The 80 Hour Myth

I keep reading and hearing about this crazy idea in certain fields such as Finance and Consulting and Executive management where people are constantly working 80+ hour weeks. Just think abou that for a second. That's just under 12 hours/day. We're talking 7 days a week. I've read of crazy stories where Mom brings the kids to the office to see their Father. This is just ridiculous. A fantastic blog recently discovered via Infectious Greed writes to this phenomenon and the author quite eloquently describes my criticisms of it.

At Startup Boy (which I can't recommend highly enough for those curious about small business and venture funding), Naval Ravikant talks about the problems with such long work weeks. They revolve around (the lack of) people's ability to keep focused and produce good work for anywhere near 80 hours in a week. He argues that a whole lot of wasted time is padded into that number. Bathroom breaks, IM'ing, checking email, gaming, etc. are all necessary to sustain so much time at the office. Additionally, you have blank stare into space periods of inactivity. Most important is that he offers solutions to increase productivity such as putting more than one person in a room so that one person's up-time helps motivate the other.

I'm curious to hear back from people. What have been the longest weeks you've pulled? How many in a row could you sustain? Looking back, how much was wasted time and how much was actually productive? What could have been done to allow you to maximize your work as well as your free time?

Raul

Games, Pt. II

Not quite sure I get the lego tie-in, but it's fun. Please be sure to appreciate the firm encouragement to kids to hack into other people's data networks, so long as they're international.

Enjoy.

NOTE: it took me a bit to get into it, but then it was a terribly fun waste of time.

Raul

Online Games

Ok readers. I need your help. I want to create a couple of showcase posts to share some of the many fun online games that we've discovered. The response to the Sudoku post has been wholly positive in a "I'm going to kill you, Mark" sort of way. Please link to you favorites in the comments and I'll make sure to create a post and even add them to my del.icio.us.


To start you off, here is something designed by the Czech company, Amanita Design. Great music, fun art, and playing like a good book, you are in for a treat. This game is a gem of minimalist artistic design; I give you:

Samorost

via the big, bad intarweb thingy

Raul
PS: I didn't get it from intarweb.com, I just like the link.

Behind the NSA US Wiretapping Scandal

Everyone's heard about the president's use of the NSA to surveil American citizens. Many lawyers, historians, and politicians will debate this one ad nauseum I'm sure, and many will certainly be better able than I to judge the situation's legality. Something that has been interestingly absent from the discussion in the media however, is how such surveillance is even possible. Hannibal at Arstechnica presents a great article that discusses what we know and can infer about the system that allowed the NSA to do what they said they did.

In addition to that, the author wrote a follow up piece discussing the merits of such blanket attempts to stymie "terrorism" by watching society at large. Please grok it here.

I think that he touches on some important things. Notably:
• Large scale surveillance is possible and difficult to detect/oversee for potential abuse.
• It is not effective, necessarily.
• It gives a false sense of security and takes away resources from better programs.
• It represents a long term decrease in personal and social freedoms that is almost certainly permanent without being able to address the stated threat of terrorism.

via ars

Raul

It's Been a While

But some time, you just need to switch it up. HIIII!!!!! Domo.

Perhaps you prefer something a little more classic?

How about the whole list?

Just remember, if you're watching this on your PC, and you have work up, please save it first.

Raul

Free 411

411 is a service available to phone users to find phone numbers and addresses via a pay-per-call system. Typical charges range from $1.25-$3+, in other words, obscene. Enter: 1-800-FREE-411 (3733-411).

The way it works is pretty clever. You proceed with just like a normal 411 call, the computer asks the location, business name, or type. It then gives you a 10 second pitch from paid advertisers. You can, of course, ignore the pitch. In the link above, there is a video of the service in action at its unveiling. The CEO's example is to ask for Huntington Beach, CA, specifically for Pizza. The computer offers to connect after a short targeted ad. The advertiser? Domino's pizza with a special offer for the FREE 411 user. To take advantage of it, and connect directly, the phone user just dial's "1".

I doubt the personal usefulness of the targeted ads, but I'm absolutely sure I'll be using the free directory assistence. 10 seconds of my time is most certainly worth the equivalent ~$2.

via consumerist

Raul

PartyInASite

So, after replying to Erin's evite for the upcoming Christmas party, I glanced at the resulting page and banner ad, and I did something I rarely do. I clicked.

To my surprise, MixThePartyUp.com was actually cool. Dammit. I hate banner ads and find them obnoxious. Every time I click one, I'm telling the hoster and advertiser that they fucking work.

Anyway, please check it out. The site has a great layout, albeit a little busy, but it works in the context of a party. The drink maker actually presented some fun and *new* drink ideas. Directions were a little lacking, but for a master mixologist like myself, such things matter not. Also of note were integration with outside services, e.g. music suggestions for themed parties sent you to imixes at the iTunes Music Store (customized playlists), invitations were handed back to evite, etc..

Raul

Sudoku

Sudoku is a logic based number placement puzzle. It is highly addictive and requires the use of several different kinds of logic. The gist of the game is that your board is a 9 x 9 grid of squares. There are 9 rows, 9 columns, and 9 boxes of 9 squares each. The rule of the game is that each number, 1 through 9, occurs only once in each row, column, and box. To start, you are given a gridboard with only some of the numbers written in. Through logic, it is possible to fill in the remaining squares, thereby giving yourself enough clues to fill additional squares, until finally you have a number in each square.

In the Seattle Times, there is a Sudoku puzzle posted every day, usually near the crossword puzzle. My family & I have become something just short of obsessed. Indeed, when we got tired of drawing our own grids so we could replicate the puzzle for each person, and then ran out of graph paper, I created a printable template in Word so we could print out our own game boards.

When a question arose about the number of possible puzzle configurations, I went straight to the web and discovered this. I have found the most entertainment out of playing on "Easy" and going for the best time. So far, my record is something just over 4 minutes. Good luck, and post your best time in the comments. If you get something ridiculous, grab a screenshot, or I won't believe you because I'm like that, bitches.

Raul