I'm based in Australia, while i regularly work with teams from the US.
I've found my US counterparts are extremely bad at using their time efficiently and productively, even though, they are intelligent, knowledgeable and easy going (hands down, some of the best problem solvers i've ever worked with).
I was asked to work late once (due to time differences), and they were shocked when i said "i'm only available during working hours". They took it as a slight, or that i was being rude. I was even called "lazy".
It wasn't until i had an "offline" conversation with some of them that we both got the opportunity to discuss each others points of views.
My US counterparts admitted that one of their main reasons for not saying "no", was Health Care, or the risk of losing health care if you lost your job.
I think this (no fault to my US colleagues, i would probably feel/think the same way), results in bad work practices being perpetuated, resulting in unnecessary work hours, or, at least the perception that its required in order for you to be seen to be "doing a good job".
There's working longer when there's actual work that needs doing, but then there is working longer because your being held hostage to a job because your petrified of getting sick without one.
Case in point, one of my US colleagues was working 2 days after having heart bypass surgery. TWO DAYS!!!!
I think there are plenty people like that. In open source software, we see lot of people writing "exact clone" of some software (usually a game). And often, they get the job done.
They decidedly don't want to be creative, they just want the clone of the thing. Actually, it's often how you get the work done. Too much creativity is a problem. Linus started his work on Linux kernel because he wanted a Minix clone. It was as creative-less act as it gets.
I think you’re overestimating how creative even creative people are. Quentin Tarentino’s entire career has been remaking other people’s work, for example. There is a lot of room for creativity in copying.
No, I am talking about people who decide to make an exact replica. Sure lot of creativity is remixing, but these people don't want a remix.
Take somebody who wrote OpenTTD, open Transport Tycoon clone. It was an exact replica of the original game (later of course people got more creative with it).
The same time could have been spent creating, for instance, Stardew Valley. The author didn't decide to make just a Harvest Moon clone.
That is roughly a difference between a non-creative project and a creative project.
> He wrote the program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor.
Even if judging by surface appearance something is a clone, there might still be a lot of creativity involved "under the hood" i.e. in the implementation. In the case of Linux it was originally optimized for 80386 and is a monolithic kernel while Minix is a microkernel design. Fine-tuning it to run fast on 80386 must surely have involved a lot of creativity?
This is nonsense. For some convoluted definition of “creative”, this perspective holds.
The open source clones you mention are arguably not technically innovative (or some other word that stems from “novel”), but I’d argue that releasing a clone under a permissive license is novel (and creative), too.
Is translating a Terry Pratchett novel from English to Czech a creative endeavor?
You can argue that on some level, yes, any translation is creative. But I don't think it's the same as writing an original novel (even if the result is bad). On some level, it's decidedly non-creative (and that's what the GP asked about), because you already have the characters, the story, the words. And apparently, some people are fine with already having all that. (It's even not deemed creative enough to be considered different for the copyright.)
Is coloring a coloring-book creative? Compared to making your own drawings?
Is coloring creative? I think that's a different question from whether a complete, clean re-implementation of a software library is creative.
As for that question though, I'll push it a bit further - is drawing an outline of a bird creative? I'd argue it's more interesting than the next person coloring the bird. But it's also decidedly less interesting that what evolution has done in generating a bird from billions of years of evolution.
But I'd say yeah, something was created because the artist had a desire for the bird, and then produced it. Or, the artist (for some definition) had a desire for a green bird, then colored it. Of course, neither the drawing of the bird nor the coloring was novel.
So as it's not an autonomous manufacturing process, it's creative. Your bones generating blood cells is not creative work.
Software that adds colors between lines isn't itself creative, but the person who developed the software used creativity.
The budgets the supermajors have to throw at things like this are emense (10s of millions), but sadly like many other large companies, end up being giant white elephants. It's really sad when you see it up close, tantamount to fraud.
Very true. Data about oil is also plagued with the fact that it too cannot be fully trusted to a high degree, unless that data is associated with physical evidence (actual production), which even then cannot be 100% reliable.
something physical vs non-physical. The value association to oil is well known and varied, while data's value is still in its infancy.
I still believe the accuracy and trustworthiness of said data would still have to be proven or guaranteed in some fashion in order for it to become considered a true resource with a tangible value attached to it.
Possibly have an associated physicality to it (i.e stocks attached to companies, money attached to physical currency/gold etc..).
Having worked in the industry for 10+ years now, first on deepwater oil rigs (drilling), now working IT for a large oil company, some things i've observed/experienced first hand which
could provide some color to the automation side of things:
1) The smaller the company, the more agile/nimble you are forced to be out of pure need (no money or resources), this means you have to look at
automating things in order to just get you're job done. Because if you dont, you end up working 24/7 because you are the only one there to do it.
Just like a start-up.
2) The bigger the company, the less agile/nimble, more bureaucracy/politics and people, the same driver is just not there anymore, so the focus on automation isn't as intense.
3) The contractor/service companies (Halliburton, Schlumberger, BakerHughes/GE, Transocean, Nabors etc..) are probably the only ones in the industry that could successfully develop and use these types of automation technologies, because it would make their services cheaper for them, NOT make it cheaper for the oil companies.
4) The big oil companies have the money, but they simply don't have the ability to effectively produce/innovate internally as a smaller company would.Hence the only way they would adopt anysort of automation tech, would be as a service, even then it wouldn't quiet match up with their own internal business needs as the company just isn't wired to think that way.
5) Currently, the buzzword/hype vortex within big oil is all BigData/Cloud/Automation/AI etc.., but is sadly used internally to blind higher ups to approve internal projects that really aren't much more than a hobbled together mess of ancient tech.
So from my perspective, automation will eventually get there in oil/gas, but it will take a glacial pace for it to happen for the oil companies themselves, but once it eventually get's there, that's when you will see the major watershed "automation" changes in the industry.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge of the industry. One question:
> The contractor/service companies (Halliburton, Schlumberger, BakerHughes/GE, Transocean, Nabors etc..) are probably the only ones in the industry that could successfully develop and use these types of automation technologies
> The big oil companies ... simply don't have the ability to effectively produce/innovate internally as a smaller company would.
Aren't the contractor/service companies large? Why are they more innovative than big oil?
They are large, but not as big as the Super Major Oil Companies (Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP etc..).
Oil Companies think large and long term (10-50 yr cycles), meaning their payback/revenue period is
also longer, and as a result their business strategy/forecasting is longer.
The cycle usually starts with a lot of upfront Capital to build up the capability to find/drill/produce/refine/sell the oil.
Once they have that capability, then the focus is on producing oil in the cheapest most efficient way possible over the 10-50 yr life
of the oil field.
Compare this to the services/contractor companies, whose work is mainly fixed/short-term contract based, as a result their business
strategy forecasting is alot shorter. It is also more competitive, so they have to constantly think up new and better services
to provide the oil companies, while also trying to reduce their own operating expense to extract as much margin as possible.
So being smaller, with shorter business cycles, and more focus on doing things better, smarter, cheaper, the result is that
the service/contractor companies really have more opportunity and an inherent need to innovate, simply as a way to survive and
make profit.
Slightly off "automation" topic - but their are some pretty cool examples of service/contractor
companies using/leveraging technology to do things better ( specifically in the drilling space), which
the oil companies benefit from, but could never have developed themselves in my opinion:
Dump local staff, re-hire in the other country. Dump local back office staff, re-hire in the other country, or, they already have it outsourced.
If its on some executive's KPI or has their yearly bonus at risk... mountains can be moved in a blink of an eye.