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Working from a Third Place
Krishna Dagli writes to mention a USA Today report on the social and business ramifications of working from a third place - somewhere that is neither home nor office. From the article: "An estimated 30 million Americans, or roughly one-fifth of the nation's workforce, are part of the so-called Kinko's generation, employees who spend significant hours each month working outside of a traditional office. This rootless army is growing 10% annually, according to Gartner Dataquest research. The reason? Corporations are increasingly supportive of teleworking for reasons that range from saving money on office space to needing a backup in the event of a natural disaster or terror attack."
Exactly... using the law of 70, this means the number of people telecommuting from a 3rd party location (oh god... that means that a new buzzword is going to be produced to describe this... mobicommuting or something. Ack Pthh! Anyways...) is going to approximately double in 7 years at 10% growth. (Law of 70 is an extremely handy shortcut for figuring out how long it takes to double assuming fairly consistant logarithmic growth... 70/r=number of years, where r is annual percentage growth. Also can be applied to days or whatever if r is daily percentage growth in such numbers as bacterial population. Not an exact number, but a good rule of thumb. Umm... don't remember the whole proof, but basically uses the financial equation P1=P0e^(rt) substitute 2 for P1 (final principal) 1 for P0 (intial principle) and solve for 2=1e^(rt) and end up with (I believe???) rt=ln(2). From there t= approximately ln70/r, or t=.693/r.
But the mechanics of it doesn't really matter. In a few years, all the journalist will have to do is change the definition of "mobomuting" (Ack... disgusted myself with that word) to "talking about work that occurs neither at home or at the workplace" and *PRESTO* the vast majority of the population is mobomuting! Even people in jobs that have nothing to do with offices! Unemployed hipsters drinking Latte's and talking about not having jobs will be mobomuting! Then, the future will be NOW!!!
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
coffehouse... then again, if it's a starbucks or something, there's about as many calories per grande iced white chocolate mocha as a big mac. And at least a big mac's calories are in grease so the heart attack takes you quick. Starbucks is pure sugar calories, so the diabetes will take your eyesight, then your legs, then your circulation leaving you in great pain.
Then again, if you're thinking about getting a large chocolate shake from McDonalds, just consider that it has as much fat as a big mac, and the amount of calories in TWO big macs. Hmm... oddly enough it looks like it has as much protein as a big mac two. Wow, I think I'm going to have to go make a salad for dinner. I feel greasy just looking at those nutritional facts.
The supposed rule the parent is alluding to is that "less" is used when dividing something singular or non-countable ("less happy"), and "fewer" is used when taking away from something that is counted ("fewer dollars").
If you accept this rule, then using "less" with a plural noun is a red flag; "less distractions" should be "fewer distractions" or "less distraction". However, the rule somewhat awkward. "Less" can be used with a plural noun that explicitly quantified when the aggregation the quantified noun phrase represents is being divided ("less than twenty minutes"), although I suspect "fewer" can serve in those cases as well.
Historically, the unrestricted use of "less" stretches back to Old English. The restriction of "less" to situations where "fewer" cannot be used is a recent development, postdating the American Revolution. The older unrestrictive use of "less" continues in Amercian dialect, particularly in informal speech, and shouldn't be regarded as incorrect in that context.
Personally, I prefer the differentiated use of "less" and "fewer". It adds a tiny increment of clarity.
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I meant VPN using two-factor authentication of course :)