Aaron Eikenberry, Blog of

Received This Resignation Letter in My Inbox Today

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:53:00 -0400

Hi.

I have spent the last few days back and forth, deadlocked. I didn’t want it to seem like a hasty decision, and I wanted to make sure I had something useful to say before I said it.

I don’t think I am a good software engineer. I might program OK, but I can tell already I can’t fit like a gear in this machine very well. I hate the lack of discussion over obvious but unspoken questions. My dumb brain just wonders WHY all the time and tries to puzzle things out. I think: Why can’t I determine for myself where I work most efficiently? Why do we need managers? Why is that man the CEO? Why can he come in later, leave earlier, do less work and make lots more money than me? Why do we add this feature? Why am I in a cube? Why am I doing this? Why should I care if this company succeeds if I get nothing out of it? Why can’t I choose what hours I work most effectively at? Why do I have to clock in and out? Why don’t I have a say in what the product should look like, especially in cases when it is acknowledged that their present functionality or design is bad? Why can’t I question the business rules that I think are stupid or nonsensical? Why are the departments isolated and bureaucratic? and so on, which all deal with a priori assumptions or presuppositions, and all of which I have no direct control over. There is, so far as I can tell, no evidence provided in their defense by anyone I’ve talked to, other than the implicit yet ubiquitous unquestioning inertia.

It isn’t that the conditions necessarily make this company worse relative to others, in fact in some ways it is above what I’ve seen to be average; that isn’t, however, the metric we should take when asking questions like the above. I can’t put up with tyrannical oversight (I can’t, haven’t and won’t work effectively under such mentally and physically constrained conditions, no matter how kind or generous the manager or CEO is; I get anxious and concerned, and for good reason, that I’m being evaluated over my shoulder), and fallacious suppositions (like management as an inherently efficient, superior or necessary role, or departmental discretization as necessarily efficient or helpful) that encourage or promote stupidity, degrade people, etc. It’s just inconsistent principally with what seem to me to be natural human qualities like trying to find out and learn as much as possible, to reason and discover, to create freely, to speak truths freely, to socialize freely, to not be excluded from participating in processes relevant to them, etc. How can I conform to such arbitrary, unnatural, unreasonable and unnecessary standards which stand blatantly contrary to those human qualities? The threat of losing my job is not a good enough reason anymore, nor was it ever, to sit quietly. It’s farcical, and it would be hypocritical of me to continue working in such a system, despite having tried for several months to do just that by ignoring human conditions and submitting myself to such amoral, demoralizing obedience.

Thus, it is unfortunately the case that, if changes and reforms to the system are not brought to relevant parties for discussion with active employee involvement pursuant to the inquiries raised above, I will at my own volition terminate any outstanding employment contract with [company], cessation effective upon your negative decision relevant to the former ultimatum. If discussion is open to the points above, my direct lines of communication remain open for that purpose.

Knowing the unlikelihood of the company’s adoption or even acceptance of possibility for such change, I sincerely apologize to the employees for my having accepted employment with [company] and terminating it in such a rapid fashion, and especially to those for whom my leaving created some extra work. I enjoyed spending time with many of the people in and out of work, but little else.

Some boring, amateur-hour taggers made some real awful...

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:40:04 -0400

Some boring, amateur-hour taggers made some real awful street-art on my street!

micksfancy: Avgvst Micks by Micks Fancy Matt Martin enters the...

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:43:04 -0400

micksfancy:

Avgvst Micks by Micks Fancy

Matt Martin enters the world on white-hot mixes for everyone!

Here’s an old song I sung poorly.

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 16:57:07 -0400

Here’s an old song I sung poorly.

Google releases new software that takes the most expensive...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 19:37:43 -0400

Google releases new software that takes the most expensive camera in the world set to the highest frame-rate possible to notice the difference between. Great work!

Cats and violence!

Thu, 31 May 2012 10:20:39 -0400

Cats and violence!

Slur Tracker Update

Tue, 29 May 2012 12:23:29 -0400

After getting 4 new accounts suspended permanently, I was still trying to figure out what was different than my app at http://zingd.org and my ‘disapproval’ function for http://slurtracker.com. They both do almost the same thing. They grab a public tweet, and anyone can reply to it via my account. In zingd, it was generally more mean-spirited, ‘you suck!’ and ‘get a haircut!’-type stuff. With slurTracker, their tweet was available to ‘disapprove’ of because they had used a slur of some kind.

I mimicked, as close as I could, the functionality of Zingd for slurTracker and still, after 7 or so tweets, my account would be suspended.

So, instead of using a new account I made for slurTracker, I thought, what if I just use the credentials for Zingd? Would I have the same problem, and right away, I did not. I sent out disapprovals like crazy, no suspensions, and everything seemed to be working very well. The only difference was, it was sending these tweets from @zingd instead of @slurtracker (or @slurtrackerapp, @slurtracking, etc.).

So, I thought, this must be a new policy that only affects accounts that are brand new. Zingd has been around for a year and has sent out over a thousand zings to randoms.

I wanted people to look at this, so I posted the URL for slurTracker on Reddit under the WTF subReddit. I immediately started to get lots and lots of hits on the site, and people weren’t just looking at it, they were using the disapproval button and it was working great.

The first snag was, they used it so much that we hit the status-update limit for an hour. After that hour, people were updating again by the swarms. People were commenting, I got a couple emails from users, and I went to bed thinking it was working well.

This morning I woke up and checked in, and people had made over 500 tweets at people disapproving of their slur-tweet since I had went to bed, and sadly, my account was suspended, no reason, and it seems to be permanent.

So, now both of my apps can’t post new statuses. Zingd.org and slurTracker.com both can pull in tweets, but not make replies to people.

I wish I could get a human on the line to help me with these Twitter woes, but all I can get are automated responses.

tacticalshoyu: French artist Mademoiselle Maurice who creates...

Tue, 29 May 2012 11:28:05 -0400

tacticalshoyu:

French artist Mademoiselle Maurice who creates stunning geometric figures on urban surfaces using rainbows of folded origami figures. via

Making the world a better place, until it rains.

Slur Tracker Twitter account suspended twice now.

Mon, 21 May 2012 22:39:51 -0400

Immediately after the beta launch of http://slurtracker.com last week, the @slurtracker Twitter account was suspended for unknown reasons. I assumed it was this glaring bug in my code, and I applied for an appeal of the suspension but never got one reply from Twitter support. I created @slurtrackerapp after fixing the bug, thinking my worries were over, and that was working well for 7 whole tweets, until that account has been suspended.

I think the rule that is holding me up is this one:

If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies or mentions in an attempt to spam a service or link;

The problem seems to be that when someone clicks on ‘Disapprove’ on my site, it sends the person they are disapproving of a standardized message: ‘@foulmouthedperson I saw your tweet on slurtracker.com and I totally disapprove!’

My site http://zingd.org was never suspended though, and I was sending A LOT of these replies to people: ‘@someRandom you suck!!! #zingd’. I’ve still yet to hear from Twitter why exactly they are shutting this down. I’m very curious.

The big question is, is it because I’m calling them out on allowing such awful language? I don’t think it should be NOT allowed, not at all-say what you want!, but I think I have equal right to pointing it out and calling people on it! But, it’s probably not that, I can only assume they think Slur Tracker is some sort of advertising machine, which it is not. It’s a machine that tracks slurs on a map with cute graphics and snappy retorts.

slurTracker beta release!

Fri, 18 May 2012 17:51:00 -0400

slurTracker beta release!:

I’ve been working on this site for about a week now, and I figure, why not release a ‘beta’? It pretty much works sort of! Basically, it grabs slurs from Twitter as best as it can (for now) in real-time, and plots them on a map by geographical location.

In future releases, look for:

A ‘disapprove’ button that sends the tweeter a tweet that says, “I saw your tweet on slurtracker.com and I totally disapprove.”
Stats, by country, by state, by slur.
Smoothness
An about page

I like using Twitter, but if you look around in the murky, uncensored corners, you will encounter some rough stuff. So I thought, why not plot that stuff out on a map? If you have any feedback or suggestions, please let me know.

fuckyeahdementia: Windows Project Glass These glasses have a...

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 11:46:14 -0400

fuckyeahdementia:

Windows Project Glass

These glasses have a virus.

You are not going to see any women who look like this at the...

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:08:09 -0400

You are not going to see any women who look like this at the suburban bowling alley, not on your life. Another Groupon lie!

Photo

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:48:40 -0400

http://www.dailygossip.org/most-extensive-face-transplant-gives-one-man-a-new-life-2862

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:59:02 -0400

http://www.dailygossip.org/most-extensive-face-transplant-gives-one-man-a-new-life-2862:

Every day we get a little closer to making the movie “Face Off” a scientific reality.

Look at this woman’s left arm! Gross! You’re too...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:07:23 -0500

Look at this woman’s left arm! Gross! You’re too little, little lady.

Happy Birthday, Chicago!

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:29:55 -0500

Happy Birthday, Chicago!

Sure you can buy any other song in the Android Market for $0.99,...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 21:45:00 -0500

Sure you can buy any other song in the Android Market for $0.99, OR you could spend a little more and get that Wallflowers song you really want.

Japanese Fart Scrolls

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:20:30 -0500

Japanese Fart Scrolls:

Thanks to Ryan for this gem.

Megan Amram: Paula Deen’s Health Food Cook Book

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:57:55 -0500

Megan Amram: Paula Deen’s Health Food Cook Book:

meganamram:

Recently, Paula Deen has admitted that she’s had Type II Diabetes for years. Accordingly, she’s putting out a cookbook of healthy food. Here are some excerpts!

FRUIT SALAD

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. bag of Skittles

3 cups ranch dressing

DIRECTIONS:

Mix well. Serve room temperature.

-

Photo

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:31:35 -0500