This is interesting, because you're ignoring the fact that the author worked in this exact business for some time and claims that it did once work and doesn't anymore.
Either he was deluded at the time and overcame his delusion without ever realizing he was deluded (which is possible) or there's more to it than you make it seem. Because I think someone who says "this used to work and now it doesn't" may have something profound to say that the person saying "this has never worked" needs to hear.
Perhaps you're right and software outsourcing has never worked, in the sense that from a total cost standpoint it has never been better to contract development of a software project to a third party than to create it in house. I don't agree with this, but we'll accept it for the point of argument. You're still ignoring his point that the change in economics has caused a cultural change in the attitudes of those who lead outsourcing entities.
The article claims that previously, the economics allowed them the luxury of trying to deliver a result to their customers. Now, they are not able to do so because the economics require them to milk their customers for every cent in order to break even.
This may not directly affect you if you have always believed that outsourcing doesn't work and you disagree with his opening statements attempting to rebut that mindset. But it's still an interesting view from the inside.
> This is interesting, because you're ignoring the fact that the author worked in this exact business for some time and claims that it did once work and doesn't anymore.
Reading between the lines, it "worked" because it was an incredibly high margin business and so when a project wasn't on track they could simply throw many more developers into the mix to get it over the line.
> Either he was deluded at the time and overcame his delusion without ever realizing he was deluded
Or I suspect they simply have a different idea of "worked".
I suspect the OP means was better (I.e. Cheaper, quicker, or of a higher quality) than an internal team could do. Whereas I suspect the writer meant he could keep clients reasonably happy and deliver ok software.
At the end of the article, his explanation of how this used to “work” is based on what developers were once paid. Cost is a tricky thing to sum up because if you state just one thing (monthly rate, as he did), it's easy for other costs to be left out.
It is entirely possible to pay less for the same talent. My thinking is that he got lucky though.
If you start out underpaying, you can still overpay thereafter. Here is a quick top-of-my-head list of major software costs that can come up (not too far) down the line, after paying initial development wages:
- Documentation turns out to be nonexistent or written in a way that is hard to decipher, or wrong. (This seems more likely with outsourcing because heck, you didn't specify that you wanted the code documented, and it'll take hours to add all that, plus you might pay more later if it's not there...)
- Serious bugs are lurking that require a little time to discover.
- Although the system demo'd well with initial tests, it collapsed when asked to scale slightly; e.g. it exposed a bad choice of algorithm that blew up with large N. Sometimes bad algorithms from inexperienced developers can create a catastrophically large amount of refactoring work.
- The developers took short-cuts and exposed the company to a legal minefield (e.g. copying something or injecting patented or GPL'd code without asking), rendering their working and brilliantly-implemented solution unusable. Now what...even if you can argue that it's their fault, you're probably going to be paying lawyers for something (defense or lawsuits).
- The system does seem to do what it's supposed to do but it turns out you didn't specify it quite right and it integrates poorly into your environment in some way. So, great: it's done, it's here, it runs but you still aren't getting anything out of it because you have to spend more time and money to bring it to a usable state internally. Typically this doesn't happen with internally-developed systems because the people are familiar all along with the idiosyncrasies of the environment.
Even at a cheaper hourly rate, how many more times are you going to go back to the provider (just a few more hours at a cheap rate to fix the next problem...) before you've gained nothing? Much less the fact that you have zero actual employees who understand what you bought so if the provider ever goes out of business or triples its prices, you incur another "new" cost: hiring or redirecting your own people to figure out this thing that you bought and now have to maintain yourself.
Either the article doesn't make it clear or I'm bad at reading, and the YT Red site itself just tells me it's not available in my country: I assume this is $10 US a month?
Let's not lose sight of one thing -- this doesn't make chip-and-pin less secure than swipe-and-sign, it just makes it no more secure, in the worst case.
It's not just about security though, it's also about liability. Chip-and-pin may have different liability rules than have been established for signatures. If so, then a hacked chip-and-pin system may be no less secure for the consumer, but it may be much more costly.
That's a very positive spin on the message. The way I read it is that developers and maintainers are encouraged to make Emacs work better on free than non-free platforms.
This is, sadly, self-defeating. If Emacs were widely recognized as the best editor (or whatever of its myriad functions you use it for), "works best on GNU/Linux" could advance the cause of free software. As it stands, though, "only works well on GNU/Linux" instead just means that fewer people will be using it.
When one of my upstairs toilets started leaking in my house in the US, it finally got so bad that I noticed a stain on the garage ceiling. The insurance inspector said that insurance would not cover a "slow leak". I was very nice and polite and pointed out how soaked the subfloor was and that there was no way to know when the leak started (which was true). She wrote her recommendation that it be covered, which the company apparently accepted since they wrote me a check.
Definitely not $50k (more like $2.5k), but it's still disturbing that the line between insurance covering it and not covering it was so thin.
I wonder if a more thorough inspection would have caught it. Surely houses built around that time are routinely inspected for asbestos, lead-based paint, etc before purchase anyway. (Actually, going back and reading the comments, he actually addresses this point: http://www.jefftk.com/p/mercury-spill#fb-752340840802_752343.... Perhaps he could have made it a condition of purchase, that the seller pay for a mercury vapor inspection? Perhaps it's not such a common problem that such a requirement would be reasonable. Hindsight, etc.)
Yap. An insurance inspector if they are nice enough, will let you know between the lines how you need to phrase your claim. Forgot what the trick word was when we had a leak at our house, but it was similar phrasing -- "So let me remind you, if it is <this>, we'll cover it. If it is <that> we won't. So... which one is it". -- "Oh ok, definetely <this> then ...". /smile
It's kind of scary that something of this magnitude would depend on the kindness of the claims inspector. The one I dealt with was professional yet friendly and helpful (and climbed my wooden stepladder while wearing heels without a second thought). If she had been having a bad day, or just generally of grumpy disposition, or whatever, things could easily have gone the other way.
No matter how much our institutions, laws, and social customs try to hide it, when we interact with each other we absolutely depend on mutual trust and cooperation. It's easy to take it for granted because in the vast majority of our interactions we are nice to each other, or the stakes are too low to be mean. The power we hold over each other is always there, though, in every interaction.
It's not just the kindness of whichever inspector comes to your door. I imagine a majority of it is the company- it's goals, culture, etc. There are insurance companies that will try to deny you a claim that obviously should be covered, and there are others that will cover your claim even though you made a poor decision choosing coverage levels that were too low.
It allows for a great deal of discrimination, both explicit where the inspector deliberately chooses to not help and implicit where the inspector isn't even aware they are discriminating.
I've had (I think) a somewhat similar experience. My water line into my house broke outside and had to be replaced. When I called my insurance company, the adjuster made it clear that the costs "to find the exact source of the leak" would be covered but pipe replacement would not be. So I obviously still had to cover part of the job but was able to get the bill itemized in a way that insurance still paid a reasonable portion.
I know plenty of people that live in $1MM apartments that doubled in value over the last 10 years. So while they might not be able to "spare" $50k, it's not that big a deal overall. Of course I know other people for which that would be a lifetime of savings.
Is it "silly" to buy a house when you don't have $50k in your emergency fund? I have been very financially lucky, but I'd still have to sell a lot of stock -- dipping significantly into funds earmarked for other things -- to pay off a surprise $50k expense. I certainly couldn't have done so right after having bought my house.
I can't tell you how many people I know whose livelihood essentially depends on their single, aging vehicle not dying. These are often folks whose university debt is, essentially, a monthly car payment.
I would guess that the greatest demand for Lyft drivers is outside or nearly outside normal working hours. If a person with no car can subsidize a long-term rental by spending their after-work hours being a Lyft driver, perhaps arranging to leave work slightly early to help with the after-work rush, that could be a huge benefit to a lot of low-income individuals and families.
It could also be a benefit to families with one car. If one partner uses the car to commute and the other can subsidize a rental, that could provide opportunities to earn something which might otherwise not exist (not every location is amenable to public transportation or cycling).
There are certainly some potential problems with this model. But looking through the eyes of an under-privileged family, I can see this being a huge opportunity too. I just hope the pay rate and the negotiated rental rate and fuel rate are enough to make more than a pittance at the end of the day.
Even more so with paywave, which is all over Australia and becoming more common in New Zealand. I don't think I actually inserted or swiped my card more than once a week in Brisbane.
I support iFixit in their quest to get useful information about hardware to the masses. If you own a device, why shouldn't you be able to disassemble and repair it yourself? And why shouldn't we be able to know what's inside that device?
But releasing a teardown of the new Apple TV (and breaking NDA while doing so) is not doing that since, critically, the device is not available for purchase yet. I feel like this move is hiding behind "technology wants to be free and open" while actually making a grab for clicks and views.
You're not a martyr for the cause of freedom in this case. Nobody was attacking you. Apple was holding the sword and you fell on it. Had you just waited until the device was released, it would be a different story.
iFixit are making it really hard to be on their side.
Yeah, I hope this doesn't damage whatever relationship iFixit may have with Apple, or in any other way inhibit the flow of information and resources for consumers to understand and fix their own devices.
I highly doubt they've ever had a relationship with Apple. I don't think they've ever gotten a prerelease iPhone - they just send someone to Australia where they launch first and do the teardown before they go on sale 12 hours later in the US.
Windows version: x64
Mac OSX version: x64
Linux version: x86
Why? Why do companies not release 64-bit versions of their programs for Linux? This seems to happen all the time, and it utterly baffles me.