The cost of software is way out of reach for most of these countries.
Pricing proprietary commercial software out of reach of a lot of young smart people is a good thing, IMHO. Easy availability of pirated DOS, Windows, compilers, etc. in Eastern Europe is why I only ran into Unix/Linux in college; something I wish happened a hell of a lot earlier.
I always wondered how much damage a competitor could do by sending someone with a cold onto the premises, and having them infect as many vectors as possible such as the handles on the watercooler, doorknobs, keypads, vending machines, etc. It would be enough to get a few people sick to spread the cold throughout the company, and force everyone to stay home for a day or two. If this happened around a deadline... oy.
Exactly, that's why he's in the perfect position to set the CEO straight. There is no way in hell some fresh out of college brat in the rank and file would have clout in this situation. We talk about clueless upper management all the time here; well here is an upper manager with an engineering background and a clue, willing to argue with the boss.
Jim Allchin, the author of the email you're talking about, isn't an engineer. At the time, he was the vice president of the platform group at Microsoft (the group responsible for operating systems.) He wasn't "facing" management, he was management (he retired earlier this week.)
I disagree. He
used to fix farm equipment
worked on Clouds
worked on Vines
worked for Banyan (remember the Banyan butterfly switch?)
has a PhD in CS.
How is he not an engineer?
He would have been the ideal person to set a clueless CEO straight. (Not implying that that really happened, just if it did).
I'd say it's good for any company to have an engineer like this on staff, who has guts to face management and speak his or her mind.
It reminds me of Dave Cutler, a much more hardcore engineer. I heard Cutler threw a chair into the wall once when someone broke the nightly build, preceding Ballmer's famous incident.
You could avoid DTMF by counting "RING"s from the modem. A script which starts ppp when it notices, e.g. three rings, pause, four rings, would do nicely. That way you can even call from another country and not spend a penny for the phone call (assuming that the modem will see as many "RING"s as you hear on your end).
A couple of mikes, placed in strategic spots around a (house|room|studio), and connected to a cheap linux box, could be a good way to duplicate the voice UI from Star Trek. "Computer, lights!"
Is there any GPL'ed voice recognition software out there?
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I always wondered how much damage a competitor could do by sending someone with a cold onto the premises, and having them infect as many vectors as possible such as the handles on the watercooler, doorknobs, keypads, vending machines, etc. It would be enough to get a few people sick to spread the cold throughout the company, and force everyone to stay home for a day or two. If this happened around a deadline... oy.
Exactly, that's why he's in the perfect position to set the CEO straight. There is no way in hell some fresh out of college brat in the rank and file would have clout in this situation. We talk about clueless upper management all the time here; well here is an upper manager with an engineering background and a clue, willing to argue with the boss.
How is he not an engineer?
He would have been the ideal person to set a clueless CEO straight. (Not implying that that really happened, just if it did).
I'd say it's good for any company to have an engineer like this on staff, who has guts to face management and speak his or her mind.
It reminds me of Dave Cutler, a much more hardcore engineer. I heard Cutler threw a chair into the wall once when someone broke the nightly build, preceding Ballmer's famous incident.
Amen to that. Moonbase was fun :)
You new people crack me up.
Don't bother with the Junior and Senior chicks, they're getting banged by the grad students
Yeah... right!
*grumble*
You could avoid DTMF by counting "RING"s from
the modem. A script which starts ppp when it
notices, e.g. three rings, pause, four rings,
would do nicely. That way you can even call from
another country and not spend a penny for the
phone call (assuming that the modem will see as
many "RING"s as you hear on your end).
--d
A couple of mikes, placed in strategic spots around a
(house|room|studio), and connected to a cheap linux box,
could be a good way to duplicate the voice UI from Star
Trek. "Computer, lights!"
Is there any GPL'ed voice recognition software out there?