The Robot's Thoughts

I just wanted to re-emphasize something: Underreported.com is cool. I think we need more watchdogs, because we consumers are easily distracted, so while we know about the beginning of a scandal, (something went public, memo leaked) we often aren't there for the shady backroom resolution (slap on the wrist, club fed, testify on why gas prices are so high and then do nothing).

But when it comes to schools, I think about cattle farms a lot. Mostly, because in our modern education system, to get a "Grade A", all you really need to do is show up and chew cud -- you're halfway there.

Discussing our education system and teachers is an easy way to stray into controversial terrority. Most of the incredibly smart and incredibly educated people I know, a teacher has touched their life the most. Conversely, out of all the smart people I know, the people who've influenced them the littest have been educators. So when you discuss teachers, you're in this wide gray area. You might have a 60 year old health teacher who's functionally illiterate, sexist, overpayed, doesn't try, but is revered by the administration because he's one crackerjack fuck of a baseball coach. Or you may have the freshmen year english teacher that's obsessed with the holocaust, ensuring that if you end every term paper with "In conclusion, Nazis were bad, and stuff." you'll get the A.
Or maybe, just maybe, you'll have the mid-30s engineer who resigned from his field for a more family friend position who looks at students records and talk to other science and math teachers to track down the students who have the ability to handle Calc AB and Honors Physics (which was Physics with Calc) and refuse to let them puss out on their education because they know they won't feel like doing homework their senior year after track practice. That mandates that everyone reads and response to articles talking about the controversies of our time, especially the ones questioning or attacking scientific doctrine and dogma.

But I will say this, even though I could rattle off a list of incompetant people I've met with my run-ins in the school system all the way up through college, one thing is for sure: Educators aren't paid enough. A higher salary would allow us to dictate higher standards for educators. A higher salary would make teachers feel more confident in failing students (and more likely to for parents to accept that its theirs, and the child's fault for failing in a public school. After all, the teacher is making low six-figures, and your family isn't.) And no matter how great or bad a public school is, at the high school level its just a jail for young people: and they have to put up with them all day. That alone should be enough to justify a pay raise. And it would end the 'teacher shortage' our country is facing. Then again, the education major at the college level would definitely have to change. No more sorority girls who want to go out drinking every night of the week until 3 or 4am.

Alright, one way or another I'm sure someone from soapbox is going to let me hear about this. So I'm out.

Underreported.com is a blog, not a news site, so expect some political commentary one way or another. Blog's dealing with the news usually spend a lot of time blasting their horns with the whole "we support the individual, while major news corporations support the corporations" wank.

But Underreported.com blows my mind as it points out the stories that were published in the back of the newspapers. An example of this would be aide's of Tony Blair, cautioning him that the U.S.'s intelligence of the iraqi regime seems to be 'framed toward a pro-war conclusion' (paraphrasing a quote, go read Underreported.com).

For example, I didn't know that they were now doing pep-rally's in school for standardized testing. Read that last sentence again and think about it. Can you imagine a pep-rally for any of the standardized tests you took?

The thing I loved most about high school was taking college level classes at a preppy, conservative, liberal arts university and hanging out with people who weren't preppy or conservative. We had our own nerdy little cirlce where we invented new swears as a result of having to modify function parameters on recurisve descent parsers.

I also loved having a punk rock radio show with safe harbor so I didn't have to bleep the swears.

There is no amount of state-sponsored brainwashing that could get me to love filling in little circles. And I hope for our the future of this country, there isn't enough of that to convince the next-generation, either.

I thought I had all the foundation needed to start work on my first full featured OS X cocoa application.

Its tough realizing you're not as good as you think you are.

But its also refreshing to know that you can always pull youself up.

So, the long and the short of it is that I will not be able to release an alpha version of the app to my soapbox mailing list for evalution and feedback.

I'm not giving up on it, however. The best advice, when i consulted some older and wiser C gurus, was just that, "I don't know, but don't give up."

So I've perserved, and procastinated. Watched the Sci Fi miniseries "Battlestar Galatica". Coded. Read "At All Costs" by David Weber. Coded some more. Listen to a friend describe a break up with her significant other who she was living with. Talked to a friend in Cali seeking a life coach.

Stopped coding. Its 5am. Its time for sleep. For once, I feel that Xcode can wait.

I'm spending thanksgiving alone. Mostly because I'm sick of driving somewhere every weekend. I've only spent 3 weekends in Fairmont. Pittsburgh, D.C., Cinnicinatti. I go everywhere. I need a break, my car needs a break. Second, I still haven't fully settled into my apartment. Its time to clean it up. Organize everything. Third, I want to code a little on my mac.

But everyone's looking at me like I'm some lost lamb. I don't need you're charity.
See, I may be spending thanksgiving alone, but I'm not alone. I did volunteer work for the WV Rescue Mission. I delivered meals to the disabled and needy. I had lunch with some good co-workers.
I spent the time by downloading about 2 gigs of music from DeskLaser's FTP site. I meditated. I cleaned my apartment. I coded an cocoa experiment. It was all time well spent.

So I spent Thanksgiving alone, but I didn't feel lonely or alone. I just felt content to be where I am.

I was going to write an insane rant about spoiled the modern yuppie of america is today, and how their never ending pursuit of living like a child leads to a life of the hollow pursuit of material appreciation. People spend $350 for a set of cooking knives and don't even think that $18/month can feed a child.

But last night I went out and spent $300 on items to deck out my apartment.

And its hella boss.

What is it about beautiful women who can dance vibrantly?

Alan's big party was tonight. The party schmooze in me came out.

I met and danced with a women named Meredith. Unsurprisingly, she's taken. But she's still a heart breaker.

Its surprising how good it feels to be told that you're fun to dance with. I haven't heard that in a long time.

Then again, I haven't gone to a club that's blaring Top 40 rap and everyone trying to "Back Attack" any girl in sight that isn't looking over their shoulder.

I was invited to go clubbing with Meredith and her boyfriend, but since I came up this weekend for Alan, I stayed for Alan. We were putting the DJ's speakers in my sedan, anyway. And I'm sure the afterparty in Alan's apartment rocked more then any club could.

We went through 2 bottles of champagne is under 30 minutes.
Rayn passed out with his shoes on, so I messed with him a little.
All in all, we kept going until 5:30am. We could barely function the next day.

DC.

I went from zero to plastered in about $50 last night.

I rarely drink these days. Then we started hopping the latin clubs.

And I got lit up. Ugh.

I Texted someone I used to know who lives in the city. I told her I miss her.

Her response was "Who is this?"

Gotta love moving on.

And on that note, I'm going to follow around my completely metrosexual friends here in the city and watch as they spend more money on hair care products then I do on gaming.

I'm in D.C.

Alan's Birthday.

Giving Rides to complete strangers before they start their modeling career.

Delicious Salmon

More electronica than you can shake a stick at.

Computer monitored by the US Government.

Made great time down.

Meeting more technical people. Stealing business cards.

New wax for the hair.

Metro commute and bar hopping eminent.

I hope not to run into lost loves.

I hope to keep this redbull and vodka level consistant throughout the night.

Everyone here is a metro. We're going shoe and coat shopping tomorrow.

Tonight will be one crazy night.

I just got the Weapon R short ram air intake for my car that I purchased off ebay.

It was missing a critical part for installation.

So now, all that money I've saved as opposed to buying new could be caught up in fighting for a refund, or purchasing the missing component from Weapon R directly.

It takes me down a peg. A whole peg.

I have a feeling that after I get a gamecube and the new Zelda when it comes out, I won't be using ebay or half.com for a long while. Too many scams.

A whole frickin' peg.

Kingdom Of Loathing is definitely a great way to waste time.

Because time is money, but you can still waste time with no money.

My room is a mess right now.
Intentionally.

Someone was over this weekend. And together, in a non-scientific way (although some experimentation was involved) we found out how much force is needed to get the books on the bookshelf above my bed to land on my head.

Ironically, the book that clocked me was titled "Hardcore Java".

So the books that fell stay on the floor right now. A semi silent tribute?
Maybe. I'm done sharing.

Now back to your regularly scheduled patting on the back and high-fives.

I stayed up late last night reflecting on life.

We spend so much time battling the bad stuff in life, trying not to let it in, and yet I think we remember it more. I know I remember it more.

Take my first love. After we split up and I ended up joining her at Pitt, I couldn't even say her name when she wasn't around. Stories involving us always started out "One time, with my last girlfriend..." or "My friend and I...". When people asked how the two of us met, I was always quick to answer "We ran cross country together in high school" before she could respond with "We dated."

Last night, I kept spinning my wheels over and over. I remember the way she'd talk when she was trying to make a point -- Quietly, deliberately. People would shut up in mid sentence to hear what she was saying. I remember how we were both the easily excitable type. We'd get hyper and start talking and gesticulating really fast. Our voices would rise in Pitch. Our eyes would get big. My words can't do it justice. Its one of those quirks of a person you've got to see for yourself, but believe me, it was adorable.

I wonder if she still does that. I know I do. Outside of work right now, I only talk to 1-2 people once a week.

I can remember little things, like how her eyes would shimmer when I'd surprise her with flowers, or how she'd shriek if I hit with a snowball.

But only if I try hard enough. What I can remember is different from what I remember the most -- what takes no effort to recall.

I remember the first and only party I went to that she threw (that I was invited to.) She was recently single, and I was recently dumped. All the guys there eye'd her up. Joked about what they would do if they had the chance. I sat there, gripping the chair, knowing it'd make no difference if I smashed anyone's head open to feast on the goo inside. There was no point, I had feelings that were obsolete: I was past tense, last place, and chopped liver. And I wasn't used to it at all.

I remember living in a frat house the summer of my freshmen year. Joining ranks with some conformist assholes was a big strech for me, but living with them over the summer was alright. I remember when she stopped by, but wouldn't set one foot inside. How her shoulders were braced the whole time, like she was giving someone bad news.

The painful memories are so vivid, and the happy ones so fuzzy, it makes feel like each set of experiences were actually with two different people. In reality, I may not be far from the mark. We all change so much throughout the years.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I've seen enough people go bad over time, that I'm cynical now that I just expect decline. I expect one's self involvement to increase, one's delusions of greatness to grow without bound. One's problematic self-abuse to progress to new destructive heights. Just bringing up the subject brings to mind "before" and "after" college pictures of Jon and Marilyn. Two twisted peas in one horrible, horrible pod.

I guess I'm wondering the same thing about my first ex as I am about myself: Are you still good? End of the day, gun to your head, do you do the right thing and are you happy doing it?

The summer of my sophomore year I ended up in my hometown, living with three crazy 21 year olds, [semi-bitterly] working my old job as Help Desk. I got talked into doing Community Theatre. I met a girl I had a summer fling with, Melissa. Melissa was captial-C Crazy and in the end it pretty much turned out to be a regrettable relationship, but I took one moment from it. Once at her place, before anything spun out of control -- it was still that shiney, new, exploratory phase of the relationship before any emotional baggage blew away the surreality of it.

She looked me over and then looked right at me: "You're amazing. I wonder what you're going to be like in 5 years?"

What am I going to be like?
Am I too close to the problem to see that I've been slowly going bad?
You've always said, "Those who try to make up for lost living end up living lost."
Could you have been lost this whole time, only to realize you didn't care until now?

Reflection's a powerful thing. It can function as a mirror to see inside ourselves. The trick is not to get caught up within your vanities and see what's really good, what's really bad, and what you can do better.

I hope my vanities haven't left me blind.

I just sent off the funds to start sponsoring my first impoverished child.
It feels good.

Find out how you can easily sponsor a child for less than $20/month here.

This auction on ebay.com is pretty interesting.

A former micro-isv (read: one man development shop) has bitten the red pill and works for microsoft ( and from this point on have to use the word 'innovate' at least three times in every sentenance).

Since he doesn't have the time/energy to continue to develop, support, maintain, and market an full fledged shareware application anymore, he's selling the website, and the application source code, on ebay.

I think its a cool way to sell one's assets, and for someone who actually wants into the shareware business, it is a way in. Save time to market by buying a product that's already on the market.

It'd be interesting to find out how the buyer reacts to their purchase. The source code was written by one man, while it be of excellent quality, it might also have the sort of compromises you'd expect from an application written by only one person. Comments that make no sense to outsiders. Short-cuts on re-use which raise the learning/support curve. Cruft ("software rot") in older areas of the application. Unstable code, that's just left alone because "it just works and he can't remember why".

So while someone is purchasing source code to a product and the right to use its name, someone might be buying a large share of support woes.

Feel free to check it out: I'm of the opinion that its probably an interesting and well-polished product. I just don't know if its profitable. With iPhoto out there for the mac, and Picasa free from Google for PC users, I'm not sure if a commercially supported photo app has much of a chance. But then again, the whole point with an micro-ISV is little risk, but usually little profit as well.

I've been in the market for a new game for my PC.
And I've been looking for 3d shooters.

So naturally, I turned to Quake 4, since there was some hype about it earlier.

This is a game where you realize it sucks by not even having to play it. You realize this because in something as competitive as FPSs, you need a playable demo. UT2k4 has a playable demo. I will get to see exactly how well the game performs on my system, what to expect from the AI, if the gameplay is great.

Quake 4 has no playable demo that I can find on its "official gaming website" -- just downloadable wall paper trailer movies.

And the trailers basically confirm your worst fear: Quake 4 is nothing new. You've seen all these weapons in Quake 3. The multiplayer level could be described as "Quake 3 with updated maps, textures and graphics."

The AI in the movies looks depressing. Enemies run right at you, not even attempting to use cover as it charges you head on and continuously pump round after round into its chest. You haven't seen gameplay that weak since Doom 2. Flying enemies don't try to flank you, nothing seems to work together as co-ordinated teams.

Like Doom 3, what id is trying to deliver is a playable movie crossbred with an FPS. What its done is generate a game that seems lacking in replay value, but just play value. Especially since they've open sourced all their other games via the GPL.

Quake 4 is as much a product of bad design as it is the George Lucas effect: If you're putting special effects in every single scene, that hardly makes them special anymore, does it?

Sadly, this means the tried-and-true 3d shooter of choice is now Halo. (Which, like Quake 4, involves a war between an alien race(s) and huaminity -- but for some reason Quake 4 involves visiting their home planet and launching a ground invasion of some kind, as opposed to just nuking them back into the stone age from orbit.)

Its just sad to see Id games crank out the 3d game equivilant of B-movies. And with the rest of the shooter games I loved from Childhood bought up by microsoft and turned into XBox360 fodder, its time to move on to better, and hopefully brighter games.

I've posted a brief reaction to being slashdotted now that most of the dust has settled. Its sort of a place holder while I finish up a second article for the month of November.
Read it @ http://www.christopherwilson.net/soapbox

The only jumper I caught with my camera on bridge day.
The title of this book just sounds dirty, doesn't it?
The largest arch bridge in the western hemisphere.
A BASE Jumper and his parachute.