| ??? 11/27/11 07:26 Read: times |
#184920 - Consider my position Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Per Westermark said:
Richard Erlacher said:
That, sir, is my point. These things may be useful implements to you, they're marginally useful toys to me. Where you sit determines what you see. And that have been my whole point with this discussion. They mean different things to different people. Yes, they do. I interpret what I see in terms relating to what I am doing and what my interests are. For that reason, I consider what's important to me, and and not what's important to you. I certainly hope you do more or less the same thing. What could you possibly gain by concerning yourself with what I want? It was you who wrote:
I might, however, have said that I thought that it was stupid for someone wanting to work to turn down a job paying as much as I generally did, just because he couldn't bring his cellphone into the workplace. You always have very strong views on everything. But always based on how YOUR need/use for something. When YOU don't think you need something, then you perceive that no one else does either. That isn't true. I do, however, expect that people wishing to be employed in my workplace, drawing a salary from my business, adhere to the simple principles that benefit my business. If they don't wish to do that, they needn't seek employment with me. I don't expect people to think and do as I do. When you think one company have bad quality, you perceive that all companies has. That's not the case at all. I simply believe that ATMEL will continue its practices as it has in the past, as large companies are very slow to recognize their own shortcomings, hence, I don't use, nor do I recommend, their products. When you see one lazy person, you perceive that all others of same age/race/... must be the same. I'm sure I've seen lots of lazy individuals. However, I've never made any such assumptions based simply on seeing them. Seeing their behaviors, however, is a different matter. In your most recent post you wrote (about smart phones):
While they're capable of providing useful services, most people use them for entertaining themselves. But have you ever visited an office at Cisco, IBM, Oracle, Google, ... and asked all employees (and maybe their bosses) if the smartphones was mostly for entertaining themselves? Why would I waste my time and resources on such an excursion? I don't care what they do. I'm concerned with what affects my business, not theirs. I made that remark based on my observations and on statements from the many people I know who use smartphones. I made reference to a cartoon I once encountered. Most of what I've seen involving smartphones is along that same line. The smartphone may be convenient, but, so far, it has not been proven necessary. Everything the smartphone makes more convenient is possible by other means. If your view is based on people running around in the city on their spare time, then the percentage of entertainment will be way higher than if you would base your view on how people use them in their actual work.
The world managed to rotate around the sun for quite a number of years before we saw the first microcontroller born. Yet, you decided that you wanted to work with microcontrollers and see what advantages they could give. But for some reason, you have left that stage. You are no longer looking at new products, concepts, technologies and wondering what advantages there may be. That is fine by me, but you are also expecting that everyone around you should limit themselves to the technology/concepts/... that you have adopted. I try to keep abreast of the technology, but I don't use every thing just because it's new. I've learned over the years that newer doesn't guarantee better. In fact, with most manufactured goods, e.g. appliances, TV's, computers, it often means lower reliability and lower quality. I went shopping some years back for a new freezer. I asked the salesman what the design-life of the typical kitchen appliance was. He answered, "Oh, it's about eight years, but if you get five years' service, you're doing well." I find it useful if my phone can tell me if a computer disk are going full. Or a backup have failed. Or a fan has a problem keeping up the rotation speed. My computers track and report that information for me. If I'm not looking at them, it's not important, because they're usually turned off, rather than wasting energy and heating the planet. I find it useful to go through the new mail while walking to work. In the time it takes me to walk to work, my cellphone doesn't even wake up. I find it useful to be able to compare prices on products while I'm out moving around.
I find it useful to be able to check bus routes, time tables etc whenever/wherever I am. But I don't care/expect others to be the same. Different people have different view on things. That should be obvious. You, Richard, expect a world of either mini-Richards or a working class of lesser people. The mini-Richards are the ones who have exactly your views and values. The rest are the (lazy) working class of lesser (and dumb) people. I'm glad you don't expect other to be like you. Frankly, based on what you've said, I'm glad you're different from most people, because I appreciate the fact that few people would make the inane assertions you're making, based on virtually no knowledge of me at all. But the majority of all inventions in this world are made by people different than you. So if you got a chance to give an opinion about them before first knowing their history, you would classify them as not useful people. A large percentage of the progress there is in the society comes from people who have a bit different view on things, and are willing to test something new. And are willing to follow through with ideas even if people around them don't believe in the ideas because that is not the "traditional wisdom". I've never been accused of being a "conventional thinker" before. In fact, most of the past few decades, I've been described by some as "lacking in conventional prejudice." Somewhere along the line, I think you have missed out on working with younger people. You would have seen things not going well and might have wanted to say "told you so". But you would have also seen lots of ideas turn out to great success (wow, didn't see that one). True progress comes from looking at problems from many different angles - lots of solutions are not found straight ahead after the beaten path. On those occasions when I've been associated with larger organizations, I've experienced the younger workers. I've seen the sorts of things that happen when they interact. I've had teams of them under my supervision, and, it's normally worked out O.K. However, I've only had a very few younger workers qualified and diligent enough to work in MY organization. There are several reasons for that, beginning and ending with discipline, diligence, and focus. Having entertainment equipment in the workplace won't contribute to those. To ask people to not disturbe others at the office is just a question of manner. Of course people shouldn't disturbe their work mates. But people must be able to find their own tools/paths/strategies when finding solutions to problems.
So to sum it up. You claim "Where you sit determines what you see." But it is the watcher who must figure out if they have selected a good watching spot, i.e. if the observations are worth anything or if a better watching spot must be selected. Many of your observations indicates that your watching spot is not so good. You see todays young generation as unintelligent and lazy, while genetics indicates that the intelligence can't take a quick drop within just one or two generations. So either you see just one part of the persons - their after-hours side. Or you walk/drive around in a limited geographical area that the bright people move away from. But there is obviously something wrong with your sampling methods. The young, lazy and unintelligent young generation still manages to get through university. They still get degrees. Some of them still become professors. Some of them still become managers. Some of them still become company owners. Or presidents. I've tried and tried to explain to you, among others, that most of my work has been in two areas, neither of which benefit from the presence of cellphones in my shop. One is in the very front end of development, namely the proof-of-concept stage, and in that, since answers are usually demanded very soon, I use equipment that I already own and understand. The other is in replacing no-longer-available equipment in systems the owner of which doesn't want to tolerate the cost and disruption of replacing the entire system because some aging component of it is not replaceable without totally reconfiguring the system and disrupting decades-running processes. The reason I get work like that is because my associates and I know how those old pieces of hardware are supposed to work. To do this work requires a very broad range of experience in a wide range of disciplines. My colleagues and I have been able to provide that. We don't often need new technology to do those things, and, in fact, the knowledge of and comfort with the equipment we have facilitates our work. Just keep in mind, Per, that "newer" doesn't ensure "better" just as it doesn't guarantee "worse." Keep in mind, also, that, aside from portability, smartphones haven't offered to solve any problems for me that equipment I already had when smartphones were born didn't solve. Since I don't use mobility as much as, apparently, you do, they don't offer me anything for which I'm willing to tolerate their negative aspects. None of what you wrote about what they can do is more desirable to me than the lack of disruption of the smooth operation of my office environment is. We don't use cellphones in the office because one person was disruptive in his use of his. The rest of us didn't enjoy it. It's small matter anyway, Per ... I'm finally retiring. The last of my long-time clients is selling out and going to retire. Finally, I'm going to be able to do what I want, rather than what others want me to do ... even if it involves electronics. I understand it's a nice hobby. RE |
