Umm... I guess you were modded funny b/c others knew this, but it may be worth mentioning that the hydrogen can also be stored in the less volatile liquid form.
From Wikipedia, the liquid form is less efficient (17% efficient vs 22% efficient) but liquid hydrogen would also take up less space. The liquid stuff is what they use for "gassing up" hydrogen cars.
I think that you've hit on something very important here: housing quality.
We are the Wal-mart generation. We want more stuff for less money and we want it now. You must also realize, that the paradigm in the States is very different. England and Europe are scattered with "old buildings" (100+ years), and so are the States (50+ years); it's just a fundamental difference in the definition of old. An American building is measured in generations not centuries, so buildings are built to last for a few generations rather than a few centuries.
You're probably right about these machines being good for houses in CA. However, I live above the 49th parallel on the open windy plains in a land of gumbo and shifting foundations where air temp varies (every year) from -40C to +40C. I simply doubt the machine's capacity to build houses here, because it's not an easy problem. We can barely keep our roads in good repair, cement houses would have it tough.
Ok I'll bite here. You were modded interesting, but I'm still trying to separate "funny" from "huh?".
GUIs abandon that great IT invention of 7000 years ago -- the alphabet! Icons are cryptic pictographs.
This statement directly implies that words are a better method of relaying information than pictures. I don't know if psychology and educational researchers would agree with you on this point. You muck up the issue by using the term "cryptic pictographs", but really, pictographs are often easier and quicker to interpret than words (stop signs are red octagons, the language is usually irrelevant, "STOP" or "HALT" or "ARRETE").
Add to this, that "cryptic pictographs" are much better at providing feedback to the user, such as status and progress bars. You may not like the little pictures, but they are proven quantities.
Most GUIs are very poorly implemented, with poor UI choices, bad ergonomics and excessive mouse precision required.
This statements seems to ignore the entire issue at hand Office 2k7. The UI has been redesigned with years of hands-on research, testing and refinement. Check out Jensen Harris's blog before you start talking about poor UI choices and bad ergonomics. In fact the ribbon specifically deals with your "mouse precision problem" by providing larger icons/buttons for the most often used features.
Of course, even if you just want to use the keybaord, graphical UIs provide user feedback and help guide the process. I mean, I could go back to my black screen with little key guides over my Function keys, but you're not really convincing me about why I want to be there.
If you're going to harp on UIs, check out Office 2k7 and then come back with feeback. I will admit that many UIs are poorly or unprofessionally designed, but Ribbons are not a case of this.
So basically, AMD came out with Live! as a marketing tool (a la VIIV) and now they have actual integrated devices. That's fine, this is nothing new. But all TFA talks about is the hardware and hardware is not the issue, UI is the issue.
If you're selling an integrated box, it needs to be truly integrated. You need a bundled remote, a well-designed 15-foot UI, a bundled wireless keyboard and mouse. You need the system to be pre-configured to support a "media output" (TV) and a small monitor if the user has one.
Of course, TFA makes no mention of any of this stuff. I think that Mac and its Mini are best positioned to actually make this market, but their stuff is still very first gen, a 5-button remote won't cut it. So if AMD wants this market, they need to do much more than just a specially-designed rig.
For this HTPC concept to really work, we need a much better set of integrated tools, but we're legally limited in those respects. I want to do more than just "play" the DVD, I want an option to "rip" the DVD and store it. But you can't bundle that right now (legal issues). I want to play music, rip music, download music and podcasts and connect to subscription services all in one. But this stuff is still independent from the services that play movies.
And for the second generation, I want to hook up a second PC in the basement and have it talk to the first PC upstairs. And then I want these guys to share a media library. I want multiple output option so that I can stream music to different rooms via the same remote. But this is still in the dreamer and prototype stage.
MS is trying to do this (Media Centre, Media Player, XBox 360), but it's not really there and this article does nothing to elucidate how AMD is taking this any further.
computers have FAR more complexity of control than their car
Thank you, these were my exact thoughts. Driving a car seems "easy", but just look at the sheer amount of time that goes into driving a car. And even once you can drive the car, you may need the instruction manual to figure out the radio b/c Ford's configs are different from Honda's.
The computer is a classic case of With great power comes great responsibility. Personal Computers are some of the most powerful tools on the planet, so they are necessarily complex. We can only abstract out so many concepts before you're just using a device instead of a PC.
Should software 'just work', or are users too lazy?
This is really just a bad question, it's a false dichotomy. The level of user laziness is directly tied to the definition of "just work". Ideally a piece of software will "just work" for users at various levels of laziness.
I think that the #1 cause of "software sucks syndrome" is the disconnect between users and developers. We have to draw lines for what we can assume the user to know and we simply work from there. Users beneath that line will simply not be able to use the software, just like drivers who haven't taken the written test can't drive a car. We're constantly trying to push down on that "knowledge line", but we're bottoming out.
If you do not understand the concept of "saving a file" or even the concept of a file or folder, then you cannot use a PC. This is no different from studying car pedals before using a car.
From an IT perspective, this is our job as IT people to convey the symbiotic relationship between user and software. If you or your team cannot do this, then the user will never be happy. Call it "managing user expectations" or "user training" or whatever, but software design is intimately linked with the software user. This is not an either/or thing, it's all true, software should "just work" with the understanding that it will only work relative to the users desire to make it work.
The main hurdle I've found when dealing with Mainframe apps are the lack of either (or both) of these. You find these monolithic COBOL systems that have been continuously updated for over 20 years and nobody knows exactly what they do.
What's more, 20 years of changes always involves some serious "Business Logic" changes. So the data is often kludged, with pre-1995 data treated differently from pre-2000 data, treated differently from current data. What's more, there are usually about 2 people who actually "remember" all of the changes, but it was never written down, so it's stored in the deep recesses of their brain. And since 1994 was the year that docs were still written in WordPerfect for DOS, you don't have electronic copies of anything unless you can find a dusty printout in an old binder somewhere.
Oh yeah, and the two people who have been there for 20 years. They're too busy to really impart their knowledge to the batch of people replacing the system. And really, why do they want to obsolete themselves? Why go outside of their comfort zone? Why write all of these documents and undergo this whole process when the current system "works just fine" and I only have 5 years to retirement?
So what's the reality? Most companies I've met have been taking shortcuts on their development processes for years. They kludge the code, fail to clean up, fail to date (or sometimes even comment) code and then they fail to document all of the changes.
As we all know that these shortcuts save time now at the expense of time later. Well if you've been writing cheques from the "later" account (as most companies are wont to do), then you're eventually so far behind that you simply can't recover.
Let's face it, if you had an exact spec for the functioning of your COBOL system, then conversion would not be a big deal. It would be time-consuming, but it wouldn't be "hard". But if you don't have a spec, then programming is not the issue at all. Without the spec all you have is a system with [un]known bugs and 20 years of vaguely understood changes.
I've heard of people developing systems to refactor COBOL code, but this is just another kludge. Porting code just gives you bad code in another language, the goal is always to port concepts, which is why domain experts are so key.
So basically, without Domain Experts and quality Documentation, COBOL systems will continue to exist. Without these two pieces the "upgrade" is basically impossible.
When I read 1984, there was always one thing that "got to me" about the whole system. I could understand how the concept of "good citizens" would help grease the wheels of the system. I could understand how a certain measure of brainwashing could minimize the "who watches the watcher" problem. But what I could't understand was the scope of the surveillance effort.
Having a camera in every home would generate insane amounts of data, what kind of surveillance effort would be required. I don't recall any mention of "surveillance software", but even if one person could adequately monitor a dozen in-home screens, that still means that about 8% of the human race would be involved in monitoring other humans.
I know it's just sci-fi, but I actually suspect that infrastructure may the limiting factor. We could have "walk-light" cameras (much like stop-light cameras), but how and what for? Imagine the maintenance effort required if we had 4 cameras at every street corner.
OK, the official sizes are Short, Tall, Grande and Venti (20).
In the beginning, there was no Venti, only the first three. The Short was unpopular, so Venti became the "new Large", but Short still exists. You see menus with four columns are tough to read and people like the 1,2,3 style of sizes, so short is off the menu but still on the tills.
Truth is, it's not only Starbucks. We have a Robin's donuts that has S, M, L & Jumbo, and the perennial Canadian favorite Tim Horton's has S, M, L and XL. But nobody really buys the S except for the seniors. Typically they hang out and get refills so it could really be any size; but with the cup being the most expensive part of the coffee, it's just more efficient to give them the tiny cup.
If you bust your buns making the whole project succeed, it's quite likely your boss will get a bonus or stock options, and you'll get nothing.
This concept of giving the bonus to the boss is a partial buy-in to the fallacy of management. It buys in to the concept of the boss as the "essential" cog on the team. Pay off that one big cog and the rest of the team will continue to work. Stakeholders bought in to the image, so now we have 25-year old "genius managers" making more than the underlings with 25 years of experience who actually make things tick.
Of course, this is where the "fend for yourself" concept comes in. I'm a believer in the "Die Broke" philosophy (though the book is poorly written). Point #1 is to "Quit Today", which roughly translates into "fend for yourself". If you work for a firm where bonuses are given to individuals rather than teams, talk to your bosses and be ready to leave.
I mean really, why work hard to put money in someone else's pockets? I'll give bosses some time to prove their worth, but their time is limited. When my x-mas bonus or referral bonus is 1% on "our best year ever" (with unemployment hovering at 4.5% and everyone looking for new staff), then time is up and I'll start looking for a new job.
Mind you, I think your method of playing both sides is easily overlooked. Everyone wants to a "better job", the key is understanding that you can make your current job better or find an new better job. I have heard people spread the belief that only one of these two can be successful. But I actually see two sides of the coin that are not contradictory. I can keep an up to date resume, keep an ear to job market and send out resumes all while helping my boss to improve my current work situation.
In fact, in my recent interviews, companies have been very accepting of my "desire to leave". It's well-known that the strongest employees are rarely without a job, so no one questsions my behaviour. If anyone really prods, I just tell them that "I'm working for a B-grade company and I really want to be working for an A-grade company". Funny thing is, the companies I felt were B-grade haven't called me back, but the company I felt was A-grade has called me back. It's like they can self-select:)
Sorry, the word "bin" did not appear somehow (bad HTML on my part). I was going for humour, from a Canadian perspective the word loonie (with the "ie") is tied to the coin/currency. So the "loonie bin" actually sounds like a giant room filled with gold-colored $1 coins, which of course brings us to Scrooge McDuck swimming around in said gold coins.
This article seems to lack one very important thing. Why am I using this device?
The examples seem nebulous not compelling. So now I can share my USB external drive, but you have to run a USB cable over to my computer? Or I could unplug my portable drive and walk over to your computer. Unless we want to start running 50ft USB cables alongside our Ethernet cables this seems pointless. Given that most people are migrating towards Wireless Ethernet, why not just connect a USB hub to the router for the same effect?
Oh hey, we already have that Ethernet to USB feature. Want to share printers? We already have that feature, including the above-mentioned Network-connected printers. Want to share a thumb drive? It's a fricken thumb drive! Unplug it and throw across the room!
I know, we can share my USB headset/mic (except for the fact that they're plugged in to my computer!) Mouse? Keyboard? Tablet input? External Burner? Coffee warmer? Toothbrush? All of these things are local and pretty much unworthy of sharing
So, basically, the gear is useful if you have two nearby computers, a long USB cable, devices to share and no network connection. Sounds a little niche doesn't it?
You asked: How did you improve? Programming on your own? Through work?
Which is really a big question, but usually bears down to "programming on your own" in some capcity. Most work places take little interest in improving the quality of their coding staff. Everyone will pay for exams and some will pay for courses, but let's face it three days in a class room is not enough time to "learn.NET".
Of course, if you want to learn "cool stuff" and that's not what your workplace is doing, then it's on your own time. Most companies see no benefits in "over-training" their staff, they live under the concept that staff "can know too much".
So if you want to succeed, find your own way. Join an Open Source project, read a book on the subject, extend your degree with a Masters or PhD, target a professional exam and grab the training materials. Pick a subject and just do something. Pick a project you want to complete and learn what you need for that project. If you have a target and goal, you'll have fun doing it.
Actually, the military route may be even better for a hacker. You get computer training on some advanced tech and you get weapons and other military training.
Organized crime is always looking for ex-cops and ex-military. These guys already know basic tricks of the trade, they know how to use guns, they may have first aid (or better) medical training. They may have covert ops training and if they're really smart and computer-trained, they'll probably have a good handle on military-grade gear as well.
So if the mob wants to arrange for a pair of Sam Fisher's newest goggles, they'll "know a guy who knows a guy".
As far as organized crime is concerned, they are a business. It turns out that some of their best possible recruits (ex-military) are generally poorly-paid. Honestly, this whole thing just sounds like good business to me:)
Well for starters, and this may sound evil, I'm OK with a few people starving to death. Where I live, I'm pretty comfortable with that starvation being borne of one's decisions. Having some people starve actually helps to drive others "not to starve". Your view seems to be that everyone should "be fed" and my view is that everyone working full-time should "be fed" (or trying to work full-time in case of the disabled). This may be the fundamental difference.
I like the "training courses" idea, but the whole thing doesn't actually scale. You need to draw a line where training is paid to erect some barriers. Why? b/c otherwise you get Ukraine. A buddy of mine grew up in Ukraine (until age 16) and his experience was that University grads where everywhere, b/c University was free. But few of them actually had jobs in their chosen fields. Admitedly, you need someone to build a better tractor, but you still need people to actually drive the existing fleet of tractors. If everyone has a degree, who drives the tractors? (guys with degrees)
The fact is, we need a distribution or balance of people across the spectrum. There is a general agreement amongst Student Unions at Canadian Universities that tuitions need to be frozen to increase university access. And that's with average annual tuitions of $1900 to $5100. Now before you jump at this, understand that Canadian universities are a little different. They're all mostly commuter campuses, so we don't quote insane number like $20,000/year b/c those $20,000 tuitions usually include room & board. Most Canadian students live at home.
Where I live, the average tuition is about $3300 / year (plus books/supplies). My girlfriend pays this amount out of pocket each year (her mother had no savings) and she has no issues with this. She lives with her mother (and occassionally with me:) and rides the bus to and from campus. She has no issues with regular or reasonable tuition increases, as far as she's concerned, this helps to make her degree more valuable. Obtaining a full, four-year degree is about at $16,000 endeavour and the government offers "interest-free" loans during the period of your education and up to 6 months post-grad (the loans actually have interest, they're taken from a bank at prime, but the government pays the interest during education).
So the government sponsors loans, the government provides tax deduction on tuition and a monthly tax deduction for every month you're a student, the government will extend EI (employment insurance) payments for people attending community colleges, they'll sponsor childcare and income supplements if your income is too low, etc. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants a post-secondary education can get one. You may have to "suffer" in the process. This may require that you miss some new movies or live without a TV and borrow all of your books from the library, but you will not starve or die of inclement weather while attending university.
With the affordability of health care in Canada, it's far rarer to have people lose their job and go bankrupt on medical bills. It can happen, but it's usually exceptional, not common like in the States.
Personally, I think that many of your problems would go away if you did two things:
Make healthcare public (and levy taxes)
Grant status to the illegal immigrants
When healthcare goes public, the quality of care increases universally and in the case of the states, the cost of care would likely drop. You could cancel most HMOs and still have "two-tier" healthcare where people with more money could pay for "better care" if they really wanted (private room, TV, Net connection, higher nurse/patient ratio, etc).
You could mitigate the expense by raising taxes, but forcing employers to give the HMO
So I'm much rather see such developments done in northern Quebec or Ontario.
Actually, I think you're pointing at the wrong Province here (though you have a good idea). What you actually want is Manitoba. Manitoba Hydro has tons of cheap electricity. They have oodles of hydro-electric dams across the province as the province is lined with lakes and rivers. They're even expanding into wind-power b/c (lo and behold) being on the cold windy plains is pretty conducive to giant windmills.
For anyone who's been to Manitoba, there is simply no lack of space and no lack of energy. It is centrally-located, so North American support is ideal. 8 am in the maritimes is 6 am local, 5 pm on the west coast in only 7 pm local, so the work day can easily be covered in overlapping shifts. And of course, the distance is equal to everyone in North America.
It's very cold in the winter, so cooling costs are not a concern for 4-6 months (if anything, the server rooms would need to be slightly heated:). Oh yeah, I should also mention that Manitoba labour costs lag well behind Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and BC. Winnipeg (the capital) is a big city (750,000) with all of the big city amenities, so setting up here (even exporting staff) will be pleasantly surprising.
Plus, Manitoba is pretty low on the natural disasters front. Saskatchewan gets regular twisters, but Manitoba has very few. There are no earthquakes, no hurricanes (obv), no tsunamis, none of the big stuff. Primary risks are snow-storms and floods, which are both easy to mitigate (redundancy, support network and "higher ground").
Fact is, I'm kind of surprised that big software companies haven't shipped operations to Manitoba. The Cost of Living is significantly lower (10-25% then the aforementioned provinces) and the location is conducive to working with companies on both coasts. With new technologies providing inexpensive communication costs, what does it matter that your programmers are 2 time zones away? It's nice to have bodies nearby, but you can just roll out the "vid-phones" (Skype, Messenger, whatever) and save big on the labour (and overhead, office space is also cheaper). All without the long list of "downsides" to off-shoring. You're not dealing with language issues or time zone issues or education issues.
Say it with me: Equality is an abstract goal, not an existing achievement.
Ah, for mod points... Truth is, I don't even think that equality is a goal, I think balance is really the goal. The average person thinks that "equality is a good" thing and therefore that "inequality is bad". The truth (of course), is that the only good thing is balance.
We've all heard the one-sided crusades for "equality": more women in field X, more aboriginals in field Y, more people with disabilities in field Z. These cries are all backed by the concept (here in Canada) of "Employment Equity", which somehow deems that 50% of our population need special treatment and consideration in all fields of employment.
Personally, I don't want half of my firefighters to be women, I want almost all of them to be male. And I don't want half of my nurses being men, especially in a something like a peds ward. Kids under 5 just respond better to women than men. Likewise, I'm OK with the fact that elementary schools have more female teachers and high schools have more male teachers. (pay issues aside)
In terms of money, I'm OK with the fact that some people are "poor" or "live below the poverty line". There is a very complex balance to be had, and though I may complain about that balance (or distribution), I'll in no way complain that it is "unfair b/c it's not equal".
"Employment Equity" occassionally has "and Diversity" tacked on the end. But the very concept implies that (for example) women are not treated fairly with regards to job selection. Of course, definitions for "fair" may vary widely and some people will equate "fair" with "equal" and hey we're back to our equality conundrum.
Point is, the standard math definition of equality simply does not apply to most real-life scenarios, it's all distributions and averages, medians and means. I just wish this was understood when we started talking about "both sides of the story". </soapbox>
Good question: according to Answers poverty is: the state of being poor.
Thank you for your more static definition of poverty. You see, the level I was using was the concept of "living below the poverty line" where that line was 10k this year and 5k a decade ago. This concept of the poverty line is the one oft-quoted by news pundits or people pushing social security agendas.
Now point #2 is not perfectly static b/c housing requirements would vary dramatically between say Alaska and Miami, but the definition does include the concept of privacy. But hey, this stuff is good, this is stuff that can be measured. I really appreciate the reply, b/c most people don't care to even think about this stuff.
Now given that I live in balmy Winnipeg, I'll nitpick your list and add the requirement for adequate clothing (big deal out here, $100 winter jackets are not for show).
Given all of this info, I think that we'll actually reduce this conversation to something with a political bend (which makes this an opinion/ideological debate, rather than a debate about definitions). I'll warn you that I'm of the conservative bend.
The minimum wage in my region is $7.60 or about USD $6.61 (actually higher than the US minimum wage). At 40 hrs/week, that's just over about 15k, after standard income taxes that's about 12k/year or 1k/month. Now, in Winnipeg, a basic 2 bedroom apartment costs $700/month, and I'd like to assume that having a room-mate offers "the possibility for privacy", so all we'd really need to provide is schooling (free to 12th grade in Canada) and health care (free in Canada, drugs not included). So that leaves our minimum wage employee about $650/month (paying half the rent) to make food and clothes.
So clearly, with that money, this person is not poor by your definitions. Heck, with this money they could apply for a reduced-rate pass at the local Y, pay for a monthly bus pass (now tax-deductible) and even be well-entertained between the library and activities at the Y. In fact this minimum-wage employee, working full time, could ostensibly live a pretty healthy life. And let's not forget, that they won't stay at minimum forever, currently minimum wage (in Manitoba) is set to go up again in April (to $8/hour), but it's already irrelevant b/c we're at 3.5% unemployment, so nobody really makes minimum wage. All you really need to do is show up to work every day, do an adequate job and you'll get regular pay increases, so even minimum can be viewed as a short term issue.
Now, this issue changes a little when a kid arrives, but even a single parent is not without recourse in Canada. The government provides a Canada Child Tax Benefit (on a sliding scale) and Manitoba has the Manitoba Shelter Benefit for families, there is a GSTTax Credit, there are CRISP benefits and even childcare (daycare) subsidies. Of course, in single parent situations, the "missing" parent is expected to pay child support. If that "missing" parent has died, the government will help replace that income using Canada pension plan benefits, to the tune of about $200/month. As a bonus, if you need childcare to be able to work, those childcare costs are tax-deductible (whatever parts are not already subsidized). The system only scales out to a few of children, but if you have 4 kids, no partner and a
What about people who want to be poor? People with low self-esteem, people who don't like to work very much, people who are generally anti-social? If I take Bill Gates's income and use it to "treat the poor", am I really solving any problems?
I have increased self-esteem in the poor? Have I increased their desire to work or be generally socially productive? You are blanketing a solution for people that does not account for the people involved. What if they don't want your help?
The concept of poverty elimination is extremely dicey b/c poverty is a relative concept. Income and lifestyle is distributed on a curve and you're literally trying to supplant the lower part of that curve. So let's say the poverty line is X and you take everyone with income less than X and give them money from the wealthy until they achieve X, what have you really done?
Now what's the poverty line? You state food, shelter, healthcare and education, but there are massive shades and gradients within those parameters. What is the minimum quality of food to which everyone should have access? What type of shelter? how large? how expensive? with heating? A/C? how private? What type of education? the states generally pays for books, but what about supplies? Should the state pay for standard school supplies? what counts as standard school supplies? can we educate without computers? how old can the oldest books be? can we allow calculators without providing them to the poorest students?
There will always be people "below the poverty line" b/c that line is always moving. In fact, the line is intentionally within the distribution of the population b/c it wouldn't be otherwise relevant.
Now, if you could provide me with a static definition of poverty, one that does not change over time, then I would be happy to discuss practical methods for removing poverty from the world. In fact, Bill Gates has a giant fund for helping people, put together a good idea and let's talk.
So are you suggesting the implementation of a socialist/communist-style system, or do you have some kind of line for defining the "mega-rich"? Is it better to steal from the independently wealthy and to give to the government? To what benefit?
Your comment demonstrates some deep-seated resentment, but no insight into the problem.
As I understand it, this was the case in Canada for a period (a very long time ago). The obvious problems were corrected and the brackets are now progressive. But hey, the average person seems to know very little about taxes, so this comment of "less" money is likely their own ignorance hard at work.
What is true is that raises can cause the last stretch of income to be taxed higher, and sometimes, crossing that border may make the paycheck seem smaller depending on how your paychecks are cut, b/c they may be removing more tax than necessary. Though it all comes back at the end of the year, some people misunderstand the concept of tax refund, so they fail to do the math and add that on to their weekly paycheck.
The short answer, it doesn't happen, but some people don't know how to count.
Everyone has a reply to this one: No offense, but why would you need training to do a job you were hired to do in the first place?, but I'll take a different tack. It's good that you did your own learning, but clearly this was for your own purposes (beefing up your CV).
Now, I'd like to learn more neat computer things, but I have limited time. The OP here is obviously interested in learning, but rolling out 500 workstations is not a trivial task. You can't just roll out a this type of system with a few quick glances through the man pages, you need training. And we're not talking little bits of training, we're talking lots of training, on the order of a few hundred guided hours.
Note that I said "guided". The most efficient way to learn this stuff is to have a trainer. You can't just pick up a Linux manual and be "suddenly" ready to roll out 500 workstations. You need to install Linux a dozen times on different boxes, you need to find adequate freeware to replace the relevant Windows systems, you need to work with and tweak install scripts for your basic "image", you need to learn how to use and [pre-]configure remote management tools, you need to review your stack of workstation components and ensure that ALL of the comps and their components are compatible (and make lists where they are not), you need to make informed decisions about distros and window managers and standard user permission configurations. And then, once you're live, you need to be very wary of the upgrade treadmill. Upgrading is already inherently dangerous, but now we're upgrading components that were not likely tested for compatibility (who tests all of the distro/WM/kernel/support software configurations?)
So rather than berate and belittle other posters, why not just acknowledge the difficulties and offer solutions? Clearly, rolling out 500 workstations in a managed environment is not a trivial task. Becoming a sysadmin on a new operating system is not a trivial task. Asking any employee to spend an additional 200 hours of their own time without additional pay is plain disrespectful.
"We're rolling out Linux, but we can't pay for your training..." is obviously very foolish. Your failure to acknowledge this as an issue seems mostly endemic of Linux's desktop penetration issues. Clearly, Linux's low cost has some longer term benefits, but training costs are not just high, they're mandatory.
A CIO can't just wake up one morning, decide that Linux is "The Way" and then start firing his Windows guys. Nor can he tell his Windows guys that they have to learn Linux on their own or be fired. He has to pay for employee training, he has to sponsor investigation into replacements for critical systems. If he wants to roll out new desktops he has find (or likely create) training materials and distribute these to current employees. He needs to provide workshops for existing users to give them even the basics of using their "new OS".
This mess of services forms the a barrier to entry not unlike the cost of a console is a barrier to entry. Imagine that the PS4/XBOX720 cost $10,000 but came with it's own proprietary TV and surround sound system, then imagine that all of the games were free and the accessories were cheap ($10/controller). How many people would buy this console? Would you? I mean hey, all the games are free right? I mean, you may not be able to use your current TV, but look, you get a new one. Who cares about a measly 10k when can have free games for the rest of you life?... That's what Linux is like to most CIOs, it's cool, it has all of these free/cheap options, but it costs a lot of money to get started.
Yeah, I hear this about Maden all the time... That's how it manages to remain one of the biggest selling game titles of all time...
Actually, I think this may have something to do with the fact that they produce the onlylicensed NFL game. Here's a neat link comparing top games sales for 2004. Notice how Madden is #3 but NFL 2K5 is both #4 and #10 (PS2 and X-Box), of course, that year they "bought out the competition" and then you get numbers like these, where, lo and behold, Madden is now undeniably on top (#1, #4) and they've snuck in with #5: NCAA Football.
Truth is, it seems to me that there is just a big market for american football games. EA didn't really win any major "competition" here, they just bought off the NFL player's union in the very year they seemed to be slipping. Good market strategy, but I definitely won't attribute their sales numbers to game quality. Truth is, Madden is probably just "good enough". There are lots of football fanatics who just want "a game" and Madden meets that criteria.
You have certificates of deposit for gold (the metal).
You have now entered a dimension where gold must be classified as a metal to differentiate itself from its primary meaning (currency). Welcome to Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm... I guess you were modded funny b/c others knew this, but it may be worth mentioning that the hydrogen can also be stored in the less volatile liquid form.
From Wikipedia, the liquid form is less efficient (17% efficient vs 22% efficient) but liquid hydrogen would also take up less space. The liquid stuff is what they use for "gassing up" hydrogen cars.
I think that you've hit on something very important here: housing quality.
We are the Wal-mart generation. We want more stuff for less money and we want it now. You must also realize, that the paradigm in the States is very different. England and Europe are scattered with "old buildings" (100+ years), and so are the States (50+ years); it's just a fundamental difference in the definition of old. An American building is measured in generations not centuries, so buildings are built to last for a few generations rather than a few centuries.
You're probably right about these machines being good for houses in CA. However, I live above the 49th parallel on the open windy plains in a land of gumbo and shifting foundations where air temp varies (every year) from -40C to +40C. I simply doubt the machine's capacity to build houses here, because it's not an easy problem. We can barely keep our roads in good repair, cement houses would have it tough.
Ok I'll bite here. You were modded interesting, but I'm still trying to separate "funny" from "huh?".
GUIs abandon that great IT invention of 7000 years ago -- the alphabet! Icons are cryptic pictographs.
This statement directly implies that words are a better method of relaying information than pictures. I don't know if psychology and educational researchers would agree with you on this point. You muck up the issue by using the term "cryptic pictographs", but really, pictographs are often easier and quicker to interpret than words (stop signs are red octagons, the language is usually irrelevant, "STOP" or "HALT" or "ARRETE").
Add to this, that "cryptic pictographs" are much better at providing feedback to the user, such as status and progress bars. You may not like the little pictures, but they are proven quantities.
Most GUIs are very poorly implemented, with poor UI choices, bad ergonomics and excessive mouse precision required.
This statements seems to ignore the entire issue at hand Office 2k7. The UI has been redesigned with years of hands-on research, testing and refinement. Check out Jensen Harris's blog before you start talking about poor UI choices and bad ergonomics. In fact the ribbon specifically deals with your "mouse precision problem" by providing larger icons/buttons for the most often used features.
Of course, even if you just want to use the keybaord, graphical UIs provide user feedback and help guide the process. I mean, I could go back to my black screen with little key guides over my Function keys, but you're not really convincing me about why I want to be there.
If you're going to harp on UIs, check out Office 2k7 and then come back with feeback. I will admit that many UIs are poorly or unprofessionally designed, but Ribbons are not a case of this.
I think this fairly clearly proves that Gates' motivations are not altruistic.
Or maybe it's more simply true that real life is complicated and that throwing money at a problem is usually only part of the solution.
So basically, AMD came out with Live! as a marketing tool (a la VIIV) and now they have actual integrated devices. That's fine, this is nothing new. But all TFA talks about is the hardware and hardware is not the issue, UI is the issue.
If you're selling an integrated box, it needs to be truly integrated. You need a bundled remote, a well-designed 15-foot UI, a bundled wireless keyboard and mouse. You need the system to be pre-configured to support a "media output" (TV) and a small monitor if the user has one.
Of course, TFA makes no mention of any of this stuff. I think that Mac and its Mini are best positioned to actually make this market, but their stuff is still very first gen, a 5-button remote won't cut it. So if AMD wants this market, they need to do much more than just a specially-designed rig.
For this HTPC concept to really work, we need a much better set of integrated tools, but we're legally limited in those respects. I want to do more than just "play" the DVD, I want an option to "rip" the DVD and store it. But you can't bundle that right now (legal issues). I want to play music, rip music, download music and podcasts and connect to subscription services all in one. But this stuff is still independent from the services that play movies.
And for the second generation, I want to hook up a second PC in the basement and have it talk to the first PC upstairs. And then I want these guys to share a media library. I want multiple output option so that I can stream music to different rooms via the same remote. But this is still in the dreamer and prototype stage.
MS is trying to do this (Media Centre, Media Player, XBox 360), but it's not really there and this article does nothing to elucidate how AMD is taking this any further.
computers have FAR more complexity of control than their car
Thank you, these were my exact thoughts. Driving a car seems "easy", but just look at the sheer amount of time that goes into driving a car. And even once you can drive the car, you may need the instruction manual to figure out the radio b/c Ford's configs are different from Honda's.
The computer is a classic case of With great power comes great responsibility. Personal Computers are some of the most powerful tools on the planet, so they are necessarily complex. We can only abstract out so many concepts before you're just using a device instead of a PC.
Should software 'just work', or are users too lazy?
This is really just a bad question, it's a false dichotomy. The level of user laziness is directly tied to the definition of "just work". Ideally a piece of software will "just work" for users at various levels of laziness.
I think that the #1 cause of "software sucks syndrome" is the disconnect between users and developers. We have to draw lines for what we can assume the user to know and we simply work from there. Users beneath that line will simply not be able to use the software, just like drivers who haven't taken the written test can't drive a car. We're constantly trying to push down on that "knowledge line", but we're bottoming out.
If you do not understand the concept of "saving a file" or even the concept of a file or folder, then you cannot use a PC. This is no different from studying car pedals before using a car.
From an IT perspective, this is our job as IT people to convey the symbiotic relationship between user and software. If you or your team cannot do this, then the user will never be happy. Call it "managing user expectations" or "user training" or whatever, but software design is intimately linked with the software user. This is not an either/or thing, it's all true, software should "just work" with the understanding that it will only work relative to the users desire to make it work.
The key limitation of COBOL systems are two-fold:
The main hurdle I've found when dealing with Mainframe apps are the lack of either (or both) of these. You find these monolithic COBOL systems that have been continuously updated for over 20 years and nobody knows exactly what they do.
What's more, 20 years of changes always involves some serious "Business Logic" changes. So the data is often kludged, with pre-1995 data treated differently from pre-2000 data, treated differently from current data. What's more, there are usually about 2 people who actually "remember" all of the changes, but it was never written down, so it's stored in the deep recesses of their brain. And since 1994 was the year that docs were still written in WordPerfect for DOS, you don't have electronic copies of anything unless you can find a dusty printout in an old binder somewhere.
Oh yeah, and the two people who have been there for 20 years. They're too busy to really impart their knowledge to the batch of people replacing the system. And really, why do they want to obsolete themselves? Why go outside of their comfort zone? Why write all of these documents and undergo this whole process when the current system "works just fine" and I only have 5 years to retirement?
So what's the reality? Most companies I've met have been taking shortcuts on their development processes for years. They kludge the code, fail to clean up, fail to date (or sometimes even comment) code and then they fail to document all of the changes.
As we all know that these shortcuts save time now at the expense of time later. Well if you've been writing cheques from the "later" account (as most companies are wont to do), then you're eventually so far behind that you simply can't recover.
Let's face it, if you had an exact spec for the functioning of your COBOL system, then conversion would not be a big deal. It would be time-consuming, but it wouldn't be "hard". But if you don't have a spec, then programming is not the issue at all. Without the spec all you have is a system with [un]known bugs and 20 years of vaguely understood changes.
I've heard of people developing systems to refactor COBOL code, but this is just another kludge. Porting code just gives you bad code in another language, the goal is always to port concepts, which is why domain experts are so key.
So basically, without Domain Experts and quality Documentation, COBOL systems will continue to exist. Without these two pieces the "upgrade" is basically impossible.
When I read 1984, there was always one thing that "got to me" about the whole system. I could understand how the concept of "good citizens" would help grease the wheels of the system. I could understand how a certain measure of brainwashing could minimize the "who watches the watcher" problem. But what I could't understand was the scope of the surveillance effort.
Having a camera in every home would generate insane amounts of data, what kind of surveillance effort would be required. I don't recall any mention of "surveillance software", but even if one person could adequately monitor a dozen in-home screens, that still means that about 8% of the human race would be involved in monitoring other humans.
I know it's just sci-fi, but I actually suspect that infrastructure may the limiting factor. We could have "walk-light" cameras (much like stop-light cameras), but how and what for? Imagine the maintenance effort required if we had 4 cameras at every street corner.
OK, the official sizes are Short, Tall, Grande and Venti (20).
In the beginning, there was no Venti, only the first three. The Short was unpopular, so Venti became the "new Large", but Short still exists. You see menus with four columns are tough to read and people like the 1,2,3 style of sizes, so short is off the menu but still on the tills.
Truth is, it's not only Starbucks. We have a Robin's donuts that has S, M, L & Jumbo, and the perennial Canadian favorite Tim Horton's has S, M, L and XL. But nobody really buys the S except for the seniors. Typically they hang out and get refills so it could really be any size; but with the cup being the most expensive part of the coffee, it's just more efficient to give them the tiny cup.
If you bust your buns making the whole project succeed, it's quite likely your boss will get a bonus or stock options, and you'll get nothing.
This concept of giving the bonus to the boss is a partial buy-in to the fallacy of management. It buys in to the concept of the boss as the "essential" cog on the team. Pay off that one big cog and the rest of the team will continue to work. Stakeholders bought in to the image, so now we have 25-year old "genius managers" making more than the underlings with 25 years of experience who actually make things tick.
Of course, this is where the "fend for yourself" concept comes in. I'm a believer in the "Die Broke" philosophy (though the book is poorly written). Point #1 is to "Quit Today", which roughly translates into "fend for yourself". If you work for a firm where bonuses are given to individuals rather than teams, talk to your bosses and be ready to leave.
I mean really, why work hard to put money in someone else's pockets? I'll give bosses some time to prove their worth, but their time is limited. When my x-mas bonus or referral bonus is 1% on "our best year ever" (with unemployment hovering at 4.5% and everyone looking for new staff), then time is up and I'll start looking for a new job.
Mind you, I think your method of playing both sides is easily overlooked. Everyone wants to a "better job", the key is understanding that you can make your current job better or find an new better job. I have heard people spread the belief that only one of these two can be successful. But I actually see two sides of the coin that are not contradictory. I can keep an up to date resume, keep an ear to job market and send out resumes all while helping my boss to improve my current work situation.
In fact, in my recent interviews, companies have been very accepting of my "desire to leave". It's well-known that the strongest employees are rarely without a job, so no one questsions my behaviour. If anyone really prods, I just tell them that "I'm working for a B-grade company and I really want to be working for an A-grade company". Funny thing is, the companies I felt were B-grade haven't called me back, but the company I felt was A-grade has called me back. It's like they can self-select :)
Sorry, the word "bin" did not appear somehow (bad HTML on my part). I was going for humour, from a Canadian perspective the word loonie (with the "ie") is tied to the coin/currency. So the "loonie bin" actually sounds like a giant room filled with gold-colored $1 coins, which of course brings us to Scrooge McDuck swimming around in said gold coins.
What is this "loonie" of which you speak?
I have images of Scrooge McDuck doing the swim through his pile of gold coins. All things considered, most corps would probably like this :)
This article seems to lack one very important thing. Why am I using this device?
The examples seem nebulous not compelling. So now I can share my USB external drive, but you have to run a USB cable over to my computer? Or I could unplug my portable drive and walk over to your computer. Unless we want to start running 50ft USB cables alongside our Ethernet cables this seems pointless. Given that most people are migrating towards Wireless Ethernet, why not just connect a USB hub to the router for the same effect?
Oh hey, we already have that Ethernet to USB feature. Want to share printers? We already have that feature, including the above-mentioned Network-connected printers. Want to share a thumb drive? It's a fricken thumb drive! Unplug it and throw across the room!
I know, we can share my USB headset/mic (except for the fact that they're plugged in to my computer!) Mouse? Keyboard? Tablet input? External Burner? Coffee warmer? Toothbrush? All of these things are local and pretty much unworthy of sharing
So, basically, the gear is useful if you have two nearby computers, a long USB cable, devices to share and no network connection. Sounds a little niche doesn't it?
You asked: How did you improve? Programming on your own? Through work?
Which is really a big question, but usually bears down to "programming on your own" in some capcity. Most work places take little interest in improving the quality of their coding staff. Everyone will pay for exams and some will pay for courses, but let's face it three days in a class room is not enough time to "learn .NET".
Of course, if you want to learn "cool stuff" and that's not what your workplace is doing, then it's on your own time. Most companies see no benefits in "over-training" their staff, they live under the concept that staff "can know too much".
So if you want to succeed, find your own way. Join an Open Source project, read a book on the subject, extend your degree with a Masters or PhD, target a professional exam and grab the training materials. Pick a subject and just do something. Pick a project you want to complete and learn what you need for that project. If you have a target and goal, you'll have fun doing it.
Actually, the military route may be even better for a hacker. You get computer training on some advanced tech and you get weapons and other military training.
Organized crime is always looking for ex-cops and ex-military. These guys already know basic tricks of the trade, they know how to use guns, they may have first aid (or better) medical training. They may have covert ops training and if they're really smart and computer-trained, they'll probably have a good handle on military-grade gear as well.
So if the mob wants to arrange for a pair of Sam Fisher's newest goggles, they'll "know a guy who knows a guy".
As far as organized crime is concerned, they are a business. It turns out that some of their best possible recruits (ex-military) are generally poorly-paid. Honestly, this whole thing just sounds like good business to me :)
Any idea why this would not work?
Well for starters, and this may sound evil, I'm OK with a few people starving to death. Where I live, I'm pretty comfortable with that starvation being borne of one's decisions. Having some people starve actually helps to drive others "not to starve". Your view seems to be that everyone should "be fed" and my view is that everyone working full-time should "be fed" (or trying to work full-time in case of the disabled). This may be the fundamental difference.
I like the "training courses" idea, but the whole thing doesn't actually scale. You need to draw a line where training is paid to erect some barriers. Why? b/c otherwise you get Ukraine. A buddy of mine grew up in Ukraine (until age 16) and his experience was that University grads where everywhere, b/c University was free. But few of them actually had jobs in their chosen fields. Admitedly, you need someone to build a better tractor, but you still need people to actually drive the existing fleet of tractors. If everyone has a degree, who drives the tractors? (guys with degrees)
The fact is, we need a distribution or balance of people across the spectrum. There is a general agreement amongst Student Unions at Canadian Universities that tuitions need to be frozen to increase university access. And that's with average annual tuitions of $1900 to $5100. Now before you jump at this, understand that Canadian universities are a little different. They're all mostly commuter campuses, so we don't quote insane number like $20,000/year b/c those $20,000 tuitions usually include room & board. Most Canadian students live at home.
Where I live, the average tuition is about $3300 / year (plus books/supplies). My girlfriend pays this amount out of pocket each year (her mother had no savings) and she has no issues with this. She lives with her mother (and occassionally with me :) and rides the bus to and from campus. She has no issues with regular or reasonable tuition increases, as far as she's concerned, this helps to make her degree more valuable. Obtaining a full, four-year degree is about at $16,000 endeavour and the government offers "interest-free" loans during the period of your education and up to 6 months post-grad (the loans actually have interest, they're taken from a bank at prime, but the government pays the interest during education).
So the government sponsors loans, the government provides tax deduction on tuition and a monthly tax deduction for every month you're a student, the government will extend EI (employment insurance) payments for people attending community colleges, they'll sponsor childcare and income supplements if your income is too low, etc. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants a post-secondary education can get one. You may have to "suffer" in the process. This may require that you miss some new movies or live without a TV and borrow all of your books from the library, but you will not starve or die of inclement weather while attending university.
With the affordability of health care in Canada, it's far rarer to have people lose their job and go bankrupt on medical bills. It can happen, but it's usually exceptional, not common like in the States.
Personally, I think that many of your problems would go away if you did two things:
When healthcare goes public, the quality of care increases universally and in the case of the states, the cost of care would likely drop. You could cancel most HMOs and still have "two-tier" healthcare where people with more money could pay for "better care" if they really wanted (private room, TV, Net connection, higher nurse/patient ratio, etc).
You could mitigate the expense by raising taxes, but forcing employers to give the HMO
So I'm much rather see such developments done in northern Quebec or Ontario.
Actually, I think you're pointing at the wrong Province here (though you have a good idea). What you actually want is Manitoba. Manitoba Hydro has tons of cheap electricity. They have oodles of hydro-electric dams across the province as the province is lined with lakes and rivers. They're even expanding into wind-power b/c (lo and behold) being on the cold windy plains is pretty conducive to giant windmills.
For anyone who's been to Manitoba, there is simply no lack of space and no lack of energy. It is centrally-located, so North American support is ideal. 8 am in the maritimes is 6 am local, 5 pm on the west coast in only 7 pm local, so the work day can easily be covered in overlapping shifts. And of course, the distance is equal to everyone in North America.
It's very cold in the winter, so cooling costs are not a concern for 4-6 months (if anything, the server rooms would need to be slightly heated :). Oh yeah, I should also mention that Manitoba labour costs lag well behind Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and BC. Winnipeg (the capital) is a big city (750,000) with all of the big city amenities, so setting up here (even exporting staff) will be pleasantly surprising.
Plus, Manitoba is pretty low on the natural disasters front. Saskatchewan gets regular twisters, but Manitoba has very few. There are no earthquakes, no hurricanes (obv), no tsunamis, none of the big stuff. Primary risks are snow-storms and floods, which are both easy to mitigate (redundancy, support network and "higher ground").
Fact is, I'm kind of surprised that big software companies haven't shipped operations to Manitoba. The Cost of Living is significantly lower (10-25% then the aforementioned provinces) and the location is conducive to working with companies on both coasts. With new technologies providing inexpensive communication costs, what does it matter that your programmers are 2 time zones away? It's nice to have bodies nearby, but you can just roll out the "vid-phones" (Skype, Messenger, whatever) and save big on the labour (and overhead, office space is also cheaper). All without the long list of "downsides" to off-shoring. You're not dealing with language issues or time zone issues or education issues.
Say it with me: Equality is an abstract goal, not an existing achievement.
Ah, for mod points... Truth is, I don't even think that equality is a goal, I think balance is really the goal. The average person thinks that "equality is a good" thing and therefore that "inequality is bad". The truth (of course), is that the only good thing is balance.
We've all heard the one-sided crusades for "equality": more women in field X, more aboriginals in field Y, more people with disabilities in field Z. These cries are all backed by the concept (here in Canada) of "Employment Equity", which somehow deems that 50% of our population need special treatment and consideration in all fields of employment.
Personally, I don't want half of my firefighters to be women, I want almost all of them to be male. And I don't want half of my nurses being men, especially in a something like a peds ward. Kids under 5 just respond better to women than men. Likewise, I'm OK with the fact that elementary schools have more female teachers and high schools have more male teachers. (pay issues aside)
In terms of money, I'm OK with the fact that some people are "poor" or "live below the poverty line". There is a very complex balance to be had, and though I may complain about that balance (or distribution), I'll in no way complain that it is "unfair b/c it's not equal".
"Employment Equity" occassionally has "and Diversity" tacked on the end. But the very concept implies that (for example) women are not treated fairly with regards to job selection. Of course, definitions for "fair" may vary widely and some people will equate "fair" with "equal" and hey we're back to our equality conundrum.
Point is, the standard math definition of equality simply does not apply to most real-life scenarios, it's all distributions and averages, medians and means. I just wish this was understood when we started talking about "both sides of the story". </soapbox>
Are you confusing "poor" and "poverty," or am I?
Good question: according to Answers poverty is: the state of being poor.
Thank you for your more static definition of poverty. You see, the level I was using was the concept of "living below the poverty line" where that line was 10k this year and 5k a decade ago. This concept of the poverty line is the one oft-quoted by news pundits or people pushing social security agendas.
Now point #2 is not perfectly static b/c housing requirements would vary dramatically between say Alaska and Miami, but the definition does include the concept of privacy. But hey, this stuff is good, this is stuff that can be measured. I really appreciate the reply, b/c most people don't care to even think about this stuff.
Now given that I live in balmy Winnipeg, I'll nitpick your list and add the requirement for adequate clothing (big deal out here, $100 winter jackets are not for show).
Given all of this info, I think that we'll actually reduce this conversation to something with a political bend (which makes this an opinion/ideological debate, rather than a debate about definitions). I'll warn you that I'm of the conservative bend.
The minimum wage in my region is $7.60 or about USD $6.61 (actually higher than the US minimum wage). At 40 hrs/week, that's just over about 15k, after standard income taxes that's about 12k/year or 1k/month. Now, in Winnipeg, a basic 2 bedroom apartment costs $700/month, and I'd like to assume that having a room-mate offers "the possibility for privacy", so all we'd really need to provide is schooling (free to 12th grade in Canada) and health care (free in Canada, drugs not included). So that leaves our minimum wage employee about $650/month (paying half the rent) to make food and clothes.
So clearly, with that money, this person is not poor by your definitions. Heck, with this money they could apply for a reduced-rate pass at the local Y, pay for a monthly bus pass (now tax-deductible) and even be well-entertained between the library and activities at the Y. In fact this minimum-wage employee, working full time, could ostensibly live a pretty healthy life. And let's not forget, that they won't stay at minimum forever, currently minimum wage (in Manitoba) is set to go up again in April (to $8/hour), but it's already irrelevant b/c we're at 3.5% unemployment, so nobody really makes minimum wage. All you really need to do is show up to work every day, do an adequate job and you'll get regular pay increases, so even minimum can be viewed as a short term issue.
Now, this issue changes a little when a kid arrives, but even a single parent is not without recourse in Canada. The government provides a Canada Child Tax Benefit (on a sliding scale) and Manitoba has the Manitoba Shelter Benefit for families, there is a GST Tax Credit, there are CRISP benefits and even childcare (daycare) subsidies. Of course, in single parent situations, the "missing" parent is expected to pay child support. If that "missing" parent has died, the government will help replace that income using Canada pension plan benefits, to the tune of about $200/month. As a bonus, if you need childcare to be able to work, those childcare costs are tax-deductible (whatever parts are not already subsidized). The system only scales out to a few of children, but if you have 4 kids, no partner and a
What about people who want to be poor? People with low self-esteem, people who don't like to work very much, people who are generally anti-social? If I take Bill Gates's income and use it to "treat the poor", am I really solving any problems?
I have increased self-esteem in the poor? Have I increased their desire to work or be generally socially productive? You are blanketing a solution for people that does not account for the people involved. What if they don't want your help?
The concept of poverty elimination is extremely dicey b/c poverty is a relative concept. Income and lifestyle is distributed on a curve and you're literally trying to supplant the lower part of that curve. So let's say the poverty line is X and you take everyone with income less than X and give them money from the wealthy until they achieve X, what have you really done?
Now what's the poverty line? You state food, shelter, healthcare and education, but there are massive shades and gradients within those parameters. What is the minimum quality of food to which everyone should have access? What type of shelter? how large? how expensive? with heating? A/C? how private? What type of education? the states generally pays for books, but what about supplies? Should the state pay for standard school supplies? what counts as standard school supplies? can we educate without computers? how old can the oldest books be? can we allow calculators without providing them to the poorest students?
There will always be people "below the poverty line" b/c that line is always moving. In fact, the line is intentionally within the distribution of the population b/c it wouldn't be otherwise relevant.
Now, if you could provide me with a static definition of poverty, one that does not change over time, then I would be happy to discuss practical methods for removing poverty from the world. In fact, Bill Gates has a giant fund for helping people, put together a good idea and let's talk.
So are you suggesting the implementation of a socialist/communist-style system, or do you have some kind of line for defining the "mega-rich"? Is it better to steal from the independently wealthy and to give to the government? To what benefit?
Your comment demonstrates some deep-seated resentment, but no insight into the problem.
As I understand it, this was the case in Canada for a period (a very long time ago). The obvious problems were corrected and the brackets are now progressive. But hey, the average person seems to know very little about taxes, so this comment of "less" money is likely their own ignorance hard at work.
What is true is that raises can cause the last stretch of income to be taxed higher, and sometimes, crossing that border may make the paycheck seem smaller depending on how your paychecks are cut, b/c they may be removing more tax than necessary. Though it all comes back at the end of the year, some people misunderstand the concept of tax refund, so they fail to do the math and add that on to their weekly paycheck.
The short answer, it doesn't happen, but some people don't know how to count.
Wow, we should've just modded you flamebait.
Everyone has a reply to this one: No offense, but why would you need training to do a job you were hired to do in the first place?, but I'll take a different tack. It's good that you did your own learning, but clearly this was for your own purposes (beefing up your CV).
Now, I'd like to learn more neat computer things, but I have limited time. The OP here is obviously interested in learning, but rolling out 500 workstations is not a trivial task. You can't just roll out a this type of system with a few quick glances through the man pages, you need training. And we're not talking little bits of training, we're talking lots of training, on the order of a few hundred guided hours.
Note that I said "guided". The most efficient way to learn this stuff is to have a trainer. You can't just pick up a Linux manual and be "suddenly" ready to roll out 500 workstations. You need to install Linux a dozen times on different boxes, you need to find adequate freeware to replace the relevant Windows systems, you need to work with and tweak install scripts for your basic "image", you need to learn how to use and [pre-]configure remote management tools, you need to review your stack of workstation components and ensure that ALL of the comps and their components are compatible (and make lists where they are not), you need to make informed decisions about distros and window managers and standard user permission configurations. And then, once you're live, you need to be very wary of the upgrade treadmill. Upgrading is already inherently dangerous, but now we're upgrading components that were not likely tested for compatibility (who tests all of the distro/WM/kernel/support software configurations?)
So rather than berate and belittle other posters, why not just acknowledge the difficulties and offer solutions? Clearly, rolling out 500 workstations in a managed environment is not a trivial task. Becoming a sysadmin on a new operating system is not a trivial task. Asking any employee to spend an additional 200 hours of their own time without additional pay is plain disrespectful.
"We're rolling out Linux, but we can't pay for your training..." is obviously very foolish. Your failure to acknowledge this as an issue seems mostly endemic of Linux's desktop penetration issues. Clearly, Linux's low cost has some longer term benefits, but training costs are not just high, they're mandatory.
A CIO can't just wake up one morning, decide that Linux is "The Way" and then start firing his Windows guys. Nor can he tell his Windows guys that they have to learn Linux on their own or be fired. He has to pay for employee training, he has to sponsor investigation into replacements for critical systems. If he wants to roll out new desktops he has find (or likely create) training materials and distribute these to current employees. He needs to provide workshops for existing users to give them even the basics of using their "new OS".
This mess of services forms the a barrier to entry not unlike the cost of a console is a barrier to entry. Imagine that the PS4/XBOX720 cost $10,000 but came with it's own proprietary TV and surround sound system, then imagine that all of the games were free and the accessories were cheap ($10/controller). How many people would buy this console? Would you? I mean hey, all the games are free right? I mean, you may not be able to use your current TV, but look, you get a new one. Who cares about a measly 10k when can have free games for the rest of you life?... That's what Linux is like to most CIOs, it's cool, it has all of these free/cheap options, but it costs a lot of money to get started.
Yeah, I hear this about Maden all the time... That's how it manages to remain one of the biggest selling game titles of all time...
Actually, I think this may have something to do with the fact that they produce the only licensed NFL game. Here's a neat link comparing top games sales for 2004. Notice how Madden is #3 but NFL 2K5 is both #4 and #10 (PS2 and X-Box), of course, that year they "bought out the competition" and then you get numbers like these, where, lo and behold, Madden is now undeniably on top (#1, #4) and they've snuck in with #5: NCAA Football.
Truth is, it seems to me that there is just a big market for american football games. EA didn't really win any major "competition" here, they just bought off the NFL player's union in the very year they seemed to be slipping. Good market strategy, but I definitely won't attribute their sales numbers to game quality. Truth is, Madden is probably just "good enough". There are lots of football fanatics who just want "a game" and Madden meets that criteria.
You have certificates of deposit for gold (the metal) .
You have now entered a dimension where gold must be classified as a metal to differentiate itself from its primary meaning (currency). Welcome to Slashdot.