Posts by Karmashock

Mainframe staffing dilemma bedevils CIO dependents

Apparently just training someone for the position is total rocket science for these companies.

It is a consistent thing with IT hiring. They think they can just hire someone out of a newspaper with a very specific skill set that is often unique to their company. I had one company baffled that they couldn't find anyone that didn't have 5 years experience with a proprietary bit of software the company uses. Finding someone outside of the company with that experience off the shelf is literally impossible.

I don't know what is going on here. I think the CIOs need to work with HR or something work out the depreciation of employees so that they can be replaced at a reasonable rate. Train up your low level techs to be mid level techs. Train your mid levels to be high levels. Train your high levels to be critical specialists. And offer a management track for your techs as well. You trap them in some little room with no way out and they're going to look for other jobs.

NO ONE is making money from YouTube, even Google – report

Nonsense

First off there are many content makers that are supporting themselves entirely with youtube streams. A more extreme example would be Pewdeepie who was even featured on South Park. So people make money on youtube. Will everyone be a success? Nope. Welcome to the real world. Failure exists.

As to artists being pushed into cheapo contracts, that sucks if that is really happening. Contracts should be linked to a percentage of ad revenue whatever that is... so artists that no one cares about get zero dollars because no one watches them and artists that get lots of views DESERVE to be paid their share of the money.

Is google making money on it? Lots of tech companies don't make money on things. Amazon famously makes no money for example despite pretty much dominating internet sales. Most of these companies are breaking even while at the same time growing rapidly. I think the idea is not to make money but to reinvest all earnings into growth. And so... earnings don't happen.

Does this suck for the investor? Only if your interest is in dividends and most of these companies don't issue them. So if the company reinvest all earnings into growth before they even become earnings the investor isn't hurt by that.

Who is? Possibly the tax man. If I make no money then you can't tax my income because I have none. See the genius of it?

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this systemic lack of earnings is a clever accounting trick to have no income so you pay no income tax. Given again that they don't issue dividends... the investor shouldn't care. The company increases in value and they own shares so those shares increase in value.

Everyone wins... with the possible exception of the IRS... but it is understood by pretty much everyone in my society that if you can find a legal loophole to not pay a tax then you're stupid not to do it.

Look into the tax angle. Bet you a shiny new zinc filled penny that this is a tax dodge scheme... a pretty damn funny one too.

Chipotle insider trading: Disproving the efficient markets hypothesis

You're blaming government mismanagement on the market.

1. you're saying the free market is bad because it doesn't account for carbon. All you have to do there is tax the extraction/importation of fossilized/sequestered hydrocarbons. That is it. Any other carbon producer is going to be getting their NET INCREASE carbon FROM those sources. If they pay a tax or the goods are taxed then everything else in the rest of the economic chain will have already paid. You don't need some incredibly complex system. Slap a tax on oil, coal, and natural gas... and you're done. Of course, you're going to have to put an import duty on anything that comes from overseas that didn't have such a tax slapped on it over seas. But again... not that hard.

2. The patent/copyright system used to work quite well. It has been allowed to deteriorate over the years.

3. You only get companies offering such low wages because the government subsidization models make it profitable. When you give people free food, free healthcare, free housing, and free education they don't need to make as much money to live. And that means companies don't need to pay people as much to get them to work. Am I saying you take all that away? I'd prefer if it made it easier for people to afford all these things on their own dime. Which is entirely practical if costs are competitive and red tape is kept to a minimum.

The free market can't do a lot of things. It is very bad at forcing people to do things. The market is about consent. Anything you'd like people to just "do" without having to put a gun against their heads to make them do it... should be done through the market.

'Bill Gates swallowing bike on a beach' is ideal password say boffins

Mnemonics are not new

My grandmother's generation used them to study in college.

I use them to memorize passwords.

A really simple example would be:

4MhalLwFwwaS4

Very easy to remember that password and I just made it up. Why? Because the password is a combination of two things I can remember.

1. A phrase or string of words that are very easy to remember.

2. A system or set of rules that turns that phase into a password.

In this case:

Mary had a little lamb who's fleece was white as snow.

With this rule set:

A. Take the first letter of each word.

B. Capitalize nouns.

C. List the number of letters in the first word and last word at the beginning and end of the password.

The password is very easy to remember though you might have to decode it a bit in your head sometimes.

Take a string of song lyrics. A poem. A famous quotation. A children's nursery rhyme. Something you will remember. Come up with a set of rules you won't forget.

Then associate that password with that text string.

Using this method you can actually write down hints to your passwords in plain text right next to the password input and no one will be able to guess your passwords.

Doctor Who becomes an illogical, unscientific, silly soap opera in Kill The Moon

Dr Who has been like this for a long time

Sonic Screwdriver? It thinks it is being clever and irreverent like a Samuel Beckett play but it just comes off as confused.

I'd prefer more of a Twilight Zone format. Have each episode be a little story from a different author and try to keep each story self consistent so they make sense within their own context.

I gave the new doctor a try... watched about half of the release episode... quickly realized it was more of the same... labeled it as "not for me"... and moved on.