We started this blog looking at engineering and its output which are products. That was a long while ago, namely 31 August 2007. That first month had only two posts. The other one was a 'seed' post with a list of topics. We will not go into the motivation, but an event that occurred on 07/08/07, with wide press coverage, was of precipitating influence. The tone of the blog dealt with the reality behind engineering and with the importance of that view, say, versus marketing.
Guess what happened? The engineers took over so the problems were righted in the one arena. On the other hand, Silicon Valley began to take a marketing focus. As in? Zuck's later testimony, smirking, to Congress where he said, we sell ads. I about puked, quite frankly. An enabler was Jobs' showing the world the possibilities of a mobile platform. From that, we got to where zombies went around with their noses tethered. To what? One ought to ask. We see more discussion now. In fact, we see less of those with a hand held high as if signaling some virtue by the mere fact of having the thing.
Myself? Have none (as in, nada). Never took a selfie. Claim myself to be 1G/2G and impervious to whatever is the addiction that afflicts computing. In fact, still looking to bring truth engineering to the table.
Incidentally, it was in 2007 that the financial industry looked to be more errant than was that of the industry of the original focus. Yes, we all suffered. This from December of 2007: Tranche or not. Remember, this was early. Cracks were being seen. I first noticed after I started to pay attention after retiring in 2005. By 2007, it was obviously going to be more than Ben knew. Lots happened there.
Oh yes, a saying was around and about in the early 2000. With regard to a particular program, it was this: this is not your father's plane. Today, President Trump grounded a fleet. Again, it's modern. What went wrong? I have heard lots of discussions. But, one thing has been on my mind the past decade and one-half, constantly. And, due to the appearances of everything being right, and we know that they are not, I never really took a deeper look. Ought I?
A billionaire is noted to be exploitative in this sense. Vendors are pushed to cut. They are expected to eat costs. This is so the higher-order capitalists (we'll describe those cats) can get a larger payout. There have been so many cases of this, some I have mentioned - leveraged buyouts, for example. Some of these cases were seen up close.
There was scuttlebutt of late (few months duration) that some vendors were saying, we cannot perform at that rate. In one ear and out the other, while observing one contractor just gleefully celebrating their good fortune. Yet, they complained, too. And, bragged on how they could ramp up.
Facebook has been down today. That outage might twist the drawers of the advertisers. In the context of this blog's original focus? Very dire, the consequences. Hence, Trump's grounding.
Computing is a mess due to factors that we can identify and discuss. This thing will be resolved, too, as engineers do that sort of thing. But, the underlying issue? Yes, we just might look further, in our own time. This is merely a milestone being put out there as a marker for future reference.
Remarks: Modified: 03/13/2019
03/13/2019 --
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