Category Archives: Wondering - Page 12

Dining Philosophy As Work Philosophy

Posted by on May 18, 2015 No comments

Some time ago, I had written about a blog post about my dining out habits, or more so, about how I just eat out every meal.  Lately, I’ve gotten a little better about that and started cooking some stuff at home.  I got to the point where I said, “I can cook a damn hamburger seven days a week” and started doing it.

But anyway, one of the guidelines I lived by when eating out was, “Eat the expensive parts.”  Get your money’s worth is what I was trying to express.  When discussing job duties with the GF recently, especially when faced with overwhelming amounts of work to be done, I brought up the common phrase, “How do you eat an elephant?  (One bite at a time.)”  The convergence of these two bits of guidance was immediately obvious.

So, if you have an elephant to eat, where do you start?  You eat the most expensive pieces first.  So when consuming, make sure to get your money’s worth.  When providing, make sure your efforts have the greatest impact.

You Change, You Lose

Posted by on May 13, 2015 No comments

Today, I noticed a restaurant I used to visit closed up.  it got me thinking about all the places that I stopped going to because they changed in some way for the worse.  I keep telling myself that the one thing I wish I could express to the younger generation is that they have no idea what they missed out on, when fast food used to taste great.  But anyway, these are my reflections:

Burger King:  They used to have the best fries up until about 1996.  They were so good, I’d get a large and another medium with my meal.  Then this big craze of “coated” fries happened and everyone’s fries started sucking.  Later, in the “Great Recession” of 2007, they decimated the double cheeseburger.  That used to be single greatest value on the whole menu, then they turned the patties into tiny silver dollars.  Now, if I ever go there, I have to get two double cheeseburgers and the smallest fries available.  That’s maybe twice a year.

Wendy’s:  My first experience with Wendy’s was a long time ago, maybe early-to-mid-80’s.  It was amazing.  I had to wait for a long time for one to open near me, but when it did, I ate there all the time.  Then I moved away and I’m not sure if it was an operational coincidence or a geographical difference, but they stopped pressing their burgers.  This made the patty a thick cube and significantly altered the taste.  I tried to work through it, but ended up going less and less frequently.  Their fries have also declined in taste, so it’s now a very infrequent visit.  I feel bad because my nearest store just did a complete new and modern rebuild and I don’t even go there.  The parking lot is empty every time I drive by, too.

Longhorn:  I discovered their burgers maybe around 2003 on a vacation and ate them religiously until only a couple years ago when they changed their buns to some Brioch crap.  I ate them much less frequently, then just gave up and started eating the 6oz steak instead.  Longhorn’s fries have declined in taste lately, too.  I used to eat there multiple times a week, and now it’s maybe every other week.

Chilis:  I used to eat there a lot starting around 2005, then they changed their chili recipe from a Texas Red to something heavy on the beans (i.e. cheaper).  I didn’t eat chili, but my SO at the time did, so we never went back.  Fast forward a few years, new SO and new weekly+ enjoyment of Chilis burgers.  Until recently when they changed their buns to some Potato bun crap.  Seriously, it is like eating latex foam.

Green Iguana:  I discovered this place maybe in 2012.  It was somewhat close to work and they had great burgers and fries.  Then one day, they were closed.  Turns out they were moving to a new location.  After patiently waiting, I hit them up soon after they opened.  But it wasn’t the same.  They changed their fries and changed from Coke to Pepsi, and overall wasn’t just as good.  I went there twice, then stopped.  They just closed down; maybe they lasted a year at their new location.  There are other locations that I could and would be willing to try if I was near them.

Your Ecosystem Is The Poison You’ve Picked

Posted by on April 23, 2015 No comments

There will never be agreement and acceptance no matter what ecosystem you have chosen.  Which is it?  Apple, Google, or Microsoft?  Anyone that tries to span multiple ecosystems is going to have a tremendous time trying to keep everything in sync between them.  And for all the wonder an ecosystem brings, it’s also sad.

The Internet was created to provide a neutral environment for services.  The first instance of the “walled garden” was AOL.  “Walled gardens” existed  before the Internet (Compuserve, Dephi, etc.), but that was out of necessity.  AOL came and built a community within a larger community.  And for quite a while, they prospered.  But people started getting savvy and peeking over the walls more and more.  Eventually, they wanted to experience the rest of the world.

The next attempt at corralling users was through authentication.  Why do you need to have so many usernames and passwords when you could just use one?  Microsoft was huge on that concept, with Passport, then Windows Live, now it’s just your Microsoft (or Windows) account.  But it never caught on, right?  Well, not until Facebook started providing the same shared login functionality.

The big battleground now is with mobile devices.  You either have iOS, Android, or Windows Phone, which means you have either an Apple account, Google account, or Microsoft account.  That’s how your data gets stored, backed up, and shared.  Facebook was rumored for a long time to be making a mobile device, but they don’t have an operating system to back it up, so it’s unlikely that would happen.  Amazon tried it and didn’t make it.

But back to the main point, what if you are a Windows user and have an iPhone?  Why wouldn’t you want to have the full integrated experience of the Apple world and get a Mac?  Conversely, why not have the full integrated experience with the Windows phone?  Why not be platform agnostic and just use Google’s services from either OS with an Android phone?

I guess what I’m trying to get across is that the concept of integration is too tightly aligned with the concept of lock-in.  And being locked in to any platform is never a good idea.  I’m looking at you, Facebook.

Birthday Wishes

Posted by on April 8, 2015 No comments

On a popular image site, I saw a captured text message thread of a person who was receiving texts for a wrong number.  The texts were wishing him a happy birthday and asking what he wanted for his present.  Deciding to prank the real recipient, he asked for a bunch of One Direction merchandise.  The result could be taken as funny or cruel, depending on your sympathy for random strangers.  Some say his birthday was “ruined”.

There’s where I perk up my antennae.  I remember the day my birthday was “ruined” and I never celebrated my birthday since.  In hindsight, it was pretty ridiculous that I got all upset over the situation, and at the same time, I now feel it was ridiculous to make a big deal out of my birthday anyway.

There are some people that think their birthday is some magical day and they put a whole lot of effort into it and have very high expectations.  Since I’ve given up on that celebration, I don’t see the value in it.  It definitely increases the chance of disappointment, and why would you want that to happen on a day that you hold in such high regard?  Not to mention, this belief puts undue stress on the people who have to make your day “happen”.

It’s kind of my personal philosophy to stay out of everyone’s way and not be a burden on anyone.  That makes me sound like a hermit, and I’m not exactly opposed to that label.  I’ve become generally self-sufficient.  When asked what I want for my birthday (or Christmas, for that matter), I don’t have an answer.  There’s nothing really that I want or need that I can’t get for myself.  So the incredibly few people who insist on celebrating these events with me are always struggling for ideas.  It reminds me of me trying to buy gifts for my dad.

“This” Is Not Good.

Posted by on April 2, 2015 No comments

I write Windows software for a living and as a hobby.  When Windows 8 came out and they introduced the new Metro/Modern app paradigm, I was unconvinced.  I never investigated why I felt that way, but I felt so strongly about it that I didn’t even want to invest the time to figure it out.

I’ve recently had another burst of motivation to get certified in my programming skills, and the training I’ve been studying involves these new-style apps.  For a while, I was interested, but then as I saw and learned more, I got less interested.

I think the same reason I dislike the modern apps is the same reason I don’t use any apps on my phone.  And that’s not surprising since they are essentially the same thing.  The problem I have with the apps is they operate in a singular focus at all times.  You start at a high level, you dive in, then you back out and do it again.  The bottom line is, this will not work for nearly all business applications and it won’t work for many productivity applications.

The official training is as much marketing as it is instructional, and I understand that.  As a developer, you have to sell the reasons for creating an application in a certain way.  One of the marketing themes is that the user should be “immersed” in the application.  There should be no chrome and no distractions.  I don’t see how this squares up with business data, which is primarily a collection of relations.

In a business app, you can have an “Order”.  But that order has a related customer and products.  That customer has a related company and contacts and previous purchases, and each of those products has related inventory, cost information, purchase history, and so on.  How can you “immerse” the user in an “Order”?  If the user then wants to see the customer information, now you have to immerse the user in a “Customer”, despite the context that the focus is still an Order and you are viewing the Customer in the context of that Order.  Ditto with viewing any Product Details.

And I think that’s the part that bothers me to the point that I can’t even begin to want to understand it.  A Modern app feels like, “You are working on this. *click* Now you are working on this.  Do not think about what you were working on, this is what you are working on.”  In fact, the immediacy of “this” sums up my dislike of Modern apps.

When Windows 10 was previewed, I was excited that Modern apps could be run in windows instead of full-screen.  It didn’t dawn on me at the time that windowed Modern apps didn’t fix the root problem that the application itself was single-screen.  Even if you think about a lowly web application, even they can open pop-up windows.  And by that, I mean real windows, not just frames in the main window.

It all just feels like trying to sell a limitation as “the best way”.  We can’t do something that way, but that’s not important, because this is the best way to do it.  It’s similar to a situation I have at work on the application I help write.  The user can’t have more than one screen open at a time because of the way the form controls talk to the parent form.  It doesn’t have to be that way, but the early developers didn’t know how to do it correctly, so this limitation was created.  Now it’s considered best for the user to only be able to have one screen open at a time.

Get More

Posted by on March 27, 2015 No comments

Many months ago, I had come across a book, The Four Hour Work Week, and I was quite unimpressed by it and its author.  Recently, a blogger that I follow read the book and was advocating for it.  Not for the processes in the book exactly, but more along the line of “getting your due.”

My personal employment situation is different than both the Four Hour author and this blogger.  I work for a company and I develop and maintain their internal software.  I’m not a consultant, so the blog author’s primary arguments about “you are paid $50/hr, but your employer gets paid $150-$300/hr for the work you do” don’t resonate with me.  Even so, I have held those jobs in the past, so I know what it’s about.

I know myself well enough to say, I’m not cut out for running a business.  I know because I’ve tried.  There’s a lot involved.  The blogger says that for the difference in what you get made vs what you could potentially make, you could hire the people that can make it happen for you.  Not a salesperson?  Hire one.  Not an accountant?  Hire one.  And I guess you could keep justifying that a lot.  After all you’re making 3-6x what you were making before.

At least you’d be making that much if you were perpetually busy.  Scott Adams recent book has a very wise observation that there is an upper bound on what you can make if your income is dependent on your labor.  And that’s the upper bound.  There is no lower bound. And when you start from scratch, you don’t have the luxury of a backlog of work and pay.

Bottom line is you have to be of the entrepreneur mold.  And there shouldn’t be anything wrong with not being of that type.  You should still be able to be successful by being the best you can be in your field.

With that position – my position – stated, I must say that I believe the teachings of the “four hour work week” are detrimental for young workers.  If you find this works for you, then you are already that type of person.  I don’t believe just anyone can become “that person”.  I know I couldn’t live with myself like that.  I’ve also learned in my time that I don’t want to be associated with people like that.

Which then brings me back to my inner conflict with a blogger I enjoy reading.  I guess I need to wish him well, because everyone has to find their own way.  My way has worked well for me.  Could I have more?  Probably.  Would I also have more stress in my life?  Probably.  Would I trade more money for more stress?  Absolutely not.

Triangulating Everything

Posted by on March 25, 2015 No comments

Today, I drove to lunch taking a back road to avoid the usual stress of traffic and I got to thinking about the tradeoff triangle, you know, Good/Fast/Cheap – pick two.  But that didn’t really make sense for what I was doing.  I was trading time for a better driving experience.  It was something more like Cheap/Fast/Pleasurable. 

I thought I was on to something there.  I tried applying it to some other modern conveniences.  I have someone wash my car every few weeks.  That costs a little, but it also frees up more time for me to do what I want.  That fits.

In fact, there’s a whole lifestyle philosophy that promotes that when you get to a certain level of net worth or earning potential, you need to stop doing some things because it isn’t worth your time (in a somewhat literal sense).  A breakdown of that philosophy may be for a future post.

But what if you enjoy doing something and the cost isn’t important to you?  Like mowing the lawn, you could get someone to do it cheaply, but you enjoy it.  You’re sacrificing time for cost and pleasure.  Ok, that still fits.

What about upgrading to Business Class when flying?  Sacrifice cost for pleasure.  There’s a lot of things you can sacrifice cost for extra comfort.  That’s a common one that fits well.

But the equation doesn’t work for everything.  There are some legitimate sources of tasty fast food, where it’s a balance of cheap, fast, and pleasurable.  So what’s the sacrifice there?  That’s a better fit for the Good/Fast/Cheap equation, where you can usually argue that you’re giving up quality for the others.

I guess we need some definition as to when to use Good/Fast/Cheap and when to use Cheap/Fast/Pleasurable.  It seems G/F/C applies to things you receive and C/F/P applies to things you experience.  Tangible and intangible.

Now I have a problem with Cheap when dealing with experience, because that has a negative connotation.  How about Economical?  That makes Fast stick out, but wow, that’s a hard one to replace.  I can’t think of any -able or -ible terms to fit in there.  That will have to wait.

Great.  I now have a physical and emotional tradeoff triangle for my analytical processes.

Thanks For Your Opinion

Posted by on March 18, 2015 No comments

I’ve been saying 2015 is going to be a great year.  It’s a year I’m going to focus on me and not get involved with outside projects like helping other people or starting businesses, or committing to volunteer to a group.  Doesn’t that sound selfish?

Well, I believe everyone needs to have a period of time to reflect and recharge.  Putting out energy and effort all the time is very difficult and draining, especially for an introvert. (And what’s up with all the recent articles on introverts, anyway?)

While I spend this time building myself back up, I also want to take the time and look at myself and others and decide what needs changing.  One of the things that I’ve really gotten irritated with is people’s tendency to state opinion as fact.  And if they’re not stating it as fact, then they’re stating it as an absolute.  If it’s not an absolute, then it’s being stated as a benchmark.  You get what I’m saying.  “This product will make your life easier.”  If not that, then, “This product is the best.”  And if not that that, then, “If you’re not using this product, then you’re not getting any benefit.”

Sounds like Marketing 101, right?  So why try to fight that?  I’m sure I do it on occasion, too.  But that’s something I want to change.  The tone of people when they make statements like that is exclusionary.  What they are saying, to a degree, is, “I use this (or do this, or have this, or even want this), and if you don’t as well, you are inferior.”  Notice that it can actually be used against people when you aren’t even in the group, just that you want to be in the group is enough.

What’s the alternative?  First, understand that your choice is always a personal opinion.  Guard your statement like, “In my opinion, this product is the best.” or “For my needs, this product works best.”  You are allowing the other person to disagree without either of you losing face. Now if the other person responds with a personal attack like, “that’s because you’re stupid,” well, what can you do?  You know what you’re dealing with.

Next, realize that there are many ways of accomplishing the same result. A product or service or lifestyle or anything else is made up of a bunch of smaller parts.  A person’s choice may still satisfy the individual needs even if the whole product is different.  In summary, this is the “that’s not important to me” factor that no one ever considers when making broad opinion-based statements.  Of course, counter-arguments can devolve into “If that’s not important to you, then you don’t know anything about this.”

Understanding and remembering these points is what I want to work on this year.  I don’t want to be that person, that fanboy, that pretentious jerk, that know-it-all.  I want to be inclusive, not exclusive.  Accept people’s choice and don’t insult them for it.  Recognize that your choice may be better-suited (not better) and if so, promote the details that make it better-suited (not better) for that person.  Understand that you don’t know what is unimportant to others and don’t insist they make it important.

A good example I’ve mentioned before is the motorcycling community.  Some people are like “If you don’t ride a Harley, you’re nothing” and others are like, “As long as you’re on two wheels (or three in some cases), you’re cool.”  Exclusive vs. inclusive.  And at the end of the day, we’re all just people.

Bagtastic

Posted by on March 18, 2015 No comments

The Internet is great for shopping, except in two specific cases, when you want to touch something and when there’s too many choices for an item.

Recently, I was in Target and in the checkout line, I saw they had reusable shopping bags.  They had the typical fake-cloth bags, and they had a canvas bag as well.  I picked up one of those canvas ones and the cashier was like, “No, those are $5. the 99 cent ones are the red ones.”  And I was thinking to myself, “but I like this one…” And I ended up buying it.

It’s a really nice bag.  It’s soft and roomy and it has a hook loop for hanging it up and it has eyelets that I just realized would be used to hold it upright in a bagging rack.  It’s a good design.

So I thought I would try to find some others like it to replace my cheaper, branded grocery store bags.  And this one is branded, too, so it’d have to be a Target-only bag.  I’m a little weird about using other people’s bags in a store.

Well, thank you Internet for giving me so many choices.  Add to that the deceptive descriptions.  Search for “cotton” and you get cotton-poly.  Search for “canvas” and get plastic canvas.  Search for “tote” and get purses.  Search for “shopping bag” and get a ton of marketing and printing company ads.

And on top of all that, I have no idea what the quality is like.  You can’t feel the fabric, you can’t see the stitching, you can’t make any quality judgment from a picture.  This is just one of those cases where you need to buy it in person.  But of course whatever store you are in is going to sell their bag with their brand on it.

So I did something quaint and old-fashioned.  No, I didn’t go to a physical store.  I searched for a company that specialized in cloth bags instead of just relying on good old Amazon.  I found a company that manufacturers cloth shopping bags and their prices are completely reasonable. 

Now, I have the dilemma of choosing to spend money when I am still in austerity mode.  Like I keep reminding myself – it’s something I want, not something I need.  And that’s something that takes real effort.  “Oh, it’s only $25.”  And I’ve used that rationalization about things for much more and much less.

Write On

Posted by on March 3, 2015 No comments

This is so weird.  I was reading a forum this day about site that did essay writings.  The forum was complained that essay sites were scams and had unprofessional writers with lesser grammar and no knowledge of true English writing capabilities.  I read so much of it that I believe in my heart that it has permanently afflicted my writing ability and compositional style.

Whew.  It’s pretty damn hard to write incorrectly.  But seriously, after reading so many posts by a site owner defending his business in broken English, after having to mentally extract the meaning from the words, it got to me.  I mean, you could understand the meaning, but the words were just wrong.  Even now, I feel a little tainted.  Or at least, I feel suspicious of what I’m writing.

I feel like I need to write more to get my normal thoughts flowing again instead of thinking in “foreign English”.  So, this whole experience made me realize just how identifiable native English is.  Even more so, how identifiable your personal writing style is.  I’m shocked to think that someone would actually turn to a writing service to create an essay or report for school work.  Do people really think they’re fooling anyone?

Maybe I’m just a lucky person who likes writing, but I’m not really an academic.  In high school, I had a term paper that was due before Christmas break.  I turned it in on the second-to-last day of school.  I almost failed.  Seeing the poor quality of work being created by these writing services, for a brief moment, I thought, maybe I should sign up to freelance for one.  Nah…  If the topic doesn’t interest me, I’d never get anywhere with it.  Plus, I don’t actually have the proper knowledge of the structure of an academic paper.

I have also heard of – and briefly considered joining – the freelance writing services for reviews/articles/blog posts/etc for the Internet.  It doesn’t pay all that well, and it seems like you’re constantly producing vapid content, but it could be a small income.  As long as you know how to repeat keywords, I guess.  I’ve been getting better at spotting canned reviews and comments lately, so that industry is in need of improvement, too.

And that would possibly be my downfall.  I would care too much.  I would have to make every fake review or comment unique and look as authentic as possible, which would then just take too much time and cost me money.  Sadly, it’s about volume.  I’ve seen it over and over in many different professions.  Even when I tried freelance remote computer assistance, the people that succeeded were the ones who could identify quick calls, multi-task multiple calls at once, and keep the churn going.  Meanwhile, I accepted a job from “an elder” who insisted on telephone support instead of chat, and then spent an hour showing him how to do email.  I didn’t make hardly anything from that call, but I’m sure I had a stronger impact.  I quit shortly after.