Ramble On

In higher education, and I imagine within IT support in most small organizations, where the “IT Gal” or “IT Guy” is called upon to do everything from run the servers to manage the routers to “doing the web page” to answering “how exactly do I do that in Word again?” they’ll find that people that aren’t the “Eye-Tee” person attribute computing expertise to one’s proficiency (or even beginning-icy) in the company’s/organization’s software packages.

Let me make something absolutely, positively clear. Knowing how to create a table of contents in Microsoft Word is not a function of computing expertise. Knowing how to do anything in any given consumer software package is not an activity reserved for “eye-tee”

Knowing how to use a hammer and a drill does not make me an architect, or a builder

This myth, that somehow software expertise is an Information Technology function, is one of the worst myths that ever pervaded the currently-heavily-dependent-on-software society. It means that ordinary, hard-working people that in every other area of their life would roll up their sleeves, break out the instruction book and learn whatever task (and tool) they have in front of them, give up, and ascribe some mystical, magical wall that even being a beginner in a piece of software is a scarce, specialized skill.

Yes, being an expert in a given software package is a scarce skill. But the best qualified to learn that are those that the software was written for. Just like a Chemistry PhD is going to know far more about the intimate details of their field, but everyone has the ability to understand that Dihydrogen Monoxide is safe in low doses.

Quite honestly - those of use in “eye-tee” are actually the absolute worst people to rely on for specific expertise in software - be that word, or photoshop, or Google Reader, or whatever the software application. It’s like the faculty member in Math answering Physics questions. Of course they get the math, but it’s not like they have the same expertise.

And for those of you that are proficient in a given software package and have proficiency in several or beginner knowledge in several? You aren’t computing experts. So give up thinking that - and stop trying to tell people otherwise. Because you are just as bad as the people that aren’t trying. (there are no computing experts, btw, the more you know the more you realize that there’s way more that you don’t know).

I have specialization in certain areas of computing technology. I know the fundamentals. I know how programs are constructed. I know how the operating systems work - at least a certain level of their architecture. I can make use of software written for folks like me to deliver services - but like I told a colleague today: I use software like everyone else does - one menu option or button at a time. The only reason I know how to use Photoshop, or use Firefox, or use anything, is the fact that I clicked on it and I started exploring menus, and trying things. I don’t use them 1/10th of the power they hold, but my beginner level usage has nothing to do with the fact that I have computing specialization.

It just means I tried.

Dealing with magic, magic.mime, and mime.types on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and with PHP, FileInfo, and MediaWiki is a serious pain in the ass.

Who in hell came up with this mess? Apache has a magic file, the os has a magic file, FileInfo complains that it can’t find /usr/share/misc/magic - when it’s really looking for /usr/share/misc/magic.mime. There’s about twenty billion mime.types files - including the one that MediaWiki has itself. And there’s that many symlinks from hell trying to link some of these together.

What a freakin’ cluster-you-know-what.

There are few things in this world more irritating than a defective lid-to-cup seal on your morning coffee cup.

I had several hundred unread news items in Google Reader for the last several days - I haven’t had time to read them at home - or at work since Monday. I’ve read a few here and there, mostly speed-scanning and starring ones with interesting titles and summaries.

I have about an hour tonight that I was going to go through them. And in “All items” view - I just accidentally clicked “Mark All As Read”. (I think I thought I was looking at a tag/group view). I’m not sure whether my “oooooouuuuuug” was audible - but dang.

And then I felt suddenly and completely liberated.

I really must do that more often.

Today a colleague emailed a campus mailing list and let us know that with the increased activity of the RIAA targeted college students (NC State University is one of the top-ten targets) - they had received 37 “pay us or we’ll sue” letters. My colleague’s note was a good reminder that these things are pretty serious, and could have serious ramifications for the staff caught up in them and for the people they help with technology issues.

If they are illegally redistributing music, that’s one thing, but a lot of innocent people get tarred by the RIAA’s actions.

I wrote a followup to the list, letting folks know that the EFF guide about the P2P lawsuits is a good resources and saying:

—

I’d personally encourage each of you to find a way to express to your congressperson to support legislation that strengthens your fair-use rights (including Congressman Rick Boucher’s “Fair Use Act” - H.R. 1201) and to encourage your congressperson to investigate the activities of groups like the RIAA.

While it can be legitimately argued, and it has held up in court, that redistributing music and movies in violation of the default terms of use granted by copyright is illegal and is an activity that should not be condoned by either us individually, or the University, the organization bringing these lawsuits uses legal practices that are at best unethical, and have a strong appearance of corruption.

Remember that the RIAA has sued for file sharing:

• A family that didn’t even own a computer
• A 66 year old woman that owned a Macintosh for allegedly sharing “gangsta rap” using Kazaa (at the time Windows-only)
• Dead people, more than once. At one time, sending a letter to the dead person’s family that they had a 60-day grieving period, before the RIAA would depose the children in the suit against the dead man’s estate.
• In one case, they dropped a case against a mother that fought back, then sued the mother’s 20-year old daughter and got a summary judgement
• In another case, they were unable to produce evidence in a lawsuit against a mother, then sued the 13 year old daughter, and demanded that the court order the family to get a Guardian Ad Litem (a legal guardian, paid for by the family). Guardian Ad Litems are typically used for divorce proceedings, child abuse cases, and other cases involving the child’s welfare to insure the best interests of the child
• The CEO of the Warner Group announced last year that he was fairly certain that his kids downloaded music - but yet, the RIAA didn’t sue his child.

It’s not limited to file sharing, last year, the RIAA apparently starting sending DMCA takedowns to users that posted home videos of their kids dancing to music on You Tube (I don’t have a good secondary source for this).

There are, I’m sure, countless other stories. The RIAA files lawsuits in bulk, placing the burden of proof on the target of the lawsuit, often at tremendous financial burden. Last year, the MIT student newspaper reported an MIT student that was sued told the paper that she was encouraged to “drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford settlements.”

While illegally redistributing copyright materials is not it, some kind of revolution is necessary. Somehow, someway, these kinds of business practices of the RIAA have to be stopped, and the only apparent place to do that is in Congress.

—

There you go, your PSA of the day.

In one of my management-oriented software classes in college - I studied under a prof that was a pretty big fan of TQM - so I spent a lot of time in the class dealing with the terms “Hoshin” (or Hoshin Kanri) and “Kaizen”

While I still have a fairly healthy respect for some of the ideas and fundamentals that were packaged up as TQM, I tend to think that most “Management Methodologies” are a load of insert-your-creative-euphemism-for-well-you-know-here, invented mainly to sell business books to an entire group of lemmings in business suits, who otherwise would be contributing to Oprah’s book-of-the-month club.

Most successful management is about common sense, caring about your employees, being calm, and seeking first to understand before being understood. With a big heaping helping of hard work and pitching in thrown in. You can’t really teach that, you just have to have seen it, and more importantly just do it.

But I’m digressing a bit, so back to the Kaizen thing. Robert Hoekman Jr. is putting together a site, resurrecting the Kaizen philosophy applied back to software design and development. He has a great and fantastic quote today in his blog:

Trust the people you’ve hired to know what they’re doing. Trust them to make decisions. Don’t force teams to reach a consensus. Rely on the experts. Use them for what they do best.

This alone will help improve the performance of your company, because decisions will be made more efficiently, and you’ll know decisions are being made by the people most qualified to make them.

Also, employees who feel respected in this way will perform better on a consistent basis. That said, make sure individuals trust other team members to also make changes and decisions.

In other words, hire people that want to be great and then get out of the way and let them do their jobs.

There’s nothing I could have ever said to summarize that any better. If I had tried it would have been like 5 or 6 pages long.

Coming this thursday:

In the blue corner:

Dentist Appointment

scheduled last August for what became the same time period as…

In the red corner:

All-Staff Meeting

I mean, can you really ask for a better decision for the week?

Proving that I am indeed, a glutton for all things punishable, I rescheduled the dentist appointment for the afternoon.

We’ve already named one project “Seymour” - maybe the next one will be named Orin Scrivello, DDS

from Rogers Cadenhead:

There aren’t many situations in life where an anonymous mob of people, working in an atmosphere allergic to the concept of personal accountability, is relied upon to achieve a societal good.

I think you could even replace anonymous mob with just group and it still works.

This whole Essjay thing with Wikipedia had been fascinating. I’d recommend reading Rogers’ first and second posts on the subject and go find some other sources too.

It’s hard to really have commentary on a subject like this. I’ve read the posts of so many wikipedia critics, and I know many people, particularly in higher education, that have a very dim view on how information is produced within wikipedia. Given that I’m so vociferously in favor of the democratization of information - and believe fundamentally that all information (with privacy and some security exceptions) should be freely shared and distributed - I’ve always been a little worried about contributing to the criticism. I don’t want to give the critics and the control crowds ammunition to say that open sharing and open contribution doesn’t work. But wikipedia - the community, not the idea - has some serious and legitimate challenges ahead, and some of the criticism is well warranted.

I guess at the end of the day - given that there are strengths and weaknesses with just about any information delivery system - is that the users of information must learn how to critically evaluate information - to check multiple sources and to never be afraid of asking “why?” and “how?”

Whether that’s coming from wikipedia, or governments, or the media, or “experts,” or your pal in the next cubicle. Somehow we have to ask more of ourselves in how we evaluate things. That is the real challenge here.

10 years ago today I came back to NC State University, 9 months after my college graduation. I had quit my job at CompuCom a month prior - even breaking a training contact - it was one of those things that I ethically felt at the time I had to do. That’s another story for another day though.

I came back for a whole host of reasons, personal and professional. I guess what I wanted most of all was to find a place that I could learn from those that I thought were the best at what they did. That I could find a place to cast down my bucket. That I could find a place where Information Technology and education were a strategic role, not a servant one (notice I didn’t say “service”, “service” and “servant” are two completely different things). That I could make a difference. That’s really what I’ve always wanted most.

At times I’ve found that. But most days I’m still seeking it. IT is a tough place to be. University IT doubly so. 10 is pretty old in Internet Years. But a lot younger than a lot of folks I know. The real question is, does the potential for those things I looked forward to 10 years still exist?

You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

It will be interesting to see if these actually go to eleven.

My wife’s IM status message last week - which is completely applicable to my own job in so many ways.

It’s like trying to duct-tape Jell-O to the wall

There’s some controversy about whether that’s supposed to be “nailing Jell-O to the wall” - but duct tape is obviously far more appropriate.

So about 3 months ago, I got excited by the whole idea of Second Life. Part of the excitement was a group thing, we were (are?) planning an ongoing initiative with Second Life at work - and the idea of doing something leading edge and beyond the norm - even if you haven’t figured what that exactly is yet - was incredibly exciting. But I was even personally excited by it. I continue to be amazed by the sheer creativity of the world’s residents. I’m fascinated by the virtual economy. And I’m impressed by the public operations of Linden Labs. I even signed up for a paid account for 3 months.

But two things happened:

1) To be someone that wants very much to be involved with projects that provide web and communication tools that allow people to connect (i.e. the “social networking”) - most of what I’m personally interested in is tools and technologies that let me get work done. I care about connections to my direct teammates - and my friends and family - and quality forums (and a whole lot of aggregated blogs) for questions and information. But beyond things like Flickr and connections through blogging - I’m really not personally interested in building virtual personal connections outside work, family, and photography. I actually bored pretty quickly in Second Life.

2) I get incredibly motion sick in just a short amount of time in the environment. I guess I am just a 2D interface kind of guy.

But I’ve stopped tracking the ongoing Second Life news in my aggregator. I’ve cancelled my paid account, sold my land and pop in only occasionally to see what we are doing. But there are other things that I find more interesting. I’m not sure what the future of these kinds of things is, it’ll be interesting to watch - but I’ll think I’ll be doing it from the outside in.

I’m still keeping the plaid shirt though.

Joel Spolsky wrote yesterday about customer service. Now Joel has been doing what he has been doing for a long time. He’s certainly qualified to talk about customer service. And while we are on the fringe (as a Unix/PHP shop) of FogCreek’s customer base, other than wanting more transparency in our FogBugz product (like a read-only view or similar) - we are largely happy with it. It’s a good product, and a good company.

However, in his post, he relayed one of the customer service strategies, that while a reality of life in technology and technology support, is one of the most absolutely, most fundamentally damaging service strategies in Information Technology (or any industry for that matter).

He called it “Suggest blowing out the dust” after a Raymond Chen article.

What it actually is: lying to the person you are supporting to avoid dealing with the real issue.

I’m not going to deny that we all have come to the point in Information Technology that you often have to metaphorically make up stories about PS/2 connectors getting dusty to get people to plugin their keyboard.

The problem is though, it’s a lie. We all might think that there’s some understood language happening that says you know that their keyboard is unplugged, and they know you know. But I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe about the simple binary issue of a keyboard plugged in or not or XYZ setting turned on or off in the software - but not about more complex issues about browser settings and add-ons, interactions between software applications, or “just how exactly are you trying to print that again?”

What I’ve seen over and over again is that the crackpot IT lies become truths, passed around either from customer to customer, or even worse, by front-line support staff because they don’t understand your products and services either and the developers/systems people just lied to them about what was wrong and what the solution was.

Those wrong answers pervade a long, long, time. And they often prevent the real triage from occurring. That is, they often forestall Joel’s very, very, excellent first point - “treat each support call like the NTSB treats airliner crashes”. All too often, both product support and the customer completely give up when the problem goes away. (It might not be that’s it’s unplugged, you might have had a quality control issue on those connectors, and “blowing the dust out” masks the real problem).

The only winning move is not to play.

At some point in this industry we have to start telling the truth.

I’m going to talk about customer service (and leadership) in a moment.

But before I do, I have to reveal something.

I once dropped the F-bomb on a Sprint representative.

I know, it’s quaint and all in retrospect - kind of like the Beave saying “well that stinks Wally” and getting his mouth washed out with soap. But in the situation it was absolutely out of line - even in an era where the common culture drops the word in conversation like it’s an honorific.

About three years ago I had cancelled service with Sprint, who sent me an incorrect final bill - so I called, and they said “well, we’ll fix it next billing cycle” - and of course, next billing cycle, they did it again, so I called “We’ll fix it next billing cycle” and then did it again, at which point I was like “no way - let me talk to a supervisor” though in a voice that would make a marine sergeant, okay, a marine sergeant’s terrier, cringe. At that point they transferred me instead to the collections department, which I got completely livid, and told the collections department rep that I was tired of this f*ing treatment.

The representative immediately sat me down (over the phone even) like the best principal you ever had, and told me in no uncertain terms that “she didn’t use that language with me, and wasn’t going to take it from me”.

And then I said “Yes ma’am, I’m sorry”.

You see, no matter how completely messed up the Sprint company - and the situation - was, my reaction with the representative was as bad, if not worse, than the actual problem.

Understanding this is key. Sometimes you’ll find yourself, especially in service roles, where you, or one of your peers, or one of your employees does something stupid, maybe you/they forget that understanding sarcasm requires a modicum of common sense, and that’s a lost commodity in the modern world. Or maybe in frustration they call one of your customers a giant oblong obnoxious purple poo-poo head. Or any number of seemingly worse sounding things that have about the same end meaning. Heck, maybe they even send your customer incorrect bills for three months.

Well, inevitably, there’s going to be a reaction. People that want to really solve the problem go back to the source and say “that was wrong, please don’t call me a poo-poo head” Overreactives go to everyone they can find, including your elementary school teachers, and whine about being called a poo-poo head. (or they drop f-bombs on your service reps).

You have to know how to say “yep, sorry, I’ve talked with them and they’re wrong, and they won’t call you a poo-poo head again. But you know what? Your reaction is worse, and I don’t want to hear it anymore.” (or “I’m not going to use that language with you, don’t use it with me.”)

As a leader - when your employees do this, you have to explore the issue - but you also have to be willing to back your employees up in a fair and equitable manner. Real leaders get this. If you don’t, it comes back around. Trust me. I know.

All this seems simple of course. But I’ve honestly rarely seen it in practice. And I certainly know I’ve gotten it wrong in the past. I can only hope that being self-reflective, and remembering the mistakes I’ve made and seen, will help me get it right the next time I find myself there.

p.s. Real friends harass you mercilessly about your reactions. My friends to this day almost three years later continue to make fun of me for dropping the F-bomb on the Sprint lady. As well they should. I’ll probably continue to hear about it 50 years from now.

I read the opening paragraph of this joke quoted from Phil Windley. And while readying the first paragraph, I started getting my dander up because I thought it might actually be a real life occurrence.

How sad is that that arresting someone at the airport with a ruler, protractor, set square, slide rule, and calculator could be completely plausible?

That said, if you like cheesy high school math humor (of which I do) - you’ll like the joke

p.s. In almost, but largely completely un-, related links - you too can save boston from offensive lite brites

I started to title this “The Web Killed My Video Star” or “I Don’t Like Video, (Tell Me Why)” - both of which are highly relevant pop culture references, but they are terrible titles for the subject matter.

I haven’t watched a full-length show on TV in quite some time without time-shifting, or interrupting, or browsing the internet at the same time (which because I can’t process multiple input streams at one time effectively(1) means I completely ignore the television)

I just watched this video (YouTube) from the Digital Ethnography group at Kansas State

You should watch it too

This well might be the only video that I’ve ever watched on YouTube where I watched the whole thing.

I’m not so sure about the entire list presented at the end. But a little rethinking is certainly in order.

Way to go fellow Land-Granters!

(1) so maybe I can’t multitask, but I have an extremely efficient context switch

So, if a work created by an officer or employee of the United States Government that’s part of the person’s official duties (see also Cornell Law) - is Public Domain…

Then why on earth isn’t it the same for officers and employees of states, and state and federal funded institutions that are created as part of that person’s official duties?

Or at the very least, under the auspices of a derivable, share-alike license?

Inquiring minds really want to know.

Unless you’ve been under a rock the last few days, you probably know that the President’s State of the Union address had a proposal dealing with insurance and healthcare - basically trying to use the tax system as an incentive to generate “lower cost” insurance plans. It was on NPR, it’s been the forefront of a lot of news coverage, Barack Obama is stumping about it, as is Hillary Clinton.

Healthcare is incredibly complex. I’ve spent much of my adult life to this point avoiding anything having to do with it. I have the most basic plan that the University provides, which has the university paying all my premium. My wife stayed on her own plan because the premiums were cheaper. I do most of what I can to avoid the doctor. So I don’t even usually know the values and the limits of my own coverage. Any time I get close to it, I get frustrated. I can’t imagine what it’s like for those that are dealing with the system far more than I am.

There seem to be “bad guys” and “good buys” in all the stakeholder groups - from patients to the doctors, to the medical bureaucrats that serve the doctors, to the pharmaceutical and medical equipment industry, to the insurance industry, to the government. While I have had and continue to have my various biases against those stakeholders, it’s impossible to paint the groups with a broad brush. I can’t even begin to fathom how you unravel the gigantic interwoven mess that our system has become. There are no simple solutions. I’m rather wary of the administration’s plan because it seems largely to benefit the insurance industry and manipulating an already convoluted tax code seems to create more hassle - but maybe it starts debate, I don’t know.

Traditionally my sympathies are with the doctors. I feel like they get caught between the bureaucrats in the front office, crazy and ridiculous malpractice situations, insurance bureaucrats in both the government and private industry, and the relentless pimping from the pharmaceuticals. My sympathies are still there, though the reality is more complex than my simplified sentences could address.

But one thing I’ve seen recently I think highlights the core of the mess that is healthcare. And that is that somewhere between the doctors, the insurers, the government, the lawyers, patients with hangnails, and the lavish marketing of the med supplies corp, the reality of the costs of care have completely gone out the window. I’m not talking about hidden costs of care. I’m talking about the reality of the value printed on the page. It seems completely arbitrary.

I have had some tests recently, in one of the situations the lab sent me a bill in the multiple hundreds of dollars. They for some reason didn’t have my insurance information, and didn’t file a claim, so I got the bill and had to follow up. They did eventually file the claim.

And here’s the arbitrary. My insurer apparently negotiates pricing schedules with the healthcare vendors (labs, doctor’s offices, etc.) Most of you are probably saying “duh” because you know that already. And the claim comes back, and there’s a whole column of the “Amount you do not have to pay” And the vendors apparently agree to that. This isn’t some trivial 5-10% difference, we are talking 50%-80% price differences on bills that are multiple hundreds of dollars.

And that’s the problem I have with this whole mess. If that bill came directly to me, and I didn’t have coverage, And I didn’t feel comfortable negotiating (guess what, I don’t) and I had zero knowledge that there was even such a thing as pricing tiers - I’d be paying hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands over price of what others are paying and wouldn’t be the wiser that person/group A gets price A and person/group B gets price B, based almost solely on some kind of back and forth price haggling.

Maybe those of you in sales or business are also going “duh” - that’s the way the service market works. But in my mind, that’s corrupt. There’s a price that something costs. There’s a reasonable overhead to that price. There’s a risk aspect (those that pay their bills in full and on time deserve better rates), there are expenses, there is capital, there is the right to enjoy a good life for the professionals providing the service - all in all, there’s a fair market price, a price that’s supposed to be largely constant from person to person to person from a given provider.

But what’s happening now is that it’s not fair. It seems highly discriminatory And for those that are underinsured or uninsured, and uninformed - those often least able to pay, they are getting screwed in this (or they are creating a add-on cost burden because they don’t end up paying, and drive up the costs for the next tier up)

I’d honestly love to treat insurance as I think it should be treated - as something reserved for catastrophe. My stomachaches and sprains would come completely out of a high-deductible pocket. But when the paper price difference “without insurance” is so much greater than that “with insurance” - before any money is actually changing hands - something is very, very, very wrong with our system.

That’s what has to get fixed.

Now that Google has released an updated groups.google.com view - I decided to check it out last night. It also looks like that have a far more complete record of Usenet postings than I remember having them last.

For all the warnings about Facebook and privacy to keep the Youth of America from posting stupid pictures of themselves in Facebook or Myspace or whatever - all I can say is “been there, done that” - only in Usenet.

I wrote some awfully embarrassing stuff. Sheesh. Not that I had half a brain when I was in college (not that I have half a brain now) - but wow.

One, I apparently was actually pulling for UNC Chapel Hill in 1993 while posting to alt.fan.jimmy-buffet. Embarrassing.

Two, in protest of some telecommunications bill - where it was rumored that the bill was going to outlaw all discourse on abortion (it wasn’t - but this was pre-Thomas-on-the-web, and I was just reading half-baked media reports, not the actual bill). So in order to practice civil disobedience - I launched into some diatribe about abortion. While I certainly was vociferously in favor of free speech and the right to debate publicly any and all ideas (and thankfully still am that way) - and that’s really at the core what my post was about - I was also at the time a pseudo-brainwashed evangelical right-winger (which thankfully I’m not any longer). Highly embarrassing. (and stupid). There’s a whole lot in life that can’t be boiled down to binary positions and I cringe ever time I think or read my own past binary thoughts on that and similar issues.

They still don’t have the post where I bitched out Timo Salmi in defense of me illegally using Turbo Pascal because I was a poor college student that couldn’t afford the software (actually I had a legal copy of TP, but not wordperfect I don’t think). So maybe there are still some mysteries buried out there.

Ah, usenet. Ah. college.

So because we can’t buy Windows XP anymore, I ended up getting “Vista Business Licenses” for the additional copies of XP that we needed in order to run XP under Parallels so that we can test our web applications with the other Microsoft flaming pile of crap that is Internet Explorer (version 6).

Well, of course I was going to take a look at the product, it’s what I do. As far as I can tell in the maybe 20 minutes total that I’ve had it running over the last month or two is that it’s a fine enough update. I mean, all operating systems stink, some more or less than others. And like OS X 10.4 is better than OS X 10.3 is better than 10.2, etc. Vista seems better than XP.

I was actually looking forward to using it more.

Well, until today, when it told me that my copy of Windows wasn’t legitimate. That is, the official Volume License media that I got from our Volume License vendor, and used the License Key that I officially received from Microsoft - when I called them and asked for a Windows Vista Business License Key.

We have some kind of Key managment service set up on campus, but I apparently can’t run the commands to set that because of whatever reason.

The key provided by Microsoft is “not genuine” anymore apparently.

And I get an error code when I try to activate.

I’m sure there’s a solution in all of this, it’s code, Microsoft has changed to a new asinine activation model, etc.

But life’s really too short for me to try to debug this stupidity. When the official media and official license keys don’t work. What else is supposed to?

Whether it’s from your kids or your employees (or someone else’s employees) - you should always, always, always encourage their questions - and be ready to answer honestly, and to question your own answers, your own assumptions, and your own bias. That is the beginning of wisdom and trust and well, freedom.

Your zen truth of the day:

Those that always believe that they have the answer will soon cease to have any.

Bonus truth:

Those frustrated by the question, don’t have the answer.