Monday, January 12, 2009

The communications revolution

As some of you know, I'm out of commission at the moment, rather immobilized by a torn leg muscle. In the old days, I really *would* have been out of commission, unable to work or do anything meaningful until I healed. Nowdays... well. I spent much of the day doing code and design reviews of some massive lumps of code that came over the transom, as well as doing some work on the design of a new subsystem for our product. I used the VPN into the office bug tracking system to assign defects to programmers and set priorities and add comments regarding how I want things done. I just got off the line with one of my teams in China, we teleconferenced about their current projects, our medium-range goals for the product they're working on, and what I want to see done over the next two weeks before they head off for their Chinese New Years vacation. And of course I browsed the Internets.

Point being, instantaneous communications make all sorts of things possible. Yet for most of us, we aren't taking advantage of this. We still burn petrofuels every day to go into an office to do work that could be done via teleconference and VPN. It's baffling... and so 20th century. So, when will the workplace join the 21st century? Curious penguins want to know!

-- Badtux the Gimpy Penguin

9 comments:

  1. Baffled bears respond:
    Huh?
    And they still are less correct.
    --ml

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yea , Go 21st Century !
    Growing up with Star Trek and Star Wars has forever changed my view of Technology . From Mono Vinal Records to digital I-Pods in my lifetime . Hard wired to wireless , film to digital , instant transmission of everything but matter itself , and I hear they are working on that too !
    Pizza teleported to my door !!!!!
    " What a world , what a world "
    an amazed but aged ,
    w3ski

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sitting in a chair, or on a bed with a laptop all the time is going to kill you anyway.

    Geeks simply do not live as long as active people. Even though it may seen like I'm on a computer a lot I'm also outside being active a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Computers, the next evil.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Get well, Badtux. I feel your pain.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The commute is so they won't have to live next to "urban" people. And have the lawn, cleaning, and children taken care of by illegal immigrants. It's just so...working-class to do your own work.

    Mold

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm holding on for that wearable computer with the two foot by three foot (in perspective on your lens )and the wireless broadband.
    Or the earlobe and mastoid bone injected personal communicator.
    With the upgrade being a video link to the display unit that acts as a weight on your contact lens...
    I'd even settle for a robotic penguin.. ;))

    ReplyDelete
  8. I could do my job from home as well, but they want us to bound as a "team."

    Because I'm such a people person.

    ReplyDelete
  9. like lab kat, i could do most of my stuff from home too, but it's even worse where i work: some of the people really do have to be there in person, and at assigned hours too, so the rest of us have to do the same or there will be whiiiiiniiiiing.

    ReplyDelete

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