Old T-Shirts

I recently retired a beloved T-shirt from the mid-90s.  You know the type - so comfortable its like a second skin.  It was swag from a storage company; I had helped test some disk drivers and so got some swag - it was an "internal" project shirt (likely not for public consumption.) It brought back a few memories, including a few years ago when I was in line at a supermarket... the lady behind me at the checkout was staring at me and I wasn't sure why.  I smiled and got no smile in response.  As the line was long enough for me to start feeling "uncomfortable", I turned around and asked "Excuse me, is there a problem?"  She didn't answer me.  It took me a few moments to realize that she was horrified by my T-shirt...  here are the pictures.

But how will I warm my soup?

Replacing a monitor a few years back; the client had a huge 17" CRT.  The thing weighed about 60 lbs and could likely survive a nuclear blast.  Heck, it was probably irradiated itself and it was giving off tons of heat.  It was about 22" long and pretty much a big crate. I was replacing it with a newer flat-screen monitor, also 17", nice, slim, and cool.  The client at first was "Oh this is great, I have so much more room on my desk," but after a few moments, she said (surprised) "Wait!  You can't take my monitor."  "Why?" I asked puzzled.  "Because the new one doesn't have anywhere to warm my soup."

Starting with an idea

This is a draft posting of a possible cover page design.  To be updated.

"Leo the Cat" fan page is no more.

In the world of head scratching (cat pun), the "Leo the Cat" fan page is no more. I have a few reasons for this, but I apologise if you came here looking for pictures of himself.

Play Nice Now (draft)

The podcast/audio of the draft of Play Nice Now is up. Now, I get to split the story into two parts!

Happy Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day

Arrr matey!  Keep a weather eye open for these bilge-rats!

Play Nice Now

The latest episode is in edit. "Play Nice Now" sees a downturn in the energy economy and some interesting organizational changes for Mark. I had a lot of fun writing this one because it's based on eight life events.

On Bondolo's urging, I added a "Buy Now" button in an obvious spot. I hope I get some conversions. I am glad blogspot has a generic HTML widget that let me cut and paste some CSS/ Javascript/ HTML. Getting the button image served up through blogspot was a bit of a kludge. I hope it doesn't break.

I uploaded the last two stories to Kobo, so they're now available. (I have no Kobo sales to date.)

Here is a snippet from the draft (that will find its way onto Reddit - I got gilded today - I am not sure what that is but I was happy.)

Mark calls a meeting of his development team. Todd starts with his complaint...

“I would like to mention that my part, the transaction subsystem, was working when I checked it in two weeks ago – but when I got the notice that the data validation tests were failing I updated my repository only to find out that Kenneth had gone in and rewritten parts of my code, and it is those changes that are failing. Mark, would you please ask Kenneth why he would be in the transaction code when his current task is reporting and printing?”

Kenneth piped up before I could be diplomatic.

“In an agile project every developer can modify the code base,” Kenneth said.

“This isn’t an Agile project, Kenneth,” Todd said emphatically. “Why are you touching my code?”

“Don’t be such a baby. Agile is the best way we can do this project,” Kenneth replied.

“Baby?! It took me a month to write that code and you arbitrarily go and change it? Even if we we’re following Agile, that we are not, you should have run the test cases to prove your changes didn’t fundamentally change the functionality! Agile is test driven development! You didn’t run the tests, and you didn’t bother to go back fix the god damn tests.”

“Agile is iterative and adaptive through cross functional teams,” Kenneth said even louder. “Your code was breaking my build so I fixed it.”

“You bloody well rewrote it!” Todd yelled.

“I had to fix my build and your code was broken,” Kenneth snarled.

“That’s because you didn’t do a full update from version control, Kenneth,” Todd fired back. “The code went through a full build and test. All you had to do was refresh-all and run the tests.”

“I shouldn’t have to waste my time on that,” Kenneth said even louder.

“Oh my god you are such an asshole!” Todd yelled. “Just because you talk louder and more often than anyone else doesn’t mean that you are right!”

“What do you even know about programming? My dog is a better programmer than you,” Kenneth shouted.

It was at that point that Todd stood up, grabbed his chair, and threw it across the table in Kenneth’s direction. Kenneth jumped up, but the chair slid by him, off the table, and into the wall taking out a fine chunk of alabaster.

Stop Confusing Me With The Facts

I need to add something about email to the story line... Folks that don't read it. Folks that response without reading it. Folks that receive hundreds of email a day and spend all of their time reading it. Executives that delegate the reading of it to their secretaries. Folks that send too many emails and/or put in too much information. (I am guilty!) A previous boss suggested I add the [must read] tag to email subject if I wanted him to read it. I asked, "Why would I send you email if I didn't want you to read it?" He was unimpressed. Another complained that I sent too many emails or that they were too detailed and I needed to limit their content to one sentence. Another line boss, after telling me in person I could talk to him about anything and skip my supervisor, subsequently told my supervisor that all communication from me needs to come through said supervisor (after one message.) Yes, there is dark humor in email.

Legacy Published

Legacy is now published and I'm working on a podcast of it next (mp3.)  Fun.

*** updated ***

Podcasts are cool; just an XML header pointing at an image (cover) and MP3 audio file.

*** updated ***

Until I get the XML wrapper done, I've uploaded Legacy audio to two places:

• octavianit.com/legacy.mp3 (sometimes flaky)
• SoundCloud