rare bird

I finally finished reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman . His basic premise is that technology and free trade have allowed domestic companies and developing nations to compete on a previously unknown scale. There isn't a lot to disagree with about his opinion, and there are some interesting anecdotes about how Mexico is outsourcing to India and India is outsourcing to Sri Lanka. Overall, though, the first 400 pages of the book are a complete review of what I thought was common knowledge. You mean IT is being outsourced to India? China is churning out computer science graduates ten times faster than the U.S you say? This shouldn't be news. If this book really is "a must read for today's CEO", as a friend of mine says, then those CEOs should be slapped with a fish for being hopelessly out of the loop. Throughout the book, I felt that Friedman failed to find a single voice of dissension. Everyone he interviewed agreed with him wholeheartedly. I can't b...

The follow up to Mary Poppendieck's Lean Software Development is available online as a review copy. The original book led to a lot of changes in the agile software community. I find myself giving the book to both developers and managers. In my opinion, it is still the must read book about the software development process. Plus, it is good to see ex-3M employees make a mark in the world. Each chapter is a seperate .pdf file... I like to print them out double sided and make one big binder.

Pity the Gelth. I felt like a Gelth this morning, thanks to my nearly six-month old daughter, who woke up at 1:30 AM last night. And I thought she had settled on a schedule already. Silly me. BTW, this link has nothing to do with "The Unquiet Dead," the episode featuring the Gelth, but it is what you get if you Google "pity the gelth" and it is a fun Dr. Who acecdote of kids reviewing how scary the program is. The kids refer to the Gelth, though it's in a different episode.

A story about a Minnesota WWII pilot that reminds me of the song by James Taylor.

This sci-fi television series forms some of my (and VM's) fondest childhood and teenagerhood memories. It disappeared in 1989. It has been re-generated :) so if you're clueless about it, Wikipedia gives you ample chance to catch up.

Sometimes popular myths about a famous figure—such as the legend that St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland—can obscure that person's real accomplishments. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, The Teaching Company is proud to present Professor William R. Cook in a lecture that provides historical context and background to the biography of this 4th-century Christian saint.

So Google may use MSFT technology (.net) to present a word-processor (to compete with Word). Either that's inexplicably bizarre, or it shows just how inter-dependent the technosphere has become.

I know it's lame to just link to what other blogs are saying, but sometimes the content is so compelling that I have to do it. I especially like how Frank points out that it's not the case that the western system is entirely bad and the Asian system is entirely good; rather, each are good at different stages of the game. I've always been interested in education as a subject - now that I have a daughter, it jumps to the top of my concerns. Let me also say while I'm here that the bloggers at Microsoft are producing some of the most nteresting stuff out there, and it's not at all about standing on a particular soapbox. MSFT employees are genuinely interested in all facets of work and life, and have interesting things to say.

I just finished reading Jeff Hawkin's On Intelligence in about two days... which is fast for me. I read Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines a few years ago and I still think that is a better introduction to computer AI and the future, but this is definitely a good and thought-provoking book. Hawkins defines intelligence as the ability to predict the future based on analogy from the past and goes into depth on how the human brain does this. I feel it's a refinement of neural networks more than a rejection of them, but I'm no expert. I'm just a guy that like non-fiction.

Scroll down and read the section called "If God were a computer programmer". Some of these are pretty funny!

One of my managers at the company I work for has told me we need a furniture solution for our software testing lab that gives us lots of space to place hardware, and increases the tech look of our lab. The AnthroBench fits the bill!

I'm too excited not to share this with pretty much everyone I know. I released the first version of the open source project I've been working on this Winter. It is a Java port of a time tracking tool that I use to track my time at work... plus I made some enhancements. Check it out . I'm proud yet ashamed of myself for spending all my nights and weekends coding.

The end of the year is a good time to reflect on what has happened. It's also a good time to reflect on the end of other things, such as this world.

They spam!

Every Monday, NPR promotes the series "This I Believe," originally done by Edward R. Murrow. (BTW, if you haven't seen Good Night and Good Luck, go see it right away.) Can you encapsulate what you believe in five minutes or six paragraphs? (Before you say no, think of the Apostles' Creed.) This particular story resonated with me, as does Murrow's original introduction to the series. What seems to be most important is that it is belief, not doubt, that defines who we are. (Unless you're Penn Jillette).

It is more important to gain full comprehension of one test that it is to have a surface understanding of many tests. Step through one test, and watch its progress, to understand how an application works.

File under shameless self promotion cross referenced with pointless vanity project. The journal of my month in China this Spring is online. Hope you can read my handwriting... and have decent bandwidth. I was there working from February 20th to March 20th. Quite a time.

It doesn’t, at least not at first. They are two separate, yet related experiences. The knowledge of God can come about without Scripture; the knowledge of Christ cannot. At the same time, they are not in completely different realms. The link between the two is the Holy Spirit, who is a Person in the Trinity, and who speaks to us of God’s existence in our experience. Through Scripture, he speaks to us of Christ. If you read the gospel of John, and/or the letter to the Romans, the link between your experience of God and the reality of Christ is made manifest through listening to the Holy Spirit. After that, the reality of Christ begins to be proven to you through your experience of Him, just as the reality of the Father was proven to you through your experience. But experiencing Christ is somewhat different. You are made aware that God is personable, not merely an overwhelming force. You can speak with God; this is the beginning of prayer. You can speak with God and are not bl...

My wife had an interesting comment on the Supreme Court yesterday. She said that she approves of the Court being the ultimate arbiter of legislation, because of its supreme competence. She said she can tell by watching Roberts that he is a competent man. I told her that his nomination probably means that the Court will overturn decisions that have struck down legislation from the states, returning the decision-making process to the states' Supreme Courts on important issues. She said she would not want this to happen. I then asked her if she would rather have a Court that overrides the decisions of Minnesota, giving decisions she did not agree with, rather than a court that defers to Minnesota, that would give decisions that she would agree with. She said she would rather have a court that decided to strike Minnesota decisions down if they thought it necessary. She said the Minnesota Supreme Court is less capable of making competent decisions than the national Court, because the ...

Your original Thomas Kelly post was by far the best posting on your blog. I've always thought this was strange (and always kept it to myself) but the only thing that makes me believe in the presence of God is scattered clouds on a sunny day. In fact, today I can look out the window of my cube and see just such a cloud. But I have a question for you that I have struggled with for some time... if these are the only time that we feel a divine presence then how does that equate to the "secret heart of Jesus". To me, I don't make the jump that Jesus has any place in my spirit. He was a tremendous historical figure and I'm a little embarrassed to admit how often the words "what would Jesus do" offers me guidance or helps me form an opinion (which by no means says that I actually follow up on those thoughts, I'm also embarrassed by how often I do exactly the opposite). But I can't rightfully say that I'm a Christian when I don't believe in one ...