It's not the human *touch* that people crave in a complicated interaction with a system. It's human *versatility*.

Thus more personnel does no good, if those personnel are rigidly controlled, lack information to advise or authority to act. The fact that they're also expected to be jolly and upbeat as they follow their rigid and unyielding rules only turns the interaction with them into a travesty of a social interaction.

What would work better is a well-designed check-in system that handles routine situations nearly all the time, along with a few personnel who have the training and authority to solve any passenger problems that come up.

I'm pretty sure birth control exists.

I can only go with the experience of my friends, who've gone both routes successfully.

It's true that traditional publishers expect mid-list authors to shoulder most of the promotion efforts these days. I never said they didn't. Fiction authors are now expected to maintain a platform, which used to be a non-fiction thing. Certainly traditional publishers have become more predatory and less supportive than they were twenty years ago. I don't have an inside track on why that is, but I suspect there are several causes. One is that POD allows publishers to make an reliable though modest profit from their mid-list authors, which ironically makes them more risk averse. But publishers still provide production and editing services on a MS that'd cost you maybe ten thousand dollars if you were contracting those services out. They also get your book in bricks-and-mortar bookstores, which is a bridge too far for most indy authors, even the successful ones.

A lot of the bad feeling that publishers get from indy authors comes from two sources. First, a long history with rejection. Second the lack of respect indy authors get relative to traditionally published authors. We can see it in this discussion elsewhere, where one poster puts "authors" in quotes when referring to indy authors. And it's easy to see why because most indy authors just aren't good enough to get traditionally published. *Some* indy authors put out a product that's every bit as good as the mid-list authors from the big publishing houses, but most just dump their terrible manuscripts on Amazon with a clip-art cover and no copy editing, much less developmental editing.

The statistic that most indy authors make their investment back plus 40% didn't impress me, because (a) that counts the author's labor as free and (b) most indy authors don't invest much cash in their projects. The percentage of indy authors that clear, say, five thousand dollars in profit are very small.

It's not that indy publishing doesn't have its points, and my traditionally published friends are certainly thinking about dipping their toe in the water. But it's not as cheap as it looks if you want a comparable product, and you give up certain things. I was in Manhattan recently and went to the 5th Avenue branch of the NYPL. My traditionally published friends' books were either on the shelves our out circulating. The NYPL had *none* of my indy author friends' books, even though at least one of them has made the New York Times best seller list.

I don't think it's as simple as Amazon is good or Amazon is evil. Amazon is powerful, and that needs watching.

Now I have a number writer friends, one of whom is published both with traditional imprints like TOR and with Amazon's new in-house publishing imprints. She has good things to say about Amazon's imprints, but one thing you have to take into account is that nobody will stock your book *but* Amazon if you publish with them. That's giving up a lot, so they treat authors reasonably well. But that doesn't mean the corporation actually cares about authors. Amazon needs reliable mid-list authors to make their publishing ventures a success, and by cutting out the middleman can afford generous royalties. But if Amazon succeeds in putting a stake in the heart of traditional publishing, I wouldn't care to speculate on what will happen to authors.

Nor should what traditional publishers do for authors be underestimated. I have friends who are successful indy writers, but it's not like being a writer, it's more like running a small publishing house yourself. They hire story editors, copy editors and artists, and manage promotion and publicity. It's a lot of work; that plus actually writing pretty much precludes a day job. It's not for everyone.

It's a lot like being an engineer. Engineers are smart people who usually have a lot of insight into the companies they work for, but that doesn't mean that most engineers want to run businesses. Some do, but most would rather have other people take care of that stuff so they can concentrate on what they feel they're best at.

Many writers choose the indy market because it's the only way they'll ever get published. They just dump their manuscript on the market without editing, design or promotion and hope for the best. They rarely succeed. Others choose the indy route because they thrive on running and controlling their own small business, the way some engineers step naturally into the role of entrepreneur. They're well positioned for the future. But most writers need support to reach their full potential.

"... you are cleared for take off."

Can't beat the rush even if your ride is just a little Cessna or Piper.

Cheers,
Dave

How shall we define importance? In terms of scope, are we talking about kernel space, userland code that humans directly interact with, systems/infrastructure code, data processing systems, or something else entirely?

Definitely worth his severance to get him out of Nokia and back to Microsoft. Says a lot when a company's stock goes up on news that the CEO is leaving. Now if he could only have the same level of success at Microsoft as he had at Nokia.

Cheers,
Dave

BINGO!!!!!!!

I win. Too bad a bunch of ex-Nokia folks and Microsofties had to lose though.

Cheers,
Dave

Does your shop have a relatively narrow development scope? Over the course of my career, I've found that single language shops are either fairly tightly tied to a small set of problem domains, or they're full of people who see every problem as a nail so to speak. The latter condition is an unfortunate state of inflexibility that tends to extend into other areas, including higher level systems work and network architecture. I'm not saying your organization suffers from that affliction, but I would like to understand a bit more about the sort of development your team does. For the record, I'm a big fan of mature systems in general, and for most of my work various combinations of Perl, Bash, C, and Python gets the job done (usually in that order).

You're a friend and a cosmonaut.

Years ago, when static electricity was bad news for computers, I had the idea for a "data processing shoe" that would have a little conductive ribbon that would drag along the floor and ground out static electricity. Such a thing is of course no longer needed, but given the apparent popularity of data breeches these days maybe the concept could be resurrected as a fashion statement.

I'm 33 and have three children, two daughters and a son. I am interested in teaching them science, mathematics, literature, history, and how to think for themselves. I'm also interested in teaching each of them how to grow food, clean and shoot a rifle, clean and cook small game, and build things with their own hands. Political and economic conditions aside, I believe these are all things children should learn. What are you teaching your children?

To be perfectly clear, Snowden is actually in possession of some emails. That much has been known for some time. You know exactly what I'm talking about when I speak to the probability that he is in possession of copies of all his correspondence (extremely low), especially copies which could be authenticated via certain means. Again, you know exactly what I'm talking about here, and you're simply being disingenuous.

Owing to my prior service in uniform and long standing experience in both private and public sector information security, I have a very good idea of why he isn't in possession of those emails. I'm fairly certain you have the same understanding, but you've elected to take the disingenuous route of raising this rather ridiculous question, being secure in your belief the populace at large doesn't have the same benefit of experience. I'll ask the same question I asked you in my last reply: what do you presently do for a living, and what have you done in the past?

What's truly sad to me is the fact that you and I have agreed on so many things in the past. It's sad because I am in vehement opposition to your views in this discussion. I must ask you a simple question: what do you presently do for a living, and what have you done in the past? Thank you.