Saturday, August 06, 2005

The New Republic


Hacker Heaven, A beautiful story of the underdog. A revelation of the little man. Here, IMHO, is a perfect example of a situation every man woman and child hopes for throughout life.

Then there's reality. The beauty of working on the same things day in and day out. I once heard this statement, which I believe summarizes everyone's job today in the tech industry.

"Insanity: doing the same thing day in and day out, yet expecting the results to differ."

Now I've been at the same job for a little over a year and the "Business drivers.." (the ones that are driving the business....err..uh..money, driving the businesses money) have asked the same question at the same times of the year. Now these questions happen to coincide with the spring and fall time changes. Now, the answer has been the same for more than a year, yet it seems to be a problem getting it through to the business drivers. You see, technically, it's quite simple. The issue they're seeing is with something that is dependent on the time setting of each clients computer. Something no system, that I'm aware of (even NTP) can make perfect. The thing is, each client (user) can set the time zone to where ever they like, NTP only keeps the time accurate, nothing makes it true to which time zone a user is actually connecting. Centralized system time can't always accurately indicate the time zone which the user is actually in because it is accurate but there is really nothing that confirms the user is still where they told the system they are or where they set it to when asked.
So..What to do, what to do...

Well, first don't base anything you do off of time you can't keep. Don't expect that any of that time is actually an indication of where people are physically.

Not too tuff to figure out, yet each daylight savings time the "business drivers" continue to escalate this issue, and when I say escalate I mean all the way up the cooperate food chain. There I am....low man on the totem pole, trying to explain to a VP (I would assume a very intelligent and educated person) what time zones are and how a computer system allows users to set their own time zones that aren't always accurate. i.e. I have my time zone set to GMT - 4, but I can set my time to what ever time I would like...so how can anyone check the right time? You can't. I've explained this, others have explained this and even an email from a year ago explains this to the same VP who was asking the same question, a year ago. So all the "business drivers" have done is show how ignorant they, and everyone they represent, really are.

Now I know this sounds a little harsh, but it is an example and I wouldn't say what I've said if it weren't for the fact it's happened 3 times so far.

Moving on, the Hacker Heaven story, doesn't it sound appealing considering the above described situation? Doesn't it sound good, the one who knows what's happening getting one over on those that think they know, but are in control? If you think about it, the digital divide is nothing more than those that know and those that don't know. Although, IMHO, it's that those that do know understand and those that don't know need those that do to survive.
Nothing is hidden, nothing is kept away, nothing is "behind the curtain". You can google anything. Props to the person who said, from his fathers office in 1988; "How smart would someone be if they had all the knowledge of all the libraries at their finger tips?". His fathers office was laced with maps of the globe and on the desk, he pointed to a computer.

So I say, what is the digital divide? That is the the digital divide. A person that never knew google, the person that never touch a "browser" understood the power of the internet.

Yet today, 17 years later, people running business are still having a hard time understanding computer settings????

So, I feel, the new republic will be the civilization of business. No longer will the taller prevail from hight intimidation, no longer will the egotistical reside high above the people which place them there. Soon will be the tools to help everyone communicate across any company, quickly and efficiently without the need for management. The beauty of the digitization of business is the fact that what used to take entire staffs to perform are now simply services on the web. Something that used to be handled by many, can be performed by one with the right program.

So the thought of the little guy hacking into to a company and displaying every persons salary and nudie pictures sounds funny. Or maybe it's just something that has molded the way we look at the internet, computers and those that understand them. They are, after all, the new priesthood.

Outsource everything. ;)