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HEY you need to check out todays dilbert! funny!

1) Windows 2003 as a "router box"? What are you protecting? A honeypot? (Does a day go by without word of yet another windows virus/worm/problem? I thought the statistics folks were quoting somewhere around 20-30 NEW bugs/viruses/worms per DAY. Most not being widespread, of course.)

2) I HAVE installed Linux on a 25 Mhz 486 with 16 Megs of RAM. It's no big deal. Installation was absolutely trivial!(*) Recognized all my network cards and other hardware right out of the box. Pretty much a plain-jane default install. Had all my compiler tools. Network mounted drives. Awk. Perl. Tcsh. Ssh. Even ran Apache.

(*) Well, there was one little problem: The motherboard wouldn't recognize my CDROM drive. But once I told BIOS it didn't have a CDROM drive, it would boot. And Linux, being Linux, would automatically ignore the BIOS settings, find the CDROM, and use it just fine.

3) $300 for a new system? Try $158.98 a box. Or $248 for a faster system with harddrive & CD-ROM.

Don't forget to add another $200 for Windows XP Pro.

4)

Many eyes constantly looking over, improving and tweaking code will always turn out a better product than an elite few.

In theory, yes. In reality, there are, in most open source projects, very few active committers. Sure there's lots of people who commit the odd "typo" patch or something of the like, but there are very few actual "team members" that are working on the architecture.

The ability to view the actual source code, to change it however you feel like to suit your current needs, is invaluable for developers. It allows you to understand precisely what is going on all the way down to the iron.

Frequently, this "many eyes" approach to understanding the system results in improvements, both large and small. Inefficiencies are corrected. Bugs are fixed, rather than worked around. Changes are submitted back up. Rarely, projects are forked.

It's a very Darwinian environment. All that matters are your results. You can work on any aspect your little heart desires. From architecture to device drivers. You just have to produce quality work.

You mention thousands of developers on Windows. I'm just curious: How many people do you think it takes to write a line of code? Or to create an architecture? 'Cause, you know, my computer only has one keyboard... (Though emacs can display the same buffer in multiple windows on different machines... But we're talking windows here, not UNIX.)

5) Longhorn, 2008: Microsoft claimed a lot of features for Longhorn. Last I heard, they had gone the Dilbert route, and shifted those features to the "Future Development" column. Thereby moving up the date.

On the other hand, having witnessed Microsoft's amazing abilities to stick to a time-table with win95a, win95b, win95c, win98, win98se, winME, winNT, win2000, winXP, etc...

Yah. 2008. Maybe.

And don't forget to add another year or two on, to let them get the kinks out... Somewhere around Longhorn-Service-Pack-TWO it ought to become usable.

Hey, I knew I'd seen that face before! :-) Or maybe that was here.

I agree with you exactly. It's not bad for a child's drawing, but the seagull makes Foghorn Leghorn look like a dignified bird in comparison. The seagull is funny, but it's funny in a bad way, i.e., not appropriate for school kids, because it could be seen as promoting illegal drug use, sexual activity (see other posts), and plain daftness. Seriously, the first thing the bird's disheveled hair and disoriented look made me think of was Saddam Hussein when he was pulled out of his spiderhole.

I didn't realize Dilbert had kids. Geez. Stop reading the funnies, Scott Adams goes all crazy on you.

Dilbert's Mom

Pointy Haired Boss.

If it's really required that this guy get 24 hour notification (as opposed to something he did as a gee-whiz application or to feel empowered), they'll cough up the money no problem.

You have a naive faith in the business process. Read more Dilbert.

The good looking, intelligent girl over there at the bar that you'd really like to talk to doesn't care much whether you are famous amongst a group of geeks and neither does she even remotely fathom why you'd be famous for that stuff in the first place.

<Asok>It only hurts because it's true.</Asok>

I can't believe anyone on Slashdot doesn't know who Linus is.

He's Lucy's baby brother, dumbass! You know, the one with the blanket?

Where have you *been* the last 50 years?

Well that explains why he always keeps that blanket around.

This article talks about the about the kind of folks who are working in Offshore IT :
Dilbert pokes fun at IIT grads

Contents:
Jokes apart, the ongoing backlash in the US against job losses to Indian techies has found a place even in the famous cartoon strip Dilbert, the latest of which (September 15, 2003) goes on to take a dig at IIT grads from India.

Asok, the brilliant but naive Indian trainee, the cynical Wally and the ever-sceptical Alice are sitting in the boardroom with the pointy-haired Boss. Asok says that though he was the project manager, nobody replied to his e-mail.

However, he is proud of the fact that he is an IIT graduate and considers himself superior to his counterparts and thus had been able to finish the project himself. When Wally asks him, "Are you tired?", he replies: "I am trained to only sleep during National Holidays".

And this spoof shows up the threat of Indian takeover in global arena specially in the field of technology. It also show up the Indian techie - the IITian - as he is perceived by his colleagues: a work maniac who has inhuman abilities to slog and thus outpace his American counterparts.

India's IITs have, of course, been the subject of admiration - now bordering on envy - in corporate America for more than five years now. A 1998 BusinessWeek article on India's whiz kids has this to say for IITians: "The rise of IITians, as they are known, is a telling example of how global capitalism works today. The best companies draw on the best brains from around the world, and the result is a global class of worker: the highly educated, intensely ambitious college grad who seeks out a challenging career, even if it is thousands of miles from home. By rising to the top of Corporate America, these alumni lead all other Asians in their ability to reach the upper echelons of world-class companies."

A researcher at UC Berkeley estimated that fully 20 per cent of start-ups in Silicon Valley are IITian-owned. Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos has described the Indian IITian as a "world treasure." Bill Gates says the computer industry has benefited greatly from them.

Besides graduates of the prestigious IITs, where the quality of technical training is comparable to the best of the educational institutes in the world, India has a growing bank of 4.1 million technical workers, supplied by over 1,800 educational institutions and polytechnics. These train more than 67,785 computer software professionals every year - many of whom are a threat to America's homegrown computer jocks in the competition for jobs.

With the recent swell in outsourcing key software development jobs to India - coming on top of the BPO migration - a mixture of awe and resentment about India's brainpower is beginnning to develop. The American media have so far been mostly kind to IITs and IITians. CBS 60 Minutes had a very flattering portrayal of IITs recently. In fact, a co-anchor on CBS 60 Minutes had gone on to describe IIT Bombay thus: "Put Harvard, MIT and Princeton together, and you begin to get an idea of the status of this school in India."

But as usual, cartoonist Scott Adams - who draws and writes the Dilbert strip six days a week, is probably ahead of the pack in anticipating media and public opinion about IIT grads.

Here's the:
Dilbert strip

Dear president bush,

There are 192 countries.

So far, you have only bombed two.

Even if you win re-election, you only have 65 months left in office.

If we are to get them all, you will need to bomb three per month from here on out.

For us to sustain that kind of pace, you will need to stop wasting time asking the U.N and Congress for approval. They are silly girly-girls.

P.S. If we have extra time, I suggest hitting France more than once.

may I humbly recommend pearls before swine?

not the greatest comic strip ever penned, but we ususally get a good chuckle when we thumb thru the comics during a break.

Quite simply, nerds like comics. Especially chara Opus:)

Here's some links to help you catch up with the rest of us:

Dilbert
Calvin and Hobbes
the Far Side
the 5th Wave
Bob the Angry Flower
Foxtrot

And even if my local rag doesn't pick it up, I will be happy as long as they continue to run Get Fuzzy, which features a combative cat and a dumb-as-a-rock pooch.

The article is also mixing comic books and comic strips. Sure, stuff like Dilbert , User Friendly, The Boondocks, and Achewood work well on the web. They're short and easy to read. Most people who read comic books, however, relish the strip to the store, holding it in their hands, filling up the long white boxes...

I can't believe nobody (or at least no high-scored-post) has yet mentioned that Scott Adams has written many books about this. All the books are full of real life examples of stupid boss behaviour but some of the content is disguised as humorous instead of being documentation for real life. Don't fall into that pit! Scott Adams has even a web site dedicated for idiot boss and cow-orkers. You might want to become a member of DNRC, too.

Not to be off-topic, but that reminds me of this comic.

Boss: Look what one of our engineers said to a reporter !
Dogbert: (reading) "Our technology is putrid, but we compensate by ignoring complaints."
Boss: You know what would be more fun than fixing those problems ?
Dogbert: WITCH-HUNT !!!

Scott Adams now requires the word "dilbert" to be in the subject line of all e-mail sent to his AOL address... everything else is trashed, presumably.

DEAR MR. ADAMS,

I am writing to you with utmost urgency from Lagos, Nigeria. This is an investment opportunity that you will not want to miss. Ten million dollars in gold bullion has been discovered in a bank account in my family's name. But due to our current cash flow situation, we cannot afford the outrageous bank processing and legal fees to take possession of this gold which is rightfully ours. I am proposing that your kind self wire me $10,000 U.S. to cover these fees, and in return you will receive one million dollars wired to your account after we take possession of the gold. Please respond. Time is of the essence.

Swinhar

As mentioned, he's not the same Scott Adams, the adventure-engine/game-writer as the Dilbert version.

FYI, Scott Adams is trying something new : here.

A little off topic, but that reminds me of this allegedly true story about unintended consequences:

I worked as an accountant in a paper mill where my boss decided that it would improve motivation to split a bonus between the two shifts based on what percentage of the total production each one accomplished.

The workers quickly realized that it was easier to sabotage the next shift than to make more paper. Coworkers put glue in locks, loosened nuts on equipment so it would fall apart, you name it. The bonus scheme was abandoned after about ten days, to avoid all-out civil war.

This was from Scott Adam's Dilbert Newsletter #44, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt.

Hi Jussi, Sure, you can use it.

Not a long reply though ;)))

What Dilberts mom and Microsoft have in common

...how long it would take for such things to happen.

I've been noticing it for quite a while. Skateboarding and snowboarding competitions IRL are cluttered with ads, and so are the games. If this is the first time that a game maker has received money to draw the ads into the game, well, good for them, because they should have been getting paid for some time now.

Too bad they won't pass on that money to the consumers, but maybe that will change. Why are television, radio, web sites free? Why does a two ream Sunday newspaper only cost $1.25? Heck, if the game were free I'd sit through embedded commericals. Good time to shake out the hand cramps and go to the bathroom.

Advertising is not "bad;" it's just important to be aware of where it is and what it's worth. Does your car have a license plate holder advertising where you bought it? Does your shirt have a logo on it? Ads are everywhere and that's not going to change. But if you're going to become a NASCAT, make sure you get paid!

I find that Dilbert's engineering insights are commonly applicable. Dilbert

...and was a huge fan of strips like Peanuts, Bloom County, and even Doonesbury. I've laughed...

No, no, no! Why would you read all these comics, when Robotman (Monty) is (are?) the only comic(s) you will ever need? :)

Jim Meddick for Statsminister! (or President, or Whatever...)

http://translate.google.com/translate_c?hl=en& u=theURL

It certainly jumps over WebSense(less) at my workplace (and it provides binary data with no hassles, too, so I can see the Dilbert strip quite painlessly.

'til next post

Marcos (any likeness to chance is pure reality)

"Enterprise solutions that accelerate the solution process by turning information into results"

Seems like someone's been using the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator again!

----rhad

I think a large part of Futurama's problems with Fox(and many of the other shows listed in the discussion above) are a failing in the manner in which the Nielsen ratings are done. How many people on slashdot even KNOW a person who is a nielsen 'household', let alone are a nielsen voter?

FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Marketing tactic. If your product is not competing strongly, or even not existent, you let on how something awful is about to befall your competitor.

PHB: Pointy-Haired Boss. It's a reference to the cartoon Dilbert.

TCO: Total Cost of Ownership. Corporate-speak. Said of IT components. Recognition that an upfront price tag is not the whole story. There are other costs in the long run: hardware and software, maintenance, support, staff, licensing, etc.

In the future, you might try the Jargon File.

This Sunday's Arlo and Janis pays homage to Chuck Jones. It also made me laugh out loud and long.

When my six year-old niece and four year-old daughter, who were watching Sponge Bob Square Pants, asked what I was laughing at, I knew this was a teachable moment. We will spend the rest of the day watching all our WB videos.

Flagrantly ripped from the latest DNRC newsletter:

Plop, The Hairless Elbonian

Over the summer I was experimenting with a Dilbert spin-off comic strip about a little boy and his pig growing up in the clueless country of Elbonia. Unfortunately this isn't a good time to launch a comic featuring people who look like the Taliban. So it's on the shelf, probably permanently.

You can see the experimental strips at:

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/plop/

In order to do that, they'd have to be competent web developers/admins.

However, they are ... consultants.

Most games have some sort of "payoff" device that is implicit when you play it. When you get that payoff, whether it is the final goal or some sort of intermediary plateau, you take a breather and appreciate your accomplishment. If a game defers that payoff and continues to promise it, it will become more and more of a time-sink. This fairly much appeals to the natural structure of human motivation - it's *designed* to generate obsessive behavior.

Hey, Scott is one smart fellow. There are some cool philisophical and scientific insights in his book, the Dilbert Future. He talks about stuff like chaos theory and quantum physics, and it's quite interesting. Knocking the guy's intelligence because he draws cartoons is elitist and, dare I say, bad karma ;)

...And his line of yuppie vegan burritos is dil-tastic!

It's like he threw up his hands, said "Well, I'm out of ideas!" and went back to Dilbert humor for the last strip.

It's bad, but bad enough to be funny, I guess. Or maybe not.

I've learned more from Scott Adams' books, comic strips and LOTD forum than all the corporate seminars, hot-shot management guides and corporate CEO puff biographies I've attended or read all rolled into one. He can say more in a few short sentences or cells than most of these windbags say in a ponderous volume of prose. Who says comic books and graphic novels aren't a legitimate forum for art and ideas? Satire is wasted on some people.

Vote today on Dilbert's List of Top 822 Most Unhelpful Statements From the Help Desk

PHB = Pointy Haired Boss

It's a character from the Dilbert cartoon series by Steve Adams. Dilbert FAQ

bill waterson (sp?) wrote calvin and hobbes. He had had enough, and decided to retire. Dude did that strip for a long-ass time.

Nah, Waterson was a piker. C&H only ran a bit over ten years. This dude did his strip for "a long-ass time!"

Can you think of a better marketing ploy to make your soft drink sound hip and edgy and get the name plastered all over the media? This could be even better for free publicity and name recognition than the Verizon strike.

Vote today for Dilbert's list of Top 869 Things Programmers Are Least Likely To Say.

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/ images/dilbert2004061210620.gif for those worried about goatman.

-S

I think there are some gems out there. Boondocks is a riot, especially the Nader bit, and Get Fuzzy is great. Bucky is the ultimate cat.

on a somewhat related note, i just noticed today that Dilbert is running a series of strips about musicians being paid with "digital tips." it's one of the funnier Dilberts in a very long while (and here i thought Scott Adams ran out of ideas long ago!)

- j

Speaking of patents... Seen this?

:-) //Johan

I'm not so concerned about Elbrusian technology as I am about Elbonian technology.

ööööö.... Shouldn't Rowenta then sue/settle/whatever Apple over this? I'm giving up on trying to understand corporate "thinking"...
J.