How to Fix the Teacher Shortage

America has a teacher shortage, and it's rapidly getting worse. Here's what we can do about it.

In these post-pandemic days, teachers are no longer hailed as the heroes that, in March 2020, overnight and on their own, transformed their classrooms into online classrooms and saved the American educational system.

(No, that's not an exaggeration. They really did that. It certainly wasn't the politicians or the buttheaded administrators that saved public education during the pandemic.)

Today, teachers are disrespected by their students and the students' parents, mistreated and abused by their school and district administrators, and exploited as pawns by politicians, ideologues, local activists, and greedy pirates masquerading as "private school corporations" and "charter school corporations."

After going to college or university for four years to earn a degree and a professional certification, they are paid less than babysitters and waiters, and held accountable for things beyond their control.

It's no wonder that teachers are quitting.

They're quitting in growing numbers, and they're not even waiting for the end of the school year. The Reddit group r/Teachers is full of stories of teachers quitting, and telling why they're quitting. It's heartbreaking.

And the rate at which teachers are permanently leaving the teaching profession is accelerating. Leaders are finally recognizing it, and they are starting to panic. The teacher shortage will soon become a genuine crisis, and it will affect every one of you, young and old, in profound ways.

What's to be done about it? I have some suggestions for the leaders who can do something about it.

Treat teachers like the professionals they are. 

Let the teachers design and execute the curriculum -- or give them the freedom to choose their curriculum from the many curricula offered by the textbook companies. Stop telling them how to do their jobs. And give them the budget and the tools they need to do their jobs.

It makes me furiously angry to see other people, non-teachers, trying to tell teachers how and what they should teach. Do you treat lawyers and doctors like this? How about computer engineers? Teachers are trained professionals. Leave them alone and let them do what they are trained to do.

Treat them with respect, and enforce that respectful treatment.

I could write an entire essay about this. 

Many teachers are leaving now because of the disrespect, the humiliation, the danger, that manifests itself daily, in many ways. Teachers deserve to be treated with respect -- from students, from parents, and especially from administrators.

And until they get that respect, they will keep marching out the door. Nobody pays them enough to treat them like this.

Also, protect and defend them. Wait a minute, I need to say that louder.

Protect and defend them!

Teachers are constantly threatened with physical violence, and they're not allowed to fight back. 

Likewise, teachers are harassed, both online and in person, by students and their parents -- and sometimes by members of the community -- and the administrators take no action to stop it.

In addition, teachers are falsely accused of all kinds of misconduct, usually by vindictive students and parents, and their cowardly administrators do not back them up.

For God's sake, keep politicians and ideologues out of the schools.

I really mean "for God's sake."

Here's one example of what happens when you let politicians and ideologues in the door.

Have you heard of Critical Race Theory (CRT)? Do you know a single school in your area where CRT is being taught? No, seriously: can you name a school near you, where CRT is part of the curriculum? Look as hard as you want. You won't find one.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) was developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and is an eye-opening way to view western history. The theory is debated at length at the university level, and some of its underlying ideas have been present in public schools since the 1970s. But the idea that CRT is taught in K-12 classrooms is a straw man, set up by politicians and ideologues just so they could knock it down, and so they could take control of the schoolhouse. Politicians, ideologues, and activists keep trying to force themselves into the educational process. No teaching will happen while we allow this. 

After the battle over CRT goes away, there will be something else to take its place.

Learning will happen, oh yes, but it will not be the kind of learning you want or expect. The unintended consequences of letting politicians and ideologues drive the educational process will haunt you, society, for at least an entire generation. 

Knock it off, already.

Get rid of standardized testing.

I could argue with you about this for hours. It's demeaning, it's misguided, it's a colossal waste of time and money, and it will go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes of this generation.

Standardized testing is a bullshit idea, promoted and administered by bullshitters. (Please excuse the profanity.)

PAY THEM PROFESSIONAL WAGES. 

I have written about this before.

Good grief, how can we expect a college-educated professional to stay motivated, when we pay them less than we pay our waiters and babysitters?! 

Teachers shouldn't have to go out and get second jobs, just to support their teaching habit.

Don't just give "more money" to the schools, or to "education". Make sure that money goes directly into the teachers' pockets.

Remember the old adage, "You get what you pay for."

Fix the family.

Teachers and public schools are not the cause of poor academic performance. Nor are they the cause of the problems with violence, disrespect, and dysfunction among the student body. Studies have testified to this, over and over again, and yet we keep laying the blame on the teachers and trying to fix things in the classroom. It's not the teachers' fault, and the fix isn't in the classroom.

The root cause of these problems lies with the family that each student comes from. Put the blame where it belongs, and fix the problem at the root cause: the family.

About Profanity

Okay, it's time. Let's talk about profanity.

A wise man named Spencer W. Kimball used to say: 

"Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly." 

I've seen several misquotings and misrememberings, including my own version:

"Profanity is the feeble attempt of a feeble mind to express itself forcibly."

But the original will suffice for my purpose here. I am calling for a halt to the gratuitous and excessive profanity in modern discourse, and for a return to more precise speech. (If your name is Jodi, don't worry. You're safe. See the very end of this post.)

Warning: This post contains profanity. The profanity is strictly for illustrative purposes. Don't get worked up over it.

The HP Meeting

When I was a new engineer, I was sitting in a department meeting. Several people were using profanity to emphasize the points they were trying to make. It was excessive, and it was unnecessary. Being a new guy, I didn't speak up, but someone else did. He quoted SWK. But he mangled the quote. If it had been delivered accurately, it would have had the desired effect, but the mangled version was a dud.

In fact, what followed was a moment of silence, and then a bearded hippie-type guy in the back muttered, "I  don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about."

That was back in 1981, in a time when people chose their words more carefully. Even if they cussed and swore in private, they were -- except for this one meeting -- circumspect in their public speech. Over the years, and through many different jobs, I have attended meetings where someone would let slip a cussword, then glance my way and say, "oops, sorry". 

(Parenthetically, I don't know why they apologized to me. Never in my career have I set myself up as a judge or a censor, or anything remotely like that, and yet ... well, maybe it's an aura I have. Who knows? I did notice that they apologized to me, and not to the women in the meeting.)

The 2016 Presidential Election

Then came the 2016 presidential election campaign. One of the candidates, Donald J. Trump, had no filter, as the saying goes. He cussed and swore all the time, in public as well as in private. The news media -- that is, the press, television reporters, and the Internet -- delighted in quoting him verbatim. This opened the floodgates. Suddenly it seemed that everybody felt empowered to use profanity in public, and so everybody did. Public profanity spread faster than a pandemic. (Okay, that's ironic.)

And it has stayed that way, throughout Trump's presidency and afterwards. It may be one of his lasting legacies, and that's a crying shame. It's way too late to put those horses back in the barn.

Like Father, Like Son

Let's go back again to 1981. I was fresh out of college. Our family car was a 1969 Plymouth Satellite, with a Mopar V8 engine. It wasn't a racing engine, just a good workhorse engine. But the car was 12 years old, and things were starting to wear out. We couldn't afford to take it into a mechanic, so for most things, I became the mechanic. 

I couldn't even afford a decent set of tools and a pair of jack stands. Instead, I had some two-foot lengths of old railroad tie in the trunk, plus an adjustable wrench, a pair of pliers, and a huge screwdriver. When I needed to work on the car, I would lift it with the tire jack, shove the railroad ties under the frame, and lower the car onto the railroad ties. Then I would crawl under the car and start swearing at it.

Yeah. Swearing at it. I learned quickly why mechanics have such foul mouths. Cusswords are better than WD-40 at loosening stuck bolts.

The starters on Mopar engines were notorious for wearing out, and rebuilt/replacement starters were even more so. I got so I could jack up the car, replace the starter, and have the car running again in less than 40 minutes. And 300 cusswords.

One day, I was out in the parking lot, underneath the car, replacing the starter again, when my two-year-old son drove up beside me on his little white riding car. He dismounted and lifted the seat. He pulled out of the storage compartment a piece of two-by-four lumber, his plastic wrench, and his plastic screwdriver. He shoved the two-by-four under the car. Then he lay down on his back, shoved the screwdriver under the car, and started cussing at it.

Yeahhhh, that's when I decided that I needed to change my tune -- clean up my act -- literally, and both idioms. I made a conscious effort to remove those words from my vocabulary, and to replace them with plain English words that said what I meant. I started aiming for more precise language.

Nine years later, I knew that I had been successful, when my now-eleven-year-old son was out in the garage working on a project. While hammering a nail, and unaware that anybody could hear him, he yelled loudly, "OUCH! I HIT MY THUMB!" Win.

Decades later, while lying in the Emergency Room, suffering from what was later diagnosed as pancreatitis, and howling from the pain, the strongest words I used were "WOW, THIS HURTS WORSE THAN ANYTHING I'VE EVER FELT!" and "HOLY MACKEREL, THIS HURTS!". Still winning.

Yeah, But There's Still Everybody Else

It's true. I'm not the only person in the world who makes a habit of clean speech. Unfortunately, for me it's still a conscious effort. I admire all of the people, for whom clean speech (or precise speech, if you prefer) is second nature, just a habit.

But then there's everybody else. I can recall a conversation recently, where half the words the speaker said, by actual count, were "fuck", "shit", or variations thereof. Not only could I not understand what he was trying to say, but I could not take the man seriously. I have heard many conversations like that.

Over the years, I have made many efforts to enjoy and appreciate contemporary music, hip-hop/R&B being one genre. But I cannot get past the profanity. It gets in the way.

Modern fiction literature, same thing. Political speeches, same thing. Popular movies, same thing. Way too many television shows, same thing. It's not necessary. It may be in there to pull a laugh out of the audience, or to sound sophisticated, but it doesn't work for me. In radio parlance, for me, it's a "tune-out".

So, What to Do About it?

Every one of those cusswords is a substitute for a perfectly good English-language word, and not a very good substitute at that. Why not just use the regular English words to get your message across? Instead of yelling, "That fuckin' fucker fucked up my shit again!", say, "That stupid clerk messed up my order again!" It's more accurate, and it's less likely to be misunderstood.

It really is that simple.

 If you want, go find a thesaurus and look up some stronger alternatives for "stupid". Could be useful in the future.

What about "Oh My Gawd" and Stuff Like That?

Ah, yes. Oaths and interjections.

Interjections are simple reactions to things. Today, they're mostly overreactions. And most of them merely sound stupid.

"Holy shit!"
"Fuuuuuuuck!"

"Dammmmmmmmn!"

"Oh my Gawwwwwd!"

"God damn it!"

(By the way, what's God got to do with it? Surely whatever just happened isn't His fault, is it? Leave Him out of it.)

Let's get Biblical here for a minute. Wait, wait, don't leave. This isn't a religious discussion. I'm just using the Good Book as a literary source. Again, don't get all excited. Geeze, you guys.

(See what I did there?)

In the Old Testament, in 2 Kings 6:31, is an intriguing phrase. Imagine the king, inspecting the city, then turning to his advisers, slashing his finger across his throat in the classic gesture, and saying "God do so to me, and more also, if ..."

That's an oath. Today, we might say, "God strike me dead if ..."

Or, "Cross my heart and hope to die."

Or, "If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'."

The most common oath today is the simple interjection, "Oh my god." It's used so often as to be practically meaningless. Nobody recognizes it in its original form as a prayer, an appeal to heaven. An oath.

Somewhere around 1981, a comedian commented on this subject, saying: "God's a busy guy. He's trying to solve world hunger and cancer and stuff, and every time somebody says 'Oh my God', He's like 'WHAT?!!! Whaddayawant? Can't you see I'm busy here?'"

And then there's the oath "What the hell is going on here?" or "What in God's name is going on here?" or, of course, "What the fuck is going on here?"  They're all oaths, that last one doing double duty as a profane oath.

So in the New Testament, Jesus says (paraphrasing) "Don't swear at all. Don't swear by heaven, and don't swear by the earth, and don't even swear by the hairs on your head. Because you don't have any power over heaven, or earth, or your hair." Well, Supercuts may disagree about the hair thing. But you get the idea.

(I guess he didn't like the tale of the Three Little Pigs. Because, by his definition, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!" is an oath.)

Instead, he said "Let all your communication be, yea, yea; nay, nay." That doesn't mean that when you're mad at someone, you should call them a yea-yea-nay-nay. Nor does it mean that you should holler "yea yea nay nay" when you pound your thumb with a hammer. (Actually, if you did that, it might make you laugh, and that would be a good thing. But I digress ...) 

What he was saying was simply, "You don't need to use an oath to reinforce your words. Just say what you mean." 

Whether you like it or not, your speech defines who you are. Again in the New Testament, Jesus said, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." Later, James wrote "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be."

That last paragraph goes far beyond profanity, and begins to address the subject of how we talk to each other, and how we talk about each other. That's another post for another time.

Okay, But What about Substitute Swear Words?

I will admit, this is a grey area. Substitute swear words are a sneaky way to get your point across without actually using profanity. Thus:

"Hell" becomes "heck".

"God" becomes "gosh".

"Pussy" becomes "sissy". Yes, that's right.

"Fuck" becomes "fudge" or "flip" or "frack" or one of many f-substitutes.

"Shit" becomes "shoot". 

Do I really need to list them all out for you?

One afternoon when I was in college (clearly before 1981), I stepped out of the Engineering Building and looked up at the sky. I said to myself, "Yikes. I'd better get across campus in a hurry. It looks like it could rain any second."

Another student stepped out behind me. He looked up at the sky, and said loudly, "Oh, my scrud."

Tch. Why didn't you just say the real thing?

I think it was George Carlin who called substitute words "chicken-shit cusswords." To address substitute cusswords, we could horribly mangle SWK's quote and say: "Substitute swear words are the chicken-shit effort of a feeble mind to express itself forcibly."

In Conclusion, Your Honour ...

It's got nothing to do with religion. It's got everything to do with precision of language. And, for better or for worse, it has everything to do with intelligence -- well, sounding intelligent. Clean up your language and say what you mean -- no more, and no less.

Just stop cussing, dammit.

Postscript: But What about Jodi?

Jodi is my best friend. Okay, she's one of my best friends. We have been best friends for a long time. She and I go way back, to long before 1981. I love her more than I can possibly put into words.

Jodi is a professional wordsmith. She has made good money as a writer and an editor. So she knows how to turn a phrase.

She is also the most eloquent and colorful cusser I have ever known. I have never heard anyone use profanity as adroitly, as skillfully, and to such deadly effect, as Jodi does. In direct contradiction to everything I have said here, Jodi's blue streaks are high art, and music to my ears. And I hope she never changes.

Word Peeve: "It's Not Worth It"

 This isn't really a peeve, more an observation. Language is evolving right before our eyes.

"I went through all that pain, but it was worth the trophy."

"We got first-class seats! Sitting in the airport for hours was worth it."

Hmm. Normally, when you consider buying something, you ask yourself if the item you're buying is worth the money it will cost you.

That house, for example, is worth a million dollars.

For a non-monetary example, consider a triathlon. You get a medal just for completing it. The medal is your reward. What it costs you is hours of physical and mental exertion, plus some pain and discomfort. Is the participation medal worth the exertion and the pain? 

Or, in the modern usage, is the exertion and pain worth the medal?

Or, in an even more confusing modern usage, is the exertion and pain worth it, just to get the medal? Wait a minute, what's the "it" in that sentence?

If you, like me, are tilting at windmills in your quest for more precise speech, then you may recognize that the reward is always worth the cost, not the other way around.

This:

The trophy was worth the pain. The medal was worth the exertion. The first-class seats were worth the waiting. That house is worth $1 million.

Not this:

The pain was worth the trophy. The exertion was worth the medal. The wait was worth the first-class seats. $1 million is worth that house.

However, in the end, after the dust has cleared:

The pain was worthy of the trophy. The exertion was worthy of the medal. The wait was worthy of first-class seats. The $1 million price tag was worthy of that house.

The person who endured the pain was deserving of the trophy. The person who made the exertion was deserving of the medal. And the travelers who waited in the terminal all day were deserving of the first-class seats. I'm not sure that the buyer with $1 million is deserving of that house, but they certainly can afford it.

There's always a "yeah, but", isn't there? 

In conclusion, your honor ...

As languages evolve, we now feel comfortable using "it is (or is not) worth it" in both directions: the reward is worth the cost, and the cost is worth the reward.

Zyzmog's Sixth Law of Motion

 I didn't think it would be possible, but I have to add another law to Zyzmog's Laws of Motion.

Zyzmog's Sixth Law of Motion, or the "Drive Friendly" Rule

Everybody on the road is just trying to get somewhere.

That's it. Just one sentence. I've reflected on this as I've dealt with traffic on interstate highways, two-lane county roads, and city streets. Everybody's just trying to get somewhere. It's not a competition or a battle. It's just people trying to get from Point A to Point B. 

Some of them are running late, some are about to have a baby and are racing to the hospital, some have a lot of other heavy stuff on their minds. 

Some are new drivers, some are nervous drivers, and yes, some are impatient drivers.

None of them drive the same way you drive. None of them want to drive the same speed as you, either. 

But they're all just trying to get from one place to another, and none of them deserve to be centered in the crosshairs of your Acme Mobile Flamethrower. Just give 'em a break. And give them an assist, if you can -- open up a spot for them to merge, for example.

You won't lose anything but your high blood pressure, and you will make the world a better place.

Lessons Learned in my Career as an Engineer

Technical stuff

It's easier to do something right the first time than it is to do it over.

When given a choice between creating something, evaluating someone else's creation, or fixing someone else's mistakes, always choose creating. This applies to any engineering discipline.

Saying "no" may harm your career, but it may save your sanity.

Saying "yes," if done wisely, will open unexpected doors for you in the future.

A problem that mysteriously goes away, will mysteriously come back.

Engineers don't have to know everything. They just have to know where to look things up.

When someone asks you for a time estimate, come up with your best estimate, then double it and add one unit. "An hour" becomes "three hours." "Two days" becomes "five days". "Three months" becomes "seven months". Engineers are notorious for underestimating the time budget for a project. This practice will help you avoid that pitfall.

Never trust an engineer who says, "Well, it works on my computer."

On the other hand, if nobody else is having the software or network problem that you're having, the problem is most likely not with the software or the network.

J.R.R. Tolkien understood engineers. He put these words into Bilbo Baggins' mouth: "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations." That relates to project planning and execution. The things that you overlook are the things that will bite you. Or burn you.

Bilbo and Smaug (copied without asking from https://movie-villains.fandom.com/wiki/Smaug)

Bilbo's "live dragons" maxim can be rendered as a haiku:

It does not do to

leave a live dragon out of

your calculations.

And J. K. Rowling understood both the lure and the dangers of technology. In 1999, she put these prophetic words into Arthur Weasley's mouth: "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." As a computer professional, I am warning you: never trust computers, "smart" devices, artificial intelligence, or the Internet.

Manage your time carefully. 

Murphy's Law reigns supreme.

With extremely few exceptions, in an engineering organization, everybody's just trying to do things right. Don't waste time blaming, politicking, or fault-finding. Instead, invest the time in trying to help each other succeed.

When taking notes in a meeting, only take paper notes. Never take notes on a phone, tablet, or computer, because you will, without a doubt, be accused of "playing on your phone" during the meeting. 

Paper will never go obsolete.

Paper doesn't require batteries, spontaneously reboot in mid-sentence, or accidentally and instantly get erased. Some paper documents have lasted hundreds of years. Computers have been around for less than 100 years, and no computer-age storage medium has demonstrated the long-term viability of paper.

... Except for punch cards and punched tape, both of which are made of paper. :-)

Job and Career stuff

Your family is more important than your job. If you ever have to make a choice between the two, choose your family. There's always another job.

When looking for a job, who you know really is more important than what you know. 

The guy who says, "I want to be hired (or promoted) based on my merits," will never get hired (or promoted). Learn to play The Game. And learn to enjoy playing The Game.

Don't believe anything a sales professional says to you.

Never trust a sales professional.

Never work for a company run by a sales professional.

Never work for a narcissist. Learn how to smell out narcissists quickly.

No matter what the CEO, the HR department, and your manager may tell you, you are only an asset to the company. A resource. Raw material. They will use you until you break or wear out, and then they will discard you without thinking twice.

If you were to die on the job today, they would replace you tomorrow.

There's no such thing as "job security."

Your employer doesn't care.

Corporate loyalty is a myth, a relic of the 20th Century.

If you get a nice jacket with the company logo instead of an annual raise, enjoy the jacket, but start warming up your resume.

Sometimes it's better to quit and take your chances than to stay miserable.

Nobody pays you enough to make a miserable job worthwhile.

Nobody, but nobody, pays you enough to yell at you. (I'm looking at you, Brian!)

If you're in a job where someone yells at you, don't take it personally. But do quit. If you cannot quit on the spot, then immediately start a job search, and quit a week or two before you start your new job.

The "two weeks' notice" thing is a courtesy, not a legal requirement. It may or may not be in your contract. Reread your contract to find out. Remember, your employer would not give you two weeks' notice before dumping you.

The only way an employer has of showing how much they value you is money. It can be salary, commissions, or significant cash bonuses. Stock options are just a promise, and they mean nothing. Stock itself is of questionable value. Gift cards and T-shirts are cheap fluff. Promises are worthless -- even if they're on paper. And salary targets (as opposed to actual salary) are an easy way to make a promise and get away with not keeping it. (HP was notorious for that.)

An employer never pays you what you're worth. An employer only pays you what you're willing to settle for, and not a penny more.

But the jackets and gift cards and T-shirts are a nice gesture, and they should be acknowledged graciously.

If you find a better job, and you give your notice, and your employer makes a counteroffer to induce you to stay, don't take the counteroffer. NEVER take the counteroffer. They're two weeks too late -- maybe even six months or a year too late. If you were that valuable to them, they would have fixed things that long ago. Their counteroffer is not a sincere offer -- it's just damage control.

When should you get a new job?

1. When the great company that hired you gets sold, acquired, bought out, or spun off.
2. When the great company that hired you gets a brand-new management team.
3. When that great boss that you loved working for, quits or gets fired.
4. When you start noticing a high attrition rate (lots of people quitting or getting fired).
5. When pay is delayed, or paychecks start bouncing.
6. When you start noticing a pattern of dishonesty, broken promises, or shady dealing among the managers or in the C-suite.
7. When you can get an equivalent position or a promotion, for significantly better wages, benefits, working conditions, and future growth prospects, somewhere else.
8. When you realize that the money you're paid isn't worth the garbage you have to endure.
9. The instant you discover that the job you wanted, or the job you thought you were getting, is not the job you ended up with.
10. The instant you come to the realization that you are in a dead-end position.

Don't think that you owe "three to five years" to your current employer. They would not hesitate to dump you after a month, if they had a business reason.

Having said all that, if you do find an employer who:

• is loyal to you, 
• gives you good compensation and benefits and a good working environment,
• supports you and contributes to your personal development, and 
• truly watches out for you and your loved ones,

then give that employer your loyalty and your best efforts in return, and hold onto them for as long as you can. Employers like that are rare in today's world, and they need to be nurtured and protected.

Retirement stuff

It's never too early to start planning for your retirement.

Always spend less than you earn.

Always contribute to your 401(k). Start contributing to it as soon as you can. 

If you don't have a 401(k), then create and start contributing to an IRA as soon as you get your first job.

Even if you can only contribute a tiny bit, do it. Even $100 a month, through the magic of compound interest, will turn into a huge pile of money in 30 years.

Start contributing the maximum amount you're allowed into the 401(k), as soon as you can. Take advantage of the company matching.

Make sure that the 401(k) funds are not invested into your own employer's stock. That's always a losing bet. Instead, move your retirement funds outside of the company. 

Do not gamble with your retirement funds. Instead, invest in a combination of ETFs (for growth) and long-term bond funds (for stability).

Do not mess with your funds. Once a year, rebalance your investments according to your long-term plans and goals -- but other than that, keep your hands off your money. Let time work its magic.

Don't make your work your life. Don't tie your personal success exclusively to your professional career. Make sure you have hobbies, interests, and friends outside of work.

Do something that doesn't require batteries, an operating system, or a network connection.

Again, remember that your family is infinitely more important than your job.

Your job won't last forever. Start planning and preparing now (whatever age you are) for what you will do with your life when you retire.

Useful books

This is a short list of books that have served me well in my career. Admittedly, it is a rather eclectic list, but all of the books are relevant to an engineering career.

The Organization Guerilla: Playing the Game to Win, by Allen Weiss

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey

In Business as in Life - You Don't Get What You Deserve, Only What You Negotiate, by Chester Karrass

Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

Nudge, by Thaler and Sunstein

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu

The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi

The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch

The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill

Professional Software Development, by Steve McConnell

The Goal, by Eliyahu Goldratt

The Phoenix Project, by Kim, Behr, and Spafford

The C Programming Language, by Kernighan and Ritchie

Who's Afraid of C++ (now part of Learning to Program in C++), by Steve Heller

Common Lisp: The Language, by Guy Steele

Windows 11: First Impressions

 I got a new PC two days ago. It runs Windows 11. My old PC ran Windows 10, and my work PC runs Windows 10. So what do I think about Windows 11?

First, the summary (tl;dr)

I was not disappointed; in fact, I've been pleased with Windows 11. The transition from Windows 10 was so smooth that it was practically seamless. There's been no loss in productivity, and if anything, there's been a small but significant gain in productivity.

Giving away the ending: my favorite part of Windows 11 is Linux! See the very end of this article.

Doing my homework

I'm not an early adopter. I was comfortable with Windows 10, I didn't see a reason to change, and I didn't have hardware with enough oomph to support Windows 11 anyway.

Then the hard disk died on my five-year-old Toshiba. The rest of the PC was in perfectly good shape, but it was five years old. That's a long time in computer years. Time to update everything.

So, knowing that the purchase was imminent, I went to the Web to read up on Windows 11. I read the Windows evangelists' breathless praise. I read the industry professionals' dispassionate analyses. And I read the critics' reviews. As a result, I knew what to expect.

Now, the details

This is what you really came for, right?

This is all subjective and non-quantitative, by the way. If you want a quantitative analysis, go to the web. If you want an objective review of Windows 11, dream on. There ain't no such thing. All evaluations of Windows 11 are subjective.

And there are no pictures, sorry. It's just words.

Look and feel (or "What about the 'Mac-like appearance' we were promised?")

The Windows 11 desktop and user interface do not look radically different from Windows 10. Even the most conservative, old-fashioned Windows users will feel instantly comfortable with Windows 11. The edges are rounded and the colors and tones are softer, which makes it, if not "Mac-like", then more modern. Updated. Contemporary.

The icons are also modern contemporary. Gone are the skeuomorphs — in Windows 11, all icons are 2D, stylized, usually two colors and simple symbols, instead of the multidimensional, multicolored, miniature masterpieces of yesteryear. Okay, I admit it, I liked the old-style icons better. But I can live with it.

Remember Windows XP? It was great for productivity, because it got out of the way of what you were working on, and it stayed out of the way. Subsequent Windows versions, and associated products like Office and Explorer, felt like they screamed "MICROSOFT!!!!!" at you all the time.

It may still be true of the Office suite. But Windows 11 is back to the XP paradigm of being unobtrusive, of letting you do your work, getting out of the way, and staying out of the way.

The Start menu

The biggest change is that the Start menu and the icons on the taskbar are centered on the bottom of the desktop. This is part of the "Mac-like" paradigm. Conservative users can put the Start menu and taskbar back on the left, if they want. But if  you leave it centered for a day or two, it will grow on you. Besides, it's no big deal. I have a Windows 10 PC and a Windows 11 PC side by side, and my brain doesn't freak out switching from one to the other. 

The Start menu tiles are gone. As many reviewers observed, "nobody used them anyway." Instead, the Start menu gives you a Search bar, a "Pinned" section, a "Recommended" section, and two small buttons labeled "All apps" and "More". 

• The Search bar will search for literally anything: a filename on your computer, an installed program or app, a program or app that can be installed from the Microsoft Store, or anything on the Internet. In true Microsoft style, it's so thorough that it's almost too helpful.
• The "Pinned" section starts with a collection of applications that Microsoft thinks will interest you. It adds other applications as you install them. You can add and remove applications in this section, and you should do so immediately, keeping only your most used or most important applications. You can also right-click to move applications to the top of the list or pin them to the taskbar.
• Do you miss that alphabetical program listing that was the main part of the Windows 10 Start menu? Click on the "All apps" button to the right of the "Pinned" heading. There you go.
• The "Recommended" section is like the "Recently Used" menus in previous versions of Windows, but now it can include both applications and files. That's a nice touch. As with the "Pinned" section, you can right-click to pin or remove items.
• The "More" button expands the "Recommended" list to include older selections and a bunch of totally useless stuff that Windows adds to the list during installations and updates.

Right-clicking the Start button gives you the same useful system-management menu as in Windows 10.

Microsoft's insistence on Microsoft products

Like every other company in the world, Microsoft exists to make money. And like every other company, they want to upsell you. 

Windows 11 is very insistent on pushing Microsoft applications on you. They got into trouble for this with past editions of Windows, and they're not-so-subtly trying to do it again.

Along with shilling Microsoft products, Windows 11 is very insistent on upselling you to the paid versions of their free-to-start products. It's the drug pusher business model: "First one's free."

The web browser: Edge

Windows 11 comes with the Microsoft Edge web browser. You may want to install your preferred browser, be it Firefox or Google Chrome. Your browsing habits are money in the pocket of the company whose browser you use, and Microsoft doesn't want to let go of that money. Windows 11 makes it more difficult than in previous versions to switch your default browser from Edge to the preferred browser, because, of course, they don't want you to switch. But you can still do it.

However, this time, technology may convince you to stay with Edge anyway. Several head-to-head comparisons put Edge on a par with, or slightly better than, the market leader (65% market share), Google Chrome in every way. My experience with Edge has been good so far. It is very fast, and it follows Windows 11's lead in being unobtrusive. It gets the job done, and stays out of your way.

Cloud storage: OneDrive

Microsoft's cloud storage solution, OneDrive, gives you 5 GB of free storage. Once you hit 5 GB, OneDrive starts demanding money from you. Like an insistent salesman, the only way to get OneDrive to leave you alone is to stop using it. You have to go into the OneDrive settings and select "Unlink your PC". And again, like an insistent salesman, OneDrive will threaten you with dire consequences if you Unlink, and it will immediately offer to sign you up again after you Unlink.

Other options, such as Dropbox, work just as well as OneDrive. I'm just saying.

The Office Suite

I think that the revenue from MS Office sales and subscriptions pays the salaries of thousands of Microsoft employees. Windows 11 starts you with a free trial, and then pushes you into an array of paid subscriptions, or into paid, cloud-based Office 365 as an alternative.

MS Office is the default office suite for the entire world. You may think you cannot live without it. But there are two free alternatives, LibreOffice and OpenOffice. From a technical and practical standpoint, LO and OO are identical, and both are almost 100 percent compatible with MS Office. In fact, they can read and write MS Office files.

I prefer LO for various reasons, but either one will work for you. I suggest you start with LO or OO, and don't buy MS Office until you find that you need it.

Worthless widgets

Windows 11 includes widgets, tiny apps that clutter your PC and your screen. I don't have any use for them at all. Your mileage may vary.

Cellphone connection

Windows 11 is supposed to connect seamlessly and wirelessly to your iPhone or Android cellphone. I'll just say that the Android connection doesn't work yet, and leave it at that.

However, I can still connect my PC to my phone via a USB cable.

UPDATED INFO, APRIL 30, 2025: It works now. In Windows 11 is an app called "Phone Link," which allows the PC to connect nicely with your iPhone or Andoid cellphone. It's not "seamless," but it's getting tantalizingly close. It allows you to run phone apps from your PC, which is as wonderful as it sounds. It also allows you to transfer photos and files more easily between the two.

Multimedia, or "Can it run Netflix?"

The short and sweet answer is yes. In fact, all of your favorite streaming services are now available as apps in the Microsoft Store. You don't need to open a browser to run Spotify, Netflix, Prime Video, DisneyPlus, or any of a host of streaming services.

Windows 11 also casts to your large-screen TV using either Google Chromecast or Amazon FireTV.

When it comes to multimedia, your hardware will be the limiting factor, not your software.

Virus protection: McAfee? Why???

The Windows 11 on my new PC came with McAfee bundled as the antivirus and network security application. It's a free one-year subscription. I left it there until it got obnoxious (it took less than a day), and then I got rid of it.

I know I've badmouthed Microsoft for pushing their products over competing products, but Windows 11 very quietly ships with an excellent antivirus and network security system. In Windows 10 it was called "Defender"; in Windows 11 it's called "Windows Security".  It doesn't cost anything extra. It's free inside every box of corn flakes. And it really is excellent.

I don't understand why someone felt the need to bundle McAfee with Windows 11. Was it Dell, or was it MS? I don't care. As soon as I uninstalled McAfee, Windows Security automatically stepped in and took over the security duties.

Linux!

If Microsoft sends Windows 11 users a questionnaire, and asks what users' favorite Windows 11 feature is, I'm going to say, "Linux!"

Microsoft has fully embraced Linux. They have been working for years on their Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), a complex project that lets Linux run as if it were the native operating system (OS), or a co-existing OS, on Windows machines. 

Until now, if you wanted near-native Linux performance on a Windows machine, you had to install a virtual-machine engine, such as VMWare or VirtualBox, and create a Linux virtual machine inside that engine. It works great, nobody's complaining, but it can take a lot of work to get the Linux VM set up properly and interacting happily with Windows.

With Windows 11, Microsoft has put a VM engine called Hyper-V into the OS, and WSL runs smoothly and seamlessly on Hyper-V. Microsoft has been testing a graphical version of WSL for a few years now, and that is the version of WSL running inside Windows 11. With WSLg (g for graphical), you can start your favorite Linux distro, and then run any Linux graphical application on the Windows desktop.

In fact, Linux applications will appear in, and run directly from, the Start menu's "Recommended" section.

Here's a really good YouTube video that shows you how to set up WSL on Windows 11 and how easy it is to use.

Summary (wait, didn't I already do this at the top?)

I was not disappointed; in fact, I've been pleased with Windows 11. The transition from Windows 10 was so smooth that it was practically seamless. There's been no loss in productivity, and if anything, there's been a small but significant gain in productivity.

And it's still true, my favorite part of Windows 11 is Linux.

About Jerry Garcia ties

 

A Jerry Garcia Christmas tie

Jerry Garcia was a talented musician. He made his mark in the world as the lead guitarist and a vocalist for the rock group The Grateful Dead, until he died of a heart attack in 1995.

Everyone knows about his musical career, but few people know about his graphic arts career.

And many people who wear J. Garcia neckties don't realize that it's that "J. Garcia". 

Jerry Garcia was an artist?!

My abridged version of the story is this.

Garcia was both a talented musician and a talented artist. His plan, a laid-back and casual plan, was to make a living with his art, and to sing, write music, and play guitar on the side. In 1961, he survived a horrific car accident that killed one person and seriously injured Garcia and two friends. The accident was a turning point in his life, and he decided he needed to take something seriously. So he set his drawing and painting aside and devoted himself  to the guitar. After four years of playing with various groups, he and some friends formed the band that became The Grateful Dead.

In 1980, after the band became successful, Garcia returned to the graphic arts. He exhibited his work at the Weir Gallery in Berkeley, California. He monetized his craft by creating beautiful silk scarves and neckties and selling them under the "J. Garcia" brand.  Garcia's silk-screened tie designs were unlike the traditional geometric designs. They were attractive and eye-catching, without being crazy or obnoxious. While I wouldn't say they took the world by storm, they definitely attracted a following. They were sold worldwide in department stores, men's apparel stores, and online.

It's ironic that his two worlds didn't overlap very much. Many of his necktie fans don't know that he was a rock'n'roll superstar; likewise, many of his music fans don't know that he made neckties. 

And many people who bought his ties didn't realize that the "J. Garcia" on the necktie label was the same J. Garcia that played for the Dead.

Beautiful designs, lousy workmanship

Garcia's tie designs are beautiful and eye-catching. The designs are organized into themes. In addition to everyday business designs, he has special themes for occasions like weddings, and for holidays like Independence Day, Halloween, and Christmas. Although most of his ties are pure silk, he also has some designs in cotton. I don't know whether he ever worked in wool.

There's only one problem with J. Garcia ties: The workmanship is really bad. No, the workmanship is crap. The ties wear out too quickly. 

For the first few wearings, they're okay. But then the thread on the main seam starts coming out. Or else, because the fabric is cut too close to the seam, the fabric starts raveling even if the seam remains intact. Both of these defects can be corrected with fray-check or super glue, if you catch them quickly enough. But then the interfacing starts getting twisted and bunched up inside the tie, so your knot looks ugly, and there's no way to fix that. And eventually, the fabric where the tie is knotted simply falls apart, and that can't be fixed either.

So, what to do? Your choice. 

Some of you may say that that's normal, that all ties wear out, especially silk ties. Not so.

I have some Italian ties ranging in age from 3 to 40 years, and they are still in excellent shape after hundreds of wearings. The workmanship on these Italian ties is exquisite. J. Garcia ties are all made in China, not Italy. J. Garcia ties reinforce everything I've ever said on the subject of Chinese workmanship.

So, don't buy them, because they're crappily built, and because they're made in China?

No. I say, buy them anyway. Plan on them wearing out every couple of years, and on buying replacements for the ones that wear out. Or buy several of them, and cycle through them so that they last longer. They're worth it.