Barnson.org

Tell me, how in the world do people with absolutely zero technical clue get hired by one of the largest software companies in the world?

Today, I parked my butt in my Kyphosis-inducing office chair to stare blankly at my monitor for another day. But this day was unusual: I had well over 1,000 email messages in my box on a thread regarding our company’s ESPP. Apparently, employees realized enormous “phantom gains” on the stock due to hold times while eating from the employee-stock buffet, and the perky IRS hostess just handed them the bill.

I wish my waistline were “phantom gains”. That way I’d be happy that at least I could blame someone else for global warming.

Now, as far as the email thread goes, this kind of inbox barf-o-rama happens from time to time. I use mutt as my mail reader, and deleting all the replies to a thread which I know I have no interest in is as easy as pressing “o, t, shift-D”. That means “order by thread, then delete the thread”. Yeah, it’s nerdy, but so am I, and so are a lot of other people. Fact is, the nerds won. Deal with it.

Anyway, one of our staffers sent out a very politely-worded email. He explained:

1. How to remove yourself from a mailing list.
2. The proper use of “reply” versus “reply all”. Basically, “don’t reply-all unless you have something useful to contribute to the discussion.
3. A reiteration of “don’t click reply-all unless you want to make yourself look like an idiot in front of 5,000 people.”

His articulate, carefully-worded, brief email elicited the following responses, replied to all:

“remove me” “remove me too” “take me off of this list” “If you want to be removed from this list, this is something you have to do yourself. Log into [our email management tool]… and unsubscribe yourself from the list. Please stop replying back to this list, it is going out to 1000s of mailboxes.” “REMOVE ME IMMEDIATELY!!!” “please remove me from your list asap”

One intelligent response… which basically told them what the original email told them in the first place. Apparently people everywhere see what they want to see, and nothing more.

Where are reading skills? Maybe they need a job with a little less technical focus? Or maybe some good old-fashioned hard work skills. I mean, I know not everybody can have a great job, but come on, if you’re going to work for a software company, don’t have crappy email skills. It’s not like a thousand random emails are going to make you declare email bankruptcy and delete everything to start over.

That’s my rant for the day. Thank you.

I, like Sammy G, owned a Commodore 64 as a kid. This, and its successor, the Amiga, represented the pinnacle of computing evolution at the time, boasting sounds and graphics that no console or PC could hold a candle to. Well, eventually Commodore faded into obscurity as “an eighties computer” which never really recovered from the steamrolling PC market despite the PCs obvious multimedia inferiority.

The PC didn’t catch up to the C64’s gaming abilities until the mid-1990s.

Well, Commodore is staging a comeback. The name has been bought and traded, so there is little doubt that few, if any, of the original innovators are invested to enjoy the success — or failure — of the new venture. And now, after looking at their new gaming systems, I want a Commodore again.

I have to admit it, even though the system specs are impressive, what I really like is the paint job. Like my Honda Insight, I want one because it is beautiful, and I’ll figure out how to justify my purchase later in fuel economy… or in this case, power 🙂

And hey, it includes 50 popular classic Commodore games. Woot!

What you get when you combine a D&D campaign of “Lord of the Rings” with the players who have watched “The Princess Bride” way too many times…

DM of the Rings LXXV:Incontheevable!

“Stop rhyming! I really mean it!”

Credit to the Rampant Coyote for the link.

“Dr. Holt’s office.”

“Yeah, this is Matthew Barnson, I’d to book an appointment with Dr. Darren this morning, please?”

“Sure. What will we be seeing you about?”

“Uh, I have a sore throat I haven’t been able to kick for about a week, and a bump on the back of my hand that’s gotten bigger since the last time he saw it.”

Booked. Ten-Fifteen AM. Killed some time yakking with my neighbor — also named Matt — about model airplanes and video games before heading in. Took my son, Josh, with me, since my wife Christy was out. Enjoyed the brief drive in my bright-red Honda Insight. I still get a thrill driving that tiny, fuel-economic little car.

Arrived. Signed in. Took a seat as directed. Picked up People magazine, and skimmed through the “sightings” section where they have pictures of celebrities caught in various weird positions, makeup, or clothing. Thought I couldn’t imagine anything more boring than following around a celebrity with a camera. Finally got called in.

Got weighed. Repeated to nurse what I’d said on the phone. Spun Josh around on the little round chair until he was so dizzy he couldn’t stand straight. In response to his demands, sat down with him and did the same thing until neither of us could stand. Regained balance. Took Josh to the restroom.

Darren showed up.

“It says here I’m seeing you about a persistent sore throat and a bump on your hand. Let’s take care of the throat first. The culture shows it’s not strep, so we have a choice: prescribe a general-use antibiotic to combat the mild bacterial infection you have, or wait it out a few more days to see if it gets better on its own.”

“You’ve been my doctor for eight years, Darren; you know me well enough to know that if there’s a choice…”

“…you prefer to avoid medication. I know. So let’s just wait on that one. If it were one of certain types of strep, I’d put you on an aggressive treatment, but I’m comfortable with you waiting it out. Now let’s see your hand.”

I held it out.

“What’s the history on this? I don’t see it in your files.”

“It’s not on my file because I had you glance at it in January when I brought in my son. At the time, you said it looked like scarring from an old injury.”

“OK, that explains it. Hmm, well, it looks like one of two things, but we’d have to take a biopsy to be sure. That’s where we slice off a small sample of the tissue and send it to a lab. Is that what you want to do?”

“Yeah. I think so. It’s gone from the size of a pinprick to the size of a nickel in three months.”

“Wait, you pricked yourself with a pin, and that’s how it started?”

“No, no, I woke up one morning and I had this tiny bright red spot that got bigger pretty quickly.”

“OK, I’m going to go get the biopsy kit. Lay down on the table here, and I’ll be right back.”

Darren returned, stuck me with a needle to numb the back of my hand, went back out for a few minutes, then returned to take a core sample. I watched while he cut out a quarter-sized chunk of skin from the back of my hand. I thought it was cool; Josh ignored it and was playing with the lid to the trash can. You know, it’s one of those step-on types where it raises and lowers by foot-pressure. It’ll keep a child entertained for minutes, particularly if it makes a loud, repeated “clang” with each closing like this did.

“All done.”

“Dang, that’s a lot of skin. I had no idea how thick it was.”

“Yeah.”

He stitched and bandaged the gaping hole in my hand.

“I need to see you in ten days to figure out what it is, and to remove the stitches.”

“Uhh, and what are the two choices for what it might be?”

“Granuloma Annularae is my first choice. That’s a skin condition which, although not really treatable, is harmless.”

“And the second?”

“Basal Cell Carcinoma. I think you know that’s a type of cancer, which would be unusual for someone your age. We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

“See you in ten days, then.”

Well, I couldn’t do ten days, due to vacation schedules, so it has to be twelve. This is gonna be a long twelve days.

It was nice to hear that Genesis was reuniting and going back out on tour. They will be in the Washington DC area in September.

Making things even better… RUSH has announced a new album with tour dates to follow. On the website you can stream their new single.

Happy Days…

My IT department sent out an email about DST this weekend. In there were instructions on how to verify that your PC has received the patches.

One of the statements in the email I found funny…

“If, for example, your meeting should occur at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, it will now show as 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday. This would indicate your Outlook has been correctly patched. “

So this would lead me to believe that because we went to DST, then all my meetings get pushed by an hour.

HEH.

I don’t fully understand why we use DST to begin with. I understand the main purpose of Daylight Saving Time (called “Summer Time” in many places in the world) is to make better use of daylight. We change our clocks during the summer months to move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening. Sounds good enough. I don’t see why I have to change my clock to make better use of my time. I understand the argument that we save on energy usage, but it still all seems silly to me.

I will very likely never go to Hollywood.

That much is clear. I have put down roots in order to provide a small town upbringing for my son. BUT, I want to keep acting.

A year ago, I joined the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Once you’re in SAG, you can no longer do non-SAG work. I am learning that 95% of the films and pilots filming in the DC area are Non-SAG. Additionally, most commercials are Non-SAG. If I go to NY or LA, then I NEED to be in SAG.

I have found something called “financial core” – a court decision that allows me to quit the Union, but keeps me eligible for both SAG and non-SAG work. If I ever go to LA, it will likely keep me blacklisted. In DC, it means I will work a LOT (like I did last year).

So, declaring “financial core” will anger SAG, put me on the outs with the 10% of DC actors who do mostly training videos and extra work – but ALL the casting agents will likely work with me.

I respect the Union, I don’t want to undercut the Union. BUT, I am no longer being called for anything except extra work, and I’m turning down independent films all the time, because I refuse to break the Union rules. Doing this will likely mean giving up the dream of going to LA, but that seems likely anyway.

Any thoughts?

Here’s today’s list of 5 Things I Wished I’d Known Years Ago:

1. Albert Einstein once said the most powerful force he had ever discovered was compound interest. I wish I’d put $50 a month into the stock market from the age of 15 onward. I’d have $2 million at retirement age. As it is, to reach the same goal with my meager savings at age 34, I need to contribute ten times that much, or else rustle up a $50,000 investment to get back on track.
2. Google would multiply the value of its stock 1500% in the first few years after its initial public offering.
3. Undergraduate college is a waste for most people. It gives them a piece of paper which basically says “this person isn’t a complete moron”. While that may be valuable in jobs where complete morons are in the habit of applying for them, if you really want to be successful, teach yourself how to do what you want to do or get a mentor in the field. A lot of careers require degrees — for that “complete moron” reason, above — so if you need a degree to do the job you want, don’t stress out about your undergraduate years. Have as much fun as is humanly possible in your last few years without obligations before reality gets a hold on you. (Specialized graduate programs are often another matter.)
4. People who make friends with you in order to sell you something aren’t your friends. In rare cases, they may become your friends, but in most cases, you are just a piece of meat with a credit card to them. Watch for this with calls from people you barely know, relatives you aren’t close with, and neighbors who could just walk over to talk rather than calling you.
5. Door-to-door salesmen and telemarketers are abusing your expectation of friendship and/or the arrival of good things with a door knock or phone call. They are exploiting you, and you do not owe them any courtesy. That said, they are people with one of the worst, creepiest, most soul-sucking jobs on the planet; be nice to them, but turn them down in the strongest manner you think is appropriate.
6. Limited-time offers… aren’t. There will always be another sale. There will always be another discount. If someone ever tells you that you must decide now or else the offer is rescinded, substitute whatever they are saying to you with “I am trying to cloud your judgment in order to make a sale and saddle you with something you probably don’t want at a price you cannot afford.”
7. I don’t predict stuff well, nor do I track well without an external means of tracking such as a notebook or computer program. Avoid predictions of expected time or how long a list is supposed to be, because I’ll probably be wrong.

We have a PC that we use just for the kids. They are able to play their games and access the internet from it. I use a wireless USB device about the size of a thumb drive to allow them access to the home network (internet). This way the wife and I can control when they access the internet by either letting them have the USB device to plug into thier machine. A little while ago, there was a error that corrupted the AV software and for some reason it no longer likes to recognize the Wireless USB device. I have tried a few different things to try to get it back on the NET, but have had no success.

The solution I am going with is to blow their box and reload the OS and such. Seems kind of extreme but without spending gobs of time on it I think it will be a easy enough solution. While doing my morning reading today i came across an interesting linux based OS. it is called EDUBUNTU. Not sure if anyone has heard of this or not. It seems pretty dynamic and customizable.

Does anyone have experience with this or one of it’s sister OS’s? I have to do some more reading, but I am curious how the kids WIN based games will cooperate with this OS.

Due to database corruption in a number of old blog entries and comments, I will be working on the web site this weekend. The chances are good there will be several hours of downtime.

Just giving you a heads-up in case you wonder where the site went this Saturday or Sunday!

–Matt