I'm surprised more companies aren't locating to the US Midwest. Generally those states have some of the top education results in the nation. Iowa has had the highest state SAT averages for years:
The Midwest is also trying to keep it's college graduates from leaving the area. Good paying, high-tech jobs are one way to that end. So tax incentives are probably not too difficult to get. Land is cheap. Salaries can be much less than SF or NYC and still be competitive for the area. And employees get to have a high quality of life - low pollution, little traffic, good local schools, cheap homes, etc.
There's lot's to like about putting part of your company in the Midwest.
If it's in technical specifics, that could be true. But if the book covers more conceptual ways of handling security matters or security philosophy, it could be very useful for some time. Topics like how to stop social engineering or creating effective security policy never go out of style.
I got a lot out of The Cuckoo's Egg and that was published forever ago.
At my old company Vista was so problematic with our apps that the decision was made to keep XP. So every year we bought hundreds and hundreds of Vista licenced machines and then write our custom XP version onto them for actual use. They counted as "Vista" sales but were never used that way.
I'm sure you can multiply that by thousands of other companies.
Sometimes things are out of the IT worker's control.
Let's say a business group's Managing Director wants to build application X. So the IT department puts together a team to develop it. It takes a year to get the project finished. Beautifully written code, everthing is tested and works great. Output matches specs exactly. IT has done its job perfectly.
However application X doesn't sell. The MD did a bad job guessing what the industry needed / wanted and the company makes no money off of it. So, for no fault of IT, the whole group gets canned. The company can't support the development team's salaries.
It's not always just about IT competence. Sometimes the business guys can **** it all up.
How about an archery competition where you have to shoot it high and then catch it in some sort of bin. Extra points if you catch it by hand. Points are subtracted if the arrow ends up in your body.
Now that's something I'd watch.
You are protected for a wide range of fraudulent charges. For instance my credit card number was recently stolen and a large purchase was initiated at a popular web site. My credit card company denied the charge since it was so out of character for my spending patterns. Then they contacted me to ask if the charge was legitimate. I didn't lose a cent over the matter. The only hassle was having to replace the credit card. Their fraud detection algorithms are getting more and more sophisticated - which leads to better consumer protection.
From the article: "He [State Controller Chiang] disputes Schwarzenegger's legal interpretation of a 2003 California Supreme Court decision,"
Chiang is the State Controller, not an attorney. It's not his job to give legal interpretation on Supreme Court decisions. His job is to execute the orders of states executive branch, Gov. Schwarzenegger.
It sounds like the Controller is letting his personal beliefs interfere with his professional responsibilities. That's a quick route to unemployment.
I think the best argument against genetics as a cause of obesity is the rapid explosion of the number of obese people in the last 100 years.
This rapid increase can not possibly be related to changes in genetics. One hundred years (three or four generations) is far, far too short a period for the gene pool to change.
During the last 100 years, though, there have been many changes in society which contribute to obesity: cars, television, fast-food, sendentary jobs, huge portions of food being the norm.
Which suggests the obesity problem could be significantly reduced if people just exercised more and ate less.
This guy is insane for wanting to turn servers off !! We never do except to apply some patch or install some new hardware. No telling what will actually happen when the machine boots up again. And to do this on a regular basis. With N-tiered applications ? Crazy talk.
I've had a hotmail account since forever and still keep it because so many people know my address. Over the years I've seen numerous browser problems with hotmail. So I'm not surprised about the latest FF issues.
Quite frankly I'm glad Microsoft is being such a pain about these things. By being difficult they push people away from their products. Even lazy bastards like me who should have switched to Gmail years ago.
So please, Bill, keep designing your software to be so petulant. It helps to make your company more irrelevant with every passing day . . .
So what if you're looking at an enemy tank and some bird 100m behind it starts flying around. Do the binoculars automatically refocus on the bird even though you don't want them to ?
It's one thing to be a Windows or Linux troll. That I can live with. It's another to post information that is completely off topic (and also likely NSFW).
While I'm a great advocate of free speech, not everything should be said everywhere. And slashdot should be a place for nerds to converse about tech stuff. Not a platform for gay lifestyle discussions or radical political commentary.
I think the corporate concern for recreational drug use is that not all drugs are benign. If you're a heroin user or coke head you have a very strong need (a physical addiction) to constantly buy more and more expensive drugs. So the temptation to steal from anywhere (including your work place) is much higher.
Also there's always the effect of heavy drug use the night before on the next day's performance. I doubt it improves productivity for most.
I don't think most companies would care much if people only smoked a couple of joints on Saturday night.
I'd consider doing something IT related to leverage your skills & experience but fairly different. Like maybe computer forensics for a police department or the FBI. Or IT security for the federal government (TSA, State Department, CIA). You might even get the chance to live abroad. Teaching would also be a great activity. Lord only knows we need more people with good comptuer skills teaching the next generation.
The fun thing is that you could probably pursue many of these activities on a part-time basis for a while to see if you liked them. You might have to be a volunteer at first but it's all about testing the waters. Meager pay (or lack thereof) shouldn't stop you from trying these things out. Think of it as an investment in your future job satisfaction.
Plot: FCC gives clearance to use cell phones while in the air. The first NY to LA flight on a 747 has 400 people talking at the same time. After 30 minutes passengers start to get frustrated with each other. Fist fights break out. Soon it turns into the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the air.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised more companies aren't locating to the US Midwest. Generally those states have some of the top education results in the nation. Iowa has had the highest state SAT averages for years:
http://www.midwestsites.com/stellent2/groups/public/documents/pub/mws_am_ed_000924.hcsp
The Midwest is also trying to keep it's college graduates from leaving the area. Good paying, high-tech jobs are one way to that end. So tax incentives are probably not too difficult to get. Land is cheap. Salaries can be much less than SF or NYC and still be competitive for the area. And employees get to have a high quality of life - low pollution, little traffic, good local schools, cheap homes, etc.
There's lot's to like about putting part of your company in the Midwest.
If it's in technical specifics, that could be true. But if the book covers more conceptual ways of handling security matters or security philosophy, it could be very useful for some time. Topics like how to stop social engineering or creating effective security policy never go out of style.
I got a lot out of The Cuckoo's Egg and that was published forever ago.
The Vista usage stats are definitely inflated.
At my old company Vista was so problematic with our apps that the decision was made to keep XP. So every year we bought hundreds and hundreds of Vista licenced machines and then write our custom XP version onto them for actual use. They counted as "Vista" sales but were never used that way.
I'm sure you can multiply that by thousands of other companies.
Sometimes things are out of the IT worker's control. Let's say a business group's Managing Director wants to build application X. So the IT department puts together a team to develop it. It takes a year to get the project finished. Beautifully written code, everthing is tested and works great. Output matches specs exactly. IT has done its job perfectly. However application X doesn't sell. The MD did a bad job guessing what the industry needed / wanted and the company makes no money off of it. So, for no fault of IT, the whole group gets canned. The company can't support the development team's salaries. It's not always just about IT competence. Sometimes the business guys can **** it all up.
wrestling discus, javelin high jump, long jump, triple jump
When Rhythmic Gymnastics participants can knock eachother out, I'll watch it.
How about an archery competition where you have to shoot it high and then catch it in some sort of bin. Extra points if you catch it by hand. Points are subtracted if the arrow ends up in your body. Now that's something I'd watch.
You are protected for a wide range of fraudulent charges. For instance my credit card number was recently stolen and a large purchase was initiated at a popular web site. My credit card company denied the charge since it was so out of character for my spending patterns. Then they contacted me to ask if the charge was legitimate. I didn't lose a cent over the matter. The only hassle was having to replace the credit card. Their fraud detection algorithms are getting more and more sophisticated - which leads to better consumer protection.
From the article: "He [State Controller Chiang] disputes Schwarzenegger's legal interpretation of a 2003 California Supreme Court decision," Chiang is the State Controller, not an attorney. It's not his job to give legal interpretation on Supreme Court decisions. His job is to execute the orders of states executive branch, Gov. Schwarzenegger. It sounds like the Controller is letting his personal beliefs interfere with his professional responsibilities. That's a quick route to unemployment.
Just another great excuse why you're late for work: "My car had the blue screen of death."
I think the best argument against genetics as a cause of obesity is the rapid explosion of the number of obese people in the last 100 years.
This rapid increase can not possibly be related to changes in genetics. One hundred years (three or four generations) is far, far too short a period for the gene pool to change.
During the last 100 years, though, there have been many changes in society which contribute to obesity: cars, television, fast-food, sendentary jobs, huge portions of food being the norm.
Which suggests the obesity problem could be significantly reduced if people just exercised more and ate less.
This guy is insane for wanting to turn servers off !! We never do except to apply some patch or install some new hardware. No telling what will actually happen when the machine boots up again. And to do this on a regular basis. With N-tiered applications ? Crazy talk.
I've had a hotmail account since forever and still keep it because so many people know my address. Over the years I've seen numerous browser problems with hotmail. So I'm not surprised about the latest FF issues. Quite frankly I'm glad Microsoft is being such a pain about these things. By being difficult they push people away from their products. Even lazy bastards like me who should have switched to Gmail years ago. So please, Bill, keep designing your software to be so petulant. It helps to make your company more irrelevant with every passing day . . .
So what if you're looking at an enemy tank and some bird 100m behind it starts flying around. Do the binoculars automatically refocus on the bird even though you don't want them to ?
It's one thing to be a Windows or Linux troll. That I can live with. It's another to post information that is completely off topic (and also likely NSFW). While I'm a great advocate of free speech, not everything should be said everywhere. And slashdot should be a place for nerds to converse about tech stuff. Not a platform for gay lifestyle discussions or radical political commentary.
What's with all these nazi and gay posts on slashdot lately ? Mods should start banning left and right.
I think the corporate concern for recreational drug use is that not all drugs are benign. If you're a heroin user or coke head you have a very strong need (a physical addiction) to constantly buy more and more expensive drugs. So the temptation to steal from anywhere (including your work place) is much higher. Also there's always the effect of heavy drug use the night before on the next day's performance. I doubt it improves productivity for most. I don't think most companies would care much if people only smoked a couple of joints on Saturday night.
I'd consider doing something IT related to leverage your skills & experience but fairly different. Like maybe computer forensics for a police department or the FBI. Or IT security for the federal government (TSA, State Department, CIA). You might even get the chance to live abroad. Teaching would also be a great activity. Lord only knows we need more people with good comptuer skills teaching the next generation. The fun thing is that you could probably pursue many of these activities on a part-time basis for a while to see if you liked them. You might have to be a volunteer at first but it's all about testing the waters. Meager pay (or lack thereof) shouldn't stop you from trying these things out. Think of it as an investment in your future job satisfaction.
Cell Phones on a Plane
Staring Samuel Jackson
Plot: FCC gives clearance to use cell phones while in the air. The first NY to LA flight on a 747 has 400 people talking at the same time. After 30 minutes passengers start to get frustrated with each other. Fist fights break out. Soon it turns into the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the air.
Sequel: Snakes with Cell Phones on a Plane
Isn't there a bunch of dark fiber that hasn't been lit yet. Excess capacity put in by telecoms during the boom. Or are we using that now?