A reason; a season; a lifetime

“People come into your life for either a reason, a season, or a lifetime”.

A friend of mine told me that. It came up because I have a habit of falling out of contact with people, and I will go for long periods of time without reaching out to people that I am close to. So much so that this friend of mine thought our friendship had come to an end. When I asked her why she thought that, that’s when she told me this.

When I first heard this I thought it was just another fish wives generalisation that said nothing meaningful but sounded very profound. However on the eve of turning 40, I’ve been reminiscing on my life and looking back on the years that were the decade of my 30’s, and realising there is more truth to this than I had first given it credence.

For me, the 10 years from 30 to 39 are marked by these series of significant relationships that lead in a line, one to the next, with each period of partnership representing a time of happiness, introspection, pain and personal growth. Each individual I became involved with started for reasons as unique as the persons themselves, and ended in the same way. Some of these women were only with me for a short time, and left to leave only a memory of the time we spent together, and a select few others are still with me today, being part of my life and growing with me still. I do wonder why it is that this friend of mine from Australia is one I am still close with, and yet the woman from Almere who I had an intense affair with is now only in my past life – in every way? It can’t have anything to do with the depth of feelings because that would mean we would not have left each other. I think perhaps it is because the two of us found of each other in a time of desperate need when we were both overcome with feelings of loss and loneliness. We shared some wonderful moments, and saw each other through a dark time, and then when that period of our lives changed, we didn’t need each other in the same way. I’ve not had contact with her now for several years, but I suppose she is still with that same man she was with, living the same existence of being patient, waiting for the time she could leave and create a new life for herself.

Maybe you can’t really simplify relationships in this way. Relationships are inherently complex things that are all messy because of the nature of being human, but it does seem to me that there is an inextricable link between the timing of a persons arrival in life and the significance of their presence.

Andy.

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I’m not a political commentator by any stretch of any imagination, and my blog wouldn’t contain more than a single handful of current affairs posts in its entirety, but having spent the last couple of days watching the US presidential debates on youtube.com, and watching clips of Sarah Palin, I just feel compelled to say something.

Sarah Palin is stupid! I don’t just mean a bit slow, I mean the woman is a fucking idiot! She is an illiterate parrot who has no known political skill outside of being a pretty face. Heaven help the US if she ever gets the top job in the country. Matt Damon pretty much sums up my position, after my last couple of days looking at news reports about her. Now if you think I am being overly harsh, this next clip from a respected CNN political current affairs show presents Sarah Palin with her own mouth. If it reminds of you that utterly stupid beauty contestant Miss South Carolina, that’s probably because they share the same brain.

It does make you wonder though, why the country that has such institutions as Caltech, MIT, Harvard and Yale, puts in its most important and prominent political positions the dumbest and least competant people genetics can produce. I honestly don’t know but it does give some credence to the old saying that we oft quote in the software world.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. -Rich Cook

Looks like this law is universal.

Andy!

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It’s okay to release to production!

That’s my catch cry these days, and something I’ve said more than a couple of times in the last few weeks since we started the roll out of our new media service to the world at the web media startup I work for. It’s been a pretty intense time, definitely the most intense time in my work life so far, but then, this is definitely the company with the biggest vision and biggest dreams I’ve ever worked for too.

Working in a web startup though is anything but orderly and by the numbers. I won’t go into a technical rant on software development and time-to-market cycles for web services but imagine this, if I was working for a construction company that built four bedroom houses, it would take us nine months to build that house, we’d do it without using plans, but more napkin drawings and scratches in the dirt. The team that would build it wouldn’t actually be one team, but more groups of individuals that you can only work out who’s doing what by seeing who’s huddled into a gang and yelling at another gang. If you try to ask what someone is doing in his group, you’d be told to STFU and GTFO. We’d deliver you a house that we knew leaked when it rained, and half the electricity points wouldn’t have any power, and you would have no idea how to flush the toilet, but we would smile and pat you on the back and tell you we worked very hard on it, and we’ll fix those problems as quick as we can AND give you some cool new stuff when we do. You thought you would get a house with a nice green lawn, and a trampoline in the back, with a gas barbequeue under a patio. Instead we gave you astroturf that’s orange, with a hole in the ground for a hangi that’s under a circus tent marquee that looks modelled off Joseph’s technicolour dreamcoat. Even though you might try to argue that’s not quite right, we’ll tell you it’s fantastic, and much better than your neighbour who has no taste, style or sense!

If you thought all these cool web services that you use and get enjoyment from were made by well oiled technology companies that knew what they were doing, then you’ve been taken in by the bling bling of the shiney web sites they have. Most of the time these web companies are putting stuff together by the seat of their pants, making decisions in meetings that would remind you of the way a group of 8 year old kids decide who their best friends for that day are. The fact that anything works on the web absolutely amazes me, and just goes to show how productive children can be when they put their hugely intelligent minds to it.

Having said that though, it is hugely fun, and there is a real sense for me of redefining the models of how content is distributed to consumers. This is more than just working on a gimmik of the day, but instead is about being part of a very special time and place that is influencing the biggest paradigm shift in media content distribution since the invention of the television. In twenty years time when we all take for granted our wall sized televisions taking real time feeds of content covering every genre that we’ve put into our personalised aggregators, and interacting with social groups around content. That will be because of the work and vision of the people – me being one of them – enabling change. It’s going to be a very exciting time the next couple of years, so make sure to stay close to your internet enabled devices! :)

Andy.