Irony is Bliss

The most ironic thing I heard today, was at the end of a Delinquent Habits track.

"I thought you don't hold a grudge."

"I don't. I have no more surviving enemies."

Middle East, anyone?

Cheat or Visionary

Three things spring to mind now that Tour de France-winner Floyd Landis has tested positive for high-performance drugs:

• Doping is a bad thing because it supposedly skews the playing field; so make doping legal, make the results public and make the Tour a championship whomever gets the best technology, just like Formula One. Of course people will find new ways to cheat anyway, but if you find out, give them a slap on the wrist, fine them big time, and leave them be. Keeping sports purely natural is rather old fashioned.
  
• If an athlete takes doping, and their health deteriorates, it's their own damn fault. Anyone who wants to take a shortcut, knows some kind of cost is involved. There are no free rides.
  
• Doping really falls second place to inept officiating (see World Cup 2006); I'd rather watch sports where everybody takes drugs than a game where officials muck up with strange decisions, egotistical attitudes and just plain stupidity.
  

Bored out of their mind

People have no higher goals to strive for. All the land on this planet has been colonized (Google Earth), everyone has already done everything (marathon running, climbing Everest, kite surfing, fisting etc.), new technologies are following each other at such great speed that we don't even notice anymore; There's no great threat or enemy waiting just around the corner. No commies, no dictators (because we ousted them all), no diseases (at least not for very long).

Everything's just more of the same. Been there, done that.

People are bored. So people do as people do when they get bored: they surf on the interweb, complain about the high taxes, traffic, the weather, or they go to war. If there are no ideals to reach for, we just make them up on our own. Fight terrorism? Check. Take away nuclear power in Iran/Korea? Check. Israel? Check.

If things are supposed to be faster, better than ever before, then why do people feel so bored out of their minds? In that respect, why do people choose to fill their boredom with extremely pointless activities (genocide, grass, video games etc.)?

Question of authority

You've made it through high school... barely.

You've completed trade school... barely.

You got a job, and now, at 23/24 you are an inspector for the civil works.

You come to my building site on an inspection.

You act all high and mighty that everything is either alright, crap or something in between.

I laugh and dismiss you.

(of course, this is when the full force of the civil works department bears down on me, figuratively crushing me beneath its boots)

Now you'll have to forgive me when a 24-year old boy doesn't make an impression on me, even when he brandishes his official badge in front of me. For some reason with me, you need to earn my respect. Legal issues aside, authority comes with age, experience, and perhaps admiration. I had to earn mine when I was 24 (and older even), and some punk from trade school is not going to change that perception.

I'm just prejudiced like that. Young guys from trade school should know their place. Pay your respects and bring a senior person along for the inspection, alright?

How Consultants Program (Part 1)

Consultants, real consultants, are supposed to be a little bit of everything. A tiny bit accountant, a dash of project manager, a tad of a kindergarten teacher, and a small amount programmer...

Now real consultants who do IT jobs tend to do things in a typical way. They exhibit these little behaviours that are at the very least peculiar to IT specialists. Sometimes it works out okay, other times it's a source of frustration, both for clients and for techies.

1. If it can go wrong, it deserves to be caught.
Exhibited in: code with huge amounts of if-statements or exception handling. Better yet: nested if-statements. Consultants are careful, therefore all situations need to be identified, handled and taken care of. The upside of this is that a consultant can always point out to the client "I took care of that, there: it says so in the code." The downside is that debugging is a losing proposition, as techies wade through a jungle of code.

2. Job done... in a single unit of code.
Exhibited in: huge, huge amounts of code (1000s of lines), that perform one business requirement from top to bottom, without stopping. The upside: consultants show they understand the client's needs, because they did everything in a single run. The downside: lots and lots of code to support. Good luck if you need to find something, let alone change something.

More next time.

Melting

In this heat being outside in the open sun for a significant amount of time is actually not a good idea. Even if you're wearing a bathing suit or a bikini. Even if you drink plenty of water.

So you've got construction workers working on the roads, walking enthusiasts in Nijmegen, sun bathers on the beach, busboys and -girls working the terraces, but other than that there's very little reason to be out there.

Just put me in an air-conditioned room and leave me to my beer. Better yet, stick a parasol in the ground and I'll gladly picknick there.

I just can't seem to put more than two coherent sentences together...

ECHO!! Echo! Echo...

My conscience is eating me... lately I make some statements about work, about pop culture, about life in general, and others are repeating what I said almost literally... now how should I react:

Creative not much? I know it's a good idea, because I've just said it. I don't need it repeated back to me.

Or:

Should I be flattered that other people are listening to what I say, and are picking up on it? Should I feel solace in the fact that people apparently think the same way I do?

Some guidance now would be nice...

Distractions

People easily get distracted by news and events. As a prerequisite, the news must be of interest to them. There's also a hierarchy: if something bad happens, that's more interesting than if something happy occurs. Also something very far away (geographically), is less noteworthy than something close to home.

Unfortunately these matters of fact allow for some really strange observations.

For example, up until last night, no one in Italy (or Europe for that matter) spoke of the World Cup victory. Instead whatever it was that set Zidane to headbutting an opposing player was the focus of the news. And last night the relegations of Italy's Juventus, Lazio Roma and Fiorentina stole the limelight. None of this is really joyful, yet people like it so much they devote so much of their time on it.

Observation 1: since when is an (alleged) insult more important news than a team winning the biggest prize in their craft?

Another example. The Israeli attacks on Lebanon were momentarily headline news, even drawing the attention from one G.W. Bush from the United States. The next day it drew second billing to the annual local fish market survey.

Observation 2: since when is local non-threatening news more important than global life-threatening issues?

Human nature is to select (prioritize more like) what is of value to any individual and ignore the rest. There's simply no time to indulge into everything. This prioritization is quite pessimistic though. When people do something grand, others either put themselves down (I wouldn't be able to do that), or get jealous. A far smaller group is actually inspired by grand performances and strive to reach something similar. When something bad happens to people however, nearly everyone feels threatened. They could think it could happen to them (floods, fires, kidnappings, but also scam artists, high taxes, car accidents or noise violations).

Human nature is to judge the risk of something bad happening to themselves far higher than the risk of something good happening. People are driven to do everything in their power to survive, purely on instinct, but few are driven to make a quantum leap forward past that stage.

Lazy bastards.

Selective hearing

This week I've been asked the question what my strengths were. One of those I've mentioned - from the top of my head - was being able to stay objective and calm longer than other people I know or work with (although if you saw me driving in the car, you would probably not share that opinion about me).

Staying objective and calm to me has nothing to do with a higher level of tolerance or inner peace, but more with distilling precisely that information which the broadcaster wants to spread. In my experience people rarely put into words exactly what they mean, because they tend to leave pauses in their sentences, stall to search their vocabularies, think about things again, speed up, slow down and so on. Whatever people want to share, is rarely what they say word for word.

Problem is, the audience doesn't take enough time to distill the deeper meaning from whatever is said. Therefore they fall into misinterpretations and in addition they fill-in whatever gaps exist with whatever they think is meant and stop there. The end result is that the audience gets angry because whatever was actually meant, did not match what they think was meant.

Objectivity and calmness comes from being able to accept that whatever is said, is not completely literally the message conveyed. People are fallible, people don't know, people lie. Accepting this fact allows you to be cautious and to truly think about the message. Eventually you get the closest to the original meaning of the messenger.

I'm not saying I'm a good listener. I'm actually quite dreadful at it. Listening is just as fallible as speaking. But I pick up on key words, ask the right questions to confirm any information gaps I may have, and I maintain a healthy neutral stance.

I can predict people's intentions quite well this way, and therefore never really complain. How can you complain if you are right?

WTH was Zidane thinking?

All the speculation can end... Zidane truly orchestrated the end of his own career to the last second. The headbutt he gave to Materazzi, and the subsequent red card and sending-off were all his intention. He did not snap, it was a perfectly executed, deliberate action to avoid a situation he was not prepared to endure, i.e. losing the World Cup final to the Italians.

Think about it, his best teammates had already left the pitch (Henry, Vieira), and he was left with young guys he didn't really know well, maybe even like. When the final whistle would sound, all the world's cameras would focus on his face, trying to capture the final moment of his career, in tears. Everyone wants to see the best player in the world in total desolation. Nothing attracts more viewers than someone else's misery, and this would have been one for the ages.

But Zidane is not a puppet of the masses. He is truly a genius, far more intelligent than anyone in football in the past fifteen years (except for Dennis Bergkamp perhaps). He does things his way, and that includes how leaves the game... correction... how he chooses to leave the game.

Of course he got provoked. He probably even was insulted. But he already knew what was going to happen. He had already seen the future. Zinedine already saw Italy win the World Cup 30 minutes later and celebrate at his expense, and that hurt him to the core of his being. And instead of languishing in his fate, he sought to do something about it. Materazzi gave him the opening. And Zidane took it: the footballing equivalent of hara kiri.

Now, even in disgrace, Zidane goes out as the king of football.

No tears.

No pity.

Adieu Zizou.

World Cup Final prediction

The head says: Italy

The Italian national team seems stronger than the French, proven by the two-hour onslaught they endured in the semis against Germany. Frankly Les Bleus looked rather tired in their own semi final, as if time is finally catching up to these guys (average age is over 30). Both teams are struggling up front I think, but I had no expectations about the likes of Toni or Gilardino, opposed to Thierry Henry who is by consensus the best player in the Premiership for the past two seasons. More Italian than French players left a good impression on me: Cannavaro, Zambrotta, Camoranesi, Pirlo (at times) easily go over. Only Ribery and Zidane were impressive on the French side.

The heart says: Italy

I like Italy better than France. France is enjoying its last moment in the sun, the generation that won the 98 World Cup and the 2000 Euro Championship is winding down and don't need to win the cup again to prove a point. Only Zidane I grant winning it all.

The gut says: Italy wins 1-0

The Italian defense should beat out the best the French have to offer. It's not going to be a flat-out defense-first game, but scoring should be very difficult for either team none the less.

Fashion hypes and styles that need to end NOW

• Large sunglasses (when you look at pictures of your parents from the seventies you laugh at them for putting these atrocities on their nose; why would it be in any degree acceptable if you wear them now?)
  
• Mullets, wet look, out-of-bed look (why is it more acceptable to spend more time on your hair, to make it look like you didn't spend any time on your hair at all?)
• Nerdy thick-rimmed glasses (these were never good-looking in the first place. They are only acceptable now because the people who wear them are usually well paid, and have character because they don't really care what other people think)
• Polo shirts with the collar worn up/folded (you spend loads and loads of money on clothing that comes out of the factory as if you slept on your shirt for two days)
• Women's high-heel cowboy boots (nothing SCREAMS slut like a good pair of calf-high, cowboy boots; also you can only get away with it if you're between fifteen and seventeen years of age, which kinda defeats the purpose)
• Flower dresses (please refer to my first point; women who've got the body for it are exempt from this rant, but if you're not... you just look old-fashioned)

My Genetic Music Make-up

You can tell how people are by looking at their bookcase, and the books that they keep. I guess the same goes for music as well. if you went into my CD collection you'd find rock music, pop music, trance music, rap music, music by bands, music by solo artists, music that's funny, music that's somber, up-tempo music, and so-on. It's all over the place, so one could say I have no discerning taste in music.

Now the Music Genome Project is a nice initiative to collect information about music, and identifying as many attributes as needed to find a common thread. These attributes could be something like vocal harmony, melodic phrashing, or key tonality. If you get all these together every track reads off its unique combination of characteristics, like a human genome. Hence the name.

Pandora Internet Radio is based on this Music Genome Project. Now the thing is, if you provide Pandora a sampling of music you like, it will find similar music in its growing database of music. And it's really good too. Even if you provide just a couple of tracks you like, that's enough information to get introduced to music you've never heard of before, but will likely like very much. Thing is, the common thread is not genre, or artist; it's going to be based on all these attributes identified and rated. It makes up for some initially weird combinations, that actually work well.

Anyway, try it out for yourself. Sign-up, submit some music you like, or grab one of my stations to see what I'm listening to (as anniversary bonus they are listed on the right); see for yourself what your music taste is really like. Be warned: Broadband internet connection is kinda necessary...