I absolutely hate this analogy - and it keeps being brought up.
If I'm the rich man and I'm buying - why the hell is the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th person chipping in? You are either buying the keg and giving out free beer, or you charge a cover. Even the poorest shlump will fork over 5 bucks for a night of beer.
Seriously though, I'm in the tax software business, and this is NOT how the tax system works (at least not for corporations). Mostly, large businesses convince the IRS to get special disclaimers on all sorts of things - Congress can make the law, but the IRS makes the code. For instance, there is a tax break for any company that has an unfinished oil rig located off the coast of CA - guess what, there are 2 of them, both owned by exxon. The corporate tax code is 10's of thousands of pages long. We have over 100 people that continuously analyze and update our software to reflect the code (that constantly changes). The analogy only works on 1040s - and even then it isn't that accurate. Did you know that there's a tax break to give bribes in foreign countries?
This guy is a professor of Economics - not a tax Accountant. And frankly I'd like to see him try and understand the scope of 1065 and 1120 tax returns.
Comparisons are also real big. Think of things they know and can equate - for instance: "an IT guy is like a doctor for machines."
"The computers I help build and maintain are like the milk in a bowl of cereal and the cereal is like rockets and cars on the moon" - kind of stretching on that one, but the internal visuals that a kid will generate will help them remember.
Our brains are just looking for patterns - give them patterns.
The simple techniques of EFT (http://www.emofree.com/) seem to have a very positive affect on all types of emotionally charged internal problems. In the cases of treating PTSD, it has been extremely affective. My son is in the army and will be deployed next spring - I've talked with him about this and shown him how it works - I hope that it will help when he encounters the problems of being "on" 24/7 for months at a time.
Get a pre-paid. I spent $120 on my phone 1 1/2 years ago (got a cheap-o with 1000 minutes) - I bought $25 worth of minutes at the 1 year mark to keep all the minutes I hadn't used (which was 800+). Make a point of not babbling on the phone about anything that isn't important - don't take calls from people, but let them leave a message and get back when you have access to a LAN line. The simple point here is that cell-phones are a nuisance and are only really needed for emergencies.
If you only have a cell-phone then there's definitely a balance between how much you get screwed and how much you get fucked.
On schedule to finish the space station? You expect a multinational effort involving launching shit into space and connecting it with other shit in space is easy and easily schedulable? I have friends that worked on the collider in tx and there's a lot going on there that had nothing to do with willingness or support. You might have a point on breeder reactors - but all I hear about breeder reactors is how good they could be...
I can't believe/. considered the parent post insightful.
All the solutions thus far indicate "staying the course". Just stop being a datacenter - whatever you are running can easily be hosted somewhere else - stop worrying about it, and move your code somewhere else - there are PLENTY of people that will host you.
Otherwise you are playing with numbers that are really not worthy of being talked about.
I was writing some routine a while back that included a class by the name of LocatorObjectValue (LOV for short) and it had a IsDirty flag. Unit tested, running green, and then noticed throughout the code:
if (Lov.IsDirty)...
Someone already mentioned the About Face books (The Essentials of Interaction Design), but to really get a good start on what you need to do is read kind of the precursor to those books, by Alan Cooper: The Inmates are Running the Asylum http://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum/dp/0672316498
It gives a good case for why YOU shouldn't be writing User interface guidelines and why a design specialist - who is a stakeholder and needs to own the project - should be.
In one of my Aerospace classes we looked at this problem for a semester. Several designs were discussed, and I don't remember the ones that were instantly discarded due to cost, material science inadequacies, and the ability to actually deploy the system.
The obvious problems are:
Space is big - lots of room up there
the debris isn't all going in the same direction, they are hauling ass and can't be tracked
A good portion of the debris isn't metallic - paint, plastic, even organic (the russians dumped their shit into space for 15 years)
What we came up with was a 3 tier approach - very strong magnets placed on hardened satellites would act as beacons for roughly 40% of the space junk. Large expandable surfaces (think solar arrays x 100) that were carbon fiber based would act as sweepers catching maybe another 20%, and lastly for satellite protection, you would simply deploy many redundant systems and even dummy systems leading the satellites to catch the severe hits when it is a head on collision.
One of my professors, who worked at the JPL for many years and retired to teach, said our approach was going in the right direction in what NASA and other space agencies were working on, but the simple fact is, there isn't a solution - unless we invent some magical substance that can take the extreme energies that are generated in 20000 kph impacts even with the extremely low masses of the particles.
I remember when the Chinese did this 6 months ago - I said, "Thanks assholes - you just dumped a shit load of crap into LEO"
This future history book takes place in the 22nd century, mostly in Walt Disney World. Earth now lives under the "Bitchun Society", in which rejuvenation and body-enhancement have made death obsolete, material goods are no longer scarce, and everyone is granted basic rights that in our present age are mostly considered luxuries. This abundance has brought about the end of labor and money, and the only thing that makes one person worth more than anyone else is "Whuffie", a constantly updated rating that measures how much esteem and respect other people have for you. This rating system determines who gets the few scarce items, like the best housing, a table in a crowded restaurant, or a good place in a queue for a theme park attraction.
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If I'm the rich man and I'm buying - why the hell is the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th person chipping in? You are either buying the keg and giving out free beer, or you charge a cover. Even the poorest shlump will fork over 5 bucks for a night of beer.
Seriously though, I'm in the tax software business, and this is NOT how the tax system works (at least not for corporations). Mostly, large businesses convince the IRS to get special disclaimers on all sorts of things - Congress can make the law, but the IRS makes the code. For instance, there is a tax break for any company that has an unfinished oil rig located off the coast of CA - guess what, there are 2 of them, both owned by exxon. The corporate tax code is 10's of thousands of pages long. We have over 100 people that continuously analyze and update our software to reflect the code (that constantly changes). The analogy only works on 1040s - and even then it isn't that accurate. Did you know that there's a tax break to give bribes in foreign countries?
This guy is a professor of Economics - not a tax Accountant. And frankly I'd like to see him try and understand the scope of 1065 and 1120 tax returns.
It is exhibited in primates, birds, and even some insects.
Furthermore, spend some time in Asia - they are as obsessed with fashion and being pretty as any westerner. The want to be beautiful is universal.
"The computers I help build and maintain are like the milk in a bowl of cereal and the cereal is like rockets and cars on the moon" - kind of stretching on that one, but the internal visuals that a kid will generate will help them remember.
Our brains are just looking for patterns - give them patterns.
The simple techniques of EFT (http://www.emofree.com/) seem to have a very positive affect on all types of emotionally charged internal problems. In the cases of treating PTSD, it has been extremely affective. My son is in the army and will be deployed next spring - I've talked with him about this and shown him how it works - I hope that it will help when he encounters the problems of being "on" 24/7 for months at a time.
Get a pre-paid. I spent $120 on my phone 1 1/2 years ago (got a cheap-o with 1000 minutes) - I bought $25 worth of minutes at the 1 year mark to keep all the minutes I hadn't used (which was 800+). Make a point of not babbling on the phone about anything that isn't important - don't take calls from people, but let them leave a message and get back when you have access to a LAN line. The simple point here is that cell-phones are a nuisance and are only really needed for emergencies. If you only have a cell-phone then there's definitely a balance between how much you get screwed and how much you get fucked.
On schedule to finish the space station? You expect a multinational effort involving launching shit into space and connecting it with other shit in space is easy and easily schedulable? I have friends that worked on the collider in tx and there's a lot going on there that had nothing to do with willingness or support. You might have a point on breeder reactors - but all I hear about breeder reactors is how good they could be... I can't believe /. considered the parent post insightful.
All the solutions thus far indicate "staying the course". Just stop being a datacenter - whatever you are running can easily be hosted somewhere else - stop worrying about it, and move your code somewhere else - there are PLENTY of people that will host you. Otherwise you are playing with numbers that are really not worthy of being talked about.
oh, so you have to make it a white thing? Me and my crackers goin to bust a chip on your BIOSch.
I was writing some routine a while back that included a class by the name of LocatorObjectValue (LOV for short) and it had a IsDirty flag. Unit tested, running green, and then noticed throughout the code: if (Lov.IsDirty)...
It gives a good case for why YOU shouldn't be writing User interface guidelines and why a design specialist - who is a stakeholder and needs to own the project - should be.
The obvious problems are: Space is big - lots of room up there the debris isn't all going in the same direction, they are hauling ass and can't be tracked A good portion of the debris isn't metallic - paint, plastic, even organic (the russians dumped their shit into space for 15 years)
What we came up with was a 3 tier approach - very strong magnets placed on hardened satellites would act as beacons for roughly 40% of the space junk. Large expandable surfaces (think solar arrays x 100) that were carbon fiber based would act as sweepers catching maybe another 20%, and lastly for satellite protection, you would simply deploy many redundant systems and even dummy systems leading the satellites to catch the severe hits when it is a head on collision.
One of my professors, who worked at the JPL for many years and retired to teach, said our approach was going in the right direction in what NASA and other space agencies were working on, but the simple fact is, there isn't a solution - unless we invent some magical substance that can take the extreme energies that are generated in 20000 kph impacts even with the extremely low masses of the particles.
I remember when the Chinese did this 6 months ago - I said, "Thanks assholes - you just dumped a shit load of crap into LEO"