DuncanIdaho

I've had it happen to me - I guess on two occasions.

I was shocked, It felt repulsive (because a drunk woman 30 years older than you grabbing for your balls trying to stick her tongue into you mouth is hardly attractive). It didn't feel good, but I didn't feel "damaged" because of it either. I left the place and went home.

No blogging, no police, no drama. It's not like there was some sort of conspiracy to destroy my person. It was an unfortunate sexual misconduct that a person needs not to dwell upon.

There is a big difference between unwanted approaches, even being creepy - and actual rape or "sexual assault".

I work in a company like that - and the system sucks - especially now in downturn.

Here's why: 1. Some managers (of sub-par mind you) teams scored whole their team as "excelent" - as to compensate for lack of company success. Then when the MGMT figured that out - they implemented ratio - thus again hitting the team with many excelent overachievers, etc... 2. Myself personally am often transfered from f-ed up project to a f-ed up project (since I have the ability to mostly turn them around or help to mitigate the damage) thus ensuring that I will never be compensated for the level of effort necessary to turn around a f-up.

This system just makes me sick - because I want to compete but I don't want for my collegues to suffer because of it - currently it just encourages teamicide. So this kind of scheme appears to demotivate over-achievers more than it motivates under-achievers.

Heh... that has been said many times in history.

You can't whatevernize China. China is just waking up from a 100 or so years of slumber (or catharsis) into its rightful place in the world.

What frustrates me most is that I keep meeting people who seem to know less about their respective fields than one would expect them to, or they should at least know more about them than I or some other laic does.

I have - so what you're trying to get across is that the only difference between culture (driving or otherwise) in first and third world countries is in lack of necessary regulations in third world (traffic signs included)?

I call bullshit on this.

What does make a difference IMHO is having as few rules as necessary - BUT making sure that those few are sensible and respected.

Thus - "Don't be a jackass" is a worthy and sufficient rule - if enforced thoroughly.

1.) Water 2.) Black Tea with Mint instead of morning coffe 3.) Red wines (semi dry) 4.) White wines (dry and sweet) 5.) Occasional beer 6.) Coffee 7.) occasional liquor

I'm actually drinking less and less coffee and beer. Both are being substituted by tea and wine respectively.

Hmm... I wouldn't call an artist that inspired Johnny Cash to cover him, irrelevant.

I can't really remember Duncan being a bully?

I have been bullied and I have also been a bullie myelf (frist the former then the latter).

Your advice is sound. Bullie "smells" the weakness - indeed they never pick on challenges, they always look for victims. So the only way out is not embracing (showing weakness) but through fight (showing strength).

You might get beaten up anyway - but if you show "will to power" they might start respecting you - since you "might exert revenge" on them someday. It's really how it works.

And my dad also taught me never to start a fight - but to make sure to finish it. It just took me long to "get it".

Reading first and second Dune trilogy would give you a lot of what you are asking for.

Also I would recommend reading Alamut from Vladimir Bartol.

For more serious works - I would offer Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy.

Oh my god... This is so awesome!

Call me stupid - but I am one of those persons who was unaware of MDC - and to be honest Mozilla sites hierarchy can be hard/impossible to traverse for the un-initiated.

I was wishing so much to find something like that JavaScript Guide. I love JS - but the little intricacies that are common knowledge to greybeards were so hard to find about - now I got it all here.

!!! Yay!

I'm not missing anything - like I said Google at present is unable of such strong focus/commitement.

But... If google were headed by Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison - like persona, then you could see what I mean :)

What keeps bothering me is - why nobody sees the danger Google represents to Facebook.

I mean if Google wanted to - they could IMHO mow down Facebook. They have waaaay more personal information about all the Facebook users that are also Google users (I believe that is majority of Facebook users), which would enable them to leverage that information and create a much better user experience.

If they could really put their mind to it that is. Unfortunately Google cannot seem to manage that kind of focus - beyond adwords that is. And forget Buzz - that was a miserable failure and probably even wasn't ever meant to be anything beyond Proof Of Concept.

However Google just might be working on a FB killer as we speak. In my oppinion Google has better infrastructure, more resources and is in a position to really give FB a run for it's money.

It's also interesting how people try to establish causality for drug use with lack of mental ability.

Drugs are no good for sutpid people - the ones that get most out of them are smart people. For drugs to get the most effect being smart helps a lot.

I find it a big problem with heroin users. Anyone who knows some knows how elaborate schemes they create to acquire drugs. Also talking to addicts when they are sober (high they don't make any sense mostly) knows how complex personalities they are.

Being stupid helps one from acquiring a drug habbit IMHO. While being smart only multiplies ones problems if one manages to get into drug usage.

I have no idea - I'm not from US.

I'm an extreme athlete - and I'm in a circle of "jocks" (most extreme athletes are like that), so I understand how this kind of "young male" groups work and what dynamics are involved.

You are a lady I presume?

Actually I find ball busting a form of art. I know a couple of people that are so good at it that they actually sense your comfort level - and maneuver right below the treshold.

This is the kind of people you call when your bored - take them out and beg them to mock you!

Actually I find ball busting a human form of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNvQ2AC23cg . It's what young males do to learn about social cause/effect. I find it less damaging to one's personality to what young girls do to each other.

I was in your shoes once. Now I'm widely considered as one of most socially apt/spontaneous people in any group.

By all means - be bold. Heed my advice that fear is good while phobias are bad. You should embrace fear - since fear is what will motivate you to prepare for your encounters. While systematically working against your phobias. The only way to demolish your "phobias" is by acting against your fight/flight impulses.

Do not be affraid of making a fool of yourself. Because You WILL make a fool of yourself. Embrace it. Tell people about it. Remember you should always put your shortcomings/weak spots in public view (hide in plain sight). Thus people who will try to "damage" you will try to find your hidden spots - where you are actually the "hardest".

One thing that has worked for me (YMMV) is not to "follow" people. ESPECIALLY popular people - find "weak" people and start helping them on feeling better about themselves, help them out socially (the mere fact that you posted here is a sign that you are not so inept as you think of yourself). Thus you will create your own following - eventually converting the "popular" people into your own followers.

And listen to "Wear Sunscreen" - it contains all the secrets of the trade. That is all there is to it.

"There’s no question that the government is resolved to at least try to re-create Greek civic life. The only question is: Can such a thing, once lost, ever be re-created?"

I reccomend reading Machiavelli's Discourses to anyone interested in the particular subject. He has put much study into this question.

To provide short answer - Niccolo believes that once the "civic virtue" of the state (and thus its citizens) gets corrupted it certainly is possible to restore it - but that he sadly cannot think of a single person that would be capable of pulling it of (it is such a monumental undertaking, requiring an honest person to commit some amoral actions - without succumbing to corruption of power).

Thus a more probable course of action according to Machiavelli is - that such a state (or nation) is condemned to "eternal" turomoil and/or domination from an other (more virtous) power.

Could you elaborate on what their complaints are?

To me its waaaay better than Sharepoint - which we also used. And it is way more suitable for "non-technical" and "non-wikisavvy" users than e.g. MediaWiki.

As a Confluence user I have to second that.

For a small team Confluence is an even more "no-brainer" than MediaWiki, etc...

Just an suggestion.

If you made this as Atlassian Confluence Plugin AND/OR Atlassian JIRA Plugin -> We'd ve more than willing to buy into your idea.

Well have you ever heard that road to hell is paved with good intentions? I have seen more than fair shair of this saying being true in practice.

Bureaucrat may be well-intentioned, but they are mostly more prone to "do their job" than to question the correctness and impact of their deeds.

And that is without considering office politics or politics in broader sense. I'm working with government and I wouldn't rely on bureaucrat to do the "right thing".

They say that bureacracy is organization whrere group of people that think all "A" agree on compromise "B".

Why is economy stalling considered so bad?

Would it be so much better if they just spent everything?

Why is more production, consumption and pollution considered good?

Can't you see that taking wealth of Warren Buffet and distributing it amongst the poorest would cause mostly problems. These people wouldn't use the resources to empower themseves or improve their position - they would mostly blow it for hedonistic pleasures.

Because I see it everyday. Hell I've got a sister that couldn't save a dime if she made a billion dollars a day.

I know it's a circular argument - but because if they (or their parents) could manage resources better they wouldn't be poor - don't look at what signle person does - look at their bloodline.

My parents (mother mostly) managed to save enough money to buy her first property by age 18 (she started working age 15). She managed to save incredible amounts of money - while mostly working minimum wage type jobs - for her entire life and we always had cash when necessary.

It did take a lot of sacrifices. I mostly wore second hand clothing until I could afford to buy my own. I was never to McDonalds until age 15. We never went to theatres. We spent most of our vacations working, She did a lot of stuff that is nowadays considered ecological/organic/fancy - but 30 years ago made you look like a lunatic in eyes of general community (recycling/reusing everything - like taking zippers off clothing and using it on other clothing). I was raised entirely on organic food - thinking that I'm deprived because of it. But I was always encouraged to study - hell I was probably second kid in class to get access to a computer and certainly first kid in class to have their OWN computer.

Hell I might go and write a "How to survive on 100 dollars a month." guides only on stuff I learned from her.

I was certain that we are piss poor until I realized that we are actually pretty wealthy - just poor on liquid assets.

Bootstrapping yourself from poverty is certainly possible - but most people are just too ignorant (yes it might be cruel but thats the way I see it) to pull it off.

Have you ever noticed how many poor people smoke/drink - have you ever considered what a % of their income goes towards these habbits?

This is probably one of most important lessons taught by my mother: "A person making a million dollars a month but spending million and one dollar is not a wealthy person".

This is why "unfair" wealth distribution is actually good (please note that context for this statement is "developed world" not missmatch in wealth between regions). Since poor people (or poor families) are obviously lousy at managing their resources. Thus the acumulated wealth is actually protected by hoarders - since everybody else would have just spent it anyway.

All valid points.

But I can't really see myself moving on to other browsers...

Just because of 2 plugins:

1. Mouse gestures, OK - Chrome has them now but now the second one is a gamebreaker. 2. TreeTabs - I just cant browse without it anymore.

I'd really like to move on to Chrome, but without TreeTabs - I'll just suffer the loading times :)

If you're an entrepreneur you'd also figure that there is a very good reason for such discrepancy in price.

Then you'd identify and account for reasons (organs go bad, quality might be this or that way, risk of getting caught, logistics,...). If you did it correctly you could figure if some of reasons for higher price can be removed or minimized. And from this we can derive our arbitrage opportunity.

For this case you'd probably figure out that guys in biz already got it covered (these guys are definitely pro's) and that there is really no opportunity.

Depends of position.

If dealing with peer or higher-level "politicians" - I refuse to play their game, even if beneficiary to me at the time. While I simultaneously point out any transgressions of theirs. Sooner than later they screw up - since focusing on politics instead of your work is actually pretty hard work.

If dealing with subordinates. I perform "face thy accusor" ritual. It also helps not to get engaged into any of their schemes - thus preserving one's integrity.

Oh and both approaches require that you be valuable to the team - else you will get ground and ejected :)

<reddit> My grand grand parents were the dumbest p ever. They sold an estate that has been today found to contain worlds greatest reserve of gold/diamonds/whatever.

They had to be the lamest grand grand parents ever </reddit>

If anything this has to be the dumbest commentary ever. Please, please delete this from HN.

<meta> Partially wrong == mostly right -> if in doubt follow Blank's advice </meta>

I'll guess that these startups Kyle is talking about were good enough to make it anyway - without loosing time on writing worthless papers.

Disclaimer: I'm not involved in any startups. But when I first came into contact with business plan concept. I couldn't see any real value in it and it seemed kinda cargo cultish to me.