February 27, 2005
Carrot & Stick
The Carrot and the Stick is a metaphor for methods of motivating people. It harkens back to methods of motivating mules which involved literal carrots as bribery and literal beatings with sticks, as punishment. The carrot represents a positive motivation. Something good to work for. The stick is of course the negative motivation, the consequence of failure. Many employers use a mix of these things to motivate their employees and increase their productivity.
Commonly, carrots are things like extra vacation time, cash bonus, or even just special recognition. Sticks are usually administrative punishment in the form of official write ups. A companies big stick is usually, termination, but not in an interesting, Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of way. Rather they just mean you're not allowed back in the build and no longer have access to the "carrots."
I work in a special field. My company is pioneering ways to show an employee the carrot and then beat him with it, as though it were the stick. They do things like introducing new, highly unpopular and arbitrary, rules and then allowing people who meet their motivational goals to ignore the new rules. They're providing a benefit for good behavior that people have had all along and was only taken away so they could provide it as a benefit for good behavior.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (589)
February 26, 2005
Maison Ikkoku Syndrome
An entertainment disease that seems to slow the passage of time. The syndrome is named for the anime series Maison Ikkoku. In brief, Maison Ikkoku is the story of Yusako Godai, a poor student studying to get into college and the random wackiness that befalls him because of his annoying neighbors. It's also a painfully, slowly, drawn out romance between Godai and Kyoko, the apartment manager responsible for the building he lives in. The only redeeming features were the oddly entertaining denizen of room four, Yotsuya, and the large dog, Soichiro, who looked just like one of my friends from college.
The main problem with this anime is that it's boring. Exhaustively, boring. The pacing is just bad and the payoff is low for all the wait. In the first 22 minute episode they have about 6 minutes of "establishing shots." (Okay Bailey, that means they show a picture of a leaf falling from a tree or a street light flickering on. The theory is it tells you something about the scene i.e., it's just after sunset, its spring, the city is not currently on fire, whatever.) Establishing shots are a great way to add atmosphere and to set tone, but having them replace a quarter of the story is just not right.
I watched the first VHS tape of this series alone, I checked and saw the tape was about 50 minutes long and then played it. At the end of the first episode I got up thinking the tape was finished. Then, much to my chagrin, the 2nd episode starts. I'd only sat through 25 minutes of this crap. I had been convinced it was an hour and I had to check a clock to make sure the tape wasn't mislabeled about the timing. One of my friends reported a very similar experience he and another friend had when they watched the tape. After hearing that, we both knew it was a sign. Not only was Maison I bad, it was so bad it was warping space-time. Clearly we had sat through an hour a piece for each episode and the Maison I syndrome simply distorted time so that we only used up 25 minutes of real time. I spent some time trying to find a way to use this for the common good, but gave up at the end of the first season in despair.
Posted by DjDuk at 12:39 AM | Comments (3)
February 25, 2005
Accuracy
Just a note on the accuracy of this site. There is none. I write all of the entries, without the benefit of resources, (some might say without the benefit of literacy, also) from my memory. That means the facts are not great. They remain generally correct in most cases, but anything I state as a fact you might want to check elsewhere before quoting.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2005
A note on missed posts
We were having a good run of daily (sorta) posts going. Clearly that's stopped. I blame my employer. My schedule was forcibly moved up by five hours and I am now compelled to rise before the sun does. It sucks. It really sucks. As such my schedule has been in shambles for a while and I haven't made time to post. C'est la vie, but as I'm starting to get used to this brain deadening timetable I should be able to post a bit more. Sorry about that.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (630)
February 07, 2005
The Case for Being a Penguin
Here is yet more photographic evidence that DJ Duk can play the guitar. (And is therefore a penguin.)
Posted by Ripley at 01:02 AM | Comments (631)
February 04, 2005
The Drudge Report
Website of ersatz reporter Matt Drudge, the Drudge Report is a window on the news. Drudge essentially reads a lot of news websites and posts what he thinks is interesting. Drudge doesn't really do any reporting or news writing of his own, but he maintains contacts and can occasionally run a story before major news organizations. He had been popular in a small way among conservative readers for quite some time when he broke a significant portion of the Monica Lewinski story. He revealed on his website the existence of the now infamous blue dress and it's damning (and evidentially indictable but not convictable) physical evidence. He got the information from a contact in a TV news network that was considering not running the story. His site is important on two levels. First, he makes a convenient alternative source to what mainstream newspapers consider the major stories of the day. Drudge's site will carry things outlets like CNN and CBS would prefer not see the light of day or simply don't consider important. Secondly, he helps to force the mainstream news organs to acknowledge the existence of contrasting points of view and actually serves to make them better through competition.
The subject comes up simply because many of the news articles that get a link or a comment on this site will have come from the Drudge Report.
Posted by DjDuk at 10:19 PM | Comments (4)
February 02, 2005
Nothing to say
They finally have nothing to say, about Iraq's elections that is. In the wake of the wildly succesful elections that just took place in Iraq the liberal Left seems to have lost it's tongue to the proverbial cat. They can no longer say that the elections aren't going to take place. They can no longer say that no one will vote. They also can no longer say that the Iraqi people don't want a free and democratic society. Its nice to get to see the likes of Micheal Moore have to eat crow, literally not figuratively as might be suggested by his hefty bulk.
Posted by Ripley at 03:28 PM | Comments (594)