I'll try and have something to say later.

As for why I love the iPod, there are a few reasons. First off, my cd collection had become very scattered, at work I had instrumental and jam band cds (all ripped onto the work machines), at home by the stereo I had jazz and easy listening dinner music, in my car I had a lot of hard rock, and up on my home computer I had a small collection of random newish cds I had ripped soon after purchasing them. If I ever had a notion to listen to something not in character of the place I was, tough luck. The iPods changed that. I can now listen to all my music at any time.

The second reason I love my iPod is that it's reintroduced me to a whole ton of music that had fallen between the cracks of my life. I had a whole pile of old blues cds just were gathering dust, I also had a bunch of 80s and early 90s stuff that I just never bothered to play anymore (X, Pixies, Sugercubes, etc...) Now that all this stuff is ripped and on the iPod the shuffle play option picks this stuff up and mixes it in with all the rest of my music.

As for the other reasons I love the iPod, I now can listen to music in bed while Jayne is either watching TV or sleeping. I can fit a ton more music in my car (I have one of those FM broadcast dodads), I can listen to music while walking, jogging or mowing the lawn. All in all, it's opened up a bunch of new vistas in my enjoyment of music. Did I mention I love my iPod.

via Tom O'Neil

If you too want to delete your Orkut account here are the instructions:

1. Select the 'Home' link in the blue bar at the top of the page.
2. Click on the 'profile' button under your photo.
3. Click the 'edit profile' button that appears under your photo.
4. Click the 'terminate' option on the right-hand side of the page.
5. Select 'terminate account.' If you wish to remain a member, 
   choose 'i changed my mind.' 

One book that I've been reading on and off again over the last year is Giovanni Boccaccio’s collection of short stories called The Decameron. The stories are told by a group of ten young Florentines who have taken refuge from the black plague in a villa outside the city. There are one hundred stories in total with each story teller telling one story a day over ten consecutive days. So far I’ve only read the first twenty so I have a long way to go.

Even though Boccaccio was writing in the mid 14th century the stories are wonderfully accessible for a modern reader. The stories I’ve read so far center on love, fortune and twists of fate; all very timeless themes. Part of the wonder of the book is the empathy you feel with these people who lived over five hundred years ago. Their lives may have been very different from ours but they are unmistakably human.

If you are interested in pre Renaissance Italy or just reading some great stories I highly recommend the book. You can explore more about the book and the period at this great web site from Brown University.

If you prefer bovine myology, UNL has a site for that too. The bovine page includes a 3D rotatable cow carcass. Reminds me of a scene from Doom.

The author approaches the issue as a developer, but exclusively from his area of experience which is consulting. While it may be pretty simple to just turn down a consulting project because you don't like the direction it's going, you seldom can do the same when working in house for a software developer. You can certainly vote with your feet and leave the company but that's a pretty drastic move. You can also just suck it up and do what you're told. Neither of those approaches is very palatable. The unfortunate tactic I see used most frequently is a variation on the all or nothing - take my ball and go home - strategy. Once someone makes their best case for why something should be done their way and it's rejected, they do their job but then distance themselves as far as possible from the project and those that made the decision.

The going dark strategy may be a fine solution from the developer's perspective but it's horrible for the development organization. Once it starts it's both difficult to cure and highly contagious. I think the onus is really on the development leaders to make sure it doesn't happen. As a leader, if people are 'standing their ground' against your decisions you really need to step back and understand what's going on and work to find a solution. If you can't convince people you need to at least make them understand your approach and why you're making the decision. If you have developed any level of trust with your developers that will often be enough.

I've done this long enough to have seen plenty of good leaders and bad. A couple of my 'favorite' examples of what not to do are as follows. When presented with the fact many developers don't agree with your decision, declare 'this is not a democracy!' or when asked how to deal with the dissension among the developers suggest sarcastically: 'how about some candy.'

Scene: The Bridge of the Starship Enterprise. The Enterprise has used the slingshot manuaver around the Sun to travel back in time to the year 2004.

Uhura: Captain, we're picking up strange acoustic signals from Earth. They are somewhat rythmic but they're lacking the standard qualities of human music.

Kirk: Uhura can you pipe it through to intercom (if you have sound enabled, click this link). (turning to Spock) Spock, what do you make of it.

Spock: (pauses to listen) Fascinating.

I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the Red Sox yet, but they have certainly dug themselves a deep hole that will be hard to climb out of. If the Red Sox do lose and the Yankees go to the World Series that means I will instantly become a National League fan, regardless of who's playing. I am certain this is true for all other die hard Red Sox fans as well. Given that, I was greatly dismayed by an article titled Red Sox Nation Still Believes published on theBostonChannel.com. The article ends with this disturbingly out of touch remark:

But if the Red Sox don't come through this year, fans say they are keeping their options open.

"If they lose, we do, of course, have the option of rooting for someone else," said another fan.

But fans say they aren't quite ready to say they will cheer on the Yankees in the World Series.

Why bring this up? I've noticed a couple of people linking to images on my site. If it's in the context of a link to a blog entry I wouldn't mind at all but in one case the images is just being used as a background for their web page. I can't really get too mad however. The young person has used the image to such good effect and is obviously a Red Sox fan. Given the outcome of the first couple games of the ALCS I feel the same way.

Heard on New England Cable News.

The entire cast is great. I especially like Jennifer Jason Leigh's 'girl-friday' character. Her fast staccato dialog delivery is perfectly retro. My favorite line in the whole film is her pumping up Tim Robbins character by extolling the virtues of his recent invention, the hula-hoop.

Finally there would be a thingamajig that would bring everyone together, even if it kept them apart spatially.

One of the best clips is of the show's opening sequence and highlights all the cool spaceships and advanced computer technology they employed. The show was made in 1970 but the action takes place in the then futuristic 1980s so we get to see some cool teletypes and lots of tape drives and blinking lights.

The show was produced by Gerry Anderson who also produced the Thunderbirds. I don't think the show really hung together too well as a complete series but the spaceships and mysterious aliens kept my interest. I've always been curious however as to why all the women on the moon had purple hair - SHADO regulation I guess.

Mice in Cream (Souris à la crème)
Skin, gut and wash some fat mice without removing their heads. Cover them in a pot with ethyl alcohol and marinate 2 hours. Cut a piece of salt pork or sowbelly into small dice and cook it slowly to extract the fat. Drain the mice, dredge them thoroughly in a mixture of flour, pepper, and salt, and fry slowly in the rendered fat for about 5 minutes. Add a cup of alcohol and 6 to 8 cloves, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Prepare a cream sauce, transfer the sautéed mice to it, and warm them in it for about 10 minutes before serving.