Marc's Musings Reality from Marc's point of view!

This could also be titled “How does upper management run a company while accepting little or no input from their knowledge workers?”.

I’m not 100% sure if this story as reported in the register is accurate, but it *did* tickle me. When I Googled “EDS Mainframe” to top search result was a page from HP Enterprise Services titled “Managed Mainframe Services Executive Overview” (click here for a screen capture if they’ve removed the page). This was filled with the usual, vapid jargon and hopelessly unrealistic expectations that you’ve come to expect from such an overview.

Having been in IT for the past 22 years I have seen many decisions made that have left me scratching my head. Sometimes I convince myself that I simply do not have all the facts at my disposal and that much larger issues are at stake that must form the context in which these decisions make sense.

But more and more, when I see the distilled (and often distorted) version of the facts that make it to the upper echelons of our management teams, I can’t see how a sensible course of action can be taken based on that information. Even less so when an executive is headstrong on some issue (i.e. his daughter told him it would be a good idea) and he determines what must be the final result regardless of what any experts he’s paying for advice actually advises.

It seems that the single greatest force that keeps our larger companies moving forward successfully is the inertia behind when they were actually forming and growing. Once they hit a certain size, there seems to be no way all but the most gifted executive can make a positive contribution.

And those contributions are in the form of general direction, inspiration and championing of solid ideas. I suspect that, the more they leave the details to the folks who understand them, the more successful leadership will be…

Posted under Amusing

While not particularly practical for the average driver at the moment, with the increasing automation of our vehicles, it’s likely this formula will be useful in the near future. Of course it will need to be modified heavily with components such as “Length of your door” and “Width of your behind” so you can figure out if you can actually exit the vehicle once it’s parked! 

Scientists create formula for perfect parking

As usual, the VAST majority of folks do a very credible job in parking lots. It seems that there is a subclass of folks (pre-morlocks?) for whom either the world revolves around them or they just don’t give a crap about anybody else. Check out You Parked Like a Jackass for a bit of cringing.

Posted under Amusing

I really can’t say *why* I like this so much but I like to resurrect it each Christmas:

This song is just so infectious that once I hear it I just can’t get it out of my head. I’m also a sucker for the virtual camera angles and the overall quality of the production. This is a really great piece of work.

Posted under Amusing, Very Cool

All I can say is that I’m *so* glad I got married before we moved down here.

Unless you’ve been living in your parent’s basement your whole life I don’t know of any guy who hasn’t gone through this.

Posted under Amusing

Man, you *really* need to subscribe to a very, very personal god to see what some of these folks are seeing. I especially like the miracle of the ice machine.

But my all time favorite pareidolia has to be this one.

Posted under Amusing

I saw this on a friend’s facebook page an thought it was hysterically funny!

After outing Ken as a homosexual, living a shallow Malibuesqe lifestyle and partying with plastic friends for decades, what’s left for Barbie than to try to recapture her glory days?

Posted under Amusing

Boy! Talk about “Edgy”. Do NOT read this comic strip if you are easily offended. But I find that the humor here absolutely tickles me.

You have been warned!

Click the image above or click here.

Posted under Amusing