The Northwest Randomizer

Carrying the Fire

2011-11-28T16:28:00.001-08:00

I wanted to post my initial impressions of my new Amazon Kindle Fire. This isn't meant to be full review, but I did want to capture these while they were fresh and while people were thinking about Christmas gifts.

I've had my Kindle Keyboard with 3G for a little over a year now and I still love it. I have read a lot on it and take it with my often. I also play games (especially Every Word) on it and occasionally browse the web on it - courtesy of the free 3G connectivity. Most of all, I love the fact that I can just charge it about once a month. I mention all of this because these things actually make for a tough act to follow for it's new brother - the Kindle Fire. Maybe it is more of a half-brother, because other than the name they don't really have any relationship at all.
The Fire is a true tablet computer. It has a gorgeous IPS screen - the same type of screen as the iPad in fact. And it can do a lot more than the Kindle reader devices. You can read and edit Microsoft Office documents, you can play Angry Birds or a gazillion other games, you can browse the web in all its glory. And you can consume all sorts of media on it - especially if that media comes from Amazon. It does Facebook, you kids can do your Twittering on it, it does Pintrest, it has a servicable email app (and you can get others from the app market - including those that support Exchange sync, which is lacking in the included mail program).

When I first heard Jeff Bezos announce the Fire, I wasted no time placing my preorder that verymorning. It wasn't perfect (more on that in a moment) but it looked like asolid device and seemed to be well integrated into the Amazon family ofservices. I waited for the release on November 15, scouring the interwebs acouple times a week looking for any scrap of information I could find.
Finally the glorious day arrived and my Kindle Fire arrived at my house - whileI was on a cruise to Mexico. :-(One of my older kids was home from collegesoon after it arrived and I gave her the go ahead to unbox it and play aroundwith it. When I got home I wasted no time in playing with it.
The very next day we headed out for a roadtrip to share Thanksgiving withfamily out of state - and the Fire came along.

While it certainly won't win any beauty contests, I am impressed with the device itself. It issolidly constructed and not in the least "plasticy" or cheap feeling.The size andweight feels pretty good in the hand. The battery seems to deliver on the 6-8hour lifetime Amazon claimed. For the most part, the device is very responsiveto touch input, though not as silky smooth as the iPad. The soft keyboardis good and very usable. The automatic screen rotation is a bit too sensitiveat times - particularly when the device is held more flat; certainly not uniqueto the Fire, but a little annoying. I found the speakers and volume reallylacking - especially given the media-centric nature of the device. Thememory - totaling only about 6GB of available space - has been completely usable so far and I've installed what feels like a lot of stuff without a problem. Obviously, more would be better if you intended to storepictures, music and video on-board. You wouldn't find a 6GB MP3 player very useful. Amazon seems to be relying on their "cloud" for unlimited storage of music, books, and videos you buy from Amazon. All well and good, but it won't help you on an airplane flight.

The biggest failings of the hardwareare clearly the lack of even a low res camera and an SD card slot. To be clear,I'm not even looking to use the SD card to boost media storage, but I wouldlike to be able to look at pictures from my camera on a bigger screen and usesome kind of cool app to organize them. Another annoyance, though of lessimportance to me, is the exclusion of a microphone. No microphone and no cameramean no Skype or other web calling and conferencing. Not to mention no snazzy bar code price checking apps, and no Shazam to tell me what song is playing.
On the software side, almost the biggest complaints are the poor performance of themuch touted web browser (my phone is faster over 3G than this browser is overwifi) and the inconsistent availability of common gestures such as zooming inand out.
I know pretty well what this hardware is capable of, and I'm puzzled why Amazonis not using that potential to deliver better performance.
My absolute biggest software complaint, though, is that there is no notion of "users" or "profiles". So when I play Angry Birds, I see that my kid has already unlocked a gazillion levels and I have to remember where I left off. My browser faves are everyone's browser faves. My saved passwords are everyone's saved passwords. I get that this is not my PC, but my Xbox isn't a PC either and it has profiles. I just think this is super lame. (I would say "uber lame", but apparently that is uber lame now.)

I've seen a lot of haters talking smack about the unique Fire user interface. Iactually applaud what Amazon has done here. It is visually interesting andquite functional. I guess I'd call the home screen a "carousel-shelf"sort of effect. The upper part of the screen looks like a bookshelf thatpermits flicking quickly through your most recently used apps, books, and othermedia items. In the Fire world, a movie is an app, so is a book, so is a game.I think this matches closely to how people actually think of things. You don'tthink "I'm going to open the eBook reader and read 'Animal Farm',"you just tap the icon for the book.
Let's face it - the normal Android UI sucks. Kudos to Amazon for bringing theirown innovations here. We'll see what people think about it.
Similarly, a lot of internet chatbots have complained that the device is basedon Android 2.3 rather than a newer version. Here's the simplefact...none of the target customers of this device care what the OS is. Itcould be MSDOS 2.3 for all it matters. From most people's perspective,"Amazon" is the operating system.
There are lots of apps in the Fire app store and I had no problems installingand using them. Amazon's "free app of the day" program is very cool.In addition to a few games, I also picked up that aforementioned Documents To Go app, which normallyretails for $14.95 and is really quite an impressive MS Office stand-in. Thefree Netflix app on the Fire is probably the best mobile Netflix experience onany device right now (yup, better than the iPad - but I'm sure they will bringthat version up to par soon enough

When I wrote the original draft of this post, I had planned to end it with this ignoble conclusion:

So what am I planning to do next with my Fire? Well, unfortunately, the answeris "return it". The reason is really not related to the deviceitself. Most of its quirks could be fixed by a software update. The biggestproble is that I have just found nothing that I do on the Fire that I couldn'tdo as well or better on my ASUS netbook (link). In fact, when I'm traveling, Ican connect my netbook to the internet by tethering to my phone. I can't dothat on my Fire. Connectivity is the feature I want in a device.
Tablets in general just don't do much.
I was discussing this conclusion with an iPad devoted sister-in-law and shepointed out that her iPad was great for checking Facebook, watching YouTubevideos, playing games and checking her email. I agree. But I already have athing that does all those things in my netbook and does them faster and withfewer limits. She also pointed out that while the iPad keyboard isn't thegreatest for writing a lot of text, she has a friend who bought a keyboard casefor his iPad - creating in the process the world's most expensive and leastcapable netbook. :-)
Amazon has an interesting offering in the tablet scene - but it turns out that scene is justtoo lame.

But an interesting thing happened on the Fire's way back to its box to be sent back... my wife loves it and has put the kibosh on sending it back. This makes a certain kind of sense. She is also out of the house a lot, but when she is out she is either actually doing something or is with someone. When she's with someone, she is much more curteous about not having her mind elsewhere (or her face in a screen) then, well, me, for example. When she's home, she is well covered by WiFi.
The Fire is an interesting device. It is easily, easily, the best tablet you can buy right now for $199. I say that not just because of the device itself but the whole app and content ecosystem and package of services that stand behind it. I've very interested to see the forthcoming 8.9 and 10 inch successors next year. It has been widely spoken of that this first iteration of the Fire was a stopgap that Amazon chose because the ones they really wanted to sell couldn't be built in quantity in time for Christmas this year. To meet that timeline, they went with an existing design - the Blackberry Playbook. I look forward to the next one.

Are we a nation at war or not?

2011-04-01T11:47:00.001-07:00

"We are not at war," a veteran who served in the Army for eight years told me Wednesday in Maryland. "Only some of us are."
I wasn't initially sure how to feel about that statement. The painful events of the next 48 hours showed that he was on to something.

So begins today’s post on The Unknown Soldiers, a blog by columnist Tom Sileo. Tom gives a brief bio of six 101st Airborne soldiers killed in Afghanistan on March 30 and asks why we didn’t hear about this on the news. It’s a good question. Seems like a couple years ago we heard lengthy reporting about every US casualty and a constant running count of our total losses in Iraq and Afghanistan – but no more.

For older people who think of war through the prism of Vietnam, it is important to make the point that these are different times. These are not wide-eyed 19 year old draftees, or men who are out of options. These are professional soldiers who could do other things if they chose to do so. These are men who have enlisted or re-enlisted, sometimes several times, since the war in Afghanistan began in the aftermath of 9/11 almost 10 years ago.

Staff Sgt. Bryan A. Burgess, 29
Pfc. Dustin J. Feldhaus, 20
Sgt. 1st Class Ofren Arrechaga, 28
Staff Sgt. Frank E. Adamski III, 26
Spc. Jameson L. Lindskog, 23
Pvt. Jeremy P. Faulkner, 23

They had parents, wives and girlfriends, some of them had children. Spc Lindskog was a combat medic, a 68-Whiskey (Army MOS 68W), who was caring for his wounded comrades when he was killed. I wonder if we’ll see any politicians or pundits up-in-arms about this violation of the Geneva Conventions? I’m guessing not.

While I don’t know the circumstances of these soldiers, I do know personally many soldiers who have volunteered to go to Afghanistan and Iraq. In my reserve unit, we recently had one of our officers who transferred to another unit just so he could go back and keep doing his job. It’s not bloodlust or crazed desire for the ugliness of war. It’s quiet professionalism and a sense that there is a burden that needs to continue to be carried, even when their friends and neighbors seem to have lost interest. I’m reminded of my own post from October 2010 about Medal of Honor recipient Robert Miller, where I quoted George Orwell speaking of “rough men ready to do violence” on our behalf.

I’ll end with Tom’s closing words from his post:

Are we a nation at war? I still believe the answer is yes. Yet we are also a nation at a crossroads. We cannot think about war only when it's convenient or when someone from our town is killed. To stand by as this pattern develops not only dishonors the brave men and women volunteering to fight, but puts at risk everything they fight for.
To me, being a nation at war means uniting behind our troops and paying attention to their sacrifices. The time for America to do both is now.

Fun new multilateralism…now including al Qaida!

2011-03-23T13:21:00.001-07:00

In a previous post, I questioned the wisdom of involving ourselves in Libya’s internal civil war.

Now that we’ve let dozens of expensive missiles off the chain and lost one of my favorite airplanes (and shot some friendly villagers in the rescue of the pilot), I still think it’s a really bad idea.

In fact, a couple days ago, I coined the “Pulsipher Doctrine” to reduce the decision making process for involvement in military campaigns to simple mathematics. In this case, binary mathematics…

“If France and Italy are strongly in favor of the operation, don’t do it.”

Pulsipher Doctrine, version 1

As Jay Leno said last night, “Do you notice how shiny all the French planes are? It’s like they’ve never been used before!”

However, after reading press reports today of al Qaida support for the Libyan rebels, I have revised my doctrine:

“If France and Italy, or a worldwide terror network whom you are already fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, the Philippines and many other global garden spots, are strongly in favor of the operation, don’t do it.”

Pulsipher Doctrine, version 2

That’s right folks…this fun new multilateralism is SO expansive and open minded that we’ve found ourselves indirectly allied with our mortal enemy. That can’t be a very good sign.

Kidding aside, let me list a few of the obvious problems with our involvement in Libya:

NATO is not the right organization for this. NATO’s charter is to defend member states (Libya isn’t one) against aggression – this is Article 5 of the NATO charter. Article 5 is why NATO was involved in Afghanistan after 9/11 – which is the first time Article 5 was ever invoked.
A “No Fly Zone” doesn’t normally involve interdiction of ground operations – a.k.a. blowing up tanks.
We don’t know who we are supporting. The same is true in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, etc. Not every conflict involves good guys and bad guys. Sometimes two bad guys fight. Is that the case here? We don’t seem interested in finding out. The British sent a team in to make contact with the rebels in early March, and the rebels captured them and sent them packing in disgrace.
Finally, no one in the administration, from the president on down, seems to be able to elaborate on any plan or goals. They can tell us “no ground troops – ever” and “we’re going to quit soon”, but aside from informing Gadhafi of our limits, the rationale is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. If it is about saving oppressed people, there are plenty of those around who are daily being shot at and threatened and we don’t seem as eager to engage in those places.

So after complaining about two wars in Muslim countries – including one “war of choice”, President Obama has now chosen to start a third. What’s more, the “coalition” that Obama has joined (when he wasn’t busy with his NCAA brackets) is half the size of the Bush’s “unilateral” attack on Iraq. As reported, Bush’s coalition consisted of:

Coalition Countries - Iraq - 2003

Afghanistan	Albania
Australia	Azerbaijan
Bulgaria	Colombia
Czech Republic	Denmark
El Salvador	Eritrea
Estonia	Ethiopia
Georgia	Hungary
Italy	Japan
South Korea	Latvia
Lithuania	Macedonia
Netherlands	Nicaragua
Philippines	Poland
Romania	Slovakia
Spain	Turkey
United Kingdom	Uzbekistan

Coalition Countries – Libya – 2011

Belgium	Canada
Denmark	France
~~Germany~~	Greece
~~Italy~~	Jordan
Morocco	Norway
Poland	Qatar
Spain	United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom	al Qaida*

*Italy and Germany were on the list, but have sort of bailed out at this point. Luckily al Qaida has been added to the Libyan coalition based on the new information reported above. And with so few members in the coalition, another participant does help pad the list.

As a side note, just let me say about the Iraq coalition, anytime you can get Ethiopia and Eritrea on the same side of anything, that’s pretty good diplomacy.

Target: Libya

2011-03-11T00:32:00.001-08:00

The news lately from Libya and hearing the names of important places in the conflict like Ras Lanuf, Sirte, Brega, Benghazi stirred my memory to a past military career - not my current one, my old one. I thought back to 1987 and my memories of anxious hours spent in missions over some of these exact same locations that occupy the news coverage right now.

I dug out one of my old target maps of the AO (Area of Operations) and memories came flooding back.

Missions start with a target briefing. In this case, you can see the target is the oil terminal at Ras Lanuf – so much discussed of late. Get ready for some $5 gas, people. We all have to sacrifice!

The next step is to select the proper armament for the mission. In this case, I will be taking one stick of Sidewinders – for self-defense against Libya’s still capable air force. I’ve got a couple Mavericks for stand off attacks on patrol boats or surface to air missile sites. For the actual target run, I’ve selected a mix of laser guided GBU-12 bombs and incendiary cluster bombs. How about a little fire there, Scarecrow? Perfect for attacking an oil facility.

Sitting in the dark, my palms began to sweat. I review the map and mission brief. Then I kick the tires, light the fires and take off into the dark.
My eyes wander between my various displays and controls and out the cockpit to see the inky blackness of the Gulf of Sirte. An alarm sounds – stealth or no, a patrol boat has a radar lock on me.

It’s already dawn as I approach Ras Lanuf. One of the things I remember about Libya in the 1980s was the startling lack of dimensionality in the structures.

I hit the target, drop down to Angels 2 and book it out of the air defense envelope.

Yes, I remember those many hours sitting in the dark office room of our Japanese apartment flying mission after mission over Libya, Iran and eastern Europe. Good old Microprose Project Stealth Fighter on the Commodore 64. So intense and yet so educational. I feel well prepared to watch the news now.
And I’m very glad that I still have my original C-64 (and several others). I also have my original copy of Project Stealth Fighter that I waited excitedly to be released back in 1987 (along with two other pristine copies I bought in case anything happens to the original).

On the other hand, maybe I should have spent more of those nighttime hours with my lonely newly married wife instead.

The new Microsoft “Transform” tablet…

2011-03-04T16:33:00.001-08:00

…and I scored one for FREE!!!
You gotta love working at a company where you get great swag like a free tablet just for showing up at an all-hands meeting for the new, reorganized Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB) group.

This new tablet is super portable, lightweight and runs basically forever. These aren’t available publicly yet, but I am giving you a first glimpse right here.

You can see here that this new tablet has a very familiar and approachable look. Other than the little Xbox logo in the corner, you could easily mistake this for any traditional pad of paper.

A deeper look shows that the while the familiarity remains, this is a much more sophisticated device.

By quickly flipping open the “smart cover”, the tablet is instantly ready for you to use. No long boot up sequence. Notice that it looks like a regular sheet of paper, but with a twist. The Transform tablet “pages” are imprinted with a special SmartGrid that actually helps the user keep their lines straight – both horizontally and vertically. And turning the pages requires just a swipe of a finger – although in this first release you do sometimes need to lick your finger first. That should be fixed in an update to be released soon.

The ability to manage your calendar and contacts is a must for any serious tablet contender. The Transform tablet doesn’t skimp on in these areas. The calendar shows a full year at a glance and allows you to zoom in on a single month, week or day simply by holding the tablet closer to your face.

When it comes to contacts, the Transform tablet allows you to store as many as 10(!) friends – which is way more than anyone who works in the software business will ever need.

Like it or not, there’s no disputing the fact that the less sophisticated iPad has shown how important it is to have a lot of fun and engaging multiplayer games available. The Transform tablet not only has great games available right now, but thanks to the Smart Pad multitasking, you can play any number of games at the same time – limited only by how many fit on the page at the same time.

Games are not enough though. You need productivity too. Thankfully, the Transform tablet support rich handwriting and drawing capabilities. You can easily take notes during a meeting and use simple gestures to make quick changes and modifications and save the notes for later use. You can easily add headings, bullets, and add emphasis – simply by using the gestures you already know!

I know what you are wondering…“Will this tablet connect with my the phone I have today?” You’ll be happy to know the answer is a resounding “YES!” You can easily set your phone on top of the pad to prop it up, or you can put the pad on top of the phone to keep dust off your phone. And you can use the phone at the same time as you use the tablet.

I, for one, am SUPER EXCITED about that Microsoft is finally, finally stepping into the tablet game and that they’ve not simply copied what competitors are doing. For example, it was a decision to go beyond just leaving out Cut & Paste (as with Windows Phone 7) but to eliminate electronics entirely – saving weight and improving overall reliability! How else to describe that than BOLD!

Musings on tyranny, rebellion and national sovereignty

2011-03-02T12:17:00.001-08:00

The recent events in the Middle East and Africa – Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Oman, Bahrain, etc. - have me wondering about the right of sovereign nations when it comes to internal rebellion.

Many southern contemporaries considered Abraham Lincoln a tyrant. In fact, after shooting him, John Wilkes Booth famously jumped to the stage and shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis” (Latin for “Thus always to tyrants” and also the state motto of Virginia). To this day, there continues to be a slow simmering debate on the topic, as illustrated by Dave Gibson’s article from 2005. Brad Schaeffer rightly referred to “Lincoln the ‘tyrant’ – the Libertarian’s favorite bogeyman”. At the very least, it can be agreed that Lincoln suspended aspects of the Constitution in order to save the whole of it. To his defense, his was neither the first nor the last administration to take such measures during wartime and that historically seems to be within the authority of the Executive under our system.

Clearly, I’m neither equating Gadhafi with Lincoln, nor coming out in favor of tyranny generally here. Many of the leaders in these country were at best benign dictators and often far worse. Rather my point is to what extent the recognized government of a sovereign nation has the right to put down uprisings – particularly organized and armed uprisings – within its own borders. Despite press reports – which seem forever drawn to the romanticism of the “peasant uprising” – when the “protesters” start to look like the ones in this picture manning the anti-aircraft gun, they stop being civilians and start becoming legitimate military targets.

In all the political debates about Libya, no one is debating that Gadhafi is the recognized head of state of the recognized government of Libya and has been, unfortunately, for decades. And yet, there seems to be a strange level of comfort with other nations telling that government what they should do – perhaps at threat of force. As US Defense Secretary Robert Gates called out in Congressional testimony today, even imposing a no-fly zone requires a military attack against Libya.

Consider, though, if today South Carolina attacked Ft Sumter and seceded and the US federal government moved against them, would the UN put a no fly zone in-place and urge restraint? Would Lincoln have listened? Should he have?

One genius of the US as a federal republic is that it is NOT a democracy. Thomas Jefferson famously regarded democracy as “mob rule”. Plato, in his criticism of democracy, quoted Socrates:

“Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike.”

Nation-states are not required to commit governmental suicide in order to legitimize every form of popular protest. If this were the requirement, we’d have had no recourse against the Confederacy, slavery would not have been abolished, and other portions of the United States would probably have seceded in subsequent years for other reasons.

When there is sufficient energy in a society to stand up for themselves and force a change (for better or worse), then those people and groups need to be willing to take the risks and establish their own legitimacy before other nations rush in to make things “right”. In fact, it is this very type of well intentioned external meddling that has led to long term instability in countries from Cuba to the Philippines to just about every country in Latin America. As a society, these countries were bestowed with representative governments before they had attained the level of literacy, education, and financial stability to prevent them from sliding into corruption – which is the tendency of all forms of government.

Re$istance is futile

2011-02-25T11:30:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I felt drawn to buy a netbook but was trying to resist because I couldn’t think of any kind of good reason. Well, to the surprise of no one, I did actually go ahead and buy it anyway. I’m not much for resisting the temptation to buy stuff once I start thinking about it – and I guess I’m doing my part to keep the economy going. I decided to go for the ASUS 1015PN in gloss white. I went definitely wanted the dual core CPU and was swayed to the NVIDIA graphics by the small price difference.

The netbook arrived just a couple days before a trip, so I got a chance to put it through its paces for real. It is a sweet, sweet PC. Since this one has a 10” screen, which is just a bit larger than my daughter’s 9” netbook, the entire thing is just a bit bigger. This is actually a good thing, as it allows for a pretty nice and usable keyboard. I was able to work on it quite naturally. The battery life is excellent, approaching about 7 hours of actual use if you have the WiFi off, the screen brightness low, and the CPU power saving on.

The only problem I experienced was that the memory upgrade that Amazon suggests for this model is not actually the right one. I returned that and ordered the correct one directly from Crucial. It didn’t arrive until I got back home but it snapped right in and worked like a charm.

I’d installed Microsoft Office 2010 and while it worked fine and had some nice features – like the customizable ribbon and sweet Excel Sparkline graphs – it was just too dang big and slow loading for my tastes. Plus, the Office Search Commands add-in doesn’t work on it and I really like that. I’m just in the process of uninstalling 2010 and putting Office 2007 on in its place. Outlook remains a complete stoopid pig of an application in either version – so at least they are consistent. <sarcasm> Someday the Outlook team will discover multithreading. That will be cool. </sarcasm>

So what did I do with my netbook?

Worked on documents for my current project on the Xbox team
Cruised the web via my phone’s 3G connection while my wife was driving through the middle of nowhere – thanks to USB tethering
Edited some photos
Played games (I’d loaded up Microsoft Arcade, Revenge of Arcade, etc.)
Played around writing some C# code in Visual Studio and my Java environment (jGrasp)
And, yes, blogs, Facebook, etc.

I’m pretty happy with it. Since I was short on RAM while I was on the trip, I stuck a spare 4GB SD card in the slot and gave it to Windows 7 ReadyBoost. This actually did seem to make a difference over time as it cached things for the programs I used frequently. Now that I have the 2GB of RAM in, this probably doesn’t make much difference, so I’m going to pull it out.

Along with the netbook itself, I also picked up the matching external DVD drive and a snazzy black and red neoprene case. The drive is nice. Not sure about the vertical orientation yet. It is pretty hard to get the discs in and out of it in that position. (but it looks great)

The great thing about this ASUS netbook is that it is small and portable like an iPad, but it actually does useful stuff in addition to web browsing (<ahem> with Flash) and games. True, it isn’t instant on like an iPad, but it comes back from sleep in less than 4 seconds – which is pretty instant.

So 5 stars for the ASUS 1015PN netbook. Just make sure you get the correct RAM for it and don’t blindly accept Amazon’s recommendations.

“It’s so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up”
Ferris Bueller

Here’s what I’ve currently got loaded – the bold items are the things every netbook should have:

Windows 7 Ultimate – OK, not everyone has these laying around and it would make for a spendy upgrade from the included Windows 7 Starter. I needed at least Home Premium to get Aero, changeable wallpaper, etc. and with Ultimate, I can also use Remote Desktop to connect to my netbook from another computer and control it remotely. Starter was completely capable of getting the job done, but I didn’t want to be missing anything. (I did remove Windows Media Center after installing Ultimate though.)
***UPDATE*** I forgot to mention one of the big reasons to update to a better version of Win7. Starter Edition doesn’t support Nvidia Optimus which automagically switches between the low power Intel graphics and the better but more battery hungry Nvidia Ion graphics. If you are running Starter, you will have to manually switch between them and restart after you change the setting – which is definitely NOT magical.
MS Office 2007 Ultimate - Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Outlook
Search Commands – this is a free add-on for Office from Microsoft’s OfficeLabs team. Basically, it helps you find stuff that got moved around when they added the ribbon. Very handy even now
MS Visio 2010 Premium – for all my diagramming needs
MS Project 2010 – occupational hazard, gotta have it
Microsoft Security Essentials – Free, downloadable and excellent virus and malware protection
Firefox – I’m looking forward to IE9, but for now, Firefox is my default browser
Adobe Flash Player and Reader – can’t live without these
MS Digital Image Suite 2006 – yes, it’s old and no longer made, but I quite like it. I do have Photoshop on my desktop machine now, but I still use Digital Image most
Corel Painter Essentials 4 – fun painting and sketching program
Amazon Kindle PC – it’s Kindle…for the PC
MS Arcade – Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command, Tempest
MS Return of Arcade – Dig Dug, Pac Man, Galaxian, Pole Position
MS Revenge of Arcade – Mappy, Motos, Ms. Pac Man, Rally X, Xevious
MS Windows Live Essentials – Messenger, Mesh, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, Writer, Mail
MS Visual Studio 2008 – for my code writing needs
jGrasp – (and Sun’s Java Development Kit) for my other code writing needs
MS Home Server Connector – so my neato Windows Home Server can back up my little notebook
Skype
MagicDisk – a free app that lets you store CD images. This means I can play Age of Empires without having the actual CD plugged in
Age of Empires 1 & 2 – still my favorite RTS games
MS Streets & Trips 2010 – sometimes you just need a map when you don’t have web connectivity – like on an airplane, or in Idaho

I also have about 15GB of music on there too. Basically our entire home catalog minus the Christmas stuff, kids stuff, and most of the church stuff. (I should not that those categories are about another 10 GIGABYTES all together – that’s a lot of Christmas music.)

Netbook Ruminations

2011-02-11T17:34:00.001-08:00

I’ve been lusting after a netbook lately. You know, like I did for my Kindle last Fall.

If you haven’t been paying attention, Netbooks have really grown up quite a bit. The two I’m looking at are the ASUS 1015PEM and the ASUS 1015PN. Both use the new dual CPU Intel Atom 550. The 1015PN has an actual Nvidia graphics card instead of just the Intel onboard graphics. The cool thing is you can switch back and forth between them. The Nvidia when you are playing a game and need the 3D power; the Intel when you are just doing web browsing or watching a movie or whatever. The tradeoff being battery life. With the Intel you get like 10 hours to a charge.

Of course, there’s no free lunch. The 1015PN is about $380 on Amazon, while the 1015PEM is about $325.

I don’t really play much in the way of games on the PC anyway, which kind of begs the question of why I’d pay the extra 50 clams. (the PN also has Bluetooth and USB 3.0 and HDMI and other geeky stuff, but nothing really cool – like an ice cream maker or something)

And the REAL question is - why do I feel so drawn to these things? What on earth would I do with it? When I’m off doing Army stuff, like I will be soon, it would be handy to do email and web browsing and stuff. Unlike an iPad, I could run Office or even Visual Studio if I wanted to, and I could view web sites with Flash. But most likely, I wouldn’t do any of that.

So I’m kind of at the point where I wish I could come up with some semi-compelling reason to buy one. But I can’t. Bummer. I’ve probably never gotten over my tech-envy when my daughter bought a netbook back in 2009. Or it could be that it is just more entertaining to think of spending money on a netbook rather than getting the brakes done on my car.

And I should clarify that I do still love my Kindle. I use it all the time and just finished a 350 page book on it. Come to think of it, I also use the Kindle for email and Facebook and games. It weighs nothing, the battery goes for weeks or a month, and it has free 3G wireless.

“Hey…what are you reading?”

2011-01-27T23:54:00.001-08:00

I know I need to get caught up on my experiences at the Army’s Warrior Transition Course and the holidays and <gulp> my oldest daughter’s engagement, but I just wanted to do a quick post on a couple books I’m reading.

Level Up

I’ve been a big fan of Scott Rogers since I first saw his talk “Everything I Learned About Game Design I Learned From Disneyland” at the 2009 Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. Some people share my my appreciation of Scott’s work; and some people don’t. That’s cool, I’m not saying he’s the end-all-beat-all genius of game design. (After all, I’ve played Pac Man World and it kind of sucks.) But having seen the talk and felt his enthusiasm for the subject first hand, I had to pick up his book Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design. I’m about 3/4 of the way though it on my Kindle and I’m really enjoying it. It is an outstanding exploration of the details of designing fun and engaging experience in interactive storytelling in all its facets – from Mario Brothers to Alan Wake. I really recommend this for anyone in the industry and for anyone who really enjoys gaming.

A Theory of Fun

On the other hand, I also checked out A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster (courtesy of the Microsoft corporate library). Superficially, these books cover some of the same ground, but my what a difference. Raph’s book is not without merit, but the presentation of the material is really quite poor – especially in comparison with Scott’s book. Beyond just the material itself, the production values of the book – which is filled with very crude doodle-like illustrations – really detracts from the material that is there. It’s not fun, it’s not interesting, and it isn’t fun to look at. Scott’s book is all of those things and more. I feel like Raph’s book sets out to be a little more academic while specifically claiming that it isn’t.

Other stuff…

I was getting my stuff together for my upcoming Reserve weekend and was putting on my ACUs to make sure everything was in the right place and they were presentable. It was kind of weird to be reminded – oh yeah, I really am in the Army. In December, we just had a one day assembly where we had an ASU inspection, a legal briefing for an upcoming deployment, and then a Christmas party in the evening, which was very nice. It’s weird to remember that just a couple months ago I was wearing it constantly.

Here’s a picture of me and the delightful Mrs. Pulsipher in the living room on the way to the party.

As a final note, can I get an “amen” from the congregation on those great Xbox numbers in the Microsoft quarterly earnings released today? And remember, you can never have too many Xbox consoles, games, Kinect sensors, and LIVE subscriptions. Stock up!

Voting Cheat Sheet

2010-10-24T23:15:00.001-07:00

Just as a helpful tool for all of you who haven’t voted yet, I made this handy crib sheet so you can cheat off my paper and get the correct answers…

Initiative 1053 – Yes
Initiative 1082 – Yes
Initiative 1098 – No
Initiative 1100 – Yes
Initiative 1105 – Yes
Initiative 1107 – Yes
Referendum 52 – Rejected
Resolution 8225 – Rejected
Resolution 4220 – Approved
King County Charter Amendment 1 – No
King County Charter Amendment 2 – Yes
King County Charter Amendment 3 – No
King County Proposition 1 – Rejected
US Senate – Rossi
US Rep Dist 8 – Reichert
State Rep 1 – Rodne
State Rep 2 – Anderson
State Supreme Court Justice Position 6 – Sanders
District Court Position 6 – O’Brien
District Court Position 7 – Mitchell

(ignoring the unopposed races)

Happy voting and make sure you get them in the mail ASAP. Don’t wait until November 2nd!!!

Chemicals, Iraq, and WikiLeaks

2010-10-23T22:51:00.001-07:00

Interestingly, the largest ever unauthorized disclosure of military documents has yielded this:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/10/chemical-weapons-were-found-in-iraq.html

And rebutting the last paragraph in that article about these chemicals not being used against US troops, we have this: http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3448.html and this: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=47b_1190686351

And of course, going back to this report from 2006 about post-invasion chemical finds in Iraq: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

And as a little red meat, here’s an interesting American Thinker piece that asks some thought provoking questions about why Saddam played this game of high stakes WMD poker: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/dont_be_so_sure_there_were_no.html

Something nifty this way comes…

2010-10-23T22:31:00.001-07:00

I knew something important was coming up soon…hmm…what was it?

23rd wedding anniversary (October 30)?
My departure for the Army Warrior Transition Course (Nov 1)?
The most important election of our lifetime so far (Nov 2)?

Oh yeah, that’s right -- none of these!

Rock Band 3 releases on October 26th! I’ve had this on pre-order for a long time and I’m looking forward to getting some keytar goodness.

In addition to all the cool features of Rock Band 3 like the seven player support, harmonies, great support for party play, and improved set list management, it also has a new character creator and an awesome set list.

I know what you are really waiting for is my list of the first five songs I’ll be playing on Tuesday, so without further ado…

New Order “Blue Monday” (Gamestop pre-order bonus)
B-52s “Rock Lobster”
Big Country “Big Country”
INXS “Need You Tonight”
Whitesnake “Here I Go Again”

…and a bonus #6 – Talking Heads “Burning Down The House”.

And I’m not forgetting our anniversary – we’re going to Daniel’s on Monday night (my better half is going to a conference out of town later in the week).

Enjoy your Tuesday!

Paging Mr. Masala, Mr. Garam Masala

2010-10-13T21:30:00.001-07:00

My lovely wife is a gangsta disciple of WeightWatchers, so she gets their little magazine thing at the meetings. It often has a really interesting recipe in the back.

In last week’s issue, they featured “Spice-Roasted Butternut Squash and Onions” which looked pretty tasty. So I thought we’d whip that up for dinner. I ran off to my local grocery to find the ingredients – especially this Indian spice called “garam masala”. Unfortunately, they never heard of ‘im.
Not to be denied my crazy food choices, I whipped out my trusty Windows Mobile phone and Bing Mobiled my way to the recipe for garam masala while standing right there in the spice aisle. As you might expect, this is a concoction like curry powder or chili powder – that is, not a single spice, but a mixture of various other spices. As I learned from that recipe page:

This is the most aromatic and fragrant of all Indian spice blends. Used throughout North India in all types of dishes — from appetizers and soups to yogurt salad and main courses — this blend is indispensable to Moghul and North Indian cooking.

The ingredients for this version are (full hat tip to my source):

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons cardamom seeds
2 tablespoons black peppercorns
1 (3-inch) stick cinnamon, broken up
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon saffron (optional) <<< I skipped this

Instructions:
Put the cumin, coriander, cardamom, peppercorns, cinnamon, and cloves in a dry heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Toast the spices, stirring occasionally, until they turn several shades darker and give off a sweet smoky aroma, about 10 minutes. Do not raise the heat to quicken the process, or the spices will brown prematurely, leaving the insides undercooked. Cool completely.
Working in batches if necessary, transfer the mixture to a spice mill or coffee grinder and grind to a powder. Stir in the nutmeg and saffron. Use immediately or store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

The smell of the toasting spices was amazingly good and this all went pretty well, except that we didn’t have a spice or coffee grinder and neither did the supermarket I went to. We have several nice kitchen stores in North Bend, but I didn’t want to bother with that. Instead I opted for a little mini-chopper/food processer thing that my mom got somewhere and gave to us. As it turned out, this thing was really not up to the task of dealing with the cinnamon stick pieces and the coriander seeds. To deal with this, I just had to run it through in many batches and ultimately started using a sieve to separate out the fine, finished mix and leave the chunks to go back for another trip in the chopper. Until I ended up with something that smelled very good indeed and looked like a real spice you’d buy in a store.

This stage took about an hour.
Now it was time to make the rest of the dish…

At great risk to myself of the WeightWatchers sending their ill-fitting brown shirt thugs after me, here’s the recipe that drove all this insanity.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 lbs fresh butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 medium red onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp garam masala < yup, all that to get a single teaspoon
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
3 tbsp fresh, chopped cilantro

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat a large non-stick baking sheet with cooking spray.
Place squash and onion on prepared baking sheet; drizzle with oil and toss to coat.
Sprinkle with garam masala, salt and pepper; toss to coat.
Roast, tossing about halfway through cooking, until squash and onions are tender and slightly browned, about 25 minutes.

Transfer vegetables to a serving platter or bowl and sprinkle with cilantro; toss to coat.

And this is what you get in the end. We served it with a tasty rice pilaf (from a box) and some naan from the store, reheated in the oven. Very tasty – although a little peppery. The pepper kind of overwhelmed some of the more subtle flavors. So I’d cut back on the pepper in the recipe and if I every lose my mind and make the garam masala again, I’d use less pepper. The roasted red onions end up adding a very nice sweetness to the dish.

This recipe makes enough for a Moghul army, so our idea for the leftovers is to mix them with some chicken stock (and maybe a little skim or low-fat milk) and then grind up the chunks with “boat motor” and we should end up with a nicely seasoned squash bisque.

Sleep peacefully…

2010-10-05T19:25:00.001-07:00

Just read a story about a 24 year old Green Beret, Robert Miller, who is being posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving the lives of 7 of his SF team and 15 Afghan soldiers in an ambush in 2008.

The article says that Miller was motivated to serve because of 9-11. I’ve often said that I think there is an older generation in our country that gravely underestimates the impact of 9-11 as a transformative event on those who saw it as children. I can’t think of a better illustration of that than stories like this. And while we are sad for the loss of men like this, we have to be thankful that we are still a country that can produce them.

One of the comments on this story used a quote that I haven't thought about for years. It is certainly appropriate.

"People sleep peacefully in their beds at night, only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell

Rough men ready to do violence on your behalf

Thanks to all who serve!

(more pictures of Robert Miller)

A funny thing happened on the way to the...

2010-10-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

Well, despite my previous post saying I would be going away for my Warrior Transition Course training on October 4, there has been another last minute change and now I'll be leaving on November 1st-ish.
The Army is good at destroying things, but they don't make a very good travel agency.
So, now I'm back to work for a couple weeks, then some vacation and then off to training.
I'll miss Thanksgiving at home with the family and my college student kids, which sucks, but I'll see them at Christmas. In fact, one will already be at home for her Christmas break before I get back.

The coming zombie apocalypse

2010-09-26T15:11:00.001-07:00

When we were visiting family in Utah after dropping of child number 2 at college, one of my brothers-in-law introduced us to the game Zombies!!! by Twilight Creations.

It’s the kind of game that you see played in obscure game shops where people who live in their mom’s basement sell pewter figures of elves and knights. Except – wait for it – it is both playable and fun for normal people who don’t even own a 20 sided die.

It is easy to learn, doesn’t take forever to play, you don’t have to look up anything in obscure tables of hit damage and it has this clever mechanic of building the game board through random draws that makes it different each time you play. To top it off, as you can see by the examples below, the art style is kind of Atomic Ranch retro-chic.

If you get the chance, and don’t mind spending/blowing/investing $30 on a board game, pick up Zombies!!! I think you’ll enjoy it. There are also many add-ons available, as well as packs of additional plastic zombies.

P.F. Changs wishes you “good fortune”

2010-09-25T21:53:00.001-07:00

Speaking of my trophy wife, I had not been out on any kind of a date with her in awhile. It is pretty sad to leave our youngest daughter home alone with the dog while we go out. But, alas, it must be done.

We tried to find a movie, but, holy cow, are we in some sort of major climate change induced movie drought? Are Hollywood leftists so busy enjoying the new socialism that they don’t have time for work?

So, anyway, we went to P. F. Chang’s in Bellevue Square. I believe I am the last person on earth who had not yet eaten there, so it was fun.
The food was delicious. We had the lemon chicken, cashew-almond chicken, and orange peel chicken. Yes, yes. Somehow we ended up with all chicken dishes. But it was fab nonetheless.

At the end of the meal, we got our fortune cookies and this was mine: I’ll let you know how that goes…

My Kindle

2010-09-25T12:07:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, you just need to buy a gadget of some sort.

Recently, I slaked my gadget-lust by buying a new Kindle.

Then, before it came, I decided I didn’t want it, but I was too late to cancel it. No worries, the helpful Amazonian said, just refuse delivery when it shows up. I steadfastly determined to return the Kindle unopened.
Then it came and I was bored and wanted to check it out. “I’ll just open it,” I thought, “I can still send it back. I’ll just have to pay the shipping.”
Then, after a few hours of playing with it, my wife helped me decide we were keeping it.

So now I have a Kindle.

Here's why it is cool...
1. Battery life. It has been a long time since I’ve had an electronic anything that could go weeks without recharging. That is very cool indeed.
2. Connectivity. Mine is the 3G+WiFi Kindle. Honestly, if I were advising someone, I’d probably say the WiFi alone is enough. On the one hand, it is only a $50 difference, but on the other that is 1/4 of the price of the thing. The idea of sitting in some place that doesn’t have WiFi somewhere and buying a book instantly is very cool. But seriously, how far is anyone from a WiFi hotspot these days?
3. Size. This thing is super thin and light. The screen is clearly the limiting factor it making it any smaller now.
4. Screen. About that screen…it is GORGEOUS. Monochrome, but incredibly sharp and readable. More clear than actual ink on paper in the same lighting. After looking at LCD screens for so many years, this is truly a delight for the eyes.
5. Overall gadget factor. The “experimental” web browser is actually pretty good these days. There are some amusing games. Being able to browse books anywhere and read samples of them is very very cool.

Here's why it is lame...
1. Book price. Some books are actually more expensive on Kindle than on paper. Even the ones that aren’t are often quite expensive. For example, Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics is about $26 in hardback – and about $21 on Kindle. When you consider that the eBook doesn’t need costly transportation, warehousing, or actual printing. And that when you buy an eBook, you can never sell it to someone else or give it away or donate it to a library, that is just not cheap enough. And reading on a device, even one as great as a Kindle, is still a second-rate experience compared to the actual book. Amazon blames the publishers, and clearly Amazon can’t set the prices themselves, but I believe they could pressure the publishers to see the light on this in the same way that Apple did with music. Amazon is really the main player in consumer eBooks and I don’t see that changing much – even with Apple coming into it. (n.b. there are lots of free books available – classics and such, but you can only read so much of that.)
2. Screen. Yeah, about that screen…e-ink takes a moment to refresh so you get a brief flash when you turn the page. I think that is super annoying even though it is much improved from previous Kindle generations. It is also very slow and that makes any kind of reasonable gaming or truly good web browsing out of the question.
3. I keep trying to touch the screen. I’m not an idiot, it is just every device for the last decade has taught me to touch the screen. I am forever reaching up to touch the screen.
4. Community of Jerks. I went on to the Amazon discussion boards to talk about the Kindle with some owners. Turns out they are pretty much jerks. Very defensive about any questioning of the product’s superiority and of “Mr. Jeff Bezos” (who, I’m told, knows more about business than I possibly could so I shouldn’t be asking questions).

I considered an iPad, but they are a serious purchase, not a boredom purchase. Plus after seeing one in action, I'm not impressed. Big, slow, clunky would be my description. Like a phone that is too big and you can't talk on anyway.
I considered a netbook, but they are good small laptops, not good things to read on.

So a Kindle it is for now. It doesn’t suck. Just be prepared for the book prices … and that annoying screen refresh flash.

Halo:Reach

2010-09-25T11:45:00.001-07:00

I'm not a Halo guy.
But this is the last Bungie Halo, so I thought I'd make an exception.
When Reach came out, I had to go to the Company Store to wait in line for 2 hours to get a Limited Edition for my nephews. Ironically, it was at the same time my free copy was being handed out at the office.
I decided to pick up the Limited Edition for myself. I'm not a Halo guy, but the production values of this Limited Edition - the journal really - piqued my interest.
I liked Halo Wars and that kind of introduced me to the universe. Then I downloaded the original Halo from Xbox Originals on Live and that was pretty enjoyable.
I'd briefly played Halo 2, Halo 3, and ODST, but the combination of in-game language and a story that didn't grab me failed to hook me.
I was blown away by Reach.
First of all, the graphics are much better - especially on the characters.
Second, it is very "open". You feel like you can wander anywhere and you can drive ANYTHING - Warthog? Of course. Mongoose? Sure. Forklift? Utility truck? YES! Hop on in. It may not be useful, but it is really fun.
Finally, the story was great. The ending and post credit ending were awesome. I actually felt some emotion for the story at the end.
It seemed a little brief for such a long awaited game, but the trend seems to be to focus on the quality of experience rather than the duration of it. I’ll now pause while you insert your own jokes here.

All in all, well played Bungie. Well played.

How I Spent My Mid-Life Crisis

2010-09-25T11:36:00.001-07:00

When some men turn 40, they might buy a sports car, others change jobs in some dramatic way, and still others decide it is time for a trophy wife.
In my case, the Spyder is still OK (though not as OK as it used to be), I have a great job on Xbox, and I've had my trophy wife for 23 years already...so what to do?

How about I join the Army?
It wasn't quite as spur of the moment as all that. I spent a year losing 80 pounds and getting into shape, then many more months of negotiation and being poked and prodded in various ways. Now here I am, once again a sergeant, but this time in the Army Reserve. Specifically, Company A, 448th Civil Affairs Battalion at Fort Lewis. Hoo-ah! <ahem>

My overall goal is a commission, but I was rejected (and yes, it was as painful as it sounds) in my first run through the Direct Commissioning process as a civilian, so I went back in at my prior rank and will try that again next year.
(As it turns out, there are a bunch of budgetary reasons about why it is bad to apply for a direct commission in the Spring phase rather than the Fall phase. Would have been good if someone had clued me into that.)
In the meantime, I'll be going to Warrior Transition Course (WTC) on October 4. This is where people from other services learn to be Army men. I was originally scheduled for December 28, then they canceled that class and were going to move me to November 3, finally settling on October 4 - with 2 week's notice!
So if you are looking for me in October, I’ll be somewhere around here…

Frankly, I'm both excited and nervous. Excited for the M16, M240, grenade and AT4 experience. Nervous because the key to doing well in these kinds of situations is to just do exactly what you're told without thinking about it - which is a lot harder when you are 42 than when you are 17. It's only 5 weeks - what could go wrong?
So I've been scrambling around making sure everything is arranged. I've put in my military leave of absence at work - so they will keep paying me (thanks Microsoft, couldn't do this without that) and that I've handed off important household affairs to my ever-patient and enduring spouse - like management of the Netflix queue.
No sooner did they spring the new date on me than I got these aches and pains - like you get in the first half mile of a run as your body tries to talk you out of running. Those have passed. I am afraid of getting sick before I go, so I'm pounding vitamins.

So off we go, again, into the wild blue yonder…(crap, I’ve messed up already)

My new favorite author

2010-05-17T23:06:00.001-07:00

That’s right…it’s creepy…it’s scary…it’s suspensful…
it’s…

Just got my copy of Alan Wake at work today. I honestly didn’t know if I’d like it much – although all the trailers were pure eye candy. When I eventually got home from my day in the Project Natal salt mines, and after Family Home Evening, I stuck in the the ol’ 360 for a spin.

Mind blowing. Just mind blowing. It was spooky to be sure, but I’ve never felt so drawn in by a game. To call this a game is selling it short I think. It really feels like interactive fiction – in the tradition of Portal (no, not the Valve game of the same name) or Myst. (OK, but with more shooting than those guys but still…) I think hard core gamers might be disappointed in that a lot of the game involves relatively minor participation while watching the story unfold. This is no Halo.

It doesn’t hurt that the game, set in the fictitious and creepy woods of Bright Falls, Washington, is so connected with the nearby (to me)town of Snoqualmie, Washington and inspired by Twin Peaks and The X-Files. I’m a big fan of Twin Peaks – but couldn’t care less about X-Files. Nothing like being thoroughly creeped out by your own neighborhood. So much of the game centers on light and shadow that it should come as no surprise that the lighting effects take center stage in the game. You can see that in many of these screenshots.

Alan Wake was first announced in 2005 (take a look at the original blurb about it and here’s the original trailer from E3 2005). And supposedly the concept was hatched in 2001. That is one long gestation. It’s not the Sistine Chapel, and I won’t claim it is 5 or 10 years worth of goodness here, but it is something really different and if you aren’t too easily creeped out, it is well worth a look.

You can check out the roundup of reviews on MetaCritic. Like all reviews, you have to kind of take them as just opinions. A small minority were pretty negative actually – hitting down around the 70% line – but most were quite good. Since those good ones agree with me, I would say pay attention to those and ignore the grumpy Czechoslovakian judge.

I think this call is for you

2010-05-01T20:10:00.001-07:00

Proving that boredom is the mother of invention, here’s a great remake of Lady Gaga’s Telephone video by a group of soldiers in Afghanistan. Enjoy.

The Smoking Gun has some backstory on the video and the guys who made it that is also a fun read.

UPDATE: I had a couple other thoughts about this since posting it that are a little more serious. First of all, I’m struck by how much better videos like this are (and there have been quite a few funny vids posted from the war zone on the interwebs) as a means of blowing of steam and fighting the depression of being away from friends, family and civilization for long stretches of time and the combination of boredom punctuated by fear compared to the level of substance abuse that we saw in Vietnam. True, people are people and there are still guys who will fall into that. But I actually see this as one testament to the superiority of a volunteer military compared to a conscript military. The fact that these guys are, on average, older than Vietnam-era soldiers and more likely to be married says at least a little about the maturity level of the Army we have in the field – which I think is all great.

Earth Hour – Saturday, March 27, 2010

2010-03-26T17:19:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow night at 8:30pm, in whatever time zone you are in, you have a chance to participate in Earth Hour. According to the site, China will lead the way in starting Earth Hour this year. That’s just great. Nee-How!

The traditional – that is, “traditional” in the same air-quote sense as “Kwanzaa” is a traditional African holiday that is, as traditional as an African holiday can be when it is created by an American socialist in 1966 – way to celebrate Earth Hour is to turn off all your lights and live like a non-tool-using animal for an hour. I encourage you all to celebrate a neo reformation Earth Hour by turning all your lights on.

All your lights – your closets, your garage, your mud room, great room, entry way, back porch, etc. This works even better when you have complete lefties nearby, like we do across the street.

When you participate, take some video or pictures. Tweet out loud in the midst of the brightness (using #earthhour). And make sure you upload it all to the sites listed at www.EarthHour.org (video: http://www.youtube.com/group/earthhourglobal photos: http://flickr.com/groups/eh2010).

Also, is it just me, or is it interesting to see what they chose to cover up in this map?

I mean, the planet is 70% covered by water and they had to put their little info box over the United States? I mean even just placing it by chance, they could have hit the ocean.

Here’s wishing you and yours a very happy and incandescently bright Earth Hour!

I’m so done..

2010-03-12T15:26:00.001-08:00

Earlier today I turned in my last assignment of my last class for my bachelor degree. Still about a week before I know my final grades, but I’ve got a 4.0 GPA so far and expect to keep that. :-)

Let’s see… counting just my classes since I finished my associates degree, I think my favorite class has been my IT Project Management class, the finance aspects of that in particular. While my least favorite class has been my just completed Data Structures and Algorithms class. The textbook was terrible. The flow and approach of the class was really uneven – numbingly simple one week, stupifyingly difficult the next, and the instructor was only really clear about the specific areas he happened to be passionate about.

Anyway, I’m finally done and I’m pretty happy about it. It has been difficult these past nine months or so as I’ve basically been a full-time (or very close to it) class load each term. This involved a lot of homework, a lot of late nights, and a lot of missed family time. It has also been not a small investment in money, which I won’t actually get back. Even after the tuition reimbursement from my company I’ve spent quite a lot of my own money. Luckily I’m a veteran as that got me a cut rate on tuition and free books.

I won’t say I’m done with education for ever, but I’m done with it for now and I’m looking forward to getting re-acquainted with my Xbox 360 and my latest favorite game – Toy Soldiers…

A quick update

2010-02-05T22:09:00.001-08:00

OK, I’m not saying you generally care what I’ve been up to, but I wanted to make a quick post on my weight loss efforts.

Back on May 28, 2009, I started a weight loss plan based pretty simply on eating less and moving more. No magic supplements or other miracle cures.
As I recall, it started with me deciding one day when I got to work to park further away and to use the stairs. From there I considered using Alli (unfortunately, I didn’t get scared off until AFTER I’d bought it for like 50 bucks!), but was put off by the potential side effects. But I did start tracking my food in a little booklet. At first, my target was 1500 calories, then 1200, and even 900-1000 at some points.
When I started, I weighed 245 lbs. My progress went basically like this:

Date	Weight
7/21/09	217
8/31/09	210
9/30/09	200
10/30/09	190
1/8/10	180
2/3/10	175

You will notice that late last year, I did slow down a bit, but I held my ground through the holidays and other events that made it difficult to stay on track – plus it is cold and rainy in the winter and a little harder to get out and run and stay active.

So here I am at 175 pounds. This is my lowest weight since about 1992, which is pretty cool, although I don’t like it when people come up to me and say stuff about it. Yes, I know that’s weird.
OK, enough about that.

Even more exciting, I’m now a mere 5 weeks from completing my Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology. I’m currently taking 3 classes: Data Structures and Algorithms, IT Project Management, and a BS/IT capstone course. This is quite a load, but it is down from the 4 classes (!!!) I took last term.
I was just contemplating what I will do with all my extra time after I graduate today. First thought in my head was - “Hey! I can finally play some video games!!!” So I’m looking forward to that!

School Paper: Climate Change

2010-01-06T23:42:00.001-08:00

Last term, I had to write a persuasive paper on a current topic. Given the current weather headlines…

…I thought it was worth posting here.

So without further ado, here’s “Fallacies of Anthropogenic Climate Change” for your enjoyment. (Jon Pulsipher, 12/12/2009)

Fallacies of Anthropogenic Climate Change

For the past decade at least, the conventional wisdom has been that the world is warming, that the warming represents a catastrophe in the offing, and, importantly, that this warming is directly caused by human activity – in particular, emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) as a result of the industrial revolution. Scientists, politicians, and actors have warned that society has only a few years to save the planet and hold back the rising sea levels. But what if this conventional wisdom about climate change is all wrong? As American author and humorist Mark Twain is, ironically, quoted in Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so” (2006, p20-21). While the reality of climate change is genuine, and, in fact, a continuous process, the presumption that human activity can be either the cause or the remedy is tenuous, premature, and perhaps even egotistical. The policy shifts now under consideration to control these changes would have significant, negative, and possibly irreversible impact on human progress, so they warrant careful analysis and informed decision making.

Is there climate change? The answer is a resounding, “Yes!” While the current level of media interest around climate change focuses on temperature, particularly warming trends, “climate” represents a combination of many factors. These include temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, wind, humidity and other factors. Climate generally trends cooler with increasing latitudes from the equator, but there are also micro-climates related to valleys, increases in elevation, or proximity to ocean currents. Therefore, climate, in the sense of something humans perceive and measure both globally and locally, is the result of very complex systems and interactions. Many of these are only now beginning to be understood and efforts to model the climate in a full sense are elusive (Schmitt, 2007). Consider the apparent difficulty in accurately forecasting the local weather, which uses similar models, for next week. Most people have experienced cases where the weatherman got it wrong, mere days from now. Now extrapolate that weather forecasting experience decades into the future and consider the likelihood of a successful forecast. Earth’s climatic history has indicated a general pattern of long ice ages, marked by devastating glacial advance on a massive and global scale, interspersed with warmer interglacial periods. Within these interglacial periods, there are further patterns of cooling and warming that are shorter and with less pronounced effect than a true ice age. Climatologists, geologists, and other researchers generally agree that the earth is in the middle of an interglacial period and only now recovering from the effects of the last ice age, which ended approximately 12,000 years ago. Throughout recorded human history, and pre-history, using ice cores and other investigative approaches, evidence shows that the climate has changed in significant ways many times over, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Global temperature shifts 2500 BCE to 2040 AD (Harris & Mann 2008, ¶14)

This chart indicates that even fairly recently, the earth has been both much cooler (witness the so-called “Little Ice Age” in the late 14^th to early 19^th centuries) and much warmer (witness the “Medieval Warm Period,” immediately preceding the Little Ice Age) than it is today. As recently as 1991, one sees a brief but dramatic downward plunge in temperature, and, as the chart illustrates, the current warming trend does not exceed the warming seen in either the Pharaonic period in Egypt or the Medieval Warm period, and it only just exceeds the warming seen in Roman times. Interestingly, these warming periods are referred to as “climate optimums” reflecting the socio-economic benefits of a warmer climate (Horner, 2007, p. 124). Particularly for Euro-centric civilization, warming trends may seem anomalous because so much of the familiar European history and cultural events took place during the Little Ice Age period. This time of Oliver Twist, Hans Brinker, and the French Revolution – carries the positive and negative connotations of a cold climate. Want and despair, frozen canals, and desperation. The Little Ice Age was also the time when the Vikings were sent reeling back from their settlements on the previously “green” Greenland and perhaps in the Americas, due to encroaching sea ice and glaciation. In this period, it was common for the Thames River to freeze solid, and for people to travel across the Baltic Sea by sleigh, stopping overnight at taverns built on the ice (Jaworowski, 2003-2004). With this history of cold firmly ensconced in collective memory due to the explosion of literacy in this same time period, is it any wonder that a return to a warming trend can generate alarm?

In the 1970s, some climatologists, including George J. Kukla and Kenneth Hare, warned that earth was heading for an ice age, with the purported cause being that air pollution would limit the sun’s rays hitting the earth.

Figure 2 - The cold and ominous future imagined on the cover of Science News in the March 1, 1974 issue (Anderson & Gainor, 2006, p. 4)

In fact, as Horner recounts, media attention has alternated between the risks of catastrophic cooling and warming, generally in a cycle that trails the actual conditions at the time, as shown in table 1 (2007, p185). A notable example includes Time magazine cited experts such as Professor Nathaniel Schmidt, making the case for an ice age in 1923 only to state in 1939 that a warming trend was clearly underway (Horner, 2007, p183-184).

Warming	1981-present
Cooling	1954-1976
Warming	1929-1969
Cooling	1895-1932

Table 1 - Cycles of media focus on climate (2007, p185)

When viewed in the context of the continuous change, the notion of any kind of global “normal” temperature is tenuous. Indeed, “normal” tends to be internalized by each reader of such a statistic as relating to the bounds of their own experience – which is necessarily limited to their own lifespan. The result of this is that it seems that each summer, polls and segments on the evening news warn that this year is the hottest ever, and since it is the middle of July, one may think, “Yes, it definitely was a scorcher today,” and so the message resonates and becomes internalized. However, temperature shifts must be viewed in the context of long time spans to be understood. This is further complicated by the fact that the data reflects a long time span of activity with low resolution data points (such as ice core, fossil record and rock strata analysis, contemporary weather anecdote) for older periods spliced with high resolution information (actual temperature measurements from land and space) without clear delineation. Some climate scientists, notably Roy W. Spencer of the University of Alabama and NASA science team leader for the AQUAS temperature measuring satellite system, cast aspersions on the notion of using ice core and tree ring information as an indicator of climates long past – known as paleo-climatology – calling its practitioners “frustrated historians” rather than scientists (2008, p. 14). For many people, understanding what exactly is going on is difficult; after all, most people aren’t scientists, and even most scientists are not climate specialists.

However, just as most don’t understand the science of science, they also don’t understand the business of science. Petr Chylek, Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science at Dahousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia said, “Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a) way to scare the public…and this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are” (Horner, 2007, p38). Dr. Chylek is by no means alone in this thinking. Climatologist Stephen Schneider, of Stanford University, said in an interview with Discover magazine in October 1989, “To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest” (Horner, 2007, p40)

Careful analysis of the data seems to indicate that the climate is currently at, or approaching, the peak of a warming cycle. There is some debate among scientists as to whether earth has, in fact, already started toward a cooling trend relative to that peak. This despite the conventional wisdom (as reflected by media reports, pop-culture, and significant numbers of political leaders around the globe) is that climate change is not only genuine, but completely, or at least significantly, the fault of human activity. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has aggressively forwarded the notion that climate change is largely man-caused, specifically in relation to carbon dioxide emissions as a pollutant and a so-called “greenhouse gas.” They back their conclusions with the message that there is consensus around their conclusions, meaning the science is settled; the canon is closed.

Prominent in the 2001 “IPCC Third Assessment Report” was a graph, now known as the “hockey stick,” that indicated a remarkable increase in average temperatures over the last few decades after hundreds of years of relative stability (Horner, 2007).

Figure 3 - 2001 IPCC "Hockey Stick" Temperature Graph

The use of this chart by the IPCC is a master-class in statistical manipulation. The grey areas of the chart indicate the margin of error for those temperatures. The method of “smoothing” the data takes advantage of the margin of error to produce a stable set of temperature readings followed by a steep climb. Note that the peak at the right side of the graph is still within the margin of error in the historic data. Also note, when comparing this graph to the generally accepted view of climate presented in figure 1, above, that the IPCC version effectively “smoothes away” both the Medieval Climate Optimum and the Little Ice Age (Horner, 2007).

It is also noteworthy that the increase in temperature indicated on the hockey stick graph appears to be related to the closing down of a large number of weather reporting stations in the Siberian area of the former Soviet Union in the late 20^th century. It stands to reason that if one stops measuring the temperature in one of the coldest regions of the earth, the overall average of the remaining measurements will increase, as indicated in figure 3 (Horner, 2007, p112). In fact, this view seems to have been validated by recent NASA satellite temperature observations, which are much more accurate and broader in coverage than earth-bound measurements (Cool it on warming, 2009). Interestingly, the same set of data also provides insight into a glaring flaw in the current climate models, clarifying the role of cloud cover as a natural response to increased temperatures (Marohasy, 2008).

Figure 4 - Average temperature overlaid with number of reporting stations

Whatever the specifics of the current climate change, whether the earth is experiencing abrupt and unprecedented warming, as the Climate Change lobby would suggest, or simply a continuation of normal cycles, it is reasonable to believe that most people want to be positive stewards of the earth and its resources. Recycling, carpooling, and turning off lights when leaving the room are relatively common behaviors. Clearly, these are smart and sensible measures to reduce pollution, conserve resources, and to save money. If people want to participate in such measures of their own choice, that is admirable, but they should not be under the impression that they are preventing devastating climate change. The science currently available simply does not support that. However, it is a natural to ask, “What is the harm in proceeding as if human activity was responsible for climate change?”

It has been said that “truth is the first casualty of war.” At its purest, science should be the pursuit of truth and the cornerstone of modern scientific endeavor has been peer review. In that light, consider the reply of British Climatologist Dr. Phillip Jones, the co-creator of the IPCC hockey stick graph, to Dr. Warwick Hughes when Hughes requested the opportunity to review the data behind the chart. “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” (Horner, 2007, p133)

The current debate preys on the general lack of scientific literacy among the lay population to push the notion of consensus as relates to science. Consider that “consensus” is generally used in a sense relating to relationships and politics, not science. For perhaps 1500 years, the consensus was that the earth was flat. For thousands more, the consensus was that the earth was the center of the universe. As relates to climate change, the supposed consensus is not nearly as strong as the consensus was for those incorrect “facts”. As of July 2008, over 31,000 American scientists across a variety of scientific fields and including scores of members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, have added their names to a public petition rejecting anthropogenic climate change (31K scientists sign petition disputing global warming, 2008). In fact, Dr. Richard Lindzen, Atmospheric Physicist and MIT Professor of Meteorology, and a former member of the IPCC, states, “…I cannot stress this enough – we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future” (Lindzen, 2001, p. 32). Scientists and political figures who do not adhere to the standard “action line” on climate change call down upon their heads the ferocity of the believers, who wield epithets like “deniers” (an allusion to someone who denies that the Holocaust occurred) and even demands for lawsuits, like modern witch trials (Legates, 2003; Horner, 2007). Roy Spencer quotes a 60 Minutes reporter, when asked why opposing viewpoints were excluded from a report on global warming as saying, “If I do an interview with Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?” (Spencer, 2008, p. 94). Dr. Spencer further noted that an Australian commentator had suggested outlawing climate change denial (ibid). Perhaps even more direct and inflammatory is the comment from David Roberts of Grist magazine:

“When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg” (Roberts, 2006, ¶3).

Other than the occasional commentator musing on the sanity of Al Gore or considering the general veracity and motivations of the climate change enthusiasts, the name calling and threats appear to be strongly one-sided.

Also representative of the highly charged nature of the debate and the appearance that there is, perhaps, a different agenda at work than saving the earth from warming, consider the words of Canadian Minister for the Environment in a meeting with the editorial board of The Calgary Herald, “No matter if the science is all phony, there are still collateral environmental benefits [to global warming policies]. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world” (Horner, 2009, p35). If the “collateral benefits” and the chance to bring about “justice and equality” are both worthwhile and correct, then scientific and political leaders in representative countries owe it to their fellow citizens to debate those matters on their merits rather than relying on inflammatory rhetoric and overblown threats of crisis.

It is ethically wrong for politicians and activists to take advantage of a lack of scientific understanding to cloak their goals in the pseudo-science of climate change rather than debating them on their own merits and winning people to their cause in an honest way. One cannot take seriously an agenda constructed on what increasingly appears to be a foundation of error, half-truth, and outright deception. Indeed the debate has moved seemingly miles away from the thinking expressed in this 1992 Democrat National Committee memo by Jonathan Sallet regarding Al Gore, “Al is a radical environmentalist who wants to change the very fabric of America. He has no sense of proportion: He equates the failure to recycle aluminum cans with the Holocaust. He believes that our civilization, itself, is evil” (Horner, 2007, p240).

Finally, many of the policies being proposed will have the direct or indirect effect of limiting human progress by placing new restrictions on agriculture and energy. Some suggest that the financial and employment benefits to be reaped by additional development in the so called “green job” economy will more than offset the lost opportunity. It would be wise to look to ongoing experiments in other countries to see this is not the case. A study of the effects of Spain’s foray into the green economy shows that every “green job” came at the cost of 2.2 traditional jobs (Alvarez, Jara, Julian & Bielsa, 2009, p. 33-36). Historically, agriculture and energy are two key tools of progress – as true in past cultures as in our own. To retreat from this means increased infant mortality, reduced life expectancy, increased hunger.

While the pesticide DDT is not related to climate change, its banning is instructive as an examination of the results of past environmental alarmism and reckless disregard for the poor. DDT was instrumental in eliminating malaria from the US and other developed nations. Based in large part on the attention garnered by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, DDT was eventually banned based on what now appear to be overblown fears of threat to wildlife when used in responsible ways. While DDT has not been shown to have profound and direct impacts on human health, all chemicals carry risks and there are potential linkages between DDT exposure and hormonal issues which could result in lower sperm counts, reduced fertility, increased potential for miscarriage, etc. In contrast, the risks of malaria in terms of economic loss, death and disabling illness are profound and well-documented. When asked about the millions that have died from malaria and other diseases as a result of banning DDT, Charles Wursta, of the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “This is as good a way to get rid of them as any” (Horner, 2007, p17). Is society willing to take a step backward rather than forward? Or to willingly and cavalierly abandon the hard-fought societal gains of even a few decades? It is a safe assertion, as noted in the question to Charles Wursta, that millions of the poor in developing nations continue to die as a result of the ban of DDT.

Measures like carbon dioxide cap-and-trade and a focus on more expensive and less efficient “green” energy sources mean inevitably increased energy costs and taxes. This is not mere theory. In 2004, New Zealand was forced, by their adherence to the Kyoto accord, to purchase NZ$656 million worth of “carbon offset credits” due to increased CO2 emissions (Horner, 2007, p248). Of course the logical question would be, to whom? Clearly there are large profits to be made from these credits. Costs such as taxes and energy tend to take a proportionally larger chunk of the earnings of low income families than those of average or high income families. Like a cigarette tax, these costs disproportionately impact those least able to absorb the cost. Speaking at the 2008 International Climate Change Conference, noted economist and current Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus said, “The dream to reduce emissions in the EU by 70 per cent in the next 30 years could only be achieved if there was a dramatic de-industrialization of Europe – likely associated with a dramatic drop in GDP, or a significant drop in population” (Marohasy, 2008).

Returning to Twain’s quote, “it’s the things we know for sure that just ain’t so” - like the pop-culture acceptance of anthropogenic climate change - that can lead to trouble. Much is said in the climate change debate concerning “scientific consensus” and “settled science.” Truly, consensus is a tool of the political realm, not the scientific one, and in true science, nothing is ever settled and beyond debate and discovery. The goals of the anthropogenic climate change movement demand dramatic steps with long term, possibly irreversible consequences. These steps will have the most profound impacts on the poor and the developing nations of the world, depriving them of the energy to more fully join the community of nations. And for all these demands, the “proof” offered appears tenuous and exposes truly the worst the aspects of the bureaucratic side of the academic science culture rather than the pursuit of truth, which most common people believe predominates. The evidence climate change based on human behaviors rather than natural cycles and, as yet, poorly understood forces, is thin. Indeed, too thin to abandon progress and economic and scientific facts in the pursuit of a utopian ideal. If utopia is the object, then utopia should be the subject of the debate. Responsible adults should be beyond the threat of pseudo-scientific boogeymen to encourage what someone might consider to be good and correct behavior. The continued progress of mankind is at stake and the decisions should not be taken lightly.

References

Alvarez, G. C., Jara, R. M., Julian, J. R. R., & Bielsa, J. I. G. (2009, March). Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf

Anderson, R. W. & Gainor, D. (2006, May 17). Fire and ice. Business and Media Institute. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/FireandIce.pdf

Bogdan, T. (2008). The chilling stars: a new theory of climate change. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 89(3), 392-393. Retrieved November 10, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.

Cool it on warming (2009, June 7). Editorial: cool it on warming. Boston Herald (MA), Retrieved November 17, 2009, from Newspaper Source database.

Fernandez-Armesto, F. (2009). The World: A History (Vol. 1). Upper Saddle River, NJ.: Prentice Hall.

Gore, A. (2006). An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Emmaus, PA: Rodale.

Harris, C. & Mann, R. (2008, March 9). Global temperature trends from 2500 B.C. to 2040 A.D. Retrieved November 9, 2009, from http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm.

Horner, C. (2007). The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming. Washington: Regenery.

James K., G. (2004, December 16). Warming cadre waning?. Washington Times, The (DC), Retrieved November 17, 2009, from Regional Business News database.

Jaworowski, Z. (2003-2004, Winter). Solar cycles, not CO2, determine climate. 21^st Century Science and Technology, 52-65.

Legates, D. (2003, August 26). Global warming smear targets. Washington Times, The (DC), Retrieved November 17, 2009, from Regional Business News database.

Lindzen, R. (2001, June 11). Scientists’ report doesn’t support the Kyoto treaty. The Wall Street Journal.

Lindzen, R. (2007, April 12). Calm down, the planet is not facing a catastrophe. Australian, The, Retrieved November 17, 2009, from Newspaper Source database.

Mark, H. (2009). Exaggerated claims risk undermining drive to cut emissions, scientists warn. Retrieved November 17, 2009, from TOPICsearch database.

Marohasy, J. (2008). New satellite data casts doubts on global warming models. Institute of Public Affairs Review, 60(2), 8. Retrieved November 17, 2009 from Academic Search Premier database.

Roberts, D. (2006, September 19). An excerpt from a new book by George Monbiot. Grist. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.grist.org/article/the-denial-industry/

Roy, S. (2005, February 17). World warms to Kyoto, but research will save the day. USA Today, Retrieved November 17, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.

Schmitt, J. (2007, February 28). Numerical models, integrated circuits, and global warming theory. Retrieved October 30, 2009, from http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/ numerical_models_integrated_ci.html.

Spencer, R. (2008). Climate Confusion. New York:Encounter

Svensmark, H. (2007). Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges. Astronomy & Geophysics, 48(1), 1.18-1.24. doi:10.1111/j.1468-4004.2007.48118.x.

31K scientists sign petition disputing global warming. (2008, July 29). 31K scientists sign petition disputing global warming. Daily Press (Victorville, CA), Retrieved November 17, 2009, from Newspaper Source database.

What ‘almost home’ looks like and weird ads

2009-12-18T12:25:00.001-08:00

Yay!!! My college kid is almost home! She’s actually coming in early (is that even allowed?) so I hope the Mrs. has made it down there in time to pick her up. We’re very excited to have her home for Christmas.

Now, what is up with those weird ads on the flight status?
What makes them think that I want to go to Iceland? Or need a lawyer? And the DUI?
I’m guessing the click-through rate on these ads is essentially ZERO.

Until now. I clicked on each one several times. Just for the heck of it – in the spirit of giving.

Merry Xbox-mas

2009-12-15T00:15:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from our digitally rendered family, to yours.

I’m on the “5k-a-day” plan

2009-12-08T21:13:00.001-08:00

As some of you know, I do some weird stuff to pass the time when I’m traveling on business. Who can forget my “Vegetarian-for-a-week” activity in Manhattan? (Actually, being a vegetarian in Manhattan is not much of a hardship because there are great places to eat ANY kind of food.) Or my attempt to smuggle two bottles of Israeli Diet Coke back to the US through security? (Yes, their Diet Coke really is THAT good.)

Thankfully, I don’t travel nearly as much as I used to, but I am on a trip to Montreal right now visiting a partner.

I’m staying in the beautiful Fairmont Queen Elizabeth hotel. As usual, I don’t sleep well when on the road, so I’m taking generous advantage of their 24 hour fitness center.

Yesterday was my first day in town and I was on the treadmill. I meant to run two miles. However, since my mad metric conversion skillz are a little rusty, I decided just to run 5k instead. I’ve never done a 5k race and while my trail run (closed for the winter) is about 5k, I don’t run it solid as some of the hills are steep. So this seemed a fun challenge.

Then I decided to run another one today. I just finished, having shaved several minutes off my time to get done at 33 min 10 sec (that time is in metric, so you may need to convert it).

I don’t have to go to the office tomorrow until 9:30, so I’m going to run another one in the morning before I get dressed and check out.

Three 5k runs in three days. That’s pretty cool.

By the way, Israel may have the chosen Diet Coke, and Taiwan’s Snickers bar may be beyond compare, but Canada has introduced me to the sensual pleasures of the Kit Kat 70% Cocoa Dark.
Canada, it’s not just Smarties and ketchup flavored potato chips anymore!

School Paper: Assessing Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

2009-11-20T21:23:00.001-08:00

The following is a short paper I wrote recently for a humanities class. The topic was about defining happiness and the theme of “the American Dream”. Had to wait until it was graded so the plagiarism checkers wouldn’t think I was stealing from myself. :-)

Assessing “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”

Figure 1 - From the Declaration of Independence (Wikipedia)

The Declaration of Independence, the cornerstone founding document of the United States of America, contains the oft-quoted phrase:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Jefferson 1776, ¶2)

More than two centuries have passed since those eloquent words were penned, but modern immigrant Americans continue to embody the spirit and power behind these words. As an American by birth, I love my country and having spent many years living abroad, I recognize the advantages, and, in some ways, the superiority, of it compared to other systems. Yet I don’t know what it means to have chosen this country. The immigrants who continue to come to the US by the millions have chosen this country to be their own. Sometimes that means they are only here to work and take advantage of the economic climate and upward mobility. Even in troubled economic times, there are no limitations on the ability of a person to work their way from one “class” to another within our system. This stands in stark contrast to some other cultures. For example, the formal caste system of India holds down millions from reaching their potential without regard to how capable they may be. Truly, this genuine opportunity, reflected by the numbers of people who continue to “vote with their feet,” is one of the enduring achievements of the American experiment.

Examining the visible artifacts of the pursuit of happiness of the modern immigrant population, one finds that, in a 1996 analysis by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (Peters 1996) immigrants were the sole inventor or a collaborator on more than 26% of the patents issued between 1988 and 1994. This is all the more impressive when one considers that first generation immigrants represent less than 9% of the US population in this period. Among the inventions identified in this study are:

· A simple process for diagnosis of kidney disease invented by an Italian immigrant.

· In-home vital sign monitoring equipment invented by a Polish immigrant.

· An electrical generator cooling system invented by an Indian immigrant.

· Aeronautical controls for the space shuttle invented by a Norwegian immigrant.

These more recent contributions in science and engineering join the long list of contributions by immigrants through the history of the United States and crossing the spectrum of fields of endeavor. To name just a few, Albert Einstein - physics, John Muir – environmental awareness, Joseph Pulitzer - publishing, Charles Simonyi - software and Madeline Albright - politics (Immigration Update).

The enduring contributions of American immigrants, both recent and historic, are clearly manifest and yet too numerous to count.

There is, rightfully, much debate about legal versus illegal immigration. It is not the purpose of this paper to enter into that debate on one side or the other. Regardless of the legal status of a particular immigrant, it stands to reason quite clearly that every immigrant coming to the United States is making the de facto assertion that this country best meets at least their immediate needs in enabling their own pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That may mean they are seeking economic opportunity that social, economic, or political structures in their homeland would deny them. This can be the case even in ostensibly “free” countries – as was the case for Ian Crawford. Mr. Crawford was a native of Scotland by was “dissatisfied with the opportunities” there (Peters 1996). In other cases, their priority may be to escape oppression, such was the case for Mitchell Budniak (Peters 1996), a native Pole whose parents were escaping forced servitude in Nazi Germany during World War II. Today, you see the same familiar echoes among new immigrants arriving from China, Central America, and tumultuous African nations. They risk all for a chance to come to America, work unbelievably hard and sometimes in virtual slavery to human smugglers. And still they come just for the chance to someday control their own destiny and provide a better life for their children and their children’s children. Indeed, the American dream lives on and with it the ideals of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

It is perhaps worthy of note that the Declaration calls out life and liberty as rights, but not happiness. It is as if the founders are telling us that while a free republic can guarantee life and liberty, the best it can do for happiness is to guarantee our freedom to pursue it; to chase that which we each define as endowing our own lives with joy.

References

Immigration Update (n.d.). Famous American immigrants. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://immigrationupdate.wordpress.com/famous-american-immigrants/

Jefferson, T. (1776 June). Declaration of Independence. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Peters, P. (1996 March 6). Invented in the USA: Immigrants, Patents, and Jobs. Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://www.adti.net/imm/immpat.html

Wikipedia (2009 September 24). Thumbnail excerpt from The Declaration of Independence. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_men_are_created_equal.JPG

Levi Johnston…your 15 minutes are up!

2009-11-14T23:55:00.001-08:00

I saw a headline on MSN.com where Levi Johnson, Bristol Palin’s baby-daddy, said in his Playgirl interview that Sarah Palin is “full of it.”

Levi Johnston: Proof you can
pile crap more than 6 feet high!

Sorry, but is it such a slow news day that the continued ranting of a two-bit loser from the frozen north are used to defame or at least detract from a grown-up? Let’s lay aside for a moment that Sarah Palin has been elected to numerous state and local political offices and is basically the only reason anyone at all voted for John McCain in 2008. And let’s lay aside the fact that high-school drop-out Mr. Johnston’s sole claim to fame is that he managed to slip one past the goalie when he wasn’t actually playing hockey.

So a proven A*%@&~ whose strongpoint is clearly thinking only of himself and for whom disrespecting women seems to be a hobby, resorts to his only possible career path – posing nude – which should probably be viewed as yet more abuse of women, with a criminal defense attorney acting as his agent. Well, that’s his second career, of course. His first was knocking up the governor’s daughter and then splitting – not sure if you need a special tag for that in Alaska or if just anyone can do it from a helicopter.

My daughter just mentioned that she saw that Levi was on the same talk show as Jon Gosselen where they were asked which did they think was the better father.
My mom says, “People judge you by the company you keep.”
She’s pretty smart. Jon Gosselen should stay away from Levi so people won’t think ill of him…Jon that is.

This just in…Jon says Barak Obama is “full of it!” There. Hey MSN, when do I get my headline?

…13…14…15 <DING>
Time’s Up, Levi. Back to the tundra for you!

P.S. Weight loss update: I’m at 185. That’s a loss of 65 pounds since May 28th.

Return to Zen

2009-10-26T20:03:00.001-07:00

In my previous post, I talked about the untimely death of my Creative Zen Micro and my plans to replace it. I’d forgotten at the time about EBay!

I’m pleased to report that only one lost auction later, I was the proud owner of a Creative Zen in the exact same color scheme as my old one.

It included everything from the original package plus a new extra battery. So now I have four 12 hour batteries. I can Zen my butt off now for 48 hours straight! And for a fraction of the price of a new player.
It even included the earphones, which I promptly threw in the trash.
As an added bonus, the player was loaded with a very eclectic music collection. Like some kind of digital audio voyeurs, my wife and I actually took the player on our date last Friday and listened to all the weird music in the car and tried to figure out what it told us about the guy who sold it to me.

When I went to plug it into Windows 7, I was bummed that it wouldn’t work. After some searching, I realized that I needed to update the firmware to the version released in 2005 that didn’t need special drivers anymore.
You can only do this process on Windows XP, but the amazing (!!!!) XP Compatibility Mode in Windows 7 came to my rescue and that all worked perfectly.
Apparently I did this before with my old one, but you’ll have to forgive my forgetting, since I did it FOUR YEARS AGO!!!

My new old Zen is now happily dispensing karma in my car and I’m again able to secretly listen to music from Evita and Les Mis – which doesn’t necessarily make me gay – but, I admit, it doesn’t help.

My moment of Zen…or not

2009-10-18T21:28:00.001-07:00

You may recall that back in January, I posted on my very durable music player, a Creative Zen Micro. Sadly, after years of devoted service, it is no more.

After my recent trips to Portland, I’d lost track of it for a couple days and finally found it in one of the gazillion pockets on my laptop bag. Unfortunately, when I turned it on, I was greeted with a mysterious failure screen that looked something like I was booting Linux on my Zen. It suggested I reformat the hard drive, which I did. I let it run for my whole commute home, about 40 minutes. Once I got it into the quiet of the house, I could hear the tell-tale death rattle tick-tick of the hard drive.
Poor little guy…it didn’t have a chance.

So, after exhaustive moments of grief, I did what every red-blooded man would do with something broken…I took it apart. I discovered that the defunct hard drive is just a little Hitachi Compact Flash drive. Of course, it is dead, so fat lotta good that does me. And replacing it would not have been worthwhile anyway. Just for the heck of it, I did stick it in my PC and listened to its hopeless ticking sounds for a few moments.
Although, I do want to point out that even in this dismantled state, if I put the battery in and turn it on, it does start to boot – which is pretty impressive. He just keeps giving.

So now what? Keeping in mind my genuine distaste for a media player that won’t work with Windows Media Player, iPods and Zunes are off the table.
I want something that has at least 8GB of space. 16 gig would be nice, but I’ve gotten along with 6GB all this time and am a notorious cheapskate, so 8GB looks like the place for me.
I couldn’t care less about video on my music player.
I don’t want a converged device. I don’t want an MP3 player on my camera or a phone on my MP3 player. I just want something with great battery life that I can leave in my car.
Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of me and the digital music player market has outright collapsed compared to a few years ago.

Having been so happy with my Zen Micro, I naturally went out to see what Creative had these days. Leaving aside the big glass screened video playing devices, it looks like the uniquely butt ugly Zen Mozaic would be their contender. I just don’t think I can do this to myself.
According to the review I read, the screen sucks but it has a 30 hour battery life. Sadly, no more removable batteries.

So what else is out there?

My wife has a 6GB Sandisk Sansa (below left) that is pretty nice. Unfortunately, they don’t make this one any more. The new Sandisk offering is the Sansa Fuze (below right). It’s OK, but I don’t like the little square look they’ve got going.

A possibility, but it just doesn’t turn me on.

So that leaves us with the Sony Walkman E-series. Yes, I know, Sony screwed up on their first attempt at digital music players with their own goofy format, etc. But they’ve repented and these new units work great with Windows Media Player and PlaysForSure music.

This little guy has a 30 hour battery life and weighs under two ounces. And it is pretty cheap.
I think this is the one that will go on my Christmas list.

It's official...

2009-10-09T07:39:00.000-07:00

I awoke this morning to the bizarre news that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for......."hope". Yes, that's right. So while you can't return an item for "spite", you can now receive awards for "hope".

That's right, not for anything he's done, but for the hope of what he could do. And keep in mind that the nominations closed in February, right after he was inaugurated.

In other, and arguably related news, Chicago is expecting record breaking snowfall this weekend.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, hell seems to have frozen over.

So I guess he really did stop global warming after all.

My Brother...continued

2009-10-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

Here it is the night before my brother's funeral.
Preparations are relatively in-hand. In as much as they ever could be.
My oldest brother and I had the difficult privilege of dressing Bill for his funeral today. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this is considered to be a final act of service and honor for the deceased. While it is not a doctrinal point, it is certainly the normal practice and tradition for family members or close associates in the church to perform this duty rather than leaving it to the professionals.
We were accompanied in this by Bill's wonderful bishop and two close friends from his local ward.
I'd never done this before and was very nervous about being go through with it. I'm not a wilting violet and I've been around, but this was, after all, my dear brother.
I was most impressed with the sense of calm and the feeling that it truly was a charitable act that pervaded the experience. I consider this truly a blessing.
Anyway, I'm not going to go into details, but I am glad to have been able to do this part of the preparation. We've been so focused on serving Bill's family, which is certainly appropriate, that it was nice to do one last thing for him amidst all else going on.
He was a super guy and I already miss him greatly.

Finally, if I could just give a plug for preparation. Please consider doing the following, none of them cost anything:

Round up your important papers. If you are a veteran, PLEASE dig out your original DD214. This is the key for your family to access veteran's benefits. Some of these, such as burial at a national cemetary, wouldn't be able to wait the 4-6 weeks it would take for your family to order a copy from the archives.
Write down information about your bank, brokerage, and other accounts. Include passwords for web sites. Keep this in a safe place, of course, but do it.
Think about your desires for your funeral services. Do you have particular hymns or music you like? Who would you like to give your eulogy? Any preferences for location, flower types, charities, etc.? Talk to your loved ones and then write this down. It is too hard to remember clearly when the time comes.
If you have benefits from your work, like life insurance, how will your family access that? What is the point of contact? What's the process? Find out and write this stuff down too. As it turns out, this is pretty hard for your family to figure out.
Create a checklist to see your loved ones through the final steps after you are gone.
If you are able, set aside some amount of money to provide for needs until the life insurance finalizes. Something like $5000-$10,000 that your survivors can access quickly and easily.

I mentioned to my wife that, while I'm certainly a proud veteran, I wouldn't feel worthy of including military honors in my funeral. I think many veterans would probably agree.
Well, the diva of the castle doesn't and says she will do what she thinks is right - and that includes the honor guard and flag. So not much I can do in the face of that kind of determination. :-)

But I do try to write down as much of this other stuff as I can, and I've learned that there is more to do. Yes, the ultimate in pre-planning is to have your funeral paid for in advance and your casket purchased, etc., but there is much that can be done for free.

One of my brothers passed away

2009-10-03T01:30:00.001-07:00

Very unexpectedly got word tonight that one of my older brothers passed away tonight. He collapsed from a massive heart attack at home and never regained consciousness despite the efforts of the paramedics.

He was a good man and leaves behind a wife and four children. Since they live in the Portland, OR area, we’ve always spent more time with them than my other brother, who lives in California. Whenever we’ve lived in Washington, we’ve always gone down to their house the day after Christmas to celebrate Christmas and his wife’s birthday.

I count myself lucky enough to have just spoken to him on the phone tonight for about 45 minutes. We were planning to have them up for Thanksgiving and he was just going to send an email to his boss to make sure he got it off. (He was a maintenance guy for luggage scanners at the Portland airport.)

He was always interested in talking about the Gospel and was a Sunday School teacher in his ward. He has touched the lives of many and will be sorely missed. Just tonight we were talking about some gospel matters related to the Fall and Redemption. Even now he probably has learned (or remembered) the answers to many of the questions we were talking about.

Some things you might not know about Bill:

He could cook amazingly good Japanese food. Usually while spouting wise or clever Japanese idioms – in Japanese.
He was in a Beach Boys cover band when he was in high school and used to play a killer saxophone.
He made a pet out of a very mean feral house cat – named “Cat” of course.
When I was little, like 12-ish, he took me to the movies a lot. Seems like every time a war movie comes on TV, I say, “Hey, Bill took me to see this when I was little.” A Bridge Too Far, The Eagle Has Landed, and more. He also took me to that awful first Star Trek movie.
He liked to play Risk.
He had our dad’s gift of being agreeable with just about everyone – even people he knew were complete idiots. :-)
He was known to sometimes <ahem> “go commando” in his younger years.
Right before he left on his mission he bought a red Trans-Am.
He used to be a welder, a sod carrier, a builder of mobile homes, an auto mechanic, a soldier, a silicon fab worker, and an electronics technician. Some of those jobs he liked, some he hated, but he always knew how to provide for himself and his family.
He was the keeper of the family history – both the genealogy and the stories.
Every time the family was together he’d find a way to work in the story of how my mom was driving him around on a paper route when he was a kid and (allegedly) laughed when a dog chased him. (Note that my mom does NOT deny this.<g>)
When he was going to be married, he drove me from Utah, where we lived, to California where his wife-to-be lived so I could stay at my other brother’s house until our parents came for the wedding. When we stopped at a gas station in Sacramento after driving all night, he got out his toothbrushing stuff. I wanted to get mine and he said, “Hey, you aren’t going to be kissing anybody, just wait in the car.”

Thanks, Bill. You ~~were~~ are always a good brother. See ya later.

Ladys and Gentlemen...The Beatles!

2009-09-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

I've just come from picking up my copy of The Beatles for the Xbox 360 at GameStop.
It is only the crushing press of scheduled afternoon meetings that is preventing me from even now claiming Swine Flu and making a bee-line home to my fake plastic instruments to take it for a spin.
One cool thing is that it includes a Beatles shirt for your avatar. I can think of at least one person at my house who will be very excited about that.
And another cool thing that I noticed from the package is that you can have up to six players, which makes sense - drums and two guitar/bass plus up to three microphones.
As a bonus for pre-ordering - which I did yesterday afternoon, it comes with a code for three free download songs that apparently you get to choose from a selection. There's only one public downloadable song right now ("All You Need Is Love"), so not sure how that will work. I left it all in the car so I could actually get some work done this afternoon.
I also have a class tonight, so I won't actually get my mitts on this until about 7pm.

We picked up our new and improved drum controller (with cymbals) on Monday and it is pretty cool. Can't wait to take it for a spin on the Ed Sullivan show or in the Cavern Club with the Fab Four.

BTW, MSNBC had a fun little piece on the "funnest Beatles songs to play". I also saw some mention about some of the things Harmonix did in the development of the game to make it more approachable for n00bs who just want to play some Beatles music - like having all the songs unlocked out of the box and having Easy Mode always be "No Fail". Pretty smart.

How I spent my summer vacation

2009-09-06T12:35:00.001-07:00

In honor of Labor Day and the end of Summer, I wanted to recap some of my non-vacation activities.

Worked. Including re-orging twice. Sigh.

Moved into a cubical. New office is nice, but this is my first experience in a cube. As cubes go, it is OK, but definitely a step down from an office.

Took 4 college classes. Mostly just lame ones that are requirements for my degree.

Lost over 45 pounds since Memorial Day. Currently at 203 and headed to 180 by the end of November.
My approach? Exercising more and not eating anything. Simple as that. I eat about 1200 calories per day and run/walk about 2.2 miles M-F and a 3.5 mile trail run on Saturday.
This is great, except none of my clothes fit and I’m too cheap to buy more.

Other than spending some time with the kids while they’ve been home, overall it was a pretty sucky and uneventful Summer.
Here’s to (probably an equally sucky) Fall and Winter and I’ll see if I can redeem myself next Summer.

But, hey Shadow Complex is awesome and The Beatles comes out this week, so I guess that’s something.

Ummm…

2009-09-02T22:30:00.001-07:00

There’s a very sad and important message in this somewhere.

What I learned in the dart booth at the church picnic

2009-08-29T22:13:00.001-07:00

And no, it isn’t about religion. It was about economics and the role of the market in moderating demand. In other words, it was about health care.

In our church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), we have an administrative unit called a “stake”. It is a group of congregations, kind of like a diocese in scale. Anyhoo, we have an annual picnic and usually something like 3,000 people come and there’s food and a band and stuff. This year, each congregation (called a “ward” for those playing along at home) also had to put together a little carnival type booth – face painting, old time photos, bean bag toss, etc. I was in charge of our effort (or more precisely, I was our effort, by choice, not complaining) and I put together a dart balloon popping thing. And all these booths and activities were free.

A guy in our ward (a single congregation) who is in the toy business had donated some pretty cool prizes. They were samples he’d had sitting around for some time I’m guessing. There were squeezy balls that looked like panda heads. (Ummm…and no, I don’t know why you’d want to squeeze a panda head.) And there were these very cool battery powered fans that lit up in the middle. His one rule about donating these prizes was “don’t bring these back to me”. Both the fact they’d been kicking around awhile and that he didn’t want them back will come into play later.

OK, so the rules of this game were simple.
1) Age 11 and under, throw from the closer line.
2) Over 11, throw from the further back line.
3) Three darts to a turn.
4) Pop a balloon, win a prize.
5) If you miss, you still get a piece of candy.

See? Simple.

I’ve played this kind of game at carnivals and amusement parks. There’s rarely a big line. The odds (for me) of winning a prize are better than most carnival games. And the itinerant serial killer carney working the booth seems to have plenty of time to blow up more balloons and put them up to replace the ones that are popped by ~~suckers~~ valued guests.

So here’s how it worked out for me in the nearly four hours I manned the booth…

A line quickly formed that ultimately extended about the equivalent of a block. That line stayed the entire time and, I’ll add, consisted of many of the same people. The only other booth with a line was face painting. Not even the food line was anything like this in length or duration. This was the Space Mountain of the Bellevue South Stake Picnic 2009. If you can separate Mormons from free food, and it isn’t a multi-level marketing pitch, you’re really on to something!
The lesson some of the organizers tried to take from this was, “Wow! people really like that dart game.”
NO! It wasn’t that they liked the dart game. They wanted the cool prize!
And so it began…

Issue #1
“We need to leave, do you mind if my child gets in front of the line?”
We had several of these in the time the booth was open, and people would just acquiesce and let the person go to the front. I mean, it was a church picnic after all.
But, seriously, what kind of person does this? What a wonderful life it must be to feel like your situation is soooo unique as to go ahead of 100 people waiting in the sun to try to play a free game to win a fan – that they only really think they need because they are standing in the sun trying to win one.

Issue #2
“This fan you gave me is broken! I need another one!”
Some people were nicer about this than others, but some were kind of angry about this. I mean, it was a free game, and I was happy to replace the fans, but holy crap.
As it turned out, the fans had about a 30-50% failure rate out of the box. In most cases because the batteries were dead or leaking.

Issue #3
“Our booth ran out of prizes, can we have some of yours?”
I gave them a case of 100 fans.
Then they ran into the failure rate and came back and said, “Hey, a lot of those fans don’t work. Can you give us another box?”
To which I said, basically, “WHAT? Howzbout you get your own prizes for your own #%$^@# booth?!?!” (well, not quite, but that’s what I said on the inside)
Then they started sending people with broken fans to my booth to get them replaced.

Issue #4
People showing up at the booth with three, four, or even five fans dangling from their belt.
On the one hand, I didn’t care because the mandate was to give people something to do and to get rid of these prizes, but it was an interesting experiment that, because it was free, people suddenly developed an insatiable appetite for these fans.
A side observation was seeing kids having “fan fights” where they would stick their spinning fans into each other and the fan that broke was the loser. Then the kid would get back in line and win another or just come and claim that it was broken and get another one.

Issue #5
“Hey the fan you gave my daughter got caught in her hair! YOU should be more careful about the prizes you give out to kids!”
“Dear brother in Christ, YOU should have smarter kids who, oh I don’t know, maybe don’t stick freakin’ motorized spinning things next to their head!”

The Lessons
The Role of Markets
Markets moderate demand. When demand goes higher than can be sustained at a certain market price, the price increases to the point where demand slackens to a more sustainable level.
If each time someone played the dart game, they had to pay a dime, or donate a food item to the homeless, or use one of a rare set of tickets that were provided, or some other currency of the moment, they would weigh their “wants” much more carefully.
THIS is the thing I didn’t anticipate. I had to interrupt the flow of the line to put up more balloons, or find darts in the grass, or whatever. There was never a slack moment in demand.
At the end of the day, I still had a bunch of these fans and I just started giving them away to the people waiting in line and some people would reach in the box and take three or four of them and then ask if I had more.
Demand for the least worthwhile of goods becomes insatiable when the price is zero.

Rationing
I noticed that one of the booths, started putting a dot on kids hands when they did their activity and not allowing repeats. I think it was the cotton candy booth. One kid was sad because they had dropped whatever it was and then couldn’t get more of it. Not that kids need more cotton candy or popcorn or what-have-you, but the only way to limit demand is a strict ration and that can be unrelenting and harsh in the face of genuine need. (or perceived need)
I didn’t do this, although I though of it, because, again, I wanted to get rid of the fans.
In a market driven economy, the market forces do the rationing by allowing people to choose what is most important to them.
In a centrally planned economy, these choices tend to disappear either by direct government action or through the reactions of market forces to indirect government intervention into that market.

Entitlement
It was genuinely surprising how a control group of unusually nice people at a church picnic could quickly feel entitled to these prizes. “Hey, my dart bounced off that balloon! Is this rigged?” (Yes, sir, I’ve rigged this free game of skill and chance so I can get ~~money~~, ~~power~~, jollies?)
Not too mention those people in the neighboring booth who seemed determined to have equal access to the prizes I’d arranged for MY booth.
And when the event was over and the organizers told me I needed to shut down, I still had people coming up wanting prizes while I was cleaning up and being clearly disappointed that they were gone – while they had two or three fans in their hands right before me.

So to end my sermon, brothers and sisters, I’ve spent an afternoon in ObamaCare, and it looks a lot like a dart game booth at a church picnic.
Only we won’t be clamoring for our fifth lame light up fan. We’ll be begging for our first necessary appendectomy while our doctor consults the bureaucracy to see if we should just maybe take the pain pills instead.
Be afraid! Be very afraid!

And, by the way, keep up the fight, we’re winning. Thanks to folks like David Hedrick. Semper Fi Cpl Hendrick. (As we all know, there are no “former” Marines, no matter what Sean Hannity says <g>)

And, all kidding aside, I can’t end this without a big shout out to the H’s, the C’s, and the T’s for all the help blowing up balloons. To P for the prizes. And to my family for their patience while we got through this lame assignment. :-)

Freezing My Own Green Beans (and other firsts)

2009-08-09T22:37:00.001-07:00

No, that’s not a naughty euphemism.

We have a little garden going this year. Basically just:

Green beans
Romaine lettuce
Spinach
Tomatoes
Carrots
Zucchini
Pumpkins

I’m not the world’s greatest gardener but I’m determined to have something to show for this year’s effort.

Our tomatoes are coming on strong, but haven’t ripened yet.
We’ve already harvested two crops of spinach and are ready to plant another row.
Our carrots are progressing – slowly.
Our pumpkins look promising. I suspect they’ll be supplying Jack-O-Lanterns for us and some of our friends as well.
Our zucchini has, of course, done well. I think I read somewhere that after a nuclear war, all that will be left is cockroaches and zucchini. It is about all I can do to harvest them when they are young and tasty before the become useless engorged beasts.

And our green beans have been great. We’ve eaten some and had some in the fridge, but we can’t keep up, so I found a page on the magic interwebs about freezing them. Some boiling water. Some ice water. Some freezer bags. Bada bing! I did it.

I’m now officially pioneer stock. Next I’ll probably be tanning hides and making soap.

Another first…selling a car on Craig’s List
I may be the last person on earth to have sold a car on Craig’s List. What’s more, it was a broken (repairable but not by me) Nissan Sentra.

Two firsts in one day. Pretty nifty stuff.

Three men and a Biden

2009-07-30T19:07:00.001-07:00

The AP story on Obama having Sgt Crowley and Professor Gates over for a beer and peer mediation session contained this portion that just struck me as pretty funny. (I’m including a screenshot of the story in case they change it later.)

That put me in mind of this great Hollywood production…

(Barack has just learned that NO ONE messes with Joe!)

Soldier Demands Apology for Obama-Care

2009-07-29T23:18:00.001-07:00

Continuing on the healthcare motif…you’ve got to love this video of a soldier schooling Clair McCaskill on the meaning of her duty to the Constitution – courtesy of RealClearPolitics.

Of course, Ms. McCaskill wasn’t actually at this town hall to my knowledge, but a brilliant statement nonetheless.

…and among these are life, liberty, and insurance…

2009-07-27T23:31:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven’t posted for quite a while. Work and summer time fun have been taking an unfair share of my time.

I was thinking about insurance. In an effort to identify common ground, I think any rational person would have to admit that it is unfair that an insurance company can charge exorbitant rates based on pre-existing conditions, charge different rates based on lifestyle choices, age, where you live, and even gender – if you can believe that still goes on in the 21st century.
Then, heaven forbid you need to make a claim. Then you’ll have to deal with sky-high deductibles and confront an insurance agency that wants to steer you to their preferred network of providers.
And the more you need them, the more likely they are to jack up their rates or drop you entirely.

Maybe insurance really is a basic right. Maybe there should be a publicly funded option.

You’ve heard all this before, I know. But in my case, I’m talking about car insurance.
That’s right. Remember what it was like to buy insurance as a young, unmarried male? And if you have had an accident in the past you may need to sell a couple vital organs when the bill comes due.

Seen from the point of view of the insurance company though, they’ve got years of data that backs up the fact that a young man driving a Nissan 350zx or a Mustang is more likely to get in an accident than a 40 year old married woman driving a Honda Odyssey. And they have equal stacks of data that tell them that it costs more to fix a door ding on a Bentley than a smashed up Celica.

And if you don’t like their service, you can move from Progressive to Geico (as we did some years ago). If you want a local agent that covers all your insurance needs, feel free to pick State Farm.

I hope to most people, the idea of national car insurance seems ridiculous. But, really, is it any more ridiculous than national health insurance?
Some would say that medical care is a basic human right. After all, the Declaration of Independence says “life” is an inalienable right. But it says the same about “the pursuit of happiness”. Despite decades of light-rail dreaming from social engineers and city planners, a car is the gateway drug to the pursuit of happiness in America.

Most people value the fact that we can pick a company, coverage, deductibles and payment terms that suit our car insurance needs. Why would we accept less from our medical insurance choices?
Some of you may remember when you could buy a so called “major medical” insurance policy. That is, a policy with a high deductible and affordable rates that was really intended to kick in to cover very significant medical bills. This was a great choice for young people who were generally healthy but wanted a degree of insurance protection. In most states, this type of policy has gone by the wayside as states have placed heavy requirements on insurers.
For example, here are the Mandated Benefits as dictated by Washington State and Federal Law. Note that mammograms are covered, as is chiropractic care and prenatal screening. I’m sure this is a great comfort to any young single man who thinks chiropractors are nuts. And yet, there is no provision (as near as I can tell) for changing benefits or rates based on gender or other such factors.

We don’t need more government intervention in health care.
What we need is more choice and more market forces. And the ability to charge rates corresponding to the projected consumption of services. If choice is good enough for your car, isn’t it good enough for your health?

Liberty…so easy a caveman could do it. (and another of those inalienable rights, by the way)

Some resources for the health care debate:

Heritage Foundation’s Health Care Issues page
Org chart of House Democrats health plan
Investor’s Business Daily on the Mayo Clinic saying Obama’s health plan sucks
Congressional Budget Office report on health care proposals
Medical horror stories from Canada and the UK
And remember this lovely thought from our illustrious president at a Town Hall meeting on June 25…

6 credits - the easy way

2009-07-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes...I'm still working on my Bachelor's.
I'm trying to wind it up quickly though and so I found a couple tests that would count toward some missing upper division credits in social science and electives.

I just took and passed the DSST test "The Civil War and Reconstruction".

Minimum passing was 47. I got 66.
Took about an hour and cost $80 but that is way better than taking a class for a couple months and spending $1500!

The questions are pretty detailed. Not just the major battles and policies, but many questions about relatively minor points.

For prep I used my high school AP History book (The American Nation by the late John Garraty...best book ever) and Ken Burns' PBS series. If you could do just one thing, I think watching the 11 hours of the Burns series would give you what you need to pass the test. There were some questions that were direct quotes.
(Side note, I just discovered that Garraty passed away in December 2007. That's too bad. Stephen Ambrose and then John Garraty - truly a pair of outstanding historians.)

I will say you should be cautious about some of the prep materials out on the web for this test. I looked at some and there were some wrong answers on some of the questions. If this were an area I didn't know as well as I do, I probably wouldn't have known that.

Top 5: Replacements for Waterboarding

2009-07-06T22:55:00.001-07:00

In this kinder and gentler era of dealing more politely with ~~people~~ ignorant savages who would like to kill us all, I thought I’d take a moment to suggest a few practical replacements now that waterboarding is passe.

5. An HGTV House Hunters International marathon
4. Four words: Middle-Seat, Full-Flight.
3. Sleeping in a hotel bed without untucking the sheet around your feet.
2. Taking a toddler on a “Father-and-Sons” campout.

…and the number one replacement for waterboarding…

1. Spending a night in a flannel-lined sleeping bag while wearing jeans.

My first finalized patent - #7548895

2009-07-02T09:58:00.001-07:00

Well, I guess I’m officially an inventor now. :-)

I’ve got several applications pending, all related to my work at Microsoft, but this is the first patent that has made it all the way through the process.

It’s called Communication Prompted User Assistance and you can take a look at the patent documents. If you want to see the full patent with diagrams, you need to create a free account, but here’s the cover page:

So the idea here is that when you are talking on the phone and you say something like, “Yeah, I need to schedule a follow-up meeting with Bob on Thursday and send out the project plan.”
This mechanism would be “listening in” on your conversation and then when you hang up, your phone would ring again and when you answer, it would be your phone asking, “Would you like to schedule a meeting with Bob?”
When you say, “Yes”, the voice would respond, “You don’t have any time on Thursday, but you are free 1-2pm on Friday. Would you like to schedule a meeting with Bob at 1pm on Friday?”
After that, it asks you if you’d like to add a reminder to send out the project plan. And so on…

My letter to Dave Reichert

2009-06-30T19:21:00.001-07:00

After hearing that my Congressman, Dave Reichert, was one of the eight Republicans voting for Cap & Trade that pushed it over the top, I had to drop him a line.
I urge you to do the same if you live in the Washington 8th district. You can reach him through his House website.

Dear Mr Reichert,
I am writing you a brief note to tell you that I am
appalled that you supported the Cap & Trade bill in the house. As you know, it only passed due to a small set of Republicans who sided with extremists like Nancy Pelosi.
Cap & Trade is a terrible concept which will have very damaging impacts on our economic future. And, of course, you voted on it without having even read the bill - as it was not available to be read before the vote.
Sadly, I don't even think you are aware of what you've actually done here.
I've supported you for many years, but that ends here. You will not get another vote from me and I will work hard to ensure your defeat when you are again up for election. If we're going to have someone representing our district siding with the Democrats to destroy my children's future, then it may as well be a Democrat rather than a Republican. I've never donated to a campaign for a
Democrat before, but I will be doing so now.

Start packing, Dave. It's time for you to come back
home.

You may ask yourself, what's so bad about Cap & Trade? The Heritage Foundation had a great piece on that recently. Take a look.
But what is worse is that the bill was so rushed that the full bill was not even available to be read before the vote - which is starting to sound familiar. And even if it had been, it is doubtful that our representatives would choose to read it.
So they missed, for example, that the bill contains provisions taking California's building codes (because California is a model of growth and success) national - requiring an immediate 30% increase in energy efficiency of new homes and another 50% a few years later. And all this was specifically adopted without looking at how it could be done, how much it would add to the price of a home, or even if it is possible at all.

Ayn Rand's quote leaps to mind here: "It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master."

My three jokes

2009-06-28T19:34:00.001-07:00

My kids tell me that I only know three jokes. In think that is a significant exaggeration, but I think it is fair to say that there are three I tend to reference a lot.

In fact, these jokes are so embedded in family lore that we all now just reference the punch lines and that is as good as having told the whole joke.

So without further ado, here there are, in no particular order…

1) A pig that good…
A traveling salesman was visiting a farm one day and he saw a happy little pig doing his best to get around with three regular legs and one carefully fashioned little wooden leg.
The salesman said to the farmer, “That is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. What happened to that pig?”
The farmer said, “Yup! That is one fine pig. A few months back, I was in the barn and it caught fire. A beam fell down and trapped my leg. That pig rushed in through the flames and pulled me out.”
“Amazing!” said the salesman. “And so that’s how he lost his leg?”
“Well,” the farmer said, “a pig that good you can’t eat all at once.”

2) …Nearly killed ‘im
A boy went to school on Monday and his teacher asked him about his weekend.
“It was terrible,” the boy said. “My dog was in the street and a car came by and hit him right in the butt!”
“Rectum,” the teacher corrected.
The boy retorted, “Rectum nothin! It darn near killed ‘im.”
Note that this particular punch line made an appearance in a handwritten addition to the Father’s Day card from my 19 year old daughter earlier this month.

3) For all the good these did me…
Continuing the scatological focus of joke #2.
A man goes to the doctor and tells him his problems. The doctor prescribes a suppository.
The man takes the medication and leaves the office. He comes back for a follow up visit two weeks later.
The doctor asks, “How is the medicine working?”
“Doc,” the man says, “they taste terrible. And frankly for all the good they did me, I may as well have shoved them up my butt.”

Special bonus jokes
There are a couple more jokes that have near legendary status at our house, so I’ll include them here as runners up. If any of the top three jokes are unable to perform their duties, one of the runners up will take their place.

First Runner Up – “Call who?”
This joke was actually created in our very own house by my lovely and talented wife, who most people would never suspect of such a thing.
We saw a TV commercial for a medication intended for older men who have difficulty <ahem> functioning. (speaking of which, get a grip old dude, time to get a new hobby) Apparently there is a side effect that can lead to the medicine lasting longer than 4 hours. The commercials tell us that if this happens, you should seek attention from a doctor.
“Forget the doctor! I’m calling a nurse!” <rimshot – thank-you-very-much-I’ll-be-here-all-week-folks>

Second Runner Up - “hey elephant, you wanna peanut?”
A little boy, who’d never seen an elephant before, went to a zoo. He walks up to the front of the elephant and says, “Hey elephant, you wanna peanut?”
No answer.
The boy says a little louder, “HEY elephant…you wanna peanut?”
No answer. So the boy decides he may be talking to the wrong end of the elephant. Slightly embarrassed he goes to the other end of the elephant and says, “Hey elephant, you wanna peanut?”
To which that end of the elephant replies, “a phewwwwww”.
Now, I will admit, this joke is not all that funny, but when apparently when you start substituting other replies that end of the elephant could make, like “CERTAINLY” or “I suppose”, it becomes a laugh riot.

Digital Media Copying Survey Results

2009-06-16T21:01:00.001-07:00

Well, I had a disappointingly small sample size of 24, but thanks to those of you who took a moment to take this survey.

Here are the results. The sample size is too small, and this is a non-scientific survey anyway, but I think it reflects some interesting attitudes that are valid in themselves.

I admit to being a cheapskate and using the free level of Survey Monkey. Consequently, my ability to download the data was basically in the form of screen shots, which I’ve cleaned up just a bit and included below.

The survey was presented as a series of everyday scenarios.

The “other” comments from this question were:

The last question gave people an opportunity to sound off about their views on copyright and consumers and their experiences.

Project Natal meets Jimmy Fallon

2009-06-11T14:40:00.001-07:00

For anyone who doubts this actually works as well as it did at E3, check it out on the Jimmy Fallon Show from June 10th.
http://games.gearlive.com/playfeed/article/q209-project-natal-demoed-live-on-jimmy-fallon/

What a coup to do this as a live demo for that demographic on the heels of E3!

A short survey

2009-06-11T10:09:00.001-07:00

I’m writing a paper for a class I’m taking and thought it would be fun to augment it with some up-to-the-minute thoughts from regular people.

I’ve created a short, anonymous survey about how people feel about copying digital media. Please take it. Thanks.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=QxBtQRbHjsTbA0MLGWK5mg_3d_3d

Not-so-extreme home makeover 2009

2009-06-11T08:06:00.001-07:00

Every summer, we try to do one large home improvement project. Some years this is a smaller do-it-yourself thing, some years it is a little bigger. And this year’s was a lot bigger – getting the exterior painted.

We’ve lived in our house almost 10 years. Far longer, by the way, than we’ve lived anywhere else. We bought it new, but it was definitely time for a paint job.

The Before picture

Of course, this is two minivans, and several megapixels, ago when we were just moving in. You can still see the “sold” sign in the window.
We picked the colors and went with a sort of green-grey for the main color and an off white for the trim and kind of a darker off-green door. You can see we opted for the then-fashionable fake shutters on the upper story.

The Process
We live in a development with a homeowner’s association and so we had to go through an approval process to pick the color. This meant talking to the Architecture Review Committee (over email), getting forms, knocking on a bunch of neighbors’ doors to get their signatures and show them our colors. Good times.
Before that, and even more onerous than that, we (and by that I mean, my wife) needed to pick the colors. This consisted of two parts looking at paint chips at the store and one part driving around and looking for colors we liked. At one point, Lynnae even ran up to a house to compare the chips we had to their color to find one just like it. (several times, btw)

Between the rain, wind, and sun, our exterior takes a beating. Getting a house painted is a pretty major ordeal so we wanted good paint. We selected Benjamin Moore Moorlife, with it’s lifetime guarantee. We went with Char Brown for the main body color, Black Satin for the door, and a pure white trim.

We met with probably a half-dozen painters who ranged for estimates. Some seemed very uninterested in doing much of anything. Some told us they would not paint the house until August. Some tried to talk us out of the paint we wanted. Some gave quotes so low you have to wonder what the result would be.

Finally, we narrowed it down to Absolute Quality Painting. Jim Mason was absolutely stellar from the first time we met him for an estimate until the last drop of paint was applied. Jim and his assistant painted our house like they were painting their own masterpiece on canvas. The meticulousness and attention to detail reflect a pride in their craft you don’t often see.

At about the same time, a neighbor a couple houses down was having their house painted. A crowd of workers showed up and it was basically done in 2 days, including prep. Jim took a little longer, more like a week. While our neighbor’s house also looks good, you can see the result of that extra bit of care in Jim’s work on our house. The last day and a half, they basically circled every level of the house dozens of times, checking every piece of trim, every nook and cranny and touching up and cleaning up as needed.

One night, we’d left some folding camp chairs our around our fire pit in the back and Jim came to our door very apologetic the next day because he was up on the second story doing some trim touch up and the wind had blown a few drops of paint onto the chairs. Now, one, we take these chairs camping; two, if we cared about them that much, we would have put them away; and three, these drops of paint were microscopic – there’s no way we would notice them if he hadn’t called it out. that is the degree of care and professionalism we are talking about here.

So if you are in the Seattle area and need some painting done, by all means, call Jim Mason at Absolute Quality Painting. It’s an easy choice to complete a the chore of making your house look like new. It might take a few more days than other guys, but for something that is going to last another 10 years, that’s no big deal really.

From the business side, we’d come to agreement on a great price and, knowing contractors, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know the “well THAT wasn’t included in our quote so it will be an extra $$$$$” (you know, like KPMG jobs). But it NEVER happened. Easy to work with. Man of his word. Just got-er-done kind of stuff.

The After picture
OK, I know, I’m keeping you in suspense. Here’s the finished result…
Unfortunately, a picture can’t really capture the true richness and depth of the brown, but you get the idea.

And again, if you need painting done, call Jim. You won’t be sorry.

Take the wraps off Natal

2009-06-01T23:05:00.001-07:00

For the past while, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved with a very cool “secret project” on Xbox 360. Today it was unveiled for the first time publicly at E3 in Los Angeles.

Project Natal is a whole new approach to interacting with your entertainment options. Playing games, watching movies, interacting with your friends online. Don’t settle for a motion controller when you can just have motion.

Take a look at this intro video…

In PC World’s coverage after the announcement today, they had this to say:

Like a nerdy gladiator swaggering onstage to do battle with breathlessly expectant fans and naysayers alike, Microsoft utterly wowed with "Project Natal." I mean really wowed. Yeah, it's kind of a dumb name, but it may turn out to be the most impressive show item any company's crowed about in years.

I’ve been at Microsoft a long time and I honestly don’t recall the press saying something like that about any Microsoft product.

Not to be out-gushed, Time Magazine said:

Today at E3, Microsoft announced a new technology that, like the Wii, uses motion-sensing to control video games. But it may just be better than the Wii. In fact it may just kill the Wii.

Peter Molyneaux, of Microsoft’s Lionhead Studio, the creator of Fable, unveiled an amazing project called Milo. This is so cool.

So there it is. That’s my latest secret project. Way more interesting than the past ones I’ve been involved with. :-)

So what else was there to see in the Xbox 360 E3 presentation? Well, not much. Just…

Joyride – looks like a blast!
Rockband: The Beatles
Forza 3 for this Fall. My youngest daughter is looking forward to both of these racers.
A double dose of Halo. ODST for this year and Reach for 2010.
Alan Wake. Looked very cool. Dark and eerie. Amazing lighting.
Modern Warfare 2. I’ve seen enough. Sign me up!
Last.FM service.
Facebook and Twitter
Left 4 Dead 2
Splinter Cell: Conviction
And, oh yeah, Final Fantasy XIII and Metal Gear Solid on the Xbox. Sony…please…man up. I can hear you crying from here.
Video parties so you and your friends in different places can watch movies MST3000 style.

I think Gamasutra said it best:

“What can Sony do now?”

Still don’t have a 360? Stop punishing yourself and go out and get one!!! You’re missing all the good stuff and, frankly, people are starting to talk about you behind your back.

An unexpectedly good movie…

2009-05-22T20:04:00.001-07:00

No, it isn’t Terminator Salvation (opened this weekend, can’t wait to see it).

It’s…

This movie is really enjoyable. I know that sounds crazy. I mean it is a movie about a guy trying to get the world record score on Donkey Kong! It’s a documentary with the real folks and the real events.

I’d heard of this movie when it came out in 2007, but around that same time my wife told me about some older lady that she goes to a weekly class with mentioned that her son was in a movie about Donkey Kong. As soon as she told me that I knew she was talking about this, but I never got around to watching it until last night.
Everyone else in the family was in the living room watching “So you think you can dance” and I was watching this on Netflix streaming in the den.

Here’s what makes it so funny. The hardcore video gamers in this movie have NO idea how ridiculous they are. The old record holder, Billy Mitchell (no not the great general) thinks he is oh so suave with his Members Only jacket and feathered semi-mullet. He is surrounded by an army of adult/nerd/boy/men who he somehow holds some sway over and who do his mind-game bidding like so many zombified fire ants.
Along comes Steve Wiebe (that’s “wee-bee”). Steve is a normal guy from Redmond. A once laid off Boeing employee turned science teacher. A never-was grunge musician. A washed up baseball player whose untimely injury cost him the spotlight. And someone whose mother says she thinks “he’s a little autistic”. Steve has had a hard time coming to grips with the idea that he just isn’t going to end up famous and special after all.

And Steve is the only normal person in that competitive gaming universe.

Please. Make a couple hours for King of Kong. It’s not like you had anything planned anyway. Just do it. Where else can you here the child of a guy trying to break a world’s record screaming to have his bum wiped!

Steve Wiebe…you’re all right.
Billy Mitchell (no the other one)…you’re a moron.

Update: I just discovered that Maxim magazine (Dec 2007) named Billy Mitchell “Dweebus Maximus Dorkus of both the 20th and 21st centuries”. His parents must be very proud.

Countdown to E3

2009-05-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

E3 - the Electronic Entertainment Expo - is coming!

So jot down 10:30AM Pacific, June 1st on your calendars for the Microsoft E3 Press Briefing.
You can watch it live on G4 TV.

Any guesses on big announcements you'd like to see? Crimson Skies 2? Alan Wake? APB?

Hey Microsoft…I’ve got a “critical” update for you!

2009-05-02T03:26:00.001-07:00

You may not be aware of this, but just a little while ago, my home network health slipped into a “critical” state. Suddenly all those snide comments and verbal jabs my network has been making made sense!

Dutifully, because I always do what my computer tells me to do, I opened up my Home Server Console or Command Center or Missile Launch Pad or whatever and saw that there were important updates that needed to be installed. So I said, “Oh yeah baby. You know what I need. Hook me up with some of that sweet Windows Update action.” (or words to that effect)

Long update process ensues...
Updates to the .Net managed framework…OK.
Some security fixes…dandy.
Massive two part critical update containing Internet Explorer 8…WHAT THE…

Look, I work at Microsoft. I like it there. I definitely don’t consider it the nexus of evil. (if it were, it would be a lot more fun)
And I don’t even mind IE8. I’ve been using it for some time at work and have no gripes about it.

I LOVE my Home Server. It happily keeps my machines backed up. Shares media all over the place. And is a cute little shiny box with flashing lights. What’s not to love?

But, guys, seriously. IE8 as a critical update for Home Server? No one ever even starts the browser. This monster of a download has been running for almost 2 hours on my weak sauce 1.5Mbps DSL connection.

All for an app that will NEVER even be run.
(don’t write me hate mail that various components of IE are used for the Console or whatever…I get that, but all that already worked fine)

Dad and Car Stories

2009-05-02T03:07:00.001-07:00

First of all, I had an awesome dad.
He dropped out of school when he was 16, joined the Air Force and became a jet engine mechanic, a flight engineer, and a flight engineer instructor.

Here’s a picture of dad in Vietnam, about 1972(?).
I’m sure he had an engine on his mind.
Or maybe 4 of them at this point – attached to the wings.

After more than 20 years in the military, he was a small businessman doing all sorts of things. Some very successful, some modestly so, some not so great (this one in particular, go ahead and zoom in).
In any case, he was a genius, pure and simple.
My dad knew everything there was to know about cars. In fact, he once designed a hydraulic engine for a car. Replacing an engine was something he’d do for a couple hours of entertainment.
Before my time, when he was a younger man, he used to race motorcycles. And we used to go to stock car races. Not as those poor saps in the stands – always in the pits or in the middle of the track with the emergency vehicles.
One thing I recall from when he was driving a car was that the car numbers were handed out by whomever is in charge of that set of races. His number was “141”. He was one of the premier class of flight engineers for the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter – so he was happy to have that number.

Anywhoo, I digress, boy, how I wish I’d paid attention to that car stuff!

Dumb Thing #1
A few weeks ago, the car my middle daughter drives, a 1994 Nissan, blew an engine in a pretty spectacular fashion.

I bit the bullet and had a shop replace it with a low mileage rebuilt engine*. My rationale was that she needed a car and that was cheaper than buying a new one. Right? Right?

* Oh what the heck do I know about what they put in there. Could be a hamster cage from 1921 for all I know. That repair guy is laughing now but wait until they get a RROD. Who’ll be laughing then, Mr Funny Pants?

Dumb Thing #2
Last Friday afternoon, the same car just wouldn’t start. We were actually just getting back into town that night. I ended up spending the whole Saturday trying to get it to start with the help of a friend who apparently DID pay attention to his dad. We seemed to have success.
We had the battery tested. Fine.
We (meaning the other guy – who HAD paid attention to his dad) removed the starter and we had it tested. Fine. <grrrr>
We reverently undertook that old broken car sacrament – cleaning the battery terminals. They needed it, but it didn’t help.
We (meaning the other guy) put everything back and it just worked.
Thanks again KH!

Not So Dumb Thing #1
In the past week, I’ve helped my oldest daughter find a car to use in the summer and take back to college with her. (Despite my aggressive promotion of public transit for students, she is addicted to being behind the wheel.)
We ended up finding and buying what seems like (we just got it) a really nice loaded 1993 Camry for $1285.
Lo, what did I find? There are not a few but MANY cars I could have bought for less than I paid for that engine replacement. STOOPID STOOPID STOOPID!!! Why didn’t I look at this at the time?!?!
Granted, finding this car did involve visiting people who seemed frightened that someone looked at their Craigslist ad and had surely come to kill them.

drum roll please

Dumb Thing #3
The Nissan is now stalled out again about 20 miles from home in a parking lot. It had started fine, but I stopped for a Slurpee. Curse my gluttony!
ARRRGHHHHHH!
First the economy and having to hear about other people losing their jobs. Then all this annoying TV coverage of Swine Flu. And now THIS?
Why does everything bad have to happen to me?!?

Not So Dumb Thing #2 (hopefully)
Enter the tool my dad didn’t have at his disposal – the internet.
I couldn’t sleep, due to the weight of my troubles, ~~Googled~~ I mean “Live Searched” and found what seems to be the cause of this and it might not be so bad. Looks like it is the infamous Nissan Inhibitor Relay problem.
I plan to attack the car with wiring diagrams, some taps of the hammer, some jumper wire, and a few other tricks to deal with that pesky relay.
Based on the many things I’ve read about the symptoms of this, I’m very hopeful. In fact, it is 2:45am and I’m restraining myself from driving out there and attacking it right now.

So I’m not a genius, but I can work a search engine. The “wisdom of crowds” and all that.
Somehow this seems appropriate…

Update: OK I struggled with this car all day on Saturday. I tapped on the relay. I tapped on the starter. I removed the relay and stuck in a jumper wire. Nothing. In the evening, KH came and helped me again and replaced the starter with a new one. Nothing. Connected the old starter to power while it was on the ground. WHIZZZZ. It worked fine. I subconsciously attempt suicide with a small cut on my finger that bleeds all over my shirt.
We narrow this down again. It MUST be the relay. I pull the relay. Stick in the jumper wire again. Car roars to life. #$%^&*!~`>%
A whole day shot.
On the plus side, KH is getting really fast at changing Sentra starters.
Oh, and until I replace the jumper wire with a new relay, you can now start the car when it is in gear. Hopefully the driver remembers this and doesn’t drive into a wall.

More embarrassment

2009-04-18T14:49:00.001-07:00

Since we won’t be able to pay a lot of personal attention to the kids in the upcoming week due to some other things going on, I felt bad and took my youngest and her friend to Hannah Montana: The Movie this afternoon.

They weren't going to our little theater in town, so we wanted a parent to be there to protect them "pervs". And, since I wanted the little tweens to be free for their tween talk, I sat a few rows back in one of the “single loser” seats. Unfortunately, as the theater began to fill up and the movie was getting ready to start, I realized I was now that “weird perv” sitting alone watching Hannah Montana at noon on a Saturday.

I suddenly went from being this guy:

…to being this guy, lurking at the playground:

<sigh>
No good dead ever goes unpunished I guess.

As for the movie, I’m not a Hannah fan, but overall it wasn’t as painful as it could have been. From the first 5 minutes I thought it would be terrible, but it wasn’t too bad. Other than the fact that I now have to move further away from the school.

You remember that feeling...

2009-04-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

...when you were a little kid and you ran up to the person you thought was your parent in a store and they turn around and IT'S NOT THEM?
That unique and exquisite mixture of fear and embarrassment.

As it turns out, you can still feel that as an adult - especially if you drive a Honda Odyssey.
Honda Odysseys, as everyone knows come in several interesting colors - all of them silver. There's greenish silver, blueish silver, silvery silver, etc.
My wife's Odyssey is a sageish silver.

On the way home from the Seattle Tea Party, we stopped at a craft store and I had to run in to see if they had some weights for a Pinewood Derby car I was helping one of my kids with. (They didn't. They no longer stock Pinewood Derby parts. Michaels, why do you hate America so much?)

So I came out of the store and walked up to the driver's side of the silvery Odyssey. I came up to the door and - while my brain was still processing why there was someone already in the driver's seat - I tugged on the door handle. The door was locked. More brain processing. In the same instant a slightly angry, slightly frightened man looked me right in the eye.

AHHHHH...you're not my mommy!!!!
I mean, this isn't the right car.

I left the hapless driver sitting there pondering how lucky he was to have foiled the car jack attempt and backed up into the car behind me, knocking the side mirror a bit in the process.

I quickly found my way over to the RIGHT silver Odyssey - which was full of my family all laughing at me.

If I'd been in just my underwear, I'd swear it was a dream.

Reflections on Tea Parties

2009-04-16T10:58:00.001-07:00

I’ve heard so much nonsense written about these tea parties. Let’s leave MSNBC’s homo-erotica totally out of the picture and just talk about reasonably reputable sources.

CNN says they are “anti-CNN”. Wow! Narcissist much? These are the kind of guys that Tweet, “I’m eating a really good sandwich right now” without realizing that even their friends don’t care.
This is the ranting of a network that has no idea how irrelevant they are in their own marketplace. <cough cough> ratings <cough>

Fox News says they are “anti-Tax” (same page, scroll down a little). Well, at least they aren’t saying they are “pro Fox”. They are a little anti-Tax, but not in the sense that we don’t think we should pay taxes.
In fact, I think 9 out of 10 party goers would agree that MORE people need to be paying taxes. A fundamental problem with our system now is that only about half the people pay anything at all and the top 2-3% of income earners pay the lion’s share. Everyone should be a stake holder in America. No one group should get a tax cut or tax increase. That is the epitome of fairness and avoids the built-in danger of all democracies.
Somehow Fox News has seized for itself some sort of credit in this movement. I’m not sure how that happened. We all know that this idea is straight from Rick Santelli on CNBC.

Republican party leaders seem to think this is an event supporting them. Hold on there guys. Please reference the Congressional Record from 2001-2006 and tell me why we’d be looking to you for leadership. I heard of some tea party events where Republican politicians were booed off the stage.

People everywhere are saying they are “anti-Obama”. I’ll concede there is a heavy thread of this but ONLY because he’s the current driver of this policy. Virtually all of the people at these tea parties were just as upset at the Bush-Paulson plan, which Obama has extended and continued. Virtually all of the people at these tea parties were just as upset at the Bush stimulus plan of 2008, and it was a mere shadow of the current one.
And Obama’s not alone. Pelosi and Reid are right up there on the anger list.

The key to “getting it” on these tea parties is to realize that what people are upset about are fundamental changes to the fabric of our culture and society that will have a starkly negative outcome. This isn’t a guess. You can look at many examples, the UK comes to mind. As Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

So the tea parties are not about throwing Obama out. They're not about cutting taxes per se. They are about stopping our trip down this change in our economic system. Consider:

For the first time ever, the Federal government has replaced a CEO, effectively by order. (GM)
For the first time ever, the Federal government has forced healthy banks to accept money they didn’t want. (Wells Fargo, and others)
AND they won’t let them pay it back despite their desire to do so.
Because the VA hospitals work so well, they want to take over the entire medical system.

There are two choices facing us: “trickle down prosperity” (AKA the way economies actually work, like it or not) or “trickle up poverty”.
We newly dubbed right wing extremist tea party goers prefer the former.

You can point fingers all you want, but the entire mess we are in right now has its roots in government intervention in the housing market that forced institutions to loan money to people who shouldn’t have gotten loans. In response to that level of risk, these same institutions created all kinds of securitization to protect themselves from that injection of business risk.
Further, the government institutions Fannie and Freddie have been piggy banks for politicians (primarily Democrat ones) and pretended to be both private and public institutions depending on what suited them in a particular instance.

Capitalism and free markets didn’t fail. The thumb of government was on the scale the whole time and markets were trying to react and protect themselves as best they could until it all came down.

There are solutions for all this. “Bankruptcy” (sorting good assets from bad ones and getting the value from the good), “foreclosure” (removing you from property you don’t own and aren’t keeping your word in paying for), and “renting” (the place you live when you can’t afford a house). Just let it happen and it will all get better a lot more quickly.

Extremist chatter: A report from the Tea Parties

2009-04-16T10:09:00.001-07:00

As a new member of the Homeland Security watchlist, I went to two Tea Party events yesterday. One in Bellevue at lunch time and one in Seattle in the evening.
Thanks for the idea Rick Santelli.

Bellevue

The Bellevue event was on the lawn at City Hall and was really well attended for a mid-day event. Using the technique of counting a section of the crowd and then multiplying that across the area, I came up with about 1200 people. There were some empty pockets here and there though, so let’s call it about a thousand. I’ve not seen an estimate of the attendance in any of the press reports.

In general, I’m really opposed to Republican politicians glomming onto these events. Let’s not forget that they spent like drunken sailors while in power and that the first round of bailouts was a product of the Bush administration. (And, as someone at the event said, at least the drunken sailor is spending HIS OWN money.)
However, a Bellevue City Councilman, Conrad Lee, spoke. Mr. Lee is an immigrant (a legal one, thank you Mr. Lee) who came to the US 15 years ago. He said that at the time he was just looking for economic freedom and opportunity. He found that but he found something more that he hadn’t expected in the political freedom and the opportunity to make a difference. It was a great story and I love hearing from first generation (legal) immigrants.
Another speaker was Toby Nixon. Toby is also a Microsoft employee and happens to be an LDS guy. He is a former state legislator and now the head of a policy group. In his talk, he said, “There are four boxes that protect our freedom. The soap box. The ballot box. The jury box. And the ammo box. Preferably in that order.” (insert wild applause and hoo-uhs) He elaborated on each of the first three and one of the things I appreciated was his call to stop trying to get out of jury duty. I’ve never been sure why people do that. Do we want juries left in the hands of complete morons?

My hastily made sign read “Pay your own #!?@~$">#!?@~$ mortgage!” on one side and “Dude, where’s my country?” on the other.

I had to leave a little early to get back to work for a 1pm feature review meeting. Good time though.

Seattle
This was a family affair for us (except our oldest who is at college). We got to the event a little late. I was puzzled why the woman MC’ing was dressed as Alice (from Alice in Wonderland). As I write this, I’m just remembering the tea party scene, so I suppose it makes some kind of sense.
There were more people at the Seattle event, but still less than two thousand. I haven’t seen any estimates, but it was much more organized in the sense that they had sign up lists to stay involved going forward and “official” people in little yellow hard hats who were moving through the crowd doing various “official” things.
And it was in Seattle, so there were a few nuts. There was one anti-Walmart guy and one guy who was either for or against bioengineering, but we couldn’t really tell. He was dressed in a black facemask and goggles and had a cape made from a UW Huskies flag. <head scratching> Not sure what was up with that.

The worst part is there were a couple of people with really offensive signs. One depicted a Barak Obama figure with strings going up to a Star of David and a stereotypical “evil Jew” controlling him. That doesn’t even make any sense. I don’t think Obama has shown himself to be even a friend of Israel. In addition to being anti-Semitic and evil, it just doesn’t make any sense at all.
The other sign was a single “counter-protestor” with a reference to sexual activity that is the current way of talking about the Tea Parties on MSNBC. I would wager that more people saw this guy’s stupid sign at the Tea Party than were watching MSNBC in that same 2 hour timeslot nationwide.

Anyway, great energy in the crowd and a fun family event. Here we are being escorted away by the horse mounted riot police.*

* OK, not really, we just happened to be walking in front of them on the way to the car, but seemed funny they were there.

I think daughter #2 was hoping for some window smashing and car burning and may have felt a little disappointed when we all dispersed peacefully at the end.

So how about you? How’d you spend your April 15th?

What the heck was up with my ACT?

2009-04-15T22:51:00.001-07:00

I was digging through some old transcripts and such.
Just a note that I keep carefully filed by stuffing them in the folder/frame thing that my Associates degree came in and stuck in a box in the garage with things like old plastic models I never built and my children’s blessing dresses. But I digress.
Anyway, so what do I find there but my ACT score report from when I was in high school.

For better or worse, when I took the ACT, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I don’t think my parents were even aware that I took it. I remember driving myself to the BYU campus (I’m pretty sure) on a Saturday morning (in October, apparently) and just taking the test cold with zero prep. I think I did pretty well, although I apparently had no more ability to rub two numbers together then than I do now. And what was up with that English score. I’ve always been a big fan of English and I use it almost daily. I’m actually planning a trip there. <sigh>

Now, again for better or worse, taking the ACT for my two oldest was a different matter. It involved lots of worrying, lots of practice tests, planning to take it once and then at least once more.
They’ve both done well and I’m very pleased with the effort they’ve put into it.

So the really interesting thing about this is not my scores or the fact my parents didn’t love me enough to make me take practice tests until I cried. (like I do)
No, the interesting thing was the ACT “Interest Inventory”.

Since I now work in the software industry, which is usually considered pretty technical, I appear to be woefully misplaced in the job market.
I mean I do pretty well for myself now, but apparently I would be KILLER in the Arts or Social Services. I really should reconsider a career as a case worker with troubled youth. Maybe I could straighten them up by making them take ACT practice tests over and over again while I fire live ammunition over their heads – just so they are prepared for test day.

My lovely and gracious assistant pointed out that tests like this are always out of step with what is really happening in the world and that “technical” to the ACT fuddy-duddies of 1985 probably meant internal combustion engines. She’s great about making me feel better about myself. (But I still got a higher ACT than her. <nyah-nyah>.)

How I got here – Part 2

2009-03-18T20:49:00.001-07:00

OK, OK, finally getting back to the story line I started back on March 4 about how I got into the software and gaming biz. When we last left our hero, he had been learning about the valiant little Sinclair ZX-80.

The first computer I ever bought for myself was a Timex-Sinclair TS-1000. This was touted as the “first computer under $100”. I bought mine for about $97 at KMart in 1982. This was a slightly re-badged version of the Sinclair ZX-81, successor to my ZX-80. The key difference though was that where the old fashioned ZX-80 had a trifling 1k of RAM the TS-1000 had DOUBLE that! Yes! 2k of RAM.

Through a combination of saving my own money and begging my mom, I soon added the 16k RAM pack for another $49. I also bought my first computer flight simulator – Psion Flight Simulator. Man, I crashed that plane on approach about a thousand times at least. Oh, and we’ll see that Psion name pop up again in a later episode.

The Timex had some amazing features – like the string arrays that were missing from the ZX-80. It could also do crude graphics of an almost bitmap variety. The pixels were just really big – the display resolution was 64x44 pixels.

Tape me away
Like many early computers, a cassette tape recorder was the way you stored programs. This was just a regular old cassette recorder with a cable that connected the earphone and microphone jacks to the computer. To save, you’d press the record buttons on the recorder and the computer would send hellish screeching over the cable to the tape. To load, you’d press play and the computer would listen (sometimes) to the hellish screeching coming to it over the cable. This was not very reliable, so a common practice was to record things multiple times – in case one copy wouldn’t work. If you look at the little number in the circle on the tape picture, that was the number of copies of that program I saved there.
As you look through these tapes, you can see sort of the evolution of the program and my approach to source control and backups as I worked on the game. That’s kind of fun.

I remember there were some contests that Timex had that I entered. One was for the most interesting use of the database program. (I made an English/German flash card database.) Another was for the most interesting use of the spreadsheet program. (I made some kind of club budget tracking sheet.)
And I submitted a couple lame games to Timex magazines for publishing that were rejected.

Rejected!
After I honed my skills a bit, there was a whiff of a possibility of making money writing software. I began working on a kind of economic simulation game that started life as “Colony” on the tape above. Ultimately, it was renamed “Astro-Miner” – complete with a glitzy splash screen on start up. I submitted this to a game publisher and received my first rejection letter.
If you want to try out the glory that is the TS-1000, check out this emulator. Someone wrote the whole computer in Java.
I still have the TS1000 and last I checked it still works – although the RAM pack doesn’t. I used to keep it in my desk at work. And I still have a shoebox full of cassette software for it – including Psion Flight Simulator.

The one and only C-64
In 1983, Commodore came out with the amazing Commodore 64. It was a pricey $595. Not long afterward though, they had a trade-in promotion (I tried to find the ad on the web but couldn’t) – trade in any other computer or video game, working or not, and they’d send you a $100 rebate. Somehow, I convinced my mom and dad to pony up.
Oh man. I still remember the smell of the ozone when I plugged that thing in for the first time.
The C-64 was way ahead of anything else I’d worked with. Sprites, bitmap graphics, gobs of memory, stereo sound.

Sometime in here, when I was a 9th grader, my dad had a heart attack. He recovered, but that took time and being self-employed that meant there wasn’t much money coming in. Somehow, they still bought me a disk drive for the C-64.
Now, Commodore drives were “intelligent” drives. They basically had another computer inside them that was almost as powerful as the C-64 itself. This made them pretty neat, but also very expensive…several hundred dollars. This was a sacrifice for my family. I kind of knew that at the time, but when I think of it now it is huge. I’m guessing that drive was about the same as a house payment.

I worked on some games for the C-64, but I never really completed any that felt the way I had envisioned them. Although I still remember when my mind fully wrapped around what it means to animate a sprite. And I remember the first time I did a “walk cycle” that was synchronized with sound.
My mad skilz were just not up to delivering really good game experiences. HOWEVER, I did stumble on an economic niche and made my first “serious” money programming.
You might remember that in the mid 80’s there were little mom and pop video rental stores all over. This was pre-Blockbuster and pre-Red Box. A lot of times, you had to pay to join these stores and since a lot of people didn’t even own VCRs, they rented those too.
I started doing some consulting work for one local store and ended up writing some software to replace their index card-based paper system.
Then I sold the same software to a couple other stores.
Hey, this idea of writing something once and selling it multiple times…that’s pretty cool! Like printing money.
Here’s the surviving master copy with a prototype of the function key overlay that went with the software.

I had a Commodore 128D which was also awesome, and a couple different Amigas – awesome again. But I still have that original C-64 and disk drive and they still work. I could no more get rid of those than chop off my own arm. Seems like it would be ungrateful. After all, old timers say, “you dance with them that brung ya.”

If you want to try some of these vintage Commodore machines, check out the WinVice emulator. I’ve tried a lot of them and this is one of the best.

Seeing other ~~people~~ machines
While I was in high school, I had a chance to work with Apples in the computer class. I remember being in there actually on the day the shuttle Challenger blew up. Of course, it was passé at that time for people to watch the launches at school. Our class was doing an animation assignment. I think I was doing a juggling clown. Our teacher came in and said, “People always say they remember where they were when President Kennedy was shot. You’ll always remember you were in my class when the space shuttle blew up.”
We thought he was joking and one of the kids switched his animation work to a rudimentary space shuttle blowing up.
Anyway, Apple II’s sucked – and not just because they made the shuttle blow up.

I also remember being asked by one of the school counselors to have a look at a Data General One portable he was thinking of buying in like 1984-ish.

One last story for this installment
I basically ran my consulting business from the office of a teacher at the Payson High. I’d actually cut other classes and come there to work on the program (which was really pretty big), or maybe do my books, or talk on the phone with customers. Sometimes, I’d even leave school for an hour or two to meet with clients.
Man, I’d be so mad if I found out my kids were doing that. :-)

Next time: PCs, and handhelds, and consoles – oh my.

A netbook is in the house

2009-03-06T08:23:00.000-08:00

My 16 year old daughter bought a laptop yesterday.
My first instinct when she said she told me the plan on IM was to try to talk her out of it. But then I reconsidered.
She as a regular job and probably works more than she should. She has quite a lot of money saved. Basically, she is buying the laptop with hear earnings from working a lot of hours during "mid-winter break". (a week off in February - just a crazy Washington thing)

So she bought an Acer Aspire One - pink of course. She paid about $325 including tax at Fry's.
These pictures don't give a good idea of how small this thing is because the mouse that is plugged into it is also very tiny. (it has a touchpad, but also includes a mouse, which is nice) Here's a video if you want a better look at the size - although this is a slightly different model.

It's a netbook, so no DVD drive. It weighs about 2 pounds, has a battery that seems to run over three hours (in our limited testing so far), and has a very nice screen. This model has a hard drive - which some netbooks don't. 160 gigabytes, so plenty of room for music, games, Office, even ripped movies.

This is a very cool machine. Nice and speedy. Good, if small, keyboard, fantastic screen, all the right ports and plugs for networking, memory cards, USB, etc.

Just what every young girl needs.

What is Facebook?

2009-03-04T23:06:00.000-08:00

This is pretty funny. Some of the stuff on the screen shots is, ahem, questionable. Just don't read too closely.

How I got here – Part 1

2009-03-04T22:49:00.001-08:00

No, you don’t need to block this site from the kiddies.

As I think is clear from some of the other entries, I have the great privilege of working on Xbox 360 at Microsoft.
Now and then I just think about how I came to be where I am in life professionally. It’s been a bit of a twisting, but interesting, road.
I think I totaled up the money my parents spent on computers (not video games) and it was something like $5000 all together. Throw in another $50 in various change I didn’t return or swiped off the counter to buy floppy disks or magazines.
Hey, not a bad investment.
On the other hand, I remember saying something about video games to my Bishop when I was about 17 and he quoted me this verse from Paul:

1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

To be honest, I still struggle with that. Of course, who knew at the time that this was actually a way to make a living.
I had this conversation with a friend of mine the other day who is the head coach for a university golf team. He says his bishop told him the same thing once. <shrug>

But on with the show…

That first “console”
Stagflation. A lame Democrat president. Bad music. Worse clothes.
Nope! I’m not talking about 2009, I’m talking about the late 70s!
Sometime around maybe 1978 or so, our family got our first video game. This was a big deal at our house because my dad, like everyone’s dad at the time, was concerned that these games would ruin the TV and ruin their kids eyes. (The concerns that video games would make you rob liquor stores or turn into a dork would have to wait for Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft to be invented.) It was a Radio Shack/Tandy TV Scoreboard. We had the extra fancy model with the cool black gun and two shooting games in addition to four flavors of pong.
The knob on the left could detach from the main unit and was attached with a cord a few feet long for player 2.

I was about 10 at the time and this unit was a great choice as far as I was concerned because when we weren’t playing with it on the TV, I could play with the gun and use the game with all its knobs and switches as part of an imaginary airplane cockpit or some sort of space paraphernalia. The unit could run on batteries (the AC brick was optional) and the sounds came out of the game itself, not the TV. This made it all the better as a toy because it would happily beep and boop if you turned it on.

Not sure what ever happened to this thing.

Enter Atari
Christmas 1981. Reagan was president and the whole world was looking up. :-)
I wanted two things more than air that Christmas – an Atari 2600 and the Missile Command game.
Remember, wanting an Atari 2600 in 1981 was like wanting an Xbox 360 or PS3 now. They weren’t cheap.

I got up super early that Christmas morning and saw that Santa had indeed coughed up the goods. In the darkness I tried to connect it to the main TV, which was color. No joy! Not to be defeated, I went and got our little black and white “portable” TV and hooked it up there and that worked. (We did get the color TV hookup sorted out later on Christmas day.)

The 2600 “cyclops” version of Missile Command with it’s one silo in the middle seemed amazing.
I was thinking the other day about the cost of those games. Eventually I had quite a lot of them. While most of mine were bought on discount (go K-Mart!), I remember a couple that I got for full price of about $30 or so. Again, not that far from what you pay today, especially considering inflation.

One of my friends who also had an Atari got this crazy cartridge called BASIC Programming. It came with these little keypads with overlays and let you do things like flash colors on the screen. It didn’t seem very fun to me. Perhaps that was just my innate sense that this kid pronounced “GOTO” as “GOT OH” rather than “GO TO”.

One red letter event around the Atari 2600 for me was that in June 1983, 20th Century Fox shipped a rather lame game called “M*A*S*H”, based on the popular TV show. You see kids, even back then games based on TV and movie licenses were AWFUL.
Although I was a big MASH fan, I never had this game, but Fox, sensing they had just shipped a massive turkey, also announced the “$25,000 M*A*S*H video game design contest”. As a future Microsoft Program Manager, I set about designing the most amazing game – without realizing that it was light years beyond the capabilities of the hardware. I had diagrams and screenshots. I had about three pages of text describing the plot of “Radar’s Litter Jeep Rescue”. I boiled this all down to 50 words and dropped it in the mail on the last possible day. And I actually won something, though not quite $25,000. I won a Turmoil game cartridge. My prize came in the mail with a little orange photocopied strip of paper telling me I’d won 2nd prize. I still have that little strip of paper. Dude, that game would have been awesome.
I actually work with a guy who used to write games for Atari. It was sometimes a hellish place to work, and it was just a job for him, but I have to try hard not to have my eyes twinkle like a star-struck schoolgirl when he tells his war stories. I know. I know. I’m ashamed.

Unlike the Radio Shack game, I know what happened to this one. When I was married and lived in Spain (1990) I sold it to a Spanish dude at a garage sale with a bunch games. I didn’t really realize it at the time, but I sure hope he had a multi-system TV or it wouldn’t have worked at all.

Jon, meet programming. Programming, Jon
When I was in 6th grade, I was pulled into this “special class” of kids that was formed. We were going to have various enrichment experiences. The first one of these is that we went to Brigham Young University for several classes to learn about computers.
These weren’t just any computers, they were Commodore PETs. This was a mind-blowing acid trip of an experience for me and was clearly a formative experience.
I also remember my dad came to one of the classes because he was helping drive kids. My dad was a small businessman and he worked a lot. This wasn’t any kind of huggy kissy moment, but it stands out as one of the relatively few times he took time away from work to do something with me in the day.
Hey Payson Middle School your teachers all had big belt buckles, but good job on this program!!!!
In addition to, unknown to me at the time, defining my life’s work, it also set me up as definitely a “Commodore Man” for as long as that meant anything.
One of the things that made the Commodore’s cool is that they had game graphics right in their regular character set. This was good because this generation certainly didn’t have anything like bitmap graphics. But it was super easy to make a card game, a little spaceship or racecar going up or down the screen, etc.

A computer? At our house?
Sometime that summer, my dad combined with another kid’s dad who combined with some other people I don’t know and they bought a lot of Sinclair ZX-80 computers in some sort of auction. I guess I was about 12 at that time.
The Sinclair ZX-80 had 1k of RAM and no string arrays. Half of you are asleep now. Suffice it to say that it was tiny and it was crude. But it had BASIC and hooked up to a TV and tape recorder. This picture doesn’t show clearly how tiny it was. It was definitely smaller than this little Maxtor external hard drive I have sitting by my monitor right now.
I learned a ton on that machine, all in BASIC – including what it is like to run into the limits of memory or features like the no string arrays.
Wanting to impress my dad, I set about to create an inventory program for his business. This was my first stab at gathering and validating requirements, designing a solution for those requirements, cutting features, building demos, etc. Unfortunately, just based on the limits, I never got past the smoke-and-mirrors demo stage on that inventory program. (Again, setting me up for a career as a Program Manager - little joke there.)

Probably one of the strangest things I did with this computer was make music with it. How would you do that on a machine with no speaker and no audio output? Well, as it turned out, various instructions executing in the Sinclair changed the radio frequency interference it created. If you put a radio close enough to ZX-80, and then had a meaningless program just execute the right instructions in a fast series, you got some fuzzy, buzzy and yet FREAKIN’ AMAZING sound coming out of the radio. (Mind you I didn’t invent this. I read about it somewhere.)

Thanks Sir Clive!

We didn’t know it at the time, but, as we’ll see in part 2, this machine really paved the way for my future in an unexpected way.

It’s here!!! Halo Wars

2009-03-02T19:06:00.001-08:00

OK, OK, I confess. I'm not a Halo guy. I'm more of a Ghost Recon guy. Maybe I just like shooting people more than aliens.

I think we have a copy of Halo 2 (limited edition no less) kicking around, but I haven't played it much, for a couple reasons.
First, I'm no blushing Betty, but the language...let's just say that I can't play it when the kids are around and I'd rather have my kids around than play Halo. Since I never played the single player and didn't know what was going on, I never got into the multi-player.
Second, I just don't buy the premise of all these disparate alien races teaming up to kick our butt. I mean you've got these big “Brutes” and these goofy little “Grunts”. I think about ten minutes after they left home the big guys would have killed the little annoying ones just for bouncing around in front of the TV on the spaceship. (And yes, I did research all these names just to write this blog entry…my dedication knows no bounds.)

Anyway, I got an advance copy of Halo Wars last Friday (have I mentioned today that MY JOB IS AWESOME?!?!?!) and it is a total hoot. Luckily, I had time to play it because my “chore” for Saturday was mainly sitting around waiting for house painters to come and do estimates, and the rest of the fam was out doing other things.

Halo Wars is the real time strategy (or “RTS” as the 30 year olds who live in the basement say) game based on the Halo storyline. Ensemble (rest in peace), the masters of the RTS with Age of Empires bring their magic to the Xbox 360. Some reviewers have complained that the controls and the game overall are "dumbed down" to make it suitable for the console. I think they mean to say it has been "made FUN" for normal people who don't live in their mom's basement and buy special keyboards to play games on (Timber Wolf? Should be Lone Wolf – if you get me).

One of the coolest things is the attention to detail on the graphics. I upgraded my Hornet (little helicopter/airplane thing) to add two marines as additional gunners hanging off the sides. And there they were. You could zoom in and see their little legs dangling while they popped off enemies with their rifles. I know it seems lame to call out that the graphics are cool on an Xbox 360 game. It wouldn't have much of a chance if they weren't cool. But from the other RTS games I've played, I just wasn't quite expecting this level of "charm" in the little space marines dealing death from above.

The biggest problem I've had is, since I don't know what the heck all these characters are, when the computer voice warns me "The enemy is training Jackals." I just go, "Yikes! Sounds bad!"

I'm still just playing the skirmish levels on "Easy" and I'll probably never be any better at this than I am at Age of Empires, but I really don't care about that.

On another note entirely…

I saw this story about a proposal that went a bit awry. Of course, turns out it is an LDS couple. Just had to be.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29462344?GT1=43001
But I don’t want to give it away.

Is it just me, or does this Obama guy like to say “force” a lot?

2009-02-24T19:58:00.001-08:00

Here is the full text of this no talent butt clown’s speech.

Here are some fun excepts, some followed by my delightful commentary:

“…this administration is moving swiftly and aggressively…”
“…we will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure…”
“…force the necessary adjustments…”
“…hold these banks fully accountable…”
This guy sure likes to talk about forcing people to do things. It’s almost like he’s compensating for some other lacking.

“I have told each member of my Cabinet as well as mayors and governors across the country that they will be held accountable by me”
Really? Mayors and governors are now accountable to the president? Hmmm…seems like someone needs to read up on the way this country works. The federal government is a creature of the states, not the other way around.

“I have appointed a proven and aggressive Inspector General…”
There’s that word “aggressive” again.

“I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can’t pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can’t get a mortgage.”
Hey Barry, care to explain how an executive is any less deserving than a failing small business? (Can’t make payroll==fail) Hah! Trick question…NEITHER one is deserving of tax dollars. Nor is that deadbeat family or their little dog.

“I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary.”
This is the true “HOLY CRAP” line of the speech. If this doesn’t bother you, then you voted for the right guy. I think they cut the part of the speech about making the reliable, energy-efficient mass transit systems run on time.

“And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American.”
There! Take that you morons, red necks, and gang bangers!
Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone really ever made the choice to drop out based on an analysis of the options before them.
And besides, as the Messiah says, “you’re really only cheating yourself.”

If it is free, is it really stealing?

2009-02-17T23:49:00.001-08:00

Ah, KING 5 News, you never let me down!

Tonight I was treated to the story of dastardly thieves who made off with over hundreds of pounds of pet food from a charity in Yelm, Washington.
This group provides pet food for the poor to feed to their pets. I was pondering the notion of why poor people should have pets if they can’t afford them. After all, speaking as a reluctant dog owner, pets are a bit of a luxury – expensive in both time and treasure. I like my little doggy well enough, but make no mistake, if I ever had to wonder where my next meal was coming from we would by then have sold (or eaten) the dog.

Then, mid-ponder, this quote from 80 year old Wanda Bittner leapt from my fully HD enabled flat screen speakers in glorious 5.1 Dolby:

"I'm in shock... I can't believe it... Our food is free, no questions asked," she said. "Why would anyone take our pet food?"

Ummm…now I’m scratching my head. She has a charity operation where you come in and take the food you need - “no questions asked” – for free.

Sooooooooo…is this a crime or just someone availing themselves of this groups raison d'être?

I mean, this woman is 80 years old. Her house looks like what you would think someone’s house would look like if they spent their time collecting food for the pets of the poor. Maybe she just forgot where she put it.

“Next on KING 5, we confront a man who has always taken a penny, but never left a penny.”

And, just sayin’, does that tubby little pup on the right have an alibi?

Example #487 of how children keep you humble

2009-02-11T22:39:00.001-08:00

I’m a sucker for old video games.
We’ve got an actual Genesis, which has migrated out to the garage now, but the kids are always wanting me to bring it back in the house and hook it up.
I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360. It came out yesterday, but when I went into GameStop after work they didn’t have it and said they’d be getting it today. They also asked if I’d like to pre-order it so I’d be sure to get a copy…to which I said “Ummm, I’m sure you will have a copy for me.”
So when I came home I mentioned it to my youngest daughter. I said, “It has all the best Genesis games on it.”
Daughter#3: “Does it have Marble Madness?”
Me: “No, but…”
Daughter#3: “Does it have Lion King?”
Me: “No, but…”
Daughter#3: “Does it have Aladdin?”
Me: “Well, no but…”
Daughter#3: “Jungle Strike?”
Me: “That’s not a Sega game.”
Daughter#3: “Well those are the best games. What does this have on it anyway?”

Ahhh yes, fatherhood.

I had a few minutes free before I was going to have lunch today so I popped in and got mine. Luckily, I managed to fight my way through the crowd of people who slept overnight in front of the store to get theirs. (not)

Full disclosure: some of what you are about to read may make it impossible for me to ever claim I had a “hard day” at work.

I ripped off the plastic at a stop light on the way back to my office. I popped my leftover spaghetti in the microwave and then took it into the game room at work.
You know, the game room. The room with all the flat screen TVs, two 360s, a PS3 and a Wii. You mean you don’t have one of those at your office? Bummer for you. How can you work under those conditions?
I popped it in and did my best to look at a few of the games with one hand while shoveling pasta into my slobbering maw with my flimsy, bendy compostable fork in the other. (This doesn’t work very well actually.)
I finished my food and squeezed in a few minutes of “Streets of Rage” before heading off to my 1pm meeting.

I actually cut out of work a little early to come home and get in some playtime, but then I remembered I was in the middle of a long running battle in Advance Wars on my DS, so I thought I’d finish that first.

Before I knew it, it was time to head off to the Daddy-Daughter Dance with Daughters 2 & 3. We had a great time, although it is hard for one daddy to keep two delightful dance partners happy.

Then I came home and had to endure American Idol monopolizing the screen time. Now it is 10:30pm. I have to get up early tomorrow. The responsible thing to do would be to head off to bed.
Just a few minutes of Ecco the Dolphin first.

Enough fun and games.
Wondering about the notion of economic stimulus? Check out Stimulus: A history of Folly in Commentary Magazine.

It takes a federal government to raise a parking lot

2009-02-10T11:09:00.000-08:00

Fresh on the heels of the senate's passage of their version of the "stimulus" plan comes this delightful piece at Newsbusters.org.
When Laura Ingraham pressed RINO Arlen Spector (R?-PA) on the job creating ability of the package, he included this little gem:

"And I talked to the mayor of a major city this morning that has a parking plot
going up, which is out of money and the work can go forward this afternoon."

There you have it folks. This is the kind of project that municipalities, states, and the private sector just can't handle alone. This is the kind of project that we can look toward to get Americans back to work. Building parking lots.

Nice one.

Now, you might say, "Hey, I know unemployed construction workers. Maybe this isn't so bad."
Aha! But remember that Robert Reich said at the Economic Recovery Plan Meeting in January:

"if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the
construction trades, many people who need jobs the most -- women, minorities,
and the poor and long-term unemployed -- will be shut out."

So we not only want to build a grand federal ediface of a parking garage, but we want to build it NOT with people who already know what they are doing, who already "dominate the construction trades", but with people who are not employed in the construction field today.

Honestly, I'd prefer to park my car in a building constructed by the people who "dominate the construction trades."

Lest anyone take the wrong emphasis from this, I'm scoffing at the idea of non-construction workers being first in line for construction jobs - regardless of race or whatever.

Hey, I've never dominated the brain surgery field. Will this stimulus plan make me first in line for a job in that trade?

Reading Is Fundamental

2009-01-31T16:12:00.001-08:00

When I was a kid in Vacaville, California, we had a great library and we went there fairly often. I remember seeing bookmobile and RIF commercials on TV. I thought the idea of someone driving a bunch of books around like some kind of literary ice cream man was pretty cool. I asked my mom why we didn’t have one of those and she told me they were for poor kids in places like Oakland. Even at a tender age, I knew Oakland was a place we stayed away from, so that was that for books on wheels.

Other than reading for work – endless amounts of technical documentation, whitepapers, presentations and studies of trends, etc. – I probably read at least a book per month. Sometimes more. Usually history, economics, politics, science. Definitely skewed toward the social sciences. I am not above reading fiction, but since Tom Clancy ran his course I just haven’t really gotten into any. Once in awhile, I’ll dig up a classic - 1984, The Grapes of Wrath, The Good Earth, All Quiet on the Western Front – usually books I lifted from high school that I may or may not have read when they were assigned but that I kept for later.

Recently, I was reading Julia Keller’s commentary in the Chicago Tribune on Obama as a “literary president”. Other than just another note in the symphony of Obama adoration in the press and making me a little mad by taking the now obligatory pot-shot at Bush, it got me thinking about reading. (More on the pot-shot in a future post.)

The official literacy rate (as reported by the CIA World Fact Book) in the United States is 99%. But the definition used for “literacy” in that reporting (for all countries) is a very basic standard indeed – being able to read and write even a few hundred words in your native language at the age of 15.
There is an oft-quoted stat from ~2007 that 80% of Americans have not bought or read a book in the past year. This was a private study by The Jenkins Group, but I couldn’t lay my hands on the original study, so I’m going on the reporting of it in other sources – including a summary of various reading/publishing statistics compiled by Robyn Jackson.
Compounding the confusion is the conflict between various surveys. For example, a Census Bureau report in 2002 cited 43.2% of people reading books in the past year – which would put us quite a distance from that 80% number.
A 1993 study found that up to 23% of American adults had only the most basic level of literacy, with difficulty locating information in printed material such as books, newspapers and maps.

My first instinct when I think of these stats is, “How can this possibly be true?” I mean after all, everyone I know reads quite a bit. But then, I don’t know thousands of people and, like most people, the people I hang out with are pretty much like me – white, middle class or better, decently educated, reasonably smart. What’s more, I think there is a tradition (in fact, a doctrine) of Mormonism that encourages reading of not just church-related materials but wide ranging topics.

I’m not expecting people to spend their evenings reading the classics by they fire, but how do people get through life without reading? It would certainly explain how we as a country have gotten to a point where we know collectively nothing about history and can’t manage our own financial affairs. And what’s worse, people seem to have precious little curiosity about things.
If someone tells me it is warmer/colder now then it has been in 1000 years, and I don’t know what the Maunder Minimum or Medieval Warm Period are, then I’m likely to just accept that.
If someone tells me this is the worst economy in 50 years, and I don’t remember the Carter years or understand what made the Great Depression “great” then why should I doubt?

If I don’t know that Sting lifted the “plot” for Roxanne from Cyrano de Bergerac or numerous lyric lines from Shakespeare’s sonnets, then the guy seems like even more of a genius songwriter.

Holy crap people. Turn off America’s Next Top Model and The Bachelor and just read something. Anything. You can Tivo your favorite reality shows and watch them later.

In the end, I sincerely hope that 80% is not accurate. What’s the point of being literate if you choose not to read?

What’s the last book you read? How much reading do you do?

Furnace fixer dude

2009-01-22T21:40:00.001-08:00

So when I came home from work, it seemed a little chilly in the house, but I was more focused on dinner. The Mrs was gone to a play practice so it was just me and the kids. While we were cleaning up dinner, I noticed the thermostat screen was blank.
Since it was getting time for the nearby Ace Hardware to close, I ran out, got a new thermostat and put it in. I felt pretty handy.
But then, the furnace still didn't work.

I got out all the books and found where it was flashing a trouble code but I couldn't fix it.

So I decided I needed to call for service. We didn't need it fixed tonight ($$$) but definitely needed it on Friday. I called around and left a couple messages, but then, lo and behold, one guy actually answered the phone in person.
Dirk himself answered the phone at Dirk's Heating. As he was taking my info, he started walking me through getting the furnace back on. ("tap on this", "paper clip these two wires together", etc.) He was really trying to get me working tonight even before he could come and do the real fix. I was incredibly impressed with this level of service.

If you are on the Eastside and need furnace help, by all means call:
Dirk's Heating
590 SE Andrews St, Issaquah, WA 98027
(425) 392-1937
http://maps.live.com/localsearch/Details.aspx?lid=YN925x15750931&what=heating&where=snoqualmie%2c%20wa&qt=yp&tid=0a1d2ef7e14f482780005b7b930874ac&cobrand=1&FORM=LLSV

Black Thursday @ MSFT

2009-01-22T15:14:00.000-08:00

Well, today was the long awaited day at Microsoft. Bad results and first ever mass layoff info here.

So far, I only know one person who got the bad news today. Which is still terrible for someone you know, but it could have been worse.

Can't say I haven't done my share of worrying about this, but my group is one of the ones making money, so I have some reassurance in that.

I hate to complain when so many won't have a job at all, but I'm especially bummed about this from Steve Ballmer's email to the troops:

"We'll also reduce costs by eliminating merit increases for FY10 that would have
taken effect in September of this calendar year."

Honestly, I'm having a great year in my new job and I think it would have been a solid review for me. Now I'll still work toward that great result in terms of the review, but there won't be the cash and prizes to go along with that, which for me personally makes it hard to stay as enthusiastic about it as I had been.

Oh well. What can you do? At least they ripped the band-aid off quickly, and early in the day so the market could react through the day time.

Not to spread my plague of depression and negativity, but compared to past recessions and even the Great Depression (which this current downturn doesn't begin to approach), I really don't see a way out of it. This is not a Republican vs Democrat issue because the Republicans are screwing up too. You can't borrow and tax money and then spend it and say you are stimulating the economy. Since most of the billions are borrowed, we're arguably devaluing our currency at a double rate.

Aggressive tax cuts (for the people who are actually paying taxes) and real spending cuts would help, but the fact is we've got an aging boomer population with nothing really following them. This means we have a permanent glut of housing. Nothing will bring that back. And those same boomers have decided the government owes them care and cash forever just because they are successfully getting old. Clearly not a recipe for growth.

So...you still got a job?

HD - oh yeah - we got it

2009-01-19T19:57:00.001-08:00

Our Dish HD Turbo 1000zx (or whatever) was installed today.

Cutting to the chase...Is it better?

Yeah, I guess. But it's just TV, so other than the fact that most channels now use of the full glorious 47" face of our Toshiba TV, it's still kinda lame if you ask me. Not quite sure what all the fuss is about.

The receiver is much better. The guide is better. The scrolling is better. The DVR hard drive is ginormous.

The installer was a complete, mouth-breathing moron. And there, dear friends, is the heart of the story.

First, he showed up and started asking where our "Comcast cable TV conduit box" was. Umm...we've lived in this house 10 years and it was built for us from mere sticks. We've never had Comcast. Any wiring dangling around the outside was put there by a Dish installer whose parole has probably been revoked by now. He seemed to think it was odd that we couldn't find this thing.

When my wife, who was supervising the first part of this operation, asked me about it, I had no idea what the heck he was talking about. By the time I raced home from work, she had the blueprints of the house spread out on the living room floor looking for this mystery box.

Turns out he was looking for something like this. More searching on the web would seem to indicate that this is not really a standard piece of equipment - Comcast or not.

Boy Tesla also had to ask my wife to lend him a screwdriver. That seems like something that someone whose job title is "installer" would have in his truck. Sigh.

OK, those of you who know me know that I don't like ladders. I always say that putting up my Christmas lights is one of the scariest things I do on purpose. As it turns out Jimmy Neutron here is also afraid of heights. He took one look at where the dish was going to be installed and said "Wow. That's high." No kidding dude. That's why I called someone else to do it.

Another weird thing is that he asked if we had an alarm system and he wanted to look for the distribution box in the master bedroom closet. It did concern us that maybe he was casing the joint. At least we know that if we secure our valuables with a screw or put them on the top shelf, there are probably safe from him.

I asked him a couple questions about the receiver, but that was a waste of time. I knew more about it from reading the blurb on the web than this guy did. And, with my 12 year old sitting on the couch, he demo'd the marvels of HD to me by turning to Jerry Springer during what looked like was going to be a particularly shocking revelation about what this wife found in her husband's cell phone.

By the time he left, I was beginning to wonder why I even own a TV.

I still think the guy installed some additional stuff on our roof (shown at left) that isn't on our plan. Oh well, maybe there is a special promotion on.

On the plus side, while he was here he did offer to sell us "rabbit ears" so we could get local channels without paying Dish for them. And an HDMI cable. I'm sure Dish would love his side businesses. Maybe if he didn't have a truck full of rabbit ears, he would have room for a screwdriver.

This just in…

2009-01-18T01:24:00.001-08:00

On the eve of his historic inauguration, President-Elect Obama announces his final cabinet appointments.

Nominees, clockwise from left to right: State, Defense, Interior, Energy, Leather and Justice.

Replacing working electronics

2009-01-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

No matter the state of the economy, cool stuff continues to show up in stores and sooner or later hearts begin to yearn for something new and shiny. Normally, you'd want to wait until the old thing either breaks or stops working because of some change in technical standards or file formats or whatever.

But what do you do when you really would like the new thing and the old one just won't die? This must seem a ridiculous notion to those who lived through the real Great Depression and World War II and learned to "Use it all; wear it out; make it do; or go without." (And I'm talking here about the real depression, not the pretend one we have going on right now.)

Two things bring this to mind today. First of all, I have a Creative Zen Micro digital music player (I don't say MP3 because I work at Microsoft after all). I got it for free from work for doing something involving developer community that I don't really remember. I think the original one had a 5GB hard drive in it, but when I sent it in for warranty repair, they replaced it with the 6GB version. I really like it. It has a removable battery that lasts 12 hours and came with a spare. It plays nicely with Napster (where I buy most of my music) and Windows Media Player (where I listen to my music on the PC). On occasion, it has a tiny glitch when a song starts, but it is built like a tank. Like me, it has been to Taiwan, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, and all over the US - filling many a lonely traveling hour. Secretly though, I'd really like something newer. Not that I've seen one that I want more - not an iPod, not a Zune - I just want something that when I plop it onto the seat tray on the plane people don't look at it like they should take up a collection for me.
"Yes, for just $10 a month, you can help this middle-aged man get a cooler music device."

Attention music player makers - I don't want to watch movies and TV shows on a 2 inch screen. I don't need to see pictures on it either. I just want the battery to last a long time and I want it to use the music I already have. And if it isn't too much trouble, can we please let me change the battery? I swear - I'll buy a second battery. It's pure profit for you.

So, while I would like to get something new just to get something new, there just isn't a device out there that I'm jonesin' for. Someone please make one - just in case my Zen falls under a tire on the day you release it...just in case.

Second case in point...my wife's cell phone.
Let me say first that we are trapped on T-Mobile like passengers on a plane that has sucked a bird into the engines. It isn't because of contracts, those are long over. Through an evil combination of great pricing, good coverage, and the fact that we now have four phones on T-Mobile, no one can match what they offer us.
My talented assistant got her phone years ago. It is a cute little Samsung flip. No camera. No MP3 ringtones. No nothing really. What it has going for it is that it is quite small, the edges are organically round, and the sound it makes when it opens is, as she describes it, "Like opening a little earring box."
Having been with T-Mobile since the earth cooled, she's entitled to upgrade her phone with a contract extension (and we aren't going anywhere). So I finally talked her into going to the T-Mo store and Car Toys to check out some new phones.
I tried to be enthusiastic so I could get something new to play with, but WHAT IS THE DEAL with T-Mobile? All their phones suck!
AT&T has nice phones. Verizon has some nice ones. Not so T-Mo.

The square and angular look is definitely "in" right now, which is lame.
The menus on the phones are all lame compared to this many years old Samsung.
And the quality of the phones according to CNET reviews (thank goodness for CNET) seems to be uniformly poor. We had settled toward a Sony-Ericsson TM506. It had a cute UI. It was square and pointy, but flat enough to carry it well. The camera is pretty good. Turns out it is just a crappy phone though. Grrrr... Luckily we didn't buy it on the spot before checking the reviews.

So long story short, no new toys at our house this week. So no help in stimulating the economy from us.