Spin Cycle

Talk up hope for Haiti and most people think you are naïve. The country has none of the cultural norms that conventional wisdom says are required to construct democratic institutions. Plus, it's flat broke.

All true. Yet things didn't have to get this bad. They did because when Haitians had a shot at democracy in 1990, they instead got a despot named Jean Bertrand Aristide.

— The Wall Street Journal

Reiterate the key points. Haiti can't be a democracy. Aristide was a despot. Haiti is economically ruined, but it was their own fault. Don't expect anything from aid, but don't question how we're applying aid, either. Repeat.

The question I wonder is what the recent batch of commentary on Haiti is preparing for.

Work

I kvetch about work some times. But mostly my experience of work is fun.

Today, we had New Guy join our project. We went out to lunch at one of the local pubs, and told funny stories.

Most of the rest of the day, Professional Drunkard and I worked together launching a new project. Using the miracle of copy-and-paste (and a smidgen of respectable reuse) we had our new system started, app running, initial login working, basic security, database, temporary graphics and stylesheet, autobuild and repeatable tests. As soon at the ops guys give us a VM and a URL, we can make it available for our customers to poke and prod.

And I feel this great sense of accomplishment. We started the project today. Tomorrow, we can sit with the customer rep, and have them touch all of the blinkenlights. Fast. Solid. Works. Makes me happy.

And Bingo was zir name-o...

This can't be the first trans bingo card, but I like it.

Link via metalana