What people really don't like (myself included) is that people can make insane ammounts of money from something that is inferior.
So you must really hate it every time you load a tape in your VHS recorder, hey? This is one of the classic "inferior product + superior marketing = winner" situations. Sucks but it's true. Shit, just look at DOS/Windows....:)
However seriously if you did half-assed work at your professional job how long would you be employed? Unless you know hypnotism not a very long time.
Hah! How many large, moronic beauracracies have you worked in? Dilbert and the Peter Principle are still alive & kicking. Not even "downsizing" gets rid of the dead wood - they manage to cling on.
One can only hope that the next 5 to 10 years will help purge the bloated, non-performing corporates where incompetants can hide. Of course, knowing the way the universe works, they'll rise up to become CEO's or consultants who dream up new ways to screw up a company:)
It's not denying choice, it's choosing the guidance of a third party. You do it every time you consult a map rather than guess the route.
Hmmmmmmmm - I see where you're coming from. Yes, there are options (eg: who makes the map) and yes, they can censor/distort (ever tried to match the directions of roads from a Thai road map to reality?:)
I guess my problem with this view is that I see more people making decisions about important things in their lives based on the crap/hype/lies they're fed by TV than maps. To me, the news media has more control over people and events than a map.
If you deny this choice, that makes you a hypocrite.
I'm not going to deny anyone the choice of how they get their information (that's part of the joys of the freeworld, isn't it:) I'm pointing out my personal belief that a talking head on the Internet is a waste of the Internet's power/capabilities unless it has "smart agent" abilities to gather information from the entire 'net, etc.
Those who are happy to consume and rely on the bullshit they are fed are welcome to it. If they wish to make their own decisions based on the information out there on the 'net (and yes, stacks of it is crap/lies/etc) then they're welcome to it.
Thus, I'm allowed to rant on about my beliefs and you're allowed to put up your own additions to the discussion (be they critiques, extensions, raising points of view, etc). Imagine if all we had was what CNN, NBC, et al provided for us.
An example: Eating dinner while catching up on what MY stocks did today
I guess I've been reading over the breakfast table (and snacks:) for so long that I don't find that reading on the screen interrupts my consumption that much:)
Or, spending time with your wife and/or children.
Yeah, you can be sorta listening in to what's being said in the background while playing around (with either said wife or child[ren]:) Guess I'm not that good at multi-tasking - I like to concentrate on what I'm doing. About the closest I get to this is playing with Lego with my son while a video tape is running (eg: Toy Story, Babylon 5, Star Trek, etc - he's 2 years old and prefers space action secenes to the boring human bits - that's my boy!:)
Talking Heads (the news anchors, not the group:) are the reason I left TV behind. I want to get my own info at my own pace.
What scares me is that there are a shitload of people out there who just want their info shovel fed to them. They don't want freedom of choice, they want freedom from choice. They love the idea of the "Information Superhighway" where you travel to restricted locations, get force-fed censored information, pay your tolls and can get busted by the cops. They don't like the "Information Serenghetti" concept where they can go where they want, lurk & watch, pick & choose and occasionally get eaten by a lion/busted by a game-warden. It's too much like hard work.
Now, along comes a talking head on the 'net. Just how interactive is she? (minds out of the gutters, folks!:)
I mean, can you talk to her and tell her to go find information for you based on a set of parameters, having her do the virtual leg work? Can she be running for you 24/7 and provide you with all the information she's found whenever you stop by? Can she call you on the phone and tell you when something big & new happens?
If not, then she's just another piece of eye candy. Style over substance. The obsession of the '90's lives on in the 2000's - why am I not surprised:)
I didn't raise my Internet to be a glorified TV news caster....
True - could be said of that. Mind you, the card is used in my company, so yeah, I do check it daily (mostly 'cos it's almost always close to limit lately:)
Do you check you checking account everyday?
The business ones, yes. My personal one? Shit no (mostly 'cos it's close to empty all the time:)
You see, it takes about 5 - 10 minutes per day to check transactions against my accounts (two checking accounts, a transfer account, a cash management account and the credit card). Maybe it's paranoid or obsessive/compulsive, but then again, maybe it's 'cos I'm running a company? (My other company has an accounts person - he does the checking for me on those accounts and I just take a peek at the current balances, etc:)
Do you check the stash of money under your bed everyday too?
Shit no - I ditched that ages ago. Too insecure - the cockroaches were robbing me blind. As to the uncut diamonds in the fish tank - now that's a different matter:)
OK - so maybe the credit card companies need to send out a bunch of instructions for people who are too dumb to figure it out for themselves (sort of like those "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" messages - like, DUH!!!!!:)
Here we go with some simple instructions for how to use your credit card and not get burnt:
1. Make sure you can check your credit card statement on-line as required.
2. Record all purchases in a database (Quicken, MYOB, MS-Money, text file, spreadsheet, whatever!)
3. Check your credit card statement on-line as often as you can (once per day is good:)
4. If you find anything you didn't write down, start screaming to your card issuer!
Even if you never travel over seas, purchase from catalogs or purchase from the 'net, you should be doing this. If you don't, you're just asking for trouble. At the least, you should check your monthly statements - doing it daily makes it quicker to get the dispute resolution process started:)
I frequently travel to "worrying" places, use my card at cafes/restaurants, purchase over the 'net and so on. I check things and (touch-wood:) haven't had any problems. I did find a couple of entries that were charged incorrectly and was able to resolve them by contacting the vendor directly. No problems, everyone happy.
Stop whining, stop expecting the government/corporations/mommy & daddy/whatever to protect you. Get off your ass and take responsibility for your actions.
Same goes for those setting up e-commerce sites. One of my companies does it and we get third-party security reviews (we charge more, but we don't want penny-pinchers as clients - they always come back to haunt you:)
They've been mucking around with this technology here in Australia for a while, changing the adverts that you see on televised football games, etc. As a result, the person at the game saw an advert for Telstra but the people on TV saw an advert for Optus.
This is going down a really interesting path as what we're finding is that more & more people are watching sports on TV, rather than attending. The latest stadiums on the drawing boards are actually smaller than the ones we currently have. Thus, TV advertising is all important to the owners of these stadiums.
Now, thanks to this technology, the stadium owners cannot guarantee prospective advertisers how many people will see their advert. After all, each channel that carries the event may very well change various adverts to suit their own sponsors, etc.
The stadium owners do have some level of response, however. When coverage of various sporting events is being arranged, only a specific media group will get the contract (they go through a bidding process). Thus, it's possible to either 1) up the cost to cover losses in advertising revenues or 2) put clauses in the contract stating that this technology cannot be used to replace adverts.
I'm fascinated with where this will lead to, simply because it totally changes the playing field. Puts the cat amongst the canaries, so to speak:)
then you put in a couple of gratuitous breast shots so the film has an R
In Australia, it often works the other way. A few tits & ass are OK but lots of graphic violence gets an R rating. Many movies that are PG in the USA get R down here due to the amount of violence. (Predator 2 for instance).
It's always amazed me that violence is OK to censors in the USA but sex is not. Oh well, descended from Puritans vs descended from convicts, I guess:)
I worked on the Y2K programmes (at corporate level) for a few large companies here in Australia over the past two years. I left all my contracts at the end of June 1999 because I saw the writing on the wall. Everything looked like it had been sorted and if there were problems, we'd probably be able to deal with them.
I didn't stockpile, I didn't run & hide. I sure as shit didn't want to work over NYE (irrespective of the year change, a party is a party:) So, I left the lucrative contracts to do something else (my own pet project)
My friends who remained on the projects had the joy of working through NYE and being (mostly) bored shitless. I was with my wife & child and enjoyed myself with various mind altering substances (mostly booze - I'm getting old:)
Those who worked NYE and didn't get well compensated may well want to be reviewing their resumes:)
Or you could just buy all the ramen-producing factories and attempt to control the world by inserting mind-control chemicals into the seasoning packets...
Too late - Bill already did it - that's why Micro$oft's software has been such an outrageous success. Unfortunately for Micro$oft, now that so many people are becoming rich (thanks, in part, to the wild tech stock market) they're able to afford better food and are no longer eating as much Ramen.
Thus, as their Ramen consumption decreases, the Micro$oft mind control effect decreases and they start to notice other software. Obvious, when you think about it and look at the news headlines of the past couple of years....
Of course, now that you & I have dragged all this out into the open, we can both expect visits by the "Boys From Bill":)
Really? That mean that that single, ten-dollar share you bought is now worth something up in the petabuck range
I'm assuming that mode is not on in the original posting, so...
Close - that $10 share was split into two $5 shares which in turn were split resulting in four $2.50 shares, etc. Of course, that assumes that the stock price hasn't changed between splits.
Given price increases between splits, you wind up with a wonderful increase in quantity AND total amount. Following a split, many shares (in today's tech-happy-rollercoaster market) quickly climb to close to their original value.
So yeah, one original Yahoo share @ $10 has now gone into warp speed and represents about 50 shares, each worth $443 - about $22,000 - hmmm - sure beats inflation...
As to buying our Bill G, well, we have a little while to go yet:)
One of the best Y2K Summaries I've yet seen is over at COTSE. In case it's changed by the time you get there, the text is included below.
All up, I think it really touches on exactly why Y2K was a "non-event." I'm going to send it to the head of the Small Business Association of Australia who proclaimed the other day that Y2K was all bullshit (condensed version of his words:)
Text Reads: --- As y2k passes by uneventfully I'd like to give thanks to the unsung heroes. The people that sacrificed so much to ensure it passed uneventfully. These people worked sixteen hour days for weeks on end. They missed family functions during the holidays. They missed weekends and vacation. They missed the celebration. All to make this an uneventful and quiet y2k.
While the press ran around in circles proclaiming the end of civilization and the world, they were toiling to fix it. While fanatics warned to "Stock up for y2k", they worked at backing it up, just in case. While politicians all tried to out statistic each other, they were testing it. While everyone was out celebrating a once in a lifetime event, they were baby-sitting it.
COTSE wishes to thank the unsung heroes of the millennium: the administrators, the programmers, the test teams, and the operators. You are the people that kept it all together! You are the reason nothing happened!
You're damned right about the "government mandate" on ISO - here in Australia it's the same. In some cases you cannot even tender for work if you're not ISO certified (or, perhaps, just "certified" in general:)
It always used to crack me up that they wanted ISO certification for quality assurance but ISO-9000 never addressed quality! It ensured that you had a process and that it was monitored, but it never did anything to improve quality. You could have a process producing a large number of defects but, if it was documented & repeatable, it could get certified.
At least they've recently addressed this with an update to include quality. Pity it was never there to begin with:)
As to vendors pushing their way as a "one size fits all" - funny that. Vendors are always doing that with whatever is in vogue (BPR, TQM, CMM, ISO, CRM, ERP - whatever:)
From the article: "We have a new economy, but we have no new intelligentsia."
However, further down towards the end, where the Internet is raised, we can read:
"The Internet is the greatest accomplishment of the twentieth centurys scientific community, and the Internet has made a new intelligentsia possible."
So, is it that the new intelligentsia exists but hasn't come down out of the 'net to the rest of the world or is it that the 'net will bring it out as it develops from what is currently occuring?
Of course, it could just be that he's contradicting himself:)
There's a lot of "Methodologies are great" vs "Methodologies suck" view points out there (mostly the latter here on/.:) As has been noted in previous posts under this thread, most of the problems relate to people seeking a "Silver Bullet" solution and mindlessly applying a methodology that worked elsewhere in the inane hope that it will work here. This is similar to checking out your competition and determining that they are better than you because all their people have blonde hair, blue eyes and use brand new shiny PC's.
I recently heard the following phrase:
"You can lead a person to a methodology but you cannot make them think!"
Unfortunately, this is all too true. I've even encountered one group who probably couldn't get Extreme Programming right!
Having come from the programmer world (yes, I was a serious code-cowboy - I've still got the spurs to proove it:) and now moved into the Analyst / Project Manager / CEO world, I'm fighting all the time against PHB's who want to just drop methodologies into development teams and walk away. I've implemented existing methodologies, I've consulted on fixing the mess from a failed implementation (not one of my own, thanks:) and I've even hacked together some methodologies for a few clients.
The secret is to think when assessing each situation. In some situations, I throw the book away and put together a bare-bones, absolute minimum repeatable process for a small development team. This lets them put some level of control & prediction into their work while still staying loose, having fun, focusing on the important stuff and keeping the primadonnas happy. In other situations, I pull out the CMM/ISO/(insert-heaveyweight-methodology-here), start tailoring it and introducing it slowly.
It all depends on the environment, the team and the goals. If you want to do is ensure that there's a modicum of control and that programmers aren't being dragged about from target to target, go with a light-weight system. If you are developing "life-threatening" systems such as nuclear reactors or air traffic control, damn straight you do it by the numbers with full control, reviews, checkpoints and such.
In all cases, you must continue to think. Too often someone sees a methodology as a burger-flipping process (eg: plug in some staff, follow the steps and out comes a golden solution). This is complete crap and a sure-fire disaster. At all times you have to ensure everyone in the team (from top to bottom) is turned on, tuned in and thinking. If anyone tunes out and believes they can just follow the steps without thinking for themselves, fire their ass!
Many programmers say methodologies get in the way and stop them working. I say that a good methodology (eg: one that's right for the team, the task(s) and the goal(s)) will let the programmer work in heaven (eg: little to no interruptions, focussed direction, constructive reviews and awareness of the big picture).
Like anything else, methodologies do work when they're used as yet one more tool in the hands of turned on, thinking people. Like anything else, if you just drop it in and hope it works, you're a fuckwit/dickhead/(insert-national-phrase-for-idiot -here).
OK - one of my companies does web development in Cold Fusion. We left our sites up over NYE for the following reason:
1. They're outsourced at a hosting center which has 24/7 staffing, UPS, health-checks, etc etc etc.
2. Our sites are behind a firewall.
3. We did tests of our own to simulate the roll-over.
4. Full backups of all data, etc prior to rollover.
5. We had access to tech staff if necessary to resolve issues.
6. Close monitoring of data & performance over the first couple of weeks of Jan and the leap year to ensure "sneaky" corruptions get through.
Following assessment of the risks (power issues, communications issues, [cr/h]ackers, viruses, etc) we felt that we had done what was possible and that all should be OK. If there were any major hassles, it was likely that everyone would be in the excrement so we wouldn't be alone:)
Now, my other company does consulting to various clients. In the Small to Medium Business area, we recommended that they apply the latest patches and check their PC's for compliance. Some had PC's that failed the "tick over" in RTC and/or BIOS but worked fine in DOS, on the leap year and when rebooting post-1999. We recommended that they not throw out those machines (keep the $$$ to pay us more consulting fees, thank you:) All they had to do was turn them off on Dec 31 and turn them back on in the new year - no problems. That's what was done and what we're doing.
For those that did not need their systems turned on during this time, we recommended that they shut everything off and unplug it. While the electricity companies had stated that they were ready, they had (naturally) used guarded language. As such, when we reviewed the possibilities of power issues (brown-outs, surges and/or spikes) comm's issues (modems & ISDN connections) and software issues (relying on patches and information off the net, etc), we figured it was better to just avoid the whole thing so we could all be out partying and not sitting there watching a bunch of computers tick over.
So, in the end, it was all based on risk assessment. What level of testing had been done, were the systems required over the transition, what the unknowns were and how much risk the client could afford. It was easier to turn it all off, have fun and start it all up again when we knew what we were dealing with.
Of course, if I were the MIS Manager in some company, I would have been doing reviews, tests, simulations and so on for all systems. The results of all this would have been assessed with business management (MIS does not tell business what to do, we help them make their decisions:) Once we figured what our risk parameters were, we could enact a plan (run with staff on hand/don't run/run without staff/etc).
To the people who say "See, Y2K was all bullshit!" :
If you're thinking Y2K was all hype and a load of crap, etc, then you obviously had nothing to do with it or only experienced your own small part. As usual, in these kind of cases, extrapolation to the "whole world" from your small experience is incorrect!
Over the past two years, I worked at the corporate level for a major telecoms company, a state government transport department (trains, buses, etc), a major insurer, a union and a medical education institute. I also advised numerous clients and even wound up digging into software I'd written "on the side." (YUK!:)
All I can say is that had we done nothing, the phones would have slowly ground to a halt, billing would have been screwed, premiums incorrect, etc etc. Y2K was real and it was only the efforts put in that have resulted in the "anticlimax" that we have experienced to date.
Don't forget, it's still early days yet. Small to medium business hasn't returned from holidays, the Leap Year is still to be passed, end of Financial Year calculations, etc etc etc. The show isn't over and won't be for some time. We still also have the Unix/C epoch date (2038 - yes?) and fixes for all those "windowed" solutions (eg: = 30 = 1999) - what happens in 20 years when that code is still in use?:)
'Scuse the ranting - just that it burns me a bit to see all the "Told ya so's!"...
While working as a developer for a company in Australia, we found that users of our Insurance software were comparing versions when they met (the Insurance industry is rather incestuous and many used our software). We wound up getting users stating that "They're on version 9.121 while we're still on 9.049 - we want an upgrade!" despite the fact that they had no idea what had changed between the versions (usually small customisations for new/changing clients, etc).
To get around this, we started to use a main version plus two letters (eg: 12 AS, 12 TC, 12 BS, etc). The letters were not allocated in any order but were different in each version. This let support staff ask clients their version to check for known issues but dramatically reduced the number of "I'm using obsolete software" calls.
Of course, we had chart to show which versions were assigned to the various letters and there was also a command line call to get the full version.
A side effect of all this was that people started to "name" the versions (eg: 12 AS was known as the "Arnold Schwarzenger" version, etc). As a new version was released, we'd go through the two letter combinations still available and figure out names to use. Sad but true...
Slashdot Mirror
What people really don't like (myself included) is that people can make insane ammounts of money from something that is inferior.
:)
:)
So you must really hate it every time you load a tape in your VHS recorder, hey? This is one of the classic "inferior product + superior marketing = winner" situations. Sucks but it's true. Shit, just look at DOS/Windows....
However seriously if you did half-assed work at your professional job how long would you be employed? Unless you know hypnotism not a very long time.
Hah! How many large, moronic beauracracies have you worked in? Dilbert and the Peter Principle are still alive & kicking. Not even "downsizing" gets rid of the dead wood - they manage to cling on.
One can only hope that the next 5 to 10 years will help purge the bloated, non-performing corporates where incompetants can hide. Of course, knowing the way the universe works, they'll rise up to become CEO's or consultants who dream up new ways to screw up a company
It's not denying choice, it's choosing the guidance of a third party. You do it every time you consult a map rather than guess the route.
:)
:) I'm pointing out my personal belief that a talking head on the Internet is a waste of the Internet's power/capabilities unless it has "smart agent" abilities to gather information from the entire 'net, etc.
:)
Hmmmmmmmm - I see where you're coming from. Yes, there are options (eg: who makes the map) and yes, they can censor/distort (ever tried to match the directions of roads from a Thai road map to reality?
I guess my problem with this view is that I see more people making decisions about important things in their lives based on the crap/hype/lies they're fed by TV than maps. To me, the news media has more control over people and events than a map.
If you deny this choice, that makes you a hypocrite.
I'm not going to deny anyone the choice of how they get their information (that's part of the joys of the freeworld, isn't it
Those who are happy to consume and rely on the bullshit they are fed are welcome to it. If they wish to make their own decisions based on the information out there on the 'net (and yes, stacks of it is crap/lies/etc) then they're welcome to it.
Thus, I'm allowed to rant on about my beliefs and you're allowed to put up your own additions to the discussion (be they critiques, extensions, raising points of view, etc). Imagine if all we had was what CNN, NBC, et al provided for us.
Damn but I love the 'net
An example: Eating dinner while catching up on what MY stocks did today
:) for so long that I don't find that reading on the screen interrupts my consumption that much :)
:) Guess I'm not that good at multi-tasking - I like to concentrate on what I'm doing. About the closest I get to this is playing with Lego with my son while a video tape is running (eg: Toy Story, Babylon 5, Star Trek, etc - he's 2 years old and prefers space action secenes to the boring human bits - that's my boy! :)
I guess I've been reading over the breakfast table (and snacks
Or, spending time with your wife and/or children.
Yeah, you can be sorta listening in to what's being said in the background while playing around (with either said wife or child[ren]
Talking Heads (the news anchors, not the group :) are the reason I left TV behind. I want to get my own info at my own pace.
:)
:)
What scares me is that there are a shitload of people out there who just want their info shovel fed to them. They don't want freedom of choice, they want freedom from choice. They love the idea of the "Information Superhighway" where you travel to restricted locations, get force-fed censored information, pay your tolls and can get busted by the cops. They don't like the "Information Serenghetti" concept where they can go where they want, lurk & watch, pick & choose and occasionally get eaten by a lion/busted by a game-warden. It's too much like hard work.
Now, along comes a talking head on the 'net. Just how interactive is she? (minds out of the gutters, folks!
I mean, can you talk to her and tell her to go find information for you based on a set of parameters, having her do the virtual leg work? Can she be running for you 24/7 and provide you with all the information she's found whenever you stop by? Can she call you on the phone and tell you when something big & new happens?
If not, then she's just another piece of eye candy. Style over substance. The obsession of the '90's lives on in the 2000's - why am I not surprised
I didn't raise my Internet to be a glorified TV news caster....
.. or obsessive compulsive.
:)
:)
:)
:)
True - could be said of that. Mind you, the card is used in my company, so yeah, I do check it daily (mostly 'cos it's almost always close to limit lately
Do you check you checking account everyday?
The business ones, yes. My personal one? Shit no (mostly 'cos it's close to empty all the time
You see, it takes about 5 - 10 minutes per day to check transactions against my accounts (two checking accounts, a transfer account, a cash management account and the credit card). Maybe it's paranoid or obsessive/compulsive, but then again, maybe it's 'cos I'm running a company? (My other company has an accounts person - he does the checking for me on those accounts and I just take a peek at the current balances, etc
Do you check the stash of money under your bed everyday too?
Shit no - I ditched that ages ago. Too insecure - the cockroaches were robbing me blind. As to the uncut diamonds in the fish tank - now that's a different matter
OK - so maybe the credit card companies need to send out a bunch of instructions for people who are too dumb to figure it out for themselves (sort of like those "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" messages - like, DUH!!!!! :)
:)
:)
:) haven't had any problems. I did find a couple of entries that were charged incorrectly and was able to resolve them by contacting the vendor directly. No problems, everyone happy.
:)
Here we go with some simple instructions for how to use your credit card and not get burnt:
1. Make sure you can check your credit card statement on-line as required.
2. Record all purchases in a database (Quicken, MYOB, MS-Money, text file, spreadsheet, whatever!)
3. Check your credit card statement on-line as often as you can (once per day is good
4. If you find anything you didn't write down, start screaming to your card issuer!
Even if you never travel over seas, purchase from catalogs or purchase from the 'net, you should be doing this. If you don't, you're just asking for trouble. At the least, you should check your monthly statements - doing it daily makes it quicker to get the dispute resolution process started
I frequently travel to "worrying" places, use my card at cafes/restaurants, purchase over the 'net and so on. I check things and (touch-wood
Stop whining, stop expecting the government/corporations/mommy & daddy/whatever to protect you. Get off your ass and take responsibility for your actions.
Same goes for those setting up e-commerce sites. One of my companies does it and we get third-party security reviews (we charge more, but we don't want penny-pinchers as clients - they always come back to haunt you
They've been mucking around with this technology here in Australia for a while, changing the adverts that you see on televised football games, etc. As a result, the person at the game saw an advert for Telstra but the people on TV saw an advert for Optus.
:)
This is going down a really interesting path as what we're finding is that more & more people are watching sports on TV, rather than attending. The latest stadiums on the drawing boards are actually smaller than the ones we currently have. Thus, TV advertising is all important to the owners of these stadiums.
Now, thanks to this technology, the stadium owners cannot guarantee prospective advertisers how many people will see their advert. After all, each channel that carries the event may very well change various adverts to suit their own sponsors, etc.
The stadium owners do have some level of response, however. When coverage of various sporting events is being arranged, only a specific media group will get the contract (they go through a bidding process). Thus, it's possible to either 1) up the cost to cover losses in advertising revenues or 2) put clauses in the contract stating that this technology cannot be used to replace adverts.
I'm fascinated with where this will lead to, simply because it totally changes the playing field. Puts the cat amongst the canaries, so to speak
then you put in a couple of gratuitous breast shots so the film has an R
:)
In Australia, it often works the other way. A few tits & ass are OK but lots of graphic violence gets an R rating. Many movies that are PG in the USA get R down here due to the amount of violence. (Predator 2 for instance).
It's always amazed me that violence is OK to censors in the USA but sex is not. Oh well, descended from Puritans vs descended from convicts, I guess
Wonder if temperature enters into it. Australian's are reknowned for not enjoying their beer in any state but cold.
:)
Sign outside a bar in the backwaters of Indonesia (where Australian back-packers were often encountered
"Yes, we serve fucking cold beer!"
:)
Obviously designed by someone who doesn't want to let bio-needs get in the way of a good CTF or Assault mission...
Still, if the toilet's fully wired, what would the results of a frag/gib be like? (shudder)
:)
I worked on the Y2K programmes (at corporate level) for a few large companies here in Australia over the past two years. I left all my contracts at the end of June 1999 because I saw the writing on the wall. Everything looked like it had been sorted and if there were problems, we'd probably be able to deal with them.
:) So, I left the lucrative contracts to do something else (my own pet project)
:)
:)
I didn't stockpile, I didn't run & hide. I sure as shit didn't want to work over NYE (irrespective of the year change, a party is a party
My friends who remained on the projects had the joy of working through NYE and being (mostly) bored shitless. I was with my wife & child and enjoyed myself with various mind altering substances (mostly booze - I'm getting old
Those who worked NYE and didn't get well compensated may well want to be reviewing their resumes
Or you could just buy all the ramen-producing factories and attempt to control the world by inserting mind-control chemicals into the seasoning packets...
:)
Too late - Bill already did it - that's why Micro$oft's software has been such an outrageous success. Unfortunately for Micro$oft, now that so many people are becoming rich (thanks, in part, to the wild tech stock market) they're able to afford better food and are no longer eating as much Ramen.
Thus, as their Ramen consumption decreases, the Micro$oft mind control effect decreases and they start to notice other software. Obvious, when you think about it and look at the news headlines of the past couple of years....
Of course, now that you & I have dragged all this out into the open, we can both expect visits by the "Boys From Bill"
Actually, I rather enjoyed the "background" comment towards the end of this episode - from Neal, wasn't it?
:)
"I used to fight it but now I've given in to Pop Culture. Woooo! New Millenium! Wooo!"
Or something like that. I fell off my chair I laughed so much (almost as good as Tripping the Rift
You're saying that the stock split 50 ways. The original post said "split 50 times".
:)
Whups - missed that one.
You're right, that's a shitload of noodles
Well, at least with Playboy on the Linux side there won't be any bloatware on display :)
Really? That mean that that single, ten-dollar share you bought is now worth something up in the petabuck range
:)
I'm assuming that mode is not on in the original posting, so...
Close - that $10 share was split into two $5 shares which in turn were split resulting in four $2.50 shares, etc. Of course, that assumes that the stock price hasn't changed between splits.
Given price increases between splits, you wind up with a wonderful increase in quantity AND total amount. Following a split, many shares (in today's tech-happy-rollercoaster market) quickly climb to close to their original value.
So yeah, one original Yahoo share @ $10 has now gone into warp speed and represents about 50 shares, each worth $443 - about $22,000 - hmmm - sure beats inflation...
As to buying our Bill G, well, we have a little while to go yet
One of the best Y2K Summaries I've yet seen is over at COTSE. In case it's changed by the time you get there, the text is included below.
:)
All up, I think it really touches on exactly why Y2K was a "non-event." I'm going to send it to the head of the Small Business Association of Australia who proclaimed the other day that Y2K was all bullshit (condensed version of his words
Text Reads:
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As y2k passes by uneventfully I'd like to give thanks to the unsung heroes. The people that sacrificed so much to ensure it passed uneventfully. These people worked sixteen hour days for weeks on end. They missed family functions during the holidays. They missed weekends and vacation. They missed the celebration. All to make this an uneventful and quiet y2k.
While the press ran around in circles proclaiming the end of civilization and the world, they were toiling to fix it. While fanatics warned to "Stock up for y2k", they worked at backing it up, just in case. While politicians all tried to out statistic each other, they were testing it. While everyone was out celebrating a once in a lifetime event, they were baby-sitting it.
COTSE wishes to thank the unsung heroes of the millennium: the administrators, the programmers, the test teams, and the operators. You are the people that kept it all together! You are the reason nothing happened!
Great Job!!!
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Hell, I like UF and Dilbert because they give me fond memories of when I was:
:)
:)
a) First using computers (or, in the case of Dilbert, first learning to be a PHB
b) Doing tech support for friends & family (1-900-GrantFix
c) Setting up & running ISP's
d) Setting up & running a tech company
These days, I also use them as a sanity check - eg - "Hell, I almost did that the other day - better check my hair in the mirror for pointy bits!"
:)
You're damned right about the "government mandate" on ISO - here in Australia it's the same. In some cases you cannot even tender for work if you're not ISO certified (or, perhaps, just "certified" in general :)
:)
:)
It always used to crack me up that they wanted ISO certification for quality assurance but ISO-9000 never addressed quality! It ensured that you had a process and that it was monitored, but it never did anything to improve quality. You could have a process producing a large number of defects but, if it was documented & repeatable, it could get certified.
At least they've recently addressed this with an update to include quality. Pity it was never there to begin with
As to vendors pushing their way as a "one size fits all" - funny that. Vendors are always doing that with whatever is in vogue (BPR, TQM, CMM, ISO, CRM, ERP - whatever
From the article:
:)
"We have a new economy, but we have no new intelligentsia."
However, further down towards the end, where the Internet is raised, we can read:
"The Internet is the greatest accomplishment of the twentieth centurys scientific community, and the Internet has made a new intelligentsia possible."
So, is it that the new intelligentsia exists but hasn't come down out of the 'net to the rest of the world or is it that the 'net will bring it out as it develops from what is currently occuring?
Of course, it could just be that he's contradicting himself
There's a lot of "Methodologies are great" vs "Methodologies suck" view points out there (mostly the latter here on /. :) As has been noted in previous posts under this thread, most of the problems relate to people seeking a "Silver Bullet" solution and mindlessly applying a methodology that worked elsewhere in the inane hope that it will work here. This is similar to checking out your competition and determining that they are better than you because all their people have blonde hair, blue eyes and use brand new shiny PC's.
:) and now moved into the Analyst / Project Manager / CEO world, I'm fighting all the time against PHB's who want to just drop methodologies into development teams and walk away. I've implemented existing methodologies, I've consulted on fixing the mess from a failed implementation (not one of my own, thanks :) and I've even hacked together some methodologies for a few clients.
t -here).
I recently heard the following phrase:
"You can lead a person to a methodology but you cannot make them think!"
Unfortunately, this is all too true. I've even encountered one group who probably couldn't get Extreme Programming right!
Having come from the programmer world (yes, I was a serious code-cowboy - I've still got the spurs to proove it
The secret is to think when assessing each situation. In some situations, I throw the book away and put together a bare-bones, absolute minimum repeatable process for a small development team. This lets them put some level of control & prediction into their work while still staying loose, having fun, focusing on the important stuff and keeping the primadonnas happy. In other situations, I pull out the CMM/ISO/(insert-heaveyweight-methodology-here), start tailoring it and introducing it slowly.
It all depends on the environment, the team and the goals. If you want to do is ensure that there's a modicum of control and that programmers aren't being dragged about from target to target, go with a light-weight system. If you are developing "life-threatening" systems such as nuclear reactors or air traffic control, damn straight you do it by the numbers with full control, reviews, checkpoints and such.
In all cases, you must continue to think. Too often someone sees a methodology as a burger-flipping process (eg: plug in some staff, follow the steps and out comes a golden solution). This is complete crap and a sure-fire disaster. At all times you have to ensure everyone in the team (from top to bottom) is turned on, tuned in and thinking. If anyone tunes out and believes they can just follow the steps without thinking for themselves, fire their ass!
Many programmers say methodologies get in the way and stop them working. I say that a good methodology (eg: one that's right for the team, the task(s) and the goal(s)) will let the programmer work in heaven (eg: little to no interruptions, focussed direction, constructive reviews and awareness of the big picture).
Like anything else, methodologies do work when they're used as yet one more tool in the hands of turned on, thinking people. Like anything else, if you just drop it in and hope it works, you're a fuckwit/dickhead/(insert-national-phrase-for-idio
OK - one of my companies does web development in Cold Fusion. We left our sites up over NYE for the following reason:
:)
:) All they had to do was turn them off on Dec 31 and turn them back on in the new year - no problems. That's what was done and what we're doing.
:) Once we figured what our risk parameters were, we could enact a plan (run with staff on hand/don't run/run without staff/etc).
1. They're outsourced at a hosting center which has 24/7 staffing, UPS, health-checks, etc etc etc.
2. Our sites are behind a firewall.
3. We did tests of our own to simulate the roll-over.
4. Full backups of all data, etc prior to rollover.
5. We had access to tech staff if necessary to resolve issues.
6. Close monitoring of data & performance over the first couple of weeks of Jan and the leap year to ensure "sneaky" corruptions get through.
Following assessment of the risks (power issues, communications issues, [cr/h]ackers, viruses, etc) we felt that we had done what was possible and that all should be OK. If there were any major hassles, it was likely that everyone would be in the excrement so we wouldn't be alone
Now, my other company does consulting to various clients. In the Small to Medium Business area, we recommended that they apply the latest patches and check their PC's for compliance. Some had PC's that failed the "tick over" in RTC and/or BIOS but worked fine in DOS, on the leap year and when rebooting post-1999. We recommended that they not throw out those machines (keep the $$$ to pay us more consulting fees, thank you
For those that did not need their systems turned on during this time, we recommended that they shut everything off and unplug it. While the electricity companies had stated that they were ready, they had (naturally) used guarded language. As such, when we reviewed the possibilities of power issues (brown-outs, surges and/or spikes) comm's issues (modems & ISDN connections) and software issues (relying on patches and information off the net, etc), we figured it was better to just avoid the whole thing so we could all be out partying and not sitting there watching a bunch of computers tick over.
So, in the end, it was all based on risk assessment. What level of testing had been done, were the systems required over the transition, what the unknowns were and how much risk the client could afford. It was easier to turn it all off, have fun and start it all up again when we knew what we were dealing with.
Of course, if I were the MIS Manager in some company, I would have been doing reviews, tests, simulations and so on for all systems. The results of all this would have been assessed with business management (MIS does not tell business what to do, we help them make their decisions
To the people who say "See, Y2K was all bullshit!" :
:)
:)
If you're thinking Y2K was all hype and a load of crap, etc, then you obviously had nothing to do with it or only experienced your own small part. As usual, in these kind of cases, extrapolation to the "whole world" from your small experience is incorrect!
Over the past two years, I worked at the corporate level for a major telecoms company, a state government transport department (trains, buses, etc), a major insurer, a union and a medical education institute. I also advised numerous clients and even wound up digging into software I'd written "on the side." (YUK!
All I can say is that had we done nothing, the phones would have slowly ground to a halt, billing would have been screwed, premiums incorrect, etc etc. Y2K was real and it was only the efforts put in that have resulted in the "anticlimax" that we have experienced to date.
Don't forget, it's still early days yet. Small to medium business hasn't returned from holidays, the Leap Year is still to be passed, end of Financial Year calculations, etc etc etc. The show isn't over and won't be for some time. We still also have the Unix/C epoch date (2038 - yes?) and fixes for all those "windowed" solutions (eg: = 30 = 1999) - what happens in 20 years when that code is still in use?
'Scuse the ranting - just that it burns me a bit to see all the "Told ya so's!"...
Well spotted - had to look again to see it - I take it that you *really* do read the comics, not just skim through them like some of us :)
While working as a developer for a company in Australia, we found that users of our Insurance software were comparing versions when they met (the Insurance industry is rather incestuous and many used our software). We wound up getting users stating that "They're on version 9.121 while we're still on 9.049 - we want an upgrade!" despite the fact that they had no idea what had changed between the versions (usually small customisations for new/changing clients, etc).
To get around this, we started to use a main version plus two letters (eg: 12 AS, 12 TC, 12 BS, etc). The letters were not allocated in any order but were different in each version. This let support staff ask clients their version to check for known issues but dramatically reduced the number of "I'm using obsolete software" calls.
Of course, we had chart to show which versions were assigned to the various letters and there was also a command line call to get the full version.
A side effect of all this was that people started to "name" the versions (eg: 12 AS was known as the "Arnold Schwarzenger" version, etc). As a new version was released, we'd go through the two letter combinations still available and figure out names to use. Sad but true...