Nothing quite like using the Christmas break - the only time I have when I'm not going to be working 11- and 12-hour days - to try and contact a whole bunch of people who might be able to transition me to better opportunities ( Read more... )

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/107217-real-life-constructicon-quadcopter-robots-being-developed?print

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http://www.frac-centre.fr/public/actualit/ftat01fr.htm

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Thoughts ( Read more... )

Doing a bit of self-analysis today, I figured that one of the things that pisses me off like no other is the assumption that my time and effort (or any other attribute) is worthless, and therefore other people can, without consultation, assign as much of it as they like to whatever they like whenever they like, either explicitly or implicitly ( Read more... )

Getting a police clearance for a possible project: around here, it's a standard form to fill out at the post office. Then the state police eventually send you an official letter saying "As of date X we have no record of this person having committed or being charged with a crime ( Read more... )

Just reading the 1999 version of Peopleware, by DeMarco and Lister. It states a lot of things about teams, managers, and working environments that I've always suspected, having come from a Big Organisation background. Nice to know I'm not the only person to think that certain ways of doing things are just Bad.

First day of the new year and I'm going to get into a huge (and possibly legal) fight with my website designer over the definition of functionality in an email webform ( Read more... )

While looking at sites on minimalist air travel, and recalling the ability of the _Up in the Air_ movie's Ryan Bingham to travel and work out of nothing more than one piece of carry-on luggage, I started to wonder what the functional lower limit on such work-travel luggage was ( Read more... )

One of the problems with a workplace which has long suffered from a lack of leadership, lack of funding, lack of intelligence, and lack of attractiveness for a wide range of potential employees is that a significant proportion of the people who remain there for any length of time are - how should I put this - not necessarily the most brilliant ( Read more... )

(continuing from yesterday's count: FOUR of five ( Read more... )

But work and travel and sleeping and paperwork are taking up most of my hours. And days ( Read more... )