We had a 2% cut in staff at the end of 2008. The 2% came from early retirement and not replacing people. There were a few small departments that were eliminated. Some of the people were absorbed into other departments, but not all. We haven't really added any FTE to our head count, but we have gone through a few contractors.
There were some other cuts. No company picnic at 6 flags in 2009. The holiday dinner at a nice steak house was moved to a less pricey Italian restaurant. Our company is spread out and travel was drastically cut. When we did travel the trips were very short.
I didn't loose my job, and I bought a new car in 2009. However, I know a few of those contractors would have like to stayed around longer after their contracts expired. Instead of hiring 10 people at the start of 2010, my boss is being told that she has to wait until Q3.
Headphones are almost standard issue at my office, and I cant really work without them. Since I work for a large ISP and our backbone is a router or two away, streaming over the Internet is more common then portable music player. In fact if there was ever a policy about music players in the office it would be more about a security risk of having a bunch of USB storage devices with gigs of space around the office then people making mistakes while coding to Lady Gaga.
In our office people have a habit to work outages on speaker phone. When there is a large enterprise wide outage there multiple people on the same bridge on speaker phone. For those of us that don't deal with support, the only alternative is to block out the noise and communicate over IM with the person sitting next to you. I find that it keeps my in my happy development bubble with my eyes on my monitors, and hands on the keyboard.
Your boss sounds like a control freak. However, you are mixed in with other groups where listing to music could be an issue. They probably don't want to give the impression that the developers have special privileges. This is probably more the case if there is a large difference in pay.
No this was really a wormhole opened by the AI at the LHC that became self aware milliseconds before the the planet was destroyed by the same black hole that made the LHC's computer systems become self aware.
I learned long ago arguing over what Linux disto is best is like arguing about the best beer. Each one is unique and appeals to certain people. You have popular distos like Ubuntu and Red Hat/Fedora. Just like you have your popular beers like Budwiser and Coors. The users of the less popular distros usually look down on the users of the more popular distros. In the same way the drinkers of less popular beers look down on the drinkers of the more popular beers.
As for me, I'm typing this response into Chromium using Gnome that is running on Gentoo with special combination of USE flags that is optimized for my unique usage pattern of pr0n, Slashdot, EVE Online, TV/VCR repair, and database administration.
Also, thinking of beer made me get a Guinness out of the fridge before finishing this post.
An electrician is also called a sparky on a construction site. My grandma had a dog named sparky. The Spark of Hope gives you +100 spirit SparkOfHope.org helps disabled children Sparkles the Clown does birthdays (i hate clowns they should sue him) Jeff Dunham had a comedy central special called Spark Of Insanity - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epsx2dlQQ6k
Most people see the 32 million dollar price tag and have this knee jerk reaction. They don't take into consideration the people they will have to pay, hardware, facilities, and all that other junk that goes into a large project. I stopped getting all worked up when I learned that a project I worked on cost around 200 million.
You forget the terrorist attack during the 1996 games. The guy that committed the attack did this because he believed that the games were to promote global socialism. Does this sound familiar? Whenever we get a Democrat in the White House this kind of crazy comes out of the woodwork. Personally, I wouldn't want to have company over when I have my crazy spread all over the living room.
Also, corporate sponsorship is part of Atlanta culture. This is probably due to the fact that many large corporations are headquartered in Atlanta, and employ a large portion of the population. It was one of the things that stood out when I moved to Atlanta 3 years ago, to work at a the headquarters of a large corporation.
Even with all that, I tend to believe that Rio's win has to do more with the fact that the US has hosted 8 games. More games then anyone else, and the 2016 Olympics will be the first time the Olympics are hosted in South America.
My work laptop was a Latitude D620, but it was replaced with with an E6400 last week. It is lighter then my old D620 even with the , and has a much smaller power supply. This makes a difference when you have to lug a bag around.
I can't really comment on battery life since I my use consists of moving from docking station to docking station. I don't think I actually opened it since client support dropped it off, but I haven't had any problems running 2 monitors through the docking station.
I do like the fact that both the dock and the laptop have eSATA ports. For my use, this is probably the biggest improvement outside of the upgraded processor. If you are like me an keep most of your work on an external hard drive, eSATA is a big improvement over USB.
My only complaint is the sound quality, and you if you can't listen to Lady Gaga you can't do any real development. I don't think it pumps out enough power to drive my headphones. Maybe this is an excuse to build an Altoids amp.
Ford doesn't have a patent or a trade mark on the steering wheel. That fact allowed the automobile to have somewhat of a standard interface. Sure there will be differences with the location of the shifter, but if you cant figure that out maybe you shouldn't be driving.
When software companies try to patent things like a hyperlink or the concept of a window things can get hard for OSS. Especially since they usually don't have lawyer armies to point out how lame the patent.
But the first words on the page are, "In compliance with the GPL version 2."
Imagine a radio interview on a top 40 station during a morning show that's sole purpose is to plug this little device.
The non-Linux version
Joe: Welcome to the show Bob tell me about this new thing. Bob:Thanks Joe its great to be on. This little box does some really cool stuff. It will play radio stations from around the world and connect to your Facebook page Joe: Wow that's really neat. How does it do all that Bob:Well it connects to the Internet over your wireless connection. This also allows it to get updates automatically and allows new features to be added Joe: That sounds complicated. Bob: Actually its really simple. All you do is plug it in and push the connect button. Joe: That does sound simple. Can it make coffee too? Bob: ha ha ha.. Not yet, but we're working on it Joe: That's all the time we have right now. Thanks for bringing us this really cool thing today Bob. I can't wait to buy one. Bob: Not a problem, and thanks for having me on Joe: Up next Lady Gaga Poker Face and the fart joke of the day
The Linux version
Joe: Welcome to the show Bob tell me about this new thing. Bob:Thanks Joe its great to be on. This little box does some really cool stuff. It will play radio stations from around the world and connect to your Facebook page Joe: Wow that's really neat. How does it do all that Bob:Well it connects to the Internet over your wireless connection. This also allows it to get updates automatically and allows new features to be added Joe: That sounds complicated. Bob: Actually its really simple. We use a customized version of the Linux Kernel. Version 2.6.30 to be exact. All the software on our device is open source and is available for download from our website. We encourage our users to make modifications to this device. Joe: But don't hackers use Linux to steal identities of people using the Internet? Bob: ha ha ha.. No, don't be silly Joe. Hackers are the good guys. I think you mean crackers Joe: Um.... Thanks for coming on Show. Up next Lady Gaga Poker Face and the fart joke of the day
One of my development servers is in our data center a mile down the road from our office. There is nothing like having to call the data center to get someone to go out on the floor to reboot when it stops responding. Granted this doesn't happen all the time, but its still a pain in the ass.
Then there is the issue of getting the machine re-imaged.
They left the Asian guy, but you do have a point. When Clinton addressed the Serbian people back in the 90's they made him a little extra pasty for the audience.
Airlines are required to capture your birth date and other personal information. I believe this is all part of Real ID. They do this to prove that you are really you and not some kind of terrorist.
Believe it or not I still buy CDs. It's nice to "import them into Windows Media Player using the protected WMA file format" and still have a CD on my shelf that give me that old school music library look.
Word along with its other MS Office friends is installed on every desktop at work. Everyone knows how to use it, and because of this its the standard. People use it to write documents. The most important thing is that Word is used to write official looking documents. These documents are emailed around, posted on various sharepoints, copy-pasted into something else, and revised.
Just think of this part in the Hudsucker Proxy except in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Sugar is a great interface for new users, but it is way too different from what is out there already. M$ has established what a computer interface should look like. Even GNOME and KDE have elements that are similar to Windows. The decisions to buy into these laptops are being made by people that use a windows interface. When they see an XO, they see a toy not a computer. To them a computer has to have some kind of menu and windows.
Slashdot Mirror
Once you hit that submit button there is no going back.
We had a 2% cut in staff at the end of 2008. The 2% came from early retirement and not replacing people. There were a few small departments that were eliminated. Some of the people were absorbed into other departments, but not all. We haven't really added any FTE to our head count, but we have gone through a few contractors.
There were some other cuts. No company picnic at 6 flags in 2009. The holiday dinner at a nice steak house was moved to a less pricey Italian restaurant. Our company is spread out and travel was drastically cut. When we did travel the trips were very short.
I didn't loose my job, and I bought a new car in 2009. However, I know a few of those contractors would have like to stayed around longer after their contracts expired. Instead of hiring 10 people at the start of 2010, my boss is being told that she has to wait until Q3.
Use a Blackberry
Headphones are almost standard issue at my office, and I cant really work without them. Since I work for a large ISP and our backbone is a router or two away, streaming over the Internet is more common then portable music player. In fact if there was ever a policy about music players in the office it would be more about a security risk of having a bunch of USB storage devices with gigs of space around the office then people making mistakes while coding to Lady Gaga.
In our office people have a habit to work outages on speaker phone. When there is a large enterprise wide outage there multiple people on the same bridge on speaker phone. For those of us that don't deal with support, the only alternative is to block out the noise and communicate over IM with the person sitting next to you. I find that it keeps my in my happy development bubble with my eyes on my monitors, and hands on the keyboard.
Your boss sounds like a control freak. However, you are mixed in with other groups where listing to music could be an issue. They probably don't want to give the impression that the developers have special privileges. This is probably more the case if there is a large difference in pay.
No this was really a wormhole opened by the AI at the LHC that became self aware milliseconds before the the planet was destroyed by the same black hole that made the LHC's computer systems become self aware.
> Am I the only one who cares?
There may be one or two others.
I learned long ago arguing over what Linux disto is best is like arguing about the best beer. Each one is unique and appeals to certain people. You have popular distos like Ubuntu and Red Hat/Fedora. Just like you have your popular beers like Budwiser and Coors. The users of the less popular distros usually look down on the users of the more popular distros. In the same way the drinkers of less popular beers look down on the drinkers of the more popular beers.
As for me, I'm typing this response into Chromium using Gnome that is running on Gentoo with special combination of USE flags that is optimized for my unique usage pattern of pr0n, Slashdot, EVE Online, TV/VCR repair, and database administration.
Also, thinking of beer made me get a Guinness out of the fridge before finishing this post.
An electrician is also called a sparky on a construction site.
My grandma had a dog named sparky.
The Spark of Hope gives you +100 spirit
SparkOfHope.org helps disabled children
Sparkles the Clown does birthdays (i hate clowns they should sue him)
Jeff Dunham had a comedy central special called Spark Of Insanity - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epsx2dlQQ6k
I could go on.
Most people see the 32 million dollar price tag and have this knee jerk reaction. They don't take into consideration the people they will have to pay, hardware, facilities, and all that other junk that goes into a large project. I stopped getting all worked up when I learned that a project I worked on cost around 200 million.
Perhaps this will usher in a golden age of sperm-jacking and blood-letting?
Hasn't the Internet already brought a golden age of sperm-jacking?
And the FTC gets its authority to regulate interstate commerce from the Constitution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
You forget the terrorist attack during the 1996 games. The guy that committed the attack did this because he believed that the games were to promote global socialism. Does this sound familiar? Whenever we get a Democrat in the White House this kind of crazy comes out of the woodwork. Personally, I wouldn't want to have company over when I have my crazy spread all over the living room.
Also, corporate sponsorship is part of Atlanta culture. This is probably due to the fact that many large corporations are headquartered in Atlanta, and employ a large portion of the population. It was one of the things that stood out when I moved to Atlanta 3 years ago, to work at a the headquarters of a large corporation.
Even with all that, I tend to believe that Rio's win has to do more with the fact that the US has hosted 8 games. More games then anyone else, and the 2016 Olympics will be the first time the Olympics are hosted in South America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_host_cities#Total_Olympic_games_by_country
I am happy for Rio, and I hope for a successful 2016 Olympics.
My work laptop was a Latitude D620, but it was replaced with with an E6400 last week. It is lighter then my old D620 even with the , and has a much smaller power supply. This makes a difference when you have to lug a bag around.
I can't really comment on battery life since I my use consists of moving from docking station to docking station. I don't think I actually opened it since client support dropped it off, but I haven't had any problems running 2 monitors through the docking station.
I do like the fact that both the dock and the laptop have eSATA ports. For my use, this is probably the biggest improvement outside of the upgraded processor. If you are like me an keep most of your work on an external hard drive, eSATA is a big improvement over USB.
My only complaint is the sound quality, and you if you can't listen to Lady Gaga you can't do any real development. I don't think it pumps out enough power to drive my headphones. Maybe this is an excuse to build an Altoids amp.
First this is coming from the Washington Times. Its the newspaper equivalent of Fox News.
Second this was reported back in January 2009.
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=NSF+porn+surfing&scoring=a&hl=en&ned=us&um=1&sa=N&sugg=d&as_ldate=2000&as_hdate=2009&lnav=hist9
Ford doesn't have a patent or a trade mark on the steering wheel. That fact allowed the automobile to have somewhat of a standard interface. Sure there will be differences with the location of the shifter, but if you cant figure that out maybe you shouldn't be driving.
When software companies try to patent things like a hyperlink or the concept of a window things can get hard for OSS. Especially since they usually don't have lawyer armies to point out how lame the patent.
It takes the focus off the product. I know that the Tivo is running Linux, but you wont find a mention of Linux on the Tivo website.
http://search.tivo.com/search?q=Linux
They do have this site
http://www.tivo.com/linux/
But the first words on the page are, "In compliance with the GPL version 2."
Imagine a radio interview on a top 40 station during a morning show that's sole purpose is to plug this little device.
The non-Linux version
Joe: Welcome to the show Bob tell me about this new thing.
Bob:Thanks Joe its great to be on. This little box does some really cool stuff. It will play radio stations from around the world and connect to your Facebook page
Joe: Wow that's really neat. How does it do all that
Bob:Well it connects to the Internet over your wireless connection. This also allows it to get updates automatically and allows new features to be added
Joe: That sounds complicated.
Bob: Actually its really simple. All you do is plug it in and push the connect button.
Joe: That does sound simple. Can it make coffee too?
Bob: ha ha ha.. Not yet, but we're working on it
Joe: That's all the time we have right now. Thanks for bringing us this really cool thing today Bob. I can't wait to buy one.
Bob: Not a problem, and thanks for having me on
Joe: Up next Lady Gaga Poker Face and the fart joke of the day
The Linux version
Joe: Welcome to the show Bob tell me about this new thing.
Bob:Thanks Joe its great to be on. This little box does some really cool stuff. It will play radio stations from around the world and connect to your Facebook page
Joe: Wow that's really neat. How does it do all that
Bob:Well it connects to the Internet over your wireless connection. This also allows it to get updates automatically and allows new features to be added
Joe: That sounds complicated.
Bob: Actually its really simple. We use a customized version of the Linux Kernel. Version 2.6.30 to be exact. All the software on our device is open source and is available for download from our website. We encourage our users to make modifications to this device.
Joe: But don't hackers use Linux to steal identities of people using the Internet?
Bob: ha ha ha.. No, don't be silly Joe. Hackers are the good guys. I think you mean crackers
Joe: Um.... Thanks for coming on Show. Up next Lady Gaga Poker Face and the fart joke of the day
One of my development servers is in our data center a mile down the road from our office. There is nothing like having to call the data center to get someone to go out on the floor to reboot when it stops responding. Granted this doesn't happen all the time, but its still a pain in the ass.
Then there is the issue of getting the machine re-imaged.
They left the Asian guy, but you do have a point. When Clinton addressed the Serbian people back in the 90's they made him a little extra pasty for the audience.
Airlines are required to capture your birth date and other personal information. I believe this is all part of Real ID. They do this to prove that you are really you and not some kind of terrorist.
Also, you need to take your shoes off.
Believe it or not I still buy CDs. It's nice to "import them into Windows Media Player using the protected WMA file format" and still have a CD on my shelf that give me that old school music library look.
I recently came across InfraRecorder and was impressed.
http://infrarecorder.org/
Word along with its other MS Office friends is installed on every desktop at work. Everyone knows how to use it, and because of this its the standard. People use it to write documents. The most important thing is that Word is used to write official looking documents. These documents are emailed around, posted on various sharepoints, copy-pasted into something else, and revised.
Just think of this part in the Hudsucker Proxy except in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2QlitH4nYY
Sugar is a great interface for new users, but it is way too different from what is out there already. M$ has established what a computer interface should look like. Even GNOME and KDE have elements that are similar to Windows. The decisions to buy into these laptops are being made by people that use a windows interface. When they see an XO, they see a toy not a computer. To them a computer has to have some kind of menu and windows.
It depends on the state, but one reason to track mileage is to detect odometer fraud.
The Bill Gates Borg icon should be used with this story.
But seriously this is cool, but is an AI running on a nero-optic processor alive?
It's always nice to see new tools in the toolbox. I just wonder what kind of edit wars we can look forward to seeing. Could they be like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Human_anus