A Portrait of the Dumbass as an Old Man

Three Day Weekend

Man, I was ready for the time off. It was funny, I was interviewing a guy on the phone Friday evening, I was asking him did he want to stay technical or did he want to be a manager? He replied, all the developers he knew who had moved into management were totally bored and frustrated, so he thought he would stay technical. Amen, brother! 100 e-mails a day, with conference calls, meetings, planning documents, is just so damn boring. I miss softwareland so much. You lose yourself so completely in the code, it is so zen. It's definitely too bad that senior management pays so much more :-(

Finally read a Charles Stross novel that was totally up to the potential of his short stories, "The Atrocity Archives". It's short, only 180 pages, with another 60 page piece with the same characters following. It's basically Dilbert meets H.P. Lovecraft. The portrayal of corporate life is so over the top, it is a great read, but pretty geeky. Man, the introduction to this said that after years of trying, his books are all getting published now, it appears to be definitely true. I have another new one of his on the shelf, just went to Amazon, there is another new novel of his out and another coming in July.

Downloaded the new Wallflowers, "Rebel, Sweetheart". Very listenable, 3 stars. Listening to "Shaman", by Carlos Santana, as I write. The followup, in the same format, to the excellent "Supernatural". I had heard/read it wasn't as good, but I am enjoying it a lot, probably 4 stars.

Blogged a while ago about the uniqueness of oxygen in the scheme of life. Last month's Scientific American had an article on suspended animation that said that in the pre-oxygen years, H2S, hydrogen sulphide, took the place of oxygen. H2S seems like it would take the place of water, but I guess not. Anyway, H2S seems to induce a hibernation state in lab animals ...