Month: January 2005

Stupid Stupid Stupid

I’m sorry but this is just cowardice. If you are afraid to teach the truth in a classroom you are a pathetic excuse for a human being. Of course, you’re also much braver than I am for even being willing to face that many young people at once, for any reason.

Downhill Battle are a bunch of fucking muppets who are so enthusiastic about their ideas they’ll never have credibility. Their approach is akin to thinking that rock-throwing and graffiti will actually improve the lot of a political or cultural underclass. Except they don’t even have the excuse of being oppressed in any way. They’re not even starry-eyed idealists. They’re just throwing rocks because it’s cool.

You can read the real story behind the copyright ownership of Eyes on the Prize over at Sharp Tools.

Wingnuts Again

Not sure how I got on this mailing list, but Strait Gate Ministry seems to be sending me notes about how the decline of the dollar is in some way related to sin, and maybe I should invest in gold. It’s the ultimate combination of spam, really: Religious conspiracy theorist financial scams! All I need now is something about how investing in Gold and putting my faith in Jesus will enlarge my coalition or genitals.

Based on Poe’s story The Gold Bug, a “gold bug” is a person who believes that gold is a crucial store of wealth, that is intrinsically valuable, etc. etc. Basically that’s bullshit: gold is pretty, but ever since the publication of “Utopia” we’ve known that’s about all it’s good for. And today, with more gold around than ever, gold is suffering from a desireability problem compared to platinum, carbon-fiber, or brushed and powdercoated steel. It’s just not as cool these days.

For bonus reading: An old Slate article in which Paul Krugman explains the true meaning of the King Midas fable, and why gold is neither a reliable investment nor a sound basis for the dollar.

Dakar Journal

One of the Dakar riders is posting entries from his road diary day by day. Sample:

It was pitch dark when I left the airport, the liaison was going to take us to the Moroccan –Mauritanian border and the special would start once we were into Mauritania. The road section turned out to be a seldom-used dirt piste, and despite the military marking it out with little torches, I still managed to get lost for a while. Fortunately I managed to regain the main track before reaching the border area, the frontier had been heavily landmined during the Polisario disputes and was no place for offroading.

It Doesn’t Love You

They realized it was turnaround time at Dell a few years ago: “I realized that we had created … a culture of financial performance, and a culture of ‘what’s in it for me?’ throughout our employee base,” says Rollins, who this year became Dell’s chief executive officer.

Odd, because financial performance and “what’s in it for me” are exactly what every rational employee should focus on. How Dell got soul? It’s a company. It doesn’t have soul. It can’t. People are forever asking employees to dedicate themselves to companies, even to love companies, and they don’t see the inherent stupidity of that request: the organization does not, cannot, love them back. Why would you ask me to love something that can’t return that love?

Maybe an organization like a religion, which is structured to take care of its members, is worthy of love and dedication. Maybe a union, maybe a university that can award tenure. Maybe even a corporation forty years ago when people believed in job security.

But only a fool would love a corporation today. A corporation isn’t a puppy or a spouse. It will never return your love. It will keep you around until you are no longer useful, and then, like a wild animal, it will turn on you and toss you away. It’s not evil, but love simply isn’t in its nature.

So don’t tell me to think of the soul or culture of my company. It doens’t have a soul and it doesn’t have a culture. It’s a workplace. If my company loved me, “employment at will” and “noncompete” wouldn’t be in my vocabulary. And neither would stock options and bonus pools: those are “what’s in it for me.” So, of course ask yourself “what’s in it for me?” when you go into a job. That’s what your employer is thinking.

Conan, what is good in life?

I still get a lot of search strings for the phrase “Conan, What is Good In Life” so I guess it’s fitting that today I wrote up a plan for world domination. It’s really quite simple, only five pages or so.

For what it’s worth, Conan’s view of what is good in life is “to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.” In contrast, my view of world domination begins with community outreach teams identifying, engaging, and recruiting thought leaders.

This is something like the difference between the US and EU ethics rules. European labor laws specify that your boss isn’t allowed to spy on you, so European divisions don’t have to sign the complicated code of business ethics that our company has for US divisions. However, they still have to obey the rules of general human decency and ethics, though– I think the ethics rules are also generalized in EU labor regulations, or something. US teams sign the code of business ethics and as far as I know obey it to the letter. But hey, I’m in marketing, it’s kind of my job to ignore whatever general rules of human decency aren’t actually spelled out in the rules.

Other excitement: Several of us in the office got together and bought a gallon of chowder to go from Legal Seafood. It came in a giant bag. It was a giant bag of chowder. It looked hideous but it was delicious and high in cholesterol.

The City of Somerville has declared an indefinite state of emergency. It’s like martial law, except it only applies to parking rules.