Gerfboy blogs.

Free Belarus

2020-09-02T23:24:00.002-07:00

Let's suppose for a moment that one of the candidates wins the 2020 presidential election in the United States this November, a very likely outcome. Many people in this country will be upset and feel that it is enough reason to protest in the streets. (It will not be. The constitution of this country sets up electoral processes that we follow to elect our presidents.)

Belarusian have been protesting for almost
a month for basic freedoms

However, let's suppose for a moment that after the election, the election officials announce the winner won with 80% of the votes. Would that be enough reason to protest in the streets? (Probably not)

Let's also suppose for a moment that you didn't know a single person in your social circles who claimed to have voted for him, and he STILL got 80% of the vote. Now you're starting to understand what the people in Belarus are feeling, but we're not done yet.

Now, let's suppose this candidate who wins in November happens to be the incumbent, and he has already been in office for 26 years. You're thinking, "What! but the constitution says a president can only serve two terms!"

But we must also suppose that this president changed the constitution during his early terms to remove term limits.

Now, would you have cause to protest in the streets? I think so. As an American, I know so.

In fact, this is exactly what has happened in Belarus, and the Belarusian people seem to have finally had enough of president Alexander Lukashenko, and his faux-democratic processes.

Alexander Lukashenko has held on to the
presidency for 26 years via fraudulent elections.

Since August 9th 2020, when the fraudulent election results were announced, crowds have been taking to the streets of many cities across Belarus to peacefully protest the election results. The protestors have been peaceful, but have been met with violence from the government's special forces.

Thousands have been pulled from the crowds, thrown into vans, beaten, taken to jails, beaten some more, and many could potentially still be missing.

Yet, day after day, and week after week the people keep coming back. They are tired of being afraid.

What the common Belarusian is protesting for is something more than just fair and honest democratic processes. They are protesting for freedoms, basic freedoms that you and I in America often take for granted. They are the freedoms granted us by the first amendment of our constitution:

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, wife of a now jailed
opponent of the regime, in all likelihood
was the real winner of the presidency in August.

The freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of petition, and freedom of assembly

In Belarus you cannot speak your mind publicly if your opinion does not align with Lukashenko, or you will go to jail. Dozens of brave, intelligent, thoughtful people have been tossed in jail, for merely publicly disagreeing. Lukashenko fears open thought and discussion because it shines a light on his corruption.

Suppose you are a Belarusian, and that you are interested in religion. Unless your interest is in the Russian Orthodox church, you are out of luck my friend. Protestant denominations, Jews, Mormons, even Catholics have struggled over the last 26 years to share their messages of love and worship with interested Belarusians. They cannot build buildings, they cannot pursue happiness as they see fit. Lukashenko decided those churches aren't Belarusian enough.

Recently 15 members of the press were rounded up while covering a protest, and had their credentials stripped from them. Lukashenko cannot let the truth get out via the press, unless they're telling his story, and not the truth. In fact, during these protests Lukashenko has shut down the internet access of the country on multiple occasions.

Belarusians cannot legally assemble together without first asking for permission from Lukashenko's regime, and are often not granted that permission.

So, why do I care? I live in America. Why shouldn't I just love my country, in my country?

Here's why:

I lived in Belarus for over a year. I have many friends there, and love and respect for the Belarusian people.
I want Americans to realize what these people are dealing with. They struggle with oppression, yet don't burn down banks, and turn over cars. (I'm looking at you Portland).
This struggle is a much more modern 1776 America. Pertinent to our lives in so many ways.

This isn't over yet. The struggle continues. I watch it every day, and I just needed to get it down in English for the three of you who have read this far. Thank you.

Жыве Беларусь

Facebook ads are full of crap

2015-04-17T12:12:00.002-07:00

I recently self-published my first novel: Worlds Aligned. I would love to somehow get the word out to people about it. I'd like people to know about it outside of my immediate circle of friends, family, and neighbors. Since it's self-published and I have no large pool of money behind it for marketing I figured I'd try out promoting the book's Facebook page using Facebook's ad system.

The way it works is you create an ad with an image, some text, some keywords so they can target whom might see your ad, and you specify some countries in which you'd like the ad to run. You can also specify how much money you'd like to spend per day. You only pay if someone actually clicks the ad. After all is done Facebook tells you a number of just how many 'likes' you'll probably get on your page each day.

So, I spent some time putting the image and text together. I chose keywords that matched the genre of my book, then I chose the United States, Canada, and since my book has an indian character I chose India as well. I started the promotion and checked back after several hours. I was already getting dozens of likes! Within a matter of weeks the Worlds Aligned Facebook page soon had 500+ likes!

A sampling of who has liked the page recently.

Wow! I thought. What is going on here? Why would people be liking my book that nobody has ever heard of? Do they actually just like the image in the ad? I started noticing that most of the people liking the page had foreign names. I figured they must all be because I had run the ad in India, right?

To be honest, the sales of my book had absolutely no correlation to how many likes the Facebook page was seeing. I started to get a little suspicious. I turned off the promotion. After a few days I started noticing the likes were still coming in! They had slowed down, but every day I was still getting new accounts liking my page and even liking posts I would do on the page.

I tried reaching out to several of these accounts, but nobody would respond. But, I looked at their pages, and it appeared that most if not all of the accounts had actually been updated quite recently. On the surface they didn't look like fake accounts.

It's not until you really start looking at the accounts more closely that you realize the only thing a lot of the accounts are doing is changing their profile pictures every week or so. Sometimes even rotating through them. Finally I turned to the internet to see if anyone has seen something similar. Sure enough there are posts about this as far back as a few years ago.

Nobody is quite sure what exactly is going on, but it's clear that something is, and now my Worlds Aligned Facebook page is filled with a bunch of fake likes that I can't remove.

The question is how someone is making money off using fake, or perhaps hacked, accounts to click on every ad they come across. I really doubt Facebook is paying some off-shore groups to add relevance to their ad system. If they were to stoop that low, this wouldn't be the right way to do it anyway. This kind of thing casts serious doubt on the validity of advertising through Facebook.

Is there some group that is trying to hurt Facebook? Is this just a bunch of bored hackers realizing this is some form of long-con attack they can organize on big business?

I'm sure Facebook is aware of this and I hope they're working on a way to fix it. Since the people creating the ads are only paying when someone clicks the ad, Facebook is actually getting money from this, (they got a few of my dollars), but I'd think in the long run they have much more money to lose from it. People won't advertise with Facebook if they feel their money is being wasted.

I know I won't be trying to promote Worlds Aligned with Facebook anymore.

Worlds Aligned

2015-03-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

So, I self-published a novel today. Which is something I never thought I would do, but it sure has been a fun adventure.

A couple of years ago I had the habit of sitting on the floor of my boys' bedroom to tell them stories at bedtime. As this habit matured I found it easier to not make up a new story from scratch every night. Instead I began to tie one story in particular together from night to night.

Before long I had created a world that my children seemed to love and ask for every night.

Over time I finished the bedtime story, but I came away from the experience wondering if it would be possible for me to take that rough outline, and disconnected, meandering plot, and turn it into something more complete.

The rework started in my head. I gutted the story, slapped on many new concepts, and found a way to tie the beginning to the end. Then I took the rework to paper. And by that I mean, of course, a computer.

I am a very busy software engineer by trade. I was only able to finish the task because I'm a night owl. I found the time to pursue turning my story into a book in the silent hours, after my children, and often my wife, were fast asleep. It wasn't a nightly thing, and there were sometimes months where the project would go into hibernation. However, I like to think it was always there somewhere, baking. For sure it never went to the place great intentions go to die. It would always resurface and the work would continue.

It took hours of writing, correcting, proof-reading to my wife, getting feedback from my sister/editor, and even some contract art work. But finally the project cam to a close.

Then I read it to my kids. They loved it! They asked for it every night for over a week. I love that they love it. That was really the only goal from the very beginning anyway. Now my older two are reading it again on their own.

Today my second son told me, "Your book is my favorite book of all time." Now ... he may be making a biased judgement, but I'll believe I guess.

It surely has been quite an interesting project and I have learned quite a lot undertaking it.

Find it today on the Kindle store!

Booyah

2015-02-05T21:59:00.000-08:00

The huge metal door slid open with a clang. Immediately the room was drowned in an eerie cacophony of sound. A battle worn marine in full armor and battle helmet dove through the opening and the door guard slammed the door shut as fast as possible. Even with the sub-three second time it was long enough for the various wounded and exhausted soldiers lying around the pod to open their eyes, some even bending at the neck to stand. Their uninfected comrades moved to sooth them back down.

All eyes turned to the newcomer.

The marine glanced at the door guard who gave him a nod, then he removed his helmet. "Men, I'm Lieutenant Flowers. How are you?" was all he said.

A square jawed platoon leader stood slowly, barely remembering to salute. "We...We can't take much more lieutenant," he stammered.

The young lieutenant reached an arm out, grabbing the soldier by the shoulder. "Times are changing. Stay strong soldier. Are you in charge here?"

"Yes sir. Sergeant Vannucci, sir."

"How many are we...I mean, how many that can still fight?"

"Thirty two, sir. And twenty who cannot." His face fell as he glanced around at those soldiers lying around the room, dazed or almost comatose.

The lieutenant surveyed the situation as well. "They did this to them? How much exposure did these men have?"

"Only a dozen or so seconds, sir...but that was before it got louder. Now...even with our helmets on we can't stay out there for more than a few minutes without losing our damned minds, twirling, jumping, spinning...it's maddening sir, literally."

The lieutenant nodded in understanding. "We have a plan to fix that. Gather your men. I have an announcement."

The soldiers were worn, and tired, but their training and experience shown strong in them still. In no time at all they stood in formation before the officer.

"Soldiers! Today you are beaten down. Today you have seen your friends, your city, your country, and your planet fall to the mysterious whims of a vicious and mind-numbing alien race. Today has been unlike any day before. It has been terrible, but that is about to change.

"These prancing, long legged, assailants may have a weapon we are quite vulnerable to. Their insidious song may drill into our minds and turn us into slobbering dancing idiots while they capture, and kill us. But, they are also made of some kind of flesh. They may bleed blue, but they do bleed, and our weapons can bring their blood to the ground.

"And now... we have a way to overcome their mind-control!"

The lieutenant took a bag from his back, opened it, and took out a small cartridge. He slid the cartridge into a player. The familiar strains of Rock and Roll filled the air. The soldiers' reactions were diverse. Many smiled. Others tapped, hummed, or bobbed their heads. Many of the less severely infected that hadn't joined the ranks turned to look as well.

"Rock and Roll gentlemen. Fill your ears with the taste of America." He handed the bag to the platoon leader. "Each of you gets one of these. They slide into your helmets. With this defense filling our ears we can once again resume the fight!"

The men's faces lifted. Slowly taking courage again, bolstered by the beat and rhythm. They took hope.

A young man called out from the back row, "Just to be certain sir...You're saying this has been tested? We play this music in our helmets and the dancers' noise won't infect us?"

"That's right, son. That's exactly right."

Before long the cartridges were distributed and all the soldiers were suited up. Even the wounded were fully helmeted for their protection.

The lieutenant stood by the door to the pod. "Ready men!? It's time to change the tune of this battle. It's time to win this war and take back our planet! Are you with me?!" he yelled.

The platoon cheered back, "Booyah!"

The lieutenant riled them up again, "Are we human, or are we dancer!?"

The men yelled back with adrenaline fueled cheers, "Human!"

"Let's Rock! Roll out!"

The door was flung open and the men poured out. Not a one of them would leap or pirouette that day.

This story has a theme song

Time to allocate

2014-04-25T10:30:00.004-07:00

Time is the scarcest resource we have. Much of it is filled with necessary actions: work, sleep, exercise, eat, travel. Living in today's modern society, however, we have more time left over, after we've completed the absolute necessities, than any generation before us. What should we do with that time?

I'm not talking about the ability to take awesome vacations, or even trips on the weekends. I'm talking about the few hours each of us finds, each day to allocate to activities of our own choosing. Let call it play time.

Now, play time by itself is also a necessity of a healthy life. If deprived of all play one begins to lose mental stability. Finding activities that we enjoy and spending time doing them is critical to our well-being.

Dividing our daily time, and allocating some to each area of life is a life skill that children need to start learning, and that adults need to master. But it's one of the hardest things to do.

We need to work enough to support ourselves, but not too much.
We need to sleep and exercise enough to stay physically healthy, but not too much.
We need to play enough to stay mentally healthy, but not too much.

My final point of this blog is concerning play time. What is the best way to play? Well, that is going to be different for each person.

For the sake of illustration let's take a two hour play session on a Wednesday night, for a median aged adult living in any first-world developed nation. This adult has only two hours before they have decided they want to go to bed in order to get enough sleep, so that they can do well at their work the next day. This is an adult that is trying to correctly allocate their time in life.

Would it be ok for this person to spend two hours watching Downton Abbey? How about a two hour movie on Netflix? What about a football game they DVRed the other day? What about reading a novel? How about playing Minecraft? Watching YouTube? Browsing their favorite internet websites? Sewing a blanket? Making cookies? Doing a puzzle? Playing a board game?...

You see how I could go on and on. There are all kinds of hidden benefits/detractions to every activity of course, and those should be taken into account. For example is it better that someone watches a gruesome murderous cop-drama on television, or that they watch Nova on PBS? That is for each person to decide. (Nova is better).

So that about sums it up. Use your time wisely. Give each activity as correct an assessment as you can.

Oh, and don't waste your time on cop-dramas. Seriously folks, haven't we seen enough of that genre already!? (I'm kidding! But seriously, they're not for me.)

A better way to work

2014-04-11T10:37:00.003-07:00

I've started using public transportation to get to work every day. On good days I bicycle 15 minutes to the train station, take my bicycle on the train, then finish off the trip from the station near my work with another quick 5-10 minute bike ride. On bad weather days I can substitute the non-train legs of the route with porting my bicycle in my truck and taking the bus. Either way, I'm not driving on the freeway.

Commuting this way has changed my life for the better to such a great degree, that I'm actually brushing off over a year's worth of dust from the old blog to write about it.

Where I live, let's call it suburban America, public transportation hasn't really been a great option for a long time. 99.5% of commuters don't use it. (That's a made up statistic, but it can't be too far from the truth.)

Making public transit work in suburban America is a challenge. Some of the reasons people prefer driving over public transit include: time, energy, cost, and image.

Allow me to discuss the pros and cons of each of these ideas, at least in relation to how they affected my decision to stop driving to work.

Time - When I drive to work I can leave at exactly the moment I want. My metallic steed is sitting out in the driveway waiting to take me to work. Compare this to public transit. I have to know what time the bus or train will be at the station, how long it will take me to get to the station, and then calculate when I need to leave to make it on time. Now consider this. Since I've been taking the train to work I have been in zero unforeseen traffic jams. I've been able to arrive to work caught up on my email, (the train has free wi-fi), and I've been able to read most of a novel during my travel time so far. Also, a benefit I didn't realize before I made the switch is that forcing myself to adhere to a schedule actually forces me to keep better hours for my daily routine. I used to get to work pretty late some days because I knew I could leave whenever I wanted. Also, I used to stay at work pretty late, perhaps unnecessarily some days, because I had no set time I had to leave, and there is always something more that can be accomplished. My conclusion is, while it does take me a bit longer to get to work, my overall time away from home, wife, and kids, hasn't gone up. In fact, I'd guess it's actually gone down.

Energy - I can hop into my car right in front of my house and drive it to within 100 feet of my office building. Compare this to public transit. Pedaling a bicycle, standing at a train station, walking for pete's sake, these obviously require more energy than driving to work. Now consider this. Those are amazing things to do! I struggle to get enough physical exercise. I have a desk job and a very busy life. Making exercise part of my daily schedule is perfect for me. My conclusion is, we all need more exercise. Spending a bit more physical energy to get to work is good for me, and for the Earth.

Cost - The cost of gasoline isn't cheap. That alone should turn one away from commuting by car, but unfortunately, using a public transit system that so few of your neighbors use isn't cheap either. The cost of running public transit fluctuates with how full the buses, trams, and trais are. So, when I first looked into the cost of switching, there wasn't much pulling me either way. The monetary costs looked about the same. In actuality, my business got us some great deals on transit passes, and it kicked off this entire change. In general we are so tied to thinking about the bottom line in dollars, however. Now consider this. There are hidden costs in driving to work. Adding extra wear and tear on your vehicle is huge. Automobile emissions contributing to pollution is a big one. My company pass sold me on the cost question, but an unforeseen reduction in cost for me has also been in my stress levels. Until I stopped driving, I didn't fully realize just how stressing it is to commute on the freeway. People drive like prideful, self-absorbed, idiots. I've been able to drastically reduce how much of my life is spent worrying about lane changes, brake lights, tailgaters, police radar guns, aggressive, reckless drivers, and traffic jams. These benefits aren't directly monetary, but they have become a reduction in cost nonetheless.

Image - Driving a cool car, really fast, makes you a cool person, right?. Conversely, some people have a bit of an opinion that riding the bus seems to indicate you're not wealthy enough to afford a car, or that you're a bit of a gomer. This concept of image hasn't played a huge role in my decision to switch to public transit, honestly. Probably because at some point in my life I accepted that there isn't much I can do to not look like a gomer. But, image is quite important to a lot of people, and plays a big role for several of the people I've talked to in their reasons for not taking the bus. Now consider this. We need to stop thinking so much about what other people think of us. Sure, my bike helmet makes me look a little stupid, but only to people who I really have no need to impress. Honestly, I sometimes wonder what the hundreds of people, sitting at the red light, staring at me, the lone bike rider in sight, are thinking as I ride past them on my way home from work. I can't judge, but I can tell you the one thought I usually have about them, "Poor suckers."

In summary, maybe you're not in a situation where you can make public transit work for you. We still have a long way to go. But, I encourage you to at least research what your options are, and consider the hidden benefits to switching.

Forced Insecurity

2013-03-25T10:46:00.001-07:00

I read an article this morning about hacking passwords. It reminded me how easy it actually is to hack them these days. It got me thinking, and a little worried that I hadn't really updated my password(s) in quite a while. I decided to take some time this morning and do a massive password update across as many of the systems I use as I could think of. I had a bit of trepidation when considering such a task, but I felt it needed to be done. Here are some things I considered:

I don't want to create a new password, change all my passwords, then forget the new one. I must be careful.
I don't want to use the same password on any two systems. (A leak on one could mean a leak on them all.) However, I don't want to remember dozens of passwords that are all completely different.
I want a password with many strange characters and numbers that is hard to crack, yet easy enough to remember

So, to address my concerns I came up with the following ideas:

I won't change the password of a password keeper application I use for a month or so. I will document my new password behind my old password, in this password safe application. Once the new password gets set in my mind I will change it.
Rather than come up with one new password I came up with a password algorithm that my brain can use to quickly calculate the password for a given site. That sounds complex, right? It's not really. Unfortunately for you, I can't reveal the algorithm, as a matter of security, but let me explain what I mean as best I can. Basically, for each system a base password I came up with gets modified using some of the name of the system that the password is for. This way the result is unique. I suppose if someone figured out my algorithm it'd be the same as using the same password on all sites, but I like the extra layer of abstraction it provides. Anyway, if that doesn't make sense to you, you're probably not the kind of person that this sort of a system would work for anyway.
To solve this one I simply created a base password with a good combination of capital letters, special characters, and numbers, but as you'll see, this is where the motivation for this blog post arose.

So, I got a new system devised and started the daunting task of logging in to all my websites and various systems and changing their passwords. It went smoothly at first. Google, Facebook, and a couple other "modern" systems all praised me for my 'strong' new password.

Then I started working on some less 'modern' sites. It quickly became apparent that my new strong password was too strong for their systems.

Netflix: I was told here that my password can only be 10 characters long. What this sounds like to me is, "We have no idea what we're doing. Someone once told us large passwords are unsafe. We have no idea why, but screw you."
AT&T: I was told here that I can only use '-' and '_' as special characters. What this sounds like to me is, "Hey password hackers! You can remove all special characters from your cracking algorithms except these two. That should really speed up your brute force hacks! You're welcome!"
Chase: This was the biggest slap in the face yet. First I was told by chase that my username has to have numbers in it...ok, why?. Then I was told my password can contain NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS at all. What is the point of allowing 32 characters of numbers and letters but explicitly denying anything else?!

I've worked in the software industry long enough to have a pretty good idea of where these kinds of illogical security policies are probably coming from, and it's not usually the developers.

Here's what I hear the executives at Chase saying, "We are executives, not smrt people. We don't know what all those funny non-letters and numbers are on our keyboards. We are afraid of them. If someone puts those in their password it probably means they are trying to hack our systems and steal our money." Wow, it's really nice to know the same people who use plain passwords like, "jason", "snuggles", and "volleyball" are the ones in charge of my money. I hope and pray there are software engineers somewhere at that company hitting their heads on their desks and lamenting the executive chains that metaphorically bind their arms behind their backs. If so, maybe they can at least try to keep their system secure in ways that are less...executive-facing.

Anyway, I'm all ranted out for this morning. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go log in to my gmail a few more times so I don't wake up tomorrow completely locked out of my life.

Sweet buttery waste of money

2013-01-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

Popcorn at movie theaters causes me problems. What a joke. I went to a movie yesterday with my honey. I decided to get some popcorn. Suddenly I found myself caught in their theater popcorn trap!

Here's how the monologue went on my "inner-com".

My Mouth: "I love popcorn! Let's get the biggest bucket of popcorn imaginable! Boo-yah! POPCORN!"

My Fitness Center: "Now now, we're watching our weight, and we're going out to eat later. Let's just get a small size."

My Central Command: "OK, looks like this is decision time. Right now we're thinking of buying a small bag of popcorn. Anyone else have anything to consider?"

My Wallet: "Holy schnitzels! $5.50 for a small bag?! What a joke!"

My Mouth: "Hey wallet.. C'mon, it's worth it. By the way, for only $1.50 more you can get the bucket instead of the bag. PLUS it's refillable! You could essentially cut how much you're paying for each mouthful in HALF!"

My Wallet: "I don't like the sound of $7, but $1.50 isn't that much more. You have a point there. If I'm going to buy some popcorn like Central Command said we should optimize our purchase. It makes dollars and sense to buy the cheapest version of this popcorn, Command."

My Fitness Center: "Hold on there guys! We only gave permission for a small bag. Don't let Mouth sneak this in here Command."

My Social Watchdog: "Central command, we're sorry to interrupt, but we've got a situation brewing down here. Apparently there is a long line of people behind us who also want popcorn and we're just standing here at the register staring at the popcorn bags. Can we get a resolution to this quickly please?"

My Undercover Agent: "Man, our wife is looking hot!"

My Central Command: "Can we please keep the radio chatter down right now! We're trying to make a decision here."

My Mouth: "How about this idea! We'll get the bucket since it's only a measly $1.50 more and we won't even refill it. It'll still be less expensive per kernel than the small size."

My Couch Potato: "I'm with mouth! I'm not getting up to get a refill once I've sat down."

My Movie Critic: "Here here! I absolutely HATE missing any of the movie. If we will be getting a refill today I demand we get it before the movie actually starts."

My Wallet: "I still don't like that idea Mouth. Not getting a free refill when one is entitled to us is just wrong."

My Cheapskate Redneck: "Hey guys! What if we got the bucket, and only ate it once, then saved the bucket until next time we come to a movie and get the refill that time!"

My Social Watchdog: "No go on that idea! Sorry, we're not poor. While I've got the radio...Central Command? Any day now. The cashier is staring at us!"

My Angry Consumer: "This is such a joke! I can't believe we're paying this much for popcorn in the first place! It probably costs the theater mere cents for those ingredients. I am so ticked they set the pricing like that. They're intentionally trying to steer us toward the more expensive option. I say we abandon the whole idea on PRINCIPLE!

My Social Watchdog: "We can't walk away now! How embarrassing would THAT be!?"

My Communications Center: "Incoming information! We have just been told by the cashier that they have SPECIALS. You can get the bucket of popcorn and two drinks for $15. That is a savings of..."

My Mouth: "Soda pop! Now you're talking! I could really go for some soda right about now."

My Wallet: "NOPE! We're not paying that much. Period. You know how much I paid just to get in this place!?"

My Fitness Center: "Agreed. No soda. We just can't afford all those calories right now."

My Undercover Agent: "I have something to say."

My everyone else: "Quiet you! Not now!"

After an eternity of this...

My Central Command: "OK, OK, quiet down. We've made a decision. We respect all your concerns and appreciate all the hard work you do, ALL OF YOU. Unfortunately you can't all have what you want right now. I'm sorry Mouth. We'll be ordering simply a small bag today. Communications take Wallet and finish this deal so we can get out of here."

My Social Watchdog: "About time!"

Other memorable phrases heard on the "inner-com" the rest of that night:

My Mouth: "Man I wish I had more popcorn!"

My Mouth: "Look at this! EVERYONE else in the whole theater has the bucket size!"

My Social Watchdog: "Should I feel stupid that I didn't buy the most cost effective size??"

My Movie Critic: "Wow, Les Miserables is a good movie."

My Emotional Center: "We're sending the tears to the eye ducts!"

My Manliness: "NO! No tears! Put a hold on the tears!"

A bit later

My Wallet: "Look at all these half-eaten buckets people are leaving behind! Are you glad you listened to me now!?"

My Fitness Center: "I AM!"

Later

My Mouth: "I don't care what ANYONE says. We're eating this whole dang Cafe Rio salad. AND THAT'S FINAL!!"

NCYRTD 2012

2012-09-28T08:06:00.002-07:00

I commemorated NCYRTD 2012 quietly by myself this year as it fell on a Sunday. I felt much rejoicing in memories and thoughts of new and better ringtones. I just couldn't not mention something here to share this with you. May the brotherhood of the Mulberry bush be with you this NCYRTD season.

Greg

The Reduplicative Copula, Peeve #5

2012-03-14T14:49:00.002-07:00

The English language has caught another virus. It has suffered many viruses before, (words like 'ur' come to mind). Fortunately, there are ways to protect the health of your grammar from these linguistic viruses. The first step is to be aware of their existence.

So, today I would like to discuss a most serious virus that medically, er, linguistically goes by the name The Reduplicative Copula. Colloquially it is known as "The double 'is'". Put simply, a reduplicative copula is when a person inserts an unnecessary linking verb, usually 'is', into a sentence. It is best explained by this simple example:

"The problem is is we've run out of tacos."

This sentence has become needlessly verbose and has lost much of its linguistic potency. There are two verbs here. More often than not a sentence that has been infected by this disease can easily be cured simply by removing the superlative 'is'.

"The problem is we've run out of tacos."

This doesn't always restore the potency of the idea back to the sentence, however. Though not always necessary or wanted you can often fix this by removing the beginning clause. Simply say,

"We have a problem. We've run out of tacos." (Now that's potent!)

While studying this phenomenon online I have found that there are times when a double 'is' is grammatically correct. When the subject of your sentence is a dependent clause, such as 'What my point is', then it may be correct to follow the clause with another 'is'.

"What my point is is I really wish we had some tacos."

Though some may call this permissible I personally think I would still call it questionable. I think there are probably always ways you can work around such constructions. How about,

"What I'm trying to say is I really wish we had some tacos!"

In any case, now that you're aware of this concept, stop and listen while you communicate with others. You'll be surprised to find that some people are infected and others are not. Be kind, however, if you feel you must correct them. The fact of the matter is everyone catches a cold sometimes.

Also, can someone please get me some tacos already!?

You say tomato. I say tomato.

2012-02-23T15:21:00.002-08:00

        I met a guy who pronounced his last name differently than I thought it should be pronounced according to its spelling. It bothered me, and it got me thinking. Should someone have the right to dictate how their name is pronounced regardless of spelling? I suppose so. But in severe cases shouldn't that person look at their name and change either its spelling or its pronunciation? I wonder what I would do if I had that problem.

        What is a name after all? Is it firstly the thing in its written form, or is it foremost what people call you verbally? Also, who owns your name? Do you, or does society? It may be argued that people with common names have less ownership over the pronunciation of their name than others. For example, imagine a girl with the name Mary trying to tell you her name is pronounced 'Mar-eye'. Where does she get off right? But that concept blurs quite quickly as you start looking at less common names or some surnames.

        Let's extend these questions to other words that are non-names. Should someone have the right to pronounce any word how they want, regardless of its spelling? If you try hard enough you'll find plenty of people who pronounce things differently than you.

First there are the classics. Words like these:
Creek pronounced 'Crick'
Corral pronounced 'Corr-ale'
Caught pronounced differently than Cot
Coupon pronounced 'Qupon'
Bag pronounced 'Beg'
Chimney pronounced 'Chimbley'
Frosty pronounced 'Frahlsty'
Pull pronounced 'Pool' or 'Pole'
Pillow pronounced 'Pellow'

    What about words that aren't spelled anything like their pronunciations? Bologna or Licorice for example.

I could go on and on. I'm not trying to say all of these are incorrect pronunciations, (although some really are sins against nature). Many just come from local accents.

As I see it there are two extremes in what can be done to rectify these linguistic anomalies.
    1. Change all pronunciations to match the spellings.
    2. Change all spellings to match the most common pronunciations.
Then be sure to mock, ridicule, and fine anyone who deviates from the chosen result. I jest of course.

But really, what should be done about all of this? Should someone change the spelling of their name to avoid confusion? Should someone change the pronunciation of their name to match its spelling? Should we all start saying Licorice as 'Lick-or-ice' or should we all start writing it as 'Lickorish'? I know the answer to these questions: Nothing should be done. It's not important enough. Even though language is so central to who we are, trying to control language too much doesn't seem necessary or feasible. That being said, I implore you to slap anyone that spells the words 'your' or 'you're' as 'ur'.

That is all.

p.s. It just occurred to me that these differences exists because words exist on two planes: the spoken and the written. This problem is even worse in China. Over there you can travel across the country with a sign written in Chinese and everyone literate in Chinese will be able to read and understand it. But if the sign says something like, "Hey everybody! Say the following: [some simple sentence here]." people from any given area of the country that decide to follow your idiotic sign's instructions would end up saying the sentence differently from people in other areas of the country, to the extent that they wouldn't even understand each other. The Chinese share a written language amongst each other, but they don't share a spoken language. This is only possible because of the system of writing they use. It is 'picture' or 'character' based instead of letter and sound based. I find this interesting.

NCYRTD 2011 has arrived!

2011-09-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

Dust off those fake mulberry bushes; It's your favorite day of the year!

As I posted here September 23rd is an awesome holiday (that I created one year ago). It's National Change Your Ringtone Day!

Thankfully, since last year my situation has changed somewhat. I don't currently have to endure anyone's annoying ringtone too often in my life, but I do have a couple of cell phones in mind that could used some holiday cheer.

So, please, take the virtues of this wonderful holiday with you, celebrate the bountiful givingness of brotherhood and change you're ringtone!

A quick thought about violent murder

2011-06-03T23:23:00.000-07:00

I sat down this evening and turned on the television. This may sound quite commonplace, but I assure you it is a rare occasion. I was really only wasting time before my wife could join me to watch a movie. I started at the bottom of the proverbial 'dial' with channel 2, CBS.

The first thing I was faced with was a woman slapping a man across the face. Without a word of dialog the man returned her the favor, only he used a knife-in-the-stomach approach. My attention was captured now. The man pondered on his actions for a moment, then violently plunged the knife several more times into the woman. As she fell to the ground he let out a guttural scream, a roar of victory, frosted with anger and madness. At this point I was appalled. I checked the info to see what horrible show had so fiercely slashed its way into my peaceful evening, and wasn't too surprised to see the letters CSI decorated by some other words or names that I don't think I bothered to read.

I changed the channel, feeling confused and awe-struck by what we as a people have become comfortable with having on our televisions.

Things started improving. After a swerve around some reality television I found myself on channel 11 PBS. I had seen this show before. It was the cast of Les Miserables singing the music of the musical. It was beautiful. I've loved the music of Les Miserable for years. I found it hard to turn away from those hopeful french revolutionaries when it was time to start our movie.

The movie we watched was, Amazing Grace (2006). It's about William Wilberforce, a politician who lived in 19th century Great Britain who worked tirelessly to abolish the slave trade. I found it quite good, and quite inspiring, (albeit undoubtedly a little slow for many who regularly feast on high-speed car chases and stabby murders). It was all about the few in political power at that time who believed in what was right, and their fight to stand up for it. I recommend it to all 3 of you that read my blog.

So what ties my 30 seconds of disgust and my two hours of inspiration together? Well, as Les Miserables and Amazing Grace were bringing me beauty, strength, hope, and inspiration, I couldn't help but think about all those people out there who were still on channel 2. How many of my fellow Americans perhaps experienced the same feelings of revile that I had experienced while watching "CSI whatever", but confused that feeling of abhorrence for a feeling of 'entertainment', and stuck around to see how many more people would be cut open, and how many snide and witty remarks the cops could come up with? Well, judging by how many of those shows exist I'm willing to say a lot, far too many.

We can't do that people. You are what you eat, both physically AND mentally.

Serendipitous Bearing

2011-03-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

I was playing with some magnet balls at work today. Magnet balls love to collect into hexagons. It probably has something to do with there being 360° in a circle, which is easily divided by 6, yada, yada. So I made the shape seen here:

Then I realize that my wedding ring fits right inside the middle hole. The fit is so perfect that the rounded edge of my wedding ring pushes into the gap left by the two layers of balls. The ring doesn't fall out.

Well, it doesn't take me long to realize just how sturdy the fit is and that I can spin the magnet balls around using my ring as a sort of bearing. How cool is that!

Here's the video:

The House of Code

2011-03-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

Good software engineering is a lot like building a house.

My Dad has worked his entire adult life in the construction business. I've had the great opportunity over the years to learn a thing or two about building a house from helping him at work, and having him help me finish my basement. A long time ago I asked him why he chose the profession that he did. His answer was that he likes to create things. He gets pleasure out of making something useful. He can literally start with a blueprint and a bunch of raw materials and end up with something amazing that you can get all kinds of use out of.

This is how I'm a lot like my Dad. I like to create. I find software engineering the most fulfilling when I am creating something useful.

Fairly often my friends and I at work use the analogy that building software is a lot like building a house. We usually bring it up in an attempt to illustrate to one another how messed up the processes we work and live with are. Here are some examples:

When we're told to rip out work that we have done because it's actually supposed to be done a different way, yet the reason we didn't build it that way to begin with was because of a lack of proper architecture and designs we say things like, "Can you imagine if we were building a house and they didn't give us any blueprints? Then part way through construction they decide they want a bigger garage and a basement. Who builds a house that way?"

Just because the work we do doesn't always create a physical result, it doesn't mean doing things wrong the first time doesn't cost anyone anything. There is value in proper designs.

Or how about this one:

When we're told to spend time making the UI look pretty for an upcoming demo, even though the underlying features aren't working correctly, we say things like, "Doesn't it feel like we're putting up the drywall, mud, tape, and paint before we actually finish the plumbing and electrical, just so the buyer can walk through the place on a certain day and feel good about our progress?"

If you give the 'buyer' the wrong impression of the progress of your project, you're hurting hurting the buyer by driving up the cost of construction, and you're hurting yourself by possibly creating some late nights of work to catch up to where you said you were.

Today our analogy was further extended. Recently it has been the job of mine and of a coworker to learn about a code project that we had nothing to do with building. We are supposed to be learning as much as we can about it to hopefully reuse it in a new project we are beginning. If you've ever tried undertaking such a task, (adopting someone elses code), you might understand where we're coming from when we say things like, "Man, it's like we knocked down a house across town and now we're trying to use all the parts on this new construction project." Or, "Man, it feels like we're moving into a brand new house but we don't get to decorate it how we want. Instead we've been given a moving truck of some other family's stuff, and we have to sort through box after box and decide which of the toys and which tools we actually want and which should be tossed in the trash."

It's time consuming and it hardly feels fun like creating should.

Don't get me wrong. Code reuse is great. It's even greater in principle. In reality, it takes a lot more effort to sort through someone else's stuff to find the things they have that are of real value. There are, of course, things that can be done to minimize the pain, but I don't think I'll go into that. Instead, I encourage you to start your own blog, take what I've written here, strip out the good words and phrases, and create a post of your own.

September 23rd is National Change Your Ringtone Day!

2010-09-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Happy holiday everyone. Today is National Change Your Ring Tone Day!

Please change your cell phone's ring tone. Feel free to tell your coworkers how tired you are of hearing their inane ring tones blaring through the office over and over every day. Don't take offense if someone tells you that they hate your ring tone. Just change it in the spirit of the holiday and do a merry jig!

It's a holiday where we celebrate giving (give me a break from your cellphone please.)

It's a holiday to celebrate bounty (there are plenty of other sounds you could pick from)

It's a holiday to celebrate the brotherhood of society (you will tolerate my complaints about your phone without giving offense.)

So get out the candle apps and gather 'round the mulberry bushes, for it's NCYRTD time!

Buzz Buzz

2010-04-27T14:32:00.001-07:00

Buzz Buzz!

My adventure in game programming

2010-02-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

I am a web developer by profession. As such, I spend my days programming in mostly javascript, c#, and asp.net. I sometimes pick up side projects, either to make a little extra dough, or just to try something new. A year ago I decided I wanted to try writing a game just for the fun and experience of it. I somewhat haphazardly chose to write it in c++ on my Linux box with SDL for the graphics. I chose c++ mostly because I wanted to beef up my experience in what a lot of people consider to be the bread and butter of programming languages, albeit a bit moldy is the loaf.

If I recall I worked on the application for only a couple of months, for several nights a week, for a few hours a night. Then one day I simply lost interest and put the project aside. I felt like I'd learned what I set out to learn. I was proud of what I'd made, having started from scratch, and I knew that any return on any future investment wouldn't really be of much value to me.

Then today, a year later, I opened up the project to see if I wanted to pick it back up and...well...I don't. And I don't think I ever will. :)

However, I am still proud of it, and find it a bit entertaining to look at so I decided to log my efforts here and put the project to rest.

So here are some screen-shots of the game and the features that I got implemented. Enjoy :)

(Make sure to click images for larger versions)

The first image here shows the beginning of the game. Your character is the little guy in red and the guys in yellow are a couple of NPCs. Movement was 8-directional with the arrow keys or a,s,w,d. The NPCs would walk around the board in random patterns. The graphics were all sprite based and when characters would move they would animate (arms and legs would swing, etc.) You can see here a blue circle under one of the NPCs. This was the targeting circle that would appear if you approached someone.

In this next image you can see more of the map. There were also three trees on the map as you can see. Also, in this image you can see one tree rendered transparently since the avatar has walked partly behind it. Each object had a separate collision box vs. its rendered image, thus allowing you to walk behind trees and people rather than crashing into the tops of them. Also, note here that the NPCs have each gone on a little journey randomly around the map.

This next picture is to illustrate the dialog system I had setup. When you got close to a character, and got the blue targeting circle on them, you could push space to pop open the actions menu. I do want to mention here that these graphics really suck. I didn't want to spend too much time drawing graphics, although I did spend a lot of time even on what you see here. Having started from scratch I had to create graphics for every pixel I wanted to blit onto the screen, even the menu buttons and menu borders.

Choosing 'talk' would obviously start a dialog. Here you can see that this NPC is one of the boring kind who simply tells you his message and leaves it at that. This one obviously thinks he's Obi-wan Kenobi. Here you can see the message box that I created. The game had support for full screen and adjustable size windowed mode so this message box had logic for resizing and calculating where in long messages to add text wrapping, as you can see in the next screen shot.

The next NPC was a little more interesting to talk to. His dialog utilized the conditional dialog system as well as the quest and task system I had implemented. Also, his conversation is what led my coworkers to come to refer to my project as "Johnny Appleseed and the Quest for Narnia", which I never fully understood nor endorsed. :) This first screen of dialog served as my test for the word wrapping features I just mentioned.

The next screen of dialog gave you a choice of where you wanted to go in the conversation. You can reassure this poor man that he is not crazy, or you can tell him how it is and let him know that he is quite insane. And of course, who wouldn't choose the later option.

You can see that choosing that option moves you into a certain direction in the conversation.

Unfortunately for you, this poor guy is a persistent one and he loops back on to the same question until you tell him he's not a crazy old coot.

At which point, the quest associated with him is completed in memory and he will forever more simply thank you for telling him he isn't crazy.

Which of course leaves us no option but to kill him. Which is great for us since it's a great segue to the battle system I had created!

When you chose yes to that attack question it would teleport you to a battle map as seen here. Battle was intended to be turn based. The blue circle around your character represented how far you would walk during your turn. I had plans to eventually include a red circle that would get smaller the farther you traveled to illustrate your attack getting weaker since moving and attacking would be less effective then attacking a close opponent.

This picture shows the battle after a turn or so. You can see the NPC has advanced on my position and I have moved a bit. Also you can see the actions menu allowing me to end my turn in battle.

Here the fighting ensues. You'll notice even during battle you have the chance to talk to your enemy and try to sway the outcome, perhaps by means of your charismatic ways. Most likely this guy would just, once again, thank you for saying he wasn't crazy, so let's get stabby.

And he is no longer crazy.

And what fun would killing be in an RPG if you didn't get to loot your victim afterward? No fun, that's what.

And lo and behold, Johnny Appleseed had what else upon his person?! but a tree. (Which also happened to be the only game object I'd created at the time, but it worked in the creation of an inventory system.)

Once battle was over you could choose, 'exit battle', and return to the main map, but NOTE! our poor NPC remains dead and stationary.

It was about at this point in development I started to get tired of the project. I had just finished the new inventory system, but there was no way to see what you had. I had just finished the HP system, but there was no way to see how much HP you had. You could loot your victims, but you had no way to equip the trees they may have had on them. I created a few pop out panels that would serve to these ends, but never quite completed them.

First is the character panel where you would see your stats.

Next is the inventory panel where you would see what you had, and be able to equip things.

And finally is the class panel where you could see your progression through the various classes I had come up with. The idea was that eventually you would complete quests that would move your character up a different path of either magic or physical abilities.

Once I got these panels I think the task of hooking them up was so mentally daunting that it quashed my remaining desires to work on the game. That combined with the thought of creating and coding various quests, and tasks, and worlds, and monsters, and all the many many things I'd need to make the game worth playing...yeah. I was overwhelmed.

So there it remains today. Come on over if you want to play it! :) If anyone wants the source code you can email me and I'll open source it for your benefit, lol.

They're back!

2009-09-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

Today my wife found me some Black Pepper Jack Doritos! They are my favorite flavor of all time. I've been missing them since they mysteriously stopped making them a few years ago. Not that it was the end of the world to not have my favorite flavor, but it sure is a nice surprise. :)

If you haven't tried them now's your chance! They're most definitely not going to be around forever so get them while they're hot!...or peppery rather.

Our flock

2009-06-04T17:35:00.000-07:00

So our bird feeder has attracted quite a flock of birds this year. We've noticed some yellow-headed blackbirds, (that's their actual name AND description), hanging around that we've never seen in previous years. I just took this picture of 7 at one time, with a couple of house sparrows.

Zoom and Enhance, Peeve #4

2009-04-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

I hate when movies and/or television shows try to be true to life then do something completely fake. I suppose each show has its own dosage of real to fake. On one side of the spectrum you have sci-fi, fantasy, and sometimes comedy and action shows basing their worth entirely on being set in a fake world or about characters with fake abilities (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dumb and Dumber, even the Bourne movies) and these movies are perfectly acceptable. On the other end of the spectrum you have shows that adhere to reality in a fictitious story or are even based on true stories (Apollo 13, Miracle, Remember the Titans), and I also enjoy these genres.

The problem for me comes when a show tries to swing to the reality side of things and then does something totally fake just to make the story work. For a case-in-point, and as the subject of this "peeve", I will refer to the "zoom and enhance" ploy that so many shows have utilized in the past. You see this mostly in FBI/CSI thriller shows. The good guys find that they have a photo containing a shot of their suspect in the background, but he's too blurry and too small to see. Inevitably some straight-faced detective states, "Johnson (the smart and nerdy computer guy), zoom and enhance this area for me!" Then you see on screen the image zoomed in and the blur magically being removed in a slow de-pixelated way. What is the technician doing here? Where is he getting the data to add more pixels into the image in the correct spots?

FAKE! I say. FAKE!

Most probably the data for the part of the image they're enhancing doesn't exist in the file they're viewing. Images don't have infinite resolution. If the image did happen to be taken with a high enough resolution to contain sufficient data to show the suspects face you most definitely wouldn't have to enhance it after you zoomed it. That's what makes me so annoyed with the zoom and enhance. Why don't they just say, "zoom in on this section of the image." and leave us thinking an awesome camera must have been used to take the picture.

oh well. I'll leave it at that. I'm feeling all ranted out now. ahhhh.

Pay attention!

2009-04-02T10:41:00.001-07:00

Hey little girl! You're spilling your salt all over!

Also, you're not dressed appropriately for rainy weather. The question is, who is failing here? The girl, the girl's mother, or the salt company's marketing department?? Hmm??? Hmm??

Beware of miscommunication in this new digital age!

2009-03-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

Everyone communicates. It's a huge part of life. Being the complex creatures that we are, we communicate in many different ways, from body language, to speech, to the written word. Each form has its own benefits and challenges. The form of communication that has been on my mind as of late is written communication, and specifically the problems that it can cause.

People have used written communication for years and years and have suffered from the same problems of written communication of which I am speaking, but I think the problem has been exacerbated as of late as more and more of our conversations move away from the telephone or the face-to-face dialog and onto the Internet.

Some real-life examples of what I'm talking about.

I saw on a forum I regularly read where one writer put forth his opinion on a certain matter. A second writer then made a subsequent post that was of a joking or parody type nature not entirely related to the first post. The first writer, probably in anticipation of how his communique would be received, understood the second's message to be directed at him, failed to see that the second writer's post was a joke, and took offense. This type of thing happens all the time. (Luckily in this case they figured it out and resolved it as adults)

The problem lies in the letters. Letters don't carry intonation. When you're discussing an issue with someone face-to-face you can notice if their face scrunches up at something you say, and if you don't understand why it did so, you can pry into their thoughts, fix any existing misunderstanding that may have occurred and continue with your dialog. However, If you email me and tell me an idea, and as a reply I write back, "nice idea. Boy, I wish I'd thought of that earlier." It is sometimes difficult to know whether I'm saying, "duh, everyone knows that, you're not saying anything new." or if I'm really sincere in my response. But since the communication is asynchronous there is no way for me to notice the misunderstanding and correct it.

I was going to think up some suggestions for working around this issue, but then I found this website that does a really good job of it. You can read more on this topic there if you care.

All I'm going to add to it is this: Don't let yourself misunderstand. If someone writes something to you that you find offensive, call them and talk about it. We can't forget the value there is in a little face-to-face dialog. I've seen relationships between people melt down because one side was unwilling to just talk about some misunderstanding that came through email. We can't let that happen people.

lol-pic

2009-01-22T12:52:00.001-08:00

Pick your caption:

"I know that swat team is around here somewhere!"

"These aren't the best seats in the theatre! That Yuri has scammed me again!"

"Frank, if those protesters get any closer I'm going to turn this assault-granny loose I swear!"

Gmail Themes!

2008-11-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

I just opened up my gmail and got a notification that they now have a feature to change the themes. I've checked it out a little and must say it looks really awesome. The themes change right before your eyes as you click on them in all the ajax/javascript/glory that is Google. Some of the themes ask you for your location. They appear to change based on where you say you are. For example, there is a beach theme that changed to a night time beach scene when I told it I was in Spain.

Here's a small image of the theme I've settled on for now.

I'm sure I'll change it later..perhaps I'll try out the one called 'Terminal' soon! I am a Linux user after all. :)