Mark's journal

I'm not a (corporate) libertarian, but I think this article about cold medicine is worth reading.

This page has grim news about how we conform, even in the face of contradictory reality.

I had a strange dream last night in which some kind of Resistance was working against the prevailing order, and they all wore tattoos like this:



The icons are all electronic circuit schematic symbols:

• The OR gate represents the conveyance, or leakage, of truth whenever truth is available.


• The resistor symbol, in this case, represents resistance.


• The third symbol represents an iron-core transformer.


• The fourth symbol is a speaker, the wire connection reaching left toward, though not always consistently connected to, the truth of the OR gate.


• The fifth symbol represents a male connector, or in this case a male perspective.

This morning, on the radio, two sportscasters were talking. Then, some kind of collective speech disorder must have kicked in, because for the next 20 seconds, they both started saying "woob woobwoob woob woob" really quickly. It was like they were both trying to get back on track, and repeatedly failing.

That's ok, I'd rather hear Three Stooges than John Madden. If those were the only available choices.

As I enter another chapter in my life, I've realized that I will soon need to engage in major rehabilitation of my body.

I was offered a job today, and I accepted.

Update: The job is in the Bay Area. I'm staying here for now.

With luck, tomorrow will be the last day of a 3 month period of unemployment.

I was let go from MTV Networks/Viacom at the beginning of July. I took a bit of a break at first, attempting to unwind and heal from my time there. I began looking for a job in August, and met with resistance. I adjusted to the feedback I was getting, and had increasingly successful, though still incomplete, job dances.

I had what felt like a really successful interview yesterday. I hope they agree. If they do not, I could end up leaving the Bay Area. For which I have prepared, somewhat: I found some suitable jobs in Columbus, Ohio, where I grew up. They are called, in the industry, LAMP jobs. Web servers are built somewhat like a layer cake. LAMP stands for Linux (operating system), Apache (web server), MySQL (database, to store stuff), and Perl/Python (business logic), the names of various technologies in the cake. I'm good at those technologies, and the job leads I've followed in Columbus have been very fruitful. Once I've financially recovered, I'd like to mail a goodie basket to everyone who I've worked with during the job search, here and back in Ohio. Well, most of them, anyway.

But yet I still feel like I belong here, in the Bay Area. I have a lot of friends here, and more of them have stepped up for me in recent months than I can count. I felt alone until recently, but now I'm reaching out to people, and strengthening my connections. I need a way to do that which doesn't require me to quit my job.

When I first came out here 11 years ago to work at Netscape, I would keep staring at the mountains surrounding the Santa Clara Valley, feeling a real sense of personal adventure here. Even after all this time, I still sense more adventure waiting for me.

Sometimes it gets a little tiring to think that everything in my life unfolds in the weirdest possible way. Whose ass did I kiss so long ago for this?

From chat:

> ok, I've applied to Lucasfilm.
> they apparently want someone to write some software for them.
> how cute.

My uncle tried to help the US turn over to metric back in the 70s.
They thought he was part of a communist conspiracy.
So, we have mile markers now.

Anyone who thinks we aren't thoroughly ruled by giant demon machines has never had a credit card transaction declined, or heard a clueless idiot say "I'm sorry, that's just company policy."

My friends talk about interesting things.

<gage> there's some "game" that's basically a machinima toolkit
<gage> you create actors and scripts and sets and stuff
<gage> and doodle with camera angles

<dr.jd> Dear Sir or Madam or Troglodyte, thank you for gifting us with your 83 interchangable made-for-sci-fi disaster movies. I was especially impressed by the special effects, which were way better than I could do on my Video Toaster back home. Unfortunately, your term "machinima" sucks. Please make sure that whoever came up with the term dies repeatedly in your upcoming movie, "Fire in the Airlock." Sincerely, me.

<dr.hoo> thanks

<dr.jd> glad to help
<dr.jd> unfortunately I made up the part about them making a movie called "Fire in the Airlock"
<dr.jd> it'd be a short movie
<dr.jd> opening scene: an airlock, in space. suddenly, a fire breaks out! the heroine screams! the airlock opens! fire and heroine disappear. the end.

[ ... ]

<dr.hoo> Airlock Day is coming up, in fact.

<dr.bez> when is airlock day?

<dr.hoo> April 17th this year
<dr.hoo> so, only a few shopping days left.

Supreme Court hears "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/03/19/free.speech/

"Suppose that this particular person had whispered to his next door neighbor, 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus, heh heh heh,' " speculated Justice Stephen Breyer.

As a responsible American citizen, I plan to keep close tabs on this important free speech case.

Update: On the radio this morning, a caller said the following:

"Obviously the school is forgetting its history. Richard Bong was a highly decorated World War II fighter pilot. His decisive hits against the Japanese helped shorten the war and save lives. Now that he has passed away, he is clearly dealing decisive blows on behalf of the Kingdom of Heaven. Bong Hits 4 Jesus!"

And to my complete surprise, I discovered that there really was such a pilot.

I spent most of last night banging my head against Java. In the hope that someone else can learn from my head wound, here's what I learned.

Let's say for a moment that I have a POJO (plain old Java object) which I will call a Lump. I want to be able to drop a number of these Lumps into a List. Let's then say that I want to be able to sort these Lumps that are in the list, according to an attribute which I will call an Index.

The method to sort a List is Collections.sort(list). The elements in the list have to be able to compare themselves with other like objects; this is handled by building a Lump.compareTo(Object) method. This is all well and good, except that it doesn't quite work. The compiler complains about a lack of type enforcement in the Lumps. Sure, the compiler only gives out warnings, but anyone who has done a lot of work in this industry knows that warnings often mask deeper problems, and should just be eliminated from the outset.

After struggling with the compiler all night, I figured it out. It turns out that my List has to be a Java generic, which looks like: "List<Lump>". The idea behind a Java generic is to provide stronger guarantees about your data structures.

But there's more to this. The Object.compareTo() method compares two Objects. What the sort() method appears to need is for the Lumps to implement an interface called Comparable, but using generics:

public class Lump implements Comparable<Lump> // Whaa?
{
    public int index;
    
    public int compareTo(Lump otherLump) // note: compares Lump! not Object.
    {
        // do comparison based on what we know about Lumps
        int ourIndex = this.index;
        int theirIndex = otherLump.index;
        
        if (ourIndex < theirIndex)
            return -1;
        else if (ourIndex > theirIndex)
            return 1;
        else
            return 0;
    }
}

So once I got all this into place, the compiler was happy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6397373.stm

If this filmmaker's claims hold up, we now have the technological means to bring about the literal second coming of Christ, by cloning his DNA.

If we're particularly unlucky, corporate advertisers might get a hold of such a child, creating a terrifying but insanely lucrative media feedback loop. If 6-year-old Clonejesus won't eat his green beans, green bean futures would plummet. Likewise, if Jesus prefers one brand of breakfast cereal, or uses a certain toothpaste on camera, millions of faithful would jam the stores that very day to buy a temporary feeling of grace. And who knows what kind of disruption he could cause by saying the wrong words at the wrong time? Every little thing that Clonejesus would or wouldn't do would be the subject of endless scrutiny and debate. It could well be argued that Clonejesus would leave the same kind of social wake as that left by the original Jesus back in the Middle East.

It should never be done, not if we value our stability. But I just know that given a long enough timeline, somebody will clone Jesus.

http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_02_12/feature.html

Sure, it's a conservative magazine, but the essay, while dense, is worth reading.

Update: While reading this article, I was reminded of a passing sentence Bill Clinton said back in 2001. I thought I heard him say: "We ought to be setting up the kind of world we'll want to live in when we're not as powerful."

I didn't find that sound bite, but I found a speech he gave in December 2001 that really touched a nerve or two in me.

... so I called into the Bernie Ward radio program.

My voice, in real life, sounds nothing like what came out over the radio.