Viewing profile — zenpaul

Family game night on Jitsi video conference. Went from seeing my parents and siblings in person once a year to seeing them virtually every week. I'm much more involved in their joy…

In September Planet Money podcast covered how the plastic industry sold the public on plastic recycling when they know it was not realistic. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/91215008…

Yes, This American Life did a great story on this. "We’ve fought two wars since 9/11. We got help from tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans—some were targeted or killed because …

Two important takeaways here. "In fact, in the fine print, the CDC’s flu numbers also include pneumonia deaths." "If we compare, for instance, the number of people who died in the …

Planet Money did a good podcast on this topic recently. I learned that it's hard to follow CDC guidelines when you're sleeping 20 in a garage and there's only enough water to showe…

I can relate! I started my SourDough starter SanDy a week and a half ago and have made a couple of great loaves since then. I'm on my way to the store tonight for more flour.

Just listened to the Darknet Diaries Courthouse podcast about the pentest gone wrong that was referenced in the article. Highly recommended. https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/59/

The overriding thing is to "take care of each other". If they want more updates, send more updates. If they want less updates, send less updates. How do you know what they prefer? …

"If you write about your passion, you will never lose enthusiasm because you are creating a little corner of the internet that’s yours, you made it, you made it beautiful, and now …

jiggawatt has a good example. The thing is that managing inevitable scope changes is an art and a science. Some changes get accepted as part of the project, others are scoped as fi…

Yes, the consulting agencies or headhunters do just that. They do the day to day work of talking to hiring managers. Then they take their cut either when they place someone full-ti…

Good point. From this thread it is clear that people have made a go of it with project billing in some domains. I develop enterprise business systems that are generally too large a…

Good luck making $2M as a solo consultant. In order to take on projects that big and maintain your customer pipeline you almost certainly have to build a team which is what I call …

Billing hourly or daily is about the same. Weekly gets complicated. It is all about reducing risk, locking in cashflow and getting compensated for your time and energy.

Yes, absolutely. Also, once you get good rates, you ask for a higher rate from the next customer. If it is higher than their highest rate they tend to tell you what their highest r…

I've been there and done that for better and worse. It sounds like the author wants to create their own agency which is a different game than being a solo consultant. If you really…

It's another indication of the danger of the incompetency of the current administration as outlined in Michael Lewis' excellent book "The Fifth Risk". The Fifth Risk being "Project…

"Systems like Six Sigma appeal to managers because they are rooted in the pursuit of predictability, and all managers crave predictability" And what innovator wants to work in a pl…

Being a homeowner, hearing an "irritating mould problem" didn't make me think "resilient fungi could lead to new kinds of materials for use in space". It made me think that there a…

What I always say is "speak what you know" in a confrontational situation. It is an authentic way of communicating that opens up conversations. For example, I can say that "I feel …

The randomize button in the lower right corner is the best way to see the possibilities.

And in other news, "2017 saw largest total population in US history". How about "2017 saw highest increase in death due to alcohol, drugs and suicide in US history"?

This comment from accpi jumped out... Engineers take the Kondo approach to Jira. The ticket doesn't spark joy, so they discard it.