I think next year I'll dress as a scope creep for Halloween.
In other news, the model you describe is known as either "hell" or "paradise" depending on your own preferences and the people you work with and for.
I've worked on many projects for several employers using several variations on the software development process models in question, from waterfall to scrum/agile to the free-form hell/paradise you describe. I can say that in my experience, the most fun for me, and the most productive for the employer, by far, was a team where we began with something like your situation, and gradually implemented agile processes until we were very "agile" in all the ways that worked well for us, over the course of about two years.
We were a well oiled code cranking machine by the end of that time, at which point another company bought us out and wrecked everything. I was fortunate to leave on day 1 of the new regime, so my memories are golden.:)
I will say that that team was a small one made up of motivated people who looked out for each other. I highly recommend the experience.
Why exactly is it important to me what OS Joe Sixpack uses?
An oft-missed characteristic of using a Linux distro, or any open source OS, is that it doesn't have to compete on economic or 'market share' terms. It just has to do what I need it to do, and I see no signs of that ceasing in the foreseeable future. Operating systems producers that have to worry about things like shareholder value are burning cycles on things that benefit them, not me. If your needs happen to align with the things that shareholders care about, cool, good for you.
I use a Linux distro because it does what I want, in a way that I like, and it doesn't hurt that it doesn't cost me anything. If it doesn't do what you need it to do, use something else. Simple, and no religious wars or market share statistics required.
I felt sorry for the IE team, what with all their recent hard work and losing market share anyway, so I wanted to install their shiny new browser and give it a whirl.
But all my searches in Synaptic turned up nothing, despite having a number of non-standard repositories enabled. Does anyone know what repository I could find that in? Or will I have to get a tarball from somewhere and compile it myself?
Having the balls to talk straight and say "NO" when you need to is important. the engineers were pussies that did not tell management NO I'm not installing this, I' will gladly take this prototype and create the real thing.
Much of your sentiment is spot on, but here you are wrong, in this case. The engineers said 'NO', and they said it loud and clear. They were overruled. Predictable disaster ensued, and after months of above-and-beyond effort, they told management to stuff it and found other jobs. Most of the management chain involved were "re-assigned" not all that long afterward.
I'm sure there have been countless times in countless organizations that engineers should have spoken up and didn't, but this was not one of them. That team was one of the best I have ever seen, in terms of talent, cohesiveness, dedication, and plain old stubbornness, and it hurt to watch it fall apart.
I was fortunate, perhaps, to have only witnessed this as a bystander. But I can assure you I shed no tears when I left that company for greener pastures.
Nope, I'm just saying what happened in one case. Their mileage may vary, especially since it's open source, not proprietary in-house stuff.
But personally, I would never, ever, ever, ever let code that treated anything coming from a user as safe leave my personal dev environment. But I do banking software, not social networking.
A former employer of mine had a team build a proof of concept for a large and critical piece of software, on which much of the business would rely. The team worked for several months and produced a functioning proof of concept, which they demonstrated to the management. Management took a good look and said, "Great, install it, and support it."
Within a few more months almost all of the team had resigned in frustration.
As far as I know, that proof of concept is still in place, with teams of people dedicated to keeping it duct taped enough to keep staggering on.
The real, serious, carefully constructed and tested software never got built.
Somehow, I doubt this is a unique tale.
Moral of the story: start it the way you intend to keep on.
Dressing something up as commentary leaves you holding all the cards. His agenda is advanced, and any shortcomings are glossed over with "this is opinion". It removes any accountability or responsibility, or even any demand for consistency or explanation.
FTFY. Ok, actually, I hijacked your thoughts, rather than fixing anything. Hopefully you can see why.
Applies equally to most television, radio, and internet "news" programs that include "analysis" or "getting people's opinions".
Personally, I don't give a rat's hindquarters about the opinions of the uninformed or the analysis of partisans, and am offended by the waste of my time when these are inflicted on me. For this reason I have come to avoid most news media, as the signal to noise ratio has devolved over the years.
I do occasionally (rather less than once a month) take in an episode of of Stewart's or Colbert's show (on the net, at my convenience) and generally find them funny. Not all that informative, other than anecdotally, but enjoyable.
Here are some thoughts for you:
If someone tells you flat out that they are cherry picking incidents to make a joke or illustrate a principle, take it for what it's worth - an illustration. Anecdotal evidence does not establish causation nor even correlation.
If someone tells you they are being fair and balanced (gee, where did I get that phrase?) and then cherry picks incidents to distort your perception of reality, they are lying to you.
If someone uses poll results as indicating anything other than a measurement of the opinions of the people polled at the time of the poll, as guided by the wording of the poll questions, they are lying to you. Let me emphasize this: Polls measure opinions, imperfectly. Science tests guesses. Ideology sells fantasy to fools. Do not accept any of these as infallible truth.
If the paychecks of a reporter are funded by a party with an interest in the story, chances are good that bias will occur, even when unintended.
I've occasionally had experiences where a television or print reporter created a story about some event in which I was a participant or organizer or otherwise involved or present. In every single case, significant portions of the story were misleading or just plain wrong. Let me repeat that: Every single case. Just because somebody reports something doesn't mean it happened, or happened that way. In fact, it probably didn't.
So, how about we get down to honesty, and say that news programs exist to sell advertising, or to promote the agenda of the people paying for the program. Even NPR/PBS (or the equivalent in your country) have to please their contributors, which leads to bias in the selection of stories and sometimes the tone.
So, when you go about building your own mental picture of how the world works and what people do or think or want, be aware that every bit of information you receive is subject to the biases of the person or organization that provided it to you. Accept it, because nothing will ever change that. Measure it and account for it when you can.
The theory is a myth that has never existed on a national scale.
You are absolutely correct. Just like the theory of capitalism.
Everyone who lives in a country with a government lives in a state of compromise between a variety of opposite ideals. The trick lies in finding the right balance. Countries which attempt to go too far to one ideological extreme or another typically fail, often with great suffering.
People who live in countries without a government are even worse off.
Specifically, socialism is going to destroy this country by sucking money from the people via increased federal spending, resulting in an absolutely unsustainable national debt.
Debt is definitely something which must be considered in the planning of budgets and the financing of government activities. I concur that of late the spending of the US government has far outpaced revenues, and continuing at the same ratio would not be wise. However, I've not heard anyone from any political or bureaucratic organization suggest maintaining the current ratios indefinitely. They are supposed to be emergency measures taken in time of need, to be rectified when economic factors allow. The debt is used to smooth over the bumps, just like a family uses a credit card and then pays it off to bridge over variations in current liquidity. At least, that's the idea. Sometimes politicians get shortsighted and spend now to gain popularity and obtain reelection, consequences not withstanding. That's a problem in a democracy.
I'm not sure that language such as "sucking money from the people" and "absolutely unsustainable" are accurate enough, though. We need some numbers.
Eventually, the interest on the national debt is going to be another giant expense for the nation, to go along with social security, mdeicare, and defense, which are currently the 3 biggest consumers of federal dollars.
Definitely, we don't want debt service to reach levels that prevent the functioning of the economy and the government. Also, it would be good to keep as much of the debt as possible internal, so that the interest payments go to American citizens, rather than flowing into foreign economies.
Social Security, Medicare, and Defense are all important. If you don't think so, try getting elected on a platform of removing one of them. Assuming that the purpose of government is to execute the will of the governed, we are probably going to need to figure out how to finance and operate those programs for the foreseeable future.
And the latest straw that is destined to break the camel's back is Obamacare, which will just add to the spending, and force the tax rates up.
Well, OK, definitely straying into "flowery language" here. The existing US health care system is a disaster which is headed for collapse. We pay double or triple the per-citizen health care cost of many other industrialized nations, while achieving at best equal and frequently worse outcomes. The costs are growing, and the results are lagging far behind. Something has to change. The reform package that congress passed (yes, the congress passes laws, not the president) may not be the best possible set of changes. Unfortunately, people simply cannot agree on exactly what would be better. Those who rally around the cause of "do nothing" seem to generally either be making bank on the existing disaster (a.k.a. sucking money from the people) or simply oppose anything Mr. Obama likes without any thought at all. You may not be one of those, and I welcome your suggestions for how to get at least equal cost-benefit as compared with other countries. If we're going to pay triple, I want triple the results.
Of course, the taxes are already chasing jobs out of the USA, forcing people into less well-paid jobs, resulting in them not paying income tax or most other taxes. That deprives the gov't of tax money, and so it reacts by raising taxes again. Its a vicious circle, that will see the demise of the nation.
Whoa, there, hoss. Americans still pay far lower taxes than folks in comparably advanced countries worldwide. Furthermore, in the last few years our tax rates have been going down, not up. The congress keeps passing (yeah, that congress again, not the president) laws to reduce taxes on middle and lower income people. The current "increase" on the table is not an increase, it's the expiration of a temporary cut, and it only affects
I keep hearing about this impending socialism and how it will destroy my country. Can someone explain to me how, exactly, socialism would destroy my country? Also, how, precisely, it is making its inroads. I really want to understand. Especially if you can compare and contrast with capitalism.
Please use specific, documented examples, and refrain from flowery but meaningless loaded phrases. Discussion of the anarchy/totalitarianism axis would be a good addition, too, since we're looking for accuracy in our discussion. The two axes are perhaps somewhat orthogonal, although anarchic socialism would be an interesting situation.
Also, suggestions regarding exactly who should do something about it, and exactly what they should do would be very welcome. "Doing something about it" might also be termed "central planning", which is a basic tenet of socialism. The Capitalist/Anarchist answer is to let the market sort it out, i.e. who cares if there's a depression, I got mine, screw the rest of you. Uh oh, there go those loaded phrases again. See, I need help!
And here I thought it was just a satirical comment on the problems with the US immigration system and the worse problems with US socio-political discourse. I had no idea it was an attempt to make an issue where there isn't one. I even thought that the post was made with an understanding that Mr. Torvalds complied with all of the applicable laws and regulations, and used that fact for ironic comparison with the situations other less "valuable" immigrants are in, and the things people say about them for political gain. Thanks for pointing out my misconceptions, and shame on this devious attempt to lure me into thinking about things. Who knows where that might lead?!?!
[...]Even you said it, that even the craziest "Christians", the WBC, is considered less nuts than radical islam and muslims.[...]
WBC are hardly the craziest "Christians".
Let's start our tour with an inquisitor, then move on to The Troubles, then back way up to the Crusades. This Crusade is a particularly fine example. Jumping ahead, we have Jim Jones et al, and of course, as others have pointed out, a whole list of violent crazies on Wikipedia. (Darn it, I tried to avoid Wikipedia links.)
WBC are just a relatively mild set of nutjobs in the long view. Christianity can offer hundreds of years of worse.
With that said, pick any other large group, and I'll be able to find similar levels of crazy within it. It's a human thing, not particular to any one religious or ethnic grouping. One of the fallacies humanity will hopefully eventually overcome is the crazy idea that one group of people is inherently "better" or "worse" than any other group of people. As far as I can tell, you can only really judge on an individual level, and that can be pretty messy and ambiguous in most cases.
Also:
I'm not saying Islam is going to disappear tomorrow due to terrorists, but recruitment is probably down since the 90s.
I haven't found a good comparison of Muslim growth in the ten years before and the ten years after 2000, but it seems like they have a pretty solid growth rate currently.
I personally make around $35k as a young single person with no debt, and feel rich, fwiw. I can't even spend it all--- after $1k/month on rent for a nice apt near the beach, and another $1k on food/car/entertainment, my expenses are pretty much covered.
A few years back, I was young and single, living reasonably comfortably on $20k per year.
Fast forward a few years, making much, much more, but with five people living on my income... not nearly as comfortable. Painfully, health-damagingly stressful, in fact.
Now one of those people is pretty much self-supporting, another will be soon. Financial comfort looms on the horizon, like a distant dream.
Slashdot Mirror
I think next year I'll dress as a scope creep for Halloween.
In other news, the model you describe is known as either "hell" or "paradise" depending on your own preferences and the people you work with and for.
I've worked on many projects for several employers using several variations on the software development process models in question, from waterfall to scrum/agile to the free-form hell/paradise you describe. I can say that in my experience, the most fun for me, and the most productive for the employer, by far, was a team where we began with something like your situation, and gradually implemented agile processes until we were very "agile" in all the ways that worked well for us, over the course of about two years.
We were a well oiled code cranking machine by the end of that time, at which point another company bought us out and wrecked everything. I was fortunate to leave on day 1 of the new regime, so my memories are golden. :)
I will say that that team was a small one made up of motivated people who looked out for each other. I highly recommend the experience.
Why exactly is it important to me what OS Joe Sixpack uses?
An oft-missed characteristic of using a Linux distro, or any open source OS, is that it doesn't have to compete on economic or 'market share' terms. It just has to do what I need it to do, and I see no signs of that ceasing in the foreseeable future. Operating systems producers that have to worry about things like shareholder value are burning cycles on things that benefit them, not me. If your needs happen to align with the things that shareholders care about, cool, good for you.
I use a Linux distro because it does what I want, in a way that I like, and it doesn't hurt that it doesn't cost me anything. If it doesn't do what you need it to do, use something else. Simple, and no religious wars or market share statistics required.
I felt sorry for the IE team, what with all their recent hard work and losing market share anyway, so I wanted to install their shiny new browser and give it a whirl.
But all my searches in Synaptic turned up nothing, despite having a number of non-standard repositories enabled. Does anyone know what repository I could find that in? Or will I have to get a tarball from somewhere and compile it myself?
I read all of your review, and I enjoyed it. Now I want to get a copy of the book. Thank you.
One atom ought to be enough for anybody.
(Sorry)
Having the balls to talk straight and say "NO" when you need to is important. the engineers were pussies that did not tell management NO I'm not installing this, I' will gladly take this prototype and create the real thing.
Much of your sentiment is spot on, but here you are wrong, in this case. The engineers said 'NO', and they said it loud and clear. They were overruled. Predictable disaster ensued, and after months of above-and-beyond effort, they told management to stuff it and found other jobs. Most of the management chain involved were "re-assigned" not all that long afterward.
I'm sure there have been countless times in countless organizations that engineers should have spoken up and didn't, but this was not one of them. That team was one of the best I have ever seen, in terms of talent, cohesiveness, dedication, and plain old stubbornness, and it hurt to watch it fall apart.
I was fortunate, perhaps, to have only witnessed this as a bystander. But I can assure you I shed no tears when I left that company for greener pastures.
I don't, anymore. :)
Nope, I'm just saying what happened in one case. Their mileage may vary, especially since it's open source, not proprietary in-house stuff.
But personally, I would never, ever, ever, ever let code that treated anything coming from a user as safe leave my personal dev environment. But I do banking software, not social networking.
A former employer of mine had a team build a proof of concept for a large and critical piece of software, on which much of the business would rely. The team worked for several months and produced a functioning proof of concept, which they demonstrated to the management. Management took a good look and said, "Great, install it, and support it."
Within a few more months almost all of the team had resigned in frustration.
As far as I know, that proof of concept is still in place, with teams of people dedicated to keeping it duct taped enough to keep staggering on.
The real, serious, carefully constructed and tested software never got built.
Somehow, I doubt this is a unique tale.
Moral of the story: start it the way you intend to keep on.
Install one of these on each tower. Problem solved.
I do not want a spying web cam.
I do not want it, Sam I Am.
I do not want it on my box.
I do not want it tuned to Fox.
I do not want it on the air.
I do not want it anywhere!
My webcam is safely stored in its box, on a store shelf, where I have not yet purchased it. It will stay there until I need it.
Dressing something up as commentary leaves you holding all the cards. His agenda is advanced, and any shortcomings are glossed over with "this is opinion". It removes any accountability or responsibility, or even any demand for consistency or explanation.
FTFY. Ok, actually, I hijacked your thoughts, rather than fixing anything. Hopefully you can see why.
Applies equally to most television, radio, and internet "news" programs that include "analysis" or "getting people's opinions".
Personally, I don't give a rat's hindquarters about the opinions of the uninformed or the analysis of partisans, and am offended by the waste of my time when these are inflicted on me. For this reason I have come to avoid most news media, as the signal to noise ratio has devolved over the years.
I do occasionally (rather less than once a month) take in an episode of of Stewart's or Colbert's show (on the net, at my convenience) and generally find them funny. Not all that informative, other than anecdotally, but enjoyable.
Here are some thoughts for you:
If someone tells you flat out that they are cherry picking incidents to make a joke or illustrate a principle, take it for what it's worth - an illustration. Anecdotal evidence does not establish causation nor even correlation.
If someone tells you they are being fair and balanced (gee, where did I get that phrase?) and then cherry picks incidents to distort your perception of reality, they are lying to you.
If someone uses poll results as indicating anything other than a measurement of the opinions of the people polled at the time of the poll, as guided by the wording of the poll questions, they are lying to you. Let me emphasize this: Polls measure opinions, imperfectly. Science tests guesses. Ideology sells fantasy to fools. Do not accept any of these as infallible truth.
If the paychecks of a reporter are funded by a party with an interest in the story, chances are good that bias will occur, even when unintended.
I've occasionally had experiences where a television or print reporter created a story about some event in which I was a participant or organizer or otherwise involved or present. In every single case, significant portions of the story were misleading or just plain wrong. Let me repeat that: Every single case. Just because somebody reports something doesn't mean it happened, or happened that way. In fact, it probably didn't.
So, how about we get down to honesty, and say that news programs exist to sell advertising, or to promote the agenda of the people paying for the program. Even NPR/PBS (or the equivalent in your country) have to please their contributors, which leads to bias in the selection of stories and sometimes the tone.
So, when you go about building your own mental picture of how the world works and what people do or think or want, be aware that every bit of information you receive is subject to the biases of the person or organization that provided it to you. Accept it, because nothing will ever change that. Measure it and account for it when you can.
I wonder, if we USians had nearly limitless energy sources without the use of petrochemicals, would we need 11 humongous aircraft carriers?
Just a passing thought...
(And yes, I know that the new reactor is not a nearly limitless energy source, it's a research device. Maybe in 50 years...)
The theory is a myth that has never existed on a national scale.
You are absolutely correct. Just like the theory of capitalism.
Everyone who lives in a country with a government lives in a state of compromise between a variety of opposite ideals. The trick lies in finding the right balance. Countries which attempt to go too far to one ideological extreme or another typically fail, often with great suffering.
People who live in countries without a government are even worse off.
Specifically, socialism is going to destroy this country by sucking money from the people via increased federal spending, resulting in an absolutely unsustainable national debt.
Debt is definitely something which must be considered in the planning of budgets and the financing of government activities. I concur that of late the spending of the US government has far outpaced revenues, and continuing at the same ratio would not be wise. However, I've not heard anyone from any political or bureaucratic organization suggest maintaining the current ratios indefinitely. They are supposed to be emergency measures taken in time of need, to be rectified when economic factors allow. The debt is used to smooth over the bumps, just like a family uses a credit card and then pays it off to bridge over variations in current liquidity. At least, that's the idea. Sometimes politicians get shortsighted and spend now to gain popularity and obtain reelection, consequences not withstanding. That's a problem in a democracy.
I'm not sure that language such as "sucking money from the people" and "absolutely unsustainable" are accurate enough, though. We need some numbers.
Eventually, the interest on the national debt is going to be another giant expense for the nation, to go along with social security, mdeicare, and defense, which are currently the 3 biggest consumers of federal dollars.
Definitely, we don't want debt service to reach levels that prevent the functioning of the economy and the government. Also, it would be good to keep as much of the debt as possible internal, so that the interest payments go to American citizens, rather than flowing into foreign economies.
Social Security, Medicare, and Defense are all important. If you don't think so, try getting elected on a platform of removing one of them. Assuming that the purpose of government is to execute the will of the governed, we are probably going to need to figure out how to finance and operate those programs for the foreseeable future.
And the latest straw that is destined to break the camel's back is Obamacare, which will just add to the spending, and force the tax rates up.
Well, OK, definitely straying into "flowery language" here. The existing US health care system is a disaster which is headed for collapse. We pay double or triple the per-citizen health care cost of many other industrialized nations, while achieving at best equal and frequently worse outcomes. The costs are growing, and the results are lagging far behind. Something has to change. The reform package that congress passed (yes, the congress passes laws, not the president) may not be the best possible set of changes. Unfortunately, people simply cannot agree on exactly what would be better. Those who rally around the cause of "do nothing" seem to generally either be making bank on the existing disaster (a.k.a. sucking money from the people) or simply oppose anything Mr. Obama likes without any thought at all. You may not be one of those, and I welcome your suggestions for how to get at least equal cost-benefit as compared with other countries. If we're going to pay triple, I want triple the results.
Of course, the taxes are already chasing jobs out of the USA, forcing people into less well-paid jobs, resulting in them not paying income tax or most other taxes. That deprives the gov't of tax money, and so it reacts by raising taxes again. Its a vicious circle, that will see the demise of the nation.
Whoa, there, hoss. Americans still pay far lower taxes than folks in comparably advanced countries worldwide. Furthermore, in the last few years our tax rates have been going down, not up. The congress keeps passing (yeah, that congress again, not the president) laws to reduce taxes on middle and lower income people. The current "increase" on the table is not an increase, it's the expiration of a temporary cut, and it only affects
Be careful not to confuse the theory of socialism with the practices employed by governments claiming to be socialist.
There's a yawning gulf between the two.
I keep hearing about this impending socialism and how it will destroy my country. Can someone explain to me how, exactly, socialism would destroy my country? Also, how, precisely, it is making its inroads. I really want to understand. Especially if you can compare and contrast with capitalism.
Please use specific, documented examples, and refrain from flowery but meaningless loaded phrases. Discussion of the anarchy/totalitarianism axis would be a good addition, too, since we're looking for accuracy in our discussion. The two axes are perhaps somewhat orthogonal, although anarchic socialism would be an interesting situation.
Also, suggestions regarding exactly who should do something about it, and exactly what they should do would be very welcome. "Doing something about it" might also be termed "central planning", which is a basic tenet of socialism. The Capitalist/Anarchist answer is to let the market sort it out, i.e. who cares if there's a depression, I got mine, screw the rest of you. Uh oh, there go those loaded phrases again. See, I need help!
And here I thought it was just a satirical comment on the problems with the US immigration system and the worse problems with US socio-political discourse. I had no idea it was an attempt to make an issue where there isn't one. I even thought that the post was made with an understanding that Mr. Torvalds complied with all of the applicable laws and regulations, and used that fact for ironic comparison with the situations other less "valuable" immigrants are in, and the things people say about them for political gain. Thanks for pointing out my misconceptions, and shame on this devious attempt to lure me into thinking about things. Who knows where that might lead?!?!
seconded
I wonder if Finland would take me in trade.
Nah, they could probably get a better deal.
1. Crash planes into buildings.
2. Stand back and watch the USA tear itself to shreds and spend itself into oblivion.
3. ???
4. Prophet
[...]Even you said it, that even the craziest "Christians", the WBC, is considered less nuts than radical islam and muslims.[...]
WBC are hardly the craziest "Christians".
Let's start our tour with an inquisitor, then move on to The Troubles, then back way up to the Crusades. This Crusade is a particularly fine example. Jumping ahead, we have Jim Jones et al, and of course, as others have pointed out, a whole list of violent crazies on Wikipedia. (Darn it, I tried to avoid Wikipedia links.)
WBC are just a relatively mild set of nutjobs in the long view. Christianity can offer hundreds of years of worse.
With that said, pick any other large group, and I'll be able to find similar levels of crazy within it. It's a human thing, not particular to any one religious or ethnic grouping. One of the fallacies humanity will hopefully eventually overcome is the crazy idea that one group of people is inherently "better" or "worse" than any other group of people. As far as I can tell, you can only really judge on an individual level, and that can be pretty messy and ambiguous in most cases.
Also:
I'm not saying Islam is going to disappear tomorrow due to terrorists, but recruitment is probably down since the 90s.
I haven't found a good comparison of Muslim growth in the ten years before and the ten years after 2000, but it seems like they have a pretty solid growth rate currently.
I personally make around $35k as a young single person with no debt, and feel rich, fwiw. I can't even spend it all--- after $1k/month on rent for a nice apt near the beach, and another $1k on food/car/entertainment, my expenses are pretty much covered.
A few years back, I was young and single, living reasonably comfortably on $20k per year.
Fast forward a few years, making much, much more, but with five people living on my income... not nearly as comfortable. Painfully, health-damagingly stressful, in fact.
Now one of those people is pretty much self-supporting, another will be soon. Financial comfort looms on the horizon, like a distant dream.
Almost all of the real-estate that is pricier than that is confined to the coastline.
Or is in a school district with decent schools.
If you don't care what happens to your kids, you can live pretty affordably.