question for gamers

anyone else try the demo of Left Behind: Eternal Forces?

Forecasting software?

David Gilbert discussed applying hurricane forecasting methods to software. One thing that caught my eye, that he says he has "NEVER seen [in] any model of software planning", is "The Cone of Uncertainty".

Starting at the point where the storm is now, following roughly along the predicted path of the storm, is an ever expanding cone. This cone represents where, given all the information currently available, the storm MAY go if something in the model changes. [...T]his is the part of the model that forecasters talk about the most, and encourage everyone to pay the most attention to. This is the part of that model that takes into account Risk and Ambiguity.

Shipping software is ambiguous, and taking that into account is a good thing. But (to continue the metaphor), project management is all about getting to a particular destination at a particular time; tracking a hurricane is trying to see where & when it will arrive.

But perhaps there's room for both. Yes, aim for the goal. But also track the "cone", and forecast how far off track the project may currently get...

Peggy's at it again.

Peggy Senger Parsons, that is, over at A Silly Poor Gospel.

It seems that our culture is taking a real turn towards being a culture of fear. If you listen to any media outlet you can quickly make a list of things that you are supposed to be afraid of, from dangerous bacteria that infest every corner of your house, to the threat a various forms of global annihilation. [...]

Not that I am against practical safety. Airbags, Yeah! By all means change those batteries in your smoke detector, and please, do wash your hands when you leave the restroom. But the constant diet of fear and the persistent selling of products and behaviors to assuage the fears seems to have gotten all out of proportion.

[...] You know that something has become an idol when its very name becomes a magic incantation that stops questions and debates and induces unnatural obedience. [...] Now, in the United States, all you have to do is say, “This is for you safety, sir.” and people nod their heads, take off their shoes and stand in line. They throw their personal possessions into sacrificial barrels, and avert their eyes as the Middle Eastern fellow behind them gets pulled out for “extra screening.”

[...] Because faith in Safety focuses more on feeling safe than actually being safe, [a]s long as one person in the room still feels unsafe, we will all change our behavior until that person feels better. But having lowered the threshold, it will be only a matter of time before the unease grows in someone – who will raise again the cry “Unsafe!”

There's a lot more, including how she flew into a war zone in a full plane with various families and found that sometimes the fearmongers are wrong.

My.

I once sat in a car forever waiting for my mom to come out of a grocery store. I thought that was the definition of "interminable." I had no idea "The Path to 9/11" was in my future.

This is what happens during 4 1/2 lonnnng hours of "Path." Terrorists talk about killing Americans for Allah. FBI and other security officials try to track them but fail. 9/11 happens.

You don't say.

This is the most anticlimactic, tension-free movie in the history of terrorist TV.
- Doug Elfman writing in the Chicago Sun-Times

No, really, tell us what you think....