Beer Geeks Determined to Unlock Obama's Home-Brew Recipe
No, really, with all the issues and topics that might be interesting to know more about, an FOIA filing asking for POTUS' homebrew?
Really.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Software Runs the World: How Scared Should We Be That So Much of It Is So Bad?
The paragraph we're printing on the napkins for our next SJN Sales picnic:
Software Runs the World: How Scared Should We Be That So Much of It Is So Bad? - The Atlantic
Whenever we meet to discuss a software development client, this is always the focus: Does the product work? What breaks the product? Under what conditions has it (not yet) been tested? And, critically, How does the client's sales or marketing side respond to the answers to these questions?
There's a lot of software out there. And this is exactly why we're selective about what we present to our contacts: Most software is not very good.
The underlying problem here is that most software is not very good. Writing good software is hard. There are thousands of opportunities to make mistakes. More importantly, it's difficult if not impossible to anticipate all the situations that a software program will be faced with, especially when...it is interacting with other software programs that are not under your control.
Software Runs the World: How Scared Should We Be That So Much of It Is So Bad? - The Atlantic
Whenever we meet to discuss a software development client, this is always the focus: Does the product work? What breaks the product? Under what conditions has it (not yet) been tested? And, critically, How does the client's sales or marketing side respond to the answers to these questions?
There's a lot of software out there. And this is exactly why we're selective about what we present to our contacts: Most software is not very good.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
No-Vacation Nation
No-Vacation Nation: 'As Long as There's WiFi ... I Am on the Clock' - The Atlantic
There's a lot to dig through at the link, and as it's vacation season, feel free to dive down that rabbit hole instead of working on something productive. Because what you'll see pretty quickly is that our national commitment to working ourselves too hard is ubiquitous, compulsory and unproductive.
With my company, even if I am sick or on vacations, I have...my laptop and mobile phone. I've gotten out of bed with 104F fever to speak with clients. I've left my mother's hospital bedside to return a call about a shipment. I've been in a kayak on a mountain lake and had a text...!'
Emphasis mine. So who thinks that this worker's best abilities were brought to bear on the phone call from the hospital? How about the call returning the text, from the kayak? One of the most frustrating and least effective meetings we held this year was around the table at main office with a partner conferenced in from her own health care.
I like what I do, and it's (mostly) a pleasure to deliver results to SJN's clients. But I've also been in an ER, on the table, after a mountain bike crash that left me with 2/3 of a working lung.
The highly trained team of people who made a purpose-built port in my chest wall, got me breathing again, and set me up for a long life with a floating rib within 30 minutes after I came through their doors dying? They need to be on call 24/7, unless someone with similar skills is available to take over the tiller.
For the rest of us, the urgency we feel about being available for work is just a feeling.
There's a lot to dig through at the link, and as it's vacation season, feel free to dive down that rabbit hole instead of working on something productive. Because what you'll see pretty quickly is that our national commitment to working ourselves too hard is ubiquitous, compulsory and unproductive.
With my company, even if I am sick or on vacations, I have...my laptop and mobile phone. I've gotten out of bed with 104F fever to speak with clients. I've left my mother's hospital bedside to return a call about a shipment. I've been in a kayak on a mountain lake and had a text...!'
Emphasis mine. So who thinks that this worker's best abilities were brought to bear on the phone call from the hospital? How about the call returning the text, from the kayak? One of the most frustrating and least effective meetings we held this year was around the table at main office with a partner conferenced in from her own health care.
I like what I do, and it's (mostly) a pleasure to deliver results to SJN's clients. But I've also been in an ER, on the table, after a mountain bike crash that left me with 2/3 of a working lung.
The highly trained team of people who made a purpose-built port in my chest wall, got me breathing again, and set me up for a long life with a floating rib within 30 minutes after I came through their doors dying? They need to be on call 24/7, unless someone with similar skills is available to take over the tiller.
For the rest of us, the urgency we feel about being available for work is just a feeling.
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