Web 2.0 will likely be touted as where the advanced thinkers talked to the advanced business types who have made some pretty advanced fortunes using the Internet platforms. Discussions of the inevitability of open source, the evil Empire (we know the name, look up the number), FireFox over IE, REST vs web services, and all the usual cause de jours of the conspiracy-hungry zeitgeist will be debated in the hallways. The 'next big thing' will be featured on slides, and the Life of O'Reilly as pundit and prognosticator will be on display to up the ticket sales.
And the attendees will, as they usually do, miss the important developments in the evolution of the web.
Don't get me wrong. I've no prejudice against these events as technical theatre. They are fun to go to, one gets to rub elbows with the people whose cults of personality mean they are quoted more often in web circles than Karl Rove is in political circles, but one expecting to come away from an event like this with inside information, late breaking insights, etc., will leave with the same feeling as one who has eaten a two pound bag of pork rinds: full but unnourished. Why? Because these people came to promote a business: making money off the Internet. This is a cool thing, but it isn't a new thing and any conference that circles that topic will fall into the usual not-so-strange attractors of improving the user experience, network effects, power laws of sales, and the dot-bomb bust and how to avoid it. Developments, emergent and otherwise, that make for bad press don't amplify the feedback effects these folks are after at these events, so some urgent topics won't get discussed.
How about this: identity management systems for business transactions will not protect the individual or group from the application of wide-area sensor systems that aquire identity biometrically and pass it along the sensor web. The only protection will be built-in policy enforcement and these policies are as yet, non-existent.
Sensor webs ARE the 'next big thing' and I doubt that came up at Web 2.0. Even the developers of these systems recognize their implications for privacy and fundamental liberties, but say as the inventors usually do, that subject is beyond the scope of their work. It is political and even if it worries them, they aren't about to compromise funding or their careers worrying about that.
"Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun" - Tom Lehrer
People who do care will now have to pay very good attention to elections because political agendas do determine policy, not just as it is written, but as it is implemented. When the current reform bills for U.S. national intelligence are finally passed, under the Senate version, the National Intelligence Director has 90 days to provide a plan, and 270 days after that to begin implementing it.
It may be time to quit listening to O'Reilly and Company and start paying attention to what is being debated in the American Halls of Congress. The next big thing will be developed there, not in San Francisco.
Friday, October 08, 2004
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Five Questions for the Presidential Candidates
In the next two presidential debates, there are five questions I would ask:
1. Given that the American defense policy has been proportional response, what would the American response be to terrorists exploding a nuclear, dirty, or biological weapon on US soil?
2. While it is good campaign strategy to duck the question of gay marriage by saying this is an issue to be decided by individual states, is this a credible response given that municipalities such as Seattle require companies from other states to provide domestic partner benefits to do business with the city? Doesn't this force the decision to go to the Supreme Court should a state outlaw gay marriage or does it force companies within that state to forgo doing business with these municipalities?
3. Given the rate at which the US military is using men and materiel, can we avoid a draft and higher taxes to replace diminishing stocks or must we withdraw from other commitments such as South Korea?
4. The cornerstone of a trusted information security network for homeland security is identity management. What is the candidate's position on national standards for driver's licenses and so-called 'breeder documents' such as birth certificates?
5. What is the appropriate doctrine for the use of and access to information held in private databases by government investigators for counterterrorism cases?
1. Given that the American defense policy has been proportional response, what would the American response be to terrorists exploding a nuclear, dirty, or biological weapon on US soil?
2. While it is good campaign strategy to duck the question of gay marriage by saying this is an issue to be decided by individual states, is this a credible response given that municipalities such as Seattle require companies from other states to provide domestic partner benefits to do business with the city? Doesn't this force the decision to go to the Supreme Court should a state outlaw gay marriage or does it force companies within that state to forgo doing business with these municipalities?
3. Given the rate at which the US military is using men and materiel, can we avoid a draft and higher taxes to replace diminishing stocks or must we withdraw from other commitments such as South Korea?
4. The cornerstone of a trusted information security network for homeland security is identity management. What is the candidate's position on national standards for driver's licenses and so-called 'breeder documents' such as birth certificates?
5. What is the appropriate doctrine for the use of and access to information held in private databases by government investigators for counterterrorism cases?
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Godspeed, Gordo
There is a poetry to the universe. Events occur proximately the way a theme in a great work of literature is repeated differently but close together in time or space reinforcing some noble truth to the observer. I find it uplifting that on the day a pilot flies SpaceShipOne into space without computer guidance, a man who flew a Mercury capsule back from 22 orbits manually when the onboard systems failed passed away. People who only know of the Faith 7 flight from movies like "The Right Stuff" don't know the whole story of Leroy Gordon Cooper.
Mercury capsules were straight out of the 1950s. Full of wire bundles and not-quite-shielded circuitry made before the advent of miniturization that is the supreme benefit of the American space program, a Mercury capsule would charge like a capacitor in the magnetosphere, and any water in the circuitry could cause them to short out. System by system, the longer one stayed in orbit, the effects would cause systems to fail. Gordon Cooper flew the last operational Mercury mission and the longest one. His laconic coolness on the stick was legendary. He slept on the pad and for eight hours during orbits 10 through 14. Informed about the problems, ground control fearing his automatic reentry system was also failing, Cooper manually lined up the capsule on the horizon, fired the retrorocket pack, and brought his ship down as close to the recovery ship, Kearsage, as any computer could have in May 1963.
Gordon Cooper was the first American to make a second orbital flight. He was the backup commander for Apollo 10. He drove fast cars and fast boats. He was Vice President for Research and Development/EPCOT for Walt Disney. He loved to design aircraft. He chased UFOs over the skies of Europe.
And he was a heckuva fisherman.
To say he had the right stuff has become a cliche. To say he was a real hero doesn't say enough. Yet his life was rounded by accomplishments that few will ever equal and his passing was as well-timed as his reentry from space in a flyable if cheesy spacecraft. Gordon Cooper was a good test pilot. That is finest compliment one can pay.
Godspeed, Gordo.
Mercury capsules were straight out of the 1950s. Full of wire bundles and not-quite-shielded circuitry made before the advent of miniturization that is the supreme benefit of the American space program, a Mercury capsule would charge like a capacitor in the magnetosphere, and any water in the circuitry could cause them to short out. System by system, the longer one stayed in orbit, the effects would cause systems to fail. Gordon Cooper flew the last operational Mercury mission and the longest one. His laconic coolness on the stick was legendary. He slept on the pad and for eight hours during orbits 10 through 14. Informed about the problems, ground control fearing his automatic reentry system was also failing, Cooper manually lined up the capsule on the horizon, fired the retrorocket pack, and brought his ship down as close to the recovery ship, Kearsage, as any computer could have in May 1963.
Gordon Cooper was the first American to make a second orbital flight. He was the backup commander for Apollo 10. He drove fast cars and fast boats. He was Vice President for Research and Development/EPCOT for Walt Disney. He loved to design aircraft. He chased UFOs over the skies of Europe.
And he was a heckuva fisherman.
To say he had the right stuff has become a cliche. To say he was a real hero doesn't say enough. Yet his life was rounded by accomplishments that few will ever equal and his passing was as well-timed as his reentry from space in a flyable if cheesy spacecraft. Gordon Cooper was a good test pilot. That is finest compliment one can pay.
Godspeed, Gordo.
Monday, October 04, 2004
The Ansari X Prize and TV News
The increasing irrelevance of TV broadcast news becomes clear as I sit here watching the Ansari prize won by Bert Rutan and his company while ABC is showing Regis and Kelly interview a fellow from the Bravo hit show. The other major networks are showing something just as uninteresting.
As one who grew up watching Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, then the space shuttle, it is somewhat sad but then technology and the public taste do find their own level of commitment to each other. Perhaps the commitment of ABC to the transience of the Bravo show and adverstisers testifies that TV news has finally become merely entertainment and the Internet is where one goes to witness history being made.
Go Rutan! Yahooooo!
As one who grew up watching Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, then the space shuttle, it is somewhat sad but then technology and the public taste do find their own level of commitment to each other. Perhaps the commitment of ABC to the transience of the Bravo show and adverstisers testifies that TV news has finally become merely entertainment and the Internet is where one goes to witness history being made.
Go Rutan! Yahooooo!
Friday, October 01, 2004
It's "Mullah", Not "Moolah"
Senator John Kerry is the clear winner of the first debate. His performance demonstrated the qualities one wants in a leader of the free world: good judgment informed by years of experience in the Senate dealing with foreign relations, sound analysis of the options given tough problems, smooth delivery and the ability to stay focused on the question at hand, strategic planning and initiative, restraint when matters of international or national urgency are colored by personal experience or relationships, and poise in the face of an adversary whose main objective is to inspire fear and to degrade confidence.
In the days ahead, some pundits and networks will cut and edit the debate videos to make President Bush appear to be all of the above when in fact any honest viewer saw that when the right questions are asked by the right man at the right time in the right place, Bush falls back on his arrogant and divisive character traits. Clever spinning won't obscure the facts of his failures of performance, both in this debate and in office.
It's "mullah", Mr. President, not "moolah". You are confusing the leaders of Iran with a former executive of Halliburton. It's Vladimir, not Vladimurr. One would think an Ivy League educated native of Maine would be able to pronounce these, but one suspects years of feigning a Texas accent has side effects.
Clear speaking and clear thinking are hard work too.
In the days ahead, some pundits and networks will cut and edit the debate videos to make President Bush appear to be all of the above when in fact any honest viewer saw that when the right questions are asked by the right man at the right time in the right place, Bush falls back on his arrogant and divisive character traits. Clever spinning won't obscure the facts of his failures of performance, both in this debate and in office.
It's "mullah", Mr. President, not "moolah". You are confusing the leaders of Iran with a former executive of Halliburton. It's Vladimir, not Vladimurr. One would think an Ivy League educated native of Maine would be able to pronounce these, but one suspects years of feigning a Texas accent has side effects.
Clear speaking and clear thinking are hard work too.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
The Red Palace
In his last days, Shah Jahan was left to die in the Red Palace
With one faithful daughter to attend him, tools to write,
Memories of his beloved Mumtaz, and his distant view of the Taj.
His son had defeated all rivals for the old man's throne and
Became emperor before his father would be wrapped in white linen
And carried aloft to the marble spired mausoleum.
In the manicured paths that lay between his heart and that end,
He watched the awed travelers marvel before the prayer towers.
In his grief for his Queen, now forever parted, he became a prisoner
Of his passion and his great works, enslaved by his love and his loss.
The jewels encrusting the carved writings would be cleaved
By the sharpened knives of foreigners who would conquer this land.
Having prepared his place for eternity, he had not prepared his soul,
His people, or his land for the days on sorrow's bent knee.
Without dharma, artha has no meaning, and kama, no taste.
Dusty winds blow harshly around the arabesqued walls.
Hear in them the wailing of an old man's parched cries
Lamenting the untouchable vista of the beautiful temple.
With one faithful daughter to attend him, tools to write,
Memories of his beloved Mumtaz, and his distant view of the Taj.
His son had defeated all rivals for the old man's throne and
Became emperor before his father would be wrapped in white linen
And carried aloft to the marble spired mausoleum.
In the manicured paths that lay between his heart and that end,
He watched the awed travelers marvel before the prayer towers.
In his grief for his Queen, now forever parted, he became a prisoner
Of his passion and his great works, enslaved by his love and his loss.
The jewels encrusting the carved writings would be cleaved
By the sharpened knives of foreigners who would conquer this land.
Having prepared his place for eternity, he had not prepared his soul,
His people, or his land for the days on sorrow's bent knee.
Without dharma, artha has no meaning, and kama, no taste.
Dusty winds blow harshly around the arabesqued walls.
Hear in them the wailing of an old man's parched cries
Lamenting the untouchable vista of the beautiful temple.
Suddha Prem
To offer without expectation
To accept what is offered and not ask for more
To give when the heart is breaking
To sail away from the safe harbor
To keep truth as a burning lamp
To bind your soul to the feet of another
To have faith in ends without understanding
To adore beyond desire for this world
To live in union with one beloved
To stand naked before God, unashamed
Make an altar of flowers and garlands.
Ring the bell and prepare the cordial food.
Light the candles and sing a joyful song.
Make a gift of your life to the life giver.
See in each living soul the same living light.
Do for others what they may not do for themselves.
Feel the divine presence in all places and beings.
Forget yourself and be the friend of your lover.
In times of need, be patient.
In times of longing, be satisfied.
In times of sorrow, be glad.
In times of anger, love.
Know that the Lord is with you.
Know that the Lord finds you pleasing.
Know that without fear, you may approach.
Know that without loss, you may depart.
Be one in separation and separate in one.
Partake of the bliss that transforms.
In that transformation is immortality.
In that bliss is pure love.
To accept what is offered and not ask for more
To give when the heart is breaking
To sail away from the safe harbor
To keep truth as a burning lamp
To bind your soul to the feet of another
To have faith in ends without understanding
To adore beyond desire for this world
To live in union with one beloved
To stand naked before God, unashamed
Make an altar of flowers and garlands.
Ring the bell and prepare the cordial food.
Light the candles and sing a joyful song.
Make a gift of your life to the life giver.
See in each living soul the same living light.
Do for others what they may not do for themselves.
Feel the divine presence in all places and beings.
Forget yourself and be the friend of your lover.
In times of need, be patient.
In times of longing, be satisfied.
In times of sorrow, be glad.
In times of anger, love.
Know that the Lord is with you.
Know that the Lord finds you pleasing.
Know that without fear, you may approach.
Know that without loss, you may depart.
Be one in separation and separate in one.
Partake of the bliss that transforms.
In that transformation is immortality.
In that bliss is pure love.
Friday, September 24, 2004
Erin
You smile when it hurts
It makes you beautiful
How easy it is to love
A look and an attitude
It makes you beautiful
It makes you beautiful
You try when its hard
You hold your head up
You make your smile
The light and the sound
For the voice of the world
It makes you beautiful
It makes you beautiful
It's the woman that lives inside
Who knows if she can she can
Tell it all to the common man
They will win in the end the end
It makes you beautiful
It makes you beautiful
len bullard - 09/24/04
It makes you beautiful
How easy it is to love
A look and an attitude
It makes you beautiful
It makes you beautiful
You try when its hard
You hold your head up
You make your smile
The light and the sound
For the voice of the world
It makes you beautiful
It makes you beautiful
It's the woman that lives inside
Who knows if she can she can
Tell it all to the common man
They will win in the end the end
It makes you beautiful
It makes you beautiful
len bullard - 09/24/04
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Any Color As Long As It Is Black: Web Services Vs REST
The secret to General Motor's success in unseating the dominant car vendor of the time, Ford, was in acting on the fact of the diversity of the car market itself, and not staying the course of Ford's "any color as long as it is black" strategy. When cars were new, the T-model and A-model Fords with their one-size-fits-all approach worked. With a low investment and low risk, the car buyer could learn about cars while enjoying the advantages of dependable if somewhat unreliable transportation. Once past that learning curve, reliability, fitness, comfort, and style became both possible and affordable. GM knew that classes of customers could afford these features and were eager to get them.
Something like this is going on in the Web Services vs XML-over-HTTP (aka, REST) markets. The XML-over-HTTP defenders are the new Ford. They take the position that a simpler system for building web applications is best and will triumph over the seemingly too complex set of web specifications for web services. The web services offenders claim that to build multi-domain enterprise applications, these must be built from composable parts that enable the designer to meet requirements where high reliability, security, fitness to task, and protocol independence are not nice to have, but essential and affordable. This group is emerging as the new GM, willing to step up to the challenges of mastering the web service stacks, of analyzing and correctly configuring enterprise systems, and of providing customization where affordable to classes of customers who are now past the initial learning curve of web applications and want more targeted products with efficient GUIs, great looks, and brandable appeal. Sex still matters.
The Ford group still seems to be of the 'lone hacker' mentality who want to innovate by building small compact systems that do one thing well. The GM group seems to be the team-oriented designers who understand the problems of designing, assembling, and maintaining large and complex systems that must do many things collectively.
For the Ford group, the problem is market share in a market that quickly can reverse engineer any innovation, and then it comes down to sales. This is the same problem of being an independent record producer who has produced a prodigy that might be the next Britney but can't afford to market the prodigy because access to the media is still the biggest expense, so has to put her on the road in the thousand mall tour in hopes a major label will notice her. Slashdot is the thousand mall market with blogs as the in-betweener gigs.
For the GM group, the problem is choosing a development framework that has effective implementations of all of the required web service specifications but does not impede interoperability with systems designed over other frameworks. Here, the choices aren't that many: Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and Sun with BEA thrown in for their dedication.
Some think that web services will collapse of their own weight. Obviously, XML-over-HTTP is here to stay because it uses the most fundamental web protocols. On the other hand, it doesn't do much to ensure reliability and affordability for systems that need more than "any color as long as it is black" systems.
It seems to me that the Ford crowd is tilting at windmills, to mix my metaphors. If they don't need web services and are happy to build single domain applications, they have what they need to do that. They are wasting their time and a lot of bytes going after the big companies that provide web service frameworks. I think there is a certain amount of the "anything but Microsoft" and "we are the innovators" and "we are Sun and we are on the ropes so let's kick the tires of the competitors" in this movement. On the other hand, the bigCos are also beginning to take their specification development work offline into smaller working groups so that by the time they submit a specification to a standards body, it is proven and close to fielding. Sun has to play there to stay in business and independent developers have to work with them to stay ahead of the learning curve.
Given that the consumers of the frameworks are the real customers and these are development groups, not Mom and Pop at home surfing the web, the new GM has every chance of doing it again because selling enterprise systems is quite profitable in a market that needs both affordability and differentiation. The interoperability of markets that formerly didn't even give each other a passing glance is evident. These market players don't buy from lone innovators. They watch them for evidence of something worth requiring from their usual suppliers, the GMs of the world.
Using the ecosystem metaphor, the XML-over-HTTP players are distributed across the ecosystem in small market niches. The web service players are distributed but their market niches are large and the core technologies they rely on are provided by the large technology vendors who continue to work together on these specifications and implementations, and who are speeding up their work by stepping back from the processes of the specification consortia yet still are committing to standardization and royalty-free specifications. Given that, the work of the XML-over-HTTP community is done but I don't see a new source of energy to enable anything more than linear growth. On the web services side, I see a complex set of specifications, but implementations in the frameworks could substantially increase the applications of these.
The web is no longer a one-size-fits-all market. This comes down to the lifecycle of the enterprise markets (how often do they buy and in what quantity) and the acceptance in developer shops that what they have built with web services can be reused. What is the value of code that is simple but local and not visible on the wire? Does the XML-over-HTTP approach actually become more cumbersome as more complex operations have to be sustained (eg, duplex-messaging), long running transactions are the norm, messages have to last beyond the initial transaction, transactions where HTTP itself isn't the right protocol, where the endpoints even if independently built have to also be secured and versioned while still being composable into higher level blocks yet still be transparent and loosely coupled?
Sheesh.
Those are questions the developers concern themselves with but to the sales and marketing staff, they are as irrelevant as the composition of moondust. That one could make great cement from moondust is meaningless as long as the costs of mining and shipping are too high and effective alternatives are readily available. Even beyond that, a customer buys what a customer wants and the engineers have to build that. HTML was a rotten solution until it became popular. Last year's model of anything sells for less than next year's model. Never undervalue the sex appeal of the product. That is lesson one when selling to the mammals.
GM was willing to tackle the complexity of stratified markets and they dominated the car market over the innovator, Ford. Eventually, Toyota arrived and the higher quality even at higher initial costs took the market from GM. Regardless of the framework and the technique, it still comes down to affordability and quality, and that doesn't mean cheap and easily replaced.
Then, it is a matter of making sexy performant products. The web browser didn't stay grey for long, and two-tone cars with a lot of chrome plus automatic transmissions and power steering and brakes doomed the T-model Fords.
XML-over-HTTP is always there. The question is, is it enough? Smarter people than me don't seem to think so, but the bigger problem may be that the market really doesn't care about that kind of stuff. They want power steering and a sexy body.
Something like this is going on in the Web Services vs XML-over-HTTP (aka, REST) markets. The XML-over-HTTP defenders are the new Ford. They take the position that a simpler system for building web applications is best and will triumph over the seemingly too complex set of web specifications for web services. The web services offenders claim that to build multi-domain enterprise applications, these must be built from composable parts that enable the designer to meet requirements where high reliability, security, fitness to task, and protocol independence are not nice to have, but essential and affordable. This group is emerging as the new GM, willing to step up to the challenges of mastering the web service stacks, of analyzing and correctly configuring enterprise systems, and of providing customization where affordable to classes of customers who are now past the initial learning curve of web applications and want more targeted products with efficient GUIs, great looks, and brandable appeal. Sex still matters.
The Ford group still seems to be of the 'lone hacker' mentality who want to innovate by building small compact systems that do one thing well. The GM group seems to be the team-oriented designers who understand the problems of designing, assembling, and maintaining large and complex systems that must do many things collectively.
For the Ford group, the problem is market share in a market that quickly can reverse engineer any innovation, and then it comes down to sales. This is the same problem of being an independent record producer who has produced a prodigy that might be the next Britney but can't afford to market the prodigy because access to the media is still the biggest expense, so has to put her on the road in the thousand mall tour in hopes a major label will notice her. Slashdot is the thousand mall market with blogs as the in-betweener gigs.
For the GM group, the problem is choosing a development framework that has effective implementations of all of the required web service specifications but does not impede interoperability with systems designed over other frameworks. Here, the choices aren't that many: Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and Sun with BEA thrown in for their dedication.
Some think that web services will collapse of their own weight. Obviously, XML-over-HTTP is here to stay because it uses the most fundamental web protocols. On the other hand, it doesn't do much to ensure reliability and affordability for systems that need more than "any color as long as it is black" systems.
It seems to me that the Ford crowd is tilting at windmills, to mix my metaphors. If they don't need web services and are happy to build single domain applications, they have what they need to do that. They are wasting their time and a lot of bytes going after the big companies that provide web service frameworks. I think there is a certain amount of the "anything but Microsoft" and "we are the innovators" and "we are Sun and we are on the ropes so let's kick the tires of the competitors" in this movement. On the other hand, the bigCos are also beginning to take their specification development work offline into smaller working groups so that by the time they submit a specification to a standards body, it is proven and close to fielding. Sun has to play there to stay in business and independent developers have to work with them to stay ahead of the learning curve.
Given that the consumers of the frameworks are the real customers and these are development groups, not Mom and Pop at home surfing the web, the new GM has every chance of doing it again because selling enterprise systems is quite profitable in a market that needs both affordability and differentiation. The interoperability of markets that formerly didn't even give each other a passing glance is evident. These market players don't buy from lone innovators. They watch them for evidence of something worth requiring from their usual suppliers, the GMs of the world.
Using the ecosystem metaphor, the XML-over-HTTP players are distributed across the ecosystem in small market niches. The web service players are distributed but their market niches are large and the core technologies they rely on are provided by the large technology vendors who continue to work together on these specifications and implementations, and who are speeding up their work by stepping back from the processes of the specification consortia yet still are committing to standardization and royalty-free specifications. Given that, the work of the XML-over-HTTP community is done but I don't see a new source of energy to enable anything more than linear growth. On the web services side, I see a complex set of specifications, but implementations in the frameworks could substantially increase the applications of these.
The web is no longer a one-size-fits-all market. This comes down to the lifecycle of the enterprise markets (how often do they buy and in what quantity) and the acceptance in developer shops that what they have built with web services can be reused. What is the value of code that is simple but local and not visible on the wire? Does the XML-over-HTTP approach actually become more cumbersome as more complex operations have to be sustained (eg, duplex-messaging), long running transactions are the norm, messages have to last beyond the initial transaction, transactions where HTTP itself isn't the right protocol, where the endpoints even if independently built have to also be secured and versioned while still being composable into higher level blocks yet still be transparent and loosely coupled?
Sheesh.
Those are questions the developers concern themselves with but to the sales and marketing staff, they are as irrelevant as the composition of moondust. That one could make great cement from moondust is meaningless as long as the costs of mining and shipping are too high and effective alternatives are readily available. Even beyond that, a customer buys what a customer wants and the engineers have to build that. HTML was a rotten solution until it became popular. Last year's model of anything sells for less than next year's model. Never undervalue the sex appeal of the product. That is lesson one when selling to the mammals.
GM was willing to tackle the complexity of stratified markets and they dominated the car market over the innovator, Ford. Eventually, Toyota arrived and the higher quality even at higher initial costs took the market from GM. Regardless of the framework and the technique, it still comes down to affordability and quality, and that doesn't mean cheap and easily replaced.
Then, it is a matter of making sexy performant products. The web browser didn't stay grey for long, and two-tone cars with a lot of chrome plus automatic transmissions and power steering and brakes doomed the T-model Fords.
XML-over-HTTP is always there. The question is, is it enough? Smarter people than me don't seem to think so, but the bigger problem may be that the market really doesn't care about that kind of stuff. They want power steering and a sexy body.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Social Engineering and the Business Contract
In discussing the problems of proposing laws that govern use and content on the World Wide Web (the information space of the Internet), one must deal with the issue of international law. The web is an international resource and although most countries deal with this using laws based on local jurisdiction, this often does not work well. In many situations, this is a minor annoyance (pornography) and in others, it is a major problem (identity theft). While I certainly don't have a solution, I point out that this problem of jurisdiction is not a problem of the WWW, but of law in general.
Law can have a peer-to-peer effect. The example of domestic partners is relevant at this time in the U.S. Most see this played out on television as officials in cities try to approve local ordinances that contradict the laws of the home state. The next problem is that even if the state approves the unions, the bordering states don't or even pass laws that prohibit such unions. Eventually these cases will go to the Supreme Court or a Constitutional ammendment.
Today, they make for messy contract work. For example, the City of Seattle requires all companies that do business with the city to recognize domestic partnerships and provide equitable benefits. This applies to out of state contractors as well. The problem is identifying domestic parterships when the contractor state has no contract type or provision for recognizing such. In short, to bid on a contract in Seattle, the bidding company can sign an agreement to provide the benefits, but to whom? How does the bidding company know that a partnership as such exists? Without some form of binding contract between the partners, what is presented to the company for which at least one of them works to enable the company to legally recognize the union? Is living together enough? If marriage between same sex partners isn't legal and there is no provision for a domestic partership, is the signatory company breaking the law?
It isn't easy to be a global company. Heck, it isn't easy to do business across state lines. As these scenarios play out, the only safe bet is that the lawyers will have jobs and the preachers will have sermons. Who gets to do business with whom isn't all that clear. The social engineering going on in local courts and city administrations is well-intended, but it often reckons little with just how long it will take to get consensus, contracts, and costs in line.
Law can have a peer-to-peer effect. The example of domestic partners is relevant at this time in the U.S. Most see this played out on television as officials in cities try to approve local ordinances that contradict the laws of the home state. The next problem is that even if the state approves the unions, the bordering states don't or even pass laws that prohibit such unions. Eventually these cases will go to the Supreme Court or a Constitutional ammendment.
Today, they make for messy contract work. For example, the City of Seattle requires all companies that do business with the city to recognize domestic partnerships and provide equitable benefits. This applies to out of state contractors as well. The problem is identifying domestic parterships when the contractor state has no contract type or provision for recognizing such. In short, to bid on a contract in Seattle, the bidding company can sign an agreement to provide the benefits, but to whom? How does the bidding company know that a partnership as such exists? Without some form of binding contract between the partners, what is presented to the company for which at least one of them works to enable the company to legally recognize the union? Is living together enough? If marriage between same sex partners isn't legal and there is no provision for a domestic partership, is the signatory company breaking the law?
It isn't easy to be a global company. Heck, it isn't easy to do business across state lines. As these scenarios play out, the only safe bet is that the lawyers will have jobs and the preachers will have sermons. Who gets to do business with whom isn't all that clear. The social engineering going on in local courts and city administrations is well-intended, but it often reckons little with just how long it will take to get consensus, contracts, and costs in line.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Ideals and Idiots
At some point, the pundits fighting ideas like sender identification and digital rights management are going to wake up on the outside of the web mainstream looking in. Keep a list of the people who tell you that this is all a bad dream and YAGNI. It's a bad dream, yes, but you sure do need it if you plan to conduct business on the web.
The frictionless 'we are an independent nation' days of Internet engineering are over. Time to grow up and get used to the idea that items in transit, virtual or otherwise, are secured and so are the railways, highways, and information highways they run on.
The wild west was tamed when the man of law was backed up by the man of action. The WWW is no different but for too long it has been men of action ('just the right people') and people who 'talk too much and think too much' but don't have the stomach for the law and law enforcement. New business models will emerge, the cost of an MP3 will find a stable zone, and yes, the RIAA and others will continue to track and prosecute theft.
A lot of the pioneers of the Internet and the World Wide Web are supporters of open systems the way the cattle ranchers were supporters of open ranges. Freedom meant 'don't get in my way' but left little to the imagination of who would have free range and who would have rights. We may wish it were otherwise, but the surges in identity theft, theft of property, spamming and phishing make it important to find those who can combine law and action. If that means Microsoft steps up to the plate and '"git's it dun'", then they win marketshare. If the open sourcers and the free range supporters want to fight that, fine. Linux can die and take the open source movement with it. That's not a good thing, not a desirable outcome, but those who want a free range ecology have to understand the market is never sympathetic to "Sounds Good Maybe Later" when the foxes are taking eggs and the weasels are eating them.
Then there is the URL I received in the mail today. In the 'information space' of 'information resources', this one is a real hummer. It provides the names, photos and locations of agency employees and informants. It provides scans of sensitive documentation from public safety agencies. It proudly proclaims, 'If you have databases on us, we have databases on you.'
It is the most profoundly stupid website I've had to look at to date.
1) If those are real people in those photos and this is not a hoax, the site owner is signing death warrants.
2) Just as the lack of means to classify content by type got us PICS, this will get an even more invasive clampdown.
3) What happens if someone in a snit posts a picture of their freshly ex-domestic partner to that site?
So tell me, web pioneers, pundits of the let a thousand flowers bloom school, what should we do with this garden of poisoned poppies? Should the police agencies who do have some pretty powerful servers get Distributed Denial of Service Attack software and simply blow that site off the air? I can't say I would be bothered by that. It seems to be the tactic of choice when others get snarfled out there. Should they send sharply worded memos or their lawyers? Or should they log any traffic to that site? Can't be done? Couldn't catch the P2P thieves either, right? If you build it, they will listen, and they will react. Why? That is what you pay them to do and they are pretty good at it. Because of sites like this, it will be harder for undercover police to work, harder to turn informants, harder to make cases. Result: drug use in your neighborhood will go up, crime will go up, violence will go up. What will come down? The cost of your web service and your quality of life.
Quite an achievement...
Smart security sustains freedom. Otherwise, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." To those who still want the web as it was in 1993, in the words of the Duke, "You talk too much. You think too much. Besides, you didn't kill Liberty...", you weaseled your way out of it, one stupid idea at a time.
The frictionless 'we are an independent nation' days of Internet engineering are over. Time to grow up and get used to the idea that items in transit, virtual or otherwise, are secured and so are the railways, highways, and information highways they run on.
The wild west was tamed when the man of law was backed up by the man of action. The WWW is no different but for too long it has been men of action ('just the right people') and people who 'talk too much and think too much' but don't have the stomach for the law and law enforcement. New business models will emerge, the cost of an MP3 will find a stable zone, and yes, the RIAA and others will continue to track and prosecute theft.
A lot of the pioneers of the Internet and the World Wide Web are supporters of open systems the way the cattle ranchers were supporters of open ranges. Freedom meant 'don't get in my way' but left little to the imagination of who would have free range and who would have rights. We may wish it were otherwise, but the surges in identity theft, theft of property, spamming and phishing make it important to find those who can combine law and action. If that means Microsoft steps up to the plate and '"git's it dun'", then they win marketshare. If the open sourcers and the free range supporters want to fight that, fine. Linux can die and take the open source movement with it. That's not a good thing, not a desirable outcome, but those who want a free range ecology have to understand the market is never sympathetic to "Sounds Good Maybe Later" when the foxes are taking eggs and the weasels are eating them.
Then there is the URL I received in the mail today. In the 'information space' of 'information resources', this one is a real hummer. It provides the names, photos and locations of agency employees and informants. It provides scans of sensitive documentation from public safety agencies. It proudly proclaims, 'If you have databases on us, we have databases on you.'
It is the most profoundly stupid website I've had to look at to date.
1) If those are real people in those photos and this is not a hoax, the site owner is signing death warrants.
2) Just as the lack of means to classify content by type got us PICS, this will get an even more invasive clampdown.
3) What happens if someone in a snit posts a picture of their freshly ex-domestic partner to that site?
So tell me, web pioneers, pundits of the let a thousand flowers bloom school, what should we do with this garden of poisoned poppies? Should the police agencies who do have some pretty powerful servers get Distributed Denial of Service Attack software and simply blow that site off the air? I can't say I would be bothered by that. It seems to be the tactic of choice when others get snarfled out there. Should they send sharply worded memos or their lawyers? Or should they log any traffic to that site? Can't be done? Couldn't catch the P2P thieves either, right? If you build it, they will listen, and they will react. Why? That is what you pay them to do and they are pretty good at it. Because of sites like this, it will be harder for undercover police to work, harder to turn informants, harder to make cases. Result: drug use in your neighborhood will go up, crime will go up, violence will go up. What will come down? The cost of your web service and your quality of life.
Quite an achievement...
Smart security sustains freedom. Otherwise, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." To those who still want the web as it was in 1993, in the words of the Duke, "You talk too much. You think too much. Besides, you didn't kill Liberty...", you weaseled your way out of it, one stupid idea at a time.
Friday, September 17, 2004
Vote
--"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator" -- President George W. Bush
In this article, David Greenberg discusses the tactics of the Republican Party since the 1992 defeat of George H.W. Bush. It resonates with what I am experiencing here in some private replies to these blogs, and in personal life where if I dare to wear the Kerry button to a local event, I am met with half-joking warnings and some that are not so joking. Even at work, people come up to me and say, "You sure are brave to wear that button here." In a neighboring county, a lady wearing a Kerry campaign button was greeted by her boss with, "You can work for him or me but not both" and that was the end of her job. Kerry heard about that, called her, and hired her.
At the very worst of the Wallace years in Alabama, I never heard of someone being fired for campaigning for a candidate unless they were actually not doing their job. This is outrageous.
I live in America, protected by a citizen government and a Constitution with a Bill of Rights. It seems these are a very thin veneer that can be undone by one administration using the tactics of the prep school bully. Fear and intimidation undo us too easily.
Having lived through the period of infamous Southern demogogues, I do recognize the steel behind G.W. Bush's sneer. It is the sneer of the little man become bully who can work his will with veiled threats to his opponents all the while acting as if he were a common man. He isn't. He isn't even Texan. The drawl, the denim jeans, and the boy howdy come lately personality are an act of a New England aristocrat, Ivy League educated, and wealthy. It's an act polished over many years but not many political successes. The act has kind even conciliatory words in it, but if you listen to the warm up acts, they are filled with vitriol, lies, and hate speech.
Note well: Bush rallies are closed events. Kerry rallies are open to the public. Kerry takes the heckling that Bush avoids facing, although his wife got a dose of it from a woman protesting the death of her son in Iraq. The woman was dragged from the meeting and charged with willful trespass. So, to tell the wife of the President of the United States the truth, one has to become a criminal?
This isn't like any election I've ever seen in America. The Republican behavior and tactics in every way betray a lack of faith in the people who give them their power and in the system they claim hegemony over. This is outrageous.
As Greenberg says, if we elect Bush this time, we have approved the politics of bullying. On the playground of American politics, no one is going to stop him in a second term from more eratic decision making and continuing his pursuit of policies that undo the gains of the middle class and the poor in the last century. The Republicans are well on their way to making this the century of American fascism at home and abroad. We get exactly one chance to stop them before this becomes a violent confrontation on the streets.
Last weekend, the "Dollar Man" as my Dad called him, drove through the neighborhood selling ice cream from his truck. As he handed me the goods (reward your kids for cleaning the house), he looked at the Kerry/Edwards sign in my front yard, and said excitedly and loudly in a Jamaican accent, "What about THIS?!? They are lieing about this man on TV. Is this the way you elect your president??? What can we do??? They ARE LIEING!!!" The Dollar Man typically says nothing but "Which one?" and "Here is your change." To hear him suddenly and without question launch into a tirade on the election was astounding. Immigrants "Get" American values long after the native born cave in to the politics of the bully.
I told him, "This isn't a normal election as I have experienced them and you are right. Turn off the television and get the facts, then whatever you believe, know, or support, come November, Vote. That's all we have to stop bullies."
Vote.
In this article, David Greenberg discusses the tactics of the Republican Party since the 1992 defeat of George H.W. Bush. It resonates with what I am experiencing here in some private replies to these blogs, and in personal life where if I dare to wear the Kerry button to a local event, I am met with half-joking warnings and some that are not so joking. Even at work, people come up to me and say, "You sure are brave to wear that button here." In a neighboring county, a lady wearing a Kerry campaign button was greeted by her boss with, "You can work for him or me but not both" and that was the end of her job. Kerry heard about that, called her, and hired her.
At the very worst of the Wallace years in Alabama, I never heard of someone being fired for campaigning for a candidate unless they were actually not doing their job. This is outrageous.
I live in America, protected by a citizen government and a Constitution with a Bill of Rights. It seems these are a very thin veneer that can be undone by one administration using the tactics of the prep school bully. Fear and intimidation undo us too easily.
Having lived through the period of infamous Southern demogogues, I do recognize the steel behind G.W. Bush's sneer. It is the sneer of the little man become bully who can work his will with veiled threats to his opponents all the while acting as if he were a common man. He isn't. He isn't even Texan. The drawl, the denim jeans, and the boy howdy come lately personality are an act of a New England aristocrat, Ivy League educated, and wealthy. It's an act polished over many years but not many political successes. The act has kind even conciliatory words in it, but if you listen to the warm up acts, they are filled with vitriol, lies, and hate speech.
Note well: Bush rallies are closed events. Kerry rallies are open to the public. Kerry takes the heckling that Bush avoids facing, although his wife got a dose of it from a woman protesting the death of her son in Iraq. The woman was dragged from the meeting and charged with willful trespass. So, to tell the wife of the President of the United States the truth, one has to become a criminal?
This isn't like any election I've ever seen in America. The Republican behavior and tactics in every way betray a lack of faith in the people who give them their power and in the system they claim hegemony over. This is outrageous.
As Greenberg says, if we elect Bush this time, we have approved the politics of bullying. On the playground of American politics, no one is going to stop him in a second term from more eratic decision making and continuing his pursuit of policies that undo the gains of the middle class and the poor in the last century. The Republicans are well on their way to making this the century of American fascism at home and abroad. We get exactly one chance to stop them before this becomes a violent confrontation on the streets.
Last weekend, the "Dollar Man" as my Dad called him, drove through the neighborhood selling ice cream from his truck. As he handed me the goods (reward your kids for cleaning the house), he looked at the Kerry/Edwards sign in my front yard, and said excitedly and loudly in a Jamaican accent, "What about THIS?!? They are lieing about this man on TV. Is this the way you elect your president??? What can we do??? They ARE LIEING!!!" The Dollar Man typically says nothing but "Which one?" and "Here is your change." To hear him suddenly and without question launch into a tirade on the election was astounding. Immigrants "Get" American values long after the native born cave in to the politics of the bully.
I told him, "This isn't a normal election as I have experienced them and you are right. Turn off the television and get the facts, then whatever you believe, know, or support, come November, Vote. That's all we have to stop bullies."
Vote.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
When Architecture Astronauts Earn Their Money
A few years ago, Joel Spolsky wrote an article on Architecture Astronauts. Essentially, it concerns the problem with abstraction: that at some point, the level of abstraction is so far removed from the actual work as to be meaningless. This article gets cited in blogs, posted on bulletin boards, hangs from walls, etc.
The article points out the foibles, but Joel's examples such as Java, XML, etc., have proven by 2004 to be good things. Architecture is a good thing. Needless abstraction isn't, but then, if XML and Java were too abstract and yet proved to be very good conceptually and in practice, even sharp guys can fail to recognize when an abstraction is needless versus when their own understanding is not yet matured to the point of appreciating the abstraction.
1. Without an architecture, development is ad hoc and duplicative.
2. Without an architecture, policies for procurement can't be created or enforced.
The reasons for abstraction should be more closely examined particularly if the implementation has to survive platforms. Abstraction if applicable often enables the designer to correctly predict where a system will need to be extensible. Abstraction enables concepts to be grouped dynamically and to share implementations. Abstraction reduces work and cost.
Knowing when an architecture is too abstract or too mundane, or in the sweet spot of reapplicable concepts is the trick. Where procurement and implementation meet, there must be specific knowledge of the task to be achieved. All true, but without the architecture, money is wasted and the project is seldom complete or mission-proficient. Without abstraction, one builds one-offs.
Code can come from anyone who learns coding. Architecture comes from those who learn to abstract. Invention comes of abstractions that scale and unify systems. Then it is time to code. Otherwise, it becomes 'cowboy coding' and in today's market, no one can afford it.
The article points out the foibles, but Joel's examples such as Java, XML, etc., have proven by 2004 to be good things. Architecture is a good thing. Needless abstraction isn't, but then, if XML and Java were too abstract and yet proved to be very good conceptually and in practice, even sharp guys can fail to recognize when an abstraction is needless versus when their own understanding is not yet matured to the point of appreciating the abstraction.
1. Without an architecture, development is ad hoc and duplicative.
2. Without an architecture, policies for procurement can't be created or enforced.
The reasons for abstraction should be more closely examined particularly if the implementation has to survive platforms. Abstraction if applicable often enables the designer to correctly predict where a system will need to be extensible. Abstraction enables concepts to be grouped dynamically and to share implementations. Abstraction reduces work and cost.
Knowing when an architecture is too abstract or too mundane, or in the sweet spot of reapplicable concepts is the trick. Where procurement and implementation meet, there must be specific knowledge of the task to be achieved. All true, but without the architecture, money is wasted and the project is seldom complete or mission-proficient. Without abstraction, one builds one-offs.
Code can come from anyone who learns coding. Architecture comes from those who learn to abstract. Invention comes of abstractions that scale and unify systems. Then it is time to code. Otherwise, it becomes 'cowboy coding' and in today's market, no one can afford it.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
The Chosen Few
The problem with the Republican strategies for winning the election is not that they might not win, but the long term effects of such strategies. Republicans behave as if the election were a football game between hateful rivals who play once a season, then go home to their respective schools and wait for the next scheduled game to try again.
The behaviors set in motion by the 2000 election results, and now the divisive tactics being used by the Republican incumbents are only just beginning to manifest. As I noted in my blog The Value of Our Values negative or brutal means to direct actions always result in a negative or brutal behavior from the victims afterwards. In this case, it means that after the election, one side or the other will resort to ever increasing amounts of brutal tactics.
As Richard Nixon found out to his chagrin after the 1972 election, the behaviors only grow in intensity and ferocity after the election. Hard cadres of disciplined, well-informed and well-connected protestors will emerge if the Republicans win this October. They will grow and they will become more powerful than the evangelical far-right Republican hard-core. The principal problem is the perception that somehow, the American system was hoodwinked, the election was hijacked, and that a minority group of well-off white men have succeeded in overthrowing the system from within. Given Thomas Jefferson's remedy for such an event, they will begin to see that action is not only within their rights, but is the duty of the American patriot.
The hate and bitterness that the Republican election tactics have created will fuel this grass fire of patriotic sentiment and call to arms as if one had tossed gasoline on the tinder. This is an explosive situation and all sides will do well to refocus their campaigns on substantive issues over personal vituperation. They are making a monster and it will not continue to obey them, nor will it produce results that either party will find productive or career-enhancing. The Republican's consider that right wing evangelical fervor a sign of American strength.
Nothing could be more wrong.
America is by design and practice, a polytheistic culture with many beliefs held in check by the separation of church and state. By attempting to unite these, the evangelicals have played directly into the grand design of Osama Bin Laden. He is a mechanical engineer by education and a religious extremist by choice. He recognizes that exploiting the religious divisions in the American culture by feeding fear into the evangelical right will split the country at a structural seam. He is using our fears of each other in combination with the powerful ambitions of those who have hijacked Christian beliefs and institutions for their own ends to feed that fear back into our system so that we will turn on each other.
He does not seek to overthrow us; he means to cause us to start a second American civil war.
The extreme religious right are his best allies and supreme instrument in his goal to break up our nation. We must come to understand how our actions are furthering his goals not only in alienating our allies and increasing the strength of our enemies abroad, but that they are causing us to crumble from within by invoking our darker nature created by our need to be among the chosen few.
The behaviors set in motion by the 2000 election results, and now the divisive tactics being used by the Republican incumbents are only just beginning to manifest. As I noted in my blog The Value of Our Values negative or brutal means to direct actions always result in a negative or brutal behavior from the victims afterwards. In this case, it means that after the election, one side or the other will resort to ever increasing amounts of brutal tactics.
As Richard Nixon found out to his chagrin after the 1972 election, the behaviors only grow in intensity and ferocity after the election. Hard cadres of disciplined, well-informed and well-connected protestors will emerge if the Republicans win this October. They will grow and they will become more powerful than the evangelical far-right Republican hard-core. The principal problem is the perception that somehow, the American system was hoodwinked, the election was hijacked, and that a minority group of well-off white men have succeeded in overthrowing the system from within. Given Thomas Jefferson's remedy for such an event, they will begin to see that action is not only within their rights, but is the duty of the American patriot.
The hate and bitterness that the Republican election tactics have created will fuel this grass fire of patriotic sentiment and call to arms as if one had tossed gasoline on the tinder. This is an explosive situation and all sides will do well to refocus their campaigns on substantive issues over personal vituperation. They are making a monster and it will not continue to obey them, nor will it produce results that either party will find productive or career-enhancing. The Republican's consider that right wing evangelical fervor a sign of American strength.
Nothing could be more wrong.
America is by design and practice, a polytheistic culture with many beliefs held in check by the separation of church and state. By attempting to unite these, the evangelicals have played directly into the grand design of Osama Bin Laden. He is a mechanical engineer by education and a religious extremist by choice. He recognizes that exploiting the religious divisions in the American culture by feeding fear into the evangelical right will split the country at a structural seam. He is using our fears of each other in combination with the powerful ambitions of those who have hijacked Christian beliefs and institutions for their own ends to feed that fear back into our system so that we will turn on each other.
He does not seek to overthrow us; he means to cause us to start a second American civil war.
The extreme religious right are his best allies and supreme instrument in his goal to break up our nation. We must come to understand how our actions are furthering his goals not only in alienating our allies and increasing the strength of our enemies abroad, but that they are causing us to crumble from within by invoking our darker nature created by our need to be among the chosen few.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
When Spell Checkers Just Won't Save You
We love them because they make our writing better, and make us look smarter and more literate than we really are in today's email-driven society. But spell checkers aren't often grammar checkers. If you spell a word correctly yet use it incorrectly, a spell checker is like a life vest on the Titanic: it keeps your body afloat long after the chilling realization of just what it is that you have committed to the ocean of text actually means. In this article, I will list my favorites as they arrive at my inbox, beginning with:
"Please bare with me as I get on board with the duties as your chair. You have all contributed much to the work of the organization, and I will do my best to do my part."
One hopes her parts are doable. Better a bare chair than a chair bare.
"Please bare with me as I get on board with the duties as your chair. You have all contributed much to the work of the organization, and I will do my best to do my part."
One hopes her parts are doable. Better a bare chair than a chair bare.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
The Bonobo Blues
They say the web is responsible for higher divorce rates. We've heard this before. Everything from the corner bar to cars to smoking to television to golf to ham radio has contributed to the divorce rate over time. This time it is the ease of using a web service or Google to Yahoo with old lovers. The press can blame the web like it once blamed the telephone or notes left in hollow trees, but these are just means to ends. Why do we do it? We just do. We're mammals.
Monogamy is a hard row to hoe for the mammals. While the current popular media excorciate males for it (see Nip and Tuck) and celebrate it for women (see Sex in the City), it is the oldest non-story in the literature. Cultures regularly phase in and through causes and choices of victims and vary in the importance of fidelity to a spouse. Mammals, on the other hand, haven't changed in recorded history. It is likely we won't in the future.
Get over it.
It isn't that nature is cruel; nature is whimsical. When the male is at his most flighty, the female is at her most determined to build and hold a nest. Chaucer got it right, Dudes: it's about sovereignty.
You have your fling and the mama bird might ignore that, but the first time the other bird shows up with a gleam in her eye for your home or your children, get ready for trench warfare. There is a reason they call it "no man's land". If you don't understand that, you are among those poor helpless guys at the corner brew pub claiming that you don't understand women but you sure do like 'em. So with almighty ignorance as your motto, you pursue and persuade and beg on your knees to please. Hit it once, you can get away, but hit it twice and you're there to stay. Why? Because you like it.
Dudes, you are dogs, and a dog with a steak within reach is a stomach without a brain. It gulps it down and feels guilty but just as satisfied. Women count on that. As Nora Ephron, the finest director of chickFlix said, "God, I hope he doesn't want me for my mind". Only keep in mind that the married lady you are flirting with at work won't trade down and if you are a trade up, you're not a loaner. No one gets out alive.
Get ready for it.
If the kids are what you care most about, then just say no and do what you do when you're alone. As the child of a very large His Hers and Ours, I know first hand what the great ping-pong match of wife versus ex-wife does to children. I think that economics is the deal but men wonder about the economics of unlimited supply. On the other hand, the laws of economics have not been suspended, just your calculations.
What goes up must come down. True for trading markets, tents and elephant's trunks. Where the trade is legal tender, the tenderness goes out of the trade. If the equation only has an X and a Y, maybe you can juggle the numbers for better results. A street walker depends on X increasing while Y stays constant and in mathematical terms, that's a linear equation with no slope. A call-girl has a limited clientele but each one is selected for their conformance to ever higher standards of reward and that is a linear equation with a slope. Quality is a hill you must run up and you might not be the fastest runner in that herd. A married couple attempts to increase the value of X AND Y. That is a power law so maybe this all comes down to power. Whoever has the power also has the least number of Xs or at least knows Y.
Get down on it.
I'm not so sure we wouldn't be better off if we took a page from one of our close genetic cousins, the Bonobos and just got it on without too much ceremony. As they say in the song, "a little less talk and a lot more action". But by the time women get to this stage of the game, men are entering adulthood or at least their second marriage and don't care nearly as much about the score. That's another one of nature's whimsies. Science is extending the game time with all kinds of miracle drugs and the marketing seems to indicate that this is what men want but really it is what women want and once again, sovereignty outs. Nature is whimsical.
Get on with it.
Somewhere in all of this, you might think I have a point to make, but I don't. Life among the mammals has taught me that everything we do doesn't have a reason behind it. It might have a cause, it definitely has consequences, but if you believe that mammals are rational and all stories have a denouement followed by a happy ending and fade to the credits, well, you don't understand. Why do mammals want their old lovers? Because they haven't had them in a while.
That's it. That's all. It is as the hip say, a Jones, a hunger, a thirst, a need, a habit. Is it bad? No but it can make for a bad scene and unless one wants to go through life moving their stuff to new places, think twice. Stuff is just stuff but a relationship builds a craving and cravings last longer than stuff. It might be better if women treated men less like territory and men treated women less like applicances. Men would keep more stuff and women would have fewer cravings.
Get past it.
Sex is a never-ending story and like soap operas, the story arcs never quite conclude the action; they just cross fade or jump cut and new actors are on camera delivering the same old lines. Later, they might pick back up where they left off and the soap opera starts a new season, but the plot varies not at all. Is there a reason?
No. Nature is whimsical. Get used to it. That's life among the mammals.
Monogamy is a hard row to hoe for the mammals. While the current popular media excorciate males for it (see Nip and Tuck) and celebrate it for women (see Sex in the City), it is the oldest non-story in the literature. Cultures regularly phase in and through causes and choices of victims and vary in the importance of fidelity to a spouse. Mammals, on the other hand, haven't changed in recorded history. It is likely we won't in the future.
Get over it.
It isn't that nature is cruel; nature is whimsical. When the male is at his most flighty, the female is at her most determined to build and hold a nest. Chaucer got it right, Dudes: it's about sovereignty.
You have your fling and the mama bird might ignore that, but the first time the other bird shows up with a gleam in her eye for your home or your children, get ready for trench warfare. There is a reason they call it "no man's land". If you don't understand that, you are among those poor helpless guys at the corner brew pub claiming that you don't understand women but you sure do like 'em. So with almighty ignorance as your motto, you pursue and persuade and beg on your knees to please. Hit it once, you can get away, but hit it twice and you're there to stay. Why? Because you like it.
Dudes, you are dogs, and a dog with a steak within reach is a stomach without a brain. It gulps it down and feels guilty but just as satisfied. Women count on that. As Nora Ephron, the finest director of chickFlix said, "God, I hope he doesn't want me for my mind". Only keep in mind that the married lady you are flirting with at work won't trade down and if you are a trade up, you're not a loaner. No one gets out alive.
Get ready for it.
If the kids are what you care most about, then just say no and do what you do when you're alone. As the child of a very large His Hers and Ours, I know first hand what the great ping-pong match of wife versus ex-wife does to children. I think that economics is the deal but men wonder about the economics of unlimited supply. On the other hand, the laws of economics have not been suspended, just your calculations.
What goes up must come down. True for trading markets, tents and elephant's trunks. Where the trade is legal tender, the tenderness goes out of the trade. If the equation only has an X and a Y, maybe you can juggle the numbers for better results. A street walker depends on X increasing while Y stays constant and in mathematical terms, that's a linear equation with no slope. A call-girl has a limited clientele but each one is selected for their conformance to ever higher standards of reward and that is a linear equation with a slope. Quality is a hill you must run up and you might not be the fastest runner in that herd. A married couple attempts to increase the value of X AND Y. That is a power law so maybe this all comes down to power. Whoever has the power also has the least number of Xs or at least knows Y.
Get down on it.
I'm not so sure we wouldn't be better off if we took a page from one of our close genetic cousins, the Bonobos and just got it on without too much ceremony. As they say in the song, "a little less talk and a lot more action". But by the time women get to this stage of the game, men are entering adulthood or at least their second marriage and don't care nearly as much about the score. That's another one of nature's whimsies. Science is extending the game time with all kinds of miracle drugs and the marketing seems to indicate that this is what men want but really it is what women want and once again, sovereignty outs. Nature is whimsical.
Get on with it.
Somewhere in all of this, you might think I have a point to make, but I don't. Life among the mammals has taught me that everything we do doesn't have a reason behind it. It might have a cause, it definitely has consequences, but if you believe that mammals are rational and all stories have a denouement followed by a happy ending and fade to the credits, well, you don't understand. Why do mammals want their old lovers? Because they haven't had them in a while.
That's it. That's all. It is as the hip say, a Jones, a hunger, a thirst, a need, a habit. Is it bad? No but it can make for a bad scene and unless one wants to go through life moving their stuff to new places, think twice. Stuff is just stuff but a relationship builds a craving and cravings last longer than stuff. It might be better if women treated men less like territory and men treated women less like applicances. Men would keep more stuff and women would have fewer cravings.
Get past it.
Sex is a never-ending story and like soap operas, the story arcs never quite conclude the action; they just cross fade or jump cut and new actors are on camera delivering the same old lines. Later, they might pick back up where they left off and the soap opera starts a new season, but the plot varies not at all. Is there a reason?
No. Nature is whimsical. Get used to it. That's life among the mammals.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Winning The Game
If you like to think like the thinkers who think command and control is hierarchical by nature, but intelligence is networked by design, here is a good article:
Winning the Game
Years ago, some of us feasted on chaos and complexity theory, information systems, and game theories such as tit-for-tat as discussed in Scientific American. For me, I wrote the Information Ecosystems paper you see referenced in the left column which is as Dave Winer said, tough reading. To write clearly, one has to really understand what one is going on about and when I wrote that, I barely did. I think some of the bloggers are in about that same place, but they do have values that match their objectives, so big points for that. When I wrote the blog on Surviving Outsourcing, I was after a similar theme: if you want to blow a system to pieces without too much risk, find the interfaces and slow them down. The evaporating energy budget does the rest.
The problem with the American elections is that there is far too much energy available for that strategy to work. Truth is the weapon of choice, but as my Dad used to tell me, they aren't interested in the truth; they want to hear about the deal you're making. If Kerry wants to win, he has to go straight for the jugular. The Republicans wrap themselves in the flag and promote fear.
1. Al Qaeda though dangerous is still a street gang. They have trouble with travel, transport, and financing. They can always replace members so just killing them isn't enough. Make it harder and harder to pay for goods and services.
2. If the Republicans want to keep us safe, why did they out covert agents names? They want power and don't care who or what they risk to get it. Make sure that is remembered. The real flip flop is the flipping of values for convenience.
3. Watch the History Channel presentation of "Nazi America: The Secret History". It provides the classic example of how propaganda with a minimum population can create a generational movement, even one that is abhorrent on the face of it. Note that Hitler actually understood that and did his best to put a pudgy bland face on it.
4. Democratic values aren't enough. Not enough people vote and in a system that elects electors, very small numbers can outweigh the power of the majority. Human values aren't enough. The German Bund sold 'decency' as the cornerstone of its values. Values that match objectives are. Until the Democrats are crystal clear about how their values are supported by their objectives, they will lose to the financial players and the rock hard discipline of the Republicans. Note that such discipline was the cornerstone of the German Bund and note the use of youth camps. If you don't find these today, it is because you are looking for swastikas and they aren't that dumb. Look at the hard right wing church camps.
Bush and the Republicans have achieved one thing I did not think possible: they have made me watch Christians with an eye toward an enemy. Not Christianity, because the teachings of the Christ are pure truth and beautiful, the word of God. No, I mean just as the Nazis hijacked the teachings of decency while preaching a mystical connection with higher powers, these guys have hijacked Jesus and put him on their dashboard. There is an old Arlo Guthrie song about that.
Where are you, Arlo? We need you.
Winning the Game
Years ago, some of us feasted on chaos and complexity theory, information systems, and game theories such as tit-for-tat as discussed in Scientific American. For me, I wrote the Information Ecosystems paper you see referenced in the left column which is as Dave Winer said, tough reading. To write clearly, one has to really understand what one is going on about and when I wrote that, I barely did. I think some of the bloggers are in about that same place, but they do have values that match their objectives, so big points for that. When I wrote the blog on Surviving Outsourcing, I was after a similar theme: if you want to blow a system to pieces without too much risk, find the interfaces and slow them down. The evaporating energy budget does the rest.
The problem with the American elections is that there is far too much energy available for that strategy to work. Truth is the weapon of choice, but as my Dad used to tell me, they aren't interested in the truth; they want to hear about the deal you're making. If Kerry wants to win, he has to go straight for the jugular. The Republicans wrap themselves in the flag and promote fear.
1. Al Qaeda though dangerous is still a street gang. They have trouble with travel, transport, and financing. They can always replace members so just killing them isn't enough. Make it harder and harder to pay for goods and services.
2. If the Republicans want to keep us safe, why did they out covert agents names? They want power and don't care who or what they risk to get it. Make sure that is remembered. The real flip flop is the flipping of values for convenience.
3. Watch the History Channel presentation of "Nazi America: The Secret History". It provides the classic example of how propaganda with a minimum population can create a generational movement, even one that is abhorrent on the face of it. Note that Hitler actually understood that and did his best to put a pudgy bland face on it.
4. Democratic values aren't enough. Not enough people vote and in a system that elects electors, very small numbers can outweigh the power of the majority. Human values aren't enough. The German Bund sold 'decency' as the cornerstone of its values. Values that match objectives are. Until the Democrats are crystal clear about how their values are supported by their objectives, they will lose to the financial players and the rock hard discipline of the Republicans. Note that such discipline was the cornerstone of the German Bund and note the use of youth camps. If you don't find these today, it is because you are looking for swastikas and they aren't that dumb. Look at the hard right wing church camps.
Bush and the Republicans have achieved one thing I did not think possible: they have made me watch Christians with an eye toward an enemy. Not Christianity, because the teachings of the Christ are pure truth and beautiful, the word of God. No, I mean just as the Nazis hijacked the teachings of decency while preaching a mystical connection with higher powers, these guys have hijacked Jesus and put him on their dashboard. There is an old Arlo Guthrie song about that.
Where are you, Arlo? We need you.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Arnold Speaks
That is quite possibly the scariest speech I've ever seen. Skipping over the obvious cheap shots, any politician who cites Richard Nixon are the fount of his political consciousness obviously is neither a smart politician or an action hero. I voted for Nixon because we needed an S.O.B. to dig us out of the biggest mistake of American politics, and one made by Democrats: Vietnam. I don't think I'm going to vote for another bum who got us into another Vietnam even at the urging of a guy who used steroids to bulk up and then married into Democratic royalty after years of groping his co-stars and calling anyone with intelligence, girly-men.
Even Cheney looked uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure a lot of people watching did. On the other hand, after watching the local TV station interview people in this most Republican of states, not too many people were. That's too bad. That raised arm at the end sure made me squirm.
Even Cheney looked uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure a lot of people watching did. On the other hand, after watching the local TV station interview people in this most Republican of states, not too many people were. That's too bad. That raised arm at the end sure made me squirm.
Friday, August 27, 2004
Swing for The Fences
My teammates called me, Professor CrazySwing. It was a name my Coach gave me and it stuck throughout the season. I was 12, trying to play my last year of baseball in the minor league. The coach looked at me standing there, skinny, tall, mouthy and very very bright. I couldn't hit, I couldn't field, and I could irritate the heck out of anyone with long discussions of TV shows, girls, politics, girls, quantum theory, girls, music, girls, the meaning of life and girls and I could run. He knew I was there to run somewhere and that if he washed me out, I would never get my chance to be on the team.
So he didn't wash me out and for that season, I was the eternal benchwarmer. Next to me on the bench sat Jerry Mosley. The Moz was also a talkative guy and while he could hit the ball more often than me, it wasn't that often.
As the song goes, "the 142 fastest gun in the west and looking for number 143."
It was the last game in a series in which we had become the number 1 team in our league. The coach knew with his young talented tormented blonde pitcher, his big gangly 13 year old hitter, and pretty good guys in the outfield, he was winning the season. He had given me the rule book, told me to memorize it, and when he needed to know what the rule was, he would come ask me.
My coach was a lawyer. It explains much.
In the last game of the season, with no particular reason to think the worst team in the league could take us, knowing he had the season, the coach pointed to me and said, "Professor, you're up." So the benchwarmer who had the worst batting record in the league, mine own true self, would step up to face the worst pitcher.
As I walked past the coach he looked up at me and said with a big smile, "Swing for the fences." Just that. No pressure. No worries.
The first pitch went past me and noticed my big hazel eyes. It said, "Gotcha sucka." The second pitch came past me like his brother. I blinked. As the worst pitcher in the league unloaded his third pitch, I said, "I'm cooked." Then it hit me. What the hell? I'm the worst batter but I'm on the best team. Swing for the fences. I heard the crack of the bat and for one instant, I thought, "It's a homer!" I made it to first base. But I was on base. Wow! The Big Time.
Then I saw the coach motion to the Moz. Jerry picked up his bat and came to the plate. He looked scared. The second worst hitter on the best team was stepping up to meet the worst pitcher. I could see it in Moz's eyes. He knew he had a chance. When that first pitch spit past, he swung hard and missed. The Moz was bummed. Then he got mad. On that second pitch, he smacked it solid and I took off. I made it to third and turned. The Moz was standing proud on first base smiling.
The Coach smiled too. He was proud. His worst players made the bases.
He motioned to his best hitter. I smiled. The best hitter on the best team was stepping up to bat against the league's worst pitcher. I knew this man could bring me home.
He struck out. Game over. Season over. No homeplate for Professor and The Moz.
We walked in from the field heads down, when all of the team gathered round us and smiled. We had made the bases. That was the thing.
My father lay in the emergency room bed waiting for a doctor, knowing the mass against his prostate was going to kill him. We were watching "Some Like It Hot" on the TV hanging in the corner of the small portable room covered in white linen. He kept asking Momma for his pills. She snuck him one. He started to talk about the war. Daddy has once slapped me for asking about what he did in the Navy, but as he aged he told me more stories. Daddy liked to tell stories but until he was old, he didn't talk about the war. It haunted him. When he would see actions he was in on the History Channel, he'd just say, "I never saw any cameras."
My father served as a Seabee. He rode in small rubber boats smong the reefs between the landing crafts as the Japanese fired on them. His job was to restart the Hall-Scotts when some 18 year kid who had played baseball one year before in high school, now a scared Marine hoping the brother of the shell that had just gotten his guys wet wouldn't find him where he stood, hands choking the throttle on the twin-diesels, had killed the engines and left the LST to the mercy of the screaming demons of death falling around them. Get the kid's frozen hand off the throttle, hope the battery was still alive, pull like hell, start it, then jump back in the rubber boat and get to the next stalled boat drifting over the coral toward hell.
He had ridden a destroyer through Halsey's typhoons. He said it was the worst of it. On deck, he could fire a gun and he enjoyed that. In the water, he could dodge, but down in the ship listening to the engines howl and the screws cutting in and out of the water as the ship slid up, over and down the mountains of cold smothering rage around them, he could do nothing. He said it was the most scared he would ever be. When the kamikazes came, he got the one coming for him, but not the one coming for the carrier, so they tied up to it and fought the fires from their own decks.
On the island, he made friends with a pilot who flew patrol bombers. My Daddy loved anything that had an engine, and flying caught his fancy. He was younger than the pilot and the pilot liked that. He taught Daddy to fly. Daddy would go on patrol with him. In those days before pressure suits were common, it was not uncommon for older pilots to lose consciousness pulling out of a dive. The pilot preferred a younger man behind him who could take the Gs better. Wrapped in a towel because a dive makes blood run from his nose and ears ruining his prize jacket, the pilot would tell Daddy, "If I pass out, you gotta bring us home, Bullard."
Dad looked up at Marilyn on the screen in a clinch with Tony, and said, "Yeah, we were flying back that afternoon when we looked down and saw it laying there just off the coast. It was clear and we saw that sub waiting. After dark, he would surface and he would give us hell. I saw the pilot point down and I knew what he would do as he came round and started down. He was going all the way to the water before he dropped that bum. A bum has to hit hard and square on the water to get down to where that sub was at. So he flipped over and headed straight down, engine screaming, my guts all over me, and his face drawed up like a fish. I could see the top of that sub coming faster and faster until he let that bum go. As he was pulling up and the engine was groaning and the wings was cracking, I managed to look over. He hit 'er square on the tower and it blew up. We killed those barstards but they wuz gonna kill us that night. Made me glad. I looked around and I saw the red all over that towel, but as he was slumpin' down, he took the mike and said, "Bring us home, Bullard."
Then Daddy looked at me and Mom and said, "I can beat this." I knew it wasn't so, but I knew he would swing for the fences.
The back of the room of the Tralee museum was packed with a mob of people who had all come to see the Great Man. The man was Neil Armstrong who had flown every kind of plane there was to fly, who had first stepped on the Moon, and was now kneeling next to my seven year old son, Daniel. The Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland listened attentively next to the Great Man, as Daniel told him about the virtual reality epic before them on the screen.
Pushed into the crowd and the back of the room, Paul Hoffman and I and our wives watched as the cameras rolled and Daniel with complete poise told them about our work. An hour before that, Paul and I finished a 24 hour shift doing the final assembly of a work that had been made in 95 days out of beta technology by men all over the planet, none of whom except Paul and I ever laid eyes on one another. And Paul and I had only met a day and half ago.
It was reallllll close.
It was the finest moment of my life. For those men, all volunteers, only email buddies, mostly Dads for all the right reasons built that VR for the children of Ireland. Our team risked much but we were on base.
The next day, it was much quieter and we were back at the exhibit. Children playing around us, and Irish mother came up to me and asked, "Why did you do it?" I said, with pride, "For your children." but Paul, who sat making a few more tweaks, said, "For the fun." The redhaired girl from Kerry leaned into my shoulder and cried.
Around us the Gateway computers hummed. The children were laughing and living in the worlds of Hoffman, the genius who had pulled the project together, Kahuna who proved he was the master builder of ships, Dennis who created his magical worlds using only an Ascii editor and the beta browser, Niclas who would tell us of his days and his loves while he made the final mystery, Rev Bob who always replied with humor when Paul told him he needed to take just a few more triangles out of Bob's perfectly engineered and stunning International Space Station, all these good men who had heard the call to do the impossible, who had made the world's first virtual reality epic, had swung at the fences, and on the only pitch, knocked it all the way out of the park.
And my Daniel was there, his first time on a world stage showing our work to the Great Man who had been to the Moon first, and was there to see what we could make of the dream of space travel for the children of Ireland. Magic is attention focused by belief. We speak it into being and act. The whisper makes the word. The word is the act. Love is the reward. I couldn't have loved my son more than at that moment watching him swinging for the fences.
The night my father died my younger and my oldest brother sat in the room playing the music he had played with us so many Sundays for so many years. As he lay in the next room, we played with all the heart and all the love and all the mistakes we had learned while he had played with us. I sang his favorite, Gentle On My Mind, and we played all the blues and country and rock and folk and classical guitar songs we knew. When we stopped, he died. While now the grieving would begin, the deep sorrow of watching this Seabee join his mates was over. At Daddy's side was a very worn Bible with the signature of a man we did not know dated, 1943.
Two days later, at his funeral I read the elegy, and then I, my brothers, and my cousin played the song I had written ten years earlier knowing even then it was for this day, the song that got me into the Bluebird past Amy's pen years before. When I had told him that I was going to go take a swing at the audition in Nashville's home for songwriters, he told me, "Son, I know you like rock, and you write good songs, but for Nashville, you have to play a country song." So I went back to the studio to write a true song because as Harlan Howard said, "Country is three chords and the truth."
I sang about my Daddy making up after a fight with me when he had been drinking. He asked me what he could do. I was seven, but I said without hesitating, "Teach me to play the guitar." The song was true and it was enough to pass her test. Six months later, I sat on the stage of The Bluebird on a Sunday night and sang my song. I hit it over the fence. Daddy was proud. Hits didn't matter. It was about respect for a good song.
You only play the games you sign up for, and I had already decided that a life at home loving my wife, raising babies, and taking care of them was the best life. Music would always be my friend and like the Moz, if I could get to first base, it could get me further. I decided that home was far enough.
So now the time had come to play it for the family who always asked for that song, a song that would make Daddy cry. Without tears, I played the hardest song of my life, and the sweetest, and the truest. It was not written for the 'natch; it was for loving my Dad. In sadness and courage and practice and patience like the low tapping of a foot on a floor to start a song, we played as he had taught us: to bring it home.
A month ago I played for Kelly, my beautiful boo, the baby, the girl whom I've loved without reserve since her Mother first gave her to me. Before her grandparents and family friends and the assembly of her church, she sang her first solo. A month earlier, my best girlfriend when I was a teen-ager had given me her harp before she left for Israel to become a cantor. Knowing I loved the harp and would learn to play it, she told me to restring it and keep it until she could come back again. In a life time of music and love, this was an iridescent moment on stage with my little angel. As we both stepped up to the plate, her to sing for the first time in public, me to play a new and mysterious axe, we were there together swinging. With my Daddy's hands and my daughter's love, we hit it out of the park.
For all the times you think you cannot do it, for all the times you are scared and you can't see that ball coming, know that it is and when it gets there, you can swing for the fences. You can strike out when you're the best, you can hit when you're the worst, and you can bring someone home that made it to base. There is courage even in the most frightened heart, and there is will in the most frozen hand. I hope for you, that in this life, you will swing for the fences and know how wonderful the moment is when you hit it out of the park and bring it home.
So he didn't wash me out and for that season, I was the eternal benchwarmer. Next to me on the bench sat Jerry Mosley. The Moz was also a talkative guy and while he could hit the ball more often than me, it wasn't that often.
As the song goes, "the 142 fastest gun in the west and looking for number 143."
It was the last game in a series in which we had become the number 1 team in our league. The coach knew with his young talented tormented blonde pitcher, his big gangly 13 year old hitter, and pretty good guys in the outfield, he was winning the season. He had given me the rule book, told me to memorize it, and when he needed to know what the rule was, he would come ask me.
My coach was a lawyer. It explains much.
In the last game of the season, with no particular reason to think the worst team in the league could take us, knowing he had the season, the coach pointed to me and said, "Professor, you're up." So the benchwarmer who had the worst batting record in the league, mine own true self, would step up to face the worst pitcher.
As I walked past the coach he looked up at me and said with a big smile, "Swing for the fences." Just that. No pressure. No worries.
The first pitch went past me and noticed my big hazel eyes. It said, "Gotcha sucka." The second pitch came past me like his brother. I blinked. As the worst pitcher in the league unloaded his third pitch, I said, "I'm cooked." Then it hit me. What the hell? I'm the worst batter but I'm on the best team. Swing for the fences. I heard the crack of the bat and for one instant, I thought, "It's a homer!" I made it to first base. But I was on base. Wow! The Big Time.
Then I saw the coach motion to the Moz. Jerry picked up his bat and came to the plate. He looked scared. The second worst hitter on the best team was stepping up to meet the worst pitcher. I could see it in Moz's eyes. He knew he had a chance. When that first pitch spit past, he swung hard and missed. The Moz was bummed. Then he got mad. On that second pitch, he smacked it solid and I took off. I made it to third and turned. The Moz was standing proud on first base smiling.
The Coach smiled too. He was proud. His worst players made the bases.
He motioned to his best hitter. I smiled. The best hitter on the best team was stepping up to bat against the league's worst pitcher. I knew this man could bring me home.
He struck out. Game over. Season over. No homeplate for Professor and The Moz.
We walked in from the field heads down, when all of the team gathered round us and smiled. We had made the bases. That was the thing.
My father lay in the emergency room bed waiting for a doctor, knowing the mass against his prostate was going to kill him. We were watching "Some Like It Hot" on the TV hanging in the corner of the small portable room covered in white linen. He kept asking Momma for his pills. She snuck him one. He started to talk about the war. Daddy has once slapped me for asking about what he did in the Navy, but as he aged he told me more stories. Daddy liked to tell stories but until he was old, he didn't talk about the war. It haunted him. When he would see actions he was in on the History Channel, he'd just say, "I never saw any cameras."
My father served as a Seabee. He rode in small rubber boats smong the reefs between the landing crafts as the Japanese fired on them. His job was to restart the Hall-Scotts when some 18 year kid who had played baseball one year before in high school, now a scared Marine hoping the brother of the shell that had just gotten his guys wet wouldn't find him where he stood, hands choking the throttle on the twin-diesels, had killed the engines and left the LST to the mercy of the screaming demons of death falling around them. Get the kid's frozen hand off the throttle, hope the battery was still alive, pull like hell, start it, then jump back in the rubber boat and get to the next stalled boat drifting over the coral toward hell.
He had ridden a destroyer through Halsey's typhoons. He said it was the worst of it. On deck, he could fire a gun and he enjoyed that. In the water, he could dodge, but down in the ship listening to the engines howl and the screws cutting in and out of the water as the ship slid up, over and down the mountains of cold smothering rage around them, he could do nothing. He said it was the most scared he would ever be. When the kamikazes came, he got the one coming for him, but not the one coming for the carrier, so they tied up to it and fought the fires from their own decks.
On the island, he made friends with a pilot who flew patrol bombers. My Daddy loved anything that had an engine, and flying caught his fancy. He was younger than the pilot and the pilot liked that. He taught Daddy to fly. Daddy would go on patrol with him. In those days before pressure suits were common, it was not uncommon for older pilots to lose consciousness pulling out of a dive. The pilot preferred a younger man behind him who could take the Gs better. Wrapped in a towel because a dive makes blood run from his nose and ears ruining his prize jacket, the pilot would tell Daddy, "If I pass out, you gotta bring us home, Bullard."
Dad looked up at Marilyn on the screen in a clinch with Tony, and said, "Yeah, we were flying back that afternoon when we looked down and saw it laying there just off the coast. It was clear and we saw that sub waiting. After dark, he would surface and he would give us hell. I saw the pilot point down and I knew what he would do as he came round and started down. He was going all the way to the water before he dropped that bum. A bum has to hit hard and square on the water to get down to where that sub was at. So he flipped over and headed straight down, engine screaming, my guts all over me, and his face drawed up like a fish. I could see the top of that sub coming faster and faster until he let that bum go. As he was pulling up and the engine was groaning and the wings was cracking, I managed to look over. He hit 'er square on the tower and it blew up. We killed those barstards but they wuz gonna kill us that night. Made me glad. I looked around and I saw the red all over that towel, but as he was slumpin' down, he took the mike and said, "Bring us home, Bullard."
Then Daddy looked at me and Mom and said, "I can beat this." I knew it wasn't so, but I knew he would swing for the fences.
The back of the room of the Tralee museum was packed with a mob of people who had all come to see the Great Man. The man was Neil Armstrong who had flown every kind of plane there was to fly, who had first stepped on the Moon, and was now kneeling next to my seven year old son, Daniel. The Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland listened attentively next to the Great Man, as Daniel told him about the virtual reality epic before them on the screen.
Pushed into the crowd and the back of the room, Paul Hoffman and I and our wives watched as the cameras rolled and Daniel with complete poise told them about our work. An hour before that, Paul and I finished a 24 hour shift doing the final assembly of a work that had been made in 95 days out of beta technology by men all over the planet, none of whom except Paul and I ever laid eyes on one another. And Paul and I had only met a day and half ago.
It was reallllll close.
It was the finest moment of my life. For those men, all volunteers, only email buddies, mostly Dads for all the right reasons built that VR for the children of Ireland. Our team risked much but we were on base.
The next day, it was much quieter and we were back at the exhibit. Children playing around us, and Irish mother came up to me and asked, "Why did you do it?" I said, with pride, "For your children." but Paul, who sat making a few more tweaks, said, "For the fun." The redhaired girl from Kerry leaned into my shoulder and cried.
Around us the Gateway computers hummed. The children were laughing and living in the worlds of Hoffman, the genius who had pulled the project together, Kahuna who proved he was the master builder of ships, Dennis who created his magical worlds using only an Ascii editor and the beta browser, Niclas who would tell us of his days and his loves while he made the final mystery, Rev Bob who always replied with humor when Paul told him he needed to take just a few more triangles out of Bob's perfectly engineered and stunning International Space Station, all these good men who had heard the call to do the impossible, who had made the world's first virtual reality epic, had swung at the fences, and on the only pitch, knocked it all the way out of the park.
And my Daniel was there, his first time on a world stage showing our work to the Great Man who had been to the Moon first, and was there to see what we could make of the dream of space travel for the children of Ireland. Magic is attention focused by belief. We speak it into being and act. The whisper makes the word. The word is the act. Love is the reward. I couldn't have loved my son more than at that moment watching him swinging for the fences.
The night my father died my younger and my oldest brother sat in the room playing the music he had played with us so many Sundays for so many years. As he lay in the next room, we played with all the heart and all the love and all the mistakes we had learned while he had played with us. I sang his favorite, Gentle On My Mind, and we played all the blues and country and rock and folk and classical guitar songs we knew. When we stopped, he died. While now the grieving would begin, the deep sorrow of watching this Seabee join his mates was over. At Daddy's side was a very worn Bible with the signature of a man we did not know dated, 1943.
Two days later, at his funeral I read the elegy, and then I, my brothers, and my cousin played the song I had written ten years earlier knowing even then it was for this day, the song that got me into the Bluebird past Amy's pen years before. When I had told him that I was going to go take a swing at the audition in Nashville's home for songwriters, he told me, "Son, I know you like rock, and you write good songs, but for Nashville, you have to play a country song." So I went back to the studio to write a true song because as Harlan Howard said, "Country is three chords and the truth."
I sang about my Daddy making up after a fight with me when he had been drinking. He asked me what he could do. I was seven, but I said without hesitating, "Teach me to play the guitar." The song was true and it was enough to pass her test. Six months later, I sat on the stage of The Bluebird on a Sunday night and sang my song. I hit it over the fence. Daddy was proud. Hits didn't matter. It was about respect for a good song.
You only play the games you sign up for, and I had already decided that a life at home loving my wife, raising babies, and taking care of them was the best life. Music would always be my friend and like the Moz, if I could get to first base, it could get me further. I decided that home was far enough.
So now the time had come to play it for the family who always asked for that song, a song that would make Daddy cry. Without tears, I played the hardest song of my life, and the sweetest, and the truest. It was not written for the 'natch; it was for loving my Dad. In sadness and courage and practice and patience like the low tapping of a foot on a floor to start a song, we played as he had taught us: to bring it home.
A month ago I played for Kelly, my beautiful boo, the baby, the girl whom I've loved without reserve since her Mother first gave her to me. Before her grandparents and family friends and the assembly of her church, she sang her first solo. A month earlier, my best girlfriend when I was a teen-ager had given me her harp before she left for Israel to become a cantor. Knowing I loved the harp and would learn to play it, she told me to restring it and keep it until she could come back again. In a life time of music and love, this was an iridescent moment on stage with my little angel. As we both stepped up to the plate, her to sing for the first time in public, me to play a new and mysterious axe, we were there together swinging. With my Daddy's hands and my daughter's love, we hit it out of the park.
For all the times you think you cannot do it, for all the times you are scared and you can't see that ball coming, know that it is and when it gets there, you can swing for the fences. You can strike out when you're the best, you can hit when you're the worst, and you can bring someone home that made it to base. There is courage even in the most frightened heart, and there is will in the most frozen hand. I hope for you, that in this life, you will swing for the fences and know how wonderful the moment is when you hit it out of the park and bring it home.
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