Sometimes I think we are missing the point.
Did anyone notice that AMD's roadmap puts maybe ten months between the company's 'Istanbul' Opteron and its next-gen server platform? That's an awfully small window when you're looking to qualify a multi-core server chip.…
Video - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
by (author unknown) at June 08, 2009 07:11 AM
Sometimes I think we are missing the point.
by Mike Cottmeyer at June 07, 2009 06:35 PM
There is more commercial interest in OpenBSC than I expected initially when I started the project as a 'just for fun playground for GSM hacking'. Now we have received an inquiry from a company who wants to fund the development of an actual A interface to OpenBSC. This basically means that somebody wants to hook up OpenBSC to an actual real-world MSC (Mobile Switching Center) of an actual real-world GSM network.
The A interface is the interface between the BSS (BSC + BTS) and the higher levels of the telephony network. The interface is based on SS7 and lives on top of SCCP. There's BSSMAP, DTAP and OMAP. Both connection-less and connection- oriented modes of SCCP are required.
What this means is that OpenBSC's software architecture will shift even further towards the traditional GSM network architecture. So far, we have a "full GSM network from BSC to MSC/HLR in a box" approach. This makes it easy to implement, but is quite restrictive. You cannot route/switch calls to a different network, e.g.
The recent patches posted by Andreas Eversberg already introduce a software interface called mncc into the OpenBSC codebase. While those patches are not merged yet, they are introducing a functional split between the call-control entity on one hand, and the RR and NM as well as Abis RSL/OML functionality on the other side.
When we introduce the A interface, the functional split in the software will be driven even further. We'll first introduce an API at the traditional BSC/MSC split, and then write a BSSMAP/DTAP/OMAP protocol interface to that API.
One thing is for sure: We'll always keep the 'run everything in one box' mode around. This is still the most useful case for small-scale experimentation with GSM.
I'm definitely looking forward to see this project grow. We still have no agenda for things like GPRS/EDGE support, or any kind of handover. But then, development one step at a time is more healthy than trying to do everything at the same time.
I'm really excited to play with the A interface, and to interact with an actual MSC on a protocol level. This sort-of completes my ventures into GSM protocol land, from the Um (on-air) over A-bis to the A interface, one iteration up the network hierarchy at a time.
by (author unknown) at June 06, 2009 02:00 AM
Filed under: Cellphones
Garmin "getting very close" to a US Nuvifone launch... or so it says originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Darren Murph at June 05, 2009 10:41 PM
Stephen Wolfram, the physicist behind the new Wolfram Alpha search engine, says his team is working on cramming more knowledge in the new service across a broader range of topics.…
Video - Business Intelligence for mid-sized businesses
by (author unknown) at June 05, 2009 05:34 PM
Intel's increased focus on Linux and real time operating systems will see it pushing its Atom architecture into handsets within three years and launching "handset-sized" devices much sooner, the chip giant's sales boss said today.…
Video - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
by (author unknown) at June 05, 2009 05:12 PM
Google has announced the availability of the first official Chrome developer release for Linux and Mac OS X. The search giant says that the release is a preview intended for testing purposes only and that the software is still unsuitable for regular users.
When Google launched Chrome last year, the browser was available only on Windows. Development on the Linux and Mac OS X ports began shortly after the initial Windows release and has progressed at a steady pace. The Chrome team aims to build ports that feel native and conform well with the underlying platform, but also retain some of the browser's unique characteristics, such as the distinctive angled tab skyline. This approach to cross-platform software development is very challenging, especially on Linux where the inherent diversity and modularity of the platform makes it difficult to translate many elements of the original Chrome vision.
Click here to read the rest of this articleby segphault@arstechnica.com (Ryan Paul) at June 05, 2009 02:33 PM
In my last post I told you about the three levels of control for managers. I didn't have much time to go into details then, and it was no surprise to see several readers asking for specific examples. I am glad to oblige now, because like you I'm also trying to figure out how these ideas would apply to my daily business.
Let's review the three levels again:
As an example assume that your development teams are facing quality problems in their code due to lack of professional practices, and as a manager you want to do something about that. (Of course, this is just a theoretical exercise, right?) Here's how different types of managers (separated in leaders vs. rulers) could approach such a problem:
A level 1 leader would pick the best tools for unit testing and refactoring. He would select and buy the best books, organize some coding dojos with the team, and he would coach the team members daily, teaching them how to perform as it is expected of them. He might also buy a fluffy rabbit hat, and anyone who caused problems would wear it for day.
A level 1 ruler would not necessarily be leading himself, but he would be judging the team's day-to-day activities relentlessly. He could prescribe in detail what the Definition of Done must look like. He could refuse a vacation request for someone who made a complete mess with untested code. And he might order that the fluffy rabbit hat is replaced by real tar and feathers.
Level 1 is about making sure that people respond correctly to the required performance level. It is about making daily choices for the team: what to do, and what not to do. Many teams need level 1 control, because they lack the experience and skill to make all these choices themselves. However, for managers it is best when they're able to relinquish that control to the team. When the team has reached a certain level of maturity, and is able to self-organize and make its own choices, the manager steps up to level 2...
The level 2 leader would not care about which tools, books, and coding sessions to choose. She just concerns herself with questions about the right performance levels: Do we implement unit-testing first, and TDD (= more difficult) later? Do we start low-profile, with the easiest projects (= low impact)? Or do we adopt a big-bang approach (= high impact)? Or maybe postpone these topics and ask the team to implement automatic builds first?
The level 2 ruler would demand that the team performs some exams, and acquire certificates, as proof that they've mastered these topics and are able to apply them in projects. He could require that every team feeds their daily build status into his digital dashboard, and a lack of status or continuous sequence of red lights on the dashboard would see the team punished with the most horrible pizza toppings.
Level 2 control is about making sure that the team understands what the desired performance level is. All teams need such control. But if the team is very experienced and high-talented, this type of control could be an insult to their craftsmanship. They already know what's needed to produce high-quality code. And you could relinquish control even further, and step up to level 3...
The level 3 leader does not concern himself with specifying performance levels. He cares about the what, not the how. Is increasing code quality really our highest concern right now? Maybe we must focus on new platforms, and leave our messy legacy code for what it is? Or maybe we must teach our dyslectic mandrills to behave as real people first?
The level 3 ruler has the easiest job of all. She just fires anyone who annoys her. She kills internal projects, and introduces new ones. She decides whether to benchmark with CMMI or ISO 9001, or (when she's really smart) she just ignores the whole industry and devises a company benchmark of her own. Something that includes profit. And product reviews. And cheesecake.
Level 3 control is about selecting what it is that needs to be controlled. There are so many things to choose from, and figuring out what the control system must be is the most important choice of all.
True, the differences between the three levels (and the differences between leading and ruling), are sometimes hard to see. The world is not black and white after all. It's more of a mucky brown with some black-ish and white-ish tints. But I believe this arrangement is helping me in better understanding what to control myself, and what to relinquish to others.
Maybe it helps you too.
(images from: Ten Weirdest Pizza Toppings)
Twitter -
Subscribe -
Newsletter -
Bookmarks
Latest, greatest and favoritest posts:
Agile (Wrongfully) Assumes Craftsmanship
Empowered, Whether You Like It or Not
Leader vs. Ruler: Which One Are You?
by Jurgen Appelo at June 05, 2009 11:39 AM
Google has released a rough-round-the-edges version of Chrome for the Mac OS X and Linux platforms, nine months after the browser made its debut.…
Video - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
by (author unknown) at June 05, 2009 11:21 AM
Continue reading Hands-on with ASUS' Eee PC 1101HGO at Computex
Filed under: Laptops
Hands-on with ASUS' Eee PC 1101HGO at Computex originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Laura June at June 05, 2009 03:04 AM
This is a status report for the Linux Driver Project as of June 2009, describing what has happened in the past year of work. It was originally posted on the Linux Driver Project developer mailing list.
by (author unknown) at June 04, 2009 08:14 PM
Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs) is shipping an Android version of its Linux-compatible OKL4 hypervisor. "OK:Android" is an off-the-shelf, paravirtualized version of Android that enables Android to run as a guest operating system (OS) in a secure "hypercell" alongside another phone OS, says the company.
by (author unknown) at June 04, 2009 07:53 PM
Yesterday evening, after writing the previous two articles on the battle between Intel and ARM + NVIDIA for the ultramobile space, I was telling our Linux editor why I think Intel pours so many resources into Moblin and other parts of the Linux ecosystem: they want to keep x86-based Linux well ahead of ARM, because the software stack is critical to making inroads in low-power mobile and embedded applications. But while Moblin might be fine for web tablets and the like, real embedded customers of the sort that Intel would ultimately like to poach from ARM run the VxWorks real-time OS by Wind River. So this morning, Intel has announced that it is going to do with VxWorks what it cannot do with Linux—it's just buying the whole thing.
Click here to read the rest of this articleby hannibal@arstechnica.com (Jon Stokes) at June 04, 2009 05:57 PM
Intel has speed-bumped its top-of-the-line Core i7 Extreme Edition processor, increasing its lead as the fastest desktop chip that the company has ever offered.…
Whitepaper - Creating portals with Office Sharepoint: put an end to the information free for all
by (author unknown) at June 04, 2009 05:54 PM
At this week's Computex show, Intel demonstrated Moblin running Android apps in a simulator. Meanwhile, Android phones were confirmed by Acer and Garmin-Asus, Acer announced an Android version of its Aspire One netbook (pictured), and Asus provided a brief glimpse of an Android netbook, reports say.
by (author unknown) at June 04, 2009 05:00 PM
The 20 percent spike is a distinctive strength. It’s unusually powerful. Using your 20 percent spike generates exponential results. It’s a way to amplify your impact and maximize results. My 20 percent spike is information artistry. I use this skill to create, organize, and share complex information in a simple way. At work, it helps me write more effective books. At home, it helps me learn faster and turn insights into action. From a service standpoint, it helps me unleash the best in others.
In the book, The 80/20 Individual: How to Build on the 20% of What You do Best
Key Take Aways
Here’s my key take aways:
The 20 Percent Spike
Your 20 percent spike is your distinctive strength. Koch writes:
What make a CEO, leader, or manager great is what psychologists call the “spike,” and I call the “20 percent spike.” The spike is a distinctive strength in a person that is unusually powerful, so it’s in your best interest to train and develop your spike to Olympian standards.
A Few Fantastic Strengths
A few fantastic strengths are better than well-rounded. Koch writes:
Do corporate psychologists, who determine whether you or another-short-listed candidate will get the top job, look for well-rounded team players or for oddballs? Intriguingly, the latter. The psychologist wants unusual characters who have a few fantastic strengths. If you have these, the corporation couldn’t care less about a long laundry list of things you can’t do well or even do at all.
Any Significant Leader is Not Well-Rounded
Superstars have lopsided traits. Koch writes:
Gurnek Bains, head of YSC, a leading firm of business psychologists, explains: “Any significant leader is not well-rounded. They’re all quite different, slightly idiosyncratic characters. The best directors have huge spikes and equally large downsides. Psychoanalyst Michael Maccoby agrees. He highlights today’s “superstar” leaders and draws attention to their lopsided traits: “Today’s CEO’s – superstars such as Bill Gates, Andy Groves, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Jack Welch – hire their own publicists, write books, grant spontaneous interviews, and actively promote their personal philosophies … [they] closely resemble the personality type that Sigmund Freud dubbed narcissistic.”
Productive Narcissists
Creative individuals compensate for weaknesses by leveraging other people who are skilled in those areas. Koch writes:
Macoby says that such “productive narcissists” have tremendous vision and self-belief yet are anything but team players. Most would not score well on emotional intelligence or the ability to listen to other people. Not all 80/20 individuals are “productive narcissists,” but many of the new superstars are effective precisely because they are unbalanced. To compensate for their weaknesses, these creative individuals have entrusted their business to other people who are skilled in those areas.
My Related Posts
Photo by TCM Hitchhiker.
by JD at June 04, 2009 04:42 PM
[Updated: 9AM] -- Intel announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wind River Systems, one of the top providers of embedded Linux distributions and tools. Intel plans to acquire Wind River for $11.50 per share in cash, or about $884 million, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.
by (author unknown) at June 04, 2009 07:49 AM
Google demonstrated an early version of Android 2.0, codenamed "Donut," at the Google I/O developer conference, and handed out free unlocked Android Dev Phones (pictured), says eWEEK. Android 2.0 adds integrated local and web search, handwriting gesture UI, Google Translate, and text-to-speech features, says the story.
by (author unknown) at June 03, 2009 10:59 PM
Computex Intel continues to push the adoption of the open-source Moblin Version 2 mobile operating system, today using the Computex show in Taipei, Taiwan as its bully pulpit.…
Whitepaper - Creating portals with Office Sharepoint: put an end to the information free for all
by (author unknown) at June 03, 2009 08:08 PM
Filed under: Desktops, Handhelds, Laptops
Acer to join the Moblin Linux bandwagon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Joseph L. Flatley at June 03, 2009 06:41 PM
Two weeks ago, when Intel once again delayed its quad-core "Tukwila" Itanium processors until early 2010, the company did not give much insight into what the delay was about. It also said nothing about how the continuing delays with Tukwila would affect future Itanium processor rollouts.…
Whitepaper - Creating portals with Office Sharepoint: put an end to the information free for all
by (author unknown) at June 03, 2009 04:02 PM
Filed under: Desktops, Transportation
Full-fledged Atom PC finds home in toy Ferrari originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Darren Murph at June 03, 2009 02:44 PM
Sun officially announced the Java App Store during JavaOne...
by (author unknown) at June 03, 2009 01:41 PM
I’ve been thinking of my life as a business. Without getting too carried away with the analogy - after all, life’s way more than business - it gives me a helpful frame, along with patterns and practices, to draw from. Rather than think of a business that makes money, I think of a business that creates value (the mark of an enduring business.) In this case, value for yourself and others.
My life is my business. I get to set the mission, vision, and values. Through this lens I can decide who my customers are (myself, family, friends, community, employer, … etc.). I can decide what my core capabilities will be, and how to invest my life force to flow value for others. With this in mind, here are some guidelines for life inspired by business …
Top 10 Guidelines
Here’s my top ten to start things off:
Life 2.0 Guidelines
Here’s a more exhaustive list along with elaboration. You can drink from the fire hose, or tackle in steps, as you prefer. I would suggest first reading it through to get the lay of the land, and then going back and spending more time on the points that resonate for you. Enjoy …
As I see more businesses expand and contract, grow and die, I think of how we can borrow the lessons from business to find more growth and expansion in our lives, as well as renewal and sustainability. Businesses are not static. Neither is life.
Special thanks to Loren Kohnfelder for a very thoughtful review and really helping this post make a lot more sense.
My Related Posts
Photo by carf.
by JD at June 03, 2009 01:05 PM
Filed under: Desktops
Intel's Core i7 975 Extreme Edition reviewed, crowned world's fastest desktop processor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Thomas Ricker at June 03, 2009 09:33 AM
Review Although the Shuttle All-in-One PC X5000TA looks like a TFT display with a chunky bezel for the speakers, it's actually a proper PC that is controlled through its 15.6in touchscreen. It's housed in a relatively sleek chassis that measures 391mm wide by 327mm high and is only 36mm thick. The fold-out stand at the rear swings up to double as a carry handle so the 4kg weight - including the external power brick - isn’t much of an obstacle if you’re lugging the X5000TA from one room to another.…
by (author unknown) at June 03, 2009 08:02 AM
At Computex, AMD has demonstrated working next generation DX11 hardware and shows of their first wafer of codename Evergreen parts....
by (author unknown) at June 03, 2009 05:21 AM
Yesterday the embargoes lifted on reviews of AMD's six-core Opteron server processor, codenamed "Istanbul," but for all that's riding on Istanbul there weren't that many reviews out there. Tech Reports' Scott Wasson and Anandtech's Johan DeGalas, however, came through with very thorough reviews of Istanbul that pit it against its predecessor (quad-core Shanghai) and members of Intel's Xeon line.
Istanbul is essentially a quad-core Shanghai part with two extra cores and a faster HyperTransport interface. So it has the same 6MB L3 cache and the same dual-channel DDR2 controller, a fact that has some fascinating implications for how the part performs in different system topologies.
Click here to read the rest of this articleby hannibal@arstechnica.com (Jon Stokes) at June 03, 2009 02:29 AM
As the CEO of Openmoko Inc. (Sean Moss-Pultz) has announced yesterday, there have been layoffs last week and the further development of the Openmoko FreeRunner (GTA02) will be tunred over to the community.
Openmoko Inc. will continue to provide funding for operating the infrastructure such as wiki/git/mailinglists/etc. Furthermore, the community explicitly has permission to use the Openmoko brand/trademark for their efforts.
I'd like to thank Openmoko Inc. and specifically Sean for all their support over the last years. It makes me happy to see a friendly transition into a pure community-based project.
by (author unknown) at June 03, 2009 02:00 AM
Xandros has spent the better part of a decade trying to take Linux to the masses and build itself up as a serious contender in the commercial Linux racket. And now, after the advent of Linux-based netbooks and an evolving new class of devices that are being dubbed smartbooks, Xandros is getting another chance at going mainstream and taking Linux with it. Even if people don't know they're using Linux.…
Video - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
by (author unknown) at June 03, 2009 01:07 AM
Android — the mobile phone platform, not the AI-bearing robots — is the buzzword of the moment for netbook developers. Though the majority of the ultra-light devices are said to be utilizing a massively scaled down version of Windows XP — despite favoring Linux initially — the über-portable boxen are poised to be Googlified.
by Justin Ryan at June 02, 2009 10:50 PM
Server maker Hewlett-Packard advanced to the pole position in the x64 server race this morning as it launched a slew of new iron, some using Advanced Micro Devices' new six-core "Istanbul" Opterons 2400 and 8400 series processors announced yesterday and others rounding out the new ProLiant and BladeSystem machines that came out concurrent with the four-core "Nehalem EP" Xeon processors at the end of March.…
Whitepaper - Creating portals with Office Sharepoint: put an end to the information free for all
by (author unknown) at June 02, 2009 07:24 PM
We all know that managers should not be micro-managing people. But that's easier said than done. If you notice someone's knowledge about technologies or processes is not up-to-date, should you demand that he start spending some time learning and practicing? Or if a project is late, should you require that people work late to meet the deadline?
I don't think so.
In his best-selling book Good to Great Jim Collins described how managers of really great companies use a system of constraints to align people's behaviors:
The good-to-great companies built a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system. They hired self-disciplined people who didn't need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.
What it means is that managers should restrict themselves to setting constraints (goals and restrictions) and let employees figure out for themselves how to behave to meet those constraints. And if people are not behaving as you would have liked, then either the constraints are wrong (in which case you need to improve them), or the people don't care about the business (in which case you have a very different kind of problem).
But how do you set constraints?
While reading Managing the Design Factory, by Donald Reinertsen, I was pleasantly surprised to find his description of three levels of control events:
The first level (adjustment of system performance) refers to the small decisions that people can make in order to satisfy a constraint, whether it is reading a book, learning a new technology, negotiating with a customer about last-minute changes, or working late to meet a deadline. Level 1 events occur frequently and therefore, as a manager, you don't want to get involved in them. Micro-management is the shortest path to disgruntled employees and overworked managers.
The second level (selection of control setpoint) refers to decisions about intended performance levels. Level 2 events occur less frequently. Examples would be: selection of required exams and certificates for technologies and processes, and specification of maximum costs, delay or overrun of projects. Selection of performance levels can sometimes be delegated to the team level, or lower-level managers. But often these control setpoints are defined somewhat higher up the management chain.
The third level (selection of the control system) refers to the selection of the types of constraints. Level 3 events occur rarely. Some examples at this level: do we aim for speed of delivery, or are low development costs more important? Are flexibility and agility crucial to our business, or are we making the most money by repeatedly doing the same things? Questions like these should result in the selection of a control system that reflects the goals and restrictions of upper management.
In his book Donald Reinertsen presented the example of the design of the Boeing 777 where low weight was one of the ultimate design goals. Reinertsen described how an innovative control system enabled Boeing designers to make their own decisions (regarding the weight of components), while still guaranteeing that the overall constraints were met. In this case upper management selected the level 3 control system, and delegated much of the level 2 control setpoints to lower levels.
The three levels of control are a welcome tool in aligning an organization. Make sure you select your controls wisely!
And when people don't behave as expected, question your constraints, not your people.
(images by flattop341 and Irargerich)
Twitter -
Subscribe -
Newsletter -
Bookmarks
Latest, greatest and favoritest posts:
Self-Organization = Anarchy (Part 3)
Self-Organization = Anarchy (Part 2)
Self-Organization = Anarchy (Part 1)
by Jurgen Appelo at June 02, 2009 06:40 PM
I’m reading the news from CommunityOne yesterday, and it seems most people missed what I think was the biggest news: That John Fowler revealed that OpenSolaris 2009.06 is “the preview release of the next major release of Solaris”. (Yes, I and others have suggested this would be the path forward for Solaris—eventually—but this, to my knowledge, is the first time it’s been “official”.)
OpenSolaris 2009.06 is more than just something for early adopters and for technology aficionados—it’s also the preview release for the next major release of Solaris which will go to all of our enterprise customers.
Note that he didn’t say “Solaris 11″. For a variety of reasons, it probably won’t be called “11″. But that’s essentially what this is. “Solaris 11″ will be based on OpenSolaris.
Personally speaking, this is an extremely gratifying moment. Thinking back to my Purdue days, when I lusted after the Sun workstations only the privileged few had access to, I sometimes have to pinch myself to believe that I, in some small way, had a hand in a change to Sun’s OS platform as profound as the move from SunOS to Solaris in the early 1990s. (The real “through the looking glass” moment was when, early on in the Project Indiana days, I went to the Executive Briefing Center to give my pitch—which included a blow by blow of how Sun had dropped the ball—to a big customer, only to walk into the room and see Scott McNealy sitting at the table. He loved it.)
Note: While Project Indiana was indeed a catalyst for big change in Solaris, I get a lot more credit for the resulting change than is deserved, because a lot of the work that ultimately got folded into Project Indiana was already underway when I came along. David Comay had been tirelessly pushing something he called “Solaris Modernization” internally for about a year. Dave Miner and team were nearing completion of Project Caiman, the rewrite of the Solaris installer. Stephen Hahn was prototyping a new package system. One of the first meetings I attended during my first day on Sun’s Menlo Park campus included Bart Smaalders presenting on “dim sum patching” and how major architectural change was needed in Solaris. Etc. So things were already moving in the right direction. They just needed a unifying theme, a name, something people would rally around.
Project Indiana turned out to be that rally point, an umbrella under which to collect the efforts that were already underway (and the impetus to start a few new ones). It was also a unifying vision under which to present the collective whole to the executives whose support was needed. And, probably most importantly, it provided the momentum (once the media got wind of it, thanks to Jonathan) needed to overcome the inertia that had been hindering progress.
When people thank me for Debian, I like to point out that others did the vast majority of the work—or, as I prefer to put it, “I just gave the first push”.
With OpenSolaris, I guess the right way to think about my role is this: “I just gave the last push”.
Both are equally gratifying, in different but subtle ways.
by Ian Murdock at June 02, 2009 06:04 PM
[Updated: Jun. 3] -- Canonical, Xandros, Linpus, and Red Flag announced versions of their Linux distributions based on the open source Moblin v2 stack for Intel Atom-based netbooks. Novell, meanwhile, demonstrated its previously announced Moblin v2 version of SUSE Linux on Acer and MSI netbooks.
by (author unknown) at June 02, 2009 05:15 PM
Okay... while I am publishing presentations today, here is the one that I am doing next week at the SQE Better software conference in Vegas. I'm also doing this talk at Agile 2009 and again at the SQE Agile Development Practices Conference in Orlando. It's nice to have a presentation that I get to do live more than once... I finally feel like I am getting good a delivering it ;-)
by Mike Cottmeyer at June 02, 2009 02:03 PM
by Mike Cottmeyer at June 02, 2009 01:48 PM
Emrah Diril recently asked me this via email:
Steve Yegge mentioned in the comments of his last post that he gets quite a bit of hate directed his way.
Fake51: you underestimate the ability of people to get mad. Some people start mad and just take it out on you. The hating has gradually become a little too much for me.I read the guy's blog too, but don't understand where this is coming from. Some people just have this tendency I suppose.
Do you have a similar experience? I don't see you wanting to quit blogging, so how do you deal with this? Is it just a matter of personality? Are you better able to ignore this stuff?
I answered with one of my favorite quotes from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture:
And when it was all over, one of the other assistant coaches came over and said, yeah, Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn't he? I said, yeah. He said, that's a good thing. He said, when you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up. And that's a lesson that stuck with me my whole life: when you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.
Welcoming and appreciating reasonable criticism is the right attitude to have, but it's not the full story. Do I love criticism? Do I seek it out? No. I have many personality deficiencies, but masochism isn't one of them. I don't have fantasies of waking up every day to an R. Lee Ermey browbeating from commenters. Or, maybe I do. I should blog about that.
Criticism, painful though it may be, is still a conversation. It means your readers and listeners are engaging with you, and there's something to learn from following that conversation. Those messages you're broadcasting out into the world are being received, in some form, by someone on the planet. Even if that person is, well .. this guy:
I stopped reading the blog a while a go. Joel explains my reasoning nicely in his latest post.
The mystery of the non-reading Coding Horror reader. Another NP-complete problem, I guess.
If you think something sucks to the extent that it's actively harming the world and you want it to go away, leaving comments to that effect is not the way. I know, because I bear the psychic scars of a million online flamewars, dating all the way back to 300 baud dualup modems and BBSes. I've been doing this a very long time. I've seen what works, and what doesn't.
I'm here to tell you that there is something much more powerful than criticism that you can bring to bear in these situations. Something almost unimaginably powerful in its ability to shape human behavior.
The "just don't look" strategy [is] effective in any situation where someone or something runs on attention. On the web attention comes in the form of links and pageviews so "just don't look" translates roughly into "just don't link or read". If you don't like who's on the cover of Wired, just don't look. If no one talks about her, she'll go away. Think media gossip sites are ruining the web? Don't read them. Leggy blonde conservative got your knickers in a knot? Just don't look. Commenters ruining the internet? Moderate your comments or close them up. If some Web 2.0 blowhard says something stupid, just don't look. Hate blonde socialites? Just. Don't. Look.
I am absolutely sick to death of hearing about Susan Boyle, both in the traditional media and online. Nothing personal, you understand, I'm sure she's a perfectly lovely person. But I don't talk about Susan Boyle, because talking about her gives Susan Boyle power and currency. I just ignore Susan Boyle. I wish I had two brains so I could ignore her twice as hard. I. Just. Don't. Look. And if we could convince enough people to ignore her, she .. disappears. Poof. Like magic.
One of my favorite books as a child was the Great Brain series, the story of a family in rural Utah, set in the late 1800s. In these books, there was a strange punishment the parents doled out to their children when they seriously misbehaved. For a period of a week, or longer -- depending on the severity of the misbehavior -- nobody in the family would talk to, acknowledge, or address in any way, that particular boy. It was called "The Silent Treatment". This didn't seem like much of a punishment to me. In fact, as an introverted kid who loved solitary activities like computers and reading more than anything, it seemed kind of like a .. reward. I couldn't reconcile this feeling with the semi-biographical reality depicted in the books. To the Fitzgerald boys, the silent treatment was the worst possible punishment, far worse than a physical beating. They would go to incredible lengths to avoid getting the silent treatment. As punishments go, it must have been a doozy, though I couldn't quite wrap my geeky, socially maladjusted young head around exactly why.
The silent treatment was a punishment I didn't fully understand until years later in life. That's how you change the world. Not by arguing with people. Certainly not by screaming at them. You do it by ignoring them.
And if you feel strongly enough about me and what I do here, you can begin by ignoring this.
| [advertisement] Improve Your Source Code Management using Atlassian Fisheye - Monitor. Search. Share. Analyze. Try it for free! |
by Jeff Atwood at June 02, 2009 01:33 PM
It's official: one of the most hackintosh-friendly netbooks, the Dell Inspiron Mini 9, is no more.…
by (author unknown) at June 02, 2009 12:55 PM
Embedded Alley (EA) announced it is has completed its port of the Linux/Java-based Android platform to the MIPS architecture. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices initially targets devices ranging from set-top boxes (STBs) to industrial equipment running the MIPS-based RMI Au1250 processor.
by (author unknown) at June 02, 2009 07:18 AM
Filed under: Laptops
Intel debuts three new Core 2 Duo procs, new SU2700 ULV chip and GS40 Express Chipset originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Paul Miller at June 02, 2009 05:01 AM
Intel is introducing new Ultra-Low Voltage (ULV) processors, Core 2 Duo processors, a speed bumped Standard Voltage (SV) processor, and finally a value based chipset (Mobile Intel GS40 Express) not based on the 945 chipset technology. These products join the recently released Intel ULV Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Solo processors based on...
by (author unknown) at June 02, 2009 04:00 AM
After months of begging, we finally have 45nm dual-core from AMD. And these new parts perform. Competition is alive and well in the lower price points....
by (author unknown) at June 02, 2009 04:00 AM
Filed under: Handhelds
Google gets into the ebook biz, for real this time originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Joseph L. Flatley at June 02, 2009 12:46 AM
RealNetworks has extended the Moblin version of its RealPlayer streaming media player to support a variety of netbook-oriented processors and Linux distributions. RealPlayer for Mobile Devices will be offered with Ubuntu, as well as fast-boot "instant-on" distributions from Xandros, Phoenix Technologies, and DeviceVM (pictured), says Real.
by (author unknown) at June 02, 2009 12:37 AM
Continue reading Jolicloud OS alpha release struts its stuff... on video!
Filed under: Laptops
Jolicloud OS alpha release struts its stuff... on video! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Joseph L. Flatley at June 01, 2009 05:28 PM
As odd as it may seem, the OpenSolaris development release of Sun Microsystems' Unix operating system has only been available officially on x64 PCs, workstations, and servers. The OpenSolaris distribution has not been packaged up for Sparc workstations or servers. Starting today, with the OpenSolaris 2009.06 release, both x64 and Sparc iron are now supported in the distro.…
Video - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
by (author unknown) at June 01, 2009 04:07 PM
Editor’s note: This is a guest post on how to design a fulfilling life by Dr. Rick Kirschner (aka Dr. K). Dr. K is an international best-selling author, including Dealing with People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst
Whenever I hear people debating whether life is an intelligent design or an evolutionary process, I can’t help but think that evolution is an intelligent design! When I think of design, I don’t think of veneer or appearance. Instead, I think of it as the soul of a thing, a sort of creator’s signal of intention. That’s because you can know something of the intent of a designer by observing how something is made, what it does and is capable of doing, whether it’s chairs or sewing machines or space stations. I think that’s true about people, too, by observing how we design their lives, what we do and what we are capable of doing. Clearly, there is great intelligence in our design.
For almost three decades, I’ve been scanning for the best design patterns for my own life and the lives of people I coach, train and counsel. And I would agree with Arnold Henry Glasow when he said, “Make your life a mission-not an intermission.” I see now beyond the surface structure to the deep, and detect there are 5 essential missions that each of us must fulfill for our journey on Spaceship Earth to be satisfying and complete:
Add all these together in one person and you have a highly functional human being capable of achieving great things, because each mission helps fulfill the other missions. But if you leave one or two or three of these missions out of the design of your own life, the result is different, darker, and potentially dangerous. You can learn a lot about yourself by noticing which missions you’ve emphasized in your life, and what’s been left out. Sometimes, just having that bit of insight can help you to make better choices and change your life for good, and for the better.
In my work, I help people to explore and develop their capacity and effectiveness with these missions. In this article, I’d just like to share them with you. I’m interested in hearing your comments.
#1: Self Protection is the priority mission.
Being safe in this world isn’t easy. Life is filled with dangers seen and unseen, you have no control over the behavior of others, and bad things do happen. If you die, or are damaged, it is harder to fulfill the other missions, so protecting yourself is of paramount importance.
Is there design evidence that we are supposed to protect ourselves? Yes, and plenty of it. You have a protective outer layer, your skin, and a protective inner layer too, your mucus membrane. You have an immune system designed to ward off foreign organisms and bodies, and a nervous system designed to move you quickly away from pain and danger faster than you can think. And you have the ability to think about how to minimize risk and exercise prudence. Change and chance play a huge role in our existence, and there is no guarantee that any of us will be safe and secure. But when we do what we can do, we can stack the deck in our favor.
Yet some people don’t understand the basic mission, and fail to adequately protect themselves. Instead of learning their lessons, they keep making the same mistakes over and over, hurting themselves each time. Some people even beat themselves up as punishment for their errors and transgressions, rather than learning what they can and using it to good advantage.
When a person doesn’t feel safe and secure in life, the issue is either extreme environmental hardship, or negative conditioning that leads to self-defeating behavior. Fail to learn the lessons of history and you are doomed to repeat them. And if the problem is negative conditioning, it takes new conditioning and some real effort to bring about change. This kind of change work is remedial in nature. It means going back and extracting the good from the bad, and, pardon me saying so, turning the crap in your life into compost for a better life.
#2: Self Maintenance is the secondary mission.
This mission is about preventing problems and solving them when they occur, so that you last long enough to fulfill the other missions. Just as you must maintain any piece of equipment that you hope to use for a long time, so you must take care of your health. Neglect this mission, and the penalties are severe.
There’s an old saying that health is our only real wealth. Maybe that’s because health challenges are incredibly time and resource consuming. When you’re healthy, you have the energy to do the things you want to do. When you’re not healthy, everything seems difficult, even the smallest things. While there are variables in life over which you have no control (genetic makeup and tendencies,what the people around you are doing, etc.) there are also variables over which you have total control. You choose what you take in, you choose how you work it out, and you choose your attitude towards everything.
I was taught that there are actually two kinds, horizontal and vertical. Horizontal disease is what you have when you are forced to stop normal activity. (A bad flu, a life threatening condition like a stroke or heart attack, or the knee injury my wife sustained this week.) Vertical disease is being one of the walking wounded. It includes everything from vague complaints to chronic degenerative disease. Vertical disease can actually be worse than horizontal, because you can adapt to it and go on while your quality of life is slowly destroyed. And most disease is vertical before it becomes horizontal.
Health is not the absence of disease. Even people dealing with physical or mental challenges can improve their health. Maintenance means keeping pain to a minimum and pleasure to a maximum, and your choices around food, activity and attitude either promote health or encourage disease. Maintenance gives you the resilience to bounce back when life hands you reverses, which happens often enough. Taking care of yourself helps you protect yourself, and gives you the energy for the other missions at the same time.
#3: Create Something is your third mission.
Consider that each of us is unique, one of a kind, and can’t be duplicated. We consist of unique formulations of influence, background, interests, metabolism and drives. Going on 7 billion people, and no two faces exactly alike, no two ways of expressing ourselves alike. Your life is yours to do with as you will within the constraints of your circumstances. What you do and don’t do adds up into your unique creation. And you are creative by design. You constantly make stuff up, whether its the language and fantasies of your childhood to the things you decide to learn and do and make as an adult.
Now maybe you got support for this while growing up. Maybe someone asked you, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?” Maybe you’re just getting around to this question now. But the desire to make something of one’s life can be so intense that a person will take serious risks, with their money, health, and life itself, in order to accomplish what they set out to do.
Henny Youngman once responded to a young heckler: “If you have your life to live over again, DON’T DO IT!” Obviously, nobody wants to live their life as nothing but a warning to others. So the most pressing question for this mission is: What do you want to do with your life? You can make something that satisfies you if you have the courage to think for yourself and to be true to yourself, if you know what you stand for and what you are moving towards. And whether you ask the question or not, sooner or later, it seems to me that everyone is confronted with moments of truth in which they must define who they are and what they are about.
Sometimes, putting the emphasis on this mission of making something of yourself accomplishes all the other design objectives. But neglect the other missions, and you may put yourself at great risk and wind up in poor health from the stress of striving.
#4: Connection is the fourth mission.
Evidence for the pattern is found in the fact that nothing in the entire universe exists in isolation. We know that the desire to love and be loved is a potent and powerful driver. Our sexual apparatus and communication ability makes it obvious that we’re designed to connect. The way we are drawn to each other, even the way we fill seats in movie theaters demonstrates that people want to connect with other people.
We also know that isolation is deadly to the human spirit, because generally speaking, when people are alone in life, they lose the will to live. Even monks in monasteries gather together frequently.
We connect when we find common ground, be it in the form of shared values, common purpose, similar habits, interests or backgrounds. Connections don’t just happen between individuals. They happen between individuals and groups, through leadership and teamwork. Connection is what makes all the relationships we maintain in the many areas of our lives satisfying and meaningful, whether business or personal, intimate or casual, long or short term. Connection makes marriages, forms friendships, bonds brothers, seals deals, wins elections, even sells sneakers. Connections get you promoted, get you a date, even get you out of the dog house.
Most us learn just enough to connect with others because it helps to survive. But each of us has opportunities to meet the right people, start the right conversation, have the right relationship for a great life. You don’t have to wait for connections to happen. You can make them happen!
Learning how to connect with others is a matter of developing positive communication skills, since everything in relationships, from intimacy to teamwork, requires skill in communication to succeed. Learning how to connect others with your ideas is a matter of developing positive persuasion skills. Learning to connect to groups with your ideas is about positive presentation skills. And learning to get groups of people to connect is about leadership and teambuilding skills.
#5: Service is the fifth mission.
Evidence for this mission is found in the fact that whenever there is a crisis, people are spontaneously moved to do it, like the outpouring of humanity following September 11, Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, and the famine in Bangladesh. As soon as word gets out, time and again we see strangers helping strangers. And when it happens, we almost magically stop feeling like strangers and start acting like we’re human beings. It appears that the world can’t really work for any of us until it works for all of us, and the desire to help and serve is built deeply into us.
Of course it shouldn’t have to take a crisis to bring people together. And it doesn’t. It’s a matter of setting the right conditions in place. It turns out that people really want to help each other out, and they just need a reason and a way to do it. If you build a group, your family, a team, a business, any organization around a good reason, then remove the barriers to what they need and build the bridges to get them where they need to go; if you see people as good people and treat people like they can be more than they’ve been before, they will surprise you with their caring, their ingenuity, their sheer determination to be of service to one another.
Love is a relationship based in, built on, nurtured by and developed through service. Love of nature. Love of country. Love of God. Brotherly love. Unconditional love. All you need is love, because at the beginning and end of life, love is all there is. Without service, relationships grow complicated, people turn sour, and communication becomes progressively more painful, difficult and non productive. Yet serve with love - love of anything - and you find fulfillment, reward, opportunity, truth. A life of service gives your life dignity and meaning, because it is an honor to serve.
You have blind spots, or ‘ areas of dumb’ as my former mentor put it. You may not be able to see your own patterns as clearly as someone who lacks your biases and beliefs can. Intelligent people can be so immersed in their personal and professional lives that they they know a great deal about what’s immediately in front of them, and very little of what’s going on beyond their most immediate interests. Without an informed perspective, you may be oblivious to the big picture changes affecting your environment, unable to seize opportunities or to recognize bona fide threats! To make wise choices, you need a multi-dimensional field of vision, an informed perspective to help you see some of the rules behind all that is changing. You need leverage today to make tomorrow different than yesterday. You need other people to help you course correct, and to clarify your sense of place and time.
That’s why part of the design is that we do best in life when we help each other out and when we let ourselves be helped out.
Conclusion
Like I said, I’m fascinated by design. When I meet people, and work with people, I’m curious to know how they’ve designed their lives so far, and how they intend to design what remains. And if they aren’t intentionally designing their lives, I know that the default design is habits of thought, habits of behavior, habits that leave tomorrow to itself.
I believe that, individually and collectively, we are designed to make a basic choice with our lives. Which will it be: A life by design, or a life by default?
Additional Resources
Some of Dr. K’s information products
Photo by BGLewandowski.
by JD at June 01, 2009 02:00 PM
In a brief snippet of a rumor, DigiTimes is reporting that ASUS is planning an Ion-based Eee Box B1006 for Q3 of 2009. Ion's a good start, but if they shackle it to an Intel Atom 230 processor and once again bludgeon our dreams of a low-cost home theater PC capable of handling full-screen Flash video, well, somebody's going to get hurt. Ion-based Eee PC netbooks are coming too, but those don't have a production schedule yet according to the Taiwanese tattle-rag.
Filed under: Desktops
ASUS preparing NVIDIA Ion-based Eee Box B1006? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Thomas Ricker at June 01, 2009 12:34 PM
Six months after VMware announced plans for a mobile version of its virtualization platform – used to manage data center resources and PCs more efficiently – it says the technology will be seen in handsets next year, as it seeks to see off competition from mobile specialists such as VirtualLogix.…
Whitepaper - Creating portals with Office Sharepoint: put an end to the information free for all
by (author unknown) at June 01, 2009 07:02 AM
by James Gray at June 01, 2009 07:00 AM
AMD added 2 cores to the improved AMD quad-core “Shanghai”. Which applications can take advantage of these extra cores? The answer is more interesting than you might think at first. ...
by (author unknown) at June 01, 2009 04:00 AM
I'm a fan of continuous learning. My post Lessons Learned in patterns & practices on Shaping Software summarizes some of my best lessons. It's from the school of hard knocks. I've been lucky enough to have some great mentors that have really helped me unleash my best. I've also been lucky enough to work on a variety of challenging projects that have grown my experience and capabilities beyond what I ever expected. The post is my attempt to both remind myself of the key lessons and to share those lessons with you. Absorb what is useful.
Top Ten Lessons
Here's a list of the top 10 lessons:
One of the ways I've learned to carry lessons forward is to turn them into terse little guidelines. It makes them sticky and easier to recall. I also find that some of my best mentors tend to have a way with words and they share their advice as pithy sayings.
For more lessons and elaboration check out my post, Lessons Learned in patterns and practices.
by J.D. Meier at May 31, 2009 11:47 PM
Filed under: Laptops
HP's Mini 1101 up for order, customizations nowhere to be found originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 13:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentsby Darren Murph at May 31, 2009 06:48 PM
Regarding the weights of FAIL (if we accept the additive model), I would not give the Code Management so much of a multiplier. In fact, I much prefer a project that posts well documented tarballs regularly over a project that runs an amorphous development trunk out of an obscure SCM system like Bazaar, Monotone, or Mercurial (the latter is awesome, BTW, only nobody cares). Spot awarded FAIL points to poorly managed releases, but it was not enough to balance the use of bzr, in my view.
by (author unknown) at May 29, 2009 11:19 PM
The final installment of Simtec's series on embedded Linux system development discusses issues involved with deploying embedded projects, such as the example ARM-based web kiosk system. The tutorial is written by Vincent Sanders (pictured) and Daniel Silverstone, both from U.K.-based Simtec Electronics.
by (author unknown) at May 29, 2009 09:25 PM
Server Fault is now in public beta!
When Jeff Atwood and I launched Stack Overflow last fall, we really wanted it to be a site for and by programmers. But the engine behind the site, the Q&A engine with voting, editing, and tagging, could obviously be used in a lot of other professions.
The first field we picked is close to our heart: system and network administration; as programmers, we often end up doing system administration ourselves. And it’s the perfect domain for a Q&A engine... there are a million detailed problems that depend highly on lore to get right. There’s no way to accidentally discover aspnet_regiis.exe -I until someone shows you the trick. How much time have you wasted trying to figure out which process is holding a file open preventing you from deleting an otherwise empty directory? Can you use dd to clone a disk drive?
Thus, Server Fault. If you already have a Stack Overflow account, you’re all set up, although your reputation score, badges, and favorite tags are separate. It has all the great features from Stack Overflow which I talked about at Google last month (video).
Jeff: “I am sorry to inform you that you may be a system administrator or IT professional.”
Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.
by Joel Spolsky at May 29, 2009 04:19 PM
It's pop quiz time! Put away your notes, and let's begin.
a) Do you own this book?*
b) Do you know who this man is?
c) Does this FAQ look familiar to you?
3) OUR LITTLE FRIEND, THE COMPUTER
3.1) Are there any OSes that don't suck?
3.2) Are there any vendors that don't suck?
3.3) How about any hardware?
3.4) Just HOW MUCH does this system suck?
3.5) Where can I find clueful tech support?
3.6) What can I do to help my computers behave?
d) Does the acronym BOFH mean anything to you?
e) Do you think this is funny?
If you answered "yes" to any of the above, I am sorry to inform you that you may be a system administrator or IT professional. But I do have one bit of potentially, at least theoretically good news for you:
Server Fault is now in public beta!
Server Fault is a sister site to Stack Overflow, which we launched back in September 2008. It uses the same engine, but it's not just for programmers any more:
Server Fault is for system administrators and IT professionals, people who manage or maintain computers in a professional capacity. If you are in charge of ...... then you're in the right place to ask your question! Well, as long as the question is about your servers, your networks, or desktops you support, anyway.
- servers
- networks
- many desktop PCs (other than your own)
Please note that Server Fault is not for general computer troubleshooting questions; if you paid for that desktop hardware, and it's your personal workstation, it is unlikely that your question is appropriate for Server Fault.
I occasionally dabble in system administration and IT professional stuff; my last blog entry was about RAID, for example. As a programmer who loves hardware as much as software, I've wanted this site for months, and I'm thrilled to see it go live, as I explained on a recent RunAs radio podcast.
Although there is certainly some crossover, we believe that the programming community and the IT/sysadmin community are different beasts. Just because you're a hotshot programmer doesn't mean you have mastered networking and server configuration. And I've met a few sysadmins who could script circles around my code. That's why Server Fault gets its own domain, user profiles, and reputation system.
So if you're a bona-fide BOFH, or just a wanna-be BOFH luser like me, join us on Server Fault. Who knows, maybe we lusers can learn something from each other.
* (For the record, yes, I do own that book -- although I am easily the world's worst UNIX system administrator.)
| [advertisement] Improve Your Source Code Management using Atlassian Fisheye - Monitor. Search. Share. Analyze. Try it for free! |
by Jeff Atwood at May 29, 2009 07:59 AM
A U.K. startup called Interead will soon ship a Linux-based e-book reader claimed to be about 40 percent lighter than an Amazon Kindle 2, and over $100 cheaper. The "Cool-er" is equipped with a 400MHz ARM9 Samsung processor and a six-inch E-Ink Vizplex display.
by (author unknown) at May 29, 2009 07:53 AM
Qnap Systems announced a 2.5-inch drive variation on its Linux- and Intel Atom-based network-attached storage (NAS) devices, called the SS-439 Pro Turbo NAS. In other NAS news, Asus is readying an Eee-branded NAS device, similarly running Linux on an Atom, says an industry report.
by (author unknown) at May 27, 2009 05:33 PM
Powered by Planet!
Last updated: June 08, 2009 08:39 AM
