Kirsten Mortensen's blog

Via Instapundit, Wired has a piece about a programmer who supposedly outsourced his own job to India:

Did you hear the one about the programmer who outsourced his own job? I read about it on Slashdot.org, the “news for nerds” Web site. A pseudonymous poster wrote, “About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 to do the job I get paid $67,000 for. He’s happy to have the work. I’m happy that I only have to work 90 minutes a day, talking code. My employer thinks I’m telecommuting. Now I’m considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.”

Wired says the story is probably apocrophal, but even so, mightn’t it be an early clue to the new direction?

The only trouble is, offshore outsourcing is awfully hard to do when you’re a writer.

OTOH, considering how cheaply many freelancers give away their time, perhaps it’s possible to find a subcontractor here in the U.S.

Hmmm . . .

Technorati Tags: outsourcing

You’ll need directions, right?

Well guess what, Google’s here to help!

1. Go to Google Maps.
2. Click on “get directions” (under the Search Maps box)
3. Type “New York” in the first box (the “from” box)
4. Type “London” in the second box (the “to” box) and hit “get directions”
5. Scroll down to step #21

:-)

Technorati Tags: Google maps

I don’t really want to turn my blog into a continual “I hate this product” rant site, but the problem with being something of a perfectionist myself is that I think companies ought to be run by people with a bit of common sense, at least.

So here’s a tip for all you manufacturers out there: women are your customers, too.

When you design a product and you test it (assuming you do test it — sometimes I wonder) if you don’t include women users in your testing process, you are capital-L Losers.

What has this top of mind for me this morning: I bought a Bolens push mower from Lowes last fall. I bought it to replace a mower that had come with my house and was literally falling apart. I never had trouble starting my old mower. This Bolens mower, on the other hand, is a bear to start. Priming doesn’t help. Nothing helps. The ONLY time it starts up easily is when it’s already been running and has only been off for a couple of minutes (e.g. I have finished the front lawn and have dragged it down the driveway to do that back).

So I invariably end up yanking the cord over & over.

I guess it was only a matter of time before I wrenched my back.

I couldn’t stand up straight yesterday morning. And have you tried getting a chiropractic appointment on a weekend?

So thanks a lot, Bolen. I spent this week running my a*s off for other people — my clients, my firm’s account managers, my kid, my girl scout troop. And all week I was thinking, just get through this, because come the weekend, I can get out and golf.

And now I can’t swing my club.

Words can’t express how upset I am.

And what recourse do I have? None. Lowe’s has my money. Bolens has my money. My ruined weekend is of no concern to them.

The best I can hope for is that someone who’s shopping for mowers will read this post and avoid buying this horrible, terribly designed product. Save your money. Throw your money down a sewer, even, you might be out $200 but at least you’ll be able to swing a golf club.

Technorati Tags: products to avoid, Bolen lawn mower

heh heh

So I can take pics when the tour hits Rochester later this month, and publish them on my Golfolicious blog.

Technorati Tags: LPGA, Rochester, New York

Bookmark this site: the Sunshine Foundation.

Here’s the blurb from their “About” page:

The Sunlight Foundation was founded in January 2006 with the goal of using the revolutionary power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing, and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy. We are unique in that technology and the power of the Internet are at the core of every one of our efforts.

Our initial projects – from the establishment of a Congresspedia, the making of “transparency grants” for the development and enhancement of databases and websites, and two separate efforts to engage the public in distributed journalism and offer online tutorials on the role of money in politics efforts – are based on the premise that the collective power of citizens to demand greater accountability is the clearest route to reform.

Sunlight’s work is committed to helping citizens, journalists and bloggers be their own best watchdogs, both by improving access to existing information and digitizing new information, and by creating new tools and websites to enable all of us to pool our intelligence in new, and yet to be imagined, ways.

We need this, don’t you think?

Technorati Tags: Sunlight Foundation

May was the driest month on record, ever, here in Rochester New York.

Only a quarter of an inch.

The average for May is nearly three.

Lawns were looking burnt and yellow. It was like we went from April to August. And a river birch I’ve got in my yard started dropping leaves, something it’s never done in spring before. I figure it was probably stressed from being so dry.

Then finally yesterday we got a brief thunderstorm, followed by light rain on & off overnight. My guage showed 0.85 inches this morning. We could use a bit more, I’m thinking, but at least it’s something.

Technorati Tags: Rochester, New York, rainfall

Thank you Instapundit for finding this article about “colony collapse disorder.”

I’d come up with a lot of the same information in dribs and drabs, and mixed it with a large dose of skepticism about overwrought news reports. For example, there’s this PDF of a powerpoint slide about “fall dwindle disease” (the old name for colony collapse disorder). It mentions that the phenom struck a beekeeper in the 1930s. (Turns out it’s been around even longer than that.)

So it’s nice to have it all presented in one place, in a friendly & calm piece written by an entomologist who, among other things, advises that “it’s never a good idea to trust what the media are telling you.”

Hah.

Here’s his sum-up:

[T]he leading hypothesis in many researcher’s minds is that colonies are dying primarily because of stress. Stress means something different to a honey bee colony than to a human, but the basic idea isn’t all that alien: If a colony is infected with a fungus, or has mites, or has pesticides in its honey, or is overheated, or is undernourished, or is losing workers due to spraying, or any other such thing, then the colony is experiencing stress. Stress in turn can cause behavioral changes that exacerbate the problem and lead to worse ones like immune system failure.

What’s interesting is that out on the bee keeping fringes, people are discovering ways to keep their hives healthier. I blogged one other time about Kirk Webster, who has bred bees resistent to Varroa mites, one significant cause of stress to European honey bees.

Here’s another beekeeper who controls mites by using hives with smaller cells. I thought this was cool, as well:

The other change I’ve done in my beekeeping, is to capture feral swarms and start raising queens from these. These are darker bees that seem more acclimatized to my location and have been surviving on their own with no chemicals at all.

Yeah, let nature sort it out!

Technorati Tags: colony collapse disorder, honeybees,