* Posts by Dave Watts

15 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jun 2007

Lies, damn lies, and KPIs: Let's not fix the formula until we have someone else to blame

Dave Watts

Hardcoded KPIs

Yup, I've experienced these as well... My favourite from a previous employer was a 'very important' dashboard of service management stats for an exec team. If a measure fell below it's pre-ordained acceptable level teams would be rewarded with great scrutiny, micro-management and potential loss of bonus; Bad Things (TM). One of the measures was "customer satisfaction",and it had been difficult to get agreement of the definition of this subjective measure, people's pay and happiness were at stake, so that metric just had a default value and no calculations. And thus it stayed for many months. Everyone was happy...

HMS Queen Elizabeth has sprung a leak and everyone's all a-tizzy

Dave Watts

Re: Leaking Stern Gland????

Unless <starts_rumour> the problem is an unbalanced prop shaft vibrating in the stern gland causing the leak (experience from a much smaller vessel) that can be rather more expensive </starts_rumour>

Are YOU The One? Become a guru of your chosen sysadmin path

Dave Watts

Interesting dissonance between the breakneck speed of change in IT and the glacial pace of changes in IT...

Mexican drink-driver shopped to cops - by his own gobby parakeet

Dave Watts

Re: One Parakeet Fajita coming up

<pedant>

s/pedantism/pedantry

</pedant>

(IT syntax for the 'but is it IT brigade')

'Priyanka' yanks your WhatsApp contact chain on Android mobes

Dave Watts

Shirley this shouldn't be possible...

I hear all the usual users are fools should just learn to use their phones properly, but surely accepting a contact request should not rename all the other contacts?

That being the case, is the bug in the application or the OS, or both...

US nuclear aircraft carrier George Bush crippled by toilet outages

Dave Watts

I think that the problem is paradoxically that the toilets don't suck.

MPs probe science behind bogus gov booze guidelines

Dave Watts
Pint

Stella %5 or 4%

Ummm depends which Stella... isn't your standard Stella 5% abv so units = 568*5/1000 = 2.8? The Stella Nouvelle 4 (or whatever) at 4% is 2.3 units a go...

What’s important in service management?

Dave Watts

Not Rocket Science...

Business Service management (BSm) is very often spouted by executives who have just as little idea about what it really means.

On the other hand Service Management is what many IT professionals do every day. Building quality products that help their respective companies/clients do what they do better/faster/cheaper; and build products that work, are supportable and supported, and really work.

There are also plenty of IT shops which insist on building:-

- glorious, glittering well architected systems which fulfill no discernable business need;

- utter rubbish;

- fabulous stuff, but forgetting to tell anyone how to run it.

Its about doing the job properly....

South Africa official calls for 'outright ban' on pornography

Dave Watts

Announcement != Action

Governments are big on announcement (or pronouncement); implementation is not their problem or indeed priority, there might be negative reports when you actually do something.

On the other hand the RSA government recently implemented the catchily named RICA - where everyone must physically report to designated places and register their cellphone SIMs with proof of their ID and residential address. This, apparently, will reduce crime.

TPTB seem to have not noticed that making the use of an unregistered, or fraudently registered, cellphone illegal is not overly likely to deter your average crim: "Eish (South African for 'lawks-a-mercy'), this phone is incorrectly registered with the authorities and I have no idea how to arrange for a getaway car, I had better become law abiding citizen..."

Boss puts development team on Craigslist

Dave Watts

@ TrackSuit

Not an unusual course of events in my experience...

For a proper handover to take place the organisation has to move on from the denial stage and accept that you are leaving (whether voluntarily or redundantly). Then someone to take on your responsibilities must be identified (or hired). No one inside the company is generally jumping at the chance to take on more work for no extra pay, and the new hire process usually takes too long...

I was left in a position one on occasion when my nominated successor was not going to accept my handover notes and briefing because they were 'not in the right format'. I had to have a little heart to heart with him explaining everything he needed to know was there, and that at the end of the week I was going to be gone, his call...

In my experience I have always put together a handover document of some description - and if I can find someone to run through it with I will. I have almost always had a thank you from my successor down the line...

WiMAX has 'failed miserably'

Dave Watts
Coat

@cor

And if reception still isn't good keep moving the antenna a little closer to the base station... in fact why not run a wire all the way. Just look at it as a wave guide. It's still wireless, just the wireless waves are kind of directed to you personally - very elegant solution actually. Just wait, someone's marketing department will latch on to this idea...

Mobile phone users should drive faster says prof

Dave Watts
Coat

Global Warming angle?

Given this seems to be a complex non-linear system and we are trying to assess the impact of one variable (mobile phone usage whilst driving) on the system as a whole (journey duration, terrism, economy efficency etc) we can extend the analysis to solve global warming.

The most important outcome will be increasing the numbers of road deaths. It is imperative that the population of the world be controlled, and people speaking on their mobiles whilst driving are increasing the chance that they will contribute to the GWAW (global war on weather), and should be encouraged so to do...

Businesses blind to the security risks of temporary staff

Dave Watts
Coat

Quality of contract staff declines...

"Forty-two per cent were able to connect a personal device like an iPod, USB key, or PDA to their work PC"

58% of contractors unable to connect peripherals to computers shock.

Planting trees will not save the planet: official

Dave Watts

Title

"Or, one of my personal nightmare scenarios, genetically engineer kudzu to be an even faster grower vine, and then plant it every where. By the time it crawls over every available surface of the planet, it sucks so much CO2 out of the atmosphere that there's suddenly an excess O2 problem."

But not for long... Excess 02 - plenty trees - small spark - large fire - plenty CO2...

Korean schools to deploy robot chaperones

Dave Watts

Call me old fashioned but...

Back in the 1970's we had fully autonomous, roaming units which patrolled the playground maintaining law and order, and generally preventing any unauthorised behaviour. They were called teachers and dinner ladies. So much more cost effective to spend billions on a roaming robot that no where near as effective. The planet is getting fuller with people everyday - we don't need labour saving devices any more, just use people.