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http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/games/career /bin/ms.cgi

Yeah, this guy is sensible. Dismiss him with the contempt he deserves, and go do something more worthwhile - like reading Dilbert or hating on Intarweb Exploder...

So you're saying that he is Dogbert?

I would go as far as to say that your company seems like a poor excuse for a company anyway. Have you heard of backup? What about version control systems? Losing a copule of hours work actually is nothing. Shit happens! A few hours?! You fired the other guy because this guy would not keep backup? Is your hair pointy by the way? This kind of management I've only seen the like of in http://www.dilbert.com/

The first thing I thought of was how this house is the opposite of Dilberts house, which is designed by good software engineers.

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/duh/

$100 million down the drain eh? Heck, I'll bid this next project at a mere $1 million and flail miserably causing the contract to be scuttled in the end just like this one.

Success! Because I'll be saving the FBI $99 million! In fact I think I'll qualify for one of those federal gov't "bounty for saving Uncle Sam costs" contractor bonus plans.

Off to the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator.

...take a look at Dilbert's mission statement generator.

Where does User Friendly fit in the scheme of things?

Ideally in the "dead and buried" category. Comics should either look good or be funny. Megatokyo looks good. Dilbert is funny (or, well, it has its moments, but is funny most of the time). Penny Arcade is both. User Friendly has neither art nor humor going for it, and thus is a waste of time.

see the highly relevant dilbert cartoon

There is a lost art to making fun of people, or mocking them. It involves some subtlety. You know, stuff like irony, sarcasm, insinuation and/or goading them into acting like fools themselves.

E.g., Jay Leno, back in the 90s when I still bothered watching TV at all, was funny. He could bring up all sorts of mean stuff, but... without coming and spewing insults as such. He let you fill in the dots yourself.

E.g., Dilbert manages to _occasionally_ be funny, even in all its sheer anti-management bitterness. Whereas the average "my boss sucks donkey balls and should die" blog isn't.

Just outright insulting people to their face isn't the same thing. It lacks any kind of finesse.

There is no insinuation or irony in telling a pregnant woman that her unborn son will be a nerd and never even see female genitals. It's just a very very nasty thing to say to a mother. It ranks almost up there with saying "I foresee that your son will die of cancer."

And dunno, maybe I'm just deffective or not judgmental enough to find that kind of thing funny.

And again, it's not even about SW and its fans, seein' as I'm not one. You know, I'm the guy who posted on /. that episode 4 was nothing special, and Obi Wan holds his lightsaber like he'd hold his *ahem* tool when peeing. That everyone only liked episode 4 because they saw it when they were 6 years old. I'm not really SW fan material.

I'd still find it not funny against anyone, though. Jocks, prom queens, rappers, bad managers, you name it. E.g., God knows I've posted a lot against bad management, but if anyone went to a management convention and started outright insulting random managers... dunno, I don't think I'd find that funny either.

Because of a 3 letter word, starts with O ends with L.

Someone should've hit the progenitors of this little "contest" upside the head with the Garfinkle book before they decided to go ahead with it.

If said book had impacted the morans' cranium, they would've realized that such contests are useless for determining a system's hardness. Or they'd be dead. End results are about the same. So, let us review the possible results:

1. The box is hacked. Oh man, it is pwned! Guess the system wasn't so strong after all.
2. (more likely) The system isn't hacked.

Does the latter scenario PROOF that the system is hacker-proof? Is it? Nope, sorry, it isn't.

To prove that a system is unhackable, I have to demonstrate that in every case the security will not fail. If you have a random testing plan (i.e., a "contest"), then you'll never be sure you touched all the scenarios or even the most likely ones.

To prove that a system is hackable, I just have to find one situation where it can be hacked. Finito; sayonara; have a nice day.

The latter is relatively easy to do. The former is very hard (and sometimes impossible) to accomplish. It is much easier to hold a "contest," declare yourself the winner ("UNBREAKABLE, BABY! w00t!") and then go sell a bunch of units to the PHBs.

... an in-office orgasm in today's strip... ;-)

No, check for yourself:

http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/d ilbert2073243050503.gif

Paul B.

What to do if you Boss is a "victim" Identity Theft

All the dinosaurs (e.g. Bob, Dawn & Rex) are not extinct; they are just hiding.

When they release OS X Catbert you know it's time to start looking somewhere else.

Why am I suddenly reminded of this.

Here's a more useful link.

Let's all hope that a plump Elbonian is taking a walk when CmdrTaco lands there after being tossed out of the plane.

Let's all hope that a plump Elbonian is taking a walk when CmdrTaco lands there after being tossed out of the plane.

Obligatory Dilbert cartoon. I'd link to the original, but can't find it.

... which is, of course, Dilbert, updates daily, 7 times a day, for the past few years... There isn't a webcomic out there that could compare to its greatness.

Heh, only good comics out there is Scott Adams' Dilbert and the UserFriendly.
Userfriendly is maybe a bit...uhm...to geeky?

Managing a company isn't a matter of engineering.

I had a job interview at 3Dfx (maker of the early 3D chipsets) a number of years ago. The interview with the QA manager went will (except he had a mohawk, head-to-toe tattoos, body peircings and prefers capital punishment if someone farted in his lab). I then had to be interviewed by the Marketing manager, which I thought was extremely odd and I mentioned that. Turns out Marketing ran the company. I wasn't hired and I didn't want to work there after talking to the Marketing hack.

It's really bad for the engineering department to be run by marketing department. Don't believe me? Read Dilbert for the inside scoop.

As for 3Dfx, the Marketing department decided to screw their own customers by marketing their own 3D cards. That prompted everyone to jump on the Nvidia bandwagon when the TNT chipset came out. Ironically, it was Nvidia that bought out the intellectual property rights when 3Dfx went under.

That thing reminds me of Dilbert's mission statement generator. The scary thing is that the material from Dilbert's babble engine actually sounds like alot of the stuff you are likely to find on actual corporate websites.

Although you're not looking for the house design, I think you could get some ideas from the Dilbert house: click here

As far as my suggestion, I say you should account for the possibility of having a small server room in your house. Such a room would should be easy to keep cool (basement?), fire resistant, and have some type of shielding from electromagnetic radiation (like thin sheet metal).

Dilbert's Ultimate House might be a good place to start.

I'll take your word for it as I haven't used anything MS for a few years and don't really want to take the time to research this too deeply.

Really? And if you know nothing about your topic, why did you bother to open your mouth in the first place?

(In response to your unasked question, I'm not anti-Linux, I'm anti-idiot. (With apologies to Scott Adams.))

Go BOFH on there asses.....

It's the only way to show them that the IT Dept. is a more valuable the you think....,
That the PC don't fix them self..,
Turn off the Firewall.., Spam Filter.., disconnect the internet connection...,


http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/imag es/dilbert20050101046179.jpg/

Which exchange? If there's enough interest, consider setting up a community-based DSL provider...

http://www.bendigotelco.com.au/
http://www.ncable.net.au/

(Or else let me know, and I'll see about becoming a "community player" by "enhancing the outback's access to high-speed internet...")

wonder why...

That reminds me of a recent Dilbert....
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/imag es/dilbert20051830810113.gif

You might want to try the Wally approach.

Dilbert 12/19/04

This story seems to verify that Scott Adams Dilbert is a real character http://dilbert.com/

Heh.

Today's Dilbert seems somehow appropriate:

Would you stop if I pointed out that everyone in the room except you is an electrical engineer?

Oh yes, Americans are kings and queens of the business terms that sound impressive but are almost impossible to decrypt.

Take some examples from presentations I've just been going through for work:
* "automate operational business processes to meet the needs of service-driven organizations"
* "Fit and Agility" - For business software?
* "establish the corporate value proposition"

The dilbert mission statement creator does it brilliantly as well.

America does THAT better than anyone!

The way of Wally.

Can't find a job? Go to grad school. Get paid around $20k (30 with an NSF fellowship, although your chances of getting one are around 1 in 11), work your ass off, get fed up with your far superior peers and then get a job as an assistant professor who has to slave for 10 years before they get tenured! Woohoo! After all, for every Dilbert there's someone that's Piled High and Deep.

What you can do, seriously, is just attend grad school and look for a job while you're there. You have financial security if you're enrolled in a PhD program that pays you (like most sciences), and your resume looks better with the "Master's expected June 2006" at the top. You can always quit (even if your department will hate you) when you find a job.

meaningless technobable, managementspeak, sentence fragments and misspelled words?

you want it? You already have it
Mission statement Generator

(in a life imitating art moment, I am currently looking at a job application that wants me "To exploit all synergies within the group and drive through efficiencies via excellent operational planning.")

AND YOU AREN'T EVEN BANNING REGULAR CAMERAS!!!
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilb ert-20041114.html

The Dilbert comic in discussion, from Nov. 14, 2004:

(See strips for about a week or so before the one in the link)

He was a crackpot and drove soviet science into the ground

His being a crackpot and his running down Soviet biology and agriculture (not the whole of Soviet science) are only remotely related things.

A truly talented scientist could do the same easily having the oppression apparatus of the USSR at his disposal. Isaac Newton (as depicted by Stephenson, anyway) comes to mind.

Hence my point -- bringing up "Lysenkoism" in a country, where scientists (neither crackpots nor real) can not send other scientists to jail, is a red-herring.

And it is a disgrace to the memory of brilliant minds, who suffered from real Lysenko.

take your Godwins law crap or whatever simplification to annoy others instead.

Sorry to have annoyed you, but you were and remain wrong. May I suggest a less annoying web-site, perhaps?

Soon we will all be augmented by our extra brain bags! Organic computers in a purse that we either wear or have implanted in our abdomens

To quote the work of Scott Adams...

Dogbert: (Talking to PHB at the office) The dogbert consulting company will plot a new course for your business

Dogbert: My consultants are so smart that their brains don't fit in their heads. They have to strap the extra brains to their torsos.

Ratbert: (Later at home) Why do I need a piece of liver strapped to my torso?

Dogbert: I got a little carried away at the pitch meeting.

It seems the Slashdot editors mayhaps read Dilbert.

If you've been looking to blame your boss, this article from MSNBC says your ship has come in!

I think this little gem says it all. Strangely enough, it's today's Dilbert. Thing is, the buck-passers are who protect their own image or the image of those who write their cheques. The result? Too many projects are blamed on interns or programmers, rather than the truth coming to light.

Why? I think it's simple, really. Management often has no clue what they are doing in terms of managing a technical project so they make decisions about things like the exact features, and they often fight to get things a certain way -- unwittingly forcing programmers to code all the way around the block to get to the house next door, leaving problems in the wake.

The best case is when a programmer is given design autonomy. That's why Open Source is such a threat to large companies like Microsoft... because the guys who know what *can* be done, are the same guys doing it -- the result is 1111x better, and cheaper too.

I am so lucky to be working now for a company that allows me to have full autonomy with my projects. They tell me what the customer wants and I do it the way I think is best. Every single project done in this manner has resulted with happy customers and excellent systems.

Yeah, sure. What percentage? There is absolutely no way to qualify that shit, so I don't buy it. Business plays the charity card when they know the public image will take a hit from a particular action.

The charity is the Abused CEO's Relief Fund.