journal features

a big project, winding down

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2011.10.17

I spent the entire day today working on a single document for the audit; pushing paperwork is basically my entire job now.

And I have to admit, it's getting a little old. But at the same time, obtaining a successful S5970 / SAS70 report is no small feat; they don't come easy. And in reality, I've torn up all of the carpet and over turned all of the furniture in getting to this point - now refurbished and unrecognized, I've essentially led a complete overhaul of this little company. It's difficult and unpopular work but it's something worth doing. I've certainly learned a thing or two this year.

rand()m quote

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World (1995)