In each image below, the figure on the left is the original 1997 action figure; the figure on the right is the later re-release. I’m sure that this comparison demonstrates some profound and tragic change in our society, but frankly, I’m not sure exactly what it is. (see originals).
A friend and former co-worker of mine, who is not a church-goer, sent me an email today, saying she had reluctantly attended church (an evangelical mega-church) this past Sunday to witness the baptism of a coworker’s children. Her opinion of the service: “And actually, if it hadn’t been for all the god stuff, I would have enjoyed it.”
Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favorite essayists, has a new article in the New Yorker in which he examines the conventional wisdom about prescription drug prices in the U.S.
Gladwell does not deny that the drug companies are money-hungry machines that are willing to do pretty much anything to increase their profits. But Gladwell points out that the situation is much more complex than that. It’s an excellent read.
I’m a sucker for any writer who points out that the reality of a situation is more complex than most others portray it.
They grow ’em big in New Zealand!
The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a short article outlining the signs to watch for in evaluating science:
Read the article for elaboration on each point.
Jacques Derrida died three days ago. As The Times alludes to, if the purpose of an obituary is to put a person’s life in a certain perspective and/or to draw meaning from that life, it’s impossible to write an obituary for Derrida. Ah, delightful irony.
Yesterday evening, Hannah took this photo of me pushing Samuel on the tree swing behind our house. I thought it was interesting.
The photo below is the product of a not very successful experiment. On my way home from work the other day, the sky got really dark with thunderstorm clouds. I thought this church would look really cool against those clouds, so I stopped and took a few shots. After I uploaded the images, I wasn’t so impressed. So instead of making the pic as realistic as possible, I decided to try to manipulate the image into something more interesting. I flattened it and reduced to grey scale. The result is more interesting than the original, but still not terribly good.
I can certainly relate to this assessment by Andy Lester on his blog:
Last night, while watching the first of the Kerry/Bush debates, I was struck by what a terrible programming project leader President Bush would make.
He kept repeating the importance of staying on the course that was originally set out on, even in the face of things not going as planned: “the way to win this is to be steadfast and resolved and to follow through on the plan.” He also said that changing course would be demoralizing to the troops: “What kind of message does it say to our troops in harm’s way, ‘wrong war, wrong place, wrong time?'”
I certainly know that that approach doesn’t work on programming projects. If there’s one thing that seasoned programmers know, it’s that projects never go as planned, and course correction is critical. Even worse, the programmers in the trenches know how the project is going, and aren’t inspired when things carry on as if nothing is wrong. For a project leader to act as if there are no problems is insulting to those doing the work.
If the war in Iraq was a programming project, Bush would need to be saying, regularly, “I know things aren’t going well, I know that you’ve had a lot of casualties on the team, but I believe we can get through this. Now, here’s what we’re going to do differently to make sure that we come out of this project alive.”
Of course, if the war were a programming project, it’d never have gotten management approval in the first place. What are our requirements? What are our milestones? How are we doing? How do we know when the project is over? What’s the timeframe for completion? What’s the success metric? Is the iRaq project really the best way to beef up the company’s security?
Over a year into the project, having lost over 1,000 employees, Bush The Project Leader would just be pointing at a handful of completed tasks: “We got rid of that old, buggy Hoo-Sane system. The company’s better off without it. We’re still having problems building the replacement, and a lot of programmers are burning out, because it’s a bigger task than I thought, but at least we got rid of the Hoo-Sane system that I’ve always wanted to replace.”
I doubt I’d be a good politician, but I know for sure GWB wouldn’t be any good on any projects I’ve been on.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota filled a swimming pool with guar gum in order to find out whether people swim faster in water than they would in a higher viscosity liquid. The question has a long and interesting history, the results surprised me, and the story of their getting permission to conduct the experiment is humorous.
