Human Feature Request...

Comprehension Error-Trapping

I'm sick and tired of finding out five minutes into a conversation that I lost the other party four minutes ago and they have not a clue what I'm talking about. I'd like to add an error to the ADO command set to trap this.

If a protocol failure occurs to prevent a full idea-handshake, the following error message should appear in front of the user:

ADO Error: Data Transfer Protocol Negotiation Failure
The packet stream you are emitting cannot be parsed by the recieving party in it's current format.

Click "OK" to review the stack trace and attempt to recover the process. Click "Cancel" to make an inane comment about mint-flavored sneakers and attempt to resume the process from here without the lost data.

Costello Calls To Buy A Computer From Abbott...

I've loved Abbott and Costello since I was a little kid, and the "Who's On First" routine is a pure classic. I ran in to this over on the Fray, and I snarfed tea all over my keyboard yet again. The last line is a killer.

Please make sure your mouth isn't full of your beverage of choice, and I present "Costello Calls to Buy a Computer from Abbott".

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".

COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight answers. OK, forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?

ABBOTT: Yes, you want Real One.

COSTELLO: Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none of your business. Just tell me what I need!

ABBOTT: Real One.

COSTELLO: If it's a long movie, I also want to watch reels 2, 3 and 4. Can I watch them?

ABBOTT: Of course.

COSTELLO: Great! With what?

ABBOTT: Real One.

COSTELLO: OK, I'm at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What do I do?

ABBOTT: You click the blue "1".

COSTELLO: I click the blue one what?

ABBOTT: The blue "1".

COSTELLO: Is that different from the blue w?

ABBOTT: The blue "1" is Real One and the blue "W" is Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: But there are three words in "office for windows"!

ABBOTT: No, just one. But it's the most popular Word in the world.

COSTELLO: It is?

ABBOTT: Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many other Words left. It pretty much wiped out all the other Words out there.

COSTELLO: And that word is real one?

ABBOTT: Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn't even part of Office.

COSTELLO: STOP! Don't start that again. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT: One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on "START".......

Never drink the tap water at Jerry Garcia's....

There are many truisms in this world. You know, those little pieces of general advice that just seem to come true far more often than random chance would account for. "Never get involved in a land-war in Asia. "Don't spit into the wind". I may have found a new one. "Never give a server a Japanese name."

Sounds odd, I know. But I know of several different people who are having hardcore server trouble of various sorts, and the only thing all these machines have in common is that they have Japanese names. Makoto-rin over at Megatokyo had a major snit recently, Ukyo and PAL over at Real Life are on like Round 8 of a 10-roud matchup, and my box Diakon is being a brat, too. There's no other common point. Different technologies, different hardware, different everything. I know it's just a coincidence, but the superstitous side of me just keeps suggesting that the solution to my problem is just to rename the box.

That little bit of anachronism is always there, even for the most analytical of us. We turn our hat backward, wear lucky socks, give stubborn hardware a "technical tap". The fact that it seems to work sometimes just makes it even more pervasive.

At any rate, I've got to get back into the middle of this stupid thing. And I might just rename the box, too. Not because I really think the source of the problem is some sort of curse on servers with certain names, but because causing it to create a new record in the DNS table might get us away from the problem in the current one.

Fried Chicken...

The kids are finally in bed, and I've got the kitchen pretty much squared away. I made fried chicken for dinner.

I have to make a lot. They don't eat - they raven. With the boys I count myself lucky if they spit the plate and all the utensils out after they've engulfed it with their pseudopods and begun assembling vacuoles for digestion. They suck it down so quickly I have to watch out for Hawking radiation and make sure there's nothing sharp within a Scwarzschild radius of the table. The girls, who have recently decided they won't touch anything that's not dietetic in some way, will drop their dignity and dig right in to this.

It's a huge pain in the you-guessed-it for all concerned. It makes rather a mess, and it takes forever. I didn't get home from work until after seven, and it took until almost 8:30. My recipe doesn't use as much grease as some, but I have no illusions it's good for you or anything.

It feels good to do it, though. One of those things that seems to quiet the litany of "should" things that sort of plays under each day. The house is a wreck, I've got to get back to work, but I made dinner. All food groups involved, and they liked it. Check one off.

Welcome new readers!

I got quoted in a sermon this week. It wasn't a suprise - they asked first - but it was still kind of embarassing. I'm not used to having people notice this, and I am going to have to figure out how to deal with this. Several people asked me for the URL to this site, and to that entry.

It's buried farther down the page here, but I went ahead and put it someplace a little easier to find. The entry she took that quote from is entitled "The Ministry of the Mini-van" and you can see it by clicking here, or click on the "Concrete" link up in the upper right-hand corner of this page.

New kid over in the Links Bank....

Looks like the guy over on dubious quality got taken to a Cirque de Soleil show. I am still randomly giggling about his description. And he likes one of my colleagues over on Gamerdad. I'm all OVER that.

When the Wires in Your Life Cross...

Two things in my life that have a lot of my strength and time flowing through them have come close to each other. The insulation is peeled back, and I just don't know what's going to happen. I think it will be a good thing once I get it all settled out.

I'm used to writing in secret. I've held to Robert Heinlein's tenant that writing is fine as long as you do it in private and wash your hands well afterward. I haven't been paranoid about it, but it's not something that just comes up in conversation. Most of the people who know that I do this were online, so we were both anonymous to each other except under very special circumstances where we both made enough of a connection to trust and we revealed ourselves to each other. I've never really kept my faith a secret but I do much better sharing it directly, face-to-face than I do shouting into the tempest like this.

I recently outed this blog and some of my other writings to some people who know me in real life. It's the pastor at my church and a bunch of his staff. I figured it couldn't be too bad; my Mom has already found this stuff. She read through it and snail-mailed me a marked up printed copy (she's death on typos). My kids read it, and my blathering over on Slate and Gamerdad, too. I can't have anything up there that's too embarassing. Right?

I did it myself - they didn't discover it. I had asked the youth pastor his advice on a particular piece, and he asked me if he could show it around and it sort of snowballed from there. So far the sentiments have been very positive. Overwhelmingly so. To the point that I'm not quite sure how to handle it. This isn't something I've been doing for notice or fame or because I have some sort of message to impart to the world. I do it because I'm helpless to stop. It really is analogous to an addiction. I estimate that I write at least a 1,000 words a day outside of both my jobs and email. It just happens.

It feels really strange to have people who are able to associate it with the person stumbling through the life depicted. For one thing, I don't think most of them knew just how geeky I really am. Outside of that thread drawn between the pulpit and the pews most of them didn't really know me very well. It was mutual, too. I have learned so much about these people as we've talked about this.

It's been a real inspiration, or maybe it's that same instinct that makes some people clean the house before the maid comes over. ;) Who knows? But I have thought about things I ordinarily don't take the time for. It's really making me think about the contents of the pages I've put up there and my other writings. And it's caused me to take some action. In addition to my other blogs, I'll be adding one for some more spiritual musings. Look for it in the links up on the top right if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Stepping up onto the Parenting Soapbox again...

One of my neighbors got a report home from school about her nine-year-old son. He wasn't reading enough. She didn't know what to do and since she knew all my kids read she asked me how to make him read. I kind of cringed at her phrasing. I asked her what she meant, and she showed me that he was some stupid number of books behind on this class contest-thingy. Don't get me started about that. But I do have some advice that seems to have done the trick at my house.

Don't wait. Get right at this as soon as possible. In know we all are supposed to read to our kids every night and a lot of us do, but many people aren't as religious about it as they can be. They don't really notice the issue until the child is in school. If you wait that long to start following the rest of this advice, you're going to have a whole lot harder time.

Read to them. Can't say it enough. Until they can do it for themselves you are the only connection they have with the worlds stacked on their bookshelves. And you don't have to stop, either. My kids still like to have me read stories to them and they have driver's licenses. No, not every night, but it still happens.

Biggest thing is to DO IT YOURSELF. Right in front of them. See the last paragraph about reading to them, but also make certain that they see you reading to yourself as well. Read what kind of book you like. It doesn't matter; you probably won't affect their preferences at all. My mom read a steady diet of Harlequins, and I assure you that I wouldn't touch one of those things without a hot-suit and a Geiger counter. What matters is you modeling the behavior for them.

Next step - make sure they have books around they like. Once they get the ability to read for themselves, make sure it's there for them to read. I'm not just talking about the classics, either. I'm deliberately leaving out Harry Potter. It's an anamoly, and given the steadily more adult tone of the series you're going to have to make that call for your kids yourself. There's a whole lot more out there. Here are some ideas.

I probably shouldn't have made that crack about the classics. There are some great stories there. For the horse-lover, try Walter Farley's "The Black Stallion" series, "Black Beauty", and "King of the Wind". If your kids have finished Lemony Snicket and are looking around for something else, Roald Dahl and his ilk have wonderful stories for kids who have grown past Dr. Seuss, but aren't ready for Tom Clancy. The real "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is wonderful and strange, and my kids really loved "Witches" (and there's a great film starring Angelica Houston to go with). The REAL "Peter Pan", the original Winnie the Pooh books, and Grimm's fairytales all got good time at my house, too. As they get older, Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and a whole lot of other good swashing and buckling is out there.

Rocketships and moonlandings are still the stuff of dreams. The sci-fi fan is well supplied. Robert Heinlein surprisingly wrote some great sci-fi that's perfect for the tweener/early teen set (just make sure you read through it first if you worry about these things. "Rocketship Galileo", "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Farmer in the Sky", and "Star Beast" are good stories with teen protagonists. When they hit the middle teens, trot out "Starship Troopers" (which isn't at all what you think it is if you're going off the movie), and "Space Cadet". Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" series is excellent but it's even better the second time through with "Ender's Shadow", "Shadow of the Hegemon", and whatever the next one is called. For older teens and grownups, I recommend "Songmaster" and "Treason".

For the fantasy buff, try David Edding's "Belgariad" and "Mallorean" series (the Belgariad is the first five books, and then the Mallorean" is the second). The Xanth Series by Piers Anthony still enchants, as does Robert Aspirin's "Mything Persons" series. I read my kids "just the good parts" of the novel "The Princess Bride" and they loved it. The "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and it's whole series also plays well (and now they get half my jokes). Once they're older, the whole realm of pulp is available. Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan, Alan Quartermain, John Carter are all ready to take them off to a world of not necessarily politically correct adventures.

For young boys, nothing beats military fiction to catch their attention. I know, I know. You don't have to like everything they read, though, and as long as it is written for their audience you might be surprised. Ender's Game is the hand's down champion in our neighborhood for the tweener set. The videogame Halo has three novels out based on it's story that are excellent for the early teen boy (I wouldn't give them to anyone younger than 10). "The Regiment" series by John Dalmas can go pretty young, and he has a couple good books for grownups, too (try The General's President).

I don't know how much of this is going to work. We did get him started on one of the Encyclopedia Brown books, because he likes detective stories. We'll see.

Death of a Grammarian...

Miss Gould is an institution at the New Yorker. Her ability to wrestle the raw prose of even the thinnest hack into clear shape was fundamental to the look and feel of The New Yorker for over fifty years. She died this last weekend, and you can read her obit here. (no registration)

It's obvious from the writing that the staff there truly loved her and understood the place she had in making them better. Godspeed, Miss Gould, and I hope the Lord has a good stock of fine red pencils.

The Ministry of the Mini-Van....

I came in and carefully slumped down in my usual pew where the youth group circles the wagons every week. I was exhausted and sick and really not with it. The text of the day was on Jesus' exhortation to bring the children to him, and I enjoyed the adventures of the Pastor trying to deliver a sermon with all the kids on the stage around him. One little boy had brought a toy with him that kept joining in, but it turned out well. Mr. Lizard is quite the theologian. And it turned again to how we're all supposed to go out and give the message to everyone around us.

Squirm-time again. It gets me. I'm far from the best Christian. Doubting Thomas and I could hang out, and I have far more in common with Jonah (pre-whale) than Peter or Paul. I have many more questions than answers; once you get past John 3:16 my authority starts to run pretty thin. My own adventures in proselytizing have so far turned into me running for help when I step off into the deep end about three questions in. I have talked to people. I have brought friends. When he's up there reminding us it just doesn't seem like enough, though.

After the closing prayer it's off to the Fellowship Hall to track down my Pagan Horde and chivvy the gang off to their various activities. I end up with a couple extra kids who need a ride home. They're all jazzed about getting ready for the next youth activity and reminiscing about previous years. We pile into the car. I get them to their places and do the rest of my appointed rounds, but at the bottom of it I keep thinking about the message and their fond discussion of old snowball fights and who snores the loudest. I thought about the kids who sit in that group, and the others who show up on Wednesday nights. Counting back, quite a few kids who have come and gone through that place have come in the back of my car.

I had never counted them in those little defensive lists I make to myself when that whole spread-the-word topic comes up. I'm not doing this because of some attempt to reach out. The whole neighborhood just seems to congregate at my house all the time. This is just the offshoot of having four kids and managing our life. By the time you include a shifting group of various neighbor kids and whoever is so-and-so's best friend this week you've got a car-full and then off you go.

I mean, it's not like we talk about Jesus all the time. I certainly haven't shared any particular wisdom with them. I drive them places and they hang out with my gang. I listen to the teenage drama and answer homework questions and a lot of "Why does...." and "How do you get past X in that game?" When they have THOSE questions I've helped them get some sort of answers. We sing silly songs and might share a round of mints. But that's not missionary work. Is it?

When Jesus told the Apostles to stop keeping the kids away from him, he was talking to our time as well as his. They face so many challenges today in growing up, and it seems so many people think that once a kid can dress and feed himself their job is done. They don't talk to them, or do more than the minimum. In a sad number of cases the people in their life that should be bringing them to Jesus for his blessing aren't. It's not necessarily those people's fault - they have their own burdens and chains. The stories are heart breaking; over the course of the years I've been doing this I've learned so many things that I wish I didn't know. I've tried, but I can't fix them. But with the utmost respect and love for them and their children, I can help them with this.

I think this might qualify as a mission. I'm not chasing lost sheep in far off lands under threats and fire; seems more like shooting fish in a barrel. But these fish are just as precious as those others being fished for in distant oceans. I'll call it the Ministry of the Mini-Van. It meets several times every day at various locations and for various times. Today's text was "Does Jared Count as a discount-friend For Snow Camp?", "Castle In the Sky - Japanese or English Soundtrack?", and "Weird Melon-thingy We Found in the Produce Section That One Time". The music was the Smothers Brother's version of "The Streets of Laredo" and a recap of the second verse of that one song during worship that they thought sounded weird.

There are far better hands than I for the task of teaching them the specifics. I can listen to their questions, though, and help them talk to the right people for their answers. I can make getting there and being a part of it possible. There are good people around us who know how to show them the word. I will leave the complexities of faith and all that to them until I learn and grow more myself. For now, I'll have to stick with bringing the children.

Adolescent Noir...

The glass door shuts with a dull clunk from the bell on a rope hanging from the closer. The floorboards creak as I step onto the sopping doormat. The boys drop their bags by my feet and head over to talk to an older guy leaning against the far wall with two kids doing pushups on the floor in front of him.

They're joining a gym. I'm not talking about a nancy little yuppie-magnet with a steam room and a juice-bar. I'm talking an old-fashioned boxing gym. I'm not sure this is the best idea, but if it gets us some control on the wrestling around (or at least gets it out of the house!) then I'll go along with it. I'd met this guy, and I know his wife pretty well. He understands about my younger son because one of his sons is in the same class at school. All the stuff I need to know has been dealt with, but just walking in the door is hard. I just stand there and try to look around as pleasantly as I can with ghosts wrapping themselves around my head.

It smells the same. The underlying vinyl competes with that crinkle in your nose from sand being beaten through seamed leather. Someone is wrapping up over in the corner and the adhesive bites right into the back of your tongue as it rolls up onto their knuckles. The ghosts of old sweat overcome the disinfectant tang when the handles of the equipment warm in your hand. The only bright lights in the place are aimed at the ring, and they are angled so they don't flash on the mirrors at all the other stations around the edge so the brown tint in the high windows seeps into all the corners. Jumpropes hang limp over their hooks on a slightly unsteady coat stand, and the lumps of heavy bags and speedbags complicate the edges of the shadows. The thin thump of the rope hitting the floor is punctuated by the flat slap of bootsoles.

Their father was a boxer in his day. Golden Gloves. He loved it. I can't even begin to count how many hours I spent down at the cluttered little basement rooms under the VFW where his coach held sway. Coach was a a crabbed little man, but he never reminded you of Rocky's Mickey. He did look sort of like a leprechaun, but from Kansas. He had harsh tall-corn accent and he rolled his own cigarettes and he sounded like Baby Herman would have if "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" didn't have to keep it's PG rating. I have no idea how old he was but he had stories from three wars to tell and after watching him throw two fractious heavy-weights to the mats by their ear you started to believe them.

He and I got along. He didn't hold any truck with girls in the ring, but he knew that I wasn't exactly a delicate flower. The Saturday before we were properly introduced I had already proved I knew how to punch with my thumb on the outside of my fingers during a bench-clearing "discussion" at a hockey game that had shed gloves from one blue line to the other. As far as he was concerned that was all I needed to know. He let me use the equipment they weren't using and listen to the stories while he ran everyone else ragged. It was a refuge for me in a lot of ways, and I got a lot of good advice just by a strange sort of osmosis. We graduated and went off to college and last I heard he'd retired but one of the guys that used to hang out there when we did is running it now.

Back to dripping on today's doormat. He must have agreed to just start right in because both boys have joined the line of kids doing pushups. We nod at each other, and then I go back out to the car. I've got an hour to kill and too much to do to spend it woolgathering by the door.

I suddenly feel much more balanced in my world-view...

I just spent some time in the care of our local hospital, which is always an experience. I was quite distressed to discover that you can't use a laptop when you're hooked to a ventilator because it might interfere with the machine. WTHeck!?

If this thing is that badly shielded, then I don't want to be hooked up to it! I didn't even need that part, anyways! This must be a huge problem for the hospital with all the geeks around here trying to get something done instead of staring at the ceiling like God and the charge nurse intended. At any rate, that is done, the kids are very very relieved. I sort of found a few spots of floor in my house and I'm back at work.

I just got sent a link to a webpage where someone is trying to derive the stats for the Tachikoma tanks from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for GURPS so they can include them in their game.

To misquote Qui-gon Jin, "There's always a bigger geek." ;)

They Need to Rename "Battlestar Galactica"....

Most of the geekier forums are wibbling about this series premier. Even the normally staid Slate forums have mentioned it a time or two. You'd think I'd be right there, but like many of the original series' frothing fan-freaks I'm staying aloof. They have totally changed the origins and original thrust of the story.

The changes to the character's names is the first thing that busted my chops. I'm sorry, but it isn't the same when Apollo's not his name but his call sign. I know it was totally cheesy, but it worked. In it's own bad Sci-fi way it enhanced the fact that these people were not born in Trenton, New Jersey. They're descended from us, so they did bring all of that mythological stuff along, but they didn't just step off the bus to deliver their lines. And let's all be consistent here - if you're using their old series name as their callsign, then Adama needs to have a different last name and so does Apollo. "Adama" would be his callsign from back when he was a young Viper-jockey. Col. Tigh has the same problem. And if you say, "That's because that would be a stupid callsign!", well, you obviously don't know a lot of real fighter jocks or pilots. Think of the locker-room nicknames from your jr. high, and you'd be pretty close to the usual range.

My youthful jones for Dirk Benedict may be long gone, but it's ghost is slouched against a wall smoking a stogie in the back of that conference room and shaking it's head, with Lorne Greene's is standing right next to it. I could write several thousand words, but those two really encapsulate the two problems I have with the new characterizations. I love Edward James Olmos as an actor and he does good work here. I think he could have done well to anchor a truer version of the story, but with all the other "hip" changes he comes off as too out of touch and tacked on. They may as well have cast Michael Ironside. While there may be someone named "Starbuck", there's no Dirk. That girl is pretty and all and she does allright with a cigar but with so many other re-imaginings they picked out the wrong trademarks that sold the character. It wasn't his cigar and his other contretemps, but his ability to do these things but still feel on a level with the rest of the characters. I mean, they were a bunch of Harry Hairshirts, and here's this kid who never followed a rule in his life that he could break. Somehow you have to believe they would put up with all of this BEFORE the Fall of the Colonies, otherwise Dirk would have been a ground-pounder or in jail. It's very intrinsic to his performance. She says the same things and mauls the same lines, but it doesn't come off as breezily piratical, she comes off way too hardnosed and dark.

The changes to the Cylons from "alien menace" to "disgruntled former slave race" are a major issue. Cylons were not created by humanity, and they are not robots but an alien race whose soldiers were heavily cyborged (hence the "chrome toasters" line). They start off as little alien guys, and as they gain ranks they gain more and more enhancements and modifications, including additional brains. Their rank system is defined by how many brains you have. The Imperious leader has five, and the rest range down from there. The second book "The Cylon Death Machine (Battlestar Galactica, Book 2)" goes into much better detail because parts of it are from the perspective of the commander of a remote outpost. Oh, and before some member of the "Please Please Please Get A Life Club" tries to hit me on this, these books are considered cannon for the original series, as they were written by Glenn A. Larsen himself (he adapted them from the scripts, which he also wrote). And don't #(@*#&$& EVEN get me started about Number 6.

The whole damned thing feels dark. It wasn't supposed to be a dark and grim tale of revenge. It was supposed to be about forces that can't be fought, but you had to fight on anyways and the honor that can be found in that. The Colonists were supposed to be more like the population of London during The Blitz rather than imperialists getting their comeuppance. The point was to highlight an innate goodness in humanity, not to make them semi-innocent pawns to their ancestor's mistakes. That was something we needed to hear back in the depths of the Cold War, and I'm naive enough to think we need to hear it again, too.

I'll have to watch it at some point. I know that. My irritation with it will at some point be superseded by the forces of that geeky need to re-visit and re-invent the things they love. I know this, because it's that very same force that got me through the Richard Hatch books that have come out in recent years. Maybe when it hits DVD I'll get a bottle of wine and watch the series. That way, if I throw stuff at the TV I'll probably miss. ;)

BBSpot's Top 11 Ways Geeks Can Hide Their Geekiness...

11. Shelving the Star Wars and Star Trek videos in the back behind the Steven Seagal films.
10. Calculating their blood alcohol level at the bar while alone in the bathroom.
9. Pouring caffeinated water into Evian bottle before taking it to work.
8. Keeping the AOL icon on desktop.
7. Pretending to use pencil and paper to calculate the tip after a meal instead of just doing it in your head.
6. Putting on Star Fleet uniform at convention hall, not on the bus on the way to the hall.
5. Keeping the programming books under the mattress, next to Playboy and Penthouse.
4. Pretending Liv Tyler poster is for her performance in the video for Crazy, not for her role as Arwen in The Lord of the Rings.
3. Rearranging CD collection so it's not in alphabetical order before friends come over.
2. Cleaning the office.
1. Only answering the phone with "Engineering this is LaForge" after checking caller id to make sure it's one of your friends from the Linux Users Group.

A new addition to the Links Bank...

Going crazy, but wanted to point out a new addition to our links bank. Dandy and Company caught me with their Christmas crossover with PVP, and it looks like we've all got some reading to do. Enjoy!

Happy Christmas!

I got it all done to the best of my ability, but that meant I got to bed at 7:30 this morning. They woke me promptly at 8, and I've been fielding kids and family and friends ever since.

My brother-in-law is teaching my daughters how to play Texas Hold-em with my eldest. One of my daughters is threatening mayhem to her brother's social life due to his betting strategies. My younger son has dropped off into an Xbox-football-and-tryptophan-induced stupor on the couch, and I've served the pies and gotten the kitchen to the point where I won't be afraid to go in there without a whip and a chair to make breakfast before church.

I love having him here, but I just want to go to bed and pull the covers up over my head. I've finally caught the creeping yuck that's been going around the office just to top it off.

Merry Christmas. I'm always grateful, though. Somehow it always turns out. Even with all the madness we've been going through, it all came together and we've all had a good day. So thanks to God, to Foamy, to the several people who helped, to the family and their generousity, to the guy who went way above and beyond the call and made it possible for all of us to be here, to the kids for stepping outside their usual Tazmanian-Devil cloud of sibling revelry.

Are you...

... actively nauseated by the sight of the Halloween and Christmas displays side by side in the stores?

... contemplating setting out elf-traps to catch the little buggers who do this to your meticulously wrapped strings of lights in the storage shed over the summer?

... trying to find something in the store your cute little neice begged for over the phone last night, but you can't remember what it was called or anything else about it other than it was pink and frilly?

... certain there is something fundamentally disturbing about Garth Brooks singing a swing arrangement of "Sleigh Ride" or Barbara Streisand singing "Ave Maria"? Or, for the piece de resistance, Rush Limbaugh reciting "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" (I actually own a CD with that on it, and no I don't listen to it EVER).

... more annoyed by the concept of wrapping another present than the kids' loud rap music?

... practicing how to smile graciously while gritting your teeth when your least favorite aunt "compliments" your cooking like she does every year?

... wondering exactly when did a glowing deer with an extension cord in it's backside start to say "holidays"? They are all over the place! And they could have at least wired the thing so the cord plugs in around the hoof or something.

Well, you're not alone. We've started the seasonal rush around here. I knew I was running late when they had the electric venison up on the roof of the mall before I got the lights out of their boxes. Then they Kringle'd the living daylights out of my usual Starbucks before I got my lists even written. Here we go again.

I'm dredging through the house, trying to find Christmas, and also trying to find the Christmas spirit. I have a batch of my infamous shortbread cookies baking, and I'm also trying to figure out how to hang the wall decorations I want to do. I wish I had a great idea of some sort. Simple and clean is harder than the usual eclectic jumble we have hanging around. I've had a few glimmers, but then when I try to put them in my diagram they look stupid. It's like the keyboard and the graphics pad keep the good parts for themselves or something. Or it could be that I have my wall section drawings reversed - it fits much better the other way. Sheesh.

The kids are counting down to the last day of school before Christmas Break and compiling their long long lists. We've had our in-house drawing for who gets a gift for who, so they're plotting and planning behind each other's backs in a good cause. I've gotten a few hints already, and this is going to be interesting. I did find the perfect gift for my boss, and my mother's favorite perfume. Yorick (the skull from Halloween) is currently perched on top of the pile of opened boxes of decorations and stuff. The kids had put him up next to my "Nightmare before Christmas" Advent calendar, figuring it sort of fit the motif. I don't think he'll be staying, though. Maybe I'll mail that thing to my mother this year along with her present.... But then I'd have to explain it. Maybe not.

I just found my Christmas CD's, so that helps. They were in a box marked "exterior decorations", or at least that's what it would read in Klingon - I must have been using a tube of lipstick or something to mark with when I got this stuff put away last year. Nat King Cole is wafting through the house crooning about flying reindeer and silent nights. And it is quiet. The kids are nestled all snug in their beds, with visions of the modern teen equivalent of sugarplums dancing in their heads. The cookies came out, so I have glistening golden stars all over my countertops and the whole house smells of butter and almonds. The printer is spitting out my cards for this year - Aaron Williams over at Nodwick has done it again.

I feel like this is the part of Christmas that's for me. The rest of the whirl and bustle are for the kids and family and friends. I love that part too, but it's not mine. This time, when I get to get everything ready is my celebration. I get to do some things I really enjoy that I rarely take time to do the rest of the year. It's busy, it's a terrible pain in the backside, but it truly is the most wonderful time of the year. Or it will be, as soon as I get these ^)@%$* lights untangled.

How to make a Proper Pumpkin Pie....

This recipe is not just a list of ingredients. The making of a proper pumpkin pie must follow the proper steps and take the proper time in order for it to be savored.

First, pumpkin pie must be made at oh-dark-hundred the night before the meal it accompanies. You do not do this at a time when normal humans (or the children) walk the earth. If werewolves aren't howling at the moon, give it another hour. This is for three reasons.

1. If you make it, they will eat it. Now! Not after the dinner when you want it. The only way to foil them is to bake late and store securely. A decommissioned missile silo works well if available. I get by with a bank vault and a pirate's lair with lots of traps.


2. You will never have time to do it earlier that same day due to the aforementioned children and all the other dreck you have to get together.


3. Tomorrow you are going to have a velociraptor taking up the oven for nine hours, remember? I assure you, the only other thing that's going to fit is just enough of your hand to burn the heck out of it while basting.

Second, this activity cannot occur in a clean kitchen with counter space. I don't know why. It's a mystery. I just know that I've never had a bake turn out properly if I started out with a spotless kitchen. Besides, with the kids doing the dishes this is a mythological event.

Now you must assemble all your ingredients. This recipe makes four desert pies, and three breakfast tarts. Put the things you assemble into three stacks.

Stack 1
- four cups of sugar, plus an indeterminate scoop because that doesn't look like enough
- 10 grinds on the nutmeg grinder
- a palm of salt
- a palm of ginger
- a palm of allspice
- half a palm-full of cloves
- four palms of cinnamon
- several random shakes and grinds from the spice jars listed above because it doesn't look right
- eight eggs

Stack 2
- 2 large cans pumpkin (not that mix stuff)
- four 12 oz. cans evaporated milk

Stack 3
- four regular pie pans dressed with crust (Pillsbury only if minions have been particularly evil or kitchen in particularly advanced state of higgeldy-piggeldy)
- three of the holes in the mini-loaf pan dressed with crust
- 75 foot roll of Reynolds, of which you only need about a foot right now
- Three beers; two root and one stout
- half recipe worth of banana bread batter

Now it's time to start putting it all together. After you've washed the large mixing bowl from making the pie crust, open a rootbeer and put Stack 1 ingredients into the bowl, dry stuff first, then eggs. Beat sensless with rubber spatula. Add Stack 2. Beat senseless again with rubber spatula. Pour brown mess still left in bowl into the pie pans and the crusted mini-loaf pans. Cover edges of crust with strips of tinfoil, struggling manfully to not poke it into the mousse-part so it bakes in there like that. Fill un-clad mini-loaf pans with banana bread batter.

Remember you forgot to turn on oven, so read pumpkin can to see temp. Giggle at their dumb theatrics about preheating and that whole one-temp-for-15-minutes-and-then-turn-down gig. Set oven to happy medium and then remember it's witch-tit cold outside tonight so turn it up another five degrees. Put first two pies in immediately on the center rack with a baking sheet on the lower rack to diffuse heat and to make sure any spills are deflected directly onto the heating element while still baking into an evil black metallic object on the sheet. Consume rootbeer, read book, and shoo house-apes back into bed at random intervals for 55 minutes. Spend five minutes trying to find a safe spot to lay down book and figure out what kids did with hot-pads. Remove first two pies carefully from oven and place on cooling rack.

Put second two pies in their place in the oven. Open second rootbeer. Repeat last baking experience, only watch for smoke coming out of oven from baking sheet getting too hot to deal with the spills. Move cooled pies on rack to bank vault. Remove pies and baking sheet from oven. Pies go on rack, baking sheet goes across burners of stovetop where it can properly singe your eyebrows for next step.

Place mini-loaf pan in oven with the banana bread towards the front where the oven is cooler. Open stout. Continue to bake at exactly the same temp irregardless of the directions for half an hour. While this is baking, do dishes and clean up counters and do any other prepwork possible for tomorrow and consume the beer.

Remove cooled pies from rack and place them in pirate's cave (diversification is good in baking, too). Open oven and once you are done wincing away from the steam-burns on your corneas, poke banana bread with toothpick. If done, remove and shut off oven. Place rack across top of loaf-pan, and using a towel to hold it all together, turn as one unit and leave until the tarts fall out. You will be able to see this clearly because the pan is stilted up on the banana bread's tops.

By this time, beer will be done and so will you. Cover three loaves of banana bread and the three tarts with a kitchen towel to decoy the kids in the morning and hit the sack. Set alarm clock for six for humor's sake. Remember, tomorrow's the big day! ;)

If this server was a horse, I'd have to shoot it....

The servers at Blogger have their knickers knotted firmly around their ankles. Hopefully this gets through. I have several tomes of great signifigance to add, but I think we'll just try this first.

To keep you occupied, take a look at this piece of art. It's called "There Is Nothing Wrong In This Whole Wide World" by Chris Cobb. He re-arranged a bookstore's inventory by color. I don't know if it's art, but you can't help but feel something's going on here by looking at it. There's some pictures here so you can see for yourself.

This sort of thing can't continue.....

On another board, someone sent in a link to this blog entry. Reading it ran a chill down my back. Not horror; sort of a "But for the grace of God..." kind of thing.

I wish I could tell this lady that her experience is unique, but I can't. Heck, I can't even say it's only limited to that particular type of business. I've seen this in all aspects of the software industry, not just games development. People I know tell me it's not even limited to computers - it's everywhere. There is a huge disconnect between the various layers of management, marketing, and development.

It used to be that when a guy got to a certain point in a business, it was because he either started the company, or started out as their entry level position and worked his way up the ladder. He managed the process of making chairs because he'd made a lot of chairs. He knew down to the itch of the sawdust on his nose what it took. With the rise of "management" as a profession, the process of doing the work became totally unhooked from most of the people who make the decisions. A guy in charge of the company may have never have held a saw in his life. Back in the day, there was no "marketing with a big M". Sales and advertising were handled mostly by the manager with a few flacks, but is now considered it's own animal and has absolutely no connection with how either of the other areas operate. This is causing major problems in all walks of business.

With software development, we can have several more festive variations on this basic theme. You'll often get a manager who has to ask his secretary how to paste a link into his email and has about as much of an idea of what you do all day as you do of what he does all day. You can get a former coder sitting in that corner office who is totally lacking in the skills to manage people or a project, which both sinks the schedule and you're now short his real expertise as well. Or, my personal favorite is when you get a guy who's so new or is completely out of his depth in just about every area and he doesn't have any technical or upper-level management skills (Can you say dot-bomb? I knew that you could).

Even without the open malice towards workers that is decribed in that blog entry, the whole situation still stinks. In far too many cases, marketing drives the schedule based on promises it makes to management. Management has no real way of assessing or handling either their requests or developments protests intelligently. They have no idea what it requires to actually do what marketing insists is necessary, so they throw it at a middle-guy along with an insane delivery date. In the worst case scenario, this person has absolutely no idea how any of the groups do what they do and who has the thankless task of trying to serve at least two masters and no authority, either. They then pass the savings on to the workers with sweat-shop grade working conditions.

Going with a small company is no garantee. I've seen this sort of BS in the biggest and smallest companies. I have stories you would not believe of some of the nonsense I've been through in the big houses. The small company I work for now used to be a nightmare until the CEO's face got so rubbed into the complete inability of the guy he had doing project management to deal with the machinations of the marketing guy that he took the reins back. They were literally driving the company into the ground, one customer at a time.

He's not a hardcore geek, but he built this company from a BBS back in 1987 to what it is today. He had delegated the project management jobs right before I started because they'd convinced him that the company had grown past that. He took back over and since then we've had a remarkable improvement in both our ability to deliver and our ability to add value to the product. It took nearly six months of 90+ hour weeks to get our feet under us after two years of Charlie Foxtrot, but we were glad to do it because we finally got to fix some stuff that had been making our jobs about a thousand times harder.

We've still got some loose tentacles on our octopus, but the body's been stapled firmly in place and that helps a lot. It's been a steady 50 hours a week or so for the last three months except for spikes caused by unexpected stuff (showstopper bugs found two days before ship, that sort of thing). That sort of thing is expected in any business, though.

It's no accident that most of the large and successful software firms are headed by former geeks who used to handle the code. They either had the management ability as well as the coding skills, or they were smart enough to realize where they were lacking and get their hands on someone they could work with who had them. There is where you get your Microsofts, your Oracles, your Pixars.

Bill Gates changed his role in his company very sharply several years go. In a highly publicized move, he announced that things needed to get back to brass tacks. He handed the reins off to Ballmer and got wrist-deep in the code again. Many industry people were pushing a standing eight on them and saw this as just a sort of highly paid retirement plan. It doesn't seem to be working out that way, though. The shifts in Microsoft's strategies are paying off, real progress in key areas have been made, and there's some amazing stuff on the way. I see this maneuver and it's success as an open acknowledgement that things can't go on the way they were. It makes a great case study of exactly why it's necessary. id Software's adventures with Doom, and Scaled Composites recent accomplishments are other examples of guys who know how to turn the nut jumping back in and driving the ship to success.

Companies must begin to realize that when actual product is involved, having experience generating that product is a considerably more important attribute than "management skills". Marketing needs to have all the calendars removed from their offices - they drive features, not the schedule. The attitude that "if you won't do it, there's a dozen just like you waiting in the wings" or even "just get some guys in Islamabad to do it" is just a shift, it doesn't actually fix anything and adds it's own set of problems. Besides, we're running out of other worlds to send work to get it done cheap. Wages in India are rising steadily in the high-tech fields, and a tide of gentrification is already starting to erode your new and magical profits.

I don't have a working crystal ball, and I don't want to make any gloom and doom prognostications. I do honestly believe that a shift has to be made though, before it's too late. We have got to get people who know how to do the work in charge of the work, and make some fundamental changes in the way we do business. At least if you ever want it done on time, to spec, or without killing your workers.