Victor Rozek
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As I See It: Built-In Disasters
April 6, 2009 Victor Rozek
… Read moreA $200 million Airbus A340-600 commercial jet sits on the tarmac at the airport in Toulouse, France. The jet is new and has yet to ferry a single passenger. It has been towed to what is called the “run-up area,” where its Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies crew is performing an engine test. Having set the air brakes, the pilot instructs the flight computer to slowly increase power to all four engines. With the engines fully engaged and screaming under full lift-off power, a cockpit horn begins blaring, warning of impending takeoff. Annoyed, one of the crew pulls the circuit breaker
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As I See It: Generation Gap
March 23, 2009 Victor Rozek
… Read moreFile this one under “just when you thought you’d seen everything.” As the millennial generation comes of age, the 76 million children spawned by industrious baby boomers are entering the workforce. But unlike past generations, they are not coming to the workplace alone. They are bringing their mommies and daddies.
Reliable sources report that corporate mangers and HR departments are being monumentally annoyed by Boomers who accompany their children to job interviews, review their job offers, intervene on their behalf in salary negotiations, and badger the boss when their nestling fails to be promoted. And they can be irritatingly insistent.
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As I See It: Isolation
March 9, 2009 Victor Rozek
… Read moreDuring the Great Depression, it was common that people greeted each other with a question. In shops, bars, and on the street, anxious men glanced self-consciously at one another and asked the only question that mattered: “Are you working?” Absent a social safety net, work was everything. It staved off hunger and the specter of bread lines and tent cites. It provided today’s security and tomorrow’s dignity; and made you the object of envy among the unemployed.
For women, it was different, albeit no less painful. Some found jobs for starvation wages; many weren’t expected to work outside the home;
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As I See It: A Novel Idea
February 23, 2009 Victor Rozek
… Read moreAs the Feds apply money like defibrillation paddles to the chest of the seizing economy, some still-healthy bystanders (think IT vendors) are openly wondering why they don’t just let the patients die. Of course, the onlookers wouldn’t phrase it so fatalistically, but they question the strategy of rewarding failed companies for their greed and stupidity.
As anyone who has ever played a team sport knows: When the game is on the line, you don’t call on your weakest player. And if you play with the big boys at the professional level, you understand that no one in their right mind
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As I See It: If I Were Wise Enough, I Might Say. . .
February 9, 2009 Victor Rozek
… Read moreWatching the reawakening of the human spirit, manifesting in the guise of an inauguration, a National Public Radio commentator said it seemed that the new millennium had finally arrived. Truly, there was something Narnian about the event, as if we had parted the coats and walked through the back of the wardrobe emerging in a wholly different world.
Solemn and festive, the 1.8 million freezing celebrants enjoyed and endured a day of firsts. It was as if after eight years of walking down a long, dark, dirty alley, they suddenly turned the corner to find themselves on a brightly-lit, tree-lined
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As I See It: Test of Character
January 19, 2009 Victor Rozek
… Read moreA flock of wild turkeys regularly comes to the house, pressing their little wrinkled heads against the windows, hoping to persuade my wife to toss some corn their way. While they wait, they work the ground beneath the bird feeders, competing with the squirrels for what the birds knock down, tearing up the grass with their large clawed feet, and adorning our patio with whatever remains after turkeys digest corn, bugs, and bird food.
They like it here. Too tough to be tasty to humans, too fast to be caught by most predators, they strut and gobble and make the
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As I See It: The Rhythm of Things Unseen
January 5, 2009 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIt’s a new year, with an about-to-be new president, but the same old questions are on the collective minds of Americans, and they’re about the economy. “How the hell did this happen?” It’s the question Robert B. Parker calls humanity’s cry, and given the state of things, it should probably replace “In God We Trust” on our shrinking currency.
The answer, as provided by George W. Bush, was “Wall Street got drunk,” and his solution was to throw more booze at it. We’ll have to wait for the new guy for a response that didn’t originate in a frat house.
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As I See It: The Difference Maker
December 1, 2008 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIt is difficult to find the silver lining in the daily litany of financial disasters and desperate, ineffective bailouts. Somber pronouncements of impending help notwithstanding, the economy has been crippled, and the greed of the few will impose suffering on the many. If, however, there is a ray of hope in which the IT community is entitled to bathe, it is the fact that IT professionals are–generally speaking–intelligent.
Don’t for a moment discount the economic value of intelligence (especially when coupled with honesty). Increasingly, it is a virtue in short supply. Perhaps the most significant division in the country–more serious
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As I See It: Final Options
November 24, 2008 Victor Rozek
… Read moreLet’s face it: if a couple trillion dollars in bailouts didn’t fix the economy, it’s probably in worse shape than even gloomy analysts want to admit. For one thing, if the economy wasn’t already on life support, we wouldn’t have found out about it until after the election. We all know the trends: a quarter million jobs lost in October alone, hundreds of businesses closing, and the Big Three auto makers trolling the halls of Congress with a sign reading “Will work for $25 billion.”
It’s getting so bad Gladys Knight had to lay off one of her Pips.
None
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As I See It: Growing a (Non-Binding) Conscience
November 10, 2008 Victor Rozek
… Read moreWhen the Internet was first spreading around the globe with the speed and infectiousness of an airborne virus, it soon became evident that many nations would not tolerate the unchecked proliferation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Governments that could not abide opposition became intent on regulating what would otherwise facilitate a dangerous flow of uncensored data and subversive ideas.
Toward that end, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were subjected to some economic arm twisting. What specific threats were made, or incentives offered, is unknown. What is known is that America’s technology giants capitulated to the will of foreign governments. To