Stan Taylor

I just read The Geographer’s Library by Jon Fasman. It was an enjoyable read. But one thing puzzles me. The book was full of colorful characters, except one: the protagonist. He was a young man with a bland personality who had not seen much of the world and who was not familiar with many of the cultural and historical references that are so important to the plot. I think the author did this so that the other characters would have an opportunity to explain the cultural references for the readers’ sake. But it makes for an odd protagonist who is so so passive and unmemorable compared to the other characters.

Autumn is finally coming to Austin, so this morning I stopped at Red Bud Isle to capture some autumn goodness:


I’ll have to return in a week or two when more leaves have begun to turn.

I receive a weekly email containing links to tech business news articles from Bizjournals.com. This morning’s email contained a link to a story that I find just shocking.
The article’s thesis: as software becomes more complex, it contains more defects and is more difficult to test:

Despite ever-more sophisticated tools and procedures for spotting software problems before they imperil systems, more bugs than ever are fouling up computers. The Standish Group, a Yarmouth research firm, estimated software deficiencies cost the U.S. economy $59 billion in 2003 and says the total has been rising since.
Systems fail more often today due to the demand for “intelligent” programs that execute complicated tasks instantaneously. But new theories on software development are becoming mainstream, ending what some believe is a vicious cycle of escalating system failures — and perhaps create a virtuous cycle for vendors who can anticipate bugs before they are ever born, rather than rooting them out after the fact.

And if that thesis alone isn’t enough to rock your world, the reporter dug deep to find new and relevant examples of such problems: the Y2K bug and the 2003 Northeast blackout.
Boy, this article took some first-class reporting.

Yesterday, Michael Behe admitted in court that the standard scientific definition of ‘theory’ was too narrow to include Intelligent Design. John Scalzi makes this awesome comment about this development:

The only value to this whole thing so far is that it got Behe to admit that in order to get ID to work, you have to cheat — you have to make words mean different things than what they mean. You know, the science community already has a word for the new, more lax definition of “theory” Behe wishes to promote: it’s called a hypothesis. Should Behe manage to get his way and change the definition of “theory,” what becomes of the word “hypothesis”? Is it demoted? Discarded? Given a nice gold watch for its years of service to the scientific community and then taken behind the barn to be plugged with a shotgun? And if is merely demoted, then what will become of the phrase “drunken paranoid ramblings?” That phrase has nowhere else to go.

And you read this entry because you thought I was writing my own drunken paranoid ramblings, didn’t you?

This morning, Alpha, our betta fish who has been with us for several years, went to that great aquarium in the sky. Katie gets the unenviable task of burying him at sea. You’ll be missed, Alpha…at least until we replace you.

Last week, I submitted this photo to KVUE news’ daily weather photo contest. Yesterday I was notified that my photo will be the photo of the day for November 1. So, if you live in Austin, watch KVUE news that evening, or check their web site afterwards to see my photo. I hope this isn’t my allotted 15 minutes of fame. I envisioned something greater.

I currently manage an outsourced team of three QA engineers in Costa Rica, and at a former job we had team members in Bangalore, India. Due to this experience, people often ask me my opinions about outsourcing. Here are some of my thoughts that I usually share:
First, I like to point out that American jobs have been moving overseas for a long time now, decades at least. For the longest time, though, those were all manufacturing jobs. In my opinion, the current concerns about outsourcing are simply due to the fact that it’s moved up the socio-economic ladder to white collar jobs (such as software engineering) and people in those industries are feeling threatened. It’s not a new phenomenon.
As a liberal and someone who has traveled and lived abroad, my opinion is that the moving of jobs, especially higher level ones, from the U.S. to lesser-developed nations is a good thing: it will serve to level out the standard of living world-wide to some degree.
However, as someone who has been personally affected by outsourcing, I see that not only will it raise the standard of living of other countries, it will also lower the standard of living of Americans somewhat. And I don’t like having my job threatened any more than anyone else.
So, how do I reconcile these two views? Well, first of all, I view outsourcing as inevitable; there’s nothing that we Americans can do to stop it, short of major social restructuring. Therefore, I’d be foolish not to try to accommodate myself to the situation. In my case, that has meant getting experience managing outsourced teams.
In addition, I stick by my liberal principles. Outsourcing will be tough on Americans–even, possibly, me and my family–but in general, lesser disparities in standard of living are a good thing for everyone.

Batman just doesn’t look so tough with his front teeth missing

This is hystical. This (apparently straight) guy bought the most outrageous clothing from International Male, wore it in pubilc and documented the reactions.

Our first cool front of the fall blew through a couple of days ago. And for the first time in the almost three years we’ve lived in this house, it didn’t bring with it the smell of sewage. There’s a small wastewater treatment plant about two blocks north of us, and it really smells. Due to the stench, the city has been planning for several years to close it. When we moved in, we were told the project was 18 months from completion. The neighbors told us, however, that it had been 18 months from completion for a couple of years already. But the city finally did close the plant a couple of months ago. Big difference!