The Blog of Frank W. Zammetti - The demented ravings of a software developer

So, Battlestar Galactica ended this past Friday, and of course that loud sound you heard were billions of geeks suddently crying out in terror together at the prospect of having their Fridays available once more to not get dates.

So, what did I think of the final episode?  I know that’s the burning question in everyones’ mind, right?

Ahem.

Anyway… let me start by saying I f’ing LOVED the new series.  I’ll admit I wasn’t totally sold by just the pilot itself, but I am very thankful I gave it a shot when it went to series.  It’s been an amazing ride.  All the superlatives heaped on it I think are well-deserved.  A truly character-driven sci-fi drama with a multi-season story arch.  Fantastic.

Now, the finale… I think the first hour, or maybe hour and a half, was some of the best television ever produced, sci-fi or otherwise.  Truly phenomenal.  They had me the whole way…

…that is, until Cavil offed himself.  That’s when the tide turned and disappointment began to set in.

Now, you can rationalize his suicide ten ways to Sunday, and many of those rationalizations even make sense, but the bottom line is that you had a character that was AT HIS CORE driven by the need to survive, and he decides to kill himself because the situation didn’t look too great?  I get the feeling the writers were trying for an unexpected, shocking turn there.  And you know what?  Mission accomplished!  I didn’t see it coming… but I didn’t see it coming PRECISELY because it was completely out of character.  I’ve seen it suggested that if he had awoken in a resurrection pod, him being the only one hooked in and even knowing that the technology existed, that would have made it OK.  Actually, that would have made it freaking AWESOME, and would have fit PERFECTLY with the character.  But no, nothing that clever, just “Oh frack it-BOOM”.  Very poor writing.

Now, the whole God angle… let me clarify one thing: one of the things I really loved all along was how religion was a central theme.  I think exploring how faith fits into a sci-fi arena is something not frequently seen, and they did it very well in my opinion.

BUT

At the point where you say “fuck it, everything that happened was because of God”, you’ve totally jumped the shark.  No, you’ve jumped the fucker, had sex with it and didn’t call it the next day.  That’s probably the laziest answer the writers could possibly have come up with.  I really, truly believe they wrote themselves into a corner that only God could get them out of… hell, maybe that proves God exists, I don’t know

Think of it this way… and, keep in mind this applies to real life too… if God had a plan all along, and was guiding the actions of the characters in any way, shape or form, then what’s the point?  If free will isn’t truly free, then at the end of the day I don’t give a FRACK why any character did anything… in fact, for a character-driven work of fiction, getting to the end and saying “oh hey, free will didn’t mean shit the whole time” undoes all the fine character development you did because you’re telling the audience that everything that came before doesn’t matter one bit.

Now, let’s dicuss some specifics…

* Starbuck was apparently Jesus.  Umm, ok.  She disappears, and Lee goes “eh, nice knowin’ ya” and that’s that.  I guess people disappearing right in front of his eyes (yeah, I know his back was turned, but close enough) is no big deal to him any more.  As far as I remember, not even Jesus did that, and if he had I’m pretty sure people would have called it a miracle!

* Herra is apparently mother to us all.  I guess I’m generally OK with the basic idea… sort of.  Were the bones at the end hers or not?  If they were, then how exactly could she POSSIBLY be “mitochondrial eve”?  Unless she got busy with a few hundred guys like TEN MINUTES AFTER THEY LANDED.  So, maybe they weren’t hers?  Maybe just one of her descendants?  Reasonable, but then the writing was pretty piss-poor to not make this clear (in fact, it’s hinted that her parents’ bones were found near her… so either she died as a young child, those were her parents bones, in which case she couldn’t be the root of all human life, or she died way older, had a bunch of kids first, in which case those weren’t her bones… either the story is fucked up or the writers did a shitty job with it, take your pick).

* Everyone agrees with Lee?  REALLY?!?  So, they just spent a couple of years fighting for their lives, trying to keep the human race going, but when they finally find Earth they decide “you know, this survival thing is a hoot, but you know what would be more fun? Let’s make it as absolutely hard as we can!”  I mean, I sure as shit hope those people remember how to make antibiotics because most of them are likely to die shortly after landing without it!  Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that while they put themselves, tehnologically-speaking, on an equal footing with the native humans, the native humans have been living a rough-and-tumble life for a long time and know the land well… they stand a VERY good chance, in my estimation, of obliterating the new humans anyway!

* Where exactly is Bill Adama’s Raptor?  So, we know it couldn’t have self-piloted into the Sun because Anders had to control the fleet to do that.  So it’s got to still be on Earth.  There’s virtually no way he could have destroyed it entirely, something would likely have survived (I assume they built these things pretty well, being used in combat IN SPACE and all that).  It was only 150k years that passed at the end, that’s frankly not much time, geologically-speaking, so the chances that the land would have “eaten it up” isn’t likely.  Chances are extremely good it seems that a Raptor would have easily survived that time, virtually guaranteeing the human race is screwed again.  I dunno, doesn’t seem too responsible to me.

* Less just says “ok pops, have a good life” without so much as a SMALL argument?  Understanding his motivation is one thing, saying “ok, fuck it, this is the last time I’ll see you” is another.

* Let’s go back to the God thing for a moment… so, at the end, the “angel” version of Baltar says “It doesn’t like to be called that”.  Here’s my guess on what happened in the writer’s room: “Hey, I know, God made this all happen!” “Yeah, cool!” “Hey, new guy, you got something to say?” “Err, yes sir… I was just thinking… what it… ahem… what it God was… something else?” “Hmm… well, we’re lazy as shit and so we’re going to stick with the hold God Did It thing, but if you want to toss in a random hint at THE VERY END that imples that MAYBE it wasn’t God after all, I guess that’d be cool because audiences love to be MIND RAPED like that”.  My point: you can’t decide on God, the ultimate dues ex machina solution, but then at the last possible moment throw in something that is NEVER explained or explored that seems to imply that what you’ve set up all along is bullshit.  Oh, and by the way, if the answer is simply that Baltar was indeed referring to God, then God is a petty prick that worries about what some creature that GOD CREATED calls him?  Is that really what the writers meant to say?

* I’ve heard a lot of people saying things like “the genius of the ending is that it’s open to interpretation”.  That’s fanboy bullshit, that’s what that is, and here’s why: I can make up shit in my own head all day and night, and I can interpret it any way I want.  That’s called creativity.  When I invest multiple years of my life watching a work of fiction, I expect answers in the end.  Now, I don’t need REALISTIC answers, but they have to be SELF-CONSISTENT within the confines of the narrative.  Even IF you want to make the argument that God is such an answer, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s lazy and sloppy because it means the writers didn’t have the creativity to come up with something better.

* Galen killing Tory… now… this is tough because I think it made sense, it was a LITTLE unexpected, and frankly I could see myself acting the EXACT same way in that situation.  But, here’s my problem: all he had to do was stop himself for probably a few more seconds, and all would have been right with the world.  Instead, he gave into his anger and basically doomed two species (yes, apparently it all worked out in the end, but at the time he had to know he was effectively ending both the humans and the cylons).  It bothers me that he did what he did because again, while I could see myself reacting the same way, I can also very much see myself showing SOME restraint, just long enough.  I doubt anyone would have blamed him for doing what he did immediately AFTER the download of the data completed!  So, while I don’t I guess have a huge problem with this, it doesn’t quite sit right with me either… if this was my only complaint though I’d have no real complaint, put it that way

Folks, let’s get something straight: this is SCIENCE FICTION.  If nothing it that should mean that there are actual answers presened.  You can then debate whether the answers are any good, but there are answers none the less.  You can invent whatever type of world-rules you want within the story, and the answer should make sense within those rules.  GOD IS NOT SUCH AN ANSWER.

It’s lazy writing, pure and simple, and it makes this show fantasy rather than science fiction.  I love fantasy as much as the next guy, but that’s not what we were watching all along.  Even when they brought in things like prophecy and destiny, there was always a hint that there was something intelligent behind it all… God by definition is beyond intelligence as we understand it, so that’s something different.

One theory that was tossed around for a long time would have solved virtually every problem nice and neat and made the ending something special… WE ARE ALL CYLONS.  Or, as things developed, we are all hybrids.  Either answer would have made pretty much everything logical and self-consistent.  All this “prophecy” and “destiny” stuff would have wound up being shared subconscious race memories and subconscious programming.  The whole repeating cycle idea would have made a ton of sense.  Some form of resurrection would have explained Starbuck nicely, and it would have explained Baltar always seeing Six (and vice-versa) in their heads.

Battlestar Galactica was a fantastic television show, one that I enjoyed watching immensely.  I think it was a very important bit of fiction and I don’t regret the time I spent watching it.  I DO however feel immensely let down by the ultimate conclusion.  That letdown is softened a bit by the fact that the first 3/4 of the finale were mind-bogglingly good!  But it’s that last quarter or so that kills me.  I haven’t even mention the fact that it got a bit preachy at the end, but I can let that go frankly.  I think the final God conclusion was the epitomy of lazy writing, which is shocking given how much care and obvious effort went into all the prior writing.  It’s almost as if a totally different group of people wrote the last 15-30 minutes of the finale than wrote the rest of the series.

And all of that is very sad to me because while I wouldn’t go so far as to say it ruined the show for me, it definitely degrades it greatly in my mind.  I can still say it’s a landmark series, all that sort of stuff, but frankly it went from being probably my second-favorite sci-fi show ever (behind only Babylon 5) to MAYBE my fourth or fifth favorite.  All because of the ending.

I guess you can say I have God to thank for ruining an otherwise remarkarble piece of art!

I’m going to do something now that I don’t do very often and frankly don’t like to do: I’m going to be deadly serious about something.

So, you’ve probably heard about Reyna Valentino, a Detroit mother who stands accused of multiple counts of torture and child abuse… haven’t heard the story?  Ok, here’s a link, prepare to be disgusted… you go read it and I’ll be here waiting for you.

http://www2.wivb.com/dpp/news/Hamtramck_girl_20090206

So, this was on the front page of Digg a few days ago, and I felt compelled to post a comment on it.  The premise of the comment is that this woman deserves to never be near her kids, or any other kids, for the rest of her life, and that I hope she rots in jail for the rest of her life.  I went so far as to say that maybe the district attorney should be seeking the death penalty (I don’t know if Michigan has the death penalty).  It seemed a little odd to me that attempted murder wasn’t one of the charges.

Now, here’s the thing that shocked me: I got dugg DOWN for these comments!  At least two people wrote to say they disagreed with me!

You see, as the arguments against me went, this woman was suffering from a mental illness.  You see, she had a chemical imbalance in her brain that caused her actions, and therefore we should feel sympathy for her and have understanding of her actions.

Well, what can I possibly say to that except FUCK THAT FUCKING BULLSHIT.

As I said in my Digg comment, there is a line that you simply don’t get to cross, most definitely where defenseless children are involved.  Whether there’s a legitimate medical condition at play that influences or even outright causes your actions, you don’t get to cross that line.  You don’t get to be excused, you don’t get to go on as if nothing happened just because you have some pills that supposedly fixes the problem.

FUCK THAT FUCKING BULLSHIT.

You see, in America, there’s always got to be an excuse for everything that happens.  Someone or something has always got to be to blame, it can’t ever be OUR fault after all!  No one simply says anymore “Hey, I screwed up, time to pay the piper”.  Look, I don’t like consequences any more than anyone else, hate to admit when I’m wrong.  But when I make a mistake, I say so, and I pay for my actions as necessary.  I don’t look for the nearest person or thing to deflect the blame that falls squarely on my shoulders.

This whole “mental illness defense” has become all too prevalent these days.  Do something illegal or just plain evil and, hey, no biggie, after all, there’s a chemical imbalance in your brain.  It’s not your fault.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here: I’m in no way, shape or form pulling a Tom Cruise and saying that mental illness is imaginary.  Of course it’s not, it is 100% real.

What I AM saying though is that you don’t get to use that as an excuse for sticking your kid in an oven, burning their eyes with hot nails or beating them with a crowbar.  You get to FUCKING GO TO JAIL FOR THE REST OF YOUR FUCKING LIFE, that’s what you get.  Don’t give me any shit about “to this woman, she was simply cooking a turkey, her reality wasn’t actual reality, she probably didn’t even realize she was hurting her kids and it wasn’t her fault because she had a chemical imbalance”.  No, that may be the REASON it happened, it’s not an EXCUSE for it.

There’s a line you simply do not get to cross.

Look, my kids drive me absolutely bonkers sometimes.  I feel like just screaming at the top of my lungs for about an hour solid every other day.  But, I have this little thing in my brain that says “you know, cooking my kids like a turkey probably wouldn’t be the best course of action here”.  Most people, thankfully, have that governor in their heads too.  Most parents, no matter how crazy our kids make us sometimes, would never do the things this woman did. Not in a billion years, chemical imbalances be damned.

So, I suppose you can feel sympathy for her if you want on the grounds that she had a medical condition.  You can excuse her actions perhaps on the grounds that it wasn’t her fault because something in her brain wasn’t right.

Me, I call bullshit on that.

I’ll even say the unpopular thing here: a person THAT damaged has no place in civilized society as far as I’m concerned.  Even if you can convince yourself that there’s some magic pill that will fix everything, do you want to be the person that allowed her near her children when you find out she skipped her pills for a day and did it again?  That’s a risk that simply isn’t acceptable, so the legitimacy of the medical condition becomes irrelevant, the safety of the children is all that matters.

Simply put, there is a line you don’t get to cross, under any circumstances, for any reason.  This wasn’t an Al Qaueda operative we were trying to get information from.  This wasn’t the man that raped your 6-year old daughter that you were getting revenge on.  I’m not sure such actions would even be justified in those two cases.  This was a young child we’re talking about here.   So, before we have sympathy and understanding for the woman who perpetrated this heinous acts do you think we can maybe have some of that for the child who no doubt suffered horribly at her hands?  Do we really want to live in a society where someone can be excused for these types of actions against an innocent child under ANY circumstances?  Dear God I fucking hope not.

What’s shocking is that the people who read my comment on Digg didn’t see it that way, they in fact thought I was way off base.  I just don’t get that.  Well, I take that back, I totally get it: it’s that whole “but she was sick!” mentality at work.  It’s that whole “it can’t POSSIBLY be the fault of the person who did it” mentality.  Because in America, remember, no one is actually responsible for their actions any more.  It’s always someone else’ fault.  There’s always an excuse.  We just don’t believe in personal responsibility any more.  Witness the economic mess we’re in now if you need more evidence to support that view.

This whole thing is incredibly disgusting to me on so many levels.  I haven’t decided if what this woman did disgusts me more or the fact that ANYONE is willing to defend her actions on ANY grounds does.  It’s real close, I’ll tell you that, and the day that a seemingly accepted societal tendency is on par in terms of disgust as torturing an innocent child, something is SERIOUSLY FUCKING WRONG with the world.

Please, do me one little favor… whether you agree with what I’ve wrote here or disagree completely, PLEASE COMMENT ON IT.  I say this because I’d really love to tally how many people agree and how many don’t.  That tally would either depress the shit out of me or renew my faith in my fellow man.  Right now, from what I’ve seen on Digg, I can’t say I’m at all optimistic.

This whole thing is likely to come of a bit conceited, but please believe me when I say I’m not trying to impress anyone and not trying to toot my own horn… not that I’d never do those things, I certainly would… it’s just that this entry isn’t about that at all, even if it may seem like it in some parts.

With that disclaimer in writing…

You know, I’m a pretty good programmer.  Sure, I’m probably not on the level of most of the top-tier guys, the Rod Johnsons and John Resigs of the world for example, but hey, how many people are?!?  Still, I’d say I’m probably better than many (to valid approximations of the word “better” anyway!)

I don’t mean any of this in a boastful way (hard as that may be to believe for those that know me!) I’m saying it because it sets up the discussion to follow, that’s all.

Now, one quality I have that I’m actually very proud of is that I’m a successful “generalist”.  This means that while you’ll always be able to find someone better than me in virtually any topic you choose to look at, you’ll probably have a tough time finding someone who is as good in as many different topics as I am.  I’ve always felt that good generalists are worth more than pure experts.  To be sure, sometimes you absolutely need a top-notch expert, someone that knows C++ like the back of their hand for example, as opposed to someone who’s just passable at it.  When I’m putting staff together you can be sure I’m thinking generalists all the way because it allows you to tackle things that are tougher to tackle if all you have are people who know A completely but who don’t know B and C at all.  Generalists are able to draw on a diverse background and set of experiences to reach conclusions are generate solutions that pure experts usually can’t, therefore a staff of generalists is usually more successful (unless you’re in an environment with a narrow focus of course, where experts tend to be more successful, but my experience is that those types of environments aren’t as prevalent as you may think).

I was asked by a colleague once how I got to be as good as I am at as many things as I’m good at.  Now, let’s put aside the obvious arrogance of accepting the premise of this question in the first place!  I respect that this colleague recognizes that not all developers are created equal.  This is in no way, shape or form boastful; it’s just a fact of every workplace.  That’s why you have lead developers and you have junior developers.  We all start out as junior developers, but good junior developers will recognize that they aren’t yet leads and will seek out what got the leads to where they are.  That’s what this colleague was doing.  So, I wanted to give them a real, legitimate answer that could at least potentially help them get to that next level.

So, I thought for a while, and ran through some possibilities in my head…

• Is it as simple as God-given talent and aptitude?  No, that can’t be it because I’m frankly not THAT good!  While basic aptitude probably plays a role, I’ve seen developers who I would NEVER have guessed could code their way out of a paper bag and yet they weren’t at all bad at their jobs.

• Am I simply smarter than everyone else?  HELL NO!  Most people that know me, I feel safe in saying, consider me a pretty sharp guy.  But I deal with people every day who I KNOW are intrinsically more intelligent than me, some of whom I’m a better programmer than, so it can’t be simple intelligence.

• Is experience the wonder-drug here?  Well, clearly that is a factor… I’ve been doing this programming thing since I was about 9 years old, so that’s around 27 years in total.  Only about 13 of those though have been “professional”, where most would claim you truly learn the most, so that can’t be the only answer either.

• Is education the key?  Definitely not: I never graduated college and only took a few Computer Science classes anyway, absolutely none of which taught me anything substantial that I didn’t already know.  Even in high school, while I was a solid B to B+ student the whole time without putting in much effort, I was rarely on any sort of honor roll, and was only about mid-range in my graduating class (if only I’d have put in SOME effort… oh the things you realize when you’re older)

• Analytical ability.  Yes, that has impact for sure.  We all know developers who can’t debug to save their lives.  They can’t think through a problem logically and come to some sort of reasonable conclusion.  Give them a detailed enough spec and they can produce working code, but not GOOD code, and any deviation from the spec along the way proves difficult for them to handle.  They lack basic analytical ability, even to some extent the basic ability to think logically.  This most definitely is part of the answer, and a fairly big part, but again, it’s can’t be the ONLY answer.

• Being “into it” at a young age.  I tend to discount this because while I think it’s true for some of us, I’ve met tons of developers who totally kick ass who’ve only been doing it a very short time (like 2-3 years in some cases).  While starting young I wouldn’t imagine ever hurts a developer, it’s probably not all that important either.

So, what makes me a developer that someone thinks to ask how I got to be as good as I am?  I didn’t have a definitive answer right away.  All of the above points probably factor into it, but none of their own is enough I think, and some are probably even debatable anyway.

Then it occurred to me… there was one thing I’d done A LOT of growing up that many other developers didn’t do, one thing that I still do today that not many developers do…

Video games.

Programming video games is an experience unlike virtually any other that I’m aware of.  You touch on so many different areas and have to learn so much that I think the outcome of the experience is your brain being wired a bit differently!  Especially if you do every detail of the game, from level design to graphics and sound to the underlying logic coding, you can’t help but learn a ton.

You need to figure out how to efficiently store all the multimedia assets so that it fits on your shipping media without killing the quality of the resources.  You need to do AI development.  You need to understand math to do graphics programming.  You need to design the world map and do level design and ensure that it’s all logical, solvable and fun at the same time.  You need to deal with compression algorithms and multithreaded design and network communications and audio/video and even write the story!  You often times need to manage multiple people, even for a little side-project, to get artwork done and voiceovers performed and code units integrated into the main baseline.  You need to create your own tooling, and you need to do all of this while ensuring that the performance of everything you do is stellar!

Even for simple games, this is not a task to be undertaken lightly!

It’s not about learning anything SPECIFIC either… I mean, learning Bresenham’s algorithm for drawing a line, or understanding how to put together a pursuit algorithm, none of that is likely to be directly applicable to coding an account balance transfer system for your next contract with a bank.  However, these things have underlying concepts and thought processes that can inform your thinking on the tasks you have to do at your regular day job.  They’ll also open up your mind to new solutions to problems that take bits and pieces from multiple topics in a way that many other developers can’t.  That’s what being a generalist is all about.  It’s more about practicing the ability to take seemingly unrelated bits of experience and information and synthesis it into a unique solution to a problem than it is about what you concretely know about anything at any given time.

Now, let’s be clear: none of the games I’ve ever made have been great.  It’s not like I’m churning out Halo or World of Warcraft or Guitar Hero here, so it can’t be about money.  I’m extremely proud of a couple of them (http://www.omnytex.com/products.shtml), K&G Arcade in particular, but the sales numbers say they weren’t very good, or AT BEST weren’t marketed well (hey, there’s something else you have to deal with!).  The thing is though that they don’t HAVE to be good for them to make you a better programmer.  No, check that: a better DEVELOPER.  It’s not just programming that creating games improves, it’s everything else that goes into being a developer because, let’s face it, programming, i.e., writing code, is a fairly small portion of what us developer/architects actually do.

I can remember the first game I ever wrote: the year, approximately, 1983.  It was based on the television show The A-Team and it was on my Timex Sinclair 1000.  I don’t remember much about the game, aside from the fact that it sucked beyond belief!  One other thing I do remember about it though is that the Timex Sinclair 1000 had 2k of memory and in order to make the game how I wanted it, I actually invented run-length encoding.  I obviously don’t mean “invent” as in I should own the patent on it now, it clearly wasn’t an original idea.  I mean “invented” in the sense of I didn’t know about it, in fact at that point had no way I COULD have known about it, yet that’s what it was.  I crammed something like 2k of graphics data alone into about 500 bytes, give or take, leaving me 1.5k for the game’s logic code.  In retrospect, that’s a pretty amazing achievement for a young kid doing a very early bit of programming.

But again, it’s not that I’m smarter than any other kid that age was… maybe I was to some extent, but not hugely so.  The difference is that I put myself in a situation where I had no choice but to improve if I wanted to succeed.  Making a game was that situation.  Few other projects at that time would have provided that challenge.  I guess at the end of the day it’s a question of evolution… evolution doesn’t necessarily mean growing a third arm because that’s advantageous for the species (it would be though, wouldn’t?!?)  Personal evolution is just as important.

Every one of the books I’ve written so far has had a chapter in it devoted to a game project.  That’s the case for a couple of reasons.  First, I believe my readers enjoy it. Second, I think they learn a lot from it because it frames the topic of the book in a different way than the other projects presented do.  Third, it’s frankly fun for me to work on, which is important when you’re writing a book because it’s a lot of work and having one chapter that you can cut loose a bit in is helpful.  Fourth, I know that in the process of writing that chapter I’ll learn something myself, and it hasn’t failed yet!

So, the point of all of this is simply that if you want to make yourself a better developer, a better generalist, start creating games today!  They don’t have to be great, and honestly, they mostly won’t be very good at all… you may produce one at some point that’s not bad, but generally they’ll suck.  Thankfully, that doesn’t matter in the least!  As long as you aren’t in it for the money it doesn’t matter one bit.  The process of creating a game will improve you as a developer more than any other single thing you can do, that’s my very firm belief.  I mean, you can waste four years in school, MAYBE learn a few things that are useful (the rest will be outdated by the time you get your degree, or else wasn’t terribly useful in the real world in the first place) or you can spend a few months creating a game that’ll teach you so much more.

I know which I’d choose

Here’s a collection of random thoughts I’ve had over the past few days… this should give you a nice insight into just how wacky the inside of my skull is!

• Cerberus, the multi-headed dog in Greek and Roman mythology, guards the gateway to Hades… why exactly does the entrance to Hades need guarding?!?  Are there THAT many people trying to get in? (I actually did some research here… as it turns out, it’s a common misconeption that Cerberus guards the gateway… in fact, he guards the gates of Hades to prevent those that have crossed the river Styx from ever crossing back over… he’s making sure no one gets OUT, which makes *A LOT* more sense!) – A bit of trivia: the firewall protecting my home network is named Cerberus
• If the United States is ever to be invaded by another country, I hope it’s Ukraine.  Why?  Have you seen their prime minister? http://i35.tinypic.com/2yjzmdk.jpg
• I thought I’d clear this up for anyone who wasn’t sure… Dark Matter n. An invention of cosmologists to explain why the hell their equations don’t work out as they want them to.  To be clear: I’m not at all saying dark matter doesn’t exist… I have no clue whether it does or not. All I’m saying is that the experts don’t have a clue either! All they know for sure is things don’t add up like they expect, and the only explanation they can come up with to explain it is to invent some entity that may or may not exist that makes it all balance out…  Hey, wait a minute… when did scientists get religion?!?
• Speaking of math… I was on the Tower of Terror ride last year at Disney World, and I noticed something… the flash a bunch of images at you throughout the ride meant to scare you… ghosts and such… but, they also flash E=MC^2 three separate times!  Proof that math is, in fact, scary!
• I object to any list that has Battlefield Earth on it as a “top xxx worst movies of all time”, as I see all too often. If ever there was a craptacular campfest that is a blast to watch, that’s it. There’s so much unintentionally funny stuff in it that I find it very enjoyable to watch.  For example… Terl’s (John Travolta) conclusion that humans’ favorite food is rat because that’s what the “escapees” went for right away is in and of itself brilliant because it reminds me of a great joke:  A scientist has a flea. He fires off a gun and the flea jumps. He pulls off one of the flea’s legs and again fires the gun and again the flea jumps. He does this two more times and each time the flea jumps. After removing the fourh leg and firing the gun however, the flea does not jump. He fires the gun a few more times just to be sure.  The scientist then concludes that fleas hear through their legs.  The rat thing is the same sort of joke, and I find it very funny, as is the case with much of that movie. So, worst xxx film of all time? No way, it’s just good in a way that was in no way, shape or form intended!!
• I tell my wife this constantly: if you’re attacked and you get the best of the attacker, DON’T F’ING STOP until there’s no way they can physically come back at you. You don’t necessarily have to kill the person, and legally you’re probably better off not killing them, but I don’t know, cutting off both arms and legs seems pretty safe too.  Ironically, I think it was the remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre that they tried that and it didn’t work… I might have the wrong movie, but I remember one of the bad guys having a hammer embedded in his brain, and that was only after a bunch of other stuff that would have killed any one of us, and he still got up and came after the hapless victims, so maybe it’s not the perfect strategy in ALL cases
• I was asked it I’d go into space, given all the risks involved… I’ll go a step further: I have a wife and two kids, all of whom I love dearly. But, and I’ve told my wife this: if I was ever beamed aboard the Enterprise and the captain (whichever one it happened to be!) said I could go explore the galaxy with them, I wouldn’t even ask to go back down to Earth to say goodbye to my family, I’d just ask “where’s my station, dude?”. Surprisingly, my wife even understands! Not sure my kids would, but that becomes my wife’s problem
• Cracked.com rules, and here’s why: http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html … I’ve read it numerous times and I still crack up every time!
• The latest episode of UFO Hunters (a show most people who know me would think I love, but surprisingly it’s just OK for me… sometimes) they were talking about the rather sudden jump in UFO sighting in Great Britain over the last two years or so.  Now, it all could be real of course, but… might it just be a coincidence that the new Dr. Who has been really popular over just the last few years?  I didn’t watch the whole episode, so I don’t know if any of the sightings were of a flying Titanic or hundreds of evil flying garbage cans, but I’d be willing to bet they were
• When I was a kid I snuck to watch the movie Alien and it scared me so bad I slept in my parents’ room for a week.  But, I’ll tell you what: vegetables are 10 times scarier it turns out: http://www.framebox.de/creations/3d/salad/
• Anyone who says The Temple of Doom is their favorite Indiana Jones movie should promptly be ignored.  If they say Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is their favorite they should promptly be SHOT!
• I still say Velcro is the long sought-after proof that aliens exist and that we recovered technology from a crashed craft at Roswell… I mean, does anyone actually think us pitiful humans could have invented something this awesome ourselves?!? I think not!!

This was originally posted on 8/17/2008 on my old blog and is reposted now.  I promise though, original content coming soon!

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My son is eight years old. The other day I called him into my home office. I showed him the wallpaper I had just created (wow, I gotta admit, I wasn’t aware of the trick for having a “single” wallpaper span two or three monitors… sweet!). On one monitor I have a beautiful Hubble photo of galaxy M101, a spiral galaxy. On the other monitor I have M104, my personal favorite, the Sombrero galaxy.

I asked him if he knew what he was looking at. “Some stars?”, he said. “No, a galaxy”, I replied. “Oh”, he murmured. “Oh?!? Don’t you get it? That’s BILLIONS of suns!”, I cried. “Uh-huh”, he said.

He wasn’t impressed. Not in the least.

I thought about his reactions not just to those pictures but to many of the cool things I’ve shown him lately, and it occurred to me that there’s a very sad trend there: kids today aren’t impressed by anything it seems. The amazing has become commonplace to them, and very little holds the kind of wonder that many things used to be for me and others my age.

I remember around 10th grade, I found a science magazine in the school library where some scientists from IBM had written out IBM in Xenon atoms! They used what was then a new kind of microscope (a Scanning-Tunneling Microscope if I remember correctly to move INDIVIDUAL ATOMS around. I was blown away.

Well, I found a similar picture for my son. He wasn’t thrilled. He actually said “So what?”. I said “You’re looking at atoms, and someone was able to move them around how they wanted”, to which he replied “Ok.”

OK?!??!?

Now, granted, he’s only 8, so his brain just doesn’t have the frame of reference to truly get some of this stuff. Much of it goes over his head. I understand that. But it’s more than that, and it’s not just him. Every single day he is surrounded by marvels of technology that a mere 50 years ago was just so beyond the scope of what was possible and known to most people. I mean, a little under 50 years ago the first electronic calculator was born. A (relatively) small device that could do mathematics for you? People couldn’t believe it! Now, if your PORTABLE PHONE can’t do differential calculus it’s a piece of junk!

Now we have microSD cards that can store 32Gb of data (maybe more, who can keep up any more?) and it’s no big deal to him. I try to give him a frame of reference by showing him a STACK of old hard drives from maybe 10 years ago… I tell him “All those drives TOGETHER only has about 4Gb of data, so this one tiny little card has 8 times as much space”. He looks at me as if to say: “Dear man… thank you for trying… thank you for caring… but so f***ing what??”

I’ve also tried introducing my son to “old” computers, the C64, Atari, those kinds of machines. He likes some of the games, he’s big into video games, but it’s just not the same as it was for me. These were literally life-altering events for me, getting each of those computers and learning what they could do. Hacking code to all hours of the night, getting the memory map for the thing and figuring out what sequence of POKE statements generated various colors and sounds. All that was amazing to me. To him though, they’re just toys.

Now, I’m not looking for the same kind of paradigm shift in thinking that they were for me, but I wonder what it would take for that sort of thing to occur for him at all? I mean, would a Star Trek-style transporter do it? Would a Bishop-style android do it? He wasn’t even as thrilled with his first plane ride as I thought he’d be, as I was when I finally got to go on a plane at about age 19… I wonder if a trip to the moon would be any big deal to him?

I think it’s so easy to take for granted all the human race has accomplished, not to mention all that nature has to offer. We all do it to some degree I think, but the days of sitting around the ONE black-and-white television in the house and being amazed at what you were seeing are long gone. The days of those electronics kits that let you built a simple radio and that being exciting to a child are long gone. The days of looking up at the night sky and seeing the moon and being just utterly floored by the fact that people have walked on it are long gone. The amazing is now commonplace, and that sense of wonder and amazement that my generation had (hopefully still has!) is gone. I believe my generation may wind up being the last that has the pleasure of that sense of discovery, that sense of amazement at what’s possible, what’s been accomplished and simply what IS or MAY BE (maybe The Neverending Story had it right: maybe The Nothing is taking over).

I don’t know what it will take for this new generation to have those same experiences… I know it’s a heck of a lot more than it took for me, and I don’t see anything like that on the horizon. Generation Y has my sympathies.

This was originally posted on 10/5/2007 on my old blog and is reposted now because… well, because I’m too lazy to write a new entry today!

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WARNING!!  This is one of my patented “not suitable for all audiences” posts… profanity, depraved thoughts, insanity, all are on display here.  If you are easily offended by what is meant to be humorous, go away now!!

You know, this is going to sound horrible, but… I find myself laughing at people’s deaths sometimes. Not because they died, I feel as much sympathy for people and their families as anyone. It’s just that sometimes the manner of peoples’ demises is just funny as hell.

Come on, you know I’m right, especially when outright stupidity is involved. Of course there is the Darwin Awards for things like this, but when someone finds out I find them amusing I frequently get asked “how would you feel if it was YOU? Wouldn’t you be upset looking down, or up as the case may be, at people laughing at your death?”

The short and simple answer is it depends on how I die! Here’s my feeling… if I die in some incredibly stupid or bizarre way that tickles your funny bone, laugh your ass off! It’s if I get killed by a drunk driver or am in the mall when Al Qaeda decides to bomb it, then I would hope you’d keep it in check (at least in public). Deaths like that deserve your sympathy, regardless of who the unfortunate victim was.

But, those guidelines are likely not solid enough for some people, so, I’ll make it simple for you… Below is a list of ways that, if I meet my end in them, you are hereby free from sin is you bust a gut at my expense… Also note that in at least some of these cases, such a high degree of stupidity would have to be involved that you might be LEGAL OBLIGATED to laugh at my death!

• If I am working at a zoo and feed 14 animal laxatives and 200 tons of grain to an elephant and then suffocate under a mound its dung while trying to administer a enema to said constipated elephant, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I stick my tongue on a telephone pole in the dead of winter and either die of starvation five days later, or of blood loss when I try to cut my tongue off to escape, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If a fireball engulfs me while lighting a cigarette on my way to Taco Bell for the nights’ second round of beef and bean Burritos, you are free to laugh at my death (think about it…)

• If I carve a nice pattern into my face because I wore a tie while working near a spinning lathe, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If we discover that our parents were telling the truth and all that gum I swallowed (and continue to swallow) did in fact built up as a giant ball in my lower intestine and blocked my digestive system, eventually exploding in a mess of fecal matter inside me, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I develop a sever case of lactose intolerance, cease eating and drinking all milk products, and then die of a nutritional imbalance caused by the lack of milk in my diet, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I am electrocuted as a result of a short circuit in the automatic electric toilet flusher I install and the electricity travels up through my stream of pee and stops my heart, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If my doctor tells me I have to lose weight and I proceed to eat nothing but salads for a month and then wind up choking on a dry piece of lettuce, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I decide I want to cheat on my wife because I have a sick need to know what sex feels like with a 500-pound woman and I am subsequently suffocated while performing the deed with said monstrous heffer, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If, in an attempt to jump over a puddle on the sidewalk I slip on a patch of ice and bash my skull wide open on a hot dog stand in New York City, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I stroke out while squeezing out a particularly solid pound of fecal matter after a trip to Old Country Buffet, you are free to laugh at my death.

• Anything involving a door mouse, a barrel of fish, a rainy day in Jacksonville, Florida and at least 20 jars of peanut butter (creamy, it won’t be funny if it’s chunky!), you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I eat a package of popcorn kernels, because I like to do that sometimes, and then die from hundreds of small holes in my gut because I went into a tanning bed shortly thereafter, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I try to duplicate that A-Team episode where they attach a bunch of garbage bags to a lawn chair and then use hair dryers to inflate them and fall to my death from 200 feet up because the extension chord wasn’t long enough, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If my skull is crushed by the frozen waste dumped from an airplane lavatory, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I light my arm on fire lighting the BBQ, which I could have survived except that the can in the shed that I thought had water in it actually had gasoline in it, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If while playing on my trampoline I get a bit overzealous in my attempts to pull off a triple back tuck and fly off and impale myself on the picket fence surrounding my flower bed, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If my wife puts an entire box of baking soda in the toilet in an attempt to get the remnants of the last beef and bean barrio Taco Bell run cleaned up, but neglects to tell me, and I then proceed to load’er up with pee, you are free to laugh at my death (Get it? Baking Soda and urine, which is acidic, chemical reaction, explosion, ‘nough said).

• If on a very hot day while mowing the lawn I decide to try and drink from my power washer and blow the back of my head off, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If after getting sprayed by a skunk I decide to take a bath in gasoline, because of course gasoline can be an excellent cleaning agent, but then decide to try and cover up the smell with candles and incense, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I blow myself up by leaving the top down on my BBQ grill for five minutes while the propane builds up and then quickly open in and toss a match in, you are free to laugh at my death. (Incidentally, this is the one item on this page that I’ve actually come close to doing once or twice… I’m kinda dangerous when it comes to grilling!)

• If I’m ever in a buffet and the place goes up in flames but I stay behind to fill my plate one last time to eat outside while everyone else escapes and I wind up a roast ON the buffet table, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I dehydrate in a hot tub, lose consciousness and then drown, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I am eaten alive by sharks because I forgot to take the package of Slim Jims out of my swimming trunks before going into the water, you are free to laugh at my death.

• If I drop dead of a heart attack while riding a stationary bike because my doctor told me I have to get in shape, you are free to laugh at my death.

And there you have it. My wife says it’s morbid, but shouldn’t we laugh at something that is as absolutely inevitable as death is? What the hell else can you do in the face of the Reaper? Besides, as the Darwin Awards prove, when stupidity is involved or just incredibly bizarre bad luck, don’t we almost have an obligation to laugh?!?

Futurama fans will undoubtedly be laughing right now based on the title alone!

Beware of possible spoilers below!  If you haven’t see The Day the Earth Stood Still and don’t want to know any specifics of the story, turn away now!

I took my son to see The Day the Earth Stood Still (heretofore referred to as TDtESS because I’m lazy!) last night.  I had read a ton of reviews leading up to it and there seemed to be a mostly negative opinion of it out there.  Being a huge fan of the original I didn’t have much hope for it… I figured the FX would be cool, and maybe there’s be some decent action scenes, but beyond that I didn’t expect much more.  I took my son precisely because I’m trying to get him more into sci-fi so that I have someone to watch movies with (my wife is decidedly NOT a sci-fi afficienato!)  and I figured maybe the action and intrigue here would work on him.

So, did it work?  And what did I think of the movie you ask?

Ok, you couldn’t care less about either because who the hell am I and why does my opinion matter anyway (hint: it doesn’t any more than yours!), but since you’re here you might as well get the answers anyway!

My son generally was interested the whole way through, which in and of itself is a win.  I wouldn’t say he loved it, and I wouldn’t say it sold him on sci-fi in general, but I think he liked it enough that I could get him to watch some other movies down the road.  So that’s good.  For me I mean!

But what did I think of the movie?  In a nutshell, I found it to be quite a bit better than I expected.

It wasn’t a great movie by any stretch, but I thought it was a good movie, and went JUST SLIGHTLY beyond a decent piece of entertainment.

I think comparing it to the original is probably unfair.  I’m not a fan of remakes/reimaginings under most circumstances, but sometimes you can get away with it.  This requires (a) that you respect the original source material and (b) do a good job so as to not insult the original.  I think TDtESS does pay respect to the original, and I think it generally does it proud.

What I’d like to do is address a few specific issues I saw people call out, because while this isn’t a perfect movie I do think that some of the criticisms I’ve seen didn’t ring true for me.

• Keanu Reeves’ acting sucks.  In general I wouldn’t disagree much, but I think in THIS movie he did a pretty good job.  No, I’d go further than that: I think he pretty much nailed it.  Now, to be clear, he was wooden, he was emotionless, true, but I think that’s precisely what the role called for.  And I’ll say this: you’ve probably seen the scene in the interrogation where he says “You should let me go”.  That’s a fantastic scene, and I think he did a tremendous job in it, and that line in particular.  If this movie does nothing else I think it truly gave as an iconic moment right there, an iconic line.
• GORT.  I’ve seen some people complain that the “robot” wasn’t named GORT by Klaatu but is an acronym made up by own military to describe the thing.  I’m not sure why anyone would have a problem with this.  Do we go around naming our computers?  (some do of course, but most of us don’t).  Most of us don’t even name our cars.  GORT is a tool of Klaatu, why would he name it?  It’d be like naming your hammer!  Also, the acronym didn’t seem forced to me, as is frequently the case in fiction where acronyms are involved.  I think it made sense based on what GORT was.
• “Klaatu Barada Nikto”.  Some people have claimed that the iconic line that disabled GORT was not in this movie.  First of all, it was: when Klaatu is shot early on, you can hear him utter the words, that’s why GORT ceases his attack at that point.  Granted, the mix wasn’t so hot in that part so it was easy to miss, but it’s there.
• “Klaatu Barada Nikto” redux.  Some people have complained about the fact that Klaatu couldn’t hault GORT’s cleansing of the Earth by simply uttering the words again.  I think those people missed something: GORT the “robot” was constructed from millions (more likely billions) of nanotech insects (more on this in a bit).  When they were together in “robot” form, they essentially functioned as one entity.  As such, it’s not far-fetched to believe there is a kill-switch command Klaatu can use to disable it.  But, when it breaks down into its nano form and begins scouring the planet, there’s no longer a centeral control mechanism to disable.  They are at that point billions and billions of autonomous devices with a pre-programmed purpose, and they cannot be disabled except by extreme measures.  I don’t at all see this as a plot hole as some do, I in fact see it as a clever construct in the story that makes a lot of sense.
• Some have said there was too much action in this version.  I disagree.  First of all, MOST of the movie is NOT action-based.  The action is interspersed, and doesn’t generally last for more than 30 seconds or so at a time.  I think this worked out pretty well actually, and as evidence I go back to the fact that my son was fairly well engaged in it the whole time, and he’s got a notoriously short attention span!
• Some people have complained about an advanced alien species wiping out the human race to save the Earth.  I think those people missed a very important plot point: as Klaatu clearly states, there is a very limited number of planets in the cosmos that can support complex life.  That being the case, an advanced species being willing to wipe out a less advanced race to save a natural resource is completely reasonable (in terms of story, not in terms of morals)… in fact, you could make a good argument that it’s MORALLY reasonable too on the ground that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  If nothing else, it’s a point that’s debatable.
• Some people have complained about Klaatu’s super-powers.  I admit I think I would have preferred him being more human in this regard, but I can live with it based on one thing: Klaatu’s true form is never revealed, and I suspect it was some sort of energy being in nature.  If this is the case then being able to control electrical fields and transfer consciousness and that sort of thing isn’t entirely crazy.
• The Earth “standing still”.  Some people have complained about how in the original Klaatu disables technology as a demonstration of his capabilities while in the original its a consequence of his actions to save us.  I think some people just don’t like the reimagining of the “Earth standing still” idea, but I for one liked it.  I think it was a natural outcome of what happened at the end of the movie, and it actually was a fairly profound moment (my son, on his own, commented on how this essentially throws the human race back into the stone age and how that might really effect how we do things, given the new knowledge of what’s out there we have at that point).
• Some have complained that “a few boo-hoo moments from a mom and her child” changed Klaatu’s mind.  That’s just wrong.  Two things changed his mind.  First was the absolutely irrefutable logic that Dr. Barnhardt laid on him about a species only changing when their existence is threatened and comparing us to Klaatu’s own experience.  I think this probably got Klaatu 99% of the way convinced.  What pushed him over the edge is seeing the change in the kid.  At first, he just wanted to kill the alien, but by the end he changed and was now essentially Klaatu’s friend.  This proved to him that our species had the capacity for change.  And in the end, what’s going to convince a representative of an advanced species more: a bunch of politicians telling him what he wants to hear, which is what he would have gotten at the U.N. as he requested speaking to, or a mother and child showing on a personal level what we might really be made of?  I suspect any sopisticated species, as Klaatu’s clearly must be, wouldn’t be fooled by politicians but would instead put more weight on their own personal interactions with a limited sampling of humans.

So ok, I’ve defended the movie a fair bit here, but I also said it’s not perfect.  Here’s a few negatives:

• The only truly glaring plot hole I noticed is the fact that GORT’s nanites can destroy an entire sports stadium in a few seconds but seem to take their sweet-ass time getting through some plain old glass!  Now, I understand this is a pacing issue the director had to do to generate the right sense of dread and tension in certain scenes, so I can suspend disbelief enough to not have it ruin things for me, but I definitely noticed it.
• The nanoites being bug-like.  I can’t think of a single good reason they would take the form of metallic grasshoppers other than someone in the FX department, or the director more likely, thought it was a good idea.  It wasn’t.  First of all, the FX weren’t all that great on them so they just looked fake and stupid.  Second, showing them as more miniature robot forms of some sort would have made more sense.  The only way I can see that being a good decision is if there’s an argument that they are actually biological in nature, but then I wouldn’t expect an EMP at the end to wipe them out (and we know it was an EMP because of what it did to all our technology).
• The whole “undercover agent” side of things.  I mean, I can understand how it makes some sense… if this group of civilizations is out there are wants to learn about us and decide if we can change, living among us for a while is probably a good way to do that.  Still though, it really felt kind of silly to me.  I really would have preferred Klaatu coming down and simply saying “hey, we’ve been watching you, and we’ve made our decision”.
• Klaatu getting shot.  Arguably this was a flaw in the original too, but it seems even more of a flaw here given how sensitive the new GORT seemed to be to violent intentions.  Even putting that aside, Klaatu was coming down to destroy us, and in his mind we are a violent, primitive race, so why even come out and put yourself in a situation to be shot in the first place?  Again, I can suspend disbelief here because it serves the story, but it’s a hole in my mind still.
• The FX were average in this movie.  There were some good scenes (the various objects melting from the nanobug cloud) and some weren’t so good (the close-ups of the nanobugs).  I also thought Gort was a mixed bag… a bit too CG for my tastes.  Also, the scenes were they try to incinerate it had some of the worst fire effects I’ve ever seen.  We’re so spoiled with great FX these days that you really notice the flaws now.  They weren’t distractingly bad (except maybe the nanobug close-ups), but they weren’t terribly memorable overall.
• Jaden Smith.  I put him as a negative because he was annoying, but I think it’s important to point out that he wasn’t anywhere near as annoying as most child actors tend to be.  I think I’m more ambivalent about his performance than really thinking of it as a negative.  But, I’m pushed to call him a negative because the rumor is he’s going to be in the remake of The Karate Kid, which is a remake that DOES NOT need to be made, but even if it’s got to happen, he is SO not the right kid to play the part, so I’m pre-emptively deducting some points from him and counting that future work against him in this movie!

So, on balance, I actually liked this reimagining (which is what it is, NOT a remake).  The underlying premise of saving the planet from us I thought worked, I think Keanu Reeves worked, I think the additional action worked, and I don’t think there were any major plot holes (save maybe the magical power of simple glass to resist otherwise unstoppable nanotechnology!).  I think it did the original proud, I think it updated a classic in a way that made sense and that didn’t trample all over what came before.  This is one of the few times I think a remake, more precisely, a reimagining, was warranted, and one of the even fewer times where it actually worked.

That is, of course, just one man’s opinion

Today a saw a post on Digg:

http://digg.com/apple/iPhone_Developer_Writes_Personal_Letter_to_Steve_Jobs

This discusses a letter sent by an iPhone developer named Craig Hockenberry to Apple CEO Steve Jobs.  You can check out the letter here:

http://www.macblogz.com/2008/12/09/iphone-developer-writes-personal-letter-to-steve-jobs/

This post got me thinking… I don’t own an iPhone myself.  I refuse to consider it until they are on a half-way decent cell network (and I’m personally a fan of Sprint specifically).  Besides, I’ll make the unpopular admission here: I actually like Windows Mobile!  Putting aside the fact that I’ve developed and sold a few products for that platform, I just prefer it.  My HTC Mogul has served me very well, thank you very much!

So I don’t really have a vested interest (right now anyway) with what’s going on with the iPhone and the App Store.  However, Craig’s post struck a nerve with me as a developer that has sold some products in the mobile space.

Part of Craig’s argument is that the abundance of .99 apps make it hard for him to compete.  He says in the letter, and I quote:

…The problem now is funding those products.  We have a lot of great ideas for iPhone applications.

Unfortunately, we’re not working on the cooler (and more complex) ideas. Instead, we’re working on 99¢ titles that have a limited lifespan and broad appeal. Market conditions make ringtone apps most appealing.

Before commencing any new iPhone development, we look at the numbers and evaluate the risk of recouping our investment on a new project. Both developers and designers cost somewhere between $150-200 per hour. For a three man month project, let’s say that’s about $80K in development costs. To break even, we have to sell over 115K units. Not impossible with a good concept and few of weeks of prominent placement in iTunes…

Here’s the thought that jumped into my head as I read that: maybe you shouldn’t be in business if you don’t want to take the risk of developing the “cooler” products that in all probability would sell extremely well if they are truly that cool.

You see, good products, truly GOOD products, of any kind, tend to sell pretty well regardless of price.  Oh sure, the price point has to be reasonable, and there will always be people who just want the cheapest alternative available, but most people are perfectly willing to pay a premium for a perceived better product.

However, the manufacturer has to be willing to take the risk.  I realize it’s not easy when you’re a “little guy” (and what that term means is up for debate these days), but that fact doesn’t change.

Speaking from my own experience… I spent nearly a year developing a Windows Mobile game called K&G Arcade.  The “budget” for the project was miniscule, under $1,000.  I’m damned proud of that product, I think it came out really well.  However, the world at large didn’t agree: we sold less than 200 copies all totaled.  Clearly, the ROI on that project didn’t work in our favor.  Would I have not done that project if it had cost me more up-front to do it?  No, I still would have done it, and now I’d be up shit’s creek, to put it bluntly.  I believed in the project, thought it was really cool, and I would have taken the larger risk without hesitation.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

And sometimes when you lose, you go out of business, and that gets back to my main thought.  Business is all about risk.  If you aren’t willing to take that risk, you shouldn’t be in business.  It’s about the willingness to spend money to make money.  Hell, look at the big three auto makers and the problems they (and by extension, all of us!) are having: if they had decided some years ago to start pushing new technologies and innovative products and just plain taking some risks, instead of playing it safe and putting out all the tanks (SUVs, minivans, etc) that everyone wanted at the time, maybe they’d be diversified enough now to survive without having to beg for money in the United States Congress.

The tanks are the .99 apps in the App Store, and the new technologies and innovative products are, to hear Craig tell it, the “cool” apps he’s not developing because he still feels he needs to develop the tanks instead.

Current market conditions are only current market conditions until they aren’t.  Sometimes what the consumer wants changed the conditions, but often times a great product will tend to lead the consumer.  Think of this: how many people knew they JUST HAD TO HAVE a portable MP3 player before Apple came out with the iPod?  Not too many, that product lead consumers, no everyone (err, except me!) has one.  The iPhone is a very similar product, everyone (except me again!) wants it, but they probably didn’t know they wanted it before Apple put it out there. Any one of the “cool” ideas Craig isn’t pursuing because he feels market conditions don’t warrant it could be the next product that leads consumers and changes the very conditions he’s worried about.

Craig, if your ideas really are that “cool”, and you really believe they are, then take the chance regardless of what the numbers say and you just might change the equation.  Yes, it’s a risk, but that’s what business is all about.  If you’re not willing to face that risk, you probably should get out, or at least, stop sending bitch letters (albeit thoughtful and eloquent bitch letters!) to Steve Jobs.  You might as well spend that time developing!

I’m a parent of two, and I do what most parents do: lie to their kids.

I participate in perpetuating the myth of a jolly fat man in a red suit that has in his possession flying reindeer, who uses magic dust to shrink himself down to fit down the chimney so he can leave gifts for all the worlds’ children.

(kinda sounds like a guy on a bad acid trip, but I digress)

A while back I was asking myself why parents do this.  Why did my parents lie to me?  Why do I lie to my kids?  Sure, it’s tradition, and that’s what keeps us doing it until we stop and think about it.  At that point some parents decide that dishonesty isn’t the way to go and they break the news to their kids.

So, why do we follow this tradition in the first place when the very next day we’ll go back to telling our kids that honesty is the best policy?  The answer is actually very simple, but I have to admit I never really stopped to think about it until fairly recently.

You see, the world is a cruel place.  You can die at any moment in more ways than you can count, and that’s not even including the things you might deserve based on your stupidity!  I mean just the universe as a whole randomly deciding that your time is up and that’s that.  Some say this is God and his/her Plan in action.  Maybe that’s true, but ultimately if I as a simple human being can never understand God’s plan, as I’m told by my religious friends is the case, then for all intents and purposes it’s just random acts of terrible things.  And it doesn’t stop with death either: there’s all sorts of misery that can be visited upon you that don’t lead to your demise… a stroke, heart attack, losing all your money, your house catching fire, your wife cheating on you, losing your job, your child getting hit by a car, and so on.  All of these are terrible things (some more than others obviously).

The universe is a randomly cruel thing.  That’s a sad fact that we’ll teach our kids indirectly by exposing them to the world.  But, wouldn’t it be nice if in the same breath we could also tell them that the universe can also randomly be kind?  Wouldn’t it be great if for no apparent reason the universe just did good things for you?

That’s where Santa Claus comes in!  Now, sure, it’s not quite so random: it’s every December 25th like clockwork, and sure, we tell them it’ll only happen if they are nice rather than naughty all year… but essentially, Santa Claus represents anonymous kindness provided by someone we’ll never actually see or meet, a force we’ll not know personally (dismissing the mall Santas of course!)… in other words, as far as a child knows, the universe is being kind to them once a year for no apparent reason.

Sure, Santa Claus is a lie.  Us adults know that.  But we tell our kids the lie anyway because it gives them hope.  It gives them a reason to believe that the universe isn’t just cruel, that all the terrible things they’ll experience in their lifetimes, all the horrible things they’ll learn about, aren’t all there is.  In many ways, the hope represented by Santa Claus is in fact the greatest gift we give our children, at least until the blissful ignorance of childhood fades into a hazy memory and adult cynicism takes hold.

So yes, keep telling the lie of Santa Claus to your children!  Don’t for a second think you are doing anything wrong!  One day they’ll learn the truth, and they may even be annoyed for a while… but then some day, probably when they have their own kids, they’ll come to the same realization I have and they’ll thank you retroactively for what may well be the ultimate white lie!

Today saw the destruction of my previous blog for unknown reasons… I’m not sure if it was hacked (nothing obvious to make me think that) or just a server blow-up (also not really any evidence of that).  All I know is that all of a sudden, my blog didn’t work, and I couldn’t manage to resurrect it.

It’s not really the end of the world though… I’ve been meaning to do some cleanup, so this is an opportunity to do so.  I also changed software to WordPress.  I had no problems with b2evolution, in fact we’re playing with it at work now, but WordPress seems to be one of, if not THE most popular blog software out there, so I figured what the hell.

I really do intend to start posting regularly, but I’ve said that before too… we’ll see!  I’ll also at some point try and get the old posts back up there (I did manage to export the data from the old blog, so nothing is actually lost thankfully).