There is an article in the July 1997 issue of Scientific American about this. It contains results of a survey by the Gartner group about why PC's cost/waste so much time and money.
The largest notch in Gartner's tally, however, is for the time that employees waste "futzing" with their computers rather than working on them. That costs employers another $5,590 per computer each year, the group estimates. Its guess may be low. SBT Accounting Systems in San Rafael, Calif., found in a 6,000-person survey that office workers futz with their machines an average of 5.1 hours--more than half a workday--each week. One fifth of that time was wasted waiting for programs to run or for help to arrive. Double-checking printouts for accuracy and format ran a close second. Lots of time goes into rearranging disk files. And then there are games; Microsoft Windows comes with four preinstalled. All told, SBT estimates, futzing costs American businesses on the order of $100 billion a year in lost productivity.
I also remember there was a followup letter to the editor that pointed out that this only applies to office workers. Engineers and scientists have gotten HUGE productivity gains from workstations.
I used to take psuedophedrine HCL (generic Sudafed) when I had a lot of sinus headaches. I would conteract the slight sleepiness by taking half doses and drinking lots of Coke. I felt I was "stepping into" my monitor and just coding like crazy. No distractions, no interruptions to my train of thought.
However, I did jump a foot after a co-worker touched my shoulder to get my attention!
I'm a contractor working on my third ~year long assignment. Every place I've been, I've heard about projects that were being delayed because of Y2K. In 2001, there will be huge pent-up demand for developers, because so many man-months (mythical or otherwise) were sucked up by Y2K.
If you're fixing 20 yr old COBOL, chances are you aren't building Java Servlets.
Ka-Ching!
Pessimists! This is a great opportunity!!
on
Killer Asteroid
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· Score: 1
Forget about near misses!! This is our chance to capture an asteroid. Put the sucker in an elliptical orbit circling the Earth-Moon system and start the mining operations.
Once we demonstrate the value of finding and capturing near earth asteroids, we will get a lot more eyeballs looking for them. We also get to practice rendevouing and redirecting them, so when the real doomsday rock comes, it can be diverted and turned into an asset not a disaster.
We have 39 years in which to create viable rocket systems. Let's get started.
I read a pundit that claimed Bill's initial comment "Yeah, but I didn't inhale" was actually a sarcastic joke that the media took seriously, and put Billy in the position of actually having to defend that position.
There was a great book in my High School Library around 1984 entitled "How to Lie With Statistics". I forget the author's name, but it was a great laymans intro to statistics and how they are often distorted.
But your right, no really talks about this until stats class in college.
Slashdot Mirror
I also remember there was a followup letter to the editor that pointed out that this only applies to office workers. Engineers and scientists have gotten HUGE productivity gains from workstations.
I used to take psuedophedrine HCL (generic Sudafed) when I had a lot of sinus headaches. I would conteract the slight sleepiness by taking half doses and drinking lots of Coke. I felt I was "stepping into" my monitor and just coding like crazy. No distractions, no interruptions to my train of thought.
However, I did jump a foot after a co-worker touched my shoulder to get my attention!
Devin
ps. I also love Bailey's and Coffee.
computer vandal
e-vandal
evandal
V4nd3l
gibsonite
I'm a contractor working on my third ~year long assignment. Every place I've been, I've heard about projects that were being delayed because of Y2K. In 2001, there will be huge pent-up demand for developers, because so many man-months (mythical or otherwise) were sucked up by Y2K.
If you're fixing 20 yr old COBOL, chances are you aren't building Java Servlets.
Ka-Ching!
Once we demonstrate the value of finding and capturing near earth asteroids, we will get a lot more eyeballs looking for them. We also get to practice rendevouing and redirecting them, so when the real doomsday rock comes, it can be diverted and turned into an asset not a disaster.
We have 39 years in which to create viable rocket systems. Let's get started.
Interface Stephen Bury
I love this stuff. It keeps me on my toes when reading "real" news articles.
Critical thinking is a habit and like all habits, benefits from periodic reinforcement.
I read a pundit that claimed Bill's initial comment "Yeah, but I didn't inhale" was actually a sarcastic joke that the media took seriously, and put Billy in the position of actually having to defend that position.
Man this country is effd-up about drugs and sex!
Wasn't there a post on /. recently about a call
by the ACM president to electronically open up congress and the legislative process?
OhMyGod! I think I just agreed with Katz!
There was a great book in my High School Library around 1984 entitled "How to Lie With Statistics". I forget the author's name, but it was a great laymans intro to statistics and how they are often distorted.
But your right, no really talks about this until stats class in college.