Viewing profile — maxxxxx

I am not kidding. Most seem to be resigned to the fact that it’s 12 or 16 and that’s close enough. Also nobody knows how many cups are in a pack of flour so buying something for a …

You also need to give people the chance to make mistakes and learn from them. I don’t envy a lot of the young developers who get micromanaged all the time and never have a chance t…

There was an effort in the 70s that got shut down by the Reagan administration.

When I did a little home improvement project I always thought what a PITA it is to multiply 5 and 3/8 inches seven times. Let alone divide that number by 3. Metric is so much easie…

The imperial system is a problem in daily life. Most of my American friends don’t know how many ounces are in a pound or how many teaspoons in a tablespoon. This makes price compar…

Totally agree. Talking about culture or hanging up "inspirational" posters is usually a warning sign. Good organizations live their values and don't feel a need to constantly talk …

What you are describing is exactly what Agile should be. You have a team of people who care about the craft and they slowly improve processes based on real world feedback and exper…

From a business point of view Ballmer did an excellent job. The company grew every year and was always one of the top tech companies. The same will probably happen to Apple (and Go…

I think Apple’s problem will be that Jobs usually had a very good feeling which radical change will get accepted and which won’t. The current Apple will probably listen to customer…

The lack of involvement is generally a problem in companies. Not only with reorganizations but also with things like remodeling of the workplace. Instead of getting feedback from t…

that was years ago. I don't remember when. It also didn't last long.

That doesn't explain why inequality within the US keeps growing. As a whole the country is doing well but somehow the benefits go a small number of people while everybody else is s…

Blame it on the "old people" but you soon you will see that "young people" will pull the same nonsense as soon as they have to hit quarterly numbers. Big companies can't be your fr…

It feels like most answers on this site come from robots or from moderators who barely know anything. I still have to see a good, on point, answer there from someone who really kno…

Other than "We’ve also had a combination of tax and regulatory policy that has encouraged capital formation and increasing returns to capital, so labor’s share of returns has decre…

I worked with a German version of VBA for a little while. MS soon gave up on this but it was a really weird experience.

And others will copy this pattern without knowing why. so quickly you have these weird patterns all over your code.

Wasn't Galileo first to observe them with his telescope or were they mentioned somewhere before? I assume back then the skies were darker and people probably had better eyes so if …

“What I don't know is: am I just wrong about this, or are you, or is it just pure subjective preference? ” Yes. It’s subjective. It probably also depends on the people you work wit…

It seems everything around heath care billing is sneaky in the US. It's probably the most rotten, inefficient and corrupt sector of the whole economy. I am not talking about the ac…

I hate "meetings" but I am big fan of conversation. When I worked in a team room with 3 other engineers we just naturally had good conversations from time to time. There was no sch…

These books usually describe a very idealized version of the real world. I think the only way to find out what mid level managers do is to ask them or ideally to shadow them for a …

"The windows are small, and covered in metal bars or thick metal meshing." That's one thing I don't get in the US. The schools really look like prisons. Why not have windows and da…

At a minimum when an employee gets punished we should also take a close look at the chain of command and work environment. Very often it's the executives setting up a dysfunctional…

I think he just needed people like Jobs and others to keep him in check. With Cook at the top I would expect more business people to run the show who don’t have much input in the p…