pete.bevin.me

Ten years ago today, on February 13, 2001, Menya died, a victim of metastatic breast cancer.

I will always remember how in 1996, after chemotherapy, surgery and radiation, her first thought was to start a support group and web site, ibcsupport.org, so people could get better information than was available in books. And how in 2000, while she was in treatment for a tumour in her brain, she started bcmets.org because there wasn’t an online group at the time that made people with metastatic breast cancer feel welcome.

I will always remember how she fought with doctors, passionately arguing her case, and winning most of the time through sheer persistence – and how she inspired other people to do likewise.

And I will always remember her last months, blind, speechless, and unable to control most of her body; reduced to a wasted heap of flesh on a bed.  All she wanted was to die, but the days of defeat stretched out forever without joy.

I have come to dread each October, with its regimented optimism, its tyranny of cheerfulness, and its pink ribbons that are forgotten by half way through November.  I feel for the women I know who have metastatic breast cancer, most of whom will die from it and whose researchers receive pathetically small amounts of money from the major fundraising organizations.

I’m not sure if there is a point to this, except to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of a tragic heroine.  Menya believed that you are not properly dead as long as people remember you, so if you want to do something nice today, please read some Menya anecdotes and remember her fondly.

About a month ago, someone found a bug in PHP that caused it to hang when you used certain floating point numbers.  People were outraged, but a fix appeared the next day.

It turns out that the same bug happens in Java, it was reported to Oracle 3 weeks ago, and there has been no response whatsoever.  Not that Sun was much better in this respect, but the response to bugs says a lot.

Reminds me of the infamous F00F bug in Intel processors circa 1997, which Linux had worked around before Intel even acknowledged the problem.  I seem to remember everyone talking back about how open source saved the day and should be the way of the future.  How we fail to learn…

I don’t really like the term “hacks” as a synonym for “tricks” or “secrets”, but here are some good sleep hacks (2Mb PDF):

• Be consistent about the time you wake up
• You can reduce the amount of sleep you need gradually
• Don’t drink caffeine in the afternoon or evening (BTW, hack 16 is the famous Caffeine Nap)

Why does a mirror reverse left and right, but not top and bottom?  You’d think that if there was any symmetry to the universe, it would work both ways: my left-right axis is at 90º to the mirror, as is my top-bottom axis.  Why don’t they both change?

The answer is that the mirror doesn’t rotate left-right or top-bottom.  It switches front and back – pushing your face back through your skull and out through the back of your head.  But your mind wants to interpret it as a rotation, as if you had walked around the back of the mirror and turned to face the observer.

Feynman explained this pretty well.

Hostgator just published excerpts from an internal company email:

I’m temporarily taking away the lunch list and inviting everyone in both Austin as well as Houston to free lunches regardless of numbers, ratings, tardiness or absences. I’m going to think about making this a permanent change, but am not ready to make this decision just quite yet.

…

You are all allowed to personal browse, respond quickly to a text message, and, in general, have more fun. Those who are doing this will not be written up, or punished in any shape or form.

So this tells me that Hostgator believes it staff behave like irresponsible children who have to be given punishments and rewards to keep them in line.  In other words, people work best when they are scared.

I don’t buy that.  A good company inspires its staff so much that it doesn’t have to manipulate their behaviour.  There is no problem with “numbers, ratings, tardiness or absences” because people love working there.  Zappos apparently offers every new employee $3,000 to quit after their first week, and almost nobody takes it.

The more comfortable people feel, the better they can do creative work.  The more at home they feel, the more they want to do a good job so as not to let everyone else down. Motivating people with fear just encourages them to do the minimum and not take risks.

OK, that’s it.  I’m going to walk around with a picture of Jimmy Wales on my forehead for the next week and see if people give me money.  Who’s with me?