Updates
January 1st
November 20th
November 7th
October 7th
October 6th
- Added small story text to Gandara
and Tibetan Buddhist music file.
October 5th:
October 3rd:
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Opinion
And rants and raves and discussion, when I feel like I have something to
write or a topic is presented to me, thoughts written as they come.
Politika
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Domestic
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Foreign
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Religion
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L: left wing R: right wing A: agnostic F: fundamentalist
My Approach To Work & Software 'engineering'
Because I am about to engage in that flawed ritual of finding employment
again...
- What I like about work: Fundamentally, getting paid. Programming
isn't in my Hobbies section because I am not really that interested in
programming, which is just writing a document in a variation of the
English language, 'compiling' it, and then it does something. What I am
interested in is the 'Something', what the program is meant to be doing or
solving. I am a creative person, and thus, like creating things, or doing
'something' in an interesting way. This attitude, although, I believe is
the opposite of what work is about, point 4 below, but I manage I think to
combine the two when possible. If I can't, refer to point 3. I like a
challenge, it stimulates my mind. I don't like having nothing to do, or
waiting on others to provide me with something to do. Boredom leads me to
point 3. Waiting for others leads me to boredom, because as usually a
Contractor, I am not going to be creative at work with the way contracts
and laws are currently written. My mind and what is produces is mine, end
of story. My best job was with a group of motivated and creative people
who had their own projects outside of work and weren't threatened about
them at work. Management was supportive and didn't mind unorthodox behavior;
to my mind that is good management and if the company had survived (it
didn't have good top level management) I would have stayed there. We
produced, got the job done, see point 4. I like flexibility. However I
also like order and an am ordered person. I like getting on with the job
and completing it as easily as possible. If I don't need to go and learn
some new technology to do something, I wont. I'll use the wheel and get
the job done. I like software patterns: they are creative and the good
ones are flexible. I usually use the same patterns over and over. But
patterns can be misused (anti-patterns). Once when I had to apply a bug
fix to an application what I thought would be a simple change to one Class
file required me to go through an entire over-complicated process of
checking out most of the files and modifying them because an inflexible
bloated pattern was used. I didn't like what I did but I wasn't in the
mood to rewrite the application and waste thousands of dollars doing so;
what I did worked, see point 4. I don't think enough employees look at the
fiscal picture either. Doing XYZ with ABC technology can be cool but is it
really value added? See point 4.
- What I don't like about work: Politics, cliques. They waste time
and money and pitch groups against each other without any benefits from
competitive action. Inaction, boredom, latency. Can't do much about the
last one as every employee in a company increases its latency until in
large corporations the pace moves slowly. That's why I am not a large fan
of large corporations, that and the fact that they don't fit my slightly
left-wing social policy agenda. Big doesn't always mean efficiency or
economies of scale. Working on boring projects, see point 3. People: if I
don't like the people that I have to interact with then I'm not going to
enjoy my work as much, if at all. Stupid HR programs - time wasting in my
book and it takes me away from what I'm doing. My dislikes are fairly
simple but most jobs deliver them.
- Why I usually leave a job: The company destructs; yes three out
of the four 'long-term' jobs I have had have resulted in the company
imploding. Call it bad luck or, as countries I travel to tend to have
civil-wars or invasions, fate, through no fault of my own. My first
company after University had me update its accounting records and I did so
in quick order, showing that the company was losing $1,000,000AUD per
month instead of making a $100,000AUD profit. The second had poor senior
management and as many customers as fingers on one hand, I knew them all
as well, as I also supported the product that I had worked on and was its
technical 'face'. That was the company I liked working at, and although
not liking 'technical support' (writing manuals although I have written
1/2 million words of fiction, and guiding customers through the detailed
setup instructions, mentoring, talking to customers face-to-face etc.) I
was willing to do it for my manager because he'd support me. Boredom.
Boredom of having nothing to do, boredom of repetitive work that is not
interesting. I like being kept busy but that doesn't mean I'm not bored or
interested. When I get bored I look for replacement activities outside
the company. If I'm bored and the company/management does not know about
it then they have already failed their job and it is time to leave. The
replacement activity can be a new job, but historically is a long overseas
journey to lands that can provide me with what was missing in the office,
military hardware and conflict not-withstanding - although being bored in
an office simply can't compare with having an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter
fully armed hovering above my taxi. Employee loyalty has to be earned as
well, being given a job and a salary is not enough, not with layoffs.
Companies and employees, like Governments and People, have a social
contract with each other. I should have been French, during the
Revolution.
- What I think is important in/at work: Primarily getting the job
done because that is why I have been employed. The company wants X
complete and in working order so its business can operate better. I will
produce X myself or as part of a likeminded team to meet those two
unquestionable requirements. They don't care how it is built or why. If it
works properly good, if not, bad. If it is done sooner and costs less,
good. If it takes a long time, or requires too many resources: bad. Whilst
many programmers like to work with new or 'cool' technology or processes
because, unfortunately, resumes are required to have these distractions
from ability, it does come at the company's expense. Software bought, time
spent learning, time spent fixing mistakes. Skills advancement is
necessary, where it is necessary. New technologies that do improve ability
and efficiency should be introduced, but too much is simply Z wanting to
use X to make Y. Communication is generally the maker or breaker of a
project's success, from little things that can delay a release because
another party didn't inform others of changes etc. (which may not have
been in their control either) to political machinations. I found I could
work a lot quicker and resolve problems early by having a dedicated Tester
co-located and when an issue was raised I would sit with him, go through
the problem, return to my machine and make the change I would think
necessary, produce a runnable (not a full build) and give it to the tester
to go through the scenario again. Fixed, I would keep the change and
continue working, and let more fixes be worked into the next release this
way. Proximity and availability is important to all roles in a project,
providing some cross-information/skilling, but best breaking down
position/role barriers - cliques.
- What is software engineering: Something I think does not exist in
most cases. Engineering means structure. Software does not nearly have
enough. Engineering has been around for a much longer time however,
learning how to build bridges, pyramids, domes and towers before the first
computer and program was thought of. I think it is very hard to reconcile engineering
and programming. To my experience programmers are not as structured or
disciplined as engineers and that leads to bugs even in repetitive tasks
(despite repetitive work being boring and thus prone to failing attention
levels). This is a fault on two levels: the education system not stressing
engineering and business practices enough, and the kind of people that
like programming or computers. I don't think of myself as an engineer, I'm
more the person to hand over a drawing of a point-down triangle building
in a swamp to one and say 'make it so'. I am sure that there is a statistical
amount of people who do qualify as Software Engineers however.
Themes
Reflection, broken images of Self looking back from angled or broken
glass.
Masks, how one can be anything else or hidden, interchangeably.
The above two themes are very important and prevalent in my writing and
existence. Throughout kotb, in many of the most important moments for a
character such as times of stress, depression or introspection (the kotb
series is one large introspective work itself). When characters look at
themselves it is almost always through a shattered mirror or a multi-faced
light refactoring glass. A person is constructed from many pieces,
experiences, thoughts, and selves, behaving different ways with different
people and in different situations. Not until the Self sees itself in
reflection can it know all these faces and fragments. These moments usually
only occur at the worst of times however, for when matters are well, there is
nothing wrong, outwardly or apparently, so no need to look inwards. It takes a
conscious effort, meditation, to turn inwards properly when life is well.
There are two moments in kotb novels when reflection occurred that I can
remember well. The first in kotb: Ichi when Vivian
is about to undergo the doppelganger process again. She looks at herself in
the mirror before smashing it, all the shards still retaining her image as
they fall; when she leaves, Serge, sees that her eyes are like someone else's.
For Vivian the moment was of self destruction and reincarnation, to swap one
form for another as a means of preservation. The moment also prophetic as
liberated with a new form, she changes radically - outwardly - but is still
herself, a different part revealed. The second incident was with Satomi, in a
life-collapsing state, staring into a beer stein, more of Her reflected as the
liquid level decreased. Then her life was shattered, falling to pieces, and
there was only inwards and backwards to see, without future. A newly
remembered third incident, also in kotb: ni before
Satomi's, again deals with Vivian. This one occurs in an extremely weird and
messed up set of chapters, as Vivian is an extremely messed up state, where
she merges back with a piece of herself that had been left behind in her
previous doppelganger body and the image is of She reflected on all sides like
she was in a glass corridor and walking down it, but as she progresses the
firstly infinite number of reflections decreases, merging with her, until only
one Self remains. It was interesting and cool to write, what it fully means I
don't know yet. Reflection, seeing moments from many angles, future, still,
past, is the way of understanding a true nature.
Masks have always held a fascination for me; the altering behaviour of
others when someone else arrives or something said, and more than that,
different sets of behaviour or personality. A mask hides the truth, or lets
the truth come out. I can connect the tropic through a series of influences
and likes; starting not at the beginning with the Visual
Kei genre. There (physically dislocated) costume and makeup provides a
Mask, usually creative, sometimes flamboyant, sometimes horrific, in a stratified
society. I am sure that it is because of the Harlequin that I have such a
strong interest. The Harlequin is the performer, always masked, elaborate. The
Mask presents the role of the performer; blank as void, smooth white slate of
nothingness that should invoke reflection of the inward Self. To be nothing is
worse than death: death retains memory in others, existence continuing. Void
is fear, of what is not known, but more of what is known. When there is
nothing else, there is only Self, inescapable. Or featured, the duo-theatre
images of masks Joy and Sorrow, gaiety and tragedy, human emotion rendered as
basically as possible. The Joy of the Mask to make you laugh, the inverted to
ache. Then the more complex and primitive: a leer, a smirk, sharp mocking
eyes, a sideways glance, knowing smile, offering smile, degrees of hate love
and jealousy, a rictus Mask of death, skeletal face, mortality. From the
Harlequin I travel to the penultimate: the Venetian Carnival where costume and
mask are conjoined. Where creativity can be expressed flexibly within the boundaries
of the form. Where the Masks of all types hide the creator and present the
outward façade, which may be the reality of Self that cannot be expressed in
the reality of Life, the largest act of all. I would like to go to the
Carnival at the beginning of 2007.
The Venice Carnival | Venetian Mask shop
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