Or, in short, to prove defamation, [citation needed]

Yup, naming ranges has dug me out of a (self-inflicted) debugging hole on more than one occasion.

I find that another good rule of thumb is "do stuff (functions, documentation, formulae) so you can understand it in 6 months' time"

It's when someone asks me "can you just add a few bits on to this one you created?" for something I did literally years ago. That's when a good structured basis saves so much time.

Of course, sometimes I wonder "What was I thinking, when I did that?"...

Spreadsheets are like a blank piece of paper with grid squares. Which means you can put anything down, tied together with some formulae, and it's brilliant.

Which is also why it's complete pants - the "anything goes" really does mean that.

(That, and it will tend to break when you most rely on it)

"I wonder how many CEOs actually believe in this drivel..."

Too many, because they themselves run on high-octane fuel all day

Except, of course, that they don't run high-octane, as they have delegated everything down to the workforce.

The best bosses are the ones who know that they have delegated stuff, and (even better) avoid the "presenteesim" culture by deliberately knocking off work at sensible times (meaning the workforce can do likewise).

The worst are the ones who really think that they doing all the work (like it was back when they were in charge of a tiny operation), rather than realising that they are now part of a large organisation and have grown the company in order to delegate the workload.

"off task probably half the day"
Which means that you are "on task" around half the day.

Wow! You rock!

Seriously, on a project management course some years ago, it was pointed out that the best individuals within an organisation can devote about 50% of their time to a task. The rest is taken up with (non-task) phone calls, meetings with others, summaries to your boss, and "personal needs breaks" (and lunch!), and so forth.

The "average" worker can be expected to devote 33% of their time to the task, as they also have to contend with IT issues, "other worker" issues and sheer "I need some downtime" type stuff.

So, if the article suggests "12 doing the work of 10" then that's an unrealistic 80% "on task".

Now, if it was "12 doing the work of 3", then there would be a case.

True enough - I use it as a means for people to view stuff of mine, without having to send them a large email. But I retain the originals on my own machine.

(And currently migrating a number of club newsletters from UbuntuOne to Dropbox. If Dropbox dies, then I still have the originals)

Or better still they clearly need to block themselves in perpetuity (to quote from one of their former "dear leaders", it would deny them the "oxygen of publicity")

And more this.

OK, so maybe displaying the UID "takes up too much space" - except that the large font (is there a way of changing it without changing it in your browser?) means there is already "too much space" - except this is wasted.

Not defaulting the parent posts's subject is an annoyance (but might encourage some "maybe my reply should have a different title" - except that breaks the thought flow when wanting a quick reply).

And all wasted space was in "beta-classic" view - the headlines only is too little info, while the tiles means even less information on screen.

How about looking at the BBC News website (and mobile version), to see how you can have a lot of information (on a non-mobile), and have a reasonable slew of clickable/movable icons for the mobile version. This comes across as the worst aspects of a desktop and a mobile site... The Windows 8 of blog sites, even

I looked at the beta, and thought "I'll give it a go"

And then found the large default font, the lack of auto-copying the OP subject and the general "messiness" of it all too painful.

Just as well I had the classic in another tab...

I'd say they are becoming more like "Buy N Large" from Wall-E - all pervasive, all providing.

Since the requirement was pushed for by politicians (the "won't someone think of the children" view), then the websites of all political parties should be blocked under the same filters until they realise that automated blacklist/whitelist filtering will never work 100% of the way it is expected.

Many of the comments are of the "I need a real machine to do..." kind.

However, there are roughly 2,900,000 Slashdot IDs out there, and, even if 100% of them required the "heavy lifting" of a "real" machine (which they don't...), then the sales figures (http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2623415) show that, in computing terms, Slashdotters are part of the 1%, and hence, despite the vociferous arguments, you (we) are a tiny minority.

Worldwide smartphone sales to end users reached 250.2 million units, up 45.8 percent from the third quarter of 2012

Nearly 90 times the /. list (which took years to build up) created in the last 3 months?

Face it, the PC is dying, not because it's not being used (in the areas that always used to use it), but because it's being overtaken by the "not a PC" uses

(should be +5 insightful right there)
There have been many companies *cough* Microsoft *cough* whose stock answer since the early 1990s has been "throw more hardware at the problem" (because of the implicit "our new software soaks up so much more system resources than the old stuff, that you'll need it").
It's only in the last few years that the hardware has overtaken the software so much that people forget how bad the "new stuff isn't any faster than the old stuff" had got.

A previous boss of mine (company director) stated "the needs of the business dictate the IT required. Not the other way round" Unfortunately, there are so many instances of the IT tail wagging the business dog that it really isn't funny any more (as if it ever was). Sharepoint, I'm looking at you, here (amongst many others on the wall of shame)

Reminds me of when PCs were first being introduced in Government offices back in the early 1990s.

Back then, they "didn't appear to be solving anything, or improving productivity" for many offices. For some, though, there was someone who either could see the potential, or could make something out of it all.

So, it was a long term goal that (ultimately) paid off

Cracking tales there!

I never thought of guising as being "tradition" - it was just something you did. And getting sparklers for Bonfire Night too!

When the sun rises about 8am, and sets around 4pm, then I suppose that makes for a lot of winter festivals to pass the time...