Glowing sands

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Post here about how unhappy Iran is that the USA have sent a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf.

A strike group is made up of about 7,500 servicemembers, an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, six to 10 destroyers, and 65 to 70 aircraft. It is the single largest operational unit of the U.S. Navy and is used as a mighty display of force.


This has been pointed out before and has a ring of truth to it – this beast is due to be decommissioned. It’s going for scrap. The US Navy does not value the thing. It is also nuclear powered. The US Navy have never dismantled a ship that glows before. That will be expensive and dangerous. It would be ever so convenient – maybe even economically sound – were it to stay in the Gulf, in bits. And from the US point of view that would also be environmentally sound. I’m sure someone in the US Navy will be describing this as a win-win. Or maybe I’m just too cynical.

Amazon and Pizza

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Wouldn’t surprise me to see this Amazon quote written more widely:

Experiments are hatched and managed by the smallest teams possible; if it takes more than two pizzas to feed a work group, Bezos once observed, then the team is too big. Forbes

The words ‘teams’ ‘work group’ and ‘team’ are each used once. But the two pizzas applies to the ‘work group’.

The word ‘feed’ is ambiguous. Does he mean it is enough to sustain them? Does he maybe mean “Here is one thin sliver, count yourself fed”.

Is this about money? If it is then there will be a budget. Let’s say it’s $15. That’s $7.50 for each pizza. But what if they order one big $15 dish? or 3 at $5? It isn’t 2 pizzas any more, it’s all about the cash.

Is it about too many people, too much chat and not enough progress? If so then the number of pizzas is immaterial because the definition has already been made. The number of people will be forced to fit the pizza before they have had the pizza.

There will be managers who read that article and look to take information into their own business. Feeding staff could be one factor and it would be unfair of that quote in this article to lead to some starving their hard working staff. Mr Bezos did not create Amazon without some incredible attention to detail which will continue to this day. So why doesn’t some journalist ask him to explain exactly what he meant? Who knows – maybe he never said it.

Themes

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Adding layer upon layer of uncommented complexity.

If all I want to remove is “Posted by admin” I should not have to write a child theme, nor should I have to guess through code.

If you write themes and you want ME to be able to make MY site look how I want then you should make it easy for ME to make changes.

But you don’t.