Should've left (and/or sold) sooner. Man's gotta know when to let go of sunk costs.

I've had my own office in almost every job (I count as exceptions the startups/under 20 person shops I worked in) since 1985. In the late '90's I needed to move into management to do it. In 2013, I had to move to my own company to do it. It was (and is) worth it.

I remember when engineers were actually treated as professionals - offices, administrative assistants, and all. Now, you're treated in the information factory like the line workers you have become. It's a shame you decided not to have a union. They'll have you at treadmill desks to power your own machines soon. And you'll suck it up because you think you have no choice. Examine your axioms.

More people leaving Oregon == more Oregon left for me. Take a few hipsters with you and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

... cyclists' contribution to road wear would likely be too small to collect.

Oh yeah? What if the cyclist was wearing a backpack, too? What then? Tax them all!

So, if it costs too much they'll automate and you'll pay to support them anyway. Here's the thing - you can either find jobs for people and let them work (or force them to work, Kim Jong Il), you can support them (either in their homes or poorhouses or prisons), or you can let them die of starvation. You can manage the process or let it go on chaotically - that's about it. Which of these options are you going to choose?

Well, is yours? I do own a business and I sort of like the fact that my government sets minimal rules. You, of course, are free to move away from LA should you find their rules onerous, but I have a feeling you don't even live near LA.

Uber ... is threatening to leave ... Oregon.

Since we've lived without "pump your own" gas for this long, I figure lack of Uber "services" and reliance on old school taxis and mass transit will be fine with our retro/hipster kultur here in PDX.

Actually, it's fine with me, too. I have a car. I know how to drive.

Most gas stations in Oregon don't have canopies. If you want to stand out in the rain to pump your gas, you can always go over the state line into Washington.

So your organization uses process change as a euphemism for "firing bad developers we were too chickenshit to fire for being bad in the first place". Sounds like a well-managed company with a recipe for a happy and productive workforce. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, Catbert.

If your Scrum meeting takes less than 30 seconds, you must not be doing Scrum either. Scrum is not about rigid time absolutes, it's about communication. Too much? Bad. Too little? Bad. Sometimes you need more, sometimes you need less. By the way, Scrum masters are often bad at determining which communication is important and how long stand ups need to last on both the short and long ends.

Ultimately, the question is not your "One True Scotsman" shibboleth, but what is industry standard. And right now, industry standard is standup meetings that run too long, transmit too little useful information, and take up too much project time as a percentage. Are we getting the transparency "bang for the buck" that Scrum promises from its process or were we better off with half-hour weekly status meetings and dailys when projects were coming down to an end? Are standups what bring value to the process or is it all of the other practices that often get snuck in on the back of Scrum? Strict timeboxing on tasks, TDD, continual improvement, transparent status, all of which actually reduce risk? How much does the standup actually bring to the party? More importantly, why is the Scrum community unwilling to discuss questions like this, simply saying "It's not true Scrum, so I don't care."?

Hand me a white-haired cat and I can hand you back the same cat with pink fur about an hour later. And if his name is Gerald, he may be pissed, but given that the ONLY criteria you have are Gerald is a cat and Gerald has fur and Gerald's fur has color pink, he would not be a figment of the imagination. Of course, a month after that, you'll need to touch up his roots, but that's just quibbling.

Another suggestion... Have H1B's auctioned, rather than being free. The more you're willing to pay, the greater chance you have of getting an H1B. Break ties in the last price tranche by lottery. Then we'll see what they're really worth and see if it's really worth the price to society.

'Nuff said. The folks able to keep up with rapid attention shifts will survive. Those who take longer? They'll die sooner and breed less. Pretty soon, we'll "evolve" to the point where we'll al ride around in personal mobility units with our view of the real world is through a single sensor protruding in front of us, after which it'll be a short step to fully enclosed climate controlled pods.

Then, when our evolutionary perfection is achieved, we can crush The Doctor and destroy all other imperfect sentient beings in the universe.

Dear Microsoft...

What the letter above said is that he "doesn't like the Firefox (or Chrome) model for updates". I personally have no trouble with it. He seems to want to leave you all behind, anyway.

Sure, I have a love-hate relationship with you, but it's better than the pure irritation and hatred that seems to ooze from the above letter. He must be a system administrator or something broken like that to hate you so much.

I wouldn't pay much attention to him.

even though I couldn't name a single line of code he taught us that year.

Well, I remember some code from my first programming class (in FORTRAN!):

I = I + 1

Man, I remember it like it was yesterday!