The hard part about getting geeks into management is that they need to be around one place long enough. PHB's get where they are by riding out the clock and becoming the one with the most knowledge. This happens through attrition in many organizations. We geeks aren't often patient enough to ride the pendulum long enough for it to swing the other way.
Our management here has been propogated through golf buddies and drinking buddies. Those with the experience to make good decisions for the organization and proven experience are not considered for promotions. How do you propose a geek go about staging a coup de corp?
Plumbing is just a different discipline. The goal of plumbing is to get the crap out of your building. You really don't care what happens once it gets out of your building. That's someone else's problem.
IT is about bringing some crap into your building while keeping other crap out. Calculated crap management is what makes IT a science.
The job of tech support is to get the customer off the phone in the shortest period of time. The ones providing tech support bill based on number of calls.
How many call centers track the resolution of the issues and customer satisfaction? I would guess it's a very small percentage. Customer satisfaction is the antithesis of the purpose the tech support is there to provide. The reason that good customer service is so hard to find is that people who convince the customer all is lost and they should give up in 2 minutes are promoted. On the other hand, the person who can solve most problems, but has a 10 minute average call time will be reprimanded by management for not handling their share of calls.
Customer service is an expense to the company providing it. When the company already has your money, what is the incentive to spend more of their money on providing better service? Very few companies care about providing good service. They just have to provide a level of service that's not noticeably worse than the competition.
On the one hand, you have the "email marketers" who use their own valid domains/addresses, who wouldn't need to pay anything extra. They pay for the domains, but that doesn't stop them from registering a bunch of them. Adding another tax for the user@ part of the name would have no impact.
On the other hand, you have the ones who use cracked windows boxes to send out their scams. They're already stealing the resources to do their bidding. What difference would it be to them if they had it send "from" the legitimate email account of the person who's machine is a spam zombie?
I believe digital signatures are the only way to solve the email problems we have. I get spam claiming to come from me because there is nothing that prevents spammers from forging their addresses. The first step to solving this problem is accountability. If I know that an email comes from who it claims to come from, I can lump that source with a good or bad group. With a web of trust, I could easily let through friends of friends of friends while blocking friends of friends of spammers.
I believe the point of contention is what the government can do and what others can do.
For example, if you want to live off the grid, you can't expect to get credit. The companies that grant credit want information (credit history) that other companies collect. You don't have to buy into that system if you don't want the benefit.
On the other hand, it's not as simple as walking or biking to avoid having to ID yourself. There was a recent case where a man was arrested for refusing to show ID and he was a passenger in a car:
Contrary to what the government repeatedly asserts, identification does not equal accountability. If they want to pass a law requiring more stringent tracking of citizens, any event can be spun into support for the cause. After the Oklahoma City bombing, there were people calling out for stricter gun control laws. Politicians will take advantage of any opportunity to support their causes. ID requirements are someone's cause, and many people miss that most of the "solutions" proposed have nothing to do with the problem.
Bin Laden is a figurehead. He is the personification of the "evil" that the administration is fighting. If he were captured or killed, there would be no focal point for everyone to direct their hate. If he were no longer a threat, a new figurehead would have to be created.
How do you know they're opponents? This is a good way to win support for the party. Deception is a valuable political tool.
By inciting others to do this, they're calling attention to the republican party and how they're being targeted by "evil hackers". The republican party is the "victim" in this story. The enemy is some vague group of people that the public does not understand, but is repeatedly told are evil.
Look at this from a politician's perspective: 1. Republicans are being targeted by hackers. 2. Hackers are evil. 3. Some hackers are terrorists. 4. Hackers are supporting the democrats. 5. Democrats are employing terrorist hackers to support their cause. 6. Vote republican because democrats are terrorists.
Political campaigns have been built on worse logic.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil.
The majority of people have been taught that the rights they have are given by the benevolence of the government.
The fact that these natural rights exist for all who choose to use them doesn't change the perception many people have.
Consider jury nullification as an example. While each juror has the right to vote their conscience, even if it contradicts the letter of the law, many have accepted assertions by courts that this is not true. If the citizens truly are only supposed to vote the way they are directed by the judge, why do we have juries?
We are born with certain inalienable rights, but only those who reject the teachings of society retain those rights.
This seems like an interesting project, but it seems to lack an application. The question I have is "what next?" if they succeed.
Helicopters aren't an efficient means of travel. I believe it was an interview with Sikorsky where he stated that a helicopter would never be faster than a plane, never be more efficient than a plane, and several other arguments against them. However, the purpose of a helicopter is not to improve efficiency, it's to perform functions that can't be done with other vehicles. Helicopters can move over terrain that cars cannot. They can hover in one place to perform tasks like rescues that cannot be done with a plane.
None of the areas where helicopters are great tools seem like they would benefit from a project like this. Most of the applications where helicopters are useful require the ability to do more than move a single person and no cargo a short distance. That's just my perception, please correct me with examples if you disagree.
A human powered airplane could be used for transportation and the research could help in designing more efficient airplanes. Or it could be applied to ultralight design. It could become a means of transportation for those who are more into something fun than getting somewhere quickly.
While the human powered helicopter seems like an interesting idea, are there practical (from an engineering, not commercial point of view) applications for the results?
Slashdot Mirror
The hard part about getting geeks into management is that they need to be around one place long enough. PHB's get where they are by riding out the clock and becoming the one with the most knowledge. This happens through attrition in many organizations. We geeks aren't often patient enough to ride the pendulum long enough for it to swing the other way.
Our management here has been propogated through golf buddies and drinking buddies. Those with the experience to make good decisions for the organization and proven experience are not considered for promotions. How do you propose a geek go about staging a coup de corp?
Plumbing is just a different discipline. The goal of plumbing is to get the crap out of your building. You really don't care what happens once it gets out of your building. That's someone else's problem.
IT is about bringing some crap into your building while keeping other crap out. Calculated crap management is what makes IT a science.
The job of tech support is to get the customer off the phone in the shortest period of time. The ones providing tech support bill based on number of calls.
How many call centers track the resolution of the issues and customer satisfaction? I would guess it's a very small percentage. Customer satisfaction is the antithesis of the purpose the tech support is there to provide. The reason that good customer service is so hard to find is that people who convince the customer all is lost and they should give up in 2 minutes are promoted. On the other hand, the person who can solve most problems, but has a 10 minute average call time will be reprimanded by management for not handling their share of calls.
Customer service is an expense to the company providing it. When the company already has your money, what is the incentive to spend more of their money on providing better service? Very few companies care about providing good service. They just have to provide a level of service that's not noticeably worse than the competition.
A Pascal is a unit of pressure. units gives:
you have: pascal
you want: atmosphere
* 9.869233e-06
/ 1.013250e+05
This wouldn't have any impact on spam.
On the one hand, you have the "email marketers" who use their own valid domains/addresses, who wouldn't need to pay anything extra. They pay for the domains, but that doesn't stop them from registering a bunch of them. Adding another tax for the user@ part of the name would have no impact.
On the other hand, you have the ones who use cracked windows boxes to send out their scams. They're already stealing the resources to do their bidding. What difference would it be to them if they had it send "from" the legitimate email account of the person who's machine is a spam zombie?
I believe digital signatures are the only way to solve the email problems we have. I get spam claiming to come from me because there is nothing that prevents spammers from forging their addresses. The first step to solving this problem is accountability. If I know that an email comes from who it claims to come from, I can lump that source with a good or bad group. With a web of trust, I could easily let through friends of friends of friends while blocking friends of friends of spammers.
I believe the point of contention is what the government can do and what others can do.
For example, if you want to live off the grid, you can't expect to get credit. The companies that grant credit want information (credit history) that other companies collect. You don't have to buy into that system if you don't want the benefit.
On the other hand, it's not as simple as walking or biking to avoid having to ID yourself. There was a recent case where a man was arrested for refusing to show ID and he was a passenger in a car:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/hiibel/
Contrary to what the government repeatedly asserts, identification does not equal accountability. If they want to pass a law requiring more stringent tracking of citizens, any event can be spun into support for the cause. After the Oklahoma City bombing, there were people calling out for stricter gun control laws. Politicians will take advantage of any opportunity to support their causes. ID requirements are someone's cause, and many people miss that most of the "solutions" proposed have nothing to do with the problem.
Bin Laden is a figurehead. He is the personification of the "evil" that the administration is fighting. If he were captured or killed, there would be no focal point for everyone to direct their hate. If he were no longer a threat, a new figurehead would have to be created.
How do you know they're opponents? This is a good way to win support for the party. Deception is a valuable political tool.
By inciting others to do this, they're calling attention to the republican party and how they're being targeted by "evil hackers". The republican party is the "victim" in this story. The enemy is some vague group of people that the public does not understand, but is repeatedly told are evil.
Look at this from a politician's perspective:
1. Republicans are being targeted by hackers.
2. Hackers are evil.
3. Some hackers are terrorists.
4. Hackers are supporting the democrats.
5. Democrats are employing terrorist hackers to support their cause.
6. Vote republican because democrats are terrorists.
Political campaigns have been built on worse logic.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil.
The majority of people have been taught that the rights they have are given by the benevolence of the government.
The fact that these natural rights exist for all who choose to use them doesn't change the perception many people have.
Consider jury nullification as an example. While each juror has the right to vote their conscience, even if it contradicts the letter of the law, many have accepted assertions by courts that this is not true. If the citizens truly are only supposed to vote the way they are directed by the judge, why do we have juries?
We are born with certain inalienable rights, but only those who reject the teachings of society retain those rights.
This seems like an interesting project, but it seems to lack an application. The question I have is "what next?" if they succeed.
Helicopters aren't an efficient means of travel. I believe it was an interview with Sikorsky where he stated that a helicopter would never be faster than a plane, never be more efficient than a plane, and several other arguments against them. However, the purpose of a helicopter is not to improve efficiency, it's to perform functions that can't be done with other vehicles. Helicopters can move over terrain that cars cannot. They can hover in one place to perform tasks like rescues that cannot be done with a plane.
None of the areas where helicopters are great tools seem like they would benefit from a project like this. Most of the applications where helicopters are useful require the ability to do more than move a single person and no cargo a short distance. That's just my perception, please correct me with examples if you disagree.
A human powered airplane could be used for transportation and the research could help in designing more efficient airplanes. Or it could be applied to ultralight design. It could become a means of transportation for those who are more into something fun than getting somewhere quickly.
While the human powered helicopter seems like an interesting idea, are there practical (from an engineering, not commercial point of view) applications for the results?