I have just requested some bids to do the real work for one of the todays jobs, rather than doing it myself. I would expect that the cost of getting the work done will not be too expensive. I would guess that a decent programmer will be able to do the work I need in a few hours, or maybe a couple of days at the latest. Given that a highly skilled and payed programmer in Argentena costs US$6 per hour rather than the $100 per hour that I would need to charge, I am sure that I will come out ahead.

OK. Well, my time to myself is free, but you get the idea. And if it costs me most of the income from the project to outsource the project, then either I have underquoted or I should be doing the job myself in order to make money. This is normal business.

This is of course the advantage of working in an international networked economy. I can get people to do work for me all over the world, safely and securely. I have had a few cases where the work was not up to scratch but that really is the exception.

ISS Issues

There is a story on TechNewsWorld about an issue on the Interational Space Station where another of the Gyro’s has failed. The cause seems to be a circuit breaker that has tripped that is outside the space station. Now, seems to me that it is a bit of a problem if a circuit breaker trips and you need to do a space walk to fix the problem. From memory this is similar to what happened in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” where HAL required that a component be fixed on the outside of the jupiter transport vehicle just before killing them.

Music:

Yanni with his ‘Aria’, also known as the ‘British Airways’ music from a few years back.