You missed my point (specifically, you missed my "footnote"). I'm saying that you have to apply your principals consistently. If it was wrong for the US in colonial days, it's wrong for China now. If it isn't wrong for China now, then it wasn't wrong for the US then.
As I understand it, "junk" DNA still serves useful known purposes. In particular, just about everything in the genetic world seems to have regulatory function in terms of the transcription process. Also I suspect there are some structural benefits to having this extra DNA in there.
Even if our ancestors were also "wrong", it's still "wrong" for China (defined as the collective group of infringing companies, government agencies and individuals which happen to reside and work in China) to do it.
* Quotes intentionally added to "wrong" to allay any possible tangent subthreads about how IP/patents/copyrights are in principal wrong/imorral/broken. Gotta know your audience.:-)
True, but the point is that software vendors can't assume a failure. They have to plan for Vista become a big market leader. Maybe it happens in 2007, and maybe it happens in 2010 (or by then, maybe like ME, it just skips a "generation" and everyone adopts Vista's successor).
My company's products are primarily Java based, although they are typically used in a Windows world. I'm not spending any time planning for Vista - but that's mostly because I pass the buck to Sun and trust them to roll out a Vista-compatible JDK. If they don't, I'm screwed.
That's a good work-life balance, and I don't think you're wrong for drawing that line. But, it sounds like you don't meet the criteria that Jobs et. al. are looking for. What they want are employees who love their jobs so much that they don't separate working and living - they love their job more than what they might otherwise do in their time off.
I think if a key anyone leaves, you're fucked. That's kinda the definition of key. Absolutely losing the wrong engineer is a real blow to the company. So would be losing a key salesman whose relationships comprise a major part of your pipeline. Or a key "manager" who is able to effectively coordinate the efforts of, say, a couple dozen "key" engineers and do it in such a way that they all think it was all because of them and them alone. (Which is a hallmark of good product development management IMO).:-)
it's also a problem that we're overloading the term "manager". In this conversation, we've been throwing it around to mean pretty much any role that's not an engineer or the janitor.
In my 10 years in IT I personally see the marketing team miss it more often than get it
I suspect that the marketing team doesn't have to get it right most of the time. A few big successes can pay for an awful lot of dogs. Most VCs and other investors in new companies anticipate only one or two successes out of every 10 companies they invest in - and they consider that a good portfolio.
but who listens to engineers, they just 'get lucky', right?
You're talking about your personal experiences... so you tell me. Did your engineers get lucky? Did the engineers conceive of profitable new products, or simply point out flaws in a troubled marketing team's ideas?
Thats the problem with you manager types- you don't realize that you really are that bad.
That's quite an assumption. As an engineer, I would think you'd be a bit more objective & logical about this. Because I debate an assertion that all managers are bad and all engineers are superheroes who can do anything makes me a "manager type"?
the original HP hand held calculators was an engineering idea and the marketing department saw it as a useless one before they started selling as hotcakes.
That doesn't mean that all marketing is bad and all engineers are wizards at designing profitable products. It means that that the original HP marketing team was bad, or that they simply missed this one. Or that the engineers just got lucky. Unless they actually did market demand studies, they just took a gamble in making a product that they liked & hoped that someone outside of their narrow demographic would buy it.
Look, I know you CxO types are very busy and super important people [sarcasm] but lets not invent new words shall we? All the CEO is supposed to do is look good and say forward thinking things like "We intend to make profits this quarter."
It's the actual engineers that make companies like HP and Compaq move forwards.
TRY to run a company with engineers, and see what happens. Engineers build products, not businesses. They just don't operate at that level - it's not a question of intelligence, it's one of focus, perspective, and education. Check out this "fable" by Joel Spolsky for a good illustration.
I don't care how much marketting you spin on your new laptops, if you don't put a screen in [for example] it's not going to sell. Or if the damn thing weighs a ton, or the batteries explode or....
It's not the engineers that decide features like weight, batteries, screen... that's what the marketing department should be doing. They determine what the customers want and balance market demand and operating budget with the engineer's estimate of what it takes to build these features and how they impact each other. (At least in an organization that's functioning - I'm making no claims either way regarding HP). They aren't (or shouldn't be) just about trying to "spin" poorly-wrought products.
Some of Dilbert may be right on, but you know... it's not gospel. Some of it is just comedy.
Isn't this what most internship programs are about? Spread the word about the company, get students hooked on their software/tools/philosophy/widgets, and keep an eye out to recruit the best ones as full time employees.
Yet even in the US I recently read on a republican blogger's page someone comparing emacs (she called it emac) with M$ Word and dubbing emacs of being a word processor of lesser quality.
Let's be fair here; being uninformed about what emacs is, and writing a poor comparison in her blog has NOTHING to do with being a Republican.
Well space does get lonely... inflatable woman...:-)
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
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I don't believe I said anything about them having a "right" to do anything. It's purely a pragmatic issue: if they can't afford to produce their content, then we can't watch it.
Re:Well, twenty years ago....
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I don't know that I'm quite ready to swallow that analogy. I'd say taking private planes is more analogous to deciding to watch only DVDs instead of cable TV. Those planes don't use the freeway, but TiVo users still use the network's content. A better analogy for the viewpoint of the TV execs is someone who drives on the freeway, but always takes the last exit, skirts around each toll booth on local roads, and then gets back on the freeway at the first entrance after the toll booth.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
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How about OTA broadcasts? Or (I realize this is straying a bit), how about TiVo for AM/FM radio (not subscription XM)? How do these companies continue to pay for their content and broadcast since they don't receive cable fees for your view?
Also, I'm curious what the breakdown for cable service really looks like. I'd bet a fair amount of it goes to "distribution" by the cable company - i.e. Comcast - and very little to the networks or production houses that actually make the content. Anyone know?
Um, how is owning a property "renting for free"? Mortgage, all utilities (in my state, landlords have to pay water & sewer bills), home repairs, insurance, property tax... Being a landlord is a very low-margin business. Sure, if you own, then any of those (low-margin) profits (and, if you operate correctly some tax benefits) belong to you, but I would definitely not equate this to free in any circumstances.
And even that small profit (and maybe somewhat larger tax savings) comes with a price - as a renter, it's easy to pick up and move at the end of each lease. Find a better deal, a new neighborhood. As an owner, your asset (and home) are not very liquid and become much less so when the market is cool. I could go on about the headaches of home maintenance, etc., but I think this makes my point.
I am a homeowner (and a landlord), and I'm not bitter. Just a realist. No, really!:-)
My own experience, however, has shown me that married workers are more capable, whether it be because of the daily, constant, successful ability to handle stress, emergencies, delegation, risk, and reward, or some other aspect.
I don't know the demographics of the people you've worked with, of course, but I wonder if it's simply because married people tend to be older (and therefore more experienced) on average.
Slashdot Mirror
You missed my point (specifically, you missed my "footnote"). I'm saying that you have to apply your principals consistently. If it was wrong for the US in colonial days, it's wrong for China now. If it isn't wrong for China now, then it wasn't wrong for the US then.
How does one po-dunk website suddenly map to American's [sic] and American Liberal's [sic]?
As I understand it, "junk" DNA still serves useful known purposes. In particular, just about everything in the genetic world seems to have regulatory function in terms of the transcription process. Also I suspect there are some structural benefits to having this extra DNA in there.
Even if our ancestors were also "wrong", it's still "wrong" for China (defined as the collective group of infringing companies, government agencies and individuals which happen to reside and work in China) to do it.
:-)
* Quotes intentionally added to "wrong" to allay any possible tangent subthreads about how IP/patents/copyrights are in principal wrong/imorral/broken. Gotta know your audience.
True, but the point is that software vendors can't assume a failure. They have to plan for Vista become a big market leader. Maybe it happens in 2007, and maybe it happens in 2010 (or by then, maybe like ME, it just skips a "generation" and everyone adopts Vista's successor).
My company's products are primarily Java based, although they are typically used in a Windows world. I'm not spending any time planning for Vista - but that's mostly because I pass the buck to Sun and trust them to roll out a Vista-compatible JDK. If they don't, I'm screwed.
That's a good work-life balance, and I don't think you're wrong for drawing that line. But, it sounds like you don't meet the criteria that Jobs et. al. are looking for. What they want are employees who love their jobs so much that they don't separate working and living - they love their job more than what they might otherwise do in their time off.
Well, I hear Santa outsources his elves in the offseason...
Everybody is, because there's a 100% chance that it will become the overwhelming market leader whenever it finally does hit store shelves.
I think if a key anyone leaves, you're fucked. That's kinda the definition of key. Absolutely losing the wrong engineer is a real blow to the company. So would be losing a key salesman whose relationships comprise a major part of your pipeline. Or a key "manager" who is able to effectively coordinate the efforts of, say, a couple dozen "key" engineers and do it in such a way that they all think it was all because of them and them alone. (Which is a hallmark of good product development management IMO). :-)
it's also a problem that we're overloading the term "manager". In this conversation, we've been throwing it around to mean pretty much any role that's not an engineer or the janitor.
In my 10 years in IT I personally see the marketing team miss it more often than get it
I suspect that the marketing team doesn't have to get it right most of the time. A few big successes can pay for an awful lot of dogs. Most VCs and other investors in new companies anticipate only one or two successes out of every 10 companies they invest in - and they consider that a good portfolio.
but who listens to engineers, they just 'get lucky', right?
You're talking about your personal experiences... so you tell me. Did your engineers get lucky? Did the engineers conceive of profitable new products, or simply point out flaws in a troubled marketing team's ideas?
Let's get rid of all those management types who wants lot of money and do not do ANYTHING productive!!
Now THAT is something I can agree with. I'm all for pay being highly linked to performance; from the CEO down to the janitor.
Thats the problem with you manager types- you don't realize that you really are that bad.
That's quite an assumption. As an engineer, I would think you'd be a bit more objective & logical about this. Because I debate an assertion that all managers are bad and all engineers are superheroes who can do anything makes me a "manager type"?
the original HP hand held calculators was an engineering idea and the marketing department saw it as a useless one before they started selling as hotcakes.
That doesn't mean that all marketing is bad and all engineers are wizards at designing profitable products. It means that that the original HP marketing team was bad, or that they simply missed this one. Or that the engineers just got lucky. Unless they actually did market demand studies, they just took a gamble in making a product that they liked & hoped that someone outside of their narrow demographic would buy it.
They don't nee to be paid off. Publish something controversial, and you sell more magazines.
Look, I know you CxO types are very busy and super important people [sarcasm] but lets not invent new words shall we? All the CEO is supposed to do is look good and say forward thinking things like "We intend to make profits this quarter."
....
It's the actual engineers that make companies like HP and Compaq move forwards.
TRY to run a company with engineers, and see what happens. Engineers build products, not businesses. They just don't operate at that level - it's not a question of intelligence, it's one of focus, perspective, and education. Check out this "fable" by Joel Spolsky for a good illustration.
I don't care how much marketting you spin on your new laptops, if you don't put a screen in [for example] it's not going to sell. Or if the damn thing weighs a ton, or the batteries explode or
It's not the engineers that decide features like weight, batteries, screen... that's what the marketing department should be doing. They determine what the customers want and balance market demand and operating budget with the engineer's estimate of what it takes to build these features and how they impact each other. (At least in an organization that's functioning - I'm making no claims either way regarding HP). They aren't (or shouldn't be) just about trying to "spin" poorly-wrought products.
Some of Dilbert may be right on, but you know... it's not gospel. Some of it is just comedy.
Isn't this what most internship programs are about? Spread the word about the company, get students hooked on their software/tools/philosophy/widgets, and keep an eye out to recruit the best ones as full time employees.
Yet even in the US I recently read on a republican blogger's page someone comparing emacs (she called it emac) with M$ Word and dubbing emacs of being a word processor of lesser quality.
Let's be fair here; being uninformed about what emacs is, and writing a poor comparison in her blog has NOTHING to do with being a Republican.
But then how can blogging nobodys make a name for themselves?
I'll second that! But I've seen it spelled "Yuengling" - you some kind of European or something? :-)
Well space does get lonely... inflatable woman... :-)
I don't believe I said anything about them having a "right" to do anything. It's purely a pragmatic issue: if they can't afford to produce their content, then we can't watch it.
I don't know that I'm quite ready to swallow that analogy. I'd say taking private planes is more analogous to deciding to watch only DVDs instead of cable TV. Those planes don't use the freeway, but TiVo users still use the network's content. A better analogy for the viewpoint of the TV execs is someone who drives on the freeway, but always takes the last exit, skirts around each toll booth on local roads, and then gets back on the freeway at the first entrance after the toll booth.
How about OTA broadcasts? Or (I realize this is straying a bit), how about TiVo for AM/FM radio (not subscription XM)? How do these companies continue to pay for their content and broadcast since they don't receive cable fees for your view?
Also, I'm curious what the breakdown for cable service really looks like. I'd bet a fair amount of it goes to "distribution" by the cable company - i.e. Comcast - and very little to the networks or production houses that actually make the content. Anyone know?
Um, how is owning a property "renting for free"? Mortgage, all utilities (in my state, landlords have to pay water & sewer bills), home repairs, insurance, property tax... Being a landlord is a very low-margin business. Sure, if you own, then any of those (low-margin) profits (and, if you operate correctly some tax benefits) belong to you, but I would definitely not equate this to free in any circumstances.
:-)
And even that small profit (and maybe somewhat larger tax savings) comes with a price - as a renter, it's easy to pick up and move at the end of each lease. Find a better deal, a new neighborhood. As an owner, your asset (and home) are not very liquid and become much less so when the market is cool. I could go on about the headaches of home maintenance, etc., but I think this makes my point.
I am a homeowner (and a landlord), and I'm not bitter. Just a realist. No, really!
My own experience, however, has shown me that married workers are more capable, whether it be because of the daily, constant, successful ability to handle stress, emergencies, delegation, risk, and reward, or some other aspect.
I don't know the demographics of the people you've worked with, of course, but I wonder if it's simply because married people tend to be older (and therefore more experienced) on average.