inaccurate...should I say, "criminally misleading"...statement about the locomotive computer running on Windows. Windows is not rated for an enviroment where lives are at stake. A read of the document linked on the article reveals that it's the analysis software "QUADS" that runs on Windows. It has nothing to do with operating the locomotive.
"QES-III applications come complete with Q-Tron's Universal Analysis/Download Software (QUADS) program that permits the downloading and viewing of the diagnostic messages and alarms. The QUADS software also integrates all of the data requirements for the optional features such as the DATACORD Event Recorder and the QEG 1000 AutoStart. QUADS is designed to run on Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, or higher operating systems. "
Many have already mentioned adequately secure means to deliver the data. The policies of the receiving company is probably out of your control, but at the very least all personally identifiable information (PII), such as what you are talking about, is mandated by the Privacy Act (and subsequent) to be controlled and protected almost to the same extreme as HIIPA. I would mark any PII I send outside the company with, "This data is controlled by the Privacy Act. Unauthorized use or release is prohibited," disclaimer statement at a bare minimum. Your legal division (if you have one) would likely have a hissy fit if they discovered PII was leaving the company without such a statement. If you don't have a legal department, then there's plenty of web resources on PII. Even if you can't come up with legalistic wording, these days no one has legitimate claim to the, "But, I didn't know," excuse when it comes to the federal PII protection requirements.
In the military, all e-mails containing PII must be encrypted using smart cards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_information
Career/job changes are a growth process...or should be. Yet, for only a couple months disillusionment, I am uncertain that is a sufficient foundation to chuck the either the career of the job. You encapsulate the IT world sufficiently well in your message, but is what it is.
If you want to go into business for yourself, wait until the kids are out of the house. You'll see even less of them because self-employment is a tough taskmaster.
Maybe your wife has some skills and can go back to work while you transistion?
As well it should, because they never should have allowed the production of critical national-security infrastructure components to be outsourced in the first place.
Congress mandates these purchasing practices in the name of saving taxpayer dollars -- which they just spend on their own pet projects, I might add.
Is this the same government that's going to run our national healthcare system? The argument against it in 1993 was, among other things, it would take 1/7th of the U.S. economy to fund it. Now I see that national healthcare would be really cheap. With the new plan, if your medical needs start costing too much ($5.00?), the Social Security Administration will declare you dead, and shazam; you will be when you succumb to the medical condition they refuse to treat because the government says you're already dead. What a cost savings! Then you have to ask where all the money they'd tax us for health care really going?
Somebody's uncle got very wealthy marketing touch screen voting machines to state and country governments. Probaby the same guy that sold Broward County their chad-laden punch cards.
Oh, great. Now I have to use POTS to make sure my e-mail was received and didn't go into a black hole. Either that, or request a read receipt on every e-mail. The only problem is I never respond to read receipts, so why should I expect anyone else to?
OTOH, could the real underlying factor be that customer support requests were costing Dell too much money compared to giving advise which, on its face, seems financially irresponsible?
When a public citizen on public land is told to turn off her or his camera, it is called cohesion, and is illegal.
By the videographer's refusal to obey the officer, it appears the videographer is looking for a confrontation, and he got it. I am hard pressed to think the officer's demand to move as illegal, but he should have been able to convey WHY it was illegal. Let me try...
Filming/photographing military equipment or near a military installation, as shown in the TV report posted on uTube, is generally illegal. There's usually signs posted on the base perimeter to that effect. I suspect the officer may have been ex-military, because his response was a bit too emotional.
Also, I noticed the railroad tracks. I can attest that filming near a rail line is going to attract unwanted attention even if it's legal.
My response is predicated on two things: A 30 year association with the military for which I am extremely grateful, and as 35+ year railroad videographer/photographer. Someone filming near both a military installation and rail line will not find themselves on the receiving end of the city's Good Citizen Award.
Slashdot Mirror
"The major ISPs all tell a similar story: A mere 5 percent of their customers are using around 50 percent of the bandwidth, sometimes more, during peak hours. While these 'power users' are sharing three-gig movies and playing online games, poor granny is twiddling her thumbs waiting for Ancestry.com to load."
Granny needs to get a life.
Hey guys, moveon.org has their own web site; this is /.
Then again...
B.
-- Knocking over more protesters with watercannons by 9 a.m. than most people do all day. --
When we migrated to VoIP, we lost the redundancy we had with landline POTS since POTS has its own power system. If power goes out, so is VoIP. Cellular service is required to recapture that redundancy, in my view, for anyone with VoIP service.
This brain fart became standard procedure for one of the DoD services 2 years ago. This service implemented a plan to reduce IT personnel as a means to fund replacement of aging equipment. The result? My need for IT people has increased.
While the plan had merit at the strategic level, implementation has been poorly executed, driving up costs and manpower requirements. Mandated group policy and firewall requirements are killing my road warriors and academic researchers. Hell, even my server operators are blocked from downloading mandatory patches.
Though my current 7% ratio of IT to non-IT employees may seem high, I have strategic-level brainiacs (usually PhD types) that can't turn on a computer without assistance. I couldn't do their job, either. The brain fart plan will decrease my ratio to 4% in the next 6 months, but we will still be expectd to provide a 10-minute response to customer cries for help. Many readers here can relate, I'm sure.
It'll be interesting to see whether Dutch-style openness or Soviet-style secrecy prevails in Las Vegas.
Having suffered under their government (Massachusetts', that is), this is a predictable reaction. I defected from there years ago.
Do you know what it costs to hire an employee, and get them up to speed doing their job well?
Yes. Less than what it costs for a data security breach.
As you are well aware, bureaucracy is ruled mostly by idiots. They are put into places of power with the bureaucracy for precisely this reason. Their idiocy makes them less threatening.
You mean like the ones that will be running "universal" health care?
Shakespeare was ahead of his time, it seems. http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/lets-kill-all-lawyers
First the intel team got it wrong with Iraq having WMDs; now they've got it wrong with Iran not having them. Jeesh!
Get on your knees and bow to the East...
And I always thought users should be licensed. Silly me.
Many have already mentioned adequately secure means to deliver the data. The policies of the receiving company is probably out of your control, but at the very least all personally identifiable information (PII), such as what you are talking about, is mandated by the Privacy Act (and subsequent) to be controlled and protected almost to the same extreme as HIIPA. I would mark any PII I send outside the company with, "This data is controlled by the Privacy Act. Unauthorized use or release is prohibited," disclaimer statement at a bare minimum. Your legal division (if you have one) would likely have a hissy fit if they discovered PII was leaving the company without such a statement. If you don't have a legal department, then there's plenty of web resources on PII. Even if you can't come up with legalistic wording, these days no one has legitimate claim to the, "But, I didn't know," excuse when it comes to the federal PII protection requirements. In the military, all e-mails containing PII must be encrypted using smart cards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_information
If you want to go into business for yourself, wait until the kids are out of the house. You'll see even less of them because self-employment is a tough taskmaster.
Maybe your wife has some skills and can go back to work while you transistion?
Is this the same government that's going to run our national healthcare system? The argument against it in 1993 was, among other things, it would take 1/7th of the U.S. economy to fund it. Now I see that national healthcare would be really cheap. With the new plan, if your medical needs start costing too much ($5.00?), the Social Security Administration will declare you dead, and shazam; you will be when you succumb to the medical condition they refuse to treat because the government says you're already dead. What a cost savings! Then you have to ask where all the money they'd tax us for health care really going?
Indeed, the common cold has been around slightly longer, and we still haven't figured out how to prevent that, either.
He's marketing defense because they've already have the offense down pat.
Somebody's uncle got very wealthy marketing touch screen voting machines to state and country governments. Probaby the same guy that sold Broward County their chad-laden punch cards.
The perfect Islamic soldier children have a solution.
All bow towards Mecca (and they aren't going to say, "Please.").
Oh, great. Now I have to use POTS to make sure my e-mail was received and didn't go into a black hole. Either that, or request a read receipt on every e-mail. The only problem is I never respond to read receipts, so why should I expect anyone else to?
You may want to hire someone else to do your marketing.
OTOH, could the real underlying factor be that customer support requests were costing Dell too much money compared to giving advise which, on its face, seems financially irresponsible?
By the videographer's refusal to obey the officer, it appears the videographer is looking for a confrontation, and he got it. I am hard pressed to think the officer's demand to move as illegal, but he should have been able to convey WHY it was illegal. Let me try...
Filming/photographing military equipment or near a military installation, as shown in the TV report posted on uTube, is generally illegal. There's usually signs posted on the base perimeter to that effect. I suspect the officer may have been ex-military, because his response was a bit too emotional.
Also, I noticed the railroad tracks. I can attest that filming near a rail line is going to attract unwanted attention even if it's legal.
My response is predicated on two things: A 30 year association with the military for which I am extremely grateful, and as 35+ year railroad videographer/photographer. Someone filming near both a military installation and rail line will not find themselves on the receiving end of the city's Good Citizen Award.
This guy is right to seek redress, but wonder if he might get a better result filing a complaint with the California Attorney General?
I wonder if anyone in the IRS will bat an eye if I claim depreciation on a keyboard?