stewiecat

The only thing I work on that my job provided is the laptop, which they purchased for me after realizing my own was a bit too old. External monitor, mouse, keyboard, stand, etc. all came from home.

Even in shops where software is the business I've been given a standard Dell laptop for development. The IT folks didn't want to bother with procuring different laptops for different business functions, so everybody got the same thing.

It could be abrasive if the rapport isn't there. But a good manager will build that over time until the point were blunt honest questions can be answered bluntly and honestly with no cause for concern.

I use both. Time machine in my home to back up mine and the wife's macs and Arq to offsite backup a subset of my home directory (docs, music, photos, settings).

Google has the same thing. Larry, Sergey, Eric all have shares that carry 10x the votes of regular Class A shares so they can still exercise control if their holdings fall below 50%.

It's 3 committees + Larry. This was the case in December 2009 when I interviewed there.

Local hiring committee, regional hiring committee, HQ hiring committee then final sign-off by Larry himself.

In the book "Voyager : seeking newer worlds in the third great age of discovery" they said that as the crafts got further out they had to use large radio antenna's in Spain, Hawaii, and Australia to lock onto the signal, creating an Earth-scale virtual antenna.

Truly amazing stuff.

I worked for a guy that called us all "button pushers".

This is the battle I fight every day. I'd rather have a workload that's 110% of my capacity than be at 50%, which I generously where I'm at now.

We're an "agile" shop that grossly under-allocates out of fear of failing a sprint.

Indeed it is. At home I don't have my office neighbor yelling questions through the wall at me.

Retirement savings is the longest-term of all long-term investments.

My 401K got torn to pieces during this recession. My first reaction was "How can I buy more?". That's when I started maxing out the 401K and buying additional stock in the form of index funds. Those actions have made my personal recovery from the market plummet much quicker with the upside that I now own stock with a lower dollar-cost-average.

* 401(k) through employer, maxed out (or close to) every year.

* Additional $200/month into a (taxable) mutual fund

* Whole life insurance through a solid insurer (Northwestern Mutual in my case).

* Rolled over all old 401(k)'s into a rollover IRA through my financial advisor.

Plan is to not have to work past 55.

I prefer Textual. Open source if you want to build it yourself or throw the dev's 5 bucks and get it from the mac app store.