"Assuming that Bob is Alice's assistant, Alice probably does not want the third party to realize that their communique was so mundane as to be "outsourced"."
Who told you that kind of server-managed information had to be delivered over the corporation borders?
Alice knows indeed that Bob is her assistant as she knows that an answer on Alice's behalf can only come from either herself or from Bob. If somebody claims to have an answer "from Alice" is just a matter to go to the corporation server's log to see if it in fact came from either Alice's or Bob's account. You see, no difference from the pen-and-paper days.
"Xandros+Scalix isn't meant for Linux gurus that are the masters of the CLI game,it is designed for businesses that have primarily Windows admins and need something that just works"
Then they are lost from square zero. "Windows admins that need something that just works" do already have a winning product, its name being Microsoft Exchange.
In order for a "windows shop" to go somewhere else you not only have to offer a vastly superior product, but a vastly superior product that indeed looks like vastly superior product to the eyes of a "windows shop". Don't see Scalix being such a product.
" I know their implementation of IMAP is very poor, I think it has to do with various connection and sync commands not being fully or at all implemented which can cause all sorts of weirdness on the client end and lost mail on the server."
IMAP implementation is indeed poor, but I bet it isn't related to "sync commands" nor any other engineering problem for that matter. It is an strategic decision: Outlook will only properly work against Exchange; Exchange will only offer its full functionality to Outlook. Lock in strategies anyone?
"If I release a cool product under Open Source, and then 50 other developers contribute to it--how can I sell the license to use their work and close source it?"
Do it the way other companies already have done it: only accept patches if copyright is transferred to you. That of course, won't disallow forks, but it will ensure you will be in control about the next release's license.
"you have to assume that in a global pandemic situation that your own staff may be getting infected too. You need tools that you can use to manage large networks with only a small staff."
I can asume that ISPs are not charitables and they are there for the profit. Since most civilized countries stubbornly insist on having laws forbidding slavery, all ISPs pay wages to their employees so their operation costs grow as the number of such employees. There's no need for a pandemic in order for an ISP wanting to operate on a staff as small as possible.
"The point is that in a democracy, of which, we assume, the US is an example"
But it is a republic, not a democracy. The slight differences do matter.
"people deserve generally their governments"
For a very wide meaning of "deserve", well, yes. It's all about ballance: a teacher of mine said once "there's no revolution on a full belly". In order for a deep change on current USA situation no less than a revolution would be needed and intimally people knows that. But then, betting your very life against the chance for a deep social and political change simply doesn't hold water for the vast majority of people. Since quite a lot of people own a houses more expensive than a Ferrari you could say "people doesn't deserve a Ferrari". No: it's not that they don't deserve to own one, but that given all considerations, owning a Ferrari just costs too much. Again, it is not that people deserve this government, but that things are so well tied that changing it just costs too much.
"When an idiot is granted the highest power in the country, the winning majority gets what it thought it deserved and desired"
The problem is on the unstated: the definition of "majority". Obviously, regarding a democracy, it's implicitly admited that "majority" means "highest number of people", but on current "democracies", "majority" means better "highest concentration of power". Once applied the proper meaning to "majority" your phrase becomes an obvious truth: "When an idiot is granted the highest power in the country, the winning concentration of power gets what it thought it deserved and desired". Truly Blackwater, Disney or even big corporation CEOs (look for the exit packages for CEOs of current bankrupt companies: instead of facing jail, they'll get in the tens of millions), get "what they thougth they deserved and desired".
"What you think you see happening with the prices of real estate is not the issue here. The issue here is what is happening with the prices of real estate."
Well, tell me then when can I find real state for peanuts.
"There is no my economy and your economy, just like there is no my mathematics and your mathematics."
Surely Richard Fuld Jr., Stan O'Neal, or even George W. Bush won't mind exchanging their cash with mine, then.
"The problem really started with you. And here's how. You elected the government, which adopted legislation"
So, when given the choice of being hanged or shooted down, it's your fault ending death.
Is that really your point?
"who would buy hugely overpriced houses they could not afford, that would go down in value because they were never worth their price in the first place"
Duh... show me where all those overpriced houses are now sold for pennies, because all I see is their price being frozen instead of skyrocketeeing, but not plumetting or even just adjusting their price at the same rates they were growing previously.
"And how did all of this start? With too many of us voting for the idiot who couldn't spell "economy", let alone understand it."
I think you are talking about dubya, don't you? Surely your personal assets are much more worthy than his, since you dare say he doesn't understand economy.
The sad fact is that dubya knows much more about economics than you (or me), specially about *his* economy, and that's why we are currently where we are.
"Let's see, I have 100 things which say "guilty" and one unexplained thing which could be caused by any of a number of things. OK, I pick.. not guilty! Yeah, that makes sense. It's the same "logic" used by 9/11 truthers."
Let's see, I have the Sun, the Moon and the whole lot of hundreds of stars and only five unexplained tiny points which movements on the sky can be caused by any of a number of things. OK, I pick... Copernicus must be right, not Ptolomaeus... Yeah, that makes sense. It's the same "logic" used by 9/11 truthers.
Luckily enough, I must add, those defending heliocentrism will never find such a dumb jury as OJ....or is it you the one that doesn't understand the basis of the scientific method?
"I remember reading that the "difference" was a half a dozen registry settings."
I remember *doing* it (and it involved some light hex editing too).
"Of course - it still might not have the NT Server splash screen..."
It even showed the NT server splash screen.
To be true, that was with NT 3.51, not 4.
But that's a bit of lucky trivia and not a proper way for a test, even an informal one. That's a tester trying to "cheat" for some (prethought) unregular answer and it's one of the best ways to be deaf to whatever the candidate is saying unless he luckily happens "to ring the bell".
The standard example of a "cheating question" is the classical "how many options do you remember from top of your head for ls?" The "proper" answer is another question: "BSD or SysV?" Giving the "proper" answer probably gives you the "greyback" status but not knowing it says... absolutly nothing.
"At a previous job, we interviewed for an assistant admin."
And here starts one of the stupidest stories posted on Slashtdot -ever.
"We had three candidates, one slightly under qualified, one qualified and one who appeared a little over qualified."
How can somebody be "overqualified"? Is this that when you asks him "how much does it sums two plus two" he answers "not only four but due to my overqualifications even five!"? Or is it some kind of zen? He is so overqualified that he knew but now he has forgotten (and so he reached enlightment). Somebody is either apt for the job of he isn't.
All in all, I'll understand your assertion this way: By overqualified you meant he is not only able to do the job but due to his experience and abilites even better payed ones, so you assume that as soon as such better payed jobs appear, he will just say "good bye".
"We gave them each the same test, on a computer with internet access mind you."
So *YOU* were the ones that gave the candidates the tools.
"The, according-to-his-resume, over qualified candidate did outstanding [...] nd found that the 3rd person had Google'd all of his questions and basically copied answers from the web to paper."
So he used all the tools at hand to give you by your own remarks not only proper but outstanding answers while the other two candidates were not even able to do the obvious: look on the Internet for an answer. To me this looks as if that candidate was certainly able to think "out of the box" and to deal with the problem at hand on the most efficient manner so, by all recons he was certainly astoundly over the other candidates, still you rejected him.
"Apart from the fact that he basically plagiarized his answers."
It goes from astounding to flabbergashting! I'll try that tomorrow on my own job: -Hey, the mail server stopped working -Yes, I know, it's a known problem with a known solution I could have applied half an hour ago... the difficult part was neither the diagnosis nor finding the trivial way to recover, but finding an original one instead of plagiarizing someone else's solution.
"So in this case, w/o the test, we would have ended up with an employee who basically lied to us."
Because... you told him *not* to use some of the tools at hand (like the Internet connection)? Is that the norm on your working environment? (please, Michael, change the memory dimms on that desktop but today -ahah! you will do it without the screwdriver we know you have in your toolbox! -that must be your definition for a "chagellenging environment" or something like this)
Did you think about such a simple operation as to -ugh! unplug the computer from the net prior to the test? Did you -gasp! think about asking the man "Hey! how did you get your solutions? Did you look for them on Google?"
"In our eyes, if the candidate didn't realize that his internet usage could or was being tracked"
Or he thought that it was part of the test in order to know if he has some ability to "thing out of the box" so his Internet usage was not only unforbidden but a clear sign of maturity and efficiency, or he just didn't give a damn since he ingenually thought he was tested by mature people on a job-like solutions-oriented environment not on a childish school-like one with a "Hey, Mrs Peabody, Charlie cheated on his test" attitude.
Well, getherSpoon, I must say both your story and the way you told it really amazed me.
Re:I am sorry, but I got to disagree
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Fire Your IT Boss
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· Score: 1
"Like a F1 team. Michael Schumacher isn't a techie, he doesn't have to be, he doesn't have to know how to exchange a wheel or put petrol in a car. For that matter a F1 team manager doesn't have to have a driving license. Everyone their job and managing is a job. To bad so many such at it."
There should be a car analogy, shouldn't it?
But, guess what? IT is not like an F1 team (not for the most part, at least). Do you know why an F1 team can work the way you say? Because an F1 team have a very hard an obvious objective measure to test against: they either win races or they don't.
Look at your own example: your team did a good work, probably because your manager's ability and, despite of that, he was separated from the project and everything went down from then. Do you imagine Schumacher being taken out of the car's cockpit as long as he won races? Do you imagine his team manager to be fired (or moved to a different position) while his car holded the number one? Even in your case (which success seemed easy to be evaluated) there were a lot of other "soft" measures able to be taken into account that dealt to a (probably) wrong evaluation. For a complex IT structure (and that means "everyone but a mom and pop's shop") there's a lot of "opinions" going there and not a single measure for success so it gets paramount importance that the best "guessers", the ones with the better "applied common sense" to be in charge, and that's impossible to get without a deep technical underground (while certainly not *only* a deep technical underground).
It's obvious that except for the shortest shops there's no point on the CIO knowing how to optimize Apache's configuration for a certain environment, but he is CIO anyway and he will have his own lot of technical choices (maybe if using Apache at all instead of other server, maybe if it makes sense having an homogeneus environment better than a specialised one where some environments run, say, Unix and some Windows, maybe if it's the moment to entry on the "blogosphere thingie"...), and it will be better for the company if the CIO has the "professional intuition" to make the right choices and that means fully technical awareness is a must.
Re:Company development standards are...
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Fire Your IT Boss
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· Score: 2, Insightful
"If the rest of the company is using PHP and you're using Java, that's a problem for management to solve."
Look at the parent poster again. He was told "to go redo the website using whatever technology and features I thought I needed to make it excellent". Then about 50% of the time spent, he was told otherwise.
Certainly a company using PHP and one project using Java could be a "management problem". When management is not able to properly define the problem's realm and its constraints and properly communicate them to their "doers", then it's not a "management problem" but "management is the problem".
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
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Fire Your IT Boss
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· Score: 1
"he would see one of his employees has higher quality output than the others"
How the hell would he know without the technical competence to discern it?
Can you *really* discern between two French wines which one is better quality? You probably would be able to say which one tastes better to you -and that would put you exactly in the situation described by the grandparent.
"I have to ask: How does your sister think bacteria acquire antibiotic resistance? God did it?"
Yes. That's what she would tell you. She would even go further and tell you how this trick works: a tiny fraction of the bacteria population were resistant from the very beginning. Then, you expose the population to the antibiotic and all non resistant individuals die but the resistant ones multiply. After a time, all the population is built up from the resistant ancestors. Easy.
"why different animals have such similar physiology?"
Even easier: That's because all of them come from the same author, the Intelligent Designer! No surprise all the creations of an author share a common "inspiration". On the other hand, believing on creationism doesn't mean believing on the "...and the seventh day He rested" tale. Maybe the Designer did create main phylla and allowed them to evolute from there on (I think it's probably much more fun that way).
"If the basics tenant of evolution (common ancestry and natural selection) were disproved then, yes, pretty much all biology related textbooks would have to be rewritten"
Bullshit. If evolution were to be discredited, it certainly would dramatically change the way we see the world surrounding us, but the vast amount of the scientific biology-related literature could go basically unchanged since most of it is just descriptive: the inner organization of a cell as observed is not going to change because god made it the way it is instead of evolution. That's exactly why the sister of the grandparent poster can be a creationist and still being a productive vet (that I think it's amazing for a PhD on a science degree to believe on creationism is quite a different story).
"Would you as CEO or internal compliance officer risk millions or even billions on something that is so likely to become discovered? Even if the chances are 10,000-to-1 against the breach ever coming to light? Frankly, the rewards are simply not worth the risk."
And then comes the reality check: just ask Enron executive officers.
"It is a very bad idea for Linux to still be used in 30 to 50 years."
If you really think so, then you didn't understand a word regarding what open source is about.
There might or might not be Linux in 30 years from now but please remember that Linux, (both the kernel or the distributions upon it) being open source don't need to share neither a single code line nor even "vision" or "strategy" with its 30 year upon the road descendant... and still being called Linux.
"Not unless you still think that the MS-DOS system is still useful today"
You forget that moving the name from Ms DOS to Windows was just a marketing campaign. Current Microsoft Windows Vista could perfectly be called Microsoft DOS 2003; would you say then that the MS-DOS system wouldn't be useful today?
Linux "2038" can perfectly be a "multidistributed, quantum-computing, mind-blowing based" OS by then. Why wouldn't you want it then?
"there is a point where you have filled in all of the squares for which there is only one unique value that is possible, and now you have to start looking at the squares that have two possibilities."
If there are in fact two possibilites, you just write down anyone of them and move on.
"2. If a conflict is discovered"
If a conflict is discovered, then you were *wrong* there were not two possibilities but just one.
"When humans do this, we don't actually perceive it as trial and error"
What kind of human are you? I'm human and I clearly percieve this to be trial and error: I look at a square, then at its environment and I start making wider assumptions till I find a negate condition or a logic dead end that gives me just one choice (the extremest case would be holding the whole sudoku on my mind at once).
"Once you figure out that it's just a binary search tree, it quickly becomes very boring."
That's true both for computing solving *and* human solving. Of course, that doesn't mind if you try to solve it without pencil-guess: you only write down a figure when you are sure it's the right one by inference.
"So yes you can do wonders with very few competent people, so long as you dont interfere with their workflow and you keep the morale/motivation of this staff high."
And you can support your subjective view with... Oh, yes, with nothing. Remember that what you can't support with numbers is not fact, just opinion.
Numbers (like your tickets) are paramount: without them you can't tell you are going on the right path but due to your (sometimes wrong) feelings based on your (always biased) opinion. Even more than that: without the numbers your manager won't be able to defend your jobpost when someone higher up the ranks see your department as the new goal to cut expenditures.
No, it won't. It is not that the officer is arguing that you know the password but you say you not. The thing is that if you don't produce the proper password (no matter if you know it or not), both you and your laptop will be retained (eventually sine die) for further investigation.
"It's a great analysis of the issues, laying out what the heck privacy really is, anyway."
And then, I call Mr Godwin and his law. It's very interesting that kind of analysis and it's my opinion that this is the real path to go. But just for those that are more for "practical matters"...
During the 20's and then in 1933, Germany made various census including religious identification, that would help to better fit government with the sentiments of the population (like adjusting calendar free days).
Germany was by the day a cult, enriching country... but then 1933 came. Hitler (the somewhat elected Government) then found better ways to take advantage from the census, specially the religious part.
Fast forward: 1984, Saraievo. A nice place in a nice developing country. Nice enough to host that year winter Olympic Games... who could expect what would happen just eight years latter, again, with a very important weight on private data?
Morale: once your data is processed and stored, it is stored and processable. Do you have a crystal ball to read the future and know how such data will be used within the next, say, 50 years? (yes, your sons can be forced to pay for your "sins" too).
"What would the border agents make of a linux laptop - one that didn't start X automatically..."
Uuuhhh... probably nothing, they won't know where to start with it.
*NOW*, they being ignorants, will nicely ask you to wait for a moment... about a week, in order for the guy from the "strange computers highly suspicious to be involved in terrorist affairs" department have a look at it.
And since now you have a week to know better each other, you are going to very detailfully tell them what the heck is doing such a nice guy like you with a highly suspicious computer -c'mon, c'mon, killing our dearest president or what? and they won't be fooled with you being a smartass with some story about a penguin from Finland (is this to the North or to the South from Guantanamo, or is it Hindu Kush?). You will soon discover that while they don't have the slightest idea about what the X Window system is, they know quite a few tricks to make you sing even La Traviatta -all the characters, including the fat woman.
Slashdot Mirror
"there is no sane reason to keep all the users email on the server after they read it"
Why not? I mean, honestly, why not?
"Assuming that Bob is Alice's assistant, Alice probably does not want the third party to realize that their communique was so mundane as to be "outsourced"."
Who told you that kind of server-managed information had to be delivered over the corporation borders?
Alice knows indeed that Bob is her assistant as she knows that an answer on Alice's behalf can only come from either herself or from Bob. If somebody claims to have an answer "from Alice" is just a matter to go to the corporation server's log to see if it in fact came from either Alice's or Bob's account. You see, no difference from the pen-and-paper days.
"Xandros+Scalix isn't meant for Linux gurus that are the masters of the CLI game,it is designed for businesses that have primarily Windows admins and need something that just works"
Then they are lost from square zero. "Windows admins that need something that just works" do already have a winning product, its name being Microsoft Exchange.
In order for a "windows shop" to go somewhere else you not only have to offer a vastly superior product, but a vastly superior product that indeed looks like vastly superior product to the eyes of a "windows shop". Don't see Scalix being such a product.
" I know their implementation of IMAP is very poor, I think it has to do with various connection and sync commands not being fully or at all implemented which can cause all sorts of weirdness on the client end and lost mail on the server."
IMAP implementation is indeed poor, but I bet it isn't related to "sync commands" nor any other engineering problem for that matter. It is an strategic decision: Outlook will only properly work against Exchange; Exchange will only offer its full functionality to Outlook. Lock in strategies anyone?
"If I release a cool product under Open Source, and then 50 other developers contribute to it--how can I sell the license to use their work and close source it?"
Do it the way other companies already have done it: only accept patches if copyright is transferred to you. That of course, won't disallow forks, but it will ensure you will be in control about the next release's license.
"you have to assume that in a global pandemic situation that your own staff may be getting infected too. You need tools that you can use to manage large networks with only a small staff."
I can asume that ISPs are not charitables and they are there for the profit. Since most civilized countries stubbornly insist on having laws forbidding slavery, all ISPs pay wages to their employees so their operation costs grow as the number of such employees. There's no need for a pandemic in order for an ISP wanting to operate on a staff as small as possible.
"The point is that in a democracy, of which, we assume, the US is an example"
But it is a republic, not a democracy. The slight differences do matter.
"people deserve generally their governments"
For a very wide meaning of "deserve", well, yes. It's all about ballance: a teacher of mine said once "there's no revolution on a full belly". In order for a deep change on current USA situation no less than a revolution would be needed and intimally people knows that. But then, betting your very life against the chance for a deep social and political change simply doesn't hold water for the vast majority of people. Since quite a lot of people own a houses more expensive than a Ferrari you could say "people doesn't deserve a Ferrari". No: it's not that they don't deserve to own one, but that given all considerations, owning a Ferrari just costs too much. Again, it is not that people deserve this government, but that things are so well tied that changing it just costs too much.
"When an idiot is granted the highest power in the country, the winning majority gets what it thought it deserved and desired"
The problem is on the unstated: the definition of "majority". Obviously, regarding a democracy, it's implicitly admited that "majority" means "highest number of people", but on current "democracies", "majority" means better "highest concentration of power". Once applied the proper meaning to "majority" your phrase becomes an obvious truth: "When an idiot is granted the highest power in the country, the winning concentration of power gets what it thought it deserved and desired". Truly Blackwater, Disney or even big corporation CEOs (look for the exit packages for CEOs of current bankrupt companies: instead of facing jail, they'll get in the tens of millions), get "what they thougth they deserved and desired".
"What you think you see happening with the prices of real estate is not the issue here. The issue here is what is happening with the prices of real estate."
Well, tell me then when can I find real state for peanuts.
"There is no my economy and your economy, just like there is no my mathematics and your mathematics."
Surely Richard Fuld Jr., Stan O'Neal, or even George W. Bush won't mind exchanging their cash with mine, then.
"The problem really started with you. And here's how. You elected the government, which adopted legislation"
So, when given the choice of being hanged or shooted down, it's your fault ending death.
Is that really your point?
"who would buy hugely overpriced houses they could not afford, that would go down in value because they were never worth their price in the first place"
Duh... show me where all those overpriced houses are now sold for pennies, because all I see is their price being frozen instead of skyrocketeeing, but not plumetting or even just adjusting their price at the same rates they were growing previously.
"And how did all of this start? With too many of us voting for the idiot who couldn't spell "economy", let alone understand it."
I think you are talking about dubya, don't you? Surely your personal assets are much more worthy than his, since you dare say he doesn't understand economy.
The sad fact is that dubya knows much more about economics than you (or me), specially about *his* economy, and that's why we are currently where we are.
"You come up with a brilliant idea--let's call it a "Porsche""
No, you can't. Porsche is already a trade mark and its unfair use it's void and will be prosecuted.
IP law is something like *this*.
"Let's see, I have 100 things which say "guilty" and one unexplained thing which could be caused by any of a number of things. OK, I pick.. not guilty! Yeah, that makes sense. It's the same "logic" used by 9/11 truthers."
Let's see, I have the Sun, the Moon and the whole lot of hundreds of stars and only five unexplained tiny points which movements on the sky can be caused by any of a number of things. OK, I pick... Copernicus must be right, not Ptolomaeus... Yeah, that makes sense. It's the same "logic" used by 9/11 truthers.
Luckily enough, I must add, those defending heliocentrism will never find such a dumb jury as OJ. ...or is it you the one that doesn't understand the basis of the scientific method?
"I remember reading that the "difference" was a half a dozen registry settings."
I remember *doing* it (and it involved some light hex editing too).
"Of course - it still might not have the NT Server splash screen..."
It even showed the NT server splash screen.
To be true, that was with NT 3.51, not 4.
But that's a bit of lucky trivia and not a proper way for a test, even an informal one. That's a tester trying to "cheat" for some (prethought) unregular answer and it's one of the best ways to be deaf to whatever the candidate is saying unless he luckily happens "to ring the bell".
The standard example of a "cheating question" is the classical "how many options do you remember from top of your head for ls?" The "proper" answer is another question: "BSD or SysV?" Giving the "proper" answer probably gives you the "greyback" status but not knowing it says... absolutly nothing.
"At a previous job, we interviewed for an assistant admin."
And here starts one of the stupidest stories posted on Slashtdot -ever.
"We had three candidates, one slightly under qualified, one qualified and one who appeared a little over qualified."
How can somebody be "overqualified"? Is this that when you asks him "how much does it sums two plus two" he answers "not only four but due to my overqualifications even five!"? Or is it some kind of zen? He is so overqualified that he knew but now he has forgotten (and so he reached enlightment). Somebody is either apt for the job of he isn't.
All in all, I'll understand your assertion this way: By overqualified you meant he is not only able to do the job but due to his experience and abilites even better payed ones, so you assume that as soon as such better payed jobs appear, he will just say "good bye".
"We gave them each the same test, on a computer with internet access mind you."
So *YOU* were the ones that gave the candidates the tools.
"The, according-to-his-resume, over qualified candidate did outstanding [...] nd found that the 3rd person had Google'd all of his questions and basically copied answers from the web to paper."
So he used all the tools at hand to give you by your own remarks not only proper but outstanding answers while the other two candidates were not even able to do the obvious: look on the Internet for an answer. To me this looks as if that candidate was certainly able to think "out of the box" and to deal with the problem at hand on the most efficient manner so, by all recons he was certainly astoundly over the other candidates, still you rejected him.
"Apart from the fact that he basically plagiarized his answers."
It goes from astounding to flabbergashting! I'll try that tomorrow on my own job:
-Hey, the mail server stopped working
-Yes, I know, it's a known problem with a known solution I could have applied half an hour ago... the difficult part was neither the diagnosis nor finding the trivial way to recover, but finding an original one instead of plagiarizing someone else's solution.
"So in this case, w/o the test, we would have ended up with an employee who basically lied to us."
Because... you told him *not* to use some of the tools at hand (like the Internet connection)? Is that the norm on your working environment? (please, Michael, change the memory dimms on that desktop but today -ahah! you will do it without the screwdriver we know you have in your toolbox! -that must be your definition for a "chagellenging environment" or something like this)
Did you think about such a simple operation as to -ugh! unplug the computer from the net prior to the test? Did you -gasp! think about asking the man "Hey! how did you get your solutions? Did you look for them on Google?"
"In our eyes, if the candidate didn't realize that his internet usage could or was being tracked"
Or he thought that it was part of the test in order to know if he has some ability to "thing out of the box" so his Internet usage was not only unforbidden but a clear sign of maturity and efficiency, or he just didn't give a damn since he ingenually thought he was tested by mature people on a job-like solutions-oriented environment not on a childish school-like one with a "Hey, Mrs Peabody, Charlie cheated on his test" attitude.
Well, getherSpoon, I must say both your story and the way you told it really amazed me.
"Like a F1 team. Michael Schumacher isn't a techie, he doesn't have to be, he doesn't have to know how to exchange a wheel or put petrol in a car. For that matter a F1 team manager doesn't have to have a driving license. Everyone their job and managing is a job. To bad so many such at it."
There should be a car analogy, shouldn't it?
But, guess what? IT is not like an F1 team (not for the most part, at least). Do you know why an F1 team can work the way you say? Because an F1 team have a very hard an obvious objective measure to test against: they either win races or they don't.
Look at your own example: your team did a good work, probably because your manager's ability and, despite of that, he was separated from the project and everything went down from then. Do you imagine Schumacher being taken out of the car's cockpit as long as he won races? Do you imagine his team manager to be fired (or moved to a different position) while his car holded the number one? Even in your case (which success seemed easy to be evaluated) there were a lot of other "soft" measures able to be taken into account that dealt to a (probably) wrong evaluation. For a complex IT structure (and that means "everyone but a mom and pop's shop") there's a lot of "opinions" going there and not a single measure for success so it gets paramount importance that the best "guessers", the ones with the better "applied common sense" to be in charge, and that's impossible to get without a deep technical underground (while certainly not *only* a deep technical underground).
It's obvious that except for the shortest shops there's no point on the CIO knowing how to optimize Apache's configuration for a certain environment, but he is CIO anyway and he will have his own lot of technical choices (maybe if using Apache at all instead of other server, maybe if it makes sense having an homogeneus environment better than a specialised one where some environments run, say, Unix and some Windows, maybe if it's the moment to entry on the "blogosphere thingie"...), and it will be better for the company if the CIO has the "professional intuition" to make the right choices and that means fully technical awareness is a must.
"If the rest of the company is using PHP and you're using Java, that's a problem for management to solve."
Look at the parent poster again. He was told "to go redo the website using whatever technology and features I thought I needed to make it excellent". Then about 50% of the time spent, he was told otherwise.
Certainly a company using PHP and one project using Java could be a "management problem". When management is not able to properly define the problem's realm and its constraints and properly communicate them to their "doers", then it's not a "management problem" but "management is the problem".
"he would see one of his employees has higher quality output than the others"
How the hell would he know without the technical competence to discern it?
Can you *really* discern between two French wines which one is better quality? You probably would be able to say which one tastes better to you -and that would put you exactly in the situation described by the grandparent.
"I have to ask: How does your sister think bacteria acquire antibiotic resistance? God did it?"
Yes. That's what she would tell you. She would even go further and tell you how this trick works: a tiny fraction of the bacteria population were resistant from the very beginning. Then, you expose the population to the antibiotic and all non resistant individuals die but the resistant ones multiply. After a time, all the population is built up from the resistant ancestors. Easy.
"why different animals have such similar physiology?"
Even easier: That's because all of them come from the same author, the Intelligent Designer! No surprise all the creations of an author share a common "inspiration". On the other hand, believing on creationism doesn't mean believing on the "...and the seventh day He rested" tale. Maybe the Designer did create main phylla and allowed them to evolute from there on (I think it's probably much more fun that way).
"If the basics tenant of evolution (common ancestry and natural selection) were disproved then, yes, pretty much all biology related textbooks would have to be rewritten"
Bullshit. If evolution were to be discredited, it certainly would dramatically change the way we see the world surrounding us, but the vast amount of the scientific biology-related literature could go basically unchanged since most of it is just descriptive: the inner organization of a cell as observed is not going to change because god made it the way it is instead of evolution. That's exactly why the sister of the grandparent poster can be a creationist and still being a productive vet (that I think it's amazing for a PhD on a science degree to believe on creationism is quite a different story).
"1 order of magnitude larger is $500. 2 is $5,000. 3 is $50,000.
I think you meant 1-2 orders larger."
How many zeroes are there in "50.000"? How many zeroes are there in "20.000"?
I think he knew better than you when he said 3 orders of magnitude.
"Would you as CEO or internal compliance officer risk millions or even billions on something that is so likely to become discovered? Even if the chances are 10,000-to-1 against the breach ever coming to light? Frankly, the rewards are simply not worth the risk."
And then comes the reality check: just ask Enron executive officers.
"The first thing that would have to be done is"
Is looking to anyone of quite a lot of countries that have already passed laws about personal information management, like all those from old Europe.
No need to reinvent the wheel, sir.
"It is a very bad idea for Linux to still be used in 30 to 50 years."
If you really think so, then you didn't understand a word regarding what open source is about.
There might or might not be Linux in 30 years from now but please remember that Linux, (both the kernel or the distributions upon it) being open source don't need to share neither a single code line nor even "vision" or "strategy" with its 30 year upon the road descendant... and still being called Linux.
"Not unless you still think that the MS-DOS system is still useful today"
You forget that moving the name from Ms DOS to Windows was just a marketing campaign. Current Microsoft Windows Vista could perfectly be called Microsoft DOS 2003; would you say then that the MS-DOS system wouldn't be useful today?
Linux "2038" can perfectly be a "multidistributed, quantum-computing, mind-blowing based" OS by then. Why wouldn't you want it then?
"there is a point where you have filled in all of the squares for which there is only one unique value that is possible, and now you have to start looking at the squares that have two possibilities."
If there are in fact two possibilites, you just write down anyone of them and move on.
"2. If a conflict is discovered"
If a conflict is discovered, then you were *wrong* there were not two possibilities but just one.
"When humans do this, we don't actually perceive it as trial and error"
What kind of human are you? I'm human and I clearly percieve this to be trial and error: I look at a square, then at its environment and I start making wider assumptions till I find a negate condition or a logic dead end that gives me just one choice (the extremest case would be holding the whole sudoku on my mind at once).
"Once you figure out that it's just a binary search tree, it quickly becomes very boring."
That's true both for computing solving *and* human solving. Of course, that doesn't mind if you try to solve it without pencil-guess: you only write down a figure when you are sure it's the right one by inference.
"So yes you can do wonders with very few competent people, so long as you dont interfere with their workflow and you keep the morale/motivation of this staff high."
And you can support your subjective view with... Oh, yes, with nothing. Remember that what you can't support with numbers is not fact, just opinion.
Numbers (like your tickets) are paramount: without them you can't tell you are going on the right path but due to your (sometimes wrong) feelings based on your (always biased) opinion. Even more than that: without the numbers your manager won't be able to defend your jobpost when someone higher up the ranks see your department as the new goal to cut expenditures.
"It'll be his words against yours."
No, it won't. It is not that the officer is arguing that you know the password but you say you not. The thing is that if you don't produce the proper password (no matter if you know it or not), both you and your laptop will be retained (eventually sine die) for further investigation.
"It's a great analysis of the issues, laying out what the heck privacy really is, anyway."
And then, I call Mr Godwin and his law. It's very interesting that kind of analysis and it's my opinion that this is the real path to go. But just for those that are more for "practical matters"...
During the 20's and then in 1933, Germany made various census including religious identification, that would help to better fit government with the sentiments of the population (like adjusting calendar free days).
Germany was by the day a cult, enriching country... but then 1933 came. Hitler (the somewhat elected Government) then found better ways to take advantage from the census, specially the religious part.
Fast forward: 1984, Saraievo. A nice place in a nice developing country. Nice enough to host that year winter Olympic Games... who could expect what would happen just eight years latter, again, with a very important weight on private data?
Morale: once your data is processed and stored, it is stored and processable. Do you have a crystal ball to read the future and know how such data will be used within the next, say, 50 years? (yes, your sons can be forced to pay for your "sins" too).
"What would the border agents make of a linux laptop - one that didn't start X automatically ..."
Uuuhhh... probably nothing, they won't know where to start with it.
*NOW*, they being ignorants, will nicely ask you to wait for a moment... about a week, in order for the guy from the "strange computers highly suspicious to be involved in terrorist affairs" department have a look at it.
And since now you have a week to know better each other, you are going to very detailfully tell them what the heck is doing such a nice guy like you with a highly suspicious computer -c'mon, c'mon, killing our dearest president or what? and they won't be fooled with you being a smartass with some story about a penguin from Finland (is this to the North or to the South from Guantanamo, or is it Hindu Kush?). You will soon discover that while they don't have the slightest idea about what the X Window system is, they know quite a few tricks to make you sing even La Traviatta -all the characters, including the fat woman.