Reply to: A seasoned contractor's story

[Ignis Fatuus]

Google have a bloody cheek trumpeting their usenet "stewardship", seeing as they foobarred it up beyond all recognition and the search facility is completely broken. Essentially they just bought the archives for their own reasons and then pretty much casually discarded them like a used dishcloth

ISTR that Google bought the Deja News archive of Usenet groups, when Deja went kaput. This archive might well otherwise have been lost.

So while Google doubtless did it for their own purposes, it would be at least as accurate to say that they saved the Usenet archive as to imply that they broke it.

[EternalOptimist]

I remember reading job ads in the back of the magazine, then applying by letter. pen and paper stuff

imagine - it took a week to get a reply from the agent

[Sysman]

Google have a bloody cheek trumpeting their usenet "stewardship", seeing as they foobarred it up beyond all recognition and the search facility is completely broken. Essentially they just bought the archives for their own reasons and then pretty much casually discarded them like a used dishcloth

It's worse than that. A lot of folks genuinely saw Google in a good light for rescuing the usenet archives from Deja, and started using Google's search engine as a result.

A decade ago I could drop hints and tips or code snippets onto usenet and retrieve them with ease when needed at a later date, and that made it worthwhile putting them there. Nowadays I dread searching those archives.

[OwlHoot]

11 May 1981 Oldest Usenet article in the Google Groups Archive

Google have a bloody cheek trumpeting their usenet "stewardship", seeing as they foobarred it up beyond all recognition and the search facility is completely broken. Essentially they just bought the archives for their own reasons and then pretty much casually discarded them like a used dishcloth

[d000hg]

He also has a bee in his bonnet about "qualifications and certificates".

Yeah. Is the whole thing an elaborate troll?

[mudskipper]

Other than the stupid historic inaccuracies, the article is quite decent.

Dunno - I never read past the stupid historic inaccuracies.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Other than the stupid historic inaccuracies, the article is quite decent.

[Paddy]

ISTR that I bought my first CD player in 1985 or 1986.

First CD was Brothers in Arms.

Got a Japanese pressing of DSOTM.



Back in the days before CDs were recorded with the VU meters banging against the end stops to "make it louder" by removing all vestiges of dynamic range.

We had a Wireless Home Service in the 50s

[Mich the Tester]

He also has a bee in his bonnet about "qualifications and certificates".
Methinks he doth protest to much: contractors have always been judged on their ability to deliver, quals and certs being nice to have.
Perhaps his skills are being superseded and he hasn't kept up hence the carping.

Certificates can be handy for getting your CV past the HR numpties at huge corporations but if you're going for contracts through your network they're less relevant, and in some areas even a hindrance. If you want to join an Agile project doing Context Driven Testing it's probably best not to publicise having an ISTQB certificate. A good reputation is better.

[vetran]

quite frankly I don't believe a word you say

On March 2, 1983 CD players and discs (16 titles from CBS Records) were released in the United States and other markets.[citation needed] This event is often seen as the "Big Bang" of the digital audio revolution. The new audio disc was enthusiastically received, especially in the early-adopting classical music and audiophile communities, and its handling quality received particular praise. As the price of players gradually came down, the CD began to gain popularity in the larger popular and rock music markets. The first artist to sell a million copies on CD was Dire Straits, with its 1985 album Brothers in Arms.[17] The first major artist to have his entire catalogue converted to CD was David Bowie, whose 15 studio albums were made available by RCA Records in February 1985, along with four Greatest Hits albums.[18] In 1988, 400 million CDs were manufactured by 50 pressing plants around the world.[19]

first CD we had in the workshop was Brothers in Arms, we played it a lot to test CD players we were fixing. Record was was Neil Diamond, cracklin Rosie ... I left that job in 88.

[MarillionFan]

He also has a bee in his bonnet about "qualifications and certificates".
Methinks he doth protest to much: contractors have always been judged on their ability to deliver, quals and certs being nice to have.
Perhaps his skills are being superseded and he hasn't kept up hence the carping.

WSGS

I've never been asked for qualifications which is a good job because I haven't got any.

[sasguru]

He also has a bee in his bonnet about "qualifications and certificates".
Methinks he doth protest to much: contractors have always been judged on their ability to deliver, quals and certs being nice to have.
Perhaps his skills are being superseded and he hasn't kept up hence the carping.

[DodgyAgent]

Review of a Quarter Century in IT Contracting

[EternalOptimist]

Wrong for 1987!
Again wrong for 1987!
and again wrong for 1987! The guy is way out on many things. What is the point of all the BS?

the point ? beats me. If you are are going to do something like this you have to make it funny imo, or 'lessons learned'

the biggest lesson learned in that time period, for me , was the dot com boom. Just like the current recession, every instinct, every bit of knowledge, everything we ever knew told us it was all going to end badly.
but we still got a suprise when it happened. buy at the bottom and sell at the top is dead easy to say, much harder to achieve.


that's what I take from the last 25 years

[Troll]

Indeed. Eldest was born in 1985, and I wouldn't heat his milk in the microwave because I was worried about the long term effects of eating food subject to radiation.

I blew up a microwave when feeding my eldest.. taking the already prepared formula bottle out of the fridge for a late night feed (what a modern dad!) I neglected to loosen the cap on the bottle and the inverted teat made an effective seal..
Full power on the microwave and went back to watching live cricket Eng vs WI....the resulting explosion was loud & the mess memorable & we got stuffed at cricket