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Comment Re:Here's hoping they bought it to close it down. (Score 1) 208

Minecraft is one of the things I like least on the Internet right now. It epitomises everything I dislike about the environment given to the young generation, their imaginations torn from them, pushed into building artificial worlds because making in the real one is hampered by a perfect storm of regulation and fear under the umbrella of crony capitalism.

Is this the bit where I say something about playing in the woods when I was a kid?

Comment Re:Like everything else M$... (Score 1) 208

Or perhaps I just understand the difference between a subjective opinion and an objective fact and I'm not arrogant enough to assume that my opinions are somehow more worthy than anyone else's.

There is a lot of ground between an objective fact and a purely subjective opinion, but if you want to treat the world in a binary heads/tails way and achieve the rich inner life of a tossed coin, that's up to you.

Comment Re:Like everything else M$... (Score 1) 208

Popularity doesn't equate to quality and you're an idiot for thinking that it does.

Please list the objective criteria for rating the quality of a piece of art. We'll wait.

Getting people who know what they are talking about to agree how good a piece of art is usually works best.

Someone who doesn't see why popularity does not equal quality is pretty much excluded from the "know what they are talking about" group.

Comment Re: Morale of the Story (Score 1) 217

Apparently naively, I would have expected BoM to be markedly more predictable, and controllable, than either legal or software costs.

No, it is in the real world of buying stuff, doing something to it and selling it for a profit that the real risks and rewards of business lie.

Legal and software costs are generally annoyances rather than the cause of businesses going bust, whatever the hysteria on places like slashdot.

The tl;dr here is that Triggertrap didn't have a properly costed business plan. Like most failed businesses.

Comment Re:Brilliant how? (Score 1) 167

I've read a dozen articles about Marissa Mayer describing her as a "brilliant engineer" but I've never seen or heard what she's actually designed, implemented or improved.

Anyone got citations?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think she was the one who invented pron, so we should really all show a bit more respect.

Comment Re:"Empire of the Rising Scum" (Score 1) 167

From a 1990 essay comes the insight "The ability to get ahead in an organization is simply another talent, like the ability to play chess, paint pictures, do coronary bypass operations or pick pockets. There are some people who are extraordinarily good at manipulating- organizations to serve their own ends. The Russians, who have suffered under such people for centuries, have a name for them-- apparatchiks. It was an observer of apparatchiks who coined the maxim, 'The scum rises to the top.' "

http://bobshea.net/empire_of_t...

It is as insightful in its own way as "The Mythical Man-Month".

What is so interesting is that in many (large) organisations, this is pretty much codified in their HR structures, so that in annual appraisals rather than being scored at what you've actually done in your job, it's all about how you have developed a network of trusted colleagues, attended negotiating and presentation courses, volunteered to run the sports club, and absorbed the company Mission Statement.

Comment Re:130 hour weeks and "people first"? (Score 1) 167

Anyone who claims to work 130 hour weeks is quite simply a liar. There's no way that person is producing anything resembling 'work' for more than 18 hours per day, 7 days a week. She may have been in the office for that long, but she sure as hell wasn't working. What is it with this fetishism about long work weeks? What's next, claims about a 170 hour week?

Goddammit yes, if it takes 170 hours a week to get the job done, then I expect my people to work 170 hours a week!

Comment Re:Criticism (Score 1) 167

all the other features and apps ecosystem of a modern smartphone

Porn in your pocket when you go for a dump at work is the killer app of the Smartphone, as far as I can see.

Apart from that, everything else is easier with a reasonable sized laptop.

Comment Re:Brain drain (Score 1) 167

Oh, and damn those people that want to insist that I get overtime for every moment I spend at the office after hours.

Yeah, I really hate getting paid for the work I do too. If it wasn't for my wife and kids needing to eat now and then, I'd probably pay just to be allowed to come into the office.

Comment Re:Brain drain (Score 1) 167

It seems like a good compromise might be to allow telecommuting three days a week: tuesday, wednesday, and thursday, and have mondays and fridays be in the office. That way you still get to interact with your team, and talk to the people you need to talk to, but you are spared 60% of the time and expense of commuting, and all the in-office distractions on those days.

Um, for most people it's on Mondays and Fridays that you want to be "telecommuting". You get a nice long weekend that way, ifyouknowwhatimean.

Comment Re:Brain drain (Score 2) 167

The problem is there are as equally unproductive amounts of people as your pulled out of thin air numbers in the office too.

Some of the lazy bastards even take time to read and post on internet forums while they're supposed to be working in the office. Un-fucking-believable...

Comment Re:Brain drain (Score 1) 167

flex time and telecommuting used to be part of the SV culture

Although it wasn't popular, Marissa was right to end the practice at Yahoo.

I STRONGLY believe that the greatest benefits of having a fantastic team is when everybody is in the same office and have all sorts of serendipitous interactions. Things that can't be scheduled on an outlook calendar. it doesn't happen when people sit at home in their underwear doing skype chats.

And I STRONGLY believe that anyone who unironically uses the word "team" when they're not on a football pitch is a person I dona't want to work for.

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