This is so interesting. I live in Beaverton, OR, and grew up and often visit Eastern Washington. These coffee shacks are everywhere. I had no idea they were a regional thing. I always assumed they were a national thing since I see them everywhere I visit for the most part. Wild.
You lived in Pullman and didn't attend WSU after high school? I'm quite curious about this. I thought WSU was awesome and if I could have gone without as much debt (living at home) I would have in a heartbeat! Also, the Palouse is such a fantastic place. Pullman in summers was the best. Were you just tired of it by the time you graduated?
The Palouse is really beautiful, but honestly I felt like I'd kind of grown past Pullman by the time I finished high school - you can only go bowling at Zeppoz so many times :)
I take it you're in favor of the rumored glass keyboards coming out soon in laptops. I'm not.
Physical buttons are key when operating a vehicle IMO. Furthermore, I'd prefer big ass buttons and knobs so that there is as little reason as possible for people to take their eyes off the road.
I always explain it using recommendation engines. You buy a vacuum and you get suggestions for 10 vacuums you might want to get next. Not so good. You buy a film with Tom Cruise, and you see 10 other Tom Cruise moves suggested, thats not so bad.
I've said this a lot, and I've heard others say it too. I've recently been talking to my sister (a 1st grade teacher) about it and the conclusion we've come to is that even if there was a class it would do little good because of how little high school education sinks in. Most students just don't care enough to learn a boring life skill like money management.
I think your idea of having younger kids start learning this early (before its "uncool") is key. My sister says 1st grade is probably a little too early. I think maybe 3rd-6th might be right to start introducing the concepts.
Anything would be better than what we're doing now.
From an enterprise standpoint, I was lead of a team with engineers both in Oregon and Hong Kong. What made us successful was a few key things.
1. We ended up with dedicated BAs and QAs on site in HK so the engineers could get their questions answered in real-time. Those colleagues collaborated with their counterparts in Oregon in the same way the engineers did. I think this was the biggest success factor.
2. We had a daily synch-up video conference at end of day Oregon time, which was beginning of day HK time. This face to face time was great even though most days it was only 5-10 minutes long. It made us feel more like a team and helped morale.
3. The engineers were all self starters (as others have mentioned) meaning they could operate under ambiguity or without direction as needed.
4. I, as lead, managed most of the merging of code (this was before our org used GIT, so we weren't really doing PRs as much as old style, manual code reads).
5. Occasionally, maybe twice a year or so, we'd fly out the HK teams to Oregon to join us for major events (important project meetings, etc...). During those occasions, we'd also hang out after work quite a bit, again to keep up the camaraderie.
We have our IM/BA with our devs overseas while our product team (product write cards) and business are onshore. Was pretty rough to begin but I think we have figured it out.
I HATE conference calls but daily standup infront of a cisco screen between 2 teams is pretty good.
I've listened to a lot of audiobooks over the last several years. I've switched probably 80% of my "reading" time to audio so I can get more content (while driving, cleaning, laundry, etc.).
In my case, retention is much lower for listened content compared to read content. So much so that I now only listen to things which I consider entertainment. For anything technical, or that I'd want to retain longer than a few weeks I read with an actual book.
I hesitate to speak for everyone on this, but I will say that a few friends I've spoken to about it have said they see the same lesser retention in audio content.
One thing I've noticed is that when I'm listening to Audiobook and doing multitasking (working on computer, driving, etc.), the retention rate is usually very low. But if I am solely relaxing and listening to an Audiobook while not doing anything else then the retention rate tends to be much higher. The good thing with Audiobook is that the narrator can make the experience alive by his/her style of narrating which we would not get with merely reading the book.
I switched to 90+% audiobook after being an avid reader my whole life. I think my eyes have gotten worse, so physically reading because tiring quickly.
The secret for audiobooks, for me, is to listen to them while walking. Currently doing about 50 miles / week, which gets me through 1-2 audiobooks (1.5x, but I rewind and replay a LOT).
I notice my attention is crucial, and varies depending on interactions while walking. When by myself, not crossing streets (down by the walking areas of my town), I can retain a ton.
YMMV, but for me the sweet spot of information consumption is while walking, so audiobooks + exercise beat reading, hands down.
100% agreed - it even seems to happen to me if the text is older or takes a little more time to process. I listened to an audio copy of Candide while commuting by car and when I reached the end I remember being struck by the fact that I had no idea what had happened!
For me the reader makes a huge difference. I have listened to some audiobooks where I really liked the reader and retention was very good. But for a lot of them I agree that reading is better. Even more so for technical stuff where you often stop or even go back.
Agreed! I don't mind crazy composites at all. I like looking at all kinds of photography. I hate that he tries to claim its not composited. That seems impossible considering the clouds appear to be behind the moon. Also, how long of lens would be needed for that kind of compression? Seems impossible to have something that sharp at that kind of length. Several things point to a composite IMO.
