My entry for this week's NewYorker cartoon caption contest. What do you think?

DIY: Turn your blog comments into Twitter updates

This is a fairly simple hack which should take you about 5 mins (currently it will only work with Blogger). Here's what you need to do -
1) Sign up with Twittermail and you will be given a special email address. The idea is that anything mailed to this address will show up as a twitter update.
2) On the Settings page for "What part we should send to Twitter?" set the answer to "Only the subject".
3) In Blogger go to Settings, under the Comments tab just enter this new Twittermail address for Comment Notification Email text field. Don't worry you can have multiple addresses here. Hit Save Settings and you're done!

Can't fight this

More at xkcd.com

Book Excerpt:A Quota for Errors

For most thinking workers, making an occasional mistake is a natural
and healthy part of their work. But there can be an almost Biblical
association between error on the job and sin. This is an attitude
we need to take specific pains to change.
Speaking to a group of software managers, we introduced a
strategy for what we think of as iterative design. The idea is that
some designs are intrinsically defect-prone; they ought to be rejected,
not repaired. Such dead ends should be expected in the design
activity. The lost effort of the dead end is a small price to pay for a
clean, fresh start. To our surprise, many managers felt this would
pose an impossible political problem for their own bosses: "How
can we throw away a product that our company has paid to produce?"
They seemed to believe that they'd be better off salvaging
the defective version even though it might cost more in the long run.
Fostering an atmosphere that doesn't allow for error simply
makes people defensive. They don't try things that may turn out
badly. You encourage this defensiveness when you try to systematize
the process, when you impose rigid methodologies so that staff
members are not allowed to make any of the key strategic decisions
lest they make them incorrectly. The average level of technology
may be modestly improved by any steps you take to inhibit error.
The team sociology, however, can suffer grievously.
The opposite approach would be to encourage people to make
some errors. You do this by asking your folks on occasion what
dead-end roads they've been down, and by making sure they
understand that "none" is not the best answer. When people blow
it, they should be congratulated—that's part of what they're being
paid for.

- from 'Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams' by Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister

Can somebody please explain

If you've ever been out riding a bike or driving in Pune during the day and by chance haven't switched off your headlights you will notice that sooner than later somebody (I encourage you to try this out and not switch off the lights for the entire ride & you will be surprised how many people are concerned about the wasteful consumption) would bring it to your attention with a rather peculiar hand gesture. An outstreched hand with the palm making a rotary action. The thing that intrigues me is I don't think anyone taught anybody this. It's some sort or good samaritan thing which nobody can explain the origins of. Anyway, if you have noticed something of this sort let me know.

It was over in five minutes.

That fateful day I got a meeting invite from the HR person and it had no subject written except that I had to meet in the senior manager's cabin. I was a bit skeptical and asked the person who sent the invite - what this meeting was about and she just said - the manager wants to speak to you. The meeting was at 2.30 pm and there were four people in that meeting. The HR person, the manager, another manager who had joined via conference call and me. And then he just said it straight. I don't recall the exact words but I was being laid off!! I had to resign that very day and would not be required to come to work from tomorrow - that's what they told me. The justification they gave me was that they were expecting some new projects which did not come through & as a measure to reduce costs due to the current financial downturn they had to make this decision. It felt brutal. I felt crestfallen. Even more because I had joined this company recently. I just could not understand.

This happened a few months ago and since I have moved to a new job. Looking back I think I have learned a lot from this experience and can only say that everything happens for a reason.

They need our help

A list like no other

Here's the Top 100 Best Software Engineering Books, Ever a knol created by Jurgen Appelo. Great job, man!

My two penny worth to Netvibes & iGoogle developers

Is there was some way (a new feature you could add, maybe) by which feed widgets that are more recent stay at the top and those that aren't stay at the bottom? This would treat each tab on the start page as a stack - so feeds that have fresh contents sort of "bubble up". This feature is very similar to the Blog List gadget in Blogger which sorts according to most recently updated.