The conspiracy-minded might see this as a sneaky way for MS to force the segment of the market that's not running latest (or legit) copies of Windows to upgrade, in turn boosting demand for new hardware (since those NT4 and 98 boxen probably won't run XP.) Hey, it works for Apple.:-)
Isn't the PC market sluggish right now? Having MS couch an upgrade as a necessary security fix might give it a little jolt. At the very least, it can't hurt MS to shake out a few new customers from the bushes. Especially if there just happens to be a new 'sploit that comes out which SP2 fixes...
Reading the posts, I agree with those saying that the startup environment is (probably) the worst place to try and have a "real life" (with kids or not), and more stable, professional organizations are going to be a bit more family-friendly.
Personally, I've found that being married and then having kids has given me a much stronger reason NOT to work deadthmarch hours, to practice better at-work time management (Slashdot time notwithstanding:-) Before getting married and having kids I stayed at work, worked at home, worked weekends, because I felt like I "had to," and because I really had nothing else to do.
With kids, my priorities have shifted -- work is important, and at work, it's my top priority. But I come in at a regular time, and leave at a regular time. I'm available for emergencies, and have worked occasional evenings and weekends, but I'm still making the soccer games, school fairs, PTA meetings, and dad time.
I'm in an department with a lot of single coders, and being relatively young with children probably puts me at the "oddity" end of the scale, but if anything, the kids have helped me get balance, get organized, and helped me keep track of what *really* matters in life.
I doubt it was because PJ was trolling for Oscar votes, if that's what you're implying. If anything, I see the emphasis on the love story giving Arwen *something* to do. Tolkein didn't write very many women into the trilogy at all -- Eowyn gets to slay the witch king and all, but what does Arwen do... get married in the end? Ho hum.
Hell, my (nearly) 6-year-old is totally devoted to 'em. And they stay together for about an hour, and then all the bits get yanked apart, re-assembled and combed over for about an hour, and I get...
"Hey dad, look what I built out of my imagination."
Nothing makes a Lego-geek/parent prouder, lemme tell ya... my kid's Bionicles kick the ass of any Pokemon garbage the other kids have.
OK, uber-geek here, but I recall that the Hobbits are pretty good shots with a rock, so I rationalize the Pippin/Merry rock-tossing-down-the-Uruks as a *very* well-thrown rock, through the eye-slit of the helmet.
Nothing beyond being honest, probably. When I first moved to CA, I was somewhat surprised to find that I wasn't allowed to bring any of my houseplants in-state (presumably to avoid non-native critters, since I've since replaced the plants.)
Nothing stopping me from driving a whole vanload in, though, really.
On a related note, here in San Fransicso, one of the local mass-transit groups (the subway, basically) is nearly done updating their circa-1970's fare gates and machines. The new ticket vendors are especially ATM-like, which has been a big deal, as the old machines were (from a UI standpoint) practically unusable.
Anyhow, the new machines look great, nice bright screens, clear directions... and when they go belly-up, they're running some variant of min-1990's Windows: NT, I'd guess. One of the machines was stuck on the desktop the other day ("oh look, the ticket machine's got Excel")
The new machines -- like the ones they replace -- take cash, credit and ATM cards. The credit card functionality seems to go up and down (mostly down). ATM is less flaky, seeming to operate only on days with an even number of letters in their name. I haven't dared to feed one of those guys a real card since I saw that desktop grinning at me... urk.
Sounds like I'd better stock up on $20s before our new ATM Overlords take over and SoBig my credit rating.
Thing that helped me most in my college (and post-grad) career: a week-at-a-glance (paper) organizer for the academic year like this one. Filled it up with dates for midterms and exams at the start of the semester, carried it everywhere.
For better note-taking, I wish I'd know about "Mind Mapping" -- see Google Non-linear note taking with pictures, arrows, scribbles, etc.. (I've got one of Tony Buzan's books -- good, if a little hype-heavy.) Even without a note-taking "system", I learned to transcribe all the notes after class into a big three-ring that never left my room. Only took a legal pad and a couple of pens to classes.
A PDA would have been nice, I suppose, but a Swiss Army knife came in much more handy.
Yup -- there's really only two scary parts to the process... the left eye and the right eye.
Thank yewwwww... I'll be here all week.
I wore contacts for a while before switching back to glasses, so I was less freaked out about having something foreign in my eye. But yeah... it helps to do a little deeeeeeeep relaxation before the process.
Had the procedure done -- both eyes on the same day! -- and it was fantastic. My night vision was never very good, so I don't mourn the loss, and in fact, my depth perception has improved since getting rid of my glasses. After a year, I'm 20/20 in one eye, 20/15 in the other -- a vast improvement over my pre-surgery vision. (And my good eye now was my good eye then, too.)
I notice my eyes getting a little tired near the end of the day, which is normal for folks with naturally good vision. And I know that I'll need reading glasses eventually. Big deal. I can see my wife in the morning, swim with my kids, fall asleep while reading, wear decent sunglasses, etc... All trivial things when you've got normal vision, but oh-so-worth it when you've needed glasses for 20+ years just to find your frelling shoes.
Oh yeah, it's worth it. Find a decent surgeon -- research! ask questions!
I was in a similar boat some years ago, finally deciding to jump ship from a small startup in the midwest run under a clueless tyrant (hi Dave!) for an opportunity on the west coast. I felt bad at the time -- I was sure that if/when I left, Bad Things would happen to the company I was leaving, and they'd surely fold in a month.
Four years later, they've had the balls to stay in business. The nerve!
My point: you can't predict what's going to happen to your current employer or your friends, and honestly, it's not your responsibility. Surprisingly few of my former coworkers have left (despite various abuses(!) and lousy, lousy management), and yeah, I felt guilty for about two weeks. By leaving, you might be showing others "the way" out of a bad situation, or you might simply be feeling worse about this job than your friends are. Either way, you owe it to *no one but yourself* to get out of there, get on with life, get a better job, and basically advance your own career. Don't be an ass about it: make a graceful exit, recommend your friends to the recruiters at your next job, and go.
Some docs have been doing this for a bit...
on
Digital Doctoring
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· Score: 1
My wife's OB was using a Palm over three years ago to keep track of his rounds, set up followup visits, and keep brief notes on his patients. He was the first in the office to try it out, but even then he'd been getting a lot of (positive) comments from the other Dr's in the practice.
Like Hotsauce for the desktop?
on
3D GUI Project
·
· Score: 2
This tickled the memory of the (formerly?) Apple project called "Hotsauce", which provided a fly-through, 3-D browsing environment for networked content. It ain't pretty, but then again, it ain't vapor. Yo ucan download a plugin:
Just chiming in here -- I'm an 80% telecommuter: I live in the SF bay area, and make the commute (1.5 hours one way) once a week to my company's office. I've been doing this for about five months now, and for the most part, it's great. The 12 hours a week I'm saving go right into family time -- playing with my toddler son, lunch with my wife. I'm FAR more productive at home than I am in the office, and have even been able to flex my schedule around doctor's appointments and the like.
Down sides? Trying to get answers from someone at the office -- they're not answering their email or phone, and I can't just swing by their desk. I miss a lot of events and impromptu meetings. Teleconferences generally suck, and I'm resisting a webcam, since it means I won't be able to go until the late afternoon before showering.
Tips: you *have* to have your own space for this, especially with a kid. My office is the extra bedroom, and I *close the door.* Get yourself a good pair of headphones, and keep that CD/MP3 collection close at hand. And impress upon housemates/significant others/etc. that you're not "really" home -- you're at work, it just happens that work is down the hall from your living room. Go into the office on a regular basis if you can: weekly is working good for me, and my in-office day is generally scheduled to the max -- that's OK: you're there to be seen. Keep a log of all the work you do, to show your PHB, esp. around performance review time.
Given the terrible commutes in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area, the high-tech bias, and the shortage of engineers, I bet you can do this. You'll need to prove that you're a Responsible Person at work, but it's worth it.
And don't forget one of my favorite reasons: maintainability, esp. by thirs parties. It's *much* easier for me to hand off a piece of generalized Perl code than something finely crafted in C/C++. I'm willing to take a performance hit for not being responsible for maintaining a Nightmare Code Base from Hell -- lots of pointer magic and memory voodoo that made sense once, but now...
Slashdot Mirror
I used to dream of an eMate, too. Then I saw these and the dream changed.
The names aren't official, they're just for the project team to have a common language for targeting, etc. See their article.
The conspiracy-minded might see this as a sneaky way for MS to force the segment of the market that's not running latest (or legit) copies of Windows to upgrade, in turn boosting demand for new hardware (since those NT4 and 98 boxen probably won't run XP.) Hey, it works for Apple. :-)
Isn't the PC market sluggish right now? Having MS couch an upgrade as a necessary security fix might give it a little jolt. At the very least, it can't hurt MS to shake out a few new customers from the bushes. Especially if there just happens to be a new 'sploit that comes out which SP2 fixes...
Reading the posts, I agree with those saying that the startup environment is (probably) the worst place to try and have a "real life" (with kids or not), and more stable, professional organizations are going to be a bit more family-friendly.
:-) Before getting married and having kids I stayed at work, worked at home, worked weekends, because I felt like I "had to," and because I really had nothing else to do.
Personally, I've found that being married and then having kids has given me a much stronger reason NOT to work deadthmarch hours, to practice better at-work time management (Slashdot time notwithstanding
With kids, my priorities have shifted -- work is important, and at work, it's my top priority. But I come in at a regular time, and leave at a regular time. I'm available for emergencies, and have worked occasional evenings and weekends, but I'm still making the soccer games, school fairs, PTA meetings, and dad time.
I'm in an department with a lot of single coders, and being relatively young with children probably puts me at the "oddity" end of the scale, but if anything, the kids have helped me get balance, get organized, and helped me keep track of what *really* matters in life.
I doubt it was because PJ was trolling for Oscar votes, if that's what you're implying. If anything, I see the emphasis on the love story giving Arwen *something* to do. Tolkein didn't write very many women into the trilogy at all -- Eowyn gets to slay the witch king and all, but what does Arwen do... get married in the end? Ho hum.
Hell, my (nearly) 6-year-old is totally devoted to 'em. And they stay together for about an hour, and then all the bits get yanked apart, re-assembled and combed over for about an hour, and I get...
"Hey dad, look what I built out of my imagination."
Nothing makes a Lego-geek/parent prouder, lemme tell ya... my kid's Bionicles kick the ass of any Pokemon garbage the other kids have.
OK, uber-geek here, but I recall that the Hobbits are pretty good shots with a rock, so I rationalize the Pippin/Merry rock-tossing-down-the-Uruks as a *very* well-thrown rock, through the eye-slit of the helmet.
Nothing beyond being honest, probably. When I first moved to CA, I was somewhat surprised to find that I wasn't allowed to bring any of my houseplants in-state (presumably to avoid non-native critters, since I've since replaced the plants.)
Nothing stopping me from driving a whole vanload in, though, really.
Oh please. They already *have* those 50 million numbers. They run autodialer software.
555-1000
555-1001
555-1002
etc.
On a related note, here in San Fransicso, one of the local mass-transit groups (the subway, basically) is nearly done updating their circa-1970's fare gates and machines. The new ticket vendors are especially ATM-like, which has been a big deal, as the old machines were (from a UI standpoint) practically unusable.
Anyhow, the new machines look great, nice bright screens, clear directions... and when they go belly-up, they're running some variant of min-1990's Windows: NT, I'd guess. One of the machines was stuck on the desktop the other day ("oh look, the ticket machine's got Excel")
The new machines -- like the ones they replace -- take cash, credit and ATM cards. The credit card functionality seems to go up and down (mostly down). ATM is less flaky, seeming to operate only on days with an even number of letters in their name. I haven't dared to feed one of those guys a real card since I saw that desktop grinning at me... urk.
Sounds like I'd better stock up on $20s before our new ATM Overlords take over and SoBig my credit rating.
Autodialer, baby. Who cares if the number is legit? It's easier just to let the machine ++ through.
Thing that helped me most in my college (and post-grad) career: a week-at-a-glance (paper) organizer for the academic year like this one. Filled it up with dates for midterms and exams at the start of the semester, carried it everywhere.
For better note-taking, I wish I'd know about "Mind Mapping" -- see Google Non-linear note taking with pictures, arrows, scribbles, etc.. (I've got one of Tony Buzan's books -- good, if a little hype-heavy.) Even without a note-taking "system", I learned to transcribe all the notes after class into a big three-ring that never left my room. Only took a legal pad and a couple of pens to classes.
A PDA would have been nice, I suppose, but a Swiss Army knife came in much more handy.
My fault -- I meant, my night vision was never very good, so *if* it got worse, I can't tell.
Not mourning the loss of something I never had...
Yup -- there's really only two scary parts to the process... the left eye and the right eye.
Thank yewwwww... I'll be here all week.
I wore contacts for a while before switching back to glasses, so I was less freaked out about having something foreign in my eye. But yeah... it helps to do a little deeeeeeeep relaxation before the process.
Amen to that, and gawd bless the font-size shortcut in Mozilla. No more 6pt. Squintyfont sites for me, thanks.
Had the procedure done -- both eyes on the same day! -- and it was fantastic. My night vision was never very good, so I don't mourn the loss, and in fact, my depth perception has improved since getting rid of my glasses. After a year, I'm 20/20 in one eye, 20/15 in the other -- a vast improvement over my pre-surgery vision. (And my good eye now was my good eye then, too.)
I notice my eyes getting a little tired near the end of the day, which is normal for folks with naturally good vision. And I know that I'll need reading glasses eventually. Big deal. I can see my wife in the morning, swim with my kids, fall asleep while reading, wear decent sunglasses, etc... All trivial things when you've got normal vision, but oh-so-worth it when you've needed glasses for 20+ years just to find your frelling shoes.
Oh yeah, it's worth it. Find a decent surgeon -- research! ask questions!
> Obviously it is fairly limited just because of the input for this device, but its quite a clever hack.
Typical Apple -- it lacks three mouse buttons!
My TiVo playback of the pirated DirectTV downlink (on my iPaq, running wireless in my bathroom) doesn't show any commercials.
:-) all around
I was in a similar boat some years ago, finally deciding to jump ship from a small startup in the midwest run under a clueless tyrant (hi Dave!) for an opportunity on the west coast. I felt bad at the time -- I was sure that if/when I left, Bad Things would happen to the company I was leaving, and they'd surely fold in a month.
Four years later, they've had the balls to stay in business. The nerve!
My point: you can't predict what's going to happen to your current employer or your friends, and honestly, it's not your responsibility. Surprisingly few of my former coworkers have left (despite various abuses(!) and lousy, lousy management), and yeah, I felt guilty for about two weeks. By leaving, you might be showing others "the way" out of a bad situation, or you might simply be feeling worse about this job than your friends are. Either way, you owe it to *no one but yourself* to get out of there, get on with life, get a better job, and basically advance your own career. Don't be an ass about it: make a graceful exit, recommend your friends to the recruiters at your next job, and go.
My wife's OB was using a Palm over three years ago to keep track of his rounds, set up followup visits, and keep brief notes on his patients. He was the first in the office to try it out, but even then he'd been getting a lot of (positive) comments from the other Dr's in the practice.
This tickled the memory of the (formerly?) Apple project called "Hotsauce", which provided a fly-through, 3-D browsing environment for networked content. It ain't pretty, but then again, it ain't vapor. Yo ucan download a plugin:
http://www.xspace.net/hotsauce/Just chiming in here -- I'm an 80% telecommuter: I live in the SF bay area, and make the commute (1.5 hours one way) once a week to my company's office. I've been doing this for about five months now, and for the most part, it's great. The 12 hours a week I'm saving go right into family time -- playing with my toddler son, lunch with my wife. I'm FAR more productive at home than I am in the office, and have even been able to flex my schedule around doctor's appointments and the like.
Down sides? Trying to get answers from someone at the office -- they're not answering their email or phone, and I can't just swing by their desk. I miss a lot of events and impromptu meetings. Teleconferences generally suck, and I'm resisting a webcam, since it means I won't be able to go until the late afternoon before showering.
Tips: you *have* to have your own space for this, especially with a kid. My office is the extra bedroom, and I *close the door.* Get yourself a good pair of headphones, and keep that CD/MP3 collection close at hand. And impress upon housemates/significant others/etc. that you're not "really" home -- you're at work, it just happens that work is down the hall from your living room. Go into the office on a regular basis if you can: weekly is working good for me, and my in-office day is generally scheduled to the max -- that's OK: you're there to be seen. Keep a log of all the work you do, to show your PHB, esp. around performance review time.
Given the terrible commutes in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area, the high-tech bias, and the shortage of engineers, I bet you can do this. You'll need to prove that you're a Responsible Person at work, but it's worth it.
Yup -- check out the various discussions at:
http://www.lugnet.com/fun/gaming/
....32.rf... OUCH ...3..2x.?....
And don't forget one of my favorite reasons: maintainability, esp. by thirs parties. It's *much* easier for me to hand off a piece of generalized Perl code than something finely crafted in C/C++. I'm willing to take a performance hit for not being responsible for maintaining a Nightmare Code Base from Hell -- lots of pointer magic and memory voodoo that made sense once, but now...