Category: Computer technology

The necessity of more skilled IT professionals

The necessity of more skilled IT professionals

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Today’s kids need to consider a role in IT.  Here is a quick paragraph from a recent Wall Street Journal article.

It doesn’t hurt their cause that the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that there will be one million unfilled jobs for programmers in the U.S. by 2020. And that may be an underestimate, … He adds that the more software and hardware humans create, the more jobs in software there are, as new platforms like smartphones and drones spawn their own software ecosystems.

The Second Job You Don’t Know You Have

The Second Job You Don’t Know You Have

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With the move to $15 or higher minimum wage, you can bet there will much more “shadow work” that will be moved to consumers or lost to automation. Shadow work is all the unpaid jobs we do on behalf of businesses and organizations: We are pumping our own gas, scanning our own groceries, booking our travel and busing our tables at Starbucks. Shadow work is a new concept, so as yet, no one has compiled economic data on how many jobs we, the consumers, have taken over from (erstwhile) employees. Yet it is surely a force shrinking the job market, and the unemployment it creates is structural.

This is not blaming our current POTUS. It is simply a natural progression of companies trying to reduce costs and increase productivity. As technology improves, it is even easier to allow consumers or robots do the work of the manual worker. If you don’t make your money with your mind but instead make it with back-breaking work or by “smiling” to the consumer, your job is severely at risk especially if you want to be paid more money simply because you can run a cash register and fetch a paper-wrapped sandwich from a food slot.

More reading: The Second Job You Don’t Know You Have – Craig Lambert – POLITICO Magazine

So now the Lois Lerner emails are not missing?

So now the Lois Lerner emails are not missing?

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lois lerner photoIf you have been following me here on this site or on Facebook, you know that I am quite upset about the IRS targeting of groups that disagree with the administration. I honestly believe that the government should NEVER pick sides in politics. When politicians win, it should be a requirement that they cannot use their governmental power to hamper the criticism of them. Remember those Lois Lerner emails that conveniently went missing in a “hard-drive crash”? Judicial Watch, which is suing the Internal Revenue Service under the Freedom of Information Act, says they still exist.

It seems to me that the hijacking of the IRS to suppress grass-roots opposition to the administration in power would qualify as a “government-wide catastrophe,” but I am sure the government would disagree. That notwithstanding, if the backups are “too onerous to search” now, what good would they be in an undisputed catastrophe? One can never rule out incompetence as an explanation, but this does have the feel of a deliberate effort to keep the truth concealed.

From their press release:

Department of Justice attorneys for the Internal Revenue Service told Judicial Watch on Friday that Lois Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system would be too onerous to search. The DOJ attorneys also acknowledged that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is investigating this back-up system.

Photo by SuperSleuther

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