Monthy Archive: April 2005
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April 01, 2005

TV : Battlestar Galactica

For those who are unaware, there is a new "re imagined" version of Battlestar Galactica in production, and its first season ended tonight. The original "Galactica had some original ideas; but suffered significantly from being targeted at young people (the idea that adults might be interested in SciFi, while starting to gain acceptance now was unheard of back then).

The new Battlestar Galactica is a very different matter. It is dark, gritty, and full of adult themes. The basic idea is the same with one major twist – the Cylons (the robotic villains of the old series) have mastered biotechnology, and have in fact created lines of artificial humans which are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing (in addition to the more classic robots). By giving the Cylons a voice and a pretty face (literally in many cases), the show is able to explore issues of what it means to be human and to open the door to actually sympathizing with them (well, as much sympathy as one can muster for creatures responsible for genocide). The moral issues presented are complex for both the humans and Cylons.

The series is arc-structured, with many parallel story lines being played out over multiple episodes. One intriguing arc is that the Cylons are devoutly monotheistic, and it is their belief in one true god that appears to drive their actions. From context, it does not appear that this god is some kind of master computer program; but is in fact a god in the usual meaning of that word. This is in contrast to the human colonists who are presented as being polytheist – believing (to varying degrees) in what appears to be the Greek pantheon of gods.

Posted by Steven at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 02, 2005

Life : XHTML, CSS and the rest of the alphabet soup

I have been spending some time learning the various technologies being used to implement this blog (I knew HTML 1.0 and 2.0; but have largely been out of the loop on web development since then). The result is the revised look & feel now in place.

If any of you have problems with the site, please let me know and I’ll try to correct it. Please be clear on what version of what browser you are using.

Opinions and suggestions are also welcome.

Posted by Steven at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 04, 2005

Books : “The Introvert Advantage”

“The Introvert Advantage. How to Thrive in an Extrovert World”
by Dr. Marti Olsen Laney Psy.D.

"Hi, my name is Steven. I’m an Introvert”

“Hi, Steven.”

OK, the idea of Introverts Anonymous may seem like a redundancy to some people; but I can attest that the 1/3 of the population who are introverts are in desperate need of a support group in our extrovert-dominated society. Many introverts come to the conclusion that they are abnormal, broken, mentally or psychologically deficient given the expectations which are set by society; but being an introvert is normal, and in fact society needs functioning introverts. Being an introvert is not the same as being shy or socially inept – those are independent characteristics which can be experienced by both introverts and extroverts.

The difference between true introverts and true extroverts is in the machinery of the brain and what makes its engine run.

Extroverts are driven by external stimulus. They gain psychological energy by interacting with the outside world. Sitting alone with their own thoughts tends to be draining for extroverts; but being in a chaotic party with many people is invigorating. Physiologically, extrovert’s brains are dominated by the dopamine cycle, allowing them to be respond to the outside world quickly. Extroverts need some time each day interacting with rich sources of stimulus (usually other people).

Introverts are driven by internal thought. They gain psychological energy by contemplation - thinking through ideas in depth. Sitting alone with their own thoughts tends to invigorate them; but being in a chaotic party with many people is draining. Physiologically, extrovert’s brains are dominated by the acetylcholine cycle, allowing them to remember and process things at length. Extroverts need some time each day to be alone and think.

The consequences of these differences are manifold, and are often difficult on introverts who find modern society to be over stimulating – filling their input buffers while not allowing sufficient quiet time to process all of that data. Dr. Laney’s book is a quick guide for helping introverts first realize they are normal, and second develop strategies for being happy in the modern world.

Posted by Steven at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 05, 2005

Thoughts : Morality in media (TV, games, etc.)

I watched a program on Peter Molyneux (designer of games like 'Populous,' 'Black & White,' and 'Fable') which got me thinking about the grand debate in the U.S. on morality in the media. The case has been made by many that media content is moral if it only depicts moral behavior and that if it depicts any kind of immoral behavior, then the TV show, game, etc is immoral. I believe this is a flawed analysis (after all, by that standard, the Bible is an incredibly immoral book!)

My personal belief is that what makes a particular piece of media moral or immoral is not the behavior characters; but whether the consequences of those behaviors are reasonably depicted. I'm not talking about immediate artificial consequences created to show a point; but rather realistic consequences which play out over time. That’s one reason I have enjoyed shows like "Babylon 5" by Straczynski and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by Weadon – both show the character’s actions having consequences episodes or even seasons later (as they would in real life).

In my opinion, this is even more important in video games, where it is the player’s own actions which should have consequences. As an interesting case in point – I am currently playing "Knights of the Old Republic II". Actually I am playing it twice in parallel – once with a good Jedi character following the light side of the force, and again with an evil Sith character that is racing toward the dark side of the force (I play each side leapfrogging the other, so I get to do parts of the first from each perspective). The game is in fact designed to allow for consequences of taking the light or dark path; and it is interesting to see what the developers have implemented.

My biggest surprise so far has been when I found myself in the living quarters of some guards who protect a nascent Jedi academy (I'm trying to not drop spoilers here; my point is that these were people who were supposed to be on the side of good). I did this section first as my bad-boy, and I was quite happy to pillage all of the guards’ rooms for their possessions. The surprise was when I played though this with my good character. As an experiment, I opened the containers and took the contents – and nothing happened. This made me think back to so many Role Playing Games I played where going into people's homes and taking things had no consequences whatsoever. Those games weren’t immoral because they depicted magic, violence, etc. (pick your favorite soapbox). They were immoral because they taught that it was OK to steal!

Which bring me back to Peter Molyneux. He is the one game developer I have seen for whom consequences of actions is an integral theme to his games (in fact it may be the only theme of Fable). While I may disagree at times with details of his moral vision, I applaud that he at least types to establish a moral tone in his games by having all actions have consequences for the players.

Posted by Steven at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 06, 2005

Movies : What the Bleep Do We Know

Short Review: New-age pseudo-science in a visually stunning package. I particularly enjoyed the wedding reception sequence. Long version…..

I blame Niels Bohr

He's the individual primarily responsible for the "Copenhagen Interpretation" of Quantum Mechanics and therefore the ongoing sequence of people trying to justify their religious/philosophical beliefs using Quantum Mechanics (of which this movie is an example).

For those who aren't "into" theoretical physics (yes, I am a geek). Here's the short non-technical version of the problem.

Quantum Mechanics is a collection of equations which very accurately predicts the behavior of the smallest things in the universe (the particles that make up atoms for instance). If you simply plug the numbers into the equations and use the values they provide, everything works just fine. The problem comes when you try to step back from the equations and try to figure out what they mean.

People generally understand things by analogy.....

People generally understand things by analogy. A is like B but with C. A motorcycle is like a bicycle with an engine. Perhaps not a perfect description; but it gets you close enough that you can then work on the details with a comfortable foundation. The problem with Quantum Mechanics is that there is absolutely nothing that people have common experience with that behaves the way Quantum Mechanics describes. There are just no good analogies to use. The best explanations seem like non sequiturs: "It is like a purple fish and a transistor radio".

There have however been many attempts to develop explanation of what Quantum Mechanics means, and one of the earliest and still most popular is the "Copenhagen Interpretation". Their explanation actually works rather well if you ignore one problem - they had to add a new concept not found in or explained by the equations to make it work: "the observer". Without going into details, the Copenhagen Interpretation says that quantum mechanics works like "A" as long as there is no one looking at what is happening; but then starts working like "B" if "an observer" is looking. Like an employee who plays solitaire on the computer all day unless their boss is watching. Now that's an analogy which can be understood. (For those who'd like slightly more detail - it says that particles are fuzzy clouds of probability until you try and observe them, when they suddenly snap into sharp clarity at a single place - but only as long as you are looking).

However, as I said the problem with the Copenhagen Interpretation is that it only makes sense if you add the concept of "an observer", and the proceeds to not explain what exactly an observer is. This is a hole large enough that many strange things can be pushed through it, many of which are totally non-scientific, and the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know" is a wonderful survey of many of these ideas. The basic thread is that an observer is a mind (not actually stipulated by the Copenhagen Interpretation), and that therefore we create our universe by observing it; and we can in fact choose to create the kind of universe we want (in the Copenhagen Interpretation, the observer does not actually influence the nature of the outcome).

There are explanations of Quantum Mechanics other than the Copenhagen Interpretation (including not trying to explain it at all and just using the equation); and even if you stick with the Copenhagen Interpretation, there are explanations of what an observer is which do not resort to them having to be "minds". If you want to have a good counter-balance to the pseudo science in this movie, I'd suggest reading Where Does the Weirdness Go?: Why Quantum Mechanics Is Strange, but Not As Strange As You Think by David Lindley.

Posted by Steven at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 07, 2005

TV : Grey's Anatomy

"Grey's Anatomy" is a new series Sunday Night on ABC (first episode aired March 27). It is too soon for me to declare this one "a keeper" (one I will continue to watch); but I am at this point hopeful. It is the story of a group of first year surgical interns and their teachers. However unlike most medical dramas, the medicine (illnesses and treatments) is almost pure background with very little air time devoted to actually talking about what is wrong with patients and what the doctors are doing to help. The focus of the show is on the people, how they interact with each other, and how they are affected by their work. You could almost transplant the same stories into a high pressure advertising agency and it would work.

The writing so far has been solid, as has the direction, with good use of music and silence. The main character (Meredith Grey – hence the name of the show) is a well rounded character with a lot of nuance, well acted by Ellen Pompeo. She also provides thematic narration for the episodes (episode 2 was about “boundaries” – between co-workers, between doctors and patients, etc.). Unfortunately, most of the other characters are a bit thin – defined by a couple of character traits and (so far at least) little more. If they can develop some of the other characters better without loosing what is already working, "Grey's Anatomy" will make it onto my regular viewing list.

Posted by Steven at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 09, 2005

Life : Playing

No profound thoughts for the last couple of days. I have been busy playing with a new toy – a CanonScan 9950F Scanner. I converted to doing only digital photography a few years back; and now want to convert all of my old negatives to digital. The scanner will do them 5 strips at a time; but it is quite slow. I’m not talking about just 'coffee break' slow – this is 'eat a meal' or even 'watch a movie' slow.

Posted by Steven at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 11, 2005

Life : Scan the live-long day

I spent 10 Hours on today scanning in 524 negatives from my first trip to the UK in 1995 (back when I still used film). These will eventually show up online; but assembling all that the way I went it will take time. As a bonus I also scanned in the one roll of pictures I was able to take on a brief business trip I took to Jerusalem in 1999.

I’m quite happy with the new scanner (CanoScan 9950F). In the end I compromised some on scan time vs. quality – cutting the pixels-per-inch in half from what I started with to be able to get through my stack 4 times faster. The scanner allows you to do batch scans of up to 5 strips of film at a time (automatically scanning each picture individually) most of my negatives are in 4-per strip format, so I typically get 18-20 pictures per pass. It took me about 5 minutes to set up and 20 minutes to scan. The 20 minutes of automated scan was long enough that I was able to do other things in parallel, and the quality was perfect for computer use.

Posted by Steven at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 12, 2005

TV : Carnivale

WOW!

I watched season 1 of HBO’s dramatic series “Carnivale” on DVD, and am quite impressed. Conventional wisdom is that the theatre is an actor’s medium, movies are a director’s medium, and TV is a writers medium. HBO however has consistently blurred the line between TV and movies, producing shows that are both well written and well directed. Carnivale is no exception.

The basic fabric of the show is the story of a traveling carnival in 1934 (depression era) America. It is a fascinating (and not entirely flattering) depiction of what went on behind the scenes of such shows in those tough times. Even ignoring the larger story (see below), the characters are complex, interesting, and their interplay would have made for a good drama in its own right.

But Carnivale does not stop there. It then embroiders into that fabric a story of ancient conflict between good an evil, infused with magic, moral quandaries, and uncertainty as to who is on what side. Actually by the end of the 1st season, there is only one character whose affiliation you are absolutely certain of. The performances of the major players give a deep sense of meaning and portent to the events which has only begun to become clear by the end of the season.

A couple of warnings: First, there is some amount of nudity in the series. In particular, the carnival includes (as did most historical carnivals of that era) a “cooch” show (basically under-dressed women dancing). While I never felt it was done in a gratuitous manner, if the depiction of nudity is a problem for you, stay away. Second, while this was a TV series, each episode definitely builds on other previous ones, so I strongly encourage you to not start in the middle or you will cheat yourself out of the sequence of emotions the whole show is designed to lead you through.

Posted by Steven at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 15, 2005

Writing : Exercise #1 (a start of a story)

I am an aspiring writer, still working on my craft by doing small projects, experimenting with new techniques, etc. I don’t feel I am ready to try to publish yet; but I am getting more and more comfortable with what I am able to produce. I expect to periodically publish pieces of projects for feedback. Here’s the first – let me know what you think.
----

The commencement ceremonies at Prina University were flush with all of the splendor and spectacle the empire could muster – an endless series of speeches, awards, and choral arrangements. It was over two hours before they began to call the graduates forward to receive their degrees. Plenty of time for Prince Nico Bar-Ettran to perform calculations on the likely causes of the seats reserved for his house being empty.

Not that he expected his father, Duke Ettran, to appear. Nico revised his calculations of that probability the previous day and determined that it had actually dropped from 4 tenths of a percent to below 3 tenths of a percent. However the likelihood that the Duke would send someone to represent the house was 83.3478% likely. Nico had even asked Den – Prince Denor Bar-Aran – his closest associate at school check his analysis on that. Den has discovered a small error in how Nico had accounted for the recent productivity improvements on Thallen – a small industrial moon under the fief of Count Oren from which the house of Ettran purchased household goods; but the effect was insignificant.

Den of course made the most of Nico’s lapse – occasions where Den topped Nico in “serious” matters were rare, and with both of them graduating, unlikely to occur again in a friendly manner. True, their houses were allied; but business between houses were never friendly. Nor were Den and Nico really friends. The ability to form strong attachments to individuals was one of the things which was engineered out of the nobility when the empire was founded. The minds of the nobility were designed to always favor the needs of the many, and personal attachments interfered with that – among the many trade-offs made to create a true ruling class that disserved to rule.

So Nico spent must of the commencement reviewing the scenarios which accounted for the 16.6522% likelihood of no representative of House Ettran showing up to see him graduate…..

Posted by Steven at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 18, 2005

Thoughts : Existentialism and the art of file system design

Existentialism and the art of file system design
I am a software engineer, and on a couple of occasions in my career I have been involved in developing "file systems" (that portion of the "operating system" (i.e. "Windows", "Macintosh", "Linux", whatever) that is responsible for storing, organizing, finding, and retrieving your documents). When you save a document in a folder (or a file in a directory) you are using the file system; and I may have written the software that made that possible.

It was while I was working on one of these projects that I made an observation based on the differences between two ways different companies had approached developing their file systems.

The observation I made is central to the questions of existentialist philosophy.

First, there is the venerable "Unix(tm)" file system. Unix is (by industry standards) a very old operating system which was used by many universities and therefore is well known by most software engineers since they learned programming using Unix.

Now in the Unix file system keeps track of files using a piece of data it calls an "inode". You don't need to understand the details of this beyond the following – the inode contains all of the descriptive information about the file (who created it, when it was created, where the data is, etc.), except the inode does not contain the name of the file. The way the file gets a name is that there are other pieces of data – called directories – which say essentially "the file described by inode X appears in this directory/folder with the name Y". Now the neat advantage of that is that you can have the same file appear in more than one directory, and have it can even have different names in different directories.

Furthermore, in classic Unix file system, the way you kept track of the kind of data that was in a file was by using the name. File names had "extensions" – a period followed by a few letters to tell you the kind of file it was. A file named "foo.txt" was a text file. A file named "foo.exe" was an executable file. A file named "foo.sh" was a shell file (don't worry about executable files and shell files are – just understand that how the system knew what was in a file was by its name, and a file could have different names in different directories)

Now this is in contrast to the way the Macintosh file system worked. With the Mac, there was also a data structure, like an inode, which kept track of the information about the file; but unlike with Unix, the Mac's inode-like-thing included the name and the type of the file. The only information in the Mac's directory-like-thing was the list of files (as identified by their inode-like-things) which were in the directory. When Apple wanted to add the ability to have files appear in more than one place, they had to create a new mechanism (Aliases, or what Windows calls Shortcuts), which are stand-ins for a file that is someplace else. The file is always really in one place; but you could place these aliases in other places which tells the software "Oh, the file you are looking for here, it is really over there".

So, what's all that got to do with existential philosophy? Everything.

One of the key questions raised by the existential philosophers is – do objects have meaning in unto themselves, or do they only (and temporarily) have those meanings we imbue them with? Is meaning intrinsic or extrinsic?

Or put another way – is the name of the file an intrinsic property, or does it only have a name by virtue of its context in a directory? Is the type of a file intrinsic or can it too be changed depending on the context?

And why stop there? What about the "modification date" (the time when someone last changed the file)? Is that intrinsic – updated now matter how you found the file to modify it? Or does it matter what folder you found the file in? Or might you want to know both? What about permissions? Can you only read the file if you are looking it in folder A; but also modify it if you found it in folder B? What about the data in the file? Could it be different in different directories? Or does that violate the idea of being "the same file"? What makes a file itself, and what is merely meaning applied to it from context? I helped develop a file system once which provided a great deal of flexibility as to what information you wanted to treat as intrinsic vs. extrinsic to the file. The results were… interesting.

But the really interesting questions are not about file systems; but rather about the world around us? What about people? Which of our characteristics are inherent and which are (temporarily) give to us by our relationships with other things? Am I Steven? Am I "sigh"? Am I Anne's husband? If you strip away all contexts, what is the "I" that remains? That is the question the existential philosophers struggle with.

Think about it.

Posted by Steven at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 19, 2005

Introspection : Found in Translation

Several weeks ago my pastor at church asked if I'd be willing to be a guest speaker – giving the message some Sunday. Well, this past weekend was my turn. The experience reminded me of just how much I love to teach.

But then I got to thinking, it is really teaching I like, or is it some other experience which is a part of teaching. After all, as an introvert, I find being up in front of an audience exhausting – not exactly what I'd call "fun". So what is it that makes teaching so much fun for me?

The conclusion I am coming to is that what I really enjoy is the process of translation. Taking some set of ideas, concepts, facts, etc. and figuring out how to express them in some language. Teaching then is an interesting special case of translation – what a good teacher does is figure out what "language" a group of students understands and then translate the ideas you need to teach into that language. Obviously when I use the term language here, I'm not just talking about "English" or even what dialect of English the students speak; but rather the whole mental model the students have to interpret those words.

Once I stumbled upon the idea of loving translation, other things began to fall into place.

As a Software Architecture (i.e. a glorified software engineer (i.e. a glorified computer programmer)), what motivates me about my job are those occasions where I get to take a complex set of ideas and "translate" them into a simple design. I love being given a long set of requirements for features I need to provide and long contemplation realizing I can fulfill those requirements with a few simply concepts and interfaces.

I am also known at work for my "What bubba meant to say…" comments. It is not unusual for me to be at a meeting where two other people in the room are arguing with each other and finding myself speaking up to say "What so-and-so is trying to say is…" and helping resolve the issue. The problem was that the people arguing were expressing their ideas in terms they may have understood; but the other person didn't – they needed a translator (me) to help clarify things. Quite often I have found that the people were actually agreeing and didn't know it.

Even my message this past Sunday was dominated by my thoughts on how simple Christianity really is – translating volumes of theology into 3 basic principles.

I'm just starting to understand the role translation plays in my personal fulfillment; but I have a feeling this is going to prove to be a powerful tool for my self-understanding.

Posted by Steven at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 20, 2005

Books : Finding Serenity: Anti Heroes, Lost Shepherds, and Space Hookers

Finding Serenity: Anti Heroes, Lost Shepherds, and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly.

Television is a writer's medium. That's not to say that acting and directing are unimportant, or that there aren't shows where those skills are what make the show succeed; but overall, if you are looking for news shows you might like, your best bet is to look for the writers you like. I regularly take note of who the producers are on shows I enjoy (in television land, producers are writers); and when a new TV season starts, I check if any of them are involved in new projects. Likewise, if I especially enjoy a particular episode of a show, I note who the writer was and see what other shows they write for. (Note, the Internet Movie Data Base is a good place for this kind of information).

Now for my personal tastes in television, what I am looking for are shows with depth, show that make me think, shows with subtext beyond the obvious story. Given my preferences, the writers who have made it to the top of my list include:

- Aaron Sorkin (Sports Night, West Wing)
- J Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Crusade, Jeremiah)
- Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls)
- JJ Abrams (Felicity, Alias, Lost)

But in terms of his ability to write TV that you can analyze and talk about for years, no one come close to the man at the top of my list: Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) – and the other writers who worked with him on those shows (people like Marti Noxon, Jane Espenson, David Fury, David Greenwalt, and Tim Minear) are on my watch list.

As evidence of the depth which Joss manages to bring to his shows – I submit two facts. First, despite the fact that Buffy went off the air 2 years ago – there are four new books of scholarly analysis due out this year on the show. This is on top of the five books previously published Again, these are not fan books talking about how cool the show was - there are also dozens of those. These are books by academics talking about gender roles, chosen families, morality, philosophy, etc. (If you really want to get some appreciation for the real depth of Buffy and Angel, check out "All Things Philosophical on Buffy... and Angel...". Ignore that rather horrid home page and cruise down into "Philosophies represented", "Moral Ambiguities", "Good and Evil", etc.).

Second, I submit the existence of the book "Finding Serenity: Anti Heroes….". Firefly was a very short-lived series created by Joss – only 11 episodes ever aired. Yet a book has now been published with 21 articles about the show. OK, 3-4 of the articles are fairly light; but as an example of the issues raised by the show, this book includes four articles on the feminist perspective of the show – two making the case that the show supported feminist principles and two making the case that it failed to do so. Yes, not all of the articles are favorable. The point of a good show is not that you agree; but that it gets you thinking about if you agree.

Posted by Steven at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 21, 2005

TV : Playing Diogenes

This is really a reply to Roland's comment on my "Finding Serenity" post. When I finished writing this I realized it was an essay in its own right, and since I didn't have any other post today I decided to post it at the top level (hey, it's my blog!)

I sympathize with your not wanting to "deal with the pervasive fluff of the medium". My problem is that I still believe that there are important things to say which are best said in metaphor and myth, and am willing to spend my time wandering the wasteland looking for them. Books can do this; but I have to say only one author (Orson Scott Card) has ever managed to reach me emotionally to the point that I cried while reading a book (and he has done it a few times!), while performed media has been more successful at engaging me emotionally (for any emotion). So I continue to look.

That being said, there is no doubt in anyone's mind (TV writers, network executives, and least of all me) that I am not the target audience for TV programming. My interests are too far out on the bell curve to bother programming for me. This is further demonstrated by the fact that most of the shows I have loved of late (Firefly, Wonderfalls, etc.) rarely last a whole season, and are certainly not renewed for a second one. Shows that I like and are also a popular success (like Lost) are rare.

On the other hand, I am convinced (in part because I have talked with some of them) that there are TV writers who very much want to write the kinds of shows I want to watch. So what are they to do? A few have discovered one imperfect solution – develop shows whose obvious characteristics pander to the wide audience; but put into those shows subtext which is deep and meaningful. The problem is – the subtext quite often takes longer than one episode to play out; but the net effect is when your typical consumer tunes in and watches a single episode, they get what they want and come back for more. However, if you stick around and watch several shows, you start to realize there is more to the show than the mass market content. Only a few shows do this, and you have to make an investment to find the shows that do.

As a concrete example. I tried "Buffy" a couple of times in the first few seasons and decided it was teen-age fluff and ignored it. A couple years later I was home one day doing some mindless task that was going to take all day and the "only thing on" was a Buffy marathon, so I left it running while I was doing whatever. What I discovered watching several episodes in a row was that there was some real substance behind the fluff if you looked beyond the individual episodes. I rented (and later purchased) the season DVDs and was amazed at what Joss managed to deal with in the show, while at the same time providing enough TV-14 content (V, S, D) to attract the mass market.

So I continue to wander the channels looking for an honest TV show – one that tells the truth of the human condition.

Posted by Steven at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 22, 2005

Faith : Understanding Hope

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

I read that verse early in my Christian walk and saw no great depth in these three persistent gifts. After all, I thought, you needed faith to become a Christian; having that faith you had the hope that someday you would get to spend eternity in heaven with God, and in the mean time, we should be loving to each other. Even the fact that these were in fact gifts (look at the context of the verse) - that God gives us the ability to have faith, the ability to have hope, and the ability to love - was lost on me.

However, as I grew to know God better, he taught me many things about Love that I did not understand at first – how the only thing of value in the world are other people and that love comes from appreciating that value. Likewise he taught me many things about Faith that I did not appreciate at first – how the essence of sin is not rules and behavior, but lacking faith in God and that the actions all come first from not trusting God to fulfill us. I could go on for pages with the things I have learned about Love and Faith over the last 36 years (and perhaps will over time).

Yet, I realized when I came across that verse again a couple of years ago that my understanding of Hope had not likewise progressed. Now there is nothing that says all three had to be of equal depth; but nonetheless I started to pray that if I was lacking understanding of hope, that God would teach me it as well. In the short term, nothing happened; but recently God has started to show me more.

What I am learning is that Christian Hope is about knowing we have a place in the universe. That God has a plan for our lives, and therefore that our lives have purpose and meaning. Yes, as I appreciated when I first read that verse, that plan includes being able to spend eternity with him, and there is hope in that; but hope is not just for the future, it is also for now.

I say that because I have begun to understand that God knows us and built his plan for each of us taking everything that will happen to us into account. God knows everything that is going to happen to each of us. God knows every time someone will hurt us. God knows every time we are going to stumble and fail. And God has built his plan for us taking all of that into account. His desire is to redeem every failure and every pain by turning those experiences into strength which can then use to help other people. I have started to realize that this is the basis for Christian hope. Not just that one day we will escape this world and get to go to heaven; but that even here and now everything we experience can be used for good if we simply allow God to put us where he needs us to be.

If we are faithful and obedient, no matter what we are going through, we can look forward to God's plan to transform it into benefit.

That's a reason to be hopeful.

Posted by Steven at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 23, 2005

Life : For one brief shining moment….

… there was a place called GCC

I am still scanning in all of my old film photographs. Many are pictures of Boston, where I lived when I discovered photography; and quite are few are pictures taken at GCC (General Computer Company) where I worked at the time. The latter have been fountains of memories and emotions for me, for GCC holds a very special place in my life. It remains the experience against which all others jobs are measured. Only my years at Apple has come close to that standard.

Some of GCC's special standing with me is certainly because ...

Some of GCC's special standing with me is certainly because of where I was in life at the time. GCC was my second job, I was young, single, and had no significant life outside of work. The same was true of most of the other employees (at 25, I was actually above the median age for the company). So for most of us, our lives revolved around work and around each other. We worked together. We played together. Some even lived together. It was a total experience and provided the kinds of camaraderie that only total experiences (like fighting in the same platoon in wartime) can provide.

Some of GCC's special standing with me is certainly because of what we did. For most of my time at GCC, we developed games. We did coin-operated arcade games, home console games; we even developed a new console system. It's just hard to complain about a job where you "have to" spend many hours a day playing videogames as legitimate research! Now before you start scratching your head trying to remember "GCC", we never marketed our work under our own name – we developed products for other companies to sell under their brand. We traded fame (name recognition) for fortune (more money).

Some of GCC's special standing with me is certainly because we were a pure engineering company. Because we sold our work to other companies, we didn't need to have a marketing department or a sales force; and because the founders were all engineers and didn't know any better, we also didn't have an HR department or any of those things. We had one guy who dealt with the company finances; one office manager to take care of facilities and supplies. For a while we had a full-time chef, and for a time we had a social director. But other than that, everyone else was either an engineer or an artist, all working together on games. The result is that much of the politics I have grow used to at other companies was absent from GCC.

Finally, some of GCC's special standing with me is certainly because we were just plain good; and I say that with sober reflection and twenty years of hindsight. Because of what we were doing (developing games), and where we were (around the corner from MIT), we attracted a lot of very bright people, and we could afford to be picky about who we hired. We might interview one in one hundred resumes we received, and actually hire one in twenty people we interviewed. Our interviews were notorious – I recall our getting hate mail from candidates for how hard we were on them. We weren't just looking for good engineers. We were looking for good all around people – renaissance men (and women). We got away with not having a marketing department because we hired people who thought about those issues as they engineered. When the company finally changed focus and started selling products ourselves, we didn't hire marketing and sales people. We took volunteers from the engineering staff and made them our marketing department.

I think the finest tribute to the kind of people we hired was what they have done since. They have become executives if not founders of companies; and not just small startups. For instance I know one of our engineers-turned-marketer became a VP of marketing at a fortune 500 company. That's the kind of people I spent 5 years working with back in the 80's.

So when I look back on my days at GCC, the song from the musical "Camelot" always comes to mind: "For one brief shining moment, there was a place called GCC."

Posted by Steven at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 24, 2005

TV : 26 hours of "Lost"

I've noted before that it is rare for shows that I enjoy to also be commercial successes, supported by the networks. "Lost" however is a quite impressive exception. The degree to which the network is supporting the show is astounding.

For the last couple of decades, a standard season of an American network drama has been 22 episodes. The networks have all come to the conclusion that this is the sweet-spot – the point where risk and reward balance to maximize the likelihood of profit over all. Of course most shows don't make it that far; but having more than 22 episodes is unheard of.

There was one exception – the series "24", which by virtue of the structure of the show (a season covered the events in one day, where each episode represented one hour of real time) was allowed to have 24 episodes.

And now there is Lost. The network originally planned on a 22 episode season. Then midway through, they ordered 2 more episodes. Then, as it turned out, the final episode (number 24) was running long, and rather than force them to cut it, the network agreed to allow the final episode to run 2 hours as long as it could be split into 2 1-hour shows in re-runs and syndication (making, effectively, 25 episodes). And finally, the network ordered an addition 1 hour show to summarize the whole season to date before the last 5 episodes aired (so those that started watching the show late could get caught up). So, all total, ABC will air 26 hours of Lost this season. I think you have to go back to the early 70's to find a series that had a 26 episode season. ABC at least is convinced they have a winner here.

By the way, if you haven't been watching and are intrigued, ABC is showing "Lost: The Journey" (the catch-up special) this Wednesday, April 27.

Posted by Steven at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 25, 2005

Books : A World Without Time

"A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein"

By Palle Yourgrau

Kurt Gödel was a mathematician and logician, who is most well known for his "Incompleteness Theorem", which identified and defined limits on what can be proven by pure logic. This book is a short biography which attempts to bring recognition to his other contributions as a philosopher and most significantly as a physicist. It is clear that the author believes that Gödel has not been given a fair treatment by history and intends to correct that wrong, and does so with such force that I found myself wanting to read a different biography just to be sure they weren't overstating their case.

The book provides some excellent historical background on the man (he was, even by this loving author's account, an eccentric with a limited grasp on sanity – a grasp which was lost by the end of his life). It describes the "Incompleteness Theorem" and its significance; and then turns to focus on the friendship which developed between Einstein and Gödel while they both worked at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

The book then describes the "gift" Gödel gave Einstein for his 70th birthday – a paper which uses to Einstein' theory of relativity to prove that our perception that time is something which flows and passes is only a perception and does not correspond to physical reality. For those who have read Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s "Slaughterhouse Five", what Kurt Gödel essentially proved was that the Tralfamadorians were right – that human's ability to only perceive "now" was an anomaly. If one walks out of your house and down the street, you do not think of your house being any less real and current simply because you are no longer in front of it. Kurt Gödel showed that in relativity, time was "just another dimension" with no special characteristic, so our sense that the past is less current and real is an illusion. The book then decries how little impact this paper has had on physics.

The book also discusses how both the Incompleteness Theorem and his paper on the nature of time were driven by Gödel's deep philosophical opinions of how the universe should be viewed, and how he should also be respected as a philosopher. I found this discussion quite interesting; but again I found myself wondering how much of this was spin by a fan of the man and how much was an honest portrayal.

Posted by Steven at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 26, 2005

Life : Steve's Law #1

'Twas a slow day, so I thought I'd just post one of the rules of life I have learned.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere incompetence."

Most of the time "they" aren't out to get you – they are just horrible at doing their job.

Posted by Steven at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 27, 2005

Speculation : My Quantum Pseudoscience.

After the movie "The Matrix" came out (the original one) a common theme of hallway conversation was "How do we know if we are or aren't living inside of a giant computer simulation?" Well, if you assume that the computer running the simulation is a digital computer – perhaps many generations more advanced than the ones we used today; but using a similar architecture, then I think there are several key indicators we could use to tell.

First, one characteristic of simulations of digital computers is that they have limited precision. Every value gets stored in some number of bits, and there is therefore some smallest value of everything which can be represented. When you write the simulation you try and make that value very small (usually by allocating a lot of bits for the value, or using some kind of floating point technique); but it always exists. If the minimum value is small enough, then when you deal with large values, it rarely makes a difference (the difference between 30,000 and 30,001 is generally imperceptible); but when you get down to low values of what ever it is, the jump from 1 to 2 to 3 represents fairly large percentage changes. So, if we were all living in a computer simulation, we'd expect when we looked at very small values of things that their behavior isn't very smooth.

A special case of this is dealing with the locations of things....

A special case of this is dealing with the locations of things. A computer monitor displays information in pixels which form in nice neat rows and columns. You can put a dot "on" a pixel; but you can't actually put a dot in between pixels. Now there's a technique (technical term: anti-aliasing); where you spread the dot out in a statistical manner. So if you want it to be on the line in between two pixels, you put 50% of its color in one pixel and 50% in the other. The idea is that when the human eye looks at that from a distance, it will average things out and make you think that the dot is in between when it isn't. Now pixels are 2 dimensional concepts, but there is a 3 dimensional equivalent: voxels, and they have the same issue – there is a smallest unit of position and the only way to fake that out is to spread the location of things over several voxels.

Second, digital computers work using a finite clock speed. That's what all the Megahertz and Gigahertz talk is all about – it takes time for computers to do something. In simulations this means that you take the information about where everything is "now" and then calculate where everything will be in some small amount of time later. The result is that in computer simulations, time jumps in steps – there is a smallest unit of time (just as there is a smallest unit of everything else). Game players know this as the "frame rate" problem – that because it takes time to do all of this calculation, the computer can only update the screen a limited number of times a second. If that "frame rate" is high enough, you never notice (televisions in the use a frame rate of 60 times a second, and few people notice); but if the frame rate gets down to 5-10, it becomes impossible to play some games. Now if we all live in a computer simulation, its would seem that the frame rate is fairly high; but still if you look at things happening fast enough, you would expect to find sudden jumps in time.

Third, digital computers themselves are finite, and therefore can not be used to actually simulate an infinite universe. Game developers face the same problem – how to keep players from "walking off the edge of the map" and ruining the illusion of the simulation. Many resort to brute force solution – building impassable walls in the games that keep the players in the area that is simulated. Others are more creative – they leave the illusion that you could just walk in one direction forever; but make the journey impractical. Now if we are all in a computer simulation, it's clear the author(s) of that simulation want us to believe the universe is infinite (or at least very large), so we would expect to find some means to dissuade us from heading off in one direction and finding the edge of the simulation.

So how does the world we live in stack up?

Well, Quantum Mechanics says that all of the key pieces of information in the universe – energy, change, spin, etc. are all "quantized" – they all have some smallest unit, and it is impossible to have smaller that that unit. When you get down into small energies and small charges, you see these big jumps from 1 to 2 to 3. Exactly what you'd expect if we were living in a computer simulation.

Furthermore, the latest attempts at a "Grand Unified Theory" in physics (a "Theory of Everything") – theories like Quantum Loop Gravity, specify that space and time are also quantized. That there is a smallest unit of distance and of time – just as you would expect in a computer simulation. But even without resorting to the latest theories (which are far from proven), basic quantum mechanics says that things typically don't have precise positions – they tend to be spread out probabilistically over several locations – just like anti-aliasing pixels or voxels.

Finally – what about some way to keep us from realizing the simulation is limited? Well, The theory of Relativity puts an upper bound of how fast we can move, and in fact makes it infinitely costly to go even that fast. Because of relativity, travel outsize of our solar system is going to be a very slow process, and communication with anyone doing it will be limited and slow. An excellent solution if you ask me. It discourages anyone from trying, and if someone tries, you have the time to set up a separate simulation for the traveler and have opportunity to control the communication between the simulations.

Interesting eh?

To be completely clear, I do NOT believe that this is the case. However, I have to admit that there is nothing about this scenario which actually contradicts anything which I do believe, and as a software engineer I find the idea that God may also be a software engineer (and a pretty impressive one at that) strangely comforting.

Posted by Steven at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

April 28, 2005

Life : 1783 scans and counting

I'm still scanning all of my old negatives, although I have clearly passed the half-way point. At least I have now taken the time to organize them into stacks by subject matter. Of course when I finish with the scans, I then need to go back and organize them, do some cleanup (some of the negatives were not in as good shape as I would have liked), and finally publish them on the web. It may be another month before thing start to show up here.

Posted by Steven at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Life : Auld Lang Syne

Had a wee bit'o good news last night – managed to reconnect with an old college friend who I had lost track of. Despite being a fellow techie (or perhaps because... ?) he had managed to stay "under the radar" on the internet, so finding him proved to be difficult. As it turns out he is within an hour's travel, and we expect to get together soon to catch up and reminisce.

Posted by Steven at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 30, 2005

TV : One Up and One So-So

Several new shows started very near the end of the TV season, two of which I though were worth looking at. I've now seen enough of them to form an opinion:

Grey's Anatomy

This is definitely a keeper – particularly after last week's fugue on the subject of responsibility (several sub-stories on the subject of taking or being responsible). Well written, well acted, relevant things to say in an entertaining package. Still looking to see some of the minor character fleshed out a bit more; but the overall quality of the writing is going to keep me coming back.

Eyes

A very entertaining show; but that's all. This is a private investigator show from the other end of the spectrum than The Rockford Files – a large detective agency, lots of gadgets, lots of staff, often dealing in "big fish" clients. The characters are interesting and well acted. The head of the agency, Harlan Jud, reminds of a hero from a Zalazny novel – someone so confident in his own ability (and in this case, the ability of his team), that he is relaxed and jokes around regardless of what is happening. Jeff McCann plays an investigator so good a lying that it isn't really clear if he even knows when he's telling the truth (certainly no one else is). The "problem" is that while I find this show very entertaining to watch, is really has nothing to say beyond the pure entertainment. There are no deeper truths. There is no extended mystery to think about. It is just high quality entertainment, which means I have a hard time making time for it in my schedule.

Posted by Steven at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

TV : Comments on Other Shows

Alias

This continues to slide in my book. The first, and to a lesser extent the second season held me because there was a set of background mysteries on which to speculate. However after the 20th plot twist that sends things off in yet another new direction, it is getting increasingly clear that there are no real answers, and that any time spent thinking about this show is just wasted. This is now the last thing I tend to watch on my Tivo – often over a week after the episode aired. This also does not bode well for Lost (written by the same folks); but we'll see what kind of payoff they provide on Lost at the end of the season.

Medium

The focus of this show is really how a normal, average person handles discovering that they are not normal or average and how that affects their life. The main character, a housewife named Allison Dubois, starts having visions and dreams which prove to be accurate. The show is about how she deals with that and starts to learn the "rules" of her abilities (there is no instruction book, so she needs to figure out the significance of things on her own), all while trying to not neglect her roles as wife and mother (and not being sent to a psychiatric ward). Her family life is as important a part of her story as are her visions. The portrayal of a "real" family – not often seen on TV – keeps me coming back for now, although I am not sure there are many episodes worth of stuff to say here, so fear it will decline quickly.

Posted by Steven at 08:14 PM | Permalink