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During the late 1970s, [Professor Thomas J.] Allen undertook a project to determine how the distance between engineers’ offices affects the frequency of technical communication between them. The result of that research, produced what is now known as the Allen Curve, revealed that there is a strong negative correlation between physical distance and the frequency of communication between work stations. The finding also revealed the critical distance of 50 meters for weekly technical communication. With the fast advancement of internet and sharp drop of telecommunication cost, some wonder the observation of Allen Curve in today’s corporate environment. In his recently co-authored book, Allen examined this question and the same still holds true. He says[2] “For example, rather than finding that the probability of telephone communication increases with distance, as face-to-face probability decays, our data show a decay in the use of all communication media with distance (following a “near-field” rise).” [p. 58]
Apparently a few years back in Google, some staff mined the promotion data, and were able to show a Allen-like curve that proved a strong correlation between distance from Jeff Dean’s desk, and time to getting promoted.(tags: jeff-dean google history allen-curve work communication distance offices workplace teleworking remote-work)
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Arq backup for OSX now supports B2 (as well as S3) as a storage backend. “it’s a super-cheap option ($.005/GB per month) for storing your backups.” (that is less than half the price of $0.0125/GB for S3’s Infrequent Access class)
After Charlottesville, I Asked My Dad About Selma
Dad told me that he didn’t think I was going to have to go through what he went through, but now he can see that he was wrong. “This fight is a never-ending fight,” he said. “There’s no end to it. I think after the ‘60s, the whole black revolution, Martin Luther King, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael and all the rest of the people, after that happened, people went to sleep,” he said. “They thought, ‘this is over.’”
(tags: selma charlottesville racism nazis america race history civil-rights 1960s)