I’m reading the ads on the back page of the current OC Weekly: DO YOU USE CRYSTAL METH? Alcohol Related Problems? We Can Help You! ERASE YOUR CRIMINAL RECORD I’ve never been a big fan of OC Weekly and now I understand why. It’s written for a target audience of criminals, alcoholics and meth addicts. Good news though if you are in fact a meth addict: according to the ad, a professor at UCLA is doing a research study and handing out up to $1,075 in gift certificates to qualified participants. Note that you don’t get the money in cash because you’d probably just go out and spend it on crystal meth . . . Read more →
March 2007
Nothing Can Save You
Reserve your judgments and words And you maintain your influence; Speak your mind and take positions And nothing can save you. — Tao Te Ching; 52. Clarity Read more →
Ritual
Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted; Closely held beliefs are not easily released; So ritual enthralls generation after generation. Harmony does not care for harmony, and so is naturally attained; But ritual is intent upon harmony, and so can not attain it. Harmony neither acts nor reasons; Love acts, but without reason; Justice acts to serve reason; But ritual acts to enforce reason. When the Way is lost, there remains harmony; When harmony is lost, there remains love; When love is lost, there remains justice; But when justice is lost, there remains ritual. Ritual is the end of compassion and honesty, The beginning of confusion; Belief is a colorful hope or fear, The beginning of folly. The sage goes by harmony, not by hope; He dwells in the fruit, not the flower; He accepts substance, and ignores abstraction. — Tao Te Ching; 38. Ritual Read more →
Hitting a Moving Target
IT has got to be the world’s most unprofessional profession . . . I’m sitting through a dry run of a presentation for our CEO, explaining why the company’s flagship IT project has taken so long and cost so much, with no end in sight. It seems that, compared with two years ago when the project started, headcount is up 60 percent, sales volume has more than doubled, the product mix has changed significantly, as a result of of which, requirements and assumptions have had to be constantly changed. Of course! Two years ago, who could have anticipated that the business might look a lot different two years down the road? If you said “Uh, pretty much anybody,” you’re right. Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Drowning in Sewage
Further deadly sewage floods are feared after a wave of stinking waste and mud from a collapsed septic pool inundated a Gaza village, killing five people, including two babies. . . . It highlighted the desperate need to upgrade Gaza’s overloaded, outdated infrastructure — but aid officials say construction of a modern sewage treatment plant has been held up by constant Israeli-Palestinian fighting. — Associated Press In related news, the Jerusalem Post reports that Israel recently stopped selling metal pipes to the Palestinians after discovering that the pipes were being used to build rockets that were then launched back into Israel. Bombed with their own metal — ironic! The punch line is what the Palestinians were supposed to be using the pipes for: building a sewage system in Gaza. Read more →
Always Thank Your Dad
My boy is researching a paper on Darwin’s theory of evolution. “How’s the research going?” I ask. “I discovered an error and had to start over,” he says. “You discovered an error in your paper or you discovered an error in Darwin’s theory?” “Well, Internet Explorer discovered an error and had to close.” “Because if you discovered an error in Darwin’s theory, there’s probably a Nobel Prize in it for you. Be sure to mention me in your acceptance speech.” “Shut up.” “[Imitating his voice] ‘I’d like to thank my dad, who always encouraged me to do my best.’” “Shut up.” Read more →
Predicting the Unpredictable
A long range weather forecast should be obtained before leaving, as weather conditions are extremely unpredictable. — Natal Daily News I pulled that quote from a Ron Jeffries sig file. It’s a great Zen-like nugget that sums up the typical approach to software development, i.e., it’s an unpredictable business, so we’ll do lots of upfront planning . . . ignoring the fact that the inherent unpredictability makes dependable upfront planning impossible. Read more →
How Ancient Rituals Die Out
My son had an Irvine honor band concert last night. Along with the junior high group that he’s in, there were groups from the elementary and high schools. I was looking through the program to see if any of his junior high friends had brothers or sisters in the other groups. That turned out to be an impossible mission. To explain why, I’m going to plop my finger down at a random spot in the program and read off a list of the kids’ last names. OK, here we go — Kim, Lin, Chang, Kim, Chang, Kim, Yang, Choi, Chiang, Chen, Tang, Huang, Lee, Tran, Lin, Lee, Yang, Lin, Yi, Oh, Krolewski (Krolewski! “He’s a white boy,” my son explains.) Kim, Song, Chen, Yang, Lin, Kim, Thomas, Tran, Chung, Chan, Lee . . . When I was in school, it was a first-day ritual for the teachers to read through… Read more →
The Daily Puppy / Jiggs the Bulldog
The Halo Effect
The halo effect is a cognitive bias whereby people tend to make specific inferences on the basis of a general impression. It was first identified by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920. I read an interesting article this weekend by Phil Rosenzweig, the author of The Halo Effect: … and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers, on the halo effect in the business world: Imagine a company that is doing well, with rising sales, high profits, and a sharply increasing stock price. The tendency is to infer that the company has a sound strategy, a visionary leader, motivated employees, an excellent customer orientation, a vibrant culture, and so on. But when that same company suffers a decline–if sales fall and profits shrink–many people are quick to conclude that the company’s strategy went wrong, its people became complacent, it neglected its customers, its culture became stodgy, and more. In fact,… Read more →
Charlie Hustle
For years, Pete Rose denied betting on baseball while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Now he admits to betting on his team every time they took the field. — FOXSports.com Good for him! Managers and players should be required to bet on their own teams. You’d see those assholes running out ground balls for a change, I assure you. Read more →
Everyone Who Disagrees With Me Should Die
Some famous scientist — I wish I could remember who — said that new theories supplant old theories not on merit, but only when everyone who believed in the old theory has died. Hence — don’t expect people to embrace your new idea. People hate new ideas. The good news is — eventually a new idea becomes an old idea. Once people start to say, “Oh, that idea’s been around for a while,” or die, whichever comes first, they become more receptive to it. Read more →
Something I Learned Today
When you’re meeting with the people responsible for a company’s software development process being the way it is, any suggestion that it could be improved is going to be a tough sell. Prepare to hear something like this: “We didn’t get where we are today by doing things wrong.” Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Thought for the Day
You didn’t come into this life just to sit around on a dugout bench, did ya? Now get your ass out there and do the best you can. — Morris Buttermaker Read more →
Not a Moment Too Soon
Eddie Van Halen says he’ll enter rehab — Associated Press This is sad news, and Eddie’s sweet, elderly grandma (pictured at right) says she wishes him the best. Wait a moment . . . I’m being told that the person in the picture is not Eddie Van Halen’s elderly grandma, but is in fact — Eddie Van Halen! Sweet Jesus! This is certainly another blow to the theory that being rich and famous will solve all of your problems! Read more →
It Works!
Xkcd will sell you a T-shirt with this slogan on it. My son loves it. He thinks his 8th grade science teacher should get one. “That’s a great idea,” I say, “if he wants to get fired.” “He could just cross out BIZNATCHES and write KIDS instead,” he suggests. Read more →
Another Reason I Need a Home Office with a Door
I’m working through our monthly cash flow in Quicken while my son bounces a basketball around the family room. I see an expense that I can’t figure out, which happens more often than I’d like when I go through the family finances. “This doesn’t make sense,” I say to myself. “What?” my son asks. “We actually made a little money for once?” He’s so thrilled with this zinger that he breaks into a cross-legged dance around the room yelling “OHHHHHHH! OHHHHHHH!” over and over again. Read more →
Arena Football League Trash Talk
AFL PLAYER 1: You couldn’t make it in pro football. AFL PLAYER 2: Oh yeah? Well, you couldn’t make it in pro football either. AFL PLAYER 1: Touché. Read more →
The Way to Write English
I notice that you use plain, simple English, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English–it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. — Mark Twain Enron’s performance in 2000 was a success by any measure, as we continued to outdistance the competition and solidify our leadership in each of our major businesses. We have robust networks of strategic assets that we own or have contractual access to, which give us greater flexibility and speed to reliably deliver widespread logistical solutions. . . . We have metamorphosed from an asset-based pipeline and power generating company to a marketing and logistics company whose biggest assets are its well-established business approach and its innovative people. — Enron Annual Report, 2000 Source: Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide by Brian Fugere, Chelsea… Read more →
Wives and Pugs
I read that pugs like the sound of their owner’s voice almost as much as they like food. That’s why it’s so important to talk to your pug. “It’s important to talk to your wife too,” my wife says. “Pugs are easy to please. Pugs will always be there. Wives have a car and two feet.” Read more →