A NY Times business editor took an apparently intentional header off the 15th floor of the Times building. Too bad he wasn’t the crossword editor, it would have made a better headline. You’d want to work the phrase “15 Down” into it . . . Read more →
August 2002
Overheard
A brief conversation between Victor, one of our project managers, and our Sales VP as Victor is walking out of the VP’s office: VP: You’re the greatest! VICTOR: I’m trying. VP (louder now, as Victor is halfway down the hall): Thanks, Wayne! Read more →
No Work Today
A former colleague of mine died over the weekend — “former” only in the sense that he’s now deceased; he was in the office as recently as last Friday. Sadly, I suppose, my first thought was: “At least he doesn’t have to come to work today.” Read more →
Talking to Your Kids
ME: I hope when you and Jeremy are over at Jessica’s house, that you include her in your activities, not just ignore her because she’s a girl and do your own stuff. HIM: Dude, she’s a STU-pido! Read more →
At the Ballpark
Woman collapses, dies in Orlando Rays’ minor-league promotion — ESPN.com Nothing like this ever happens when I go to the ballpark. The story doesn’t give the woman’s height and weight — it may have been newsworthy in that 28-year-old women normally don’t keel over and die after a short run. At least one paper elected — somewhat insensitively, I think — to run news of the woman’s death in a baseball roundup column, immediately followed by the mesmerizing news that the Blue Jays activated Carlos Delgado from the 15-day DL. Read more →
“Hiring the Best” Explained
An employer is always somewhat reassured by the ignominiousness of his staff. At all costs the slave should be slightly, even much, to be despised. A mass of chronic blemishes, moral and physical, are a justification of the fate which is overwhelming him. The world gets along better that way, because then each man stands in it in the place he deserves. A being who is useful to you should be low, flat, prone to weakness; that is what’s comforting; especially as Baryton paid us really very badly. In cases of acute avarice like this, employers are always a bit suspicious and uneasy. A failure, a debauchee, a black sheep, a devoted black sheep, all that made sense, justified things, fitted in, in fact. Baryton would have been on the whole rather pleased if I had been slightly wanted by the police. That always makes for real devotion. — Louis-Ferdinand… Read more →
Edsger Dijkstra, 1930-2002
I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself, ‘Dijkstra would not have liked this,’ well, that would be enough immortality for me. — Edsger Dijkstra Dijkstra, a pioneer in computer science and structured programming, has died of cancer at age 72. He was widely known for his note “Go To Statement Considered Harmful” — published in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM — which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. (For an opposing viewpoint, see “Real Programmers Don’t Use Pascal.”) Reportedly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will, by policy, no longer print an article taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. Use of titles of the form “X Considered Y” remains a persistent in-joke. Another in-joke: Dijkstra and… Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Ralph Edwards – game show host Red Schoendienst – baseball player and manager Pete Seeger – folk singer/songwriter Updates Ralph Edwards – died 11/16/2005, age 92 Red Schoendienst – died 6/6/2018, age 95 Pete Seeger – died 1/24/2014, age 94 Read more →
Ironic Twist of the Year Award
Leaving men wholly, totally free To do anything they wish to do but die . . . — Bob Dylan, “Gates of Eden” According to Slate, if NRA president Charlton Heston does in fact develop full-blown Alzheimer’s disease, California state law would compel him to surrender his firearms. Read more →
Introducing a 9-Year-Old to Van Morrison
I can hear her heartbeat for a thousand miles . . . “That’s impossible!” Read more →
Parenting Paradox
How do you love someone so much knowing that you’re going to lose them — that in fact you are losing them a little bit every day? Read more →