Author: cdwan

Okay, so the weekend of adventure and ink (Did I mention my tattoo? Do you want to see it?) is at a close … and I am back in yet another hotel, preparing for yet another set of days onsite. The current plan is to be here (Maryland) until Tuesday, then rock back up to Providence.

Work has been keeping me busy. I’ve got sort of a full time gig going on with the Navy, which seems to involve spending a lot of time fighting with bureaucracy right now. Plus, I’ve got this *other* kinda sorta full time gig developing shiny new products that we can sell … and trying to make sure that we don’t lose customers by ignoring them (for too long).

I have many thoughts, but none seem well enough formed to set before you tonight.

The washington post did a little stunt where they put one of the finest young classical violin players in the world, playing his Stradivarius violin, out in a Metro station to see if anyone would care.

Nope. He played for 45 minutes. A couple of people stopped to listen. He got $32 in donations.

$32 in donations … in the case that carries his $3.5M violin.

Sigh.

Tattoo pics

Apparently, redmed felt left out and so she went and got one for herself too. That’s one of the reasons I like her.

This was the “top 5” on my international news feed this morning:

* Bombings kill dozens in Iraq
* North Korea disarmament deadline slips
* Kasparov held at Russian demo
* Nigerians vote in test of African democracy
* Hope fades for missing crew members
* Al Qaeda group claims Iraq attack

It’s only because of the last one that I’m sure that we’re post 2002.

My friend robotify goes to school with the guy who built this robot. Apparently:

We are currently developing and studying dance-oriented nonverbal play with between children and the robot Keepon, designed and built by Hideki Kozima. Keepon is a small creature-like robot developed to perform emotional and attentional interaction with children. It has four degrees of freedom, a soft rubber skin, two cameras in its eyes, and a microphone in its nose.

The damn thing has better moves than me, by a long shot … and it looks happier too.

I would like a small, creature like robot, please.

Preventing hurtful words and phrases from being uttered in public only increases their power in private. Nobody will ever change minds and hearts until we start taking all the ideas together, throwing them on the same table, and beating them with the same stick. The truth will survive, and the racist tripe will fall away in the cold light of day.

I want people to state their racist bigotry out loud, because then we can confront them. If you tell someone “you can’t use those words,” all they learn is, perhaps, not to use them in front of you. They *will* teach them to their kids, and they *will* laugh about it when you’re not around.

That’s no way to fix a society.

It’s only when my friends and neighbors feel comfortable enough to reveal their latent racism and homophobia to me that I can begin fight it at its roots. Open those doors, keep Don Imus on the air, start those arguments, and help make the world a better place.

The man says abhorrent, horrible things, but I will defend to the death his right to say them.

Words should not be unspeakable: good ideas should have the chance to win out over evil ones.

I’m beyond your peripheral vision,
so you might want to turn your head

thoughts

Just heard this over the cube walls:

“So he says ‘I work hard! Sometimes I use my brain to do math.’ And I said ‘You do not! You haul dirt.’”

Maybe it’s just the middle of the afternoon, but I was reduced to a trembling mass of giggles, head on the desk.

I wandered into karate school number 2 last night. The Rockville Martial Arts and Learning Center. Totally different experience … all the way in the other direction.

I spent half an hour talking to the owner, who is not the lead instructor. He’s a guy who has run various fitness businesses in the past. He operates a school where he *hires* instructors, rather than teaching them. Having learned from last time (and still nursing a sore arm), I was much more understated about what I know. I’ve studied a little. What belt had I achieved? Well, it’s really impossible to compare things between schools. You know, everyone uses the belt ranks differently. Seriously, what belt? Black belt! Wow! He insisted that I wear a black belt at his school, which I would never dream of, and I certainly won’t at first: His school, his rules … I haven’t tested in his school … and seriously … standards differ and I don’t want to dilute them. Also, I would be there to exercise and practice, not to show everyone how cool I am.

A little further in the conversation, and he was suggesting that if things worked out, I might be available to give a couple of seminars to his instructors on the things I’ve learned. *sigh*. Do you at least want to see if I’m totally bluffing? Flattery gets you everywhere.

I have little to no interest in Tae Kwon Do, especially the “TKF” style. I’ve seen it, did it when I was a kid, and it seems to be very much the “art for arts sake” style … at least the form that gets taught in schools like these. In addition, the majority of the classes at this place are all-belts, all-ages, and populated with kids. Kids get something very different out of martial arts from adults … and having them present (in my experience) dilutes the adult practice.

However, the short version is, it’s a decent sized gym with padded floor, heavy bags, kicking shields, and the occasional person my size to work with. The owner says that it’s cool for me to pay on a month by month basis and either do my own workout in private, or study with his instructors if I would like to learn some TKD. At least I won’t totally atrophy, it might force me to crystalize what I know and want to retain, and maybe I’ll make a friend or two around here.

To my horror, I’m turning into management.

I called up one of my developers today to ask if they could cross-compile the installer. The current solution is to move the half-built contraption from machine to machine, building each part on a different system. I thought, hey, I know this cool word for what I want done … why not suggest it?

He explained why, with the subtext of “if you were doing this work, you would know this already.” He was right.

So I said something like “will it be done by Friday? That’s all I really care about.”

F-ing manager. That’s all I am, anymore.