struppi

Totally off-topic, except for the EEPROM:

A colleague once told me about a bug in it's audi where it would write the current volume of the radio to an EEPROM after every volume change. So, after a few years, the car stopped remembering the last volume setting when turning the radio off and on, because the EEPROM died.

The problem is: They cannot save the world if they crash the company into a wall.

I am not saying that they will, and I hope they will not.

But since a few weeks, I do not completely rule out the possibility anymore. Because if only some of their problems, that are being reported right now, are systemic or hard to fix, 2018 might be a bad year for Tesla...

Magna has electric trucks as a short-range shuttle between factories. They charge during loading/unloading. So it certainly seems doable, at least for short-range transportation.

https://investinaustria.at/en/news/2017/11/magna.php

I don't know about long-range. But I would be curious where you get the 1.9 kWh/mile and the 600 miles per day figure from?

"JIT just pushes the costs on to smaller suppliers who a large company can effectively bully in the same way big supermarkets bully framers."

This is not how the TPS works (At least not in theory. In practice, bullying may or may not happen - I don't know about any). The idea behind JIT is that you can react to changes in external circumstances faster.

Also, the suppliers should also not have huge stockpiles of parts. Then they can, too, react fast to changes in demand. But this can also cause problems: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-toyota-group-and-the-...

You don't have to solve all edge cases for a feature to be useful. At least not all the time.

I, am not too unhappy with the behaviour of C/C++/Java/... - That the block comment will end at the first occurence of " * / ".

If I accidentally close a comment too early (because there already was another block comment inside the code I want to comment), then...

* The syntax highlighting of my IDE will tell me.

* The compiler will tell me.

* I can take it as an opportunity to consider whether this file is too large - That problem should not have happened at all.

"so you can trade more widely"

I'm still curious if this will work exactly like the optimists think it will.

Only time will tell, but it will depend a lot on the final agreement between the EU and the UK. Because if there is no deal (esp. no free trade agreement), the UK will, at first, NOT be able to trade more widely...

I don't recall where I read it, but I recall reading an article some time ago saying there were different opinions by experts about whether the process could be stopped. Because Article 50 simply does not mention stopping the process.

But I could be wrong ;)

OK, you're right. What I meant with "Hard Brexit" is no deal or a deal that does not include any significant free trade agreement.

Well, I have no doubt that the EU, the UK and most companies can survive this thing. It's still a waste of money...

IIRC, the EU already hinted that they would allow stopping the Brexit-Process, even though this should be impossible according to Article 50.

And they also said they would fast-track an application of the UK, if they applied for membership after leaving.

But I guess, from the EU's perspective, you would need approval of all member states for both, which is incredibly hard to get these days.

And the current UK government probably does not see any of these 2 as an option...

Well, not only the nation will be "punished" (and I don't think that punishing the UK for wanting to leave would be right).

This article is how the banks suffer, most of them are probably not from the UK. Not as a punishment, but as a direct consequence of Brexit.

And the EU will suffer too. So, Schadenfreude is maybe a bit short-sighted here...

Edited to emphasize that I do not think this discussion should be about punishment. And the linked article is definitely not about punishment.

This is the third or fourth article about the cost of Brexit I read this week. Another interesting one was how ridiculously expensive border control and customs could become

There's still almost two years of negotiations ahead, but right now the rhetoric of the British government seems to be geared towards a hard brexit (e.g. "There will be no freedom of movement after 2019, even if we lose access to the single market").

The rhetoric on this side of the channel seems to be a bit more nuanced - but not much. Both sides have drawn some red lines, and they do not seem to overlap.

So, I fear we'll have a mostly hard Brexit in two years, and it will cost, the UK, Europe and many companies billions.

And if you believe Elon Musk's own words, it's significantly easier ;)

Joking aside - Yes, German car makers are behind on electric vehicles, but all (except mercedes now) have one. They are late, they probably are at a disadvantage, but IMHO the game is not over yet.

A while ago, I tried to configure an electric B, just for fun. Not that I was trying to buy one, because I don't have a permanent parking lot where I would mount the charger right now...

There were only two things that would really put me off:

* The car was super-expensive. With a few extras, it was ~45000 Euros, IIRC * Range was too limited (160km IIRC).

Now, if I could mount a charger, I would probably consider a <35000€, >300km A-Class, if such a thing existed.

IANAL, but I guess license one would still not be free software, and might still be incompatible with, say, the GPLv3. So you might still prevent non-military individuals from using your code.

I guess that would become harder the longer the license gets.

Say you wanted to add a clause to the apache license (AL2) or GPLv3 - Then you would also have to make sure that your new clause does not contradict anything in the rest of the license.

Edit: And that clause would probably prevent even others who are not in the military from using your code. Just because there's a chance your license is incompatible with the GPL.

OK, maybe I'm old or old-fashioned or just not creative enough...

But what exactly are the advantages of this implant over NFC-cards or something like Apple Pay? That I cannot forget my card or my phone? I don't even know when this last happened to me...

I think your "by default" is a bit misleading here. This is one paper, comparing pesticides for one pest in one crop. But I guess you are right - Organic is not always better.

But, AFAIK, at least here in Austria, buying organic will at least improve your chance that you get some sustainably-produced food - and animals that are kept in a somewhat species-adequate environment...

But thanks for making me question my assumptions ;)

Because some GMO might be better for your health AND for the environment. Like that GM rice that provides vitamins ppl in some parts of asia lack...

"100-percent organic, locally sourced, non-GMO, and free of antibiotics"

Even if it does not have an effect on your health, three of those four (100-percent organic, locally sourced, and free of antibiotics) are at least good for the environment.

The fourth (free of antibiotics) is maybe even good for your health, in the long run: Over-use of antibiotics by farmers (not using them to cure sick animals, but to make animals grow faster) seems to be a big problem (creating resistent bugs)...

Edit (after reading a comment): I left out non-GMO here because I have ready about some evidence that - at least some GMOs - can be better for the environment and for your health.

Yes. If you are a US citizen. If you are not, this can mean waiting for the next pane back in handcuffs and being banned from entering the US for life.

"Are you using travel mode?"

"No"

You just lied to someone at border control. Which is an offense.

This is a great example.

In one team I was coaching, we also experienced that standups improved when we switched to a kanban board and enumerating tasks on the board: We would not ask people "What did you do today", but pick a task and ask: "Who contributed to that task? Who thinks they can contribute?"

This made a huge difference (although there still were people that did not like the daily stand up - but less than before).

"Except they have no way of recording the opportunity cost"

This is a very good point. I have to think about it more.

Still, as an independent consultant, I have seen some teams who get close to 0 value from their dailies (while others got tremendous value). And just trying to change some small things about the dailies will probably lead to no results.

"One person being the driving force behind making something happen doesn't imply that all the benefit accrues to them at all."

Well, if nobody goes to the daily just because a single person is missing, you have a problem. Right? Even if that problem is only that the others do not recognize the value they are getting...

True. That's the goals you want to achieve.

I am just trying to say that you do not necessarily need a daily meeting to achieve these goals. And that you might get all the value from the daily scrum with something that better suits your team.

There may or may not be 10x programmers - I, personally, find the reasoning in the article convincing. And I think there may be programmers that vastly outperform others in programming tasks. So I think there may be 10x programmers.

But, I believe it does not really matter (at least most of the time, most meaning something like 99%).

We are working in teams, inside a company that has a certain culture, rules and processes. How we work together as a team and how the company/culture/system we work in helps us in / prevents us from doing our work has a much greater influence in overall results than individual programmer performance.

This also includes how the system supports us in learning (not only formal training, even though this might be beneficial) and teaching. Teaching each other skills needed for the job, and learning how to work together so that we amplify our collective skills and dampen our shortcomings.

Ok, this is awesome, if everything works as advertised.

I have been mostly a Linux user for quite some time - at least on my own computer, clients always have Windows. But this year I bought a Surface Pro as a secondary device.

I first evaluated WSL and really liked it, but I switched to Hyper+Git Bash because networking in node.js was not working properly, and because I could not start Windows programs from the command line.

Now, if both problems are really fixed now, I guess I will switch back to WSL, and maybe uninstall Hyper+Git Bash later (given that I do not find any other show stoppers)...

Awesome explanation! I have to think about this organism / selection idea a bit more.

It's amazing how much I have learned and how many different perspectives people have told me since I first gave that talk...

Thanks for your insightful reply!

b) works only when you are even allowed to talk to the exectuives ;) That's why I said it's more frustrating in larger companies...

Well, this is very hard. It is more frustrating with bigger companies.

In one occasion, where they officially brought me in as an agile coach, I tried to at least achieve some local optimum with the team, because some big improvements were plain impossible. I occasionally talked to managers about all the walls we were constantly hitting, but the answer was always "we can never change that in this company". This did not stop me from mentioning the problems, though.

Most company actually hire me as a technical coach or as a developer. There it is easier: When changing the way the team works is not officially my responsibility, I will still mention things that could be done better. But when the company does not listen to me, it is easier to let go: Then I'll just focus again on helping the team dealing with their legacy code monster (or whatever else I was hired to do).

So, in short, my strategy of dealing with it: Never give up mentioning problems and trying to establish a culture of continuous improvement with small experiments. But don't get too frustrated when they don't listen.

Also, often they do listen, and things get a little bit better ;)

How do you deal with those situations? Do you have a different strategy? What could I try to do differently?