Are there any good blogs that Slashdotters read about corporate life, or directories that break down blogs by company? I don't have any businesses specifically in mind, I'm just looking for funny and juicy stories about how companies fare.
My description of this may suck, but this phenomenon is called in neurolinguistic programming, "mismatching." It sets someone up to support an idea that would otherwise sound bad through the use of combining information that is not congruent. For example, if you had a house for sale that had been on the market for a long time that wasn't selling, and I believed it wasn't worth the $100,000 you are asking for it, if I said, "Your house is overvalued," you would reply negatively and defend your position. But if I said, "You probably turned down offers of $120,000 or more, right?" you would likely reply with the truth and the price of the house could be negotiated downwards.
This is the same with comments on Slashdot. If you said, "This is the most insightful post you will read all day," you would get modded -1 Full of Yourself. But when you say, "This will probably be modded as a Troll," this allows the audience to say, "No, let's wait and see what he has to say."
As a Christian, I believe that at the end of our lives there will be judgement, where all of our actions, beliefs, and thoughts will be weighed. There will be no secrets that can be hidden from the Almighty. Nothing a person does is in complete anonymity.
Some of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ take this belief and then say, "Well, since God is watching us anyway, who cares if the government decides to look in on my life? I have nothing to hide. And even if I did something wrong, God is more important and I care more about what He thinks."
The problem inherent with this logic is that wicked men will be the ones who will be doing the watching. These men would have the ability to shift the behaviors and actions of people based upon the information they possess. This shift may not be in alignment with what my God requires of me, so I cannot support this monitoring.
I worked for a meat producer, with a staff of 60 IT folks for a company of 20,000. At the time, I was a real security nut and wanted to improve the company as much as possible. I was there for about a month when I spoke with one of the IT directors about the company's security policy. His response? "There is no security policy."
He and others in the IT department tried doggedly to get security noticed, only to be shot down by executive management. To paraphrase the CFO and strip out the gratutious profanity, "We're a meat company. We turn happy cows into happy steaks and happy pigs into happy bacon. We're not freaking NASA. We don't need to worry about our computers like Lockheed Martin does."
Several months later a virus hits the company and the phone system, which includes all sales offices, dies. I rush and get the tools to remove the virus in every hand possible.
Ultimately, as I was leaving the company, they finally hired a security manager. This was only because of Sarbanes-Oxley, and that person was given the role of a paper tiger--no authority to change things to be more secure, but a perfect picture for blame should something go awry.
When I left, I entered another office with other politics, but it is nowhere as bad as it was there.
OT, I know, but it needs to be said. The State of The Union address last night was one of the weakest speeches I have ever heard. The State of The Union address is intended to be a report to the members of Congress, the government, and the American people, so it will naturally cover myriad topics. In this case, there seemed to be no cohesion or thought behind the address.
President Bush jumped from topic to topic. "Coretta King died. Iran is bad. No more monkeymen!" I kept waiting to hear about the mission to Mars for humanity or at least to go back to the moon again.
I found that while the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia looked like a smarmy man and had some difficulty in reading the teleprompter he had a definite message behind his thoughts. While I am normally unimpressed by the rebuttal by the minority party, I paid attention to what he said because if nothing else he was not shouting sound bites at random.
I agree, the Social Security moment was a highlight, if for no other reason than to see G. W. get a little upset.
My Success and Chess Clubs That Suck
on
Chess for Kids?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
My father and a good neighbor began to teach me chess when I was about four years old. It was one of the best things they could have done for me. My brothers followed suit and soon we all played together. I am doing the same thing now with my three year-old daughter. I show her how the pieces move, their names, and I praise her even when her pawn moves halfway across the board, two squares over.
As I got older, there was a chess club in junior high that had a tournament. I remember being late the first day and beating my opponent before just minutes after sitting down. By the end of the weeks of play, I won and got a nice handmade walnut board with my name on it that I still use for games.
When I became a junior in high school, there was another tournament in the neighboring town. I decided to go and try winning again. But, a big surprise awaited me. Most of the kids in the tournament were not from our local towns, but had travelled from miles away in the city to play. They were all part of a club, with their nice blue hats and specially made t-shirts that made them look more like Special Olympians than chess players.
Their coach was this man in his forties who looked like he hadn't showered in weeks, instead living, eating, and breathing chess. He was completely obsessed with the velvet ropes used to cordon off the players and the amount of talking. Keep in mind that he was yelling at eight year-olds about this, which shows low class on his part.
I sat down from this fat, smug kid who lay there like a blob with his arms crossed and his hat pulled low. As we played, it was clear his experience trumped mine, but he was a complete ass about it. "Hey," he said, "Is 'checkmate' a hyphenated word?"
"I don't think so," I replied. "Why?"
He moved a piece on the board. "Checkmate," he said with a smug, shit-eating grin.
"Tell me, is 'asshole' a hyphenated word?" I said in a slightly loud voice. Greasy-haired coach told me to be quiet. My drive to go off on him was barely abated. I left soon thereafter.
In the end, I found that while chess clubs can be good places to learn the art, I prefer good old dad and my brothers playing against me. I hope my daughter will feel the same when she gets older.
Sesame Street has become the mind-numbing drivel of Elmo's World. Teletubbies and Boobah only serve as a low-budget acid trip enhancer. Captain Kangaroo's ship travelled across the river Styx. Mister Rogers is in a far better neighborhood (God bless him). The Electric Company had its power shut off. 3-2-1 Contact crashed and burned.
Now, there are shows like Between The Lions, Caillou, Higglytown Heroes, Lazytown, and The Backyardigans that have some good content and we watch and discuss them with her. Futurama is not my daughter's staple cartoon or TV show. Is it too mature for her? I would be lying if I said it didn't have some things that were more appropriate for teenagers.
My three year-old daughter loves Futurama. Her favorite character? Bender, naturally. She would see a commercial or the DVD set in the store and shout, "Look, daddy! It's Bender!" Gratefully, she does omit the, "Bite my shiny metal ass."
I found that IBM had a similar environment when it came to contractors. Although not ostracized as much as Microsoft appears to be (e.g. with the a- prefix to e-mail addresses), there was a certain stigma against them.
I recall in one of their security training videos contractors were even mocked. Some "evil" data-mining company was doing things such as stealing laptops, eavesdropping on conversations, and pretending to be members of the target company. When the tasks for the day were given out, and dumpster diving came up, someone said something along the lines of, "Well, give that to one of the contractors. Heh heh heh." Funnier yet, when the "contractor" showed up in the video, he looked more like Joe Dirt, covered with tattoos and a mullet. He was dropped off way, waaaay up the street from the target CEO's house and the truck with the other contractor went and parked next to the trash cans. So about 20 seconds of the video shows this guy walking up the street in broad daylight, sticking out like a sore thumb, only to come to where the truck was parked, dumped the trash bins into the truck and left. It was horribly ridiculous and MST3K-worthy.
I've resigned twice in my professional life. In both occasions I gave one day short of two week's notice, and on both occasions I worked until the very last day (where I would leave at about 2:00PM following getting my last paychecks). I intentionally gave that much time so that I could complete the transition, make things smooth, and have a nice turnover to the next guy.
You know what? In both situations my managers chose to sit on their hands and then gave me someone who was technically incompetent with only three days to go. The first time I had to give four years of knowledge to a new college hire who had only about three months of experience. The second time the boss chose to find a "warm body" to whom I could give the information. The "warm body" part was fulfilled, but he was utterly useless aside from that and was asked to leave. I could not figure out why they would wait so long, except that it just accelerates the Chain of Falling.
(The Chain of Falling is the trend that happens when one member of a team leaves and the work gets distributed. Imagine that there is a team of 10 people. One person gets a new job, realizing more money or power is a possibility. The remaining work gets distributed amongst the remaining 9. Then a new person comes onto the team. So, not only has work been increased for everyone, but they also have to train the new guy. The ninth person follows suit, and the pattern continues. Eventually the team is winnowed down to 2 or 3 people who know what they are doing, the remaining 7 have compartmentalized knowledge, and everyone feels stressed and unhappy.)
Since my boss stepped up into a managerial role he has sworn off the vestiges of his former technological self. And boy, he wasn't kidding. The other day we got a request to make a new process for connecting to a server. The IP address given was a private class C address, something that couldn't be accessed from our side. I wrote back in an e-mail that we needed the real IP address. His response? "Try it anyway and send the output back to the customer."
And some people wondered why I gave my two week's notice...
I work in the meat industry and it is interesting to hear the new corporate lingo and newspeak for what these companies do. This company, and many others now, do not refer to themselves as "beef, pork, chicken, and fish producers" anymore. The new "paradigm" is that these companies are "protein distribution and production" businesses. Even now the guise of killing animals is being stripped and replaced with focusing on the protein side of things. Coming from the inside, I could easily see these companies creating frankenfood in line with their new mindsets.
Personally, I would not eat vat-grown proteins in this way. There are enough potential problems as is (BSE, etc.).
Imagine my surprise when Websense decided in its infinite wisdom that the SAD website is a gambling site and blocked my access. Yes, thank you, Mr. System Administrator.
Keep in mind that studies over the past hundred years have shown that the 40-hour workweek is optimal for productivity. When workers are now putting in an average of 50 hours per week, with even lower productivity because of those excess hours, I would argue that the "wasted" time during the week is actually increasing productivity, if anything. And like other posters have said, this "wasted" time is often intermingled with productive work. For instance, I am in a class after having finished a lab right now.
I know this conversation is getting off topic, but it comes down to the Constitution of the United States. Patents and Copyrights were outlined in the Constitution to promote the arts and sciences. It also had a (vague) time contraint for the duration of these for a limited time. Now, while many people can see the rationale for Disney wanting to retain its rights to Mickey Mouse and such, does a 70+ year stint comply with the principles set in the Constitution? I say, "No."
On the serious side, when I was on my way to Japan I read an article in a magazine during the flight about Japan's hikikomori, or shut-ins. Many of them are not simply antisocial or socially awkward, but have serious mental problems. One story featured a young man who was afraid to go out in public without his hands in his pockets because he believed that his hands would shoot out and ht things. In the past he had broken a number of windows with this erratic behavior.
In the US, once upon a time, mental patients were kept in hospitals. Nowawdays many of them roam cities without any form of support. In Japan, these people are more likely to be allowed to stay at home because of the close family unit. Hikikomori are supported by their families in general and would not be thrust out the door like in the US.
The United States of America has no need for such rudimentary devices as centrifuge plants. Our pure, Grade A, one-of-a-kind type of Freedom makes the atoms settle in different layers so we can build our peacekeeping devices to stop terrorists and provide more freedom. It's like a breeder reactor, but here in the US of A, it's a Freedom Reactor, sir!
Slightly OT, I know, but that XMA (eXtreme Martial Arts) show was totally crap if you hope to have a basis for martial arts. The show could be broken down into three main areas: cool special effects, pseudo-martial arts/gymnastics competition with points for sparring, and following a set of pretty boys around who look like they spend as much time waxing their bodies as they do training. The best example of this would be when the main person, a supposed expert in martial arts and a competition winner, goes to learn from a true Kung Fu master (Pui Chan) and can barely stand properly on the Mai Flower Posts only two feet off of the ground.
The show was designed for eye candy and omits much of the history and function of forms of fighting, including the weapons (getting back on topic). Many weapons, such as the Chinese broadsword (dao) or Japanese katana, could be used for cutting (severing), slicing (think eviceration), and hacking (repeated strikes). If we take this to the Jedi, using Luke as our whining reference of choice, cutting is obvious when he loses his hand. Slicing is done when he opens the Tauntaun. Hacking is done when he gets Vader down in RoTJ on the walkway and repeatedly attacks until making his daddy a lefty again.
I agree with the parent that the instant cauterization kind of limits the effectiveness of the weapon, but hey, who wouldn't want to pull a Black Knight routine on someone?
I grew up along the coast in Southern California and recall hearing stores in the American Prohibition period of a large boat that was 3.1 miles offshore called, "The Good Ship Rex". This boat was a haven for booze and gambing, and people would hop a ferry to go and have some fun. At the time, since it was in international waters (or some intermediate zone), no one could protest its presence. Then one day a storm came and destroyed the ship. Prohibition ended soon thereafter, so no one rebuilt or salvaged it.
"Galstaff. You are in a small room. The dark stench of mildew eminates from the prison walls."
I cast magic missile.
[Rolls dice]
"A suicide bomber inflicts major damage to you, draining you of 10HP. You are dead."
How could that happen? I had Mordechai's Magical Watchdog.
"No, you didn't. You had a 15 year-old basset hound with three legs and a severe case of diahhrea. The suicide bomber took you out with a Pipe Bomb of Hurting +2. You are dead."
Slashdot Mirror
This is the same with comments on Slashdot. If you said, "This is the most insightful post you will read all day," you would get modded -1 Full of Yourself. But when you say, "This will probably be modded as a Troll," this allows the audience to say, "No, let's wait and see what he has to say."
See if you caught my mismatch.
Seriously, just like the Pope looking like the Emperor from ROTJ, Ellison looks like Beelzebub.
Some of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ take this belief and then say, "Well, since God is watching us anyway, who cares if the government decides to look in on my life? I have nothing to hide. And even if I did something wrong, God is more important and I care more about what He thinks."
The problem inherent with this logic is that wicked men will be the ones who will be doing the watching. These men would have the ability to shift the behaviors and actions of people based upon the information they possess. This shift may not be in alignment with what my God requires of me, so I cannot support this monitoring.
Just a thought...
He and others in the IT department tried doggedly to get security noticed, only to be shot down by executive management. To paraphrase the CFO and strip out the gratutious profanity, "We're a meat company. We turn happy cows into happy steaks and happy pigs into happy bacon. We're not freaking NASA. We don't need to worry about our computers like Lockheed Martin does."
Several months later a virus hits the company and the phone system, which includes all sales offices, dies. I rush and get the tools to remove the virus in every hand possible.
Ultimately, as I was leaving the company, they finally hired a security manager. This was only because of Sarbanes-Oxley, and that person was given the role of a paper tiger--no authority to change things to be more secure, but a perfect picture for blame should something go awry.
When I left, I entered another office with other politics, but it is nowhere as bad as it was there.
President Bush jumped from topic to topic. "Coretta King died. Iran is bad. No more monkeymen!" I kept waiting to hear about the mission to Mars for humanity or at least to go back to the moon again.
I found that while the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia looked like a smarmy man and had some difficulty in reading the teleprompter he had a definite message behind his thoughts. While I am normally unimpressed by the rebuttal by the minority party, I paid attention to what he said because if nothing else he was not shouting sound bites at random.
I agree, the Social Security moment was a highlight, if for no other reason than to see G. W. get a little upset.
As I got older, there was a chess club in junior high that had a tournament. I remember being late the first day and beating my opponent before just minutes after sitting down. By the end of the weeks of play, I won and got a nice handmade walnut board with my name on it that I still use for games.
When I became a junior in high school, there was another tournament in the neighboring town. I decided to go and try winning again. But, a big surprise awaited me. Most of the kids in the tournament were not from our local towns, but had travelled from miles away in the city to play. They were all part of a club, with their nice blue hats and specially made t-shirts that made them look more like Special Olympians than chess players.
Their coach was this man in his forties who looked like he hadn't showered in weeks, instead living, eating, and breathing chess. He was completely obsessed with the velvet ropes used to cordon off the players and the amount of talking. Keep in mind that he was yelling at eight year-olds about this, which shows low class on his part.
I sat down from this fat, smug kid who lay there like a blob with his arms crossed and his hat pulled low. As we played, it was clear his experience trumped mine, but he was a complete ass about it. "Hey," he said, "Is 'checkmate' a hyphenated word?"
"I don't think so," I replied. "Why?"
He moved a piece on the board. "Checkmate," he said with a smug, shit-eating grin.
"Tell me, is 'asshole' a hyphenated word?" I said in a slightly loud voice. Greasy-haired coach told me to be quiet. My drive to go off on him was barely abated. I left soon thereafter.
In the end, I found that while chess clubs can be good places to learn the art, I prefer good old dad and my brothers playing against me. I hope my daughter will feel the same when she gets older.
As for the greasy chess coach, well, he was put in check himself and was arrested for suspicion of sexual assault on a minor.
Now, there are shows like Between The Lions, Caillou, Higglytown Heroes, Lazytown, and The Backyardigans that have some good content and we watch and discuss them with her. Futurama is not my daughter's staple cartoon or TV show. Is it too mature for her? I would be lying if I said it didn't have some things that were more appropriate for teenagers.
I recall in one of their security training videos contractors were even mocked. Some "evil" data-mining company was doing things such as stealing laptops, eavesdropping on conversations, and pretending to be members of the target company. When the tasks for the day were given out, and dumpster diving came up, someone said something along the lines of, "Well, give that to one of the contractors. Heh heh heh." Funnier yet, when the "contractor" showed up in the video, he looked more like Joe Dirt, covered with tattoos and a mullet. He was dropped off way, waaaay up the street from the target CEO's house and the truck with the other contractor went and parked next to the trash cans. So about 20 seconds of the video shows this guy walking up the street in broad daylight, sticking out like a sore thumb, only to come to where the truck was parked, dumped the trash bins into the truck and left. It was horribly ridiculous and MST3K-worthy.
You know what? In both situations my managers chose to sit on their hands and then gave me someone who was technically incompetent with only three days to go. The first time I had to give four years of knowledge to a new college hire who had only about three months of experience. The second time the boss chose to find a "warm body" to whom I could give the information. The "warm body" part was fulfilled, but he was utterly useless aside from that and was asked to leave. I could not figure out why they would wait so long, except that it just accelerates the Chain of Falling.
(The Chain of Falling is the trend that happens when one member of a team leaves and the work gets distributed. Imagine that there is a team of 10 people. One person gets a new job, realizing more money or power is a possibility. The remaining work gets distributed amongst the remaining 9. Then a new person comes onto the team. So, not only has work been increased for everyone, but they also have to train the new guy. The ninth person follows suit, and the pattern continues. Eventually the team is winnowed down to 2 or 3 people who know what they are doing, the remaining 7 have compartmentalized knowledge, and everyone feels stressed and unhappy.)
A tirade, I know, but I just don't get it.
And some people wondered why I gave my two week's notice...
Personally, I would not eat vat-grown proteins in this way. There are enough potential problems as is (BSE, etc.).
In the US, once upon a time, mental patients were kept in hospitals. Nowawdays many of them roam cities without any form of support. In Japan, these people are more likely to be allowed to stay at home because of the close family unit. Hikikomori are supported by their families in general and would not be thrust out the door like in the US.
The show was designed for eye candy and omits much of the history and function of forms of fighting, including the weapons (getting back on topic). Many weapons, such as the Chinese broadsword (dao) or Japanese katana, could be used for cutting (severing), slicing (think eviceration), and hacking (repeated strikes). If we take this to the Jedi, using Luke as our whining reference of choice, cutting is obvious when he loses his hand. Slicing is done when he opens the Tauntaun. Hacking is done when he gets Vader down in RoTJ on the walkway and repeatedly attacks until making his daddy a lefty again.
I agree with the parent that the instant cauterization kind of limits the effectiveness of the weapon, but hey, who wouldn't want to pull a Black Knight routine on someone?
I cast magic missile.
[Rolls dice]
"A suicide bomber inflicts major damage to you, draining you of 10HP. You are dead."
How could that happen? I had Mordechai's Magical Watchdog.
"No, you didn't. You had a 15 year-old basset hound with three legs and a severe case of diahhrea. The suicide bomber took you out with a Pipe Bomb of Hurting +2. You are dead."
[sob]... where are the Cheetos?
Seriously, with the way the new crawl starts with the word "War!", Lucas just might have replaced it with "Ass!" or something else asinine.