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RE: Using The Principle of Least Power As A Razor

• To: 'Rick Jelliffe' <rjelliffe@a...>, XML Developers List <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Using The Principle of Least Power As A Razor
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
• Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 08:33:08 -0600

True.  On the other hand, from the procurement perspective, 
these principles or rules have a way of showing up in 
discussions where the speakers have agendas and without 
some actual substance, are just noise.  I am searching 
for signal.  If the principle is mushy, let's be sure 
to be able to show that by example, same for precision.

Think about the times one hears the term 
'tipping point' when execs are discussing strategy 
these days.  How many of them actually know what an 
ogee is, or an angle of repose, or a positive feedback 
control?  They believe it means 'we lock in our markets' 
by saying yes to everything and taking the difference 
in price out of the pockets of the employees through 
smaller raises, fewer benefits, no cash incentives, 
moving all the jobs but theirs to lower cost countries, etc.,
without trying to understand that it isn't possible 
to lock some markets (commoditization isn't possible 
or likely) and they won't make the investments required 
to change that.  You hear this one in the same breath 
as 'we work for our stockholders' which is a crock on 
the face of it.  No one does that.  

So it translates to "the beating of the employees to work 
longer for less will recommence shortly".

Sad thing about the phrase "tipping point" is that it was 
invented to describe 'white flight' from integrated 
neighborhoods, not epidemiology as Gladwell sold it 
in 2000 although it was adapted for that later.

I hate to see web architectural principles in the same 
light as pop psychology.  So if there really is a 
deeper and clarifying principle here, one wants to be 
able to express it in simple terms that the marketing 
department can't screw up.

len


From: Rick Jelliffe [mailto:rjelliffe@a...]

Narrator: And then there were my father and mother. Two people who could 
find an argument in any subject.
Father: Wait a minute. Are you telling me you think the Atlantic is a 
greater ocean than the Pacific?
Mother: No, have it your way. The Pacific is greater.
Narrator: I mean, how many people fight over oceans?

    http://torp.priv.no/woody/films/radio.html

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  • Re: Using The Principle of Least Power As A Razor
    • From: Peter Hunsberger <peter.hunsberger@g...>

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