Monday, January 21, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Betting the farm on India?
It's kind of a toss up, in my opinion, whether China or India are headed for worse social upheaval. The more their disparity in income and opportunity divides them into haves and have-nots, the more the tension builds. For a quick update on the old, old problem of caste, read this story from the Washington Post. I'd think twice before I moved another dime's worth of business off-shore, unless I was damn sure I could pull it back in short order.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Old WCA Rant from March 23, 2000. So, how wrong was I?
THE ACTUAL PLATFORM
Ann Arbor: One of the marginally interesting things about the current presidential campaign is the belief that people voted for McCain or Bradley because they were mavericks or counterweights or somehow different from the two officially- sanctioned pols they were trying to defeat. (Note: in the 2000 Primary, lots of Michiganders voted for McCain to annoy the Republicans, who of course wanted them to vote for Bush. Ed) People with a particularly annoying set of blinders on are agonizing over this effect and over what they seem to believe is the "outrageous" practice of the major parties deciding ahead of time who their preferred candidates are. There are some important holes in this point of view. First of all, few people are likely to have voted for ANYONE on the grounds of what he or she believed about the candidate. The vast majority of people who voted for McCain did so because they a) hate George W. Bush, b) hate John Engler, and/or c) hate old what's-his-name, the right-wing talk radio guy. Second, no one -- as in not one single person in the United States -- believes that any of the candidates actually holds any distinguishably different set of positions. For the record, here are the actual positions of everyone running for President (with the exception of Ambassador Duke and J. Francis McLuggage, of course),
Reproductive Rights: All of the major candidates are men (In 2000, this was true. Ed.), and all of them restrict their concerns with abortion to a kind of simple- minded gratitude that their parents didn't go for it. That's it. They have no other concerns with it at all -- not even personal ones -- our most sexually irresponsible President of the last fifty years hasn't been accused of fathering any unwanted children. No, what our boys on the hustings want is just to say the right, soothing things to one or the other side of this deeply polarized issue. And they don't like polarized issues -- it makes them choose among possible voters. In reality, every last one of the bastards would be just as happy to see a constitutional amendment guaranteeing reproductive choice, as long as they could just wake up one morning and have it over with -- anything so as not to have to take a position.
Campaign Reform: I'm reminded of the strip where Dilbert suggests doing the right thing and his boss says, "Oh, right. And let's pull our neckties until it hurts." No one within a 150 mile radius of the White House wants to enact any kind of campaign funding reform. Nobody. End of story.
Taxes: Oh, please. All this issue provides is an illustration of our country's horrifyingly poor math skills. You cannot cut taxes. Can't. Won't. Will not happen. (Don't agree? Can you say, "alternative minimum tax?" Ed.) What will happen, regardless of who is elected President, is that expenses will get moved around so that both parties can CLAIM to have cut taxes for somebody, somewhere. But regardless of how it's implemented, you will pay more taxes next year than you did this year and more the year after that and so on. If your income taxes go down, your sales taxes will go up. The price you pay for a vehicle will go up. The price you pay for a gallon of gas will go up. Unless you have some ideas about perpetual motion machines, reversing entropy, or turning the US into several tens of millions of little anarcho-syndicalist communes and living on nuts and berries, you can take the above as immutable.
Foreign Policy: One hundred percent of the candidates want to impose the will of the American People on foreigners without getting American kids killed. (I was apparently really, really wrong about this one. Ed.) Talk loudly and wave a big stick from a safe distance about sums it up. The will of the American People, by the way, appears to be that foreigners are not allowed to kill each other over religious differences -- we reserve that right for ourselves -- and if they do, we get to kill them, but without running much risk while doing it. This is not as futile as it sounds, since the old military hardware industry is going great guns on developing unpersoned vehicles, brilliant bombs, and all kinds of other cool, expensive stuff to whack recalcitrant Serbs and others with at long range, thus keeping lots of executives and engineers employed. (See "Taxes.")
The Family: If there is a candidate for any office, let alone President, out there who is willing to define "family" as anything other than two heterosexual white people with a slew of kids, a yorkie, and a new Voyager, then he or she is doing a damn good job of concealing the fact.
THE ACTUAL PLATFORM
Ann Arbor: One of the marginally interesting things about the current presidential campaign is the belief that people voted for McCain or Bradley because they were mavericks or counterweights or somehow different from the two officially- sanctioned pols they were trying to defeat. (Note: in the 2000 Primary, lots of Michiganders voted for McCain to annoy the Republicans, who of course wanted them to vote for Bush. Ed) People with a particularly annoying set of blinders on are agonizing over this effect and over what they seem to believe is the "outrageous" practice of the major parties deciding ahead of time who their preferred candidates are. There are some important holes in this point of view. First of all, few people are likely to have voted for ANYONE on the grounds of what he or she believed about the candidate. The vast majority of people who voted for McCain did so because they a) hate George W. Bush, b) hate John Engler, and/or c) hate old what's-his-name, the right-wing talk radio guy. Second, no one -- as in not one single person in the United States -- believes that any of the candidates actually holds any distinguishably different set of positions. For the record, here are the actual positions of everyone running for President (with the exception of Ambassador Duke and J. Francis McLuggage, of course),
Reproductive Rights: All of the major candidates are men (In 2000, this was true. Ed.), and all of them restrict their concerns with abortion to a kind of simple- minded gratitude that their parents didn't go for it. That's it. They have no other concerns with it at all -- not even personal ones -- our most sexually irresponsible President of the last fifty years hasn't been accused of fathering any unwanted children. No, what our boys on the hustings want is just to say the right, soothing things to one or the other side of this deeply polarized issue. And they don't like polarized issues -- it makes them choose among possible voters. In reality, every last one of the bastards would be just as happy to see a constitutional amendment guaranteeing reproductive choice, as long as they could just wake up one morning and have it over with -- anything so as not to have to take a position.
Campaign Reform: I'm reminded of the strip where Dilbert suggests doing the right thing and his boss says, "Oh, right. And let's pull our neckties until it hurts." No one within a 150 mile radius of the White House wants to enact any kind of campaign funding reform. Nobody. End of story.
Taxes: Oh, please. All this issue provides is an illustration of our country's horrifyingly poor math skills. You cannot cut taxes. Can't. Won't. Will not happen. (Don't agree? Can you say, "alternative minimum tax?" Ed.) What will happen, regardless of who is elected President, is that expenses will get moved around so that both parties can CLAIM to have cut taxes for somebody, somewhere. But regardless of how it's implemented, you will pay more taxes next year than you did this year and more the year after that and so on. If your income taxes go down, your sales taxes will go up. The price you pay for a vehicle will go up. The price you pay for a gallon of gas will go up. Unless you have some ideas about perpetual motion machines, reversing entropy, or turning the US into several tens of millions of little anarcho-syndicalist communes and living on nuts and berries, you can take the above as immutable.
Foreign Policy: One hundred percent of the candidates want to impose the will of the American People on foreigners without getting American kids killed. (I was apparently really, really wrong about this one. Ed.) Talk loudly and wave a big stick from a safe distance about sums it up. The will of the American People, by the way, appears to be that foreigners are not allowed to kill each other over religious differences -- we reserve that right for ourselves -- and if they do, we get to kill them, but without running much risk while doing it. This is not as futile as it sounds, since the old military hardware industry is going great guns on developing unpersoned vehicles, brilliant bombs, and all kinds of other cool, expensive stuff to whack recalcitrant Serbs and others with at long range, thus keeping lots of executives and engineers employed. (See "Taxes.")
The Family: If there is a candidate for any office, let alone President, out there who is willing to define "family" as anything other than two heterosexual white people with a slew of kids, a yorkie, and a new Voyager, then he or she is doing a damn good job of concealing the fact.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Quick Update
Well, here it is January and things are just -- well, dreadful. I still feel like hell, plus poor Linda has a bad cold. I don't even have anything wise-ass to say. But if you don't hear from us for a bit, assume we're resting and being slug-like.
I'm going to try to answer some of the individual mail I've gotten in the next hour or so, but if I don't get to you, don't be offended. Even typing takes energy ...
I'm going to try to answer some of the individual mail I've gotten in the next hour or so, but if I don't get to you, don't be offended. Even typing takes energy ...
Saturday, December 29, 2007
What's the treatment for the treatment?
Well, the good news is that I got released from Karmanos on Chrismas Day. And according to them, I'm doing fine.
Hmmm. Actually, on my own self-devised outcomes measurement scheme (which uses common household pets to symbolize the patient's well-being), I'm at the "cat" level (sleeping 18 hours a day, eating almost nothing, and feeling like hacking up hair balls all the time.) My goal is to reach "dog" by next week (which is identical to "cat" except without the picky appetite and hairballs part.)
Being in the hospital for 12 days was not fun, especially with the effects of one of the nastier chemo drugs manifesting themselves, one by one. I did get to study language diversity, ranging from the pert, starched young woman who sometimes brought food and announced herself as "diatectic," to the older, more ample employee who kicked the door open, saying "Got your brekfoose!"
My favorite moment, though, was the one night they thought they needed a chest x-ray of me. By the time the orders for this filtered through the layers of bureaucracy, it was 8:00 PM when they finally sent a cart for me. Covered in a blanket and wearing a respiratory mask, I was wheeled down through the bowels of the hospital and left lying in a bleak corridor. Eventually, a huge, impressive Star-Trek style set of automatic doors swung open. A disembodied voice said, "Ah, kiss my ass," and the doors swung shut again.
Ah, and then the food. Let a few photos suffice to describe it.
Hmmm. Actually, on my own self-devised outcomes measurement scheme (which uses common household pets to symbolize the patient's well-being), I'm at the "cat" level (sleeping 18 hours a day, eating almost nothing, and feeling like hacking up hair balls all the time.) My goal is to reach "dog" by next week (which is identical to "cat" except without the picky appetite and hairballs part.)
Being in the hospital for 12 days was not fun, especially with the effects of one of the nastier chemo drugs manifesting themselves, one by one. I did get to study language diversity, ranging from the pert, starched young woman who sometimes brought food and announced herself as "diatectic," to the older, more ample employee who kicked the door open, saying "Got your brekfoose!"
My favorite moment, though, was the one night they thought they needed a chest x-ray of me. By the time the orders for this filtered through the layers of bureaucracy, it was 8:00 PM when they finally sent a cart for me. Covered in a blanket and wearing a respiratory mask, I was wheeled down through the bowels of the hospital and left lying in a bleak corridor. Eventually, a huge, impressive Star-Trek style set of automatic doors swung open. A disembodied voice said, "Ah, kiss my ass," and the doors swung shut again.
Ah, and then the food. Let a few photos suffice to describe it.
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Off we go ...
Today, I check into Karamanos for several weeks of rest and relaxation. I should be emailable, even if the wifi doesn't work, since I'll have the Treo along. Enjoy the chaos of the holiday season!
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Let's cut driver's ed costs
Today, after quite a long elapsed time, I found myself in a large, general - purpose consumer junk store (Target, in fact,) the sort of place I usually avoid like the plague. And while it was as bad as it usually is, I did have a sort of an idea: for the first week of driver's ed, don't let the students drive actual cars, just walk 'em around one of these big box stores, watching the idiots who can't even push shopping carts without doing dangerous things. There's the turn - out - of - a - side - aisle - without - looking manoeuvre, the shopping - while - on - the - phone syndrome, the discipline - the - kids - in - motion approach, and so much more. In fact, you could even argue that people do anti-social things with shopping carts that they wouldn't do with cars, viz, slam on the brakes and park the damn thing crossways in the street, blocking all lanes.
I mean, you can see how this would work: instructors and students would walk the aisles, trying to avoid getting run down, and taking notes: "Now class, see what that woman just did? Don't do that!"
All of that, of course, got me thinking about my own experience with driver's ed, back in the summer of 1968. It consisted of two week's worth of training, one week in the classroom and then one week, later on in the summer, with three peers and the high school principal (earning some extra cash) as the instructor. He'd pick us up in a big old Oldsmobile, donated by the local dealer (car dealer, not drug dealer -- this was a rural school district.) Just gathering up the students used up almost an hour, since we were grouped alphabetically, not by where we lived.
After that, we'd drive to a small town nearby, park on the street, and walk around for half an hour while the principal had coffee at his mother's house. Then, we'd do some two-lane highway work, maybe a spend a little time on parallel parking, and as a special treat, duck into the state capital to experience "city" driving. I'm talking about Lansing, Michigan, here, not anywhere with actual traffic (still hasn't got any, by any modern standard), but it did give the man a slightly larger set of things to talk about. To this day, I remember when I forgot to signal a lane change. He corrected me, then said, "Let's not have any of this changing lanes without, um, following proper procedure." After nearly 40 years, I can't hear the phrase "proper procedure" without thinking of that timid, ineffective little schoolmaster. Makes me smile.
I mean, you can see how this would work: instructors and students would walk the aisles, trying to avoid getting run down, and taking notes: "Now class, see what that woman just did? Don't do that!"
All of that, of course, got me thinking about my own experience with driver's ed, back in the summer of 1968. It consisted of two week's worth of training, one week in the classroom and then one week, later on in the summer, with three peers and the high school principal (earning some extra cash) as the instructor. He'd pick us up in a big old Oldsmobile, donated by the local dealer (car dealer, not drug dealer -- this was a rural school district.) Just gathering up the students used up almost an hour, since we were grouped alphabetically, not by where we lived.
After that, we'd drive to a small town nearby, park on the street, and walk around for half an hour while the principal had coffee at his mother's house. Then, we'd do some two-lane highway work, maybe a spend a little time on parallel parking, and as a special treat, duck into the state capital to experience "city" driving. I'm talking about Lansing, Michigan, here, not anywhere with actual traffic (still hasn't got any, by any modern standard), but it did give the man a slightly larger set of things to talk about. To this day, I remember when I forgot to signal a lane change. He corrected me, then said, "Let's not have any of this changing lanes without, um, following proper procedure." After nearly 40 years, I can't hear the phrase "proper procedure" without thinking of that timid, ineffective little schoolmaster. Makes me smile.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Kops at Karmanos
It took something over four hours of lying around, plugged into a machine not unlike a large dishwasher, but they got enough of my stem cells to come out and surrender -- actually, enough for two transplants, if (perish the thought) another of these circuses is ever needed. So next week, the fun begins in earnest. My plan is to have technology with me such that I can continue to keep updating this thing. How inspired I'll be to do so will remain to be seen.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Folk Songs
Stuff I wrote long ago:
From, obviously, the days before 1/1/2000: COBOL Lizards Ever since I was a young boy I've heeded coding's call. From APL to Fortran, I must've used 'em all. But I've never seen anything like this In any function call. Those funky MIS guys Sure wrote some strange COBOL. It's utterly unpredictable, Immune to any test. JCL starts it running, And it just does the rest. ABENDS every Thursday, It's out to break my balls. Those creepy MIS guys Sure wrote some mean COBOL. Why do you think it does it? I don't know! What makes it so slow? Don't have no specifications, I must be in hell. It's all one giant module, Debugged by sense of smell. Aren't even any comments, No comments there at all! A plague on all your houses, And your silly-ass COBOL! They were COBOL lizards, There's got to be a twist! COBOL lizards, At least it isn't Lisp! Even SmallTalk would be better, Than this undocumented crap. Written fifteen years ago, And dumped into my lap. It's not Y2K compliant, It's about to hit a wall ... Those goddamn MIS guys, Sure wrote some bad COBOL. | From a time when I managed development of a multi-platform product: Buy A Sun When I find myself in tons of trouble, There's a thought that always comes. I'm sick of all this nonsense, Buy a Sun. And when the console's frozen, And the cursor doesn't blink, And smit is therefore useless, Then I think: Buy a Sun, buy a Sun, buy a Sun, yeah, Buy a Sun. AIX ain't Unix, buy a Sun. Now, when they say "multi-platform," Then I know we're in for fun. We run on thirty systems, Buy a Sun. DEC wouldn't know a driver If it bit 'em in the ass, And did someone mention Sequent? Thanks, I'll pass. Let it run, let it run, let it run, yeah, Let it run. Then I can ship this puppy, let it run. When things that worked this morning, Stop working overnight, And we know that nothing's different, And a checksum says we're right, It's then I type init 6, Having first su'd to root, And I hold my breath in horror, Let it boot. Let it boot, let it boot, let it boot, yeah, Let it boot. HP is purely evil, let it boot. Now, I've read of web performance 'Til my eyes begin to run. "Cellular" my fanny, Buy a Sun. How many of my users, Need to render in 3-D? When IRIX dies at midnight, They'll page me. Buy a Sun, buy a Sun, buy a Sun, yeah, Buy a Sun. Not sexy but they're stable, buy a Sun. |
NOMINATIVE DETERMINISM
A little something from November, 2000:
Ann Arbor: New Scientist magazine has for many years and with tongue in cheek promoted the idea of nominative determinism, meaning that your name somehow influences your profession if not your destiny. People around the world send them examples like "Doctor Payne" and "Judge Hanger" and so on. Now that you know that, let me tell about a story from this morning's Free Press.
Seems that the US Marshal's service has raided a house in Palmer Woods and seized vast amounts of high-end consumer goods, aiming to auction them and pay off, in part, the debts to society of the house's owner. They found 911 purses; 606 pairs of shoes; 165 pairs of boots; an entire room full of costume jewelry; $125,000 worth of Baccarat, Waterford and Lalique crystal; a baby grand player piano; couches, chairs, stereos, big-screen televisions, artwork, a jukebox -- and furs: leopard, coyote, mink, fox, sable, chinchilla, snake, lynx, rabbit, lamb, beaver, weasel, and raccoon.
So what? So this lady was an Imelda Marcos wannabe -- what's interesting about that? Well, suppose I told you that she's in jail in Chicago for stealing federal money that was supposed to pay for feeding low-income children at her chain of day-care centers. And her husband wasn't on hand to argue with the Marshals, since he's got his little problems, too -- he's awaiting trial for allegedly having killed his third wife.
Again, so what? Well, how about if I mention the woman's name? Marie Antoinette Jackson-Randolph.
--
Ann Arbor: New Scientist magazine has for many years and with tongue in cheek promoted the idea of nominative determinism, meaning that your name somehow influences your profession if not your destiny. People around the world send them examples like "Doctor Payne" and "Judge Hanger" and so on. Now that you know that, let me tell about a story from this morning's Free Press.
Seems that the US Marshal's service has raided a house in Palmer Woods and seized vast amounts of high-end consumer goods, aiming to auction them and pay off, in part, the debts to society of the house's owner. They found 911 purses; 606 pairs of shoes; 165 pairs of boots; an entire room full of costume jewelry; $125,000 worth of Baccarat, Waterford and Lalique crystal; a baby grand player piano; couches, chairs, stereos, big-screen televisions, artwork, a jukebox -- and furs: leopard, coyote, mink, fox, sable, chinchilla, snake, lynx, rabbit, lamb, beaver, weasel, and raccoon.
So what? So this lady was an Imelda Marcos wannabe -- what's interesting about that? Well, suppose I told you that she's in jail in Chicago for stealing federal money that was supposed to pay for feeding low-income children at her chain of day-care centers. And her husband wasn't on hand to argue with the Marshals, since he's got his little problems, too -- he's awaiting trial for allegedly having killed his third wife.
Again, so what? Well, how about if I mention the woman's name? Marie Antoinette Jackson-Randolph.
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