The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade – O'Reilly Radar
The Cult of Scrum: If Agile is the teachings of Jesus, Scrum is every abuse ever perpetrated in his name. In many ways, Scrum as practiced in most companies today is the antithesis of Agile, a heavy, dogmatic methodology that blindly follows a checklist of “best practices” that some consultant convinced the management to follow.
Endless retrospectives and sprint planning sessions don’t mean squat if the stakeholders never attend them, and too many allegedly Agile projects end up looking a lot like Waterfall projects in the end. If companies won't really buy into the idea that you can’t control all three variables at once, calling your process Agile won’t do anything but drive your engineers nuts.
The Workplace Becomes Ubiquitous: What’s the first thing you do when you get home at night? Check your work email? Or maybe you got a call before you even got home. The dark side of all that bandwidth and mobile technology we enjoy today is that you can never truly escape being available, at least until the last bar drops off your phone (or you shut the darn thing off!)
The line between the workplace and the rest of your life is rapidly disappearing. When you add in overseas outsourcing, you may find yourself responding to an email at 11 at night from your team in Bangalore. Work and leisure is blurring together into a gray mélange of existence. “Do you live to work, or work to live,” is becoming a meaningless question, because there's no difference.
via The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade – O’Reilly Radar.
rePost::Daily Kos: State of the Nation
The problem is people like me, and the people I work for. I'm what they call a Qualitative Research Consultant, or QRC for short. Here's my website. There's even a whole association of us who meet regularly to discuss ideas and tactics. Together with the AAPC, the MRA, the AMA, ESOMAR, and a whole host of other organizations you've never heard of, we have more power and control than you know. We're extremely good at what we do, and we do it all behind the scenes, appealing to and manipulating your subconscious brain in ways that your conscious brain has little to no control over.
Give us a little money to test some things out, and we can work magic. Our business is persuasion, and we’;re very good at it. Just watch PBS Frontline’s series, The Persuaders to get just a small inkling of what you’re up against. We can make a company that earns a 38% gross profit margin manufacturing purely propriety products seem hip, cool and progressive. We can take sugar water and sell it back to you as a health drink, and even Whole Foods shoppers will believe it. We can take 30 different brands of vodka with almost exactly the same ingredients, and make you understand instantly just what kind of person drinks which brand, and how much you should expect to pay for each, without a moment’s thought. For any given category of products, I can show you a bunch of different brands, and you'll be able to tell me a wealth of information about each one, despite the near absolute similarity of their actual products to one another. One exercise we QRC’s like to conduct involves actually turning a brand into a person in a group discussion; it's called personification. And you wouldn’t believe how effectively and universally we can tailor a brand’s image, right down to what kind of car that “person” would drive, and what music he/she would listen to. So much attention has been paid to Naomi Klein's outstanding Shock Doctrine, that few pay much attention anymore to her far more provocative and important work No Logo. If all Americans truly internalized the message of No Logo, people like me would be out of work, and we could really reform this country.
For a little coin, we can even make poor people hate inheritance taxes, just by using a few little words that work. The biggest difference between Obama and FDR/LBJ is that people like me weren’t really around back then. As the TV show Mad Men can show you, our industry was just getting off the ground in the mid-1960's. And while it’s true that the Democratic ad consultants of the 1980’s and 1990’s and early Aughts were wildly ineffective, that says far more about the prevailing consultant class in the Democratic Party than about the power of ad consulting in general.
via Daily Kos: State of the Nation.
This was pretty painful to read. I think of how a lot of people I interact with (some very intelligent people) get manipulated too easily by these mad men.
rePost::Man killed trying to patch up quarreling neighbors – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
Man killed trying to patch up quarreling neighbors
By Julie M. Aurelio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 16:14:00 12/19/2009
MANILA, Philippines—A man was hacked to death with a Samurai sword as he tried to patch things up between two men who were arguing on a street named Peaceful in a depressed area in Quezon City, police4 said Saturday.
The victim, Alvin Afable, died of several hack and stab wounds sustained in the incident, which happened at around 6 p.m. on Peaceful St. in Area 4, in the village of Bagong Silangan.
Police said Afable, 24, was simply trying to mediate between two men having an argument when a brother of one of the men arrived and mistook him for an enemy.
Chief Inspector Benjamin Elenzano Jr of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit said they were able to arrest one of the brothers, identified as Raymund Bongalesa, 29.
Bongalesa’s older brother, 31-year-old Ryan, allegedly came in defense of his brother and mistook Afable as one of the men Raymund was arguing with, Elenzano said.
via Man killed trying to patch up quarreling neighbors – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.
In honor of someone who tried to do something good and died for it!
rePost::The /Filmcast Interview: James Cameron, Director of Avatar | /Film
The /Filmcast Interview is a series of conversations with actors, directors, and other key figures from the entertainment industry. In this episode, David Chen speaks with legendary director James Cameron about his attitude towards technology, the theme of environmentalism in his films, the acting benefits of performance-capture equipment, and the potential of movies to create social change. Cameron’s new film Avatar is out in theaters today.
via The /Filmcast Interview: James Cameron, Director of Avatar | /Film.
Read or listen to the whole interview in the linked site!!!
Reminder guys Dec 25 – First Week Of January !!!!!
Watch Avatar Now !!!!!!!
rePost::Cambodia to expel 20 Uighurs – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
Cambodia to expel 20 Uighurs
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 12:01:00 12/19/2009
PHNOM PENH— (UPDATE) Cambodia said Saturday it would expel 20 Muslim Uighurs who sought refuge after unrest in China's Xinjiang region, despite protests from the United States and rights activists.
Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong declined to say where the Uighurs would be sent, but exile groups said the group would be deported to China where they could face torture.
“They are illegal immigrants and according to Cambodian immigration law they should be expelled from the country. So we must expel them,” the spokesman said.
via Cambodia to expel 20 Uighurs – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.
I believe other countries , specially muslim countries should step up and help these people.
Advice::Arabs and Jews « Paulo Coelho’s Blog
Covering the sun with one’s hand
A disciple went to Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav:
– I shall not continue with my studies of sacred texts – he said. – I live in a small house with my brothers and parents, and never have the ideal conditions for concentrating on that which is important.
Nachman pointed to the sun and asked his disciple to place his hand over his face, in order to hide it. The disciple obeyed.
– Your hand is small, yet it can completely cover the power, light and majesty of the great sun. In the same way, the small problems manage to give you the excuse you need in order to hinder your progress along your spiritual journey.
“Just as your hand has the power to hide the sun, mediocrity has the power to hide your inner light. Do not blame others for your own incompetence.”
via Arabs and Jews « Paulo Coelho’s Blog.
posting this for myself!!
rePost::Prostitutes in Copenhagen Use Free Sex As Protest : The Primate Diaries
Prostitutes in Copenhagen Use Free Sex As Protest
Category: Environment • Gender & Sexuality • Politics
Posted on: December 15, 2009 9:00 AM, by Eric Michael Johnson
Sex workers in Denmark have offered free sex in response to Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard's attempt to discourage prostitution during the COP15 Climate Change Conference. The City Council had postcards delivered to 160 hotels where conference delegates and associates of COP15 would be staying and paid for advertisements in local newspapers that read:
‘Be sustainable: Don't buy sex!’
However, prostitution is legal throughout Scandinavia and sex workers have formed unions to protect themselves from exploitation and harassment. In response SIO (Sexarbejdernes Interesse Organisation; or the Sex workers Interest Organisation) announced on their website that this was a political attempt to criminalize sex work in the city:
via Prostitutes in Copenhagen Use Free Sex As Protest : The Primate Diaries.
We should join them in protest! hehehe, why does it always seem that i’m living in the wrong city?
Small Minded People::Comelec rejects gay party Ang Ladlad's appeal | ABS-CBN News Online Beta
Comelec rejects gay party Ang Ladlad’s appeal
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 12/17/2009 1:57 PM
MANILA, Philippines – Commission on Elections Chairman Jose Melo’s tie-breaking vote ended the gay group Ang Ladlad's bid to be included in the party-list elections in May 2010.
Melo’s vote broke the 3-3 tie of the Comelec en banc voting on the gay group’s petition seeking to overturn the Comelec Second Division’s ruling rejecting Ang Ladlad as a party on “moral grounds.”
The Comelec’s decision is final, which means Ang Ladlad may only appeal its case with the Supreme Court.
In a ruling dated November 11, the Comelec said that although the party presented proper documents and evidence for their accreditation, their petition is “dismissible on moral grounds.”
Page 5 of the ruling states that Ang Ladlad’s definition of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) sector as a marginalized and disadvantaged sector due to their sexual orientation “makes it crystal clear that the petitioner tolerates immorality which offends religious beliefs.”
The Comelec ruling quotes passages from both the Bible and the Koran (taken from internet site www.bible.org) that describe homosexuality as “unseemly” or “transgressive.”
The Comelec said accrediting Ang Ladlad would pose risks to the Filipino youth.
“Should this Commission grant the petition, we will be exposing our youth to an environment that does not conform to the teachings of our faith,” the ruling stated. With a report from Ryan Chua, ABS-CBN News
via Comelec rejects gay party Ang Ladlad’s appeal | ABS-CBN News Online Beta.
Here’s to hoping that The Supreme Court does the right thing!
rePost::Illusions and bitterness – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com
By all means denounce Obama for his failed bipartisan gestures. By all means criticize the administration. But don’t take it out on the tens of millions of Americans who will have health insurance if this bill passes, but will be out of luck — and, in some cases, dead — if it doesn’t.
via Illusions and bitterness – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.
hmm. This is my reply to Sen. Noy’s vote of NO to the budget. I understand that he needs to build his profile and all but this is purely signaling. I suspect this would bite him if he wins the Presidential elections.
from the same linked article:
But what’s happening, I think, goes beyond health care; what we’re seeing is disillusionment with Obama among some of the people who were his most enthusiastic supporters. A lot of people seem shocked to find that he’s not the transformative figure of their imaginations. Can I say I told you so? If you paid attention to what he said, not how he said it, it was obvious from the beginning — and I’m talking about 2007 — that he was going to be much less aggressive about change than one could have hoped. And this has done a lot of damage: I believe he could have taken a tougher line on economic policy and the banks, and was tearing my hair out over his caution early this year. I also believe that if he had been tougher on those issues, he’d be better able to weather disappointment over his health care compromises.