The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Topic: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections (Read 25704 times)

The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

2016-10-28, 11:30:23

For those of us that enjoy the American spectacle every leap year and the fulfilment and joy that comes with it. Who's in, who's out? Who'll win and who'll claim it's all rigged? Who'll have the best party and who the longest hangover?

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #1 – 2016-10-28, 11:36:43

Awesomespectacle.

Awesomejoy.

Awesomehangover.

Whatever.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #2 – 2016-10-28, 12:04:32

Quote from: jax on 2016-10-28, 11:30:23

For those of us that enjoy the American spectacle...

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #3 – 2016-10-28, 12:33:47

Trump 2020?

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #4 – 2016-10-28, 22:11:02

Where's the vomit bag?

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #5 – 2016-10-29, 00:44:13

My bag was full of that "awesome" rubbishing word.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #6 – 2016-10-29, 05:37:20

But there was that TV commercial where a girl calls (a call-center…) and realizes she's talking to her sister, likely continents away!
"The only one I know who says that is… Julie?"
The reasons for out-sourcing call-centers is obvious: Remnants of the British Empire, still trying to recover from their exploitation, using the only tools they gained.
What tools, you ask? Passably coherent English (…no RJ's need apply!) and the willingness to work for less money than anyone else.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #7 – 2016-10-29, 08:11:35

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on 2016-10-29, 05:37:20

The reasons for out-sourcing call-centers is obvious: Remnants of the British Empire, still trying to recover from their exploitation, using the only tools they gained.
What tools, you ask? Passably coherent English (…no RJ's need apply!) and the willingness to work for less money than anyone else.

Swedish companies outsource their call-centers to places like Moldova. It obviously cannot work, and doesn't, but they do it anyway, for reasons only known to themselves. It works pretty bad even when Finnish companies outsource call-centers to Estonia (related languages and close-by locations, but still).

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #8 – 2016-10-29, 09:32:55

Quote from: ersi on 2016-10-29, 08:11:35

Swedish companies outsource their call-centers to places like Moldova. It obviously cannot work, and doesn't, but they do it anyway, for reasons only known to themselves. It works pretty bad even when Finnish companies outsource call-centers to Estonia (related languages and close-by locations, but still).

Dutch and Flemish companies sometimes outsource that stuff to South Africa. The fun thing about Afrikaans is that you think it sounds like Dutch but you often have no idea what they're saying. It's a very disorienting feeling. Vice versa it's even worse I'm told, because Afrikaans has the simpler grammar that contact languages often have.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #9 – 2016-10-29, 09:55:39

I'm learning much… But I'm too old; I suspect I won't learn enough…

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #10 – 2016-10-29, 12:39:58

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on 2016-10-29, 09:55:39

"I'm learning much... But I'm too old; I suspect I won't learn enough..."

A lifelong problem, I suspect.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #11 – 2016-10-30, 00:59:13

Yup, Jaybro… But I still try.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #12 – 2016-10-30, 08:12:23

Quote from: ersi on 2016-10-29, 08:11:35

Swedish companies outsource their call-centers to places like Moldova. It obviously cannot work, and doesn't, but they do it anyway, for reasons only known to themselves. It works pretty bad even when Finnish companies outsource call-centers to Estonia (related languages and close-by locations, but still).

The spectacular story of outsourcing this week comes from Norway, from Statoil, the Norwegian oil&gas company. They have outsourced their IT to India, and according to internal reports not very successfully, including a particular incident in 2014:

IT error in India causes shutdown of production at Statoil refinery … in Norway

Quote

According to Norwegian media, evidence has been uncovered which shows 29 incidents where Indian IT workers have broken down barriers to platform.

Amongst some of the incidents, an IT worker is said to have stopped production at the Mongstad refinery in 2014 because of a typing error.

NRK provided more details, Tastefeilen som stoppet Statoil

Quote

An IT employee of the big Indian company HCL would perform maintenance on a server in Norway. The customer was Statoil. Maintenance work had been delayed. In the eagerness to finish the job, the IT consultant accidentally hit the wrong key on the PC. The typing error led him into the wrong server. A server he should not have had access to.

He was behind the firewall in the computer system to the country's largest refinery Mongstad.

The server was marked and it was evident that it led him into a production facility at Statoil. The Indian still did not realise where he had entered. To solve the problem he would restart his PC.

The computer system warned the Indian IT consultant against proceeding. He ignored the warning.

The Indian IT worker soon realised that he had made a mistake when he started up the PC and went into the server. He panicked and asked colleagues in India for help. In a short time there were 22 unauthorised logins in Statoil's computer system from India to restart the server.

They failed. Production stopped. [...]

Statoil had luck on their side this May day at Mongstad. Experienced staff were in place and acted quickly. When the computerised production collapsed, the Norwegian employees took control manually. After a few hours of interruption the production and loading could start again just after nine o'clock the same morning.

Then only a small part of the fuel mixture had spilled into the sea. The pollution was limited. Statoil were in danger of losing 30-40 million on the event, but the loss was limited to less than one million.

Loose change for Statoil, but the incident showed something far more serious: Statoil had no control of who had access to all facilities.

The account is garbled, with roles given to ignorant Indians and heroic Norwegians (who evidently resented the outsource). However clearly at some point the traditional "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" line of problem solving was tried, and #fail ensued.

The issue isn't really the Indians, but that the Statoil managers weren't in control of their business processes. Outsourcing is fine in principle, you do what you are best at, they do what they are best at, you don't necessarily need an inhouse wheel inventor staff. The access and security problems are just symptoms that the process was not properly thought out, and not properly refactored into things we do, things they do, and how they should interact.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #13 – 2016-10-30, 08:42:47

Quote from: jax on 2016-10-30, 08:12:23

Outsourcing is fine in principle, you do what you are best at, they do what they are best at, you don't necessarily need an inhouse wheel inventor staff.

Yes, they do what they are best at, except that they are supposed to be doing it *for you.* So, yes, they are inhouse in that sense. If you think that's unnecessary, you are not really thinking properly.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #14 – 2016-10-30, 09:04:28

Yes, and I do agree with your original post. Corporate bosses, in Scandinavia as well, have an unfortunate tendency to be suboptimals, staffed with a stream of Vice Presidents of Maximising My Stock Options.

Cutting costs is generally sensible, including for support staff. If you get more better in Bangladesh, so be it. But make them work for you, and report to you. Don't consider them to be a cost to be externalised, more than you are yourself. If fact, you'd be better off in integrating them into the organisation, to learn from actual experience, preferably with a VP of Why Our Customers Have Problems With What We're Doing.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #15 – 2016-10-30, 09:20:32

I see outsourcing as nothing but another business holy graal. Did reengineering already finished?

If the western world wants better business processes, give the children a better school, instead the idiot factory that school is today.
Focus on the people, then processes will improve. Outsourcing is a particularly bad solution.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #16 – 2016-11-04, 06:14:11

But it's so much easier to just kick the problems down the road & out of sight instead of actually dealing with them!

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #17 – 2016-11-05, 09:26:56

I think the phrase is "kick the can down the road," Mac… That would be a tin can. If dealing with actual problems is the task of governments, why do you keep looking for others? (Other governments…) Where do you live now, and why?
(And where don't you live now, and why?

)
Apparently, you want the U.S. to adopt the policies that made you flee two countries already… Why?

Perhaps you're a "YYY" individual! Well, welcome back, Carrot!

Thanks for blocking my messages before I'd made any, BTW. You apparently take me much more seriously than I do… Why do I take you seriously? Well, once upon a time we'd talk.
I take it, you don't do that anymore.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #18 – 2016-11-07, 11:00:41

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on 2016-10-30, 00:59:13

Yup, Jaybro... But I still try.

When you stop trying you're dieing.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #19 – 2016-11-08, 08:19:43

Somebody somewhere said that, as the votes are being counted now, Trump is leading by 7 votes. Go America!

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #20 – 2016-11-08, 09:09:29

Anything less than 10,000 votes in a locality is questionable! That's one of the advantages of our electoral college system: Imagine a re-count in a nation of 160,000,000 voters…

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #21 – 2016-11-08, 10:32:38

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on 2016-11-08, 09:09:29

Imagine a re-count in a nation of 160,000,000 voters…

160,000,000 voters? That's a quite optimistic number.
From 218,959,000 Americans eligible to vote, only 146,311,000 are registered.

126,144,000 Americans did vote in the 2012 Presidential election. It looks like participation will be lower this year than it was 2012.
source

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #22 – 2016-11-08, 16:29:16

Can't wait for "The Awesomesauce of the 2017 German and French Election(s) " thread!

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #23 – 2016-11-08, 18:30:29

Quote from: Colonel Rebel on 2016-11-08, 16:29:16

Can't wait for "The Awesomesauce of the 2017 German and French Election(s) " thread!

Yes. Who will win, Germany or France? Place your bets.

Re: The Awesomesauce of the American 2020 Presidential Elections

Reply #24 – 2016-11-08, 22:08:59

Well, there's some history…

Quote from: krake on 2016-11-08, 02:32:38

160,000,000 voters? That's a quite optimistic number.

A quibble, krake: It was a ballpark figure; and given the level of awareness of most voters it was a pessimistic number!