Bottom Up

Earlier this evening Bob, one of the developers in my group, was taking a picture of a fish in the aquarium in his office.

"Look how big he has grown!" Bob was all excited.

"How small was he when you got him?", I asked.

"The same size as the other fish", replied Bob pointing to the other fish in the aquarium, all of which were much smaller.

"How did he grow so large?", I inquired, "Did he eat the other fish?"

"No, he's an algae eater, he eats all the food that sinks to the bottom."

"Oh, so he's the garbage collector of the aquarium."

"Yes he is. Apparently garbage collectors win."

"Eventually they do, in the long term. And till then they eat garbage."

Zzzzz...

Tools Of The Trade

[Today a guest snoozer, written by my girlfriend]

Once upon a time, all people needed to do their jobs was a brain, a phone, a pen or a pencil, and perhaps an abacus. Then a typewriter was invented, and everyone was so happy because they could get rid of their pens and pencils. Then a calculator was invented and everyone was so happy because they could get rid of their abaci. Then the computer was invented and everyone was so happy because they could get rid of their typewriters and their calculators. Then e-mail was invented. And everyone was so happy because they could get rid of their phones AND their brains.

Zzzzz...

Production vs. Consumption

My friend John sent me a link to Paul Graham's How To Do What You Love blog post. The following excerpt from this essay drew my attention:

Another test you can use is: always produce. For example, if you have a day job you don't take seriously because you plan to be a novelist, are you producing?

In the last few years we have witnessed a flurry of perosnal production, mostly fueled by the digital revolution. People take pictures. People film videos. People develop non-commercial software. People write snoozers... And more.

The affordable production and distribution tools are perhaps the most important contribution of computers and networking to civilization. In the TV age people were relegated to consumption. In and of itself there is nothing wrong with being a consumer; society, however, needs a healthy balance between consumption and production. Video games, while being interactive, may develop quick thinking and problem solving skills but still don't directly facilitate creation; they are just TVs on steroids. And as disappointing as it may be to some parents, board games are not much better.

For it is creation that makes the difference, not activity, interactivity, or hyperactivity. And nowadays creation is no longer confined to the realm of governments and corporations, but is finally within the reach of billions of individuals.

Perhaps there is hope after all.

Zzzzz...

Heisenberg Rules

My previous employer incentivized employees through quarterly bonuses which were tied to quarterly goals. The completion of these goals was assessed via measurements: if you accomplished 80% of your quarterly measurements you'd receive 80% of your target bonus, etc.

The company naively neglected to account for the little lawyer that wakes up in many of us when it comes to our income. It so happened that people paid much more attention to the measurements than to the goals. Logical, isn't it? After all, it was the measurements, not the goals, that determined the size of the bonus.

And so, just before the release of a critical product, we had the fortune of being visited by elves. We had a quarterly goal to GA that product, and one of the measurements was to have no more than 25 high-severity bugs. Alas before that night the number of such bugs was stubbornly higher. Luckily the elves realized the seriousness of the situation, came to our rescue, and downgraded 12 of the bugs to medium-severity overnight.

An even better story is that of another major product which formally GAed on time, though it was not available for customer shipments for several more months.

Be careful with the manner in which you measure people. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is noticeable at a scale much larger than that of quantum particles.

Zzzzz...

What Do I Wear At Night?

Sunglasses.

Yes, sunglasses, sorry to disappoint you; I don't even want to know what you were thinking.

Why do I wear sunglasses at night? So I can keep track of the visions in my eyes.

Confused? Ok, ok, I'll explain --- at least as well as one can explain wearing sunglasses at night. See, I take a weekly spin bike class during which we pedal to the sounds of the instructor's iPod. Occasionally an oldie sneaks into the playlist and I find myself biking down memory lane. Yesterday, for example, I was spinning in the 80's wearing sunglasses at night.

Interestingly enough, Wikipedia says:

The original lyrics for the song were about a totalitarian society that made everyone wear their sunglasses at night. Hart altered the lyrics to be "more romantic" after his record company pushed for something deemed more marketable.

It turns out that even pop/rock lyrics need to be dumbed-down in order to appeal to the audience. Alternatively it's possible that the music marketing execs are the ones who are dumb. Or perhaps both statements hold...

At any rate, the claim that content needs to be dumbed down because the masses are dumb will eventually turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Zzzzz (from behind the shades)...

How Assholes Succeed

Several years ago we received a new VP of Engineering, who quickly turned out to be a particularly evil asshole (sorry, this is the mildest possible description of that person). Within a few months he managed to establish a regime of terror in the organization: employees were humiliated in public, nepotism prevailed, informants snitched, people were afraid to speak, etc.

[This is not an excerpt from some documentary about a totalitarian country or from a Goosebumps novella. This is a true story which took place in Corporate America circa 2001.]

So one day my next-cube neighbor turned to me and said, "We must help this VP succeed."

"Are you kidding me?", I replied, "The guy is a complete asshole. Why on earth would we make him successful?"

"You don't understand", my colleague explained patiently, "The only way to increase the distance between him and us is to get him promoted."

Zzzzz...

Signs Of Dictatorship

The tough economic conditions bring out the best in some CEOs --- those whose portrait is splashed across the front page of every issue of the company's newsletter, a-la Stalin.

Example: in such times these suddenly popular CEOs tend to receive "thousands of supportive messages" from employees. So many messages, in fact, that I tend to receive thousands of cries for help from poor postal workers who simply can't keep up with the load.

Another heart-warming phrase during recessons is "all for one and one for all". What these fake musketeers really mean is "all for me and we'll talk about the rest later".

Indeed, it takes a strong CEO to lead a company through crises: when the going gets tough the tough get going. A huge kick in their rear will help these CEOs go, and the farther the better.

Zzzzz...