Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

I cringed when I heard that the Republicans (namely Tea Party nutbags) took control of the House in the US Mid-Term elections this part Tuesday. Mind you, it wasn't terribly surprising. Most Americans are dissatisfied with the job that Obama was doing to remedy the US' economic woes. Many Americans are against government intervention on things like healthcare and bailouts. Many Americans back the Tea Party because the Tea Party promises a return to the US' constitutional roots. You know, the whole "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" bit. That's all well and good, but let's consider a few points here.

Socialism is Not a Four-Letter Word
Americans are scared to death of Socialism. I'm pretty sure that they're more scared of Socialism than they are of Satan. Seriously. Must be some sort of Cold War PTSD or something. And the fact that they think that Communism = Socialism. News flash: they are not the same.

So, armed with the fact that Americans believe that Socialism is bad, they view stuff like healthcare reform to be a bad thing. Of course. That mean 'ole government meddling in your affairs telling you how to go about your healthcare. Shame on them. Newsflash: the government is actually trying to help you by improving your quality of life so that those douchebag health insurance companies don't try to screw you in every way imaginable. Oh, wait...you view that as a bad thing? Well, excuse me. I thought that was a good thing.

The Economy
Back in the '90s, Bill Clinton famously said, "It's the economy, stupid", during this 1992 presidential election campaign. Well, it's still the economy, isn't it? Now, more than ever, especially with this recession that's been hanging around like a stubborn wart. And why not? I saw a segment on Sixty Minutes a couple of weeks ago that talked about university-educated people in Silicon Valley who had been laid off from their jobs for 2 or more years, and were having a hell of a time finding a job in their field. Wasn't the whole point of going to university being that it guarantee that we got and kept good jobs? It's pretty scary, when you think about it.

Intersection
It occurred to me yesterday that the Tea Party supporters who are so desperately want to return to their country's roots are missing something. The problem is not with the government actually caring enough to reform healthcare, or for bailing out banks and the auto sector (not that I agree with the latter, but for other reasons), or for trying to stimulate the economy. The real problem is with the free-market capitalists. And guess what? Republicans loooooooooove free-market capitalism.

(Aside: I highly recommend that you read Naomi Klein's book, Shock Doctrine. It details how this whole "laissez-faire" approach to economics - i.e. free-market economics - has done nothing but hurt the common person (i.e. the vast majority), and fill the pockets of the rich with more money (a teeny minority). It's very insightful and while I read it, it made me downright angry. I wanted to hurl the book at a few politicians.)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. As far as I'm concerned, free-market capitalism is to blame for all this crap that we're experiencing around outsourcing/exporting jobs to countries with lower rates. Readers of this blog know that it is no secret that I despise outsourcing and that I don't believe that it works (quality being the #1 issue). Not to mention the fact that it a) turns IT jobs into a commodity (which they aren't) and b) takes jobs away from people. Tell me: if most IT jobs are being outsourced to the likes of India, and most manufacturing are being exported to Mexico, China, India, and its cheap labor cousin countries around the world, how does one expect the jobless rate to actually go down? It's not like there will be any jobs left for the middle-class folks. IT. MAKES. NO. SENSE.

So, my dear neighbors from the south, to think that your president can turn a crappy economic situation (which is being manipulated by Big Business and their buddies the Lobbyists) around in 18 months, you have got to be joking. Really? Poor guy! He inherited a sh!t pile. Quit blaming him for wanting to improve your quality of life with healthcare reform and quit blaming him for not being able to wave a magic wand to make things better. And most importantly, read the goddamned news for a change an inform yourselves. By ignorantly listening to the nonsensical crap of the Tea Party morons/psychos, you are flushing your country down the toilet. I hope you don't mind the smell of sewage.

I Hate Smokers

As the title says, I hate smokers. Now, if you took up smoking say, when we didn't know that cigarettes were bad for you, then you're forgiven (somewhat). For the rest of you, you're a bunch of morons. Like seriously, were you not paying attention in health class? Do you have such low self-esteem that you have this urgent need to fit in, even if you're slowly killing yourself (and those around you)? Besides the fact that I cannot STAND cigarette smoke, one thing that totally pisses me off about it is the fact that smokers do not think that they litter when they throw their cigarette butts on the ground. What's so difficult about putting your butts into the garbage?

My husband is ADAMANT on this point. A couple of weeks ago, for example, he was filling up at a gas station, when he noticed a woman throw her cigarette butt on the ground. So he walked up to her and said, "Excuse me." The woman was on the phone and excused herself from the conversation, thinking that he was asking her for directions. And then he continued with, "I think you dropped this," as he picked up her newly-discarded cigarette butt from the ground and handed it over to her. Needless to say, the woman was NOT pleased. I think it was brilliant. These guys need to know that they can't just go around littering. Just because they smoke doesn't mean that their cigarette buts are exempted from being considered trash.

On Sunday, I was out for a walk with my husband and our one-year-old daughter. I needed to go to the bank so that I could get some cash. When we exited the building, we came face-to-face with a couple sitting outside the steps. The woman was smoking. As soon as she saw us, she moved her cigarette away, for the sake of the baby, I guess. I continued walking with the stroller. My husband, however, did not follow us. I then heard him saying, "Excuse me, you shouldn't be smoking here. The sign says that you're supposed to be 9 meters away from any entrance if you're going to smoke." The couple did NOT look impressed, but had no rebuttal, and just shrugged.

As my husband proceeded to walk away, I heard the guy (who wasn't smoking) say in a barely audible voice, "Asshole". Well, that's when my husband started lecturing him. And I also decided to chime in. The guy was really pissed, but he knew that his companion was totally wrong in smoking where she was smoking (she, by the way, said nothing). So he did the oh-so-mature thing of plugging his ears and going, "La-la-la-la-la". Very mature. This guy must have been in his late 50s or early 60s too. So that definitely made him look extra-mature. By this point, we had attracted a few on-lookers, but there was no point in sticking around. This was going nowhere. My husband had made his point. As we left, however, I managed to slip in, "Thanks for trying to kill my baby." I hope that strikes a nerve.

I know that the City of Toronto meant well with this whole initiative to make buildings smoke-free, but I really hate it how you can't be outside now without some dumb-ass smoker polluting my air and filling my lungs with second-degree smoke. I also hate it how we have these by-laws saying that you can't smoke within 9 meters of any building entrance, yet EVERYONE does it, and nobody is there to reprimand these bastards for breaking the bylaw. I also hate it how you can't even eat in a restaurant patio in Toronto anymore if you're a non-smoker, unless you want your lungs violated by cigarette smoke. What gives?

I wish that the City of Toronto would get this right for a change, and either ban outside smoking once and for all and/or fine people who are smoking outside in non-designated areas. Mayor Miller, is that so hard to do???

I Like Tim Horton's But...

I love Tim Horton's. Not for the donuts or the coffee (I consume neither), but for their sandwiches. They are tasty, reasonably-priced, and won't kill you as readily as food from McCrap or Burger Thing. What I DON'T like about Tim Horton's is the fact that their employees seldom ever get my order right. Part of the problem is that they hire employees who don't speak English all that well and therefore have a hard time understanding me. At the same time, most of these employees get by well enough. The REAL problem is with their point-of-sale (POS) system.

Their POS system is set up in such a way that you have to tell them all your sandwich add-ons at the time of purchase. So, if I want no bacon, no sauce, and cheddar cheese on my sandwich, I have to tell them up-front. I'm okay with telling them to add cheese up-front, since you're usually charged extra for that anyway. But what about the other stuff? They should take a cue from Harvey's and Licks' and ask you what you want on your sandwich while they're making it for you. Sandwiches are made on the spot anyway, so it's really no biggie.

In addition to having to tell them what you want on your sandwich up front, as soon as they ask you if you want a combo and you say "Yes", you are royally-screwed. If you want to add your cheese and no sauce AFTER you say "Yes" to the combo, good luck. The system makes it nearly-impossible to go back and change that part of your order, so employees end up having to either tell the sandwich-maker to add/remove things from the order themselves, or they have to start your order all over again.

Now, assuming that they entered your order in correctly, the sandwich maker also has a hard-time. The system is set up such that if you say you want two turkey sandwiches, the first one with cheese, no bacon, and no sauce, and the 2nd one with cheese, honey-mustard sauce, and bacon, their stupid monitor reads something like:

2 sandwiches
2 with cheese
1 with honey-mustard sauce
1 with no bacon

It's a total guessing game on the sandwich maker's part, and most of the time, unless you are standing right in front of them while they are making your sandwich, there is no guarantee that they will get it right.

Believe me, it took me years to perfect ordering my sandwich at Tim Horton's to MINIMIZE the screw-up on their end.

Tim Horton's, if you're reading this, fix your bloody system.

Right-of-Way

I hate it when people don't respect proper pedestrian etiquette. Among my pet peeves are people who stand on the left-hand side of the escalator, and people who don't keep to the right when going up or down stairs.

Yesterday, I had a close encounter of the stair variety. I was exiting a subway station, and took the stairs up (as opposed to the escalator). Per usual, I kept to my right. Meanwhile, some university girl starts heading down the stairs on my side - i.e. keeping to her left. Inevitably, we found ourselves face-to-face. Determined to make my point, I didn't budge. Neither did she. I motioned her to go the other way, and she did the same to me. Then I told her that I had right of way and that she'd better get out of my way. I could stand there all day, if I wanted to. I was on my way back home and had nothing better to do. She, on the other hand, appeared anxious to catch the train that was just pulling into the station. Out of frustration, she moved out of my way, but not before uttering an expletive. I fired back with my own expletive, and that was that. Stair etiquette prevailed once again!

Granted, I was a total bitch about the entire situation. I could've easily moved out of her way; however, I had a point to make. It seems to me that decent, polite human behavior is in short supply these days. This is evidenced by:

- People who make half-assed rolling stops at stop signs
- Cyclists who act like they're both pedestrians and vehicles
- Pedestrians who don't follow sidewalk etiquette
- People who feed pigeons on the street and cause them to poop all over the place
- Dog owners who don't clean up their dog poop
- People who change lanes on the solid white line on the highway
- People who dishonor the honors system on subway systems (e.g. in Germany) by not buying a ticket
- People who carelessly throw litter on the street, including cigarette butts

The list goes on and on. You see adults doing a lot of these things. As adults, we're supposed to set an example for our children...but what kind of example are we setting if we can't adhere to basic principles of etiquette and decency? That girl on the subway was either a total bitch, or she didn't know any better. Maybe a little bit of both. At any rate, we tend to emulate what our parents do when we're growing up, and if we see our parents breaking traffic rules and littering, how exactly are we as children supposed to behave when we reach adulthood? And then the cycle continues, as we become bad examples for our children.

It's high time that adults start taking some responsibility and start acting in a more civilized manner. Practice some good habits, and maybe someday your kids will grow up to become decent human beings...

Smart or Knowledgeable?

Ever since the TV show entitled Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader? came out, only one thought comes to mind: WTF??? Let's consider the facts. On the show, a group of kids faces off a group of adults whereby they are asked to answer questions straight out of a 5th-grade textbook. I've never watched the show, but I'm guessing that the kids generally cream the adults on this one. Why? Simple: the knowledge is fresh in the kiddies' minds. The operative word here being knowledge, NOT intelligence. Knowing that hummingbirds can fly backwards or that the official language of Mexico is Spanish (if you don't know that last one, you're IGNORANT), while very intriguing, are just facts. People often confuse knowledge with intelligence. Spitting out facts don't make you smart. It just makes you knowledgeable.

Up until university, I always found it funny that people could be pegged as smart just because they were able to memorize and regurgitate a plethora of facts onto a test paper to earn them a 90%. There sure seemed to be a lot of "smart" people in high school. Then came the true test of university, where true intelligence came out in all its glory. This was the pivotal point where the walking encyclopedias of high school were weeded out to make way for true intelligence. University forced you to work with the facts you knew to derive answers to things that you didn't necessarily know. THAT is intelligence.

Does this mean that knowledge is useless? Not at all. As they say (whoever "they" are), knowledge is power. Intelligence requires knowledge. How can you do epsilon-delta proofs without knowing the fundamentals of calculus? Knowledge allows us to make intelligent decisions - do I take Job A with X benefits, or do I take Job B with Y benefits?

So, GI-Joe was right in saying that "knowing is half the battle". Go figure...

Outsource This!

I am so sick of off-shore outsourcing. Every IT company under the sun embraces it, and I don't get why. It's up there the weird Atkins diet craze. Every restaurant, food company, and bum off the street tried to make money off of it. Who the hell ever thought that a bun-less burger with bacon and cheese is a good idea? Ugh. But I digress.

Although the business-types don't admit it, outsourcing is a sham. Sure, on paper, outsourcing to a development team somewhere in Asia may *appear* to be cheaper than full-time resources or even local contractors. And sure, it *appears* to be the right choice for ramping up a large development team in a short amount of time without having to hire full-time staff that you would wind up firing later anywa. Unfortunately, the work of off-shore development teams is crap.

In the best-case scenario, the code delivered will work. Even though it works, however, most of the code will not only violate client company architecture practices, it will also often turn out to be a huge bastardization of good coding practices. Unfortunately department heads and upper-management won't care about the application's innards because on the outside, the application works to specification. Who cares if the resulting code isn't maintainable. After all, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

In the worst-case scenario, the code will be such utter useless garbage that it will take a competent local developer to fix the off-shore team's code in 5% of the time that it took the off-shore team to code that deliverable in the first place. Of course, some companies are stupid enough to keep sending the bad code back to the off-shore team for fixing, only to continue getting sub-standard code back. At any rate, the code is re-worked, and the would-be cost-savings goes down the toilet.

The moral of the story? Do I have to spell it out for you, or are we outsourcing thinking as well?

Return to Sender

Today a co-worker of mine got the following bug:


Actual Result
Transit Number field (Combination of value for Bank Number & Transit Number field) value reported is not correct.

Expected Result
Transit Number field (Combination of value for Bank Number & Transit Number field) value reported should be correct.


Needless to say, the bug was rejected.