To-Day is 11-11-11
I stumbled on this article from the New York Times from 100 years ago that made me think about all the crazy stuff that has happened over the past century (militarization of airplanes, collapse of the Ottoman Empire, two world wars, the Space Race, personal computing and the Internet - to name a few). 100 years ago the top stories were about Andrew Carnegie's $25,000,000 donation and the bizarre date. Today the top stories include the ongoing European debt crisis, a delay on a massive North American oil pipeline, and more coverage of Republican primary candidate Rick Perry's mistake at a recent public debate. What will people be talking about on this date in 2111..?
To-Day Is 11-11-11
Date Can't Be Written In This Way Again for a Century
To-day it is possible to write the date with the repetition six times of a single digit. It is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year, and so one may save time and just put it down 11-11-11. It will be a century before the same thing can be done on Nov. 11, 2011, though, of course, on Dec. 12 next year there will be a close approximation to it with 12-12-12 as a correct presentation of the date.
Still to-day for the last time until the era is changed will one digit appear seven times in the date, however it is written. To-day is 11-11-1911. Eight hundred years ago this was beaten by writing 11-11-1111, on Nov. 11, 1111, but it is not likely that the precise monkish scribes at that time would have allowed so slovenly a method of recording an essential fact. As none of us is likely to be living in the year 11111, it would be well for those who delight in curious trifles to take their fill of enjoyment out of this method of dating to-day, 11-11-11.
- New York Times, Nov. 11, 1911
The People Behind the Website
"When I design, I work very hard to make the interface experience feel like there’s a human on the other end, not a computer."
- Aarron Walter, Designing for Emotion
I love this quote because it's so true that the better websites and applications out there are ones where you feel like you're communicating with another person and not some dumb computer. I don't know about you, but I've found it's always easier for me to forgive people than it is to forgive a computer. I have infinitely more patience for people than for machines. Some of the best websites out there today are designed so you feel like you're communicating with the people behind the website and not with the website itself. This is definitely something to keep in mind if you do any kind of design work, and it is something more companies need to consider as they build and maintain their web presence.
A Legend is dead
"Some mistakes will be made, by the way. Some mistakes will be made along the way. That's GOOD because at least some decisions are being made along the way."
- Steve Jobs at the 1997 WWDC
The End of NPR???
I have been sitting around at home helping to take care of my new baby, which means I have been listening to NPR and Classical WETA all weekend – day and night. This weekend I have been hearing occasional messages saying the House of Representatives is going to vote on a Continuing Resolution that could completely cut all government funding for public broadcasting. Being an avid listening of these stations and a person who enjoys the quality of the programming on PBS, I decided to hit Google to learn more.
Here’s what I found.
Last Friday, Republicans in the House introduced a new bill that would cut around $60 billion of government spending (or $100 billion depending on who you ask). Apparently the bill needs to be passed by March 4 to take effect and no formal appropriations bill has been signed so far, so this would take the form of a “continuing resolution” (provides funding for existing federal programs at current or reduced levels – thank you, Wikipedia).
Here’s the federal government’s fiscal year calendar for 2011 (for the curious) – if passed, this bill would be in effect from March to October (to the end of FY 2011):
- 1st Quarter: October 1, 2010 - December 31, 2010
- 2nd Quarter: January 1, 2011 - March 31, 2011
- 3rd Quarter: April 1, 2011 - June 30, 2011
- 4th Quarter: July 1, 2011 - September 30, 2011
I’m fine with cutting spending – it desperately needs to be done with our looming $14 trillion deficit, but the problem for me is that this bill would cut ALL spending on public broadcasting. According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), about 14% of their funding comes from federal spending – but they say this money is used primarily to help garner additional funds from local sources. The message on the radio states that losing this money would jeopardize the future of all public broadcasting.
(Here's a concise list of things being cut - notice how many times you see the word "education" or something related to that........)
This bill also RAISES defense spending by an estimated $9.6 billion ("while the defense budget is down $13 billion from the 2011 budget request, it’s still up $9.6 billion from the 2010 baseline."). If anything in our budget needs to be drastically reduced, it’s our astronomical defense spending. I’m of the opinion that when a nation spends even a dollar more on the military than it does on education it is pissing all over its future.
So what’s in the bill?
Continuing House Resolution (H.R. 1) is the single largest cut in discretionary spending ever put forth in Congress with an estimated $100 billion in cuts. Hal Rogers, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, had the following to say:
“This year, our nation is spending 1.5 trillion dollars more than we have, running our debt to $14 trillion. The taxpayers have told us loud and clear that this is simply unacceptable, and have demanded that we get our nation’s fiscal house in order. This CR responds to this call. The legislation includes the largest reduction in discretionary spending in the history of our nation – over five times larger than any other discretionary cut package ever considered by the House.”
I’m the type of person who prefers to actually read the full text of something like this rather than relying on our shitty media to explain it to me using their bias. So – here’s the full text of the bill as a PDF:
http://www.rules.house.gov/Media/file/PDF_112_1/legislativetext/2011crapprops/AppropCRFinal_xml.pdf
The part I care about reads as follows:
“Sec. 1838. (a) Of the funds made available for “Corporation for Public Broadcasting” in title IV of division F of Public Law 111-8, the unobligated balance is rescinded. (b) The amounts included under the heading “Corporation for Public Broadcasting” in division D of Public Law 111-117 shall be applied to funds appropriated by this division as follows: by substituting “$0” for “$86,000,000”; by substituting “$0” for “$25,000,000”; by substituting “$0” for “$36,000,000”; and by substituting “$0” for “$25,000,000”.”
Well, Mr. Rogers of Kentucky, your bill can be vastly improved by substituting “Worthless Pile of Shit” for “Full-Year Continuing 24 Appropriations Act, 2011”.
I have already written to my congressional representatives about this; if you care about public broadcasting I hope you will, too.
Shared Norms for the New Reality
Here’s a difference I’ve noticed between the U.S. and Russia: When there is a major lapse in security in the U.S., the general public likes to blame top officials. In Russia, however, it’s the top officials who point the blame. In the wake of the devastating suicide bombing at the busiest airport in Moscow (yes, you did actually just read that – this is very scary stuff), Russian President Medvedev was quick to point at airport security staff that were directly responsible.
He has been quoted as saying, “I instruct the Russian government to consider the issues of liability of the persons responsible for security on transportation. I instruct prosecutors and the Investigation Committee to consider the criminal liability of these persons.”
Some have concluded the attack was orchestrated before the Davos conference to derail Russia’s rising image as a global cultural center and economic powerhouse. It is now unclear if Medvedev will even attend the Davos conference.
But the show must go on and this year’s theme (the title of this post) “reflects the foremost concern of many leaders – namely, living in a world that is becoming increasingly complex and interconnected and, at the same time, experiencing an erosion of common values that undermines public trust in leadership as well as future economic growth and political stability.” Blah blah blah we need to figure out what to do about the emerging world superpowers blah blah blah. I’ll be very interested in what Medvedev has to say if is able to attend.
I’ll also be interested in hearing what, if anything, President Obama has to say about the Moscow bombing at his “Winning the Future” State of the Union address tonight.
Done With facebook
Most of you reading this already know this, but I'm done with facebook. I believe the site peaked in 2010 and it will decline now that it is gaining huge corporate sponsorships (look at what happened to MySpace after Rupert Murdoch bought it). That aside, here are some of my personal reasons for quitting:
- Any communication done via facebook can be done (usually better) by other means - whether it's face-to-face conversations at work, talking on the phone, or even with good old-fashioned email.
- facebook is AOL with new paint!
- Because of its wild popularity, facebook is a colossal magnet for the scum of the Internet. It has become a massive target for hackers/crackers/spammers - not to mention pedophiles and criminals.
- facebook makes money off you the same way survey companies make money off you - the difference is you usually know why you're doing a survey and what the data will be used for. If huge databases storing everything about you (like ChoicePoint) scare you, then facebook should also scare you.
- The people who really buy into facebook become so entrenched in it that they blur facebook with reality. As a consequence, they feel like friendships in real life end when they are 'unfriended'. For most people, myself included, this creates a feeling like you are tied to the site and you really have no personal control over leaving - a feeling I hate more than words can express.
I will try to update this blog more frequently now that I am no longer posting random comments on facebook. I'll also try not to rant too much and I'll try to include humor and/or stuff that is somewhat interesting or educational.
Is the electric motorcycle a “disruptive technology”?
This was a response I wrote to a question given to us in a class I took. I liked my response, so I wanted to post it here to share with everyone.
Electric motorcycles are not a disruptive technology. This is especially true here in the U.S. where, despite an oil leak catastrophe beyond imagination, most people are still not drastically changing their forms of transportation (huge cars and SUVs); but I believe this is also true in countries like the Netherlands, Japan, and India where small electric scooters (mopeds, etc.) are both popular and safe to use for commuting.
Alaric: Still Making Headlines 1,600 Years Later
Today is the 1,600th anniversary of the day the capital city of Imperial Rome was destroyed by foreign invaders (possibly by some of my distant ancestors). In his article, BBC Rome Correspondent David Willey briefly explains how this monumental deathblow to the empire is still considered today as one of the most significant events that has shaped the modern world.
I am a huge Roman history nerd and I have a weakness for anything related to the Roman Empire, so I think it's pretty cool that this kind of story still gets mentioned in the mainstream media some 1,600 years later. One point of interest to me is how little we understand the group that actually invaded Rome - the Visigoths. We know they were a group of mercenaries led by a man named Alaric and that they had very recently been granted permission to live on Roman soil thanks to a treaty signed by their previous leader Athanaric. The basic story seems pretty clear: the mercenaries grew unhappy with their payment (or perhaps weren't paid at all), so they started attacking Roman cities to get their money. The part that doesn't make sense to me is how they were able to march into the capital seemingly unopposed. Can you imagine hearing that news as a Roman citizen? A group of mercenaries paid by your government just destroyed your capital? It would be as if Blackwater (now called Xe) turned and attacked D.C. - unthinkable, right?
Alaric's story leads me to believe the following conditions were true:
- The Roman army was incredibly weak - and Alaric knew this, probably from inside sources. I doubt he would consider attacking the capital if he knew a huge Roman army would meet him there.
- Alaric had people working for him inside the city of Rome - this part of the story is unclear from what I've read, but I find the whole story very hard to believe without this type of planning.
- Roman citizens knew their empire was on the verge of collapsing and they were prepared to support anyone who was strong enough to protect them. There was little risk of punishment for turning against the weak empire.
- The city of Rome was symbolically much more important than Rome's leadership thought it was. It seems like as soon as word spread that the city had fallen, the whole empire gave up hope. I think even mediocre leaders would have the sense to protect the capital city with every force possible if there was risk of it being attacked, yet it seems like the city of Rome was left fairly unprotected.
I believe Alaric was emboldened by his ability to take one of the greatest cities of his time with relative ease. He attempted to lead his army south to North Africa - the great grain factory of the empire, but he allegedly picked a bad time of year and storms sank most of his ships - or so the story goes.
Like many of the stories from the Roman Empire, I think we should keep the story of Alaric in mind when we consider many of the events happening in our world today. Variations of this story have echoed throughout recent history - a simple search/replace for "Roman Empire" with "corporation" and "Visigoths" with "contractors" and this story might loosely resemble an article from the Wall Street Journal.
Microsoft Live Writer
I’m officially drunk on the Microsoft kool-aid by writing this entry from Microsoft Live Writer (a free optional software download I got via Windows Update). Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you know that Microsoft has been playing catch-up with just about everything they do as it’s incredibly dangerous to sit still for even a couple of months in the IT industry (not to mention the insanity that is the cell phone industry these days).
Lately I have been reading up on Microsoft certifications and learning more than anyone should ever need to know about SQL Server 2008. I figure I’ve been glued to the .NET Framework for a couple of years now at work and I might as well learn as much as possible about the technology I use every day (more kool-aid anyone?).
I saw an interesting headline that caught my attention (mostly because I thought it was a joke): It seems IE actually gained market share last month, evidently reversing it’s painfully slow downward spiral. I read the chapter from the book Founders At Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days on Blake Ross (creator of Firefox) and he basically says Firefox was only successful because Microsoft had disbanded the IE team and had totally stopped improving its browser. Blake also mentions that Firefox will quickly lose to Google and Microsoft if they aren’t constantly innovating (obvious), so I’m a little curious as to the reason behind IE’s recent success. Firefox is still innovating, Google has been idle for a while now, and IE is still stuck at version 8 with promises of 9 around the corner.
As a Web developer, I really hope to see more adherence to standards – especially IE with version 9. I am 10+ years sick of things not working or rendering correctly between browsers. I know this “browser war” will be written later in the history books as one of the most foolish and absurd blunders in the history of the Internet.
Anyway, I’m standing by Microsoft as I’ve been boycotting Apple for well over 15 years now (another story) – but now I’ve decided to take a more active role with Microsoft development.
Oh yeah, and Happy 4th of July!
Global Trust
“Since World War II, U.S. imperialism has stepped into the shoes of German, Japanese, and Italian fascism and has been trying to build a great American empire by dominating and enslaving the whole world. It is actively fostering Japanese and West German militarism as its chief accomplices in unleashing a world war. Like a vicious wolf, it is bullying and enslaving various peoples, plundering their wealth, encroaching upon their countries' sovereignty, and interfering in their internal affairs. It is the most rabid aggressor in human history and the most ferocious common enemy of the people of the world.”
- Lin Biao, minister of defense of the People's Republic of China – Sept. 2, 1965
There's a quote you'll never find in an American history book.
I was browsing through a book called "Respectfully Quoted" which is a collection of quotes dug up for use in congressional speeches and this quote stood out to me as a criticism I think every American should at least be aware of (so I'm posting it here!). I think it's obvious most Americans don't think much about the rest of the world (only about 28% of us even have passports), but I also get the feeling they also don't trust much of the world. It's not surprising given all the media attention about things like lead in toys, jobs outsourcing, cyber war, etc.
I've heard story after story about how the U.S. is losing both its prestige and power in the global arena, but I have heard little about us gaining trust amongst foreign countries. I believe that the more powerful a country or organization is, the less it is generally trusted by outsiders (or even insiders for that matter - but that's a different issue). Case in point: this year Apple Inc. has seemingly overtaken Microsoft as the big, evil IT empire and there seems to be a growing consensus that Apple is less to be trusted than Microsoft because of this. Likewise, Google is shaping itself into another IT empire and, true to form, there are now challenges to Google's mantra "Don't be evil".
So I guess my question to the world is: do you trust us more now that we're slipping than you have during the past couple of decades?
I believe all organizations and individuals should take time to reflect upon both their strengths and weaknesses and hopefully learn from both. I have to admit I'm discouraged by the little progress we've made in fostering global trust over the past decade because it is so crucial for a functional global economy. I really hope the future holds much greater advances in global trust because globalization is our current and future reality.
Personal News: I saved somebody's Saturday night by helping them break into their own car after locking themselves out. It's a mistake I’m not ashamed to admit I've made a couple of times with my old Chevy Nova, so I'm a pro at unlocking cars using the ol' “clothes hanger through the top of the door trick”. Another thing you won't find in an American history book (hopefully).
And now, your Chinese phrases:
Phrase: "My name is..."
Chinese: 我叫...
Pinyin: Wo jiao...
How it sounds to me: Woa jeeow...
Phrase: "Goodbye"
Chinese: 再见
Pinyin: zài jiàn
How it sounds to me: zie jeean
Language
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