ƃuɐʞ - Discussion

Piaw Na shared an item on Google Reader

Traffic Deaths Declined Because Of High Gasoline Prices

17 hours ago - Link

sebmos, Tudor Bosman and ƃuɐʞ liked this

Kushal Dave had a new status message on Gmail/Google Talk

“i'm counting down the hours / i'm counting down the days (2 until the weekend, 5 until gossip girl!)”

10 hours ago - Link

YUS - ƃuɐʞ

Jess Lee posted a link

Paint Drip Table Is Neat, Drippy, Trippy - Geekologie

August 12 at 9:41 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

Jagtesh Chadha, Steve Craft, Jeremy Hylton, Adam Lasnik and 19 other people liked this

Excellent! - Bita

I love the color and the way it has been used in this picture !!! like Blood !!!! - vivavida

ⓞnor posted a link

ah ha!

August 12 at 9:13 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

Melinda Owens, Bindu Reddy, ƃuɐʞ, Simone Biagiotti and 3 other people liked this

I wonder how many lolcat photos are posed specifically for a lolcat (as opposed to opportunistically captioned after the fact). - ⓞnor

Kushal Dave shared an item on Google Reader

Manic Pixie Dream Girls Are The Scourge Of Modern Cinema [Hookers, Victims, Doormats, & Pixies]

August 11 at 2:59 pm - Link

Piaw Na liked this

The key takeaway is that Kirsten Dunst plays a MPDG in Elizabethtown and I haven't seen it. *enqueues - Kushal Dave

hmm... what about kate winslet in eternal sunshine? - ƃuɐʞ

Sacca posted a message on Twitter

“My advice to anyone in a big company: Once you have permission, don't ask for it again.”

August 11 at 10:30 am - Link

Dave Dash, Keith Pelczarski, Marshall Bose, Jeff P. Henderson and 68 other people liked this

I need a double-like button. - Michael Herf

It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. - Jeremy Brooks

Show 9 more comments

You get in more trouble doing something someone has told you not to do than doing something that nobody has given permission for. If you ask 10 people and one says 'nay' you open yourself up to trouble. Ask as few people as needed to CYA and then do the right thing for the company as you see it. - Kevin Fox

+1 Jeremy - Akiva Moskovitz

+1 Kevin - This is something you don't learn from schooling, but from experience. Still, the best kind of learning IMHO. - Jeanette Martinez

+1 Jeremy - that has always been my philosophy! - Sarah Perez

First rule of sales: Once you've made the sale, stop selling. - Stephen Mack

I never asked. :-) - Robert Scoble

i've heard it's better to apologize than to ask permission - Mister Groonk via twhirl

it seems to me this might occur only if you don't know the right person to ask in the first place. but i'm not a permission-seeking type of person, so i wouldn't know. - idnan

Same here... if it feels right to you just do it! - Ricardo Rabago

I like to apologize in advance about something I'm going to do that you won't like. - Amir Gharaat

CYA by sending out your proposal in advance, stored in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory marked "beware of the leopard." Then, instead of begging forgiveness or apologizing, tell the naysayers that it's no use crying about it now. - Stephen Mack

Applies to smaller companies too. Although I admit I also don't ask on occasion. - Royce Mathew

ƃuɐʞ posted a link

Bakumatsu Koshashin Generator

August 11 at 11:23 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

Richard Chen, minus3 and Bret Taylor liked this

age photos by a century by uploading them here! - ƃuɐʞ via Bookmarklet

j1m posted a link

Polar Bear Overload! :)

August 7 at 8:05 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

Chieze Okoye and ƃuɐʞ liked this

Gregor J. Rothfuss bookmarked a page on delicious

Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad

August 5 at 8:06 pm - Link

ƃuɐʞ liked this

"i'll see you at the debates, bitchez" - Gregor J. Rothfuss

Simon posted a link

'Translate server error' Restaurant in China | Serious Eats : Required Eating

August 2 at 2:34 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

Yusuf Goolamabbas, Berk D. Demir, seth, ƃuɐʞ and 14 other people liked this

Best mistake ever! - fbrunel

I'd like to "like" this many, many times. - Richard Chen

Paul Buchheit posted a link

Building a Software Company: How to hire an idiot

July 31 at 9:35 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

Daniel Dulitz, siavash, Shafi Ahmed, Not you and 81 other people liked this

Great story. - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet

It reads like a tragedy. Things are going fine in the beginning, but you know it's going to end badly. - Chris White

Show 16 more comments

Paul, good find! - imabonehead

OMG this guy totally fell for the loser salesguy ...how sad! - Susan Beebe

hiring decisions can kill your firm - Bill Sodeman

Really enjoyed this, though felt bad of course for the author. Really shows that doing as much legwork/homework/digging up front as possible is a good thing and well worth the time put in - Eric Berlin

While reading this, I kept thinking about your job titles "senior executive vice director of VP coordination & vision".... funny - but sad article. - Erin

Similar experience: My employer hired a supposed "expert" from a BIG 5 consulting firm. This person was a Global Manager and was going to come to our 30 person IT shop and do us right! Boy, that hiring manager was sooo excited! I about died when I learned that person was coming on board to be my new boss. Long story short: She left 90 days later with her tail between her legs when it was abundantly clear that she completely lacked requisite skills for her position. Couldn't even use PPT or email! - Susan Beebe

we need a salesperson for our business and this is exactly why we haven't hired anyone over the past 4 years. we're terror-frozen. - faboo mama

Interesting story. Thanks for sharing Paul. The hardest thing for an entrepreneur is to ask the hard questions. - Edwin Khodabakchian

Lesson 5: A turkey was chatting with a bull. 'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.' 'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients.' The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree. Moral of the story: Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.. - Alan Cheslow

This is why I'm not usually impressed by resumes/titles. I want to see real work. Then I'm impressed. It can be a catch-22 though hiring people (for a guy, like getting a date with a beautiful lady - how do you have conversations, until you've had some). "Consultant" can be for real...or mean that someone is "out of work". - Mitchell Tsai

As a 19-yr-old college grad, how did we get clients that $500 million companies couldn't get? Well, the experienced CEOs know that McKinsey and other consultants just hire sharp (but inexperienced) people from Harvard, Stanford, etc..., and it's a total crap-shoot who you get (for $500-1,000/hr). If we did a good job for CEO of X company, he told VP friend at Y company, and we got the work. There are so many fly-by-nights in this world. Experience isn't worth much if it's "bad experience". - Mitchell Tsai

Another example of how people with great charisma but no skills can be promoted far beyond where they should be. Another great example is a guy who will be leaving his current job on Jan. 20th. - Robert Felty

This is really sad isn't it. So difficult to get it right, yet it is the most important success/fail factor for any company. It starts with great people. - Alexander van Elsas

Dang, that story was rough. I mean did you even proof read it? (LOL) - Drew Lucas

man, this could've been taken straight out of the E-myth revisited. Definitely a book that guy should read. - Vincent van Wylick

i just wish i couldn't tell so many similar stories of hiring senior execs w/ great looking experience, resumes, and references who turned out to be completely incompetent - Deva Hazarika

Actually he was lucky that the guy was so obviously lame and came clean in the end, and that his business wasn't destroyed. What's far worse is a somewhat competent person with great political skills. Much harder to detect and so they have time to do a lot more subtle and potentially fatal damage to the fabric of an company. - Robin Barooah

"$25K in stuff he said we absolutely needed -- slick brochures, sponsor some conference, ads in the trade journal, coffee mugs, pens with our logo -- I readily paid for." This entrepreneur should have been tipped off right then. Mugs? Brochures? Everyone knows you close the most business with T-shirts. - Ginger Makela

It raises an important question... how long do you need to wait for your hire to deliver. This guy had to wait for an year, since most startup founders dont have time to baby-sit their employees... how long do they wait before concluding, that they have a bad-hire. Is it 1 month, 3 months, 6 months ( sounds too much for a startup ) - Krishna Gade

ƃuɐʞ posted a link

Newswise Science News | Polluted Gowanus Canal May Be Source of New Antibiotics

August 1 at 4:05 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

um... i keep thinking it must be april fool's day - ƃuɐʞ via Bookmarklet

Dan Hsiao posted a link

Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet | The Onion

July 30 at 11:45 am - Link

Paul Haahr, Christopher, eviltom, Amber and 31 other people liked this

"Al Gore—or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al—placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity's hubristic folly. "There is nothing left now but to ensure that my infant son does not meet the same fate as the rest of my doomed race," Gore said. "I will send him to a new planet, where he will, I hope, be raised by simple but kindly country folk and grow up to be a hero and protector to his adopted home."" - Dan Hsiao

This was too good. Had to reshare from a private feed. - Dan Hsiao

Al looks good in silver. - C. Golis

ƃuɐʞ posted a link

Women in Linux | LinuxHaxor.net

July 29 at 11:04 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

minus3 liked this

i think the comments thread says more about the status of women in open source than the actual post. - ƃuɐʞ via Bookmarklet

Needs pictures. LOL! - minus3

ƃuɐʞ posted a link

Saddles: Women's Best All-Around

July 21 at 5:27 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

Jim Norris liked this

hk recommends as best saddles - ƃuɐʞ via Bookmarklet

What's he doing checking out women's saddles? - Jim Norris

Ginger Makela posted a link

Whoa. Google is closing their Denver and Dallas offices.

July 2 at 9:19 pm - Link

Susan Beebe, silpol, Frederick Akalin, Dare Obasanjo and 6 other people liked this

Employees have to choose relocation or severance. - Ginger Makela

Any reason given? - Raoul Pop

Show 17 more comments

Jeez, you got out just in time! - Mark Trapp

Consolidation. Someone decided the ROI wasn't there. Bummer. - Ginger Makela

Ginger leaves, they figured why keep them open. :-) - Hutch Carpenter

yeah, i was bummed. I love the folks in the denver office including ginger - D 'gadget' Domingo

lordy... move or leave... ouch. - edythe

Capitalism-it takes no prisoners... - Mark Forman

Still, those are better options than what one would get at most other companies. - Tsega Dinka

(FYI - I think the link is broken) - Jennie Lin

Never heard of any Dallas office, but isn't Denver just a tiny handful of people sitting half an hour's drive from the much much bigger Boulder and Thornton offices? I mean, closing that sounds more like a standard office move than a relocation... - ƃuɐʞ

Are you sad you didn't hang around for the severance or happy you don't have to go through an office closing? - Clare Dibble

Or is there a distinction between the Denver and Boulder office? - Clare Dibble

Why not telecommute? - Gabe Schaffer

Dang. I applied for a job in the Dallas data center earlier this year. Never heard a word. I guess I know why now. - Harvey Simmons

ƃuɐʞ, right. It is a handful of people. But they're pulling sales positions entirely out of CO and Dallas, so people only have the option of moving to Chicago, NY or SF, where there are ad sales jobs. Not catastrophizing here. It's just curious to me that the company spends so much money building amazing offices, then mere months later, decides to shut them down. Clare, I'm happy with my timing :-) - Ginger Makela

Clare, yeah, Boulder is a separate office. It's folks from the Sketch-Up acquisition and I think other mapping projects. - Ginger Makela

These were strictly sales offices, right? No eng? - ⓞnor

No eng. - Ginger Makela

Oh, I see... eek. Glad you got out, Ginger. :( - ƃuɐʞ

Can I have the Wii from the office? - Todd Nemet via Alert Thingy

so there is no sacred cow in Google either... our modern corp slang for downsizing is "open sourcing" - wonder how they will translate it on sales/marketing ppl, since all previous head-slashing was majorly in engineering :) - silpol

minus3 posted a link

How many cannibals could your body feed?

July 3 at 5:36 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

14 for me - j1m

I guess I can only feed 13. Creeeeepy - Benjamin Golub

Show 2 more comments

13! Well that's great information to start out my day. - Michelle Miller

10. Hope they like bacon! - Marianne Lenox

same here, 13. very useful information.... - minus3

10, but i bet i'd be tastier than minus3. - ƃuɐʞ

haha, yeah. I'm kinda bony - minus3

niniane posted an entry on Niniane's Blog

29

June 28 at 1:49 am - Link

Erica Baker and April Buchheit liked this

"Today I am 29"...I said that yesterday :) - Adam Kazwell

Happy birthday to both Niniane and Kaz! - Tudor Bosman

Show 3 more comments

Last hurrah...as a 20 something. - Pokai

Happy Birthday, Niniane! - April Buchheit

生日快乐! - torque

Happy Birthday! - Erica Baker

Bon anniversaire! - directeur via NoiseRiver

Happy belated birthday, Niniane! I hope this year goes great for you, you deserve it! xoxo - ƃuɐʞ

bob posted a link

BBC NEWS | Europe | Birthday party snub sparks debate

June 29 at 1:09 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

April Buchheit and j1m liked this

"The boy handed out his birthday invitations during class-time and when the teacher spotted that two children had not received one the invitations were confiscated." - bob via Bookmarklet

Confiscated? Ridiculous. This happened to me when I was a kid (I was the snubbee) but I would argue that snubbing is a vitally important life experience that all children will need to deal with sooner or later, from both ends. - ƃuɐʞ

Kushal Dave published a photo on Flickr

There's a truck in our office!

June 30 at 10:21 am - Link

ƃuɐʞ liked this

Jess Lee posted a link

AVG scanner blasts internet with fake traffic

June 30 at 11:30 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

"Early last month, webmasters here at The Reg noticed an unexpected spike in our site traffic. Suddenly, we had far more readers than ever before, and they were reading at a record clip. Visits actually doubled on certain landing pages, and more than a few ho-hum stories attracted an audience worthy of a Pulitzer Prize winner. Or so it seemed. As it turns out, much of this traffic was driven by the new malware scanner from AVG Technologies." - Jess Lee via Bookmarklet

Hmm... is AVG forging user-agents then? Or will everyone just end up blocking them? - ƃuɐʞ

ƃuɐʞ posted a link

Prototype - How a G.P.S. Can Predict Group Behavior - NYTimes.com

June 26 at 9:50 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

Bernhard Bauer, Chris White, silpol, RAPatton and Ginger Makela liked this

This seems like something FriendFeed could leverage. - Chris White

FriendFeed, FriendFind, FriendFrighten... - ƃuɐʞ

Jess Lee posted a link

Deep V-Necks: Destroying America?

June 26 at 1:08 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

Thomas Brox Røst, Nikpay, Min Liu, John Lam and 67 other people liked this

lol - Jess Lee via Bookmarklet

haha. Douchebag neck.... - minus3

Show 13 more comments

I'm not really amused, but I am impressed that the writer was able to put nearly 1,500 words against this subject. - AJ Kohn

"As with many dubious fashion choices (see: leggings as pants), much of the blame can be placed on American Apparel." True. - Erica Baker

"At Urban Outfitters, there are eight different options for guys, including the "Super V," which boasts a 27-inch neckline from shoulder to hem. A 27-inch neckline." - David Vasileff

funny - Chad

I just forwarded this link to all my friends who own the douchbag neck shirts. - Patrick Li

I started only buttoning the last button on my shirts and calling them Super V's is that acceptable? - Marco

Okay, what happened to v-neck undershirts in boys' sizes? They're getting scarce. - Harvey Simmons

hehe - Joel Alenchery

I want a "Like" button for all these hilarious comments : ) - Jess Lee

that story is classic - I must admit I find the shirts repulsive and strangely hard not to look at the same time.. are you gay? - ben rogers via twhirl

Ugh, I physically shuddered the first time I saw one of those American Apparel ads. Was hoping that this trend was going to stay firmly ensconced in the fern bars of Three's Company on TVLand reruns. Some trends should *never* be resurrected. And to the men reading this: ixnay on any thought of the gold medallions. - Casey

Slow news day, although I agree "Women demand men look a certain way". Or else we cannot enter the fern bars of our choice. - Russellreno

"It's, like, another three inches and that's a vest, motherfucker." LOL - Jeanette Martinez

http://www.affiliatejunktion.c... - john

I have a douchebag shirt. I'm ashamed - Rob Schonberger

Hilarious... oops i own a couple of these too - Shaw

Nathan Naze posted a message on Twitter

“I was just reading the grep man page but it was really big. I couldn't find what I wanted. So I piped it through grep.”

June 26 at 4:37 pm - Link

ƃuɐʞ, Chiu-Ki Chan, Brandon Werner, Keith Coleman and 2 other people liked this

Weird, normally "man" uses a pager (less by default), which has its own search command... - ⓞnor

ⓞnor posted a link

IMPOSTER!

June 21 at 5:26 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

silpol, Yu-Shan, RAPatton, edythe and 9 other people liked this

hedgepiglets++ - j1m

awwwww - niniane

heeeeeeeeeee! - edythe

Howard Trickey posted a link

blogger compares microsoft and google interviews

June 22 at 4:29 am - Link

Not exactly the same as my experience at both companies. MSFT actually teased me for wearing a tie :P - Benjamin Golub via fftogo

Ben: you interviewed for both? - Amund Tveit

Show 2 more comments

Ben? - Yuvi

Interviewed (on site last year) at both but received neither. Will likely try Google again in a few years depending on where I'm living (put the good word in for me!) as I think I've learned a lot since then. - Benjamin Golub via fftogo

You know you have my support, Ben! But I'd tease the heck out of you for the tie, too. (In a friendly way.) - DeWitt Clinton

Hmm... I'm getting a pageload error on that. But I can say this: I interviewed with Google and Microsoft multiple times, and the experiences ranged from truly awful to really awesome. In no particular order: hostile interviewers, wonderfully empathetic and smart recruiters, stunning rudeness, quick reimbursements, incompetent recruiters, etc. - Adam Lasnik

=thatadamguy. not only is it a crapshoot but it's a fairly poor predictor of what life will be like when you actually arrive... - ƃuɐʞ

Ginger Makela posted a message

“Dream from last night: At FriendFeed HQ everyone has MacBook Pros in a shade of gunmetal gray unavailable to the general public.”

June 23 at 6:28 am - Link

David Tapper, Michael Ryan, Voyagerfan5761, ƃuɐʞ and 22 other people liked this

That is awesome and disturbing all at once, the mark of an excellent dream. Well done Ginger! - Erica Baker

Were they etched? Gunmetal grey with etching would ROCK! - Cyndy

Show 2 more comments

It's not gunmetal gray, but here's my MacBook at FFIWHQ: http://www.flickr.com/photos/p... - Kevin Fox

I love Dave Brubeck, and this "Take Five" pic one is hum... http://www.flickr.com/photos/p... - directeur

Kevin, what did you use to skin the laptop? I like the glossy paint look (in that photo at least). - ⓞnor

It's a Gelaskin: https://www.gelaskins.com/skin... Rachel and I got them for our macbooks and DS Lites. They're really high quality vinyl, repositionable (I took mine off completely and re-applied it) and are not at all destructive to the underlying surface. They're awesome. - Kevin Fox

The other night I dreamed that Steve Jobs mocked me for still using a PowerBook. I woke up sad. - Guillermo Esteves

Gregor J. Rothfuss bookmarked a page on delicious

Hot Chicks with Douchebags

June 19 at 7:38 pm - Link

ƃuɐʞ liked this

many lolz to be had. - Gregor J. Rothfuss

ƃuɐʞ posted a link

AFI: 10 Top 10

June 20 at 8:28 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

note to self: watch all - ƃuɐʞ via Bookmarklet

ƃuɐʞ posted a link

The magic number - 20 December 2003 - New Scientist Tech