I find happy at work equates to any of: a) You are so obsessively driven on a subject that you can tune out status/personal needs for gratification of your other desires, b) You want money/status so badly that you'll do anything you're asked to achieve it, c) You are not driven, but have learned to make the best of what you've got.
Happiness comes from within ultimately. People often think that things like money/status will make them feel happy, only to find out they don't. Really, to have the best shot at happiness you have to enjoy what you're doing. Otherwise, you're only going to be happy once every couple weeks (on payday), and that kind of happiness fades (for most people) very quickly. Also, not relying on things to prop up your happiness is huge. Having a Porche or SL 500 is nice, but if that's what you're relying on to be happy, that will last about week and then it's gone (the happiness, not the car unless you really can't afford it;) ).
Unfortunately in America (and many Asian countries I'm finding), kids are told things like blindly pursuing grades, medical/law school, money,and material things are what leads to happiness. We need to teach kids to be more introspective and allow them room to figure out what makes them happy and pursue that. And we need to teach them there is no such thing as mistakes.
1) Make sure you know what you are building. Many project delays are because the "customer"- the manager, corporate head, you? doesn't actually know what they want.
This is such a suprisingly big problem, that it's probably a good idea to define what "knowing what you want" means when it comes to
making schedules.
There are too many "specs" that exist solely on a handwavy level; they're full of things like "GPS Integration", "Asynchronous messaging", etc.
This is one level of "knowing what you want" and it's a good starting point, but it's too high level to be making scheduling decisions.
Until you know things at the level of what libraries are being used,
how different situations will be handled, what *precise* data will be passed when and where, etc (or if you've done the *exact* same thing 10 times before),
you don't know enough to be making even semi-accurate schedules about anything.
What laws were broken by Lay? "Conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud." What does that mean exactly? It means that they didn't jump through the regulation hoops the way that your government mandated they do...
When people make up fictional companies to shuffle money around to hide the true state of their company and then lies to everyone, that's fraud. When the CEO knows things are bad, but then lies to his workers and stockholders and tells them everything is OK, then that's also fraud.
Securities fraud cases are always "derivative" crimes, meaning they are made up crimes -- there were no actual victims who were harmed physically from these actions.
So does that mean we should just allow this kind of fraudulent behavior with no legal repurcussions? If you do, that's fine - we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Much of the blame for Enron's collapse should be pointed to Alan Greenspan who created money out of thin air with his decade of inflationary monetary policy.
That may or may not be true. I doubt you personally could prove this, though it's an intriguing idea. Regardless, it has zilch to do with the issue at hand.
I haven't paid "full price" for games since I quit playing WoW (I might play when the expansion hits). Since then my game purchases have include, Tribes Vengeance, I love the series and at $5 at Microcenter there was no way not to get this. I picked up the Myst Collection (or whatever) for like $15. Since I never beat any of the games before, I figured why not. I also purchased NWN: Diamond Edition for around $30, so that is NWN + 2 expansions (or is it 3). The last game I got was HL2: Episode One. Once again, only $8 at Circuit City.
Scott Miller discusses how aftermarket resells are killing developers and publishers in his blog. However, I wonder if he's considered the effect of MMO games?
But is the MMO phenomenon effect on the market new? A long time ago, I know I basically stopped buying any games that didn't offer interaction with other people online. Take Starcraft for instance - If Starcraft were an offline rts, it would have been an OK game. If it let you play against your buddy sitting next to you, it'd have been a much better game. However it let you play against anyone on the planet and that made it an incredible game. So even during my Starcraft days, my purchases of other games were greatly diminished. I wouldn't be suprised if there was an article from the late 90's about how online games in general were killing the industry.
I think you carefully managed to mention about everything that is wrong with this kind of corporate culture. "If you can't beat them, join them". In other words: Power to the Powerpoint people. It is exactly this preference for Powerpoint skills, or soft skills, over C skills or hard skills that is a killer for true craftmanship, and may I say so, innovation. A labour force of Powerpointers does not create or produce in my opinion. Yes it can present great ideas but that is not related to the powerpoint skill itself but other skills. If I'm even more cynical, in some years the corporate western world will have specialized in management, politcal BS, "innovation" and Powerpoint, while countries like India will have the craftsmen who "just do it" and because of that have the real good ideas. Then some years later India will have more and more money, while we produce less and less because we forgot how to trully make stuff. Maybe some years later they will outsource to us, eh?
The key to working well in an organization is to have both "hard" and "soft" skills - with the two, you will be unstoppable as you'll be able to "bs" people into drinking your kool-aid, but you'll have the "skillz" to back it up. However, if someone only had one skill (either hard or soft), then the guy with the soft skills will always win in the short term......but life is just a series of "short terms" so the guy with only soft skills will win, period.
The secret is, it doesn't take much to get these soft skills. It simply takes an understanding of the mindset of the "clueless" when communicating with them. With practice (expect to screw up a lot), you'll be good enough at it that your life will magically improve, especially in organizational settings.
What is really going on here? It is this way, why is that so? I can affect how I react to what happens.
Exactly. With the former way of thinking, you just assume you are helpless and so just accept everything as being hopeless and become miserable. With this way of thinking you gain a form of power over the situation. The situation is what it is, but the difference in your overall success lies in your attitude and the world will magically transform for you if you attack the situation with the correct attitude.
And guess what? Perhaps the situation is hopeless. But since you are attacking it with the attitude of making things better, you'll be able to figure out a way around bad things (e.g. at another division at the company or perhaps a new company all together).
Since it seems private corporations are now controlling school curriculums, why can't we get some cooler corporate interests involved? Where's Seargent Funbags from Playboy and Corporal Barley from Coors? Let's at least create some drones who know how to have a good time! Is that too much to ask?:)
"proves you don't need millions of dollars to make a fun title."
Is this quote actually valid, or is it speculation? I find it hard to believe that you can make a AAA title (of any length) without at least several hundred thousands. Anyway, is there anyone who knows what kind of resources were put into this?
Re:holy CHRIST. Article is wrong.
on
How the PS3 Hit $600
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· Score: -1, Offtopic
holy CHRIST. Article is wrong.
Calm down, man. It's going to be alright. No need to get so worked up over technicalities. It's going to be alright, I promise.:)
Did you every study logic? Picking the lowest paying job you can get that actually uses a science education in order to illustrate a general point that science doesn't pay well doesn't work well as an argument. I use my science education (up to PhD level) every day in writing software for movie visual effects. It pays over 3 times what you claim I'd get as an academic. And the reason why academics are paid less isn't about excessive supply in the marketplace as a whole - it's a result of academics being prepared to accept low salaries in exchange for job satisfaction and recognition - something you appear to have left out of your computation. Oh...and I forgot to mention the consultancy fees that many academics earn.
Yes, I studied logic...along with statistics. What I learned is that statistical outliers don't prove anything. I know firsthand that what Philip Greenspun is saying is absolutely true and the career progression I quoted from his article is true for most.
And while we're on the subject, I'm also willing to bet that you don't actually need your PhD to write movie visual effects software, which I'm guessing involves lots of mathematics, but probably nothing that involves extending humanity's knowledge of math(assuming you don't file the creation special effects for movies/commercials/video games under this category). I'm willing to bet John Carmack of id (high school graduate, college dropout) or Tim Sweeney (bachelor's degree) could drop in and do exactly the thing you're doing without too much trouble. While what you learned earning your PhD is undoubtedly helpful in your work and perhaps an enjoyable experience, that's different from saying that sacrificing years of income to earn it was necessary to do what you do now. (BTW, this only applies to your specific instance, not to all PhD's in all scientific disciplines. In a few cases, the PhD is absolutely necessary to do something in a field.)
And academic pay is based on supply and demand, nothing more. I've seen zero evidence that academics are exchanging good salaries "in exchange for job satisfaction and recognition". They take what the market is willing to offer, just like the rest of us. There's nothing special about them when it comes to this. Indeed Philip touches on this when he observes:
"The tenured Nobel Prize winners are pretty happy, but they are a small proportion of the total. The average scientist that I encounter expresses bitterness about (a) low pay, (b) not getting enough credit or references to his or her work, (c) not knowing where the next job is coming from, (d) not having enough money or job security to get married and/or have children. If these folks were experiencing day-to-day joy at their bench, I wouldn't expect them to hold onto so much bitterness and envy."
While the things that you list are true, there is one crucial difference between scientists and 99% of the rest of the working class: they love their work. They enjoy exploring new concepts and testing predictions. Unlike the guy working drive-thru at McDonald's, scientists get a real sense of joy and accomplishment out of their work, which in large part diverts their attention from mere financial gain. If scientists hated their jobs half as much as most people, they could be making as much money as the puppets in their universities' administrations.
I've found that sentitment to be true for the vast minority of scientists. I've worked in biotech and in science labs in university. Many scientists are forced to work in areas they don't like simply because those areas are "popular" (thus insuring publication), that's what their principle investigator tells them to do, etc. I rarely find the scientists working on the thing he wants to work on. He, like many of us, is doing the thing someone is willing to pay him to do and that's rarely the thing he wants to do.
Some scientists are like kids who never grow up. They love what they do, are excited by the possibilities of their research, and wear a big smile most days. Although these people are, by Boston standards, ridiculously poor and they will never be able to afford a house (within a one-hour drive of their job) or support a family, I don't feel sorry for them.
Unfortunately, this kind of child-like joy is not typical. The tenured Nobel Prize winners are pretty happy, but they are a small proportion of the total. The average scientist that I encounter expresses bitterness about (a) low pay, (b) not getting enough credit or references to his or her work, (c) not knowing where the next job is coming from, (d) not having enough money or job security to get married and/or have children. If these folks were experiencing day-to-day joy at their bench, I wouldn't expect them to hold onto so much bitterness and envy.
I posted similiar comments linking to the same article exactly one minute before you.:)
Another great quote from Philip's article is that "Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States." This is absolutely true.
Now a lot of people say that one shouldn't do science just for the money, a fine sentiment. However, you're not allowed to say we're coming up "short" in science education when salaries seem to indicate that there are *too many* scientists in many areas(assuming you think scientist's salaries should be higher than they are).
Philip Greenspun says it best and I've seen this firsthand.
---
Why does anyone think science is a good job?
The average trajectory for a successful scientist is the following:
1. age 18-22: paying high tuition fees at an undergraduate college
2. age 22-30: graduate school, possibly with a bit of work, living on a stipend of $1800 per month
3. age 30-35: working as a post-doc for $30,000 to $35,000 per year
4. age 36-43: professor at a good, but not great, university for $65,000 per year
5. age 44: with young children at home (if lucky), fired by the university ("denied tenure" is the more polite term for the folks that universities discard), begins searching for a job in a market where employers primarily wish to hire folks in their early 30s
This is how things are likely to go for the smartest kid you sat next to in college. He got into Stanford for graduate school. He got a postdoc at MIT. His experiment worked out and he was therefore fortunate to land a job at University of California, Irvine. But at the end of the day, his research wasn't quite interesting or topical enough that the university wanted to commit to paying him a salary for the rest of his life. He is now 44 years old, with a family to feed, and looking for job with a "second rate has-been" label on his forehead.
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What does this tell us? If you believe in supply and demand, this tells us that there are MORE than enough top quality scientists being produced and that science education is not lagging in the least and that science knowledge is a commodity. This article is a bunch of hand-wringing over nothing.
You're right. Also this bit from Cringley's column struck me as being "not anything new" too...
To get that signing incentive, IBM's sales folks are now under-pricing deals. The people who do the actual work are still expected to show a profit though, even if one wasn't designed into the contract in the first place. So to still be profitable, they under-deliver on the contract, and this leads to an even lower quality of service.
I see this with virtually every business where people making the sale are not responsible for doing the work. The salesman gets his commission and takes off, while leaving workers with something that's doomed for failure from the beginning.
AMA gets legislation passed, hell they write legislation and demand that politicians vote for it.
Excellent point. If you want to know why it costs so much to go to the doctor, this is a big part of the problem. The AMA has helped push laws that reduce admissions to medical school and make practicing medicine for a non "certified" school illegal. In other words, they artificially restrict supply (it's not like you can outsource surgery to china).
They justify it as "protection" to consumers (e.g "We need to make sure standards are high!"), but the reality is that there are tons of crappy doctors out there and we have less choice to choose a better one than in a true free market.
So what's the real reason for the AMA pushing these laws? If you guessed "physician salaries", you win the prize!
Forbes: So what's your Java revenue?
JS: Close to $13 billion.
Nice evasion by Jonathan, there. This guy should be in politics. I can't believe some of the other replies are actually defending that as a reasonable answer to the question.;)
"Aside from the obvious puff-piece nature of this article, it's a bit of a Trojan Horse. Under the auspices of a broad view of what life at Microsoft is like, the author gets to air out the PR spin that Microsoft's Not Evil in seven contrite paragraphs (the average number of paragraphs for each segment is closer to four)."
You're not being fair. The author does go into detail over some of the bad things at Microsoft including managers who are subpar, managerial "cults", and eroding benefits. That's not the kind of thing you see in a typical rose-colored, everything-is-great puff piece.
"Microsoft's ill-gotten gains were long the easy way to sustain the talent pipe-line. Market forces are catching up, and Microsoft is starting to have to compete on more equal footing with other companies to get talent in the door (no more, "you're guaranteed to be a millionaire in fiver years" promises). And, it's a little annoying to hear the Microsoft have-nots whine about this -- join the rest of the world folks."
So which is it? Is this a puff piece or is the guy a "have not"? It seems to me that you have a bone to pick with Microsoft personally and in your hurry to do so, you've written up a badly thought-out, contradictory post.
"I think when a company becomes more like a bunch of armed thugs threatening you about using someone else's product and less like a vendor"
Well, they're in no shape or form like "armed thugs". That's just being sensationalistic. The vendor presents the channel operator with a set of terms and the channel operator is free to comply or ignore them (naturally, one choice may make more business sense than another). Competing vendors and channel operators have to think of creative solutions around this roadblock - a normal part of any business.
I'm interested in slashdotter's opinions on current antitrust legislature. Should the government step in when vendors have the ability to dictate prices/terms to people who control sales channels or should other businesses be forced anticipate these actions and so innovate in different ways (new channels, lower prices, new tech, etc) to get their sales?
"I don't understand the geek mentality -- we're unique, we have a massive amount of opportunity, and we generally go and get mediocre educations only to end up in a mediocre job? Change your way of thinking and realize that the way to make money is to save someone else the money they pay you. With technology, I think there are many holes to fill."
This mentality is typical. It's what we're taught we're "supposed" to do. Go to school, go to college, get a job working for someone, retire at 64.5. People don't think in terms of providing services to someone; they only think in terms of "working" for someone...this is a subtle but big significant difference in mentality.
Also having a job is easier. Since you apparently run your own contracting/consulting firm, you know that you are responsible for things that are taken care of by the infrastructure of a regular company...things like finding new paying customers (this is a skill a lot of people can't pull off). Also you're more secure with a regular job (yeah, I know we all know this is a joke, but I'm representing the typical mindset).
To be fair on the geeks, there are skills you need when running your own business. You need to know how to pick good customers - you don't want someone who expects the impossible, someone who will pay lame rates, someone who is an abusive a**hole, etc. To be fair, having a regular job is much easier than dealing with a lot of this stuff.
"My lowest paid employee is deaf and works about 12-16 hours a week (including travel). He earns almost US$50k take home after taxes, and practically selects his own hours (5am to 2pm so he can spend time with his family). He owns his home (no mortgage) and his car, and he vacations probably 6-8 weeks a year whenever he wants. His contract is a re-occuring bid contract that we always win because he works that hard -- and the customers know it.
My top paying employee works less than 25 hours a week and earns 6 figures. He gets the job done fast and correctly, and I think I've had to fight a bill once in the 9 years he's worked for me. Maybe twice. He travels internationally with his wife whenever he wants, and I believe he owns 80% of his home, and all his cars are paid for."
I'll be the voice of reality here for people who may be reading too much into this. Most of you reading this post are going to have to work more than 25 hours per week to earn 6 figures...at least until you get yourself established as the best out there or find a niche where you can get recurring contracts from people who can afford to pay this rate. *Then*, maybe it's possible. It's definitely *not* impossible (I know people earning similiar rates), but don't expect this off the bat.
I'm one of those slow starters too. I keep telling people who tell me I'm dumb that I'm going to to surpass them someday and this is the study to prove it. Sure I'm 29, but rest assured they'll be bowing before their Slow Cortex Thickening Overlords someday soon!
And that's really the basis of all this. I never believed in any vast cash generation conspiracies, but I've always believed that speed is valued over quality here since it's so obviously true (and kudos to CmdrTaco for coming out and just saying it). First to market is often better than best to market.
Slashdot Mirror
Happiness comes from within ultimately. People often think that things like money/status will make them feel happy, only to find out they don't. Really, to have the best shot at happiness you have to enjoy what you're doing. Otherwise, you're only going to be happy once every couple weeks (on payday), and that kind of happiness fades (for most people) very quickly. Also, not relying on things to prop up your happiness is huge. Having a Porche or SL 500 is nice, but if that's what you're relying on to be happy, that will last about week and then it's gone (the happiness, not the car unless you really can't afford it ;) ).
Unfortunately in America (and many Asian countries I'm finding), kids are told things like blindly pursuing grades, medical/law school, money,and material things are what leads to happiness. We need to teach kids to be more introspective and allow them room to figure out what makes them happy and pursue that. And we need to teach them there is no such thing as mistakes.
Gotta enjoy the journey. OK, off the soapbox.This is such a suprisingly big problem, that it's probably a good idea to define what "knowing what you want" means when it comes to making schedules.
There are too many "specs" that exist solely on a handwavy level; they're full of things like "GPS Integration", "Asynchronous messaging", etc. This is one level of "knowing what you want" and it's a good starting point, but it's too high level to be making scheduling decisions.
Until you know things at the level of what libraries are being used, how different situations will be handled, what *precise* data will be passed when and where, etc (or if you've done the *exact* same thing 10 times before), you don't know enough to be making even semi-accurate schedules about anything.
Scott Miller discusses how aftermarket resells are killing developers and publishers in his blog. However, I wonder if he's considered the effect of MMO games?
But is the MMO phenomenon effect on the market new? A long time ago, I know I basically stopped buying any games that didn't offer interaction with other people online. Take Starcraft for instance - If Starcraft were an offline rts, it would have been an OK game. If it let you play against your buddy sitting next to you, it'd have been a much better game. However it let you play against anyone on the planet and that made it an incredible game. So even during my Starcraft days, my purchases of other games were greatly diminished. I wouldn't be suprised if there was an article from the late 90's about how online games in general were killing the industry.
The secret is, it doesn't take much to get these soft skills. It simply takes an understanding of the mindset of the "clueless" when communicating with them. With practice (expect to screw up a lot), you'll be good enough at it that your life will magically improve, especially in organizational settings.
Exactly. With the former way of thinking, you just assume you are helpless and so just accept everything as being hopeless and become miserable. With this way of thinking you gain a form of power over the situation. The situation is what it is, but the difference in your overall success lies in your attitude and the world will magically transform for you if you attack the situation with the correct attitude.
And guess what? Perhaps the situation is hopeless. But since you are attacking it with the attitude of making things better, you'll be able to figure out a way around bad things (e.g. at another division at the company or perhaps a new company all together).
Since it seems private corporations are now controlling school curriculums, why can't we get some cooler corporate interests involved? Where's Seargent Funbags from Playboy and Corporal Barley from Coors? Let's at least create some drones who know how to have a good time! Is that too much to ask? :)
And while we're on the subject, I'm also willing to bet that you don't actually need your PhD to write movie visual effects software, which I'm guessing involves lots of mathematics, but probably nothing that involves extending humanity's knowledge of math(assuming you don't file the creation special effects for movies/commercials/video games under this category). I'm willing to bet John Carmack of id (high school graduate, college dropout) or Tim Sweeney (bachelor's degree) could drop in and do exactly the thing you're doing without too much trouble. While what you learned earning your PhD is undoubtedly helpful in your work and perhaps an enjoyable experience, that's different from saying that sacrificing years of income to earn it was necessary to do what you do now. (BTW, this only applies to your specific instance, not to all PhD's in all scientific disciplines. In a few cases, the PhD is absolutely necessary to do something in a field.)
And academic pay is based on supply and demand, nothing more. I've seen zero evidence that academics are exchanging good salaries "in exchange for job satisfaction and recognition". They take what the market is willing to offer, just like the rest of us. There's nothing special about them when it comes to this. Indeed Philip touches on this when he observes:
Greenspun further describes the typical scienst in his article :
Another great quote from Philip's article is that "Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States." This is absolutely true.
Now a lot of people say that one shouldn't do science just for the money, a fine sentiment. However, you're not allowed to say we're coming up "short" in science education when salaries seem to indicate that there are *too many* scientists in many areas(assuming you think scientist's salaries should be higher than they are).
What does this tell us? If you believe in supply and demand, this tells us that there are MORE than enough top quality scientists being produced and that science education is not lagging in the least and that science knowledge is a commodity. This article is a bunch of hand-wringing over nothing.
I'm interested in slashdotter's opinions on current antitrust legislature. Should the government step in when vendors have the ability to dictate prices/terms to people who control sales channels or should other businesses be forced anticipate these actions and so innovate in different ways (new channels, lower prices, new tech, etc) to get their sales?
Also having a job is easier. Since you apparently run your own contracting/consulting firm, you know that you are responsible for things that are taken care of by the infrastructure of a regular company...things like finding new paying customers (this is a skill a lot of people can't pull off). Also you're more secure with a regular job (yeah, I know we all know this is a joke, but I'm representing the typical mindset).
To be fair on the geeks, there are skills you need when running your own business. You need to know how to pick good customers - you don't want someone who expects the impossible, someone who will pay lame rates, someone who is an abusive a**hole, etc. To be fair, having a regular job is much easier than dealing with a lot of this stuff.
I'm one of those slow starters too. I keep telling people who tell me I'm dumb that I'm going to to surpass them someday and this is the study to prove it. Sure I'm 29, but rest assured they'll be bowing before their Slow Cortex Thickening Overlords someday soon!