Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?

I've recently been pointed to the following, that I've found interesting:



``What is it about this bike shed?'' Some of you have asked me.

It is a long story, or rather it is an old story, but it is quite short actually. C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a book in the early 1960s, called ``Parkinson's Law'', which contains a lot of insight into the dynamics of management.

[snip a bit of commentary on the book]

In the specific example involving the bike shed, the other vital component is an atomic power-plant, I guess that illustrates the age of the book.

Parkinson shows how you can go into the board of directors and get approval for building a multi-million or even billion dollar atomic power plant, but if you want to build a bike shed you will be tangled up in endless discussions.

Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic plant is so vast, so expensive and so complicated that people cannot grasp it, and rather than try, they fall back on the assumption that somebody else checked all the details before it got this far. Richard P. Feynmann gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point, examples relating to Los Alamos in his books.

A bike shed on the other hand. Anyone can build one of those over a weekend, and still have time to watch the game on TV. So no matter how well prepared, no matter how reasonable you are with your proposal, somebody will seize the chance to show that he is doing his job, that he is paying attention, that he is here.

In Denmark we call it ``setting your fingerprint''. It is about personal pride and prestige, it is about being able to point somewhere and say ``There! I did that.'' It is a strong trait in politicians, but present in most people given the chance. Just think about footsteps in wet cement.

--Poul-Henning Kamp < phk@FreeBSD.org> on freebsd-hackers, October 2, 1999

colonizing mars: Six Earth Cities That Will Provide Blueprints for Martian Settlers

Check this out!

Burning Piano

Water Veltroni, parola data...

Pink Floyd, The Wall, real dog.

PD=Partito D?

D?, da completare a piacere. Anche con avverbi...

Altered visions

You sing like a dog!

well, not bad... no ?

No tilte (who knows, will know)

Morire di overdose e autolesionismo

Tracce (minime) di LSD e Chetamina nel sangue... ma un strano modo di morire di autolesionismo con 4 poliziotti che non sono riusciti a impedirlo.

"Si agitava, sbatteva la testa contro il muro, poi all'improvviso è morto". Questa la versione ufficiale. A parte che era in manette, c'era un mnaganello rotto, e un video in cui se non ho capito male si sente gente ridere e fare battute...

Ma senza condannare nessuno per l'evento (cui spero penserà qualcun'altro)...
Possibile che 4 poliziotti (che dovrebbero essere addestrati) non riescano ad evitare a un ragazzo diciottenne di suicidarsi sbattendo la testa al muro ??????????

Se fosse possibile eliminare la chiesa in Italia...

Forse eventi come questo non succederebbero:


link all'articolo di Repubblica

Un estratto:

Una donna abortisce un feto malformato nato morto e dopo venti minuti arrivano gli agenti in corsia. Pazienti e personale interrogati, sequestrata la cartella clinica. L'Unione delle donne denuncia il clima da caccia alle streghe e annuncia una manifestazione di piazza
...
Tre uomini hanno raggiunto la corsia dove era ricoverata la donna. L'hanno interrogata chiedendole i particolari della gravidanza, poi sono passati alla degente che le stava vicino, e anche lei è stata interrogata. Intanto altri due agenti hanno chiesto notizie a un´infermiera del reparto e altri quattro hanno voluto sapere dagli specialisti i particolari tecnici. «Mi è sembrato - ha detto Leone - un atto spropositato, neanche fosse stato un blitz anticamorra».

Giusto pensare a come si potesse sentire la paziente in quel momento ha del tragicomico (più che comico, ironico).


continua....

Machecazz...

E' vero che ognuno si sceglie i suoi mali... ma la sfiga è tanta.

Mysteries of Management

From the Silicon Graphics entry in wikipedia:

In 1995, SGI purchased Alias Research and Wavefront Technologies and merged the companies into Alias|Wavefront, now known as Alias Systems Corporation. Later, in June 2004, SGI sold Alias to the private equity investment firm Accel-KKR for $57.1 million. On October 4, 2005, Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) announced that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alias for $182 million in cash.

In February 1996, SGI purchased the well-known supercomputer manufacturer Cray Research for $740 million [3], and began to use marketing names such as “CrayLink” for (SGI-developed) technology integrated into the SGI server line. Three months later, it sold the SPARC/Solaris part of the Cray business to Sun Microsystems for an undisclosed amount (widely believed to be $50 million). Many of the Cray T3E engineers designed and developed the SGI Altix and NUMAlink technology. SGI sold the Cray brand and product lines to Tera Computer Company on March 31, 2000 for $35 million plus one million shares[1]. SGI also distributed its remaining interest in MIPS Technologies through a spin-off effective June 20, 2000.

In September 2000, SGI acquired the Zx10 series of Windows workstations and servers from Intergraph Computer Systems. These models were rebadged as SGI systems, but discontinued in June 2001.

I wonder... these don't look like good deals...

Something to think about

I usually don't post these kinds of things...

Incredibile, ma vero