Any Engineer that could fix a starship would know what a damn microphone looked like, even if it came from a number of centuries before. Physics doesn't change.
The writers put it in for a laugh and to be entertaining, which ultimately of course, IS the point of any movie.
But it was totally unrealistic. Maybe that's good in the context of entertainment.
Re:It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux
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A New Kind of OS
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Ah my favorite topic... the fleecing of folks into thinking a computer is a necessity.
It's a machine. You buy a big, complex machine, you usually read the manual and maybe even find a real instructor to show you how to operate safely.
If you don't know how to drive, don't buy a car unless you're planning to learn. Soon.
Except in the case of the typical modern home computer, it's more specialized than a car. It's more like buying a complete 4 story high crane and then sitting in the cab screwing around with it to try to figure out how to use it properly.
Are there really companies out there who bring in consultants and don't write formal requirements (INCLUDING training your staff to take BACK the project at the end) and don't rack that they're getting what the hell they paid for?
Personally I don't think these places need a 12-step plan to save them, they need to die off naturally and let those who know how to manage their resources get the business.
Something stinks of "free Gov'mint money" in this article... defense contractor, something similar...
I always thought that scene sucked. Scotty can fix the Enterprise with duct tape and bailing wire and knows systems like the back of his hand, but he can't see the keyboard sitting on the desk nor does he recognize there's not a microphone on the mouse?
ISO 9000 is a documentation process, not a quality process. People don't seem to get that, and the marketing spin around it for years has not exactly made that very clear.
One of the engineers at work keeps a photograph of the Firestone plant that produced all the deadly, defective tires for Ford.
The photo shows clearly: - The plant was shut down and closed. - The plant has a large "ISO 9000 Certified" sign on the entrance sign.
ISO 9000 just means that you documented your procedures and you can verify and prove that you followed them. It does not tell you whether or not they're smart, safe, profitable, or anything else about your business.
In other words: ISO 9000 forces a company to document what they're doing, but can't save the idiots from doing the wrong things.
Or perhaps the so-called experts NEVER really know what's going on, and like the rest of us, can't predict the future consistently?
"Experts" are just people too. People who've studied and lived something longer than the rest of us, but have no more skill at foreseeing the future than any of the rest of us.
They'll monitor and observe for a while, and figure out what's going on. And then likely have no idea how to change it, and it'll change on its own and do something else "unexpected".
Well the "generation" names are generally not very accurate. I found articles that claim I'm Gen X, but there's no way I would have been alive to see any of the moon landings at an age where I could possibly remember them.
I guess what I'm saying is... anyone alive long enough ago to have caused all the total screwups we have today in major political parties... thanks a lot. You were able to vote back then. Now I can only do so much to stem the tide of insanity and disrespect for our Constitution coming from the Washington the Boomers created.
If you don't consider yourself a Boomer, I apologize (to you, not to the Boomer generation). One of the only groups of people from the Boomer generation that seems to "get it" as far as National and World politics are concerned, is the group that was forced to serve in Vietnam. I highly respect those folks.
Shrub, er... Bush was AWOL and wouldn't go. Too busy being a rich coke-head at the time, I suppose.
Spineless prick. At least Kerry went.
Should'a been a McCain/Powell (or Powell/McCain) ticket. If it weren't for Rove and his sick and twisted tactics ruining McCain in the Deep South asking voters "innocently", "What would you think if John McCain had an ilegitimate black child?" While McCain has an ADOPTED black child...
Of course, the Democrats will inevitably run Hillary (again), so there will be an entire generation who's never seen an election ticket where a Bush or a Clinton wasn't on the ballot. But noooo, there's no "ruling class" in our great country...
Washington's all about money, and Gen X and Gen Y aren't going to have much of it by the looks of things, after the Boomers get through sucking the life out of the econonmy. So it will mean (as usual), "Interesting Times" ahead.
My generation (the one behind yours) remembers watching you get disillusioned and older, remembers being relieved when the Cold War ended and you folks finally decided that Mutually Assured Destruction was stupid, but not because you really thought about it... only because the "other side" ran out of money first, and faces the prospect of your generation bankrupting the country in retirement because most of you didn't save enough money to live on.
Just imagine the possibilities you've left us with!;-)
(Personally I think I'll be investing in upscale retirement homes for those few of you who can afford it.)
Looking over the numbers, the sapping of the country's economic base by aging Boomers has just started.
My work skills are good, I'm employed a small margin below my level of ability, and my salary hasn't yet matched what I made in 2001 since the market "corrections" and 9/11. You all artificially puffed up the economy by GAMBLING in the stock market in the late 1990's and 2000's. (My generation really didn't have enough personal assets to play much yet at that point in our lives. 2001's market crashes are mostly Boomer's fault. Trying to "catch up" on their retirement savings by gambling in high-risk (crappy) investments. Nice try, if you'd remember a smidgeon of Macro-economics, you'd all know that you can't all do that trick at once... the bubble pops.
Meanwhile I was working my ass off trying to save money and lost most of it in a year without work after you all bailed out when your silly experiment ended.
Considering the average inflation rate, I'm making close to 20% less that I was making in 2001 in real dollars, and my disposable income after some cost cutting and getting older and a bit more out of debt (I learned that lesson late - my fault), shows a similar dip.
And you guys still want to screw around and limp NASA along? I love NASA - always have, always will - a huge "fan" shall we say, but I'm hoping folks like SpaceX go kick their ass and put them out of "business" in numerous areas. Fiscally, NASA can't be saved. The behemoth your generation allowed them to become post-Apollo is amazingly sad. Pork barrel politics from the people YOU elected. Thanks.
But they do serve a purpose for the country as a stronghold of Engineering talent. (Well, truthfully I think NASA proper is a stronghold for obnoxiously anal managers, and their CONTRACTORS are the stronghold for the talent, once again - the private sector wins.)
Now the fun part -- I sound like an "old school" Republican don't I? But there AREN'T any old-school Republicans left to be found. They're a dying breed.
And how did you send that idiot "Dubya" to the Oval Office? The vast majority of people voting for him were shown to be middle aged white guys and soccer moms. All Boomers.
That jackass isn't a Republican, but you dolts (I'm speaking to the true-blue Republicans here now...) let those idiot NeoCons take over your Party because they rolled your balls around in their hands catering to your special interests... Gun Control, Abortion, No Gay Marriage... they suckered you all in, but good.
George W. Loves Jesus - and Jesus gave him a 117:1 kill ratio in Iraq. Long live religious voters! LOL. Idiots. And then they voted for Round 2 with him. Nice.
Bring back fiscal responsibility (or at least campaigns that claim you'll at least attempt fiscal responsibility), stop sending troops overseas to a quagmire, no matter how "valiant" the effort seems to be -- or at least admit it's all about oil (and in the case of "Dubya", oil families and old East Coast money -- the guy grew up in MAINE... where the HELL did he get a Texas accent?) and fix the Republican Party, you're going to need those old-school Repubs someday to deal with the deficit this idiot's creating.
What we really need is a Fiscal Responsibility Party, but that won't happen. Your generation let Washington get more and more corrupt and allowed Corporations to sen
In other words, yes -- I think they should work harder at it and they DEFINITELY shouldn't provide "golden parachute" clauses that allow execs to run away with more money than they showed up with when they royally screw up, at the very least.
As a shareholder, I own the company - do my bidding. I want quarterly gains at the expense of long-term growth, damnit!
(Yes, I'm being silly to make a point here. The shareholders of most corporations would drive all of them into the ground in today's environment of "gains right now". Long-term growth is rarely on the modern investor's list of important things to do, and companies could be very hurt by it.)
Should the Board make damn sure they don't provide the next CEO through the revolving door of rich-kid entitlement a larger chunk of money then when he/she arrived (Carly Fiorina) when their performance sucks? No. Should the Boards have more pressure on them to find good candidates that cost less than their friends from Harvard Business School? Hell yes.
Will it happen? Hell no. All these jackasses grew up with money coming out their asses in a world where they're entitled to it, if they just "grasp the holy grail" of HBS and do all the same things their Lexus-driving friends in the industry (who sit on their Board of Directors) do.
Play a little golf, get drunk, wave your HBS sheepskin around, get another opportunity to fuck up another company and leave with more money than you came in with. And always act like you have the toughest job in the world, while never really working for your money, ever.
Time for shareholders to get angry about THAT and not expect perfect quarterly numbers -- which is also a losing game, long-term.
Saw 802.11n (possibly "pre-n" similar to the early pre-G?) devices at my local computer store this weekend.
Maybe it was just some pushy marketing saying the device CAN do it, but I swear I saw a box that said Linksys already had it on the market, sitting there on the shelf.
The silly thing looked like an old set of TV rabbit ears, complete with the square panel antenna in the center, tht looked like the "UHF" portion of said rabbit ears.
Seriously butt-ugly... and I LOVE RF stuf and find antennas nice to look at.
What I've never understood is why shareholders haven't started suing corporations with class action suits for wasting their money on expensive, ineffective CEO's.
A couple of high profile ones, and CEO salaries would crash mightily and golden parachute clauses would be stripped. The corporation would then get to keep that money and redistribute it to the real owners of the company, the shareholders, as required by law... as you say.
Yes the company has to shell out to defend itself from the lawsuit so the shareholders are temporarily losing value, but if they could oust a bad CEO while sending a very clear message to the Board that they'd better try a little harder to find a qualified, but CHEAP executive staff... they'd be better off every year in their pocketbooks and so would the company bottom line.
I guess we'll tell that to people who contracted Herpes Simplex encephalitis which is 70% fatal without treatment and 20% fatal even when treated. Like other Herpes outbreaks, it can then come and go, attacking the brain.
Similarly unborn children are at risk of neonatal herpes simplex contracted from the mother, which is fatal in 25% of cases.
While both of these are relatively rare, Herpes is a real disease, not just a social stigma. You need to learn more about it.
Well said. Linux on the Desktop has always been a non-starter. The code isn't trivial. The various religious factions are not interested in working together. Distros make this worse. And the crap that comes along is utterly horrible.
No it's not "stupid". If more software "engineers" would demand this data they need to properly ENGINEER the product and their management would back that request up, things would get better for all.
The problem is, for every one engineer out there who WILL ask, there are ten or more who won't, or who (worse) are too stupid to even know what they need to ask.
Software "engineering" will only grow up after a software-driven event happens that causes great harm and pain to a whole lot of people. (Just like mechanical and civil engineering disciplines.) Guaranteed that it WILL happen, since as you pointed out... even good Software Engineers have "thrown up their hands" and given up on getting even reasonable specifications.
There are some areas where software ENGINEERING practices are followed... and they have good results. Avionics, and Aerospace come to mind. Also public-safety radio systems and most RF-based communication systems that have added computer controls over the years.
But the average "software" company just continues to shovel out the shit. Changing languages, changing coding styles, changing specifications on-the-fly. It really is bad when you sit way back and analyze it. And definitely not ENGINEERING.
Good comments... we'll see where it goes. The thing to remember is that whatever the large "event" is that hurts a lot of people because of a software problem from badly written software... you and I could be included in that list of "poor souls" who got hurt, all because some jack-ass coder was lazy and had no discipline.
Only one huge flaw in the Emperor's robes at Apple right now -- the new generation hardware has some serious issues, as documented by many and lived by me. Two MacBooks and one 15 business day trip (read: more than half a month) for a repair, and 1300 machines "on-hold" during that week at the repair depot waiting for new motherboards, and my MacBook still has issues.
They're now minor enough that I "live with them", but this new hardware isn't yet anywhere close to Apple's traditional hardware quality standards.
They're also pissing off people right and left with their weird, "Get an appointment only today for the Genius Bar" crap at their retail outlets. Me definitely included.
I wanted the usually superb customer service of Apple at the retail store, and I didn't get it. AppleCare is still great, although I did wait on hold more than 1/2 hour twice recently. I also expected the usual Apple quality in their hardware I've come to expect. And I didn't get it.
Apple needs to "get it" and fix these things VERY fast, or they're just going to be yet another Dell.
All this really seems to indicate is that "we" as a business entity haven't quite figured out with REAL numbers what the most efficient and productive use of computing resources is, yet.
If we knew for a fact that putting "X, Y, and Z" applications on the server, while those doing jobs related to "A, B and C" need to have that computing done on their desktops...
We might stand a chance in hell of becoming a real Engineering disipline someday.
"Best Practices" are nice, but show a distinct lack of maturity in the technologies used. "Codes" and "Standards" set over time with hard numbers to back them up are the world most "real" Engineers live in.
AJAX is an outlet for those who'd like web-browsers to do more than they were originally designed to do, is all. Useful? Extremely in some cases. But always? No.
Just like all other attempts to measure a technology by that technology's potential (e.g. The "bubble" bursting a few years back), this one is an exercise in futility.
Treat IT like a real business within your company and only dole out capital for IT that either makes or saves the company revenue -- and you'll have all those pesky things like "business models" fall into place. No need for a model -- use the real numbers. Only guess when you HAVE to.
AJAX as a technology then: Useful, to a point. Just like all technology enhancements. The real trick is to see if AJAX can save money over building a real app for a desktop or thin-client machine. Somehow, I truly doubt it. Does it possibly save money by forcing central-administration? Yeah, maybe, but I've seen companies so bogged down in the hassles of centralized administration to know that sometimes their business divisions NEED the flexibility of a custom application. Etc.
In short: We'll see how useful it is by looking at the REAL numbers of those willing to gamble with their IT budgets. If they're gaining ground over everyone else (Google certainly seems to be, but they might be the exception rather than the rulle), then perhaps it's time to make a shift within our own organizations.
Be careful - Passion can be killed by a job
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How Old is Too Old?
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A friend of mine gave me some sage advice when I was in my early 20's, and so far, he's been right.
"Turn anything you love into your vocation and there's always a good chance you will lose your passion for it."
Now I'm not saying that passionate people haven't been rediculously successful doing things they love as a job, but most of those people started their own businesses and/or work for organizations that are doing exactly what they love at the pace they want to do it at, or for a division of a large organization that does. All this talk lately of "work where you're passionate" can have a dire backlash if you have to pay the bills and take the first coding job that comes along.
By the way things work in the heirarchy of Business, you're far more likely to find a job where you have almost ZERO creative control over your daily work than to find one where you have complete control.
In other words, if you're not the boss, you're not the boss.
If you are not the personalty type (numerous tests abound for finding out generally how you react to various situations and thoughts) to crank out code to a completely arbitrary (or at least that you had very little input into) formal specification -- writing code for a living really may not be for you. Because any real serious formal Engineering effort will require that level of formality and structure for any low/entry-level coders. And you might be there for a very long time.
If you love technology for the "new-ness", the thrill of trying and doing new things, etc... the usual reasons people "love" technology in their personal lives, then writing code for an established company could really kill your motivation and enjoyment of such things.
Frankly, it's depressing (to different degrees for different people) to watch your organization staunchly hold on to "what worked in the past", whether it's for good business reasons or bad ones.
I love OS's and working on new things. Actually what I really love is building new infrastructure. I'm a sysadmin, but the day-to-day sysadmin chores are just that. Chores. I do them, and do them well, but I'd rather be building something new, usually under a deadline.
But... I've found that the "chores" job is more stable and almost always pays better. Doing things no one else wants to is both a blessing and a curse in Information Tech jobs. It means you have stability until the next-big-thing wipes out your usefulness, and it means (to use a popular phrase right now) that while you're on the "long tail" of that technology the longer you hang around, the more you get paid -- as you watch contemporaries drop off the ride.
Some COBOL programmers make a VERY nice living right now. But the numbers were against them and they "lucked out" by getting to keep their jobs this long. That technology is shrinking in use.
Specifically to my case, my current role is supporting a system that runs on an OS that's tried and "true" and we're MAYBE going to upgrade some customers in a year or two, if the customers agree and are interested in upgrading -- and that's a big *if*. My customer base values stability and lack of change -- especially if it affects their customers with outages, far more heavily than they value new things or new features. Only if there's a chance they might lose a multi-million dollar contract would they EVER consider speeding up a very VERY slow upgrade/certification process.
By that time the OS the systems are running on will be at least 8 years old.
(I work in Telecommunications, by the way. Upgrades are ONLY done to fix specific, defined problems, and part of the definition is in how many customers are being affected and how big they are. I see this type of "mental juggling" in telecommunication management meetings every week. In fact usually those meetings themselves are structured to specifically address those types of questions and happen formally at least twice a month or more.)
Lots and lots of switching power supplies on one phase of a three-phase system can also get neutrals horribly imbalanced and heat up the main transformer, etc. Think older building with one tenant running a sweatshop, er call-center with lots of PC's and other tenants running ten to twenty devices. Can make for an interesting afternoon when someone smells the transformer baking off in the power closet.
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Humbug.
Any Engineer that could fix a starship would know what a damn microphone looked like, even if it came from a number of centuries before. Physics doesn't change.
The writers put it in for a laugh and to be entertaining, which ultimately of course, IS the point of any movie.
But it was totally unrealistic. Maybe that's good in the context of entertainment.
Ah my favorite topic... the fleecing of folks into thinking a computer is a necessity.
It's a machine. You buy a big, complex machine, you usually read the manual and maybe even find a real instructor to show you how to operate safely.
If you don't know how to drive, don't buy a car unless you're planning to learn. Soon.
Except in the case of the typical modern home computer, it's more specialized than a car. It's more like buying a complete 4 story high crane and then sitting in the cab screwing around with it to try to figure out how to use it properly.
Better requirements. Better tracking.
Are there really companies out there who bring in consultants and don't write formal requirements (INCLUDING training your staff to take BACK the project at the end) and don't rack that they're getting what the hell they paid for?
Personally I don't think these places need a 12-step plan to save them, they need to die off naturally and let those who know how to manage their resources get the business.
Something stinks of "free Gov'mint money" in this article... defense contractor, something similar...
I always thought that scene sucked. Scotty can fix the Enterprise with duct tape and bailing wire and knows systems like the back of his hand, but he can't see the keyboard sitting on the desk nor does he recognize there's not a microphone on the mouse?
(Ahem... bullshit... ahem...)
Many of these systems are from the same company.
Saying "Operator" or "Agent" will regularly get you around them, so you can then sit in the 30 minute or longer hold queue.
On those lines: I've recently sat on hold for Apple, United Airlines and a large national travel agency for 30 minutes or more.
The best: FedEx. Bar none. "Agent" and someone answers, 24/7.
ISO 9000 is a documentation process, not a quality process. People don't seem to get that, and the marketing spin around it for years has not exactly made that very clear.
One of the engineers at work keeps a photograph of the Firestone plant that produced all the deadly, defective tires for Ford.
The photo shows clearly:
- The plant was shut down and closed.
- The plant has a large "ISO 9000 Certified" sign on the entrance sign.
ISO 9000 just means that you documented your procedures and you can verify and prove that you followed them. It does not tell you whether or not they're smart, safe, profitable, or anything else about your business.
In other words: ISO 9000 forces a company to document what they're doing, but can't save the idiots from doing the wrong things.
Or perhaps the so-called experts NEVER really know what's going on, and like the rest of us, can't predict the future consistently?
"Experts" are just people too. People who've studied and lived something longer than the rest of us, but have no more skill at foreseeing the future than any of the rest of us.
They'll monitor and observe for a while, and figure out what's going on. And then likely have no idea how to change it, and it'll change on its own and do something else "unexpected".
That's the nature of... Nature.
What's REALLY interesting to analyze is:
Is there some bigger, nastier reason one might need International air travel disrupted?
With as easy as it is to do today, if someone NEEDS to do it, they've pretty much got an open invitation, now.
There's not consensus about what "every task of management" even is. Never has been. Look at the Business section of a bookstore sometime.
The job itself is poorly defined (on purpose) as a structural way of giving a manager power.
Only their boss knows what they've told them to accomplish and only their boss can evaluate them.
Yes but this isn't "good research into depression". It's research into how to cover up depression.
8. Religion
9. Politics
No system runs without them.
e.g. "We're an all Cisco shop..."
Well the "generation" names are generally not very accurate. I found articles that claim I'm Gen X, but there's no way I would have been alive to see any of the moon landings at an age where I could possibly remember them.
I guess what I'm saying is... anyone alive long enough ago to have caused all the total screwups we have today in major political parties... thanks a lot. You were able to vote back then. Now I can only do so much to stem the tide of insanity and disrespect for our Constitution coming from the Washington the Boomers created.
If you don't consider yourself a Boomer, I apologize (to you, not to the Boomer generation). One of the only groups of people from the Boomer generation that seems to "get it" as far as National and World politics are concerned, is the group that was forced to serve in Vietnam. I highly respect those folks.
Shrub, er... Bush was AWOL and wouldn't go. Too busy being a rich coke-head at the time, I suppose.
Spineless prick. At least Kerry went.
Should'a been a McCain/Powell (or Powell/McCain) ticket. If it weren't for Rove and his sick and twisted tactics ruining McCain in the Deep South asking voters "innocently", "What would you think if John McCain had an ilegitimate black child?" While McCain has an ADOPTED black child...
Of course, the Democrats will inevitably run Hillary (again), so there will be an entire generation who's never seen an election ticket where a Bush or a Clinton wasn't on the ballot. But noooo, there's no "ruling class" in our great country...
Washington's all about money, and Gen X and Gen Y aren't going to have much of it by the looks of things, after the Boomers get through sucking the life out of the econonmy. So it will mean (as usual), "Interesting Times" ahead.
My generation (the one behind yours) remembers watching you get disillusioned and older, remembers being relieved when the Cold War ended and you folks finally decided that Mutually Assured Destruction was stupid, but not because you really thought about it... only because the "other side" ran out of money first, and faces the prospect of your generation bankrupting the country in retirement because most of you didn't save enough money to live on.
;-)
Just imagine the possibilities you've left us with!
(Personally I think I'll be investing in upscale retirement homes for those few of you who can afford it.)
Looking over the numbers, the sapping of the country's economic base by aging Boomers has just started.
My work skills are good, I'm employed a small margin below my level of ability, and my salary hasn't yet matched what I made in 2001 since the market "corrections" and 9/11. You all artificially puffed up the economy by GAMBLING in the stock market in the late 1990's and 2000's. (My generation really didn't have enough personal assets to play much yet at that point in our lives. 2001's market crashes are mostly Boomer's fault. Trying to "catch up" on their retirement savings by gambling in high-risk (crappy) investments. Nice try, if you'd remember a smidgeon of Macro-economics, you'd all know that you can't all do that trick at once... the bubble pops.
Meanwhile I was working my ass off trying to save money and lost most of it in a year without work after you all bailed out when your silly experiment ended.
Considering the average inflation rate, I'm making close to 20% less that I was making in 2001 in real dollars, and my disposable income after some cost cutting and getting older and a bit more out of debt (I learned that lesson late - my fault), shows a similar dip.
And you guys still want to screw around and limp NASA along? I love NASA - always have, always will - a huge "fan" shall we say, but I'm hoping folks like SpaceX go kick their ass and put them out of "business" in numerous areas. Fiscally, NASA can't be saved. The behemoth your generation allowed them to become post-Apollo is amazingly sad. Pork barrel politics from the people YOU elected. Thanks.
But they do serve a purpose for the country as a stronghold of Engineering talent. (Well, truthfully I think NASA proper is a stronghold for obnoxiously anal managers, and their CONTRACTORS are the stronghold for the talent, once again - the private sector wins.)
Now the fun part -- I sound like an "old school" Republican don't I? But there AREN'T any old-school Republicans left to be found. They're a dying breed.
And how did you send that idiot "Dubya" to the Oval Office? The vast majority of people voting for him were shown to be middle aged white guys and soccer moms. All Boomers.
That jackass isn't a Republican, but you dolts (I'm speaking to the true-blue Republicans here now...) let those idiot NeoCons take over your Party because they rolled your balls around in their hands catering to your special interests... Gun Control, Abortion, No Gay Marriage... they suckered you all in, but good.
George W. Loves Jesus - and Jesus gave him a 117:1 kill ratio in Iraq. Long live religious voters! LOL. Idiots. And then they voted for Round 2 with him. Nice.
Bring back fiscal responsibility (or at least campaigns that claim you'll at least attempt fiscal responsibility), stop sending troops overseas to a quagmire, no matter how "valiant" the effort seems to be -- or at least admit it's all about oil (and in the case of "Dubya", oil families and old East Coast money -- the guy grew up in MAINE... where the HELL did he get a Texas accent?) and fix the Republican Party, you're going to need those old-school Repubs someday to deal with the deficit this idiot's creating.
What we really need is a Fiscal Responsibility Party, but that won't happen. Your generation let Washington get more and more corrupt and allowed Corporations to sen
That would be the Board's problem, not mine.
In other words, yes -- I think they should work harder at it and they DEFINITELY shouldn't provide "golden parachute" clauses that allow execs to run away with more money than they showed up with when they royally screw up, at the very least.
As a shareholder, I own the company - do my bidding. I want quarterly gains at the expense of long-term growth, damnit!
(Yes, I'm being silly to make a point here. The shareholders of most corporations would drive all of them into the ground in today's environment of "gains right now". Long-term growth is rarely on the modern investor's list of important things to do, and companies could be very hurt by it.)
Should the Board make damn sure they don't provide the next CEO through the revolving door of rich-kid entitlement a larger chunk of money then when he/she arrived (Carly Fiorina) when their performance sucks? No. Should the Boards have more pressure on them to find good candidates that cost less than their friends from Harvard Business School? Hell yes.
Will it happen? Hell no. All these jackasses grew up with money coming out their asses in a world where they're entitled to it, if they just "grasp the holy grail" of HBS and do all the same things their Lexus-driving friends in the industry (who sit on their Board of Directors) do.
Play a little golf, get drunk, wave your HBS sheepskin around, get another opportunity to fuck up another company and leave with more money than you came in with. And always act like you have the toughest job in the world, while never really working for your money, ever.
Time for shareholders to get angry about THAT and not expect perfect quarterly numbers -- which is also a losing game, long-term.
Saw 802.11n (possibly "pre-n" similar to the early pre-G?) devices at my local computer store this weekend.
Maybe it was just some pushy marketing saying the device CAN do it, but I swear I saw a box that said Linksys already had it on the market, sitting there on the shelf.
The silly thing looked like an old set of TV rabbit ears, complete with the square panel antenna in the center, tht looked like the "UHF" portion of said rabbit ears.
Seriously butt-ugly... and I LOVE RF stuf and find antennas nice to look at.
What I've never understood is why shareholders haven't started suing corporations with class action suits for wasting their money on expensive, ineffective CEO's.
A couple of high profile ones, and CEO salaries would crash mightily and golden parachute clauses would be stripped. The corporation would then get to keep that money and redistribute it to the real owners of the company, the shareholders, as required by law... as you say.
Yes the company has to shell out to defend itself from the lawsuit so the shareholders are temporarily losing value, but if they could oust a bad CEO while sending a very clear message to the Board that they'd better try a little harder to find a qualified, but CHEAP executive staff... they'd be better off every year in their pocketbooks and so would the company bottom line.
I guess we'll tell that to people who contracted Herpes Simplex encephalitis which is 70% fatal without treatment and 20% fatal even when treated. Like other Herpes outbreaks, it can then come and go, attacking the brain.
Similarly unborn children are at risk of neonatal herpes simplex contracted from the mother, which is fatal in 25% of cases.
While both of these are relatively rare, Herpes is a real disease, not just a social stigma. You need to learn more about it.
Polycom.
The house wiring was faulty. If you still live there, get it checked.
Well said. Linux on the Desktop has always been a non-starter. The code isn't trivial. The various religious factions are not interested in working together. Distros make this worse. And the crap that comes along is utterly horrible.
No it's not "stupid". If more software "engineers" would demand this data they need to properly ENGINEER the product and their management would back that request up, things would get better for all.
The problem is, for every one engineer out there who WILL ask, there are ten or more who won't, or who (worse) are too stupid to even know what they need to ask.
Software "engineering" will only grow up after a software-driven event happens that causes great harm and pain to a whole lot of people. (Just like mechanical and civil engineering disciplines.) Guaranteed that it WILL happen, since as you pointed out... even good Software Engineers have "thrown up their hands" and given up on getting even reasonable specifications.
There are some areas where software ENGINEERING practices are followed... and they have good results. Avionics, and Aerospace come to mind. Also public-safety radio systems and most RF-based communication systems that have added computer controls over the years.
But the average "software" company just continues to shovel out the shit. Changing languages, changing coding styles, changing specifications on-the-fly. It really is bad when you sit way back and analyze it. And definitely not ENGINEERING.
Good comments... we'll see where it goes. The thing to remember is that whatever the large "event" is that hurts a lot of people because of a software problem from badly written software... you and I could be included in that list of "poor souls" who got hurt, all because some jack-ass coder was lazy and had no discipline.
Only one huge flaw in the Emperor's robes at Apple right now -- the new generation hardware has some serious issues, as documented by many and lived by me. Two MacBooks and one 15 business day trip (read: more than half a month) for a repair, and 1300 machines "on-hold" during that week at the repair depot waiting for new motherboards, and my MacBook still has issues.
They're now minor enough that I "live with them", but this new hardware isn't yet anywhere close to Apple's traditional hardware quality standards.
They're also pissing off people right and left with their weird, "Get an appointment only today for the Genius Bar" crap at their retail outlets. Me definitely included.
I wanted the usually superb customer service of Apple at the retail store, and I didn't get it. AppleCare is still great, although I did wait on hold more than 1/2 hour twice recently. I also expected the usual Apple quality in their hardware I've come to expect. And I didn't get it.
Apple needs to "get it" and fix these things VERY fast, or they're just going to be yet another Dell.
I wouldn't call 25 years "ages".
All this really seems to indicate is that "we" as a business entity haven't quite figured out with REAL numbers what the most efficient and productive use of computing resources is, yet.
If we knew for a fact that putting "X, Y, and Z" applications on the server, while those doing jobs related to "A, B and C" need to have that computing done on their desktops...
We might stand a chance in hell of becoming a real Engineering disipline someday.
"Best Practices" are nice, but show a distinct lack of maturity in the technologies used. "Codes" and "Standards" set over time with hard numbers to back them up are the world most "real" Engineers live in.
AJAX is an outlet for those who'd like web-browsers to do more than they were originally designed to do, is all. Useful? Extremely in some cases. But always? No.
Just like all other attempts to measure a technology by that technology's potential (e.g. The "bubble" bursting a few years back), this one is an exercise in futility.
Treat IT like a real business within your company and only dole out capital for IT that either makes or saves the company revenue -- and you'll have all those pesky things like "business models" fall into place. No need for a model -- use the real numbers. Only guess when you HAVE to.
AJAX as a technology then: Useful, to a point. Just like all technology enhancements. The real trick is to see if AJAX can save money over building a real app for a desktop or thin-client machine. Somehow, I truly doubt it. Does it possibly save money by forcing central-administration? Yeah, maybe, but I've seen companies so bogged down in the hassles of centralized administration to know that sometimes their business divisions NEED the flexibility of a custom application. Etc.
In short: We'll see how useful it is by looking at the REAL numbers of those willing to gamble with their IT budgets. If they're gaining ground over everyone else (Google certainly seems to be, but they might be the exception rather than the rulle), then perhaps it's time to make a shift within our own organizations.
A friend of mine gave me some sage advice when I was in my early 20's, and so far, he's been right.
"Turn anything you love into your vocation and there's always a good chance you will lose your passion for it."
Now I'm not saying that passionate people haven't been rediculously successful doing things they love as a job, but most of those people started their own businesses and/or work for organizations that are doing exactly what they love at the pace they want to do it at, or for a division of a large organization that does. All this talk lately of "work where you're passionate" can have a dire backlash if you have to pay the bills and take the first coding job that comes along.
By the way things work in the heirarchy of Business, you're far more likely to find a job where you have almost ZERO creative control over your daily work than to find one where you have complete control.
In other words, if you're not the boss, you're not the boss.
If you are not the personalty type (numerous tests abound for finding out generally how you react to various situations and thoughts) to crank out code to a completely arbitrary (or at least that you had very little input into) formal specification -- writing code for a living really may not be for you. Because any real serious formal Engineering effort will require that level of formality and structure for any low/entry-level coders. And you might be there for a very long time.
If you love technology for the "new-ness", the thrill of trying and doing new things, etc... the usual reasons people "love" technology in their personal lives, then writing code for an established company could really kill your motivation and enjoyment of such things.
Frankly, it's depressing (to different degrees for different people) to watch your organization staunchly hold on to "what worked in the past", whether it's for good business reasons or bad ones.
I love OS's and working on new things. Actually what I really love is building new infrastructure. I'm a sysadmin, but the day-to-day sysadmin chores are just that. Chores. I do them, and do them well, but I'd rather be building something new, usually under a deadline.
But... I've found that the "chores" job is more stable and almost always pays better. Doing things no one else wants to is both a blessing and a curse in Information Tech jobs. It means you have stability until the next-big-thing wipes out your usefulness, and it means (to use a popular phrase right now) that while you're on the "long tail" of that technology the longer you hang around, the more you get paid -- as you watch contemporaries drop off the ride.
Some COBOL programmers make a VERY nice living right now. But the numbers were against them and they "lucked out" by getting to keep their jobs this long. That technology is shrinking in use.
Specifically to my case, my current role is supporting a system that runs on an OS that's tried and "true" and we're MAYBE going to upgrade some customers in a year or two, if the customers agree and are interested in upgrading -- and that's a big *if*. My customer base values stability and lack of change -- especially if it affects their customers with outages, far more heavily than they value new things or new features. Only if there's a chance they might lose a multi-million dollar contract would they EVER consider speeding up a very VERY slow upgrade/certification process.
By that time the OS the systems are running on will be at least 8 years old.
(I work in Telecommunications, by the way. Upgrades are ONLY done to fix specific, defined problems, and part of the definition is in how many customers are being affected and how big they are. I see this type of "mental juggling" in telecommunication management meetings every week. In fact usually those meetings themselves are structured to specifically address those types of questions and happen formally at least twice a month or more.)
To be as far behind on technology as my chosen
Lots and lots of switching power supplies on one phase of a three-phase system can also get neutrals horribly imbalanced and heat up the main transformer, etc. Think older building with one tenant running a sweatshop, er call-center with lots of PC's and other tenants running ten to twenty devices. Can make for an interesting afternoon when someone smells the transformer baking off in the power closet.