Biologically, we all start as "assholes"

Кросс-пост с персонального блога

Biologically, we are start as "assholes", but some stay as ones for the rest of their lives...

Let me explain. When an egg starts to divide sometime between 32 and 64 cells it beсomes a small bag -- a little ball of cells with a small hole. Notice, "hole". Imagine some coral or hydra polyps:

In the end, it's simply a bag with a hole. They get water in, and then throw it out leaving any food inside. that's what human fetus is at that stage.

Next, most species add another hole on another end becoming a feeding tube -- the phase of a worm, but at first there is only one hole and that's pretty much all that fetus is.

Now, after that there is a dramatic difference between chordate and everybody below. Those below have a spiral symmetry, so the original hole becomes their mouth. Chordate have bilateral symmetry, and the original hole becomes their... well, asshole. Can I remind you that on the previous stage that's all human fetus is?

Isn't it amazing, how important for a human is self-improvement?

Pirate’s Grandma

I never thought that this children's song contains so much management wisdom...

Wind fills the sails of brigantine,
Like in an old adage,
And pirate’s grandma’s sending off
Grandson to brigandage.

She packed brass knuckles and a knife,
And bag for loot and gold,
And then, of course, toothpaste and soap,
And fresh eye-patch in fold.

“My little pirate, dear child,
Our breadwinner,
Don’t board ships in vain,
Never skip your dinner.

Don’t visit dens and stashes,
Those guys run amok,
Put a chaser after rum.
For the healthy stomach.

Go from diamonds missing suit,
Don’t be defensive,
Don’t hurt orphans, not for naught -
Ammo is expensive!”
...

Wind fills the sails of brigantine,
Like in an old adage,
And grandson-pirate’s sending off
Grandma to brigandage.

Pardon poor translation from Russian. The original text by Eduard Uspensky. Cross post from my personal site.

Two Developers and Performance Review

Yesterday, two developers (no names) from a large company, which I don’t work for anymore, complained to me about their performance review process.

Both are my friends and both work in the same team under the same manager. One had a new component that he had to rewrite three times. Naturally, testers, PM and he himself filed tons of bugs to track this work. Other developer had reasonably stable component, so he had very few bugs.

Developer #1 was told that while he fixed all the bugs, he simply had too high bug count, and having so many bugs is simply not acceptable!

Developer #2 was told that while he had very few bugs, he also fixed very few bugs, and such low fix rate is simply not acceptable!

Ah-h-h!... Priceless.