Amazingly this article, written by Windows apologist, Microsoft advocate and anti-Apple blatherer Paul Thurrott, proves that even a broken clock is right twice a day! ;^)>
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Pinging you to this thread... similar to the one you pinged me to this morning. This is by Paul Thurrott... and says it MUCH better than that one this morning. I think you might enjoy it... and ping your people here too. Paul Thurrott nails it!
Most airlines generate pilot and flight attendant schedules on a monthly basis. For decades, my wife and I competed on the basis of company seniority for the next month’s “lines of flying” with 80-100 other pilots.
In the “good old days”, this process was done manually (3 x 5 cards, cutting the lines into strips, etc.), and could easily take 6-8 hours to complete, not counting the 5 AM trip to the airport on the day the bids closed. (My wife and I bid to have all our days off together.)
A talented young copilot (he and his wife were software engineers) created a program to do this. It took him over 6 months of constant work to get it debugged and running.
What a great deal - It cost us $100 and ran on my IBM 386. After that, every month, we simply downloaded the company schedules. Then, after we inserted the parameters we wanted, his program gave us the answers - the entire process took less than 20 minutes.
After a year of struggle, and over $20,000 invested, he broke even. He was sued by a do-nothing sharpshooter - the lawyers said “He thought of this first; that means you stole it from him.” The battle raged over the next three years; the end result: Although he finally “won” his case, he lost over $40,000 in legal fees. The slimebag paid nothing - his lawyer had taken the case on a contingency basis. Because of continuing legal threats, the project was finally abandoned. Sad.
If I didn't want to be reachable by my wife, the phone would stay on the counter even when I left the house. I have trouble understanding why people feel the need to be connected and integrated 24/7.
