I'm not sure I would go that far. Some considered Slotin's methods dangerous: 'Enrico Fermi himself had warned Slotin that he would be “dead within a year” if he continued'.
It's easy to understand. Open plan offices have the advantage of being cheaper, and the disadvantage of harming productivity. The cost savings are immediately apparent and easily attributed. Productivity hits (or gains) come later, are harder to assign a utility to, and are harder to attribute.
Maybe it applies to people slapping together node.js libraries, but otherwise developers need a working environment in which they can focus.
Creativity is not only about innovating at the bleeding edge, but also coming up with effective solutions, optimisation, designing software, organising code, etc. A lot of software development is creative work.
Besides, not being able to focus will also lead to increased stress levels, overlooking bugs and decreased productivity.
I agree it isn't the cost. It's mostly that you can see what everybody is doing. If you don't have management or processes you trust, and a lot of new employees, you worry that you will have some kind of bad behavior. Also that its easy to move people around, which you do a lot when you are growing.
I work at a startup with open offices (my second) and the absenteeism blows me away. I really believe it is because the office is an unpleasant place to work. But hey, we have ping pong tables!
I think these kinds of decisions, including recognized reduction of productivity, has to do with how desks and offices are taxed and depreciated, what has to be written into accounts, and the fact that death marches are free.
I dunno, if you have been gestating a foal, you might be a little undernourished at the end of the process, so a placenta's worth of nutrients might then be "vital."
"Third, a city-level analysis such as ours does not suffer from a common problem with individual-level studies, namely that individuals exposed to lead typically come from poor neighborhoods with both low-quality housing and high crime rates. Common confounders of the lead-crime relationship in individual-level studies pose less of a problem in our city-level study, where in most cases the entire city population was exposed to lead through water."
You might want to pick up the Chilton's or Haynes manual for your vehicle and start from there. Most of these manuals will have a section describing how you perform basic maintenance on the vehicle.
What they don't teach you is the "tricks". Looking for an air leak using a spray bottle, putting anti-seize on engine bolts as you are reassembling engine parts (like an alternator attachment bolt!) or just how important correct torque and new fasteners are.
And that doesn't even begin to touch the true magic in having a large collection of chemicals. Know when to use DC-4, WD-40, 33MS, brake cleaner, contact cleaner, and of course, GOJO.
I got into auto repair when I was swindled by an incompetent/unscrupulous mechanic in Austin in the 90s. Haynes/Chilton were quite reasonable starting points to learn the basics. I also spent a lot of time on automotive newsgroups and forums, which is how I absorbed the tribal knowledge such as the anti-seize tip above. E.g. if you own a Honda, you can get excellent help troubleshooting its quirks on honda-tech.com. It is where I learnt how to troubleshoot a failing input-shaft bearing on a transmission and how to find a very cheap interchangeable replacement that got me going again.
It has been a fun journey and it is very nice to see through the utter nonsense most auto repair places spew. I would repeat that a community college course and/or Haynes is a good starting point and then it is off to the forum that caters to your car :).
> I would repeat that a community college course and/or Haynes is a good starting point and then it is off to the forum that caters to your car :).
To me, this is one of the most fascinating aspects of the internet. No matter your make or model, there is a dedicated forum for your car. And it's got plenty of active accounts.
I think that's a neat idea, but I personally would be nervous about smearing grease all over my tablet, or spilling fluids on it, or dropping it -- something that happens to almost every other tool at one point or another.
As a reference away from the garage, it would be cool, but I would still want something I would feel safe having by my side as I work on the car.
That's the lovely thing about this piece. Often times when I read these thinkpieces, I know a bit about the author and his or her biases, and have to exercise some discipline to not let that color my opinion of the article too much.
I've never heard of Sonny Bunch, so in this case it is pretty easy.
