Corporate Management

A couple of weeks ago, I was browsing a translation of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" over at The Gutenberg Project (free books online!)--you know, just for fun. I guess I'm that kind of pretentious bastard. Anyway, the point at the time was to amuse myself with all of the subtle truths contained therein that management at my job was clearly not following, and I had a good little chuckle about that. But it got me to thinking.

Over the course of a few weeks, I began to realise something that I hadn't considered at first. When I was thinking about how the "command structure" here at work fails to follow Sun Tzu's advice, I was thinking in terms of the employees being troops and their managers being commanders. What I came to realise is that this paradigm is not the best fit--rather, the managers are an army, and the employees are an enemy army. Re-reading the relevant bits from the version of "The Art of War" that I have makes it painfully clear that management is, in fact, more aware of such basic truths than I had first thought.

My New Computer, Finally

Well, I have a new computer--sorta. Faced with the reality of not being able to responsibly afford a new $1500 computer for many months yet, I converted what I was using as a Unix box (a bare-bones Athlon 2500 XP in a Soltek mobo--overkill for what I was using it for) into a Windows XP box using some mid-range gaming hardware (a Radeon 9600 and 512 MB of extra ram) that I had been using to play games during my lunch break at work. I also invested in a new 200 gig HD for the occasion. The result is that I have a zippy, quiet PC that doesn't run games ideally, but is good enough to play Half-Life 2 with reasonable settings.

Old Comp:
- Athlon 650 MHz Slot A CPU
- ASUS K7V mobo
- GeForce 2 Pro, 32 MB cache video
- 256 + 128 MB RAM
- 120 gig HD w 2 MB cache
- does well with Quake 3, Max Payne
- KOTOR chugs, but runs

New Comp:
- Athlon 2500+ XP (1.35 Ghz) Socket A CPU
- Soltek NForce2 series mobo
- Radeon 9600 Pro, 256 MB cache video
- 512 + 256 MB RAM
- 200 gig HD w 8 MB cache
- does well with Unreal Tournament 2004
- Half-Life 2 definitely playable

Shhh!

Here's something amusing: a series of courtesy cards that can be handed out to people who have loud conversations on their cell phones.

http://www.coudal.com/Shhh.pdf

There are a couple of other neat things on the site as well:
http://www.coudal.com

Hero

See this movie. Set 2000 years ago in China, Jet Li stars as a mysterious, nameless warrior. Returning from a mission, he kneels before his master, a king seeking to unite all the small warring factions under one banner. Most of the film takes place in flashbacks as the nameless warrior recounts how he slew his King's enemies. The story undergoes a steady pace of plot twists that are stunning, powerful, and occaisionally devastating. The film has a lot of heart and soul in it, and as the name suggests, it reflects upon what makes a hero. It is a surprisingly rich and mature story for what is billed as a martial arts action-fest. It is a lot like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in that it focuses on the drama and story first and foremost - the action scenes progress the plot in a way that is poetic and beautiful (as well as being kickass). There are some amazing performances here, notably by Tony Leung Chiu Wai (John Woo fans might remember him from Hard Boiled) and Maggie Cheung, and the lovely Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) makes a welcome appearance. The locations are exotic, and the cinematography is breathtaking. I really enjoyed this film, even more so than Crouching Tiger.