Exclusive: End of the world approaching – Yahoo! employees required to work in the office

It has been a while since I posted here. And here is a post in English 🙂

So there has been great disturbance in the force recently. Or so they say. The sith lord(ess) of Yahoo!, Darth(ess) Marissa issued a decree that hereby orders her subjects that they work from their Yahoo! office and no from the cozy location of their homes. In short, the end of the world is approaching.

I mean, really???

Reading the tech press, FB blog posts, even a random post in Internet that triggered my deeper thinking on the topic and eventual posting here, you would believe that that the current Yahoo! CEO is the devil in disguise who bestows some hellish practices on her noble subjects.

I mean, really???

I guess I am old fashioned. Both in my managerial and regular-life thinking, but I can help but wonder, when did working from home became so important? When did working in the office became evil? But most importantly, when did we, the outsiders, became so self assured and so self important to cast (and shout loudly) our views upon those “in the know”? When?

Conventional wisdom… Entitlement… Self importance… Modern media… Memes…

There we have a CEO of a company in deep turmoil just less than an year ago. A company that has been going down since it heydays, more than 10 years ago. Imagine that. Going down for ~ 10 years. Now imagine that you are hired to turn around the trend. To make a company, still huge, that has been “the loser” for some odd 10 years, join the exclusive winners club. Are you going to do some bold decisions? Do you think bold decisions are needed?

And then this huge outcry for something so small. So logical. So boring should I say. Both – the decision and the outcry 🙂

When you are steadying the ship, you are supposed to start with the sailors, aren’t you? I mean, the ship is just a wood. It goes where sailors take it. So I would just guess. A little guess. That having the sailors around the captain’s deck and ON THE SHIP will actually help. You know, talking to them. Have them talking to each other. Having them knowing each other. Rough them up a bit…

It doesn’t *seem* to have anything with productivity, creativity and any other buzz words one must think of. It *seems* related to the old fashioned steadying the ship… And hell, Yahoo!’s ship surely needs quite steadying.

So here I am writing my first post in my blog for a while on a topic that seems so unimportant that it is pretty funny. But yet fascinating for me. So I thought of writing something 🙂

Anyway, my point – I believe in giving people the chance to do their own mistakes. Marissa Mayer is the one accountable for Yahoo!’s fate and if she thinks that this decision is best for the company – so be it. No one from us, the outsiders, know the details why this decision was made. And the trick is always in the details and the specifics. For any negative of her decision, there can be a positive. But they mean nothing without the details and the context. So let’s just relax and watch the show. Unless we own (I don’t :)) Yahoo! stock. But if this is the case, I guess we already hate Jerry Yang for not selling to Microsoft anyway 🙂

PS. And here is what, according to Quora, Yahoo! employes think about the WFH ban. Not a big deal but still interesting data point.

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New Year ;)

Soooo, let’s see:

  1. 2010:
    • Stay Alive – check ()
    • Stay (relatively) healthy – check ()
    • Stay sane – check (). That was tough though
    • Love thy wife – check ()
    • Love thy kids – check ()
    • Work – check ()
    • Have fun – check ()
  2. 2011
    • Stay Alive – really, make sure to do that 🙂
    • Stay (relatively) healthy
    • Stay sane – really important. For whatever reason insane people are not well received in the society 🙂
    • Love thy wife – Ani, I love you 🙂
    • Love thy kids – what’s not to love about them 🙂
    • Work – probably also need to join, Workaholics Anonymous
    • Have fun – a must do 🙂

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Kosta Superstar ;)

След като не успях да го източа това филмче мислех, че е загубено. Но нищо в нета не се губи. Кой го ъплоаднал в YouTube нямам и идея, ама какво пък. Ей ме как хубаво говоря:

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How To Kill A Dragon (Metal Genre)

Another classic:

HEAVY METAL
The protagonist arrives on a Harley, kills the dragon, drinks a few beers and fucks the princess.

POWER METAL
The protagonist arrives riding a white unicorn, escapes from the dragon, saves the princess and makes love to her in an enchanted forest.

THRASH METAL
The protagonist arrives, fights the dragon, saves the princess and fucks her.

FOLK METAL
The protagonist arrives with some friends playing accordions, violins, flutes and many more weird instruments, the dragon falls asleep (because of all the dancing). Then all leave…without the princess.

VIKING METAL
The protagonist arrives in a ship, kills the dragon with his mighty axe, skins the dragon and eats it, rapes the princess to death, steals her belongings and burns the castle before leaving.

DEATH METAL
The protagonist arrives, kills the dragon, fucks the princess and kills her, then leaves.

BLACK METAL
The protagonist arrives at midnight, kills the dragon and impales it in front of the castle. Then he sodomizes the princess, drinks her blood in a ritual before killing her. Then he impales the princess next to the dragon.

GORE METAL
The protagonist arrives, kills the dragon and spreads his guts in front of the castle, fucks the princess and kills her.Then he fucks the dead body again, slashes her belly and eats her guts. Then he fucks the carcass for the third time, burns the corpse and fucks it for the last time.

GRIND METAL
The protagonist arrives, screams something completely undecipherable for about 2 minutes and then leaves…

DOOM METAL
The protagonist arrives, sees the size of the dragon and thinks he could never beat him, then he gets depressed and commits suicide. The dragon eats his body and the princess as dessert. That’s the end of the sad story.

GOTHIC METAL
The princess in a velvet costume starts singing soprano. The protagonist completes the duet by adding the beast part, while the dragon plays the flute. Suddenly he swallows up the pipe and accidentally scorches the beauty and the beast and suffocates to death. All their souls are damned in hell’s eternity.

PROGRESSIVE METAL
The protagonist arrives with a guitar and plays a solo of 26 minutes. The dragon kills himself out of boredom. The protagonist arrives to the princess’ bedroom, plays another solo with all the techniques and tunes he learned in the last year of the conservatory. The princess escapes looking for the Heavy Metal protagonist.

INDUSTRIAL METAL
The protagonist arrives wearing greasy overcoat, makes an obscene gestures towards dragon, and gets escorted out of fairy tale land by security guards.

SPEED METAL
Suddenly there, short solo, dragon is confused, someone’s screaming weird stuff, princess realizes she’s been deflowered, dragon and princess are still looking for the one who did this.

CHRISTIAN METAL
The protagonist rides in on his way home from church and sings a mushy power ballad to the dragon about how much Jesus loves him and that the dragon should turn to Him. The Dragon is immediately converted, and when the princess wants to ‘thank’ the protagonist he replies, “Sorry, but I don’t believe in having sex before marriage.”

GLAM METAL
The protagonist arrives, the dragon laughs at the guy’s appearance and lets him enter. He steals the princess’ make up and tries to paint the castle in a beautiful pink color.

BATTLE METAL
The protagonist arrives with a legion of a hundred brave footman, war chariots and a dozen elite warriors and, as a master tactician, flanks the dragon in a bloody siege that lasts six hours. The princess gets bored.

NU METAL
The protagonist arrives in a run down Honda Civic and attempts to fight the dragon but he burns to death when his moronic baggy clothes catch fire.

EMO
The protagonist sees the dragon and moans about how hard it will be to get the princess to fall in love with him, he gets eaten. The princess is very happy, because he was a whiny fag anyway.

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101 Rules of Black Metal (or don’t be Dani Filth)

That’s something I have read long, long time ago. It’s hilarious. And “true”…

So here they are. The 101 Rules of Black Metal:

1. Don’t be gay.
2. Be “true”.
3. All people who aren’t “true” are gay.
4. Be grim.
5. Be necro.
6. Be simultaneously grim and necro if at all possible.
7. Break things while being grim and necro.
8. Don’t have fun at concerts. Stand around with arms crossed.
9. Repeat all above while denouncing organized religion in any form.
10. Never ever, EVER under ANY circumstances…
11. …Listen to Peccatum.
12. When someone asks you if you enjoy the music of Mayhem, point out that you only enjoy the music of “the true” Mayhem. Maniac is gay.
13. Don’t play with fuzzy things, excepting that by “play” you mean “burn”.
14. Don’t be Dani Filth.
15. Never, ever, under any circumstances utter the phrase “Kenny G slams, man.”
16. Don’t be Dani Filth.
17. When your mom tells you to take out the garbage tell her that you’re too metal to remove refuse.
18. Run for it!
19. Sodomize a virgin whore.
20. Sodomize anything that is not male. (Fuzzy things look out!)
21. Make sure your album goes out of print about 3 years after its release… so it becomes ‘cult’.
22. When in doubt, say “True Norwiegian Black Metal!”
23. If that doesn’t work, blast beats can fill any silence.
24. Turn any cross you find upside-down.
25. Nipple twisting is not a blackmetal activity..
26. Write a cult, underground, grim and necro zine. Feature only interviews with bands no one has heard of, even “true” blackmetallers.
27. Never ever, EVER, EVER be open-minded.
28. Never write songs less than 15 minutes long and containing less than 15 adjectives in the title.
29. a) paint face. b) go in woods. c) act like troll.
30. Don’t be Mortiis (or Dani Filth).
31. Don’t wear white shoes after Labor Day.
32. Don’t make jokes only your mom would get.
33. Don’t make jokes.
34. When in doubt, scowl with eyes downturned.
35. Don’t eat Marshmellow Peeps.
36. To producers of black metal albums: remember…no low end! If it doesn’t hurt to listen to, it can’t be “true”.
37. Make sure that no less than half of the musicians on your album are “session” members.
38. When in concert, always growl names of songs so that they are imperceptible. This will ensure that anyone who doesn’t have your “cult” LP won’t get it.
39. Never play live.
40. When getting ready to go to a show, completely forget that the other people there are not going to the show to look at you.
41. Use barbed wire whenever possible. (Note: this assists in being both “necro” and “grim”.)
42. When asked by a non true BMer what BM is, say something like, “BM is the raw essence of pure black evil in man”, in any case, make sure that by the conversations end, the other person still has no idea what black metal is.
43. Drive one of your band members to suicide, and claim he died because of the “mainstream” “infecting” the “scene”.
44. Reform with “old members” and release an album intended to produce commercial success.
45. When it flops say that you meant it to fail cause anything less wouldn’t be “true”.
46. Have a side project. Ensure that all other members of your band also have side projects.
47. Fill out the other slots in your other member’s side projects as “session” musicians.
48. Record everything in the same studio with the same producer/instruments/equipment/etc.
49. Make sure your album cover never consists of more than three colors (color options allowed: grey, black, white).
50. Publicly state that your band is “non-religious”, then use the word “Satan” over 400 times on your one-song thirty-minute album.
51. Never stuff your shoes to make them appear puffy and avoid the wearing of backwards baseball caps if at all possible. Red ones in particular.
52. Insist that music should never progress and that it should still sound the same way it did 9 friggin years ago.
53. Never say “friggin”.
54. Never finish anything you start.
55. The word “Hail” is the only appropriate greeting whenever greeting someone “true”.
56. If feeling especially true on a given occasion, try “Infernal Hails”.
57. All logos must include illegible writing and at least one inverted cross and/or pentagram. This is non-negotiable.
58. When referring to sex with a Metal Chick use only the terminology “sticking my clouded frost-spire into her gates of attrition”.
59. Design complex logo for your grim black metal band on binder paper in the middle of math class.
60. Accept every interview you’re offered… then pretend that you really don’t enjoy being interviewed.
61. Thoroughly enjoy Star Trek: The Next Generation.
62. Wait… scratch that last one. (See rule 1)
63. Never divulge to any outsiders the Exact Day of the Divine Arrival of the Massive Hoof. Instead, inform them that they should be ready to suck the Dark Lord’s greasy @#%$ at any time.
64. Use the phrase “suck the dark lord’s greasy @#%$” whenever possible.
65. If you ever find that you have somehow become a member of Hecate Enthroned, be sure to piece together a music video of scrap footage of yourself walking around in the woods at night looking evil. Only, instead of being night make sure it’s the middle of the @#%$ day, and instead of looking evil, look dorky instead. (See also: rule 1)
666. Own hundreds of black metal albums, demos and bootlegs. Listen to approximately 8 of them regularly.
67. Humping a ceramic Virgin Mary in front of your uncle’s house is not “pimping it” (unless you tell her you’re done then blow in her face like a shotgun when she turns around).
68. Refrain from using keyboard smilies when communicating via the Internet. Single acceptable smiley: -(
69. Why isn’t the word “Northern” in your album title yet!? Get to it! Amateurs…
70. Spelling things correctly is neither grim nor necro.
71. Norsk Arysk Blak Metal! Rahhh!!
72. No matter where you’re from, pretend you’re from Norway and therefore ‘true’.
73. Don’t be Dani Filth. (I think that’s clear)
74. All pets you own now will henceforth be known as “Crucifier”. Any pets you own in the future will also be known as “Crucifier”.
75. True black metaller: “Many of our dark hyms are influenced by the mighty Tolkien… You have not read the works of Tolkien!? Nerd. Wait a minute… It appears I am the nerdy one after all!”
76. @#%$, I’m talking to myself again.
77. Norsk Arysk Blak Metal! Rahhh!!
78. That’s better, on with the interview!
80. Create inverted crosses in all possible instances. Suggested tools: Drum sticks, twigs, pool cues, pencils, etc. (See also “clouded frost spire”)
81. Profess publicly that you are a Satanist and add that you are in touch with Norway’s ancient Pagan past. Pretend that somehow those two facts make sense in conjunction.
82. Stick your dick in the mashed potatoes.
83. Don’t make Beastie Boys references.
84. Don’t make references.
85. Satanus. Huh huh huhuhuhuh.
86. Huhuhuhuhuhuhuh.
87. If possible, design the title of your album so that it consists of three completely unrelated words. Dimmu Borgir are the master of this (i.e. Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, Spiritual Black Dimensions, Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, Godless Savage Garden) but you may also want to refer to Immortal’s “Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism”.
88. As we all know, women have no place in the homoerotic world of black metal, but if your girl friend still won’t stop bugging you about wanting to be involved in your band, give her a lame spoken word part or something.
89. Never form a band containing you, your wife and/or girlfriend, and some gay looking guy. (See also: rule 11)
90. Go to bed when your mom tells you to.
91. If it’s rare, it must be good. Order it immediately.
92. I will not add that as it is not metal enough.
93. Are you metal enough to be reading this?
94. Own every Darkthrone release. Listen to exactly none of them.
95. Own cult-as-@#%$ shirts of bands you not only own no releases of, but also haven’t even heard.
96. Use the phrase “cult-as-@#%$” whenever possible.
97. Attempt to randomly throw the word “@#%$” during random segments of your songs. (Kindly refer to Attilla’s work on De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas.)
98. In order to make your recording more incomprehensible and therefore more “cult”, be sure to either select a singer who has only a tenuous grasp on the language to be sung. (Acceptable languages: Norwegian, Latin, Orcish.)
99. I’ll tell you what your album lay out needs…Some titties.
100. And you know what else? How long since you acted like a troll? Pick up that makeup and fight, soldier!
101. You mean to tell me you read this whole thing when you could’ve have been prancing about in the forest with an axe? For shame! For shaaaaame!!

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Posted in fun

Честит 3ти Март с малко линкове

Ето няколко линка, които заслужават малко внимание:

No more Theater of Tragedy. Жалко. Хубава група бяха.
България търси нещо, ама никой не знае какво. Що годе местен, справедлив и реалистичен коменар за поредната реалити боза, която няма да гледам, но с удоволствие ще следя като статии в нета. Така де – по-малко време да губя с глупости.
Ако някой все още мисли, че световния футбол се управлява правилно, ето тук можете да прочетете какви глупости “бил” обмислял Блатер. Слагам кавичките, щото статията е в любимия журналистически стил “стринката на лилинчо има една позната, та гаждето на брадовчедка й казал…”. Ама като го знам Блатер що за стока е 🙂
Валери Найденов и ода за зубренето. Уви – прав е човека. Освен това стила на статията rulеz.
Хайде вече стига хейт за Джон Тери призовава Мартин Самуел. Също прав. Аз само не разбирам как този остров на добродетелта наречен Албион може да роди такъв архизлодей като Тери.
И една доста сериозна статия за това как във всяка една организация дреме и расте един малък WTF. който послестава един голям WTF. И как всъщност той е там за наше добро. Да бе. Наистина 🙂

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Pee-wee Gets An iPad!

A nice and funny ridicule of Apple’s new toy – iPad. I personally can’t yet comment on it as surely if I had the correct view on such things, I would have been a successful CEO long time ago 🙂 It looks useless, but hell – iPhone looked (and still looks) pretty useless to me too.

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Posted in fun

Something to read and think about

Два готини текста, които да накарат хората дето ги четат да се замислят малко 🙂

Ето тази статия от списание Мениджър. Направо изненадващо като се вземе впредвид, че самото списание си е скучничко.

И ето този текст в блог-а на Тимур, който е едно много яко четиво (и статията и блога).

—————-
Now playing: Savatage – (10) New York City Don’t…
via FoxyTunes

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Work vs. Prison

Very old post from another long forgotten site:

In prison: you spend your time in an 8×10 cell.
At work: you spend your time in an even smaller cubicle.

In prison: you get 3 meals a day.
At work: you get a break for 1 meal and have to pay for it.

In prison: you get time off for good behavior.
At work: you get rewarded for good behavior with more work.

In prison: there are wardens who are often sadistic and psycotic.
At work: we call them owners, bosses, managers, etc.

In prison: you can join many programs which you can leave at any time.
At work: there are many programs you can never get out of.

In prison: all costs are paid by taxpayers, with no effort on your part required.
At work: you get to pay all expenses to get to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners..

In prison: you spend most of your time looking through bars from the inside wanting to get out.
At work: you spend most of your time wanting to get out and inside bars.

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Posted in fun