Guess Or Google - "it's a phrase !"

"guess or google" - Google Search

...heard a phrase from the DJ on radio today asking callers to answer a trivia question for a prize... in passing he said you could "guess or google" the answer.

I hereby predict this phrase - "guess or google" - will become a common lingustically redundant clause of Americana nomenclature.

"guess or google" returns only 81 hits if googled today.

..... we'll see how many hits it returns a week, a month, a year from now

or

if you ever hear this more than once - then i will be proved right

or

if you ever use "guess or google" as a phrase - - then i will be proved right

...if i am proved right, i will immediately declare myself "master guru Nostrodomus-like predicter of cultural nomenclature changes".

(google that ... hmmmm...)

the Moon

Almost 50 years old and just learning how the moon works - pathetic..... I've always been curious but never quite understood the cycle "new moon" "waxing/waning".... that kind of stuff.... i mean when you look up at the moon (this same moon that all mankind looks at every night and has done so for ... hmmmm .... how long?) do you know if it's getting bigger? smaller? how fast it changes? what's a quarter moon? etc.

Well you get the idea. I went to this Virtual Reality Moon site and this site and putting the two together you can figure it out.

My question is, how did I grow up? get through grade school? get a college degree? (in Environmental Science even!?) and grow to be 49 years old? and live in the deep dark Texas hill country? and still not follow what the moon does ???!!??

...the one giant orb in the sky that has ruled the night and earth and humanity and the animals and the people for eternity.... the most primitive cave man ancestor that i ever had would have understood what he looked at every night and would've had names for each face... and would've known what to expect the next night - all his life! It was assumed knowledge.

...and i look at the moon nightly and go, "hmmm", if that, and not much else.

...society somewhere let me down... this should've been taught like in kindergarten. Are we that much removed from nature!?

Anyway.... Bruce Lee's son has a nice quote of mortality and the moon that's actually on his grave stone. He's buried next to his dad in Seattle. Here's a picture of me pondering them both (from this page.)

Multitasking Myth

Multitasking Myth - Google Search

Yes! I knew it!

I've been saying for years now that multitasking is basially a myth.

A VP of a major business here just said to us recently, "You can only focus on about 5 things at a time."

That's plain erroneous.

You can only focus on 1 thing at a time. (sure you can DO multiple things at a time that don't really take thought - walking and chewing gum for instance, even driving and talking on the phone, but let me see you brush your teeth and comb your hair at the same time.)

Now I've found the studies and the charts to explain it.

I love it when my intuitive self-realizations goes against everything my surrounding culture tells me - and then I turn out to be right!

Wahoo!!! (...and it seems to happen more often than not.)

:)

Ambiguous Replies to CYA

...while emailing a co-worker here yesterday - trying to find some answers to questions - i finally realized the answers given me could just as easily come from a magic 8-ball.

.... on about the 12th email reply, I told her this. She didn't think it was funny, but all her answers were buttressed with caveats such as "I believe blah blah is the case", "blah is true unless your boss tells you otherwise", "as far as I know...", etc.

... i can't write computer programs based on that. Computers and logic have a strong tendency to be binary.

After analyzing this some i've realized this is a corporate cultural tendency - so i went to my favorite corporate guru and tried to find a dilbert cartoon that utilizes the Magic 8-Ball. I couldn't find one but i did find a quote and the list of 8-Ball responses - both published here. [please forward the dilbert comic if someone finds it.]

The Necessarily Ambiguous List of Acceptable Corporate Replies

Reply hazy, try again.
Better not tell you now.
Ask again later.
Concentrate and ask again.
Cannot predict now.
Signs point to yes.
Most likely.
As I see it, yes.
You may rely on it.
Outlook good.
It is decidedly so.
My sources say no.
Very doubtful.
My reply is no.
Outlook not so good.
Don't count on it.


I've didn't include the following absolute statements from the original Magic 8-Ball because they don't really fit in with our corporate culture:

Yes.
Without a doubt.
Yes - definitely.
It is certain.


Scott Adam's 8-Ball Corporate Wisdom

Dilbert.com - DNRC - Read the Newsletter: "If you replaced all of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies with Magic 8 Balls (tm), and came back in five years, you would discover that some of those companies had compiled excellent track records by pure chance. The CEO's job in a huge company is essentially the same as the Magic 8 Ball: saying yes, no, or maybe, without the benefit of understanding the questions. A Magic 8 Ball is highly qualified for that sort of work."

Manic Management

I koined this phrase "Manic Management" trying to describe what I see as a fractured-focus quasi attempt to solve problems that results more in churn than in productivity. It's measured more by the high energy input and frantic interactions than by success for the long haul within short periods of time. Meetings burst open and slam shut and you're back next week on the same problem, each time thinking you've solved something but you haven't.

Churn is a new term I've learned here at work also. It can best be described as walking hard on a treadmill and then looking up asking, "Hey, are we there yet?" And everybody does it.

Anyway, I thought I was being witty and wrote these 7 tips addressing the concept. Now, it's been on my whiteboard in my cubical for more than a couple of days, and I may be offending people with it - the cardinal sin of office cube etiquette. I need to erase it, so I'll slap it on this wall and see if it sticks.

7 Tips to Avoid "Manic Management"

1. Less is usually more
2. Don't confuse multi-tasking with multi-accomplishing
3. Sound coming from the mouth does not equal expressed knowledge
4. Remember: Your $.02 probably won't pay the tax
5. It can be planned without being done
   It can be done without being planned
   It cannot be done without being done
6. Too much information is the problem - not the solution
7. "Fractured Focus" is a symptom of our age. Avoid it.