Sightseeing from Above

Here are some interesting sightseeing locations available from the new satellite-enhanced Google Maps. I like the airplane graveyard especially.

Great Headline

Better than that one, anyway:

Charles and Camilla Tie Windsor Knot

On the Second-System Effect

I've started reading The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks. It's pretty fascinating how well a computer book written in 1975 holds up for thirty years. I'm only a few chapters into it so far; I just finished reading a very insightful chapter about a phenomenon I clearly suffered from yet didn't diagnose until Brooks did it for me. It's called the Second-System Effect. Brooks writes:

An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint.
As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next time." ... The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile."

I so did this! On my first professional project I was all too aware that I had just fallen head-first off the apple cart, so I didn't try to overstep my bounds by a single inch. Then I got cocky, and on my second project, fashioning myself an old pro with all the self assurance of an armadillo at a crosswalk, I decided to throw all these new technologies I'd been learning about at the problem without any prior thought as to

a) whether they were appropriate uses of the technology or
b) whether they would solve the problem.

A "big pile" was the result. Oh sure, the thing worked, and we got paid, but sitting here four years later a couple shades wiser than then, I realize that a lot of pain would have been prevented if I had reined myself in a little more.

Brooks goes on (if only I'd read this four years ago!):

How does the architect avoid the second-system effect? Well, obviously he can't skip his second system. But he can be conscious of the peculiar hazards of that system, and exert extra self-discipline to avoid functional ornamentation and to avoid extrapolation of functions that are obviated by changes in assumptions and purposes.

I refer to my early zealous days of throwing untested technologies at a problem "design by resume." It burned me pretty bad, and I'm reformed now.

For the project managers in his readership, Brooks closes with this:

How does the project manager avoid the second-system effect? By insisting on a senior architect who has at least two systems under his belt.

They say that ninety-nine percent of software projects fail. I would bet that at least forty of those percent are victims of the second-system effect.

On French Rappers

I was listening to this jazz radio station with my father today, and this R&B song came on with a lady singing in French. Nothing new there. Then she started rapping. That was a new one on me. It didn't rhyme. Le hip-hop.

I didn't have any idea what she was going on about. What's the French word for bling-bling?

Google Maps - 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC

Google Maps - 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC

Google Maps now has a Satellite link which, if clicked, turns the graphic map into a satellite image of the area. So of course the first thing I did was see what the top of the White House looks like. Turns out, they blanked out the roof, and all you get is a set of brown rectangles. So I mosey over to Capitol Hill, and there they've intentionally blurred out the entire area. Wonder if the Kremlin is visible...

On Popery

I'm no longer a Catholic, but the doings of the Catholic Church have always been of special interest to me. Technically, Pope John Paul II's is the third papacy of my lifetime, but Paul VI and John Paul I both died (or were killed) before I was a year old, so John Paul II is the only Pope I've ever known.

His reign has been among the longest of any Pope, and certainly the most travelled. He has been hailed for his missionary spirit as he circled the globe, and he has been reviled for his consistent refusal to reform policies the church (in my humble opinion, which no longer counts) should have abandoned years ago.

At this writing, he is on the verge of death, and will likely not last more than a few days. So what's next for the Catholic Church?

Well, first of all, the college of cardinals will fly to Rome to assemble for a Papal Conclave. John Paul II has reigned for so long now that only a dozen or so of the cardinals have held the office long enough to have prior conclave experience. In addition, cardinals who are 80 years old or older can't participate, so that brings the number down to 3. They are:

• Bernardin Cardinal Gantin of Benin
• Jaime Lachica Cardinal Sin of the Phillipines
• William Wakefield Cardinal Baum of the United States

But anyway, they will all gather in the Sistine chapel, the doors will be locked, and they'll elect the new guy there. Who will he be? Usually the cardinals go for someone who they believe will not rock the boat too much, that is, someone like them. Most of them, of course, were appointed to their post by John Paul II, and so their views will match the current pope's views. So we can likely expect a pope that will carry on the status quo. However, occasionally we have been surprised by the actions a pope takes once the office is established.

John XXIII is probably my favorite pope of recent memory. In 1958, Pope Pius XII died, and the long-held favorite to take over the job, Archbishop Montini of Milan, was consistently denied his red hat by Pius XII, so he was not elected. John XXIII was considered to be a safe choice for a short papacy (he was almost 77 years old); he presumably would make Archbishop Montini a cardinal, who would then take over the job after John XXIII's death. Montini did become Pope Paul VI in 1963. But in the meantime, to the surprise of everyone and likely the chagrin of the cardinals, Good Pope John established the Second Vatican Council, revolutionizing the Mass and bringing the church into the modern world.

So anything could happen. The next pope could be a revolutionary in disguise, or he could be another steward with no plans for change. The next few months will be interesting indeed for the Catholic church.