Oh, we don't have those figures - after all, no-one would want to acknowledge that it might be down to rush-releasing an unfinished PC game....and then look even more stupid if someone could produce figures for how many pirate copies were replaced with genuine ones once that issue was addressed. And that's before we get to Steam selling it, then not selling it, then Origin appearing, then Steam selling it again. But ey, confusing the buyer always means more sales, right?
None of this is uncommon knowledge - maybe I just didn't expect knee-jerk, taboid-level logic from Slashdot headers.
Let's find a way to make this attributable to Apple, because all the apple-owners will then read it to reinforce how *they've* made a difference!
In other words, another slow day at Cnet - what bothers me more is that Slashdot takes this sort of speculation and repeats it as 'news' - which is a bit worrying on a site that has a motto of 'stuff that matters'.
I worked for the NHS for ten years, and have had several semi-governemnt jobs since.
The first rule - union reps earn more than anyone else. Fine if a union rep is working away to bring you benefits - not so good when they're your manager, get paid twice your salary for half the hours and ultimately get you to do their work as they have been hopelessly left behind, techinically. And that's before they fail to secure you a rise year on year.
Then there's the second rule - contractors don't get paid more; permanent staff get paid *less*. Whenever a permie has complained about their wage, my immediate advice has been "you're absolutely right - if you're good at your job, why are you stil here?". As a permie at the NHS, I installed over 1000 PC's in major London hospitals (replacing typewriters, for we are talking that long ago), but didn't get a rise above data-control level for three years. I ultimately ended up with a team of people that for various medical reasons needed to be near a hospital, and any staff I was presented with were really students on work experience (I used to call them Jedi-learners).
Goverment jobs are at the low end of the scale - and it's only those in power who have the gall to pretend that the salaries they offer are in any way competitive - so ultimately, the government has to pay through the nose in order to get staff that can (or will) do the job so that they can carry on pretending that paying regular staff a pittance is in any way productive or saves money.
>A country-wide license will still cost a huge amount of money, whereas any development work has to be done once regardless of how many end users will use it.
Indeed, but a lot *less* development needs to be done when using, say, sharepoint instead of writing your own system - and the ongoing support costs will be lower too. Now apply that to remote access, full-disk encryption, email...all the things that the likes of Active Directory give you as standard.
>That said, systems based on open standards with source code availability would actually be easier to connect together.
Maybe, but at the moment they don't exist - and if you rewrite all your SQL/ sharepoint/ etc. based products, you'll have already spent the money you were going to save down the line - and when you arrive down the line, you'll now have to pay more in engineers to maintain the system.
>Also, paying local engineers to develop open source (that can be used across all government) is actually much better than paying money to a foreign corporation...
I'm not sure how this is so - you'll be paying more money to the engineers who set up the system, and much more to the developers who write and maintain the software than runs on it.
>If you pay engineers then you create jobs, decrease unemployment and the majority of what you pay them, you will receive back in the form of direct and indirect taxes.
This sounds like the broken window fallacy - making more work (that you have to pay for) to create a custom system that any newcomers have to be trained on isn't going to be seen as an improvement - and you'll already be getting taxes from *any* engineers who work on the system (unless you farm the work out abroad)...
...and frankly, I'm suprised that this is being talked about - I would have thought the press would have taken the Gov. to task for suggesting this a year ago, not complain now that (surprise suprise) it's not happening.
Why would the gov. go open source?
Just one example from the article -
>rather than seeking cheaper open source alternatives.
Which instantly exposes the issue of cost. Cheaper how? Do you really think the cost savings on a country-wide MS license are going to cover the years of contracts you'd need to pay engineers (no-one is going to do this work for standard gov. money) to combine multiple systems across the UK? Why do you think the majority of private enterprises aren't doing this? (Please, don't insist they are - when I see the ratio of linux/ MS contract jobs change, we'll talk).
So, in short this article will be ignored in the same way OpenOffice is ignored when their CEO uses 'downloaded' figures to suggest an existing userbase.
When I was younger, I used to think that my future was very uncertain - after all, I had to re-learn everything every five years.
Now I'm older (41), I've realised in the past six or seven years that I now have *experience*. This counts for a lot, lot more than you'd think. I can fix an NT 4.0 VM that would leave younglings scratching their heads, for instance. I can still call on my DOS years when scripting. And the site migrations I've done with OS's and hardware aren't things you can pick up from the MCSE's (or similar).
This leads to two interviewers - those that have figured this out, and those that haven't. For those that haven't, I would end up doing much more work at the site that one where they have, so I avoid those anyway.
Age also means that you're much more likely to have a permanent residence, and children - two things which mean you're less likely be jumping ship just because the business isn't as excited about (for example) the Cloud as you are.
When, for instance, did apple fix their OS to use windows server print queues without locking the AD user account when their password changed? 10.6, that's when.
Please, this issue was over ten years ago - where is the apple equivalent of AD, or group policies? They've had ELEVEN YEARS. And that's just three examples - so please slashdot, enough with the fanboy ignorance articles.
No-one is mentioning the lack of connectivity with FB. *Anywhere*.
Why is this? Are the fanboys/ Google really so keen that they think their grandparents will gleefully be waiting for Googlebook? Or does everyone who's keen simply accept that they'll have to run multiple social networking sites, as has happened with browsers (as I warned would happen, on this site, four or five years ago. Got a slashdot score of 1 for that, too).
We've been here before, though - with Macintosh vs. Windows - unable to compete, Apple concentrated on everything that had nothing to do with the mac's biggest fault - the lack of integration. As a result, it's taken them twenty years to reach a 1 in 10 market share, all the while pretending that Windows simply didn't exist (they only sorted out printing to a windows queue in a way that wouldn't lock your AD account with 10.6 - that's how 'business' Apple are).
Googlebooks's 'circles' aren't going to convince my gran to migrate, so it's either run one or both...the fact the Google seem to be pretending that this isn't an issue is laughable.
1) Company wants to maximise profits (painted over as 'saving money') = company follows staff-cutting recommendations that look great on paper.
2) Company then realises that saving money on paper has left them paying more in contractors to make up for the positions they got rid of = company will be happy to do this if it means they don't have to admit that step 1 was short-sighted.
3) Company realises that someone will be shot when the figures are presented in the correct way (e.g. how much staffing now costs compared to pre-step 1) = company gets rid of most of the contractors taken on in step 2.
4) Company now relies on single permanent staff member who eventually quits = company then decides that 'outsourcing is the way to go' for the same reason as listed in step 2.
I've seen this happen over and over and over, at banks, hospitals, investement companies and councils. In every single instance, they weren't employing enough people to begin with before even reaching Step 1. But the one thing that remains constant is that regardless of the outcome, companies will do *anything* rather than admit a failure and take a step backwards.
At the bank (one of the biggest), for instance - before the crash;
"This is Bob, make sure you all spend time with him, we're taking on another 150 servers from X branch"
"This is the third time this has happened"
"That's correct. Any questions?"
"What are you going to do when things go bad?"
"What?"
"You've sacked another team"
"Yes"
"You're giving the full-time work they were doing to another team that already has full-time work"
"Yes"
"Your share price that you force us to look at every time we open a browser has gone from £3.50 to £7 in less than a year"
"So?"
"So this isn't belt-tightening, this is greed"
"What's your point?"
"My point is - you're acting like companies do when they're against the wall or about to go down, even though this company isn't. So considering you're still behaving as if it is, I'd like to know what you're going to do when things really *do* get sticky, as opposed to pretending they are right now in order to maximise profits".
"......moving on to the next item on the agenda...."
I used to think that about Windows licenses. Then I was hopeful that client access licenses would eventually vanish - even now, I have trouble accepting that I can buy software for one machine, and software for another, but I have to pay more to use the connectivity that I already paid for when I bought them.
The key issue is that there's *too much money to be made*.
None of this is news - and yet it's the key factor that Google, Yahoo, Amazon and any of the cloud providers won't mention; in the same way that they don't mention connectivity being the primary reason a chromebook might not be the ideal solution.
It's all very well citing Wi-Fi as a solution, but when you're not in a city, or in a basement, or on a train, or any of the other many, many places you might be that doesnt' get a signal, your cloud-solution may as well be on the moon. Add to that the costs mentioned by PCPro as if they're news, and suddenly thin-clients look just as dodgy as the last two times they were pushed as 'the future'.
Not sure I'd really care if people found out I was subscribing to a porn site....it's not as if my Wife doesn't go there too:-)
As a result, I feel sorry for those who apparently think it's something to be shocked at.
In fact, I'd be more embarrassed at people knowing I *paid* for it when there's so much free stuff about.
This has happened before, why take notice now?
on
DC Reboots Universe
·
· Score: 1
Remember when DC/ Marvel made characters like Hulk and Batman the centre of the action again? I'm talking post-Dark Knight Returns.
Suddenly, all the stories were much more believable because you had fantastical characters in a semi-realistic world (or trapped in their own heads, like Hulk), Over time, however, other characters started to creep in until every issue seemed to involve 'super-team of the day', probably where DC/ Marvel thought it might sell more (whilst cheapening the main character). I don't see any sign of this stopping, and yet another reboot to get themselves out of the cul-de-sac plotlines they've written themselves into (Is Batman dead? Is he not? Is he? Do we really believe Bruce Wayne won't return? Of course not) is a bit of a gamble, because we've been here before.
You don't *have* to age characters. You don't *have* to kill them off. Just because Dark Knight got away with ageing Bruce Wayne, that shouldn't be the bar that all the others have to raise their game to.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, we don't have those figures - after all, no-one would want to acknowledge that it might be down to rush-releasing an unfinished PC game....and then look even more stupid if someone could produce figures for how many pirate copies were replaced with genuine ones once that issue was addressed. And that's before we get to Steam selling it, then not selling it, then Origin appearing, then Steam selling it again. But ey, confusing the buyer always means more sales, right?
None of this is uncommon knowledge - maybe I just didn't expect knee-jerk, taboid-level logic from Slashdot headers.
Again, Slashdot really will print anything. The Daily Heil has a excuse - Slashdot doesn't.
Next week - why watching Terminator 2 means you value machines more than people.
"...but if anyone asks, you've never heard of Xerox"
Let's find a way to make this attributable to Apple, because all the apple-owners will then read it to reinforce how *they've* made a difference!
In other words, another slow day at Cnet - what bothers me more is that Slashdot takes this sort of speculation and repeats it as 'news' - which is a bit worrying on a site that has a motto of 'stuff that matters'.
Yeah, and I won't use IOS5 because IOS6 will be out late next year. After all, why would people possibly want Win7 on a tablet?
This has to be the dumbest byline on a slashdot article I've ever seen.
I worked for the NHS for ten years, and have had several semi-governemnt jobs since.
The first rule - union reps earn more than anyone else. Fine if a union rep is working away to bring you benefits - not so good when they're your manager, get paid twice your salary for half the hours and ultimately get you to do their work as they have been hopelessly left behind, techinically. And that's before they fail to secure you a rise year on year.
Then there's the second rule - contractors don't get paid more; permanent staff get paid *less*. Whenever a permie has complained about their wage, my immediate advice has been "you're absolutely right - if you're good at your job, why are you stil here?". As a permie at the NHS, I installed over 1000 PC's in major London hospitals (replacing typewriters, for we are talking that long ago), but didn't get a rise above data-control level for three years. I ultimately ended up with a team of people that for various medical reasons needed to be near a hospital, and any staff I was presented with were really students on work experience (I used to call them Jedi-learners).
Goverment jobs are at the low end of the scale - and it's only those in power who have the gall to pretend that the salaries they offer are in any way competitive - so ultimately, the government has to pay through the nose in order to get staff that can (or will) do the job so that they can carry on pretending that paying regular staff a pittance is in any way productive or saves money.
....complete with many fanboys insisting that this is *completely different* to MS releasing a new format (like WMV) that no-one needs.
....unless you pay certain people off beforehand, right Silvio?
....they have their own criminals for that
>A country-wide license will still cost a huge amount of money, whereas any development work has to be done once regardless of how many end users will use it.
Indeed, but a lot *less* development needs to be done when using, say, sharepoint instead of writing your own system - and the ongoing support costs will be lower too. Now apply that to remote access, full-disk encryption, email...all the things that the likes of Active Directory give you as standard.
>That said, systems based on open standards with source code availability would actually be easier to connect together.
Maybe, but at the moment they don't exist - and if you rewrite all your SQL/ sharepoint/ etc. based products, you'll have already spent the money you were going to save down the line - and when you arrive down the line, you'll now have to pay more in engineers to maintain the system.
>Also, paying local engineers to develop open source (that can be used across all government) is actually much better than paying money to a foreign corporation...
I'm not sure how this is so - you'll be paying more money to the engineers who set up the system, and much more to the developers who write and maintain the software than runs on it.
>If you pay engineers then you create jobs, decrease unemployment and the majority of what you pay them, you will receive back in the form of direct and indirect taxes.
This sounds like the broken window fallacy - making more work (that you have to pay for) to create a custom system that any newcomers have to be trained on isn't going to be seen as an improvement - and you'll already be getting taxes from *any* engineers who work on the system (unless you farm the work out abroad)...
...and frankly, I'm suprised that this is being talked about - I would have thought the press would have taken the Gov. to task for suggesting this a year ago, not complain now that (surprise suprise) it's not happening.
Why would the gov. go open source?
Just one example from the article -
>rather than seeking cheaper open source alternatives.
Which instantly exposes the issue of cost. Cheaper how? Do you really think the cost savings on a country-wide MS license are going to cover the years of contracts you'd need to pay engineers (no-one is going to do this work for standard gov. money) to combine multiple systems across the UK? Why do you think the majority of private enterprises aren't doing this? (Please, don't insist they are - when I see the ratio of linux/ MS contract jobs change, we'll talk).
So, in short this article will be ignored in the same way OpenOffice is ignored when their CEO uses 'downloaded' figures to suggest an existing userbase.
Where do I sign up?
When I was younger, I used to think that my future was very uncertain - after all, I had to re-learn everything every five years.
Now I'm older (41), I've realised in the past six or seven years that I now have *experience*. This counts for a lot, lot more than you'd think. I can fix an NT 4.0 VM that would leave younglings scratching their heads, for instance. I can still call on my DOS years when scripting. And the site migrations I've done with OS's and hardware aren't things you can pick up from the MCSE's (or similar).
This leads to two interviewers - those that have figured this out, and those that haven't. For those that haven't, I would end up doing much more work at the site that one where they have, so I avoid those anyway.
Age also means that you're much more likely to have a permanent residence, and children - two things which mean you're less likely be jumping ship just because the business isn't as excited about (for example) the Cloud as you are.
When, for instance, did apple fix their OS to use windows server print queues without locking the AD user account when their password changed? 10.6, that's when.
Please, this issue was over ten years ago - where is the apple equivalent of AD, or group policies? They've had ELEVEN YEARS. And that's just three examples - so please slashdot, enough with the fanboy ignorance articles.
No-one is mentioning the lack of connectivity with FB. *Anywhere*.
Why is this? Are the fanboys/ Google really so keen that they think their grandparents will gleefully be waiting for Googlebook? Or does everyone who's keen simply accept that they'll have to run multiple social networking sites, as has happened with browsers (as I warned would happen, on this site, four or five years ago. Got a slashdot score of 1 for that, too).
We've been here before, though - with Macintosh vs. Windows - unable to compete, Apple concentrated on everything that had nothing to do with the mac's biggest fault - the lack of integration. As a result, it's taken them twenty years to reach a 1 in 10 market share, all the while pretending that Windows simply didn't exist (they only sorted out printing to a windows queue in a way that wouldn't lock your AD account with 10.6 - that's how 'business' Apple are).
Googlebooks's 'circles' aren't going to convince my gran to migrate, so it's either run one or both...the fact the Google seem to be pretending that this isn't an issue is laughable.
1) Company wants to maximise profits (painted over as 'saving money') = company follows staff-cutting recommendations that look great on paper.
2) Company then realises that saving money on paper has left them paying more in contractors to make up for the positions they got rid of = company will be happy to do this if it means they don't have to admit that step 1 was short-sighted.
3) Company realises that someone will be shot when the figures are presented in the correct way (e.g. how much staffing now costs compared to pre-step 1) = company gets rid of most of the contractors taken on in step 2.
4) Company now relies on single permanent staff member who eventually quits = company then decides that 'outsourcing is the way to go' for the same reason as listed in step 2.
I've seen this happen over and over and over, at banks, hospitals, investement companies and councils. In every single instance, they weren't employing enough people to begin with before even reaching Step 1. But the one thing that remains constant is that regardless of the outcome, companies will do *anything* rather than admit a failure and take a step backwards.
At the bank (one of the biggest), for instance - before the crash;
"This is Bob, make sure you all spend time with him, we're taking on another 150 servers from X branch"
"This is the third time this has happened"
"That's correct. Any questions?"
"What are you going to do when things go bad?"
"What?"
"You've sacked another team"
"Yes"
"You're giving the full-time work they were doing to another team that already has full-time work"
"Yes"
"Your share price that you force us to look at every time we open a browser has gone from £3.50 to £7 in less than a year"
"So?"
"So this isn't belt-tightening, this is greed"
"What's your point?"
"My point is - you're acting like companies do when they're against the wall or about to go down, even though this company isn't. So considering you're still behaving as if it is, I'd like to know what you're going to do when things really *do* get sticky, as opposed to pretending they are right now in order to maximise profits".
"......moving on to the next item on the agenda...."
Outstanding conclusions, good sir.
I would upvote this if Slashdot were in the 21st century.
I used to think that about Windows licenses. Then I was hopeful that client access licenses would eventually vanish - even now, I have trouble accepting that I can buy software for one machine, and software for another, but I have to pay more to use the connectivity that I already paid for when I bought them.
The key issue is that there's *too much money to be made*.
None of this is news - and yet it's the key factor that Google, Yahoo, Amazon and any of the cloud providers won't mention; in the same way that they don't mention connectivity being the primary reason a chromebook might not be the ideal solution.
It's all very well citing Wi-Fi as a solution, but when you're not in a city, or in a basement, or on a train, or any of the other many, many places you might be that doesnt' get a signal, your cloud-solution may as well be on the moon. Add to that the costs mentioned by PCPro as if they're news, and suddenly thin-clients look just as dodgy as the last two times they were pushed as 'the future'.
....that the world doesn't revolve around them. In OS *and* app terms.
Not sure I'd really care if people found out I was subscribing to a porn site....it's not as if my Wife doesn't go there too :-)
As a result, I feel sorry for those who apparently think it's something to be shocked at.
In fact, I'd be more embarrassed at people knowing I *paid* for it when there's so much free stuff about.
Remember when DC/ Marvel made characters like Hulk and Batman the centre of the action again? I'm talking post-Dark Knight Returns.
Suddenly, all the stories were much more believable because you had fantastical characters in a semi-realistic world (or trapped in their own heads, like Hulk), Over time, however, other characters started to creep in until every issue seemed to involve 'super-team of the day', probably where DC/ Marvel thought it might sell more (whilst cheapening the main character). I don't see any sign of this stopping, and yet another reboot to get themselves out of the cul-de-sac plotlines they've written themselves into (Is Batman dead? Is he not? Is he? Do we really believe Bruce Wayne won't return? Of course not) is a bit of a gamble, because we've been here before.
You don't *have* to age characters. You don't *have* to kill them off. Just because Dark Knight got away with ageing Bruce Wayne, that shouldn't be the bar that all the others have to raise their game to.
But this - htthttp://imgur.com/MCxRw - meant that I only got as far as the first page.
Advertising means nothing if your viewers won't come back.
...as having a monopoly just from selling *office*
Idiotic. Another example of what's good on paper meaning the reality gets ignored.
Next week - why your employees will leave once they're experienced anyway, and how the prospect of a position with training will hasten that.