Archive for December, 2006

Most people are already back at work. I’m not. Well, I’m not supposed to be[1]. But the reality of my present situation wasn’t my point nor what I felt guilty about. It’s that at Red Hat, we shut down for an entire week between Christmas and New Years every year. And unless you man phone support or have a similar job that can’t be put on hold for a week, you are definitely off (you have to get managerial authorization to work over this shut down period)[2]. So, I normally would feel guilty that other people are going back to work now after just a day off, but this year I’m there with ya so I don’t feel so bad this time.

1. New hardware arrived Tues. of last week, and by the time I got back from picking it up, it was already time to start packing for my early morning Wed plane flight (our alarm was set for 4am in order to arrive at the airport with enough time). So, between me missing 3 days last week, and this hardware needing to be set up, I am working this week. Not to mention that there has been a long standing RHEL5 beta bug that was waiting on this hardware to arrive so I could take care of it. But, once the hardware is installed and that one RHEL5 beta bug is squashed, I’ll enjoy the remainder of my time off.

2. At Red Hat, we take a break and shut almost the entire company down from Christmas to New Year every year. This isn’t done in the name of holiday spirit though. It is a liability clearing move that we do each year at Red Hat. You see, we get lots of vacation time as part of our benefits. But, the typical employee here never seems to take it and get it cleared off the books. All of that accrued vacation time has to be shown as a liability on our books according to federal regulations. So, since the company doesn’t want that liability on the books to grow too large, and because we are bad at taking vacation, the company shuts down each year and makes all the employees use 4 of their vacation days. Your allowed to go negative in case you *have* used your vacation time, but for most people that’s not an issue. Anyway, their motives for the shut down are purely financial and making the books look good, but regardless of their motives the problem wouldn’t exist in the first place if they weren’t generous with their vacation time for employees and if we didn’t fail to use it, so I don’t mind it so bad.

There were a record 31 pandas born in captivity this year, triple the number in 2000. How did they do it, given that pandas are notoriously poor breeders in captivity? From the magazine, my comments in []:

Mei Lan was a product of artificial insemination. But conservationists are using other methods to encourage natural breeding. Unpopular females have been scented with the urine of popular rivals, so that a male thinks he’s mating with a more attractive female [what, sight wouldn't be a clue...I mean, she's UGLY]. Zhang has shown them videos of pandas breeding in the wild – basically, panda porn [Oh no, if you believe our society about the harm of porn, then next on the list of actions by these pandas will be holding up a sex toy shop]. He even gave one male Viagra–which didn’t work so well. “We’ll never do that again”, he said. “The panda was excited for 24 hours.” [OMG - ROFL]