Would MacGyver, MacGyver his broken down car?

To MacGyver a broken down car or not, is very much an "It Depends" question

- Are you in a rush?
-  Is the car still under warranty?
- Are you in range of your regular car support, such as CAA/AAA?

- Is it important enough to void your warranty or lease agreement?

I suspect it was some of these thoughts on Richard Dean Anderson's mind when he had car problems a while back

When the weight of the world or other important things are not on the line, the decision process does get fuzzier, and can take a more relaxed approach. 

Up Over, vs Down Under

I Guess I am from the land 'Up Over'

There is the saying that refers to Australia and New Zealand and 'Down Under' that was coined by European explorers for it being the lands they found Down Under in the southern hemisphere under Asia.  While clearly rooted in the Euro self superiority of the age of the European Hordes swarming the planet, we are clearly now in the ebb and decline of age. 

Now those were not foreground thoughts when helping a newish contributor's post out of a spam trap. On checking this person to make sure they were there for the reasons of this forum in question, I noticed they were in Australia.  As part of releasing their post, I gave some feed back about it and welcomed them to the community, to keep up the good work, and then the silly idea popped into my head. As a friendly bit I asked if they call us northerners (such as I in Canada) as being Up Over?

The response: "Love the question lol. I'm totally going to start referring it to as Up Over now."

I see from some searching that it has been used before, in addition to some other meanings. So my thought isn't original in any way as it is obvious enough. 

Will the phrase get any traction?  Perhaps.  Either way at least a few of us can have fun with it. 
  And if it does spread, it shows how the Eurocentric world view is fading. 

I made my dear wife swear at me, I didn't mean to.

I didn't mean to get that response,  it was just a guess response to the sound I was hearing.

After a nice dinner at home, relaxing and chatting with a candle between us, when I hear a jet pass over our building.  Not quite the normal sound, more rumble than the normal, almost like it was a 4 engine heavy.  I guessed out loud that perhaps it was a Cathay Pacific cargo 747 from New York coming in to land.  My dear wife (DW) just has to look that one up on a Flight Tracker app, to see the jet in question.  The body language gave it away before some mild profanity was lobbed my way for getting it totally right.

Oh the fun one can have with an app like FlightRadar24 on one of your devices (aka HandBrains) , seeing what many of the planes flying around are.

Summers on the balcony would have a bit of plane spotting with a major path in and out of Toronto Person YYZ north of us.  Pre-pandemic we could sometimes see as many as 6 all lined up to landing on 23 and 24, perhaps seeing 8 in the sky at a time when you include helicopters such as Ornge (we can see the SunnyBrook landing pad) and general aviation private planes puttering around. So far since we've only seen a peak of 4 at a time, though I expect that will change soon enough.  Naturally this does not include air shows or other times the SnowBirds have flown by.  That particular Cathay Pacific flight had been noticed somewhat regularly during the summer evenings often enough.

There are also a few places and patios near the airport where we can watch the planes land and take off, where my DW will challenge me to identify the next plane coming by while she sees it on FlightRadar.  Much fun for those of us who love to watch aviation in action. 

One Cause to rule them all

A fixation I've seen in various groups over the years,  is where a person or group of people try to force a particular gathering to be something else. That "The Cause" is all important and that everyone else must talk about.  Most of the time this "The Cause" has a good reasoning behind it that many can consider it a good cause.  The problem is when "The Cause" is being pushed hard on others as the pusher tries to bend all of their life and those around them to "The Cause".

All groups/communities have a reason to be, and a filter that defines them. They range from those who gather at a particular drinking spot (or watering hole) as the filter to just be social and gab about what ever, through to a gathering (often on-line) about a very specific topic (such as; propagating roses, supporting a specific bit of software, or underwater basket weaving).
The more general community will often be more likely to at least discuss "The Cause" and may even take it up as one of the group's causes for a while even if it triggers some members to not attend for that time.  For a community about a specific topic, imposing "The Cause" is just plain destructive to that community for a bunch of reasons.  For starters it changes the defined filter for the group to the detriment of what is discussed.  If the "Mountain N-Gage modellers" group suddenly has someone insisting that every second car be a specific colour and all the software they use show a brand symbol of that colour, then that is just going to clash and not work. 

Communities serving a specific target exist for a reason, with the logic of you pick the ones that match your need, and leave them when they don't.  The reason can be for plain recreation through to maintaining different systems or support groups.  I've been in on-line communities where someone is trying to get help with a system to help with "The Cause" and only includes how "The Cause" is so great and wonderful and never gets to actually describing what is broken, then complains that nobody is telling them how to fix the system.  Nobody can help you fix a broken system if we don't get any real details about the system, as "The Cause" it is for is not even relevant for the task. This is why so many focused communities resist or ban "the cause that must not be named" just to stay on track. If you don't want to be on that track, go elsewhere and the track will still be there when you are ready to be on it. If the community lets the track be derailed, it will often flounder around and may not even survive.  "The Cause" will have it's own communities, so don't be so shy about them but go play there for a while.

Everyone (assuming human and other mammals) needs to breath, to do something other their one big focus, even if just to re-energize to get back to that one big focus. This is why soldiers get R&R to re-energize before getting back into the fighting for their cause, and to even remind them of their cause.  If one were to turn all their communities to "The Cause", then they'd lose the 'rest and rebuild' that comes from those communities, and hence just plain burn out and stop being effective for "The Cause".  If you think people don't need to breath, then I invite you to be only "The Cause" you are pushing by not breathing.  Breathing is always other than "The Cause" even if the cause is about enabling breathing.  Getting in the way of others breathing, is a good way to make yourself hated and ruin any good thoughts those others may have had for your "The Cause" defeating your efforts.

All communities find their natural range. If it gets too big it gets difficult to have good conversations and they usually fragment in some way.  Dividing into sub-groups for specific topics is a common way even if some of them are temporary, or another is a hard divide into 2 or more new communities.  Sadly there is one other that may initially appear as one of those avenues or goes directly to just not existing as it fades away with most participants just leaving in frustration until all that is left are rants of "The Cause, The Cause" and then even those depart out of exhaustion and/or boredom.  Having "The Cause" forced on a community can often be a trigger of such breakups and diminishing of the overall community if it doesn't block such forced attempts. 

There is a term for those forcing "The Cause" down others' throats.  While it started with a particular religious sub-group, Zealots is the perfect word for those whom are all zeal and imposing their excessive zealously on others.  So if you find someone pushing their "The Cause" too hard, tell them they are turning into a Zealot.  It didn't end all to well for the original Zealots, so it would be a good idea to tone things down some, to be more effective.  There is such as thing as too much of a good thing.  Water is a good thing we all need some of, but too much is called drowning.  We all need oxygen, but too much leads to deadly flames like in the Apollo 1 disaster  

A fixation on "The Cause" is not unlike the draw of the One Ring in Lord of the Rings.  Where all the goodness one attempts to achieve is undone and corrupted by others leaching off of those good intentions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Ring#Appearance
One ring to rule them all,
   one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all
   and in the darkness bind them.

Forcing a good cause can still lead one to darkness, most commonly just changing the flavor of the darkness you were trying to change in the first place.  If you can't leave the breathing and healing places be, then you have become the darkness you were trying to defeat.

Addendum 2020-12-21: 

I found a term/word that so relates to this concept: Entryism  The strategy of a small group (of "Their Cause") has their members join a larger and/or more influential organization for the purpose of turning that organization towards focusing on "Their Cause". Usually this is to the to the detriment of the organization that is taken over if the first group is successful.  Found about it in JMG's Ecosophia blog that includes some very insightful discussions in the comments section.

 

To Infinity... And Beyond

What do you call a belief system without a name? Especially when the followers of it don't even think of it as a belief system because they believe it is "the Truth". Well you just have to find one for it/them.

A common belief of the 'modern' world is that "Newer is Better" and "The Latest is the Greatest". A large hunk of the advertising we are bombarded with, is flogging the new thing to replace the old, often with a simple declaration that it is better just because it is newer. In the Information Technology business, we are constantly pushed to upgrade, such that it has become an endless hamster wheel of repeatedly patching and upgrading as more important than the reasons the systems were implemented for. Never a thought that we might find good enough or any equilibrium.

John Michael Greer articulates this very nicely in After Progress. Where Greer calls it the "Religion of Progress" which describes it nicely, but somehow that just doesn't sound right as a Name. Then it hit me, strait out of the cartoons, Buzz Lightyear's "To Infinity And Beyond!"
Looking ever forward, not at yesteryear, but off beyond the possible. Perfect as the axiom of that belief, to be used as an exclamation mark to what a point being said. It becomes a handy acronym of TIAB that can be said with the same tone as Christian's "amen". So the belief can be called TIABism, with followers being labeled TIABists or TIABers. But will they accept Buzz Lightyear as their patron saint? Messiah? The Buzz? Prime Buzz? or some other possibility.

Sayings and other attributes of TIABists
 - “It’s different this time,” as in That was then, this is now, it’s different this time, that’s history, we need to be thinking ahead of the times, not behind them: i.e. history is the past and we can safely ignore it rather than learn anything. Which just shows that TIABists are just dooming themselves to repeat history.
 - Luddite, used in the same ways that foreigner, goy, heathen, infidel, heretic, etc. are often used.
 - ageism: where any one or thing is of less value because of how old it is. A true TIABist does not collect antiques.

What else do you see as being a part of the TIABist faith?
                       Where else do they take it..  To Infinity... And Beyond?

Watching Crowdsourcing in action

Watching a Kickstarter project can be so entertaining when it is either something you are interested in, and/or one of those that does spectacularly.

The first Kickstarter I backed was one that I jumped in at zero minute and by the time I had finished, it was already hitting 300% funded. It went way beyond what the project creator expected or hoped for ending up at 8572% funded.
A current project at the time of this writing has been most spectacular and watching it has stretched my understanding of the tools to see the differing performances of top projects and I figured they'd be of interest to others.  The basic tools are:
- Kickstarter has some basic functions under its Discover button, with a few selection and sort options.
- Kicktraq has some real nice graphs to see the patterns and that they update hourly during running project. Great for digging into individual projects, especially while they are running.
- KickSpy has a wide range of filter and sort options for comparing projects.

A current project, a Playing Card game by a comic artist that I casually follow, is going big.
In its first hour it became the top "Most Funded Playing Cards (Games)". On the second day of the project it got on the default view (top 20 projects) for "Most funded Games" and on the 3rd day got on the default view for "Most Funded" and has been creeping up since.  It is fun checking and seeing the project as it moves up, sometimes just one spot, other times a refresh shows it jump a few spots.

 Comparing the daily data of the top projects with Kicktraq, I see that it is currently the second highest first day number of backers after "The Veronica Mars Movie Project", but for first 2 and 3 days it has the highest number of backers, and it is just motoring up the number of backers list. I wonder if it will surpass the current #1, Bring Reading Rainbow Back.

Having seen a few projects that went so far past their initial goals but as I dug in, the numbers get warped because there are quite a few projects with ultra low goals that got enough support that you get percentage funded hitting infinity.  On day three this project became the top percentage funded for projects with Goals over 500(any currency) and chasing down top for Goals over 150 which it passed as I assembled this post.

It will be interesting to see where this project ends up, and what other projects will catch my attention in the future.

Is every problem/challenge a nail to be hammered?

As the old saying goes, if the only tool you know is a hammer, then every challenge looks like a nail.  Some people go through the same thing as they grow their proficiency with a new tool, where they try to apply it to EVERYTHING. Just like hammering a window or your thumb is not a good thing, there are many silly applications of a new tool to some task. Just because you Can do something, doesn't mean you Should do that something.

Twitter is a tool going through that very process where people try to push it into all kinds of in appropriate situations. At this point in time(2013, only 7 years after its creation) it has certainly become old hat to the early adopters and has gained mainstream awareness, but is not in regular use or really understood by the majority.

This week I was ran into one of these pushing a tool way too far, a vendor run "Live roundtable discussion" with a video presentation of their higher end corporate IT systems, with questions to be tweeted. Now in a normal Webinar where you can post questions or vendor presentation, you can have a fair amount of anonymity. Usually the vendor knows who you are and where you are from, but how you identify yourself to other participants is up to you.  With using Twitter, you can't ask a question without very publicly revealing; A) A piece of your identity. B) Usually some indication of a challenge you are facing.  This raises a number of problems that mostly have security related concerns:
- Competition can now target you, can you say spam tweets.
- The bad guys doing any research on you as a target or looking to exploit certain vulnerabilities now know YOUR systems may have specific weaknesses they can attempt to exploit.
- If you happen to expose something covered in any None Disclosure Agreements you have signed, you are much more likely to have to suffer the consequences of that disclosure.
- You might not even be able to tweet from where you are, whether technical and/or policy reasons. i.e. blocked by something like WebSense, or in an organization using twitter is a fireable offense.

A long time definition of twitter is 'a short burst of inconsequential information,' or 'to talk in a quick and informal way about unimportant things' and that definition was what lead the creators of Twitter to use the term.  So perhaps that vendor just isn't that serious about their product and their customers.


A related rant against those who insist on one "thing" to rule them ALL that also shows a limit of twitter at the same time. Eviscerati on Writing focus

Some simple answers to the questions of any new technology at XKCD that are worth remembering when ever hearing a vendor pitch.

A great example of such inappropriate use of a technology is THE basis of Scott Stratten's  "QR Codes Kill Kittens"

None Disclosure Agreement (NDA).  A promise to not spread/blab what was heard at such an event outlined in a signed legal document. 

Bar wisdom can also be Vulcan logic

In Spider Robinson's Callahan series (1977+), we are often referred to "Callahan's Law" of  "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased"
Ever since I came across that wisdom, I have tried to use it to help myself and others travel the challenges of life.  It was therefor a great pleasure to see Callahan's Law expressed as Vulcan logic. I wonder how many others have caught this logical evolution of the concept.

Sarek to Spock in Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek(2009)
"It is true that logic is often its own reward -- but it is a reward best shared with others. That which is beautiful is magnified by being shared with others. That which is painful is often moderated by being shared. Both approaches are equally logical"

The magic button — Make Everything OK

The magic button — Make Everything OK
The sad thing is that there are way too many people who think that such magic actually exists and therefor they don't have to do the hard work needed to reach their goals.  sigh.  but still fun to push.

Modern Togetherness

A couple, each working on their own things in the same small room, with music on headphones to tune out the distracting environmental sounds, staying in touch with instant messaging, even though they could just turn to touch the other (they do some of that too :). 

Link rot

sigh. I just went through a round up updating one of my websites, and a part of that was just dealing with link rot ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot ). Now I understand whole websites going away when the sponsor ceases to exist, but what is so frustrating are the sites that keep shuffling everything around every few years for no apparent reason, "to improve the user experience" is just too lame an excuse for most of the changes.  Worst yet are the retirement of data just because it is 'old' (aka Age discrimination) as if nobody ever keeps products running past their design life, or that newer versions actually migrated the excellent 1st generation documentation in the the current sets.  I have made use of 20 year old manuals as they were the most comprehensive for what I was doing even if they missed some of the recently added features.  I make a point of trying to keep all my links consistent so that even when the root domain has been switched out from under me, they rest of the links can still be used at the new location.

I try to follow Tim Berners-Lee advice in http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI as much as possible on this front.

Assumptions: All computer operators are programmers

As a technical person that came through the DOS/OS2/NetWare/Windows path, it has been an interesting set of challenges learning to install and support Linux systems.  One of the biggest has been that many in the open source world that Linux is a part of, is that everyone who isn't a total end-user, must be a full programmer.  This is so clear in much of the documentation (man/info pages) as it is in many of the forums/chat groups. 
An example is the documentation for the Linux 'free' command which tells you all the switches for the command, but without any indication of what the output of the command really means, because it is supposedly obvious.  I think I have it mostly figured out at http://www.konecnyad.ca/andyk/freemem.htm, but that is only through lots of Googling and finding blogs that actually go into it to explain different points.
In too many of the forums, I've seen people trying to learn being told that it was simply obvious and beneath requiring an explanation, or that the answer was a tiny bit of programming and therefor 'simple'.  This sounds like the arrogance you see in academia, like a physicist that showed that the physics of a fusion reactor was proven and it 'only' needed some engineering to finish (over 5 years ago and we still don't have that reactor design adding power to the grid that I can tell). 
I would say this is one of the biggest obstacles to Linux getting anywhere near mainstream, because so many supporters keep treating mainstream as not worthy of the support they need.  I can only think that many of them crying for mainstream acceptance are really just elitists who really don't want to share. But I will keep pushing to break those barriers as I believe that open source is still the most efficient way forward for the bulk of IT.

Gamma testing

While software is being developed, it goes through the well known steps of alpha testing (all in house) and beta testing (invited customers through to anyone).  What is less well known is the next logic step, that when the software is released to customers (i.e. the developers start charging for it), can be referred to as gamma testing.
When a piece of software has a major release, there are all kinds of pressure to "get it out the door" so that the vendor can start making a return on their investment. From the customer perspective, they can now start piloting this new (version of) software in their own environment, during which they sometimes find major problems that should have been caught in the beta testing.  This can make using brand new software a bit risky, which is why I often refer to that first while as gamma testing.  Gamma testing can be just the first month of the release on products that turn out to be running well out the gate, where as for the more troublesome products it might not be until the first service patch has been released.
Gamma testing is certainly the time where we find out if the product is the greatest yet for its kind, or if it is likely to be a dud (i.e. Windows Vista, Microsoft Bob, even a few service packs some to mind) and a proof that the phrase "the latest and greatest" often used incorrectly as if the latest is always the greatest and is also greater than the versions that are yet to be created.
And why has this come to mind now you might ask.  Well I have to decide for a client whether some new servers to be built next week will be the old, stable, but with known problems version of the OS, or the shinny new one that was release a week ago.  Now back to watching those OES forums.

How to scare nosy Managers

For those managers (aka, manglers, PHB, the suits, etc...) who like to poke around the server room, just post http://xkcd.com/627/ where you can refer to it at the servers, and pretend to follow it when they are in the room. Ideal if you can do that the morning of April 1st, because the managers should know better than enter that day.
It also makes a nifty t-shirt http://store.xkcd.com/xkcd/#TechSupport

Trumped adrenaline rush, or why I don't bother with Roller Coasters

As a young kid, I got to fly a fair amount as my Dad and my Grandfather(my mom's dad, and a former test pilot) were a private pilots and flying was still relatively cheap compared today. These flights were typically in 2 or 4 seat unpressurized planes that flew 'close' to earth, typically under 1000m, where the air is still nice and thick with lots of 'texture'.  Flying on a nice sunny weekend afternoon was always a joy for me, and even when it was a smooth flight there were still usually some bumps as we'd fly though thermals (you just can't see those rising columns of warmer air). Usually there were at least a few of those unexpected bumps where the only reason we didn't hit the roof was because of the seat-belts, and they were just the thing you had to deal with to be soaring in the air like we were. So to be on a fix track that is a much rougher ride than flying, where you can generally see where the 'bumps' are, that at their best/worst barely match what I experienced flying, I find boring. To the point I haven't bothered with a roller coaster in years. On a commercial flight that happened to be in some bad turbulence (like in http://movieclips.com/krt3-the-hunt-for-red-october-movie-turbulence/ ) where I couldn't hold a book still enough to read, I turned to see a fellow passenger turning a bit green, to whom I proclaimed with a smile "This is so much better than a roller coaster, fun stuff eh?"  That brought enough of a giggle that he made it through the flight with his stomach contents intact.

So yes roller coasters bore me, but for this I might just bother to get on some more.
http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/

Memory Blurs

An instance of memory blur is also called a Brain F*rt. As people get older and have more of those, younger folk start calling such people 'Old F*rts' because of how far back those memories may have been clear.  Alcohol consumption can accelerate this process, leading excessive consumers to becoming 'young old f*rts'.
Of course how we react to our brain f*rts can lead to fun naming of these reactions, just like the biological f*rts that one can find many such descriptions on the internet.


Inspired by a client having forgotten the details of something I had emailed him months previously.

Binary hotel shower controls

Why is it that so many hotel showers only have on or off as flow rate options?  So many have the single axis leaver/knob that you turn to bring the cold water to full flow and then add hot water, with the only other controls are tap/shower and drain/stopper. Sometimes the pressure is so high that the water is feeling over harsh. Sometimes the flow is higher than the drain can handle and you end up standing in water over your ankles even for a 5 minute shower even with the drain fully open. 
A) This prevents many from having their preferred shower rate that they are likely used to at home.
B) This causes waste of resources in both energy(which cost is increasing) to heat water as well as the water itself that is becoming a constrained resource in many places.
It feels like the hotel industry thinks we are so dumb that we can't manage the controls in the shower that most of us handle without issue at a sink.

I really treasure those hotels that have the dual axial like so many have for their sink taps with flow rate separate from temperature selection.  This does factor into my hotel choice, and I do let them know this I as I go (both positive where they get it right, and negative when they flood me out).

Best practices: not always the best choice

Most vendors have well defined 'Best Practices' for how to deploy/use/support their products that are a great starting point, but there are many times where sticking to them as an only practice will get you in trouble.  'Best Practices' are typically aimed at a hypothetical 'typical' environment which most do not match even if they are close. While the 'Best Practice' may work well for a given environment, if is not likely to be the optimum.

Ex.1) Microsoft Exchange 2007 has a best practice that assumes about 1000 end users and therefor recommends deploying each component on 7 separate servers. If you were to try to sell that to a small 12 person company, you'd likely be shown the door very quickly as that is an impossible investment for most companies that size. For organizations under 100, a single server will do just fine, and the only reason that isn't front and center of that best practice is that Microsoft would love the extra revenue of the server licenses as would the hardware vendors. 

Ex.2) Cisco router sizing guides show what should work for given sizes of typical networks, which is great if your network is typical. But if you add in site to site data replication between multiple VPNed sites, the 'Best Practice' routers can become sufficiently overwhelmed as to interrupt those data replications. In one case I was involved with one  install project where 4 sites were replicating to each other for backup and disaster recovery purposes (tape backup at one site covered all 4). The first router guy I was using kept insisting the connection drops were not the fault of the routers even though they were clearly getting saturated. In the end we had to drop some of the higher end fancy firewall filtering to keep the data flowing. After that, I refuse to use that particular router guy.

Another catch with 'best practices' is that they can change. I once had to migrate an entire cluster off of one SAN to another simply because the SAN vendor found that their original best practice had 'issues' and this client encountered those 'issues' requiring a total flush to fix.  The new SAN was built to the newer best practices and the vendor was made to provide the new SAN in exchange for the old one.

So when you see a best practice, try to find out their assumptions before using. Then you can knowledgeably use that best practice as a starting point, modifying it to best suit your environment.

The most basic of steps, often MIA

It is amazing the number of times I find a fundamental basic step missing from documentation. 
Now there are many times where it is easy enough to figure out the missing step or you trip over it quickly, but just often enough I find myself stuck hunting for that one connecting step.  Often when trying to resolve an issue, especially in an area that is new to the person trying to resolve that issue, you can quickly find out what tool you need, and instructions as to how to use the tool, but not where to find that tool and/or how to initiate that tool. 

Today's example is a Windows Server activation.  Until today I've been lucky and someone else took care of that level and I just had to worry about some other aspect of getting the server running. But today I get to do it all, and this newly installed server is telling me it needs activation (a reasonable enough request) without offering me that ability to DO the activation. So with some 'Googling' (even Microsoft staff say that, I have yet to hear any of them say "Bing It", not that I blame them :) I find that I need the Activation Wizard and some instructions as to use of this simple tool, but nothing as to how to start it. 

This is such an odd phenomenon in our industry's documentation and even how we help each other in forums that we so consistently miss such a basic step.

So my pledge, To endeavor to detail how to start tool I point to or detail how to use. Please join me in doing the same. 
So on that note, I finally manually found the Activation Wizard in the Control Panel, System (in classic view, don't get me started on that other view).

Also seen: Going to a Microsoft knowledge-base article automatically connects your browser to both Twitter and Facebook, yet more evidence that Microsoft still has a long way to go in understanding security.  This info was forced on me by the default IE setting on a Windows server that every site must be in the "Trusted Sites" list.

To start, some bits about me

I have always enjoyed trying to make sense of the many aspects of life that surrounds us, and to build something of it, exploring as I go. From an early age I'd build things out of blocks, Lego® , märklin (German clone of Meccano), progressing through model rocketry, and the such with a strong aptitude to maths and sciences. Since I liked building things, I went for Civil Engineering as my post secondary choice, but got side tracked into the growing IT (Information Technology) field before I could finish. IT provides so many ways to build so many different things, and so many with out needing to program (as opposed to all my formal IT post secondary options indicated at the time). I get to do and am known for both the architecting of environments as well as some of the actual hands on building 'n fixing. Science Fiction is the exploration of science possible (exploring "What If?") and accounts for a hunk of my recreational reading along with more down to earth survival skills to handle much of the range of "what if?". Finding the truth of a matter is often the key to solving problems, and as such I don't suffer from the social-mental disease of 'political correctness' as it usually hurts someone as much as it avoids hurting someone else while obscuring the truth. It is more fun to explore the truth from an oblique angle as this exercises the brain, or as some have complained 'warps the brain'. Six times nine does equal forty-two if you use the right base/frame of mind.

And I've been known to pun.

Posts will be sporadic and occasionally in bursts. They are a reflection of my thoughts/feelings/opinions, but I can be swayed by demonstrable facts and thoughtful counterpoints. Moronic blather will be blissfully ignored since this is my playground. Everyone can set up their own playground and are welcome to do so as any right to free speech is not matched by any right to an audience.

Live Long and Prosper.