Month: September 2008

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And Mariner 1 nosed dived into the ground…

Yup. I’m that guy. The one responsible for the missing hyphen. I’ve been debugging my code. I have a relatively simple action in front of me that is misbehaving. Turns out, I was missing a closing parenthesis. Like Mariner 1, it was a simple mistake with a catastrophic impact…well, nothing blew up on me. I’m just behind schedule for what I wanted to accomplish today.

I’ve always cited the period instead of a comma as causing a space probe to miss its mark but apparently the typo never caused any dreadful results.

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I Support the $700bn Bailout!

Dear Gov’ment, Barack, and John,
I think you are all doing a fine job! Please let the $700,000,000,000 bank bailout pass. You have my full support with one small request. Please ear mark a measly $250k, just a drop in the bucket, for me. My own $250k bank bailout will afford me to clear debts and invest in certain assets to be a far more productive citizen with a greater contribution to the GNP.
Thank you! And keep up the great work!

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Dear Open Source Community

If you write code to make my life better, once you release it into the wild, an example does not count as documentation! If I have to spend as much time deciphering your code as it would have taken for me to write it in the first place, you have failed the community. As an open source developer, 1) test your code, 2) show working example, and 3) document it thoroughly!

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Early Birding It

Productive day ahead! My simple goal today is show results to my client. One of the challenges of freelancing or working remotely is showing results. Sometimes a developer’s time is spent behind the scenes or working through an issue in test files that are isolated from your application. That is how I spent my day yesterday. So at the end of the day, there is nothing to show and if your boss is not in a possible to peek in on you or look over your shoulder than not showing anything is comparable to not working.

Today I rose at 4am, in a jolt. I sprang from bed, sat in the cool air of the morning for a little chanting, bathed and dressed, ate a banana, and got to work. What a great way to start the day!

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Blogfest This Saturday, Calhouns, 6pm

Lissa has announced Blogfest for this coming Saturday! Blogfest is an opportunity for us onliners to meet in real life (irl).

When: Sept 27, 2008 6:00pm until ?
Where: Calhoun’s on Kingston Pike near Pellissipi Pkwy
Who: Bloggers, blog readers, Twitterers, and their significant others, family and friends

Come have a great time getting to know the people you read every day, and put a face to the words.

RSVP: In the comments here, or by emailing me, or Rich

The early Blogfests set a great tone for future gatherings. People of different political philosophies, different religious backgrounds, different economic sectors, etc. all came together just to be social and had great times despite differing views. I think some people have avoided recent blogfests because of fears that political views would clash. Set those aside for the evening and just come have some fun! Lissa has reserved a large room. We can put red on one side and blue on the other.

This is not a Barcamp. This is simply a social gathering. Come one, come all!

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Didn’t Make Michael’s List

I suck! (concisely)

Anecdotal is out. Concise clarity is in. In these days of the Internet Attention Span, if you don’t get me in one sentence – two tops – then I’m gone. [Source, No Silence Here, Some blogs I like, and why teachers should be using them]

I’m going to have to stay on the outs. One of my favorite movie quotes is "Looks like Walt Disney threw up!" That’s Burt Reynold’s character Sonny Lawson in the movie The End after trying to commit suicide by taking a fist full of colorful pills, chasing them with a glass of milk and immediately spitting the whole concoction back on the glass topped coffee table. (and no, I won’t remember your name in two weeks). I imagine that quote reflects how many people probably see Reality Me. It’s like Being John Malkovich but you are in my head. This blog is not a news blog or a tech blog; it is anecdotal! Call it a character study if you like. News, tech, politics and such slip in, and sometime dominate the landscape, but all in all, Reality Me is a collection of my insights and my adventures that I share for prosperity, your pleasure, and my fun.

Oh, and according to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008, I’m about 93,000 hits a month away from not sucking.

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Stand up Dave, Lose the election

McCain canceled on David Letterman at the last minute to rush to Washington in order to solve our economic crisis but stopped for an interview with Katie Couric first. Dave was less than thrilled and less than complimentary.

Update 25Sept2008 8:20am: Wow! When I posted that video there were 300 views and 125 comments. Now there are 403,936 views and 985 comments! That’s incredible.

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October 1st martial law begins in the United States

First off, isn’t civil unrest and crowd control part of the duty of the National Guard and the local police?

The Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. [0:36-0:41]

Does an active military unit on US soil sound reasonable to you in the name of national security? Has fear and brainwashing led you to not question your leaders? Watch this next video as people sitting in a park are handcuffed, pepper sprayed, beaten, and arrested and ask yourself if we really need the Army doing crowd control on American soil.


Mass Arrest on Labor Day in the Park RNC from GlassBeadCollective on Vimeo.

The story of the park and the buried tape comes from The Minnesota Independent and Twin Cities Indymedia. Watch a really big version at Blip.tv.

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Bank bailout unnecessary

The bank bailout is unnecessary is Naked Capitalism’s assessment of Bert Ely’s comments from an interview at Institutional Risk Analytics.

A banking industry expert, Bert Ely, who has a stellar track record in predicting crises and calling false alarms says that the banking industry can handle this mess internally and does not need subsidies. [Source, Naked Capitalism, Banking Expert: Bailout Not Necessary, Industry Can Take Losses]

Update: Bailout has been planned for months and The New York Times says the Issue Is Payback, Not Bailout.

How come he gets horsies?

Update 25Sept2008: Billionaire George Soros says Paulson cannot be allowed a blank check.
Update: Ron Paul lectures Bernanke on the flaws of the bailout plan and the hazard of the attempt to fix prices versus letting them correct naturally in the free market.
Update: Newscoma points to another billionaire, Mark Cuban, who is harsh on the bailout. "The bankers that we hope will reflate the economy with loans to the people and companies who need it ARE THE SAME BANKERS THAT GOT US INTO THIS MESS." Watch for comments at No Silence Here.

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Sonny…back in my day…

…if you wanted a random stranger to impregnate you, you had to at least leave the house and let him buy you a couple of beers first.

…In less than two weeks, I will be ovulating, which as everyone should know is primetime for baby making. The problem is that I don’t yet have a partner…I just need some good, hearty seed…I am 26 years old, 5’4″, 115lbs., long brown hair, well, you can see more details in the pic. I have most of a PhD in Biophysics and will be finishing my JD before the child is born… [Source, The Garage Sale Blog Network, My Biological Egg Timer is Ticking, Ticking, Ticking – Ship in a Bottle]

The skeptic in me thinks this is a great way to get some short-term, unqualified traffic to her blog. And of course, I just participated in helping her strategy work if that is the plan. Remember folks, short-term spikes in traffic does not necessarily result in fame, increased ad revenue, or long term readership; it often just causes extra cost in hosting.

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From the mouths of babes

Dad, excited to see Tommy calling from college: "Hello!"
Nothing
Dad: "Hello?"
background noise
Dad: "Tommy, you there?"
Tommy: "Tech support question."
Dad, of course, why else would family call me: "What is it?"
Tommy: "My friend’s computer boots but goes to a blue screen before getting into Windows."
Dad: "Does he have a warranty with someone?"
Tommy: "BestBuy but the nearest one is in Knoxville."
Dad: "Then he needs to find a way to get to Knoxville."
Dad: "Okay. Can you boot into safe mode?"
Tommy: "Same thing happens."
Dad: "Is this a desktop or a laptop?"
Tommy: "A laptop."
Dad: "Has this computer been dropped?"
Tommy: "Well, yeah."
Dad: "Go to BestBuy."