Computers are old friends of mine. They are powerful tools, and have expanded from playthings of numbers-and-electronics geeks into an essential device for modern society.

So how does a programmer tell a computer what to do?

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Today is the anniversary of my birth.

(And 32 is the new...25, or something. For those keeping track, that meant that I missed by one day the opportunity to say that I entered the world with a bang.)

I'm a little surprised at the amount of attention birthdays get in the digital world. I've gotten birthday emails from a mortgage broker, a business I've made a few purchases from online, and a bulletin-board website. And a certain FaceBook account has received more attention from others today than it has gotten over the past 11 months.

I've also gotten cards in the mail (mostly from family, but also from an insurance agent that I have an account with).

It is pleasant to be remembered one day per year. I can't complain. Though I am amused at the number of people who will make a point of helping me celebrate a birthday, and will not remember me for the rest of the year...

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Saw a news item today about a former employee of a Public Works department. (Hat tip: Uncle.)

The man found a discarded weapon discarded near the location he was working on. He proceeded to attempt to get a policeman to come dispose of the item. When the police didn't arrive by the time his work crew finished the day's work, he took the item to a police station.

Ostensibly due to rules about workers possessing weapons at the workplace, the man was fired.

The rules are apparently intended to prevent a worker from bringing his own weapons to the workplace. The fear is that a worker might bring weapons, and use them to harm his co-workers. Apparently these rules also apply to weapons that had been discarded on the work-site by non-employees before the work was begun.

Apparently, the System interprets the existence of a weapon as a threat. Worse, the System treats any handling of a discovered weapon the same as it treats a weapon expressly brought.

Because dealing with intent and action instead of objects would make the System far too complex.

Posted by: karrde at 23:37 | No Comments | Add Comment
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Saw a post over at bsking's blog about infographics and gas prices.

It reminded me of a data-gathering project I've done.

In the summer of 2007, I purchased a new vehicle. I continued my practice of logging fuel refills (which had been done since 2000 in a little notebook), but I added the cost of each refill to the date-and-mileage data.

This information also found its way into a spreadsheet.

A motorcycle was purchased in 2009; the same data made it onto another page of that spreadsheet.

Thus, I have my own personal log of the cost of gas since the summer of 2009.
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That last week's announcement on gay marriage by the President was not liked by the religious leaders of the nations Black community.

It was easy to predict that the people already opposed to most of President Obama's policies would not like this policy. It should also have been easy to predict that the religious members of the Black community would not like this particular policy.

As a reminder: my home state of Michigan had a majority of its voters supporting John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election. That same year, in the same election, a State Constitutional Amendment stating that marriage would be defined in State Law as the union of a man and a woman.

Both results of that election were supported by Black voters of the Detroit Metro area.

I don't wish that this topic continues to divide America. But I do wish that the people of the United States who support homosexual marriage would understand that the opposition is not merely white-skinned and conservative.

Posted by: karrde at 07:44 | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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In a slight break from normal blogging: a collection of thoughts about computers and their design/use.

(Confession: I've been a computer geek of one kind or another for a long time. It is one way I am like my Dad. He worked professionally in computerized machine-control. Also, he had one of these computers in the 80s, and purchased an IBM-compatible in the early 90s, before Windows 3.1 was available.)

Anyway, computers are an old hobby of mine. Sometimes I have to remind myself that they are more than a simple entertainment device.*
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So, the President of the United States publicly came out in favor of redefining the cultural/legal institution of marriage to include copulating couples of the same sex.

(I would have said same gender, but then I remembered the mnemonic words have gender, people have sex.)

It's sad, but predictable.

One question that bugs me: if he came out in favor of letting the States work out their own solutions in this case, why doesn't he also espouse the same idea about abortion? Abortion is equally divisive on a social front; it generates court rulings that are pleasing to some and shocking to others; and the focus of the issue is on legislating a particular moral vision.

Anyway...
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As of early this year, I was trying to open up a new relationship with a woman. (I think I'll refer to her as Raven for the moment.) The relationship just got a lot more serious...

To recap: things got off to a smooth start. We met a few times. We went out to a local theater, and spent a lot of time at a coffee-shop or restaurant. Things were hopeful, but neither Raven nor I were willing to say that we were in a special relationship.

Then the next night out got bumped by schedule conflicts. For the next month.

We continued to stay in contact over email. We still saw met other occasionally, but had little time to engage in lots of personal conversation.

Over the past weekend (after cleaning myself up from yard-work), I got a chance to meet Raven's sister. Miss Pearl was visiting from outside the country.

We had lots of pleasant conversation.

Somewhere along the way, I commented that I could help them figure out how to solve a problem related to getting music off of an iPod. Somehow, the iTunes account was not working, and Pearl wanted to share some music from the home country with her sister...

It seemed a small thing, but I was able to help. Most of what I did was plug the iPod in question into a machine running gtkPod. (Half of being a computer wizard is knowing what the problem is and which program/tool/method can resolve it. The other half is the long slog of learning how to understand how the machine works.)

Most of the rest of what I did seemed minimal. I was kind to the guest; helped with setup and teardown for a small social event. I helped Pearl install stuff on a new laptop. (How hard is it to insert a disc, press "Install" on the popup, and let the process finish?)

Yesterday, Pearl was dropped off at the airport to depart back to her home country.

And today I got an effusive email from Raven, with appreciation for the help; she also said she appreciated me just for being myself.

It's a surprise. The result is a mixture of humility and pleasure. I'm happy to be appreciated; I don't feel like I did enough to earn it.

I suppose this is a good problem to have. It is a better problem than not knowing her opinion of me...

Posted by: karrde at 22:06 | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time with a chainsaw in my hands.

Sometime this morning, I found an ache in my left shoulder.
(Strangely, I would have expected more aches and strain lines in various muscles, given the amount of perspiration/pushing/pulling/holding that I did.)

It's a good kind of hurt; acquired while doing something useful.

The fallen tree that formerly rested on a fence is now in log-size chunks on an orderly pile. Another tree in the yard regularly sheds large branches...the disorderly pile of those branches has also been reduced to logs and to a smaller pile of brush.

I sense an opportunity to cook food around an outdoor fire in the near future...

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There is a lot of interest lately in how Elizabeth Warren, apparently of European background, claimed the racial category of Native American while working at Harvard Law.

This series of events does underline one important fact: Affirmative Action can harm those that it intends to help. The appearance that Affirmative Action gives academic preference to candidates who are otherwise under-qualified raises questions about the qualifications of any person who might have benefited from Affirmative Action.

As an aside, the business of looking for candidates who fit a racial background can produce funny results. And claiming minority status can have unintended side-effects.

Which brings me to something that is perplexing. Is race something specific and measurable (like IQ)? Is the state of belonging-to-a-race something that can be quantified? If not, then why should society continue to label people by race?

Posted by: karrde at 07:18 | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Over the weekend I purchased a couple of books. One of those books was by Bruce Schneier, and I took advantage of a chance to get that book signed.

The other was a novel by Timothy Zahn.*  It is the fourth novel in a series, and one which I knew I would enjoy.

Suprisingly, that novel also appeared to have been autographed before I picked it up. The autograph is dated from September 2011. Zahn was apparently a guest at DragonCon in Atlanta during that weekend.

My guess is, the bookseller was also at DragonCon, and had his entire stock of Zahn novels autographed at that time...

Anyway, it is a pleasant surprise to get a pair of autographed books. Pictures of the autographs are below the fold.
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Posted by: karrde at 22:11 | No Comments | Add Comment
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This past weekend, I took part in a couple of events.

Most of them were on-site at the regional geek-conference known as Penguicon. Among the things I did were

• Attend the Geeks with Guns event
• Listen to a discussion on the layout of the file system on a standard installation of Linux
• Chat with fellow GwG attendees
• Visit a party hosted by this guy
• Attend a class on swing-dancing (nerds can dance, if coached appropriately)
• Hear a discussion of the ideas of famous sci-fi author Robert Heinlein
• Take part in at least one late-night discussion of the trials and travails of working with complex software projects with other people's tools...
• Listen to Bruce Schneier discuss security and society
  
• Get an autographed copy of Schneier's latest book
• Unexpectedly run into two old acquaintances from a University that I used to attend
• Learn about a local Linux User's Group
• Listen to a podcast being recorded.
• Get into a long conversation about the CMP, acquiring new rifles, and joining sportsmen's clubs with another Geeks with Guns attendee.
  

The company was a mixed bunch. I learned a few things at the various panels I attended. However, I learned fewer new things than I expected to. 

The conference was pleasant, overall. However, I am also glad to be back to everyday life.

Posted by: karrde at 19:09 | No Comments | Add Comment
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A recent Reuters report on a contentious shooting in Florida delves into the background of the shooter.

George Zimmerman was counseled (by police!) to acquire a firearm after an encounter with a troublesome dog in the neighborhood. He has been known to help neighbors, especially an elderly Black woman who experienced a frightening break-in. His family background includes much time spent with his grandmother, who ran an informal day-care. George lived in a mixed-race neighborhood, and spent much time with some local Black children.

George's parents were a religious mix, a Catholic mother and a Baptist father. The mother, Gladys, could be described as Hispanic. She had family connections in Peru.

Interestingly, one ancestor of Gladys is described as Afro-Peruvian. (Does that mean that George Zimmerman would be considered Black under the old "one of his grand-parents is Black" rule? Likely not, as the person in question is a great-grandparent.)

What racial appellation should be used for George?

Most of the United States uses a simple racial distinction of Black/White, with a few other races at the fringes. The label Hispanic is often given to someone originating in Central/South America. Other labels are typically by country of origin.

In some parts of South America, a person of mixed ancestry could be a mestizo. Or mulatto. Or zambo...several labels for racial mix exist, and most are relics of the casta system that was in place during the Colonial times.

The Spanish Colonial cultures saw a need for differentiating between pure-European, European/African mix, European/Native mix, Black/Native mix, pure-Black, or pure-Native ancestry. They also distinguished between first-generation and second-generation mixes.

Which leads back to the original question: what is the racial identity of George Zimmerman? I think that racial identity matters much less than the content of his character.

But since original news reports (and leaders of public protests) made such a point of the racial identity of both Zimmerman and the deceased Martin, I think it worth noting that Zimmerman's racial background isn't clear.

Either America needs to demote the status of racial labels in public discourse, or come up with a more-distinct set of such labels.

Posted by: karrde at 11:37 | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Last night, I walked into my house and smelled something different.

The different smell was a mix of hops and malted barley. My housemate/renter was making a batch or two of beer. (It should be ready for bottling in a month or so.)

While beer-making is one more skill I'd like to have, the need doesn't feel pressing at the moment. Though I have tried my hand at making mead. (Mead has a much simpler process and set of ingredients...basically honey, water, and yeast.)

It is pleasant to anticipate the results of both the beer-making and the mead-making.

Posted by: karrde at 11:11 | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Last week, a discussion of the intelligence of President Obama began at AVI's place. It was mostly based on Obama's multiply-layered mistakes when speaking of the Falkland Islands (a.k.a. the Malvinas).

One related question is, how did Obama convince so many people that he was highly intelligent?

And how come the people who are in the Media & Political Party tribe haven't performed a close analysis of Obama's background?

An attempt to answer that question was made by Angelo Codevilla in September of last year. I wasn't aware of it until I saw a link in the comment-thread (number 70, from Peterike) discussing one element of Obama's autobiography. That element was the mundane question of "why did Obama report needing a calculator in the fifth grade, in the year 1971"?

The thesis of Codevilla's paper is that Obama (and his parents, friends, and associates) were deeply involved in a series of movements and organizations sponsored by U.S. Government agencies. Those movements were mostly undercover groups designed to influence other countries abroad. (In the case of Obama's family, organizations/corporations/foundations influencing events in Malaysia during the 60s and 70s.)

In his teen and young-adult years, Obama was strongly connected to several members of the New Left. Codevilla claims that it is common knowledge that these groups were the after-effects of the interactions between Old Left government functionaries and their funding of in-country political activists who were Left but specifically not-Communist.

This entire sub-thesis (about the New Left) is news to me. However, I do have some level of trust in Codevilla himself (based on his work The Character of Nations, which I've read). And the short chain of evidence he brings up supports his thesis.

Overall, this thesis about Obama does a lot to explain why his past is kept secret. And it is definitely worth considering. So is the thesis about the genesis of the New Left from efforts to undermine pro-Communistic groups in the United States.

What is troubling is that agencies of the U.S. State Department allowed themselves to fund and support domestic political groups...and the press of the time did not seek out such funding and report on it.

However, the anomaly may not be the existence of government agents who deliberately use government resources to back in-country political causes...the anomaly may be that knowledge of such things is now easy to discover and report.

Posted by: karrde at 10:58 | No Comments | Add Comment
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Couldn't find a way to work it into the post below...

April 19 is also the anniversary of a law-enforcement operation that ended in a tragic fire. After nearly two months of siege.

All in an attempt to capture a guy who apparently never left the compound. Or did he?

(More data about that event here, from a man who spent years trying to get official data from the government agencies in question. Some of the film had evaporated, many requests were delayed, stonewalled, or denied, and many strange details were found.)

What to make of this historical coincidence, I don't know.

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On this day in 1775, the British Regulars were surprised.

They had marched out of Boston late the previous night. The mission was supposed to be secret. The orders were to capture leaders of the Patriots and disarm the Colonial Militia.

(As reported by Clayton Cramer, the Colonies had gone to great effort to arm their militia. Part of the armaments was that every militia man kept his own weapon and a small store of powder and shot in his home. Another part of the armament was the storage of large amounts of powder & shot, as well as artillery pieces, in a central location. These large stores were among the targets of this raid.)

The British Regulars and Colonial Militia should not have been at odds. Both forces were, nominally, meant to help enforce the King's Law, as well as defend the Colonies from foreign attack or domestic disturbance. Yet in this tense situation, the Regulars were sent to disarm the Militia. The Regulars were under the command of a General who had replaced the locally-elected Governor and disbanded the locally-elected Legislature by the command of the King. The militias were local bodies, and were generally in support of the Colonies against what was seen to be heavy hand of Parliament and the King.

For many years, the Colonies had been little-noticed by Parliament or the King. But the need to raise funds to pay off war-debt led to increases in taxation, forced changes to Colonial government. Times were tense, and talk of independence was brewing among the Colonists.

The local Militia leaders had set up an alert system (depending on the technology of the time: horses, riders, and face-to-face communication) that would be the envy of any modern Civil Defense force. They also had intelligence connections inside the household of General Gage.Thus, the Regulars could not find the people and supplies they sought.

Also, the Regulars found themselves at the center of convergence by local Militias. But the first serious opposition they faced was the local company of militia, which had spent most of the night holding watch at Lexington green.

It is unclear who fired the first shot on Lexington Green. The Lexington Militia commander saw he was outmatched, and ordered his men to disperse. The British leaders ordered them to lay down their arms. The Militia did not lay down their arms, and began to disperse. However, the situation was confusing. When a shot rang out, the Regulars prepared and fired a volley.

In that engagement, the Regulars won (more or less) and the local Militia lost. However, further action at Concord went in favor of the local Militia who had gathered there.

Further harrying of the Regulars happened during the long march back to Boston. Technically, all action taken in Lexington and Concord by the local Militia could be defended in court. The fight that happened during the long march back to Boston could not be so defended.

That day the trouble between the King (and his Generals) and the Colonies transitioned into armed conflict. Whether that transition happened on Lexington green with the shot heard round the world, or during the march back to Boston is debatable. However, the transition to open war did happen on April 19, 1775.

For a better discussion of the history of that day, I suggest attending an Appleseed clinic. Of course, that clinic is as much a rifleman-training event as a history discussion. However, the discussions of history that happen at those events are very important, and are an integrated into the rifleman-training.

Posted by: karrde at 10:51 | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, during the hoopla surrounding the centenary of the a famous failure of mass transportation, news comes that a noticeable number of modern people aren't aware that some fiction is based on a true story. (Hat tip, an anonymous commenter at Tam's place.)

Not that I would blame them, if they'd been bitten once-too-many times by fiction that was loosely based on a true story...in a way that meant that only the names stayed the same. But the evidence appears to be that these people were unaware that a ship named Titanic had ever sailed.

Is it a commentary on the level of education? Or a commentary on the ability of people suffering from a lack of knowledge to display that lack so openly to the rest of the world?

On my end, I am glad that my parents stocked a set of books like this. Being a voracious reader, I devoured those books and learned a great deal about American history. I'm pretty sure Titanic was mentioned in there. Even if the vessel never moored on American shores.

This does make me wonder, though...would anyone believe me if I said that the film Titanic was based on a 19th-century novel? It wasn't, but there are a disturbingly large number of similarities between the ship described in the 1898 novel and the ship that sailed in 1912...which later became the subject of several films.

Posted by: karrde at 17:52 | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Health is nice to have. Even a minor cold can, with the right attendant pressures, really put a damper on life. (Or on blogging...)

I notice that the world has been pretty much more-of-the-same since I last posted.

Tax Day has arrived. (A song may be in order...or maybe some comics.) I'm happy that my taxes were taken care of more than a month ago.

Some have propounded the idea of making April 15 a Buy-A-Gun day, as a backhanded way of underlining (to any government agent paying attention) that taxes are paid voluntarily. I didn't buy anything this year...yet. Even so, if I do buy something, it will be a little too late to call the purchase a BAG purchase.

About the time I filed my taxes, I did purchase an air rifle. (It's branded as a Ruger Blackhawk, but not that kind of Blackhawk.) Does that count?

But I have been contemplating an AR-pattern rifle. Or an AK-pattern rifle, just for the heck of it. Or maybe another .22 caliber rifle, this time with a scope.

Perhaps that's why I haven't purchased another gun yet...I still have to decide which one I want.

Posted by: karrde at 22:42 | No Comments | Add Comment
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While thinking about the contentious article by John Derbyshire, I realized something.

It is much easier to deal with the article if Derbyshire isn't accused of racism. Because Derbyshire may have committed a couple of errors in presentation and interpretation of data.

My conclusion is that the threat presented (violence or homicide of a White person by a Black person) is not as severe as Derbyshire presents it.
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Posted by: karrde at 11:49 | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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