patrick.net

Rin says

zzyzzx says

Rin says

many Fortune 1000 firms still use Oracle Forms, the biggest joke for a front end GUI

Oracle APEX is much better.

Good to know, as something's got to replace that legacy garbage.

The same system that healthcare.gov was built on?

Sure, newer systems are great when they work and are built by qualified programmers and engineers who perform actual quality control on the work.

Yes, I've seen actual 33.3K modems used to transmit real estate orders to GSE enterprises. Most companies now communicate with those mainframes with the packets encapsulated over TCP/IP. Taxpayer money (30 million) was spent to port the tasks over to Java. After the money was sent to India, the port didn't work so they remained with the mainframe and outsourced it to CGI.

Sigh, that was 5 years ago. I remember back when 30 million was a lot of money...

PolishKnight says

es, I've seen actual 33.3K modems

That would be impressive. I've only ever seen 33.6K ones.

PolishKnight says

I've dealt with auditors. A "good" auditor is a matter of definition. By the terms of the big auditing companies, a "good" auditor generates tons of work for the company being audited to justify their audits. Efficiency experts also seek to justify layoffs whether it makes the company more efficient or not. Lawyers sue companies not to make the companies more responsible and save consumers money, but rather to make a lot of money in legal fees.

If that's your take on this, it sounds like you've only dealt with shitty CFOs who can't manage their auditors and shitty auditors, and also shitty General Counsels who can't manage outside law firms and shitty lawyers.

Rin says

Today, that's nearly 100% of the my job.

So yeah, Sales! Sales! Sales! I'm not the Wolf but perhaps, a Bobcat of Wall Street :-)

So if you're so awesome because you only deal with sales now, what's going to happen when there's no one to consume things, which seems to be the case according to your vision?

Rin says

Today, with the resurgence of the energy sector, they are primarily hired to help support fracking operations and transport but many alternate engineers: mechanical, civil, petroleum, geologist, etc are also involved there. The US has not build a new refinery since the late 70s. I'm hearing that there are plans on the drawing board but that's from a design firm, which had shed up to 80% of their headcount since the mid-80s. If these go through, great, some jobs for a decade but then what?

I think you misunderstood the use of the index. These are jobs that are less susceptible to automation. It doesn't dictate what depend for these jobs may or may not be in the future. However, the increasing pay of ChemE and petroleum engineers suggests that they're doing okay so far.

ask yourself this -- how many companies make products which are bought by robots?

I still don't see the endgame of total automation.

Most of our companies produce products for a vast global marketplace.

Smartphones, automobiles...

Much of that technology and industry is used either business to busines (B2B) or in the service of work (commuter cars on highways or rush hour trains).

Humans are not only the workers, but the consumers of that work. Even javascript coders are employed to serve millions who order clothing on Amazon. No paychecks, no millions...no e-commerce?

Or if Robots replace humans in building cars, then people don't have to drive cars to the factory where the cars are built.

And so on...

So is robotization really de-industrialization?

Solar, wind and hydrogen as an energy source falls into this category as well.

If we don't have to mine energy, or build equipment to mine it, then we don't need the gasoline to power the dump trucks and oil rigs.

What do we do all day, and how many of us, are the big questions.

corntrollio says

Rin says

Today, that's nearly 100% of the my job.

So yeah, Sales! Sales! Sales! I'm not the Wolf but perhaps, a Bobcat of Wall Street :-)

So if you're so awesome because you only deal with sales now, what's going to happen when there's no one to consume things, which seems to be the case according to your vision?

It's called an exit strategy. Very few ppl in the sort of prop trading/hedge fund world plans to do it till the golden years. It's about getting in, making a lot of cash while the going is good, and then, exiting for either full retirement or some sort of part-time consulting work.

I'm seeing myself as among the last batches of ppl, who'll be able to find work, as future generations will find more and more of the paying tasks automated.

corntrollio says

Rin says

Today, with the resurgence of the energy sector, they are primarily hired to help support fracking operations and transport but many alternate engineers: mechanical, civil, petroleum, geologist, etc are also involved there.

I think you misunderstood the use of the index. These are jobs that are less susceptible to automation. It doesn't dictate what depend for these jobs may or may not be in the future. However, the increasing pay of ChemE and petroleum engineers suggests that they're doing okay so far.

What makes you think that the current oil patch boom can't experience automation, as AI/vision processing algorithms improve? What geologists & petroleum engineers do is take samples and analyze the yield characteristics and production dynamics. In fact, when the computer science folks have a vision processing algo of the caliber it takes to make real-time analysis of the materials in the well, I could probably get together a team of engineers and help develop the rules so that the software could do that work, without having a major cast and crew surrounding the project. For my current job, that's sort of what I did with our risk assessment and audit tools, so that I could shift more into sales and client support. A business executive does not think about labor, he thinks about bring money to the table, and thus, if he's discovered that all he needed were 5 tech crew per well, as oppose to let's say 50, he'd pocket the difference. And given the kinds of salaries they make in the Dakotas, that 45 headcount is probably over $10M per year not including benefits and insurance/liability overhead.

Rin says

What makes you think that the current oil patch boom can't experience automation, as AI/vision processing algorithms improve? What geologists & petroleum engineers do is take samples and analyze the yield characteristics and production dynamics. In fact, when the computer science folks have a vision processing algo of the caliber it takes to make real-time analysis of the materials in the well, I could probably get together a team of engineers and help develop the rules so that the software could do that work, without having a major cast and crew surrounding the project.

You say so, but petroleum engineers' salaries keep going up for a reason. Are you saying that the CEOs aren't imaginative enough?

Also, I'm not saying it can't -- the index is saying it's less likely.

corntrollio says

You say so, but petroleum engineers' salaries keep going up for a reason. Are you saying that the CEOs aren't imaginative enough?

Also, I'm not saying it can't -- the index is saying it's less likely.

The salaries are high because the price of the barrel is high. We had an oil patch boom/bust cycle during my dad's peak working generation between the 70s and the early 80s. During the height of the bust, circa mid-80s, places like Houston & Dallas were in a major depression with energy companies shedding up to 40% of their respective headcounts. A lot of those folks re-located to the east coast, to work in hi-tech or local power generation/constructions, as their prior careers had imploded. Some of 'em were my dad's friends from earlier times.

In addition, right now, we're in a nascent phase of automation. At best, telephone switches are the best implementation of the prior era's nascent phase, as the need for live operators had crashed between the 1920s and 1960s, despite the meteoric growth of the telecom sectors. Likewise, as vision processing/AI improves and cost per CPU continue to go down, even more tasks will be automated.

And no, CEOs aren't that imaginative nor smart. They're just type A personalities with connections.

corntrollio says

es, I've seen actual 33.3K modems

That would be impressive. I've only ever seen 33.6K ones.

I was typing quickly (hit the 3 three times) but if that really matters, sure, it's 33.6K.

This kind of attention to inane detail reminds me of my dealing with security auditors. They worried about making sure the passwords were at least 8 characters long and changed every 3 months, but no concern for whether the stored passwords could get stolen in the first place.

Rin says

Likewise, as vision processing/AI improves and cost per CPU continue to go down, even more tasks will be automated.

I would love to see an irobot that can sort my socks from the laundry! :-)

There has been talk of robots eventually being able to pick lettuce and other agricultural duties that have been given to illegals for them to do for 20 years or so before they on welfare for the rest of their lives. Hopefully, the robots won't figure out that scam. :-)

All that said, it's not uncommon for people to overhype technology. Face recognition software has been around for a long time, but except for the sci-fi scenarios, I've not read of any fugitives getting nabbed by it yet. And the word "cloud" has replaced "hi-def" as a buzzword.

PolishKnight says

This kind of attention to inane detail reminds me of my dealing with security auditors.

Nice attempt to detract from your made-up anecdote, but okay -- I'm more than fine with having attention to detail.

corntrollio says

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21594264-previous-technological-innovation-has-always-delivered-more-long-run-employment-not-less

In addition, the article points out that previous technological innovations has usually resulted in higher employment and higher wages after a period of adjustment.

*** This is an absolutely wonderful article. Thanks for posting.
*** Wether you are a Bull, a Bear, or a Pig, I urge everyone to read it.

from the article:
"One of the worries Keynes admitted was a “new disease”: “technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.” "

What worries me is the rate of technological change increasing at a faster clip. It could cause society a lot of problems. I would say international trade increasing too fast could cause similar problems. Nevertheless, I remain a strong supporter of both.

PolishKnight says

Face recognition software has been around for a long time, but except for the sci-fi scenarios, I've not read of any fugitives getting nabbed by it yet.

Give it 10-15 years. In fact, that type of security based software is highly sought after by law enforcement and security firms. The problem with let's call it the Minsky AI hype of the 80s, was that they were attempting to perform a carte blanche study of the human brain with limited software and hardware. Facial recognition software was also hampered by the need to use stereoscopic depiction with more than one camera for detailed analysis. In essence, that software was hokey for a single camera system until now.

Strategist says

What worries me is the rate of technological change increasing at a faster clip

And that's a big part of the issue. If you look at let's say the so-called average white collar job, what part of it is so unique, that only a person could do it? Plus, how often does a job become the same old, same old for the avg person? Usually, that happens within 3-4 years of employment.

And that's the major issue on the horizon. If you walk around, office to office, you could see that many tasks could be automated. When I'd first started in an R&D pilot plant, the ppl there thought that Excel was a database, because it had stored data. And these were scientists and engineers. They seldom even considered the idea that all of their pilot trials, could have automated data collection, sampling, etc, and have a type of semi-permanent existence on an Oracle server. Instead, there was a myriad of ppl hanging around, doing ordinary stuff. Once I began to slowly see that, as well as places where I'd consulted for in regular IT, like insurance, telecom, etc, I started getting worried.

I knew that ppl were not all that special and that this credo of *ppl are creative a/o some Leonardo DaVinci* type of free thinker *which will save our jobs*, are the exceptions to the rule and not the normal worker bee.

Rin says

When I'd first started in an R&D pilot plant, the ppl there thought that Excel was a database, because it had stored data. And these were scientists and engineers.

LOL, they probably used slide rules. A fifth grader armed with a calculator from the 99 cent store could replace them.

Strategist says

Rin says

When I'd first started in an R&D pilot plant, the ppl there thought that Excel was a database, because it had stored data. And these were scientists and engineers.

LOL, they probably used slide rules. A fifth grader armed with a calculator from the 99 cent store could replace them.

Hey, for them, they'd write the numbers down on a notepad and then, input it into an Excel spreadsheet.

Supposedly, their analysis of the data is what made 'em special but I saw similar patterns... yield, degradation, high molecular waste, and a few other important data points. All of that is learn-able by an undergrad student in the sciences.

Rin says

LOL, they probably used slide rules. A fifth grader armed with a calculator from the 99 cent store could replace them.

Hey, for them, they'd write the numbers down on a notepad and then, input it into an Excel spreadsheet.

Supposedly, their analysis of the data is what made 'em special

I know. I have nothing but the highest respect for scientists.
Thank you and keep up the good work. We need you.

Just so you know, I'm the messenger here.

I did not create the executive suites in America and thus, I don't have control on how CEOs and other C levels behave.

With that said, as many of us are technical staff... I'm a techie as well (who's now on the business side), the work we do will eventually be written down, recorded, and sent over to some machine learning algo. So while we may feel safe, temporarily, as expert system apps grow, our services will be rendered obsolete.

I'd spoken to a C level exec about audit automation, he himself being an experienced CPA with executive B-school (plus NYU law graduate) and even he concurred that up to 80%+ of audit jobs could be eliminated in time, if Watson or next gen "Google Brain" lives up to its potential as a correlation/causation type of service bureau. And yes, it'll be very disruptive to an entire generation of folks, studying to want to take the CPA exam in 20 years, as there probably won't be many jobs for them, since the ppl who'll survive the automation carnage, would be the most experience ppl in the field.

One pig in the python will be voice recognition (VR).

Either VR is asymptotically improving towards 100% recognition, or it's asymptotically improving towards 89% recognition. There's a reason video captioners, court reporters, and CART transcribers earn a good living: real-time VR is still a joke.

Turning the sound of the human voice into words, consistently and reliably, by computer, is extremely difficult.

Strategist says

I know. I have nothing but the highest respect for scientists.

Thank you and keep up the good work. We need you.

You might think you’re just a gear in the machine, but that’s not true. Gears are delicate, important, and expensive to replace.

Perfect For:

*Machinists with quirky senses of humor
*Workers who have nothing to lose but their chains, their salaries, their health insurance, their ability to support their families, their self-worth, and their reason to go on living
*Disaffected college students

http://www.despair.com/worth.html

New Renter says

You might think you’re just a gear in the machine, but that’s not true. Gears are delicate, important, and expensive to replace.

I advocate the notion of being independently wealthy and/or putting everyone on welfare, starting with the scientists.

New Renter says

You might think you’re just a gear in the machine, but that’s not true. Gears are delicate, important, and expensive to replace.

One malfunctioning gear could bring down a space shuttle.

Strategist says

could bring down a space shuttle.

Seems like it's happened twice.

Rin says

Strategist says

could bring down a space shuttle.

Seems like it's happened twice.

Its happened each and every time. Every shuttle ever launched has come down in one form or another.

Gears got nothing on gravity!

BTW, a lot of ppl have finally told me that they can afford their kids.

When they were young, dumb, and full of c`m, they thought having a family would be fun and romantic. Now that none of my crowd is in their 20s anymore, there are very few idealistic folks left.

New Renter says

Rin says

they thought having a family would be fun and romantic. Now that none of my crowd is in their 20s anymore, there are very few idealistic folks left.

In your mid-30s, if you haven't had kids or bought a house to make you cynical, there's always the alternative of liquor, empty career climbing, bored world travel, and having only each other to stare at every night.

Occasionally, in the throes of ennui, we will do things like make up combinations of our dog's name and the word "burrito", or secretly delete each other's DVR shows while the other is off mixing a drink in the dining room. When we are ultimately replaced by robots, we will have even more time for these desperate peccadillos.

Philistine says

, if you haven't had kids or bought a house to make you cynical

Well, I'd bought a home w/o kids and it feels great. I've got gym equipment, books, and computing components, all over the place minus the dining & kitchen areas. None of those meddling toys and silly stuff, which kids leave all over the place.

Philistine says

alternative of liquor, empty career climbing, bored world travel, and having only each other to stare at every night.

One can drink periodically, study the applied sciences, go to some of the world's finest broth#ls, and engage one's true interests in life as well.

Philistine says

In your mid-30s, if you haven't had kids

Out of the people we know, about 65% of those who had kids had their quality of life decline. Those odds don't exactly inspire confidence.

dublin hillz says

Philistine says

In your mid-30s, if you haven't had kids

Out of the people we know, about 65% of those who had kids had their quality of life decline. Those odds don't exactly inspire confidence.

No doubt kids cost a lot of money and your finances will be negatively impacted, but having children is the greatest happiness ever. Sure we want to give those little brats away, and what do we do? have another one.
I would have gone for more then 2, but my wife booted me out of the bedroom.

Strategist says

dublin hillz says

Philistine says

In your mid-30s, if you haven't had kids

Out of the people we know, about 65% of those who had kids had their quality of life decline. Those odds don't exactly inspire confidence.

No doubt kids cost a lot of money and your finances will be negatively impacted, but having children is the greatest happiness ever. Sure we want to give those little brats away, and what do we do? have another one.

I would have gone for more then 2, but my wife booted me out of the bedroom.

One of my friends had asked me if I wanted to adopt his kids, so that he could go drink himself to death. Though it was intended to be a joke, I'm too certain anymore.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/here-s-where-all-those-middle-class-jobs-went-113102720.html

Excerpt: "it’s better to have a nonroutine job than a routine one. The more your job involves thinking, creativity, innovation and problem-solving, the better off you’re likely to be.

Women, it turns out, have adapted better to this workplace dichotomy than men. Men have been more likely to move from the middle of the skill ladder to the lower end, while women tend to move from the middle to the higher end. That’s probably because women have been earning a larger share of college and graduate degrees, with better education making them more adept at climbing the skill ladder. Men at risk of falling in the other direction might want to heed the example."

Again, I ask, what does education have to do with climbing a skill's ladder? Most ppl use less than 10% of what they learned in college.

Or perhaps its because women doninate HR, the gatekeepers to employment in most companies.

I'm also curious to know the truth about funding and resources available to either gender. While in graduate school my lab was mostly women. In my teaching labs I never thought wow, where are the women students. No, there was a good mix of both.

What I DID notice were several professional organizations exclusive to women or minorities. None just for men or non minorities. Women and minorities had access to more grants and scholarships than I did.

I had a good laugh when one of the women in my lab applied for a scholarship claiming minority status. She was half (white) american and half Persian (and 100% SMOKING hot).

Where did her Persian ancestry come from? The Caucasus mountains making her white caucasian.

And as we all know smoking hot white caucasian women have little chance in the professional world.

Rin says

Again, I ask, what does education have to do with climbing a skill's ladder? Most ppl use less than 10% of what they learned in college.

It's not strictly about what you learned in college, although sometimes it is (e.g. engineering/science). It's about the overall mindset. For many employers, college serves as a sorting tool -- those people who had the smarts, discipline, and motivation to do it often are a cut above those who didn't.

Are there non-college grads who make worthy employees? Of course there are. But when you get 500 resumes for a single job opening, you have to figure out how to streamline the process because you can't interview them all to figure out which non-college grads aren't dumbasses.

I think the flaw that article makes is that it might be that women who are more adept at climbing the skill ladder are likely to seek and have better education, rather than the other way around.

New Renter says

She was half (white) american and half Persian (and 100% SMOKING hot).

Where did her Persian ancestry come from? The Caucasus mountains making her white caucasian.

Not really the way it works. Persian = brown. Caucasian is used to refer to white people for some weird reason, even though it makes no sense -- it comes from some old German dude, if I remember correctly. In any case, why couldn't you be a black person who was born in the Caucasus mountains?

Some of our terminology doesn't make sense, like African American. People I know from the Caribbean can't really figure out that term. "What? I'm not African and I'm not American. Why would you call me African American?" Is a white American born in Zambia an "African American?"

Another idiotic German term is Aryan. Aryans are from India and Persia. They do not have blond hair. No idea how this came about other than Nazis are idiots.

corntrollio says

Not really the way it works. Persian = brown. Caucasian is used to refer to white people for some weird reason, even though it makes no sense

Not really, in America, near easterners are put in the white category including Persians, Turks, and Armenians. Thus, this woman is bluffing, as she can't say she's from the Sudan.

corntrollio says

I think the flaw that article makes is that it might be that women who are more adept at climbing the skill ladder are likely to seek and have better education, rather than the other way around.

I agree.

New Renter says

women doninate HR, the gatekeepers to employment in most companies.

Well, HR is the problem, to begin with.

corntrollio says

In any case, why couldn't you be a black person who was born in the Caucasus mountains?

Some European-South Africans did claim to be African-American, before they got strict about the rules.

Rin says

Not really, in America, near easterners are put in the white category including Persians, Turks, and Armenians. Thus, this woman is bluffing, as she can't say she's from the Sudan.

In some school districts subject to segregation orders, everyone except black people were considered "white" including Latinos, Arabs, Chinese, whatever. Just because certain orgs have different categorizations of who is "white" doesn't mean she couldn't have counted as a minority under the scope of the scholarship.

Rin says

Some European-South Africans did claim to be African-American, before they got strict about the rules.

What "rules"? The people offering the scholarship set the rules. If she didn't qualify, they would have figured it out.

corntrollio says

Rin says

Some European-South Africans did claim to be African-American, before they got strict about the rules.

What "rules"? The people offering the scholarship set the rules. If she didn't qualify, they would have figured it out.

When a South African (w/ US citizenship) applies for a scholarship, as an African-American, usually some photo has to follow.

When the committee sees a Anglo-Dutch guy, it's pretty obvious to them that they were geographically hoodwinked, since Apartheid insured that one of his parents wasn't black.

Rin says

corntrollio says

Rin says

Some European-South Africans did claim to be African-American, before they got strict about the rules.

What "rules"? The people offering the scholarship set the rules. If she didn't qualify, they would have figured it out.

When a South African (w/ US citizenship) applies for a scholarship, as an African-American, usually some photo has to follow.

When the committee sees a Anglo-Dutch guy, it's pretty obvious to them that they were geographically hoodwinked, since Apartheid insured that one of his parents wasn't black.

Well even Strom Thurmond broke that rule. Its a safe bet there are plenty of mixed race south africans out there.

Actually, given how this thread is turning into another affirmative action type of thing, it gives even more credence to the idea that even more ppl will be let go, as meeting demographic targets has nothing to do with the bottomline, outside of let's say having an international sales staff, who tends to clients globally.

Rin says

Actually, given how this thread is turning into another affirmative action type of thing

At least from my standpoint, I wasn't talking about affirmative action -- I was talking about terminology and also pointing out that different orgs have different definitions.

Generally speaking, affirmative action doesn't really help fix the problem -- it's just a cheap way to mask it. What would really fix the problem is more investment into poor minority communities' education and things like that, but we probably don't have the political will to do that because politicians are lazy and don't think long-term, and a lot of "those people" don't vote.

It's pretty clear that affirmative action isn't enough when poor white and Asian kids (under $30K household income) have better MCAT scores than upper-middle black kids (over $80K household income), as the AAMC mentioned in its amicus brief in the Grutter case. There's some other problem there.

In addition, even if we're to accept the slavery explanation for why blacks get affirmative action, affirmative action doesn't really explain why we treat Latinos and Asians differently.

corntrollio says

PolishKnight says

This kind of attention to inane detail reminds me of my dealing with security auditors.

Nice attempt to detract from your made-up anecdote, but okay -- I'm more than fine with having attention to detail.

I'll name names in my "made up" anecdote and you can say that these are fictional too. Here goes:

The company was Freddie Mac and the modem was in place to receive the orders and go through JCL to the IBM mainframe. I don't know which series the mainframe was. I did see the modem though and it was running with link lights present and that's what the guy who ported that application to TCP/IP told me. He wrote a wrapper to take orders from a connection stream and send it to the order module that was running on JCL and also COBOL. The modem has now been decommissioned.

The project to convert the mainframe/JCL/COBOL applications was called Advantage (you can google this on linked in) and supposed to cost about 30 million (that's the number I heard). TCS/TATA was the agency. After 10 million, the code generated by TATA was bad so they cancelled but didn't get the money back. The mainframe was then outsourced to CGI Federal.

But I made that all up. OK.

PolishKnight says

The modem has now been decommissioned.

You didn't even say what year this was for one thing, and second, you didn't really explain why it was unique.

Just as an example, it wasn't that long ago that banks were still sending ACH transactions via uploading a text file via FTP. They might still be doing so, in fact. Any attempt to change the status quo here would necessarily be a large infrastructure project.

Pretending that outdated, but simple, systems that work are limited to government is silly. Pretending that large infrastructure projects to replace legacy systems are limited to government is also silly. Pretending that some of these infrastructure projects running into problems and cost overruns is limited to government is silly too. All of these things occur among many large institutions with legacy systems. In fact, the whole Y2K thing was premised on exactly this.

You gave this anecdote as evidence for a cheap political point, when in reality, this kind of stuff happens everywhere all the time, private and public sector. I wasn't really intending to point this out, because most of the posts on this thread have turned into drivel, but you kept badgering me about a line that was originally meant to be a joke and was never originally intended to be critical of your argument. :)