Tonight is a special premier on YouTube of “First Orbit”, a film celebrating Yuri Gagarin flight into space 50 years ago.
See it here on YouTube: “First Orbit”.
Monthly Archives: April 2011
William Shatner narrates NASA video celebrating the Shuttle
Recent Space-X on NPR highlights how little we read
A story is posted about a private company working to build the largest capacity lifter in service and what do a significant number of commentors fret about?
That the government is wasting its money on building it!
It is pretty clear that most of those who are commenting that way have not read (or worst – understood) the story, but the ‘private company’ part was highlighted in the summary.
Check it out – NPR.org (on Facebook): Plans For World’s Most Powerful Rocket Unveiled
Sad, huh?
But don’t you think there are multiple failures taking place exemplified here? And where do you feel they stem from?
How poor information design led to Waterfall
I just took part in a great 3 day training session with Uncle Bob Martin on TDD and healthy software design. One of the tidbits Bob shared was the history behind the Waterfall methodology that some of us older folks strained against until agile and lean methodologies started to get well known. Waterfall originated in a paper by Winston W. Royce, in which he describes the process… as a straw man to tear down! Unfortunately, the poor information design of the paper (it puts the summary tearing down the methodology on later pages instead of right up front) led those who read the nice graphics on leading pages to come away thinking they found the solution to their software engineering process needs.
Watch Glenn Vanderburg’s “Real Software Engineering” talk on Vimeo about this.
Real Software Engineering – Glenn Vanderburg from Engine Yard on Vimeo.
NYTimes on lack of child care pushing some to choose Welfare
The numbers of those on Welfare have been dropping steadily since the 90s. Those numbers look to be rising again as cuts in services that provide tools for those wanting to climb the ladder are being slashed. NYTimes: “Cuts to Child Care Subsidy Thwart More Job Seekers”:
Last month, she lost her job as a hair stylist after her improvised network of baby sitters frequently failed her, forcing her to miss shifts. She qualifies for a state-run subsidized child care program. But like many other states, Arizona has slashed that program over the last year, relegating Ms. Wallace’s daughter, Alaya, to a waiting list of nearly 11,000 eligible children.
Despite a substantial increase in federal support for subsidized child care, which has enabled some states to stave off cuts, others have trimmed support, and most have failed to keep pace with rising demand, according to poverty experts and federal officials.
That has left swelling numbers of low-income families struggling to reconcile the demands of work and parenting, just as they confront one of the toughest job markets in decades.