It disturbs me....

That Marsh & McLennan are going to be able to write most of the $850Mln settlement off their taxes because it was called restitution and disgorgement and not a proper fine. I think that this sort of thing is a travesty... the business expense writeoff wasn't meant to reimburse corporate criminals (and let's face it, Marsh only paid up because they would have lost much more had they gone to trial, which is why they 'No Contest'ed out of the charges). The majority of this settlement should not be tax free... after all, where's the deterrent effect if I can just get the money back from the IRS?

Finance staff should care about development methodologies

This might be heretical in some circles; I think that it's neccessary for finance staff that work in software development companies to understand how their company develops software. My rationale is that software development methodologies contain fundamental assumptions about the cost of development. These assumptions not only determine the team's flexability but the overall project cost structure.

The fundamental decision on 'how we do it' is often made by somebody with limited visability to the actual financial plan. This person is a Software Engineer, Architect, or just a development lead who's been given a little direction. A constant, unplanned, change of methodologies means that development environments seldom realize the benefits in cost reduction that they predict.

It is unusual for large, professional development teams to change methodologies on a consistent basis- organizational momentum acts as a counterbalance against an engineer's natural tendency to chase the newest and best. However, in a smaller development environment there is far less organizational momentum and more pressure to 'just get it done'. This pressure comes from a general lack of understanding of the software engineering process.

I often think about blogging; mostly about how I need to update with greater frequency. It's difficult for me to blog. I think it's because I realize how uninteresting I must seem to most people because I prattle on about finance and/or computers. I'd really like to be able to capture some of the conversations that my wife and I have regularly. We're not exactly dumb people and we often have discussions that are insightful and intelligent and they would be a great asset to me personally if I had them in transcript form- mostly because I tend to forget what I said right after the words have left my mouth. This makes writting difficult. On the other hand, my wife seems to have no problem writing about her day-to-day.

I've never really had the fantasy of being an author. I just don't write with enough detail and organization. I am quite content if a coherent series of thoughts makes it down to paper (or blogs)-- often my posts aren't really coherent or meaningful unless you live in my head. I supose that if I view myself as the primary audience for this venue than it really shouldn't matter- but it does.

I think that a part of my lack of updates is because I want to write about things that are significant and that's probably why I don't update... there aren't many significant things that happen in my life.