The funny thing is both sides of that equation are saying the same thing: We're given a limited amount of resources from up the chain, and need to stretch them as far as we can. The developer is looking for more tools and ways to multiply their productivity, even if the cost is more for IT to support. IT is looking to stretch their productivity by providing standardized environments that they can provide support on, instead of trying to train everyone for the "long tail" of each developer's preferred environments.

The limiting factor in both cases is the resources given from up the chain. Often in very penny-wise and pound-foolish ways, such as thinking equipment is expensive but people's time is cheap. Either way, both sides of the equation have the same limitations from the same people, but see each other as the villains as they try to work around those imposed limitations.

What you describe sounds like a tape-per-server solution, but anyone using virtualization or even having a reasonable size will use an enterprise backup solution that's user friendly regardless if the back end is disk, tape, or both. We use TSM to tape libraries of Ultrium5 drives (and disk pools for a backup landing place/1st day restore). Need to restore files or directories? Open up the local web client, click what you want in the GUI (and potentially a point in time you want to restore it from), and it's automagically done in 1-2 minutes. Regardless if ti's last night's backup or something from 3 years ago. Most of that time is the robot loading the tape(s) and seek time - getting data off the tapes is fast.

We back up about 5TB of changes daily, and reclaim about 3.5TB of old no-longer needed data daily (much needs to be kept for extended periods for compliance issues), with over 2PB in-use storage. Power/cooling costs for tape barely move the needle, that much disk would have a large impact on our datacenters even using deduplication.

Also, we have both on-site (for speed of restore) and off-site copies of everything. Easy to do, the tapes backed up at night make copies automatically during the day. This isn't a replacement for disk replication to alternate sites for site disaster, it's for normal restores and keeping everything we need for compliance reasons safe.

I'm not saying disk is bad - disk is good. But tape is good too, and it's a different tool - fits a different niche than disk. Hammer and screwdriver will let you tackle more jobs then either one by itself.

I think I agree with your statements but not you conclusions.

Schools with lower enrollment have less classes. Which means less room for variation because teachers need to teach a whole class. Within a class, it will usually be brought down to the lowest level (of those who want to learn), exactly as you say. But, with lots of different classes you have room to have advanced classes where the ahead-of-the-curve students may be placed. The "lowest" among them will be higher, raising the bar.

Private schooling (which costs more so parents are often more involved but pays teachers less), doesn't have as many classes so it doesn't have the scope to separate out as much. Now, they do have a reputation for being tough and good schools, and I thing as a generalization they will take moderately below to moderately above students (say, one standard deviation in either direction) and raise them above the average level of a public school level, but I don't think they are best suited to the extreme outliers.

Personalized attention is what the true ends of the spectrum need. I can see how, with the right "teacher", home schooling can fill that niche. Though with how far off the curve this child seems to be, I would assume adding in subject matter experts as tutors to keep him challenged (and therefore engaged).

You want to personally log into the box and bandwidth isn't an issue, feel free to use remote desktop. And be sure that whatever youre doign have a very limited audience, since you can only have a few (two?) active at once. It's a nice tool.

You want to automate, ssh beats writing Expect scripts for telnet. And doesn't send passwords (and the session) in cleartext. Any halfway competend administrator (and every sniffer and rootkit out there) can get cleartext.

You want to transfer information, scp (secure copy, part of ssh) is encrypted. See above.

Dogmatic like for one tool just because it's a good tool doesn't do anyoen any good. Telnet has it's place (though hopefully not anywhere that wants security), and remote desktop is great tool for a very limited number of users who need a GUI session. Don't let that blind you to other tools that can solve other needs, like automation and encryption.

BTW, this isn't windows bashing. I use remote desktop, and powershell is quite nice and I want to become more fluent. It's bashing because you don't use a tool thinking the tool isn't good for others.

At $149, HP (and anywhere else I went looking) sold out all of it's stock the 32gb tablets in less than a day. It definitely seems there is a demand for tablets above the $100 price point. If $149 sells that quick, $199 or $219 might be the "sell like hotcakes yet still cover costs" point. (Well, it won't cover costs for most current tablets, but I'm staying with you about manufacturing ramping up and parts getting cheaper, just like happened to laptops.)

Recruiters won't get it, but the other way. Every recruiter I've ever worked with has thrown resume after resume towards us, hoping something sticks. "Hmm, I need a senior DB2 DBA. This resume has experience with Word, Excel ... and Access."

HR on the other hand I've found you can work with. Basically, if you're willing to do all the pre-screening yourself (so they don't have to), in general they seem more than content to give you the raw flood of resumes. It's more work, but it leaves the "HR firewall" out of the equation.

For a development position, I'd prefer to hire someone who shows strong programming concepts, can and wants to teach themselves more about any subject, and is a bit hungry for a good chance. Though the one caveat to "know how to program and picking up a language is just syntax" is that there are some concepts like procedural vs. OO that are more that just learning a new vocabulary.

The No-Fly list is actually a misnomer. I was on the list for a few years, though I don't think I'm on it anymore. For American Citizens, being on the No-Fly list is annoying (and I'll even buy unjustified and useless), but it doesn't permanently ground you.

Basically, when you check in at the front desk, the auto-check in machines will flag you, and one of the people behind the counter will come over and ask for your identification. Then they'll pretend like they're subtle, and call in to some central number. Over the phone, they'll say your name, and rattle off your birthdate, and usually some other identifying number, like your driver's license number. This is basically a background check. If you're actually wanted, and there's a warrant out for your arrest, I suspect you'd be arrested there. If you're just a person of interest, they finish checking you in and put a special marking on your boarding pass.

The mark varies from airport to airport, but it's primarily to tell the TSA security guys that you are on the list, and that you need extra screening before they let you on the plane. Sometimes, this is cool, because it lets you go into a separate security line that's shorter. Sometimes it's not so cool, because someone's probably going to touch your junk. Often times you get the puffer machine, the pat down, the metal detector wand, etc. It seems to depend a lot on the airport. If you clear that, you're in the clear, and you're just like any other passenger.

They may also do additional screening on checked bags, but that was always out of my field of view, so I have no idea what they did with my stuff.

You may be asking "How do you know that you're on the no fly list?" My understanding is that airport personelle aren't supposed to tell you, but after a few years of going through this routine, I asked someone at the desk one time during the background call. He said, "You're on the No-Fly list. Well, what's most likely is that there's someone else out there with your same name who has a felony warrant out for their arrest. If you were to book your tickets using your middle initial, you probably wouldn't have to go through this."

Sure enough, once I started booking with my middle initial after my first name, I stopped getting extra screening. A few years ago they implemented the identifying characteristics system (gender & birthdate when buying tickets), I haven't been harassed near as much as I used to be, which may mean the list is a lot more refined than it used to be.

At least, this is the deal for US citizens. I've heard foreigners who are No-Fly listed literally cannot fly into or out of the U.S.

The preamble of the United States constitution reads: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." (emphasis added)

Article I, section 8 reinforces this general welfare statement by remarking: "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." (more emphasis added).

Insofar as Planned Parenthood encourages the development of families that are planned and not just accidents, ACORN encourages get out the vote projects to enhance American democracy, General Electric, General Motors, and Chrysler provide gainful employment for Americans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provide opportunities for home ownership, and the like, I think you reasonably have to say the goal is to provide for the general welfare.

You and I are welcome to disagree over whether those are the best ways to promote the general welfare (and in many cases, though not all, I suspect we would be in agreement, despite this post). However, the constitution is pretty clear that the US government has a general broad right to promote the general welfare in the United States.

I should also like to add, one of the primary advocates of the United States Constitution during the period leading up to its ratification was Alexander Hamilton, who was originally in favor of setting up a fairly powerful monarch. He lost out on the the first draft of the Constitution -- the Articles of Confederation -- which provided for a much more limited government. However, we threw that in the toilet and opted for the Constitution, which was designed to strengthen and centralize the Federal government's power, not really limit it (though it does have its own limitations laid out in the Bill of Rights).

Look, I'm pretty sympathetic to the Jeffersonian minimalist government ideal. But the Constitution isn't a Jeffersonian document. It's a Hamiltonian and Madisonian one, and those guys were more for centralized power than the original founders were. Insofar as that's the government we got, that's the government we got.

If you've taken my money to provide me a product, and then don't deliver the product, you're guilty of theft, fraud, or something. If you aren't going to delever the product because you don't want to do business with me, give me my money back.

Anyway, I don't want to live in a world where it's okay for a restaurant to discriminate against who it serves for where they work, or for employers who can do anything for what you do when not on the clock. Nor for companies that "sell" me something but still try to control it, including saying that I can't play it.

Except that if you read the article, it isn't a flaw, it's intentional in their EA Community terms of service. Those specifically will lock you out of content.

They were explicitly and willfully locking him out of any downloads for a reported forum post. It could have been no new content, it could have been five games he bought in a bundle. Either way, it's intentional by EA.

I like some of your ideas, others I don't think are workable.

Excellent!

Read about the Gilt Age in America. Prior to income tax the money could really get concentrated in a few hands. The Vanderbilts and Astors are good examples. The super rich made money faster than they spent it and it increased the divide between rich and poor.

Also of concern is how this would affect our national debt and payment for other projects (such as health care below).

Many big money corporations already move money overseas. Ireland was a big place to do so until very recently, Switzerland is another place. That's because the corporate tax rates are lower.

If multinational corporations have to pay more taxes in US, won't that encourage them to move more out of the country? The tariff will help keep some production jobs in the country, but more service jobs will flee overseas like we're already seeing with outsourcing.

The cost of the tariff will also be passed along to the final consumer, so the cost of living will increase while the service job market will shrink.

Good to promise, but see my concerns above about the government having any money.

Again, see comments about paying for it.

Excellent.

Though will this add additional job seekers to the shrinking job market?

Unalloyed Excellent. DHS is insta-government after the fear of 9/11.

P.S. - the short version of this story should be:

"Politicians with little knowledge of computers are talking about the internet again."

I don't expect the FTC chairman to be tech savvy, but there isn't anyone at the FTC that can tell him what is and isn't technically feasible?