THIS! rsilvergun is 100% correct here.

I commented already on here about my thoughts on the original topic, but the bigger, underlying issue is definitely tied to the pay rate not really keeping up with inflation. With one of the career jobs most people consider "among the better paying", like I.T., it can really sneak up on you too.

I remember working for a place in the 90's doing server and PC support, feeling I was underpaid but enjoying the other aspects of the job enough not to care. But when I finally moved on, I realized I couldn't find work doing the same thing where my salary was going to be that much higher than what I was making before. (Combination of the dot com crash and economic depression around that time AND the fact that everyone wants to know what you made where you worked previously, and tries not to pay you much more than that.)

Like a lot of people though, I eventually settled for what they were offering so I could at least stay gainfully employed, and believed all the promises of future bonuses and compensation for hard work. But life marches on, even if pay raises don't.... All of a sudden, I'm older and have a whole family I'm responsible for. Things I never cared about before like having a bigger house with a few bedrooms in it and more than one bathroom became big deals (not to mention having to worry about living in a "good school district", vs. just living where you could live cheap).

Wound up not only switching jobs but relocating to get the "better paying" position, only to find cost of living was so much higher where I went, it negated most of the pay increase. One day, you just wake up and say, "WTF man!? I have 20+ years of experience, yet my overall lifestyle and buying power really feels about the same as what it was 10-15 years earlier. I know I'm *doing* way more complex stuff that should offer employers more value, but I'm just treading water."

I have a few thoughts of my own on the subject, based on my own work situation, and they don't quite line up with theirs.

First off, yes... I would say that at least for our workplace, stress levels in I.T. have generally increased over the last few years. (I work as part of a 4 person I.T. team for a marketing firm that has several locations strategically placed around the country, close to the majority of clients they have or want.)

Marketing is definitely a business where lots of millennials are hired. Our I.T. group and upper management are really the only people in the company of an older generation than that, other than a few random exceptions.

But to claim the I.T. stress levels are correlated with the millennial generation's lack of in-person communication skills? No... at least for our industry, that's not the case at all. You can't be successful working in marketing for us if you're not an exceptionally good in-person communicator. I know I'm far less comfortable chatting up random people in social situations than any of the millennials we've got working as creative directors, producers, designers, etc. Maybe we're constantly hiring the exceptions to the rule because of the nature of the business ... but regardless, that's the situation for the people our I.T. group supports.

Where I see stress levels climbing has more to do with people expecting more and more from the computerized tools they're given. For example, when I started working for these guys, several of our offices literally spent 90% of their day buried in Outlook. Everything revolved around email correspondence and scheduling meetings or appointments. Sure, they had the occasional need for the rest of the Office suite (especially PowerPoint or Keynote for our Mac users, if they were preparing a presentation for a client), but the vast majority of support calls or issues were "Why did my email bounce?", "It says my mailbox is full!", "I can't find this message I know I saved someplace in here earlier today.", or "So and so received my calendar invite 3 times in a row for some reason." Stuff like that, along with trouble opening various email attachments they received.....

Looking at how things have evolved now? We ran into issues where some of the huge Word templates they use regularly to produce client proposals got too big to keep editing reliably inside Word. (Lots of copy/pasted graphics in them and all that.) So we now paid for a cloud based service designed just for such proposals. Instead of constantly filling mailboxes with email attachments getting shared around, we set up DropBox for Teams so I.T. creates any of the "top level" folders anyone requests and makes sure the proper folks are given read or read/write access to those shared resources. As we've grown, the Finance department required better automation so they could process all the invoices in a timely manner as offices generate them. So they put in dedicated scanning stations at each office with document capture software that goes to "watched folders", with special software that can toss them into their accounting system as it sees new ones appear. The original few, designated office people with copies of Adobe Acrobat (full version, not reader) kept growing as more users saw the benefits of being able to actually edit a PDF document on their Windows PC (or saw Mac users doing it natively with Preview and asked why they can't have the same capabilities). So that led to buying Creative Cloud with user accounts I.T. again has to manage.

On top of that, one of the offices is trying to get more serious about offering in-house video rendering capabilities instead of outsourcing it all the time, so now we're starting to build and support a rendering farm and high end video packages on the clients.

What we haven't done is hire a single new I.T. staffer to help with any of this.... We push for it all the time (especially when one of us is out sick or on vacation and the pressure is really on). But at the end of the day, management feels like it's not cost justified. People are still generally happy with our level of support and when they complain that tickets aren't resolved in a timely enough manner, management tells them they need to just be more patient with us because it's too costly to hire enough staff to shorten those delay times.

I've actually done a ride-along with a cop in a pretty bad area (East St. Louis, IL). It wasn't a pretty scene.... Among other things, we tried to go grab lunch at one place, only to find out it burned to the ground the night before (suspected arson but no real conclusive evidence yet, at that point). The place we wound up was a cafeteria stye place in the basement of a building, where another cop started passing around Polaroids of a body found thrown by the side of the road, asking if anyone recognized the woman. (Probably a prostitute someone shot and killed rather than paying.)

I'd never suggest the cops have an easy job, or that most of them aren't really trying to help clean up the neighborhoods of crime and violence. The problem is, the negative focus on officers today comes from stories on practically a weekly basis where police corruption, misbehavior or mishandling of evidence or people is uncovered. I don't know what exact percentage that works out to, but it's far too great of one -- even if by the numbers, it's only 1% of the police on the force.

Just in my own personal encounters with the police (everything from calling them about stolen property to hanging out with some of them I knew, off-duty, to getting a traffic ticket), I'd have to say I've run into something like one cop with a bad attitude or "issues" out of every 3 or 4. That doesn't mean some of them weren't just having a bad day.... But hey, it's as much a "customer service" job as any others I can think of. When you get poor service at the return counter of a retail store, you get upset and complain about it, right? You might even decide not to ever shop there again. When the police give you poor customer service, they seem to generally get a pass - with people telling you you're just angry because you got caught doing something wrong, or a lecture about how most cops aren't like that.

I think the question people need to start asking themselves, first, is WHY they're filming in the first place.

I've seen a good number of YouTube videos where someone appeared to be videotaping the police primarily to try to make the police look bad. They added their own narrative/commentary to what was being recorded and in some cases, even tried to provoke a negative reaction towards their filming so they could show people "part of the problem".

That antagonistic behavior doesn't really do anyone any good. It makes the cops distrust and dislike the people filming them and it's heavily biased reporting.

On the other hand, if you're recording a police interaction because you really feel you're witnessing a huge violation of others' rights and you may be the only witness who can bring about some positive change with your video capture? Well then, yeah - I think you got yourself into something you need to have the guts to see to its conclusion. Don't start something like that and then back down as soon as the cop tells you to stop filming.

Exactly.... All of these tactics that prevent authorities from gaining access to your locked / encrypted data are only marginally effective in most real-world scenarios.

It may be true that nobody can really *force* you to give up a pass-code that you've only stored in your own head. But they don't barge in, confiscate your hardware AND arrest you if they don't feel they've already got a pretty good case against you. (If it really hinges only on them getting to see the data on your computer's drive that's password protected, they don't have enough evidence to arrest and hold you.)

I'd venture to say that in most computer-related arrests made these days, they gathered most of the evidence based on data they were able to see transmitted over the Internet or viewed at a remote destination someone sent it to. (EG. Microsoft's current court case against a guy who they claimed massively pirated copies of Windows 7 by illegally activating them. They've got evidence on the Microsoft activation servers that point to his IP address, uploaded by the computers he was activating. Being unable to see anything on his PC is pretty irrelevant at this point for investigators, I'm sure.)

Just a personal opinion, so take it for whatever you think it's worth. But IMO, Sanders is more of a campaign disruptor than a serious contender for the next presidential election.

He's known as a political "Independent" but as others have already noted, he's more of a Socialist really. I see some value in him wanting to bring up the H1-B VISA issue, but primarily so it encourages the other candidates to debate it.

I also hear quite a few comments from those supposedly disillusioned with "free market capitalism", so some of these people will surely find Sanders an interesting alternative. I find that quite unfortunate though. Personally, I'm still pretty firmly convinced that free market concepts really never got a fair shake in the U.S. in the first place. So often, we're sold that label while reality is quite different. Heck, I was just debating the whole issue with a friend of mine last week about the deregulation of the power companies and the disaster that created for California. He used it as a prime example of why free markets aren't really viable or desirable. I countered that actually, that was FAR more an example of fraud than anything else -- a problem that transcends politics or the type of marketplace you're working with. In fact, much of the scamming going on with all of that was only made possible because GOVERNMENT was still expected to make payments towards keeping the infrastructure working! (They had legislation in place where government would start paying out money whenever the utilization of the power lines went above a certain percentage of their maximum capabilities. Therefore, crooked businesses like Enron would create false entries, reserving utilization that was never really happening to fake capacity limits being hit and profit from the govt. funding that was theoretically going to upgrading that infrastructure.)

Time and time again, this is what I really see happening.... People get frustrated or disgusted at something that supposedly happens because of a lack of governmental controls. But a closer look makes you realize it was only due to government interference or control in the FIRST place that the scenario was set up. The net neutrality debates would probably be another example of this. Sure, we need government to step in and tell Comcast, "No! You can't merge with Time Warner!" now. BUT that scenario was QUITE unlikely to have ever happened in the first place if broadband internet service was handled in the private sector in the first place, minus govt. regulated monopolies getting preferential treatment when the services were first getting built out.

The thing with DirecTV is, they've never really been more than a minor player in the area of providing high speed internet service to customers.
(Heck, these are the guys who still needed you to plug each satellite receiver into a phone jack so it could phone home to let you purchase pay-per-view programming, YEARS after everyone was otherwise rid of their dial-up modems.)

I know for a long time, they were offering "TV and internet bundles" that simply partnered with AT&T to sell someone DSL service as the internet portion of the package.

Yes, they sell satellite based broadband internet to people today ... but again, it's really just a niche market. Satellite based internet has such high latency, it makes it useless for online gaming (at least in many situations), and it's still pretty expensive if you're going to transfer a lot of data each month. Just like satellite TV, it loses signal in bad weather too.

If AT&T buys them out, I can't really envision the negative impact? It sounds like you'd still get some sort of satellite television subscription while using the service, regardless of the company brand name on the system -- and AT&T would have no reason to cancel your ability to do satellite internet. (I think they have their own satellite offering right now? Or at least they did until recently. Maybe they'd transition you over to it?)

And for those concerned that this would make their satellite connections more expensive? Dish Network has always been a little cheaper than DirecTV and you'd still be able to cancel and go with them instead, anywhere in the country.

Understood.... But as I've said from the beginning about PV solar, it's probably a technology that starts causing problems when there's too much density of it used in a given geographic area.

Right now, even a system that costs a homeowner $30,000 or so to purchase and install is likely not to generate more than a maximum of 50KWh of power on a bright, sunny day. And once it gets dark, we know for a fact all of these systems will produce exactly nothing.

Considering how much of the power generated is actually consumed by the homeowner as it's being generated, the amount of surplus power going back out to the grid really isn't that substantial. I have no problem at all with the utilities examining the current situation before someone applies to install a new PV solar system. Tell them, "Sorry... but due to too much solar online in your neighborhood already, we're going to have to limit you to a system no bigger than 2-3 KWh capacity." Whatever ....

It just seems like making blanket statements or full-blown efforts to restrict PV solar is unreasonable, given the reality of the situation. What I've seen here in Maryland is there are really only a couple of solar projects that are really large in scale, producing more power than what a large number of homeowners would produce, combined. I would think these commercial projects are the ones they should have reconsidered allowing, or restricted, before limiting everyone else.

IMO, there really are a lot of solar installs driven primarily by leasing companies collecting all of the tax credits on the installations -- and that probably needs to be put to a halt. A lot of people are getting these systems put in based on false promises.

The complaints that the rooftop systems are invisible to the power companies "because they sit behind a customer's meter and we don't have a means to directly measure them" can be addressed pretty easily with updated electric meters.

The power companies are all moving towards "smart meter" technologies anyway. Why not make sure they've put one in that can monitor the output of a PV solar (or even a wind turbine) installation while they're at it?

When I had my solar system installed, the power company had to switch out my meter. And even though we're one of the last remaining areas around here that doesn't yet use smart meters, they still upgraded me to a bi-directional meter so my power generation vs. usage can be tracked. So they're spending $'s on labor and hardware to mess with your meter each time a new solar system is put in. It's their short-sightedness if they don't put more useful equipment in place while they're doing that anyway!

And when it comes to solar, I think the output is fairly predictable too. The only real "fluctuations" you get with the output are based on the day's weather conditions. If you compare my panels to my friend who lives on the other side of town and has a PV solar installation, our daily power generation numbers are within 2-3KWh of each other, and the hourly rates on a graph look almost identical. The power company receives and has to sign off on a registration form stating you've installed a small power generation system and they're made aware of its exact size/maximum output at that time. So even with NO other metering capability, they'd be able to predict that in a certain part of the circuit, they now have someone who will add, at most, a specific amount of power back to the lines between the hours of 10AM and 2PM (when the panels produce the most power). It seems like this is data they should be able to work with.

As I understand it, that's only one of the possible modes of operation for the "HD" FM stereo used in the USA right now.
Up here in the DC area, that seems to be exactly what stations like DC 101FM are doing. If the digital signal cuts out, the radio falls back to the analog broadcast until it can switch back to digital.

The problem with FM HD though is they often opt to broadcast 1 or 2 additional digital stations, and there are no analog equivalents for those. So they just abruptly cut out when the signal gets weak. (And it happens OFTEN when driving around a metropolitan area with tall buildings and the like which intermittently block part of the signal.) Makes the whole thing unusable, IMO.

Both of the major political parties in the U.S. are FULL of liars and opportunists. That's the nature of politics.

That doesn't mean you can't have the occasional sincere person who affiliates themselves with one of the 2 big party platforms, simply because it's practically a requirement to get elected. And then, it turns out they actually want to do things that help the average citizen -- not just further their own agenda.

IMO, if you want some real relief from excessive taxation, your best bet is looking towards the candidates who seem to best fit the mold of independents, yet are running as Republicans or Democrats anyway.

Socialism, IMO, solves nothing. Each country has its own unique problems and situation, so you can't just do a direct "America vs. Canada" comparison and conclude that it's a "better deal to live in Canada". People keep trying to do this with the neutral countries too (Denmark, etc.) -- yet they're ignoring major differences, like the amount of land belonging to the nations. Sure, they give you all kinds of government benefits like free healthcare and large amounts of paid time off from work if your wife has a kid. But they also tax people at a higher rate than the U.S. does, on the whole, to accomplish it. And there total population is much smaller. There are things you can do pretty easily when you don't have to scale it up too big. But then you're also stuck living in a nation that has fewer good job opportunities because there are simply far fewer square miles of space where people would open new businesses and create things.

The U.S. needs some serious political reform .... but not a change of basic principles of governance. The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and overall concept of being a Democratic Republic are pretty solid.

If the U.S. only did ONE thing; putting a cap on military spending to no more than 2% of the annual GNP, it would cut the budget deficit in HALF -- and would be right in line with the budget most nations have for the military.

The original story I read was the one shared by KPLR TV (channel 11) in St. Louis:

http://kplr11.com/2015/04/14/p...

But this story has been edited since I first read it last week, as far as her punishment for the offense. (I even shared it on Facebook last week and it received comments from people who read the link and were outraged that she received such a light sentence for the crime.)

Perhaps it was in error, since they now give a date she's supposed to return to court and only speak of her being released on bail in the meantime.

It was abundantly clear that this guy did this act as a political protest and informed people in the press a YEAR in advance that this was his plan. Secret service officials were informed about it and determined the guy wasn't a psycho or had a criminal background or anything else alarming, so they basically ignored it as a non-concern. Then, days before he did it, he let people know he was about to do it, too!

If you wanted to give him a slap on the wrist... say, a fine for violating the rules on airspace? Sure, I think he even fully expected as much. Perhaps confiscate his gyro-copter too. Whatever.... But banning him from setting foot in the District of Columbia and talking about YEARS of prison time? That's outrageous.

Just last week I read about a psycho woman in Oregon who bashed a guy's skull in with an aluminum baseball bat on their first date, when he went out there to finally visit her in person after a 2 year long online relationship. They only gave her a sentence of a few MONTHS in jail for the incident, despite her planning the whole thing and getting another woman to assist her with it - AND saying she got the idea from something she read or saw that said it only takes 7 pounds of pressure to snap someone's neck. Which person are you more concerned will do people physical harm in the future??

This is true, but I think Apple was mentioned specifically because people following this story from the beginning are probably most familiar with it from the technology and Apple-centric web sites, who initially praised it as evidence the iPad was going to become a big player in education.

There were always a lot of questions about whether or not the high cost of buying that many iPads was really sensible (and apparently with good reason, as the contract apparently guaranteed they'd pay $768 per iPad -- a price which is above full retail today on one).

I don't think Apple owes anyone any refunds in this situation. They provided the products that were ordered, and apparently, in good working condition.

Pearson *may* have misrepresented what they were actually selling on the software side of things, but that would be an issue for the courts to decide, should they get challenged on it.

The ridiculous thing is that the school district spent all this money, approving a plan that they clearly didn't test well enough in advance. Personally, I do think iPads could have a legitimate place in school as learning tools. But like any electronic device, they're only as good (or bad) as their implementation. For starters, I think they're expensive enough so any school purchasing them for a large group (or all?) of their students should have a cost justification plan in place as part of the project. (Basically, you'd have to get all of your physical textbooks in e-book format, negotiated as part of a deal so it's much cheaper to get them and keep them current in digital format on the iPad vs. buying the printed textbooks.)

I think you'd also have to have your school's wi-fi network in order, ensuring the iPad users can't just get online and surf random web sites. The iPads would also need to be centrally managed to protect against theft and to control which apps were installed on them, etc.

I think all of this could be done, but I'm not so confident anyone has ever successfully done all of it properly, to date? (I see so many schools who don't even seem to have a good handle on their wireless security. They'll claim students aren't allowed to use it to get to sites they're not supposed to be on, and 10 minutes later you have a student laughing because he's using their network to access porn sites via a proxy or VPN tunnel they didn't account for.)