I guess you need to ramp up your exaggeration of ignorance! I know far too many people that are saying exactly what you joked, but they are dead serious. Very sad!

What displaced all that cold air in the arctic when the arctic air came down here? I.e. don't just think about "warming" in isolation - also think about "global". Summarizing climate sciences in one or even two words probably means that you are probably leaving out some details.

Yes, by Robert Heinlein. My first thought was a scene from that, or maybe it was another story, I don't remember - but the character D.D. Harriman walks into a Pepsi exec's office with a Coke logo pinned to his suit (I'm sure the companies weren't mentioned by name, but that was the idea). The exec is pissed about it, Harriman says from the distance from me to you, this button is the exact size of the full moon. I just came from there - they've got a great plan to write their logo across the face of the moon. The exec - that's outrageous! Harriman - yes, a travesty - we've got to stop it, but I just need some more money to get this ship launched - if I get there first, then it won't happen. And, of course, Harriman does the same thing the other way around, extorting every dime he can.

Anyway, it's a fun story - very interesting to see real life creep up on it!

I'm sure no cloud contract has a 100% uptime guarantee, but it is "sold" as the perfect solution all the time.

I try to remind people that the cloud is not filled with magic beans. Sometimes it is just what is needed, sometimes it isn't; it depends!

<blink>I want to blink my text again!!</blink>

No no, not false consensus, I was meaning something more generic - the idea of rules being strict at first, and then easing up later. Usually that is far easier than to start out with a lax set of rules and then try to clamp down later if things get out of control. I think Mayer believed that the situation at Yahoo was pretty bad, and so she's decided to start of from square one - throwing out all the old rules that (she felt) were not working. If she's smart, she'll continue to look at the data and metrics and listen to employee feedback and then adjust the rules as necessary. If that is what is going on, I think it is a healthy move that in the long term will be beneficial. Doing the same thing and expecting different results isn't usually a good plan.

I totally agree that different people in different circumstances will be more effective with different commute options - the ideal situation is to be able to determine that and have enough flexibility to put the right people in the right place at the right time. We shall see if that is where Yahoo is headed.

I'm not so sure, I'd bet that dedicated employees will, on average, be more likely to give up the conveniences of telecommuting and come in to the office to work. Slackers I think will be more likely to give up an try to find another easy job to leech off of. Of course there will be exceptions, but on average good employees are good employees and will do their work wherever they are.

Now if it turns out this is a permanent type arrangement, then I suspect you will find that the better employees will begin to seek opportunities that reward them with greater trust, autonomy, and flexibility. Time will tell!

Of course I hope my employer doesn't follow suit and ban telecommuting for me (I do 1 day a week) - it would suck for me personally but in the end I doubt it would be a deal breaker for me.

I suspect it's a simple case of psychology on that - come down hard at first, then ease up. It has the potential to rattle loose the weak links and have Yahoo emerge a leaner, stronger company because of it. The people that stay will be more or less self-selected, will feel a bond of having endured a common hardship - and I think that can translate into the kind of trust needed to bring back flexible working policies. The more I've thought about it, the more I think this move will, in the long run, turn out well for Yahoo.

Well, it's actually kind of cool that the user can pop in a memory card. I guess I have gotten a little to used to iProducts that don't allow such niceties.

They did not know NYC would be hit by a hurricane, they knew it COULD be hit by a hurricane and took precautions.

I have smoke detectors not because I know there will be a fire, but because I know there COULD be a fire, so I take precautions. I spend money on batteries for the detectors and I also have an extinguisher I occasionally have to replace. I have never once had a fire in my house - am I an alarmist?

No. Both cases are looking at the range of possibilities, hedging for safety, and making a cost/benefit analysis.

The article was not merely about Sandy hitting NYC, but rather about a possible upward trend in severity and possible relationships between that uptick and observations that are generally associated with global climate change theories (increased sea and air temperatures and changes in global weather patterns). There is clearly evidence that global warming COULD be an issue. Only a fool would disregard the possibility. So, like Woodsy Owl used to say "give a hoot, don't pollute"!

So in the 70's, engineers and scientists looked at available data and said that the infrastructure may not be adequate to provide safety margins for possible weather conditions -- and you say that was good! (And I agree!)

And so now, scientists and engineers look at data and suggest that infrastructure may not be adequate to provide safety margins for possible weather conditions -- and you imply that is alarmist!

Those folks in the 70s did not know for a fact what was going to happen, they made their best estimates and guesses, hedged them for safety and did a cost/benefit analysis and decided to do the retrofit. I don't see why following the same process today makes people "alarmists".

Anybody create or know of a thumbnail of the whole thing? I don't want to miss anything!

That comic should have been put out on a Friday - I only like to waste a lot of time on Fridays. I can only afford a cursory amount of wasted time on a Wednesday. All that clicking and dragging used up most of it, so I'll have to cut this /. post short.

Homeopathy DOES work - the placebo effect is well documented!

They are obviously saying that they are coming to kill you on 10/31 (and presumably anybody else whose service needs to be terminated). That is the only way out for them - let the rest of us beware of "lifetime" agreements!

Being good at math often means you are a good, creative problem solver. Even though I very rarely need any specific knowledge from the math courses I've taken, I use the skills I developed solving and proving all kinds of math problems every single day. With computers and without - just make sure that whatever you study, you learn how to think.