Problem solvers vs. pain amplifiers

My manager's manager at Pixelworks had a great saying, "Be a problem solver not a pain amplifier." I really liked that sound bite. I was thinking about that saying during my last post on negativity.

This came to mind recently while I was tring to configure Buildbot 0.7.1. I got Buildbot 0.6.6 configured pretty well. I had to read the manual pretty much cover to cover, which a coworker said wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but I got it working. But I had a tough time with 0.7.1. There are a few new features that are definitely worth upgrading for. So I stuck with it and got close. I finally had to post a question the the buildbot email list, which got a very quick (1 hour and 23 minutes) and correct reply. I have to say, the buildbot email list is one of the best I have seen. A very freindly list with very detailed responses. Including very thorough posts by the main Buildbot developer, Brian Warner.

All that to say, Buildbot is awesome and worth the effort to get up and runing.

Warm fuzzies and cold pricklies

I just wanted to say a little about what I do and don't want to write and see in my blog.

There is so much negativity on the web. I've read that it has to do with the feeling of anonimity people "enjoy" online. But it has gotten to the point that I almost never read the comments on a blog. I don't even read comments for Slashdot posts because it seems to be a flameathon, or at the very least the signal to flame ratio is too high for me.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good debate. We don't all have to agree on everything and have some big 60's love-in.

Even this post feels too negative, but I think having said it out loud from the beginning will keep me honest and trying to write in a positive style.

All that to say, keep comments in the non-smoking section and I'll do the same.

First times

One of the stories my family tells, is that my Grandma could remember her first car ride. I always thought that was so funny. But I can remember EXACTLY where I was when I first saw the web.

I could take you to within feet of where I was standing, I remember it so well. I was working as a temp at HP's Deskjet printer division, in Vancouver, Washington. One of the HP Engineers started showing me various Internet services. He showed me archie, then looked up his cousin's phone number at U of Minn., or something, using gopher (yawn), and then a little bit of ftp, which I had seen in college. Then he brought up the old NCSA Mosaic browser and showed me a web page. I remember saying, "That's cool." That was around February or March of 2003.

Now my son plays World of Warcraft (too much), while talking to his friends, who are 2000 miles away, using YIM's VoIP. My, eventual, grandchildren will probably be amazed, I remember my first Internet experience, just like I was about my Grandma. The strange thing is I always assumed that my grandkids would be amased I could remember my first aiplane flight, which I only vaguely remember.

This is like the culture shock you get the first time you leave your own country. The best way I can describe that initial culture shock is with pizza. Imagine a Dad from the US going on a business trip to, say, Brazil or India. When he comes home his kids ask, "Daddy, what did they put on their pizza?" and the Dad replies, "They don't eat pizza." At which point you can hear the poor kid's brain grinding gears, grind-grind-grind. We tend to think of things as changes from what we already know, ala "The Matrix" "...are you saying I can dodge bullets?" "I'm saying ... you won't have to."

The Japanese have a word for big changes. "Hoshin". HP used lots of Japanese words when I was there. All managers had to have yearly hoshins. Everyone wants the graph to go up and to the right. A hoshin was supposed to be a step function in addition to the continous improvement.

All that to say, this is my first blog entry.