Are you doing anything worthwhile?
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Everything that I do, every single day, is vitally important to the continuing survival of the human race, even though I'm very poorly paid and under-appreciated. You're welcome.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Do the computers and systems you work on actually make your company, your country, the world in general better? Or do they just keep you employed and allow other hardware and software to be bought thus keeping others employed? The company I work for is 160 years old this year, they still do the same thing. Computers and computer systems are a fairly recent thing in comparison. Do they aid the company in fulfilling its aims in anyway? Or do they just keep loads of people employed whilst actually achieving no real benefit. What is the point of you?
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
ChrisElston wrote:
The company I work for is 160 years old this year
Perhaps we work for the same company. :cool: My current job is mainly concerned with using computers to keep track of the other computers in the enterprise. :sigh:
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Bravo. I know you can't see this, but I'm stood up and saluting you right now. :-D
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
Thanks, Chris... It's nice to be appreciated! :-D
Will Rogers never met me.
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Do the computers and systems you work on actually make your company, your country, the world in general better? Or do they just keep you employed and allow other hardware and software to be bought thus keeping others employed? The company I work for is 160 years old this year, they still do the same thing. Computers and computer systems are a fairly recent thing in comparison. Do they aid the company in fulfilling its aims in anyway? Or do they just keep loads of people employed whilst actually achieving no real benefit. What is the point of you?
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
About two years ago I started working for a non-profit healthcare company. I love how little money we keep compared to for profits. It's fulfilling, and everything we do makes the customer facing units' jobs easier, so they can spend more time on members, and less on the systems.
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Do the computers and systems you work on actually make your company, your country, the world in general better? Or do they just keep you employed and allow other hardware and software to be bought thus keeping others employed? The company I work for is 160 years old this year, they still do the same thing. Computers and computer systems are a fairly recent thing in comparison. Do they aid the company in fulfilling its aims in anyway? Or do they just keep loads of people employed whilst actually achieving no real benefit. What is the point of you?
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
ChrisElston wrote:
thus keeping others employed?
I for one consider that as making the "world...better". Economic success has the biggest impact on overall well being and it is something that can actually be measured and which is demonstrated via a vast number of studies. Versus any number of well intentioned movements which at best do nothing.
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And in the ability of companies to peddle insurance policies that no-one wants or needs. In the ability of companies to pump out as many different TV channels as no-one is able to or wants to consume. I wager fewer people work on systems that improve farming, or medicine, or such than work on systems pumping crap into the world.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
ChrisElston wrote:
In the ability of companies to pump out as many different TV channels as no-one is able to or wants to consume.
That isn't true. Every TV channel, at least to the less than 1% range, have viewers that appreciate them. Channels are discontinued because they don't attract enough viewers and not because they attract none.
ChrisElston wrote:
I wager fewer people work on systems that improve farming, or medicine, or such than work on systems pumping crap into the world.
Basically that is incorrect. When the basic needs of humans are met then humans will spend money on entertainment. If they don't have that avenue then they will find ways to entertain themselves, such as drinking and beating each other up.
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vonb wrote:
Anyway, without real time data this institute can go bankroupt really fast..
Only because everyone has it. Hasn't the banking industry basically just spent billions on a massive pissing competition, developing faster and faster software purely to outdo their competitors on the speed of the software? How is it better now than it was before? How is the bank able to be more productive, how is it able to provide a better service to its customers, how does it make more of a contribution to the world because it has lots and lots of computers and computer persons?
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
ChrisElston wrote:
How is the bank able to be more productive, how is it able to provide a better service to its customers, how does it make more of a contribution to the world because it has lots and lots of computers and computer persons?
Because ALL human activities are based on economics. When a bank can manage its money better then it can have a bigger impact on the economic sphere that the bank influences. When ALL banks do it then all spheres are influenced. More competition means more innovation and more experimentation. Computers allow all of the that to be speeded up. And that is computers themselves. The information age allows ideas to spread virtually immediately and thus more banks will start doing it and doing it faster.
ChrisElston wrote:
Hasn't the banking industry basically just spent billions on a massive pissing competition
Not sure what that means. If you are referring to the crash of several years ago one can easily make the argument that the inability to quickly monitor changing conditions impacted that situation. But other than that banks, like many industries, are having problem implementing the ideas that they have quickly enough.
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Leroy Gibbs wrote:
which treatment fits am best and extends his life span the most
Ah, but the world is massively overpopulated, in fact that is the biggest problem the human world faces. You think you are doing good, but you are part of the problem :)
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
ChrisElston wrote:
Ah, but the world is massively overpopulated, in fact that is the biggest problem the human world faces.
Yes. But it is very likely that computers are the reason that the world has not collapsed and will not collapse for a long time because of that problem. Just looking at food, the percentage of people that are starving is going down.
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I think a lot of software in companies is there to give management more control over what their employees are doing and don't make the employees' lives any easier at all. We recently introduced a new system, and it was admitted from the start that it would make the jobs of the users less easy as they had all this extra stuff to now do in real time. But it would give real time data to the managers, as well as rolling all the costs up for them so they could have nice charts in their meetings. I don't think what I do improves productivity or profitability of this company, not does it provide any greater service to the customers, although we do have some systems that do.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
ChrisElston wrote:
I think a lot of software in companies is there to give management more control over what their employees are doing and don't make the employees' lives any easier at all.
That is very simplistic. For starters a "lot" doesn't mean anything. There is certainly a wide variety of general and specific software intended to monitor productivity. For starters many developers working in larger groups have probably seen project management software. However there are a vast number of industries, all of which have many jobs, which couldn't exist without computers.
ChrisElston wrote:
I don't think what I do improves productivity or profitability of this company,
There are probably many companies making many decision which do neither of those as well. That however is a people problem not a technology problem. And it isn't a new problem either.
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Ah, the good stuff[^]
Quote:
The rise of breakfast cereal makes a revealing case study in the evolutionary process behind the modern diet. One of the earliest convenience foods, processed cereals represents a triumph of marketing, packaging and US economic and foreign policy. They are the epitome of cheap commodity converted by manufacturing to higher value goods; of agricultural surplus turned into profitable export. Their ingredients have a disconcerting overlap with my cat food. Somehow they have wormed into our confused consciousness as intrinsically healthy when by and large they are degraded foods that have to have any goodness artificially restored. I have long been intrigued by how the British breakfast was conquered and what it tells us about the rest of our food. For this is the elephant in the room of course: it is the industrial processing of food that is the real problem. To understand where not we, but rather it, all went wrong, you have to understand the economic and political structures behind today's food system.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
Not exactly sure what the point of that post is given that the source is the Guardian and that the author seems to have no credentials relevant to the topic except that she is an author (and primarily for the Guardian.) It should be noted of course that the history of 'cereal' is also one that closely parallels the change from a world dependent on the randomness of the weather to feed itself to one that it based instead on the ability to pay for the food that it needs.
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ChrisElston wrote:
How is the bank able to be more productive, how is it able to provide a better service to its customers, how does it make more of a contribution to the world because it has lots and lots of computers and computer persons?
Because ALL human activities are based on economics. When a bank can manage its money better then it can have a bigger impact on the economic sphere that the bank influences. When ALL banks do it then all spheres are influenced. More competition means more innovation and more experimentation. Computers allow all of the that to be speeded up. And that is computers themselves. The information age allows ideas to spread virtually immediately and thus more banks will start doing it and doing it faster.
ChrisElston wrote:
Hasn't the banking industry basically just spent billions on a massive pissing competition
Not sure what that means. If you are referring to the crash of several years ago one can easily make the argument that the inability to quickly monitor changing conditions impacted that situation. But other than that banks, like many industries, are having problem implementing the ideas that they have quickly enough.
There was a report a few weeks back about a particular banking system the different banks had been throwing loads of money at in recent years but it had become about one upmanship and actually made all their related processes worse.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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Not exactly sure what the point of that post is given that the source is the Guardian and that the author seems to have no credentials relevant to the topic except that she is an author (and primarily for the Guardian.) It should be noted of course that the history of 'cereal' is also one that closely parallels the change from a world dependent on the randomness of the weather to feed itself to one that it based instead on the ability to pay for the food that it needs.
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ChrisElston wrote:
thus keeping others employed?
I for one consider that as making the "world...better". Economic success has the biggest impact on overall well being and it is something that can actually be measured and which is demonstrated via a vast number of studies. Versus any number of well intentioned movements which at best do nothing.
I agree completely, something that employs people is good. Was just trying to get some debate going and get people to think about why they do in a wider sense. Might of been interesting if you'd got here earlier, but I'm at home now, just had my dinner and feeling sleepy.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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S Houghtelin wrote:
The stuff we make helps people stay alive, and live better lives.
Same here, my company does medical diagnostic devices which helps medical personnel to find out what a patient is suffering from and which treatment fits am best and extends his life span the most or cures him with the fewest possible side effects and most efficient. Without our instruments doctors would still analyse bacteria under a microscope and use weed as treatment against cancer.
:bob:
CodeProject 10 Million members celebration meetup - Switzerland
Leroy Gibbs wrote:
Without our instruments doctors would still analyse bacteria under a microscope and use weed as treatment against cancer
In the US, some states permit the use of weed under the Medical Marijuana Act. :laugh: