I agree with you and with Curt Woodward's final summation, "It makes sense, if you can stay awake." There is some meaning behind the catch phrases. I also agree with you that it about putting the overall company goals above the idiosyncratic.

I disagree that this is necessarily bad or means removing small high functioning teams. The ability for a developer to create an application that functions is different environments, such as desk top, cloud and tablet is significant. What is means for Microsoft is understanding requirements, a high level vision, and how to generate a standard across team. This is the kind of thing a large company can do. They can make their own de facto standard and stick to it. Sometime that means their engineers can't do things the most natural way for a specific environment, but being intuitive for the internal engineer is not the most important element of the product. How it suits the customers, such as an external engineer and end users is what matters.

Sure their needs to be tailoring by the external engineer so that the application would suite a give format. But this is a lot different than having to retool the whole thing because each technology from the same company is fundamentally different.

The plane had to support the weight of the batteries and the solar cells. It had to be able to lift off and travel across the country so it could not rely on ridge lift for most sections of the flight. This same plane made it over night, all be it with the help of sailplane flying techniques. However, it is not, in fact, designed to be a sailplane nor does if function solely as one.

As someone who hires from time to time, I am always impressed when people show they can adjust to different situations and learn quickly. I think in the interview you should emphasis the variety of challenges you faced. I think there is often a fear that a military person may be rigid. The concern is that the candidate will be unbending or may follow orders without thinking for themselves. Show that you are able to recognize how different environment require different approaches. Tell how quickly you were able to succeed in situation which were outside your previous experience.

I agree with the rest of the posts that it is all about the business case. One critical component is how easy it will be for someone else to duplicate if the business is successful. Patents can be worked around and expose key elements of the technology to examination, so it is OK for someone else to accomplish the same results with a different mechanism. Technically algorithms can't be patented, but you can patent it, if you say its part of a system. So it may be more valuable if you have something so advance that no one else is capable of reproducing it. If you have years of research with top level people then you should mention it in the presentation. This includes marketing research etc. Being first to market is also important, and you will be asked how you know someone is not doing the exact same thing right now and has it ready to launch. Anything that makes your work unique will help answer the question.

I've been taking nuvigil/provigil for a while now. I am more awake and alert most of the day and I don't need to resort to caffeine. Nuvigil has no side affects for me as far as I can tell. My concentration is not impaired at all. From what I've read it is one of the drugs most illicitly used by scientists. I have a legit prescription because I have sleep apnea and I am usually not properly rested despite using a CPAP. Better living through science.

Sorry. I wasn't really serious. I should have been more clear about that. Maybe a ;). My point is that the sample is non-statistical in nature. There are many possible explanation of why the reports would be skewed. Included in this would be reasons why one group of the other was being more prone to being caught.

I know gender issues are really challenging subject, especially in science. I think the exchange here highlights the point. The direct meaning of what I wrote is that men are not even good at cheating. It is interpreted as bias because of the stereotypes in the culture. The accurate interpretation is that I'm not very good at making a point.

In all honesty I know lots of scientists, Some are really good at what they do some aren't. Gender does not make an appreciable difference from what I have noticed. With older scientists, now near retirement age, what I have seen is that all the women are quite good. I think this is because only the really good ones could succeed despite the biases. Of course this is very anecdotal and I am no expert in judging scientists.

Female scientist are just better at getting away with it.

From my reading of the article, the point seems to be that people apply game theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory) modeling to real world problems using the assumption that everyone understand the system. This is one of two of the most problematic tenants with economic modeling. The other is that people behave in their rational best interest. The emerging idea of behavioral economics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics) is one way people are looking to address that. I think the article is try to push home that that people can't and don't behave rationally if the system is too complex. So they are saying this needs to be accounted for in predictive modeling.

It is the article and the post that says that entrepreneurs innovate better. They are referencing "common knowledge". Based on later quotes in the article the research does not appear to make any such claim. The research just seems to be that they are creating more emotionally. Whether this is an advantage in anyway is an open question. Certainly you can hardly be impressed by innovation of the "snuggie". It is possible that thinking emotionally and artistically might allow an entrepreneur to think further outside the box. If so, then there could be a wider range of quality from entrepreneurs, and thus some of the biggest innovations. However, I tend to believe the common knowledge is because of how memorably and notable it is when an entrepreneur becomes success with a new product. When companies started producing a new products, such as USB thumb drives or whatever you might think of, it tends to be considered more of an inevitable or natural progression than as innovative. Perhaps there is a feeling that a group can't be innovative and that managers do not come up with ideas, and rather idea are formed by the group. Perhaps the entrepreneur is noteworthy because he is the exception and manages to forge a company against long odds. Maybe it is just because he makes a big deal of himself. I am sure sometime the common knowledge comes from ideas that companies rejected but went on to be successful.

There are no windows here in my mom's basement so it can be whatever time I say it is. I have 24 hr internet access and a DVR. I like to live on a 25 hour schedule to more closely match my circadian rythms.

I was happy to get into the additional ones also, but I think it can use some explanation. It is the second form the bottom on a black background (Avrum Cohen).
It is 15 years of planetary motion, with the % of orbit and size of planets to scale. The distances of the orbits are definitely not to scale. I sent it to a couple of friends and they did not get it. They referred to it as "bubbles"

I so baffled by this comment: 'I'm so baffled by this idea that we're not supposed to Google people,' says Dean Olsher. 'Why would there be a line? Like everyone else is allowed to know something but I'm not?'

Googling someone and reading things they have posted is not so good but not too bad either. People probably expect time and obscurity will make them anonymous to future acquaintences.

Looking through everything that is available through google or on line is like rifling through someone personal papers on their desk. You might find some payroll item on a persons desk at work, or you might find letters at someones home. Both are way out of line. You have access to them but not because the individual expected you to access them. There is no law preventing you from reading the material but you are breaking a social contract. It is OK for everyone else to know something because it can't be prevent. This is not the same as it is OK for my friend to dig for dirt on line.

I do Google a couple fo friends occasionally. These friends will sometimes be interviewed or have a lecture posted. I assume I don't hear from the them directly because they assume I am not that interested. I get the benefit of hearing more about my friends. These are current presentations of themselves and we have been close friends for a long time. So I think I am not crossing any lines. I could imagine cases when even doing this would be somewhat unappropriate.