The problem is not a management structure. It is having bad managers. A hierarchal structure works perfectly fine as long as the managers actually know how to manage.

The mistake most companies make is making someone a manager based on the ability to do their job. Just because you are a great developer doesn't mean you are going to be a great manager of developers. This method is doubly stupid when you consider that by promoting your best performers to a management role, you are decreasing your efficiency, since you just took one of your best performers out of the mix.

If you are looking for the best manager, you have to look beyond the performance of the job to the softer skills that actually make great managers, which could be in folks who aren't that great at coding. However, you also need to develop a non-management track to keep those great coders from topping out too quickly, but also allows them to continue to contribute.

Agreed on the ending bit. I was already perturbed when Lewis donned the suit (though I can understand the reason for the character shift), but then the Iron Man solution was completely unnecessary. The book version was quite tense as it was written.

Seeing as how Apple has now opened up development to the new AppleTV, I see adding Amazon Video to it as an Amazon problem, not an Apple problem.

It is a bit misleading to say that the price has doubled. While the ATV is currently at $69, it has traditionally sold at $99. The $30 drop was in anticipation of its originally scheduled debut in late Spring, which got delayed.

So it is more like a 50% increase than a 100%+ increase.

So how is your hiring record then? How many of those employees that you have hired that way are still with you? How many of them would rate as excellent in job fit? Culture fit?

Don't hire assholes.

If you have them on your team, replace them as soon as you can with people who are not assholes. Take your time during the hiring process to ensure you are not hiring them. Doesn't matter how great the talent is, don't let it tempt you in to hiring an asshole. No matter what you think, you cannot manage an asshole to not be an asshole.

I guarantee that if you look at all of the dysfunctional teams that have ever existed in software development, there was at least one asshole on that team. So if you want to be a better software development manager, get rid of the assholes.

Don't hire assholes. If you have assholes on your team, find a way to get rid of them quickly, and replace them with people who are not assholes.

I don't really care - and neither should you - if the person is the most technically amazing person that has ever graced the Earth. If they are an asshole, it will sow resentment, make your team less effective, and make your job harder in the long run.

Not sure if you have assholes? Start weekly 1-on-1s with each team member. These are good practice in general, to help find and solve problems before they become major issues. But you will also be able to pick out the assholes pretty quickly.

You may think I am being silly, but I am not. If you think back to any unpleasant experience you have ever had at work, I am willing to put money on the fact that it was caused by someone who was an asshole.

Ridding your team - and hopefully, your entire organization - of these types of people will result in a group of people who are willing to do anything for you or each other.

Apparently, if you do it online, you get an Apple Store Gift Card, as opposed to credit towards a new iPhone.

This is an important distinction, because it opens up your options. Want an AppleTV? How about an iMac or MacBook Air? What about some of the non-Apple stuff they sell at the store? All can now be funded with your trade-in.

And even if none of these options appeal to you, you have a gift card with a verifiable balance that is probably not tied to your account. So if you get an $85 gift card for that iPhone5, and you don't want anything that Apple has to give, then sell the gift card for $85.

Because it is the American dream that one day - through hard work and determination - you can become one of the privileged. As such, any attack on the privileged is an attack on future you - or at least the future you that you hope will one day exist. Of course the irony is that the more you protect the privileged, the more you end up preventing future you from ever joining those ranks.

The existing privileged understand this perfectly, which is why they craft their message the way they do, bathed in apple pie and American flags, framing everything as an attack on your rights. And so we Americans rally forth against those who would dare try and take away that which isn't but might one day be ours. And in the end, the privileged become more privileged, and point to the rest of us and say "this is what the people want."

And we the people pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, because though we just made it harder on ourselves, at least our American dream is still intact.

This is making the faulty assumption that Obama was able to bring those same people in to play in building the ACA website. The sad truth is that most of the feds that were involved in the development of the website were probably hired back in the Clinton era, if not back in the Reagan administration, and are so filled with hubris that they think they know better than the people they contracted for their expertise.

Imagine what it is like to come in to a project with 10+ years in building websites, just to have your professional advice overruled by someone because they just finished reading "Websites for Dummies" and so they obviously know better. Then imagine going through that at least once a week for the entire time you are on the project.

I didn't work on this project, but I was a federal contractor for long enough to be confident that a large number of the issues stemmed not from contractors working the system, nor from partisan BS, but from incompetent federal employees.

Let's evaluate this from the perspective of my business, since that is the thing that they and I have in common:

I am evaluating applicants, interviewing candidates, managing current employees, creating advertising, managing customer relationships, running payroll, keeping up with inventory, updating the books, and the 100s of other things that I do on a day-to-day basis to ensure that this business continues to exist. These tasks take 8-10 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week.

They are applying for a job using an online system, which can be accomplished in less than three minutes if they already have their resume together and ready to upload.

So as you can see - from my business's perspective - my time is SIGNIFICANTLY more valuable than theirs.

I find it humorous that most of the comments are decrying the "HR" departments, when in reality a number of businesses using applicant tracking platforms are small business and do not really have any HR department to speak of.

They (and I, as I am a small business owner myself) use them so that I can 1. have one place that IS NOT my inbox to manage candidates, and 2. I can ensure that I am getting consistent info across all candidates.

And while I do not ask people to upload a resume and then fill out previous work experience fields, I can understand the necessity for such things, so that the small business owner can quickly scan over each applicant quickly, rather than trying to decode various resume layouts.

Because at the end of the day, my time is valuable, and any system that let's me spend less time doing things is going to be a boon to me, even if the downside is that I lose an applicant here and there in the process.

Since I heard about this ruling, I feel like this is completely backward. Google has to remove links TO the material, but the material itself does not need to be taken down. Google is just the pass thru - get the original material taken down from the site it is on, and the links that show up in a Google search disappear as well.

In the end, this isn't allowing people to have their info be "forgotten," just obscured.

Amazon Instant Videos, which includes much better movies than are available via Netflix. $79/year breaks down to being cheaper than Netflix Streaming.

The free two-day shipping is just a perk for me. You can also share Prime shipping with other Amazon accounts, which allows my wife (and the business she runs) to benefit from Prime with no additional cost.

So does the Gap, and all other smaller clothes stores. So does Kohls, Marshals, and all other "discount" clothes stores.

As with Blockbuster, the threat was not solely from online, but a mix of online and alternative retail.