The Law of Productivity

We're all aware of the fact that as your expertise and payscale increase, the amount of actual work you have to do decreases. I might call this the "First Law of Productivity".

Therefore, at some point you are being paid a very lot and doing next to nothing.

But what happens after that?

How can you get paid any more? In order to follow the rule, you must do less, and you are already doing the least you could without expiring- although decomposing might count as an action.

I figured out how, today.

Once you are high enough up in your career, and making a fortune, the way that you can do even less is to, by proxy, do less through other people, by causing them to not be able to get their job done.

Interrupt them.

Micromanage them.

Give them the plans and instruction for their new project which is so backwards and retarded that they look at you like your head might be made entirely out of cheese.

Be a manager. You'll get so little done, there's no telling what you will prevent from happening!

Lookout replaced by "Windows Desktop Search"

Microsoft has a fine tradition of buying up good ideas.

They have grabbed several cool things in the last few years, Lookout (an outlook search indexing tool) and pstools (a toolkit for administrators) being a couple of them.

Well, Lookout is no longer available on Microsoft's site. You have to go dig up the most recent version (1.3) off of other people's archives if you want it.

All that you can get from MS right now is "Windows Desktop Search", and if my initial use of it is any indication, it is not remotely based on Lookout.

Lookout was roughly 2.5mb installed, WDS had a 5mb executable install file (I uninstalled it, so I don't know how big it was installed, but you can bet it was larger than 5mb). File size means something because SMALLER means LESS JUNK. It may also mean less options, less power, etc. But if a 10k application can do the same thing a 1000k application can, you have to ask why.

Lookout installed in about 15 seconds, and began indexing my entire mailbox when I opened Outlook. WDS fuddled around on install and seemed hung, and then added a new, gigantic toolbar 'search' section to my desktop. It finished indexing pretty quickly, and was not able to locate a single item in my inbox.

Lookout found and displayed my results very quickly. WDS never worked (out-of-the-box is how all software should work) and so it's history.

Lookout may be a one-trick pony, but it does what it does well.

WDS is yet another pile of non-functional garbage from Microsoft.

Thanks for tanking a great app, Microsoft! I already have backups of all the pstools files, so, when you go and wreck them and replace them with gigantic, slow, poorly designed crap, I'll have them to fall back on.

The True Haters

What is the worst thing we can do to each other in this world, this life?

Certainly rape, murder, kidnapping, slavery, torture- these are high crimes, and easily recognizable, easily punished (boctaoe).

What, beyond these obvious crimes, do people do to each other which is truly unforgivable?

Lies? We all lie. We lie every day, we lie in our actions, we lie in our intents, and we decide not to think about it. We go in to work and pretend we plan to stay when we know shortly we will quit. We look people in the eye and say "I'll be there," when we know we will not. We do these things because we are human.

Disloyalty? Just another kind of lie.

Theft? Most of the time, things do not change our lives. We change our lives. We may get angry or upset, but we are not ruined by theft.

Hate? I would have to suggest hate is our weakness. Our worst trait.

Why do we hate? Do we hate weakness? Difference? Likeness? Strength?

A hateful thieving cancer has grown and become resident in my wonderful country. It takes and takes and claims all the while it is a benevolent and righteous friend of all.

This disgusting entity is a conglomoration of gigantic multi-national corporations and our very own government. This includes the media.

If the every day doings of our government were reported by the media, it would not be long before even the most staunch supporters of the war and the administration would be looking for their torches and pitchforks.

But these things are not reported.

A crime is not being called a crime.

Our justice system is defunct.

Our congressmen, senators, representatives- they are all part of the game or they are all too pitiful to stick their heads out of the holes they are hiding in and say something.

The fine and noble leaders of our country are a bunch of pussies.

And they're sending us off to die.

And our hard earned dollars, given to this cancerous glob, are being spent several times over, such that many generations of United States citizens will be in debt for just this mere 8 years of global crime, mayhem, and profteering.

Were our politicians not pussies, were our courts not jokes, were the media useful and upright instead of tired and worthless- these criminals would be punished and sentenced to a quick hanging with no appeals.

Because that is what they deserve.

They deserve to receive the full brunt of the legal system and a quick and tidy execution brought upon them by the fully restored legal system, and they deserve to have their assets relinquished to try and cover the debts to our citizens they have created, and they deserve nothing more. No recognition. No mention of their lives. No consideration for human weakness.

There comes a point when your own human weaknesses matter not at all in comparison to the magnitude of the harm, suffering and death you have wrought. And we are well past the point of 'sorry' covering it now.

It takes people like me, willing to stick their neck out and rile the ugly moronic beast to come and harrass them for being uppity.

I hope there enough people like me out there, but sadly I fear there aren't many like me.

The true haters are out there, and there is no way to pin down who they are. They are beyond our reach. They are nebulous board members, politic-ers, deal makers, back-scratchers, and they will get away with it most of the time, or else we wouldn't be where we are now, with an illegal war and a globe all frowning in our direction.

I hate, and I am not happy about it. In most cases hate is something you can live with. Well. I hate the lying, theiving, murdering, disloyal people who have taken my fine country hostage and are slowly killing it off.

Oh, I think I hear the black helicopters now. See you all at Guantanamo.

Giant Bicycles part II

My bicycle story is long and mostly uninteresting.

Previously on 'Giant Bicycles', we found that a not-very-used $1000 bicycle had broken, but that it was under warranty.

The saga continues.

Bike 'n' Hike, here in Portland, Oregon, has done a spectacular job of attempting to remedy the situation for me. They looked into my issue (bike bought in Japan, warranty not valid here), and in the end, they went the extra mile and got me a very good deal on a replacement frame for a bike of similar specifications- a good-will deal they were under no obligation to offer.

In the end, though, the frame arrived and rather than a couple hundred dollars worth of upgrade parts (to cover the ones from my old bike which would not fit on the new frame) the total was going to come to more like five hundred dollars.

So, in the eyes of the bike shop, that's $300 for the frame, $500 for the other parts = $800 for a bicycle which retails for around $1300... and that translates out to a great deal.

However, in the eyes of this here guy, that's $1000 for the bike which shouldn't have broken so easily... plus $800, or a grand total of $1800, which is MORE than a $1300 new bike.

At this point I am inclined to pitch myself on the floor and throw a fit. Possibly with hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing.

The bicycle dealer has really been five-star on this issue, but I just can't justify $800 for another damn bike which I hardly use.

However, there is one solution. I am going to Japan next year. I will take the bike with me and drop it off for repair, in person, and leave them the address to ship it home to.

Problem solved. Well, except for that 'no ridable bicycle until summer 08' part.

The Janitor

There are a lot of jobs people do in the world which nobody would ever want to do.

Janitor is neither a noble title, nor a glamorous one. We're certainly all glad we >have< janitors, but pretty much anybody you meet is not particularly excited to be one.

The list is longer than 'Janitor', but I think this example will suffice for now.

I think there is a category which is similar but most people don't make the connection.

Work which SEEMS glamorous or noble, but which is truly neither.

Could that be?

What could make a job so awful? What if it was your job to purposely lie to people while claiming you were helping them? What if it was your job to undo the work of hundreds of other people such that you are hated by half the population?What if it was your job to steal from the many and give to the few?

Yes, what if you were a politician? You would have to make secret deals and somehow tie them to the 'greater good' in your head so you wouldn't hate yourself.

Can you imagine going to work, putting on a face, and doing horrible things to the regular Joes around you? Pushing through bills which strip tax money which eventually leads to bridges collapsing? Removing veterans benefits while they are still out fighting the war? Privatizing industries so huge pharmaceutical corporations can have their way? Living to create more legal diarrhea such that lawyers will have more to keep themselves busy with? Opening up forests and wildlife reserves so that some political friend you owe a favor to is happy?

I'd rather clean tolets with my bare hands.

Does a single 'good politician' exist? Possibly. I do not see how one could in this day and age. Does the media do a thing about it? No, not until it is quite clear they will not regret it. Does the population seem to notice any of this? It's damn hard to tell considering the only window we have into our fellow man is the television and newspaper, and all we see on there is Nascar, Jerry Springer, Jackass and the 700 club.

So, these loathsome creatures are doing us a favor by taking care of this non-glamorous, non-noble work for us. However, I think they're getting a bit carried away with themselves. Uppity, I might say.

When Diversity is Bad?

Diversity is usually a strength. I'm afraid it may be that there is one case where it is a weakness.

Population and its control.

Take, for example, a revolution.

When a united group of people finds out it is being taken advantage of, and the idea pops into a few people's heads: hey, let's do something about this- the result is a revolution. It is much easier to a.) care to incite your neighbors, b.) point out the global threat, and c.) know you're speaking to someone who cares about the same cause as you- when you're all part of the same cultural group.

The United States of America lacks that. We're too large, and with many diversities. Even within one 'race', there are all kinds of different people- and in most cases these people are spread from one coast to another, and not all living in the same neighborhood.

What does that mean?

Rome was an assimilation of people- when Rome conquered an area, it added the people there to its nation. I think perhaps the reason Rome fell was not people's lack of caring, but their lack of ability to unite and stop their government from being overrun by criminals. And even if that is not precisely the case, I think that is the reason our country is getting taken to the cleaners by corporations and criminal politicians.

Our diversity is keeping us just separate enough that we don't do anything about it. A good question is, though, if that is the case, how do we fix it?