Technicalities
May 1, 2000

*) Ouch!

Well, it was pretty tough to sit down after I got the response to the
last Technicalities.  It seems there are some people - one or more of
whom are my boss(es) - who think that this whole irreverence thing is
going a bit too far.  Accordingly, I want to remind everyone that
Technicalities is always totally serious business - everything that's
written here reflects actual, unadulterated facts.  I couldn't make
this stuff up.

Anyone interested in reading past issues of this newsletter can now
check out the New York room on the intranet.  By request (the district
attorney needed them to prepare the indictment) I am putting them
there as an archive.  You can also find the archive of the Psychotic
State (look for a new one soon) in the CTO room.


*) A Mathematical Discourse

One of the more surprising facts in mathematics is that it is possible
to add up an infinite number of positive numbers and get something
finite.  So, for example, the infinite series 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 +
1/8 + ... adds up to only 2.  It is also possible to have a sum of an
infinite number of numbers that keeps getting bigger and bigger - the
jargon for it is that the series "diverges".  Thus, for example, 1 +
1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + ... eventually gets bigger than any fixed value.

Ponder the following.  Last week I sent out a correction: Sundar
Ramaswami has a 2 1/2 hour shorter commute to Woodbridge than to New
York.  In the course of explaining this, I blew something else: Barry
Goldberg is a Director of Project Management, not a Senior Project
Manager.  There was a mistake in my correction - I gave Barry a
demotion - which was a bigger mistake than the thing it was trying to
correct.

You see here two terms in the infinite series of my foulups.  We don't
yet know the pattern, so we can't tell how big it's going to get, or
if, in fact, it's divergent.  Only when we get further in will we know
whether the mistake Chan made when he hired me was finite or infinite.


*) Talking 'bout My G-G-Generation

People who are my age love to watch intergenerational warfare: we grew
up seeing those about 10 years older than us take on their parents.

As you know, AGENCY has been hiring lots and lots of people, as there
is now more and more Tech work.  Someone was speaking to me about the
conversations we have at some of the interviews: "These kids nowadays
with their signing bonuses and their stock options!  There are some
pretty wild expectations out there about what it's like to have a
career.  Why, when I got out of school, you couldn't _buy_ a job.
Just wait until the next recession."

What was fun about this is that the person I was speaking to wasn't a
child of the Great Depression - Class of '91 was more like it.

You heard it here first: the next big conflict isn't between the
boomers and their children, it's between Generation X and Generation
Y!


*) Science Marches On

Today we have a new member of the tech department.  Jun Cao is joining
us.  He is a trained chemist, and hiring him was part of my nefarious
plan to saddle Ritesh with a bunch of unruly scientists.  He is not
only a chemist - he comes here with web experience as well.

And Tony Ward is hoping he can whip something up for the next tech
dept night out.


*) A Public Safety Announcement

I had the good fortune to meet Eugene Stanton's daughter the other
day.  (It was the day _after_ Take Your Daughter To Work Day.  He told
me that no one could figure out how to get the request into Remedy.)
She's a charming girl, and he introduced me to her as "the guy who
writes Technicalities".

I can only hope that Eugene has the common sense not to forward these
missives to her, for crying out loud!  I'd hate to be responsible for
yet another disturbed youth on our streets.  Please remember that
Technicalities is definitely rated R.  Depictions of life at
AGENCY.COM are not for children without supervision of a parent or
adult guardian.