Who will keep you and your family safer?
on
Pre-Election Discussion
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Bottom line is I think that Bush will keep Americans safer.
Sorry for all of you not in the US who don't like his approach, but much of the world hates us and many would like to kill us. Call me selfish, but I'm voting for the guy who I think will keep my loved ones and me safer.
I'm currently a team lead, and have been the lead on many projects over the course of 20 years of software engineering. Here are the qualities I believe are the most important for being an effective team lead:
1. Technical skills - Very strong in the areas of relevance to the project, and in other surrounding technical areas as well. It's best if you're very good at doing what it is you'll be leading.
2. People skills - It's critical to relate to your technical team properly. Respect them and listen to their ideas. Explain your ideas to them. Come to a consensus if possible; if impossible, then explain clearly why you're saying it has to be done a certain way. Convince them through the logical application of problem solving, not brute force. Give people flexibility in their jobs, try to find good fits for their skills and interests, and tailor the level of direction you give to how much each individual needs - it's not one size fits all. Communicate clearly, and don't waste peoples time in unnecessary meetings, (some are necessary however).
3. Organizational skills - You need to be extremely organized. Make sure you yourself clearly understand precisely what's going on with all aspects of the project, and that you keep track of issues and resolutions. Use whatever methods work for you to track tasks and progress, but keep it up to date and accurate.
4. Buffering - Shield your team from the vageries of upper management. You be the one to deal with the crap that comes from the top, filter it out, and protect your team's work environment. You be the one to set tasks and priorities - don't allow people outside the team to direct the efforts of your team...it just results in confusion and wasted effort.
There are a lot of others, but I think these are the most important ones. Most technical people simply want to work on interesting tasks in an environment where they have a certain amount of independence as well as respect and consideration. Lead them in this way and you'll have a solid and happy team.
Troubled projects are always in search of fresh meat to run them. Nine times out of ten the poor sap that takes on the responsibility fails, after suffering for a long time, and screwing up his future with the company in the bargain.
Be very careful when you choose a project to run. Remember that you will forever be associated with it for good or bad. Much better to start running a new project, or one that's already in decent shape.
Day 16-17 The team is discouraged by all the work remaining and didn't work during the weekend. No changes in estimated time remaining.
Whatever slick new ways are created to try to squeeze yet more blood, sweat and code out of already overworked programmers, it still shows a fundamental lack of proper planning when one has to resort to "death marches" for anything but highly unusual circumstances.
It all comes down to planning and organization, both at the beginning and throughout a project. Without constant attention to these, along with the necessary technical expertise to assess issues as they arise, the project will not succeed.
Furthermore, the team has to be treated with respect and consideration, not as chattel. Ignore this and not only will your project fail, but you'll shatter any hope of a unified team, and eventually lose your employees.
I'm sick of people freaking out whenever Microsoft announces something. These are only ANNOUNCEMENTS - who knows whether there's anything behind them, what they'll eventually release, how good it will be, etc.
Longhorn is years away, and yet every little piece of magic it will supposedly contain is breathlessly reported. How fortunate they are that all they have to do is say "We're going to do these magnificent things", and so many people jump right on it and assume it's true? As far as I can tell, whatever else happens in a couple of years Microsoft will still be the big boy on the block, will still release shitty, buggy software, will still be playing catch up to Apple on features, and will still be telling everyone how much better their lives will be when they buy yet another Microsoft upgrade.
We're about to try a different way of communicating with the client about project status and issues. We're going to use a blog system, allowing posts and responses to issues as they arise. We plan on using Squishdot in Zope.
A full-blown problem tracking system is more than we need, but email makes it somewhat more difficult to ensure that everyone involved can see and participate in a whole thread about an issue. We can also set it up so people receive an email to notify them when someone has added to the thread. We could even set it up as an RSS feed as well, (though we don't plan to use this feature).
Email just doesn't seem to be the most effective means of making sure everyone in a group is on the same page. We'll see how the blog approach works out.
I didn't say there weren't any tax increases, note that the phrase was "steep tax hikes". It depends on whether you think Bush Sr. or Clinton's tax increases qualify as steep - I didn't think they did.
The parent post implied a severity of consequences that I think is incorrect. Tax increases, perhaps. Steep tax increases? I think not.
The consensus seems to be that BSD-derived systems don't have the potential intellectual property issues with which SCO is threating Linux. Whenever SCO finally shows any of the "infringing" Linux code, perhaps this tool could be used to check and see if any of it is actually in the BSD domain.
As I recall, after the "record deficits" of the Reagan years, there were neither steep tax hikes nor drastic cuts in government programs. In fact, the United States had perhaps its strongest and longest economic growth in the decade following that time than ever before in its history.
The recent market correction hardly qualifies as a financial crisis either, particularly coming as it did 15 years after the Reagan deficits.
close to a third of the machines were crashing or locking up and [...] tests showed the machines producing errors up to 25%
Why do we keep hearing about these types of problems on voting systems? It's not frickin rocket science to put together a system to allow a single choice to be made from among multiple options, (ever hear of radio buttons?!). It's done all the time on web pages all over the world without these types of problems.
Even making it a networked application that allows configuration of the choices to be offered, sends results to a data warehouse, and even adding an application to count and report the results and you've still got a very basic system.
There's something fishy going on here. It's not because of technology that these problems are occurring - it's something else. Here's my opinion: it's easy to mask your activities with "technology problems" since the majority of the people don't know enough about the technology to cut through the story and see it for the crap that it is. And the activity being masked? Vote rigging, plain and simple.
As technologists, it's up to us to sound the alarm when we see this kind of thing happening. We're the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to the use of technology. I know it sounds melodramatic, but a couple hundred years ago it was the people who knew how to use guns that protected everyone else. Now it's the people who know how to use technology.
I see no other explanation for the preponderence of errors in automated voting systems. Incompetence alone doesn't explain it. It's just too easy to put together a system like this, and too hard to screw it up so badly.
I always wondered if there was a psychological reason that MS chose this particular combination to initiate login: to replace one of the long-standing negatives associated with Windows with something positive. So that when people think of ctrl-alt-del they would no longer think "windows sucks", but instead would think "windows works".
It's repackaging and marketing -- what MS does best.
No, seriously, this is frightning to me. My two childern are just entering the school system now and with things like this croping up what will they be learning?
This is just one example of the way that public schools waste time on non-academic pursuits. We've been home-schooling our child for the last three years primarily because we got sick and tired of his having 2 hours of homework per night, and 6 hours on the weekends, (this in 5th grade!!), while they had all sorts of assemblies, parties, "crafts", and teacher work-days eating up the school-day when they should have been learning.
You have to pay very close attention to how the schools are allocating your childrens time during the day. You may be surprised at how often you will disagree with their approach.
I'm beginning to see parallels between Apple and Nintendo, particularly in predictions about their demise. How many articles have their been since gamecube came out saying that Nintendo was going down the tubes?
The fact is, the gamecube is an excellent platform and there are a huge number of great games available, (not as many as PS2, but plenty). They also have a dedicated fan base that's not likely to embrace either of the other platforms any time soon. For those who complain that they have too many "kids" games, there will always be lots of kids playing games, so it's not like they'll have a declining market. For that matter, so many of their games are great for any age: windwaker, animal crossing, soul caliber 2, various sports games...how are these for kids only?
Why does Nintendo get bashed so much? What, you'd rather support Microsoft or Sony?!
How long will people be willing to take these drastic steps to protect themselves from windows-only worms and viruses??? For pete's sake, it can't be any more trouble to migrate students from windows to mac or linux machines, given that the alternative is to go through these fire drills on a regular basis.
I know migration and policy change aren't easy, but I just don't understand why it's considered acceptable to do something like this, but unacceptable to migrate to a non-windows platform...
Great, now not only will people have to worry about accidents during rush hour, but there's the added excitement of the possibility of drowning.
Seriously though, there are specific rules regarding the use of waterways, and there are enough problems with boaters who are ignorant of them. The last thing needed is a bunch of harried commuters with no clue about the rules and rights of way of navigation on the water.
What about setting up a policy where students are only allowed to connect non-windows based machines to the network? I know there have been a couple of colleges I've read about that have done this: required each incoming freshman to have an iBook, for example. It would mean changing policy, (and would therefore take some time to implement), but in the long run it would be a much better way to keep a clean network.
The fact is, it's windows machines that are the carriers of all of these worms and virii. Eliminate the carriers, and the diseases are eradicated too.
Continuing to cover this is not particularly useful...
...wait until SCO does something that we can actually respond to before rewarding any more of their tantrums.
I disagree. While SCO's FUD machine won't be stopped with facts, when this case gets to court the facts are what will make the critical difference. We need to have as much visibility into SCO's shenanigans as possible, so that as many of us as possible can get our heads together, do our research, and completely refute their allegations.
In another vein, until the case gets to court and gets resolved, we're battling in the court of public opinion. I've noticed that there's a wonderful amount of coverage being given to our (collective) refutations of SCO's allegations. We need to keep this up so that the public (including those who make IT decisions) are kept informed as to the true status of SCO's groundless claims. Linux is really gaining momentum these days - we need to make sure to strongly counter SCO's claims so that the momentum keeps building.
This is just like in politics. I've noticed many times that the bad guy accuses the good guy of doing what the bad guy himself is doing. From what I've seen, it is a pretty good indicator of the bad guy's own tactics.
Presumably, even when you choose to run a closed-source OS or app you know what you're running, you trust that it will do what you expect, and it's running, obviously, with your knowledge.
So, unknown, untrusted code is running on your system without your knowledge. I'm sorry, folks, I don't care what the intentions are, this is a bad, bad idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Bottom line is I think that Bush will keep Americans safer.
Sorry for all of you not in the US who don't like his approach, but much of the world hates us and many would like to kill us. Call me selfish, but I'm voting for the guy who I think will keep my loved ones and me safer.
I'm currently a team lead, and have been the lead on many projects over the course of 20 years of software engineering. Here are the qualities I believe are the most important for being an effective team lead:
1. Technical skills - Very strong in the areas of relevance to the project, and in other surrounding technical areas as well. It's best if you're very good at doing what it is you'll be leading.
2. People skills - It's critical to relate to your technical team properly. Respect them and listen to their ideas. Explain your ideas to them. Come to a consensus if possible; if impossible, then explain clearly why you're saying it has to be done a certain way. Convince them through the logical application of problem solving, not brute force. Give people flexibility in their jobs, try to find good fits for their skills and interests, and tailor the level of direction you give to how much each individual needs - it's not one size fits all. Communicate clearly, and don't waste peoples time in unnecessary meetings, (some are necessary however).
3. Organizational skills - You need to be extremely organized. Make sure you yourself clearly understand precisely what's going on with all aspects of the project, and that you keep track of issues and resolutions. Use whatever methods work for you to track tasks and progress, but keep it up to date and accurate.
4. Buffering - Shield your team from the vageries of upper management. You be the one to deal with the crap that comes from the top, filter it out, and protect your team's work environment. You be the one to set tasks and priorities - don't allow people outside the team to direct the efforts of your team...it just results in confusion and wasted effort.
There are a lot of others, but I think these are the most important ones. Most technical people simply want to work on interesting tasks in an environment where they have a certain amount of independence as well as respect and consideration. Lead them in this way and you'll have a solid and happy team.
Troubled projects are always in search of fresh meat to run them. Nine times out of ten the poor sap that takes on the responsibility fails, after suffering for a long time, and screwing up his future with the company in the bargain.
Be very careful when you choose a project to run. Remember that you will forever be associated with it for good or bad. Much better to start running a new project, or one that's already in decent shape.
Couldn't they accomplish the same thing just by having the patient dring a cold drink really fast?
I know this is a serious subject, but I couldn't resist ;-)
Day 16-17 The team is discouraged by all the work remaining and didn't work during the weekend. No changes in estimated time remaining.
Whatever slick new ways are created to try to squeeze yet more blood, sweat and code out of already overworked programmers, it still shows a fundamental lack of proper planning when one has to resort to "death marches" for anything but highly unusual circumstances.
It all comes down to planning and organization, both at the beginning and throughout a project. Without constant attention to these, along with the necessary technical expertise to assess issues as they arise, the project will not succeed.
Furthermore, the team has to be treated with respect and consideration, not as chattel. Ignore this and not only will your project fail, but you'll shatter any hope of a unified team, and eventually lose your employees.
I don't have this one exactly right, but it's something like this:
How many bits does it take to perform a shift left?
32, 1 to shift and 31 to push the register!
Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?
I'm sick of people freaking out whenever Microsoft announces something. These are only ANNOUNCEMENTS - who knows whether there's anything behind them, what they'll eventually release, how good it will be, etc.
Longhorn is years away, and yet every little piece of magic it will supposedly contain is breathlessly reported. How fortunate they are that all they have to do is say "We're going to do these magnificent things", and so many people jump right on it and assume it's true? As far as I can tell, whatever else happens in a couple of years Microsoft will still be the big boy on the block, will still release shitty, buggy software, will still be playing catch up to Apple on features, and will still be telling everyone how much better their lives will be when they buy yet another Microsoft upgrade.
So settle down people.
We're about to try a different way of communicating with the client about project status and issues. We're going to use a blog system, allowing posts and responses to issues as they arise. We plan on using Squishdot in Zope.
A full-blown problem tracking system is more than we need, but email makes it somewhat more difficult to ensure that everyone involved can see and participate in a whole thread about an issue. We can also set it up so people receive an email to notify them when someone has added to the thread. We could even set it up as an RSS feed as well, (though we don't plan to use this feature).
Email just doesn't seem to be the most effective means of making sure everyone in a group is on the same page. We'll see how the blog approach works out.
I didn't say there weren't any tax increases, note that the phrase was "steep tax hikes". It depends on whether you think Bush Sr. or Clinton's tax increases qualify as steep - I didn't think they did.
The parent post implied a severity of consequences that I think is incorrect. Tax increases, perhaps. Steep tax increases? I think not.
Well, you certainly refuted my argument there. Well done!
The consensus seems to be that BSD-derived systems don't have the potential intellectual property issues with which SCO is threating Linux. Whenever SCO finally shows any of the "infringing" Linux code, perhaps this tool could be used to check and see if any of it is actually in the BSD domain.
As I recall, after the "record deficits" of the Reagan years, there were neither steep tax hikes nor drastic cuts in government programs. In fact, the United States had perhaps its strongest and longest economic growth in the decade following that time than ever before in its history.
The recent market correction hardly qualifies as a financial crisis either, particularly coming as it did 15 years after the Reagan deficits.
close to a third of the machines were crashing or locking up and [...] tests showed the machines producing errors up to 25%
Why do we keep hearing about these types of problems on voting systems? It's not frickin rocket science to put together a system to allow a single choice to be made from among multiple options, (ever hear of radio buttons?!). It's done all the time on web pages all over the world without these types of problems.
Even making it a networked application that allows configuration of the choices to be offered, sends results to a data warehouse, and even adding an application to count and report the results and you've still got a very basic system.
There's something fishy going on here. It's not because of technology that these problems are occurring - it's something else. Here's my opinion: it's easy to mask your activities with "technology problems" since the majority of the people don't know enough about the technology to cut through the story and see it for the crap that it is. And the activity being masked? Vote rigging, plain and simple.
As technologists, it's up to us to sound the alarm when we see this kind of thing happening. We're the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to the use of technology. I know it sounds melodramatic, but a couple hundred years ago it was the people who knew how to use guns that protected everyone else. Now it's the people who know how to use technology.
I see no other explanation for the preponderence of errors in automated voting systems. Incompetence alone doesn't explain it. It's just too easy to put together a system like this, and too hard to screw it up so badly.
I always wondered if there was a psychological reason that MS chose this particular combination to initiate login: to replace one of the long-standing negatives associated with Windows with something positive. So that when people think of ctrl-alt-del they would no longer think "windows sucks", but instead would think "windows works".
It's repackaging and marketing -- what MS does best.
No, seriously, this is frightning to me. My two childern are just entering the school system now and with things like this croping up what will they be learning?
This is just one example of the way that public schools waste time on non-academic pursuits. We've been home-schooling our child for the last three years primarily because we got sick and tired of his having 2 hours of homework per night, and 6 hours on the weekends, (this in 5th grade!!), while they had all sorts of assemblies, parties, "crafts", and teacher work-days eating up the school-day when they should have been learning.
You have to pay very close attention to how the schools are allocating your childrens time during the day. You may be surprised at how often you will disagree with their approach.
I'm beginning to see parallels between Apple and Nintendo, particularly in predictions about their demise. How many articles have their been since gamecube came out saying that Nintendo was going down the tubes?
The fact is, the gamecube is an excellent platform and there are a huge number of great games available, (not as many as PS2, but plenty). They also have a dedicated fan base that's not likely to embrace either of the other platforms any time soon. For those who complain that they have too many "kids" games, there will always be lots of kids playing games, so it's not like they'll have a declining market. For that matter, so many of their games are great for any age: windwaker, animal crossing, soul caliber 2, various sports games...how are these for kids only?
Why does Nintendo get bashed so much? What, you'd rather support Microsoft or Sony?!
How long will people be willing to take these drastic steps to protect themselves from windows-only worms and viruses??? For pete's sake, it can't be any more trouble to migrate students from windows to mac or linux machines, given that the alternative is to go through these fire drills on a regular basis.
I know migration and policy change aren't easy, but I just don't understand why it's considered acceptable to do something like this, but unacceptable to migrate to a non-windows platform...
Great, now not only will people have to worry about accidents during rush hour, but there's the added excitement of the possibility of drowning.
Seriously though, there are specific rules regarding the use of waterways, and there are enough problems with boaters who are ignorant of them. The last thing needed is a bunch of harried commuters with no clue about the rules and rights of way of navigation on the water.
What about setting up a policy where students are only allowed to connect non-windows based machines to the network? I know there have been a couple of colleges I've read about that have done this: required each incoming freshman to have an iBook, for example. It would mean changing policy, (and would therefore take some time to implement), but in the long run it would be a much better way to keep a clean network.
The fact is, it's windows machines that are the carriers of all of these worms and virii. Eliminate the carriers, and the diseases are eradicated too.
Continuing to cover this is not particularly useful...
I disagree. While SCO's FUD machine won't be stopped with facts, when this case gets to court the facts are what will make the critical difference. We need to have as much visibility into SCO's shenanigans as possible, so that as many of us as possible can get our heads together, do our research, and completely refute their allegations.
In another vein, until the case gets to court and gets resolved, we're battling in the court of public opinion. I've noticed that there's a wonderful amount of coverage being given to our (collective) refutations of SCO's allegations. We need to keep this up so that the public (including those who make IT decisions) are kept informed as to the true status of SCO's groundless claims. Linux is really gaining momentum these days - we need to make sure to strongly counter SCO's claims so that the momentum keeps building.
This is just like in politics. I've noticed many times that the bad guy accuses the good guy of doing what the bad guy himself is doing. From what I've seen, it is a pretty good indicator of the bad guy's own tactics.
Presumably, even when you choose to run a closed-source OS or app you know what you're running, you trust that it will do what you expect, and it's running, obviously, with your knowledge .
Was my original post unclear?
So, unknown, untrusted code is running on your system without your knowledge. I'm sorry, folks, I don't care what the intentions are, this is a bad, bad idea.