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26 Mar 07:15

wearing revealing exercise clothes around coworkers, telling an employer I have another offer, and more

by Ask a Manager

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Wearing revealing clothes to exercise around coworkers

I’m a young woman at my first corporate job in a male-dominated field. I go to the gym across the street after work on most days; it’s not affiliated with the company. For comfort and convenience, I often wear somewhat revealing clothes to exercise (tight shorts and crop tops/sports bras). I dress modestly in the office and don’t change clothes there.

The problem is that many of my (male) coworkers go there too, and it’s the unofficial office gym. I’m concerned that it’ll damage my professional standing being seen in skimpy clothes, even though it’s technically outside of work. Do you suggest that I adhere to any sort of dress code while I’m there? Or should I dress as I please because I’m not at work? My office is pretty chill, but I’m still concerned about double standards.

Dress however you feel comfortable at the gym. You’re not walking through your office hallways in booty shorts; you’re dressed appropriately for the space and for the activities you’re participating in. It will not hurt your professional standing unless you work somewhere that’s far more dysfunctional and sexist than the average workplace (a bar that allows for a fair amount of dysfunction and sexism before this would be an issue).

2. My employee wants to be promoted into a job that doesn’t exist here (and probably shouldn’t)

I supervise a high-performing, early career employee who has been in his current role for two years. He would like to be promoted into a role that he’s written for himself. It’s a role that doesn’t exist in our industry or our organization. I’m happy to help this employee and be his champion, but I do not think this is a role that the organization needs. It is hard to make a business case for how the role adds anything to the existing set-up. If it did exist, I do not yet think this person would be ready to fill it. He’s not a bad employee, he just needs more experience in a broader variety of activities that relate to this position he’d like to have. Do you have any advice for me in coaching him or a path he would take?

You’re not doing him any favors (or serving your organization well) if you aren’t up-front about the challenges you see in his plan. Be direct with him — explain that you think it’ll be tough to make a business case for the role and why, and explain what qualifications you think the company would want if they did create it. At the same time, you can talk to him about what kind of path he’d need to take to get those qualifications, what that might look like, and whether there are opportunities in your organization for him to strengthen himself for that type of work, even if he doesn’t ultimately end up doing it there. And if he’s intent on making a case for it there, let him make that case — but being honest about your assessment will help him make better choices for himself.

3. How do I handle having to drop a job opportunity that I really wanted?

I’m entering my senior year of college after this semester, and I was recently able to secure an opportunity exactly in the field I wanted to be in. It would have opened a lot of doors in my field, and I was originally really stoked — except they never disclosed it was unpaid. That fact and an hour+ drive to the location multiple times a week on top of two other jobs (gotta pay rent) meant I had to drop the opportunity.

How do you get over something like this? I’m still in the regret phase even though I know I couldn’t afford to do it.

There are going to be a lot of job prospects in your future that would be perfect except for one thing, and that one thing will be significant enough that it’s a deal-breaker. It could be the salary, or the location, or the manager you’d be working with, or the hours, or the company culture. This is really normal, and it’s good to get comfortable with it early on, because when you try to ignore the “just one thing” that makes a job a bad fit for you, that’s how you end up in a job where you’re miserable (or broke). Take this as an early lesson in being clear-eyed and resolute about what does and doesn’t work for you, regardless of how enticing it might otherwise be.

Also, it’s sketchy as hell for them not to disclose up-front that the work was unpaid. That’s a red flag about them generally.

4. Timing my resignation with a week off and a company retreat

I am a program manager at a small company, and I’m the only staff member assigned to my program. Every summer my company shuts down for a mandatory paid week off, and the next Monday is our mandatory all-staff retreat, which consists of serious planning sessions interspersed with team-building activities. We have to set goals for ourselves and our programs and stand up in front of the whole company and declare what each of us is committing to for the upcoming year.

I’m planning to leave the company this summer to start my own business. I really want to take advantage of the paid week off, and I’m concerned that if I give notice right before the break they might let me go immediately to avoid paying me for that week off. I have a good relationship with my boss and don’t think he’d do that, but there are also some pretty horrible leaders above him who have screwed over employees before, and money has been really tight the past few years so I think there’s *some* risk.

I also don’t want to wait more than a week after the break to give my two weeks notice, because I need to get ready to launch my business in the fall. If it’s not ready in the fall, a big chunk of my prospective customers will sign on with other service providers for the year.

Is it better to fake my way through a full day of public planning, goal-setting, and making commitments, just to turn around later that week and say “just kidding!” or to give my notice before the break and cross my fingers they don’t let me go immediately? If it’s the former, any advice on how to reduce the awkwardness?

Why not give your notice right after the week-long break, on the first day of the retreat? Give it that Monday and ask whether your manager would rather you attend the rest of the retreat or spend that week getting your work in shape to transition. He can make that call — but that way if he wants you at the retreat, you won’t have to pretend to make commitments for the coming year because it’ll be out in the open that you’re leaving. If that timing seems awkward, you can note that specifically: “I know the timing isn’t ideal, but now that I’ve made the decision, I wanted you to have to maximum possible notice.”

5. Do I need to tell employers I have another offer I am considering?

I have been applying for positions and interviewing for a long time. A few weeks ago, two employers indicated they intended to make an offer. However, both still needed to go through their internal approval processes, which has taken several weeks.

Now, I have received one offer (I have two weeks to review it) and the other employer says they will send an offer in two days. Do I need to tell the employers that I have another offer? If so, what would be a good script to use?

I don’t want to make either employer think I am uninterested because I am considering another offer, but if I don’t mention it now they may be caught by surprise when I decline which may impact my reputation in my network. They are both great jobs but very different, and in different locations too, so it will be a difficult decision.

You’re not obligated to announce if you have other offers. Employers generally assume you’re interviewing with multiple companies and realize they could lose you to an offer you like better (or simply because their offer/job isn’t right for you, even if there aren’t other offers in play). If an employer is ever shocked to learn that you’ve been talking with other companies, that’s on them — not on you for not spelling it out.

You might choose to mention it anyway if the situation calls for it — like if the second company’s offer is delayed and you’re going to run up against your deadline for the first (in which case it could make sense to tell the second one that you’re very interested but you have another offer that you need to answer by X date). Or if you prefer Company A but Company B makes a higher offer, you might see if A is willing to match it. But you don’t need to announce it just on principle — only if it serves your interests in some way.

17 Jan 13:21

Wine 9.0 Released

by BeauHD
Version 9.0 of Wine, the free and open-source compatibility layer that lets you run Windows apps on Unix-like operating systems, has been released. "Highlights of Wine 9.0 include an experimental Wayland graphics driver with features like basic window management, support for multiple monitors, high-DPI scaling, relative motion events, as well as Vulkan support," reports 9to5Linux. From the report: The Vulkan driver has been updated to support Vulkan 1.3.272 and later, the PostScript driver has been reimplemented to work from Windows-format spool files and avoid any direct calls from the Unix side, and there's now a dark theme option on WinRT theming that can be enabled in WineCfg. Wine 9.0 also adds support for many more instructions to Direct3D 10 effects, implements the Windows Media Video (WMV) decoder DirectX Media Object (DMO), implements the DirectShow Audio Capture and DirectShow MPEG-1 Video Decoder filters, and adds support for video and system streams, as well as audio streams to the DirectShow MPEG-1 Stream Splitter filter. Desktop integration has been improved in this release to allow users to close the desktop window in full-screen desktop mode by using the "Exit desktop" entry in the Start menu, as well as support for export URL/URI protocol associations as URL handlers to the Linux desktop. Audio support has been enhanced in Wine 9.0 with the implementation of several DirectMusic modules, DLS1 and DLS2 sound font loading, support for the SF2 format for compatibility with Linux standard MIDI sound fonts, Doppler shift support in DirectSound, Indeo IV50 Video for Windows decoder, and MIDI playback in dmsynth. Among other noteworthy changes, Wine 9.0 brings loader support for ARM64X and ARM64EC modules, along with the ability to run existing Windows binaries on ARM64 systems and initial support for building Wine for the ARM64EC architecture. There's also a new 32-bit x86 emulation interface, a new WoW64 mode that supports running of 32-bit apps on recent macOS versions that don't support 32-bit Unix processes, support for DirectInput action maps to improve compatibility with many old video games that map controller inputs to in-game actions, as well as Windows 10 as the default Windows version for new prefixes. Last but not least, the kernel has been updated to support address space layout randomization (ASLR) for modern PE binaries, better memory allocation performance through the Low Fragmentation Heap (LFH) implementation, and support memory placeholders in the virtual memory allocator to allow apps to reserve virtual space. Wine 9.0 also adds support for smart cards, adds support for Diffie-Hellman keys in BCrypt, implements the Negotiate security package, adds support for network interface change notifications, and fixes many bugs. For a full list of changes, check out the release notes. You can download Wine 9.0 from WineHQ.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

15 Jun 06:14

Tan Hides

by admin

hey! please follow @lamebook on instagram! thank you!

22 Jan 19:30

What happens if a space elevator breaks

by WIRED
What happens if a space elevator breaks

Enlarge (credit: TCD | Prod.DB | Apple TV+/ | lamy)

In the first episode of the Foundation series on Apple TV, we see a terrorist try to destroy the space elevator used by the Galactic Empire. This seems like a great chance to talk about the physics of space elevators and to consider what would happen if one exploded. (Hint: It wouldn't be good.)

People like to put stuff beyond the Earth's atmosphere: It allows us to have weather satellites, a space station, GPS satellites, and even the James Webb Space Telescope. But right now, our only option for getting stuff into space is to strap it to a controlled chemical explosion that we usually call "a rocket."

Don't get me wrong, rockets are cool, but they are also expensive and inefficient. Let's consider what it takes to get a 1-kilogram object into low Earth orbit (LEO). This is around 400 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, about where the International Space Station is. In order to get this object into orbit, you need to accomplish two things. First, you need to lift it up 400 kilometers. But if you only increased the object’s altitude, it wouldn't be in space for long. It would just fall back to Earth. So, second, in order to keep this thing in LEO, it has to move—really fast.

Read 24 remaining paragraphs | Comments

04 Jan 06:58

Jury In Elizabeth Holmes Trial Deadlocked On 3 of 11 Counts

by BeauHD
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Jurors in the Elizabeth Holmes criminal trial have been unable to reach a verdict in three of the 11 counts of fraud she has been charged with, according to a note read in court today. Eight men and four women have been deliberating for more than 40 hours over six days, much of which occurred before an extended holiday weekend. Today is their first day back from break. It's unclear what decision the jury reached in the eight counts they have been able to agree on. Judge Edward Davila reread part of the instructions he previously gave the jury, ones that outline the burden of proof to overcome the presumption of innocence. Davila also read to the jury a modified version of model instructions that are given to deadlocked juries. [...] After hearing the new instructions, the jury was sent back to deliberate the three charges further. UPDATE: Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

22 Nov 20:51

The Next Generation of Gaming Didn't Actually Arrive With Xbox Series X and PS5

by msmash
A year ago, the next generation of console gaming was supposed to have arrived. The Xbox Series X (and Series S) and PlayStation 5 strode boldly onto the scene, with massive chassis and even bigger promises of games with better graphics, shorter loading times, and revolutionary new breakthroughs. But a year in, and that next generation of gaming has yet to arrive. From a report: There are still too few consoles, and more importantly, too few games that truly take advantage of them, leaving the first year of the PS5 and Xbox Series X more of a beta test for the lucky few who have been able to get ahold of one, rather than the proper start of a new era of gaming. A complicated mess of factors have led to the next-gen bottleneck. The physical consoles themselves are still nigh-impossible to buy, which naturally limits the number of customers who own them and can buy games for them. That in turn means that there's little incentive for developers to aim for exclusive next-gen titles that truly harness the power of the PS5 or Xbox Series X. Why limit yourself (and your sales) to the handful of next-gen console owners when there are millions of Xbox One and PS4 customers to whom you can sell copies of games? Adding to the mess has been the fact that industry-wide delays (many of which are due to similar pandemic-related issues as the broader supply chain problems) have also seen tons of next-gen optimized or exclusive games moved out to 2022 and beyond. Meaning even if you can get ahold of a console, there are still relatively few blockbuster titles to actually play on them.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jan 11:06

Nintendo

by David M Willis
14 Feb 07:38

Hartz IV für Anfänger

Kommentar: Die Reformvorschläge der SPD gehen an der Lebensrealität vorbei
08 May 20:02

With Timeline and Your Phone, Microsoft makes a PC the phone’s second screen

by Peter Bright

SEATTLE—The PC is, for many of us, no longer the central hub for our digital and online activities; the phone has taken that role. In this new world, the relationship between the two has flipped: the phone is not a companion device for the PC, but rather, the PC is now a companion device for the phone.

At its Build developer conference today, Microsoft showed a pair of applications that reflect this new world. First are updated versions of the Launcher for Android and Edge for iOS that include support for Timeline, the big new feature of the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. Timeline gives a historic view of the documents, emails, and webpages that you have visited, making it easy and convenient to go back and resume working on your ongoing tasks. With the updated versions of the apps, the Timeline view is now accessible on your mobile devices.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

24 Nov 21:39

Drugs that switch your brain into squirrel-mode may save you from a stroke

by Beth Mole

Enlarge / Aww. Well, if the 13-lined ground squirrel doesn’t save your brain, maybe it’ll warm your heart. (credit: Phil Myers, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan)

Stroke treatments have been a tough nut to crack. So, naturally, scientists have turned to squirrels for inspiration.

In the latest cache of data, researchers dug up a drug that can essentially flip a hibernation switch in brain cells, mimicking conditions in the noggins of dormant squirrels and potentially cushioning the blow from strokes and other cardiovascular incidents. In early tests, the drug protected cells in lab from oxygen and glucose depletion—cell-killing conditions during strokes and hibernation. The drug could also activate those protective hibernation conditions in the brains of live, non-hibernating mice.

The drug development is in its earliest phases—many, many years will have to pass before it finds its way into a clinic, if it even makes it that far (most early drug candidates don’t). But, this latest research follows years of fundamental work on making our brains act more like that of a hibernating squirrel in dire situations. And researchers are still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about the approach.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

18 Mar 23:56

The Minnesotan left-wing economic miracle continues, while neighboring Republican states slowly collapse

by Cory Doctorow

Last fall, I wrote about the strange case of Minnesota governor Mark Dayton, a left-wing billionaire heir to the Target fortune who came to power and reversed his Republican predecessors' Reagonomic idiocy, instead raising taxes on rich people, increasing public spending, and creating shared prosperity for the people of Minnesota. (more…)

02 Nov 19:26

Just Saying

by liver

15 Mar 10:26

Making Dumb Robots Evolve

by Brian Benchoff

Evolution is a fact of life, except in Kansas. It is the defining characteristic of life itself, but that doesn’t mean a stupid robot can’t evolve. For his entry into the Hackaday Pi Zero contest, [diemastermonkey] is doing just that: evolution for robots built around microcontrollers and a Raspberry Pi.

[diemastermonkey]’s project is a physical extension to genetic algorithms. Just like DNA and proteins have no idea what they’re actually doing, microcontrollers don’t either. Instead of randomly switching up base pairs and amino acids, [diemastermonkey]’s project makes random connections pins depending on the values of those pins.

The potential of these crappy, randomly programmed robots is only as good as the fitness function, and so far [diemastermonkey] has seen some surprising success. When putting these algorithms into a microcontroller connected to a tilting table mechanism and a PIR sensor, the robot eventually settled on a bit of code that would keep a ball in motion. You can check out the video of that below.


Raspberry_Pi_LogoSmall

The Raspberry Pi Zero contest is presented by Hackaday and Adafruit. Prizes include Raspberry Pi Zeros from Adafruit and gift cards to The Hackaday Store!
See All the Entries


Filed under: robots hacks
15 Mar 10:26

SDRAM Logic Analyzer Uses An AVR And A Dirty Trick

by Al Williams

We often see “logic analyzer” projects which are little more than microcontrollers reading data as fast as they can, sending it to a PC, and then plotting the results. Depending on how fast the microcontroller is, these projects range from adequate to not very useful.

At first glance, [esot.eric’s] logic analyzer project has an AVR in it, so it ought to be on the low end of the scale. Then you look at the specs: 32 channels at 30 megasamples per second. How does that work with an AVR in it?

The answer lies in the selection of components. The analyzer uses a 128MB SDRAM DIMM (like an older PC might use for main memory). That makes sense; the Arduino can’t store much data internally. However, it isn’t the storage capacity that makes this choice critical. It seems [esot.eric] has a way to make the RAM “free run”.

The idea is to use the Arduino (or other host microcontroller) to set up the memory. Some of the memory’s output bits feedback to the address and data lines. Then the microcontroller steps aside and the SDRAM clocks samples into its memory by itself at the prevailing clock rate for the memory.

Of course, this isn’t good for things like complex triggering, and you give up some memory storage to the control “program” (if that’s the right word). However, it is easy to see this technique being useful in other cases where you want to offload the CPU for repetitive data transfer. For example, [esot.eric] has also used this method to drive an LCD panel.

Just to prove the point, the video below shows the device working even after the AVR microcontroller is removed. It is only necessary during the setup phase. Admittedly, the logic analyzer part isn’t the cool part. If you want a logic analyzer, pick up a DSLogic from the Hackaday store or one of the many other inexpensive ones out there. If you want to roll your own, there are plenty of options for that, too.

But for sheer audacity and dirty trickery, you have to admire how this design uses an SDRAM in a unique way. It makes you wonder what other components we could use in strange ways.


Filed under: Arduino Hacks, slider, tool hacks
14 Jul 06:01

10 Years Can Make A Lot Of Difference

by Prabhleen

17 May 14:58

By Far the Best Response to Russian Church Leaders Condemning Bearded Drag Singer Conchita Wurst

by Terry Firma

Bearded Austrian drag artist Conchita Wurst won the Eurovision Song Contest this past weekend, and conservative-Christian Russians didn’t like it one bit, to put it mildly. Which begat this response from Russian blogger Rustem Adagamov:

Well played, sir.

(via the Independent)

07 Jan 19:23

From: http://deeperdesign.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/is-iron-man-ma...

by kristinaplusplus


From: http://deeperdesign.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/is-iron-man-made-of-lego/

I was re-watching Iron Man recently and noticed something interesting. During Iron Man’s first “boot up sequence”, in the “terrorist” caves of Nowhereistan, some butchered C code is displayed on a faked up laptop screen.

The code displayed on screen, although missing some syntactically important characters such as semi-colons, is actual valid C source code. So valid in fact that I wondered where it came from.

Read the original post to find out the Iron Man/LEGO connection.