Earlier today:
The genius of modern office design
Being a mild germophobe, I made sure to wipe clean my new cube using (what else?) 3M Desk and Office cleaner. Even though everything seemed perfectly clean, a vast amount of dirt came out.
This got me thinking about how brilliant the designers of the modern office are. They make them look clean regardless of the amount of dirt being hidden in plain sight.
My theory is that the country’s top camouflage designers working for the army eventually run out of things to do and go on to tackle a harder challenge: Making the workspace of an engineer look clean.
For instance, compare these two photos of the desk, before and after heavy amounts of soap and half a roll of paper towels:
See the difference? I didn’t think so.
Even more striking is the design of office carpets. These patterns will hide anything smaller than 3/4 of an inch. Drop a penny, an earring, a screw and you will never find it again. Never.
Other things, such as giant coffee stains are completely hidden from plain sight too. See the photo below. Can you spot the giant coffee stain?
I didn’t think so.
IKEA
- Drive 45 minutes in traffic to the nearest IKEA.
- Walk around for three hours.
- Load up shopping carts with 20+ boxes.
- Call a friend to help you drive the stuff because it won’t fit in one car.
- Drive back.
- Unload two cars.
- Start assembling the dining room table.
- Finish assembling the dining room table.
- Flip it over to find three perfectly aligned holes in the middle of the table.
Needless to say, that killed the furniture-assembling mood for the day. We won’t go back to return it until all the stuff has been inspected and assembled. This could take a while.
Still, I gotta admit that IKEA is insanely cheap and cool.
First day in Berkeley
A few quick notes on my first full day:
I went to work at my new office, the not-quite-secret Berkeley branch. It’s small: located in a shared office building, we share the bathroom with others, so I have a key to the bathroom. Our WiFi does not reach it. Please don’t ask how I know or why this is highly disappointing. First to come in in the mornings turns on the lights and turns off the alarm. The reverse is true for the last guy out. I need a parking permit. Etc. So far everyone’s been great and very welcoming. They even use the exact same cube walls so if I am sitting I won’t even know the difference… except for the view.
The house we are renting is great. Old and creaky and great. Believe it or not, it’s really hard to find a place around here with a washer and dryer. This was my one requirement: I’m not about to spend my weekends waiting for my underwear to dry at some laundromat. This house has them. According to my calculations, it’s one of four houses in the whole Bay Area with a washer and dryer. Also, it’s about 3 miles from work, so I need to look for a bike so I can replace the exercise from the eight flights of stairs to my Austin office.
While I don’t think they have good BBQ here, I did find good BBQ sauce in the supermarket: Stubb’s – an Austin concert staple. Sadly, the salsa selection was weak.
Goodbye party
I’ve posted some photos from last Saturday’s gathering organized by Rebecca and Eli at Icenhauer’s celebrating the fact that I’m leaving town. I hear the real party is happening this coming weekend. I fully Rebeccammend you check them out in The MKX@ Photo Central.
Thanks to everyone who showed up. And those who didn’t… congratulations on becoming members of my black list.
Goodbye, Austin
By the time this post gets published, I’ll be flying on my way to Berkeley, CA… to stay. This is after just over ten great years in Austin, TX. I’m staying at the same job – only working at the office over there – and will have the best roommate ever.
For those who care, The MKX® will detail my upcoming adventures. Hopefully it will get interesting. And like a certain famous California ex-Governator says: “I’ll be back”.
Online security
The many high profile hacks that have occurred recently, like the one on Sony and Gawker (and those are the ones we know about) have made me think a lot about my online security. We all know what we need to do: Use different strong passwords that cannot be guessed using dictionary attacks for every single account.
The stakes range from the mildly annoying (someone sending spam from your email account, which can get it deactivated) to the really annoying (damage to your reputation due to inappropriate posts made from your Facebook/Twitter/Google+/whatever account), to the really painful (money stolen from bank accounts, identity theft).
I think password reuse is especially bad: someone gets access to one password database, they can now try them on many popular websites. It will work. Hackers don’t do this because “I” or “you” are terribly interesting people to hack. They do it because it’s profitable. Spam, Google Bombing, you name it. It happens all the time, just see how many fake emails you get from for friend’s email accounts. Just a few weeks ago my friend Rafa had his Skype account compromised and his SkypeOut credit used. It’s real.
Ok, but is there a practical way to have different strong passwords for every service we use? I think there is, and I’ve decided to do it. Follow up post coming.
Mexican siestas
Hello, Mac #12
Barbacoa
The real deal: barbacoa from La Costilla.
