I'm the lead developer at The Onion. When I'm not working I enjoy long moonlit walks along the beach with robots, the history of science and technology, and warm fuzzy kittens.

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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. —Robert A. Heinlein

Plumbing

by Jeffrey Weston, Sat Nov 8 11:58 am, 2008

I once had a Steve-Jobs-Type classic A-personality boss toward the end of the dotcom era who would always tell our team that we were one day going to be the equivalent of plumbers and mechanics (he also had the unfortunate power to make women who worked for him cry almost on cue). I didn't disagree with him, but asked what he had against plumbers and mechanics? Why was this a thing we should, apparently, be frightened of? Who makes and or fixes your shit? Who makes your car run? Where would you be without these folks? I think of Douglas Adams B-Ark, which held a world's middle managers, TV producers, consultants (and phone sanitizers) tricked to be sent off alone to crash on a prehistoric earth. The fictional A-Ark held the world's leaders and thinkers, and C-Ark held the people who made things, the plumbers, bricklayers, carpenters, computer programmers, farmers. I'm quite happy to be on the C-Ark.