Month: January 2003

they’ll never learn, but one can hope

angiemckaig.com – brain lint

Even in this recession, where there are more out-of-work tech people than ever, employers and employees both have to remember that there is such a thing as mutual respect. If you want us to learn your business, take a bit of time to learn ours. At the very least, avoid laundry lists of requirements if you have no idea what they mean. Build up a relationship of trust with us and we will reward you with loyalty and dedication, not to mention the inevitable overtime that most tech people go through at least occasionally. Don’t insult us, and we won’t insult you.

The listing Angie mentions looks a lot like this one.

keeping the aristocracy at bay

a parable:
“let’s suppose you and I have been summoned to God’s office, and while we wait for Her to admit us, we hear Her grousing about how the market has beaten up Her holdings pretty badly. She calls for one of her assistants to fetch Her the next two souls to be sent to earth. When they arrive, She poses them this test:

‘One of the two of you is going to be born in the United States, the other somewhere else. The one of you who will be born in the US will have a good chance to do some good and make a good living, the other not so good.

I’m going to give you a slip of paper and a moment to think about it, then I want you to write down what percentage of what you amass you’ll give away when the time comes to return.’

And with that She leaves them to it. And you and I look at each other, and wonder how they’re going to do it since both of them will write down 100%.

That’s what’s it’s worth to live in America.”

Wm. H. Gates Sr told this today as part of his talk on reforming the estate tax. A touch mawkish, perhaps, but his point was understood by most. Some of those present didn’t understand progressive taxation and some struggled a bit with the notion of being indebted to their predecessors instead of entitled by them. But that’s how this country got where it is: every generation until recently has invested in making things better, from railroads and water systems to highways and electricity.

The other interesting note was how few people will actually feel the estate tax, how few people actually build up fortunes in the millions, and yet the whole issues was supposed to be about small family farms and shops that would have to be sold to satisfy the grasping claws of the taxman. Turns out that was a straw man: no family farm has been sold to cover the burden of the estate tax, but pitching the message as “the death tax” and raising the specter of losing the family legacy was enough to convince our mindless congresspersons to revoke it.

According to what Chuck Collins and Bill Gates Sr told us, there are plenty of folks who will find their fortunes subject to the estate tax, yet they’re in favor of keeping it and/or reforming it, rather than dropping it.

thoughts on knowledge logging

K-Log Pilot Recap

I hate to call these “k-logs” since pronunciation seems to make them sound less than useful.

Many were in agreement that the k-log would be a great vehicle for senior execs to share wisdom with others in the company. Oddly enough, those same people were uncertain whether they as individuals would have information that would be valuable outside of their team. Somewhat contradictory, however, was a comment made by one user (and echoed by others) that it would be really nice to learn what was going on “on the other side of the house.”

I found it interesting that some felt a weblog was a useful thing for senior execs to use but that they themselves didn’t have anything important enough to publish. Sounds like a case study for some organization psychologists . . . .

Found this at Holbrook’s site.
Continue reading “thoughts on knowledge logging”

the restoration

Yesterday, for the first time in 2 years, I received a paycheck. So this means I can start putting life as we knew it back together.


  1. Hire a housekeeper
  2. Resume shipments of Peet’s Coffee
  3. Buy Christmas presents for ourselves, ie adults
  4. Go to dinner/see a movie without the younger set
  5. Join a CSA

As you can see, I’m doing my bit to share the wealth. More to come.

file under: appropriate use

Office surfers may face wipeout – Tech News – CNET.com

One network performance analyst at a Fortune 10 company estimated that 10 percent to 20 percent of all network traffic is nonwork-related. The analyst, who didn’t want to be named, said that can add up quickly.

“If you’re looking at a company with an $82 million IT budget, and 10 percent of the network is going to nonwork uses, you’re saving $8 million if you can stop it,” he said, adding that file-swapping, streaming news media, and gaming are among the most common activities.

This is easy to verify: monitor the network and see how much of it is being used throughout the day. Sure, there will be a ramp up at 9 AM, a spike a noon and then a downward slide at 4 PM, mirroring CNN’s inbound traffic (I wish these were stilll accessible).

But if the network isn’t constrained, how do you claim users are wasting bandwidth? You can make a case they’re wasting time, but that reflects badly on what passes for management. It’s always easier to blame external sites or those shiftless employees than the ones who are really responsible.

relief from Windows frustration

Well, I took Holbrook’s advice and installed Cygwin. That makes a big difference. I never would have guessed I would be so inured to a commandline as to prefer it this much.

I have installed a few packages (vim, gcc [don’t know why, I just did it]). Nice to see there are lots of familiar packages ready to use. I also installed ActiveState perl. Try as I have to learn python, I have a little muscle memory a/k/a a few perl tricks and I have never worked out analogs to them.

I also found out there are some surplussed machines laying around so I may claim one and see if I can scare up a KVM switch. I may not need it if cygwin works as advertised.

putting the silver spoon in perspective

Wealth and Our Commonwealth, William H. Gates, Sr. and Chuck Collins, 080704718X, Fall 2002, Beacon Press

. . . . individual wealth is a product not only of hard work and smart choices but of the society that provides the fertile soil for success. They don’t subscribe to the “Great Man” theory of wealth creation but contend that society’s investments, such as economic development, education, health care, and property rights protection, all contribute to any individual’s good fortune. With the repeal proposed by the Bush administration, we might be facing the future that Teddy Roosevelt feared—where huge fortunes amassed and untaxed would evolve into a dangerous and permanent aristocracy. Repeal would drop federal revenues $294 billion in the first 10 years; some $750 billion would be lost in the second decade, not to mention that the U.S. Treasury estimates that charitable contributions would drop by $6 billion a year.

Another one for my reading list. Looks like I need to follow Frank’s lead and learn more about Teddy: his name is all over stuff here in Seattle, so it’s crossed my mind before.

giving up on safari

Apple – Safari

I can’t use it all the time and since Chimera is not exactly terrible, I’ll use it. They’ll both get better, so where’s the harm?

Where Safari fails me is in posting to my weblog, something I do regularly enough to expect reliability. For whatever reason, the javascript magic doesn’t happen.

Of course, the lack of tabbed browsing is a nuisance as well.