You Determine Who Reads Ithaka

While the What's Hot report doesn't determine the content I will write to Ithaka, it does show visitors what to read.  I don't always agree with your choices but it's not Ithaka cool to override them or change them to point at something else.  There's kind of a democracy in that, I suppose.

Note:  you have pushed the reads for Ithaka higher than I have seen in some while.  Thanks and have a ball.


I was glad to see the Cemetery Near Pyrgos, Greece article rising since it's not at all a morbid but it is sad in one bit since it was important to show how deeply personal Greek grave sites are.  Hopefully you will feel less pained than charmed by the opportunity to meet this guy and it's really intriguing to see your tastes.

What's Hot was the dumbest name for it and I really should have thought about that a wee bit more but it works ... even if sometimes I disagree with the results ... oh, man, I really thought they would dig that one or so.

The list has never been changed and it's systems programmer ethics which mandates it won't ever.  I don't have too much respect for law but this mandate is inviolate.  In fact, I never heard of a systems programmer being busted for doing something illegal or unethical with a system.  I'm sure it happens but I never met one nor did I ever hear of it from anyone.


One more sysfrog note as I told my staff from time to time, because fear is the biggest impediment in dealing with big systems, "It doesn't matter if the system is handling money or making chocolate chip cookies since, from the z/OS standpoint, it makes no difference at all."

Unknown why there wasn't fear in me but I regarded the mainframe as a huge pile of tin, if it crashes then we fix it and bring it back up again ... unless it catches fire but that won't be our fault because, man, we're software.

There was one IBM hardware guy who got impatient to correct a problem in a controller or some such and he needed the system idle or down but the operators weren't fast enough for his satisfaction. After some while of this, he went down behind the controller and there was some smoke with an accompanying system crash.

He came up from behind the controller and asked, ever so innocently, "Are you down?"

We sure as hell were, ya monkey.


It may not seem it but some aspects of ethics are paramount to me and any violation is a one-way ticket on a hellbound train.  The "Hellbound Train" CD by Reverend Silas T Sasquatch is still available on CD Baby if you like (larfs).

Frankly, I've never seen a huge connection between law and ethics so for law I don't care whereas for ethics I care a lot.


Oh, one more on alcohol since this is what happens when I drink:

As I said, not a good idea.  The hat came because I had been drunk at a ski resort.  The hat wasn't such a fail, tho, as girls would come up when I was skiing to say, "Wow, that hat is so cute!"

I have no idea how anyone sees cuteness in that but where were you when I was single, lady??  (larfs)


Fear not about a parade of selfies as there are extremely few of them of me.  I have a hilarious one of Lotho wearing a huge orange hat but that one was so looney I won't do it.  He was on a roll that night (larfs).