(via HOLSTEE - Holstee Manifesto Poster)
“I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax, I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments, And if I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those people who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute.
If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.”
— Nadine Stair - If I Had My Life To Live Over
“An ex-Yahoo here, using a throwaway account. Yahoo’s biggest problem is the creamy middle layer of managers. They are usually lifers (as in, been at Yahoo for a decade), or fresh MBAs with a Stanford degree who think that just because they sat through Management-101, they know how products should be designed. This middle layer is like a Turkish harem. They’re busy backstabbing each other, politicking and fucking things up. BUT NO ONE HOLDS THEM ACCOUNTABLE! Some dick will screw up a project, and then when the team gets laid off, happily move to another one to fuck that up too. Too often I’ve seen engineers just get disgusted and leave; or they’ll go into a depressive “I don’t care” mode. Passive-aggressive behavior is the norm. Blake, when he joined, said that “we say ‘no’ to nothing, and ‘no’ to everything”. What he meant was: in a meeting, the manager will say ‘yes’ to everything; but the moment he steps outside, he’ll think “I’m not gonna do that!”. Innovation is also hampered by these middle morons. Someone tries to do something innovative, and a middle cockroach will crawl out, whining that his ‘team’ is working on it, and they’ll have something ready in (some future quarter). So you’re told to back off. Then you wait. In the meantime, that middle manager will use this opportunity to ask for more reqs and expand his little fiefdom. Time will pass, and nothing will get done. And you’ll be waiting, agonizing, watching competitors eat Yahoo’s lunch as this middle manager fucks around. And then there will be cycles of outsourcing to Bangalore and Beijing. Some middle beancounter decided that 3 engineers in India can be hired for 1 engineer in the US. (Never mind the quality of people; it’s just the 3:1 ratio that matters). So now they’re busy outsourcing to Bangalore. Even critical support tasks are outsourced to Bangalore. So what used to take a couple of back-and-forth emails and get fixed in an hour, now takes 3-4 days. The list of Yahoo’s problems are long; and C-level people are not high on that list. “Vision” is also not a problem for Yahoo, if they’d just let the engineers just do their fucking jobs! Carol’s biggest mistake was pissing Jack Ma off and losing Alipay. A person at that level should never, ever, make such a blunder; and she had to go.” — Hacker News | Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
“The more we reflect on our commitment to a football club, a corporation, or any sectional interest, the less point we are likely to see in it. In contrast, no amount of reflection will show a commitment to an ethical life to be trivial or pointless.”
— Peter Singer, How Are We to Live?
“Software is built on abstractions. Pick the right ones, and pro-
gramming will flow naturally from design; modules will have small
and simple interfaces; and new functionality will more likely fit in
without extensive reorganization. Pick the wrong ones, and pro-
gramming will be a series of nasty surprises: interfaces will be-
come baroque and clumsy as they are forced to accommodate un-
anticipated interactions, and even the simplest of changes will be
hard to make. No amount of refactoring, bar starting again from
scratch, can rescue a system built from a collection of flawed con-
cepts.”
— Daniel Jackson, Software Abstractions, MIT Press, 2006.
(Source: mitpress.mit.edu)
“We are right then in saying, that these virtues are formed in a man by his doing the actions; but no one, if he should leave them undone, would be even in the way to become a good man. Yet people in general do not perform these actions, but taking refuge in talk they flatter themselves they are philosophising, and that they will so be good men: acting in truth very like those sick people who listen to the doctor with great attention but do nothing that he tells them: just as these then cannot be well bodily under such a course of treatment, so neither can those be mentally by such philosophising.” — Ethics by Aristotle
“朝起きた時に，きょうも一日数学をやるぞと思ってるようでは，とてもものにならない。数学を考えながら，いつのまにか眠り，朝，目が覚めたときは既に数学の世界に入っていなければならない。どの位，数学に浸っているかが，勝負の分かれ目だ。数学は自分の命を削ってやるようなものなのだ” — Suugaku ha tairyoku da!
“織田信長が、ある有名な料理人を抱へた所が、始めて、其料理人の拵（こしら）へたものを食（く）つて見ると頗（すこぶ）る不味（まづ）かつたんで、大変小言（こごと）を云つたさうだ。料理人の方では最上の料理を食（く）はして、叱（しか）られたものだから、其次（そのつぎ）からは二流もしくは三流の料理を主人（しゆじん）にあてがつて、始終褒（ほ）められたさうだ。此料理人を見給へ。生活の為（ため）に働らく事は抜目（ぬけめ）のない男だらうが、自分の技芸たる料理其物のために働（はた）らく点から云へば、頗る不誠実ぢやないか、堕落料理人ぢやないか” — 夏目漱石 それから
“Standards are paper. I use paper to wipe my butt every day. That’s how much that paper is worth.” — Bug 638477 – Strange sound on mp3 flash website