Interesting Links for 03-11-2013

[andrewducker]

• A great short film about bikes and childhood. Delightful _and_ impressive
  (tags: bicycles viaSkreidle video )
• Simon's cat vs the spider. I giggled all the way through. And now itch.
  I _wish_ that last time I had a cat, it had been this good with spiders.
  (tags: cats spiders funny video )
• Amazing car ad, full of optical illusions
  (tags: cars

Comments

[resonant]

I loved the article on clothing as signalling.

[andrewducker]

One of the things I love about IT is that I get to signal competence through non-conformity with "business dress" :->

[skington]

$WORK tried to push through a dress code a few years ago that would effectively ban wearing jeans and t-shirts. I objected to it on the grounds that was borderline constructive dismissal - if you're walking around a data centre wearing chinos and a shirt, you're not a real techie (either you're a bit weird, or you work for a company that doesn't respect you).

(Not that I'm ever in the data centre - I'm a programmer and I work from home - but the same sort of signalling rules apply.)

[andrewducker]

I currently work with 400-odd techies, all of whom are wearing shirts/smart trousers. And many of them are very good.

The idea that "real techies" don't wear business dress is just as bad as the idea that "real businessmen" don't wear jeans.

[skington]

I thought you said you liked signalling non-confirmity with business dress?

And whether or not jeans and t-shirt axiomatically mean real techie or not, which is over-stated and clearly not true, I find it telling that once you end up in a finance and/or enterprisey situation the image techies project changes. To me, jeans and t-shirt = hacker mentality / skunkworks startup; shirt and smart trousers = sober enterprise coder.

[andrewducker]

I like it. And I get to do it on Fridays :->

Jeans and t-shirt = hacker mentality / skunkworks startup; shirt and smart trousers = sober enterprise coder.

That's certainly the image. And it's certainly the self-image some people have. But I've seen opposite cases on numerous occasions, and I'd rather not judge people by their clothing.