I am just imagining how fun random fire would be. Although it is not truly random if there is no possibility that you face can light you a$$ on fire.

We will of course implement the same mildly retarded AI that is currently used. So if they cannot see you then you are not there. Even if the box you are crouching behind is shooting them.

-matt

I think you are missing a minor but very important detail. Fanboys don't contribute, people who actually contribute to Open Source (not just download the latest copy of Ubuntu) really don't care if you use their code. A contributor has to have the realistic expectation that you cannot write software that will do everything for everyone, and if you try, you will fail (either that or you just created skynet and we are all going to die). Nobody likes fanboys, but we are talking about contributors here, not fanboys.

-matt

Reason number 1,456,930 why not to use UPnP.
The whole idea behind UPnP is that you can have any program dynamically change configuration on your router/firewall (read: open/close ports, create NAT entries). Do you see any problem with this? If not perhaps searching for "Problems with UPnP" will make things more clear.

-matt

Not that I completely disagree with your point of routers needing to be simpler, however I think we are dealing with another issue here. Game companies stopped writing games to be firewall friendly, and documenting the ports that are needed for connections. Then the move from dedicated servers to peer-to-peer matchmaking has made that even more difficult. I remember playing many games online around 2000 that had well defined ports which needed to be opened or NAT'd. Now-a-days good luck, the companies just defer to UPnP (which is not used by anyone who understands the inherent risk in having a program open ports on your firewall without any sort of authentication).

Also it is important to note that the majority of the open-source community is contributed by hobbyists, hobbyists do not care about market share. Also to be honest most don't care about designing software for the masses, they care about designing software which does what it does and does it well (most likely the function it performs is something that the contributor needs or finds neat). Then if users have a need to do what your software does then they can use it... Users need to learn to use software, software doesn't need to learn how to use people (sounds a bit Matrix-like).

-matt

I could not disagree with you more. The vast majority of these people who "can't pay for insurance" still manage to pay for an iPod or a Cell Phone or a form of reliable transportation (read: new car in most cases 2). The issue is a simple lack of responsibility, most people do not write a budget for the money they spend. Because of that they run out of money before they run out of month (obviously our governments at all levels are doing this - which simply shows how ingrained in our society that this practice is). This is the core of the problem.
The most offensive thing about this entire argument is that American's have NO IDEA what poverty is (myself included). In America we have "a social safety net" part of which is government provided and part of which is privately provided. The fact is that if you get hit by a bus someone will stitch you up. If you are hungry you can go to a food bank/soup kitchen or enroll in WIC or food stamps or if you have kids we will buy your kids breakfast and lunch at school.
America does not have a healthcare problem. We do have a health-funding problem. But it is mostly on an individual basis and this cannot be solved at a governmental level.

All addons are installed from https://addons.mozilla.org/ so block it. This way they only get the addons that you have previously installed. You can also look at Firefox ADM to see what group policy settings you can control. Or you can let the users choose what they want. The fact is that if it works for them why would you want to stand in the way of that. On some of my machines I have vanilla firefox, and on some I have firefox with 15+ addons. I personally have never had an issue with broken addons ending my browsing experience (though I have seen some people have this happen).

Regardless of if Microsoft and anyone at the company had any sort of under-the-table arrangement... The fact is that IT should never drive the business in a Public or Private organization. IT exists to facilitate the organization not the other way around. If the IT department can better facilitate the organization using only MS products then so be it. However it is clearly not the case that they are "facilitating" by uninstalling the preferred web browser simply because it exists (not to say that the use of Firefox should be supported). When IT starts trying to drive your business that it is when a regime change is in order. Now if the policies that IT are enforcing are coming from higher than IT, then the problem is usually related to the leaders of the business not understanding enough about IT (and the leadership of IT not providing the education to them so that they can make intelligent decisions). Good Luck you are in what I would call a pickle.

My point is that if you can't convince the HR folks that you are the right person for the job then why should you be able to talk to the Hiring Manager? Besides when was the last time that you saw a job description that did not say "or equivalent experience" right after the degree requirement.

That said a degree is not a bad thing, however if you have 1 year of help desk experience and you think a Masters will fix your career then you are sadly mistaken. Also correct me if I am wrong but if after 12 years of IT consulting experience you plan on getting a degree to do the same job I would think that would be a huge mistake since for a consultant degrees do not add a lot of market value.

As to your original point of if a degree is required then you will never get an interview, this is perhaps true but that assumes that you will be playing by HRs rules for the hiring process, assuming you are more than qualified for the position, a quick conversation with the hiring manager to introduce yourself and explain the situation would be more than enough to get an interview regardless of HRs willingness in most companies.

-matt

The bottom line is that companies will hire without education, but they will not hire without experience (even someone with education). If you do run into a company that is requiring a degree (specifically). Then the problem is that they do not understand the job well enough to hire someone into it. It is your job at that point to sell yourself to them, show them why they were wrong in requiring a degree by explaining your experience, and also that this experience cannot be taught in school. I have found that most people understand that experience is far more important than education (after all keg-stands and beer bongs bring very little value to a company - unless of course your company sells kegs and beer bongs). Fact is that there is no job on this planet that is not attainable school or not, you just need to be able to convince the other guy that you can do it better than anyone with an attendance sheet from a University.

If you are truly motivated and it is time for a move, hit your resume hard (biggest recommendation here is to cut out the fluff - all of it), start shopping for jobs, and start showing up for interviews (a lower paying job in this economy will pay dividends if you get some experience).

-matt

I would disagree with getting his MSc, based on the information provided since at this point he has no experience to speak of. All we know is that he has one year of helpdesk experience, now add that with a MSc and what is he really qualified for? I would say he would be overqualified for the helpdesk (with a MSc comes the expectation of a certain amount of $$$), however in a traditional Sysadmin/Architecture all the way up to Director/VP role companies are looking for someone who has experience, an MSc with 1 year of helpdesk will not meet these expectations, so without knowing someone you won't get the job, and to be honest if you knew someone you would already have the job.

Now the fact is that companies are hiring much to the contrary of what is being reported. Many companies are using this as an opportunity to acquire extremely intelligent and motivated people, since there is less competition for a given candidate. So if you do not have a BS I would recommend going for it IF you can go and maintain a job at the same time (because it is the experience you need). If you cannot manage both, experience is much more important in this market, and at this point you should keep your job and maintain and grow your skillset, which does not prevent you from a little self-study. Companies that are at that size are rife with opportunities for projects which would look very good on your resume, do everything with the goal of reducing expenitures and/or improving productivity in some sort of quantifiable way. This is the way to get the attention of the boss (not whining about your current position).

-matt

You mean hammers aren't meant to be thrown at 10 yards?

I agree with the premise of your post, however I have a pet peeve about quoted statistics that are not properly cited. That said (assuming the accuracy of your uncited statistics) I do find it ironic that as an adult I am more likely to be killed in some tragic tricycle related accident then cleaning my gun... It is kind of comforting.

I would agree with you 100%, even though I do not have a degree and I am very well paid in IT. That said, the easiest way to get around the 'degree = better' mindset is to make sure that someone can NEVER take you and another applicant with a degree and compare you both apples to apples. Be the orange. The only way to do this is to be smarter than the other guy, and all the smarts in the world are not going to get you the job if you come off like an idiot, so you will need to be able to speak and sell yourself too. If you do this you will never lose to someone of equal knowledge with a degree. Also keep in mind that if this is how you are going to job search in this manner you have to be selective. Don't apply for jobs with a shotgun (otherwise you will be applying for jobs that you are not 100% qualified - which means you will not be the orange). Pick your jobs and follow them through to the end.

-matt