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 →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
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 →
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 →
Be Prepared, but Don’t Overdo It
Since I’m currently unemployed, my friend GL asked me to write something about the job interview process. The problem is, there’s already so much written about the job interview process, it’s hard to think of anything to add. Which brings me to my point: It’s easy to overprepare for interviews. For example, we have a book here that my wife bought called Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions. Two problems: Who has time to prepare answers for 201 interview questions? What if the interviewer asks a question that’s not on the list? Where is your God now? But wait! It gets worse! If you go to Amazon and look up this book, you’ll find a list of similar titles like More Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions The 250 Job Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked 301 Smart Answers to Tough… Read more →
An Open Letter to My Former Employer
No hard feelings, but I’m looking at the company president’s new employment agreement on EDGAR . . . the stock’s down 50 percent, the bond rating’s been lowered to junk, you laid off 400 people end of July and announced plans to lay off 1,000 more, and yet shareholders will still be paying for a really fabulous set of benefits for this lout: luxury automobiles, first-class air travel, $35,000 a year for financial planning services, and not one, but two, country club memberships. The rest of the peasants — er, employees — have to pay for their own cars, green fees, financial planners, etc., which is even tougher when you’ve been laid off thanks to my man’s (lack of) stewardship at the mortgage bank. Let them eat cake! I challenge you post a link to the employment agreement on the company web site and see if he isn’t guillotined within… Read more →
I Love My Work
The notion of meaning as a guiding principle for happiness explains some interesting facts about what actually compensates workers in their jobs. . . . For example, people who think their work allows them to be productive are about five times more likely to be very satisfied with their jobs than people who do not feel they can be productive. And those who are proud to work for their employers are more than ten times as likely to be very satisfied with their jobs as those who are not proud. In contrast, money matters relatively little, and the amount of leisure time a job allows has no significant effect on satisfaction at all. — Arthur C. Brooks, “I Love My Work” (emphasis added) Read more →
We Get Letters
This is the best email I’ve had all week. Let me preface it by saying that I don’t know the sender, so I changed her name to protect the “innocent.” From: anne sexton [mailto:annie-s@hotmail.com] Subject: Teacher? Only in Southern California could someone so woefully ignorant be a teacher. Your childish clinging to some 1950’s idea of masculinity in order to bolster your own ego is pathetic, and the sad thing is, you’re teaching your son to be equally disrespectful. Wow. Nice parenting. In short, I’m sorry you have a small dick. It doesn’t give you the right to disrespect women. Oh, And GO BEARS, mother fucker. Love, Anne Sexton PhD candidate in English, UC Berkeley (ranked #1 in the world for their English program. Where’s USC ranked?) Sweet! Here’s my reply: Hi Anne – You sound very angry about something but I’m not sure what. I don’t know where the… Read more →
Follow Your Heart
Man died doing what he loved most — Orange County Register He loved being hit by trucks? Read more →
Tricks of the Trade
The Chevron Extra Mile store near us has a Meal Deal where you get a 32-ounce fountain drink and a Johnsonville Brat for $1.99. My son’s looking it over . . . he’d rather have a Smoky Cheddar Dog but that’s not the deal. So he plops a Smoky Cheddar Dog into a bun, completely smothers it in mustard and chili so you can’t tell what’s in there, takes it up to the register with his 32-ounce soda and says, “This is a Meal Deal, right?” “Yace,” says the Indian clerk. As we’re walking out of the store, he says to me, “Tricks of the trade.” Read more →
Advertisement for Myself
I was laid off recently by a mortgage bank here in Southern California. Times are tough in the mortgage business, as you may have heard. First, some tips on how not to do a layoff: Call the layoff a “rightsizing,” which suggests that there was something “wrong” with the people who were let go. (Actually, the company I worked for has already announced another “rightsizing” in which 1,000 more people will be laid off over the next few months. They just can’t get these “rightsizings” right.) Overnight a layoff information packet, including a 20-page severance agreement, to the home of laid-off employees, asking them to sign and return it via the enclosed UPS envelope. Don’t enclose the UPS envelope. The next day, overnight a second packet to employees’ homes, containing the UPS envelope and a letter correcting phone numbers, email addresses and other misinformation in the previous day’s packet. Include… Read more →
A Waste of a Morning
The California Employment Development Department — aka the unemployment office — scheduled a meeting for me this morning at the Orange County One-Stop job center. I thought it was going to be a one-on-one meeting to discuss appropriate employment opportunities for someone with my outstanding qualifications as a technologist. Instead, I found myself placed in a room full of misfits and losers, none in professional attire, and many of them dressed for a day at the beach — shorts, sandals, Hooters T-shirts — while we listened to a presentation on how to make $50,000 a year selling cars. (“Sounds pretty good,” my son says, and for someone with a junior high school education like him, it probably is.) In the course of the meeting, three people asked to borrow my pen because they didn’t think to bring one. Of course, I was wearing a shirt and tie, so I could… Read more →
Beating the Heat
We’re moving to a new residence next week. The man moving his family into our current home has already transferred the utilities to his name, even though he’s not moving in until Sept. 4. This means I’ll be running the air conditioner the entire Labor Day weekend and he’ll be picking up the tab. Thank you, sir! Read more →
The Hard Way
Death of Esperanza coach brings team together — Orange County Register This couldn’t have been accomplished with a barbeque or a pizza party? Read more →