Recent submissions

Comment · 4 years ago
I base the 100-hour week thing on reports that it's the expectation at SpaceX and Tesla.
Comment · 4 years ago
> disintegration of innately self-evident core values like "working hard to make a good thing good is good"

Working hard is necessary to make something good, of course. Working "hardcore", where 100-hour weeks are _required_, and only "exceptional" performance is acceptable, is _inhuman_.

I'm saying this as someone who's managed several teams over several years, but also someone who's read the literature: the surest way to get bad performance out of someone is to put that kind of pressure on them, _especially_ long-term. People in that situation get tired and/or sick, can't straight from the anxiety and pressure, and because of all of that that they'll make simple mistakes that take a long time to sort out (because everybody else is in the same situation).

In my experience the best work comes from people who are calm, healthy, and well-rested, _especially_ over the long term. Those well-rested people are the ones who are capable of putting in the discretionary effort to make something good.

Comment · 10 years ago
Comment · 10 years ago
And it was me who did it!
Comment · 10 years ago
Pluto in particular would be a problem, though, because it is a) very small, and b) very far away. In order to get there in a realistic time, your probe has to be going _very quickly_; in order to stay in Pluto orbit, the probe has to be going _very slowly_.

So, unfortunately, to stay in Pluto orbit, either you carry a lot of fuel with you to slow down (which makes launch incredibly difficult, because you need more fuel to accelerate the fuel you need to slow down, and then you need more fuel to accelerate _that_ fuel, and so on), or you wait a long time to get there.

The bigger, closer planets and planetoids, though, will see a lot more exploration as the cost of launch decreases.

Comment · 11 years ago
It's impossible to have 'enough' parking spots. Induced demand shows that cars, like goldfish, always grow to fill the space they're given. It's politically difficult process, but just refusing to try to solve this problem (which leads to more New Urbanism-friendly locations) is often the right solution.
Comment · 11 years ago
Read this paper ("Set up to fail: How managers create their own poor performers"): http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=4...

The paper's basic tenet is that managers, by over-focusing on "poor performers", actually cause their poor performance by interfering with their work and putting them on performance improvement plans. Are there measurable differences between these people and your high performers in terms of output, or are you simply observing that to be so?

And listen to jonstewart. Being a manager is very different from being a programmer. Be humble and introspective, and work on becoming better at your craft.

Comment · 12 years ago
The whole point of advocating for fewer work days is that we are just as productive in fewer hours. That's why overtime doesn't work long-term; you wear out and do less per unit time.

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