A Queer Mobile

Programming Until Retirement

A post on Slashdot struck a nerve with me. The writer asks whether there's a company out there where he can simply develop software on reasonable schedules and expect to work until he retires.

Try a Little Queer Music

I read PlanetOut's RockOut site just before Christmas. One of their gift ideas was to buy your sweetie an iPod and rip music by queer artists on it. John didn't want an iPod (he hates headphones), but I grabbed CDs by six different queer artists. All were fun, but two were real winners...

Bernstein's Mass Revisited

I loved Leonard Bernstein's Mass when I first heard Bernstein's recording of it in the early 1970's. Unfortunately it didn't age will with me: years later I found many of the frequent stylistic juxtapositions forced and the musical-style numbers dated. So I was very interested in Kent Nagano's new recording for Harmonia Mundi.

Blinking or thinking...

I've just finished Malcolm Gladwell's new book Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. He's not suggesting we abandon careful thought. Rather, he shows that how we select the things we consider when we make a decision determines in large part how good our decisions are.

Nosy medical insurers

I returned on Thursday from California to a stack of mail. One letter was from my medical insurer. The company started a program to monitor clients with chronic medical conditions. Because I have asthma they enrolled me in the plan without any permission. Here's why I bailed out of their little monitoring experiment.

Software layoffs and the memory of old takeovers

I was saddened by this story: MSNBC - Oracle to cut 5,000 jobs in PeopleSoft takeover. I've been bought and sold four times - and felt like chattel in each case. I have a colleague from a previous job who's worked for PeopleSoft. I hope she'll be OK.

There was rime on the puppy

Sophie, our Australian Blue Heeler, loves anything wet. Inside she'll slurp water and drip it on my lap. Outside in summer she'll stay all day rolling in mud. In winter she'll pick a bed of ice to stay on. (Lest you think we're abusing our pups, the rest stay in their shelters outside during the day. Everyone comes inside at dusk - and they'll wake us up to get outside early in the morning. But Soph has a mind of her own...)

After last week's deluge in California, I'm grateful for sunny skies. But it's cold! About the best I can say is that we have unlimited freezer space...

Make your charitable donations online

In a rush I made several online donations just before the end of the year. I've been pleasantly surprised to learn that charitable organizations find it faster and cheaper to handle online donations than ones made by mail with a check. Here are some supporting articles.   

Digital coach

I bought a Suunto t6 watch last August to help me with my training. I didn't expect to learn so much about my body's response to exercise and about how I can make the best use of my exercise efforts. It's made a huge difference in how I work out.

How is a drug company like the music biz?

I reread an article about digital incursions into the music business in The Economist (30 Oct issue, the one that compared Bush and Kerry as the Incompetent versus the Incoherent...). Then I got thinking about how the music and the drug businesses at their core are quite alike...