First semester grades are out. My son missed getting straight A’s by a point and a half. He had an 88.5 in honors history. He got an A in honors English with a 90.14. The honors classes at Northwood are very demanding. Even the best students get low A’s and high B’s. Three kids got A’s in the history class. The high score was a 91.1. “The 91.1 is Ted,” my son says. We know Ted. “Ted is history. He’s bad at math, average in English, but he knows everything there is to know about history.” “Make sure you touch base with the history teacher,” I say. “Let him know you’re really doing your best for him and ask him what you need to do to get that extra point and a half this semester. He’ll tell you.” “He’ll say, ‘Study hard, get a good score on all the assignments,… Read more →
January 2009
Five Interesting Facts About VisiCalc
First spreadsheet program for personal computers (1979) First killer app for the Apple II First spreadsheet program for the IBM PC (1981) Still available as a free download from co-developer Dan Bricklin’s web site Full executable is only 27K! Read more →
Added Comments Feed
Someone asked me last week if the EppsNet RSS feed includes comments. It doesn’t. So — I just added a comments feed and a Subscribe by Email option, both available in the right sidebar . . . Read more →
Dear Landlord
Now, each of us has his own special gift And you know this was meant to be true, And if you don’t underestimate me, I won’t underestimate you. — Bob Dylan, “Dear Landlord” Read more →
That’s Not Leadership
We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen. — Barack Obama, May 16, 2008 Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat. “He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.” — The New York Times, January 28, 2009 Read more →
Falling Down Stairs
The CFO announced at our all-company meeting this morning that one of our colleagues had fallen down the main stairwell at the office yesterday. (That stairwell has a marble-like tile surface, so if you were to take a fall on it, it’s gonna leave a mark, no question about it.) As a result, the stairwell is closed until the building architect can figure out a way to make it “safer.” One clumsy person ruins it for all of us. I thought about raising my hand and proposing that those of us who like to live dangerously be allowed to sign a waiver acknowledging that we’re willing to walk up and down the stairs at our own risk. But I didn’t. I just sat there. Then a strange thing happened . . . Others began to raise their hands and weigh in on the uneven surfaces, the depth perception in the… Read more →
Overheard
. . . at the bagel shop: What’s on the “everything” bagel? Read more →
User Surveys on the Web
Look me in the eye Then tell me that I’m satisfied Hey, are you satisfied? — The Replacements, “Unsatisfied” What is a reasonable target for user satisfaction with a web site? We did a user satisfaction survey last year and found that 14 percent of respondents felt that our web site didn’t measure up to their expectations. This year, we have an incentive goal of reducing that number to 8 percent, not based on evidence that any web site has ever achieved a number that low, but based on the opinion of the company that did the survey that anything over a 10 percent dissatisfaction rating is always bad. Or to flip it around, we’re trying to achieve a 92 percent approval rating. I wish we hadn’t set the bar quite that high. I don’t want to be a pessimist but not only is that considerably higher than, say, Google… Read more →
LinkedIn Meta
If you’re not on LinkedIn this isn’t going to be funny but I got this email today from my brother: I’m going through a social media epiphany…so “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” 🙂 Read more →
Where is the Change?
More than 144 hours into Barack Obama’s presidency, the economy is still in recession, the country is still at war, and in many parts of the country it’s still cold outside. Citizens are growing impatient: Wasn’t President Obama supposed to bring change? — Best of the Web Today: WSJ.com Read more →
Not Knowing Things
But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. — Richard P. Feynman Read more →
It’s a Pug Thing
That’s my dog in the top photo, sleeping in his favorite spot. The bottom photo I saw on Flickr . . . Originally uploaded by ♥ellie♥ Read more →
BKFF
Originally uploaded by Izzi:) HA HA, Marshmallow pwned the pug hater! Marshmallow is my BKFF — Best Kitteh Friend Forever. What? You don’t think dogs and cats can be friends? They can! Look — here’s a picture I found on Flickr that proves it . . . — Lightning Read more →
The Man Happy in His Work
The man happy in his work is not the narrow specialist, nor the well-rounded man, but the man who is doing what he loves to do. You must fall in love with some activity. — Richard P. Feynman Read more →
Things That Pop Up and Poke You in the Eye
We’re discussing whether our organization will use a popup user survey on our web site . . . “I propose doing the survey without the popups,” I say. “That’s why browsers have popup blockers, because people don’t like popups. A popup is like a poke in the eye. I don’t like it when things pop up unexpectedly and poke me in the eye. Whenever that happens, I make sure not to go back to that place anymore.” Unfortunately, no one picks up on the “popped up and poked me in the eye” motif because I was then going to chide them for their junior high school mentality. “I had a teacher who used to say that,” a young woman says. “‘It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.’” I say, “I used to work with a guy who said, ‘You can’t beat that with a sharp… Read more →
Scent of a Woman?
Semester Break
My wife is telling me that because Northwood finals are over today — Thursday — the boy now has a four-day weekend. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I say. It kind of makes sense to have Friday off, but why Monday? “It’s semester break,” the boy says. “Semester break?!” “That’s right. It’s like the off season.” The off season . . . it’s so ridiculous I have to laugh. “Isn’t it nice you have a funny family?” my wife says. “It’s like the all-star break,” the boy says. Read more →
Knock Knock
I Don’t Want to Die
When Zen masters die we like to think they will say something very inspiring as they are about to bite the Big Emptiness, something like “Hi-ho Silver!” or “Remember to wake up” or “Life is everlasting.” Right before Suzuki Roshi’s death, Katagiri Roshi, an old friend, visited him. Katagiri stood by the bedside; Suzuki looked up and said, “I don’t want to die.” — Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones Read more →
I Will Always Remember This Day
A manager in another department brought in pizza for the IT team today. Someday I’ll be telling my grandkids, “Of course I remember the Obama inauguration. I got free pizza that day! Unfortunately, that was pretty much the highlight of his entire presidency.” Read more →