You don't need anything else. Pay special attention to the last virtue. It's middle-management's job to provide upper management with a realistic schedule that allows time for a quality implementation. If upper management questions you directly, tell them they can have any two of these options: (A) fast, (B) cheap, (C) good. Chances are, they will understand that a quality implementation takes more time. If they choose (A) and (B) anyway, start resume polishing, the company probably won't be around long anyway.
"We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer:
Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris."
LAZINESS: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy
expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find
useful, and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many
questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer.
IMPATIENCE: The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you
write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or
at least that pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer.
HUBRIS: Excessive pride, the sort of thing Zeus zaps you for. Also the quality that
makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won't want to say bad
things about. Hence, the third great virtue of a programmer.
- _Programming Perl_, p. xiv, by Randall Scwartz & Larry Wall
Thankfully, so is my Senator: Senator Cantwell's letter to President Bush asking for more transparency in the oil market, and an explanation for why oil company profits are so high right now.
with no new star trek and star wars fare in the pipe, desperate sci fi serial pulp fans are jumping ship and clinging to this piece of driftwood
As if the "Star Wars fare" that's been coming down the pipe lately was the greatest sci-fi ever. Yeah, of course I loved A New Hope, and Empire Strikes back, but then it all started going downhill from there... and I think Serenity's better than any one of them. WAY better than Attack of the (yawn) Clones. Jeez, I'll never get those two hours back.
PS - See below for the Fox Editor's acknowledgement of the fact that Fox made a serious error: the author's affiliation with Microsoft SHOULD have been disclosed. Which was my point that you claimed to have 'eviscerated' with some unrelated assertion about Linus.
Yup. I wish someone would make a hybrid diesel that focused tightly on aerodynamics and other efficiency factors. I drive about 50 miles per day, averaging 70mph. I'm running biodiesel in a New Beetle TDI, getting > 40 miles per gallon. Lately the biodiesel is cheaper than regular diesel (since its cost has stayed about the same over the last couple years), and it's better for the environment than regular diesel.
I just went in the hall at work, asked 10 people and NONE knew who Linus was.
Well sure, the people you work with are probably about as smart as you are. I wouldn't expect *every* McDonalds employee to know the name Linus Torvalds.
WE WEREN'T TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE ON SLASHDOT. We were talking about non-techies, and if you're trying to make the point that non-techies know who Linus is, you're an imbecile.
Linus is anonymous to most people, so your point that "The problem is that this guy doesn't introduce himself" while valid, applies equally to Linus.
So, now that I've eviscerated your entire point, care to try again after letting go of your silly fanboi bias?
Nice. Yeah, right, nobody knows who Linus is. Except my mom, who came to me asking about this young computer genius who she wanted to invest in (not realizing he didn't own a publicly traded company). And the DJ at the rock station I listen to in the morning. And the lady I buy coffee from. I can't imagine there are more than about three E-week readers who don't know who Linus is. But I bet very few E-week readers know that John Pendergast has a big stack of Microsoft PR dollars in his pocket. Maybe you should leave your Mom's basement and start actully talking with some real people outside of Slashdot. Linus is more famous than you think.
God I wish I had mod points for you, but I'll have to do it with words.
So you'd prefer to censor the guy, but instead you're forced to answer his point rationally. Sounds like the system's working to me.
The man is allowed to have bias. You wouldn't squeal about Linus supporting OSS because he's biased, and you SURE AS HELL wouldn't call his opinion "spin". So why do you do it to this guy?
Well, everyone knows who Linus is, and everyone knows the source of his bias. The problem is that this guy doesn't introduce himself. He presents himself as a disinterested observer with no loyalties other than the best interest of the citizens of Massachusetts. So it would make sense to let people know that he's affiliated with Microsoft so people realize that the source of his bias is Microsoft dollars flowing into his pockets, rather than the "problems" that are caused by Massachusetts' new policy.
Seconded. EDI isn't something you can just jump into with no experience in the subject. Not without royally pissing off your business partners, anyway.
Also check out a company called ICC:
http://www.icc.net/en_US/oc/icc.net/
They are pretty good. The service they offer is most valuable in that they use internet standard protocols for data communication, dropping costs and sidestepping most of the big VANs which still charge exorbitant per-bit rates for data transfer. I'd contact ICC, confirm that your business partners are willing and able to communicate via their network, then ask ICC for recommendations on implementation consultants in your area.
I'll grant you he was wrong, but stating he lied about it implies that he knew the truth and knowingly offered up something else.
So if I don't like my neighbor, and I tell the cops, the FBI, and all my other neighbors that I know for a fact he's a kiddie pornographer, it's only a lie if I know for a fact that he's not a kiddie pornographer? If I have no real evidence either way, then that's not a lie in your book?
The same intel was seen and consensus was given by members of both parties and several other countries.
Many of which had grave concerns about the administration going on a fishing expedition (see Downing Street memos) or were not convinced by the evidence (most of the UN). I'm surprised you don't talk about Saddam's extensive ties to Al Qaeda. Oh, wait, the administration finally admitted that was all bullshit long after Congress had approved invading. Would you consider that a lie?
If WMDs were the only reason we invaded, I wouldn't back the war, but since they had a history of breaking UN sanctions, embezzled money from the Oil-for-Food program, didn't work with weapons inspectors for years and committed more than enough human rights violations,
Like, for instance, locking people up for years with no trial? How about torture?
I found enough justification that removal of Saddam, with or without WMDs, was a good idea.
I wish you had thought removal of Bush was a good idea last year.
I'm willing to admit that history may justify the lies that got us where we are today in Iraq.
Okay, what lies? Honestly, I see no proof that the administration lied in order to start this war. I see a lot of conjecture and some details that are fuzzy, but there's no definitive smoking gun
You must have a very loose definition about what constitutes a lie. Bush repeatedly assured the nation that he had solid evidence that Iraq had WMDs. He was looking for a reason to invade. If they had solid evidence, wouldn't you expect that they had some idea where the WMDs were? How about the yellow-cake uranium story that the administration presented in the State of the Union? Joe Wilson, the guy who was sent to investigate the yellow-cake uranium story, reported to the administration that Iraq never tried to purchase the uranium. Why do you suppose there was a retaliation against Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, immediately after Mr. Wilson went public saying that the State of the Union address contained a lie?
If you think Bush didn't lie, I have a wonderful bridge you might be interested in buying. Prime New York City real estate.
Okay, again, reread my original reply. Some (most?) of us weren't blind, we just chose what we considered the lesser of two evils. Marginalizing us with insults
I assume you see the state of the world in a negative way? See, maybe that's my problem...I don't. Unemployment is low, inflation is low, the economy is growing. It's not 1999, but it's not bad by a long shot. How do you see it?
I see rampant cronyism. Sure, politics is politics. But there's a problem when the government is giving out billion dollar contracts to the administration's largest political contributors without even allowing competitors to submit bids. There's a problem when cronies are appointed to positions such as head of FEMA or the EPA with no regard for their qualifications.
I'm not as confident about the economy as you seem to be. China is beginning to undercut a huge amount of US manufacturing business, and we are weak right now. We aren't really hurting yet, but we could be soon.
You seem to be happy with tax cuts, and unconcerned with spending. There's a correlation between taxes and spending, you know. We can't just continue to run up the debt forever. We will be forced to raise taxes at some point eventally if we continue current policies. If the Republicans time it right, they will force the Dems to take responsibility for paying for Republican programs with higher taxes. The current administration isn't tax-and-spend, they're borrow-and-spend.
I am sort of OK with what's going on in Iraq now. I was initially very skeptical (and rightly so) about our justifications for invasion. But given the new hope for peace in Israel and the hope for democracy in Iraq, I'm willing to admit that history may justify the lies that got us where we are today in Iraq.
I'm unhappy that many of our boys and girls are still stuck in Afghanistan, most of it is still run by warlords, and nobody's even talking about an exit strategy there. I'm unhappy that our intelligence community has lost its credibility. I'm unhappy with the amount of nuclear sabre-rattling that we're doing. And I'm unhappy that so many US citizens are so blind that they voted for this corrupt blustering puppet twice in a row.
Or we don't believe any of that crap and just thought he'd do a better job than the other guy.
So the question is, do you still think Bush is doing a better job than Kerry or Gore would have done? 'Cause I gotta say, the state of the world today is about what I expected each time Bush got elected.
In what areas did you think Gore or Kerry could possibly have been worse? Taxes? Foreign policy? Civil liberties?
Check out this article for a good intro to Plucene, the Perl port of Lucene.
This is also a good link for all of you slashdotters who have no idea what Lucene is for and are posting rants wondering why people don't just use Google instead.
Oh, come on. There's at least a couple people on Slashdot who try to get informed before they post. The trolls need to have some suckers giving them the benefit of the doubt to make it all work.
That figure ($.60/gallon biodiesel) is based on getting free yellow grease from a restaurant. So it assumes no cost for your feedstock. In any significant quantity, for example, if you don't have a friend who runs a restaurant, it costs more like $2 per gallon. Quite a bit more than that if you are using virgin soy or rapeseed oil.
Command center: Video surveillance report, go ahead.
Analyst: We did detect some minor damage, sir.
Command: Describe the event, please.
Analyst: Video surveillance indicates the vehicle was struck by several cameras that fell off other surveillance units. Recommend upgrading duct-tape adhesive for future missions.
Here in the U.S. we live in a capitalist society, but the ethanol industry enjoys a large government subsidy. How large is it and how much does the ethanol actually cost?
It's difficult for us to use ethanol, mainly because we don't have the infrastructure to make, distribute, and burn it in our engines at more that 10% concentration. Yet. So that's the main problem. Switching over our cars, distribution infrastructure, and manufacturing facilities will be a huge cost. But we can look at Brazil to get some idea of the possibilities in front of us.
Brazil currently has a huge ethanol manufacturing infrastructure, and, as your research indicated, they sell ethanol on the international market for less than $1/gallon.
The limiting factors for the US are total manufacturing capacity (currently nowhere even remotely close to addressing US energy needs) and other infrastructure. But recent developments in using bioengineered enzymes to convert agricultural waste to ethanol are
very exciting.
Oh, I almost forgot. Using sugar-based production techniques developed over the past 20 years, Brazil currently manufactures huge quantities of ethanol and sells it on the international market for approximately $30-$35 per barrel. Most of the ethanol the US imports comes from Brazil. If producing it was so inefficient, I'd expect it to be a lot more expensive, wouldn't you? Compared with current oil prices (>$50/barrel?), and the potential for efficiently producing ethanol from agricultural waste in the next 5-10 years, I'd say the case for ethanol's looking pretty good.
Slashdot Mirror
Sweet! Now if only we could actually use all that natural gas without dumping tons of CO2 into the atmosphere...
Brundlefly says no problem, flexy flexy.
Thankfully, so is my Senator:
Senator Cantwell's letter to President Bush asking for more transparency in the oil market, and an explanation for why oil company profits are so high right now.
Great, but I've only got about 10,000 miles on B100 so far.
PS - See below for the Fox Editor's acknowledgement of the fact that Fox made a serious error: the author's affiliation with Microsoft SHOULD have been disclosed. Which was my point that you claimed to have 'eviscerated' with some unrelated assertion about Linus.
l
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170916,00.htm
Yup. I wish someone would make a hybrid diesel that focused tightly on aerodynamics and other efficiency factors. I drive about 50 miles per day, averaging 70mph. I'm running biodiesel in a New Beetle TDI, getting > 40 miles per gallon. Lately the biodiesel is cheaper than regular diesel (since its cost has stayed about the same over the last couple years), and it's better for the environment than regular diesel.
e lingsites/
To find biodiesel locations near you:
http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/retailfu
Seconded. EDI isn't something you can just jump into with no experience in the subject. Not without royally pissing off your business partners, anyway. Also check out a company called ICC: http://www.icc.net/en_US/oc/icc.net/ They are pretty good. The service they offer is most valuable in that they use internet standard protocols for data communication, dropping costs and sidestepping most of the big VANs which still charge exorbitant per-bit rates for data transfer. I'd contact ICC, confirm that your business partners are willing and able to communicate via their network, then ask ICC for recommendations on implementation consultants in your area.
I'll grant you he was wrong, but stating he lied about it implies that he knew the truth and knowingly offered up something else.
So if I don't like my neighbor, and I tell the cops, the FBI, and all my other neighbors that I know for a fact he's a kiddie pornographer, it's only a lie if I know for a fact that he's not a kiddie pornographer? If I have no real evidence either way, then that's not a lie in your book?
The same intel was seen and consensus was given by members of both parties and several other countries.
Many of which had grave concerns about the administration going on a fishing expedition (see Downing Street memos) or were not convinced by the evidence (most of the UN). I'm surprised you don't talk about Saddam's extensive ties to Al Qaeda. Oh, wait, the administration finally admitted that was all bullshit long after Congress had approved invading. Would you consider that a lie?
If WMDs were the only reason we invaded, I wouldn't back the war, but since they had a history of breaking UN sanctions, embezzled money from the Oil-for-Food program, didn't work with weapons inspectors for years and committed more than enough human rights violations,
Like, for instance, locking people up for years with no trial? How about torture?
I found enough justification that removal of Saddam, with or without WMDs, was a good idea.
I wish you had thought removal of Bush was a good idea last year.
You must have a very loose definition about what constitutes a lie. Bush repeatedly assured the nation that he had solid evidence that Iraq had WMDs. He was looking for a reason to invade. If they had solid evidence, wouldn't you expect that they had some idea where the WMDs were? How about the yellow-cake uranium story that the administration presented in the State of the Union? Joe Wilson, the guy who was sent to investigate the yellow-cake uranium story, reported to the administration that Iraq never tried to purchase the uranium. Why do you suppose there was a retaliation against Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, immediately after Mr. Wilson went public saying that the State of the Union address contained a lie?
If you think Bush didn't lie, I have a wonderful bridge you might be interested in buying. Prime New York City real estate.
Okay, again, reread my original reply. Some (most?) of us weren't blind, we just chose what we considered the lesser of two evils. Marginalizing us with insults
I apologize, that was over the line.
I'm not as confident about the economy as you seem to be. China is beginning to undercut a huge amount of US manufacturing business, and we are weak right now. We aren't really hurting yet, but we could be soon.
You seem to be happy with tax cuts, and unconcerned with spending. There's a correlation between taxes and spending, you know. We can't just continue to run up the debt forever. We will be forced to raise taxes at some point eventally if we continue current policies. If the Republicans time it right, they will force the Dems to take responsibility for paying for Republican programs with higher taxes. The current administration isn't tax-and-spend, they're borrow-and-spend.
I am sort of OK with what's going on in Iraq now. I was initially very skeptical (and rightly so) about our justifications for invasion. But given the new hope for peace in Israel and the hope for democracy in Iraq, I'm willing to admit that history may justify the lies that got us where we are today in Iraq.
I'm unhappy that many of our boys and girls are still stuck in Afghanistan, most of it is still run by warlords, and nobody's even talking about an exit strategy there. I'm unhappy that our intelligence community has lost its credibility. I'm unhappy with the amount of nuclear sabre-rattling that we're doing. And I'm unhappy that so many US citizens are so blind that they voted for this corrupt blustering puppet twice in a row.
Or we don't believe any of that crap and just thought he'd do a better job than the other guy.
So the question is, do you still think Bush is doing a better job than Kerry or Gore would have done? 'Cause I gotta say, the state of the world today is about what I expected each time Bush got elected.
In what areas did you think Gore or Kerry could possibly have been worse? Taxes? Foreign policy? Civil liberties?
Check out this article for a good intro to Plucene, the Perl port of Lucene.
This is also a good link for all of you slashdotters who have no idea what Lucene is for and are posting rants wondering why people don't just use Google instead.
Oh, come on. There's at least a couple people on Slashdot who try to get informed before they post. The trolls need to have some suckers giving them the benefit of the doubt to make it all work.
That figure ($.60/gallon biodiesel) is based on getting free yellow grease from a restaurant. So it assumes no cost for your feedstock. In any significant quantity, for example, if you don't have a friend who runs a restaurant, it costs more like $2 per gallon. Quite a bit more than that if you are using virgin soy or rapeseed oil.
Command center: Video surveillance report, go ahead.
Analyst: We did detect some minor damage, sir.
Command: Describe the event, please.
Analyst: Video surveillance indicates the vehicle was struck by several cameras that fell off other surveillance units. Recommend upgrading duct-tape adhesive for future missions.
Command: Thank you, dismissed.
Or maybe... no wait...
So what? The point is that all that stuff's a lot cheaper than corn or sugar cane. So ethanol production will be more economically efficient.
Here in the U.S. we live in a capitalist society, but the ethanol industry enjoys a large government subsidy. How large is it and how much does the ethanol actually cost?
It's difficult for us to use ethanol, mainly because we don't have the infrastructure to make, distribute, and burn it in our engines at more that 10% concentration. Yet. So that's the main problem. Switching over our cars, distribution infrastructure, and manufacturing facilities will be a huge cost. But we can look at Brazil to get some idea of the possibilities in front of us.
Brazil currently has a huge ethanol manufacturing infrastructure, and, as your research indicated, they sell ethanol on the international market for less than $1/gallon.
The limiting factors for the US are total manufacturing capacity (currently nowhere even remotely close to addressing US energy needs) and other infrastructure. But recent developments in using bioengineered enzymes to convert agricultural waste to ethanol are very exciting.
Maybe you expect someone who doesn't care about the subject at all will spend days researching and verifying all the facts, and join the fray?
Oh, I almost forgot. Using sugar-based production techniques developed over the past 20 years, Brazil currently manufactures huge quantities of ethanol and sells it on the international market for approximately $30-$35 per barrel. Most of the ethanol the US imports comes from Brazil. If producing it was so inefficient, I'd expect it to be a lot more expensive, wouldn't you? Compared with current oil prices (>$50/barrel?), and the potential for efficiently producing ethanol from agricultural waste in the next 5-10 years, I'd say the case for ethanol's looking pretty good.