7/12/06: 6 Mile Run: Neighborhood

For this morning run, I listened to the last of yesterday's Daily Source Code, 3 Podcasts on SCRUM (a agile development methodology) and started listening to a PodCast of a presentation by Al Gore as delivered at Stanford on global warming. I guess one of the benefits of running slow is there is lots of time to listen. And, I had a friend turn me on to Yahoo! Answers, most particularly one posted by Stephen Hawking within which he asks will humans still be here in 100 years given all the chaos we see socially, politically, and environmentally. Man all of this content has my brain spinning. I am also struggling trying to get a picture out of my mind. It was taken by Kevin Carter and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 showing a starving Sudanese boy with a vulture standing behind him waiting for a meal. It is VERY disturbing. How can we be so damn cruel and let some of our brothers suffer so!

I have long been intrigued by the prospects agile methods introduce for improving and accelerating feature introduction for software. In fact, some of the processes used where I work have been influenced by agile methods. But, as noted in the podcasts above, it is not an easy transition from traditional to agile methods. It may be worth the effort, but it is an effort. I have found that the culture change required to get the motivation to stick through the effort is the hardest to develop and maintain.

As to Stephen Hawking's questions, the disturbing picture, and Al Gore's presentation, it is just a solid reminder that we have a lot of work to do to ensure that we properly care for the planet under our care, treat each well, and prevent preventable outcomes for our brothers and sisters. Some of those replying to Hawking indicated we should just trust in deities or that all generations have asked the same question and it hasn't happened yet, so don't sweat it. I think both attitudes are counter productive. We are impacting the planet like never before and WE KNOW IT. It is the knowledge part that I think we have an obligation to respond to. It is one thing to live in a world where you view is limited to the "known world" and the population is small enough to limit the environmental impact to relatively small areas and another to live today where Thomas Friedman can build the case that we are so connected to knowledge and each other we can think of the planet as flat. I don't have a solid answer to resolve the issues hinted at by Hawking's question. But, I know we can only solve, like all hard problems, by being rational and dividing and conquering the problem's contributing problems. Let's get busy.

Data

Distance:	6 Miles
Time:	1:00:43
Heart Rate:	152
Pace:	10:07
Weather:	Mostly Cloudy 84° Humidity-68%