It's a dog's life

It’s been a hard week, what with the focus on 9/11, the news that one in six Americans is officially below the poverty level and BofA ensuring that 30,000 more of us will be headed towards the poorhouse in the near future.

So here’s something that’s amusing, with just a frisson of horrid fascination attached to it to help you waste some time.

Personally I think that anyone who would do that to a dog ought to be reported to PETA.

Dressed for...something

Let me preface this by noting that I’m a member of several downloads—email lists for women who are focused on technology. The discussions have been wide-ranging, quite educational and often flat-out useful.

Plus, they’re usually devoid of the kind of testosterone-fueled member-measuring antics you find on co-ed lists (including academic ones; I belonged to a discussion list on the First World War and you would not believe the sort of venomous invective and condescending claptrap that flowed on that forum). Women tend to behave better, and all the groups have list-moms who cut off threads if they go off the rails.

But this is not to say that the correspondents are always, um, the clearest of communicators. For one thing, many of them are technocrats; for another—just look at the comments on any publication for examples of people who aren’t bothered by syntax, spelling or punctuation considerations.

One of the lists has had a thread running for a few days on what to wear to job interviews, with many cogent experience-based suggestions for tech, creative or corporate environments.

However, the following post just completely flummoxed me. I’ve left everything is exactly as she wrote it, including spelling and capitalization; my only edits are to X-out the gallery name/location, which might serve to identify her. BTW—she misspelled the gallery name.

“Fashion yes, the connection we have to clothing, work, fitting in -all very real. Where and why does that matter and wow, really connects old skool with the "look like me" fear of the "other' on parade.

“Style is a form of editing that characterizes the uniform construct within cultures. It is funny because it's the diversity that pumps up creative volume.  Ok that oxymoron is fun but the bigger thing here is "HOW?",

“Produced in a sweatshop, via chemically toxic, water fouling processes and subsidized transpotation that adds to atmospheric carbons and climate change?

“This should overrule any style aspect of 'what to wear.' When alert it is quite ez to slide it in and guess what, most people are liking the courage it takes to speak up.

“In fact people are signing up to participate in future events about these issues and more The show at the XXXX Gallery in XXX Center opens space for the discourse and it is so nice to know how many people are getting it.

“please come and see for yourselves!! It is a stunning, eclectic, unique, honest with enough whimsy to sweeten the facts...so sayeth the guests.”

The author describes herself on a social networking site (name in all lower-case, like you have to pay extra for caps; or perhaps she's channeling e.e. cummings) with equally pretentious buzzwords, which might explain her self-consciously edgy style. You should demonstrate that you know what the rules are before you break them. And she's not a recommendation for whatever institution(s) granted her four AA degrees and a certificate in  Communications in Business and Media.

But could someone please tell me what the hell this woman is saying?

I get the fact that she’s got some sort of installation going on at the misspelled gallery. But what is the rest of it all about?

The truth is really out there

Now, here’s a new application of technology that we all can get behind: British researchers have found a way to use hi-res video and some algorithms to come up with a lie detection system.

So far it seems to be pretty accurate, although they’ve only tested it on volunteers. They’re planning on installing it at an airport by way of field trial. But I think it's worth more than catching a few criminals or terrorists.

As soon as it’s passed the test, I say that TV networks should get it and use it on every broadcast covering a politician. Start with C-SPAN and work our way down to local-access cable. Every time one of them starts spouting a porky pie, the picture should flash and sirens should wail like someone hitting the jackpot at the slots in Vegas.

& then we move on to corporate executives. Install it in stockholder meetings and throw up the video on giant screens. 

It’s time we see incontrovertibly that these wanna-be emperors are stitch-stark naked.

This is what I call truly innovative, game-changing, paradigm-shifting technology.

Bank of Opportunity (not)

I’ve loathed Bank of America since the 70s, so I freely confess to being unsurprised over the past couple of years to find that as it grew its incompetence increased by an order of magnitude. I mean, it’s definitely got that anti-Midas-whatever-it-touches-turns-to dross thing down perfectly.

I was therefore appalled when we-the-people ended up bailing out BofA (which touts itself as the "Bank of Opportunity") to the tune of tens billions of our tax dollars. I can’t think of anyone outside of Wall Street executive offices who thought that was a good idea. The expression my grandmother would have used would have been “money for old rope.”

Even Warren Buffet swallowed a few pitchers of the too-big-to-fail Kool-Aid; a couple of weeks ago he invested $5B in the bank. That’s just good money after bad.

And; here’s how they’ve repaid us: as per the Corporate Manual for Fiscal Responsibility and Shareholder Value that’s used by every major business in every industry these days, BofA has announced it’s cutting 30,000 jobs.

None of them, of course, would be in senior management.

Personally, I consider that BofA has jumped bail. I’m ready to send the bounty hunters into the boardroom to do something about getting our money back.

However, I'm sure that BofA's 'Pub pals in Congress are going to find ways to enlighten us on how this fits into the world where weighting the scales in favor of deregulation & tax breaks for big business is the best opportunity for creating jobs.


I suppose that, in their collective view, 30,000 bank tellers out of work is better for the economy than 30,000 mortgage execs or hedge fund managers.

First responders

I live about half a block from Sunnyvale Fire Department Station #4. 

I drive by the station pretty much every day; and they seem to be called out pretty much every day, too. Their engines have powerful sirens and very loud horns, which they often have occasion to use as they traverse the intersection of Wolfe Road and El Camino Real, right next to my flat. (I'm hearing them as I write.)

In recent days, as I pass the station I've been thinking about the men and women who choose to put themselves in harm's way come day, go day, year in and year out. They turn out whether it's a kid choking on too big a bite of Snicker's, a grease fire in the kitchen of a novice cook or a blaze at a chemical factory.

Or a conflagration on the 103^rd floor of the World Trade Center.

I completely appreciate the fact that they exist and do their job no matter which pols in municipal, state or federal governments take shots at the wages, health coverage and pensions they get. They show up every time, run into buildings that everyone else is fleeing and do their damndest to save lives and property for us.

Thank you. Wherever you are, thank you.

Terrible beauty

Nine-eleven. Two numbers in sequence that have to be more instantly recognizable and carry more emotional weight than any other numerical combination in history.


That was the day where we saw the worst and the best of humanity.

I wasn’t going to write anything about the tenth anniversary of the attacks. I pretty much revisited the pain when the SEALs took down Bin Laden.

As it is, I can’t watch any of the glut of television programs dedicated to it that have been running for the past week. I can barely make it thru the radio pieces on NPR. This one in particular got to me.

It seems I drive around in tears a lot these days. And I’m looking for some kind of solace.

SF Opera is premiering “Heart of a Soldier”, about Rick Rescorla, the head of security for Morgan Stanley. Through his prescience, preparedness and perseverance, all the staff in his charge escaped. The medium of opera is appropriate because Rescorla literally sang his charges down the stairs of the South Tower.

You can watch the History Channel docu on him here. Be prepared to cry.

But I also commend to you a video put together by the husband of one of my fellow sopranos in the old, pre-9/11 choir at Saint Anne’s in Reston.

Nine-eleven. That was the day all changed, changed utterly. I know I did.

Culture vulture, rowrrr!

I’ve had a couple of really lousy days, so I’m due for a little uplifting. And here comes Classic Art.

But with cats.

Butterscotch tabbies.

Tabbies of Substance. Tabbies Rubens would love.

I feel better.

Pass me the akavit

Word came yesterday that Saab has moved another step closer to being history.

This may not mean much to you, but it really makes me sad. I’ve had Saabs for a little over 12 years, and I love them. Turbos, you understand.

When I moved to the UK I had to pick a company car. (One of the best benefits of working there at the time: almost everyone except secretaries and maybe janitors got company cars, with petrol cards. Meaning: no car payments, no insurance premiums, no $50 at a whack filling up the fuel tank.) Many of my colleagues had BMWs, but I wasn’t that impressed with the BMW I had as a temp car.

Someone suggested a Saab, so I hied me down to the Saab dealer in Newport, Wales, to try one out. Unlike my experience in the US, they let me take one out for a day so I could take it to the Tesco’s and down the pub. But I felt it had no scoot to it.

I mentioned that to the leasing manager and he replied, “I think Madam would prefer a turbo version.”

Well, he was right. All I had to do was rev up the on-ramp to the eastbound M4, feeling my back slam into the seat and I was sold.

On behalf of my employer, of course.

He thought I was nuts insisting on a sunroof (“Madam, this is the UK!”), but I loved driving that car. Even in France, where I was a left-hand brain driving a right-hand car in a left-hand environment. (I had only one incident where I lost my bearings and swung into the wrong lane, but that was in Bayeux coming off a highway and there wasn’t anyone around to be in danger. Not even a cow.)

When I got back to the US rather precipitously (thanks to a corporation that shut down its ex-pat program because it was suddenly much cheaper to do without us) I had just about a month before I needed to buy a new car. My choices were Celica (which I’d owned before going overseas) and…well, the only other thing I knew was Saab. An American car wasn’t in the picture, primarily because they didn’t make manual transmissions.

But in the three years I’d been abroad the Celica had got much smaller and costlier, so I ended up going with the Saab coupe. Couldn’t get the red one I wanted, but I squeaked by with a silver one, turbo, sunroof. Everything I wanted except the color.

And Selkie has been a great car for the past ten years (less a month). Aside from dying on the ramp between I-495 onto the Reston Toll Road on my way back from the Maryland Renaissance Faire in 2002, regular maintenance, a battery and four tires at one time or another, he’s given me nearly 73K miles of driving pleasure.

(And even at that incident, there was a plus. I got towed into the dealership in Falls Church on a Saturday afternoon, where the fellow behind the desk was talking in French to someone on his mobile phone. When he was done and registering my repair situation, I asked—en Français—where he was from. La Côte d’Ivoire. Dunno whether it was the Français-parler-ing, but he gave me a blue 9-5 convertible as the loaner for the few days it took to get my car repaired.)

But Saab, Saab—poor Saab hasn’t done well under GM and since. The mechanic where I take Selkie now, Swedish Auto Factory, has now added Subaru to their marque. When I pointed out that “Subaru” isn’t really a Viking name, the owner shrugged—they need to plan ahead.

I really hope they find another investor to keep the company afloat. In another five years or so I’ll need a new car.

Jag är så ledsen

Web dictionary

Dunno how edifying this will be, but it purports to be a repository of Internet slang and acronyms.

Its definition of FTA is just all wrong and it has For the Ultimate Win (FTUW), but not For the Win (FTW).

But worst of all, it’s missing WTF, which is an acronym (usually accompanied by multiple question marks and possibly an exclamation point or two) you use pretty much every day out there in Webland.

Laborers: not worthy of their hire

As part of its Labor Day reporting, NPR tells us that if you want job security, being a software engineer  is your stairway to heaven.

In their story the founder of an app-development company whines about wishing he could get away with paying half the salaries he does, and having to “make the workplaces as fun as possible”.

Here are some of the things I find wrong with this story:

The notion that being a developer brings security in our current workplace is completely fallacious. Here in the Valley They Call Silicon  there are thousands of them (and QA and SDEs and tech writers and program managers) among the long-term unemployed. Of those that are working, a sizeable number are not Full Time Employees (FTEs) of a tech company, they’re contractors being paid much less than they used to and not getting benefits like health coverage, retirement contributions or bonuses for successful project completion.

In fact, I’d call them the “long-term exploited”. But you won’t find them in this article

The folks who do seem to be doing well in the industry are the tens of thousands of South Asians over here on H1B visas, or—even better—those still in India or China at tech centers where the local corporations can get software developed at costs far below what they pay even the contractors here. Nowhere in this story is this class of employee mentioned

You’ll also notice that the whinging about the workplace having to resemble a frat house is indicative that the only candidates deemed attractive are those in their 20s, who are naïve enough to think of beer in the fridge and a Foosball table as valid replacements for decent healthcare insurance or a retirement plan instead of the cheap bread and circuses that they are. Clearly companies that lay out the snacks and games are not looking for techies who have relationships outside the office and would like time away to enjoy them—you know, anyone who’s passed the age of 35 and wants more out of life than code.

Again—the reporter hasn’t brought up this element in his report.

I’m really disappointed that NPR put out such a sloppy, one-dimensional and slanted piece on a subjects as important as this.