I know this isn’t job-related, but…

Yes you can. If you got the 13 inch Macbook Air, AND you fully souped it up (i.e., opted for the 2.13 GHZ with 4GB of RAM) then the answer is yes. Civilization V plays. It’s jittery, and the graphics aren’t that great. But Civ 5 IS playable when you’re on the go. So there you go.

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So after all the hemming (himming?) and hawing, I guess we’re getting a stimulus package. The whole idea behind this thing is to create jobs… stem the flow of job losses… prevent a new great depression… give everyone a pony… take your pick.

Is there useful news here for job seekers? Are there specific jobs/industries that might be hiring now that govt. money is flowing?

I don’t think you can think of the stimulus package as a chart to guide you on your job search. The whole idea is to get growth going and to have various projects create knock-on job creation from various related industries.

But here are a few specifics I’ve been able to glean from some careful reading of the intertubes (sources here, here, here, here and here).

• Generally, we’re all supposed to get benefits in the form of tax cuts and extensions to things like unemployment benefits and COBRA.
• Hopefully the flood of state and municipal worker layoffs well recede a bit as money is flowing to the state and local level to shore up their faltering balance sheets. This is good news for teachers, nurses, firemen, etc. etc. on down the line, assuming this gets to the right places.
• The package overall seems to be excellent news for tech folk. You hear about computerizing medical records. Creating a smart utility grid. Expanding and adding muscle to our broadband grid. Might this mean hiring more network technicians, programmers, installers and the like? Sounds like it.
• Overall, there might be more jobs in the horror scene that is the construction sector. Yes, I guess we’ll get some of those roads, bridges and other “shovel ready” projects we’ve heard so much about. But there’s also money for things like rebuilding, updating and modernizing schools. So… work for architects and engineers too, right?
• The various aspects of the alternative energy industry seem to be getting a boost. It might behoove you to do some research on “green tech” companies. They might be hiring. The package allots $50 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.
• Heck, all this talk about modernizing the energy efficiency of government buildings and weatherizing homes. I don’t know the exact industry, but there has to be installers for that sort of thing, right? Might be a growth field for the next year or two.

Finally, this quote caught my eye. What to know the future, young man? Forget plastics. Think asphalt.

The Federal Highway Administration has estimated that every $1 billion the federal government spends on infrastructure projects translates to 35,000 jobs. Collins put the total infrastructure spending — including highways, mass transit, environmental cleanups and broadband facilities — at $150 billion. Do the math and that translates into more than 5 million jobs, based on the highway administration’s assumptions.

But there was also this quote:

But even with the stimulus, many economists predict a net loss of 2 million, 3 million or even more jobs this year. The recession already had cost 3.6 million through January. The unemployment rate, now at 7.6 percent, highest in more than 16 years, will probably hit at least 9 percent by next year.

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Last year, we had a post about surviving the year-end holiday office party without embarrassing yourself too much or putting your career in jeopardy.

Ah… the good old days!

Now I guess you’re just lucky if you’ve survived to witness the year end party with your job intact!

And that leaves aside the fact that a lot of places are cancelling the holiday office party to save money!

It’s been a crazy year.

But if you are lucky enough to have an office party, by golly this is the year to attend and make the most of it. By that I don’t mean double down on your alcohol intake. I mean, take advantage of what the holiday party really is: one of the best networking opportunities of the year!

When I write posts about networking, often times people will say, “Networking sounds useful, but how do I do it?”

Well, as I’ve said before, networking is simply about getting out there and mixing with folks. And what better opportunity will you have than the office party?

You can trade gossip about whose job is save and whose is not. You can exchange leads and ideas and get some idea of how other people are planning to survive.

But most importantly, you can get the skinny on getting a new job. Find out where your co-workers are jumping ship to. Find out what opportunities might be out there for you. What better place to get job search tips, personal referrals or just some advice than a room full of dozens of professionals in your industry?

If you’re work is having a year-end party, take full advantage to it. If you don’t have access to an office party, see if you can go with someone who does. Attend your spouse’s work party or go as someone’s date.

Bottom line: walk, don’t run, to the nearest office party and this year, try networking instead of flirting. You won’t have a better venue this calendar year.

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In the pantheon of at-work-timewasters, computer solitaire has to stand alone in the first rank.

Sure, there’s also Minesweep and now online soduku and Facebook Scrabble, but surely more work hours have been wasted playing that stupid included solitaire program on your Windows PC than anything else.

Except maybe online porn. But you have to really be brave to surf that stuff at work.

It’s funny how even computer solitaire is a reflection of the last 20 years of the real world computer industry, complete with Microsoft monopolistic chicanery. Check out this comprehensive history of computer solitaire by Slate: Why We Can’t Stop Playing Computer Solitaire.

Solitaire helped acquaint users with Windows, and it introduced the world to Microsoft’s special brand of business ethics. Paul Alfille says that FreeCell’s inclusion in Windows 95, and every subsequent version of the OS, was “nothing I did and nothing I condoned.” Now an avid Linux user, Alfille says he sold the rights to his version of the game to the University of Illinois, but Microsoft never paid the university a dime in royalties.

Just as Microsoft froze out Netscape, making Internet Explorer the world’s dominant Web browser, the three versions of solitaire that are now preinstalled on every Windows PC—Spider Solitaire, Klondike Solitaire, and FreeCell—have ascended to the pinnacle of the world’s computer-game hierarchy. (…) According to Microsoft developer-blogger Raymond Chen, the company’s usability research crew discovered that the three most-played computer games (solitaire or something else, Microsoft or otherwise, preloaded or user-installed) are, in order … Spider Solitaire, Klondike Solitaire, and FreeCell.

(…)

The game has also maintained a strong foothold in the modern-day cubicle. Despite the easy availability of other cheap amusements, five minutes of dragging cards around on the screen remains a speedy route to mental health and a mild form of workplace disobedience. (Just don’t do it when Mayor Bloomberg is around.) Since solitaire doesn’t take up the whole screen, it’s easy to click over and play a hand or two when you get tired of data entry, then quickly toggle back over to your database program when your manager happens to walk by. This sort of multitasking, the ability to minimize and hide applications, is the most essential feature of the Windows OS. And solitaire taught us how to use it.

The ability to screw around while staring at one’s computer—a posture once exclusively associated with doing work—added new friction to the boss-employee dynamic. While people screwed around at work before computers—what did they do exactly, those poor souls?—the advent of PC-based leisure pursuits launched a national conversation about how much screwing around is too much. By the early 1990s, companies like Coca-Cola, Sears, and Boeing either removed Windows’ preinstalled games or enacted bans on engaging with them. In 1993, a travel agency executive educated Business Week on the prevailing wisdom: “If you let people play games on [office computers], you may as well let them insert a TV-reception board so they can watch The Beverly Hillbillies.” (For his sake, I hope this guy retired before they invented YouTube.)

Despite all of these upper-management freakouts—and despite regular, bogus productivity studies that estimated solitaire and its ilk draining $800 trillion dollars a year from the economy—you could make the case that the card game has actually been good for business. Before e-mail and the Web, solitaire introduced the idea of being chained to your desk. Consider that the rise of FreeCell coincided with the erosion of coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, and lunch breaks. Why leave the office when you can just eat at your desk and entertain yourself?

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I’m more of an Onion man myself, but if you get your at-work laughs from Dilbert, you might like to hear that the Dilbert.com website has gotten a bit of an upgrade.

h/t WebWare.

There are animated versions of Dilbert strips available, as well as an extensive expansion of the Dilbert archives that will eventually include every strip in history.

But the most interesting new feature is the ability to do mashups:

There are three ways this works. The first, known as “punch line,” will allow readers to write their own ending to an original Dilbert comic, adding new words to the drawing for the last frame of the strip. This is a lot like the New Yorker magazine’s cartoon caption contest, except in the case of Dilbert.com, it’s not a contest but rather a way for readers to share their wit with the Internet.

A second feature coming in May will allow readers to add their own words to an entire strip. So, they’ll be presented with a fully drawn Dilbert comic, but will be tasked with writing the dialogue.

And also coming in May, I’m told, will be a feature which will allow fans to write the dialogue for a single panel of a Dilbert strip and then share it with others, who will then write for the remaining panels. Adams himself is expected to randomly write dialogue for strips.

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There’s no doubt that the 1980s was the golden age of cable access shows. In this age of video cameras that fit in your pocket and You Tube stardom, it’s hard to imagine now the sheer innocence and experimentation that people felt when suddenly they could be on the TV too!

Best Week Ever has a great list of the 10 Best Cable Access Moments of the 1980s complete with the YouTube clips.

Enjoy while you lunch today.

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Just cause I still stand behind the notion that most of the jokes suck (did you see what Google did to Gmail today? ANNOYING!) I will give one good one.

Good joke.

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March Madness starts next week, and the days of cursing your job silently all day because you’re missing all the action… they’re over.

You can watch every single game, online… for free… over at CBS Sports. You do have to register, but still. Free, people!

It seems like just yesterday that they were beginning to experiment with this sort of thing. You mean to say, if we deliver a television experience over the web at a time most people don’t have access to television, people will watch? And we can make money off it?

Apparently so…

From CBS earnings: “this year’s March Madness streaming will reap $21 million in ad revenue — up from $4 million last year, and $250k in revenue in 2005, the first year of streaming the event.”

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If you’ve been a longtime reader of this blog, then you know we love nothing more than to find new ways to watch tv at work in your web browser.

Today the news is that CBS has done a classic TV dump and you can now watch vintage episodes of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone easily and free online.

Our favorite TV on the web site is still Hulu.

Pop quiz: after all this time dragging their feet, why are the tv networks suddenly rushing to put their shows on the web instead of going the route of the record companies and making their own customers into enemies?

Part of the reason for the rush to online video may be that advertising in online shows works better than on broadcast TV. Research from a media consultancy firm shows that web video viewers are 47 percent more engaged by advertising than traditional TV views. That may be due to the fact that it’s nearly impossible to avoid commercials embedded in online episodes, but whatever the reason, the finding demonstrates that streamed programming could become a cash cow for the networks.

Can’t beat simple economics.

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No good reason for posting this.

It’s just cool.

Click through here to see a cool interactive flash-based description of the new five-dollar bill and it’s features.

Wish I could make neato flash graphics like that.

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