Assuming that such things as more money and raises are out, due to budget constraints, you tend to have two options:
1) Small gestures. If you're a project leader or some other type of manager, take the people who report to you out for lunch whenever a milestone is successfully passed. Or provide free soda. It won't cost that much, compared to, say, the cost of training a replacement. For some companies, it could also be being flexible on the hours slightly (so that people could come in an, and leave, an hour earlier or later). Or allowing them to play Unreal Tournament after business hours. (This may not be a good fit for all companies, though.)
2) Keeping them included. If something's happening, the employees are going to be hear about it. They can hear about it through the official means, or they can hear about it through rumors. It's better to hear it through official channels; otherwise, rumor-mongering just goes up. If people are going to get laid off, you're much better off being upfront about it -- there'll be uncertainty either way, but at least there won't be the idea that management is hiding something. If possible, present the news with alternatives (see if anyone is willing to work part time instead). The important thing is to let them feel like they have some small amount of control, as opposed to being subject to the whims of fate.
On the other hand, there's the ever-so-popular 'RTFM', or the only slightly less popular 'no response', both of which have a long history in open source.
My former boss knew how to motivate us. It would start off like you'd expect...
"Listen. This needs to get done by Friday. I'll need you to put in as much time as possible to do so."
At which point you're thinking, "Well, that's just like every other clueless manager out there." But, he would redeem himself with:
"If it gets done by Friday, I'll pay you $1000 right there."
Which he would, of course, do. Not some intangible "It'll look good come review time" or "It'll be remembered when bonuses are handed out", but $1000 you could take home that night. That was a good job experience.
With the pessimism? Sure, we don't have flying cars or jetpacks or vacations to Mars.
Instead, we have computers literally millions of times faster than anyone imagined we'd have. Read some old sci-fi, and notice how the authors tend to make reference to people plotting the navigations by hand because it'd be too complicated for a computer?
We've got our personal communicaters, in the way of cell phones. Hell, with cell phones with cameras and video screens on them, we've already got our Dick Tracy wrist geenees, too.
We can genetically modify animals.
And, perhaps most importantly of all for the writers of the early sci-fi, we haven't destroyed ourselves as a species yet.
In the first six months of 2002, CD sales fell 11 percent
Yeah, that might be explained by piracy. Or it might be explained by the fact that the RIAA lowered production by 25% over the same time period. That doesn't just translate into less copies of CDs, it translates into less different CDs. Less different types of CDs, less for people to buy.
Sure, the spammers can autoreply, but it requires a working Reply-To address and a willingness to pay the bandwidth bill. By and large spammers don't have working Reply-To addresses and steal bandwidth by abusing poorly configured mail servers. So an automated system will in fact be "good enough" to stop many spammers.
I think the argument "spammers won't do it because it'll waste bandwidth" is dismissable based on empirical evidence. Spammers don't care about bandwidth. As you noted, they're often using other people's. So this isn't a problem for them.
Now, if we tweak the system so that the autoreply-reply requires some small amount of processing power (say, 5 seconds on a "typical" PC) and cache positive results (Bob replied correctly once, so I won't challenge him again), the situation gets easier.(snip)(And if it's a real problem the subscription information can clearly state "the message will come from example-list@example.com, please add that address to your trusted senders list!") A spammer forced to reply to the millions of addresses they spammed will have a serious problem, that sort of compute time will cost them real time.
The problem with this is if you have a system where someone needs to add someone to their trusted senders list -- and being on that list is permanent, instead of being challenged with each email -- you'd get spammers who would use a forged reply-to that may be good for a number of people (eg, one used by AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, etc).
spam is computer-generated and mass-mailed. Legit emails are not.
Some legit email is definitely computer generated. I sign up for/., it sends me an email with my password./. will not care about an autoreply, so I would never get that email.
If you standardize an autoreply, so that websites could parse and return it, then so could the spammers, easily enough.
Finally, you'd be doubling the amount of bandwidth spent on email, as each spam would now have a corresponding auto reply.
As for it being a waste of time, it takes less than 5 seconds to sign. You'll probably want to read it first, but that's not all that much extra time. If you're ethical, you'll have no problems following it, and if you're not, then you're probably going to break the agreement anyways.
Counter arguments:
1) If all ethical people would already follow the guidelines without signing it, and all non-ethical people would do what they want regardless of whether they sign it, it is a waste of time. How much time is wasted isn't really a consideration.
2) The assumption that a requirement to report all _suspected_ suspicious activity is not what I would qualify as ethical, and I'd have a huge problem signing this for that reason.
As far as the "execs to sign off on their financial reports": It's another waste of time. A feel-good, but that's it.
Once again, JPawloski plagiarizes a post. The parent post is a copy of this post. Note that the linked post was made about two hours before the parent.
If you want to moderate the comment, please mod the parent post down and the original post up.
The parent post is a copy of this post. Note that the parent post is #5038962, but the linked post is #5038841. The parent obviously plagiarized the linked post's text.
Yet the parent is currently +5 insightful, while the original has yet to be moderated. Please moderate the parent down, and the original up instead.
Big company buys small company -- most likely for small company's tech, or customers, or what have you.
Big company institutes its policies on small company, perhaps cuts some of small company's redundant staff -- small company's HR department, for example, goes bye-bye.
Small company is now dependant on big company for resources, like HR.
Attrition begins on small company: if big company is doing layoffs, small company has to do layoffs with it, but small company doesn't get many (if any) new hires.
Small company, which now has less employees, can do less, resulting in big company treating it like a liability and stepping up the attrition rate.
Small company eventually folds, with any remaining employees fired or relocated to wherever big company is.
Long story short, big company buys small company because small company has something it needs. Once it has it, it doesn't need small company beyond a short transition period, and it's not going to keep small company around.
It's not the aliens that are going to be the problem, it's that our rebel leader will sell out one of our psychic operatives and leave her to be captured by the aliens.
I never got the point. You spend $50 (cash, which is usable anywhere) to give someone something that's worth $50 -- but only at a brand of store. Why?
About the only response I've ever heard is that it shows more thought than cash, but still:
1) Even if it shows more thought to give someone a gift certificate, to, say, "CD Hut", because you know they like CDs, just not which ones: you've now deprived them of the ability to get CDs from any other store -- even if CD Hut doesn't carry the ones they want.
2) For a large store that sells lots of unrelated items (like Amazon), it doesn't seem like you're showing any additional thought above and beyond cash.
Viral marketing is deceptive. It may be effective, but hell, so is just lying.
I mean, you pay people to astroturf your product. To state their "opinion" about it without adding on "Oh, and I work for XYZ corporation," or, "XYZ corporation paid me $10 to post this." Why do they not say these things? Because they know that if they did, no one would take their opinion seriously. Well, if no one would take you seriously, perhaps your message is lacking.
Which seems to usually be the case. Companies that already get good word of mouth don't need to astroturf.
And when I see people on the street I should be seeing them because they are on their way somewhere, not because they are handing out the same mission over and over again.
So, that would be almost entirely unlike Grand Theft Auto, then?
"Well, hrmm. Let's see. Assassinated the Triad's leaders. Blew up their factory. Killed...well, golly, about two thousand of them now. Yet there are still an infinite number of them waiting to chase me."
Or, better yet, Grand Theft Auto's missions. Nothing says realism like taking on a mission, dying (or being busted), and then being given the same mission again. "Exchange", for example. Waste a couple dozen Colombians, blow up the OL Barracks, but get wasted by the helicopter...yet, Catalina's still waiting at the mission to take your money (again) and you're still foolish enough to not go in with guns blazes (again). Repeatedly.
Don't get me wrong. I like GTA. But to hold it up as an example of realism is laughable.
Well, how often do you talk to the customer? Depends upon how big the company is. It's broken down into one of two scenarios:
Large company: You will never talk to the customer. Any communication between you and the customer will pass through at least five people who will all either add in their comments, edit text at whim "to make things clearer", or just make stuff up out of the blue.
Small company: You will always talk to the customer. In fact, you will never avoid being able to talk to the customer, even if you have four other projects that need to be done by end of day.
Here's the solution: to watch a TV show you "subscribe" to it for a small fee, but you get a small credit back every time you sit through a commercial
Interesting idea, but how do you tell when someone sits through a commercial?
If I'm using a Tivo, the Tivo's recorded the commercial -- the cable company can't tell whether or not, on a subsequent viewing of the show, I fast forward through the commercial. The cable company can't even tell if my TV set is on or not at any given time.
Don't get me wrong -- I like the idea -- but if you thought Valenti calling people who go to the bathroom during commercial breaks thieves was bad before...
24 hours is a day discovered to be arbitrary. 100 pennies in a dollar discovered to be arbitrary. 4 quarts in a gallon discovered to be arbitrary. 67 trolls in a Slashdot article discovered to be arbitrary...
That the reporter doesn't really like spammers either, don't you? Consider this quote:
Today, Ralsky says he is trying to keep a lower profile, operating through cell phones and unlisted numbers. Ralsky agreed to this interview and the tour of his operation only if I promised not to print the address of his new home, which I found in Oakland County real estate records.
Or, in other words, "I promised not to reveal the address, but if you want to look it up, here's how to do so..."
Slashdot Mirror
Assuming that such things as more money and raises are out, due to budget constraints, you tend to have two options:
1) Small gestures. If you're a project leader or some other type of manager, take the people who report to you out for lunch whenever a milestone is successfully passed. Or provide free soda. It won't cost that much, compared to, say, the cost of training a replacement. For some companies, it could also be being flexible on the hours slightly (so that people could come in an, and leave, an hour earlier or later). Or allowing them to play Unreal Tournament after business hours. (This may not be a good fit for all companies, though.)
2) Keeping them included. If something's happening, the employees are going to be hear about it. They can hear about it through the official means, or they can hear about it through rumors. It's better to hear it through official channels; otherwise, rumor-mongering just goes up. If people are going to get laid off, you're much better off being upfront about it -- there'll be uncertainty either way, but at least there won't be the idea that management is hiding something. If possible, present the news with alternatives (see if anyone is willing to work part time instead). The important thing is to let them feel like they have some small amount of control, as opposed to being subject to the whims of fate.
'configure; make; make install' isn't unique to open source, it's unique to *nixes. Ye olde open source Windows program doesn't take it, for example.
So if your problem is really 'How do I teach newbies to compile on a *nix platform?', then I would recommend, say, Building and Installing Software Packages for Linux.
On the other hand, there's the ever-so-popular 'RTFM', or the only slightly less popular 'no response', both of which have a long history in open source.
My former boss knew how to motivate us. It would start off like you'd expect...
"Listen. This needs to get done by Friday. I'll need you to put in as much time as possible to do so."
At which point you're thinking, "Well, that's just like every other clueless manager out there." But, he would redeem himself with:
"If it gets done by Friday, I'll pay you $1000 right there."
Which he would, of course, do. Not some intangible "It'll look good come review time" or "It'll be remembered when bonuses are handed out", but $1000 you could take home that night. That was a good job experience.
With the pessimism? Sure, we don't have flying cars or jetpacks or vacations to Mars.
Instead, we have computers literally millions of times faster than anyone imagined we'd have. Read some old sci-fi, and notice how the authors tend to make reference to people plotting the navigations by hand because it'd be too complicated for a computer?
We've got our personal communicaters, in the way of cell phones. Hell, with cell phones with cameras and video screens on them, we've already got our Dick Tracy wrist geenees, too.
We can genetically modify animals.
And, perhaps most importantly of all for the writers of the early sci-fi, we haven't destroyed ourselves as a species yet.
So why all the bitching about flying cars?
In the first six months of 2002, CD sales fell 11 percent
Yeah, that might be explained by piracy. Or it might be explained by the fact that the RIAA lowered production by 25% over the same time period. That doesn't just translate into less copies of CDs, it translates into less different CDs. Less different types of CDs, less for people to buy.
Plug from a satisfied customer: Speakeasy DSL
Sure, the spammers can autoreply, but it requires a working Reply-To address and a willingness to pay the bandwidth bill. By and large spammers don't have working Reply-To addresses and steal bandwidth by abusing poorly configured mail servers. So an automated system will in fact be "good enough" to stop many spammers.
I think the argument "spammers won't do it because it'll waste bandwidth" is dismissable based on empirical evidence. Spammers don't care about bandwidth. As you noted, they're often using other people's. So this isn't a problem for them.
Now, if we tweak the system so that the autoreply-reply requires some small amount of processing power (say, 5 seconds on a "typical" PC) and cache positive results (Bob replied correctly once, so I won't challenge him again), the situation gets easier.(snip)(And if it's a real problem the subscription information can clearly state "the message will come from example-list@example.com, please add that address to your trusted senders list!") A spammer forced to reply to the millions of addresses they spammed will have a serious problem, that sort of compute time will cost them real time.
The problem with this is if you have a system where someone needs to add someone to their trusted senders list -- and being on that list is permanent, instead of being challenged with each email -- you'd get spammers who would use a forged reply-to that may be good for a number of people (eg, one used by AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, etc).
spam is computer-generated and mass-mailed. Legit emails are not.
/., it sends me an email with my password. /. will not care about an autoreply, so I would never get that email.
Some legit email is definitely computer generated. I sign up for
If you standardize an autoreply, so that websites could parse and return it, then so could the spammers, easily enough.
Finally, you'd be doubling the amount of bandwidth spent on email, as each spam would now have a corresponding auto reply.
Read up on the plan - statements that are proven to be false result in criminal charges.
They could already result in criminal charges without the signed statements. There are already laws against fraud.
As for it being a waste of time, it takes less than 5 seconds to sign. You'll probably want to read it first, but that's not all that much extra time. If you're ethical, you'll have no problems following it, and if you're not, then you're probably going to break the agreement anyways.
Counter arguments:
1) If all ethical people would already follow the guidelines without signing it, and all non-ethical people would do what they want regardless of whether they sign it, it is a waste of time. How much time is wasted isn't really a consideration.
2) The assumption that a requirement to report all _suspected_ suspicious activity is not what I would qualify as ethical, and I'd have a huge problem signing this for that reason.
As far as the "execs to sign off on their financial reports": It's another waste of time. A feel-good, but that's it.
Are developers at other companies being asked to do this?
No.
Does it bother anyone that lowly workers like me are being asked to sign these things because executives are too immoral to behave themselves?
Yes.
Isn't all of this a colossal waste of time since most of it is common sense and it's pretty clear that the bad guys will ignore it anyway?
Yes.
Next Ask Slashdot, please?
Once again, JPawloski plagiarizes a post. The parent post is a copy of this post. Note that the linked post was made about two hours before the parent.
If you want to moderate the comment, please mod the parent post down and the original post up.
The parent post is a copy of this post. Note that the parent post is #5038962, but the linked post is #5038841. The parent obviously plagiarized the linked post's text.
Yet the parent is currently +5 insightful, while the original has yet to be moderated. Please moderate the parent down, and the original up instead.
Big company buys small company -- most likely for small company's tech, or customers, or what have you.
Big company institutes its policies on small company, perhaps cuts some of small company's redundant staff -- small company's HR department, for example, goes bye-bye.
Small company is now dependant on big company for resources, like HR.
Attrition begins on small company: if big company is doing layoffs, small company has to do layoffs with it, but small company doesn't get many (if any) new hires.
Small company, which now has less employees, can do less, resulting in big company treating it like a liability and stepping up the attrition rate.
Small company eventually folds, with any remaining employees fired or relocated to wherever big company is.
Long story short, big company buys small company because small company has something it needs. Once it has it, it doesn't need small company beyond a short transition period, and it's not going to keep small company around.
Yes, I'm cynical.
It's not the aliens that are going to be the problem, it's that our rebel leader will sell out one of our psychic operatives and leave her to be captured by the aliens.
I never got the point. You spend $50 (cash, which is usable anywhere) to give someone something that's worth $50 -- but only at a brand of store. Why?
About the only response I've ever heard is that it shows more thought than cash, but still:
1) Even if it shows more thought to give someone a gift certificate, to, say, "CD Hut", because you know they like CDs, just not which ones: you've now deprived them of the ability to get CDs from any other store -- even if CD Hut doesn't carry the ones they want.
2) For a large store that sells lots of unrelated items (like Amazon), it doesn't seem like you're showing any additional thought above and beyond cash.
Viral marketing is deceptive. It may be effective, but hell, so is just lying.
I mean, you pay people to astroturf your product. To state their "opinion" about it without adding on "Oh, and I work for XYZ corporation," or, "XYZ corporation paid me $10 to post this." Why do they not say these things? Because they know that if they did, no one would take their opinion seriously. Well, if no one would take you seriously, perhaps your message is lacking.
Which seems to usually be the case. Companies that already get good word of mouth don't need to astroturf.
And when I see people on the street I should be seeing them because they are on their way somewhere, not because they are handing out the same mission over and over again.
So, that would be almost entirely unlike Grand Theft Auto, then?
"Well, hrmm. Let's see. Assassinated the Triad's leaders. Blew up their factory. Killed...well, golly, about two thousand of them now. Yet there are still an infinite number of them waiting to chase me."
Or, better yet, Grand Theft Auto's missions. Nothing says realism like taking on a mission, dying (or being busted), and then being given the same mission again. "Exchange", for example. Waste a couple dozen Colombians, blow up the OL Barracks, but get wasted by the helicopter...yet, Catalina's still waiting at the mission to take your money (again) and you're still foolish enough to not go in with guns blazes (again). Repeatedly.
Don't get me wrong. I like GTA. But to hold it up as an example of realism is laughable.
Could be worse. I thought I'd signed up for an RPG programming class, and was quite surprised when they started handing out rocket propelled grenades.
Came in handy on negotiating a raise with my boss, though.
Well, how often do you talk to the customer? Depends upon how big the company is. It's broken down into one of two scenarios:
Large company: You will never talk to the customer. Any communication between you and the customer will pass through at least five people who will all either add in their comments, edit text at whim "to make things clearer", or just make stuff up out of the blue.
Small company: You will always talk to the customer. In fact, you will never avoid being able to talk to the customer, even if you have four other projects that need to be done by end of day.
No, I'm not cynical. Why do you ask?
It is also at Nature.Com, but that server is already rejecting connects.
Life always finds a way to survive. Now, evolution has provided us with a website that can anticipate and avoid the slashdot effect.
Here's the solution: to watch a TV show you "subscribe" to it for a small fee, but you get a small credit back every time you sit through a commercial
Interesting idea, but how do you tell when someone sits through a commercial?
If I'm using a Tivo, the Tivo's recorded the commercial -- the cable company can't tell whether or not, on a subsequent viewing of the show, I fast forward through the commercial. The cable company can't even tell if my TV set is on or not at any given time.
Don't get me wrong -- I like the idea -- but if you thought Valenti calling people who go to the bathroom during commercial breaks thieves was bad before...
24 hours is a day discovered to be arbitrary. 100 pennies in a dollar discovered to be arbitrary. 4 quarts in a gallon discovered to be arbitrary. 67 trolls in a Slashdot article discovered to be arbitrary...
That the reporter doesn't really like spammers either, don't you? Consider this quote:
Today, Ralsky says he is trying to keep a lower profile, operating through cell phones and unlisted numbers. Ralsky agreed to this interview and the tour of his operation only if I promised not to print the address of his new home, which I found in Oakland County real estate records.
Or, in other words, "I promised not to reveal the address, but if you want to look it up, here's how to do so..."
...watching the antics of celebrities and athletes as they deal with their illegitimate children in front of the media.
Future generations will not know this joy.