All the nerds (or former nerds) out there read this by Paul Graham, nerd and tech evangelist. (No, it’s not programming gobblydygook…READ it!) I don’t particularly like his writing style, nor his edification of the ’nerd’ as the proto-adult who misunderstands the endgame known as ‘popularity’, but his quotable quotes are amazing: Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better. When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I’ve read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks. ...

Brilliant Dilbert-ness: PHB: “My keyboard is broken. It only types asterisks for passwords.” Dogbert’s tech support: “Try changing your password to five asterisks.” (As an aside, I’m impressed our beloved PHB knew that those starry things were ‘asterisks’.)

I so don’t enjoy coming-in to work these days…same old problems, never fixed, same annoying people I’m forced to deal with. Same team lead who couldn’t lead his way out of a bag, but who’s emasculated enough by managment just to make sure he can’t. Same development processes spread across 10 timezones. Same lousy product with quality that only get worse. Same office with too much fluorescent light, too much chatter, too many people who ENJOY staying until 10 pm, so that they feel it’s necessary to spend three hours a day jawing. ...

Labor Day: I’m celebrating Labor Day by doing absolutely no labor. Today or yesterday: “I did nothing..and it was everything I thought it could be” Well, nothing is a bit of exaggeration. I’ve: Read Joel Spolsky’s latest tome on the ins and outs of software development. It’s hugely common-sense work written by a gay former Israel paratrooper who moved to this country, graduated from Yale, worked on Microsoft Excel for 3 years, and now runs his own for-profit, closed-source (GASP!) software company in New York. ...

I’m well and truly stuck on this problem, so might as well blog for a sec… My MINI stinks as a long-distance cruiser (something I do more and more these days, it seems), so I’m coming-up with requirements for an interstate demon: Must haves: * Room for 4 adults, plus baggage for two + kids * Deep overdrive. I don’t want to be turning 4k rpm @ 80mph. * Resonably good handling * over 25 mpg on REGULAR gas (over 30 would be preferable) * low insurance costs * good safety record * cloth seats ...

Stuck at work tonight until at least 6:30, so why not blog a bit? Reality has hit me pretty hard since returning from my vacation…work has been a succession of 10 hour days followed by exhaustion. Yeah, I know…wah, wah, wah…everyone has to work. I accept that. Here’s the thing: The one thing you fight a losing battle against in software development is entropy. No matter how brilliant the inital design, if you keep adding things to a given system, eventually you must throw the whole thing out. It’s sheer thermodynamics–systems tend to move from order to disorder. As you get further and further down that slide, it requires more and more effort to maintain the status quo. ...

If you’re on broadband, here’s a 10 meg Quicktime of our trip: Movie

travelogue i’ve gotten ahead of myself, as usual, delving into the specific without giving my reader the outline. Our trip’s framework: Wednesday the 25th We left Louisville in my MINI for our non-stop flight out of Indianapolis. Whitney’s a bad flyer even under the best of circumstances, but her months of nightmares about our doom on our flight to Denver had her on a razor’s edge the whole day. Two hops to Tampa earlier in the year had nearly undone her, so I found a non-stop flight to Denver on upstart Frontier airlines. A discount carrier like Southwest or JetBlue, Frontier has new Airbus A318/319 planes with only coach-class seats. I was only impressed with their service, professionalism, and price. ...

Imagine a place with the best water you’ve ever tasted, not bottled, but flowing from every tap. Imagine air, crisp and devoid of humditity. Imagine the most scenic vistas imaginable, of mountains and wildlife surrounding you in 360 degrees of God’s creation. Imagine all this, and you’ll have Estes Park, Colorado, the place I’ve shared with elk, gray jay’s, fat chipmunks, and my darling for the past few days. Yes, folks, I’ve been on VACATION! Having done the sea-level thing just a few months ago, we decided to try the opposite: Where St. Petersburg is developed, hot, and sea-level, the Rockies are wild, chilly, and relatively untouched. If you like nature at ALL, then go there. ...

Sour grapes, table for one?

I think you’ve hit the nail. I consider myself lib… Argus - Sep 3, 2006 I think you’ve hit the nail. I consider myself liberal and do agree with your description of the different mindsets.

fascinating summary of the liberals -v- conservative perspectives: Red Brains vs. Blue Brains: In my mind, the main difference between liberals and conservatives is a preference for nature or nurture. This ties in to your idea abou the loss of free will. Disclaimer: I consider myself a conservative, athough I think I have a good understanding of how liberals think because a lot of my friends are liberals and I like to talk about politics. I’d love to hear feedback on this idea to see how valid it is. ...

I don’t know if I just have something for women with techno-orange hair, but Run Lola, Run was an amazing movie. Shot in realtime, we experience a frenetic run through the streets of Germany, following the main character as she tries to save her boyfriend from his destiny.

go here and set your faces to stunned (SFW): Mat e a Car

If my splitting headache this morning is any indication, it’s going to rain today. Alot. We had our monthly meeting of the Central Kentucky Region of SCCA yesterday, down at Jim Sawyer’s Bar and Grille, downtown where the old Civic Center shops used to be. These days, it’s mostly known as “That place at Main & Broadway where there’s a Starbucks”. Sawyers is a great place, and the CKR members are great people. Mike Janssen is getting married to his sweetheart on Sept 3rd. There’s an Autocross on Sepetember 5th, so the honeymoon will likely be short. He’s trying to get his performance parts business off-the-ground, and he was trying to sell me some camber plates for my MINI, which would kick me out of stock and land me smack into STS or F Street Prepared, if I decided I still wanted to run on R-compound race tires. ...

Just because what the world really needs is Caffeinated Soap:

For the historically inclined, there’s a wonderful article in this Week’s (8/23) “New Yorker” by Adam Gopnik entitled “The Big One” that gives a magnificent precis of the First World War, current views on its causes and results, and a bit of editorializing about the nihilism of history. World War One was always a mystery to me, with no definite cause, no real “course of battle”, nor any real finish except the British + French exhaustion, Germans suing for peace, and the Russian Revolution. It’s like a three-million-death sideways step in human history, a transition between the Victorian to mechanized age, the time when mankind found-out how horrible war could really be. Americans had known this since the Civil War, of course, but Europe, as ususal, needed remedial classes. ...

I’m reading Evan Thomas’s eponymous biography of John Paul Jones (“Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy”) and came across a passage that reminded me of the phrase in English that I hate most of all: Elders and Betters As in, “Respect your elders and betters,” the corollary to the phrase “Children should be seen and not heard”. I have no problem with the ‘respect your elders’ piece, but ‘betters’ irks me. I hold, and always shall hold, that there is no one in this country intrinsically ‘better’ than anyone else–No lords, laidies, dukes, vicars, or kings, nor pope. ...

Most useless food on the market: Not filling. High in calories. Not healthy. Expensive. I mean, I ate four of the blasted things yesterday…that’s like 600 calories! Ugh…they’re tasty, but ultimately very empty.

The second day of olympics coverage and an interesting conversation with my beloved kept me up WAY past my bedtime, and caused me to be very tardy to work today–9:45. The olympics coverage has been excellent, though for once, I wish I had cable (MSNBC, CNBC, and Bravo) so that I could watch some of the other events. I’d really like to see some of the equestrian stuff, and I’ve heard good things about fencing this year. Matt Fagenbush (sp?), one of my autocross buddies, is a competitive fencer, and after he explained the sport to me (3 blades–foil, epée, and saber), seems like it’d be amazing to watch. ...