The Solitary Genius

Now, before anybody goes off on me for having a big head or anything, I don’t claim to be a genius, solitary or otherwise–I just think I happen to share a few traits with this unique group of people.

The Solitary Genius is a person who Victor Skowronski talked about in an IEEE Computer article (“Do Agile Methods Marginalize Problem Solvers?”, Oct. 2004) and then again to respond to people who took issue with the first article in this month’s issue (“Talking to the Solitary Genius”, August 2005). (Unfortunately, unless you are a member of the IEEE Computer Society, or have an IEEE Xplore subscription (or be at an institution which does), the full text of those articles won’t be available.) The person described is a true problem solver, and doesn’t generally work well in some of the development methodologies du jour, because of their introverted nature and a possible lack of people skills.

Skowronski used Isaac Newton as his example, but I believe the people who read this might be more familiar with these two examples: the fictional character Michael in Douglas Coupland’s book Microserfs; and John Carmack of id Software fame. Both of these people had the habit of closing the door to their office (how about that, at Microsoft, all programmers/developers get their own office) for days/weeks/months on end, not speaking to anyone or showing any results for this time. But at the end of that period what was returned was pure genius, like the Quake engine.

In today’s environment, those people would be told that they’re “difficult” or that their attitude is wrong. These people would also be labeled as non-performers in environments with short development cycles, as they may have nothing to show for four or six weeks work.

The second article covers how to communicate with these people. Two main points stood out to me:

1. They don’t respond to the same arguments. Often times using an emotional argument might tell this person that you don’t have any logical ones to use.
2. They have little desire to conform to a group’s opinion. These people are used to being right, and tend to trust their own judgment. Also, many of them may be used to not “fitting in” with a group, so having a different opinion is nothing new to them.

So, why do I now write about these people? Like I mentioned above, I can share some traits with these guys. Sometimes when working on a problem, other people are nothing more than a distraction that will steal your time and disrupt your thought process. I find that depending on the problem, working this way is often the most effective approach. Also, I never noticed this until reading the second article, but when people start using emotional arguments in what should be a logical discussion I do tend to tune them out.

So, what’s to be done about all this? I think for these people to be productive in the workplace, it needs work from both sides. I know I’ve done some work over the last few years to help improve my people skills (such as the Dale Carnegie Course) and I think that all of these people should make an attempt to improve in this area. Also the other members of a team (management and otherwise) need to learn how to work properly with these talented introverts. I think it’s worth mentioning that all people are different, and may require different environments to work at their highest efficiency. Pixar understands this–they have little log cabins/castles, etc. instead of cubicles that the employee can configure however they like it. I saw one article where one animator said he works best standing up, so he had a tall desk for his computer so that he could stand and use it. Wouldn’t it be worth it to put some extra money into letting the employees work more efficiently? I think so.

I think the companies that can leverage the power of these problem solvers, by giving them the right problems to solve and not interfering with how they do it, will be the ones that become truly successful.

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Halo

In my time off before school starts, I’ve taken to playing Halo 2 online again. I play online using XLink Kai, a program that lets you play pretty much any system-link game online, for free. Adding the Communicator can really make the experience good, you can talk to the other players to suggest the game type/rules, and you can talk in game (to direct teammates, or taunt opponents). There’s a pretty big Halo 2 community on Kai (bigger than any other game) and the skill level varies (but they’re almost all better than me… for now at least).

I only have a couple of problems with the game online:

1. The battle rifle is not the only gun in the game. Far too many games are set up to be battle rifles only, am I the only one who don’t like that gun?
2. Even though you have a microphone, you’re not required to talk constantly. There’s no real need to carry on a conversation in the middle of a game, you’re only adding to the lag. See this classic Penny Arcade.
3. People complaining about lag in games. First, the lag is generally much better in private arenas, because there are less broadcast packets to be sent around. Second, if you’re hosting in a private arena put a limit on the number of players (in Kai, not the game itself). Most people can only host a 6 player game reasonably, unless you know you can do better cap it off at 6, if the room fills up and people are not in the game, kick them from the room. The last part of this is to stop complaining–if the lag’s bad, find another arena.

Other than those issues, it’s been pretty good. I’ve got Angus playing, and hope to get Brian in on the action soon. If you get on Kai, add CnslCwby to your buddy list.

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The Music Industry

It’s been a while since I complained about music on here. Guess the time has come again, but this time I’ll complain about the industry.

First up, copying/downloading, etc. I can see why they have major issues with downloading music when people do it instead of buying it. But a lot of people do it to sample, to find new music (the radio is no longer useful for this, see Payola). I know there are very few CDs that I’ll buy without hearing them first, such as Dave Matthews (with or without Band), Barenaked Ladies, Counting Crows, artists that I’ve come to trust.

Next up is the copy-protection on new CDs. It’s pointless… a waste of time and money. It doesn’t prevent the music from ending up on the internet, and it only annoys people who try to rip the tracks to put onto an iPod.
I personally think that the CD copy protection is a sign of an industry that operated without the necessary foresight, and is now trying to cope with something they can’t undo. Traditionally when media formats changed, the music industry made extra money as people bought copies of albums on this new media. “…It’s gonna replace CDs soon. Guess I’ll have to buy the White Album again.” — Men In Black (1997). The industry failed to see that the successor to the CD is the MP3, and people can make their own from CDs without a degregation in quality from the transfer (the compression loss on a MP3 made yourself isn’t any worse than the one they would’ve sold you).
They don’t even call it “copy protection” anymore, too much negative connotation there, it’s Digital Rights Management now. I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t need/want any large organizations “managing” my rights, digitally or otherwise, especially when they’d much prefer that I didn’t have any. (I really like how Napster says “you can fill and refill any compatible MP3 player” when you don’t actually get MP3 files… you get DRM’d WMAs.)

The RIAA should stop wasting their time suing 12 year olds and mass-producing crap. Maybe if they spent their time producing and promoting quality music, people would actually be willing to buy it.

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Retirement

Well, not really, but it’s the mildy funny joke I’ve been putting forward.

I’ve finished work. Wow, that’s a big statement. It represents one of the biggest decisions I’ve ever had to make, and ends another chapter of my life. But with this ending comes a new beginning as a grad student.

So what have I been doing with my newfound free time? Nothing terribly exciting. I spent the weekend building a patio deck–not your traditional ‘good time’ but it was social, and I could use to be outside more often.
I’ve also been putting some time into upgrading my laptop, it hasn’t gotten a lot of use lately and has been starting to show it’s age (almost 2 1/2 years). Upgrading to a 5400RPM drive (from a 4200RPM one) makes for a large gain in performance.
Besides that, I’ve been kept busy (well, busy enough) with my IEMC related duties.

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