Did he ever raise the issue of this VP's abusive personality to HR or the CIO? Complain about the poisonous atmosphere this guy's personality was causing?
Yes to the latter (the CIO was his immediate boss). But he was told to fix it.
Part of a civilized society is also that there exist conditions under which contract terms become unenforceable.
No doubt. Had the legitimicy of the EULA been brought into question, I would not have really had a problem. My problem was saying that there are ways of achieving the end of the EULA. Either those ends are allowed, in which case a EULA should be able to enforce them, or they are not, and non-EULA action to enforce them is verboten.
As the manager of the support team, then, the VP-level person presumedly in charge of making sure his team is properly trained in both the company's product and the troubleshooting processes, the author didn't deserve to get yelled at... why again?
That is a factually accurate summary, but does slant it somewhat. There are some potential justifications (not close enough to know if they are true).
1. The support team that the author manages didn't get trained on the new version before it went into production.
2. They didn't know how to support it or even talk properly about the issues.
He claims that the dev. team shipped it Friday afternoon, and went home claiming that the support team could "figure it out". If true, that's shitty on everyones part.
3. They didn't follow up properly in documenting the case.
I have mixed feelings on this. Yes, they should have documented the case. But it sounds like they had an emergency procedure (involve the guy who wrote the article, who was allowed to skip the red tape) which they invoked. It's worth noting that it wasn't documented over the weekend. It still should have been written up ex post facto, but that was after he would have had the altercation.
. They woke up the VP of software development at 3 AM without having good data for him.
The VP-esqe support guy woke up a developer, and notified the VP of software development that he was contacting his employee. The support guy called his VP. This seems like the least offensive thing one could have done.
Complaining about use of the word "fuck"? Trying to start a conversation about Battlestar?
He complained that had the word 'frack' been used instead of 'fuck' it would have given them a nerdy laugh because of Battlestar Galactica. I don't think it was the profanity that bothered him as much as the lack of ability to make a stupid joke. I agree that is retardded however.
I guess where I'm going here is that I'm having a hard time seeing this as 'IT bullying'.
Yeah, the other guy seemed like a jerk, but hardly worth all this fuss. The author did seem too thin-skinned for that kind of position.
I agree. I meant that a lot of the "restrictive" IT policies are because people want to do stupid stuff like that. If you could trust your employees not to be dumb, you wouldn't have to restrict that data. But since you cannot...
All it will take is for a few heavy weights (Apple, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Microsoft?) or an aggregation of a lot of little guys...
That would be interesting:
Error: $100,000: That is how much money you ISP has demanded of our site in order to allow YOU to have the access at the speed you ALREADY PAID FOR. Since we were were forced to a) pay blackmail or b) offer you a slow version of this site, we have invented option c). Until this blackmail stops, no one from [INSERT NAME OF CONTENT PROVIDER] may access our site.
The only exception is this paper on Net Neutrality.
My point as about EULA's and about the fact that if Apple wants to restrict OS X to Apple only hardware then they should require proof of Mac ownership in order to buy a copy. They do not. If anyone can buy one then anyone should be able to install it on any computer.
Part of a civilized society is that you can use contracts (aka, EULA) as opposed to physical measures (aka, proof of ownership) to lower transaction costs.
What business does she have storing that file on her laptop in the first place? Sensitive data should stay on a server and never touch something that can leave the company premises.
If users thought things through that well there wouldn't be a need for 90% of IT regulations.
A medical review board just agreed that Thimerisol, and specific conditions in a young girl were responsible for causing her Autism.
Yes, but the standards of proof were twisted. The burden of proof was put on the vaccine manufacturer to prove that it wasn't responsible, and there was no financial penalty (the government picked up the cost of the settlement in that case) for them just walking away.
Is his party reported in the title or first sentance? If so, odds are the source is biased against that party. Is the politician's party not mentioned in the piece? Odds are the source is biased for that party.
Some news outlets actually have style guides to ensuret that the answer is the same regardless of party.
Please. Suppose your mother could copy her file "Names, SSNs, and other bits of employee data.xls" onto her thumb drive. Suppose she then lost it. The entire company would get in trouble. And everyone on/. would vilify them.
Maybe there's a way to allow encrypted only memory sticks, but unencrypted? I think not.
Well, the point is that, yes, using only AND and NOT gates you can build anything. Using only OR and NOT gates you can build anything. You cannot use AND and OR gates to build anything, because you cannot build a NOT gate. However, given only NAND gates or only NOR gate, or only XNOR gates, you can build anything.
Because it is easier to create one type of gate, most chip manufacturers create either NAND or NOR gate chips, and wire them up however (XNOR is less efficent to create most circuits, IIRC).
Add quantifiers to this and and you get all of math. ALL of it.
Except fuzzy logic. Or nonbivalent maths. Or trancendental numbers. Or the concept of '2'.
Is a particle motion simulator a abnormally easy test case?
Particle motions is an abnormally parellelizable case, the only better example is graphics. So the many core solution runs a lot better than the quad-core one, given simple calculations. That doesn't scale to more inolved calculations on fewer (or more interdependent) bodies.
The majority of tv/movies/music/internet sites/advertising campaigns (which drives the previous) either target people under thirty (nice amounts of disposible income) or people over thirty (by telling them they can be hip again, by doing what 30-year-olds do).
Really? Hundreds of years of economics just got overturned. How else do you explain many people competing for fewer jobs? Or even fewer government grants.
How about a subwoofer? Or surround sound? Seriously, that setup and only stereo speakers. I can barely tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, but I sure as hell can tell the difference between 2.0 and 5.1
Go to the subpoena. Go to page three, and read the list of names. Some highlights in this legal document: Killer of Sacred Cows; the Misbehavior of Behaviorologist (discussion board), meow meow meow... blah blah blah, and a HYPERLINK written out.
I've seen no evidence of the health problems being any less than say, obesity.
And? I also support people who did not want to become obese to do their job more effectively.
with no evidence of costs or health problems being greater, assign it the "clearly undue" status.
No, my point is, you cannot offer a job where obesity is an advantage and not somehow correct for that. Becuase it is wrong to make people choose between their health and their career. You said to fire obese people because they are unhealthy. My point isn't that they are unhealthy, but that in order for someone to fairly compete with them intellectually, they too must become unhealthy.
You call constraints on obesity "ludicrus" [sic], yet on this issue, with no evidence of costs or health problems being greater, assign it the "clearly undue" status. And, if your "clearly undue" is so clear, why does there seem to be some discussion on it?
I couldn't really parse this rhetorical mishmash.
I see it as you forcing your morals on others, then finding ways to justify it after the fact. That is the cause of almost all "undue" and there is nothing you've said that discourages me from such an opinion in this case.
Please be consistent with how you use "undue" so that I can understand you.
This subpoena seems rather similar to the McCarthy-era Communist witch-hunts in terminology used, such as referring to the turnover of the names of those who have donated.
I agree.
Also, since when is a blog classed as a taxable entity, and since when are blog owners required to submit tax documents on behalf of their blogs?
The subpoena asks for her tax records, bank info, etc. Not her blog's.
? Should people be in the mind to give to a site they support, shouldn't they be free to do so without having to worry about this?
They should be...
It seems as though there are numerous reasons why the subpoena would be quashed (it requires a 3rd party to travel over 100 miles, its overbroad and irrelevent to the matter at hand, etc. etc.) Basically, a subpoena is issued first without a judge looking at it. If the subpoena is objected to by the recipient, the judge takes a look. But subpoenas are initially stamped and filed by a clerk.
"Them" and "themself" used in the singular, as can happen following someone (look up Shakespeare for a ton of examples). Otherwise, if you object to "them" as a singular pronoun, as some authorities do, you should have put "(sic)" after "them" as well. Please be better at correcting others' grammar.
So as long as you don't tell them they can or can't use cognitive enhancement if they so choose, you'll be ok within your stated goal.
Because, absent legal pressures, everyone is independent. There aren't social/peer/economic pressures? Or somehow those don't coercive ideas don't matter?
Certainly I favor child labor
Why? Just because the line is arbirary. I agree that it is, but that doesn't make the law wrong. It would be impossible to have laws (or lack thereof) tailored to fit everyone.
They have been instrumental in destroying much of the industrial capacity of this nation
High wages didn't destroy the country's industrial base. If anything, I put the blame on oil prices followed by Reaganomics. And the high cost of private health care.
Is that so? You said (here):
Please read what you quote. Also, look up negative and positive rights and obligations.
that the use of cognitive enhancers is harmful or debilitating
If they are not harmful, they should be made legal, and the discussion is moot.
you presume that you have the moral and/or ethical right to say where my tax money can be spent,
Well, I don't believe your consent is terribly relevent to how your tax money is spent, if that's what you mean. I don't believe that I have dictatorial control over it either. But, yes, I think the government should have that policy, and it is moral and ethical for the government to spend your money in that way. I don't know why how you personally feel is relevent to whether the governemnt can spend the moeny that way.
When "undue" is defined by something other than by the morals of the person speaking the word, then it'll be a legitimate arguement
Some things are clearly undue. Some things are clearly not. Reasonable people can disagree on where that line is. The inability to provide an exact line of demarcation does not change the relevency of the criterion when something is over the line. You can make the claim that this particular act is not undue, and I can make the case that it is, and that is a valid argument. But you cannot dismiss the categorization because it is non-universal.
And all your examples are ludicrus. None of those are examples of employeers asking employees to assume greater costs to improve the efficency of their outputs. I made a clear reason why I felt this burden was undue: It forces employees to harm their health to remain competitive.
The junk snail mailer pays for all of the mailing costs, but each piece of junk mail he sends must be recycled or thrown away, creating a small effect on the cost of garbage for each individual user. The cost of any individual junk mail is very low, but taken together, they do have an appreciable effect on the cost of trash collection.
I've read about some countires in Europe and other places placing a surtax on goods to handle the cost of disposal (for the packing materials only, IIRC). Maybe something similar on bulk mail is in order.
If we repeat this process but we never switch our door, you get:
Choose door 1. Host reveals door 3. No switch. CAR.
Choose door 1. Host reveals door 2. No switch. CAR.
Choose door 2. Host reveals door 3. No switch. NO CAR.
Choose door 3. Host reveals door 2. No switch. NO CAR.
True, that is the complete set of outcomes. However, you are failing to factor in the set of possibilities of the host. If door 1 is choosen, then the host can choose door 2 with a 50% probability and door 3 with a 50% probability. If door 2 is choosen, the host always chooses door 3. If door 3 is choosen, the host always chooses door 2. Hence, assuming that door 3 is choosen, you know that in 50% of the outcomes, the host will have choosen door 3. However, in 2/3 of the outcomes where the host reveals door 3, you choose incorrectly.
If the scientist is competing with others, then every decision they make that affects their cognitive performance is directly complicit in affecting how that competition will turn out. Snorting coke will affect it. Lack of sleep will affect it. Having a good breakfast will affect it.
True. They're welcome to handicap themselves however they like. However, I refuse to allow them to benefit themselves in ways that harm their health.
In the end, one must allow the scientist to make a set of personal choices that they are satisfied with. It's not your business to try and make those choices for them.
Not trying to. But I don't want to ever harm someone, or convince them to harm themself, just to get more bang for my buck.
It is your business (or that of your proxies) to evaluate the work they do for you, because that's the only legitimate contract you have with them.
How they do their work is also important. Or do you favor child labor, etc. etc.
Then why not limit the work week to just 8 hours? After all, there are many people who are forced to work 40 hour weeks just to keep up but would much prefer working for only 8 hours. For that matter, why not five minute work weeks?
Because the continuum fallacy is as poor today as any other?
t is one thing to limit the employer from demanding a 60-hour work week; it is entirely another to limit the employee from choosing to work 60 hours
If we could distinguish them, I would agree. But since we cannot, and coersion (subtle as it may be: desire for promotion/retention) is far more likely than desire, we protect 95%* of the population at the expense of 5%*.
*Numbers invented, but seem close.
You want to control personal liberties to conform with your own goals, which you variously defined as life, health of others, specifically those scientists.
I don't want to control anyones personal liberties. We disagree on where the line should be drawn. To assert otherwise is to confuse the issue. Obviously, everyone likes liberty. It's invalid of you to claim it as a unique result for your side of the argument. Hence, strawman.
In addition, nowhere did I define those as my goals. I said I was unwilling to destroy peoples lives/health. Negative goals (do not harm) rather than positive (promote).
A legitimate right to ultimately control another informed, competent person's management of their own physical and mental resources has not been established by any reasonable argument.
Never claimed that I did, so long as they don't affect me. I do, but that's neither here nor there. See below.
As a taxpayer, you directly shoulder the shared burden of expense for any undertaking the government pays for from the pool(s) your taxes go into. One would hope that your primary concern would be the real world quality of the job done; not the free and informed personal lifestyle choices of the people doing the job.
I don't care about their free and informed personal lifestyle choices. If they want to snort coke of a stripper's ass every night, I don't care. What I do care about is making the competition for my dollar not force those lifestyle choices on the scientist. Since they compete, and since performance enhancing drugs increase their performance (nice tautology), they get a leg up on those who choose not to use the drugs. And I refuse to allow that leg up.
Similar to the reason that unions don't allow more than 40 hour weeks. It's not the one person who wants to work 45 hours a week that's the issue. It's the people who don't who are forced to just to keep up.
I guess I don't view employment as equivalent to most economic transactions, as I don't care about the toaster or TV, but I do about the person.
If it resulted in maximal health, extended lifespan, and optimum performance to put the scientist's brains in jars and enslave them to government tasks forever, would you override all personal choices in order to achieve your goal? I doubt you would; because at some level, you know that it isn't your business to tell these people how to eat, drink, stimulate, sleep, have sexual relations, etc.
That's the best strawman I've seen in a long, long time.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes to the latter (the CIO was his immediate boss). But he was told to fix it.
No doubt. Had the legitimicy of the EULA been brought into question, I would not have really had a problem. My problem was saying that there are ways of achieving the end of the EULA. Either those ends are allowed, in which case a EULA should be able to enforce them, or they are not, and non-EULA action to enforce them is verboten.
In this case, I would favor the latter actually.
That is a factually accurate summary, but does slant it somewhat. There are some potential justifications (not close enough to know if they are true).
He claims that the dev. team shipped it Friday afternoon, and went home claiming that the support team could "figure it out". If true, that's shitty on everyones part.
I have mixed feelings on this. Yes, they should have documented the case. But it sounds like they had an emergency procedure (involve the guy who wrote the article, who was allowed to skip the red tape) which they invoked. It's worth noting that it wasn't documented over the weekend. It still should have been written up ex post facto, but that was after he would have had the altercation.
The VP-esqe support guy woke up a developer, and notified the VP of software development that he was contacting his employee. The support guy called his VP. This seems like the least offensive thing one could have done.
He complained that had the word 'frack' been used instead of 'fuck' it would have given them a nerdy laugh because of Battlestar Galactica. I don't think it was the profanity that bothered him as much as the lack of ability to make a stupid joke. I agree that is retardded however.
Yeah, the other guy seemed like a jerk, but hardly worth all this fuss. The author did seem too thin-skinned for that kind of position.
I agree. I meant that a lot of the "restrictive" IT policies are because people want to do stupid stuff like that. If you could trust your employees not to be dumb, you wouldn't have to restrict that data. But since you cannot...
That would be interesting:
If users thought things through that well there wouldn't be a need for 90% of IT regulations.
Yes, but the standards of proof were twisted. The burden of proof was put on the vaccine manufacturer to prove that it wasn't responsible, and there was no financial penalty (the government picked up the cost of the settlement in that case) for them just walking away.
Some news outlets actually have style guides to ensuret that the answer is the same regardless of party.
Please. Suppose your mother could copy her file "Names, SSNs, and other bits of employee data.xls" onto her thumb drive. Suppose she then lost it. The entire company would get in trouble. And everyone on /. would vilify them.
Maybe there's a way to allow encrypted only memory sticks, but unencrypted? I think not.
Well, the point is that, yes, using only AND and NOT gates you can build anything. Using only OR and NOT gates you can build anything. You cannot use AND and OR gates to build anything, because you cannot build a NOT gate. However, given only NAND gates or only NOR gate, or only XNOR gates, you can build anything.
Because it is easier to create one type of gate, most chip manufacturers create either NAND or NOR gate chips, and wire them up however (XNOR is less efficent to create most circuits, IIRC).
Except fuzzy logic. Or nonbivalent maths. Or trancendental numbers. Or the concept of '2'.
Particle motions is an abnormally parellelizable case, the only better example is graphics. So the many core solution runs a lot better than the quad-core one, given simple calculations. That doesn't scale to more inolved calculations on fewer (or more interdependent) bodies.
The majority of tv/movies/music/internet sites/advertising campaigns (which drives the previous) either target people under thirty (nice amounts of disposible income) or people over thirty (by telling them they can be hip again, by doing what 30-year-olds do).
Really? Hundreds of years of economics just got overturned. How else do you explain many people competing for fewer jobs? Or even fewer government grants.
Or XNOR...
How about a subwoofer? Or surround sound? Seriously, that setup and only stereo speakers. I can barely tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, but I sure as hell can tell the difference between 2.0 and 5.1
Go to the subpoena. Go to page three, and read the list of names. Some highlights in this legal document: Killer of Sacred Cows; the Misbehavior of Behaviorologist (discussion board), meow meow meow... blah blah blah, and a HYPERLINK written out.
And? I also support people who did not want to become obese to do their job more effectively.
No, my point is, you cannot offer a job where obesity is an advantage and not somehow correct for that. Becuase it is wrong to make people choose between their health and their career. You said to fire obese people because they are unhealthy. My point isn't that they are unhealthy, but that in order for someone to fairly compete with them intellectually, they too must become unhealthy.
I couldn't really parse this rhetorical mishmash.
I see it as you forcing your morals on others, then finding ways to justify it after the fact. That is the cause of almost all "undue" and there is nothing you've said that discourages me from such an opinion in this case.Please be consistent with how you use "undue" so that I can understand you.
I agree.
The subpoena asks for her tax records, bank info, etc. Not her blog's.
They should be...
It seems as though there are numerous reasons why the subpoena would be quashed (it requires a 3rd party to travel over 100 miles, its overbroad and irrelevent to the matter at hand, etc. etc.) Basically, a subpoena is issued first without a judge looking at it. If the subpoena is objected to by the recipient, the judge takes a look. But subpoenas are initially stamped and filed by a clerk.IANAL.
"Them" and "themself" used in the singular, as can happen following someone (look up Shakespeare for a ton of examples). Otherwise, if you object to "them" as a singular pronoun, as some authorities do, you should have put "(sic)" after "them" as well. Please be better at correcting others' grammar.
Because, absent legal pressures, everyone is independent. There aren't social/peer/economic pressures? Or somehow those don't coercive ideas don't matter?
Why? Just because the line is arbirary. I agree that it is, but that doesn't make the law wrong. It would be impossible to have laws (or lack thereof) tailored to fit everyone.
High wages didn't destroy the country's industrial base. If anything, I put the blame on oil prices followed by Reaganomics. And the high cost of private health care.
Please read what you quote. Also, look up negative and positive rights and obligations.
If they are not harmful, they should be made legal, and the discussion is moot.
Well, I don't believe your consent is terribly relevent to how your tax money is spent, if that's what you mean. I don't believe that I have dictatorial control over it either. But, yes, I think the government should have that policy, and it is moral and ethical for the government to spend your money in that way. I don't know why how you personally feel is relevent to whether the governemnt can spend the moeny that way.
Some things are clearly undue. Some things are clearly not. Reasonable people can disagree on where that line is. The inability to provide an exact line of demarcation does not change the relevency of the criterion when something is over the line. You can make the claim that this particular act is not undue, and I can make the case that it is, and that is a valid argument. But you cannot dismiss the categorization because it is non-universal.
And all your examples are ludicrus. None of those are examples of employeers asking employees to assume greater costs to improve the efficency of their outputs. I made a clear reason why I felt this burden was undue: It forces employees to harm their health to remain competitive.
I've read about some countires in Europe and other places placing a surtax on goods to handle the cost of disposal (for the packing materials only, IIRC). Maybe something similar on bulk mail is in order.
If we repeat this process but we never switch our door, you get:
Choose door 1. Host reveals door 3. No switch. CAR.
Choose door 1. Host reveals door 2. No switch. CAR.
Choose door 2. Host reveals door 3. No switch. NO CAR.
Choose door 3. Host reveals door 2. No switch. NO CAR.
True, that is the complete set of outcomes. However, you are failing to factor in the set of possibilities of the host. If door 1 is choosen, then the host can choose door 2 with a 50% probability and door 3 with a 50% probability. If door 2 is choosen, the host always chooses door 3. If door 3 is choosen, the host always chooses door 2. Hence, assuming that door 3 is choosen, you know that in 50% of the outcomes, the host will have choosen door 3. However, in 2/3 of the outcomes where the host reveals door 3, you choose incorrectly.
Never claimed that I did, so long as they don't affect me. I do, but that's neither here nor there. See below.
I don't care about their free and informed personal lifestyle choices. If they want to snort coke of a stripper's ass every night, I don't care. What I do care about is making the competition for my dollar not force those lifestyle choices on the scientist. Since they compete, and since performance enhancing drugs increase their performance (nice tautology), they get a leg up on those who choose not to use the drugs. And I refuse to allow that leg up.
Similar to the reason that unions don't allow more than 40 hour weeks. It's not the one person who wants to work 45 hours a week that's the issue. It's the people who don't who are forced to just to keep up.
I guess I don't view employment as equivalent to most economic transactions, as I don't care about the toaster or TV, but I do about the person.
That's the best strawman I've seen in a long, long time.