James Andrews

Today WBZ is reporting an incident at a Taunton, MA public school. Where a 2nd grader was asked to draw a picture of what Christmas meant to them. This child drew a picture of Jesus on a cross with his exes for his eyes. When he turned in his paper his teacher deemed it to be “too violent”. This 8yr old boy now has to go through psychiatric before he can return to school.

What on earth are we coming too? When I was 8 we use to draw epic battles.. It was like playing army on paper. We use to design “bomb shelters” that had 20 levels, had guns, and rockets and all kinds of things to protect us. We use to do this in school, and the teacher use to compliment us on how good our drawings were even though they were horribly drawn.

Society today is out of control, trying to control things that it shouldn’t. Reacting to things that they shouldn’t. A kid walks down the hall and punches his classmate for no reason. That’s a reason to send him in for a psych evaluation. Not a harmless drawing. That teacher should be fired. and so should the rest of the town school committee.

My car is old. It’s a 95 Mitsubishi Gallant. I’ve replaced the engine twice, both times with junk yard engines. The last time was less than 6 months ago. Last week the car wouldn’t start, it turned over, but didn’t ignite. Monday I sent the car to the mechanic. The diagnosis is that the timing belt snapped. This sucks. It essentially means that the head of the engine is now trashed. A new head is $500, to do all the work is $1200. (Quoted from the mechanic). I would like to know why engines are designed in such a stupid fashion that when a belt breaks the engine crashes and burns. It’s not right, its down right stupid. There’s got to be a better way to design engines, so that if a belt breaks it doesn’t cause $1200 worth in damages. It’s down right stupid, and frustrating. I have no idea what I am going to do. Buying a new car at this point would be stupid.

For the last 15 years it has been the big todo from environmentalists that the earth is warming and we the human race are the cause. I’m not here to argue that the human race isn’t contributing to any warming of the earth that is happening. It would be stupid to assume that we weren’t contributing to any climate change, cause we are.

The earth’s ecosystem is a complex beast. No one on the planet fully understands it. Sure we can predict the weather, and based on conditions we can assume that there may be a hurricane forming, or tornados may touch down and cause havoc, but in reality our understanding is minimal. Over the past 4.54 billion years the earth has been around, it has gone though many natuarlly occuring changes. Just as we age and evolve, the earth too ages and evolves. Going through seasons year after year, the glacial ages, and temperate ages. The earth’s ecosystem is not designed to stay at one extreme or the other, and takes thousands of years to swap from one extreme to the other. The last glacial period ended roughly 10,000 years ago, and it is theorized that that they run on 40,000 and 100,000 year cycles. It’s not a stretch to believe that this global warming is mostly naturally occuring and that eventually we will have another ice age that flips it 180.

What gets to me is all the fear mongering over global warming. OMGOMGOMG we have to do something! Do we? Sure, I think we do, but not because of global warming. We cause a lot of polution. The acid rain falling from the sky. The large amounts of plastic in the pacific ocean. The smut and smog that cause severe breathing problems within our population. All these things destroy the environment, and are honestly things we should fix. We should burn less oil, we should find renewable energy sources, but not because of global warming. Stop listening to the fear mongering, stop blaming the freak 65F degree day in Boston on global warming. Stop polluting for the sake of saving our environment for our children today and for their future children. Lead the way so that they can live in a better world than we do.

Today I was browsing Craigslist help wanted section. In the “computer gigs” section I came across this add.

Title: Web Application Developer Wanted.
We are looking to build a 25 to 30 page web application. If you are interested please supply a quote.

25 to30 pages in total
YOU MUST MUST MUST have experience in SOAP API integrations and prove this.
The web application will in turn need to be connected / integrated to other applications such as SFDC (Salesforce.com) or iphone.
Looking for start to finish quote.

Please send resume and contact info.

Thank you!

The title was clear and concise. It was enough to peak my interest, and see what it was about. The first two sentences though sent me turning the other way. They have an idea for a 25 page site. Without any description of what those 25 pages are they expect you to send in a quote? Then they go on to re-itterate how many page there are, like they already hadn’t pointed that out. Then we “MUST MUST MUST” have experience with SOAP API. Looking for a “start to finish” quote. A quote on something with no explanation of what it is, or on what technology; beyond SOAP API.

How on earth do you expect someone to quote a project if they don’t even know what is involved? If you have a project and you need someone to do the work for you. Figure out what tech you want to use, if you have no preference, specify that. Don’t ask for a quote, ask for resumes. Take some resumes first look them over, and find people who seem to have some technical expertise Ask them to sign an NDA, give them some specifics and then ask them for a quote.

With the ad above any quote you get will be wrong, and in the end either you or the developer will lose out because the project wasn’t properly speced.

I am sitting in the little room that the company I am working for has herded us contractors into until we can get cubes. One of the other developers returns from the men’s room, and says to me “I have something that tops your men’s room experience.”. He states, “I wake in the men’s room and there’s a guy at the urinal. His phone rings, and he picks it up, and answers it and says. ‘Hey, can I call you back? I’m in the men’s room brushing my teeth.’. Sure enough he was standing at the urinal taking a wiz, and brushing his teeth?”

What is wrong with this world? Why couldn’t he have just returned the call afterwards. Are we so connected we can’t even use the bathroom without being plugged in. There’s something wrong here. And, brushing your teeth while taking a leak… In the words of Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. “Ew…”.