Re: Available consultant Vijay for Unix System Admin with sun Solories Expireance.

On 11 May 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.unix.admin, in article
<slrng2ei80.78p.read_the_sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, jpd wrote:

Moe Trin <ibuprofin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The cost of government - specifically those legislative bodies that
handle the budget - is usually fixed, so having a magic fairy come
in and wave the magic wand to solve the budget overnight (verses the
klowns trashing it out for two-three months) isn't going to improve
costs.

Ah, but I wasn't talking about that. What I wanted to point to, and
did perhaps poorly, was the practice of taking some specific tax and
saying that has to go to some specific goal. What I'd like to do is
two things:

As noted - in some cases this is already required by law.

First, take the total income from all taxes, dump it on a big heap,
then dish it out as needed, and see if anything is left over (which
then goes to paying off debts, instead of inventing porkbarrels and
moneyshowers for just a few people--less debt means more can be done
with less money, including racking up new debts, if that is the fancy).

In a number of cases, this also is against existing laws. At our
national level, taxes collected against airline tickets MUST only be
used on airport/airways improvements. Same is true on motor fuel taxes
only being spendable for road repair/improvement.

Second, reduce the fixation on budgeting, as it results in tucking
away cash by departments just to justify next year's budget, even if
it isn't really needed now.

Unspent authorizations hasn't been a significant problem in a while.
What _has_ been a problem is in-consistent funding of multi-year
programs. Defense and space related projects are the easiest example.
No matter how you try, you can't design, build, launch, and fly a
satellite to Mars in a single year - yet spending MUST be on a yearly
basis. Are you going to tell EADS that we don't have money this year
for the Eurofighter or A400, and they need to stop work until we find
the cash? I'm sure the workers would appreciate the time off.

EG. a military installation was slated for decomissioning in a few
years, so a lot of things were wound down, maintenance among them.

Yeah, I've seen that.

Getting rid of ``use it or lose it'' mentality at both the budget
users and budget approvers is a start.

That would be much of the problem. You'll also have to change some
laws, but not that many.

I doubt it would fly - there are to many variables. [...]

Depends on whether you want to care for the details or not. If it
turns out that not caring will gain more free money through overhead
reduction which in turn would result in a lesser tax burden, then I
count it as a win.

Part of the bureaucracy is fraud avoidance. The money can be spent
for approved categories and perhaps for specific projects.

In a nutshell, I think that it might be the case that our
politicians' wish for ``tax fairness'' costs us more than it
benefits us.

I don't think anyone has come up with a fair scheme. Someone will
always be seen to be being screwed, but how to correct this without
creating an enormous bureaucracy full of conditions and rules to
meet. Example - the Alternative Minimum Tax which was designed to
make those with "creative" deductions to still have to pay some
taxes no matter how they wiggled. It did that, but wasn't perfectly
written, and is now effecting far more than the most abusive it was
aimed at. Re-write it? Surely you jest.

Do you have any idea where-all the government gets taxes now? [...]

Yes, I know everything is taxed to the gills. Following the money
from getting paid (and before) down to paying for a cup of coffee may
become a grizly horror story of the taxman ripping your buying power
to shreds. All for the greater good, of course.

It's not supposed to happen, but there are situations where you are
paying tax on taxes. A case being the motor fuel in California, where
there is the base price, national and local taxes (about $0.65 per
gallon), and then the entire thing is subject to "sales tax" of 7 to
9 percent more.

Cup of coffee? Depends on the location, but it may be taxable if
seating is provided (again - California tax law). Here in Arizona,
it is taxable unless sold as part of a (sit-down) meal.

If we have, say, staggered 30..40..50% tax brackets, causing lots of
tax evasion on the high end, and extra controls, details, things, that
keep lots of bureaucrats plenty busy,

We have this - and the Alternative Minimum Tax laws as well.

and suppose that by slashing it to a flat-fee 30% income tax we reduce
evasion, can boot a lot of overhead and overall can run a government
more efficiently on less income, then that would be a win.

You run into a fairness issue - the people at the bottom of the income
pile - earning minimum wage, lots of kids, lots of living expenses will
be hit harder than the singing star whose drug habit is costing 30% of
his income. There are all kinds of special conditions. To encourage
home ownership, interest on the mortgage is deductible (the lender is
taxed with the interest being considered income).

Or if we'd removed taxes that come with a relatively high administra-
tive burden on merchants or taxpayers, and as a result also require
lots of taxman oversight. Less wasted time, more time to make money,
of which the government sees some returns too through income taxes.

There are three basic national tax forms - 1040, 1040A and 1040EZ
with more and more restrictions on who can use the "simpler" forms.
Each form comes with a table that estimates how long it takes to
fill out the form (I don't have the forms handy, but recall it was
something like 35, 20 and 10 hours - but that includes the time used
to gather the needed data, etc.). You wonder why there is a huge
business in software applications, and tax service stores (bring in
the data and your check, and we'll fill in the forms for you... for
only $$$). To this, you _also_ have to add the time to fill in
similar tax forms for each state where you earned taxable income.

I'm not saying this is realistic. It may be pure wishful thinking.
Doesn't stop my curiosity in seeing the mechanism, to what degree this
conjecture is attainable, what its effects would be, and whether that
wouldn't net a benefit for government and taxpayer, in the long term.

Each country has their own concepts, and from what I've seen, few
have the perfect solution. Within the US, each state is different.
There are several states that don't have a state income tax, but they
manage by taxing the daylights out of other things. Fair? Hah!

Here it's fuel tax plus yearly (well, quarterly) car-road-right tax,
which is presumably higher for trucks. I don't own roadgoing equipment
so I don't know the details.

Varies by state and possibly by county. Here, there is fuel tax, sales
tax on the vehicle (each time it is sold, along with a transfer tax),
and a calendar tax based on the supposed value of the vehicle (based on
the suggested list price of the vehicle, depreciated over the years).
We don't at this time have toll roads or bridges. Next state over
(California) has similar rules, but also has toll roads and bridges.
Commercial vehicles (cars used for business, buses, trucks) have
additional use taxes often based on mileage.

But is it going to be economical to operate that way? LCY verses LGW
or LHR - do all short-hauls need to use the smaller LCY?

Pretty sure they don't. I wasn't advocating forcing the use of a
smaller airport, just making it available and attractive enough that
it runs economonically. It appears LCY can survive, though I haven't
really looked at the numbers.

Unfortunately, those numbers are the killers. The smaller aircraft
are significantly less efficient (fuel, crew) and each one takes a
similar fraction of space in the air - it doesn't matter if that's a
Cessna 150 or an A380-800 on the runway - the runway is occupied for
half a minute or more. A trade magazine I read (Aviation Week and
Space Technology) mentions there is a bubble in the 50 seat jet market
for this reason. Are you going to ban older aircraft because they are
less efficient or are noisier/dirtier? Who is going to pay for that?

How about when you want to go from Bremen to Brisbane - where are you
going to change planes? Is it going to mean surface transport between
airports in a city?

I wouldn't want to, but starting or ending at a small airport doesn't
have transfer problems.

Well, there isn't direct service, A quick scan of a recent OAG shows
3 flights a week from Europe, but tons of flights from Sydney,
Melbourne, and Darwin. Flights to Sydney from a number of places in
Europe, but not Bremen. Looks like Frankfort or Amsterdam.

Not all travel includes transfers, nor does it necessairily need to.
Nothing wrong with having a ``leaf'' airport in the city that is much
more accessible than the large hub a ways outside the city.

There has to be the traffic that wants to go "there" at the time[s]
you offer. If it were easy or cheap, the airlines would be doing it,
because they don't make money flying empty planes, any more than they
make it when the bird is on the ground some where or delayed enroute
because of traffic congestion. That means that when the plane
arrives at the destination, it's got to get into the air flying
passengers somewhere else. The highest maintenance priority is "AOG"
which stands for Aircraft On Ground. Not only is it not _making_ any
money there, it's costing a bundle in parking fees, customer incon-
venience, and so on. Getting a schedule together such that the
birds are in the air over nine hours every day isn't easy, and the
best (usually long haul) can reach 15 hours a day, but that pretty
exceptional. Then, what do you do when airports in one region are
at/near weather minimums?

It works in London, with its five(!) airports.

because Heathrow and Gatwick are at capacity. But then, the Port
Authority (of New York and New Jersey) runs four of the ten air
ports (KSWF, HPN, CDW, MMU, KTEB, KEWR, KLGA, KJFK, FRG and KISP) in
the New York metro area with commercial, charter, or biz-jet ops, and
the big three (KEWR, KLGA and KJFK) are essentially at capacity.

Large cities tend to see plenty ``city hop'' flights where a sizeable
chunk of the passengers will not transfer.

In the Southeast US, it used to be said that you couldn't go anywhere
(including to he!! in a hand-basket) without changing in Atlanta. The
same is true for Chicago, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, KLAX (one of five
major airports in Los Angeles county), or San Francisco. Those
airports are major hubs, and I should probably include six to ten more
without including air-freight hubs. Flying from here to my sister's
about 100 KM NE of New York City, again - no direct flights, but I've
a choice of six airlines which means a choice of eight cities where
I'll change planes - from Minneapolis in the North, to Atlanta in
the South.

Now for the noise abatement, as larger planes tend to make more noise.
Doesn't have to be, of course. Glimpsed an interesting snipped about
reducing sonic booms by unspecified trickery.

If we're talking airliners, from 50 to 900 passengers, those of similar
age tend to be _relatively_ similar in noise. Hard to believe, but
true. Sonic booms - lots of interesting tricks, but I wonder if they
will ever be economically sensible. The Concorde was EXTREMELY loud
on takeoff and landing, and ate fuel like it was water. The problem
is drag has to be minimized, and that costs efficiency big time.

For giggles, compare the flights at [...]

I skimmed them a bit, but it fit the expected pattern. :-)

Smaller airports mean shorter range and less payload. In some cases
(KLGA, KDAL, KFTW being notable examples) there are legal restrictions
of size of plane and maximum distance served.

And yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't work in Berlin. But if you're
broke, the best thing to do is build a bigger airport from scratch.

Like Tokyo, Bangkok. Seattle and London? In a few places, they
flat out replaced the older airport, Denver being the most recent
example. Denver Intercontinental is about 8 miles further out of
town than Stapleton, but the old airport was destroyed and converted
to housing.

I like getting on a flight quickly, short flights, and getting off
again quickly too. Businesspeople seem to like the same thing.

That's why business class exists, and why short/zero notice fares are
higher. There are people who will pay.

I like good public transport, though, and will use it whenever useful
to do so.

What is this "public transport" you speak of? ;-)

Apparently, flying cattle class is the only ``good'' flying in the
eyes of the reigning socialists. *I* think that other ways may well
be economocally viable too, provided you don't go out of your way to
squash them with premeditated prejudice.

Infrastructure isn't cheap - never has been. If you want to fly in
other than steerage, that means more planes to carry the same number,
and that means more airports because of existing capacity restrictions
and that means more fun designing routing from runway A to runway ZWD.
You have an alternative _now_ in the biz-charter and air-taxi market,
but the price per seat-mile/kilometer is _substantially_ higher.

====================

Pimp, or prospective boss?

Prospective technical lead, setup by pimp. Pimp failed to get back at
me after my email to him with the rundown, though. Hm.

Hmmm... Yeah, I'd be pounding on the pimp

It is hard on the candidate, but we take it out on the pimp or his
company by banning them company wide.

More people should do that. Well, at least people here do. :-)

There are a substantial number really horrible pimping services. In
a number of cases I've seen what are obviously part-timers working out
of their home or a postal box. We have to watch the legal aspects, but
passing word to friends and colleagues who work elsewhere helps.

As to the candidate, I am in the peculiar position of having a
reasonable skillset, but precariously little to show for it, making me
a hard sell. I still don't mind having a company boot the pimp even if
I ended up a ``victim'' of that. Can't imagine I'd notice the difference
from the other *** recruiters pull anyway.

The problem for us is even if the candidate is otherwise interesting,
we can't talk to them if we nuke the pimp. Business law.

With very few exceptions, the most successful interviews were landed
by going to the company directly. The most successful jobs so far
were all by word of mouth, even.

That's true as well - we give our employees "finder's fees" if they can
recommend some one that we hire and who then lasts a probation period.
It costs the company less than the pimps, and we seem to always get a
better candidate. I'm guessing, but think that we get over half of
our new employees that way.

I probably should stop talking to pimps at all and *cough* strategically
refocus on more effective ways to revenuize my synergies. *cough*

Pimps and pimping companies do get a bad reputation - one doesn't have
to look far to see why.

Is this because the attitude is that "everyone supports redmondware"?

I don't know.

You really do want to be pounding on that pimp to find out.

I'm still sitting on an advert I can't find it in my heart to apply
for, after I called them and asked them about their shop. There, the
redmondware requirement is because they're planning to grow and move
to 24/7 operation, and require the ops to fix everything -- including
the redmondware needed to point the dishes. They're soon to launch
their own satellite(s?).

I'm not in your shoes, nor do I know enough to be accurate, but that
sounds pretty unappetizing.

The way this interview went I would've needed to think long and hard
whether I'd really want to work there; I don't think that mere linux
trivia run a good shop, and trying to shoot your applicant with them
is arguably not the most effective way to find *good* unix people.

You won't get a disagreement here.

I did get caught rather embarassingly with a couple questions, so
they're not likely to offer me anything.

That may actually be good news (yes, I know).

Thinking back, I think they should've specified ``linux certification''
and be done with it. Trivia all you want, understanding not required.

I hate to say it, but certification is looked on as a bad word here.
It _usually_ means (there are exceptions) that the candidate has
memorized someones ideas of facts rather than getting the hands and
brane dirty. All to often, the certification teaching/test is flat out
wrong ("thicknet uses RG6/U or RG8/U" two wrongs for the price of one,
as RG6 is 75 Ohm, and both coax have the wrong jacket material - that
was a Novell test, or "what is the default network mask for a Class A
network" - thanks microsoft and I've seen similar gaffes from A+, and
others who ought to know better).

Of course - "It's so simple that only a child can do it."

:-)

Tom Leher - "New Math"

Now for the rest of the world to pick up on the inconvenient truth
that the knowledge and information based society means more training,
especially WRT using the main tool for information dissemination. Ok,
secondary tool, the first is still our brain.

I find it interesting that the new airliners being built (specifically
the 787, but it's also true of Airbus models) now use laptop computers
as a *major* part of the maintenance tools. Part of it is that things
are getting so complicated that you need all the help you can get,
and part of it is that the old ways of doing things no longer apply.
"Pilot says that VHF#2 is intermittent." You can't go out to the
plane and swap the radio, because that box is now integrated up the
whazoo, and the problem could be totally unrelated. Another 787 fact
is that we don't use tin-bashers any more - the bird is made of lots of
plastic. Slightly different skill set required.

Old guy
.