I can see how that would be a problem. That only applies to situations where they are agreeing to do work for you. My work involves a lot of talking and negotiations with others. By agreeing to a lot of little things, I am more likely to get some or all of the one big thing that I want while being perceived as unusually giving and helpful. And as you pointed out, I follow through on my yes's.
A case where your objection might not apply... a co-worker wants to implement some new code in a way that is only 90% the way you would do it. While discussing it with them you can either push really hard for the 10% or you can ask why they want to do that part differently. After getting their answer... you think "Is this where I want to spend my 'no'"? In most cases, you will prefer to save your no and let them do their work the way they want. And since you asked them about it without pushing them (and this really happens to me all the time) they may either do it 93% the way you want it, or they may even go away-- think about it-- and come back and say "you know, you have a point- I'm going to do it the other way".
It works in personal relationships too. The related dale carnegie principle is never criticize complain or condemn.
Amazing stuff. Had one lady who's husband had driven her crazy with driving so she always was telling him to slow down and so on use it. She stopped criticizing. He noticed and asked why. She said, "I know you love us and you will drive as best as you can to protect us and you have never had an accident so I will trust you". Within the hour, he was driving more reasonably! She had tears in her eyes when she told us about the change.
In my texas (where I think it is illegal) craig's list has a section for this with plenty of posts. It looks like a camera and a thousand bucks can get you started.
They had a show on porn on Showtime (which sucks lately by the way*) and the main problem is getting guys who can perform on camera. Women are fairly easy to find these days.
* Is it just me or have Stars and Showtime gone to crap lately. Showing a lot of pointless films, no reliable nudity after midnight any more, a lot less recent films (it is like premium stations are going AFTER DvD lately). Dexter was good- but I can buy that on DVD for 3 months worth of subscription money. I may try HBO next but last time I had it, they had a lot of boxing and things I was not interested in. What I would really like to see is movies as they leave the theatres.
The government (i.e. US) needs to be realistic about what it wants to make a crime (say minor drug use) or how severe it wants to make the penalty (life sentence restrictions for being caught being a peeping tom in your 20's).
This approach hides the cost of enforcing so many laws on society and encourages more laws.
My english professor was going on about spelling one time and I asked him if he knew what mark twain said about spelling. He said no and I related that Twain had said , "I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way" tho I had it in the reverse (I can't respect a man who only knows how to spell a word one way).
While looking for the quote, I found that Twain also said this in his autobiography.
I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us. - Mark Twain's Autobiography
---
I think I would have asked the parent poster if he knew how to spell "irony" and if he had reviewed his subject closely. It amazes me how people will chip in on grammar or spelling and not double-check their post. Of course, grammar is so funky in english that it is difficult to write anything complex that is perfect grammatically.
Seriously, the rules for pretty females are different. What is a warm connecting smile for anyone else can be misinterpreted as "she likes me and wants to have sex with me!" I'm no a pretty female so I forget the suggestions in that area for them.
At my company they arbitrarily put 70% of the programmers in "ticket support" and they can only program on projects under 20 hours (including testing).
They put another 30% in "enhancements" and they get all the training and hot projects that are not given to contractors.
Management insists the structure is good.
The turnover rate in both groups is amazingly high. The hot "enhancement" folks, get offered 20% more by the oil industry. The "maintenance" folks realize they will never really get to code again and they leave for jobs that pay the same or less but let them program.
I've been doing this for 23 years. It's a fact not an opinion. It has come up easily two dozen times while working on projects. But think what you want. Or research "capital expense" and deduction and so on. Or ask a CPA the next time you talk with one.
Refactored code is existing code maintained. It is not legally new code. Microsoft has big lawyers but they probably have to track their software the same way every company I've ever worked for in the last 25 years has. New code is like buying a new truck. Refactored code, bug fixed code, etc. is like fixing the truck or spending extra time tuning it up. You do not get the tax benefits.
I'm not sure where "reusable" code falls in this mix. Here you reuse existing code for a new project.
Les Gibson's book "People Smart" from the 1960's is also magical.
It adds 1) Smile the first second when you meet someone (tho tricky if you are a very pretty female). 2) Imagine you MUST say "yes" 9 times before you are allowed to say "no" to a co-worker. This does many wonderful things. a) respects their opinions b) lets them do things their ways c) you are perceived as likable and non-critical d) when you do rarely say "no" folks stop and listen because you respected them and you only say "no" when it is really important.
I do not think any of you guys got my point so I'll clarify.
From here: http://www.pkftexas.com/pkf/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=15&SnID=2 The entrepreneurial owner of a growing business would like to expand into other cities and states, but is hesitant. He does not believe his current accounting software will be able to handle the increased transaction load and produce the type of management reports he needs to make effective decisions, and the cost of the next tier software has always been a little out of reach. Under the 2003 Act, the business could expense the first $100,000 of the cost of the next tier accounting software and could immediately save $34,000 in taxes, using a 34% tax rate.
In other words, "new" software is 2/3 the price of the same code done as maintenance code. So the ROI on your 100,000 maintenance change must be at least 34,000 to be equally justified to replacing the code with a new 100,000 project.
I know that there are huge benefits to refactoring code- but there are huge tax advantages (that translate to large real amounts of money) to writing it new.
I agree that there must be reasonable compensation.
And it is a challenge when making or creating something costs 50mil but creating a physical copy of it costs $1k computer + $1k per copy.
The one point i would attack is that the main reason it costs 50mil is fairly high salaries of the workforce when there really is a glut of workers. Everyone made a lot less money in hollywood and were still very happy back in the 1950's. The artists made the equivalent of $100k a year plus bennies like free food, free starlets, parties, etc. And they made 3 to 6 pictures a year instead of 1 picture every three years.
I have stacks of DVDs (purchased) not yet opened because I just don't have the time to watch them yet. So now I'm buying almost 9 months behind the curve and frequently pay $10 at most for movies and recently only $15 a season for series.
It is not worth my time to pirate at those prices. Even the entire "backup" issue goes away as the price of replacing the item approaches the cost of producing it plus your time.
There is no point in pirating a $6 movie. There is no point in backing up a $6 movie. So at that point, there is no point in DRM'ing them either.
I used to work in the Telco business and it finally got to the point where the effort of billing per minute was most of the cost per minute. Once the telco folks realized that, most went to some kind of unlimited plan with simpler billing software and no need to process 35 million billing records any more.
EITHER you buy a closed source solution or write the solution yourself.
OR you get the free open source and follow it's usage terms.
I just don't get why all these people selling proprietary solutions seem to feel they can charge but they get to use the open source software for free. There is a cost- and the cost is following the license.
Re:well, not effortlessly
on
RTF Vs. OOXML
·
· Score: 1
Actually there is a lot of good discussion in the comments below (including use of undocumented API's) in that post.
It's amazing how fast history becomes muddy and I have to concede that, given how much I see my friend's memories shift and remap events, my memories are suspect as well.
Re:well, not effortlessly
on
RTF Vs. OOXML
·
· Score: 1
It's amazing how what everyone in the PC group knew was true can be rewritten in twenty years. That's why I say how crazy it all seems.
There was absolutely no doubt about any of this back when it was going on.
Re:well, not effortlessly
on
RTF Vs. OOXML
·
· Score: 1
I'm confused. You seem to be agreeing with me. And your post doesn't contradict the fact that Microsoft pretended to be a technology partner to Stac and pillaged them for IP. A practice which they used many times with other small companies that had new technology ideas.
Stac Developer of Stacker file compression software. After a failed attempt to license Stacker for DOS 6.0, Microsoft developed a similar product which infringed on Stac's patents. Stac was awarded $120 million in damages, which was partially settled with an investment in Stac by Microsoft.
I remember this investment was reported in the press as "buying" stac at the time. However http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics Seems to say they existed for a few more years before the disk compression market was slaughtered by cheap high capacity hard drives.
Caldera, which accused Microsoft of having modified Windows 3.1 so that it would not run on DR DOS 6 although there was no technical reason for it not to work.[64] Some claim that Microsoft put encrypted code in five otherwise unrelated Microsoft programs in order to prevent the functioning of DR DOS in pre-releases (beta versions) of Windows 3.1.[65] Microsoft settled out-of-court for an undisclosed sum.
Spyglass, which licensed its browser to Microsoft in return for a percentage of each sale; Microsoft turned the browser into Internet Explorer and bundled it with Windows, giving it away to gain market share but effectively destroying any chance of Spyglass making money from the deal they had signed with Microsoft; Spyglass sued for deception and won a $8 million settlement.[67]
I can't find any mention of the Corel wordperfect vs Word95 thing any more. I guess 1995 was almost pre-internet. It was well known at the time tho.
Re:well, not effortlessly
on
RTF Vs. OOXML
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
That's really not the case.
In fact, look up how it went down for Word95 and Windows 98. Word violated the api standards but was given the "approved" mark anyway. Corel which followed the standards was much slower.
Microsoft cheats all the time. They are commensurate scammers.
Sometimes, it feels like the world is crazy because no one seems to recall things like 1) specifically checking if DR Dos was installed- and if so give a hard installation failure. 2) "Dos isn't done until Lotus won't run" 3) Doublestac 4) The entire "95" certification scandal. 5) The *numerous* partnerships where they robbed every bit of technology from the technology partner and then brought out a competing product. 6) The numerous times that they added a 50 to 60% functional but "free" version of something of a competitor's product to the operating system.
and so many more examples like this.
They are extremely competitive scammers. Which is okay if you own their stock. But not okay if you want to do something for the common good like standard.
In the post you responded to, I pointed out that it is a continuum for cripe's sake. We are in agreement that this is a shades of gray issue.
However, in *some* people, it *is* like a switch. That first drink- and you are an alchoholic. That first hit of heroin and you are a junky. That first hit of child porn and you are an addict to it. In *most* people, that's not the case- I know lots of people who did cocaine multiple times without a problem in the 80's including my sister-in-law. I knew people who cocaine use destroyed. Some people die the first time they use it from heart attacks.
While I think these activities should be legal (on porn- anything with consenting adults), I also respect that some people who are vulnerable do not want their lives ruined by involuntary exposure.
As a society we have a right to say, "I might be at risk so I want the right to choose what I expose myself too." Being able to force people to see various kinds of pornography without their consent is akin to sneaking heroin into their food or force-feeding them alcohol.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see how that would be a problem. That only applies to situations where they are agreeing to do work for you. My work involves a lot of talking and negotiations with others. By agreeing to a lot of little things, I am more likely to get some or all of the one big thing that I want while being perceived as unusually giving and helpful. And as you pointed out, I follow through on my yes's.
A case where your objection might not apply... a co-worker wants to implement some new code in a way that is only 90% the way you would do it. While discussing it with them you can either push really hard for the 10% or you can ask why they want to do that part differently. After getting their answer... you think "Is this where I want to spend my 'no'"? In most cases, you will prefer to save your no and let them do their work the way they want. And since you asked them about it without pushing them (and this really happens to me all the time) they may either do it 93% the way you want it, or they may even go away-- think about it-- and come back and say "you know, you have a point- I'm going to do it the other way".
It works in personal relationships too. The related dale carnegie principle is never criticize complain or condemn.
Amazing stuff. Had one lady who's husband had driven her crazy with driving so she always was telling him to slow down and so on use it. She stopped criticizing. He noticed and asked why. She said, "I know you love us and you will drive as best as you can to protect us and you have never had an accident so I will trust you". Within the hour, he was driving more reasonably! She had tears in her eyes when she told us about the change.
In my texas (where I think it is illegal) craig's list has a section for this with plenty of posts.
It looks like a camera and a thousand bucks can get you started.
They had a show on porn on Showtime (which sucks lately by the way*) and the main problem is getting guys who can perform on camera. Women are fairly easy to find these days.
* Is it just me or have Stars and Showtime gone to crap lately. Showing a lot of pointless films, no reliable nudity after midnight any more, a lot less recent films (it is like premium stations are going AFTER DvD lately). Dexter was good- but I can buy that on DVD for 3 months worth of subscription money. I may try HBO next but last time I had it, they had a lot of boxing and things I was not interested in. What I would really like to see is movies as they leave the theatres.
The government will expand laws.
The government (i.e. US) needs to be realistic about what it wants to make a crime (say minor drug use) or how severe it wants to make the penalty (life sentence restrictions for being caught being a peeping tom in your 20's).
This approach hides the cost of enforcing so many laws on society and encourages more laws.
My english professor was going on about spelling one time and I asked him if he knew what mark twain said about spelling. He said no and I related that Twain had said , "I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way" tho I had it in the reverse (I can't respect a man who only knows how to spell a word one way).
While looking for the quote, I found that Twain also said this in his autobiography.
I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography
---
I think I would have asked the parent poster if he knew how to spell "irony" and if he had reviewed his subject closely. It amazes me how people will chip in on grammar or spelling and not double-check their post. Of course, grammar is so funky in english that it is difficult to write anything complex that is perfect grammatically.
Cheers and light to you.
LoL....What a fun workplace that would be.
Seriously, the rules for pretty females are different. What is a warm connecting smile for anyone else can be misinterpreted as "she likes me and wants to have sex with me!" I'm no a pretty female so I forget the suggestions in that area for them.
At my company they arbitrarily put 70% of the programmers in "ticket support" and they can only program on projects under 20 hours (including testing).
They put another 30% in "enhancements" and they get all the training and hot projects that are not given to contractors.
Management insists the structure is good.
The turnover rate in both groups is amazingly high.
The hot "enhancement" folks, get offered 20% more by the oil industry.
The "maintenance" folks realize they will never really get to code again and they leave for jobs that pay the same or less but let them program.
Sigh.
I've been doing this for 23 years. It's a fact not an opinion. It has come up easily two dozen times while working on projects. But think what you want. Or research "capital expense" and deduction and so on. Or ask a CPA the next time you talk with one.
No point in beating the horse any more.
Refactored code is existing code maintained. It is not legally new code. Microsoft has big lawyers but they probably have to track their software the same way every company I've ever worked for in the last 25 years has. New code is like buying a new truck. Refactored code, bug fixed code, etc. is like fixing the truck or spending extra time tuning it up. You do not get the tax benefits.
I'm not sure where "reusable" code falls in this mix. Here you reuse existing code for a new project.
Les Gibson's book "People Smart" from the 1960's is also magical.
It adds
1) Smile the first second when you meet someone (tho tricky if you are a very pretty female).
2) Imagine you MUST say "yes" 9 times before you are allowed to say "no" to a co-worker. This does many wonderful things. a) respects their opinions b) lets them do things their ways c) you are perceived as likable and non-critical d) when you do rarely say "no" folks stop and listen because you respected them and you only say "no" when it is really important.
I do not think any of you guys got my point so I'll clarify.
From here:
http://www.pkftexas.com/pkf/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=15&SnID=2
The entrepreneurial owner of a growing business would like to expand into other cities and states, but is hesitant. He does not believe his current accounting software will be able to handle the increased transaction load and produce the type of management reports he needs to make effective decisions, and the cost of the next tier software has always been a little out of reach. Under the 2003 Act, the business could expense the first $100,000 of the cost of the next tier accounting software and could immediately save $34,000 in taxes, using a 34% tax rate.
In other words, "new" software is 2/3 the price of the same code done as maintenance code.
So the ROI on your 100,000 maintenance change must be at least 34,000 to be equally justified to replacing the code with a new 100,000 project.
I know that there are huge benefits to refactoring code- but there are huge tax advantages (that translate to large real amounts of money) to writing it new.
Doesn't water tend to slosh around violently in really big earthquakes?
Is there any Tsunami exposure from earthquakes elsewhere in the pacific?
"new" code is a capital investment and gets very high tax benefits.
"refactored" code is a pure cost.
I do a lot of refactoring but i always have to sneak it in under the cover of a "new" project instead of a "bug fix" project.
Hmm.
Okay I can accept that analogy point. I didn't see it but now that you point it out, I can see it.
Hey man-- happy new year-- on to the next thread.
I agree that there must be reasonable compensation.
And it is a challenge when making or creating something costs 50mil but creating a physical copy of it costs $1k computer + $1k per copy.
The one point i would attack is that the main reason it costs 50mil is fairly high salaries of the workforce when there really is a glut of workers.
Everyone made a lot less money in hollywood and were still very happy back in the 1950's. The artists made the equivalent of $100k a year plus bennies like free food, free starlets, parties, etc. And they made 3 to 6 pictures a year instead of 1 picture every three years.
I have stacks of DVDs (purchased) not yet opened because I just don't have the time to watch them yet. So now I'm buying almost 9 months behind the curve and frequently pay $10 at most for movies and recently only $15 a season for series.
It is not worth my time to pirate at those prices. Even the entire "backup" issue goes away as the price of replacing the item approaches the cost of producing it plus your time.
There is no point in pirating a $6 movie. There is no point in backing up a $6 movie. So at that point, there is no point in DRM'ing them either.
I used to work in the Telco business and it finally got to the point where the effort of billing per minute was most of the cost per minute. Once the telco folks realized that, most went to some kind of unlimited plan with simpler billing software and no need to process 35 million billing records any more.
So why is open-source such a problem?
EITHER you buy a closed source solution or write the solution yourself.
OR you get the free open source and follow it's usage terms.
I just don't get why all these people selling proprietary solutions seem to feel they can charge but they get to use the open source software for free. There is a cost- and the cost is following the license.
Actually there is a lot of good discussion in the comments below (including use of undocumented API's) in that post.
It's amazing how fast history becomes muddy and I have to concede that, given how much I see my friend's memories shift and remap events, my memories are suspect as well.
It's amazing how what everyone in the PC group knew was true can be rewritten in twenty years. That's why I say how crazy it all seems.
There was absolutely no doubt about any of this back when it was going on.
I'm confused. You seem to be agreeing with me.
And your post doesn't contradict the fact that Microsoft pretended to be a technology partner to Stac and pillaged them for IP. A practice which they used many times with other small companies that had new technology ideas.
From here: http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/catalog.shtml
Stac
Developer of Stacker file compression software.
After a failed attempt to license Stacker for DOS 6.0, Microsoft developed a similar product which infringed on Stac's patents. Stac was awarded $120 million in damages, which was partially settled with an investment in Stac by Microsoft.
I remember this investment was reported in the press as "buying" stac at the time. However
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics
Seems to say they existed for a few more years before the disk compression market was slaughtered by cheap high capacity hard drives.
No.
I'm saying, you should have to "opt in" for certain kinds of knowledge.
I shouldn't be able to give you heroin without your consent.
I shouldn't be able to expose you to porn without your consent.
You should be free to do almost anything you please (and suffer the consequences for it). But it should take a choice on your part to do those things.
I think you need to read my other post linked to this one.
Microsoft pretended to be a technology partner to Stac and pillaged them for IP.
Then Stac sued Microsoft and won.
Then Microsoft simply bought Stac for it's market value which was less than the penalty of the lawsuit.
I did do the research- current information on the web (in the other post) backs this position up.
So you might want to do the same before spouting off without providing references.
Dos isn't done...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22dos+isn't+done+until+lotus%22&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=microsoft+stac+lawsuit&btnG=Search
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics
Stac executives were outraged, as Microsoft had previously been in discussions with Stac to license its compression technology, and had discussions with Stac engineers and examined Stac's code as part of the due diligence process.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=%22microsoft+stole%22+technology+partners+stole+stac&spell=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft
Burst.com, which claims that Microsoft stole Burst's patented technology for delivering high speed streaming sound and video content on the internet.
Caldera, which accused Microsoft of having modified Windows 3.1 so that it would not run on DR DOS 6 although there was no technical reason for it not to work.[64] Some claim that Microsoft put encrypted code in five otherwise unrelated Microsoft programs in order to prevent the functioning of DR DOS in pre-releases (beta versions) of Windows 3.1.[65] Microsoft settled out-of-court for an undisclosed sum.
Spyglass, which licensed its browser to Microsoft in return for a percentage of each sale; Microsoft turned the browser into Internet Explorer and bundled it with Windows, giving it away to gain market share but effectively destroying any chance of Spyglass making money from the deal they had signed with Microsoft; Spyglass sued for deception and won a $8 million settlement.[67]
I can't find any mention of the Corel wordperfect vs Word95 thing any more. I guess 1995 was almost pre-internet. It was well known at the time tho.
That's really not the case.
In fact, look up how it went down for Word95 and Windows 98.
Word violated the api standards but was given the "approved" mark anyway.
Corel which followed the standards was much slower.
Microsoft cheats all the time. They are commensurate scammers.
Sometimes, it feels like the world is crazy because no one seems to recall things like
1) specifically checking if DR Dos was installed- and if so give a hard installation failure.
2) "Dos isn't done until Lotus won't run"
3) Doublestac
4) The entire "95" certification scandal.
5) The *numerous* partnerships where they robbed every bit of technology from the technology partner and then brought out a competing product.
6) The numerous times that they added a 50 to 60% functional but "free" version of something of a competitor's product to the operating system.
and so many more examples like this.
They are extremely competitive scammers. Which is okay if you own their stock. But not okay if you want to do something for the common good like standard.
It's not binary logic.
In the post you responded to, I pointed out that it is a continuum for cripe's sake. We are in agreement that this is a shades of gray issue.
However, in *some* people, it *is* like a switch. That first drink- and you are an alchoholic. That first hit of heroin and you are a junky. That first hit of child porn and you are an addict to it. In *most* people, that's not the case- I know lots of people who did cocaine multiple times without a problem in the 80's including my sister-in-law. I knew people who cocaine use destroyed. Some people die the first time they use it from heart attacks.
While I think these activities should be legal (on porn- anything with consenting adults), I also respect that some people who are vulnerable do not want their lives ruined by involuntary exposure.
As a society we have a right to say, "I might be at risk so I want the right to choose what I expose myself too."
Being able to force people to see various kinds of pornography without their consent is akin to sneaking heroin into their food or force-feeding them alcohol.
BTW, It was car fact, not a car analogy.
Some other references to attractive nuisances here..
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/asrg/current/msg00701.html
A lot more random examples here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=car+%22attractive+nuisance%22&btnG=Search
It may not apply in your country if you are not in the united states.
New for 2008!
I, for one, welcome our new "Tutorial" meme overlords.
I will now go use my "acting skills" to fix the desolate wasteland.
America! Fuck yea!