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Try this: http://www.dilbert.com/fast

call me Sue if you'll give me a job.

Shut up, Jennifer.

The timing is absolutely perfect, too: http://dilbert.com/fast/2009-11-24/

"If you want to lead, you have to lead by example, not 'Do as I say, not as I do'".

Reminds me of a recent Dilbert strip that seems quite relevant.

There was only one time that Dousing worked: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-05-14/

As a side note, I've long said that I could have been rich had I not had any morals and had become a spammer. Now, I guess I can add selling dousing equipment to the list. Curse my parents for raising me the right way! I could have been a millionaire were it not for these pesky morals!

I don't think paying CEOs according to performance will work. That's actually already been done and there are unintended consequences. A CEO who knows he is going to be paid a certain fraction of net profit will run the company into the ground by seeking short-term profit (in the long-term he will be elsewhere), for example cutting on research and maintenance.

I think the core of the problem is rather that there is a too large concentration of power in the hands of CEOs, which is too easy for them to abuse. No idea exactly how to organise everything so that the problem will go away, but maybe democratising companies and mandating maximum/minimum salary ratios (say, CEO.salary() / Janitor.salary() < 20) could be a way to try.

Just a week ago: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-10-13/

In fact, it was only a few days ago that Dilbert's company suggested the same thing.

See? Same old same old.....

Aaahh, I see the Angel of Cynicism has blessed you.

Why would anyone confuse Facebook or Twitter with professional tools.

http://www.dilbert.com/2009-10-04/

It took me couple of hours but I finally found it! http://dilbert.com/fast/2000-02-24/

I have to say, when I read this

Bragging used to work back when most people with power in an organization had absolutely no idea about technology

I thought of this.

Currently we have the unfortunate situation where people inside insurance companies determine who gets treated and what specific treatments they get, even down to the details. Those people inside the insurance companies are often MBAs and through control of the purse strings, a 23-year old MBA with not even one term of science can override a medical specialist with three decades of professional experience.

Where is the value-added that we get from insurance companies? Oh. I see. There isn't any.

"Welcome to Urgent Care. Please have a seat / lie on the floor and wait your turn for your case to be addressed. Your turn will be selected based on quarterly profitability estimates."

It's just another person predicting a paradigm shift that just won't happen due to inertia and unperceived limitations.

We just need to use a mashup of service enabled architectures to provide a seamlessly semantic experience.

If that doesn't work, then depolarize the bogotronic flux.

Bingo, Sir!

I think the biggest mistake we made was not firing that stupid manager on the spot. But I suppose if we fired managers based solely on incompetent decisions, ... well... you know.

Your company would probably make more money than seemed possible in recent years. During the dot-com, a company's probability of success was inversely proportional to the number of Aeron chairs. Companies also took on a lot of MBAs and managers back then. Most imploded.

There should be plenty of hard data available by now. However, even without empirical evidence, everyone knows what the deal is:
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-05-20/
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-05-22/

I think the biggest mistake we made was not firing that stupid manager on the spot. But I suppose if we fired managers based solely on incompetent decisions, ... well... you know.

Your company would probably make more money than seemed possible in recent years. During the dot-com, a company's probability of success was inversely proportional to the number of Aeron chairs. Companies also took on a lot of MBAs and managers back then. Most imploded.

There should be plenty of hard data available by now. However, even without empirical evidence, everyone knows what the deal is:
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-05-20/
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-05-22/

If you make zero effort to distinguish faux news from a rigged demonstration, I sincerely hope you aren't investing in any technology IPOs.

Microsoft provided a rigged demonstration of the interdependence of Windows and IE on videotape to the U.S. supreme court. There's what the profit motive gets you.

Neither does a padded resume doesn't render a prospective hire incompetent. In fact, we're often judged negatively for failing to put the best face forward, even if the best face involves creative omission, and the right kind of slant might even be judged a virtue. How else did Microsoft get that video made in the first place? By hiring young missionaries with a George Washington implant?

Dilbert impedes

NBC's "help it roll over" story manipulation was unethical and embarrassing, but hardly worse than what CNN or F/X News accomplishes with deliberate imbalance. I mean, is it even possible to conduct ethical journalism filming from the deck of an operational U.S. aircraft carrier?

How many Americans could correctly answer how many of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks were of Saudi origin?? If less than 50%, that's irresponsible journalism of the highest magnitude. I would take any dart landing in double digits as an essentially correct answer.

Bingo, sir.

Or people with bosses who put so much on their list of projects/tasks and change it so often that they don't have any choice other than to multi-task and to submit a purchase requisition for a prayer rug

I don't think he's implying that the barter system would be lost, just that gold wouldn't be so worthless. Gold ended up being just for repairs, but once you got so far into the game, no one was short on it. There is plenty of bartering in WoW, with gold and items. I'd like D3 to be similar.

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-09-16/

Obligatory Dilbert strip on the Lucent logo

Do you operate more like Dilbert or more like Get Fuzzy?

I read this story and immediately thought of last Saturday's Dilbert:

http://dilbert.com/2009-08-01/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-06-20/

This reminded me some Dilbert: ;-)

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2001-12-15/

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-11-23/

This reminded me some Dilbert: ;-)

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2001-12-15/

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-11-23/

2003/09/08

Bah. India and China are soooo last year. Outsource it to the Czech Republic, Puerto Rico, or Brazil. I hear the Elbonians will work for pennies on the dollar.

I couldn't help but think of this Dilbert cartoon when I read your comment. It certainly rings true...

This is descending into a long tangent, but thank goodness someone is bringing it up.

My frustration is: why should I have to disable javascript? Slashdot used to be one of the few sites where I left NoScript with javascript enabled, because I like the site and I know that they make most of their money from advertising. The advertisements are usually suitably discrete (and occasionally interesting), so I left javascript turned on so they'd get the pageviews and their revenue the way they want it.

But lately.... sheeeeeeeesh. It breaks with slightly older browsers that used to be fine (javascript errors after 5 or 10 seconds of trying to render it), it sucks CPU when it works (sometimes with rendering errors and text all over the place), and browsing with the iPhone/iPod Touch, which used to be kind of fun from anywhere in the house, is now painful. Worse, I usually browse as AC, so preferences aren't helpful, assuming they even work properly (which some people report they aren't).

Is it too much to ask that before enabling all the whiz-bang neato features, the server look a little more closely/carefully at User-Agent string to figure out whether the browser can handle it? I know this is the "wrong" way to do it (should write to standards instead), but something isn't working. Or maybe an alternate URL for rendering in simple/classic mode by default (simple.slashdot.org or classic.slashdot.org)? For the latter, I'm thinking about the dilbert.com scenario (BLEAH) versus the fast version.

I like that /. is trying to push the envelope a little and be "innovative", but there are ongoing issues with the implementation.

This is descending into a long tangent, but thank goodness someone is bringing it up.

My frustration is: why should I have to disable javascript? Slashdot used to be one of the few sites where I left NoScript with javascript enabled, because I like the site and I know that they make most of their money from advertising. The advertisements are usually suitably discrete (and occasionally interesting), so I left javascript turned on so they'd get the pageviews and their revenue the way they want it.

But lately.... sheeeeeeeesh. It breaks with slightly older browsers that used to be fine (javascript errors after 5 or 10 seconds of trying to render it), it sucks CPU when it works (sometimes with rendering errors and text all over the place), and browsing with the iPhone/iPod Touch, which used to be kind of fun from anywhere in the house, is now painful. Worse, I usually browse as AC, so preferences aren't helpful, assuming they even work properly (which some people report they aren't).

Is it too much to ask that before enabling all the whiz-bang neato features, the server look a little more closely/carefully at User-Agent string to figure out whether the browser can handle it? I know this is the "wrong" way to do it (should write to standards instead), but something isn't working. Or maybe an alternate URL for rendering in simple/classic mode by default (simple.slashdot.org or classic.slashdot.org)? For the latter, I'm thinking about the dilbert.com scenario (BLEAH) versus the fast version.

I like that /. is trying to push the envelope a little and be "innovative", but there are ongoing issues with the implementation.

...which in turn balances out against the amount of time managers are paid for doing hell knows what.

Or take Scott Adam's word for it:
http://www.dilbert.com/2009-06-09/

This classic Dilbert strip was fall-down funny when it came out in 1995, yet 14 years later you literally do shake a handheld computer to reset (undo) something.

Little bit concerned about the launch technology

For a completely on topic but irrelevant post, see Dilbert. :P

Amen.

I used to work for a scumbag company, and I was miserable. It took me a while to catch on that things were never going to get better. Customers were still promised "unlimited" this, and "99.99%" that.

Today's Dilbert reminds me of ScumCo Inc: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-05-29/

Ok, I think that establishes you as a system auditor, rather than an administrator. Without having seen the documentation you produce, I'm not going to judge either way (I've seem some 150 page documents that are invaluable as a crib sheet for some systems, and I've seen way too many 150 page documents that aren't worth the paper they were printed on).
From the sound of the original poster, he's in a tough spot. Way too much to do, and not enough time to do it (sole network admin).
I think this Dilbert cartoon has it pretty well pegged (especially when you take into account they'll be hiring cheaper next time).. The real solution to this conundrum is to have the lower cost net admin working in tandem with him to pick up the vagaries of the net, to ensure that if he does fall under a bus, there's somebody that can keep the place running, even in a critical failure. Consider: Your network admin falls under a bus, and on the same day your whole company network locks solid so that nobody can do anything. Who, that is familiar with the network and is able to fault find on it, would be bringing service back?
If the answer is 'nobody', then the next question is, can your company survive for about 2-4 weeks with no IT (approx 3 months for a sizable site if you're not going to hire expensive external engineers)? If the answer to that is 'No', then there's a stupendous management failure that no amount of documentation will fix. Period.
Fix the underlying problem before trying to deal with symptoms. The first thing I ever document for anything (completely seperate document to any tech admin stuff) when I get a handle on the wider scope is a risk analysis which includes staffing levels and coverage.
In the current days of cutting things to the bone and beyond, nobody seems to remember the phrase "false economy".

My hard drive is broken, does it need more RAM?

Not if you build an SQL db.

Posting this for the second time in the past week, because it's apt:

Could you grimace so I know you're working?

Could you grimace so I know you're working?

Call me Captain Obvious, but it irritates me that companies would rather put $ into marketing, sales, management, and lawywers, rather than engineering R&D (me!). It's especially irritating when they're so unethical- outright evil. Can't we just put them ... never mind.

As so often, this is both funny and sad:

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-05-10/

Yes it is, welcome to the 21st century.

Many IT managers read "Dilbert" to get new ideas about how to manage their IT employees by following what the PHB (Pointy Haired Boss) does. "Dilbert" cartoons are based on reality and people keep sending in their IT Nightmare stories to Scott Adams who keeps turning them into "Dilbert" stories.

Funny you say that, I've always wanted to build (or buy if they made the damn things) a wearable.

Is that you, Techno-Bill ?

WooHoo

Cable systems in the United States use the same technology and have roughly the same costs. Comcast told investors that the hardware to provide 50-megabits-per-second service costs less than it had been paying for the equipment for 6 megabits per second.

They are wining that they aren't making enough, even though upgrading the equipment is cheaper? Something's not right here....

Oh, yeah. Here it is:

By contrast, JCom, the largest cable company in Japan, sells service as fast as 160 megabits per second for $60 a month, only $5 a month more than its slower service. Why so cheap? JCom faces more competition from other Internet providers than companies in the United States do.

Competition. They have a monopoly, so if they can push it, why not? I can see dollar signs in their hair. I'm not going to say lots of regulation is the key here, but how about forcing them to let competitors use their networks? Competition is good for the consumer.

They sure aren't treating their servers properly.

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-03-16/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-03-07/

With laws like this the pedos will realize that they need to move on to something more secure than open HTTP.

This way the kids and politicians alike will not be able to see the stuff; just like it was before the Internet took off. Politicians will then be able to back to the way they used to handle this problem: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-03-15/ (focus on the last pane)

I think Scott Adams explained it pretty well when he coined the "Dilbert Principle" awhile back: the least-productive workers are systematically promoted OUT of the functional parts of an organization to the place where they can do the least damage: middle management.

Or, more succinctly:
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1994-11-13/