A Life Lost

I was just looking at my igoogle page, at the Reuters news headlines section. In a short glance, I read two different headlines (out of three) that reported on people dying somewhere due to terrorist attacks. One car bomb and one attack on foreign diplomats. I read the headlines and moved on...

Then I caught myself. People had been killed. And I glanced past it as if it was any other news that has no direct effect on my life. The sad part is that it seems more of the articles are about killings and murders than anything else. Most are removed from my life experience, but maybe that is coincidental, too, and could change at some point.

The point is to be intentional about considering murder for what it is and to try to not be so hardened against it. Instead of this just being a "story" that is out there in the ether, to remember that someone's life got taken from him. Not to be dramatic, but if my life means anything to me, then news of someone else losing theirs should have some impact on me, as well. (And my life does have a great deal of meaning to me.)

3 thoughts.

1.) This is not the way to get more business. American airlines announced earlier in the year that they were eliminating 1200 flight attendant jobs by end of year? So that means the attendants were constantly worried for their jobs. Distracted, probably pissed. Maybe some in-fighting. Those flight attendants are the primary contact points with the customers the company serves. No wonder the company needs to cut costs so much. They lose customers because they don't protect those customers' experiences. American did the opposite of inspiring its troops to help the bottom line.

2.) The span of Hillsboro Road between 440 and Green Hills was recently widened The wider road now has a center turn lane so that cars don't get backed up as much. The road is also even more dangerous for bicycles and pedestrians. Whereas before there was a 2-3 foot shoulder, there is now none. So it essentially removes the accessibility to pedestrians. I am not saying that bike lanes should have been put in, but I do think that sidewalks should have been a priority. Why are there sidewalks on both sides of the road for the entire length of Old Hickory between Brentwood and Nolensville, an area of town much less central than the 440/Green Hills corridor, but no sidewalks on Hillsboro? Maybe they should deal with the congestion problem by making other forms of transport to/from Green Hills available. Maybe if there are sidewalks, then more people will walk it. (I know, doubtful for that part of town, but then at least they have a choice.)

3.) Tonight I was driving in a part of town that I now rarely go to (can you guess where?, based on number 2) but where I used to live. It brought back memories of an old job I had around there. I was a software developer in a company in which there were maybe 20-30 developers. It was severely inefficient. I received high marks for productivity, but I never felt like I was doing much work. I have known of many such companies (and worked for more than just that one). Essentially, like in everything else, 80% of the work is performed by 20% of the people. I think that any software project that requires more than 4-6 good developers should be broken into smaller projects.. of 4-6 developers. More people than that is just fluff and a waste of money. Any developer who can't function and pick up his own slack in a group of that size needs to find another line of work. Along the same token, any project that requires (based on pre-development estimates) more than 6 months, also needs to be broken up. More than 6 months and the probability of success takes a nose-dive. The sad part is that I suspect that 80% of software is developed in an inefficient and over-inflated manner. The software of which I speak is the "Enterprise" software for government and big business.... ok, so I am rambling now... I think my main point, though, is that if software companies would/could identify the good developers and just hire them and pay them well, then they (the companies) would probably have higher success rates and lower costs overall.

(If this post is incoherent, it is mainly because my highly-irritated allergies aren't allowing enough oxygen to reach my head.)

Jack

I don't really understand charity "events". It is a funny concept to me. I sign up to participate in an event I am interested in participating in (a bike ride, run, etc.). In order to participate, I am required to ask my friends to give money to a cause. If they do so, I get to participate in an event that is worth more than the (possibly) smallish fee that I paid to register. So, essentially, I am supposed to ask my friends and family to pay money so I can go have a good time. They, in turn, may feel guilty enough to give to the cause so as to not feel like a selfish person.

So when it comes down to it, I am asking my friends and family to pay for my good time doing one of my hobbies. Sounds like a scam to me. Especially when one considers just how much of the money that my friends are giving goes towards actually helping the people or cause that the "event" is sponsoring. I have less issue with events where I pay an entry fee that supposedly supports a cause. At least there I am paying money and I am getting the benefit of the event organization. But why should I ask my friends to pay for me to enjoy such an activity?

Jack and Back sounds like a fun bike trip. But I have no interest in asking my friends to donate money so I can ride my bike to Jack Daniel's and drink whiskey to my hearts content. I also have no interest in paying $350 myself to be able to do that ride. I think MS might be a worthy cause (I have no info on the cause and its organization), but there are many other worthy causes. I think I would prefer to pick one that hits closer to home. And I think that I would prefer my friends and family do the same.

Ajax

Currently in my "career", I could be best labeled as a "software developer"; though some people have other ideas. Like most other things in my life, I try not to let my occupation define me. I don't really consider myself a "techie" or a "computer geek" or any of the other terms that society assign (or people assume) for people who work with computers. (For that matter, I don't really like being labeled "cyclist", "homebrewer", or "jerk". "dad" is ok. as is "friend".) I am not the type of person who is constantly messing with linux or servers or "open source" stuff. Actually, the stuff I prefer to mess with is the graphical side of things and the usability and "ahh" factors of the web. I am almost constantly messing with different sites that offer new or different ways for people (or me) to express themselves online. (My newest is tumblr.) I am also on facebook, goodReads, ... (the list goes on). I don't really frequently use any of them, but I find most of them interesting for their approach to people, information, and expression.

In spite of my professed non-geekiness and lack of "hacking" interest, I still often have small projects that I am messing with on the side of work. Some are work related and some not-so-much. Usually I only get as far as seeing how things should or would work, and then I often will walk away without even fully implementing the project. It is the understanding the logic or the algorithm behind it that interests me. I also tend to redesign my website at www.mycryption.com almost monthly (right now I am simply redirecting to my custom tumblr site).

When Sudoku was growing in popularity a few years ago, I got into the puzzles because the logic and numbers tend to soothe my mind. Then I ruined it for myself by writing an algorithm that would solve about any sudoku puzzle I came across. By defining how to do it, I lost interest in the puzzles completely. Now I only solve them if I am really bored on a long flight. It is understanding the logic and finding a clever solution that do it for me.

But anyway... one project I have recently been messing with is working with Ajax. Ajax is essentially a "design pattern" or mechanism for web development that enables specific elements on a web page to refresh without refreshing the whole page. Gmail is one of the most obvious web sites that use ajax. It isn't a language, but more of a way of moving data. It also isn't new at all. I have used/implemented in past (and present) professional situations, but I have never really messed with it much on a personal level because I never wanted to mess with the grunt work involved in moving the data. I tend to wait a while to mess with new stuff because eventually someone will release some slick, easy-to-use libraries that handle all the grunt work. That is where jQuery has come in. JQuery is a javascript library that makes many things easier on the client (browser) side of web development, including ajax.

Now that the grunt work associated with passing data back and forth with the server is handled, I can concentrate purely on the web-site-specific side of things. But this isn't enough. There is still grunt-work in handling the data on both sides of the fence (client and server sides), and I don't like grunt work. So my latest push is to essentially write a simple framework (library) that will utilize the jquery tools to make ajax transactions dead simple to the web developer (me). Once I figure it out sufficiently, I may actually complete its implementation... or I may try to convince my employers to grant me the time to complete it at the workplace. (They read this blog - so you could call this entry a passive form of intra-office communication.) So my goal here is more than personal logic interest, but potentially having a slicker, easier way of creating useable web pages.

So you could question my earlier claims to a geek-free existence, but I do need something to keep my mind engaged. And I never did figure out how to work those logic puzzles in the newspaper.. and who gets a newspaper these days anyway.

testing

This is a test. I am messing with a new service.. Cheers.