Experimented with the Hockneyizer. Added FancyZoom to the 99 Most Interesting Photos of Orange County. Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
The One-Sentence Motivator
My friend G.L. Hoffman has a great post over at U.S. News and World Report called “The One-Sentence Motivator.” His own one-sentence motivator (spoiler alert) is “Be the man you dreamed you could be when you were a little boy.” Here’s mine: To those who despair of everything reason cannot provide a faith, but only passion, and in this case it must be the same passion that lay at the root of the despair, namely humiliation and hatred. — Albert Camus It’s not as heartwarming as the little boy one but it gets me out of bed in the morning . . . Read more →
Two More Reasons I Won’t Go on a Cruise
Captured by pirates, you are given a choice between walking the plank or joining the crew. The crew are all Yankees fans. When your luxury cruise ship, featuring Las Vegas–style live entertainment, sinks in midocean, you find yourself adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger, a chimp, and an Herbalife salesman. On the second day, the tiger and the chimp commit suicide. — Susan Schorn, “Worse Things Happen at Sea” Read more →
Interview with Jim McCarthy
Q: What do you perceive as the greatest current challenge for software development managers and how do you help them overcome it? The greatest current (and past and future) challenge for software development managers, and for all humans everywhere I suspect, is accurately perceiving reality and effectively accounting for it in their behavior. . . . Q: What is your number one software project management tip, trick or technique? Discussion should be illegal. Less talk, more code. — PM Interviews: Jim McCarthy Read more →
Our Deepest Fear
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. — Marianne Williamson Read more →
House of Cards
My son suggests that we buy some red wheels for the SUV to match the color of the vehicle. “How much would that cost?” my wife asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “A lot of money.” “But it’d be the pimpingest pimp sauce thing you could ever do,” the boy replies. That’s what Ed McMahon’s financial adviser used to say when Ed said, “Are you kidding?! The only way I could afford that is to work till I’m 90!” Read more →
Picture Exchange
My wife and I went out for dinner . . . I took our picture with the cell phone and sent it to my son at home. In return, he sent a picture of the dog. Read more →
Happy Birthday, Anne Frank
On her 13th birthday — June 12, 1942 — she received a diary . . . Read more →
The Girl in the Fishbowl Sunglasses
I suppose there’s a part of me that still wants the girl in the fishbowl sunglasses and Ramones T-shirt she got from an eBay vendor to invite me to a roof-deck party where a DJ is remixing music that I never heard originally, if for no other reason than it would somehow signify that the faint bags I’m beginning to notice under my eyes even after a good night’s sleep are imaginary. But they aren’t. — Jason Roeder Read more →
Who Says Creativity is Dead in Tinseltown?
It was a sickness: this great interest in a medium that relentlessly and consistently failed to produce anything at all. People became so used to seeing shit on film that they no longer realized it was shit. — Charles Bukowski, Hollywood I keep seeing commercials during the NBA Finals for The Incredible Hulk. Wasn’t there an Incredible Hulk movie out just a few years ago? Why do we have to keep making Incredible Hulk movies? Way to reach for the stars, thespians. Shit . . . Read more →
The Price of Gas
I can remember the first time I paid $20 for a tank of gas. I can remember the first time I paid $30. And $40. But I’ve recently blown through the $50, $60 and $70 barriers so fast that they don’t even seem like milestones anymore . . . Read more →
The Boneheads Who Camp Out for Apple WWDC
Our motto is “Think Different.” Not “Stand in line like a bunch of friggin sheep.” — Fake Steve Jobs Read more →
Overheard
Related Links Whistle disparity in Game 2 leaves Lakers feeling foul — ESPN.com Read more →
A 9th Grader Reviews the World Literature Canon
For his English class this year, my son read Antigone, A Doll’s House, Romeo and Juliet, Things Fall Apart, and just finished All Quiet on the Western Front. “Everybody died,” he said. “I knew that was going to happen. All the books we read this year, everybody died. Except A Doll’s House, and that sucked more than kids in a lollipop factory.” Read more →
What is a Trans Fat?
According to the Krispy Kreme box on the receptionist’s desk this morning, they’re now making their doughnuts with zero trans fats. I read the other day that McDonald’s is serving zero trans fat french fries. What the heck is a trans fat anyway? This has got to be the biggest nutritional scam in history. Everyone’s advertising “zero trans fats” and yet I look around and people are fatter than ever, because this trans fat scam lets them convince themselves that eating french fries and doughnuts is actually healthy . . . No trans fats in the doughnuts?! In that case, I’ll eat six of them! Read more →
A Wish Come True
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. — Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++ Read more →
Leading Horses to Water
Here’s an idea: Try leading a thirsty horse to water and see what it does. If the horse is tired, lead it to shade and a soft place to lie down. If the horse is hungry, offer it hay and oats. If the horse doesn’t need anything, maybe leave it alone. — Dale Emery Read more →
It’s Not Easy Being Green
“If we shortened our showers by one minute, we’d save $100 a year,” my son informs me, pausing for a moment to let the news sink in. “And if we shortened our showers by two minutes, we’d save $200 a year. If we didn’t take showers at all, we could be rich! “As for the AC, we leave it off and everybody gets one of those personal fans and points it at their face.” “Why don’t we get the old-fashioned fold-out fans and wave them back and forth?” I ask. “Now that’s just stupid,” he says. Read more →
Scrum Doesn’t Do Anything
In the end it doesn’t matter what names you use for your processes, good people will do good work and continuously improve what they do. So much of the discussion around Lean versus Scrum (etc.) is about marketing hype, selling consulting and training services, and cornering the market with new name-brands. . . . Scrum is not a methodology, it is not a process. It is a simple framework underpinned by some common sense principles. Scrum offers individuals and organizations the opportunity to continuously improve the way they work. It provides a space for people to behave like human beings, with trust, respect and passion. That’s about it. But that is huge. — Tobias Mayer Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Serial Entrepreneur — I hope there’s a special place in hell for people who refer to themselves as “serial entrepreneurs.” What the heck is the difference between an entrepreneur and a serial entrepreneur? I suppose Bill Gates is an entrepreneur and e.e. cummings’ Uncle Sol was a serial entrepreneur — farmer, chicken farmer, skunk farmer, worm farmer. Length — For some reason, people who talk about basketball now describe players as having “great length.” Nobody says, “He’s very tall.” They say, “He’s got great length.” News flash: People don’t have length. They have height. They even have width. But they don’t have length — except at birth and shortly thereafter, when we measure them lying down because they can’t stand up yet. Describing a basketball player as having “great length” is as uninformative as saying, “He’s a tall black guy with long arms.” Read more →