Ten Golden Rules of Communication

Recent inter-office miss-communications drove a coworker of mine to dig up these Ten Golden Rules of Communication. Good read.

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Google Connection | PBS

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Google Connection | PBS: "There is a text-input technology called ForWord Input that could be easily used on the iPhone to allow users with almost no training to input text with their index finger at 50 words per minute, which I have to admit is faster than I can type on a QWERTY keyboard. ForWord Input uses a finger, not a stylus (nothing to lose), is patented, and comes from developers who already have other applications running in 500 MILLION mobile phones.

If I could type 50 words per minute on my iPhone, I wouldn't need a computer, which defines both the opportunity and the problem facing Apple."

hmm.... where have i seen these?

Classic Mistakes Updated - 10x Software Development: "New Classic Mistakes

After founding Construx, a decade of work with hundreds of companies has enabled us to identify several new classic mistakes. Here are the additional classic mistakes we've identified:

* Confusing estimates with targets
* Excessive multi-tasking
* Assuming global development has a negligible impact on total effort
* Unclear project vision
* Trusting the map more than the terrain
* Outsourcing to reduce cost
* Letting a team go dark (replaces the previous 'lack of management controls')

...

The 36 Original Classic Mistakes

For the record, the table below lists the original classic mistakes from Rapid Development. And here is a link to the full text of the original Classic Mistakes chapter from Rapid Development)."

I may have a non-gay crush on Guido van Rossum!

msimoens.blogspot.com: Guido van Rossum, you're my hero!

Gamasutra - How Killing People With My Dad Improved Our Relationship

Gamasutra - How Killing People With My Dad Improved Our Relationship: "My dad is 54 and I am 34. Three years after that first night of gaming, he has a game rig that rivals mine, complete with joystick and headphones with mic. He even has the special gaming keypad. These days he probably spends more time playing games online than I do. In fact, half of the time I go online to play, he’s already there, often in a game and squaded up with some of my friends, kicking ass, and taking names - literally now that Battlefield 2142 has added the dog tag feature. There is nothing quite so humiliating in a game as being knifed by your dad."

If you can get past the hype, this is pretty cool...

Brightcove - Popular Mechanics - Microsoft Surface: Hands-on First Look

Whistlebox?!

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Whistlebox | PBS: "Look into your webcam and say what you have to say. Click another button to review your post or even to edit it. Once you are happy with the way your video looks, Whistlebox automatically compresses and uploads your response.

...

If you are wondering why you've never heard of Whistlebox, that would probably be because to my knowledge nobody has written about it before.

...

Let's think of some ways Whistlebox, or a Whistlebox equivalent, might be used beyond YouTube-like video responses.

Given that the Whistlebox boys come from an ad agency background, it isn't surprising that their product has a lot of potential ad-related uses. Dating sites can use it to post video introductions. Okay, that's a no-brainer, but why not use the same technology to advertise babysitting services, allowing parents to have a good look at that babysitter even before making the call? There are many services where it would be a great help to see and hear the potential service provider before making a commitment."

10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

Ahh...he articulates my office environment to a tee...

10. Becoming a coward.

Have you noticed that employed people have an almost endless capacity to whine about problems at their companies? But they don’t really want solutions – they just want to vent and make excuses why it’s all someone else’s fault. It’s as if getting a job somehow drains all the free will out of people and turns them into spineless cowards. If you can’t call your boss a jerk now and then without fear of getting fired, you’re no longer free. You’ve become your master’s property.

Is this guy serious?

Hello everyone,

My name is Allan Hart - I'm a friend of Mike's who was invited to join this blog. This morning while I was perusing my daily comics I came across one that I thought at least Mike would find amusing, and hopefully the rest of you too. I'm amused by Calvin's notion that being happy is having the power to crush the opposition. Mostly I just like his facial expression.

I suppose this is a peculiar way to introduce oneself, but one thing you'll quickly learn is that I'll often dare to be different. Apparently I may know some of you from university, if not by name then at least by appearance. Thanks for the invite, Mike. Hope to meet you all at your next breakfast meeting. Mike mentioned Thursday evenings at around 5:00. If that's the case I'll hope to see you later on today!

- Allan

Apparently it's a need to know basis ...

Stock Tips: News From Photo Agencies: "In the next four months Getty Images plans to launch new a new consumer business and a music licensing service.

Some rare hints about upcoming products came during a presentation last Wednesday by Getty CEO Jonathan Klein at an Internet conference organized by Goldman Sachs.

'We plan to launch a consumer business in the next 90 to 120 days,' Klein said, without revealing what the business is. He mentioned this in connection with Getty's new strategy of operating multiple Web sites for different customers – including gettyimages.com, iStockphoto.com and new acquisition PunchStock.

Klein also expressed hope that the text-only search ads sold through Google will eventually incorporate multimedia content, like photos and video, both of which Getty provides. On that note, he added, 'We will be providing music to our customers within 90 days.'"

All I can say is that that is more information then I would have been able to tell you.

Pretty Pictures

TED | Talks | Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Photosynth demo (video): "Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation"

BZR sounds pretty cool...

Mark Shuttleworth » Blog Archive » Renaming is the killer app of distributed version control

Be Breif

Pimp My Code, Part 14: Be Inflexible!: "You've probably seen some variant of this, but I'll show you my version. In coding, you have many dimensions in which you can rate code:

- Brevity of code
- Featurefulness
- Speed of execution
- Time spent coding
- Robustness
- Flexibility

Now, remember, these dimensions are all in opposition to one another. You can spend a three days writing a routine which is really beautiful AND fast, so you've gotten two of your dimensions up, but you've spent THREE DAYS, so the 'time spent coding' dimension is WAY down.

So, when is this worth it? How do we make these decisions?

The answer turns out to be very sane, very simple, and also the one nobody, ever, listens to:

'START WITH BREVITY. Increase the other dimensions AS REQUIRED BY TESTING.'"