language & literature

How Google motivates employees

business, language & literature, technology / /

From Larry Page’s “How to Motivate Your Staff” (Business 2.0: December 2003: 90):

We wrote a program that asks every engineer what they did every week. It sends them e-mail on Monday, and concatenates the e-mails together in a document that everyone can read. And it then sends that out to everyone and shames those who did not answer by putting them on the top of the list. It has run reliably every week since we started, so for every week of our company’s history we have a record of what everyone did. It’s good for performance reviews, and if you’re joining a project team, in five minutes you can read what your team members did the last few weeks or months.

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My new business idea

business, language & literature, musings / /

A coffee shop where the employees all wear platform shoes, glitter make-up, orange spiked hair, feathers, and silver spaceman pants.

It’s name:

ZIGGY STARBUCKS!

My friend Michael Krider made the following suggestions:

Drink names:

  • The Cafe Young Americano
  • Caffeine Genie
  • Sumatra-jet City

When employees hand your money back after a sale, they say, “Here’s your ch-ch-ch-change.”

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Sneaky advertising

business, language & literature, musings / /

I bought a mug that has no handles on it at all. I noticed that the accompanying slip of paper said, “Most Copco travel mugs are intended for right or left hand use.” Well, yes, if there are no handles, that would make sense. It goes on, “If your mug is handled, the lid is designed to fit securely in two positions, allowing for right or left hand use.” What fantastic advertising copy, creating something out of nothing! It’s like saying, “Our handles can be used by people who are right- OR left-handed! Amazing!”

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All stories have the same basic plots

art, commonplace book, language & literature, on writing, writing ideas / /

From Ask Yahoo (5 March 2007):

There are only so many ways to construct a story.

Writers who believe there’s only one plot argue all stories “stem from conflict.” True enough, but we’re more inclined to back the theory you mention about seven plot lines.

According to the Internet Public Library, they are:

1. [wo]man vs. nature
2. [wo]man vs. man
3. [wo]man vs. the environment
4. [wo]man vs. machines/technology
5. [wo]man vs. the supernatural
6. [wo]man vs. self
7. [wo]man vs. god/religion

Ronald Tobias, author of “Twenty Basic Plots” believes the following make for good stories: quest, adventure, pursuit, rescue, escape, revenge, riddle, rivalry, underdog, temptation, metamorphosis, transformation, maturation, love, forbidden love, sacrifice, discovery, wretched excess, ascension, and decision.

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1 Henry VI: Lucy lists Talbot’s titles

language & literature, word of the day / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 7):

LUCY:

But where’s the great Alcides of the field,
Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
Created, for his rare success in arms,
Great Earl of Washford, Waterford and Valence;
Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
The thrice-victorious Lord of Falconbridge;
Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
Worthy Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece;
Great marshal to Henry the Sixth
Of all his wars within the realm of France?

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Talbot describes his son’s valiant death

language & literature / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 7):

TALBOT:

Where is my other life? mine own is gone;
O, where’s young Talbot? where is valiant John?
Triumphant death, smear’d with captivity,
Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee:
When he perceived me shrink and on my knee,
His bloody sword he brandish’d over me,
And, like a hungry lion, did commence
Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;
But when my angry guardant stood alone,
Tendering my ruin and assail’d of none,
Dizzy-eyed fury and great rage of heart
Suddenly made him from my side to start
Into the clustering battle of the French;
And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
His over-mounting spirit, and there died,
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.

…
Come, come and lay him in his father’s arms:
My spirit can no longer bear these harms.
Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,
Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave.

Dies

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1 Henry VI: Talbot’s deer metaphor

language & literature / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 2):

TALBOT:

He fables not; I hear the enemy:
Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.
O, negligent and heedless discipline!
How are we park’d and bounded in a pale,
A little herd of England’s timorous deer,
Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!
If we be English deer, be then in blood;
Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch,
But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,
Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel
And make the cowards stand aloof at bay:
Sell every man his life as dear as mine,
And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.
God and Saint George, Talbot and England’s right,
Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!

(Talbot uses a metaphor comparing the encircled English to deer who will fight back against the dogs that threaten them.)

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1 Henry VI: Talbot threatens Bourdeaux with destruction unless it capitulates

language & literature / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 2):

TALBOT:

English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth,
Servant in arms to Harry King of England;
And thus he would: Open your city gates;
Be humble to us; call my sovereign yours,
And do him homage as obedient subjects;
And I’ll withdraw me and my bloody power:
But, if you frown upon this proffer’d peace,
You tempt the fury of my three attendants,
Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;
Who in a moment even with the earth
Shall lay your stately and air-braving towers,
If you forsake the offer of their love.

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1 Henry VI: division in the English court

language & literature / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 1):

EXETER:

Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;
For, had the passions of thy heart burst out,
I fear we should have seen decipher’d there
More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,
Than yet can be imagined or supposed.
But howsoe’er, no simple man that sees
This jarring discord of nobility,
This shouldering of each other in the court,
This factious bandying of their favourites,
But that it doth presage some ill event.
‘Tis much when sceptres are in children’s hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division;
There comes the rain, there begins confusion.

Exeter foresees the divisions in the English court & the problems it will cause the country.

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1 Henry VI: capital punishment for fighting in the king’s palace

history, language & literature, law / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (III: 4):

Scene: Paris – The Palace

BASSET:

Villain, thou know’st the law of arms is such
That whoso draws a sword, ’tis present death,
Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.

Blackstone in his Commentaries (IV. 124): “By the ancient law … fighting in the king’s palace … was punished with death.”

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