Self-motivation is sufficient if they're doing what THEY want. If they're doing what YOU want, and it doesn't exactly align with what they want (and unless they're principals in the company, it doesn't), that's where the external motivation comes in.
Being self-motivated doesn't mean being a chump. If they see that putting in more effort doesn't result in more reward, they're going to stop putting in so much effort on the things you want them to do, and use the saved time and effort to do the things they want to do. Or they'll pick up and find somewhere which will reward them more.
$4000 is more than the _price_ of my previous 10 SEER unit (I now have an 8 SEER and will not replace until it dies) For a $4000 difference between a 13 and 16 SEER unit to pay off in two years, you'd have to be spending over $8500/year in cooling costs. Well, if you live in Death Valley or the Everglades, go ahead and buy that 16 SEER. For most of us it's not likely to pay off within its lifetime.
Also for a lot of people, the alternative to paying the extra $4000 would be to be hot and uncomfortable. This is even better for the environment. Hooray for hair-shirt environmentalism.
You're paying people to do a job. If they won't do the job unless you pay them extra to do it, why are you even giving them a salary?
You're paying them to do a job, but the exact parameters of that job aren't well defined. If pay isn't tied to performance, why would they put in anything more than the effort necessary to get "acceptable" performance? What does busting their ass get them? At lower levels there's chance for advancement (which also results in more pay) but in most companies for technical people you quickly hit a ceiling there. So how do you keep your topped-out people motivated to do more than the minimum?
I just wonder if this vitriol has anything to do with Mayer wearing a skirt?
Please. This is slashdot, we hate everyone in top management. Does Stephen Elop wear a skirt? How about Steve Ballmer? (If he does, please post pictures, I could use a laugh).
It's pretty much impossible to say how this went at Google because Google has rarely laid off full time employees (aside from acquisitions like Motorola Mobility, which obviously were not under Google's performance system)
Now, under natural conditions, that distinction between team A and C probably wouldn't exist to any notable degree
Actually, that's not true. Because good performers don't like to work with poor performers, and some poor performers don't like to work with good performers (because it makes them look bad -- others instead choose the leech approach), there is natural segregation of ability by team. When there's strict stack ranking, managers of good teams will deliberately acquire or allow a leech or two in their team as a sacrificial lamb.
Of course in a more rational system, someone higher up would figure out that there are conveniently-segregated teams full of poor-performing people and fire (or light a fire under) all of them.
Secondly, the best and brightest will not probably be too happy if government officials knock on their door, and "offer them" a government job.
The type who would feel the NSA turning the world into a panopticon is a good thing would likely be ecstatic; rather than seeing it as creepy, they would see it as a competent organization they admired validating their own self worth.
You may remember the old usenet.signature line: "The NSA is now funding research not only in cryptography, but in all areas of advanced mathematics. If you'd like a circular describing these new research opportunities, just pick up your phone, call your mother, and ask for one." It's a joke (or was)... but I've been told the source of this joke was an NSA staffer at a conference. They're proud of their capabilities, even if they can't reveal them.
I'm sure the techs love printing guns. And it's a nice demonstration of the process. But I'd bet that a gun made by laser sintering is a lot more expensive than one made with conventional techniques, or by CNC machining. Until laser sintering machines ares as common as a drill press, I don't think there's any need to worry about criminals using it. Guns, even machine guns, are old tech, and can be made with old tech.
I'm sure a computer could do it better as long as the gubmint doesn't regulate the crap out of it.
And there's a real problem. Would I turn my driving over to the computer if it's going to drive legally and conservatively? Not likely. In my state (and most of those I've been to), the speed limit is set to provide a more than adequate margin of error for half-blind idiots driving on bald tires in a blizzard. Nobody follows them (including said idiots, which is why they still crash). Further, the road is often full of hazards, obstructions, and idiots, some of which require one to take illegal actions (such as crossing into the opposite lane) to make forward progress. The computer couldn't do that.
Most use 3DES, which was reasonably secure in 1972. Today, 3DES is cracked in milliseconds
Rather a large number of milliseconds. Brute force against plain old DES still takes a while especially without specialized hardware. Also, 3DES doesn't go back nearly as far as 1972. (nor does DES for that matter)
I won't hire someone who admits to being on G- or has a resume or card with G- on it.
Hey, G- isn't even out yet, where'd you find out about it? It's kind of like G+ except instead of circles of friends, it has Dante-style circles.
The deeper you put someone in your circles, the more their crap gets blocked. In the 7th circle, anything the circled person has liked, anyone who has liked them, or anyone who has liked anything they liked, is removed from your Internet experience.
It also adds a "-1" button and instead of a profile picture, allows you to choose an image of Grumpycat. Generally family starts out in the 2nd circle, which works well to eliminate baby pictures, newsletters, etc, while still allowing actual information ("Grandpa died") to come through.
That's a nice couple of points, but it's missing the most important. Gets the RIGHT things done. You find out what the right things are through soft skills.
Can't you hire some people to do that? What happened to division of labor? Why should the technical people be expected to do all the soft-skill stuff we're really not suited for? Does anyone demand the salespeople write code? Have the business analysts even seen a stack trace?
If I could do the soft skill stuff AND the tech skill stuff, I can see why a company would want me an an employee. What I don't see is why I'd want to be employed; if I'm such a jack of all trades why not just come up with a product (soft skill), sweet-tak some investors (soft skill), and run my own damn company?
Raising the price of energy would help push people away from the stupidity of the first of those (yes, some do), to be just as comfortable and healthy on much less. I've easily managed to halve my energy use while adding two children to my household: it is depressing that some will not even try at the risk of damning their successors...
Hey, I can do that too. Just let me know when you're going to do the baseline measurement so I can turn the heat and the A/C on at the same time during that period. The point being that conservation when you're wasteful is easy; conservation when you're not is not. Try cutting your energy use in half AGAIN without sacrificing comfort.
Yes, there are people who leave the heat on and open the windows when they get too hot. Mostly tenants who aren't paying for the heat and may not even have any real control over it. Raise energy prices, and rents will go up, but the stupidity will remain.
Sure, I've got an 80% efficient furnace. A 95% efficient furnace would save me about $150/year. Between furnace costs and installation costs (a condensing furnace requires a new vent and a condensate drain and pump), it would pay for itself in just a few years more than the expected lifetime of the furnace (ignoring time value of money). You'd have to increase energy costs by a huge amount for that to make any sense.
No, I said nothing about shivering. But much energy is wasted because it is too cheap. Conservation is the cheapest source of "new" energy supply.
Only if you ignore the costs. If I'm using energy it's because I get something useful out of it. If I "conserve" by not using that energy, I forego the benefits of that energy. Sure, I could just leave the heat off all year round, I'd save a fortune that way, even accounting for the cost of thermal underwear. But I don't want to live that way.
I've worked with many software developers in the Northeast. Fun fact: skill correlated strongly with alma mater. All of the MIT-educated developers were better than all of the non-MIT-educated developers. After that, most of the ones from (Ivy League schools + Carnegie Melon) were better than most of the remaining developers.
Yeah, someone with a B.S. from the University of Minnesota and later a Ph.D. from the University of Washington couldn't possibly be a better developer than an MIT grad.
You're right about what question #2 is intending to do, but it fails because its difficulty level depends on specific experience the child may have had. A child who ordinarily wears socks to the park will more easily make the leap to the socks becoming wet than a child who ordinarily does not wear socks to the park.
Car analogy: The story describes the child riding to and from the park in a car. The story mentions that his father stops off at an ATM before they leave the park, and the test asks why. The child from New York City might easily intuit that Dad needs to pay the cabbie. The child from the suburbs has no idea.
It's not quite as bizarre as Q1, but the rest of the test isn't so great. Still looks like the kid failed legitimately, the test only contributed.
Question 2 asks about jars and shows a picture depicting cubes, which seems odd, but Q3 implies they've been taught some technique involving cubes, so that might be OK.
Assuming the cube thing has been taught Q3 is fine (although "number sentence" is odd; I imagine parents would absolutely freak if someone tried to teach little Greta and Johnny the word "equation")
Q4 is fine; sorry kid, you got that wrong legitimately
Q5 demonstrates the problem of trying to teach with simplified terminology. The kid was given that the total was 9 and a picture of 4 pennies. When asked for "part I know" the kid gave 9, which is literally true in one sense, but not what they're looking for.
Q6 and Q7 are fine. (but why are they using circular counters instead of cubes as they did before?)
Q8 and Q9 are fine.
Q10 and 11 are fine, but why are they under the topic of "Additions"? It's subtraction.
Q12 is broken. Elsewhere in the test they imply that a "subtraction sentence" is an equation with a subtraction operator. Searching the web confirms this. There's no subtraction operator there. Kudos to the kid for figuring out what they meant.
Crackpot changes to daylight savings time and time zones get proposed all the time. Every once in a while, the changes actually get implemented, usually to everyone's detriment -- year round DST (US, since repealed), double DST (UK, also since reversed), moving the dates around a few weeks, etc.
For some reason it's easier to mess with time than it is to mess with schedules that depend on time. Which is why this proposal is a dumb one. It puts Central and Mountain permanently one hour ahead of solar time (which was terrible when Carter did it). It puts California permanently two hours ahead of solar time.
If some dictator were to appear and demand this happen, of course eventually schedules would be adjusted, but once that happens, you lose the benefits anyway -- if your East Coast office work hours are 9 to 5 Eastern, and your West Coast office work hours are 11 to 7 Western, that's no different than it is today.
People in "under-developed" countries are not the only ones in trouble in this world. Those in Europe and the US shouldn't think that they're future is necessarily better than those in the "third world".
You may have a point. Long after western society collapses, the poor in Africa will likely continue to suffer just as they do today.
What will save the world is a profound recognition of the oneness of humankind,
The reality is, there is no oneness of humankind. A rock falls on my head tomorrow and I die, you are not harmed in the slightest.
You're correct that I messed up some types. However, making everything unsigned produces exactly the same results.
#include <stdio.h> #include <limits.h>
unsigned int avg(unsigned int a, unsigned int b) {
return (a + b) / 2u; }
unsigned int real_avg(unsigned int a, unsigned int b) {
asm("add %1,%0": "+r"(a) : "r"(b));
asm("rcr $1, %0": "+r"(a));
return a; }
int main() {
unsigned int a = UINT_MAX/2u + 1000u;
unsigned int b = UINT_MAX/2u - 500u;
unsigned int c = UINT_MAX/2u + 250u;
unsigned int d = avg(a, b);
unsigned int e = real_avg(a, b);
printf("a %u, b %u, expected_avg %u, avg %u, real_avg %u\n", a, b, c, d, e); }
$./foo a 2147484647, b 2147483147, expected_avg 2147483897, avg 249, real_avg 2147483897
This is a well-defined program, but avg() returns an incorrect value. The issue is the intermediate value (a + b), which is well-defined, but is 498 instead of UINT_MAX + 499.
The average of (UINT_MAX/2 + 1000) and (UINT_MAX/2 - 500) cannot be expressed in a standard int.
It can, however, be expressed in an unsigned int. And you do NOT get UINT_MAX/2 + 250 if you naively average two variables with those values; you get 250.
#include <stdio.h> #include <limits.h>
unsigned int avg(unsigned int a, unsigned int b) { return (a + b) / 2u; }
unsigned int real_avg(unsigned int a, unsigned int b) { asm("add %1,%0": "+r"(a) : "r"(b)); asm("rcr $1, %0": "+r"(a)); return a; }
int main() { int a = UINT_MAX/2u + 1000; int b = UINT_MAX/2u - 500; int c = UINT_MAX/2u + 250; int d = avg(a, b); int e = real_avg(a, b); printf("a %u, b %u, expected_avg %u, avg %u, real_avg %u\n", a, b, c, d, e)\ ; }
$./foo
a 2147484647, b 2147483147, expected_avg 2147483897, avg 249, real_avg 2147483897
Slashdot Mirror
Self-motivation is sufficient if they're doing what THEY want. If they're doing what YOU want, and it doesn't exactly align with what they want (and unless they're principals in the company, it doesn't), that's where the external motivation comes in.
Being self-motivated doesn't mean being a chump. If they see that putting in more effort doesn't result in more reward, they're going to stop putting in so much effort on the things you want them to do, and use the saved time and effort to do the things they want to do. Or they'll pick up and find somewhere which will reward them more.
$4000 is more than the _price_ of my previous 10 SEER unit (I now have an 8 SEER and will not replace until it dies) For a $4000 difference between a 13 and 16 SEER unit to pay off in two years, you'd have to be spending over $8500/year in cooling costs. Well, if you live in Death Valley or the Everglades, go ahead and buy that 16 SEER. For most of us it's not likely to pay off within its lifetime.
Also for a lot of people, the alternative to paying the extra $4000 would be to be hot and uncomfortable. This is even better for the environment. Hooray for hair-shirt environmentalism.
You're paying them to do a job, but the exact parameters of that job aren't well defined. If pay isn't tied to performance, why would they put in anything more than the effort necessary to get "acceptable" performance? What does busting their ass get them? At lower levels there's chance for advancement (which also results in more pay) but in most companies for technical people you quickly hit a ceiling there. So how do you keep your topped-out people motivated to do more than the minimum?
Please. This is slashdot, we hate everyone in top management. Does Stephen Elop wear a skirt? How about Steve Ballmer? (If he does, please post pictures, I could use a laugh).
It's pretty much impossible to say how this went at Google because Google has rarely laid off full time employees (aside from acquisitions like Motorola Mobility, which obviously were not under Google's performance system)
Actually, that's not true. Because good performers don't like to work with poor performers, and some poor performers don't like to work with good performers (because it makes them look bad -- others instead choose the leech approach), there is natural segregation of ability by team. When there's strict stack ranking, managers of good teams will deliberately acquire or allow a leech or two in their team as a sacrificial lamb.
Of course in a more rational system, someone higher up would figure out that there are conveniently-segregated teams full of poor-performing people and fire (or light a fire under) all of them.
The type who would feel the NSA turning the world into a panopticon is a good thing would likely be ecstatic; rather than seeing it as creepy, they would see it as a competent organization they admired validating their own self worth.
You may remember the old usenet .signature line: "The NSA is now funding research not only in cryptography, but in all areas of advanced mathematics. If you'd like a circular describing these new research opportunities, just pick up your phone, call your mother, and ask for one." It's a joke (or was)... but I've been told the source of this joke was an NSA staffer at a conference. They're proud of their capabilities, even if they can't reveal them.
I'm sure the techs love printing guns. And it's a nice demonstration of the process. But I'd bet that a gun made by laser sintering is a lot more expensive than one made with conventional techniques, or by CNC machining. Until laser sintering machines ares as common as a drill press, I don't think there's any need to worry about criminals using it. Guns, even machine guns, are old tech, and can be made with old tech.
No. Leave the bacon alone.
That's only because we've become a more obedient nation.
And there's a real problem. Would I turn my driving over to the computer if it's going to drive legally and conservatively? Not likely. In my state (and most of those I've been to), the speed limit is set to provide a more than adequate margin of error for half-blind idiots driving on bald tires in a blizzard. Nobody follows them (including said idiots, which is why they still crash). Further, the road is often full of hazards, obstructions, and idiots, some of which require one to take illegal actions (such as crossing into the opposite lane) to make forward progress. The computer couldn't do that.
Rather a large number of milliseconds. Brute force against plain old DES still takes a while especially without specialized hardware. Also, 3DES doesn't go back nearly as far as 1972. (nor does DES for that matter)
Hey, G- isn't even out yet, where'd you find out about it? It's kind of like G+ except instead of circles of friends, it has Dante-style circles.
The deeper you put someone in your circles, the more their crap gets blocked. In the 7th circle, anything the circled person has liked, anyone who has liked them, or anyone who has liked anything they liked, is removed from your Internet experience.
It also adds a "-1" button and instead of a profile picture, allows you to choose an image of Grumpycat. Generally family starts out in the 2nd circle, which works well to eliminate baby pictures, newsletters, etc, while still allowing actual information ("Grandpa died") to come through.
(Of course, anyone not in G- thinks you're on G+)
Can't you hire some people to do that? What happened to division of labor? Why should the technical people be expected to do all the soft-skill stuff we're really not suited for? Does anyone demand the salespeople write code? Have the business analysts even seen a stack trace?
If I could do the soft skill stuff AND the tech skill stuff, I can see why a company would want me an an employee. What I don't see is why I'd want to be employed; if I'm such a jack of all trades why not just come up with a product (soft skill), sweet-tak some investors (soft skill), and run my own damn company?
A gentleman by the name of Carnot would like to have a word with you outside.
Hey, I can do that too. Just let me know when you're going to do the baseline measurement so I can turn the heat and the A/C on at the same time during that period. The point being that conservation when you're wasteful is easy; conservation when you're not is not. Try cutting your energy use in half AGAIN without sacrificing comfort.
Yes, there are people who leave the heat on and open the windows when they get too hot. Mostly tenants who aren't paying for the heat and may not even have any real control over it. Raise energy prices, and rents will go up, but the stupidity will remain.
Sure, I've got an 80% efficient furnace. A 95% efficient furnace would save me about $150/year. Between furnace costs and installation costs (a condensing furnace requires a new vent and a condensate drain and pump), it would pay for itself in just a few years more than the expected lifetime of the furnace (ignoring time value of money). You'd have to increase energy costs by a huge amount for that to make any sense.
Only if you ignore the costs. If I'm using energy it's because I get something useful out of it. If I "conserve" by not using that energy, I forego the benefits of that energy. Sure, I could just leave the heat off all year round, I'd save a fortune that way, even accounting for the cost of thermal underwear. But I don't want to live that way.
Didn't take long for "shiver in the dark" environmentalism to raise its ugly head.
Yeah, someone with a B.S. from the University of Minnesota and later a Ph.D. from the University of Washington couldn't possibly be a better developer than an MIT grad.
You're right about what question #2 is intending to do, but it fails because its difficulty level depends on specific experience the child may have had. A child who ordinarily wears socks to the park will more easily make the leap to the socks becoming wet than a child who ordinarily does not wear socks to the park.
Car analogy: The story describes the child riding to and from the park in a car. The story mentions that his father stops off at an ATM before they leave the park, and the test asks why. The child from New York City might easily intuit that Dad needs to pay the cabbie. The child from the suburbs has no idea.
It's not quite as bizarre as Q1, but the rest of the test isn't so great. Still looks like the kid failed legitimately, the test only contributed.
Question 2 asks about jars and shows a picture depicting cubes, which seems odd, but Q3 implies they've been taught some technique involving cubes, so that might be OK.
Assuming the cube thing has been taught Q3 is fine (although "number sentence" is odd; I imagine parents would absolutely freak if someone tried to teach little Greta and Johnny the word "equation")
Q4 is fine; sorry kid, you got that wrong legitimately
Q5 demonstrates the problem of trying to teach with simplified terminology. The kid was given that the total was 9 and a picture of 4 pennies. When asked for "part I know" the kid gave 9, which is literally true in one sense, but not what they're looking for.
Q6 and Q7 are fine. (but why are they using circular counters instead of cubes as they did before?)
Q8 and Q9 are fine.
Q10 and 11 are fine, but why are they under the topic of "Additions"? It's subtraction.
Q12 is broken. Elsewhere in the test they imply that a "subtraction sentence" is an equation with a subtraction operator. Searching the web confirms this. There's no subtraction operator there. Kudos to the kid for figuring out what they meant.
This test was done by the part of the government which built the Obamacare website. They should have turned it over to the NSA.
Crackpot changes to daylight savings time and time zones get proposed all the time. Every once in a while, the changes actually get implemented, usually to everyone's detriment -- year round DST (US, since repealed), double DST (UK, also since reversed), moving the dates around a few weeks, etc.
For some reason it's easier to mess with time than it is to mess with schedules that depend on time. Which is why this proposal is a dumb one. It puts Central and Mountain permanently one hour ahead of solar time (which was terrible when Carter did it). It puts California permanently two hours ahead of solar time.
If some dictator were to appear and demand this happen, of course eventually schedules would be adjusted, but once that happens, you lose the benefits anyway -- if your East Coast office work hours are 9 to 5 Eastern, and your West Coast office work hours are 11 to 7 Western, that's no different than it is today.
You may have a point. Long after western society collapses, the poor in Africa will likely continue to suffer just as they do today.
The reality is, there is no oneness of humankind. A rock falls on my head tomorrow and I die, you are not harmed in the slightest.
You're correct that I messed up some types. However, making everything unsigned produces exactly the same results.
$ ./foo
a 2147484647, b 2147483147, expected_avg 2147483897, avg 249, real_avg 2147483897
This is a well-defined program, but avg() returns an incorrect value. The issue is the intermediate value (a + b), which is well-defined, but is 498 instead of UINT_MAX + 499.
It can, however, be expressed in an unsigned int. And you do NOT get UINT_MAX/2 + 250 if you naively average two variables with those values; you get 250.
$ ./foo
a 2147484647, b 2147483147, expected_avg 2147483897, avg 249, real_avg 2147483897