Think Again - Brian Houser's Blog

It's time for Revolution 2.0

2009-07-04T15:26:00.000-04:00

233 years ago representatives of our thirteen original colonies declared independence from Great Britain. They did this reluctantly, as many of them had strong allegiance to the British crown, but a person can endure only so much unfairness and restrictions on his liberty. On this day, I encourage all of you to carefully read that Declaration of Independence, as it is perhaps even more prescient in current times. Consider the opening sentence:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

To paraphrase (much less eloquently): When people find their government violating their basic rights, it is their duty to separate from that government.

Continuing:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Simpler: It is natural to expect that all people deserve the right to live freely and happily. To protect these goals, people form goverments to protect their ability to pursue them. If that government ever fails to protect our rights or even takes them away, it is the people's right to end the government and to start a new one. Abolishing the government should not be done lightly and yet if there is a pattern of repeated abuses by government, it is the people's right and duty to do so.

Since our form of government was officially formed in 1787, our rights have been eroded, at first gradually, and more recently, very quickly and egregiously. It can be successfully argued that we are less free today than were the signers of the Declaration.

How can we be part of a new revolution? For one, we can stop voting for the same ineffective and corrupt leaders. We need representatives that truly understand their oaths to protect the Constitution rather than ones who bow to their own greed and quest for power.

We can stand up for our rights. Don't consent to illegal searches. Don't pay illegal taxes. Don't obey unconstitutional laws (there are many).

Join the Free State Project, a group of liberty-minded people who have agreed to move to a single state (New Hampshire) in hopes of making it a place that preserves personal liberties.

Remember it is our right, no our duty, to reform or abolish our government when it has become counterproductive to protecting our basic liberties.

Minding our own business: the merits of non-interventionist foreign policy

2009-06-19T13:00:00.000-04:00

A user comment on my introductory article on libertarian principles asked about libertarian military beliefs, so in this article I am covering the principle of non-interventionism.

At the core of libertarianism is the belief that force should only be used in defense--that aggression is wrong. A lot of the problems libertarians have with our government today are because the government is using force without cause. An obvious example is the use of eminent domain to take property.

Most libertarians believe that one of the valid purposes of government is to provide protection to its citizens. However, the power of the military should be limited to defense only. The Founding Fathers were in almost universal agreement that the U.S. government should avoid getting overly involved in foreign affairs.

George Washington, in his farewell address, stated:

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to domestic nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Thomas Jefferson in his inaugural address listed as one of government's objectives "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

The provisions in the Constitution for an army assumed federal forces would be temporary--only active during a war--and that most military operations would be provided by state militias. The founders knew a strong centralized military is actually a threat to liberty.

The dangerous side effect of meddling in international affairs is that you're always going to piss someone off. Most times when you support a foreign nation, you're probably gaining a few enemies. Related to this is the concept of "blowback", the idea that when you perform covert operations against a country or faction, there will be unintended consequences years later that are unexpected by the public. This is exactly what occurred with the 9/11 attacks--our covert (and not so covert) actions in the Middle East decades earlier was largely responsible for breeding radical Islamic terrorism. [For an excellent discussion on blowback, read Chalmers Johnson's excellent book, Blowback: The Cost and Consequences of American Empire.]

Neocons don't like to admit blowback is real. Instead they shout the message that we were attacked because the terrorists are envious of our way of life and wanted to destroy American culture, ignoring the fact that there's no evidence to support that. The terrorists we captured (and some we haven't, including Osama bin Laden) have said on multiple occasions that they attack us because we have invaded their holy lands and so they must now exterminate us to win back favor in the eyes of Allah. It has nothing to do with the things we have in this country.

So should we just have ignored the 9/11 attacks? Of course not. But rather than starting an illegal and ineffective series of wars, it should have been handled as a police action. Alongside the power to declare war in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress is given authority to "grant letters of marque and reprisal". That's a fancy way of saying they can put a price on someone's head. In the aftermath of 9/11, neither was war declared or a marque granted, therefore all the military actions have been illegal under the Constitution. Of course this has become standard practice in modern times--war hasn't officially been declared since World War II. All the foreign military actions since then have been unconstitutional.

Consider how much more effective and efficient it would have been to capture Osama bin Laden and other related terrorists using Special Forces teams (or even private posses) rather than involving the full force of our military. The largest mistake the U.S. government has made in recent times, and possibly in its entire history, is how it handled the 9/11 attacks. At a time when we suddenly had the world's empathy and support, instead of doing the rationally expected action of quickly and quietly hunting down the rest of al-Qaeda, we showed the world the might of our great empire building machine. Within the course of just a few years, we went from having almost universal support around the world to being the world's bully, severely damaging our global reputation and destroying any remaining doubts that we are aiming for a U.S. global empire (while claiming we aren't).

With each continuing military operation, blowback is creating more enemies than we are destroying. The propaganda of the military-industrial machine has made this a counterintuitive notion, but one of the primary reasons we have had such an unexpected struggle in recent conflicts (Viet Nam and Iraq in particular) is that the intended effects of our operations barely overpower the unintended side-effect of breeding more enemies.

President Eisenhower may turn out to be the most prophetic public figure of modern times. In his final address as president, he warned of the dangerous implications of our rapidly growing military-industrial complex. It has only increased since his departure from office and today that military-industrial menace of which he spoke has become exactly what he warned about--a political machine that ensures the continuing initiation and execution of wars.

Today, we have somewhere between 700 and 800 military bases in 63 countries around the world. For what purpose? Consider the effect our occupations have on the residents and governments of those countries. Imagine how we would feel if, for example, China had several active military bases within our borders. Our founding fathers are surely rolling in their graves.

Beyond the geopolitical factors, consider the financial implications of our foreign entanglements. Total U.S. defense-related costs today exceed $1 trillion per year. Remember, there has not been a declared war since World War II. The Cold War has been over for almost fifteen years. There is very little reason for our military to even exist today, let alone demand such a huge portion of our GDP. Greatly reducing the size of our defense operations would liquidate a very substantial and much needed chunk of our budget that could be used to solve the looming financial crises of our entitlement programs (and could even be a possible way to end them while still meeting obligations to all current participants).

During debates of our proper role around the globe--these days common during discussions of the Iraq war--someone will take the humanitarian position, saying, "But don't we have a responsibility to help people who are living under oppressive regimes? Isn't it our moral imperative that we should help out people in those countries?" This argument also applies to all the various foreign aid we send around the world. The problem with this argument is that governments don't have moral obligations; only individuals do. Morals are a definition of right and wrong. A government made up of a vast collection of individuals will not have agreement on what is right and wrong and therefore cannot have morals. People may have so-called moral obligations. Therefore, people who are compelled to assist those around the world in need should form and support voluntary organizations to do exactly that. This way those who do not share their morals are not forced to participate. When our government initiates these actions, everyone, regardless of their own beliefs, is forced to participate based on their citizenship (and obligation to pay taxes). This is, in effect, immoral on the government's part.

Our military should be solely located within our own borders except during times of war, and wars should be officially declared by Congress as dictated by the Constitution. Other than embassies, we should not have a permanent presence in foreign countries. We should avoid meddling in the affairs of other countries.

This is not to suggest pure isolationism. We should be free to engage in free trade with other nations. But free trade must be true free trade, not the protectionist arrangements our government passes off as free trade in such abominations as NAFTA and CAFTA.

Logic and evidence shows that libertarians (and the Founding Fathers) have this one right. Unfortunately, our leaders have done ourselves and the world a great disservice by continuing our domineering military presence around the world.

What to expect in the final season of Lost

2009-05-16T15:09:00.001-04:00

A few episodes into season 2 of the TV series Lost, I wrote a blog post about my theories on the mysteries of the show. Most of them proved to be incorrect. Now that season 5 has concluded, a lot of answers have been provided, although some big mysteries remain. I found this season to be very fulfilling and I have been more and more impressed by the writing as the show progresses. I expect the story of Lost will go down as one o

f the greats in literary history. With one season remaining, perhaps it's time for me to once again propose some theories and guess what we'll see in the final season.

As all well told stories do, the premise of the entire series was foretold in the beginning--in part 2 of the pilot--with dialog between John Locke and Walt [video on YouTube]. Locke is sitting on the beach with a backgammon game as Walt approaches from behind:

Walt: What is it, like checkers?

Locke: Not really. It's a better game than checkers.

...

Locke: Backgammon is the oldest game in the world. Archaeologists found sets when they excavated the ruins of Ancient Mesopotamia. 5000 years old. That's older than Jesus Christ.

Walt: Did they have dice and stuff?

Locke: (nodding) But theirs weren't made of plastic; their dice were made of bones. Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark. Walt, do you want to know a secret?

There are further references to games. In season 1 episode 2, Locke is playing Risk with a coworker, and his retort after his boss makes fun of him is "I'm just playing a game, Randy." In episode 16, where we first learn about Hurley's numbers, his former friend at the asylum is playing Connect 4 while he repeats the numbers continuosly.

Lost is about two ancient Egyptian men playing a game. Jacob represents good (or light) while his unnamed nemesis (I'll call him Nemesis here) represents bad (or darkness). The final episode opens with the two of them talking on the beach about an approaching ship, Jacob wearing white and Nemesis wearing black:

Nemesis: How did they find the island?

Jacob: You'll have to ask them when they get here.

Nemesis: I don't have to ask...You brought them here. Still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?

Jacob: You are wrong.

Nemesis: Am I? They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt--it always ends the same.

Jacob: But it only ends once--anything that happens before that is just progress.

Nemesis: Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you.

Jacob: Yes.

Nemesis: One of these days, sooner or later, I'm going to find a loophol

e.

Jacob: Well, when you do, I'll be right here.

This leads us to two important questions:

1) What is Jacob trying to prove Nemesis wrong about?

2) What is the loophole?

From the dialog in the scene, my guess is that Jacob is trying to prove that people are fundamentally good while Nemesis contends they are evil. That is the game.

And that is where all the other characters come in. They are the pawns in this ultimate backgammon game. Perhaps the game is all about seeing whether people, over time, end up being honorable or evil. Throughout the course of the series, the characters are moving either toward the white (good) or black (evil) end of the board.

What is the loophole? It seems that Jacob and Nemesis are immortal. It is unknown how they got this way, but it could be their nature as set by the island or by gods (or perhaps they are gods themselves). So the loophole may be a way to get around the immortality so that Nemesis could kill Jacob (or vice versa). At the end of season 5, we see the loophole has been found since Locke coerces Ben into successfully killing Jacob.

And the big question left with us at the conclusion of season 5 is what effect will the detonation of the hydrogen bomb have on the past events?

Here are some things I think we'll learn in the next (final) season of Lost:

Which pawns (characters) are on each side--which have redeemed themselves and which have remained (or become) evil.

The origin of Jacob and Nemesis and how/why they started their game.

Richard Alpert arrives on the Black Rock (probably the same ship we see in the scene mentioned above). He gains agelessness after agreeing to help Jacob.

Nemesis controls (or is) the smoke monster. Jacob and Nemesis can take the form of others who have died (Christian, Claire).

The loophole centered around Ben--he had to be the one to kill Jacob. Nemesis had taken on the form of Locke to lead Ben down that path. It was Nemesis who indirectly caused Locke to leave the island and be killed so that he could inhabit his body on his return on the Al-jira flight. Perhaps the loophole is that Jacob and Nemesis may only be killed by a mortal who was born on the island.

If the detonation of the hydrogen bomb works as Jack and company hope, the season will mainly consist of showing the Losties and how their lives would have played out if they hadn't gone down on Oceanic 815 and encountered the island.

But I suspect, instead, that the detonation will not have that affect--either we'll find out it was the cause of the original "incident" at the swan and things will proceed as we've already seen, or it will have some other consequence that will have ramifications on the island but not off the island or to the normal course of history. It will be responsible for damaging the statue of Taweret (under which Jacob lives), and since that is the goddess protecting pregnancy and childbirth, will begin the problems with pregnancies on the island (and greatly reduce the chance of loophole natives being born on the island).

The electromagnetic pocket at the swan station has an unexpected effect on the hydrogen bomb detonation and everyone survives (except for Juliet) and the hatch will be built so that the events causing Oceanic 815 to crash on the island occur as expected. Episode 1 of the final season will open the same as the first episode of the series: with Jack's eyes opening. We hear screaming the distance. After getting up and running through the jungle, he emerges on the beach, but this time instead of finding the crashed plane, he sees the broken Taweret statue in the aftermath of the bomb explosion.

With Jacob dead at the end of season 5, the Nemesis, as Locke, has seemingly won the great game. But Richard Alpert and the team with Locke's dead body will devise a scheme to avenge Jacob and claim victory in the final episode of the series. This will involve Claire's son Aaron, currently still back in the "real world", since he is the other mortal who was born on the island--he will be the one to kill Nemesis.

Will Jack's group make it back off the island? How will Alpert's team get Aaron back on the island to kill Nemesis?

We have many long months to wait before we have all the answers...

Developer personality dynamics

2009-02-24T19:42:00.001-05:00

A while back, the members of my team participated in an Insights Discovery process session. Insights Discovery consists of a personality questionnaire completed by each team member followed by an analysis and group session to discuss the meaning of the results to facilitate improved communication and synergy between team members.

We found the results very enlightening and I've noticed improvements in team interactions since we went through the process. I'd like to do it again to include team members who have joined us since.

Insights Discovery assigns each personality type to a place on a color wheel. We found that most team members had mostly blue personalities, which are common amongst developers (introspective thinkers), although we had a couple of greens (supporters) and one red (directors).

Blue vs. red can be a challenging dynamic and one recent interaction I witnessed brought me back to our analysis. Here's how it played out (with ficitious names):

Blue Ben was pulled into a data warehousing project after it had become late and over budget. Although Ben had some ideas for improvement, he was met with resistance since those already on the project were already personally heavily invested in the current design. Ben continued to work on the project which, while continuing to come closer to completion, continued to go later and further over budget.

Eventually, Red Rudy was brought in to help complete the project. After just a day or so of orienting himself to the current solution, Rudy approached Ben, saying, "Hey, there are a lot of things with this that really suck." While Ben knew Rudy was overreacting, he also knew some of what Rudy was saying was true. However, Ben suddenly felt defensive; his work was seemingly being called into question. But most of it wasn't even his decisions! He was now in a position where he felt compelled to defend work that wasn't even his!

By the next week, Rudy had largely redesigned the solution. Well, it wasn't really redesigned all that much, but since it was Rudy's work, he could now distance himself from the previous solution. Unfortunately, this further alienated Ben, who now felt "stuck" with "his" inferior solution (that he didn't really even want in the first place) while Rudy ran off with the new, improved goods.

A week later, close to the end of the project, Green Gary came in to help with some final tasks. He took a look at Ben's solution and then approached him, saying, "Hey, I noticed a few things that might be worth looking at for improvement. Maybe you already figured them out, but how would you feel about discussing them?" Ben was more than willing. He finally felt like he could share some of his frustrations; Gary helped Ben confirm his own ideas while enabling them both to feel more ownership over the project rather than defensive about it.

Soon, a new phase of the project began, and Rudy's solution was used as the starting point. Ben had a lot to offer but struggled to feel any connection to the project--this no longer felt like the thing he had invested so much in.

What this scenario helped illustrate is that the outcomes, at least in terms of the attitudes and happiness of the developers, can be affected greatly by how the developers are approached. Beware of forcing developers to defend things they don't want to defend!

How I became a libertarian

2009-02-17T16:56:00.001-05:00

Over the next few weeks I plan to post a series of articles describing some of my political beliefs in hopes of spreading the message that there are others out there (many more than you probably imagine) whose beliefs don't fall neatly under the categories of Democrat and Republican (or even liberal or conservative). I figured I should start the series by describing how my thinking evolved.

The truth is, I've always been a libertarian. It just took me some time to realize it.

When I first registered to vote when I was 18, I didn't know much about politics. We didn't talk much about politics at home. I thought my parents were probably Democrats but didn't really know. When I first registed, Republican was the popular party in power, so I just went with that.

I didn't think much about politics for a while after that. But one incident sticks out in my memory--I was an intern at the Rochester City Schools and one of the other interns, obviously politically wise and ambitious, asked me, "So, what are your political leanings?" After a few seconds of my deer-in-the-headlights nonresponse, she continued, "You know, are you liberal or conserative?" I don't recall exactly how I answered, but somehow I came up with a response that satisfied her for the moment.

But that exchange motivated me to do some research. What does it mean to be liberal or conservative? How do those terms relate to the Democrat and Republican parties?

What I found confused me right from the start. Liberalism and conservatism can mean so many different things. Liberalism as originally defined seemed to match a lot of my beliefs: individual rights, freedom of speech, small government. But it doesn't seem to mean that anymore. Now, it seems to be more about ensuring opportunities for everyone: minimum wages, welfare, affirmative action. Conservatism seems to mean the things that liberalism used to mean with an emphasis on slow change in contrast to liberalism. But what is this about social conservatism vs. economic conservatism?

There were so many conflicts when trying to fit my beliefs into those two buckets. I believe that people should keep what they earn rather than paying it to the government. I guess that makes me a Republican. But I believe in a woman's right to choose abortion. That seems to be a Democratic thing. I think welfare and social security are generally bad ideas. Doesn't that make me a Republican? But I believe same-sex unions should be allowed. Doesn't that make me a Democrat? Where is the logic in all this? The consistency? So I remained confused for a while, feeling like I either didn't understand or just didn't have a real political party to call home.

I don't recall exactly how I stumbled onto the Libertarian party and libertarianism in general. But from the moment I did, everything seemed to fit my beliefs. It made sense and was logical and consistent.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be libertarian. "Aren't they just all about legalizing drugs?", "Don't they want to abolish the government?", "Are those the people that think 9/11 was orchestrated by the U.S. government?" or "Yeah, right, like they ever have a chance of being taken seriously."

Libertarianism is rooted in the idea of individual liberty. That means that people should be allowed to do what they want as long as they don't harm someone else. The purpose of government is to protect that liberty. Note that the U.S. Constitution was built on this principle (ignoring, for now, that it failed to prohibit slavery). So, it is generally fair to say libertarians believe in a government like the one described in our Constitution as designed by our founders.

We believe a big centralized government like the one we have today is actually contrary to the idea that government is for protecting liberties because it takes away more liberties than it protects. It is hugely ineffecient and can't help but be greatly influenced by special interests. It treats us like children rather than responsible individuals and that becomes a growing self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'll talk more about libertarian principles in the weeks ahead. Do you know where you fit into the political spectrum? If not, try the World's Smallest Political Quiz. Post your questions, comments, or perspectives below.

How much is your email worth?

2009-02-17T16:31:00.001-05:00

A coworker recently sent me a link for a company's website promoting a cool concept for dealing with email overload. Seriosity's Attent borrows some ideas from the online role playing gaming world and provides a way to attach virtual currency to emails you send and receive.

When you send an email, you attach an amount of virtual currency, called "Serios". You attach the number of Serios you think the email is "worth", meaning the amount required to get your email read. The recipient (assuming they are also an Attent user) sees the number of Serios you attached and emails with the most float to the top of the inbox.

You have a limited amount of Serios to spend, so you have to choose wisely. The idea is that having to attach a limited resource to your emails forces you think a little more about how valuable your communications really are. You get more Serios when people send you emails with them attached and you also get an allowance of 100 new Serios each week that you send at least one.

There are some cool features such as visibility to recipients' Serio balance and history so you can get an idea of how many Serios you'll need to spend to get someone's attention.

I think this is an intriguing and promising concept. The company has plans to expand this to other forms of communication, and I think it would work even better when instant messaging, phone calls, and even support requests are included in the Serios financial world. It would be great as an incentive for participating in collaboration sites.

The biggest downside to Attent is that it requires a "critical mass" of connected users to make it useful. So, I encourage everyone who reads this to try it out!

Feeling hopeful

2009-01-20T15:31:00.002-05:00

On this inauguration day of Barack Obama, I am hopeful. I think a lot of people around the world feel the same way.

I didn't vote for Mr. Obama, but if I had to choose between the two major candidates, he is easily the one I would have chosen. Sure, I am concerned and somewhat fearful that Obama is often compared with Lincoln and FDR, perhaps the two presidents in our history who did the most to restrict our liberties and cause damage to the Constitution. I am concerned that further expansion of the federal government will further bankrupt our country rather than save it. But I am still hopeful.

I am hopeful because, at this point, what we need more than anything is to repair our image throughout the world. Over the past six years or so, we have greatly accelerated our image as the world's bully, the great empire building machine ready to take over the Earth. I think Obama can turn that around and help unify the world, possibly even bringing peace where it has not existed for quite some time. Even if that does not occur, it will be so refreshing to have a president--the first in my lifetime--that the vast majority of the country feels proud to have serve.

That's 34 electoral votes for Barr

2008-08-28T01:18:00.000-04:00

While the Democratic convention takes place this week and the Republicans prepare for theirs next week, both parties seem to be unconcerned that they've missed the ballot registration deadline in Texas. Texas requires political parties submit the certifications for their candidates 70 days before the general election--that was August 26. So, the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, is the only official candidate on the ballot.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. Let's see what slimy tactics the major parties attempt on this one.

Hypocrisy on parade at the DNC

2008-08-27T00:14:00.000-04:00

I couldn't stand to waste my evenings sitting in front of the TV watching the Democratic National Convention. But I have been streaming it on my second monitor while I catch up on a few things with the computer. What a display of hypocrisy and nothingness! Person after person gets up and spews nonsense. How many of them actually believe what they say?

The theme that's bothered me the most is the push for universal healthcare. They start by bashing the Bush administration about fiscal irresponsibility. OK, sure, I certainly can't argue with that. But then the Democratic speakers go on to talk about how they will control spending and then they go on in the next sentences to tout their plans for universal healthcare and free education for everyone.

How the hell do they expect to pay for that?

Why do so few people seem to understand why national healthcare is such a bad idea? Don't they see it will mean more taxes? Don't they realize it will mean waiting longer to get care? Don't they know it will lower the quality of care available to us (getting the government involved always decreases quality and efficiency)? Don't they know it will consolidate federal power even more? Insanity!

I know it's tempting to think how great it would be if we all have free healthcare. But it's never free! You have to steal from everyone (taxation) to get it! And the system ends up being worse when you take out the free market influences and the incentives for people to act responsibility. They expect me to pay for people who refuse to take care of themselves? What gives them the right to expect the government (me) will save them no matter what?

Get over it. We certainly need reforms, but the answer is less government involvement, not more.

No more turn signals: are we that lazy?

2008-08-20T13:36:00.000-04:00

I admit I have a bit of a road rage problem. But what do you expect--there are so many clueless, inconsiderate drivers. I would be fine if everyone would just drive right!

Over the past few years, I've been seeing fewer and fewer turn signals. Today on the way to work, people were turning all over the place, but I saw only two turn signals actually used.

Have we become that lazy that we can't even bother to use the turn signal any more?

I try to find other reasons why this is happening. Is it because everyone's hands are too busy fiddling with cell phones, radios, and GPSs? Was there a report I missed that claims using turn signals increases global warming?

If you're turning, let me know! That's all I'm asking. Otherwise, I get the impression you think the road is all yours and the rest of us are just in your way. And that's when I get the urge to start ramming you.

Do you use your turn signal reliably?

The real choice in November: Obama or Barr

2008-08-19T00:24:00.008-04:00

It's pretty much a forgone conclusion, barring some major gaffe in the next few months, that Barack Obama will be our next President. McCain's pro-war stance puts him out of contention; besides, he'll never survive the debates--Obama's eloquent charisma will blow McCain off the stage.

Unless you are in favor of the USA continuing to build its empire by beating other countries into submission, you can't seriously consider voting for McCain. If you vote for him simply because you're Republican, stop and think for a few minutes about why you're a Republican. And "because I'm certainly not going to be a Democrat" is not a valid reason--there are other choices, you know. If you think you have a good reason for voting for McCain other than to promote war, please leave your comments below.

So, really, the serious choice for the election is Barack Obama or Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate.

Why would Bob Barr be worth voting for? After all, he's only slightly more likely to win than I am. Well, for one thing, consider this chart of how the candidates' fiscal policies would play out:

McCain: bankrupt the country by military spending
Obama: bankrupt the country by domestic spending
Barr: save the country by reducing the size of government

Voting is not about picking who will win. It's about picking someone who represents your values.

And that's my real dilemma. Bob Barr represents my values really well: greatly reducing the size of federal government, restoring personal liberties, establishing a non-interventionist foreign policy, health care reform based on improving the industry rather than by implementing socialized medicine, and much more.

Barack Obama doesn't represent my values very well, but I do like him a lot. It's true--he's "presidential". There's a decent chance he will be really good for improving America's image throughout the world. He'll be fun to watch. We'll probably be proud to have him be our President (we're long overdue for that). But underneath, he'll likely be playing many of the same political games. He'll make most of the same mistakes big government politicians make. We'll probably end up with socialized medicine, even higher taxes, and a collapsed financial system. But if Obama is as cool as he seems, we won't blame him.

Barr is not as presidential, but his ideas are the ones that our country needs. In fact, I've become convinced that adopting libertarian principles is really our country's only hope for survival (and sadly, I don't think it will happen in time).

I'm looking forward to the debates. I am hoping by some miracle that Bob Barr is given the opportunity to participate.

Whom are you currently planning to vote for?

Why impeachment is imperative

2008-08-03T19:52:00.000-04:00

On the evening of June 9, Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced a resolution in the House to impeach President Bush. The resolution cites 35 counts of high crimes and misdemeanors committed by President Bush stemming from his use of warrantless wiretaps and other violations of FISA, the illegal invasion of Iraq and the use of propaganda to promote the war, violations of the Constitution and Geneva Conventions in regards to detainment of his self-created category of "enemy combatants", involvement in the Plame Affair and subsequent commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence, and many others. The list is long.

In short, during his administration, President Bush has done egregious damage to our system of law. He has been arrogant in his flouting of the Constitution and other high laws. In fact, Bush himself has even admitted his unlawfulness on several occasions.

And we should all be ashamed. Congress has done little to stop his abuses. We, the American citizenry, have largely gone on with our lives like this is just to be expected and there's nothing to worry about.

In reality, the system of government formed by our founders is in its death throes. The Constitution, already battered and bloody, is now struggling for its last breath. History will judge us all harshly for allowing it to happen. We are quick to blame the branches of our government, but ultimately, we, the members of this representative republic, hold the responsibility for holding our leaders to task. When we continue to vote the same types of leaders into office, term after term, we are giving our implicit approval of their actions.

The default response to Kucinich's call for impeachment is that it's a waste of time given the limited time remaining in Bush's presidency. But I strongly suggest that's irrelevant. Failing to hold Bush accountable is an implicit approval of what he's done. The reason our Constitution is in such bad shape today is because we've failed to stop those who've abused it. And this led to Bush and his cohorts to believe they also had excellent chances to extend the power of the Executive branch without getting caught. Well, now they've been caught. Will we let them get away with it?

Now that the abuses have become so egregious, a failure to impeach would mean we can expect much more of the same from the next administration. On the other hand, an impeachment would be a strong signal that we're done accepting this kind of abuse from our government. Representative Tammy Baldwin stated this excellently in her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee:

Representative Robert Wexler also had great testimony on the importance of impeachment:

Always remember: if we fail to hold Bush accountable for his abuses, we have failed our responsibility as citizens.

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New personal web site

2008-08-03T10:27:00.004-04:00

I've decided to bring my personal home site back to life and am moving the contents of my blogspot blogs to that new site. I hope to see you there! This site will no longer be updated.

Reaching the digital preference point

2008-07-29T03:12:00.007-04:00

It happened sooner than I expected: earlier this week I reached what I'm calling the "digital preference point (DPP)".

I realized, where possible, I now prefer acquring stuff in digital format rather than in physical form. I already had been getting a lot of bills via email and the web rather than by regular mail. And the Amazon Kindle nudged me further in the digital direction--it's great having so many books portable and searchable instead of taking up space in the house.

But I hadn't really made the switch with music. That was mainly because I refused to deal with low quality DRM'ed selections from the online vendors. But that all changed this year with Amazon MP3s and iTunes Plus.

So earlier this week I was browsing the Amazon MP3 store's specials and saw Colbie Caillat's album Coco available for download for $7.99. It caught my eye because I had bookmarked it when my custom Pandora station played it for me a few weeks ago. Coco seems to have a high quality to crap ratio so I was interested in the full album. My normal M.O. at this point had been to buy a used copy of the CD and then rip it and resell it. Used Coco CDs were selling for around $6.50 plus shipping. The Amazon price for the new physical CD matched the download price, $7.99. And with Amazon Prime, shipping is free, making it the same price as the digital download.

But then I really started to think this through. Was it really worth the effort to rip this CD myself, add/fix all the necessary metadata, post a listing on Amazon and Half.com to resell it, then package it, figure out postage, and mail it once it sells? For what, the ability to make back maybe $3 or $4?

And so I purchased the digital album. It came right down to my computer and got added to iTunes automatically. I only had to fix the genre metadata (because Amazon seems to consider just about everything "Pop"). The whole thing took about one minute of my time. If I had purchased the physical CD, it would have easily taken up 15-20 minutes of my time, start to end.

Crossing the DPP makes this stuff feel more like real entertainment instead of work.

Why I don't like project code names

2008-07-28T20:53:00.000-04:00

Lately we've been in the habit of assigning code names to projects my team is working on. We have "Sterling", "Caprice", "Janus", etc. The list goes on to include "Bentley", "Moonstrike", "Delgado", "Kodiak", "Donnybrook", and others.

This is similar to how Microsoft typically uses code names for products before they have chosen an "official" release name. However, we're doing it even in cases where the products already have a name!

Here's why I don't like the code names:

They confuse users. In discussions with users and stakeholders, they often don't understand why we keep calling the product "Sterling" rather than "EscrowManagement" or "EMS", for example.
They make it hard for developers to find things. In SourceSafe, OnTime, and SharePoint, I see a proliferation of strange words. How am I to know to look for "Caprice" when I want to find the source code for the Standards Management System?
They make it hard for DBAs to associate databases to projects. In several cases, we've actually named the database after the code name in test and production. How are the DBAs to know what application the Janus database goes with? Resolving this and item 2 above require the use of a lookup step to map code names to their project.
They are geeky. These sorts of things appeal more to developers than to users or executives and create alienation.
They lead to inconsistencies that have to later be found and corrected. It is tempting to use code names on screen and report output, but in the final release, that's not going to fly, so someone will be busy going through all the source code to make sure all those references use the real product name before final release.
They serve no real purpose. Code names add a level of abstraction, and in most cases that just makes things harder to manage and understand. In the cases where a name is needed for a project before it has an "official" one, just do your best to pick something that is likely to be an acceptable final name. It will be more meaningful than a code name.
They create separations in the chain of knowledge about a project. Typically, we assign a different code name to each new version of a project. The result is that when you want to search for information across the lifespan of all versions of the product, you have to search an array of code names.

I would be happy to see project code names go away. If an official name hasn't been chosen, do your best to pick something meaningful. And if you must use a code name, rename everything to the real name once it's chosen.

Collaboration site incentives for contribution

2008-07-28T20:43:00.000-04:00

At work we use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) for team and project collaboration. After several months, it now contains a wealth of useful information in our knowledge base wiki, various discussion groups, and blogs. We have the ongoing challenge, though, of getting people to participate. One of the hardest problems to solve is how to get people to take time after solving a problem or coming across a tip to write it in the knowledge base or as a tip of the day.

I think one intriguing solution worth trying is to provide incentives in the form of quality voting. Many web sites that accept user contributions use such a system: users can vote either thumbs up or thumbs down or, in some cases, on a numeric scale, how useful they think the review or article is. The poster of the article then accumulates points based on the number of positive votes their contributions receive.

We could do the same sort of thing by attaching voting mechanisms to discussion boards, wikis, blogs, etc. This encourages not only quantity but quality.

Then, points could be exchanged for rewards. Achieving a certain point level could also be part of employee goals. We could also reward fractional points for simply voting, to encourage reading and voting.

Unfortuntely, SharePoint 2007 doesn't include this capability. It would be a useful excercise for someone to write an extension to SharePoint to provide it. See this article for some ideas.

How are your Google skills?

2008-07-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

It's probably safe to call myself a Google power user. I use it all the time and it's rare I can't find an answer to a question with the right Google search (sometimes it does take a bit of work, though).

I'm closing in on my 15,000th recorded Google search.*

So, I'm going to do a few blog posts to talk about some of the cool tips & tricks you can do with Google as well as a few nifty features you may not already know about.

Today I have a little quiz to test your searching skills:

Email me a Google search phrase that will return sites about the band The The.

I'll post the best submissions in the comments to this post.

*If you have a Google account and log in whenever you do a search (or use iGoogle), Google keeps track of your search history and even fine-tunes your results based on your search history. My search count is now at 14,501. My search history starts from April 25, 2005 and apparently my first recorded search was books about ecuador. Later that day I searched on spunkball and clicked this result link.

Kindle at the beach

2008-07-14T20:39:00.008-04:00

Ever since it was released last year, I'd been considering buying an Amazon Kindle. I had a few concerns, including the price and wondering if the next generation would be coming out anytime soon. But I finally gave in to the temptation a couple of weeks ago when I was getting ready for a week's vacation at the beach.

I always look forward to having some good quality time for reading at the beach. I pick out a new book or two that I really want to dig into during the week. But the book I really wanted to read this year, Team of Rivals, weighs in at 944 pages, and I wasn't looking forward to lugging that three blocks to and from the beach each day. So, the time was right to get a Kindle.

I hesitated at first, wondering how I'd feel about taking a $359 device to ocean's edge with all the potential dangers that go with the territory (including rogue waves and dropping it in the sand). But I decided to take the risk.

What a good decision! I was very happy with the Kindle during the week and it will go on my list of the best purchases I've made. You can read the general pros and cons of the Kindle elsewhere (my only substantial complaint is how easy it is to accidentally hit the page buttons), but I want to share why I think the Kindle is great for beach reading (because when I was considering the purchase, I wished there was such a post):

The screen is very easy to read in bright sunlight. I was a little worried that it would hard to see like a typical backlit LCD screen like on a digital camera, but the E Ink display is as easy to read as a printed book page even with sunglasses on.
It's light and compact for carrying. I had 30 books with me on the beach and it only added 10 ounces to my backpack.
It was wonderful having so many choices available so when my mood changed, I could switch to something different. Before leaving, I had converted some of the PDF eBooks to mobi format (using the free Mobipocket Creator) and transferred them to the Kindle using the USB connection.
I could choose what I wanted to read once I got there. The first morning sitting in my chair at water's edge, I used the built-in EVDO connection to preview (first chapter free) and then purchase Team of Rivals. It was downloaded to the device in about a minute and I got started reading. Later in the week I was ready to take a break from that book and I previewed, purchased, and downloaded Blowback and then switched back and forth between the two the rest of the week.
The built-in dictionary was great for looking up unfamiliar words while I was reading.
The built-in highlighting and note taking features made it easy to mark sections without needing to carry a pen and notebook.
The built-in EVDO Internet connection was so handy. I could look up things as they came to mind. I could check email. I could check the weather report. This is so much better than trying to do this on a cell phone because 1) I could actually see the screen in the sun, 2) it's on a decent-sized screen, 3) it has a better keyboard, and 4) it's free.
I was able to have a collection of my personal documents and notes with me. I'm working on writing a book and a screenplay and I converted my outlines and notes to plain text format and copied them to the Kindle and could then access them when I needed them and could even make further notes using the Kindle.
And I must say the beach is a place where the (currently free) NowNow service really shines. A trivia question came up in conversation and I wasn't able to quickly find an answer using an Internet search. So, I submitted the question to NowNow, and fifteen minutes later I had three responses from real people pop onto the Kindle (two were helpful, one not so much).

So yes, I think the Kindle is great for the beach (and I'm still very much enjoying it now that I'm back home). I managed to get through the week without dropping it in the sand. But I did clean it when I got home using LCD screen cleaner, a lint-free cloth, a cotton swab (for the scroll bar area), and compressed air. It still looks like new.

Reducing email distractions

2008-06-25T08:19:00.001-04:00

Email has the potential to be very distracting. How many times a day do you check your email? Everytime that little Outlook notification pops up about a new email coming in, don't we all immediately go read it? That's a lot of interruptions in a typical day.

As of this morning, I'm trying out a new way to process email to reduce those distractions. I'm going to check my inbox just three times a day: first thing in the morning, around noon, and at the end of the day. I hope to get that down to two checks a day eventually.

I've turned off the default Outlook notifications. I've removed the Outlook icons from the notification area in the taskbar. I set up a new rule to pop up an alert if I get an urgent email (so if you need me to respond immediately, mark it urgent).

To make sure I don't need to spend much time in my inbox, I use a system very similar to that described in Getting Things Done where I immediately process the items in my inbox. They go into one of several specially named folders I created: @Action - Now, @Action - Soon, @Someday, @Waiting; or they get deleted; or they get moved into one of my reference folders (I have one for each project). The special folders start with "@" to sort them to the top of the folder list in Outlook. By moving things into one of these folders immediately, it keeps the inbox very clean.

@Action - Now is for emails I need to act on today. @Action - Soon is for things I need to act on but at a lower priority. @Someday are things I want to read in more detail and possibly act on later. And @Waiting is for emails that I can't do anything with yet because I'm waiting on someone else.

I'm one of the few people who actually likes the Outlook Today feature in Outlook. I have it configured to show me the next 7 days of my calendar, my task list, and the message counts of my inbox and the four special folders I mentioned above.

I'll let you know how it all works out.

Defining .NET properties the easy way

2008-06-25T08:14:00.001-04:00

Once you've done a fair amount of programing in .NET, it quickly becomes tiresome to define your custom properties in code:

private int myProperty;
public int MyProperty
{
get { return myProperty; }
set { myProperty = value; }
}

It gets to the point where you seriously consider just declaring everything as a field instead:

public int MyProperty;

But resist the temptation! There are downsides to this including difficulties with databinding and all sorts of issues if you later change your mind and want them to be properties.

So, stick with properties but make your life a little easier by using the built-in prop snippet. When you want to create a new property, just type prop and hit Tab twice and Visual Studio will insert a nice template for creating the property. You can tab through the fields in the template and easily change the type and name to what you want.

And here's the really good news: the new version of C# that comes with Visual Studio 2008 includes a feature called Automatic Properties. This allows you to define basic properties using this syntax:

public int MyProperty { get; set; }

Behind the scenes, the C# compiler translates this to (basically) the same code as if you'd used the more traditional syntax.

For more information on Automatic Properties, see this post from Bart De Smet's blog.

Storage of NULL values in SQL Server

2008-06-25T08:10:00.000-04:00

Earlier today a couple of team members asked whether NULL values in a database take up any space. I wasn't sure of the answer so I did a little research which I decided to share here in case anyone is interested.

The quick answer is no, NULL values don't take up any additional space. However, each column does take up a certain amount of space whether or not it contains any data. Fixed datatype columns (int, float, char, etc.) take up a specific amount of space depending on the size of the datatype (int=4 bytes, smallint=2 bytes, float=4 or 8 bytes). Variable length columns (varchar, varbinary) take up a minimum of 2 bytes per column even if empty (to store the actual length pointer).

The NULL status of each column is stored in a special part of the row called the NULL bitmap that contains one bit for each column, in 8-bit chunks. So a table with 1-8 columns has a one byte (8 bit) NULL bitmap but a table with 9-16 columns has a two byte (16 bit) NULL bitmap.

If you’re interested in the detailed version, be sure to check out Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: The Storage Engine, which I highly recommend with the rest of the series.

The document was sent to the printer

2008-06-25T08:06:00.000-04:00

I click the Print button in Word (or any application) and I quickly get a popup in the taskbar telling me "The document was sent to the printer."

What a surprise--I wouldn't have expected that!

That popup has to be the most annoying Windows feature. It's unbelievable that it still remains even in Vista. Of course my document was just sent to the printer--I just printed it!

A useful message would be one that told me when it was finished printing.

And (in my opinion), they don't make it easy to figure out how to turn these messages off. But I eventually tracked it down (here is the Vista version):

1) Control Panel -> Printer
2) Right click and select Server Properties...
3) Go to Advanced tab and uncheck Show information notifications for network printers.
4) Click OK and print away.

Learning to play the piano: it's just hard

2008-04-13T18:20:00.005-04:00

One of my lifelong goals has been to learn to play the piano. That seems like a natural desire for me since my parents both have strong musical talents including having been music teachers and church musicians. In fact, my mother has long taught piano lessons, and attempted to teach me as a kid.

It didn't take.

I had two problems: the main one was that I just couldn't stay dedicated enough to practice as much as I apparently needed to; the other was that I didn't seem to be coordinated enough to be able to move more than one finger at a time.

Well, I recently purchased a musical keyboard in hopes of finally learning. I have been using a combination of a book and software program to pick up where I left off so many years ago. Not the same personal touch as Mom, but it seems to be going OK so far.

Trying to learn at this age has been very enlightening. I've come to the conclusion that playing the piano is just a very difficult thing to learn. And I think that was the biggest reason I gave up as a kid: I thought it was supposed to be easy and because I struggled so much, I figured it just wasn't for me. I thought it was supposed to be easy because my parents made it seem effortless. They often played all sorts of impressive music at church and at home. My mom had a parade of piano students arriving night after night, most of whom seemed to be learning it pretty quickly.

I had no problem learning to read music; I was an above-average trumpet player and a top-notch singer in school. I had a good ear and great rhythm and excelled in marching band, jazz band, and chorus. Why was the piano so hard for me?

I had no trouble learning touch typing. That's been invaluable for my computer career and I continue to be a great typist.

So what is so different about the piano?

Well, I've realized there's one big leap I never had to make with all those other things: playing more than one note at a time. With the trumpet, singing, and the computer keyboard, you only ever have to do one action at a time (not counting the occassional SHIFT and CTRL key combos on the computer keyboard). I'm convinced it's a tough skill to achieve. As long as I'm playing one note at a time on the piano I'm fine; making that leap to polyphony is just really difficult.

And so, I now see that all that practice really is necessary. Most pianists are good because they just worked really hard at it. I suppose there are people who can just sit down for the first time and play, but I think for most of us, if we want to really learn to play, it's going to take a lot of effort.

Knowing that has given me new hope. I feel like I have a pretty good chance of learning this and even getting pretty good if I just keep working through it. It's going to take plenty of time and effort, but now that I know that's what's needed, I should be able to stick with it.

Beware of Adobe rebate fraud

2008-02-24T18:15:00.006-05:00

I just want to put a warning out there for anyone counting on the rebate for Adobe products. You might get the rebate, but it's going to take some work.

I am a longtime fan of Adobe Photoshop Elements. An outdated version came with a scanner I bought a few years back. I liked it enough to upgrade to the latest version. And I've upgraded twice more since then. It's a great program for fixing up digital photos. I've been buying the bundle that includes that and Adobe Premiere Elements, which is a decent program for editing videos and creating slideshows.

The bundle sells with a $30 rebate. The first time I sent in my rebate request, I heard nothing for months. Finally, I get a letter stating I hadn't submitted the necessary proof of purchase (a tab torn off from the inside of the box flap). But here's the crazy part: in the envelope with the denial, they also sent back the tab that I had submitted! So I resubmitted the request and this time it was honored.

Well, a year or two later I upgraded again and sent in the rebate request. Again, it was denied for the same reason: no proof of purchase tab was sent. They didn't send back my tab this time. But I sent a reply letter explaining that I did submit the tab. They then approved the rebate.

So this year when I upgraded again and submitted my rebate, I was sure to make copies of everything. Sure enough, I get a postcard this week, telling me the rebate was denied because "we did not receive an original proof-of-purchase tab 1 with your request". This year's added trick is that it includes these instructions: "To resubmit for this offer please return this card or letter, with any items mentioned above, to the address shown" but they don't list an address! So, I'm going to have to track down an address.

I can't believe they get away with this, which seems to be standard procedure for them. I'm sure plenty of consumers don't bother to resubmit. This time I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

Please leave a comment if you've had similar experiences with Adobe rebates.

Mourning for our country

2008-01-21T12:23:00.001-05:00

I've been feeling a bit depressed since the start of the new year and it was particularly troubling because I couldn't figure out why. Things were generally going OK in my life. Perhaps it was just the post-holiday blues.

But a few days ago the cause clicked in my head. I'm mourning the death of our once fine country, the U.S.A.

I realized my malaise had set in around the time the results came in for the Iowa presidential caucuses and Ron Paul's fifth place showing made it clear there wasn't going to be a sudden, surprising show of support for Dr. Paul in the elections that count. The primaries that have followed have been about the same--Paul has done remarkably well but not well enough to be in serious contention for the nomination.

And I honestly believe Ron Paul as President could be the last hope for saving our country. Paul is the only candidate who is willing to speak the truth about the condition we're in and who discusses the reality-based plans we need to implement to save our country as envisioned by the founders (and perhaps to save it at all).

My main concern at the time was how all the other candidates would continue our empire building and progression toward fascism and tyranny. We would continue to lose our personal liberties and become more and more hated around the world.

Since then I've become even more aware of our very precarious financial situation. I've known for quite some time how damaging our social programs and then the Iraq war have been to our economy. But through some reading I stumbled on to more recently, I now see that we're on the verge of bankruptcy as a country. In fact, there's a very real chance that it's too late to avoid a serious recession. We have built up too much debt and our dollar is about to collapse, and this will undoubtedly cause a drastic drop in our standard of living in this country. There really isn't much left that the Federal Reserve can do to delay the collapse, and there is really no way remaining to avoid it altogether.

If you're interested about this, here is some recommended reading/viewing:
America: Freedom to Fascism (DVD)
Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse (Book)
The Energy Non-Crisis (free video)

It is a sad time for our country. And just as sad is that most people don't even realize it yet.