ndespres

Just this morning, my firm moved its office and now my team is in adjacent cubes instead of an open bullpen, and I was quite surprised at my own excitement to finally have a cube again. Semi-privacy! A noise barrier!

But there are really more choices, and I feel the article continues to push this false dichotomy: <i>"What workers need from their offices has long been clear. A flexible workspace that encourages movement, combined with mobile technology, could finally liberate them from the cubicle farm"</i>

Is that really what we need? Is there really anyone who prefers either of these choices over a private office, with ample meeting rooms and conference tables when there need to be group discussions?

If you enjoy the place and time of writing like this, and the funny turns of phrases and witty voices of young people, now's a good time to read a story or two by Horatio Alger. They've always been one of my favorite peeks into early 1900's New York through the eyes of small children.

As a bonus, they also give a lot of insight into the origin a common American trope: 'pulling yourself up your bootstraps' and 'fame and fortune can be yours, no matter how low of a post you begin from, with a good work ethic and strong morals.' I won't get on my soapbox about all that right now. Just keep the preaching in context.

"Ragged Dick, Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks" http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5348

"Mark, the Match Boy" https://archive.org/details/markmatchboyorri00alge

Of course an article on our food system is in all of our interests (Soylent customers, perhaps, excepted) but I'm always happy to see an article like this at the top of hn. I feel that this industry is particularly ripe for innovation, and it's where I'm presently working. Though it turns out, feeding and watering all the animals every day takes up all that time I thought I'd have to design new systems to track egg consumption and greenhouse temperatures with my Arduino.

Turns out all that work outside is just as gratifying without the electronic hassles I imagined I'd bring to it.

I sell eggs from chickens which I believe have the best possible life, and I hesitate to use most of the terms listed here, even the most positive ones, because of their lackluster connotations. I know what "free range" means in the minimal application of the spectrum, so where my birds have acres to forage for food, someone else may not be so generous. I don't want us classified under the same umbrella. So I invite all my customers to come and see where their food is grown, in the environment where I believe it should all optimally come from.

And yes, the eggs are healthier, firmer, and last longer (not refrigerated) and vary depending on what the chickens have foraged that day. Not to mention the beautiful rainbow of their shells, which vary depending on the breed.

http://homestead.sevenarrowseast.com/wp-content/uploads/2012...

This made me feel quite nauseated!

"YKK isn’t the kind of brand that markets to consumers. (Or seeks any kind of publicity: They declined to speak to me for this story.) You don’t buy your jeans and jackets by looking for their letters on that pull. Likewise, you almost certainly wouldn’t nix a garment purchase because the zipper isn’t YKK."

I guess I'm an exception here. If I want to wear a garment more than a few times I always check to make sure the zippers are YKK. If they skimped on the zippers, who knows what else they skimped on.

They learn quickly (dogs and parents). Most people aren't as allergic as they think they are, and it would have to be pretty persistently dumb dog to keep bothering a hive that continues to sting it. Anyhow unless you aggressively bother most hives, the bees want nothing to do with you even when you're right up close: if you're not a predator or a source of nectar, you're not interesting.

Even my turkeys, quite possibly the dumbest animals I have around, don't mess with the bees any more after their first time!

Interesting hypothesis. I've been lamenting, especially lately, my own memory problems identifying faces, scents, and sounds. My first surgery which had me placed under general anesthesia was at 1 yr.

"Handling shutdown was a pain, making sure the windows closed down neatly and all the program’s resources were cleaned up properly without the program crashing."

Which must be why this program always refused to simply exit, preferring to minimize itself to the system tray instead!

I was taught to never back a vehicle up without physically turning around to look out the back window, as rear and side-view mirrors don't give a 100% view of what's behind you. When I see someone using just mirrors to back up, I perceive it as lazy or irresponsible driving behavior.

Driving a box truck with no rear visibility makes me uncomfortable and I'll use a spotter to reverse. If you can't (or won't) look and see behind you, you should NOT be driving in that direction. Will cameras fix this problem?

The article states that "There are nearly 210 backover deaths each year." I wonder how the overall safety of a vehicle and its driver will be impacted by the addition of a possibly distracting LCD in the front seat. Maybe fewer collisions while reversing, but how many additional distracted driving cases while driving forward and playing with the car computer?

My apologies. I wandered down the Wikipedia k-hole on this one and failed to realize it. The page on the pilot was deleted and merged into a section on the article of the event; the Talk page is here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Ben_Charles_P...

Fascinating entry on the Talk page from the brother of the missing pilot.

Please don't be obtuse or sensationalize this. You know very well that's not what's being referred to here.

I commute from the Jersey shore to NYC daily by ferry, and while it is often the most relaxing part of my day (stormy days being the exception) and more convenient than the alternatives available to me, I don't believe rapid transit by water is inexpensive or environmentally friendly.

I make my own soaps at home with only organic oils and lye, and I'll be happy to sell you some! :)

Off the shelf at a regular store though, it's hard to find soaps (and toothpastes) without these ingredients. Just one more reason to DIY, especially with things that are going in/on your body.

The person to whom I responded feels, as evidenced by his sarcasm, that the entire issue is trivial. We clearly do not agree. You're both unable to see the other side of it.

I can see from your other comment on this thread that further discussion on this with you would be an uphill one so I'm signing off now.

There's a big difference between "foul language" and that which is offensive, inconsiderate, exclusionary, and generally sexist, having the result of making women feel unsafe/unwelcome in this space.

Check your privilege, dude.

I've had a lot of luck with Roboform Enterprise and KeePass. Storing the passwords in a place folks can find them has never been a problem- in a protected spreadsheet, in a heavily-locked down Sharepoint site, or in an internal-only Wiki. The real hassle is changing them all when an employee leaves, which happens a lot. Roboform has been great for storing those passwords, protecting them, and keeping us from having to give plaintext access to the passwords where it isn't required.

When you have 20+ techs accessing many different systems for many different clients each day, that feature was huge.

Of course not. Just the fastest way to get them! Fortunately, Confluence, Autotask, and my memory are all still intact!

I'm a Google Apps reseller and thought, oh no, I should call all my clients and let them know about this outage before they call me! Where can I get a full customer list.. the admin panel.. oh.

Facebook IS the ad.

It almost feels as though they were trying to beat SNL to the punch on making fun of the new product.

I think one of the reasons the Home product rubs me the wrong way is similar to the reason I resent junk-food companies for knowing exactly who their target consumer is, and building a product suited perfectly to taking advantage of the weaknesses of those consumers to move more of their product. Just like the way a nearby television broadcasting commercials starts loud and with a flash, designed to pull your eye in.

This product takes advantage of the brain's weakness for bright, shiny moving things, instant reward of an image flashing with a sound effect when you complete the desired action ("liking" something). Users won't be able to put it down. It feels cheap.

If someone can kill an animal that they've raised from birth and cared for each day- without wincing, without feeling it in their heart for days- I don't want to buy meat from that person.

I'm not admitting to doing anything wrong.

I'm taking my role in my own food production and consumption with the weight it deserves. I'm further accepting my role in the food cycle, and realizing that things die at every stage of food production- even "vegan" food production, whether it's insects that must be removed from crops, animals displaced by tillage, fertilizers made from fish emulsion, and the squirrels that the semi trucks run over on their way to deliver pallets of Veggie Burgers to Whole Foods... and deciding that all things considered, meat is possible, ethically and at a lower environmental impact than the alternatives.

The goats weren't artificially inseminated. They were each studded, birthed a single kid each. I have 2 of them still, and the others were given away to other farmers (before my time). I am however considering starting a beef cattle operation and we'll have to deal with those issues soon. I think the solution is quality dual-purpose breeds (which is the solution for chickens) so that males can be eaten rather than destroyed.

I don't know about you personally, but many people I have encountered who abhor the idea of eating meat have based their values on the state of the existing factory farming system- which is fine, opt out if you have to. But when given a choice to do it properly, it needs to be understood that it IS possible.

You're wrong about this.

-dairy animals can be chosen based on their long-term milk production (my goats haven't been bred in 2+ years and are still giving more milk than I know what to do with, and when they are finally bred we have other uses for males around the farm).

-I hatch my own chicks and the males are not ground alive (or tossed in trash, or euthanized, or whatever). My chickens get as much love as my dogs do.

-Of course it's impossible to produce meat without killing an animal, but it is very much possible to produce meat while caring about the animal immensely and ensuring its quality of life is never compromised (save for the last instant). It is the hardest thing in the world- and it should be. Raising my own animals for meat has changed the way I consume other meat (or rather, the way i DON'T consume other meat) unless I'm sure it has been handled, beginning to end, with the same care and concern that I give my animals.

Humane meat is possible without being elitist, expensive, and inhumane, and I take personally your accusation that there's any convenience in it. Attitudes like yours are just one more factor that a small farmer has to deal with in this uphill battle against backwards attitudes towards meat raising and I'd appreciate it if you'd cool it on the propaganda!

There are a lot of ways to raise meat for human consumption with care, mindfulness, and free of cruelty. We often say that the animals we eat have a great day, every day, and then it ends with one very bad instant. True, the modern agricultural system is stacked against the average consumer, but we can't condemn meat eating as a whole. On a well-planned small farm or homestead it's actually quite easy to do.

My farm-fresh dozens cost $6 in the greater NYC area. I'm only in my first year of farming as a startup but I'm finding that it is profitable and enjoyable to serve fresh, local food to people without gouging them for it.

New York, NY -- IT consultant for managed services provider

We're a fast-growing company providing IT consulting and helpdesk services for small businesses in the NYC and north NJ area. It's a "level 3" engineer job- you'd be taking escalations from the 1st and 2nd tier techs when they weren't able to solve problems themselves; mentoring them on skills they should know; advising clients on the best ways to improve their infrastructure, and implementing solutions to some fun projects (getting those 8 dusty old DL 320's out of someone's rack and onto their very first VMware deployment!)

The right candidate will need 3+ years of experience in a helpdesk or service delivery environment; proven skills with Windows servers from 03-08, including Active Directory, Exchange, DNS, DFS, WDS would be cool.. and experience with multiple server environments. Know what a firewall is too- Sonicwall experience would be great!

Be a good communicator, superior troubleshooter, able to work under pressure, and really want to be part of a team. I'd love to talk to you more about it if you're interested! Send your resume to ndespres@cmitsolutions.com and let's chat.

www.cmitsolutions.com/grandcentral Neil

I'm a new (small) farmer, and I've just begun selling eggs from my small (70 hens) to neighbors, and they're often surprised when they see that the eggs are not refrigerated. I do have conversations a lot about this, and folks are often surprised to learn that the eggs in their grocery store cooler are often 2-3 weeks old already and that the refrigerator is a requirement to keep them edible for so long. Mine will be edible for just as long, and they taste fresher too!

New York, NY -- IT consultant for managed services provider

We're a fast-growing company providing IT consulting and helpdesk services for small businesses in the NYC and north NJ area. It's a "level 3" engineer job- you'd be taking escalations from the 1st and 2nd tier techs when they weren't able to solve problems themselves; mentoring them on skills they should know; advising clients on the best ways to improve their infrastructure, and implementing solutions to some fun projects (getting those 8 dusty old DL 320's out of someone's rack and onto their very first VMware deployment!)

The right candidate will need 3+ years of experience in a helpdesk or service delivery environment; proven skills with Windows servers from 03-08, including Active Directory, Exchange, DNS, DFS, WDS would be cool.. and experience with multiple server environments. Know what a firewall is too- Sonicwall experience would be great!

Be a good communicator, superior troubleshooter, able to work under pressure, and really want to be part of a team.

I'd love to talk to you more about it if you're interested! Send your resume to ndespres@cmitsolutions.com and let's chat.

www.cmitsolutions.com/grandcentral

Neil