What's happening with David
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Monday, 28 May 07 - 11:30 PM (GMT +10:00) By Peter Quodling in General |
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Just to give a single reference point to all of the information, in case anyone is wondering (and so I can point people at the relevant detail...)
My 15 year old Son, David, suffers from agressive Keratoconus - a degenerative eye disorder, which basically involves thinning and deformation of the cornea, and associated loss of vision.
In less than 12 months, his vision in his left eye, had dropped from normal, to being able to focus no more than 2 ft away...
There is background on alternative treatments for this described in the Wiki Article at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratoconus
David, was enthusiastic - anything that gave him his vision back, was a step forward. HE went onto youtube, and found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYf0j8yX75w (you will need to log into youtube and confirm that you want to watch this, as it is "not for general consumption or the weak stomached".) He told my wife , Barbara, about it, but when she said she should see it, his response was "No mum, I don't think that you should..."
The Surgery was quick, it's day surgery, and done under a microscope. Immediate post operative comments from the surgeon were promising. But this is complex stuff. As a friend pointed out, Heart, Brain and Eyes - the three most complex surgeries, but the eyes are more "fiddly" and less forgiving...
He was chirpy when he arrived home, saying "arrggh, me hearties" with the patch over his eye, giving him a pirate like look. But as the anaesthetic wore off, then started the pain... Heavy (Codeine-based) pain-killers as often as he could take them. regular de-gunking of his eye, and multiple drops every few hours for antibiotic, anti inflamatory and steroid effect...) Of course, lots of bed rest, no sudden movements or strains, an aversion to bright light (heavy, heavy sun-glasses, even at night).
I was holding off discussing with him, the source of his Cornea. Donors need to be reasonably "age-matched" - There is no point in giving a 15 year old, a 70 year old's corneas, so David's Transplant would have come from someone probably in their early 20's. The eyes start to deteriorate (dry out effectively) almost immediately after death, so there is a need for optimum conditions, non-trauma, non disease patients that can be used as the source of the transplant immediately after death. To the family of that Donor, who lost their loved one, in his or her prime, and who we shall never know, our truly heartfelt thanks and Sympathy.
It's now a couple of days, - checking him every few hours, is draining for us and him. There is vision in the left eye (Just), he can determine the shape, no just the presence, of his hand in front of him. It may take a few weeks or even months for that to improve to something useful. And of course, as mentioned, extreme caution about any strains and bumps, that might tear the stitches - the sutures used are apparently 1/10 of the diameter of a human hair... It may be as long as a year before the stitches come out. IN the meantime, his eye looks like a fine lace doily has been stitched over it..
Fortunately his teachers, are prepared to provide whatever they can to help him "keep up with classes", and there is moral support from friends around the world. But it's a long and painful road for a young lad.. Especially, when his career ambition was to join the Air Force as a pilot...
And then we have to do the other eye...
Update: 8 days after surgery... David's eye is getting better. Doctor's checkup today... He is off the antibiotic drops, although he has given him some stuff to alleviate the "dry" sensation in the eye... Still needs heavy sunglasses, and need to avoid stresses and strains...
His Vision in that eye was about 20/200 still normally, but looking through special "pinhole glasses" - must help focus he is running about 20/60 - 20/40 is adequate for driving. The visual acuity numbering scheme is 20/60 - you see at 20 feet what perfect eyesight sees at 60 feet... Of course, that is through the pinholes. And you can't walk
It will continue to get better - next doctor's visit is at 1 month, and then at 3 months, hopefully, the first set of stitches comes out, and all being well the final ones at at least 12 months... At each release of stitches, the profile of the cornea will change slightly, so vision will fluctuate at that time...
Sorry, you think too much for us....
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Saturday, 19 May 07 - 04:49 PM (GMT +10:00) By Peter Quodling in Employment & Careers |
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This is a story that must be told. It is a reflection on the sad state of our government and the recruitment industry. Names have been hidden, in the main, to protect the guilty and some innocent bystanders... I just hope that I have enough letters to hide all of the players.
I am an IT Consultant, that has been doing so for around 20 years.I live in a place (a city, a state, that I love). I have worked around the world in design, sales, engineering, maintenance marketing etc. I keep abreast of the "state of the art" to the extent that I can talk in detail about things that are "yet to come" and most people in the industry haven't even heard of yet.
Around April 2002, I get a call from recruiter A, asking if I would be interested in a role as a Systems Architect for Government Department Z to design a key application for them that would involve integration between a number of government departments.
I said, yes, and gave them a number of comments in my Cover Letter for my application, about how I would go about it - One of their key concerns was whether they were going to use J2EE or .NET (.NET had been out about 6 weeks at that stage, but knowing a lot about it, I said it was the preferable path, but explained in detail the rationale behind that assessment.)
Nothing happened, the usual expected lack of response to applications. didn't think any more about it. Until October 2002... I get a call from Recruiter B, asking if I am interested in a role at Government Department Y, working on an application that sounds remarkably similar to the previous one (different department, different recruiter) (Oh, and in the interim, I am talking with a Recruiter C, who is trying to hire for Government department X, who are commissioned to do a "Whole of Goverment" interfacing project, but, of course, it appears they haven't told any other government department about this. Just before this, I might add I built and prototyped a .NET Application in about a week for a company. (.NET is not rocket science, most of it's concepts predate Microsoft's efforts by at least a Decade, and I was giving training courses in the pre-cursors to J2EE nearly 10 years ago.)
I ask to have a look at the Position Description. It is listed as a fixed price, fixed term contract, spread over 4 months. I read the PD, and notice that it is, in effect, the solution that I had proposed to another department via another recruiter several months before.
But imbedded in the PD, is a timeline of events, and what the PD is asking for is a) gathering input from no less than five involved goverment departments, coming up with a design (and alternatives), documenting them in detail, including multiple competitive equipment quotes, rollout plans, test plans, business cases etc etc. All of which is to be signed off by the five Government Departments(Z,Y, and three new ones, T,U and V) And while the job spec says 4 months, all of the documentation is to be delivered within 5 Weeks (the rest of the time for the powers that be to review and come back with questions).
I point this out to recruiter B, and they agree that this is a ridiculous expectation, and I choose not to take on such a risky engagement.
A few weeks later Recruiter D, asks me if I would be interested in a role for Goverment Department Y, I related the story to date, and he said he would try to find out more. I didn't think much more of it, until a few weeks after department Y's through recruiter B, had closed. Lo, and behold it was Department Z advertising directly for people to start on a Project that sounded remarkably like the Department Y project. The ads ran for sometime, which is always a good indication that they were not getting any response. Department Z was trying to hire people at standard government full time rates, for what was obviously a fast development project, more suited to experienced contractors.
Then Department Z advertised for a senior executive position in the area that involved this application. I thought, if I can't drive this from the ground up, I'll do so from the top down, so I applied for it. A Month later, two emails, and some phone calls, and I still hadn't heard anything about success or failure on that position.
In the mean time, another group of recruiters (lets call them E, F, and G) are very vocal in the press about the the lack of local expertise in .NET. They bemoan the fact that it is impossible to get people with "at least twelve months solid commercial experience in .NET". I reply via the editor, pointing out that this would be a challenge given that .NET had only been release 10 months before. Deathly silence in response. I guess the irony of their concern was lost on them.
Then out of the blue (some months on), I get a request from Recruiter F, for a role at Government Department T. The description is suitably vague (why is there this strange requirement to bare your soul, your history and your ambitions, in applying for work, when often the organization hiring can't or won't even tell you who they are or what they are doing.) I know the Project Director for this role, from work we did together at Department S, and had heard previously that he is involved in the TUVZY project.
Then lo, and behold, not long after, I am trolling the net for work, and find that Department Z is now advertising through recruiter H, for people to work on, you guessed it, the same project. But this time, they are asking THREE Years experience in .NET(The then 10 month old technology), and about half a dozen other requirements, most of which track back to my original comments to them, about how I would approach their problem. Yes, exactly the same phrases that I had used in my cover letter.
Will I apply for these roles? I must ask myself, why? It has been 10 months, 6 Government departments and 8 recruiters and the associated costs in fees, effort and delays for what appears to be a simple project. It would appear that there is still no "high level design", project plan or budget assigned to this initiative.
Is this unique? Hell No, I was engaged a while back on a Goverment Department Project, that I suggested would take 6-8 months (in fact much of it didn't need to be done in the first place). After 12 months, and no progress, we parted ways. Speaking with co-workers, they are now at over five year on that project, and it still hasn't completed.
I moved into a slightly different line of work, for a couple of years, and then got back into it all. The original project had snowballed, it now fully encompassed several departments, had hundreds of people working on it. But still lacked singular direction.
I should have triggered the alarm bells when the new lead government department advertised for expertise to document the API needed between two programs working between it and another department. I estimated this as 6-8 weeks work for me. No, I was told. We are hiring 3 people and we will have them for a year... Hmm, one of us must have it wrong...
Then I applied for a role as "Enterprise Architect" for one of the key departments. In an interview, ask them if they are using a known global industry standard as their core data model. It was like rabbits in the headlights. Never heard of it. Heck, google the name of their project, and the first thing that comes up is a pointer to this international standards effort... Then I asked what methodology and tools they used for Architecting... You know technical stuff, like UML, MDA. I reeled off three of four that I have used (different ones for different environments). More of the Rabbit looks.
Then lo, and behold, this week, a headhunter wants to know if I am available for a contract, as a solutions architect at the last place mentioned... I look at the Position Description. Guess what... They mention one of the Architecture Tool products (that they weren't even aware of, 6 months ago) as a requirement...
This state purports to be technically astute? One has to wonder. I just think that i need to copyright my interviews and applications.
.... Addition ....
Just rang a new Headhunter in the market place to inquire about a new role advertised. Turns out it's with the core agency of all of the above, seems that after months or is it years of "losing the plot" they have had a management restructure and are now looking for a "Business Architect", not an "Enterprise Architect" or a "Solutions Architect". Heaven forbid, someone that actually listens to the needs, and understands the processes, and then develops a goto "vision", rather than just producing charts and diagrams and so on...
Here goes another one for the "I told you so list" - I am a glutton for punishment, I'll apply again.
sigh...
Project Management - a disappearing craft
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Thursday, 29 March 07 - 06:36 AM (GMT +10:00) By Peter Quodling in Project Management |
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I was reading through an old text
Project Management With Cpm, Pert and Precedence Diagramming (Hardcover) isbn 0442254156
book of mine, just the other day, and two things really struck me, from reading this.
Firstly, that again, here is evidence that the industry (in this case the Project Management pool of “experts”) has lost the plot - there are a broad range of concepts, and approaches here in a 45 year old text, that your average Project Manager of today, wouldn’t even consider let alone understand. I have bemoned this before, and will explore in more detail again, but there is a definite failing in our ability to learn from those who have gone before us, learning from them, more of the “why” than the “how”.
Secondly, one of the specifics that I took from reading this, is that with all of the “Project Management” in this day and age, we haven’t learnt how to apply the core science. This text, touches on the concept that the predicted time to completion of a particular task in a particular project is subject to variation, under standard probabilistic models.
What don’t we see today. Let me insert this into an example. How many companies have done, say a Microsoft “Active Directory” rollout (let alone, how much has Microsoft had the opportunity to thoroughly qualify and quantify the process of doing so).
So why don’t we see a greater collection of “standard” and tested Project Plans for such things.
A project plan is firstly the collection of steps necessary - that’s easy, then the efforts and skills required to complete these, as well as the relationships between all factors.
Surely we should be heading towards the situation whereby say, such a task/project is something that we can pull from a previously defined (and tested) repository of project plans. Part of the definition is the “variance” factors, such as the number of clients (or the size of the house, you are building), and more importantly, out of this comes a feedback mechanism, that a) tracks the conformity to the original “model”, b) documents necessary modifications or improvements to the model, and c) most importantly, validates the original model. Mathematically, if the standard deviation(s) of the factors of all tasks (and the total project) are found to be consistent over 50 or 500 or 5000 samples, then the “quality” of the core model improves…
Is it just me, or isn’t this where the whole Science of Project Management should really have been heading…
Where has all of the Innovation gone?
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Thursday, 29 March 07 - 06:30 AM (GMT +10:00) By Peter Quodling in General |
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Is it just me, or is discrete innovation disappearing? I remember the good old days, when technology companies were able to come up with unique and individual things.
Someone does a search engine. Everyone else does a search engine. Someone does web-based mail, everyone else does web based mail. The same with hardware… It’s just like Television. Take something good, like star trek, and turn it, into next generation, deeps space nine, voyager, and enterprise. Or CSI, and turn it into Miami, NY, and NCIS. For goodness sake. The franchise gets overworked.
I fully understand the need to competitive alternatives, but there has to be a point where one company looks at the product of another, and just says “We can’t beat that, and won’t even try”. Or heaven forbid, our competitors have done a good product. Let’s leave them to it, and actually do a complementary product instead.
Sure, the open systems world has told us that out of it’s auspices, we should be getting all sorts of interoperability, but gee, it’s never quite just where we would expect it to be. Or is that an intentional lock-in from the corporations.
One of my mentors, pointed out that there has been very little “new” in the last 30 years of technology - smaller, faster cheaper, yes, but where is the elusive next pardigm shift.
Blogging and Journalism
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Wednesday, 28 March 07 - 08:04 PM (GMT +10:00) By Peter Quodling in Blogging |
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Blogging. I guess one could call it new age Journalism.
But then, and there is the separation. I am far from being a fan of many a journalist. As a technologist, I find it both amusing and annoying that so many CIO's put more credence in what some hack journalist, who got to play with a demo unit for a day has to say than to actually do some active and objective analysis in their own context.
But then, I also find it amusing and annoying that many a blogger (including some of the supposed "A-list" of bloggers, have become cyber-journalists, but have left out two important facts - they have not learnt, and in many cases do not even try to apply the Craft of Journalism or Writing to their electronic blitherings. And probably worse, they don't even try to apply the same sense of Ethics that at least some journalists will use, to what they do.
Ethics such as dealing with plagiarism and attribution, seem to be lost on them.
Which ends us up in that delightful situation where, Blogs, which should be personal commentaries, just become echoes of the mainstream news... I use attensa to get rss feeds of blogs (about 100 in total) , and it is starting to get annoying. Something topical comes along, and I find that I now see it 15 to 20 times. I wouldn't mind so much if there was some editorial comment around it, or some background research, but what we have is a signal to noise ration that is going exponential.
Coherency in an incoherent world launches
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Tuesday, 27 March 07 - 01:10 PM (GMT +10:00) in General |
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Coherency in an incoherent world, powered by Terapad.com (http://www.terapad.com/) was launched today featuring blog, forums, image gallery, online shop, event calendar and more.
Coherency in an incoherent world can be accessed at http://misterq.terapad.com/.
... More items are available in my News Archive
