slightly OT: preventing user stupidity

[Bill Vermillion]

On Wed, Feb 09 09:17 , Michael J. Mc Avoy Sr. gie sprachen       
"Vyizdur zomen emororz izaziz zander izorziz", and continued     
with:                                                            

> As Bill Vermillon keenly pointed out:

> "The way you phrased that it almost seems there is some gender bias
> there.  At one site where I did work as an outside consultant
> one of the women there was the best programmer I think I've ever
> met."

> Well when you worked dang near all of life at a place and
> people come in, blow smoke up the CEO's ass to make themselves
> larger than life, and the untrained eye asks "What the hell are
> they doing over there? trying to run the place in the ground?",
> it's SHE. Now it could of been HIM except he did a better job
> of standing hisself up against a wall and saying fire than
> could be imagined.

> Now this is true. There were a husband & wife team, SHE was MIS
> and he was head of electrical engineering. He quits and goes
> to a competitor. Well having no reason to stay she just quits,
> I mean SHE was it, no one else could manage or understand the
> system and SHE is gone. In addition SHE had to have a hookup
> from home so she could do work from home.

I've worked in some places where there was to be NO personal
relationships. If two people had a relationship one of them had to
go.    

And the above scenario - where no one could understand the system
when one person left almost sounds like it was planned that way -
sort of job protection.   No one except the owner should be
that critical to an operation - and if the owner is smart they have
that covered too.

....

[deletions ..]

> At the trial they put up their drawing of their roll force
> cylinder, the guys that beat us out on a job. We got their
> drawing from the company that bought the cylinders. Anyhow, man
> that thing looked like a Bliss drawing, I mean our drawings
> were really great. So they put theirs up on a stand, then they
> flip over a clear copy of our drawing of a cylinder. Well
> saying it was an exact match don't cover it, it was closer than
> that. He was so smart to steal the drawings and steal the work,
> but not smart enough to change the drawing around at least a
> little bit. Fools the lot..................

And I saw something like that when I was a recording engineer.

Multi-track tape recorders used to typically be in the $40K+ range
for 16/track machines.  MCI [Music City Incorporated - a music
store that started making audio equipment and supplying Criteria
with many new things] built a 16 track that was cheaper than
anything else.  It was the first under $30K machine.

We had an old JH-10 - that we bought used for about $15K as I
recall.  We also had been using an Ampex 440-8 - the first
commercial 8-track in use in the state.

I was looking at the printed circuit boards of the Ampex and
the MCI and they looked the same.  I pulled the electronic
schematics and the MCI's were a mirror image of the Ampex.

They had changed the component ID's.  Where the Ampex resistors
may have been r1 thru r10 - the same on MCI would be reversed.
[close to that - it's only been 30 years now since I've seen one of
those schematics].

Values were slightlly changed - but all within tolerance.  I never
did try putting the MCI pieces in the Ampex or vice-versa - but
they would have worked.

The Ampex PCB was done in the old ways where it was just a plain
old PCB - not like the ones you see now with manufacturers name
and copyrights on the board.

Industrial espionage has been going on for a long time.

And if he was smart to steal the desing - his original employer was
dumb for not copyrighting the drawing, perhaps patenting the design
[if it patenent able] and not have an employment contract that had
iron-clad clauses in it, one that would make the ex-employee liable
and his new-employers too - so things like that would never go to 
court.

Without knowing the full details I'd say the orignal employer was
at least a partial contributor to the mess by not having more
control over employees, the work they did, and making sure that no
person was a keystone.

None of it has to do with HE/SHE except in this instance.

In the computer world one of the most prominent of the female CEOs,
Carly Firorina at HP stepped down this AM. 

Another old SCO client of mine had more gender bias than I
suspected possible in this day and age.  It was men versus women
in the entire compnay.   There were the typical cartoons in the
offices showing this.  And in one shipping area I heard about
something that if I'd have seen it I'd give them up as a customer
and turn them over to the state.

Human being have the right to be treated equally.  It's the law -
but still many ignore it.

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com