I used to blame "constant client requirement changes" for failed projects as suggested by my project manager.
My experience shows this to be quite valid sometimes regardless of how much project control you attempt - a classic scenario goes like this:
1) The customer is invited to a 'proof of concept' or 'milestone' demo of the proposed system
2) The customer requests new features or amendments to original spec
3) The new features are subjected to a cost/benefit analysis by both parties
4) Customer wants the changes and so the contract clause relating to 'additional or amended requirements' kicks in and a new pricing structure is drawn up.
5) Customer complains that they are being 'forced into a corner' with the new charges - they want everything completed but aren't willing to pay the extra but feel that if they don't agree you'll walk away from the project
6) Developers have to decide whether to make the amendments within existing budget, even though it's additional workload, or insist that the customer covers some or (hopefully) all of the charges.
7) Customer complains and says they won't pay - OR they agree, but you just know that at the end of the contract you'll get a serious amount of grief trying to extract the full and fair cost of the work from the customer.
8) Customer pulls plug and takes your proposal elsewhere for someone else to work on, or you decide to cut your losses and jump ship anyway.
Vader (increasing death grip on pilots neck from a distance of several metres): SO! master pilot, tell me why the new Death Star - the pride of the Empire - was damaged by a collision with a small moon while establishing a parking orbit at Omega-4?
Pilot: Sir (cough, splutter), it's not my fault - we were completing our orbital parking procedure as per instructions when this a**hole from Sol-3 shone this frickin' blinding laser beam into the cockpit and we missed the last orbital beacon.
Und was haben deine Grosseltern im Krieg gemacht?
Isn't it good that our countries are now friends?
And which your grandparents in the war have made?
Hor auf, so laut in dieser nervigen Sprache zu reden.
I'm sorry, could you repeat that in English. Hor up to talk so loud in this nervigen language.
Willst du Arger, Grossmaul?
Can you give me directions? Do you want bad one, large muzzle?
Dein Schwanz ist so klein, dass es 'ne Maus nicht merkt, wenn du sie fickst
Pleased to meet you Your tail is so small that it does not notice 'ne mouse, if you it fickst
I'm going to ask my penfriend Hans to make me a copy of his multimedia CD titled 'learning German for English speakers' now he can do it legitimately since he's going to pay the tax!
I once called the customer service team of a major UK railway company and said they needed to change their new safety posters because they had put "Opening train doors before the train has come to a complete stop can effect your safety".
I explained it carefully to the bemused agent a couple of times and eventually got a half-hearted agreement that she'd pass on my comments to the marketing team - but I knew in my heart that she thought I was completely mad and that she was going to close the call as soon as I was off the phone.
A few more toolbars on the screen and I won't be able to see much more than a 1" strip of any suspect site anyway, let alone enter any information - cool! Secure!
Ah, yes, America - land of the free, where everyone has the right to bear high powered narrow frequency optical emitters.
I can see NRA members country-wide strapping these lasers to their hunting rifles so that if they don't manage to shoot the crap out of something at least it will become road-kill when it wanders blindly into the path of an oncoming 40 ton truck. Yeah for outdoor sports!
No sh*t - I've just bought an NEC OEM 16x dual layer DVD+/- CD-R/RW burner for £36.00 ($70) from an online store. Hate to think what the profit margin was for all concerned.
I see nothing new in this principle - anyone knows that more aerials are better - in fact, if you increase the number of aerials so that their combined length (l) matches the exact distance between the sender and the receiver (ie: l = d), AND then you place each aerial in and end-to-end configuration so that electrons can flow in an unbroken path from transmitter to receiver then you have a very efficient data transmission medium - heck, the principle even works with optical fibre and photons too.
I used to work, for the same company as my wife and occasionally, one of us would arrive at the car park only to discover that the other person (working from home or out on a business trip) had the swipe card for the barrier - no problem, whip out the metal drinks tray kept in the boot/trunk for such an emergency, place it on the exit sensor wire, up goes the barrier, drive in and over tray, retrieve tray and park!
What would be 'funny' (WHO picked that word for the summary - geez!?) would be if a microbe from Mars made it back here and turned out to be harmless to all forms of life, BUT killed the AIDS virus.
"If you pay attention to the sources of studies, where they are published, who is behind the funding etc. then you'll be better equipped to make an informed choice regarding which ones to take seriously."
Sadly this is not what the news media does when spoon feeding headlines and stories to people like me - the average man in the street.
There's just been a programme about global warming on one of the national talk radio stations in the UK and the expert presented what seemed to be a precise and fact-based argument about why global warming is cyclic and how humankind has not made any significant difference.
I won't bore you with the details, but he did discuss the industrial revolution, CO2 emissions, mini-ice ages etc. and did not come across as a crackpot - I forget his name but I believe he was a professor.
This all seems to show that there are many theories and you can take your pick of which one suits your standpoint - it's like other debates on the health benefits of wine, coffee, chocolate etc. next week we'll all be saying the opposite - mind you, I'm still never going to eat at McDonalds!!
Slashdot Mirror
I used to blame "constant client requirement changes" for failed projects as suggested by my project manager.
My experience shows this to be quite valid sometimes regardless of how much project control you attempt - a classic scenario goes like this:
1) The customer is invited to a 'proof of concept' or 'milestone' demo of the proposed system
2) The customer requests new features or amendments to original spec
3) The new features are subjected to a cost/benefit analysis by both parties
4) Customer wants the changes and so the contract clause relating to 'additional or amended requirements' kicks in and a new pricing structure is drawn up.
5) Customer complains that they are being 'forced into a corner' with the new charges - they want everything completed but aren't willing to pay the extra but feel that if they don't agree you'll walk away from the project
6) Developers have to decide whether to make the amendments within existing budget, even though it's additional workload, or insist that the customer covers some or (hopefully) all of the charges.
7) Customer complains and says they won't pay - OR they agree, but you just know that at the end of the contract you'll get a serious amount of grief trying to extract the full and fair cost of the work from the customer.
8) Customer pulls plug and takes your proposal elsewhere for someone else to work on, or you decide to cut your losses and jump ship anyway.
Zero will still remain a constant - so will PI, hey: Sex + PI...wasn't that a film...American Pie!? It all meakes perfect sense now!
..but does it run Linux?
Next.
Sticking these into Google:
Und was haben deine Grosseltern im Krieg gemacht?
Isn't it good that our countries are now friends?
And which your grandparents in the war have made?
Hor auf, so laut in dieser nervigen Sprache zu reden.
I'm sorry, could you repeat that in English.
Hor up to talk so loud in this nervigen language.
Willst du Arger, Grossmaul?
Can you give me directions?
Do you want bad one, large muzzle?
Dein Schwanz ist so klein, dass es 'ne Maus nicht merkt, wenn du sie fickst
Pleased to meet you
Your tail is so small that it does not notice 'ne mouse, if you it fickst
I'm going to ask my penfriend Hans to make me a copy of his multimedia CD titled 'learning German for English speakers' now he can do it legitimately since he's going to pay the tax!
I once called the customer service team of a major UK railway company and said they needed to change their new safety posters because they had put "Opening train doors before the train has come to a complete stop can effect your safety".
I explained it carefully to the bemused agent a couple of times and eventually got a half-hearted agreement that she'd pass on my comments to the marketing team - but I knew in my heart that she thought I was completely mad and that she was going to close the call as soon as I was off the phone.
OMG Lynx can't be tested!!!
Hey, I live in the UK, I have diabetes - I get my Cialis FREE! (gotta be some perks with this damn condition!)
A few more toolbars on the screen and I won't be able to see much more than a 1" strip of any suspect site anyway, let alone enter any information - cool! Secure!
Ah, yes, America - land of the free, where everyone has the right to bear high powered narrow frequency optical emitters.
I can see NRA members country-wide strapping these lasers to their hunting rifles so that if they don't manage to shoot the crap out of something at least it will become road-kill when it wanders blindly into the path of an oncoming 40 ton truck. Yeah for outdoor sports!
Thanks for this - I was just about to dive into the world of IPSec between 24 broadband-connected sites but I'm rethinking the whole plan right now.
Will applications released for free use with DNA RAM be known as 'Open Wound'? [makes hurried exit]
...and don't forget the Exocomps
Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 135: The Quality of Life
In space everyone can hear you scream "f*ck"
"CD writers were available for less than $100 "
No sh*t - I've just bought an NEC OEM 16x dual layer DVD+/- CD-R/RW burner for £36.00 ($70) from an online store. Hate to think what the profit margin was for all concerned.
I nominate:
"The one week in 2004 that passed without Micro$oft having to issue a security update".
...but doesn't that desecribe a -wire-?
Umm..yeah..that was the..er..joke!
I see nothing new in this principle - anyone knows that more aerials are better - in fact, if you increase the number of aerials so that their combined length (l) matches the exact distance between the sender and the receiver (ie: l = d), AND then you place each aerial in and end-to-end configuration so that electrons can flow in an unbroken path from transmitter to receiver then you have a very efficient data transmission medium - heck, the principle even works with optical fibre and photons too.
"Wouldn't it be nice if its commercial value led to the preservation of the world's oceans and responsible use thereof"
Yep, but thesedays it's more like:
"Here comes the science - now for the patents; you wanna use these compounds to save humanity - it'll cost you."
Yep, they're usually inductive.
I used to work, for the same company as my wife and occasionally, one of us would arrive at the car park only to discover that the other person (working from home or out on a business trip) had the swipe card for the barrier - no problem, whip out the metal drinks tray kept in the boot/trunk for such an emergency, place it on the exit sensor wire, up goes the barrier, drive in and over tray, retrieve tray and park!
They've done that recently (again) - here's the BBC news article from 15th November:
New claim on location of Atlantis
What would be 'funny' (WHO picked that word for the summary - geez!?) would be if a microbe from Mars made it back here and turned out to be harmless to all forms of life, BUT killed the AIDS virus.
"If you pay attention to the sources of studies, where they are published, who is behind the funding etc. then you'll be better equipped to make an informed choice regarding which ones to take seriously."
Sadly this is not what the news media does when spoon feeding headlines and stories to people like me - the average man in the street.
There's just been a programme about global warming on one of the national talk radio stations in the UK and the expert presented what seemed to be a precise and fact-based argument about why global warming is cyclic and how humankind has not made any significant difference.
I won't bore you with the details, but he did discuss the industrial revolution, CO2 emissions, mini-ice ages etc. and did not come across as a crackpot - I forget his name but I believe he was a professor.
This all seems to show that there are many theories and you can take your pick of which one suits your standpoint - it's like other debates on the health benefits of wine, coffee, chocolate etc. next week we'll all be saying the opposite - mind you, I'm still never going to eat at McDonalds!!