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#4 is especially important. Each meeting should start with or have a goal, then each individual (if appropriate) should have next steps or tasks to accomplish.
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Agreed - the number of wasteful meetings I've been in is sad.
I wish people would add the salaries of everyone at a meeting and use that as a benchmark if the meeting is needed.
TTFN - Kent
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The group has published a new list of security recommendations that range from moderate to paranoid. Welcome to the year of Linux security
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Time to check the list, find out whether I am paranoid enough 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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They recommend using noscript, an addon whose default behavior leads 99.9% of web sites unusable and which is beyond the capability/patience of 99.9% of users to make work on sites they visit. (Figure 99% of users can't, and 90% of those of us who can can't be elephanted to waste that much time doing so.) OTOH a site mirroring an plaintext only mailing list that was written in the late 90s will work fine. Clearly written by someone out of touch with the real world. They probably figure that FF+noscript is more capable than Lynx in a terminal window and therefor good enough by definition. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Remote teams are becoming more popular for development departments, but could they also hold the key to improved productivity? "Your mouthwash ain't making it."
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depends on the developers around you.
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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It will be counterproductive if you are not on the same team.
If you are on the same team, then it might lead to improved productivity if you designate an area specially for the tasks you do, and to gather there when working. Not only will there be specialized, dedicated machinery, there will also be co-workers that you can interact with, in ways that go beyond IM.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Quote: “Co-location opens interruption floodgates”. Other team members sitting in the same room along with managers “who are suddenly in the room” all contribute to a disruptive environment for developers.
Aside from a single person who loved to send a question to all team members, wait just long enough that if I dropped whatever I was doing to respond that I'd be about 1 sentence into a replay, and then walk over and knock on my doorway; this's never been a real problem for me. Said person always showed up at my desk because I was 20 feet away (and possibly less likely to snap at him verbally). The people who were 10 or 20 times more likely to actually be able to answer his questions (I was only peripherally involved in the same part of the app that he was and thus rarely knew the answer to his questions) were ~150 feet and a stairwell; or 250 feet, a stairwell, and 3 security doors away. 
Were we remote, I'm certain his neediness would've transformed itself into calling me at the drop of a hat instead. 
Quote: Self-inflicted interruptions are also mentioned in the form of notifications via social media or internal communications.
Yeah, working remotely will do so much to reduce this burden. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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The success or failure rate of a development team can largely be correlated with the expertise and skill sets represented by its individual members. "Along with these other results, it gives *you* just about the most twisted, anti-social bunch of psychopathic deformities I have ever run into!"
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Wow, none of those are actually crucial skills.
"Willingness to work with remote teams"? How's that going to help me work with a team right here?
Or "Involvement in the open-source community"? I've contributed loads of work to [some open source project] to boost my ego, but I'm a total prick when it comes to working with colleagues.
Alright, I agree on the source control (sort of, you don't need to be THAT comfortable with it)...
I guess we don't need patient people who can explain things to others or people who inspire the rest of the team or... [insert random soft skill here].
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Remember the heady days of August 2007, when the iPhone had barely reached store shelves and the Nokia N95 was all the rage? Oh, is that why windows mobile never took off?
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"Remember the heady days of August 2007, when the iPhone had barely reached store shelves"
Yeah - I remember those days quite well - we had a boss that told us not to worry about that toy with a color screen - after all - we had better battery life.
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Aldrin is working with the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) to develop what he calls “a master plan” to colonize Mars in just 25 years. "There they go, off to Mars, just for the ride, thinking that they will find a planet like a seer's crystal, in which to read a miraculous future."
Buzz, did you even read, "The Martian"? The place is *nasty*.
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He's pretty old I don't believe he'll be able to go in 25 years...oh he probably means someone else is going to colonize mars. 
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.1 new web site.
I know the voices in my head are not real but damn they come up with some good ideas!
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Buzz, how about suggesting to spend the money that would be needed for such a project to make this planet a better place first of all? Instead of wasting it for the stupid attempt to colonize a dry, cold rock where the only place to survive and be safe from cosmic radiation is beneath the surface. As if we didn't have enough bottlenecks to deal with down here. Sure I would like to see humans to reach for the stars, but it's not the right time, it's too early, we've got more important problems to solve on Earth before we can start to think about such a mission.
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It'll happen when it happens.
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A new study by Oracle and Opinium Research finds that businesses around the world overestimate their ability to flexibly manage workloads or rapidly develop, test and launch new applications. I can touch my toes, does that count as agile?
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Kent Sharkey wrote: A new study by Oracle and Opinium Research
Like we need a study Orifice and Opium Research to tell us what we all already know. 
Well, maybe the difference is, we in the trenches know, while management continues to put its collective head in the sand while wagging its butt in the air occasionally tooting "we are an agile company."
Marc
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Ah, Oracle. The nimble and agile company that basically invented agile
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What're you talking about? Oracle is as agile as two high speed trains approaching each other on the same track. Bits and pieces end up going in every direction. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Microsoft has a new Office tool that's really useful if you regularly take screenshots. Microsoft Snip, available in beta now, allows Windows users to capture screenshots and then annotate on them and record audio over the top. Aaaaaand there goes Camtasia
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