Why blame the developer who wrote the buggy code, and not the tester who missed the bug? What about the designer who produces a complicated bug-prone design?
You could also blame the tech writer who wrote an incomplete/inaccurate installation manual, or the manager who waited too long to hire the tech writer, or the executive who didn't budget for the tech writer.
I think it's abundantly clear that this Schmidt guy never actually worked in software development, he's definitely got the executive/sociopath mentality: "Let the monkey go and blame the monkey wrench", as the Rainmakers put it.
Wouldn't that be like holding a car manufacturer liable for mis-use of a vehicle?
Not exactly. It would be more like holding the manufacturer's assembly line technician responsible for mis-use of the vehicle. TFA seems to imply holding individual developers within an organization responsible for the code, not the organization as a whole.
Before you accuse me of shirking "individual responsibility", ask yourself just how much control over a whole project any individual developer has. Quality and robustness are the responsibility of the whole team -- that means everyone from Peon Coder Junior Grade on up to CEO who sets the overall attitude for the whole organization. You simply cannot single out a solitary developer whose code gets reused in a manner he didn't intend years after he wrote it by someone else he didn't know in a product that didn't exist when he wrote it.
The number of people who support a piece of legislation is irrelivant in terms of whether a law is right or wrong. At some point in our nation's history it was only a handful of people who wanted to:
* free the slaves
* allow women to vote
* legalize abortion
The supporters of these political changes may have been minorities, but certainly not a "handful". Let's forget about the word "handful" for a moment.
Today we're not talking about people, we're talking about companies bribing Congress to change the laws on their behalf. And we're letting congress change from a representative body into an auctioneers' association. Companies really shouldn't have the same rights as natural persons. This would go a long way to rectifying the problem of legislation by auction.
Before the internet was on computers, I liked the ads in Computer Shopper. Each month I'd scan through them, mentally building my dream system. It was actually an activity that my Dad and I enjoyed together. I think he found our first awesome 2400 bps modem in CS. But I'm still waiting for the return of the Amiga Section -- they promised to bring it back.
I guess the difference between the ads I like and don't like is that I like them if I'm looking for them.
But, yeah, I block most online ads. I'll "*" a whole domain if they're really annoying . I consider ads in the middle of a story to be annoying. And I only watch TV on my TiVo, so I skip commercials. These fall into the category of "ads I'm not looking for."
Actually, "Blood phobias" often result in syncope if the stimulus is not removed, so putting them under is not necessary. Unfortunately, passing out in the hospital is a Bad Thing as it may lead to admission. And Xanax doesn't help -- at least not for me -- for Blood Phobia.
Interesting question. What they call "Blood, Injury (and Injection)" phobia is actually rather different from other phobias. Most specific phobias produce anxiety and the desire to fight, flee or freeze. BII phobia causes a brief anziety-type reaction followed by light-headedness and sometimes loss of conciousness (syncope). A paper published in Circulation (a journal of the American Heart Association) suggests that it is not a "phobia" at all, but a different type of condition related to neural circulatory control. Text and abstract are here: http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/104/8 /903
Sorry about your experience. I consider myself lucky that my physician was very familiar with the symptoms of anxiety. I assume that she'd probably suffered herself from the accuracy of diagnosis, but perhaps someone close or even a recent continuing ed thing on nervous disorders. Anyway, you're absolutely right that it can be a terrifying road to diagnosis, and anyting that would speed up the process would be a huge boon.
They'll get your blood when you show up in the ER with heart attack symptoms. This is often a panic sufferer's first contact with a doctor. You'll hardly notice the needle stick with everything else going on.
For personal reasons, I've done a lot of library research on anxiety. You can have very serious anxiety problems with using any caffiene. Not an MD, just an interested patient with a reading addiction.
Too much caffeine can cause the same sort of symptoms as various anxiety disorders, but that's relatively easy to diagnose and treat. And cutting back or eliminating caffiene is almost always recommended in treatment of people with anxiety disorders. Caffiene can also make tranquilizers and other therapies less effective. Psychaiatrists know this, and you'll also find that info in most books on anxiety at the library -- assuming that your agorophobia hasn't gotten too bad to go out, yet.
A lot of people end up in hospital emergency rooms when they have their first panic attack. It resembles the symptoms of a heart attack in many cases. An anxiety blood test might be very helpful for the ER doc to get you out of the hospital with a referral to a psychiatrist. It might also be reassuring for the patient at that point, being that the condition is generally treatable. Could save you the trouble and expense of a battery of unnecessary heart diagnosics, too.
My cell phone, my beard trimmer, and my toothbrush already recharge wirelessly... sure, I have to place them in their cradles and line up the contacts, but it's still approximately the same.
I think a better term (than "wireless') to express the difference between your cell phone/cradle and the one in the article might be "contactless". Not as in "not touching" but as in "no electrical contracts".
As you say, it's not that much different fundamentally, magnetic vs. electrical coupling. However, it would be nice to reduce the number of wall warts I need to charge everything portable I own.
Now for some "pie in the sky": A reduced number of electrical contact schemes/voltages would be my choice. If there were 3 or 4 "standard" charger plug/voltage combinations, then perhaps a majority of the world's portable devices could use one of those. We could even color code the jacks/plugs. When a power supply dies, just go to Target/Walmart/whatever and get a new "orange" adapter. IAAEE, and I admit that I have been arbitrary when selecting power jacks. But I've also been involved in some good decisions, too, and having a standard like this could make it easier to make more of the latter.
3. Medications especially for things like anti-depressants or treatments for STDs. ..
4. The books you read. ..
All of these things can be used against you by your employer or insurance company.
HOW? You can't just throw FUD out there and hope it sticks.
How these things could be used against you?
Just a few examples off the top of my head.
1. Alcohol. Higher insurance premiums for drinkers, or heavy drinkers, or malt-liquor drinkers. The question of did he or did he not actually consume it would be irrelevant for the users of the data, they're not trying to prove it in a court of law, they're just using it as an excuse.
2. Birth Control. Again, higher insurance premiums for people who use too many (or too few) condoms. Increased risk of STDs and pregnancy. Or maybe you're the IT director at some fundamentalist whack-job church -- any purchase of birth control gets you sacked for not being fruitful and multiplying enough.
3. Perscriptions. Your employer probably already knows if you're on the company insurance plan, and your insurance company certainly knows unless you self pay. But again, insurance co. would love to know as much as possible about you, legal or not. They're not going to tell you they went through your trash.
4. Books. Again, I think we'd assume for harassment purposes that you read any book you buy. Whole categories of readers could be assumed to be untrustworty in their jobs because of their reading habits. Jobs with secrets, or working with children, or the elderly, or in a pharmacy, just to name a few.
I imagine someone paid to come up with evil things to do with personal infomation (like HR director or Insurance risk-analyst) could make a much longer list than mine.
Also, with regard to "throwing FUD out there" . . . the "U" is "uncertainty", the unknown. You cannot, by definition, enumerate the unknown. It's difficult to discuss the future without some degree of speculation.
I guess you're right. Since there are thousands of pop songs created each year (at least) the odds that they're all crap are pretty small. You're "playing the percentages". Still, I'd hate to be the guy to conduct the exhaustive search for the gems in the garbage heap. It can be tough work. Good music might need to grow on you, while passable tunes sound good at first and get progressively more cloying.
BTW, the American counterpart to the English Music Hall is "Vaudeville."
Cheer up, Monday morning will be here sooner than you think.
The article implies that the real work is done by human analysts. All the software seems to do is calculate relative distances between the analyses. Not totally trivial, but not that novel either. The real creativity would be in developing that list of several hundred characteristics, finding descriptors that are sufficiently "orthogonal" to distinguish disimilar songs and match close ones.
In fact, all these royalties RIAA has demanded from satellite radio . ..[a]re completely new previously unheard of royalties. And it's all based on "caching".
I think the actual term for RIAA's practice is "cashing".
Neither his/her name nor his/her IP address are in the letter. There are two names listed that I noticed: The Media Sentry guy (Mark Weaver) and the "Abuse" address at speakeasy.net ("Abe Usetonsen" - Abe Use - Abuse - get it?). The IP address near the bottom has been redacted with Xs.
If one were really obnoxious, one could send fan mail to Mr. Weaver, but I don't know why one would.
Why enforce unreasonable requirements upon the system such as "it must be a PC."?
Because then the story would be one sentence long. It's those requirements that make for an interesting read. The limitations provide an opportunity for creativity, like writing a sonnet, painting a watercolor or retelling bible stories in the medium of Lego.
Bugzilla is browser-based, so your client is your web browser. It's about as close to "runs anywhere" as you can get. No installation, no local maintenance. What makes or breaks bugzilla or any bug-tracking system is your team. Getting your engineers and programmers to use it is important, but getting the rest of the company to "buy in" can be tough. And it's their input to the bug process (including the "bug closing" part) that can be crucial. Everyone wants to complain about bugs, no one wants to help confirm the fix.
There are loads of bug tracking/defect management packages out there for any platform you can imagine. Search Freshmeat or Sourceforge on those terms for an overview.
Bugzilla isn't really set up for project tracking. It's more for logging and responding to defect and improvement requests throughout their lifecycles. E.g. A finds bug, B confirms bug, C fixes bug, sends it back to A to confirm it's fixed, etc. There are some free alternatives to MS Project, including Planner and OpenSched, which might do what you're looking for. Probably some other free or low cost Gantt chart creating/updating packages, too.
I never really understood the use of having a desktop client such as this or yahoo desktop or google desktop. I guess windows users are just getting lazier by the minute.
One man's laziness is another's efficiency. If you've got users who are more efficient with a desktop app than they are with a web app, then give 'em the desktop. Assuming that "time is money" in your organization, then if you save time, you save money. Also, giving your users the impression that you care about how they prefer to work -- and you accomodate them -- might win you some good-will points or boost morale. So why not offer a desktop choice?
One important thing I'll add for those who don't want to read up on Maslow: As the title "Pyramid" implies, each stage (or level) of satisfaction depends on the levels below it being fulfullied. At any given time, your behavior will be shaped by the desire to fulfil the most basic (lowest) of these needs that is currently unfulfilled.
Mosts texts on management and supervision mention the Maslow Pyramid and how it applies to workplace satisfaction. Yet I've never met a manager who seems to be even vaguely familiar with the concept.
The article really doesn't explore the "causes" of happiness at all. It offers no real suggestions to the unhappy except to 'get happy' cause you'll live longer and have a better immune system, or maybe that having a better immune system will make you happier. At any rate, there's precious little suggestions for any controllable factors.
I'm not so much disagreeing with your observations as I am commenting on the idea that you can decide to be happy. I really hate to see happiness described as a matter of attitude. I spent several years trying to be happy, trying to have a positive attitude. Although I am historically not a happy person, those years of attempting happiness were the most miserable of my life. I decided to be happy, I used perscription drugs, got professional help, and really tried, but I cannot will myself to be happy any more than I can will myself to become an emu.
I think the worst part of the whole experience was attempting to be something I'm not. Trying to conform to other people's ideas of how I should see things. When you have a "bad" attitude, people feel free to tell you that you shouldn't feel that way. Family, friends and coworkers will tell you to "get help". This is who I am. If I changed, I'd be someone else. I have never had such intense anxiety as I had during my "happiness crusade". I'm talking chest-pain, tingly finger, hiding under the desk anxiety.
It is just not worth it to try to please people by being "happy" for them. Perhaps, as the article suggests, happy people live longer. Good for them -- But honestly, I'm not happy for them. If your creator, who- or what-ever you believe that to be, wanted you to be happy, [he] would have made this world a better place. But it isn't a better place. As it is, I'm not too thrilled with the world. Unlike you happy people, though, I'm not just sitting there wallowing in self-approbation, I'm trying to do something about it. So perhaps there is something worthwhile in being unhappy.
Take a look at all the things that make you happy, that make life more pleasant and less difficult. Were music, art, medicine and technology all created by people who were able to find contentment in the way things were? Or were they possibly the work of the discontented, the dissatisfied, and the unhappy? So I'm sorry if I bring you down, but I'm a lot happier being unhappy.
Your post really discredits people from the past and cheapens their individual contributions.
I don't think this was the original poster's point at all. I think the point was that the views of humanity change not because we as individuals change our minds, but because we die and someone else with another viewpoint takes our place. In fact, that post credits the people of the past for their contributions that have gotten us this far. For their discoveries that we benefit from, for their thoughts and philosophies that we can study and discuss and build on.
However, I would agree that if a person could grow unnaturally old (by our standards), then their views might be unnaturally conservative as well -- based as they were, in the distant past. In this sense, death is a "rejuvenator" of society. It provides open and fertile ground for new thinkers, nourished by the contributions of the past. This view takes nothing away from our ancestors.
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You could also blame the tech writer who wrote an incomplete/inaccurate installation manual, or the manager who waited too long to hire the tech writer, or the executive who didn't budget for the tech writer.
I think it's abundantly clear that this Schmidt guy never actually worked in software development, he's definitely got the executive/sociopath mentality: "Let the monkey go and blame the monkey wrench", as the Rainmakers put it.
Not exactly. It would be more like holding the manufacturer's assembly line technician responsible for mis-use of the vehicle. TFA seems to imply holding individual developers within an organization responsible for the code, not the organization as a whole.
Before you accuse me of shirking "individual responsibility", ask yourself just how much control over a whole project any individual developer has. Quality and robustness are the responsibility of the whole team -- that means everyone from Peon Coder Junior Grade on up to CEO who sets the overall attitude for the whole organization. You simply cannot single out a solitary developer whose code gets reused in a manner he didn't intend years after he wrote it by someone else he didn't know in a product that didn't exist when he wrote it.
* free the slaves
* allow women to vote
* legalize abortion
The supporters of these political changes may have been minorities, but certainly not a "handful". Let's forget about the word "handful" for a moment.
Today we're not talking about people, we're talking about companies bribing Congress to change the laws on their behalf. And we're letting congress change from a representative body into an auctioneers' association. Companies really shouldn't have the same rights as natural persons. This would go a long way to rectifying the problem of legislation by auction.
I guess the difference between the ads I like and don't like is that I like them if I'm looking for them.
But, yeah, I block most online ads. I'll "*" a whole domain if they're really annoying . I consider ads in the middle of a story to be annoying. And I only watch TV on my TiVo, so I skip commercials. These fall into the category of "ads I'm not looking for."
Actually, "Blood phobias" often result in syncope if the stimulus is not removed, so putting them under is not necessary. Unfortunately, passing out in the hospital is a Bad Thing as it may lead to admission. And Xanax doesn't help -- at least not for me -- for Blood Phobia.
Interesting question. What they call "Blood, Injury (and Injection)" phobia is actually rather different from other phobias. Most specific phobias produce anxiety and the desire to fight, flee or freeze. BII phobia causes a brief anziety-type reaction followed by light-headedness and sometimes loss of conciousness (syncope). A paper published in Circulation (a journal of the American Heart Association) suggests that it is not a "phobia" at all, but a different type of condition related to neural circulatory control. Text and abstract are here: http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/104/8 /903
Sorry about your experience. I consider myself lucky that my physician was very familiar with the symptoms of anxiety. I assume that she'd probably suffered herself from the accuracy of diagnosis, but perhaps someone close or even a recent continuing ed thing on nervous disorders. Anyway, you're absolutely right that it can be a terrifying road to diagnosis, and anyting that would speed up the process would be a huge boon.
They'll get your blood when you show up in the ER with heart attack symptoms. This is often a panic sufferer's first contact with a doctor. You'll hardly notice the needle stick with everything else going on.
Too much caffeine can cause the same sort of symptoms as various anxiety disorders, but that's relatively easy to diagnose and treat. And cutting back or eliminating caffiene is almost always recommended in treatment of people with anxiety disorders. Caffiene can also make tranquilizers and other therapies less effective. Psychaiatrists know this, and you'll also find that info in most books on anxiety at the library -- assuming that your agorophobia hasn't gotten too bad to go out, yet.
A lot of people end up in hospital emergency rooms when they have their first panic attack. It resembles the symptoms of a heart attack in many cases. An anxiety blood test might be very helpful for the ER doc to get you out of the hospital with a referral to a psychiatrist. It might also be reassuring for the patient at that point, being that the condition is generally treatable. Could save you the trouble and expense of a battery of unnecessary heart diagnosics, too.
I think a better term (than "wireless') to express the difference between your cell phone/cradle and the one in the article might be "contactless". Not as in "not touching" but as in "no electrical contracts".
As you say, it's not that much different fundamentally, magnetic vs. electrical coupling. However, it would be nice to reduce the number of wall warts I need to charge everything portable I own.
Now for some "pie in the sky": A reduced number of electrical contact schemes/voltages would be my choice. If there were 3 or 4 "standard" charger plug/voltage combinations, then perhaps a majority of the world's portable devices could use one of those. We could even color code the jacks/plugs. When a power supply dies, just go to Target/Walmart/whatever and get a new "orange" adapter. IAAEE, and I admit that I have been arbitrary when selecting power jacks. But I've also been involved in some good decisions, too, and having a standard like this could make it easier to make more of the latter.
2. Your method of birth control. . .
3. Medications especially for things like anti-depressants or treatments for STDs. . .
4. The books you read. . .
All of these things can be used against you by your employer or insurance company.
HOW? You can't just throw FUD out there and hope it sticks. How these things could be used against you?
Just a few examples off the top of my head.
1. Alcohol. Higher insurance premiums for drinkers, or heavy drinkers, or malt-liquor drinkers. The question of did he or did he not actually consume it would be irrelevant for the users of the data, they're not trying to prove it in a court of law, they're just using it as an excuse.
2. Birth Control. Again, higher insurance premiums for people who use too many (or too few) condoms. Increased risk of STDs and pregnancy. Or maybe you're the IT director at some fundamentalist whack-job church -- any purchase of birth control gets you sacked for not being fruitful and multiplying enough.
3. Perscriptions. Your employer probably already knows if you're on the company insurance plan, and your insurance company certainly knows unless you self pay. But again, insurance co. would love to know as much as possible about you, legal or not. They're not going to tell you they went through your trash.
4. Books. Again, I think we'd assume for harassment purposes that you read any book you buy. Whole categories of readers could be assumed to be untrustworty in their jobs because of their reading habits. Jobs with secrets, or working with children, or the elderly, or in a pharmacy, just to name a few.
I imagine someone paid to come up with evil things to do with personal infomation (like HR director or Insurance risk-analyst) could make a much longer list than mine.
Also, with regard to "throwing FUD out there" . . . the "U" is "uncertainty", the unknown. You cannot, by definition, enumerate the unknown. It's difficult to discuss the future without some degree of speculation.
BTW, the American counterpart to the English Music Hall is "Vaudeville."
Cheer up, Monday morning will be here sooner than you think.
The article implies that the real work is done by human analysts. All the software seems to do is calculate relative distances between the analyses. Not totally trivial, but not that novel either. The real creativity would be in developing that list of several hundred characteristics, finding descriptors that are sufficiently "orthogonal" to distinguish disimilar songs and match close ones.
I think the actual term for RIAA's practice is "cashing".
If one were really obnoxious, one could send fan mail to Mr. Weaver, but I don't know why one would.
Because then the story would be one sentence long. It's those requirements that make for an interesting read. The limitations provide an opportunity for creativity, like writing a sonnet, painting a watercolor or retelling bible stories in the medium of Lego.
There are loads of bug tracking/defect management packages out there for any platform you can imagine. Search Freshmeat or Sourceforge on those terms for an overview.
Bugzilla isn't really set up for project tracking. It's more for logging and responding to defect and improvement requests throughout their lifecycles. E.g. A finds bug, B confirms bug, C fixes bug, sends it back to A to confirm it's fixed, etc. There are some free alternatives to MS Project, including Planner and OpenSched, which might do what you're looking for. Probably some other free or low cost Gantt chart creating/updating packages, too.
One man's laziness is another's efficiency. If you've got users who are more efficient with a desktop app than they are with a web app, then give 'em the desktop. Assuming that "time is money" in your organization, then if you save time, you save money. Also, giving your users the impression that you care about how they prefer to work -- and you accomodate them -- might win you some good-will points or boost morale. So why not offer a desktop choice?
Mosts texts on management and supervision mention the Maslow Pyramid and how it applies to workplace satisfaction. Yet I've never met a manager who seems to be even vaguely familiar with the concept.
I couldn't argee more.
The article really doesn't explore the "causes" of happiness at all. It offers no real suggestions to the unhappy except to 'get happy' cause you'll live longer and have a better immune system, or maybe that having a better immune system will make you happier. At any rate, there's precious little suggestions for any controllable factors.
I think the worst part of the whole experience was attempting to be something I'm not. Trying to conform to other people's ideas of how I should see things. When you have a "bad" attitude, people feel free to tell you that you shouldn't feel that way. Family, friends and coworkers will tell you to "get help". This is who I am. If I changed, I'd be someone else. I have never had such intense anxiety as I had during my "happiness crusade". I'm talking chest-pain, tingly finger, hiding under the desk anxiety.
It is just not worth it to try to please people by being "happy" for them. Perhaps, as the article suggests, happy people live longer. Good for them -- But honestly, I'm not happy for them. If your creator, who- or what-ever you believe that to be, wanted you to be happy, [he] would have made this world a better place. But it isn't a better place. As it is, I'm not too thrilled with the world. Unlike you happy people, though, I'm not just sitting there wallowing in self-approbation, I'm trying to do something about it. So perhaps there is something worthwhile in being unhappy.
Take a look at all the things that make you happy, that make life more pleasant and less difficult. Were music, art, medicine and technology all created by people who were able to find contentment in the way things were? Or were they possibly the work of the discontented, the dissatisfied, and the unhappy? So I'm sorry if I bring you down, but I'm a lot happier being unhappy.
I don't think this was the original poster's point at all. I think the point was that the views of humanity change not because we as individuals change our minds, but because we die and someone else with another viewpoint takes our place. In fact, that post credits the people of the past for their contributions that have gotten us this far. For their discoveries that we benefit from, for their thoughts and philosophies that we can study and discuss and build on.
However, I would agree that if a person could grow unnaturally old (by our standards), then their views might be unnaturally conservative as well -- based as they were, in the distant past. In this sense, death is a "rejuvenator" of society. It provides open and fertile ground for new thinkers, nourished by the contributions of the past. This view takes nothing away from our ancestors.
I don't think I follow your power estimate for a human laborer.
1. kWs, or kilowatt-seconds, would be a unit of energy, not power.
2. A killowatt-second would be 1 kJ.
3. Did you maybe mean "kWs" to be the "plural" of kW. Cause then, your numbers are way off.
4. A human who eats about 2000 calories a day and turns it all into work (somehow) still averages about 100 watts.
5. 2000 food calories is actually 2000 kCal, I know. That's what I used.
6. 200 kW is more like the power produced by an automobile engine. A rather powerful one.
So when you speak of harnassing a human's intellect rather than his brawn for maximum benefit, I would agree.