The fact is, it isn't as simple as that. Very rarely will you have a shop that is set up where EVERYTHING is stored in the cloud and it's possible to reimage machines on a whim - often times there are cloud features available but users choose to ignore them in favor of the local hard drive.
Yes, it's possible to lock that down too but only to a certain extent. No one backs up their information, or if they do, they use their email account to do so and then freak out if they are told, quite correctly, that they need to knock it off if they want their email to be more responsive. There's a hard limit for a reason - we don't run an email server just to store your kids' 10 MP resolution PNG files.
There's always the exceptions to the rule, the idiots who happen to be louder than the IT department and insist on using non-standard storage and obtaining admin rights through illicit means (coercion, manipulation, outright lying, etc.), and the supervisors who are just too pissed off and worrying about other things to be concerned with them.
And let's not forget the asshats who will bitch and moan until the cows come home if you forget to back up that random hidden folder with their personal items in it, despite their having signed, at their orientation, a form basically telling them in no uncertain terms that work systems belonged to the company and they could be fired for using company resources for personal use.
It's great to talk about how companies need to take a lighter approach to employee treatment and allow them to do whatever it is that they want, but no one understands just how much more of a burden that is for IT to deal with. No one gets that just being able to see this one joke site or this one girl's myspace page full of poorly coded HTML and possibly dangerous SQL injections can cause damage, not just to their computer (resulting in ALL of their pictures / music / work emails / etc.) but to the servers passing the information along, to their co-workers computers, and any devices connected to their computer as well (iPod, thumbdrives, etc.).
Oh, and let's not forget the risk to corporate secrets when you open up a buttload of corporate computers to the public internet. Wave goodbye to any hope of keeping embarassing secrets from going public immediately. Watch the stock price plunge faster than Gates McFadden's career post-Star Trek: TNG.
Opening everything up to the public is a great ideal but so is communism.
Point by point, brother. That's how we're gonna do this.
1) If those small businesses go out of business because Walmart shows up, then they probably deserved to go out of business. Have YOU come from a town like that? Walmart offers cheaper prices and better selection (and 9 times out of 10 far nicer employees - no surly attitudes!) for consumers, so if the small businesses can't compete with them, it means they're doing it wrong. Survival of the fittest - it's how capitalism works. Oh, and those 5,000 employees who lose their jobs at those small businesses? They go over to Walmart and get a job there, with better benefits and rewards for doing their job well, whereas their previous job had nowhere to go but down.
2) "Some" unions? Do you even understand what the point of a union is? Unions exist to force employers to do what they want, and to use the government to back them up. Look up the Wagner Act next time you get a minute and you'll see what I mean. The problem with unions is that they tie the hands of people actually running a company and force their will on them, while taking money from both the company and the workers. They are a leech on the economy and the best companies out there right now are ones that are disassociated with the unions. No company owes their workers ANYTHING - they all simply recognize that workers have a choice as to where they'll work and benefits (which are things someone offers you as thanks for the job you do) are used to try and sway workers to that company's staff. The better job you do, the more benefits you get. That's how things work in a free market. You do a good job, you get rewarded for it.
3) Those fatcats got where they are by working their butts off and doing their level best. Yes, every so often you'll see cases of nepotism but by and large if someone's in an executive-level position, they fought like a dog to get there. You're basically saying that these people who've jumped at every opportunity to get ahead and proved their worth to the company need to take a pay cut so that the unions can take that money and toss it into another bloated benefits package that the company is saddled with for workers who have specific and rudimentary job functions, and who refuse to go outside those job functions even if it means goodwill towards the employer and the possibility of higher pay for doing extra work.
I really have to wonder - did you think "The Grapes of Wrath" was historically accurate? Does your concept of unions come from Hollywood's various portrayals of them? Because it doesn't sound like you're a very informed person.
Am I the only one who read this and thought of the Monty Python's Holy Grail opening credits?
"The directors of the firm hired to continue the credits after the other
people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been
sacked.
The credits have been completed in an entirely different style at
great expense and at the last minute."
Aside from his books, the thing he's most known for is writing what every fan acknowledges is the best Star Trek episode in existence, "The City on the Edge of Forever."
In almost every commentary on that episode or any other Star Trek episode dealing with time travel, it's noted that no one revisited his thrilling story with a follow-up (at least not officially, anyway) in ANY of the following episodes or any of the subsequent movies or spinoff shows, nor did they ever use the character/plot device of the Guardian of Forever (despite its incredible popularity) simply because no one wanted to deal with him at Paramount. I believe, I don't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure, I read somewhere that even JJ Abrams, when writing the upcoming Star Trek movie wanted to use that plot device but was unwilling to deal with Harlan himself.
It's also why, even though all of the Star Trek actors, directors, other writers and production staff were at the WGA protests last year, and even though they all typically appeared together in videos covering the event, no one appeared with Harlan.
Now granted, he's entitled to what was agreed upon in the first place between himself and (at the time) Desilu Studios for the episode he wrote. Legally though, once the package is put together everything becomes Paramount's property. If they make money on it, the writers get some money for it (not sure how much or how long). That's it though. Harlan's mistaken belief that he somehow controls the characters and plot of his stories and that he ought to get paid any time derivative works are used is simply ludicrous.
Perfect analogy: he's put all of his characters and plots and plot devices and other such creations behind a paywall. If/when he frees his content we'll see more creative adaptations and uses of these things.
Please be advised that your defamatory and mocking language towards me constitutes hate speech, libel, playground bickering, intense dislike, sarcasm, deceptive depiction of another human being and animal abuse (I am a dog).
I have asked my lawyer, a Mr. Rev. Capt. Leonard J. "Electric Britches" Crabs, Esquire, Inc., successful representative, demigod, superhero and debtor to the stars, especially SomethingAwful.com, to do something bad to you involving legal maneuvering, voodoo, spyware, and things I saw on Matlock.
If you do not comply with my take down notice (the one I scribbled in lipstick on your bathroom mirror the other day), I will be forced to yell very loudly nasty things about you, especially how you've left my kitchen a mess every time you broken in, and how my cat can never look me in the eye after what you did yesterday.
"...here comes the new boss, same as the old boss..."
I'd like twenty dollars per character (including spaces) for any quote or reply based on this comment. Non-compliance will result in "not fun" things happening to you or your company.
Yes but what he's getting at is different. Honda not allowing you to buy a tire off their car isn't the same because you can turn around and buy a compatible tire for the same car (probably at a lower price) from another company.
For Apple, if they only allowed the iPod to sync with iTunes, that would be illegal linking - right now, you can use the iPod with any syncing software, Apple just encourages you to use iTunes and people tend to use what the manufacturer says anyway.
Psystar, I think, has a case here - for Apple to sell their closed-source version of Darwin (yes, that's all it is, just with lots of GUI extras on top) and then tell you that you can't use it on your choice of system is just as wrong as Honda telling you that while you can certainly buy the car, or the tires, you can only use them on roads that Honda either owns and has sold you, or has constructed on their own and restricts to their cars only.
Full disclosure: I've worked for many years with many different organizations towards the goal of eliminating abortion as an option.
Having said that, I agree with Mike - censoring one or two terms in a search engine is not the way to go if you want to keep your federal funding. I really doubt that this was prompted by anyone with a pro-life or pro-abortion agenda - it may have come instead from someone wishing to look as though they are attempting to comply with this policy in as cheap and effective a manner as possible.
Think about it - if they'd taken any other action to do this, such as removing Planned Parenthood literature or removing from their positions doctors and nurses who have a blatant bent in favor of abortion, it would've been either seen as too much or too little. This way, they get publicity, support from those on the right who don't read into it and eventual support on the left from those who want the search term put back. Cheap publicity from blocking one word - you've got to hand it to them, no matter what you think, they've really got a fabulous PR strategy here.
This would seem to be more appropriate fodder for a site like Daily Koz or Huffington Post - not a technology-centric blog like Techdirt.
I might be persuaded that it would be appropriate here if it left out the bias for one side or the other. If I wanted to see an endorsement of House and Senate Democrats and a trashing of the President, I could go to any number of other sites or watch any of the Big Three's news programs, or watch any Oscar- or Emmy-nominated film. I'm looking for unbiased technology analysis, not political hackery and hatchet jobs.
Looks like yet another example (wow there's a lot out there) of the Streisand Effect at work. I'm pretty sure he didn't want anyone to know what people were saying about him - and frankly I'm absolutely certain US citizens had no idea who this guy was beforehand - but it's out in the open now!
Also, it looks like someone made a website based on your phrase coinage, Mike.. http://www.thestreisandeffect.com/
You know, I would just laugh out loud if you decided to send over a C&D to that guy - I mean, he is using your name and concept on a site that earns money! You should sue! Sic 'em!
First, let's start with spelling. You need to take a second and check your spelling before you post anything - it's just good manners.
Second, let's look at the issue. If you are the network administrator, and you have sixty people using bandwidth-intensive external websites, there are a number of things you could do to make your job a little easier.
A) Meet with the employees in small groups to explain exactly what's going on. Show them physical examples (bring a six inch length of PVC pipe and start sticking items into it, as an idea), describe what's going on, and make it clear that what they do makes your job THAT much harder. Phrase it like that - people aren't simply going to listen to "don't do this", but they'll certainly get that what they do affects you personally, and that will sting them.
B) You could also meet with their supervisors and let them know what's going on, if it is your goal to quash these sites entirely (I disagree with that approach but let's continue). Show them what's going on, perhaps using the physical example I showed you before, perhaps in some other fashion. Give them some options for dealing with this: more bandwidth, which would eliminate the bandwidth crunch and give you some breathing room; blocking of all non-essential outside traffic, which will increase calls to your helpdesk with users complaining (and which will not do much for executive users who will almost always find a way to squirrel around this, what with their doo-doo smelling of the finest roses and all); blocking of sites on a per-impact basis, which will make your job a living nightmare of playing cat and mouse with the latest video or audio websites.
Just saying as you do that the economy is bad (it isn't) doesn't get you anywhere. It sounds less like a problem with the network you have and more a problem with how you are able (or not) to handle it. I'm in IT (if you haven't already guessed) and understand completely where you're coming from and what you're going through, as I'm sure a number of people have who've read this, but you need to take a step back and understand that if they don't want to fix it, you can't let it consume you. You can just suggest an approach to fix it - carrying it out is up to the money men and if they say no, I wouldn't necessarily block it - I'd just let them deal with low bandwidth and let them deal with it. Starve it out of them, basically - it works, I promise.
I don't think it's a good idea to tack on criminal charges to something like this, because here's what would happen: the government would do what it always does and start regulating "how" secure systems need to be, setting a low bar for companies, allowing them to skirt around this further. Those that can't afford it would face closure/bankruptcy.
Think about it - they may have only been able to afford X amount of bandwidth per user and due to the popularity they've well exceeded that at this point. Just saying, don't be hating.
I completely and totally agree with you (it's really hard not to) and you are a truly fantastic writer. I just wanted to point out that the sentence where you mention Madonna and Radiohead would sound much better if you removed "they're using".
The project from the start has been misguided. If you want to help these children, change the system that put them in such a horrible squalor in the first place. Help the parents of these children find decent, stable jobs without having to worry about being murdered or kidnapped on the way to work or school. Help the people of these nations reject leaders who take in money donated from overseas and keep it all for themselves while the people they lead are dying of diseases that western civilization wiped out over a century and a half ago. OLPC represents a significant advance in technology, and that's wonderful, but advanced technology doesn't put food on the table in the immediate sense. It also doesn't change the present situation for the people in this absolutely disgusting situation.
... and I'll let you in on this wonderful real estate deal in Lower Manhattan. It's about this bridge.... goes to Brooklyn, kinda big, kinda old, good condition though. Think of all the ad space you could sell on it! Really good price, going fast!
Good points and bad points
The fact is, it isn't as simple as that. Very rarely will you have a shop that is set up where EVERYTHING is stored in the cloud and it's possible to reimage machines on a whim - often times there are cloud features available but users choose to ignore them in favor of the local hard drive.
Yes, it's possible to lock that down too but only to a certain extent. No one backs up their information, or if they do, they use their email account to do so and then freak out if they are told, quite correctly, that they need to knock it off if they want their email to be more responsive. There's a hard limit for a reason - we don't run an email server just to store your kids' 10 MP resolution PNG files.
There's always the exceptions to the rule, the idiots who happen to be louder than the IT department and insist on using non-standard storage and obtaining admin rights through illicit means (coercion, manipulation, outright lying, etc.), and the supervisors who are just too pissed off and worrying about other things to be concerned with them.
And let's not forget the asshats who will bitch and moan until the cows come home if you forget to back up that random hidden folder with their personal items in it, despite their having signed, at their orientation, a form basically telling them in no uncertain terms that work systems belonged to the company and they could be fired for using company resources for personal use.
It's great to talk about how companies need to take a lighter approach to employee treatment and allow them to do whatever it is that they want, but no one understands just how much more of a burden that is for IT to deal with. No one gets that just being able to see this one joke site or this one girl's myspace page full of poorly coded HTML and possibly dangerous SQL injections can cause damage, not just to their computer (resulting in ALL of their pictures / music / work emails / etc.) but to the servers passing the information along, to their co-workers computers, and any devices connected to their computer as well (iPod, thumbdrives, etc.).
Oh, and let's not forget the risk to corporate secrets when you open up a buttload of corporate computers to the public internet. Wave goodbye to any hope of keeping embarassing secrets from going public immediately. Watch the stock price plunge faster than Gates McFadden's career post-Star Trek: TNG.
Opening everything up to the public is a great ideal but so is communism.
Re: Re: Walmart unions
Point by point, brother. That's how we're gonna do this.
1) If those small businesses go out of business because Walmart shows up, then they probably deserved to go out of business. Have YOU come from a town like that? Walmart offers cheaper prices and better selection (and 9 times out of 10 far nicer employees - no surly attitudes!) for consumers, so if the small businesses can't compete with them, it means they're doing it wrong. Survival of the fittest - it's how capitalism works. Oh, and those 5,000 employees who lose their jobs at those small businesses? They go over to Walmart and get a job there, with better benefits and rewards for doing their job well, whereas their previous job had nowhere to go but down.
2) "Some" unions? Do you even understand what the point of a union is? Unions exist to force employers to do what they want, and to use the government to back them up. Look up the Wagner Act next time you get a minute and you'll see what I mean. The problem with unions is that they tie the hands of people actually running a company and force their will on them, while taking money from both the company and the workers. They are a leech on the economy and the best companies out there right now are ones that are disassociated with the unions. No company owes their workers ANYTHING - they all simply recognize that workers have a choice as to where they'll work and benefits (which are things someone offers you as thanks for the job you do) are used to try and sway workers to that company's staff. The better job you do, the more benefits you get. That's how things work in a free market. You do a good job, you get rewarded for it.
3) Those fatcats got where they are by working their butts off and doing their level best. Yes, every so often you'll see cases of nepotism but by and large if someone's in an executive-level position, they fought like a dog to get there. You're basically saying that these people who've jumped at every opportunity to get ahead and proved their worth to the company need to take a pay cut so that the unions can take that money and toss it into another bloated benefits package that the company is saddled with for workers who have specific and rudimentary job functions, and who refuse to go outside those job functions even if it means goodwill towards the employer and the possibility of higher pay for doing extra work.
I really have to wonder - did you think "The Grapes of Wrath" was historically accurate? Does your concept of unions come from Hollywood's various portrayals of them? Because it doesn't sound like you're a very informed person.
Monty Python
Am I the only one who read this and thought of the Monty Python's Holy Grail opening credits?
"The directors of the firm hired to continue the credits after the other
people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been
sacked.
The credits have been completed in an entirely different style at
great expense and at the last minute."
Harlan Ellison: Creativity Destroyer
Aside from his books, the thing he's most known for is writing what every fan acknowledges is the best Star Trek episode in existence, "The City on the Edge of Forever."
In almost every commentary on that episode or any other Star Trek episode dealing with time travel, it's noted that no one revisited his thrilling story with a follow-up (at least not officially, anyway) in ANY of the following episodes or any of the subsequent movies or spinoff shows, nor did they ever use the character/plot device of the Guardian of Forever (despite its incredible popularity) simply because no one wanted to deal with him at Paramount. I believe, I don't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure, I read somewhere that even JJ Abrams, when writing the upcoming Star Trek movie wanted to use that plot device but was unwilling to deal with Harlan himself.
It's also why, even though all of the Star Trek actors, directors, other writers and production staff were at the WGA protests last year, and even though they all typically appeared together in videos covering the event, no one appeared with Harlan.
Now granted, he's entitled to what was agreed upon in the first place between himself and (at the time) Desilu Studios for the episode he wrote. Legally though, once the package is put together everything becomes Paramount's property. If they make money on it, the writers get some money for it (not sure how much or how long). That's it though. Harlan's mistaken belief that he somehow controls the characters and plot of his stories and that he ought to get paid any time derivative works are used is simply ludicrous.
Perfect analogy: he's put all of his characters and plots and plot devices and other such creations behind a paywall. If/when he frees his content we'll see more creative adaptations and uses of these things.
Re: Re: Daltry said it best:
AC,
Please be advised that your defamatory and mocking language towards me constitutes hate speech, libel, playground bickering, intense dislike, sarcasm, deceptive depiction of another human being and animal abuse (I am a dog).
I have asked my lawyer, a Mr. Rev. Capt. Leonard J. "Electric Britches" Crabs, Esquire, Inc., successful representative, demigod, superhero and debtor to the stars, especially SomethingAwful.com, to do something bad to you involving legal maneuvering, voodoo, spyware, and things I saw on Matlock.
If you do not comply with my take down notice (the one I scribbled in lipstick on your bathroom mirror the other day), I will be forced to yell very loudly nasty things about you, especially how you've left my kitchen a mess every time you broken in, and how my cat can never look me in the eye after what you did yesterday.
Sincerely,
James Riley
/mockery
Daltry said it best:
"...here comes the new boss, same as the old boss..."
I'd like twenty dollars per character (including spaces) for any quote or reply based on this comment. Non-compliance will result in "not fun" things happening to you or your company.
Beta Test
I'll bet money this wasn't an accident, that NBC and Microsoft did this on purpose to test how well the system would work with the BF in place.
Glad I've got FiOS
I couldn't be happier that I'm getting FiOS installed next week after hearing that.
Re: Re: Apple is on a slippery slope...
Yes but what he's getting at is different. Honda not allowing you to buy a tire off their car isn't the same because you can turn around and buy a compatible tire for the same car (probably at a lower price) from another company.
For Apple, if they only allowed the iPod to sync with iTunes, that would be illegal linking - right now, you can use the iPod with any syncing software, Apple just encourages you to use iTunes and people tend to use what the manufacturer says anyway.
Psystar, I think, has a case here - for Apple to sell their closed-source version of Darwin (yes, that's all it is, just with lots of GUI extras on top) and then tell you that you can't use it on your choice of system is just as wrong as Honda telling you that while you can certainly buy the car, or the tires, you can only use them on roads that Honda either owns and has sold you, or has constructed on their own and restricts to their cars only.
Agreed
Full disclosure: I've worked for many years with many different organizations towards the goal of eliminating abortion as an option.
Having said that, I agree with Mike - censoring one or two terms in a search engine is not the way to go if you want to keep your federal funding. I really doubt that this was prompted by anyone with a pro-life or pro-abortion agenda - it may have come instead from someone wishing to look as though they are attempting to comply with this policy in as cheap and effective a manner as possible.
Think about it - if they'd taken any other action to do this, such as removing Planned Parenthood literature or removing from their positions doctors and nurses who have a blatant bent in favor of abortion, it would've been either seen as too much or too little. This way, they get publicity, support from those on the right who don't read into it and eventual support on the left from those who want the search term put back. Cheap publicity from blocking one word - you've got to hand it to them, no matter what you think, they've really got a fabulous PR strategy here.
Not Proper Discussion
This would seem to be more appropriate fodder for a site like Daily Koz or Huffington Post - not a technology-centric blog like Techdirt.
I might be persuaded that it would be appropriate here if it left out the bias for one side or the other. If I wanted to see an endorsement of House and Senate Democrats and a trashing of the President, I could go to any number of other sites or watch any of the Big Three's news programs, or watch any Oscar- or Emmy-nominated film. I'm looking for unbiased technology analysis, not political hackery and hatchet jobs.
Re: try administering the network once in a while
Huzzah! Huzzah!
More Streisand Effect
Looks like yet another example (wow there's a lot out there) of the Streisand Effect at work. I'm pretty sure he didn't want anyone to know what people were saying about him - and frankly I'm absolutely certain US citizens had no idea who this guy was beforehand - but it's out in the open now!
Also, it looks like someone made a website based on your phrase coinage, Mike.. http://www.thestreisandeffect.com/
You know, I would just laugh out loud if you decided to send over a C&D to that guy - I mean, he is using your name and concept on a site that earns money! You should sue! Sic 'em!
Re: bandwith
First, let's start with spelling. You need to take a second and check your spelling before you post anything - it's just good manners.
Second, let's look at the issue. If you are the network administrator, and you have sixty people using bandwidth-intensive external websites, there are a number of things you could do to make your job a little easier.
A) Meet with the employees in small groups to explain exactly what's going on. Show them physical examples (bring a six inch length of PVC pipe and start sticking items into it, as an idea), describe what's going on, and make it clear that what they do makes your job THAT much harder. Phrase it like that - people aren't simply going to listen to "don't do this", but they'll certainly get that what they do affects you personally, and that will sting them.
B) You could also meet with their supervisors and let them know what's going on, if it is your goal to quash these sites entirely (I disagree with that approach but let's continue). Show them what's going on, perhaps using the physical example I showed you before, perhaps in some other fashion. Give them some options for dealing with this: more bandwidth, which would eliminate the bandwidth crunch and give you some breathing room; blocking of all non-essential outside traffic, which will increase calls to your helpdesk with users complaining (and which will not do much for executive users who will almost always find a way to squirrel around this, what with their doo-doo smelling of the finest roses and all); blocking of sites on a per-impact basis, which will make your job a living nightmare of playing cat and mouse with the latest video or audio websites.
Just saying as you do that the economy is bad (it isn't) doesn't get you anywhere. It sounds less like a problem with the network you have and more a problem with how you are able (or not) to handle it. I'm in IT (if you haven't already guessed) and understand completely where you're coming from and what you're going through, as I'm sure a number of people have who've read this, but you need to take a step back and understand that if they don't want to fix it, you can't let it consume you. You can just suggest an approach to fix it - carrying it out is up to the money men and if they say no, I wouldn't necessarily block it - I'd just let them deal with low bandwidth and let them deal with it. Starve it out of them, basically - it works, I promise.
Not a good idea...
I don't think it's a good idea to tack on criminal charges to something like this, because here's what would happen: the government would do what it always does and start regulating "how" secure systems need to be, setting a low bar for companies, allowing them to skirt around this further. Those that can't afford it would face closure/bankruptcy.
Might be more at work here...
Think about it - they may have only been able to afford X amount of bandwidth per user and due to the popularity they've well exceeded that at this point. Just saying, don't be hating.
grammar change
Hey Mike,
I completely and totally agree with you (it's really hard not to) and you are a truly fantastic writer. I just wanted to point out that the sentence where you mention Madonna and Radiohead would sound much better if you removed "they're using".
It's just a suggestion.
Sincerely,
James
corporate plan from AOL exec meeting
Step 1: Steal underwear.
Step 2: ..... (Confused looks) ..
Step 3: Profit!
Back to the drawing board, boys!
The project from the start has been misguided. If you want to help these children, change the system that put them in such a horrible squalor in the first place. Help the parents of these children find decent, stable jobs without having to worry about being murdered or kidnapped on the way to work or school. Help the people of these nations reject leaders who take in money donated from overseas and keep it all for themselves while the people they lead are dying of diseases that western civilization wiped out over a century and a half ago. OLPC represents a significant advance in technology, and that's wonderful, but advanced technology doesn't put food on the table in the immediate sense. It also doesn't change the present situation for the people in this absolutely disgusting situation.
Show me one person who can't conduct commerce beca
... and I'll let you in on this wonderful real estate deal in Lower Manhattan. It's about this bridge.... goes to Brooklyn, kinda big, kinda old, good condition though. Think of all the ad space you could sell on it! Really good price, going fast!