Category: Uncategorized

someone has a time management/priorities problem

and bloggers are accused of logorrhea?

[Former Sec’y of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, whose sometimes abrasive approach often alienated other Cabinet members and White House staff members, produced 20 to 60 snowflakes a day and regularly poured out his thoughts in writing as the basis for developing policy, aides said. The memos are not classified but are marked “for official use only.” [From From the Desk of Donald Rumsfeld . . . – washingtonpost.com]

The amount of time spent on these little droppings, to say nothing of the interruptions to possible Real Work he might have been doing, must have been a large part of his day, even if he dictated them. On a 10 hour workday, 20 means generating one every 30 minutes: 60 means doing it every 10. And a shorter workday or time spent in circumstances that prohibit generating them means a tighter interval.

But read deeper into it and you realize that, rather than trying to remake the military or win a war, he’s obsessed with burnishing his reputation with words, not deeds. Rather than do the job and let the facts stand on their own, he’s constantly responding to OpEds. He complains about being “on defense” when any axiom addict would say that “the best defense is a good offense.”

Pathetic. The whole crowd of them seem more concerned with how history will see them than with what they can accomplish today. How have today’s meetings and phone calls and emails and speeches advanced the national agenda?

Carpetbagger has more.

smarter than a fourth grader but not much

My Fourth Grader had this for homework:

1562 _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ 1874

Fill in the missing numbers on the number line above, and write down the strategy as you would explain it to someone else.

(To be fair, this was the last problem. The first two made it possible for even a dullard like me to work out the rule. This was a test to see if I, erm, the student got it right.)

Continue reading “smarter than a fourth grader but not much”

stumbling

taking a cue from Josh, I just walked my block with KisMac sniffing the air. Only 23 networks advertised. The first three are mine, and number 3 is my neighbor to the back. 4 and 5 were ones I had not seen before, but the TiVo did when I plugged it in. Number 7 is the business office at Temple Beth Am, I assume: pretty strong if I could pick up where I was walking.

Picture 2.jpg

A bit worrying how many of them are using WEP. I assume anyone with no security turned on knows the risks, but I expect the people with WEP are operating under a false sense of security. Think they would take it badly if I ran aircrack on those networks and left them a note telling them how long it took to derive their key, with the key, and suggested they tighten up?

And only one named “linksys.” Excellent. I guess ACTIONTEC and 2WIRE are brand names as well, so points off to those people.

links for 2007-10-31