Ok. But what if Richard Stallman gets hit by a falling piano?
What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
11–20 of 119 posts
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#12The methodology seems flawed in that it does not take into account that, if the buses were self-driving, what operating system was used as this would affect collision lethality.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#13Ok. But what if Richard Stallman gets hit by a falling piano?
Beer-shortage in Redmond?
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#14Real Story Here. A colleague and I developed a training course on the Foundations of DevOps. We started the course off with a discussion about risk in Software Delivery and IT in general. Attendees would often surface the "Key-Person Risk" or the "Hit by a Bus Risk" to which we would use as a teachable moment for pair programming, cross pollination, and measuring and improving the time it takes for new joins to becom…
I'm very sorry for your loss. I've heard "wins the lottery" as a less morbid metaphor for the same concept: one of your employees stops working in a low-probability event. Of course the higher-probability event is leaving their job (but somehow it's less polite to just say that); you usually get two weeks to hurriedly start documenting things, and with the current state of employee/employer relations you might easily…
I don’t like when people use “wins the lottery” because it leads to distracting tangents. A person that wins a lottery could do anything. How much did they win? Maybe they’ll still keep working? Maybe they’ll go off to start their own company and take a bunch of key employees with them? Maybe they’ll be broke in a year and come back to their job? Maybe they don’t leave right away? These are just distractions you don’t need when illustrating a point.
By contrast, a person being struck by a bus and killed has a definite finality to it. There is no going back. There is no hope of extracting knowledge from the once living individual. There is not even time to prepare. Their existence and their output has ceased and everyone alive must now live in this new reality.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#15I got hit by a bus two years ago, granted it was more of a rude push by the side of the bus that I was riding for 6 hours from Athens to its last stop Preveza and the bus driver was just about to park his bus, but getting hit by a bus is not necessary lethal. I simply got back on my feet and dusted my pants.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#16> Our sample consisted of 200 Linus Torvaldses If there were 200 Linus Torvaldses then after one gets hit by a bus there would be 199 left. Even after the experiment there were at least 108.9 remaining. That should be plenty to keep Linux going. So what's the problem?
They all die of age around the same time.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#17Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm very sorry for your loss. I've heard "wins the lottery" as a less morbid metaphor for the same concept: one of your employees stops working in a low-probability event. Of course the higher-probability event is leaving their job (but somehow it's less polite to just say that); you usually get two weeks to hurriedly start documenting things, and with the current state of employee/employer relations you might easily…
I don’t like when people use “wins the lottery” because it leads to distracting tangents. A person that wins a lottery could do anything. How much did they win? Maybe they’ll still keep working? Maybe they’ll go off to start their own company and take a bunch of key employees with them? Maybe they’ll be broke in a year and come back to their job? Maybe they don’t leave right away? These are just distractions you don’…
The great thing about hypotheticals is you can just say "wins the lottery, leaves the job, and never comes back" and it's implied in the scenario that you shouldn't read too much into it.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#19> Our sample consisted of 200 Linus Torvaldses If there were 200 Linus Torvaldses then after one gets hit by a bus there would be 199 left. Even after the experiment there were at least 108.9 remaining. That should be plenty to keep Linux going. So what's the problem?
Unfortunately, they all exist in parallel. So unless we figure out how to cryogenically freeze humans for hundreds of years, we'll run out of Torvaldii (which I think should be the plural for Torvalds) very soon.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm very sorry for your loss. I've heard "wins the lottery" as a less morbid metaphor for the same concept: one of your employees stops working in a low-probability event. Of course the higher-probability event is leaving their job (but somehow it's less polite to just say that); you usually get two weeks to hurriedly start documenting things, and with the current state of employee/employer relations you might easily…
I don’t like when people use “wins the lottery” because it leads to distracting tangents. A person that wins a lottery could do anything. How much did they win? Maybe they’ll still keep working? Maybe they’ll go off to start their own company and take a bunch of key employees with them? Maybe they’ll be broke in a year and come back to their job? Maybe they don’t leave right away? These are just distractions you don’…
Some people wouldn't dare speak to their former employers, let alone help them, if they won the lottery. Death or not, winning the lottery can be just as effective in getting rid of someone.