Those of you in the USA, I'd like to encourage you to express your support for a proposed update to the minimum wage and overtime rules which raises the exemption threshold. Industry groups are mobilizing to oppose this change, which would protect low-wage employees from being required to work unpaid overtime.
Tags:
I encountered a New York Times Magazine article about the "Hollywood Model" of employment, in which an ad-hoc team of specialists is assembled for a project and then dispersed on completion; the article suggests that this will become a more dominant mode of employment in the future. It's an interesting article, but I'm not sure I agree with the degree to which they predict the ascendancy of this model.

Meanwhile, at work, my colleagues and I have been struggling to resolve "integration bugs" in new products. These are the problems which arise when individual pieces of a product or design appear to work when tested on their own, but because specifications are pretty much always incomplete and architectures are imperfect, don't quite work perfectly when brought together in a system. Some such problems make themselves felt immediately, but others can be subtle and sneaky, surfacing only under extraordinary circumstances.

Specialists aren't good at figuring out integration bugs. They require a holistic understanding of a system, and a significant strength of my company is that we have a fair number of bright people who have been there long enough to have not only deep understanding of their own specialties and broad understanding of the company, but significant understanding of the systems we work on. The Hollywood Model doesn't seem to allow for that, and so is vulnerable to integration bugs.

I don't think that every kind of work lends itself to managing integration bugs on the fly or to specifying every element exhaustively, so I think there will be a place for the "Corporate Model", in which people form a structure which remains stable across projects, for a long time yet.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (slicktory)
( Aug. 1st, 2015 10:26 am)
Nufonia Must Fall was a weird and wonderful show: it was in fact a sci-fi movie, being created live on stage. There's a matinee at 3 today, so you can experience it for yourself. I don't know whether he's going to come out after and spin tunes in the lobby, as he did last night, but he might. Kid Koala spinning "Moon River" at midnight in a high school lobby as part of a chamber music festival is pretty far out!

One thing that struck me was that most of the audience was around my age and up, with lots of non-mainstream folks in evidence; nobody I knew, though. I did, however, see a fox dart out of the parking lot and across a road as I headed back to my car, rounding out a remarkably wacky night at the end of a really hectic week.
Tags:
ironphoenix: Raven flying (Raven)
( Jul. 27th, 2015 01:31 pm)
Anyone interested in joining me for Kid Koala's show at (believe it or not) Ottawa Chamberfest this Friday night? Tickets are $35, general admission; show starts at 10:00 p.m. at De La Salle H.S. downtown.

Kid Koala is a Canadian turntablist with a jazzy, storytelling vibe. For this particular show, he's teaming up with a string ensemble and also a visual performance group. I expect that it'll be weird but wonderful!
ironphoenix: (gull)
( Jun. 18th, 2015 01:00 pm)
Cape Breton was friendly, interesting, pretty, and tasty, but also distant and a bit chilly.

(Gee, that makes it sound like I'm talking about something other than a vacation...)

The drive to get there and back was long. Overall, we put in more than 4500 km of driving, which is a bit much.

The weather was mixed, with a few wet days. The temperature ranged from the cool end of comfortable to pretty cold: there were still snowbanks here and there up in the highlands. Where the wind was off the water, the temperature was distinctly chillier. In retrospect, bringing several pairs of shorts was perhaps unduly optimistic.

Cape Breton had lots of variety of land- and seascapes, with mountains, cliffs, meadows, bogs, beaches, taiga, streams, and lakes all vying for attention. We did a fair bit of walking and driving around, as is our usual habit on vacation. Aside from that, we went on a boat trip to look at seals, puffins, and other seabirds, and also visited Fort Louisbourg. We ate lots of good food, especially seafood: lobster, fish, scallops, shrimp, and some utterly amazing snow crab. Our favorite B&B of the four we stayed in was The Yellow Sidecar on the west coast; highly recommended.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (slicktory)
( May. 17th, 2015 07:00 am)
I passed my shodan (first-degree black belt) test in aikido yesterday, after about 15 years of practice! I'm still in Montreal for day 2 of the seminar where the tests are held, feeling a bit stiff and sore from the 5 hours of practice yesterday; it'll ease up once I get back on the mats and moving, and I have tomorrow to recover.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (bookgasm)
( Apr. 19th, 2015 10:46 pm)
I just finished [livejournal.com profile] truepenny's novel The Goblin Emperor, and loved it. There are not enough novels about good people, I think. Not that everyone in the book is good--saccharine doesn't appeal to me any more than anyone else--but it allows for the possibility of goodness, where too many other books suffer from an excess of cynicism under the guise of realism (see Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!). It's not a fast-paced or "active" novel (in contrast to, say, Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series): conversations and thoughts consume the pages, and their material consequences generally occur off-screen. The general flow was good, although I will admit to needing to stop now and then to get my bearings amid a fairly vast array of names, some of them very similar to each other and/or long. For all that, I found it quite absorbing from start to end, and recommend it highly. I hope that it finds some awards worth winning, too!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (I love my work)
»

3/4

( Mar. 20th, 2015 02:59 pm)
Three of four new circuit board designs completed on time or close enough as makes no difference (no change to delivery date of assemblies), and the fourth well under way, despite late-breaking changes to the specifications for all of them. It's been a busy week for my little band of merry men.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (blast of happy)
( Mar. 1st, 2015 08:14 am)
Memes on LJ... who could have imagined! [livejournal.com profile] beable tagged me with a 'B'.

Something I hate: Bullying. I'm pretty sure I inherit this from my dad, who was always a firm believer in using power to help and protect those without it, to the point that he and a few others would go bully-bashing when he was a youth.

Something I like: Booze. I've never really been drunk, but I enjoy the many tastes and varieties of alcohol a great deal.

Somewhere I've been: British Columbia. The most time I spent there was a few weeks on a Basic Officer Training Course (Hell) (acronym BOTCH), which I can't say I enjoyed much, but I've also been there on a couple of other more pleasurable occasions: a visit to Simon Fraser U and a vacation in the Okanagan Valley. I want to go back and visit Vancouver Island someday not too far off.

Somewhere I'd like to go: Baffin Island. Speaking of expensive vacations, this one's a doozy. Still, I really want to visit Canada's high north. I've been past the Arctic Circle, but that was in Finland, not in my own country.

Someone I know: Bill, a colleague who took a bullet in layoffs a couple of years ago, and whom I still share a beer or a game with now and then.

A film I like: Blade Runner. It's a visually beautiful movie that brings a lot of moral complexities out into the open, plus Vangelis' soundtrack for it is awesome in all senses of the word.

A book I like: Bloom County. I got into this thanks to [livejournal.com profile] soul_diaspora; it's classic politically charged humor which, at its best, spreads its lampooning equitably in all directions.

As usual with these memes, ask me and I'll tag you with a letter!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (bookgasm)
( Feb. 26th, 2015 10:46 am)
How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps An interesting and affecting story linked from [livejournal.com profile] metahacker's LJ. TW for suicidal ideation.
Tags:
Dimanche, ma mère et moi sommes allés à l'avant-première du film “Astérix - Le Domaine des dieux”, grâce à un tirage à l'ambassade de France. Ça a bien valu la peine de m'y inscrire: le film est un très bon rendment de l'album BD de 1971. C'était fidèle a l'esprit de l'original, mais avec assez de variation pour garder l'intéret d'un fan qui l'a lu maintes fois. La plupart des gags ont bien viellis--l'avantage d'une oeuvre situé à l'époque de 50 ans avant J.-C. Les effets 3D ne sont pas exaggerés, donc même ceux qui sont susceptibles au vertige pourront l'apprécier.

English )

I write seldom in French, so this was an opportunity to practice!
ironphoenix: (I love my work)
( Feb. 18th, 2015 10:31 am)
I've spent the past hour at work going back through emails and closing off lingering issues. I so seldom get a chance to do this that I'm wondering what I'm forgetting about that I should be working on instead.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (gull)
( Jan. 17th, 2015 04:41 pm)
We have a European Goldfinch visiting our balcony birdfeeders. The default assumption is that he's an escape from domestic captivity, because its natural range isn't exactly close to here, but it's acting wild, hanging out with a mixed flock of Common (American) Goldfinches, Redpolls, and House Finches, and it arrived with an Arctic air mass. We're hoping that experts can establish its subspecies from pictures, because if it's from a Northern one (rather than, say, the subspecies particular to Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia), it might be judged a genuine wild bird way out of its range.

If so, the trickle of interest we've had for visiting our viewing area may get rather more substantial!
Tags:
Thursday, my ankle was sore; yesterday, I was having real trouble walking, so I made an appointment with my doctor. He diagnosed it as tendinitis and prescribed an anti-inflammatory for 1 to 2 weeks, which is working very well; I expect I'll be back at aikido on Monday, although I'll try not to be too hard on it. This is much better than I expected, which was to be off it for a couple of weeks!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (flaming)
( Jan. 4th, 2015 07:00 pm)
Alex Feinman on the stupid "rules" our society foists on guys. Snarky, hyperbolic, and very pointful.

An excerpt:
Man Rule 1. If you don’t show it, you aren’t feeling it
“Men aren’t allowed to have feelings.” This is, of course, inaccurate—men are allowed to have feelings, provided they show them in some sort of caricatured, over-the-top way. If they don’t show it, they aren’t really feeling it.

Angry? You have to smash something. Punch a wall. Shoot your TV. Hit someone. It’s justified: you were angry.

Upset? You can’t cry; that’s for sissies. Get really drunk and wreck your car. Glower into the darkness smoking your cigarette, making sure everyone *sees* you glowering and brooding.

Attracted to that woman? Better make sure you tell her. In fact, be ridiculous about it, invasive and over-the-top. Stand outside her window and throw rocks, or yell, or hold a boombox over your head. Buy a thousand roses and scatter them all over. Wolf-whistle at her and call her names. Bitches love names.
The analysis shows how this relates to homo- and transphobia, too.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (gear)
( Jan. 3rd, 2015 04:30 pm)
In (faint?) hopes of getting a bit of discussion...

What's up with the Canadian non-Conservatives? Is there any hope of the parties putting their differences aside enough to work together in any significant way, or will they spend next election taking potshots at and stealing votes from each other? If they were to work together, how could they do so?
Tags:
Reflection for 8-9 November, 2014
Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Text: Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; Psalm 46; 1 Corinthians 3:9b-11, 16-17; John 2:13-22.

Dedication of the what? Preaching with a DIY element. )
Tags:
ironphoenix: (blast of happy)
( Sep. 19th, 2014 08:26 am)
Ganked from [livejournal.com profile] zenten on G+, Panic! at the Disco covers "Bohemian Rhapsody"; I think they make it their own.

Ganked from [livejournal.com profile] goldsquare, An outstanding display of driving skill. The first little while is kind of ordinary, but then, a bit past the half-way mark, it gets incredible--the kind of thing one expects in CGI, not IRL.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (pirate)
( Aug. 29th, 2014 09:21 am)
There are stones which appear to push themselves around a dry lakebed in Death Valley, but nobody has caught them at it--until now.
Tags:
Here are a couple of experimental results from FaceBook: one person Liked(tm) everything for 2 days; another person didn't Like(tm) anything for 2 weeks.

LJ doesn't have a Like(tm), +1(tm), or other such general-purpose one-click response option, so we have to, brace yourself, use our words here. This is rather likelier to involve thought, but it takes more effort--effort which people hooked on FB/G+/etc. are unused to putting in. As a result, we get less feedback here than we get on other shiny social media (even though the feedback there is ultimately less genuinely connected), so we post less here.

It's frustrating. The marketers are winning, because we are, more than we like to admit, creatures of reflex and habit, and those things are very manipulable. The only defense is mindfulness: awareness of ourselves, our instincts, reflexes, and habits, and claiming our power of choice.
Tags:
Reflection for 9-10 August, 2014
19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Text: 1 Kings 19:9, 11-13; Romans 9:1-51; Matthew 14:22-33

Walking on water--or not )
Tags:
Tinfoil hats are so last year; check this out!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (academia)
( Jul. 30th, 2014 12:34 pm)
This article illustrates core problems with corporate personhood pretty well.
ironphoenix: Raven flying (Raven)
( Jul. 15th, 2014 02:08 pm)
LJ notifications appear to be down at the moment... if there's something you're looking for a reply to, please comment here!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (pirate)
( Jul. 12th, 2014 07:55 pm)
It's been a pretty stereotypically surburbanite day... lunch and shopping at the Carp Farmers' Market, more shopping at Pesto's Deli, Jojo Coco, and a hardware store, a bit of gaming, weeding the back lawn (there were some pretty impressive bull thistles growing there, up to well past 4 feet) and dinner cooked on the BBQ. Well, the organic pork chops were cooked on the BBQ, the organic greens went into a salad with an Italian dressing made with fancy olive oil and balsamic vinegar from the deli, and we warmed up the organic dark sourdough bread in the oven.

We so yuppie.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (gear)
( May. 4th, 2014 09:29 am)
A couple of gifs for your entertainment:

Basketball fakeout

Tire roll
Tags:
ironphoenix: (academia)
( Apr. 30th, 2014 11:02 am)
Chameleon vine imitates host plants; mechanism unknown. (Ganked from [livejournal.com profile] theweaselking.)

In other plant news, the walking palms apparently don't actually migrate by growing new roots as they are alleged to... it made a good story, though.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (wake up call)
( Apr. 28th, 2014 08:53 am)
I just read an interesting book review of C. Wright Mills' White Collar: The American Middle Classes. The book was written over 60 years ago, but the article is fresh, and makes me keen to read the book. The article highlights some of the issues we white-collar folks contend with and how the Mills anticipated them; I can recommend reading at least that much!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (I love my work)
( Apr. 3rd, 2014 11:27 am)
The Expert: a 7.5-minute comedy sketch depicting something which is excruciatingly familiar to most tech-employed folks. Neither [livejournal.com profile] soul_diaspora nor I could watch it all the way through on first viewing, so painful was it.
Tags:
ironphoenix: (I love my work)
( Mar. 20th, 2014 04:51 pm)
Dark Dungeons is coming, a movie based on the famous graphic novel!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (gull)
( Mar. 19th, 2014 03:11 pm)
We're safely back from Costa Rica!

Lots of fun, lots of rest, some good food, many, many birds and beasts, lots of reading... not a cheap vacation, but memorable! A few highlights:

* A couple of full-day birding tours with Johan Chaves, a very friendly and skilled guide; by full-day, I mean that he picked us up before sunrise, 05:30, and dropped us off after sunset, after 18:30. We saw all kinds of birds; [livejournal.com profile] soul_diaspora will likely post a list soon. The macaws and toucans ("the Froot Loops bird!") get lots of attention, and are certainly good to see, but there are many, many less well-known ones well worth seeing.

* Dining at Rancho el León, a great little restaurant close to our resort (about half an hour's walk) which had very good typical Costa Rican food at quite reasonable prices, and a very friendly owner to boot.

* A ziplining outing to remember at El Santuario, with 9 lines in and above the jungle canopy, several so long that the end couldn't be seen from the start (the longest was almost a mile), plus some very neat cable bridges.

The bit of Spanish I learned through Duolingo came in quite handy... I generally didn't need to carry a phrasebook, between the bits of English many folks spoke and my rudimentary Spanish.

And now, back to Canadian weather, work, and laundry... pictures may appear sometime, as a follow-up!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (slicktory)
( Feb. 28th, 2014 02:09 pm)
I'm off to Costa Rica on Sunday morning with [livejournal.com profile] soul_diaspora!

We're going for two weeks, staying at a timeshare via my parents near Quepos. There will be nature-watching, ziplining, sailing, snorkeling, and lots of general relaxing. We went 15 years ago on honeymoon, and this is our first time back. I gather things have changed some, modernizing a bit; it'll be interesting to see.

I expect to be pretty much internet-free while we're down there; don't shut down LJ while we're gone, m'k?
Tags:
ironphoenix: (headpiano)
( Feb. 25th, 2014 12:44 pm)
So, here's the meat of a Bill that has passed the legislature in Arizona, and is up to the Governor for approval or veto:

B. Except as provided in subsection C of this section, state action shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.
C. state action may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if the opposing party demonstrates that application of the burden to the person's exercise of religion in this particular instance is both:
1. In furtherance of a compelling governmental interest.
2. The least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
...
F. For the purposes of this section, "state action" means any action by the government or the implementation or application of any law, including state and local laws, ordinances, rules, regulations and policies, whether statutory or otherwise, and whether the implementation or application is made or attempted to be made by the government or nongovernmental persons.

This Religious Freedom Bill gives people the freedom to do pretty much anything in the name of religion. Oh, and by the way, in the definitions section, "'Person' includes any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution, estate, trust, foundation or other legal entity."

If this doesn't get vetoed, I'm not goin' to Arizona anytime soon.

Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] goldsquare for drawing my attention to this!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (wake up call)
( Feb. 24th, 2014 01:26 pm)
This is an important thing: The Department of Justice Public Consultation on Prostitution-Related Offences in Canada.
On December 20, 2013, in the case of Bedford v. Attorney General of Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada found three Criminal Code prostitution offences to be unconstitutional and of no force or effect. This decision gives Parliment one year to respond before the judgment takes effect. Input received through this consultation will inform the Government's response to the Bedford decision.
This is your chance to influence a socially significant law... speak up!
Tags:
ironphoenix: (flaming)
( Feb. 24th, 2014 01:15 pm)
The kenjutsu seminar was about as intense as expected, with lots of fine-tuning of things we knew, and also 3 katas (traditional scripted sequences) new to me, 2 with shinai (split bamboo sticks wrapped in leather, designed to allow safe impact) and one with jo (a stick about 4 feet long; in aikido, we use a hardwood one, but for kenjutsu, it's made of bamboo and is thus whippier). The visiting instructor is extremely clear, giving specific tips addressing many of the difficulties I and others were struggling with. The jo techniques are especially tricky to practice safely, since it's often wielded one-handed in broad, whipping sweeps and spins; still, we managed to get through the weekend without injuries.

Tonight and tomorrow will likely be my last martial arts classes before leaving for Costa Rica... by then, I think my body will appreciate the rest!
Tags:
In a couple of weeks, one of the folks I met in Edmonton last year will be coming to teach a kenjutsu seminar here in Ottawa. The schedule is rather more substantial than most of our aikido seminars, which run 6 hours spread over 2 days: this one will have almost twice that over the 2 days. I will likely do most or all of it... wish me luck!
Tags:
I was a bit taken by surprised at how well this one went over... I thought it was a bit less tightly written than I like, but quite a few people were moved by it enough to tell me about their reactions. However often I do this, it always feels like a risk: I'm never sure of reaching people. Perhaps this one addresses the soul of my parish in a way it needed right now.

Anyway, without further ado, here's my reflection on the salt of the Earth and the light of the world. )
Tags:
.

Profile

ironphoenix: Raven flying (Default)
ironphoenix

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags