If its unanticipated enough to blow delivery dates out of the water completely, the team, and I include management, were inadequate to the task in the first place. There's nothing special about software development versus comparable projects, like say movie production. Once everyone (including the customer) knows what's going on, there shouldn't be any major surprises. This is why a good manager is rare and important - they can speak and understand the language used by customers, developers and sales guys, and move in all worlds without difficulty.
One also does not exclude the other. If you put results before time at your desk, that will end in people working double shifts for the same pay.
That's not putting results before time at your desk, that's busting your nuts to get results. If you deliver in half the time without negotiating a bonus structure beforehand, that's your problem. What I'm talking about is the cargo cult like behaviour of equating time at the desk with productivity.
That doesn't even make any sense. I mean, none. Unless you mean the manager isn't part of the team, in which case I'm not surprised you're throwing darts at a calendar for delivery estimates.
"and able to tell them that scope creep will cost more and slow things down"
Too few resources and unanticipated setbacks should have been padded out beforehand to be honest. As someone once said, if I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend four hours sharpening the axe. If that doesn't happen, its a management failure.
Its not really. Specifications -> result. That does depend on having a manager sufficiently on the ball to have constant contact with sales and marketing though, and able to tell them that scope creep will cost more and slow things down.
Really I'm amazed that results based metrics aren't standard everywhere, I've worked with companies where management doesn't care when people show up as long as they meet their milestones. A company that puts "time at your desk" before "results" will be eaten by one that has the two in the correct order.
Anti religious my ass, if science is straight from hell I get to wear black leathers and listen to heavy metal again. I might even get a motorbike! This flat top has unbeknownst to himself stumbled on a way to make science sexy. Yeah.
Or at least not the cancer causing problem. The tarry tobacco smoke builds up inside your lungs and prevents them from cleaning themselves properly. While nicotine does have circulatory implications its not transmissable by touch as far as I'm aware. Applying tests typical for contraband narcotics is not justifiable unless nicotine use is ruled as a hazard or detrimental to productivity or health and safety.
Fark has a section dedicated to Florida for a reason I guess.
You think so? One person in six on this earth, including infants and the elderly in developing countries without regular internet access has an active facebook account do they? Facebook's numbers have never been properly audited, its not in their best interests to do so. The more users they can claim, the better for them. I would agree with possibly a couple hundred million, but I have a really hard time believing much more than that.
Build a Dyson sphere? We haven't anywhere near the technical, scientific, or engineering capability to even begin contemplating that scale of ultraconstruction. Maybe in fifty thousand years or so. Which is fortunate since we have no need to build anything of the sort. Lets start small and pave over Saturn. Seriously.:D
From what I can tell the astronomers are looking for heat sources without a corresponding light source. I have my doubts but they would be purely speculative, if such a sphere is found what a spectacle it would be.
Back in 2006 I walked directly through Heathrow without ever being checked. Jetlagged all to hell I took a side door, dressed in a business suit and looking authoritative, zombied my way through a maze of corridors and past a desk of men staring intently at a monitor, before finding my way outside the airport.
On a subsequent trip, confused about the flight, I asked a man with a submachine gun the route to my gate, went there immediately, got there before the security team, and sat down watching every other passenger being frisked and scanned. The security guard was even there, someone pointed me out and obviously asked him a question, he shook his head no.
Its a job description, not a moral code. Of course all sorts of people are going to get involved. Techies, engineers, geeks and scientists designed gas chambers. Quite a lot of the blame lies with the charismatic sociopaths who convinced them this was a good idea, aka politicians and CEOs - in other words if it wasn't for the talking heads at the top, the techies probably wouldn't have come up with this stuff of their own accord.
The problem is that some of that spending spree goes into persistent costs like salaries and hiring extra people. Then when times get tough, these people still expect to be paid, and you're going to have problems firing them in the public sector. So instead non-unionised expenses get cut since tax revenue has dropped considerably, and taxes are increased to pay for non essential costs while more important services suffer. Some departments even go so far as to deliberately cut important services in order to offload the pain on the public and cause an outcry, its a machine that has long since ceased to function correctly.
The proper way to run a country is to decide what services you want, what level of those services you want, and then work out the best way to keep costs to a minimum while providing those services. Tax according to those costs, and justify every increase by pointing to a corresponding expense. If people don't want the better services, they can simply refuse to pay the higher taxes and live with the services they have.
That would be in an ideal world anyway, where people getting paid from the tax coffers aren't looking out for themselves rather than the people who pay them, herded by politicians with one eye on the next election. I guess Germany on the national level would come closest, although on the local level its just as indebted as any peripheral nation.
And for pity's sake don't increase spending on persistent costs just because the same tax revenues start booming. Play it smart like Norway and put the money into a massive investment fund, or into infrastructure if its cheaper than loans.
"Long term sustainable" is too vague a goal to have much use, especially in modern rapidly changing economies.
I do agree that copyright terms are ludicrous at the moment, and really only a cash grap by the likes of Disney, but the power to create and spread that creation is rapidly moving away from large companies and into the hands of individuals. A decent DSLR can create very acceptable HD movies with good lighting, sound gear is dirt cheap, home studios are springing up everywhere, graphic design programs are becoming simpler to use and master with every passing decade, it all adds up. I can see things reaching a stage where nobody really cares about copyright lengths because they'll be too busy making their own stuff.
Doesn't mean they should be changed of course, the big fish will still try to trip people up, but we're moving from "consumers" to "competition". The only question is how long they'll take to realise it and try to patent "sci-fi".
If one wished to put a numerical value on it, higher taxes are paid by people who earn more, and who not coincidentally are better educated. So "free" education is an investment in future economic growth.
Slashdot Mirror
If its unanticipated enough to blow delivery dates out of the water completely, the team, and I include management, were inadequate to the task in the first place. There's nothing special about software development versus comparable projects, like say movie production. Once everyone (including the customer) knows what's going on, there shouldn't be any major surprises. This is why a good manager is rare and important - they can speak and understand the language used by customers, developers and sales guys, and move in all worlds without difficulty.
One also does not exclude the other. If you put results before time at your desk, that will end in people working double shifts for the same pay.
That's not putting results before time at your desk, that's busting your nuts to get results. If you deliver in half the time without negotiating a bonus structure beforehand, that's your problem. What I'm talking about is the cargo cult like behaviour of equating time at the desk with productivity.
That doesn't even make any sense. I mean, none. Unless you mean the manager isn't part of the team, in which case I'm not surprised you're throwing darts at a calendar for delivery estimates.
"and able to tell them that scope creep will cost more and slow things down"
Too few resources and unanticipated setbacks should have been padded out beforehand to be honest. As someone once said, if I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend four hours sharpening the axe. If that doesn't happen, its a management failure.
Its not really. Specifications -> result. That does depend on having a manager sufficiently on the ball to have constant contact with sales and marketing though, and able to tell them that scope creep will cost more and slow things down.
Really I'm amazed that results based metrics aren't standard everywhere, I've worked with companies where management doesn't care when people show up as long as they meet their milestones. A company that puts "time at your desk" before "results" will be eaten by one that has the two in the correct order.
Anti religious my ass, if science is straight from hell I get to wear black leathers and listen to heavy metal again. I might even get a motorbike! This flat top has unbeknownst to himself stumbled on a way to make science sexy. Yeah.
Roll on the groupies.
Or at least not the cancer causing problem. The tarry tobacco smoke builds up inside your lungs and prevents them from cleaning themselves properly. While nicotine does have circulatory implications its not transmissable by touch as far as I'm aware. Applying tests typical for contraband narcotics is not justifiable unless nicotine use is ruled as a hazard or detrimental to productivity or health and safety.
Fark has a section dedicated to Florida for a reason I guess.
You think so? One person in six on this earth, including infants and the elderly in developing countries without regular internet access has an active facebook account do they? Facebook's numbers have never been properly audited, its not in their best interests to do so. The more users they can claim, the better for them. I would agree with possibly a couple hundred million, but I have a really hard time believing much more than that.
Build a Dyson sphere? We haven't anywhere near the technical, scientific, or engineering capability to even begin contemplating that scale of ultraconstruction. Maybe in fifty thousand years or so. Which is fortunate since we have no need to build anything of the sort. Lets start small and pave over Saturn. Seriously. :D
From what I can tell the astronomers are looking for heat sources without a corresponding light source. I have my doubts but they would be purely speculative, if such a sphere is found what a spectacle it would be.
You do realise this is like a report from a Saudi Arabian university proclaiming that electric vehicles will never work, right?
I though that just read "Hitachi Develops Boarding Gate With Built-In Explosives" for a moment.
They're probably taking a pot shot at Google.
Back in 2006 I walked directly through Heathrow without ever being checked. Jetlagged all to hell I took a side door, dressed in a business suit and looking authoritative, zombied my way through a maze of corridors and past a desk of men staring intently at a monitor, before finding my way outside the airport.
On a subsequent trip, confused about the flight, I asked a man with a submachine gun the route to my gate, went there immediately, got there before the security team, and sat down watching every other passenger being frisked and scanned. The security guard was even there, someone pointed me out and obviously asked him a question, he shook his head no.
The more things change, eh?
Its a job description, not a moral code. Of course all sorts of people are going to get involved. Techies, engineers, geeks and scientists designed gas chambers. Quite a lot of the blame lies with the charismatic sociopaths who convinced them this was a good idea, aka politicians and CEOs - in other words if it wasn't for the talking heads at the top, the techies probably wouldn't have come up with this stuff of their own accord.
The problem is that some of that spending spree goes into persistent costs like salaries and hiring extra people. Then when times get tough, these people still expect to be paid, and you're going to have problems firing them in the public sector. So instead non-unionised expenses get cut since tax revenue has dropped considerably, and taxes are increased to pay for non essential costs while more important services suffer. Some departments even go so far as to deliberately cut important services in order to offload the pain on the public and cause an outcry, its a machine that has long since ceased to function correctly.
The proper way to run a country is to decide what services you want, what level of those services you want, and then work out the best way to keep costs to a minimum while providing those services. Tax according to those costs, and justify every increase by pointing to a corresponding expense. If people don't want the better services, they can simply refuse to pay the higher taxes and live with the services they have.
That would be in an ideal world anyway, where people getting paid from the tax coffers aren't looking out for themselves rather than the people who pay them, herded by politicians with one eye on the next election. I guess Germany on the national level would come closest, although on the local level its just as indebted as any peripheral nation.
And for pity's sake don't increase spending on persistent costs just because the same tax revenues start booming. Play it smart like Norway and put the money into a massive investment fund, or into infrastructure if its cheaper than loans.
"Long term sustainable" is too vague a goal to have much use, especially in modern rapidly changing economies.
Is 25 times strong than most posts. At least its a natural forming post.
Why? I'm rather enjoying this clash of the titans, and sort of expecting robocop to start drilling execs before too long.
*shouldn't
I do agree that copyright terms are ludicrous at the moment, and really only a cash grap by the likes of Disney, but the power to create and spread that creation is rapidly moving away from large companies and into the hands of individuals. A decent DSLR can create very acceptable HD movies with good lighting, sound gear is dirt cheap, home studios are springing up everywhere, graphic design programs are becoming simpler to use and master with every passing decade, it all adds up. I can see things reaching a stage where nobody really cares about copyright lengths because they'll be too busy making their own stuff.
Doesn't mean they should be changed of course, the big fish will still try to trip people up, but we're moving from "consumers" to "competition". The only question is how long they'll take to realise it and try to patent "sci-fi".
If one wished to put a numerical value on it, higher taxes are paid by people who earn more, and who not coincidentally are better educated. So "free" education is an investment in future economic growth.
I think he's probably saying that voice and text messages are hugely overpriced. I don't know about voice but SMSes certainly are.
Thats neither ear nor there.
It looks a damn sight better than most TV shows.
Take a look at this:
http://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2010/03/while_doing_some_poking_around.php
Wax earplugs + headphones, cheap and very effective.