Top 10 Things You Probably Shouldn't Attempt to Do All at Once Especially at This Time of Year

1. Move in the Winter.
2. Move in the Winter -- with you doing much of the work yourself along with your trusty hand-truck.
3. Redesign the website at work while everyone's off on vacation -- and you ought to be schlepping boxes.
4. Embark on a 2nd ambitious web project before the first one is complete (see above).
5. Install that brand new copy of Adobe's 'Master Collection' (CS5) even though you know you could probably do without it for the next week or two.
6. Assess your hardware and software needs for the coming year and try to order everything before the end of this year.
7. Warning! Warning! Your health insurance plan is no longer any good since (1) your primary care physician (PCP) is retiring and besides (2) the medical group he worked for (Rush Medical) is no longer available through your crummy plan (BCBS IL HMO). Either you pick a new plan before the deadline or you'll automatically be enrolled in...
8. Is there a smart phone out there that's caught your eye? Well, if not, you'd better start looking since your 2 year contract with AT&T is about to end and if you don't get a new phone now, AT&T will make you wish you had.
9. Here's an idea: Why not just sit on your butt and try to think of 10 things you should be doing? That way, you'll avoid doing anything at all!
10. And finally, just say 'What the hell', throw a party and invite everyone you know.

Goodbye Cruel World

I think I’m going to jump off a cliff -- the lords of platitude have won: http://tinyurl.com/3yndb62

In a Perfect World (Adobe Acrobat Ed.)

So I'm reading about 'Reembedding Fonts in a PDF':

"In a perfect world, all parties which contribute to a regulatory filing would properly embed fonts. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world . . . there are times when you may need to embed fonts as a post process."

First Snow

Hey, San Diego and Tampa: Eat your hearts out! (Corner of Fullerton & Kenmore, just outside of DePaul's Richardson Library).

Berlin, Oct. 3, 1990

 

I remember the ceremony out in front of the Reichstag very well. The flag was raised and they played 'Deutschland, Deutschland'. It was the culmination of events that had started a year earlier with the opening of the Berlin Wall (11/9/1989) and the upheaval all over Eastern Europe.

This date has always had personal significance for me. I had been in Europe by that time for 10 years (Paris, Rome, Berlin). The reunification of Germany represented a new beginning. I had known the old way: the two Berlins, the Wall, the crazy lovable nut-house ('Bonnie's Ranch') on one side and the police state on the other.

That was coming to an end -- and thank God it was -- but the new beginning prompted me to think about what I was doing and where I wanted to go.

I got into an airplane and flew back to the United States the next day.

Humanities -- the Salvation of Technology?

Being an English major, it's nice to read reaffirmations such as this one by Daniel Paul O'Donnell in The Edmonton Journal, called 'Humanities, Not Science, Key to New Web Frontier':

"Engineers and computer scientists are not the only ones who have played important roles in building our new digital economy; students of the humanities and social sciences have played an equally significant role."

It reminds me of the time when two Business librarians asked me what it takes to become a programmer and I replied, a knowledge of English poetry.

That said, I've never been a fan of 'all one way or all the other'. I've seen too many ambitious initiatives go sour because the people implementing them simply lacked the technical chops to figure out whether they were headed in the right direction or whether the product just recommended by their vendors was worth its high price.

So although I still think a knowledge of English poetry is perfect preparation for programming there still is the part about learning the programming -- or the systems development or whatever technical aspect is required. Hearing that you don't need one or the other is probably a sign that you should go elsewhere for advice.