Oakbox Productions / Richard Still

Moved to Oakbox.com

2011-12-13T10:23:00.003+01:00

There's a reason that there are no fresh posts on this blog for almost 3 years. I moved my blogging personality to http://www.oakbox.com.

I also exist in:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oakbox
LinkedIn: http://nl.linkedin.com/in/richardstill

I say all of this because I just tried to find 'Richard Still' in Google and came up with a bunch of OTHER Richards. I even tried searching with the combination of "Richard Still Poetry Slam", the only other non-technical thing I am strongly associated with, and came up blank. It was frustrating. But, I DID see myself, or a link to this page, under Images. So, this is an effort to tie Richard Still to Oakbox, because they are both me.

Paranoia will not destroy ya

2008-11-23T00:28:00.005+01:00

I just watched Alex Jone's film on Google Video. I've gone back and forth on this a few times.

Option 1 "9/11 was just what we were all told it was"
Option 2 "It was an inside job"

What is nice about Option 1 is that there are bad guys 'out there' that have to be fought against. The bad guys in Option 2 are already inside the house with us. "We've traced the phone call. . . it is coming from inside your house."

We get to find out the truth in the next 6 months.

I take it as given that you have looked at conspiracy theories, there are so many to choose from. Not Michael Moore's silly movie, I'm talking about all of the other stuff; false flag operations, "who benefits?" logic, the history of state sponsored terrorism (the USA sponsored sort), etc. If you haven't, a good starting point is the link at the start of this post.

I spent some time looking for opposing view points. Most of what I found was of the sort: "It's not even wrong". Okay. But that needs to be explained, in detail, by people I trust.

Visual Joke

2008-10-01T09:56:00.002+02:00

If you get this joke, please leave a comment or write to me. You are just the kind of nerdy, out-of-the-box thinker that I want to hang with:

y e
t o r p
n

Ha Ha! That cracks me up.

If you just don't get it, here is a clue.

Passport

2008-09-19T16:53:00.005+02:00

When applying by mail, pay the application fee (as well as the expedite and overnight delivery return fee, if applicable) to the "U.S. Department of State". There is no execution fee when applying by mail.

For Passport Application Fee:
Personal checks, money orders, and bank drafts at all locations.

- from the passport renewal page of the USA

There are a three problems with this if you are living in the Netherlands.

There is no such thing as a personal check here. I send a letter to my bank and my bank sends your bank the money. I need to know your account number for this to happen.
There is no such thing as a bank draft.
Money orders cannot be obtained here in the Netherlands. I actually got laughed at when I asked about this at the post office.

So, in the end, I had to go to Amsterdam to renew my passport in person. 2.5 hour train trip to Amsterdam (23.45 euro). But the train was slow so I missed my tram in Amsterdam, that made me late for my scheduled time. So I took at taxi (15 euro). I was dreading the embassy itself, expecting some sort of ultimate DMV. My last visit was to attain a visa for my fiance to go to America. That was 10 years ago and not a happy experience.

Nothing! No Problems at All! I was able to walk right up to my window, the whole transaction took 5 minutes, and because the Euro is so strong it felt like I got a 30% discount on the fee. It was great.

The US Embassy in Amsterdam is awesome. (when renewing a passport. The people applying for visas were stacked up 10 deep.)

Anyway, this means that I will have my documentation in time for the trip home in October. We will arrive on the 11th and will be hanging around with my folks until the 17th.

Derek's 8th Birthday

2008-09-19T16:53:00.002+02:00

When it is your child's birthday, there are three things you must do here in Holland.

Make a snack and/or small gift for everyone in the class and something nice for the teacher. This is called a 'tractatie'.
Arrange a birthday party for your child and several of his friends.
Arrange a birthday party for your child where adults can come and congratulate the family.

We didn't actually make it to step 3 this year, because step 2 just about killed us. My son, who is a sweet and friendly boy, invited fifteen (15) FIFTEEN boys ranging from 7 to 9 years old to his birthday. So, from 12:00 until 17:30 on Saturday August the 30th of this year, I really really wanted to have some earplugs.

Putting the cake on the table was easy enough. Keeping the boys from daring each other to jump out of our 7th story window was a bit more complex. And walking the kids to a bowling alley that is only a few blocks away was harrowing and nightmarish. We had arranged to have two other parents come to help us with herding duties, but one begged off because a problem at work.

15 boys, against 3 adults.

I say that as if you might know what the hell that MEANS. And if you do know, then you have my sympathy.

After the bowling alley, we walked them back to the house and watched them play soccer in a field until it was time for their parents to pick them up. It ended up okay. No one was hurt, all the kids seemed to have a good time. I have to count it as a success, but next year, "No more than 7 kids, Derek. No more than 7."

My History outline part II

2008-08-14T20:45:00.002+02:00

When I stopped the last post, I had just arrived in the Netherlands, ready to start a whole new job in a new land with a new new new . . . . new everything.

2002:
The first thing was trying to get my visa, my permission to be here, straightened out. After the nightmare of dealing with the INS for Sylvia's green card, I expected the worst. Years of waiting and thousands of dollars. It took about 20 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon. That's it. 20 minutes. They mailed my visa to me the next week.
Everywhere here is full of people. That was the first big jump from NC/TN thinking, lot's of people. Everywhere. You have to cultivate a feeling of isolation/privacy internally.
It took about 2 months before the feeling of alien-ness left me. My job working for the father-in-law was not enough to pay all of the bills, so I took a job in Rotterdam as a programmer.
3 months later, the work for the father-in-law (we'll call him 'Bert' from now on) WAS enough to keep me busy full time. Which meant that for a few weeks I was working two full time jobs!
2002 was busy. Language lessons "Ik kan Nederlands goede spreken!". Work. Adjusting to the Netherlands. Just busy.
I met my good friend Jason Lawrenson. An Englishman that shared the same language classes as me. Nice guy. He is listed on my friends in facebook.

2003:
Lot's of things happened in 2003. Personal things that really don't belong here on this page. Sylvia and I were this close ][ to getting a divorce. I actually did move out of the house with Derek for about 6 months. In the end, we got back together, so the whole experience had the ultimate result of making me realise that to much work-work-work could lead to a serious depletion of family-family-family.

2004:
The business starts hitting its stride. Online Talent Manager has a wide range of tests, the code I wrote in the depths of 2003 depression just happened to be totally fucking awesome. We were on our way.
http://www.onlinetalentmanager.com or http://www.talent8.nl to read some more. But actually, all of those pages were written by other people, the magic under the hood is my domain.

2005 through now:
I cannot think of much that really stands out for a big swath of time there. Lot's of things HAPPENED. Visiting Paris. Trips back to the states. Jumps in the business. More babies being born in the family. Derek growing up, seemingly, faster and faster. I think I just need to work on parsing these years out a little more thoroughly :)
Maybe in a future post.

Facebook

2008-08-14T12:11:00.002+02:00

A friend of mine posted a video to his Facebook account and I thought, "What the hell, I'll try it out." I set up my profile and within a couple of hours I had reconnected with a bunch of friends from my college days and also from my time in Winston-Salem. Great stuff.
It also made me realize that I haven't exactly been keeping people that I still care about up to date about what has been happening in my life.

So, a brief recap:

1994:

Started working in the Prodigy section at SPSS in Gray. The job was okay, the people I worked with were great, the management structure of SPSS was a nightmarish hell-hole bent on sucking out our very soul for little or no recompense.
Get involved in the Poetry Slam stuff. At first just local, but we quickly jumped up to regional and national competitions. It was tons of fun, I got to meet some incredible (and not so credible) people, and being able to get a room full of people engaged in what I was saying was a hoot.
In the summer of 1994, during the national slam competition in Asheville, I met Elvis. This was one of the cornerstone events of my life. Just amazing.

1995:

Finally got that Electronic Engineering Degree.
Continue to slave away at SPSS. I move up.
Continue to do poetry competitions, but find out I have a real knack for being the MC. The poetry is still present, but the MC activities come to the fore, I even get invited to several other venues and regional competitions to guest host.

1996:

I'm still moving up at SPSS, more responsibilities, get put in charge of a big project which is successful. They give me a 23 cent raise. I am seriously despondent.
Which means better poetry.
I get asked to guest host a regional competition in Knoxville, which is a hoot. One of the competitors from Winston-Salem approaches me after the finals and offers me a job at Wachovia bank, "But you will need to get a haircut." It is basically a doubling of my salary, so I wait about 10 minutes before saying "YES".
August move to Winston-Salem. Work at Wachovia and fit in. The poetry community in Winston welcomes me in and I get to join an incredibly vibrant creative environment.
Winston had great coffee, great people, art, music, personalities, and great coffee. Just fantastic.

1997:

I am putting silly things in art shows, appearing in cable access television shows, and just enjoying everything.
I join a music group (Urilliasekt) for a single performance. I developed an infrasound generator for a live performance and they invited me to participate in the actual show. That show alone is worth a few thousand words, but suffice it to say it was AWESOME.
Move up at the bank, they really like me.
During the summer, my future wife comes from Holland to visit with her childhood friend, one of my roommates. I think she's hot, she likes me well enough, but mostly it's all just friendly.
I start dabbling in web programming for an artist gallery web site. I find that I'm pretty good at it.

1998:

Sylvia comes back to America for 6 months to be an au pair for a couple in Greensboro. We get together in April.
Still doing poetry here, a national competition in Middletown Connecticut and a regional in Greeneville South Carolina.
Sylvia and I get really serious and decide to marry. Because her visitor visa runs out, she goes back to the Netherlands for 4 months while we wait for INS to get their story together. I visit Holland in October to visit the new soon-to-be inlaws and look around.
She comes back, we get married on December 31, 1998

1999:

Married life, good stuff. I knew how to live with a roommate, but I had to learn how to cook WELL. Not just good enough for me.
Wachovia job is going okay, but is getting a bit boring. Jungle drums are sounding, 'If we make it through the Y2K successfully, we will be targeted for takeover'.
On a visit to Mark Painter in Atlanta, I look at CareerBuilder.com for shits and giggles. There is a job posting for a web master at Journalistic, Inc. I say, 'What the hell.' and apply. I get the job and we move to Chapel Hill in August/September.
Wachovia (22,000 employees) to Journalistic (12 employees) was a BIG jump. But I really like the job and the people.
Sylvia finds out she is pregnant just a few days before our anniversary.

2000:

Growing as a programmer.
Finding out why 'Father of the Bride, Part II' was not funny at all. Sylvia had some complications and spent the last 3 months of her pregnancy on enforced bed rest.
End of August; a Son!!!
Father-in-law comes for a visit. He is a psychologist and he has developed a new test instrument with a colleague. He just has to figure out how to distribute and market it. "What about the internet?" Do I know anyone who can program a web site? You know I do.
Attempt to turn in my resignation, but Webb (the owner of Journalistic) offers me a bonus if I will just stick around for another 10 months or so. I say yes.

2001:

Work work work.
Baby baby baby.
Move to the Netherlands on November 7.

I'm going to stop the dialog there. I will talk about what I've been DOING here in the Netherlands later.

China's Firewall

2008-08-01T17:40:00.004+02:00

I've been seeing a lot in the press about the press in Beijing complaining about the 'great firewall' in China. It seems that China relaxed the blocks for some websites, like the BBC's, as a special exception for the games. That seems reasonable. But the press here in the Netherlands is still hammering on the Chinese authorities about other sites they are blocking, like the Falun Gong web site.
I don't see a problem with that. China does not have a free press or freedom of speech. (The freedoms afforded to many western nations is also tainted, you can SAY things that will get you arrested pretty much anywhere. Criticize a specific religion in the USA or publish some Nazi propaganda in France if you think otherwise.) This could not have come as a surprise to anyone involved. To suddenly act offended and self righteous about this fact is, at a minimum, fatuous. China has opened up the firewall to make it possible for reporters covering the Olympics to do their job. I do not believe that they should be expected to do anything more than that.

Airships on the Rise

2008-07-13T00:41:00.002+02:00

Ha! I told you this would come up. Earlier this year I wrote an article titled 'Peak Oil and Airships'. It was all about how airships are going to make a comeback. I also mentioned that it would take a major player to step in on the development. Well, Boeing just announced that very thing on the 8th of July.

The Seattle article linked from Slashdot also mentions that the price of Helium has increased by 50% just this year. Double Ha! I wonder if any governments are following the advice I wrote in my article. I'll keep my eyes peeled for those kinds of announcements.

2008-07-08T11:05:00.002+02:00

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

- William Butler Yeats

The fundamental (pardon the pun) flaw of atheism is that I am having trouble seeing how it can withstand the onslaught of fundamentalist religion for a broad range of people over a broad swath of time. I can well imagine (and history has demonstrated) that a bunch of crazed religious fanatics with guns could easily defeat an equivalent number of relativistic atheists.

The religious warriors know that god is on their side and paradise awaits them after their death.
The atheists just think it's sad that their opponents are so deluded. I haven't heard about any atheists flying planes into buildings or blowing themselves up. For that kind of gross evil, you really need to have a burning, white-hot faith.

Why does IT cost so much?

2008-07-04T01:17:00.002+02:00

I recently visited with a potential customer for a web application I maintain. They were enthusiastic with just one little caveat, could we make a functional change to the application?

I said, "Sure, let me work up a proposal for you and we can go from there."

Once upon a time, I had a tendency to under-price project work. Now, I look at all of the costs involved in making changes and base the price off of that. When the potential new customer saw the estimate, there was a moment of sticker shock, "So much? I just wanted this one little thing."

And then it hit me, the perfect analogy for why modifying a system with over 100 client organisations can be a bit pricey. Here is what I told them:

Imagine a house that lots of people visit every day. What you are asking for here is, essentially, a new room to be added to this house. Now, if this new room would be useful to all of my visitors, I might just do it for free, knowing that this addition will raise the value of the house as a whole. The room you are asking for here will be behind a locked door, but it takes exactly the same amount of effort to create as the open room.
This new room must be solid, and be soundly designed. Because this room will be attached to the house, it has to be safe and it cannot be unstable, as that would make the whole house unstable. I need to run wires and plumbing into this new room, and that means changing the plumbing and wiring in other parts of the house as well.
This new room, once it has been built, will need to be maintained. I have to consider how new things in the house will affect this new room. When the rest of the house gets a coat of paint, this new room has to get a new coat of paint. If the house gets termites, I have to spend time and money cleaning up this new room as well.
So you see, it's not just the room itself, it's the room and how it connects to the house and ongoing maintenance.

The client 'got it'.

Letting Go

2008-06-27T01:02:00.003+02:00

Hello again. I have decided to cut back on my work with Oakbox Productions and have been focusing on my 'normal' job and spending time with the family doing family things. This gives me lots of time to think, time that was wrapped up in programming and system design is now available for contemplation and reverie.

And I keep coming back to the whole God issue. Many of the books mentioned in my last post talk at length about the inconsistencies in the bible. So, I thought it would be a good idea for me to look them up for myself. It seemed silly to take the word of atheists on faith. Ha!

My first hurdle was something simple and obvious, the genealogy of Jesus. There's not a lot that can go wrong there, right? I mean, this is central to Christianity as a whole. If your deity does not have the proper bloodline, then everything else fails. And it did.

Fail, I mean.

Matthew's genealogy:
abraham, isaac, jacob, judah, perez, hezron, aram, aminadab, nahshon, salmon, boaz, obed, jesse, david, solomon, rehoboam, abijah, asa, jehoshaphat, joram, uzziah, jotham, ahaz, hezekiah, manaseh, amon, josiah, jeconiah (coniah jehoiachin, shealtiel, zerubbabel, abiud, eliakim, azor, sadoc, achim, eliud, eleazar, matthan, jacob, joseph

Luke's genealogy:
abraham, isaac, jacob, judah, perez, hezron, arni, admin, aminadab, nahshon, salmon, boaz, obed, jesse, david, nathan, mattatha, menna, melea, eliakim, jonam, joseph, judah, simeon, levi, matthat, jorim, eliezer, jesus, er, elmadam, cosam, addi, melchi, neri, shealtiel, zerubbabel, rhesa, joanan, joda, josech, semein, mattathias, maath, naggai, esli, nahum, amos, mattathias, joseph, jannai, melchi, levi, matthat, heli, joseph

They agree on the first 6, the last 1, and there are a few other random matches interspersed in there.

Okay, some Googling led me to several common explanations for the discrepancies. Among these the Catholic explanation was quite entertaining: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06410a.htm

There are, in fact, lots of theories. But they are all ~~crap~~ unsatisfying. This is fundamental. There isn't an end-run around this issue. Hell, it's the very beginning of the new testament of a book that is supposedly infallible and perfect in every way. This doesn't even start the laundry list of other errors, contradictions, and outright falsehoods. This is just the most obvious one I thought I should check first.

So what now? What do atheists DO with themselves?

I'm not going to hell

2008-06-25T01:38:00.007+02:00

It all started when I was in college. Exactly when is hard to pin down, a general push toward critical and logical thinking (I have a degree in Electronic Engineering) and a general increase in the number and types of view points I was exposed to. An argument with a Baptist Minister involving my girlfriend was also a contributing factor. But somewhere in that time period, I began to have doubts.

Not serious doubts, nothing that would lead to damnation and a rejection of the faith in which I was raised. Just a . . . cooling. A recognition that some things just did not add up. A recognition of the fact that I was no longer hot for Jesus. A new appreciation for the humor of the 'fish' christian symbol with legs attached.

When I moved out on my own and to another city, I had too much time on my hands and a friend in the book distribution business. She gave me some really good books to read, and I read them. Elaine Pagels 'Gnostic Gospels' was one that still really stands out for me. At that time, Christianity was something that I had temporarily set aside, a well-worn coat that I assumed would be put back on at a later date. Reading that book opened up a whole new universe. Sunday school is not the place to learn that the early Christian church was really just one big argument (or one hundred little ones). Seeing that (and some other reading on church history) really undermined my faith.

The whole protestant reformation was kicked off by a man that enjoyed burning people at the stake. Is this a faith, a religion worthy of adulation? I had been told 'Jesus is Love'. I was told this many times. I was told this so many times that it was a while before I could actually SEE what the man had said. There was not a lot of love there. If what I was basing my belief on was a book put together out of self interest, a dubious historical personage, and a lot of creative wish thinking and the words of power hungry ignorant savages, what was there to have faith in? Where was the truth?

During this time, I poked around other religions, a little self study in comparative religion. Taoism was nice, the Pooh version of it anyway. I also got into some psychology texts and some pseudo science fads held my attention for a while (Carlos Castaneda, anyone? A little Celestine Prophecy to tide you over?) All of this study gave me a headache and serious doubts about objective reality and my own existence, not just the faith of my childhood. That was taking things too far, so I stopped. Then I met my wife and, for a long time, had more important things to focus on.

About 2 weeks ago, I read Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great", followed quickly by Sam Harris "Letter to a Christian Nation" and "End of Faith", then Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion". And now . . .

NOW, I can honestly say that I am not going to hell. I am not, and you aren't either.

On the independence of Kosovo (orig 18-feb-2008)

2008-06-24T01:57:00.001+02:00

A part of your country declaring independence just for funsies is illegal. Many lands have had lot's of wars over this very issue. The American Civil war comes to mind. There have also been wars where the secessionists have succeeded, the American revolutionary war also comes to mind. (this is a bit US centric, but I actually attended school there and read books about US history, so deal with it)

So, secession is a great wrong that must be fought against and a great virtue to shake off the chains of a corrupt government. Isn't that nice? Everybody is right and wrong at the same time. So, I started thinking about it, what tilts secession in one direction or another, what makes it a virtue or an evil?

The answer, when you think about it, is 'Whoever wins gets to decide.' It is just that simple. Declare your independence, get enough allies or some really good representatives talking up your side of the situation to foreign governments (PR is always an essential element of the revolution) and win the war. Tada! It was a glorious revolution. In the alternative, you keep those crazy bastards from stealing a chunk of your land and weakening your country and, Presto! It was a sad page in your nations history that everyone is trying to forget about now.

Countries with secessionist movements in their borders (Spain and Russia, just two totally random examples) are very much against Kosovo's indepdence. They say that Kosovo will set a precedence for their own separatists. Most nations recognize the basic truth in the paragraph before this one: whoever wins gets to write the history.

I think Kosovo will keep its independence, no matter how much some countries pound their chests. Serbia is guilty, as a nation, of attempted genocide and horrific attrocities against their own countrymen. They lost the moral high ground, and, in my opinion, the right to stop Kosovo from seeking its own destiny.

Peak Oil, Airships, and Helium (orig 01-jan-2008)

2008-06-24T01:56:00.002+02:00

America is squandering what will, in the near future, be an important national asset.

Some Facts:

The world is running out of oil. There is a lot of talk and hope for the future of alternative fuels. These alternatives will, with care and attention, lessen the blow, but they will never match the current energy wealth that we all enjoy today.

Airships (or dirigibles or Zeppelins) have always enjoyed a fringe enthusiasm. Many companies over the last 60 years have tried to bring back (actually, the height of the 'Zeppelin age' wasn't all that high) airships as a viable alternative to fixed wing aircraft. Slashdot article or this Popular Mechanics article for a little light reading on the future and this Wikipedia article about it's past.

The United States has the largest reserve of Helium in the world. An increase in demand for lighter than air vehicles means that this helium will become more important, even vital, to our future. And they are wasting it.

When you read the article above, you will see that most helium comes from natural gas wells. And who is ramping up to be the world's largest producer of natural gas? Why, Russia of course. But I haven't seen any evidence that they are trying to collect this strategically vital resource.

An American company recently developed a technology that I think will put airship usage over the top. Thin film flexible solar cells could provide an additional power reserve for airships (I do not think that you could fly SOLELY using solar energy, at least fast enough to be useful). But if you could save up to 30% of your fuel costs during daylight operation, that's a bargain!

Taken together, what does this all mean?

Airships ARE the future. They are fast, consume less oil than fixed wing aircraft, have massive lifting capabilities, are quiet, and require less real estate than fixed wing aircraft airports. Airships are not as fast as jets, but I think if the choice was between a 9 hour jet flight cramped up like a sardine, or a 2 day flight in relative comfort (think a long train journey with sleeping berths) it would be a close run thing. If the 2 day flight was 1/5th the cost of the jet? No contest. The jet would lose out for the same reason that the Concorde lost. If taking an extra day of travel time means saving 2 or 3 thousand dollars, I'll take the extra day.

I've only seen a little bit of this (see the HAA design in the Popular Science article in the fact section), but the design doesn't seem to take it far enough. Imagine if the total upper surface of a 120 meter airship was covered in thin film flexible solar cells. You could slap an electrical power assist on the airship's engines to increase your fuel savings. As a bonus, when not in flight you would have a large solar array plugged into your power grid whenever an airship came to town.

Hydrogen as a lifting gas is not a good idea, it is a big reason why the Hindenburg went up in flames. The designers KNEW this was a problem. The Hindenburg (and its sister ship the Graaf Zeppelin) were both designed to use Helium as a lifting gas. Unfortunately for the Germans, the only big reserve of helium in the world was owned by the United States, and they weren't sharing. When airships become important, even vital to world transportation, the USA was poised to be in control of the most vital component, the helium gas that makes it all possible. Unfortunately, they are letting it hiss away, (see facts section). So, whoever has access to the most natural gas wells, and acts NOW to start capturing 'new' helium will have a tremendous advantage in the near future. If you have the helium, you get to say who flies and who doesn't, isn't that nice?

Recommendations / Predictions

The United States should immediately redirect its efforts toward increasing its strategic reserve of Helium and should designate it as a strategic asset. That means you get selfish about what you have and greedy for what you can buy from others.

Russia, and other oil and gas producing nations, should start collecting and storing the helium that they are currently (probably) just letting escape into the atmosphere where it is very difficult to recover. The United States will:

charge obscene amounts of money for helium that they control

give preferential treatment to their own civilian and military uses, perhaps to the point of attempting to establish a monopoly on air travel

as the oil gets used up, our last chance to recover helium in usable quantities disappears with it

Airships will not catch on with the public for another 5 to 10 years. Steadily increasing oil prices (and consequently, the rising cost of airline travel) will make airships not only attractive financially, but also aesthetically. It will take one of the major aerospace companies taking an interest in passenger service airships before this moves forward. The smaller companies that spring up and quickly die do not have enough depth to deal with the myriad infrastructure issues that airships will need to have addressed.

Airships will bring back a more genteel mode of travel (slower, but more comfortable). Think about what this will mean culturally to the west. Fedex and UPS slow down, flying away for a long weekend becomes prohibitively expensive, airship-ports can be placed closer to population centers because of reduced noise/pollution/runway space, etc etc. There is a lot to consider.

Can intelligence be learned?

2008-06-24T01:55:00.000+02:00

I just finished reading an article in the Scientific American How to raise smart kids. I have a kid, and I am trying to raise him, so I thought a little extra reading on my part would be a good idea. The article bascially says that effort is more important than innate ability. I have a lot of innate ability, and as I was reading the article I kept thinking that, "yes, that's exactly what happened to me." I breezed through high school, all 16 of them, with no problems or even much of a challenge. When I started college, my lazy, 'it will just come to me' mode of operation hit a brick wall. Unfortunately, by that time I didn't know how to study. American high school does not teach you how to learn, it teaches you how to obey and fit in. Obediance and fitting in are not exactly the kind of life skills you need to excel. The most important indicator of future success is your level of persistence.

The article gave some concrete evidence that effort is very important (usually even more important than innate skill). It also gives some specific examples on how to talk to your child so that you don't screw them up. I recommend it.

My office from space

2008-06-24T01:54:00.001+02:00

I thought you might like to see my office building. I am on the top floor in the north corner. Sweet. Here is the link to Google Maps.

Website for my father

2008-06-24T01:53:00.001+02:00

I was talking with my dad on the phone a week ago and he mentioned
that he was thinking about setting up a web site for his paving
company in Northeast Tennessee. This was a bit of a shocker for me
because I should have done this about. . . oh, 6 years ago! So, you
can see my father's web site here: href="http://www.stillpaving.com"
TITLE="http://www.stillpaving.com">http://www.stillpaving.com.

I thought the play on words was nice for the URL :)

Reminded

2007-02-26T09:33:00.000+01:00

I am reminded that I am loved
that my soul is beautiful and strong
that I am not alone
I am reminded of the beauty in others
and that I can still recognize beauty
that I am still alive
I am reminded of my voice
that my heart can be open and speak
that I need not fear
I am reminded of my youth
that it has not passed away
that it is always with me
I am reminded of the wonder
the lightening of spirit that others bring
that I can still be enlightened

Thank you

Artist's Friend

2007-02-23T16:21:00.000+01:00

I have heard from a few past members of the Artist's Friend web site saying that the web site held the only versions of some of their works. This was pretty depressing, because after a year off line, I deleted the contents of the site from the server.

BUT! During a recent move, I found an old CD that just happened to contain a complete backup of the Artist's Friend images. So, if you were a member of TAF and are still interested in getting images back, just send me a message!

Whee!

Marvin K. Mooney will you please go NOW.

2006-04-05T22:52:00.000+02:00

My wife and I take turns putting our son, Derek, to bed. On her nights, she reads him a Dutch children's book, on my night, it's English. We both like Doctor Suess books. The whacked out artistry usually gives him something to focus on and my voice knocks him out in no time.
I thought that was pretty much it, pictures and the sound of my voice. We live in the Netherlands, there isn't a lot of English in his environment, just me and my family when we visit the states once a year. Today, my wife calls me at work and says, "Listen to this!".
She holds the phone out for Derek and he begins reading, "Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now." And reading it WELL. He's 5 years old, has a 30% hearing reduction (until the drains go in on the 11th this month, anyway), speaks Dutch all the time, and here he is rolling out a whole book over the phone.
I cried like a baby sitting there in my office. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

Antonio

2006-03-30T08:24:00.000+02:00

I don't mean to sound gay or anything, but Antonio Banderas looks pretty hot dressed up as Zorro.
...
As that thought was echoing around in my head, trying to come up with some kind of angle on it that could be stretched to a couple of paragraphs, my mind went tangental, and I started to think about George Hamilton in 'Zorro, the Gay Blade'. ZtGB was, quite frankly, the best Zorro movie ever.
I think about getting that movie on DVD so that I can share it with people around me. But I fear a repeat of the Blazing Saddles debacle:
"Look at this great movie that I've seen so many times I'm word perfect on it. And then, having seen the movie, my random pronunciations will be slightly more comprehensible!"
(time passes during which time, they have maybe watched the movie)
"What did you think?"
'I only watched about 20 minutes of it, it wasn't very good.'

Evolution Email program

2006-03-21T23:19:00.000+01:00

I have the 'catchall' addresses for 4 separate domain names funneling into my email account. That means I receive between 180 and 280 spam messagers PER DAY. This is a pain. I did, at one time, have a self-rolled bayesian filter on my email box. It would sign on for me during the day and whack any messages it thought were spam before I ever even checked my POP account. This worked, but it was a bit cumbersome.
About a 6 months ago I switched to Ubuntu as my primary Linux distro. Evolution in Ubuntu comes with Spamassassin built in. I ditched my own spam filter and started using this functionality. For about a month, it was a disaster. I spent a lot of time laboriously picking through the mountains of email to identify to the filter which messages where spam and which were actually useful to me.
The second through fifth months showed a gradual increase in efficacy. But over the last month I must have hit some kind of threshold. I now get a total of maybe THREE spam messages in my inbox per day now. For about two weeks I just couldn't believe what I was seeing and figured that the filter was marking false positives.
But that was just my paranoia. Spamassasin has had no false positives during this time frame. Just fantastic stuff! I think I would recommend my Windows using friends to switch to Linux just for the chance to use Evolution.

Dutch driving lessons

2006-03-17T00:15:00.000+01:00

I still have a driver's license from the states, but now it is time to get that puppy turned over into a Nederlandse Rijbewijs. We have come into possession of an automobile, which means that I will not need to keep doing my grocery shopping on a bicycle with two overloaded saddle bags 15 times a week.

The driving rules here are just a tad different than in the states. For example, you yield to traffic coming from the right. Intersections aren't specially marked, you just always yield to people coming from your right. (Unless you have been given special bully permission by no less than 6 (SIX!) different types of road sign) Bicycles are always right. Even if they swerve in front of you for no reason, bikes riders are the victim. And pedestrians trump everything. And there are lots and lots of traffic cameras (flitsers) that take pictures of your license plate if you are speeding or run a red light. But these gray boxes are usually very well marked, how handy! And when you try to explain about American police officers hiding behind billboards in speed traps, Dutch people are just shocked all to pieces, "I thought that was just a joke for in the movies!"

So, me and my 18 years of driving experience have to unlearn and relearn a whole bunch of information over the next few weeks before the big and very expensive riding exam. Wish me luck.

Speaking of long lost compatriots

2006-03-17T00:13:00.000+01:00

I heard from the wife of a friend that my friend now has a blog also.

kulwhip.blogspot.com

I highly recommend reading Ron Culhane. He's funny as hell and he's just not going to take it anymore.

Shannon D. Brown

2006-03-17T00:07:00.000+01:00

My good college buddy Shannon sent me one of those classical messages of our times:

"You still there?"

Does your email address still work? Are you still connected to the internet? Can you still read? Are you, in fact, still alive?

Because there's just so much time and space to reach across these days. I'm floating 6 hours in the future to the Eastern part of the USA. 6 hours is a lot of time, that's practically a week in internet time.

So, I wrote back to say that, yes, I am still here. He has a web log, you can get it all straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, at http://www.technobohemia.com.

Bingely Bingely Beep

2006-03-17T00:03:00.000+01:00

Ruby on Rails was a wash, for me anyway. I started digging into it and just kept hitting limits on what Rails could handle. "That's Okay, because it's extensible!" I hear those wacky Ruby folks say. But the fact is that I can run rings around anything I can do in Ruby with Perl. Sure, there are some nifty shortcuts, but Perl is very deep, and experience counts for a whole lot when facing a deadline.
So, for now, I'm sticking with what I know.

Cute 404

2005-11-22T16:07:00.000+01:00

I'm trying, really TRYING to grok this whole sed thing. Some in place text replacement, a little auto-editing, that's all I'm looking for. On one tutorial, there was a link to some more information, but that page was missing. But that was OKAY because the 404 error message was so cute. Go on, take a look at this:
http://www.softlab.ntua.gr/unix/docs/sed.txt

Interesting and rude people

2005-10-28T14:24:00.000+02:00

A link from a link from a link led me to Heightened Thoughts 'Blog Jesus', which is a fascinating concept. On this blog, people write in to blog jesus and he answers their questions right away. It's interactive and funny and strange, "Damn, why didn't I think of that?".
But, I KNOW the reason I didn't think of that. I blame Jesus for a lot of things.

If something goes wrong with a computer and the secretary asks me, "Why did that happen?", I say, "Blame Jesus".
If there's a power outage and when the power comes back on the VCR clock starts blinking and now I have to find the manual I haven't even seen in 6 months and my wife says, "Why are you taking so long to fix the blinking clock?" I say, "Blame Jesus".
And when, many years ago, my girlfriend got religion and left me because I didn't really want to be a Southern Baptist, I said, "She left me for Jesus."

So, Jesus and me are not on very good terms. He messes up a lot of things for me. And sure, you could use the argument that it might have been good at some higher level. Like, this little bad thing had to happen to prevent that other much worse thing from happening, but I think that's a load of crap.
If this post has thoroughly not offended you, then go read that Blog Jesus stuff. It's pretty funny.

Spam again

2005-10-28T11:04:00.000+02:00

SpamAssassin + Evolution is doing a pretty good job of filtering out junk. Of the 100 or so daily emails, about 30 messages get through the filters and of those about 8 are 'real'. I have noticed something consistent about those 22 or so junk messages; they all have bad spelling.
REElY Bid speeling.
So I was thinking that adding one final spelling check on incoming mail would cut down on my spam messages to only 2 or 3 a day. As a side effect, it would mean that messages I received were spelled correctly.
How about that? Is that a good idea? Is this just so mind-blowingly super intelligent that you cannot believe that no one had thought about this before, it's SO OBVIOUS, why didn't I think about that first? Or am I missing a logical step?
You let me know, because I like you. You are a special person.
And you have been approved for a mortgage!

Ruby on Rails

2005-10-27T10:59:00.000+02:00

I am a perl programmer. I am a Bishop on perlmonks.org. 'Being a Perl Programmer' is what I do every day at my job. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Perl is the only language on the planet. But the long and short of it is, I haven't found anything that I CANNOT do in Perl.
Lately, there has been some buzz about Ruby on Rails, a MVC framework based on the Ruby language. I have set up a server and have been playing around with it, dipping my toe into the world that is Ruby. So far, I have to say that it looks cool. I'm intrigued enough to keep going, which did not happen at all when I looked into Java.
So, if you are interested in getting your toes wet as well, check out the funny and smart Amy Hoy blog entry Really Getting Started in Rails. If there is a Ruby foundation, they should pay this woman to write their documentation for them. Great stuff!

Days of Flurry

2005-10-27T09:42:00.000+02:00

About 10 days ago I got this mad urge to switch Linux distributions while, at the same time, completing three separate projects for work. You know how it is, right? I was just getting annoyed with Mandrake/driva and jumped ship to Ubuntu. To make the whole experience extra special, I did it without burning a CD. I used debootstrap and chroot. No fancy shmancy installation CD for me! I am pretty proud of that.
I have a thousand things that occur to me during the day. I'll have a sudden insight and go, 'Aha! I should mention that in my blog'. But I inevitably forget the insight before getting anywhere near a keyboard, and even if I do, there's sure to be something interrupting me (ie: my compulsive need to see if anything new is on Slashdot.)
The weather is quite lovely here, thank you for asking.

Dune

2005-10-07T10:14:00.000+02:00

Every 18 months or so, I re-read the Dune series of books by Frank Herbert. I've been doing this since I picked up the 'God Emperor of Dune' in Frenchtown High School, Montana. Frenchtown was the school district, I was living in Missoula at the time. There's something cleansing about these books, a way to center and reorient my thinking.
The David Lynch's version of Dune always provides the faces in my imagination. Even though, intellectually, I know that most of those faces must be wrong. Paul was much younger than Kyle MacLachlan, Feyd Rautha had curly black hair, not Sting's blond locks. Patrick Stewart is too pretty for Gurney Halleck, but still he stands in my inner theater, reciting Gurney's lines as I read.
If you have never actually picked up these books, you are missing something really beautiful. The next time you are in a book store, pick up the last book "Dune: Chapterhouse" and flip to the end. At least in my edition (and I hope in all editions) the last 3 pages contain a letter where Frank Herbert talks about his life with his recently deceased wife. A beautiful and moving letter that even now, after reading and absorbing these writings for 17 years, brings a tear to my eye.
Whenever I need to be reminded of the power of language (which happens every 18 months or so) I read these books and am fully reminded.

When to bail out of your job

2005-10-05T09:20:00.000+02:00

I got this link from slashdot to Christopher Wilson's blog entry about when to quit your job. It got me to thinking about what I would consider to be work place red flags, things that would make me sweat and start updating my resume. So, here is a list:

Employee Appreciation Programs are of the Devil The only time a company needs an Employee Appreciation Program is when the culture is so anti-employee that they need to come up with some way to disguise it. EAP=OUT.
Metrics Uber Alles Scenario: You are in a phone support position and helping someone out. The call is going long, do you A) get this customer off the phone in the next 20 seconds even though the problem isn't really fixed and that person will call back again even more frustrated and we might lose the customer altogether. OR B) fix the problem in another 3 minutes so that the customer is satisfied, but I go over the 4 minute talk time limit. If you are in a company that would prefer the 'A' solution, run away. When you are paying more attention to metrics than to how real people are interacting with your company, then that company will not last.
What's that Sucking sound? If you go into work every day young, full of energy, happy, and leave with a slightly empty and rung-out feeling? Your company could very well be sucking out your soul and piping it to the executive management offices where they feed vampirically on your life force. If you can imagine this scenario occuring in your work place and it makes a strange kind of sense to you, find another job.

Well, that's only three. There are a few more in my head, but the clock is ticking on the job I have now, which I enjoy very much.

Angry Day

2005-10-04T19:08:00.000+02:00

Honking horns on the streets, very out of place in normally quiet residential areas. A mother and her son in a face to face yelling match just down from our house, their faces blotchy and red even to my eyes 30 meters away. Angry customers in the line at the supermarket. Rude telemarketers calling during dinner.
It's like the whole of my little corner of the world is pissed off today.
In line at the bakery, I ask the woman standing next to me if she has noticed anything today. She tells me, "No, I haven't noticed any extra anger today."
Maybe it's just me.

Last Rocket Out

2005-10-04T10:09:00.000+02:00

This was my dream.
I am 17 or 18 years old, still living with my parents. The world is coming to an end, in just under an hour, an asteroid will crash into the planet killing everything. I have an uncle and aunt, they just happen to have a rocketship ready to lift off. They tell us, "Grab whatever you need, we leave in 22 minutes and we will not wait one moment more."
My parents pack a few belongings and wait in the car for me, it's a 3 minute drive to my uncle's house. I am running through the house, trying desperately to grab only the most important things I have: A stone I picked up a few years ago on a date, a few books that have always comforted me, some journals, my collection of tiny budha figures, a pressed flower held in a picture frame.
My father walks up behind me as I'm shuffling through my things. "We leave here in 2 minutes with out without you. This isn't like being late for work, if you do not get in the car now you will die." He turns and walks back out to the car where my mother is waiting. His voice is unemotional, everyone seems utterly unemotional, as if the shock is too overwhelming to even contemplate.
I hear the engine of the car start, hear the sound of tires rolling slowly over gravel. I sprint out of the house but the car is already pulling down the road, I run. I run so fast that I feel like my heart will explode, sharp knife pain jabs me in the side, but still I run, focus each instant on keeping my feet, getting there in time.
As I stagger into my uncle's yard, I see the rocket before me, no larger than a bus. The door is slowly moving closed and clouds of smoke are pouring out of the back. Through the still-open door, I see my aunt, uncle, mother, and father sitting in the forward-facing seats, already strapped in.
I leap through the door just before it seals itself shut and bang around the interior. Crash back into a seat with my seemingly very heavy possessions perched on my chest. Immediately the rocket leaps into the air and my books and knick knacks become even heavier, will we make it? I start wondering if I've brought the right things. Suddenly I yell out, "How will we live when we get there? Did anyone bring seeds for plants or survival things?" Everyone remains silent, eyes forward.
I wake up.

Now, there are plenty of interpretations for a dream like that. Lot's of symbology to play with, but the main thing on my mind after that dream kept coming back to: Why didn't I get some seeds?

Fall in Holland

2005-09-29T13:33:00.000+02:00

The air has already gotten that crisp taste, the sun is shining a little brighter than normal, the wind a little more penetrating, the females wearing fewer and longer dresses. Skirts are like inverted thermometers, just an observation, but I wasn't observating, I swear! The trees haven't started to turn yet, but they soon will.

World Gone Mad

2005-09-29T13:10:00.000+02:00

In a World Gone Mad, their ~~love~~ ~~fiery passion~~ unslaked hungers could Not Be Quenched! From the Producers of such classic films as "Vengenance And Blood, the Musical" and the chilling story of one young man's journey to ~~hell and back~~ self discovery "Low-Protein-Adsorption Biomaterials from Polymer Blends", Samuel L. Broncowitz brings you a new tale of High Drama!

I like the concept of a movie called 'Low-Protein-Adsorption Biomaterials from Polymer Blends', (which I got from this web site, I didn't read the article). There's just not enough science, or indeed common sense in movies. I don't care if the movie is about a magic penguin on a ~~journey to hell and~~ (sorry!) err . . . I would just like to see common everyday physics in action. Every time I see a spark fly from a bullet impact, I cringe. It's just so . . . dumb.