Alex63

18 ms·

121.
by Alex63 16y ago
Sorry, this article is kind of interesting for it's view of another industry, but as a long-time consultant I didn't see any particularly useful tips/advice. The anecdotes are fun, but they don't really tell you how to handle some of the
122.
by Alex63 16y ago
I really didn't think this would be a particularly controversial quotation. The full quotation (according to wikiquote) is: Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that demo
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by Alex63 16y ago
No. If you have a new alternative, let's hear about it. Churchill wasn't saying there can't be a better system - he was saying that in his view democracy was the best of the alternatives tried to this point.
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by Alex63 16y ago
You are much more familiar with the situation in Italy than I am. My comment was based on Codes of the Underworld (Diego Gambetta, 2009, Princeton University Press). On page 70, he says: "The wider the range of possible transgressions, t
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by Alex63 16y ago
Fair question. Maybe not directly relevant, but I think the article highlights the challenges for business owners and managers who may find themselves subject to criminal prosecution without ever having had any intent to commit a crime.
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by Alex63 16y ago
I will defer to Winston Churchill: "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
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by Alex63 16y ago
Not just random fatalism, but also greater acceptance of the idea that individuals can pay authorities not to enforce the vast and unknowable system of laws.
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by Alex63 16y ago
As a person with essentially libertarian views, this is a very interesting article. I may be too quick to applaud this article because it supports my own views, but I think it raises a number of legitimate concerns. In particular, I was st
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by Alex63 16y ago
I particularly enjoyed the quotation at the end of the article, from the guy who thinks that programmers "only cause trouble." I'm sure he'd be much happier with a room full of clerks doing the accounts, and transactions taking a few days.
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by Alex63 16y ago
I thought we already did pay students to become engineers - it's called "employment". If students don't feel that the long-term rewards of an engineering career are worth the up-front costs (time, effort, money), why would the taxpayers wa
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by Alex63 16y ago
Small businesses may use credit/debit cards predominantly, but I think you'll find a lot of medium and large size businesses use Purchase Orders.
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by Alex63 16y ago
My favorite comes from Gerry Weinberg: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
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by Alex63 16y ago
As an ex-pat Canadian, I worry about long term prospects for Canada. Even though the Canadian government seems to be doing the right things, economically, can Canada really avoid a crash if things in the US really tank? The US is Canada's
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by Alex63 16y ago
I think it's fair to question burdening taxpayers with the consequences of one's risk-taking behaviour, but I think there are ways to deal with that. For example, search-and-rescue efforts are often expensive, and taxpayers bear much of the
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by Alex63 16y ago
I don't count insurance companies. An insurance company makes a voluntary decision to be an indirect participant in a risk-taking activity. They can enforce helmet/seat-belt use as part of their policy if they wish, and deny coverage where
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by Alex63 16y ago
Interesting opinion. I wish I could believe that on-line gambling would be legalized in the US, but when you see what has happened with seat-belt and helmet laws (neither of which has any contributory effect to the harm of others), you hav
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by Alex63 16y ago
Getting input/feedback from key stakeholders before the meeting is a great idea. Unfortunately, you will occasionally run into people who either "don't have time" to review materials before a meeting, or who deliberately hold something back
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by Alex63 16y ago
If you are presenting to management, learn this lesson. As a consultant, I do a lot of presentations, and attend a lot of meetings where other people present. Rands provides the best advice: if someone hits you with a surprise, acknowledge
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by Alex63 16y ago
As the spouse of a former Canadian nurse, and friend of others, I think you might be stretching the definition of cushy . Average salary for an RN in Canada a couple of years ago was about $32/hour. You probably would clear $80K if you we
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by Alex63 16y ago
Thanks for the link! Good to see supporting evidence .
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by Alex63 16y ago
Agree. And all the replies to this post about the specifics of medicine or law seem to me to be missing the point. There are fields other than programming where "workers" have more domain-specific knowledge than "managers". Mikemainguy was
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by Alex63 16y ago
I realize that experiences vary, particularly if you are comparing different types of software development (e.g., shrinkwrap vs. departmental IT), but I have to say that $125K/year for 3 years of programming experience does not correspond t
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by Alex63 16y ago
I agree, GlassDoor may not have good data. That's why I'm interested in other evidence. With due respect to you and your acquaintances, it would be helpful to have better public data against which one could make comparisons. I can say t
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by Alex63 16y ago
Again, Glassdoor.com doesn't seem to have a lot of data showing that database engineer salaries above $125K are widespread. I'm interested in any evidence supporting that view (relates to some other conversations I've had recently).
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by Alex63 16y ago
I haven't worked as a "programmer" or "software engineer" for a few years, but looking at GlassDoor.com for evidence, $125K seems like a pretty good salary. Is that an unrealistic salary for a programmer today? Are you referring to the gre
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by Alex63 16y ago
I hope that doesn't sound too sinister. My wife used to refer to it as "the brainwashing". The reality is that Accenture needs to quickly bring together large teams of people who have not previously worked together, and make them productiv
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by Alex63 16y ago
I was a senior manager in Accenture's consulting practice (left in 2002), and still work in the consulting industry. You could probably contact an Accenture recruiter to get an "official" answer. The following is just my opinion. If you cu
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by Alex63 16y ago
Doesn't Tufte in fact use Byrne's graphic proof of the Pythagorean Theorem in one his books? If I were at home I could check, but I think it's in Visual Explanations.
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by Alex63 16y ago
The interactive demo presentation is very cool. I think there may be a small error, however, as the CSS transform associated with the "3" key seems to work everywhere in the presentation, and not just on the CSS transforms slide.
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by Alex63 16y ago
But, unless I am mistaken, Skype does not represent the same threat that GV does. Skype does not offer services like voicemail and personal hunt-groups that potentially undermine telco value-added services.

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