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Showing posts from July, 2011

Hacker News Fires Steve Yegge

I woke up this morning...ish... to discover that Hacker News had finally had enough of me being at Google, so they forced me into early retirement. On Monday I was honored to be able to deliver a keynote talk at OSCON Data . In the talk, I announce at the end that I am quitting a project that I had very publicly signed up for, one that I am not passionate about and don't personally think is very important to the human race. Though others clearly do, and that's a legitimate viewpoint too. But the power of suggestion can make you see and hear something entirely different. If, for instance, someone tells you that I gave the talk wearing a gorilla suit, then when you watch it, I will magically appear to be wearing a gorilla suit . It's actually a gray jacket over a black shirt, but you will perceive the jacket as the back-hair of a male silverback gorilla! And to be honest the talk could have benefited from the judicious application of a gorilla suit, so no harm there. S

Minute taking webinar

Join me for an effective minute-taking webinar on Thursday, July 28 at 1 p.m. EST  If you are interested, you can register here .

eBay Patents 10-Click Checkout

San Jose, CA ( Reuters ) — Online auctions cartel eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and its collections and incarceration arm PayPal announced that on July 21, 2011, the two companies had jointly been awarded United States Patent No. 105960411 for their innovative 10-click �Buy it Now� purchasing pipeline. The newly-patented buying system guides users through an intuitive, step-by-step process of clicking �Buy It Now�, entering your password, logging in because they signed your sorry ass out again, getting upsold shit you don�t want, continuing to your original destination, accepting the default quantity of 1 (otherwise known as �It�), committing to buy, clicking "Pay Now", entering a different password than your first one, clicking "Log In" again god dammit, declining to borrow money from eBay�s usury department, reviewing the goddamn purchase details since by now you�ve completely forgotten what the hell you were buying, and finally confirming the god damned payment already.

Silence is golden

Hi everyone, I have been offline for a bit and wanted to touch base so you know I haven't left the planet :)  I am planning on adopting a teenager and am going through the stages for that.  As you can imagine, it is not without its hiccups, but hopefully I will be welcoming someone into my home by early August.  As a mother to a 31-year old daughter, and having gone through the teen years with her, I know there will be bumps along the way, but I am looking forward to the challenge.  Teenagers are probably the last age group people look to adopt, but everyone needs a forever family and I wanted to provide some stability to a young lady before she goes out into the world.  As a single mom I thought that was something I could handle. Have a great summer everyone and I will keep you posted on the final outcome of this adventure and how it is all working out in the office with finding a replacement for me while I go on adoption leave and training my new assistant when she arrives in Sep