Tidbits

Government - Sadly, it seems to be true that the "liberal" democrats are really no different than the "conservative" republicans when it comes to issues of liberties and interference of the private lives of American citizens. Obama's administration is happily continuing the Bush precedent of invasively monitoring US citizens in direct violation of the principles and laws under which this country was established. Democrats also continue to pander to and pay off the various financial behemoths responsible for most of the economic crisis we are experiencing, despite their strong rhetoric of similar behaviour from the Republicans just a year ago, as they wound their pre-election hysteria to an all-time high. For myself, I was hoping that the cost of Democratic leadership (which was always going to be more debt and higher taxes for all, despite the repeated assurances to the contrary) would be at least nominally offset by an increase, or at least some protection of, the remaining freedoms we have. Unfortunately, it's business as usual in Washington, with both sides continuing the decades old practices of cowtowing to big corporations while pushing their financial or power motivated agendas designed only to benefit themselves. I wish I could say I was surprised.

Writing - I'm finding myself wishing I was better able to recall and organize my memories of the past. While I'm sure that I have a lot of experiences which would be great fodder for fictional character inspiration or non-fictional recollection, sitting down and attempting to pull them from thin air has been surprisingly difficult. Pictures help with general memories but don't seem to do much for remembering specific details that would be useful for use in writing. Video or voice recording may provide more utility but would likely carry their own challenges in terms of acquiring, storing and organizing in a manner which would keep that utility. It's a problem in need of a solution, a sci-fi envisioned solution such as that seen in Strange Days or Total Recall would probably be of some interest, at least to me.

Grandchild - I feel like I should feel older now that I'm technically a grandfather and I keep waiting for it to arrive but never feeling like it has. I guess it's not dissimilar to the feelings I had when turning 21 and feeling like I should feel like an adult but not really feeling any different than 16 or 18 or 20.. Maybe it's just me.

Counseling - I haven't seen my VA counselor for about a month now, due to scheduling issues, vacations etc and even our family counselor was out last week, so the opportunities for professional release have been few. (That just sounds wrong doesn't it, like I'm visiting a lady of the night or something.) I've heard some people use their writing to release pent-up stresses and emotions, to me it seems like that's just asking for someone to infer something incorrectly and just add to the whole stress scene. Then again, I am bothering to spend the time writing these blog entries, which have yet to see even a single visitor, at least according to Google Analytics, so I had better hope there is some sort of therapeutic benefit or I'm sure wasting a lot of time. Some people would probably be better off keeping their thoughts to themself I'm sure, maybe I fit into that category.

But hey, I could be wrong.

Today's post brought to you by Lenny, Doug and the letter...

-Z

This is your brain on.. nothing?

Have you ever noticed that the brain is a contrary beast or it just me? Personally, I find that when I'm actively sitting and trying to think of something, e.g. writing a blog post, working on my book, coming up with a solution to a complex technical problem, I can sit for hours and draw a total blank. Sometimes I try to force the issue by intentionally focusing on something entirely unrelated, hit the refresh on Twitter/Facebook, read online news in Google Reader, play a quick web game, read a chapter in a book, etc. For some reason, it rarely seems to have the desired consequence, it's as if my brain knows what I'm trying to do and by damn it's not falling for that one again!

Conversely, how often when I'm trying to just sit and relax and unwind or fall asleep for the evening and I'm sitting trying to completely empty my mind does THAT actually happen? Not much! It seems like my brain sits up and says, "Rest!? Why would I want to do that? Let's think about all those things that you need to do! Your book isn't done yet, let's go Mister! Oh yeah, you need to finish these 10 things at work. Don't forget you have to pay your Comcast bill."

Not only that, when the old brain does come up with the brilliant solution to just about any complex problem, it's always at the worst time humanly (mentally?) possible. Brain just laughs at me. "You want to figure out how to policy route source NAT'd traffic in an asymetric routing scenario? Ok sure, let me help you with that, one sec." Brain then proceeds to wait until I'm driving frantically to a family counseling appointment, trying to be on time and simultaneously refereeing the 3 different arguments between the kids happening in the back seat, then KABLAM, Brain unloads. "What you want to do is create a dynamic access-list bound to the subinterface of the inside ethernet and turn on the IP inspect for IP option 7, hey stupid, are you writing this down, I'm not going to repeat myself!" I'm like, "Can't we just discuss this later?" "No chance sir, you've missed the opportunity, better luck next time."

They say that science only understands a tiny amount of how the brain operates and what causes it to respond the way it does. I have a theory. I think all of our brains are still stuck in the terrible twos and are just trying to be as difficult as possible. But then, maybe it's just me ;)

Today's post is brought to you by the number 3.141592653589793238462643383279 and the letter 464B

Social Networking Hangover

I find that I'm getting some great utility from both Twitter and Facebook these days. On Facebook, I have reconnected with friends I haven't talked to in years and have been enjoying reading some of the goings on of those family and friends. Twitter has been a fun way to get a glimpse into the lives of people I'd otherwise probably never otherwise get to see, including celebrities like Firefly's Nathan Fillion or Dollhouse's Eliza Dushku, nerd heroes such as Rain Wilson (who incidentally has WAY too much free time) or Wil Wheaton, and even favorite authors such as John Scalzi and Brandon Sanderson. People can post short SMS style updates with a quick thought or a quick URL without a lot of effort or drama, when it's just not worth the effort of creating a blog entry or mass e-mail. That's not to say that they are without their shortfalls, which I'm going to proceed to point out and complain about because, honestly, isn't having a place to complain about random crap really one of the key benefits of even maintaining a blog?

Let's start with Facebook. Applications. Let me say that again:

A P P L I C A T I O N S

I can sum up my thoughts on applications in general with a single word, "why?" It seems like everytime I open Facebook I have at least one visible request for Bob's SuperSecret Monkey Mafia, Jim's Fantasy Banana Squad, or some random quiz "What flower from Martha Stewart's Garden Are You?". And if I click the handy "See All Requests" button I can see "Rainy Garden City Housing Fun" or "My favorite kind of stone to lick after eating bugs" and fifty other application requests, all wanting my attention and time. What is the carrot they dangle juicily in front of me? Why the chance to send the pain along to thiry of my other friends, as if that somehow makes it hurt less, and a chance to hear some made up nonsense about myself, "you like to drink grape cool-aid when it rains". Many of these applications even reward you for inflicting this pain on your friends, "You've passed our crap application to 20 friends, here's a free virtual cucumber!!! Check back when you hit 50 for your free virtual apple!". Even more insulting, many of the applications put their virtual bullshit rewards in the form of real world recognizable items, as if that somehow makes them more tangible. "You just bought a 82" Panasonic 1080p LCD television for your Hobbit Villa for the cost of selling out 100 of your Facebook Friends!". Oh boy! Now I can close my eyes and watch my favorite shows on my imaginary, virtual LDC television! Hey, wait a minute, that kinda sounds like something else, what could it be, oh yeah, a book, except without any actual content! Puhhhleeease. I'd really like an opt out of every application option or an ignore all application requests setting.

Don't think Twitter will escape unscathed either! Why is it that I have the choice between the two extremes of either:

1. Not letting anyone follow me on Twitter (i.e. get my updates)
2. Letting anyone in the universe follow me, including the many automated spambots who are just trying to sell me the next great real-estate deal or a method to pay zero taxes.

How about if Twitter were to implement some anti-bot technology? It seems like nearly every single other site in existence is able to implement some type of anti-bot system, even if it's just a basic captcha. I don't mind if an actual person wants to follow me on Twitter, I may not understand it since I usually don't have all that much to say, but I don't mind. Having said that, it's pretty damn irritating that every time I get a new follower I have to click on their username and review their updates to see if they are a spambot or an actual person.

I'm sure MySpace is feeling pretty left out about now, so let me just mention that I still think MySpace is the biggest crap vortex on the planet, they seem to account for a large portion of the Internet's malware quotient as well as sexual predators galore. MySpace is a huge waste of bandwidth and I'd be very the opposite of upset if they just happened to suffer X number of simultaneous drive failures, where X is the total number of drives they employ, and their backup system was found to be inoperational.

I have been enjoying GoodReads, which seems to be a great way to keep track of what books you have read or want to read, as well as share your X out of 5 star ratings and even more comprehensive reviews of what you've read and enjoyed, or not. I'm on there as Ryshon.remove.everything.between.the.first.dot.and.the.at.symbol@gmail.com if you'd like to checkout my reads/reviews and/or friend me if you decide to sign up.

Today's update has been brought to you by the letter:

-Z

The return

After ignoring the blog for about the last four years, I have decided that I'll start using it again. I'm starting fresh with a new template and look/feel for it, but I decided to keep a few of the old posts around.

-Z

To kill a mocking birdman.

Interesting article by a wired reporter who spent four days digging for tidbits at the ISS World Conference, a surveillance trade show for law enforcement, intelligence types and government officials who officially don't exist. There are some valid points spread throughout the article, not the least of which is that US government is more likely to abuse the technologies offered at the show than many of the more obvious suspects, such as various Middle East governments, and that this type of technology really won't catch the skilled technology users so often pundited as the biggest threat, but only the unskilled common criminal. Being familiar with the technical deficiency of most technological users, I'd have to say I completely agree with the second point..

-Z