I totally understand what they're doing and that's fine if they want to operate in that way. Its people just need to realize this and use the name and prestige its name on their resume brings when they hop to a smaller but potentially more enjoyable organization.

The IT world is certainly competitive; however, ALL companies should see the internal benefits to training employees and working to ensure they do not leave. Companies with the mindset you laid out above are doing themselves a double disservice by not training their employees and leveraging the benefits and immediate returns provided by investments in their human capital. In some fields and with some resources, professional development is seen as a bigger happiness motivator and retention tool than more salary.

What you have outlined above is a company which is not interested in its people and only its immediate bottom line and one where it's clear its people should move on regardless of payscale and internal short-term opportunity provided.

As someone who has repeatedly attended and presented at conferences in my field, I make it a point during negotiations for any new job to ensure these are funded fully but only if I am presenting; otherwise, I opt to share in the costs associated in attending with my employer.

Each and every company I have worked at in the past (and current) has a budget for training and professional development of its employees, some more than others; however, by making a case that I am giving back to a community of like-minded professionals and putting our name and brand out there during presentations, I have found this is an easy sell for companies for which I want to work.

I work extensively w/SAS and utilize a lot of the conference (SAS Global Forum/SUGI prior) materials in my day to day both for myself and our entire organization. By making it clear to my employers that I want to give back by presenting, I have opened organization's view on how the sharing of information benefits the business while benefiting the entire industry.

Make your determination and desires known when you sign on and, if that is not an option, make it clear to your management that you want to do the same thing. While I have received a variety of different types of pushback over the years for this view, they have all relented and ended up changing their world view when the benefits are presented as they are.

Conferences are not inexpensive (SAS Global Forum is usually around $3000 - $3500 for a single person encompassing travel, conference registration, lodging, meals, etc) but the ROI can be HUGE beyond that depending on the knowledge transfers that occur, the networking opportunities, and the new business development which I have seen from these conferences.

While I did not attend SASGF 2014 this year, it was solely due to my available time to develop a presentation topic, not because my company would not send me (this was my first missed attendance since I became involved in the SAS world) and I look forward to contributing to and learning from others in the future.

Best of luck.

I love how the default attitude is spite. Blame America for doing something wrong, instead of the obvious choice - make your own version of kickstarter. With blackjack, and hookers. Then you don't have to listen to what the Americans say at all. Better yet, you can exclude Americans from participating. You can even go so far as to redirect any American IP address to a landing page where you let them know all the problems you have with the US federal government.

Kickstarter doesn't do deals outside the USA for well-known legal reasons. Maybe you can discover what these are when you start your own - but you won't, so the question is moot. Still, I wish someone would. I just don't see it happening, though.

The communist party has a hand in pretty much every large Chinese corporation these days, and in the end they have the final call

I think you do not rightly know what socialism means.

How sad to be inoculated like this, locked inside your own brain, unable to accept that maybe your side might be the ones who are evil from time to time. It's an evidence-proof worldview, and it's depressingly popular.

The rate of extreme poverty in China rate fell to 12% in 2010. Guess how much it was in 1981, when they had real socialism? The kind of socialism where people went to prison for being right-wingers. 84%.

It's funny how you call for a truce and say neither is right...when socialism insists that it is 100% right all the time, and is not joking.

the simple distastefulness of having barefoot poverty within the US.

Yeah, who is really going to cry for rural white Americans trapped in this cycle? Nobody.

Also, "so backward that nobody wants to be a farmer"? WTF? Farmers are, by definition, backward. They live in shithole nowhere-land. There is no culture, no art, no theater, no learning. Just figuring out how to make money from a patch of land, and molesting your daughters. Who feels sorry for these bitter clingers?

Is this because ISIS stories conflict with your worldview of Muslims as peaceful? It is very important to see stories that challenge us. If we don't do that, then we're nothing but redneck hillbillies. Do you or don't you agree with stories that challenge us to change our preconceptions that were formed from the basis of feeling rather than fact?

It doesn't matter what the 'perspective' is. All that matters is science. If you're against science, you lose, period. BTW I love the racism in your comment where you say Westerners can understand things but people of color lack the ability. I bet they love you down at the KKK hall on Saturday nights.

Nice try, however it is the Left that has allied with the Islamists. The GOP is violently allergic to Islamism.

"Over the past year, multiple international conferences have featured leaders of the anti-global left and Islamist groups working together. Go to any anti-war or anti-globalization demonstration in the West and chances are you will see the flags of Hezbollah and Hamas waved by people wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. And at some of these meetings, members of such radical Islamist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah have enjoyed starring roles."

Whooh...the injection of facts is surely inconvenient. Ouch!

Long-time government contractor with a history of blowing budgets and under-delivering gets new, lucrative NASA contract. Newsflash: SpaceX was never going to get that contract.

There are three professions where being untruthful is the key to success: Lawyers, salespeople, and marketing. All three are hired to portray their client in the most favorable light possible, and the very best ones lie through their teeth. The worst of these three are the marketers because they have legions of psychologists and scientists trying to figure out the best way to lie to people.

Probably not an issue for 99.99% of the population, but last time I checked, Untangle does not support IPv6 and has no plans on doing so. Also, Most of the interesting modules require a monthly subscription. I ran Untangle as a vm on an vsphere 5 hypervisor for a couple of years and it did the job ok. However, it is a cpu and memory hog which is surprising for being a firewall/security appliance. And probably the most annoying is the horrible user interface. They tried to make it look like a rack which is just silly. You'd be better off getting a Zyxell Zywall USG and mounting it in a real rack.

Since your question was not clear as to whether you wanted to connect to a vpn for outgoing traffic encryption, or to provide secure access to your home network, I will assume that you want both. I've got a zyxel usg50 at home and a usg100 at my office and they have been able to handle everything I have thrown at them. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0042.... I was also pleased that when the whole Heartbleed fiasco appeared, the zywall firmware was not vulnerable at all. Dual WAN connections are supported which lets me use both my AT&T Uverse and Charter Cable internet access with load balancing. The only negative that I can note are the several features on the zywall that require monthly subscriptions. But, since I don't use those, there is no loss to me.

In the past, I have built my own firewalls either on dedicated hardware, or as a vm on an esxi hypervisor, from Linux ipchains to netfilter to BSD pfSense. While I love to roll my own, having such a critical piece of infrastructure as dedicated hardware has made life much easier.