15+ years ago I had a Top Secret/SSBI clearance. As part of the background investigation, I was required to give references that had known me for at least 15 years. Since my first security interview I had always told the truth: "yeah, I tried pot a few times in high school, but I never bought it or sold it and I never used it after that." I also told them that all of my family and friends knew about it and I didn't care who else knew. I told that same story at every interview, and I never had a problem getting any clearance. In the days before glasnost, when the KGB were the primary bad guys, we were always briefed that the biggest threat was an employee being compromised because of something that could be used against them - financial debts, drug use, criminal background, relatives in hostile foreign countries - anything that could be used as leverage to make you vulnerable to espionage. The idea with drug use wasn't that you were some drug crazed idiot - it was that you might be ashamed of the drug use, or might need money - and that made you vulnerable. I guess since I said everyone already knew about my minor BS, and I didn't care who else knew, it wasn't a problem. I think lying about it and then having it turn up during the investigation would have been much, much worse.
My investigation was in the 90's - before 9/11 and before Homeland Security. Officially, my employment was not dependent on my clearance - but everyone knew that the reality was that the position required a clearance, so without the clearance, there would not be an available job for me and I would be let go. It happened to a couple of guys who for whatever reason could not get cleared.
Let's say I run a wireless ISP with locations all along the Mississippi side of the river. I just happen to have large antennas pointed across the river at N'awlins. Officially, I am not providing internet service to Louisiana. Unofficially, I don't bother to check the addresses of any of my customers - as long as they have a credit card, they get in...
Sorry, but I think you're missing several important points. In a company with several hundred physical servers and limited human resources, no one has the time to fool around with tuning a kernal and several apps to all run together in the same OS instance. We need to build standard images and deploy them very quickly, and then we need a way to easily manage all of the applications. We also need to be able to very quickly move applications to different HW when they grow beyond their current resources, we refresh server HW or there is a HW failure. High Availability is expensive, and it is just not feasible for many midrange applications that are running on physical boxes. Does all of this lead to less than optimal memory & I/O performance? Sure - but if my choice is hiring 2 more high-priced server engineers, or buying a pile of blades and ESX licenses, I will bet buying more HW & SW will end up being the better overall solution.
The US gov't may not censor sites, but many US corporations certainly do. Post the wrong thing on Facebook (assuming your corporate proxy server will let you get to Facebook) or send an email from work with an F-bomb, and you might be told to clean out your desk. We're free - as long as it doesn't violate company policy.
It forever changed the way software would be packaged and sold, and reminded the software companies that the higher you price the package, the more likely it is to be broken. It also directly led to other incredibly popular commercial programs such as Copy II PC and CopyWrite. RIP Omega Microware. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953342,00.html
Anyone who has spent any time at all around farm animals, will tell you that they ain't got nothin' to say that's worth listening to. Which is actually much like most of the people in the world.
That's always the answer - carry two of everything. That ignores my point: that one of the things that makes me a very effective information worker is my willingness to completely intertwine my personal and work life. I believe that if I'm a M-F 8-5 worker, I will NOT be as effective. To those who can turn it on and off according to the timeclock - good for you - but I have worked with waaaaay too many excellent IT professionals who work the same way I do to believe I'm the odd duck. I just wish there was a way for the company to get whatever warm fuzzies they think they need AND also a way for me to read about the latest celebrity skank 'ho antics while another insurmountable problem is noodling around in the back of my brain at 1 AM while sitting in another hotel room on company business.
We tripled the number of servers and halved the space requirements by virtualizing as much as we could. The only things we couldn't put in a VM were stuff with specific HW requirements (like fax server boards and tape robots). Many large companies are just afraid or unaware of the capabilities of virtualization. The big software companies also aren't helping. For example, Oracle needs to get over it and figure out that many midsize companies don't need RAC for performance or 24/7 @ 99.999% - there are many, many businesses that really can tolerate an app being down for under an hour (or less) while the VM is brought up on a different physical box. The current Oracle license model completely fails in an environment where you want to run mulitple VMs on relatively cheap multicore, multiprocessor blades.
Legally - you are absolutely right. But it still seems wrong when evaluated against the modern behavior of a typical information worker. Yeah, the company gives me a laptop, a blackberry and an email address. But they also expect me to be available 24/7 and to use that email & laptop anytime and anywhere. Of course I use the company property for personal and private activities - there is really no longer any separation between my work and personal activities. I multitask all day - and the same happens after 5 PM and on weekends. I understand the reasons behind the policies, and I understand the current case law - but I also feel the law is not reflecting the reality of today's connected information worker. I don't have a solution - but there should be something better than "don't use your company laptop to send private email or surf private sites."
I worked for a company that had received huge state and local tax incentives to build a new HQ in Kansas. The incentives had provisions that required the company to maintain a certain number of employees and very high (for the area) average salary. It took 2 years to build the building, and it was a model of "green" construction that had all the state & local politicians creaming their pants. 30 days before move-in, the company was bought out. The buying company had no choice but to let them move in - if they didn't, they would immediately owe a big chunk of money to the state. But, the new company also began downsizing the Kansas staff, and in January they announced that we no longer met the provisions of the incentives. So, they are now going to move out of that brand new building and try to lease it out at a loss until they can figure out how to get out of this mess.
The final result will be MORE downsizing of the Kansas staff than would have ever happened without all this nonsense - and the state of Kansas will lose both the tax money and an employer.
There was stupidity a plenty in this deal - the company for thinking they needed to build a Taj Mahal while sales were tanking, the state for believing they needed to cut them an incentive deal, the buying company for acquiring this pig for $2B or me for taking a job in this industry!
I disagree on the air intakes - generating downforce and brake cooling are also the reasons the air intakes are there. I'm sure those motors do produce heat - but I will bet it's still much less than an equivalent combustion engine.
Sony is going to buy the internet? Have a government buy the internet? Have the UN buy the internet? Talk to me after "they" have stopped botnets and spam. Until then I'm filing this under "pissing in the wind".
Build a good 6 degree-of-freedom flight simulator using reasonably accurate aerodynamic parameters, mass properties and engine model, then when you have that going straight and level, start working on a flight control system & autopilot model. It will be a whole lot easier to design the control and feedback loops with a math model than with a real bird. If you don't know a Laplace transform from an autobot transformer, you have some research to do...
Bacteria are not technically classified as animals, so the new law would not affect them. Human/tree and human/mushroom hybrids would also still be legal.
Not only are human/mushroom hybrids legal, they are alive and well in corporate boardrooms around the world...
Slashdot Mirror
MS is evil. Wikipedia is edited by shills. This is news?
15+ years ago I had a Top Secret/SSBI clearance. As part of the background investigation, I was required to give references that had known me for at least 15 years. Since my first security interview I had always told the truth: "yeah, I tried pot a few times in high school, but I never bought it or sold it and I never used it after that." I also told them that all of my family and friends knew about it and I didn't care who else knew. I told that same story at every interview, and I never had a problem getting any clearance. In the days before glasnost, when the KGB were the primary bad guys, we were always briefed that the biggest threat was an employee being compromised because of something that could be used against them - financial debts, drug use, criminal background, relatives in hostile foreign countries - anything that could be used as leverage to make you vulnerable to espionage. The idea with drug use wasn't that you were some drug crazed idiot - it was that you might be ashamed of the drug use, or might need money - and that made you vulnerable. I guess since I said everyone already knew about my minor BS, and I didn't care who else knew, it wasn't a problem. I think lying about it and then having it turn up during the investigation would have been much, much worse.
My investigation was in the 90's - before 9/11 and before Homeland Security. Officially, my employment was not dependent on my clearance - but everyone knew that the reality was that the position required a clearance, so without the clearance, there would not be an available job for me and I would be let go. It happened to a couple of guys who for whatever reason could not get cleared.
All ancient history now...
Yeah right - I'm sure that wouldn't end up on the news...
Let's say I run a wireless ISP with locations all along the Mississippi side of the river. I just happen to have large antennas pointed across the river at N'awlins. Officially, I am not providing internet service to Louisiana. Unofficially, I don't bother to check the addresses of any of my customers - as long as they have a credit card, they get in...
I'm not sure I understand - are they idiots?
Sorry, but I think you're missing several important points. In a company with several hundred physical servers and limited human resources, no one has the time to fool around with tuning a kernal and several apps to all run together in the same OS instance. We need to build standard images and deploy them very quickly, and then we need a way to easily manage all of the applications. We also need to be able to very quickly move applications to different HW when they grow beyond their current resources, we refresh server HW or there is a HW failure. High Availability is expensive, and it is just not feasible for many midrange applications that are running on physical boxes. Does all of this lead to less than optimal memory & I/O performance? Sure - but if my choice is hiring 2 more high-priced server engineers, or buying a pile of blades and ESX licenses, I will bet buying more HW & SW will end up being the better overall solution.
The US gov't may not censor sites, but many US corporations certainly do. Post the wrong thing on Facebook (assuming your corporate proxy server will let you get to Facebook) or send an email from work with an F-bomb, and you might be told to clean out your desk. We're free - as long as it doesn't violate company policy.
It forever changed the way software would be packaged and sold, and reminded the software companies that the higher you price the package, the more likely it is to be broken. It also directly led to other incredibly popular commercial programs such as Copy II PC and CopyWrite. RIP Omega Microware. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953342,00.html
I want stepping discs.
Anyone who has spent any time at all around farm animals, will tell you that they ain't got nothin' to say that's worth listening to. Which is actually much like most of the people in the world.
"You don't...F***ing...Talk to me...Like that!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cZwC0jfN1g
That's always the answer - carry two of everything. That ignores my point: that one of the things that makes me a very effective information worker is my willingness to completely intertwine my personal and work life. I believe that if I'm a M-F 8-5 worker, I will NOT be as effective. To those who can turn it on and off according to the timeclock - good for you - but I have worked with waaaaay too many excellent IT professionals who work the same way I do to believe I'm the odd duck. I just wish there was a way for the company to get whatever warm fuzzies they think they need AND also a way for me to read about the latest celebrity skank 'ho antics while another insurmountable problem is noodling around in the back of my brain at 1 AM while sitting in another hotel room on company business.
We tripled the number of servers and halved the space requirements by virtualizing as much as we could. The only things we couldn't put in a VM were stuff with specific HW requirements (like fax server boards and tape robots). Many large companies are just afraid or unaware of the capabilities of virtualization. The big software companies also aren't helping. For example, Oracle needs to get over it and figure out that many midsize companies don't need RAC for performance or 24/7 @ 99.999% - there are many, many businesses that really can tolerate an app being down for under an hour (or less) while the VM is brought up on a different physical box. The current Oracle license model completely fails in an environment where you want to run mulitple VMs on relatively cheap multicore, multiprocessor blades.
Legally - you are absolutely right. But it still seems wrong when evaluated against the modern behavior of a typical information worker. Yeah, the company gives me a laptop, a blackberry and an email address. But they also expect me to be available 24/7 and to use that email & laptop anytime and anywhere. Of course I use the company property for personal and private activities - there is really no longer any separation between my work and personal activities. I multitask all day - and the same happens after 5 PM and on weekends. I understand the reasons behind the policies, and I understand the current case law - but I also feel the law is not reflecting the reality of today's connected information worker. I don't have a solution - but there should be something better than "don't use your company laptop to send private email or surf private sites."
I worked for a company that had received huge state and local tax incentives to build a new HQ in Kansas. The incentives had provisions that required the company to maintain a certain number of employees and very high (for the area) average salary. It took 2 years to build the building, and it was a model of "green" construction that had all the state & local politicians creaming their pants. 30 days before move-in, the company was bought out. The buying company had no choice but to let them move in - if they didn't, they would immediately owe a big chunk of money to the state. But, the new company also began downsizing the Kansas staff, and in January they announced that we no longer met the provisions of the incentives. So, they are now going to move out of that brand new building and try to lease it out at a loss until they can figure out how to get out of this mess.
The final result will be MORE downsizing of the Kansas staff than would have ever happened without all this nonsense - and the state of Kansas will lose both the tax money and an employer.
There was stupidity a plenty in this deal - the company for thinking they needed to build a Taj Mahal while sales were tanking, the state for believing they needed to cut them an incentive deal, the buying company for acquiring this pig for $2B or me for taking a job in this industry!
Did anyone else read TFA and immediately flash back to 2001-2002 and hundreds of thousands of square feet of data center space sitting empty?
http://www.crn.com/it-channel/18838014;jsessionid=QYMHD1PL3SZSYQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/898681
Or, if it wins, they'll outlaw them from racing at Le Mans... http://www.mazdausa.com/MusaWeb/displayPage.action?pageParameter=mazdaSpeedMotorsportsRacingHeritageCommon§ionParameter=heritage05
I disagree on the air intakes - generating downforce and brake cooling are also the reasons the air intakes are there. I'm sure those motors do produce heat - but I will bet it's still much less than an equivalent combustion engine.
Sony is going to buy the internet? Have a government buy the internet? Have the UN buy the internet? Talk to me after "they" have stopped botnets and spam. Until then I'm filing this under "pissing in the wind".
Build a good 6 degree-of-freedom flight simulator using reasonably accurate aerodynamic parameters, mass properties and engine model, then when you have that going straight and level, start working on a flight control system & autopilot model. It will be a whole lot easier to design the control and feedback loops with a math model than with a real bird. If you don't know a Laplace transform from an autobot transformer, you have some research to do...
My first thought as well - perhaps the Fithp have arrived and the Gov't isn't telling us?
7th grade? I was in college when both the Trash-80 Model III and the VIC-20 were released. Time for my pills...
Hmmph! Unless that typewriter had a tape punch attached to it, you can GET OFF MY LAWN!
Yeah - it's not like you can buy any other phones that are available on both Verizon and AT&T - It must be completely impossible... /sarcasm
"It was the G1-1.4-219-1.14 $75 from tellurex."
Using "waste" sure is expensive...
Bacteria are not technically classified as animals, so the new law would not affect them. Human/tree and human/mushroom hybrids would also still be legal.
Not only are human/mushroom hybrids legal, they are alive and well in corporate boardrooms around the world...