Comment Re: Shared user account? (Score 1) 381
It doesn't and yes that is sad....although Android was single-user-account until recently. I have wondered if that's a feature for Apple: makes sharing a single device trickier so each person has one.
It doesn't and yes that is sad....although Android was single-user-account until recently. I have wondered if that's a feature for Apple: makes sharing a single device trickier so each person has one.
Addons for web browsers (e,g. Certificate Patrol in Firefox, there are others) can clue you into certificate changes. Rather like Ghostery (which shows where stuff is loading from in a web page): it is an eye opener.
Very often low use ATMs still use dialup. If it's very slow to connect, that may well be the case. Very rarely I even come across one with the speaker on.
So a lot of us may have used dialup very recently indeed.
I get your point but:
In todays economy there are still a few pockets of stability and they tend to be in the
places I put in this list. Not all positions, but some. E.g. We do hire some temps but they know they
are temps and are about 5% of the workforce. I obviously don't work for Microsoft.
These are places where they need (and more importantly: know they need) some working memory
of how the place is runs. They are places where it is a big hairy deal to hire or fire certain positions.
They are of a size that it is not unusual for exactly ONE person to know how to do a critical task.
Even if cross trained, there is usually one (or maybe two) people who are really good at that critical
task so you better have responsible people who would like to stay awhile.
I am a sysadmin, I've been here for a decade, my most junior co-sysadmin has been here for years.
No degree by the way, just a massive list of accomplishment. Me, I have a degree in a related field
and fewer accomplishments.
Even our web people have been here for years. That said, we all sometimes find ourselves working
outside our original job descriptions from time to time. Money is tight but they want us to stay as long as
we are doing a job that needs (or will soon need) doing.
My particular organization has been through many expansions and contractions in the last century
but makes extraordinary efforts to keep sharp people. My part is to stay sharp and grow. We have
let go sharp people in the recent contraction, but we try to avoid it.
In 2013 this is an exceptionally good situation to be in I know but these situations exist and are
worth looking for.
Emphasize stability if you can, this can make age a plus. Not that age
guarantees stability or youth means not responsible but you are more
likely to be considered in a place looking for stability.
County government,especially smaller counties. They typically run on shoestrings but they
can really appreciate someone who can keep systems running well. Likewise midsize
towns and cities.
If you have some oddball skills, that can be a plus. In fact if you know INGRES, are willing
to live in Seattle and are stable: Drop me a line!
Medical computing often wants someone a little older. Banking will often hire someone older.
Midsized organizations 100-500 can be an especially rich vein, places that have been around
awhile so gray hair isn't unusual and small enough not to automate the initial job search. They
also often have enough work to keep a small team busy.
Surprisingly, these can be research departments at
Universities (yes, they sometimes happily hire people without degrees. Who
better knows a degrees worth for day to day computing? Arguing with the person
with an MS who wants to convert everything to Python is not fun.).
I think it a fair bet there are security companies watching the news
that are going to be more accepting of someone older than they were
a month ago.
Some of us need the Socratic Dialog. I was driven to learn about mathematics. I had real drive and read a LOT. I was smart. Yay me. I managed to mis-learn a heck of a lot that way. It wouldn't have been so bad later on but I mis-learned some basic things. It was unpleasant and time consuming to go back and edit out what I got wrong and I needed someone outside my own head. I couldn't see what's wrong in my own head alone. Sadly, even in college, that kind of teaching isn't available so much but it's golden.
Further, the few farmers I know couldn't care less.
In short: Archer had to successfully play with the big kids in a toy ship.
"ISO will replace TCP/IP in 5 years" was a real thing. After 10 years the phrase became a joke. Now it isn't even that.
Ever wondered why the L in LDAP stands for "Lightweight"? It started as a radically simplified version of ISO directory services.
Almost nobody used ISO (including ITU, which at the time preferred paper over networks internally) but ITU really pushed it over that toy internet thing. They also charged a lot of money to buy the bookshelf-meters of ISO documentation...only available on paper for the most part.
It is probably completely unfair to the ITU of 2012 but I find myself worried whenever they are mentioned in the same breath as "internet".
I may be the only mathematician who had this problem (I wasn't all that good) but Statistics threw me for a loop at first (I was briefly fairly competent eventually). Statistics isn't calculus; calculus is a big part of classical statistics.
A pure mathematician hitting statistics cold may have almost as big a problem a student with little mathematics. Mathematics knowledge can actually get in the way at first.
The big breakthrough for me was realizing a random variable isn't much like the variables I was used to. That I had to think differently. Once past that, I was at an advantage again because I had gotten through undergrad calculus and linear algebra but until then, I was MORE confused than the soft science majors around me.
New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman