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Wear It In Shame
Boy, does BD00 have a treat for you. Here’s the dealio.
Post a comment here with your assessment of this blog. Good or bad? What is BD00 doing right? What is BD00 doing wrong? Does BD00 piss you off? Does BD00 make you laugh? A bit of both? How could BD00 improve the content? What else would you like to say to BD00?
The writers of the first 2 “substantive” comments that BD00 receives will get a gratis copy of the notoriously famous “Cog Diss” T-shirt to wear in shame:
Notes:
- BD00 reserves the right to decide what “substantive” means.
- Sorry, but the only size BD00 has in stock is XL
- Hey Phil, did you notice that BD00 used your clipart in the design?
- Don’t feel that you have to give a rave review and kiss ass. If you feel the need to “substantively” rip BD00 a new one, then by all means do it.
- You can buy this shirt yourself (without the self-promotional back design) at cafepress.com/thefrontalassaultidiot.
Goo Goo Gah
Well, it’s here. Today Bulldozer00 turns fitty tree. I’ve experienced the privilege of having walked the earth and imbibing its wonders for 19,345 days. Although the imposter within causes “me” to lose the feeling for long stretches at a time, I’m incredibly grateful for being alive and having been born in the USA. It’s just a random stroke of luck that I wasn’t born a starving baby in Africa or said equivalent in a Brazilian favela.
One of my mottos is:
The purpose of life is to fight maturity – Dick Werthimer
If you ask many of the people I know, I think they would agree that I live by that credo. I don’t mind anymore, because the so-called mature adult crowd isn’t doing such a good job of running the world’s institutions and making the world a better place, no?
Bastions Of Objectivity
Experts don’t think, they know. (just like Bulldozer00)
In theory, high brow academic disciplines are supposed to be bastions of dispassionate objectivity. However, in the Oscar-winning documentary “Inside Job“, several of the most highly esteemed professors of economics are laughingly called out onto the mat by Charles Ferguson (ala Mike Wallace style) for taking payments from the financial institutions that triggered the 2008 meltdown. These dudes wrote papers and gave speeches praising the virtues of “no regulation” on junk bundles of sub-prime loans, credit default swaps and all other kinds of financial “innovations“. That in itself wouldn’t be so bad, but when these bozos shoveled their BS “expertise” onto laymen like you and me, they didn’t even disclose that they were being paid by the big bad dudes who figuratively deflated your pension and 401-K account.
Along with Kevin Smith’s “Red State“, former software-weenie Charles Ferguson’s “Inside Job” are the best two movies I’ve seen this year. If you’ve still retained your Netflix subscription after their recent price change fiasco, put these movies at the top of your queue.
Bucket Brigade
If you are indispensable, you’re unpromotable. – Unknown
I don’t know who said that quote, but it’s pretty true, no? Some people and groups, especially bureaucrats and those in overhead middle management and staff roles, either wittingly or unwittingly do everything they can to make their jobs so complicated and unfathomable that no one else can do them and the org that employs them would be temporarily hosed if they left. It’s the familiar “truck number of 1” syndrome.
The problem is that both managers and “regular” employees in unenlightened borgs collude to make it so. Managers want efficiency to keep operating costs low and employees want a comfort zone that minimizes the chance of them making visible mistakes. Specialization breeds specialization over time until a brittle bucket brigade of one-dimensional, highly interdependent, change-averse “parts” is set in stone.
Kickstarted
Last month, I blogged about helping to kickstart Scott Berkun‘s new book, “Mindfire”. Yesterday, I received a kool e-mail from kickstarter.com stating that all systems are go:
I also received a thank you e-mail from Scott inviting me to a party he’s throwing in Seattle:
Damn, I wish Scott lived in Syracuse, NY.
Surpise, Suprise, Surprise
I always get a kick out of how people express great surprise when a management shakeup occurs and the old guard is sacked for the not-so-old guard. “OMG! I can’t believe so-and-so is gone“. “It’s about time so-and-so got booted“. “Why the hell is so-and-so still here?“. “Why am I still here?“.
Well geeze, the reason a change was made was because it finally became unavoidably obvious that something wasn’t working the way it should to somebody who had the power to make the change. Nonetheless, changing a leadership team in response to an existential crisis doesn’t guarantee squat. At best, the new team will propel the org out of the crisis and place it on a trajectory of success. At worst, the org’s demise will be accelerated.
Risk Averse Weenie
In this short video interview with the MIX‘s Polly LaBarre, “Are you a Type A or a Type I”, Daniel “Drive” Pink talks about finding and flocking with the right people for you. Mr. Pink wisely advises each person to “find out what you’re good at when nobody’s looking” and to avoid flocking with “risk averse weenies who are fixated on achievement for achievement’s sake“.
One Chart Summary
While flipping through Herb Sutter’s “C++ And Beyond” keynote speech charts, I stumbled upon this fabulous one chart summary of all (almost all?) the new features available in C++11.
Pretty intimidating, but cool, eh?
What Will The Children Think?
A Bunch Of STIFs
In “Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications“, Grady Booch argues that a successful software architecture is layered, object-oriented, and evolves over time as a series of STIFs – STable Intermediate Forms. The smart and well liked BD00 agrees; and he adds that unsuccessful architectures devolve over time as a series of unacknowledged UBOMs (pronounced as “You Bombs“).
UBOMs are subtle creatures that, without caring stewardship, can unknowingly sneak up on you. Your first release or two may start out as a successful STIF or a small and unobtrusive UBOM. But then, since you’ve stepped into UBOM-land, it can grow into an unusable, resource-sucking abomination. Be careful, very careful….
“Who advocates for the product itself—its conceptual integrity, its efficiency, its economy, its robustness? Often, no one.” – Fred Brooks
“Dear Fred, when the primary thought held steadfast in everybody’s mind is “schedule is king” instead of “product is king“, of course no one will often advocate for the product.” – BD00
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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