Attack of the Deadly Dancers

This weekend I had a meeting with a representative of a local troupe of Belly Dancers (OI! get your mind out the gutter, I was not booking them for a private showing!) I was there in the guise of a possible “consultant“.belly-dancer

Now I can imagine lots of good consultant roles in relationship to belly dancing, for example :- Checking things shimmy as they are supposed to, Making sure the costumes do not cover too much up, and a load of other sexist stuff I could come up with but will resist, (Which considering the consultant request is a wise choice).

The consultant role they wanted from me was that of “Escrima Instructor.” Yes teaching them Filipino Martial Art Stick Fighting. This was not due to my first thought of keeping the viewers back, or dealing with any amorous fans.  NO! they are considering incorporating it into their dance routine.  Apparently there is a school of belly dance that uses sticks as part of the show, and these girls decided if they were going to do that then they should do it somewhat special.

So as a conscientious kind of instructor, If I agree to teach these girls escrima then i really need to know roughly what kind of styles they need to learn. So I believe some research is needed. For this reason I may be slow replying to people for the next week or so as I force myself to watch hours of videos of scantily clad women shimmy and dance. Its a hard life but someone has to do it!

Hackers Are People Too

Hug a Hacker

I’ve just finished watching the Documentary “Hackers are people Too” A documentary made by Hackers, about Hackers to try and correct the “misrepresentation” the Hacker community gets from the Press & Hollywood.

All in all it was not a bad small documentary at about forty minutes long. I think it could have shown a bit more, and answered a few more questions, and laid some things to rest, but overall it was not too bad.

They mentioned that as a community we are more tolerant of race, age, religion, looks, Since most meet up online for years before ever meeting in real life, so friendships are made purely by personality and intelligence. The statement reminded me of the old “Hackers Manifesto” by The Mentor, and I thought I’d post it on here as a reminder of the old days.

CN

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Care In The Community – AKA Death of the Asylum

Will the last inmate released please turn off the lights & electric shock chair!

The inmates at the Insane Asylum have just returned to their cells from a meeting with the Governor.  At this meeting it was mentioned that due to the current world recession, state of the UK’s economy, and the lack of incoming money, the Insane Asylum may have to drop to a 4 day week. With the inmates being let out on the 5Th day.

There are a couple of obvious problems with this plan, like the fact we are a service provider whose customers get upset when they cant get support at the weekend (let alone a three day wait).

The main problem I foresee is a catch 24 spiral to death problem. Let me explain.

To cope with the 1/5th cut in salary most the inmates will have to take a second job, (Or work on their own!). “Whats the problem with that?” I hear you ask. Well given the fact the Inmates are IT bods, then any second job, or cash in hand job will be in the IT industry. SO jobs we hear of that would normally be sent to the Asylum to be done may end up being done by ourselves. Then you have the fact that the area we work in, any second job would end up being for competitors or customers direct.

So the more work we do to make up the lost wage will cut down on jobs sent to the asylum, so it makes less money, meaning a 3 day week? so we have to do more work to cover loss wage, meaning even less for company, 2 day week, spiral… spiral…….

For example. take our development department. Which of our customers will pay say £60/hour for dev work when they can have same guy, using same machine do it on his second job rate of £20/hour?

so, as stated at the start of this post…. Will the last inmate released please turn off the lights

CN