1. Star Trek was a TV show, where wasting valuable time on inconsequential things isn't done. They did not need to explain how they got stuff, they just got it. Plus, pocket on the uniforms would have ruined the look.
2. Even so, there was still evidence of some sort of medium of exchange and way to establish value. People did thing that produced valuable items, and had things that did not appear to be what they made, which implies there would be some way to establish value and determine what is a worthwhile rate of exchange for other items.
3. Academics write papers because that is the currency the value...
It's fraud pure and simple. How are you to know what the actual emissions are? Are they going to give you a device to put on your tail pipe so you can measure the emissions? No they're not. Manufacturers are fighting changes to the tests that would make them real world tests. So yes, fraud.
While the real world may not mirror the test, that is not the manufacturers fault no fraud on their part. It's up to the government to decide what are the minimum standards and how they want to test; the manufacturers then get to decide how they will meet those standards. Absent cheating like VW did the manufacturers are doing nothing wrong; especially since the standard setters already know their numbers are bogus but lack the will to make changes. Any fraud is on the part of the legislatures who fail to fix the problem due to a lack of political will.
Is this true for all tests or only those put forward by political parties you disagree with?
Are the EIT, PE and medical boards also worthless?
There is nothing wrong with teaching to a well written test.
Vey true, and having a test that reasonably accurately assesses the kownledge of an applicant regarding a relevant set of required knowledge to be minimally qualified to carry out a job is worthwhile. Unfortunately, some standardized test do not do that but are used simply because it is easy to get a number.
Better than teaching to the whim of the HS teachers. Who I must remind you are the dregs of college students.
Some may be, but there are plenty who go or went into teaching because they loved it and had other options but felt they were called to teach. Unfortunately, many of those are bolting at the first chance they get and telling kids who want to be teachers to do anything else because all they'll get is a terrible, thankless job for low pay. In the end, we'll get people who can't do anything else.
The law says "pass this test" so they pass the test.
How is this different than standardized testing in schools? The state says "pass this test" so the teachers train the kids to pass the test.
Do they actually LEARN anything useful for the real world?
Do these cars actually have low emissions when driven in the real world??
You be the judge.
Which is the fundamental problem with many metrics used to judge success. People measure an outcome without think about what they really want to accomplish. You want me to hit X? Ok, I'll hit X. Oh, you really wanted me to do Y which might stop me from hitting X? Sorry, I got rewarded for hitting X so Y got run over in the process. Thank you for playing, better luck next time, and I have some lovely parting gifts for you...
Is there some compelling reason why these tests aren't being conducted in realistic conditions in the first place?
Jobs. No government wants to all of a sudden have car manufacturers have to stop making diesels until they can comply and thus or lay off workers or require cash injections to stave off bankruptcy. In auditor, given the fuel cost advantage of diesel over gas the car buying public is likely to be upset. Since politicians neither want to piss off companies or voters they prefer to pretend the problem doesn't exist and delay changes through the beuracratic process know as "Studying the problem to come up with a report" to ensure real changes do not get made while giving the appearance of taking action.
It's no big secret that manufacturers do everything they can to make sure a car passes the test regime; that is not illegal as long as they don't do something VW does even though the test configuration may not represent what the real world emissions will be. There is a big difference between optimizing a design so that it passes a test and, in theory at lest, if the vehicle is maintained and driven the same way was in the the test conditions will have the same emissions and designing a system to perform one way during a test and then bypass the controls on actual vehicles. One is good engineering and the other is criminal. Part of the problem is the test design doesn't really simulate real world driving conditions and if they changed the tests cars wouldn't pass and then they'd have to lower the standards to much indignation and outrage from politicians and the public. So we all play a silly little game and don't ask embarrassing questions.
I guess 20-30 years would be enough to prove that it' a viable currency in the long term.
even if BTC as a currency never gets any useful due to exchange rate instabilities,
bitcoin the protocole is already extremely useful.
(absence of a central authority being instead distributed across the whole network, and thus freedom to chose any provider for both ends (customer and merchant) of a transaction - both don't need to have accounts at PayPal, or at the Visa / MasterCard duopoly, etc.)
Exactly. Currency, to be viable, must be a reliable store of value. Large swings in value negate that, even as it makes it a useful speculative investment. The protocol is useful for what it provides, but that can be replicated by any number of currencies should someone want to so do. As long as there is a way to immediately convert BitCoin to real money you'll be able to buy things with it; if only because all it is acting as is an intermediary to facilitate the transaction and thus unlikely to see any significant change in value from the time a payment is made to when the receiver converts the BitCoin to dollars, Euros, or whatever. As soon as liquidity becomes a problem BitCoin, as a transaction system, will cease to be useful for most transactions and the ability to instantaneously convert large amount of BitCoin to real money has always been one of the hurdles to overcome. It may be all well and good that someone has say $20 million in Bitcoin but since they couldn't go to an exchange and say send $20 million to my bank and have the transaction go through right away like any other wire transfer is a problem; especially since that $20 million could be worth a lot less the next day or so as yo parcel out the transactions in small enough amounts the exchanges could handle.
This is when corporate lawyers start echoing the standard refrains of "Don't destroy any records", "where is your search warrant" and "don't talk to investigators or the press without a lawyer present" lines to everybody.
Somebody is likely going to jail, or at least facing criminal charges in both the EU and the USA.... Expect there to be a lot of finger pointing from here on out.
I agree withe everything up to "don't talk to investigators or the press without a lawyer present." Never forget that a corporate lawyer doesn't represent you, he or she is their to protect the corporation and will throw you under the bus at the first opportunity. Anytime a lawyer is sent to "help" the first thing to ask is "Who you represent?" followed by "are you my lawyer?" and "is everything we say confidential and privileged?"
if the answer to the last two isn't yes and yes they are not on your side.
I need to agree. Germans take a lot of pride in Engineering as a culture. To say the German Engineers took short cuts just to pass US tests seems more unlikely than a strict Wink-Wink-Nudge-Nundge from the Bosses to the engineers with the side effect of or-else.
Befehl ist befehl. While they may not have direct orders to do something the pressure to "fix the problem" and not bother with telling me the details sounds like what may have happened. At any rate, I would find the executives' argument weak; especially for a screw up as big as this. Someone senior will have to take the fall, if only to prevent a slow drip, drip , drip of revelation that brings down the entire executive team and potentially VW.
But again; even if uber is terrible and dangerous, why should we be treated like infants and not allowed to make up our own minds? Also continuing with the uber is a death trap; then other companies could come along in a free market and offer safer drives. People would probably choose them instead. Free market. Just like all the other vendors in London who don't have quotas. Restaurants, lawyers, dentists, clothing stores. All of those businesses would probably love a quota eliminating new competition. But it wouldn't serve the public at all.
But if this monopoly had never been set up and competition had always been allowed we would not be having this discussion and Uber would be having trouble making any headway in London, it would simply be one more competitor in a competitive market.
As someone who works in a place with minimal cab regulation and thus maximum competition I welcome Uber's entry. I've gotten cabs with drivers who don't even know the local area, cabs with dash warning lights beyond just check engine, and fares weren't cheap. All it takes is a car and a sign asking taxi to be a cab; plus a sticker indicating you've paid the airport tax (gov't wants their cut) so Uber is a step up.
Just because it would cost $5 billion to replicate the c code doesn't mean its value is $5 billion. Some could be worth a lot more that the replication costs, and some total worthless despite huge replication costs.
I see this as a wider problem, not just with managers.
It is no different than the problem I have seen with many developers/programmers who are unwilling to learn (to the point of fighting it) the business that they are developing software for. Most developers develop software for some business other than for other developers and refusing to educate yourself about the business that you are developing for limits the usefulness of those resources.
Similarly, Managers managing technical people should learn what they are managing - though they don't necessarily have to worry about the details of it. Of course the smaller the company the more knowledge technically that manager should have since there is less room for specialization.
Exactly. It's not about having mangers who are great programmers/admins/etc., rather it is the ability to understand the concepts and thus be able to talk intelligently with their staff and explain what they are doing to more senior leadership. Your point about programmers understanding the business needs of their customers is spot on, although many programmers will decry the need to so do. I recently got involved in yet another iT project, despite my great desire to avoid them at any cost, and after explaining in great detail exactly what we are looking for, including detailed data descriptions including data types and input rules, process flows, screen mockups etc, the programmer came back with a very detailed overview of the calendaring function he was building for us. Trouble is, I neither need nor want a calendar function, I want what I described. Yes, the software has really neat calendaring abilities but I really don't give a damn how cool they are because ether don't do what I need. Far too often both sides of the table seem unable to talk in a language the other understands and get a common understanding of what is needed.
As for the CFO not having a financial background, of course they have one but they also understand and probably have been involved in operations and other line/staff functions and understand what they do. Similarly, a CIO should have the same breadth of experience.
It amazes me just how many people (criminals especially) just don't get this.
In Hollywood movies, the criminals are usually brilliant masterminds, because that makes for an interesting story. But, in real life, most criminals are pretty stupid.
Yup. As my cop friends say, "We only catch the stupid ones." One detective I know told me whenever they had a breaking that match a certain profile they'd go find "John" and ask him if he did it. If he did, he'd fess up and ask how did they know? The say because the last 10 times we had a burglary like this you did, so we decided to save some time and see if you did this one as well. Another favorite was the guy who, good citizen he was, called in a crime in progress form a payphone. Trouble was the crime he was reporting was occurring 10 blocks away. He was surprised when the cops caught him in progress of committing a crime and told them they were supposed to be at a crime 10 blocks away.
As some have pointed out, what is the value of extortion when the info is already public? It's value lies in looking for people who are willing to pay up, even a small amount. Once you find them, you can keep threatening and demanding more since you know they have given in and no have even more to hide; i.e. they paid to keep their spouse from finding out.
Chemical/Biological weapons are not arms. And they are prohibited to nations as well. Thus, the U.S. army is not supposed to have chemical or biological weapons. This would in fact be a case, where the logic of US vs MILLER actually applies.
Your argument is that the 2cd is not an absolute right but the extent of it is open to legislation and court decisions. The banking of use of some weapons by nations is different, however since that is a treaty obligation; the similarity to private gun ownership is that a private entity can chose to ban weapons from their property without infringing on anyone's 2cd amendment rights.
Or we should, considering how broadly we interpret the 2nd Amendment. If you go by the NRA's assessment, all US citizens have the right to have guns.
However, the 2nd Amendment says "arms"; which can also be interpreted as *any* type of weapon, including explosives.
However; explosives are prohibited because our corporate masters are more concerned about property damage than about the lives of people.
Consider what the TSA is really protecting; not the lives of people on the plane, but the plane itself, which is worth hundreds of millions.
And tehy NRA is protecting their corporate masters, the firearms producers, by ensuring citizens are afraid the "big gun grab" is just around the corner and so be sur to buy all you can before they are gone.
How do you make it narrow enough to allow stun guns while not opening the door to all other types of arms, such as chemical and biological which an individual could and have created.It would be interesting to see how the justices rule, especially those that take a strict construction viewpoint.
The F-35 may have impressive tech, stealth, electronics and advanced missiles, but the Thunderbolt II is literally a flying tank that is able to take a lot of abuse and still keep flying. It also delivers an incredible amount of damage and its operating history is stellar. It's a great morale booster for ground troops, but the US air force wants to get rid of it.
The backstory is the USAF said they were going to kill it, and army Aviation stepped up and said "we'll take the..." and started to ID Apache pilots to transition to the Warthog. The USAF decided they'd keep them after all rather than let the Army add to its air wing.
The problem with what boils down to browbeating by analytics is that it's still too much stick
It also presumes you actually know what to analyze. Where your support staff really 'off task' for an hour because they did not close any tickets or draft any advisory documents or did they have an adhoc meeting where someone came up with a good idea for a process improvement that they can take to management later?
If you metric everything to the point the adhoc does not occur you might be missing out value you don't know how to measure.
You have hit the nail on the head: People confuse data with information and assume because they have more data they are making smarter decisions. It will be easy to flay the "5 minutes a day" but then counter with the "but I stayed an hour later on such and such days..." and simply spend more unproductive time arguing over the validity of the data and its relevance. In auditor, simply measuring activity doesn't tell what the results were. I might stare at the ceiling for 4 hours, visualizing actually what needs to be done in engagement, while apparently doing nothing and then sit down and write the 10 page proposal in 1 draft. Do I now need to randomly bang away at the keyboard, increasing the time to produce the product because my train of thought is interrupted? People think answers lie in more data and companies are glad to sell them that, when the real answer is more thoughtful analysis of what you had and not making it harder by adding more noise in the form of more data.
That's bullshit too. Do you think a case officer's notes of a meeting with an agent aren't classified just because the case officer doesn't carry around a big red "CLASSIFIED" stamp? Information is classified based on the information and source, not the markings. Classified information not so marked isn't unclassified information, it's misidentified information and anyone with a security classification is trained to recognize and address that issue.
If they aren't marking material then if someone receives it they can reasonable assume it is not classified and not treat it as such. They certainly should report suspected material they believe should be classified and is not; but that does not mean they are guilty of mishandling classified information if it is later classified. If the case officer is creating classified material they should be delegated as an original classification authority or if not an OCA then make a derivative classification decision based on OCA guidance (the more likely scenario) and properly classify and mark all materials that are classified.
Freemium is alive and kicking. Especially with companies that don't have enough money for marketing. Maybe they cut back on features for the free offering. But a digital product that can be distributed over the internet is naturally suited for the freemium model.
/quoteWhile cloud based software may be easy to distribute on a freemium model, that's not the issue. The challenge is to convert enough of the free users to paid usr to sustain your business. Unless there is a compelling reason to pay many users will stick with the free version and when it ceases to exist simply move to the next free offering that is similar. If your are selling to businesses there is also a differing level of expectations relative to support; so you also must have sufficient support staff to provide support even if your paid user base is too small to maintain its viability long term.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Star Trek was a TV show, where wasting valuable time on inconsequential things isn't done. They did not need to explain how they got stuff, they just got it. Plus, pocket on the uniforms would have ruined the look.
2. Even so, there was still evidence of some sort of medium of exchange and way to establish value. People did thing that produced valuable items, and had things that did not appear to be what they made, which implies there would be some way to establish value and determine what is a worthwhile rate of exchange for other items.
3. Academics write papers because that is the currency the value...
It's fraud pure and simple. How are you to know what the actual emissions are? Are they going to give you a device to put on your tail pipe so you can measure the emissions? No they're not. Manufacturers are fighting changes to the tests that would make them real world tests. So yes, fraud.
While the real world may not mirror the test, that is not the manufacturers fault no fraud on their part. It's up to the government to decide what are the minimum standards and how they want to test; the manufacturers then get to decide how they will meet those standards. Absent cheating like VW did the manufacturers are doing nothing wrong; especially since the standard setters already know their numbers are bogus but lack the will to make changes. Any fraud is on the part of the legislatures who fail to fix the problem due to a lack of political will.
Is this true for all tests or only those put forward by political parties you disagree with?
Are the EIT, PE and medical boards also worthless?
There is nothing wrong with teaching to a well written test.
Vey true, and having a test that reasonably accurately assesses the kownledge of an applicant regarding a relevant set of required knowledge to be minimally qualified to carry out a job is worthwhile. Unfortunately, some standardized test do not do that but are used simply because it is easy to get a number.
Better than teaching to the whim of the HS teachers. Who I must remind you are the dregs of college students.
Some may be, but there are plenty who go or went into teaching because they loved it and had other options but felt they were called to teach. Unfortunately, many of those are bolting at the first chance they get and telling kids who want to be teachers to do anything else because all they'll get is a terrible, thankless job for low pay. In the end, we'll get people who can't do anything else.
The law says "pass this test" so they pass the test.
How is this different than standardized testing in schools? The state says "pass this test" so the teachers train the kids to pass the test.
Do they actually LEARN anything useful for the real world?
Do these cars actually have low emissions when driven in the real world??
You be the judge.
Which is the fundamental problem with many metrics used to judge success. People measure an outcome without think about what they really want to accomplish. You want me to hit X? Ok, I'll hit X. Oh, you really wanted me to do Y which might stop me from hitting X? Sorry, I got rewarded for hitting X so Y got run over in the process. Thank you for playing, better luck next time, and I have some lovely parting gifts for you...
Is there some compelling reason why these tests aren't being conducted in realistic conditions in the first place?
Jobs. No government wants to all of a sudden have car manufacturers have to stop making diesels until they can comply and thus or lay off workers or require cash injections to stave off bankruptcy. In auditor, given the fuel cost advantage of diesel over gas the car buying public is likely to be upset. Since politicians neither want to piss off companies or voters they prefer to pretend the problem doesn't exist and delay changes through the beuracratic process know as "Studying the problem to come up with a report" to ensure real changes do not get made while giving the appearance of taking action.
It's no big secret that manufacturers do everything they can to make sure a car passes the test regime; that is not illegal as long as they don't do something VW does even though the test configuration may not represent what the real world emissions will be. There is a big difference between optimizing a design so that it passes a test and, in theory at lest, if the vehicle is maintained and driven the same way was in the the test conditions will have the same emissions and designing a system to perform one way during a test and then bypass the controls on actual vehicles. One is good engineering and the other is criminal. Part of the problem is the test design doesn't really simulate real world driving conditions and if they changed the tests cars wouldn't pass and then they'd have to lower the standards to much indignation and outrage from politicians and the public. So we all play a silly little game and don't ask embarrassing questions.
I guess 20-30 years would be enough to prove that it' a viable currency in the long term.
even if BTC as a currency never gets any useful due to exchange rate instabilities, bitcoin the protocole is already extremely useful. (absence of a central authority being instead distributed across the whole network, and thus freedom to chose any provider for both ends (customer and merchant) of a transaction - both don't need to have accounts at PayPal, or at the Visa / MasterCard duopoly, etc.)
Exactly. Currency, to be viable, must be a reliable store of value. Large swings in value negate that, even as it makes it a useful speculative investment. The protocol is useful for what it provides, but that can be replicated by any number of currencies should someone want to so do. As long as there is a way to immediately convert BitCoin to real money you'll be able to buy things with it; if only because all it is acting as is an intermediary to facilitate the transaction and thus unlikely to see any significant change in value from the time a payment is made to when the receiver converts the BitCoin to dollars, Euros, or whatever. As soon as liquidity becomes a problem BitCoin, as a transaction system, will cease to be useful for most transactions and the ability to instantaneously convert large amount of BitCoin to real money has always been one of the hurdles to overcome. It may be all well and good that someone has say $20 million in Bitcoin but since they couldn't go to an exchange and say send $20 million to my bank and have the transaction go through right away like any other wire transfer is a problem; especially since that $20 million could be worth a lot less the next day or so as yo parcel out the transactions in small enough amounts the exchanges could handle.
I'm waiting to see what the German perp walk looks like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
This is when corporate lawyers start echoing the standard refrains of "Don't destroy any records", "where is your search warrant" and "don't talk to investigators or the press without a lawyer present" lines to everybody.
Somebody is likely going to jail, or at least facing criminal charges in both the EU and the USA.... Expect there to be a lot of finger pointing from here on out.
I agree withe everything up to "don't talk to investigators or the press without a lawyer present." Never forget that a corporate lawyer doesn't represent you, he or she is their to protect the corporation and will throw you under the bus at the first opportunity. Anytime a lawyer is sent to "help" the first thing to ask is "Who you represent?" followed by "are you my lawyer?" and "is everything we say confidential and privileged?" if the answer to the last two isn't yes and yes they are not on your side.
I need to agree. Germans take a lot of pride in Engineering as a culture. To say the German Engineers took short cuts just to pass US tests seems more unlikely than a strict Wink-Wink-Nudge-Nundge from the Bosses to the engineers with the side effect of or-else.
Befehl ist befehl. While they may not have direct orders to do something the pressure to "fix the problem" and not bother with telling me the details sounds like what may have happened. At any rate, I would find the executives' argument weak; especially for a screw up as big as this. Someone senior will have to take the fall, if only to prevent a slow drip, drip , drip of revelation that brings down the entire executive team and potentially VW.
But again; even if uber is terrible and dangerous, why should we be treated like infants and not allowed to make up our own minds? Also continuing with the uber is a death trap; then other companies could come along in a free market and offer safer drives. People would probably choose them instead. Free market. Just like all the other vendors in London who don't have quotas. Restaurants, lawyers, dentists, clothing stores. All of those businesses would probably love a quota eliminating new competition. But it wouldn't serve the public at all. But if this monopoly had never been set up and competition had always been allowed we would not be having this discussion and Uber would be having trouble making any headway in London, it would simply be one more competitor in a competitive market.
As someone who works in a place with minimal cab regulation and thus maximum competition I welcome Uber's entry. I've gotten cabs with drivers who don't even know the local area, cabs with dash warning lights beyond just check engine, and fares weren't cheap. All it takes is a car and a sign asking taxi to be a cab; plus a sticker indicating you've paid the airport tax (gov't wants their cut) so Uber is a step up.
Just because it would cost $5 billion to replicate the c code doesn't mean its value is $5 billion. Some could be worth a lot more that the replication costs, and some total worthless despite huge replication costs.
I see this as a wider problem, not just with managers. It is no different than the problem I have seen with many developers/programmers who are unwilling to learn (to the point of fighting it) the business that they are developing software for. Most developers develop software for some business other than for other developers and refusing to educate yourself about the business that you are developing for limits the usefulness of those resources. Similarly, Managers managing technical people should learn what they are managing - though they don't necessarily have to worry about the details of it. Of course the smaller the company the more knowledge technically that manager should have since there is less room for specialization.
Exactly. It's not about having mangers who are great programmers/admins/etc., rather it is the ability to understand the concepts and thus be able to talk intelligently with their staff and explain what they are doing to more senior leadership. Your point about programmers understanding the business needs of their customers is spot on, although many programmers will decry the need to so do. I recently got involved in yet another iT project, despite my great desire to avoid them at any cost, and after explaining in great detail exactly what we are looking for, including detailed data descriptions including data types and input rules, process flows, screen mockups etc, the programmer came back with a very detailed overview of the calendaring function he was building for us. Trouble is, I neither need nor want a calendar function, I want what I described. Yes, the software has really neat calendaring abilities but I really don't give a damn how cool they are because ether don't do what I need. Far too often both sides of the table seem unable to talk in a language the other understands and get a common understanding of what is needed.
As for the CFO not having a financial background, of course they have one but they also understand and probably have been involved in operations and other line/staff functions and understand what they do. Similarly, a CIO should have the same breadth of experience.
It amazes me just how many people (criminals especially) just don't get this.
In Hollywood movies, the criminals are usually brilliant masterminds, because that makes for an interesting story. But, in real life, most criminals are pretty stupid.
Yup. As my cop friends say, "We only catch the stupid ones." One detective I know told me whenever they had a breaking that match a certain profile they'd go find "John" and ask him if he did it. If he did, he'd fess up and ask how did they know? The say because the last 10 times we had a burglary like this you did, so we decided to save some time and see if you did this one as well. Another favorite was the guy who, good citizen he was, called in a crime in progress form a payphone. Trouble was the crime he was reporting was occurring 10 blocks away. He was surprised when the cops caught him in progress of committing a crime and told them they were supposed to be at a crime 10 blocks away.
Set up fake hotspot and collect shatever data you want. Offer upfake sign on screen for web sites.
As some have pointed out, what is the value of extortion when the info is already public? It's value lies in looking for people who are willing to pay up, even a small amount. Once you find them, you can keep threatening and demanding more since you know they have given in and no have even more to hide; i.e. they paid to keep their spouse from finding out.
helped stop the attack.
Chemical/Biological weapons are not arms. And they are prohibited to nations as well. Thus, the U.S. army is not supposed to have chemical or biological weapons. This would in fact be a case, where the logic of US vs MILLER actually applies.
Your argument is that the 2cd is not an absolute right but the extent of it is open to legislation and court decisions. The banking of use of some weapons by nations is different, however since that is a treaty obligation; the similarity to private gun ownership is that a private entity can chose to ban weapons from their property without infringing on anyone's 2cd amendment rights.
Or we should, considering how broadly we interpret the 2nd Amendment. If you go by the NRA's assessment, all US citizens have the right to have guns.
However, the 2nd Amendment says "arms"; which can also be interpreted as *any* type of weapon, including explosives.
However; explosives are prohibited because our corporate masters are more concerned about property damage than about the lives of people.
Consider what the TSA is really protecting; not the lives of people on the plane, but the plane itself, which is worth hundreds of millions.
And tehy NRA is protecting their corporate masters, the firearms producers, by ensuring citizens are afraid the "big gun grab" is just around the corner and so be sur to buy all you can before they are gone.
How do you make it narrow enough to allow stun guns while not opening the door to all other types of arms, such as chemical and biological which an individual could and have created.It would be interesting to see how the justices rule, especially those that take a strict construction viewpoint.
The F-35 may have impressive tech, stealth, electronics and advanced missiles, but the Thunderbolt II is literally a flying tank that is able to take a lot of abuse and still keep flying. It also delivers an incredible amount of damage and its operating history is stellar. It's a great morale booster for ground troops, but the US air force wants to get rid of it.
The backstory is the USAF said they were going to kill it, and army Aviation stepped up and said "we'll take the..." and started to ID Apache pilots to transition to the Warthog. The USAF decided they'd keep them after all rather than let the Army add to its air wing.
How does that compare to the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
African or European?
The problem with what boils down to browbeating by analytics is that it's still too much stick
It also presumes you actually know what to analyze. Where your support staff really 'off task' for an hour because they did not close any tickets or draft any advisory documents or did they have an adhoc meeting where someone came up with a good idea for a process improvement that they can take to management later?
If you metric everything to the point the adhoc does not occur you might be missing out value you don't know how to measure.
You have hit the nail on the head: People confuse data with information and assume because they have more data they are making smarter decisions. It will be easy to flay the "5 minutes a day" but then counter with the "but I stayed an hour later on such and such days..." and simply spend more unproductive time arguing over the validity of the data and its relevance. In auditor, simply measuring activity doesn't tell what the results were. I might stare at the ceiling for 4 hours, visualizing actually what needs to be done in engagement, while apparently doing nothing and then sit down and write the 10 page proposal in 1 draft. Do I now need to randomly bang away at the keyboard, increasing the time to produce the product because my train of thought is interrupted? People think answers lie in more data and companies are glad to sell them that, when the real answer is more thoughtful analysis of what you had and not making it harder by adding more noise in the form of more data.
That's bullshit too. Do you think a case officer's notes of a meeting with an agent aren't classified just because the case officer doesn't carry around a big red "CLASSIFIED" stamp? Information is classified based on the information and source, not the markings. Classified information not so marked isn't unclassified information, it's misidentified information and anyone with a security classification is trained to recognize and address that issue.
If they aren't marking material then if someone receives it they can reasonable assume it is not classified and not treat it as such. They certainly should report suspected material they believe should be classified and is not; but that does not mean they are guilty of mishandling classified information if it is later classified. If the case officer is creating classified material they should be delegated as an original classification authority or if not an OCA then make a derivative classification decision based on OCA guidance (the more likely scenario) and properly classify and mark all materials that are classified.
Freemium is alive and kicking. Especially with companies that don't have enough money for marketing. Maybe they cut back on features for the free offering. But a digital product that can be distributed over the internet is naturally suited for the freemium model.
/quoteWhile cloud based software may be easy to distribute on a freemium model, that's not the issue. The challenge is to convert enough of the free users to paid usr to sustain your business. Unless there is a compelling reason to pay many users will stick with the free version and when it ceases to exist simply move to the next free offering that is similar. If your are selling to businesses there is also a differing level of expectations relative to support; so you also must have sufficient support staff to provide support even if your paid user base is too small to maintain its viability long term.