I've heard people say that you can learn a lot about a person based on the books that they own. For example, some people own a lot of the most current and popular books, but don't necessarily read them. They just want to look current and hip. I've heard a knowledgeable person in the publishing field guestimate that 50% of the people who bought Steven Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" didn't even crack the cover of the book.
Similar to this, I have a theory that you can learn a lot about a person based on what IE browser windows are sitting idly open on their desktop. I wonder if you've ever come upon your spouse, kid, or co-workers desk when they weren't around and seen a collection of IE pages up that showed you a side of that person that you never knew about.
I had one friend who, even as an adult, was really into Pokemon and Neopets. I was really surprised to find this out one afternoon as I came by her desk to ask her opinion on some work we were doing on a project at the time. I can bet that many of you have even better stories. Care to share? Send them to me at [email protected]!
And just in case you're interested, here's what's up on my desktop:
- www.howstuffworks.com. I had heard that Roombas, the home vacuuming robot, have an open API - and, yes, THEY DO!
- http://www.tpc.org/reports/status/BS-2006-06.asp, the new benchmarking status report from the Transaction Processing Counsel.
- http://www.technologyreview.com/microsites/spain/water/docs/Spain_desalination.pdf, a report on the state of the art in water desalination. Spain is the most advance Western nation in terms of water desalination. I figure with the advance of global warming and all this weird weather we're having, the USA will have to investigate this technology too.
- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=79F151C7-4D98-4C2B-BF72-EC2B4AE69191&displaylang=en, the newest info on the SQL Server 2005 MOM management pack.
Cheers,
-Kev