Author: mike

Sonnet has finally started shipping the Echo 15+ Thunderbolt 2 Dock, which if first announced more than two years ago. In part, the delay was due to the announcement of Thunderbolt 2 shortly after Sonnet began accepting pre-orders, pushing the breakout box into 2014. From there, production issues have keep the unit off shelves until now, and the now-shipping dock offers four USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, a FireWire 800 port, two 6Gb/s eSATA ports, and more….

via MacNN | The Macintosh News Network
Sonnet ships 16-port TB2 docking station for Mac, Windows

Earlier this month, on November 5, two dams retaining tons of iron-mining waste near the Brazilian town of Bento Rodrigues burst, releasing a massive flood of thick, red toxic mud that flattened buildings and trees, smothered the small town, and left at least six dead. The wave of toxic sludge—tested and found to contain high levels of mercury and arsenic, according to a BBC report—then moved downstream, into the Rio Doce (Doce River), and spent two weeks making its way several hundred miles downstream, finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean. According to Reuters: “Scientists say the sediment, which may contain chemicals used by the mine to reduce iron ore impurities, could alter the course of streams as they harden, reduce oxygen levels in the water and diminish the fertility of riverbanks and farmland where floodwater passed.”

via The Atlantic Photo
Red Sludge From Brazilian Dam Collapse Reaches the Atlantic (21 photos)

Hey, did you hear there’s a new Star Wars movie coming out? In case you’re unclear on the details, Google’s new Search Easter Egg will help remind you.

If you search for ‘a long time ago in a galaxy far far away’, Google will display the up-to-date, clickable search results in opening crawl style. And yes, there is music.

http://ift.tt/1YqHIVT…

via Gizmodo
Google’s Got a Fantastic New Star Wars Easter Egg 

A strong leader knows that different team members often require different communication tactics, and the “DiSC” behavior assessment system might help you speak everyone’s language and get through to them.

The DiSC behavior assessment is based on the theories of psychologist William Moulton Marston, and it centers on four major behavioral traits that everyone has on some level in the workplace: dominance, influence, compliance, and steadiness. The graphic below from Eastern Nazarene College’s business management masters program explains how to determine what behavioral traits your team members have, how they prefer to work and communicate, and most importantly, how to provide feedback to each type of person. For example, if you’re dealing with someone that has a lot of dominance (they’re competitive, decisive, and independent), direct compliments are a great way to praise them and criticism needs to be very specific. Check it out below to learn more.

http://ift.tt/1Hj6O4O…

Using DiSC Assessments to Become a Better Leader | Eastern Nazarene College

via Lifehacker
Learn How to Lead Different Types of Individuals With the “DiSC” System 

The crew of the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower showed that they’re just as excited as us for Star Wars: The Force Awakens with this parody of the movie’s teaser. Can you still call it a sweded trailer if it has actual fighter planes in it?
via The Awesomer
Sea Wars: The Ike Awakens

We’ve seen Darth Vader as an evil Imperial enforcer and we have also seen him redeemed as a force ghost. As far as I’m concerned the prequels didn’t happen, so we DID NOT see him as a…
via MightyMega
Darth Vader in Everyday Life

To celebrate the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Google has put together a set of skins for its apps which let you demonstrate your allegiance to either the light or dark side.

The tweaks to Google apps include new Gmail backgrounds, a YouTube progress that looks like a light saver, a Maps positions marker that resembles a TIE fighter or X-Wing, and a bunch more subtle tweaks in Chrome, Translate, Chromecast and the like. We prefer the dark side, though we’re not sure what it says about us.

Guaranteed fun, for at least a few minutes. In fact, it’s kind of reminiscent of the custom options you used to get on Windows, where your swapped alert sounds for train whistles and that kind of thing.

Anyway, you can go choose your side now.

[Google]

via Gizmodo
Google Lets You Re-Skin Its Apps Using Light or Dark Side Star Wars Themes

MySQL Server 5.7 was released around a month ago, and download numbers show huge interest in upgrading from older MySQL releases. As with any product that is frequently used as core infrastructure in complex systems with numerous interdependencies, major version upgrades of MySQL should be approached with some care. In this post, I will cover […]
via Planet MySQL
Upgrading to MySQL 5.7 Using the MySQL Repos for Linux