The most successful teams I've worked in have all been populated with individuals independently mentally committed to DoingTheRightThing(TM), and formal rules beyond versioned delivery of the end products were rarely needed.
Well, no: a completely toxic process-driven scheme will drive away creative and intelligent engineers. So will a completely batty and air-headed and uncontrolled 'agile' scheme. Balance and common sense is vital.
Cor, and all for the retail price of the vehicle. Aren't they lucky.
Rgds
Damon
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem.
on
The Year of the E-Bicycle
·
· Score: 4, Informative
"When bikers pay into the highway system, then they can have bike lanes."
Motorists in the UK try to use this argument too, but motoring-related taxes (in the UK) do not cover the direct costs of providing the road network IIRC. So the cyclists paying their general taxes are *already* paying, and given that wear that drives road-maintenance costs is something like the fourth power of the axle weight, the cyclists' contribution need only be tiny to be proportionate. Cyclists may already be *overpaying*...
I believe that in the UK almost the only transport form that fully recovers costs year-on-year is the train system, which people then whinge about the expense of.
Many motorists continue to behave as if the full cost of a journey is the marginal pump cost of the fuel, ignoring externalities from pollution to tarmac to road-deaths.
I commented above and I'll repeat, there is no real consistent correlation between size and dumbness IMHO.
I've worked for many large multinationals and for start-ups (my own and others) and each can be dumb in its own ways, eg the small ones with bat-shit-crazy-nasty-racist-megalomaniac CEOs with no HR to protect you, and the big ones with box-ticking endless bureaucracy.
Actually, I've been the the one in one case that ripped out the GPL code that my *manager* unthinkingly folded into our main trade-secret codebase, and we found an LGPL substitute to go in. Took the corp lawyers 10 years to understand *why*. Got a little annoying when they then tried to lecture me when they'd sorta seen the light...
So yes, stereotypes are fun, maybe, but not informative.
And sometimes rules are there for a good reason that a myopic dev doesn't grasp. Like building codes.
And sometimes when the rules say *you can't do X, you have to pass it to team Y* it's actually a blessed relief because doing *Y* is a bit of a shitty job that I'm not interested but might actually be forced to "man up" and do myself without crying.
And sometimes, eg for a current client, I volunteer to go in and do the shitty jobs to let the main team concentrate on the important and longer-term stuff. And because I'm not confusing 'fun tech' in that role with my life's work, we're happier all round. I'm not expecting to do it forever.
So, no, I think you're cynical and wrong, but that's just me. And people normally find me cynical! B^>
I have to agree on the lack of correlation between size and atmosphere.
The two most poisonous places I worked at were two of the smallest by a long long margin, maybe orders of magnitude.
I've worked (always freelance) for a lot of very big companies (on the IT side, but not IT companies) and on the whole what matters is the group you are with and in particular management directly above you IMHO. Being freelance allows me to opt out of most of the politics and dumb-HR silliness. I am the captain of my soul/company, etc...
And I clearly put bounds on the hours I want to do in the interview, and often trade money for flexibility, now in part because I have two small sprogs who I want to be able to recognise by sight, awake. And being clear but slightly non-standard screens out unreasonable, inflexible box-ticking employers.
And, BTW, I've had the vast majority of my work via word-of-mouth rather than agencies, etc.
I would have thought that this is exactly the sort of monopolistic behaviour that brought down the wrath of (for example) the EU on the heads of Microsoft and Intel.
Have you forwarded the relevant clauses to your local regulator for their reference and interest?
I was the CTO of a credit-card company. His tale is entirely plausible to me. Indeed I'm not very enthusiastic about the on-line and off-line 'new' security measures to put it mildly and essentially won't now do any (retail) transaction myself that requires them since I believe them to *reduce* security for various reasons. (I've gone back to posting cheques or phoning through 'customer not present' orders for example, and using more cash in person.)
Your last point is one of several reasons that I refuse to have Chip-and-PIN for any card that will go near a retail terminal, and I am just now beating up a retailer with the help of my card issuer and the scheme manager over refusing/voiding my PIN-suppressed ("Chip-and-sign") payment even after it had gone through, in defiance of good manners and the scheme "Honour All Cards" rules...
Never mind the shrink-wrapped log nonsense: even a real working fireplace can draw more heat out of the house then it adds, never mind the passive unwanted ventilation when unlit! Closed stoves all the way... B^>
Please tell me more about the evils of PV manufacture. Certainly it would be interesting to know, since no truth is pure and simple, relative pollution (etc) cf a MWh from conventional oil, coal, tar sands, etc, including extraction and combustion.
BTW, I suspect that ground transport *does* have good alternatives coming, just expensive. Aviation has the real problems on the horizon IMHO.
Even using all local resources available, US energy consumption is so great that those fossil fuels wouldn't last very long. So saying "screw it" to "going green" won't result in anything like current BAU soon. Even if you choose to believe that "green" and "climate change" and "conspiracy" and "Europe" and "government" and "communism" are all the same thing (are *all* US thesauruses so small and so black-and-white?), there are several independent very good reasons for switching to renewables as quickly as possible.
I'm hugely in favour of solar and wind power, but evidently you need to understand "intermittency" and "storage" a little better. Like what keeps the lights on after 5 cold still cloudy mid-winter days...
I'm DAMN sure that this would F***ING F***ING F*** THIS IDEA give me at least a F*** WHAT A STUPID IDEA NO NO NO Tourette syndrome or something GAWD DAMNIT like it. BLOODY HELL DAMN MUST BE POLITE SIGN OFF
I have a mixture of co-lo (ie where I own the box) and full-server rental, and the latter is treated much like the former for me. Occasionally chaos and cock-up has happened, but nothing worse.
When you the renter of space are managing a raw server then the hosting company should understand at the very least that you may be hosting private data (eg banking details) that they never want to incur vicarious liability for the misuse of, eg if the hoster were to gain unauthorised root access to your maachine and then customers of the Web site were to suffer financial losses soon after...
In the UK the ratio between peak and off-peak wholesale electricity can be about 10:1, and it turns out it's financially worth installing massive reversible turbines under mountain lakes to do it, so yes, with a similar cycle efficiency and a retail tariff strongly linked to wholesale prices (eg c/o "smart metering") it could be well-worth doing.
I did some preliminary pricing of a Vanadium-Redox battery to carry excess power from our PV installation from summer through to winter (about 1MWh is needed of the 2MWh we consume: we generate about 3MWh/year), and in would indeed cost more than our house. And require a 2m-deep cellar under the entire house. B^>
1) Size/weight is not irrelevant though it may not be critical: think of people with small flats/apartments.
2) NiFe has a terrible cycle efficiency and other issues, and needs regular maintenance. Having strong Potassium Hydroxide around a house full of small children would not be ideal for example.
Slashdot Mirror
Your meta-swerve is cunning but not cunning enough to fool me oh molecule gating menace! B^>
Rgds
Damon
Agreed, or at least it may be informal.
The most successful teams I've worked in have all been populated with individuals independently mentally committed to DoingTheRightThing(TM), and formal rules beyond versioned delivery of the end products were rarely needed.
Rgds
Damon
Well, no: a completely toxic process-driven scheme will drive away creative and intelligent engineers. So will a completely batty and air-headed and uncontrolled 'agile' scheme. Balance and common sense is vital.
Rgds
Damon
Cor, and all for the retail price of the vehicle. Aren't they lucky.
Rgds
Damon
"When bikers pay into the highway system, then they can have bike lanes."
Motorists in the UK try to use this argument too, but motoring-related taxes (in the UK) do not cover the direct costs of providing the road network IIRC. So the cyclists paying their general taxes are *already* paying, and given that wear that drives road-maintenance costs is something like the fourth power of the axle weight, the cyclists' contribution need only be tiny to be proportionate. Cyclists may already be *overpaying*...
I believe that in the UK almost the only transport form that fully recovers costs year-on-year is the train system, which people then whinge about the expense of.
Many motorists continue to behave as if the full cost of a journey is the marginal pump cost of the fuel, ignoring externalities from pollution to tarmac to road-deaths.
Rgds
Damon
Paint them black and Ming won't be doing many re-entries per shuttle... %-P
Rgds
Damon
Just as much as the market will bear is about right...
I commented above and I'll repeat, there is no real consistent correlation between size and dumbness IMHO.
I've worked for many large multinationals and for start-ups (my own and others) and each can be dumb in its own ways, eg the small ones with bat-shit-crazy-nasty-racist-megalomaniac CEOs with no HR to protect you, and the big ones with box-ticking endless bureaucracy.
Actually, I've been the the one in one case that ripped out the GPL code that my *manager* unthinkingly folded into our main trade-secret codebase, and we found an LGPL substitute to go in. Took the corp lawyers 10 years to understand *why*. Got a little annoying when they then tried to lecture me when they'd sorta seen the light...
So yes, stereotypes are fun, maybe, but not informative.
And sometimes rules are there for a good reason that a myopic dev doesn't grasp. Like building codes.
And sometimes when the rules say *you can't do X, you have to pass it to team Y* it's actually a blessed relief because doing *Y* is a bit of a shitty job that I'm not interested but might actually be forced to "man up" and do myself without crying.
And sometimes, eg for a current client, I volunteer to go in and do the shitty jobs to let the main team concentrate on the important and longer-term stuff. And because I'm not confusing 'fun tech' in that role with my life's work, we're happier all round. I'm not expecting to do it forever.
So, no, I think you're cynical and wrong, but that's just me. And people normally find me cynical! B^>
Rgds
Damon
I have to agree on the lack of correlation between size and atmosphere.
The two most poisonous places I worked at were two of the smallest by a long long margin, maybe orders of magnitude.
I've worked (always freelance) for a lot of very big companies (on the IT side, but not IT companies) and on the whole what matters is the group you are with and in particular management directly above you IMHO. Being freelance allows me to opt out of most of the politics and dumb-HR silliness. I am the captain of my soul/company, etc...
And I clearly put bounds on the hours I want to do in the interview, and often trade money for flexibility, now in part because I have two small sprogs who I want to be able to recognise by sight, awake. And being clear but slightly non-standard screens out unreasonable, inflexible box-ticking employers.
And, BTW, I've had the vast majority of my work via word-of-mouth rather than agencies, etc.
Rgds
Damon
I would have thought that this is exactly the sort of monopolistic behaviour that brought down the wrath of (for example) the EU on the heads of Microsoft and Intel.
Have you forwarded the relevant clauses to your local regulator for their reference and interest?
Rgds
Damon
I was the CTO of a credit-card company. His tale is entirely plausible to me. Indeed I'm not very enthusiastic about the on-line and off-line 'new' security measures to put it mildly and essentially won't now do any (retail) transaction myself that requires them since I believe them to *reduce* security for various reasons. (I've gone back to posting cheques or phoning through 'customer not present' orders for example, and using more cash in person.)
Rgds
Damon
Your last point is one of several reasons that I refuse to have Chip-and-PIN for any card that will go near a retail terminal, and I am just now beating up a retailer with the help of my card issuer and the scheme manager over refusing/voiding my PIN-suppressed ("Chip-and-sign") payment even after it had gone through, in defiance of good manners and the scheme "Honour All Cards" rules...
Rgds
Damon
Never mind the shrink-wrapped log nonsense: even a real working fireplace can draw more heat out of the house then it adds, never mind the passive unwanted ventilation when unlit! Closed stoves all the way... B^>
Please tell me more about the evils of PV manufacture. Certainly it would be interesting to know, since no truth is pure and simple, relative pollution (etc) cf a MWh from conventional oil, coal, tar sands, etc, including extraction and combustion.
BTW, I suspect that ground transport *does* have good alternatives coming, just expensive. Aviation has the real problems on the horizon IMHO.
Rgds
Damon
Even using all local resources available, US energy consumption is so great that those fossil fuels wouldn't last very long. So saying "screw it" to "going green" won't result in anything like current BAU soon. Even if you choose to believe that "green" and "climate change" and "conspiracy" and "Europe" and "government" and "communism" are all the same thing (are *all* US thesauruses so small and so black-and-white?), there are several independent very good reasons for switching to renewables as quickly as possible.
Rgds
Damon
I'm hugely in favour of solar and wind power, but evidently you need to understand "intermittency" and "storage" a little better. Like what keeps the lights on after 5 cold still cloudy mid-winter days...
Rgds
Damon
Those 'macros' would be called 'words' or 'stock phrases' such as 'ThankYouBye' or
Rgds
Damon
I'm DAMN sure that this would F***ING F***ING F*** THIS IDEA give me at least a F*** WHAT A STUPID IDEA NO NO NO Tourette syndrome or something GAWD DAMNIT like it. BLOODY HELL DAMN MUST BE POLITE SIGN OFF
Rgds
Damon
F***
When you're older than UNIX, you get to choose...
It's also how you look when trying to read the sprintf() man page on a mobile device.
Rgds
Damon
Some of us are already "on the other side".
No I don't mean Windows. %-P
Rgds
Damon
I have a mixture of co-lo (ie where I own the box) and full-server rental, and the latter is treated much like the former for me. Occasionally chaos and cock-up has happened, but nothing worse.
When you the renter of space are managing a raw server then the hosting company should understand at the very least that you may be hosting private data (eg banking details) that they never want to incur vicarious liability for the misuse of, eg if the hoster were to gain unauthorised root access to your maachine and then customers of the Web site were to suffer financial losses soon after...
Rgds
Damon
Bogons, UK
GetNetworks/JavaServletHosting, US
WebVisions, AsiaPac (currently India and Australia)
Rgds
Damon
I also agree.
No need for a provider to do this to you at all.
I use three different providers covering different parts of the world and none of them would dream of doing anything like that.
On the other hand if I *ask* them to help rescue me, they are happy to.
Rgds
Damon
In the UK the ratio between peak and off-peak wholesale electricity can be about 10:1, and it turns out it's financially worth installing massive reversible turbines under mountain lakes to do it, so yes, with a similar cycle efficiency and a retail tariff strongly linked to wholesale prices (eg c/o "smart metering") it could be well-worth doing.
Rgds
Damon
PS. Looks like a more modest 2:1 or 3:1 over the last 48h or so: http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/SystemPrices.php?pT=SYSPRICE&dT=NRT
I did some preliminary pricing of a Vanadium-Redox battery to carry excess power from our PV installation from summer through to winter (about 1MWh is needed of the 2MWh we consume: we generate about 3MWh/year), and in would indeed cost more than our house. And require a 2m-deep cellar under the entire house. B^>
Rgds
Damon
1) Size/weight is not irrelevant though it may not be critical: think of people with small flats/apartments.
2) NiFe has a terrible cycle efficiency and other issues, and needs regular maintenance. Having strong Potassium Hydroxide around a house full of small children would not be ideal for example.
Rgds
Damon