Unintended Consequences

Charles E. Wilson, the president of General Motors in the 1940s ... as told that if the money in such programs was invested in the stock market, workers would be the owners of American business in a few decades. "Exactly what they should be," he replied.
'An Empire of Wealth' - John Steele Gordon
....

To all the frickin' geniusi at the Financial Accounting Standards Board who changed the accounting rules for employee stock purchase plans back in 2005 . . .

Thanks for nothing, guys. Yes you had your reasons

Statement 123(R) will provide investors and other users of financial statements with more complete and neutral financial information by requiring that the compensation cost relating to share-based payment transactions be recognized in financial statements.

but unintended consequences will happen.

In my case, the discount for the ESSP changed from 15% to 5% to conform to safe harbor standards, employee participation dropped (surprise!), and well golly gee it is not cost effective for my employer to continue the plan.

The peasantification of America continues with reckless abandon.

The Continuing Rise of the McService Economy

Holy crap - more jobs available in Bushitler's Amerikka. Not only for hourly wage slaves but for professional folks as well. From HR . .

Refer a friend to our Professional Job Fair next week, and if we hire them for any non-exempt or exempt level position in the Fox Cities, we will give YOU $500*!!

By next week they mean December 4th. By 'Fox Cities' they mean 'North East Wisconsin'. By exempt or non-exempt they mean

• Engineering
• Supply Chain Management
• Technicians
• Finance
• Production Management
• Project Management
• Training
• Leadership Development

By 'give (me) $500' they mean you have to use me as your referral source and you have to work at least 91 days.

Did I say it was cold here? By cold I meant 'refreshingly brisk'. And by brisk I meant 'cold enough to cut right through eighteen layers of clothing. But it's work, right? If you've got money you can pay the fargin' heating bill.

If you need a job and like the idea of working for a mid-sized company with a global presence that is profitable and run well .. give me a shout.

The Man from Hope

Bill Clinton displays a startling lack of awareness . . .

On Iraq, he told the crowd that wealthy people like he and his wife should pay more taxes in times of war. “Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers,” Clinton said.

There is no end of worthy charities supporting the troops. If you want to pay more on taxes the IRS is not going to return the money. C'mon, Bill - I'm from Oklahoma and even I know this stuff.

Oh, wait. Was that code for 'I think y'all should pay more taxes'?

Dang, he's crafty.

The Life and Death of Jesse James

This is long but worth your time. .. The Life and Death of Jesse James - An internet love mystery.

Jesus, that’s fucking insane.”

“You shouldn’t judge,” says Tania.

I beg to differ. This is why we have judgment.

It's got everything - love, deception, emotional rape. Plus, in a minor but key role, Harlan Ellison!

Get my gun

If this guy shows up at my door . . .

"Hello Freedom Lovers. Do I look happy? I am happy."

I won't be responsible for my actions. Creepy guys who sound like they've teleported in from a UFO cult make me itch.

Cart Before Horse

Rocky Persaud knows what space startups need.

Capital? D.D. Harriman? Tax breaks? A market?

A business accelerator.

This would be an organization that mentors new space entrepreneurs from startup and seed-stage through to its first angel investment and beyond. It would provide expertise in management, finance, accounting, product development, marketing, and perhaps some research services as well.

Maybe. Rocky is a smart guy and he's done more in the biz world than I have. And startups in this industry are cursed by having pesky capital concerns - you can't sit down with a laptop, write code for a few months and hey presto build a rocket.

For that matter I have some interesting ideas on how to wedge IT into the mix.

Still ... this seems like one of those deals where the drover is putting the cart before the horse.

...

And yet .. if this does take off y'all could use a good IT pro or two .. call me, eh?

Consuming seed corn

Hey, Jeff?

I dunno, man. I’d like to see us go to Mars as much as the next guy, and probably more than most people. But I can’t see us even attempting it until we’ve spent at least a couple uninterrupted years on the Moon,

Keep dreaming. Obama wants to gut NASA - the Federal agency that gets the smallest portion of the budget - to finance pre-school programs.

Sure he's just one guy but he's popular and hell, he might even win the general election. The rest of the Democrats ... well they simply have not gotten around to noticing NASA yet is all.

Wrong Address

He wrote back and apologized for sending pics to the wrong email address. Also it was a five pointer.

Now if only he'd sent the venison to the wrong address ..

Happy Dance

I'm doing a happy dance ...



Work doubled the amount of memory on my laptop. Life is good.

Drill Instructor

Let me tell you about my Senior Drill Instructor.

Throw out your preconceptions; Staff Sergeant King was not R. Lee Ermey, he was not Jack Webb.

What he was was the eptiome of 'Marine Corps SNCO'. He walked the walk. He talked the talk. He led by example.

He was the most unusual SDI at MCRD. Platoon 3099 was a herd of non-marching diddy-boppers, going into third phase. This was clearly unacceptable and if we kept it up we'd embarrass ourselves.

How bad were we? At one point SSgt Q. called out a command. First and second squad heard 'By the Left Flank .. March'.

Third and Fourth squad heard 'Column Half-Right . . March'

So .. ya. The platoon is rapidly marching away from itself. In front of a brace of Captains and a clutch of Majors and Colonels. I was in First squad and had a perfect view of SSgt Q's face. I thought his smokey-the-bear hat was going to pop off from the pressure.

We were pretty bad.


SSgt King brought a metronome in and installed it by the DI Hut, had it on 24x7. Soon we're all marching around in time in the barracks. My dreams were in time with a steady 'click-click-click'. He borrowed a bass drum from the band and had a pair recruits from the sick, lame and lazy section out beating on it while we drilled.

But they could not carry it around (sick, lame and lazy) so they stood in one place, beating away while we marched around them.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM .... BOOM .... BOOM

"FASTER!"

BOOM.BOOM.BOOM .. BOOM .. BOOM

"SLOWER!"

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM .. BOOM .. BOOM

"JUST LIKE THAT!"

I don't have a lot of fond memories of boot camp - it's not summer camp - but that scene is one of them. Thanks, SSgt King.

Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

Good Morning, Oracle Application Server

You know it's going to be a long day when .. after a restore you crank up the ol' Oracle application server and see ...

# opmnctl status
Processes in Instance: agile.redacted
--------------+-----------------+---------+---------
ias-component | process-type | pid | status
--------------+-----------------+---------+---------
(skip)
OC4J | home | 0 | NONE

'NONE'? Ru-oh Shaggy.

This did have a happy ending - the first thing I did last month when I started the upgrade was to un-deploy the application. One long deployment later and things were humming along.

Closed Minds and Crabby Wretches

I've been disemvoweled. And at all places a SF blog. Isn't the point of Science Fiction exploring new ideas and being open to foreign ideas?

From their 'Communications 101: How to Argue Effectively & Respectfully' page

In general:

* respect
* sense of humor
* no pissing contests
* respond to the content not the speaker

This is what I wrote - italics hers, normal print mine. From my perspective it looks like Ide Cyan violated at least three of their general rules. I was writing with respect, a gentle sense of humor and I certainly was not going to engage in a pissing contest with a pseudo-anonymous feminist on her own blog.

The only displays of affection seen between them, however, were a brief kiss on the cheek and a squeeze of the arm, and Cain smiling at Gina during a dinner party.

That’s reasonable considering the position Cain is in - she is (was? time travel and flashbacks confuse me) the CO of a warship - they’re not supposed to play sexual favorites. PDA is a huge no-no between subordinates and the boss.

she, too, was dead by Razor’s end,

A character this interesting is going to be back. Sure, we ’saw’ the basestar blow up but .. death for some in BSG is not forever (hello, Starbuck).

Good thing BSG only has one more season. If this show went on as long as we want it to the place would get as cluttered with resurrected characters as the Marvel comics universe.

she had been the one who’d first shot the civilians on the Scylla, per Cain’s orders.

It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it. Shooting first would be out of character for Fisk - but he’d contribute after the fact and then go on a bender. Having one of the Marines do the job wouldn’t convey the same emotional punch.

To recover from it, the show had better have some sort of positive depiction of a lesbian or gay relationship in Season 4. That is my demand, Ronald Moore! Do you hear me?

Careful what you ask for - it could go too far the other way and then we’ve got ‘Torchwood’.

‘Torchwood’ is good TV but it seems to be less a show with gay/lesbian/etc doing cool stuff and more all about their gay/lesbian/etc issue and oh by the way they just happen to do cool stuff that demos their LGBT issues.


and

Don’t pull a slippery-slope argument about homosexuality on TV *here*.

Don’t mistake friendly argument for hostility, hey?

I‘m only slagging a show, not engaging in rhetorical fisticuffs .. or whatever it is you think I‘m doing.

If you want an echo chamber of agrement, then I‘ll rmove this blog from my feeder and never darken your door again.

Except Gina was a civilian, so, oops! there goes that excuse.

Gina was on board before the attack in a role that I‘m assmnging was ‘civilian contractor’. When they’rre assigned to navy ships here and now they fall under the authority of the Captain, if not the UCMJ. The Colonial Fleet is modled after the US and British Navy the writers are familiar with.

So there goes your smack down of my excuse.

and

Disemvowelled

Charmingly childish. Still .. your blog your rules.

It is a nice blog and I enjoyed reading it. I‘m confused as to why you’d have a blog and then discourage polite and reasonable conversation.

So it’s without malice and with a little puzzlement that I'm pulling your feed from my reader. You won’t miss me but closing your blog off from minds that don’t strictly conform to your world view seems weird - the whole point of SF is to broaden your mind, nu?

If people spew hostility and rage at random passers by who don't agree with their party line they shouldn't wonder why most of us find them humorless and crabby wretches.

Turdy Point Buck

To the person with the Verizon cell phone from the 419 area code who sent me the pictures of someone crouching at the head of a buck . . .

• Congratulations!
  
• Who the heck are you?
• The resolution sucks on the pictures - how many points?

Title hat tip.

Horse Soldier!

A music reviewer I ain't; read at your own peril.



What to say about Corb Lund's 'Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!' except that I like it a great deal. It's country music for people that don't like country - it ain't a bit Boot Scoot Boogie and Lund has a way with music and lyrics . . .

I tried my best to stop them, yes, I tried to make them wait
And I appealed to their decency show mercy on this day
I issued them strong orders on pain of death and disarray
But in the end they would not listen and raised their lances anyway

Men of no account they were, their breeding crude and low
With not a trace of wisdom, Grace or virtue in their souls
Yet trained them long and hard I did to bend them to the crown
To act as tools of justice, follow edict handed down

You see these were not militia men, a-fighting for their homes
Nor fathers, sons nor husbands, sire, but foreigners on loan
Mercenary killers, career soldiers to a man
Lashing out with vengeance one cannot accept or understand

I could not instill the discipline 'twas duty to inspire
And they responded in the end to instincts of the basest kind
Now on my knee before you here, I drop my eyes in shame
Albeit little consolation take my head for I'm to blame

O, so spoke the leader on losing control

~ A Leader On Losing Control

Now, I'm not an English Lit major and I know ol' Rudyard is not well thought of but ... that would not be out of place in Barrack-Room Ballads, nor would this, if Tommy Atkins were from somewhere south of the Mason Dixon . . .

I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war
I wanna good steed under me like my forefathers before

Courageous at first we took their worst, our positions we held stout
We clung to belief and we hung on the speech from our trusted leaders’ mouths
Overwhelming odds and a hopeless cause and our cities overrun
There were them that said we was badly led and God were we outgunned

I lost count of the worthy mounts that from under me were cut
My favourite mare with her head in the air took the cannons in her gut
In the first two weeks on that bloody creek my brother lost his arm
Was only sixty days till all we prayed was get us home unharmed

~ I Wanna Be In The Cavalry: Reprise

So .. ya. Country music for people that don't like country.

'I Wanna Be In The Cavalry' on YouTube - click here.

Pumpkin Pie

Little Monkey has never had pumpkin pie before last night. He tried a bit.

He liked it "except for the top crust - the orange stuff was mushy and didn't taste good."

Winter

It was a little chilly here last night . . .

Math!

Turkey Algorithm from 'Making Light'

Says Jon:

“For a turkey of greater than ten pounds, the roasting time should be equal to 1.65 times the natural log of the weight of the bird in pounds, cooked at 325 F.”

If you’re not a person who normally calculates natural logs, go to Google. Say you have a 20-pound turkey. Type in natural log 20 and hit the search button. Google will tell you that the natural log of 20 is 2.99573227. Multiply this by 1.65. The result will be 4.9429582455, or five hours.

Math is cool and all but I like my wife's method:

Cover the turkey with something. What that is is not divulged, but it's critical.

Oven to 350 degrees.

Cook until the bird's meat falls off the bones.

This is not precise - my brain demands to know exactly how long this all takes and she can't really say beyond 'when it's done' - but I can't argue with the results: yummy.

Black Friday

My wife, on Black Friday

You'll have to offer me better than 30% off to get me out of bed that early.

Sleep

"Night is when the competition sleeps."

From Nivi

BAM

Nothing says 'get my gun' like the thought of a 8 foot long scorpion.