Actually, they forgot the decimal point.

Windows 3.1 had accessory tools (I think I used one called "Dashboard") that did multiple desktops - what's that, like 23 years ago?

Wing exits on the new 737s may still be in and out... I fly enough Southwest sitting in the exit rows, I should know, but the place the people really crush to is the "pilot's doors" - my Aunt was a stewardess for 30 years, she was on a 747 that had tires blowout and they deployed the slides for evacuation - no fire, no belly landing, no biggie, just some flat tires and a decision to use the slides instead of waiting for stairs to arrive... most people kept their cool, but two things were memorable: 1) the passenger wearing a dress, but no underwear who didn't keep her dress down on the ride down - blisters all the way up, and, most people kept their cool, but one guy had to get to the exit faster, he grabbed my Aunt by the hair and removed handfuls of it... she didn't notice until later - lots of adrenaline flowing in both of them at the time.

I looked at hiring Objective C programmers in 2006, unless you wanted to go hang at the Apple conventions in San Francisco and troll for new hires - it was pretty hopeless. Sure, we could hire programmers and pay them to learn Objective C, or we could just develop with C++ in Qt and let the trolls port it into Mac-ese for us.

Replacement is often not an option... and if you can't displace/replace a bad manager, it's probably time to find a new place.

In my past, I have promoted past bad management, once, but that was unusual and required upper management that a) cared, and b) recognized the situation for what it was.

The more conventional solution is to shop around for another job, then jump when the jumping is good.

Reading is overrated - it is an eyesight based function that degrades with age.

http://www.engineersjournal.ie...

There's an insensitive clod / get off my lawn meme in this somewhere, but I can't remember how to execute it.

That's on older Boeing jets (the ones named after the noise their tires make when falling off and hitting the tarmac... )

Airbus, and I believe the new Boeings, have outward opening emergency doors - they're heavier, harder to make right, require much more maintenance (look for double, triple, and thicker skins around Airbus doors the next time you board one...) but, if you're ever seated in the exit row when it really hits the fan, you want an outward opening door.

Very well might have been an L-1011, this was around 1994.

Last DC-10 I flew on had a horrible vibration in the port side engine... not the plane's fault, I blame Delta, and thank my lucky stars that I made it from Miami to Atlanta without something serious happening on the left wing.

Inward opening doors just make sense to engineers.

Outward opening doors are the only rational answer when 35 people are pushing toward an exit in a panic.

No, it actually blows out an airplane - see: the Hawaii effect, metal fatigue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

Feed Qt.io, not the trolls.

How about the one that delivers "best" wins - date of delivery is just one aspect to evaluate.

I would append that thought with the idea that some of the most, ahem, challenging colleagues I have encountered seem to have genuine neurological deficits in the social skills areas - they are barely aware of just how bad they are and have little to no clue how to do anything about it.

For some, electroshock therapy seems like a good first line treatment option, but, back in the real world, laughing at them is usually the most productive way through the situations they create.

And, for balance and perspective, most startups also have principals who are not engineers, who hold more shares than engineers, draw bigger salaries than the engineers, and work shorter hours than the engineers - though they do tend to travel more.