Thursday April 12, 2007
About Trust and Trsuting
Did you ever have the feeling that you
are being ripped off as it was actually happening? Yet you
played along since there appeared to be no choices? Here is how it
played out.
I landed in Moscow on Tuesday evening,
with plenty of time to make my connection to St. Petersburg. As I got out of the
overcrowded Immigration area, and collected my beat-up trolley, I
went to look up the domestic airline with which I was supposed to
continue my trip. Looking at my airline tickets, I suddenly realized that I have
no clue what the “FV” part of flight FV160 stood for. I asked around, and this was when I got
the first impression that I am taking part in a well rehearsed show.
A distinguished looking guy was standing there, wearing a seemingly
official badge. He took a short look at my airline ticket and
immediately said that I needed to go to the other terminal, which is
15 kilometers away. As I felt something was a little off, I said I
was going to look for an information booth first. He followed. The
lady at the booth confirmed what he said and recommended to me that
he was the person who could help me. I don't think they were strangers to each other.
I followed him out, and I asked for the
price. 2000 Rubles, he said – about $75.00. I didn't feel like I
had a choice, and I did have a plane to catch, so I agreed. Out of
nowhere showed up another guy in an old broken down Lada, took my suitcase, and
we drove away. In about ten minutes we were at the other terminal,
and unless he was driving a space shuttle, I doubt it was 15
kilometers... I got on the flight without a problem. By the way, I
still have no clue what "FV" stands for. I actually flew from Moscow
to St. Petersburg on an airline whose name I don't know...
Lesson: indeed, Moscow has a few airports. Air China comes in at one of them, but the domestic flight to St. Petersburg departs from anbother. Also: people who wear badges are not
necessarily officials, nor are they guaranteed to be the good guys.
A day later, I headed to the hotel from
the convention center. I stopped a taxi and asked to go to the
hotel. The driver said OK. I asked how much, and he said 800 Rubles I agreed and closed the door. The driver got out of the car,
took off the little yellow thing from the roof which states “Taxi”,
and shoved it in the trunk. Slammed the trunk and got back in. We
drove off. I realized that this was not an official taxi, that I
have been conned again.
Lesson: little things are used to
establish credentials and credibility. Assumptions are made based on very little
information. It is almost ridiculous, how many assumptions we make
based on next to nothing.
But thinking about it, this is what
society means. Uniforms, badges, airport booths, all establish
credibility and credentials for people who are supposed to be
helpful, that potentially represent authority and the authorities. I
will continue to allow myself to get fooled by these small tokens of
credential building blocks. The alternative is inconceivable.
Think about it for a second: how much
trust are you giving to people you don't even know? When you drive
your car, you trust the people who are driving next to you to respect
the driving laws. When you drive through an intersection, you assume
that the other guys are going to respect the red light, and stay
clear. When you go to the store, you trust that while people want to
make a living, they are not out to get you. You trust that the airline
pilots aren't drinking, and that the technicians really check the
airplane before you take off.
So, despite of the two clowns who
betrayed my trust, I will continue to trust people, at least until they
prove not to be trustworthy. Fool me once - shame on you. Fool me
twice - shame on me.
Posted at 05:33PM Apr 12, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[1]
Sun Tech Days - St. Petersburg, Day One. GAAP, PPP, and the Big Mac Index...
I hope that my Sun colleagues will
forgive me for the following paragraph. I have worked for a very large
competitor in
different positions for almost nine years. I worked for a
development organization which was geographically located within a
research facility. I later on managed this development organization.
Part of my job was to find ways in which the Research part and the
Development part could collaborate. Over the course of the nine years,
I
have witnessed an incredible amount of ideas: project ideas,
innovative ideas, leading edge technology ideas, disruptive technology
ideas.
More than I can remember. Many of these ideas either
failed to become products or were abandoned due to lack of investment.
But
certainly, there was a lot of ideas, and even more idea talk.
This morning it dawned on me. As I was
sitting through the keynote presentation at the St. Petersburg
Russia, Sun Tech Days. Jeff Jackson, Senior VP for Solaris spoke of
the many features of Solaris, for the enterprise, for developers, for
cellular phones and for big servers. Suddenly I realized that at Sun,
these ideas are not just ideas. They end up in product. In many
cases, they are
incorporated in the various OpenSource projects that Sun is involved
in. It is free, you can download it, use it, change it, enhance it,
make a contribution, deploy it.
Solaris is a fascinating OS. It is very
rewarding to be part of its development. Jeff was comparing the
evolution of Solaris to that of insects and
elephants. While insects evolve during the course of minutes,
elephants evolve over the course of hundreds of years. Solaris is an
operating system which evolves slowly and carefully for the
enterprise, and quickly for the users and the developers.
Over the course of the day here, I have
listened to various presentations, given by Sun's top engineers and
executives. The richness of the offering is truly incredible. From
development tools to performance metrics and measurements. From
training to support. From product to services. From hardware to
software. Much of it is given away for free, with the encouragement to
explore, to use, to deploy, to contribute. Naturally, as Sun is a
business, payment is involved. But face it, where do you get top
product for free trial at the enterprise level? Where else do you get
the seven years backward compatibility guarantee? In short: nowhere.
Solaris is it. Solaris is Unix.
Every time I attend the Sun Tech Days, I
see this video, and this video, and the music and the subtitles - they
all get me even more excited about my work. It is truly cool. I kept
asking myself why in the world this excellent video doesn't make it to
TV as commercial advertisement. I am not sure what the answer is, but
for those of you who are intrigued by the description, I looked it up
and found it on YouTube (naturally). Here it is:
Sun Vision Video. Watch it, it is great.
Posted at 12:48AM Apr 12, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal | Comments[0]
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