« February 2008 | Main | April 2008 »

March 25, 2008

 subverision^2  

I've had a really bad habit when using subversion since I first started using it in 2004: I like to write fictional stories in the commit messages

It started as a training exercise to write better comments. Then it quickly became a way to do blogging/creative writing at work.

Depending on the project, I'd take on different personas. For a particularly awful project I was working as a PM/co-Developer on, I recall writing every commit message as a mentally unstable contractor who just got his first job out a vocational school. My character was paranoid and delusional... hearing voices and always scared that people would find out he has no idea what he's doing.

Integer? Y the fuck dn't thy just call it NUMBER???

On another project, I wrote as a middle-aged midwestern Sr. Developer. He was always missing his daughter's plays, and worked in a nondescript cubicle in a cliched office tower. He often felt guilty that his dreams of seeing the Sun /not/ just on his morning commute began to catch up with his desire to spend more time with his family. His boss looked like Dilbert.

- Performance tuning: Updated the SQL abstraction layer to better use function indexes - I hear its a beautiful outside today. Thanks to a calendaring mistake in the head office, I won't be able to see for myself. Did I mention that my daughter is in a play on Friday, and I'll probably have to miss it? No one reads this stuff, do they. No one. Am I alone here?

Sometimes I would write Haikus

Sometimes I would create new accounts under different names, and write out a dialogue between two committers... much like a screenplay.

Every so often, I would write in a 'nervous' message from an unnamed contractor:

I got you the proof of over-billing and rigging the machines. Get me out of here, NOW. I think they're onto me.

With that all said, subversion can be a really great way to relieve the monotony of your day... and fuck with your colleagues.

Posted by Jonathan at 6:41 PM | Comments (0)

March 6, 2008

 Democratic Party Delegates: Florida & Michigan  

I commented on the "ABC/Facebook Politics" debate a few weeks ago on the Florida/Michigan issue. Someone had asked something to the effect of "Is it fair to victimize the Florida/Michigan voters", my response ( reposted below ) is that calling the voters victimized is a huge oversimplification of the situation.

--

Voters in both states were told before the elections that the contests were deemed illegitimate and votes would not be counted. The issue at hand isn't the invalidation of valid votes - it is the validation of invalid votes. Voters were told in very plain language, "Your votes will not count." "Your votes will be invalid."

With that information coming directly from the Democratic Leadership, many people specifically decided not to vote. Again, I reiterate-- before the election, the contest was deemed illegitimate and people were specifically told that votes would not be allowed to impact the national results -- so people stayed home.

You can see proof of that in the voting patterns. About 750,000 Floridians voted in the 2004 Democratic primary; 1.7M voted in the 2008 Primary -- a 2.27 multiplier. That's a remarkable voter turnout and improvement on first look... but many other states received 4x and 5x multipliers on their voter turnouts from 2004. Researchers using regression analysis have suggested that somewhere between 2.3M and 3.1M Floridians would have voted in a primary that was known to be fully valid.

With that said, forget about the issues of 'fairness' to the candidates and campaigning vs name recognition... The winners and losers in politics are the people, not candidates - and this situation is no exception.

The core issue is that a group of people were specifically told not to vote in an election... that the election itself was unsanctioned and would be unofficial and disregarded.

Deciding to retroactively count the votes of those who voted, while not giving those who specifically decided against voting a chance to vote is a form of voter disenfranchisement.

Florida and Michigan are both simply awful situations: the DNC can either suppress the voice of those who voted despite a nullified status of their election, or suppress the voice of those who wanted to vote but were not given a reasonably fair chance.

At least in keeping the states nullified, the votes of one group are not prioritized more than any other group. It's sad that the best current solution is to rob everyone of their voice - but the choices are literally reduced to 'disenfranchise some people' or 'nullify it all / disenfranchise everyone'.

Personally, I think that Democrat Party owes the people of Florida and Michigan a fair chance to be heard. They should spend some of the MILLIONS of dollars in campaign and party funds to find a way to give people in both states a chance to cast votes in a fair election that is advertised to all as "Yes, your vote really WILL count". I could care less about exposure and campaign dollars - I only care that people are told "yes, we really are having an election that counts"

Posted by Jonathan at 9:44 PM | Comments (0)