Your dad says: “Time to take a shower.” You say: “Customer service will be with you in a few minutes. Please hold.” Start humming a song . . . “Take a shower!” “Please hold!” Read more →
April 2004
iet-Vay am-Nay ad-ay auseam-Nay
The candidate [John Kerry] offered his guests peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, a daily staple for him on the road. His passion for PB&Js, Kerry told his companions, dated back to Vietnam, where he not only ate them frequently but traded them for other commodities. — “Kerry Escalating Use of War Veteran Status,” Los Angeles Times Read more →
World War II Memorial Opens
The National World War II Memorial opened today in Washington, D.C. My dad served in World War II. He’d be so proud and excited if he hadn’t been dead for 25 years. Read more →
The Ambition of Others
Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others. — Alexander Hamilton Read more →
She Said, He Said
“Don’t fart when I’m talking!” “Don’t start talking when I’m about to fart!” Read more →
The Comfort of Methodology
Ill-specified systems are as common today as they were when we first began to talk about Requirements Engineering twenty or more years ago. Yet the task of creating complete and perfect specifications is not rocket science. We have adequate and comprehensible theories at our disposal for specification of finite state automata. We have proceeded over the past decades to develop and refine a discipline of applying these theories to real-world systems. In our methodological focus, we may have lost sight of some endemic problems that plague not the process but the people who do the process. Is it possible that an engineering approach to requirements is as badly suited to our real need as would be an engineering approach to raising teenagers? I’m beginning to think so . . . — Tom DeMarco, “Requirements Engineering: Why Aren’t We Better at It?”, 2nd International Conference on Requirements Engineering There are zillions… Read more →
Not as Consoling as It Should Have Been
Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably. Still, somehow this line of thought wasn’t as consoling as it should have been . . . — Albert Camus, The Stranger Read more →
Real Simple
I’m letting my subscription to Real Simple magazine expire. I’ve been taking it for a year and my life didn’t get any simpler. In fact, it got more complicated because I had one more magazine to read . . . Read more →
Explaining
My son, with mock pathos, is explaining to his mom how he managed to mess up a word definition on his homework: I’m a little boy, not a Merriam-Webster dictionary! Read more →
Other People’s Money
The ability to ignore costs is at the heart of the attraction of government for some and of the expansion of government over time. Anything that might conceivably be of some benefit to someone, sometime, is worth doing, if someone else is paying. In our own lives, we pass up all sorts of benefits when we decide that they are just not worth their cost. Maybe we would like to have a new car or add another room onto the house or take a vacation in the Caribbean but it may not be worth what it would cost. So we keep driving the old jalopy, get used to not having a den and take in a few ball games during the summer instead of going on a cruise. Life is full of trade-offs when it is your own money. — Thomas Sowell Read more →
Crafting a Mission Statement by General George S. Patton Jr.
C.K. Prahalad, one of the leading strategic consultants, has said that a mission statement should take less than three minutes to explain to an audience. That is absolute horseshit. Imagine making a declarative statement and then having to take an additional three minutes to explain what you just said. A mission statement should be immediately comprehensible. Three minutes of explanation is three minutes too many. I read a book on George Patton this weekend. Here is his mission statement for the Third Army: I don’t want to get any messages saying that “we are holding our position.” We’re not holding anything! Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we’re not interested in holding on to anything except the enemy. We’re going to hold on to him by the nose and we’re going to kick him in the ass. And most of that I included just for context.… Read more →
Concord Hymn
On this date in 1775, the first shots in the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord . . . By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, are sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heros dare To die and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Read more →
Role Model
My son is reading a biography of John Lennon. Here’s what he got out of it so far: “John Lennon got all Cs in school.” I think his mom is going to take the book away from him . . . Read more →
A 10-Year-Old Sings The Beach Boys
“And she’ll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the TV away!” “It’s T-Bird . . . not TV.” “What’s a T-Bird?” Read more →
Life’s Work
The company intranet has profiles of the Six Sigma team members, including their responses to the following fill-in-the-blank question: If I weren’t in banking, I’d be . . . Here are the answers: Read more →
The European Approach
The new Spanish government will soon meet with Germany and France to craft a ‘European’ approach to terrorism. Topic No. 1: How big should the white flag be? Oak or cedar for the pole? — James Lileks Read more →
A Pat on the Head
We come to work, have lunch, and go home. We goose-step in and goose-step out, change our partners and wander all about, sashay around for a pat on the head, and promenade home till we all drop dead. — Joseph Heller, Something Happened Read more →
Thoughts on Starting a New Job
I feel like work gives my life the illusion of meaning. On the other hand, it really cuts into my day. Dilemma . . . Read more →