Why is Google taking the wrong lesson from this? You say that Google has managers that have a lot of technical skills. Google says the need for improving technical skills ranks #8. I'd say you and Google are both in complete agreement. It's the headline and summary of this Slashdot article that you probably disagree with.
There's a difference between valuing technical skills least, and valuing them at zero. An engineering manager needs to understand what his or her team is working on, so that he or she can measure the goals and progress of the members of the team (and the team as a whole). If an employee needs advice, the manager needs to be able to cluefully provide it. But I think for the most part, people at Google rely on their supersmart peers when it comes to technical advice, not their manager.
I do work at Google, and I am in agreement with you: I do not believe Daniel's assertion that Google "abuses and humiliates" its employees is representative. I have never seen an example of that, so either he's being a bit hyperbolic with his language, or this happens infrequently and secretively enough to not really be visible.
I believe most of the individual complaints I've been reading about Google here fall into two categories: 1. The individual did not adapt to Google's culture. 2. The individual could not perform in a meritocracy, or at least believed that he/she could not.
And possibly, in Daniel's case: 3. The individual got stuck staffing an on-call shift during a team offsite.
Google's culture, while similar to other companies like Facebook and Twitter, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the "IT department" at any other company. Externally, people say that Google is all about advertising, but internally, it's all about software, and there is an intense focus on its engineers as a result. Some people (non-engineers and engineers alike) don't like that.
The Google meritocracy can also be confusing for some people, causing them to make poor work-life decisions. If you take two people that have equal skills, and have A work 60 hours a week and B work 40, obviously A is going to outperform B. A will get larger bonuses and raises. B may feel pressure to perform more like A, under the (mistaken) belief that B can't meet expectations without doing so. This myth of "grading on a curve" causes some people to grow resentful and leave. Don't blame your employer for your dumb decisions. (And if it turns out that you can't meet expectations at your salaried job without working 60-hour weeks, and giving up on vacations, I would say that's a sign that you shouldn't be there and you'd personally be happier someplace else.)
I think the point of the parent poster was that in a democracy, representative or not, the majority always rules (be it a majority of the people, or a majority of representatives), and rules on everything. This quality defines the government. In the US, things are much more complex, and a democratic or constitutional republic is a more accurate description. (You could argue that a democratic republic is a type of representative democracy, but the reverse is not true.)
The two are NOT synonyms. It may be appropriate to say that a democratic republic is a type of representative democracy, but a democracy per se has no protection against the tyranny of the majority, while a democratic republic may. So, with some hand waving, yes, the US is both, but calling it a republic is more accurate and better describes how the government actually works.
A highly accurate clock is at the very heart of GPS. Consequently, it's used quite extensively as a time-keeping system, frequently as a stratum-0 NTP device.
I think you are confusing backups with availability. Just because you have a backup of your data on hand doesn't mean it's practical for you to push a button and have your e-mail up and running locally while Gmail recovers your data on their end. Most people don't want to pay ~double for that extra 9 of availability, but I do agree with you that if your availability needs are so exceptional that Google's track record is inadequate (and I urge you to actually quantify that track record rather than go with your gut feeling based on articles like these), then you need to pay 2x for that extra 9.
At seriously large scales, the rate of problems caused by events previously considered so improbable that you'll never likely see them in your career, become likely. TCP checksums are weak. Cosmic rays cause bit flips. Sometimes those bit flips mutate data on the way to the disk, so you never notice unless you've also checksummed the data and read it back and re-check it after writing it.
At these scales, it's fruitless to try and root cause every problem that happens, because you will hit problems like these that most sysadmins simply aren't likely to ever figure out. Document (statistically) the problem and re-image, without a second thought. In fact, write automation to collect some data and re-image for you when this situation occurs. Once you have a few repeats of the same event, or the statistics you've been collecting show a disturbing trend, THEN try to do some root-cause analysis. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time chasing things that you're not likely to figure out, or meaningfully fix if you do figure it out.
I generally agree, but only at small scales. At truly large scales, even a well-designed system will suffer from things like random bit flips in networking/storage layers (weak checksum collisions do occur). At large scales, it actually becomes counter-productive to even give a token effort at investigating every problem that crops up. Document (statistically) the failure, re-image, and if the same event happens multiple times (and it will, if it's a legitimate bug, if you're running at a large scale), *then* spend some time investigating it.
Maybe your web site isn't as relevant as it used to be for that query? Maybe users are finding more valuable content elsewhere? Why do you believe the status quo should be inviolate?
If you're paying attention, you'll notice that the code you just generated didn't work (because they stole it and used it). When you finally log in, it should be apparent that your account is being used somewhere unexpected (since Google tells you that at the bottom of Gmail).
You can generate unique long-lived passwords for each individual application that you need it for, and selectively revoke these passwords anytime you want.
If you've wiped your device, and you've lost or never printed out any backup codes, and you're not using Google Apps (so you don't have a domain administrator), you have to go through the account recovery process.
If you don't have any backup codes and you aren't using Google Apps:
Sign in to your account with your username and password.
On the verification code challenge page, click Other ways to get verification codes.
Click I no longer have access to any of these.
You'll need to fill out an account recovery form to verify ownership of the account. Take time to answer each question to the best of your ability. The form was designed to ensure that no one can gain access to your account except you. Since Google doesn't collect a lot of information about you when you sign up for an account, we will ask you questions like when you created your account, what Google services you use, and who you email frequently (if you use Gmail) to make certain you are authorized to access your account.
It's generated once and has a long lifetime. You generate one of these for each application you want to use it with, and you can selectively disable them anytime you want, or generate a new one.
This is not mandatory and won't be mandatory. The whole "mandatory" crap was a complete fabrication in the giant game of Telephone that is the Internet.
This isn't a mandatory security option, it's something you have to opt into. If you don't have a smart phone, and live someplace where you're afraid to receive SMS, then this security option isn't for you. Just don't enable it! You don't have to give up on Gmail entirely.
A "harmful" monopoly is not illegal, but illegal activities by monopolies are usually illegal because they're harmful in some way. You have to be a bit more specific about the harm you're talking about. A monopoly is usually a monopoly for a reason. Either it's impractical for competition to exist (as you point out) or there are other market forces at work that favor the monopoly. This does not mean the company in question has done anything wrong, and it doesn't mean they've done anything illegal.
Laws do not always match expectations. Just because you wish something were illegal does not make it so.
Or Google figured it was easier to just add a few lines to a firewall config someplace than attempt to deal with the bureaucracy of getting an export control exemption? You're assuming the path of least resistance is to open the software up to the government of Iran, and I rather suspect it's not.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is Google taking the wrong lesson from this? You say that Google has managers that have a lot of technical skills. Google says the need for improving technical skills ranks #8. I'd say you and Google are both in complete agreement. It's the headline and summary of this Slashdot article that you probably disagree with.
I think this was more about prioritization, not selection.
There's a difference between valuing technical skills least, and valuing them at zero. An engineering manager needs to understand what his or her team is working on, so that he or she can measure the goals and progress of the members of the team (and the team as a whole). If an employee needs advice, the manager needs to be able to cluefully provide it. But I think for the most part, people at Google rely on their supersmart peers when it comes to technical advice, not their manager.
You see, Google isn't really full of smart people, it's actually full of entirely typical schmucks like you and me.
Perhaps I'm just an idiot then, but I am in awe every day by how smart my peers at Google are.
I do work at Google, and I am in agreement with you: I do not believe Daniel's assertion that Google "abuses and humiliates" its employees is representative. I have never seen an example of that, so either he's being a bit hyperbolic with his language, or this happens infrequently and secretively enough to not really be visible.
I believe most of the individual complaints I've been reading about Google here fall into two categories:
1. The individual did not adapt to Google's culture.
2. The individual could not perform in a meritocracy, or at least believed that he/she could not.
And possibly, in Daniel's case:
3. The individual got stuck staffing an on-call shift during a team offsite.
Google's culture, while similar to other companies like Facebook and Twitter, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the "IT department" at any other company. Externally, people say that Google is all about advertising, but internally, it's all about software, and there is an intense focus on its engineers as a result. Some people (non-engineers and engineers alike) don't like that.
The Google meritocracy can also be confusing for some people, causing them to make poor work-life decisions. If you take two people that have equal skills, and have A work 60 hours a week and B work 40, obviously A is going to outperform B. A will get larger bonuses and raises. B may feel pressure to perform more like A, under the (mistaken) belief that B can't meet expectations without doing so. This myth of "grading on a curve" causes some people to grow resentful and leave. Don't blame your employer for your dumb decisions. (And if it turns out that you can't meet expectations at your salaried job without working 60-hour weeks, and giving up on vacations, I would say that's a sign that you shouldn't be there and you'd personally be happier someplace else.)
I think the point of the parent poster was that in a democracy, representative or not, the majority always rules (be it a majority of the people, or a majority of representatives), and rules on everything. This quality defines the government. In the US, things are much more complex, and a democratic or constitutional republic is a more accurate description. (You could argue that a democratic republic is a type of representative democracy, but the reverse is not true.)
The two are NOT synonyms. It may be appropriate to say that a democratic republic is a type of representative democracy, but a democracy per se has no protection against the tyranny of the majority, while a democratic republic may. So, with some hand waving, yes, the US is both, but calling it a republic is more accurate and better describes how the government actually works.
A highly accurate clock is at the very heart of GPS. Consequently, it's used quite extensively as a time-keeping system, frequently as a stratum-0 NTP device.
Yes, except it was a paper form, not an online form.
Correct, but you're responding out of context. The original post commented that Google collects SSNs, because the SSNs carry demographic data.
I think you are confusing backups with availability. Just because you have a backup of your data on hand doesn't mean it's practical for you to push a button and have your e-mail up and running locally while Gmail recovers your data on their end. Most people don't want to pay ~double for that extra 9 of availability, but I do agree with you that if your availability needs are so exceptional that Google's track record is inadequate (and I urge you to actually quantify that track record rather than go with your gut feeling based on articles like these), then you need to pay 2x for that extra 9.
At seriously large scales, the rate of problems caused by events previously considered so improbable that you'll never likely see them in your career, become likely. TCP checksums are weak. Cosmic rays cause bit flips. Sometimes those bit flips mutate data on the way to the disk, so you never notice unless you've also checksummed the data and read it back and re-check it after writing it.
At these scales, it's fruitless to try and root cause every problem that happens, because you will hit problems like these that most sysadmins simply aren't likely to ever figure out. Document (statistically) the problem and re-image, without a second thought. In fact, write automation to collect some data and re-image for you when this situation occurs. Once you have a few repeats of the same event, or the statistics you've been collecting show a disturbing trend, THEN try to do some root-cause analysis. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time chasing things that you're not likely to figure out, or meaningfully fix if you do figure it out.
I generally agree, but only at small scales. At truly large scales, even a well-designed system will suffer from things like random bit flips in networking/storage layers (weak checksum collisions do occur). At large scales, it actually becomes counter-productive to even give a token effort at investigating every problem that crops up. Document (statistically) the failure, re-image, and if the same event happens multiple times (and it will, if it's a legitimate bug, if you're running at a large scale), *then* spend some time investigating it.
Maybe your web site isn't as relevant as it used to be for that query? Maybe users are finding more valuable content elsewhere? Why do you believe the status quo should be inviolate?
Yes, but only if you've enrolled to receive SMS.
If you're paying attention, you'll notice that the code you just generated didn't work (because they stole it and used it). When you finally log in, it should be apparent that your account is being used somewhere unexpected (since Google tells you that at the bottom of Gmail).
You can generate unique long-lived passwords for each individual application that you need it for, and selectively revoke these passwords anytime you want.
If you've wiped your device, and you've lost or never printed out any backup codes, and you're not using Google Apps (so you don't have a domain administrator), you have to go through the account recovery process.
From http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=1056283&topic=1056287#backupfaq:
It's generated once and has a long lifetime. You generate one of these for each application you want to use it with, and you can selectively disable them anytime you want, or generate a new one.
This is not mandatory and won't be mandatory. The whole "mandatory" crap was a complete fabrication in the giant game of Telephone that is the Internet.
This isn't a mandatory security option, it's something you have to opt into. If you don't have a smart phone, and live someplace where you're afraid to receive SMS, then this security option isn't for you. Just don't enable it! You don't have to give up on Gmail entirely.
If you generate codes with an app on your phone, it most certainly is "something you have".
A "harmful" monopoly is not illegal, but illegal activities by monopolies are usually illegal because they're harmful in some way. You have to be a bit more specific about the harm you're talking about. A monopoly is usually a monopoly for a reason. Either it's impractical for competition to exist (as you point out) or there are other market forces at work that favor the monopoly. This does not mean the company in question has done anything wrong, and it doesn't mean they've done anything illegal.
Laws do not always match expectations. Just because you wish something were illegal does not make it so.
Or Google figured it was easier to just add a few lines to a firewall config someplace than attempt to deal with the bureaucracy of getting an export control exemption? You're assuming the path of least resistance is to open the software up to the government of Iran, and I rather suspect it's not.
Monopolies are not illegal. Abusing your monopoly to harm (or prevent) competition is illegal.