Short synopsis for those who don't want to read it: The rebuild process is intense enough to cause secondary failures in many more cases than you'd think. Because you haven't seen it yet is not indicative of the overall population, and sysadmins are payed to be prepared.
The rest of your post is arguable, but it's more a matter of opinion and practice than anything else.
The docs could be well written and as plain as day, single stepped with screen caps, and all custom info provided inline, and they'd still be shocked and offended if the helpdesk pointed it out and asked someone to follow it.
There are people that honestly expect to be read to, and "don't have the time" to figure out their own problems. They don't understand that if they do it once by themselves, that the understanding will allow them to get around things faster the next time. Thus, they get aggravated every time they have to call, and yet they keep calling. Usually they're in Sales or Marketing, and they have pointy hair..and...arghhh...
The Do It Yourselfers are unfortunately in the minority. The spoonfed, arrogantly ignorant masses will keep helpdesks in business until the paradigm shift hits the mainstream, which the original article is sadly incorrect in predicting.
Most professionals that I've worked with who are interested in getting true colors want nothing to do with "warm" incandescent light. They purposely seek out light in the 5000-6500K range to eliminate the yellow/orange cast. It's easier to add warmth back in afterwards than it is to compensate for it, white-balance wise, during a photography shoot. Yes, I'm aware there are ways around this either in-camera or with raw tweaks afterwards, but given the option in a studio where you control the light, not many I've seen will choose anything in the range you're speaking of.
I know dentists who use calibrated 5000K flourescent lights for matching up porcelain fillings to teeth. Likewise, our creative/marketing department specifically wants "daylight" CFL's to do color matching on prints and digital images. After they're done truing everything up, they may review it under multiple types of light to make sure it's still aestetically pleasing, but that's at the end of the workflow.
So, in short, no, I don't know very many professionals that think of incandescent lighting as "pleasing" to work with. They cope, they get by, they deal with it, but the ones I've worked with don't choose it if given the option.
Having worked in several IT shops it's very clear that, for many businesses, the day-to-day maintenance is dragging down the ability to innovate.
The answer is not outsourcing, it's differentiation and adoption of IT functions in other business areas. Delegate account administration to HR, since they're in charge of adds/moves/changes for staff anyway. Complex security? Script it or document it, and have your sysadmin deal with the exceptions only. HR begins to discover the employees who can't ever remember their passwords, and somehow those people disappear.;)
PC Issues? Blue Cross had a great solution to cover the 80% of the non-power-users: Re-image your PCs during an acknowledged downtime at least once a month. (I think BCBS was doing it every Sunday night) Push back down all the apps (based on their group membership) that they use to do their jobs, along with the profile/settings transfer wizards if you want to be nice. Keep their files and settings in their home directory, where they need to be for backups anyway. Most Windows stability/speed issues disappear.
User training issues? One person per department or team group is designated as the app admin for that group's apps, and is paid extra for that function. Got an Excel/Access/great plains question, go see the guru in Finance. Got a PowerPoint question, see the Sales guru. Or make a training department who's goal is too serve as power users for each app that's under the corporate umbrella, and attach that department to HR or an Administrative function.
This kind of day to day stuff shouldn't be a protected IT function. More often than not, if you farm it out, the business will get the answers to questions that are holding them back, and IT can focus on the good stuff.
I have an educated guess regarding your findings: I think there is a correlation inbetween the "living 10-15% longer" factor and the "paying attention to what you stick in your pie hole" factor. I'm of the firm belief that all diets (vegetarian, Atkins, etc) are successful for the latter reason rather than a complex biological one.
I'm thinking of marketing a Prime diet, where you only have to pay attention to what you eat on prime-numbered days of the month. I'll call you from my yacht filled with bikini babes in a few months and let you know how it worked out.
A lot of people are bandying about this "illusion of control" argument, and it's a valid one to make. Still, so far the comments are missing a really important nuance.
When I have a catastrophic failure, either at work or at home, I stay up all day and night to get the thing working again. I call in the tapes from offsite, I start a new server build while I'm waiting, and I try to minimize the downtime as much as possible. It's my job/posterior on the line, so minutes are important.
Now, put the shoe on the other foot. I'm a sysadmin at Google taking care of someone's free mailbox. Think I'm going to skip the Christmas party just to get your mailbox back? Yeah sure, I care about the company's PR, but only so much. If it were a Google employee's mailbox, then maybe. The level of effort and sense of urgency is a lot less when it's not your foot in the fire.
It's called dynamite fishing, or in it's much more manageable form, an M80 firecracker and a couple drunk guys in a boat with a net. Y'all should come South a bit more often.
Popular counter-example: buying for quality...
on
Why Do Gadgets Break?
·
· Score: 1
There are quite a few items I've purchased and used that are marketed and priced higher since their selling point is higher build quality. Example: Canon "L" series or professional lenses. I've picked up two of them used, and they've held their value for several years and are built sturdily enough to be suitable for home defense if necessary. To those who would say that lens technology hasn't improved in decades, please look up "Image Stabilization" and "low ud glass" for counter-examples. Neither of these lenses has the newest features, but they're still prized for build quality, longevity, and image quality.
Another example is Honda and Volvo cars. They cost more, and they last significantly longer than their American counterparts on average. People know this, and the resale prices reflect this as well.
In short, there's room in the market for quality goods sold at a premium, but only if demand supports it. For most consumer electronics, I don't think this is true. People are cheap, and the market responds accordingly. There is no fate but what you make.
I didn't think bottled water would sell too well either. Things that seem silly to knowledgeable and sane folks just don't sink in to the rest of the populace.
Right now I have 1.5Mb/256k ADSL from AT&T for $15 a month. The chuckleheads keep trying to sell me on "pro" service for twice as much, but in truth I hardly use the bandwidth I've got now, I'm happy with what I've got as long as they don't screw it up. Sooner or later they're going to key in on the fact that quite a bit of the demographic they've targeted is saturated for bandwidth and go after latency so they can ratchet up the price that way. That (I think) is what this tiering is all about..how to find another way to charge for the same things they sell now, without having to spend too much more on infrastructure.
I was guessing that Kari Byron of Mythbusters fame would be on that list somewhere, given how popular she is with the lads, but apparently not. And then there's Scottie, the machinist/welder from that show. A chick with a Mig welder... (wait for it) now that's hot.
And it's all in the name of science, of course. (ducks)
And a giant metal stick embedded in a mountain would make the coolest lightning rod EVER. Hey dude, wait a minute, power problem SOLVED.;)
Seriously, embedding things in/on very tall mountains creates some pretty serious logistics problems during the build phase, which might push this already prohibitively expensive project right into the "imaginary" category with a lot of other things that would be ideal if we could pay for them.
True story that happened to me a few months ago: I was applying for a new MBNA card for my wife (first mistake) when I asked them if they could send me some information about their credit protection plan against online fraud or identity theft. It was *VERY* clear I wanted them to mail me their information on the program, and the rep happily obliged and told me I'd get information in a week or two.
A week later I got a letter saying I'd been enrolled in the credit protection plan, and that I would be billed for the service on my next statement. I called the company, and they said that it was their policy that anyone who inquired about the service would be enrolled automatically if they were already an MBNA member. LET ME REPEAT, THE FUCKERS HAVE A POLICY TO AUTOMATICALLY ENROLL PEOPLE FOR INQUIRING FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT SERVICES. I didn't beleive it, so I asked to talk to a manager and they stated the same thing. They said they'd refund my money if I would wait on hold to be connected to a different department who would take my service cancellation and process it for the next cycle. We're saving up for about 200 more points, then we're spending them and cancelling all of our MBNA cards. I'm not sure who's better out there, but I'm willing to roll the dice at this point.
That's like worrying that Rush Limbaugh is going to blow his brains out. Methinks one of the key requirements in that statement might be missing. And before it's said that Gates is a benevolent man, buying your image back by helping the poor does not a conscience make.
I know you meant your comment sarcastically, but it begs an interesting question. The body would regrow these organs based on a DNA map that probably wasn't explicit in every detail, only the important structural ones. It's likely that variations could happen each time the organ was grown, even on the same subject.
I'm imagining a Slashdot geek removing a certain "organ" and depleting their reserve of stem cells trying to grow a bigger and better one...re-rolling for a 20 style.
What, did Circle K do something that wasn't kosher?
Sorry, couldn't resist that one. I worked with a devout Jew for a really long time, and every once in awhile I'd offer to share lunch with him. He kept Kosher, and he'd joke that not all of my food was "from the circle K ranch".
(to the gentile folk: the Kosher symbol on food is a K with a circle around it)
If I recall correctly, that was the episode with Bambi, the hot entomology PhD. She actually looked like one of the lab preceptors that was at University of Illinois, C-U, while I was there. (also when the show aired). I wish I remembered her name or even what her voice sounded like, but damn if the constant track of "oh-my-god-you're-so-hot" wasn't going through my head whenever she'd speak.
Any other oldtimers here pay AutoDuel on their Apple IIGS's way back in the day? That's what I'd expect from a game like Full Auto these days. A duel mode, a quest mode with exploration to different cities, and a really need upgrade tree that allows you to play to your own melee strengths. Mines and smokescreens for some, machine guns and flamethrowers for others.
Security guard: Sir, could you step over here for a moment. You've set off the metal detector.
Dr. Newsome: Oh, you must be referring to my cleverly implanted electrode that I put in my brain. Here's my doctor's note explaining the whole thing.
Security guard: Right, you put an electrode in your own brain?
Dr. Newsome: Just read the note, it'll explain everything.
Security guard: Sir, this note is signed by yourself. You can't write your own doctor's note. Do you have any other documentation? A note from your mother perhaps...
Dr. Newsome: No, but can I get on the plane now?
(I'm all for deep brain stim, as it has been proven to help with Parkinson's and other nervous disorders, but putting it in *yourself* is just hotdogging.)
In reading this, it seems like a false ray of hope to a lot of sysadmins out there who are struggling. I fear what will happen is that they will free up their schedules only to be dumped on further by middle and upper management. It's not malice, it's a survival mechanism.
Your boss's job is to keep you busy. In an ideal world, your boss's job would just be to make sure x amount of work gets done and then their responsibility ends. In the real world, your boss gets fired if you're effective enough to have 25% of your time free and you look like you're slacking off. Various ploys about acting busy only get you so far, if you finish all the assigned tasks way ahead of time, and the other stuff isn't on the "hot" list, then they assume you can fit way more on that list.
So it comes down to this, if you're stressed and overworked, your (my) boss gets praised as long as they can keep the "hot" list hot. They call it pipelining here, as in "bend over for the pipelining". If you're not stressed, they find more to do or stop investing in timesaving admin tools, since you obviously don't need them.
Yes, my job sucks. Yes, I'm looking. No, I don't buy that lots of people don't have this problem, they just don't recognize it.
There's a lot of people out there who have no concept of the Golden Mean or Rule of Thirds. If I get ahold of one of their pictures and have to edit it, I like being able to crop and have the extra resolution to zoom in. For those people, 16MP isn' even enough.
"if people are wearing dark clothing, and hiding in the woods taking long range telephoto lens pics of stuff, then maybe they are suspicious"
There are a bunch of bird and wildlife photographers, myself included, who need to do just that. And yes, they too are being hauled away for suspicious activites. You, like the police, are beginning to assume guilt based on behavior instead of proof.
1. Gather pent-up male Slashdot readers and point upwards 2. JumboTron, Natalie Portman, various cooked breakfast cereals 3.... 4. Profit! (from conglomerated space debris)...ewww...I really just typed that.
Slashdot Mirror
This is good reading:
http://storagemojo.com/?p=383
Short synopsis for those who don't want to read it: The rebuild process is intense enough to cause secondary failures in many more cases than you'd think. Because you haven't seen it yet is not indicative of the overall population, and sysadmins are payed to be prepared.
The rest of your post is arguable, but it's more a matter of opinion and practice than anything else.
The docs could be well written and as plain as day, single stepped with screen caps, and all custom info provided inline, and they'd still be shocked and offended if the helpdesk pointed it out and asked someone to follow it.
There are people that honestly expect to be read to, and "don't have the time" to figure out their own problems. They don't understand that if they do it once by themselves, that the understanding will allow them to get around things faster the next time. Thus, they get aggravated every time they have to call, and yet they keep calling. Usually they're in Sales or Marketing, and they have pointy hair..and...arghhh...
The Do It Yourselfers are unfortunately in the minority. The spoonfed, arrogantly ignorant masses will keep helpdesks in business until the paradigm shift hits the mainstream, which the original article is sadly incorrect in predicting.
Get the brooms out...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature
Most professionals that I've worked with who are interested in getting true colors want nothing to do with "warm" incandescent light. They purposely seek out light in the 5000-6500K range to eliminate the yellow/orange cast. It's easier to add warmth back in afterwards than it is to compensate for it, white-balance wise, during a photography shoot. Yes, I'm aware there are ways around this either in-camera or with raw tweaks afterwards, but given the option in a studio where you control the light, not many I've seen will choose anything in the range you're speaking of.
I know dentists who use calibrated 5000K flourescent lights for matching up porcelain fillings to teeth. Likewise, our creative/marketing department specifically wants "daylight" CFL's to do color matching on prints and digital images. After they're done truing everything up, they may review it under multiple types of light to make sure it's still aestetically pleasing, but that's at the end of the workflow.
So, in short, no, I don't know very many professionals that think of incandescent lighting as "pleasing" to work with. They cope, they get by, they deal with it, but the ones I've worked with don't choose it if given the option.
Having worked in several IT shops it's very clear that, for many businesses, the day-to-day maintenance is dragging down the ability to innovate.
;)
The answer is not outsourcing, it's differentiation and adoption of IT functions in other business areas. Delegate account administration to HR, since they're in charge of adds/moves/changes for staff anyway. Complex security? Script it or document it, and have your sysadmin deal with the exceptions only. HR begins to discover the employees who can't ever remember their passwords, and somehow those people disappear.
PC Issues? Blue Cross had a great solution to cover the 80% of the non-power-users: Re-image your PCs during an acknowledged downtime at least once a month. (I think BCBS was doing it every Sunday night) Push back down all the apps (based on their group membership) that they use to do their jobs, along with the profile/settings transfer wizards if you want to be nice. Keep their files and settings in their home directory, where they need to be for backups anyway. Most Windows stability/speed issues disappear.
User training issues? One person per department or team group is designated as the app admin for that group's apps, and is paid extra for that function. Got an Excel/Access/great plains question, go see the guru in Finance. Got a PowerPoint question, see the Sales guru. Or make a training department who's goal is too serve as power users for each app that's under the corporate umbrella, and attach that department to HR or an Administrative function.
This kind of day to day stuff shouldn't be a protected IT function. More often than not, if you farm it out, the business will get the answers to questions that are holding them back, and IT can focus on the good stuff.
jb
I have an educated guess regarding your findings: I think there is a correlation inbetween the "living 10-15% longer" factor and the "paying attention to what you stick in your pie hole" factor. I'm of the firm belief that all diets (vegetarian, Atkins, etc) are successful for the latter reason rather than a complex biological one.
I'm thinking of marketing a Prime diet, where you only have to pay attention to what you eat on prime-numbered days of the month. I'll call you from my yacht filled with bikini babes in a few months and let you know how it worked out.
A lot of people are bandying about this "illusion of control" argument, and it's a valid one to make. Still, so far the comments are missing a really important nuance.
When I have a catastrophic failure, either at work or at home, I stay up all day and night to get the thing working again. I call in the tapes from offsite, I start a new server build while I'm waiting, and I try to minimize the downtime as much as possible. It's my job/posterior on the line, so minutes are important.
Now, put the shoe on the other foot. I'm a sysadmin at Google taking care of someone's free mailbox. Think I'm going to skip the Christmas party just to get your mailbox back? Yeah sure, I care about the company's PR, but only so much. If it were a Google employee's mailbox, then maybe. The level of effort and sense of urgency is a lot less when it's not your foot in the fire.
just a thought,
jb
It's called dynamite fishing, or in it's much more manageable form, an M80 firecracker and a couple drunk guys in a boat with a net. Y'all should come South a bit more often.
There are quite a few items I've purchased and used that are marketed and priced higher since their selling point is higher build quality. Example: Canon "L" series or professional lenses. I've picked up two of them used, and they've held their value for several years and are built sturdily enough to be suitable for home defense if necessary. To those who would say that lens technology hasn't improved in decades, please look up "Image Stabilization" and "low ud glass" for counter-examples. Neither of these lenses has the newest features, but they're still prized for build quality, longevity, and image quality.
Another example is Honda and Volvo cars. They cost more, and they last significantly longer than their American counterparts on average. People know this, and the resale prices reflect this as well.
In short, there's room in the market for quality goods sold at a premium, but only if demand supports it. For most consumer electronics, I don't think this is true. People are cheap, and the market responds accordingly. There is no fate but what you make.
jb
I didn't think bottled water would sell too well either. Things that seem silly to knowledgeable and sane folks just don't sink in to the rest of the populace.
Right now I have 1.5Mb/256k ADSL from AT&T for $15 a month. The chuckleheads keep trying to sell me on "pro" service for twice as much, but in truth I hardly use the bandwidth I've got now, I'm happy with what I've got as long as they don't screw it up. Sooner or later they're going to key in on the fact that quite a bit of the demographic they've targeted is saturated for bandwidth and go after latency so they can ratchet up the price that way. That (I think) is what this tiering is all about..how to find another way to charge for the same things they sell now, without having to spend too much more on infrastructure.
I was guessing that Kari Byron of Mythbusters fame would be on that list somewhere, given how popular she is with the lads, but apparently not. And then there's Scottie, the machinist/welder from that show. A chick with a Mig welder... (wait for it) now that's hot.
And it's all in the name of science, of course. (ducks)
Anyone else notice that the registry key that was touted as preventing the IE7 upgrade doesn't do jack?
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0]
"DoNotAllowIE70"=dword:00000001
I had thought it would categorically deny even the downloaded setup file, not just setups that were (eventually) launched from inside WindowsUpdate.
And a giant metal stick embedded in a mountain would make the coolest lightning rod EVER. Hey dude, wait a minute, power problem SOLVED. ;)
Seriously, embedding things in/on very tall mountains creates some pretty serious logistics problems during the build phase, which might push this already prohibitively expensive project right into the "imaginary" category with a lot of other things that would be ideal if we could pay for them.
True story that happened to me a few months ago: I was applying for a new MBNA card for my wife (first mistake) when I asked them if they could send me some information about their credit protection plan against online fraud or identity theft. It was *VERY* clear I wanted them to mail me their information on the program, and the rep happily obliged and told me I'd get information in a week or two.
A week later I got a letter saying I'd been enrolled in the credit protection plan, and that I would be billed for the service on my next statement. I called the company, and they said that it was their policy that anyone who inquired about the service would be enrolled automatically if they were already an MBNA member. LET ME REPEAT, THE FUCKERS HAVE A POLICY TO AUTOMATICALLY ENROLL PEOPLE FOR INQUIRING FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT SERVICES. I didn't beleive it, so I asked to talk to a manager and they stated the same thing. They said they'd refund my money if I would wait on hold to be connected to a different department who would take my service cancellation and process it for the next cycle. We're saving up for about 200 more points, then we're spending them and cancelling all of our MBNA cards. I'm not sure who's better out there, but I'm willing to roll the dice at this point.
So if you shake it more than three times, does it scold you for "playing with it"?
That's like worrying that Rush Limbaugh is going to blow his brains out. Methinks one of the key requirements in that statement might be missing. And before it's said that Gates is a benevolent man, buying your image back by helping the poor does not a conscience make.
I know you meant your comment sarcastically, but it begs an interesting question. The body would regrow these organs based on a DNA map that probably wasn't explicit in every detail, only the important structural ones. It's likely that variations could happen each time the organ was grown, even on the same subject.
I'm imagining a Slashdot geek removing a certain "organ" and depleting their reserve of stem cells trying to grow a bigger and better one...re-rolling for a 20 style.
What, did Circle K do something that wasn't kosher?
Sorry, couldn't resist that one. I worked with a devout Jew for a really long time, and every once in awhile I'd offer to share lunch with him. He kept Kosher, and he'd joke that not all of my food was "from the circle K ranch".
(to the gentile folk: the Kosher symbol on food is a K with a circle around it)
If I recall correctly, that was the episode with Bambi, the hot entomology PhD. She actually looked like one of the lab preceptors that was at University of Illinois, C-U, while I was there. (also when the show aired). I wish I remembered her name or even what her voice sounded like, but damn if the constant track of "oh-my-god-you're-so-hot" wasn't going through my head whenever she'd speak.
Any other oldtimers here pay AutoDuel on their Apple IIGS's way back in the day? That's what I'd expect from a game like Full Auto these days. A duel mode, a quest mode with exploration to different cities, and a really need upgrade tree that allows you to play to your own melee strengths. Mines and smokescreens for some, machine guns and flamethrowers for others.
*beep beep*
Security guard: Sir, could you step over here for a moment. You've set off the metal detector.
Dr. Newsome: Oh, you must be referring to my cleverly implanted electrode that I put in my brain. Here's my doctor's note explaining the whole thing.
Security guard: Right, you put an electrode in your own brain?
Dr. Newsome: Just read the note, it'll explain everything.
Security guard: Sir, this note is signed by yourself. You can't write your own doctor's note. Do you have any other documentation? A note from your mother perhaps...
Dr. Newsome: No, but can I get on the plane now?
(I'm all for deep brain stim, as it has been proven to help with Parkinson's and other nervous disorders, but putting it in *yourself* is just hotdogging.)
In reading this, it seems like a false ray of hope to a lot of sysadmins out there who are struggling. I fear what will happen is that they will free up their schedules only to be dumped on further by middle and upper management. It's not malice, it's a survival mechanism.
Your boss's job is to keep you busy. In an ideal world, your boss's job would just be to make sure x amount of work gets done and then their responsibility ends. In the real world, your boss gets fired if you're effective enough to have 25% of your time free and you look like you're slacking off. Various ploys about acting busy only get you so far, if you finish all the assigned tasks way ahead of time, and the other stuff isn't on the "hot" list, then they assume you can fit way more on that list.
So it comes down to this, if you're stressed and overworked, your (my) boss gets praised as long as they can keep the "hot" list hot. They call it pipelining here, as in "bend over for the pipelining". If you're not stressed, they find more to do or stop investing in timesaving admin tools, since you obviously don't need them.
Yes, my job sucks. Yes, I'm looking. No, I don't buy that lots of people don't have this problem, they just don't recognize it.
Udi, ouldway ouyay ikelay otay akemay otslay ofway oneymay?
There's a lot of people out there who have no concept of the Golden Mean or Rule of Thirds. If I get ahold of one of their pictures and have to edit it, I like being able to crop and have the extra resolution to zoom in. For those people, 16MP isn' even enough.
"if people are wearing dark clothing, and hiding in the woods taking long range telephoto lens pics of stuff, then maybe they are suspicious"
There are a bunch of bird and wildlife photographers, myself included, who need to do just that. And yes, they too are being hauled away for suspicious activites. You, like the police, are beginning to assume guilt based on behavior instead of proof.
1. Gather pent-up male Slashdot readers and point upwards ... ...ewww...I really just typed that.
2. JumboTron, Natalie Portman, various cooked breakfast cereals
3.
4. Profit! (from conglomerated space debris)