The problem - both with the tools and the software - is that you just can't properly do the job with some of them.
I used to manage a couple auto repair shops. The mechanics who showed up with Rigid air guns were told that under no circumstances were they to use that POS to tighten people's lug nuts. Use a hand wrench or get a proper air gun.
Similarly, some software fundamentally can't do the job.
As you say, you are young. Apparently also naive about the ways of the world.
The problem with your theory is that you need to manage the boss's impression of you before they go into the "who do we get rid of" decision making process.
Once they've decided to get rid of you, no amount of waving statistics at them is going to stop it.
1. It makes them look weak. 2. It makes them look stupid. 3. There's a risk of you taking revenge on them for wanting to get rid of you (especially if you have access to production systems.)
There's also a practical problem with your suggestion.
At my workplace, we put one "defect" in the database for each major feature. That "defect" may represent 30 pages of requirements document. We create the defect because we have a rule of all source control submissions having an associated defect.
If I get that "defect" assigned to me, and complete it successfully, I show one closed "defect."
If, however, I screw it all up, the testers are going to write 20 defects against the work, and they're all going to be assigned to me. I ultimately fix them all and have 21 closed defects.
Who's the better developer - the guy who closed one defect or the guy who closed twenty-one?
I was thinking of "risk" strictly in terms of odds of dying by participating in that enterprise.
If I were to get on a ship from England to the East Indies in 1600, is the probability of me dying higher or lower than if I were to get on a modern rocket to space?
If I'm not mistaken (and Wikipedia's got it right) it's also the origins of Lloyds of London. In fact, shipping risk appears to be one of the major factors in the creation of insurance as we know it, dating back almost 4000 years.
Is there substantially more risk in a modern space launch than in a 400 years ago from England to the East Indies?
My wife grew up in the city, I moved here 10 years ago.
She says that in the city proper, you'll get a ticket for driving violations but not for speeding, whereas in the suburbs, you'll get a ticket for speeding but probably nothing else. In fact, a driving instructor at one of those "you got a ticket, keep it off your record" classes told her this.
I'd rather lose the "good" (but also probably arrogant and self-important) people who don't want to take a test and also lose the incompetents.
There's no shame in taking a test to get a job. Even the big movie stars sometimes have to audition for a role. People just need to get over themselves.
I completely agree about the salary discussion. I've got a pretty good job now, in a company that pays a substantial annual bonus. Make it worth my while up front.
But, I'll do your "what is a class" one better.
We mostly do C in a Unix command-line environment. I usually preface this by saying that we need to do some basic validation of knowledge, and please, don't be insulted by the questions. Then I ask...
1. What does an asterisk (*) mean in C? Any correct answer (multiplication, pointer dereference, pointer declaration, etc) is acceptable. 2. What does "static" mean for a variable in a function? 3. What does "static" mean for a variable not in a function? 4. How do you list the files in the current directory? 5. How do you change to a different directory?
I had one interviewee who, despite a fantastic multi-page resume featuring Unix, C and C++ everywhere, could not answer ANY of these questions in the phone interview. Needless to say, we did not have him in.
There was another one who sounded like he was reading the answers off something (remember, these are phone interviews) and he couldn't manage to actually explain what he meant - just repeat the same words in a different order. Once again, not invited in.
"Easy-going attitude" isn't the same as what I'm talking about. If something is broken and truly needs attention, it needs to be taken care of. Sounds like that viaduct should have been closed....
But the occasional extreme risk seems to horrify people more now than it did a mere 20 years ago.
I think it is, in part, because most people's normal life is made so safe with thick padded cushions.
America, in part I believe due to the sobbing heads on television anytime anything bad happens, has become so risk-adverse as to make it impossible to consider doing anything risky.
When the Apollo program was in full swing, monkey bars of rusty steel stood on fields of asphalt.
Cars had lap belts but nobody used them. Babies rode on their parent's lap, bigger children rode on the parcel shelf, and nobody wore a helmet on a bicycle or knee pads while skating.
Life was risky, and people understood that and made decisions and the country was run by adults.
We need to grow up again and understand that cost benefit analysis can include human lives, and that making that calculation doesn't make you evil.
The patent system is designed to give innovators a temporary monopoly on their innovation, in order to encourage that innovation.
I don't think most people would argue with saying Tivo was an innovator, unlike the "troll" companies who have no product except to enforce patents that they acquired rights to.
Tivo has a product, and they have a legitimate right to enforce their patent rights against companies infringing on those patents.
I agree, travel has actually gotten better in some ways since 9/11.
I have never traveled internationally, but the domestic security folks are a lot more competent than they were before the TSA. And they're more accustomed to people who set off the alarm.
My wife has some joints that were replaced, so she can keep "trying again" with the metal detector forever, she's going to beep.
On our honeymoon (in 2000) the security guards at O'Hare Airport couldn't even successfully communicate what they wanted her to do. We flew to Hawaii this year, and they have the glass booth for her to wait in, and it's all professional and handled quickly. By the time I had my shoes back on and the laptops back in the bags, she was walking over to meet me.
Yes, I flew on a 757 a few weeks ago (and had what the pilot admitted after was "his worst landing ever") and those ceiling trim panels were moving all over the place during that landing. Was kind of scary to see until you remember they're just plastic trim plates, not actually structural.
I'm not 100% sure it's possible to develop a SecondLife object outside SecondLife. I'm sure someone here knows. I've tried it in SL and there's too much fussy mousing for me to ever do it. I would guess the textures get done in some normal graphics editor like Paintshop or Gimp or whatever.
He probably developed it then transferred ownership of the objects within SL to the client. SL objects have both owner and creator attributes, and rather complicated permissions about what can be done with the object based on those roles.
It sounds like the object owner (Gospel Voom's client) transferred both Real Life and Second Life ownership of the objects (such as they had) to another party, who in turn moved the objects to Open Life, and, in the course of that move, lost the creator attribute being set to Gospel Voom, likely because Gospel Voom doesn't have an Open Life account.
So Voom is mad because he lost the attribution of his work (just like if you scraped the signature off a painting.)
I got the feeling from the article he'd be satisfied with getting the attribution put there in Open Life but I may have missed something, I read it pretty quickly. There probably isn't any way to do that without intervention by the Open Life system operators except to re-do the import to Open Life which is probably more trouble than the current owner is willing to do being forced to do so.
You really think Science & Industry is worth visiting? I was actually going to recommend against it.
I was there a couple years ago and was really disappointed. Seemed like very little had been updated since I was small (and I'm 40 now.) The plumbing display was leaking (spewing) blue water, the tractor was 20-year-old tech. We didn't do the submarine or the coal mine but it all seemed really decrepit.
The stuff that had been updated seemed like all the content had been updated right out of it.
I'd hate to live wherever it is you are. Where is it, anyhow?
I live in a quiet suburb of Chicago.
I've accidentally left the back door unlocked for days with no problems. (Don't tell my wife.)
We have neighbors with a very similar address who we don't know at all, really, but we routinely trade packages.
And all the delivery guys play "ding-dong-ditch" - none of them get a signature. They just dump the package on the porch, ring the door bell, and head for the truck. Even when it's literally thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to agree.
I would have assumed an iPhone app could access the phone's basic configuration.
It's just bad manners on the part of the app vendor to call for anything short of some sort of emergency.
Of course, as they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Looks like that applies to free apps too.
The problem - both with the tools and the software - is that you just can't properly do the job with some of them.
I used to manage a couple auto repair shops. The mechanics who showed up with Rigid air guns were told that under no circumstances were they to use that POS to tighten people's lug nuts. Use a hand wrench or get a proper air gun.
Similarly, some software fundamentally can't do the job.
Also according to the article, they ran it against 10 friends who they know to be gay but who aren't "out" on Facebook. It hit 100%.
Too small a sample to be sure, but still significant.
The whole thing just boils down to "people who are ____ tend to have friends who are also ____.
Insert gay, straight, Christian, Moslem, male, female, old, young, black, white, whatever.
As you say, you are young. Apparently also naive about the ways of the world.
The problem with your theory is that you need to manage the boss's impression of you before they go into the "who do we get rid of" decision making process.
Once they've decided to get rid of you, no amount of waving statistics at them is going to stop it.
1. It makes them look weak.
2. It makes them look stupid.
3. There's a risk of you taking revenge on them for wanting to get rid of you (especially if you have access to production systems.)
There's also a practical problem with your suggestion.
At my workplace, we put one "defect" in the database for each major feature. That "defect" may represent 30 pages of requirements document. We create the defect because we have a rule of all source control submissions having an associated defect.
If I get that "defect" assigned to me, and complete it successfully, I show one closed "defect."
If, however, I screw it all up, the testers are going to write 20 defects against the work, and they're all going to be assigned to me. I ultimately fix them all and have 21 closed defects.
Who's the better developer - the guy who closed one defect or the guy who closed twenty-one?
I was thinking of "risk" strictly in terms of odds of dying by participating in that enterprise.
If I were to get on a ship from England to the East Indies in 1600, is the probability of me dying higher or lower than if I were to get on a modern rocket to space?
I think I'd rather get on the rocket.
If I'm not mistaken (and Wikipedia's got it right) it's also the origins of Lloyds of London. In fact, shipping risk appears to be one of the major factors in the creation of insurance as we know it, dating back almost 4000 years.
Is there substantially more risk in a modern space launch than in a 400 years ago from England to the East Indies?
I suspect not.
Isn't it baseball?
NeXT was the more valuable property - they had actual products that they sold in quantity to actual customers.
Also, never underestimate the power of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field. He was Chairman and CEO of NeXT...
I live in the suburbs of a large American city.
My wife grew up in the city, I moved here 10 years ago.
She says that in the city proper, you'll get a ticket for driving violations but not for speeding, whereas in the suburbs, you'll get a ticket for speeding but probably nothing else. In fact, a driving instructor at one of those "you got a ticket, keep it off your record" classes told her this.
It sounds about right to me.
Me too.
The thing that pisses me off the most, though, is that if you use the Microsoft site's own search it returns broken links.
Google doesn't give me broken links on Microsoft's site. Why does Microsoft's search?
Note that I haven't tried much since it all got branded Bing. Maybe Bing got it right. Doubt it tho.
I'd rather lose the "good" (but also probably arrogant and self-important) people who don't want to take a test and also lose the incompetents.
There's no shame in taking a test to get a job. Even the big movie stars sometimes have to audition for a role. People just need to get over themselves.
I completely agree about the salary discussion. I've got a pretty good job now, in a company that pays a substantial annual bonus. Make it worth my while up front.
But, I'll do your "what is a class" one better.
We mostly do C in a Unix command-line environment. I usually preface this by saying that we need to do some basic validation of knowledge, and please, don't be insulted by the questions. Then I ask...
1. What does an asterisk (*) mean in C? Any correct answer (multiplication, pointer dereference, pointer declaration, etc) is acceptable.
2. What does "static" mean for a variable in a function?
3. What does "static" mean for a variable not in a function?
4. How do you list the files in the current directory?
5. How do you change to a different directory?
I had one interviewee who, despite a fantastic multi-page resume featuring Unix, C and C++ everywhere, could not answer ANY of these questions in the phone interview. Needless to say, we did not have him in.
There was another one who sounded like he was reading the answers off something (remember, these are phone interviews) and he couldn't manage to actually explain what he meant - just repeat the same words in a different order. Once again, not invited in.
"Easy-going attitude" isn't the same as what I'm talking about. If something is broken and truly needs attention, it needs to be taken care of. Sounds like that viaduct should have been closed....
But the occasional extreme risk seems to horrify people more now than it did a mere 20 years ago.
I think it is, in part, because most people's normal life is made so safe with thick padded cushions.
You know what I say? Screw safety.
America, in part I believe due to the sobbing heads on television anytime anything bad happens, has become so risk-adverse as to make it impossible to consider doing anything risky.
When the Apollo program was in full swing, monkey bars of rusty steel stood on fields of asphalt.
Cars had lap belts but nobody used them. Babies rode on their parent's lap, bigger children rode on the parcel shelf, and nobody wore a helmet on a bicycle or knee pads while skating.
Life was risky, and people understood that and made decisions and the country was run by adults.
We need to grow up again and understand that cost benefit analysis can include human lives, and that making that calculation doesn't make you evil.
The patent system is designed to give innovators a temporary monopoly on their innovation, in order to encourage that innovation.
I don't think most people would argue with saying Tivo was an innovator, unlike the "troll" companies who have no product except to enforce patents that they acquired rights to.
Tivo has a product, and they have a legitimate right to enforce their patent rights against companies infringing on those patents.
I agree, travel has actually gotten better in some ways since 9/11.
I have never traveled internationally, but the domestic security folks are a lot more competent than they were before the TSA. And they're more accustomed to people who set off the alarm.
My wife has some joints that were replaced, so she can keep "trying again" with the metal detector forever, she's going to beep.
On our honeymoon (in 2000) the security guards at O'Hare Airport couldn't even successfully communicate what they wanted her to do. We flew to Hawaii this year, and they have the glass booth for her to wait in, and it's all professional and handled quickly. By the time I had my shoes back on and the laptops back in the bags, she was walking over to meet me.
Yes, I flew on a 757 a few weeks ago (and had what the pilot admitted after was "his worst landing ever") and those ceiling trim panels were moving all over the place during that landing. Was kind of scary to see until you remember they're just plastic trim plates, not actually structural.
IANAL but wouldn't the patent holder have to sue each Microsoft user individually?
I don't think there's a "reverse class action" lawsuit to sue a class of people.
I'm not 100% sure it's possible to develop a SecondLife object outside SecondLife. I'm sure someone here knows. I've tried it in SL and there's too much fussy mousing for me to ever do it. I would guess the textures get done in some normal graphics editor like Paintshop or Gimp or whatever.
He probably developed it then transferred ownership of the objects within SL to the client. SL objects have both owner and creator attributes, and rather complicated permissions about what can be done with the object based on those roles.
It sounds like the object owner (Gospel Voom's client) transferred both Real Life and Second Life ownership of the objects (such as they had) to another party, who in turn moved the objects to Open Life, and, in the course of that move, lost the creator attribute being set to Gospel Voom, likely because Gospel Voom doesn't have an Open Life account.
So Voom is mad because he lost the attribution of his work (just like if you scraped the signature off a painting.)
I got the feeling from the article he'd be satisfied with getting the attribution put there in Open Life but I may have missed something, I read it pretty quickly. There probably isn't any way to do that without intervention by the Open Life system operators except to re-do the import to Open Life which is probably more trouble than the current owner is willing to do being forced to do so.
You really think Science & Industry is worth visiting? I was actually going to recommend against it.
I was there a couple years ago and was really disappointed. Seemed like very little had been updated since I was small (and I'm 40 now.) The plumbing display was leaking (spewing) blue water, the tractor was 20-year-old tech. We didn't do the submarine or the coal mine but it all seemed really decrepit.
The stuff that had been updated seemed like all the content had been updated right out of it.
A history of searches made by a lawyer or firm.
I'd hate to live wherever it is you are. Where is it, anyhow?
I live in a quiet suburb of Chicago.
I've accidentally left the back door unlocked for days with no problems. (Don't tell my wife.)
We have neighbors with a very similar address who we don't know at all, really, but we routinely trade packages.
And all the delivery guys play "ding-dong-ditch" - none of them get a signature. They just dump the package on the porch, ring the door bell, and head for the truck. Even when it's literally thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.
Assuming both parties to the marriage have a decent income of their own, I do think separate finances are a good way to go.
There are enough other ways to annoy each other without having ones you can avoid easily.
And the Zenith TV my dad bought in the 80's had some sort of weird built-in text news thing and a thermal printer.
I threw the printer away after he died, and the news stuff never worked that I saw, but I still have the TV.
The point it, as ffujita says, TVs have historically tended to last longer as TVs than whatever foolishness is built into them.
I'm not convinced that is still the case since they don't seem to last nearly as long any more.
France apparently also includes portions of North America as well.
Only my gut feel, but I suspect August is second only to December in percentage of people on vacation at my work place.