Month: December 2011

Death by a thousand clicks

If you don’t know or remember the expression “death by a thousand cuts”, it refers to an ancient Chinese torture.

Slow slicing [..], also translated as the slow process, the lingering death, or death by a thousand cuts [..], was a form of execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly. Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as treason and killing one’s parents. The process involved tying the person to be executed to a wooden frame, usually in a public place. The flesh was then cut from the body in multiple slices in a process that was not specified in detail in Chinese law and therefore most likely varied. In later times, opium was sometimes administered either as an act of mercy or as a way of preventing fainting. The punishment worked on three levels: as a form of public humiliation, as a slow and lingering death, and as a punishment after death.

Then, of course, there is a modern day office variant – “death by a thousand papercuts”, which I won’t go into any detail – you can get the idea.

Well, today I discovered yet another, even more modern variation of that – death by a thousand mouse clicks. And even if you’ve heard that before in regards to a bad user interface, there is another meaning to it. Yesterday I paper cut my right index finger. While it’s not that bad on its own, when combined with a mouse button it is indeed a new form of torture.

Do you have any idea how many times you click, double-click and wheel-scroll every day? A lot! I tried to count but I don’t know a number that large. Except gadzillion, to which I don’t know how to count. Anyway, even if you don’t use your mouse so much, you still need to type, don’t you? And typing with the cut on the index finger is more annoying than with any other finger. All because of those little nobs they put on keys F and J so that you could find the home row. Good thing I’m not bleeding at least…

Day in brief – 2011-12-12

  • I've tried a few WordPress to Twitter plugins in the last few days. Twitter Publisher is the best I could find. http://t.co/zfEKpWrQ #
  • @cyprusmail There is a problem with your website. http://t.co/kYmXMATC #
  • @emtaylor Good luck with that. I'm Russian, but even I have troubles with the grammar. Tough language. :) #
  • The new Twitter web interface – I like it, I like it a lot. #
  • IT vs. Legal – 1:0. Summary: don't fight with the Internet, you can't win. :) #
  • @emtaylor I hear sound is very useful. As in if you hear a bumping, knocking or scratching, you should stop reversing. :) #
  • I favorited a @YouTube video http://t.co/zJnOsCYW Rubik's cube world record: 5.66 seconds Feliks Zemdegs #

On hiring

I thought it was my idea, but apparently not. This Slashdot comment says it was Rockefeller’s.

This is exactly how Rockefeller was thinking: when you come across talent, you hire, then you adapt your business based on the people available. Even if in the short term it does not fit in an existing MS-Project plan, over the years you build a strong core and the team is driving the business, not the other way around. And if people walk away to get more experience, you keep the door open so you can benefit from what they did elsewhere.

I said it a few times though – if you are lucky enough to come across someone awesome – hire him (or her) straight away. Even if you don’t know at that moment how you will use the person. You will figure it out later. In the best case scenario you won’t even have to – really cool people usually know how to occupy themselves and how to improve your business. In the worst case scenario, you can always fire them. Firing is much simpler of a process than hiring.

Open Source or not?

Slashdot has an interesting discussion on whether or not a small start-up company has to Open Source their code or not. From one of the comments I followed a link to an excellent blog post by Tom Preston-Werner, one of the co-founders of GitHub.

Lastly, it’s the right thing to do. It’s almost impossible to do anything these days without directly or indirectly executing huge amounts of open source code. If you use the internet, you’re using open source. That code represents millions of man-hours of time that has been spent and then given away so that everyone may benefit. We all enjoy the benefits of open source software, and I believe we are all morally obligated to give back to that community. If software is an ocean, then open source is the rising tide that raises all ships.

In a nutshell he basically says that you should Open Source everything, except things that are at the core of your business value. His arguments are insightful and I suggest you read the whole thing.

Interestingly, this reminds me of a few discussions I had on outsourcing. And I was saying is that a company should outsource as much as possible, except for things which are at their core business value. As in, IT company should outsource accounting and legal, not IT, while accounting companies should outsource IT and legal, not accounting. And so forth.

That leads me to think that Open Source community is a huge outsourcing resource. Something that I’ve known for a long time, but now arrived to through a totally different route.