Archive for October, 2009
The dark side of Japan’s dog boom.
I know quite a few dog lovers in Japan who would be horrified at this piece at Tokyo Times about dog abandonment. Quite depressing, but dogs are unique as fashion accessories – you generally have to kill them when you get rid of them.
Everything catches up in the end.
When I started working on a restaurant-related project, I was brought in to ‘save’ the project from missing its deadline. I was told I needed to get 4 things done, after which it would be done. Of course, since we were about to miss the deadline (it was really last-minute), I was told to get it done by any means necessary.
Unfortunately, my employer completely misunderstood the requirements that his client wanted; or, even worse, he dismissed them as being “unnecessary” because of the budget he was assigned. Now, almost 2 months later, I am stumbling across the finish line (he long ago passed the full thing to me when it appeared that it was impossible to complete). I am having to tear out DB functionality and implement it the “correct” way since completing the requirements for the client requires significant alterations to what each “object” can do. It doesn’t bother me, but I do wish that I had been brought on-board from the start to do it right. Compare this to the Dogtomo project whose programming complexity was comparible – and was done within 2 and 1/2 weeks. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always give us the chance to do things from scratch, and at least it is done.
If there is a lesson to be taken, it is not to take short cuts in stressful situations; they can only cause headaches later on.
Hard at Work
An atypical Tokyo office
Takao Mountain View
Although Tokyo is a concrete jungle, there are some nice parts outside of the city, such as here (Takao).