Blame it on the "old people" but you soon you will see that "young people" will pull the same nonsense as soon as they have to hit quarterly numbers. Big companies can't be your friend.

Microsoft's new strategy has not happened to the detriment of quarterly numbers, on the contrary.

It feels like most answers on this site come from robots or from moderators who barely know anything. I still have to see a good, on point, answer there from someone who really knows things.

I have, but they never come from Microsoft employees. Story time:

Let's say you administer an Exchange server and need to make a configuration change to a mailbox. Normally, the Information Store will cache mailbox state for up to 20 minutes and you'll have to wait for your change to take effect. But let's say you really really need that change to happen right fucking now, then what?

Well, Microsoft support has your back: restart the Information Store service. While effective, this will also boot everyone's MAPI connections from the server and consequently pop up a giant scary warning dialog to all your Outlook users. Good job there guys.

Fortunately, there are knowledgeable wizards casually dropping in to these support threads every once in a while who can give you a real solution. In this case, it's running `Update-StoreMailboxState -Database <dbname> -Identity <mailbox GUID>`. Yeah, Microsoft actually made a fucking powershell commandlet that does exactly the thing you need, but support has no idea it exists and just throws up their hands and tells you to interrupt the workflow of the entire organization and generate a bunch of calls to the help desk.

If I ever meet the person who posted that answer, I owe them a few beers.

Does MS still have the MVP programme? Some of those people used to post useful information to the MS usenet groups.

Yes, but it’s been essentially gutted and turned into ”who can gush about MS the hardest”, instead of evaluating people based on tech chops

Other than "We’ve also had a combination of tax and regulatory policy that has encouraged capital formation and increasing returns to capital, so labor’s share of returns has decreased. The last round of tax policy out of Washington made this worse." it seems they have nothing concrete to say. I definitely agree that capital should be taxed at the same rates as labor. Maybe there was a time when it made sense to tax capital lower but right now we don't seem to lack investment money but we lack demand.

I worked with a German version of VBA for a little while. MS soon gave up on this but it was a really weird experience.

having learned Excel functions in English and having to use them at work in German makes me always nervous

I'm never able to get a function to work as I don't even know their equivalents in German.

Now with Sharepoint and Excel Online, we've discovered that function names follow the base language of the Workspace that the sheet is stored in. It's essentially rendered Excel Online useless.

I thought VBA was always in english (syntax & APIs). Only excel formulas are displayed translated in the regular Excel UI.

So I just so happen to have a PowerBook 540c here with a Swedish install of Office 4.2.1, and had to check my memory, since I remember it being localized.

VBA on this machine has English keywords (Sub/Dim/If/While), but Swedish application APIs (search in Word is Sök for instance). Screenshot of one of the sample macros: https://i.imgur.com/vDWQcWk.png

that was years ago. I don't remember when. It also didn't last long.

And others will copy this pattern without knowing why. so quickly you have these weird patterns all over your code.

Wasn't Galileo first to observe them with his telescope or were they mentioned somewhere before? I assume back then the skies were darker and people probably had better eyes so if they are observable I would assume somebody would have mentioned them.

There are a few confounding factors:

1. Jupiter is very bright.

2. The moons aren't always visible (they're behind or crossing Jupiter).

3. The magnitude of the moons changes with the relative positions of Earth and Jupiter.

It's possible that Galileo was not the first to see them, but if you don't know what they are or how you managed to see them, you're probably not going to be able to get anyone else to believe you. The telescope allowed Galileo to track their movement and also to convince others, who could also look through a telescope and see them easily.

There is an argument that a Chinese astronomer observed and documented a Jovian satellite in the 4th century BC. [1]

[1] http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-TTWL198102000.htm

It seems everything around heath care billing is sneaky in the US. It's probably the most rotten, inefficient and corrupt sector of the whole economy. I am not talking about the actual health care but only about billing practices.

From the healthcare delivery standpoint there are so many rotten, inefficient and corrupt practices that many days it feels like you are delivering good care despite the system. Certainly not because of it. It's kafa-esque and there is zero incentive for your boss' boss' boss' boss' calling the shots to improve patient care.

Healthcare providers are also just as mystified as to where all the money goes, not the workers doing the direct patient care.

I hate "meetings" but I am big fan of conversation. When I worked in a team room with 3 other engineers we just naturally had good conversations from time to time. There was no schedule, no agenda, no start or end time. But we solved a lot of things that way. I also chat with my manager several times a week about stuff. I feel if there is a need to schedule formal one-on-one meetings it indicates a dysfunctional environment.

I'm the exact opposite. Short meetings with a small group (preferably just one other person, as discussed in the OP) at a scheduled time with an agenda are a much more efficient use of my time than ambient conversation. I've worked on teams and with people who feel like you do and it drives me pretty nuts. I'm constantly getting pulled into low value conversations that are a distraction from what I'm doing. I can't determine ahead of time whether the conversation is more or less valuable than whatever else I'm doing because there is no agenda for "hey you got a sec?".

What I don't know is: am I just wrong about this, or are you, or is it just pure subjective preference? If it's just subjective, what's the best way to structure teams with respect to this? Is it all or nothing, or can you build a team with both kinds of people in such a way that they respect each other's preference?

Edit to add: To make a different point, I'm a big fan of standing closed-door 1:1s with your manager, because the conversations you can only have with your manager are the most awkward ones and asking for a one-off closed door meeting when it's uncommon makes it way worse. For instance, if you're having strife with a co-worker that you need to bring up with your manager, the last thing you want to do is walk over to their desk and say, "can we talk privately?". Waiting for your next standing meeting is a much better option.

“What I don't know is: am I just wrong about this, or are you, or is it just pure subjective preference? ”

Yes. It’s subjective. It probably also depends on the people you work with and the nature of the things you are working on.

These books usually describe a very idealized version of the real world. I think the only way to find out what mid level managers do is to ask them or ideally to shadow them for a few days.

I think shadowing other roles would generally be very beneficial in a lot of companies so people understand each other better. I have had a lot of occasions where I basically thought that some role is useless until I worked with them and found out what they have to put up with the whole day.

Certainly they do. And the book admits as much. In my opinion, it is still a valuable read as it gives a generalized lens through which a large org’s structure, and activities at each layer, can be understood.

"The windows are small, and covered in metal bars or thick metal meshing."

That's one thing I don't get in the US. The schools really look like prisons. Why not have windows and daylight?

I don’t know, but a lot of public sector buildings seem to be built in this way. Looming monolithic structures with little to no natural light, and grimy linoleum flooring. Visit your local city hall or similar. It’s weird because I’ve not experienced the same in the UK, where government buildings are usually (ignoring the beautiful historic ones) built more like any other modern office.

Much of the the US was built up in the 1960s. Architecture was brutal and hasn’t aged well.

My high school was designed by an architectural firm that litterly designed prisons for the state.

As was mine.

A neighboring school to my high school actually was a women's prison before it was repurposed as a high school.

That said, the architecture was actually quite nice, with lots of natural light and open space.

It was the ubiquitous architectural style mid-century. Combined with crime wave that has long since crashed.