We had a great time today at the Newport Sports Museum for free. Read more →
Getting Tired
The Programmer has been out of work for three weeks now . . . I’m getting tired of trying to sell myself to people who don’t seem to understand what it is I do, outside of how well I “fit” into a narrow job description. I’m getting tired of working in a broken industry. More generally, I’m sick and tired of people and their goddamn opinions about everything. And I’m getting pretty sick and tired of myself, too . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Laid Off
I guess I should have seen this coming when they eliminated free bagels on Fridays. Or when we stopped printing things on plotter paper because the paper vendor stopped coming around shortly after we stopped paying him. The retention list was heavily weighted toward young women with big tits and the managers’ poker buddies. Two of the laid-off developers had to be hired back within 30 minutes of being let go, when someone in authority belatedly realized they were working on the company’s only billable project. None of us will be retiring on our severance package, since there wasn’t one. We’re now faced with the one thing we all feared enough to stay with this company so long in the first place: trying to find another job in the worst tech market in 20 years. Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Reviving Interest in the Space Program
I had no idea we were still launching space shuttles until Columbia blew up yesterday, which is one way of reviving people’s interest in the space program. President Bush says “the cause in which they died will continue,” meaning manned space flight. “Send him up there,” my wife says. Read more →
Another Reason to Restrict TV Viewing
In a local “headless torso” case, two boys were arrested for killing their mom, then cutting off her head and hands to hinder identification of the body, a trick they picked up from watching “The Sopranos.” This is why I don’t allow a lot of TV viewing at my house . . . Read more →
The Ultimate Morale Booster
Cybersex and so-called virtual affairs on the Internet are the all the buzz among professionals who study spouses who stray. But the truly fertile ground for dangerous emotional attachments outside marriages is much more conventional: the workplace. — USA Today, “Infidelity reaches beyond having sex”, Jan. 8, 2003 The Programmer reflects that perhaps sex in the workplace is a good indicator of employee morale: I remember my first job, I worked on some great teams and great projects. I also had liaisons with a secretary and a senior systems analyst (quite a coup for a junior programmer). A married operations manager kind of came on to me, but she had a crisis of conscience at the last minute. Currently, I work in a low-morale workplace — a low-morale industry, for that matter — no one has any emotional connection with one another, and I get no sex at all. Of… Read more →
Job Posting of the Week
From an actual job posting: Time management and data organization skills are also required. What kind of world are we living in where that sort of thing has to be explicitly specified in a job description? Aren’t time management and data organization skills pretty much required for daily life, outside of, say, a prison or a mental asylum? Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Rent Hikes Cause Homelessness?
I read a story in Time magazine about a family in Columbus, OH, evicted from their apartment and living in a homeless shelter because they couldn’t afford a rent hike on the apartment. The husband was unemployed at the time; the wife was a pizza delivery driver. Both are high-school dropouts and they have three kids. The lesson here, according to Time: All it takes sometimes is a sudden rent hike to push a working family into a shelter. Read more →
Teachers Making a Difference
Good or bad? It doesn’t say. OC Family‘s Special Annual “10 Teachers Making a Difference” issue is out . . . Read more →
Ask HW: Why Aren’t There More Black Head Coaches in the NFL?
The conventional wisdom on this is that black coaches are hired on merit, while white coaches are hired by racists. Read more →
A Strong Hand on the ‘Rudder’
Headline from a Morningstar newsletter: Does Your CEO Have a Strong Hand on the Rudder? Yes! In fact, he had shoulder surgery earlier in the year — I suspect as a result of employing too strong a hand on his rudder . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Introducing a 9-Year-Old to Johnny Cash
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine I keep my eyes wide open all the time . . . “Really? How do you sleep?” Read more →
UCLA Hires Karl Dorrell
My son is watching SportsCenter in the other room . . . He says, “UCLA hired a new coach: Carlos Burrell!” By which I think he means Karl Dorrell. That is a great, great hire. I say that as a USC grad who was sorry to see Bob Toledo go. They might never beat the Trojans again . . . Read more →
How’s Business?
People often ask me: How’s the computer business? One thing I can tell them is that a significant number of my Merry Christmas emails from former colleagues end with something like this: P.S. Please let me know if you hear of any job leads as I am currently unemployed. Read more →
Christmas Wishes
After my son got close to 50 items on his Amazon Xmas wish list, I said it might be helpful to add a comment to the stuff indicating which things he wanted the most. Now most of the items include one of the following three comments: favorite extreme favorite!!!!!!!! very extreme favorite!!!!!!!!! With varying numbers of exclamation points . . . Read more →
Harvard Errs
I was marveling at the Harvard University fact page — 14.6 million volumes! Established 1636! — when I noticed “10 principle academic units.” Egads! A grammatical error on the Harvard site! I’d better send them an email . . . Read more →
Christmas at Starbucks
I noticed this weekend that Starbucks has rolled out the Christmas menu — Egg Nog Latte, Gingerbread Something-Or-Other . . . also that my local Starbucks has mounted a wreath on the inside of the entry door, anchored only at the top, so when you pull the door open, the wreath swings out and smacks you in the head. Merry Christmas! Ouch! Read more →
Lost in America
Nearly 30 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 cannot locate the Pacific Ocean on a map. You can try it yourself here. Read more →
Overheard
The best thing about all the NBA players from Europe and Latin America is when they’re interviewed after the game, you can understand them. Read more →
World Series Recap
Two World Series tickets: $220 Parking: $10 Program: $10 Souvenir apparel: $104 Rally monkey: $15 Two hot dogs, two sodas, one pretzel: $17 Watching home team win World Series, with son, after 41 years of futility: Priceless, baby. My son is 9, a little older than I was when my dad took me to my first Angels game somewhere around 1966. Read more →