Cogito, Ergo Sumana

# (1) 06 May 2008, 10:43AM: RIP, Mildred Loving: Mildred Loving, freedom-to-marry activist, has passed away. Forty-one years ago, Mildred and Richard Loving and the ACLU paved the way for my marriage to be recognized everywhere in the United States. Thank you, Mrs. Loving. In commemmoration, a repeat link to a related column of mine.

# (3) 04 May 2008, 09:42AM: Tips, Modesty, and The Magic Word (Julie Andrews): My sisters-in-law have started putting longer essays and tipsheets on Associated Content (Susie, Rachel) . Susie writes mostly tips for domestic productivity and happiness. I especially like Susie's tips on beginner sewing projects using scrap fabric and reusing old, worn-out clothes, and her lists of tips on useful things to keep in the car, starting a meal swap group (a.k.a. once-a-month megapotluck), housewarming gift ideas, and setting up and maintaining a cleaning schedule. Now I just have to follow through!

Rachel's living in London, which led Susie to write up tips for reducing an expatriate's loneliness. Rachel mostly writes expat- and traveler-themed articles, like tips on planning a backpacking trip, a pros-and-cons piece on using guidebooks, and gift guides for expats and itinerants. This November, I'd like to use Rachel's tips for succeeding at NaNoWriMo. And it was neat and exciting to read her citizen reporting from the Democrats Abroad presidential primary.

Sadly, not all the stuff on Associated Content is as useful and cool as my family's work. Women have posted creepy Bible-related comments on an article on the history of pants in women's fashion. I never understood why skirts were more "modest" than pants until I read these comments. I'd figured: it's easier to have sex while wearing a skirt! Wouldn't pants, which would need to be removed, be more modest? But no, these women inform me: the lines of the leg-tubes draw the male gaze right to the forbidden area! They know where it is! They can't help but think about it! But wait, isn't mystery sexier? Wouldn't men actually obsess more over the invisible, unknowable skirt-covered crotch? Ridiculous.

If these women want me to wear skirts, they should turn their energies towards convincing mainstream America that God gave all his children leg hair and never meant for half of them to constantly battle it.

As long as I'm talking about my sisters-in-law, I should mention that Rachel recently recommended Lying About Hitler by Richard Evans and saw a stage production of The Sound of Music. Rachel, I saw a home-taped video of the film a zillion times when I was a kid, and I must have always fallen asleep around the wedding. When I was a teen, I then actually saw the ending with the escape and was like, "Oh! So it was all about Nazis!"

Also, when I was five, my mom took me to try out for a local stage production of The Sound of Music as Gretl, the tiny daughter. I said the lines Gretl had said in the movie instead of the lines they were giving me for the play. I didn't get the part.

# (2) 03 May 2008, 04:43PM: Done(ish): Thesis: defended! Poker faces of judges: studied.

Now, two more finals, then DONE.

# (2) 03 May 2008, 07:04AM: Elegance: I figured it out. I woke up and thought about it and invented an opening and closing for my presentation today that's aesthetically satisfying and that uses meaningful, non-cliched analogy to get the crux of my idea across to the judges. Now to practice to ensure I can deploy it well at 10:55.

This is great. This is the heart of yes. I've been reading a lot by my role models recently, especially Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Rachel 'goop' (techwriter) Chalmers, and Dr. Rivka. And even though I know they have their moments of despair and weakness, I couldn't help thinking, "This is how they feel all the time!"

# (0) 02 May 2008, 09:00PM: Litmus Quest: "But is it art?"

"Well, it must be art, because it has an obnoxious Flash interface."

Filed under: Comedy

# (1) 01 May 2008, 09:41PM: Sportswomanship: Just the facts, mostly; more facts and story. There's a parable here, along the lines of the story of walking with Jesus and leaving footsteps on the sand.

# (0) 01 May 2008, 05:02PM: Musings: On a colleague sitting alone in a conference room with low lighting, sternly focused on his laptop screen: "He looks so hard-core in there. Like he's checking checkboxes in a web app to decide who to kill."

Filed under: Comedy

# (1) 01 May 2008, 07:55AM: Designed For Me: The Crooked Timber folks talking about the skill of management.

One point in that discussion: communication of academic concepts to non-academics requires serious empathy. Gotta work on that. In fact, gotta work on my presentation in defense of my master's thesis, which is this Saturday around 11 am.

# (2) 29 Apr 2008, 08:14AM: This is Ridiculous: MyDomain, a.k.a. 000Domains, treats my domain, brainwane.net, differently because I registered it more than five years ago. So now I have to call them up or suchlike to renew the thing. Blah. What registrar are reasonable people using these days?

# 26 Apr 2008, 10:08PM: Acting As If: As a matter of course I wish to direct you to http://del.icio.us/leonardr/sumana for random links I run across while dallying on the Web. Example: the hilarious "I consume, but then analyze!" which is by the alternate universe Sumana who got into makeup as a teen. A few additional notes:

Leonard and I and everyone else I know who's gone have superlatively enjoyed MoMA's "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibit, which closes in two weeks. Go if you can! I especially liked the phone handset, the oxygen generators and air purifiers, and the paper alarm clock, and the instant furniture video and artifact blew me away.

Yesterday I put on the new suit and visited the client for the first time as their project manager. The cubicles, corridors, and cafeteria sent me back to Silicon Valley during the first boom, specifically my tech writing internships at Exodus. After I got home, when I was changing into sleep attire and folding my business pants over a chair, I remembered folding my dad's gray and navy pants over hangers in Mom & Dad's tiny walk-in closet in Stockton, all those years that he worked at Caltrans on PERT analyses. For once bumping into the past was comforting. This isn't new. My dad did it and I can too.

I'm thinking of adding myself to this list of women who welcome invitations to speak at conferences. I'm ruminating on an eminently conference-y IT analogy right now: software development is more like agriculture than it is like manufacturing.

Now, to work on cost-benefit analysis, then watch the original Bedazzled for free on Hulu.

# 24 Apr 2008, 04:08PM: Cleaning the Lint Screen: Twelve inches does not seem very long, and yet a twelve-inch sandwich is pretty big.

My marching band CD is helping me work and keep my mood up. I wonder why I find marches less annoying than techno.

Today's Starslip Crisis was hot enough to warm my cheeks, which surprised me! So if the lack of eros is all that's stopped you from reading it, you should start. If you liked Firefly then you'll like Starslip.

My classmate's wife just had a baby girl. He came to class and showed off a picture, and people congratulated him. No one said, "too bad, maybe it'll be a boy next time," or anything like that. I wish every new daughter in the world got that treatment.

# 23 Apr 2008, 03:27PM: Questionnaire For Vendors: We got a demo of a fancy new web-based software tool -- project management, task tracking, bug tracking, collaboration, Agile, Extreme Programming, a singing, dancing, iterating revue. I know a little something about the tradeoffs that creators of collaboration tools have to make. So I could ask pesky questions like:

Do you host it, or do we have to? If the latter, what sort of server, database, etc. do you recommend we set up? On average, how long does it take a customer of yours to set that up?
What's customizable and what's one-size-fits-all? For example, does using your application require that the user fill out certain fields for every task, and does the administrator configure that? On average, how long does it take a customer of yours to choose and configure the customizable parts? (You can't have both off-the-shelf and customized.)
What's performance like? (Unfortunately, to check their reply, you have to play around with an instance or installation that has a lot of data in it. See if the vendor has a trial version that comes with sample projects.)
What browsers do you support? (If you have people in your organization dedicated to Opera or Konqueror or iCab, see if the creators of this app have even heard of them.) What versions? (Watch out for IE7 and Vista issues!)
If someone assigns a task to me, how do I find out? Email? RSS notification? Or do I have to keep this web application open all the time to find out whether I'm the bottleneck keeping us from meeting our commitments?!
What's not so great about your application? Related: When do you recommend we not use your application? (I answered this honestly when I worked sales, so I want a straight answer when I ask it. Salon.com wasn't for those who can't stand reading on a screen, or have no free time. FogBugz wasn't for secretive organizations with six levels of security, or time-rich, money-poor hackers. You'll gain credibility and customer satisfaction if you're upfront about who's not your target market and why. If you think you've made the One True collaboration tool, perfect for all niches, then you need to get honest with yourself about the architectural choices embedded in the product you're selling.)
What do I lose in switching to your tool? (Example: you'll lose the tactile intuition of the index cards you use for Agile planning. You'll lose the ability to destroy code or documentation without leaving a trace. But that's worth it because...)
What decisions does your tool make easier?
Does your product integrate with...? Twitter, SharePoint, Subversion, FogBugz, AIM, Outlook, Microsoft Word's Track Changes, iPhones, BlackBerries, Asterisk, Basecamp, TickSpot, Crystal Reports, Time Machine? And if the vendor says yes: How does the integration work? (Example: If half your staff have iPhones, then check whether "integration" means "the site works on iPhones" or "iPhone users can use a special iPhone-optimized version of the site." If you use FogBugz, there's a difference between "we'll email new issues into your FogBugz installation" and "the site makes extensive use of the FogBugz API.")
How do I get ALL my data OUT? (Best answer: "You always have access to all your data in [common, open-protocol format] and can export and archive it at any time by clicking this link." If you don't want to act like you're already thinking about lock-in and the endgame, just say you need regular archives as part of your backup system.)
What's your upgrade history? When was the last upgrade, and when is the next one? (Check this, the release notes, and whether an ecology of plugins exists around the tool.)

I don't think the vendor liked that I was asking these questions. I got the nervous-laughter/"That's a very good question" combo twice. Good sign.

I can come up with more such questions for vendors in case anyone feels like lengthening their checklists. Share yours in the comments.

# 23 Apr 2008, 09:15AM: Anti-Grumpiness Tips: Peppy music (e.g., Barcelona, certain campaign/labor/war songs), handball in the morning breeze, getting documents written and sent, working outdoors on a beautiful spring day.

# 20 Apr 2008, 02:53PM: Stretching: During yesterday's class, as part of a puzzle-solving team, I wrote a Python program and a comic skit. That was really nice.

# (1) 16 Apr 2008, 10:59PM: Last One: Fictional Celebrity Jeopardy?: If you miss Spamusement, then spamuse yourself by guessing the subject lines that led to these comics.

Speaking of trivia quizzes, Leonard and I played this periodic table quiz and some other quizzes from that site last night. We missed embarrassingly many elements, no planets, no states, several countries in Europe, and just a few early Presidents. How could we forget Monroe!? He had a Doctrine and a great campaign song!

# 16 Apr 2008, 09:20AM: Transfoooooorm!: I now grok feedback I've been getting from my superiors for weeks. I need to improve my listening skills and help other people feel comfortable in difficult discussions. Time to reread Carnegie!

# 15 Apr 2008, 09:41AM: Quarter-Baked Ideas: Leonard's daily conference call just now sounded like You Look Nice Today. Thus, I thought of an idea for another comedy podcast: a parody of a daily or weekly conference call. Think The Office.

Also last night I thought the five Pandava brothers would make a good boy band.

Filed under: Comedy

# (1) 14 Apr 2008, 12:35AM: Escapism: I can't wait to be done with school so I can travel, see friends, get back into How To Design Programs, and generally relax and catch up. Near-future plans of this type include:

Yay visitors!
Dara lives here now! Sorta.
Sam and Adan are getting married! Here and not in Singapore, for which I thank them.
Mom and Nandini are coming to see me graduate in May!
I've bought my ticket for the Franciscan retreat at Covenant Baptist June 6-7. That weekend I'll also get to see some of the Walches represented in the crummy.com blog community, two of whom will visit us in NYC later that month.
Visitors? I hear? Yay?
And the ten-year high school reunion will take me back to Stockton in mid-June.

I would rather plan funtimes than think about cost-benefit analysis. Evidently I would also rather take constitutionals with my husband in the lovely weather, watch Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, and Arrested Development, start putting together a slideshow from the Broadway walk, and read Trollope and Lem. Maybe I can use my revealed preferences as an example in the term paper.

# (2) 10 Apr 2008, 08:25AM: Trivia, Drugs, And Profit: Yesterday, in the back of the M60 bus coming back home from Columbia, I overheard a group of people discussing hair, phones, cable companies, the wireless auction, etc. I offered a factlet about rotary dial phones and how area codes got assigned initially, and before I knew it they were asking me whether I freelance. This reminds me of two other stories.

First:

An acquaintance of mine was at a party. She met someone and started talking. "Do you freelance?" he asked. "Sometimes," she replied. He pulled out some cocaine and offered to share it with her.

So now "freelance" is a back-formed analog of "freebase"?

She said, "no, I meant websites," and basically begged off with "thank you, you're too kind, I couldn't possibly."

Second:

One spring day at UC Berkeley, I went to an engineering career/internship fair in Pauley Ballroom, in the MLK student union, just upstairs from the Open Computing Facility. I got professionally branded swag from the professionally staffed booths with the professionally made banners -- Intel, Microsoft, and companies that are huge or defunct now, all blurred together in my memory. Then I saw a space that looked empty, except for the fact that two people were sitting there, and index cards were taped to the front edge of their table.

The cards had tech acronyms and abbreviations on them: VoIP, DNS, HTTP, and so on... and RTFM.

I looked up from decoding them all and said, "RTFM?!"

One of them said, "You're the first one who's noticed."

And that's how I got a tech writing internship that summer.

# (2) 08 Apr 2008, 11:36AM: Words Flagged As Misspelled: in an email I just sent:

DTs, SEs, Meetup, WebGrrrls [actually WebGrrls], LinkedIn, WTF, hackathon, Twitteriffic [actually Twitterrific], miniconference, nametags, MoMA, PMing.

I wonder if you can deduce what the email was about.

# (6) 06 Apr 2008, 10:29PM: 19th Century Slang Help Request: I'm reading Trollope's autobiography and need help understanding this passage:

The [clerical] critic, however, had been driven to wrath by my saying that Deans of the Church of England loved to revisit the glimpses of the metropolitan moon.

What's a "metropolitan moon"? Ever since I heard that you can anagram "subtext" to "butt sex" I feel slightly more foolish for assuming things I don't understand are about sex, but -- is this about sex?

Cogito, Ergo Sumana

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