Walls

There are walls everywhere.

Jails have walls to keep the criminals in. Posh neighborhoods have walls to keep people out. From a national perspective, North Korea puts up walls to keep its citizens from escaping while the United States considers putting up walls to keep others from entering the nation. We put up mental walls for a variety of reasons, both for keeping things in and keeping other things out. In a way of speaking, it seems that walls are a definition of our lives - for better or worse.

In essence, they serve as protection. They protect us from others and they protect others from us. They are both physical and mental. They seem necessary. And therein lies a potential issue. Because we have these barriers that we have created, it makes it that much more difficult for us to do things. I am a firm believer in learning from others and in tearing down these barriers - even when I put them up on my own (inadvertantly or not). I want to remove these barriers in the hope that we can grow, evolve and continue to become better people. I know that there are limits to my knowledge and I work to overcome those limits by expanding my knowledge and experience as best I can. I can often see (what I perceive to be) the limits in others and strive to show them alternative viewpoints that will hopefully also help them - at least as I see it. Perhaps I am wrong in hoping that we can tear down some of these walls that separate us on educational, emotional, cultural, religious or other levels. However, I think that whatever pain may be incurred as a result of those barriers will only be recompensed by the additional knowledge that surely must be the result of said removal. It has usually been that way for me and I feel that much richer - even if I was resistant at the time.

However, it is also important to note here that we are all not the same and not everyone seeks knowledge as I do. They are neither wrong nor right to deny it through the construction of the walls (even if my own opinion dictates a feeling on the subject one way or another), it simply is. To borrow and paraphrase from the move "The Matrix" - not everyone is ready to be unplugged from the reality in which they live.

Really Random Thoughts

For the first time in more than a month, I did not bring my work laptop home and work. I probably should have but I have grown tired of pulling long shifts at work and then having to do more work at home each night (and weekend). Less than two weeks to go and then this project should be done and I can move onto other (less pressing) deadlines. Woohoo!

And now I feel inclined to write a little bit tonight while I have some free time. I could have gone to exercise tonight but decided against it as the urge to just relax was more important to me this evening. So instead, I'm currently listening to "I'm With Stupid" by the Pet Shop Boys on Spotify. And while I'm at it, I think I'll intersperse my musical selections (via the randomizer with Spotify) as I write up this blog post. Apparently, this is going to be a really random post. :-)

It's a cliche that you can get a better insight by seeing how people interact with others who are in the service industry (such as waiters/waitresses, clerks at the market, etc.).

(Next song is "You think you know her" by Cause & Effect)

I like to think another good way to see a person is by observing what they when they think no one is watching or when they think there will be no repercussions. So, while standing outside a local market while my better half shopped, I watched as more than 20 people brought their purchases out to their cars in shopping carts. And I watched as more than 20 people then either left their carts in an open space nearby (ensuring that no one could park there without first removing the cart) or, in the case of one 30ish woman, proceeded to actually push her cart to a nearby curb which was actually farther away from the store but out of the way of someone who might want to park their car in a parking spot.

("Everything You Know is Wrong" by Weird Al Yankovic)

So, in short, not one person actually attempted to return the cart to the store or to the designated repository of the store for all shopping carts. Which, I suppose, only goes to reinforce the belief by some that people generally only do right if they think they will be held to account. And, for the record, you'd better believe that after I unloaded all of our groceries that I then took my cart all the way back to the store. And I was parked a lot further away than most of the people I'd observed.

("Voulez-vous Danser" by Ace of Base)

This is a good time to point out that I've recently become a user of Evernote. I think it's a good way for me to keep track of things that I see and want to comment upon but may not have time to devote to doing so at the given moment. So far, I have about 8 different things that have popped up on my radar that I've listed on my notebook that I want to address when I have time (and apparently, that time is not now). But I like the fact I can be at any of my computers and simply bring up the application (or the website itself) and write up a quick note for later or I can even run it off my phone and leave a voice note for myself (I've done that several times when I'm not near my computer).

("Der Kommissar" by Falco)

It's also a great resource for listing off ideas for the book I have in my head (read: not yet actually written). Sure, it's been around for a while and I'm probably a total dork for not having utilized it before but it's not my fault that my techie self ignored it for so long. *sigh*

("Stay Beautiful" by Taylor Swift)

And it's just now dawned on me that this would be a great time to maybe spend 30 minutes working on the Chinese classic "The Monkey King" which I found a simplified version of in a shop in Flushing, NY, a little while back. (Did I write about that trip and the things I enjoyed? Nope. Ok, something else to add to Evernote to write about later.) Though, that does bring to mind another good story from this past weekend. Went to dinner at a Chinese/Japanese/American style buffet. While there, I asked one of the waitresses for chopsticks. She asked me how many and I told her 三双.

("She Wolf" by Shakira)

I honestly wasn't thinking about what I was saying but I'd heard her talking earlier to another waiter in Chinese so it was just habit, I suppose. Of course, I can't say that I look all that Chinese so she just stared at me for a second and asked "三双?" So I repeated it and she fumbled around for three pair and handed it to me while looking at me rather quizzically. Later, when my better half had stepped away, she stopped by and asked me "你是中国人吗?" (Are you Chinese?)

("Tik Tok" by Ke$sha)

I told her "No." She followed up, "美国的?" (Are you American?) I smiled politely and told her yes. Now, normally when I surprise someone by using Chinese (and I don't try to do it on purpose but it just sort of slips or they realize that I understand a conversation), they are very surprised and ask me pointedly if I speak Chinese. But I think this is the first time someone has asked me if I was Chinese. And, believe me, I may look like someone from Xinjiang (if you have some imagination) but not really Chinese in any way.

("The Diary of Jane" by Breaking Benjamin)

I have to admit that I was taken by surprise to be confused as Chinese - are there really that few foreigners who speak the language with any degree of proficiency (and let me assure I am can carry on a conversation but wouldn't consider myself to be proficient to any degree)? Sure, I've been taken as Iranian, Mexican, Norwegian and a few others but Chinese was probably stretching it. On the other hand, it was a good chuckle - even my better half found it a little amusing. The waitress was very nice, though, and I did leave her a nice tip - which I didn't have to do but maybe that says something about me? Who knows?

("Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John)

And, on that note (I'm wondering what my musical selections thus far say about me so feel free to chime in with whatever analysis you'd like), I am off to practice my Chinese a bit more...  :-)

Too busy

Today was a 12 hour workday, give or take. I took a few breaks in between 7 am when I started and 10 pm when I finished. But I can honestly say that I'm now at a  point where I feel somewhat comfortable with the status of the project I've been working on - and that has a June 1 due date for completion. It certainly wasn't looking promising a couple of weeks ago and goodness knows that I and the rest of my team have put in enough hours over the past couple of weeks not only doing our regular jobs but also the extra work entailed in this particular project. Suffice to say that I've learned some valuable lessons through this project that will hopefully help to ensure that I don't suffer similar situations in the future. Not the least of which is better planning up front and utilizing automation where we can. This project was far more manual than it should have been and the automation that was added as the project wore on was more ad-hoc than anything else. It helped but it could have been done better. So, in the long run, it will be a lesson learned. Let's just hope it's not a lesson ignored.

The worst part is that this is the first time I've picked up my new laptop in the last two weeks - ergo the reason for my not submitting any entries here even though that was a large part of my getting the laptop. So, now, let me go play some more with the new things on this machine. It's time for a tech lesson today. Woohoo!

Friday Night

I was very happy when my new laptop arrived. Indeed, that is what I am using to write this post on a Friday night - clearly I have nothing better to do. But one of the key points of having a new laptop was to have something that I could drag out real fast when I wanted to take an hour or two to write down some things. It's  probably a sad commentary that I need to have something like a laptop in order to write but I guess I've gotten terribly lazy in my old age. That's as much an indictment of my laziness as it is my skills at this point. Oh well.

On the bright side, though, I've written up two blog posts this week as a result, so maybe it's not all bad. Between that and the two books (both of the Eragon series), I'm feeling pretty good and revived with the things that I enjoy doing - reading and writing. I think I should also be writing more short stories since that is more of my forte along with poetry. But I tend to write my prose better on the computer while my poetry must always be done with pen and paper. So I've been trying very hard to keep pen and paper always available. I think that I am more of a troglodyte than may be immediately apparent based on my knowledge and experience. As my better half has put it previously, for a techie, I seem to be very technophobic. Must be an old people thing...

I think tomorrow I will be working to move all of my current in-situ writings onto this machine so that I can continue working on them as I find the time. After all, having a laptop is intended to allow me to do what I want where I want when I want. And I want to be more productive in this manner.

Maybe I'll write this weekend on some of the interesting things going on in China recently. See, that would be productive, right?

Random Thoughts

Is $750 million enough to win the presidency? Or could it be put to better use? President Obama spent about $750 million to win the presidency in 2008 and his staff has indicated that he'll raise about the same amount for this year's election from all of his sources. Romney will likely do the same between his own campaign and the PAC's who support him. So it does beg the question of what is the difference between them and are we reduced to the point in our democracy where only the rich (or the super-rich who support them) are able to have a serious opportunity to "serve" the people? From my limited vantage point, I'm not seeing much of a difference. All I see is a new class of elite leadership that enriches itself and perpetuates its own hold on power through that enrichment. I wonder if we could find a better way to invest that combined $1.5 billion for the nation as a whole instead of on a couple of power-hungry rich guys...

Two lawmakers say that the Secret Service needs more women? So goes the line from senators Susan Collins and Carolyn Maloney. Temporarily bypassing the idea of bipartisanship (in Washington DC?!) that these two are temporarily displaying, I have to admit that my first thought upon hearing this was "why?". I am not opposed to diversity in any workforce or group and think that it is a fine idea. However, in the aftermath of the Secret Service sex scandal (should I capital Sex Scandal?), the underlying point becomes "if there were more women there, then there wouldn't have been a sex scandal." Riiiiiight. Because women are never involved in anything dirty like a sex scandal.

http://www.zimbio.com/The+50+Most+Infamous+Female+Teacher+Sex+Scandals
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/12/11/why-women-dont-have-sex-scandals.html

Sorry, if we want to push for diversity in the Secret Service (or anywhere else, for that matter), let's not use stupid excuses to do so. Let's push for it but let's do so for the right reasons - not as a political sop based on the actions of a few stupid people.

And now, I'm tired and off to bed... I may have to review this later to be sure it's coherent since I don't feel particularly so at the moment.  :-)

Random Thoughts

A couple of things that I've overheard recently that I found interesting:

Spike Lee posting the address of someone who he thought was George Zimmerman (responsible for the shooting of Trayvon Martin) - and it ends up being the address of an elderly couple completely unrelated to Zimmerman or Martin. Sure, he apologized for it and settled with the couple, to whom he called and apologized personally, but the problem was that he felt it was ok to post anyone's address on Twitter - particularly when you have 240,000+ followers who may think it is ok to do whatever they want with the address. And, considering the inflamed passions that have resulted from the Zimmerman-Martin case, surely he didn't think that people were going to be sending polite letters to Mr. Zimmerman. No matter where an individual stands on the case, publicly posting someone's address is bound to create another situation that will, in most cases, only worsen it. And the problem with the immediacy of Twitter is that such a mistake is very difficult to take back or rectify once it has been committed.

The same goes for baseball players who post the personal phone numbers of their former teammates. What made CJ Wilson think that such a prank (as he described it) was acceptable is up for debate but it was clearly - and understandably - not well-received by Mike Napoli. In this case, Napoli can simply get a new phone number and he can get on with his life (without being harassed by the numerous idiots, er, people who think its acceptable to compound the tweeting "mistake" by actually calling the number). But as people continue to seek the fame that is so readily accessible by the online world where fame is counted in the number of followers/friends/viral videos a person has, there must be a point where common sense will kick in and they will realize that there are very real consequences for their actions. I used to think that the Human Flesh Search Engine was only a Chinese concern but I worry it is not so limiting and fear that the consequences will become all too real all too soon.

Along the same lines of technology concerns (aside: is it good or bad that a techie such as myself is worried about these technical advances?), this article on flash trading was both interesting and worrying. These systems that are being developed are making calculations and decisions that have very real impact on the real world in terms of financial transactions faster than the human mind can do, let alone be able to stop in time before they become reality. When I first read this, I kept thinking this must be the first version of Skynet where the machines begin to operate outside the immediate control of human hands and minds. The understanding that these machines are making these decisions (as it relates to trading) with little apparent understanding on the part of their human "masters" is just slightly frightening. I always enjoy when the inner workings of an application and the logic behind them are black boxes to the people who allegedly operate them. Yep, nothing to see here, please move along...

Finally, something to consider. Without doing a Google search, what were the headlines three days ago? Even one headline? What was the related story? I would be willing to bet that most people can't come up with a single headline. Which leads me to wonder about this 24 hour news cycle that we go through and whether it is sensory overload and results in a situation where people actually learn nothing. Life today, in the 24 hour news cycle, is a constant barrage of information that people remember so long as it's being blasted at them continuously and only stays in residual memory for so long as it's a headline. Immediately thereafter, it is discarded and nothing is truly learned until the next time it makes a headline. And forget about context - that only comes if people care to dig deeper into the stories and learn more - and that doesn't often happen. So, quick, let's go see CNN Headline News (which is only a very small selection of actual news stories and typically very little that has anything to do with the average person - "OMG, a kid fell down a well!" or "OMG, someone contracted this really weird disease that affects one in 2 billion people - everyone PANIC NOW!") and see how much we retain until tomorrow.

Are we what we thought we would be?

What did you want to be when you grew up? And now that you have grown up, are you that which you had dreamed about in your youth?

I suspect the answer is "no" in a great many cases.

Does it make you sad or happy? Are you content with who you are and what you have accomplished? Do you desire to change? And are you willing to do the things needed to effect that change if you so desire it? Or is it simply easier to stay where you are in life for fear that you may lose what you have with no guarantee of achieving that which may otherwise grant you that which you sought in your youth?

For me, I am not spending my life in the way that I envisioned when I was younger. This does not mean that I am necessarily unhappy or discontented - anymore than I am totally happy or content with life. Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that I am comfortable with my position in life today. But comfort can have both a positive and a negative connotation. On the positive side, I do not lack for the things I need and want (most of the time, anyway). On the negative side, there is little challenge to those things that I do and my sense of purpose is sometimes lacking as it seems I simply ride the waves rather than steering my way to a specific destination.

I suspect I am not the only one who simply rides with the waves in whichever direction they flow. But I am starting to work toward a specific destination as I would like to have a little more control over the direction I seek to go. It is a slow process and filled with many detours - much as it seems my life prior to now has gone. However, I regret no experiences that have brought me to today and will try to be accepting of those detours in the future as I remember that life is not the destination but the journey.

“We are selling weapons to Syria for its national defense, national security,” Lavrov told lawmakers in the lower house of Russian parliament. “We aren’t providing Syria with any weapons that could be used against protesters, against peaceful citizens, helping fuel the conflict. We aren't doing that, we are only helping Syria to protect its security against external threats.” 

The above quote is from the Russian Foreign Minister as it relates to the Russian government selling weapons to the Syrian government. So, in addition to the fact that the Russians (along with the Chinese government) have blocked any serious action from the UN taking place (ok, yeah, it's funny to think that the UN can do anything even if the Russians and Chinese aren't deliberately blocking them), they're also selling them weapons and then thinking the rest of the world is stupid enough to believe that they're selling them weapons that can only be used against "external" enemies. Or perhaps their definition of "external enemies" refers to anyone who opposes the government? Frankly, I'm curious to know exactly what kind of weapons can only be used against external enemies but can't be used against protesters and peaceful citizens? Tanks? Fighter jets? Oh, wait, no, those have been used against protesters and peaceful citizens.

Now, to be fair, do I think that Western or other Arab nations haven't been selling weapons to those opposition forces in Syria? Heck no, I'm certain they have - though probably not to the same degree or dollars as the Russians. But at least they're not trying to use logic (or the obvious lack thereof) to justify that it's ok to do so and watch the tragedy currently unfolding in Syria. Or maybe the rest of the world really is just that stupid or uncaring. I probably shouldn't be surprised...

Losing focus

I don't know about others but staying focused on any one subject for any period of time, significant or otherwise, is a challenge. Perhaps this is why I have tended to fare well in jobs that allowed me to venture into several different areas or aspects and had a more difficult time with positions that required me to work on only one thing all the time. Indeed, that was one of the larger reasons why I left my last role - I simply did not want to be writing code for eight hours a day with no other responsibilities. That is not to say that I did not enjoy writing code and learning how to make things work better - but I wanted to do much more than just being a code monkey. Needless to say, my current role is far more expansive in terms of responsibilities and I find myself both happier and more productive because my distractions can be set to focus on other things that need to be done.

The same holds true for things that I do on my own time. One only has to see my collection of music currently starred in Spotify to get a feel for my ADD tendencies - it runs the gamut from classical to death metal and everything in between with the exception of country (hey, I do have some standards!) More specifically, in my case, I enjoy writing and have recently been working on several ideas that have been floating around in my head when time allowed. At this moment, I am in the middle of two stories and have another that I'm hesitant to start until I can complete one of the other two. I also tend to jot down poetry as inspiration (and time) hits me and that does not include the book I am working on when I'm not otherwise distracted. And I do all of that as I currently skip through four different books that I'm reading (two history books, a Calvin & Hobbes anthology and some FoxTrot books). And I seem to be able to function rather well whenever I make the switch. I know others who can only do one thing at a time and cannot be distracted from it lest they screw up. For me, if I can't distract myself with something else, I'm likely to screw it up.

I'd sure like to know how that works but, for now, I guess I'll just have to accept that losing focus is the only way for me to stay focused enough to get it completed. To my credit, though, I did finish this blog entry in about 15 minutes. That's probably the outer limits of my focus for today.  :-)

Killing the messenger not so softly

Every so often you are criticized for being “radical.” So triumphant is the critic that it is as though once the word “radical” is laid on you, nothing you have said is of any worth, the foundation of your argument collapses on contact, and you are defeated and dispatched.  On the other hand, your critics never say a thing about the atrocities of the government perpetrated over decades, they hold no principles against it and have unlimited tolerance for it. They suffer from severe Stockholm syndrome without knowing it; they even feel complacent about this mental deformation.

Before I get into the source of that quote, I think it's important to consider context here, particularly for the first part of this statement. Frankly, when I first read it, I considered politics in the US and the carelessness with which terms like "liberal" or "commie" or "radical right" or "religious fundamentalist" are bandied about by political opponents. Quick, if you want to discredit someone, assign some label to them which will be readily interpreted by your followers as a symbol of denigration and therefore not worthy of consideration! It is a sad and unfortunate commentary that when people are unable to argue the merits of a particular point of view that they then reduce themselves to demonizing the ideological view of their opponents. I am not so naive as to argue that we should all agree but no justice is served by attacking the messenger when the message itself cannot be refuted.

For reference, the above quote comes from Ran Yunfei ( 冉云飞), a Chinese intellectual and blogger, in relation to the government of his own nation. It's sad, however, how applicable it is elsewhere throughout the world... *sigh*