nein-nein-nein dept.

I have observed that the best employees, i.e. individual contributors, are those who always say "No.". By always negating everything, they put the onus on their managers to come up with irrefutable logic and nail down the specifications for tasks, so that they would not get no for an answer.

Unfortunately, such people are also not the best people to get along with.

However if you're looking to start a product company, hire only these naysayers as programmers. Optimisitc kids with stars in their eyes will overcommit themselves and be the bane of your scheduling endeavors.

two-movies dept.

I was visibly moved by Rang De Basanti. So much so that my wife had to restrain me from going out and doing something reallly stupid. When I calmed down after a dose of good old middle-class morality washed down with some excellent wine at the Swiss Cheese Garden, I finally saw through the sham, and now am back to writing code during the day, and kissing my powerbook goodnight every night.

C.S.Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia. He was chums with JRR Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of The Rings. Both have been made into movies. I mean the books, of course. Actually, C.S.Lewis was also made into a movie once.

Narnia is unique, in its own way.

There are weird-looking creatures. There is a prophecy. The good guys have a mentor who dies and then is magically resurrected. A horn is sounded. There is a character who's very prim and proper and carries a quiver full of arrows. There is a battle at the end. There is a blonde guy reluctantly brandishing a shiny sword on a horse leading the good guys into said battle even though they are desperately outnumbered.

Only, he does not give a speech before doing this.

I really missed the speech.