Management and Geeks

May 27, 2006

A couple of days ago a coworker shared a link to a blog post about how not to manage geeks with me. Then recently I saw it turn up on Digg. I took a few moments to respond to him with what I thought in regards to the points, and thought that I might share those here as well. I’m not going to quote EVERYTHING from the original post, so I recommend you go over and read it to see the explanation that was placed with each of these points before reading my responses below.

1: Downplay training

Eh … I don’t mind teaching myself stuff. I actually learn better this way. I’m willing to admit that I might very well be an exception on this though.

2: Give no recognition

Definitely important. I personally don’t need public recognition as much as just an occasional, “Hey, that was pretty sweet how you did x”

3: Plan too much overtime

Obviously this is bad. Bad as in planning overtime is bad, not as in the point is bad.

4: Use management-speak

I personally just don’t have time for people that feel they need to use the full extent of their vocabulary in every-day speak. I’ve previously worked places where folks were like this a lot, and it was annoying a lot. It’s not that I can’t follow the conversation, but … get to the frickin point.

5: Try to be smarter than the geeks

AMEN! Probably one of my favorite points on the list. Some of the best management advice I ever heard was, “Surround yourself with people that are smarter then you. Then listen to them.”

6: Act inconsistent

Well … I don’t disagree with it, but this isn’t particular to managing geeks. Managers of all types do this. Yes its bad, but the day I find an employer that doesn’t do it … I’ll kiss their feet. I don’t think I’ll be kissing feet anytime in my life, heh.

7: Ignore the geeks

Yeah, this happens. I don’t really get affected by it to be honest. I will admit that it is a large factor in me viewing jobs as just a paycheck and nothing more though.

8: Make decisions without consulting them

Yup. I agree. This nearly goes hand-in-hand with point #5 if you ask me.

9: Don’t give them tools

It’s nice so long as the company can afford it.

10: Forget that geeks are creative workers

This is probably my favorite on the list. I look at programming as engineering. My Dad was/is an Industrial Engineer. When you need to build something that’s never been done before, who do you call? Someone like him. It’s the same thing with us in web programming. Sure, we may not be re-inventing the wheel every day, but our application of the tools we have is rarely the same any two times, and sometimes we’re completely figuring it out on our own. It is a creative process. People forget this FAR too often.

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Hybrid Vehicle vs. Regular

May 7, 2006

NOTE: It surprises me that this post is still so popular after all this time (based on web stats). Unfortunately while moving hosts the calculator mentioned in this post was lost. However given the continued popularity of this post, I have reopened comments and will try to rewrite the calculator in the near future. (12/15/2008)

Well, if you drive a car … you’re likely starting to feel the pressure of the rising gas prices. This has been pushing people to start looking at hybrid vehicles. I had done the math loosely in my head before and realized it would take a very long life expectancy for your hybrid car to have it really make sense financially. Well, I was recently talking to a friend who was considering purchasing a hybrid car so I sat down real fast and made a calculator to compare the cost of two cars along with the cost of gas for both cars. After doing so, I looked up the mileage and sticker prices on some cars. I drive a Honda Civic, and I consider it a relatively nice car. It also happens to have a hybrid model in production so I felt it would be pretty good for testing out the tool. Below are links to a couple of comparisons that I ran. Needless to say I found that the loose calculations I did in my head were not accurate. Unfortunately it’s worse then I realized.

Basically what I found was that if you compare the EX to the Hybrid, it takes roughly 200,000 miles for the hybrid to start saving you money. If you’re willing to drive the DX model, even after 400,000 miles, the hybrid hasn’t started to save you money.

Obviously this tool has a couple of “flaws” I should probably point out. For one, it assumes that gasoline cost per gallon will stay the same throughout the mileage/cost projection. Also it obviously doesn’t take into account maintenance costs on the cars, but I think this is ok since regardless of which one you were to choose, maintenance costs would be incurred. Third, gas prices obviously vary based on your location, so that would impact the time it would take to start saving money. Even given these faults, I still think it illustrates the point, even if it’s not 100% accurate.

Honda Civic Sedan EX vs Honda Civic Sedan Hybrid
Honda Civic Sedan LX vs Honda Civic Sedan Hybrid
Honda Civic Sedan DX vs Honda Civic Sedan Hybrid

UPDATE: In fairness to Honda, I suppose I should mention that my calculations were based on Highway mileage. If you want to see the difference just adjust Car 2 down to 30MPG on each of the above examples (Hybrid city mileage doesn’t change significantly, the Civic hybrid gas mileage on the sticker is 49/51). It does make a difference, but not until roughly 200,000 miles on the DX.

UPDATE: Sorry the links no longer work, the application I wrote to do the math was lost somewhere along the way when I switched webhosts.  I’m leaving this post here though because the content is still true.

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Stop the RIAA

May 5, 2006

Honestly, I don’t know if it will do a whole lot of good, but it’s worth a try.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is on a rampage, launching legal attacks against average Americans from coast to coast. After over 18,000 lawsuits and counting against P2P users, file sharing has continued to increase rapidly. Meanwhile, music fans, like 12 year-old Brianna LaHara, college student Cassi Hunt, and parent of five Cecilia Gonzalez, are being forced to pay thousands of dollars they do not have to settle RIAA-member lawsuits, and many other innocent individuals are being caught in the crossfire.

This irrational crusade is not generating a single penny for the artists that the RIAA claims to protect. The RIAA should be working to create a rational, legal means by which its customers can take advantage of file sharing technology and pay a fair price for the music they love. With artists increasingly turning against the lawsuits, momentum may be shifting in favor of a better way forward.

Copyright law shouldn’t make criminals out of more than 60 million Americans ?? tell Congress that it’s time to stop the madness!

We have over 75,000 signatures so far – this is amazing! If we can get 100,000 signatures, we will deliver the petition to the Senate and House Commerce and Judiciary Commitees.

Click here to sign the petition.

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