Tag: automated analysis and measurement

Almost everyone has heard about the Titanic and the sinking of the unsinkable.  I guess if you assume your ship is unsinkable, having only 20 lifeboats for a few thousands people seems reasonable.  Maybe it gets overlooked when there are so many important “features” to get right on the maiden voyage.   I’m sure the pressure to ensure the comfort of hundreds of VIP’s must have been immense.  Sometimes it takes a real disaster for change to take place.

With every passing day the world’s technical debt continues to expand.  Industry research shows the average business application carries as much as $2 million in Technical Debt.  Analysts at Gartner estimate industry IT debt at $500 billion---and on target to reach $1 trillion by 2015.   What’s interesting about Technical Debt is every ADM team knows they have some, but how much and how critical the debt is typically remains a mystery.  Most financial debt obligations are easy to calculate and definitively known at any given time.  Of course both Financial and Technical Debt both become frightening when they are aggregated, just take a look at a national debt clock if you don’t agree.

My tastes in entertainment are pretty broad. While I really enjoy attending sporting events and when Bruce Springsteen is in town I lay aside nearly everything else to attend his concert (as I did in Boston on March 26), I’m also one who enjoys catching a Broadway or Off Broadway Show now and then. In fact, I over the next six weeks I will attend two Red Sox games and two shows at the New World Stages theatre in Midtown.

I hate Geometry.

Actually, I do not hate the concept of Geometry – I’m rather partial to shapes and appreciate the need to calculate the areas, perimeters, volumes, et al that they represent. What I hate about the subject – or should I say “hated” (past tense) since I haven’t had a Geometry class since the mid-1980’s – were the proofs I had to do in order to get full credit for my work.

I’ve never been much of a horror movie fan. I think my deep-seated love and background of history and my fascination for things that are real diminishes my ability to kick back and allow my wits to be uprooted by monsters and other ghoulish figures like Jason from Friday the 13^th or Freddie Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street.

I couldn’t let this week go by without making at least one mention of what is taking place this weekend. This annual event held every year since the year I was born brings most of the United States to a mesmerized halt on the first Sunday in February…and this year I’ll be more mesmerized than I have been the past few years.

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once said that "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." But decades after Lombardi's Green Bay Packers dominated the NFL, a new slogan joined the sports lexicon - "moral victory."

One of my favorite television shows these days is one of the highly successful USA Network dramas called “White Collar.” The plot revolves around a stellar FBI agent and a highly educated criminal mastermind, who specializes in art thefts and forgeries, whom the FBI agent brought to justice. The FBI agent then turns the criminal into a consultant to the FBI and together they go on to flourish as a crime-fighting team, clearing 94% of their caseload.

My father was proud of his military service. He believed that young men and women could learn a lot not only from having served in the armed forces, but from having actually experienced the stress that comes with "taking fire."

As a writer, I frequently go back and review pieces I’ve written over time. When I do, I’d like to think that I’ll be happy and satisfied with each and every article, announcement, blog or brochure.

Some among us may remember Earl Scheib who owned a chain of auto painting facilities; at least, that's what he called them. In actual fact, his shops were a national joke. In his TV commercials he would tell viewers, “I’ll paint any car for $99.95” and would promise one-day service. He did just that, but as the old saying goes, "You get what you pay for."