How does the fact that unqualified people (and I have a hard time thinking of anyone less qualified than Sarah Palin) have disagreed with these findings translate to that anyone who disagrees is unqualified to comment?
There are plenty of crackpots and half-wits on board with the global warming theories, does that mean the whole idea is crap?
Recently I've had the opportunity to do some work with a local government as part of some coursework I'm taking, specifically their procurement group. These are all civil servants and union rules regarding seniority seem to account for more than any sort of job competence as to who gets what job. Another department is being downsized and they are purposefully not filling a couple open job slots they have because they know that people from that department will be moved into the procurement department. If they filled those job slots it's possible that they'd be filled by someone with more seniority than some of the current buyers and when the folks from the other department get downsized they could then bump the less senior buyers from their jobs. So, in the interest of protecting the jobs of the current folks in that department they are remaining understaffed until these cuts come down. Some sort of bureaucratic chess match going on there.
Moral of the story is that competence has no place in government, that includes the civil service folks as well as the political types. The people responsible for purchasing this likely had no clue and were bent over as a result of it. It's somewhat unethical for Northrop-Grumman to take advantage of this scenario, but as others have pointed out if they don't do it they'll lively lose the bid to someone who will.
First of all don't lump me in with the Religious Right just because they've managed to high-jack my party. I'd like it back as a semblance of what the party was but as it stands in the current two party system here I don't have a better choice.
The education system has been largely aligned with the Democratic Party (a.k.a. "The Left") at the primary and secondary school level because their union (the NEA) has aligned themselves with that party. The Democrats tend to be more "education friendly" as a result and all members of the respective education unions (i.e. all teachers) are strongly encouraged to be Democrats.
Plenty of companies do things that aren't part of their core business, HR, Finance, Facilities Management, etc. All of these are available to be outsourced to other parties and many companies have outsourced all or parts of these to other entities with varying degrees of success. However, each of these can also be critical to your business and if you do them particularly well can provide you with an advantage over others in your industry. Electricity is a commodity and there is essentially no value to be found for your average company in generating electricity. If you treat all of your supporting functions as commodities then it probably is best to outsource them as someone else can do it just as poorly as you for less money.
I have a Gmail and a Yahoo account. I get no spam at my Gmail account, but it is used fairly little. I get lots of Spam at my Yahoo account, but it has been around awhile.
Some time ago I signed up for a second Yahoo email address one character different from my original name. Within hours I was getting spam at that account even though I had never used it. I'm not sure what this says, perhaps there are a lot of dictionary type spamming attacks against Yahoo.
So, the million dollar question is whether this was because of a flawed product or because of a flawed implementation. It's important to keep the two distinct.
The excitement is primarily over this being a possible alternative to Exchange, a major lock-in point for using Windows. Since they can run their messaging on Linux, the theory goes, they would be less compelled to run other apps on Windows. An interesting theory, perhaps a bit overly optimistic.
Windows to anyone whos computer I will be supporting unless I think they really need something it offers (games for example, I really miss Rome Total War).
Look at Crossover Games if Wine won't do it for you. It's based on Wine, but they're putting a lot of focus on getting games to work. I use Crossover Office and it works really well for me, worth the money.
It could be argued that by going to a LA school he is more likely will run into people who know things that he's not even aware he doesn't know. Right, but we're talking about things that are important. So says the guy with this sig (which I happen to agree with:))
Never let a mediocre career stand in the way of a good time
This can be true south of the border as well, depending on the employer. It seems to me that the small/medium companies are typically the ones looking for more rounded individuals while the large companies are looking for people who are going to be really good at their assigned job.
I believe that Economics is generally categorized as a social science. A large part of economics involves the actions and re-actions of a human element and as such there isn't the precision typically associated with hard science.
The memory issue was supposed to be one of the big fixes in 3.0. According to the release notes of beta3 they've fixed a lot of memory issues. I'm not sure how many of those issues were caused by previous betas:)
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0b3/releasenotes/
Oh for mod points! Nothing is more beautiful in my eyes than a machine which does it's job well day after day. It's simple, it's rugged, it's the best laptop series that was ever produced. This all goes for the IBM ThinkPad line as I have not had an actual Lenovo machine yet, hopefully they haven't mucked it up.
The union is opposing any sort of attempt to make compensation based on a quantifiable measure as opposed to being paid based on time in service? That's odd!
Um, since they are non-exempt now that means that if they stay after hours they will get paid overtime, i.e. be rewarded for the extra effort. Those who do more will get more, as opposed to the previous system where those who did more got the same salary as the chair moistening pin head of the equivalent salary grade.
Which is a lot like the rationale that if your vendor's software doesn't work you have someone to sue. This is the common justification for purchasing commercial software, but at the end of the day how many lawsuits do you see where someone sued their vendor for writing crap? Lawsuits are expensive and there is usually enough legalese in the contracts that a lawsuit is unlikely to net anything. You can point the finger, but a lawsuit is unlikely.
It's the terminology that makes the difference. If there were a strategic advantage to be found, then being an early adopter would be worth the risks. Because you will typically only be getting marginal improvements in your operational efficiencies, the risks of being an early adopter are not necessarily worth it.
Now this does not mean, in my opinion, that IT is dead. There are ways to gain strategic advantage from technology, but upgrading from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003 (and similar type work) aren't it. This is the type of thing that Carr's argument seems to focus on. However, he also abstracts the complications involved with outsourcing technology, the costs of working with an outside vendor (monetary and otherwise) can quickly erode the gains made from outsourcing the IT department.
Slashdot Mirror
How does the fact that unqualified people (and I have a hard time thinking of anyone less qualified than Sarah Palin) have disagreed with these findings translate to that anyone who disagrees is unqualified to comment?
There are plenty of crackpots and half-wits on board with the global warming theories, does that mean the whole idea is crap?
Recently I've had the opportunity to do some work with a local government as part of some coursework I'm taking, specifically their procurement group. These are all civil servants and union rules regarding seniority seem to account for more than any sort of job competence as to who gets what job. Another department is being downsized and they are purposefully not filling a couple open job slots they have because they know that people from that department will be moved into the procurement department. If they filled those job slots it's possible that they'd be filled by someone with more seniority than some of the current buyers and when the folks from the other department get downsized they could then bump the less senior buyers from their jobs. So, in the interest of protecting the jobs of the current folks in that department they are remaining understaffed until these cuts come down. Some sort of bureaucratic chess match going on there.
Moral of the story is that competence has no place in government, that includes the civil service folks as well as the political types. The people responsible for purchasing this likely had no clue and were bent over as a result of it. It's somewhat unethical for Northrop-Grumman to take advantage of this scenario, but as others have pointed out if they don't do it they'll lively lose the bid to someone who will.
First of all don't lump me in with the Religious Right just because they've managed to high-jack my party. I'd like it back as a semblance of what the party was but as it stands in the current two party system here I don't have a better choice. The education system has been largely aligned with the Democratic Party (a.k.a. "The Left") at the primary and secondary school level because their union (the NEA) has aligned themselves with that party. The Democrats tend to be more "education friendly" as a result and all members of the respective education unions (i.e. all teachers) are strongly encouraged to be Democrats.
Plenty of companies do things that aren't part of their core business, HR, Finance, Facilities Management, etc. All of these are available to be outsourced to other parties and many companies have outsourced all or parts of these to other entities with varying degrees of success. However, each of these can also be critical to your business and if you do them particularly well can provide you with an advantage over others in your industry. Electricity is a commodity and there is essentially no value to be found for your average company in generating electricity. If you treat all of your supporting functions as commodities then it probably is best to outsource them as someone else can do it just as poorly as you for less money.
Oh christ, my kingdom for some mod points. If I'd been drinking coffee it'd be on my keyboard right now.
Minnesota is not a city. It is a collection of cities typically referred to as a state. Ya sure, you betcha.
I have a Gmail and a Yahoo account. I get no spam at my Gmail account, but it is used fairly little. I get lots of Spam at my Yahoo account, but it has been around awhile. Some time ago I signed up for a second Yahoo email address one character different from my original name. Within hours I was getting spam at that account even though I had never used it. I'm not sure what this says, perhaps there are a lot of dictionary type spamming attacks against Yahoo.
Unless that meeting occurs outside of this country, which is why the lawyer in question is racking up the frequent flyer miles.
So, the million dollar question is whether this was because of a flawed product or because of a flawed implementation. It's important to keep the two distinct.
The excitement is primarily over this being a possible alternative to Exchange, a major lock-in point for using Windows. Since they can run their messaging on Linux, the theory goes, they would be less compelled to run other apps on Windows. An interesting theory, perhaps a bit overly optimistic.
Well la-dee freakin' dah, good for you.
Forgot the link
Look at Crossover Games if Wine won't do it for you. It's based on Wine, but they're putting a lot of focus on getting games to work. I use Crossover Office and it works really well for me, worth the money.
Never let a mediocre career stand in the way of a good time
This can be true south of the border as well, depending on the employer. It seems to me that the small/medium companies are typically the ones looking for more rounded individuals while the large companies are looking for people who are going to be really good at their assigned job.
I believe that Economics is generally categorized as a social science. A large part of economics involves the actions and re-actions of a human element and as such there isn't the precision typically associated with hard science.
The memory issue was supposed to be one of the big fixes in 3.0. According to the release notes of beta3 they've fixed a lot of memory issues. I'm not sure how many of those issues were caused by previous betas :)
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0b3/releasenotes/
Oh for mod points! Nothing is more beautiful in my eyes than a machine which does it's job well day after day. It's simple, it's rugged, it's the best laptop series that was ever produced. This all goes for the IBM ThinkPad line as I have not had an actual Lenovo machine yet, hopefully they haven't mucked it up.
The union is opposing any sort of attempt to make compensation based on a quantifiable measure as opposed to being paid based on time in service? That's odd!
Um, since they are non-exempt now that means that if they stay after hours they will get paid overtime, i.e. be rewarded for the extra effort. Those who do more will get more, as opposed to the previous system where those who did more got the same salary as the chair moistening pin head of the equivalent salary grade.
Same thing as an open source company really. Whatever someone else is willing to pay.
if I make a bad analogy but it makes sense to me, is it still a bad analogy?
Which is a lot like the rationale that if your vendor's software doesn't work you have someone to sue. This is the common justification for purchasing commercial software, but at the end of the day how many lawsuits do you see where someone sued their vendor for writing crap? Lawsuits are expensive and there is usually enough legalese in the contracts that a lawsuit is unlikely to net anything. You can point the finger, but a lawsuit is unlikely.
That sound you just heard was the joke going over your head.
It's the terminology that makes the difference. If there were a strategic advantage to be found, then being an early adopter would be worth the risks. Because you will typically only be getting marginal improvements in your operational efficiencies, the risks of being an early adopter are not necessarily worth it.
Now this does not mean, in my opinion, that IT is dead. There are ways to gain strategic advantage from technology, but upgrading from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003 (and similar type work) aren't it. This is the type of thing that Carr's argument seems to focus on. However, he also abstracts the complications involved with outsourcing technology, the costs of working with an outside vendor (monetary and otherwise) can quickly erode the gains made from outsourcing the IT department.