I agree totally with your point about learning to rest. I am a startup founder, do way too many hours, plus family life, social, volunteering etc. The funny thing I am just back from a two day break (viewing universities with my daughter) and that hard stop caused me to get some virus, it always happens. Work so hard to the point you need to stop, stop, get ill. I can't be the only one.
Aside from that, it's hard for people lots of people to know when to rest when you have this moronic grind culture buzzing in the background. I despise this crush it, work more, do more things attitude in the start up / tech scene. I would have hoped with a better understanding of peoples mental health this would have vanished by now.
I used to notice that I’d seem to come down with a cold as soon as I’d switch off for Christmas/New Year (and this is in Australia when it’s hot summer weather). It seemed to happen several times over consecutive years when I was in peak startup stress mode. Someone told me that it’s a virus that’s been in your system for a while, but “suppressed” somehow, and only when you take a rest is your body able to devote energy to a full immune response. I don’t know how true it is; but an interesting possibility.
Ah super. thank you for your reply. We have the Adobe creative suite here so I think I'll go on a crash refresh course. I'll also take a look at PenPot!
Because they've made public statements to that effect, including in the privacy policy.
Now, your next question is presumably going to be "why don't they just lie?".
First, the lie would be very expensive. What do you think privacy regulators around the world would think of it? What do you think that lying to customers about how their data is used would do to the their $25 billion / year enterprise business?
Second, the lie would get discovered very quickly, because somebody would leak it. Plenty of much less serious things seem to leak weekly.
Third, there's very little to be gained by using the data and lying about this compared to the alternatives (say nothing; tell the truth; don't use the data). "Use the data but lie about it" is the absolute worst strategy possible.
You have a great deal more trust in Google than I. I think that if Google lied about this and got caught, the end result wouldn't be that damaging to Google.
Not saying they are lying, of course, but I don't think the incentives against it are as strong as you do.
But then, I'm skeptical enough about privacy policies that I've stopped reading them. The vast majority of them, including the ones I've read from Google, leave more than enough room for the companies to do pretty much anything they want with your data.
Like most privacy policies (I'm certainly not saying Google is unique here), they include phrases such as:
> We collect information to provide better services to all our users
Which is vague to the point of uselessness. Google could argue that pretty much any purpose they put that information to is to provide better services to all their users.
This sort of thing is why I ignore privacy policies. They tend to have quite a lot of verbiage of that sort. Even when they appear to solidly say they won't do something, often there's wording elsewhere that provides an exception.
The only way I'd put any stock in a privacy policy is if I have my attorney review it and explain to me what it really says (not being a lawyer, I am not capable of adequately interpreting contracts). Since it's entirely unrealistic to have an attorney review every privacy policy, the safest approach is to assume that they allow the company to do whatever they wish in the end.
And that's all assuming that companies put any real effort to adhering to their privacy policies.
EU Privacy Regulators already effectively made Google (and most other US companies) illegal 8 years ago, after Google et al. gave personal data away to the NSA in breach of EU's fundamental rights :
Agreed, its a good place to explore! I live on the Isle of Wight, its full of interesting historical places. I'd like to discover the Nuclear bunker but yet to find it!
I used to actually work in radar on the Isle of Wight, lots of people think of it as simply a place for tourists and old people. However, at least to recently, its the home of a lot of the worlds greatest radar and antenna designers. Sadly its all in decline now.
Thats quite fascinating to watch, however I'm not sure if I missed it but I didn't see the tower being earthed. Those installers must have some impressive protection in place.
I used to be a volunteer on an emergency lifeboat crew, we would do a lot of drills with a man on a winch and the first rule is, don't touch until he's earthed. Helicopters pick up a hell of a lot of static electricity so you normally see a small earthing line hanging below the man on the end of the line.
One time we were practicing fast recovery, the boat and the helicopter doing crew exchange at high speed. We screwed it up and the static charge blew a hole in the side of the boat!
As a previous owner of a Pixel I have to say it was one of the most beautiful and well crafted laptops I've ever owned. The Pixel had some major flaws, the CPU and overheating was a killer. However the biggest problem here is the underdevelopment of ChromeOS, such promise but it seems to be going the way of most of Googles products.
Personally, if overheating was a major flaw I probably wouldn't consider the laptop well crafted. Thermal management seems part of the overall design to me. I don't dispute it's a nice looking machine though!
Indeed. But it was a very nice machine. Hopefully this one won't overheat. Any idea if it's fanless? There's no specific info about the CPU, but it doesn't seem to be according to the clock frequency.
Apparently it has two fans instead of one now and doesn't overheat like it used to:
Another quirk of the first Pixel was that it could get quite noisy and warm while running. No more: Thanks to a revamped cooling system, which features two fans that spin at lower revolutions-per-minute than the original model's single-fan setup, the new Pixel stays near-silent and doesn't get hot while you use it.http://www.computerworld.com/article/2895014/new-chromebook-...
I've never had my Pixel overheat per-se, but it frequently gets hot enough that it is mildly painful to touch.
My issue was the shit warranty. The sound card on mine completely shit itself (no working speakers, and no working headphone jack. Even while using ChromeOS on it) a few weeks after the warranty expired. I can't remember if they offered any sort of extended warranty at the time, but I think I would have got it if I had seen it, so I think they didn't?
I am also starting to become concerned about the battery life. I googled around for battery replacement and did not find anything. Mine is okay so far, but probably won't be in a year or so.
At least the price of this new iteration is more reasonable.
Front End Developer (JS, HTML, CSS) - Budapest (Hungary) - Full Time
Powered Now is currently looking for a front end developer to join our team in Budapest, HU.
As a Front End Developer, you'll be a key cog in our growing team. As a startup we have a level of flexibility you'll rarely find in other roles and your influence will be huge. We are changing an industry and if you have the ambition for it, we want you to join us.
We are looking for someone that relishes a challenge and has an instinctive grasp of how things work. You'll be working closely with the rest of the development team as well as our Digital Marketing group. Your focus will be to continuously improve the user experience while hitting an aggressive roadmap for 2015 and beyond.
We operate a mobile first policy and during the next quarter you'll be a critical part of our next big project, our cross platform and multi browser compatible release. Its a great time to join.
* 2-4 years of experience of the following areas: HTML5, CSS3, SASS, compass, responsive design, javascript.
* Portfolio that represents a range of developed websites or mobile apps
* Strong knowledge of website development
* Passion for emerging technologies and hunger to innovate
* Excellent written and verbal communications skills
* Strong organizational skills and an attention to detail
Powered Now - REMOTE (possibly) - UK - Marketing Engagement Specialist, aka Growth Hacker, aka Digital Marketing Expert
Where: UK South Coast, working from home (office to open within 12 months)
Salary: Great salary DOE with bonus linked to MRR targets
Benefits: Share options (subject to shareholder approval)
Well funded startup run by experienced entrepreneurs with a brilliant technical team seeks someone special to lead the digital marketing side of our business. The right person will be a digital marketing expert with a background in online products and services, there are extra points if you’ve worked in mobile.
Your immediate goal is to find a repeatable process to capture early adopters. Therefore, we need someone who can experiment with various strategies to find one that works.
The short-term objectives for this role are to:
- Draw up a plan of ideas (brain-stormed with the founders) to test, building on what has already been achieved.
- Test those ideas, measure their success and report back.
At the end of this period:
- You should have a clear understanding of what strategies work and where you should focus efforts to grow the user base
- Demonstrable growth in the subscriber base, for this we will reward you with a bonus linked to MRR.
In the long-term you will be immersed in our customer lifecycle, from acquisition to retention, so that you can serve as a subject matter expert and implement initiatives to reduce friction. This means you will be working with teams across the company on initiatives that deliver value to our users early and often.
You’ll like this job if you are (aka essential skills):
- Analytically focused.
- Methodical, consistent and diligent at recording all experiments. You won’t get bored and stop recording the results!
- Smart enough to spot trends.
- Into digital marketing and advertising.
- Like working with smart people in a fast paced environment.
- Happy to work remotely (although we are planning opening an office in the coming months) and capable at managing your own workload.
- You can work within a budget.
- Know how to use Google Analytics.
- Like occasional travel to exotic European destinations.
Extra points awarded for:
- SaaS or Mobile products background.
- Knowing additional analytical products like Mixpanel, Kissmetrics
- Living on the South Coast of England, although if you are the right person we can be flexible.
- Creative, comfortable when writing website copy and designing landing pages for campaigns (we use Wordpress).
- Any qualifications to do with SEO or PPC (Google adword certification would be exceptional).
- Startup mentality, we all have to ‘muck in’ from time to time.
