"Why is it that anytime an executive says lay-offs are prudent, it must simply be for a bonus check and not be for the betterment of the company?"
Perhaps because it happens a lot? The exec would have been more credibility when he said "we should eliminate 15-20% of people and eliminate bonuses for VP and above this year". That part was conspicuously absent
Years ago I worked for a company where end of year bonuses were a big part of a programmer's salary. You kind of lived and died for those bonuses. One year, when the check came it was like 1/3 of the normal bonus. The division head came in and explained times were tight, the company needed to save money, etc etc. Then 30 days later, the board voted the president of the company a 5 million dollar bonus because he had cut expenses. This is hardly unique in the corporate world, so a lot of people are cynical when they see something like this.
The guy wanted everybody *below himself* to be accountable. What a brave position to put himself in!
"Which makes this, I hate peanut butter. We all should, a mind-blowingly asinine comment. "
I agree it was out-of-place in the email, that's why I don't think this was a metaphor.
I think he actually hates peanut butter. My guess is the company cafeteria is now getting rid of peanut butter and they'll lay off a few hundred people over there at Yahoo.
I don't get why anybody would buy this when iPods are cheaper for the same capacity.
There's already a considerable ecosystem of accessories and attachments for the iPod.
It works with two open formats... mp3 and aac.
iTunes works with Mac, Windows 2K, XP, and Vista.
Does anybody want to buy this because they can send a song to a friend and he/she can listen to it 3 times. That's it? That's the feature I've gotta have? It doesn't even "Play for Sure!".
I still don't get games that make you collect stuff which lets you level up which lets you collect different stuff which lets you level up which lets you...
I'm not saying it's wrong, I just don't get the appeal of collecting things in an RPG. Clearly, there is a market for this kind of game, but I agree with the premise that there must be certain cataclysmic events. Things have to matter, or else who cares?
To me, WoW and others that are similar are just like the old "Hack" and "Dungeon" games except the graphics are a lot better.
In my opinion, the reason WoW will never improve substantially is because the publisher makes plenty of money just the way it is. Heck, if I owned it, I'd make sure the only thing that mattered was that people kept paying me $15/month. The trouble is, if you were building a competing game, you'd try to make it look and act like WoW as much as possible because it's proven to be successful. And as long as the market wants collecting games like WoW, then we'll never see anything better.
"Personally, I don't develop software just so that I can be an anonymous contributor to future technology. I do it to pay the rent, buy cars, etc."
That's how most people develop. But to be frank, most programmers (the vast majority in fact), make money doing customizations to packages or modifications to code. Hardly anybody writes kernels, schedulers, IP stacks, Word Processors, Spreadsheets or MP3 players. Most programmers make minor (and not so minor) revisions so that a particular packages meets the requirements of a business.
The net effect is that there is no value to this code outside it's intended environment. The overseas body shops aren't coming up with great new modifications to Linux, they're writing a program that is highly customized to it's environment.
In other words, there is no value in the code, the value is encapsulating specific business rules for a specific company.
That's why I always think the debate about "How do you make money if you're using open source code" doesn't even make sense. As an application programmer, it doesn't matter if I write my code to work in Linux, Windows, DOS, or even SCO Unix. It's just an app, and the value is in the work, since the code has no value outside the business that paid for it.
The author and MS says DRM was forced on MS Vista by the content owners/providers. But that's clearly not the case. XP manages not to have this level of protection and there appears to be plenty of content available for the Windows platform.
I seem to recall that MS pitched their DRM schemes to content owners and providers to convince them that Windows was the only good platform for secure content and essentially achieve lock-in at the content provider level.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter, but for Microsoft to say "Oh poor us, we didn't want to provide DRM, but we had to!" seems disingenuous at best.
I asked the twenty people around me if they'd ever heard of this person. No one has.
I went to her site. A lot of bandwidth to tell you that she's famous and will be on TV soon. She points you to her own entry on Wikipedia (which looks suspiciously like her web site). The web site says that she's famous and will be on TV soon.
I suspect one of the editors of/. just met her and is smitten with her. Now he can call and say "gee, I hope we didn't [nervous laugh] slashdot your site [more nervous laughter]"
I should be able to take music I purchase and move it anywhere. To my iPod, to my server, to my stereo, anywhere I want. Period. End of sentence. That's what I have now with CD's. Why would I give up anything? Who am I being unfair to when I buy a CD and move it to my iPod?
Same with the MPAA. I should be able to take a DVD and copy it to my HD. That's not being unfair.
Ask this guy..."When I take a CD that I bought and move the music to my ipod, do you acknowledge that is a legitimate fair use?" He won't answer that question. I promise you he will dodge it. And the only reason to dodge it is because he thinks you're being a pirate when you copy a CD that you bought to your computer.
So no. He has given nothing. He is saying that he believes Fair Use is unfair. And do you know why he thinks it's unfair? Because he thinks we should pay a fee to the RIAA members everytime we move from CD to PC to iPod to whatever. To him, that's 3 copies, we owe him for 3 copies of the music. That's how they think. He's being ridiculous and unfair and then when he concedes on a tiny point, you think he's giving something back. Sorry, he's given nothing except evasions and half truths in his response.
Re:The War of the News & Products
on
The Zune Cometh
·
· Score: 3, Funny
You're saying Apple is horrible for having funny commercials? Or am I misunderstanding your position here?
I mean, you don't need to be upset. Microsoft is good at spreadsheets, Apple has admitted that. Why can't Microsoft say something nice Apple?
It's saying of the 20% that's mis-diagnosed, Google correctly identified 58% of those.
However, what no one has brought up is that when something is misdiagnosed, no one knows until they do the autopsy, so you can't just do simple math to lower the error rate to 8%. As you suggest, while google does better when the doctor is wrong, Google is worse than the doctor when he's correct. I'm not sure it's even correct to assume that if the doctor used Google the diagnoses would be better or worse, since there is an element of human judgment in medical practice.
What is does suggest is that doctors and patients should consider using Google to do a check on their patients and themselves for diagnosis and treatment options.
"and only a few games ever used the ethernet adapter (which was not even built in until the new slimline PS2 game out)."
You're absolutely right about this, however, Sony did include the Ethernet adapter with the PS2 after the first year or so. My first one (died with a disk read error) did not come with an ethernet adapter, but the second one purchased about 18 month after launch did come with one out of the box.
"The cops don't just go searching random computers hoping they'll stumble on some terrorist then they can arrest them. "
Are you so sure? Isn't this exactly what the administration was asking for in the most recent inception of the patriot act? Searches without warrants? That's all this is... the police looking around through lots of data on every computer hoping they'll catch some terrorist.
And didn't the president just argue that he has the right to listen to any phone call without a warrant because as commander in chief he answers to no one in the conduct of a "war"?
Oh, I realize that. I just don't see the end-user benefit over XP.
Seriously, what is the day-to-day benefit of Vista over XP? Nobody has done a good job explaining it. If you follow the course of Windows, 3.x-> Win95, Win95->Win98, Win98->WinXP, Win2K->WinXP, there were benefits to consumers at every step.
I've been using Windows since 3.0, and I must say, this is the first major version (I'm not counting ME) that has me completely uninterested in upgrading my PC. It's not just the hardware requirement; I'll buy a new PC. It's just that I appear to be getting a slightly upgraded XP that has as it's major feature a cool windowing system and a lot of DRM thrown into the box.
I'm going to stick with XP for a while and then upgrade to a Mac Pro. My thinking is that the Mac lets me run most of the things I'd like to run, and that I can run VMWare/Parallels for stuff that is Windows only (or dual boot).
My kids have been using OS X for a couple years now and there really is no problem with it, and Apple seems to be able to get new versions out without the drama (I mean, once OS X was released about 10 years late).
I made it to page 4 of 5. But the interviewer clearly is more concerned with being a buddy than asking anything interesting or inciteful.
Here's two of his question on the first page:
GS: Sounds fun!
GS: Woah!
and on the second page, he says:
GS: It did seem like there were a number of mis-statements, and this may be a media misperception, but did you have to work to rein people in and make sure they're on message?
Even the Sony guy didn't claim that (and note the spelling error is the web site's not mine)
And then he asks: GS: Don't take offense to this, but is the system going to be able to hold up to being always on?
Why worry about if he's going to take offense? This is not journalism, this is a fan blog. Don't worry about offended a PR flac... that's his job. Ask questions that mean something... "The console looks impressive, but it's the most expensive. Why do you think gamers will buy it?". Don't pretend all negative buzz is just from people not being on message.
The guy doesn't have to be combative, but he should ask some questions that are hard and that might be interesting to the readership.
I think the problem is a simple one... they're making a lot of money now. And they can say that if conditions A, B, and C are met they could make a lot of money. But how do you get there from here and still make money on every step?
I mean, yeah, these guys are greedy, but the truth is they have shareholders to keep happy. And if profits and revenue dip, then they're out of a job and the next guy comes in. The reason is really simple... it is more profitable for the company to slowly go out of business because each guy figures he can ride the gravy train for 10-20 years and then it's the next guy's problems (and if you doubt that happens, look at General Motors... they've been slowly going out of business for the past 35 years, but it wasn't worth it to change the business; they were still making money).
But if people hadn't coded their web sites so closely to IE5/6 then they probably wouldn't have a problem with IE7. I mean, it would probably take a little longer to make it work with Firefox and IE, but the result is they aren't tied to a single vendor's implementation.
But that's the past. Will the people who got so burned by this learn their lesson and make their sites cross browser compatible? Or will they repeat the same mistake except with IE7?
Yes exactly. They're solving the wrong problem because they haven't correctly stated the business problem.
They've stated the problem as a solution:
i.e. We need to count ballots electronically
That's not a business problem! That's a solution and the solution is wrong because you haven't stated the problem correctly.
Instead:
i.e. It is difficult for certain citizens to correctly fill out a ballot and get confirmation that they've voted the way they want to vote. At the same time, the ballot must be kept anonymous and a a recount must be possible (etc etc).
It's very common in business to get bad computerized information systems because nobody has correctly stated the business problem they're trying to solve.
"Source code is 100% open to find exploits and bugs, when you vote you're given a ticket with a number, anyone can go online and see how everyone voted but only you are able to tell which vote was yours by the corresponding ticket number. That'd allow for everyone to do their own count if they wanted."
You've solved one part of the problem, but here's something a lot more difficult:
How do you know the binaries on the voting machine match the source code you're looking at. I think that problem is non-trivial.
I think a better way to use electronic voting machine is use them so that all they do is "print" a paper ballot. The paper ballot is put into a ballot box (as done now), and the results can be tabulated using a scanner. The voter can verify the vote is as he/she cast it, and there is a record of the vote.
I just looked at the consumer reports web site. You're right the Mazda 6 is recommended and the Ford Fusion does not get those kudos. But it seems to be primarily because the Ford is a new model and the Mazda 6 is not. So the Mazda 6 has "average" reliability and the Ford just has "NEW" for reliability.
That said, the Mazda 6 didn't exactly get glowing reviews. The article basically points you towards the Honda/Toyota models and says they're more refined.
I've found that overall consumer reports gets it right more often than not. They're also transparent with their testing procedure. That's far more important than if you agree with their conclusion; at least you can see how/why they came to their conclusions.
Slashdot Mirror
"Why is it that anytime an executive says lay-offs are prudent, it must simply be for a bonus check and not be for the betterment of the company?"
Perhaps because it happens a lot? The exec would have been more credibility when he said "we should eliminate 15-20% of people and eliminate bonuses for VP and above this year". That part was conspicuously absent
Years ago I worked for a company where end of year bonuses were a big part of a programmer's salary. You kind of lived and died for those bonuses. One year, when the check came it was like 1/3 of the normal bonus. The division head came in and explained times were tight, the company needed to save money, etc etc. Then 30 days later, the board voted the president of the company a 5 million dollar bonus because he had cut expenses. This is hardly unique in the corporate world, so a lot of people are cynical when they see something like this.
The guy wanted everybody *below himself* to be accountable. What a brave position to put himself in!
"Which makes this, I hate peanut butter. We all should, a mind-blowingly asinine comment. "
I agree it was out-of-place in the email, that's why I don't think this was a metaphor.
I think he actually hates peanut butter. My guess is the company cafeteria is now getting rid of peanut butter and they'll lay off a few hundred people over there at Yahoo.
I don't get why anybody would buy this when iPods are cheaper for the same capacity.
There's already a considerable ecosystem of accessories and attachments for the iPod.
It works with two open formats... mp3 and aac.
iTunes works with Mac, Windows 2K, XP, and Vista.
Does anybody want to buy this because they can send a song to a friend and he/she can listen to it 3 times. That's it? That's the feature I've gotta have? It doesn't even "Play for Sure!".
I still don't get games that make you collect stuff which lets you level up which lets you collect different stuff which lets you level up which lets you...
I'm not saying it's wrong, I just don't get the appeal of collecting things in an RPG. Clearly, there is a market for this kind of game, but I agree with the premise that there must be certain cataclysmic events. Things have to matter, or else who cares?
To me, WoW and others that are similar are just like the old "Hack" and "Dungeon" games except the graphics are a lot better.
In my opinion, the reason WoW will never improve substantially is because the publisher makes plenty of money just the way it is. Heck, if I owned it, I'd make sure the only thing that mattered was that people kept paying me $15/month. The trouble is, if you were building a competing game, you'd try to make it look and act like WoW as much as possible because it's proven to be successful. And as long as the market wants collecting games like WoW, then we'll never see anything better.
"Personally, I don't develop software just so that I can be an anonymous contributor to future technology. I do it to pay the rent, buy cars, etc."
That's how most people develop. But to be frank, most programmers (the vast majority in fact), make money doing customizations to packages or modifications to code. Hardly anybody writes kernels, schedulers, IP stacks, Word Processors, Spreadsheets or MP3 players. Most programmers make minor (and not so minor) revisions so that a particular packages meets the requirements of a business.
The net effect is that there is no value to this code outside it's intended environment. The overseas body shops aren't coming up with great new modifications to Linux, they're writing a program that is highly customized to it's environment.
In other words, there is no value in the code, the value is encapsulating specific business rules for a specific company.
That's why I always think the debate about "How do you make money if you're using open source code" doesn't even make sense. As an application programmer, it doesn't matter if I write my code to work in Linux, Windows, DOS, or even SCO Unix. It's just an app, and the value is in the work, since the code has no value outside the business that paid for it.
The author and MS says DRM was forced on MS Vista by the content owners/providers. But that's clearly not the case. XP manages not to have this level of protection and there appears to be plenty of content available for the Windows platform.
I seem to recall that MS pitched their DRM schemes to content owners and providers to convince them that Windows was the only good platform for secure content and essentially achieve lock-in at the content provider level.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter, but for Microsoft to say "Oh poor us, we didn't want to provide DRM, but we had to!" seems disingenuous at best.
"Amanda Congdon"
/. just met her and is smitten with her. Now he can call and say "gee, I hope we didn't [nervous laugh] slashdot your site [more nervous laughter]"
I asked the twenty people around me if they'd ever heard of this person. No one has.
I went to her site. A lot of bandwidth to tell you that she's famous and will be on TV soon. She points you to her own entry on Wikipedia (which looks suspiciously like her web site). The web site says that she's famous and will be on TV soon.
I suspect one of the editors of
"But is what they're saying now unreasonable? "
Actually it's very unreasonable.
I should be able to take music I purchase and move it anywhere. To my iPod, to my server, to my stereo, anywhere I want. Period. End of sentence. That's what I have now with CD's. Why would I give up anything? Who am I being unfair to when I buy a CD and move it to my iPod?
Same with the MPAA. I should be able to take a DVD and copy it to my HD. That's not being unfair.
Ask this guy..."When I take a CD that I bought and move the music to my ipod, do you acknowledge that is a legitimate fair use?" He won't answer that question. I promise you he will dodge it. And the only reason to dodge it is because he thinks you're being a pirate when you copy a CD that you bought to your computer.
So no. He has given nothing. He is saying that he believes Fair Use is unfair. And do you know why he thinks it's unfair? Because he thinks we should pay a fee to the RIAA members everytime we move from CD to PC to iPod to whatever. To him, that's 3 copies, we owe him for 3 copies of the music. That's how they think. He's being ridiculous and unfair and then when he concedes on a tiny point, you think he's giving something back. Sorry, he's given nothing except evasions and half truths in his response.
You're saying Apple is horrible for having funny commercials? Or am I misunderstanding your position here?
I mean, you don't need to be upset. Microsoft is good at spreadsheets, Apple has admitted that. Why can't Microsoft say something nice Apple?
The write-up is a bit funny and misleading.
It's saying of the 20% that's mis-diagnosed, Google correctly identified 58% of those.
However, what no one has brought up is that when something is misdiagnosed, no one knows until they do the autopsy, so you can't just do simple math to lower the error rate to 8%. As you suggest, while google does better when the doctor is wrong, Google is worse than the doctor when he's correct. I'm not sure it's even correct to assume that if the doctor used Google the diagnoses would be better or worse, since there is an element of human judgment in medical practice.
What is does suggest is that doctors and patients should consider using Google to do a check on their patients and themselves for diagnosis and treatment options.
"and only a few games ever used the ethernet adapter (which was not even built in until the new slimline PS2 game out)."
You're absolutely right about this, however, Sony did include the Ethernet adapter with the PS2 after the first year or so. My first one (died with a disk read error) did not come with an ethernet adapter, but the second one purchased about 18 month after launch did come with one out of the box.
"so you're a cop, and this guy is bringing a night vision scope into the country"
You realize they sell those things at Costco, right?
"The cops don't just go searching random computers hoping they'll stumble on some terrorist then they can arrest them. "
Are you so sure? Isn't this exactly what the administration was asking for in the most recent inception of the patriot act? Searches without warrants? That's all this is... the police looking around through lots of data on every computer hoping they'll catch some terrorist.
And didn't the president just argue that he has the right to listen to any phone call without a warrant because as commander in chief he answers to no one in the conduct of a "war"?
Oh, I realize that. I just don't see the end-user benefit over XP.
Seriously, what is the day-to-day benefit of Vista over XP? Nobody has done a good job explaining it. If you follow the course of Windows, 3.x-> Win95, Win95->Win98, Win98->WinXP, Win2K->WinXP, there were benefits to consumers at every step.
Where's the benefit with XP->Vista?
I've been using Windows since 3.0, and I must say, this is the first major version (I'm not counting ME) that has me completely uninterested in upgrading my PC. It's not just the hardware requirement; I'll buy a new PC. It's just that I appear to be getting a slightly upgraded XP that has as it's major feature a cool windowing system and a lot of DRM thrown into the box.
I'm going to stick with XP for a while and then upgrade to a Mac Pro. My thinking is that the Mac lets me run most of the things I'd like to run, and that I can run VMWare/Parallels for stuff that is Windows only (or dual boot).
My kids have been using OS X for a couple years now and there really is no problem with it, and Apple seems to be able to get new versions out without the drama (I mean, once OS X was released about 10 years late).
To summarize,
"The new version of windows requires more RAM than the last version, and despite MS promises to the contrary, never do an upgrade"
It would be news if this *wasn't* true for a new version of Windows.
They had their fingers crossed when they made that promise.
I made it to page 4 of 5. But the interviewer clearly is more concerned with being a buddy than asking anything interesting or inciteful.
Here's two of his question on the first page:
GS: Sounds fun!
GS: Woah!
and on the second page, he says:
GS: It did seem like there were a number of mis-statements, and this may be a media misperception, but did you have to work to rein people in and make sure they're on message?
Even the Sony guy didn't claim that (and note the spelling error is the web site's not mine)
And then he asks:
GS: Don't take offense to this, but is the system going to be able to hold up to being always on?
Why worry about if he's going to take offense? This is not journalism, this is a fan blog. Don't worry about offended a PR flac... that's his job. Ask questions that mean something... "The console looks impressive, but it's the most expensive. Why do you think gamers will buy it?". Don't pretend all negative buzz is just from people not being on message.
The guy doesn't have to be combative, but he should ask some questions that are hard and that might be interesting to the readership.
I think the problem is a simple one... they're making a lot of money now. And they can say that if conditions A, B, and C are met they could make a lot of money. But how do you get there from here and still make money on every step?
I mean, yeah, these guys are greedy, but the truth is they have shareholders to keep happy. And if profits and revenue dip, then they're out of a job and the next guy comes in. The reason is really simple... it is more profitable for the company to slowly go out of business because each guy figures he can ride the gravy train for 10-20 years and then it's the next guy's problems (and if you doubt that happens, look at General Motors... they've been slowly going out of business for the past 35 years, but it wasn't worth it to change the business; they were still making money).
But if people hadn't coded their web sites so closely to IE5/6 then they probably wouldn't have a problem with IE7. I mean, it would probably take a little longer to make it work with Firefox and IE, but the result is they aren't tied to a single vendor's implementation.
But that's the past. Will the people who got so burned by this learn their lesson and make their sites cross browser compatible? Or will they repeat the same mistake except with IE7?
Something to think about, anyway.
Yes exactly. They're solving the wrong problem because they haven't correctly stated the business problem.
They've stated the problem as a solution:
i.e. We need to count ballots electronically
That's not a business problem! That's a solution and the solution is wrong because you haven't stated the problem correctly.
Instead:
i.e. It is difficult for certain citizens to correctly fill out a ballot and get confirmation that they've voted the way they want to vote. At the same time, the ballot must be kept anonymous and a a recount must be possible (etc etc).
It's very common in business to get bad computerized information systems because nobody has correctly stated the business problem they're trying to solve.
"Source code is 100% open to find exploits and bugs, when you vote you're given a ticket with a number, anyone can go online and see how everyone voted but only you are able to tell which vote was yours by the corresponding ticket number. That'd allow for everyone to do their own count if they wanted."
You've solved one part of the problem, but here's something a lot more difficult:
How do you know the binaries on the voting machine match the source code you're looking at. I think that problem is non-trivial.
I think a better way to use electronic voting machine is use them so that all they do is "print" a paper ballot. The paper ballot is put into a ballot box (as done now), and the results can be tabulated using a scanner. The voter can verify the vote is as he/she cast it, and there is a record of the vote.
Simple.
I just looked at the consumer reports web site. You're right the Mazda 6 is recommended and the Ford Fusion does not get those kudos. But it seems to be primarily because the Ford is a new model and the Mazda 6 is not. So the Mazda 6 has "average" reliability and the Ford just has "NEW" for reliability.
That said, the Mazda 6 didn't exactly get glowing reviews. The article basically points you towards the Honda/Toyota models and says they're more refined.
I've found that overall consumer reports gets it right more often than not. They're also transparent with their testing procedure. That's far more important than if you agree with their conclusion; at least you can see how/why they came to their conclusions.
Here's more info on the Song:g -wam-eurovision-2005
http://www.dailymotion.com/tag/Wig/video/xb1fs_wi
Terrific for all you fans of Hair Nation! Not what you'd expect from the Norwegians.
If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding? How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?