I get very, very frustrated when I . . . hear certain Americans talk about how difficult the problems we face are, how overwhelming they are, what a dangerous era we live in. I think we’ve lost perspective. We’ve always had difficult problems, we’ve always had great challenges, and we’ve always lived in danger. Do we think our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents didn’t live in danger and didn’t have difficult problems? Do we think the Second World War was less difficult that our struggle with Islamic terrorism? Do we think that the Great Depression was a less difficult economic struggle for people to face than the struggles we’re facing now? Have we entirely lost perspective of the great challenges America has faced in the past and has been able to overcome and overcome brilliantly? I think sometimes we have lost that perspective. — Rudy Giuliani Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
It Seems Obvious in Retrospect . . .
. . . but something I just learned is that area codes were originally assigned according to the population density of the city or region, with the lowest numbers going to the most populous areas. Keeping in mind that phones in those days had rotary dials, and higher numbers therefore took longer to dial, the thinking was that areas with the most people should be the easiest to call. That’s why New York City got area code 212, Chicago got 312, Los Angeles got 213, etc. (Zero actually counts as a high number — a 10, essentially — because it takes the longest to dial.) Conversely, the area code for the entire state of Alaska was (and still is) 907. Read more →
A Missed Opportunity
USC coach Pete Carroll and UCLA assistant Eric Scott were both at Thursday’s Crenshaw game. — Scott Wolf inside USC Interesting . . . I would have thought Eric Scott would be out robbing the houses of people attending the Crenshaw game . . . FIGHT ON! Read more →
Pastagina
Theres a new restaurant opening up in our local shopping center: Pastagina. What is that — pasta for women? Even the logo is highly suggestive . . . Read more →
You’re My Dad
Will you come to see me Jack When I’m old and very shaky? Yes I will for you’re my dad And you’ve lost your last old lady Though you traveled very far To the highlands and the badlands And ripped off the family car Still, old dad, I won’t forsake you. Will you come to see me Jack? Though I’m really not alone. Still I’d like to see my boy For we’re lonesome for our own. Yes I will for you’re my dad Though you dumped me and my brothers And you sizzled down the road Loving other fellows’ mothers. Will you come to see me Jack? Though I look like time boiled over. Growing old is not a lark. Yes I will for you’re my dad Though we never saw a nickel As we struggled up life’s ladder I will call you and together We will cuddle up and… Read more →
Don’t Argue About Things That Don’t Exist
Some ideas. . . . Don’t argue about things that don’t exist, like whether Save buttons should do this or that. Instead, code or prototype it and then team members use it themselves. You’ll be able to tell if it could be better when you use it instead of talk about it. . . . One of the biggest blockers to team greatness is that members of team will have really good team diagnoses but they don’t say them out loud. So nothing can be done with the idea. You gotta say your great ideas out loud. . . . Stay out of the content. The real issues are not about UI and architecture. Those are just the excuses to act out team neuroses. . . . If you resolve the interpersonal issues you won’t feel like you have UI or architecture issues. Processes and planning will… Read more →
Hola, Estúpidos
Mr. Penn, Mr. Spacey, Ms. Campbell — Thank you so much for coming to visit me. Muchas gracias! Shortly after your visits, 80,000 Venezuelans will gather at the Central University to protest my attempts to expand my dictatorial rule. Eight of these people will be injured when masked gunmen open fire on them. I of course will be shocked by this display of brutality — as shocked as I’ve been since Claude Rains discovered gambling at Rick’s Cafe. The incident will no doubt raise questions in people’s minds as to whether you actually support the armed suppression of free speech, or whether you are just naive simpletons. Regrettably, there will be a writers’ strike on at the time and you will therefore have nothing to say . . . Tu amigo, Hugo Chavez Read more →
Too Close to the Piano
I play the piano for fun. I’m self-taught . . . I can play notes but I don’t know the first thing about proper technique, which is why I’m not very good. I don’t know why I never thought of it before, but last night as I was struggling to play a new piece, I decided to move the piano bench farther back than I usually do. Wow! Big improvement! For 40 years, I’ve been sitting too close to the piano. It’s the kind of thing that a qualified instructor could point out at the first lesson, but when you have to figure it out yourself, it takes a little longer . . . Read more →
Got a Job
After three months on the dole, I got a job offer from the IT director of a local non-profit healthcare association here in Orange County. I start next week. As Gerald Ford used to say, “Our long national nightmare is over.” It’s a small IT group — 8 people, including the director. I’ve got to admit I’m a little burned out on big corporate IT shops. I got out of hands-on programming and into leadership roles because I thought I could do a better job than the people I saw doing it. I wanted to develop teams that got things done using their skills and their collective intelligence, but in practice, you typically get locked into some corporate process standard. A process may be good for delivering consistent results, but they may not be consistently good results. Like at McDonald’s, every Big Mac is just like every other Big Mac… Read more →
Halloween 2007
My son put on a cap, a pair of sunglasses, hung a clock around his neck, and went trick-or-treating with his friends as Flavor Flav. I can’t imagine anyone in Irvine is going to be able to figure that one out. Postscript “One woman asked me, ‘Are you supposed to be Flavor Flav?’” he says. “What was her ethnicity?” I ask him. “White.” OK, I stand corrected. Read more →
Lost
As I arrived for an interview today, the hiring manager asked me, “Did you have any trouble finding the place?” As it happens, I did not have any trouble finding the place and said so. I had printed out a map from one of the numerous online map sites and the building was right where it was supposed to be. But even if I had had trouble finding it, my answer would have been the same. “Some people have trouble finding it,” he told me. Interesting. As an IT person, I consider myself a problem-solver — actually, I could make a case that any person in any job is hired as a problem solver — so I wouldn’t start out an interview by admitting that I got lost on my way over. “Don’t hire anyone who can’t find the building,” I said. Read more →
Crime and Punishment
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 →
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 →