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‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

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Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#121

Post by dekhn »

joshstrange wrote: post #101
dekhn wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard an alternative, proposed often at Google: give devs the weakest systems possible: slow flaky net, slow machines with minimal memory so they are forced to make efficient systems for people in third world countries (key to rapid growth for many products). Personally I don't care much about my laptop except htat it can drive a large external display and does fast networking. I only use it to connect to a VM I…

And let's tie one hand behind their backs and cover one eye as well while we are at it. I think the idea of giving devs trash hardware because "it's what our users use" is the worst solution possible to solving that problem. Have the devs or another team test on lower-end hardware before pushing a version, don't hobble them while they are creating.

here's the argument that Brad Fitzpatrick (who espoused this idea) gave: at the time, he was creating livejournal and had a bunch of russian hackers building the site. He noticed that every time they made pages load faster or work better, more people used the site (and site growth is the simple most important metric), and that more and more people were coming from countries with poor internet infra.

So, he made his workers use crappy computers and a dodgy network he set up. He claimed it made them make better applicaitons, but I can easily say that if the job hadn't been critically important for me, I'd give my opinion and move on.

I build software for Aristocrats and I expect my tools to be first class. That said, I've reached a level of trust where my l eadership trusts me to manage millions of dollars worth of cloud inventory and much of my messaging to my users is: "please do not attept to save $400 by using $1000 of your time"

Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#122

Post by _fat_santa »

Beltiras wrote: post #107

I'm astounded that the military uses Windows at all. It would seem a no-brainer to make everyone use a better protected OS. Which *nix is a fine starting inquiry.

The "vendorization" of government and government contracting is astounding. I interned for a government contractor back in college and it was floored by some of the decisions being made.

Basically we were not allowed to use any free/open source software. The reason is that we couldn't "purchase a support contract" for the thing we were using. Not that we would actually try and buy support, company just wanted the capability of getting support.

This drove down to the trivial. I remember we needed a calendar to display a team meetings. There was a kick ass open source calendar that did everything we needed it to. Well we couldn't get it approved because there was no "provided support", I pleaded with them that it's a fucking calendar widget and we don't need support, the response was always "well what if someone has to support this in the future", like lady this isn't some super complicated financial system, it's a fucking calendar.

This example repeats itself throughout the industry. The US Govt has the capability to build their own OS, their own security and tech, but they instead choose to engage with a million different vendors to get their job done. It's like a SaaS startup that gets a bunch of subscriptions to software they may or may not use, just on a much larger and grander scale.

Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#123

Post by imwillofficial »

cormacrelf wrote: post #114
joshstrange wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let's tie one hand behind their backs and cover one eye as well while we are at it. I think the idea of giving devs trash hardware because "it's what our users use" is the worst solution possible to solving that problem. Have the devs or another team test on lower-end hardware before pushing a version, don't hobble them while they are creating.

Well, that would help with making technology more accessible. Developers, especially highly paid ones, are as selfish as anyone else on the planet. If you have a strategy to make them care about literally a single other person, I suggest you go for it.

Making software and using software are different

Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#124

Post by jrootabega »

alexpotato wrote: post #119

“It has been the absolute most frustrating thing in the world since the [Department of the Air Force] … made OWA crazy locked down,” said Oliver Parsons, chief of esports and virtual fitness for the Department of the Air Force The above made me stop and ask "The Air Force has an esports group??"

Recruiting

Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#125

Post by kylebyproxy »

nexuist wrote: post #115
johnklos wrote: post #71

Why aren't aircraft made as simple to fly as cars are to drive? Why aren't regular people allowed to just get in an aircraft and start flying after a couple of hours of practice? We see no problem in assuming that people need the lowest-common-denominator operating system in computer to suit the people instead of the people learning how to use a proper computer, though. If something is mission critical, then it shoul…

Yes, let's put the incompetent buffoons who thought installing McAfee on every government computer was a good idea in charge of their rolling own Linux distro. That sure would solve all of these problems.

We could have put NIST or another entity in charge of developing a federally-approved *nix distro decades ago and we'd have none of this friction today.

Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#126

Post by nexuist »

stadium wrote: post #116
taurath wrote: post #104

Loving that the solution from the CIO of the air force isn’t “we’re going to move our resources into this problem” but “we’re going to ask for more funding so we can tackle this”. Which seems just stupid in its face, but then you realize that almost all of the budgeting is line itemed for specific capabilities. If leadership can’t change resources around to fix such a glaring problem due to legal/budgeting rules, the…

Wouldn't any competent CIO of a company or government office big enough to need a CIO do the same? Which roadmapped strategic projects are going to get chopped so that this new project can start immediately?

What's the point of all the roadmapped projects if all of them will have 1hr+ startup times? Is the enemy going to wait for squadron commanders to log into Outlook before firing artillery?

All of the strategic projects should get chopped until this one is addressed. What is the point of managing IT infrastructure if none of it works.

Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#127

Post by HideousKojima »

alexpotato wrote: post #119

“It has been the absolute most frustrating thing in the world since the [Department of the Air Force] … made OWA crazy locked down,” said Oliver Parsons, chief of esports and virtual fitness for the Department of the Air Force The above made me stop and ask "The Air Force has an esports group??"

It's part of their recruitment efforts IIRC. Kind of like the America's Army video game

Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#128

Post by nexuist »

kylebyproxy wrote: post #125
nexuist wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, let's put the incompetent buffoons who thought installing McAfee on every government computer was a good idea in charge of their rolling own Linux distro. That sure would solve all of these problems.

We could have put NIST or another entity in charge of developing a federally-approved *nix distro decades ago and we'd have none of this friction today.

This would still be an awesome solution today. I hope we do this eventually. But I don't believe Windows is the problem, it's the way the DoD is trying to manage it.

Re: ‘Fix My Computer’ Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

#129

Post by imwillofficial »

Damogran6 wrote: post #85
eloisius wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my last job IT had tanium installed on our machines. It would make your computer nearly unusable for hours. Sometimes I felt like we had computers that were completely consumed by the overhead it took just for us to have them.

Then Tanium needed tuning. There's no reason any of it's processing should have taken 1 core for more than 2 minutes...and that's the highest load task. Mostly it sits in the background, capped at 5% cpu. But there's only so much you can do with a 7th gen dual core mobile i7 Now...McAfee? a)Was a pig, but b)did we really need to scan the entire disk every Friday afternoon?

No tuning of Tanium will make it not garbage.
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