Month: September 2016

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Professionalism

I'm starting to believe that along with basic manners, civil discourse, and common courtesy, professionalism is going the way of the dinosaur in our society. I am amazed at the number of times over the past few years I have been praised for simply doing my job. Are companies really hiring such grossly unqualified and incompetent workers that the mere act of showing up on time, completing tasks that are assigned to you, and basically not being a dick to your fellow coworkers is now worthy of adulation?

Apparently so.

One of the things I have always prided myself on was the fact that my supervisors knew they could give me a task and it would be completed as requested without requiring their constant oversight. This managerial hands-off approach seems to work best for both parties, and probably stems from my many years as an architectural drafter. Once I was given a set of parameters, I was set loose to complete the task with a bare minimum of oversight thereafter.

Apparently this ability to work independently and actually do one's job without having to be micromanaged is a rare commodity in today's workforce.

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Quote of the Day

He has no clue about the difference between negotiating a business deal and negotiating with sovereign nations.  A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander-in-chief is too great a risk for America…He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief." ~ Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking about Donald the Cheeto-faced Shitgibbon in a Wall Street op-ed, Friday 16 September 2016.

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Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy Theories and Urban Legends: I admit to loving them. I don't believe a word of any of it, but they often make for good "what if" thought exercises and are clearly the 21st century version of ghost stories.

One of my favorites revolves around and grows out of the 1947 Roswell incident.

FYI, I do believe something not of this world crashed in the New Mexico desert, but what it was will probably remain one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. And frankly, long ago I came to the conclusion (based on the numbers alone) that we aren't alone; that the universe is teeming with life and we've undoubtedly been visited at some point by a civilization or civilizations that somehow managed to make it out of the childhood humanity currently finds itself in. Such hubris to believe otherwise! And if it wasn't by chance that some Galactic Survey Vessel stumbled across this unremarkable little out-of-the-way rock, our detonating nuclear weapons would certainly send out a wake up call saying, "Hi, we're here!" (Our nukes bring all the tripedal Reptilians to the yard.)

Would I like definitive proof of alien life or having been visited? Of course. But unless an unambiguous radio signal is received (much less announced by our governments), a saucer lands on the White House lawn or motherships appear in the skies over our cities, I doubt that's going to happen during my lifetime.

Anyhow, one particular tale goes something like this:

The aliens piloting that crashed ship brought it down on purpose. Why? To seed our civilization with their technology—but not out of altrusism. It's all part of an elaborate plan to take over the planet.

The narrative states that during the process of reverse engineering the downed saucer, various bits of alien technology were secretly farmed out to several U.S. corporations for research and exploitation—and that's exactly what the aliens knew would happen.

Okay, sending the bits out for R&D without actually letting anyone know where it came from sounds plausible enough in a post-WWII mentality if something from "out there" actually crashed, but I still cock one eyebrow at it.

Anyhow, among the items recovered were supposedly things resembling modern integrated circuits; devices that were unheard of in 1947.

The first integrated circuits and silicon transistors appeared only a few years later. Co-inki-dink?

As the story goes, the aliens seeded this technology knowing what clever little apes we were. They knew we'd eventually figure it out and build our own versions.

Further, they somehow knew that because our entire civilization would eventually become so dependent on this stuff (I guess they're masters of human psychology as well) it would be a simple matter of simply turning the switch off when it was time to come for the harvest. And who's to say there isn't something hidden in the fabric of the physics behind all this tech that our science is completely blind to that would allow such a thing to happen?

Without electronics and the always-on interconnectivity it provides, you've gotta admit that our current society would collapse pretty rapidly. I'm not just talking about the cell phones that everyone seemingly has their noses glued to 24/7, but pretty much everything. There are electronics in your cars and trucks; without them they won't run. Electronics monitor and control the flow of water, gas, and electricity. Electronics (fly-by-wire) control our airplanes. Electronics monitor the processing of our food, the distribution of our money, and the gasoline we pump into our vehicles. Everything. Society is so dependent upon the flow of electrons that if they were to be shut off, collapse would be imminent. That's not to say that we wouldn't rebuild and regroup, but it would take time.

Yeah, I've read a lot of sci-fi over the course of my life.

As I said, this is just a thought experiment. I seriously doubt aliens would travel the impossible distances involved to get here just to implement a century-long (centuries-long?) plan to make us what's for dinner unless they have the long game in mind and equally long lifespans. If they have the technology to travel here and want to take us over, they certainly have the technology to make that happen without all the cloak-and-dagger drama.

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As Ben Teaches His Students…

…actions have consequences.

We've filed for bankruptcy.

Obviously this was not a decision that we came to hastily, but rather one that we've been mulling for nearly a year. The single greatest precipitator of this was the loss of income we've both suffered by moving back from Denver. Ben knew beforehand that he'd take a cut in pay by returning to Phoenix, but I foolishly believed that while I knew I wouldn't immediately return to my pre-Denver salary (earned through years of raises at a single company), I would at least match what I was making in Denver; not have to return to what I was making in the 1990s.

Unfortunately our financial obligations were based on maintaining something close to what we'd been making in Denver, not to a combined yearly income loss of nearly $20K.

While we were pretty good at juggling our bills, it was obvious we were both slowly sinking into a black hole of debt that nothing short of a much better paying job, a winning lottery ticket—or bankruptcy—would ameliorate.

This is something I've never had to deal with before, so I am understandably upset—even though almost everyone I know (family and friends alike) have gone through bankruptcy at least once and has come out the other side okay.

Ben fell behind on his car payments to such a degree that the creditor was not only threatening immediate repossession, but also was also totally unwilling to even consider discussing reaffirming the loan until he brought it current—something we were financially unable to do. So Ben turned in his car. This was a sad day for both of us because many fine adventures were had with Marvin. (My Anderson is long paid for and considered exempt property, so I'm still good on the transportation front.)

Because of this (and any number of other things that have happened over the past nine months) 2016 will henceforth be known as The Year Of Suck in this household.  And we haven't even gotten to the elections yet—that with Herr Drumpf's recent rise in the polls in key swing states basically bringing him within the margin of error with Clinton—has me terrified.

"Never underestimate the stupidity of the of the general public." ~ Scott Adams, (American Cartoonist, b.1957)

 

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Eight Years Ago Today

…I met this guy, and words cannot begin to describe how wonderful those years have been. Here's to many, many, many more, my love!

"When I first met you, that's what I remember. I looked up at the sky and thought, I'm going to love this person because even the sky looks different." ~Margaret Stohl

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Keith is Back!

Every few generations, we Americans are called upon to defend our country. To defend it not so much from foreign dictators or war or terrorism, but from those here who have no commitment to progress or democracy or representative government—no commitment to anything except their own out-of-control minds and the bottomless pits of their egos.

Our society has thrown up these people before: Joseph McCarthy. George Wallace. Father Coughlin. Jefferson Davis. Aaron Burr. The Know-Nothings. The Blacklisters. The America-Firsters. And we have always thrown them out. And now our generation has its own: the most dangerous individual ever nominated by a major party for the highest office in this country.

His base wants few details and fewer facts; they just want to burn it down and blame their failures on the collective other. And Donald John Trump is their demonic messiah in Oompa Loompa's clothing. We must stop him. It is not pleasant. It is not fair that we have to do this. But it is our turn."

This will have absolutely no effect upon the hard core fascist Trump supporters, but it is nice to know for all of us who live in the real world that not all of MSM has been overtaken by the creeping toxicity of their narrative.

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A Real Headline

25 awesome iOS 10 features that will change your life

Yes, that is a real headline. 25 awesome iOS 10 features that will change your life.



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Late To The Party

Ben and I finally got around to seeing Star Trek Beyond this past weekend. Between procrastination and admittedly a certain amount of apathy, I was beginning to think this was going to the first big-screen Trek that I wasn't actually going to experience on the big screen.

Before seeing it, I already knew the storyline: malevolent alien, disgruntled former Starfleet Officer, or unknown galactic entity threatens to destroy the entire Federation and only Kirk, the Enterprise and its valiant crew stands between it and total annihilation. ("You've seen this before!")

Was I wrong? No. Did I walk out of the theater feeling like I'd been cheated out of my money? Not at all. It was an enjoyable—albeit fairly predictable in places—two hours of entertainment and something I will no doubt be adding to my collection when it comes available on disk. (Plus, pretty much all the lead actors bring a level of eye candy to the screen that is undeniable.)

But am I the only one to notice how a plot point from the Space Seed episode—that was not really utilized in Star Trek Into Darkness—showed up in a roundabout way in the current film?

I'm speaking about a group of people who for all intents the Federation abandoned. In Space Seed, it was Khan's group that was left on Ceti Alpha V (which as we all know thanks to Wrath of Khan was a planet devastated by the explosion of Ceti Alpha VI some years after the relocation, rendering it nearly uninhabitable) with the Federation apparently completely forgetting about it—and with Beyond it was the ill-fated crew of the U.S.S. Franklin that was given up for dead.

And the brouha over Sulu being gay? Please, Mary. If you didn't know to look for it, you wouldn't even have spotted it.

Quibbles aside, I've come to love the "new" crew and it's obvious the actors are developing that chemistry we have come to expect of the Trek franchise. How they will cope with the loss of Anton Yelchin remains to be seen; I know I felt a pang whenever Checkov was on screen, knowing full well that the fine young man who played him was snatched from our lives far too soon.

It will be interesting to see where future films take us. I'm looking forward to the journey.

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Quote Of The Day

One other thing I'd like to remind people is that the next president could nominate up to four Supreme Court Justices. I know that's not a sexy issue and it doesn't tend to dominate the headlines, but it really, really should. Whatever issues you're passionate about (voting rights, access to abortion, campaign finance, health care, etc.) the Supreme Court wreaks massive influence on them all. The Court is composed of a mere (usually) nine people who together decide things like whether you should be able to vote in Alabama if you're black or if you should have to drive 300 miles to get an abortion if you've been raped. So in the coming weeks and months you have to decide if you'd like Hillary Clinton to nominate the people who make those decisions for you or if you'd prefer Donald Trump to do that. To illustrate, Donald Trump could substantively influence critical decisions your granddaughter has to make about her reproductive health care, long after you're dead. And that's not a silly thought exercise, that's an elementary understanding of how the Supreme Court, whose Justices are appointed for life, shapes American lives through law." ~ Rob Delaney

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Never Take Naproxen in the Middle of the Night

I woke up with my lower back in pain around 3 am, so I got up, popped a Naproxen, and went back to bed.

The dreams I had thereafter were just bizarre. One in particular I found so weird I had to scribble some notes because if I didn't I knew I'd completely forget it by morning:

I was at work. I pulled my Mac out of my backpack and realized that somehow I'd grabbed Ben's old machine that's currently sitting in a closet. I briefly thought about using it (since I basically just needed it for email and cruising the internet) until I could go home at lunch but then realized it didn't even have an OS loaded. I told my boss I needed to run home for a few minutes (I live, after all, less then 5 minutes away) and left.

I arrived home to my last apartment in San Francisco, to discover a notice from UPS taped on the door that a delivery had been attempted and that Sparkles water had left a new bottle of water. The UPS guy was still there, saw that I'd come home, and came back to give me a large envelope.

I went in the building and noticed that the door to my apartment was ajar. I knew that the landlord was doing renovations, but she'd mentioned nothing to me about needing to get in my apartment. I walked in and every wall was covered with plaster patches. I thought, "what the hell?" and at that moment she walked in.

The landlord was Joan Rivers. Yes, Joan Rivers. (IRL, Molly, my landlord in SF was just as old and nearly as wealthy—she lived next door to Diane Feinstein—but not anywhere near as funny.)

"What have you done to my apartment?" I asked.

"Your apartment?" This is my apartment. You're on the wrong floor, silly! I'm renovating this one for me."

And then I realized that yes, I was in the wrong unit altogether and that the UPS delivery wasn't for me and neither was the bottle of water.

Interestingly, while this was supposedly my last apartment in San Francisco, it bore very little resemblance to the real thing. IRL, you got to the apartment via an outside balcony that ran the length of the building, and it was a large (for SF, anyway) one bedroom unit. In this dream, it was reached by an interior hallway and the unit I found myself in looked much a standard generic hotel room.

Have I mentioned that the entire time all this was happening, "Singin' in the Rain" was playing at angelic volume and that somehow I had forgotten all about the Mac—or returning to work—and had come home to watch the movie? (Something I've never seen all the way through.)

From there it got even more confusing. Joan had apparently taken over the apartment below mine, but I needed to go the apartment above mine to watch the movie. Joan wanted to see it as well, and while the door to the stairway was blocked by construction stuff, leaving only an opening about six inches wide, she somehow managed to get her skinny ass through but I had to take the elevator (which IRL we all referred to as Mr. Toad's Wild Ride). Apparently the elevator had been replaced as part of the construction as well, and it was now glass-walled and overlooked the four-story foyer—but still dropped an inch once you got on.

Upon reaching the fourth floor apartment, I realized I was now carrying my Dad's old flat panel computer monitor (apparently to watch the film on), but Joan was nowhere to be found and the apartment where this was going to happen was occupied by two black guys who had no idea why I was even there.

And then I woke up.

I always hope that by writing these dreams out I'll gain some understanding of what my subconscious was trying to tell me, but with this one I've got nothin'…