Keeping a Job

Often senior employees figure out a secret business process and don't document / tell anyone else in the company about it. This secret business process means that the person must be kept around. The business disruption caused by firing them is too high.

Other times, people just make busy work to look like they are busy. Sometimes it is at an individual level. In other cases, it can happen collectively. Carl Icahn has this crazy story about letting go 12 floors of people when he couldn't figure out what they actually did.

Young People Finding Work

Young people not being able to find new jobs is about job creation and skills mismatch. Business wise, creating new jobs is very different than trying to keep existing employees productive and motivated. Keeping an existing business running involves minimizing change and minimizing the impact of inevitable change. Expanding and creating new jobs requires finding new profitable opportunities, hiring new people, buying new equipment, and lots of other steps. It is really hard to do successfully, and magic when it happens.

Young people have historically done much of this for themselves, as they are the only people willing to work hard enough to do it. If young people's expenses are so high that they can hardly make ends meet, then they won't work on the "next big new idea". Student debt and high housing prices kills new job creation. it means that the new business leaders have no money left to create the opportunities to create job growth. Nothing kills off job growth as effectively as too much debt. The founding fathers prioritized free public education for good reasons.

My best and worst experiences learning English were with an Oxford trained professor, and a high school English Teacher. From the professor, I learned:
1. Make the book easy to read.
2. Chose terminology carefully. Particularly for new concepts, short clear terms make things much easier for the reader.
3. Choose a system of punctuation, and stick to it throughout the book.

On the other hand, my high school English teacher insisted I get a special style guide / book on how to use the semicolon. From this I learned:
4. "Proper" punctuation in English is all about the style guide that the person is following.
5. Different teachers can't consistently teach a consistent "Proper" punctuation, because style guides differ.
6. Many people don't follow any particular style, or even know what is in their preferred style guide.

I recall reading a Microsoft Excel EULA that said:

Microsoft doesn't guarantee the software is fit for any particular purpose, including the one for which it was intended.

I never forgot that disclaimer. It was so true.

The current Azure license states:

THE SOFTWARE IS LICENSED “AS IS.” YOU BEAR THE RISK OF USING IT. MICROSOFT GIVES NO EXPRESS WARRANTIES, GUARANTEES, OR CONDITIONS. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAWS, MICROSOFT EXCLUDES ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Which is likely worse. They don't even guarantee that Microsoft wrote the software and it does not violate patents.

All industrial equipment over a certain dollar value now comes with some type of remote access equipment, often with the option of specifying different variants. It costs almost nothing for the equipment. It costs something like $3,000 dollars to send someone to a random destination and fix something. If the person needs to go to site, determine the cause of the problem, return home, and then fly back with the spare part, it costs $6,000.

A cell modem remote communication device pays for itself on the first trouble call. The vendor may simply want it to ensure there are no problems before the sale is complete. Post-sale support, like warrantee or service contracts, usually specify the presence of a remote access device as a cell modem receiver or a land-line variant. The modem can be disabled if the customer doesn't want it after the commissioning / warrantee / end of service contract. Often the device remains, as it is not cost effective to remove it.

Depending on the contract details and until the final 5% payment is made, the vendor owns part of the equipment and gets a say in whether the remote access device is present. If a bank or lease company has an interest in the item, then they may want a tracker to know where the equipment is and how much it is being used.

I spent a bunch of time on this a number of years ago. The case insensitive filenames are fundamentally problematic. The best that can do done is to have an authoritative file name, and one or more user facing file name(s). Trying to compare file names in a case insensitive manner runs afoul of these issues:

1. Character sets. Even the Windows Unicode character set gets expanded, so there is no invariant character set. This pretty much ends any concept of having a fixed set of rules.

2. File systems cross computers. This means that a file system that is valid on Ted's US computer with a US ASCII character set will show different filenames on Francois' French computer running a European / French character set. Modern globe-spanning networks mean both computers may be accessing the same file system. Some of this can be resolved by running Unicode or UTF-8. However, those aren't a static target either, see point (1).

3. Operating System. Some applications, thinking SolidWorks and AutoDesk Products, use interesting symbols in the file names that are interpreted differently on different operating systems. Think double quote can mean a quotation or Inches. Single quote can mean feet or a quotation. Period can mean the decimal separator (America), the thousands separator (Europe), or the separator between the filename (readme) and file type (txt). Slash and Backslash are not reserved characters in all operating systems. This means that a filename valid in one operating system may not be valid in another operating system.

4. Versions of Operating System. (1) and (3) conspire in convoluted ways when Francois and Ted may be running differing versions of Windows or Linux written many years apart.

5. Differing Languages, Time, Security Concerns - Mean the definition of a case-insensitive comparison varies with time and place. The security issue is important. Sometimes you want a flag to say "vvest" is same as "west" (think scams). Most times saying "vvest" and "west" is the same is a really big bug.

6. Corrupt file system. How do you handle the case where two file names exist in the file system, differing in only case sensitivity? If identical filenames exist, then that is obviously a problem. However, if identical case insensitive file names exist, then that might be valid depending on where and when the file was written. And you don't want to fix it, because some applications (SolidWorks and AutoDesk) depend on the filename not changing.

In all, the Linux (and Unix) approach of having a filename be a sequence of characters is pretty good. It is at least logically consistent. Adding case insensitivity and internationalized character support is a bit of a nightmare. If you need to be able to compare filenames in a case-insensitive manner, it is likely a good idea to do it at the UI level. At the UI level, there is some support for handling all of the language issues involved. The file system, being at the base of the operating system and the first module loaded, almost by definition cannot handle these issues.

The rule of thumb in electronics circles is that any energy source generating less than 1.5 VAC is not worth pursuing, even for battery powered applications. I spent some time on this when I was a kid. I was trying to figure out if radio waves could be harvested to power something fun (like an LED.)

The basic passive energy conversion circuit is a bridge rectifier. It uses two silicon diodes with 2*0.7VDC = 1.4 VDC voltage drop in series for each half-cycle. There are other circuits, some involving transformers, others using different types of diodes, and some with transistors. However, even using the fanciest diodes on the smallest ICs, there is some voltage drop involved. It is very difficult to get the mV or uV level signals to power anything useful because (a) the voltages are too small relative to losses, and (b) the currents and power levels involved are extremely small too.

It is possible to make active diode "mixer" circuits that work on small signals, like in the transistor radio. These circuits depend on an external power source, and almost always an amplifier of some sort. In a radio the battery is that power source. For power generation, the circuit must capture enough energy to replace the battery. That is really hard in passive RF power scavenging applications where the input signal level is in the small microvolt to millivolt range.

Wireless Phone charges work by increasing the amplitude of the wireless signal to 100 (VAC) or so (depending on the system). A typical Wireless phone charger puts out something like 100 trillion times the energy developed by this device.

The summary mentions that they can't be certain the device actually works because of the micro-volt level signals involved. If the signal is too small to measure within experimental error, then it is likely too small for useful power generation too.

Please, let it work on useless system tasks too.

I'm dying in despair, and computing in disrepair ...

Please, someone give me an operating system with kill -9 !!!

The stated goal of DEI is to increase profits. For cost-conscious employers, DEI is implemented by hiring workers from vastly different backgrounds and life experiences. This diminishes commonality and makes it much tougher to unionize. This is also why Amazon often tries to encourage workers to not talk amongst themselves, and discourages social events. This makes for a dysfunctional workplace, low wages, and high staff turnover.

Costs can be further reduced by not experienced workers, and not valuing previous work experience in new hires.

Good luck on getting HR or senior executives to say the dystopian vision out loud ...

Theregister suggested these movie ideas:
License To Kill -9
For Your iPhone Only
AI Another Day
The name's Bezos, Jeff Bezos
etc ...

Many of the ideas actually sound better than the future movie ...

IBM killed it when they announced Windows 3.1 would be the last version of Windows supported for compatibility with OS/2. This announcement was made when 32-bit Windows NT was out, and talk existed an awesome new version of 32-bit Windows. The chronology was this:
1993: 32-bit Windows NT 3.1 launched
1994: Warp launched
1995: 32-bit Windows 95 launched
1996: Windows 4.0 launched
It was obvious at the Windows 95 launch that 16-bit Windows development was dead and the future was 32-bit. Windows 95 was going to be the largest target market. Warp had no plans on supporting 32-bit Windows applications, and that was the end of Warp.

IBM made some really bad decisions during the project. There were rumors that some of IBM's product managers were taking bribes from Microsoft. It was mentioned in passing in some magazine articles at the time, but I never saw a solid story. Additionally, there were also rumors from Microsoft that they thought IBM didn't know how to deliver an operating system, and deliberately developed Windows NT as the alternative. The existence of a better 32-bit operating system at Microsoft would have done nothing to help relations either.

All of this happened when Bill Gates and crew were at their most competitive and deliberately trying to dominate the market. Office 1995 was launched with Windows 95. Microsoft Office took over quickly outsold the previously dominant WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. Novell eventually filed a unfair competition lawsuit about Microsoft's conduct at the time.

The business plan is:
1. Create a bunch of companies to distribute private data, and charge money for it.
2. Create a company to remove the private data from those companies, and charge money for it.
3. If someone wants to compete against (2), ignore them. Just don't do anything.
4. For extra security, move some companies overseas.
5. To be extra threatening, get some Russian gangsters to distribute real and deep-fake pictures of famous people. Make an example of the First Lady.

Now, even if someone wants to "escape the monopoly" at step (2), they can't.

Mozilla would like to offer this as a service without involving a sleaze-ball. However, they can't. That's the "trap" Mozilla is in.

Vertical integration is a strength only when the fabrication process is top notch. Otherwise, it saddles the company with poor fabs. Back in the day, Intel was almost one full node ahead of everyone else in the industry, and spent money to stay that way. Now they are behind, and still spending money at the same rate.

My first instinct would be to figure out why Intel can't stay ahead. It is quite possible that the current Wall Street economic climate won't let Intel invest sufficiently in fabrication. AMD sold their fab to Global Foundries, which lagged and eventually just gave up on being competitive. This would have been fatal for AMD if AMD had to use the Global Foundries fabs. Instead AMD simply switched to TSMC. Intel is now facing the same decision, and they are starting to send there business to TSMC too.

Intel's foundry business needs to be one node ahead, or its gone. There is no point in keeping it if it is only competitive. Why have the capital investment if it does not bring significant benefits?

The other issue facing Intel's fabrication business is that it is now much harder and more expensive to make these new chips. Being one node ahead doesn't automatically guarantee double the clock speed and half of the power/clock like it did in the old days. Some of the new processors have minimal speed increases from the older chips.

Or the insurance company simply takes your money then refuses to pay / goes bankrupt.

Insurance: the only product you hope you don't have to use, the vendor discourages it's use, and if you really do need it, have no idea if it is there or not.

Pretty much everything that is remotely critical needs to be on an air-gapped network, or rely on perimeter security.

There are 5 key problems:
1. If the network is air gapped, how does a vendor deploy updates?
2. If the application is remotely specialized, how do you know the update won't break something?
3. The cost to test and deploy an update can be massive. Essentially, deploying an update means taking down a critical piece of equipment, trying a change, seeing if it affects anything, fixing the problems, and re-establishing normal operations. At $xxx,xxx/minute downtime, how long is this going to take? The the accountants will want a number in advance.
4. For a fail-safe system, there is no way to build a real-time system that is not vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack. Once an attacker is on the real-time network it is game-over. Sufficient errors will always cause the system to go into its safe-state. Downtime is $xxx,xxx/minute. So errors must be kept out of the real-time systems.
5. Many real-time systems have fail-dangerous states. Think of an airplane. The real-time system cannot fail. It is really important to have an air-gapped network (which used to be easy on an airplane).

I had a business professor explain the cultural differences in Venture Capital, based on country:
- In the US, Venture Capitalist's won't take you seriously unless you have tried and failed at least once.
- In Canada, Venture Capitalist's won't take you seriously if you have failed previously.
- In China, if you fail, you won't ever try again.

I have heard stories that it can be very bad for a factory owner if his factory goes bust. I don't think China is like the US where you can get out of it via bankruptcy. In China, failure in business is more like failure to pay back student loans. You wind up with $100 million in student loans, and can't ever pay them back.