As you can see on this perimeter map of the Santiago Fire, the active fire line is now far enough east that my wife and I can clean the ashes and soot off our patio this morning without worrying about having a new load of ashes and soot dumped on it the next day. (We live in the small notch northeast of the now-decommissioned El Toro MCAS.) I say to her, “They should find the guys who set the fire and make them clean up this mess.” “Kill them!” she suggests. “Couldn’t we make them clean up the mess and then kill them?” Read more →
October 2007
Greed
The dog is sitting attentively watching my son eat a chili dog. “You’re not going to get any of that,” I explain to the dog. “He’s greedy. He makes Jack Welch look like Good King Wenceslas.” “And you,” the boy says, “make Donnie ‘We Found Him’ look like one of the Three Wise Men.” The boy going deep in the archives to pull out a Wild Thornberrys reference, in which Donnie — seen here hanging from a tree limb — was a feral boy raised by orangutans. Read more →
How to Destroy Creativity
Always pretend to know more than anybody else Police your employees by every procedural means Have your professionally-trained staff members do technicians’ work for long periods of time Erect the highest possible barrier between commercial decision-makers and your technical staff Don’t speak to employees on a personal level, except when announcing raises Be the exclusive spokesman for everything for which you are responsible Say yes to new ideas, but do nothing about them Call many meetings Put every new idea through channels Worry about the budget Cultivate the not-invented-here syndrome — via MIT OpenCourseWare Read more →
No Serenade, No Fire Brigade, Just Pyromania
Air quality and visibility were much worse today than yesterday. I don’t know if the winds shifted or if it just takes a day or so for all the ashes and soot to fall back to earth. Proving that there’s a positive side to everything, the Santa Ana winds that have fanned these fires around Southern California also knocked down half the trees in our community, which will now have to be removed and replaced, so if you’re in the landscaping service business, this is a good time for you. “Honey! Call Farmers and get a quote on homeowners insurance – stat!” My wife is in the insurance business. She’s received several calls over the past few days from people wanting to buy a homeowners policy. Ordinarily, she’d be happy to sell them one . . . the problem is that the houses are in zip codes that… Read more →
A Lesson in Leadership
I took the dog for a walk this morning before dropping my son off at school . . . in theory, the dog is “his” dog, but in practice, I wind up doing most of the work. As we got back from the walk, the boy was standing outside yelling, “Let’s go! We’re late!” “Okay, Mr. Doesn’t-Do-Any-Work-While-Barking-Out-Orders-To-Others,” I said. “That’s what leadership’s all about,” he said. Read more →
Ashes to Ashes
As a result of the fires, particularly the one that burned across the northern border of Irvine, everything in the neighborhood is coated with either a thick layer of soot or a thin film of soot, depending on whether the object in question is outdoors or indoors. Read more →
Fire Update
As of this afternoon, the fires had shifted and were no longer considered a significant threat to Irvine homes. Here’s a map of the areas affected so far. The fire started — or I should say “was started,” since it’s now believed to be an arson fire — in the area bounded by the top of the map, the 261 to the west, the 241 to the east, and Portola Parkway to the south. Firefighters were able to stop the fire from crossing Portola, but it continued to burn east and is now bearing down on Foothill Ranch, the residential area in the lower right corner of the map . . . Read more →
Setting the World on Fire
Wildfires are burning all over Southern California, including one here in Irvine: What they’re saying on the TV news is that firefighters are planning to make a stand at Portola Parkway and stop the fire there, which is good news because we live south of Portola. About 100 feet south, but it’s better than nothing. Here are some blurry photos from our patio: Read more →
Job Posting
My days of unemployment may be over: No, wait . . . I just read the rest of the story and it turns out not to be a job advertisement . . . Read more →
In Fair Verona
My son and I are in the kitchen looking for something to eat. He finds a bag of Pepperidge Farm Verona cookies (I prefer the Raspberry Milanos myself), holds the bag up to my face, and says In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean Two hours traffic on our stage blah blah blah Then he eats the cookies. So who says Shakespeare has no relevance for the modern student? Read more →
More School Choice
And if you want your kid to know what to do when the principal says “Code Blue” over the intercom, move to Cleveland: Students said they took cover in closets after the school principal announced a “Code Blue” on the intercom. I just asked my own high school-age son if he knows what “Code Blue” means and he doesn’t know. In a health care setting, it means cardiac arrest, or more generically, imminent loss of life. So the day your kid comes home and tells you he learned what to do when the principal says “Code Blue” over the intercom is a good day to start looking for a new school. Read more →
School Choice
Another gem from the freshman football mailing list . . . Of the four high schools here in Irvine, only one — Irvine High — has a stadium on campus. There’s a movement afoot, led by local attorney and parent Emmett Raitt, to build a second stadium. Here’s an excerpt from Emmett’s email suggesting that parents write to the school board about this matter: The reasons a second stadium are needed include the elimination of Thursday night games, which lowers student attendance at games; it will ease the overcrowding of the Irvine Stadium facility (and particularly the snack bar, a personal favorite of mine); and it will allow all schools to use District facilities for their graduations, which they do not now do. Hmmm . . . I can’t see how increasing student attendance is going to ease overcrowding, nor do I think the fact that some local fatso thinks… Read more →
Pug Photos from Pugtoberfest and Flickr
Pugs ‘N Pals holds an annual Pugtoberfest in Costa Mesa, a fun-filled day of costume contests and pug games. Here are some links to photos and a video from this year’s event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14782153@N04 http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeesha/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/pandorasparlor http://cbs2.com/video/?id=49923@kcbs.dayport.com More recent pug photos from Flickr Originally uploaded by Up Late Cakes. Originally uploaded by ljc@flickr. And finally . . . A great Flickr set of pug photos. Read more →
Gore Wins Nobel Prize, High Court Gives It to Bush
Although former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize this week for his work as a global-warming performance artist, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled early today that President George Bush would receive the gold medal, the diploma and the $750,000. — ScrappleFace Read more →
No Progress in Aviation
Does anyone else remember when flight attendants — “stewardesses,” we called them — used to be pretty? Now they’re consistently the least attractive people on the aircraft. Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Earl Butz – U.S. secretary of agriculture Oral Roberts – preacher Updates Earl Butz – died 2/2/2008, age 98 Oral Roberts – died 12/15/2009, age 91 Read more →
Offshoring: What Can Go Wrong?
You might wonder whether the Linux operating system provides evidence that offshoring can pay off. I had often wondered about this point myself, so I put the question to Linus Torvalds, founder of the Linux project. Torvalds replied that the two models of software development aren’t comparable: I don’t think the Linux model works for offshoring in the commercial sense, or really ends up even being very relevant. The problem ends up being communication and the mental model pretty inherent in offshoring. My belief is that when you say “offshoring,” you very much mean “control the project on one shore, work on the other.” That is, the implication of the offshore work being “subservient” is very much there in the notion of offshoring. In contrast, the Linux model (and open-source in general) is that there’s no one-sided control, and that when work gets done overseas, it gets done because it… Read more →
Getting to Know You
My son’s just diagnosed and fixed a problem with my wife’s laptop PC . . . “I should join the Northwood [his high school] Tech Squad,” he says, “with all the guys who tuck their shirts in.” “That reminds me,” my wife says to him. “What clubs are you in at school?” “What clubs am I in?” he says. “How about none?” “You need to be in a club,” she says. I say, “He’s in football and roller hockey.” “He can be in those,” she says, “but he still needs to be in a club so he can get to know people.” For some reason, this launches the boy into a Rodgers and Hammerstein tune . . . “Getting to knooooow yooooou . . .” “Can you look it up,” my wife says, “and see what clubs they have at Northwood?” “No,” I say. “I’m busy.” Which I am. “When… Read more →
Slaves of Things
I adjure you by the gods, cease to admire material things, cease to make yourselves slaves, first of things, and next, for their sake, of men who can acquire them or take them away. — EPICTETUS, Discourses, Book III, Ch. 20 When we moved recently, having to pick up everything we own and transport it from Point A to Point B confirmed something I’d long suspected, which is that we’ve accumulated way too much junk and clutter in our lives. And if I were to walk away from here with nothing but the clothes I’m wearing, how much of it would I really miss? Answer: Not much. Read more →
EppsNet Labs: VoiceXML RSS Reader
The Big Picture We’re going to build application that takes RSS data — specifically the EppsNet.com feed — as input, and outputs a VXML file that can be read and spoken by a VoiceXML browser. The RSS Source Format The general structure of the EppsNet feed — or any RSS 2.0 feed — looks like this: Each item within the RSS feed has a format that looks (slightly simplified) like this: VXML Output Consult the VoiceXML 2.1 specification for more details, but the output we want will look like this: What this will do when processed by a VoiceXML browser is: Say the title of the RSS feed. Offer the listener a numbered list of post titles to select from. Parse the user’s selection, by either voice or touch-tone input. Read out the selected post summary. Clear the input variable and offer the opportunity to select another item. Generating VoiceXML… Read more →