COOL IT Official Movie Website, NOW PLAYING | Videos

Theatrical Trailer

via coolit-themovie.com

Nobody Expects the Agile Imposition (Part III): People

Stories of incompetent managers (and/or accountants) who take out their frustrations on their work-force are, of course, the stuff of legend.   (Which has little to do with the process of “performance appraisals.”)   If a company believes that it has hired 10% too many people to do the job, it is probably wiser to fire the one damned fool person who is saying that.   However, if that person appears to be attracting a sincere audience, it simply means that the company has cash-flow problems ... which are almost always endemic.   The bloodstream of a business is cash, and “congestive heart failure” is always fatal to it.

“Substantial layoffs” are, pure and simple, a sign that there are icebergs in these waters, and that the company has recently hit one of them.   (It is very easy to <!>-up a company, even when management didn’t mean to.)   The company doesn’t have enough cash to pay its bills, and probably has tapped-out its lines of credit or is well on its way to doing so.   It is deciding whether to cut off its arm or which one of its legs.   If a major company makes substantial hits to its data processing operation, in particular, then that is a company that is “going down,” no matter how long it actually takes to hit the ground.   (If cash is the bloodstream, then the digital computer is the heart and hands and feet.)

You might not have the privy data with which to make a decision, but you can always see the signs.   Don’t sit there in your comfy seat, waiting until you actually smell smoke.   If you are reasonably alert and attentive and educate yourself as to what to look for, you can usually spot the warning signs months or years ahead of time, while management is still (publicly, at least) in denial.  If the words on that wall aren’t graffiti, don’t let the door hit you in the butt.   Don’t spread secrets or spill (or buy stock or puts/calls based on) what you may know; just carry your own box of personal belongings out to your car.

All that you can do – all that you have to do (unless you are an officer of the place, you unlucky SOB...) – is to get out of the way.   There will always be very strong demand for people who can make a digital computer sing and dance:   if not “here,” then “there.”     This is the way that business actually works.   Don’t take it personally, and try not to get caught by it more often than you inevitably will.   You are a very well-paid employee; therefore, you are very costly.   It is merely a contract; no one owes any allegiance to anyone.   It’s par for this course.   Plan wisely.

via perlmonks.org

Excellent, balanced perspective.

The Criticism Sandwich: A Stale Idea

Nov 04, 2010 -

Mark Twain said that “sacred cows make the best hamburger.” One sacred cow is “the criticism sandwich”—no pun intended. The criticism sandwich advises us to lay on some praise before delivering any criticism and then to complete the process by adding another layer of praise. Most of us know, from having been at the receiving end of what feels like faux praise, that this process almost never works. Now we have scientific proof of why we should stop making sandwiches.

 

[...]  

via openforum.com

I've always referred to these as "crap sandwiches" - hated them when someone tried to serve me one (and despised the person for being so manipulative and for thinking that I was that stupid), and always resisted, fiercely, any attempt to make me serve them to others. Not that I need the validation, but it's nice to know that others are finally recognizing the truth of it.

Overall, I see "being managed" as a filthy, toxic thing to do to human beings. It reeks of slavery and compulsion - and despite the apologists who natter on about "well, but *good* managers...", I have not the slightest shred of respect for anyone who practices this. In my 48 years on this Earth, I have seen _no_ evidence to the contrary (although I've met lots of managers), and plenty to support my experience and viewpoint.

IFixit presents the Self-Repair Manifesto

via holykaw.alltop.com

Love this. We need more of this kind of spirit.

A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail

The life of 20-year-old Emine, and her 24-year-old husband Ramazan Çalçoban was pretty much the normal life of any couple in a separation process. After deciding to split up, the two kept having bitter arguments over the cellphone, sending text messages to each other until one day Ramazan wrote "you change the topic every time you run out of arguments." That day, the lack of a single dot over a letter—product of a faulty localization of the cellphone's typing system—caused a chain of events that ended in a violent blood bath (Warning: offensive language ahead.)

The surreal mistake happened because Ramazan's sent a message and Emine's cellphone didn't have an specific character from the Turkish alphabet: the letter "ı" or closed i. While "i" is available in all phones in Turkey—where this happened—the closed i apparently doesn't exist in most of the terminals in that country.

The use of "i" resulted in an SMS with a completely twisted meaning: instead of writing the word "sıkısınca" it looked like he wrote "sikisince." Ramazan wanted to write "You change the topic every time you run out of arguments" (sounds familiar enough) but what Emine read was, "You change the topic every time they are fucking you" (sounds familiar too.)

Emine then showed the message to her father, who—enraged—called Ramazan, accusing him of treating his daughter as a prostitute. Ramazan went to the family's home to apologize, only to be greeted by the father, Emine, two sisters and a lot of very sharp knives.

Injured and bleeding, with a knife on his chest, Ramazan tried to escape. Emine was still trying to finish him on the door, but he managed to take the knife out of his chest and attacked back, wounding her. Ramazan finally escaped, and was caught by the police, but Emine bleed to dead as the family waited for an ambulance to cross Ankara's hellish traffic to reach their home.

Confused by all the events, he later killed himself in jail.

Apparently it's not the first incident of this kind caused by the damned dot on top of the letter i. The local press has pointed out that the faulty localization of cellphones in Turkey is causing "serious problems" when it comes to certain "delicate words" in Turkish, and they are calling to enhance localization of technology to avoid these mistakes.

Alternatively, the press could ask for banning knives from the homes of demonstrably stupid people. [Hurriyet—in Turkish—thanks to our Turkish-speaking readers for the corrections]

via gizmodo.com

pTerry strikes again, in an eerily-perfect example of predictive ability. Somebody, knight that man.

Vimes shook his head. 'That always chews me up,' he said.
'People killing one another just because their gods have squabbled-'
'Oh, they've got the same god, sir. Apparently it's over a word in
their holy book, sir. The Elharibians say it translates as "god" and
the Smalies say it's ''man".'
'How can you mix them up?'
'Well, there's only one tiny dot difference in the script, you see. And
some people reckon it's only a bit of fly dirt m any case.'
'Centuries of war because a fly crapped in the wrong place?'
-- Terry Pratchett, "Jingo"

In the Mast furling

Re: In the Mast furling

80% of all sail repairs are from battens. That is why sailmakers usually tell
you you have to have battens. It's in their economic self interest.
I sailed from BC to New Zealand with a 12 year old mainsail, with battens. Going
down from Raro, a batten pocket tore out completely. I sewed it back in. Then 15
feet of seam tore , starting at a batten pocket. I sewed it back up. In New
Zealand I had a sailmaker eliminate the roach and battens, and sew a full length
tape up the leach. I put another three thousand miles on that mainsail, much of
it to windward in 25 knot gusty trade winds, without popping a stitch.
Now, when I buy a used mainsail, before using it, I eliminate the roach, and
put a full length of sail cloth up the leech.
When people complain about weather helm on the 36, I tell them it is designed
for a roachless main. When they eliminate the roach , she balances perfectly.
I've never had any problem reefing or dousing my roachless and battenless main
in a following wind. There are many times it would have been dangerous to try
round up into the wind.
John Leacher calculates that a roach increases your speed by between zero and
three percent , max. The cruising time wasted, dealing with a torn main is fare
more than that.
-- Brent Swain

via groups.yahoo.com

Driver Reading a Book, Kindle, and Phone at the Same Time Is a Distracted Super-Moron

The setup is almost deserves technical plaudit, if it weren't so shockingly risky—a giant book wedged behind the steering wheel, a Kindle in one hand, and what looks like a smartphone of some kind in the other hand. There are no hands on the steering wheel, at any point. Was he speeding to an exam he was late for, trying to get some last minute studying in? Just really engrossed in Jane Eyre? Possessing a death wish? This could only be more dangerous to other cars on the road if instead of a Kindle, he was holding a grenade launcher. [via Fark]

via jalopnik.com

Amazing. Simply... amazing.