A plea for sanity ...

There has recently been a lot of discussion about "evolutionary" concepts in the cloud computing world.

As an ex-geneticist who trained at Cambridge University, I would be very grateful if all those wishing to use evolutionary theory as part of a PR exercise would actually read something about the subject matter before mangling it.

I know it is tempting to simply combine half misunderstood concepts like "gene mutation" and "survival of the fittest" into your own grand unifying theory of evolution, but please try and do some background reading first. That's the annoying thing about science, it does require some hard graft and learning.

Whilst an in-depth understanding of a few computer based languages makes the learning of other computing languages a relatively trivial task, this logic does not hold for other systems. Just because I can make a reasonable hack with C++ & SQL, does not make me a master of the universe, a great philosopher and omniscient about all other fields.

It sometimes seems as though some within the IT industry can get a bit carried away with their own abilities ... cure for cancer, no problem, I can already create entire universes in smalltalk.

If you're going to start discussing a field, have the courtesy to read about the subject matter before making your pronouncements.

P.S. On the subject of smalltalk and virtual worlds, I think the work being done at the Croquet Consortium is worth a look.

One Social, one not ...

This morning I caught up with Stefan whose project Soocial is really starting to take off. This is fantastic news, they're a wonderful bunch of people and hopefully they'll become the internet superstars they deserve to be.

That was the social or good news.

The anti-social or bad news came in the form of an article by the Washington Post on the use of waterboarding in team building exercises. Apparently the assembled sales team were told:-
"You saw how hard Chad fought for air right there. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales".

What planet do these people come from? I wonder if Chad's medical insurance covers acts of management insanity?

What next?
"You saw how hard Chad fought to avoid being shot. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales."

What happens if Chad doesn't quite make it?

Figure 1 - The future of team building.
(click on image for larger size)

Apparently the general counsel for the firm said that they weren't the mean water boarding company that people think they are. It takes a lot to make me swear, but well who the fuck are they then? I'd hate to meet a really mean company if waterboarding is okay for the nice ones.

He also asked whether this would even be an issue "if it weren't for Guantanamo Bay". Let me think about that one - try, yes it is an issue if you go waterboarding your staff in order to make them work harder.

The best line however is when he talks about how this incident is "going to hurt our image". What about your staff?

Save Chad now before it's too late.
Thanks to molumen and Gerald_G for the public domain clipart that I've used and Marilyn Pratt for spotting this.