Clarke Ching - Split Infinitives and Beyond.

Hints for revision

Brian Marick has some excellent hints for revising your own writing.

Trial shows how spammers operate

From msnbc, about the trial of spamming bastard Jeremy Jaynes:

Relatively few people actually responded to Jaynes' pitches.  In a typical month, prosecutors said during the trial, Jaynes might receive 10,000 to 17,000 credit card orders, thus making money on perhaps only one of every 30,000 e-mails he sent out.

But he earned $40 a pop, and the undertaking was so vast that Jaynes could still pull in $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other overhead, McGuire said.

"When you're marketing to the world, there are enough idiots out there" who will be suckered in, McGuire said in an interview.

Prosecutors believe Jaynes had a net worth of up to $24 million, and they described one of his homes as a mansion, though the e-mail came from a house described as average.

Bastard only got 9 years jail time.

New "open source" TOC weblog

Hi everyone,

Are there any budding TOC authors out there who would like a wider audience?

If you've written something that you think might be of interest to the TOC community at large

- a case study,
a book review,
an essay,
a charming thought of the day,
TOC specific job postings,
updates on TOCICO (which btw don't make it to the cmsig list) -

or if you find a TOC related article, perhaps, and would like to share it then I've setup a new "open source" Theory of Constraints weblog - where anyone from the TOC community can publish TOC related writing or documents.

I've set up a new blog at http://tocblog.blogspot.com/ (using www.blogger.com) and a new yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TocBlog & TocBlog@yahoogroups.com  as well.

[Both of these services are free and if this idea takes off I'll share the administrator role with others just in case I get run over by a bus - I'd hate to become a dead bottleneck].

Contact me clarke.ching@gmail.com if you want to publish anything and I'll either post it for you or set you up as an author on the blog.

Cheers,

Clarke Ching

BTW:

Take a look at any of these three too see what one of these "blog" things looks like:

1) I currently publish a weblog at www.clarkeching.com focusing mostly on TOC and agile software development;

2) Frank Patrick publishes http://www.focusedperformance.com/blogger.html focusing on TOC and

3) John Sambrook publishes his TOC thoughts here http://www.common-sense.com/Discussions/cssiblog.

GMAil invites

I'm not sure if anyone's still interested ... but, I have a half dozen GMail invites going free.  Use the email link just below the my picture.

Three essential tools - version control, unit testing and automation.

Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas have a useful article Three Essential Tools for Stable Development in the  issue of latest STSC Crostalk:

Version control, unit testing, and automation form an interlocking safety net to help ensure success and prevent common project disasters, yet many common problems can be traced back to a lack of these basic practices.

TOC, complexity, simplicity, and aeroplanes?

TOC has an unusual way of looking at complexity.

For instance, the first question in the sample TOC fundamentals exam asks: which of the following systems is more complex?

Most people would say system B but TOC says system A.  Why? Because you must touch 4 points to change system A but you only need touch 1 point to change system B.

Let me elaborate by quoting TOC expert Steve Holt, (from the cmsig list):

It's important to remember that Goldratt is a physicist and, consequently, uses the scientific method. One of the most sought after discoveries in physics is the Unified Field Theory. That is, the one theory that will fully explain how everything links together. Right now in physics there are 4 different types of forces that explain nature. The reason that physicists are looking for the one unifying theory is that they believe that having 4 is too complex, so there must be only one.

That seems like an odd statement, but it's important to know that when TOC says simple or complex it is with respect to the definition found in the scientific community. A complex system has more independent degrees of freedom than a simple system. It does NOT have to do with our common usage of the terms.

If we use the example of a jet plane, the question would be: Which is more complex, a jet plane or all of the parts that make up the jet plane? If all of the parts were laid out on the floor of a factory they'd each be "simple" pieces of metal, fasteners, clips, wires, etc. Nothing very complex, right? When we look at the finished plane after it's all put together we would tend to call it complex and not simple.

But, now think about the effort required to move the plane in the two forms. Which is easier to move 100 miles: a bunch of unassembled airplane parts or an airplane? The answer is that it is much, much simpler to move the airplane. A single person can do it. Thus, to a person using the scientific definition, the finished airplane is much less complex than all of its parts because it has fewer degrees of freedom.

This is why a core problem or core conflict at the bottom of a CRT is considered to be much less complex than a collection of unconnected UDEs, no matter how many links and entities are in the CRT. When you find the constraint of a system and act on it so as to influence the entire system from a single point you are treating the whole thing as a simple system.

Sixth - Candy/Iron

It's my sixth wedding anniversary tomorrow. 

According to weddingtips.com the appropriate gift is Candy or Iron.

I think I'll substitute Chocolate for Candy and go for that. 

I'll pass on the Iron because I'd most likely wake up one night next week, in agony, with it turned on, strapped to my chest, burning down into me until I eventually find relief when my heart boils and explodes.

Who said romance is dead?

ego slightly restored

Hmmmm ... I use www.bloglines.com to read all of my blogs.  It has a nifty little feature that tells you how many bloglines users are subscribed to each blog. 

For instance, Dilbert currently has 11,530 subscribers and I have slightly less.

But ... drum rollllllllllll ... I have more than I thought! 

This blog has two feeds but I was only subscribed to 1 of them - the one with 18 subscribers.  I just realised this and was pleasantly surprised to find another 11,000 on the other feed.  Cool.

Not that the numbers mean anything of course :)

document mangement

Can anyone recommend a simple document version control system ?

My problem:

• I have 2 PCs - a desktop and a laptop
• I'm working on several word, powerpoint, or other documents
• I alternate between the PCs. 

I want to be able to have the most up to date version on both PCs without any hassles. 

[Windows briefcase is too hard or I'm too thick]

TOC Fundamentals Exam paper

The Theory of Constraints International Certification Organisation (TOCICO) was established a few years ago to provide an independent certification route for TOC practitioners.

 

They've recently published a sample TOC Fundamentals Exam paper.