personal
Satan U Yur Office
Had to install office 2008 for mac on my personal macbookpro for work.
This is how the Microsoft “mactopia” homepage rendered in Safari after the install. Better restart…
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Posted: June 23rd, 2008 under personal.
Comments: 1
Empathy
Jezebel has a post about a Massachusetts politician who defended gay marriage in his state.
He didn’t know his daughter was gay at the time.
“Because, of course, he didn’t know that I was gay then,” the 18-year-old recalls. “So, for someone so publicly to fight for something that doesn’t even affect him was just like, ‘That’s my dad,’ you know?” she says with a laugh. “That’s all I could think. I was very, very proud to be part of this family, and this state in general.”
Now she’s come out and the two remain close.
A politician acted as if someone he loved was affected by a piece of legislation before knowing someone he loved was affected by that legislation.
Refreshing.
You hear about politicians coming to support a policy because they or their family become directly involved: insurance reform, funding for medical research, gun control, and gay rights to name a few.
In a representative democracy, shouldn’t a politician’s singular gift be the ability to empathize with people affected by their policy agendas? People who are not like them? People who are not literally related to them?
If direct experience changes one position, shouldn’t a politician take that to heart and examine if any of their other views suffer from a similar lack of imagination?
Posted: June 12th, 2008 under personal.
Comments: none
Communion
My daughter made her first communion this weekend and fulfilling an ambition she’s had since she was three, she can now get snack at the end of the service.
She is my daughter and by definition the most beautiful creature I’ve ever known.
I’m a tolerant dissenter from her Catholic experience but I wont stand in the way of my wife’s love or community and ritual in her day to day lifeexperience.
I will also gladly take a day to celebrate my daughter’s capacity for good and the hope I feel when I look in her eyes.
Posted: June 1st, 2008 under personal.
Comments: none
The next big thing
The hot topic in the scrum community is scale.
Size may offer more opportunity (it may not) but it demands overhead and compromise.
Necessity forces us to skip to advanced topics but there are so many fundamentals to master:
- recruiting and developing talented and diverse individuals,
- forming collaborative and highly productive teams,
- crafting ambitious work at sustainable pace,
- excellence, invention, and joy that benefits ourselves, our peers, our customers, and end users.
I’m not as interested in learning how to work with more people as I am in learning how to invent valuable software really, really well.
Posted: May 23rd, 2008 under personal.
Comments: none
Chasing Rainbows?
My life feels a little circular these days. Two job changes in four months.
During both searches, I asked myself the same questions.
- Limit my search to [agile] shops?
- Yes.
- What do I mean by [agile]?
- Scrum project management with the XP discipline.
- Empowered, accountable product owners.
- Collaboration and reflection.
- User-centered product development.
Why such a narrow search?
- I want to accomplish something.
- I want to be inspired by my work and my co-workers.
- I want to be part of a real team
- I want to have fun.
- I want to balance my work and my personal life.
I don’t claim my criteria are the only way to achieve these ends but they are my path to them.
Posted: May 22nd, 2008 under personal.
Comments: none
Software Executive Mgr, 
