Ahh, this takes me back. Where I used to work (Motorola) we had a guy who would test out third-party products. He was a big, loud guy anyway, but when he was testing some voice recognition software it was hilarious. You'd hear across the cubicles "Dial 7" *pause* "Dial 7!" *pause* (computer): "Command not recognized. Please try again" "Dial 7" *pause* "DIA.."
(computer): "Cannot dial that number, please try again"
"Dial 7!"
(computer): "Dialing 5.... boo bee dee dat bap"
"DIAL SEVEN MOTHERFUCKER!"
It was a riot. I think that guy almost gave himself an aneurism testing that software.
Somehow this reminds me of Hofstadter's illustration of Godel's incompleteness theorem in Godel, Escher, Bach... wherein Achilles has a phonograph which he claims can reproduce any sound, so the tortoise gives him a record with a sound which destroys phonographs...
Everyone, please. Do yourself a favor, and buy this book. Read it. Then read it again. Then if you are feeling especially saucy, pick up his "Metamagical Themas" and see if you can wrap your brain around THAT one. Hofstadter is awesome.
Re:And now for a completely opposite viewpoint...
on
Take Back Your Time!
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· Score: 1
Jeez people, quit reproducing already!
And after that, you learn a LOT of the $hit you thought was important isn't.
Or, it could be that you have no choice but to change your priorities. Maybe having kids isn't important to everyone.
You are so on the money here, especially with the dollar sign. Having children just makes people greedy and makes them forget about their principles. Look at everyone who has ever sold out, they most likely have children! It's always in the name of trying to provide a good life for their kids that people forget their ethical responsibilities and do everything they can to bring in money.
Blah, if you really value your integrity, don't have children. If you're a sell-out, conformist dirtbag, have children. Having children IS selling out!
I agree with your statements, except that it isn't *always* selling out. The problem is that people have kids simply because "that is what you are supposed to do". Or even worse "that is what my god tells me to do". *IF* you are going to have kids, have them for the right reasons. Or hey, how about having a reason.
Keep the penis out of the vagina.
Whoa whoa whoa. Let's not get hasty - you can have one without the other.
I am not saying that the Linux patching process is cumbersome, but we gotta admit that the average users (not sysadmins) just can't begin to understand how to patch their Linux boxes.
What? Have you ever used Red Hat's up2date tool? It is easier then windows update.
Good point - but Linux != RedHat. Not to mentiont hat RedHat has to issue the patch before you can update it. IMO, the original poster's comments still stand.
OK, so they have said they are going to publish an official apology letter. I didn't see it on their website, or on the Wall Street Journal's or USA Today's websites.
Until I hear what they have to say about it, saying you are going to apologize doesn't count. I am guessing that the only reason they are sorry is because people got pissed and went to a different product. i.e. they aren't sorry for what they did, and don't recognize why it was wrong. Of course they'll issue an apology to try and get business back, but have they fixed the *real* issue? Probably not. Unless they admit that what they did was wrong, and show they understand why, then all they are doing is kissing ass because tax season is coming up.
I thought it was interesting that number 4 was the President of China. Note that he is an advocate of Open Source alternative to Windows...
No 4. Hu Jintaopresident, China
Last year's position : Not Placed
With China, size is everything and a population of some 1.3 billion people means the modernisation of Chinese society will turn the country into the most lucrative technology market in the world. The country already has 300 million mobile phone users - twice that of the US.
Panellist Ajay Chowdhury, managing partner at IDG Ventures Europe, said: "It will influence the world of technology in many different ways. First as a market and second as a lot of technology comes out of China. It is motoring ahead at a rate of knots."
But it is clear already that new president Jintao, the man charged with guiding China to its new superpower status, is not just going to throw its doors open to the usual western technology giants. The Chinese government is looking to develop its own 3G standard, while its support for the development of an open source alternative to Windows has already had Microsoft, somewhat ironically, complaining of anti-competitive practices.
If people just stopped using Outlook and only used plain text email there'd be much less of a security problem... I doubt Gabe over at Valve is going to be using it again any time soon.
Amen. People think I am crazy for using pine as my primary mail program. But I have yet to see a reason to stop using it. Just because there is something newer? Nope. Prettier? Nope. Provides more functionality? 'Fraid not. Allows me to create HTML emails? I think I will stab your eyes out now...
I can associate applications to open attachments, but *I* choose to open them. I can check my email from virtually anywhere, and I don't have to download all my messages. Download PuTTY, ssh in, check email, get out. Bing bang boom. Or, I could check it via my webmail account, nothing to download there either, unless I want to view an attachment.
I hate to sound like some old crusty dude, but you don't need all that fancy-pants stuff to use email.
Many managers were there because of ass-licking ability only.
Ahh, I could swap stories like this all day.
One of my managers there (who is still there) was a total incompetent ass. His theory was to promote people under him, because the more senior people you had working for you, the better you looked. But he would talk out of his ass too, and if he didn't like you, you wouldn't get the promotion. He told me what I needed to do to get promoted, then when I did it he would change his story. All the while, he was promoting everyone else around me. Turns out that our group was being split up, and I was going to work for another manager. All the people who hadn't gotten promoted went to the other manager, and he had all of the more senior people working for him. What a bastard. I found a lot of this out later, cause I still have friends who work there.
Another thing that irked me was their titles. I can see why it is necessary in a large corporation, but of course it was abused by all the managers. Basically, you come in with a degree at E06 (Engineering level 6) and work your way up. Overlapping pay scales ensure that they can promote you but not give you a raise, just to give you your "pellet". Once you get to E09, you are a senior, and you need to decide if you are going up the technical or the managerial ladder. When you get to E10, you are either a senior technical person or a manager. Once you choose your path, it is a serious pain to change it. I know one woman who went managerial and then switched, but it took her almost a year to switch. There was definitely a hierarchy there, so when you met another "Motorolan" you asked where they worked and what their grade level is. Oh, and you threw around names and acronyms a lot, like "My name is Jimmy, I am an 8 in NSD. Yeah, Ronnie Nonuts' group. Oh, you are a 9 in IS41? Do you know Harry Knutsack? He's a 12."
F'ing freaks. I went to a Christmas party 2 years after I left, and it was all Motorolans and their spouses. What a creepy-ass event. Everyone was playing with their pagers, and talking about work. Dammit, I am getting pissed off just thinking about it, so I am going to stop right here...
Speaking as an ex-Motorolan, I have to agree that this guy is spot-on. I worked there for two years, and this place was as close to Dilbert-land as can be possible in real life. "Steady decline", lifers, guys who have not done a stitch of work for years, baffling political undercurrents etc. I quickly learned that some of the secretaries are mines of information. I befriended a pretty one to whom all the bosses were known to spill the beans to make themselves seem important, and learned of important stuff weeks (sometimes months) before public pronouncements.
First off, drop the term "Motorolan" from your vocabulary.:-) To everyone else, that is what you called anyone who worked there. I never realized how weird it sounded until I left.
You are right on about getting to know the admins there. I was good friends with all of them in our department. Actually that is a good practice anywhere you work, because those people usually damn near run the place. Two people you should always get in good with - the admins and the IT guys (if you aren't one of them). I have gotten tons of free stuff from our IT guys.:-) But I digress...
I think Windows systems suffer more from vulnerabilities at the operating system level (possibly because it tried to integrate so many things) than application level (though they do exist). In Unix like environments, it is the opposite. The operating system is generally secure against remote attacks but it is the applications that run on top of the OS that introduce vulnerabilities.
As long as there is software there will be bugs, no matter where it is run.
A very excellent point. But consider this: Not everyone running *nix is running that vulnerable application - all Windows users are running the OS. The application can be uninstalled or turned off (or easily patched), whereas for the OS it is a different story.
Sounds like I am going to have to check out that code now. I was just so disappointed with their CD (and in myself for buying it) that I shelved it and forgot about it. Thanks for the tip.
Surprisingly enough, it was the opposite. We were on flex time. I came in around 9:00, would take an hour lunch, sometimes more, and would work until 6:00 or 7:00. But I put in a lot of late nights, many times weekends. There was one stretch where I worked 60 hour weeks back to back. The record hours for our department was 83 in a week. It seemed the more we worked, the more was expected of us. But aside from all that, which I think was just our department's management, the overall culture was kind of weird. But only if you looked at it from the outside. From the inside, it was all normal.
Don't get me wrong, there were some very smart people there, and I learned a lot. I use what I learned as a benchmark for what I do now. They had a lot of good processes in place. We were CMM level 3 at one point. We were working with telephony equipment and emerging technology in cellular. We used Tandem computers, which were huge refrigerator sized fault-tolerant machines. I had to learn a new OS (Guardian). I learned a lot about how to (and how not to) implement process and procedures. I also learned how stupid a big company can be. On our Sun servers, we each had our own webpage. Me and another guy rolled out our department's internal website. This was back when Mosaic first came out. The web was new, so it was cool to learn. Hell, we didn't even have access to web yet! But there is a dark side - I got written up by HR for having "non-work related material" on my web page. They were engineering jokes someone had emailed me. It was total BS, they wanted to write me up as a class 1 infraction, which meant one more and I would be fired. My boss tried to stand up for me, and essentially got it knocked down to a class 2 infraction. That was the beginning of the end for my time there, and I knew it was time to leave. I value what I learned there, but I am so glad that I left.
Those of you who graduated from college in the 1990s or 2000s likely won't remember this, but in the 1980s, Motorola was one of the view companies that was consistently beating Japanese companies in quality. They were hailed by US government and business leaders alike as an exemplar of what an American business could do in a challenging international market.
I graduated in '93, and I got a job at Motorola in the cellular division. I worked there for 5 years, and couldn't take it anymore. Their "culture" is manufactured, and I was very surprised that they got anything accomplished. But it depends on the different divisions and how they are doing. Ours (cellular services) did OK, but we were riding on the coattails of the divisions that were doing really good (phone mfgr and radios comes to mind). They had a bonus plan in place were every 6 months you got a bonus if you met the goals set out for your division. It was given to you as a percentage of what you made in the previous 6 months. My first 6 months there we got 11%, then 4%, then 1.3%, then they cut it out all together. The year before I got there, one division got 34%. They capped it after that. It would actually produce animosity within the company. It was generally a solid company that was on a steady decline. People who had been there 10 years who were just skating on their "time served". People who had been there 20+ years who were called "lifers" and they could pretty much do as little as they wished. Ten years was called "getting your tenure". Boy, those people got a wake-up call a couple of years ago. Some people have only worked there, and they don't know what goes on outside of Moto. If you have ever met someone who has worked there for a long time, you know what I mean. Many people I know that left there have had similar experiences.
It is a very weird place. After I lost my job at the place I left Moto for (company investors pulled out during the bubble burst), I went back to Moto. I thought "it can't be as bad as I remember it." It was. I went to have a meeting to do a pre-interview. Some HR drone talked to me to gauge my skillset. I was told it would be about 4 weeks for my paperwork to be processed, and if I was a fit anywhere, I would be contacted for interviews. It was such a sterile, devoid atmosphere that it was creepy. I told her "thanks, but no thanks" and walked out, vowing to never go back.
This is just further proof that nobody sits on top forever, and that keeping a very large, multinational business dynamic is a tremendously difficult task.
I got to see just one small piece of the company, and if the rest of it was anything at all like where I worked, good riddance. Of course, I do own stock that I purchased while there. It was around 90, then did a 3 to 1 split, and now it is around 11. Yay.
Actually, the couple in the back having sex is placed there by the MPAA. They figure, if you can video tape people having sex with your handi-cam, you won't bother with the movie...
It's a new lossy compression method. You rip one track, and include a text file that says, "... And a lot more of the same..."
I would rephrase that as a "no real loss" compression method.
Yes, I bought their album. I am a long time Metallica fan (since the beginning), and the only reason I bought it was because my wife had several gift certificates for Borders, and she wanted to use them up. I have listened to that album twice, and I could barely get through it both times. What a stinker. It also came with a DVD, which I haven't watched, and some special code to get free music over the net (which I haven't used). Why would I want crappy, free music? I paid good money for my crappy music, thank you very much.
Usually I just don't answer the phone unless I know who it is. If it is someone I know, I can pick up while the are leaving a message. Although it is funny when the stupid telemarketer leaves a message because they don't realize my machine picked up.
But I found that being honest is the best policy. When they start their sales pitch, I'll stop them and ask them again what the name of the company is. I'll pretend to write it down (or I may actually write it down), making sure to get the spelling correct. I will then thank them, and say that I will never ever buy anything from them because they called me at home. I did this with a window company that called. I said that we will probably be needing new windows in the next year or two (true), but I would make sure that I didn't buy them from them. I told them they just did me a favor by eliminating one of the possible choices of where to buy windows. If they feel like being dicks and arguing, I can justify myself by saying that I usually ask friends for recommendations, and I would make sure to recommend to everyone I know against buying windows from their company. They usually want to get off the phone pretty quickly.
One company KEPT calling, almost daily for a month. We never once answered their call, it was from TELNET ASSOCIATES. Since I have all telnet ports blocked on my Linux machines, I knew it was probably a telemarketer. Finally, I was fed up, and answered when they called. I asked them why they were calling. She started to go into her spiel, and I said more firmly "No. WHY are you calling me? You have been calling me for the past month, and I haven't answered your call yet. Why do you keep trying? Do you think I will buy something if you continue to annoy me? If you have a list, take me off of it. If you don't, then never ever call here again." She said "OK" and hung up.
Editor Timmy says: "My favorite pen is an aluminum Lamy fountain pen -- can anyone recommend a good place to order Lamy ink in the U.S.? "
Gee, if only there was some kind of searchable, massive collection of computers that were all hooked together somehow, and contained this kind of information. If businesses were a part of it, it would be even better.
Good point. But you can only plan for a test phase. The outcome of it is not plannable.
But the outcome is estimatable. (word?) Ideally, you should be estimating how many defects you'll find, and their severity. All that should to into your QA plan up front, before you ever see the code. But that applies more to stable projects with a measurable history. You could still do it for a new project, you'd just be less accurate.
Of course, all of this is theoretical - I have been doing QA/Testing for 10 years, and I haven't seen anyone actually do this. Or a lot of the other things you are "supposed" to do. Everyone picks and chooses what they do to fit their needs. A rock-solid QA process depends on input from a lot of other sources, and without 100% upper management support, it ain't going to happen the way it should.
Either way, the damage to Linux has been done. Whether SCO is totally wrong in their accusations, which this letter from SGI will assist, Linux and Open Source software will look that little bit less appetising to any corporation. SCO will certainly tarnish Open Source, but hopefully SGI will soften the blow with this open letter. Good Work SGI!
I wondered about this too, but I don't think much damage has been done at all. Look at Microsoft, and the amount of legal troubles they have encountered. Have they been damamged by it? PHBs don't read tech news, and this story has really not made much more than a blip on anything other than high-tech reports. Furthermore, who carries more weight and credibility - IBM or SCO? PHBs also have a short memory when it comes to money. If something can save them money, they'll do it.
I have some friends who use and follow Linux, and they are barely aware of the SCO lawsuit. Unless you read the daily SCO stories on Slashdot, then it kind of blends in with all of the other tech news. But ultimately, the "damage" will come when the verdict is reached. (i.e. none, because SCO will lose.) In that case, "Linux" (really the GPL) has gone to court and won, so it will have some established credibility in the legal community. Up to this point, it hasn't really been tested.
Neither IBM's method nor Netscape's method were able to diagnose the failure and point the user to a fix.
Error! You have attempted to play unauthorized music which is controlled by the RIAA. Your MSN account has been charged $150,000 for the violation.
While this sounds like a feature that could be put to good use if implemented correctly, I can't imagine that Microsoft will be able to resist the urge to abuse it. With DRM, signed applications, and "trusted" computing, the odds it would get abused are very high. Of course, that assumes it is ever developed. After all, just the IDEA of it is now patented, so they don't even have to develop it.
I have thought about this as well. The internet has allowed me to not feel the need to watch the annoying nightly news. Why wait on the edge of my seat for the weather report on the nightly news, or sit through weather I don't care about on the Weather Channel, when I can *clickety* *click* at weather.com and have my answer in seconds. Why sit through the "battle of the most sensational child abduction story" or the "who is dating who in Hollywood" garbage when I can peruse the headlines at my.yahoo.com on the topics I am interested in? I get a lot of info from NPR as well, even though sometimes I have already read about the stories online.
Always-on internet access is fantastic. No sitting through horrendous voice menus at 444-FILM (amctheatres.com) Can't remember what other movies that guy was in? (imdb.com) Many many many other uses.
But we aren't there yet. I needed a carpenter at one point in time. Am I only going to pick one if I can find them on the internet? Nope. I live in a relatively small community on the outskirts of a big city. I picked up the very thin local phone book for that. Oddly enough, I scoured the local phone books and asked around for lawn maintenance recommendations, and couldn't find anything. A Google search didn't turn up much for my area, but then I noticed a sponsored link. That is who we ended up using. (I think that was the first time I ever used a sponsored link). Got a personal recommendation for a vet in the area. I still subscribe to Scientific American and Skeptical Inquirer, because online publications just don't do it for me yet in some respects. Books are still king. Nothing like sitting in Borders or Barnes and Noble for a few hours browsing. You could never put things like the Louvre on the internet and capture the experience.
Right now it is a combination for me, with the Internet offering a lot. A lot of times it is the first place I go for info, in the areas where it has a clear advantage (mass searching, access to specific information). I still rely on recommendations and word of mouth for a lot of info, even though they may come to me via the Internet (email to friends). I don't see it taking over more traditional means of information, but it is a damn fine supplement to it.
As an example, our dog drank some hot cocoa the other night. Chocolate can be deadly to dogs, and he is a 4lb Chihuahua, so we were worried. I did a quick search on the net for info while my wife looked up the number of the local 24hr animal hospital. Even though what I found said that hot cocoa probably wasn't deadly because of the low chocolate content, we still called the vet. Some things require validation from multiple sources. (and the dog was fine.)
Slashdot Mirror
"Dial 7"
*pause*
"Dial 7!"
*pause*
(computer): "Command not recognized. Please try again"
"Dial 7"
*pause*
"DIA.."
(computer): "Cannot dial that number, please try again"
"Dial 7!"
(computer): "Dialing 5.... boo bee dee dat bap"
"DIAL SEVEN MOTHERFUCKER!"
It was a riot. I think that guy almost gave himself an aneurism testing that software.
Everyone, please. Do yourself a favor, and buy this book. Read it. Then read it again. Then if you are feeling especially saucy, pick up his "Metamagical Themas" and see if you can wrap your brain around THAT one. Hofstadter is awesome.
Or, it could be that you have no choice but to change your priorities. Maybe having kids isn't important to everyone.
You are so on the money here, especially with the dollar sign. Having children just makes people greedy and makes them forget about their principles. Look at everyone who has ever sold out, they most likely have children! It's always in the name of trying to provide a good life for their kids that people forget their ethical responsibilities and do everything they can to bring in money. Blah, if you really value your integrity, don't have children. If you're a sell-out, conformist dirtbag, have children. Having children IS selling out!
I agree with your statements, except that it isn't *always* selling out. The problem is that people have kids simply because "that is what you are supposed to do". Or even worse "that is what my god tells me to do". *IF* you are going to have kids, have them for the right reasons. Or hey, how about having a reason.
Keep the penis out of the vagina.
Whoa whoa whoa. Let's not get hasty - you can have one without the other.
No, you've still got shithouse weather.
And the bland, gray food.
What? Have you ever used Red Hat's up2date tool? It is easier then windows update.
Good point - but Linux != RedHat. Not to mentiont hat RedHat has to issue the patch before you can update it. IMO, the original poster's comments still stand.
I thought this sounded familiar - here it is!
Until I hear what they have to say about it, saying you are going to apologize doesn't count. I am guessing that the only reason they are sorry is because people got pissed and went to a different product. i.e. they aren't sorry for what they did, and don't recognize why it was wrong. Of course they'll issue an apology to try and get business back, but have they fixed the *real* issue? Probably not. Unless they admit that what they did was wrong, and show they understand why, then all they are doing is kissing ass because tax season is coming up.
Irfanview - hands down the best image viewer out there for Windows. Free. Windows only (but will run under Wine if you want)
Gimp - if you want to edit images. Free. Linux and Windows.
MAME - for games, period. Free. You can buy some ROMs, or *ahem* ask around. Windows and Linux. (Xmame)
CDex - for CD ripping in Windows. Free. Windows only, but several good ripping programs are available for Linux. (search freshmeat)
GNUWin - a collection of free apps for Windows. Worth the download.
Audacity - if you want to create/edit sound files. Free. Linux and Windows.
Winamp - for listening to audio files. Free. Windows only. I like XMMS for Linux over Freeamp.
Opera - web browsing, email. Free. Windows and Linux. I prefer it over Mozilla, but not by much.
I thought it was interesting that number 4 was the President of China. Note that he is an advocate of Open Source alternative to Windows...
No 4. Hu Jintaopresident, China
Last year's position : Not Placed
With China, size is everything and a population of some 1.3 billion people means the modernisation of Chinese society will turn the country into the most lucrative technology market in the world. The country already has 300 million mobile phone users - twice that of the US.
Panellist Ajay Chowdhury, managing partner at IDG Ventures Europe, said: "It will influence the world of technology in many different ways. First as a market and second as a lot of technology comes out of China. It is motoring ahead at a rate of knots."
But it is clear already that new president Jintao, the man charged with guiding China to its new superpower status, is not just going to throw its doors open to the usual western technology giants. The Chinese government is looking to develop its own 3G standard, while its support for the development of an open source alternative to Windows has already had Microsoft, somewhat ironically, complaining of anti-competitive practices.
Amen. People think I am crazy for using pine as my primary mail program. But I have yet to see a reason to stop using it. Just because there is something newer? Nope. Prettier? Nope. Provides more functionality? 'Fraid not. Allows me to create HTML emails? I think I will stab your eyes out now...
I can associate applications to open attachments, but *I* choose to open them. I can check my email from virtually anywhere, and I don't have to download all my messages. Download PuTTY, ssh in, check email, get out. Bing bang boom. Or, I could check it via my webmail account, nothing to download there either, unless I want to view an attachment.
I hate to sound like some old crusty dude, but you don't need all that fancy-pants stuff to use email.
Ahh, I could swap stories like this all day.
One of my managers there (who is still there) was a total incompetent ass. His theory was to promote people under him, because the more senior people you had working for you, the better you looked. But he would talk out of his ass too, and if he didn't like you, you wouldn't get the promotion. He told me what I needed to do to get promoted, then when I did it he would change his story. All the while, he was promoting everyone else around me. Turns out that our group was being split up, and I was going to work for another manager. All the people who hadn't gotten promoted went to the other manager, and he had all of the more senior people working for him. What a bastard. I found a lot of this out later, cause I still have friends who work there.
Another thing that irked me was their titles. I can see why it is necessary in a large corporation, but of course it was abused by all the managers. Basically, you come in with a degree at E06 (Engineering level 6) and work your way up. Overlapping pay scales ensure that they can promote you but not give you a raise, just to give you your "pellet". Once you get to E09, you are a senior, and you need to decide if you are going up the technical or the managerial ladder. When you get to E10, you are either a senior technical person or a manager. Once you choose your path, it is a serious pain to change it. I know one woman who went managerial and then switched, but it took her almost a year to switch. There was definitely a hierarchy there, so when you met another "Motorolan" you asked where they worked and what their grade level is. Oh, and you threw around names and acronyms a lot, like "My name is Jimmy, I am an 8 in NSD. Yeah, Ronnie Nonuts' group. Oh, you are a 9 in IS41? Do you know Harry Knutsack? He's a 12."
F'ing freaks. I went to a Christmas party 2 years after I left, and it was all Motorolans and their spouses. What a creepy-ass event. Everyone was playing with their pagers, and talking about work. Dammit, I am getting pissed off just thinking about it, so I am going to stop right here...
First off, drop the term "Motorolan" from your vocabulary. :-) To everyone else, that is what you called anyone who worked there. I never realized how weird it sounded until I left.
You are right on about getting to know the admins there. I was good friends with all of them in our department. Actually that is a good practice anywhere you work, because those people usually damn near run the place. Two people you should always get in good with - the admins and the IT guys (if you aren't one of them). I have gotten tons of free stuff from our IT guys. :-) But I digress...
A very excellent point. But consider this: Not everyone running *nix is running that vulnerable application - all Windows users are running the OS. The application can be uninstalled or turned off (or easily patched), whereas for the OS it is a different story.
Sounds like I am going to have to check out that code now. I was just so disappointed with their CD (and in myself for buying it) that I shelved it and forgot about it. Thanks for the tip.
Surprisingly enough, it was the opposite. We were on flex time. I came in around 9:00, would take an hour lunch, sometimes more, and would work until 6:00 or 7:00. But I put in a lot of late nights, many times weekends. There was one stretch where I worked 60 hour weeks back to back. The record hours for our department was 83 in a week. It seemed the more we worked, the more was expected of us. But aside from all that, which I think was just our department's management, the overall culture was kind of weird. But only if you looked at it from the outside. From the inside, it was all normal.
Don't get me wrong, there were some very smart people there, and I learned a lot. I use what I learned as a benchmark for what I do now. They had a lot of good processes in place. We were CMM level 3 at one point. We were working with telephony equipment and emerging technology in cellular. We used Tandem computers, which were huge refrigerator sized fault-tolerant machines. I had to learn a new OS (Guardian). I learned a lot about how to (and how not to) implement process and procedures. I also learned how stupid a big company can be. On our Sun servers, we each had our own webpage. Me and another guy rolled out our department's internal website. This was back when Mosaic first came out. The web was new, so it was cool to learn. Hell, we didn't even have access to web yet! But there is a dark side - I got written up by HR for having "non-work related material" on my web page. They were engineering jokes someone had emailed me. It was total BS, they wanted to write me up as a class 1 infraction, which meant one more and I would be fired. My boss tried to stand up for me, and essentially got it knocked down to a class 2 infraction. That was the beginning of the end for my time there, and I knew it was time to leave. I value what I learned there, but I am so glad that I left.
I graduated in '93, and I got a job at Motorola in the cellular division. I worked there for 5 years, and couldn't take it anymore. Their "culture" is manufactured, and I was very surprised that they got anything accomplished. But it depends on the different divisions and how they are doing. Ours (cellular services) did OK, but we were riding on the coattails of the divisions that were doing really good (phone mfgr and radios comes to mind). They had a bonus plan in place were every 6 months you got a bonus if you met the goals set out for your division. It was given to you as a percentage of what you made in the previous 6 months. My first 6 months there we got 11%, then 4%, then 1.3%, then they cut it out all together. The year before I got there, one division got 34%. They capped it after that. It would actually produce animosity within the company. It was generally a solid company that was on a steady decline. People who had been there 10 years who were just skating on their "time served". People who had been there 20+ years who were called "lifers" and they could pretty much do as little as they wished. Ten years was called "getting your tenure". Boy, those people got a wake-up call a couple of years ago. Some people have only worked there, and they don't know what goes on outside of Moto. If you have ever met someone who has worked there for a long time, you know what I mean. Many people I know that left there have had similar experiences.
It is a very weird place. After I lost my job at the place I left Moto for (company investors pulled out during the bubble burst), I went back to Moto. I thought "it can't be as bad as I remember it." It was. I went to have a meeting to do a pre-interview. Some HR drone talked to me to gauge my skillset. I was told it would be about 4 weeks for my paperwork to be processed, and if I was a fit anywhere, I would be contacted for interviews. It was such a sterile, devoid atmosphere that it was creepy. I told her "thanks, but no thanks" and walked out, vowing to never go back.
This is just further proof that nobody sits on top forever, and that keeping a very large, multinational business dynamic is a tremendously difficult task.
I got to see just one small piece of the company, and if the rest of it was anything at all like where I worked, good riddance. Of course, I do own stock that I purchased while there. It was around 90, then did a 3 to 1 split, and now it is around 11. Yay.
Those fuckers!
*ducks*
So how exactly does one phone a black hole?
I would rephrase that as a "no real loss" compression method.
Yes, I bought their album. I am a long time Metallica fan (since the beginning), and the only reason I bought it was because my wife had several gift certificates for Borders, and she wanted to use them up. I have listened to that album twice, and I could barely get through it both times. What a stinker. It also came with a DVD, which I haven't watched, and some special code to get free music over the net (which I haven't used). Why would I want crappy, free music? I paid good money for my crappy music, thank you very much.
But I found that being honest is the best policy. When they start their sales pitch, I'll stop them and ask them again what the name of the company is. I'll pretend to write it down (or I may actually write it down), making sure to get the spelling correct. I will then thank them, and say that I will never ever buy anything from them because they called me at home. I did this with a window company that called. I said that we will probably be needing new windows in the next year or two (true), but I would make sure that I didn't buy them from them. I told them they just did me a favor by eliminating one of the possible choices of where to buy windows. If they feel like being dicks and arguing, I can justify myself by saying that I usually ask friends for recommendations, and I would make sure to recommend to everyone I know against buying windows from their company. They usually want to get off the phone pretty quickly.
One company KEPT calling, almost daily for a month. We never once answered their call, it was from TELNET ASSOCIATES. Since I have all telnet ports blocked on my Linux machines, I knew it was probably a telemarketer. Finally, I was fed up, and answered when they called. I asked them why they were calling. She started to go into her spiel, and I said more firmly "No. WHY are you calling me? You have been calling me for the past month, and I haven't answered your call yet. Why do you keep trying? Do you think I will buy something if you continue to annoy me? If you have a list, take me off of it. If you don't, then never ever call here again." She said "OK" and hung up.
Telemarketers - the original spam.
Gee, if only there was some kind of searchable, massive collection of computers that were all hooked together somehow, and contained this kind of information. If businesses were a part of it, it would be even better.
But the outcome is estimatable. (word?) Ideally, you should be estimating how many defects you'll find, and their severity. All that should to into your QA plan up front, before you ever see the code. But that applies more to stable projects with a measurable history. You could still do it for a new project, you'd just be less accurate.
Of course, all of this is theoretical - I have been doing QA/Testing for 10 years, and I haven't seen anyone actually do this. Or a lot of the other things you are "supposed" to do. Everyone picks and chooses what they do to fit their needs. A rock-solid QA process depends on input from a lot of other sources, and without 100% upper management support, it ain't going to happen the way it should.
I wondered about this too, but I don't think much damage has been done at all. Look at Microsoft, and the amount of legal troubles they have encountered. Have they been damamged by it? PHBs don't read tech news, and this story has really not made much more than a blip on anything other than high-tech reports. Furthermore, who carries more weight and credibility - IBM or SCO? PHBs also have a short memory when it comes to money. If something can save them money, they'll do it.
I have some friends who use and follow Linux, and they are barely aware of the SCO lawsuit. Unless you read the daily SCO stories on Slashdot, then it kind of blends in with all of the other tech news. But ultimately, the "damage" will come when the verdict is reached. (i.e. none, because SCO will lose.) In that case, "Linux" (really the GPL) has gone to court and won, so it will have some established credibility in the legal community. Up to this point, it hasn't really been tested.
Error! You have attempted to play unauthorized music which is controlled by the RIAA. Your MSN account has been charged $150,000 for the violation.
While this sounds like a feature that could be put to good use if implemented correctly, I can't imagine that Microsoft will be able to resist the urge to abuse it. With DRM, signed applications, and "trusted" computing, the odds it would get abused are very high. Of course, that assumes it is ever developed. After all, just the IDEA of it is now patented, so they don't even have to develop it.
Always-on internet access is fantastic. No sitting through horrendous voice menus at 444-FILM (amctheatres.com) Can't remember what other movies that guy was in? (imdb.com) Many many many other uses.
But we aren't there yet. I needed a carpenter at one point in time. Am I only going to pick one if I can find them on the internet? Nope. I live in a relatively small community on the outskirts of a big city. I picked up the very thin local phone book for that. Oddly enough, I scoured the local phone books and asked around for lawn maintenance recommendations, and couldn't find anything. A Google search didn't turn up much for my area, but then I noticed a sponsored link. That is who we ended up using. (I think that was the first time I ever used a sponsored link). Got a personal recommendation for a vet in the area. I still subscribe to Scientific American and Skeptical Inquirer, because online publications just don't do it for me yet in some respects. Books are still king. Nothing like sitting in Borders or Barnes and Noble for a few hours browsing. You could never put things like the Louvre on the internet and capture the experience.
Right now it is a combination for me, with the Internet offering a lot. A lot of times it is the first place I go for info, in the areas where it has a clear advantage (mass searching, access to specific information). I still rely on recommendations and word of mouth for a lot of info, even though they may come to me via the Internet (email to friends). I don't see it taking over more traditional means of information, but it is a damn fine supplement to it.
As an example, our dog drank some hot cocoa the other night. Chocolate can be deadly to dogs, and he is a 4lb Chihuahua, so we were worried. I did a quick search on the net for info while my wife looked up the number of the local 24hr animal hospital. Even though what I found said that hot cocoa probably wasn't deadly because of the low chocolate content, we still called the vet. Some things require validation from multiple sources. (and the dog was fine.)