I took this funny picture today. There is a pigeon sitting on each letter of the sign.
Category Archives: Daily Scribble
My random thoughts of the day.
Firefox 3
Firefox 3 is released today! I have been a long time firefox fans, so naturally I downloaded the latest version at once. The installation went very smoothly, it only took a few minutes. Unlike the long and troublesome IE7 upgrade which took almost half an hour and rebooted my machine twice. On the surface, Firefox 3 is almost identical to the older version, except a few minor cosmetic update. Under the hook, it’s the new Gecko rendering engine. Firefox 3 seems running a lot faster than Firefox 2. However I don’t know it’s deal to the new engine or due to almost half of my add-ons are disabled for not compatible with the latest release. According to the latest number, Firefox 3 has over 500 millions download and counting. If you are still using IE7, it’s about time to switch. Come and join us in the bright side. Why surf the net on a 2nd rated browser?
Wedding Invitation
Me and Pat choose to make our own wedding invitation card. At first we want to print the wedding invitation like everyone else does. However, Pat think the print invitation does not have individual character and ours should be more special. Since we learn how to make cards from previous church event, we could use the same technique to make our invitation. In addition, we also sign up a wedding invitation making class to learn some advance technique and get some ideal.
Pat designed the card, I only help her out in making the cards. It takes a much longer time to make 200 wedding invitation than we had expected. It’s fun to cut the paper, stamp the picture, color the pattern, heat up the ensemble powder together. It’s some precious memory that both of us will share for the rest of our life. I worked on the no brainier tasks while Pat worked the task require fine motor skill. Since we are not machine, every card is slight different and each card is unique. We end up having two designs because the first design is too complicate and we have to switch to a simpler design to save time. I think even the second design is too complicate, so for the final bunch we will probably use another design. Other than these major designs, there are a few prototype cards too. If you happen to have one of the prototype cards, you must be really lucky.
Outsourcing delimma
In this project, I am supervising 3 team members in our India office. This week, I am really disappointed by their lack of productivity. I have assigned them some tasks for the week and they are very behind in completing the tasks. It would take me two days to finish those tasks my self and I already take the difference in experience into account and gave them a week of time. It turns out their deliverable is still late, it looks like that will take them another half a week to get to done. It seems I have over estimated their productivity. I am quite unhappy about their work. How can I finish the project on time with these three not performing grunts?
On a second thought, maybe I should be happy about their lack of productivity. The company should know the gold rule: what you pay is what you get. The Indians get a 1/4 of my salary, it is quite obvious that they are as good as me. If they cost much less and still work almost as good as me, then I should start worrying about my job. Finish the project on time and drastically cut the cost by outsourcing is a mission impossible to begin with. The deadline is expected to slip. As long as it is not my fault and there is nothing I could do, I cannot be blamed for the failure. Failure is the mother of success, as long as we learn the lesson. I think the lesson I learn from this outsourcing experience is that I should never over estimate the productivity of the Indian contractors, especially the junior guys.
Lesbian bridesmaid
The wedding I went yesterday is pretty normal, except there was a lesbian bridesmaid. How do I know she is lesbian? It’s quite obviously. All the bridesmaids dressed in nice green dresses that match the theme of the wedding and this lesbian bridesmaid dressed in a green shirt and pants. Her tom boy look really stands out in the photo among other pretty girls, basically ruined the harmony looking bridesmaid picture. I had dinner with some friends attended the wedding today and we were all wondering what is she doing there.
Our group of friends then started the discussion on whether lesbian is allowed to be a bridesmaid. On one hand, lesbian are female, so she is technically qualified for a bridesmaid. On the other hand, lesbian does not look like female, so it doesn’t seem right to have a guy looking “thing” among the bridesmaids. If you think having a tom boy dressing in shirts and pants is OK to be a bridesmaid. How about a gay guy dressing in a skirt being a groomsman? In the end, we all concluded that having lesbian bridesmaid is OK, as long as she dress like other bridesmaids. I think even a tom boy could look decent if she put on some make up and a nice dress. If she doesn’t want to wear the girl dress, maybe she should consider being a groomsman instead!