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Innovation

Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Friday 29/06/2001To celebrate the British summer, the ZDNet tech and edit teams decide to hold an impromptu lunchtime picnic. In recognition of this, the weather decides to hold an impromptu lunchtime shower.
Written by Rupert Goodwins, Contributor
Friday
29/06/2001 To celebrate the British summer, the ZDNet tech and edit teams decide to hold an impromptu lunchtime picnic. In recognition of this, the weather decides to hold an impromptu lunchtime shower. We dine indoors. Yet, while we are a happy band of brothers and sisters, there remains a huge cultural divide -- as evidenced by the seating arrangements in the area where we gather. There are sofas there, and metal café-style chairs. To a man (and they are all men), the tech group plonks botty on soft sofa. To a person, Editorial perch on the gleaming chrome of the café chairs. Why is this? What deep business truth lies within? If I were an American business guru, I could probably write a book about it called "How Soft Is Your Seat" and clean up. But I'm not, I'm a cynical English hack with a sense of humour that lies in the gutter and giggles. My conclusion is that the techs are far too addicted to computers and spend so long at their terminals that they've all got a really bad case of Farmer Giles. I did try asking them about this, but was told to go and recompile my kernel. Honestly, we're never going to achieve true integrated bliss if they go on like this. Perhaps I'll buy them some Anusol. (PS -- Friend Adrian has just got a new cat from Battersea Dogs' Home. It's a little nervous, and hasn't come out of hiding yet. Keen to see his new moggy, Adrian has installed a motion-sensitive webcam to watch for its appearance by the food dish, but to date no sighting has been logged. You can join in the excitement, suspense and general silliness at http://www.slack.demon.co.uk/cam/ )
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