Victor Rozek
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As I See It: Traditions
December 16, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIt’s during the Christmas season that I miss my parents most. All I have left of them are memories and an old album of faded pictures; familiar faces frozen in time like insects caught in amber, remnants of a different era. Each year, as I look around the holiday table, it’s poignant to notice not only who is there, but who is missing.
Among the gifts passed down to me, was a ritual which we practiced on Christmas Eve. Like many customs and rituals, this one arrived with immigrants–my parents were both born in Poland–and it was maintained as a
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As I See It: Poisoning The Well
December 2, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreA long time ago, I was in an elevator with five or six other people when the power died and the box hung suspended between floors. There were a few gasps of shock and moans of annoyance, and more than one profanity hurled at the vicissitudes of fate so bold as to interfere with our individual designs. But after our protestations fell on fate’s indifferent ears, we gradually lapsed into an uneasy silence. It was very dark and very quiet, and amid the growing anxiety it felt like we were dangling in a group coffin.
One woman in particular was
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As I See It: Permissionless Neutrality
November 18, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIt happened to radio, it happened to television, and there is no reason to believe it won’t happen to the Internet. Communication media–at least in their infancy–have always been idealized for their potential to serve our better angels. But in the end, the hopes of visionaries are reduced to a single dominant construct: entertainment. And the more successful the medium, the more vacuous the entertainment. Once the potential for revenue is evident, the medium quickly becomes co-opted, and the greatest good for the greatest number devolves to the greatest profit for the fewest number.
For all its flaws, the Internet
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As I See It: Can We Have More, Sir?
November 4, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreOf all the relationships we have, few will ever be as demanding, tumultuous, frustrating, worrisome, aggravating, and full of unrequited longing as our relationship with money. Money is a stern and demanding mistress. It leaves you spent and always wanting more. We chase it for a lifetime, but only ever catch enough to continue the chase. And those who catch more than their share, run even harder. It’s a primal force, an elemental attractor, and everyone would love to test the notion that money can’t buy happiness.
In that regard, IT professionals appear to have a leg up in the
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As I See It: Reading the IT Leaves
October 21, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreEconomic activity is notoriously difficult to predict because it depends on the daily decisions of millions of individuals who themselves are difficult to predict. Behavior can often be capricious, and the money guys who manipulate markets are even more uncomfortable with uncertainty than a nun opening an attachment from Carlos Danger. Consequently, any time the needle moves in the wrong direction, hand wringing and consternation are sure to follow.
So when Gartner reported that IT spending would fall $74 billion below predictions, the sky wasn’t exactly falling, but it teetered ominously. Granted, $74 billion is not pocket change, but the
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As I See It: Virtual Pheromones
October 7, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreHelen Morrison was a single woman with an age-old dilemma. Entering midlife, she wondered if she would ever meet a suitable partner and, frankly, she was getting lonely. But although Morrison longed to be married, she had no acceptable way of meeting men socially. Respectable women did not frequent taverns, nor were desirable partners likely to be found loitering over pints at the nightly watering hole.
But Morrison found what would become a visionary solution to her quandary: She placed a personal ad in her local paper, the Manchester Weekly Journal. Her “Lonely Hearts” ad was the first of
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As I See It: In Search of the Technology-Free Vacation
September 23, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreJust before we headed off on vacation, my wife, who never strays far from computerized devices, made a bold, unprecedented suggestion. “Let’s also have a vacation from technology.” I was pleased but dubious. Like Charlton Heston, who planned to have his gun pried from his cold, dead hands, I sort of figured the wife would leave this world clutching her smartphone. But her reasoning, she explained, was economic, not an unexpected lack of interest in all things with screens.
We planned to go to Washington (the state) to visit the in-laws, and then on to Canada to visit the Rockies.
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As I See It: Motivate This
September 9, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreI’m about a week away from heading up to Banff and Jasper for a little mountain madness and, as departure time draws near, my motivation to work is draining faster than sinuses under a pollen attack. Like God, motivation is a universal concept, individually applied. With the exception of survival, few, if any, motivators can guarantee to consistently move the productivity needle. And those that do, won’t necessarily do so for long. For people who have already achieved a comfortable baseline and don’t aspire to piggish levels of consumption, motivation is like the tide–it comes and goes.
Mine was waning
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As I See It: The Rats Are Coming
August 26, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreThere are many good reasons why a pack of rats is also referred to as a mischief. They are opportunistic, breed like Kardashians, can chew through just about anything including steel, and host some nasty pathogens including Yersinia pestis, a micro-organism found in fleas responsible for the Bubonic Plague.
Rats jump, climb, swim, and can hold their breath for up to four minutes. They’re tough enough to have survived 10 years of atomic testing on Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific. And if that’s not enough, they’re quick learners. They can learn to navigate a maze, solve problems, and
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As I See It: Hot Fun In The Summertime
August 5, 2013 Victor Rozek
… Read moreAh, summer! The weekends are yours and they’re finally worth having. Guys are manning their BBQs, watchful as captains at the helm, and the siren scent of burning meat is wafting across the land. Coolers stand packed with iced beer, shoes give way to flip-flops, and the couch competes for lounging time with the patio furniture. The travails of the workplace fade until they become little more than necessary annoyances that put meat on the grill.
Women often mistakenly believe that summer is the time to tackle that long list of home improvement projects put off since the Pleistocene. But