These days, most people cannot deal with basic algebra. Case in point: my sister, who has a master's degree in the social sciences, reaches for a calculator to calculate the sales tax on purchases (and she does it because she cannot manage without it).
Why on earth would we expect Joe Average to be able to comprehend the meaning of statistics?
Assuming it lasts 5 years, that works out to about 2 dollars a day. How much does a cup of coffee cost? Or a pack of cigarettes? Or a beer? Or cable TV? Or a DSL connection?
What this really comes down to is the business model - how you intend to make a profit from your work. If a programmer's business model dictates that he owns the underlying code (and can use bits and pieces to accelerate development of future projects), he will price his work accordingly. If his business model dictates that the customer owns everything, we will price his work based on that model.
Problems tend to arise when customers expect the benefits of the programmer-owns-the-code model (shorter development times, lower costs) as well as the benefits of the customer-owns-the-code model (we own the code, we can hire someone else [cheaper] to do maintenance and upgrades).
In many cases, the root cause is ignorance on the customer's part. If the customer will let you educate them, do so. If they won't let you educate them, when possible, let them be someone else's problem.
Not entirely true. Say you're protecting a billion-dollar asset. You have 10 million dollars for defense. I have 100 thousand dollars for offense. For 1000 dollars, I can mount an attack that costs you 1,000,000 to defend. You will have to beg, borrow, or steal, 90 million dollars to defend every attack that I can mount. Now you have a real problem.
Even worse, Suppose I can easily obtain and assemble the parts I need for an attack. But your, for instance, Patriot missiles take rather longer to assemble (as they are much more complex). If you have 50 missiles at hand, I only need to launch 51 attacks before you get your next shipment of missiles.
Clearly you are correct inasmuch as you won't spend 1,000,000,000 dollars to defend 200,000,000 dollars of assets. But the relative costs of defense and offense do matter.
When I worked for a major telecom equipment manufacturer in the 90s, we had a monolithic software build for our main switching product (class 4/5 switch), and the total lines of code were 20 million. I find it incomprehensible that a luxury car requires 5 times as much code. If it's true, they need to do a rethink as there's no way they should need that much code. And, frankly, there's no way they will test that code completely every time they update it.
I don't really care what device I use as a projector. What matters to me is whether the projection is bright enough for my audience to see the projected images clearly. If I can do that from my phone, great (one less piece of equipment to lug around).
The other question I would ask is whether using my phone as a projector would drain the battery, precluding me using the phone as a phone. A phone with a flat battery is not much use.
So, assuming that the IOC can require competitors to - temporarily - sign over their names as IP, what happens if the athlete already has a contract with a third party?
"The fact that you have 30 years of COBOL experience doesn't help you if you don't learn new technologies."
learning a new language is easy. Learning to program is hard.
Let me amend that to "Learning to program well is hard."
I've been earning a living as a programmer since 1986. I'm continually learning new things about programming, from new techniques (i.e. OOP - they didn't teach that in 1982) to new languages to the psychology of the my end users. Comp Sci school is like learning English grammar. It's really useful, but just like knowing English grammar doesn't make you a great writer, neither does a Comp Sci degree make you a great programmer.
Whomever I hire has to be learning continually about his or her craft. I'm not going to hire anyone who knows it all - that person is an ass.
... But absent some kind of organized labor movement -- which programmers are notoriously, irrationally averse to -- it's not going to change, as the people making the hiring and firing decisions are getting by just fine with the current system. There is then little choice but to adapt, or at least emigrate.
At least here in North America, our general aversion to unions is entirely rational. Unions here do not foster creativity - they foster group think. Did you ever want to work a couple extra hours because you were really into what you were doing? Try doing that in a union shop - you'll have a very unhappy experience. I've had unionized jobs (albeit not programming jobs). I cannot imagine a unionized programming job being anywhere near as enjoyable as a non-union programming job. Unions suck.
Or maybe not. When I did phone support (never again), most of our reps were young and not technically inclined. That being the case today, most reps probably have no idea who Steve Wozniak is. They are probably more likely to know of Steve Jobs. That said, would they necessarily believe that they were actually talking to THE Steve Jobs? Probably not.
Bars get the game via cable, for which they pay money. The cable companies know who their clients are and what their clients' businesses entail. If some of the content is not for general use, while some of the content is for general use, shouldn't it be up to the service deliverer (i.e. the cable company) to determine what service the customer receives and how much the customer should pay? Why is it up to the end customer, the bar, to determine what programs received legally over the valid cable connection they can (or cannot) show on their TV?
Exactly. When I saw the announcement, my first thought was that it would be perfect for my mother. Easy to send and receive email, usable for a few simple games, and small enough to stuff in a desk drawer when not in use. It will start quickly. Exactly what my mother would want.
Clearly I don't want to use if for a development platform, but that is not what it was designed for.
There is a good reason for the majority of HTTP traffic to be encrypted: Deep Packet Inspection. If you want to stop your ISP, your government, etc, from using DPI, the most effective way to do so is to negate the value of it. HTTPS negates the value of DPI.
Personally, I hate the idea of DPI from a matter of principle. Therefore, I like HTTPS.
Just because a small subset of the population holds privacy in no regard does not mean that the population as a whole, or even a majority of the population, does likewise. Among my adult friends, very very few bother with online social networking and the vast majority consider their privacy something to be cherished.
DO NOT mistake something popular among the young to be the norm.
We can certainly protect the individual right to privacy while providing for the right of the individual to abrogate his own privacy.
Check out your local weather forecast. "The normal high for today is..." But what's the standard deviation? If they tell you that the normal, or the average, is 15C and today's high is 25C - wow - that's way above normal. Must be global warming. Quick, send money to AlGore. But what if they also told you that the standard deviation for today is 12 degrees? Oh. Hmm. 25C ain't that significant. Cancel the cheque to Al.
Statistics are worse than meaningless if you don't understand how to use them correctly.
From the article: "...shake the handset..." So we really have gone back to the etch-a-sketch? (FWIW, about 10 years ago, when a friend of mine was promoted [demoted?] to a management position, I bought him a new "management laptop" aka an Etch-a-Sketch.)
128-bit keys for symmetric ciphers, such as we use for banking equate to much large key sizes for asymmetric ciphers such as RSA. You are comparing apples and volkswagens.
Not just colleges. Our HR department sent out company-wide notices at least once a week when the H1N1 scare began, telling us to get vaccinated and how to protect ourselves. Then management wonders why our sales reps refuse to shake hands with our (tenuous) customers.
We need to start ignoring the chicken-littles of this world. Scratch that. We need to start SHUNNING the chicken-littles of this world. Maybe then they'll get the message.
1999 I was in Israel. Getting in was dreadfully easy. Leaving was much more of a hassle. 30 minute interview with security personnel before I could even check in at the airline counter (btw, that was SOP for all passengers - I wasn't a special case). Wasn't certain why it was like that, but I wasn't about to hassle the security folks (my boss did that and got the rubber glove treatment).
Given the dearth of incidents on planes leaving Israel in the past 30 years, they are clearly doing something right.
What are the odds that Sherman Alexie is simply making a controversial statement to gain publicity?
Prior to this article, I'd never heard of him. Given his statement, I doubt I'll every buy any of his work but his statement has gotten his name air-time.
For the record, I am an evangelical Christian and this strikes me as something that can only end in tears. When will politicians (and, more importantly, voters) realize that trying to protect feelings only undermines free speech and, ultimately, democracy? We need our leaders to tell the cry-babies to grow up.
Trying to determine whether you are understaffed by looking at ratios of IT staff to users (or computers) is not the correct way to go. It is the simple (minded) way, but it is not the correct way. Picking a particular ratio makes many gross assumptions about your environment.
A better method is to review your workload: Are you run off your feet? Do you have to put in lots of OT? Are you spending your days simply fighting fires? If you found yourself answering "yes" to one or more of those questions, you are probably understaffed (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're not grossly incompetent 8^).
That said, three guys for a fairly large shop does raise issues like vacations and sick leave. Three guys might be enough under normal circumstances. But will two guys be enough? Or one?
Slashdot Mirror
These days, most people cannot deal with basic algebra. Case in point: my sister, who has a master's degree in the social sciences, reaches for a calculator to calculate the sales tax on purchases (and she does it because she cannot manage without it).
Why on earth would we expect Joe Average to be able to comprehend the meaning of statistics?
Assuming it lasts 5 years, that works out to about 2 dollars a day. How much does a cup of coffee cost? Or a pack of cigarettes? Or a beer? Or cable TV? Or a DSL connection?
So perhaps this is a good reason to encourage everyone to convert their web sites to HTTPS only?
What this really comes down to is the business model - how you intend to make a profit from your work. If a programmer's business model dictates that he owns the underlying code (and can use bits and pieces to accelerate development of future projects), he will price his work accordingly. If his business model dictates that the customer owns everything, we will price his work based on that model.
Problems tend to arise when customers expect the benefits of the programmer-owns-the-code model (shorter development times, lower costs) as well as the benefits of the customer-owns-the-code model (we own the code, we can hire someone else [cheaper] to do maintenance and upgrades).
In many cases, the root cause is ignorance on the customer's part. If the customer will let you educate them, do so. If they won't let you educate them, when possible, let them be someone else's problem.
Not entirely true. Say you're protecting a billion-dollar asset. You have 10 million dollars for defense. I have 100 thousand dollars for offense. For 1000 dollars, I can mount an attack that costs you 1,000,000 to defend. You will have to beg, borrow, or steal, 90 million dollars to defend every attack that I can mount. Now you have a real problem.
Even worse, Suppose I can easily obtain and assemble the parts I need for an attack. But your, for instance, Patriot missiles take rather longer to assemble (as they are much more complex). If you have 50 missiles at hand, I only need to launch 51 attacks before you get your next shipment of missiles.
Clearly you are correct inasmuch as you won't spend 1,000,000,000 dollars to defend 200,000,000 dollars of assets. But the relative costs of defense and offense do matter.
When I worked for a major telecom equipment manufacturer in the 90s, we had a monolithic software build for our main switching product (class 4/5 switch), and the total lines of code were 20 million. I find it incomprehensible that a luxury car requires 5 times as much code. If it's true, they need to do a rethink as there's no way they should need that much code. And, frankly, there's no way they will test that code completely every time they update it.
I don't really care what device I use as a projector. What matters to me is whether the projection is bright enough for my audience to see the projected images clearly. If I can do that from my phone, great (one less piece of equipment to lug around).
The other question I would ask is whether using my phone as a projector would drain the battery, precluding me using the phone as a phone. A phone with a flat battery is not much use.
So, assuming that the IOC can require competitors to - temporarily - sign over their names as IP, what happens if the athlete already has a contract with a third party?
"The fact that you have 30 years of COBOL experience doesn't help you if you don't learn new technologies." learning a new language is easy. Learning to program is hard.
Let me amend that to "Learning to program well is hard."
I've been earning a living as a programmer since 1986. I'm continually learning new things about programming, from new techniques (i.e. OOP - they didn't teach that in 1982) to new languages to the psychology of the my end users. Comp Sci school is like learning English grammar. It's really useful, but just like knowing English grammar doesn't make you a great writer, neither does a Comp Sci degree make you a great programmer.
Whomever I hire has to be learning continually about his or her craft. I'm not going to hire anyone who knows it all - that person is an ass.
... But absent some kind of organized labor movement -- which programmers are notoriously, irrationally averse to -- it's not going to change, as the people making the hiring and firing decisions are getting by just fine with the current system. There is then little choice but to adapt, or at least emigrate.
At least here in North America, our general aversion to unions is entirely rational. Unions here do not foster creativity - they foster group think. Did you ever want to work a couple extra hours because you were really into what you were doing? Try doing that in a union shop - you'll have a very unhappy experience. I've had unionized jobs (albeit not programming jobs). I cannot imagine a unionized programming job being anywhere near as enjoyable as a non-union programming job. Unions suck.
Or maybe not. When I did phone support (never again), most of our reps were young and not technically inclined. That being the case today, most reps probably have no idea who Steve Wozniak is. They are probably more likely to know of Steve Jobs. That said, would they necessarily believe that they were actually talking to THE Steve Jobs? Probably not.
Bars get the game via cable, for which they pay money. The cable companies know who their clients are and what their clients' businesses entail. If some of the content is not for general use, while some of the content is for general use, shouldn't it be up to the service deliverer (i.e. the cable company) to determine what service the customer receives and how much the customer should pay? Why is it up to the end customer, the bar, to determine what programs received legally over the valid cable connection they can (or cannot) show on their TV?
He's reading slashdot, isn't he? What are the odds that he's married?
Exactly. When I saw the announcement, my first thought was that it would be perfect for my mother. Easy to send and receive email, usable for a few simple games, and small enough to stuff in a desk drawer when not in use. It will start quickly. Exactly what my mother would want.
Clearly I don't want to use if for a development platform, but that is not what it was designed for.
There is a good reason for the majority of HTTP traffic to be encrypted: Deep Packet Inspection. If you want to stop your ISP, your government, etc, from using DPI, the most effective way to do so is to negate the value of it. HTTPS negates the value of DPI.
Personally, I hate the idea of DPI from a matter of principle. Therefore, I like HTTPS.
Just because a small subset of the population holds privacy in no regard does not mean that the population as a whole, or even a majority of the population, does likewise. Among my adult friends, very very few bother with online social networking and the vast majority consider their privacy something to be cherished.
DO NOT mistake something popular among the young to be the norm.
We can certainly protect the individual right to privacy while providing for the right of the individual to abrogate his own privacy.
Check out your local weather forecast. "The normal high for today is..." But what's the standard deviation? If they tell you that the normal, or the average, is 15C and today's high is 25C - wow - that's way above normal. Must be global warming. Quick, send money to AlGore. But what if they also told you that the standard deviation for today is 12 degrees? Oh. Hmm. 25C ain't that significant. Cancel the cheque to Al.
Statistics are worse than meaningless if you don't understand how to use them correctly.
From the article: "...shake the handset..." So we really have gone back to the etch-a-sketch? (FWIW, about 10 years ago, when a friend of mine was promoted [demoted?] to a management position, I bought him a new "management laptop" aka an Etch-a-Sketch.)
128-bit keys for symmetric ciphers, such as we use for banking equate to much large key sizes for asymmetric ciphers such as RSA. You are comparing apples and volkswagens.
Not just colleges. Our HR department sent out company-wide notices at least once a week when the H1N1 scare began, telling us to get vaccinated and how to protect ourselves. Then management wonders why our sales reps refuse to shake hands with our (tenuous) customers.
We need to start ignoring the chicken-littles of this world. Scratch that. We need to start SHUNNING the chicken-littles of this world. Maybe then they'll get the message.
1999 I was in Israel. Getting in was dreadfully easy. Leaving was much more of a hassle. 30 minute interview with security personnel before I could even check in at the airline counter (btw, that was SOP for all passengers - I wasn't a special case). Wasn't certain why it was like that, but I wasn't about to hassle the security folks (my boss did that and got the rubber glove treatment).
Given the dearth of incidents on planes leaving Israel in the past 30 years, they are clearly doing something right.
What are the odds that Sherman Alexie is simply making a controversial statement to gain publicity?
Prior to this article, I'd never heard of him. Given his statement, I doubt I'll every buy any of his work but his statement has gotten his name air-time.
For the record, I am an evangelical Christian and this strikes me as something that can only end in tears. When will politicians (and, more importantly, voters) realize that trying to protect feelings only undermines free speech and, ultimately, democracy? We need our leaders to tell the cry-babies to grow up.
Trying to determine whether you are understaffed by looking at ratios of IT staff to users (or computers) is not the correct way to go. It is the simple (minded) way, but it is not the correct way. Picking a particular ratio makes many gross assumptions about your environment.
A better method is to review your workload: Are you run off your feet? Do you have to put in lots of OT? Are you spending your days simply fighting fires? If you found yourself answering "yes" to one or more of those questions, you are probably understaffed (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're not grossly incompetent 8^).
That said, three guys for a fairly large shop does raise issues like vacations and sick leave. Three guys might be enough under normal circumstances. But will two guys be enough? Or one?
Wait a minute. Nebraska has a book? Comic or colouring?