I can't really disagree with your comments. In my 2 years at a Big 5 company I have seen exactly what you describe, many times over. I am currently bailing water on a project that has gone bad. I was parachuted in to help save the day, but its about 2 Million over budget. The basic fact is that this project should never have been started in the first place, this team had no business trying to build a custom enterprise application. No one on the team has experience in this arena, and the lead developer (long since fired) allowed the user to dictate the DB schema: the source of the user's experience is that she wrote the original Excel spreadsheet that we are trying to replace. Now we have the most insane sh*t I have ever seen: Blended transaction and summary data in one table (7million rows and growing...), Reporting tables with over 80 columns (advances_bucket_id_1 | advances_bucket_id_2 | advances_bucket_id_3 | etc.), stored procs for batch processing that take 30 hours to run, etc. Scary!
I have an extensive background in software development, and telecom, and I am recognised on my team as the resident geek. But the rest of the players are the monkeys you describe. I was on a project last year where I had to teach the team how to use FTP! I mean WTF! All team members have great communication skills, but they simply have no clue about the technology and architectures we are constantly proposing.
Now project management is something that we are very good at, but actual execution is something else. Only once have I been on a team that I respected, and we delivered a complete Telco in a Box solution that worked as designed and the client loved it. But in reality the client was a startup and they didn't need a $7 million OSS to run their business, they only had 30 customers. They could have spent their money more wisely and used Excel spreadsheets for the first couple years as they ramped up...
If you run a PHPNuke, PostNuke, Xoops, MyPHPNuke, or any MySQL and PHP based website you should really check out MyHeadlines. It allows each of your users to subscribe to what ever news feeds thay want, it comes with a categorized DB of over 2500 sources. This module can plug directly into your site, and is fully customizable with a documented API.
I have no problem with this or any other creative business model. My only comment is that these "Slashvertizements" should be easily identifiable in someway. Not hidden and passed off as editorial comment, or "News For Nerds".
I kind of like the idea of purchasing the slashdot effect. For the load testing you by a front page story from/. and see how long the site stays up...
I must say that this is just plain silly. I have two comments, one about commenting code, and another about measuring productivity:
"Well Commented Code" is code without comments!!! If you need to comment your code your have made it too complicated. All functions should be well described by the function name. If you can't describe what the function does by the name, then it should be more than one function. All variables should be self describing as well. In short if you have to add a comment about something that is strange/complicated/unusual then you should figure out a better way of doing it.
Now as far as measuring productivity it should be measured by milestone dates and feature lists. If you have an agreed target date for a feature to be completed then hitting or missing that deadline is the only rela metric.
A weak dollar is good for the Canadian economy because it is an incentive for American business to trade with Canada. If you get 1.45 for every dollar north of the border then you'll buy that Canadian thing-a-ma-jig instead of one found in you borders. (not gonna discuss NAFTA and how that also helps Canada and Mexico)
So your 0.67 is now in circulation in Canada and some Canadian gets to buy groceries. A weak CDN Dollar is the reason why we have a tremendous export surplus with the US. - www.jmagar.com
Has anyone considered why they insist on using mass mailings as advertising? How do they measure the success of such activities?
So pretend for a second you're a Marketing executive and your company uses mass mailings as a vehicle for advertisement. In the past you had a reply rate of less than 3%. You know this by taking the accounting totals for reply envelopes for this month and divide by the "$0.33" value to get the number of responses. This over your outgoing totals gives you your total response rate. Pretty logical way of measuring the success of a mailing list.
Now the next month the reply rate soars to 6% due to many of the silly ideas posted here. You are now "King of the Hill", the best damn Marketing executive this company ever had. You may or may not know why the reply rate increased, but you sure as hell are going to use the same list again! Hell you just doubled your marketing dollar, you may even consider expanding your mailing advertising budget! Way to go/.'ers you just validated the whole damn junk mail model! - www.jmagar.com
I don't often post to slashdot, but lurk constantly...
I was very disappointed with Episode 1. The quality just wasn't there. Visually the movie was stunning. Story line acceptable. But...
The script lost touch with the wonders of the Star Wars Universe. Here is the most annoying momment (IMHO): The Trade Federation using late 80's catch phase "Are you Brain Dead?". (leaving the all Jar Jar Binks lines asside) Where were all those alien languages with subtitles?
Direction was poor: Anakin devliering the line about not reaching the outskirts in time(sandstorm), was more than a half second late. Surely somebody could have caught that one, the little twerp was bad throughout the whole movie, but that momment breaks the whole flow of the movie and suddenly you're conscious of that fact that the producers of the film don't care as much about it as the fans.
Casting breaks even: Anakin was just bad, Jar Jar is unthinkable, but Ewan Macgreggor (sp) Was a shinning star and I look forward to his character development and his role in Skywalker's fall to Darth Vader.
What it comes down to is the thought that the fans did not get the product they wanted. It did not live up to our expectations and it is unlikely that Lucas will be able to repair the damage he's done. Is he fit to be the "Father" of our most precious child? I think he's grown too old and been away from the Star Wars we love for too long. He's a Grand father whos more interested in making a movie that explains to all 3 year olds why they need to buy the video games and little plastic Jar Jars than to produce (in the traditional style) a worthy pre-quel to the legacy which has served us all so well.
I am not surprised that the Second Episode is not hitting the mark either.
Cool sig, but you don't need to give the hint to go read Dune. Most/. readers got it the first time, and those who didn't might enjoy trying to figure out what it means.
Actually, spam is the most effect advertising tool on the web today. No joke. Banner ads are second to spam.
Spam certainly doesn't work on the typical/. reader but send my grandfather an email and he'll gladly jump to your site, simply because he doesn't have any thing else to do today. Same goes for the average AOLer or any newbie who is just getting into the internet. They are unaware of the social implications of spam and continue to support it.
How many times has a newbie relative of yours sent you the cookie recipe?
Slashdot Mirror
I have an extensive background in software development, and telecom, and I am recognised on my team as the resident geek. But the rest of the players are the monkeys you describe. I was on a project last year where I had to teach the team how to use FTP! I mean WTF! All team members have great communication skills, but they simply have no clue about the technology and architectures we are constantly proposing.
Now project management is something that we are very good at, but actual execution is something else. Only once have I been on a team that I respected, and we delivered a complete Telco in a Box solution that worked as designed and the client loved it. But in reality the client was a startup and they didn't need a $7 million OSS to run their business, they only had 30 customers. They could have spent their money more wisely and used Excel spreadsheets for the first couple years as they ramped up...
Ha in your face #93427! I'm #67146!
Get it here: http://www.jmagar.com
Cheers,
Mike
Buy it from my Account instead!!!
Cheers,
Mike
Enjoy:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3271.txt?number=3271
I have no problem with this or any other creative business model. My only comment is that these "Slashvertizements" should be easily identifiable in someway. Not hidden and passed off as editorial comment, or "News For Nerds".
/. and see how long the site stays up...
I kind of like the idea of purchasing the slashdot effect. For the load testing you by a front page story from
Cheers
Mike
That's all I have to say about that...
I better add my 2 cents.
Congrats!
Cheers,
Mike Agar
Well said!
So your 0.67 is now in circulation in Canada and some Canadian gets to buy groceries. A weak CDN Dollar is the reason why we have a tremendous export surplus with the US.
-
www.jmagar.com
Hot Damn that's good!
Cheers Mate!
-
www.jmagar.com
So pretend for a second you're a Marketing executive and your company uses mass mailings as a vehicle for advertisement. In the past you had a reply rate of less than 3%. You know this by taking the accounting totals for reply envelopes for this month and divide by the "$0.33" value to get the number of responses. This over your outgoing totals gives you your total response rate. Pretty logical way of measuring the success of a mailing list.
Now the next month the reply rate soars to 6% due to many of the silly ideas posted here. You are now "King of the Hill", the best damn Marketing executive this company ever had. You may or may not know why the reply rate increased, but you sure as hell are going to use the same list again! Hell you just doubled your marketing dollar, you may even consider expanding your mailing advertising budget! Way to go
-
www.jmagar.com
I don't often post to slashdot, but lurk constantly...
I was very disappointed with Episode 1. The quality just wasn't there. Visually the movie was stunning. Story line acceptable. But...
The script lost touch with the wonders of the Star Wars Universe. Here is the most annoying momment (IMHO): The Trade Federation using late 80's catch phase "Are you Brain Dead?". (leaving the all Jar Jar Binks lines asside) Where were all those alien languages with subtitles?
Direction was poor: Anakin devliering the line about not reaching the outskirts in time(sandstorm), was more than a half second late. Surely somebody could have caught that one, the little twerp was bad throughout the whole movie, but that momment breaks the whole flow of the movie and suddenly you're conscious of that fact that the producers of the film don't care as much about it as the fans.
Casting breaks even: Anakin was just bad, Jar Jar is unthinkable, but Ewan Macgreggor (sp) Was a shinning star and I look forward to his character development and his role in Skywalker's fall to Darth Vader.
What it comes down to is the thought that the fans did not get the product they wanted. It did not live up to our expectations and it is unlikely that Lucas will be able to repair the damage he's done. Is he fit to be the "Father" of our most precious child? I think he's grown too old and been away from the Star Wars we love for too long. He's a Grand father whos more interested in making a movie that explains to all 3 year olds why they need to buy the video games and little plastic Jar Jars than to produce (in the traditional style) a worthy pre-quel to the legacy which has served us all so well.
I am not surprised that the Second Episode is not hitting the mark either.
Mike Agar
"Actually anything above 30 FPS is not detected by the human eye."
You could not be more wrong.
Maudib:
/. readers got it the first time, and those who didn't might enjoy trying to figure out what it means.
Cool sig, but you don't need to give the hint to go read Dune. Most
Cheers.
Actually, spam is the most effect advertising tool on the web today. No joke. Banner ads are second to spam.
/. reader but send my grandfather an email and he'll gladly jump to your site, simply because he doesn't have any thing else to do today. Same goes for the average AOLer or any newbie who is just getting into the internet. They are unaware of the social implications of spam and continue to support it.
Spam certainly doesn't work on the typical
How many times has a newbie relative of yours sent you the cookie recipe?
Cheers,
Mike