Category: Pulverbatch

I went on a shopping spree for this occasion because it turns out I was down to one pair of pants

October 12, 2009 /

I start a new job today! A real job in an office, where I have to commute, in pants! Well, actually I’m still contracting until the end of the year, but if all goes well I’ll be an employee after that. I understand the pants part stays the same.

I’ll be working in a little development shop with four guys, two blocks from Kara, making web sites work on your cell phone. (Not on my cell phone! My cell phone barely gets texts.) I have ranklements about the necessity of the change that I will not air here, in the interest of respect for metaphorical bridges, but it will be good to stop sitting around clicking the Twitbook and stuffing handfuls of trail mix into my mouth all day.

It’s going to be fun! I’m excited. Remind me that I said this in a month.

Helpful Tips on Being a Man in Professional Software Development

August 24, 2009 /
  • First of all: relax. There are more men in engineering professions than ever before; you’re not alone. What’s more, some very well-known and talented programmers are men!
  • In preparing for a career in software, learn everything you can. If you went to a school like mine, you probably found the computer science program scanty and unable to address your needs. Apply yourself hard and do plenty of independent work to overcome this deficit.
  • Studies have shown time and again that the myth of men lacking mathematical or computational ability is a complete falsehood. Make sure to have the details of these studies memorized, or naysayers are unlikely to believe you.
  • When interviewing for a software job, appear confident but not brash. Look your interviewer(s) directly in the eye and use a firm handshake; study up and be ready to reel off technical jargon when your skills are questioned. If at all possible, resist the urge to giggle.
  • Your first few days on the job may be uncomfortable. Try not to bridle when a colleague mistakes you for an intern or an administrative assistant (but make the copies anyway–it may help ingratiate you later). Correct each mistake politely, and if you hear some muttering about how you only got the job because of a gender quota, just ignore it and keep your head high.
  • Keep in mind that your mistakes will receive extra scrutiny. If you run into a problem outside your area of knowledge, you can demonstrate independence by searching for a solution first before going to a female coworker for help.
  • Everyone gets caught in a mass-forward chain from time to time. Should you open up an email titled “hot pic of the day!!! =O” and find yourself once again staring at a coquettish Randall Munroe or a wet-shirted Idris Elba, just roll your eyes and hit delete. (Of course, you may have your own admiring comment to contribute–so much the better for you!)
  • When writing out use-case diagrams, resist the urge to refer to hypothetical agents with male pronouns. Chances are you’ll just be seen as “trying to make a statement,” and may gain a reputation for being outspoken. Stick with third-person plural, or, if you must, “she or he.”
  • Similarly, when the leader of a meeting addresses you collectively as “ladies,” let it slide. No one likes a nitpicker.
  • Should you decide to pursue a romantic relationship in the workplace, use extreme caution! Dating a superior will lead to suspicion that you are doling out “favors” in exchange for having your patches accepted or your issues escalated first.
  • Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Yes, we know you have some hilarious slogan t-shirts in your closet that can help you attract attention (and maybe even feel a little saucy). But that’s not the way to climb the ladder! A button-down, some pressed slacks and a hint of eyeliner will help ensure that your coworkers take you seriously.
  • The most significant challenge facing men of our generation is how to balance a career with one’s family and children. No one’s pretending it’s easy! But if you manage your responsibilities, take a hard look at your workload, and make out a detailed ten-year plan, you can almost certainly persuade your wife to abandon her dreams and do all the real work.
  • We all know that the pressure of being male in today’s workplace can be overwhelming. Many men have a tendency to lash out in frustration before considering the consequences of their words, especially when their testosterone levels are a little off-balance, and that does nothing to help our cause. No matter what kind of sarcastic, demeaning commentary comes your way, try to hold onto your sense of humor and your dignity. With a little luck, as long as you never lose your cool, your colleagues will eventually come to see you as just one of the girls.

Yes, I realize Proserpina’s name blocks several other links. What do you expect from her?

August 19, 2009 /

I just completed a personal obsession that’s been occupying a few minutes of my time every day for the last several months: every Anacrusis story is now tagged with the names of each character who appears in it, which means you can see a much more accurate cloud of every name I’ve ever used.

The ratio of effort to payoff on this project was not high, but at least I’ve shut up one of my own tiny nagging voices, and brought the site up to this-was-cool-in-2006 standards. It had the side effect of cleaning up all my old crappy markup code from 2003 to 2007, which should help things go smoothly when Dreamhost inevitably decides WordPress is too resource-expensive and makes me downgrade to flat text files.

My posts aren’t showing up on LJ. I don’t know why.

July 16, 2009 /

Which means that a bunch of you haven’t seen the last Proserpina story, or at least the last within the context of Anacrusis. (And indeed won’t see this, since the NFD feed isn’t working either.) At 65 entries over 29 months, it’s the longest continuous series I’ve written, and at 6565 words, one of my longer stories.

It needs to be longer yet–I haven’t come close to answering several of the questions posed in the very first one, much less figured out what happens to Radiane and Elijah. Also the next part is basically Proserpina Down Under, which will be difficult to write until I manage to get to Australia. But none of these things will be going in 101-word boxes.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the story so far, and that you’ll find its next incarnation an improvement.

Thanks to everybody who commented on the project management software entry, by the way

July 16, 2009 /

A few weeks ago I attended my second Go Play Northwest, and as before, it was one of the best weekends of my year. I played a lot of games, and wrote up reports on some of them, including Attack of the Crimson Apes (with Danger Patrol), Steam Tank versus Marble Army (with Principia), and Saga of the Goblin Headbag (with Lady Blackbird). I also ran a game of Rubble (discussed), and played my second game of Mythender (discussed, although it may not make any sense). I played just enough of a game of Anima Prime to make me want more.

Finally, I played in a game of The Shab-al-Hiri Roach adapted to take place on Wall Street in 1986, which was very funny and which we will never discuss again.

I did manage to go the entire weekend without playing a single game with Jackson Tegu or Joe McDonald, which, I mean, what the hell guys. They were (along with John Aegard and the Richmond-Smiths) two of my most potent catalysts in getting involved with the Pacific Northwest gaming scene, and now they’ve retreated back to their frozen Canadia. This will be rectified, gentlemen!

GPNW alone is enough to make me reconsider moving to Seattle every year. Then I try to get anywhere in its blighted hellscape of streets and quickly discard that notion.

Project Management Software Survey

May 25, 2009 / / 5 Comments

Hi. Do you work in an information-based company? Do you use some form of project management software? I would like your input.

At my job, we use a motley collection of software–a hosted timesheet solution with integrated project tracking, Outlook, and most recently Bugzilla. Because I work remotely, my exposure to these is actually pretty minimal, which can cause problems.

I’m curious about what features of project management software you or your colleagues actually use. Do you just create projects and subprojects and assign them to people? Do you track hours or just tasks completed? Do you use Gantt charts or critical paths? Automated risk highlighting? What features do you personally depend on, and which parts just seem like annoying busywork?

Comments are turned on for this post (for real this time), or you can email me.

not falling down: a blog about things I think are stupid

May 8, 2009 /

If it weren’t so dry and poorly punctuated, I would honestly believe that John T. Jones’s Writing 101: Research that Novel was a Story Hacks-like joke. As it is, you can learn more about how not to write from it than all the Story Hacks combined. From a former professor and editor! With a PhD!

“Don’t call your Viking raider, Joe.

Try Eric the Mad or some such.”

I already know what you’re thinking: a book about Joe the Viking raider is immediately more interesting than one about Eric the Mad. But that’s his advice on research? To make up a thing that sounds like what you read once in The Far Side, “or some such?”

“If you met a man in Walgreen wearing a silver body-tight jumpsuit and having antenna sticking out of a gold helmet, you would think: That guy isn’t from here!“

Clearly Dr. Jones and I shop at different Walgreens! Yuk yuk! Also, what the hell does that have to do with writing?

“Each character needs characteristics. You may never mention most of them but you must know them. These are the things that in combination make your character distinct from all other characters in the world. Take Superman for instance or Henry the Eighth.”

That’s such a beautiful non sequitur (and no, I’m not editing out his explanation; that’s the whole paragraph) that I’m tempted to revise my stance on whether this whole thing is pure deadpan humor. I’m also tempted to submit it to the Lyttle Lyttons.

“It’s a good idea to know your subject, your location (setting), and your characters before you start writing the novel. Well, don’t let that stop you. You can fill in the blanks later.”

What. What. That paragraph actually needs clarification to just to reach the level of “meaningless platitude.”

“Just don’t let some bold character take over your book.”

God forbid! You are right, John T. Jones, PhD. After all, when you were writing Revenge on the Mogollon Rim (which seems to be a western and not, in fact, a cent-per-word story from a 1952 issue of Astounding), I’m willing to bet you didn’t let bold characters get in the way. You kept yourself focused on what really matters: absolute verisimilitude with regard to the Mogollon Rim.

This has been Brendan Is Mean About Something on the Internet! I now return to my usual activity of whimpering and typing “how the fuck do I research anything” into Google.

I feel a certain measure of confidence in pronouncing this vaporware

March 24, 2009 /

Wow. Wow. The guy who founded WebTV (you remember WebTV, right? Your grandmother failed to use the Internet on it) and the guy who got fired from Eidos (you remember Eidos from 2000-2005, right? You didn’t buy any of their Tomb Raider sequels) have decided to revolutionize the video gaming industry! They’re going to let you play hideously compressed PC games from 2007 without a keyboard or a mouse on a computer with no disc drive, hard drive or video card! Guess who sat around a lot of hotel rooms staring blankly at the N64 controller on the set-top box? (I bet you already guessed!)

To their credit, they have been able to startle some wide-eyed journalists by showing them closed tests on a cloud system with nobody on it, from which they disallowed screen caps or video. That puts them one step ahead of Infinium Labs. You remember Infinium, right? They failed to make the stupid fucking Phantom.