Turning Incompetence into a Business Opportunity

I’m in class a lot these days, and this week it happens to be Software Quality Engineering Institute classes (big fancy organization, huh). I’m still in Dallas, but I’m not at my desk.
In the middle of one of our discussions, our instructor Rex Black states something about a particular experience he’d had with a particularly bad testware vendor: “These folks were turning incompetence into a business opportunity.”

That’s a great quote when you think about it. How many corporations can you think of that do this? My top candidate: Kinko’s. Somebody screws up the 50 sets of notes for a class and you only discover it the day before. To whom can you turn to rectify the situation? That’s right–the oh, so helpful Kinkopeople.

Can you think of any other examples? Consultants are fair game, but they’re more in the turning ignorance into opportunity business.

Opinions and attitudes

Editorial on Michael Moore’s Oscar Speech from an Ohio newspaper

I replied to this with the following:

Re: Editorial on Michael Moore

And the 2003 award for most obviously Republican-slanted editorial goes to: The Advocate!

The biggest problem with the debate about the war is that people automatically associate support for the troops as support for the war. For a lot of people, this isn’t true. My cousin is in Afghanistan as a Ranger, and I fully support him and all the troops around the world, but I still question the decision to get involved in this war in the first place. Yes, Hussein is a bad man and has committed atrocities against his own people and other countries, but the primary reason for this war (Weapons of Mass Destruction) still has not been evidentially and convincingly proven to the world at large.
Another issue is the idea of the US as the world’s policeman, which was a term that Republicans bandied about during the previous administration as a reason to NOT send troops on peacekeeping missions. The entire situation could be viewed as a regional issue just as well.
Michael Moore spoke what he believed. Lots of people don’t agree with him. That’s OK; it’s an opinion, just like this editorial.
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After a re-read, I sent another letter:

Re: Editorial on Michael Moore

I thought Saddam Hussein was the tyrant. Moore gave a rant, or he went on a tirade.

Don’t bite your tongue

Part 2 of 3

So having parts of your tongue cut off to teach you not to bite your tongue seems a bit extreme, but there’s another learning experience embedded, free of charge! As you might expect, having stitches in your tongue can be quite painful. I was on a liquid diet for a few days, since anything bumping the tongue hurt too much. Talking hurt too.

But what I learned is that even when each word is carved from pain, some are still worth saying! “aye uv oo” (I love you) and “aaat obb” (Great Job – to my daughter who got a hundred on her computer lab work) were well worth the effort. Think about it, if you could only afford ten words a day, what words would you pick?

So, don’t bite your tongue. Share your feelings and thoughts with those around you!

Don’t bite your tongue

Part 1 of 3

Had an interesting learning experience this week. Having someone chop parts of your tongue off is an exciting way to learn something new. Seems I had a tumor on my tongue, as well as some “pre-cancerous tissues” that needed to be removed. The operation started with a spray on my tongue to numb it a bit, then two shots to numb it some more. Surprisingly, these shots didn’t hurt as much as my prior experience with Novacaine, which had always felt like it numbed pain by blasting the pain receivers into submission. Then the kind doctor said, “stick out your tongue a second,” and when I stuck it out, he clamped onto it and yanked it way out and laid it over my teeth!
The doctor then cut pieces off with a scalpel. In total, about half of my pinky in volume. Stitching it up was fun, too, since you can feel the yanking on your tongue as he pulls the thread up.

So why tumors? Well, apparently, I chew my tongue — a big surprise to me! And this chewing irritates the tissue, and caused it to grow back, well, poorly. So my advice today is:
Check your tongue, and make sure you’re not chewing on it. Sounds stupid, but *I* sure didn’t know I was doing it either. If you look at your tongue from the sides, and it has ridges, or TEETH MARKS, then look out, you might be a tongue biter.

If you haven’t checked some of the comments lately…

Hey there.

DeRigeur, he of the oral surgery, has been posting some pretty good material that points out that at least the Reuters news organization deliberately slants headlines toward the left. So in that case, there is the left-wing bias. However, there are other counterexamples, such as the Fox News network. Their contexts have been written up in several places, such as? Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, and the current link of the ranting left,? What Liberal Media?

One of the goofier paradoxes this year: Supreme Judge Scalia.

Funny site: Flying Pig.

Also, Ted Rall’s most recent column is chock full o’ invective (yes, he’s a bleeding leftist, deal with it) : The Moron Majority.

Peace and death

So, we had Rachel Corrie protesting the Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes. She was killed when she fell down while standing in front of an Israeli army bulldozer with a bullhorn. The dozer rolled over her and then backed up.

So here’s the question: did this woman die for a cause? Or did she believe that the dozer wouldn’t actually harm her because she was a peace activist? For that matter, do many of the current war protesters believe that they won’t be hurt in any way by protesting?

To die in a protest is reminiscent of the Boston Massacre, or even Kent State. The thing about this incident is it’s a US citizen in Israel.

Here’s a link to the story.

Live from Nashville

Hey hidy,

Here in Nashville, you’d almost expect for tons of people to be on the street with guitars and stars in their eyes. I’ve only seen one guitar, and the gentleman playing it didn’t exactly have stars in his eyes, although they were somewhat glassy…

Having fun talking with teachers about technology. I’ll have some interesting stories once I come back.