The key to a good Open Source setup is planning. You could use the code from the original article, or KOHA (which AFAIK also comes on a LiveCD which is a quick way to play with it). If you need to 'sell' the solution you could use the following arguments:
- higher stability (the original reason why (F)OSS gained prominence waaaay before desktops) - lower maintenance: most Linux platforms measure uptimes in months, not days - higher capital efficiency: you'll have more money available for customising (I once paid for two days of KOHA installation which was 5% of what a commercial system would have costed - it was worth just risking that money on a decent test) - good development support - most (F)OSS authors are willing to sell you consulting on their code, especially if they're allowed to contribute it back to the community.
However - do NOT forget that someone needs to be around who knows Linux on a professional basis. A support contract, an inhouse member of staff, whatever - never run anything in production without clued up support. Sometimes, setting up that support framework takes the longest..
If the sales argument is mainly eye candy, well, it doesn't need a big system to operate that, only a decent graphics card. It's always been ridiculous that the core processor should be doing that work instead of the graphics subsystem.
I just took Ubuntu off my laptop to test Fedora Core 6 (too big and doesn't support my WiFi, Ubuntu will be back on shortly) but for entertainment I installed Beryl as well. Lightening fast, funny and as much contributing to my efficiency as the MS Office paperclip, i.e. not at all.
Somehow the idea that we need a system to do our work seems to have gotten lost at Microsoft, it's all about using a system to pay them more money. Well, I'm taxed enough already (and even if I would agree with it I would like the $$ to go to the country that provides me my living) so no thanks.
I can't see the point to pay a premium to mainly support the vendors of anti virus products. I'd call that a HUGE product deficiency, and as there is fundamentally no reason why this cannot all be done under Linux or OSX there's little chance I'd get back onto the Windows bandwagon. Well, OK. maybe for accessing password protected WinZip archives - haven't had time to research an alternative for that.
But eye candy as a sales argument: not for business, and even so there's Compiz, Beryl and Looking Glass - again a wide choice versus the "let's ram our choice down your throat" DRM infested MS products. Yes, they're safer (again) but they're seriously behind the curve on that too. And even Gates is coming down from the DRM hype, so that leaves little more than bug fixes..
I've been on the Net from/before/ the URL concepts was introduced, and from when the likes of Spyglass and Mosaic came along it was perfectly normal to have every browser loaded on your system to be sure your site worked with all of them.
I still think that is the best approach. If you stick to standards it tends to work, but I find it ridiculous that everyone considers catering for the FLAWS in a browser like IE a perfectly normal activity. Who's supposed to fix those deficiencies? You or MS?
It's precisely because of this "other lemmings do it" attitude that they get away with bringing out this crap, and repeatedly so. Standards are standards are NOT what Microsoft wants, and if you start taking into account the overhead on web page maintenance that every new bug causes it's clear that the TCO of Windows carries quite a bit more hidden costs than you think..
Welcome to another problem with a monopoly - it gets people to think life with deficiencies is perfectly normal..
developers will now remember this and think they might better off with another scripting language when in fact they can do stupid things just as easily with ASP as they can with PHP
Now THAT is absolutely correct. Actually, I'd be hesitant in case of ASP because that forces an underlying platform that needs a lot more attention to be reasonably Internet proof, but I digress:-).
I very much recognise the guy's pain - I've been there myself often enough..
"They'd be better off if they'd used OpenOffice/Linux/BSD" - and I don't think that comment is inappropriate at all. With the defined file format of ODF scanning for problems is easier, and you can choose to zap any macros because they're a separate file in the ODF zip file..
And I would personally not want to load up the Shuttle comms circuits with the volume of patches required to keep Windows safe - stupid..
Wow, stunningly insightful response "that's caused by inexperienced programmers". He's a clue: it doesn't matter what the origin of the problem is (other than to fix it longterm) - IT STILL NEEDS ADDRESSING. I got news for you: the concept of covering large security related cracks in code with prime bullshit is probably already patented by Microsoft.
Personally I would wonder if Essers' 'abrasive style' is not a result rather than a reason for not being listened to and if this flags up a major problem in the way PHP is coded and maintained I'm all for this move. There is no excuse for sloppiness.
So, the reaction discloses the attitude - seems Esser made the right move..
As any drive-thru ATM comes with Braille dots I'm sure someone is planning to make it possible for the blind to drive through. I mean, just on the basis of the evidence, of course:-).
If the likelihood of disastrous events includes an absence of power you'll have to start with assuming you won't have power when the brown stuff hits the fan (which wouldn't be turning then, but let's leave the metaphors alone for now:-)
For that situation I refer you to my earlier post (you guys call it a cell phone instead of a mobile phone), but I just realised I don't know if that phone add-on is powered from the phone itself. If not, you still have a problem, and it assumes the local cell is still live if your house power dies.
Your item 1/2 can be signalled mechanically. Floating switches, thermostats, easy stuff. However, a crystal ball is hard to wire up for item 3, and you best bet is a human eye.
Which is why getting inhabitants is a better idea than laving it empty - your risk is than equal to the normal issue of being at work during the day..
I see plenty people point at Linux BIOS. Although it helps to have a BIOS that boots so fast it had to be delayed so the hard disk got a chance to spin up, this is NOT where the main delays lie.
From loooooong ago I remember a friend of mine speeding up the DOS that came with Apple II floppy drives and call it TurboDOS - the main improvement was to remove near insane wait states to something that was practical and reflected the improved FDD quality.
This could offer a clue here too. Does a service really need to check world+dog when it boots up on the same hardware? If the hardware on my laptop would change overnight I'd consider that a neat trick..
Not sure I'd go all the way to 'recompiling' a startup, but yes, some checksumming could be sensible.
Oh, and strip all the bootup crap you don't need. In Windows, you'll end up with a iTunes watch thing, Acrobat Reader sticks 'update watchers' in etc etc - and they're the ones that ask. Ubuntu, ditto - there's plenty you can switch off.
Let me put it in a simpler way. Although I agree with your observation that "in the beginning there was Stallman and there was light" (Linux would have never happened without GNU and Stallman really hasn't gotten his fair share of praise for that), you have to look at some reasons for the Open lot to get more attention, and part of that is simple pragmatism (and GNU/Linux is also a pain to pronounce:-).
RMS created GNU code, but Hurd is still nowhere near usable AFAIK - pragmatists use Linux because it's here and it works. Depending on the distro you go from 'clean' (Debian) to 'potentially heavily polluted' (Novell, post MS deal), with something like Ubuntu in between for as long as it takes to eradicate the proprietary bits (i.e. it leans to clean but accepts some pollution until it no longer needs it). I call that pragmatic, because it offers a tactical interim step (Open) to what is a long term strategy (Free).
So I can see the sense of both, and what actually bothers me most is the desire of both camps to segregate into a "them and us" attitude. It wastes energy better used for collaboration, and if I were a large monopoly worried sick about the unassailable competition I'd use that weakness to sow discord.
I don't particularly care that one club has a green flag and the other a red one, at the moment it's IMHO more important they keep marching in the same direction. At present I think they do, but more by accident than design..
If I condense those paragraphs down it appears that all you're really saying is that you would have liked the talk to be in Ogg format. Plenty of conversions on Google, but I do agree they ought to have thought of that - I guess they decided to get the word out first before converting...
Joking aside, I'm not sure I believe in a conspiracy to snub Free Software. Whatever fork argument you use, I still think that both strands still share more ideas than they care to admit, only the way they approach the world is different.
The Open lot is a bit more pragmatic (I'd call them the 'I want it NOW' crowd), the Free crowd has a more philosophical stance, with RMS as the ultimate cheerleader (argh, that called up a picture of RMS in a skirt - give me a moment to recover, aaargh:-). I think the Open crowd is paving the way to the Free approach - the world does not work with black and white cut-overs unless someone just got raided by FAST/BSA and makes guitars for a living.
Without the Free ideas the Open crowd would eventually wander back into the proprietary world, with the Open guys making it happen now the Free ideas would just remain ideas - another ideology but now worth paying attention to. I think both are required to make a difference.
If you go to Bladox you can buy an add-on that has various I/O points. A simple mechanical thermostat will give you a signal for low temp, and water is conductive so you can create something for that too. A third switch for power failures and you're set to go for signalling.
Empty water pipes where you can, then switch off the main tap and leave the taps open (use air where possible to drive out water). Use electric heating to keep the house at 10C or higher (not too much higher, you're just trying to fight condensation, mould forming and freezing pipes).
And check 3 times that you have indeed turned the gas off. Once you turn the main tap off, once by lighting a ring on your gas cooker and watch it die so the pressure is off the line and 3rd by going back to the tap and check it's still off. Gas is very unhelpful in preserving building integrity:-).
With the above mobile you'll be able to monitor, and the thing will still SMS you even when power fails (unless the cell goes down with it, so maybe set up a watchdog SMS so you know it's still live) - dirt cheap solution, and all it takes is a cheapo pay-as-you-go mobile phone.
Oh, and the motion sensor will tell you about earthquakes and someone stealing the phone itself:-).
So, I can't open Word files because of an unfixed risk, and I can't open sound files because of an unfixed risk. Wonderful if you're running the average business..
After switching to OpenOffice and VideoLAN, I guess the leap to Linux isn't that far if it wasn't for the fact that you'd have to switch a whole infrastructure and find a new support environment. Not that easy, but more and more attractive, and it appears to have an ever improving ROI...
I use a USB drive and Acronis True Image. It gives me a number of options which I like:
(1) scale: I can back up files, partitions and complete harddisks, even though half of it is Linux (limited to ext3 support, though). (2) versioning: I can go back to previous versions of files (3) multi-layer backup: you can also back up to a separate partition, but I didn't do that (not enough space:-) - I always do a full backup to the USB drive. (3) recovery CD: it can toast a boot CD for you which allows you to boot up with a zapped harddisk and rebuild from scratch. This is also the way to move data from one system to another as the partitioner is flexible.
Works for me, but be aware that a USB drive is slooooow - even on USB 2. Maybe a Firewire disk is faster...
You have a point there, because there IS a sort of smooth layer on the pyramids which is wearing away. If you go onsite you can see that one of the pyramids only has a sort of cap left at the top, the rest is eroded.
It's been an absolute *shocking* amount of work to build those things. I remember doing the tourist thing and walking out of the bus with a camera. I was slightly distracted by the heat, it's so hot there it's like walking into a wall, and 2 secs later your sweat glands spontaneously combust into steam:-).
Then I looked ahead, up, and then up some more because the darn things are so high you need to look up quite a bit to see the top. They are absolutely friggin' HUGE, and I don't think we could even do this today even if we had unlimited resources and no laws/greens/labour shortages to get in the way. I really can't comprehend know how they did manage it unless they had help from from some heavy haulage UFOs..
In contrast, the Sphinx was actually a lot smaller, but as my only reference for its size came from Asterix and Obelix cartoons I guess that was to be expected:-).
Even if they built with 'poured concrete' it still an insane amount of work to transport the material, and that heat would progress the chemical reaction so much quicker that I have trouble believing it to be actually doable. However, the silly things are there, thumbing their noses at my assertion that it can't be done either way so there's a lesson in there somewhere..
It's a must-see sight IMHO - it's almost impossible to tell you how large and massive they are until you stand at the edge of one and crane your neck to see the top.
I've told this before, but let me tell you this again - you ought to get yourself invited to a seminar where MS is flogging its wares to a high value buyer, say, Government. Go there because you can see your tax money being wasted right in front of your eyes.
A couple of characteristics:
(1) The person or group they're presenting to rarely has an ability to understand or question the "facts" presented. Classic golf course sales setup.
(2) The "facts" need careful examination. Rule 1 of any facts stated in a presentation is that you have to determine their origin - and check if that's really what was said. In the presentations I've seen (a good many) origin is rarely specified. Furthermore I've seen plenty of 'creative' interpretation of hard facts - again, they get away with it because the front row seaters don't have the ability to separate BS from fact.
(3) In case you were wondering about protests from the audience about the facts or 'hard questions' - take note of the ratio outsiders vs MS staff. It's usually close to 1:1. If you ask a painful question or one that makes it appear you can puncture the gloss you will immediately get engaged in quiet discussion by the MS person sitting next to you, and you will find he'll stick to you like glue during the break when you risk getting near the sales target (who will by surrounded by a thick circle of smiling MS execs to prevent you or any journo's getting near). Or, in short - you're stage managed the moment you open your mouth.
(4) somehow the solution to the buyers' problem is always straight there in the MS product set. No talks about integration, custom code to write, none of that. Just sign the contract for a huge volume and it'll all magically work.
This doesn't mean the people presenting don't know their stuff, but the sales tactics leave you wondering why the company needs it if it's really that good..
OTOH, he *could* just be planning to replace "get high marks if you wear a short skirt" with people that actually care about teaching. Teaching in Thailand won't make you rich, but the free healthcare is what draws, and that doesn't always equate to capable people doing the job.
I'm disappointed, but this guy is 100% new AFAIK - it's actually too early to know what he'll do.
If you have a non-knowledgeable PM your project will go down the drain if the underlying team hasn't got the ability to 'speak business' - or, in other words, if the PM is not able to straddle the two worlds it falls down to someone in the team which is less efficient because he/she/it also has a job to do.
The reason I know this so well is because it's reason no1 when I'm hired for project rescue. As long as the fundamentals are right (i.e. not/always/ trying to do the impossible:-) I have found communication to be the root cause in about 80% of cases, the other ones usually contractually, design failure or vendor problems.
So, it depends a bit on team structure but I feel shared ability at management or PM level creates a more efficient project with smoother progress..
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The key to a good Open Source setup is planning. You could use the code from the original article, or KOHA (which AFAIK also comes on a LiveCD which is a quick way to play with it). If you need to 'sell' the solution you could use the following arguments:
- higher stability (the original reason why (F)OSS gained prominence waaaay before desktops)
- lower maintenance: most Linux platforms measure uptimes in months, not days
- higher capital efficiency: you'll have more money available for customising (I once paid for two days of KOHA installation which was 5% of what a commercial system would have costed - it was worth just risking that money on a decent test)
- good development support - most (F)OSS authors are willing to sell you consulting on their code, especially if they're allowed to contribute it back to the community.
However - do NOT forget that someone needs to be around who knows Linux on a professional basis. A support contract, an inhouse member of staff, whatever - never run anything in production without clued up support. Sometimes, setting up that support framework takes the longest..
Good luck.
The same readers are used for neurofeedback...
If the sales argument is mainly eye candy, well, it doesn't need a big system to operate that, only a decent graphics card. It's always been ridiculous that the core processor should be doing that work instead of the graphics subsystem.
I just took Ubuntu off my laptop to test Fedora Core 6 (too big and doesn't support my WiFi, Ubuntu will be back on shortly) but for entertainment I installed Beryl as well. Lightening fast, funny and as much contributing to my efficiency as the MS Office paperclip, i.e. not at all.
Somehow the idea that we need a system to do our work seems to have gotten lost at Microsoft, it's all about using a system to pay them more money. Well, I'm taxed enough already (and even if I would agree with it I would like the $$ to go to the country that provides me my living) so no thanks.
I can't see the point to pay a premium to mainly support the vendors of anti virus products. I'd call that a HUGE product deficiency, and as there is fundamentally no reason why this cannot all be done under Linux or OSX there's little chance I'd get back onto the Windows bandwagon. Well, OK. maybe for accessing password protected WinZip archives - haven't had time to research an alternative for that.
But eye candy as a sales argument: not for business, and even so there's Compiz, Beryl and Looking Glass - again a wide choice versus the "let's ram our choice down your throat" DRM infested MS products. Yes, they're safer (again) but they're seriously behind the curve on that too. And even Gates is coming down from the DRM hype, so that leaves little more than bug fixes..
Come on, if you were a mouse, wouldn't you be happy with that news? :-)
You ought to send this to the FSF - I like it..
I've been on the Net from /before/ the URL concepts was introduced, and from when the likes of Spyglass and Mosaic came along it was perfectly normal to have every browser loaded on your system to be sure your site worked with all of them.
I still think that is the best approach. If you stick to standards it tends to work, but I find it ridiculous that everyone considers catering for the FLAWS in a browser like IE a perfectly normal activity. Who's supposed to fix those deficiencies? You or MS?
It's precisely because of this "other lemmings do it" attitude that they get away with bringing out this crap, and repeatedly so. Standards are standards are NOT what Microsoft wants, and if you start taking into account the overhead on web page maintenance that every new bug causes it's clear that the TCO of Windows carries quite a bit more hidden costs than you think..
Welcome to another problem with a monopoly - it gets people to think life with deficiencies is perfectly normal..
developers will now remember this and think they might better off with another scripting language when in fact they can do stupid things just as easily with ASP as they can with PHP
:-).
Now THAT is absolutely correct. Actually, I'd be hesitant in case of ASP because that forces an underlying platform that needs a lot more attention to be reasonably Internet proof, but I digress
I very much recognise the guy's pain - I've been there myself often enough..
"They'd be better off if they'd used OpenOffice/Linux/BSD" - and I don't think that comment is inappropriate at all. With the defined file format of ODF scanning for problems is easier, and you can choose to zap any macros because they're a separate file in the ODF zip file..
And I would personally not want to load up the Shuttle comms circuits with the volume of patches required to keep Windows safe - stupid..
Wow, stunningly insightful response "that's caused by inexperienced programmers". He's a clue: it doesn't matter what the origin of the problem is (other than to fix it longterm) - IT STILL NEEDS ADDRESSING. I got news for you: the concept of covering large security related cracks in code with prime bullshit is probably already patented by Microsoft.
Personally I would wonder if Essers' 'abrasive style' is not a result rather than a reason for not being listened to and if this flags up a major problem in the way PHP is coded and maintained I'm all for this move. There is no excuse for sloppiness.
So, the reaction discloses the attitude - seems Esser made the right move..
As any drive-thru ATM comes with Braille dots I'm sure someone is planning to make it possible for the blind to drive through. I mean, just on the basis of the evidence, of course :-).
Why in hell would I want to drain the battery of my cellphone by playing music with it
(1) Maybe some of us come across a charger (USB port, mains) at least once a day so we don't have battery problems
(2) Maybe some of us don't want to have our pockets full with kit.
Or, bottom line, not everyone has the same preferences or lives the same way. And it's the lack of choice that customers don't appear to like..
If the likelihood of disastrous events includes an absence of power you'll have to start with assuming you won't have power when the brown stuff hits the fan (which wouldn't be turning then, but let's leave the metaphors alone for now :-)
For that situation I refer you to my earlier post (you guys call it a cell phone instead of a mobile phone), but I just realised I don't know if that phone add-on is powered from the phone itself. If not, you still have a problem, and it assumes the local cell is still live if your house power dies.
Your item 1/2 can be signalled mechanically. Floating switches, thermostats, easy stuff. However, a crystal ball is hard to wire up for item 3, and you best bet is a human eye.
Which is why getting inhabitants is a better idea than laving it empty - your risk is than equal to the normal issue of being at work during the day..
I see plenty people point at Linux BIOS. Although it helps to have a BIOS that boots so fast it had to be delayed so the hard disk got a chance to spin up, this is NOT where the main delays lie.
From loooooong ago I remember a friend of mine speeding up the DOS that came with Apple II floppy drives and call it TurboDOS - the main improvement was to remove near insane wait states to something that was practical and reflected the improved FDD quality.
This could offer a clue here too. Does a service really need to check world+dog when it boots up on the same hardware? If the hardware on my laptop would change overnight I'd consider that a neat trick..
Not sure I'd go all the way to 'recompiling' a startup, but yes, some checksumming could be sensible.
Oh, and strip all the bootup crap you don't need. In Windows, you'll end up with a iTunes watch thing, Acrobat Reader sticks 'update watchers' in etc etc - and they're the ones that ask. Ubuntu, ditto - there's plenty you can switch off.
I was actually just gently winding you up :-).
:-).
Let me put it in a simpler way. Although I agree with your observation that "in the beginning there was Stallman and there was light" (Linux would have never happened without GNU and Stallman really hasn't gotten his fair share of praise for that), you have to look at some reasons for the Open lot to get more attention, and part of that is simple pragmatism (and GNU/Linux is also a pain to pronounce
RMS created GNU code, but Hurd is still nowhere near usable AFAIK - pragmatists use Linux because it's here and it works. Depending on the distro you go from 'clean' (Debian) to 'potentially heavily polluted' (Novell, post MS deal), with something like Ubuntu in between for as long as it takes to eradicate the proprietary bits (i.e. it leans to clean but accepts some pollution until it no longer needs it). I call that pragmatic, because it offers a tactical interim step (Open) to what is a long term strategy (Free).
So I can see the sense of both, and what actually bothers me most is the desire of both camps to segregate into a "them and us" attitude. It wastes energy better used for collaboration, and if I were a large monopoly worried sick about the unassailable competition I'd use that weakness to sow discord.
I don't particularly care that one club has a green flag and the other a red one, at the moment it's IMHO more important they keep marching in the same direction. At present I think they do, but more by accident than design..
If I condense those paragraphs down it appears that all you're really saying is that you would have liked the talk to be in Ogg format. Plenty of conversions on Google, but I do agree they ought to have thought of that - I guess they decided to get the word out first before converting...
:-). I think the Open crowd is paving the way to the Free approach - the world does not work with black and white cut-overs unless someone just got raided by FAST/BSA and makes guitars for a living.
Joking aside, I'm not sure I believe in a conspiracy to snub Free Software. Whatever fork argument you use, I still think that both strands still share more ideas than they care to admit, only the way they approach the world is different.
The Open lot is a bit more pragmatic (I'd call them the 'I want it NOW' crowd), the Free crowd has a more philosophical stance, with RMS as the ultimate cheerleader (argh, that called up a picture of RMS in a skirt - give me a moment to recover, aaargh
Without the Free ideas the Open crowd would eventually wander back into the proprietary world, with the Open guys making it happen now the Free ideas would just remain ideas - another ideology but now worth paying attention to. I think both are required to make a difference.
But that's just MY view - feel free to disagree.
After all, it's a free/open world .
If you go to Bladox you can buy an add-on that has various I/O points. A simple mechanical thermostat will give you a signal for low temp, and water is conductive so you can create something for that too. A third switch for power failures and you're set to go for signalling.
:-).
:-).
Empty water pipes where you can, then switch off the main tap and leave the taps open (use air where possible to drive out water). Use electric heating to keep the house at 10C or higher (not too much higher, you're just trying to fight condensation, mould forming and freezing pipes).
And check 3 times that you have indeed turned the gas off. Once you turn the main tap off, once by lighting a ring on your gas cooker and watch it die so the pressure is off the line and 3rd by going back to the tap and check it's still off. Gas is very unhelpful in preserving building integrity
With the above mobile you'll be able to monitor, and the thing will still SMS you even when power fails (unless the cell goes down with it, so maybe set up a watchdog SMS so you know it's still live) - dirt cheap solution, and all it takes is a cheapo pay-as-you-go mobile phone.
Oh, and the motion sensor will tell you about earthquakes and someone stealing the phone itself
Just make sure you keep the account topped up..
So, I can't open Word files because of an unfixed risk, and I can't open sound files because of an unfixed risk. Wonderful if you're running the average business..
After switching to OpenOffice and VideoLAN, I guess the leap to Linux isn't that far if it wasn't for the fact that you'd have to switch a whole infrastructure and find a new support environment. Not that easy, but more and more attractive, and it appears to have an ever improving ROI...
I use a USB drive and Acronis True Image. It gives me a number of options which I like:
:-) - I always do a full backup to the USB drive.
(1) scale: I can back up files, partitions and complete harddisks, even though half of it is Linux (limited to ext3 support, though).
(2) versioning: I can go back to previous versions of files
(3) multi-layer backup: you can also back up to a separate partition, but I didn't do that (not enough space
(3) recovery CD: it can toast a boot CD for you which allows you to boot up with a zapped harddisk and rebuild from scratch. This is also the way to move data from one system to another as the partitioner is flexible.
Works for me, but be aware that a USB drive is slooooow - even on USB 2. Maybe a Firewire disk is faster...
You have a point there, because there IS a sort of smooth layer on the pyramids which is wearing away. If you go onsite you can see that one of the pyramids only has a sort of cap left at the top, the rest is eroded.
:-).
:-).
..
It's been an absolute *shocking* amount of work to build those things. I remember doing the tourist thing and walking out of the bus with a camera. I was slightly distracted by the heat, it's so hot there it's like walking into a wall, and 2 secs later your sweat glands spontaneously combust into steam
Then I looked ahead, up, and then up some more because the darn things are so high you need to look up quite a bit to see the top. They are absolutely friggin' HUGE, and I don't think we could even do this today even if we had unlimited resources and no laws/greens/labour shortages to get in the way. I really can't comprehend know how they did manage it unless they had help from from some heavy haulage UFOs..
In contrast, the Sphinx was actually a lot smaller, but as my only reference for its size came from Asterix and Obelix cartoons I guess that was to be expected
Even if they built with 'poured concrete' it still an insane amount of work to transport the material, and that heat would progress the chemical reaction so much quicker that I have trouble believing it to be actually doable. However, the silly things are there, thumbing their noses at my assertion that it can't be done either way so there's a lesson in there somewhere
It's a must-see sight IMHO - it's almost impossible to tell you how large and massive they are until you stand at the edge of one and crane your neck to see the top.
I like that one, mod +100 for humour.
..
I've told this before, but let me tell you this again - you ought to get yourself invited to a seminar where MS is flogging its wares to a high value buyer, say, Government. Go there because you can see your tax money being wasted right in front of your eyes.
A couple of characteristics:
(1) The person or group they're presenting to rarely has an ability to understand or question the "facts" presented. Classic golf course sales setup.
(2) The "facts" need careful examination. Rule 1 of any facts stated in a presentation is that you have to determine their origin - and check if that's really what was said. In the presentations I've seen (a good many) origin is rarely specified. Furthermore I've seen plenty of 'creative' interpretation of hard facts - again, they get away with it because the front row seaters don't have the ability to separate BS from fact.
(3) In case you were wondering about protests from the audience about the facts or 'hard questions' - take note of the ratio outsiders vs MS staff. It's usually close to 1:1. If you ask a painful question or one that makes it appear you can puncture the gloss you will immediately get engaged in quiet discussion by the MS person sitting next to you, and you will find he'll stick to you like glue during the break when you risk getting near the sales target (who will by surrounded by a thick circle of smiling MS execs to prevent you or any journo's getting near). Or, in short - you're stage managed the moment you open your mouth.
(4) somehow the solution to the buyers' problem is always straight there in the MS product set. No talks about integration, custom code to write, none of that. Just sign the contract for a huge volume and it'll all magically work.
This doesn't mean the people presenting don't know their stuff, but the sales tactics leave you wondering why the company needs it if it's really that good..
Honest? Cough
OTOH, he *could* just be planning to replace "get high marks if you wear a short skirt" with people that actually care about teaching. Teaching in Thailand won't make you rich, but the free healthcare is what draws, and that doesn't always equate to capable people doing the job.
I'm disappointed, but this guy is 100% new AFAIK - it's actually too early to know what he'll do.
If you have a non-knowledgeable PM your project will go down the drain if the underlying team hasn't got the ability to 'speak business' - or, in other words, if the PM is not able to straddle the two worlds it falls down to someone in the team which is less efficient because he/she/it also has a job to do.
/always/ trying to do the impossible :-) I have found communication to be the root cause in about 80% of cases, the other ones usually contractually, design failure or vendor problems.
The reason I know this so well is because it's reason no1 when I'm hired for project rescue. As long as the fundamentals are right (i.e. not
So, it depends a bit on team structure but I feel shared ability at management or PM level creates a more efficient project with smoother progress..
I read "MS dev" as "dev working for MS", you took the (more sensible) option of "dev working ON MS".
In that case it gets more complicated, because the whole library porting problem shows up. But no, obviously your code is your code..
Would you really like to invite MS to sue the crap out of every ex MS developer claiming code taint?
:-)
No? Didn't think so either.
Worth getting on DVD IMHO, it still makes me laugh :-)