No, this is not the Challenger. We’ve grown too coarse, too cynical, and too jaded. The NYTimes says, the nation’s instinctive reaction was to ask, “What’s next?”. Talking to friends and family leads me to believe the NYTimes got it right. Many discussions were attempts at avoiding the subject. Our skin just got thicker. Our wagons circled tighter. Most parents I know didn’t allow their children to watch TV and they didn’t hear the President’s attempt to comfort the nation. In fact, one said outright, “I just don’t want it on TV. What else is there to talk about? Get it off the news”.

I’m going to take a moment not to think about tomorrow, but to say a prayer for those who just lost a loved one and ask for the strength to not further recoil into my own skin.

Garret says, in my favorite weblogger essay yesterday, “there are a lot of ways to die, some ‘good,’ some ‘bad.’ these astronauts lost their lives in action, doing something they loved. in the midst of our horror at their fates, their sacrifice deserves respect, and honour.” Indeed, “space travellers are a special breed; and they come from all nations”.

And that is where Man’s destiny hides. Across the boundries. Not hiding in caves from the coming storm. In a day where personal trust is at an all time low, a generational trend that started 30 years ago, it’s a fight that always deserves to be waged.

Links:
Scripting News – Terrific linkage at a time of sorrow. Many of the links below are pulled from here. I couldn’t find the will to post yesterday.

Similarly, Metafilter was very active yesterday in it’s discussion threads.

MP3 (right click and download): Julia Ecklar singing “The Phoenix” via Code the Web Socket. A touching and powerful folk tune that fits the moment.

Don’t miss reading Meryl’s “Requiem for Columbia” and Shelley’s “What the Shuttles have given us”. You’ll get some indicators as to why I feel the way I do from what some have posted in Shelley’s comments.

In the 80s: I Remember the Challenger. Hundreds of personal recollections of that terrible day.

Go at Throttle-Up, “It would never occur to a baby-boomer that anything associated with the shuttle could have historical significance. Having lived through the heady excitement of real history-makers like Mercury and Apollo, boomers see the shuttle as an afterthought, an unglamorous eighteen-wheeler hauling satellites to and from orbit.”

Poynter Online – a huge collection of related links.

Just as after the Challenger accident, a chorus rises for the Shuttle program to end.

From 1980, Washington Monthly, Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty.

The Corner thinks out loud about perfectly normal people starting to think about “Signs” and links to a 1998 Peggy Noonan article.

Finally, the obligatory, they were warned story. It’s always the same isn’t it?

PapaScott reminds us of the day.

I was sitting in school, and we watched it live. On board was a school teacher, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, just like the one in class with us that day.

What lessons did we take with us into our adulthoods?

…Employees are staying at their jobs much longer, not necessarily because they want to, but because they feel they have to, according to interviews with employees, human resource managers and employment experts. The number one concern among employees today is job security — not stock options, not career growth.

…Employees accustomed to job-hopping are in danger of falling into a boredom trap — or of simply feeling trapped, even if they are with a job and career they like. That there are not messages from recruiters on their voice mail means those options, and the excitement of new possibilities, aren’t out there. That has been a painful change, even for those who might not want another job. Those feelings can translate into low morale and low productivity, companies have found.

Read the rest at the WashingtonPost.

Recently, a co-worker and friend found a new job after a nine month search. Unlike many job seekers out there he is currently employed. He needed to find a new employeer since he recently moved two hours away from us. With skill, experience and references beyond my own – he still had a difficult time.

They beat the Raiders real, real, real bad. Don’t think I’ve seen a Super Bowl that one sided. What else can you say?

Well for one thing – twice in a row did the majority of sports commentators agree on the outcome of a NFL game and twice in a row they got it wrong.

Pundits – if they can’t predict the outcome of a football game how well do you think they are going to do with something like war or the economy?

One of the most famous images of the Great Depression of the 1930s is Dorothea Lange’s photo of a ragged old man selling apples on the street. As the Bay Area enters the second year of a recession that has left hundreds of thousands of Californians unemployed, that apple seller is now likely to be relatively young IT worker like Frank. Only, instead of apples, he hawks arcane high-tech skills in interactive TV or DVD authoring for a fast-food-outlet salary.

Read the rest over at SFGate. via Flutterby.

I haven’t been able to find a job, and that’s been about the worst for me; I’ve worked since I was 16 years old. But this is one I have to let go of. I have to concentrate on what I can control, which is finishing the book for O’Reilly, and digging up some other paid writing. And if I can’t find a computer job, or technical writing, or training, then I may have to look for work outside my field, but such is life. I was a waitress more than once, and have worked an assembly line years ago; if I have to wait tables again. or help cap bottles of Budweiser, I will. This is what people do when the economy takes a nose dive.

Read the rest over at Burningbird.

Bill Gates said on Sunday he did not expect a big pickup soon in technology spending, widely seen as a necessary ingredient for a sustained U.S. recovery.

“This economy is fairly flat — technology spending, there’s no big up-tick,” Gates told reporters at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.

Read the rest at Forbes.com.

The U.S. economy requires technology spending for sustained recovery? How did it get that way?

According to The Atlantic, the past ten years we’ve experienced one-dimensional growth. The service sector over all others. Information technology over manufacturing.

The New Economy decade assisted my ascendance from circumstances I am hesitant to share. You can get hints of it in my menu to the right. A combination of foresight, timing, connecting with people who inspired me, and above all hard work, have contributed to bring me to my standing today. The circumstances of any moment in the future can wipe it all out in an instant. I can’t determine the cards I am delt, but I can control how I play them. A haunting question, that can’t be ever answered, is have I played them as well as I could have? Or should have? Here’s hoping we aren’t delt too many bad hands. Looks like many of the cards we’ve been playing with have been illusions.