2/25    During bad economic times, do companies start to give out more
        performance issue related warnings to employees? I'm asking because
        it happened to my previous company in 2000-2001 where they let
        go a large number of underperformers (20%) without having to
        pay them severance. During normal times it was only 1-5%. The
        same thing is happening to my new company, and I'm just wondering
        if this is a common practice?
        \_ Yes, and they also tend to use the opportunity to remind people
           how "lucky" they are to have a job and how everyone is going to
           have to really work harder now, which is especially galling if
           you've been busting your ass from Day One.
           \_ I'm the op, I got such a notice even though I've been busting
              my ass for a while. I've never been on the receiving end
              of this. Is this done as an insurance for having to do
              mass layoffs in the future but not have to report to
              media as such?
        \_ similar experience @ Sun in 2001: all the managers started getting
           really bitchy, and factions developed.  The engineers had to "take
           sides."  Reviews in general got a lot worse.  I went from a "great
           job!" rating to a "needs improvement" rating within a month.  It
           was a good time to leave.  On the plus side, it was a fun time to
           be unemployed, since I was in good company!  (I went to contracting
           in that case)
           \_ Interesting. I work at a 20K company and I got a notice.   -op
        \_ I have not seen this, though I mostly have worked at startups
           until recently. The Big Company I work at now is definitely not
           doing this right now. We laid off 10% in December and then did
           performance evals, which came out with a normal distribution.
        \_ Pretty typical. They are hoping you leave on your own or that,
           if they need to fire you, they have all their ducks lined up.
           This is in case the employee tries to sue for age/gender/racial
           discrimination then they can point to your "poor employment
           record". My mom was a manager for years and when she decided
           someone was going to go she started a file on them. That's not
           the same situation as in a layoff, but same rules apply. Managers
           will hype the employees they wish to keep and start chopping
           the dead wood. They are probably doing you a favor by letting
           you know you are possibly on the block by giving you a bad review
           even if they don't always intend it that way (sometimes they do).
           If they fire you then they won't give you severance either, not
           that they necessarily *have* to and it hoses your chances to
           collect unemployment. Once management starts this BS it means
           something is going to go down.
           \_ Thank you. My gutsy feeling is exactly the same. Thanks for
              reaffirming my suspicions. BTW how long have you been in the
              industry to see this type of stuff happening?

2/26    REAL ESTATE, IT ONLY GOES UP!  LANDLORD - WITH A YACHT!!!!!!!!one
        \_ I use to be boat person, now I own boat.  -John Vu
        \_ you call now, make money in real estare wit no money down, i come
           here make money wit no money down, look at these women!
        \_ Nice thing about being a landlord is that some schmuck pays
           the mortgage for you whether the property is going up or down in
           value and after 15-30 years you own it free and clear, whatever
           it ends up being worth.
           \_ I hope you have a gun for when the mob zeros in on you.
                \_ I used to subscribe to this kind of wishful thinking too...
                   but look around.  What would have to happen before angry
                   mobs actually revolt against landlords?  Additionally, there
                   is nothing unethical about renting out real estate.  It's
                   just money management.  Time to grow up, kids.
                   \_ For your first question: food shortages, fuel rationing,
                      rolling brown/blackouts on a regular basis (not just
                      your occasional hot summer), runs on multiple banks,
                      and a significantly greater lack of law enforcement
                      and/or National Guard. In short, not a chance. It's
                      why there's not even a dozen miles between Harlem
                      and the highrise luxury apartments yet said luxury
                      apartments don't ever get burned down.
              \_ The nice thing about renting is that someone else takes care
                 of mantience, I can move whenever I want, and someone else
                 takes the risk.  It's not like there aren't ups and downs to
                 both sides.
                 \_ True. Most of the advantages to renting have to do with
                    mobility, but there are others. For instance, you might
                    be able to rent in a nicer neighborhood than you can
                    buy in which could lead to perks like better schools.
                    However, in terms of accumulating wealth and in other
                    ways, too, (for instance political) the system is skewed
                    towards landowners.

2/26    Conservative magazines not for liberty:
        http://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/ratioi0131.htm
        \_ I'm shocked, shocked.
           \_ Enh, what are you going to do with liberty? hoard it? how's
              that going to help get us over  the Fiancial End Times?

2/26    http://calbears.cstv.com
        Haas Pavilion is hosting ESPN's College Gameday on Saturday morning,
        starting at 6:00 AM.  Free food for the first 500 to arrive.

2/26    If only Al Gore had had Norm Coleman's balls:
        http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/norm-coleman-maybe-we-need-a-do-over-election.php?ref=fp1
        \_ yeah, I'm sure the Republican Congress and the stacked Supreme
           Court would have gone right along with another election...  -tom

2/26    Jay Leno doing some really nifty rapid prototyping
        http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/video_player.shtml?vid=944641
        \_ Awesome!

2/26    Goldman Sachs says S&P may drop to 650 "in the near term", reduces
        their 2009 year-end forecast from 1100 to 940 -- a 23% gain from
        current levels.  Woohoo, hello moneybags!!  Now I know where to buy!
        </sarcasm>
        \_ Tell us when you think it is time to buy, okay?
           \_ panic selling by J6P is a good signal, and I haven't seen it yet
              \_ How will you know?

2/26    http://valleywag.gawker.com/5147650/bachelors-of-silicon-valley-remind-ladies-what-theyre-not-missing
        Bachelors of Silicon Valley Remind Ladies What They're Not Missing
        \_ The odds are good, but the goods are odd.
        \_ That's a pretty weak article.  And what's wrong with being
           gay and single?
           \_ Absolutely nothing! Does rule you out of the guys-willing-to-
              marry-girls club, though.
              \_ But not the guys-willing-to-marry club.
                 \_ True again. Somewhat different list, though.
                  \_ But that's not what the Gazette list is.  ValleyWag's
                     "oh my god a gay man" crap is even stupider than the
                     rest of the article.  (Oh and the Yelp CEO is way hot)
                     \_ The author of the article is gay, he is trying to
                        be funny.
                        \_ How do you know that? I guess it's acceptable
                           to make fun of your own people.
                           \_ How do I know that Owen is gay? I used to work
                              with him, a long time ago. Here is some proof:
                              http://www.suck.com/fish/contributors/thomas
                                \_ you worked for suck?!  That rules!  -brain
                                   \_ I worked for HotWired, that owned Suck.
                                      We were all in the same little space. -aus
           \_ Valleywag and "weak article" in the same sentence is redundant.
           \_ You do know that Owen Thomas is gay, right? Not that there is
              anything wrong with that...

2/26    I made the mistake of Linking-In with my manager and now I'm
        in a weird situation where I need to update my resume due to
        problems in the company. The problem is all of my profile changes
        are broadcasted to people I'm linked with. If I unlink with someone
        now, will that person know of that unlink action?
        \_ Set up a test account, add yourself as a linked person, then
           unlink yourself and see what happens.

2/26    I'm still not completely clear on what AIG does, and is it bad
        for me when they are going to announce they lost 60 Billion ?
        \_ they went in huge into "credit default swaps", i.e., "I'll pay you
           if your MBS/CDO becomes worthless -- what are the odds of that??
           Moneybags!"
           \_ They also insure the pension fund of the federal legislature.

2/26    "Fiscal conservatives" like Saxby Chambliss predictably uninterested
        in Obama's proposal to curtail ag subsidies:
        http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/26/lawmakers-hit-obama-proposal-to-cut-farm-aid

2/26    why did you not tell me about Headcrash the book, before?

2/26    Moody's forecasts global junk bond default rate will exceed that in
        Great Depression -- and may exceed rates seen in 1800s
        http://tinyurl.com/c5e4vq (telegraph.co.uk)
        \_ URL?
           \_ No Url or it didn't happen!
              \_ everything of worth ever is on the internet!
                 \_ tell that to the Newspaper Corps.
        \_ Is this the same Moody's that told us that CDO's could have AAA
           rated tranches that would behave better than AA rated corporate
           bonds?

2/26    If I want to rsync a perforce or svn directory while users
        are checking things in, could I wind up with a corrupted copy?
        \_ sure why not.  if you are really cool, your copy of the svn
           repo is on LVM, and you snap the LVM to copy it.
           \_ It'll seem less cool when you realize you've taken a snapshot
              of a block level device, which only guarantees that this set of
              blocks is not changing.  It doesn't guarantee you that the
              filesystem sitting on top of them is in a coherent state.  What
              if you were in the middle of writing a file and had only written
              half of the blocks in that file when you took your block level
              snapshot?  You're going to need to fsck it.  Go up one *more*
              level to get to your source control system (and whether the set
              of files being written is part of this checkin or that).
              The poster below already mentioned perforce checkpoints.  He's
              right.  In subversion you probably want to make use of
              svnadmin hotcopy when backing up a repository while it's in use.
        \_ Yes, you could. Checkpoint the perforce depo first and then
           sync the checkpoints. There are other options, too.
        \_ I usually do this in Perforce:
           1. Run "p4 changes" to find the latest changelist number at that
              moment.  Say, 12345.
           2. Run "p4 sync //...@12345".  Other uses might be submitting or
              might have submitted new changelists, but that's okay.
           For #1, sometimes I instead get the last changelist of the previous
           day, or the last changelist before the last nightly build started.
           You can also do "p4 sync" by specifying a date and time.  Of course,
           checkpoints or labels are cleaner ways, but my company doesn't use
           those.