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  • 1 min read

Re: Manila hostage crisis

We will rise up above this national tragedy.

While it was tragic and a lot of things have to be learned and internalized, let’s also realize that every country screws up big time at one time or another. China had melamin deaths, Tienanmen, etc.. The US has had its massacres too that police could not prevent. So have Israel, France, Mexico—everyone. We are not an exception.

Let’s not beat ourselves up so much that we do lose hope. The thing to do is to make sure it does not happen again. We have too many things going for us as a people. We will learn and we will move on to do better things that will give us a collective sense of pride.

(via jimparedes) (via pinoytumblr)

  • 6 min read

Like a wick, or a match...

I am burning up and burning out.

That's what I had as my status message when I started writing this. I started writing this about three weeks ago (Tumblr has this entry tagged as started on 27 July), but I've been so burned out—-sleeping 14 or 16 hours a day, and staring into space the other 8 or 10—that I haven't gotten around to finishing it until now.

This happens to me a few times every year. Sometimes a couple of times a year, early and late in—-sometimes three or four times a year. Each time, I get sucked into a void, an extreme malady of apathy. My finances go out of control (I'm three months behind on house payments), productivity vanishes to near nothing, books are left unread, and I barely even have any energy to eat.

I hardly even turned on any of my computers most weekends, when I was at my lowest—if you know me at all, that would give you a hint as to how low I've sunk. It's gotten to the point that one of my closest friends have remarked on my not being constantly online, not just once, but twice (thrice now!).

In this day and age of of high technology, extreme competition, fast-paced everything and omnipresent connectivity, it's easy to dismiss these bouts of lethargy as just plain old laziness. Except it's not, and the ones most painfully of just how much it's not are the ones least likely to muster the energy to do so.

This is not being bored with what I do, although, yes, I am bored with what I'm doing. But, then again, I'm always bored with what I'm doing. It's a feeling of suffocation, I suppose. A fear of becoming too boxed in. Claustrophobes will have an idea of what I'm talking about, except there's a lot less sweating bullets and muffled screams.

Burnout for me can be triggered by feelings of insecurity that grow through several weeks. It starts off as a nagging feeling, a sort of small voice wondering, "What the hell am I doing here? Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?" Small enough that it's easy to ignore. But then, other things start to happen, more doubts creep in. Thoughts like, "Am I making the best possible use of my skills and energy?" Of course, the answer is inevitably 'no'—if you answer 'yes' when you ask yourself this question, you're either incredibly smug, or are incredibly deluded (or, sucks to be you, you're quite the talent-less fuck your mother always secretly feared you'd turn out to be).

When I'm burned out, I'm a lot more confrontational than I usually am (see my posts between today and 27 July), picking fights left and right, regardless of whether or not I can actually win any of them. It doesn't matter if the fight exists only in my head, or if it's an actual physical fight, either. It's as if only some parts of me are burned out, and that whatever nervous energy I've built up is desperately—and succeeding in—looking for alternative ways to expend itself. As if my body's demanding that, when I'm burned out, I be completely burned out.

Figuring out the cause

My burnouts don't all stem from a single cause or event, of course—that's just being emo... or psychotic—but it seems it's sufficient to say that they start as not being content with something (sometimes everything), along with a general feeling of impotency (by which, I mean powerlessness, you pervert).

I guess it's accurate to say that all the frustration at not being able to change things I can't possibly change (without, you know, being an actual god—or, at least, really, really rich) build up over time. This then combines with the frustration of not wanting to change things I know I should change, for whatever reason (mostly fear). Either I have a very low tolerance for this kind of internal shit, or (and if you know me at all, you'd know this is more likely) I just tend to accrue quite the boatload of frustrations.

Perhaps I should dramatically cut the list of things I care about. Or dramatically lessen the amount of care I put into whatever I choose to care about. Either way, it's going to involve quite a bit of drama, and I'm not one to shy away from that.

Getting it out of my system

On my lowest days, I played WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 on my Wii. And I played it a lot. Mostly the match types that allows me to beat the living shit out my opponent. I would then turn off KO, so I can, e.g. throw the Undertaker from the top of the cell until I get bored of climbing back up, or perform my finisher for the nth time, without the overly zealous referee stopping the match, seemingly fearful for the life of a game character.

At no point was I shouting obscenities at the screen while literally foaming in the mouth. I didn't feel angry, nor was I consciously wishing that I beating the hell out of someone in particular. If anything, someone watching me would say that I was bored like hell, if not for the fact that I'd let matches run for up to an hour (when I could just pin or make my opponent tap out five minutes in).

I suppose it would've been worrying to the people around me, but—and you have to agree—at least it wasn't as destructive as, say, straight-up going postal. Or getting into my car and then driving off a cliff. Good thing I don't drink, although I'd like to think I'd have managed to refrain from going on a legendary bender (wouldn't want my son to see his old man passed out on the floor, reeking of alcohol).

But, honestly, I was just bored and lazy as hell. I didn't want to do anything, or be involved in any armchair political discussions, or even read my news feeds. I just wanted to lie down on the couch and beat up wrestlers.

Earlier in my career, I'd have started one or two new projects. Usually, something that's quite a departure from whatever it was I was doing at the time. When I was with a content provider for telecoms, I did Web-related projects. When I was with a payment processor, I started an alternative Windows shell. Although, when I was with an ads-related company, I mostly just rewrote the crap that others on my team put out (that's because, for that particular burnout, their crap was the main cause: it depressed the hell out of me).

Wrapping it up

I'm not here to sell you snake oil, to claim that I have methods that would make burnout a thing of the past for every tech worker in any field. If anything, my burnouts are taking longer and longer to... well, burn out.

I don't claim to understand how my burnouts are started, or what really happens to me when one is underway. I'd like to apologize to everyone who's ever been a casualty in one of them, but, really, what's the point? It's going to happen again, anyway—I have no control over it, and the ones I really should apologize to are the ones who're going to be affected the most the next time, anyway.

This post was started because I thought it would help me get through the current burnout (I'm at the tail end of this one, but it's not done with me, yet). It didn't. It just added one more draft. I decided to finish it now, because, I've slowly been regaining whatever productivity I had, and I thought I'd be better served by putting the rest that's about to come on stuff that makes me money. You see, I'm trying to build up my Fuck You Money; the amount of money I think I'll need to be able to flip the world the finger and do what I want for a change for a significant amount of time.

Right now, that's school. Afterwards, who knows?

I'll probably keep going through these phases until the day I die. In fact, I think this is eventually what would lead me to my grave: One Big Final Burnout. But what else is there but for me to keep my chin up and try and soldier on?

Or, as Iron Maiden put it:

No point asking what's the game / No point asking who's to blame

'Cause if you're gonna die, die with your boots on.

  • 1 min read

Ben Pieratt: In Praise of Quitting Your Job

I wrote this email to a friend a few weeks ago, and then the topic came up again last night with an old buddy who was frustrated with his work. He seemed to appreciate what I had to say, so I figured it might be worth sharing:

Thinking about your comment at the end our call. Thought I’d put some words down. Apologies in advance for the presumption.

The reason I’m so supportive of you quitting your job is that I’m intensely empathetic to your situation and I believe that you’re doing everyone a disservice by sticking around.

Most of you have heard me say that tech workers should only stay with a company for two years max. Likewise, most of you know I've never really reached that two year mark with any of the companies I've been with.

I like how Ben Pieratt was able to put into words what I feel when I decide that it's time to pack up and explore other opportunities (see the part where he talks about ownership); which, incidentally, is what's been bugging me these past few months.

Source

  • 5 min read

Mercenaries get all the girls

I'm a software mercenary.

This is what I tell people when they ask what I do for a living, because the term "consultant" is so 20th century. Besides, it's so damned hard for me to be stuffy enough to warrant being called a "consultant": I usually can't be bothered to shower until the end of my workday. In any case, it usually gets people actually interested enough to ask me to elaborate.

Mercenaries are soldiers-for-hire

Mercenaries are the ones you get in touch with to boost your regular fighting outfit's numbers quickly, or when you need a group of specialists for a sensitive mission. While recruiting (for the first part) and training (for the latter) are options, those routes usually take too much time and a lot more money, and then there's the question of how you're going to deal with the addition to your roster afterwards.

Similarly, software mercenaries are the ones companies call when they need a complex codebase done properly. This usually happens after their collection of warm-bodied junior PHP programmers or flavor-of-the-month Rails developers have proved themselves incapable of rising to the challenge. (Or, rarely, someone in charge is honest and brave enough to admit that their current staff can't handle the task from the get-go.)

People like me are brought in to solve a general problem (which usually involves several, more specific, problems), train the extant staff on its operation (and most likely the techs on maintenance), then leave, freeing up the company to hire more people if it wants/needs to.

But, c'mon, I already gave that all away when I mentioned the term "consultant", didn't I?

Why I'm a different breed of mercenary

The run-of-the-mill software mercenary, as with most consultants, will specialize in a particular field. There are a bunch of experts on topics like Python, Ruby, Perl, Web design, system administration, network administration, database technology, &c. These specialists command a high price, and rightly so, for to be an expert in a field requires quite an intensive commitment of time—not to mention brain capacity.

I'm different because I'm closer to what Heinlein has called a synthesist: in a nutshell, a generalist whose knowledge spans that of multiple disciplines (programming, system/network administration, management, employee training). A CEO of rather successful retail business I've interviewed with called it being a handyman.

Jack of all trades, master of none

The aphorism "jack of all trades, master of none" has frequently been invoked with a negative connotation. After all, as I mentioned earlier, expertise requires quite a bit of time: time you can't have when studying a lot of things (without resorting to deus ex machina magical-pendants that result only in gaping plot holes, that is).

The Vietnamese put it thus:

Một nghề cho chín, còn hơn chín nghề

which, loosely translated, means:

Being master in one job is better than doing normally in nine jobs.

How can one be exceptional (and, thus, able to command hefty fees), when it looks as though you've devoted to spreading yourself too thinly?

What most people forget and/or don't know, is the second part of the aforementioned aphorism. Here it is in its entirety:

Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one.

My goal in pursuing breadth over depth is to acquire experiences and knowledge I wouldn't necessarily come across otherwise. Time and again, I've been in situations that saw me coming out the better programmer, not because I was more familiar with the language, or because I had more experience, but because I was able to see things from a different perspective, having encountered similar problems being solved in different ways in a different language and/or environment.

Concrete example: In my current gig working for a client that deals with a proprietary platform written in PHP, I would often use list comprehensions (or, at least, the nearest thing to it that can be achieved with a crock like PHP) where others would use list iteration plus mutations. This leads to less code, which then leads to better readability and easier maintenance, plus, less stress for me.

It's not that I'm such a wiz with PHP, or that list comprehension is a black art that PHP programmers are incapable of learning--it's just that most PHP devs never get the chance to even learn about the technique. I feel comfortable using it, because it comes naturally to someone like me who's heavily invested in Python, and has actually made the effort to try and grok functional programming.

Similarly, the yield keyword in Python would've been a scary thing for me, had I not managed to grok a similar facility in Ruby, as well as a bunch of other programming languages (either named the same, or providing the same functionality).

Why you'd want a mercenary

As I mentioned earlier, mercenaries are ideal for beefing up your ranks quickly, and for a short while. We can come in, do the job, then leave, and you don't have to worry about us hanging out all day by the water cooler, because we've got nothing to do (all while collecting a steady paycheque).

Unlike lifers, mercenaries have a vested interest in getting the job done as quickly and as well as possible (so we can move on to the next project with glowing references). We're not interested in coding our way into job security: for us, job security means leaving clients satisfied with our work, so we can grab another lucrative gig.

Why you'd hate a mercenary

Morale. Unless the groundwork can be laid down properly with the regular troops, they're going to resent the presence of what they'd likely think of as a snot-nosed, overpriced, underperforming jerk that's going to totally ruin everything everyone's got going. A lot of lifers, especially the ones more likely to obfuscate their way into a career, resent consultants who are coming in to clean the place up, and, usually, rightly so. After all, they've made it a point to bring everybody down to their level, just so they can keep playing ball.

Worse part is that they can poison the minds of others around them with words of gloom and doom, undermining cleanup and streamlining plans even before they can get off the ground.

Support the war against crappy code! Hire a mercenary today!

Specifically, hire me!

Here are a bunch of links to help keep your interest piqued (aside from musings on this blog, of course):

If you'd like to discuss the contents of this post, feel free to make use of the aforementioned email address or the comments area.

Apologies are in order...

If you came here trying to find out how to be an actual mercenary and/or get girls. On the bright side, I might just have goaded you into learning more about programming!

  • 1 min read

New office!

A couple of skilled craftsmen worked over the little niche I've taken to using as my office over the weekend (painting, installing shelves and an actual door. In case anybody was wondering where I've been the past few days, this is why I haven't been able to go online.

Overhead shot

Overhead shot of my desk. This was taken with me standing at the corner farthest from the one shown in the picture. This room is small, but I'm loving it. The pic is linked to my Flickr set with pictures of the office I was using before.

(Fun fact: This room used to be a storage area. Then it was converted to a WC, then back to a storage area. It was also used as a room for househelp, whenever we had one.)

  • 1 min read

Overclock.net: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

Found this article while reading about my all-time favorite tech: keyboards. This article is positively bursting with nerdy information: everything and anything you've ever wanted to know about keyboard technology, all chewed-up and preprocessed, just waiting for you to digest it.

Source

  • 1 min read

Guru Board: Keyboard God Among Gods

Too bad they canceled production of this keyboard. I'd have gotten one without hesitation--well, as long as the price didn't go beyond my limit $150 (okay, fine, I'd probably still buy it at about $200).

This is the one keyboard that I would replace my Model M with (if I ever steel myself to ponying up the $265 required to get my hands on an HHK Pro v2, I'd still switch between it and the Model M).

More keyboard loving in a previous post.

Source

  • 3 min read

Why do non-economists see it fit to mess with economics?

A former co-worker retweeted the following, which got me riled up:

Ninoy was murdered on August 21, 1983, not August 20 or August 23. That's what happens with stupid policies such as holiday-economics.

So I posted the following retort:

Oh, sure. Poke fun at GMA's expense now that she's no longer President. Where were your wisecracks when she was doing the country good?

Noynoy is a hypocrite, a liar and a panderer; the only thing sadder is the fact that all the other candidates were worse.

And, please, don't get me started on Nognog.

Does no one else remember when Noynoy declared that he wouldn't run for President, fearing that it'd look like he was taking advantage of his mother's then-recent death? Then reneged on something he pretty much swore to, and ran, anyway?

So far, 'P-Noy' has done nothing but pander to the masses, who couldn't see past the tip of their noses and realize that the country's in much better shape than it was before P-GMA took office. Sure, we've had some bad times, but do you realize that the Philippines was one of the few Asian countries that managed to ride the storm that was the economic recession only a few months past (the effects of which are still felt pretty much everywhere).

Simple picture, for those who find my claim that the country is doing better: I remember when the restaurant Chef d'Angelo first opened in the Padre Faura wing of Robison's Place Ermita. They were pretty much confined to serving suit-wearing yuppies. A few months ago, The Wife and I were at a mall where a Chef d'Angelo recently opened. I wanted to try out their food (having never done so before), which I could now afford to do.

The one thing that struck me was how the customers in the store were as varied as, say, that of a Jollibee branch. There were a couple of kids who couldn't be past college, a family of five eating out (and they weren't a high-middle-class looking family, either), a couple who (sorry, but true) definitely didn't look like they belonged, amongst others. Even saw a couple of suit-wearing yuppies.

Now, it could be that Jollibee's prices have reached the point were it's just as expensive to eat there as in Chef d'Angelo; it could also easily be the case that Chef d'Angelo recently lowered their prices to the point where even traditionally Jollibee-eating people could afford them.

Either way, that means our economy has improved from the time I first saw a Chef d'Angelo restaurant, to when I actually got to eat there.

Consider: If Jollibee has really become that expensive, the fact that people still eat there in droves mean that Filipinos can still afford to do so. If, instead, Chef d'Angelo's prices have dropped, it means the management thinks they can afford to do so to compete, and still make profit.

In any case, I know that former President Arroyo's "holiday economics" worked, before I sure saw a helluva lot of people in malls and similar places during extended weekends, spending money buying goods, or partaking in other services, rather than staying at home. If nobody could afford to do that, then why were so many, in fact, doing it?