a crank’s progress

Requirements: $1000/month with benefits, $1500/month without.
All honest opportunities considered.
Inquire within.

My father has been in town these past few days for his granddaughter’s 5th birthday, so I’ve been out in the Big Room with the blue ceiling more than usual.

IHT: Meanwhile: Hot zombie love in the suburbs
[Director Paul] Rudnick noted that the “embedded biology” of romantic fantasies has not changed: “Men want a babe and don’t care about her earning power. Women want a rugged poet or musician with a private jet.”
It will still make a great thriller. But the real chiller is that [...]

The Level of Discourse Continues to Slide
Thoughts on PowerPoint as a communications tool.

The Obvious?: Great story
I’ve seen this before but it is worth repeating:
[ A Cherokee elder tells of the battle within himself ]
“My son, it is between two wolves…
One is filled with anger, hatred, envy, sorrow, regret, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego…
The other is filled with joy, peace, love, hope, [...]

well, not too long after realizing this job was limited in its upward mobility, I learned today that it’s stability is scarce as well. ah, the joy of working with law school faculty: they’ve consulted the University’s collective bargaining agreement to find out the procedure for removing a tenured (ie, past the probationary period) employee. [...]

Everything Burns: Amnestia ahora
At one point in the conversation, the following security problem came up: How do you prevent kids from visiting your house twice on Halloween, and double-dipping from the finite cauldron of precious treats? (”Harry Potter! Weren’t you just here? Scram, you Gryffindor scum!”)
Proposed solutions ranged from marking each kid with a paintball [...]

Horse, Blender, Car, Crockpot: Pick Your Gadgets
Paul Saffo, a director at the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif., who has studied how societies and individuals adopt technology, pointed out that the Amish were just one of many cultures that made selective use of technologies. The religious communities of Hutterites, Mennonites and [...]

meta-douglasp
What really struck me hard was this is likely all that is left for us to remember them.  This one tiny piece of paper is all that remains to tell us they were even here.  This one wilted and tattered sheet that sat unnoticed by an ungrateful ancestor.
I just discovered what I think is [...]

Amazon.com: Books: Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
Another entry in the small but growing management library that suggests purposely slowing down and smelling the roses could actually boost productivity in today’s 24/7 world, Tom DeMarco’s Slack stands out because it is aimed at “the infernal busyness of the modern workplace.” [...]