Stumbles of many Thoughts

"We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of..."

Mon, 28 May 2012 18:55:13 +0300

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

- John Keating, Dead Poets Society (via senshuk)

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."

Fri, 25 May 2012 21:49:27 +0300

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Things To Remember

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:22:56 +0300

Things To Remember

"Writing appears more forgiving because there is no compiler or interpreter catching your its and..."

Wed, 16 May 2012 22:14:38 +0300

“Writing appears more forgiving because there is no compiler or interpreter catching your its and it’s issues or reminding you of the rules regarding that or which. Here’s the rub: there is a compiler and it’s fucking brutal. It’s your readers. Your readers are far more critical than the Python interpreter. Not only do they care about syntax, but they also want to learn something, and, perhaps, be entertained while all this learning is going down. Success means they keep coming back - failure is a lonely silence. Python is looking pretty sweet now, right?”

- Rands In Repose: Please Learn to Write (via deplorableword)

Finely, I have completed the entire Stargate series marathon and...

Tue, 15 May 2012 04:17:16 +0300

Finely, I have completed the entire Stargate series marathon and not for the first time although this was my first re-watch of Stargate Universe.

Gauntlet the last episode of Stargate Universe was as good as one could have hoped for. Even though it was never meant to be the series finale, it did that job beautifully.

But there is no denying the bitter aftertaste left by the cancellation of the series now over a year ago, of never knowing what might have been, of what destiny awaited them.

It is just a damn shame.

"XML is like violence - if it doesn’t solve your problems, you are not using enough of it."

Sat, 05 May 2012 21:23:21 +0300

“XML is like violence - if it doesn’t solve your problems, you are not using enough of it.”

- Unknown

Stop it or I’ll shoot your Ba’alls.

Thu, 03 May 2012 21:34:37 +0300

Stop it or I’ll shoot your Ba’alls.

"I’m not just interested in outer space; I’m from outer space."

Thu, 03 May 2012 12:51:54 +0300

“I’m not just interested in outer space; I’m from outer space.”

- Martin Lloyd

"The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can’t know. He can’t know whether..."

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:37:40 +0300

“The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can’t know. He can’t know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can’t know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn’t got and which if he had it, would save him.”

- Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men

The best “A” team in the universe.

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:32:46 +0300

The best “A” team in the universe.

How much more out can you get?

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:24:53 +0300

Dr. McKay: You really need to get out more.
Dr. Beckett: We're in another galaxy. How much more out can you get?

Gotta love Carson...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:23:38 +0300

Dr. Weir: I'm sorry to put you in this position, but you are the only person besides Col. Sheppard and Gen. O'Neill who's actually fired a drone from that Chair.
Dr. Beckett: Ironically, they're the two people I nearly killed when I did that.

"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:26:31 +0300

“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”

- Edsger Dijkstra

"If i’m going to spend my life helping to make a company successful, then the company should..."

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:23:04 +0300

“If i’m going to spend my life helping to make a company successful, then the company should help make me happy.”

- Tom Preston, Github

The Beer Game -or- Why Apple Can't Build iPads in the US

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 11:23:15 +0300

marksweep:

When President Obama asked Steve Jobs what it would take to make iPhones in the United States, the late Apple co-founder supposedly quipped: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

When I read this, it reminded me of something my dad presented to us as kids a long time ago- The Beer Game.

My dad was really into management theory and would often use my friends and I as experimental guinea pigs. I distinctly remember sitting down with three of my friends before a large sheet of butcher paper.

The Beer Game

On the sheet, my dad had drawn four large boxes labelled like so:

The rules were simple:

This is the Beer Game. Beer is ordered by the customer at the retailer (he passed a slip of paper with a number on it to my friend sitting in front of the retailer slot). The retailer orders from the wholesaler, by passing him a paper slip with an order number on it. The wholesaler orders from the distributor and the distributor orders from the producer.

The goal of the game is to maximize profit. You make money for orders fulfilled. You lose money for keeping inventory and for unfulfilled backorders. Once you get orders, there is a four week delay as the paperwork is processed, the beer is picked, it goes onto a pallet, then goes onto a truck and finally gets delivered.

Oh and one more rule: no communicating between parties - your only communication was through order slips.

We used pennies for inventory and wrote on the sheet when we needed to track inventory cost and backorders cost.

It all started out well, my dad fed an order slip to the retailer who passed his orders to the wholesaler (me), who passed his orders to the distributor and right on down to the producer.

Things Fall Apart

However, right around week 4 things started to go horribly wrong. Suddenly, I was running significant backorders because people were drinking more and more beer. The retailer sent an order that put me into a backlog as demand for beer skyrocketed. I decided the smart thing to do would be to get ahead of increasing demand and put a big order into my distributor.

Things steadily got worse. As week 6 rolled around, demand had exploded! Everyone was drinking tons of beer and I was losing money hand over fist because of backordered beer. My distributor was letting me down and despite the rule against talking, I looked over to my friend and said “Come on man!”. He looked back at me also exasperated and said “It’s not my fault!”

Finally around week 14, I get ahead of the curve and drew down that massive backlog. I had raised my downstream orders to account for future increase in demand and then my retailer friend handed me the next slip of orders.

0. Zero orders.

What? Week after week he sends me 0 orders. Suddenly, I’m building the mother of all inventories and have to put in 0 orders to my distributor. Now it’s his turn to look at me and say “What the hell?” I can only shrug in return.

At the end of the game, my dad asks the me (wholesaler), the distributor and the producer what we thought happened. We agree that it must have looked like this.

He then tells the retailer to reveal what really happened.

WTF.

In the end, we had lost hundreds of dollars in backorders and excess inventory and were cursing out our upstream or downstream vendors for being idiots. We thought demand had spiked wildly and then dropped off but it was pretty steady. Our individual decisions in the supply chain had lead to systemic failure.

Why Apple Is In China

The lessons of the Beer Game are pretty evident. Delay in the supply chain causes amplified downstream problems. The problem wasn’t that we were kids running beer supply, the problem was the structure of the chain itself. Small changes at the front end lead to massive mistakes down the line.

In the NY Times’ excellent series on Apple’s iEconomy, Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher write an article title “How the U.S. Lost out iPhone Work”.

“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”

Imagine if Apple built a Foxconn-style final assembly plant in California. They could literally be screwed waiting for new screws to come via cargo ship across the ocean. Beer Game all over again.

The Bullwhip Effect

Because of the bullwhip effect illustrated by the game, Apple needs to have factories in China because the supply chain is there. We learned in the Beer Game that minute changes have massive ripple effects along the supply chain.

The U.S. has lost that industrial base and it’s extremely difficult to get it back. It’s not about unions, jobs Americans don’t want - it’s about delay.

That’s why, with apologies to my libertarian friends (and Mitt Romney), Obama was right in bailing out the auto industry when GM and Chrysler were going bankrupt. Because it wasn’t just GM and Chrysler that were going to fail, it was an entire ripple-effect of suppliers, tool manufacturers, raw material suppliers, trucking companies and dealers that were going to go away.

Dash of Hope

It’s not hopeless of course. But once lost, an industrial chain is incredibly hard to reclaim. @anildash, once tweeted “Apple could invest part of its $100B in building U.S. factories.”

It might cost a lot more than that, but it can be done.

comments, flames, thought? - @marksweep

Winding down. #gsaudiarabia

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:47:00 +0300

Winding down. #gsaudiarabia

It’s just about to start now. #gsaudiarabia

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:30:00 +0300

It’s just about to start now. #gsaudiarabia

Waiting for #gsaudiarabia to began.

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 09:05:00 +0300

Waiting for #gsaudiarabia to began.

"I do things like get in a taxi and say, “The library, and step on it."

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:07:48 +0300

“I do things like get in a taxi and say, “The library, and step on it.””

- David Foster Wallace

As much as I don’t like Apple’s policies on some things, I have finally taken the plunge...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:14:00 +0300

As much as I don’t like Apple’s policies on some things, I have finally taken the plunge and bought a white 64GB iPhone 4S today. Frankly it did feel just a bit dirty buying it but what can you do. If a good chunk of your user base is using it then you have to use it as well, especially if you intend to develop Apps for it, there is no escaping that. Plus I try to be open minded about everything, so it’s only fair that I treat it just like any other piece of tech.