Brian Duffy

IT guy; dad to a super kid; fan of tasty things.

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Trump says the Presidential Medal of Freedom is “much better” than the Congressional Medal of Honor because the Medal of Honor is for people who are “in very bad shape because they've been hit so many times by bullets or they're dead” while the Medal of Freedom is for “healthy, beautiful” people

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@ARealBrassHole @RationalManTX Example: Your neighbor drops the trees near your line and places his “classic car collection” there so his wife doesn’t have to look at it.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@felixprehn The one behind my house blew up a few years ago. It was installed in 1962!

[Dan McClellan @maklelan]

This seems really bad but also like it was exactly the goal of systematically dismantling our federal government's standards & protections.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@dexarok @Simon111xyz @flyosity Unfortunately, I am currently an executor right now. The law varies by state. You may be correct in yours.

But in general, keeping an original will in a safe deposit box, is a bad idea… especially if your family doesn’t get along. The bank will caution you against it.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@dexarok @Simon111xyz @flyosity When you tell them you want access to the safe deposit box to get the will, they will freeze everything until there is a court order.

[Nic @puckrin]

This is Wild.

Deutsche Bank has developed an index that helps to predict the next TACO by Trump.

It has proven effective in previous big Trump pivots.

The "Pressure index" combines one-month change in approval ratings, one-year inflation expectations and performance of the S&P 500 & t-bill yields.

The higher it goes, the greater the chances of 🌮

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@MrDanielBuck Dyslexia is a commonly abused one, as you can often get a "break" in the in middle of your extended time, which may also allow for a meal. Easy to do a quick lookup on a challenging question.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

The 40 Percent Rule: How Organizations Quietly Lose Competence

There is a rule of thumb that has been passed around operations and turnaround circles for decades. It is rarely taught in business school anymore, but those of us who have watched organizations get gutted by private equity or aggressive cost, outsourcing, and offshoring have seen it play out repeatedly.

We are all witnessing it ...because Financial folks aren't aware of it and think a warm body is all an org chart needs.

It starts with layoffs justified for financial reasons. About three months later the first cracks appear. The experienced people who kept systems running through undocumented workarounds and tribal knowledge are gone. The new staff assumed those tasks were obvious. The organization hobbles along at first, but the clock has started.

Then the 40 percent rule kicks in.

Any organization that replaces more than 40 percent of its core technical and operational personnel within a 3 yr period, typically crosses into intellectual bankruptcy roughly two years later. By year three the loss of institutional know-how becomes irreversible. The company breaks down into silos that spend most of their time firefighting until competitors take their customers or the organization slowly decomposes.

This pattern is not theoretical. It has been observed across multiple large corporations over the last century whenever finance or HR fully takes over hiring and firing decisions. Amazon is currently tracking this trajectory in real time. Microsoft appears to have passed the point several years ago.

From an engineering perspective this is straightforward systems failure analysis. Tacit knowledge - the undocumented glue that holds complex operations together, cannot be transferred or recreated at the same speed it is removed. When you lose too much of it too quickly, the remaining staff no longer have enough context to rebuild what is missing. The decay then becomes self-reinforcing.

This explains why so many organizations that looked healthy on paper suddenly begin missing deadlines, burning cash, and losing market position two to three years after major workforce reductions. Downtime events, meetings to say- we cant do that any longer (as if it were intentional). The balance sheet improved for now. The institutional competence did not.

Yes the balance sheet always improves because it takes a while for customers to find a new source and for the new companies to form to take the business.

Engineers usually see the warning signs first because we are the ones forced to keep undocumented systems alive long after the experienced people are gone.

Real question for the engineers, operators, techs and turnaround people reading this:
What was the earliest operational signal you noticed when your organization crossed the 40 percent threshold?

Comment if you have experienced similar below. No names needed - just the signs you saw on the ground.

Bookmark this if you have watched a once-strong company slowly lose its ability to execute after heavy cuts.

Tech Wednesday

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@karenvaites @DanteJeffe14617 The academics are the baseline. This scenario is just visible

The same social climber nonsense happens in "top" suburban schools and youth sports as well. People literally move to get into a specific school, and will fight to get on a PTO committee with some influential person

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@AlanMCole @moultano It's even worse. The kid is doing this with a 4 year old $250 Dell shitbook. The trackpad is garbage and it's easy to misclick and get kicked down with the adaptive algorithm.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@Mahmut_Jomaa @TechLayoffLover Contract workers run through a layer or two of "pimps". If the person has a good deal, divide the rate by 3. Bad deal, divide by 5.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@stratechery Worst. Take. Ever.

Thin clients are never in. The only really successful example is ChromeOS, and only because we can get away with providing children with a barely adequate experience.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@FrostmagicED @SwiftOnSecurity If they lie about who they are or where they are, what else are they lying about?

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@trackpadfollies @kitten_beloved That’s awesome and makes sense.

I found that once you get to a certain point, as with all youth sports, it gets nutty. Personally, I found swim culture noxious. YMMV!

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@kitten_beloved @trackpadfollies But swim parents are monsters.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@JulieChangRE I actually like working in the office, but it’s nuts. I’m just on teams or zoom half the time, except the WiFi sucks compared to home!

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@editingemily Totally. I get weird movies glorifying Rhodesia of all things. Bizarro.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@robinhanson Easy. Billions in subsidy making people rich farming in the desert, while over tapping Midwest aquifers that produce our grain. Peaches in Atlanta Walmart are from California.

When we enter the “find out” phase, we’ll discover that our best farmland was turned to suburbia.

[Brian Duffy @duffbeer703]

@patrickc Sanatoriums were for TB.

Recover with clean air in an era where cites were choked with coal, diesel and lead dust.