“Schedulers are judicious about schedules, Probers perceptive of options. Schedulers tend to believe that one’s work comes before all else. Probers are much more insistent that the work be enjoyable and to the purpose. By committing themselves to a set agenda, Schedulers tend to stop looking for alternatives and options and so may never know what they’re missing. By keeping their options open Probers are reluctant to commit themselves to schedules and so are inclined to miss deadlines and leave tasks unfinished.

Schedulers tend to be neat and orderly. They like their desk at work to be tidy, and their house picked up. Not that they always manage all of these chores, but they are unhappy when their personal space is a mess, and straightening things up is often near the top of their list. Probers, in contrast, have a much greater tolerance for disorder in their physical environment. They seem absorbed in whatever they’re doing or thinking about at the moment, and are somewhat oblivious to the details of housekeeping.

The two styles are complementary in turning in a job well done: Probers to spot opportunities and lay out alternatives, and Schedulers to be timely and press for closure.

“Locus of control theory distinguishes between two types of people - internals, who attribute events to their own control, and externals, who attribute events in their life to external circumstances.

“Those with low N-Ach may choose very easy tasks, in order to minimise risk of failure, or highly difficult tasks, such that a failure would not be embarrassing. Those with high N-Ach tend to choose moderately difficult tasks, feeling that they are challenging, but within reach.

“The English word girl (first documented in 1290) originally designated a child of either gender. A female child was called a gay girl, while a male child was called a knave girl.

“Legacy code is simply code without tests.

“What I learned from trying to study philosophy is that the place to look is in other fields.

“When I’m looking for a sport with more integrity I’ll grab the remote and surf for some pro wrestling.

“Most people don’t actually have a 20% project. Most managers won’t remind you to start one.

“You almost never see a new technology that reaches 10 or 20 million users and is still growing fast, that then falls over and dies.

We’ll see three months of experimentation and development of new apps on Facebook, including many false starts and many duds, but also a whole series of innovative new apps that we haven’t even thought of yet. Come September, with the resumption of the school year and a whole crop of new freshpeople, Facebook traffic will once again go vertical, as will adoption of the best of the new apps. You heard it here first.