Magical

I have been obsessed with all things Magic all week. Read the Time Spiral trilogy, been working on sorting cards, and quite a bit of time on the site. Hopefully soon getting to the point where I can go public with something. I also made three new decks.

In sorting my cards I realized that I don't really have anywhere to put them, so this weekend I hope to cook up some nice storage cases with my dad. I am thinking wood cases with felt linings. I also hopefully have enough black paint left over from my desk to paint them all. They should end up being pretty cool.

I have also accidentally fallen into a bi-phasic sleeping cycle. I get up at about 8am, work, then come home, eat and read until about 7pm or 8pm, fall asleep, wake up at about 11pm-Midnight, work on magic site or read more, back to sleep at 4am, repeat. It is very strange, but I feel like I slack off less after work.

Last night I fell asleep at about 8, slept for what seemed like an eternity, then woke up at midnight completely ready for a whole day. At 5am I finally forced myself to sleep again, just so today wasn't so hard at work. The only weird side effect I notice is that I have trouble keeping track of what day of the week it is, but that is pretty minor.

I'm definitely excited about the site, and really wish I was home right now so I could work on it. Harry is even doing design for me! I'm finally freed from my lack of artistic ability and my chromatic retardation!

In completely weird and unrelated news, one of my profesoras from Spain is visiting the US, and is currently here in the KC area, so hoping to go eat dinner or something with her tonight. I think this is her first time in the US... if I remember right, she has never even been to Madrid, which is only a six hour drive from Ronda. On Tuesday she saw the Grand Canyon, so I'm not sure how we KC people are going to top that.

Anyway, back I go to dreaming about Magic and Rails.

Slums

Today I was talking to Joe about telecommuting, which we both agree is the future of our profession. It just doesn't really make sense for us to show up to some physical place in person when what we do is concentrate and manipulate a virtual space. I can see having common meeting points to keep a group cohesive, but our particular profession is extremely poorly suited to the continuous interruptions of an office environment.

Programming aside, I think the closer an "office" is to your home, the better. And I don't mean physical proximity. In that regard, today's typical office is more like a homeless shelter.

The much touted reasoning for cubicles is that they lead to better collaboration, but I call BS on that. What leads to better collaboration is better common spaces. In a house, if people want to collaborate or be social, they go to the living room, family room, dining room, front porch, or back yard. These are all areas that are understood to be somewhat social in nature, and the person is allowed to choose when to participate. If the person wants to be private, they stay in their office, bedroom, or study. The point of these rooms is privacy and the ability to concentrate.

How this logic escapes the designers of offices just astounds me. Each worker should have a private space in which they can focus and get things done. Its walls should go to the ceiling, and it should have a door that can be closed.

In addition, the workplace should have several common areas, each suited to slightly different situations. One should have lots of food and comfy chairs and couches, and plenty of entertainment options (but not TV). This is for employees to blow off steam, chat with a coworker, or just eat their lunch. (I say no TV because it tends to destroy any interaction between people in a room.)

Another common area should be several office sized rooms with tables, outlets, and connections for small groups of 3-4 to work in the same room if they need to. If you don't know what I'm talking about, visit a good college library. These allow groups to work together without disturbing other groups.

The last area type really depends on the size of the company, but optimally you want a place where everyone can fit at once, for those all-staff events like kicking off the Next Big Thing, or just a company movie night.

The first area is like a living room and kitchen, the second area is like your dining room table, and the third is like your back yard. The private offices are much like your office/study at home. We have all these areas in a house because they serve a social purpose, allow us to establish boundaries and collaborate at will, and make the house comfortable and varied.

In contrast, modern offices are like homeless shelters. Everyone is in a shared room, cubicles being the metaphorical equivalent of bunk beds. There is no food, or at least nothing that doesn't come out of a vending machine. Also, the common areas are usually places of dread (meeting rooms) or discomfort (lobbies and lounges).

Meeting rooms usually have to be scheduled, so they don't allow spontaneous collaboration. It's no big secret that cubicles don't actually allow collaboration, since you have just enough privacy that you can't talk face-to-face with anyone without shouting. So how are your employees supposed to actually work in a team?

Lobbies and lounges are stark places with no relaxation value. "Oh man! I get to go sit and stare out the window by myself in a completely silent room lit by fluorescent lights!" If you don't believe me, ask yourself, which would you rather do? Go take a 15 minute break in your company's lounge area, or take the same break in your living room? You get the point.

The idea of a cubicle doesn't makes sense at all. As far as I can tell, it's only attractive in two situations. First, you need to be able to shout at your coworkers constantly. Maybe this makes sense in the bull pen of a stock trading firm, where the movies tell me brokers shout at each other across the room to get orders made. Thankfully, your typical office worker, much less a programmer, doesn't need to do that. If they need to talk to someone in person, they walk to that person's cubicle, which is really no different than walking to that person's private office would be.

The other reason cubicles are attractive is the ability to cram a lot of people in one big room, leaving flexibility to change the floor plan nearly at will. While this actually makes some sense, it doesn't necessitate that cube walls are only five feet tall. If you want to have modular office walls, make them go to the ceiling and put doors on them.

So think about it, would you prefer to live in a comfortable house or a homeless shelter? My guess is you picked the first one... so why do you allow your employer to keep you in the second?

48 Hours

Not 48 hours back to back, but that is how many hours at the current job I have left. Just six days.

(I gave my two week notice, but they let me use my vacation time for last four days, making my last day a Monday.)

It feels good to have that done with. I just need to wrap up my last project before then and hopefully get out of here without any parties or luncheons. I'd rather just say goodbye to people 1-on-1. Group goodbyes are just awkward.

It is amazing how your bosses suddenly talk to you like a normal person when you give your notice. I guess they don't have to tow the line anymore, and can be honest. My former supervisor (who I was about to rejoin on a project) just regaled me with a nice rundown on why this place fell apart and when it happened. Very insightful. If there is any reason to feel bad about my decision, it is leaving him shorthanded.

But mostly I feel good about it. I will have a new project in a new place with new people. One with a clear beginning and end, with a raise to boot. I'll also be closer to home and closer to the University, which I increasingly suspect I will join again in the future for a Ph.D.

Anyway, it's lunchtime now, so I'm going to go get my caffeine fix.

Preparations

Op, another week went by.

I have been entirely occupied by Magic in one form or another for the last seven days. Some of those days were spent playing with Bob and Mark. Some were spent working on the site (much setup and an organized fresh start). Some have been consumed by sorting and deck making. The rest have been spent reading the Time Spiral books. It's so nice to be back into Magic world again.

I have had relatively little to do in preparation for tomorrow. In one sense I look forward to getting it over with. I figure there can be three outcomes, and I am perfectly happy with two of the three, and the third option isn't that terrible. On the other hand, I hate dealing with crap like this. It'd be nice if I didn't have to bother with giving notice, but that is a quick way to ruin a reference.

I actually caught myself today being kind of repulsed by YC News. The whole startup idea has gotten so trendy, and I have this weird aversion to all things trendy. I know it's kind of irrational. There are more startups because it is cheaper and easier than ever to do it, but my contrarian vein continues. Not like I can really talk anyway, as I have been sitting on an idea for nearly two years now. While I have made limited progress in that time, mostly I have wasted it. I know I will regret it someday if I never follow through on this. I just keep finding financial reasons to put it off. At least with the banishment of DotA I seem to be able to work on things during my evenings and weekends now. Here is hoping for some productive time!

Wish me luck tomorrow!

Gorillaz

So I can't help listening to Feel Good Inc. by the Gorillaz nonstop today. Today is the best day in a long time for me. I can't divulge details just yet, but let me just say I am overjoyed!

Whee happy music!

I made good on my promise to work out last night, and am suitably sore to prove it. The little gym at our apartment complex is decent, but it definitely lacks a curl bar and a decent place to do dips and situps. I managed about a dozen dips on the treadmill bars, but the belt is too close to my knees and I can't go down properly. Settled for tricep extensions instead. The lack of a curl bar prevents me from doing skull crushers or barbell curls, which I enjoy as a way to end my workout, but I'll deal with it since the place is included in my rent. I can always do situps under the couch anyway.

My new office chair is positively delightful. Sometimes I just go sit in it for no reason other than feel that relaxed feeling for a few minutes. It takes all the tension out of my back and definitely makes me a happy camper.

Anoche soñe con unos amigos españoles. Ellos estaban hablando totalmente en ingles, y yo en español, asi que nadie se podia entender. Ademas, estabamos en el medio del puente en Ronda, y hacia lluvia, pero nadie se daba frio, y el mar estaba cerca (a pesar de que el mar no este cerca de Ronda). Fue 2005 tambien... por que todos los amigos eran mis amigos de España en 2005. Que raro!

Pues, me voy! Que todo se lo pase bien!

Oil Change

So I have been telling myself that I will get up early and go have my oil changed before work ... since last Friday. The problem is, every time 6:15am comes around, I just tell myself "I'll do it tomorrow" and go back to sleep.

I seriously need to stop being lazy.

It was about this time last year that I started this blog in an attempt to motivate myself to get something done. It worked like that for a little while, but after a couple months (and the transition to Spain) I slacked off again. I just realized that I have been in my apartment for two months, and have yet to start working out regularly again. Lame!

Going to correct that when I get home today.

In unrelated news, I got my computer chair last night. It's so nice and comfy. Sitting at my computer is no longer painful after 20 minutes (it replaces a cheapo wooden kitchen chair). That brings me hope of actually getting something productive done in my spare time, assuming I make it through the current gauntlet of birthdays. Seriously, what is with people being born in October and November? Best I can surmise is that we can blame this on Valentine's Day (evil holiday, but that is another rant).

And More Meatballs

On my last post, Mum (hi mum!) left the following comment:

How much of this relational retardation is due to a generation of people where interactions are primarily "virtual"? Do interactions then take on an air of discomfort because ones have not learned to be genuine when dealing with "real" people? The rules of virtual communities are very different and are much more self focused than in-the-flesh interactions ever could be.

I was going to reply in the comments, but as I was writing, it kept getting longer and longer, so I just decided to make a full post about it.

Two of the group were definitely in their late 30s, which is, even at this point, too old to have their social norms set by virtual interaction. I agree that virtual interaction tends to be more anonymous and requires an entirely different set of social skills and cues than real-life interaction, but I also know at least two people that I have never met in real life with which I still manage to have a "deep" relationship (as deep as my friendship with Bob/Mark/Michael/etc).

After a weekend to reflect on this post, I think the issue is that our only culture now is mass culture (which isn't exactly a revelation). In the past, people cared about their neighbors, the events in their town/church/school, the history and cultural significance of things in their state or region. Now our only shared community seems to be mass culture, like hit songs, hit TV shows, hit movies, and professional (televised) sports. (A really excellent book on this phenomenon is called Bowling Alone.) I don't think people have lost the ability to interact on a deeper level, they simply have a narrowed range of topics for discussion. The old 'deeper' subjects still exist, but they require slightly more effort to broach than last night's Idol episode. Why would people that barely know each other dig for commonality when they have the obvious commonality of mass culture to fall back on?

I notice this creeps in even with my parents. I currently don't have television service. I supposed if I wanted to fish out some rabbit ears I could at least have the local channels, but I don't bother. Despite this, my mom still asks during idle conversation whether I have seen some new show or funny commercial. She isn't asking because we don't know how to interact socially, but these things are easy subjects when a 'deeper' subject isn't being pursued.

I think I only notice how pervasive mass culture references are now because of my varied attempts to not keep up with them. I don't have TV, I don't listen to the radio, and my time on the internet is confined to Hacker News and Slashdot. My only real connection to current events is the Economist, which isn't exactly trendy (thankfully, as I find the sparse dribble in more mainstream weeklies like Time and Newsweek to be rather repetitive and narrow), and NPR, which isn't either. I notice the references because I no longer get them. Maybe this whole tirade was just me feeling left out.

With Meatballs

So I was sitting in the break room upstairs eating some Spaghetti-O's when a foursome of generic business-casual people came in. Each was in their 30s, with alternating black or tan slacks and pastel-colored shirts. The two women wore gold bracelets and necklaces with little gold looking swirly things, and the guys each had their cell phones in holsters on their right hip.

They proceeded to ask each other where they were from, how long they had been working here, etc. Then an obvious awkward lull while they waited for the Pepsi Machine to do its business. I'm watching all this from the corner seat of the corner table with my Economist next to my bowl, amused. One of the guys brings up the Chiefs and miraculously the silence is broken. They chatter on about Sunday game rituals, like chili with the family or feeding the dogs bacon for good luck (no joke!).

At first I am amused at how utterly generic and meaningless this conversation is. Nothing more than an awkward cover story for being forced to mingle without supervision during a break in their day-long meeting. It kind of reminds me of being a new hire, and spending those first weeks constantly chatting with people that seem interested in you, but really are just excited to have new meat listen to their stories. Only, all four of these people looked like new hires, so it was bonus awkward.

Suddenly though, I got this gut-wrenching rage. Is this really our common culture? This... nothing? This shallow platitude driven nonsense? Instead of trying to meet people we simply all pretend to be generic people because we think that is what other generic people want. Short of the feeder-of-dog-bacon, not one of these people exhibited a personality quirk or unique story. And even bacon-feeder wasn't exactly stepping out of bounds by admitting that she liked dogs. Gasp!

Why is it that we create this weird divide between our personal lives (and hence our personalities) and our 'professional' lives? Is it that we are afraid of admitting our differences in fear of offending someone? I know that is how I feel when taking a new job. Be a yes-man to everyone until you figure out who thinks what and whose opinion actually matters. But even then, I'm not myself, because I just become what those-that-matter expect me to be. How is this behavior considered healthy?

It's just like we are all going through the motions of professionalism, and are afraid to just be people. I want to be friends with my coworkers, and not just 'at work.' Maybe it would just be easier to work with my existing friends, or to start my own company, than to find it elsewhere. I don't know, but I realized in that moment that I don't really care about the paycheck, as long as I can get by. All I really want is to have fun at what I do. Maybe I should reconsider this whole office-career idea, but for what?

Shell Games

So reading blogs today I found a kindred spirit when it comes to money (hyper)management. The guy over at MyMoneyBlog.com seems to have some interesting ways to nickel and dime yourself to riches, or at least extra cash. His series on using 0% interest periods on credit cards to earn interest on money that isn't even yours was amusing to read. While I won't quite go to his extreme, I have been doing something similar for some time.

The idea is to get a 0% period on a card for as long as possible with as high a credit limit as possible. You proceed to max it out, only paying the minimum during the 0% period, then pay it all off before regular interest kicks in. This requires some discipline to pay off on time, but should be easy if you have a pen and a calendar handy.

The point? You keep the real cash in high yield savings for the duration of the 0% interest period, earning a return on otherwise spent money. You use this cash to pay the card off at the end, but keep the earned interest. Obviously you are not getting rich on this scheme, but just delaying purchases like this will probably net me about $400 next year.

The guy at MyMoneyBlog.com advocates using balance transfer offers to basically transfer out negative balances, then request refund checks in the mail. While technically legal and all, it sounds like effort and possible hassle if anyone ever actually notices these shenanigans. He does make over $1000 a year doing it, so I guess if you really want to, some money is there to be made.

I just stick to the much easier method of basically delaying purchases as long as possible. This allows me to feed my paychecks directly into my savings. I can speed this up by paying for shared things (like bills, groceries, and trips) and have other people pay me back in cash, which I can keep on deposit. A bit stingy of me? Maybe... but it's actually kind of fun to play games with money. I think I get more enjoyment out of the act than the reward, as a $5k credit card is only worth about $200/year in interest.

Of course this is only possible with good credit, no balances, and people that pay you back (for shared expenses). Split a meal with someone that never pays you back, and you just flushed any advantage down the tube. Carry a balance on another card, and the interest there dwarfs anything you would earn with this tactic (always pay down high rate debt first - and credit cards are the highest rates). Bad credit, and you won't qualify for the 0% interest periods.

So an amusing trick (among many) to shuffle money and end up with more than you started with. It won't make you rich anytime soon, but it will pay the taxes on your cell phone bill. ;)

Blogging for the (lack of) Masses

Oops, let a month go by without a post.

Obviously we are settled in to daily routines at the apartment by now. I am excited because I finally bought an office chair that will allow me more than 30 minutes on my computer without back pain. The current situation (wooden kitchen chair) leaves me destroyed every night by the time I fall into bed.

Also bought a replacement motherboard for my laptop on ebay. Hopefully that fixes the no-booting problem (which has recently become 100% permanent). My only dota fix for like a week was this weekend when Ben was gone and I could steal his computer. Sad that I need such fixes, but hey, it's my one recreational activity.

That only leaves UPS and shoes on my list of things to buy, which means another $300 or so. I am debating whether to just get it over with now or put it off another month. I am leaning towards now, just to get it out of the way. Last paycheck went mostly into savings, which was a mental boost, but most of the next three will go towards the Amex card. Surprise car insurance this week didn't help matters at all.

Tonight will be filled with chores, but I hope to catch up on some reading too. I need to actually get ahead on my Economists so I don't feel like I am missing anything. Would also be nice to just devote a few days to finishing up The Singularity is Near (which I have been trying to read for a month).