After I saw this, I reflected how little news is actually made when Putin confirms a long running rumor and how much people actually want to read about “Tweens”:

Then I saw this, and thought, “Man, Columbia doesn’t have an army at all!”

I’m a big fan of management practices where management understands they only earn their money because of the employees under them.

McLaren Mercedes was recently punished by the Federation Internationale d’Automobile (FIA) for improperly handling documents containing Ferrari secrets. The penalty was stripping McLaren of all its constructor championship points they earned this season, awarding Ferrari the win in that competition, and fining the team $100 million. (In real terms, McLaren screwed itself out of a lot of money).

The interesting news: It was reported by the commentators of Speed during today’s Chinese Grand Prix that McLaren Mercedes management will still pay their employees the promised bonus based on the number of constructor points they would have had come season end. In that move, I see a company that recognizes the importance of its employees and cares about keeping the good people that created a potentially award-winning car.

Companies have a hidden incentive in treating its workers well. Sure, it’s hard to identify exactly how much benefit any given employee has on the bottom line, but it’s important to foster an environment that strives for results. Most people will only accomplish that by chasing after the carrot in front of them; one day, the carrot has to be caught for them to continue to the next one.

While I don’t know anything else about the working conditions at the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team, I applaud its management for this decision.

The blogs I read, the blogs I respect, both personal and professional, create content that is more than a “this is what I did today” story. That content is appropriate for a personal journal, not one that is published on the web. The blogs I hold in esteem write content that tells a story that could be useful or entertaining for whomever comes across it, be it regular readers or Google users.

I haven’t posted since July because I’ve been reduced to a continual vacationer. I’ve spent my days with little worry or mission, but I’ve been able to be whimsical and to take a break. Consequently, I’ve had a lot of time to write and think for me, and not a lot of momentum toward solving interesting problems or commenting on those of others.

I see that as a problem. The problem would have been solvable had I not been lazy and lacked an internal drive to complete some of the goals on other projects I am loosely involved in. Instead, I took the easy path, which annoys me. At the same time, I recognize that path may have been the right path to follow, given that I’ll very rarely, if ever, have the same opportunity again until I’m retired or beyond. What is done is done, and I have the future to look forward to.

I’ve come to a crossroads and that path will change starting Friday. After a long summer hiatus, I’m being forced back into the real world. Luckily for me, I have a lot of internal incentive to actually join society for the first time, not to mention the external incentives that are being given to me. On Friday, I start working as a trainee in the Morgan Stanley’s IT group.

For four months, I will be immersed in a college-like experience of taking classes, doing homework, collaborating on projects, and passing tests. The difference, as I’ve been told by past trainees and have experience myself during my previous summers, is the immersion into that environment with incredible, passionate instructors teaching pure technology to students with a like-minded interest in those subjects. (I should add that I’m actually getting paid for that, too.)

With the anticipated new stimulus that is work, I look forward to being interesting again, in a sense. I’m unsure what my new employer’s attitude toward public-facing employee blogging is, but I know I’ll be able to comment on and share interesting problems that I came across, solved, or new ideas presented to me.

While I’m really looking forward to the intellectual motivation that is at my doorstep, I’m also really looking forward to meeting those new people who have a similar interest in my passion. I’m looking forward to being a member of an organization again, even if it is a corporation. I chose Morgan Stanley because it presents me with both defined and undefined growth opportunities as well as actively facilitates getting me involved in something other that work. There are people there who are actively interested in seeing that I have the right skills and tools to do my job and my next job and who are willing to cultivate that. Also, I’m just looking forward to solidly being a part of something larger than myself.

In short, I’m looking forward to being (mildly) interesting to the internet again.

Some notes on my positive interactions with two local business:

Jacks Art Gallery - I had two small pieces framed there recently and both turned out wonderfully. The staff were very helpful in helping me pick a solution that would make the pieces really pop out. They even were nice enough to give me hanging hardware and wall bumpers. I definitely recommend them for fairly inexpensive, quality framing work.

Tiecrafters - Realizing I had become out of fashion, I brought both my ties to Tiecrafters to have narrowed into a cool, hip, new tie. The ties came out exactly as I wanted them. The gentleman with whom I dealt was extremely kind and accommodating in helping me pick out a size. Everyone I know has used them, and everyone I know who has used them loves them. Highly recommended.

In today’s world, you’ll never know when you will be incapacitated to the point where you need donations from others just to remain alive. To help others in their time of need, become an organ donor.

Note that the donor card on the back of your driver license is of dubious legal quality. Be sure to register yourself with your state registry. If you live in New York, sign up here.

and didn’t recognize myself.

Some humorous things I’ve seen around the web lately.

Random statistic:

But what about the other 6% of young people? Spawns of the hellbeast, must be.

—

You mean software vendors distribute patches to existing installs?

—

This is from the website of a new condo building being built in my neighborhood.

“Where SoHo meets Tribeca” ? You must mean Canal St, but don’t want to make people think of Chinatown or hellish traffic.

—

Wow. Who ever would have thought?

—

For whatever reason, when I visited this website, my mind made an unconscious decision as to what kind of robot I was interested in…

The New York Times published an article, “Long Reviled, Merit Pay Gains Among Teachers” which describes several initiatives to pay teachers based on the improvement of their students.

I find myself disagreeing with those who believe teachers should be paid this way. In thinking about all of the best teachers in my life, those who actually made a difference, whether they were teaching exactly what they were supposed to or not, probably would not have benefitted from having me or many of my peers in a class. What they offered us was definitely not anything measurable by standardized tests. They offered us knowledge and wisdom that was most certainly beyond the scope of any curriculum that any state committee could develop.

I highly disagree with using standardized tests in general. While I have tended to score fairly well on many of them, I realize that so many people who did not are denied opportunities they might have had without this movement toward standardization (a topic of a future rant, perhaps). Let measurement play a role in areas where measurement is legitimate and accurate; don’t force it into areas that it does not apply. Passion and enthusiasm cannot be expressed as a number. Keep standardized tests away from killing off the good teachers. They are the some of the only people that make people like me want to be educated.

I think these state legislatures should instead toy with killing off or heavily reducing tenure for any teacher below higher education. I’ve always found competition is a great motivator for success.

If you, as a parent, choose to not lie to your child about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, are you limiting that child’s imagination or heightening their sense of reality? Or are you just producing the kid who ruins the fun for all of the believers. Is that to say that there always is an acceptable level of naivety for a person? Only in the developmental stages? Why? Or, what does that mean for those of us who are knowingly veiled by this naivety but strive for truthful knowledge?

I haven’t yet arrived an answer.

I moved into my apartment on Tuesday. Many of you reading this have probably already been here, the rest should come by some time soon. It’s a gorgeous little place, perhaps seemingly better to me because of one fact: it’s mine. For at least a year. No moving out, no RCRs to fill out, no RAs. If the last few days of living in Tribeca have anything to say, the remaining 51 weeks will be a blast.

I went to the Taste of Tribeca festival today, in which 40+ neighborhood restaurants offered small samples of something from their restaurants. I had everything from Long Island duck wrapped around a French prune, to a pulled pork sandwich, to a delicious apple strudel by Blaue Gans (from the same people as one of my favorite cafes, Cafe Sabarsky; in fact, Blaue Gans inhabits the site of Le Zinc, a restaurant that closed a while ago that was by the owners of Chanterelle (winner of the 2007 James Beard Award, also where my parents and I dined this week) and was also rather good) and a good piece of Kobe beef. New this year, as I’m told, was the wine tent which sampled wines from various restaurants and wine stores nearby. I met the sommelier from Blaue Gans, Christopher, who was very nice to me. The problem with the wine tent was that no one really wanted to take your ticket as they wanted you to come back and enjoy the rest of their offerings. Consequently, there were lots of drunk Tribeca-ites (Tribecans? Tribecers? I’ll figure it out…).

Then, to end the afternoon, I went on a walking tour of my new neighborhood with history author Oliver E. Allen who has written several works on the history of Tribeca. It was amazing what I had missed when walking the streets in the last few days. The tour made me look even more forward to reading Andrew Dolkart’s “Texture of Tribeca” that I just bought yesterday for a coffee table that doesn’t yet exist.

It was made even nicer because I met a few neighborhood residents who were just really friendly to me.

I went out in search of food at midnight last night, thinking it would be a struggle to find open stores to purchase from. It turns out there is a whole underground culture around here, akin to the Meatpacking District, where clubs and bars (sometimes literally) emerge from the ground. I hadn’t a clue that there is a nightclub directly across the street from my building, viewable from my own window, until I walked by the queue of people waiting to gain admittance.

It’s almost a tease that I’m going home in a little over an hour. I had too few unimaginable days of enjoying the company of friends (with whom my relationships, by definition, are in slight limbo), then too few days of enjoying relative solitude with my new neighborhood. At least I’ve assured myself that coding, basketball, and golf (not to mention family and home-cooked meals) await me upstate.

My mother, however, contends that the food is better down here.