Much and truly thanks for providing some thoughtful feedback. As someone who personally felt the pain from the juror perspective, I actually had no idea about the pains felt by court administrators. The courts we've been working with in determining our MVP are extremely interested in what Jurymind provides as far as a way to more conveniently connect with jurors. They recognize people don't want to do jury duty, and that manifests in many ways. Anything they can do reduce friction communicating is a welcome tool. If a court can save 5 jurors a month from becoming no shows, that's worth the time and expense. A smaller county can easily send summonses to over 500 potential jurors per month. With no show rates averaging in the 30-40%range, we see a compelling opportunity.
Jury clerks certainly don't want more work, either... Who does? Our process has boiled it down to just a few clicks to send out notifications to any jurors using the app. That's a mere fraction of the time it takes just to record the daily phone message, even if it's done in one take (rare). Having shown our app to a room full of jury clerks, including some voicing concerns about more workload, they were adequately impressed with the easy of use. Some were downright excited.
Privacy is another very obvious area of concern. We actually neither store nor require any personally identifiable juror information. At most, we ask for a juror number from the summons and name of the court. No other info or even password needed. We're ultimately not providing jurors with more confidential information than any person - juror or otherwise - could get by dialing the jury "hotline" and listening to the extremely verbose recording every day. Our objective is to provide it in a much more proactive, clear, and convenient fashion.
Final thought... Courts are already well underway in converting to paperless records and court management software, so technophobia isn't really an option any more. State and federal grants are available for adding innovative technologies into the justice system. Not saying every court is or will go this route, but we're also not pioneering computer use in the courts with our app. They've already embraced it more than I would have thought myself.
Again, much thanks for engaging! I'd be most curious to hear how the added info might affect your thoughts. Feel free to continue here or drop me a line privately.
Does anyone feel more reticent than usual to chime in on these threads despite this being one of the most provocative topics on HN? Asking for a friend...
That feels a bit like the "I have nothing to hide argument." Should we just accept that probably spammers no longer send address verifying emails, and tacitly approve this change helping them out if they do? Ultimately, the default should be to let people decide for themselves to opt in to something like this. Forcing this with some pretty big head scratching holes in the benefits seems rather evil.
Yea, it's hard to not think this is ultimately not a great move. It seems rather shortsighted from a Gmail user's perspective if Google can't address concerns over spammers being able to verify email addresses, or even just analytic trackers. It is also vastly less appealing to hear that Google plans to cache all images, which we know Big Brother is grabbing as well. And in the case where someone may want to actually see images for a marketing email (albeit, extremely rare for me), it actually hamstrings the source of the email from possibly providing customized images/content based on geolocation/browser/etc. that I could be interested in seeing.
So, what's the upside vs. just having the option to display images as desired and NOT have Google cache them?
I really dislike combining the notions of project and product management as if they are synonymous. It's like saying a developer and a designer are the same thing. That's wrong.
The skills sets, discipline, and day in and day out activities are outrageously different. I get combining the 2 roles into one category for organization purposes, but the description/answer to the inquiring page title doesn't even use the word "project" in it.
Could some project managers do product management and vice versa? Sure. I've even done some of both at the same time, despite it being somewhat of a split-brained job. Do some companies just muddy/confuse the terminology? Sure, but that doesn't mean it should be allowed to perpetuate further and confuse others even more.
I have been wanting to write a much more ranty version of the OP for a really long time. Yes, there are and always will be bad managers out in the world. But it makes me laugh when the immediate reaction people have is to just get rid of all the managers, because developers are all clearly rock stars, way smarter than managers in all ways, and can perfectly self-organize themselves. Really? I would love to see such a group in action. I imagine they must exist, but I also strongly believe people hear the myths of such teams much more than they actually have experienced such a thing themselves.
Meanwhile, I'm going to head back to figuring out to get a QA member to stop being so toxic to our overall efforts, make sure a developer properly knows the expectations on how to interact with the rest of the team, sort out the next 3-6 months of priorities with the executive team accounting for all internal department requests and our lengthy product roadmap, help a lead dev resolve an issue with a really smart developer who has taken twice as long as expected on a straightforward task, find time to look through a whole bunch of resumes that are likely nowhere near where what we're seeking in candidates, and then make sure all the right people receive updates to all of those activities. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
To be clear, I absolutely love my job. It's extremely rewarding to see even one of those items get checked of the list in a given day, or the not-always-well-communicated but good-intentioned appreciation that a single member of my team sends my way after helping him remove an obstacle or provide some sort of useful feedback. It's definitely a much different type of challenge from when I was a full-time dev, but I honestly get at least as much out of the experience as I did solving problems with code.
I can't point people at a team of 100 developers that operate like a herd of unicorns, negating their 1 bumbling manager. However, I can provide examples of teams that perform really quite well and have competent managers who deserve at least a bit of credit in their teams' successes.
Let's be honest here... Nearly everyone who is passionate about one platform or another lives in some kind of glass house. Why does Arment feel it's necessary to throw stones like this? I realize some are reading this as a more "balanced" post, but I have to side with those considering this to be yet more elitism as I've come to expect.
Just as anecdotally, but no less data-driven, there is an obvious counter argument to his claim. I will concede his notion that Apple people don't spew anti-Android on pro-Android posts. That is because, from my own informal observations, Apple fans are too busy defending their own gates on the Apple support forums. It is unequivocally the most combative and abrasive "help forum" I've ever experienced.
As a person who owns and really enjoy Apple products (the MacBook Air, for my needs, is hands-down the best computer I've ever owned... and what I'm typing on at this moment), they're still far from perfect. Numerous times I've tried searching for resolutions to issues, and naturally, discussions.apple.com is typically a top result on Google. Even when finding an OP that precisely describes the issue I'm experiencing, more often than not, responses are along the exact lines of how Arment describes Apple's response:
"You don’t need that. Here, try this partial workaround or alternative solution instead."
Except, they usually don't "just work." And yes, I really do need what Apple broke. It took until 10.8.2 for Remote Desktop to work reliably again after Mountain Lion's initial release. I spent hours researching and found no reasonable workaround to get an piece of software written by Apple to work with Apple's OS. But yet, there were plenty of people asking why that was needed. I merely had to setup this convoluted alternative and I would be back in business... oh, wait. That still didn't work.
In my mind, this is worse than Arment's claim, as it's Apple people getting attacked by other Apple people for the heresy of wanting something to work. He's railing against the anger from Microsoft and Android, but he is okay with the cannibalism in the Apple camp?
I could go on, but I feel like I've already written a disproportionate amount more than I actually care about this guy's hypocritical, fact-less editorials. I guess my opinion finally got dragged low enough with this post to finally speak up. I would suggest he looks a little closer to the mothership before trying to paint this kind of picture. However, I can't fool myself into thinking he'd be the slightest bit open to the feedback.
For me, while it's absolutely no surprise, it's still quite depressing the clear lobbying that is/will occur to trample this project. As others have said, the cost seems quite realistic and I would put my money on the 8-person having a much better handle on the end-users needs over some big consulting-ware shop. But the big firms surely have great influence with those most able to appropriate the funds for whatever solution B.C. opts to implement. There's obviously maintenance, support, enhancement, etc. that must go on after initial launch, but that still should not get anywhere near the monster price from an outside vendor.
I hope their fate is not so dire. I will definitely be interested in updates on the school district's efforts.
The original post was on 2012-09-21 and still no resolution. Not to mention, as others have pointed out, it's for a cert that expired several months ago. But this link is public acknowledgement of the issue and it's still unresolved as of today. Regardless of bureaucracy, that should be considered highly unacceptable for the largest consumer ISP in the United States.
Yea, that's exactly what he did. He actually says he worked there for a few weeks. Total interview attention whoring in my book. "Oh, I made millions, then immediately connected with with real people by working the grind at McDonald's." BS. No way, did he make any kind of connection in that amount of time other than the ability to score interviews with that "intriguing" introduction.
He does have interesting things to say in the interview, but you can tell the McDonald's thing was relatively meaningless to him. Now, had he done it for a year and lived solely off the wages from working shifts at McDonald's that would be something that likely would have provided a real connection for him. It probably also wouldn't be a story he'd tell in a mere 30 seconds with a smile on his face the whole time.
This is very frightening news. Even if I did want this feature at all (I don't), I would still be extremely concerned that some site that I might wind up on will capture any personally identifiable about me when I really don't want them too.
Hopefully this link is lacking in some critical details in regards to seurity and privacy. It's one thing if I put info into a particular site, but very not cool if other sites can basically ask about me and get information back.
On my netbook, I have a multi-touch trackpad, so a 2-finger tap does the trick as well. Even with the "target=_blank" I'd probably still do a middle-click/2-finger tap to have the new tab open in the background. That way, I can quickly scan HN (or reddit or whatever else) and open up all the items I'm interested in and then read through them rapid fire.
If you haven't already you need to check out the StockTwits community. They tend to be more traders (short term) than investors (longer term), but a lot of their discipline and decision making process will apply regardless of the time frame.
There can be a bit of noise, but I think there's a recommended stream of quality posters you may want to start with.
Personally I lean more towards the trading timeframes. Mostly use options to limit risk and sell time premium. Actually had a fantastic day on Friday with a position in SPY (S&P 500 ETF) and AAPL (yes that Aaple). Made ~20% in 24hrs and ~9% in 4hrs respectively. By no means happens all the time, but nice when it does.
Either way, very successful investing or trading is a buttload of work. Stay on it and you'll get better over time. Good luck!
Don't discount what you can learn from working for "the man" as a programmer. Pay attention to what's happening on the business side of things. Ask questions, show interest that you want to know more. If you ultimately want to have your own business, there's way more than just programming a cool idea to make that happen. You have to understand what it means to run a company and the types of decisions that go along with that. If you can't get that from your current job, use your programming skills to get in somewhere else that offers you that opportunity.
I'm on my third full-time job working for "the man" in 10 years and have learned a ton about what is involved beyond the code. I still very much have aspirations to put all that knowledge and experience to use for my own endeavors.
Well, on the flip side, he also writes about managers as if they are all stamped out from the same cookie cutter mold. As a former hacker/engineer now manager, I generally thought this way off on both sides of the fence. And I laugh at the notion that I "closely resemble about 40% of the population." I can maybe relate to that much of the population, but resemble them... nope.
As far as the author's understanding of "hackers" and all their social shortcomings, those are clearly extreme to the point of being generally false. Initially I was rather shocked this could still be someone's understanding of hierarchy in software organizations. Then, I read his "bibliography" at the end. His main source for comparing managers and hackers has a copyright of 1984. WTF!?! Sure there are a small handful of technology related books that withstood such a test of time (e.g. The Mythical Man-Month), but obviously "Please Understand Me" is not one that should still be quoted for relevance... at least not the way he's using it.
The other thing to note is the author's bio. He is beyond doubt an extremely intelligent person with a litany of academic credentials, but scant mention of "real world" experience to back-up the claims being made in the book/article. I'd even go so far to say he did put a lot of effort and thought behind the writing. It's just a bit off the mark from my experiences... which should be similar to about 40% of the population. :)
Jury clerks certainly don't want more work, either... Who does? Our process has boiled it down to just a few clicks to send out notifications to any jurors using the app. That's a mere fraction of the time it takes just to record the daily phone message, even if it's done in one take (rare). Having shown our app to a room full of jury clerks, including some voicing concerns about more workload, they were adequately impressed with the easy of use. Some were downright excited.
Privacy is another very obvious area of concern. We actually neither store nor require any personally identifiable juror information. At most, we ask for a juror number from the summons and name of the court. No other info or even password needed. We're ultimately not providing jurors with more confidential information than any person - juror or otherwise - could get by dialing the jury "hotline" and listening to the extremely verbose recording every day. Our objective is to provide it in a much more proactive, clear, and convenient fashion.
Final thought... Courts are already well underway in converting to paperless records and court management software, so technophobia isn't really an option any more. State and federal grants are available for adding innovative technologies into the justice system. Not saying every court is or will go this route, but we're also not pioneering computer use in the courts with our app. They've already embraced it more than I would have thought myself.
Again, much thanks for engaging! I'd be most curious to hear how the added info might affect your thoughts. Feel free to continue here or drop me a line privately.