Month: October 2002

Categories
Weblogging

On a clear day, you can blog forever

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Today’s a true fall day, with wind loosened leaves falling into mercurial pools of water on sidewalks dark from rain. And with the weather change comes an attitude of gentle philosophy, reflections on times past. I wonder why the fall triggers a need to dive into the catalogs of our mind, to bring up old memories and relive them again? Is it the leaves floating past on the breeze?

Speaking of memories past, I think that if I could embed any one of my weblog postings in amber, it would be this one, my first posting in Movable Type, April 28th, 2002. I was still in San Francisco, it was the Spring, and our virtual neighborhood was still new and fresh and fun, and we — you and I — would spend time chatting online, in email, by phone.

That was the time that Jonathon started his Dishmatique craze, leading to the Sudsy Men of Weblogging. I beat Jonathon’s rollout to MT by a couple of hours, and it seemed like there was a virtual cascade of webloggers switching to Movable Type at that time.

AKMA was in the midst of a series of debates on postmodernism and forgiveness; Bill Simoni was expecting his first baby; Mark Pilgrim was ramping up on accessibility in a pre-engaged state; Halley was still married, Shannon hadn’t started waitressing, and Huffies was still alive (scroll down to October 2nd). Mike’s wife was still in rehab, her coming home a future hope.

Of course, in the midst of my basking in the golden glow of days of weblogging past, I must remember that in April I hadn’t started reading Dorothea and Loren and Michael yet, and they’ve become part of my daily life now, so there is much to say post-April.

Still, it seems as if we all had a lot more to say six months ago. Gary Turner mentioned this week how quiet things have been lately, a sentiment echoed by my friend Chris. I have to agree. Too many weblogs I’ve visited recently haven’t updated in days, weeks, even months. Perhaps we’re going through a maturation process — posting less frequently, but with more care. Or perhaps, we’re all burning out. How much virtual bonhomie can we all handle?

Leaves floating past on the breeze. This time of year always makes me nostalgic.

Categories
Political Weather

What’s the weather in Iraq

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Hurricane Lili sputtered to a category 1 when it rolled into the US — enough to inflict damage, but not to the extent of first speculations, when Lili was a category 4 hurricane.

Unfortunately, as much as I wish that Congress would have stood strong, forcing President Bush’s category 4 bluster down to category 1, or even tropical storm status, yesterday’s news conference with Bush and several congressional leaders show this isn’t going to happen. As the Boston Globe (and other publications) reported, all the little political ducks in congress — including Senator Gephardt from Missouri I’m ashamed to say — have lined up behind our little soldier.

There is really nothing, now, to stop Bush — a man who’s justification for war is suspect when one reads Saddam “tried to kill my dad” — from invading Iraq.

Certainly not a Congress who would push through a resolution stating that Bush only need inform them of an attack within 48 hours after it’s occurred. Hell, I can inform them within 24 hours of an attack and I don’t have the CIA and the military in my pocket. And to give the President a blank check to invade Iraq if he, he mind you, determines that diplomatic efforts have failed, is nothing more than a washing of Congressional hands; absolving themselves from any responsibility of the actions while reaping whatever pale benefits they might be able to scavage from their acts of inaction.

Both the Congress and the Presidency of this country are fast becoming nothing more than characterizations of our worst fears: a paranoid, megalomaniacal president with delusions of grandeur, only held in check by a weak and ineffectual Congress.

Too bad Lili didn’t hit Washington DC, instead — that area could have used the fresh air.

Update Mark Fiore sums this whole thing up for me. (Thanks Michael)

Second Update:This also fits this occasion: Norm Jenson’s Asshole of Evil. Norm also pointed out Flight of the Chickenhawks.

Categories
Just Shelley

Of value

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I have never had a job I disliked so much that I would want to have revenge on them. Reading Dorothea Salo’s description of a job she left two years ago leaves me a bit in awe at the passion of her dislike. No, I’ve never disliked a job that much, but I have loved a job with equal passion.

I’ve written about my job at Skyfish.com before; specifically in an article for O’Reilly, Death of a Dot-Com. I was reminded of the company again this week when some legal issues associated with the bankruptcy arose in addition to making contact with several people for references during my current job hunt.

I loved that job with a passion that most people reserve for their lovers. During the development of the first released applications, I worked four straight months, 16 hour days, without taking a break. I took a $100,000 dollar a year cut in pay to take the job as technical architect and senior technical lead (and weren’t those the days to be making that kind of money). I absolutely and totally loved that job.

If you ask me why I loved the job it wouldn’t be because of the surroundings (condos in the Leather District, desks crammed up next to each other, poor ventilation), or the pay, or the fact that the work was overly innovative. It’s true we were working with an environment I particularly liked: J2EE, WebLogic, EJBs, Java, Oracle, Unix, and so on. However, the tools and the applications we were building weren’t enough to make me love the job.

I did like the people. The Skyfish.com group was one of the most eclectic and interesting groups I have ever worked with. My CTO was an Australian named Michael, and he is, without a doubt, still the best boss I’ve ever had. We made a very good team, each of our strengths complimenting the other. And the others I worked with: Lisa the web page editor and my closest friend, Enza our content editor (who was a natural born weblogger if there was one), the other developers such as Peter and Brian and Joe, and Ichiro and Mauro our SysAdmins, and lovely Lena, serious/comic Jim, and Tim our finance guy-with-a-heart, and Sebastian, especially Sebastian – a true Renaissance romantic living in modern times. All special people, and I adored them.

But the people and our enthusiasm couldn’t overcome the problems. The management team, very conservative, had offices in Connecticut, while the very eccentric technical team (included the CTO), worked in Boston. You can’t split management from technical in that small a company without problems happening. Serious problems of credibility and trust. They needed us, but we needed them just as much and neither party recognized this at the time.

And within the management in Connecticut, one officer sleeping with the wife of another and everyone knowing this. Well, I knew this when one of my co-workers called me up at 3:00 in the morning before I was to take a train to New York to try and sell our company to yet another bunch of conservative investors. This was among the tidbits of information he let fall.

In the end, our organization degenerated into petty fights and rumors and disagreements and continuous worry and disappointment with each other, and desperate attempts to maintain a façade of composure whenever we walked into yet another mahogany paneled office in the halls of finance, hat in hand, begging to be allowed to live…as a company.

But the industry is small and rumors were large, and no one would touch us, even with the business alliances we made. You might say that skyfish.com was brought down as much by sex, as it was by the dot-com implosion. You might say.

But why, with all this, did I love that job so much? Why?

Because for the first time in a position, I was allowed to release my full technical creativity and build something really special, from the ground up. Because it was the only job I’ve ever had where the only thing that mattered — the only thing — was my technical abilities. Because my boss believed in me, but more importantly, because all my self-doubts and insecurities were swept away and I actually believed in myself.

And then one day, it was all gone.

Categories
Weblogging

Spam comments

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

One of the advantages of going with MT comments is that I can see comments from older postings. And I’m finding out that a posting I did quite some time back when I was still living in San Francisco, is getting spam comments.

The posting had to do with the problems I was having with Sprint and international long distance charges. The company charged me over 600.00 dollars for about three hours of conversation — over 3.00 a minute.

The end to the long distance bill saga is that after a bit of investigation into my options and legal rights, I ended up only having to pay relatively reasonable fees and not the excessive amount first charged. (Who says the Internet isn’t useful?)

However, the posting associated with the Sprint long distance problem is now getting spam comments. Take a peek and you’ll see exactly which ones I’m talking about.

Spam email is bad enough, but spam comments? Is this a case of any comments are better than none? (Answer: I don’t think so.)

Categories
Weather

Cause and effect

A record number of salmon were killed in the Klamath River in Northern California, and the administration refuses to acknowledge that the cause was water diverted to help farmers in Southern Oregon. Though the administration was warned that to divert the water would result in death to salmon who use the river for spawning, the administration trotted out its tame team of politically friendly scientists to say there is no cause and effect relationship between less water and fish dying.

These are probably the same scientists who say that there is no global warming, though today’s temperature in this region is 20 degrees warmer than normal for the first week of October, and massive droughts impact on those parts of the world that aren’t being drowned by unprecedented flooding.