I was struck dumbfounded by the newest acronym: CAO – Chief Answers Officer. It is more a de facto role, than a de jure role. The Company Culture enforces that this position exist. It exists because someone doesn’t want to do their job – so a mangler needs to make the decision for them. Traditionally CAO is a shared title. A mischievous Vision, like parents played off one another by their children, one can behold the twisted situations the title creates.
Another joyous office activity I now have a word for is Bikeshedding. It makes for a very fun and long meeting. It results in “thinking real hard” about how things ought to be. All the while everyone is in full admission we do not know – nor do we posses data that makes such knowing possible. The scapegoat phrase “It will take too long to find out” is quick to the altar! So we’ll just sit down, stroke our beards, and think harder. Wait, what exactly is the problem again?
I want to create a Subversive Meeting BingoTM game. It is an active game rather than the passive buzzword bingo you will find at the water cooler. You must verbally slide “Bikeshed”, “CAO”, “non-sequitur”, “ad infinitum”, or “Contradiction!” into the meeting. Only then can all the players mark the tile off.
Parkinson, I salute you! You are a real man of genius.
I agree that the Documentary Hypothesis seems far too “ideal” to be true. The degree of reliance on the written word in the 19th century just doesn’t exist the ancient world. The pesky evidence needs to be accounted for: if they weren’t copying, are you positing that the memory of the words/construction was *that* widespread and in agreement? Is that consistent with ancient writing and storytelling? Furthermore, if the early memories were retold in such precise forms how then did we get four different gospels and what implications does that have for their relationship?
“Myth is never plausible narrative. It asks for another kind of assent. To anyone for whom it does not strike an important equipose, it seems absurd. The myth of the Fall makes it possible to think of humankind and the world as at the same time intrinsically good and intrinsically evil. Those to whom this vision is not compelling grumble about the apple and the snake.”
[HT: McGrath]
As companies expand, the people within them start to specialize. At such a point, some managers will conclude that they have a “keep everyone on the same page” problem. But often what they actually have is a “stop people from meddling when there are already enough smart people working on something” problem.
And on every project, assign one person to make sure that communication happens — but only the right communication. Otherwise the team will just start having long meetings with everyone there and, frankly, people will socialize, and bloviate, and speechify, and argue about things they don’t really care about just to hear their own voices. Joel
I always felt that Theology, as a discipline, was very ungrounded. Turns out I just did not know what the ground was. To give us a ground for it, our History of Theology and Philosophy course is approaching the entire topic from an epistemological angle. “How can we know ourselves?”, and “How can we know God?” are the two primary questions through which we will look at the history of Christian theology.
One such starting place is Plotinus, the major influence behind Augustine. Understanding Plotinus’ neo-Platonism is the first task of the day. I have honestly heard the term of Ideal-Form before this class, though I could in know way describe it nor percieve its referent.
Already with just the most basic of sketches I have Tetris blocks falling into place within what I have read and misunderstood in Theology thus far. I actually find Plotinus’ Ideal-Form of the first order logos contemplating in action thus creating a second order logos to be a natural thought (though his language is not read naturally at all). Researchers into linguistics know that without the idea behind a word that word cannot exist in the language. Without the Form the Matter, or expression in linguistic terms, cannot exist. And so it is with the mind or intellect. Without the essence of a thing known its matter will go entirely unrecognized.
I think this is why Design, of all sorts, interests me so much. It is the search for the essence of a thing manifested in its matter. We often confuse the matter of a thing with its essence. It requires a trained designer to break free of the conventional material form given to a thing. They can break free, find the true Form and re-design matter around the Form – thus changing our own perceptions based on the old material form.
This is why I find the very idea of Ideal-Form understandably natural. However, once we come to defining the actual existence (metaphysical, ontological, woohoo) of such Forms, and their active Contemplation (even among inanimate objects) I feel I will be back in the mire.
I thought this Jesus creed postasked a good question. Do you see anyone’s behavior changing because of our recent financial woes? I have to admit that I have not witnessed any change. Those who I know without a job, they have changed, but that would be true of any time of unemployement. Then again, the crash of ’21 had a huge affect on the availability of goods. That is just not as true for the recent crash. Of course, some stores have closed, but we don’t see unfilled demand for simple prevalent goods.
While this idea of changing consumption has not been economically forced – I do think there are signs showing change on the horizon. The lack of trust in our economical system has broken with the last straw added. This lack of trust has created alternative ways of thinking about what we buy and why we buy it. Consumerism, as a way of looking at goods, seems to be dropping off. More and more people are concerned with sustainability and the ratio of money to value. Even value is being computed differently. Some status markers remain, but it seems that people are being more stringent on the areas they care about. For example, they don’t need a luxury car for a status symbol, but they do need the brand status symbol for their clothing. It all comes down to what they care about. However, it seems what they care about is shrinking. At least, in my own case it is.
As the care and desire for material things are shrinking, the care for non-material, the relational, dare I say the spiritual, are increasing. In a time where the markets cannot sustain a material economy up to the previous levels we are accustomed to, this is a natural development. And a healthy one.
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action.
But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.
Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”?
If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll.
You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
The Danish cartoons were first published in 2005… The most common explanation for the violence in the English and European language press was that the production of images of Mohammad is prohibited by Islamic law and further that Muslim immigrants in Europe and elsewhere have failed to internalize the democratic value of free speech. Jyllands-Posten, for its part, self-righteously claimed to be heroically rescuing free speech in the face of the fearful self-censorship practiced by Danish writers and artists with respect to criticism of Islam. The incident was portrayed as a clash between the liberal values of an open society and an anti-modern, authoritarian, and superstitious religion.
As Sullivan points out “Bzzzz! Wrong!” The narratives that we walk around with are fabricated for a specific point of view. And that is a strange point of view born out of the Enlightenment that most of the world cannot make sense of.
A Business post?! Yes, I still work for a living. With classes out of session for holiday, and thus a shifted focus to what is happening at work, I have some thoughts. There is a fundamental difference (in my mind at least) between a software house and a consulting house. This difference manifests itself in the house’s culture and view of the wider world. I write this with a critical voice towards the place I work (and yes I have already shared these thoughts with them).
Executing is one thing. What you choose to execute is something else entirely. When projects go long and over cost you have to ask why. Are you thinking like a software house, or a consulting house? Are you listening directly to one client and their immediate need and schedule? Or are you surveying the wider field and wider needs?
This principle of a software house comes down to a singular thought. A good line of code needs no energy or thought. The more users you can get to use a good line of code means you make money without spending any energy. Software makes money while you sleep; it is the equation of how to turn code into money.
It takes longer to write a good line of code than a shitty line of code. It is good informed code that covers a real need with many different user needs. Developers get angry if you try and ship their prototypes. The prototype might “work”, but there is not a single good informed line of code in there. In the long run you pay much more per line of bad code than for good code. With good code you pay to fix the problems before they get put into code. And it is always cheaper to fix problems on paper. The first rule of business is you get what you pay for. If the business decision calls for a shitty line of code rather than a good line of code, you’re going to pay for it. Not today. Maybe not a week after it ships. But you will pay.
The toughest part of the equation is to get all the information you need to write a line of good code. There is a world of difference between the real need and perceived need. Too often people buy into the client’s perceived need without finding the real need. Toyota became the top car company because it asked Why? five times. “Why are we doing this project?” “Because our client wants it.” “Why do they want it?” (At this point the PM will give you a snarky look.) “They need this piece of data to make a business decision.” “What is the business decision?” “I do not know.” “What will sway their decision?” “I do not know.” Why decisions are made is often never recorded. (As an aside I love Rand’s analogous Malcolm Events for making this point) So many times I have been over and over a piece of code or spec item wondering, Why? Every line of code becomes a precedent for making a good or bad decision.
If you can find answer to the final “Why?” you can spot trends and similarities between projects. And then you can focus on writing less code, good code, informed code, that solves the real Why. The real Why that is going to make you money while you are sleeping.
This “Why?” question is hard to get at. Years ago another developer (you know who you are) and I were responsible for the rewrite of the largest part of a product. I sat in a meeting with one of the project managers, and a founder who had domain expertise. He was telling me how the user interface should work. I kept asking “Why?”. He got very upset and said I could leave now. I told him I needed to understand who the user is, what they know, and what they are thinking about if I am going to do this project. He thought that communication was the means of organization. He wanted to communicate to me precisely how something ought to work for him, rather than discover how it ought to work based on the user. When it came down to it he knew all the answers to “Why?”. (Aside: I was later fired for being combative).
On the surface it is really hard to tell the difference between a good line of code and a bad line of code. It becomes easier when you’re looking at large chunks of good or bad code. But you only know it is bad because you keep constantly getting sent in to fix it. Bad code is uninformed code. It knows nothing about the real need. Good code knows what the need is. It is informed code. And writing informed code is what needs to happen if you want to function as a software house. It is always easier to fix anything before it gets put into code. Good code is going to cost less in the long run. The business folks making the decisions in a software house work to make sure that good code is written. Good code can only be written with plenty of time, and plenty of information. You cannot “rush” good code. Good code makes you money while you sleep. Bad code makes your pager go off while you sleep.
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