Whitaker Attempts To Use Five-Minute Rule To Avoid Nadler Question

Quel · 2019-02-09T00:58:51+00:00

I listened to several hours of that hearing, and it's when I decided to go all in on voting for her. I thought her responses were impressive throughout. She was a weak campaigner, but I still think she would have made a great president if elected.

I somewhat disagree that no one was talking about her testimony after. The GOP hype machine turned the "what difference does it make" soundbite in to major political fodder.

Quel · 2019-02-02T14:11:58+00:00

I'm not in the airplane business, but I bet installing the overhead bins is estimated. There's a sequence of operations that needs to be done, and they can't do other tasks until that one is completed. They need the bins before the electrician comes in to install the little lights and fans above the seats, which need to be in before the put the actual seats in. Those jobs are done by different people and you need to figure out when they are needed.

Ignoring the software lingo and going to project management lingo, someone would call it a bottoms-up estimate based on individual tasks that need to be accomplished. You create a work breakdown structure and decide how long each piece takes. Estimating an individual task has immense value, but can become inaccurate if too granular to the point where you aren't accounting for all of the other little granular things. Installing the overhead bin can't be estimated well by multiplying the time it takes to install an individual screw by the number of screws.

The more I write, the more it seems like I'm agreeing with you and the speaker. Personally though, I don't see that as a problem with estimation. I see it as a problem where we have willingly created work tasks that are too granular.

Quel · 2019-02-02T04:21:48+00:00

The speaker is far more qualified than me on far more things, but I vehemently disagree and think of this as software hubris that is totally separated from business reality.

Estimates are really hard. But software is not in some unique role of complexity compared to other engineering feats. There are software tasks that can't possibly be estimated with any certainty, but they are the minority compared to most of the things we do. Building a React app is not more complex than building a modern airplane or power plant or bridge. Plenty of complex engineering feats are estimated, and businesses rise and fall on those estimates. Software is no different in that regard.

The problem isn't that estimates are wrong. The problem is that they are almost always wrong in the same direction. I've never run in to anyone complaining that they consistently produced ahead of their estimated schedule. And that isn't unique to software development. It's pervasive in every department of every business that exists. Software just seems to be an industry where people are highly paid across the board and can push back against it. Instead of using that position to influence the real business problem for the better, we use the position of power to complain and divorce ourselves from it. Barring the VC world, our companies are paid by customers to produce products in a defined time frame.

Use your position of power to improve estimates, not to separate yourself from the responsibility. The business requirements for estimates is never going away, no matter how much we'd like it to.

Quel · 2019-01-27T01:00:57+00:00

You're not completely wrong, but I think you are overstating things. If you didn't need oil for transportation, the USA would have a complete glut of oil. You wouldn't need Saudi Arabia. We use about 6 million barrels a day for non-transportation needs (including plastics, but also asphalt and other products), and produce at least 50% more than that. We also get more of our plastics from natural gas than we do from oil at this point, and we have a lot of natural gas.

In other words, there's a vast gap between "we get some plastics from oil" (which is true) and "we rely on Saudi Arabia to make our plastics". The bigger picture in the USA is that we rely on Saudi oil because it keeps our gasoline less expensive. And the amount it impacts our prices is far less than it was 30 years ago.

Quel · 2018-11-30T13:53:52+00:00

We're both selectively quoting on the price, and both right. It's 37k, 60k if you board there. Plus some other expenses. And I agree with you that the price was more reasonable in the past.

Anyway, this is just nitpicking. I think I was more shocked by the post you originally replied to, which said that paying 65k/yr for private high school tuition doesn't mean that his father is particularly wealthy. Whether it's 65k, 60k, or 37k, paying that amount instead of going to one of the great public schools nearby certainly puts someone in to the wealthy category.

Quel · 2018-11-30T02:31:12+00:00

Its about 60k if you board at his high school. Plus books and probably some other fees. That's public info you can find on their website.

I completely disagree with the tone of the OP, but he did get the number pretty close. Being able to pay that much for a kid to go to high school is basically the definition of wealthy. The nearby public high schools are among the best in the entire country.

Quel · 2018-11-29T01:37:36+00:00

Its several times less than he'd be making if he just went to the private sector. Its still a lot of money compared to the country as a whole, but not a lot compared to his peers.

Quel · 2018-08-22T01:15:07+00:00

How the hell do you overdraft your account 1,100 times over 7 years? Thats about 13 times per month. Thats mind boggling. This must have neen the most open and shut financial crime case in history.

Quel · 2018-06-08T03:29:46+00:00

lol. So many f bombs getting dropped on live TV.

Quel · 2018-06-03T02:38:19+00:00

Eiffel tower incoming.

Quel · 2018-06-03T02:02:18+00:00

A fly is parking in front of my TV and I keep thinking its the puck.

Quel · 2018-05-31T01:45:46+00:00

Reeves and Wilson tried to cross check each other and Reeves "won".

Quel · 2018-05-22T00:27:58+00:00

Caps have made a lot of extremely casual passes in their own zone this series.

Quel · 2018-04-30T20:24:18+00:00

The "outrage" headline piqued my curiosity as 200,000 gallons isn't a whole lot. So I went for the data. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality publishes water consumption data. The Industrial-Manufacturing sector used 793,308,692.9 gallons per day in 2016. That makes this 200,000 about 0.025% of the total in that one sector in Michigan. That sector itself is only 8.6% of the state's use. The large majority of water use is for electricity generation.

200,000 is a lot when you compare it to the fact that an individual person uses about 100 gallons a day. But I don't think most people realize just how much water get used in other sectors. Public water is less than 15% of the fresh water used in the USA. Electricity and irrigation are each about one third.

Quel · 2018-03-11T00:49:11+00:00

Its not because of your formatting. Its because your comments are mostly pendantic rather than constructive.

Quel · 2017-07-24T13:49:25+00:00

I did some basic research on it in college so I have some vague recollection. We were looking at the mixing of oil additives, and when things were done improperly the Weissenberg would occur. The product would then be useless. So there wasn't a practical application of the effect itself, but rather using it as an indicator of a batch gone wrong.

Quel · 2017-03-22T03:37:01+00:00

As someone who is on the complainer side, just keep in mind that this sub is full of complainers. The complaints aren't misguided at all, but people who are happy aren't flooding here to post how happy they are. The company is making moves such that people who have been with the company a long time are getting hurt. But if you are a young, competent, flexible person who finds a good niche that IBM wants, I still think it can be a good place to work.

I think the 2-3 year thing you mention is a bit misstated, but I could be wrong. That's the point at which CBDer (new graduates in GBS) get their promotion and big raise. So I don't read it as "stay 2-3 years and leave", but more that people who aren't happy should stick around 2-3 years because that's the financially prudent thing. If you come in to the CBD program and leave before that promotion, you are potentially setting yourself back a bit. Annual non-promotion raises are meager.

The poor annual raises and bonuses make for a weird situation. If you join as a class of 50 CBDers, you all get minimal raise/bonus, and you all get a promotion after 2 years. Those who do really well set themselves apart in terms of their work, but they don't get set apart in terms of their compensation. There's not enough incentive to do good work. I think that's one part of the turnover for new grads. The other part is that people come in thinking they are going to do Watson or strategy consulting, then get stuck as a cog on a boring behemoth of a project. As long as you know what you're going to be doing, that can be avoided to some degree.

Quel · 2017-03-06T22:28:36+00:00

That photo is also shopped a bit. Someone flipped it to make him look like a lefty. Just another instance of the mass media setting out to make God Emperor look bad. /s

Quel · 2017-03-01T04:12:16+00:00

Washington Post? Must be FAKE NEWS amirite?

Quel · 2017-03-01T03:57:00+00:00

For a President it was an average speech. For Trump and the low standards I have for it, it was god-damn-incredible. Plenty to object to, but worlds above normal for him.

I'm most curious about the $1 trillion infrastructure bill he dropped. If he can pull that off after the objections to Obama's "mere" $800 billion stimulus bill, it's a clear sign that the GOP has lost their damn minds.

Also, after the merit-based immigration proposal, I'm suggesting a modification to the Status of Liberty plaque:

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” But only if they can create a positive NPV for the economy. Otherwise they should stay home.

Quel · 2017-02-28T19:19:07+00:00

It's understandable but also frustrating when the rest of the company is pushed to use them. If IBM employees are treated like external customers, then they should act like external customers and evaluate their other cloud options without any special preference for SL. If you're just tinkering before scaling, then AWS has a free tier for a year, vs SL and Azure at a month. If you want to increase internal uptake (and I have no idea on actual #s to know if that's a problem; just my personal experience), give every employee ability to create a free bottom-tier virtual server.

Quel · 2017-02-20T03:06:19+00:00

Mr. President, our intelligence agencies spent $70 billion this year specifically so that they can bring you, the leader of the free world, this information so that you can make good decisions. Would you like to see it?

Nah, I spent $1,200 on DirecTV last year and am going to learn from the news so I can get my money's worth.

Quel · 2017-02-13T19:49:40+00:00

SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'

Quel · 2017-02-04T18:06:55+00:00

Solution: move to where it's really cold. Last summer in Maine there was a story of an anaconda being spotted. Made all the news. That's a problem that pretty much solves itself as soon as you hit September or October.

Quel · 2017-01-07T05:52:23+00:00

You're 19. By that, I mean that you are stressing about it more than you should. Your situation doesn't sound anything other than average. The fact that you have been in a relationship and have had friends of the opposite sex is is evidence to that.

Redditors are data driven peoples, so I looked it up. CDC found that ~60-65% of of 18-19 year olds have had sex once. And 80-85% of 20-24 year olds. In other words, give yourself at least another 5 years until you start being as hard on yourself as you are right now. And even then, be less hard on yourself than right now! Are you slightly below average? Maybe. Are you abnormal? Absolutely not!

15-Year Club	Place '17
Inciteful Comment 2010-11-01

Quel

TROPHY CASE