This is why I refuse to get one. I do read a lot of business books and periodicals and I'm often involved in management. But I steer clear of anything with the words "strategic", "marketing", "smarter-not-harder", "S.M.A.R.T goals", "empowerment" etc.
Maybe this is just unique to my industry or my circumstance, but in many ways, when you start thinking like management, you're compromising some of your professional integrity as an engineer. I prefer to get managers to think like engineers instead...
William Wallace and co. would have fared a lot worse if King Edward had ordered the English Royal Air Force jets to pound their positions with precision bombs. And Spartacus against well placed snipers? And Washington against a walkie-talkie coordinated British assault?
If I remember correctly, government decree that "all patents and inventions be 'voluntarily' turned over to the government" was like a turning point in the novel.
Of course it could. The only problem is that we don't have free markets today. The markets (and information flow) are dominated by a small group of organizations with political influence.
Could we run a belt made out of this stuff over a pulley system and apply a temperature differential along its length and get a motor? It's unlikely to be efficient as long as it's temperature driven, but what if the filler material is instead responsive to electricity?
Actually, a bank analogy is more like you walking up to the bank manager and saying "Hi, I have a complaint about a $100 discrepancy in my WRITE DOWN YOUR BANK VAULT COMBINATION." and the manager hypnotically doing just that.
I've seen this happen repeatedly. Trying to implement a Grand Plan usually results in nothing.
Almost every large project I've dealt with and was delivered without any major catastrophes was rolled out piecemeal. We picked the core/representative functionality, nailed the scope down with a sledgehammer and built it as "phase 1". All scope creep got pushed to "phase 2". Once phase 1 was done we just pick stuff out of the phase 2 bucket that can be done in the allotted time and just repeated the process. Obviously, we had to tinker with the phase 1 design to get the new stuff to inter-operate at times, but that was better than the alternative. Not saying that this works for all types of projects (or that it's in anyway a fancy idea -- I thought incremental development was SW 101), but I've personally never seen a Grand Plan / Big Bang implementation work. Hardest part? Convincing management that the alternatives are: target for full scope and get nothing, or, target for limited scope.
I'd say drill now. Make the middle east irrelevant. Then we'll have fewer reasons to go to war there or meddle in their affairs. They'll have less money to sponsor terrorism and totalitarianism with.
Google has done more to damage online anonymity than any other entity, commercial or otherwise. They force you to create real name accounts whenever they can get away with doing so and call it an 'identity service'. They want your real world contact info to create any account with them, then consolidate all those accounts and then they drive the other services (who don't yet do it) out of business. When the government comes with a warrant, they just hand the data over. Anonymity is the last line of defense against despotism and Google is killing it. [/rant]
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Funny. I was about to make a joke about Zeno's Paradox.
They all did MBA :D
This is why I refuse to get one. I do read a lot of business books and periodicals and I'm often involved in management. But I steer clear of anything with the words "strategic", "marketing", "smarter-not-harder", "S.M.A.R.T goals", "empowerment" etc.
Maybe this is just unique to my industry or my circumstance, but in many ways, when you start thinking like management, you're compromising some of your professional integrity as an engineer. I prefer to get managers to think like engineers instead...
35 years and still running (I had a 25 year old Toyota which did the same). What happened to us engineers? Where did we go wrong?
That's nothing. Combined with the new 60-day bread, we're looking at an indestructible eclair.
I thought it was more frequently misheard as 'Ass-purgers'.
I keep reading this as the Anus Transformer. Must stop that.
William Wallace and co. would have fared a lot worse if King Edward had ordered the English Royal Air Force jets to pound their positions with precision bombs. And Spartacus against well placed snipers? And Washington against a walkie-talkie coordinated British assault?
So, about as secure as Blackberry, then?
If I remember correctly, government decree that "all patents and inventions be 'voluntarily' turned over to the government" was like a turning point in the novel.
This should be the reply to all Godwin threads.
We could always threaten to kill the scientists if they don't produce a battery in five years.
The free market should solve this problem ...
Of course it could. The only problem is that we don't have free markets today. The markets (and information flow) are dominated by a small group of organizations with political influence.
Only a policy of Nationalizing Patents...
I felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if a million Ayn Rand fans cried "Atlas Shrugged!" and were suddenly silenced.
THERE ARE FOUR PERIODS!!!
I'm more worried about this thing violating Apple patents. I mean... just look at those black, rounded edges...
You might also be interested to know that the Buddha, despite declaring all killing a sin, refused to denounce meat eating. In fact, the extremist monk who wanted all monks to become vegetarians tried to assassinate the Buddha: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devadatta#Therav.C4.81da_portrayals_of_Devadatta
Or, on the eve of the demo, the lead scientist takes it to phase 2 human trials without authorization and ends up killing the entire team.
Could we run a belt made out of this stuff over a pulley system and apply a temperature differential along its length and get a motor? It's unlikely to be efficient as long as it's temperature driven, but what if the filler material is instead responsive to electricity?
Welcome to slashdo.. oh wait. I see your user number. So, welcome me to slashdot?
Actually, a bank analogy is more like you walking up to the bank manager and saying "Hi, I have a complaint about a $100 discrepancy in my WRITE DOWN YOUR BANK VAULT COMBINATION." and the manager hypnotically doing just that.
Did you... just... invent a bootstrapping ERP system?
I've seen this happen repeatedly. Trying to implement a Grand Plan usually results in nothing.
Almost every large project I've dealt with and was delivered without any major catastrophes was rolled out piecemeal. We picked the core/representative functionality, nailed the scope down with a sledgehammer and built it as "phase 1". All scope creep got pushed to "phase 2". Once phase 1 was done we just pick stuff out of the phase 2 bucket that can be done in the allotted time and just repeated the process. Obviously, we had to tinker with the phase 1 design to get the new stuff to inter-operate at times, but that was better than the alternative. Not saying that this works for all types of projects (or that it's in anyway a fancy idea -- I thought incremental development was SW 101), but I've personally never seen a Grand Plan / Big Bang implementation work. Hardest part? Convincing management that the alternatives are: target for full scope and get nothing, or, target for limited scope.
Oh, and Venezuela will just be a bonus.
I'd say drill now. Make the middle east irrelevant. Then we'll have fewer reasons to go to war there or meddle in their affairs. They'll have less money to sponsor terrorism and totalitarianism with.
Google has done more to damage online anonymity than any other entity, commercial or otherwise. They force you to create real name accounts whenever they can get away with doing so and call it an 'identity service'. They want your real world contact info to create any account with them, then consolidate all those accounts and then they drive the other services (who don't yet do it) out of business. When the government comes with a warrant, they just hand the data over. Anonymity is the last line of defense against despotism and Google is killing it. [/rant]