Up in the air

I am personally relieved that the TSA has now lifted the interdict on commercial airline passengers carrying pocket knives. They, souvenir baseball bats and golf clubs are now okayed for takeoff.

Not that the agency, following Polonius’ advice to be true to itself, seems to be able to explain exactly why they’re now okay but box cutters still aren’t. Possibly because no one will ever be able to say the words “box cutters” and “airline” and not see planes flying into buildings; but of course they wouldn’t say that even if it were true.

I’m relieved because I carry a Swiss army knife around with me all the time—it’s in the little bag with eye shadow, lipstick and the cheap-ass little nail file I got after my real one got confiscated by some airline in 2002. In addition to the two cutting blades, it has a slot screw-driver blade and a corkscrew. Now that they’re air-legal, so to speak, I don’t have to remember to remove it from my purse and leave it at home, or stick it into a carry-on bag which then has to be checked.

You never want to be without a corkscrew, in my opinion, and that’s why I applaud the TSA’s decision.

Holy smoke

Habemus, as they say, papam. The Papal conclave, on only its second day, has elected a new Pope, the cardinal formerly known as Jorge Maria Bergolio, 76, of Buenos Aires. His nom de Pope is Francis, and his election, on the fifth ballot, pretty well breaks all land speed records for papal elections.

Bergolio is a Jesuit (first ever to be elected pontiff), so people hoping that he took the name Francis and therefore pastoral guidance from the man from Assisi—a humane (if possibly divinely dotty) churchman—are probably in for a disappointment. The more likely inspiration is Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Society of Jesus, and not the kind of guy you’d really want to get into an argument with. He was a soldier; beware of guys with a cross in one hand and a sword in the other, if you catch my drift.

He’s also old. Only two years younger than Benedict XVI was on his election in 2005. Benedict, you’ll recall, opened up the position of head of the Catholic Church by resigning last month, citing age and health reasons, after only eight years in office. These cardinals are not the brightest bulbs on the tree, are they—how do they expect to get value out of a guy this old? Especially after the example of the last one? Did they run the candidates through stress tests? Get MRIs? Ask them how long they reckon they’re good for on the throne?

I expect they calculate they’re doing well to find a cardinal who doesn’t have fraud, child abuse or sexual harassment charges in his past or present.

It’s a bit of a hoo-hah, the fact that the new Pope is not European (not had one of those in 1200 years) and the first ever Latin American. I’d be a lot happier about that latter if there weren’t some questions about Bergolio’s complicity with various Argentine dictatorships. I suppose there’s a certain amount of going-along to get-along in those situations, but still.

(My idea of a Latin American Church leader is Óscar Romero; but of course being assassinated in the course of your pastoral duties is a handicap to getting elected Pope.)

On the other hand—perhaps that qualifies him to lead the Church these days, to keep things on an even keel, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. There’s a whole lot wrong with the institution, and the biggest signs of leadership activity seem to revolve around keeping people from paying any attention to the man behind the curtain.

It’s like expecting Congress to enact campaign reform laws—or the foxes to legislate against hen house raids: it’s hard for the very people who benefit from the institutional corruption to take active steps to clean up the mess. As a Cardinal, Bergoglio has gone on record many times taking stands against bringing the Church into even the 20^th Century—including denying communion to anyone who expresses opinions not strictly the party line on topics like birth control, homosexuality and the like. So perhaps that’s a more heavily weighted qualifier than the fact that the old dog probably doesn’t have a lot more fights left in him.

Just call me Sneezy

Well, this is a bummer. Sunday I felt a sore throat coming on all day. I finally took some Neurofen Cold & Flu, a UK OTC product that’s the best defense against colds I’ve ever found. (I get it from a private supplier. ‘Nuff said.)

Monday I couldn’t decide whether it was working or not; the sore throat seemed to be in stasis but then I became way snottier than usual, if you get my drift. I that whole nose-blowing thing. Even when you use the really good tissues, your nose ends up getting all red & raw & it goes on forever. Ergo the Neurofen C&F.

I think I got a total of about four hours’ sleep Monday night—I kept waking up to sneeze & blow my nose. It was hardly worth it at all. Then, around 0600, I went into such a coughing fit that I actually dredged out my cough syrup with codeine in it. I’m serious—I thought a lung might be on its way up my throat.

(An interesting—to me—sidebar is that, in measuring out the cough syrup I spilled a little on the kitchen sink. When I wandered back out about 11 hours later, it looked to me like the stuff might be eating holes in the porcelain. Hmm.)

However, yesterday I spent the entire day (until 1700) in bed, sneezing, blowing, & eye watering. I can't recall the last time I spent the day in bed, but it would have been because I was unbelievably sick. If it weren’t for the actual sore (as opposed to scratchy) throat & the coughing fit, I might think I’m in a massive allergy attack. Only I haven’t had any allergies since leaving Virginia & I can’t think what could cause something to come on this fast & this overwhelming.

Plus—allergies never interfered with my appetite & I haven’t eaten anything since Monday morning. Heigh-ho…

Men bearing cookies

This came via a FB friend, from the Being Liberal fan page:

I have to say that there is no woman in my acquaintance whose first response to a guy bearing freshly-baked cookies would be, “That’s so gay.” More like:

“Did you bring the milk, too?” Or:

“Butt out, bitch, he’s mine!” Or:

…No—from here on out, I don’t believe I can repeat the likely response in a public forum. There are grandfathers who read this.

Recruiters 32

I had a phone interview last week with the VP of Products at a startup in SF. They’ve got an interesting product—predictive suggestions for sales reps, using big data analytics. But they really wanted someone with deep Agile experience, and I’ve only used the waterfall methodology, although I’ve taken a course and got Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) certification from the Scrum Alliance.

The VP and I got along well; he’s an Aussie, so that was pretty easy. And I made my case for understanding the principles of Scrum, and how impressed I am with their product—which is true, because it’s applying artificial intelligence algorithms to the applications side of Big Data (one of the über-buzz words in software these days, along with Mobile), and they’ve placed heavy emphasis on the user experience (UX), which is one of my major focal points. (Seriously—there’s a lot of software out there with completely crap UX.)

Well, the short version of this story is that the VP sent me a very nice thanks-but-no-thanks email—in a ten-person company, they have to choose their additions carefully, and solid Agile experience is key at this point, etc.

I’ll admit to being ambivalent about this turn-down. A ten-person startup in SaaS effectively means ten men, probably most under the age of 35. Ten also means that the health insurance they offer is going to be crap—high deductible, high-copay, low coverage; this is because they’re limited to Anthem as a provider of small-group insurance. Other benefits will also be sketchy.

This company is a couple of years old, but it’s still seeking angel funding; they have one customer, in Japan. And they’ve outsourced their development…to Bolivia.

Additionally, they’re in downtown SF, a minimum two-hour each way commute from Sunnyvale and more than $300 per month.

Still—it was an interesting solution. I think I’ll submit a CV to their primary competitor.

Recruiters 31

I got a call this week from a recruiter—not a South Asian, for a wonder—wanting to know if I’d be interested in an “opportunity” with the megalithic telecommunications manufacturing company where I’ve done contract work before. The position is, of course, contract. This company’s business model revolves around keeping costs down in lieu of building innovative products.

Well, whatever. Here’s what I find interesting about this “opportunity”: they are demanding massive amounts of deep-tech experience. And they want to pay absolute crap for it. It seems this department has a very meager budget.

Here are some salient points in the job description:

“In addition to the core Web Services product management role, you will play a key role in evangelizing our Web Services offers to key partners across the Web (developers, Web sites, social media). You should be passionate and articulate in front of current and potential partners through a multitude of communication channels.

“We look to you to bring an excellent product management track record and deep technical expertise in Web Services from a major Web technology organization.

“Requirements

“- Bachelor's degree in a technical field, Master’s degree preferred

“- 10+ years of product management or related experience in a major Web technology organization

“- Hands-on software development background

“- Exceptional written and verbal communications skills

“- Prior experience with developer platforms

“- Ability to build sample applications and proof of concept prototypes

“- Proven leadership and management abilities

“- Entrepreneurial attitude

“- Willingness to work cross-functionally, collaboratively and cross-culturally; a true team player”

Moreover:

“This is a highly visible role with broad cross-organizational responsibilities in our company's Services. It has immense growth potential and is a strategic part of the community product management organization.”

The “growth potential” of course is all on the side of [Cheap-ass Corporation], and the strategy revolves entirely around getting senior-level experience for junior-grade pay. Not only is this work not deemed important enough to be done by a FTE, they're basically, expecting to get the organ grinder for the monkey’s wages.

As the recruiter admitted, “[Cheap-ass Corporation] usually pays below market rates, and this unit pays below even [Cheap-ass Corporation] rates.”

Then she added, “But they’re a really, really good group to work with.”

Oh. Well, then—that makes all the difference in the world, doesn’t it? Just tell my landlord or healthcare providers that I’m being paid pretty much nothing for my senior-level expertise, along with no benefits, so they won’t mind if I skip a month or two’s rent or hand over a big happy smile in lieu of a co-pay?

Holy crime wave!

Not sure how this story places in the News of the Weird scale when compared with Dennis Rodman making diplomatic inroads into North Korea, but I still offer it up to you.

Seems that Bradford, Yorkshire (UK), police were seeking a person of interest in a number of crimes (including fraud and fencing stolen goods), when out of the night (or at least, out of Yorkshire) a man dressed in full Batman regalia showed up with the alleged perp in tow.

And when I say “full” I mean it in the sense that the Caped Crusader had clearly had a lot more bacon butties than Christian Bale or George Clooney.

(Yorkshire is not exactly next door to the West Midlands of PD Peach fame. Still, the weirdest crime stories seem to be coming out of England lately.)

The coppers are insisting they don’t know who that masked man was, although there’s speculation that he, at the least, is someone who knows the perp.

That might or might not rule out one of the names mentioned by British bookies as a possibility, being a Yorkshireman: Alan Titchmarch, the doyen of garden programs. I’m keeping an open mind on that one.

Library dues

It turns out there’s a downside to having access to six different library systems in the area: yesterday, after returning a stack of materials to the Sunnyvale Public Library, I realized that two of them, DVD sets for the worst Miss Marple productions ever (excepting those made with Margaret Rutherford), were actually from the Santa Clara County Library system.

Today I go to SPL to pick up the DVDs. Then I should really hop over to the Cupertino branch of SCCoPL (as opposed to the Santa Clara City Library) and dump them before I mistakenly drop them in the San José or Palo Alto library systems, which haven’t yet installed computerized return mechanisms, or try to force them into the Mountain View Library return.

It’s making me feel so confused…

Linking in to the weird, pt. 3

I know LinkedIn is a place for people to make connections for professional purposes. (Well, possibly for other purposes, too; but that’s kind of a bridge too far for me to contemplate right now, since the business stuff sometimes borders on the monkey variety & it’s all I can handle.)

So I’m wondering why I just got an invitation to connect from an Uzbekistani lawyer? Who evidently speaks Uzbek, Russian, Armenian & Turkish, but not English?

Even if we did connect, what would we talk about?

Power forward diplomacy

The News of the Weird this week comes out of North Korea & the synapses in Dennis Rodman’s brain.

For some reason unknown to us on Planet Earth, Rodman made a visit to the land of famine & fantasies, & had an audience with Kim Jon Un.

Actually, as I write that sentence, it seems reasonable that Rodman would hook up with Kim, just based on that whole fantasy-world thing.

Anyhow, his chat with the president makes him the American who’s had the most face time with a North Korean leader since…maybe some time in the early regime of Kim Jong-Il.

In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopolous, Rodman assures us that, while Kim is now his friend, “I don’t condone what he does”, so maybe he has heard about the famine as well as the fantasies.

Although, when I hear anything about Rodman, I can’t help but flash onto the exchange between Agent Jay & his new partner Elle that closes out Men in Black

Elle: Hey, Jay! Zed called. The high consulate from Solaxiant 9 wants floor seats for the next Bulls game.

Jay: All right, let's put in a call to Dennis Rodman. He's from that planet.

Elle: Rodman? You're kidding.

Jay: Nope.

Elle: Not much of a disguise.