“You don’t need to be a cow … January 5, 2009
Posted by Dale in : Leadership, Quotations , Comments
to know where milk comes from.”
So said Sarah Butterworth, newly minted CEO of a (centralised) IT Department.
From my observation, Sarah’s lasting legacy was:
- rebranding the department
- painting the department buildings in corporate colors.
- swanning off to another job.
* the bottle of port pictured is a Penfold’s 10 year old Club Port, which was presented to exiting staff. I expect that it will be as nasty as the rough end of a pineapple. I plan to crack it open in 2011.
Santa Claus, a poem by A. B. “Banjo” Patterson December 25, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Quotations , Comments
"Halt! Who goes there?" the sentry’s call
Rose on the midnight air
Above the noises of the camp,
The roll of wheels, the horses’ tramp.
The challenge echoed over all —
"Halt! Who goes there?"
A quaint old figure clothed in white,
He bore a staff of pine,
And ivy-wreath was on his head.
"Advance, O friend," the sentry said,
"Advance, for this is Christmas Night,
And give the countersign."
"No sign or countersign have I.
Through many lands I roam
The whole world over far and wide.
To exiles all at Christmastide
From those who love them tenderly
I bring a thought of home.
"From English brook and Scottish burn,
From cold Canadian snows,
From those far lands ye hold most dear
I bring you all a greeting here,
A frond of a New Zealand fern,
A bloom of English rose.
"From faithful wife and loving lass
I bring a wish divine,
For Christmas blessings on your head."
"I wish you well," the sentry said,
"But here, alas! you may not pass
Without the countersign."
He vanished — and the sentry’s tramp
Re-echoed down the line.
It was not till the morning light
The soldiers knew that in the night
Old Santa Claus had come to camp
Without the countersign.
The Quick Fix December 22, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Code Cutting, Humour, Quotations , CommentsYou know, programming is hard, so programmers are easily seduced by apparent quick fixes, such as language features which seem to map onto functional requirements.
And programmers are smart, so when those quick fixes turn out to be problematic — when the mapping from language feature to functional requirement proves to be just a hair inside – no problem! we stay up all night and hack around the problems, because that way we can keep our quick fix.
And when it turns out that some of the things we hoped to solve with our quick fix don’t yield to it, Hey, no
problem! We still covered /some/ of the problems with the quick fix we have to stay up all night with again tonight because — surprise,surprise — the quick fix has another issue we are smart enough to hack around.Sure, we now have to find some Other Way to solve the cases not covered by the Quick Fix, and that approach of course would work for the simple cases the language feature mapped onto, but we won’t use that Other Way for all the cases, because the Quick Fix we will now be maintaining in addition to the Other Way is, uh…well…you know, so, um, quick.
Scheme vs Lisp! [was Re- web application framework] - Kenny Tilton
I’ve done my share of the “Quick Fix”. You get so far down the hole of writing the Quick Fix, you don’t want to use the “Other Way” because you’ve spent, nay, invested all that time on the not so quick Quick Fix.
Who said ignorance was better??? December 17, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Quotations , Comments
We at Bluescope believe that if you think training is expensive, you should look at the cost of ignorance.
- as seen on the wall at the Bluescope Steel Western Port Safety Office.
Advice For Those Starting Out December 16, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Quotations , CommentsSome years ago, Ernie Halter wrote this short list on his website. It’s now gone, but I saved you a copy 
- Nobody Wants To Work With The A-hole.
- Stay Connected
- Be Reliable
- Time Is Money
- Get Paid
- Find a Mentor
- Persistance Without Harassment
- Never, Ever, Ever, Piss Off The Sound Guy
- Presentation Is Everything
- Luck Is When Preparation And Opportunity Meet
I remember thinking that, when I first saw it, that it doesn’t just apply to the music industry.
On Teams December 13, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Quotations , CommentsWe trained hard but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising…and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.
Some doubts as to whether it was Petronius Arbiter, in 210 BC.
I was speaking to a union rep. the other day about my "All goes in circles" organisational belief, and the reply was “You wouldn’t believe it, xyz organisation is being re-amalgamated with it’s parent department. They were only separated 12 months ago.”
Short collection of interesting things November 24, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Funny Pictures, Other Blogs, Quotations , Comments
The Three Laws Of Consulting, via Alik Levin’s MSDN BLog
- “In spite of what your client may tell you, there’s always a problem.”
- “No Matter how it looks at first, it’s always a people problem.”
- “Never forget they’re paying you by the hour, not by the solution”.
Stop stealing my blog posts…..
There has been some discussion recently on some DL’s here at Microsoft about sites that re-post blog posts without permission. I will call it what it is which is the theft of copyrighted materials for the purpose of monetary gain. I don’t like saying copyrighted because copyrights get a bad rap these days depending on who you speak to, but from the perspective that *I* sat down and *I* wrote the blog post, the work does belong to me.
- Stop stealing my blog posts (Chris E. Avis)
This sort of thing REALLY annoys me.
I wrote about ideas theft here: “I came up with it all by myself.” - on theft of ideas in corporate life
How to get my job - the secret of becoming a professional writer, by Jerry Pournelle
The other chair goes round and round in circles. November 21, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Funny Pictures, Quotations , Comments
From an office in Alice Springs.
Two kinds of government chair correspond with the two kinds of minister: one sort folds up instantly and the other sort goes round and round in circles.
- Yes Minister, Open Government
On critics November 18, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Quotations , Comments
There is a quote which basically says something like “Criticism without suggestions for improvement is mean, nasty and unhelpful.”
Of course there are exceptions, such as Politicians Logic:
"Politician’s logic:
We must do something.
This is something.
Therefore we must do it."- Yes Minister – Party Games
Which saw the death toll increase in the Northern Territory when open road speed limits were imposed.
On beauty November 15, 2008
Posted by Dale in : Quotations , CommentsThe first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason. - John Cage