Slight red flag there-- at least in most businesses, direct salary is about 1/3 of total labor costs along with your general overhead. Add in a few things unique to schools (things like gyms, libraries, lower infrastructure utilization per year), and it isn't that far off. 25% Might be achievable, but administrator pay would need to go down significantly. Not sure how much a high school [assistant] principal or superintendent *should* make, but I know I wouldn't want the job for twice a teacher's pay.
It is easy to have that attitude, much harder to actually fix the problems.
The issues, at least as I see them are: historical trend of pushing costs forward to balance books today; focus on funding new things rather than maintaining existing infrastructure; and ignorance of the population of the cost/benefit of services provided.
The biggest point on pushing costs forward are retirement plans and bonds that run the duration of something's life, rather than a more logical "major maintenance interval."
The next issue is that whatever infrastructure or systems/services you build have high operating costs, and this eats up a growing portion of the budget.
And of course, the ignorance you profess is why the problem is worse in red states. If someone with $1MM annual income pays 7% in state income tax and you pay 10% on $100k, they are still paying more than you. If they manage to create 3 jobs at $100k each (I'm puking a little in my mouth using this parallel), and that saves them another 1-2% on taxes, is it a good use of tax policy?
There is truth that the bureaucracy feeds in itself and needs to be rationalized periodically to keep government budget from expanding at more than the general inflation (plus the value of additional services provided). There is also truth that we should find dividends in the policies we enact-- better education, less crime, fewer cops as an example. But, just starving the beast doesn't solve anything, nor does flailing around and changing direction every few years.
Cons: the preservatives put in the wood; heavy and bulky compared to composite poles; 30-year nominal life Pros: readily available; no spalling issues of concrete; “prettier”; less likely to kill passengers in a collision.
Trade offs like everything, but generally only the composite poles seem to offer significant improvements.
I like Unifi a lot, but I am not sure it is really a great replacement for an AirPort-- it is a significant upgrade with external APs. Personally, as I look forward to eventually having gigabit internet, an external AP becomes a huge benefit.
But, Ubiquiti also has their AmpliFi all-in-one line, which hits the same market pretty well and offers solid mesh capability.
I know Penninsula hotels has been doing it for decades, although it took them a while to have it fully integrated in real time. Not sure if I am mixing up projects, but I think it was via Dallas Semi's one-wire link to the locks. Originally a door contacted prompted the room controller to get the lock details. Always got a kick out of how seriously they took it; they actually brought (4) DSL lines to each room with two for automation, one for entertainment, and one for guest internet.
I have seen similar systems elsewhere, although you are correct that the vast majority of locks are fully decentralized.
Janitorial keys are limited to a floor or cluster of rooms, are individually assigned, and are traceable/auditable. A true master key that does not follow the audit trail is a problem, but the hotel management system can likely be used to flag on a master key use and send security.
But you have no guarantees that the high availability replication processes in place don't end up getting infected as well-- you don't even (necessarily) know the root vulnerability that was exploited. Did they get in through the router, propagate to the switches, back themselves up to the copiers, and then perform ransom attack on servers, or was it a direct attack on the servers? Did they update the EFI?
When you have truly been screwed, it is almost impossible to know what parts of the system/network can still be trusted.
Sure, you can mitigate via compartmentalization, but it doesn't eliminate the risks and it extends recovery time for a wholesale problem.
Whatpisses me off with the iPhone X ratio is that the keyboard is terrible in landscape mode... which is my general arrangement because portrait mode makes all the text uselessly small. Makes for more typos than my old 6.
Heh... no, not really. The problem is the commodity work pays dirt, and what is commodity keeps expanding. It used to be that we could command 8-10% of construction costs as MEP fees, where the broader market is close to 1%. The pressures towards commodity are stronger than the volume value proposition of people that know their shit. It means I can charge triple my normal billing rate to fix things, but those hours are limited.
Using my watch for payment has kind of changed how I look at small transactions with the credit card. No pesky need to sign anything. I just hope the US catches up on contactless/ApplePay ubiquity like the rest of the world.
For businesses, just keep one cash drawer active rather than two or three. Good contingency.
This is actually a common failure mode for FM200 systems (fire PROTECTION, not fire ALARM). The last I had heard about it, research was suggesting that it was the sudden pressure change, but I hadn't been following it closely since.
A couple bank data centers were hit by it (HSBC was one) in 2016.
Not a technician... an engineer. There is a significant difference in skill sets. A technician in the field for decades might be able to follow a procedure quite effectively, but they struggle with defining problems.
The cream of the crop in my field are traditionally from architectural engineering programs. These are kids that learn a great breadth of knowledge about how buildings and construction work. That is the skill set that is attractive to a number of other industries. Working at Deloitte or one of the other guys you need to be able to quickly get into depth with a new industry and that is where the background is sought after. The financial side I am less certain; fewer friends went that route. I believe many became quants, but broad industry analysts were popular.
My particular industry is just a microcosm though. I am sure there are plenty of others with similar constraints.
(On mentoring, most of our program is partnering one very green and one engineer with ~2 years experience under their belt with a senior engineer to work as a team. Information is shared as quickly as possible so the more junior people can move up. Unfortunately most of our people take a long time to ramp up, and we aren’t able to push the creative and management buttons as quickly as we would like. We do lunchtime training sessions and offer external classes as well. We could do more, but this is our practical limit.)
Again, speaking specifically to my field, the challenge is you lose the young ambitious people to other industries right out of school, which inherently limits your remaining pool. You then lose another 20-35% mid-career to either be with the kids, or go into sales or similar “related” field. Much of what you are left with are people that can execute, but lack management or creative thinking skills... and people that simply never really could do the job.
The field is also plagued with boom and bust cycles, so larger companies that hire and fire based on demand (and reputation) dominate on margin, but screw over the industry.
While we got by for years hiring “C-Team” players and building them into “B-Team,” it is only a formula to “get by” rather than actually prosper.
A big part of the problem is cost of education, but simple things that can be done to address the problem would help; H1B is one of those things.
My company does power and HVAC systems engineering for buildings. There is and has been a significant shortage of people in this field over the years (it has always paid less than high-tech and finance, and to really succeed you need the same personality and skill sets). You can't just increase pay, because the fees you can receive do not support paying someone straight out of college $85k/year, plus dedicating significant resources to training. It becomes a 2-5 year investment (more on the HVAC side).
I had always been biased against the international masters students, as I generally found that they lacked some of the creativity that is required in our field. I have since been proven wrong, with two great hires recently.
Unfortunately, unless they can have their PE and be paid $91k after 12 months now, they will not be eligible for an H1B. General wages start at $55-65k first year, $60-70k second year, and $68-85k third year. So, they will leave...
This isn't smart policy. I understand the need to prevent companies like us using H1Bs to have someone work for $55,58,62...k and deprive good jobs for citizens, but keeping bright *young* people is a huge benefit. Instead, we hire and train people apuntil their F1(?) education expires, and they go home for a better job.
I just looked at Sharon Township, but it shows up about 5 miles away from a point that should have fiber backhaul readily available; it should be an easy location for a wireless ISP to set up a tower and provide reasonable broadband.
Some areas lack access to any viable uplink, but places that a 200' tower can serve a 10-mile radius should be viable if they can have 40-50 households as long as there is a point with fiber somewhere near that radius.
It shouldn't be depressing; it is about being politically active for more than the ribbon cutting of new infrastructure and supporting ongoing maintenance and upgrades of the system as a spending priority!
Properly maintained systems work better, and the key to that is careful funding.
The alternative is what is depressing-- needing to start over every 20-50 years because the system goes to shit. That is a real concern for many of the newer systems, where maintenance isn't as glamorous.
The bottom line is that you need to re-invest about 3-5% of the system replacement cost every year for maintenance and upkeep for real outcomes. When the money isn't spent on keeping the system operating at peak efficiency you build a funding deficit very quickly.
Not sure if NYC should invest more in expansion or if they need to create a 20-year maintenance master plan (which would likely require some expansion as part of the process). But, without doing something it is hard to imagine how traffic is going to get any better.
The Duracell batteries have been eating my devices for a few years; I always assumed it was knock-off batteries from Amazon, but now I wonder if it isn't just penny pinching on production.
Exactly... it comes down to resources. I would love to proxy and log some specific traffic between a device I don't really trust and the information it needs... but that is a couple days to reverse engineer the communications and there is already too much on my plate.
Kansas City it creates issues; NYC charges a local income tax to address the issues. Bedroom communities always create issues, but when they are in a different state the natural corrective forces are lost. St. Louis is a good example of how things get screwed up.
While I have no problem "paying my share" for the services California provides, there is a hell of a lot of tax revenue that California takes out of the economy... if they can't run a surplus they are seriously ineffective.
But... what happens when all those pension obligations really start coming due...
Splitting up California would be an interesting challenge. You would have a large number of people working across state lines.
Then explain the merchants with the chip/contactless compatible terminals with signs saying “swipe only”. Card issuers are interested in limiting fraud... Chase called my wife today about fraudulent MSFT/XBox charges. They want to keep the consumers happy and feeling secure, and... not sure what they want to do with the merchants.
Yes, but we effectively have zero consumer liability for fraud. Pick your poison; not sure I want EU-styled consumer liability based on a PIN code alone.
Slashdot Mirror
A dictator cares about their own prosperity, not their country's.
Slight red flag there-- at least in most businesses, direct salary is about 1/3 of total labor costs along with your general overhead. Add in a few things unique to schools (things like gyms, libraries, lower infrastructure utilization per year), and it isn't that far off. 25% Might be achievable, but administrator pay would need to go down significantly. Not sure how much a high school [assistant] principal or superintendent *should* make, but I know I wouldn't want the job for twice a teacher's pay.
It is easy to have that attitude, much harder to actually fix the problems.
The issues, at least as I see them are: historical trend of pushing costs forward to balance books today; focus on funding new things rather than maintaining existing infrastructure; and ignorance of the population of the cost/benefit of services provided.
The biggest point on pushing costs forward are retirement plans and bonds that run the duration of something's life, rather than a more logical "major maintenance interval."
The next issue is that whatever infrastructure or systems/services you build have high operating costs, and this eats up a growing portion of the budget.
And of course, the ignorance you profess is why the problem is worse in red states. If someone with $1MM annual income pays 7% in state income tax and you pay 10% on $100k, they are still paying more than you. If they manage to create 3 jobs at $100k each (I'm puking a little in my mouth using this parallel), and that saves them another 1-2% on taxes, is it a good use of tax policy?
There is truth that the bureaucracy feeds in itself and needs to be rationalized periodically to keep government budget from expanding at more than the general inflation (plus the value of additional services provided). There is also truth that we should find dividends in the policies we enact-- better education, less crime, fewer cops as an example. But, just starving the beast doesn't solve anything, nor does flailing around and changing direction every few years.
And all maps, too!
Cons: the preservatives put in the wood; heavy and bulky compared to composite poles; 30-year nominal life
Pros: readily available; no spalling issues of concrete; “prettier”; less likely to kill passengers in a collision.
Trade offs like everything, but generally only the composite poles seem to offer significant improvements.
I like Unifi a lot, but I am not sure it is really a great replacement for an AirPort-- it is a significant upgrade with external APs. Personally, as I look forward to eventually having gigabit internet, an external AP becomes a huge benefit.
But, Ubiquiti also has their AmpliFi all-in-one line, which hits the same market pretty well and offers solid mesh capability.
I know Penninsula hotels has been doing it for decades, although it took them a while to have it fully integrated in real time. Not sure if I am mixing up projects, but I think it was via Dallas Semi's one-wire link to the locks. Originally a door contacted prompted the room controller to get the lock details. Always got a kick out of how seriously they took it; they actually brought (4) DSL lines to each room with two for automation, one for entertainment, and one for guest internet.
I have seen similar systems elsewhere, although you are correct that the vast majority of locks are fully decentralized.
Janitorial keys are limited to a floor or cluster of rooms, are individually assigned, and are traceable/auditable. A true master key that does not follow the audit trail is a problem, but the hotel management system can likely be used to flag on a master key use and send security.
But you have no guarantees that the high availability replication processes in place don't end up getting infected as well-- you don't even (necessarily) know the root vulnerability that was exploited. Did they get in through the router, propagate to the switches, back themselves up to the copiers, and then perform ransom attack on servers, or was it a direct attack on the servers? Did they update the EFI?
When you have truly been screwed, it is almost impossible to know what parts of the system/network can still be trusted.
Sure, you can mitigate via compartmentalization, but it doesn't eliminate the risks and it extends recovery time for a wholesale problem.
Whatpisses me off with the iPhone X ratio is that the keyboard is terrible in landscape mode... which is my general arrangement because portrait mode makes all the text uselessly small. Makes for more typos than my old 6.
Heh... no, not really. The problem is the commodity work pays dirt, and what is commodity keeps expanding. It used to be that we could command 8-10% of construction costs as MEP fees, where the broader market is close to 1%. The pressures towards commodity are stronger than the volume value proposition of people that know their shit. It means I can charge triple my normal billing rate to fix things, but those hours are limited.
Using my watch for payment has kind of changed how I look at small transactions with the credit card. No pesky need to sign anything. I just hope the US catches up on contactless/ApplePay ubiquity like the rest of the world.
For businesses, just keep one cash drawer active rather than two or three. Good contingency.
This is actually a common failure mode for FM200 systems (fire PROTECTION, not fire ALARM). The last I had heard about it, research was suggesting that it was the sudden pressure change, but I hadn't been following it closely since.
A couple bank data centers were hit by it (HSBC was one) in 2016.
Not a technician... an engineer. There is a significant difference in skill sets. A technician in the field for decades might be able to follow a procedure quite effectively, but they struggle with defining problems.
The cream of the crop in my field are traditionally from architectural engineering programs. These are kids that learn a great breadth of knowledge about how buildings and construction work. That is the skill set that is attractive to a number of other industries. Working at Deloitte or one of the other guys you need to be able to quickly get into depth with a new industry and that is where the background is sought after. The financial side I am less certain; fewer friends went that route. I believe many became quants, but broad industry analysts were popular.
My particular industry is just a microcosm though. I am sure there are plenty of others with similar constraints.
(On mentoring, most of our program is partnering one very green and one engineer with ~2 years experience under their belt with a senior engineer to work as a team. Information is shared as quickly as possible so the more junior people can move up. Unfortunately most of our people take a long time to ramp up, and we aren’t able to push the creative and management buttons as quickly as we would like. We do lunchtime training sessions and offer external classes as well. We could do more, but this is our practical limit.)
Again, speaking specifically to my field, the challenge is you lose the young ambitious people to other industries right out of school, which inherently limits your remaining pool. You then lose another 20-35% mid-career to either be with the kids, or go into sales or similar “related” field. Much of what you are left with are people that can execute, but lack management or creative thinking skills... and people that simply never really could do the job.
The field is also plagued with boom and bust cycles, so larger companies that hire and fire based on demand (and reputation) dominate on margin, but screw over the industry.
While we got by for years hiring “C-Team” players and building them into “B-Team,” it is only a formula to “get by” rather than actually prosper.
A big part of the problem is cost of education, but simple things that can be done to address the problem would help; H1B is one of those things.
My company does power and HVAC systems engineering for buildings. There is and has been a significant shortage of people in this field over the years (it has always paid less than high-tech and finance, and to really succeed you need the same personality and skill sets). You can't just increase pay, because the fees you can receive do not support paying someone straight out of college $85k/year, plus dedicating significant resources to training. It becomes a 2-5 year investment (more on the HVAC side).
I had always been biased against the international masters students, as I generally found that they lacked some of the creativity that is required in our field. I have since been proven wrong, with two great hires recently.
Unfortunately, unless they can have their PE and be paid $91k after 12 months now, they will not be eligible for an H1B. General wages start at $55-65k first year, $60-70k second year, and $68-85k third year. So, they will leave...
This isn't smart policy. I understand the need to prevent companies like us using H1Bs to have someone work for $55,58,62...k and deprive good jobs for citizens, but keeping bright *young* people is a huge benefit. Instead, we hire and train people apuntil their F1(?) education expires, and they go home for a better job.
I just looked at Sharon Township, but it shows up about 5 miles away from a point that should have fiber backhaul readily available; it should be an easy location for a wireless ISP to set up a tower and provide reasonable broadband.
Some areas lack access to any viable uplink, but places that a 200' tower can serve a 10-mile radius should be viable if they can have 40-50 households as long as there is a point with fiber somewhere near that radius.
It shouldn't be depressing; it is about being politically active for more than the ribbon cutting of new infrastructure and supporting ongoing maintenance and upgrades of the system as a spending priority!
Properly maintained systems work better, and the key to that is careful funding.
The alternative is what is depressing-- needing to start over every 20-50 years because the system goes to shit. That is a real concern for many of the newer systems, where maintenance isn't as glamorous.
The bottom line is that you need to re-invest about 3-5% of the system replacement cost every year for maintenance and upkeep for real outcomes. When the money isn't spent on keeping the system operating at peak efficiency you build a funding deficit very quickly.
Not sure if NYC should invest more in expansion or if they need to create a 20-year maintenance master plan (which would likely require some expansion as part of the process). But, without doing something it is hard to imagine how traffic is going to get any better.
The Duracell batteries have been eating my devices for a few years; I always assumed it was knock-off batteries from Amazon, but now I wonder if it isn't just penny pinching on production.
Exactly... it comes down to resources. I would love to proxy and log some specific traffic between a device I don't really trust and the information it needs... but that is a couple days to reverse engineer the communications and there is already too much on my plate.
Kansas City it creates issues; NYC charges a local income tax to address the issues. Bedroom communities always create issues, but when they are in a different state the natural corrective forces are lost. St. Louis is a good example of how things get screwed up.
While I have no problem "paying my share" for the services California provides, there is a hell of a lot of tax revenue that California takes out of the economy... if they can't run a surplus they are seriously ineffective.
But... what happens when all those pension obligations really start coming due...
Splitting up California would be an interesting challenge. You would have a large number of people working across state lines.
Then explain the merchants with the chip/contactless compatible terminals with signs saying “swipe only”. Card issuers are interested in limiting fraud... Chase called my wife today about fraudulent MSFT/XBox charges. They want to keep the consumers happy and feeling secure, and... not sure what they want to do with the merchants.
Yes, but we effectively have zero consumer liability for fraud. Pick your poison; not sure I want EU-styled consumer liability based on a PIN code alone.