.KEYWORD cebookmonth200001
.FLYINGHEAD WINDOWS CE POWER MAGAZINE BOOK CLUB
.TITLE Buffy, Angel, Socrates, and a few agile managers
.DEPT
.SUMMARY Now that you (and your computer) have presumably survived Y2K, Windows CE Power’s Book Club Editor Judith Tabron manages to discuss Socrates and the sad Doyle death scene (from the popular TV series Angel) all in the same article. It gets better: there’s a Buffy episode guide and a retro guide to being a good manager.
.AUTHOR Judith Tabron
I don’t know about you, but the holidays always fill me with a sense of purpose and possibility. All kinds of self-improvement ideas pop into my head as I think about how I’m going to get more organized, more fiscally responsible, more physically fit, and just plain more ambitious in the coming year.
Of course, it’s easy to think all these thoughts during the holidays, at least for me. The constant round of social activities, such as parties, shopping, and holiday movies keeps me moving. I feel as though life is pretty good, even as I slowly go broke buying holiday gifts. I don’t even feel bad when the stress from trying to figure out how to have a party in my own tiny apartment threatens to give me a heart attack. I usually also successfully avoid my family during the holidays, which contributes greatly to a sense of good humor and cheer at this time of year. Some of you know may what I mean.
.H1 Nibble on a little free agility training
It’s in this spirit of self-improvement and possibilities for the future, I think, that Peanut Press is giving away free copies of Walter J. Wadsworth’s The Agile Manager’s Guide to Goal-Setting & Achievement. You can check it out at http://www.peanutpress.com/book.cgi/0740800817/089849-6337-44125. (I give you permission to chortle at the author’s name.) The copyright is 1997, but the tone of the book is unmistakably eighties. Those of you who actually remember the eighties know what I’m talking about — the sort of general encouragement that "everyone can be a rich yuppie if they just wear the right power ties and comb their hair correctly."
This nineties’ version has the same sort of underlying philosophy: "If you do everything right, you will come out on top." However, the nineties’ version of the story has a sort of seventies’ twist, in that "doing everything right" primarily means having the right attitude and thinking good thoughts. This gives the book a sort of touchy-feely flavor that the yuppies of the eighties would’ve disdained. (I’m not sure if this is some sort of indication of evolution or not.)
The other primary problem with Wadsworth’s book is that if you’re at all successful in what you do now, you probably already know a lot of the things he’s telling you. Do you really need Mr. Wadsworth to inform you that "most people need to identify their goals, and then create a timetable, or action plan, for reaching them?"
Mr. Wadsworth does always give examples from "real life" — his own or his friends’ — as to how to figure out what you want and go about getting it. But in my own limited experience with handing out advice as clear and simple as this, I think I can safely report that no one believes it – or at least tunes in.
.H1 If you’re unsettled, relax with a nice cup of Wadsworth
If you’re on a cusp, if you feel unsettled and unsure of what to do next with your life, you might find this book soothing and helpful. Mr. Wadsworth really seems to want you to achieve your goals, and it seems likely that if you do follow his advice, you’re bound to get where you want to go. Some of the exercises seem a little obvious (or macabre — I like the one entitled "Write your own obituary"), but they may actually help you figure out what you want to do and what to focus on. It seems to me it’d be more helpful if you could share these exercises or readings with some friends or a group of people, as you may not really be the best judge of your own best skills or failings. Lots of people have big blind spots when it comes to themselves.
If you feel inclined to read Mr. Wadsworth’s book — all 383 screens of it — it’s entirely possible that you may come away, if not an agile manager, at least more focused about your own goals and how you intend to achieve them.
.H1 But then you need a sugar boost
For me, that much focus makes me dizzy. After whipping through some Wadsworth, I needed to unwind. One of my personal goals involves enjoying eye candy television, so I surfed on over to MemoWare to pick up the latest version of the episode guide to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." (Just search MemoWare for "Buffy" and it pops right up, or see http://www.memoware.com/cgi/mwsearch.cgi?string=buffy.) Chris Mauricio has done a great job with this, providing really exhaustive yet brief summaries of every episode and (this is the important part for me) reporting the name of each episode’s writer. I like knowing which writers are doing the episodes I like best. Of course, most of them are now working as writers or producers on "Angel," causing it to be awesome as well.
There are bookmarks for each and every one of these episodes, so you can go straight to the one you want. Some of the formatting may have negative effects, however. For instance, the title of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" runs off the screen to the right.
Despite the October date on the download file and the September date in the Readme file, the information really hasn’t changed since August.
All in all, this is a must-have resource for those of us glued to our Barca-Loungers on Tuesday nights. But even Buffy and Angel have been tangling with some pretty big moral issues. Y’know, whether or not demons can be good people and all that.
.H1 Tastes great, more filling
After all this, I still yearned for something with some substance to it. Something chewier than the easy, crunchy truths of Mr. Wadsworth. Something with questions instead of answers. But there’s just not a lot of time in a person’s holiday schedule. How can you seriously improve yourself in half an hour or less?
One document that caught my eye surfing through the riches of MemoWare was Plato’s Crito (see http://www.memoware.com/cgi/mwsearch.cgi?string=crito#TOP.) For one thing, it was short, so I figured I’d read it.
Crito is Plato’s story about his teacher, Socrates. It’s got two speakers, Socrates and his friend Crito, doing a little Socratic dialectic song-and-dance. Crito thinks Socrates should escape Athens and the Athenian death penalty. Socrates thinks it’s just and right that he should submit to the laws of the state.
This is pretty radical stuff. I mean, we modern Westerners tend to think our own welfare pretty much trumps any other concern. Even in situations where heroic people put themselves in danger — like, say, that movie "Die Hard" — we hope and expect that they will survive themselves. It’s hard for us to imagine people dying for the cause of others, just like poor Doyle did in the November 30 episode of "Angel."
[He had to die; the trades had been reported for weeks that that actor was doomed. Some even said he’d only been given a short contract form the start. — DG (who watches Buffy for the articles)]
It’s even harder to imagine that a person might be willing to die because it’s just to submit to the will of the state, that the survival of the state is more important than the survival of the individual.
You can certainly see some serious totalitarian potential here. The state, above all, is not MY primary concern. But Socrates has some good arguments about how the state provided for him, and how he therefore ought to obey its laws, since that was the social agreement they had entered into, he and the state. I guess if my country gave me healthcare, I might be able to see the point.
You can skip the introduction to this one; I’m not sure if it helps the dialogue make more sense or not. But it’s an interesting little read. It even gave me something to think about, deep in a funk about Doyle dying on "Angel" and all. Doyle did die for others, but not to ensure the survival of the state. Oh, well. I guess I don’t have time to get into a funk. I’ve still got a lot of presents to buy. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten too deep into this self-improvement kick in the first place.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.H1 How do I get .Doc files into my Windows CE device?
Plain text (ASCII) files may be imported into Windows CE devices in a number of ways that are documented in your device’s instruction manual. .DOC format files can be read on Windows CE devices using the DOCview application available at Mike’s Palm-Sized PCs website at http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/3533/palm_sw.html, which also includes directions on using that piece of software.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For a free copy of Walter J. Wadsworth’s The Agile Manager’s Guide to Goal-Setting & Achievement from Peanut Press, go to http://www.peanutpress.com/book.cgi/0740800817/089849-6337-44125.
Check out MemoWare’s latest version of the episode guide to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" at http://www.memoware.com/cgi/mwsearch.cgi?string=buffy.
You can also visit the official Buffy the Vampire Slayer Web site at http://www.buffy.com/home.html.
Or, if you prefer, spend some more time with Angel at http://www.angelfire.com/tx2/touchedbyangel/index.html.
Enjoy a copy of Plato’s Crito from MemoWare at http://www.memoware.com/cgi/mwsearch.cgi?string=crito#TOP.
Files using the .DOC format can be read on Windows CE devices using the DOCview application available at Mike’s Palm-Sized PCs website at http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/3533/palm_sw.html, which also includes directions on using that piece of software.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Judith Tabron thinks the ultimate goal of human evolution should be that enlightened state where we all get dozens of cable channels and Bill Gates gets what’s coming to him. She is the puppet dictator of academic technology at Brandeis University.
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