Oracle is that rare creature, a C-suite virus. Symptoms include inability to make rational decisions, bouts of fear uncertainty and doubt as well as declining profits. In extreme cases, rational alternatives to Oracle can be misconstrued as threats. In its terminal phase, C-suite inhabitants can be convinced that only by buying more Oracle products can they save their business. Death usually follows immediately after acting on the terminal phase.
As one of my favorite Computer Scientists, Ivor Paige, once put it, "there's more A than I in AI". What we're today calling AI is still limited-domain expert systems. True AI is still a ways off.
Orwell was an optimist. Nation states are all posturing to see who can create the culture most similar to 1984 without anyone raising the alarm. "Boil the frog" is the new mantra for this effort - take away freedoms and security in small bites and before you know it you've lost everything.
I worked in a group managing well over 1000 Unix (mostly Sun) workstations and a couple of dozen large servers. our days consisted primarily of user "whack-a-mole" operations, fixing stupid user errors, shutting down rogue users and managing break-fix. We (all 4 of us) were constantly exhausted working 60 hour weeks and management refused to hire any additional headcount. We got together and decided to automate the management of all the systems. We locked down all the workstations and made them rootless, booting over NFS. We then added scripts automating the build and rebuild of individual and groups of systems. When done, we'd reduced out workload by 50%. The result of all this hard work was our management trumpeting that we had just been lazy before and we actually needed fewer, not more headcount. I left, leaving the other 3 to fend for themselves. When last seen, there was a single guy working 60+ hours a week. Some things never change.
No, not all car brands. VW/Audi/Porsche all had variations on the diesel emissions cheat. They're in a class by themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
That's the problem with mirrorless designs from existing camera companies with millions of lenses in the field. Nikon agonized over this for over a year before giving in the the adapter method of supporting existing lenses. Seems Cannon is still arguing internally on the subject. The problem is the "back of lens to focal plane" distance in mirrorless is much shorter than in traditional SLRs. Sony didn't have this problem because there were no lenses pre E or FE to deal with. We'll have to wait and see how Cannon deals with it.
New IBM mantra: Screw enough customers by over-promising and under-delivering to inflate the stock price (meanwhile laying off everyone worthwhile) while the C-suite cashes in.
Refreshing to see upper management held to the same company standards as the rest in the management chain. Too often, C-level and board members are given a pass after taking a pass at a subordinate while those further down the chain are crucified for the same behavior.
I worked for a company making high-end electronic instruments in the 1980s. There was a RIF due to the market for those going titsup and an entire batch of systems had to be trashed due to someone putting incorrect info into one of the part sequencing systems that fed the pick/place and part auto-insertion systems. At the time the company estimated the cost to be a few million $$. Industrial sabotage seems to go hand-in-hand with layoffs and other "HR actions".
This disruption couldn't happen to a mode deserving bunch than the likes of Monsanto. The real agri-revolution will happen when everything from in the agricultural production cycle (plow/seed/weed/pick/sort/transport/etc..) is automated. In that world, what will farmers be transformed into?
This time it's different.. At least that's what they always say. This go-round we don't have DogFood.com kinds of crap circulating but we do have too much VC money searching out ever more marginal "disruptors" in ever more narrow markets. What's more likely to happen than a generalized tech recession is the VC money will suddenly wise up and decide to sit out the plunge and catch the next cycle on the upswing.
I got rid of my Revox A77 (arguably one of the best prosumer decks ever) circa 1990 as parts were no longer available and CDs had notably better sound. Hipsters looking to the analog past may be everywhere these days but that doesn't make them well informed or conscious of the technological improvements that took us to the present state of audio devices. I'll take WAV, AIFF, FLAC - or even lossy formats like MP3 - any day over incessant hiss and analog recording artifacts any day.
This is a Washington Post drive by of SpaceX because Bezos (owner of WaPo) has orbit envy. BTW, NASA has launched numerous manned missions under questionable safety issues (Challenger, Columbia) and will man-rate SpaceX as soon as the F9 block V has flown the requisite number of times without incident.
Someone in the Chinese government is a fan of Black Mirror. Nosedive (2016): People rate their online and in-person interactions on a five-star scale. This system cultivates insincere relationships, as a person's rating significantly affects their socioeconomic status. Lacie is a young woman currently rated at 4.2 and keen to achieve self-improvement, hoping to reach a 4.5 rating to qualify for a discount to a luxury apartment. Lacie tries to gain favour from highly-rated people, as they have larger impacts on scores, and sees a great chance to achieve her goal, when school friend Naomi asks her to be maid-of-honour at her upcoming wedding, with many highly-rated guests. After a series of mishaps on her way to the wedding that send her ratings plummeting, Naomi calls Lacie and tells her not to come. Enraged, Lacie manages to get to the celebratory dinner; she grabs the microphone and starts giving the speech she had written. The guests rate her negatively, causing her rating to drop to zero. She becomes dangerously upset and security removes her from the area. She is placed in a cell and has the technology supporting the rating system removed from her eyes. Feeling liberated, she gets into an argument with a man, without worrying about being rated.
Slashdot Mirror
.. and other oxymoronic word pairings. Seriously, China has morals completely in line with those of Venezuela, at least under Maduro.
The amazing thing is that FCC Director Pai didn't bow to his big telco masters and deny SpaceX the permit. They must be behind in their payments.
Oracle is that rare creature, a C-suite virus. Symptoms include inability to make rational decisions, bouts of fear uncertainty and doubt as well as declining profits. In extreme cases, rational alternatives to Oracle can be misconstrued as threats. In its terminal phase, C-suite inhabitants can be convinced that only by buying more Oracle products can they save their business. Death usually follows immediately after acting on the terminal phase.
Happy they didn't chose Dallas or the DFW suburbs. Too much traffic already with all the new HQs located here. No thanks, Amazon..
As one of my favorite Computer Scientists, Ivor Paige, once put it, "there's more A than I in AI". What we're today calling AI is still limited-domain expert systems. True AI is still a ways off.
Orwell was an optimist. Nation states are all posturing to see who can create the culture most similar to 1984 without anyone raising the alarm. "Boil the frog" is the new mantra for this effort - take away freedoms and security in small bites and before you know it you've lost everything.
I worked in a group managing well over 1000 Unix (mostly Sun) workstations and a couple of dozen large servers. our days consisted primarily of user "whack-a-mole" operations, fixing stupid user errors, shutting down rogue users and managing break-fix. We (all 4 of us) were constantly exhausted working 60 hour weeks and management refused to hire any additional headcount. We got together and decided to automate the management of all the systems. We locked down all the workstations and made them rootless, booting over NFS. We then added scripts automating the build and rebuild of individual and groups of systems. When done, we'd reduced out workload by 50%. The result of all this hard work was our management trumpeting that we had just been lazy before and we actually needed fewer, not more headcount. I left, leaving the other 3 to fend for themselves. When last seen, there was a single guy working 60+ hours a week. Some things never change.
We'll always find a way. BTW, how about a law preventing humans from pretending to be machines?
Printed material is just tattoos on dead trees. Creepy..
No, not all car brands. VW/Audi/Porsche all had variations on the diesel emissions cheat. They're in a class by themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"the only way to win is not to play the game.." - WOPR
That's the problem with mirrorless designs from existing camera companies with millions of lenses in the field. Nikon agonized over this for over a year before giving in the the adapter method of supporting existing lenses. Seems Cannon is still arguing internally on the subject. The problem is the "back of lens to focal plane" distance in mirrorless is much shorter than in traditional SLRs. Sony didn't have this problem because there were no lenses pre E or FE to deal with. We'll have to wait and see how Cannon deals with it.
New IBM mantra: Screw enough customers by over-promising and under-delivering to inflate the stock price (meanwhile laying off everyone worthwhile) while the C-suite cashes in.
Refreshing to see upper management held to the same company standards as the rest in the management chain. Too often, C-level and board members are given a pass after taking a pass at a subordinate while those further down the chain are crucified for the same behavior.
I worked for a company making high-end electronic instruments in the 1980s. There was a RIF due to the market for those going titsup and an entire batch of systems had to be trashed due to someone putting incorrect info into one of the part sequencing systems that fed the pick/place and part auto-insertion systems. At the time the company estimated the cost to be a few million $$. Industrial sabotage seems to go hand-in-hand with layoffs and other "HR actions".
I guess they'll just have to hack an ATM. Not to steal money, just to play games on XP..
$334k is about the current value of Yahoo! Wonder if Verizon has buyer's remorse yet?
Pity the fool who jumped in at $15k expecting a rocket ride to riches..
This disruption couldn't happen to a mode deserving bunch than the likes of Monsanto. The real agri-revolution will happen when everything from in the agricultural production cycle (plow/seed/weed/pick/sort/transport/etc..) is automated. In that world, what will farmers be transformed into?
This time it's different.. At least that's what they always say. This go-round we don't have DogFood.com kinds of crap circulating but we do have too much VC money searching out ever more marginal "disruptors" in ever more narrow markets. What's more likely to happen than a generalized tech recession is the VC money will suddenly wise up and decide to sit out the plunge and catch the next cycle on the upswing.
It was solved even earlier with XDR (R.I.P. Dr Bruce Nelson..)
I got rid of my Revox A77 (arguably one of the best prosumer decks ever) circa 1990 as parts were no longer available and CDs had notably better sound. Hipsters looking to the analog past may be everywhere these days but that doesn't make them well informed or conscious of the technological improvements that took us to the present state of audio devices. I'll take WAV, AIFF, FLAC - or even lossy formats like MP3 - any day over incessant hiss and analog recording artifacts any day.
This is a Washington Post drive by of SpaceX because Bezos (owner of WaPo) has orbit envy. BTW, NASA has launched numerous manned missions under questionable safety issues (Challenger, Columbia) and will man-rate SpaceX as soon as the F9 block V has flown the requisite number of times without incident.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.016...
Someone in the Chinese government is a fan of Black Mirror.
Nosedive (2016):
People rate their online and in-person interactions on a five-star scale. This system cultivates insincere relationships, as a person's rating significantly affects their socioeconomic status. Lacie is a young woman currently rated at 4.2 and keen to achieve self-improvement, hoping to reach a 4.5 rating to qualify for a discount to a luxury apartment. Lacie tries to gain favour from highly-rated people, as they have larger impacts on scores, and sees a great chance to achieve her goal, when school friend Naomi asks her to be maid-of-honour at her upcoming wedding, with many highly-rated guests. After a series of mishaps on her way to the wedding that send her ratings plummeting, Naomi calls Lacie and tells her not to come. Enraged, Lacie manages to get to the celebratory dinner; she grabs the microphone and starts giving the speech she had written. The guests rate her negatively, causing her rating to drop to zero. She becomes dangerously upset and security removes her from the area. She is placed in a cell and has the technology supporting the rating system removed from her eyes. Feeling liberated, she gets into an argument with a man, without worrying about being rated.