Is it possible to perform 100% of your contractual obligations and your employer still fail? As long as none of the bonuses were tied to the COMPANY's profitability, then those employees are still owed their agreed upon bonuses for performing their contract. Besides, since when are private compensation agreements subject to the approval of the American public? This is mob rule at its worst.
OMG I am sick to death of hearing about this stupid company. Ok for you rabid anti capitalists out there, here's facts: 1) The executive bonuses were contractual obligations made by AIG to the employees long before any talk of a bailout started. 2) Government infusion of cash does not nullify pay contracts previously and privately made between employer and employee. 3) Even if an agreement between AIG Accountants and US Treasury officials could retroactively nullify the bonus agreements, it was never stipulated as a condition of the bailout.
How would you feel if you made an agreement to work for company A for a salary of X provided you were eligible for a bonus each year of Y if you performed L,M and N. Then you performed L, M and N and were told by yer boss, "Hey I'm sorry. We can't pay you the bonus we agreed on because the government thinks its too much" or "We need ed money so we took a loan from the government and part of our agreement with the government was that you would forfeit your bonus."
If I were told the above, my next phone call would be my attorney and I would bring a suit against Company A for breach of contract.
We as citizens should be at torch and pitchfork mindset over the government inserting its own judgment on private employment contracts rather than how much AIG pays its executives. If you don't want tax dollars to fund AIG's contractual employment obligations, DON'T GIVE LET THE GOVERNMENT GIVE THEM OUR MONEY. When they go belly up, the executives won't get paid and we can all be happy and get on with our lives.
In the case presented (which seems extreme even for the cowboy coding shops I have been in), "josh" is not as dangerous the manager who tolerates such behavior. A good manager recognizes brilliance and will allocate certain liberties based on productivity. There will be a point though where sexual harassment lawsuits eat up and profits gained by productivity at which point a good manager will say "It is cheaper to get 2 mediocre programmers who are reliable and polite that deal with another one of this asshole's liabilities." I mean, we are not talking about linus torvalds here. It's some asshole named "josh". On the other hand, antisocial talent can usually picked up pretty cheap if they have a reputation. Then the question becomes "Am I desperate enough to babysit this egomaniac or would I be better off with a X% loss in productivity in exchange for a smooth running work place?"
If Netflix had tried to grow their company (Established in 1997 ) in a time when filesharing (napster started in 1999) was available it would have never worked. That explains why it is so unprofitable.
Someone please Mod Parent up. This is almost the best Idea I have ever heard . So simple and yet so genius. I have been trying to think about how to do just this with Gentoo's portage as the app profile engine for governing the install preferences.
this is just weak. Beta is not an excuse for not being able to install. Maybe Google has raised expectations on software that is categorized as Beta but is it really defensible to have software *UNABLE TO RUN*? Uninstallable is different from buggy. I would expect the installation of some esoteric hardware to crash the system from time to time but to keep it from installing shows this "beta" was not tested worth a damn. It really goes to the heart of MS software quality in general.
This is exactly what I would expect in a world where everyone feels they should be able to go through life without being offended. Politicians are just bending to the will of the (dumb) masses.
I think the problem here needs to be solved by maybe revisiting the language of the bill of rights. We need a constitutional convention anyways. Let's throw this one on the heap.
This whole topic is stupid. However this one post is very interesting. The fact that a government employee could intimidate a citizen into not investigating how tax dollars are being spent is very disturbing. It really goes against the idea that government should be accountable to the people. Seems to me this is EXACTLY the problem in Washington. Government employees (representatives) are deciding that the people exist to serve the government (by funding it with taxes) rather than the other way around.
how about shipping it without all the crapware? Why can't they have a package manager like every other piece of software. I would like to see Windows shipped as a kernel, few command line tools (including a package manager) and bash shell. You boot up Windows for the first time a and a script runs that allows you to select what desktop environment you want. Select KDE, open office, eclipse, Firefox and thunderbird from the list and install (maybe reboot? this is windows after all). I know this level of configurability is a pipe dream but they could make a huge jump toward it by simply having the add/remove programs app be able to do more than just remove. Maybe have a package profile list of popular FOSS apps that you can just select and install. This would also help protect its users by offering safe/trusted sources for packages rather than requiring the users to go find them and potentially downloading malware infested packages instead.
I am patiently waiting for psystar to start selling laptops. I am hoping the mobile Open Computer (yes that is what they call it) will have a windows keyboard (complete with backspace key, insert, delete, home, pgup,pgdown, prt screen.) Psystar if you read this please bring you laptop to market!
Damn, I always thought moore's law was that Michael Moore's intelligence decreases linerally each time he opens his mouth and exponentially each time he makes another movie.
Who knew it had something to do with the tv/piano combo box.
I disagree. I think it would be cool to quest for the great Coca Cola of the mythical Eastern elves in war craft. Maybe the new armor in the next expansion will be branded by Nike. Then they could release real live limited edition collector versions of in game products. I see this being something you game nerds could really dig on.
resist the urge to go to webmail (at least as a primary client). Make sure you consider Mozilla Thunderbird. It is infinitely better than outlook and you can even provide a calendar feature as a plugin (Mozilla Lightning)
I did this a few years ago to cut costs at a small business I worked for. Everything was fine except for one user in sales. He whined and complained and since it was my idea to switch (not decreed from the executive level) he was able to whine until he got his own copy of office. My advice is to tell him that you refuse to do it unless A) you really believe in OO and B) your highest executive is a strong advocate and backer. If there is even a little doubt from the people above you, you will be in for a greater headache than you can even imagine. Another problems is marketing material. If you have any of those DIY marketing guys that like to print their own brochures, you will be constantly helping them because the instructions on the back of the brochure paper are for MS office only.
Now I understand that these bugs have been fixed or there are work arounds but the whole problem with excel is that it exposes extremely powerful analytical functions to users who are expected to not know when one of the calculations is wrong. There is no QA process around spreadsheets and typically there is not even any technical review of the work sheets that are used to create some of the data used by companies for very important decisions. The tool is too powerful and unfortunately US Corporate culture allows individuals to get away without understanding what these calculations actually mean
This is a red herring. Anyone who disqualifies candidates because they don't know a specific framework or even a specific language is missing the boat. It is much easier (and cheaper) to train a smart engineer to use your dev tools than it is to make a mediocre developer into a smart one. Choose your engineers based on breadth of experience and give them the opportunity to use that experience to give your product insights it would not have by hiring a clone of the guy who left. If an engineer does not want to learn a new toolkit, then they would have never been an asset anyways. Great engineers understand that this industry is always changing and we have to roll with the changes to keep up.
When it "sees" a fatal or critical error, pipe it into the file and let it display on the led screen. should be pretty easy to do with a tiny shell program.
fine. If no one else will say it, I will. If Apple got rid of Steve Jobs maybe we could finally get some products that are designed with more than style in mind. I think most of the things Jobs has brought to apple in the last 5 years are marketing successes not technical marvels. Let's be fair if it didn't have a giant apple on the back/side/bottom no one would buy this crap. I say this cause I fell for the hype and bought a mbp. Now I wish I had bought a real laptop. So lets go down the list:
ipod: six generations and 3 variations of this piece of shit and you can't get ogg playback support???? wtf?
mac laptops: sleek form factor but overpriced and WTF why is apple so obsessed with their keyboard layout? It's not 1985 anymore give me a print screen, home, pg up/dn, insert and delete keys already. Stop being snobs and just give me a real keyboard already.
apple TV: apple what?
Mac OSX: ok it's decent. But it still needs a package manager and real window manager. Aqua sucks and it makes my mac a real pain in the ass.
Intel Chips: Oh what happened to the "technically superior" PPC chip? Welcome to the rest of the world you stuck up assholes.
iPhone: OMG I can't stand this piece of shit. Earth to apple - a smart phone without a real keyboard is just retarded. I can't believe that people shelled out 300,600,800 dollars for a phone whose screen is about half an inch tall while typing. This makes using it as an ssh client impossible. plus what's up with those keys being so close together? Steve please think of the men who might like to buy your products next time you say "oh we'll have a soft keyboard it'll be awesome!!!" Idiot. The screen is way too fragile and oh big surprise still no ogg support. and what the hell is the deal with app store? What makes apple think they know better than me what apps should be on my phone? I can't stomach this level of a God complex from a singe corporate entity.
Btw, apple, thanks for bringing us the graphic user interface, the adults can take it from here.
Disclaimer: my phone is a G1 and my computer is a macbook pro running gentoo linux.
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Is it possible to perform 100% of your contractual obligations and your employer still fail? As long as none of the bonuses were tied to the COMPANY's profitability, then those employees are still owed their agreed upon bonuses for performing their contract. Besides, since when are private compensation agreements subject to the approval of the American public? This is mob rule at its worst.
OMG I am sick to death of hearing about this stupid company. Ok for you rabid anti capitalists out there, here's facts:
1) The executive bonuses were contractual obligations made by AIG to the employees long before any talk of a bailout started.
2) Government infusion of cash does not nullify pay contracts previously and privately made between employer and employee.
3) Even if an agreement between AIG Accountants and US Treasury officials could retroactively nullify the bonus agreements, it was never stipulated as a condition of the bailout.
How would you feel if you made an agreement to work for company A for a salary of X provided you were eligible for a bonus each year of Y if you performed L,M and N. Then you performed L, M and N and were told by yer boss, "Hey I'm sorry. We can't pay you the bonus we agreed on because the government thinks its too much" or "We need ed money so we took a loan from the government and part of our agreement with the government was that you would forfeit your bonus."
If I were told the above, my next phone call would be my attorney and I would bring a suit against Company A for breach of contract.
We as citizens should be at torch and pitchfork mindset over the government inserting its own judgment on private employment contracts rather than how much AIG pays its executives. If you don't want tax dollars to fund AIG's contractual employment obligations, DON'T GIVE LET THE GOVERNMENT GIVE THEM OUR MONEY. When they go belly up, the executives won't get paid and we can all be happy and get on with our lives.
In the case presented (which seems extreme even for the cowboy coding shops I have been in), "josh" is not as dangerous the manager who tolerates such behavior. A good manager recognizes brilliance and will allocate certain liberties based on productivity. There will be a point though where sexual harassment lawsuits eat up and profits gained by productivity at which point a good manager will say "It is cheaper to get 2 mediocre programmers who are reliable and polite that deal with another one of this asshole's liabilities." I mean, we are not talking about linus torvalds here. It's some asshole named "josh". On the other hand, antisocial talent can usually picked up pretty cheap if they have a reputation. Then the question becomes "Am I desperate enough to babysit this egomaniac or would I be better off with a X% loss in productivity in exchange for a smooth running work place?"
what is the awesome bar?
If Netflix had tried to grow their company (Established in 1997 ) in a time when filesharing (napster started in 1999) was available it would have never worked. That explains why it is so unprofitable.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNewsUS/idUKN2654283620090127
ignore my research. Its still true.
what platform are you on? I was experiencing the same thing on gentoo until I re-emerged it with "custom-optimizations" use flag.
Someone please Mod Parent up. This is almost the best Idea I have ever heard . So simple and yet so genius. I have been trying to think about how to do just this with Gentoo's portage as the app profile engine for governing the install preferences.
this is just weak. Beta is not an excuse for not being able to install. Maybe Google has raised expectations on software that is categorized as Beta but is it really defensible to have software *UNABLE TO RUN*? Uninstallable is different from buggy. I would expect the installation of some esoteric hardware to crash the system from time to time but to keep it from installing shows this "beta" was not tested worth a damn. It really goes to the heart of MS software quality in general.
This is exactly what I would expect in a world where everyone feels they should be able to go through life without being offended. Politicians are just bending to the will of the (dumb) masses.
I think the problem here needs to be solved by maybe revisiting the language of the bill of rights. We need a constitutional convention anyways. Let's throw this one on the heap.
This whole topic is stupid. However this one post is very interesting. The fact that a government employee could intimidate a citizen into not investigating how tax dollars are being spent is very disturbing. It really goes against the idea that government should be accountable to the people. Seems to me this is EXACTLY the problem in Washington. Government employees (representatives) are deciding that the people exist to serve the government (by funding it with taxes) rather than the other way around.
[shakes head]
how about shipping it without all the crapware? Why can't they have a package manager like every other piece of software. I would like to see Windows shipped as a kernel, few command line tools (including a package manager) and bash shell. You boot up Windows for the first time a and a script runs that allows you to select what desktop environment you want. Select KDE, open office, eclipse, Firefox and thunderbird from the list and install (maybe reboot? this is windows after all). I know this level of configurability is a pipe dream but they could make a huge jump toward it by simply having the add/remove programs app be able to do more than just remove. Maybe have a package profile list of popular FOSS apps that you can just select and install. This would also help protect its users by offering safe/trusted sources for packages rather than requiring the users to go find them and potentially downloading malware infested packages instead.
I am patiently waiting for psystar to start selling laptops. I am hoping the mobile Open Computer (yes that is what they call it) will have a windows keyboard (complete with backspace key, insert, delete, home, pgup,pgdown, prt screen.) Psystar if you read this please bring you laptop to market!
Damn, I always thought moore's law was that Michael Moore's intelligence decreases linerally each time he opens his mouth and exponentially each time he makes another movie.
Who knew it had something to do with the tv/piano combo box.
I disagree. I think it would be cool to quest for the great Coca Cola of the mythical Eastern elves in war craft. Maybe the new armor in the next expansion will be branded by Nike. Then they could release real live limited edition collector versions of in game products. I see this being something you game nerds could really dig on.
Easy. Look how well they managed.... um er. brb
resist the urge to go to webmail (at least as a primary client). Make sure you consider Mozilla Thunderbird. It is infinitely better than outlook and you can even provide a calendar feature as a plugin (Mozilla Lightning)
I did this a few years ago to cut costs at a small business I worked for. Everything was fine except for one user in sales. He whined and complained and since it was my idea to switch (not decreed from the executive level) he was able to whine until he got his own copy of office. My advice is to tell him that you refuse to do it unless A) you really believe in OO and B) your highest executive is a strong advocate and backer. If there is even a little doubt from the people above you, you will be in for a greater headache than you can even imagine. Another problems is marketing material. If you have any of those DIY marketing guys that like to print their own brochures, you will be constantly helping them because the instructions on the back of the brochure paper are for MS office only.
Are you really a Kogan employee? My suspicion of this post is almost overwhelming. If so give us more details.
I can't tell if this is a joke or serious.
How about the fact that the functions provided in excel are broken. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/26b.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214058.
Now I understand that these bugs have been fixed or there are work arounds but the whole problem with excel is that it exposes extremely powerful analytical functions to users who are expected to not know when one of the calculations is wrong. There is no QA process around spreadsheets and typically there is not even any technical review of the work sheets that are used to create some of the data used by companies for very important decisions. The tool is too powerful and unfortunately US Corporate culture allows individuals to get away without understanding what these calculations actually mean
it would have been fine if the government had not also mandated that content be converted to all digital by X date.
This is a red herring. Anyone who disqualifies candidates because they don't know a specific framework or even a specific language is missing the boat. It is much easier (and cheaper) to train a smart engineer to use your dev tools than it is to make a mediocre developer into a smart one. Choose your engineers based on breadth of experience and give them the opportunity to use that experience to give your product insights it would not have by hiring a clone of the guy who left. If an engineer does not want to learn a new toolkit, then they would have never been an asset anyways. Great engineers understand that this industry is always changing and we have to roll with the changes to keep up.
damn. How hot was this chick?
When it "sees" a fatal or critical error, pipe it into the file and let it display on the led screen. should be pretty easy to do with a tiny shell program.
fine. If no one else will say it, I will. If Apple got rid of Steve Jobs maybe we could finally get some products that are designed with more than style in mind. I think most of the things Jobs has brought to apple in the last 5 years are marketing successes not technical marvels. Let's be fair if it didn't have a giant apple on the back/side/bottom no one would buy this crap. I say this cause I fell for the hype and bought a mbp. Now I wish I had bought a real laptop. So lets go down the list:
ipod: six generations and 3 variations of this piece of shit and you can't get ogg playback support???? wtf?
mac laptops: sleek form factor but overpriced and WTF why is apple so obsessed with their keyboard layout? It's not 1985 anymore give me a print screen, home, pg up/dn, insert and delete keys already. Stop being snobs and just give me a real keyboard already.
apple TV: apple what?
Mac OSX: ok it's decent. But it still needs a package manager and real window manager. Aqua sucks and it makes my mac a real pain in the ass.
Intel Chips: Oh what happened to the "technically superior" PPC chip? Welcome to the rest of the world you stuck up assholes.
iPhone: OMG I can't stand this piece of shit. Earth to apple - a smart phone without a real keyboard is just retarded. I can't believe that people shelled out 300,600,800 dollars for a phone whose screen is about half an inch tall while typing. This makes using it as an ssh client impossible. plus what's up with those keys being so close together? Steve please think of the men who might like to buy your products next time you say "oh we'll have a soft keyboard it'll be awesome!!!" Idiot. The screen is way too fragile and oh big surprise still no ogg support. and what the hell is the deal with app store? What makes apple think they know better than me what apps should be on my phone? I can't stomach this level of a God complex from a singe corporate entity.
Btw, apple, thanks for bringing us the graphic user interface, the adults can take it from here.
Disclaimer: my phone is a G1 and my computer is a macbook pro running gentoo linux.