Re: Eyes In The Sky

On Mon, 08 May 2006 13:49:34 +1000, Terry Collins
<newsonespam-spam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

LiRM wrote:
On Sat, 06 May 2006 09:49:42 -0700, Winston Smith
<bogus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


http://scottsdaletimes.com/may06-feature2.asp
Eyes In The Sky

For the right price, Ian Erickson could probably fetch a photo of
where you were on the last day you called in sick to work and e-mail
it to your boss.



Interesting article. While price may be the prohibitive factor right
now, my guess is that inside of 5 to 7 years, the technology cited,
plus others already in existence (lojack type personal devices, etc.)
and yet others on the horizon will make this doable all from a home PC
for little to no cost.

Define home PC?

Home PC. You know - basic plain vanilla. Something your neighbor,
mom or non technical friend would use.

I had software from ESRI (BIG GIS Co.) running on my home deadbeat PC
about 20 years ago.

All you need now is a remote control helicopter able to carry a digital
camera and fly away. Go high enough and/or take enough photos and the
right development and treatment (georeferencing) and you are away with
your own local google earth,

Probably cheaper to find a local company that photo-runs your
neighbourhood each year.

While I must say I like the idea of robotic helicopters armed with
cams (and for some applications, sidewinder missiles), we were talking
about cost and this cost eventually dropping to the point where this
could be done with a simple home PC. Your idea about companies
cropping up that offer this type of surveillance at a reasonable cost
may be within the realm of this 5 to 7 year period, so I think we are
on the same page basically - it just depends on what technology
evolves - like everything else - that gives the most bang for the
buck.


And think about this. You call in sick. Your company is paying you
for that sick day, so as far as they may be concerned, you're still on
company time.

Key loggers do this, except the sort of employee that can work for home
usually isn't employed to puch a keyboard and the wise employer that
pays for keyboard punching usually pays contract/piece work and doesn't
give a fsck when you do it, so long as it is done on time.

This is a good point - the one you make about what types of work will
be done and by whom and by when.

Keyloggers - forget it. As I mentioned, a company may want to keep
tabs on who they are paying that claim being sick as to why they
aren't at work and use technology to verify this, but giving the
company one works for access to install a keylogger? That's
absolutely comical and anyone who would allow such a thing - if I was
manager - would be fired on the spot for simply being a moron.


The rest of the ideas are just power wankers.

Pardon?


I spent 20 yeas helping people work from home and generally is was aimed
at getting management home with their family of an evening, rather than
sitting in the office. Very few few decent CEO/etc failed to see the
wisdom of this approach. And yes,they'd work on their sick days too.

I guess part of it boils down to trust. I've done a good percentage
of work from home as opposed to having to go onsite for a couple of
reasons:

1. From my standpoint, it's obviously much more convenient. That
isn't going to sell the client on the idea, but what will is:

a) since I charged for travel time, they saved that cost.

b) in many cases, I'd have the problem solved via a remote login in
well under the time it would have taken me to get showered and drive
there. They liked that.

c) as you mentioned above, in some cases the job didn't require being
onsite to do. Simple example: doing a data conversion to port data
from one app to another. Provided the client trusted me, they didn't
care where it gone done as long as it got done. And again - not
having to go onsite worked out great for me as I could do the work in
my skivvies - had access to all my tools on my own machine - could
test the results without bothering anyone to use their workstation,
therefore it worked out best for everyone. Bottom line: faster and
less expensive.

Trust, of course, was key. I'm talking in these cases clients who had
been clients for years and would trust me with their most critical
data.

Of course, in other cases, working with certain types of data and for
certain types of clients, security precluded doing any of this.

You're point about the wisdom of a CEO to value this approach is well
taken and valid. The brighter of the bunch viewed it as the best
thing since sliced bread, which it was (is) provided security and
other conditions are met.
.

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