Wednesday, April 04, 2001
My life is the companies, and so is yours
I STRONGLY suggest that you call some 7AM, 6PM and Saturday AM team meetings with the EMPLOYEES who work directly for you. Discuss this serious issue with your team. I suggest that you call your first meeting – tonight. Something is going to change.
I am giving you two weeks to fix this. My measurement will be the parking lot: it should be substantially full at 7:30 AM and 6:30 PM. The pizza man should show up at 7:30 PM to feed the starving teams working late. The lot should be half full on Saturday mornings. We have a lot of work to do. If you do not have enough to keep your teams busy, let me know immediately.
Via my dog wants to be on the radio, From Cerner Corp to Employees
I am glad, very glad, I don't work for such a company. The CEO (who sent this letter) is clearly insane but you know what? The people are going to respond to this. They're going to be there at 7:30 AM and still at 7:30 PM. They're going to work harder. Not smarter mind you; just harder. The CEO is clearly someone who is only defined by thier job. He has no life and he is making sure that no one else does either.
This is someone who you don't want to work for.
Friday, April 06, 2001
“Remove my leg and I'll be complete.”
But just what counts as apotemnophilia is part of the problem in explaining it. Some wannabes are also devotees. Others who identify themselves as wannabes are drawn to extreme body modification. There seems to be some overlap between people who want finger and toe amputations and those who seek piercing, scarring, branding, genital mutilation, and such. Some wannabes, Robert Smith suggests, want amputation as a way to gain sympathy from others. And finally, there are "true" apotemnophiles, whose desire for amputation is less about sex than about identity. "My left foot was not part of me," says one amputee, who had wished for amputation since the age of eight. "I didn't understand why, but I knew I didn't want my leg." A woman in her early forties wrote to me, "I will never feel truly whole with legs." Her view of herself has always been as a double amputee, with stumps of five or six inches.
A long and fascinating article on a condition that may be related to gender-identity disorder, whereby people wish to have body parts amputated to feel complete.
Monday, April 09, 2001
The Mandelbrot Monk
When Schipke saw the translation, at once he saw it for what it was: an allegorical description of the iterative process for calculating the Mandelbrot. In mathematical terms, Udo's system was to start with a complex number z, then iterate it up to 70 times by the rule z -> z*z + c, until z either diverged or was caught in an orbit.
Fact? Or hoax? Given that it's dated April 1st makes it suspect, but you never know. It does seem too perfect though.
