IT Insights Blog — certification

Every U.S. IT Insights Blog reader within the sound of our keyboard has doubtless already completed and filed his or her federal income tax return. It would be plain irresponsible, after all, to wait until the last second to square things up with Uncle Sam. No doubt if we were to drive past the local post office after 11 p.m. tonight, there would not at all be an unusually long queue of vehicles waiting to use the all-hours mail drop to be assured of getting an April 15 postmark.

Someday, perhaps even someday soon — pause for raucous laughter and bitterly aggrieved forehead slapping — American author George R.R. Martin will finish writing The Winds of Winter, then start and finish writing A Dream of Spring. Then A Song of Ice and Fire, the internationally famous high fantasy saga that began in 1996 with A Game of Thrones, will finally be complete. It's been eight years since publication of the preceding volume, A Dance with Dragons, so, well, let's all be patient.

We've spoken out here before about the damage done — both to IT certification as a whole and to individual careers — by exam candidates who cheat to pass a certification exam. Most people in certification can probably empathize with anyone experiencing the various stresses that cause people to resort to gimmicks and shortcuts to pass an exam. Yet because of the ripple effects of cheating, a certification cheater really is the proverbial bad apple that spoils the whole bunch.

Today is March 29, a date that commemorates one of history's more unusual reigns of terror. New York City's Mad Bomber resurfaced on March 29, 1951, after an almost decade-long hiatus patriotically declared in observance of America's involvement in World War II. It isn't your average sociopath who commences whatever twisted mission he has set out for himself, then decides to recognize the greater societal good, publicly announces a truce, and actually follows through.

Sometimes in life things happen just because. That is to say that not every deed or development has a good and compelling rationale behind it, or can be traced back through a series of logical outcomes to a perfectly understandable inciting incident or event. The phrase "out of a clear blue sky" exists to describe an unexpected occurrence because sometimes this or that monumental (or miniscule) outcome is like lightning on a clear day, like a literal "bolt out of the blue."