Sure, physical attributes like heart rate, blood pressure, etc. might be a good indicator of physical "productivity", but I'd sure like to know how or if it correlates to the overall productivity of someone creating intellectual property.
I am sure you can match biometric data to how many widgets are produced, or even if your driver is likely to be alert (e.g. performing at a higher safety level.) But how can you tell if they are writing good, persuasive prose for that proposal, or cranking out good code or buggy crap that is ultimately negative productivity?
Collect all the data you want, just don't act on that data alone. You will probably find that different people are productive in different ways. One guy might produce 1/5 of his weekly product each day of the week and another might screw around reading Slashdot and watching YouTube, then produce an equal amount of work coding all night a couple of days a week.
I think the utility of such monitoring will depend on the task at hand more than finding "perfectly productive" workers.
Between two year olds yanking on the electronics, and, um careless, types tossing those 10 for a dollar cans of soup against it, they won't stay operational for long.
Seems like it is hard enough to find a regular old analog-wheels-to-hold-my-stuff cart that has all the welds intact. Imagine trying to find some wi-fi thingy that is working, charged up, etc.
Bah. When I was a kid we had to kill our own food. And we liked it!
I've experienced the same thing both as a telecommuter, and as a consultant.
I think the size of the organization has a lot to do with it. The larger the company, the more deadwood there is. Those are the people we are talking about.
Small places can't afford slackers, depending on the business model they could be a 100% virtual company (i.e. all telecommuters).
Larger, more established places tend to attract pointy haired bosses, 9-5'er clock-punchers and others just doing the minimum to skim by. They are the ones most likely to be left behind, and also the most likely to be the whiners.
There are many clock-punchers in life. Most are either implicitly or explicitly are uneasy around those that get stuff done. It is not a surprise that they envy telecommuters, who by their very nature, are more likely to be the achievers.
The environment on this planet is completely capable of changing all on its own.
It has changed before and it will change again, homo sapiens or no.
In my opinion, the capricious nature of Nature is an even better argument for extra-terrestrial human colonization.
In other words, saying we need to develop space travel because we are screwing up this planet is pretty lame. A big rock can fall from the cosmos next month and kill us all. That should be motivation enough.
I would never hire a straight-laced, teetotaling, well groomed, religious person. I don't care how good a job they do, the very thought of them living piously on their own time just drives me nuts.
Oh, wait, nobody is complaining that people might get fired for being like that.
What does it say that it is so easy to identify those behaviors which are questionable?
One species' "doomsday" is another species chance to thrive. I don't see any giant reptiles bitching over their fate now, do I?
Just think how pissed you'd be if a bunch of velociraptors popped out of some jurassic "doomsday" vault next week and started chomping down on your homo sapiens brethren?
Think about the long term. Modern Humans have been around for as few as 6000 years according to some folks, as long as a few hundred thousand years, maybe a bit more, according to more rational minds.
The same rational minds that put the age of the universe several orders of magnitude greater.
apprcoah to fgthiing spam. Yuor ieda will not wrok. Here is why it won't work. (One or mroe of the flnwoilog may aplpy to your ptaruicalr idea, and it may have otehr flwas wihch used to vray form satte to satte bfoere a bad freeadl law was passed.)
( ) Smpreams can eislay use it to hrsevat eiaml aerdessds
(X) Milnaig ltiss and other laeititgme eaiml uess wulod be acteffed
(X) No one will be albe to fnid the guy or colelct the meony
( ) It is delfesesnes agasnit bture frcoe atctaks
(X) It will sotp sapm for two weeks and then we'll be sutck wtih it
( ) Usres of eimal will not put up with it
( ) Mofisrcot wlil not put up with it
( ) The pciole will not put up with it
( ) Rqriuees too much ctoaprooien form srepmmas
( ) Rruiqees idietmmae tatol coiarooeptn from eeovydbry at ocne
(X) Many eamil urses cnonat aofrfd to lsoe bsisneus or ataleine ptntieaol eermlypos
( ) Smrmaeps don't care aubot ivainld aedsesdrs in thier litss
( ) Anynoe culod anmnylosuoy dsreoty aynnoe esle's caerer or bussneis
Spciicalfely, your plan fials to acocnut for
( ) Lwas erplsxsey piroibihntg it
( ) Lack of cantlelry cnlonoilrtg artohtuiy for eamil
( ) Oepn ryelas in fiorgen ceiuotnrs
( ) Ease of senarcihg tiny ahirmelapunc asedrds sapce of all eimal adsesders
(X) Assaths
( ) Jctrdisiuoainl plmreobs
( ) Uiaortnluppy of wierd new taexs
( ) Pibulc rlunaeccte to aepcct wreid new forms of money
( ) Huge esitnixg sfwroate isvtneenmt in SMTP
( ) Stsicetuilipby of potcorlos ohter tahn STMP to actatk
( ) Wlsielnings of users to iltansl OS pehctas rceeived by eamil
(X) Aermis of wrom rdelidd bobaardnd-cnocented Wdiwnos bxoes
(X) Etanrel arms race ilvnveod in all fltrineig aprhpocaes
( ) Eetrmxe ptitairfloiby of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or ientitdy thfet
( ) Tahllcicney ittillaere picantloiis
(X) Emxerte sudtiipty on the prat of ppolee who do beiunsss wtih seprmams
( ) Dossnhetiy on the prat of spmermas teleevhmss
( ) Binatwddh ctoss taht are unafecfted by cilent frliitneg
( ) Otooulk
and the foilownlg pspcoiahoilhl obntoecijs may also alppy:
( ) Ideas samilir to yrous are easy to cmoe up wtih, yet nnoe hvae eevr
been sowhn paarticcl
( ) Any schmee bsaed on opt-out is uancbalcptee
( ) STMP hredeas souhld not be the seubjct of lilaigteson
(X) Btaiklscls scuk
(X) Wiitehtsls scuk
( ) We slouhd be able to talk aoubt Vaigra whtuiot bineg creonsed
( ) Cusemruteonreas sulhod not ivonlve wire fruad or cierdt crad fruad
( ) Cmaeetsruouners slouhd not ivnlove soaatbge of piublc nkterwos
(X) Cntrmurosueeeas must work if phased in gluardlay
( ) Sninedg email sluohd be free
(X) Why soluhd we hvae to tusrt you and yuor severrs?
( ) Ipinlocmitatby with open scuore or open scuroe leiencss
( ) Feel-good masreeus do noihtng to slove the prolebm
( ) Teprmoary/one-tmie eamil asseeddrs are csuebrmmoe
( ) I don't want the geoervnnmt rinadeg my eiaml
( ) Klnilig them taht way is not solw and pauinfl eugonh
Frtruermhoe, tihs is waht I thnik about you:
(X) Srory ddue, but I don't tinhk it wloud wrok.
( ) This is a situpd idea, and you're a sptiud preosn for sgnseutgig it.
( ) Ncie try, assh0le! I'm gniog to find out whree you lvie and brun your
huose down!
lol, I appreciate the humor, and I am self employed, not even a cubicle worker.
While you are probably looking for a quick "Funny" rating, a serious look reveals that, sadly, doing a GPS survey of some god-forsaken salt flats probably *is* more exciting than many ordinary jobs.
50 years from now you will have forgotten what you did, but some geophysicist will be able to say "Oh, yeah, back in ought-two, I was part of a team that had an all expense paid trip to Bolivia to hang out and sample the local cervesas and take a few GPS readings. Yup all that data eventually put to rest that man-made global warming malarkey. God I hate this ice age."
Anyone who is IM'ing with super-secret encoding and hoping that they are safe better not be IM'ing me, or someone like me who checks the "log" button...
Sorry, sometimes I like to refer back to them, and that is the way they are kept. I am too lazy to do anything about it.
I always assume I am just part of the noise in the s/n ratio that "they" are listening to.
Slashdot Mirror
I am sure you can match biometric data to how many widgets are produced, or even if your driver is likely to be alert (e.g. performing at a higher safety level.) But how can you tell if they are writing good, persuasive prose for that proposal, or cranking out good code or buggy crap that is ultimately negative productivity?
Collect all the data you want, just don't act on that data alone. You will probably find that different people are productive in different ways. One guy might produce 1/5 of his weekly product each day of the week and another might screw around reading Slashdot and watching YouTube, then produce an equal amount of work coding all night a couple of days a week.
I think the utility of such monitoring will depend on the task at hand more than finding "perfectly productive" workers.
As long as the company will sell you a conversion tool, there is no such thing as an obsolete format.
Seems like it is hard enough to find a regular old analog-wheels-to-hold-my-stuff cart that has all the welds intact. Imagine trying to find some wi-fi thingy that is working, charged up, etc.
Bah. When I was a kid we had to kill our own food. And we liked it!
I think the size of the organization has a lot to do with it. The larger the company, the more deadwood there is. Those are the people we are talking about.
Small places can't afford slackers, depending on the business model they could be a 100% virtual company (i.e. all telecommuters).
Larger, more established places tend to attract pointy haired bosses, 9-5'er clock-punchers and others just doing the minimum to skim by. They are the ones most likely to be left behind, and also the most likely to be the whiners.
There are many clock-punchers in life. Most are either implicitly or explicitly are uneasy around those that get stuff done. It is not a surprise that they envy telecommuters, who by their very nature, are more likely to be the achievers.
It has changed before and it will change again, homo sapiens or no.
In my opinion, the capricious nature of Nature is an even better argument for extra-terrestrial human colonization.
In other words, saying we need to develop space travel because we are screwing up this planet is pretty lame. A big rock can fall from the cosmos next month and kill us all. That should be motivation enough.
We all know big trade shows never go out of business.
Thanks mom & dad!
This is because "our" representatives spend a lot of money on bread and circuses to benefit people who don't pay their "fair share".
My definition of fair:
(Cost of Government) / (Number of Citizens) = the fair tax per citizen.
Anything else is unfair, but necessary simply because not everyone can afford their share.
All the shenanigans of modern tax code boils down to the politics of extracting unfair amounts of money from whomever can pay.
Just because you think you know what people should do, doesn't mean you do.
How else am I supposed to mow my hedges? It's a time honored technique handed down from grandpaw lefty and refined by uncle stumpy.
What could go wrong?
You control for that by giving some people a crinkly material to wrap around their head that has no RF blocking properties.
Oh, wait, nobody is complaining that people might get fired for being like that.
What does it say that it is so easy to identify those behaviors which are questionable?
Heh, you could say the whole company is on clearance - getting ready to make way for the new model...
I hardly show up at all, by design.
I mean, who is going to look for "NotQuiteReal", or any one of a number of identities I might or might not admit to, and associate it with "me"?
...that looks like innocuous piece of trash - or would you simply be an unwitting terrorist?
You'd just better hope those aliens don't sneeze on you!
Just think how pissed you'd be if a bunch of velociraptors popped out of some jurassic "doomsday" vault next week and started chomping down on your homo sapiens brethren?
Think about the long term. Modern Humans have been around for as few as 6000 years according to some folks, as long as a few hundred thousand years, maybe a bit more, according to more rational minds.
The same rational minds that put the age of the universe several orders of magnitude greater.
One way or the other, what's the difference?
Of course you have to risk the rath of your taxing authority... but still.
Yuor psot acvotaeds a
(X) tehnccial ( ) lavsilegtie ( ) mkreat-based ( ) vgntiiale
apprcoah to fgthiing spam. Yuor ieda will not wrok. Here is why it won't work. (One or mroe of the flnwoilog may aplpy to your ptaruicalr idea, and it may have otehr flwas wihch used to vray form satte to satte bfoere a bad freeadl law was passed.)
( ) Smpreams can eislay use it to hrsevat eiaml aerdessds
(X) Milnaig ltiss and other laeititgme eaiml uess wulod be acteffed
(X) No one will be albe to fnid the guy or colelct the meony
( ) It is delfesesnes agasnit bture frcoe atctaks
(X) It will sotp sapm for two weeks and then we'll be sutck wtih it
( ) Usres of eimal will not put up with it
( ) Mofisrcot wlil not put up with it
( ) The pciole will not put up with it
( ) Rqriuees too much ctoaprooien form srepmmas
( ) Rruiqees idietmmae tatol coiarooeptn from eeovydbry at ocne
(X) Many eamil urses cnonat aofrfd to lsoe bsisneus or ataleine ptntieaol eermlypos
( ) Smrmaeps don't care aubot ivainld aedsesdrs in thier litss
( ) Anynoe culod anmnylosuoy dsreoty aynnoe esle's caerer or bussneis
Spciicalfely, your plan fials to acocnut for
( ) Lwas erplsxsey piroibihntg it
( ) Lack of cantlelry cnlonoilrtg artohtuiy for eamil
( ) Oepn ryelas in fiorgen ceiuotnrs
( ) Ease of senarcihg tiny ahirmelapunc asedrds sapce of all eimal adsesders
(X) Assaths
( ) Jctrdisiuoainl plmreobs
( ) Uiaortnluppy of wierd new taexs
( ) Pibulc rlunaeccte to aepcct wreid new forms of money
( ) Huge esitnixg sfwroate isvtneenmt in SMTP
( ) Stsicetuilipby of potcorlos ohter tahn STMP to actatk
( ) Wlsielnings of users to iltansl OS pehctas rceeived by eamil
(X) Aermis of wrom rdelidd bobaardnd-cnocented Wdiwnos bxoes
(X) Etanrel arms race ilvnveod in all fltrineig aprhpocaes
( ) Eetrmxe ptitairfloiby of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or ientitdy thfet
( ) Tahllcicney ittillaere picantloiis
(X) Emxerte sudtiipty on the prat of ppolee who do beiunsss wtih seprmams
( ) Dossnhetiy on the prat of spmermas teleevhmss
( ) Binatwddh ctoss taht are unafecfted by cilent frliitneg
( ) Otooulk
and the foilownlg pspcoiahoilhl obntoecijs may also alppy:
( ) Ideas samilir to yrous are easy to cmoe up wtih, yet nnoe hvae eevr been sowhn paarticcl
( ) Any schmee bsaed on opt-out is uancbalcptee
( ) STMP hredeas souhld not be the seubjct of lilaigteson
(X) Btaiklscls scuk
(X) Wiitehtsls scuk
( ) We slouhd be able to talk aoubt Vaigra whtuiot bineg creonsed
( ) Cusemruteonreas sulhod not ivonlve wire fruad or cierdt crad fruad
( ) Cmaeetsruouners slouhd not ivnlove soaatbge of piublc nkterwos
(X) Cntrmurosueeeas must work if phased in gluardlay
( ) Sninedg email sluohd be free
(X) Why soluhd we hvae to tusrt you and yuor severrs?
( ) Ipinlocmitatby with open scuore or open scuroe leiencss
( ) Feel-good masreeus do noihtng to slove the prolebm
( ) Teprmoary/one-tmie eamil asseeddrs are csuebrmmoe
( ) I don't want the geoervnnmt rinadeg my eiaml
( ) Klnilig them taht way is not solw and pauinfl eugonh
Frtruermhoe, tihs is waht I thnik about you:
(X) Srory ddue, but I don't tinhk it wloud wrok.
( ) This is a situpd idea, and you're a sptiud preosn for sgnseutgig it.
( ) Ncie try, assh0le! I'm gniog to find out whree you lvie and brun your huose down!
Simple and to the point.
BTW this is the guy who can't fly because he refuses to get a government issued ID. Interesting stuff.
While you are probably looking for a quick "Funny" rating, a serious look reveals that, sadly, doing a GPS survey of some god-forsaken salt flats probably *is* more exciting than many ordinary jobs.
50 years from now you will have forgotten what you did, but some geophysicist will be able to say "Oh, yeah, back in ought-two, I was part of a team that had an all expense paid trip to Bolivia to hang out and sample the local cervesas and take a few GPS readings. Yup all that data eventually put to rest that man-made global warming malarkey. God I hate this ice age."
Anyone who is IM'ing with super-secret encoding and hoping that they are safe better not be IM'ing me, or someone like me who checks the "log" button...
Sorry, sometimes I like to refer back to them, and that is the way they are kept. I am too lazy to do anything about it.
I always assume I am just part of the noise in the s/n ratio that "they" are listening to.
What's the opposite of tin-foil hat?
This chapter, from Security Engineering - The Book has a good overview of this.
What he said.
If congress had to abide by something like The Enumerated Powers Act maybe it would slow 'em down a bit.