Pyrrhic victory
Sure, they won, but at what cost?
Posts by Dragon Leaves
22 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jan 2013
Software company wins $154k for US Navy's licensing breach
China in the grip of a 'NUCLEAR WINTER': Smog threat to crops
Thursday 27th February 2014 06:14 GMT
It's worse
Just came back from Beijing Sunday. Spent 3 years there. Monitored pollution with my own equipment. The pollution has a smell. The best way to grasp how bad it is is to use a flashlight in the dark to see the dense, dense fine and ultra fine dust or pollution in there.
Here's a few pics of the countryside, at noon (mind you), with zero humidity, just outside the city in the countryside.
http://s3.postimg.org/mqgdc0ker/Outside_Beijing_Noon_February_22_2014.jpg
http://s27.postimg.org/uv3ga05w3/Outside_Beijing_again_Noon_February_22_2014.jpg
ps: Please note that Xingtai and shijiazhuang are far worse than Beijing in pollution.
pps: refer to
http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/
http://aqicn.org/city/xingtai/
http://aqicn.org/city/shijiazhuang/
Boffins claim battery BREAKTHROUGH – with rhubarb-like molecule
Thursday 9th January 2014 22:42 GMT 
No surprise here.
The puddle of Goo, that cradle of life, of which Q elegantly reduced us to, emerged simply because those various molecular configurations lowered the base energy level of the system. For the same reason hydrogen comes in pair. Second law of thermodynamics at work. The trees in a forest serves the same purpose as the pins of a cpu heatsink. Life is nothing more than a more efficient way of respecting thermodynamics. Therefore, that they finally look at organics is only natural.
China challenged to take down all of AWS and Google
Furious Frenchies tell Apple to bubble off: Bling iPhone isn't 'champagne'
Ex-Windows chief Sinofsky flogs brains to Valley startups
Google Glass: Would you pay a mere $299 to plop one on your brow?
Patching Xerox's number-changing photocopy phlaw will take weeks
Friday 9th August 2013 14:20 GMT
From an Insider...
Greetings.
I worked for many years, until recently for Xerox as a technical support level 2. This means that when you called in and they escalated, you reached me. I did production software and machines. Here's the low down from someone that worked there many years. I've won numerous awards and was treated to paid vacation trips etc. My customers loved me and asked to talk to me directly. I did my utmost for them. Most of my colleagues were smarter than me and were very professional. Xerox has a lot of talent.
Ten years ago that bug would have been fixed within a month. And I mean fixed. They'd go to the source and improve it to get rid of the issue. Today, if your arm hurts, they'll cut it, and that's actually an apt analogy. Xerox used to have brains goddammit. We invented the GUI and a bunch of shit no one remembers. I used to work next to a goddamn Russian Nuclear Scientist. That guy could explain the machine down to the molecular dynamics. I myself often wrote the code for the patch and sent it to engineering to save them time. We were well paid, had great colleagues, safe jobs. These were the days. And then we got a CEO with no balls (literally and figuratively speaking) who gave up on our future and decided to go into Services instead.
Shit happens constantly. Because we're the best, people expect perfection, literally,and get all whiny and bitchy the moment reality creeps in. That's just human nature. That's fine. Its everywhere like that. Now, usually, the customer calls the sales guy to report his distress. Then the sales guys calls the analyst. That guy will usually go onsite. Then he'll call or tell the customer to call us. At that point, the customer lost a day at least in production just because he can't stand to call us. Now, remember, I'm just giving you the average customer.
Now the second level, us, we're the one doing what's called a SPAR (Software Product Action Request) which essentially tells engineering to fix the issue. To do so, we must replicate the problem first. Now that's when the ugly reality started sinking in around five years ago. You see, around five years ago, Xerox decided that they'd go in Services instead of Products. They started then to drastically reduce the R&D (essentially its done by Fuji now mostly) and started to slash support teams and equipments. So the brains in level 3, in engineering and the necessary hardware to replicate started to vanish. This happened globally. 2 years ago the Wide Format team got decimated from 23 support engineers to ONE. That's the level of destruction they inflicted on the quality of Xerox Support. Then, they outsourced software development to India and let's not forget patches started to get written there too. And the whole process got slower and slower.
Now, to get back to our customer, he usually can expect a patch for something that was SPARred around two to three months later for a sev 3. For a sev 4... good luck! A severity 2 requires critical functions to be inoperable. A sev 1, the whole machine is unusable. I pulled in all my career only one sev 1. It got fixed in 24 hours flat. Sev 2 will take around 2 to 6 weeks to fix. Sev 1 they're on it 24/7 and takes a week at most. These are guidelines of course, but they're pretty accurate with my experience.
What you must remember from all this is that Xerox is moving away from hardware. The quality of the support is not there anymore. The experienced folks have mostly been retired early. The machines are no longer there to replicate the issues. Patches are done in India. Tech support can escalate something they can't replicate. And they don't have the machines, most of the time, to replicate.
Xerox manages, since the analysts are usually pretty smart and can find workarounds. Ditto for tech support level 2 and 3. Same for onsite technicians. The parts supply is well managed too. In cases like the one we've just read, the word of a VP will make everyone shit their pants and get everyone to focus on the issue with overtime etc. Shit still gets done when required. Xerox is still a world class company, overall.
Over the coming years, the lack of real innovation due to the lack of serious R&D will erode Xerox. Moreover, the cuts made in support are making themselves felt by customers, and that will cost them too. The current CEO essentially gave up on Xerox's core and decided she'd go for Services instead. Do not make the mistake to believe that this decision will not affect the quality that Xerox ONCE had. I saw how bad it because from the inside, through all its grotesqueries.
Xerox is still the best in the production arena, in terms of overall ROI, reliability, support and quality. Sure. But when you sign a contract, make sure the SLA for SPARs are stated and compensation demanded if they take much longer. Put that on paper, and hold them to it. Also, CALL the hotline yourself. Don't waste time with the analyst. The second and third level will usually give you a workaround and create a SPAR if you ask them. They're good folks, and talented. But they're not GODS. Shit takes time to fix, in whatever industry you are. Shit happens, too. So be nice and take it easy. They'll do their best in any case. That's still the Xerox culture and you can still bank on that.
First burger made of TEST-TUBE MEAT to be eaten on August 5
Tuesday 30th July 2013 04:35 GMT 
Cloud Atlas?
Considering recent findings showing that in the DNA strands of GMO foods, the GMO part doesn't stick well so to speak and finds better adhesion on the host (that's YOU!) it appears that we have no frigging clue what the hell we're doing and maybe, thus, just maybe, we shouldn't feed humans that sort of monstrosity until we're sure what it does to animal.
Applicants sought for one-way trip to Martian Big Brother house
Chinese search giant Baidu launches free AV
Tito's Mars mission to use HUMAN WASTE as radiation shield
Higgs data shows alternate reality will SWALLOW UNIVERSE
$195 BEEELLION asteroid approaching Earth
WTF is... Weightless?
Student claims code flaw spotting got him expelled from college
Monday 21st January 2013 22:42 GMT 
Montreal or Berlin?
Montreal and Quebec in general have seen an immigration of Muslims whose radicals want to impose their laws, religious laws, on the rest.
There is currently a vast resentment and tepid racism brewing and being from there, and having graduated from Dawson's Ineptitude, I would easily place my wager that things would have turned out different if his name was.
The uneducated in Montreal are usually racist. And it's spreading. Give that place a huge economic crash and a bullying loudmouth as leader and history may come back under a different guise.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
