I'm another ex-IBMer (left of my own accord and glad to be out), a friend of mine at the lab was asked to lower an employees PBC rating as the yearly cull needed another target in their team, he refused as the employee was an ok performer... they insisted he change the rating to a 3 as they had already told the employee that he was to be put on 'a plan' (IBM code for go f%ck yourself). He gained my respect and admiration that day when he said that he wouldn't do it and that the employee would likely have good grounds to start legal proceedings as this rating was out of the blue and unjustified and he was ready to quit over it. Suddenly the employee was welcomed back and all was forgiven. All three of us have left the company now (of our own accord) and are doing fine but my abiding memory of IBM is of a place with such low morals as to be almost non existent, HR are just Sam's hitmen and the execs have created a culture of fear and resentment... then they wonder why they struggle to innovate as a company.
I work as a usability engineer and I can't say that I agree with your points. The ribbon was created to address the MS defined problem that users were only using about 10% of office functionality and they wanted that percentage to go up, that is not a usability goal. Its more than possible that users were only using 10% of the function because that is all they need to use. The ribbon is there to be a pimp for neglected MS features, it could work well for very simple tasks that only have one path... but if your task calls for you to use features from many tabs then it is just a hindrance.
I'm guessing you haven't sat in a room and watched somebody painfully scream and cry their way to their end. My church going, Irish catholic grandmother begged my mother to kill her in her last days as the cancer ate her alive, I sat in a hospital room for a week with my Father in law and his family after he decided to stop treatment to avoid a more painful drawn out end. Modern medicine can keep you going much longer than nature ever intended, where do you draw the line?, how long do you fight a losing battle? Personally, I don't see an end full of agony, that smells of bleach and includes being hooked up to machines to replace failed pieces of my body as what God intended, I chose not to judge anyone who makes these terrible calls.
Nah, I've been there too and maybe you saw the tourist attraction tribe but Africans living off the land do more exercise in a day than most Westerners see all month. Leanness and being fit are a response to a lifestyle we evolved for, diabetes and obesity is the Western response... we just like to label athletes as freakish to avoid the fact we have become lazy.
Genes are most definitely at play, they dictate the amount of fast twitch (explosive speed) and slow switch (endurance) muscle fibers an individual is gifted with. What I object to is the characterization that these people are "freaks", good genes will take you only so far. Many people are given similar abilities but, like any walk of life, success is achieved by those who work at it. These people devote their lives to training their bodies - using the word freaks dismisses their huge perseverance and mental strength.
So you are saying that all world class athletes are freaks? If you look to nature, super fit athletes are the norm and obese, slow moving waddlers are the genetic abnormalities (or otherwise known as an easy lunch). I think you are confusing an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle with normality.
I think they meant to say "we already scam consumers enough to not need the cash" . I hope to see some disruptive technology to circumvent the stranglehold these dinosaurs have.
I believe Myth would work because it ignores the flag but the point I was trying to make is that the TV companies up here will try anything to screw their customers over... these are the same companies who throttle internet connections, collude on cell phone plan pricing and try to squeeze out new competitors... now if we had a real regulatory body instead of the cable executives retirement home that is the CRTC then maybe these situations would never arise...
What I'd really like to see is a standardization of the way these signals are encoded so 3rd party suppliers can sell PVRs instead of being locked into a single vendor. I'd love to use my Tivo again or hook the signal up to a Myth box but getting HD here in Canada means a cable company h/w solution.
In Canada there is no cable card system, we are stuck with the providers boxes and they all suck. I'm with Rogers and their PVR forgets shows and refuses to play at times, I had a Tivo but when you move to HD you are SOL. The providers want you to stay with their system so you keep buying / renting their box... Firewire lets people break that link - thus they shut it down. Similar behavior can be seen on Rogers where they enable to do not record flag so that Windows Media center refuses to record some prime-time TV (even though the broadcast flag should not really exist in Canada).
To be fair that culture exists at EDS and some IBM divisions too, but Siebel is just learning the ropes in some ways. I remember when I joined EDS there was talk of "the good old days" where Ross Perot would hand out cars for good projects but also how you must close the blinds if you drink alcohol at home, socks must match suit etc etc, there was also talk about the private detective who photographed employees involved in affairs.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm another ex-IBMer (left of my own accord and glad to be out), a friend of mine at the lab was asked to lower an employees PBC rating as the yearly cull needed another target in their team, he refused as the employee was an ok performer... they insisted he change the rating to a 3 as they had already told the employee that he was to be put on 'a plan' (IBM code for go f%ck yourself). He gained my respect and admiration that day when he said that he wouldn't do it and that the employee would likely have good grounds to start legal proceedings as this rating was out of the blue and unjustified and he was ready to quit over it. Suddenly the employee was welcomed back and all was forgiven. All three of us have left the company now (of our own accord) and are doing fine but my abiding memory of IBM is of a place with such low morals as to be almost non existent, HR are just Sam's hitmen and the execs have created a culture of fear and resentment... then they wonder why they struggle to innovate as a company.
Optomechanical Crystal Allows Confinement of Light and Sound ..... Upon hearing the news, General Zod was heard to say... "ohh crap"
Yes, today's placebo is almost twice as powerful as those used as little as 5 years ago.
I work as a usability engineer and I can't say that I agree with your points. The ribbon was created to address the MS defined problem that users were only using about 10% of office functionality and they wanted that percentage to go up, that is not a usability goal. Its more than possible that users were only using 10% of the function because that is all they need to use. The ribbon is there to be a pimp for neglected MS features, it could work well for very simple tasks that only have one path... but if your task calls for you to use features from many tabs then it is just a hindrance.
I'm guessing you haven't sat in a room and watched somebody painfully scream and cry their way to their end. My church going, Irish catholic grandmother begged my mother to kill her in her last days as the cancer ate her alive, I sat in a hospital room for a week with my Father in law and his family after he decided to stop treatment to avoid a more painful drawn out end. Modern medicine can keep you going much longer than nature ever intended, where do you draw the line?, how long do you fight a losing battle? Personally, I don't see an end full of agony, that smells of bleach and includes being hooked up to machines to replace failed pieces of my body as what God intended, I chose not to judge anyone who makes these terrible calls.
Nah, I've been there too and maybe you saw the tourist attraction tribe but Africans living off the land do more exercise in a day than most Westerners see all month. Leanness and being fit are a response to a lifestyle we evolved for, diabetes and obesity is the Western response... we just like to label athletes as freakish to avoid the fact we have become lazy.
Genes are most definitely at play, they dictate the amount of fast twitch (explosive speed) and slow switch (endurance) muscle fibers an individual is gifted with. What I object to is the characterization that these people are "freaks", good genes will take you only so far. Many people are given similar abilities but, like any walk of life, success is achieved by those who work at it. These people devote their lives to training their bodies - using the word freaks dismisses their huge perseverance and mental strength.
Yes they look like distance runners, lean and skinny... not all elite athletes have huge muscle mass.
So you are saying that all world class athletes are freaks? If you look to nature, super fit athletes are the norm and obese, slow moving waddlers are the genetic abnormalities (or otherwise known as an easy lunch). I think you are confusing an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle with normality.
I think they meant to say "we already scam consumers enough to not need the cash" . I hope to see some disruptive technology to circumvent the stranglehold these dinosaurs have.
I believe Myth would work because it ignores the flag but the point I was trying to make is that the TV companies up here will try anything to screw their customers over ... these are the same companies who throttle internet connections, collude on cell phone plan pricing and try to squeeze out new competitors... now if we had a real regulatory body instead of the cable executives retirement home that is the CRTC then maybe these situations would never arise...
What I'd really like to see is a standardization of the way these signals are encoded so 3rd party suppliers can sell PVRs instead of being locked into a single vendor. I'd love to use my Tivo again or hook the signal up to a Myth box but getting HD here in Canada means a cable company h/w solution.
In Canada there is no cable card system, we are stuck with the providers boxes and they all suck. I'm with Rogers and their PVR forgets shows and refuses to play at times, I had a Tivo but when you move to HD you are SOL. The providers want you to stay with their system so you keep buying / renting their box... Firewire lets people break that link - thus they shut it down. Similar behavior can be seen on Rogers where they enable to do not record flag so that Windows Media center refuses to record some prime-time TV (even though the broadcast flag should not really exist in Canada).
To be fair that culture exists at EDS and some IBM divisions too, but Siebel is just learning the ropes in some ways. I remember when I joined EDS there was talk of "the good old days" where Ross Perot would hand out cars for good projects but also how you must close the blinds if you drink alcohol at home, socks must match suit etc etc, there was also talk about the private detective who photographed employees involved in affairs.
Jurassic Pork?
Please, please please make Fox news website pay per view... ps please also keep Glenn Beck safely locked inside.
Isn't that the name of the new Britney Spears album?
Arghhh... Call Jack Bauer!!!!