Roundabouts rock. They're superb. Shit, I go through several on the way to work and tend to average around 40mph through them. At the same time I can also judge whether I'm going to have to give way to someone and slow down and if necessary stop in plenty of time.
That's why they're great. On quiet roads they don't slow you down. On busy roads they allow complex junctions (six roads in, seven roads off) to just work fine. Everyone gets to where they need to be, minimal holdups.
Roundabouts plus traffic lights can be used where a disproportionate traffic flow may otherwise prevent people ever getting out of one junction at busy times - some roundabouts here have 'peak times only' lights, some have permanent lights. Most have no lights.
Simple fact is that you are safer in a four wheel drive vehicle in the snow, than in a two wheel drive vehicle (other things being equal).
So yes, SUV drivers are safer than other drivers.
Admittedly, only at the same speed. Which is where most SUV drivers fuck up. And also lack the driving skills to deal with it. And in reality are indeed a menace.
But being pedantic, they are safer, they just use that knowledge to make themselves unsafe again.
Indeed - my letter to my MP focussed on the lack of legal rigour required to 'punish' someone for alleged illegal downloading and the obvious impact on other innocent household members.
I did mention that I dislike current copyright laws, but also stated that I do support copyright as a concept, but with far lower timeframes than at present.
Sadly my MP hasn't responded to me, and based on past evidence is unlikely to vote against the bill in its current incarnation.
Worse still he's a member of the shadow cabinet so I'm probably going to be stuck with him past April too:(
If you have a change in circumstances that cause financial trouble, going overdrawn without first negotiating with your bank is frankly the most stupid thing you can do.
Overdrafts are one of the worse sources of credit available; unauthorised ones even worse.
Why should a bank take on significant business risk funding an overdrawn customer that's not only spending beyond their means (for whatever reason; that the spending is on rent and food doesn't alter the fact that they can't afford it and are thus unlikely to pay it back any time soon) but are also too stupid to actually come and discuss it with them.
You set up a business giving out money to homeless people. Tell them you want it back as soon as they can afford to repay it, but that until then there's not interest or fees associated with it. Tell me, how much much profit are you expecting there?
People do get into issues, they can end up with higher expenditure than income, and they do need short term financial support to deal with that. However, blaming the banking industry for being unwilling to give money away doesn't acknowledge the other side of the situation.
And yet going overdrawn means you've used money you don't own to pay for something. Why should the bank be liable for your irresponsible behaviour?
If people only spent the money in their account, and no more, then they wouldn't get hit by those charges.
As for removing profit from banking, I've only paid fees to a bank once in the last decade, and that was for a high value CHAPS payment. My bank does make a profit out of me, but it also provides a large number of very useful services to me without charging me a penny for them.
But then, I'm responsible enough to only spend my own money...
However, if you had bought the plans for a Ford Focus, then built your own based on those plans, yeah, I think that's fair.
Someone needs to be recompensed for their work, but not to the extent of charging someone 5 times for the same thing. That's exploitation and the market reacts badly to it.
The success of online music stores demonstrates that people are prepared to pay for goods with a marginal cost of production; the success of torrent sites shows that people are also keen to only pay a certain amount.
Where the market isn't working is that the content producers are seeking legislative means to skew the ratio in their favour, despite their record levels of revenue. The obvious counter-reaction will be an increase in use of torrents or comparable technologies.
Even there, many companies are adopting a managed hosting model - why pay for System Admins when IBM can pick that up for you.
However, the first thing to go is generally helpdesk, as it is the most easily replaced. Despite the best efforts of Indian companies to turn developers into a commodity there is still much value in having in-house capability and that greater business knowledge in your dev teams.
You don't have to tell them, but they wont put you forward to their clients if they don't have absolute confidence you wont embarrass them and lose them the contract.
That means you might not even get to the people that can tell how good you are.
With the number of people applying for jobs these days, withholding your current salary suggests you have something to hide and will get you far more searching questions before you'll be given an opportunity with the client company.
On the flip side, the client company never hear how much you're on - they know you're fit to be in front of them because you are in front of them, and salary negotiations occur long after initial interviews.
Almost. It's an hourglass shape. The guy setting DNS entries is only in the middle. As he gets more senior from there, he'll be interacting with the business more, until at the top level, he is the business.
You also only described one IT route. E.g. telephony is on a par with networks (or may be networks, in enlightened companies), servers and networks are comparable, especially if the server guys cover storage, and then there's the whole software development hierarchy..
It may have escaped your notice, but the design and cut of the entire uniform is generally signficantly different between male and female flight attendants.
Frankly the colour and logo are about the only things that do match. That's true even when the women are in slacks (rare enough on flights).
I encourage people to do what is right, even if it's not what's being asked for. I care about the company I work for and try to improve it, and expect the same of the people around me.
People that blindly do stupid things knowing that they're stupid are themselves stupid, and I hate working with stupid people.
IT people don't think they're above doing those sorts of things, it's that they give far less credence to them.
IT staff value skills, ability and knowledge. They mostly expect a minimum level of cleanliness but don't rate people by how smartly dressed they are.
It's why managing IT people is not an interchangeable skill with managing other people. Their drivers are different, their expectations are different and they frankly do think differently. Good companies recognise this and use it to their advantage, which results in more productive and happier IT people.
Hell, look at the responses on here, from people that consider standard business attire to be a uniform. It's laughable. Sure, it's not casual dress, but a uniform? Fuck me, try joining the military..
It's not a pride thing, it's a priorities thing. Personal appearances are lower priority to IT people because they know that how you look is irrelevant to a computer.
Of course, that can hold them back when they have to start talking to people, but until/unless you hit senior management being competent outweighs how you dress.
(Sadly at senior management levels how you dress directly influences how competent you appear to be, especially at first reactions, and often those dictate the subsequent engagement).
Most jobs here go through employement agencies. They always ask current salary. It's not to tell the employers, it's to validate that you aren't bullshitting them.
If I want a £90k job, can I demonstrate the ability to earn that salary level? If I'm coming from a £30k job, my CV will have to be pretty special and include some strong indications that I'm being very underpaid in my current role. If I'm earning £75k then I'm looking for an ambitious increase, but I'm already operating at a very high level and can probably make the step.
Sure, it makes it harder to step away from the low paying jobs, but that's where contracting or consultancy can play a role. It does strongly mitigate the risks for the hiring company, and that's one reason they pay the employment agencies such excessive fees.
Note that the only relationship to my salary and those mentioned above is the letter k.
There's a difference between enlisted and expendable.
I'm expendable. I have no issue with that, the two tiers of management above me are too, and they're both on non-standard individually negotiated contracts. That just makes it more expensive to dispose of them, not impossible.
My job is telling those two layers of management how to run their teams. It's fun, but if they didn't have me they'd get in a top-five consultancy team to do it instead. So I'm easily replaced; that they keep me around is mainly because I'm giving them the same value as those consultants for rather less than the £3k/day they'd charge.
But am I enlisted? No. I don't have manager in my job title, but I'm definitely classed as 'management'. I have to be careful what I say, even in casual conversation, because people go off and change policy based on my rambling. That's worrying as hell at a personal level, kind of awesome at an ego level, but also forces a degree of responsibility.
I am however very expendable. And finding a new job is much much harder when only 2-3 people at only the biggest companies do what you do. Since my job is telling the officers they're full of shit, sometimes dressing up in a monkey suit and answering a phone all day feels an attractive alternative.
The first passenger bearing pilots were not martial in nature.
The maritime influence is probably stronger, but these days the airline pilot uniform is a marketing exercise - internally it helps the pilot feel important and justify his extensive salary, externally it gives him an aura of competence and command which reassures his potential victims.
The management over there clearly sees IT as a bunch of over paid blue collar workers that only do what they do since they could not get an MBA from an Ivy League school. I may be over reacting here, but I see it as flat out disrespect.
At a helpdesk level, IT staff are just a bunch of replaceable skilled technicians. Why do you think helpdesk is one of the first things outsourced by non-IT companies? Helpdesk staff are an off-the-shelf commodity in employment terms.
That's not disrespect, that's simple reality.
Server admin, network specialists, storage gurus, developers all have a stronger argument that they're doing a professional job that needs in-depth expertise and has a career path, but helpdesk? No.
So you think letting terrorists carry explosives, firearms and other weapons onto flights is perfectly fine? I think that would result in a lot of flights failing to reach their destinations.
There's definitely a role for ground base security checks prior to flights leaving. After 9/11 hijacks are less likely to succeed, but murder-by-suicide is still a very strong and viable threat.
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Roundabouts rock. They're superb. Shit, I go through several on the way to work and tend to average around 40mph through them. At the same time I can also judge whether I'm going to have to give way to someone and slow down and if necessary stop in plenty of time.
That's why they're great. On quiet roads they don't slow you down. On busy roads they allow complex junctions (six roads in, seven roads off) to just work fine. Everyone gets to where they need to be, minimal holdups.
Roundabouts plus traffic lights can be used where a disproportionate traffic flow may otherwise prevent people ever getting out of one junction at busy times - some roundabouts here have 'peak times only' lights, some have permanent lights. Most have no lights.
I'm a big fan of roundabouts. :)
Simple fact is that you are safer in a four wheel drive vehicle in the snow, than in a two wheel drive vehicle (other things being equal).
So yes, SUV drivers are safer than other drivers.
Admittedly, only at the same speed. Which is where most SUV drivers fuck up. And also lack the driving skills to deal with it. And in reality are indeed a menace.
But being pedantic, they are safer, they just use that knowledge to make themselves unsafe again.
I've known a few Italians. They've ranged from the compassionate, passionate, intelligent type to the oafish, selfish type.
Not particularly different to many other peoples.
There's a surprise.
Indeed - my letter to my MP focussed on the lack of legal rigour required to 'punish' someone for alleged illegal downloading and the obvious impact on other innocent household members.
I did mention that I dislike current copyright laws, but also stated that I do support copyright as a concept, but with far lower timeframes than at present.
Sadly my MP hasn't responded to me, and based on past evidence is unlikely to vote against the bill in its current incarnation.
Worse still he's a member of the shadow cabinet so I'm probably going to be stuck with him past April too :(
If you have a change in circumstances that cause financial trouble, going overdrawn without first negotiating with your bank is frankly the most stupid thing you can do.
Overdrafts are one of the worse sources of credit available; unauthorised ones even worse.
Why should a bank take on significant business risk funding an overdrawn customer that's not only spending beyond their means (for whatever reason; that the spending is on rent and food doesn't alter the fact that they can't afford it and are thus unlikely to pay it back any time soon) but are also too stupid to actually come and discuss it with them.
You set up a business giving out money to homeless people. Tell them you want it back as soon as they can afford to repay it, but that until then there's not interest or fees associated with it. Tell me, how much much profit are you expecting there?
People do get into issues, they can end up with higher expenditure than income, and they do need short term financial support to deal with that. However, blaming the banking industry for being unwilling to give money away doesn't acknowledge the other side of the situation.
And yet going overdrawn means you've used money you don't own to pay for something. Why should the bank be liable for your irresponsible behaviour?
If people only spent the money in their account, and no more, then they wouldn't get hit by those charges.
As for removing profit from banking, I've only paid fees to a bank once in the last decade, and that was for a high value CHAPS payment. My bank does make a profit out of me, but it also provides a large number of very useful services to me without charging me a penny for them.
But then, I'm responsible enough to only spend my own money...
I've got a Ford Focus, but I need another one
No, you need a decent car.
However, if you had bought the plans for a Ford Focus, then built your own based on those plans, yeah, I think that's fair.
Someone needs to be recompensed for their work, but not to the extent of charging someone 5 times for the same thing. That's exploitation and the market reacts badly to it.
The success of online music stores demonstrates that people are prepared to pay for goods with a marginal cost of production; the success of torrent sites shows that people are also keen to only pay a certain amount.
Where the market isn't working is that the content producers are seeking legislative means to skew the ratio in their favour, despite their record levels of revenue. The obvious counter-reaction will be an increase in use of torrents or comparable technologies.
I wrote to my MP, but sadly he's an absolute twat at times (e.g. when breathing).
Even there, many companies are adopting a managed hosting model - why pay for System Admins when IBM can pick that up for you.
However, the first thing to go is generally helpdesk, as it is the most easily replaced. Despite the best efforts of Indian companies to turn developers into a commodity there is still much value in having in-house capability and that greater business knowledge in your dev teams.
You don't have to tell them, but they wont put you forward to their clients if they don't have absolute confidence you wont embarrass them and lose them the contract.
That means you might not even get to the people that can tell how good you are.
With the number of people applying for jobs these days, withholding your current salary suggests you have something to hide and will get you far more searching questions before you'll be given an opportunity with the client company.
On the flip side, the client company never hear how much you're on - they know you're fit to be in front of them because you are in front of them, and salary negotiations occur long after initial interviews.
Almost. It's an hourglass shape. The guy setting DNS entries is only in the middle. As he gets more senior from there, he'll be interacting with the business more, until at the top level, he is the business.
You also only described one IT route. E.g. telephony is on a par with networks (or may be networks, in enlightened companies), servers and networks are comparable, especially if the server guys cover storage, and then there's the whole software development hierarchy..
Interesting. How are you going to reimage computers that are switched off to save energy?
How are you going to reimage laptops that aren't even in the building?
How are you going to enable development staff to do their job if you're wiping their hard drive every night?
Not all business computer users are on a standard desktop.
Throw in combinations with skirt or slacks
It may have escaped your notice, but the design and cut of the entire uniform is generally signficantly different between male and female flight attendants.
Frankly the colour and logo are about the only things that do match. That's true even when the women are in slacks (rare enough on flights).
I hope I never work with you.
I encourage people to do what is right, even if it's not what's being asked for. I care about the company I work for and try to improve it, and expect the same of the people around me.
People that blindly do stupid things knowing that they're stupid are themselves stupid, and I hate working with stupid people.
I think the multi-billion dollar fashion industry might disgree with you.
IT people don't think they're above doing those sorts of things, it's that they give far less credence to them.
IT staff value skills, ability and knowledge. They mostly expect a minimum level of cleanliness but don't rate people by how smartly dressed they are.
It's why managing IT people is not an interchangeable skill with managing other people. Their drivers are different, their expectations are different and they frankly do think differently. Good companies recognise this and use it to their advantage, which results in more productive and happier IT people.
Hell, look at the responses on here, from people that consider standard business attire to be a uniform. It's laughable. Sure, it's not casual dress, but a uniform? Fuck me, try joining the military..
It's not a pride thing, it's a priorities thing. Personal appearances are lower priority to IT people because they know that how you look is irrelevant to a computer.
Of course, that can hold them back when they have to start talking to people, but until/unless you hit senior management being competent outweighs how you dress.
(Sadly at senior management levels how you dress directly influences how competent you appear to be, especially at first reactions, and often those dictate the subsequent engagement).
Most jobs here go through employement agencies. They always ask current salary. It's not to tell the employers, it's to validate that you aren't bullshitting them.
If I want a £90k job, can I demonstrate the ability to earn that salary level? If I'm coming from a £30k job, my CV will have to be pretty special and include some strong indications that I'm being very underpaid in my current role. If I'm earning £75k then I'm looking for an ambitious increase, but I'm already operating at a very high level and can probably make the step.
Sure, it makes it harder to step away from the low paying jobs, but that's where contracting or consultancy can play a role. It does strongly mitigate the risks for the hiring company, and that's one reason they pay the employment agencies such excessive fees.
Note that the only relationship to my salary and those mentioned above is the letter k.
There's a difference between enlisted and expendable.
I'm expendable. I have no issue with that, the two tiers of management above me are too, and they're both on non-standard individually negotiated contracts. That just makes it more expensive to dispose of them, not impossible.
My job is telling those two layers of management how to run their teams. It's fun, but if they didn't have me they'd get in a top-five consultancy team to do it instead. So I'm easily replaced; that they keep me around is mainly because I'm giving them the same value as those consultants for rather less than the £3k/day they'd charge.
But am I enlisted? No. I don't have manager in my job title, but I'm definitely classed as 'management'. I have to be careful what I say, even in casual conversation, because people go off and change policy based on my rambling. That's worrying as hell at a personal level, kind of awesome at an ego level, but also forces a degree of responsibility.
I am however very expendable. And finding a new job is much much harder when only 2-3 people at only the biggest companies do what you do. Since my job is telling the officers they're full of shit, sometimes dressing up in a monkey suit and answering a phone all day feels an attractive alternative.
The first pilots were not in the military.
The first passenger bearing pilots were not martial in nature.
The maritime influence is probably stronger, but these days the airline pilot uniform is a marketing exercise - internally it helps the pilot feel important and justify his extensive salary, externally it gives him an aura of competence and command which reassures his potential victims.
I'd far rather wear black jeans to work. They wear better, they're more comfortable than slacks and they're what I wear socially.
There are more comfortable things than jeans, but I don't have the legs to be wearing a short skirt to work..
Wtf? Put a clean shirt on every day. Especially if you're crawling under desks.
Someone between my legs, I want them clean and smelling real good..
The management over there clearly sees IT as a bunch of over paid blue collar workers that only do what they do since they could not get an MBA from an Ivy League school. I may be over reacting here, but I see it as flat out disrespect.
At a helpdesk level, IT staff are just a bunch of replaceable skilled technicians. Why do you think helpdesk is one of the first things outsourced by non-IT companies? Helpdesk staff are an off-the-shelf commodity in employment terms.
That's not disrespect, that's simple reality.
Server admin, network specialists, storage gurus, developers all have a stronger argument that they're doing a professional job that needs in-depth expertise and has a career path, but helpdesk? No.
Not sure that justifies uniforms though...
Only treated like shit when it comes to contract T&Cs.
I treat my janitors and facilities maintenance people nicely. Along with my receptionist, security people and PAs.
They run the company. They make my life easier. They make it possible for me to do my job better.
I want them on my side, so I recognise them, I interact with them and I show patience when it all goes wrong, and gratitude when they fix it.
Cynically it's more productive, but socially it feels better too. Some interesting people work in those roles, and they have all the best gossip..
whatever TSA does on the ground is irrelevant
So you think letting terrorists carry explosives, firearms and other weapons onto flights is perfectly fine? I think that would result in a lot of flights failing to reach their destinations.
There's definitely a role for ground base security checks prior to flights leaving. After 9/11 hijacks are less likely to succeed, but murder-by-suicide is still a very strong and viable threat.
Who protects those attacked by the drunk/paranoid/insane/stupid passengers certain they're acting to save the plane with total immunity.. but wrong?
Do you have any suggestions that don't involve aircraft landing ankle-deep in blood?