Background Checks

Sometimes I wonder just how in-depth the background checks that some companies do on potential employees really are. I mean, it’s fairly a given anymore that they’ll look for a criminal record, check your credit history (which, in my opinion is rather stupid. I understand why they do it, even if they don’t understand it themselves, and I don’t agree with it), and the like.

However, you frequently hear these horror stories of companies going google happy and trying to find any little piece of negative information on potential candidates that they can. The thing that they don’t seem to realize is that, if you look hard enough, you’ll find *something* to dislike about a person’s past online (whether it’s true or not is a completely different matter).

I’ve always kind of wondered just when I was going to be confronted with something from my past in an interview that I really don’t want to discuss. I even have a feeling that I know what the something would be, and I know with a fair amount of certainty how I would react to it - the interview would be over right there.

(The people who know me pretty well could make a good guess at what it is, and know that it’s a touchy subject)

To be perfectly honest, I really am a fairly private person. There are a lot of things in my past that I don’t talk about with most people – partially because I don’t often want to think about them (or deal with the dreams even though I have to sometimes anyway) and partly because it’s none of their bloody business. My personal life is just that – mine and personal.

That’s not to say that I’m closed off or frigid. It’s just that there are a lot of things in my life that aren’t up for public scrutiny. This is largely because I don’t feel like purposely ripping open old wounds. I do that enough inadvertently as it is.

Now, before you start wondering what skeletons are in my closet, don’t bother. There are no convictions, trials, etc in my past (other than a couple of traffic tickets because I was going to be late for tests and those were just “pay the fine, and have a nice day” affairs) nor do I do drugs (other than caffeine or the occasional over the counter pain killer), have carnal relations with farm animals, or anything else of that sort.

Granted, some people might think the martial training and sword collection are causes for alarm, but that’s their problem.

A lot of the private things in my life are a result of actually having lived and having been involved with a lot of other people who have also lived their lives. Some of the memories are nice, and some aren’t, but they’re mine, and I kind of chafe at the thought of someone with whom I am only supposed to have a business relationship digging into my personal past (which has nothing to do with the work that I do).

I’ve even done a fair job of keeping my profile online pretty low key. If you google me, you’ll find my site, my blog, things about the magazine, Slashdot posts and a few random things that other people have posted. Thankfully, trying to figure out which ones are me is a little more difficult because there are two other fairly prominent people with the same name (though I seem to be more popular).

Heck, I even get email meant for one of them on occasion.

Even if you started digging into paper records, most of what you would find are mentions of me in my old hometown paper from when I was in school there. (I was involved in a lot of things while I was in grade school and high school, and ended up in the paper on occasion).

I just think this obsession a lot of companies seem to have with regard to the lives of their employees is unhealthy for everyone. The company is not your family, and you shouldn’t let them treat you like they are. Nor should you let them treat you like they own you, because the only person that owns you is you.

Current mood: contemplative
Current music: Angie Aparo - Cry

Yeah Right

I got the new issue of ACM’s Queue magazine the other day. The interview this time was with Joel of Joel on Software fame.

There are some things that I agree with Joel on (by and large, I think he’s a self-important blowhard, but he does occasionally have some good ideas). I think that developers (programmers, software engineers, whatever-the-heck-you-want-to-call-us) should have offices with doors that close so we can get things done.

My friend and I agree that our ideal setup if we ever started a company would be private offices along with a lab environment so you could have quiet if you needed it, but if you felt disconnected and wanted to work around people for a while, you could just go to the lab. What can I say? We had a lot of fond memories of the Sun labs on campus (especially when it was just the few of us in the room that really knew what we were doing).

However, there was one thing in Joel’s interview that just makes me want to ask him what the heck he’s smoking. It’s not the first time he’s said the thing that makes me question his connections with reality either.

What is this thing, you ask?

That nobody is developing GUI desktop applications anymore and they are, effectively, dead.

That’s right. You heard me, Netcraft hasn’t confirmed it yet, but according to Joel, desktop software is dead.

Please allow me to call bullshit.

I realize that Joel thinks he’s the end all and be all of software company owners, but on this, the man doesn’t have a bloody clue. His main application, Fog Bugz, is browser based, so of course, he sees the software world as browser-centric.

However, the rest of us, minus some intranet applications that we may use at work (or the poor schmoes that use Google’s apps) are using stuff that is well and truly on our desktop.

For example, here is a quick rundown of the apps I’ve used today – Windows, Winamp, Firefox, Thunderbird, Word, Exact Audio Copy (I finally finished ripping my CD collection to the new drive), Visual Studio, File Zilla, and a few other things.

Want to know how many web apps that I’ve used in the last several months? The shopping carts for a couple of web stores, my bank (it sort of counts) and Blogger (if you want to count that since they have sort of tied it to their apps).

Hey Joel, want to know a secret? Web 2.0 is NOT going to take over application development. I remember when things were console based. What we have now is a VAST improvement.

Web 2.0 style stuff has its place. However, that place is pretty bloody narrow in scope.

Want to know something else that kills your prediction? Just what do you think your precious non-desktop-GUI apps run on? That’s right. They run on an operating system (which generally has a GUI desktop) and generally a web browser.

What are those two things? Could they be desktop GUI applications? I think so!

Want to know something else? Most of us (and most businesses) want to have control of our own freaking data. There are a number of reasons for that – among them, being able to control who has access to it and the fact that we don’t have to worry about not being able to get our data if our net access goes down.

Desktop apps aren’t going anywhere for a long long time, and, despite what you think, there are a LOT of people out there making them.

Current mood: amused
Current music: Rihanna – Shut up and Drive

Save Me...Please

I have to say that I apologize to anyone who’s contacted me if I have seemed a little batty this week. I feel like I’m going stir crazy(er).

My ability to read people well has been shot this week.

It’s been one of those where you feel like laughing and screaming at the same time. The sheer lack of things to do here is getting to me, I think.

I really need a change of scenery. Working on getting a job elsewhere, so I can make that happen. Preferably someplace with museums and cultural centers, various things to do, and more people that are somewhere in the neighborhood of my own age and who just might have similar interests.

There is a lack of all of the above here. Hence my going crazy =]

Well, that and the fact that I’m feeling homesick for certain places, but there’s not a lot I can do about that at the moment. *sigh*

If you know a company in the Columbus, Ohio area (since that’s where I want to end up) that’s looking for a decent software dev (C#, please as I have kicked Java to the curb), let me know.

Current mood: frustrated
Current music: Moby & Gwen Stefani – South Side

/dev/random

There are a lot of things that I could write about at the moment, but I really don’t feel like ranting right now. Most of them involve local issues, so I doubt many people who read this will really care about them anyway, and to be quite honest, I’m to the point of beating my head against the desk over it, so I really don’t want to think about it.

Instead, I think I’ll just cover randomness that’s going on or running through my head. (No, you don’t have to run away in fear)

* It seems that Google has been lobbying Congress to get the H1-B cap raised because they’re “having trouble finding qualified people” while saying that their drop in earnings is because they’ve been on a hiring binge. I’m sorry, but that sounds like a steaming pile of something unpleasantly fragrant to me.

We can’t find qualified people, but we’re hiring right and left? Yeah right. Admit it, boys. You broke your “do no evil” motto a long time ago. I didn’t want to work for you before and I certainly don’t now.

* The editor of the local paper doesn’t seem to care for me anymore. It just might have something to do with calling him on his attempted bullying (and got him to back peddle like mad) of the message board when people started speaking out against a partnership between the city government and the chamber of commerce to expedite building permits.

The thing that really galled him, I think, is the fact that I didn’t fall for him trying to change his arguments (and twist mine) into something that he had a snowball’s chance of winning. (I would love for him to try to pull a “I am the editor of a newspaper” showboating contest because there are things that he doesn’t know about me =])

Sorry, folks, but the Chamber in this town treats non-member businesses like dirt. I wouldn’t trust them with this as far as I could comfortably spit a large rat, because what it would amount to is the member businesses getting a fast track on permits.

* I seem to be getting frighteningly handy with a seam ripper.

* And on a completely random note, I would love to see someone who can pull off the Witch Hunter Robin look. No, it’s not because of any weird fetish. I just think that it would be a really cool look on someone that could pull it off (and it wouldn’t be that easy to pull it off).

Current music: none
Current mood: tired

A Much Needed Break

Every now and then, I find that I need to take a break from working on projects and actually get out of the house. I find that it helps me to stay motivated.

Today was a nice day. It was filled with thunderstorms and a decent amount of rain, so I decided to spend part of it in the park, wandering around and watching the world go by from one of the gazebos.

Yes, I like to run around in thunderstorms. I’m weird like that.

I’ve always been a big fan of thunderstorms. I know that some kids were frightened of them, but I always found them soothing. The world just feels cleaner after one, and I have to admit that it seems like something in them lightens my mood.

However, I have found that they’re more enjoyable when you can share them with someone. For a while, I got to share them with someone that loved them as much as I did. Sometimes I think she actually enjoyed them more.

I still enjoy them. It just feels weird to do it by myself.

Current mood: contemplative
Current music: Revis – Caught in the Rain

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means…

While wandering around online, I came across the blog of a couple of software developers. Some of the contents made me shake my head.

I’m not going to name names since that would be tacky. I don’t want to embarrass anyone. They’re a husband and wife team, and I honestly wish them luck. However, there are a few things that I have to say.

One of the two of them, while discussing the fact that advanced math isn’t often used in day-to-day coding (and she’s right. For most stuff, the most complex math you use is algebra), made the comment that not every programmer writes algorithms.

Rubbish.

*Every* programmer writes algorithms. An algorithm is just a series of instructions to accomplish some task. One of the most basic things a programmer learns to do (usually in the first few days of classes), namely a for loop such as the following one

for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
cout << “hi!” << endl;
}

is an algorithm with a big O of n. Actually, in this case you could argue that the big O is C where C = 10 since the value of i is known, but still.

Not every programmer writes innovative new algorithms, but every programmer does indeed write algorithms.

The fun continues.

In their “about us” section, they state that if they do a web app for you from the ground up, it’s going to be in Ruby on Rails. They go on to say that they can also do maintenance in a few other languages, but they end by saying “We’ll use the technology that’s the best fit for your project.”

I’m sorry, but if you do everything new in Rails, you are not going on a mantra of “best technology for the project.” Rails, while neat, is not the best solution for every web app out there.

I hate to rain on their parade, but they might want to re-think either their claims or their bias.

Then again, she says that they look for contracts and employers that won’t have an issue with bringing a nursing infant to a meeting.

I have nothing against mothers (or kids for that matter. I actually like kids.), but a meeting is not the place for nursing or an infant. Meetings are there so people can get things done. Distractions of that magnitude do not belong there if it can be helped. If you have a meeting, please leave the baby with someone who can watch him or her while you’re gone.

Like I said, I wish them luck, but I think they have a little bit to learn.

Current mood: amused
Current music: The Pillows – Blues Drive Monster

Head, Meet Desk
Or
James Opens up a Can

This town never seems to stop amazing me. They tout that they are the first state capitol (you can’t miss it. The bloody signs are everywhere. They even have a plaque on the court house proclaiming that the stone it refers to was from the first capitol building) and want to be considered a great and wonderful place, but they refuse to do anything to make that happen.

The local newspaper (yes, the town of about 25,000 people only has one paper) has a web board on its site where you can discuss the news stories. So many of the people who use it make my head hurt, and the frightening thing is that they really are indicative of the general population.

Two of the mind-numbing issues follow.

First Issue – The Library

There’s a 0.49 mil levy on the ballot in November to support expanding the library (that means that, for a house appraised at $100,000 the tax increase would be $49/year). It’s not a bad little library as it stands, but in a town of this size, I’d really expect a little more.

The plans are for, among other things, a nice connector from the main building to a now-closed school that they purchased next door for extra space and the addition of a café and a small used book store so they can divest themselves of less frequently read books year round without having to wait for the yearly book sale.

I think this is a positive thing. Unlike what most of the people who responded seem to think, a library is more than just a place to walk in, get a book, and walk out of again. It’s an integral part of the community and serves not only for the dissemination of information, but also as a gathering point and culture center.

The best libraries I have ever been in have had not only books, but displays of art and discussion rooms. Hell, the library at my alma mater (which has about the same number of people as this town) had art displays on almost every floor except in the general stacks on the top two floors and even had a rock and water garden on the first floor (Asian Studies).

This is something that the people here don’t seem to understand, because most of the comments were of the “why do we possibly need that? It’s a waste of money. Just walk in and get a book” variety. To top it off, they were downright violently opposed to the people who advocated the expansion and started arguments of the “well, *I* never use the library, so why should *I* have to pay for it??” and “Since the city is wanting taxpayers to pay to expand the library, I think they should have taxpayers pay to expand my house!” sort.

No, I’m not kidding about the house expansion comment. Someone on there honestly made it.

The really frightening thing in my opinion, though, was not the fact that someone made the comment that the city should pay to improve their house or even that some people are opposed to expanding the library. The thing that made my jaw drop was just how many people said they never used the library and seemed proud of that fact. To top it off, they were not only proud of the fact that they never use it, but think that it should not be a public resource, but instead that you should have to pay to use it!

Yes, people there actually said that you should have to pay if you wanted to use the library.

Folks, the library is there as a public resource for all to use – young or old, rich or poor. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a coin in your pocket, you can walk into that building and learn something or find a book to pass the time. To say that it shouldn’t be that way is an insult to all of the people that clawed their way up the ladder from practically nothing, because that proposition means that they would never be able to do that.

It’s disgusting that these fools think that way. That’s the only way I can think to put it, though I admit that I may be a bit more adamant in that view because I have known people who really have pulled themselves up out of poverty through effort and public resources like the library.

Issue the Second – Historic Theater

The Majestic Theater, a historic theater and one of the local cultural draws is looking at doing renovations. It’s run by a non-profit organization much like the local art gallery (which, though small, is nice. If you’re in town, stop by and wander through. It’s in the park and it’s free) and derives its budget from grants, donations, and box office sales.

Keep the sources of funding in mind. It’s important later.

First, however, a quick word about the theater:

As I said above, it’s a historic theater. From what I gather, it’s been around since before the Civil War and was even turned into an emergency hospital during said war.

The inside is a wealth of period architecture and artwork. Outside, the sign for the theater (which spans the street) is the last arch from Columbus’ old Arch District and, it must be said, looks darned spiffy at night when it’s lit up. Even if it weren’t for the artwork and history, it runs a number of performances each year (for extremely reasonable prices – we’re talking like $5). It’s even been named a National Geographic travel site.

The bottom line is that it’s a very nice place and could serve as a wonderful anchor for the revitalization of the historic downtown.

However, when the paper ran an article that the Majestic was looking for funding to do improvements, the locals started griping about the possibility of another levy when the truth is that there wouldn’t *be* a levy. They’re looking for grant money and charitable contributions.

When that was repeatedly pointed out, they started saying how there was no way they could get grant money for that. I know better, but that’s because I spent four years working for a non-profit who, among other things, acquired grants for those sorts of projects.

The discussion went on from there about how it would be wasted money and that nobody should bother. That’s right. We shouldn’t ever try anything because nobody cares or we might fail.

Sorry, people, but the world doesn’t work that way. If you want something, you have to fight for it. Personally, I hope that the library’s levy passes (and the money is used properly) and that the Majestic gets the funding it needs for improvements.

The thing that these people really don’t seem to understand is that those improvements pay off for the city as a whole. They help bring not only tourism dollars in, but can also make it a more desirable place to move both families and businesses to (which this town really needs).

To the residents of Chillicothe, and indeed the residents of all other towns and cities in this country that feel the way these people do, I have the following to say to you – you disappoint the hell out of me. Try doing something for people other than yourself once in a while. You might find that you’re doing yourself a favor in the process.

Current mood: annoyed
Current music: Van Halen – Right Now

Grace vs. Force

It seems like most martial artists that you see now are taught to focus on raw strength. They all just try to overpower their opponents. It’s all just punch and kick faster and harder than the other guy to them.

It seems to be an American thing. Think of the most popular American sport – football. The biggest part of what’s drilled into the head of the people who play it from the time they’re kids is that you hit the other guy as hard as you possibly can.

As a consequence, they tend to lack grace. Their motions are jerky and disjointed. Their balance is not the greatest, and they aren’t prepared for surprises because they expect the other guy to be doing pretty much the same thing.

The real practice of martial arts, as opposed to simply being a bruiser like most of them try to be now, requires a great deal of grace, finesse, and balance. In fact, it has a lot in common with dancing – one motion flows into another.

Your opponent moves and you counter, avoiding his strike and flowing into the opening that his attack creates.

Strength often takes a back seat to grace in the actual practice of martial arts. People are very fragile creatures. It doesn’t take a lot to incapacitate, injure, or even kill. The only thing going at an opponent full force generally does is make you tired.

I’ve seen the same thing over and over again. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s watching a couple of karate-ka spar or trying to teach people how to fence. They almost always seem to want to simply overpower their opponents.

Granted, it can work sometimes, but if you ever face someone who uses finesse instead of force and try to force your way through the fight, you fall flat on your face. This is something that most of the fencers learned when they fought me.

Personally, I would advocate that all martial artists learn to dance. I know it sounds silly to most people, but the movements have a lot in common. It’s a matter of grace. In fact, a lot of people who have seen me use a blade can tell you just how much it looks like a dance.

There’s one other advantage to learning to dance – it’s a wonderful social skill. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in this area (and others that I’ve been in) who think that dancing is completely the opposite of everything masculine. Of course, they also think the same thing of anything artistic.

The Midwest seems to be especially bad about that mindset. In high school, I was at a friend’s house when his stepfather came home. Since I’m a fairly large guy, he asked me if I played football. I told him it didn’t really interest me. The immediate follow up was along the lines of “What are you? A sissy? You probably play flute in the band don’t you?” in a rather taunting voice since, of course, football is the only thing that matters in this life.

My friend turned pale, afraid that I was going to kill his stepfather.

The thing is that it isn’t an isolated incident. In fact, it’s pretty widespread. It’s a shame really. I think the world would be a little better off if people relied less on brute strength and more on grace, finesse, and judgment.

Current mood: contemplative
Current music: Loreena McKennitt – Between the Shadows

Nice Swag and Weirdness

If you haven’t been paying attention, I develop software. Most of said software is for Windows though I do get the occasional request for something on Linux.

That said, I tend to use Visual Studio a fair amount. I started using it back in version 6 when I was writing C and C++ code in college because it let me get work on projects done on the weekends without having to drive the 45 minutes to campus to use the unix labs (this was back when Linux was a pain in the rear to get to work.).

The fact that VS has a nice graphical debugger and Emacs didn’t have one at the time didn’t hurt either.

For the longest time, my license was covered by the university because we had an insane site license deal with Microsoft (basically any software they made we could get for about $10). Of course, after I graduated, that didn’t apply anymore.

The graduation gift from a friend of mine was a copy of VS2003 which was rather appreciated. When VS2005 came out, I didn’t want to throw down the $300 to get a copy, so I stuck with 2003 until the Express editions came out.

While the Express editions are nice, they’re kind of limited (which is sort of the point). That’s why I was happy when I found out that Microsoft was giving away free copies of Visual Studio 2005 Standard for watching a couple of podcasts and paying about $11 shipping and handling.

I just got my copy in the mail yesterday. I was surprised it only took a week to arrive. If you’re interested, click on the link above and jump through the rather simple hoops. It’s well worth it, but you’ll have to do it soon since the offer ends June 30^th.

Now for the weirdness.

It seems that my Zipper program is one of the more popular examples of the use of RubyZip out there because, on checking my logs, I found a lot of hits from Google for “Rubyzip example.” Curious, I decided to check for myself, and it turns out that I’m on the first page of the results.

I thought that was kind of neat. Maybe that means that people are actually using at least some of my free stuff after all.

Granted, the reason I wrote the ruby programs was to scratch my own itches when I was setting up an entertainment computer, but still, it’s nice to know that someone out there is at least looking at it.

Now if I can only figure out why I keep getting so many referrals from dvd4arab. Don’t ask me. I just look at the logs and scratch my head…

Current mood: amused
Current music: The Cars – Hello Again

Bye Bye Mr. Science Guy

Today I am sad.

It seems that Don Herbert, better known to his fans as Mr. Wizard died today at the age of 89.

I remember watching his show as a kid. It’s one of the reasons that I enjoyed science.

Farewell, Don. I hope you’re resting well now. You will be missed.

Say hi to Kurt Vonnegut for us and, if you’re feeling up to it, shove a fish in Douglas Adams’ ear. :-P

Current mood: contemplative
Current music: The Pillows – Blues Driver Monster

A Proposal

One of the hot topics in Congress lately is the possible changes to the way that H1-B’s are handled. The debates have brought out a lot of companies in favor of raising the cap (including Google. So much for do no evil…) and against the new accountability that had been proposed.

That’s right. The Congress critters actually advocated accountability for *all* companies that use H1-B visas instead of just the ones who are “H1-B dependant” (which is defined as having something like 20% of their workforce composed of visa workers). Part of that accountability was that the H1-B holder could not displace an American worker for a period starting 6 months before the H1-B holder is brought on board and lasting until 6 months after they have been hired.

The corporations really didn’t like that idea. It was a sacrificial lamb on the part of the legislators in all likelihood since it didn’t get mentioned with the introduction of a “compromise” version of the bill.

The corporations also didn’t like the fact that the proposed bill would have taken the fake hope of a green card out of the hands of the corps and put it in the hands of the government on a point based system. That meant that the people brought here on H1-B visas might actually have a chance at becoming citizens instead of being jerked around by their “sponsor” company.

If you doubt the being jerked around part, ask yourself how many H1-B’s you know. Now, out of those, how many got their citizenship as opposed to just being shipped back to their country of origin.

The reason they want to bring in more H1-B workers is as much a joke as the promise of citizenship to the people who hold them. It’s not because we need the skilled labor (with the rare exception where they actually do for the extremely specialized stuff). It’s because they want cheap employees that they can control more easily (and, for the dissenters out there, most H1-B workers are paid substantially less than their American counterparts).

With these things in mind, here is my proposal for H1-B reform.

• Severely lower the cap for H1-B’s and make almost all of those available only for foreign students who studied for advanced degrees in the United States.
• Limit the total number of H1-B holders that a company is allowed to sponsor to, let’s say, 10 (or maybe 1% of their total work force).
• Make businesses more accountable. H1-B holders may not displace an American worker (as per the 6 month before and after part of the initial bill in Congress) and it must be proven that a qualified American worker could not be found (which they’re supposed to do anyway).
• H1-B holders must be paid 120% of the salary for the position (this is as a deterrent). Additionally, the company shall pay double the income tax on that person’s salary (with the additional money to be split between Social Security and a fund for public works projects).
• Any infractions regarding the above which are committed by a business are grounds for the prevention of them ever being able to employ an H1-B holder again (with the exception of their current H1-B employees, who will be allowed to work there until their visa expires and they either become citizens or return to their home country). Additionally, *large* fines shall be leveled at the company as a punitive measure.

If you think this all sounds extreme, you’d be right. My reasoning behind this is simple - Companies are abusing the system by stating that they “need” these workers and are unable to fill the positions otherwise when the truth is much different.

It needs to be made so that the system is not abused and it seems that the only way to accomplish this is to make it much more painful to hire H1-B workers than it is to hire American ones. Otherwise, the more corrupt companies will just consider it to be an acceptable cost of doing business (especially since it saves them money as it stands because of the lower wages most H1-B workers receive and the fact that they get the people with the visas to work insane hours).

If you need proof of the abuse, there have been instances stated before Congress of companies putting out ads specifically wanting H1-B holders for openings (which is illegal). I’ve even seen them locally on some of the job boards in the past.

There are some cases in which H1-B holders are actually needed. That’s why I made my proposal in such a way that the only H1-B workers a company hires are needed for their special skill sets.

Despite what a lot of people seem to think (and what Wall Street wants you to believe), the purpose of a company is not just to make a profit. It is to make a profit while being a socially positive entity. They are part of the community. They need to start acting like it instead of trying to grab every penny that they can no matter the cost.

Screwing over your community in the name of short-term profits is not a sustainable strategy. Unfortunately, the ones at the top often don’t care about long-term strategy. If they did, we wouldn’t have this problem.

Believe it or not, I’m a moderate. In this case, however, bringing moderation in as the norm requires some extreme measures.

Current mood: annoyed
Current music: Eve6 – How Much Longer

Scent and Memory

It sometimes amazes me how much of an effect some smells have on me.

I know they say that smell is the sense with the closest ties to memory, but sometimes it’s surprising that the memories come with a depth of feeling that you wouldn’t believe possible until you experience them.

Of course, a lot of us have the memory triggers from certain perfumes or shampoos or what have you that remind us of our first love (I know that I do). However, I have some that a lot of people would consider odd.

A lot of my childhood involved training in martial arts – first kung fu and then European and Japanese sword arts. Sometimes I think they were the happiest times in my life until I met my first love.

As a result, two of my major scent triggers (other than the aforementioned shampoo, perfume, and makeup) are well worn leather and cosmoline (gun grease).

Of course, the leather comes into play because of my harnesses, belts, baldrics, scabbards and gloves (who would ever guess all of the straps and things you have to wear). The deep, musky smell of leather gloves or baldrics which have had the dyes cured into them by the sweat of your body is just somehow very intoxicating (and a darn site more pleasant than the black and blue stains the leather leaves on your hands and chest before the dyes have been locked in by the salt – ask Karyl about the screaming blue hands).

There are probably, however, some people who are wondering what gun lube has to do with martial arts. The answer is simple – good carbon steel blades will rust if they’re not properly lubricated and I try not to buy blades that I wouldn’t be willing to use anymore (which means that they’re all good carbon steel blades).

The same was true of my sifu and my other teachers, so I have a lot of memories that involve the smell of well worn leather and cosmoline. It reminds me of times with the grass beneath my feet and the wind ruffling my hair and fighting robes, blade in hand, standing lightly and waiting to respond to the situation facing me. It’s a very serene feeling that I think more people should be able to experience.

It’s the place where you simultaneously loose yourself and find yourself, and I have to say that it gives you a different perspective on a lot of things.

It was enough of an influence on me that, after the relationship with my ex ended, my style of dress changed as well – back to one more reminiscent of my training clothing. Simple, comfortable, flowing shirts and pants that were almost monk-like in style (Loose black semi button up shirts with no appreciable collar and loose black pants).

I spent a lot of time at the lake training and meditating. It was my way to find myself again. Amusingly it also frequently got me accused of looking like a monk, a priest, or a mercenary.

What brought up this trip down memory lane? Taking care of my blades, of course. After all, I don’t want them to rust. I have too much respect for them to do that. Ask any of the fencers I chided for not taking care of their equipment while I was teaching them in college.

Current mood: tired
Current music: Papa Roach – Forever

Cargo Cult Computing

InformationWeek has an article asking why Microsoft doesn’t have a cult following like Linux, Java, and FOSS do.

The comments on the article itself as well as the ones on Slashdot (what? Didn’t think something like that would slip past them did you?) make me feel rather ill.

I don’t want a cult in things that I use to do a job. I want solid tools to work with and a decent chance to find answers to questions that I might have if I can’t answer them myself. Mentioning a cult makes me want to go the other way.

Who the hell cares about fanatical fanboys? They tend to do more harm than good because they scream about anything that is different than what they love.

Want to know the reasons that Microsoft products are used in so many enterprises?

They’re fairly easy to use, they don’t require being compiled or excessively tweaked “out of the box” for most tasks, the learning curve for most basic tasks is small, there are a whole LOT of 3^rd party software providers, and the formats that they use for documents are the same ones used by most businesses. I realize that the last item in that list basically says “everyone uses Microsoft stuff because everybody uses Microsoft stuff,” but it’s true.

(Yes, the new Ribbon interface and Vista break the slight learning curve, but I’ll get to that in a minute)

For most enterprises, those are the important things. Most larger businesses have some sort of licensing deal on the MS software so they’re not paying retail for it, IT people familiar with Microsoft products aren’t horribly hard to come by, and, more importantly, “normal” workers familiar with Microsoft products are dead simple to come by.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Microsoft fanboy. In fact, I’m not a fanboy of anything except maybe usability. I’m more of a right tools for the job kind of guy. I use stuff from Redmond, I use open source stuff (hell, I even release some small open source stuff), and I use various pieces of 3^rd party commercial and free software. (as in cost. Dear gods do I hate Stallman for his “Free” vs. free crap. Want an example of the downside to software cults? Go look at that fool.)

Is there room for improvement? Heck yes. Do they need slavering fanatics to accomplish it? No. They just need to listen to their customers a bit more.

With their new “Ribbons” interface driving everyone crazy and Vista (which I swear has to be Windows ME round 2) being a bloated piece of crud, they may have taken a step backwards, but they’ll recover.

They need to remember that change for the sake of change isn’t good. Change for the sake of improvement is (usually. Well, okay, sometimes).

In the interest of disclosure, I should say that I’ve had friends who work at both Sun and Microsoft. I got to hear about a lot of issues on both sides, and get to see them for myself because of my network and development work.

I don’t support the full stack out of any one group, I don’t think.

• I run both Windows and Linux (more Windows lately).
• I like Eclipse, but I’ve also been a long time Visual Studio user (first for C and C++ starting back in 1998 and now for C#. I also used CodeWarrior for C++ back then for what it’s worth).
• I also use Ruby and the FreeRIDE IDE.
• I use MS SQL, mysql, postgres, and have used Oracle in the past among other databases.
• I actually prefer Word to OpenOffice because it’s easier to make documents that look good in (I’m sorry, but if I want to write a document, I want to write a document, not tweak this and widge that).
• I use FireFox and Thunderbird (but for the love of my sanity, would someone fix the memory issue in FireFox??)

The list goes on. Some things fall on the Microsoft side, some fall on the side of some open source project, and some fall on a third party solution.

I admit that I used to be an idealist about software at one time. Hell, with as often as the university beats you over the head with the opinion that open source is the best thing ever, you would have been too. However, then something happened – I started doing this for money and a lot of clients want their code to be their code (surprise surprise).

Now I tend to be horribly pragmatic. I see places where open sourcing things makes more sense and I see places where not open sourcing things is a positive thing. The people who think that one way or the other is the only way to go are just plain silly. I even maintained that opinion while I was editor of an open source magazine and stated it plainly in my first article there.

I’ve had enough of the mudslinging. My computer is a tool that allows me to do work. It is not a religion. I use what makes sense and I don’t need a cargo cult that screams “they may be more successful, but we’re *better* so why aren’t you worshipping us???!!!”

How about you?

Current mood: annoyed
Current music: Delerium – Terra Firma

Happy Birthday To Me

For my birthday, the world gave to me…

A mild case of sun poisoning.

I decided to take the day off (after all, who wants to work on their birthday?) and head to the lake.

Taking along an ample supply of water and my new blade, I spent a few hours training and meditating. Unfortunately, there’s that whole problem of my being photosensitive.

Generally, it’s just a matter of wearing sunglasses since bright light really adversely affects my eyesight (on the upside, I see really well at night). However, after a winter of being cooped up, my body wasn’t used to the UV radiation and I got a sunburn and mild case of sun poisoning because there was basically zero cloud cover today.

Nothing too serious. I should be back to normal in a day or so. In the meantime, I’ll just be kind of drained and a bit queasy.

Make the pasty skinned geek comments if you like, but it’s a problem I’ve had since I was a kid. I’m just usually outside enough to have my body used to it. It’s simply that the weather was crappy during the winter (which only seems to have recently ended here) so I didn’t go out too much during the day.

On the upside, I have decided that I really like the new sword. Yes, I bought myself a new sword. If you trained with them since you were a kid, you’d occasionally buy yourself one too.

Truth be told, while I was at it, I picked up an equally well made parrying dagger to go with it.

After all, this blog is titled “Code Poet, Swordsman, Eternal Wanderer” for a reason. With basically any of my blades, my well-worn black suede jacket (which has seen many many miles over the years) and my black messenger bag, I even look the part of the wandering swordsman.

This particular blade is a slim backsword (think of a saber and now straighten the blade) modeled after the 1840 US issue NCO sword which was, in turn, based off of a French model (just like the US cavalry swords of the era were).

It’s hand forged, wonderfully tempered, and handles like a dream. At a waspish 1.5-2lbs including its solid brass hilt, it is definitely a blade made for finesse instead of force.

No frills, no fancy scrolling or etching on the blade, just a solid, simple, well made sword that, in its plainness, even manages to look a bit dressy.

I can safely say that the people I taught in college fencing would have envied it.

I can also say that, despite the sun poisoning, I really needed the day of meditation. I feel a little better for it, though I admit that I wish I could have taken up my old friend on her offer of running away to California to be with her for a while.

Current mood: tired
Current music: Dirty Vegas – A Million Ways

Danger and Opportunity

Last night, the old saw that the Chinese word for “Crisis” was made up of the characters for “Danger” and “Opportunity” came into my mind.

Curious to see if this was actually the case, I did a little searching.

According to Victor H. Mair, professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania, this is not the case.

He states that the word for danger is indeed in there, but opportunity is not. However, I disagree with his opinion, because his reason for discounting the “Opportunity” portion of the equation stems from his very limited understanding of what seems to be his own native tounge.

I find this strange. Especially for someone who teaches a language as full of nuance as Chinese.

He views “Opportunity” to be only positive, and uses the definition from Webster’s Dictionary to back him up and states that “The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes)” And that the best one can hope for in a crisis is to save ones own skin.

What he does not seem to understand is that a crucial moment or moment of change is indeed a moment of opportunity. The opportunity exists for things to go very well or horribly wrong depending on how the person in the event acts.

Maybe it’s just the Taoist and swordsman in me, but I view every crisis as a shaping event in the life of the person who experiences it. It is the anvil upon which the mettle of the person in question is hammered – sometimes they break under the strain and sometimes they come out stronger and with more of their path shown to them.

I will grant that most people fear a moment of crisis and freeze up if it happens to them, but there are those of us who are able to navigate our way through it calmly. For that second sort of person, a crisis is indeed a moment of opportunity – not always welcome, but understood and dealt with to the best of our ability.

Current mood: contemplative
Current music: Alanis Morissette - Crazy

They Just Never get it Right

It seems that my alma mater is “cracking down” on file sharing.

Citing bandwidth issues and the amount of John Doe lawsuits that they are getting from the RIAA, they have decided to outlaw all p2p applications.

I find this ironic considering that, in my software dev class (2003, I believe), one of the projects available to the teams of students was to create a p2p application with a gui.

I’ve never been a big fan of their network services people, because, on the whole, none of them knew what the hell they were doing. There were, of course, exceptions, but they were few and far between.

With that said, it makes me wonder just how far they’re going to take this. Are we just talking things like uTorrent (which a lot of people in the engineering dept use to get things like linux distros) and eMule or are they going to try to kill any distributed applications that they run across for fear that they're p2p apps they've never heard of before?

If it’s the latter, they’re going to have a whole lot of trouble from the engineering college, because we did a great deal of distributed apps. Hell, even my fish tank was running on 20+ machines both on and off campus as a test at one point.

First they have the security fiasco where multiple machines with personal information, including social security numbers, were compromised for over a year without anyone noticing (and, in one case, the machine was supposed to have been decommissioned over a year before). Now they’re trying to be draconian with the network?

Sorry, folks, but you get no donations from me. I know the same goes for a lot of the other people I went to school with.

Current mood: annoyed
Current music: Ayumi Hamasaki – Evolution

Women and IT

Computer World is running an article on why women seem to be leaving IT.

The gist of the article is basically that women don’t want to put up with the BS, insane hours, and perpetually being on-call.

Slashdot got wind of this story, and most of the responses there were along the lines of “if they don’t want to put in the same hours that we do, forget them.”

Personally, I think that what they should be asking is why *they* are working the insane hours to begin with.

You shouldn’t live to work. You should work in order to get money to do other things like pay the rent and pursue whatever you enjoy doing.

Your job is just a job. It doesn’t love you, it won’t care if you work yourself to death doing it, and it can be done by someone else should you leave. Don’t fall for the fake macho BS of “you are your job” and don’t be guilted, intimidated or manipulated into working insane hours.

The trend to make every person do the work of several people and constantly being on call is not a positive thing. It leads to stress, very costly mistakes, burnout, and a wasted life.

Do your job and then leave the building. Go to the lake. Enjoy the scenery. While you’re there, toss that damned Blackberry as far out into the water as you can.

You’re better off without it.

Work belongs at work; just like you do – for about 8 hours a day, 5 days a week barring the very occasional overtime.

Current mood: annoyed
Current music: AFI – The Missing Frame

You know, this is one of the times that I remember why I like programming.

It’s a problem solving thing.

I just spent a total of five minutes writing, testing, and running a program that did work it would have taken me a couple of hours to do by hand.

Even after all this time, that sort of thing just never seems to get old.

Current mood: =]
Current music: Bon Jovi – Let it Rock

Farewell, Kurt Vonnegut. You will be missed.

Rest in Peace.

Dear Tim O’reilly,

Having seen your proposed Blogger’s Code of Conduct, I have the following to say to you:

Get stuffed.

You’re not as important as you seem to think you are despite the fact that your publishing company generally makes decent technical books. Your propositions in this area will largely fall on deaf ears because we speak in the manner that we wish to and, should you try to force the issue (though, on the web, I fail to see how you could unless you tried to get legislation passed), I foresee a wonderful backlash.

I (and, I suspect, most of the other people out there in the great ever-changing place called the Internet) will continue to speak in the same manner that I always have ever since I first signed onto a BBS all of those years ago.

As for comments on my blog or any other forum that I moderate, the only things that will be deleted are link spam.

If someone threatens me, they are perfectly welcome to try it on me in person. If they threaten a friend of mine, they go through me first. The same rules apply to “real life”.

Yes, I really am the same here that I am in person. In fact, I tend to be a bit more reserved on here with regard to certain subjects because of the larger audience.

Unlike you and your friends, half-baked threats of physical violence and death don’t phase me. I’ve been out into the world, boys and girls, and have seen both the very good and the very very bad. Someone at the other end of a piece of cable just doesn’t frighten me.

The world is a very big place full of a lot of different kinds of people. Either grow a spine and learn how to deal with the rest of the world or take your bat and ball and go home, Tim. Either way, stop trying to tell the rest of us how we should all be.

Regards,

James

Current mood: annoyed
Current music: Elton John – Crocodile Rock