My son’s junior high school has two bands, Symphonic Band and Concert Band. You could think of them as the varsity and the JV. Membership in the Symphonic Band is by audition only. Because the boy changed instruments from saxophone to percussion last summer, after the Symphonic Band auditions, he has to play in the Concert Band this year. I don’t think he’s happy about it, but he’s taking lessons and practicing and trying to get better. This week, we had All-City Honor Band tryouts. All five percussionists from the Symphonic Band tried out, and four of them made it. My son also tried out and made it — as first chair. He’s the best junior high percussionist in Irvine. Don’t give up on your dreams, kids! I too played percussion in junior high and high school, where I was known far and wide as the Fast-Hand Mallet Man. So… Read more →
How Long Should it Take to Define a Project?
Project X hit a milestone called Vision/Scope seven months ago, 99 days late. It’s 312 days late on the current milestone, which is called Definition. To date, the project has consumed 36,000 labor hours — 18 person-years — and $2.5 million. At this morning’s enterprise-level status meeting, it was decided that Project X will be put on indefinite hold, as it is no longer a strategic priority. This reminded me a lot of an article I read a few days ago: What the waterfall does well is to keep useless projects from resulting in useless code that needs to be maintained. I’m not sure if that’s the real purpose, but it’s certainly a great side benefit. It may sound inefficient to pay a lot of engineers to get started on projects, do a bunch of analysis and design, and finally abandon the whole thing when something else becomes a higher… Read more →
EppsNet’s IT Responses
Inspired by Don Carman’s Reporter Responses, a handy list for the IT professional: Good, fast, cheap — pick two. It’s not a show-stopper. It’s a show-stopper. It’s out of scope. It’s not rocket science. It’s not brain surgery. Let’s not reinvent the wheel. That sounds doable. I could do it myself in a week. That’s why I make the big money. It works fine on my machine. It was working fine 10 minutes ago. It’s a best-of-breed solution. It’s an enterprise-class solution. It’s a state-of-the-art solution. It’s an industry standard. It’s a best practice. It’s not one of our core competencies. We’re waiting on requirements. We’re waiting on design. We’re waiting on the vendor. We found some issues in testing. We’re thinking outside the box. Add that to the lessons learned. That’s a ballpark estimate. I’m working smarter, not harder. There are no problems, only opportunities. Since when did you… Read more →
Interview FAQ: How Do You Motivate People?
In 1960, Douglas MacGregor of the MIT Sloan School of Management developed two theories of workplace motivation, Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X assumptions People have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever possible. People must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment in order to get them to achieve the organizational objectives. People prefer to be directed, do not want responsibility, and have little or no ambition. People seek security above all else. Theory Y assumptions Work is as natural as rest or play. People will exercise self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organizational objectives. Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement. People usually accept and often seek responsibility. Imagination, ingenuity and creativity are widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population. The intellectual potential of the average person is only partly utilized. I come down strongly in favor… Read more →
I Get All the Holidays — And Then Some!
Here’s how I spent the MLK holiday: My son went over to a friend’s house and I stayed home and read a book. When the boy came home, we threw a football around for a while, and then I took Lightning to the dog park, where he fended off an inappropriate advance from a giant black pit bull. So all in all, a jam-packed day of doing nothing . . . A friend of mine tells me he doesn’t get a day off for the King holiday. In fact, he doesn’t get another paid holiday until Memorial Day! HA HA HA! I work for a company in the banking industry. If you work for a bank, you get all the holidays off! In fact, between now and Memorial Day, we get Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, Groundhog Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day, Cinco de Mayo and spring break. Plus a… Read more →
What Would Andrew Jackson Say?
My son and I are sitting around the house when the phone rings. He looks at the caller ID, which says something about Recruiting. “It’s the U.S. Army,” he says. We don’t pick it up, and a female voice comes on to leave a message, which has nothing to do with the army. “A woman?!” he shouts. “What would Andrew Jackson say about that?” “Andrew Jackson?” “That’s right, soldier!” Read more →
Why Asian Girls Like White Guys II
As in the previous example, these photos are from the same photoset on Flickr: What could be worse than being an Asian woman in Asia and having to surrender your mystical Oriental hotness to Asian men? In no other race — white, black, Hispanic — are the women so much better-looking than the men. Now you might say: What about Indian or Middle Eastern men? Aren’t they uglier than Asian men? Possibly — but my point is that their women are incredibly ugly as well, so it’s a good match. My wife’s cousin, also an Asian girl, agrees with my theory, but adds something I hadn’t thought of: Asian guys are also boring, she says, because they’re all the same. They all have the same story, same parents, same college major (engineering or business), same, same, same . . . Read more →
Pug Photos from Flickr
Originally uploaded by laserone. Originally uploaded by joborges. Originally uploaded by joborges. Originally uploaded by joborges. Read more →
College Pick ‘Em
I was mathematically eliminated from college bowl pick ’em at the office with 13 games left. The leader — an Indian gentleman — is 15-2. I’m 11-6, but there are only three games left where he and I picked a different winner. At least I’m ahead of the woman who picked the games based on which of the mascots would win in a fight. If I’d won the thing, I probably wouldn’t mention that I actually let my son pick the games, my only rule being that he had to pick USC in the Rose Bowl . . . Read more →
A Venn Diagram of My Holiday Get-Togethers
A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats. — George Orwell I have relatives like this — people who are either so dishonest or so lacking in self-awareness that all they seem to gain from any experience whatsoever is an inflated sense of their own self-importance. I also have relatives who can’t remember that they’ve already told you the same story on 10 previous occasions, forcing you to grit your teeth and nod appreciatively for the 11th time. Then there are the relatives who fall into both of the above categories. These people are hell on earth. Read more →
Call Me Kreskin
I preface some obvious remark to my son by saying “Call me Kreskin, but . . .” He jumps in and says, “OK, you’re crazy.” “I didn’t say ‘Call me crazy,’ I said ‘Call me Kreskin.” “You’re a kreskin.” “Kreskin,” I explain, “is a mind-reading guy. He makes predictions about things.” “Oh . . . then, you’re crazy.” Read more →
How Could We Lose to These Idiots?
As I sat in Northwood Pizza last night with my son’s roller hockey team, watching the last few minutes of Florida State’s 44-27 drubbing of UCLA, I was reminded of chess grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch, who once, after losing a match, climbed on a table and shouted Why must I lose to this idiot? FIGHT ON! Read more →
A Family Secret
“Don’t buy us anything expensive for Christmas this year,” my mom says on the phone. “Save your money.” I diplomatically omit the fact that every year as the Yuletide approaches, my wife starts rummaging through the closets for things she doesn’t want, then wraps them up and gives them to my parents as Christmas presents. Read more →
Christmas in Australia
A christmas card from my brother-in-law, who lives with my wife’s sister and their two daughters outside Sydney: The sun is shining. The days are long and hot. We are in the first weeks of summer and the bush fires have just started. It must mean Christmas is just around the corner. Read more →
Practices vs. Accomplishments
Per our Head of Software Development, IT managers are henceforth being evaluated on the “quality” of their status reports. A little background on this: We have a weekly conference call during which managers report project status. Every week you the hear the same things over and over: We’re waiting on this. We’re waiting on that. We’re working on requirements. We’re figuring out the architecture. We’re doing the design. Very rarely does anyone say, “We delivered working software to a customer.” Even more rarely does anyone say, “We delivered working software to a customer, the customer is using it, and can’t stop raving about how great it is.” What would be our motivation for evaluating practices rather than accomplishments? When I do projects, I like to be evaluated on one thing: my ability to deliver business value to a customer. Everything else is waste. Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Oregon Nancy Boys
Before BYU’s 38-8 pasting of Oregon in last night’s Las Vegas Bowl, ESPN ran a feature on how the Oregon players and coaches work with Nike to design those gawd-awful uniforms. Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ on a moped, how fruity is that?! Why not change the team name from the Ducks to the Battling Halstons? Then they go out and get waxed by a Mountain West team — that’s got be great for recruiting! Hey boys, if you want to be fashion designers, sashay on up to Eugene, Oregon! I’m a proud USC alum, but if I ever hear Pete Carroll talking about threads per inch, I swear to god I’m going to renounce my allegiance . . . Read more →
The Years Have Been Kind to Me
I was at the corporate office of a well-known company here in Irvine yesterday when I saw the name “Tim Jones” on one of the offices. “Hmmm,” I thought, “I used to work with a Tim Jones [not his real name] about 20 years ago. I wonder if it’s the same guy?” The door was closed, but I was able to peep through the glass as I walked by and saw what looked to be Tim Jones’ grandfather. It’s amazing how Tim Jones has fallen apart over the last 20 years while I myself have not aged a single day . . . Read more →
Choosing the Right Breed
I saw this headline in the Orange County Register: Man fleeing burning Dana Point condo bitten by his dog My first thought was, “What kind of a dog turns on its owner in a crisis? It’s got to be a pit bull.” Sure enough . . . A pit bull spooked by the flames and smoke turned on his owner as the man tried to escape the flames with the dog in his arms. The man, who lived in the condo where the fire started, was badly bitten on both arms. The man left a trail of blood down the stairs. The dog was not hurt in the blaze. The dog wasn’t hurt, although an officer on the scene did offer to shoot the animal to keep the owner from being mangled any worse than he already was, an offer the owner declined. “Please don’t shoot my dog!” he pleaded.… Read more →
Another Reason I Let My Wife Handle the Holiday Decorations
Aliso Viejo man dies after falling while hanging Christmas lights — Orange County Register This cautionary tale includes a helpful tip from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Falls from ladders or rooftops are comical in the movies, but in reality, they can be a very dangerous thing. Actually, falls from ladders and rooftops can be funny in real life too, but only when they happen to someone else. See also: Another Reason I Let My Wife Handle the Grocery Shopping Read more →
Criticisms of the Standard Waterfall Model
There have been a number of criticisms of the standard waterfall model, including Problems are not discovered until system testing. Requirements must be fixed before the system is designed — requirements evolution makes the development method unstable. Design and code work often turn up requirements inconsistencies, missing system components, and unexpected development needs. System performance cannot be tested until the system is almost coded; undercapacity may be difficult to correct. The standard waterfall model is associated with the failure or cancellation of a number of large systems. It can also be very expensive. — “The Standard Waterfall Model for Systems Development” Read more →