Completely Missing the Cause and Effect

 

It’s a sign of how poorly liberals market themselves and their ideas that the word “liberal” is still in disrepute despite the election of the most genuinely liberal president that the political culture of this country will probably allow.

“Despite”?

Customer Engagement

 
Book cover

You want to actively elicit feedback from end users using short development cycles or by using prototypes and models during analysis. A good feedback cycle has the appearance of causing problems. It will cause emergent and latent requirements to surface. That means rework: the value of prototypes is that they push this rework back into analysis, where it has more value. And most important, good end user engagement changes end user expectations. It is only by participating in a feedback loop that’s grounded in reality that customers get the opportunity they need to reflect on what they’re asking for. If your customer changes their expectations in the process, you’ve both learned something. Embracing change doesn’t just mean reacting to it: it means providing the catalysts that accelerate it.

— James O. Coplien and Gertrud Bjørnvig, Lean Architecture for Agile Software Development

Perspective

 
TechCrunch

If you do stuff online, people are tracking it and putting it into a database and trying to sell you stuff based on that. There’s not much you can do about it except not be online. And it’s not all that bad, really, to get ads for diapers when you’re having a baby, or ads for cars when you are looking to buy a car. Life will go on.

Interview: Maureen (Moe) Tucker of the Velvet Underground

 
The Velvet Underground and Nico in 1966

To be honest, I never paid attention to what the hell was going on. My always voting Democrat was the result of that. . . .

I’m stunned that so many people who call themselves liberal yet are completely intolerant. I thought liberals loved everyone: the poor, the immigrant, the gays, the handicapped, the minorities, dogs, cats, all eye colors, all hair colors! Peace, love, bull! Curious they have no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who doesn’t think exactly as they do. You disagree and you’re immediately called a fool, a Nazi, a racist. That’s pretty f’d up!! I would never judge someone based on their political views. Their honesty, integrity, kindness to others, generosity? Yes. Politics? No!

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College Interview

 
USC Band before a game in 2006

All these years later, my son went to USC this morning, my alma mater, for a college interview, wearing a red shirt and his lucky tie bar.

Around noon, he texted me: “Sitting right next to jurrell casey and nick perry in the student center. No big deal”

Jurrell Casey is one of my favorite football players, not just because his last name is the same as my son’s first name. Every time we watch a game and he makes a good play, I yell “CASEY!”

There are two major universities in Los Angeles but at the other one, UCLA, no one will talk to you. Literally. They won’t talk to you.

It’s a government-run institution. Imagine the DMV operating a college. Or the IRS. Or the Post Office. UCLA is actually worse than any of them.

At those other places, eventually you’ll get to talk to someone. You’ll take a number and wait, and when you do talk to someone, they’ll be glum and uninspired, but at UCLA, they just will not talk to you.

I don’t mind if the boy doesn’t go to USC but I hope he doesn’t go to UCLA.

Bad Dad’s College Advice

 

HIM: You look sad this morning. What’s the matter?

HER: Oh, my son left for college yesterday, and I just really miss him.

HIM: Let me share something with you. When my daughter went off to school, I gave her one very important piece of advice.

HER: Really? What was that?

HIM: Don’t get photographed sucking a dick.

HER: Hmmm. That sounds like great advice for your daughter, but it wouldn’t have any value for my son.

HIM: That’s not what I’ve heard.

High School Confidential

 
Napoleon Bonaparte

I ask my boy how school’s going this year, his senior year in high school.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t enjoy it that much but I do it anyway.”

When we get to the subject of his English teacher, he says, “He’s fine, other than he’s got a Napoleon complex and spends the entire class talking about himself. I know everything about him and I’ve learned nothing about poetry.

“He has a two-year-old daughter and another daughter six months old. He coaches a cross-country team. He considers himself the greatest runner of all time. We don’t know what pain is because he has a messed-up knee and he runs on it anyway.

“He thinks Mr. Plette [the AP History teacher] is soft because Mr. Plette give higher grades than he does but don’t tell Plette he said that because Plette’s his boy.

“He’s a San Francisco Giants fan. He’s missing class on Thursday to go to the Giants game.

“Did you know that he has a principal’s credential? When he took the test, other teachers were hanging their heads and walking out of the room, but he knew immediately that he passed it because he knows how to write essays.”

“I hope you’re not pointing these things out to anyone but your parents.”

“Are you kidding? It’s all I talk about.”