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I worked briefly for a company that does on-line surveys and, I found out after a while, "legal" spyware to track supplicants on-line activity. They agreed to have this keyboard tracker installed and then got entered for raffles to win TVs and Cars, etc. We gave away a car every week so for some of them it was probably worth it! 
My part was to finish off work on a bio-metric recognition system that analysed the speed and time of keystrokes to recognise one user from another (on the same machine, so different family members essentially). My boss, who wrote the initial code was proud that it provided up to 98% accuracy at telling who was whom. My task was to write code to identify who was whom and assign names to their keystroke signatures. This proved fairly tricky but I came up with a fuzzy logic algorithm and then, using a form of time travel (looking at the logs), assigned the ids to past interactions and activities. 
However, I calculated that my boss's confident 98% was more like 28% and one of our clients demanded a minimum of 30%. I brought this up in a "report to the big bosses" status meeting and the world exploded. My boss demanded I be suspended while another team checked my results for the error I had "clearly" made while using his perfect code. 
The big bosses just had me re-assigned temporarily to another project that needed my help and brought in that other team to find the error. They found the error, as I had. It was firmly in my boss's code, he'd overlooked some obvious scenarios and had filtered his tests to agree with his predictions. He got moved to "Special Projects" and I was asked to fix and continue his work. I quit.  The best decision...
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I had one contract where my boss got so upset with me over something like that he had me escorted off the premises.
Most abrupt firing I ever had, but I was glad to go.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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honey the codewitch wrote: he had me escorted off the premises
Glad I'm not the only one! 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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me too. I was hesitant to even admit it. Not really my fault maybe, but also not my best moment.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Forogar wrote: My boss demanded I be suspended while another team checked my results for the error I had "clearly" made while using his perfect code
How good or wrong was his code?
If he had said "Nice find Forogar, let's look at my code together to see if we can find out what's wrong" would you be singing his praise now?
Forogar wrote: a form of time travel (looking at the logs)
You should be working in marketing! 
"Using AI and a time travel algorithm, we were able to [whatever...]"
Stocks go through the roof!
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Quote: would you be singing his praise now
Possibly, but then that would have been because he would have been a different kind of person.
I quit that job anyway because I felt dirty just making things work. I enjoyed working on the fuzzy logic stuff I wrote - that bit worked great - and I could probably have improved his algorithm to beat 30% easily enough, I just didn't want to.
They had a weird system in that all job titles were "managers", I was a "Senior Software Development Manager" - but I only had an intern reporting to me.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Where I work is exactly the opposite. They go to great lengths to avoid using the term manager. It is only used for the manager of a mill or other installation. People are called supervisors or similar terms but not a manager.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Companies get very weird with titles...
I worked at a place with five employees and three owners/managers.
We had one "executive assistant" who did groceries, picked up the phone, made appointments, that sort of stuff.
She was very happy for two years and then management decided to change her title to "secretary" because they felt that was more appropriate for what she did.
I remember her crying because she felt like she got demoted, while that absolutely wasn't the case according to management.
Her salary wasn't even affected (you can't put someone back in salary unless you have a very good reason, which they obviously hadn't).
You kind of could've seen it coming that someone prefers "executive assistant" over "secretary" and since we had no one in the company with a similar role why not just leave it at that? 
Another company I worked at also had something like what you're saying.
You were a project engineer until you got the lead in a project, then you became project manager.
Getting the lead in a project didn't mean much, sometimes these people were soloing these projects.
The actual team leads were sr. project managers.
There was one technology manager who was supposed to research new technology and share it with the company (which he didn't).
Every team had two or three "managers".
With that, at least 10 people of a 30 people company were some kind of manager
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Don't want to turn it into a soapbox but here's a nice video about the china Uighur detention centers vocational training camps: China’s Uighurs Vocatioal Training - YouTube[^]
this guy's stuff is quite good and deserves to get out (which is why I feel it deserves to be posted)
... youtube & google both, trying to be china friendly usually, screen his video's out of most search results unless really explicit in your search words.
(please don't reply, wrong forum)
Message Signature
(Click to edit ->)
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Meh....I've worked at payday loan companies, state execution tracking firms, mink farms, "Microsoft Support" call centres. As long as it pays I'll do it, my job is to write code not to moralise.
Had one firm contact me to write some VB.net though and I said "NEVER!"
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: "Microsoft Support" call centres
Now that, I would never admit to.
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I haven't really done any of those jobs 
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...just played piano in a brothel, then?
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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One has to have standards, such as they are.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I understand the position, but my heart is b*tch and it makes me pay when I betray it.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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image recognition software
Came into this thread half-expecting it to be about some "hotdog / not hotdog" thing (think HBO's Silicon Valley)...was a little disappointed...
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I really enjoy that show. I have spent lots of time there so much of the show seems quite accurate to me, although somewhat understated.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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 I worked at a large bank, some of the things we wrote make the China mega pixel camera look benign.
When you don't understand the wider implications of a social engineering project then it can be rather confronting when you see the consequences.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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They fell in love and got married.
The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was brilliant!
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What were you doing on the roof? More survival training?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Scanning the area for sharks
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Sorry. I forgot that you have to climb on your roof to get your head above sea level. If this were the soapbox, I could even tell you that you may get problems when the sea level rises for some reasons. Not that it has not always been changing every six hours anyway.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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If this were the Soapbox, I could tell you in the 1400's it was warmer and the sea level was higher than it is now.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Careful, gentlemen ... the hamsters see all!
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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It was only hypertheticals.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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