It seems like the majority of the people could actually be trusted. So the solution to a problem like this is to restrict the access of the other 26%, reassign them, or fire them. (That's not precisely what the survey in TFA said about the percentages, but the point is still the same.)
No one said anything is superior "for everyone". Why would anyone ever say that about anything? Why are you confused about this?
It's possible to state an opinion without using weasel-words before or after every adjective and adverb. It's also possible to understand this, if you want to.
What if I'm not trying to save money? Maybe I want stuff that works the way I want, and I'm will to spend my own money to buy it. I could use a $200 netbook and not get what I want. Or I could buy what I want.
What if I'm not using my iPhone for CRM? What if the office network is WiFi? What if I choose my devices and working methods based on my actual life, not your incorrectly-imagined characterization of it? People choose based on their own particular needs. It's a good thing we do the choosing instead of you, because we have specific information about our lives and you clearly do not.
Isn't that the argument that public transportation advocates use?
The difference is that the IPhone/iPad/PS3 user made his own choice based on his own interests and considers his life improved. The 3 devices aren't just a substitute for a PC, they're superior.
Landfills take a negligible amount of land area. It's very tiny. By contrast, we have millions of square miles of forests. There's plenty of land for both.
And when landfills are "full", you can plant trees on top. So there's no long-term tradeoff between landfills and trees at all.
That's like saying "the amount of breathable air isn't unlimited". You're right. It's not unlimited. It is beyond sufficient for any foreseeable future.
Even in that situation, the IT guy could explain the problem to the users: "Our company requires 6 pages of forms to be filled out for that, and then it won't be approved until the 3rd request. Sorry. I don't make the rules, they just fire me if I break them. Maybe you should talk to your manager to argue for some process improvements." It's still "no", but you're taking the user's side against the broken process.
#1. The IT techs do NOT (as a rule) "impose more draconian controls than are strictly required". They are TOLD what to do by management.
Translation: Don't blame us, it's not our fault.
#2. If you (as a non-IT and non-management user) want something done differently, then put together a business case and send it up through your manager.
Translation: Write a document to prove you need to get your work done. Prove that your way of getting your job done is objectively, quantitatively better than the IT way. That document better be bulletproof. And IT will say your way costs them $x in time, so your way better save at least $2x.
#3. If your manager gets his/her manager and the other managers to approve and fund it then the IT techs will implement it.
Translation: If you follow a convoluted process designed to make sure you don't get what you want, and the process somehow fails to dissuade you, and your manager wants to play office politics for you, and he somehow wins, then IT will schedule your project to start 2 years from now.
No business case, no funding, no changes.
And that is the core of the problem. People WANT things because they WANT them. But they don't understand (nor do they want to understand) how their "small change" affects the whole company's IT system.
And IT doesn't care whether anyone is happy. And they only barely, indirectly care if anyone can get their work done.
And then Slashdot has a topic about "Why Everyone Hates the IT Department" and someone in an IT Department writes a post where he shows the problem exactly, but doesn't understand or doesn't care because everyone else is wrong.
(BTW: I used to be an IT guy. My users liked me because it was obvious to them that I was trying to make sure they could get their work done. I also tried to do minor stuff to make them happy. It was a lot of extra work. I realize this doesn't necessarily translate to larger companies. But having a helpful attitude costs nothing.)
Any security measure that's too inconvenient will be circumvented by users. Tell them to change their password every month, and they'll write it on a post-it note and stick it to their monitor. This stuff needs to be reasonable. The trade-off between security and usability can't always end up 100% on the security side. Because the resulting system won't be secure (except in a CIA-type context where security trumps effectiveness).
Wow, that government intrusion sounds horrible. Why can't the government just focus on making my health care decisions for me and deciding how much of my income I'll be allowed to keep?
I was actually just wondering, and there didn't seem to be an obvious answer I could guess. I like understanding things.
Sometimes I'll reply to a post like this because there seems to be a double-standard: someone will tell us we're supposed to respect diverse cultures, but then they'll openly mock the unique US culture. But I don't think the original poster was doing that here. And I genuinely wanted to know how rainfall amounts were expressed in metric units.
Cubic furlongs is a nonsense unit. A furlong is how far my oxen can pull a plow without resting. Oxen normally don't fly, and when they do fly, the plow no longer plows -- the furrow doesn't get any longer.
I'm not in that business, but I think it's acre-feet per minute or per hour. Because rivers drain rainfall, which falls on a watershed area measured in acres or square miles. Using straight volume measurements like liters or gallons would mean converting and then converting back. You want to know whether the levee is high enough, not how many 1-liter containers it would take to bail all the water out.
Do Europeans measure rainfall in cubic meters? Or liters? If you get 2cm of rainfall on a.2 square km plot of land, how much water is that? And how is it usually expressed?
Because 6 inches of rain on a 2 acre plot of land is an acre-foot of water. It's a sensible unit of measurement. When all that rain runs off into a 1 acre lake, can you guess how much higher the water level will be?
Watching the movie for the 20th time isn't "exposing kids to tech". If you interact with your kids a maximum amount of the time, that's probably better than listening to experts. Experts don't know your kids. Kids are individuals. Observe them and do what works.
Are you sure you're not the one failing the "Turning" test here? Flying into a rage at the slightest provocation and hurling around insults is not a sign of a deep and thoughtful mind.
What's he going to do next? Threaten people with jail time for saying something everyone knows is true?
The government says that sodium and fat are bad. If the government and their scientists and experts would just fuck off and let us live our lives, you wouldn't see this nonsense on food packages.
(Realistically, you'd probably see other nonsense though.)
Slashdot Mirror
It seems like the majority of the people could actually be trusted. So the solution to a problem like this is to restrict the access of the other 26%, reassign them, or fire them. (That's not precisely what the survey in TFA said about the percentages, but the point is still the same.)
No one said anything is superior "for everyone". Why would anyone ever say that about anything? Why are you confused about this?
It's possible to state an opinion without using weasel-words before or after every adjective and adverb. It's also possible to understand this, if you want to.
So now I need 2 or more PCs to get the reliability that I just take for granted on my iPad.
What if I'm not trying to save money? Maybe I want stuff that works the way I want, and I'm will to spend my own money to buy it. I could use a $200 netbook and not get what I want. Or I could buy what I want.
What if I'm not using my iPhone for CRM? What if the office network is WiFi? What if I choose my devices and working methods based on my actual life, not your incorrectly-imagined characterization of it? People choose based on their own particular needs. It's a good thing we do the choosing instead of you, because we have specific information about our lives and you clearly do not.
Isn't that the argument that public transportation advocates use?
The difference is that the IPhone/iPad/PS3 user made his own choice based on his own interests and considers his life improved. The 3 devices aren't just a substitute for a PC, they're superior.
Why should we be interested in your (or anyone's) made-up stories about the future though?
Except when your PC doesn't work and you're waiting for support to get it working.
Did the number 3 murder your parents or something? What's wrong with 3? What's your point?
Landfills take a negligible amount of land area. It's very tiny. By contrast, we have millions of square miles of forests. There's plenty of land for both.
And when landfills are "full", you can plant trees on top. So there's no long-term tradeoff between landfills and trees at all.
...landfill space isn't unlimited ...
That's like saying "the amount of breathable air isn't unlimited". You're right. It's not unlimited. It is beyond sufficient for any foreseeable future.
That sounds like fiction.
But if it's not, then there's no secret why "everyone hates IT" in that organization.
Even in that situation, the IT guy could explain the problem to the users: "Our company requires 6 pages of forms to be filled out for that, and then it won't be approved until the 3rd request. Sorry. I don't make the rules, they just fire me if I break them. Maybe you should talk to your manager to argue for some process improvements." It's still "no", but you're taking the user's side against the broken process.
#1. The IT techs do NOT (as a rule) "impose more draconian controls than are strictly required". They are TOLD what to do by management.
Translation: Don't blame us, it's not our fault.
#2. If you (as a non-IT and non-management user) want something done differently, then put together a business case and send it up through your manager.
Translation: Write a document to prove you need to get your work done. Prove that your way of getting your job done is objectively, quantitatively better than the IT way. That document better be bulletproof. And IT will say your way costs them $x in time, so your way better save at least $2x.
#3. If your manager gets his/her manager and the other managers to approve and fund it then the IT techs will implement it.
Translation: If you follow a convoluted process designed to make sure you don't get what you want, and the process somehow fails to dissuade you, and your manager wants to play office politics for you, and he somehow wins, then IT will schedule your project to start 2 years from now.
No business case, no funding, no changes.
And that is the core of the problem. People WANT things because they WANT them. But they don't understand (nor do they want to understand) how their "small change" affects the whole company's IT system.
And IT doesn't care whether anyone is happy. And they only barely, indirectly care if anyone can get their work done.
And then Slashdot has a topic about "Why Everyone Hates the IT Department" and someone in an IT Department writes a post where he shows the problem exactly, but doesn't understand or doesn't care because everyone else is wrong.
(BTW: I used to be an IT guy. My users liked me because it was obvious to them that I was trying to make sure they could get their work done. I also tried to do minor stuff to make them happy. It was a lot of extra work. I realize this doesn't necessarily translate to larger companies. But having a helpful attitude costs nothing.)
Any security measure that's too inconvenient will be circumvented by users. Tell them to change their password every month, and they'll write it on a post-it note and stick it to their monitor. This stuff needs to be reasonable. The trade-off between security and usability can't always end up 100% on the security side. Because the resulting system won't be secure (except in a CIA-type context where security trumps effectiveness).
Wow, that government intrusion sounds horrible. Why can't the government just focus on making my health care decisions for me and deciding how much of my income I'll be allowed to keep?
Or, just don't bother to release PC games at all, which is the choice they've made. It seems like that solves their problem and yours.
Who said Ubisoft expects you to support them?
Yes we do. But what is your point?
I was actually just wondering, and there didn't seem to be an obvious answer I could guess. I like understanding things.
Sometimes I'll reply to a post like this because there seems to be a double-standard: someone will tell us we're supposed to respect diverse cultures, but then they'll openly mock the unique US culture. But I don't think the original poster was doing that here. And I genuinely wanted to know how rainfall amounts were expressed in metric units.
Cubic furlongs is a nonsense unit. A furlong is how far my oxen can pull a plow without resting. Oxen normally don't fly, and when they do fly, the plow no longer plows -- the furrow doesn't get any longer.
I'm not in that business, but I think it's acre-feet per minute or per hour. Because rivers drain rainfall, which falls on a watershed area measured in acres or square miles. Using straight volume measurements like liters or gallons would mean converting and then converting back. You want to know whether the levee is high enough, not how many 1-liter containers it would take to bail all the water out.
Do Europeans measure rainfall in cubic meters? Or liters? If you get 2cm of rainfall on a .2 square km plot of land, how much water is that? And how is it usually expressed?
Because 6 inches of rain on a 2 acre plot of land is an acre-foot of water. It's a sensible unit of measurement. When all that rain runs off into a 1 acre lake, can you guess how much higher the water level will be?
Watching the movie for the 20th time isn't "exposing kids to tech". If you interact with your kids a maximum amount of the time, that's probably better than listening to experts. Experts don't know your kids. Kids are individuals. Observe them and do what works.
Are you sure you're not the one failing the "Turning" test here? Flying into a rage at the slightest provocation and hurling around insults is not a sign of a deep and thoughtful mind.
What's he going to do next? Threaten people with jail time for saying something everyone knows is true?
The government says that sodium and fat are bad. If the government and their scientists and experts would just fuck off and let us live our lives, you wouldn't see this nonsense on food packages.
(Realistically, you'd probably see other nonsense though.)
Creationists don't generally want you thrown in jail for disagreeing with them.