The Evolution of a Programmer

Perhaps it’s an oldy but goodie, but the “Master Programmer” bit really strikes me as being funny.

It’s time for the annual Christmas letter to be written. I just found last years letter, which we didn’t write until after Christmas. We never did end up sending it out. Ah well, it’s never too late for good news from 2003 if you ask me. I’ll have to print on thin paper to avoid stamp problems this year.

Based on the negative reviews of Polar Express I wasn’t looking forward to seeing this movie. It wasn’t my idea of a must see movie for date night. I was not expecting much from this movie going experience.

[I'll put the rest in the extended part of the post, so you can stop reading now if you don't want to read anything potentially spoiling.]

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I have been mulling over this phrase for some time.

Life appears to me to be composed primarily of objects, desires for objects and methods for obtaining the objects. For instance, there is an object called an iPod. If I want an iPod I use some methodology to get one. I may have money for an iPod in which case I exchange money for the iPod. I might not have money for an iPod in which case I would have to save my money or perhaps I would steal one.

The interesting part to me is not the method used for obtaining an object, like an iPod, and it’s not the desire for the object itself, instead it is what I refer to as “the meaning”.

I think about the desire for an object as being inextricably intertwined with the object. You can’t separate them or analyze them properly without changing each in some way. I would suggest it’s like quantum entanglement.

Like the atoms which are entangled, there is space between the entangled atoms. In fact in actuality the atoms are composed more of space than they are of matter anyway, no matter the distance. So what is the space between the desire for the object and the object? In my way of thinking that is where the meaning exists.

So what is the meaning, of my desire for an iPod?

It’s like the Counting Crows lyrics for the song “Mr. Jones”.

“I want to be Bob Dylan
Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky
When everybody loves you, son, that's just about as funky as you can be”
--Counting Crows

The meaning implicit in my desire for an iPod is that I wish I was a Mac loving , funky, hipster, listening to cool tunes, possessing both the ability to dance and the desire to dance.

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I saw National Treasure last night. I didn’t pick the movie, BTW.

When the credits rolled my comment was, “I’m glad they still make movies for the 10-12 year old set.”

The movie tried to have some sort of “Da Vinci Code” like feel, replete with clues, puzzles and conspiracies. The movie didn’t have any suspense at all. The clues and puzzles felt more like someone trying to teach me about American History in the guise of a fun movie. Unfortunately, it flunked on all accounts.

The acting and script were equivalent to an “After School TV Special” when I was growing up.

Perhaps the problem is having seen “Team America”. That movie is such a satire of big budget, overblown, over the top soundtrack, Hollywood movies, I’ll probably never be able to enjoy another movie in this genre again.

In parting, don’t even bother seeing this movie if you’re an adult. If you have to see it, at least go to a matinee.

I still wish I could be as cool as Nicholas Cage, even in this dumb movie.

Dan Rather Scrambles to Confirm Story of His Resignation

In the USA, we celebrate Thanksgiving today.

I’ve always believed that a little gratitude goes a long way in helping people to realize how great life truly is.

So in recognition of this day, I would like to list a few things I am thankful for. I’ve always believed that a little gratitude goes a long way in helping people to realize how great life truly is.

• Close friends.
• Loving family.
• Healthy, happy family.
• Food to eat, a roof over my head, a job I love.
• Living in a country that is so good, that doctors and professionals leave their home countries to come here and become taxi cab drivers and bus boys and parking lot attendants, so their children can grow up here.
• Good books. Special thanks due to Owen and Biff this year.

Once a month or so, I comb through the server logs. Among other things, I look at the phrases or keywords which people enter on my blog or into search engines that drive them to my little spot on the web.

After carefully considering all that people search for, I have to reach the conclusion that the web is irrevocably broken.

Here is a selection of the terms people are searching for.

Search: query for 'Marsupial'
Search: query for 'POOR PEOPLE PHOTOES STRUGGLING FOR FOOD'
Search: query for '99 Luft Balloons'
Search: query for 'WHAT IS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY'

hiking in panties
cute pictures i m a little teapot
egg shells for sale
top ten things president theodore roosevelt accomplished

My little corner of the web is so far removed from being an authoritative source of information on any of those topics, that it’s laughable. I must admit that some of the search terms which I didn’t list do map more neatly on to actual content that I provide. I still don’t think I should be the #1 hit on google for the phrase “hiker cuts limb off”.

It’s interesting that the vision of a semantic web put forward by the good folks at W3C doesn’t seem like it has much traction. However, searching the web as a collection of unstructured data seems to be really working. I think blogs fit really nicely into that ecosystem, by serving as artifact collectors and editors who constantly point out new and useful things on the web. One million poo flinging monkeys can make the world a better place.

Monica wrote about the notion of a comment policy today.

Oddly enough, I was IM’ed just a few days ago and asked about my comment policy.

Official Comment Policy:

I once read that quaker religious services have no set order, but that people sit quietly and only share something when they are confident that they can improve upon the silence.

That is my comment policy. If you believe you have something to say which “improves upon the silence” then it stays.

I may or may not fix your spelling or formatting errrors. I may or may not censor your potty mouth, depending mostly on how funny you are.

So young Joel suggests in his comment to my blog entry entitled “Pencil me in”, that I accept meetings with a response of “tentative” in order to mess with people’s heads.

I suppose Joel could be right. In a world where the folks at the bottom don’t have as much control over their work lives as they might like, it’s only natural to throw a few shoes in the gears once in a while. Maybe the “tentative” response is my way of exerting subtle control, and being a jerk. It’s a pretty benign act if you ask me. I don’t think I would consciously do that, but I’ll accept Joel’s thesis in light of not really having a better explanation.