Of course it does. It's programmed to fit on a particular machine with a particular OS/tools. These wear out. The media the software sits on degrades, and can occasionally corrupt. The APIs eventually change. All sorts of things happen, which is the software analog of 'wearing out'. I'd treat support as a standard warranty deal if nothing was agreed (i.e. it depends on what you paid for it; If I charged you £50k for a wordprocessor, I'd expect to be supporting it for some time; if I charged you £2k for a reasonably complex bit of software, you'd be lucky to get 1 year out of it). It all depends on what could reasonably be considered the 'lifetime' of a product. But, after that, any support, and they pay.
That the massive under-representation of males as home-makers is something that society seriously needs to readdress? As a rough call (just from the sample set of people I know, I'm sure there are better stats out there), about 2% of males are home makers in a couple. About 50% are in shared (dual income) arrangements, and about 48% are sole breadwinners. Can society please fix this MASSIVE disparity before working out lesser disparities? Not a serious post to flame about though, but it gets my goat that saying "the stats aren't even on something" has nothing to do with personal choice.. Most of it is about choice and interest. It's only really been the last decade tech was about communication and getting more 'interesting' to the average person (male or female). It'll probably be about another half decade or so for that shift in access to filter into the university system and out through into the general jobs market.. I know a couple of decades ago, even those figures would have been a joy to anyone looking at the balance, which implies society trends of females becoming slowly more interested in aspects of the field.. Crying wolf all the time only pisses off the serious people in the field, infantilises women (and other targetted groups) and assumes that correlation is causation.
The whole copyright system was based on a fair deal between the author controlling the work, and society at large gaining ownership and free access later (with the ability to reuse the characters in stories of their own making). What you're now arguing is a way to get corporations a way to weasel out of the deal (which is what they've been trying to do by effectively "stealing" the public domain by legal technicalities), and have everything their way, because it's easier. What we need is a fair deal again. If money could be made by people with a 12 year copyright when it took most of that to saturate the market, then why do we need an effectively infinite copyright when market saturation can measured in days or weeks (theoretically in hours in some cases)? This no longer adds up as a fair deal. So they are surprised when people ignore a rule that's no longer making sense?
1) Lack of role models doesn't stop people from doing things. If a subject interests them, they'll do it. Until reasonably recently (a couple of decades) there were very few female doctors, or biologists. Now the fields are very popular with female. There were no real role models (unless you count nurses).
2) You kind of disprove your point here. The fields are definitely a touch "nerdy". And thus females aren't attracted to it because they aren't "nerdy". This isn't peer pressure, this is choice, unless you're going to start telling people they aren't allowed the choice of what they're comfortable with.
3) You don't give any real misconceptions. If someone has the interest in a subject, they'll follow it. My little niece (8) has a firm love of maths. She's always been a geek girl, and I'm teaching her programming, what engineering is about, what science can do with the world, and she loves it. My two other nieces like arts based, and one like biology. That's what they're happy with, and their choices were firmly made with all options open and fully supported.
4) Most don't see engineering as a "stepping stone". Most engineers go on to become really good engineers. It's a very rounded role. However, if you don't like engineering, then you won't be successful, and you then won't be able to use that success as a stepping stone to other things. Wouldn't you agree it's better to follow something you're passionate about and do well, rather than something you have no aptitude for and hate? If you succeed at what you do, you can use that as a stepping stone to where you want to go..
From a business perspective then, removing the scanners and the TSA involvement would be far cheaper (as no employees to pay, or machines to operate). What you seem to be saying is that someone is unprofitable for pointing out where the employer could concentrate to actually deliver the service they're paid to deliver, and not be in breach of contract, rather than letting them go on obliviously. This would give the employer an advantage on an open market (better service, better reputation), so the employee is to be valued.
Interesting postulation. However, you could equally say that "the talk" given to many black youths sows the seeds of prejudice in them, and follow your argument through from that point. Thus, any beating a black person gets, by your own argument, is thus their own fault due to their own prejudices. There's as much evidence for that as there is for your postulation. In other words, it's not acceptable. Either way round.
And being a minority is supposed to be an excuse for that how? Does being a minority mean you've got special dispensation to be aggressive, unpleasant, or engage in criminal activity at will? No, it means you're in a small group. Under set theory, you can divide a population in many ways, and colour of skin is only one. In those sets, people are always parts of various minorities. Almost everyone is part of a minority group in something.
You say "learn". Actually, learning this isn't really at the heart of the matter. Often, a group is told from within that they're viewed a particular way (whether this is true or not is irrelevant). And they behave based on faulty information. Also, it can be based on a misconception (i.e. concluding "people don't value my contribution" if the reward you're given isn't what you think it should be, irrespective of whether society in general gives that general reward for that general contribution). This again leads many to feel slighted, and become hostile. There are a whole slew of other misconceptions, misinformation and general conditioning that can, and does, lead to exactly the conclusions you're stating are "smart and correct". I'd actually say that the 'learning' and the behaviour you state are actually a terrible way to proceed. All it does is reinforce a negative image. If the role isn't valued, find one that will, and work at it. There are successful people of all skin colours. The thing they all share is that they work hard for what they get, and they respect the contributions of others, and they don't try to play victim. If life throws bad things, they field it, fix it, and move on.
However, almost any attack by a white person upon a non-white is happily referred to as a racist attack, even when there's no evidence of that. What you seem to be epousing is "If a person decides that something someone else says means a particular thing, then that must be the intent". This is very wrong. When you attempt to infer intent from what someone says, you need to be pretty careful to try and get the real meaning (everyday language is notoriously bad for passing very precise meaning). It's not acceptable to beat on someone because you decide that what they've said is derogatory towards yourself when it's not (and the intent never was). If they interpreted "remember Trayvon" as a racist remark, that's because it's their first instinct, or they expect a white person to intend it as a racist remark regardless.. Both of which are incredibly racist behaviours.
Possibly not. In Bristol, UK, there was a City Councillor (herself of African descent, and oddly, spending most of her time in Florida) who accused another councillor of being a "coconut", which is a racist slur meaning someone who is "black/brown on the outside, and white on the inside". This happened in session (on the official public record). After having several firings of caucasians over implicit racist slurs, this one was practically ignored. It took a big backlash in the public to get the politicians to even begin an investigation. The councillor herself stated "I can't be racist, because I'm black.". In the end, she got a slap on the wrist.
Yes, racism does cut both ways. However, by and large, you don't get to claim racism unless your skin is non-white.
Studies confirm that there is a general racial bias in everyone (succinctly put in Avenue Q's "Everyone's a little bit Racist"). However, being adults, we should pretty much be trying to accept that we're flawed individuals, and get on with making everyone's life a bit better as long as they live up to society's expectations (if you're arrogant, violent and antisocial, don't expect people to like you whatever the colour of your skin).
In the article, there are some actual truths. Basically, in any given social segment of any size, you'll meet all kinds of people. Nice and nasty and everything in between. Treat people as people, because that's who they are.
They teach "The Controversy of Evolution" alongside "The Unscientific Factless Idiocy of Intelligent Design", then no problem. Then get on with teaching kids the difference between a scientific theory and conjecture, then teach them the Theory of Evolution, as best fits the facts we have today. Then tell them that if they've got a problem with the Theory of Evolution, get a set of observable, repeatable facts that falsify it, and show us a better way of understanding what's going on. C'mon guys.. It's not rocket science. It's just plain science!
Shall we play "spot the metaphor" today? It is a fair figure of speech; meant to portray that they're basically ignorant savages playing with incredibly destructive forces they know nothing about. That's what I took from the quote, and I think that was the spirit meant. It portrays it accurately.
I wish you hadn't posted that anonymously; you deserve a bit of karma for that. The burning of the Library of Alexandria was a tragedy, and seeing all the lawyers and politicians scrabbling to get their stamp on the internet, it looks like they're attempting to repeat history. They probably won't succeed, but it's a painful thing to watch them running around manically with those matches and lighters.
No, our current group are bound by a one sided legal treaty signed in by Labour. The current group are looking for a way to end the agreement legally (as it's not great for business; I suspect citizens are an also ran, but useful flag to wave). That's the thing with international law and diplomacy, you can't easily turn around and say "We don't like it anymore, so screw you". Well, not without screwing up your international reputation and ability to strike future agreements. It needs to be done carefully.
Well, I suspect a fair part of the Slashdot crowd are actually armed with enough info to be able to build some very basic working models of a car engine. Minor surgery (emergency tracheotomoty), removal of foreign bodies etc. certainly isn't beyond the scope of teenagers. Building a piano? Again, simple to get a basic, not very good thing going. Producing a TV show? Sure. Most teenagers are capable of that. What you're thinking of, however, is a high quality end product that you'd accept in a commercial environment. That doesn't come without aptitude and a whole load of practice. Knowing the basics of how an engine works let me fix things that don't actually require a mechanic (oil changes, topping up water, checking fluid levels, maybe replacing pipes etc.). That makes me more efficient with costs, and keeping the whole process of driving more efficient. First Aid, CPR and a host of other minor medical procedures are already taught. I do occasionally make use of them. This means less trips to the Emergency Department fouling up the system (and perhaps costing money). It also means less immediate suffering if you can triage at the initial point, and remedy basic conditions. I've been doing that since being a scout as an early teenager. Built my own guitar as a teenager (it was pretty rubbish compared to a properly built one, but hey, I enjoyed the challenge). Not quite a piano, but I could have done an abysmal job and got something workable in time, with sufficient money. Producing a TV show? Done quite a few drama based things as a teenager. Enough to get by. As have most kids. The thing with each of those is, that by understanding what they're based on, what premises and assumptions you can make, and having a context, you get a far better idea of what you should actually be doing to be more efficient in that general area. At the moment, computer training as simply telling people "Don't look under a bonnet, don't look under the car. All you need to know is that dial in front of you, a gearstick and a couple of pedals". Give a bit of context! If someone understood regexes, for example, they'd understand WHY you do data entry in a particular way, and perhaps they'd also ask a relevant question (such as 'is this case sensitive?') when first encountering a system. That bit of knowledge can make all the difference. You teach someone about everything, but you can train them to work out what they need to know by giving them context, and letting their brain take the road from there.
Then set it up as an artificial reef, and have businesses set up to get divers to it. Not sure the decontamination would pay off in the near term, but it'd be an interesting option.
Commodore PET in 1978.. It belonged to a friend's dad.. I was completely taken with it, and so wished I could have something like that.. I had to wait 3 years for the release of the ZX81 before I persuaded my folks to buy a computer for me (and that was a used one). From there it was a VIC20 a few years after (sans cassette player, so I had no way to save what I wrote, so I ended up writing the games I wanted to play every time I wanted to play them!). Then came the BBC model B about a year afterwards (and that changed life! 32k ram,100k 5 1/4" floppy disk and ADC/DAC ports! Wow that really rocked my world back then). I still remember my folks being hesitant about buying it as they thought computing would be a 5 minute fad with me. So far, it's been nearly a 30 year fad since that point. Since the '90s, it's all been PCs.. I do still miss the days of the diversity of home computers (Sinclair spectrums, Dragon 32, Memotech MTX, C64, Amiga, Atari, Oric and so on!).
Against the "release educational shows" proposed by the Chinese government which leads to: Less people watching 'bread and circuses' shows, leading to less revenue for _media and entertainment companies_ (after all, all the ads are doing is trying to define a preference in a market that's largely for things we will use anyway, unless you want to stop using soap, shampoo etc. The market for them will still be there, just may shift a few percent around companies if there weren't ads), leading to people being more informed on educational subjects, leading to increased education, leading to increased creative potential for the country (certainly in the sci/tech arena), leading to a massively stronger position in a world dominated by sci/tech. Yeah, sure, you'll probably tank the career of a reality show host or two (or force them to actually work and make a program that's worth watching), and possibly affect the profitability of some of the shows (hey, having to invest time and effort into making a good show costs money). This is engineering of a society. You can see the aim behind it, and it's going to be interesting to see how it fares.. China is massively behind education these days (in sci/tech/engineering), giving those jobs quite a preferential pay packet. It could well end up with the West being led by MBA management with high pay, and trying to keep the sci/tech types on low salary and subordinate, while in China, the sci tech guys lead the way, with management being a logistics function to make sure it all happens. In the timescales China works on (40-50 years, rather than the year to 5 year plans of western companies), they may have a winning strategy. So, the West decides to hire some of the good Chinese graduates to work in their companies? Great. China will have hordes of comparably skilled and effective people working in China. So that doesn't bode well for the 'Brain Drain' style hiring that's beeing driving things over the last 40+ years.
Evolution is finely tuned, revolution is almost invariably bloody. What's happened with Digital is that there's been a revolution. The old establishments are fighting hard to last long enough to evolve some new method of staying in business (and employing people) and continuing. In the meantime, we have a fight with lawyers, as people try to hold on to the old ways (same as happened with the introduction of the printing press). The simple press of reality will eventually force the matter, and digital will start to be what it should (i.e. very low cost, almost zero scarcity). What's good for society at large is a slow, planned migration to this, rather than a quick scorched earth approach. That being said, I'm not saying "Suck it up", otherwise the extremely conservative may well get legislation in place that will effectively break progress for a long, long time.. We all have to keep fighting the abuses that are laid on by the corporations to obtain the freedoms that society needs to flourish. It's an eternal fight. That's life though.. Without the struggle, there's no progress.
Although a union to say "You don't have to be forced to give up having a life, just so someone can get their spreadsheets at all times of day" would be nice. Everyone wants a 24x7 IT system. There's a way to do that; lots of money on the hardware, and three complete teams of core staff who work shifts (with the commensurate shift salary augmentation). But no, what business wants is a group of IT staff who work the same hours as everyone else, for the same kind of salary as the average pen pusher, who will then, at no notice, respond to a phone call at any time of day or night and get to site (or at least connect up remotely) and spend hours diagnosing network/server/PC/application problems (possibly calling up other IT staff), and then being in for work the next day as if nothing happened.
I've been in a few similar situations over the years. The first thing you put on the table is "This is not an acceptable situation. Your risks are.". If they don't cover this, then that's really not your problem. I've coding for 32 years, and doing sysadmin stuff as well for about 20 (among other strings to the bow), and live in despair of people who really don't understand that this stuff doesn't happen by waving a magic wand, and there is more to it than making pretty buttons appear on a screen. At interview, if someone said they'd reverse engineered and documented a system in this environment (and yes, I interview people for dev/admin jobs from time to time), I would seriously ask them why they didn't get management a junior to cover the paperwork and cover duties, while they dealt with the heavy lifting of reverse engineering and planning. I want someone around who will grok the risks, take responsibility and come up with a resilient service (not just a few machines that may be able to fail over). Budget isn't always easy to come by, especially if there are political axes to grind. I'm with the AC on this, from the limited info available. Either get them to get you a second, or get out. If the business is thriving, they can afford it, and they're just being cheapskates (and in many years, I've met quite a few like that) if they don't. You don't want to work for a cheapskate.
The time to take this kind of work on solo is if you're part of a startup, when you've got a lot invested in the success of the company. You live or fall on your wits, capability, and ability to lose every evening, weekend, and many a night too, on keeping this up and running as cheaply as possible. Once the 'thriving' level arrives, you'd better make sure you're not still carrying that load alone, otherwise your own lifespan (as well as that of the company) may be quite severely limited.
Definitely with you on that. I'm a pretty private person (well, apart from those minor rants I have on the 'net now and then, but hey, those are opinions I choose to share), and like to keep some things about me quite quiet.. I'd assume others are just the same.. If someone chooses to share, then fine.. But things work best if you leave people their privacy.. As an added bonus, if (in the UK at least) you're in a sysadmin post, and are caught with your fingers in the metaphorical cookie jar, then you'd better have a good backup career planned.. People tend not to take too kindly to that, and rightfully so..
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Of course it does. It's programmed to fit on a particular machine with a particular OS/tools. These wear out. The media the software sits on degrades, and can occasionally corrupt.
The APIs eventually change. All sorts of things happen, which is the software analog of 'wearing out'.
I'd treat support as a standard warranty deal if nothing was agreed (i.e. it depends on what you paid for it; If I charged you £50k for a wordprocessor, I'd expect to be supporting it for some time; if I charged you £2k for a reasonably complex bit of software, you'd be lucky to get 1 year out of it). It all depends on what could reasonably be considered the 'lifetime' of a product.
But, after that, any support, and they pay.
Open plan do, yes..
With offices for the more cerebral workers, that need higher levels of concentration, this background noise is kept to a minimum.
That the massive under-representation of males as home-makers is something that society seriously needs to readdress? As a rough call (just from the sample set of people I know, I'm sure there are better stats out there), about 2% of males are home makers in a couple. About 50% are in shared (dual income) arrangements, and about 48% are sole breadwinners.
Can society please fix this MASSIVE disparity before working out lesser disparities?
Not a serious post to flame about though, but it gets my goat that saying "the stats aren't even on something" has nothing to do with personal choice.. Most of it is about choice and interest. It's only really been the last decade tech was about communication and getting more 'interesting' to the average person (male or female). It'll probably be about another half decade or so for that shift in access to filter into the university system and out through into the general jobs market..
I know a couple of decades ago, even those figures would have been a joy to anyone looking at the balance, which implies society trends of females becoming slowly more interested in aspects of the field..
Crying wolf all the time only pisses off the serious people in the field, infantilises women (and other targetted groups) and assumes that correlation is causation.
The whole copyright system was based on a fair deal between the author controlling the work, and society at large gaining ownership and free access later (with the ability to reuse the characters in stories of their own making).
What you're now arguing is a way to get corporations a way to weasel out of the deal (which is what they've been trying to do by effectively "stealing" the public domain by legal technicalities), and have everything their way, because it's easier.
What we need is a fair deal again. If money could be made by people with a 12 year copyright when it took most of that to saturate the market, then why do we need an effectively infinite copyright when market saturation can measured in days or weeks (theoretically in hours in some cases)?
This no longer adds up as a fair deal. So they are surprised when people ignore a rule that's no longer making sense?
1) Lack of role models doesn't stop people from doing things. If a subject interests them, they'll do it. Until reasonably recently (a couple of decades) there were very few female doctors, or biologists. Now the fields are very popular with female. There were no real role models (unless you count nurses).
2) You kind of disprove your point here. The fields are definitely a touch "nerdy". And thus females aren't attracted to it because they aren't "nerdy". This isn't peer pressure, this is choice, unless you're going to start telling people they aren't allowed the choice of what they're comfortable with.
3) You don't give any real misconceptions. If someone has the interest in a subject, they'll follow it. My little niece (8) has a firm love of maths. She's always been a geek girl, and I'm teaching her programming, what engineering is about, what science can do with the world, and she loves it. My two other nieces like arts based, and one like biology. That's what they're happy with, and their choices were firmly made with all options open and fully supported.
4) Most don't see engineering as a "stepping stone". Most engineers go on to become really good engineers. It's a very rounded role. However, if you don't like engineering, then you won't be successful, and you then won't be able to use that success as a stepping stone to other things. Wouldn't you agree it's better to follow something you're passionate about and do well, rather than something you have no aptitude for and hate? If you succeed at what you do, you can use that as a stepping stone to where you want to go..
From a business perspective then, removing the scanners and the TSA involvement would be far cheaper (as no employees to pay, or machines to operate).
What you seem to be saying is that someone is unprofitable for pointing out where the employer could concentrate to actually deliver the service they're paid to deliver, and not be in breach of contract, rather than letting them go on obliviously.
This would give the employer an advantage on an open market (better service, better reputation), so the employee is to be valued.
Interesting postulation.
However, you could equally say that "the talk" given to many black youths sows the seeds of prejudice in them, and follow your argument through from that point.
Thus, any beating a black person gets, by your own argument, is thus their own fault due to their own prejudices.
There's as much evidence for that as there is for your postulation.
In other words, it's not acceptable. Either way round.
And being a minority is supposed to be an excuse for that how? Does being a minority mean you've got special dispensation to be aggressive, unpleasant, or engage in criminal activity at will?
No, it means you're in a small group. Under set theory, you can divide a population in many ways, and colour of skin is only one. In those sets, people are always parts of various minorities. Almost everyone is part of a minority group in something.
You say "learn". Actually, learning this isn't really at the heart of the matter.
Often, a group is told from within that they're viewed a particular way (whether this is true or not is irrelevant). And they behave based on faulty information.
Also, it can be based on a misconception (i.e. concluding "people don't value my contribution" if the reward you're given isn't what you think it should be, irrespective of whether society in general gives that general reward for that general contribution). This again leads many to feel slighted, and become hostile.
There are a whole slew of other misconceptions, misinformation and general conditioning that can, and does, lead to exactly the conclusions you're stating are "smart and correct". I'd actually say that the 'learning' and the behaviour you state are actually a terrible way to proceed. All it does is reinforce a negative image.
If the role isn't valued, find one that will, and work at it. There are successful people of all skin colours. The thing they all share is that they work hard for what they get, and they respect the contributions of others, and they don't try to play victim. If life throws bad things, they field it, fix it, and move on.
However, almost any attack by a white person upon a non-white is happily referred to as a racist attack, even when there's no evidence of that.
What you seem to be epousing is "If a person decides that something someone else says means a particular thing, then that must be the intent".
This is very wrong. When you attempt to infer intent from what someone says, you need to be pretty careful to try and get the real meaning (everyday language is notoriously bad for passing very precise meaning). It's not acceptable to beat on someone because you decide that what they've said is derogatory towards yourself when it's not (and the intent never was). If they interpreted "remember Trayvon" as a racist remark, that's because it's their first instinct, or they expect a white person to intend it as a racist remark regardless.. Both of which are incredibly racist behaviours.
Possibly not. In Bristol, UK, there was a City Councillor (herself of African descent, and oddly, spending most of her time in Florida) who accused another councillor of being a "coconut", which is a racist slur meaning someone who is "black/brown on the outside, and white on the inside". This happened in session (on the official public record). After having several firings of caucasians over implicit racist slurs, this one was practically ignored. It took a big backlash in the public to get the politicians to even begin an investigation. The councillor herself stated "I can't be racist, because I'm black.".
In the end, she got a slap on the wrist.
Yes, racism does cut both ways. However, by and large, you don't get to claim racism unless your skin is non-white.
Studies confirm that there is a general racial bias in everyone (succinctly put in Avenue Q's "Everyone's a little bit Racist"). However, being adults, we should pretty much be trying to accept that we're flawed individuals, and get on with making everyone's life a bit better as long as they live up to society's expectations (if you're arrogant, violent and antisocial, don't expect people to like you whatever the colour of your skin).
In the article, there are some actual truths. Basically, in any given social segment of any size, you'll meet all kinds of people. Nice and nasty and everything in between. Treat people as people, because that's who they are.
They teach "The Controversy of Evolution" alongside "The Unscientific Factless Idiocy of Intelligent Design", then no problem.
Then get on with teaching kids the difference between a scientific theory and conjecture, then teach them the Theory of Evolution, as best fits the facts we have today. Then tell them that if they've got a problem with the Theory of Evolution, get a set of observable, repeatable facts that falsify it, and show us a better way of understanding what's going on.
C'mon guys.. It's not rocket science. It's just plain science!
Because these days you're trained to believe you can sue for them and turn "being a victim" into a very profitable advantage.
Shall we play "spot the metaphor" today?
It is a fair figure of speech; meant to portray that they're basically ignorant savages playing with incredibly destructive forces they know nothing about.
That's what I took from the quote, and I think that was the spirit meant. It portrays it accurately.
I wish you hadn't posted that anonymously; you deserve a bit of karma for that. The burning of the Library of Alexandria was a tragedy, and seeing all the lawyers and politicians scrabbling to get their stamp on the internet, it looks like they're attempting to repeat history. They probably won't succeed, but it's a painful thing to watch them running around manically with those matches and lighters.
No, our current group are bound by a one sided legal treaty signed in by Labour. The current group are looking for a way to end the agreement legally (as it's not great for business; I suspect citizens are an also ran, but useful flag to wave).
That's the thing with international law and diplomacy, you can't easily turn around and say "We don't like it anymore, so screw you". Well, not without screwing up your international reputation and ability to strike future agreements. It needs to be done carefully.
Well, I suspect a fair part of the Slashdot crowd are actually armed with enough info to be able to build some very basic working models of a car engine. Minor surgery (emergency tracheotomoty), removal of foreign bodies etc. certainly isn't beyond the scope of teenagers. Building a piano? Again, simple to get a basic, not very good thing going. Producing a TV show? Sure. Most teenagers are capable of that.
What you're thinking of, however, is a high quality end product that you'd accept in a commercial environment. That doesn't come without aptitude and a whole load of practice.
Knowing the basics of how an engine works let me fix things that don't actually require a mechanic (oil changes, topping up water, checking fluid levels, maybe replacing pipes etc.). That makes me more efficient with costs, and keeping the whole process of driving more efficient.
First Aid, CPR and a host of other minor medical procedures are already taught. I do occasionally make use of them. This means less trips to the Emergency Department fouling up the system (and perhaps costing money). It also means less immediate suffering if you can triage at the initial point, and remedy basic conditions. I've been doing that since being a scout as an early teenager.
Built my own guitar as a teenager (it was pretty rubbish compared to a properly built one, but hey, I enjoyed the challenge). Not quite a piano, but I could have done an abysmal job and got something workable in time, with sufficient money.
Producing a TV show? Done quite a few drama based things as a teenager. Enough to get by. As have most kids.
The thing with each of those is, that by understanding what they're based on, what premises and assumptions you can make, and having a context, you get a far better idea of what you should actually be doing to be more efficient in that general area.
At the moment, computer training as simply telling people "Don't look under a bonnet, don't look under the car. All you need to know is that dial in front of you, a gearstick and a couple of pedals". Give a bit of context! If someone understood regexes, for example, they'd understand WHY you do data entry in a particular way, and perhaps they'd also ask a relevant question (such as 'is this case sensitive?') when first encountering a system.
That bit of knowledge can make all the difference. You teach someone about everything, but you can train them to work out what they need to know by giving them context, and letting their brain take the road from there.
Then set it up as an artificial reef, and have businesses set up to get divers to it. Not sure the decontamination would pay off in the near term, but it'd be an interesting option.
Commodore PET in 1978.. It belonged to a friend's dad.. I was completely taken with it, and so wished I could have something like that..
I had to wait 3 years for the release of the ZX81 before I persuaded my folks to buy a computer for me (and that was a used one). From there it was a VIC20 a few years after (sans cassette player, so I had no way to save what I wrote, so I ended up writing the games I wanted to play every time I wanted to play them!). Then came the BBC model B about a year afterwards (and that changed life! 32k ram,100k 5 1/4" floppy disk and ADC/DAC ports! Wow that really rocked my world back then). I still remember my folks being hesitant about buying it as they thought computing would be a 5 minute fad with me. So far, it's been nearly a 30 year fad since that point.
Since the '90s, it's all been PCs.. I do still miss the days of the diversity of home computers (Sinclair spectrums, Dragon 32, Memotech MTX, C64, Amiga, Atari, Oric and so on!).
Against the "release educational shows" proposed by the Chinese government which leads to:
Less people watching 'bread and circuses' shows, leading to less revenue for _media and entertainment companies_ (after all, all the ads are doing is trying to define a preference in a market that's largely for things we will use anyway, unless you want to stop using soap, shampoo etc. The market for them will still be there, just may shift a few percent around companies if there weren't ads), leading to people being more informed on educational subjects, leading to increased education, leading to increased creative potential for the country (certainly in the sci/tech arena), leading to a massively stronger position in a world dominated by sci/tech.
Yeah, sure, you'll probably tank the career of a reality show host or two (or force them to actually work and make a program that's worth watching), and possibly affect the profitability of some of the shows (hey, having to invest time and effort into making a good show costs money).
This is engineering of a society. You can see the aim behind it, and it's going to be interesting to see how it fares.. China is massively behind education these days (in sci/tech/engineering), giving those jobs quite a preferential pay packet.
It could well end up with the West being led by MBA management with high pay, and trying to keep the sci/tech types on low salary and subordinate, while in China, the sci tech guys lead the way, with management being a logistics function to make sure it all happens. In the timescales China works on (40-50 years, rather than the year to 5 year plans of western companies), they may have a winning strategy.
So, the West decides to hire some of the good Chinese graduates to work in their companies? Great. China will have hordes of comparably skilled and effective people working in China. So that doesn't bode well for the 'Brain Drain' style hiring that's beeing driving things over the last 40+ years.
Evolution is finely tuned, revolution is almost invariably bloody.
What's happened with Digital is that there's been a revolution. The old establishments are fighting hard to last long enough to evolve some new method of staying in business (and employing people) and continuing.
In the meantime, we have a fight with lawyers, as people try to hold on to the old ways (same as happened with the introduction of the printing press).
The simple press of reality will eventually force the matter, and digital will start to be what it should (i.e. very low cost, almost zero scarcity). What's good for society at large is a slow, planned migration to this, rather than a quick scorched earth approach.
That being said, I'm not saying "Suck it up", otherwise the extremely conservative may well get legislation in place that will effectively break progress for a long, long time.. We all have to keep fighting the abuses that are laid on by the corporations to obtain the freedoms that society needs to flourish. It's an eternal fight.
That's life though.. Without the struggle, there's no progress.
Although a union to say "You don't have to be forced to give up having a life, just so someone can get their spreadsheets at all times of day" would be nice.
Everyone wants a 24x7 IT system. There's a way to do that; lots of money on the hardware, and three complete teams of core staff who work shifts (with the commensurate shift salary augmentation).
But no, what business wants is a group of IT staff who work the same hours as everyone else, for the same kind of salary as the average pen pusher, who will then, at no notice, respond to a phone call at any time of day or night and get to site (or at least connect up remotely) and spend hours diagnosing network/server/PC/application problems (possibly calling up other IT staff), and then being in for work the next day as if nothing happened.
I've been in a few similar situations over the years. The first thing you put on the table is "This is not an acceptable situation. Your risks are .".
If they don't cover this, then that's really not your problem. I've coding for 32 years, and doing sysadmin stuff as well for about 20 (among other strings to the bow), and live in despair of people who really don't understand that this stuff doesn't happen by waving a magic wand, and there is more to it than making pretty buttons appear on a screen.
At interview, if someone said they'd reverse engineered and documented a system in this environment (and yes, I interview people for dev/admin jobs from time to time), I would seriously ask them why they didn't get management a junior to cover the paperwork and cover duties, while they dealt with the heavy lifting of reverse engineering and planning. I want someone around who will grok the risks, take responsibility and come up with a resilient service (not just a few machines that may be able to fail over). Budget isn't always easy to come by, especially if there are political axes to grind.
I'm with the AC on this, from the limited info available. Either get them to get you a second, or get out. If the business is thriving, they can afford it, and they're just being cheapskates (and in many years, I've met quite a few like that) if they don't. You don't want to work for a cheapskate.
The time to take this kind of work on solo is if you're part of a startup, when you've got a lot invested in the success of the company. You live or fall on your wits, capability, and ability to lose every evening, weekend, and many a night too, on keeping this up and running as cheaply as possible.
Once the 'thriving' level arrives, you'd better make sure you're not still carrying that load alone, otherwise your own lifespan (as well as that of the company) may be quite severely limited.
Your money gets there via a payroll department. HR don't usually get to play with financials..
Definitely with you on that. I'm a pretty private person (well, apart from those minor rants I have on the 'net now and then, but hey, those are opinions I choose to share), and like to keep some things about me quite quiet.. I'd assume others are just the same..
If someone chooses to share, then fine.. But things work best if you leave people their privacy..
As an added bonus, if (in the UK at least) you're in a sysadmin post, and are caught with your fingers in the metaphorical cookie jar, then you'd better have a good backup career planned.. People tend not to take too kindly to that, and rightfully so..