I just had to share this with the non-world I am in before I forget about it. I'm researching a company, and this is what I found at the top of their "we exist" page:

Transparency * Trust^3 = Balance

I'm speechless.

I wanna save a link to this place somewhere so as not to forget about it, and also to popularize it.



I think it'd be great to become a researcher there, but unfortunately they're still in Beta. It seems they exist largely to take over where Google Answers left off.

I had always wondered what happened to Google Answers. I found out on accident when I did a search "why do stomachs growl". The resulting search included something from Yahoo Answers, and that reminded me about Google Answers which I hadn't heard of/from in like forever, so I searched for that too and found this blog post which lead to the place the picture goes to.

P.S. This snapshots link preview feature they've added to LiveJournal is pretty sweet. :-)

Programming... it combines the most unpleasant aspects of: writing, engineering, and dealing with the worst kind of icky bureaucracy all into one nice, neat package.

I've not done much/any in-depth work with spreadsheets before. Well, who does really? I mean, if you can't point-and-click it in just a few moments, then why bother? Well I'm a masochist (read: programmer) so I wasn't gonna take no for a result (actually it was #!NAME).

I wanted a copy of my running total to always be displayed at a cell at the top of the worksheet. So that way I wouldn't have to go searching for it. I worked out that I could refer to the cell farthest down the sheet in that column with a number in it with this: "=COUNTIF($F$3:F65506;">0")+2".

Ok, so that's all neat and stuff. So now all I needed was to figure out how to dereference the number I had calculated to use as a cell reference. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but instead it took several agonizing hours to find the answer. I'm writing this down with the hope that I won't have to do this again. Maybe I should have tried that online google-for-code thing, ut I forgot it existed until just now.

Anyway, the magic to keep in mind is
1: Spreadsheets have an inanely simplistic syntax, so they handle all the sophisticated things (like dereferences) through functions.
2: Some people use the term "indirect" instead of "dereference". Or maybe indirection and dereferencing aren't quite the same thing. I forget, it's been a long time since assembly language.

Anyway, this is what it looks like:
"=INDIRECT(CONCATENATE("F";COUNTIF($F$3:F65506;">0")+2))"

yay

The Next Big Thing is going to be/currently is (with respect to Computers, The Internet, etc): Virtualization. Specifically by replacing apps-on-your-harddrive with apps-online. The practice of virtualizing applications, OSes, hardware, and sometimes even whole computer systems has already been ongoing for some time, but now we are seeing, and are going to see a lot more instances of individualized virtual desktop environments for end users that exist solely or primarily online.

As I write this (at work) I'm connected to livejournal's built-in journaling web form from a Citrix Remote Desktop.

Things like this:


Desktop On Demand

will become more and more common.

"What is podcasting"? you may ask? Well... let's Ask a Ninja:


Ask A Ninja: Special Delivery 1 "What is Podcasting?"

Strongbad emails are now also available in podcast form. This one's really good (in traditional flash form): Virus.

I've been reading through some emails at www.bestbuysux.org. This may become a new hobby of mine. There's an anti-Best Buy customers section (emails by customers about bad experineces at Best Buy) and an anti-Best Buy employees section (emails by current or former employees about bad experineces they've had working for Best Buy). There's also an attempt at a pro-Best Buy section, although it's rather sparesly populated and many of the emails are actually hate mail directed at the guy running the site. The site is apparently run by a former Best Buy employee.

Obviously, any criticsms made by former employees and even some of those made by customers should be taken with a grain of salt. But I myself have had somewhat less than darling experineces in Best Buy stores, and one of the anti- emails by a customer is about the specific store I've often been to. I seem to be getting the sense that, while it's certainly not the case that every Best Buy everywhere is staffed by nothing but people that are soulless, corrupt, or inept, the percentage of soulless, corrupt, or inept employees working for Best Buy might be a lot higher than normal. More disturbingly, there seems to be some weird culture (possibly perpetuated by training materials) in the Best Buy corporate structure that says that the customer is to be considered the enemy with which Best Buy must grudgingly do business. The following excerpt is (or at least claims to be) from a Best Buy employee responding to someone else's story of being held up by Best Buy staff for failing to consent to bag check after purchase. (this isn't on the bestbuysux.org site)

In dealing with the larger issue of why we verify receipts, I will ask a question: Have you ever worked retail sales? How long ago? The unpleasant reality facing retailers today is that "the customer" will lie, cheat, and steal at the slightest opportunity. They will invent fairy tales in attempts to get lower prices, and if you have the gall to debate their logic, they will insult, threaten, and even assault you. This Christmas we had a customer, a 39 year old, 6-2 200lb man, grab a 16 year old slip of a female cashier by the front of her shirt, pull her across the counter to his face, and scream at her because she would not honor an ad price that had been out of effect for two weeks. I personally had a customer, an intelligent, middle-aged man, tell me that a sign I had made ($9.99 after $5.00 mail-in-rebate) was misleading. I could go on, but I won't. Simply put, that is "the customer". All the old sayings about "the customer being the reason we're here", etc...don't apply as much as you might like them to. The reality is that customers don't come to Best Buy because they want to do their part to keep us in business. They want to buy a computer and they come to Best Buy because we have a lower price than Circuit City. That may be simplifying things a bit, but it illustrates the fact that "the customer" will put up with a lot to save 10% How else do you explain the continued existence of
Kmart?

It is because of these facts that , while we try to serve the customer, we must take steps to protect ourselves from "the customer" It is distasteful to be sure, but if we didn't do it one of two things would happen: we would have to raise prices to compensate or we would soon go out of business. Kmart doesn't protect itself the way Best Buy does and each store loses about 5% of its sales to theft and waste. At my Best Buy a similar level of inefficiency would be about $5,000,000 in loss. As it is, we'll lose about $120,000. I'm sure there was an uproar when stores first began to run personal checks through the various time consuming verification systems, but people soon grasped the truth that other people write bad checks and stores had a reasonable right to protect themselves from that. Receipt verification follows a similar logic. The attitude of "How dare they? Do I look like a thief" comes my way in a lot of the people I check off, and I sense a bit of that in you. Frankly, it's a natural reaction. But, just as we cannot tell a bogus check writer by looks, we cannot differentiate shoplifters either.

-- Best Buy Receipt Check: Epilogue

The author makes some good points about how customers can't always be trusted and he certainly makes us all anxious with stories of a big tall man grabbing a young girl by the hair in anger. But I can't help but notice familiar themes both here and on the BB sux website. Each side blames the other side for all problems. Each side points to the worst members of the other side as if they are an example of a typical member of that class or group. Each side makes gross generalizations. As if all customers are likely to steal the store, as if all BB employees are likely to screw the customer over in every way possible.

Once a hostile environment has developed, things have a way of naturally progressing from bad to worse. And how will it turn out? Will we have armed guards have their guns trained on the customer from the moment they walk through the door? Will we have customers bringing along their lawyer to ensure the BB staff don't treat the customer unfairly? Well, probably not. But it might make for an entertaining cartoon. Speaking of entertaining, although the following is a tale of BB employee woe, I found it amusing:

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:39:54 -0800 (PST)

Baytown #952

I realise that by writing this I am going to lose my work, but this needs to be said.
Here are the problems with my store, by department:

Appliances -
There is two people that work appliances! What do you see wrong with that?

Mobile Entertainment -
Nobody is EVER in this department, they are always in the install bay. If there is 3 people on shift you can bet all 3 will be in the install bay. It is impossible to go anywhere near that part of the store because there are 10 people there that need help! You will never escape mobile if somebody stops you!

Computers -
First of all the computer price tags are almost never correct or up to date, or even entirely completed for that matter.
Ever since our manager was fired for DOING HER JOB of following the book, our schedule looks like it has been made by a monkey with arthritis. We're lucky to have one person on shift in the evenings.

Wireless -
The associates take entirely too long with customers, sometimes they will be on the computer/phone with one customer for two hours just to sell one phone! This leaves a mass quantity wondering over to computers asking for help when we are busy with our own customers.

Media -
New releases are never correct.
Their media closet has all of their merchandise. If somebody is looking for something you don't look on the floor for it because it will not be there - it will be in the media closet.
Certain associates spend their time flirting with other associates and get nothing done for an entire shift.

Operations -
They have to spend all their time with selling a magazine that the line piles up! Again this pulls us from our work having to save someone else's understaffed behinds.
Customer Service is a joke.

Warehouse -
Half of the warehouse guys are overpayed and will not work. The other half are underpaid and do not stop working.

Loss Prevention -
The suprevisor is the living definition of a brainwashed drone.

Management -
Ever had to call for an unlock? Ever have it get unlocked in under 5 calls? That's what I thought.
I look forward each week to looking at the schedule. It provides a good laugh.
The SM is a living cell of bipolar.
The GM hires people entirely too overqualified and comes down on everyone else for his mistakes.
Every manager, with the exception of the OM, gets paid for talking on their phone. That is all that they do. Period. End of story.
The GM is extremely immature for his age and does not deserve the money he makes or the store that he runs. Constantly talks about his "past life". They are building a Conn's a few blocks down, please return to your "past life".
100% of the GM and his suck-up SM's time is spent in their SDR, watching us on camera and then getting down our throats for "lack of activity", in which they discovered by a lack of activity themselves.

Fix the schedules. Fix the staffing. I will continue this discussion with you when you call me into your SDR to sign my termination papers.

The bit about the schedule looking like "it has been made by a monkey with arthritis" just cracks me up something fierce.

It would have been really depressing if I'd got any wrong.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

The Dick Cheney shooting done in lego: link

# "One's never really alone with a rubber duck." -- Life, the Universe, and Everything


# All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. -- The Principia Discordia

[The following from a random web page]
# Anvil. anvil, in the sky, silly anvil, you can't fly! WHAM!

# Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat.

# No two equals are the same.

# Everybody I know who is right always agrees with me.