When I have a cold or sinus infection, my favorite cocktail is Advil+Pseudoephedrine during the day. It helps dry me up, and doesn't make me drowsy. However, at night, I prefer to take a night-time remedy that doesn't have pseudoephedrine so that I can get some help sleeping. So, I tried to buy ONE box of Advil+Pseudoephedrine and ONE box of Advil+Benedryl at Long's. Nope! Couldn't do it. I had to buy one box at Long's, then stop at a grocery store on the way home and buy the other. The grocery store didn't even ask for my ID.
SOMEONE is getting rich from this - and it sure ain't me. I'm guessing it is whoever created & manages the "tracking" for the gov't, the lobbyists who got the law passed, and the lawmakers who got the handouts from the lobbyists.
To the boneheads who think this is "for our own protection": Has there been ANY hard data that the use of meth has declined since this law went into effect?:rolleyes:
Larry ought to try submitting a few hundred metalink tickets before he decides to dis anyone else's support. Oracle support is the KING of the classic support shuffle:
1) User submits ticket, giving detailed information of the exact module and section of code that is causing the problem. 2) Support immediately responds with a canned message that says they are working on it. 3) 24 hours go by with no further response, so user pings ticket. 4) Support asks user to post a pile of log output, most of which can have nothing to do with the problem. 5) 24 hours go by with no response, so user pings ticket. 6) Support says they have engaged a specialist and are waiting for a reply. 7) 24 hours go by with no response, so user pings ticket. 8) Support says the original analyst is unavailable, so they are passing the ticket to a new analyst who will find out what is going on. 9) 24 hours go by with no response, so user pings ticket. 10) Support asks user to post a pile of log output, some of which has already been posted, and what is new is for modules that you aren't even running. 11) User's Project Manager wants to know WTF is going on and why the f@#$%&* system isn't running yet. 12) Project Manager complains to his VP who claims to have a tight relationship with Oracle upper mgmt. 13) VP calls his buds in Oracle Sales and asks WTF is going on. 14) Oracle Sales schedules a conference call with the Oracle VP of Who-The-F*%$-Knows for a week from next Thursday. 15) User says "screw it!" and either downloads an open source module that does the same thing (but correctly), or just writes the patch himself. 16) User's VP & Oracle VP schedule a golf outing and a night in an NBA box. 17) Deal is cut to buy another $1M worth of Oracle SW plus 22% for Support.
You have it exactly right. Everyone young punk who says they "love programming" should look around at their company and find that 50 year old guy who is still living in a programmer's cube and writing code from 8-5. Ask yourself - do you really want to wake-up one day and be that guy?
I'm an IT director at a corporation with an IT staff of ~20 people. Our IT budget is fairly small - we typically have funds for 1-3 decent sized projects per year. But, like most companies our size, we do not have the full-time staff to continue maintenance on our existing systems AND run a dedicated project team to implement a new system. We bring in an implementation partner to staff the new projects - and members of our full-time staff generally act as the project manager and as part-time technical members of the team. The dedicated project team is primarily contractors. I worked for a while as a contractor when I was younger - and as many here can testify, it is not an easy life, and not for everyone. Traveling from customer to customer all over the country, staying in one place for only a few months at a time - and always having the threat of lay-off over your head if you don't find a spot on the next project.
What's the problem? There are many. The full-time staff doesn't really get involved enough in the new system implementation - they are too busy with maintenance. Tight budgets make us push the schedules too hard - because we want the high-priced contractors gone as soon as possible. The contractors aren't in-house long enough to really refine the solution to match our business processes - they try to slam it in, get paid and move on - leaving us to clean-up the messes and deal with business users who are disappointed with 80% solutions.
The real-world of corporate IT is an ugly place - full of long hours & weekends, clueless corporate execs and $500K software packages that won't even install unless you spend a thousand manhours patching and tweaking code. Schools don't teach this stuff - they show you a few theories for building data models and writing compilers and send you on your way. I'm not saying a degree is worthless - on the contrary, the discipline required to complete a university program is extremely valuable and I won't hire non-degreed script kiddies. It's just that IMO the university curriculum is completely unrelated to the world of corporate IT.
One of my university professors told me something that has stuck with me for 20 years: Technical people are complete idiots. We believe we have a Holy Calling to be techies, and we like being techies so much that we would do the work even if we didn't get paid. Lawyers and accountants get paid so much because they charge you just to have a talk with them. If techies did the same thing we would all be making millions of dollars!
Who paid for the "study"? Not what BS quasi-scientific organization is publically saying they "sponsored" the study, but where did the money really come from?
Who has the most to gain from continuing to pound the drum about the evils of industrialization & technology?
Isn't it ironic that the same evil tools that will bring about the death of billions are used to build mathematical models, publish to the world via the internet and enable the anti-technology media and press machines to work the masses into a frenzy?
In the words of Penn & Teller: BULLSHIT!!
Maybe if the meetings weren't filled with gas bags blithering on and wasting my time, I might actually want to pay attention. An hour of Texas Hold'em is *WAY* more productive than anything going on in the conference room.
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When I have a cold or sinus infection, my favorite cocktail is Advil+Pseudoephedrine during the day. It helps dry me up, and doesn't make me drowsy. However, at night, I prefer to take a night-time remedy that doesn't have pseudoephedrine so that I can get some help sleeping. So, I tried to buy ONE box of Advil+Pseudoephedrine and ONE box of Advil+Benedryl at Long's. Nope! Couldn't do it. I had to buy one box at Long's, then stop at a grocery store on the way home and buy the other. The grocery store didn't even ask for my ID.
:rolleyes:
SOMEONE is getting rich from this - and it sure ain't me. I'm guessing it is whoever created & manages the "tracking" for the gov't, the lobbyists who got the law passed, and the lawmakers who got the handouts from the lobbyists.
To the boneheads who think this is "for our own protection": Has there been ANY hard data that the use of meth has declined since this law went into effect?
Larry ought to try submitting a few hundred metalink tickets before he decides to dis anyone else's support. Oracle support is the KING of the classic support shuffle:
1) User submits ticket, giving detailed information of the exact module and section of code that is causing the problem.
2) Support immediately responds with a canned message that says they are working on it.
3) 24 hours go by with no further response, so user pings ticket.
4) Support asks user to post a pile of log output, most of which can have nothing to do with the problem.
5) 24 hours go by with no response, so user pings ticket.
6) Support says they have engaged a specialist and are waiting for a reply.
7) 24 hours go by with no response, so user pings ticket.
8) Support says the original analyst is unavailable, so they are passing the ticket to a new analyst who will find out what is going on.
9) 24 hours go by with no response, so user pings ticket.
10) Support asks user to post a pile of log output, some of which has already been posted, and what is new is for modules that you aren't even running.
11) User's Project Manager wants to know WTF is going on and why the f@#$%&* system isn't running yet.
12) Project Manager complains to his VP who claims to have a tight relationship with Oracle upper mgmt.
13) VP calls his buds in Oracle Sales and asks WTF is going on.
14) Oracle Sales schedules a conference call with the Oracle VP of Who-The-F*%$-Knows for a week from next Thursday.
15) User says "screw it!" and either downloads an open source module that does the same thing (but correctly), or just writes the patch himself.
16) User's VP & Oracle VP schedule a golf outing and a night in an NBA box.
17) Deal is cut to buy another $1M worth of Oracle SW plus 22% for Support.
The SQL Server guys are in trouble - Ozzie has never understood why anyone would ever need more than one table in a database.
You have it exactly right. Everyone young punk who says they "love programming" should look around at their company and find that 50 year old guy who is still living in a programmer's cube and writing code from 8-5. Ask yourself - do you really want to wake-up one day and be that guy?
I'm an IT director at a corporation with an IT staff of ~20 people. Our IT budget is fairly small - we typically have funds for 1-3 decent sized projects per year. But, like most companies our size, we do not have the full-time staff to continue maintenance on our existing systems AND run a dedicated project team to implement a new system. We bring in an implementation partner to staff the new projects - and members of our full-time staff generally act as the project manager and as part-time technical members of the team. The dedicated project team is primarily contractors. I worked for a while as a contractor when I was younger - and as many here can testify, it is not an easy life, and not for everyone. Traveling from customer to customer all over the country, staying in one place for only a few months at a time - and always having the threat of lay-off over your head if you don't find a spot on the next project. What's the problem? There are many. The full-time staff doesn't really get involved enough in the new system implementation - they are too busy with maintenance. Tight budgets make us push the schedules too hard - because we want the high-priced contractors gone as soon as possible. The contractors aren't in-house long enough to really refine the solution to match our business processes - they try to slam it in, get paid and move on - leaving us to clean-up the messes and deal with business users who are disappointed with 80% solutions. The real-world of corporate IT is an ugly place - full of long hours & weekends, clueless corporate execs and $500K software packages that won't even install unless you spend a thousand manhours patching and tweaking code. Schools don't teach this stuff - they show you a few theories for building data models and writing compilers and send you on your way. I'm not saying a degree is worthless - on the contrary, the discipline required to complete a university program is extremely valuable and I won't hire non-degreed script kiddies. It's just that IMO the university curriculum is completely unrelated to the world of corporate IT. One of my university professors told me something that has stuck with me for 20 years: Technical people are complete idiots. We believe we have a Holy Calling to be techies, and we like being techies so much that we would do the work even if we didn't get paid. Lawyers and accountants get paid so much because they charge you just to have a talk with them. If techies did the same thing we would all be making millions of dollars!
Who paid for the "study"? Not what BS quasi-scientific organization is publically saying they "sponsored" the study, but where did the money really come from? Who has the most to gain from continuing to pound the drum about the evils of industrialization & technology? Isn't it ironic that the same evil tools that will bring about the death of billions are used to build mathematical models, publish to the world via the internet and enable the anti-technology media and press machines to work the masses into a frenzy? In the words of Penn & Teller: BULLSHIT!!
Maybe if the meetings weren't filled with gas bags blithering on and wasting my time, I might actually want to pay attention. An hour of Texas Hold'em is *WAY* more productive than anything going on in the conference room.