BYBS: Small Things

Today's BYBS is going to center on "small" aspects that I am grateful for. This is partially because I'm lazy, but also because when I feel like the "big" things might not being going well, I have a hard time saying I'm grateful for them.

I sometimes find it hard to decide if I am grateful for things like the ability to judge "right" from "wrong", but I can't argue about liking the feel of a warm bed. While I'm not sure whether I have free will or if life is deterministic, I still like the taste of an orange. And when it sometimes seems that everything is going wrong, at least I am still grateful when my exercise hour is up and I can get off the treadmill.

So, in their great or small importance, here are some of the things that I am glad about today:

• Hot oatmeal
• Raisins
• Being able to sleep a bit longer
• Good, or at least engaging novels
• Laughing at various jokes
• Hot water, especially when showering
• VIM, the foundation of modern society
• USB drives
• Samba, at least when it works.

That's all for now. Have a good week.

Linux: Finding the Crazies at the Asylum

A friend of mine who went to West Point told me that the ones who went bonkers were the ones who tried to justify everything. After many years, I've come to the conclusion that Linux serves the same purpose in the context of computer geeks.

So imagine you are running some school that churns out people that have the unhappy job of sending lots of young people off to be killed in horrible ways and you are trying to find all the ones who are completely bonkers out of this group. You don't want to completely remove such people, I mean as long as they get the job done you leave em alone, but you want to know who they are so that, at least most of the time, you don't leave them in charge of everything.

You're sitting there working on a migraine and are just about to reach for the bottle of spot remover when you remember cadet what's-his-name. He's the one that doesn't have a problem with the sort of insane discipline that this place arbitrarily flings at everyone, he wants more of it.

He doesn't feel that it's wrong at all. He thinks everything's just fine. Where many of the cadets might, for example, be biting their nails and wondering when the hell they can get out of this place, he's looking around with the face that says "This is it! I've found my home!"

The really interesting thing that I've found is that most of the people I've met who have been through places like West Point are nice, well balanced, caring people. Perhaps it's sort of like "now that I've gotten all that out of my system, I think I'll be sane for the rest of my life."

At any rate, I've noticed a similiarity with computer people.

There's one group of people who, having seen the total hell and insanity that is Linux, have decided that, you know, they really don't need any more of that crap in their lives. They are the ones that realizes that while computers can be interesting, at the end of the day they are tools created to help make things easier, not some sort of goal in and of themselves.

The other group are the ones with the crazy light in their eyes. They don't think that some weird, command-line approach to using a system is too difficult! It all makes sense! It's what real men use. What do you mean that some cryptic blather like

semanage fcontext -a -t samba_share_t "/var/eng(/.*)?"

Doesn't make sense? The only problem with Linux is that it's not complex enough!

In the mad, "conspiracy everywhere" part of my mind, I see these two things and say "Hmmm...maybe that's what Linux is for!" You expose a group of people to sheer perversity and madness that only technical people can create and weed out the really crazy ones because they actually like it. Once this is done, you keep them away from everything else so that there is some tiny chance that it will actually work.

The true beauty of it all is that you don't have to do anything to keep them away: you just keep them working on making it worse! One generation of nuts helps you find the next generation of whack-jobs...what could be better?

This, my friends, is what I think has happended with Linux.

What may have started as a means to create a free and high quality operating system has degenerated through cannibalism and madness to create a sort of crazy person proving ground. Those who enter the realm of Linux and come out, gibbering and scared, are to be embraced and fostered: they are the sane ones.

Those that stay in the labryinth, however, grinning madly and gesturing for the others to come back, they are the crazy ones. Keep them away. Let them play in their asylum, capering about to the cheers of their fellows. Let them occasionally flight their detritus, in the form of books with strange, vaguely disturbing pictures of animals on their covers at the rest of us. It is a small price to pay.

And it is every generation's duty to send the next generation through those crooked halls so that we will know which people we can trust, and which ones were lost before they ever set foot in the place.

Image "asylum for insane" by kwazar@flickr.com

BYBS: Flickr Rocks

Japanese Rock Garden  |  (CC)  |  by vgm8383@flickr.com

During the past couple of weeks I have discovered that Flickr kicks major fundament.

I've needed some images for a talk that I've been preparing for some local professional groups. The subject of the images have ranged from two people talking over a "string and cup telephone" to a snail crossing a finish line. I've managed to find them all on flickr.

The really cool thing is that, in addtion to being able to put good quality images in my presentation, I've found amazing, spirit-moving pictures of other stuff there as well. Another image from the same author as the rock garden:

Scotland Cemetary  |  (CC)  |  by vgm8383@flickr.com

It nice to find exactly what I needed for presentation in one place, but what was better was to find a community of people who are willing to share very, very good work for no reason other than to enrich each others lives. It's stuff like that that really makes my day.

BYBS: Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to "rewire" itself in response to training or experience. Up until recently, it was believed that the brain could not change very much after age 5 or so.

It has been known that the brain of a person who was, for example, born blind could change so that portions of the brain that typically were used for vision could instead be used for hearing. Hence the brain of a person born with blindness was physically different from a person with normal vision.

It has also been known that a person who becomes blind later on in life may also acquire more sensitive hearing, but it was thought that the corresponding physical changes to the brain did not occur.

Recent advances in brain imaging, however, indicate that the same basic changes in brain structure are possible in people all throughout life.

While such changes are possible in adults, they are much easier for children. A person who becomes unable to walk after suffering a stroke, for example, may have to work at learning to walk again for hours every day for months before regaining their old ability.

If a person can change something as basic as what part of the brain they use to walk with, then it must be possible and perhaps easier to change other, less fundamental things like behavior. If a blind person can use the "visual part" of their brain to hear, then is it easier for say a shy person to become more gregarious?

While the short answer is "yes," I will leave the rest for my next BYBS entry :-)

BYBS: Benefits of BYBS

There is reason to believe that participating in BYBS may be, from a health standpoint, a good idea.

The results of a study by Emmons & McCullough seem to indicate that keeping a "Gratitude Journal," which bears a striking resemblance to writing entries for Blog Your Blessings Sunday, can have a positive benefit on ones outlook on life.

From the text of the abstract:

The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.

This article also describes the study in a more reader-friendly manner.

Another reason to keep on blogging.

BYBS: An Audience

I recently embarked on another abuse of the English language. That is, I started writing another story. This one is called "Evening" and is a spoof of the "Harry Potter" series as well as the movie "Twilight." I had attempted to write this story before, but stopped when I found that I didn't like the premise as much as I thought I would.

I'll hopefully do better this time because I'm writing for an audience, or specifically Tanis who has encouraged me to keep at this whole writing thing. Hence by blessing for the week is having an audience who is willing to read the stuff I write.

This neatly allows me to both creating another page in said story while creating a BYBS entry at the same time. What's more, I even have another idea for next week. Which I will write. I wont put it off. Honest.

BYBS: Things I Haven't Achieved

Sometimes I complain about how I haven't managed to achieve everything I've wanted to. OK, maybe I spend a lot of time complaining. In BYBS form, therefore, I came up with a list of things that I'm glad I haven't done:

• Become a drug addict.
• Become a drug dealer.
• Flunked out of college.
• Screwed over a friend.
• Killed anyone.
• Started a war.
• Bilked people out of large amounts of money (a la Enron).

Now mind you, I have cheated at Monopoly. And then there was that geography test and ... oh never mind.

The thing about BYBS (at least for me) is how you look at the world. The world doesn't change, just my way of looking at it.

BYBS: Thanksgiving Edition!

I came up with a special BYBS entry, it being Thanksgiving and all. VYSW will be back next week...at least in theory.

As anyone who read too many comic books in their formative years, I'm a bit nervous about saying "life is great!" since that is the time that the writers choose to drop a 10 ton safe on the character as a reward for saying such a thing. However, I'm also a rather negative person so I find it rather therapeutic to force myself to look on the bright side. Therefore here are some things in my life I think of as blessings:

• A person who, despite the mountain of evidence, seems love to me.

  When I gaze into her loving eyes, she will sometimes mutter about some "term of contract" or "once my time is up, I'm outta here!" I really don't know what she means, but I'm sure it will become clear one day.

• Health which is relatively free of serious illness. Health is rather like air and water: when you have them, it nothing special; but when you don't boy are they important!

  Now mind you, there are some who liken the author to some sort of pestilence, or maybe even several at once, but nobody has died from exposure to me. Yet.

• People who seem to like me.

  True, not enough for them to want to play "Clue" or other board games, and not because I cheat! I deny that completely! But we still seem to get along.

• A job which, while I take great pains to bitch and moan about, at least keeps me off the streets and out of trouble.

  Some coworkers have said things to make me suspect that the state has some sort of "deal" whereby "special" people such as myself get employment and the hosting company gets a tax break, but there is no evidence of this. Honest.

So there's my Blather-n-Rants special Thanksgiving entry! I figure I should quit while I'm ahead. Furthermore, rather than becoming negative, I'll save some of the more amusing ideas about holidays for a VYSW. Till then, avoid gnomes.

BYBS: Meaning in the Clouds

Consider clouds or oil on water. Some people will try to say that "it looks like a continent" or "the cloud looks like an elephant." The interesting thing to me is not so much whether some milk in a coffee cup looks a tree so much as that people strive for meaning in things have none.

This led me to wonder what other sorts of things we assign meaning to. Seeing as I have something of a shortage of ideas these days, I think I'll leave that for another posting...

VYSW: What I Do for a Living

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

It's not always easy to explain my job to people.

As a person who has worked in the field of all things computer, people sometimes ask me "how do the damn things work?" My answer is that they don't.

I spend a huge amount of time working on some ridiculously simple aspect of a program, only to be told that what I have done is broken. You see if you hop on one foot, rub your tummy, whistle and operate the mouse with your foot it turns out that what you have done does not actually work. Such arguments are constructed by strange and evil people called testers, who will go on to explain that this odd group of one-foot-hopping people are the majority of our customers.

Now mind you, this is on a good day.

Most of the time, all someone has to do is just glare at something I'm working on and it will break.

Other times the entire goal will be insane, like creating what amounts to an underwater barbeque grill. At the end of the process, the same group of fools who insisted on this in the first place will look at you like you are crazy and ask "whose idea was this?"

I've tried to come up with a short description of my job for non-computer people after one friend asked me "what is it that you do?" I usually find myself blathering on about .NET or Java only to discover that whoever asked me is now asleep. After much time and effort, I've come up with a short explanation that still manages to capture the essence of what is going on:

I bang my head against a wall until I make a hole that I can crawl through.

BYBS: A Profound Event

Something profound happened the other day and I missed it.

I was voting in the election and when I cast my ballot, the race of the candidates did not factor into my decision. I was more wrapped up in the issues at hand, whether the candidates could be trusted, etc.

When I listened to the coverage of the election today, I discovered that the race of the president-elect had made a huge difference to some people. They spoke about how they were proud of their country, and that it was amazing to have gone from 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated, to 2008, where Barack Obama was elected president.

Reflecting on it, I realized how it could be so meaningful. This is after all, the country that had the Rodney King beating and riots. This was where Howard Beach happened. This is the country where Martin Luther King was killed.

That my country could have changed does not mean that the problem is gone. But it is a sign that just because we may have a past that includes racism, does not mean it will be our future. We can change.

* * *

Just to reassure everyone, VYSW will be back next Wednesday :-)

VYSW: Nukewrap

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

The thing that really ticks me off is traffic and those damn drivers who...oh...I already blogged about that.

Alrighty, what drives me nuts are those stupid stat-counters that inevitably fail when you...fooie, did that one too.

Nothing can match the feeling when I turn on the radio only to find...sigh.

Nukewrap! I haven't blogged about that yet!

OK, you know that hard, plastic wrapping around some computer stuff like headphones that you have to practically take a hack-saw to in order to open? I hate that stuff. Not only is it ridiculously hard to remove, not only do I often times cut myself on an edge, but when I finally do get the thing open, it always renders the item in "non-salable condition" so that I can't return it.

I'm sure there's some smug SOB, sitting in a lab somewhere, being very pleased with himself over having had invented the stuff. I just want this guy to be put in a box made of the stuff. I'd want the cell to have some air holes of course. Wouldn't want him to suffocate, oh no! I'd want him to be in there a long, long time...

BYBS: Adaptability

Adaptability is one of those things that I know about intellectually, but that I don't think actually applies to me. Specifically, when I started on a more healthy diet a few years back I did not expect my tastes to change the way they did.

When I stopped eating as much red meat and added more fruits and vegetables to my diet, I was about as happy as a condemned man. The odd thing was that over the course of a year or so I found that not only did I not miss meat but that I came to like the stuff I was eating.

Me? Enjoying the taste of oatmeal? And looking forward to eating beans? Something is clearly wrong. The true absurdity of my situation struck home when last Friday someone offered me some chocolate and I turned it down. Strange. Very un-whatever-like.

I'll write more later. Right now I need to go get some oatmeal...with cod liver oil.

VYSW: NPR Membership Drives

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

Like everyone this time of year, I look forwards the Fall and the change of colors in the trees...who am I fooling? I look forward to getting an hour back with Daylight Savings time.

OK, best to start again.

One of the things that really ticks me off is turning on the damn radio and getting an NPR fundraiser. I realize this is public radio and needs the dough after a rather long period of (ahem) leadership in various funding areas, but the sheer tenacity of these people is just...annoying.

To add insult to injury a while back I donated a vast (OK, rather large) sum of money to my local public radio and my reward? I still get to listen to them. Sometimes I wish I were extremely wealthy just so that I could pay for a day of programming where the local announcers have to wear gags.

Ah well...there's always next year.

BYBS: Ian M. Banks

I recently started reading Iain Banks and have been pleasantly surprised. I've read his Player of Games, a bit of On the Use of Weapons and right now I'm reading The Algebraist. So far I think Player was the best read, but I haven't finished Algebraist yet so you never know.

The books I've been reading by Banks have had a "Space Opera" style to them. That is, planet hopping human beans off on some epic quest of epic-ness. They usually have a backdrop of some gigantic, ancient, over-reaching organization that is vastly older than, and presumably superior to, humanity.

I can quickly become bored with a story in that sort of setting: the character's goals are obviously unimportant in the larger scheme of things, so to keep my interest, the author needs to make an interesting story or characters or whatever. Player achieved this by mixing the description of a game and using it as a metaphor for a society.

As the title may indicate, Player of Games is about a person who is a master of various sorts of games. These are "big, serious" games like chess (as opposed to something along the lines of "go fish"). He is able to quickly master just about any game, no matter how alien or convoluted, but has become bored recently due to a lack of challenge.

The huge, ancient galaxy-spanning society (called "the Culture") is trying to find a less violent way of dealing with a smaller, aggressive empire society. Put another way, they want to find a cheaper alternative to an all-out war.

The shadowy rulers of the Culture feel that a particular tournament holds the key to subjugating the empire with less violence than would be required: if the Culture can demonstrate their superiority by winning the tournament then the empire types may well let a more protracted, far more devastating conflict slide. This is where the big, galaxy-spanning Culture meets the individual protagonist to bring things to a more personal level.

The player starts off feeling rather ambivalent about the empire but he becomes more involved because of the game he is asked to compete in. Partially because of the simple challenge to compete, and partially because of the depth and complexity of the game, he becomes more absorbed with the situation to the point where it becomes almost an obsession. It turns out that the game is an excellent allegory for the greater society of the Empire: in order to succeed, one must create temporary alliances, duplicitous relationships which are to be used and then discarded when no longer useful.

I found the crass, calculating nature of the interaction between the Culture and the empire to be especially relevant to the world of today, with its collapsing international markets and where expedience trumps morals on a regular basis. There are additional details, like how the Player cheats to try and win an especially important achievement and the nature of AIs in the Culture. All this combined to create a story that kept me occupied for a while.

Right now is a very stressful time for me. It is very much a blessing to be able to put my mind in neutral because if it were in drive I'd start heading for the nearest ditch.

VYSW: Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves!

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

Many companies think that they can improve matters by making their employees afraid; specifically by firing people and then pointing out that there are still more people left that they can remove.

This does not make a whole lot of sense to me because I cannot stay scared indefinitely. When I'm scared, my heart beats, I sweat, etc. but only for a little bit. The more I'm exposed to the cause of the fear, the less scary it gets. When it comes in the form of a company's constant attempts at intimidation, it ends up fading into the background for me. In my experience, the people around me rarely stay scared either.

I've also seen fear sabotage productivity. When I personally feel threatened, I am less inclined to help people around me. At one place I saw a group that was relatively productive systematically destroyed by its less productive brethren. I've heard coworkers remark that you always want a bit of "deadwood" in your group so that, when the yearly "Christmas Bonus" comes around, you have someone that is more likely to get the axe then you are.

Trying to scare people into working harder doesn't strike me as a very good idea. But as the creator of the Dilbert comic strip remarked, if nature ran on the same principals as business, you'd see a bunch of mountain gorillas being led by an "alpha" squirrel. And mind you, it wouldn't be the most skilled squirrel…it would be the one that nobody else wanted to hang with.

BYBS: Ozark

A while back I had asked Ozark, the person who created the "Mind Flayed" webcomic, for an exchange: I'd write a short story about their characters if they would draw me a picture for one of my short stories. Recently I was saying hello the other day when they mentioned this and the result was the following pic:

This is "Grandpa Sith" from the story Deathtalker 2 – a silly yarn set in the Star Wars universe. For the curious, I wrote "Tentacle Luuuuv" in exchange. Hence my BYBS for the week is the opportunity to exchange art thanks to ye web.

VYSW: Aggressive Drivers

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

A major factor in the stress of driving for me are those drivers who seem to pounce on any opportunity to get cut in front of me. And what does this idiot get? 1 car length. Often times even that gain is erased since the other guy ends up at the next stop light or slow-down anyways.

The worst of the worst are the ones who seem to be racing someone else. It always seems like there are at least two of these clowns, dodging in and out of traffic.

If these fools were only risking their own lives it would be bad enough, but they're risking my life too.

BYBS: Sleepy Weekends

This weekend has been especially sleepy for some reason. While one can argue about whether spending a weekend this way is really a blessing or not, my own opinion is definite: it's a blessing.

It's so nice to just rest as much as you want to once in a while, especially when you spend a good deal of your time…stressed. Part of it is the rest itself and part of it, for me at least, is the sheer decadence that comes from feeling like I can rest whenever I feel like it.

Now mind you, the whole stress business starts up again on Monday, but for now at least I shall rest.

VYSW: Blogrolling.com!

Vent Your Spleen Wednesday

And my very first VYSW post is about, of course, blogrolling.com --- the annoying twerp of a place that I first turned to in order to manage my blogroll!

In the midst of trying to launch a meme, the damn blogrolling site decides to be difficult. It times out, it decides to ignore commands...I'd say a bit about blogspot and how their editor works but I'm saving that for another post.

Well, I can't say that I'm surprised but I am annoyed. And in only the way that someone who is getting free code and whatnot can be!

There, now I feel better. At least a little.