Why does G+ have to take "the edge over Facebook"? Computers may be binary, people, at least people who get out of their basements, are not.
G+ has many better features for sharing with granular control. Better long-form posting; FB has expanded it some but not unlimited like G+. Sure, I wish they had nested circles and boolean logic for circles, but it's not all so hard. It's still easier and more discoverable to control sharing on G+ than it is on FB, even with FB's recent massive improvements in this realm (an obvious panic-response to G+ on the same order as IE7 was to FF). G+ is inherently asymmetrical, while FB's "subscribe" asymmetry is another tacked-on panic response to G+.
G+ is where I interact with people I hadn't necessarily known before, on topics of shared interest, as well as in longer-form with people I do know. Facebook, which I nuked and then created a new, no-prior-history account, is where I interact with people I know, on actual "Social" things.
Facebook is the "Family Room". Google+ is the "Discussion Salon and Art Gallery".
As to no business/org pages at launch: It's not a bug, it's a feature, and thanks be to [$DEITY] for it. We've had 4 months of G+ without all the commercialism so that it could grow organically as shaped by its adopters. Advertisers, commercial businesses, celebrity fan sites, are now coming into an established community with existing norms, rather than making it a commercial hotspot. Celebs who wanted to interact as real people, not as celebs, are there as real people. Like Jeri Ryan, who is not only in my Circles but she put me in hers. Other than some rare comments about the latest ep of her current TV series, she posts about the same types of things non-celebs do, and interacts with her circles.
This "Google+ has failed" meme is stupid spin by people who only think linearly. They probably believe that politics only has a "left" and a "right" dimension too.
They're more linked than you think. IBM Lotus Symphony is now based on OO.o 3x code, has been since 2009. Now I believe 3.3 or at least 3.2 after the early-2011 Symphony FixPack. Other than the IBM-built UI, a lot of Symphony is open source or built on open source. Even the UI is based on Eclipse. IBM added some import/export filter improvements, which I think they gave back to the community. If they didn't then, they did 4 months ago, when IBM donated the entire Symphony codebase and rights to Apache. Also reported right here on Slashdot, which is of course why nobody here seems to know that.
I strongly prefer Symphony for everyday use over LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org (essentially indistinguishable until recently, from a user and UI perspective). I like the tabbed interface a whole lot better than having a bunch of windows running around. We geeks castigated IE for years until they adopted tabbed browsing; how come we meekly accept non-tabbed office suite interfaces? I've got LibreOffice on my PCs, but I also have Symphony, and I have Symphony set as the default for all ODF formats and Microsoft Office formats that are supported by Symphony.
I'm working on a novel. Writing in in Symphony. Chapter I'm writing is in one tab, other chapters for referbacks are in others, character notes and plot notes, dialog snippets in yet others. Just more intuitive than different windows. Also, each new tab eats less resources than a full new window. For regular everyday life stuff, the same tabbed interface helps with a budget spreadsheet in one tab and reference docs in others. Sure, could do this in separate windows. But we could all be using single-page non-tabbed browsers too.
Symphony does not include the OpenOffice.org Base, Math, nor Draw modules. If I need them (unlikely), I have LibreOffice's improved versions of them to use. The only two features (arguably one feature) from OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice I miss sometimes is the Open Read-Only option in the file dialogs, and the toolbar button to switch from editing to Read-Only mode. In Symphony the only way I've found to open something read-only is to deliberately open it first in Symphony, Microsoft Office, or LibreOffice, and then open it a second time. The second time will be read-only due to the file lock.
I'd love to see the Symphony interface and other enhancements become the new UI for OpenOffice.org, or perhaps "Apache SymphonyOffice" to get away from the "we're not the now-who-cares OpenOffice commercial company which is why we need the stupid.org in our actual product name" problem. Bake Base, Draw, Math back into it along with some of the features that IBM took out (R/O pretty please?). You get a strong alternative to Microsoft Office, with an updated UI compared to LibreOffice. Rather than the confusing situation of LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org being identical in appearance (yeah, minor toolbar changes) and a confused outside-the-geekosphere public. LibreOffice and Symphony would be different enough to attract different audiences. Somewhere down the road they might even be able to work together again, because their products wouldn't be looking 99% identical and thus direct competitors with no reason for both to exist. The Symphony changeover would give that reason.
Dude, you're not a *Droid* user unless you're on Verizon. You're an *Android* user.
Android isn't going anywhere. I'd be more worried about Sprint going away rather than Sprint (if it stays in business) dropping Android phones. If you haven't noticed, over the past couple of years, Sprint has successfully bet the company on Android. Pretty much the only reason they still are in business.
Kobos are more open. Kindle is locked into Amazon's AZW format for DRM'd (read: general non-geek public) legal book purchases.
Kobo uses the Adobe DRM/EPUB ecosphere. My Kobo WiFi ($79 at Borders 6 months ago during their store closings) has books on it bought from Borders (back when Borders via Kobo was a separate instance of kobo from kobobooks.com kobo), Kobo, Google Books via Adobe Digital Editions sideloading, and Powell's books (via Google Books via ADE sideloading).
My wife's Nook Color has all the Kobo, Borders, Google, and Powell books I bought on it as well. I can't load B&N Nook-format books onto my Kobo, because they put their own spin on Adobe DRM/EPUB on the ebooks they sell. But they support it on their hardware, so I can put my books from *anybody except Amazon* onto the Nook.
Nook and Kobo both are registered to Adobe Digital Editions software with my Adobe ID, while the Nook for B&N-native format and automagic purchases is registered to her B&N ID. Kobo is registered to my Kobo ID for its automagic purchases.
Meanwhile we have 2 dead Kindles (K2-3G-GSM version, and K3-3G). With no way to read those books on the Kobo or Nook. So it's the Android phones or the PC apps, neither of which are good for serious undistracted reading sessions. One of them (hers) out of warranty. So do we buy a new Kindle, or do we say screw you, Amazon, and from now on only buy ebooks that can be read on a broad range of ereader competitors? I'm leaning to the latter, with the warranty repair on my Kindle and deprecating Kindle reading to the phones/PCs for her old library.
My 2nd-Gen Kobo WiFi has a whiter screen than the Kindle 2, almost as bright as the E-Ink Pearl on the Kindle 3. Page turns are faster than the Kindle 2, not quite as fast as the Kindle 3. No hands-on with the Kindle 4 yet, but I have tried the Kobo Touch (out months before Kindle 4 Touch) and it was snappy compared to either Kindle we have.
I'd suggest that the Kobos are the (original) VW Beetles of the world, not the Lada. Near-universally usable, dirt cheap. With added benefit that the profits go to a company in the free country of Canada rather than to the USA.
"States that are right next to each other... run entirely differently" is in fact our Constitutional system.
States are supposed to have this capability as part of the grand American Experiment. To some extent, they still do. Bicameral legislature may be the norm but there is one US state, two territories, and DC which have unicameral legislatures http://v.gd/0eGJ5A. Massachusetts passed an individual health insurance mandate, much to Romney's now-regret, but other states did not. Gun control laws differ, in large part due to the different sensibilities, geography, customs of life in different states. Auto licensing ages differ.
The Tmo G2 has wifi and usb tethering built in. It's about 95% pure Google. Closest to pure of any non-Nexus phone. I use it all the time when traveling.
Well then you're an asshat and so is your manager who keeps you employed. I've written a lot of "uninteresting" code because it was MFJ to do so. If the problem is legitimate and verified (or if part of your job is to verify/replicate) then you bloody frakking well better fix my problem if it gets assigned to you, whether it floats your personal boat or no. Or if you supervise a team, task it to the appropriate team member and monitor their progress. Or if it's legitimate but below the complexity level your company pays you to fix, route it back down the food chain to the correct level of support.
The correct response to a bunch of uninteresting problems beyond your personal boredom threshold it for you to quit and hope in this economy to find a more "interesting" job elsewhere. While somebody who knows the difference between "job" and "personal interest" takes your place and fixes the paying customer's legitimate problem.
So like many, by complaining you got a special, non-published deal. That's great for you, but it doesn't make for good public policy. It's like everybody getting a different "Insane Price" at Crazy Eddie because nothing was labeled. If anything, it's a datapoint added towards proof that they overcharge.
I agree that a ThinkPad is near-indestructible. However add a stoner daughter college kid, cat who repeatedly likes to knock over drinks into the laptop, and boyfriend who decides to dry it out with her industrial-strength hairdryer. Hilarity ensues.
Consider a TV only. Anything that needs software from Samsung is worthless. Google the BD-P1600 Blu-Ray player as example. Won't play Warner Blu-Rays and each update makes it worse.
1. Most carriers have multiple billing cycles. I've got two separate T-Mobile accounts (3 devices on one and 2 in another area code on another) and they cycle on different weeks.They have had the 5GB and then throttle till next month "unlimited" concept on data cards for quite some time, BTW. I've seen the same thing when I was on AT&T with more than one account. So the un-throttling will happen spread across the month, at least in smaller cluster.
2. Most users are not going anywhere near to 5GB of usage./. users are totally atypical.
3. It's not a cure to network congestion/oversell. It's a deterrent to keep the tiny proportion of potential customers who will go over 5GB from becoming customers, or for existing customers who regularly do so from remaining to be customers. It sometimes makes sense to "fire your customer" if said customer doesn't match your product offering and capabilities. If you regularly go over 5GB/month data, you are NOT the customer they want.
And it probably isn't the product you want either, given that EV-DO Rev.A isn't all that fast. T-Mo "4G" HSPA+ or for that matter their 3G is faster than Sprint's EV-DO Rev.A (Virigin's network) - I've had both in multiple locations. Sprint's "4G" (actually Clear's WiMax network) is very fast and is unlimited with no throttling. Sprint sells it as 5GB 3G with unlimited 4G, and I think Clear does too, while also selling an unlimited 4G-only plan cheaper. If you're in a Clear WiMax area you're better of with this, and WiMax was actually designed as fixed-broadband replacement.
Good insight but naive about workplace issues
on
Anxiety and IT?
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· Score: 1
"As most IT professionals are not unionize employees, and thus typically individually negotiate their contract of employment..."
Negotiate? Most IT professionals don't have the option to negotiate anything. It's "here's what we're paying". Yes, during hiring in good times, you have a one-time opportunity to express what you will and won't take. Once you're in, that's it, even in good companies. You get the salary rate, raise, or nowadays cut, that they tell you you're getting.
"In larger employers Human Resource (HR) departments and Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) have increasingly identified the importance of work-life balance, which includes not being on-call 24/7 constantly. In it humanly impossible to be constantly (available to) do your job correctly and effectively around the clock on an ongoing basis. Any manager who doesn't realize or acknowledge that is dangerous to your personal and professional well-being. In other words, they are willing to sell your soul for their gain."
Have you ever dealt with them? HR will do absolutely nothing about managers like this. I've been in plenty of large companies in Finance, Retailing, Motion Picture Studios - big companies will full-fledged HR Depts. You start a complaint, you're toast. You find yourself getting a bad rating or a not-so-good rating in your annual review, but nothing so egregious or provably retaliatory. Suddenly your share of the "bonus pool" is lower than you were getting.
HR is there to help managers cover their ass and the company stay out of legal trouble. Not to help you.
"And suggest your manager fields all calls first, so as to filter any non-essential incidences since all professionals are 'always on the clock.'"
Until a couple of weeks ago, chase.com had a message on their homepage "It's time to upgrade your browser, before July 18". When you clicked through to see the list of browser versions required after 18 July, IE6 was one of the supported browsers. It should have been one of the ones not supported after that date.
It'll take another decade before people are off IE6 at this rate.
This is why I miss my decades-old pre-TDI Jetta Diesel with mechanical fuel injection, mechanical fuel pump, and a manual transmission. Other than the generator and battery, nothing electric of any importance. And you could get by without them. Push-start or roll it down a hill, pop the clutch, and you're driving the next 800 miles passing all the cooked cars.
Newer Diesels are all computerized to the extent that if your alternator dies and your battery goes flat, the car shuts down. Even though it's a compression ignition engine and shouldn't need any stinkin' electricity. Guess how I know this.
Offices with doors that close. Big whiteboard in each office. Couple of guest chairs. Two developers to each office. Desks on opposite sides of room so they aren't stuck elbow to elbow, but still can swivel and wheel over to the other.
I worked at one company that did this in their LA branch office. I was in NYC but flew out there a few times a year. Most productive setup I've seen. Physical layout offers quiet, respect for technologists, room for collaboration whether pair programming, "other set of eyes", or effective (as in small =5 people) meetings, prevention of "mismanagement by walking around".
Nobody will do it nowadays. Those offices are given to clueless middle managers instead.
Which is the same price as the printer. I got one a couple of years ago and use it lightly, so has some toner left in all 4 cartridges. I'm not thrilled about the replacement cost. Not ecologically sound to discard the whole thing but the pricing is crazy.
It's slow, BTW. My everyday printer, a Brother HL2070N, is about 3 times faster.
Slashdot Mirror
Why does G+ have to take "the edge over Facebook"? Computers may be binary, people, at least people who get out of their basements, are not.
G+ has many better features for sharing with granular control. Better long-form posting; FB has expanded it some but not unlimited like G+. Sure, I wish they had nested circles and boolean logic for circles, but it's not all so hard. It's still easier and more discoverable to control sharing on G+ than it is on FB, even with FB's recent massive improvements in this realm (an obvious panic-response to G+ on the same order as IE7 was to FF). G+ is inherently asymmetrical, while FB's "subscribe" asymmetry is another tacked-on panic response to G+.
G+ is where I interact with people I hadn't necessarily known before, on topics of shared interest, as well as in longer-form with people I do know. Facebook, which I nuked and then created a new, no-prior-history account, is where I interact with people I know, on actual "Social" things.
Facebook is the "Family Room". Google+ is the "Discussion Salon and Art Gallery".
As to no business/org pages at launch: It's not a bug, it's a feature, and thanks be to [$DEITY] for it. We've had 4 months of G+ without all the commercialism so that it could grow organically as shaped by its adopters. Advertisers, commercial businesses, celebrity fan sites, are now coming into an established community with existing norms, rather than making it a commercial hotspot. Celebs who wanted to interact as real people, not as celebs, are there as real people. Like Jeri Ryan, who is not only in my Circles but she put me in hers. Other than some rare comments about the latest ep of her current TV series, she posts about the same types of things non-celebs do, and interacts with her circles.
This "Google+ has failed" meme is stupid spin by people who only think linearly. They probably believe that politics only has a "left" and a "right" dimension too.
They're more linked than you think. IBM Lotus Symphony is now based on OO.o 3x code, has been since 2009. Now I believe 3.3 or at least 3.2 after the early-2011 Symphony FixPack. Other than the IBM-built UI, a lot of Symphony is open source or built on open source. Even the UI is based on Eclipse. IBM added some import/export filter improvements, which I think they gave back to the community. If they didn't then, they did 4 months ago, when IBM donated the entire Symphony codebase and rights to Apache. Also reported right here on Slashdot, which is of course why nobody here seems to know that.
I strongly prefer Symphony for everyday use over LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org (essentially indistinguishable until recently, from a user and UI perspective). I like the tabbed interface a whole lot better than having a bunch of windows running around. We geeks castigated IE for years until they adopted tabbed browsing; how come we meekly accept non-tabbed office suite interfaces? I've got LibreOffice on my PCs, but I also have Symphony, and I have Symphony set as the default for all ODF formats and Microsoft Office formats that are supported by Symphony.
I'm working on a novel. Writing in in Symphony. Chapter I'm writing is in one tab, other chapters for referbacks are in others, character notes and plot notes, dialog snippets in yet others. Just more intuitive than different windows. Also, each new tab eats less resources than a full new window. For regular everyday life stuff, the same tabbed interface helps with a budget spreadsheet in one tab and reference docs in others. Sure, could do this in separate windows. But we could all be using single-page non-tabbed browsers too.
Symphony does not include the OpenOffice.org Base, Math, nor Draw modules. If I need them (unlikely), I have LibreOffice's improved versions of them to use. The only two features (arguably one feature) from OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice I miss sometimes is the Open Read-Only option in the file dialogs, and the toolbar button to switch from editing to Read-Only mode. In Symphony the only way I've found to open something read-only is to deliberately open it first in Symphony, Microsoft Office, or LibreOffice, and then open it a second time. The second time will be read-only due to the file lock.
I'd love to see the Symphony interface and other enhancements become the new UI for OpenOffice.org, or perhaps "Apache SymphonyOffice" to get away from the "we're not the now-who-cares OpenOffice commercial company which is why we need the stupid .org in our actual product name" problem. Bake Base, Draw, Math back into it along with some of the features that IBM took out (R/O pretty please?). You get a strong alternative to Microsoft Office, with an updated UI compared to LibreOffice. Rather than the confusing situation of LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org being identical in appearance (yeah, minor toolbar changes) and a confused outside-the-geekosphere public. LibreOffice and Symphony would be different enough to attract different audiences. Somewhere down the road they might even be able to work together again, because their products wouldn't be looking 99% identical and thus direct competitors with no reason for both to exist. The Symphony changeover would give that reason.
Dude, you're not a *Droid* user unless you're on Verizon. You're an *Android* user.
Android isn't going anywhere. I'd be more worried about Sprint going away rather than Sprint (if it stays in business) dropping Android phones. If you haven't noticed, over the past couple of years, Sprint has successfully bet the company on Android. Pretty much the only reason they still are in business.
You must have a big lap. http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/zenith-big/index.html
I built one of these as the Heathkit version, back in 1984. Wiring every single circuit board. Just like God intended it.
Even brought this "portable" on a business trip in the overhead compartment once. And only once.
Kobos are more open. Kindle is locked into Amazon's AZW format for DRM'd (read: general non-geek public) legal book purchases.
Kobo uses the Adobe DRM/EPUB ecosphere. My Kobo WiFi ($79 at Borders 6 months ago during their store closings) has books on it bought from Borders (back when Borders via Kobo was a separate instance of kobo from kobobooks.com kobo), Kobo, Google Books via Adobe Digital Editions sideloading, and Powell's books (via Google Books via ADE sideloading).
My wife's Nook Color has all the Kobo, Borders, Google, and Powell books I bought on it as well. I can't load B&N Nook-format books onto my Kobo, because they put their own spin on Adobe DRM/EPUB on the ebooks they sell. But they support it on their hardware, so I can put my books from *anybody except Amazon* onto the Nook.
Nook and Kobo both are registered to Adobe Digital Editions software with my Adobe ID, while the Nook for B&N-native format and automagic purchases is registered to her B&N ID. Kobo is registered to my Kobo ID for its automagic purchases.
Meanwhile we have 2 dead Kindles (K2-3G-GSM version, and K3-3G). With no way to read those books on the Kobo or Nook. So it's the Android phones or the PC apps, neither of which are good for serious undistracted reading sessions. One of them (hers) out of warranty. So do we buy a new Kindle, or do we say screw you, Amazon, and from now on only buy ebooks that can be read on a broad range of ereader competitors? I'm leaning to the latter, with the warranty repair on my Kindle and deprecating Kindle reading to the phones/PCs for her old library.
My 2nd-Gen Kobo WiFi has a whiter screen than the Kindle 2, almost as bright as the E-Ink Pearl on the Kindle 3. Page turns are faster than the Kindle 2, not quite as fast as the Kindle 3. No hands-on with the Kindle 4 yet, but I have tried the Kobo Touch (out months before Kindle 4 Touch) and it was snappy compared to either Kindle we have.
I'd suggest that the Kobos are the (original) VW Beetles of the world, not the Lada. Near-universally usable, dirt cheap. With added benefit that the profits go to a company in the free country of Canada rather than to the USA.
Nobody has realized that the collision patterns might be from Superboy-Prime punching the walls of reality?
With all the NIMBY politics, it seems cheaper to just drop the stuff on the moon.
Tried already. Had a nasty unintended consequence. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Space:_1999
"States that are right next to each other... run entirely differently" is in fact our Constitutional system.
States are supposed to have this capability as part of the grand American Experiment. To some extent, they still do. Bicameral legislature may be the norm but there is one US state, two territories, and DC which have unicameral legislatures http://v.gd/0eGJ5A. Massachusetts passed an individual health insurance mandate, much to Romney's now-regret, but other states did not. Gun control laws differ, in large part due to the different sensibilities, geography, customs of life in different states. Auto licensing ages differ.
There should be much more of this, not less.
The Tmo G2 has wifi and usb tethering built in. It's about 95% pure Google. Closest to pure of any non-Nexus phone. I use it all the time when traveling.
It sounds to me like parent doesn't do support so much as dickwaving.
Well then you're an asshat and so is your manager who keeps you employed. I've written a lot of "uninteresting" code because it was MFJ to do so. If the problem is legitimate and verified (or if part of your job is to verify/replicate) then you bloody frakking well better fix my problem if it gets assigned to you, whether it floats your personal boat or no. Or if you supervise a team, task it to the appropriate team member and monitor their progress. Or if it's legitimate but below the complexity level your company pays you to fix, route it back down the food chain to the correct level of support.
The correct response to a bunch of uninteresting problems beyond your personal boredom threshold it for you to quit and hope in this economy to find a more "interesting" job elsewhere. While somebody who knows the difference between "job" and "personal interest" takes your place and fixes the paying customer's legitimate problem.
So like many, by complaining you got a special, non-published deal. That's great for you, but it doesn't make for good public policy. It's like everybody getting a different "Insane Price" at Crazy Eddie because nothing was labeled. If anything, it's a datapoint added towards proof that they overcharge.
I agree that a ThinkPad is near-indestructible. However add a stoner daughter college kid, cat who repeatedly likes to knock over drinks into the laptop, and boyfriend who decides to dry it out with her industrial-strength hairdryer. Hilarity ensues.
You'll find modern equivalents in any good bootfitter's toolkit - just go check out your local ski shop.
Yes, it's still around, or its conceptual descendant. Now at an airport near you looking for scrotal contraband.
Frankly, at least paper money can be burned as fuel... gold has no such auxiliary purpose.
Silver, however, can be melted down and recast into werewolf-killing bullets.
Consider a TV only. Anything that needs software from Samsung is worthless. Google the BD-P1600 Blu-Ray player as example. Won't play Warner Blu-Rays and each update makes it worse.
Except for three things:
1. Most carriers have multiple billing cycles. I've got two separate T-Mobile accounts (3 devices on one and 2 in another area code on another) and they cycle on different weeks.They have had the 5GB and then throttle till next month "unlimited" concept on data cards for quite some time, BTW. I've seen the same thing when I was on AT&T with more than one account. So the un-throttling will happen spread across the month, at least in smaller cluster.
2. Most users are not going anywhere near to 5GB of usage. /. users are totally atypical.
3. It's not a cure to network congestion/oversell. It's a deterrent to keep the tiny proportion of potential customers who will go over 5GB from becoming customers, or for existing customers who regularly do so from remaining to be customers. It sometimes makes sense to "fire your customer" if said customer doesn't match your product offering and capabilities. If you regularly go over 5GB/month data, you are NOT the customer they want.
And it probably isn't the product you want either, given that EV-DO Rev.A isn't all that fast. T-Mo "4G" HSPA+ or for that matter their 3G is faster than Sprint's EV-DO Rev.A (Virigin's network) - I've had both in multiple locations. Sprint's "4G" (actually Clear's WiMax network) is very fast and is unlimited with no throttling. Sprint sells it as 5GB 3G with unlimited 4G, and I think Clear does too, while also selling an unlimited 4G-only plan cheaper. If you're in a Clear WiMax area you're better of with this, and WiMax was actually designed as fixed-broadband replacement.
"As most IT professionals are not unionize employees, and thus typically individually negotiate their contract of employment..."
Negotiate? Most IT professionals don't have the option to negotiate anything. It's "here's what we're paying". Yes, during hiring in good times, you have a one-time opportunity to express what you will and won't take. Once you're in, that's it, even in good companies. You get the salary rate, raise, or nowadays cut, that they tell you you're getting.
"In larger employers Human Resource (HR) departments and Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) have increasingly identified the importance of work-life balance, which includes not being on-call 24/7 constantly. In it humanly impossible to be constantly (available to) do your job correctly and effectively around the clock on an ongoing basis. Any manager who doesn't realize or acknowledge that is dangerous to your personal and professional well-being. In other words, they are willing to sell your soul for their gain."
Have you ever dealt with them? HR will do absolutely nothing about managers like this. I've been in plenty of large companies in Finance, Retailing, Motion Picture Studios - big companies will full-fledged HR Depts. You start a complaint, you're toast. You find yourself getting a bad rating or a not-so-good rating in your annual review, but nothing so egregious or provably retaliatory. Suddenly your share of the "bonus pool" is lower than you were getting.
HR is there to help managers cover their ass and the company stay out of legal trouble. Not to help you.
"And suggest your manager fields all calls first, so as to filter any non-essential incidences since all professionals are 'always on the clock.'"
Yeah, like that's gonna happen.
Until a couple of weeks ago, chase.com had a message on their homepage "It's time to upgrade your browser, before July 18". When you clicked through to see the list of browser versions required after 18 July, IE6 was one of the supported browsers. It should have been one of the ones not supported after that date.
It'll take another decade before people are off IE6 at this rate.
This is why I miss my decades-old pre-TDI Jetta Diesel with mechanical fuel injection, mechanical fuel pump, and a manual transmission. Other than the generator and battery, nothing electric of any importance. And you could get by without them. Push-start or roll it down a hill, pop the clutch, and you're driving the next 800 miles passing all the cooked cars.
Newer Diesels are all computerized to the extent that if your alternator dies and your battery goes flat, the car shuts down. Even though it's a compression ignition engine and shouldn't need any stinkin' electricity. Guess how I know this.
And duct tape. Don't forget duct tape. NASA doesn't.
http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/NASA/
Offices with doors that close. Big whiteboard in each office. Couple of guest chairs. Two developers to each office. Desks on opposite sides of room so they aren't stuck elbow to elbow, but still can swivel and wheel over to the other.
I worked at one company that did this in their LA branch office. I was in NYC but flew out there a few times a year. Most productive setup I've seen. Physical layout offers quiet, respect for technologists, room for collaboration whether pair programming, "other set of eyes", or effective (as in small =5 people) meetings, prevention of "mismanagement by walking around".
Nobody will do it nowadays. Those offices are given to clueless middle managers instead.
Same goes for hotels and other places. Imagine not being able to reinstall your OS just because you're in a hotel at the time.
Yeah, because people staying at hotels for business or vacation always intend to reinstall their OS.
Which is the same price as the printer. I got one a couple of years ago and use it lightly, so has some toner left in all 4 cartridges. I'm not thrilled about the replacement cost. Not ecologically sound to discard the whole thing but the pricing is crazy.
It's slow, BTW. My everyday printer, a Brother HL2070N, is about 3 times faster.