(Marie-) Arzel was gracious enough to give me the green light to cross-post something from her chef-oriented blog. Power to the People...with Passion!
Btw: If you read take the time to read the "bitter" post, it's worth your while to check out the more upbeat, and very practical stuff that keeps it company. The fact that she can rebound from a dented dream to craft occasionally dreamy, occasionally hard-nosed prose for others is only part of what makes her amazing.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 10.14.2011: Gaming the system
At work, the conferencing software's reach definitely exceeds its grasp. This was ably demonstrated on Monday's "Area Staff Meeting," originating in the Chicago office and streamed out to the provincials in the region. What you need to understand about our office's "big conference room" is that: 1.) "Big" is a relative designation, and 2.) It was designed when a mere handful of old-timers were movin' on up to that dee-luxe office suite in the sky-hi-hi.
Cut to 2011, and we're spilling out into the adjacent breakroom, with the latecomers bringing chairs in tow. Which means that, to someone in the back, what comes out of the conference-call speakers is more than slightly reminiscent of the "Wha-wha-wha-wha-wha..." of Charlie Brown's teacher. I suppose that could be a boon for anyone needing to sneak in some writing under the cover of note-taking. Except that's far too productive. See, I figure that when a company goes to such great lengths to waste your time, the only responsible response is to take ownership of such wastage. Maybe--dare I suggest?--even profit from it.
Naturally, I mean having the foresight to set up a betting pool, with the winner having the best accuracy in predicting:
Cut to 2011, and we're spilling out into the adjacent breakroom, with the latecomers bringing chairs in tow. Which means that, to someone in the back, what comes out of the conference-call speakers is more than slightly reminiscent of the "Wha-wha-wha-wha-wha..." of Charlie Brown's teacher. I suppose that could be a boon for anyone needing to sneak in some writing under the cover of note-taking. Except that's far too productive. See, I figure that when a company goes to such great lengths to waste your time, the only responsible response is to take ownership of such wastage. Maybe--dare I suggest?--even profit from it.
Naturally, I mean having the foresight to set up a betting pool, with the winner having the best accuracy in predicting:
- Number of minutes between the official start time of the conference and its actual start
- Number of inside jokes that only the "host" office understands
- Number of times the video connection freezes or freaks out
- Number of times one or both ends of the voice connection drops
- Number of phone calls taken or hushed among the Powers That Be
- Number of PowerPoint slides that contain the word "vision," "opportunity," or "strategic"
- Number of remote workers dialing into the call who forget to mute their end of the connection
- Whether or not corporate I/T will push out a Windows update that requires a reboot in the middle of the presentation
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
A humbling thought for content creators
The end of an NPR segment--to which Dennis & I were tuned in on the way to see The Ladykins on Sunday--ended with a clip from Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" single. Serious as the segment's topic had been, I (naturally) couldn't help but smirk, thinking of Weird Al's send-up.
Exposing yourself to parody is, doubtless, a mark of character--but it's also a bizzare badge of honor in the music industry...at least to my way of thinking. But Dennis made a more sage point when he wondered aloud, "How many of the people he's lampooned are here and gone, and he's still around."
Ouch. For someone with pretensions to being a "content creator," that's more than a little sobering. (That despite the poetry/song filk that's whiled away any number of my Frivolous Friday evenings.) But in the unlikely event that writing superstardom awaits your faithful blogger, that's one problem worth having.
Exposing yourself to parody is, doubtless, a mark of character--but it's also a bizzare badge of honor in the music industry...at least to my way of thinking. But Dennis made a more sage point when he wondered aloud, "How many of the people he's lampooned are here and gone, and he's still around."
Ouch. For someone with pretensions to being a "content creator," that's more than a little sobering. (That despite the poetry/song filk that's whiled away any number of my Frivolous Friday evenings.) But in the unlikely event that writing superstardom awaits your faithful blogger, that's one problem worth having.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 09.30.2011: Nerdery is a continuum
I'm finding I comedy works best to keep me from dwelling on how much longer I'm going to be on an elliptical machine, treadmill or what-have-you. So earlier this week it was an old standby, Office Space. (If you haven't seen it, suffice it to say that it's sort of a cult classic for programmers.) Coincidentally, this was also the same week that someone decided to riff on one of the movie's plot-points and steal fellow programmer's red Swingline stapler. Twice.
I polished off Office Space and turned back to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, riffs from which are unavoidable in the SCA. That'd be like trying to play golf without at least one wink-wink-nudge-nudge reference to Caddyshack.
Bad enough that Dennis & I have already trained each other to phrase "or"-type questions (as in, "Do you want four cheese or meat-lover's supreme?") without expecting the answer to be an obligatory "Yes." Or "True" or "1" if someone's feeling exceptionally nerdy. But then I made the mistake of remembering the phrase, "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra."
(If you're not a Star Trek: The Next Generation maven, here's the schtick: The Federation has bumped into (yet another) alien race that (surprise!) just happens to be recognizably humanoid. Moreover, the Universal Translator can even babblefish--yes, I just used that as a verb-- their language into English words. Problem is, it still doesn't make sense, because the Tamarians exclusively communicate allegorically--meaning through references to stories from their history. Think of it as tribal knowledge on steroids.)
At first I thought, well, we're not that bad. But then I realized--particularly after being chagrined at how much of the "Brave, Brave Sir Robin" song I've forgotten--that any nerdery is a continuum. Meep! Ummm...how many restroom stops until Tanagra?
I polished off Office Space and turned back to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, riffs from which are unavoidable in the SCA. That'd be like trying to play golf without at least one wink-wink-nudge-nudge reference to Caddyshack.
Bad enough that Dennis & I have already trained each other to phrase "or"-type questions (as in, "Do you want four cheese or meat-lover's supreme?") without expecting the answer to be an obligatory "Yes." Or "True" or "1" if someone's feeling exceptionally nerdy. But then I made the mistake of remembering the phrase, "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra."
(If you're not a Star Trek: The Next Generation maven, here's the schtick: The Federation has bumped into (yet another) alien race that (surprise!) just happens to be recognizably humanoid. Moreover, the Universal Translator can even babblefish--yes, I just used that as a verb-- their language into English words. Problem is, it still doesn't make sense, because the Tamarians exclusively communicate allegorically--meaning through references to stories from their history. Think of it as tribal knowledge on steroids.)
At first I thought, well, we're not that bad. But then I realized--particularly after being chagrined at how much of the "Brave, Brave Sir Robin" song I've forgotten--that any nerdery is a continuum. Meep! Ummm...how many restroom stops until Tanagra?
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Ultimatum
Maybe it's that I've been reading too much non-history, non-fiction lately. Or maybe the topics are just too...shall we say...inbred. But I've bumped into enough mentions of a game called "Ultimatum" that it's stuck with me. The word "game" is a misnomer, at least in the sense that Ultimatum is nothing you'll find keeping Monopoly company on the closet shelf. It's actually played by those who've volunteered for psychological studies in universities and other institutions that study human interactions in factor-controlled circumstances.
The basic premise starts with two people. Person A is given a fixed dollar amount (usually ten bones in the cited examples) to be split with the other person. There is no negotiation--Person A makes a take-it-or-leave-it offer for Person B. The catch is that if Person B refuses, each person receives zero.
The classical economics they teach you in high school and college would predict that even if Person A offered Person B one cent and kept the remaining $9.99 for her/himself, Person B would still have a penny more than s/he had before, and would therefore accept. Because something is always better than nothing, riiiight???
As it turns out, capital-R reality doesn't exist to fulfil the premises of classical economic thought any more than it does, say, story problems in Math. Because the ultimate result was that a low-ball offer basically meant that Person B had very little to lose, either. And, maybe it's just because the Puritans gained such an early toe-hold in the American psyche, but the impulse to punish high-handed greed is fairly strong, too. In practice, 50-50, 60-40, and even 70-30 splits had a fairly high likelihood of being accepted. But once a threshold of "unfairness" was crossed...not so much.
The metaphor to the current state of the U.S. economy (and political state) seems all-too-obvious...
If, en masse, the American worker/consumer walks away from the deal, it might actually be good on some levels. Among them decreasing personal debt and a mom-n-pop entrepreneurial boom, and maybe--just maybe--an increased focus on quality of life. But apart from that...boom. The pity is that those who play the role of Person A in this "game" they're playing will not walk away with nothing. At best, they'll be less-rich. Once again demonstrating how freakishly carefully-controlled lab results can mutate in the wild.
The basic premise starts with two people. Person A is given a fixed dollar amount (usually ten bones in the cited examples) to be split with the other person. There is no negotiation--Person A makes a take-it-or-leave-it offer for Person B. The catch is that if Person B refuses, each person receives zero.
The classical economics they teach you in high school and college would predict that even if Person A offered Person B one cent and kept the remaining $9.99 for her/himself, Person B would still have a penny more than s/he had before, and would therefore accept. Because something is always better than nothing, riiiight???
As it turns out, capital-R reality doesn't exist to fulfil the premises of classical economic thought any more than it does, say, story problems in Math. Because the ultimate result was that a low-ball offer basically meant that Person B had very little to lose, either. And, maybe it's just because the Puritans gained such an early toe-hold in the American psyche, but the impulse to punish high-handed greed is fairly strong, too. In practice, 50-50, 60-40, and even 70-30 splits had a fairly high likelihood of being accepted. But once a threshold of "unfairness" was crossed...not so much.
The metaphor to the current state of the U.S. economy (and political state) seems all-too-obvious...
- As banks sit on hundreds of billions of dollars of bailout-backed credit
- As corporations hoard even more than that in profits, waiting for someone else to create the jobs...and demand for their products.
- As pay is not so much a fraction as it is a logarithmic base of productivity
- As the cost of a college degree rises in tandem with offshoring and union-busting
- As pernicious unemployment and foreclosure rates undermine consumer confidence...and spending
- As we expect an entrepreneurial "creative class" to spontaneously emerge from generations taught to standardized tests
- As gerrymandering and astro-turfing polarize the electoral landscape
- As the concentration of wealth into a shrinking pool of bank accounts further tilts the political and legal table
If, en masse, the American worker/consumer walks away from the deal, it might actually be good on some levels. Among them decreasing personal debt and a mom-n-pop entrepreneurial boom, and maybe--just maybe--an increased focus on quality of life. But apart from that...boom. The pity is that those who play the role of Person A in this "game" they're playing will not walk away with nothing. At best, they'll be less-rich. Once again demonstrating how freakishly carefully-controlled lab results can mutate in the wild.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 09.23.2011: Close enough for government work
Slashdot today ran a piece about the U.S. Government paying its own programmers half the going rate for contract programmers. The comments, at least early-on when I read them, tended to focus on the premise that contract programmers are paid extra to, well, go away on short notice. (I've worked as a "temp"--high-tech flunkie as well as office minion--and, frankly, I have no idea where that notion comes from, at least not if a temp. agency is involved.)
Me, I'd tend to place the discrepancy at the intersection of hiring freezes and the spend-it-or-have-your-budget-slashed-next-year school of fiscal "management" that I've seen in the private sector as well.
But speculation, however plausibly grounded in past experience is not the point. Combine nerdy quirkiness and stupefying levels of through-the-looking-glass bureaucratic "logic," and the reasons could well fall outside the pale of our workaday norms. The most likely of those, to my way of thinking, include:
1.) Well, duh: People from the outside are always smarter
2.) Legendary public sector "job security" includes cubicle in lead-lined bunker and cryogenic suspension in the event of thermonuclear Armageddon
3.) Pay comparison doesn't take into account standard government-issue solid gold laptops
4.) Coders willing to take lower pay to develop "secret government technology" cachet irresistable to fellow geeks of the preferred gender
5.) Pay differences easily offset by illegal kickbacks from soda and energy drink vendors
6.) Former college interns didn't notice the "indentured servitude" clause in their NDAs
7.) Government I/T departments are the digital tar-pits where old COBOL and VB6 programmers go to die
8.) Uncle Sam's coders are rented out as cheap off-planet labor for our secret extraterrestrial allies--and neural implants don't grow on trees, you know
9.) Daily flogging and haranguing by Grover Norquist & Tea Party to destroy self-worth
10.) Once-in-a-lifetime chance to hack Andrews Air Force Base and take Air Force One out for a joyride
Me, I'd tend to place the discrepancy at the intersection of hiring freezes and the spend-it-or-have-your-budget-slashed-next-year school of fiscal "management" that I've seen in the private sector as well.
But speculation, however plausibly grounded in past experience is not the point. Combine nerdy quirkiness and stupefying levels of through-the-looking-glass bureaucratic "logic," and the reasons could well fall outside the pale of our workaday norms. The most likely of those, to my way of thinking, include:
1.) Well, duh: People from the outside are always smarter
2.) Legendary public sector "job security" includes cubicle in lead-lined bunker and cryogenic suspension in the event of thermonuclear Armageddon
3.) Pay comparison doesn't take into account standard government-issue solid gold laptops
4.) Coders willing to take lower pay to develop "secret government technology" cachet irresistable to fellow geeks of the preferred gender
5.) Pay differences easily offset by illegal kickbacks from soda and energy drink vendors
6.) Former college interns didn't notice the "indentured servitude" clause in their NDAs
7.) Government I/T departments are the digital tar-pits where old COBOL and VB6 programmers go to die
8.) Uncle Sam's coders are rented out as cheap off-planet labor for our secret extraterrestrial allies--and neural implants don't grow on trees, you know
9.) Daily flogging and haranguing by Grover Norquist & Tea Party to destroy self-worth
10.) Once-in-a-lifetime chance to hack Andrews Air Force Base and take Air Force One out for a joyride
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
"Training the Trainer," revisited
Those Who Know Best asked me to train our Client Services folks on "my" application. Cross-pollination, to be sure--just more in the sense of folks in lab coats and latex gloves brushing pollen off carefully selected plant and brushing it on on an equally selected other plant.
But those were the extent of the specifications, leaving me to fill in the details. Which, naturally involved bribes with food, wine, chocolate, and randomly sorting the competing teams into their Hogwarts houses. That was to make up for the pre-class quiz that they were really good sports about. The first half assembled in the big conference room yesterday for the actual hands-on session.
No worries...I was ready with easily two hours of material to cover, during which Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Gryffindor would take turns at the console doing actual client-type stuff on a test system. In my experience, that lends itself to questions far more than having features demonstrated to you.
What actually happened was that we quickly realized that the way they support the clients on their application is not at all how I support mine. Most notably, when there's a problem, I'm generally sticking my head straight head the database itself. Client Services, on the other hand, relies on the interface. Partly because those tools have been built for them all these years, and partly because some don't have the software nor a knowledge of SQL (Structured Query Language), much less any idea of how data fits together. Some, particularly the most senior folks do, and I had made the shaky assumption that those skills were acquired by the usual on-the-job organizational osmosis.
Wrong assumption, obviously. Which, for anyone presenting, just might trigger a freak-out because the agenda had suddenly evaporated. Which normally means pulling the plug on the whole thing or completely free-wheeling. Both are valuable meeting skills. But then the questions started flying thick as, for lack of a fresher phrase, two worlds collided.
And you know what? It was straight awesome. The balance of the two hours zipped by as I was grilled and in turn tried to get into their heads. Sure, occasionally we'd dip into the software to illustrate something. But for the most part it was meta-information: What the overall client relationships are like, some of the frustrations of working in a distributed development environment (instead of the one-stop-geek that is me), what the process is like on the client side. Those kinds of things.
I'd do it all over again...and I may just have that chance when I work with the second crew a week from tomorrow. I can only look forward to the instructive chaos that will bring.
But those were the extent of the specifications, leaving me to fill in the details. Which, naturally involved bribes with food, wine, chocolate, and randomly sorting the competing teams into their Hogwarts houses. That was to make up for the pre-class quiz that they were really good sports about. The first half assembled in the big conference room yesterday for the actual hands-on session.
No worries...I was ready with easily two hours of material to cover, during which Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Gryffindor would take turns at the console doing actual client-type stuff on a test system. In my experience, that lends itself to questions far more than having features demonstrated to you.
What actually happened was that we quickly realized that the way they support the clients on their application is not at all how I support mine. Most notably, when there's a problem, I'm generally sticking my head straight head the database itself. Client Services, on the other hand, relies on the interface. Partly because those tools have been built for them all these years, and partly because some don't have the software nor a knowledge of SQL (Structured Query Language), much less any idea of how data fits together. Some, particularly the most senior folks do, and I had made the shaky assumption that those skills were acquired by the usual on-the-job organizational osmosis.
Wrong assumption, obviously. Which, for anyone presenting, just might trigger a freak-out because the agenda had suddenly evaporated. Which normally means pulling the plug on the whole thing or completely free-wheeling. Both are valuable meeting skills. But then the questions started flying thick as, for lack of a fresher phrase, two worlds collided.
And you know what? It was straight awesome. The balance of the two hours zipped by as I was grilled and in turn tried to get into their heads. Sure, occasionally we'd dip into the software to illustrate something. But for the most part it was meta-information: What the overall client relationships are like, some of the frustrations of working in a distributed development environment (instead of the one-stop-geek that is me), what the process is like on the client side. Those kinds of things.
I'd do it all over again...and I may just have that chance when I work with the second crew a week from tomorrow. I can only look forward to the instructive chaos that will bring.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Attention Inflation Disorder
We had an interesting bit of "training" over the lunch hour today. One of the deep-thinkers wired himself into our large conference room via two-way webcam, and--unloaded a couple decades of experience on us, which included the pendulum-swings between centralized and distributed computing fads, and also the dead-wrong predictions/assumptions committed by even the most forward-thinking the technorati.
For me, the money-quote was the prediction of an "information economy." Our guest re-cast that instead as an "attention economy," on the premise that information is only valuable if someone reads/views/hears (and, I would add, acts upon) it. Our colleague also theorized about our obsession with glowing rectangles (phones, tablets), and the apparent necessity of maxing out our attention bandwidth when it's not satisfied with the work and people and general doings around us.
Those two notions (attention economy and voluntary information saturation) kind of meshed into the notion that, in terms of classical economics, we're voluntarily debasing our own currency. (Most especially when those brain-CPUs are in paparazzi or "Farmville" spaces.) I suppose it wouldn't be a big deal if Moore's Law and the general premises of computing applied to the think-meat between our ears. Presumably then we could evolve to a state where our internal process monitors looked something like:
30% - Curing Disease
30% - Ending Poverty & Injustice
30% - Saving the Planet
0.0001% - How long are those eggs in the 'fridge okay after their expiration date?
9.9999% - OOOOH--SPARKLY BALL OF TIN FOIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me, I'm not holding my breath. But in the absence of unprecendented rates of brain evolution (or neural augmentation), our techniques for managing divided attentions will have to evolve to take up the slack. And, sadly, I'm not holding out any more hope for that, either. Not after seeing how stubbornly mainstream corporate culture invests in tired carrot-and-stick paradigms, years of disconnect between worker productivity and pay notwithstanding. Sigh.
But such cognitive fragmentation is something we need to start acknowledging in our work lives--and devising coping strategies for its corrosiveness. Particularly in my profession, where one is expected to toggle between blinders-on, deep-dive focus and collaborative brain-pooling in such an immediate and binary fashion. Anything less is living in denial. And, in the long run, the cost of living in that zip code is higher than anywhere else on earth.
For me, the money-quote was the prediction of an "information economy." Our guest re-cast that instead as an "attention economy," on the premise that information is only valuable if someone reads/views/hears (and, I would add, acts upon) it. Our colleague also theorized about our obsession with glowing rectangles (phones, tablets), and the apparent necessity of maxing out our attention bandwidth when it's not satisfied with the work and people and general doings around us.
Those two notions (attention economy and voluntary information saturation) kind of meshed into the notion that, in terms of classical economics, we're voluntarily debasing our own currency. (Most especially when those brain-CPUs are in paparazzi or "Farmville" spaces.) I suppose it wouldn't be a big deal if Moore's Law and the general premises of computing applied to the think-meat between our ears. Presumably then we could evolve to a state where our internal process monitors looked something like:
30% - Curing Disease
30% - Ending Poverty & Injustice
30% - Saving the Planet
0.0001% - How long are those eggs in the 'fridge okay after their expiration date?
9.9999% - OOOOH--SPARKLY BALL OF TIN FOIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me, I'm not holding my breath. But in the absence of unprecendented rates of brain evolution (or neural augmentation), our techniques for managing divided attentions will have to evolve to take up the slack. And, sadly, I'm not holding out any more hope for that, either. Not after seeing how stubbornly mainstream corporate culture invests in tired carrot-and-stick paradigms, years of disconnect between worker productivity and pay notwithstanding. Sigh.
But such cognitive fragmentation is something we need to start acknowledging in our work lives--and devising coping strategies for its corrosiveness. Particularly in my profession, where one is expected to toggle between blinders-on, deep-dive focus and collaborative brain-pooling in such an immediate and binary fashion. Anything less is living in denial. And, in the long run, the cost of living in that zip code is higher than anywhere else on earth.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Silly Sunday, 09.11.2011: A reorg. poem
The rumor mill is humming
As it's running at full bore:
Word from the grapevine says that
A reorg. is in store.
And soon The Powers That Be
Are citing "re-alignment,"
Which for us can only mean
One thing: Reassignment.
So boxes now we scavenge,
Then we pack up all our stuff
And cough and sneeze amidst the haze
Of dust and lint and fluff.
Windex and compressed air
At each cube make a stop:
Coffee-rings fade, keyboards harvest
Crumb-farm bumper-crops!
Our PCs we then power down
And unsnarl spaghetti-wires;
Desktop Support is too swamped
With fighting bigger fires.
Traffic crowds the elevators
The hallways and the stairs
As we ferry stacks of boxes
And monitors on chairs.
We read our mail by smartphone
And quell the urge to thwack
That fool in our new office who
Has not begun to pack.
Greetings, my new cube-mate:
No doubt we'll get on fine--
So long as you keep to your half
Like I will keep to mine.
New roles and hats are donned
Tho' the going starts out slow.
And as the dust yet settles,
One thing I claim to know:
In my annual review
Surely this I did not mean
When I said that I could use
A little change of scene.
As it's running at full bore:
Word from the grapevine says that
A reorg. is in store.
And soon The Powers That Be
Are citing "re-alignment,"
Which for us can only mean
One thing: Reassignment.
So boxes now we scavenge,
Then we pack up all our stuff
And cough and sneeze amidst the haze
Of dust and lint and fluff.
Windex and compressed air
At each cube make a stop:
Coffee-rings fade, keyboards harvest
Crumb-farm bumper-crops!
Our PCs we then power down
And unsnarl spaghetti-wires;
Desktop Support is too swamped
With fighting bigger fires.
Traffic crowds the elevators
The hallways and the stairs
As we ferry stacks of boxes
And monitors on chairs.
We read our mail by smartphone
And quell the urge to thwack
That fool in our new office who
Has not begun to pack.
Greetings, my new cube-mate:
No doubt we'll get on fine--
So long as you keep to your half
Like I will keep to mine.
New roles and hats are donned
Tho' the going starts out slow.
And as the dust yet settles,
One thing I claim to know:
In my annual review
Surely this I did not mean
When I said that I could use
A little change of scene.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Post post-poned
Home from work now, headache in tow. Tomorrow is another day, still busy, but hopefully more in the pro-active sense.
Cheers, all!
Cheers, all!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
(Yet another) Sign of the times
I tried to log in to Twitter earlier today, only to be greeted by the trademark Fail Whale and the uncharacteristic (of late, anyway) message that the web's foremost ADOS application was "over capacity."
But rather than immediately roll my eyes over scalability growing-pains, my first thought was to wonder where the earthquake/tsunami/hurricane/tornado/revolution had hit. (Or, more cynically, which overrated celebrity had died.)
Of course, nothing of the kind had happened (at least not anywhere off the "Hic Dracones Sunt" area of the American mind-map.) But I thought the fact that it was my first instinct to assume that the disaster was outside Twitter's server-room--and the fact that I didn't question this until some time later--was interesting. If I'm not alone, then I think Twitter should be congratulated on a serious milestone. (Good job, y'all.)
But rather than immediately roll my eyes over scalability growing-pains, my first thought was to wonder where the earthquake/tsunami/hurricane/tornado/revolution had hit. (Or, more cynically, which overrated celebrity had died.)
Of course, nothing of the kind had happened (at least not anywhere off the "Hic Dracones Sunt" area of the American mind-map.) But I thought the fact that it was my first instinct to assume that the disaster was outside Twitter's server-room--and the fact that I didn't question this until some time later--was interesting. If I'm not alone, then I think Twitter should be congratulated on a serious milestone. (Good job, y'all.)
Friday, September 2, 2011
No post tonight
I'm afraid I haven't been feeling too frivolous the last few days, and tonight is anything but the start of a languorous three-day holiday weekend.
Hope everyone is back home by Tuesday, safe, sane and not too sunburned.
Cheers, all!
Doreen
Hope everyone is back home by Tuesday, safe, sane and not too sunburned.
Cheers, all!
Doreen
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Update to last night's post
Apparently, when you block a post from a third-party application in Facebook, you're then given the option of blocking all subsequent posts. That raises the comfort level a bit, as the application continues its lumbering waddle into platform-hood.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Facebook giveth and Facebook taketh away
It's clear that Google+ has changed a bit, simply because Facebook has adapted by allowing its users to, erm, "curate" their audience. Meaning that previously, anything you posted was either public or to your circle, whereas now you can cherry-pick who can read your comments, links, etc. So that rant about your work life goes only to your friends; your parents know nothing about your revelries, etc. Kudos also for the feature that requires your approval before you can be officially tagged by someone else in a photo.
Given how social media has largely made us the curators of our personal brands, such tools seem obvious from the perspective of the rear-view mirror.
But tonight I noticed that, while options for controlling output has been made more granular, options for input have quietly been retired. Notably the "Block all" options for either people or applications. All that's left are "Block this post" and "Report post or spam." Without digging, I'm not even sure what that latter is supposed to mean. I'll guess I'll find out when the next Yelp check-in spam hits my news stream. In the meantime, I find the "trade-off" interesting: My gut feeling is this signals a tighter integration between who you know and where they're spending their money. All of course, to entice you--and your wallet--to follow.
Which only reinforces the maxim that if you can't tell what's being sold, you're what's for sale.
Given how social media has largely made us the curators of our personal brands, such tools seem obvious from the perspective of the rear-view mirror.
But tonight I noticed that, while options for controlling output has been made more granular, options for input have quietly been retired. Notably the "Block all" options for either people or applications. All that's left are "Block this post" and "Report post or spam." Without digging, I'm not even sure what that latter is supposed to mean. I'll guess I'll find out when the next Yelp check-in spam hits my news stream. In the meantime, I find the "trade-off" interesting: My gut feeling is this signals a tighter integration between who you know and where they're spending their money. All of course, to entice you--and your wallet--to follow.
Which only reinforces the maxim that if you can't tell what's being sold, you're what's for sale.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 08.26.2011: The Geek Workout
During the last few weeks, I've rationalized not going to the gym with the argument that packing boxes, schlepping them, wrestling a carpet cleaner and mopping both walls (for painting) and floors (for the usual reasons) was plenty of strength-training, thank you very much.
But as much as certain muscle-factions might have protested, that's exercise I prefer to the hothouse flower kind that treadmills and free-weights provide. At least there's something to occupy the mind. Even if it's only speculating on how inbred the spider population must become over the cold months when I haven't the heart to evict them. (Charlotte's Web in First Grade, read by a student teacher I absolutely adored, you understand...)
But I had a minor epiphany today after a bit of email back-and-forth Dennis & I had over the work to be done over the weekend.
Dennis:
You also have to understand that the garage is, in fact, a mess. So, being the perennial wisenheimer, I snarked back:
But running for your life (being from giant rolling stones or the flunkies of rival archaeologists) beats the living tar out of trying to follow the plot (minus sound) of Mad Men on the gym television.
Lamentably--at least for present purposes--occultist Nazis and Soviets are considerably harder to come by these days. And, because Mom did her darnedest to raise a post-racial daughter, I'll pass on the hordes of aboriginals from the 2nd & 4th movies, thanks. (Dear Mr. Spielberg: Congratulations on making Rudyard Kipling's ghost blush, you pandering twit.)
Training to become a Jedi Knight would be an excellent way for a geek to blow off steam after a day at the office. After all, you're going to be a force (Force?) for good, and that's one heck of a motivation. (And I imagine the bennies in the Old Republic were pretty good, before Supreme Chancellor Palpatine--a.k.a. Darth Walker--busted the Jedi union and outsourced state security to scabs.) But, there's the celibacy requirement, and I wouldn't trade Dennis for even a rainbow lightsabre, so that's a deal-breaker right there. Not to mention that being able to levitate things with my will would ultimately be counter productive for any fitness regimen.
I suppose there's the holodeck of Star Trek: The Next Generation--basically a Wii on steroids. The fringe benefit is that it AI will do everything physically possible to avoid harming you. (Unless you're as disaster-prone as Lt. Barclay, of course.) I mean, your exercise routine not only monitors your biofeedback, but it also has a plot! (If you ever thought the ST:TNG universe laughably short on chunky folks like your faithful blogger, boy, were you being unimaginative my friend!) It's the perfect workout. Now all I need to do is write code day and night and save enough money to have myself cryogenically frozen until the latter 24th century. No sweat.
Except that maybe that plan is what my favorite History prof. meant by "too clever by half." Drat.
Okay. So maybe something a little closer in space-time would be more practical. Something with motivation and mentoring. The major drawback to hoping that I'm an immortal born to duel my peers for the dubious "prize" (of what I can only assume is bragging rights) is that I first have to verify that I'm immortal. That seems...shall we say...statistically non-viable at best. So I think I'll give that a miss, if it's all the same to everybody. Cato has no doubt retired by now--and in any case, we'd both be uninsurable inside of a month. So that's likewise a bust for keeping me on my toes.
And, lamentably, I've probably missed some sort of age cut-off for the job of "Slayer." Pity. I'm more of a night owl anyway. And I can't say as I'd complain about having a trainer (a.k.a. "Watcher") with a gorgeous British accent and a thing for ancient books. Who nags you to train with cross-bows! But as extracurricular activities go, it's probably not something you want on your resume. (Although, statistically, skinny chicks earn more, so at least there's an upside.) Plus, I just pulled up Google Maps and typed in "Hellmouth," with no exact matches. Which tells me that the job market for Vampire Slayers has pretty much dried up since Buffy hung up her cross and stakes. I suppose any blood-sucking demons left are too busy reinventing themselves as sparkly heart-throbs or nostalgically crashing cosplay parties to hire themselves out as personal trainers.
All of which, of course, means that I have no choice but to find a new video podcast (my carefully-rationed supply of Wine Library TV running critically low) and again take my place in the shadow of The Buffed Ones. If only there were an elliptical machine for the mind...
But as much as certain muscle-factions might have protested, that's exercise I prefer to the hothouse flower kind that treadmills and free-weights provide. At least there's something to occupy the mind. Even if it's only speculating on how inbred the spider population must become over the cold months when I haven't the heart to evict them. (Charlotte's Web in First Grade, read by a student teacher I absolutely adored, you understand...)
But I had a minor epiphany today after a bit of email back-and-forth Dennis & I had over the work to be done over the weekend.
Dennis:
Unless you had other plans in the works, I am planning on getting out into the detached garage and doing some cleaning. I would like to get the bee equipment and such organized and moved out to the storage shed, the small table saw ready for sale and just get the garage capable of being walked through without injuring oneself.Now, if you want to understand the garage, what you need to know is that it has already sent Dennis to the emergency room, from whence he emerged, sporting a look that only Boris Karloff could love. (Thankfully, the forehead scar is as distant a memory as the piranha scar from his late teens. And, no, I am not making that up.)
You also have to understand that the garage is, in fact, a mess. So, being the perennial wisenheimer, I snarked back:
What?! Ruin all the "Indiana Jones and the Man-cave of Doom" fun of venturing into the garage?--are you *cracked*, man?!?!?! (Although I will confess to a certain morbid curiosity to know now many dessicated, cobweb-covered corpses you'll find felled by diving pipe-wrenches, bifurcated by Beverly-shears, flattened by giant rolling tool-cases, etc. But, then, I'm kinda sick that way...) ;-P ;-PAwhile later, though, I realized that, Indiana Jones--despite the buffed physique and fast-twitch reflexes of a jungle cat, was actually a nerd in his own way. You don't get the "Dr." in front of your name without some of that in your mental make-up. And, seriously, how many dudes do you know could ID a 12th century inscription while being chased by a secret brotherhood through the underground crypts of Venice with a lovely blonde at their side? Yeah, exactly.
But running for your life (being from giant rolling stones or the flunkies of rival archaeologists) beats the living tar out of trying to follow the plot (minus sound) of Mad Men on the gym television.
Lamentably--at least for present purposes--occultist Nazis and Soviets are considerably harder to come by these days. And, because Mom did her darnedest to raise a post-racial daughter, I'll pass on the hordes of aboriginals from the 2nd & 4th movies, thanks. (Dear Mr. Spielberg: Congratulations on making Rudyard Kipling's ghost blush, you pandering twit.)
Training to become a Jedi Knight would be an excellent way for a geek to blow off steam after a day at the office. After all, you're going to be a force (Force?) for good, and that's one heck of a motivation. (And I imagine the bennies in the Old Republic were pretty good, before Supreme Chancellor Palpatine--a.k.a. Darth Walker--busted the Jedi union and outsourced state security to scabs.) But, there's the celibacy requirement, and I wouldn't trade Dennis for even a rainbow lightsabre, so that's a deal-breaker right there. Not to mention that being able to levitate things with my will would ultimately be counter productive for any fitness regimen.
I suppose there's the holodeck of Star Trek: The Next Generation--basically a Wii on steroids. The fringe benefit is that it AI will do everything physically possible to avoid harming you. (Unless you're as disaster-prone as Lt. Barclay, of course.) I mean, your exercise routine not only monitors your biofeedback, but it also has a plot! (If you ever thought the ST:TNG universe laughably short on chunky folks like your faithful blogger, boy, were you being unimaginative my friend!) It's the perfect workout. Now all I need to do is write code day and night and save enough money to have myself cryogenically frozen until the latter 24th century. No sweat.
Except that maybe that plan is what my favorite History prof. meant by "too clever by half." Drat.
Okay. So maybe something a little closer in space-time would be more practical. Something with motivation and mentoring. The major drawback to hoping that I'm an immortal born to duel my peers for the dubious "prize" (of what I can only assume is bragging rights) is that I first have to verify that I'm immortal. That seems...shall we say...statistically non-viable at best. So I think I'll give that a miss, if it's all the same to everybody. Cato has no doubt retired by now--and in any case, we'd both be uninsurable inside of a month. So that's likewise a bust for keeping me on my toes.
And, lamentably, I've probably missed some sort of age cut-off for the job of "Slayer." Pity. I'm more of a night owl anyway. And I can't say as I'd complain about having a trainer (a.k.a. "Watcher") with a gorgeous British accent and a thing for ancient books. Who nags you to train with cross-bows! But as extracurricular activities go, it's probably not something you want on your resume. (Although, statistically, skinny chicks earn more, so at least there's an upside.) Plus, I just pulled up Google Maps and typed in "Hellmouth," with no exact matches. Which tells me that the job market for Vampire Slayers has pretty much dried up since Buffy hung up her cross and stakes. I suppose any blood-sucking demons left are too busy reinventing themselves as sparkly heart-throbs or nostalgically crashing cosplay parties to hire themselves out as personal trainers.
All of which, of course, means that I have no choice but to find a new video podcast (my carefully-rationed supply of Wine Library TV running critically low) and again take my place in the shadow of The Buffed Ones. If only there were an elliptical machine for the mind...
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Why "internet time" doesn't matter so much anymore
Back in the summer of the post-dot-com-bubble-pop (a.k.a. 2001), fellow tech. writer--let's call her "A"--and I drove from Rochester, MN to the Minneapolis Convention Center for a tech. expo. She was looking for work--and tchotchkes. Whereas I'd talked my first line supervisor into letting me put 8 hours into this junket on the pretext of research, specifically the question, "What does the internet mean to your business?"
Let's face it, that particular tech. expo. was already showing the effects of the post-bubble hangover. The convention center had had to fill the space by booking a manufacturing-related expo. at the same time, discreetly partitioning them with blue curtains. As it turns out, the best answer to that question came from the manufacturing side. A micro-manufacturer of industrial tools related the story of how a customer in desperate need of a replacement for broken equipment had emailed the CAD drawings to them. After taking a look a the drawings, the manufacturer called the customer--a few hours' drive away--and said, "Send your truck now. We'll have it ready for you by the time you get here."
Naturally, at the time I was all drop-jawed about the competitive advantage that "internet time" provided. (Dennis, being a manufacturing engineer at the time, was trained in a world where dead-tree prints would have to be shipped, then re-drawn by one of the manufacturer's techs, and only then could the actual business of "manufacturing" begin. Even at dail-up speeds, receiving a digital file that could be directly imported made for blazing turnaround times.) Even today, I caught myself annoyed with Canon for only just drop-shipping yesterday a part that I ordered (gasp!) all the way back on Saturday. (The horror...)
Now, in many, many parts of the world, such digitization and delivery capabilities are positively banal. And, to me, that's a good thing. I was reminded of that tonight when I pulled a non-bill, non mass-mail envelope out of the stack. A small business' company envelope, obviously, with the city/state/zip line nearly running off the Avery label. The one-page form-letter offered the services of a (relatively) local moving storage company. Short, sweet, who-we-are-and-what-we-can-offer-you. (No physical signature above the printed one, which would scandalize Mom--old-school enough to hold each sheet of bond paper to the light to verify that the watermark was correctly aligned. But it was obviously proofread for grammar and spelling, which (sadly) pretty much puts it ahead in the game.)
The backstory is that Dennis & I just put our home up for sale, so it's pretty obvious that the MLS listing prompted the contact. And good on them for showing some hustle. In the end, it doesn't matter that property listings no longer have to wait for the classified. Nor even that reverse lookups (of addresses or phone numbers to people) are stupid-simple (if you don't mind popup ads and enough cookies to choke a certain fuzzy blue Sesame Street character). But it's the first moving-related offer I've seen since a bare-bones listing went live nearly two weeks ago.
And I can't help but notice that, in both cases, neither firm could be described as a "technology" company. Speaking for myself, I think we programmer/technology types sometimes take technology for its own sake a little too seriously. For the manufacturing and moving company, it's not All About how quickly they can access information; it's about how capable they are of doing something constructive with it. Dunno about anybody else, but I can't help but be a little humbled by that.
Let's face it, that particular tech. expo. was already showing the effects of the post-bubble hangover. The convention center had had to fill the space by booking a manufacturing-related expo. at the same time, discreetly partitioning them with blue curtains. As it turns out, the best answer to that question came from the manufacturing side. A micro-manufacturer of industrial tools related the story of how a customer in desperate need of a replacement for broken equipment had emailed the CAD drawings to them. After taking a look a the drawings, the manufacturer called the customer--a few hours' drive away--and said, "Send your truck now. We'll have it ready for you by the time you get here."
Naturally, at the time I was all drop-jawed about the competitive advantage that "internet time" provided. (Dennis, being a manufacturing engineer at the time, was trained in a world where dead-tree prints would have to be shipped, then re-drawn by one of the manufacturer's techs, and only then could the actual business of "manufacturing" begin. Even at dail-up speeds, receiving a digital file that could be directly imported made for blazing turnaround times.) Even today, I caught myself annoyed with Canon for only just drop-shipping yesterday a part that I ordered (gasp!) all the way back on Saturday. (The horror...)
Now, in many, many parts of the world, such digitization and delivery capabilities are positively banal. And, to me, that's a good thing. I was reminded of that tonight when I pulled a non-bill, non mass-mail envelope out of the stack. A small business' company envelope, obviously, with the city/state/zip line nearly running off the Avery label. The one-page form-letter offered the services of a (relatively) local moving storage company. Short, sweet, who-we-are-and-what-we-can-offer-you. (No physical signature above the printed one, which would scandalize Mom--old-school enough to hold each sheet of bond paper to the light to verify that the watermark was correctly aligned. But it was obviously proofread for grammar and spelling, which (sadly) pretty much puts it ahead in the game.)
The backstory is that Dennis & I just put our home up for sale, so it's pretty obvious that the MLS listing prompted the contact. And good on them for showing some hustle. In the end, it doesn't matter that property listings no longer have to wait for the classified. Nor even that reverse lookups (of addresses or phone numbers to people) are stupid-simple (if you don't mind popup ads and enough cookies to choke a certain fuzzy blue Sesame Street character). But it's the first moving-related offer I've seen since a bare-bones listing went live nearly two weeks ago.
And I can't help but notice that, in both cases, neither firm could be described as a "technology" company. Speaking for myself, I think we programmer/technology types sometimes take technology for its own sake a little too seriously. For the manufacturing and moving company, it's not All About how quickly they can access information; it's about how capable they are of doing something constructive with it. Dunno about anybody else, but I can't help but be a little humbled by that.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Danegeld 2.0 *
Earlier this week, I was wickedly amused to read that the makers of the Abercrombie & Fitch line of clothing were offering to pay the cast of MTV's Jersey Shore to refrain from wearing their togs, citing concerns about their brand's image. (Cue Billy Joel: "Where have you been hidin' out lately, honey? You can't dress trashy 'till you spend a lotta money.") I was further amused when one of my classmates from Programmer's School picked up on that, offering to do the same for a substantially reduced price. And then, tonight, a librarian friend was having a Facebook conniption about Kourtney Kardashian's "librarian" get-up, which was also worth an evil laugh.
One of the downsides of the democratization in time-wasting brought to us by the internet is that celebrity can simultaneously more far-flung and more fleeting than ever before. But for the enterprising (but otherwise talent-free) flash-in-the-pan, this opens up all manner of opportunity. The obvious examples:
Granted, such tactics won't be 100% successful. Some companies, after all, deliberately court controversy for an "edgy" image. (Look no further than the in-your-face product placements for VirginMobile, PlentyOfFish.com and Polaroid) in Lady Gaga's Telephone (NSFW version)).
But such failure is all part of my cunning plan. See, I figure I can eventually graduate to video blogging. In my "office" cleverly disguised as a spare bedroom...complete with full menagerie of stuffed animals. The current wardrobe--A green men's T-shirt and blue-striped white boxer shorts--will more than suffice. As will the humidity-frizzed hair. And the make-up that hasn't been re-touched since early afternoon.
With such anti-hipster cred. at my fingertips, I should really learn how to use it responsibly. Yeah. Nice image you go goin' there, Apple. It'd be an awful shame if I were to, say, "accidentally" flash your latest product around in front of my webcam... Ohai, Coca-Cola...oh, I'm sorry: Did I leave that can out in plain sight? My bad. Here, let me tuck it back into one of a dozen cases under the spare bed. Yes, that spare bed--the one with the wrinkled Martha Stewart bedspread, and the "Euro-shams" that look like a deflated meringue, what with the way I just wadded the pillows into them and all...
You get the idea:
Step 1: Videoblogging stardom
Step 2: Blatant extortion
Step 3: Profit!
Eh. I can think of worse ways to feather the nest. And at least I'm finally getting some mileage from the un-coolness that I've been building up since grade school...
- - - - -
* Historical note: Protection rackets go by many names--most notably the Orwellian "War on Terror" in our day and age--but few were ever so successful or wide-ranging as the Danegeld. Wagnerian/Victorian horned-helmet idiocies aside, the Vikings were a remarkable people in many ways, with a presence ranging from Constantinople (where they formed the bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor) to Eastern Canada (L'Anse Aux Meadows in the province of Newfoundland-Labrador). And they were apparently skilled enough with...errr..."international brand recognition" to be able to extort tribute from points as distant as Saxon/Norman England, Christian Spain and western Russia. And it is in honor of the, um, "business acumen" of my husband's ancestors that this post is titled.
One of the downsides of the democratization in time-wasting brought to us by the internet is that celebrity can simultaneously more far-flung and more fleeting than ever before. But for the enterprising (but otherwise talent-free) flash-in-the-pan, this opens up all manner of opportunity. The obvious examples:
- Trust fund do-nothings (think Paris Hilton as well as the afore-mentioned Kardashians)
- Washed-up tween-idols (e.g. Britney Spears, The Biebs 5 years hence)
- Serial rehabbers (i.e. Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan)
Granted, such tactics won't be 100% successful. Some companies, after all, deliberately court controversy for an "edgy" image. (Look no further than the in-your-face product placements for VirginMobile, PlentyOfFish.com and Polaroid) in Lady Gaga's Telephone (NSFW version)).
But such failure is all part of my cunning plan. See, I figure I can eventually graduate to video blogging. In my "office" cleverly disguised as a spare bedroom...complete with full menagerie of stuffed animals. The current wardrobe--A green men's T-shirt and blue-striped white boxer shorts--will more than suffice. As will the humidity-frizzed hair. And the make-up that hasn't been re-touched since early afternoon.
With such anti-hipster cred. at my fingertips, I should really learn how to use it responsibly. Yeah. Nice image you go goin' there, Apple. It'd be an awful shame if I were to, say, "accidentally" flash your latest product around in front of my webcam... Ohai, Coca-Cola...oh, I'm sorry: Did I leave that can out in plain sight? My bad. Here, let me tuck it back into one of a dozen cases under the spare bed. Yes, that spare bed--the one with the wrinkled Martha Stewart bedspread, and the "Euro-shams" that look like a deflated meringue, what with the way I just wadded the pillows into them and all...
You get the idea:
Step 1: Videoblogging stardom
Step 2: Blatant extortion
Step 3: Profit!
Eh. I can think of worse ways to feather the nest. And at least I'm finally getting some mileage from the un-coolness that I've been building up since grade school...
- - - - -
* Historical note: Protection rackets go by many names--most notably the Orwellian "War on Terror" in our day and age--but few were ever so successful or wide-ranging as the Danegeld. Wagnerian/Victorian horned-helmet idiocies aside, the Vikings were a remarkable people in many ways, with a presence ranging from Constantinople (where they formed the bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor) to Eastern Canada (L'Anse Aux Meadows in the province of Newfoundland-Labrador). And they were apparently skilled enough with...errr..."international brand recognition" to be able to extort tribute from points as distant as Saxon/Norman England, Christian Spain and western Russia. And it is in honor of the, um, "business acumen" of my husband's ancestors that this post is titled.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Free for the giving
There's a phenomenon known as the Tragedy of the Commons," which--in the proverbial nutshell--says that if there exists a limited source of something valuable that is available for free (or next to nothing), sooner or later some jackhole will take more than her/his fair share. This emboldens other jackholes to do the same, until the thing of value is gone and/or damaged. Not surprisingly, it boils down to the whole "socialize the costs and privatize the profits" deal that passes for capitalism these days.
But it only occurred to me (as I started gnawing my way through Chris Anderson's The Long Tail) that there is a flip-side--we might even call it the triumph of the commons. As computing and networking costs have dropped so sharply, coupled with the democratization of the tools for photography, artwork, publishing, A/V production, marketing, etc., it throws open the doors for all manner of contribution. Motivations may differ: Exhibitionism, generosity, experimentation, reputation-building, Quixotic windmill-tilting, whatever.
Not too surprisingly, Wikipedia seems to be most often cited as the poster-child for that sort of thing. The (donation-supported) hosting costs are a laughable fraction of the actual value. For that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if its hosting is pure LAMP stack--i.e. completely open-source (and thus the work of committed volunteers). In other words, the cost of the world's encyclopedia comes down to hardware, electricity, backups...and salaries/bennies for the redoubtable SysAdmins who shepherd them. Plus whatever the bean-counters and suits feel the need to skim off the top, of course--but that goes without saying. Even with that, it's cheap at thrice the price.
Ditto for the bloggers, scraping by on Google ads--or something less reputable--who are showing the world that a professionally-groomed face and opinionated mouth are not unique qualifications for political commentary. And the musicians who decide to let their audience, rather than the RIAA suits, dictate when and where their music will be heard.
The point is that, even as a few self-involved morons are Why We Can't Have Nice Things, a relative handful are the reason we can. Overall, I'd say that's a pretty amazing flip-side. And it would be a waste to overly lament the former, when the latter don't see half the kudos they deserve.
But it only occurred to me (as I started gnawing my way through Chris Anderson's The Long Tail) that there is a flip-side--we might even call it the triumph of the commons. As computing and networking costs have dropped so sharply, coupled with the democratization of the tools for photography, artwork, publishing, A/V production, marketing, etc., it throws open the doors for all manner of contribution. Motivations may differ: Exhibitionism, generosity, experimentation, reputation-building, Quixotic windmill-tilting, whatever.
Not too surprisingly, Wikipedia seems to be most often cited as the poster-child for that sort of thing. The (donation-supported) hosting costs are a laughable fraction of the actual value. For that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if its hosting is pure LAMP stack--i.e. completely open-source (and thus the work of committed volunteers). In other words, the cost of the world's encyclopedia comes down to hardware, electricity, backups...and salaries/bennies for the redoubtable SysAdmins who shepherd them. Plus whatever the bean-counters and suits feel the need to skim off the top, of course--but that goes without saying. Even with that, it's cheap at thrice the price.
Ditto for the bloggers, scraping by on Google ads--or something less reputable--who are showing the world that a professionally-groomed face and opinionated mouth are not unique qualifications for political commentary. And the musicians who decide to let their audience, rather than the RIAA suits, dictate when and where their music will be heard.
The point is that, even as a few self-involved morons are Why We Can't Have Nice Things, a relative handful are the reason we can. Overall, I'd say that's a pretty amazing flip-side. And it would be a waste to overly lament the former, when the latter don't see half the kudos they deserve.
Monday, August 8, 2011
No posting this week
It's already clear that this week is booked, inside work and out, so I figured it's be a little less lame to get the heads-up out before the last minute.
Have a productive week and fantastic weekend, all!
Have a productive week and fantastic weekend, all!
Friday, August 5, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 08.05.2011: Computer Camp
Don't ask me why, but last night I realized that thirty years ago, Mom sent me off to computer camp, offered by the local University. A magical place of wonder and discovery in the camaradarie of fellow fledgling geeks. Where, even with all the excitement and exercise of the day, there was still plenty of energy left for a good sing-along by the light of our laptops' monitors. No doubt anyone who remembers computer camp remembers standard fare like:
- - - - -
Lovely memories. Certainly more charming than the reality of computer camp circa 1981, what with the "terminals" being large, noisy typewriters with greenbar paper feed--i.e. no such thing as a monitor except for the one immediately commandeered by the fastest kid through the door. It's just as well that Mom doesn't know I blog, or I would sorely disappoint her now with the knowledge that, after awhile, I grew bored and sneaked off to the University Library instead. Thus dropping into more of a Liberal Arts vortex and setting back my programming career by about, oh, a dozen or so years.
But, although life comes equipped with a rear-view mirror (which should be used), it alas does not have a gear for "reverse." Yet--to extend the metaphor--making so much as a lane change might have meant never knowing some of the dearest people I know now. Something I wouldn't trade for all the money in Silicon Valley.
- - - - -
(1) Sung to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey"
(2) Sung to the tune of "Waltzing Matilda"
(3) Sung to the tune of "Frere Jacques"
On top of the LAMP stack,No? Hmmm...maybe that one was just a regional variation. What about:
And hosted domain,
I wrote my first web app,
But deployed it in vain.
I thought that my code had
Refused to compile--
I'd forgotten to roll my
own .ini file . . . (1)
Once a web designer camped in a coffee-shopStill no? Well, then, perhaps your crowd was musically talented enough for rounds like:
Surfing the Eight-oh-two-eleven-g,
And he raised a round of funding and chatted the barista up:
You'll come and found the next Twitter with me! . . . (2)
Linux kernel (Linux kernel)Or, maybe it was your first time at computer camp and you didn't know any of the songs. And it didn't matter so much, because somehow you found yourself sitting so to the dreamy-eyed guy whose hand had brushed yours as you both reached for the same cafetaria tray at lunch and then blushed. Then, IM-ing under the cover of the music, you learned that you shared the same preference for strongly-typed languages and ANSI-style indentation. And, suddenly, the concept of "pair programming" didn't seem like such a bad idea to a lone coder...
Beta-trial! (Beta trial!)
Check it out from GitHub: (Check it out from GitHub:)
make-compile! (make-compile!) (3)
- - - - -
Lovely memories. Certainly more charming than the reality of computer camp circa 1981, what with the "terminals" being large, noisy typewriters with greenbar paper feed--i.e. no such thing as a monitor except for the one immediately commandeered by the fastest kid through the door. It's just as well that Mom doesn't know I blog, or I would sorely disappoint her now with the knowledge that, after awhile, I grew bored and sneaked off to the University Library instead. Thus dropping into more of a Liberal Arts vortex and setting back my programming career by about, oh, a dozen or so years.
But, although life comes equipped with a rear-view mirror (which should be used), it alas does not have a gear for "reverse." Yet--to extend the metaphor--making so much as a lane change might have meant never knowing some of the dearest people I know now. Something I wouldn't trade for all the money in Silicon Valley.
- - - - -
(1) Sung to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey"
(2) Sung to the tune of "Waltzing Matilda"
(3) Sung to the tune of "Frere Jacques"
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Another yardstick of "progress"
At Dennis' family reunion, one of our newest Kewpie-doll cousins--at least twice removed--was running about the jungle of adult legs, Mamma's cellphone in hand. Mamma, understandably enough, was in hot pursuit of her--or, perhaps more aptly, the phone.
I leaned close to Dennis and observed (sotto vocce, of course) that the little blonde cutie-pie will probably grow up in a world that can't wrap its brain around a phone that doesn't have pictures and interactive icons and text.
As the festivities were winding down, I stepped into a conversation Dennis was having with the youngest of his Dad's brothers, now pushing 80. (But, being a farmer, he'll "retire" work-boots first, naturally.) Uncle C. doesn't quite fit the stereotype of the old-school Wisconsin farmer in a number of ways. Or, on second thought, maybe he does. Because he--from my limited acquaintance, anyway--adapts with a speed and readiness that's instructive for the likes of me. And he groks the fact that the internet--for all the garbage it contains--puts a stupefying amount of knowledge literally at your fingertips.
But Uncle C. also shared a glimpse into his Depression-era sensibilities...a world largely defined by what one couldn't afford. He, for instance, didn't know what a sundae was until his older brother--flush with the cash of his WWII Army paycheck--treated him to the choice between that and the equally mysterious "malt."
Which is about when the epiphany hit and I realized that, for all the noise that each generation makes about the thing it can count as bedrock certainties, an equally powerful touchstone is the thing that it doesn't know. And, before anyone thinks to trivialize telephones and ice cream treats, I will note that my own mother grew up in the shadow of polio (before the vaccine became commonplace). Not to mention what a mind-blowing luxury of clean, safe drinking water is in some corners of a planet three-quarters covered by sea water.
There's a reason that I never, ever feel superior to my predecessors regarding the things that they had to know to survive. You can make all the ballyhoo you want about the information that's available online today vs. what was painstakingly copied to papyrus or vellum centuries ago. The things that no one except the most pedantic would even think of uploading--much more taking for granted--are, to my mind, somewhat more telling than the "gee-whiz" navel-gazing to which tech paparazzi seem to be so prone.
I leaned close to Dennis and observed (sotto vocce, of course) that the little blonde cutie-pie will probably grow up in a world that can't wrap its brain around a phone that doesn't have pictures and interactive icons and text.
As the festivities were winding down, I stepped into a conversation Dennis was having with the youngest of his Dad's brothers, now pushing 80. (But, being a farmer, he'll "retire" work-boots first, naturally.) Uncle C. doesn't quite fit the stereotype of the old-school Wisconsin farmer in a number of ways. Or, on second thought, maybe he does. Because he--from my limited acquaintance, anyway--adapts with a speed and readiness that's instructive for the likes of me. And he groks the fact that the internet--for all the garbage it contains--puts a stupefying amount of knowledge literally at your fingertips.
But Uncle C. also shared a glimpse into his Depression-era sensibilities...a world largely defined by what one couldn't afford. He, for instance, didn't know what a sundae was until his older brother--flush with the cash of his WWII Army paycheck--treated him to the choice between that and the equally mysterious "malt."
Which is about when the epiphany hit and I realized that, for all the noise that each generation makes about the thing it can count as bedrock certainties, an equally powerful touchstone is the thing that it doesn't know. And, before anyone thinks to trivialize telephones and ice cream treats, I will note that my own mother grew up in the shadow of polio (before the vaccine became commonplace). Not to mention what a mind-blowing luxury of clean, safe drinking water is in some corners of a planet three-quarters covered by sea water.
There's a reason that I never, ever feel superior to my predecessors regarding the things that they had to know to survive. You can make all the ballyhoo you want about the information that's available online today vs. what was painstakingly copied to papyrus or vellum centuries ago. The things that no one except the most pedantic would even think of uploading--much more taking for granted--are, to my mind, somewhat more telling than the "gee-whiz" navel-gazing to which tech paparazzi seem to be so prone.
Friday, July 29, 2011
No post tonight
Preparations for a family reunion have called dibs on the evening, and tomorrow will come earlier than even most weekdays. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Touche.
The "car doctor" for my 15 year-old beastie changed ownership somewhat recently. I've been pleasantly surprised to notice no difference in the faces nor the service since then. But, as the courtesy van driver--somewhat older than I--schlepped me to work, I made conversation by asking how things had changed.
Naturally, I was expecting a diplomatic answer. But he went on quite convincingly about how all the same folks were in place, and the former owner had made himself deliberately scarce, practicing for retirement. Which all warmed my heart, until I was collecting my backpack and clambering out of the van and he said, "Nope, the only thing that's really changed is the computer program...and that's what takes a fellow the longest time to learn."
I'll confess that I didn't have the moxie to tell him what I do for my crust. But...point taken.
Naturally, I was expecting a diplomatic answer. But he went on quite convincingly about how all the same folks were in place, and the former owner had made himself deliberately scarce, practicing for retirement. Which all warmed my heart, until I was collecting my backpack and clambering out of the van and he said, "Nope, the only thing that's really changed is the computer program...and that's what takes a fellow the longest time to learn."
I'll confess that I didn't have the moxie to tell him what I do for my crust. But...point taken.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 07.22.2011: Computer wizardry
For me, it's the end of an era, really. When I had first moved to La Crosse, but was waiting for Dennis to join me, I picked up a paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at Quillins to pass an evening or two. Normally I have an allergic reaction to that sort of phenomenon--particularly as the movie was due to come out. This turned out to be the exception. I finished the book series darned near three years ago--trying not to audibly sob in front of my fellow Amtrak passengers, mind you. But seeing the movie somehow closed the door on all that.
It even filtered into my work today. Testing a fix to the page that creates a new user, the user name was of course "harrypotter" with the password "horcrux7" and an email address of "harry.potter@hogwarts.edu." Which naturally triggered the question of what computing would look like in the semi-medieval world of Hogwarts and Diagon Alley and such. A few conjectures:
It even filtered into my work today. Testing a fix to the page that creates a new user, the user name was of course "harrypotter" with the password "horcrux7" and an email address of "harry.potter@hogwarts.edu." Which naturally triggered the question of what computing would look like in the semi-medieval world of Hogwarts and Diagon Alley and such. A few conjectures:
- The most hackable passwords would be variations on "alohamora."
- Monitors (and their corresponding windowing systems) would be replaced by crystal balls. (Kinda cool when you think about it...)
- Avatars would be replaced by patronuses.
- Wizard programmers would complain about the knut-pinching (goblin) bean-counters outsourcing their jobs to house elves.
- Pen computing would necessarily be replaced by wand computing.
- The strongest crypto-algorithm would be based on Parseltongue.
- Rogue processes would be terminated by bringing up a command prompt and typing "aveda kedavra."
- User manuals and operating systems would need to support Mermish.
- Gryffindors would use Linux, Slytherins would use Macs, Hufflepuffs would use Windows, and Ravenclaws would roll their own operating systems over summer break.
- Google Earth would resemble the love-child of Foursquare and a giant version of the Marauder's Map. ("Rubeus Hagrid just became mayor of The Leaky Cauldron.")
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Ringing half the bell
Pop Quiz: What would you do if you knew that 50% of your potential competition doesn't actually exist?
Maybe it's one of those unquestioned conventional wisdom things--an old wives' tale of capitalism, if you will--that bit about "Half of success is just showing up."
Or maybe it's that I'm still somewhat crabby that a contractor dude postponed my dinner with Dennis by half an hour by deciding that our shed roof wasn't worth his time. (I wouldn't call it wasted time, b/c it was spent with Dennis.)
Or maybe my trade as a web programmer raises the bar for the expectation of instant gratification.
Whatever.
We're used to the bell curve--it's baked into our judgement in so many ways, even if we've never been formally exposed to statistics. But in The Real World (TM), oftentimes only numbers greater than zero need apply. And not showing up equates to less than zero. (Yes, I understand that eBay and Craigslist vendors have differing amounts of skin in the game--each is filling a different niche--but I also humbly suggest that Craigslist would do well to (re)consider the benefits of "reputation" tier.)
Yes, I know that the business textbooks currently in vogue tell you to ignore your competition and relentlessly focus on your vision and just look at Steve Jobs and yadayadayada. (Me, I think that the problem, historically, has less to do about obsessing over the competition than recognizing it in the first place.) But if you can't help but obsess over any competition, doesn't it help you sleep better at night knowing that half of them don't actually exist?
Maybe it's one of those unquestioned conventional wisdom things--an old wives' tale of capitalism, if you will--that bit about "Half of success is just showing up."
Or maybe it's that I'm still somewhat crabby that a contractor dude postponed my dinner with Dennis by half an hour by deciding that our shed roof wasn't worth his time. (I wouldn't call it wasted time, b/c it was spent with Dennis.)
Or maybe my trade as a web programmer raises the bar for the expectation of instant gratification.
Whatever.
We're used to the bell curve--it's baked into our judgement in so many ways, even if we've never been formally exposed to statistics. But in The Real World (TM), oftentimes only numbers greater than zero need apply. And not showing up equates to less than zero. (Yes, I understand that eBay and Craigslist vendors have differing amounts of skin in the game--each is filling a different niche--but I also humbly suggest that Craigslist would do well to (re)consider the benefits of "reputation" tier.)
Yes, I know that the business textbooks currently in vogue tell you to ignore your competition and relentlessly focus on your vision and just look at Steve Jobs and yadayadayada. (Me, I think that the problem, historically, has less to do about obsessing over the competition than recognizing it in the first place.) But if you can't help but obsess over any competition, doesn't it help you sleep better at night knowing that half of them don't actually exist?
Friday, July 15, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 07.15.2011: BFAQ
An atypical first night of "babysitting bees" at the La Crosse County Fair, by many measures. The rain was mostly responsible for that. When I arrived shortly after 7pm, the Dairy building (where they sell the malts and ice cream) was packed. And--with all due respect to the talented wood-carvers, bees have a certain Fierce Creatures appeal that sometimes keeps people away, but mostly tends to draw them to the observation hive.
I like to believe that my previous incarnations of technical writer and Marketing Dept. henchwoman serve me well enough for the questions that come in. But, in the several years we've been doing this, I find that some questions are more commonly asked than others. So, while the answers are not cookie-cutter (for they are often springboards to interesting follow-up questions...which is where what I consider the "real" conversation takes place). But in the spirit of public service, here's a gloss.
What's up with CCD? Many folks strike up a conversation asking how the bees are doing--by which they mean, "Has anyone figured out the silver bullet for Colony Collapse Disorder yet?" Sadly, the answer is "No." For the simple reason that, to the best of our understanding, it's in some ways more a symptom than a disease. Monoculture (i.e. un-balanced nutrition), pesticides, migratory beekeeping, decades of fighting off parasitic mites and lethal "foulbrood" molds (i.e. the usual antibiotics arms-race), etc. come together. Rather like no one truly dies of AIDS--it's the secondary infection that kills them.
Which ones are the boys and which ones are the girls? Honeybees come in three kinds: Workers, drones and the Queen. The Queen exists to lay eggs--up to 2000 a day, which is more than her body weight. She is entirely dependent on the workers (her daughters) to feed, clean and otherwise care for her. The drones (the males) exist to mate with a Queen--more than likely from another hive. However, the workers usually kick them out of the hive to starve and/or freeze in the Fall, because they're useless at that point. The workers do everything else, from housekeeping to raising new brood to construction and carting resources, to guard duty, and finally to foraging for nectar and pollen.
How long do they live? Drones normally don't live past Autumn. Workers born in Spring/Summer live about six weeks before their wings wear out. Queens can last 2-3 years.
How does a honeybee become a Queen? Worker bees and Queen bees start out as a fertilized egg. The food on which the larva is fed determines everything. The high-protein "royal jelly" allows Queens to mature much faster (16 days from egg to hatching, as opposed to three weeks), and makes her larger. Drones, by contrast, are--Y-chromosome excepted--a perfect genetic copy of their mother.
How often are new Queens made? Surprisingly, "regime change" is typically up to the plebians, rather than the Monarchy. It could be a swarm (when the old Queen and about half the hive fly off to found a new colony) or a supercedure, when the old Queen dies or isn't performing. In either case, the workers choose suitably young larvae and not only feed them accordingly, but also build extra large cells in which the new Queens go from egg to larva to cocoon to Queen. The catch is that the first Queen to hatch typically stings her rivals to death. A few days later, she will go on her mating flight(s) and eventually settle down to lay eggs for the rest of her life.
How do you get the honey out? Bees collect nectar and partially break it down, then store it in the upper parts of the hive. Through evaporation, its water content is reduced to ~16%, at which point they cap it with wax to keep it from rehydrating. We take out the frames of honeycomb, remove the wax cap, and put the frames in an extractor, where centrifugal force pulls the honey out of the comb and out of a gate at the bottom where it can be strained and bottled.
A jar of honey I bought crystalized. Should I throw it out? No. Set the bottle in a pan of warm water, and problem solved. Unless the moisture content is too high, honey is the one food that should never spoil. (Just ask the Pharohs.)
How much honey do you get? Personally, our hives have ranged between zero and 160 pounds in a season. Mind you, the 160 came from one hive, while the one eight feet away did absolutely bupkis. Why? Because it's basically farming with six-legged livestock.
How often do you get stung? Me, less than once a year. And always, always because I did something stupid. (Dennis, who--per usual--does the heavy lifting, maybe once a year--but he's been known to do silly things, too.) Unlike yellowjackets, a honeybee can only sting you once, because for her it's a suicide mission. In other words: Stinging is a last resort--the "nuclear option," if you will. (And if you are stung by a honeybee, by all means, scrape out the stinger--fingernail, credit card, whatever--don't reach for the tweezers, because you'll just squeeze more venom into you.
I like to believe that my previous incarnations of technical writer and Marketing Dept. henchwoman serve me well enough for the questions that come in. But, in the several years we've been doing this, I find that some questions are more commonly asked than others. So, while the answers are not cookie-cutter (for they are often springboards to interesting follow-up questions...which is where what I consider the "real" conversation takes place). But in the spirit of public service, here's a gloss.
What's up with CCD? Many folks strike up a conversation asking how the bees are doing--by which they mean, "Has anyone figured out the silver bullet for Colony Collapse Disorder yet?" Sadly, the answer is "No." For the simple reason that, to the best of our understanding, it's in some ways more a symptom than a disease. Monoculture (i.e. un-balanced nutrition), pesticides, migratory beekeeping, decades of fighting off parasitic mites and lethal "foulbrood" molds (i.e. the usual antibiotics arms-race), etc. come together. Rather like no one truly dies of AIDS--it's the secondary infection that kills them.
Which ones are the boys and which ones are the girls? Honeybees come in three kinds: Workers, drones and the Queen. The Queen exists to lay eggs--up to 2000 a day, which is more than her body weight. She is entirely dependent on the workers (her daughters) to feed, clean and otherwise care for her. The drones (the males) exist to mate with a Queen--more than likely from another hive. However, the workers usually kick them out of the hive to starve and/or freeze in the Fall, because they're useless at that point. The workers do everything else, from housekeeping to raising new brood to construction and carting resources, to guard duty, and finally to foraging for nectar and pollen.
How long do they live? Drones normally don't live past Autumn. Workers born in Spring/Summer live about six weeks before their wings wear out. Queens can last 2-3 years.
How does a honeybee become a Queen? Worker bees and Queen bees start out as a fertilized egg. The food on which the larva is fed determines everything. The high-protein "royal jelly" allows Queens to mature much faster (16 days from egg to hatching, as opposed to three weeks), and makes her larger. Drones, by contrast, are--Y-chromosome excepted--a perfect genetic copy of their mother.
How often are new Queens made? Surprisingly, "regime change" is typically up to the plebians, rather than the Monarchy. It could be a swarm (when the old Queen and about half the hive fly off to found a new colony) or a supercedure, when the old Queen dies or isn't performing. In either case, the workers choose suitably young larvae and not only feed them accordingly, but also build extra large cells in which the new Queens go from egg to larva to cocoon to Queen. The catch is that the first Queen to hatch typically stings her rivals to death. A few days later, she will go on her mating flight(s) and eventually settle down to lay eggs for the rest of her life.
How do you get the honey out? Bees collect nectar and partially break it down, then store it in the upper parts of the hive. Through evaporation, its water content is reduced to ~16%, at which point they cap it with wax to keep it from rehydrating. We take out the frames of honeycomb, remove the wax cap, and put the frames in an extractor, where centrifugal force pulls the honey out of the comb and out of a gate at the bottom where it can be strained and bottled.
A jar of honey I bought crystalized. Should I throw it out? No. Set the bottle in a pan of warm water, and problem solved. Unless the moisture content is too high, honey is the one food that should never spoil. (Just ask the Pharohs.)
How much honey do you get? Personally, our hives have ranged between zero and 160 pounds in a season. Mind you, the 160 came from one hive, while the one eight feet away did absolutely bupkis. Why? Because it's basically farming with six-legged livestock.
How often do you get stung? Me, less than once a year. And always, always because I did something stupid. (Dennis, who--per usual--does the heavy lifting, maybe once a year--but he's been known to do silly things, too.) Unlike yellowjackets, a honeybee can only sting you once, because for her it's a suicide mission. In other words: Stinging is a last resort--the "nuclear option," if you will. (And if you are stung by a honeybee, by all means, scrape out the stinger--fingernail, credit card, whatever--don't reach for the tweezers, because you'll just squeeze more venom into you.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Revisited wisdom
About a decade and three employers ago, my team's intern signed his email with the slogan "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." I was reminded of the truth of that today, while being pleasantly surprised at how J. had consolidated a somewhat Rube Goldberg patchwork of code into an impressively streamlined VB.Net executable. "Pleasant," because it's good to see people take ownership, even of the under-appreciated scut-work. But also because it vastly simplifies the code I was planning to hang off that.
That being said, I couldn't resist asking for just one tweak: "You know what would be even more awesome?" asked I (rhetorically, of course), "if it fired off an email when it was done." "I don't think I've ever done that in VB.Net," temporized J. I was about to offer to do the Google legwork to work it out for him, when he mused aloud, "Can we just do that through the database?" Bingo. There was our answer. One stupid-simple INSERT statement, and a scheduled job (already in place) takes care of the heavy lifting.
Yeah, I'll probably be "fancy" in that I'll have the .BAT files prompt users for an alternate email address. But J.--who is about the age of the afore-mentioned intern--reminded me of the importance of intelligent laziness. That and the fact that neither of us would have come up with that solution on our own. Maybe I won't ever catch the Agile religion, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to be able to sing along with some of the hymns. (Anyone raised as a Methodist--like I was--knows what I'm talking about)
That being said, I couldn't resist asking for just one tweak: "You know what would be even more awesome?" asked I (rhetorically, of course), "if it fired off an email when it was done." "I don't think I've ever done that in VB.Net," temporized J. I was about to offer to do the Google legwork to work it out for him, when he mused aloud, "Can we just do that through the database?" Bingo. There was our answer. One stupid-simple INSERT statement, and a scheduled job (already in place) takes care of the heavy lifting.
Yeah, I'll probably be "fancy" in that I'll have the .BAT files prompt users for an alternate email address. But J.--who is about the age of the afore-mentioned intern--reminded me of the importance of intelligent laziness. That and the fact that neither of us would have come up with that solution on our own. Maybe I won't ever catch the Agile religion, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to be able to sing along with some of the hymns. (Anyone raised as a Methodist--like I was--knows what I'm talking about)
Saturday, July 9, 2011
(belated) Frivolous Friday, 07.08.2011: The Grateful Dead edition
(In honor of the last day of publication for News of the World--don't let the door hit'cha where the Good Lord split'cha, hey?. And in fervent hope that the public and Fourth Estate will jointly raise the standard of "journalism.")
Hackin', got my soul cashed in, just hackin', working for The Man
A raccoon more or less tipping society's trash can.
The newstands bleed scandal and ink onto Main Street
It's not news if it don't line the pockets of Fleet Street
A typical tabloid shilling self-serving pipe-dreams:
It's about ads justifyin' the means.
Royals under the microscope, celebrities are the dope:
More grease for our slipperly slope, just can't let 'em be, oh no.
Most of the blokes that you meet say they're looking for real news
Most of the time they're zoning and surfing the 'tubes.
But they'd have to read past the model on Page 2--
I say screw 'em, they'll never be nothing but rubes.
Hackin', working for The Man, no point making a principled stand
My profession ain't worth a dime, if I can't drag it down.
Now a spot-light is shinin' on me,
So bright that I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me, what a sordid trip it's been.
What in the world ever became of ethics?
Somehow we find ourselves in sleaze up past our necks--
Slinging right-wing propaganda and cheap sex
Just try and complain--we'll "profile" you next.
Hackin', got to buffalo the public--got to tell the proles
How they're gonna vote in the polls, and just keep hackin' on
My job is to keep the powerful honest
So next week I'm havin' drinks with the PM
I'd like some time to primp for that love-fest,
But if you've got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in.
Hoisted on my own petard, watching this whole house of cards
Come down, I've run out of canards to hold off Scotland Yard--oh no.
So we'll pardon the lord and punish the minion--
The pols and public never tire of that schtick:
Even in the court of public opinion,
With no sex in the scandal, no way you'll make it stick.
Now a spot-light is shinin' on me,
So bright that I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me, what a sordid trip it's been.
Hackin', Imma find a new home, whoa, whoa baby, back where I belong,
Starting next Sunday with The Sun, and just keep hackin' on.
Hey now, get back hackin' on.
Hackin', got my soul cashed in, just hackin', working for The Man
A raccoon more or less tipping society's trash can.
The newstands bleed scandal and ink onto Main Street
It's not news if it don't line the pockets of Fleet Street
A typical tabloid shilling self-serving pipe-dreams:
It's about ads justifyin' the means.
Royals under the microscope, celebrities are the dope:
More grease for our slipperly slope, just can't let 'em be, oh no.
Most of the blokes that you meet say they're looking for real news
Most of the time they're zoning and surfing the 'tubes.
But they'd have to read past the model on Page 2--
I say screw 'em, they'll never be nothing but rubes.
Hackin', working for The Man, no point making a principled stand
My profession ain't worth a dime, if I can't drag it down.
Now a spot-light is shinin' on me,
So bright that I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me, what a sordid trip it's been.
What in the world ever became of ethics?
Somehow we find ourselves in sleaze up past our necks--
Slinging right-wing propaganda and cheap sex
Just try and complain--we'll "profile" you next.
Hackin', got to buffalo the public--got to tell the proles
How they're gonna vote in the polls, and just keep hackin' on
My job is to keep the powerful honest
So next week I'm havin' drinks with the PM
I'd like some time to primp for that love-fest,
But if you've got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in.
Hoisted on my own petard, watching this whole house of cards
Come down, I've run out of canards to hold off Scotland Yard--oh no.
So we'll pardon the lord and punish the minion--
The pols and public never tire of that schtick:
Even in the court of public opinion,
With no sex in the scandal, no way you'll make it stick.
Now a spot-light is shinin' on me,
So bright that I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me, what a sordid trip it's been.
Hackin', Imma find a new home, whoa, whoa baby, back where I belong,
Starting next Sunday with The Sun, and just keep hackin' on.
Hey now, get back hackin' on.
Friday, July 8, 2011
"Frivolous Friday" postponed
A late start tonight, with a bunch of dishes to do, and--much more importantly, helping Dennis set up a demo. website on my Ubuntu laptop b/c setting up concrete5 on a Windows server has been giving him static all day.
By which I of course mean, seducing him over to The Light Side. ;-) He started installation sometime after 7 tonight, and the prototype of the new website is already looking snazzier than the hand-rolled HTML of its predecessor. I've been checking in (or responding to summons, as the case may be) since. As I write, he's feng-shui-ing the Wisconsin Honey Queen's home page. Muttering to himself like the character Milton in Office Space, I might add--albeit much more productively.
So the upshot is that tonight's post will be postponed until tomorrow. G'night and thanks in advance for the patience.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Hierarchy of Lead(ing)
Apparently, Those Who Know Best decided that it would be a good idea to encourage folks in the office to donate blood. An effort that's of a piece with earlier efforts to field a team for the local ACS Relay for Life (something which--I might add--I did a subpar job in managing when it was my turn).
With that disclosure, two things struck me about the email that was fired--shotgunned, really--to the general mailing list.
Granted, that's me being me. But I started noodling the idea of motivation--particularly the extrinsic kind that can might just pass for intrisic if it's done with the right finesse. And, given that the only formal training I've had in what makes human beings tick comes from good ol' Psychology 101 in college. (In retrospect, I think my prof. and I had a tacit bargain: I could skip out of class some Tuesdays for speech tournaments and he could guinea pig me in class b/c he knew that anyone who did that sort of thing had more defenses than your average freshman. It was a pretty symbiotic relationship, all in all.)
But I digress in navel-gazing. The snippet of Psychology 101 to which I refer is, not Pavlov's drooling dogs nor Skinner's baby-in-a-box nor even the infamous Milgram or Stanford Prison experiments. No, I mean Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (without which, it seems, it is impossible to write a book on organizations these days). The premise of the hierarchy is that human needs are built as a pyramid, with what we would consider the most basic--i.e. primitive--motivations at the bottom and the more sophisticated (although hardly effete) driving forces at the top. The pyramid structure is mostly valid, although slightly misleading. For example, think of the vibrancy of Stone Age cave-painting or--much more amazingly--the Viktor Frankls and Eli Weisels of this world.
And while it's not 100% apples-to-apples analogous, I'll take a highly subjective stab at the comparable hierarchy in operation at the office:
To my way of thinking, this is the "pyramid" (and, yes, I know it doesn't much resemble one, but you get the point) to which the Powers That Be should focus on building--assuming that there's any pretense to harnessing the value of employees who are not merely punching a clock.
I suppose, theoretically at least, you could make a point of hiring the Frankls and Weisels of this world--the people who make a conscious choice to transcend whatever's thrown at them, if only for their own sakes. But I know I wouldn't invest in the company that built a business model around that...any more than I'd knowingly invest in a the old-school carrot-and-stick school of H.R.
But let's back up for a second. The sender (notice I didn't say "author") of the afore-mentioned email about blood donation is new to our office and relatively young besides. I want to be clear about that, mainly out of fairness: No one deserves to be slammed b/c Those Who Know Best aren't necessarily the quickest learners. (Not from where I sit, anyway. For all I know, my co-workers' mileage may vary.)
So, against my better judgement, I'll slip a quick word--destined for upstream consumption--that "contests" require some sort of prize, even if it's only bragging-rights. Either that or an office-wide philanthropic effort should be built on some kind of buy-in. Because pandering to our most mercenary instincts is bad enough...but offering no pay-off in the bargain? I'd rather not see that much #fail in one place at one time. And because, for a cynical as I've become (not to mention a downright snob about which battles I'll fight) I'd don't want to see someone set up to fail (even when the set-up's not deliberate). Especially not on the first effort.
With that disclosure, two things struck me about the email that was fired--shotgunned, really--to the general mailing list.
- In an effort to do good, the drive has been cast as a contest. (In other words, a purely internal (and highly personal)--i.e. intrinsic--motivation has been replaced by an extrinsic--i.e. external--reward system.
- The email never actually spelled out what the top bleeder would "win." Which effectively nulls out any motivation to go above and beyond.
Granted, that's me being me. But I started noodling the idea of motivation--particularly the extrinsic kind that can might just pass for intrisic if it's done with the right finesse. And, given that the only formal training I've had in what makes human beings tick comes from good ol' Psychology 101 in college. (In retrospect, I think my prof. and I had a tacit bargain: I could skip out of class some Tuesdays for speech tournaments and he could guinea pig me in class b/c he knew that anyone who did that sort of thing had more defenses than your average freshman. It was a pretty symbiotic relationship, all in all.)
But I digress in navel-gazing. The snippet of Psychology 101 to which I refer is, not Pavlov's drooling dogs nor Skinner's baby-in-a-box nor even the infamous Milgram or Stanford Prison experiments. No, I mean Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (without which, it seems, it is impossible to write a book on organizations these days). The premise of the hierarchy is that human needs are built as a pyramid, with what we would consider the most basic--i.e. primitive--motivations at the bottom and the more sophisticated (although hardly effete) driving forces at the top. The pyramid structure is mostly valid, although slightly misleading. For example, think of the vibrancy of Stone Age cave-painting or--much more amazingly--the Viktor Frankls and Eli Weisels of this world.
And while it's not 100% apples-to-apples analogous, I'll take a highly subjective stab at the comparable hierarchy in operation at the office:
Growth: Do I have room to play? To connect? To fail and grow?
Control: What percentage of the week do I spend merely reacting vs. adding value?
Ethos: Do I grok why we're doing what we're doing as we're doing it?
Roadmap: Do I know what needs to be done (and can I do it)? Then what?
Security: Will I still have a job when the rent's due? How easily can I be replaced?
Survival: Can I pay my (part of the) bills on the income from this job?
Control: What percentage of the week do I spend merely reacting vs. adding value?
Ethos: Do I grok why we're doing what we're doing as we're doing it?
Roadmap: Do I know what needs to be done (and can I do it)? Then what?
Security: Will I still have a job when the rent's due? How easily can I be replaced?
Survival: Can I pay my (part of the) bills on the income from this job?
To my way of thinking, this is the "pyramid" (and, yes, I know it doesn't much resemble one, but you get the point) to which the Powers That Be should focus on building--assuming that there's any pretense to harnessing the value of employees who are not merely punching a clock.
I suppose, theoretically at least, you could make a point of hiring the Frankls and Weisels of this world--the people who make a conscious choice to transcend whatever's thrown at them, if only for their own sakes. But I know I wouldn't invest in the company that built a business model around that...any more than I'd knowingly invest in a the old-school carrot-and-stick school of H.R.
But let's back up for a second. The sender (notice I didn't say "author") of the afore-mentioned email about blood donation is new to our office and relatively young besides. I want to be clear about that, mainly out of fairness: No one deserves to be slammed b/c Those Who Know Best aren't necessarily the quickest learners. (Not from where I sit, anyway. For all I know, my co-workers' mileage may vary.)
So, against my better judgement, I'll slip a quick word--destined for upstream consumption--that "contests" require some sort of prize, even if it's only bragging-rights. Either that or an office-wide philanthropic effort should be built on some kind of buy-in. Because pandering to our most mercenary instincts is bad enough...but offering no pay-off in the bargain? I'd rather not see that much #fail in one place at one time. And because, for a cynical as I've become (not to mention a downright snob about which battles I'll fight) I'd don't want to see someone set up to fail (even when the set-up's not deliberate). Especially not on the first effort.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 07.01.2011: Founding Hackers
I snagged Dennis' copy of John Adams and snarfed the bulk of it while under the weather last weekend. (Exhaustive depth and breadth of research aside, I guess I was expecting more impartiality and less hagiography. Although Abigail was pretty badass, ripping Jefferson a new one by mail--while he was in office, no less! I knew she had to be a force of Nature, but I never knew that...)
But in the discussion of the illuminati of the "American Experiment," one thing that took me aback--in terms of things that we take for granted--was the claim that if Benjamin Franklin had invented nothing beyond the lightening rod, he would have still been considered a giant in practical science. But, as the kite-flying escapades and some of his more fanciful uses for the new-fangled electricity make for better stories, it's easy to lose sight of the life-and-death aspect.
Sometimes Franklin merely improved on the work of others, such as an early battery called the "Leyden jar" or capturing more heat from a fire with what became known as the "Franklin stove." Other inventions, such as bifocal glasses and the odometer, were--to the best knowledge of history--were hacks created to meet an immediate need.
And in the best spirit of hacking, Franklin could--in a sense--be considered the father of open source. The "sense" in question being that he refused to patent any of his work. From the Wikipedia article on the Franklin stove:
However, Jefferson believed in limited-term patents to balance the financial incentive for invention (and thus human progress) against perpetual monopolies that would hurt the public interest. He, like Franklin, did not patent his work on the moldboard plow (basically a hack for the hilly soil in his Piedmont stomping grounds of Virginia.) And, to the manufacturer of a device for producing duplicate copies of one's writing--then known as a "polygraph," although the word has a different meaning now--Jefferson supplied all manner of suggested improvements--and apparently beta-tested them as well--over the course of writing thousands of letters.
I know that we have a tendency to create the founders of this country in our own image, and me highlighting their geeky pedigree is no exception. Yet the trick to biographical history is to never assume you know the people you're researching. And, above all to remember that, when you go looking for history, sometimes history comes looking for you.
But in the discussion of the illuminati of the "American Experiment," one thing that took me aback--in terms of things that we take for granted--was the claim that if Benjamin Franklin had invented nothing beyond the lightening rod, he would have still been considered a giant in practical science. But, as the kite-flying escapades and some of his more fanciful uses for the new-fangled electricity make for better stories, it's easy to lose sight of the life-and-death aspect.
Sometimes Franklin merely improved on the work of others, such as an early battery called the "Leyden jar" or capturing more heat from a fire with what became known as the "Franklin stove." Other inventions, such as bifocal glasses and the odometer, were--to the best knowledge of history--were hacks created to meet an immediate need.
And in the best spirit of hacking, Franklin could--in a sense--be considered the father of open source. The "sense" in question being that he refused to patent any of his work. From the Wikipedia article on the Franklin stove:
...the deputy governor of Pennsylvania, George Thomas, made an offer to Franklin to patent his design, but Franklin never patented any of his designs and inventions. He believed “that as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously”. As a result, many others were able to use Franklin’s design and improve it.Thomas Jefferson, no less a tinkerer (and a math nerd besides), also dabbled in cryptology during his various duties to the fledgling republic.
However, Jefferson believed in limited-term patents to balance the financial incentive for invention (and thus human progress) against perpetual monopolies that would hurt the public interest. He, like Franklin, did not patent his work on the moldboard plow (basically a hack for the hilly soil in his Piedmont stomping grounds of Virginia.) And, to the manufacturer of a device for producing duplicate copies of one's writing--then known as a "polygraph," although the word has a different meaning now--Jefferson supplied all manner of suggested improvements--and apparently beta-tested them as well--over the course of writing thousands of letters.
I know that we have a tendency to create the founders of this country in our own image, and me highlighting their geeky pedigree is no exception. Yet the trick to biographical history is to never assume you know the people you're researching. And, above all to remember that, when you go looking for history, sometimes history comes looking for you.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
A rooster worth crowing about
Kudos to Rooster Andy's for the verbiage I saw on their sign during yesterday morning's commute, which publicly congratulated one of their employees for moving onto another job. That's pretty outstanding, and thought it deserved a shout-out.
I only wish I liked BBQ chicken better...
I only wish I liked BBQ chicken better...
Friday, June 24, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 06.24.2011: Geek bar jokes
An J2EE JDBC connection walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "What'll it be?" "Nothing right now, thanks," replies the connection as it makes a bee-line for the billiard tables, "I'm just here for the pool."
Richard Stallman walks into a bar. Recognizing him, the barkeep asks, "Hey, Richard! What's GNU?"
A memory slot walks into a bar. Peering down at its diminutive size, the bartender snorts, "You must be a cheap drunk." "Yeah," concedes the memory slot, "I can really only hold one DRAM."
An ICMP ping walks into a bar, twiddles its thumbs at a table for a second, then demands, "How long does it take to get a server around here?"
An HTML <TBODY> tag, <TBODY> tag, and <TFOOT> tag walk into a bar and order a round. When it's about time for seconds, the bartender notices that he can only see the <THEAD> and <TBODY> at their booth. "Where'd your friend go?" asks the bartender. "You mean <TFOOT> ?" reply the <THEAD> and <TBODY> tags, "He's always under the table!"
A web browser walks into a bar where a web server is tickling the ivories at the house piano. The browser sticks a few bills into the web server's jar and asks, "You take requests?"
A *nix print job walks into a bar. After a few rounds, the bartender notices how pie-eyed the job has become and sighs, "In its CUPS again..."
The Java Math class walks into a bar and announces, "Hey, everybody--the next .round() is on me!"
Steve Wozniak walks into the Genius Bar...
A SATA drive and an IDE drive walk into a bar. After nervously glancing around, the IDE disk drive whispers to the SATA, "Are you sure we want to be here? This place looks awfully SCSI to me."
Richard Stallman walks into a bar. Recognizing him, the barkeep asks, "Hey, Richard! What's GNU?"
A memory slot walks into a bar. Peering down at its diminutive size, the bartender snorts, "You must be a cheap drunk." "Yeah," concedes the memory slot, "I can really only hold one DRAM."
An ICMP ping walks into a bar, twiddles its thumbs at a table for a second, then demands, "How long does it take to get a server around here?"
An HTML <TBODY> tag, <TBODY> tag, and <TFOOT> tag walk into a bar and order a round. When it's about time for seconds, the bartender notices that he can only see the <THEAD> and <TBODY> at their booth. "Where'd your friend go?" asks the bartender. "You mean <TFOOT> ?" reply the <THEAD> and <TBODY> tags, "He's always under the table!"
A web browser walks into a bar where a web server is tickling the ivories at the house piano. The browser sticks a few bills into the web server's jar and asks, "You take requests?"
A *nix print job walks into a bar. After a few rounds, the bartender notices how pie-eyed the job has become and sighs, "In its CUPS again..."
The Java Math class walks into a bar and announces, "Hey, everybody--the next .round() is on me!"
Steve Wozniak walks into the Genius Bar...
A SATA drive and an IDE drive walk into a bar. After nervously glancing around, the IDE disk drive whispers to the SATA, "Are you sure we want to be here? This place looks awfully SCSI to me."
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Short-selling the dinosaurs, or "Here we go again..."
With the rise of the smartphone, the attendant hype has included some talk about the "ghettoization" of the internet--in the sense that "the internet" is defined as content snarfed from one or more web servers from a laptop or even horrifically retro desktop computer. Yet, as I read yet another "the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" article, titled The Fall of Wintel and the Rise of Armdroid, it occurred to me that the coming "ghettoization" may not be drawn along the lines of content producers vs. consumers as along content itself.
The distinction between playing a game on a small screen and everything that goes behind it (interface design, scaling data and processing over multiple servers and writing/testing/deploying all the code that makes that happen) is the distinction between the proverbial tip and the iceberg. (Even minus Kate and Leo and a whole lotta CGI). I hope we can agree on that.
Disclosure: I don't own a tablet or smartphone, per se. (Yet.) A netbook--with a keyboard that would have put Margaret Mitchell ("Gone with the Wind") on the sidelines well before Atlanta was toasted--yes. And I've certainly been accused of shallow thinking. And not just recently, nor without justification.
Which, I'll admit, makes it seem more than a little pretentious to swim against the tide of "conventional wisdom." ('Cuz when business writers predict long-term computing trends, it's totally like, "Gartner data-point. Your argument is invalid." 'Nuff said, right?) Even against the swaggering conventionality of dudes like Mr. Allsworth--who, so far as I can tell, think they're scooping the meteor from "Fantasia" just as the dinosaurs double-take the bright light in the sky like some chorus line of "Durrrr." Because we all know how sharply striated the mainframe-to-minicomputer-to-PC adoption was, yes?
Mockery aside, I think I can safely predict that we're living in a Golden Age of niches--perchance even a Cambrian explosion of computing life-forms. Simply because hardware is cheap, software alternatives range somewhere between "cheap" and "free" and tying together systems is not limited to dedicated telephone wires--owned, I might add, by a monopoly. Making the statistical likelihood of such one-or-the-other thinking rather on part with being struck by lightning during a shark attack.
No doubt 24/7 availability of fully networked computers responsive in a more three-dimensional sense will change the equation somewhat. But the fact remains that small screens with cramped user interfaces are geared to forms of content for which a desktop in which you can immerse yourself for twelve hours straight (thanks to three monitors, keyboard, mouse and who-knows-what-besides) are thermonuclear-scale overkill.
For instance: There's snapping a photo, cropping it, tagging it, uploading it--yea even with LOL-caption. There's firing off the multi-person SMS message otherwise known as a tweet--or even skinny post. Stupid-simple, and as close to "free" (in terms of time and money) as possible for both the creator and the recipient. Then there's the longer-term commitment of content on the level of, say, "Avatar" or "Inception" Even bootlegged copies carry the cost of going on two hours of time. (And, in an economy where too many work more hours for less compensation, don't ever make the mistake of discounting the value of "idle" time!)
Seriously now...will the next Lady Gaga video be mixed on an iPad as facilely a throwaway iApp can make caricatures of your photos? Me, I'm thinking not. And not only from the standpoint of raw computing power--something that typically comes in inverse proportions to the prized battery life of such devices. A multi-screened Mac, fully accessorized, by contrast, will capture the nuances that dumbed-down resolutions and tinny, cheap earbuds will not. All the difference in the world between a handful of Facebook friends and millions of "L'il Monsters," in other words.
In short, content is not created equal. Either in the creation or the consumption, I might add. And never will be. Just like sometimes you can get by with the "fun-size" Snickers bar you poached from the communal candy jar--the calories don't count if you pitch the wrapper in your cube-mate's waste-basket. Honest--I read it in "Scientific American." But at other times nothing short of the infamous seventeen layer "death by chocolate" volcano cheesecake torte from the local Tchotchke's will do.
Or something like that.
The distinction between playing a game on a small screen and everything that goes behind it (interface design, scaling data and processing over multiple servers and writing/testing/deploying all the code that makes that happen) is the distinction between the proverbial tip and the iceberg. (Even minus Kate and Leo and a whole lotta CGI). I hope we can agree on that.
Disclosure: I don't own a tablet or smartphone, per se. (Yet.) A netbook--with a keyboard that would have put Margaret Mitchell ("Gone with the Wind") on the sidelines well before Atlanta was toasted--yes. And I've certainly been accused of shallow thinking. And not just recently, nor without justification.
Which, I'll admit, makes it seem more than a little pretentious to swim against the tide of "conventional wisdom." ('Cuz when business writers predict long-term computing trends, it's totally like, "Gartner data-point. Your argument is invalid." 'Nuff said, right?) Even against the swaggering conventionality of dudes like Mr. Allsworth--who, so far as I can tell, think they're scooping the meteor from "Fantasia" just as the dinosaurs double-take the bright light in the sky like some chorus line of "Durrrr." Because we all know how sharply striated the mainframe-to-minicomputer-to-PC adoption was, yes?
Mockery aside, I think I can safely predict that we're living in a Golden Age of niches--perchance even a Cambrian explosion of computing life-forms. Simply because hardware is cheap, software alternatives range somewhere between "cheap" and "free" and tying together systems is not limited to dedicated telephone wires--owned, I might add, by a monopoly. Making the statistical likelihood of such one-or-the-other thinking rather on part with being struck by lightning during a shark attack.
No doubt 24/7 availability of fully networked computers responsive in a more three-dimensional sense will change the equation somewhat. But the fact remains that small screens with cramped user interfaces are geared to forms of content for which a desktop in which you can immerse yourself for twelve hours straight (thanks to three monitors, keyboard, mouse and who-knows-what-besides) are thermonuclear-scale overkill.
For instance: There's snapping a photo, cropping it, tagging it, uploading it--yea even with LOL-caption. There's firing off the multi-person SMS message otherwise known as a tweet--or even skinny post. Stupid-simple, and as close to "free" (in terms of time and money) as possible for both the creator and the recipient. Then there's the longer-term commitment of content on the level of, say, "Avatar" or "Inception" Even bootlegged copies carry the cost of going on two hours of time. (And, in an economy where too many work more hours for less compensation, don't ever make the mistake of discounting the value of "idle" time!)
Seriously now...will the next Lady Gaga video be mixed on an iPad as facilely a throwaway iApp can make caricatures of your photos? Me, I'm thinking not. And not only from the standpoint of raw computing power--something that typically comes in inverse proportions to the prized battery life of such devices. A multi-screened Mac, fully accessorized, by contrast, will capture the nuances that dumbed-down resolutions and tinny, cheap earbuds will not. All the difference in the world between a handful of Facebook friends and millions of "L'il Monsters," in other words.
In short, content is not created equal. Either in the creation or the consumption, I might add. And never will be. Just like sometimes you can get by with the "fun-size" Snickers bar you poached from the communal candy jar--the calories don't count if you pitch the wrapper in your cube-mate's waste-basket. Honest--I read it in "Scientific American." But at other times nothing short of the infamous seventeen layer "death by chocolate" volcano cheesecake torte from the local Tchotchke's will do.
Or something like that.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Blog post Wed. night
Beekeeper's meeting followed by "Date Night" takeout from Gracie's Gyros over a bottle of retsina. And suddenly it's nearly 10:30. Which, on a "school night," means that tomorrow will be Blog Night.
P.S.: Gracie's is lovely this time of year...no fighting college students for tables!
P.S.: Gracie's is lovely this time of year...no fighting college students for tables!
Friday, June 17, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 06.17.2011: Winged muses
For the last few months, I've been either getting a project out the door, fighting fires or tying up the proverbial loose ends on nearly six years of my working life. Which doesn't leave much time for in-cubicle "play-time." Outside of work, the joy in coding--particularly having my head handed to me by another language--just wasn't there. So it was easy to let the mundane requirements of adult life take over and decompress by reading with the balance of my free time.
To me, coder's block is no different from writer's block--in terms of symptoms or treatment. Sometimes you have to force things; other times, busying yourself with something unrelated while your subconscious mind works it out. And inspiration can come from the unlikeliest places.
Take the pet store, for instance. My simple mission was to pick up a bag of finch kibble. I've never trusted a store to provide optimal housing for any birds--particularly not after the shameful conditions I saw at the PetCo north of Rochester (MN) in 2000.
So I took up my self-appointed role as Finch Inspector at Large at the Onalaska PetCo. Mixed results there--particularly where they crowded too many Spice Finches and Society Finches in the same cage. (I'll be going back tomorrow to make sure that the Spice Finch with the bald spot was, indeed put into isolation as promised. There will be Gre'thor raised with the manager if it hasn't.)
But I knew they wouldn't put the little white-capped Zebra Finch "in iso." just because it was being bullied all over the cage. And the sleek little African Silverbill was already all alone...
And I'll bet you'll never, EVER guess what happened next.
Sigh. The spirit of Charlie Brown adopting the pathetic little Christmas tree strikes again. Naturally, both birds Houdini'd out of their carrying boxes when I brought them home, which only served me & my sappiness right.
But as I settled them into their quarantine cages, I thought that this weekend would be a good idea to get a starting weight for them. As we let the flock of Gouldians live out their natural lives, we--sloppily--fell out of the habit of regular weighings. But with two new young'uns, there's no excuse for that.
Which, I realized--less that a second later--would make a splendid first Android application. And, ultimately, an equally splendid excuse to break down and splurge on a 'droid tablet--something I promised I wouldn't do before I'd written my first non-"Hello, World!"--i.e. non-trivial--Android application.
And--whaddya know?--there's my extracurricular coding mojo! Standing right there! How've ya been, old friend? Let's boogie!
(P.S.: Thank you, little ones. May your kibbles always crunch.)
To me, coder's block is no different from writer's block--in terms of symptoms or treatment. Sometimes you have to force things; other times, busying yourself with something unrelated while your subconscious mind works it out. And inspiration can come from the unlikeliest places.
Take the pet store, for instance. My simple mission was to pick up a bag of finch kibble. I've never trusted a store to provide optimal housing for any birds--particularly not after the shameful conditions I saw at the PetCo north of Rochester (MN) in 2000.
So I took up my self-appointed role as Finch Inspector at Large at the Onalaska PetCo. Mixed results there--particularly where they crowded too many Spice Finches and Society Finches in the same cage. (I'll be going back tomorrow to make sure that the Spice Finch with the bald spot was, indeed put into isolation as promised. There will be Gre'thor raised with the manager if it hasn't.)
But I knew they wouldn't put the little white-capped Zebra Finch "in iso." just because it was being bullied all over the cage. And the sleek little African Silverbill was already all alone...
And I'll bet you'll never, EVER guess what happened next.
Sigh. The spirit of Charlie Brown adopting the pathetic little Christmas tree strikes again. Naturally, both birds Houdini'd out of their carrying boxes when I brought them home, which only served me & my sappiness right.
But as I settled them into their quarantine cages, I thought that this weekend would be a good idea to get a starting weight for them. As we let the flock of Gouldians live out their natural lives, we--sloppily--fell out of the habit of regular weighings. But with two new young'uns, there's no excuse for that.
Which, I realized--less that a second later--would make a splendid first Android application. And, ultimately, an equally splendid excuse to break down and splurge on a 'droid tablet--something I promised I wouldn't do before I'd written my first non-"Hello, World!"--i.e. non-trivial--Android application.
And--whaddya know?--there's my extracurricular coding mojo! Standing right there! How've ya been, old friend? Let's boogie!
(P.S.: Thank you, little ones. May your kibbles always crunch.)
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Living in a three-party system
Dad wanted to review the photos on his camera's memory card. Dad's a Windows user, and I don't have an SD slot on my XP desktop. So the only option was to fire up the Ubuntu laptop, log in, and hope for the best.
Now. What you should understand about my Dad is he's Mister Fix Anything, thanks to being in medical maintenance since before I was born in the hospital that employed him. Plumbing. Electrical. Mechanical. HVAC. (Computer-controlled pneumatic tube systems seem to be his special joy. That and being privy to the more colorful antics of the staff and administration--such generally being a fringe benefit of working third shift.)
He's turned his attention on desktop and laptop computers as well, so I didn't think that the Linux thing would throw him off too much. (Heck, I've managed to pass off Mandrake as Windows...and that in 2004.) Wrong. It seems that whatever software's installed on his home computer opens the root of the SD card and ignores the folder-structure to present all photos in slide-show format. To Ubuntu, however, the card was just another drive--no different from a hard drive, CD, DVD, or USB device. (Of course, the fact that his camera apparently creates a new folder for each day--which can mean a folder containing a single .JPG file--doesn't make browsing any easier.)
We fumbled through it one way or another. But it was pretty obvious that Dad was convinced that having all photos at his fingertips was The Way It's Supposed To Work, Darnitalready. His software completely concealed the folder structure (and thus the complexity) from him.
It's anecdotes like those that make me suspect--and rejoice--that operating systems will always be a multi-party system. I know my preferences, and--I fondly hope--understand some of the values that drive them. But values in operating systems--as in politics--can be incompatible to the point where compromises, while possible, have a kludgey feel to them. I more or less type for a living, and fingerprints on my monitor, frankly, skeeve me the heck out. Which pretty much rules out any tablet that doesn't dock into a keyboard. My co-worker in the pod next door, by contrast, might not be acquitted of actually naming his iPad and sleeping with it on a pillow next to him. At least not in the court of public opinion. Much the same might be said for his Android phone. And more power to him.
Which brings us back around to the politics metaphor and the moral of the story: Knowing your core values (and the trade-offs they entail) always trumps finding justification for your allegiance to a particular system.
Now. What you should understand about my Dad is he's Mister Fix Anything, thanks to being in medical maintenance since before I was born in the hospital that employed him. Plumbing. Electrical. Mechanical. HVAC. (Computer-controlled pneumatic tube systems seem to be his special joy. That and being privy to the more colorful antics of the staff and administration--such generally being a fringe benefit of working third shift.)
He's turned his attention on desktop and laptop computers as well, so I didn't think that the Linux thing would throw him off too much. (Heck, I've managed to pass off Mandrake as Windows...and that in 2004.) Wrong. It seems that whatever software's installed on his home computer opens the root of the SD card and ignores the folder-structure to present all photos in slide-show format. To Ubuntu, however, the card was just another drive--no different from a hard drive, CD, DVD, or USB device. (Of course, the fact that his camera apparently creates a new folder for each day--which can mean a folder containing a single .JPG file--doesn't make browsing any easier.)
We fumbled through it one way or another. But it was pretty obvious that Dad was convinced that having all photos at his fingertips was The Way It's Supposed To Work, Darnitalready. His software completely concealed the folder structure (and thus the complexity) from him.
It's anecdotes like those that make me suspect--and rejoice--that operating systems will always be a multi-party system. I know my preferences, and--I fondly hope--understand some of the values that drive them. But values in operating systems--as in politics--can be incompatible to the point where compromises, while possible, have a kludgey feel to them. I more or less type for a living, and fingerprints on my monitor, frankly, skeeve me the heck out. Which pretty much rules out any tablet that doesn't dock into a keyboard. My co-worker in the pod next door, by contrast, might not be acquitted of actually naming his iPad and sleeping with it on a pillow next to him. At least not in the court of public opinion. Much the same might be said for his Android phone. And more power to him.
Which brings us back around to the politics metaphor and the moral of the story: Knowing your core values (and the trade-offs they entail) always trumps finding justification for your allegiance to a particular system.
Friday, June 10, 2011
No blog post tonight
Prepping for a family reunion and having company over has called dibs on my weekend and beyond. Hope that my gentle reader's Friday is sufficiently frivolous without my contribution.
Cheers, all!
Cheers, all!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Lopsided metaphor
Apparently, hyperopia is a hipster condition...at least in the sense that I've never heard of it--not that this is much of a touchstone, mind you! (The less fancy name for those of us lacking a degree in opthomology is "farsightedness.")
It occurred to me to look up the word while I was testing a fix, and realized that I was doing so with full God-Emperor-of-Dune system privileges. I should note that only a meagre handful of users have that level of access. But testing (either formally or informally) with the full menu of features at hand is not always a good thing--as I discovered to my mortification years ago when a necessary feature actually generated errors for any poor, average hoi-poloi schlub unfortunate enough to have to use it. (Small wonder it was the proverbial red-headed step-child of features...y'think?!?!)
I think it's telling that I found the word "hyperopia" not thanks to a mind that's a sponge for over-educated trivia. Nor even via an educated guess based on a two-ships-passing-in-the-night acquaintance with Greek.
No, I merely Googled, "opposite of myopia." Because "myopia"--a.k.a. near-sightedness--is a term that has some layperson mileage. And that's what puzzles me. When a person or organization or culture is described as "myopic," that's invariable a bad thing. Parochial. Head-in-the-sand. That sort of thing.
But we don't have the equivalent term of people who were so busy worrying about what's going on outside the walls self/organzation/country that they forgot to take care of business. And I think you can definitely make the case that "hyperopia" is an equally deadly sin. You saw it in the "but everybody else is doing it, and if we don't they'll eat our lunch" Wall Street lemming-stampede. You see it in investing even now...by so-called professionals. You see it in the way our country cheerleads democracy and freedom and gender equality and anti-corruption efforts in other countries but thumbs its nose at them inside our own borders.
My position? Screw the Joneses. Let them lose sleep worrying about how they're going to keep up with you. Sure, pay attention to what's on the horizon and dedicate a percentage of resources to the hic sunt dracones part of the map--no question. But otherwise, there's no substitute for taking care of business.
It occurred to me to look up the word while I was testing a fix, and realized that I was doing so with full God-Emperor-of-Dune system privileges. I should note that only a meagre handful of users have that level of access. But testing (either formally or informally) with the full menu of features at hand is not always a good thing--as I discovered to my mortification years ago when a necessary feature actually generated errors for any poor, average hoi-poloi schlub unfortunate enough to have to use it. (Small wonder it was the proverbial red-headed step-child of features...y'think?!?!)
I think it's telling that I found the word "hyperopia" not thanks to a mind that's a sponge for over-educated trivia. Nor even via an educated guess based on a two-ships-passing-in-the-night acquaintance with Greek.
No, I merely Googled, "opposite of myopia." Because "myopia"--a.k.a. near-sightedness--is a term that has some layperson mileage. And that's what puzzles me. When a person or organization or culture is described as "myopic," that's invariable a bad thing. Parochial. Head-in-the-sand. That sort of thing.
But we don't have the equivalent term of people who were so busy worrying about what's going on outside the walls self/organzation/country that they forgot to take care of business. And I think you can definitely make the case that "hyperopia" is an equally deadly sin. You saw it in the "but everybody else is doing it, and if we don't they'll eat our lunch" Wall Street lemming-stampede. You see it in investing even now...by so-called professionals. You see it in the way our country cheerleads democracy and freedom and gender equality and anti-corruption efforts in other countries but thumbs its nose at them inside our own borders.
My position? Screw the Joneses. Let them lose sleep worrying about how they're going to keep up with you. Sure, pay attention to what's on the horizon and dedicate a percentage of resources to the hic sunt dracones part of the map--no question. But otherwise, there's no substitute for taking care of business.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 06.03.2011: Funny money
It doesn't seem like it's been that long since the birth announcement, but online pal A.'s daugher Z. is now old enough for visits from the Tooth Fairy. A. tweeted that $0.50 had materialized under Z.'s pillow. I twitted him that clearly imaginary beings are not subject to the laws of inflation, because that was the going rate in "my day" --an epoch that, in broad historial terms, was bookended by Wategate and Disco--which was exactly the same.
Which brought to mind one of the (few) high points of Harvard Lampoon's send-up of Tolkein, Bored of the Rings. Quoting purely from (1995-vintage) memory, the menu of the "Feast of Orlon" was satirized thusly:
But that was 1995. When we looked back at gold-hoarding and rolled our eyes. When the idea of an exchange rate between, say, D&D GP ("gold pieces" to the uninitiated) and greenbacks would have been laughable. When the real-estate bubble that had middle class Americans snapping up ticky-tacky twin-dos to flip to similarly beady-eyed middle class Americans was even more laughable. (In retrospect, anyway.)
You can say what you like about the trench-war between eCommerce and bricks-and-mortar, but EverQuest and Diablo and their ilk definitely put "virtual goods" on the map. And to my mind, it wasn't so much that the RIAA/MPAA had to compete with "free," it's that they had to compete with broad-band download rates. Throw into the mix the fact that Apple has more or less conditioned us to value both songs and smartphone/tablet applications at 99 cents a pop. Texting to a specific number, last time I checked, anyway, was an automatic ten clams.
In perspective, one can only wonder at the unintended (or at least unanticipated by the masses) consequences cellphone payments.
This isn't the first time I've scratched my head at paying real money for not-so-real stuff. Or even that I've been appalled at the nasty, brutish underbelly of virtual economies. But it is the first time I've had the mortifying suspicion that we programmer & online gamer types might have--completely inadvertently, I swear!--have lowered the bar for everyone else.
Thus--I suspect--was born the notion of taking mortgages (issued to pretty much anyone with a pulse), spraying the regulatory equivalent of Lysol on them, and passing them off as actual, honest-to-Pete, value-adding "investments." And, because we 'mericans tend to be slow learners (as in, "Oh, but that was Manchuria; Japan would never have the stones to attack U.S. soil..."), we might just see a badly-scripted sequel in the staid fields of betting on your life expectancy.
Considering the number of platinum-parachuted Wall Street suits who happily short-sold your castle, I would think the thought of short-selling your actual...well...life should worry you, no? Because, in the grand scheme of things, insurance companies are only selling an egregiously non-tangible product (a.k.a. "peace of mind"): Am I wrong?
(Note to self: Do not encourage Dennis to splice Soylent Green into the Netflix line-up anytime soon. kthxbi.)
Part of me feels like I should apologize--on behalf of all Geekdom--for how the virtualization of goods might have actually softened up the economy for the Great Recession. But, on further review...eh, naaaaahhh. We're the ones who take our mortgage Algebra straight-up, without the sugar-froth of ARM or interest-only pixie-dust. And, perhaps more significantly, maybe it takes an immersion in economies that are fake-for-real (e.g. Monopoly, WoW, Eve) to appreciate the fine distinction between gold-farming and derivatives-brokering. Just saying.
Which brought to mind one of the (few) high points of Harvard Lampoon's send-up of Tolkein, Bored of the Rings. Quoting purely from (1995-vintage) memory, the menu of the "Feast of Orlon" was satirized thusly:
Like all mythical creatures who live in the forest with no visible means of support, the elves dined frugally on nuts, berries, bark and dirt.Needless to write, I condemned myself to English Major Hades--because we Liberal Arts types are just too literate for a monosyllabic "Hell," don'cha'know?--by snorting with laughter. Uproariously.
But that was 1995. When we looked back at gold-hoarding and rolled our eyes. When the idea of an exchange rate between, say, D&D GP ("gold pieces" to the uninitiated) and greenbacks would have been laughable. When the real-estate bubble that had middle class Americans snapping up ticky-tacky twin-dos to flip to similarly beady-eyed middle class Americans was even more laughable. (In retrospect, anyway.)
You can say what you like about the trench-war between eCommerce and bricks-and-mortar, but EverQuest and Diablo and their ilk definitely put "virtual goods" on the map. And to my mind, it wasn't so much that the RIAA/MPAA had to compete with "free," it's that they had to compete with broad-band download rates. Throw into the mix the fact that Apple has more or less conditioned us to value both songs and smartphone/tablet applications at 99 cents a pop. Texting to a specific number, last time I checked, anyway, was an automatic ten clams.
In perspective, one can only wonder at the unintended (or at least unanticipated by the masses) consequences cellphone payments.
This isn't the first time I've scratched my head at paying real money for not-so-real stuff. Or even that I've been appalled at the nasty, brutish underbelly of virtual economies. But it is the first time I've had the mortifying suspicion that we programmer & online gamer types might have--completely inadvertently, I swear!--have lowered the bar for everyone else.
Thus--I suspect--was born the notion of taking mortgages (issued to pretty much anyone with a pulse), spraying the regulatory equivalent of Lysol on them, and passing them off as actual, honest-to-Pete, value-adding "investments." And, because we 'mericans tend to be slow learners (as in, "Oh, but that was Manchuria; Japan would never have the stones to attack U.S. soil..."), we might just see a badly-scripted sequel in the staid fields of betting on your life expectancy.
Considering the number of platinum-parachuted Wall Street suits who happily short-sold your castle, I would think the thought of short-selling your actual...well...life should worry you, no? Because, in the grand scheme of things, insurance companies are only selling an egregiously non-tangible product (a.k.a. "peace of mind"): Am I wrong?
(Note to self: Do not encourage Dennis to splice Soylent Green into the Netflix line-up anytime soon. kthxbi.)
Part of me feels like I should apologize--on behalf of all Geekdom--for how the virtualization of goods might have actually softened up the economy for the Great Recession. But, on further review...eh, naaaaahhh. We're the ones who take our mortgage Algebra straight-up, without the sugar-froth of ARM or interest-only pixie-dust. And, perhaps more significantly, maybe it takes an immersion in economies that are fake-for-real (e.g. Monopoly, WoW, Eve) to appreciate the fine distinction between gold-farming and derivatives-brokering. Just saying.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
It takes a tribe to raise a member
I'm not sure I want to perpetuate the analogy of "tribes" to a work environment, because, going on my career so far, I've rarely seen the necessary level of cohesion extend beyond, say, three co-workers.
But Best Friend H. was chunking out code when I was still struggling to parlay a Liberal Arts degree into a "real job," so I tend to trust her instincts. This past weekend, she used the phrase "tribal knowledge" in the context of griping about why outsourcing projects to contracting firms was capable of so much friction. Friction, I might add, that had nothing to do with time zones or language or even cultural norms.
That concept has been brought home the past few weeks as I've been on the short road to tinnitis, trying to block out days' worth of brain-dumping. And that's just for one application. We're trying not to traumatize the trainee, so I haven't even started loading my dump-truck just yet. (Much less the gleeful rubbing of hands, twirling of moustache, maniacal laughter, etc., etc.)
But in a much more tangible sense, I only need rewind to last Friday. I don't think I'm telling too many proverbial stories out of school when I say that a software enhancement was expected to be rolled out to the production (i.e. live) website this Tuesday, and we still needed to make a final check on the "beta" (i.e. dress rehearsal) server. Quality Assurance (QA) was already slated to test over the weekend, and Alpha-Geek was likewise planning to make the final code-push, assuming it passed muster.
I handle promotions in the afternoon, so the programmer responsible passes the issue off to me. So far the tribal knowledge seems to have trickled down, despite the fact that he's only been with us for a small handful of months.
Except the tribe missed passing on the bit of collective wisdom that says that if your patch is that important, you should probably stick around to see it safely promoted and, oh, maybe even spot-check it before handing it back off to QA. But, being a self-respecting barely-post-collegiate type, he, naturally, made for the door in anticipation of a three-day weekend.
I duly promoted the database portions, then realized that the programmer had forgotten to to merge one chunk of the code into the production branch of the Subversion repository. Hypothetically, this should be only a minimal inconvenience, because I should be able to update my copy of the "production" repository, merge the designated changes from the beta version, and commit them up.
It's an amiable enough hypothesis, to be sure. But it reckons without the fact that, between the time programmer made his change and the time I had to merge them, a directory had been deleted. Which means that Subversion had had its little drama-queen hissy-fit freakout about a tree conflict. In laypeople's terms, this leaves me with three possible options:
A.) Trust my version of the files
B.) Trust the incoming version of the files
C.) Try to negotiate a compromise
Only problem was, I wasn't privy to the "tribal knowledge" behind the "missing" folder and its contents. That had left with the programmer in question--and, for that matter, everybody else. Which left me with two possible options:
A.) Take a wild, flying stab in the dark and let other people shop-vac up any resulting damage
B.) Document what I'd done so far and the problems encountered and foist the rest of the promotion off on Alpha-Geek
Sadly, the latter was the kinder option. (From a passive-aggressive standpoint, it was probably a horse apiece, so I refuse to feel guilty about choosing (B.).) Apart from being copied on the note that Alpha-Geek had ultimately finished the promotion (after working around said freakout), I didn't hear bupkis about the incident after that. I should probably check in to see that the appropriate party was shown the error of his ways.
But the "teachable moment" from all this should, I trust, be the ample demonstration of the value of cultivating knowledge as a tribe. Or, perhaps more aptly, the counter-wisdom of grafting individuals (and even whole teams) onto a project without thoroughly marinating her/him/it in the deep end of the knowledge-pool. The best possible outcome otherwise is gross inefficiency; the worst is wholesale disaster. The foolhardy grafter should expect no sympathy in either case.
But Best Friend H. was chunking out code when I was still struggling to parlay a Liberal Arts degree into a "real job," so I tend to trust her instincts. This past weekend, she used the phrase "tribal knowledge" in the context of griping about why outsourcing projects to contracting firms was capable of so much friction. Friction, I might add, that had nothing to do with time zones or language or even cultural norms.
That concept has been brought home the past few weeks as I've been on the short road to tinnitis, trying to block out days' worth of brain-dumping. And that's just for one application. We're trying not to traumatize the trainee, so I haven't even started loading my dump-truck just yet. (Much less the gleeful rubbing of hands, twirling of moustache, maniacal laughter, etc., etc.)
But in a much more tangible sense, I only need rewind to last Friday. I don't think I'm telling too many proverbial stories out of school when I say that a software enhancement was expected to be rolled out to the production (i.e. live) website this Tuesday, and we still needed to make a final check on the "beta" (i.e. dress rehearsal) server. Quality Assurance (QA) was already slated to test over the weekend, and Alpha-Geek was likewise planning to make the final code-push, assuming it passed muster.
I handle promotions in the afternoon, so the programmer responsible passes the issue off to me. So far the tribal knowledge seems to have trickled down, despite the fact that he's only been with us for a small handful of months.
Except the tribe missed passing on the bit of collective wisdom that says that if your patch is that important, you should probably stick around to see it safely promoted and, oh, maybe even spot-check it before handing it back off to QA. But, being a self-respecting barely-post-collegiate type, he, naturally, made for the door in anticipation of a three-day weekend.
I duly promoted the database portions, then realized that the programmer had forgotten to to merge one chunk of the code into the production branch of the Subversion repository. Hypothetically, this should be only a minimal inconvenience, because I should be able to update my copy of the "production" repository, merge the designated changes from the beta version, and commit them up.
It's an amiable enough hypothesis, to be sure. But it reckons without the fact that, between the time programmer made his change and the time I had to merge them, a directory had been deleted. Which means that Subversion had had its little drama-queen hissy-fit freakout about a tree conflict. In laypeople's terms, this leaves me with three possible options:
A.) Trust my version of the files
B.) Trust the incoming version of the files
C.) Try to negotiate a compromise
Only problem was, I wasn't privy to the "tribal knowledge" behind the "missing" folder and its contents. That had left with the programmer in question--and, for that matter, everybody else. Which left me with two possible options:
A.) Take a wild, flying stab in the dark and let other people shop-vac up any resulting damage
B.) Document what I'd done so far and the problems encountered and foist the rest of the promotion off on Alpha-Geek
Sadly, the latter was the kinder option. (From a passive-aggressive standpoint, it was probably a horse apiece, so I refuse to feel guilty about choosing (B.).) Apart from being copied on the note that Alpha-Geek had ultimately finished the promotion (after working around said freakout), I didn't hear bupkis about the incident after that. I should probably check in to see that the appropriate party was shown the error of his ways.
But the "teachable moment" from all this should, I trust, be the ample demonstration of the value of cultivating knowledge as a tribe. Or, perhaps more aptly, the counter-wisdom of grafting individuals (and even whole teams) onto a project without thoroughly marinating her/him/it in the deep end of the knowledge-pool. The best possible outcome otherwise is gross inefficiency; the worst is wholesale disaster. The foolhardy grafter should expect no sympathy in either case.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Testing...testing...
...still spot-checking a code rollout to the production server. Blog post tomorrow night.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Frivolous Friday, 05.27.2001: First World Lament
(Blame the "#GoodnightTwitter" trending topic from earlier this week...)
It's eleven p.m.,
The pizza is cold,
My twelfth-level Mage
Has run short on gold.
My Twitter-stream flows by
At barely a trickle.
Pandora's turned flighty;
Her stations are fickle.
My friends' updates likewise
Have slowed to a crawl.
I hear through the silence
The Facebook games call.
But I'm not keen on farming
Nor buccaneering tonight;
Don't feel like a mobster--
Much less elven knight.
I could turn to my Netflix
On-demand streaming.
(Tho' when credits are rolling,
I'll already be dreaming.)
I could pound down a 'Dew
Or blend a frapee,
Except my IM-mates
Have called it a day.
Or fire up the tablet
And download new apps.
To amuse my remaining
(Non-snoozing) synapse.
Or load my e-Reader
With books new and cool
And hope I don't short it
In a puddle of drool.
Both eyelids are south-bound,
I won't greet the dawn,
Tomorrow's a new day--
Another re-spawn.
But it's Friday night on
A three-day weekend:
And moi turn in early?!?
Cthulu forefend!
It's eleven p.m.,
The pizza is cold,
My twelfth-level Mage
Has run short on gold.
My Twitter-stream flows by
At barely a trickle.
Pandora's turned flighty;
Her stations are fickle.
My friends' updates likewise
Have slowed to a crawl.
I hear through the silence
The Facebook games call.
But I'm not keen on farming
Nor buccaneering tonight;
Don't feel like a mobster--
Much less elven knight.
I could turn to my Netflix
On-demand streaming.
(Tho' when credits are rolling,
I'll already be dreaming.)
I could pound down a 'Dew
Or blend a frapee,
Except my IM-mates
Have called it a day.
Or fire up the tablet
And download new apps.
To amuse my remaining
(Non-snoozing) synapse.
Or load my e-Reader
With books new and cool
And hope I don't short it
In a puddle of drool.
Both eyelids are south-bound,
I won't greet the dawn,
Tomorrow's a new day--
Another re-spawn.
But it's Friday night on
A three-day weekend:
And moi turn in early?!?
Cthulu forefend!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
iPotato
After last year's suicide scandals, Foxconn and its most glamorous customer, Apple, are again in the news, and--again--not in the good way. The invisible people who make our toys are supposed to stay off our radar. Just like the elves who make toys for Santa, don'cha'know? A predictably boring supplier is a good supplier: That's just how it works.
After reading--by which I mean deep-skimming and yes, I do consider that a distinction--the article, the Inner History Major snorted awake and mumbled, "Right. Basically we're talking the Irish Potato Famine. Got it. Zzzzzzzzzzz..." The IHM was mainly thinking of the monoculture component of the famine, what with the concerns about consistency and timing in the supply chain. Not to mention the overhead cost associated with putting the screws to multiple suppliers to insure that one doesn't chisel you out of that fraction of a penny on a three-figure tablet or smartphone: Quelle horreur... (An economy stacked in favor of absentee landlords and de-facto colonialism...that historical parallel pretty much speaks for itself.)
But IHM had a point, and the leftier-brainier part of me couldn't help but wonder: How scalable is scalability itself? True, macroeconomics has reams to say about the virtues of specialization. But even the most greasiest of gears can't avoid some grit. Or--more ominously--flaws and stress-points in the metal itself. Or--as this week has demonstrated--random acts of freakish nature.
(Then, too, the contrarian part of me--smirking sarcastically at every other part from its snarky digs--likewise couldn't help itself and wondered why anyone would shell out half a grand on a tablet to be like every other slavering fanboy/fangirl. Doubtless, the next iPhone/Android phone could easily get away with the schtick so common to '90 boutique catalogs: "Due to the natural variations in outsourced manufacturing, please allow us to select one for you." You can't tell me the Kool-aid swillers would pound that down...)
The geek in me just knows, though, that if you rely on disasters to test your failover plan, you don't really have backup. Which applies to people and their knowledge-sets just as much as it does to hardware and connectivity, by the bye. And baking in a certain amount of slack in lieu of stuffing more eggs into the same basket is, really, what it amounts to. Plus, I figure that if my own trade--programming computers--can be subjected to the ethos of assembly-line manufacturing...hey, we might as well make that botched metaphor a two-way street, no?
After reading--by which I mean deep-skimming and yes, I do consider that a distinction--the article, the Inner History Major snorted awake and mumbled, "Right. Basically we're talking the Irish Potato Famine. Got it. Zzzzzzzzzzz..." The IHM was mainly thinking of the monoculture component of the famine, what with the concerns about consistency and timing in the supply chain. Not to mention the overhead cost associated with putting the screws to multiple suppliers to insure that one doesn't chisel you out of that fraction of a penny on a three-figure tablet or smartphone: Quelle horreur... (An economy stacked in favor of absentee landlords and de-facto colonialism...that historical parallel pretty much speaks for itself.)
But IHM had a point, and the leftier-brainier part of me couldn't help but wonder: How scalable is scalability itself? True, macroeconomics has reams to say about the virtues of specialization. But even the most greasiest of gears can't avoid some grit. Or--more ominously--flaws and stress-points in the metal itself. Or--as this week has demonstrated--random acts of freakish nature.
(Then, too, the contrarian part of me--smirking sarcastically at every other part from its snarky digs--likewise couldn't help itself and wondered why anyone would shell out half a grand on a tablet to be like every other slavering fanboy/fangirl. Doubtless, the next iPhone/Android phone could easily get away with the schtick so common to '90 boutique catalogs: "Due to the natural variations in outsourced manufacturing, please allow us to select one for you." You can't tell me the Kool-aid swillers would pound that down...)
The geek in me just knows, though, that if you rely on disasters to test your failover plan, you don't really have backup. Which applies to people and their knowledge-sets just as much as it does to hardware and connectivity, by the bye. And baking in a certain amount of slack in lieu of stuffing more eggs into the same basket is, really, what it amounts to. Plus, I figure that if my own trade--programming computers--can be subjected to the ethos of assembly-line manufacturing...hey, we might as well make that botched metaphor a two-way street, no?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)