2023-07-31T08:07:09+00:00 http://kent.spillner.org/blog/life/ Kent R. Spillner kspillner@acm.org 2010-09-18T00:00:00+00:00 http://kent.spillner.org/blog/books/life/2010/09/18/books-category I've added a new category to my site, "Books":http://kent.spillner.org/blog/books/, where I intend to post book reviews. This new category comes complete with "its very own feed":http://feeds.feedburner.com/kent-spillner-books. Once again, you're welcome! 2009-11-13T00:00:00+00:00 http://kent.spillner.org/blog/life/work/2009/11/13/something-different Today is my last day working for "ThoughtWorks":http://www.thoughtworks.com. After four and a half years, I decided to hang up my consultant's cape and try something new: I accepted an offer from "DRW Trading Group":http://www.drw.com starting next week. I am extremely excited about my new job at "DRW":http://www.drw.com, but the decision to leave "ThoughtWorks":http://www.thoughtworks.com was difficult and I am sad to say "goodbye!" "ThoughtWorks":http://www.thoughtworks.com was an important part of my life these past several years, and I am leaving behind a lot of great friends. I will miss working with "ThoughtWorkers":http://blogs.thoughtworks.com every day, and I wish them all the very best. Ultimately, my decision to leave stems from my frustration with consulting. Ostensibly, companies hire consultants for their expertise in helping solve difficult problems. Typically, companies select consultants based on past experience and expertise in successfully solving similar problems. But always companies ignore or push back against anything running counter to their current way of doing things, no matter how much they paid for the suggestion. I accept that compromise, education and negotiation are important aspects of consulting, and I agree it is unreasonable - and would be unwise - to expect clients to do everything exactly as they are advised. I also enjoy helping others solve problems. I am just tired of arguing about the same things with different clients over and over again. And hence the change. I am not bitter or jaded, I bear no grudge; it is just time for me to try something new away from client politics. "ThoughtWorks":http://www.thoughtworks.com is a great company, and I can't wait to see what things lie in store for them in the future! But I won't miss my cape. 2009-11-09T00:00:00+00:00 http://kent.spillner.org/blog/life/politics/work/2009/11/09/github-pages _*UPDATED 2010-09-18:* Added a new category to my site, "Books":http://kent.spillner.org/blog/books/, with "its own separate feed.":http://feeds.feedburner.com/kent-spillner-books_ I finally found a blogging platform to love: "GitHub Pages":http://pages.github.com/. "GitHub Pages":http://pages.github.com/ rocks! It gives me control over every aspect of my site: directory structure, page layout, permalink format. Everything is stored in plain text, versioned (courtesy of Git, natch), and cloudified. There is no dumb blog name or stupid subtitle, no biography or mugshot, no comments or tag clouds. I especially like the lack of comments because the best conversations happen when everyone just listens to me. The sheer awesomeness of "GitHub Pages":http://pages.github.com/ and its simplicity of use compel me to blog; they also compelled me to upgrade my GitHub account and wire-up a vanity domain. I resisted lending my voice to the symphony of idiots blogging on the internets for many years, but no more! "GitHub Pages":http://pages.github.com/ makes it so damn easy, I just can't help myself. If I fail in this endeavour, if I fail to update regularly or at all, it will be for lack of trying, not inadequacy of the tool. The world suffers for lack of access to my opinions. To make it easier to learn my opinion on a particular subject, blog entries will be categorized as one of: "life":http://kent.spillner.org/blog/life/, "politics":http://kent.spillner.org/blog/politics/, or "work":http://kent.spillner.org/blog/work/. This entry itself is a special case and will be categorized as all three to seed my syndication feeds. There are separate feeds "for":http://feeds.feedburner.com/kent-spillner-life "each":http://feeds.feedburner.com/kent-spillner-politics "category":http://feeds.feedburner.com/kent-spillner-work, and a fourth "feed with everything":http://feeds.feedburner.com/kent-spillner, to provide the illusion of choice. In reality, all of my opinions are equally valuable. You're welcome.