Technology

My Ordeal with the Linksys WRT610N Wireless Router.

Neil Hetzel — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:27:00 GMT

I have a lot of wireless devices. Our Tivo, Apple TV, PS3, Wii and XBOX all connected wirelessly. This is in addition to my wife's laptop, our phones and the kid's PC. All told, there is a lot of wireless traffic flying around the Hetzel residence. I had been using an Apple Time Capsule which has a Wireless N router included in it, but I don't think that Apple designed it to have that many devices connected at once. As a result, all wireless traffic was very, very slow. Poor Trudy was pulling her hair out every time she was online (which is all the time). If you see a bald lady muttering about 17 more days know that the balding is partially my fault for not fixing the speed problem sooner :)

Because the Time Capsule was soooo slooooow, I decided to pick up a Linksys WRT601N. In addition to the Gigabit switch, it has two, simultaneous N radio bands and was essentially billed as exactly what I wanted. I'm happy to report that this router absolutely SCREAMS in terms of speed. I'm very happy with it. I can now watch HD streaming video on my phone while my wife works, my son plays WoW and my daughter plays the Wii. Everything moves at a much increased clip. Even Apple TV is much, much faster.

However, getting to this state of wireless bliss was a rough road.

When I was at Best Buy yesterday, I saw that they had marked down the model I wanted from $200 to $169. There was also an open box item they were selling for $149. I decided to take a chance on the open box item assuming (as the representative assured me) that the return was simply due to the previous owner not knowing how to set it up. Well, I've set up plenty of routers so I figured it worth the shot. I got home, cracked open the box and followed the "LELA" instructions to the letter. Once the configuration was complete, the software informed me that the router could not detect an internet connection (this despite the face that I could see the cable modem and router lights blinking in unison when they were connected.)

I tried looping the Internet port to one of the input ports and checking to see if the router was picking up an IP. It was (127.0.0.1). I tried configuring it many different ways and it simply would not talk to the cable modem and pick up the IP address from COX. Frustrated, I decided it must be a hardware issue and returned to Best Buy. There I haggled with the employees and explained that I should not have to pay the extra $20 (the cost for a new router vs. the open box one I bought) for the privilege of doing their testing job for them. Eventually they relented and let me grab a new version of the same model for the mark down price.

I rushed back home, plugged it all in again and got the same result. Ugh. Now the troubleshooting began in earnest. I searched and found this linkwhich told me that I had to use MAC cloning in order to use the router. The instructions said that I had to use the MAC address of my PC, but that made no sense since it's the MAC address of the cable modem that should be cloned. I followed the instructions using the MAC of the cable modem and still no joy. I even tried the MAC of my machine just for fun and of course it didn't work. Frustrated, I engaged Linksys support. They were friendly and helpful, but they too seemed to be taking stabs in the dark. I tried each of their suggestions to no avail and while waiting for their responses, I searched the internet and found that a lot of people were suffering the same issues as me and not getting anywhere...even with Linksys support.

Hence the purpose of this post.

I decided I would try one more stab in the dark before giving up and returning the router to Best Buy. I stole the MAC address of my previous router, and entered it in the configuration screen for MAC Cloning on the WRT610N's web config interface. Suddenly everything worked peachy. Don't ask me how using a MAC address of a device that isn't even on the network counts as "cloning", but it did and now we're good. Of course I still have some hurdles to overcome. I want to hook the Time Capsule up to the existing network so I can at least use it as a disk for Time Machine. But for now (and since I use JungleDisk), I'm quite pleased with speed boost. The speed is worth the money, but Linksys really needs to work on the configuration of the router...it's buggy as heck.

Joel on Software talks about people multitasking

Neil Hetzel — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:14:00 GMT

There is a tendency in corporations to treat people like technology. I hear of us being referred to as “resources” an awful lot and I find that kind of thinking a) lazy and b) borderline retarded. I suppose the term itself is not that offensive, but its the mindset that sometimes comes with the term I find so awful. You see once you think of someone as a “resource” instead of a person then its only a small step to start thinking of them as a cog. So, in a lot of ways workers in big corporations (especially technical workers) are seems as cogs. OK, but what's so terrible about that? I mean, that's what we are...we are processing units assigned to get work done for a company...to be productive.

I suppose the cog mentality would not be so bad but once management, unfamiliar with the people that work for them, sees “resources” as cogs then its only another small step to see them as multitasking processors. A few years ago at Big Co. they had a great idea that we should all be “matrixed” (and yes, it corresponded with Matrix the movie...ugh). What this meant is “resources” would be assigned a type. For example I would be a resource of type programmer. With that moniker assigned I could be swapped (according to this logic) in and out of various projects at will. I could be pulled off one project during design and plopped down into another during build. Further more, I could be time sliced across projects. I was supposed to be able to spend 20% of my time on this project and 40% on another and 40% on another. Each of these projects had independent leadership teams with different demands and the funny thing is that each one wanted me for 100% of the time.

During this time I remember thinking “Man, just give me one thing and let me focus!“ It was incredibly difficult to keep each projects details in my brain and be able to call them up on demand at a moments notice. Progress was very slow. I just remember thinking this Matrix thing is never going to work but I never spent any time thinking out why it wouldn't work.

Well, it didn't work. Matrixing has faded onto the scrap heap of discarded MB catchphrases...at least at BigCo. And now, several years later I read this. Now, there are probably some very smart people out there that could do what I was being asked to do. But reading this post by Joel really made me feel better about the situation. What he says in his “Human Task Switches Considered Harmful“ post is true. At least in my case. I think programmers work well if they are given the ability to pour all their focus into one thing. Breaking focus across multiple tasks may be a good idea for processors but not for people.

-Neil

Bad developer! No freebies!

Neil Hetzel — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 23:37:00 GMT

I had opportunity to go to the local MSDN event that was here last week in Phoenix. I was pretty excited and looking forward to seeing what was advertised: the latest and greatest of ASP .NET 2.0. Earlier this year we went to DevDays and I was a little disappointed because the presentation on ASP 2.0 was sidelined by the fact that the presenter was having trouble with his hardware. The end result was that almost nothing was shown.

Unfortunately history was to repeat itself at the MSDN event in Phoenix. We were informed as we filed into the movie theater where the presentation was held, that just before our arrival the presenter’s laptop had decided to die and that he had been forced to coble together hardware from other presenter’s laptops in order to give the presentation. We were to cover three topics:

1) Server Controls
2) InfoPath
3) ASP .NET 2.0

If you would like to check out the power point slides used in the presentation click here.

The presentation started off well. Our presenter (I think his name was Brian) began to work his way through coding an example of a Server control. Everything was going fine and then he decided to run the application. At that point the entire machine crashed. It hung for several minutes and he was finally forced to turn off the machine. We had actually been at it for about an hour so he told us that now would be a good time to take a break.

Unfortunately from this point forward the entire event was derailed by jerks. Over and over Brian (I hope that’s his name) was confronted by a blustery developer intent on “correcting” some syntax mistake or “improving” some design decision. In the beginning of the barrage Brian handled himself with grace. He was able to politely shame the hecklers into shutting up by making the rest of the developers laugh at his remarks.

But soon the presentation devolved more and those developers that had been keeping their mouths shut decided to pipe up. They began to accuse him of trying to “sell” them on a product instead of just showing them code. They accused him of ducking questions instead of answering them directly and then most shameful of all they began to chit-chat among themselves commenting on how stupid the presentation was while missing the majority of it because they were too busy maligning it to listen.

Comments I heard included:

”Why are you (MS in general) wasting time building a new IDE. I already have notepad. I could have whipped this code out in notepad over half an hour ago.”

“It’s like they don’t know who they are talking too. We’re all developers here. We don’t care about you trying to sell us product.”

“Java is so much better than .NET”

“I haven’t used a marquee since 96’” (this was heckling the fact that Brian chose to use a Marquee control in one of his examples)

This kind of disrespectful crap really gets my blood up. I am baffled by these developers that are so insecure that they feel the need to jump all over a presenter’s any mistake. I don’t understand the mentality that looks for ways to drag people down. Especially when the entire purpose of the presentation is *not* sales but edification. And most of all I don’t understand why anyone fond of using notepad and who thinks that Java is better than .NET would even bother attending an MSDN event all about .NET in the first place. If as a developer I don’t feel that .NET has anything to offer why would I go? To what end if not to find more reasons to substantiate my already large but ill founded dislike of Microsoft. Do me a favor next time. Just don’t show up. Yes, the presentation was negatively affected by hardware issues. But Brian had showed himself to be a capable developer and it was obvious to anyone with a fair mind that his problems had nothing to do with his smarts and everything to do with bad circumstances.

In short. Get a f*&^#*g life.

However by way of constructive feedback to Microsoft I would add the following. I am a 6’4” 235lb man. If you are going to rent out a theater to hold these events then make sure it’s a nice one. This pre-stadium style thing is just not going to fly. The seats were made for tiny people and were incredibly uncomfortable to sit in for 4 hours. Furthermore, the AC was cranked down to 45 so by the time Brian got around to ASP .NET I was so cold that I had to get up and leave to thaw out for a few minutes.

Other than that I would say keep Brian! As a former corporate trainer and someone who had to stand in front of large groups of people on a daily basis I know how tough that job can be. Brian did a great job in really crappy circumstances with a crowd full of jerks. He’s a keeper.

Also, thanks for the DVD. It rocks. For those that didn’t go it’s a double density DVD crammed full of cool stuff.

-Neil

XP SP2 forced Guest login

Neil Hetzel — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 21:24:00 GMT

I just isntalled SP2 on my XP boxes. I knew that SP2 cranked down on security by forcing the built in firewall to on as well as incesently reminding you that you are evil and going to hell if you don't turn it back on and get your dat files up to date. What I didn't know about was the forced guest login for those XP Pro boxes that are part of a workgroup.

If you have XP boxes that aren't part of a domain and you actually want them to be able to talk to one another then check out the MS KB article (290403) here:

-Neil

Doom3 Redux

Neil Hetzel — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 23:26:00 GMT

I'm quite a bit further along in the game now and horror movie fear has given way to a sort of numb fear. The game is still spooky and even scary at times but overall my brain has just embraced and accepted the fact that I will be forced to jump out of my chair and squeal like a little girl somewhere along the way. This has substantially sped up progress as I'm no longer taking things quite so slowly.

The fact that my initial reaction was so strong compared to now had me wondering if I was just an extreme wussy. But it appears that I am in good company. Don't worry Scott. It gets better. Sort of.

-Neil

Doom3

Neil Hetzel — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 02:43:00 GMT

I’ve probably got about 2 to 3 hours into Doom3 right now and what is becoming more and more apparent is that the programmers at id have not only created a technical masterpiece, but that they have learned how to expertly tap into fear.

In fact, I just got so creeped out by the game that I had to stop and do something else, namely write this.

The basic premise: You are a Space Marine working for the UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation), the largest single company in existence. You are part of a troop deployment to UAC’s research facility on Mars. As you arrive, it becomes apparent that things aren’t quite right. Numerous personnel whisper to you about strange goings on. Reading e-mail and listening to voice logs reveals that personnel are disappearing or going insane. Maintenance crews hear whispers in the darkness. Power fluctuations are regularly burning out sensitive equipment. Almost everyone agrees that all of this has something to do with the top secret experiments going in Delta sector.

Your first assignment is to track down a missing scientist. You make your way through the maze of shadowy tunnels, through an air-lock, across the barren, windswept and completely unforgiving surface of Mars and down into another sector of the base. By the time you find him, the feeling of being completely alone and helpless is starting to sink in. The scientist tells you that he absolutely must get his transmission back to earth. “They must know!” He sobs. “The devil is real. I know. I built his cage.” Before you even have a chance to get Goosebumps all hell breaks loose (yes, pun intended). Demonic symbols begin to glow on every surface. A disembodied flaming skull appears and moves from the room you are in, passing into the video surveillance screens and attacking soldiers viewed on those screens. Creatures begin to appear and then the sounds begin.

That was a communications station just a second ago...

One of the most effective ways to control and manipulate emotion is through our auditory sense. As the gate to hell opens, your radio crackles to life. There is a symphony of screams (human and non), people yelling prayers and crying for their “mommy”. There are death gurgles as some unknown personnel meet their end in some brutal and unseen way. Even as the action starts and you move further and further into the game sound plays a crucial role in keeping up the intensity. Id has found a way to make machinery sound evil. Don’t ask me how, but there is a constant tension being broadcast via the sound card. Occasionally you will hear something breathing in your ear. When you turn, there’s nothing there. Metal scrapes on metal in some far away shadow. Panels fall unexpectedly and crash on the ground. Screams and muffled cries can be heard through the walls. And the music, well the music is just plain spooky. Right before I stopped playing and began writing this I was walking down a hallway in the game and suddenly the disembodied voice of a young woman was in my ear. “Follow me. This way.” She intoned. I could see no one so I continued down the hall. “Hurry.” She said and as I listened a chill ran up my spine. This wasn’t coming over my radio. There was an ethereal echo in the voice. Something truly disembodied was talking to me. As I punched the control on the door at the end of the hallway I was frozen in place. My vision turned red and the same pleasant female voice, now full of vengeance and anger cries “They took my baby!” and the wispy, echoing cry of a baby filled my ears. Maybe that won’t seem scary tomorrow, but at midnight, in the dark and all alone it’s pretty damn freaky. Your decent into Hell in Doom3 is quite literal and judging by some of the grotesque things I’ve seen so far, I can’t imagine how depraved Hell will look and sound.

But who cares about the audio right? How does the game look? Well, in a word, gorgeous. Of course you have to include blood, guts, demons and death as part of the definition of gorgeousness, but you know what I mean. It looks as though id mapped out and drew every nook and cranny of their imaginary world and then created a unique texture map for each and every square inch. The attention to detail is staggering. Everything looks real and lived in. Toilets reflect light just porcelain does while clothing etc. looks muted.

Do I really want to go in here?

Maybe he's here to clean up the mess?

More important to the game play than looks however is just what can be done with the new Doom3 engine. First and foremost, no longer are the bad guys limited to chasing you on the floor. If a particular creature has the ability to walk on walls, then there is nothing stopping them from popping out of a hiding place high above in the shadows and crawling down the side of the wall to attack you. Nor is there anything stopping it from popping up from under the floor. If you think you’re safe behind a door, you’ll think twice when you see the door begin to buckle under the pounding of some unseen beast and then you’ll absolutely freak when you watch it get torn from its hinges and tossed across a room. There isn’t a safe place to be in Doom3.

That sound you hear is me craping my pants.
This guy chased me down the side of an elevator shaft as it was moving.

Earlier I said that the creators of the game have learned how to tap into fear. Despite the audio and visual elements there are less overt aspects that push the tension while almost going unnoticed. For instance, level design leaves almost every area devoid of a “safe” spot. Careful attention has been paid so that you always feel vulnerable. To add to the vulnerability, every room is filled with shadows. So just stay out of the shadows right? Easier said than done. Most of your resources (ammo, armor, health etc.) are found while searching the shadows. It’s also where most of the baddies jump out at you from. So to help you combat the shadows the designers were nice and gave you a flashlight. The only catch is that you have to put down your gun to use the flashlight. When you march off into pitch black, knowing that something horrible can jump out at you from anywhere and you don’t have your gun, well, your pulse goes up a bit.

Rooms that start like this never end well.

In case you can’t tell I really like this game. I’ve had more of a reaction to this game than to most all of the games I’ve played in the last 5 to 7 years combined. That’s a large, exaggerated statement and I’m well aware that’s how it may come across. But I mean it. Doom3 is nothing short of a very, very long Haunted House scare with chain guns and chain saws. This is a brilliant game and despite its easy availability on the p2p networks id deserves your hard earned cash. Its pricey, but considering that most everything in the fps genre is derivative of id in some way (even HL) and that they have obviously put their best stuff forward I think it’s worth making sure they stay around. Way to go id. Its never been this fun to be this freaked out.

-Neil

P.S. Just in case you think this game is without its light moments, it does have some humor sprinkled about. My favorite is the irate e-mail where a clerk in procurment is lambasted for mistaking an order of 50 jackhamers for 50 chainsaws. “What do I need chainsaws on Mars for?” yells the sender :) And be sure to check out every magazine cover...you're sure to find a laugh.

Maxwell and the Nerds.

Neil Hetzel — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 02:05:00 GMT

Several years ago when Trudy was still working and we only had one car I stopped by the book store located across the street from her office to kill some time before she got off work. As I walked in the door directly in front of me was a large table completely covered by books. In the center of the table was a metal stand on top of which was a sign that read “Classics”. I walked around the table interested to see what “classics” I might read next. You see at the time I considered myself fairly well read. After all, I read all the time. My mother read books to me at a very young age and I started reading on my own fairly early. As my parents went into their 4-year long protracted hell of a divorce reading was an easy way for me to escape. I buried myself in Tolkien's world as well as many other fantasy and sci-fi works.

As I walked around the table I realized with a growing sense of dismay (this due to the fact that my pride was taking a severe beating) that I hadn't read any of the books on the table. There were easily 50+ books there. I had heard of every single one of them. I hadn't read any of them. All I could remember thinking was “How on earth was I allowed to graduate High School having never read any of these”? I was disturbed by this more than anything. I resolved to read every single one of them before I died. More important to this post however, I filed this memory away under “astounded at the total crap of the public school system”.

Fast forward 6 years. I have just finished reading Carl Sagan's book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle in the Dark” I'm not going to delve in my thoughts on the book because I want to post about it separately. My thoughts are mixed about it, but I would have to say that it has had a large impact on me. Namely, Chapter 23 in the book entitled Maxwell and the Nerds.

The larger context of Chapter 23 is a political statement that governments should fund more science research (although paradoxically the author argues that a) we should dedicate much more money to scientific research and b) most of the momentous discoveries in science have come from dedicated men and woman who pursued their calling alone with little to no funding on their own time and with only their own curiosity to motivate them. And that no amount of money thrown at a desired scientific outcome will necessarily result in the same. This is part of the conflict I feel toward the book. It is a brilliant in parts and dubious in others.) but it was a point illustration using the story of James Maxwell that caught my attention.

Maxwell was a prototypical English nerd that that devised a way of writing down what was known about the behavior of magnetism and electricity in matter. Here are Maxwell's four equations. Having figured all that out Maxwell then decided to ask himself what these equations would look like if they were not acting in matter. What would they look like in a vacuum? Here are Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism in space.* Now why did he care about what they would look like in a vacuum? Mostly just because he was curious. But to get the full impact of what a revolutionary force these later 4 equations are, I need to quote from Carl Sagan's book.

“This partly aesthetic judgment by a nerdish physicist, entirely unknown except to a few other academic scientists has done more to shape our civilization than any ten recent presidents and prime ministers...

...The linking-up of the modern world economically, culturally, and politically by broadcast towers, microwave relays, and communication satellites traces directly back to Maxwell's judgment to include the displacement current in his vacuum equations. So does television, which imperfectly instructs and entertains us; radar, which may have been the decisive element in the Battle of Britain and in the Nazi defeat in World War II (which I like to think of as “Dafty“, (Neil: This was name by which Maxwell was made fun of) the boy who didn't fit in, reaching into the future and saving the descendants of his tormentors); the control and navigation of airplanes, ships and spacecraft; radio astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence; and significant aspects of electrical power and microelectronics industries.

What's more, Faraday's and Maxwell's notion of fields has been enormously influential in understanding the atomic nucleus, quantum mechanics, and the fine structure of matter. His unification of electricity and magnetism, and light into one coherent mathematical whole is the inspiration for subsequent attempts -some successful, some still in their rudimentary stages - to unify all aspects of the physical world, including gravity and nuclear forces, into one grand theory. Maxwell may fairly be said to have ushered in the age of modern physics.“

At first I was awed by what I read. Then I got angry. How can it be that in today's age I, a product of our public education system, could have been judged worthy of not only completing High-School but also College and have never heard of James Maxwell? The the thought actually made me angry. How can this man not be one of our most celebrated historical figures? By all accounts I owe my very career and my livelihood to this man. And until the day I read those words I had never known that he existed.

This, along with a few other events has made realize two things 1) I am probably going to go back to school (although I'm not going to go into why right now) and 2) Between Trudy and I we are going to have to find a way to remain the primary authoritative source of education for our kids. We are going to need to augment and in cases where necessary correct what our kids are being taught. In other words, these experiences have made me realize that we may come out of the public school system as good “workers“ but no necessarily educated. Its our job to make sure that our kids retain their sense wonder and desire to learn even as they trudge through what can be the boring nuts and bolts of learning.

Tonight I took my kids out in the back yard. I had attached my binoculars to our tripod and pointed them at the Moon. Molly and Luke took turns looking through the binoculars at the moon. Molly was especially amazed by how big and clear the surface of the Moon is. I took the opportunity to try and describe gravity to her (she asked about needing a parachute to “fall“ onto the Moon). We went inside and found some old footage of the first Moon landing as well as footage from the Skylab space station. Her eyes bulged in that wonderful “Wow“ kind of way when she saw the astronauts bouncing around on the surface of the Moon or when they were floating around inside the space station. In her own five-year-old way she got it. She understood the basic idea of gravity and seeing that recognition in her eyes was just amazing. I'm not sure if Luke actually got it, but he certainly was enthralled by the rocket ships and the way the astronauts went “boingy boingy“ on the lunar surface.

As stupid as this sounds coming from a 30-year-old man, I am just now starting to understand the drastic importance of education. Knowing this brings the responsibility of parenthood into sharper focus. I'm actually looking forward to it.

-Neil

*I don't understand a single solitary bit of these equations so if something is amiss and you do, feel free to correct me.

FarCry Screen Shot

Neil Hetzel — Sat, 22 May 2004 10:16:00 GMT

Ok, that was a lame title.

Anyway, I've playing FarCry on and off for a few weeks now. It's probably the best FPS I've played since Half-Life. The graphics are amazing. It's got a great mix of strategery :) and frenetic action. It also builds a creepy storyline slowly. I love that.

Anway, I was paying this morning as I waited for my grass to get here (that's grass for the backyard for those of you in Berkley) and ran across this:

-Neil

American Coders Aren't Lazy...Beurocrats Are.

Neil Hetzel — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 11:20:00 GMT

This is liable to turn into a long winded rant, but right now, at the outset of typing this I don’t intend it to be.

I’m just so frustrated with my company. My company says that on-shore development is too expensive and that they will save money by moving as many aspects of development off shore as possible.

Now, there’s truth to that. There’s no way that I can compete with $5/hr coders. They are cheaper. No doubt about it. They can also be just as good as any American developer. So the arguments about quality are lame. Granted, bad communication between on shore and off shore teams can lead to misunderstandings which may look like bad quality, or be used to prove bad quality by those who are against off-shoring but in the end analysis there is little to no difference between American coders and offshore coders in terms of intelligence, ability or the quality of code produced.

Unlike Rory I simply don’t buy that the reason for off shoring is American laziness. That’s just the product of lazy thinking or the overwhelming desire to write yet another un-funny comic. Do I chat over IM? Yes. Do I spend too much time doing things that aren’t productive? Yes. But that does not mean I am lazy. In fact, I want to work a lot more. I am a much happier person when I am working. The happiest times of my life seem to correlate directly to the times when I had a steady amount of challenging work to do.

Is off shoring the evil culprit that is robbing me of challenging work? Well, yes. But it’s a minor part of the problem. It’s the treatment of a symptom and not the disease. So what’s the disease?

The disease is Bureaucracy.

Let me give you an example. One of the requirements for the project I am on right now is that we receive a flat file feed and import that data into a staging area of our system. The import code has already been written and most of the tables already exist. We simply need 1 (one) new table created. That’s it, just one table.

But here at BigCo we can’t just have one person do the analysis, do the design, log into the dev environment and create the damn table. Nope, that would be too easy. Here at BigCo I have to open what’s called an RFS (paper work) and pay a third party $2k just to LOOK at the request. Once the request had been processed (several days of waiting, it could have taken up to two weeks), I received a message from our Information Architecture (IA) Group. They are responsible for doing the logical data model. The message I received wasn’t to actually do work, it was to set up a meeting with the Data Architect in the UK. Another week passed. Finally I was able to meet with the Data Architect. I show him the design that I have already created (that’s right boys and girls..it’s not too damn difficult to do logical model of ONE DAMN TABLE!) He then tells me it will be another 3 days before he will be able to complete his logical model.

Keep in mind that this is our IA group. They don’t actually create the tables. They just do the logical modeling. So it’s going to take the Data Architect three days to do a logical model of one table that I have already done for him. I am, however, assured that the DBA from Information Management ((IM), the group that will actually create the table) will be on the call when we review IA’s logical model. That way, we can turn the work right over to IM and the DBA can create the table for us to use.

Fine. Whatever. I’ll wait the 3 days. After all, Christ did it right?

So on the third day (Tuesday) we have another call to review the logical model of the one table that I had already done. With a couple of minor exceptions it looked fine. But guess what? No DBA on the phone. He wasn’t available so the Data Architect from IA is going to set up another meeting for later on in the week. The next day I get an e-mail saying that the meeting for the turn over will take place on Thursday (a full 3 days (the first call was on Tuesday morning) after the initial three days that I was told to wait.).

Fine. Whatever. Even though Christ only did it once, I’ll wait another three days.

Today I get another e-mail canceling the Thursday (today) meeting and rescheduling it until next Monday. Of course even if the call happens on Monday and the DBA gets the logical-model-for-the-one-table-that-I-already-created-but-was-redone-by-IA he may not create the table for several days. He may say that I have to wait another week.

I’ve just looked through my e-mail and my fist contact with IA was on the 13th of this month. It has been 13 days and I still don’t have my one table and I don’t know when I am going to get it.

And the worst part of all this is I feel as though I am the only one who finds this repugnant and wasteful. You see the problem is not that Americans are lazy, nor is off shoring the root of all evil.

The root of all evil is bureaucracy.

The cohesive wholeness of a task is fractured across multiple areas of responsibility that have little to no real interaction with each other. Once you make 17 different groups responsible for the delivery of one widget, accountability is lost. Why? Because all I have to do is start pointing fingers. Then the next guy points his finger and on and on into one big circle jerk we go. Management can’t decided who to hold accountable…or maybe the worker bees in each area are able to convince their management that they aren’t ones responsible and so in the end nothing is done, and nobody is held accountable for it. Maybe, on very large, high visibility projects some heads will roll. But on smaller path projects they never will.

What does this do? Well it drives the cost of development astronomically high. When all is said and done my one table will cost BigCo $8,000. That’s a drop in the bucket for BigCo, but it adds up. We now have upwards of 10 people working on creating one table. News flash: OF COURSE DEVELOPMENT IS GOING TO BE EXPENSIVE WHEN YOU HAVE SUCH RETARDED PROCESSES!

It also breeds a cynicism in otherwise hard working people. The culture of “it doesn’t matter” begins to spread because everyone is always waiting for everyone else to do something. Eventually people just get sick of trying to beat the system and get their job done. Eventually they just start surfing the net and chatting on IM because they’re tired of trying to find challenging work. Eventually most people just give up.

Then management calls you lazy and sends your job to India.

The funny thing is that the reason why India is “better, faster, cheaper” is not just because of their pay rate. It’s because they don’t have this fracturing of responsibility and insulation from one another. They all (at least in case of Big Co.) sit in the same building on the same floor right next to one anther. They reap the benefit of concentration (as opposed to fracturization) in getting their work done.

The joke is that the pattern that has played itself out here in the US will only repeat there. Wages will rise. Costs will increase. Eventually the beaurocrats will setup shop and insist that development follow “organized processes” that drive the cost of development even higher. Then jobs will bleed from India into China or Indonesia or wherever.

I suppose that trend is unstoppable. But it’s only unstoppable because people don’t care to address the deeper problems. It just seems to me that we should work out inefficiencies at home (and possibly save some jobs for the good ‘ol USA) before we ship them off shore.

-Neil

geek bling bling

Neil Hetzel — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 22:43:00 GMT

I just got my Radeon 9800 XT.

It kicks major butt.

I get a free copy of HL2 when it comes out.

Sweeeet.

-Neil