1) "The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession." – Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) in "The Valley of Fear"
2) “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” – Oscar Wilde
"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’" – Isaac Asimov
It got crowded in heaven, so, for one day it was decided only to accept people who had really had a bad day on the day they died. St. Peter was standing at the pearly gates and said to the first man, "Tell me about the day you died."
The man said, "Oh, it was awful. I was sure my wife was having an affair, so I came home early to catch her with him. I searched all over the apartment but couldn’t find him anywhere. So I went out onto the balcony, we live on the 25th floor, and found this man hanging over the edge by his fingertips. I went inside, got a hammer, and started hitting his hands. He fell, but landed in some bushes. So, I got the refrigerator and pushed it over the balcony and it crushed him. The strain of the act gave me a heart attack, and I died."
St. Peter couldn’t deny that this was a pretty bad day, and since it was a crime of passion, he let the man in.
He then asked the next man in line about the day he died. "Well, sir, it was awful," said the second man. "I was doing aerobics on the balcony of my 26th floor apartment when I twisted my ankle and slipped over the edge. I managed to grab the balcony of the apartment below, but some maniac came out and started pounding on my fingers with a hammer. Luckily I landed in some bushes. But, then the guy dropped a refrigerator on me!"
St. Peter chuckled, let him into heaven and decided he could really start to enjoy this job.
"Tell me about the day you died?", he said to the third man in line.
"OK, picture this, I’m naked, hiding inside a refrigerator …"
On their way to getting married, a young couple is involved in a fatal car accident. They find themselves sitting outside the Pearly Gates, waiting for St. Peter to process them into Heaven. While waiting, they begin to wonder: Could they possibly get married in Heaven? When St. Peter shows up, they ask him. St. Peter says, ‘I don’t know. This is the first time anyone has asked that. Let me go and find out,’ and he leaves.
The couple sit and wait, and wait. Two months pass and the couple is still waiting. As they wait, they discuss that if they were allowed to get married in Heaven, what was the eternal aspect of it all. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ they wondered. ‘Are we stuck together forever?’
After yet another month, St. Peter finally returns, looking somewhat bedraggled. ‘Yes,’ he informs the couple, ‘you can get married in Heaven.’
‘Great!’ says the couple, ‘But we were just wondering, what if things don’t work out? Can we also get a divorce in Heaven?’
St. Peter, red-faced with anger, slams his clipboard onto the ground.
‘What’s wrong?’ ask the frightened couple.
‘OH, COME ON!’ St. Peter shouts, ‘It took me three months to find a priest up here! Do you have any idea how long it’ll take me to find a lawyer?’
The Catholic Church has a history. Boy, does it…
By Tony Perrottet
“Lord, give me chastity and self-control — but not yet."
— Prayer of the young Saint Augustine, c.380 A.D.
The scandals may be coming thick and strong from the Vatican at the moment, but the Church has always waged a losing battle with its own vice-ridden staff. The problem was that transgressions from official policy often began at the top. Fellow priests put one of the first popes, Sixtus III (432-40), on trial for seducing a nun. He was acquitted after quoting from Christ in his defense: “Let you who are without sin cast the first stone.” In the centuries to follow, political skullduggery and a corrupt election process thrust one improbable candidate after another into the position as god-fearing believers looked on in impotent horror. In fact, so many Vicars of Christ have been denounced as the “Worst Pope Ever” that we have to settle for a Top Ten list.
1. Sergius III (904-11), known by his cardinals as "the slave of every vice," came to power after murdering his predecessor. He had a son with his teenage mistress — the prostitute Marozia, 30 years his junior — and their illegitimate son grew up to become the next pope. With top Vatican jobs auctioned off like baubles, the papacy entered its “dark century.”
2. The 16-year-old John XII (955-64) was accused of sleeping with his two sisters and inventing a catalog of disgusting new sins. Described by a church historian as “the very dregs,” he was killed at age 27 when the husband of one of his mistresses burst into his bedroom, discovered him in flagrante, and battered his skull in with a hammer.
3. Benedict IX, (1032-48) continually shocked even his most hardened cardinals by debauching young boys in the Lateran Palace. Repenting of his sins, he actually abdicated to a monastery, only to change his mind and seize office again. He was “a wretch who feasted on immorality,” wrote Saint Peter Damian, “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest.”
Boniface VIII
4. After massacring the entire population in the Italian town of Palestrina, Boniface VIII (1294-1303) indulged in ménages with a married woman and her daughter and became renowned through Rome as a shameless pedophile. He famously declared that having sex with young boys was no more a sin than rubbing one hand against the other — which should make him the patron saint of Boston priests today. The poet Dante reserved a place for him in the eighth circle of Hell.
5. All pretense at decorum was abandoned when the papacy moved to Avignon in southern France for 75 years. Bon vivant Clement VI(1342-52) was called “an ecclesiastical Dionysus” by the poet Petrarch for the number of mistresses and the severity of his gonorrhea. Upon his death, 50 priests offered Mass for the repose of his soul for nine consecutive days, but French wits agreed that this was nowhere near enough.
Sixtus IV
6. Decamping back to Rome, the papacy hit its true low point in the Renaissance. (Church historian Eamon Duffy compares Rome to Nixon’s Washington, “a city of expense-account whores and political graft.”) Sixtus IV (1471-84), who funded the Sistine Chapel, had six illegitimate sons — one with his sister. He collected a Church tax on prostitutes and charged priests for keeping mistresses, but critics argued that this merely increased the prevalence of clerical homosexuality.
Innocent VIII
7. The rule of Innocent VIII (1484-92) is remembered as the Golden Age of Bastards: He acknowledged eight illegitimate sons and was known to have many more, although he found time between love affairs to start up the Inquisition. On his death bed, he ordered a comely wet nurse to supply him with milk fresh from the breast.
Alexander VI
8. The vicious Rodrigo Borgia, who took the name Alexander VI (1492-1503), presided over more orgies than masses, wrote Edward Gibbon. A career highlight was the 1501 “Joust of the Whores,” when 50 dancers were invited to slowly strip around the pope’s table. Alexander and his family gleefully threw chestnuts on the floor, forcing the women to grovel around their feet like swine; they then offered prizes of fine clothes and jewelry for the man who could fornicate with the most women. Alexander’s other hobbies included watching horses copulate, which would make him “laugh fit to bust.” After his death — quite possibly poisoned by his pathological son, Cesar Borgia — this pope’s body was expelled from the basilica of Saint Peter as too evil to be buried in sacred soil.
Julius II
9. Julius II (1503-13) is remembered for commissioning Michelangelo to paint the Sistene Chapel’s ceiling. He was also the first pope to contract “the French disease,” syphilis, from Rome’s male prostitutes. On Good Friday of 1508, he was unable to allow his foot to be kissed by the faithful as it was completely covered with syphilitic sores.
10. Incurable romantic Julius III (1550-55) fell in love with a handsome young beggar boy he spotted brawling with a vendor’s monkey in the streets. The pope went on to appoint this illiterate 17-year-old urchin a cardinal, inspiring an epic poem, “In Praise of Sodomy,” probably written by a disgruntled archbishop in his honor. • 11 May 2010
SOURCE/FURTHER READING: Duffy, Eamon, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, (Yale, 2002); De Rosa, Peter, Vicars of Christ: the Dark Side of the Papacy (New York, 1988).
An Irishman stops into a bar in New York City every day at the same time. He walks up to the bar, orders three pints of Guinness, drinks them down one at a time, and then walks out. After about two weeks of this, the bartender can’t help his curiosity. He asks the Irishman why is it that he comes in at the same time every day, and drink three pints of Guinness, and then leaves without talking to anyone. The Irishman replies: "You see, before I moved here from Ireland, I would share a scoop of stout with each of me two brothers every night. When I told ’em I was movin’ to the tha States, I made a promise that I’d make sure to keep on with tradition."
The bartender smiles, satisfied with the answer, laughing a little to himself, and walks away.
This goes on for about 6 months. Every day, at just about the same time, the Irishman comes in and orders three pints, drinks them down, nods to the bartender, and heads on his way.
One day, the Irishman walks in. His eyes are red, and it’s obvious to the bartender that he’s been crying and is upset about something. He sits down at the bar, and the bartender begins pouring the three pints, just like always.
The Irishman stops him, saying: "Stall the ball, lad. I’m ‘fraid I’ll only be needing two scoops of stout this evenin’, and one empty glass, turned upside down."
The bartender complies, and offers the Irishman his condolences, saying: "I’m sorry to hear about the death of your brother, friend."
The Irishman drinks down the two pints of Guinness, wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and says to the bartender: "Jaysus, lad! Me brothers are both fine. It’s just that I gave up drinking yesterday."
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to Everybody!
It was the first day of a school in USA and a new Indian student named Chandrasekhar Subramanian entered the fourth grade.
The teacher said, "Let’s begin by reviewing some American History. Who said ‘Give me Liberty , or give me Death’?"
She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Chandrasekhar, who had his hand up:? ‘ Patrick Henry, 1775′ he said.
‘Very good! Who said ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the Earth?”
Again, no response except from Chandrasekhar. ‘Abraham Lincoln, 1863’ said Chandrasekhar.
The teacher snapped at the class, ‘Class, you should be ashamed. Chandrasekhar, who is new to our country, knows more about our history than you do.’
She heard a loud whisper: ‘F ___ the Indians,’
‘Who said that?’ she demanded.
Chandrasekhar put his hand up. ‘General Custer, 1862.’
At that point, a student in the back said, ‘I’m gonna puke.’
The teacher glares around and asks ‘All right! Now, who said that?’
Again, Chandrasekhar says, ‘George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.’
Now furious, another student yells, ‘Oh yeah? Suck this!’
Chandrasekhar jumps out of his chair waving his hand and shouts to the teacher, ‘Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky,1997’
Now with almost mob hysteria someone said ‘You little shit. If you say anything else, I’ll kill you.’
Chandrasekhar frantically yells at the top of his voice, ‘ Michael Jackson to the child witnesses testifying against him, 2004.’
The teacher fainted. And as the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, ‘Oh shit, we’re screwed!’
And Chandrasekhar said quietly, ‘I think it was Lehmann Brothers, November 4th, 2008’.
These are The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming (From a classic book written in the early 1970s called, "The Psychology of Computer Programming" by Gerald Weinberg) but most of the recommendations are applicable in a wider context.
1. Understand and accept! that you will make mistakes. The point is to find them early, before they make it into production. Fortunately, except for the few of us developing rocket guidance software at JPL, mistakes are rarely fatal in our industry, so we can, and should, learn, laugh, and move on.
2. You are not your code. Remember that the entire point of a review is to find problems, and problems will be found. Don’t take it personally when one is uncovered.
3. No matter how much "karate" you know, someone else will always know more. Such an individual can teach you some new moves if you ask. Seek and accept input from others, especially when you think it’s not needed.
4. Don’t rewrite code without consultation. There’s a fine line between "fixing code" and "rewriting code." Know the difference, and pursue stylistic changes within the framework of a code review, not as a lone enforcer.
5. Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience. Nontechnical people who deal with developers on a regular basis almost universally hold the opinion that we are prima donnas at best and crybabies at worst. Don’t reinforce this stereotype with anger and impatience.
6. The only constant in the world is change. Be open to it and accept it with a smile. Look at each change to your requirements, platform, or tool as a new challenge, not as some serious inconvenience to be fought.
7. The only true authority stems from knowledge, not from position. Knowledge engenders authority, and authority engenders respect—so if you want respect in an egoless environment, cultivate knowledge.
8. Fight for what you believe, but gracefully accept defeat. Understand that sometimes your ideas will be overruled. Even if you do turn out to be right, don’t take revenge or say, "I told you so" more than a few times at most, and don’t make your dearly departed idea a martyr or rallying cry.
9. Don’t be "the guy in the room." Don’t be the guy coding in the dark office emerging only to buy cola. The guy in the room is out of touch, out of sight, and out of control and has no place in an open, collaborative environment.
10. Critique code instead of people—be kind to the coder, not to the code. As much as possible, make all of your comments positive and oriented to improving the code. Relate comments to local standards, program specs, increased performance, etc.
![clip_image003[4]](https://ygqiaq.bay.livefilestore.com/y1me34nw8t25p_lWau8TKfOCE0mpDQ5C2Tufb1NM6a5v__DeP6MbufLRItV2wT5FpFcpYEjQ-TMs9BIqNvrRHeI4PEQ09uKi63Vm4M8ddfGY8-kvYK2qqO5SsSua-SC8sWzxs2FSpmGRgD9Ig6vcFJdQQ/clip_image003[4]_thumb.jpg "clip_image003[4]")
![clip_image005[4]](https://ygqiaq.bay.livefilestore.com/y1mqc-tPvP6dSs8vi7ItPbwcaxonlYfOQMNSv_zyl5mzBH1iUatNLEOiQ0A9JMsJS2z9lszHWdkBLp7uojwoIi6h_mppiTB4ohRztpOLR_mg27tVnw9cKwmrT_96vcCjg3XV71xw1CtsWvboxXDOUJWog/clip_image005[4]_thumb[3].jpg "clip_image005[4]")
![clip_image006[4]](https://tarunrattan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/clip_image0065b45d_thumb5b35d.jpg?w=593&h=406 "clip_image006[4]")
![clip_image008[4]](https://tarunrattan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/clip_image0085b45d_thumb5b35d.jpg?w=593&h=401 "clip_image008[4]")
![clip_image010[4]](https://tarunrattan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/clip_image0105b45d5b85d.jpg?w=607&h=392 "clip_image010[4]")
![clip_image012[4]](https://tarunrattan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/clip_image0125b45d_thumb5b25d.jpg?w=604&h=398 "clip_image012[4]")
Publication: IBSJ
Date: 1 February 2010
(This is the case study of the AIB implementation of which I was Technical Lead as
published in IBS Journal – Tarun Rattan)
![clip_image001[13]](https://tarunrattan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/clip_image0015b135d_thumb.jpg?w=204&h=58 "clip_image001[13]")
Tarun's Blog 