How often does your PM (also the SM?) re-estimate the stories? I could understand doing that at the end of a sprint, but not in the middle of development, other than "How's that widget coming? I should be done tomorrow."

I work on one of several teams adding features to huge, complex software suite. I don't know how well Agile would work when creating a new application from scratch, but for adding features to an existing program it works really well. The methodology helps us keep a rein on our scope and has greatly improved our interoperability with the other teams. With the goal that a given feature has to be releasable by the end of sprint 4, we're releasing small, working features more often instead of massive, buggy features a couple times a year.

In California, for example, as many as 45 percent of the more than 8 million cell phone calls to 911 each year are for non-emergencies, officials said; in Sacramento, it could be as high as 80 percent. Those calls block the lines for callers who really need urgent help

Source

But national statistics say otherwise. One recent survey reported that 25 percent of all 911 calls are pranks, creating a dilemma for emergency agencies. And in 2003, another national study found that 70 percent of all cell phone calls to 911 are dialed inadvertently.

Source

Estimates suggest 20% of 911 calls are non-emergencies

Source

So, we've got 45%, 80%, 70% or 20% non-emergencies; and 25% fraudulent. Somehow, I don't have a lot of faith in these numbers.

Also -- why the focus on a tiny subset (just Metadata) of a dying communiation system (phone).

It'd be far more interesting if they'd do something about far more invasive (not just metadata, but content too) that's being captured from (presumably) all internet traffic (skype, email, etc).

Or will those be robots controlled remotely from India or China too?

Ah -- if you're in IT -- perhaps a better idea is to be the US guy in an offshore-IT-company.

More seriously -- be your own boss. Start a company and you choose if/when you offshore your own job.

Doesn't work that well; since there are enough close-partner-countries that much of that work can go oversees as well. For example, you'll notice the [Navy's new railguns have BAE logos on them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygHN-vplJZg) so those jobs can be offshored to the UK. Outsourcing internationally is everywhere now.

It's also not outside the jurisdiction of the NSA.

Recall that the NSA is a DoD sub-agency --- so is quite restriced from spying on US Citizens inside the US. However DoD intel agencies are much more free to spy on international -- in fact, it's their main job.

It seems to me this moves it INSIDE the jurisdiction of the NSA.

Identity fraud, or more simply, bank fraud.

The whole thing is silly because it's re-directing the focus to a tiny subset of some archaic historical communication system (phone call metadata).

It's like saying that they shouldn't get to make maps of smoke signal fire pit locations.

This is all just to distract people from their bulk collection of internet communications; and giving politicians an opportunity to say "see, I'm tough on privacy" without actually accomplishing anything significant.

Yes. The recruiters who troll LinkedIn must just search for one specific skill and spam everyone who has it. I always get offers for jobs I'm either not qualified for or would never willingly do.

Last year I realized that I'd never changed my LinkedIn job profile info to "not interested" after starting my new job a year earlier. I'd been getting a lot of pings from recruiters, and I thought that might discourage them. Nope. Saying I wasn't interested made the recruiters even more interested in me!

Which would be great if any of them had a job better than my current one, but they never do. Everything is more boring work I'm less qualified for, for less pay.

Sadly, you were probably better than the guy before you and the guy after you.

I venture to say that just because you realized you were doing a bad job, you were already doing a better job than the vast majority of managers (especially ones who think of themselves as "good").

Perhaps Microsoft is paying them co-marketing dollars for doing positive PR for Skype? Maybe that's his great vision on saving the company.

Sounds like a good policy anyway.

Not just Sony.

McAfee, Norton, Oracle (that damn Ask toolbar), HP Support Assistant, Razer mice, Skype.

Heck, it seems most Windows software has a "malware" buisness model these days.