Everything in software changes. The requirements change. The design changes. The business changes. The technology changes. The team changes. The team members change. The problem isn’t change, because change is going to happen; the problem, rather, is our inability to cope with change. — Kent Beck, Extreme Programming Explained Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Books
Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 (Plus Shipping) Book About Flies
Via The Berkeley Blog: Read more →
What I do not understand is whether the world really needed you. Who knows? Perhaps one supernumerary less would have spoiled the human tragedy. — Machado de Assis, Epitaph of a Small Winner
HW’s Book Reviews: Go the Fuck to Sleep
If you think saying “fuck” to a toddler is the funniest thing ever, and evidently a lot of people do judging from the rave reviews on Facebook, then you’ll love this book. SPOILER ALERT: The joke is that infants don’t have the same sleep patterns as grownups — ha ha — which is breaking news to this hapless unfit shithead of a parent, who spews page after page of rhymed obscenities at his child. I didn’t say “fuck” to my kid until he was a teenager, and even then it wasn’t to be funny. Seriously: Children are a gift from God and I don’t even believe in God. I love the time that my son and I were boys together more than I love anything. If you think there’s anything clever or funny about this book, please stay away from me . . . Read more →
Ask the Dust
You’ll eat hamburgers year after year and live in dusty, vermin-infested apartments and hotels, but every morning you’ll see the mighty sun, the eternal blue of the sky, and the streets will be full of sleek women you never will possess, and the hot semi-tropical nights will reek of romance you’ll never have, but you’ll still be in paradise, boys, in the land of sunshine. — John Fante, Ask the Dust Good book, set in the Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles in the 1930s. You’ll need to up the dosage on your Prozac prescription after you read it . . . Read more →
This Is How I Avenged Myself
O crowd, whose love I coveted until the day of my death, this is how I avenged myself for your indifference: I let you buzz all around me, without hearing you. My attitude may be compared to that of Aeschylus’ Prometheus toward his tormentors. Did you think you could chain me to the rock of your triviality, of your agitations over the inconsequential? — Machado de Assis, Epitaph of a Small Winner Read more →
The Star Thrower
As the old man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up to the youth, he asked why he was doing this. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun. “But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish,” countered the other. “How can your effort make any difference?” The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and threw it to safety in the waves. “It makes a difference to this one,” he said. — Loren C. Eiseley, The Star Thrower Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: The Odyssey by Homer
The author displays a lively imagination. The cast of characters includes both gods and mortals, and the story builds to a thrilling climax. I can’t wait to see what this promising young writer comes up with next. Read more →
What Everyone Says in a Book
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book — what everyone else does not say in a book. — Friedrich Nietzsche Read more →
Slinging the Bull
The verb — to sling — is key. You do not offer bullshit. You do not put it forth. You sling it. Keep in mind that slinging, as an action, requires a loose arm and a relaxed attitude. It’s a careless action, and should be fun for both you and the recipient, although probably more fun for you if they’re not expecting it and are forced to receive it with their guard down. — Stanley Bing, What Would Machiavelli Do? Read more →
The Last Freedom
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. — Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning Read more →
You Don’t Count, You’re Not on TV
There’s this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what’s immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what’s right around them is unimportant. And that’s why they’re lonely. You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of searching, and then when they look at you, you’re just a kind of an object. You don’t count. You’re not what they’re looking for. You’re not on TV. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
The Serenity at the Center of It All
So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
This Instant Right Now
The past cannot remember the past. The future can’t generate the future. The cutting edge of this instant right here and now is always nothing less than the totality of everything there is. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
Bird by Bird
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. He was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” — Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life Read more →
Painting Your Masterpiece
If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you. — Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball Read more →
What We Are and What We Do
In that strange separation of what man is from what man does we may have some clue as to what the hell has gone wrong in this twentieth century. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
We’re in Such a Hurry
What I would like to do is use the time that is coming now to talk about some things that have come to mind. We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
Offer What You Have
Offer what you have, disclosing what you feel and think, connecting only with those who do likewise. — Jim and Michele McCarthy, Software for Your Head Read more →
Truth Knocks
The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →