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Population: One

Serious mister

June 25, 2003
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Yeah, Danny’s pretty serious about running this team. I think it’s kind of sneaking up on us. During the glory years of the 80s, Danny was clearly the least talented starter. Mind you, on a team with Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, and Dennis Johnson that leaves plenty of room to be pretty damned good — and he was — but he was still the least talented starter and in a lot of ways he was the kid on the team. I think that Boston fans, on occasion, have trouble thinking of Danny as a hard-nosed GM. Look at me; I’m still calling him Danny. Everyone does.

But you know, he’s kinda creeping up on us. Today he pointed out that no Celtic is untouchable. If there’s a good enough trade involving Pierce, he’ll take it. Good for him. And even more interesting:

Ainge said he will not balk at taking a step back from the Celts’ current standing or going with very young (read: no immediate impact) talent to achieve the greater good down the line.

“Sure, if I think it’s worth the risk, I’m patient enough,” he said, adding, “Are you patient enough? Are the Boston fans patient enough? How patient is Jim O’Brien? Those are all questions you have to weigh.”

The money quote from that excerpt is “How patient is Jim O’Brien?” O’Brien hasn’t shown a lot of signs of patience with young players, and many (including myself) would argue that it’s getting to be a serious flaw. There was clearly a gulf between O’Brien and Chris Wallace; Wallace was drafting players that O’Brien didn’t really want to play. Part of that was O’Brien’s tendency to expect players to produce from day one. At this point, I think it’s clear that Ainge isn’t going to put up with that, and since Ainge is O’Brien’s boss he won’t have to put up with it.

Good times.

Amelia Wellstone: Stats

June 25, 2003
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This is one of those bits where I’m using Popone as a scratchpad. Be warned.

Brant kicked off his Paridon game the other night with character creation. Since I don’t know what’s good for me, I went for one of those PCs who can be a terrible idea in the wrong hands. Hopefully mine aren’t.

Amelia “Andy” Wellstone is an orphan, who grew up with her twin brother Alistair. Her private belief, which is undoubtedly false, is that their mother was an unwed noblewoman who was afraid to claim them as her own. She is bitter about this; almost as bitter as she is about Alistair’s death at the hands of Isle Bassington — the half-elven ruler of the Paridonesian underworld.

She has dark hair and dark eyes, and a sarcastic mouth. She is 5’8”. She is nineteen years old. She spends most of her time in drag, passing as a male both in underworld circles (which she is infiltrating, with the intent of exacting revenge on Bassington) and in noble circles (which she is robbing blind, choosing her targets at the parties she brazenly crashes). Think Raffles crossed with the popular myth of the Chevalier d’Eon crossed with La Maupin.

Stats follow.

Continue ReadingAmelia Wellstone: Stats

Move on communism

June 24, 2003
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The Freepers are getting all excited about stuffing the MoveOn ballot box. They’re so cute! Such a fervent belief in the democratic process! Not.

But the priceless bit — I gotta quote the whole thing. Here.

FOR THE THIRD TIME:

This is not a FReeping opportunity – this is lunacy! These people are COMMUNISTS!

THINK ABOUT IT …!!

DO YOU REALLY WANT YOUR NAME ON A LIST ASSOCIATED WITH A COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION …??

HOW WILL YOU EXPLAIN THIS WHEN THE DOJ OR THE FBI COME CALLING AND ASKING YOU QUESTIONS AND POKING INTO YOUR PRIVATE AFFAIRS …??

Capitalization is that of the original author.

Sparrows fall

June 23, 2003
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Ah, ArsDigita. For a while, Phillip Greenspun was an Internet darling. He did some important work on database driven web sites, which wound up turning into a startup called ArsDigita. ArsDigita was very successful for a little while, and then went boom.

Phillip and his former SO Eve Andersson have one perspective. I mention the personal relationship only because it becomes somewhat relevant in the recently posted alternate perspective from Michael Yoon.

Yoon’s piece probably ought to be required reading for, I dunno, lots of people. Or perhaps for nobody, since the horse is now far from the barn and frolicking around in the pasture. Way too late to close the barn door now. But — speaking from a biased, management perspective — these three stories in conjunction demonstrate exactly why management is important.

There were any number of bad professional managers running around during the dot.com boom. This led to the unfortunate assumption that management (and marketing, and sales, and other non-technical fields) were easy. That, in turn, led to smart charismatic people like Phillip assuming that they could do management stuff. And… well, it’s all in the essays linked above.

Just walked away

June 22, 2003
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WMD explanation of the week: they were looted. Sure, several hundred tons of neurotoxins were looted. So effectively and so secretively that we haven’t found even a single looter. Sounds likely.

But OK, let’s grant ‘em that one. Let’s also admit that US forces have had no luck finding the “looted” WMD. Isn’t the solution obvious? Bring back Blix’s team; they’re professionals. Let them get back to work. After all, the IAEA found looted uranium a whole lot quicker than we could.

But the totality

June 22, 2003
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Some musicians are peeved about single song sales from the Apple iTunes Music Store. An attorney who works for the firm that represents Will Smith and Alanis Morissette claims it’s an artistic issue. “The fear among artists is that the work of art they put together, the album, will become a thing of the past.” Alas, Yahoo Shopping lists 26 singles from Mr. Smith and another 26 from the divine Ms. Morissette. I’m sure the attorney will be attending to this breach of artistic integrity immediately.

The truth is, it hurts the bottom line since people don’t have to buy a whole album to get the song they want. I can sympathize with that, but I’m not sure I feel like I ought to be forced to buy stuff I don’t want to get the stuff I do want. Makes an interesting litmus test for everyone who claimed they approved of Napster because the artists don’t get much money from the labels anyhow, though.