Solutions evolve

Remember that solutions evolve: The initial preventive action will be based on the evidence at the time and previous experience.  If it appears to address the cause then well and good.

But if the same or a similar defect reoccurs  prompting further investigation, so might the  preventive action evolve – sometimes into something [...]

“It is better to have and not need, than need and not have.”

As I said to the boss the other day when he asked if we wanted a final backup of the Windows 2000 Server we were decommissioning.  Now where I first heard this saying, is lost in the mists of time.  If pressed, I’d say some sort of security briefing.

Regardless, it expresses what I [...]

“… They are both oaks,

even if they were planted in different forests.  But then, m’lord, we all suffer in our different ways from being prisoners of birth.”

- from A Prisoner of Birth, by Jeffrey Archer.

[...]

“God Knows”

Anonymous commented back of the 7 April,

Who wrote this verse: I said to the man at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may go forth into the unknown.”
And the man replied,” Put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, safer than a known way.”

english public footpathThat would be Minnie Louise Haskins, and she wrote the poem in 1907.  It was published as part of her ‘The Desert’ collection in 1908.

My first blog post started with a quote from this poem, and here it is in full:

God Knows

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

(Click here to continue reading “God Knows”)

"It’s not what you see that counts, it’s what you know is there”

In the news the other day, there were some photos of Jennifer Hawkins, and I got to thinking how we measure beauty.

And I wish I knew. There would be a dollar in knowing the formula for sure.  Googling around, I found this quote from Helen Razer, which might explain why Jen does nothing [...]

Standing at the gate

I said to the man at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may go forth into the unknown.” And the man replied, “Put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, safer than a known way.”

[...]

Nigel No Friends

A co-worker migrated the last user off our old BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Barry.

"Barry to be renamed to Nigel-No-Friends", was the announcement.

(Non Australian readers should look at the Urban Dictionary for the meaning of Nigel No Friends)

Update: * Nigel No Friends = Billy No Mates, in the UK. * [...]

We gave our today

When you go home, Tell them of us, ‘For your tomorrow We gave our today’

Sir William Slim, at the Cross of Sacrifice, Bomana War Cemetery. Port Moresby, 1953

“Man invented fire here”

I’ve done a bit of programming over the years, and I’m currently working with a Visual Basic 6 (VB6) code base.  I’ve found the following quotation so true:

It is a weird thing though if you’ve noticed that for very old applications, you know, I feel like for some of them you often [...]

Children in chimneys

In a discussion about what is acceptable behaviour in the workplace:

“In the past we used to send children up chimneys to clean them as well.”