Crystal Ball is an interesting little app that allows you to model various statistical distributions and risk analysis models. Lots of fun, in a geeky sort of way.
But, Decisioneering won't even port it to use the Mac version of Excel, let alone OpenOffice. (Sad, actually, since Crystal Ball was originally a Mac/Excel application. Mickeysoft changed the API for statistical functions in Excel on Windows for the sake of vendor lock-in, and you know the rest.)
So as an OS X user, I'm forced to use an emulator and an old copy of Win98 for one application.
Stupid stupid stupid. I refuse to give Microsoft any hard-earned cash for this reason alone. If I can help it.
If OpenOffice at least had decent data analysis tools (even just statistical functions), I'd consider using it on a regular basis. But for now, it's just a toy.
Taxpayers effectively sign check to lawyers on both sides
In short, there's nothing to see here, except maybe that some upstart ISP will suddenly become a monopoly in Utah. Hmm.. you don't think a certain church might be getting into the ISP business, do ya?
That's right, Liberals hate "Republicans" and "Christians" and "conservatives" and "capitalists". Liberal doctrine encourages hatred against those groups.
Well, as a liberal (big or small L, take your pick), let me take some stock.. hmm...
Republicans.. nope, don't hate them. Feeling sorry for moderates these days in fact, since they're taken for granted. I wonder how long the GOP can afford to piss off the John McCains and Christy Todd Whitmans.
Conservatives.. can't say I hate them either, as long as their arguments are rational. I found myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan of all people recently, when he charged that the Shrub administration voilated conservative principles of small, non-interfering government. Scared the hell out of me that I'd actually agree with him, but he was dead on IMO.
Christians.. nope, don't hate 'em, so long as they have that "11th commandment" thingy worked out (very few do though)..
Capitalists.. nope, strike four. I'm an MBA student, after all. Not too many Marxists in B-school.
So much for sweeping generalizations. But let me tell you about some things that DO drive me up the wall:
Rednecks. Having grown up with them, I can safely say they are just nasty, scummy people. Just play the song "Stuart" by the Dead Milkmen over and over and over again, you'll get the idea. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Fundamentalists. Or for that matter anyone who seeks "freedom" (of will, or conscience, whatever) by mandating mindless conformity. Who'd have guessed that Karl Rove and Osama have something in common?
"Patriots", or any idiot who says we're fighting for "freedom". Freedom of... what, exactly? Speech? Nope. Religion? Not unless you're Christian. RTBA? Maybe, unless you're a "terrorist".
"Fair and balanced journalism", which is an oxymoron. Facts are under no obligation to be either fair or balanced. Bias is impossible to eradicate, granted, but good journalism presents just the facts, and no carefully appointed "experts".
The level of critical thinking in this country. It's amazing how mediocre the media has become in just 20 years, not to mention education. But I guess we have this idea that we're entitled to our way of life no matter what. (Funny, I've read the Constitution, and "sport utility vehicle" doesn't appear anywhere in it.) In America, if at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.
A mistake on this asteroid could potentially be just as devistating as a mistake on one destined to collide with us.
OBSERVATION REPORT, Vogon Space Fleet
The search for extra-planetary life has uncovered a radio transmission near the area of some of our previous landings.
The time of the transmission is estimated to have occurred some time after the sudden change in the trajectory of asteroid SDFSJHS-138765-54. An investigation is pending.
I'd love to be able to do something like this with an old phone. Here's an idea I hoped to have time to pursue, but had to give up:
I'd love to stick a board with a small form factor (say, mini-ITX and a flash drive) into the base of one of those puppies (if it would fit), add wireless networking to it, and have just enough of an RTOS in there to stream music to my stereo. You could keep the holes in the body to a minimum: just have jacks for power and RCA-style stereo cables out the back of it.
The dial could be used for streaming audio presets. "What? KEXP.org? No problem, just dial 7: "whisk-k-k-k-k-k-k-k". Imagine the Airport Express with lots of style.
And of course, it would have to have a tiny Web server for configuration purposes. You could even use the hook as a power switch (want music? Take the phone off the hook!) and use the receiver as an antenna.
Unlike most other consumer products these days, the thing would just... look... cool. Especially an older black phone made before the seventies.
Anyway, this could have been a lot of fun, but there are just too many constraints on my time these days. And, getting a rotary phone to cannibalize is surprisingly difficult and expensive these days: they're antiques, and are priced as such. (In fact, more than a few have been bought up by outfits like Restoration Hardware, who in turn pervert them by replacing the dial with a circular array of buttons. Makes me want to cry.)
Larry Summers was not only the guy who waived tuition at Harvard for underprivileged students. He was the only guy in the Clinton administration who knew just how bad the end of the dot.com bubble would be. IIRC, the New Yorker quoted him as comparing the 90s with the 20s: exuberant times leading into steep crises.
In short, he's a prescient guy who just screwed up his legacy. Damn shame.
Yes; the data is from 12/16/04, but this will be a huge change in how tech companies work.
Not without another period of insanity like the '90s.
As many other Slashdotter have pointed out, stock options don't mean much unless you work for a stable organization (like Cisco, which is the king of employee stock-option grants AFAICT). And of course if those options have a chance in hell of being above water at maturity or later.
The change is actually good news for shareholders, and will force companies to act responsibly before diluting their owners' equity. There's no need anymore to tolerate any of the "license to print money" crap from the past decade.
The only bone I have to pick is that, IIRC, someone out there (FASB? SEC? your congresscritter?) is thinking of abandoning the Black-Scholes method of options pricing, which is the standard method (look it up), but only in the case of executive or employee compensation.
That sounds fishy to me: IMO an option is an option is an option, and should be evaluated as such. Any other finance/econ dilletantes out there care to comment?
Mostly they take it as "we are only good in math, while US prepares kids for life"
As an American who has worked with Czechs very closely (in,yes, a software outsourcing company), I will attest that this claim is utterly false.
The Czechs in our organization were excellent. They weren't just intelligent; they have a work ethic that puts the average American to shame. You guys are more prepared for life than you think.
So, what's it like to be from a nation on its way up, but envying a nation on its way down?
Really. I'm a veteran of the coding wars, and yes, death marches are nothing new. The tactic of the perennially slipping deadline ("whoops, heh heh, crunch mode just got extended 2 weeks, sorry") is the telltale sign of incompetent software management. (My SO had a similar experience in the telecomm industry before the big crash.) A German shepherd could figure out what's happening to this organization.
The team involved has to revolt unanimously -- somewhere a manager needs to get seriously bitch-slapped with some slippage. I'm not talking about sabotage, mind you; let's stay professional, even though noone will ever die as a result of EA's bugs. But what about having an entire department or two calling in sick on the exact same day?
It's the crudest form of organized labor, but it works. Just like the "blue flu" that hits US cities when the policemen's union protests conditions. And the larger and more critical the department involved, the better.
Yes, there is the risk of an en masse firing. On the other hand, if this article is true, what is there for the engineers to lose? Paychecks are nice, but health and sanity are rather nifty too.
1. Democrats will finally answer a question they can't stand to ask: What exactly do we stand for? And how do we articulate it in 15 seconds or less? (Disclaimer: I voted Kerry, and would have voted for a bag of doorknobs over Bush. But IMO this was a major failing of the Kerry campaign.)
2. Saudi Arabia will become an Islamic republic. If we go to war again (and who knows the chances of that?), I don't see the house of Saud surviving the backlash.
3. Health care and Social Security will take center stage again with rising deficits. Combined with #2, it'll be the economy again, stupid.
4. Moderate conservatives will opt either for a third party, or even join the Democrats (who have fallen into the role, accidentally, of deficit hawks and gov't spending watchdogs). These may actually be good times to be a fiscal conservative and social liberal, akin to libertarians.
5. Dems take the Senate in 2006 if the Iraq death toll doubles. It's very likely that interest rates will go up (maybe even skyrocket). Greenspan may not be able to keep inflation in check by then.
999. All bets are off. Noone could have predicted 9/11, which still managed to cast a long shadow over voting yesterday.
This is the big reason why I returned for my MBA recently. Having been unemployed, then doing contract work, and then netwoking my arse off to get a permanent job again all in the space of 2.5 years, I'm very happy with my decision.
I think many of the posters here are correct, in that not all jobs will be going overseas. There will be defense work, very domain-centric work, and inefficiencies in the outsourcing business model that resist scaling.
But I don't think any of this is insurmountable over the long term.
Defense work? We could eventually transfer portions of it to NATO allies in Eastern Europe. True, there are secrecy and clearance issues, but probably nothing a few lobbyists, congressmen, and other pond scum couldn't eliminate over a period of time.
Domain knowledge? Very easily exported to your competitors, I'm afraid. You'd better be the best system engineer in your field. Too bad for the other 99% of you.
Economies of scale? The best offshoring business models will evolve and survive, and this issue will disappear. Just give it time to develop in a free market.
My advice to you, if you're still in software for a living, is to diversify. Not specialize, mind you, but diversify. Get the MBA, or another degree, while you still have a job. (The pursuit of an MBA helped me land a permanent software gig, believe it or not.) I don't expect to be in this line of work when I'm fifty (14 years from now), and frankly, neither should you.
Mind-numbingly stupid analogy. If we take it to its logical conclusion, we "got along fine" without fire or the wheel.
If I'm paying for a service (in this case, a movie, or a play, or a sporting event), I expect to receive the goods, regardless of what the other spectators think. It's just plain sad that polite decent behavior has to be legislated in the first place, let alone be labelled "politically correct".
Your kid was in a car crash? Yeah, that sucks.. but take the call out in the lobby, since you're on your way out anyway. You're on call 24/7? Yeah, that sucks too, but check out this next phrase: "Vibrating pager." Ooooh, what a concept.
Let's be real: 99.999999999% of the calls in the theater are totally unnecessary bullshit that only ruins the experience for everyone else. Anybody with a brain and an ounce of courtesy wouldn't use a cell in such a situation. As for people with neither, who just have to mess things up for everyone else, screw 'em: yank the phone out of their hands and throw it into the lobby.
It's bad enough when a movie is interrupted by some idiot on a cell phone. It's worse during a play. The tickets are usually more expensive, and the phone runs the risk of disturbing the production.
Our favorite playhouse (Playmakers Repertory in Chapel Hill, NC) has a similar reminder two minutes before each opening act. Unfortunately, there is always that one idiot who disregards it, or just forgets to check his phone, and the rest of us have to deal with the Nokia jingle during a performance. The actors love it, let me tell you..
The worst case I've ever seen was in a touring production at Duke University. We were sitting in the back, the seats were terrible, and yes, some waste of space ahead of us just had to field that phone call right then and there. The conversation was filled with discussions of emergency issues.. like "Oh, nothin'.. just watchin' a play.. what are you up to?"
If I wasn't with the wife, and if the phone itself wasn't more than two rows ahead of us, I'd have swiped it and thrown it into the lobby. (Oh darn, it could hit the door and shatter. So sorry.)
So I say, if you know the callee is just being a jerk, take matters into your own hands. Literally. But just long enough to test Newton's theory of gravitation and to mutter the phrase "go fetch".
Agreed, one and all. Yes, the historical and scientific detail that NS employs is astounding. But for either literary merit or entertainment value, you'd be better off reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica from start to finish.
Pity. Cryptonomicon was a lot of fun. WTF happened???
I've yet to meet the diehard conservative who, with all else stripped away, is anything more than a selfish kid struggling to make-believe greed into something wholesome-sounding.
It's about time somebody pointed this out.
I'd also add that the same diehards are some of the most intellectually lazy people I've ever met. They're not stupid, they merely prefer to wallow in ignorance and pre-conceived, self-serving notions.
Maybe we need a Whining Fratboy Party in this country..
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed.
The woman in question has the right to hold her opinions, but the rest of us have the obligation to expose their inadequacy.
Love your country. Call somebody an asshat. Today.
This is the one application that I need that will never be ported to anything but the Windows version of Excel.
Crystal Ball is an interesting little app that allows you to model various statistical distributions and risk analysis models. Lots of fun, in a geeky sort of way.
But, Decisioneering won't even port it to use the Mac version of Excel, let alone OpenOffice. (Sad, actually, since Crystal Ball was originally a Mac/Excel application. Mickeysoft changed the API for statistical functions in Excel on Windows for the sake of vendor lock-in, and you know the rest.)
So as an OS X user, I'm forced to use an emulator and an old copy of Win98 for one application.
Stupid stupid stupid. I refuse to give Microsoft any hard-earned cash for this reason alone. If I can help it.
If OpenOffice at least had decent data analysis tools (even just statistical functions), I'd consider using it on a regular basis. But for now, it's just a toy.
In short, there's nothing to see here, except maybe that some upstart ISP will suddenly become a monopoly in Utah. Hmm.. you don't think a certain church might be getting into the ISP business, do ya?
Well, as a liberal (big or small L, take your pick), let me take some stock.. hmm...
So much for sweeping generalizations. But let me tell you about some things that DO drive me up the wall:
Rant over....
I'd love to be able to do something like this with an old phone. Here's an idea I hoped to have time to pursue, but had to give up:
I'd love to stick a board with a small form factor (say, mini-ITX and a flash drive) into the base of one of those puppies (if it would fit), add wireless networking to it, and have just enough of an RTOS in there to stream music to my stereo. You could keep the holes in the body to a minimum: just have jacks for power and RCA-style stereo cables out the back of it.
The dial could be used for streaming audio presets. "What? KEXP.org? No problem, just dial 7: "whisk-k-k-k-k-k-k-k". Imagine the Airport Express with lots of style.
And of course, it would have to have a tiny Web server for configuration purposes. You could even use the hook as a power switch (want music? Take the phone off the hook!) and use the receiver as an antenna.
Unlike most other consumer products these days, the thing would just... look... cool. Especially an older black phone made before the seventies.
Anyway, this could have been a lot of fun, but there are just too many constraints on my time these days. And, getting a rotary phone to cannibalize is surprisingly difficult and expensive these days: they're antiques, and are priced as such. (In fact, more than a few have been bought up by outfits like Restoration Hardware, who in turn pervert them by replacing the dial with a circular array of buttons. Makes me want to cry.)
Just my random musings of thwarted ambition..
Larry Summers was not only the guy who waived tuition at Harvard for underprivileged students. He was the only guy in the Clinton administration who knew just how bad the end of the dot.com bubble would be. IIRC, the New Yorker quoted him as comparing the 90s with the 20s: exuberant times leading into steep crises.
In short, he's a prescient guy who just screwed up his legacy. Damn shame.
Yes; the data is from 12/16/04, but this will be a huge change in how tech companies work.
Not without another period of insanity like the '90s.
As many other Slashdotter have pointed out, stock options don't mean much unless you work for a stable organization (like Cisco, which is the king of employee stock-option grants AFAICT). And of course if those options have a chance in hell of being above water at maturity or later.
The change is actually good news for shareholders, and will force companies to act responsibly before diluting their owners' equity. There's no need anymore to tolerate any of the "license to print money" crap from the past decade.
The only bone I have to pick is that, IIRC, someone out there (FASB? SEC? your congresscritter?) is thinking of abandoning the Black-Scholes method of options pricing, which is the standard method (look it up), but only in the case of executive or employee compensation.
That sounds fishy to me: IMO an option is an option is an option, and should be evaluated as such. Any other finance/econ dilletantes out there care to comment?
A few thoughts:
Thanks again,
-- Meoward
Actually, Jobs made the "repeat performers" section of the article, along with Meg Whitman of eBay.
And I thought "Jagr" when I saw this name, and started getting wistful for Hockey Night. And depressed, since there will be no NHL season this year.
Thanks for the memories, fucker.
Now that's not funny! Why, I've been.. is that a rubber band? I like rubber bands. Ever chew on one? Kinda hard to pick up with no thumbs, but..
I really am pursuing an MBA!
-- Anonymous Meoward
Mostly they take it as "we are only good in math, while US prepares kids for life"
As an American who has worked with Czechs very closely (in ,yes, a software outsourcing company), I will attest that this claim is utterly false.
The Czechs in our organization were excellent. They weren't just intelligent; they have a work ethic that puts the average American to shame. You guys are more prepared for life than you think.
So, what's it like to be from a nation on its way up, but envying a nation on its way down?
I'm waiting for them to stock nitrous oxide.
Stuff may blow up, but the neighbors probably won't care after awhile..
Really. I'm a veteran of the coding wars, and yes, death marches are nothing new. The tactic of the perennially slipping deadline ("whoops, heh heh, crunch mode just got extended 2 weeks, sorry") is the telltale sign of incompetent software management. (My SO had a similar experience in the telecomm industry before the big crash.) A German shepherd could figure out what's happening to this organization.
The team involved has to revolt unanimously -- somewhere a manager needs to get seriously bitch-slapped with some slippage. I'm not talking about sabotage, mind you; let's stay professional, even though noone will ever die as a result of EA's bugs. But what about having an entire department or two calling in sick on the exact same day?
It's the crudest form of organized labor, but it works. Just like the "blue flu" that hits US cities when the policemen's union protests conditions. And the larger and more critical the department involved, the better.
Yes, there is the risk of an en masse firing. On the other hand, if this article is true, what is there for the engineers to lose? Paychecks are nice, but health and sanity are rather nifty too.
1. Democrats will finally answer a question they can't stand to ask: What exactly do we stand for? And how do we articulate it in 15 seconds or less? (Disclaimer: I voted Kerry, and would have voted for a bag of doorknobs over Bush. But IMO this was a major failing of the Kerry campaign.)
2. Saudi Arabia will become an Islamic republic. If we go to war again (and who knows the chances of that?), I don't see the house of Saud surviving the backlash.
3. Health care and Social Security will take center stage again with rising deficits. Combined with #2, it'll be the economy again, stupid.
4. Moderate conservatives will opt either for a third party, or even join the Democrats (who have fallen into the role, accidentally, of deficit hawks and gov't spending watchdogs). These may actually be good times to be a fiscal conservative and social liberal, akin to libertarians.
5. Dems take the Senate in 2006 if the Iraq death toll doubles. It's very likely that interest rates will go up (maybe even skyrocket). Greenspan may not be able to keep inflation in check by then.
999. All bets are off. Noone could have predicted 9/11, which still managed to cast a long shadow over voting yesterday.
Add away...
This is the big reason why I returned for my MBA recently. Having been unemployed, then doing contract work, and then netwoking my arse off to get a permanent job again all in the space of 2.5 years, I'm very happy with my decision.
I think many of the posters here are correct, in that not all jobs will be going overseas. There will be defense work, very domain-centric work, and inefficiencies in the outsourcing business model that resist scaling.
But I don't think any of this is insurmountable over the long term.
Defense work? We could eventually transfer portions of it to NATO allies in Eastern Europe. True, there are secrecy and clearance issues, but probably nothing a few lobbyists, congressmen, and other pond scum couldn't eliminate over a period of time.
Domain knowledge? Very easily exported to your competitors, I'm afraid. You'd better be the best system engineer in your field. Too bad for the other 99% of you.
Economies of scale? The best offshoring business models will evolve and survive, and this issue will disappear. Just give it time to develop in a free market.
My advice to you, if you're still in software for a living, is to diversify. Not specialize, mind you, but diversify. Get the MBA, or another degree, while you still have a job. (The pursuit of an MBA helped me land a permanent software gig, believe it or not.) I don't expect to be in this line of work when I'm fifty (14 years from now), and frankly, neither should you.
If I'm paying for a service (in this case, a movie, or a play, or a sporting event), I expect to receive the goods, regardless of what the other spectators think. It's just plain sad that polite decent behavior has to be legislated in the first place, let alone be labelled "politically correct".
Your kid was in a car crash? Yeah, that sucks.. but take the call out in the lobby, since you're on your way out anyway. You're on call 24/7? Yeah, that sucks too, but check out this next phrase: "Vibrating pager." Ooooh, what a concept.
Let's be real: 99.999999999% of the calls in the theater are totally unnecessary bullshit that only ruins the experience for everyone else. Anybody with a brain and an ounce of courtesy wouldn't use a cell in such a situation. As for people with neither, who just have to mess things up for everyone else, screw 'em: yank the phone out of their hands and throw it into the lobby.
Just swipe the cell phone and THROW IT.
Throw it far away.
And away from innocent people, of course.
But by all means, throw it.
Make the annoying moron go pick it up off the theater floor. If you're lucky, he'll make more than one trip to get all of the pieces.
Anybody who is trying to annoy you.. who knows what they're doing is wrong, and persists.. deserves the worst treatment possible for the situation.
If that doesn't work, a nice piece of hard candy to the back of the head (or something harder, like an American quarter) should work.
The worst case I've ever seen was in a touring production at Duke University. We were sitting in the back, the seats were terrible, and yes, some waste of space ahead of us just had to field that phone call right then and there. The conversation was filled with discussions of emergency issues.. like "Oh, nothin'.. just watchin' a play.. what are you up to?"
If I wasn't with the wife, and if the phone itself wasn't more than two rows ahead of us, I'd have swiped it and thrown it into the lobby. (Oh darn, it could hit the door and shatter. So sorry.)
So I say, if you know the callee is just being a jerk, take matters into your own hands. Literally. But just long enough to test Newton's theory of gravitation and to mutter the phrase "go fetch".
Agreed, one and all. Yes, the historical and scientific detail that NS employs is astounding. But for either literary merit or entertainment value, you'd be better off reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica from start to finish.
Pity. Cryptonomicon was a lot of fun. WTF happened???
"Thanks for watching CNBC's Power Dump with Maria Bartiromo..."
I've yet to meet the diehard conservative who, with all else stripped away, is anything more than a selfish kid struggling to make-believe greed into something wholesome-sounding.
It's about time somebody pointed this out.
I'd also add that the same diehards are some of the most intellectually lazy people I've ever met. They're not stupid, they merely prefer to wallow in ignorance and pre-conceived, self-serving notions.
Maybe we need a Whining Fratboy Party in this country..
while (1) {
cout << "Halliburton" << endl;
}