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"Millennials", perceptions and workforces

From wikipedia.com:

Generation Y in the workforce

The Millennials are sometimes called the "Trophy Generation", or "Trophy Kids,"^[25] a term that reflects the trend in competitive sports, as well as many other aspects of life, where "no one loses" and everyone gets a "Thanks for Participating" trophy and symbolizing a perceived sense of entitlement. It has been reported that this is an issue in corporate environments."^[25] Some employers are concerned that Millennials have too great expectations from the workplace and desire to shape their jobs to fit their lives rather than adapt their lives to the workplace.^[26] To better understand this mindset, many large firms are currently studying this conflict and are trying to devise new programs to help older employees understand Millennials, while at the same time making Millennials more comfortable. For example, Goldman Sachs conducts training programs that use actors to portray Millennials who assertively seek more feedback, responsibility, and involvement in decision making. After the performance, employees discuss and debate the generational differences they have seen played out "^[25]

There are three (suggested) core elements that drive the ambitions of Generation Y in the workplace^[27] :

Impact--Making a difference is a strong motivational force behind Gen Y's efforts. Though salary and benefits continue to dominate the no. 1 and 2 on the importance list, making an impact ranks no 3.

Communication--The instant communication framework Gen Y developed through extensive computer usage has led to a need for more professional feedback than that of past generations.^[28] Communication platforms such as SMS, e-mail, video chat, and blogging have engendered a mindset that necessitates constantcommunication with others. That mindset has carried over into the workplace.

Flexibility--The divide between work and life is continually growing narrower as more people shift from the bricks-and-mortar to a remote workplace. The rate of remote office workers has increased significantly in the past two years.^[29]

This explains a lot of the problems discussed widely (on the web, in books, via surveys, etc.) about younger generations not being as useful in a working environment as previous generations.

But, instead of focusing on personal responsibility, and what we-"The Millennials"-can do to work out this problem, a lot of my fellow "Millennials" are focusing on who is to blame for the problem existing in the first place. Which (ironically) also gives an example of what the problem is all about in the first place.

Holding seminars and lectures, for older generations to have them better understand "Millennial" mindsets seems a bit extreme.., but maybe it is the small step needed for future generation-acceptance? Personally I've experienced what is explained in the excerpt above, about elders not understanding "Millennial" thought-processes, and the conflicts that can arise from such misunderstandings, both in the workplace and elsewhere.

We ("Millennials") were brought up with the goals of cultural tolerance, open-mindedness and having a positive outlook on multiculturism. Not being highly regarded as positive traits by everyone in older generations, they falcely portray a lot of "Millennials" as what I would call "social deviants".

I do not have any solutions, but I try my best as an individual to evaluate, and adapt on what I'm "programmed" to do, think and say. Everything does not have to have an ultimate answer/solution. The best way to cope, is to do what man has always done.., re-evaluate knowledge and adapt!

Root webserver down

My domain webserver @ "www.pizslacker.org" is currently down for maintenance and localizational reasons.

I had to move the darn box because it produced a whole lot of PC-exhaust raising the room temperature quite excessively, put simply, using obsolete hardware has it's caveats.

I moved the linux-server into the room containing the access-gateway to the ISP, hooked up a SOHO switch to spread one of the three RJ45 connectors on the gateway, and am planning to hook up a second server-box running Windows.

The plan is to have one L.A.M.P.-setup ("Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP" capable linux-box) and a W.I.M.A.-setup ("Windows-IIS-MySQL-ASP" capable windows-box), and to port my web-applications between the two. This will both strengthen my knowledge of AJAX-programming in both *nix- and Win32-environments. But also, force me to troubleshoot any weird and abstract problems that may occur in the process, thus making me learn the frameworks from the ground up.

Sattan...

...blir jo isje LIDE sinte og hissige av å prøva å slutta med kreftpinnene ;P *OFF*

CocaCola and "Open Products"

I was just reading my daily newsfeeds @ work, when I stumbled across an article concerning the opening of the recipe for the Coca-Cola beverage. Wikipedia has for quite some time had a post about just this, so I read it.

Suffice to say Cola is not what it used to be today, mainly because of people wanting to know what they pour down their throats, and governments regulating what ingredients are allowed in softdrinks and food that is commercially available at every convenience store.

What made me laugh, was the products appearing on the market the later years after big food conglomerates were forced to give out their proprietary recipes as common knowledge.

Canadian company "OpenCola" made a cola-flavoured softdrink of the same name, offered with an open recipe, under the GNU General Public License.

Related wikipedia-articles also listed "Free Beer", which was originally called "Our Beer" ("Våres Øl", in Danish), before they re-named it "Free Beer" as a play on Richard M. Stallmans common explanation on "Free as in speech, not free as in beer".

www.slackware.com site down...

http://freenodeslack.blogspot.com/2009/07/slackwarecom-site-down-slackware-v130.html

Apparently, the official Slackware Linux website has been down since sunday july 5th.

I did not notice this until yesterday, and today I found out why...

The link above links to a slackware-dedicated blog, where the author describes the ordeal as a possible revamp of the site due to the release of Slackware v13. Interesting ;D

P.S. - Surfing the Slackware Linux Google Group seems to verify this as the reason for the takedown.

PlayStation

I've been a huge fan of Sony's gaming-department for quite some time now, and I'm one of the lucky bastards with my very own PlayStation3 console system. And this post is meant as a rant, to elaborate a little about this wonderful system.

I don't think people (read: non-techies) realize what a revolution the PlayStation3 gaming system really is. Compared to earlier TV gaming consoles, the PS3 is a pure console-monster (technology-wise) and it's virtually expandable to the end of time.

With gyro-sensors in the controls, upgradable harddrive storage and USB-connectors, the PS3 has endless capabilities. Not to mention the internals. 8 (yes, EIGHT!) cpu processors, one of which is used entirely for complicated 3d rendering, and the rest for: game-engine, data, sound, emulation, etc. (My console version does not sport PlayStation2 emulation-code, but it doesn't matter. I've got a PS2 Slim console to do that job.)

And with additional peripherals, like: light-guns, arcade-sticks, etc. You can turn your entertainment-center into a real-life gaming arcade! No coins needed!

And with the PS Store and PSN, Sony brings the gameshop to your livingroom and makes worldwide gaming-connections for you. Sony also develops games exclusively for PSN, sold at the PS Store. And they also offer ported PS1-titles, for the hardcore oldschool gamers. Personally I downloaded quite a few PS1-titles to have them readily available at the touch of a button. Atm I'm going through Final Fantasy VII for the 3rd time, because it's an RPG classic (one of my favourite RPGs of all time).

It simply puts all the new technologies from the last years together in a superb' package, and hits your face like no other gaming system!

PlayStation3, live a little...

Google's Platform Standard Wizardry

As a lot of people are becoming aware about Android, and Android-based smartphones, I was keen on researching the platform and internals of my own HTC Magic.

What I found surprised me. Google, who has always been in the "Big Internet gadget/search-engine company"-stall, has now also moved over to the ISV-stall (Independant Software Vendor), this stall includes big names such as IBM, Novell, Microsoft, Sun, etc...

I knew they had based the Android SDK on Linux (which in itself is a giant leap for commercial ISVs in general), but that they actually developed an entire programming framework had eluded me.

Sun Microsystems has long been the de-facto standard supplier of development frameworks (read: Java MobileEdition) for application development on mobile and embedded devices. But this could soon change because of Google's smart thinking and legal trickery.

Put quite simply, Sun has (for years) reserved total rights to profit from mobile/embedded Java development by restrictively licensing it's Java ME framework and the source for it's Java compiler ("javac"). Thus, only letting vendors that agree to legal restrictions on Java compilation for mobile/embedded devices charge for their own implementations of either the framework or the applications made with the framework.

With this in mind, Google (with it's newly announced "Google Code"-division) started development on it's own implementation of the Java-standard compiler, code-named 'Dalvik'. By forcing the compiler to *not* use actual Java bytecode, but, rather utilize it's own type of bytecode, also freed it from Sun's proprietary restrictions. And with further legal re-routes and smart licensing-combinations, Google reserved the capital rights to 'Dalvik', and also it's Android SDK as a full-featured mobile platform, making it an "open platform", ensuring developers total freedom by utilizing the Android SDK.

By also announcing the opening of "Android Market", Google made it possible for application developers to offer their apps free of charge for everyone, or to limit usage by charging for it. Basically, giving developers final word on their own creation.

For more intricate specifics on the legal aspects, read this article.

Hail HTC! ;D

I've recieved my new mobile communicator device :) the HTC Magic! ;D

Samsung external CD/DVD reader/writer

Since I have an Asus Eee PC 900 model netbook, I have absolutely no removeable rewritable media drive available to read optical media.

So.., I opted for an externel Samsung (TSSTCorp CDDVDW SE-S084B) CD/DVD+-R/W USB 2.0 drive, bus-powered for transportability.

I must admit, the performance when plugged in correctly (the fat USB-plug *MUST* be plugged into a bus-powered connector, and the additional USB-plug must also be plugged in for optimal performance), was SURPRISINGLY effecient! It read video-DVDs on-the-fly, burnt both (-) and (+) recordable DVDs fast, error-free and stable. And last but not least, it didn't make any noticeable noise, just a little *swish* here and there from the disc spinning up inside.

Storage capacity

My daily storage facility use sport quite a huge amount of space and speed, compared to my storage-usage a few years ago.

Around 2000, I had a system-disk with 120GB and a storage-disk with 200GB. Combined that's not more than 320GB, which is the standard for 2.5" mobile disks today.



Now, 2009, I have a mobile drive with 100GB (bottom right), a 2-partition 500GB drive (metal LaCie, "geek" drive) a 3-partition 1TB disk (black LaCie drive) and my PlayStation3 has a 250GB 2.5" internal drive.

Combined, they produce a whopping 1.85 TeraBytes of diskspace!

7 år siden Mozilla 1.0 ble sluppet

Engelsk artikkel:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10258270-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
...
Mozilla, det underliggende motor-rammeverket for Firefox og Thunderbird, er i dag 7 år gammel teknologi, men er like gjeldende idag som for 7 år siden.
...
Gammel teknologi er ikke nødvendigvis utdatert, men kan som i Mozillas tilfelle gjenbrukes/gjenskapes ved bruk av nye retningslinjer for sikkerhet, bruk og gjengivelse av standarder, ofte som følger av erfaring. Men det er også dette som gir åpen-kilde prosjekter stabiliteten og sikkerheten som gjenspeiles ofte i media for tiden.
...

Aah, technicalities... :)

Command line tinkering

Wanting to conserve my root-partition filesystem on my server really intricately, I looked up the possibility of forcing a 'fsck' on next boot. And I found this:

sudo touch /forcefsck

Creating a file called 'forcefsck' on the root of the partition you want forced into a filesystem-check on next bootup.

"slackr"

Mah' GLOBEs ;P

Apparently these skating sneakers do not cover "nerd-use". They're supposed to be for skating, yet, they do not hold up as regular walking shoes. My right shoe, after 2-3 months, now has a big hole in it's sole, and the sole is beginning to peal back from the shoe itself. Even the rubber-lining around the sole is beginning to peel off.

I'm hesitant to say this, but: DO NOT BUY GLOBE SHOES!

DiGS

"Norsk" RedBull

Med påskriften: "Med Taurin. Kvikner opp kropp og sinn."

HTC Magic nå i Norge!

http://gps.no/?p=3112

Nå har HTCs Android-telefon blitt bekreftet å komme på det norske markedet i løpet av uken ;) og jeg har allerede forhåndsbestilt min egen fra NetCom, avsluttet mitt nåværende mobil-abonnement og fått bekreftet nytt abonnement med fri dataflyt ;P ;D

*Gleder meg!*

Super-3G, 3G, HSDPA

http://www.digi.no/814586/mange-kobler-pc-en-til-mobilt-bredbaand

HSPA har blitt et reelt alternativ til ADSL for mange europeere.

For meg også ;P Bruker mitt NetCom Huawei USB modem både her og der.

Stabiliteten kan nå diskuteres, men sånn generelt holder det til å kunne lese epost, nyheter, chatte, surfe og se på flash-videoer.

Oppsiktsvekkende samarbeid

http://www.digi.no/813870/linux-foundation-i-seng-med-%ABfienden%BB

At Microsoft og Linux Foundation skulle samarbeide om et felles mål var nok ikke i tankene til folk for tiden. Hverken i Linux-miljøet eller hos programvare-giganten Microsoft.

Samarbeidet skyldes et lovforslag som skal legges frem i USA som omhandler programvarekontrakter.

Lovforslaget foreslår bl.a. at det innføres en garanti-ordning hvor programvare leveres uten materielle defekter.

Dette motstrider mange programvare lisenser som brukes av både Microsoft og Linux-miljøet, og de har derfor skrevet et brev sammen til ALI (American Law Institute), som kan lastes ned her.

Poenget Microsoft og Linux Foundation vil få frem er at hvis underforståtte garantier innføres, vil det føre til unødvendig mange rettstvister som kan ødelegge for deling av teknologi.

I-og-med alle rettsakene rundt IT de siste årene virker ikke dette urealistisk, og vil garantert ødelegge mer for IT industrien enn det vil hjelpe.

N.B.: I åpen kildekode miljøet slår dette ut på selve GPL-lisensen, fordi den avkaster alle garantier og gir brukeren av nevnt lisens rettigheter og valgmuligheter til å bestemme selv. Microsoft og andre aktører innen kommersiell datavirksomhet taper også på dette, fordi de ikke kan bruke programvare/kode gitt ut under slike lisenser, hverken for å forbedre på teknologien og gi tilbake, eller tjene penger på det. Lovforslaget reflekterer ikke realistiske virkninger på normale kommersielle lover i bruk idag

Galaxy Game

Galaxy Game was one of the first coin-operated game-machines around (now known primarily as arcade-games).

It was developed by a Stanford University grad named Bill Pitts and his highschool friend Hugh Tuck. They based the game on Spacewar!, which was developed in 1961 for the PDP-1 and later ported to a variety of other platforms, while Galaxy Game was developed on a PDP-11/20 with a vector display.

I read an article about the game featured on Google Blog, which then inspired me to write about it since I'm quite fond of antique computer games and/or programs.

If you want to know more about this inspiring game, read this article from the infolab@Stanford.

On a side-note: arcade-games have evolved exponentially over the years since the 1970's. Arcade-games in the 70's were mostly nothing more than flat computer-programs designed to entertain people.

To give an example, most games in that era were simple (not as in "non-complex" though) 2d graphical interactive computer applications, like "PacMan" or "Galaga" (allthough Galaga didn't appear until the beginning of the 80's, it still resembled games from the 70's), while as arcade-games in our day and age are usually *NOT* simple and *NOT* 2d-based. But rather, they are powered by complex 3D computations, complex audio modulation and some even contain libraries to emulate physical environments to appear more realistic to the gamers. To achieve this realism, arcade-vendors now have to design and implement accelerated hardware into their arcade-game machines, which, given the current economic status of the world, is quite an expense.

I basically foresee that the arcade-market is going to slow down the coming years, which is kind of sad in my opinion. Arcade-games have been the gaming industry's testpads for upcoming game-features since the late 80's. But since we now have the Internet, there is no longer a strong demand for physical gaming machines.

Instead we have emulators, virtual machines and high bandwidth for which to connect the core-software to the game-data online, or locally. The possibilities are endless.

All your SLACK are belong to us

This and more.., at Church of the Subgenius' "Graphics Orgy".

The Prodigy - vintage ant logo t-shirt

HTC Magic til Norge!

http://www.digi.no/813241/htcs-nyeste-android-mobil-til-norge

HTC har nå bekreftet at de vil være den første leverandøren av smart-telefoner basert på Android-plattformen i Norge. Dette gleder meg noe helt sinnsykt, da gjenstår bare å se hvilke operatører som subsidierer innkjøp og salg av enheten(e). Har selv NetCom som tilbyder, så håper de ikke har brukt opp alle ressurser på iPhone-kampanjen.