As I mentioned in another posting: I did not say that the team was irresponsible, only that the rallying cry "They released a fix in 90 minutes!" makes them sound irresponsible. Of course as you mentioned the reality is that really someone checked in a prospective fix, and then the real work begins to determine if it's a complete fix and has complete coverage, and if it breaks anything else (rather than the portrayal on here like a new version appeared in the pipes 90 minutes later). I have no doubt that some random programmer at Microsoft knew where to put in the fix the moment he saw the issue, but that doesn't equate that they've therefore released a fix.
I'm not saying that they are irresponsible, but rather the very loud "they fixed it in 90 minutes" chorus makes them sound irresponsible because it seems to put speed as the one and only priority.
As another individual noted, however, all that the team really did was to put a fix into the CVS, which is chasms of difference from them actually releasing a fixed version, so really they didn't release a fix in 90 minutes, but rather they coded a fix and could very well be testing it right now. Again it's the difference between the portrayal of the team and what they are really doing.
Sweet time? Indeed, saying that the Konquerer team fixed it in 90 minutes makes them sound very irresponsible, not proactive : Every change like that can have hundreds of ramifications, and I assure you that there is a programmer at Microsoft who could point to a particular segment of code and say "There, we just need to change that line right there". But after several high profile incidents where someone did a change and it broke a dozen large applications, they seem to be a lot more weary about that nowadays. Working in software development, I've seen many situations in large systems where someone wanted to rush out an incompletely thought out feature or fix and the net result was disaster.
Also do not think that an airline pilot is the equivalent to being a glorified bus driver. He is more like the captain of a ship and legally in charge of *EVERYTHING* on board the aircraft.
Uh huh. They are glorified bus drivers (I'm not disparaging bus drivers, but I am disparaging the image of "superman pilot" that you seem to be portraying. Both bus drivers and pilots have a great onus of responsibility for the safety and well being of their passengers). Sure, pilots do ridiculous walk arounds of their plane, inspecting planes that they are unbelievably ill equipped to mechnically inspect, all to make people go "Wow, the pilot is looking over the plane! What a responsibility!", when in reality it might as well be a token passenger doing the walkaround. With all due respect to pilots, that is a field that is going to be full computerized before most others (and it already mostly is).
We shouldn't just let the pilots have a gun on board, we should require that they carry and be trained thoroughly. Part of being certified to be an airliner captain should include having to pass a rigorous marksmanship test and be able to demonstrate adequate hand-to-hand physical combat skills to prevent someone from taking his gun away from him.
It is ABSURD that that will ever happen. Firstly, many pilots are past middle age, and cannot be reasonably expected to be able to hold their own against a very determined hijacker (in case you're not aware, hijackers can come in the form of Schwarzennegaresque black belts). Secondly, what possible use will a gun be in the pilot's hands? There is literally no scenario where a pilot having a gun is of any reasonable use, yet the opposite is absolutely true: Thinking like a criminal my immediate thought would be "How can I get the pilot's gun rather than the much more difficult process of getting my own on board?" Don't think you can? It'd be unbelievably easy: If he has it on him, cause a situation that will make him leave the cockpit while a cohort prepares to overpower him from behind. There are countless scenarios like this, and I cannot think of one single situation where a pilot having a gun would be effective whatsoever.
The gun solution is a pandering to the public illusion of safety, but more dangerously it is actually anti-safety. The only reasonable approach is to make the pilot area completely sealed from the taxiway to the destination taxiway, of course this would disallow the pilot from swaggering down the aisles.
The MGM Grand, Bellagio, The Mirage, New York-New York, Treasure Island, and the Golden Nugget are all owned by MGM Mirage: The Bellagio alone costs some $1.6 billion US to build. Saying it's "only 4" is being pretty liberal with the enormity of these projects. These are not chump change little ventures, and trust me when I say that there is some protection occuring of them. Of course MGM Mirage is, err, a separate company from MGM the movie company, except for small details like being owned by the same guy.
I'm quite frankly too lazy to look for the spider web of shell companies and holdings, and I really have no stake in this: I'm not swayed by movie impressions of casinos, and personally I find casinos to be sad, depressing places for generally elderly people for whom statistics is only a myth. However, if other people get true entertainment from them then that is fantastic for them. Vegas truly is much more than just casinos, though, but people should ponder for a moment what paid for the enormous monuments that line the boulevard.
Vegas can be a great vacation: Indeed, if one isn't a compulsive gamblers, you really could consider it a subsidized vacation-> Tonnes of great entertainment (hell, I love just watching the water show in front of the Bellagio) and food for great prices (sometimes free), all subsidized by the friendly people who come and lose their life's savings. If someone truly goes to Vegas just for fun, and always keeps the right spirit, there is nothing to be criticized there. The problem is that many people get idiotic when it comes to statistics (see the Slashdot story from a couple of days ago linking to the NY Times story that talks about humans and our absurd habit of trying to find predictability in things), and because of that they lose way more than they planned on losing (and the OVERWHELMING majority of people leave with a much lighter pocket. They didn't build those billion dollar buildings to be nice). Of course they'll leave and like most Vegas visitors will only recount how they won $50 at the slots (ignoring the $300 they pumped into it).
Re:150% returns to investors.
on
MIT vs. Las Vegas
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· Score: 5, Interesting
There was an article on Kuro5hin about a year ago dealing specifically with blackjack card counting, and it really is a fantastic read. It discusses the types of people that you find at the average casino, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
The travel channel special is just the beginning though: There have been documentaries discussing the fact that the mega media companies, many of whom own one or more huge casinos in Las Vegas, imbue movies with pleasant impressions of casinos regularly: Seldom do you see a casino image that is row upon row of sad, lonely elderly people mechanically pulling the lever for hours on end, wearing diapers not because of incontinence but rather just to avoid having to leave their lucky slot machine (because a win is always just one pull away, right?). Instead it's playboys and girls: Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston types winning big.
Hehe, you bring up a superb point: DeBeers and friends have been trying to convince people that not only is a diamond required, but that one must spend exorbitant amounts -I'm hardly surprized that they'll try this, and I won't be surprized if they've upped it to "tell her you love her...with a two year salary diamond ring..." in the coming couple of years. Of course they are getting ridiculous as there are very real practical limits for the size of a diamond, at least in most people's taste (I'm sorry, folks, but a giant stone sticking an inch off of the lady's hand just looks absurd : It either looks oversized and gaudy, or like a likely cubic zirconia knockoff).
Hrmmm, I presume you haven't read Alton Brown's new book and contributed a question, as if you had you'd clearly know that Kingsford charcoal is made out of wood.
Oh, I completely agree that drug money might be used to sponsor criminal endeavers , and I completely agree that the Taliban may have made a killing with heroin (though Osama's money was the result of oil, so those plane tickets on September 11th were paid for by every person filling up at the gas pump), but blaming drug purchasers for terrorism is a ridiculous simplification. Isn't it just as reasonable to state that those sponsoring a drug prohibition are the reason that Columbian cartels and Taliban growers are reaping a windfall?
Oh give me a break. In most relationships the woman gets the short end of the stick: While she's berated for buying a $90 pair of shoes, he's busy buying a new $2000 computer. While she's chastized for getting a facial, he's trading in the Honda Civic for a Corvette. While she's agonizing over whether to buy name brand margarine, he's buying a new super torque cordless drill. Making the diamond the big hinging point of a relationship only makes sense if you also drive the cheapest car, and your PC is a 386 that you buy used: If the situation is anything different, then you're just a cheap, selfish bastard that is overly willing to let her go without while you go with.
Correlating terrorism with drug sales is an absolute absurdity bit of propaganda that is so laughable that it boggles the mind. It's especially hilarious when the same administration that tries to admonish drug users perpetuates a dependency on terrorist sponsoring states.
Of course, there's nothing that says that Terrorists couldn't have shares in LNUX (we could only dream), and by reading Slashdot we're sponsoring terrorism.
Save someone's life? Let's face it: The whole social responsibility aspect of diamonds with men is largely a red herring justification trying to look for a way to cheapen out. I'm sure that people will put on their sweatshop made shoes and boot up their computer made in who knows where, dumping who knows what toxic chemicals in the environment (computer making is incredibly toxic), but the moment they have to buy something for the gf/wife is the moment they suddenly become bleeding heart social activists, ready to search high and low to look for a reason to avoid the purchase. This whole discussion about the "conflict" diamonds is grossly simplified as well (is it not possible that diamond money and jobs in some remote African mining areas having sustained and endured thousands or tens of thousands of people?)
If a "few people" know, then be assured that everyone knows. Something like that is the kind of thing that even the best of friends, in a moment of envy, will spill to others.
I really don't get the cubic zirconia deal (and just wait until you get in a fight and one of the things thrown in your face is how much of a "Cheap bastard" you are buying a cz): Either you go with the tradition and uniqueness of a diamond ring, or do something different altogether (no one says that one has to have something diamond like). I got my wife a diamond because it's tradition and it's what she really wanted (and compared to all the toys I've bought myself and had bought for me, the cost of the diamond wasn't at all onerous). If she didn't want a diamond then I would have gotten her something different altogether.
Alton's approach (his show and his books) are expressly to encourage people not to just be "follow the recipe cooks". Instead he teaches the foundation and techniques for cooking, and the rest is up to personal experimentation and experience over time. Simply following a list of directions with no idea of why you're doing each step, the unknowns of heat appliation, etc, is just a waste of time.
Yeah, you you can spend your way to good customer service, the question is just whether comapnies want that.
They could have a dedicated customer service rep who sat beside you all day long if it was financially viable. However, I am not saying that "customer service must be absolutely perfect!" because many times that is only one of many competitive factors: Many people will buy a cheaper product even if the service is known to be garbage. My point is that in the grand scheme of things good information infrastructures can dramatically help them do more with less, but many companies are busy spending $200 million to build a new shrine to their greatness (office building), or paying out their CEOs in the tens of millions. IT is the new sacrificial goat: Just look at the California fiasco -> I agree that they got screwed, however even that was a measly $100 million : There are so many more government projects that are DRAMATICALLY more money that are ignored, but as IT is the sacrificial goat...sacrifice it! The same thing happened when the.COM bust occurred, and everyone was falling over themselves to point out Aeron chairs or well paid software engineers, despite the fact that in the grand scheme of things they were absolutely trivial expenses (look up the legal costs for virtually any.COM that went belly up, and I think you'll find that it grossly eclipses their actual technology spending: Going public is a very expensive venture).
Of course it isn't, but it can be assisted by it. Many times I've dealt with customer service, I've been astounded by how little information they seem to have about me, and about prior interactions I've had with their customer service system (even as simple as getting transferred from one person to another, usually as an escalation: I _CANNOT_STAND_ when I then have to repeat my explanation from the beginning because they have no proper information flow). CRM systems and databases to help these people have the answers that they need to have for their customers are paramount.
.its the issue of people buying whatever was being pitched to them because it was new.
I will definitely agree with that. Indeed, touching on another point another poster made, there are systems that have added absolutely nothing to the productivity of an organization simply because they weren't properly scoped out and implemented. Hell, most organizations that have heavily invested in technology often have several disparate, largely unreliable (unreliable from a data perspective, not from a software reliability angle) systems that remain largely underutilized.
Do I think there are scam CRM systems? Without a doubt. Indeed, probably the most effective CRM systems are the ones that grew within the company organically, expanding to accomodate the company's needs precisely. The least effective are the "pay us $30 million and we'll come and try to shoehorn our generic system into your process".
The advantages promised by technology, particularly in the areas you mention, are rarely if ever delivered.
There are countless very large companies that to this day have a largely paper process for their information flow (I know because I'm often involved in creating parallel electronic systems): Slow, error prone, repetitive, and very heavy in manual labour. The idea that every company is tech enabled because they have email and a corporate intranet is absurd.
My satisfaction isn't at anything resembling a pinnacle. Possibly because they transfered their customer service functions to contractors in India in order to recoup some of the money they blew on their technology.
Technology can help, but it can't make up for horrendous management.
One mistake that people often make when looking at industry is presuming that there is some "stopping point" at which the company has been tech enabled: How utterly insane. Business is competition, and if you're in a billion dollar field and spending $20 million on a new database system will allow you to proactively respond to your customers quicker, gaining more marketshare, then it's likely worth it. If you got replaced a database server with a new, super hyper database server that gives you a CRM system that allows you to capitalize on every call, and keep customer satisfaction at its pinnacle, then not only is it a good investment, competitively it is likely crucial for you to survive as a company. There are countless examples like this where competition is the driving force behind technology: Sure, righteously deride technology in a luddite fashion, but remember your words fondly when you're in the unemployment line.
Economic slowdowns cause a cessation in spending, and the reality is that often the spending reduction turns out to be disasterous for those companies that fall behind.
I realize that you intended to reply to me so I'm replying here.
I completely agree that within the artificial environment of a corporation (or of a "OH MY GOD!" scenario setup), one can very easily redirect DNS (indeed, the whole idea of a proxy is by design a man-in-the-middle), however the people in charge in that case are equally capable of installing keystroke loggers/trojans on every workstation anyways. No one should consider anything typed on a computer you don't own to be safe, and I certainly wouldn't consider the authentication feature of SSL as my security blanket.
My point was that one can bring up countless, fanciful, worst case scenarios: People talk about viruses that rewrite your host file, as if SSL authentication would somehow protect against that: Such a virus/trojan could just as easily add their own trusted root certificates to your machine, or as previously mentioned they could just stick on a key logger and be done with it (why bother emulating a whole site or acting as a man in the middle when you already ownz the machine?)
Ummm. No. You are wrong, or at least you decided to take my point out of context. As mentioned, saying SSL is "junk" when the transport encryption is unaffected is just plain dumb. Someone could very well have a master signing certificate from one of the major authorities right now....OH MY GOD! THE SECURITY OF SSL IS "nil"! Clearly it is useless, and can only work if we telephone every vendor whom we make a connection to and get a verbal confirmation...hrmm, how to confirm that the phone call went to the right place...okay, we'll telephone the vendor, and simultaneously telephone a third party who'll go to their office and cell phone us while monitoring them speaking with us. Now THAT'LL be secure. Oh, wait...
I have "authenticated" the person I'm talking to when I did a DNS lookup and direct my packets to their IP. Yes, I'm completely agreeing that it's possible to give bogus DNS replies, or to somehow intercede in the packet stream (MITM), but the likelihood of that is unbelievably remote (and performing overt acts like that is far more easily tracable and punishable than just doing a logged sniff). Note that most users do actually care that their shopping cart is encrypted, but virtually everyone just clicks past the "WARNING! This certificate is not valid!" warning.
Let me repeat: Saying that the security of transport encryption is "nil" is ridiculous panicky BS.
You began your adult life working as a cinematographer, and Good Eats displays it: Rather than another static set of cameras, or the hectic handheld jarred camera of shows like the Naked Chef, Good Eats is pleasantly watchable and remarkably entertaining. Without doubt you are a tremendous cook and brilliant teacher, but would you say that your cinematography input into what was a tired food show industry is what brought you and your show into the limelight?
Slashdot Mirror
As I mentioned in another posting: I did not say that the team was irresponsible, only that the rallying cry "They released a fix in 90 minutes!" makes them sound irresponsible. Of course as you mentioned the reality is that really someone checked in a prospective fix, and then the real work begins to determine if it's a complete fix and has complete coverage, and if it breaks anything else (rather than the portrayal on here like a new version appeared in the pipes 90 minutes later). I have no doubt that some random programmer at Microsoft knew where to put in the fix the moment he saw the issue, but that doesn't equate that they've therefore released a fix.
I'm not saying that they are irresponsible, but rather the very loud "they fixed it in 90 minutes" chorus makes them sound irresponsible because it seems to put speed as the one and only priority.
As another individual noted, however, all that the team really did was to put a fix into the CVS, which is chasms of difference from them actually releasing a fixed version, so really they didn't release a fix in 90 minutes, but rather they coded a fix and could very well be testing it right now. Again it's the difference between the portrayal of the team and what they are really doing.
Sweet time? Indeed, saying that the Konquerer team fixed it in 90 minutes makes them sound very irresponsible, not proactive : Every change like that can have hundreds of ramifications, and I assure you that there is a programmer at Microsoft who could point to a particular segment of code and say "There, we just need to change that line right there". But after several high profile incidents where someone did a change and it broke a dozen large applications, they seem to be a lot more weary about that nowadays. Working in software development, I've seen many situations in large systems where someone wanted to rush out an incompletely thought out feature or fix and the net result was disaster.
Also do not think that an airline pilot is the equivalent to being a glorified bus driver. He is more like the captain of a ship and legally in charge of *EVERYTHING* on board the aircraft.
Uh huh. They are glorified bus drivers (I'm not disparaging bus drivers, but I am disparaging the image of "superman pilot" that you seem to be portraying. Both bus drivers and pilots have a great onus of responsibility for the safety and well being of their passengers). Sure, pilots do ridiculous walk arounds of their plane, inspecting planes that they are unbelievably ill equipped to mechnically inspect, all to make people go "Wow, the pilot is looking over the plane! What a responsibility!", when in reality it might as well be a token passenger doing the walkaround. With all due respect to pilots, that is a field that is going to be full computerized before most others (and it already mostly is).
We shouldn't just let the pilots have a gun on board, we should require that they carry and be trained thoroughly. Part of being certified to be an airliner captain should include having to pass a rigorous marksmanship test and be able to demonstrate adequate hand-to-hand physical combat skills to prevent someone from taking his gun away from him.
It is ABSURD that that will ever happen. Firstly, many pilots are past middle age, and cannot be reasonably expected to be able to hold their own against a very determined hijacker (in case you're not aware, hijackers can come in the form of Schwarzennegaresque black belts). Secondly, what possible use will a gun be in the pilot's hands? There is literally no scenario where a pilot having a gun is of any reasonable use, yet the opposite is absolutely true: Thinking like a criminal my immediate thought would be "How can I get the pilot's gun rather than the much more difficult process of getting my own on board?" Don't think you can? It'd be unbelievably easy: If he has it on him, cause a situation that will make him leave the cockpit while a cohort prepares to overpower him from behind. There are countless scenarios like this, and I cannot think of one single situation where a pilot having a gun would be effective whatsoever.
The gun solution is a pandering to the public illusion of safety, but more dangerously it is actually anti-safety. The only reasonable approach is to make the pilot area completely sealed from the taxiway to the destination taxiway, of course this would disallow the pilot from swaggering down the aisles.
The MGM Grand, Bellagio, The Mirage, New York-New York, Treasure Island, and the Golden Nugget are all owned by MGM Mirage: The Bellagio alone costs some $1.6 billion US to build. Saying it's "only 4" is being pretty liberal with the enormity of these projects. These are not chump change little ventures, and trust me when I say that there is some protection occuring of them. Of course MGM Mirage is, err, a separate company from MGM the movie company, except for small details like being owned by the same guy.
I'm quite frankly too lazy to look for the spider web of shell companies and holdings, and I really have no stake in this: I'm not swayed by movie impressions of casinos, and personally I find casinos to be sad, depressing places for generally elderly people for whom statistics is only a myth. However, if other people get true entertainment from them then that is fantastic for them. Vegas truly is much more than just casinos, though, but people should ponder for a moment what paid for the enormous monuments that line the boulevard.
Vegas can be a great vacation: Indeed, if one isn't a compulsive gamblers, you really could consider it a subsidized vacation-> Tonnes of great entertainment (hell, I love just watching the water show in front of the Bellagio) and food for great prices (sometimes free), all subsidized by the friendly people who come and lose their life's savings. If someone truly goes to Vegas just for fun, and always keeps the right spirit, there is nothing to be criticized there. The problem is that many people get idiotic when it comes to statistics (see the Slashdot story from a couple of days ago linking to the NY Times story that talks about humans and our absurd habit of trying to find predictability in things), and because of that they lose way more than they planned on losing (and the OVERWHELMING majority of people leave with a much lighter pocket. They didn't build those billion dollar buildings to be nice). Of course they'll leave and like most Vegas visitors will only recount how they won $50 at the slots (ignoring the $300 they pumped into it).
There was an article on Kuro5hin about a year ago dealing specifically with blackjack card counting, and it really is a fantastic read. It discusses the types of people that you find at the average casino, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
The travel channel special is just the beginning though: There have been documentaries discussing the fact that the mega media companies, many of whom own one or more huge casinos in Las Vegas, imbue movies with pleasant impressions of casinos regularly: Seldom do you see a casino image that is row upon row of sad, lonely elderly people mechanically pulling the lever for hours on end, wearing diapers not because of incontinence but rather just to avoid having to leave their lucky slot machine (because a win is always just one pull away, right?). Instead it's playboys and girls: Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston types winning big.
Hehe, you bring up a superb point: DeBeers and friends have been trying to convince people that not only is a diamond required, but that one must spend exorbitant amounts -I'm hardly surprized that they'll try this, and I won't be surprized if they've upped it to "tell her you love her...with a two year salary diamond ring..." in the coming couple of years. Of course they are getting ridiculous as there are very real practical limits for the size of a diamond, at least in most people's taste (I'm sorry, folks, but a giant stone sticking an inch off of the lady's hand just looks absurd : It either looks oversized and gaudy, or like a likely cubic zirconia knockoff).
Bwahahaha. Very nice. :-)
For reasons unknown Slashdot is filtering underscores out of links, however that should be http://amazing_facts.tripod.com/kingsford.html
Hrmmm, I presume you haven't read Alton Brown's new book and contributed a question, as if you had you'd clearly know that Kingsford charcoal is made out of wood.
Oh, I completely agree that drug money might be used to sponsor criminal endeavers , and I completely agree that the Taliban may have made a killing with heroin (though Osama's money was the result of oil, so those plane tickets on September 11th were paid for by every person filling up at the gas pump), but blaming drug purchasers for terrorism is a ridiculous simplification. Isn't it just as reasonable to state that those sponsoring a drug prohibition are the reason that Columbian cartels and Taliban growers are reaping a windfall?
Oh give me a break. In most relationships the woman gets the short end of the stick: While she's berated for buying a $90 pair of shoes, he's busy buying a new $2000 computer. While she's chastized for getting a facial, he's trading in the Honda Civic for a Corvette. While she's agonizing over whether to buy name brand margarine, he's buying a new super torque cordless drill. Making the diamond the big hinging point of a relationship only makes sense if you also drive the cheapest car, and your PC is a 386 that you buy used: If the situation is anything different, then you're just a cheap, selfish bastard that is overly willing to let her go without while you go with.
Correlating terrorism with drug sales is an absolute absurdity bit of propaganda that is so laughable that it boggles the mind. It's especially hilarious when the same administration that tries to admonish drug users perpetuates a dependency on terrorist sponsoring states.
Of course, there's nothing that says that Terrorists couldn't have shares in LNUX (we could only dream), and by reading Slashdot we're sponsoring terrorism.
Save someone's life? Let's face it: The whole social responsibility aspect of diamonds with men is largely a red herring justification trying to look for a way to cheapen out. I'm sure that people will put on their sweatshop made shoes and boot up their computer made in who knows where, dumping who knows what toxic chemicals in the environment (computer making is incredibly toxic), but the moment they have to buy something for the gf/wife is the moment they suddenly become bleeding heart social activists, ready to search high and low to look for a reason to avoid the purchase. This whole discussion about the "conflict" diamonds is grossly simplified as well (is it not possible that diamond money and jobs in some remote African mining areas having sustained and endured thousands or tens of thousands of people?)
If a "few people" know, then be assured that everyone knows. Something like that is the kind of thing that even the best of friends, in a moment of envy, will spill to others.
I really don't get the cubic zirconia deal (and just wait until you get in a fight and one of the things thrown in your face is how much of a "Cheap bastard" you are buying a cz): Either you go with the tradition and uniqueness of a diamond ring, or do something different altogether (no one says that one has to have something diamond like). I got my wife a diamond because it's tradition and it's what she really wanted (and compared to all the toys I've bought myself and had bought for me, the cost of the diamond wasn't at all onerous). If she didn't want a diamond then I would have gotten her something different altogether.
Alton's approach (his show and his books) are expressly to encourage people not to just be "follow the recipe cooks". Instead he teaches the foundation and techniques for cooking, and the rest is up to personal experimentation and experience over time. Simply following a list of directions with no idea of why you're doing each step, the unknowns of heat appliation, etc, is just a waste of time.
Yeah, you you can spend your way to good customer service, the question is just whether comapnies want that.
.COM bust occurred, and everyone was falling over themselves to point out Aeron chairs or well paid software engineers, despite the fact that in the grand scheme of things they were absolutely trivial expenses (look up the legal costs for virtually any .COM that went belly up, and I think you'll find that it grossly eclipses their actual technology spending: Going public is a very expensive venture).
They could have a dedicated customer service rep who sat beside you all day long if it was financially viable. However, I am not saying that "customer service must be absolutely perfect!" because many times that is only one of many competitive factors: Many people will buy a cheaper product even if the service is known to be garbage. My point is that in the grand scheme of things good information infrastructures can dramatically help them do more with less, but many companies are busy spending $200 million to build a new shrine to their greatness (office building), or paying out their CEOs in the tens of millions. IT is the new sacrificial goat: Just look at the California fiasco -> I agree that they got screwed, however even that was a measly $100 million : There are so many more government projects that are DRAMATICALLY more money that are ignored, but as IT is the sacrificial goat...sacrifice it! The same thing happened when the
Of course it isn't, but it can be assisted by it. Many times I've dealt with customer service, I've been astounded by how little information they seem to have about me, and about prior interactions I've had with their customer service system (even as simple as getting transferred from one person to another, usually as an escalation: I _CANNOT_STAND_ when I then have to repeat my explanation from the beginning because they have no proper information flow). CRM systems and databases to help these people have the answers that they need to have for their customers are paramount.
.its the issue of people buying whatever was being pitched to them because it was new.
I will definitely agree with that. Indeed, touching on another point another poster made, there are systems that have added absolutely nothing to the productivity of an organization simply because they weren't properly scoped out and implemented. Hell, most organizations that have heavily invested in technology often have several disparate, largely unreliable (unreliable from a data perspective, not from a software reliability angle) systems that remain largely underutilized.
Do I think there are scam CRM systems? Without a doubt. Indeed, probably the most effective CRM systems are the ones that grew within the company organically, expanding to accomodate the company's needs precisely. The least effective are the "pay us $30 million and we'll come and try to shoehorn our generic system into your process".
The advantages promised by technology, particularly in the areas you mention, are rarely if ever delivered.
There are countless very large companies that to this day have a largely paper process for their information flow (I know because I'm often involved in creating parallel electronic systems): Slow, error prone, repetitive, and very heavy in manual labour. The idea that every company is tech enabled because they have email and a corporate intranet is absurd.
My satisfaction isn't at anything resembling a pinnacle. Possibly because they transfered their customer service functions to contractors in India in order to recoup some of the money they blew on their technology.
Technology can help, but it can't make up for horrendous management.
One mistake that people often make when looking at industry is presuming that there is some "stopping point" at which the company has been tech enabled: How utterly insane. Business is competition, and if you're in a billion dollar field and spending $20 million on a new database system will allow you to proactively respond to your customers quicker, gaining more marketshare, then it's likely worth it. If you got replaced a database server with a new, super hyper database server that gives you a CRM system that allows you to capitalize on every call, and keep customer satisfaction at its pinnacle, then not only is it a good investment, competitively it is likely crucial for you to survive as a company. There are countless examples like this where competition is the driving force behind technology: Sure, righteously deride technology in a luddite fashion, but remember your words fondly when you're in the unemployment line.
Economic slowdowns cause a cessation in spending, and the reality is that often the spending reduction turns out to be disasterous for those companies that fall behind.
I realize that you intended to reply to me so I'm replying here.
I completely agree that within the artificial environment of a corporation (or of a "OH MY GOD!" scenario setup), one can very easily redirect DNS (indeed, the whole idea of a proxy is by design a man-in-the-middle), however the people in charge in that case are equally capable of installing keystroke loggers/trojans on every workstation anyways. No one should consider anything typed on a computer you don't own to be safe, and I certainly wouldn't consider the authentication feature of SSL as my security blanket.
My point was that one can bring up countless, fanciful, worst case scenarios: People talk about viruses that rewrite your host file, as if SSL authentication would somehow protect against that: Such a virus/trojan could just as easily add their own trusted root certificates to your machine, or as previously mentioned they could just stick on a key logger and be done with it (why bother emulating a whole site or acting as a man in the middle when you already ownz the machine?)
Ummm. No. You are wrong, or at least you decided to take my point out of context. As mentioned, saying SSL is "junk" when the transport encryption is unaffected is just plain dumb. Someone could very well have a master signing certificate from one of the major authorities right now....OH MY GOD! THE SECURITY OF SSL IS "nil"! Clearly it is useless, and can only work if we telephone every vendor whom we make a connection to and get a verbal confirmation...hrmm, how to confirm that the phone call went to the right place...okay, we'll telephone the vendor, and simultaneously telephone a third party who'll go to their office and cell phone us while monitoring them speaking with us. Now THAT'LL be secure. Oh, wait...
I have "authenticated" the person I'm talking to when I did a DNS lookup and direct my packets to their IP. Yes, I'm completely agreeing that it's possible to give bogus DNS replies, or to somehow intercede in the packet stream (MITM), but the likelihood of that is unbelievably remote (and performing overt acts like that is far more easily tracable and punishable than just doing a logged sniff). Note that most users do actually care that their shopping cart is encrypted, but virtually everyone just clicks past the "WARNING! This certificate is not valid!" warning.
Let me repeat: Saying that the security of transport encryption is "nil" is ridiculous panicky BS.
You began your adult life working as a cinematographer, and Good Eats displays it: Rather than another static set of cameras, or the hectic handheld jarred camera of shows like the Naked Chef, Good Eats is pleasantly watchable and remarkably entertaining. Without doubt you are a tremendous cook and brilliant teacher, but would you say that your cinematography input into what was a tired food show industry is what brought you and your show into the limelight?