Kev

I have to say, I’ve noticed that flickr hasn’t been the same since some "optimization" changes to the databases were applied in mid-january. in addition to a few outages, which weren’t so irritating, the contact update issue seems to be getting progressively worse. I’ve noticed it’s gone from 1-3 hours to update some contact to 3-4 days. that seems like fail to me.

the admins are aware of the issue, and I can appreciate the scaling fun they must be hitting, but this is starting to get a little stupid. it’s frustrating more than anything, because there are folks I chat with through comment streams when they update.

I’m hoping they fix the problems sooner rather than later. a couple hour delay is fine, but days is silly. right now 40 contacts of mine are out of date, out of 148. one of them hasn’t updated in over a year, which surprised the crap out of me. most are over a day behind at this point.

I’m not calling for heads (like you’ll see in the forums), but it would be nice if the admins did more than say "don’t worry, we’re working on it, but it’ll be a few more weeks". I’d like to understand what the problem is, and if they fucked it up royally in january just say so (or if it’s purely a scaling issue).

anyways. sad-making.

dear apple: about goddamn time.

there’s been an issue with macbooks and macbook pros where the first character you type gets ignored. apple’s release note states it happens when the machine comes out of an idle state, but I’ve also noticed it (a lot) on window focus changes as well.

shaver let me know this morning that the fix was in. I bitch about it a lot in IRC, because typing “eh” instead of “heh” sends the entirely wrong message.

I’ve applied the fix, and it seems to have done the trick. now I’ll have to find something new and improved to drive me nuts.

oh, also note – you must exit sw update for the firmware updater to run. sw update only downloads the installer, and the script won’t run the installer (which doesn’t require a reboot) until you exit.

my new work is kind of funny, because I’m constantly referred to as an enterprise/corporate guy. I have worked for some very large organizations, but for the most part have been self-employed or employed by a company with less than one-hundred people.

I have, however, worked with a large number of behemoth-sized companies over the last twenty years. I understand how they work, and to a large extent why they work that way. that doesn’t mean I like how they function, nor want to work that way.

I sometimes act a little corporate, because I think some process is better than none, and that there are some great concepts/lessons/examples/people that come from those environments. those processes and lessons can be integrated into an open environment, it just has to be balanced such that it helps rather than hinders. it’s a very tough balancing act, but it can be done.

I got this shirt after finishing a stint at a canadian telco that sucked my soul and tried to kill me dead. while it didn’t succeed, it taught me some very important and painful lessons, and I never want to work in an environment like that as anything other than an agent of change (read "consultant") ever again. shareholder value over quality product, employees, and customers is something I can never get behind, because it builds nothing but resentment, and can break everything else apart in no time flat.

so it’s funny to me when people call me corporate or enterprise, because I always think of this shirt.

I really don’t think I look anything like the corporate zombie… I sure hope I don’t, anyways.

I have been organizationally challenged all my life. I’ve been able to get away with it, up until now. My current job involves juggling a few hundred balls, and I’ve dropped a lot more than is acceptable, and most of the drops come from not being properly organized. I needed – and still need – help.

David Allen has an organizational system. It’s called Getting Things Done (GTD).This organizational system is popular with a ridiculous number of people. Some of them swear by it so rigidly you could probably accuse them of being zealots. They scare me. Thankfully, most of the people who praise his system are normal folk, some of whom I respect a great deal.

So I’m trying it. It’s essentially a way to rewire procrastinator’s (like me) brains and force them to deal with things right freaking now, and then move on the next thing and deal with it right right freaking now. You can put things on the backburner, but you have to keep checking them to make sure they’re not forgotten and burned.

Basically, you deal with what can be dealt with immediately right away, schedule what can be dealt with later, and toss that which is really not related to you. Oh, and you track everything. It’s a little more complex, but that’s the gist.

I’m starting to understand the cult-like following, but hope I’ll never be a zealot. It’s a great foundation thus far, and we’ll see how I feel about it three months in instead of two weeks in. I can already see a few tweaks I’m going to make, but as a time management foundation, I like it. It gives you a sense of accomplishment, and a method to deal with all the balls up in the air without letting them crash.

I’m noticeably (to me, anyways) more productive, and feel a lot less scatter-brained. Fingers crossed.

The book is available from Amazon or Chapters, and I like using Remember the Milk and/or Behances Action Pads for task tracking.

I like dr. pepper. I also like the vanilla cherry dr. pepper. I have no taste, I know, but I like it, so there. I picked this up at loblaws today thinking it was cherry dr. pepper in new packaging, because really, no one sane likes that shit, and they’re always dreaming up new ways to make their product more marketable.

it wasn’t new packaging, and dr. pepper played a cruel, cruel trick on me.

look at those cherries, and you’ll see them dipped in something brown. they don’t look so much like cherries as they do testicles in brown sauce. if I had to guess, I’d say this is the taste the marketers were going for, too.

it wasn’t cherry dr. pepper, it was chocolate cherry dr. pepper, and I didn’t notice it until the first, heinous swig. thank god there was whiskey on hand to wash the taste away.

dear dr. pepper dudes and dudettes:

that was very, very, very, very wrong and mean of you. I would really like to know who the idiot in marketing was who thought this up (although my bet is on Larry, who probably thought the berry dr. pepper was good too). please beat them for me, because I almost barfed.

also, send pictures.

yours craptastically,

kev

dear everyone else:

avoid, avoid, avoid. remember chocolate bubble gum? yeah, it’s like that, but with the added bonus of sickly sweet cherriness. blargh.

flightstats.com results are now available when you search for your flight number through google. this gives you a quick way to check on your flight (or the flight of someone you know) without having to hit up the carrier sites and navigate (in some cases) through their slog.

to use it, you’ll need the two-character airline code (i.e. AC for Air Canada, UA for United, CO for Continental, etc.) and the flight number. enter it in any google search window/bar, and the current status of the flight for the day you search on it will be returned as the top result. kinda handy.

here’s an example

Johnny Lee continues to demonstrate just how cool the hardware behind the wii can be with his demo. Well worth checking out, and do watch the whole thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw