Friday Four

Friday, July 10, 2015

1. Amesh Adalja notes the 130th anniversary of Louis Pasteur's rabies vaccination of Joseph Meister:

Why I elevate Pasteur to that level has to do with the fact that not only did he discover the rabies vaccine but his contributions to the germ theory of disease (I'm not even counting his contributions to stereochemistry) gave the entire field a green light to hypothesize, innovate, and advance. Such an achievement's ramifications are incalculable.
I join Dr. Adalja in thanking this great man for doing so much to make modern civilization possible.


2. Don't ask me why I haven't yet recommended Founder's Porter: I have no good answer. The beer is aptly described by the label as, "dark, rich & sexy:"
Pours silky black with a creamy tan head. The nose is sweet with strong chocolate and caramel malt presence. No absence of hops gives Founders' robust porter the full flavor you deserve and expect. Cozy like velvet. It's a lover, not a fighter.
I've enjoyed this for years, even using it as a winter go-to beer.

3. It's always good to hear about companies not only rebounding from stupid policies, but coming up with good ones from dialogues between management and the rank-and-file:
[B]ased in part on ideas crowdsourced from employees, Morris and her team scrapped annual evaluations and replaced them with a system called Check In. At the start of each fiscal year, employees and managers set specific goals. Then, at least every eight weeks but usually much more often, people "check in" with their bosses for a real-time discussion of how things are going. At an annual "rewards check-in," managers give out raises and bonuses according to how well each employee has met or exceeded his or her targets. "Managers are empowered to make those decisions," says Morris. "There is no 'matrix.' HR isn't involved."
Adobe had been sapping its own employees' morale with a "yank and rank" evaluation system before.

4. Stunned as I am that anyone could not know when to use "a" vs. "an", I provide a link to the rule for the edification of any passer-by.

-- CAV

2 comments:

Amlan said...

Thanks for #4 Gus. I did not know how to use "a' and "an" properly - I have always used the letter not the sound as the guide.

Gus Van Horn said...

Amlan,

You're welcome. That seems to be the most common error. There are some words, like "history" that can be alternately pronounced with or without the h-sound. In American English, the former is preferred, but some people use the latter, often as an affectation. (This was a fad a few years ago, and seemed to coincide with an explosion of a/an errors all over the [place.)

Gus