There's a lot to be said for this. I started my current employment some 6 months ago, having stressed at the outset that I was going to be very outspoken and blunt about the issues that I was being parachuted in to fix. This has resulted in some tense moments in meetings involving outside consultantants where I have opened my big fat trap (with some misgivings) to raise uncomfortable issues, only to be congratulated later for my "honesty". It doesn't necessarily hurt to establish a reputation for not being pushable around if you can demonstrate that you have something worthwhile to say.
If you are the sort of boss who feels the need to come out with a statement like that, then you are quite possibly the sort of toxic boss that inspires this sort of self-centred behaviour. Relationships are a two-way process. Many worthwhile employees tend to enter a job with all sorts of useful ideas, only to find the corners knocked off them very quickly as the realisation sets in that the (mis)management issues in the company have a long and repetitive history.
It really does not take very long to take the shine off an employee's goodwill. You don't have to be a doormat, but it doesn't cost you anything to allow people to feel that their input has some value.
From my own experience, I know two such people. Both are reasonably competent as software engineers, but the process of studying for their MBAs seems to have done something to their perceptive skills. They both suddenly arrived at a conception of themselves as expert managers and embarked on startups of business projects that, ten years later, they are still referring to as "startups", soaking up vast quantities of venture capitalists' funds, while showing absolutely no sign of providing any return.
From their point of view, I suppose this is a great lurk, but from anyone else's viewpoint these ventures simply represent good money thrown after bad. I'm just glad that I was never in a position where I might have been asked to invest in these schemes.
Exactly. Generic managers are often (or usually) incapable of accomplishing anything other than generating buzzwords and KPIs, while having very little understanding of the real products or processes. More often than not, they actually get in the way of getting the real work with their strutting around and fluffing their plumage, interfering just to make themselves feel important.
There are many of us (such as myself) who were born into a world with no internet, or even, for that matter, very many computers. Really, it's not that big a deal. To keep things simple, a good option is to just get a cheap USB dongle and wireless plan for those occasions when you want to access anything you want/need.
It's a great way to hide how much money they are making from the government.
Well, I'm all for that given the amount of money our government manages to mismanage or outright waste. I'm talking mostly about Australia here, but I don't know of any country where this doesn't apply. If I had some evidence that the government used my money wisely (or even on something vaguely useful, sometimes) I wouldn't take such pleasure in the mild subversion of my own very trivial tax dodges.
Just as well. What I carry in my bag, even when I'm cash-free: Wallet with its contents (heh! just so I don't have to fossick for cards and cash), 3 pairs of glasses, car keys, phone, fountain pen, notebook, small tin of mints, iPod, receipts.
Not that I necessarily need all of these things at every moment of the day, but it makes things a lot easier if I don't have to do without.
I guess Microsoft might be such an offender if you happen to use Bing search. But since people only do that on TV, we're comparatively safe. Google Analytics is, as you say, a useful tool for webmasters, but for the casual user there's very little impact if you simply block it via hosts file or adblock, other than having to manually type the URL for top-ranked listings into your location bar every now and then.
Whatever geekery one might apply to the stationary bike, there is nothing that can be done about the fact that they are just plain boring to use. Sure, we can try using fans to simulate headwind and maybe play porn movies to alleviate the boredom (though the combination of a bike saddle, exercise and a hard-on doesn't entice me much for some reason).
But for a comparatively small outlay we can buy an OK bike and take advantage of some interaction with the Outside World(TM). Even better if we can use the machine as transport, though not all of us have the time. When I was a student, the 50 minute trip to/from uni was doable, but my current job is 2 hours' ride from home, in the dark, on narrow country roads populated with heavy trucks. So I drive, and save the bike for the weekend.
Heh. I read exactly that sort of tripe in the blurb that came with a Cardas headphone cable I bought a couple of years back. (The original Sennheiser cable that I had was defective, and the third-party accessory was OK value for money.) What really made me LOL was their recommendation that I buy their special plug lubricant. I'm perfectly happy with the cable itself (after all, it's just a nicely insulated wire), but this voodoo crap only serves to discredit the product.
Incidentally, I often see mention of Monster cables on Slashdot as being representative of this kind of nonsense. Maybe the range available in the US is different to that here in Australia, but I mostly see comparatively reasonably priced Monster cables here. Just about anything will do for normal digital signals over a reasonable distance, but other types can be a bit more tricky. I am currently living in an area with a comparatively weak free-to-air digital TV signal that often gave me no picture at all through a Belkin antenna cable, but when I tried a (similarly priced) Monster alternative of the same length, it worked perfectly.
Really? I haven't had bad results using macports, which on this old MacBook has gcc at version 4.4.6. The Intel Core 2 Duo CPU is the same chip that lots of us have used in Linux, BSD and Windows boxes.
You don't even have to go so far afield as that. I've always found internet connections in Greece to be pretty flaky. Hell, it wasn't that long ago you could barely make a phone call there. And here in Australia, there are lots of places where you won't get any kind of connection, for example Cocklebiddy, whose sole claim to fame is that it has a Wikipedia entry.
And everyone hated when email caused us to stop sending hand written letters.
I was one of those Luddites, but I have to shamefully admit that the last handwritten letter I sent (with the exception of business correspondence) was at least 5 years ago.
...between Facebook and the banks that the haters of either in this case have failed to take into account. The majority of us are required to have at least one bank account in order to (at the very least) allow us to get paid for our work. Whereas membership of Facebook is entirely optional.
Fair enough, but I doubt if you're going to win any converts by insisting on posting your comments with horrible monospaced fonts just to grab attention...:-}
That unit is as good as any. We're rapidly running out of prefixes here, and we still need formal definitions for units such as bucketload, shitload, shitton[ne] and so forth.
It might not have failed you yet, but this isn't a tactic I would try on a machine that does anything important. The whole point of any rootkit is that it can modify any file, and thus unless you happen to have recent known-good md5sums for every single file on all drives attached to the system (and the time to check them all), you simply cannot trust the machine, and you cannot allow users to log on to it.
Your only option is to re-image or reinstall from scratch.
But plenty of people who actually like to read (non-fiction) have no need to waste their time in 100-level Humanities classes.
Indeed. Hence the outcry against those (few, so far) universities here in Australia adopting a program where students have to pay for four years of arts-related courses before they can get started on their chosen area in a fourth "graduate" year. If I were undertaking study now, I would give those unis a wide berth. I love to read, and I already have a comprehensive Arts background, so it is easy to take a cynical position that this is just a way for universities to grab cash.
It's hard on students, since they only have seven years of Government assistance in their education, so if they undertake further studies in their chosen field, they are going to be cutting it a bit fine, without even starting to make allowances for changes of direction. And I am in no way convinced that a one-year "graduate" course is equivalent to a solid four years' undergrad study in their field.
Except that some universities are reported to be beginning to adopt the American model here. Melbourne University was the first, giving rise to the somewhat erroneous description as the Melbourne Model. Other unis are apparently giving this some consideration, and I'm not very happy about it. Seems more like a Mickey Mouse model to me. However, fortunately it doesn't directly affect me any more, since I have already got my degrees...
Also, for those of us not on a wired connection, Telstra mostly offers far better mobile connections to rural and remote areas which are prohibitively expensive to connect with DSL or cable. The trouble with Australia is that a disproportionately large proportion of the population lives in only half a dozen cities, so if you opt to live out of the main stream, you also have to live with the fact that the telcos will just pass you by. Internode fills a lot of gaps (very well indeed), but even they struggle when there isn't even a phone pole within 5 km of your property.
Sometimes the simpler systems are even worse. Like the bitch who answers your call with "This is Briefcase Holdings Limited, please hold..." than slapping you into a spiel of inane jingles and advertising crap before you can shout "NO!".
There is one advantage to bricks-and-mortar shops: you always have the option of driving there and making someone's life a burden and affliction until you're satisfied.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a lot to be said for this. I started my current employment some 6 months ago, having stressed at the outset that I was going to be very outspoken and blunt about the issues that I was being parachuted in to fix. This has resulted in some tense moments in meetings involving outside consultantants where I have opened my big fat trap (with some misgivings) to raise uncomfortable issues, only to be congratulated later for my "honesty". It doesn't necessarily hurt to establish a reputation for not being pushable around if you can demonstrate that you have something worthwhile to say.
First thing I tell people who work for me is...
If you are the sort of boss who feels the need to come out with a statement like that, then you are quite possibly the sort of toxic boss that inspires this sort of self-centred behaviour. Relationships are a two-way process. Many worthwhile employees tend to enter a job with all sorts of useful ideas, only to find the corners knocked off them very quickly as the realisation sets in that the (mis)management issues in the company have a long and repetitive history.
It really does not take very long to take the shine off an employee's goodwill. You don't have to be a doormat, but it doesn't cost you anything to allow people to feel that their input has some value.
Go find a software engineer who has an MBA.
From my own experience, I know two such people. Both are reasonably competent as software engineers, but the process of studying for their MBAs seems to have done something to their perceptive skills. They both suddenly arrived at a conception of themselves as expert managers and embarked on startups of business projects that, ten years later, they are still referring to as "startups", soaking up vast quantities of venture capitalists' funds, while showing absolutely no sign of providing any return.
From their point of view, I suppose this is a great lurk, but from anyone else's viewpoint these ventures simply represent good money thrown after bad. I'm just glad that I was never in a position where I might have been asked to invest in these schemes.
Exactly. Generic managers are often (or usually) incapable of accomplishing anything other than generating buzzwords and KPIs, while having very little understanding of the real products or processes. More often than not, they actually get in the way of getting the real work with their strutting around and fluffing their plumage, interfering just to make themselves feel important.
There are many of us (such as myself) who were born into a world with no internet, or even, for that matter, very many computers. Really, it's not that big a deal. To keep things simple, a good option is to just get a cheap USB dongle and wireless plan for those occasions when you want to access anything you want/need.
It's a great way to hide how much money they are making from the government.
Well, I'm all for that given the amount of money our government manages to mismanage or outright waste. I'm talking mostly about Australia here, but I don't know of any country where this doesn't apply. If I had some evidence that the government used my money wisely (or even on something vaguely useful, sometimes) I wouldn't take such pleasure in the mild subversion of my own very trivial tax dodges.
Nothing wrong with a guy carrying a bag.
Just as well. What I carry in my bag, even when I'm cash-free:
Wallet with its contents (heh! just so I don't have to fossick for cards and cash), 3 pairs of glasses, car keys, phone, fountain pen, notebook, small tin of mints, iPod, receipts.
Not that I necessarily need all of these things at every moment of the day, but it makes things a lot easier if I don't have to do without.
America is the name of the country...
I read somewhere that they originally named it after Amerigo Vespucci, but after a while they got sick of calling it Vespuccia. ;-)
You mean you win by shutting your doors? OK... :-}
I guess Microsoft might be such an offender if you happen to use Bing search. But since people only do that on TV, we're comparatively safe. Google Analytics is, as you say, a useful tool for webmasters, but for the casual user there's very little impact if you simply block it via hosts file or adblock, other than having to manually type the URL for top-ranked listings into your location bar every now and then.
Whatever geekery one might apply to the stationary bike, there is nothing that can be done about the fact that they are just plain boring to use. Sure, we can try using fans to simulate headwind and maybe play porn movies to alleviate the boredom (though the combination of a bike saddle, exercise and a hard-on doesn't entice me much for some reason).
But for a comparatively small outlay we can buy an OK bike and take advantage of some interaction with the Outside World(TM). Even better if we can use the machine as transport, though not all of us have the time. When I was a student, the 50 minute trip to/from uni was doable, but my current job is 2 hours' ride from home, in the dark, on narrow country roads populated with heavy trucks. So I drive, and save the bike for the weekend.
Heh. I read exactly that sort of tripe in the blurb that came with a Cardas headphone cable I bought a couple of years back. (The original Sennheiser cable that I had was defective, and the third-party accessory was OK value for money.) What really made me LOL was their recommendation that I buy their special plug lubricant. I'm perfectly happy with the cable itself (after all, it's just a nicely insulated wire), but this voodoo crap only serves to discredit the product.
Incidentally, I often see mention of Monster cables on Slashdot as being representative of this kind of nonsense. Maybe the range available in the US is different to that here in Australia, but I mostly see comparatively reasonably priced Monster cables here. Just about anything will do for normal digital signals over a reasonable distance, but other types can be a bit more tricky. I am currently living in an area with a comparatively weak free-to-air digital TV signal that often gave me no picture at all through a Belkin antenna cable, but when I tried a (similarly priced) Monster alternative of the same length, it worked perfectly.
Really? I haven't had bad results using macports, which on this old MacBook has gcc at version 4.4.6. The Intel Core 2 Duo CPU is the same chip that lots of us have used in Linux, BSD and Windows boxes.
I agree it's a bit silly, but if it keeps me from having to tell my grandmother over the phone to "double click on the hard drive icon...
You're right, it's very silly indeed when all you have to do is simply put shortcut links to her apps on her desktop.
Finding out gcc4 was not included in the paid version of Xcode... now that was terrible.
If you know how to use it, then what's stopping you from downloading gcc4 from gnu.org and compiling it yourself?
You don't even have to go so far afield as that. I've always found internet connections in Greece to be pretty flaky. Hell, it wasn't that long ago you could barely make a phone call there. And here in Australia, there are lots of places where you won't get any kind of connection, for example Cocklebiddy, whose sole claim to fame is that it has a Wikipedia entry.
And everyone hated when email caused us to stop sending hand written letters.
I was one of those Luddites, but I have to shamefully admit that the last handwritten letter I sent (with the exception of business correspondence) was at least 5 years ago.
...between Facebook and the banks that the haters of either in this case have failed to take into account. The majority of us are required to have at least one bank account in order to (at the very least) allow us to get paid for our work. Whereas membership of Facebook is entirely optional.
Fair enough, but I doubt if you're going to win any converts by insisting on posting your comments with horrible monospaced fonts just to grab attention... :-}
That unit is as good as any. We're rapidly running out of prefixes here, and we still need formal definitions for units such as bucketload, shitload, shitton[ne] and so forth.
It might not have failed you yet, but this isn't a tactic I would try on a machine that does anything important. The whole point of any rootkit is that it can modify any file, and thus unless you happen to have recent known-good md5sums for every single file on all drives attached to the system (and the time to check them all), you simply cannot trust the machine, and you cannot allow users to log on to it.
Your only option is to re-image or reinstall from scratch.
But plenty of people who actually like to read (non-fiction) have no need to waste their time in 100-level Humanities classes.
Indeed. Hence the outcry against those (few, so far) universities here in Australia adopting a program where students have to pay for four years of arts-related courses before they can get started on their chosen area in a fourth "graduate" year. If I were undertaking study now, I would give those unis a wide berth. I love to read, and I already have a comprehensive Arts background, so it is easy to take a cynical position that this is just a way for universities to grab cash.
It's hard on students, since they only have seven years of Government assistance in their education, so if they undertake further studies in their chosen field, they are going to be cutting it a bit fine, without even starting to make allowances for changes of direction. And I am in no way convinced that a one-year "graduate" course is equivalent to a solid four years' undergrad study in their field.
Or, come to Australia...
Except that some universities are reported to be beginning to adopt the American model here. Melbourne University was the first, giving rise to the somewhat erroneous description as the Melbourne Model. Other unis are apparently giving this some consideration, and I'm not very happy about it. Seems more like a Mickey Mouse model to me. However, fortunately it doesn't directly affect me any more, since I have already got my degrees...
Also, for those of us not on a wired connection, Telstra mostly offers far better mobile connections to rural and remote areas which are prohibitively expensive to connect with DSL or cable. The trouble with Australia is that a disproportionately large proportion of the population lives in only half a dozen cities, so if you opt to live out of the main stream, you also have to live with the fact that the telcos will just pass you by. Internode fills a lot of gaps (very well indeed), but even they struggle when there isn't even a phone pole within 5 km of your property.
Sometimes the simpler systems are even worse. Like the bitch who answers your call with "This is Briefcase Holdings Limited, please hold..." than slapping you into a spiel of inane jingles and advertising crap before you can shout "NO!".
There is one advantage to bricks-and-mortar shops: you always have the option of driving there and making someone's life a burden and affliction until you're satisfied.