Tactic

To be fair windows phone 10 is not released yet. Their developer preview was a mess for a good long time.

The problem here is you changed customers and didn't realize it. In the beginning your customer was the end user as you helped them implement. When you went to development your customer was no longer the end user but the business unit. It is their job to determine what the end user needs. Your job is to ensure business gets what they want. Take pride in doing a good job for them.

You may want to consider product design or starting your own project so you can do the product design, though. It sounds more like what you want if that is where you find your joy.

I have no desire to pull the conversation off track but comparing auto insurance requirements to the affordable care act is apples and oranges.

You don't have to own a car. (and in fact fewer and fewer people do) You also don't have to have auto insurance to own or drive a vehicle, just to drive it on public thoroughfares. Which, believe it or not, is not everyone's use case.

The government has this ability with near all other relationships you have. So much so that they have codified the few that it doesn't apply to. We put lawyers, doctors, clergy and spouses in a special category but others can be required to divulge any information they have on you with the appropriate order. (What's appropriate is another discussion)

Ultimately, realize that any dealing you have is open to the government if they so desire and make that part of your decision making process.

Thelma and Louise would come the closest for me. Specifically the scene where they are complaining about men and one says to the other "You get what you settle for."

I think about that when deciding things and it has improved my life.

"However we're living in a time when absolute right to privacy and anonymity in public no longer exists..."

And that is the crux of the issue. It needs to be made a right and enforced like every other right. The problem is that it isn't and it is like the wild west when it comes to people's privacy and data. Given the rapid rise of big data and the surveillance state I would say that a time of flux is just starting. My sincere hope is that it ends with strengthened rights for the individual. I am not convinced it will, however.

I think there is a clear balance that can be struck with saying "This is what I have created and I share it with you out of love" and "What I created is yours by virtue of being my child". I think the results he seeks can be achieved without wandering into "tough love" realms. In fact, I assume he means it more in that sense.

My children have thanked me for giving them that strength and individualism. For allowing them to not having it all handed to them. I practiced similar to the parent and my relationship with my children is rock solid.

Agreed that data is in and of itself neutral. Similar to a gun it is not its use but how it is used that can be detrimental. In fact, this is true of most anything from a pencil to a car.

I think at the core however the issue is not how the data is used but one of ownership and privacy. It is "my" business where I drive. It is "my" business whom I call. It is data about me and my behavior. So to have that information about me used, even if it could be assessed publicly, without any need for consent from me becomes the issue.

License plate readers are tantamount to placing a tail on me. The same with tracking my movements via several CCTV cameras, etc.

Retention just makes the situation worse. Yes, you could approach it with laws of appropriate use of this data but the problem is what about when the laws change. And the data is still there. Similar to how people gave data to Radio Shack years ago to find it now being sold to 3rd parties. Privacy policies are constantly shifting for the companies' best interests. Who can keep track?

The problem is that once the data is collected it is out of your hands. And why the regulations need be at the collection level with strict opt-in requirements as well as the usage and retention level.

There was a technical error causing clicks to not be registered. It has been corrected and the button reset. This isn't the first time.

I agree this car analogy is flawed because it correlates a movie to a car as if they are both goods. Media is actually a service (a recorded performance). This not only causes this analogy to break down but your underlying argument that because the owner still has a copy it is therefore acceptable.

I think your counterpoint of a doctor or lawyer is particularly apt. These are both careers where I tend to look for someone that is older and thus more experienced. Yet both of those fields have a constant influx of new information much like IT.

Perhaps the real issue is that IT is still relatively new and as the industry ages ageism will change.

While I agree with you completely the truth is they don't care if you are their customer (individually or as a group).

They deal with such large numbers that you in particular are less than a rounding error. While they could provide streaming to you as a group that opens a whole case of worm cans regarding potential taxes, law suits, contract disputes, etc.

While we often think of how simple it is to do because we approach it from the tech side and we sometimes think of it from the business side we (self included) rarely think of it from the HUGE CORPORATE side, which is, they have better things to do.

Sadly, things are setup in a way that is not beneficial to us, the consumer.

Sadly somewhere along the line Gender Balance became the same as Gender Equality. While it is easy to measure it is a foolish metric since it presumes women and men are the same. The sooner we realize that "equal but different" is OK the sooner we can address the real issues.

My reading of this is that the problem is less with the data and more with the placing of a tracker on a person or their property because the fourth amendment says you have a right to be secure in those things.

I never considered this with prices. Interesting.

Which is odd because I always consider this with project deadlines. Whenever I see deadlines of the 1st or the end of the month I know it is a date picked out of the air and not based on the actual work required.

The US government is a very large entity. Be careful in personifying it and condemning the whole based on some high profile actions of a portion of it. Many portions of it do good work that are invaluable to our society. A broader view is required.

In my personal experience I have found that the people that put stock in this sort of question believe in the "coder" mystique and that someone eating and breathing coding is somehow more competent than someone that treats computer programming as a professional career.

It is not uncommon for people to feel this about a number of professions such as chefs, bakers, graphic artists, etc.

However, in my experience I prefer to judge an applicant on professional credentials rather than their free time because while it may tell me quite a bit about them it tells me little about their capabilities that I couldn't find out in better ways.

This brings up an excellent side point that I taught my children... that stealing is not taking something that belongs to someone else, it is taking something that does not belong to you.

It is a subtle, but important, distiction that is often used as a rationalization.

Edit: This really belongs on the child comment.

Nobody is invaluable at a company. Period. And especially in the tech industry. Code is just code. It doesn't take a magical power to read it.

The biggest mistake I see managers make is that they think they are there to deliver completed projects to upper management. They are playing project manager when they should be playing people manager.

A good manager's job is to make sure their direct reports have everything they need to get their job done. The proper information, tools, training, time, motivation, etc. If they have the proper staff the rest of the success will stem from that.

I have employed that as a manager and expect it as a direct report and have only ever seen success when it is employeed both in the military and the private sector.

You were in a losing situation from the start. You were selected to be the heavy, the patsy and the scapegoat all in one.

It is clear from what you have said that your people were overworked, deadlines were not reasonable and there were not enough proper employees. Yet management persisted with their existing paradigm and you got to be the one that bore the bad news to everyone so they all resented you.

The best you can do in that situation is exit. Which it sounds like you and others figured out.

Sleep well knowing you cared about the people and the results, it was upper managment that did not. They cared only about the money.

As a side note, I hear this excuse a lot, about how money will be lost if we don't do this bad thing or that. Money is brief, setting up the proper business practices is long term. Sure, there are temporary situations that require extra effort... but they are obvious and temporary.

I read it as an attempt to be "not corporate". But I don't know how the author typically is, so it could be normal. But given the rest of the language it felt a bit contrived/manipulative to me, although with good intentions.

Even worse than culture is when the phrase "core values" comes out. This had both.

In my experience "core values" boil down to professionalism and "culture" boils down to hard work. Once they start labeling and promoting those it tells me the company has gone from passion to "work" and the uppers can't figure out how to get it back.

(Clue: you can't company wide.)

People are just people. Everyone is an amalgamation of insecurities, fears, joys, talents, failures, desires, etc. This has helped me communicate and associate with people at all levels. I don’t care if it is the bum down by the river or the CEO of a company with 500+ employees, I get along with them… and have learned from them. Because we all have value and are just trying to make it through our brief term here on earth. Or, as Orson Scott Card put it, we’re muddling through.

But most of all, remembering I am just a person as well. No better or worse than anyone else.

Maybe it sounds obvious, but it truly helped me in life.

Tangential to this is that because time is limited your choices will decrease as you approach the end.

While your options are wide open at 20 they are far more limited at 40 or 50 simply because you don't have time to start anew.

And, similar to software, your life requires far more maintenance time as it goes on :)

Not only will someone not truly hear what you have to say, they will often become confrontational over it if it is anything of relevence.

Considering this and keeping my mouth shut has saved me many a fruitless argument.

I think this is one of the more important points. Most of what we were doing back then is now easily done by everyone.

We dropped trunks to get free conference lines so we could all be on the phone together. We scammed the phone companies for free long distance to talk to each other. We had private BBSs. All of that has been suplanted with every day tech and done better.

We cracked programs because we were young and couldn't afford software. You had to know someone, be in the scene, to get access to that stuff. Now there are thousands of websites.

All the really postive stuff is out there for everyone. It's the dark hacking that is thriving and I am not surprised it is not out in the open. But I am certain it is there... they just don't want the publicity. We used to do it for the thrill... they do it for the cash.

Although hacktivism is new. We were to busy trying to figure out how it worked to make any real statements.

You keep using that word... I don't think it means what you think it means.

Your summary of what Eich is "basically saying" seems misleading and intended to incite others. I am highly doubtful that he believes other people don't deserve the same rights he does but instead disagrees as to if certain things are right or privileges.

While I do not agree with Eich's views, framing the argument this way accomplishes nothing but fanning the fires. It makes one side feel oppressed and the other attacked. It puts everyone into a defensive mode rather focusing on the real issues. At worst it is manipulative at best it is close minded.

I think you overestimate people's concern with their neighbor's job opportunities versus their own welfare/comfort. I point to Walmart as just the tip of the iceburg in making my case.