Off By One

It’s rare that I see something that makes me feel like we technonerds are doing unqualifiedly good things for the world.

So, I’d like to thank Dean Kamen for just… doing good things.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the southern neighbor these days; the election coming up down there will have regrettably far-reaching consequences for not only the US but for us, too. I’ve seen more than a few things that bother me, not least of which is the fact that there is literally not one candidate for any party that strikes me as anything other than an opportunistic, grasping, myopic shell of a human being. I wouldn’t move to the US right now if someone paid me.

Okay, well, maybe if they paid me a lot.

It’s the last epithet that concerns me, though; I expect grasping, and opportunistic is synonymous with ‘career politician’. The persistent failure of vision, however, is scary; they can’t see past their clawing to the top to acknowledge the wounds they’re inflicting on themselves in the process. And Bob forfend that we suggest that the process is flawed, that’s frankly unamerican.

I know, I know, I devote too much thought to this for someone who doesn’t even live within the borders, let alone have a right to vote there, but the US elections are merely a logical endpoint (not the only logical endpoint, mind) of the particular form of representative democracy that is so widely believed to be the one, true way. I know I’m going a bit off-message for myself here, but I blame a combination of my usual bugbear (the unending manipulable and moronic voting public) and a new beast: Corporate finance.

I’m a devoted supporter of freedom of expression, so this is hard for me, but I believe more and more that allowing corporate freedom of expression is suppressing individual freedom of expression too much. I know that there’s a good argument to be made that corporations’ speech is just a collective expression of individual freedom to speak, but I’m no longer convinced that it’s a valid defence. I’m arguing ethics from consequences here, which is not always a safe path to tread. Here, however, the consequences look increasingly dire.

Still, in the end, it’s the people who keep putting this system over themselves.

What’s a libertarian to do?

Christ, do I feel like an old man this morning.

My shoulder is sore and my hip hurts. I’m sitting on the couch because, damn it, I deserve some relaxation at this point.

To top it off, well… Okay, I’ve got nothing to top it off. I read the news this morning and it contained neither inspiration nor indignation for me, which suggests that I’m just really, really tired

Sorta.

I spent the last week tearing into a fairly complex piece of old code, digging out some poor design decisions and cleaning up the legacy of student programmers past. It was… terrifying.

But I’ve survived, and the world is a better place for it.

If anyone noticed that I was a bit distant and distracted in the last week, though, that was why.

It’s the end of 2007, and last night I was asked by our waitress if I was “ready for 2008.”

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? In the absence of epic new plans for the coming year what does “ready” mean? I’m not panicked about the coming year, if that’s what she meant. I’m not planning to do anything for which I am not ready, too.

This bit was, of course, a bit of a non sequitur.

Basically, I want to wish everyone that reads this a happy new year. Be well, be happy. Hopefully your coming year is as good as my previous one.

It’s fitting that the quote on my homepage’s title bar, as I started to post this, was “Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain”.

People who know me know well that I’m a geek, and as such I have many of the canonical traits that define ‘geek’. I’m oriented towards strict, quantitative judgments and I prefer things that fit neatly into categories.

I’d like to show you two lists, as seen on a site called Coding Horror:

Now, I ask you: Which of those two seems like a better approach to the problem of sorting lists?

Here’s the thing, now that you’ve answered the question. The comments on the post that advocated the same sorting approach that I’m sure you picked were… distressing to me as a software developer who is concerned with human factors and real-world usability. Comments like this:

This attitude is the very worst of my profession, and to everyone that has ever seen a list sorted like column ‘A’, above, I apologize on behalf of the nerds that did the work, who to this day probably still think that you’re wrong.

and I wanted to work Catch-22 into that title, but couldn’t.

So, in response to some vigourous prodding last night, I felt it was time to dust this off and get back to keeping people apprised of my life.

Here’s the skinny, since… holy shit! November 6! It’s been almost four weeks!

Since then, I have:

• Travelled to the Dominican Republic (where we were all amiss in not posting to Morruz)
• Dislocated my shoulder… again. That sucked. Worse? I was just playing volleyball in a pool, not even doing anything interesting. Funny thing is, though, when I went to a medical supply store to get some foam to pad the horrid sling I took home with me, the lady running the store told me that my injury seems to be quite common in volleyballers, at least anecdotally.
• Got my performance review at work, for which the term “glowing” might be an understatement.

And you wonder why I don’t post? My life is dull, dull, dull.

It hasn’t even been that interesting of a time, politically. I’ve kept my eyes on the news, but there’s been little out of the ordinary to spark thought or discussion, either north or south of the border.

Um… I’ve read some good books, lately. Is that interesting?

Expect more later. I’m just barely awake, and Char just fed me coffee.

If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear
If you’ve something to hide, you shouldn’t even be here
You’ve had your chance, now we’ve got the mandate
If you’ve changed your mind, I’m afraid it’s too late

We’re concerned
You’re a threat
You’re not integral to the project

Update

Interestingly, today Bruce Schneier wrote an article about culture’s war on the unexpected that fits really nicely with this. It illustrates the flat-out falsehood of the statement “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear.”

I have a hard time reading this; I realize that it’s unlikely that any of this will happen to me, but that’s not because it can’t, it’s because on some level I’m already suppressed in that way. This stuff makes me sick inside.

Def: A bug that vanishes when you look at it.

Also: The bane of my existence, today.

Here’s an article on evolution and the wisdom of crowds that does a pretty good job of using (amongst other things) Wikipedia as an analogue for evolution by natural selection.