An odd similiarity…
A coworker and I made an observation that there is a behavior pattern that is similar in both three-year-olds and members of Congress:
1. Choose a meaningless event that has recently occurred
2. Take the opposite position of whomever talked last
3. Throw a tantrum
A New Term To Add To Your Vocabulary
Posted by Jon in Uncategorized on December 8, 2009
A common term around the office is the “Silver Bullet”. It refers to the notion that some simple radical instrument or change is going to fix all the problems that are being encountered. I have begun referring to these instead as “Silver Boomerang” ideas. The implications of the term are that the results of the change are difficult to predict, and have the likely potential to smack you in the back of your head. Wham!
Required Viewing
I ran across this web site the other day while reading about climate change. In my mind, it is required viewing for anyone interested in residing on this planet. Especially check out the sections about Carbon Dioxide Levels and Global Average Temperature, as they speak volumes.
The only constant is change
I had been running this site off a Linux server in my basement for the last 7 years or so. At the time, I got the fastest connection available: 768k DSL. I later upgraded to 1.5Mb DSL. Now life has different priorities. I spend much of my free time with my family, and I no longer had time to maintain the machine or the OS. I have moved the server to a hosted space, disconnected the DSL and turned off the server after all this time. I can safely say that my basement is now devoid of the whine of fan motors. We also have a much speedier 16 Mb connection thanks to Comcast. Qwest had sent us advertisements over and over again saying that Fiber was coming to our neighborhood (with 20Mb service), and even went as far as to put flyers on the doors of the whole neighborhood saying that it was available. Calls into Qwest proved fruitless in that regard. Their loss.
For the curious, the previous site was run a dual processor Pentium III 450 that I inherited from a previous job on Gentoo Linux. I only had one crash the whole time it was up, and that was because of unexpected power loss and damage to the motherboard. I’d recommend a UPS for any computer without a built in battery.
The site goes on. Whee.
Eliminate Executive Restrooms
I have heard people say that CEO compensation isn’t really out of balance with their responsibilities. Really? Take a typical S&P 500 CEO. If they earn 1.5 million in salary, that is equivalent to 1,500,000/52/5/8 = $721.15 per hour. Considering minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour. Ok, so a typical CEO makes 100 times that of a minimum wage worker in salary. The reality, though is that only a fraction of the typical CEO’s compensation comes in as salary. The AFL-CIO database of CEO compensation lists the average compensation for S&P 500 executives at $10,836,843 a year. In other words: $10,836,843/52/5/8 = $5210 per hour.
I think we should eliminate executive restrooms. Here is my reasoning: Let’s say the typical S&P CEO visits the restroom three times a day during normal business hours, at five minutes a trip this adds up to 15 minutes a day. $5210/hour equates to $86 a minute, thus the CEO costs the company $1290 a day in bathroom trips. If this is a daily occurrence, $1290*5*52 = $335,400 a year to go to the bathroom.
Considering the President of the United States is compensated $400K a year, well, I’ll let you make the leap.
Mileage Accuracy
I started an experiment with the last fill up of the tank of gas in my truck. I reset the truck’s trip odometer, and also reset the trip computer in my Garmin Nuvi. After 140 miles or so, the Nuvi is reading a little over 2.5 miles more than the trip odometer. The question is: Which one is right? I guess I’ll have to find a known distance, and reset both of them to see. Something to add to the to-do list, but certainly not at the top.
Unmotivational continued…
It appears that the unmotivational posters are being done by someone at work. Here is the latest.
unmotivational posters
Recently at my place of employment, there have been a rash of “productivity” posters placed around the workspace, with the intent to give helpful advice about how to be a better performer. I just find them insulting. Take this example:
Work early, late, and on weekends and you will get more done!
Another poster, which disappeared prior to me getting a picture of it, mentioned that better collaboration is possible if you wear under-arm deodorant. I’m not kidding.
As we keep scaling back spending at work, I wonder how much they spent on this poster campaign. Hmmm.
Yahoo Autosync needs an update
Yahoo Autosync must be a low priority item for Yahoo. I am running Vista, and it isn’t usable. Looking at the help page for Autosync related to supported platforms, it is pretty obvious that it isn’t something Yahoo values (or they don’t update help very often):
What are the system requirements?
Currently, you need Windows 2000, Windows XP Pro, or Windows XP Home.You also need at least a Pentium Processor, 128MB RAM, and 40MB disk space.
Note: Vista/Outlook 2007 are not currently supported. We hope to have this by the end of 2007.
Last time I looked 2007, and 2008 have come and gone.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. I didn’t pay for it. 
Slackers are people too
While reading the summary of Oregon’s benefits from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I was amused to see that “slackers” are now a Targetted Group that can be used by a business as a tax credit:
“Under current law, businesses are allowed to claim a work opportunity tax credit equal to 40 percent of the first $6,000 of wages paid to employees of one of nine targeted groups … The bill creates two new targeted groups of prospective employees: unemployed veterans and disconnected youth. … An individual qualifies as a disconnected youth if they are between the ages of 16 and 25 and have not been regularly employed or attended school in the past 6 months.”
Does that mean that we will now see signs outside businesses that say “Slackers Wanted”?
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