tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65824860091477446922024-02-19T07:00:42.432-08:00Life ConsideredI have *a lot* of ideas. I write about the crazy ones here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-13080418993768418062011-10-12T11:37:00.000-07:002011-10-12T11:37:36.320-07:00We need *you* to donate $1 to Singular Source *today*
We're into the final week of fundraising for the Singular Source short story contest and we're nearly there! We need only another $240 to make it to our goal.
I feel a bit like NPR or PBS as I write this, but here goes...
We need *you*, yes, you sitting there at your computer to click on this link right now and donate $1 to our short story contest. $1 really does help. Not Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-78224471296867158872011-09-14T11:22:00.000-07:002011-09-14T11:22:55.159-07:00Wearing the Vibram Five Fingers
"Are they comfortable?" is the first question that people ask when they see my shoes. Surprisingly, it's not an easy question to answer. I've been wearing my Vibram Five Fingers for about two months now and they garner a lot of attention. I have had many conversations with friends and stranger about my shoes, so let me share my story.
At the beginning of the summer, I was downsizing and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-19413897457138524902011-09-06T12:54:00.000-07:002011-09-06T12:57:50.490-07:00Two donations to Singular Source: Cash and books, oh myGreat news! I have received two gifts that I will be putting towards prizes for Singular Source.
1.
I have received a cash gift of $600 from an anonymous donor. I will be
putting $500 of this towards first prize. The remaining $100 will be
used for photocopying and postage.
2. Tor Books will be giving one copy of either "Fire Upon the Deep" or "Children of the Sky" to all three contest Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-65034511511495666872011-08-27T19:28:00.000-07:002011-09-06T12:57:03.667-07:00Looking for judges for Singular SourceLast week, I announced a science fiction short story contest, Singular Source. It's been keeping me busy, but it's been a lot of fun. I'm using parts of my brain that I haven't used in years.
In addition to publicity and raising money for prizes (please donate!), I'm looking for judges.
My goal is to have three judges. I'm assuming that I'm going to have a sufficiently large number of entries Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-61322400239344629512011-08-22T22:04:00.000-07:002011-09-06T12:56:48.215-07:00Donate to Singular SourceLast week, I announced a science fiction short story contest, Singular Source. Today, I'm going to write about the prizes and why donations are needed.
There are certain things in life that start out as a good idea and then they snowball. :)
When I started thinking about running a contest, I knew I could offer publication to the winner. I wasn't sure if I needed to offer cash as well. I asked Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-66442605953676250722011-08-19T16:06:00.000-07:002011-09-06T12:57:23.670-07:00Announcement: Singular Source Short Story ContestI have exciting news to share.
I am running a short story contest, called Singular Source. I am looking for hard science fiction stories about future programming in the presence of large source code archives. The winner will be published as the last chapter of our edited volume Finding Source Code on the Web for Remix and Reuse to be published by Springer Verlag in 2012.
We are funding the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-47509693830238152552011-07-13T21:06:00.000-07:002011-07-14T01:08:21.790-07:00Seeking participants for an iOS/scrum boot campIdea: I want to put a small group of us (6-ish?) in a room for a week and develop an app. There may or may not be an iOS expert among us. We'd be using scrum/lean techniques and the goal is for each person to learn something new. The purpose of the end product is to demonstrate what we have learned.
Motivation: I need to become proficient at iOS programming. So, I am using this as an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-70078736817957417512011-04-15T21:58:00.000-07:002011-04-15T22:08:53.900-07:00Fighting Back Against Corporatization Part 3-- Neutralizing the PsychopathLast week, I wrote about how corporations as psychopaths because they lack empathy due to their profit motive and limited liability. Today's post will be on how to defend oneself against psychopaths. The ideas are taken from a presentation by John Clarke on "Workplace Psychopaths" and a book by Martha Stout entitled "The Psychopath Next Door."
Collective Action
A common tactic by workplace Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-31124653022883043762011-04-14T22:58:00.000-07:002011-04-14T23:01:02.945-07:00Fighting Back Against Corporatization Part 2-- Striking at the RootsLast week, I wrote about the rationale behind the creation of corporations as legal entities. If these institutions are not serving us well, then let's change them. Today's post will be about some of the ideas afoot about how this might be done.
Limit the Scope of Corporations
In "The Story of Citizens United v. FEC,"Annie Leonard explained that in the 19th century, corporations were created toUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-12097731617358322772011-04-07T23:10:00.000-07:002011-04-07T23:10:20.414-07:00Fighting Back Against Corporatization-- Taking on ConsumerismWe're here at the end of a week of blog posts focused on corporatization and it's time to talk about how to get out of the rut that we're in. I had originally planned one more post on this topic, but I find that there so many options that these will be dribbling into next week.
Strategies for decreasing the corporatization in our lives emerge from looking at each of the characterizations that I Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-23217184078074818272011-04-07T02:20:00.000-07:002011-04-07T02:20:00.452-07:00Colonized without Our Consent
ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady. I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
Who's castle is that?
WOMAN: King of the who?
ARTHUR: The Britons.
WOMAN: Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR: Well, we all are. we're all Britons and I am your king.
WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous
collective.
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-68532816336277903152011-04-06T02:46:00.000-07:002011-04-06T21:35:11.108-07:00Profit motive + limited liability == lack of empathy == psychopathic corporationsIn yesterday's post, I talked about the three design principles behind the invention of the corporation-- the profit motive, limited liability, and centralization of existing person-to-person relations. In today's post, I'm going to further examine the implications of the first two.
Profit Motive
The desire to make money in and of itself is not a bad thing. It's a fact of life in our Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-42504047498613713402011-04-05T02:30:00.000-07:002011-04-05T02:30:00.562-07:00Why corporations exist
Corporations, as a concept, came into existence for three reasons:
to make a profit,
to shield the partners from risk, and
to inject a central authority into person-to-person (lateral) relations.
According to Life Inc., corporations came into existence because the ruling class needed needed a way for their inert property (usually land or gold) to participate in a new mercantile Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-3177022574719459832011-04-04T16:15:00.000-07:002011-04-04T16:33:18.229-07:00Special This Week: Series on CorporatizationThis week I will be writing a series of posts on corporatization and its effects on our social lives. This series is an experiment in a number of ways.
One, it's series of posts on a single topic. Normally, posts are on whatever tickles my fancy at the moment. There are themes that I return to, but this is the first time that I've focused on a topic for multiple posts in sequence. Two, I'mUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-3916781894201538772011-04-04T02:41:00.000-07:002011-04-04T16:30:15.647-07:00Why does tourist attraction == gift shop? Hint: Corporations think human being == wallet
Old Faithful Village Shop in Yellowstone National Park
by TGIGreeny on Flickr CC-AA-NC-SA
The weirdest place that I saw a gift shop was at a trail head near Banff in the Canadian Rockies. I'm out there for a invigorating walk and I'm supposed to buy something to commemorate it? Whatever happened to just having a good time and creating fond memories?
There are other tourist attractions, suchUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-29114972776290442672011-04-02T20:44:00.000-07:002011-04-02T20:44:04.822-07:00Hans Rosling explains why I have a hard time choosing a cause to support For those who follow TED talks, Hans Rosling is a magician with statistics. This seemingly bookish Swedish professor of public health possesses a sharp wit and a showman's understanding of the power of infographics. His talks are captivating.
I found the following talk through Stumble Upon the other day. It helped explain to me why I have been having such a hard time choosing a cause or Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-48503510977741297382011-03-29T00:20:00.000-07:002011-03-29T00:20:45.440-07:00Top 5 Superstitions that a Progressive Christian Doesn't Have to BelieveSince Easter is coming up and is an occasion where the supernatural traditionally plays a role, I thought I should do a top five list of superstitions that I don't, as a Progressive Christian, have to believe in.
Coming back to church after an absence of 18 years, I wasn't sure how I would handle the Christian beliefs that I considered rather supernatural. It was a bit like asking an adult toUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-3934867844406735782011-03-28T00:38:00.000-07:002011-03-28T00:39:25.097-07:00How little I knew you Geraldine FerraroWhen Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president in 1984, I had no idea what it meant to be a feminist and to be limited as a member of a marginalized group. But I did have the impression that Ferraro must have been a Very Bad Person, based on the people talked about her, both in terms of content and tone. It didn't occur to me that her gender had anything to do with it. Her passing on the weekend Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-2007635535133996092011-03-17T14:42:00.000-07:002011-03-17T14:42:15.736-07:00I will gladly pay for the New York TimesI hardly ever post twice in one day, but I felt that the announcement by the New York Times that they would be charging for subscriptions and the ensuing hoopla was worth commenting on.
In brief, I will gladly pay for the New York Times. I have been looking for a way to pay for the great articles that I have been getting from them for quite some time now. But my only option before this was to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-65623288909444981232011-03-17T10:33:00.000-07:002011-03-17T10:33:02.714-07:00Reality is better than reality TV, but in a good way: My experience attending a SYTYCD auditionLast Sunday, I attended the audition for So You Think You Can Dance in Los Angeles at the Orpheum Theatre. I shouldn't have been surprised, but we spent a lot of time waiting and being herded around. But once the auditions actually started, it was a fun and eye-opening experience. In short, what actually happens during an audition is cooler than what you see on television. What you miss on TV is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-44033451486030274062011-03-08T23:21:00.000-08:002011-03-09T08:36:42.877-08:00Accounting for Taste on International Women's DayIt is International Women's Day today, and I wanted to acknowledge it with a post. It can be difficult to explain to men why women's rights is still an issue. After all, laws and regulations that prohibit women's participation are decreasing and opportunities are increasing. But the point is that there is still lots left to do because women and women's views are marginal, meaning they are not theUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-27715116636851139712011-03-04T02:48:00.000-08:002011-03-21T00:01:01.411-07:00Is making our food supply chain smarter a smart way to spend our money?I've been watching a lot of TED talks lately and it's not uncommon for there to be a sponsor ad either at the beginning or end of the video. Consequently, I've seen the following ad about making our food supply chain smarter quite a few times.
At first, I was impressed by the coolness of the technology. If we're losing 25% of our food to spoilage in transit, it seems reasonable to use Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-10835367082627520302011-03-03T02:37:00.000-08:002011-03-03T07:12:14.666-08:00Shikha Dalmia's arguments in "Long Live the American Dream" are just plain wrongA link to an article came across my Twitter feed yesterday and I was flabbergasted by how wrong it was. Lots of things get me riled up, but it's not often that I feel the need to write a point by point rebuttal. Please pardon the self-indulgent length of this article, but here it is.
The article was "Long Live the American Dream by Shikha Dalmia. The link that received pointed to reason.com, a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-77781873312138547222011-03-02T09:05:00.000-08:002011-03-02T20:30:06.869-08:00Overcoming the loud-mouthed shnook in Planning Poker by using Crowd WisdomA common problem when using Planning Poker is some people who are more opinionated or argumentative can dominate the estimation process. This usually happens because the standard method for using Planning Poker is to make independent estimates and discuss until all the estimates converge. Crowd wisdom may be able to offer us a way out.
The idea behind crowd wisdom is that together we are Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6582486009147744692.post-54194858357209876892011-02-16T12:57:00.000-08:002011-02-19T22:07:15.773-08:00The Buddy System for Working MomsMadeleine Albright said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." Her intention was to point out that women as sisters should help each other succeed. Successful women have an especially high burden in this regard. To me, her comment seemed to be directed at individual women. A couple of things that I read/heard this week made me wonder if this should be directed Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0