I wrote a rant yesterday. I put it on my O'Reilly Network blog, as it was in response to something I saw within O'Reilly. It's called Too Many Stone Soup Chefs and Not Enough H1-B Immigrant Indians.
Rain continued here today, taking several overs off a cricket match between England and NZ (NZ looked to be losing, darnit). William was interested in cricket, and waved a cricket bat around my parents' house for a while. Two year old with a big bat = scary times for all.
I read an article in The Listener (it's New Zealand's Salon) about immigration affecting schools. The very prestigious Auckland Grammar School has a 65% Asian population now, and a lot of them are not really citizens. NZ education is apparently much better than Chinese, so rich Taiwanese businessmen send their kids to school here. The problem is that education is largely state-funded, and NZ is now facing an enormous shortfall of teachers, classrooms ... even shade in the playground. One school doesn't have room for everyone to sit during lunch now ....
Cousin Alvin got me a pile of about six New Zealand thrillers and mysteries. I've started writing one, and I wasn't sure how much competition I faced. The answer is: not much :-) There aren't many genre authors in the country, and those that are here tend to set their stories outside NZ in order to make them more commercial. Mine is set in the town where I grew up here, and features local colour (aka fishermen). In writing it I've been buoyed to learn that I can edit fiction as well as non-fiction--when I look at my outline and my chapters, I can see weaknesses and think of ways to plug them.
I try to work on the novel for an hour every night, but that's getting harder. I think it'll have to be an hour every weekday--I need a break! I've got two books to be editing for imminent tech review, and they have to take priority. Oh, and QC1 on the PHP book. No rest for the wicked :-)
--Nat
And Rule 1 is: Release running code.
Running code is the seed from which a successful open source project will start. So to continue the metaphor of stone soup, if you show up with some broth, some bay leaves, and maybe a wilted carrot or two, you're okay, but stones won't get you there.
Also if you can provide people a kitchen, and a really big pot, that helps to.
kellan
* 1st ed., I've heard mixed things about the 2nd edition.
ps. why is slash sticking [red-bean.com] after my url?
