Year: 2014

On managing Linux kernel development

The Linux kernel is one of the largest collaborative software projects in the history of the world and has almost nothing in the way of formalized management structure. We have people who have a strong operating systems background who have been contributing code, and then we have people like me. I have a background in fruit fly genetics and yet someone lets me get close to the Linux kernel; this seems wrong. And then we have people who are genuinely kids in their bedroom. It’s a miracle it works as well as it does. We should be astonished that we’re able to get it so right so much of the time.

Matthew Garrett

two to the power of one hundred

Here is an excellent visualization of 2 to the power of 100.  If you take a piece of paper which is 0.1 mm thick, cut it in half and place one half on top of the other, then cut the stack in half and place half over the other half, and then repeat it 98 more times … how high is your stack of paper going to be? Think.  BOOM!  13.7 billion light years.  Here is a breakdown of how fast it gets there.

Just beautiful.

Ergophobia – a fear of work

Ergophobia, (derived from the Greek “ergon” (work) and “phobos” (fear); also called ergasiophobia), is an abnormal and persistent fear (or phobia) of work (manual labor, non-manual labour, etc) or finding employment. Ergophobia may also be a subset of eithersocial phobia or performance anxiety. Sufferers of ergophobia experience undue anxiety about the workplace environment even though they realize their fear is irrational. Their fear may actually be a combination of fears, such as fear of failing at assigned tasks, speaking before groups at work (both of which are types of performance anxiety), socializing with co-workers (a type of social phobia), and other fears of emotional, psychological and/or physiological injuries.

Wikipedia