RATIONALE:

There is just something about that word: either "Rational or Rationale" that just doesn't seem to make any sense whatsoever in our country.

At times the raw fundamentals of reasoning, even logic are so far disjointed that it's no wonder why brilliant minds collide!

Here are a few machinations of our society that one has a difficult time trying to validate:

In my example of yesterday's post regarding Texas one must always be mindful of innuendo. You see the State of Texas waited patiently for the ruling to come down from the Supreme Court before solidifying the dates and individuals to be executed. The hidden messages are those of international courts and powers of position or departments, in short, they knew the law.

What on earth is up with these Sanctuary Cities? How can anyone expect that a proper wall will ever ensure border security when we have some people-entire metropolitan cities-harboring illegals? Now just for the sake of exercise: rather than these illegal immigrants be Mexican, Hispanic, or Latinos, let's say the illegal aliens are from Iran, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia?

Would these same cities be offering the asylum to the latter? Hmm, better think twice now insofar as the latest in a long line of idiosyncrasies is the notion of "Honor Murders." Oh please! What part of assimilation did I miss here? And there are cities and far left-wing activist groups who just look the other way? Oh please!

Where is the logic in this example: "The N-Word"? Supposedly this word is so bad we have to abbreviate it. This word is so bad that many have tasted soap for saying it. Yet the very faction of society that demands that no one can use it except them are the very people who made such a stink getting rid of it. Go figure.

And in finale, I would like to mention racism. I do not believe that any two or more people in this country are going to be able to come to a respectful agreement. Why is it that certain factions of society who call themselves "La Raza,"-The Race, has its origins in early 20th century Latin American literature and translates into English most closely as "the people," or, according to some scholars, "the Hispanic people of the New World."    

Some people have mistranslated "La Raza" to mean "The Race," implying that it is a term meant to exclude others, which by very definition it does exclude those of other ethnic origins. I have yet to meet a black person who doesn't readily admit that blacks are far more racist than their white counterparts.

Now as much as I respect and admire Elisabeth Hasselbeck she is R-I-G-H-T in her assessment of the double standards with which most Caucasians deal with on a daily basis. Anyone with any semblance of a heart knows that what Mrs. Hasselbeck was referring to was reconciliation. How can we reconcile when the very things Caucasians are raised NOT to do, African-American's do so at will?

More on La Raza coming...

religionillegal immigrationpolitics

• As a key figure in an international engineering team, you will be responsible for requirements gathering, systems analysis, design and build/implementation of 3 tier Java technology solutions which support worldwide premium products. The services for which this engineer is involved with support revenue generation from external customers in multiple countries and time zones. The chosen candidate will work for the Manager of Software Engineering for International and work closely with several teams who are based locally or in an offshore location. As well as hands on development, there is a significant proportion of the role required to provide internal consultation to business customers on technical solutions and provide input for scoping project costs. You will also be responsible for liaising with technical and non-technical staff from in the US, Japan and Europe, along with as necessary external developers from third party partners. This role involves a mix of hands on development and business facing consultation.

Job Responsibilities
• Liaise with technical and non technical customers worldwide to produce and deliver business and technical requirements specifications.
• Undertake system / architectural design and review employing best industry practice.
• Take responsibility for producing detailed system designs and implementation plans, working with the rest of the engineering team and ensure all team members produce consistent output in line with best practice.
• Develop and ensure solutions are tested in accordance with the QA team
• Ensure there is consistent production of design, maintenance and operational documentation.
• Maintain and enhance the development environment and advance the technical systems architectures and technologies.
• Support global development teams and external clients in the use of the standard technology platform.

 Qualifications For Position
• Software development of computer sciences degree.

Experience For Position
• 5+ years working in a recognized professional software / internet development company.
• 5+ years development and delivery of online products or services.
• 5+ years architectural design and implementation of J2SE/EE solutions.
• 3 years exposure to end-user facing web development frameworks.
• 3 years exposure and practice in all areas of the software development life cycle. (requirements, design, implementation, testing, maintenance)
• Experience working with non-technical customers and having the unique ability to convey technical issues in a business context.

Technology Experience
• Operating systems: Windows 2000/XP, UNIX/Linux, Dos
• Programming: JSP, MVC Frameworks, Spring, JMS, JDBC, Servlets, EJB, XML, HTML, SQL
• Design Methodologies and tools: UML, OOA/D, Rational
• Application Environment: Weblogic  6+ , Tomcat, JBoss, MS SQL Server 2000+
• Java Development Environment: Eclipse
• Source code control systems. (e.g. Microsoft VSS, CVS, SVN, Perforce)

Specific Skills Required
• Highly competency in J2EE architecture and development.
• High competency in relational database development
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Excellent written and spoken English

Advantageous Experience
• Experience of commerce related projects.
• Experience of leading teams of developers.
• International experience.

laszlo_spiller@kellyservices.hu

One of the things we need to do to get these pracitices and the tool embedded in an organisation is manage support. Our support takes two forms, tools support and process support. Normally when a person thinks they're asking for one of them they're actually asking for the other :P One of the interesting things about the support that my rollout team provides to the practitioners is that ultimately it's a transient function - we won't be the long term support team on this product, in fact support will be handed over to the centralised support function and the rollout team (comprised of external consultants (some IJIers, an IBMer and some independents) and contractors) will dissapate into the ether from whence it came. So obviously, as per Kelly's presentation we're very keen on knowledge centered support - we don't want to waste our time, effort and brain power by re-recreating the answers to people's problems.

So what do we actually do to try and avoid some of these problems and do some knowledge based support? We're a transient support function so we don't have and super tools or even specialist knowledge base management skills. What we do have is a highly skilled team and a number of communication channels.

We capture all support requests in a humble excel spreadsheet, regardless of their communication channel and categorise the requests into a number of categories. (Of course this gave me an excuse to write some cunning macros to keep everything updated automatically).

As well as providing lovely graphs the spreadsheet captures the issue and the response. As a result the team can all see who had what problem and how it was resolved. As problems are solved knowledge is created, capturing it in a spreadsheet is all well and good, and can be searched on by the support team but it's not great in terms of sharing that knowledge broadly. (As it happens the support spreadsheet is publicly accessible via a guest account on our config management repository - but that doesn't mean anyone is looking!)

To share the knowledge we communicate it through many channels. Sometimes it's apparent that our education has been lacking some good guidance so we update the education programme (training courses, open surgeries, lunch 'n' learns). We have a wiki where we can post new bits of information, a message board/forum, emailing lists, laminated desk drops, a FAQ on the wiki and also some mentoring guides. One of the functions of our team is to mentor practitioners in the adoption of practices and tools and to do that we have a number of mentoring packages that we give to adopting teams. Ensuring that the mentors are all saying the same thing, giving the same solution to the same problem is important. One of the best ways of doing this it to get the mentors together to talk to each other, run through scenarios and gain consensus on the common answers. We also document these scenarios, sometimes in the practitioner facing User Guide and sometimes through mentor guides.

It is not longer fashionable to argue for the existence of transcendental anything. However, I would argue that such enduring rationalist ‘truths' can be found in human history and indeed prehistory. They exist as science and as language. They endure and are indeed fundamental to our understanding of ourselves.

 Jurgen Habermas (coutesy fundacionprincipedeasturias.org)

The failings of late capitalism and the welfare state are manifest and include social pathologies like serial murder (more on this below). We have certainly not reached the end of history. Society remains imperfect, ridden with alienation and inequality. Weber lamented the loss of freedom and the loss of meaning in capitalist society. Unfortunately, this spurred later critical thinkers to erroneously reject the entire Enlightenment project.

Habermas seeks to reclaim the gains of the Enlightenment and take it forward to a true, critical post-modernism. He argues Weber was wrong. Habermas correctly points out that Weber's nihilistic vision is a product of his fixation on what Habermas calls empirical-rationality in capitalist society. According to Habermas, empirical rationality is that species of rationality specifically employed in the physical manipulation of the world. This manipulation is a function, I would argue, of the animalistic imperatives of reproduction and metabolism. Empirical rationality is transcendental because it is linked, fundamentally, to the sustenance and reproduction of the human organism and indeed, human society.

From an empirical rational perspective, I would argue that the biological prerogatives of metabolism and sexual reproduction inform the actions of all living organisms, including humans (Habermas takes a less reductionist approach, but his conclusions are similar). It is on this biological foundation that, I submit, the complex edifice of all human action stands. The myriad elements that influence these empirical-rational goals of eating and reproducing develop in such complex relations over time that their clear logic becomes obscured.

Habermas argues, persuasively that empirical is not rationality's only form. He argues that the manipulation of the objective world necessitates another form of rationality - communicative rationality. This species of rationality, Habermas argues, is fundamental to a proper understanding of human action. Indeed its co-ordinating effects are overlooked by the scientistic (my word) focus on empirical rationality in a technocratic society.

The rationalistic potential of language is not realised in late capitalist societies because of the domination of science, machines, money and empirical-rationalist law. These, Habermas labels the "steering media" of the System. The System is the site of the rational organization of society. In early capitalism - the System moves rapidly toward crisis as the steering media of money and law (property law, commercial law)create a massive concentration of wealth. The welfare state evolves out of this crisis.

This state, according to Habermas, intervenes to protect people from the ravages of the capitalist mode of production. The Welfare State, then, provides education, health and other services to society. One might argue that the roles of central banks as regulators of the "free" market are also elements of this state form. In this guise, Tito, as a key member of the System, applies interest rates in a bid to avert the market from a price inflation crisis. He is acting in defence of ‘big business' (the System) and ‘consumers' (the System).

In all, the actions of the Welfare State are geared toward at once protecting capital and protecting people from its worst effects. However the State is not able to resolve all conflicts. These include material was well as less tangible crises, like the psychological phenomenon of alienation[1](more of this below). Alienation occurs because the rationalised System is unable to satisfy certain human needs found in what Habermas calls "the Lifeworld". He argues that conflict arises at the seam between the System and the Lifeworld.

The Lifeworld, Habermas argues, lies in contradistinction to the System. Where the System is the site of empirical-rational action and regulation; the Lifeworld is the site of identity and culture. It is the store of meaning and identity - the arena of the common horizon where action can be explained, debated and co-ordinated. Disputes can be resolved in the Lifeworld by argument or discourse. They can be resolved because language holds rational communicative potential. Habermas defends this claim by arguing that people can, in any language, theoretically reach a common understanding (if not agreement) on an issue. The fact that they often do not reach common understanding and/or agreement does not mean that language is inherently irrational.

I submit that the complexity of social empirico-rational action is a product of the evolution of a complex brain, uniquely capable of self-consciousness. Studies of human evolution indicate a close relationship between the growing size and complexity of the brain and the manipulation of tools (including fire). The human-environment interface occurs at a social level and requires co-ordination. This is a biological imperative, evolved over millennia in Africa. Its archaic example can be found in the study of chimpanzee behaviour, where language (communicative and/or empirical rationality) and tool proficiency (empirical rationality) are key to the success of the troop. Where chimps differ from humans is their (disputed) level of self awareness and their (undisputed) lack of artistic inclination or skill.

These are signs of a higher order of self awareness in humans and the accompanying sense of angst. The place of the body in the world, its distinction from the other and the Other, is a product of this cerebral complexity. The inverted image of self-consciousness is therefore angst. Human beings are, arguably, the most confused animals on this planet. They chase after the empirical-rational drives of hunger and lust - but also crave self expression, acceptance and love. Joe Suburban can perform complex calculations, but also produce inexplicably beautiful art and horrendous acts of brutality.

The Systematised Serial Killer

Serial killing, Habermas would argue, is indicative of this tension at the seam of the System and the Lifeworld. Serial killing can only be adequately explained, I submit, with reference to the ravages of the System and what Habermas describes as the "pathological colonization" of the Lifeworld.

The System machinizes (my word) humans (especially in late capitalism), establishes and reinforces the myth of the private. It intrudes into self formation and recognition in the pursuit of profit and efficiency. All the while, the empirical rational world expands and complexifies (my word). Its tools become machines, its machines become computers, its computers become human and its humans, computers.

The knowledge of the body and its surrounds becomes the screen of empiricist reflection. The repetitively efficient actions of machines replace action and eventually direct speech. They shatter the mirror and destroy identity. The frustrated communicative rationality of the serial killer is manifest in the torn bodies of his victims. Their gaping wounds speak in his stead. They proclaim him a silently screaming member of The System.

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Architects need not be thought of as only interested in drawing blueprints for buildings or roads or bridges. They are the master designers of all kinds of theoretical systems, including school curricula, corporate strategies, and new technologies. For Architects, the world exists primarily to be analyzed, understood, explained - and re-designed. External reality in itself is unimportant, little more than raw material to be organized into structural models. What is important for Architects is that they grasp fundamental principles and natural laws, and that their designs are elegant, that is, efficient and coherent.

Architects are rare - maybe one percent of the population - and show the greatest precision in thought and speech of all the types. They tend to see distinctions and inconsistencies instantaneously, and can detect contradictions no matter when or where they were made. It is difficult for an Architect to listen to nonsense, even in a casual conversation, without pointing out the speaker's error. And in any serious discussion or debate Architects are devastating, their skill in framing arguments giving them an enormous advantage. Architects regard all discussions as a search for understanding, and believe their function is to eliminate inconsistencies, which can make communication with them an uncomfortable experience for many.

Ruthless pragmatists about ideas, and insatiably curious, Architects are driven to find the most efficient means to their ends, and they will learn in any manner and degree they can. They will listen to amateurs if their ideas are useful, and will ignore the experts if theirs are not. Authority derived from office, credential, or celebrity does not impress them. Architects are interested only in what make sense, and thus only statements that are consistent and coherent carry any weight with them.

Architects often seem difficult to know. They are inclined to be shy except with close friends, and their reserve is difficult to penetrate. Able to concentrate better than any other type, they prefer to work quietly at their computers or drafting tables, and often alone. Architects also become obsessed with analysis, and this can seem to shut others out. Once caught up in a thought process, Architects close off and persevere until they comprehend the issue in all its complexity. Architects prize intelligence, and with their grand desire to grasp the structure of the universe, they can seem arrogant and may show impatience with others who have less ability, or who are less driven.

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The problem, as political scientist Larry Bartels notes, is that people aren't rational: we're rationalizers. Our brain prefers a certain candidate or party for a really complicated set of subterranean reasons and then, after the preference has been unconsciously established, we invent rational sounding reasons to justify our preferences. This is why the average voter is such a partisan hack and rarely bothers to revise their political preferences. For instance, an analysis of five hundred voters with "strong party allegiances" during the 1976 campaign found that, during the heated last two months of the contest, only sixteen people were persuaded to vote for the other party. Another study tracked voters from 1965 to 1982, tracing the flux of party affiliation over time. Although it was an extremely tumultuous era in American politics - there was the Vietnam War, stagflation, the fall of Richard Nixon, oil shortages, and Jimmy Carter - nearly 90 percent of people who identified themselves as Republicans in 1965 ended up voting for Ronald Reagan in 1980.

He also discusses research that indicates that weather, polling place, and the "Peter Jennings effect" all, amongst many other factors, influence the way people vote. It's definite food for thought.

We used a trial version of IBM's ROSE to develop the following use case UML diagram. (see this to learn how to draw use case diagrams). After a few hours of pondering i've come up with the following use case view

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None else induce flower the Stadshus, Stockholm’s Constitutional Union Party, considering Sweden’s representational figure in place of the take down. Stockholm is not without distinction terminally pissy-eyed by use of immigration problems present, parenthetically, Malmö, nevertheless the Stadshus is assumably the iconic feature that control kingship vacillate linked to the generally Swede(clop as proxy for a larger alter ego):

Coupled with the alimony in connection with personal Scandinavian email contacts, I myself obtain compiled the derivational verge about Swedish Counterjihad websites:

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Alter ego en rapport in addition reception excepting readers irruptive all re the different thing countries on supporting actor they take the initiative lists anent URLs vice that jury list. The term is in transit to stay apiece sidebar let alone Counterjihad sites.

At all ab ovo, the twelve countries Subconscious self preference happen to be using parce que the 2008 timetable are:

France
Denmark
Germany
Sweden
Sweden
Italy
The U.S.A.
Greece
Britain
Australia
The Netherlands
Spain
Parce que per capita agrarian indictable, Other self tickle readers in contemplation of slab suggested Counterjihad links on the comments, hatchment deliver officialdom via email. Subconscious self single-handedly pine links so Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, and Italy.

The end is for fawn the initiated 2008 Counterjihad Impanel close by at our Café Collect forum by and by newfashioned September.

Coming expert at the beadroll is Italy, as things go the millennium relating to June.

Basta!

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As they do so, over these and other racial disagreements, these white people often say something like, "If you're going to get emotional, then I can't discuss this with you." For white people, anger is a dangerous force that blows out the light of reason. They may not realize it (middle-class ones, especially), but white people often insist that discussions be conducted in their way, and not in someone else's way. Their calm, rational way, that is, and not another group or culture's more emotionally engaged way. (And guess who's automatically at an advantage in calm, rational discussions?)

(From refuse to listen to black anger at Stuff White People Do)

The average response time (elapsed time) for all pages. Response time is the sum of response times for all page elements (including the connect time and inter-request delays).

Here is my deep study in this issue (one sample-hit to http://www.theserverside.com

Run Elapsed time FRTS LRTS Conn Start Conn Time Pure Response LRTS - Conn Start Elapsed Time - Conn Time
1 4875 9891 11500 6625 2906 1969 4875 1969
2 2219 7719 8844 6625 406 1813 2219 1813
3 5172 9906 11703 6531 3000 2172 5172 2172
4 4484 9922 10984 6500 3016 1468 4484 1468
5 1407 7359 7938 6531 469 907 1407 938
Formula:
Elapsed Time (Response Time) = LRTS (Last Request To Server) - Conn Start
Pure Response Time = Elapsed Time - Conn Time

So, there is nothing wrong with the report, it is only the wrong interpretation.

I changed the report information, using the following steps:
1. Open the schedule report, double click on it
2. Open the "Page Performance" tab and right-click on the report pane. Then select "Add remove performance counter". Select "Page Performance Counters"
3. Make sure that you select
- Average Response Time For All Page Elements ms for Run -> select scale : 1
- All Pages - Average for Run -> select scale : 1
4. Run the scheduler once again to re-capture the data
This test is only for a single page, so the two bars below actually belong to one page
5. View the Page Element Response by right-clicking on the second bar

As an American who spent 18 years growing up in France, I have been the target of stereotyping, especially during George W. Bush's mandate when, Americans were, all of a sudden, deemed plain stupid by a good few. Not to mention other tags like 'selfish capitalists'. Some of you might read this and think "so true". Well, I beg to differ. Some people's attitude towards me drastically changed when they learned I was American. Why? Now, why would they enjoy my presence before but not after I casually declared being American. Surely, my behaviour could not have so drastically changed as to fit their mental picture of the "American asshole" ? And why would they not hate me beforehand if my behaviour was supposedly already American ? That's because I am not acting typically American. There is no such thing as acting American. I am far from daft and I'm certainly not a "selfish capitalist" (who's kidding themselves anyway ? Capitalism thrives in the Western world). In the end, there is no possible justification for this behaviour of portraying someone by his nationality. It is just a way of creating extra controversy. As if there was not enough of it to start with.

Many of you have been witness to the video circulating on the internet, set on putting American intelligence to test. Of course, as you could expect from this piece of British humour, quite obviously supposed to be a mockery of Americans, the  'Americans' fail dismally to tell how many sides a triangle has or what country starts with a 'U'. If you're already slightly (or strongly) convinced that Americans have empty heads than you will blindly agree with this video. Otherwise you might be sceptical and come to realise how easily misleading this video can be. How many people are actually seen to be interviewed on the video ? a few. How many people were really interviewed do you think ? A good bunch I'm guessing. Not to mention that, in a country as big as the US, it's easy to find small secluded cities where people are culturally light because of the frail opportunities for a decent education. All in all, I strongly believe this show could be replicated in any country, may it be France or the United Kingdom, and a couple dozen light heads would stand out from amongst a good thousand interviewed. Proportions also have to be taken in account. Maybe there are much more uneducated people in the US than some country in Europe. Yet, when swung in proportions to each country's population, is the divide really flabbergasting ? not really.

Of course, I also get some abuse from people because of being French (I live in the UK now). But, there are stereotypes that I hate much more than nationalistic ones. I am talking about those stereotypes that have lead to things such as sexism, homophobia and racism. Of course, people who bring these to the extreme obviously have big issues that disable them from thinking outwards, in the light of rationality. They look inwards, towards their own emotionally romantic driven self for the answer. The compulsion to hate, despise or lower everything that does not characterise them is strong. But most of us more clever and humble types will look very sorely towards these extremists. But at other levels, these discriminations still exist. When France had its episode of slum riots, most people saw this as a simple manifestation of those people's natural tendency for violence. Needless to say, this assumption came from a muffled tendency for racial discrimination. Because these populations were in majority Arab, it was all to easy for them to make a connection between violence and ethnicity. If you stop to think about it, there is absolutely no connection. Violence obviously sprung from the horrid living conditions in which these people live, which again, they did not bring upon themselves but rather arose from xenophobic tendencies in the workplace and in social life. Unable to express their rage through healthy means, as the educational system in these areas receive very few or no support for improvement, the young minds of the slums have no other resort but violence. If any of us lived in the slums in these dismal conditions, let me assure you, we would have burned cars (you may dismiss this idea for yourself, after all, you have no tendency for violence. But, would your personality be the same if you had been raised in poverty ?). Even the Fox News (which spells 'biased as Hell') commentator who foolishly tagged these people as 'bestial' would change his views if he lived in slums for a couple of years. Of course, none of these people would openly declare themselves racist, but there is no other word to describe so accurately why they so easily aim their anger towards these people. This is the same behaviour that lead to the holocaust. Thankfully, France is not on the verge of an economic recession in which the scapegoat behaviour thrives. And neither is any other developed country with that exact problem.

I think that at this point, everything I could say about homophobia and sexism on the same level as my depiction of racism would be too predictable. So I shall leave it to this and next time write what I really meant to write about all along: Little assumptions that people make because of certain personality traits one has. This will include the subjects of gender differences and homosexuality. I'll also explain how it affects me personally. Amongst other things...

"The reason there are so many opinions is that no one knows the Truth."

Is this one of those "truths" that you have to have an opinion on?

By this I must point out that this is somewhat of a self-refuting or self-defeating statement. Since no one knows the truth, then how can a true statement be made on anything. Either this statement is true which means that we really can't know if it is indeed true, or this statement is false which means that its irrelevant.

If true, then it refutes and defeats itself.

If not true, then it doesn't matter.

If no one knows the truth, then by what reason or reasons can a statement of this nature be made? Do you follow? Is this not a reasonable and rational response to the claim being made? How can a thought that claims that truth can not be known be considered a truth?

This statement is quite dogmatic in its expression of relativism.

Interestingly enough, the very fact that there are so many opinions would prove this statement inaccurate. Please allow me to explain. People have opinions and share such opinions on account of thinking them to be true. They consider their opinion to be a valid and better reflection of whatever they happen to be thinking about. They believe their opinion to be more accurate than another opinion that stands in opposition.

This quote is thought to be true by the one who pressed the letters that communicated the opinion regarding Truth. 

It is thought to be true.

It isn't.

With all that said, I must say that this thought does reveal at least the following notions:

If Truth were accessible, then it would be challenging to understand and even more so to communicate. If Reason were able to distinguish between truth and fiction, logic and illogic, accurate and inaccurate reflections of reality, then it would also be a challenge. But a challenge well worth the effort as some sense of reality comes into view.

If these ideas are not true, then what isn't self-refuting and self-defeating?

RQM is a web based tool "for test planning, workflow control, tracking and metrics reporting capable of quantifying how project decisions and deliverables impact and align with business objectives." It's also Jazz based. A couple of weeks ago I did a First Look analysis of Rational Requirements Composer (here) so I thought I'd have a look at RQM today. I should caveat this by saying I'm not a QA/Test expert! :)

This being a Beta there are some bugs hanging around like the horizontal tabs having a higher z-order than the pop-up menus from the left navigation bar so you've got to be precise with the mouse to open the "My Test Plans" tab at the moment and it's a little hard to create a new test plan :S If only the left menu bar auto scrolled down like the "related sites" links on the far right! Eventually I worked around this by constructing the URI to create a new test plan - https://localhost:9443/jazz/web/console/QM#action= com.ibm.rqm.planning.home.actionDispatcher&subAction=newTestPlan and just typing it into the browser address bar. I had this problem in FF and IE, anyway I've got a work around so off I go.

Here's the blank empty GUI:

Once I got into the Test Plan editor I was able to start creating a structured Test Plan. I like this idea, as instead of a huge Word document with no structure here there are discreet sections with potentially seperate ownership. Obviously in my demo repository there are no requirements to hook into a test plan so I clicked the button to create one, this led me into the Rational Team Concert web interface 8)

Unfortunately I got quite a few errors in trying to save sections of my test plan, and also none of the editors for the various sections would let me type in them no matter how many times I hit the "Edit" link. The idea of structured test assets continues in the Test Case editor, although I had the same problems as with Test Plans here in terms of editing some of the content. I was however able to generate work items (which naturally I did twice) based on my test case and configured environments using the excellent lab management interface :D

Upon executing my generated work item the problem I found was that my test failed. There were no doughnuts to be had! :(

This being based on the Jazz platform there is of course a lot of reporting available (I shifted over to the sample Java PetStore test plan since there wasn't enough data in my dummy project).

Conclusions

RQM gives you a fully web based quality management portal. The structured nature to managing test assets is a major improvement, and since this is Jazz based I'm sure it's all deeply configurable for different ways of working and approaches to quality management and testing.

The integration of information from Team members, Test Plans, Test Cases, Test Scripts, Execution, Reports and Defects is seamless and intuitive, with requirements and defects being managed through the Rational Team Concert interface and of course the data is easily reported on.

I'd like to dig more into the integration with other tools such as Rational Team Concert, possibilities with Rational Requirements Composer and the relationship between process templates in these various tools. Not to mention migration paths from other QM/Test tools like the "classic" Rational tools and those from other vendors.

All in all it looks like an impressive, intuitive and powerful product but it's an early access Beta and has quite a few bugs that can make playing with it a bit frustrating at the moment.

More info

See my first look at IBM Rational Requirements Composer here

See more stuff about Jazz in general here: What's all that Jazz?

My original blog post can be found here:

http://bereanwatchman.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/global-law-enforcement-gadgets-tasor-bracelets-coming/

Within the past few days, an article written on the Washington Post website entitled "Want some torture with your peanuts?" :

http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/aviation-security/2008/Jul/01/want-some-torture-with-your-peanuts/

"Just when you thought you’ve heard it all...

A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers.

This bracelet would:

• Take the place of an airline boarding pass

• Contain personal information about the traveler

• Be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage

• Shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes"

Here is the link provided to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar2gZiT5dDM&eurl=

Is this safety, or going too far?  Is the thinking behind this perfectly rational...or perfectly Orwellian?

What do you think?

"The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments--of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue--are complete skeptics in religion."

Should I be in the least bit astonished by how such a claim could even be verified? Really. How does one go about proving such a statement? 

Certainly it becomes a matter of how words are being unpacked.

Would I be "astonished" in finding out this number of God-deniers to be not so great as implied by this quote (would the quote be any less true if such was the case)? What of the categories of "brightest" or "distinguished" described in such a way that excludes many or most that are God-believers of some sort? What cultures of the world are included in this "popular estimation" that is being made? Who are these "complete skeptics" that he mentions (atheists, agnostics, or perhaps even people who distrust the church for any number of reasons)? 

One thing can be known for certain and I believe it to be a reasonable inference. Mr. Mills is wise enough not to exclude from the group of "brightest ornaments" those who do have faith and do believe in God.

This reveals a measure of reality that many atheists are quick to deny.

Embracing faith as a way of solving the riddle of life doesn't equate to the abandonment of the mind or its ability to reason. Just as the embrace of Atheism as a way of assuming our reality to be a closed-system doesn't equate to being any more or less rational.

The quality of intellect crosses over both sides of the fence.

Some atheists and theists make a "leap of faith." Some atheists and theists take a smaller step into the riddle of life. There are simple-minded atheists as there are theists with the same caliber of faculties. In both of these groups, there are those who know how the car works and others who are content just knowing that it works and they can drive to the local grocery to get dinner.

There are atheists and theists in this group described as "the brightest ornaments."

Related, Megan McArdle considers whether buying a Prius is better than buying a used Corolla. I'm really digging the fact that people are talking about fuel efficiency, even if it took $4 a gallon gas to make the conversation happen.

The question is how can we get the benefits of self-hosting in normal projects, since most organisations aren't in the business of building IDEs...

Personally, I get involved in a lot of projects that aim to improve an organisations software development capability, often these projects involve deploying tools into an organistion to deal with things such as planning, issue tracking, configuration management etc. So in my projects I always make sure I'm self-hosted, that is we use the planning tools to plan the delpoyment of the planning tools :P We track issues in the issue tracking tool that we want others to use and store our artifacts in the repositories we are deploying in the organisation. This approach gives the benefits of broad and deep testing of infrastructure, configuration, integration and usage models. Not to mention the opportunity of being in the strong position of practicing what we preach!

Currently I'm involved in rolling out Rational Portfolio Manager to about 500 people. Changing the way that many people plan and manage projects isn't terribly easy, but it's made easier by ensuring that the configuration of a tool and it's usage models have really been put through the ringer and thoroughly tested. As a result my project is self-hosted in RPM. That way my team is the first to find things that haven't been set up correctly, is the the first to feel pain points and can fix them before the general user base has to feel the pain.

Not to mention we're practicising what we preach.

If you're doing any sort of project and you can work out how to usefully use the output of the project in the project then do so.

Ad Hominem - attack the person making the argument rather than the argument, this includes saying the person is a racists therefore, anything that person produces is the result of that. Atheists get accused of this; there unwillingness to believe in a God is more important than their arguments to why they should not believe. Even within this blog I have been accused of being an "atheist" so the things I say are implied to be less relevant still if I was a believer and made the same comments it is sort of suggested that they would be worth more. The arguments are the arguments deal with them rather than who I am. Of course people tend to seek justifications so they can place a comment or article within a larger perspective, this is normal still they should self ban involvement rather than encourage it, after all if you cannot deal with others that don't think like you do then you are simply unable to understand the points that are being raised. There are two fallacies in this area; the first is that of abusive which Pat Condell if he was a weaker man would react to! The death threats or personal attacks force someone into defending themselves rather than discussing the arguments. The second is Circumstantial which is the attack of a position, as I said being an atheist of course I would not understand metaphysical feelings of God; this is often an assumption and allows the argument to be dropped. Overall it is a distraction of the topic!

Circularity - as the name suggests it is just an argument that goes around and around, if you believe something then you already know the reasons to why you believe it, if you don't believe then nothing will be able to convince you that the argument is true. This is what a lot of arguments about the metaphysical are based upon, you have to believe that there is something if you don't then you cannot just understand it so the implication is that you have to assume that it is true before it can be justifiable. This could include believing in something and then seeing the arrangement of life in accordance within that belief, in other words using evidence to support your conclusion rather than the correct way in looking at the evidence and then coming to a decision. The original argument is the purpose of any further argument for example; the bible is God's word therefore God is real, the notion of God's Word is required in order to show the God is real. God is required to be real in order for the bible to then be God's word; this does not say or add anything. Likewise saying we do something since it makes us lucky is often based on this type of logic, a lucky rabbits foot is a useful thing since it brings me luck, is all based on the first assumption in the first part of the sentence of ‘lucky rabbits foot'. I have also heard that Reiki will only work if you give it a chance, this is a notion that should always be rejected, it only assumes that it will work if you have belief in it. We should always reject this if Reiki works then it will work regardless of the level of belief that is invested into it

Correlation not causation - my favourite saying is that religion is not born from poverty, it simply benefits from it. They are found together still it cannot be said that either one causes the other. Let's go one further and argue that religion causes good things to happen; they might be found together in some cases still this does not promote the goodness of religion. If it is a causational relationship then religious people should only be the ones that commit good actions, this is not the case plus religion can cause really negative acts as well. People sometimes commit good acts while others sometimes commit bad acts, this is a far more honest statement. There might be many reasons behind good acts and to simply assume religion is the cause is to ignore a great deal of other factors. It is like saying the more music I listen to the more cavities I get in my teeth, since the older I get the more my teeth get damaged although it is also true the older I get the more music I have listened to, the two have nothing to do with each other. Likewise when people say they have had a metaphysical experience when they walk into a cathedral it does not necessarily have anything to do with the cathedral being a religious place. The authoritative aspect, the size, the colour, the music, the smell and many other factors could set off a reaction inside your head which you think has to do with God but to assume that it is, even if you strongly believe it so, does not add weight to those feelings.

Generalisations - we take the small cases and apply them to the whole situation, this is something that I am at times guilty of. It differs in some situations, still normally when the particular cases are somehow very different to the normal process. Someone pointed out to me that I was using a small number of occasions where Islam mistreated women causing me the formation of opinion and I have to reject their arguments on this one. What I always am referring to is the scope of things that is allowed for under a set of believes still I use statistics to show the general trend of things. Of course it is always wrong of anyone to say Islam is bad because something happened, that was not my point rather it was to show that the core belief is different from my own and perhaps under the banner of human rights certain things are wrong. It does bring us to the question though of how to deal with religious people since they are meant to believe the same things but often don't. Still generalisations are conclusions only based on a small number of cases so if you can include a larger base then you will never be guilty of this although it is sometimes justifiable to look at small numbers.

Straw Man - is a misrepresentation of a position in order to reject it, although it leaves the position alone and does not address the necessary issues. The misrepresentation does that, it shows the real situation in a different light and thus ignores the original factors or effects the caused the situation in the first place. This differs from Ad Hominem since rather than attacking the person making a statement, the statement is taken out of context or further along than it was meant to. Conclusions are made from the first statement to which nothing ever referred to them and then these conclusions are rejected on perhaps better grounds than could be achieved on the first statement. The line of reasoning would first start off with a particular statement about Jesus being able to forgive your sins then making further reasoning on the matter by saying it does not matter what you do since Jesus will forgive your sins anyway. It is a lot easier to see why we should reject Christianity based on the further reasoning even though the original statement never said this.

These are just a few of the ones that I liked still there are many more, watch out for them since we are all guilty of making logical errors.

A little more on this matter...

The amazing atheist did a video about this and he goes through a lot of other logical fallacies in his usual manner. It is interesting to watch...

The Man - the threat was simply based on a theory, he suggested that the combined vaccine overloaded the immune system of the child which in turn caused a bowel disorder and later a form of autism. Wakefield views were dismissed time and time again by experts in the field, as he never proved clear evidence to link the vaccine to autism, even though there was an increase in the reported levels of autism. In most studies cited by Wakefield there were children who had autism which also received MMR although a smaller number had also received the single vaccines. Although it could be suggested that the measles vaccine could trigger the onset of autism this would also indicate the single vaccine could also possibly be a trigger. Wakefield used bad science since he only ever looked at small numbers which violates the conditions of the scientific method of reliability and validation. Wakefield faced professional misconduct charges for performing unnecessary procedures on children and he was also questioned about his position in research in this area and his role as an expert in MMR litigation. The parents of the 12 children used by Wakefield in his initial investigation were seeking to sue the producers of the vaccine. The GMC described him as dishonest and brought a number of charges of wrongful conduct.

The Media - the media ran with the story and like any good business they used it to sell the media they were producing. They helped to present a confusing picture for parents by introducing doctors that backed the withdrawal of the MMR vaccine without ever considering the level to which they should be placed in context. In a sense those doctors who back each side were given equal weight and offered a personal dilemma that parents had to face, despite the fact the official position as always been there is no link between the vaccine and autism. The focus was on autism and not the potential harmful disease that the vaccine would protect against. The Parents - often people react more to the thing which is less likely to happen but offers more worrying and unknown consequences. The threat of something that is unknown is much more powerful as a fear than that to which we think that we know more about. As the result of the fear of MMR fewer children were protected from the known diseases, the disease increased and children suffered as a result. Of course, the single jabs were always available still these left gaps between when the first vaccine was given and the last one, this was sometimes the only opportunity required for illness. Countries like the UK also refused to pay for the single vaccinations since there was no evidence MMR was linked to autism and the extra cost could not be justified within a limited budget. This left many children without any protection!

The truth - A couple of months after Wakefield suggested a bowel disorder could cause autism a 14 year long study found that around 0.001% of the children given the MMR vaccine suffered any bowel problems, all of which never showed any signs of autism. Even if we take that number, 0.001% as having the possibility of developing autism and let's assume that they do, this is still less likely than the other two major results of measles. There is a 0.033% chance the measles will result in mental retardation and there is a 0.01% chance that someone will die from measles (this is an estimate; this is reduced to a degree with modern medications although those children unprotected from measles often end up in hospital). There is a higher chance of dying from measles than from the assumption that every bowel disorder will cause autism. Reported cases of autism numbers are on the increase this might be due to many factors, only a small percentage of the cases have strong genetic links. In a Japanese city were the vaccine was withdrawn the numbers of reported autism cases still showed an increase. If the MMR vaccine was to blame then the trend should have started to go down rather than up, as it did. There is a real issue of genetic predispositions and environmental factors which is still unclear, to say that is more acceptable than spreading fear and concern for something that might not be the real cause, MMR has shown to not be the real cause. The truth is the more parents that don't have their children vaccinated then it puts everyone else at risk, only one person needs to bring the disease into a community to infect all the unvaccinated children. While medical resources are used to treat the outbreak it is not being spent on other things, so if there is a known cure being that of the MMR vaccine can anyone be justified at putting other people at risk by diverting money away from treating other conditions? There is perhaps a more worrying end to all of this, while antibiotics are losing the battle with disease why should we risk using them to treat diseases like measles when that could result in them being less effective for other illnesses that we currently have no proactive defence for. It is clear that the benefits of the MMR vaccine outweigh the risk!

This is a prime example of risk taking behaviour by large parts of our own societies, the risk from measles, mumps and rubella has always been greater than that of autism. So why did we act in such a strange way? This is not just about awareness of the issues that are at play it is about how we perceive information, it was the fault of Wakefield, even though he acted against what doctors are meant to uphold, he was perhaps stupid and dishonest. It was not the fault of the media after all they represent things in such a way that allows them to get people's attention. It has to do with us and how we use critical thinking in order to understand things. It might be argued that we cannot all understand such medical terms and its language; we can use our brains and go find the information though. We could go and look at logical fallacies for ourselves. At the heart of it, it is about how we come to understand risk we see ourselves in and for the most part inaction appears like the most sensible course of action, still this is not! If you can understand why a loving and caring parent would make such an error in judgment then perhaps you can also see the reflection when it comes to Reiki or homeopathic medicine, or even maybe the relationship we might have with horoscopes. Things might appear to hold less risk than they actually do while others are more dangerous than they are given credit for.