Month: March 2022

As I mentioned, my mother-in-law is downsizing. As a result, Nogglestead will receive an infusion of quality furniture. I’ve often said, perhaps only aloud and not on this blog, that the only good furniture we get, we receive as a gift, or lately, an inheritance. Which is mostly true, although we did buy an expensive laminate bedroom set a couple years after we moved in, replacing the bureaus we’d had as children, inheritances from my aunt Dale, and a headboard I’d bought at an estate sale for $20.

Continue reading “On the Forthcoming New Old Furniture at Nogglestead” →

On Thursday, I asserted:

Funny thing; although the university sends me glossy magazines on occasion, they don’t try to hit me up for money any more.

On Saturday, this arrived:

Maybe they actually hit me up all the time for money, but I pay so little attention I don’t notice.

The volunteers have stopped calling, though. I think. Maybe they just don’t have my number at Nogglestead.

Yesterday, I posted about not confusing Misa with Maysa.

Today, KCSM, the Bay Area’s Jazz Station, spins a tune by Misia.

All I know is that when I again get a music budget, it will be gone in a very loose Soundex search.

My mother-in-law recently decided to downsize from her home of 35 years and move into a senior apartment not far from Nogglestead. This led me to reminisce and perhaps wallow a bit on grandmother’s house as a concept, or at least enough to produce an essayish blog post about it.
Continue reading “On Grandmother’s House” →

Jack Baruth links to a piece entitled Managerial failings: complification.

The piece goes on about how managers and the managerial class have made things more complicated mainly to give themselves something to do.

Baruth quotes this bit:

Yale for example: more administrators than undergraduates. This is ridiculous; Yale students would be better off if they hired each undergraduate a PhD educated personal tutor and a maid/servant, and it would be cheaper. There is a Yale administrator event horizon at which the mass of administrators at Yale within the confines of the Yale campus will form a black hole from which light cannot escape. If current trends continue, this will happen by the year 3622.

But the original piece goes from that to talk about shared libraries in software development, and Baruth says:

Being Locklin, of course, he goes on to do the math and show his work on it. The remainder of the blogpost consists of a terrifying journey through the shared library crisis, in which I once again find myself accidentally aligned with a brilliant man; for most of my life in tech I busted my hump to make sure I compiled stuff with static binaries, even if it cost more time and resources. I didn’t have a genuine philosophy behind it, as Scott does. Rather, I was just trying to make more money. Shared libraries always resulted in me doing more work after the fact, and since I generally charged flat fees for programming gigs, I didn’t have any interest in doing more work.

You know, I from time to time try to build an application, but I do it in fits and starts. I get something working, and then I come to a frustration point and put it aside for a bit (or a year), and then I come back to it or do something else with Node.js or whatever framework, and something needs updating, and suddenly nothing works at all, and libraries are out of date, or what have you. Which becomes another frustration point….

You know, in test automation frameworks that I’ve built, I’ve written the code mostly myself, relying on other libraries as infrequently as possible. But it’s not really possible any more, no with the current frameworks. Which is why I have not built myself a billion dollar company on an idea and some code written overnight while amped up on coffee. The frustration of modern frameworks, and the fact that I’m lazy.

As you might know, gentle reader, especially if you read John Kass as you should, the moutza is a rude Greek gesture of dismissiveness. Although I’ve often wanted to throw it at someone who offended me, I did not actually make that gesture as a response to anything until last night.

My beautiful wife is spending a lot of time volunteering with various boards and entrepreneur organizations. She sits on the park board, helps to organize presentations for an entrepreneur organization, and whatnot.

A new local tech organization is trying to become a thing, and it is looking for members to sit on its board. So she thought she would apply. Only after filling out most of the elaborate form did she discover it comes with a $5000 financial commitment.

She sought some clarification, and apparently, it’s $5000 each year of the 3-year term. You don’t have to pay it yourself; you can raise those funds or your employer can pay it for access to other expensive executives at the large tech companies in the area.

Yeah, so we had a whole family moment of education in Greek culture and the meaning of Feesah etho.

You know, if you’re on a corporate board, they pay you a bunch of money to basically show up quarterly and gab. Local public and citizens’ advisory boards are volunteer positions. School boards are elected positions. But, apparently, sometimes boards are just a fundraising tool and/or a super-set of more expensive networking opportunities. Which is not for me. I’m not the best networker when it’s free. I’ll be durned if I’m going to pay used car money (at least, used car in years past money) every year to put board member on my resume.

I mentioned in passing that an acquaintance floated our names for participating in the local YMCA board; my beautiful wife, apparently, had a more detailed conversation about it with our acquaintance and learned that it, too, might require a financial commitment. But you know what? I am already a member of the YMCA and a supporter of the annual capital campaign. I know what the YMCA has stood for historically and the programs it offers to people who might need some help. So I am not ruling that out.

I am ruling out a similar structure in place for what’s essentially a business organization, though.

Which isn’t to say that I will eschew the organization. Although I haven’t yet spent the hundred or two bucks annual fee to join (it’s less expensive to mingle with the climbers, apparently), I might, and I’ll probably attend some of its events. But five thousand dollars a year to nominally work for them? Nah!

Also, I should point out that now that I have started giving the moutza, I shall probably do it a bunch. And I will take pride should I catch my children making the gesture. Unless it’s at me.