The presentation proudly declaring that, "We Serve The United States and Its Territories, Canada and Mexico."
And the Tech Writer mistake... trying to explain to the Pointy-Haired Boss why the statement didn't make the neighbors to the north and south very happy.
In addition to the usual travel tips, like "if you're alone and hail a taxicab, don't get into the front seat," something thing to consider is mobile phone etiquette. Many people visiting don't realize--or easily forget--how large and varied the States are, and etiquette can vary a lot, too.
While traveling in New England (and most of the US), for example, you would be considered highly offensive if you left your mobile phone on during a meal, especially if you took the call at the table. However, in rude cities, you might see people taking phone calls right during a speaker's presentation! Try the same thing in a rural area, and you might get thrown out the door.
From surveys I've seen, it's the opinion of most Americans that everyone else is far ruder than themselves, and should be punished!;-) Seriously, though, I'd suggest "better safe than sorry" and just keep the phone off at the table, etc. If you must make a call, excuse yourself and go away from the table to call.
Also, IIRC, it's illegal to use mobile phones while driving in Australia (unless hands-free?) Most of the US, however, does not have that restriction. But before you might make a habit of the convenience of talking while you drive, be aware that it's not legal in all places (e.g., New York State).
Emitting increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses will inevitably cause climate change in the long run--it's elementary physics.
No, it's not.
An elementary model such as yours is nearly always wrong in the real world. Take radiation exposure as an example.
While we all know excessive radiation exposure is detrimental to our health, that doesn't mean NO exposure is best. People are actually healthier with a small amount of radiation than none at all. I'd have to research the latest thoughts on WHY, but the fact remains.
Now take toxin exposure... Many things are toxic in large doses ("dose" used in technical sense of ratio to body mass), yet are consumed by us as food. The point in this case is that many "toxins" have a "threshold"...below which, the body handles them fine, without a problem. Simple analogy: an overwhelming invasion versus the same number of attackers coming at you one at a time.
Finally, we have absorbtions and feedbacks, etc. Does excess CO2 lead to excess plant or carbonate production, which ties it up again? Does excess CO2 lead to increased low cloud formation that reflects more sunlight?
So is additional CO2 a drop in the bucket compared with natural sources, or is it enough to tip the balance?
Of course we have climate change--the earth is far colder than usual now. Heating up would be "getting back to normal" if you look at the big picture--geologic time scales. We have daily variations in temperature, and seasonal ones...why are climatic ones so difficult to comprehend?
So, climate change question is not "elementary physics" unless one had a good physics class that taught more than linear correlations. Obviously, the general public (and many amateur scientists here) has not had such training.
Science (especially modern science) relies heavily on faith. Science has faith in reproducibility of results, the immutability of laws, etc.
If I say 2-4-6-8, don't you have faith that the next in sequence is "10"? Or might it be "who do we appreciate"? I might say it's "11"...perhaps I'm using Octal Base!
Any scientific method (hint, hint...there's more than one, contrary to vulgar belief) relies on faith, because we are within a system ourselves. Science attempts to describe things within this physical system, but how do we know there's not something outside our universe making up the rules? We don't. Science has faith that the rules are usually rather straightforward and measureable, whereas religion deals with what's outside our system.
Science has given us many things that were wrong. N-rays, for example. Continental Drift is another. In both cases, science eventually discovered that N-rays and Continental Drift didn't exist--but for a period of time, many scientists had faith in them. The evidence they believed led them to their conclusions as clearly as a religious person might be led to their beliefs.
And even Plate Tectonic theory is not perfect. We don't understand it all--but theories get modified even when not discarded wholesale.
What has faith given us? Perseverence, compassion, peace, etc. Not always each of these...but I daresay science alone has also not promoted peace, etc., always.
One, if something is automatable, you should not pay a programmer a lot of money to do it. Hire a drone.
There's a difference?;-)
Seriously, though... it seems that you are agreeing with the original point--that there ARE mundane tasks that are more efficiently completed by those of a different labour rate. The original point was that mundane tasks could be efficiently completed at a lower labour rate, rather than using costly labour or automation. (Check out the Victorian Era Robots thread for discussion on the "cost" of labour, too.)
However, here are some additional points in pseudo-random disorder...
Fourth, grunt tasks mean increased redundancy in the code base.
You are making assumptions regarding those tasks, and your other comments make assumptions regarding these "grunts." If the tasks are truly "mundane" and "automatable" then why are you assuming they have a high unique-error frequency?
You know...I scored above average on the "clerical speed and accuracy" standardized aptitude test in school--but I have the secretary send out my correspondence. It's called using the appropriate people or tools for a job, and every project I've managed that was over-automated has suffered. I am an advocate for automating to the extent it makes sense, but there are
You know those projects that have to throw away the code base between versions? Those are almost always failures in complexity management, and they are very, very expensive. As Netscape learned.
Or government projects, where a new administration can wipe out a decade of development, taking totally unforeseen directions. Having automated generically for contingencies in such an environment would hvae been a terrible waste.
Again, from my experience, I think that truly effective management on a broad scale (including temporal scale) relies more on applying the appropriate resources than on an absolute proclamation in favour of automation. In limited arenas, perhaps you can be proactive and enjoy creating change--but that's not always possible. Perhaps you can have the luxury of creating new automation every week--but that's not always possible.
Perhaps I've been lucky. Perhaps you're talking about a smaller scale. Perhaps so many things...and I suppose that is my main point, itself.
A cash-poor, mineral-rich, nation may sell off their mineral resources for a pittance to you and me. Likewise, we pay excessively high prices for our lifestyle. Part of that is the fact that Westerners tend to expend our "wealth" on things that are ephemeral, although this is only one reason. And when one party is trading on credit, then the equation becomes more complex. A trading partner might RECEIVE a fair price for what they transfer to you....but you ended up losing when you had to borrow the money and owe interest. (I.e., it's not a direct zero-sum between trading partners.)
(Another example, more on topic for the overall thread, is that it would be a ridiculous waste of resources for a nation to buy robot technology if they are population and food-rich but cash-poor. Surely such a purchase would not be a "balanced trade." Value obtained and price paid are not always directly tied in a fixed and easy to see fashion.)
Don't get me wrong--I'm not a trade deficit alarmist. But I think your analysis is incomplete.
Likewise, productive immigration can help a country long-term. Unproductive immigration may be used as a short-term prop, all the while undercutting the long-term wealth of a nation. I believe we are in the latter version, and
I think the 1990's were a period of illusionary wealth. We in America sold out lots of intangibles (a sort of Capital Good), in order to gain short-term, false "prosperity." As the previous poster noted, we now have lower real income for two workers than it used to be for one. We have no job security. We have worse benefits. We have killer work-weeks with little vacation.
In fact, this is a long-term trend. We have lower education and higher taxes (MUCH higher than what the colonists had a revolution over in the 1770s), etc. I don't see it turning around unless Americans demonstrate there's some reason to buy from us rather than overseas at a cheaper price.
Does anyone know if/how they managed to get the 'robots' to simulate walking? Up until recently it was nearly impossible to get a robot to simulate real walking while keeping balance. [...]
Very perceptive!!! Most people don't note how they are always either standing or running. To my knowledge, they never managed to solve that problem. Every one of the Victorian robots had to either stand still or run, to maintain stability. The "robot walk" of early science fiction is just that--fictional.
I also think all of the early prototypes had dual gyros for all three axes of rotation (total of 6 gyros). The gyros weren't paired to add redundancy, but to offset the torque generated by the spinning flywheels. Unlike the propellers on the Wright Brothers plane (which used a figure-eight chain drive to spin opposite directions http://www.curtisswright.com/history/1900-1903.asp http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/aviation/wrightbro thers.htm ), they used direct gearing to do it. I haven't been through the site in detail--does it mention the gunfight with Pancho Villa where Boilerplate lost a gyro? He was then unable to turn left because that yaw-axis gyro was out and the opposing one was acting to twist him toward the right. (The way that story got twisted into the "Coriolis Effect" urban legend explanation is ridiculous....just because Mexico is "South of the Border" it doesn't mean it's Southern Hemisphere---and besides, the Coriolis Effect is so minor, it doesn't even affect a toilet's flushing direction [another urban legend http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.htm ].)
(Also note that the few existing movie clips [silent, of course!] of Boilerplate show him standing by the girl or running---never walking. There's the jerky motion caused by the conversion of the old films to modern format, but I still wouldn't say it was likely a graceful run. Still, it got the job done! [If anyone can convert those clips and post a link to them, that would be cool, but I was unable to get a frame rate that didn't make them even more choppy--maybe DivX would be better than the MPG conversion I tried?]
If you have mundane programming tasks, you're doing it wrong. If something is truly mundane, that means it's automatable. If it's automatable, then since it's already on a computer, you should just go ahead and automate it.
No offense meant, but this type of reasoning is why many geeks don't make it to the CEO positions of power upon which they so enviously gaze. The problem is that it just doesn't follow logically that because something is automatable and on a computer, the step should be taken to implement it.
While it's a tenet of geekdom that if something is technically *possible*, then it should be *done*, corporations must face economic reality. Often the possible is not the optimal, economically.
*WARNING: Generalizations ahead...*
For example, in a rapidly changing environment, automation becomes less efficient, unless said automation is made more generic in its task-handling abilities. For automation to handle a broader range of parameters, however, involves greater up-front investment. Therefore, there are many cases in which the automation investment is more costly than inexpensive human labour -- humans are still more rapidly and inexpensively trainable than computing devices, for certain tasks.
Also, the real world(tm) has many other factors besides technical feasibility. Governments, politics, personalities, etc., cloud issues. Tax incentives for hiring personnel, varying tax structures on capital versus personnel costs, etc., may make the decision more complex.
So...
...while I am technically oriented by my nature, to succeed in the business world, I have had to broaden my understanding and make my analyses more complex (i.e., third order or more, instead of first or second order). I've seen the fiery crashes of many geeks who haven't been able to think beyond the tech alone.
(I'm new here... I hope this makes sense and is helpful. Sorry if it's too long.)
Actually, it does.
Other firms come in and buy them out in a merger and chop them. Unfortunately, it's not always the good ones who get chopped...often the bigger fish is the shark.
Things will eventually turn around for US service workers, once the pay scale and standard of living is closer to that of third world nations.
Exactly, as long as it's accompanied by an American awakening that we can't always be picking up the slack for everyone or have such high expectations.
What you touched on was one of the most frustrating things about being an employer. So often, I felt that open and honest communication just couldn't occur, because of the threats of legal action that could result. Our competitiveness suffered because problems couldn't be addressed, solutions couldn't be offered, etc.
Yep. Act like Blue Collar workers yet expect to be treated like White Collar professionals... just like public school teachers!
Sure, the quality of American IT would drop even faster than it is, but at least the pay will be propped up artificially for a while.
Of course, the next generation would find even *more* outsourcing...lower wages...union busting..............or else face a lot of closed shops, when other countries find they can get better products at lower prices by going elsewhere.
No thanks. I'd rather just see American salary and other expectations peacefully get into line with reality. Americans could pull down higher salaries than the rest of the world back when we had superior education, abilities, productivity, creativity, etc. Yet as an educator, I can't say that I see those qualities prevailing today, so why should we continue to expect to be paid so much more?
IAANAL, but much of this depends upon *where*. Some US states are Right to Work states, others are not. I don't see discrimination or other wrongful dismissal involved in Shane's case, and some states still allow an employer to make and act upon their own decisions such as hiring/firing.
That might seem like a bad thing, but it also is one of the few things keeping back even worse problems. It actually is often the same do-gooders who interfere with such decisions that force worse decisions. As a former employer, I found it becoming increasingly difficult to comply with government mandates that made good business and ethical sense; those took a back seat to the poorly thought-out regulations imposed.
While sanity might say that outsourcing is poor risk-management, think of the consequences to the decision-maker if a security consultant's recommendations were ignored and the financial institution were ripped off! Often, the ridiculous litiginous nature of American society these days--with idiotic jurors, ignorant voters, and a generally apathetic populace--means that only self-destructive people "do the right thing."
What's the modern version of that old prayer? Something like . ..
SERENITY PRAYER
God, grant me the serenity to accept a post I cannot change, Courage to walk past the computer without turning it on when I'm running late for work, And the wisdom to know the difference between
"Come to bed now" (meaning "Let's have some fun!") and
"Come to bed NOW!" (meaning "That computer has got to GO"!)
Amen.
Slashdot Mirror
The presentation proudly declaring that, "We Serve The United States and Its Territories, Canada and Mexico."
And the Tech Writer mistake... trying to explain to the Pointy-Haired Boss why the statement didn't make the neighbors to the north and south very happy.
While traveling in New England (and most of the US), for example, you would be considered highly offensive if you left your mobile phone on during a meal, especially if you took the call at the table. However, in rude cities, you might see people taking phone calls right during a speaker's presentation! Try the same thing in a rural area, and you might get thrown out the door.
Take a look at these Cingular Wireless survey results, which show some interesting regional differences: http://www.cingular.com/about/latest_news/03_10_27
From surveys I've seen, it's the opinion of most Americans that everyone else is far ruder than themselves, and should be punished! ;-) Seriously, though, I'd suggest "better safe than sorry" and just keep the phone off at the table, etc. If you must make a call, excuse yourself and go away from the table to call.
Also, IIRC, it's illegal to use mobile phones while driving in Australia (unless hands-free?) Most of the US, however, does not have that restriction. But before you might make a habit of the convenience of talking while you drive, be aware that it's not legal in all places (e.g., New York State).
Enjoy your trip!
An elementary model such as yours is nearly always wrong in the real world. Take radiation exposure as an example.
While we all know excessive radiation exposure is detrimental to our health, that doesn't mean NO exposure is best. People are actually healthier with a small amount of radiation than none at all. I'd have to research the latest thoughts on WHY, but the fact remains.
Now take toxin exposure... Many things are toxic in large doses ("dose" used in technical sense of ratio to body mass), yet are consumed by us as food. The point in this case is that many "toxins" have a "threshold"...below which, the body handles them fine, without a problem. Simple analogy: an overwhelming invasion versus the same number of attackers coming at you one at a time.
Finally, we have absorbtions and feedbacks, etc. Does excess CO2 lead to excess plant or carbonate production, which ties it up again? Does excess CO2 lead to increased low cloud formation that reflects more sunlight?
So is additional CO2 a drop in the bucket compared with natural sources, or is it enough to tip the balance?
Of course we have climate change--the earth is far colder than usual now. Heating up would be "getting back to normal" if you look at the big picture--geologic time scales. We have daily variations in temperature, and seasonal ones...why are climatic ones so difficult to comprehend?
So, climate change question is not "elementary physics" unless one had a good physics class that taught more than linear correlations. Obviously, the general public (and many amateur scientists here) has not had such training.
Science (especially modern science) relies heavily on faith. Science has faith in reproducibility of results, the immutability of laws, etc.
If I say 2-4-6-8, don't you have faith that the next in sequence is "10"? Or might it be "who do we appreciate"? I might say it's "11"...perhaps I'm using Octal Base!
Any scientific method (hint, hint...there's more than one, contrary to vulgar belief) relies on faith, because we are within a system ourselves. Science attempts to describe things within this physical system, but how do we know there's not something outside our universe making up the rules? We don't. Science has faith that the rules are usually rather straightforward and measureable, whereas religion deals with what's outside our system.
Science has given us many things that were wrong. N-rays, for example. Continental Drift is another. In both cases, science eventually discovered that N-rays and Continental Drift didn't exist--but for a period of time, many scientists had faith in them. The evidence they believed led them to their conclusions as clearly as a religious person might be led to their beliefs.
And even Plate Tectonic theory is not perfect. We don't understand it all--but theories get modified even when not discarded wholesale.
What has faith given us? Perseverence, compassion, peace, etc. Not always each of these...but I daresay science alone has also not promoted peace, etc., always.
There's a difference? ;-)
Seriously, though... it seems that you are agreeing with the original point--that there ARE mundane tasks that are more efficiently completed by those of a different labour rate. The original point was that mundane tasks could be efficiently completed at a lower labour rate, rather than using costly labour or automation. (Check out the Victorian Era Robots thread for discussion on the "cost" of labour, too.)
However, here are some additional points in pseudo-random disorder...
Fourth, grunt tasks mean increased redundancy in the code base.
You are making assumptions regarding those tasks, and your other comments make assumptions regarding these "grunts." If the tasks are truly "mundane" and "automatable" then why are you assuming they have a high unique-error frequency?
You know...I scored above average on the "clerical speed and accuracy" standardized aptitude test in school--but I have the secretary send out my correspondence. It's called using the appropriate people or tools for a job, and every project I've managed that was over-automated has suffered. I am an advocate for automating to the extent it makes sense, but there are You know those projects that have to throw away the code base between versions? Those are almost always failures in complexity management, and they are very, very expensive. As Netscape learned.
Or government projects, where a new administration can wipe out a decade of development, taking totally unforeseen directions. Having automated generically for contingencies in such an environment would hvae been a terrible waste.
Again, from my experience, I think that truly effective management on a broad scale (including temporal scale) relies more on applying the appropriate resources than on an absolute proclamation in favour of automation. In limited arenas, perhaps you can be proactive and enjoy creating change--but that's not always possible. Perhaps you can have the luxury of creating new automation every week--but that's not always possible.
Perhaps I've been lucky. Perhaps you're talking about a smaller scale. Perhaps so many things...and I suppose that is my main point, itself.
A cash-poor, mineral-rich, nation may sell off their mineral resources for a pittance to you and me. Likewise, we pay excessively high prices for our lifestyle. Part of that is the fact that Westerners tend to expend our "wealth" on things that are ephemeral, although this is only one reason. And when one party is trading on credit, then the equation becomes more complex. A trading partner might RECEIVE a fair price for what they transfer to you....but you ended up losing when you had to borrow the money and owe interest. (I.e., it's not a direct zero-sum between trading partners.)
(Another example, more on topic for the overall thread, is that it would be a ridiculous waste of resources for a nation to buy robot technology if they are population and food-rich but cash-poor. Surely such a purchase would not be a "balanced trade." Value obtained and price paid are not always directly tied in a fixed and easy to see fashion.)
Don't get me wrong--I'm not a trade deficit alarmist. But I think your analysis is incomplete.
Likewise, productive immigration can help a country long-term. Unproductive immigration may be used as a short-term prop, all the while undercutting the long-term wealth of a nation. I believe we are in the latter version, and
I think the 1990's were a period of illusionary wealth. We in America sold out lots of intangibles (a sort of Capital Good), in order to gain short-term, false "prosperity." As the previous poster noted, we now have lower real income for two workers than it used to be for one. We have no job security. We have worse benefits. We have killer work-weeks with little vacation.
In fact, this is a long-term trend. We have lower education and higher taxes (MUCH higher than what the colonists had a revolution over in the 1770s), etc. I don't see it turning around unless Americans demonstrate there's some reason to buy from us rather than overseas at a cheaper price.
Very perceptive!!! Most people don't note how they are always either standing or running. To my knowledge, they never managed to solve that problem. Every one of the Victorian robots had to either stand still or run, to maintain stability. The "robot walk" of early science fiction is just that--fictional.
I also think all of the early prototypes had dual gyros for all three axes of rotation (total of 6 gyros). The gyros weren't paired to add redundancy, but to offset the torque generated by the spinning flywheels. Unlike the propellers on the Wright Brothers plane (which used a figure-eight chain drive to spin opposite directions http://www.curtisswright.com/history/1900-1903.asp http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/aviation/wrightbro thers.htm ), they used direct gearing to do it. I haven't been through the site in detail--does it mention the gunfight with Pancho Villa where Boilerplate lost a gyro? He was then unable to turn left because that yaw-axis gyro was out and the opposing one was acting to twist him toward the right. (The way that story got twisted into the "Coriolis Effect" urban legend explanation is ridiculous....just because Mexico is "South of the Border" it doesn't mean it's Southern Hemisphere---and besides, the Coriolis Effect is so minor, it doesn't even affect a toilet's flushing direction [another urban legend http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.htm ].)
(Also note that the few existing movie clips [silent, of course!] of Boilerplate show him standing by the girl or running---never walking. There's the jerky motion caused by the conversion of the old films to modern format, but I still wouldn't say it was likely a graceful run. Still, it got the job done! [If anyone can convert those clips and post a link to them, that would be cool, but I was unable to get a frame rate that didn't make them even more choppy--maybe DivX would be better than the MPG conversion I tried?]
I note the song petered out at the line about a virgin...
No offense meant, but this type of reasoning is why many geeks don't make it to the CEO positions of power upon which they so enviously gaze. The problem is that it just doesn't follow logically that because something is automatable and on a computer, the step should be taken to implement it.
While it's a tenet of geekdom that if something is technically *possible*, then it should be *done*, corporations must face economic reality. Often the possible is not the optimal, economically.
*WARNING: Generalizations ahead...*
For example, in a rapidly changing environment, automation becomes less efficient, unless said automation is made more generic in its task-handling abilities. For automation to handle a broader range of parameters, however, involves greater up-front investment. Therefore, there are many cases in which the automation investment is more costly than inexpensive human labour -- humans are still more rapidly and inexpensively trainable than computing devices, for certain tasks.
Also, the real world(tm) has many other factors besides technical feasibility. Governments, politics, personalities, etc., cloud issues. Tax incentives for hiring personnel, varying tax structures on capital versus personnel costs, etc., may make the decision more complex.
So...
(I'm new here... I hope this makes sense and is helpful. Sorry if it's too long.)
Actually, it does. Other firms come in and buy them out in a merger and chop them. Unfortunately, it's not always the good ones who get chopped...often the bigger fish is the shark.
Things will eventually turn around for US service workers, once the pay scale and standard of living is closer to that of third world nations. Exactly, as long as it's accompanied by an American awakening that we can't always be picking up the slack for everyone or have such high expectations.
Disclaimer: I'm a former employer, not a lawyer.
What you touched on was one of the most frustrating things about being an employer. So often, I felt that open and honest communication just couldn't occur, because of the threats of legal action that could result. Our competitiveness suffered because problems couldn't be addressed, solutions couldn't be offered, etc.
Yep. Act like Blue Collar workers yet expect to be treated like White Collar professionals... just like public school teachers!
Sure, the quality of American IT would drop even faster than it is, but at least the pay will be propped up artificially for a while.
Of course, the next generation would find even *more* outsourcing...lower wages...union busting..............or else face a lot of closed shops, when other countries find they can get better products at lower prices by going elsewhere.
No thanks. I'd rather just see American salary and other expectations peacefully get into line with reality. Americans could pull down higher salaries than the rest of the world back when we had superior education, abilities, productivity, creativity, etc. Yet as an educator, I can't say that I see those qualities prevailing today, so why should we continue to expect to be paid so much more?
IAANAL, but much of this depends upon *where*. Some US states are Right to Work states, others are not. I don't see discrimination or other wrongful dismissal involved in Shane's case, and some states still allow an employer to make and act upon their own decisions such as hiring/firing.
That might seem like a bad thing, but it also is one of the few things keeping back even worse problems. It actually is often the same do-gooders who interfere with such decisions that force worse decisions. As a former employer, I found it becoming increasingly difficult to comply with government mandates that made good business and ethical sense; those took a back seat to the poorly thought-out regulations imposed.
While sanity might say that outsourcing is poor risk-management, think of the consequences to the decision-maker if a security consultant's recommendations were ignored and the financial institution were ripped off! Often, the ridiculous litiginous nature of American society these days--with idiotic jurors, ignorant voters, and a generally apathetic populace--means that only self-destructive people "do the right thing."
What's the modern version of that old prayer? Something like . . .
SERENITY PRAYER
God, grant me the serenity to accept a post I cannot change,
Courage to walk past the computer without turning it on when I'm running late for work,
And the wisdom to know the difference between
"Come to bed now" (meaning "Let's have some fun!") and
"Come to bed NOW!" (meaning "That computer has got to GO"!)
Amen.