In other news, Bud Light Scientists recently announced they were nearing the end of their ground breaking high altitude sleep deprivation beer party study.
It wasn't quite because they could get away with it -- it was because somebody in authority ("the researcher" in this case) was telling them to and they didn't have the guts to say no despite how bad they felt for the "subject".
Still a profoundly disturbing result but more a Nuremburg type distrubing rather than a man's inhumanity to man type.
This is really cool when you mix with legalization of attacks on p2p networks. This effectively, and legally, lets Microsoft prevent your computer from being a p2p node.
I wonder if the EULA lets them use you as a node in a concerted attack on p2p networks that "break" DRM.
Sounds great, I think I'll get my nephew this for his birthday!
:-(
I have some hope that M:tG:OL might actually work -- unlike other online
games you have something serious to lose besides access -- the card collection
you have built up. The biggest problem with online games, as this article
points out, is the lack of repercussions to being an ass.
If you've invested a lot more that time into something (eg. bought lots
of boosters) then getting kicked off for breaking the terms of use might
be enough of a feedback loop to keep some modicum of control.
On most online games you just re-register under another name.
Of course then the issue is -- will they really kick off somebody who has bought
$10000 worth of cards...
Hmmmm, almost every study I've seen shows that doing things right (proper requirements, design, testing, etc.) actually saves time. It's certainly been my own experience that projects following a good methodology have been cheaper than projects that didn't, interestingly enough the projects that didn't follow a methodology were always initially estimated to be inexpensive.
How many fewer versions of Office and Windows would there be if Microsoft was designing their software for reliability and usability instead finding a way to hack the browser into the OS to screw Netscape or modifying libraries to cause Lotus 123 and Wordperfect to misfunction? And would developing those versions be cheaper or more expensive?
What ever they do, I hope they don't store nuclear waste nearby and I hope they don't call it Moonbase Alpha...
User Design Fiasco
on
Version Fatigue
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Don't underestimate the effect of trying to make users feel like the 130 dollars they paid for the upgrade was well spent -- by completely reorganizing menus and features they certainly make you feel like you got something new.
At one point in my career I had three different versions of Word on three different machines. It was hilarious dealing with the different versions and how many differences there were, only to find out that, feature wise, they were almost identical.
I really hope the OpenOffice guys have a modicum of self control on this issue now that I've switched over to that office suite:-)
Contracting is HARD and a lot of work ...
on
The Owner-Builder Book
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is a lot of work and you had better have some idea of the nature of the business. Be really careful about doing this if:
you're not a good negotiator and you don't like negotiating
you're not a good judge of character
you don't know the difference between pine and poplar or which of black or white is live
you don't have lot's of free time
That said, there are some really bad contracters out there. Some places have huge building booms (Toronto for instance:-) and all sorts of fly by night organizations and people are head contracting these days. Picking a good contractor can be harder that just doing it yourself.
My dad just had a brutal experience last year where he ended up doing a lot of the project management because the head contractor was so bad.
Either way, as somebody else said -- ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS take the time to buy the guys who are doing the work beer or coffee. Construction guys always do better work for somebody they know and think is an ok guy rather than some anonymous jerk who phones in complaints to their boss.
Missing Software Project Survival Guide
on
General IT Books?
·
· Score: 1
Code Complete is a programming book and should be under that category. You want the excellent Software Project Survival Guide under Business/Management.
Click. Oh, empty cylinder, I guess this game is safe after all.
Just because it is almost impossible to trigger this virus and just because the guy who pulled the trigger is "only" a microsoft contractor is no reason NOT to be upset that MS once again played this game with their customers.
No, it's not that they are too stupid to understand the Tragedy of the Commons it's that they are too selfish to care.
The problem is that if one squats and wash their ass in the public fountain, poisoning it with Ecoli for everybody else, it's only a problem if they a) haven't had their fill of the water first and b) they have some sense of ethics.
These sales folks you are talking to are all in race to be the first to wash their ass, this ethics talk of yours is just slowing them down.
What is your boss like? I've had many employees quit on me -- some I was happy to see go and I wished them luck and a few others I made counter-offers to. I'd never willingly make a counter offer to dead wood or problem employees. I've been around long enough that I don't buy that loyalty crap either. But I've also been pushed to counter to keep an employee I'd other wise let go because upper management wanted to keep the skills. Usually you end up firing them later because the problems just get worse.
You say you are otherwise happy with the company. This is key -- if you're looking because your job sucks more money isn't going to make it suck a whole lot less. Life is too short for sleepless nights and ulcers.
I'd talk with your boss and find out how he feels about your "looking". Be sure to explain this fell into you lap and that your resume isn't on Monster trolling for "bids". Find out why he's making the counter and explain your concerns. If your boss is anything like me or bosses I've accepted counters from this shouldn't be a problem.
This industry changes quickly, it's easy for even a "fair" company/manager to get out of sync with the current value of an employee. Don't take it personally if you find out you're underpaid.
I think this guy has a real blind spot when it comes to networking effects.
He's famous for "disputing" the network effect for computers and now he can't explain why file sharing isn't hurting sales.
Easy, it's a variation of the network effect. If there is more music, if people are hearing more artists and being exposed to music styles they've never heard before, naturally they'll spend more money on music. Some of that goes to hard drives, CD-R's, etc. but some (most?) goes to legal CD's and concert tickets.
I think this guy needs to read Asimov's The Foundation series and take some pshycology courses before he becomes completely irrelevant!
No you turkey, from all of this I conclude it's not ready for use by my sister or my mom.
Hmmmmm, but I understand your confusion. Let's see if I can get this into a frame of reference you can understand:
You Linux guys suck -- none of you are as smart or have dicks as big as us FreeBSD guys.
How was that? Sigh. The other reason I can't in good faith recommend Linux to people is because then they'd have to deal with dickheads like you every time they had a problem.
Reliability is not just "uptime". I installed Red Hat 7.2 at home for my kids to use as a surfing box -- I moved it to a different subnet and used the funky config tool to change the networking.
Hosed.
Had to "find | xargs grep" for the old ip address and finally found another config file buried in a system folder that only got set on install and not reset by the networking tools.
That's not reliable. If my brother had to change ISP's and was using Linux I'd have had to drive to his house to fix it.
Both our Mac X boxes have been configured, reconfigured and swapped between subnets without any problems.
As much as I despise Microsoft I have been unwilling to recommend anything other than Windows or MacOS to my friends and family.
I honestly feel that I may be able to recommend open source software to non-geeks in the near future. I'm using OpenOffice and Mozilla and both are holding up well -- indeed OpenOffice is less annoying than MSOffice 2000.
I think if UnitedLinux and Red Hat can just make that final turn into providing MacOSX like reliability then I will start recommending Linux and Macs and tell everybody to avoid Windows like the plague it is.
There are lots of yes/no answers that cost or have spent billions for that one bit of information. Consider the following questions for which we've spent billions of dollars and still haven't or only recently have definitively answered:
Is there intelligent life out there?
Is there life in our solar system?
Is there a God?
Is the universe expanding or shrinking?
Where is/is there dark matter?
Etc. Etc.
More mundane single bit questions for personal use that are hard to really put a price on but are relatively cheap to discover:
No, but I'd be concerned that an AI that has to interact with humans doesn't have a grasp of such things as fanatacism.
Imagine, this AI figures out half the people on the 'net believe in God -- and decides that such illogical beings don't deserve internet access... or to live for that matter.
I wonder what else is considered to be "[unmentionable] in everyday applications". Looks like they nipped their childs adolescence in the bud...
Well, I think we now know how the doomsday Terminator/Matrix scenarios evolve -- AI programmers too lazy to teach their pet about sex, religon and morality.
Slashdot Mirror
In other news, Bud Light Scientists recently announced they were nearing the end of their ground breaking high altitude sleep deprivation beer party study.
It wasn't quite because they could get away with it -- it was because somebody in authority ("the researcher" in this case) was telling them to and they didn't have the guts to say no despite how bad they felt for the "subject".
Still a profoundly disturbing result but more a Nuremburg type distrubing rather than a man's inhumanity to man type.
I wonder if the EULA lets them use you as a node in a concerted attack on p2p networks that "break" DRM.
Anybody have the full EULA?
I have some hope that M:tG:OL might actually work -- unlike other online games you have something serious to lose besides access -- the card collection you have built up. The biggest problem with online games, as this article points out, is the lack of repercussions to being an ass.
If you've invested a lot more that time into something (eg. bought lots of boosters) then getting kicked off for breaking the terms of use might be enough of a feedback loop to keep some modicum of control.
On most online games you just re-register under another name.
Of course then the issue is -- will they really kick off somebody who has bought $10000 worth of cards ...
Hmmmm, almost every study I've seen shows that doing things right (proper requirements, design, testing, etc.) actually saves time. It's certainly been my own experience that projects following a good methodology have been cheaper than projects that didn't, interestingly enough the projects that didn't follow a methodology were always initially estimated to be inexpensive.
How many fewer versions of Office and Windows would there be if Microsoft was designing their software for reliability and usability instead finding a way to hack the browser into the OS to screw Netscape or modifying libraries to cause Lotus 123 and Wordperfect to misfunction? And would developing those versions be cheaper or more expensive?
A gaming console and a PVR in one? CoOOOOol. ... Arrg!
Oh, it's from Microsoft
Get thee behind me Satan and tempt me not!
Every time we hear about one of these it's closer than the last time.
Is somebody aiming these things?
What ever they do, I hope they don't store nuclear waste nearby and I hope they don't call it Moonbase Alpha ...
Don't underestimate the effect of trying to make users feel like the 130 dollars they paid for the upgrade was well spent -- by completely reorganizing menus and features they certainly make you feel like you got something new.
:-)
At one point in my career I had three different versions of Word on three different machines. It was hilarious dealing with the different versions and how many differences there were, only to find out that, feature wise, they were almost identical.
I really hope the OpenOffice guys have a modicum of self control on this issue now that I've switched over to that office suite
That said, there are some really bad contracters out there. Some places have huge building booms (Toronto for instance :-) and all sorts of fly by night organizations and people are head contracting these days. Picking a good contractor can be harder that just doing it yourself.
My dad just had a brutal experience last year where he ended up doing a lot of the project management because the head contractor was so bad.
Either way, as somebody else said -- ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS take the time to buy the guys who are doing the work beer or coffee. Construction guys always do better work for somebody they know and think is an ok guy rather than some anonymous jerk who phones in complaints to their boss.
This should be moderated redundant.
Fred Brooks' point was that the next great language or the next great paradigm or the next great whathaveyou won't solve your problem.
You need to have the proper language, good design, good people, time, management commitment etc. etc.
Kind of what the article was saying.
Well at least the timelines are getting longer than 2 days :-)
Just because it is almost impossible to trigger this virus and just because the guy who pulled the trigger is "only" a microsoft contractor is no reason NOT to be upset that MS once again played this game with their customers.
This is NOT a no blood/no foul scenario!
No, it's not that they are too stupid to understand the Tragedy of the Commons it's that they are too selfish to care.
The problem is that if one squats and wash their ass in the public fountain, poisoning it with Ecoli for everybody else, it's only a problem if they a) haven't had their fill of the water first and b) they have some sense of ethics.
These sales folks you are talking to are all in race to be the first to wash their ass, this ethics talk of yours is just slowing them down.
What is your boss like? I've had many employees quit on me -- some I was happy to see go and I wished them luck and a few others I made counter-offers to. I'd never willingly make a counter offer to dead wood or problem employees. I've been around long enough that I don't buy that loyalty crap either. But I've also been pushed to counter to keep an employee I'd other wise let go because upper management wanted to keep the skills. Usually you end up firing them later because the problems just get worse.
You say you are otherwise happy with the company. This is key -- if you're looking because your job sucks more money isn't going to make it suck a whole lot less. Life is too short for sleepless nights and ulcers.
I'd talk with your boss and find out how he feels about your "looking". Be sure to explain this fell into you lap and that your resume isn't on Monster trolling for "bids". Find out why he's making the counter and explain your concerns. If your boss is anything like me or bosses I've accepted counters from this shouldn't be a problem.
This industry changes quickly, it's easy for even a "fair" company/manager to get out of sync with the current value of an employee. Don't take it personally if you find out you're underpaid.
I think this guy has a real blind spot when it comes to networking effects.
He's famous for "disputing" the network effect for computers and now he can't explain why file sharing isn't hurting sales.
Easy, it's a variation of the network effect. If there is more music, if people are hearing more artists and being exposed to music styles they've never heard before, naturally they'll spend more money on music. Some of that goes to hard drives, CD-R's, etc. but some (most?) goes to legal CD's and concert tickets.
I think this guy needs to read Asimov's The Foundation series and take some pshycology courses before he becomes completely irrelevant!
Again my kids, neighbours and my mom are not going to have a lot of luck with vi and/or configuration scripts.
Your definition of reliable includes the cavet "if administered by a Linux geek who knows that the tools included are broken and just uses vi".
For the purposes of this discussion, recommendations to naive users, needing to have a Linux guy around for maintenance means it's unreliable.
Hmmmmm, but I understand your confusion. Let's see if I can get this into a frame of reference you can understand:
You Linux guys suck -- none of you are as smart or have dicks as big as us FreeBSD guys.
How was that? Sigh. The other reason I can't in good faith recommend Linux to people is because then they'd have to deal with dickheads like you every time they had a problem.
No, I meant reliability.
Reliability is not just "uptime". I installed Red Hat 7.2 at home for my kids to use as a surfing box -- I moved it to a different subnet and used the funky config tool to change the networking.
Hosed.
Had to "find | xargs grep" for the old ip address and finally found another config file buried in a system folder that only got set on install and not reset by the networking tools.
That's not reliable. If my brother had to change ISP's and was using Linux I'd have had to drive to his house to fix it.
Both our Mac X boxes have been configured, reconfigured and swapped between subnets without any problems.
As much as I despise Microsoft I have been unwilling to recommend anything other than Windows or MacOS to my friends and family.
...
I honestly feel that I may be able to recommend open source software to non-geeks in the near future. I'm using OpenOffice and Mozilla and both are holding up well -- indeed OpenOffice is less annoying than MSOffice 2000.
I think if UnitedLinux and Red Hat can just make that final turn into providing MacOSX like reliability then I will start recommending Linux and Macs and tell everybody to avoid Windows like the plague it is.
Sooooooo close
- Is there intelligent life out there?
- Is there life in our solar system?
- Is there a God?
- Is the universe expanding or shrinking?
- Where is/is there dark matter?
- Etc. Etc.
More mundane single bit questions for personal use that are hard to really put a price on but are relatively cheap to discover:No, but I'd be concerned that an AI that has to interact with humans doesn't have a grasp of such things as fanatacism.
... or to live for that matter.
Imagine, this AI figures out half the people on the 'net believe in God -- and decides that such illogical beings don't deserve internet access
Well, I think we now know how the doomsday Terminator/Matrix scenarios evolve -- AI programmers too lazy to teach their pet about sex, religon and morality.
This should have been an option since, if you will remember, Al Gore took the initiative in creating mathematics when he was in Congress.