You can always factor your invoices. I met a dentist in Holland who does this as a matter of course. He has a good idea of his (necessarily reduced) income but does not get worringly into debt. And his factoring costs are probably higher as they are dealing with individuals.
First, the British Museum did no dating. They simply coordinated the results from three labs in the US, UK and Switzerland.
Second, this 'bioplastic coating' was simply a hypothesis from Stephen Mattingly of the University of Texas. STURPS Joan L. Rogers took authentic Shroud fibers, which she laboriously extracted from the STURP sampling tapes by washing them free of adhesive with xylene (not a solvent for any "bioplastic polymers"), to Metuchen, NJ, for laser-microprobe Raman analysis. The analysis is extremely sensitive, but nothing was observed that would indicate a "bioplastic polymer."
Third, even at the time, scientists in the dating lab in the UK were skeptical: P.H South, while examining threads from the sample on behalf of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory found indications of cotton. To him it seemed like material intrusion. In an article entitled "Rogue Fibers Found in Shroud," published in Textile Horizons in 1988, South write of his discovery of "a fine dark yellow strand [of cotton] possibly of Egyptian origin, and quite old . . . it may have been used for repairs at some time in the past, or simply bound in when the linen fabric was woven."
I well remember that, at the time, no one (except the odd spin doctor) thought these results conclusive and asked for more material. This was denied.
...companies *meaningfully* evaluate their employee's performance...
Metrics for this can be pretty vague and subjective. I found that I had to work with a team for at least a year before I could allocate numbers to: 'DB design', 'problem solving', 'accurate testing' or whatever.
Having said that, a proper evaluation also needs un upward component. Is the manager managing fairly? Is the team performance poor because the manager imposes stupid requirements? etc.etc. I've yet to see a company embrace that idea...
The article may be tongue in cheek, but it is bang on right about one thing: You might be doing incremental development but the senior management still want a 'clean' project. The system will be delivered end Q4 and no later. Yessir Mr. Big Customer, you have our word on it (without asking the development department if it's possible).
After that, they hurry down to the development departments and after some panicky discussion and massaging of the project sheet, decide that
Release 2 will happen 9am Nov. 15th. So yes, you do end up de-scoping during development. I have deliberately targeted sections for de-scoping and I am sometimes deliberately vague about will be delivered (rather than adding 40% contingency). For example, administrative functions will be delivered (but they might not have the gleaming front-end that they expected). And anyway, I get lumbered with a development team cobbled at the last minute (gotta save costs!) from half the losers in the company and a prima-donna who just sneers at the usefulness of unit testing and documentation.
Managers have surprisingly little power to get the best people for the job. When a board level manager decides that all sourcing will be now be internal, instead of the shit-hot guy I interviewed the day before, I now have to persuade a luke-warm candidate who really didn't want to move, to relocate 800km. Senior managers so often think people are like PCs. Roll 'em in, plug 'em at the desk, they start being productive that morning! Project finished (well,sort of)? Roll 'em out, there's another desk waiting.
I am a manager and I have seen this sort of politics all too often. SWAN is all very nice but unless you have support all the way up the chain, you end up spending vast amounts of time fending off back-stabbers, however SWAN you might be.
Phone is better than email, but email must be used when people outright lie about what took place. If you confront people who are simply out to sabotage your every effort (perhaps because you got 'their' job), email trails and signed off notes in meetings followed by an email listing actions are mandatory. Otherwise, the job will not get done.
Most people in this business strive for well-developed, flexible and accurate software. Unfortunately, 95% of the time, for some reason we inherit hurried, buggy and inflexible software. And we (as managers) are still expected to perform miracles in very limited timescales with despondent developers. Telling senior management you'd like 9 months and another 1.5 million to get their piece of shit looking like a shiny gold nugget just doesn't go down well, however diplomatically you put it.
Use cases work well if they are targeted correctly. They can be very useful as an overview of the system to users. And how am I supposed to write my own requirements when the customer has a very different view? Customer requirements are a result of back-and-forth discussions, they know the market and the process better than you do.
Innovation is all very well, but it has to be relevant. As a manager, if there is a lull, there is nearly always a ton of other things that have more priority.
Finally, in my experience, most management in the software filed is dire. For example, in one place when I arrived, a project was already going badly. I had senior (and board level) managers coming to my teams and asking them to 'do just this little bit of documentation' or 'fix my laptop'. Senior managers who know just a little about software decided (over my objections) that the team should fix bugs their way (ie the stupid way). They would arbitrarily move people between teams working for different clients (again over my and other people's objections). It all ended up wasting large amounts of my teams' time in critical situations. On those occasions when I pointed out and proved time was being inefficiently used, I got flak for not being a 'team player'.
After nine months of this crap despite repeated pleas and discussions and explanations of why they were jeopardising the project, the CEO started a 'blame hunt'. In a crisis meeting in the board room, he pointedly asked me that if the project slippage and possible loss of a big client was not my fault, then whose was it?
By now, I'd had enough of diplomacy. He was not the one facing the ire of the client on a daily basis, I was. So I said it was his fault. I hadn't hired the people who were screwing up this project, he (and other senior management) had. If the buck stopped anywhere, it was with him.
I expected to out of the door that day. After they found out what happened (this stuff rarely stays quiet), my teams and co-workers expected not to see me the next day either.
What actually happened was that the owner of the company (who was in another country) sort of agreed with me. I outlasted the CEO and a number of the senior management. But, unfortunately, the damage had already been done and we lost the big project. I moved onto other things in the company and saw the owner a lot more. The company started going through a bad patch and shrunk considerably. Other parts were being poorly managed too. I saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship.
And the current Home Secretary (Charles Clarke) who hinted that we should take action against "potential terrorists". Well, anybody who breathes (just about) is a 'potential' terrorist. And my wife and friends wonder why I look over my shoulder and mumble "I gotta get out of here..."
Trouble with that approach is that the records may also prove you innocent. And what about CCTV records or phone records or credit card transactions? All (or nearly all) are owned and tracked by private companies. Yet, in a lot of cases, they have been core to fingering serious criminals.
I take the 'overwhelmed by data' approach. Here in the UK, you cannot avoid being seen in high quality colour in just about any built-up area or mall. We are the most watched country in the world. Yet crime has not diminished significantly.
On the other hand, how are you going to avoid the odd mistake when law enforcement puts 2 + 2 together to make 22? For the paranoid, keep those records to an absolute minimum, I suppose. But also get yourself top notch legal insurance (you can get this with any life insurance, mortgage etc.) up to however many millions make you feel comfortable.
Overall though, the chances of this sort of thing happening are pretty low, otherwise it would not be news.
BatMax unblocks and regulates the flow of ions by generating an electro-magnetic cavity and oscillation frequency with negative ions emission. The ionization generated by BatMax has been mesured [sic] as a level reaching 30 times the value (7 - 8.000 Ions/cm3) of the ambiant [sic] air ionization (2 - 300 Ions/cm3). By the ions production, BatMax improves the electrodes oxidization.
Cool idea, and keeping this up-to-date will be a nice little earner for someone. Presumably, photographed stores will tell A9 when things have changed... or will there be a two year delay?
I have 4Mb from Bulldog at the moment. UK Online can't supply me in my area. In general, Bulldog has a much better coverage and they throw in a rental free phone with free UK landline calls.
I wrote a letter to my MEP yesterday and was surprised to get a responce
What's the betting you got a boilerplate reply as a response? Something along the lines of: "The [Political Party] supported an amendment to the definition, so that 'In order to be patentable, a computer-implemented invention must be susceptible of industrial application and new and involve an inventive step. In order to involve an inventive step, a computer-implemented invention must make a technical contribution'."?
Be aware, the EPO thinks that any software involves a 'technical contribution (or benefit or effect)'. When this sort of weasel wording goes through, we will have pure software patenting in Europe anyway. In any case, 30,000 software patents are already active in Europe (such as a patent by IBM that allows software to clear a screen [bit of hardware involved, see?]. The EPO is a law unto itself and I (cynically) expect that pressure on our MEPs is going to make very little difference.
And what is the USPTO's definition of a firewall? Does the USPTO have a convenient glossary wherein it is made very obvious when any other system does or does not constitute a firewall (or part thereof)?
What percentage of Sir Billy's income/wealth goes to charity? What percentage of income/wealth of the average (presumably working) charity-giving Joe goes to charity? Let's see who wins the pissing contest on that basis.
Slashdot Mirror
You can always factor your invoices. I met a dentist in Holland who does this as a matter of course. He has a good idea of his (necessarily reduced) income but does not get worringly into debt. And his factoring costs are probably higher as they are dealing with individuals.
The margin of error depends on the age of the sample (amongst other things). It is not fixed at 2000 years: see RC dating
First, the British Museum did no dating. They simply coordinated the results from three labs in the US, UK and Switzerland.
Second, this 'bioplastic coating' was simply a hypothesis from Stephen Mattingly of the University of Texas. STURPS Joan L. Rogers took authentic Shroud fibers, which she laboriously extracted from the STURP sampling tapes by washing them free of adhesive with xylene (not a solvent for any "bioplastic polymers"), to Metuchen, NJ, for laser-microprobe Raman analysis. The analysis is extremely sensitive, but nothing was observed that would indicate a "bioplastic polymer."
Third, even at the time, scientists in the dating lab in the UK were skeptical: P.H South, while examining threads from the sample on behalf of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory found indications of cotton. To him it seemed like material intrusion. In an article entitled "Rogue Fibers Found in Shroud," published in Textile Horizons in 1988, South write of his discovery of "a fine dark yellow strand [of cotton] possibly of Egyptian origin, and quite old . . . it may have been used for repairs at some time in the past, or simply bound in when the linen fabric was woven."
I well remember that, at the time, no one (except the odd spin doctor) thought these results conclusive and asked for more material. This was denied.
It sounded a nervous interview to me. How many times did he use the word: 'certainly'? It's a word you use if you're trying to convince a skeptic...
...companies *meaningfully* evaluate their employee's performance...
Metrics for this can be pretty vague and subjective. I found that I had to work with a team for at least a year before I could allocate numbers to: 'DB design', 'problem solving', 'accurate testing' or whatever.
Having said that, a proper evaluation also needs un upward component. Is the manager managing fairly? Is the team performance poor because the manager imposes stupid requirements? etc.etc. I've yet to see a company embrace that idea...
The article may be tongue in cheek, but it is bang on right about one thing: You might be doing incremental development but the senior management still want a 'clean' project. The system will be delivered end Q4 and no later. Yessir Mr. Big Customer, you have our word on it (without asking the development department if it's possible).
After that, they hurry down to the development departments and after some panicky discussion and massaging of the project sheet, decide that Release 2 will happen 9am Nov. 15th. So yes, you do end up de-scoping during development. I have deliberately targeted sections for de-scoping and I am sometimes deliberately vague about will be delivered (rather than adding 40% contingency). For example, administrative functions will be delivered (but they might not have the gleaming front-end that they expected). And anyway, I get lumbered with a development team cobbled at the last minute (gotta save costs!) from half the losers in the company and a prima-donna who just sneers at the usefulness of unit testing and documentation.
Managers have surprisingly little power to get the best people for the job. When a board level manager decides that all sourcing will be now be internal, instead of the shit-hot guy I interviewed the day before, I now have to persuade a luke-warm candidate who really didn't want to move, to relocate 800km. Senior managers so often think people are like PCs. Roll 'em in, plug 'em at the desk, they start being productive that morning! Project finished (well,sort of)? Roll 'em out, there's another desk waiting.
I am a manager and I have seen this sort of politics all too often. SWAN is all very nice but unless you have support all the way up the chain, you end up spending vast amounts of time fending off back-stabbers, however SWAN you might be.
Phone is better than email, but email must be used when people outright lie about what took place. If you confront people who are simply out to sabotage your every effort (perhaps because you got 'their' job), email trails and signed off notes in meetings followed by an email listing actions are mandatory. Otherwise, the job will not get done.
Most people in this business strive for well-developed, flexible and accurate software. Unfortunately, 95% of the time, for some reason we inherit hurried, buggy and inflexible software. And we (as managers) are still expected to perform miracles in very limited timescales with despondent developers. Telling senior management you'd like 9 months and another 1.5 million to get their piece of shit looking like a shiny gold nugget just doesn't go down well, however diplomatically you put it.
Use cases work well if they are targeted correctly. They can be very useful as an overview of the system to users. And how am I supposed to write my own requirements when the customer has a very different view? Customer requirements are a result of back-and-forth discussions, they know the market and the process better than you do.
Innovation is all very well, but it has to be relevant. As a manager, if there is a lull, there is nearly always a ton of other things that have more priority.
Finally, in my experience, most management in the software filed is dire. For example, in one place when I arrived, a project was already going badly. I had senior (and board level) managers coming to my teams and asking them to 'do just this little bit of documentation' or 'fix my laptop'. Senior managers who know just a little about software decided (over my objections) that the team should fix bugs their way (ie the stupid way). They would arbitrarily move people between teams working for different clients (again over my and other people's objections). It all ended up wasting large amounts of my teams' time in critical situations. On those occasions when I pointed out and proved time was being inefficiently used, I got flak for not being a 'team player'.
After nine months of this crap despite repeated pleas and discussions and explanations of why they were jeopardising the project, the CEO started a 'blame hunt'. In a crisis meeting in the board room, he pointedly asked me that if the project slippage and possible loss of a big client was not my fault, then whose was it?
By now, I'd had enough of diplomacy. He was not the one facing the ire of the client on a daily basis, I was. So I said it was his fault. I hadn't hired the people who were screwing up this project, he (and other senior management) had. If the buck stopped anywhere, it was with him.
I expected to out of the door that day. After they found out what happened (this stuff rarely stays quiet), my teams and co-workers expected not to see me the next day either.
What actually happened was that the owner of the company (who was in another country) sort of agreed with me. I outlasted the CEO and a number of the senior management. But, unfortunately, the damage had already been done and we lost the big project. I moved onto other things in the company and saw the owner a lot more. The company started going through a bad patch and shrunk considerably. Other parts were being poorly managed too. I saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship.
All very well, but what if it's an obscure design problem and the code has already been developed?
And what does an Essex girl use for protection? A bus shelter.
Boom! Boom!
Yawn. The usual boring Francophobia...
Aargh... cut and paste, paste and cut, it always goes wrong at some point: 737319th...
/. reckons I'm 623057th. So there!
And the current Home Secretary (Charles Clarke) who hinted that we should take action against "potential terrorists". Well, anybody who breathes (just about) is a 'potential' terrorist. And my wife and friends wonder why I look over my shoulder and mumble "I gotta get out of here..."
...few hairs from someone, murder his wife, spread his hairs all over the place...
My guess is that they're probably on his wife anyway. You'd need something more conclusive like fingerprints I suspect.
Trouble with that approach is that the records may also prove you innocent. And what about CCTV records or phone records or credit card transactions? All (or nearly all) are owned and tracked by private companies. Yet, in a lot of cases, they have been core to fingering serious criminals.
I take the 'overwhelmed by data' approach. Here in the UK, you cannot avoid being seen in high quality colour in just about any built-up area or mall. We are the most watched country in the world. Yet crime has not diminished significantly.
On the other hand, how are you going to avoid the odd mistake when law enforcement puts 2 + 2 together to make 22? For the paranoid, keep those records to an absolute minimum, I suppose. But also get yourself top notch legal insurance (you can get this with any life insurance, mortgage etc.) up to however many millions make you feel comfortable.
Overall though, the chances of this sort of thing happening are pretty low, otherwise it would not be news.
BatMax unblocks and regulates the flow of ions by generating an electro-magnetic cavity and oscillation frequency with negative ions emission. The ionization generated by BatMax has been mesured [sic] as a level reaching 30 times the value (7 - 8.000 Ions/cm3) of the ambiant [sic] air ionization (2 - 300 Ions/cm3). By the ions production, BatMax improves the electrodes oxidization.
I'll take two bridges please...
Cool idea, and keeping this up-to-date will be a nice little earner for someone. Presumably, photographed stores will tell A9 when things have changed... or will there be a two year delay?
I have 4Mb from Bulldog at the moment. UK Online can't supply me in my area. In general, Bulldog has a much better coverage and they throw in a rental free phone with free UK landline calls.
...floating ice in the Arctic Ocean have decreased. Globally, sea level has risen 4-8 inches over the past century.
I trust you are not connecting these two events? Floating ice will not increase mean sea levels by one micrometre.
You forgot the children...
I wrote a letter to my MEP yesterday and was surprised to get a responce
What's the betting you got a boilerplate reply as a response? Something along the lines of: "The [Political Party] supported an amendment to the definition, so that 'In order to be patentable, a computer-implemented invention must be susceptible of industrial application and new and involve an inventive step. In order to involve an inventive step, a computer-implemented invention must make a technical contribution'."?
Be aware, the EPO thinks that any software involves a 'technical contribution (or benefit or effect)'. When this sort of weasel wording goes through, we will have pure software patenting in Europe anyway. In any case, 30,000 software patents are already active in Europe (such as a patent by IBM that allows software to clear a screen [bit of hardware involved, see?]. The EPO is a law unto itself and I (cynically) expect that pressure on our MEPs is going to make very little difference.
...only for things so obvious that it's common knowledge... Murky area:
How about the snowman accessory kit (carrot, coal, scarf [5380237 and others]) or the prime number patent?
Try this
And what is the USPTO's definition of a firewall? Does the USPTO have a convenient glossary wherein it is made very obvious when any other system does or does not constitute a firewall (or part thereof)?
I suspect the writs will fly anyway.
What percentage of Sir Billy's income/wealth goes to charity? What percentage of income/wealth of the average (presumably working) charity-giving Joe goes to charity? Let's see who wins the pissing contest on that basis.