Just Say “No” To Google

Life at Google – The MicrosoftiePerspective

June 24th, 2007 by trixter98052

The following has been making the rounds on just about every internal email list I belong to in Microsoft. Here it is to share a little insight with the rest of the world. Microsoft is an amazingly transparent company. Google is not. Any peek is a good peek.

Many of you were asking for the feedback I received from my interview with the former Google employee I hired into ABC Development as a Sr.SDE. Here it is. This candidate is also a former MS employee who left the company and founded a “Start-up” called XYZ. XYZ was purchased by Google and he was hired on as a Senior Software Engineer II / Technical Lead. Here is his take on Google’s environment as well as areas Microsoft should consider improving in order to be more competitive.

Enjoy

1. What is the culture really like? How many hours are people actually working? What are the least amount of hours you can work before you are looked down upon?

The culture at Google is very much like the old culture at Microsoft – back when the company felt like most employees were in their mid 20’s. These kids don’t have a life yet so they spend all of their time at work. Google provides nearly everything these people need from clothes (new T-shirts are placed in bins for people to grab *twice* a week!) to food – three, free, all-you-can-eat meals a day. Plus on-site health care, dental care, laundry service, gym, etc. Imagine going from college to this environment and you can see how much everyone works. People are generally in the building between 10am and about 6pm every day, but nearly everyone is on e-mail 24/7 and most people spend most of their evenings working from home.

This culture changes a bit with more experienced folks. They generally work 10a – 6pm like the new hires, and most of them are on email until around midnight. It’s pretty common for them to be working most of the evening, too.

2. 20% of your time on personal project. How many people actually get to use it? If so, how do they use it? Does Google own your personal project?

“20% is your benefit and your responsibility.”

In other words, it’s your job to carve out 20% of your work week for a project. If you don’t carve out the time, you don’t get it. Your project needs to be tacitly approved by your manager. Whatever it is, is owned by Google. If you’re organized, you can “save up” your 20% and use it all at once. It’s not unheard of for people to have months and months of “20% time” saved up.

Most people don’t actually have a 20% project. Most managers won’t remind you to start one.

3. What are the office arrangements like? Do you have an office or cube space?

Google believes that developers are, with few exceptions, interchangeable parts. This philosophy shows through in their office arrangements which in Mountain View are all over the map. There are glass-walled offices, there are open-space areas, there are cubicles, there are people who’s desks are literally in hallways because there’s no room anywhere else. There are even buildings that experiment with no pre-defined workspaces or workstations – cogs (err, people?) just take one of the available machines and desks when they get to work.

In terms of employees per square-foot, every Microsoft Building 9-sized office is a triple at Google.

Google doesn’t seem to think that private offices are valuable for technical staff. They’re wrong.

4. What is the management structure like (hierarchy)?

There are front-line developers, and then their manager. My manager had over 100 direct reports and is the common case for managers at Google. Managers quasi-own products and their employees tend to work on their projects, but not always. It’s possible for a developer on your product to actually work for a manager in research (a completely different division). This makes it really interesting at review time. Oh and conflict resolution between team members is very complex – the product’s manager isn’t involved day-to-day, probably doesn’t actually manage all of the peers who are trying to resolve a conflict, and likely hasn’t spent any time with their employees anyway.

The overall structure is:

tons (a hundred or more) of individual contributors report to

a middle manager who reports to

a division v.p. who reports to

the management team (Larry, Sergie, etc.)

5. Do they actually have plans for career development?

Not really. There is no career development plan from individual contributor to manager. Basically if you get good reviews, you get more money and a fancier title (“Senior Software Engineer II”) but that’s about it.

6. Who would you recommend Google to? Is it for the college kid or family type, worker bee or innovator?

College kids tend to like it because it’s just like college – all of their basic needs are taken care of. In fact, even most of your personal-life can get tied up in Google benefits. Google provides free or subsidized broadband to every employee. Google runs its own, private, bus lines in the Bay Area for employees. Google provides free or subsidized mobile phones. A college kid can literally join Google and, like they did as freshman at university, let Google take care of everything. Of course, if Google handles everything for you, it’s hard to think about leaving because of all the “stuff” you’ll need to transition and then manage for yourself.

Mid-timers, people who’ve worked at other places for a few years tend to be a mixed bag. For some, this is the first stability they’ve seen after a few failed startups. For others, this is the company that represents a “better” way to run a company than the company they worked at before. Either way, for these folks to succeed at Google they have to drink the cool-aid and duke it out with the college kids because Google doesn’t place any value on previous industry experience. (It puts tremendous value on degrees, especially Stanford ones).

“Old-timers” tend to like Google because they’re the ones who know to take the most advantage of the perks. These are the people who religiously take their 20% time, use as many of the services as possible, and focus on having a “peaceful” experience. They’re here to do a job, enjoy the perks, and that’s about it. They still put in a lot of hours, but the passion of the college kids isn’t there.

7. Please provide any additional information that you believe will help in our battle for talent against Google?

Make the food in the café free. If an employee eats an average of $15 of food per day (the actual average at Google which is closer to $10) it would cost Microsoft $3,750 per year per employee to offer 3 meals a day. Instead of increasing starting salaries, switch to free food. Give everyone else half the merit increases we would have gotten AND ANNOUNCE THE FREE FOOD AT THE SAME TIME. For that quoted $10 average Google provides free soda, free organic drinks (odwalla, naked juice), breakfast, lunch, and dinner (most people only eat lunch), free sport drinks (vitamin water, etc.), and free snacks (trail mixes, nuts, chips, candy, gum, cereal, granola bars).

That single benefit gets people to work earlier because hot breakfast is served only until 8:30. And since dinner isn’t served until 6:00 or 6:30 the people with a home-life tend to skip it.

Google actually pays less salary than Microsoft.

Google’s health insurance is actually not nearly as good as Microsoft’s.

Google has no facility for career growth. Microsoft has more, but could do better. Continuing Microsoft-specific education for things like project management, managing people, communication skills, etc. should be promoted. A structured career plan for each discipline would be great – e.g. training, experiences, milestones, etc. Paths like “Developer to Development Manager” “Developer to Technical Architect” which show what courses and experiences (e.g. being a mentor) are encouraged for the different paths.

Private offices for employees is a big benefit. See http://joelonsoftware.com/oldnews/pages/March2007.html. Play this up. Take a cue from Google and loosen up a little about offices. Let people call facilities and have their office painted any color they want. Have the standard office come with a guest chair and a brightly colored Microsoft branded bean-bag chair.

Google has the concept of “Tech Stops.” Each floor of each building has one. They handle all of the IT stuff for employees in the building including troubleshooting networks, machines, etc. If you’re having a problem you just walk into a Tech Stop and someone will fix it. They also have a variety of keyboards, mice, cables, etc. They’re the ones who order equipment, etc. In many ways the Tech Stop does some of what our admins do. If your laptop breaks you bring it to a Tech Stop and they fix it or give you another one (they move your data for you). If one of your test machines is old and crusty you bring it to the Tech Stop and they give you a new one. They track everything by swiping your ID when you “check out” an item. If you need more equipment than your job description allows, your manager just needs to approve the action. The Tech Stop idea is genius because:

1. You establish a relationship with your IT guy so technical problems stop being a big deal – you don’t waste a couple of hours trying to fix something before calling IT to find out it wasn’t your fault. You just drop in and say, “My network is down.”

2. Most IT problems are trivial when you’re in a room together (“oh that Ethernet cable is in the wrong port”)

3. The model of repair or replace within an hour is incredible for productivity.

4. It encourages a more flexible model for employees to define their OWN equipment needs. E.g. a “Developer” gets a workstation, a second workstation or a laptop, and a test machine. You’re free to visit the Tech Stop to swap any of the machines for any of the others in those categories. For example, I could stop by and swap my second workstation for a laptop because I’m working remotely a lot more now. In the Tech Stop system, this takes 5 minutes to walk down and tell the Tech Stop guy. If a machine is available, I get it right away. Otherwise they order it and drop it off when it arrives. In our current set up, I have to go convince my manager that I need a laptop, he needs to budget for it because it’s an additional machine, an admin has to order it, and in the end developers always end up with a growing collection of mostly useless “old” machines instead of a steady state of about 3 mostly up-to-date machines.

NVIDIA Tesla GPU Computing Processor Ushers In the Era of Personal Supercomputing

NVIDIA® Tesla™ GPU Computing Processor Ushers In the Era of Personal Supercomputing

New NVIDIA Tesla Solutions Bring Unprecedented, High-Density Parallel Processing to the HPC Market NVIDIA Corporation: Andrew Humber NVIDIA Corporation (408) 486 8138 ahumber@nvidia.com cellpadding="4" width="160" align="right"> alt="A dedicated, high performance GPU computing solution, Tesla GPU computing processor, deskside supercomputer, and GPU Computing server brings supercomputing power to any workstation or server and to standard, CPU-based server clusters." src="http://www.dev-toast.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/thumb_tesla_product_line.jpg" width="150" border="0" /> Tesla GPU computing processor, deskside supercomputer, and GPU Computing server Learn how partners are developing with GPU computing solutions alt="Ryan Schneider - Chief Technology Officer, Acceleware Corporation" width="150" height="84" border="0" /> Acceleware Ryan Schneider Chief Technology Officer, Acceleware Corporation View Video Clip (49 MB WMV) Read Case Studies Full Story (641 KB PDF) Full Story (641 KB PDF) Evolved Machines Paul Rhodes CEO, Evolved Machines View Video Clip (50 MB WMV) Read Case Study Full Story (641 KB PDF) Headwave Steve Briggs Vice President of Systems Integration View Video Clip (51 MB WMV) Read Case Study Full Story (641 KB PDF) alt="John Stone - Senior Research Programmer, University of Illinois" width="150" height="85" border="0" /> University of Illinois: NAMD/VMD John Stone Senior Research Programmer, University of Illinois View Video Clip (52 MB WMV) Read Case Study Full Story (641 KB PDF) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE “NVIDIA Tesla™ is going to make discovery of huge oil reserves possible through faster and more accurate interpretation of geophysical data.” —Steve Briggs, Headwave, Inc. “NVIDIA Tesla will give us a 100-fold increase in some of our programs, and this is on desktop machines where previously we would have had to run these calculations on a cluster.” —John Stone, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign “NVIDIA Tesla has opened up completely new worlds for computational electromagnetics.” —Ryan Schneider, Acceleware SANTA CLARA, CA—JUNE 20, 2007—High-performance computing in fields like the geosciences, molecular biology, and medical diagnostics enable discoveries that transform billions of lives every day. Universities, research institutions, and companies in these and other fields face a daunting challenge: as their simulation models become exponentially complex, so does their need for vast computational resources. NVIDIA took a giant step in meeting this challenge with today’s announcement of a new class of processors based on a revolutionary new graphics processing unit (GPU). Under the NVIDIA® Tesla™ brand, NVIDIA will offer a family of GPU computing products that will place the power previously available only from supercomputers in the hands of every scientist and engineer. Today’s workstations will be transformed into “personal supercomputers.” “Today’s science is no longer confined to the laboratory; scientists employ computer simulations before a single physical experiment is performed. This fundamental transition to computational methods is forging a new path for discoveries in science and engineering,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. “By dramatically reducing computation times, in some cases from weeks to hours, NVIDIA Tesla represents the single most significant disruption the high-performance computing industry has seen since Cray 1’s introduction of vector processing.” The Tesla family of GPU computing solutions span PCs to large scale server clusters. The new family includes: NVIDIA Tesla GPU Computing Processor, a dedicated computing board that scales to multiple Tesla GPUs inside a single PC or workstation. The Tesla GPU features 128 parallel processors, and delivers up to 518 gigaflops of parallel computation. The GPU Computing processor can be used in existing systems partnered with high-performance CPUs. NVIDIA Tesla Deskside Supercomputer, a scalable computing system that includes two NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and attaches to a PC or workstation through an industry-standard PCI-Express connection. With multiple deskside systems, a standard PC or workstation is transformed into a personal supercomputer, delivering up to 8 teraflops of compute power to the desktop. NVIDIA Tesla GPU Computing Server, a 1U server housing up to eight NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, containing more than 1000 parallel processors that add teraflops of parallel processing to clusters. The Tesla GPU Server is the first server system of its kind to bring GPU computing to the datacenter.             Example Applications Contacts Application Speedup Seismic Database target="_new">www.headwave.com 66 to 100X Mobile Phone Antenna Simulation target="_new">www.acceleware.com 45X Molecular Dynamics target="_new">http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/ 240X Neuron Simulation target="_new">www.evolvedmachines.com 100X MRI Processing target="_new">http://bic-test.beckman.uiuc.edu/ 245 – 415X Atmospheric Cloud Simulation target="_new">www.cs.clemson.edu/~jesteel/clouds.html 50X Computing on NVIDIA Tesla is now available to any software developer through the world’s only C-language development environment for the GPU. NVIDIA® CUDA™ is a complete software development solution that includes a C-compiler for the GPU, debugger/profiler, dedicated driver, and standard libraries. CUDA simplifies parallel computing on the GPU by using the standard C language to create programs that process large quantities of data in parallel. Programs written with CUDA and run on Tesla are able to process thousands of threads simultaneously, providing high computational throughput to enable the GPU to quickly solve complex, computational problems. The NVIDIA CUDA development environment is currently supported on the Linux and Microsoft® Windows® XP operating systems. Most applications that require massive compute power can leverage the power of NVIDIA Tesla to make parallel computing power more pervasive and affordable. CUDA’s recent success can be seen in both the academic and the application development communities. In addition to adoption by leading universities that are pioneering new courses in parallel computing, CUDA is being actively used by thousands of developers and scientists in applications from molecular simulation to seismic analysis to medical device design. “Many of the molecular structures we analyze are so large that they can take weeks of processing time to run the calculations required for their physical simulation,” said John Stone, senior research programmer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “NVIDIA’s GPU computing technology has given us a 100-fold increase in some of our programs, and this is on desktop machines where previously we would have had to run these calculations to a cluster. NVIDIA Tesla promises to take this forward with more flexible computing solutions.”1 “Geophysical and seismic analysis has historically been a batch process that takes many, many hours,” said Steve Briggs, vice president of systems integration at Headwave, a Houston-based geophysical visualization company. “Without inventions like Tesla and CUDA GPU computing technology, discoveries like Jack Field, where a large oil reserve was detected 27,000 feet beneath the Gulf of Mexico, simply would never have been found. NVIDIA’s announcement today is going to make discoveries of this and even larger magnitude more possible.”2 “Running electromagnetic simulations using NVIDIA’s compute hardware accelerates processing times by factors of 25 or more—applying a level of complexity to the analysis and optimization of medical products which nobody dreamed of, even two years ago,” said Ryan Schneider, CTO of Acceleware Corporation. “NVIDIA and Acceleware’s solutions have opened completely new worlds for computational electromagnetics.” Pricing and Availability For more NVIDIA Tesla product information, including a list of officially certified host systems and authorized partners, please visit: www.nvidia.com/tesla. 1 More information: target="_new">http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/namd/ and target="_new">http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/ 2 More information: target="_new">http://www.headwave.com/article/articleview/43 NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Corporation is the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies. The Company creates innovative, industry-changing products for computing, consumer electronics, and mobile devices. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com. Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, uses, impact, performance and features of Tesla solutions and CUDA technology; the era of the personal computer; and pricing and availability are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, delays in ramping new products into production; software bugs; manufacturing defects; delays in manufacturing or delivery of products; developments of new products and technologies by competitors; unexpected loss of performance when system builders integrate NVIDIA products and technologies; continued acceptance and use of new technologies and products; the impact of competitive products and pricing alternatives; changes in industry standards and interfaces; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended April 29, 2007. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on our website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. ### Copyright® 2007 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. All company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice. Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on NVIDIA, please visit the NVIDIA Press Room at http://www.nvidia.com/page/press_room.html

dérive » Blog Archive » A computer so small, it fits in a wall socket

A computer so small, it fits in a wall socket

June 20th, 2007

( text/image/link via sci fi > tech )

U.K. firm Jade Integration has unveiled a computer so small, it fits into a wall socket and is powered via Ethernet. The Jack PC, a rival to the smallest PC in the world, can hook up to a standard monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and runs Windows CE, the stripped-down version of Windows often used in portable devices. It comes with up to 64 MB of flash memory and 128 megs of RAM, so don’t expect to play Half-Life 2 on it, but it should be able to handle basic Internet functions decently. There’s no word on pricing yet, but the device gets its official release on June 15th at the IT Works Show in Newcastle.

— Adam Frucci

Jack PC: the wall socket PC, via Gizmodo

WTFsrsly

Nine Inch Nails gives birth to a new culture

4/16/2007

Whenever there’s a truly remarkable fresh twist in hypes, trends and jokes on the net (like with all the 300 rage) WTFsrsly documents it. And something pretty remarkable has been going on the past month… A full leak of the new Nine Inch Nails album found its way to the web some time ago (you can also legally listen to it on the Year Zero site) and it generated online community activity like nothing else. And the hype is not stopping now that the album is finally officially released.

Every day music leaks online illegally before it is even available in stores, but what has happened to Nine Inch Nails’ new concept album Year Zero hasn’t really happened before. At least 3 tracks of the album have intentionally been leaked throughout the past month and every time it happened it generated an enormous amount of forum talk and often also scored a Digg top #10 item. The main reason this happened was the elaborate Alternate Reality Game that was set up for the album and which is still evolving even now after the album’s release. They set up a bunch of websites that look like they are run by people, organizations, freedom fighters, churches etc from this alternate reality in which the concept of the album takes place (i.e. http://www.iamtryingtobelieve.com). The websites are filled with secrets and subtle references to the album and all the hardcore fans immersed themselves in it and spent many hours a day exploring the secrets and mysteries of the concept through the game.

But what happened now with the album finally available in its entirety is even more amazing. Year Zero’s dystopian alternate reality draws a lot of parallels with real world problems such as the ‘War on Terror’ and global warming and this has inspired fans to go further than simply discussing these ideas on forums. It seems like there’s a genuine Year Zero ‘movement’ (and even sub-movements) coming about, fans are taking action to prevent the world from evolving to the in many aspects realistic grim future that is being portrayed on the album. Organizations like FightYearZero.org are being formed and fans are coming together online and in real life to think and talk about what they can do to change the world for the better.

Open Source Resistance (OSR) could be seen as the ‘main hub’ of these organizations and is being led by the band (and 42 Entertainment). OSR has already organized a real life gathering and defines itself as “an attempt to start a grass-roots information militia, so ordinary people can fight to prevent a world where civil rights AND natural resources are both being strip-mined for the convenience of multinational corporations and People Who Know They Are Right.” These fans mean serious business, and it could be the start of a new culture. Just like Minor Threat inspired the birth of the straight edge movement, it’s starting to look like Nine Inch Nails is giving birth to the Year Zero movement: people not bound simply by a certain style or a strict code but by their motivation to change the world for the better in whatever way possible and to fight the power when needed. The question is whether it will evolve further on its own or will it fade away as the hype around the album dies…

5 things you probably didn’t know you could do in Google Docs & Spreadsheets | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone

5 things you probably didn’t know you could do in Google Docs & Spreadsheets

By Josh Lowensohn – June 20, 2007, 6:21 PM PDT

I spent part of today at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., talking to some of the folks behind Google Docs & Spreadsheets, part of Google’s Web-based office suite. I asked the product experts I met for their favorite features that often don’t get the limelight or that people simply don’t know about. I picked five that I thought were worth sharing:

1. Live lookup via Google and Google Finance. This is only available for Spreadsheets, but it’s one of the neater advanced tidbits that makes use of Internet connectivity. Using two special formulas, users can create cells that will update constantly with data or information gleaned from Web searches or Google’s finance service. This works for things such as stock symbols, sports statistics, or any other piece of information you want to source and keep up to date automatically. Spreadsheets users can have up to 250 of these live-updating cells per spreadsheet. You can read more about this here and here.

To do a Web search for any item in a spreadsheet cell, just right click it.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

2. Google search inside a spreadsheet. If you come across a word or phrase that’s unfamiliar, or you want to find out more about it, you can search for it without leaving the page. Just highlight it, right click and choose “Search the Web.” The results will open in a new browser window (Note: This doesn’t work in Google Docs, just Spreadsheets.)

3. Color-coded live comments. Microsoft Word junkies are probably well in tune with the program’s pop-up commenting system. Google’s approach in Documents is similar, allowing users to annotate wherever they please, as well as color-code comments. If the author or another contributor finds a comment useful, they can add it into the document by right clicking on it and then choosing that option from the contextual menu. Collaborators can also change their comment coloring on the fly, or create their own custom coloring scheme to denote things such as priority.

You can compare two versions of the same document at different edit points.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

4. Revisioning. Like an entry on Wikipedia, both Google Docs and Spreadsheets offer the option to keep track of changes that have been made over the course of a document’s or spreadsheet’s lifespan. You can jump back and forth between edits you or your collaborators have made on a drop-down timeline menu, or by clicking the “older” and “newer” buttons. The slightly more advanced version of this that’s only available in Google Docs (not Spreadsheets) is the ability to look at two versions of the same document side by side. The application will highlight the differences, and each revision gets its own color code. In any case, if there’s been a snag somewhere, or you find an addition you don’t like, you can nix it on the spot.

5. There are many copies. And they have a plan. The first thought in most people’s minds when they’re working with online apps is, “Where is this file being stored, and what if something bad happens?” Any document or spreadsheet created on the service is constantly being backed up in several places at once. Google uses the same file system for all of their Web apps, called GFS (Google File System), that’s been designed so even if the server in which your file is hosted bursts into flames, the system will automatically switch over to the backup copy. The team says if this were to happen, users wouldn’t even notice. Don’t try this with your computer at home–that is, unless it’s not your fault.

OfficeSlang.com – Funny Office Slang

New Office Slang
==============================
404 – Someone who is clueless. From the Web error message, “404 Not Found,” which means the document requested couldn’t be located. “Don’t bother asking John. He’s 404.”

Adminisphere – The rarified organizational layers above the rank and file that makes decisions that are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant.

Alpha Geek – The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. “I dunno, ask Rick. He’s our alpha geek.”

Assmosis – The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

Batmobiling – putting up emotional shields. Refers to the retracting armor that covers the Batmobile as in “she started talking marriage and he started batmobiling”

Beepilepsy – The brief siezure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.

Betamaxed – When a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition as in “Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market”

Blamestorming – A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Blowing Your Buffer – Losing one’s train of thought. Occurs when the person you are speaking with won’t let you get a word in edgewise or has just said something so astonishing that your train gets derailed. “Damn, I just blew my buffer!” (Synonym: “Head Crash”)

Body Nazis – Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn’t work out obsessively.

Bookmark – To take note of a person for future reference. “After seeing his cool demo at Siggraph, I bookmarked him.”

Brain Fart – A byproduct of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly; a burst of useful information. “I know you’re busy on the Microsoft story, but can you give us a brain fart on the Mitnik bust?” Variation of old hacker slang that had more negative connotations.

CGI Joe – A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Chainsaw Consultant – An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Chip Jewelry – Old computers destined to be scrapped or turned into decoration. “I paid three grand for that Mac and now it’s nothing but chip jewelry.”

Chips and Salsa – Chips = hardware, salsa = software. “First we gotta figure out if the problem’s in your chips or your salsa.”

CLM (Career Limiting Move)- Used by microserfs to describe an ill-advised activity. “Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.”

Cobweb – A WWW site that never changes.

Crapplet – A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. “I just wasted 30 minutes downloading that crapplet!”

CROP DUSTING – Surreptitiously farting while passing thru a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING…..

Cube Farm – An office filled with cubicles.

Dead Tree Edition – The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms.

Dilberted – To be exploited and oppressed by your boss, as is Dilbert, the comic strip character. “Damn, I’ve been dilberted again! The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week.”

Dorito Syndrome – The feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content. “I just spent six hours surfing the Web, and now I’ve got a bad case of Dorito Syndrome.”

Egosurfing – Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one’s own name.

Elvis Year – The peak year of popularity as in “1993 was Barney the dinosaur’s Elvis year”

Flight Risk – Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.

Generica – Fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions as in “we were so lost in generica that I couldn’t remember what city it was”

Glazing – Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?”

Going Postal – Totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees who went on shooting rampages

GOOD job – A “Get-Out-Of-Debt” job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Gray Matter – Older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms trying to appear more professional and established.

Graybar Land – The place you go while you’re staring at a computer that’s processing something very slowly (while you watch the gray bar creep across the screen). “That CAD rendering put me in graybar land for like an hour.”

High Dome – Egghead, scientist, PhD

Idea Hamsters – People whose idea generators are always running.

Irritainment – Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.

It’s a Feature – From the old adage, “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” Used sarcastically to describe an unpleasant problem you wish to gloss over.

Keyboard Plaque – The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on some people’s computer keyboards.

Link Rot – The process by which web page’s links become obsolete as the sites they’re connected to change or die.

Meatspace – The physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also “carbon community” “facetime” “F2F” “RL”

Mouse Potato – The online generation’s answer to the couch potato.

Ohnosecond – That minuscule fraction of time during which you realize you’ve just made a terrible error.

Open-Collar Workers – People who work at home or telecommute.

Percussive Maintenance – The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Perot – To quit unexpectedly. “My cellular phone just perot’ed.”

Plug-and-Play – A new hire who doesn’t require training. “That new guy is totally plug-and-play.”

Prairie Dogging – When something loud happens in a cube farm, causing heads to pop up over the walls trying to see what’s going on.

Ribs ‘N’ Dick – A budget with no fat as in “we’ve got ribs ‘n’ dick and we’re supposed to find 20K for memory upgrades”

Salmon Day – The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end. “God, today was a total salmon day!”

Seagull Manager – A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.

Siliwood – The coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and computers; also “Hollywired”

SITCOMs – What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. “Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage”

Square-Headed Spouse – Computer

Squirt the Bird – To transmit a signal up to a satellite. “Crew and talent are ready…what time do we squirt the bird?”

Starter Marriage – A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy – A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.

Swiped Out – An ATM or credit card that has been used so much its magnetic strip is worn away.

Tourists – Those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs. “There were only three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists.”

Treeware – Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Umfriend – One with whom one has a sexual relationship; as in, “this is Dale, my…um…friend.”

Under Mouse Arrest – Getting busted for violating an online service’s rule of conduct. “Sorry I couldn’t get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest.”

Uninstalled – Euphemism for being fired. Also: decruitment.

Vulcan Nerve Pinch – The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key.

WOOFYS – Well Off Older Folks.

World Wide Wait – The real meaning of WWW.

Xerox Subsidy – Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.

Yuppie Food Coupons – Twenty dollar bills from an ATM.