We've all heard the importance of figuring out what's important versus what's just urgent.   Steve Pavlina wrote about another way to distinguish important from urgent and as an EMT, it's one I could immediately relate to.  Medical workers responding to a disaster triage victims into: [quoting from Steve Pavlina]

1. those who will die anyway whether they receive medical attention or not,
2. those who will survive anyway whether they receive (immediate) medical attention or not, and
3. those who will survive only if they receive timely medical attention.

Steve Pavlina suggests you can put your tasks into the same type of buckets.

1. Projects that will fail to have a significant impact whether you do them or not.
2. Projects that will succeed anyway whether you do them or not.
3. Projects that will have a significant impact if you complete them in a timely manner.

And then obviously you should concentrate on the third type - projects that will have a big impact if you work on them now!  The important ones that depend on you.

I often get asked to recommend reading on open source software so I thought I'd share with everyone.

Here are the two staples I recommend to everyone:

• Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. This is a a collection of essays by Eric Raymond that describe the bazaar model of open source software development and explain why it is better than the traditional, closed or cathedral, model of development. You can also read the essays online at http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/.

• Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly Open Source). This is another collection of essays from many of the leaders in open source software such as Brian Behlendorf (created Apache), Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media), Bruce Perens (wrote the Open Source Definition), Richard Stallman (author of the GPL), Linus Torvalds (created Linux), and Larry Wall (created perl), among others.

Then, depending on who was asking and what they were looking for, I might also recommend:

• The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source by Martin Fink. This book does a good job of explaining why and how open source software can be useful in an enterprise. How does the new model fit into business?
• Succeeding with Open Source by Bernard Golden. If Martin Fink's book is the why open source fits into business, Bernard Golden's book is the how. It goes over the ROI of using open source software and describes a selection and evaluation process in detail.

Then there's two books that I haven't read yet but are high on my list and come highly recommended by others. (I actually own copies of them which shows my good intentions!)

• Open Sources 2. This is a sequel to Open Sources and contains essays by some of the newer people in the field and people that I think of more as enablers and business people - the people bringing open source to businesses - than the people that created the actual open source software.
• The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber. I've been told that this book does an excellent job of explaining the open source movement at a broad level.

So there you go. In case you didn't have anything to read over your holidays, now you've got a whole list on one of my favorite topics!

This post on conference T-shirts made me laugh because it hit home.  My dad and my boyfriend have a huge stock of t-shirts (and HP conference shirts) because I can't seem to get anyone to give me one that fits. 

To understand, you have to click on this link to see the picture … Tech t-shirts aren't sexy enough.

A new study links being a vegetarian with higher IQ.  High IQ link to being vegetarian:

A Southampton University team found those who were vegetarian by 30 had recorded five IQ points more on average at the age of 10.

This news struck me because:

• I know a lot of programmers who are vegetarians
• I work with the largest group of vegetarians I've ever been around
• My sister is a vegetarian (and her intelligence must correlate to mine somehow, right?)

Of course there's lots of caveats and they aren't sure yet what is cause and what is effect.  For example, other factors that have to be weighed in are:

• Vegetarians are more likely to be female.  (But I know an awfully lot of male vegetarians!)
• Vegetarians usually have higher socioeconomic status.  (Cause or effect?)
• Vegetarians usually have more education.  (Did they become vegetarian before or after the education?)

And the big question … Are they vegetarians because they are smarter than the rest of us?  Or are they smart because they are vegetarians?

I just found the coolest website that shows you how big those spaceships really are.  Ever read a science fiction book or watched a science fiction movie and wondered how big that ship must be to have the whole story's set inside it?  Jeff Russells STARSHIP DIMENSIONS is a website that shows you mockups of the spaceships in science fiction books and movies and compares them to each other size wise. He has 218 so far.

Have fun!  Happy Friday.

 P.S.  As to what this has to do with work … not much, except there's a strong correlation between software programmers and science fiction fans and I wanted to share the site with people that would find it cool as well.  

I like to see the similarities in things. I find it interesting to find connections and look at things from that point of view. It is certainly not a unique habit, but I do find that many people, (and particularly engineers) do not think that way. Things are specific and even small differences mean that 2 related objects or concepts are still completely different. (Don't misunderstand, I'm an engineer, so I have this view of things as well.) So when I spoke at a career day at a local high school and highlighted the fact that my current job is exactly the same job that I had when I was building sets for TV and Film, it's a comparison that most people shake their heads and look at me like I'm nuts. But really, in my experience, it's true. These are the things that a set builder does: Works alone or in pairs on tasks that are given to him/her/them and has a certain amount of time to complete the task. The time is determined by several factors: difficulty of the task, the remaining time in the schedule until the set is going to be used in the shoot, and the experience of the workers. Specifics of the task, such as construction techniques, tools used, what to build first, etc. are left up to the workers to determine amongst themselves. Workers are encouraged to collaborate and ask for help as needed to figure out quirky or unusual parts of the task. The environment is most often open, creative, flexible, and workers have to be well-motivated and able to work without a lot of supervision. It is a male-dominated environment in the sense that mostly men work as builders but the overall environment of a film crew is usually a well-mixed environment of people (gender, race, sexual orientation, age, etc.). Now, let me describe what a software developer does: Works alone or in pairs on tasks that are given to him/her/them and has a certain amount of time to complete the task. The time is determined by several factors: difficulty of the task, the remaining time in the schedule until the iteration/release is complete, and the experience of the workers. Specifics of the task, such as algorithms used, what classes to write first, etc. are left up to the workers to determine amongst themselves. Workers are encouraged to collaborate and ask for help as needed to figure out quirky or unusual parts of the task. The environment is most often open, creative, flexible, and workers have to be well-motivated and able to work without a lot of supervision. It is a male-dominated environment in the sense that mostly men work as developers but the overall environment of a software development company is usually a well-mixed environment of people (gender, race, sexual orientation, age, etc.). As you can see there are some very specific things that are different, such as that developers work with computers and builders with power tools, but the thought process and daily work is very much the same. I had not completely realized it before the career day and talking with my friend who asked me to speak that the two jobs were so similar. Being a set builder was one of the best jobs I have ever had, and I stopped doing it because I decided that physically I wouldn't be able to sustain myself over 35-40 years of work. So, I transitioned into other jobs, and finally landed in software where I am now the happiest I have ever been at a job. So, you may still think I'm nuts, but to me, my job combines everything I loved about set construction without the worry of physical injury on a daily basis. And that's a good thing.