I've been in both camps... I was worn out from engineering after college and, since I'd liked the programming I'd done before, I took a job as an 'apprentice programer' of sorts.
PART I: Heaven
I was part of a Production (as in making products) Development/Support team for that manufacturing company with root to everything including the oracle databases. We were separate from IT... who supported PC's network email remote login etc.
Of course, I was part of a team and I had to earn my priviliges. Being efficient, helpful, and solving problems while rarely messing up (I think I had one program core dump in the wild in two years, and it was early on, but since the team built a really robust structure it cost us nothing... phew)
I was happy because I could develop whatever tools were needed, create whatever accounts, database schemas, cgi, custom servers... everything that was needed to get the job done! And more importantly everything to get it done QUICKLY!
Code was available to review and borrow from by anyone, no one was breathing down your back... the only thing the whole team was always involved in was testing at the various stages of each project.
Then I evolved to a role as an engineer/programmer. I was to do a bit of both. This was PERFECT because I would try to do new engineering things... and then I would write applications that would solve that problem not just for me, but for all the other engineers. This was insanely useful: I was a bridge between the more sophisticated developpers and the more sophisticated engineers, and most of the time I could do it all by myself because I still had root whenever I needed it!!! If I needed something from someone I would speak to them in their language and this made things so much easier... Those were the best of times.
PART II: HELL
I've built database-backed analysis and reporting engines. I've built multi-tiered fault-tolerant test-and-measurement database storage and comm. systems...
Now I am a new company that desperately needs this. But the problem is that I have the IMFH (I.T. MANAGER FROM HELL!)
He owns the servers, the databases, the workstations, the network and the phone system.
He insists on owning everything that is IT related so that all the servers are his... He insist on doing the project with his team, even though they have never done this before, don't know the first thing about manufacturing and don't see the point of giving anyone access to the databases (that he insists that he own).
I see it from his perspective... if anything goes wrong he'll get the blame... he gets no praise if things work as usual. Also, the hassle of having your guys waste their time figuring some installation problem for ONE person who just wants to demo an app they might not even use may be annoying.
The PROBLEM is that a SIMPLE project takes 15 TIMES longer to do...
EVEN WORSE... a COMPLEX project is IMPOSSIBLE TO DO because people would eventually quit from all the aggravation.
I have been on the verge of quitting because of this guy, my productivity is concentrated around solutions that will not involve IT at all even if it means a 'crappier' solution... like an Access
app on the network talking to a database over ODBC ACTING like a web-front-end with some server-side tools/libraries to simplify common reports...
All this because of Paranoia and empire-building... IMFH's are an enemy to productivity!
The problem is that the new CD's are going to come out with fscked track data (something like Macrovision) so you won't be able to rip them but they'll play fine on a regular player.
The record companies are going to put secure wma files on the CDs for use on your computer.
Does anyone have more 411 on how the RIAA can fsck us over this way??
I've been scouring some news sites to get a better understanding about what's going on and it's startling how 'censored' our media is. And self-censoring at that!
The most damning analysis of this comes from the old Russian paper Pravda ('The Truth') at http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/10/11/17799.htm l
The AP and Reuters wires are great for domestic issues but by far the best I've seen especially on providing (more) balanced reporting has been ( http://sg.news.yahoo.com/world/afp.html )
Jon has a point... I saw the images on TV but I wasn't getting any real information... just senseless replay after senseless replay so I went to the net.
Because the net isn't a 'single source' I trust it more as a source.
You could say that all those channels on cable TV are not a single source... READ THE PRAVDA article and you will get a second opinion.
(BTW, in napster, you could browse through other
people's music collection and try out new things
you never heard b4... this enhanced my music listening greatly and I know that I introduced
many others to music they would never otherwise have heard by just having them there)
Coolness seems to me to be heavily dependent on
two things: cultural context and information stream.
I thought/. was cool when I first saw it because
I seem to have bought into some sort of intellectual narcissism and need for information
outside of the normal cool. Less critically, it is a collaborative source of information that can dig deeper into the
analysis of issues by bringing people who like
to discuss things in public and who devote
some of their neurons to formulating responses
that rely only on text responses.
I think that what you receive in the data stream determines what people will judge you by.
Not having a picture showing your pretty face while you're wearing some trendy clothes and hanging out with a 'beautiful' entourage allows people to pay more attention to the things you
say. Seeming 'cool', i.e. socially blessed in some way, can make you more desirable/respected
and help you compete against someone slightly more
competent at what you're doing.
This is part of the reason radio is so much more refreshing than TV. My favorite radio host is downright ugly... though years of listening had done nothing but build my respect of her, the first time I saw a picture I was in denial. It wasn't a sexual thing either, in my brain's relapse into an impulsive reaction where my respect (for her brilliance) was supposed to be accompanied by superficial features...
(On that note, I found Shrek to be somewhat refreshing, though we clearly have power substituted for beauty)
All this to say that coolness can be faked very
easily... most 'cool' people do it... it's called
playing the part. And the critical element is social recognition...
I like to believe that unfaked coolness comes from individuality. The coolest people in my life are very sincere and, though certainly not perfect, they also are the best to be around because it's most enjoyable and entertaining.
And in the spirit of 'cool' they are the most
stable when the shit hits the fan or when someone spills somthing on their clothes at a party.
Finally, Karma is an attempt at defining cool
based of public opinion... for music, you just need to keep categories that people self-select into and have them vote on what's cool... as things spread (exponentially, or the more descriptive, in a hockey stick) you just need to look at what's rising to be on the next wave of peer decided coolness.
But don't forget, coolness is a limited ressource... if everybody were cool, I'd guess someone would try to differentiate themselves through some scant resource... something like Ferrari's, or collectible antiques...
Ok, sorry I'm a corporate whore and I've seen many enterprise solutions like:
Oracle Discoverer 3i
BRIO
StatServer (based on Splus)
Build your own.
The preferred one depends on scope... it sounds
like you want BRIO. Easy report building (drag-and drop), fast data access (client-server), uses an IE Plugin that intalls itself (dunno about mozilla, etc) so the printing situation is pretty easy. Great functionality... I really like it. But it's not perfect, but it's probably fine if you're just reporting already stored data in the DB.
Stay away from Discoverer because it's not that useful and really just gets in the way... at least where I work. There are some nice business-reporting things in there like drill-downs etc... it does have the oracle functions available, and the easy query building, but bad charting.
Statserver is really useful for things that require alot of data-fitting and modelling... post-processing based on live-data, etc. Based on Splus... the S is for statistics I think (truly remarkable system, the Open Source version is called R, even better in many ways). It's web-based and connects to other db's behind the scenes.
Rolling your own can be the most fun... we did that before at my last place when none of the options above were flexible enough...
I dunno about cost, but BRIO is very well designed.
This is clearly information that shouldn't be hoarded... This is not 'art' and to consider
limiting/selling 411 for security problems
that are your OWN fault is ridiculous...
Oh wait, I guess that's not different than their
OS strategy...
Sorry, my mistake.
PS: If they are copyrighting this 411, then they
also be liable for any problems due to them.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been in both camps... I was worn out from engineering after college and, since I'd liked the programming I'd done before, I took a job as an 'apprentice programer' of sorts.
PART I: Heaven
I was part of a Production (as in making products) Development/Support team for that manufacturing company with root to everything including the oracle databases. We were separate from IT... who supported PC's network email remote login etc.
Of course, I was part of a team and I had to earn my priviliges. Being efficient, helpful, and solving problems while rarely messing up (I think I had one program core dump in the wild in two years, and it was early on, but since the team built a really robust structure it cost us nothing... phew)
I was happy because I could develop whatever tools were needed, create whatever accounts, database schemas, cgi, custom servers... everything that was needed to get the job done! And more importantly everything to get it done QUICKLY!
Code was available to review and borrow from by anyone, no one was breathing down your back... the only thing the whole team was always involved in was testing at the various stages of each project.
Then I evolved to a role as an engineer/programmer. I was to do a bit of both. This was PERFECT because I would try to do new engineering things... and then I would write applications that would solve that problem not just for me, but for all the other engineers. This was insanely useful: I was a bridge between the more sophisticated developpers and the more sophisticated engineers, and most of the time I could do it all by myself because I still had root whenever I needed it!!! If I needed something from someone I would speak to them in their language and this made things so much easier... Those were the best of times.
PART II: HELL
I've built database-backed analysis and reporting engines. I've built multi-tiered fault-tolerant test-and-measurement database storage and comm. systems...
Now I am a new company that desperately needs this. But the problem is that I have the IMFH (I.T. MANAGER FROM HELL!)
He owns the servers, the databases, the workstations, the network and the phone system.
He insists on owning everything that is IT related so that all the servers are his... He insist on doing the project with his team, even though they have never done this before, don't know the first thing about manufacturing and don't see the point of giving anyone access to the databases (that he insists that he own).
I see it from his perspective... if anything goes wrong he'll get the blame... he gets no praise if things work as usual. Also, the hassle of having your guys waste their time figuring some installation problem for ONE person who just wants to demo an app they might not even use may be annoying.
The PROBLEM is that a SIMPLE project takes 15 TIMES longer to do...
EVEN WORSE... a COMPLEX project is IMPOSSIBLE TO DO because people would eventually quit from all the aggravation.
I have been on the verge of quitting because of this guy, my productivity is concentrated around solutions that will not involve IT at all even if it means a 'crappier' solution... like an Access
app on the network talking to a database over ODBC ACTING like a web-front-end with some server-side tools/libraries to simplify common reports...
All this because of Paranoia and empire-building... IMFH's are an enemy to productivity!
-wunder
The problem is that the new CD's are going to come out with fscked track data (something like Macrovision) so you won't be able to rip them but they'll play fine on a regular player.
The record companies are going to put secure wma files on the CDs for use on your computer.
Does anyone have more 411 on how the RIAA can fsck us over this way??
I've been scouring some news sites to get a better understanding about what's going on and it's startling how 'censored' our media is. And self-censoring at that!
m l
The most damning analysis of this comes from the old Russian paper Pravda ('The Truth') at http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/10/11/17799.ht
The AP and Reuters wires are great for domestic issues but by far the best I've seen especially on providing (more) balanced reporting has been ( http://sg.news.yahoo.com/world/afp.html )
Jon has a point... I saw the images on TV but I wasn't getting any real information... just senseless replay after senseless replay so I went to the net.
Because the net isn't a 'single source' I trust it more as a source.
You could say that all those channels on cable TV are not a single source... READ THE PRAVDA article and you will get a second opinion.
I thought /. was cool when I first saw it because
I seem to have bought into some sort of intellectual narcissism and need for information
outside of the normal cool. Less critically, it is a collaborative source of information that can dig deeper into the
analysis of issues by bringing people who like
to discuss things in public and who devote
some of their neurons to formulating responses
that rely only on text responses.
I think that what you receive in the data stream determines what people will judge you by. Not having a picture showing your pretty face while you're wearing some trendy clothes and hanging out with a 'beautiful' entourage allows people to pay more attention to the things you say. Seeming 'cool', i.e. socially blessed in some way, can make you more desirable/respected and help you compete against someone slightly more competent at what you're doing.
This is part of the reason radio is so much more refreshing than TV. My favorite radio host is downright ugly... though years of listening had done nothing but build my respect of her, the first time I saw a picture I was in denial. It wasn't a sexual thing either, in my brain's relapse into an impulsive reaction where my respect (for her brilliance) was supposed to be accompanied by superficial features...
(On that note, I found Shrek to be somewhat refreshing, though we clearly have power substituted for beauty)
All this to say that coolness can be faked very easily... most 'cool' people do it... it's called playing the part. And the critical element is social recognition...
I like to believe that unfaked coolness comes from individuality. The coolest people in my life are very sincere and, though certainly not perfect, they also are the best to be around because it's most enjoyable and entertaining. And in the spirit of 'cool' they are the most stable when the shit hits the fan or when someone spills somthing on their clothes at a party.
Finally, Karma is an attempt at defining cool based of public opinion... for music, you just need to keep categories that people self-select into and have them vote on what's cool... as things spread (exponentially, or the more descriptive, in a hockey stick) you just need to look at what's rising to be on the next wave of peer decided coolness.
But don't forget, coolness is a limited ressource... if everybody were cool, I'd guess someone would try to differentiate themselves through some scant resource ... something like Ferrari's, or collectible antiques...
Oracle Discoverer 3i
BRIO
StatServer (based on Splus)
Build your own.
The preferred one depends on scope... it sounds like you want BRIO. Easy report building (drag-and drop), fast data access (client-server), uses an IE Plugin that intalls itself (dunno about mozilla, etc) so the printing situation is pretty easy. Great functionality... I really like it. But it's not perfect, but it's probably fine if you're just reporting already stored data in the DB.
Stay away from Discoverer because it's not that useful and really just gets in the way... at least where I work. There are some nice business-reporting things in there like drill-downs etc... it does have the oracle functions available, and the easy query building, but bad charting.
Statserver is really useful for things that require alot of data-fitting and modelling... post-processing based on live-data, etc. Based on Splus... the S is for statistics I think (truly remarkable system, the Open Source version is called R, even better in many ways). It's web-based and connects to other db's behind the scenes.
Rolling your own can be the most fun... we did that before at my last place when none of the options above were flexible enough...
I dunno about cost, but BRIO is very well designed.
This is clearly information that shouldn't be hoarded... This is not 'art' and to consider limiting/selling 411 for security problems that are your OWN fault is ridiculous... Oh wait, I guess that's not different than their OS strategy... Sorry, my mistake. PS: If they are copyrighting this 411, then they also be liable for any problems due to them.