Mother Nature would like a word with you...

Whoops, I was wrong - it's nearly 2 kilograms per person here, not 1. But you've still got us beat :) (Also, it looks like America is up to 207 million pounds of fireworks per year, a big increase... so 285 grams per capita per year).

I just think it's really weird how Americans see themselves as a major-fireworks nation when they set off so few.

Oh come on, what's New Years without an ER visit? ;) But yeah, I know some of your places have fireworks bans due to drought and the like.

In case you're curious, here's what New Years looks like here. It goes on at that intensity for at least half an hour, half intensity for maybe an additional hour or so, quarter intensity for another hour, etc. All this comes after the "brennur", which is about a dozen house-sized bonfires scattered all over town.

Basically, if one can make it burn or explode and there's nobody who objects, we'll set it on fire. Often while drinking heavily ;)

New York City for example usually sets off 20-25 tonnes of fireworks on the 4th of July. Meanwhile, little Reykjavík sets off about 300 tonnes on New Years' Eve. Americans average shooting off about 200 grams of Fireworks each over the course of the entire year, combining fireworks shows, personal usage, etc. Icelanders average about a kilogram per person just on New Years'.

And I know it's not just Iceland. I had a friend from Peru who moved to America and was terribly disappointed by what passed for a fireworks display there versus in her home country. Seriously, aren't you guys supposed to be the ones who enjoy blowing everything up? ;) Or do you get it out of your systems in the Middle East? ;)

(Note: not meant as an insult :) )

I think we all appreciate that this person went to b-school and therefore is well trained in using buzz words and maximizing quarterly profits, but Google works because unlike most other dot coms, it does deliver products to generate a profit, not just data that one day may be used for a profit.

At the time when Google was on the rise, web browsers began to let user manage 'cookies'. This was a new concept to everyone back then, but web companies were learning to use cookies to track users, and end users were learning to turn them off to protect privacy. Companies like 2o7, which thought they could win by obfuscating their domain name, were driven into oblivion by companies like Google who were making a much fairer trade. Google provided a service for data collection, that first service being the search App, and in return they got user data which could be used to build an ad service business.

To be honest Google search now sucks and any actual consumer products are too expensive to provide any value. Like MS, google end user products are only affordable because the manufacturers take a hit on profits. This is why Apple has only a small share of the mobile phone market, but most of the profits.

So at the end of the day, all Google has is the apps. And the killer app, google docs, has not been updated in a long time. Maps has credible competitors. Bing under new owners could be a player, which it wasn't with MS because it was just a small cog in huge machine. Google can be forgiven because it provides descent products for no cost, even if those products are crappy. It is like broadcast TV. People will watch it, and maybe buy some of the stuff in the ads, because what else is there to do?

But Google without apps, with only search, is going to be highly vulnerable. At some point someone is going to figure a way to compete with Google, and if all Google has to back up ads is search, they are going to be easy pickings.

I've been writing code like this since 1985. Then, it was in LISP.

It's actually trivial to me at this point. You end up with a meaning trie with differential probability vectors, and some of the roots wither away as you go down. Making a machine decision is harder, but not entirely impossible.

I get incredibly annoyed at people like Lazlo Bock who want to put everyone's resumes into a form that basically allows Google (Lazlo Bock works for Google) or other companies to magically allow you to come into a new job under the horse collar of a performance review of your previous job which they were in no way involved with.

The whole "HR metrics" industry... uh... kinda pisses me off? I pick companies based on criterion other than standard metrics. If they pick me that way... they do not deserve me. Mostly they stumble into me, I fix them, and then I exit.

I understand the "OMG we need people who know what they are doing and not recent graduates!" panic. Does not mean I sympathize.

No problemo

I miss subtle stuff all the time. I rely on really strict semantics in place of "not trusting people", which I have a hard time doing (data is data).

And then he opened the SPARCStation pizza box to reveal... a Zilog UART!

For my 22K of code...

Yes. 3 bugs.

Errors are less of a problem than revisionist history.

I spent 4 weeks thinking, and then I coded 22,000 lines of C++ in about two weeks.

Ended up in wrist braces.

The code was worth it.

Give me the fixed cell VT102 (yes, I need a printer) font any day.

Also it is much better for code.

I state up front that I work on my own terms. I have talent to offer and can solve problems that others often can't, but I place a premium on flexibility and on my own health and family. I am incredibly productive, more than many other employees, but I do not offer *maximum productivity*, i.e. "as much as I am humanly able to produce." Even if it seems that I have more to offer (i.e. I leave at 6:30 when everyone else is still working and Skyping me at 11:30 pm, I travel a only couple of times per year and decline to travel 20 times per year, etc.), I am not willing to give this "more" to the organization—it is for my family and my own personal growth.

And both of the phrases I used are things I've been told—"We have doubts about your how serious you are; we're interested in someone that's more serious about their career" and "We don't doubt that you're highly skilled and productive, your resume and recommendations are stellar, but we're in a competitive industry and we need highly competitive people, and we're not sure you've got that competitive fire in your belly—that you're really going to be one hundred percent invested in the company and its growth."

I have two friends that have been on the serial startup carousel as founders. Both burned out and moved in other directions because they felt it was impossible to actually have a life, be a human being, and get growth and operating capital support from investors. Each startup became their entire lives each time until positive exit, and at some point each said, "I'm not doing this again, I'm losing my own sense of identity and my family."

And if you take that kind of statement out into the public sphere, I'd bet that what others would say is, "Well, they weren't really made to be enterpreneurs, then; they were destined to burn out because it's not the lifestyle for them."

Which is precisely my point—and it sounds like you've seen it, too—there's a prevailing "wisdom" that "real" career builders or "real" enterpreneurs are a particular "type"—the type that gives every . last . drop . of . blood to the company. The rest? They're just not "cut out for it"—they should "do something else."

Of course, if you're not "cut out" for the job market or for enterpreneurship, it's not quite clear what "else" you ought to be doing to earn a living. There are only so many jobs at nonprofits and in government agencies.

It would be better if society were to take a step back and assume the opposite—that everyone is basically loyal, driven, and productive, but in general, a healthy person cannot exist without healthy hours, life balance, and relationships, and if someone is the "type" to be working from 4:00 am until midnight every day of the week, and double that on holidays to pick up the slack, the are probably in need of counseling or personal development, rather than a raise and a promotion. But I suppose that's not how the market works.

The irony is that it could be seen as "karma" that Jobs basically committed "suicide by woo", refusing to treat his cancer with any recognized scientific technique for most of a year and instead trying pretty much every technique in the book popular among the sort of person who typically believes in karma.

So perhaps all of the woo stuff actually works, but it plays in with the laws of karma ;)