The 6 degree Fahrenheit drop in the coast vs inland temperature gradient has resulted in a 33% reduction in coastal fog drip.
This is definitely not good for our Coastal Redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains, given their reliance on high fog density. Such a reduction in fog will result in smaller trees and a reduced growth rate. As a result, the more aggressive tanoak and douglas fir species will proliferate and dominate the limited Redwood forests.
It sounds far off, but this is definitely news worth considering if you are planning a timber harvesting operation. Given that these trees take between 20-50 years to grow back, such logging operations could drastically change the surrounding ecosystem.
I believe that the Redwood forests are one of northern California's most amazing gifts, and I would be extremely sad to see them go.
Reminds me of the importance of a good product manager. So many big software shops develop product today on the "feature level". As a result, developers and "managers" lose sight of the customer's workflow. Understanding the product from entry to exit and seeing how all of the pieces fit together is critical to creating a good product.
@jpluscplusm thanks for the feedback and good questions. Regarding the "what state is the codebase in" question, I can't imagine them telling me its "poor". What questions do you think would help me to gauge the quality of the code base? Obviously there is no formula, but it would be interesting to see what factors impact a codebase's quality. I guess there are static analysis tools to help out though :)
I think you're underestimating the power of an engineer to royally screw things up with excessive and inappropriate honesty! I forget the relevant Dilbert cartoon ... :-)
In any case; if you ask, the worst they can do is lie and say "it's all good." Then use the metadata surrounding their replies to the "most/least proud" questions to figure out if this sounds reasonable. Are they proud of a sizeable chunk of functionality, or just the user avatar widget indexing? Do they seem reticent about either reply? Ask them "why's that?" to each reply. Do they seem to have difficulty choosing their most/least-proud part? Is that because there're too many options, or too few? :-)
Perhaps ask them (before the "codebase state" question) about something you /know/ isn't 100% in the company. People complain about stuff they shouldn't, online: use the googles to your advantage and find out what things might be a good litmus test for their co-workers' honesty.
Hmm interesting. Back in October, I reported a dead sea lion outside my house (I live on the Bay) to the department of Ornithology and Mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences. They came out and removed the animal's carcass, and told me it had died of kidney failure due to a sexually transmitted disease (Bacterial Vaginosis). They explained that half of the Pier 39 sea lions were victims of the STD.
this will definitely be interesting to see how it unfolds. Does anyone know if the SMS messaging infrastructure is still working? Is this just limited to the Web interface? Is api.twitter.com still up?
then radio silence...