Dougerino's World

Full Moon Fever

2011-03-20T22:55:00.001-07:00

The full moon yesterday was a little bigger than usual, because the perigree (closest point) of the moon’s orbit happened to occur within an hour of the full moon. The moon was last this close to the earth 18 years ago, and it won’t happen again for 6 years. So I took the time to shoot some photos of it, and we were lucky to have enough gaps between Seattle’s clouds to get a few good views.

At 5:30 Saturday morning, our dog Jamie woke me up because he wanted to sit on the front steps, which were very well lit by the full moon shining through a tree:

I decided there was still time to get over to Jose P. Rizal Bridge before the moon would go all the way down, so I threw the dogs and some camera gear in the truck and drove up there, where I got a few shots of the moon setting over the SoDo area of Seattle.

About 14 hours later, I took some photos from a dock on the west side of Lake Washington a little south of I-90. From there, the moon rose over Mercer Island, and it was visible for 10 or 15 minutes until it went behind a cloud. I made a collage of a few favorite shots:

That photo went viral, by my standards: over 2000 views on Flickr in the first 24 hours, making it my second most-viewed photo ever, and it made the Flickr Explore page yesterday at #361 (out of roughly 4 million photos uploaded per day). One thing that really helped was getting re-tweeted by King 5 News, which resulted in dozens of people re-tweeting that link to all of their followers as well. That was also how I got my highest Explore ranking ever (#11), for a sunset over Seattle.

The images in the collage above are all “as taken,” but to me they look darker than it looked in real life. Here’s a shot slightly brightened (and white balance tweaked a bit, too), which is more like how I remember it looking:

Drooling Alice

2011-02-23T23:05:00.001-08:00

Hmm, I seem to have moved from ex-blogger to dog-blogger. This will be my second dog-related post in a row, but events have conspired to make it so. Alice has had a bit of an adventure today, and knowing there are many people who follow her on Jamie’s page and will want to know lots of details, I’m going to provide some information here and Jamie can link to it. It’s been a long few hours, and I don’t feel creative enough to figure out how to explain all the details in “Jamie’s voice” over on his page.

I took the dogs to Kubota Garden late this afternoon for a romp. It worked out just as I was hoping it would: the place was deserted (probably due to the forecast of snow), but it was still sunny with blue skies. So the dogs got to run around off-leash, and they had a great time.

There was one spot where the two of them ran down to the edge of a pond, and I turned and ran the opposite direction for 50 feet or so. I do this sort of thing all the time when they’re off-leash, and then call them and they come racing to find me. That’s how I get so many photos of them at a full run coming toward the camera.

This time, though, they must have found something very interesting because they didn’t come running. I called several times, and finally Jamie came to me, but no Alice. I walked back to where they had been, but she wasn’t there. Soon it became clear that Jamie didn’t know where she was, either – he raced around looking for her, barking occasionally. I called her name loudly a few times, and she never barked back, which is unusual for her.

Finally I heard her, but it was a yelp of pain and not a bark, coming from perhaps a hundred yards away. Jamie and I ran toward her, and she came running down the trail toward us, but with a very subdued gait compared to her usual devil-may-care style, and with her ears pasted back, looking timid and frightened (unthinkable for Alice!). She also yelped in pain again when she got to us. She didn’t greet either one of us, but then stayed close to my feet while we walked out of the garden, never straying more than a few feet from me (also quite unusual for her).

I thought she might simply be frightened to have been lost, but the yelps seemed odd. At home, I methodically squeezed her all over to look for a sore spot, but found nothing. She seemed to want to lay down, so I let her take a nap while I handled some work online. Jamie lay nearby, but seemed distracted and never feel asleep. She wasn’t in obvious pain and wasn’t showing any particular symptoms, so I just kept an eye on her while she rested.

Then I went to let them out, and when Alice stood up I noticed that she was drooling a lot, just from the right side of her mouth. She seemed really down now, droopy eyes and sort of sedated, but after she was sitting up I couldn’t get her to lay back down. I called Megan and told her we’d be going to the emergency vet clinic as soon as she got home. I also explored every detail of her gums and mouth with my fingers, and she never showed any pain but continued to drool.

At the vet, they took her vital signs (all fine) and tried to check out her throat, but she was getting uncomfortable and wouldn’t let the vet see much. So they gave her a mild pain medication and waited a while, and were able to see enough to see that her throat has some sort of irritation and swelling, but no foreign object was visible.

We discussed X-rays, and the vet thought we should take them of her throat only, but we asked them to take X-rays of her stomach too, just to be sure. Those didn’t show anything at all, which is good. So then they wanted to see what she’d be willing to eat. They didn’t have any chicken necks unfortunately, but she ate some chicken and gravy baby food and eventually crunched up a dog biscuit after much coaxing. They decided it’s most likely something she ate that irritated her throat, or a stick she got stuck in her throat, perhaps while running through the brush. She has a particular way she seems to want to hold her neck to feel OK – you can see it in the photo to the right of me holding her in the waiting room below.

So they let her go home with us, and with some medication for swelling and pain. If she doesn’t recover quickly, or any other symptoms appear, we’ll go back.

She has eaten her usual dinner, which perked her up for a few minutes, and she’s crashed now, asleep in the foyer. Jamie has been paying close attention to her and seems to know what’s going on. Time to throw Alice on a pillow on the bed and try to get some sleep.

Being Jamie

2010-12-26T13:35:00.001-08:00

This got rather long, and I decided to just leave it that long and post it. If you’re one of those people who think about Jamie and Alice every day, you might make it through the whole thing. If not, that’s OK.

I’ve been posting my photos, opinions and experiences online since the mid-90s, and I’ve usually marked the end of the calendar year with a post recapping some of my favorites. But looking back on 2010, I realize that I’ve really not done much blogging (or Twittering or Flickring, etc.) as myself. Oh, I’ve posted pretty much every day, sometimes many times in a day, but most of my online presence this year has been the things I’ve posted “as a dog.” As my work-related social media activities have scaled back for various reasons, my canine activities have more than filled the gap.

In January, Megan and I started posting to Twitter as our new puppy Jamie, an 8 week-old Samoyed. Then a couple of months later, at the urging of Jamie’s online friends Jen and Evonne, we started posting photos of Jamie to Facebook, having created a “public figure” page for one Jamie Samoyed. A few months after that, when a few of my Flickr friends commented on the increasingly puppy-dominated nature of my photostream, I created a Dogerino account just for puppy photos, in addition to the Dougerino account I use for everything else.

I’ve posted to these sites hundreds of times this year. Over time, the Jamie Samoyed page on Facebook has become the main outlet for photos of the dogs, with links to those posts appearing on Twitter (automatically), and a manually selected subset (plus a few others) appearing on the Dogerino photostream on Flickr. Megan and I sometimes appear in the photos, but the vast majority are simply photos of the dogs being dogs.

So to mark the end of 2010, I thought I’d share some background info about how we came to have two dogs this year and what it’s like to be their social media staff. The pay is low and the hours are long, but if you’re wired like me, it’s a dream job.

Samoyeds

Jamie and Alice are Samoyeds, a sled dog breed from Siberia. I’ve loved sled dogs ever since I was a 12 year-old paper boy and my paper delivery route included a house with two Alaskan Malamutes. I had a Collie named Kingo who often came with me on my route, and those Malamutes seemed to be all the things I loved about Kingo – big, strong, smart, playful, fearless – but perhaps even more so.

Later in life, I had the pleasure of two wonderful Malamutes, Mia and Trouble. But before Mia, my first dog as an adult was a Samoyed named Rex. He was an impulse purchase (from a relative with puppies for sale), and I quickly fell in love with the breed. I still have a strong preference for sled dogs over other breeds (perhaps because of my lifelong fascination with wolves and coyotes, which are similar in some ways), but I’ve definitely settled on Samoyeds as my favorite. Rex had a wonderful ability and desire to understand people and interact with them, and I found his combination of sled-dog toughness and teddy-bear cuddliness irresistibly appealing.

The official AKC page on Samoyeds says this about the breed:

An ancient working breed, the Samoyed is very close to the primitive dog – no mixture of wolf or fox runs through the breed’s gene pool. He was developed by the Samoyede people of Siberia. They used the dogs for herding reindeer, hunting and hauling sledges as well as guard work. The breed was cherished by these people – they even allowed them to sleep in their tents – because they depended on the dogs for their survival.

Intelligent, gentle and loyal, Samoyeds enjoy being with their families. Due to their working heritage, they may chase things, run and bark, so it’s best to channel that energy into some kind of job or activity. Otherwise, these independent thinkers may invent ways to keep themselves entertained. At the very least, daily exercise is necessary. The Samoyed coat can also mat and needs to be brushed weekly, more often during shedding season.

And Wikipedia describes Samoyeds this way:

Samoyeds' friendly disposition makes them poor guard dogs; an aggressive Samoyed is rare. With their tendency to bark, however, they can be diligent watch dogs, barking whenever something approaches their territory. Samoyeds are excellent companions, especially for small children or even other dogs, and they remain playful into old age. When Samoyeds become bored they may begin to dig. With their sled dog heritage, a Samoyed is not averse to pulling things, and an untrained Samoyed has no problem pulling its owner on a leash rather than walking alongside. Samoyeds were also used to herd reindeer. They will instinctively act as herd dogs, and when playing with children, especially, will often attempt to turn and move them in a different direction. The breed is characterized by an alert and happy expression which has earned the nicknames "Sammy smile" and "smiley dog."

Rex was all of those things. He could fill a room with positive energy, and I don’t recall him ever being in a bad mood. As a puppy, he once pulled an entire bag of puppy treats off the kitchen counter and gleefully carried them to me at my desk, as if to say “look what I found!” He learned many phrases that we didn’t even intend to teach him, and it says something about my eating habits at the time that he knew the words “pizza” and “beer” so well. I was an avid golfer, and we spent long hours in the back yard practicing, with him catching chipped golf balls by the dozen but never once returning any of them to me.

We got Mia a few months after Rex, and when the two of them grew bored, they would chew on the furniture. They destroyed a couch as well as my favorite padded easy chair, which looked like a bomb had blown up inside it by the time they were done. We replaced those items with sturdier sled-dog-ready furniture, and now the corners of that furniture have Jamie and Alice’s chew marks on top of Rex and Mia’s. I can’t imagine ever repairing those chew marks – it makes me happy to see them, every day.

We lost Rex suddenly to a rare strain of viral encephalitis when he was five years old in 1995. He went from a happy, healthy, high-energy dog to a comatose state in a matter of days, and it seemed brutally unfair to him, and to everyone who loved him. I’ve lost several dogs I’ve been very close to before, and have known many other dogs under various circumstances, but nothing ever devastated me like losing Rex. I remember realizing late one evening, a few weeks after his death, that I hadn’t shed a tear about him all day long, and the realization that the pain was fading kept the tear-shedding streak alive. I hated the summer of 1995, when the sun was too bright, people were too happy, and life sucked because when I woke up and dangled my hand over the edge of the bed, my beautiful Samoyed friend wasn’t there to nuzzle it. Mia seemed so sad that we got her a Malamute puppy named Trouble that fall, and the presence of a puppy helped all of us break out of mourning Rex and move on.

I’ll always remember Rex fondly, but there’s something I never fully realized then: how much of Rex’s appeal to me was his alone, and how much was inherent in the Samoyed breed. And I’ve learned from Jamie and Alice that, although Rex was special in his own unique way (like all dogs), the Samoyed breed itself was a bigger aspect of his appeal than I knew.

Jamie’s Personality (and Alice’s)

An occasional frustration, when posting as Jamie, is that we can’t actually talk about him because we’re speaking as him. Facebook’s “public figure” functionality only allows page admins to post as the public figure, and never as themselves. This means, for example, that Jamie must answer questions directed to us humans on his Facebook page, because we can’t post anything on his page as ourselves. That’s why you’ll never see a comment from me or Megan on Jamie’s page – it’s simply not possible. (The only thing that we can do there under our own names is to “Like” a comment or a post.)

The photos and anecdotes on Jamie’s page give his followers many little snippets of information about him and Alice, and in the old Strunk & White spirit of “show, don’t tell,” the pictures are often more accurate than our words would be, but there are some limits to what a picture can capture. And the pictures rarely offer a complete and well-rounded view of Jamie’s life – in the course of a 24-hour day, the pictures may show what was happening during a few stretches of a few minutes each.

Off the top of my head, here are a few random things to know about Jamie, little quirks of his personality …

He’s an odd combination of stubborn and submissive. He’ll push back hard if you try to move him against his will, but there comes a moment when he melts and goes with the flow, his ears slapped back into a submissive position. Alice shares this trait, although she never has submissive ears when she gives in, which likely foreshadows some challenges we’ll have with her later in life.
He is nuts about his toys, and is constantly running off to grab one and then pressing it against any people or dogs that he might be able to convince to play with him. He also has a very consistent practice of doing that immediately after eating – while Alice is licking the last crumbs from their bowls, he’ll usually go grab a toy and shake it in her face, or mine.
He’s extremely rough with Alice, and often makes her scream in pain. I think some of his followers would be horrified to see this, but we never do anything correct this behavior other than occasionally (gently) pulling them apart for a moment. I believe that he was born wiser about how to raise a puppy than we’ll ever be, and Alice will be a happier and healthier adult if we have less influence on their interactions, rather than more.
He’s usually very interested in what we’re saying, although he’s not “obedient” in the classic sense. What I mean is this: when he’s being a total maniac and bouncing off the walls, I can say his name firmly but softly, and he will stop, cock his head and stare at me to try to figure out what I’m communicating. This is very useful at times, and he’s been that way from a very early age. Alice, on the other hand … no way.
Somebody recently asked on his page whether he really herds Alice away from the cats when she’s annoying them, and he really does. I’ve never seen a dog do this, but he does it every time she gets in the cats’ faces – usually he straddles her and tries to contain her with his front paws and turn her away from the sharp cat claws. It’s extremely cute to see in action.
Megan treated him like a kitten from an early age, carrying him around and picking him up all the time, and I’ve done the same. As a result, he has absolutely no reaction to being picked up, and doesn’t see that as unusual or a problem at all. We’re raising Alice the same way. Yesterday at Christmas dinner, the small kids carried Alice around constantly, and she never complained at all (although she started hiding under my chair later in the evening).
Jamie has a quirk that I probably taught him: play growling. He does this fake sort of growling when he plays, a grr-grr-grr sound that’s at least an octave above his actual growl. He seems to think this is something you do to convey that you’re just playing. Alice doesn’t do this, but then she’s often fighting with all her might against a much larger dog (something Jamie has rarely experienced), so playtime isn’t all fun and games for her.
He has traveled in the car nearly every day of his life (usually multiple times each day), and is calmer in that situation than any dog I’ve known. He has only had his nose out the window a handful of times, and only at low speeds, so he has no interest in that – you can roll the window down while he’s sitting next to it on the freeway, and he’ll just watch out the open window without sticking his nose out. When we walk out the door and head for the car or truck, he always stops to do his business (to be ready for the ride), and he usually lays down immediately upon getting in the car, unless he has reason to believe we’re going somewhere exciting, in which case he sits up alert and eager, silently waiting for what’s to come. This is another trait that Alice is coming to share: they are great travel companions.
Contrary to what one might expect, Jamie is the main source of puppy playfulness in their relationship, despite Alice being much younger. He’s usually the first one to suggest playing with a toy, the first one to pounce like a silly kitten, and so on. Alice looks like she will be in charge some day (being the more aggressive and assertive of the two), but it looks like Jamie will always be the one setting the playful goofball tone that we love in them.
Finally, Jamie wants the pack together at all times. I’ve never had a dog that exhibits this to the degree that he does. When we’re out for a walk, Megan and I can never stray more than 20 feet apart without Jamie trying to correct the situation. When the dogs are playing in the yard, Alice will often run inside on her own, but it’s very difficult to get Jamie to come inside when Alice is still outside. The one exception is at night: Jamie will sometimes lay downstairs in the living room while the rest of us are upstairs. But I think that’s because he knows there’s only one way we ever come down (the stairs), so as long as he’s near the stairs the pack can’t get split up. If we occasionally climbed out the window to exit the bedroom, I think he’d be less inclined to leave the pack there without keeping a close eye on us.

Training

For many people, training a dog to understand specific words is one of the most important or satisfying or interesting things one can do with a dog. In the understatement of the month, I’ll just say that we’re not among those people. I’ve had seven dogs of my own now, and it’s clear that I can have a ton of fun with a dog (and I think they enjoy it quite a bit, too) without the dog knowing any particular English words. If they know who’s in charge, that’s enough for me.

We do things every day to remind Jamie and Alice who’s in charge. For example, we take their food (or bones) away when they’re half done, then give them back after a while. And we never repeat commands – if we call them in from the yard and they don’t come after the first call, we go get them and physically bring them in. Over time, this has resulted in them accepting their place, and both Jamie and Alice consistently exhibit all the tell-tale signs of understanding the pack hierarchy. They wait at the top of the stairs (or inside the front door) for us to take the first step, they never paw at us while we’re eating (although they’re quite aggressive when they want to play), and so on.

The only other thing that I take as seriously with dogs as “who’s in charge” is the concept of not being afraid of other people and dogs. I think dogs can learn that from their owners, just as dogs can learn that strangers (or loud noises, or vicious dogs) are scary. I don’t believe that I’ve ever gasped or yelled in surprise or horror in front of Jamie or Alice, and I hope I never do. They are both so calm about things that scare some dogs: as one of many examples, we can walk them past loud aggressive dogs who are snarling and snapping and carrying on, and our dogs don’t react at all – they don’t cower in fear, and they don’t bark loudly and ferociously in fear, either. I am very proud of them at moments like that.

Sled dogs are smart, but they don’t have that desire to please authority figures that is so common in some other breeds. I once had a book that covered all 125 AKC breeds, and for each breed they had a ranking from 1-5 on problem-solving intelligence, and a separate 1-5 ranking on obedience/training aptitude. A few breeds, such as German Shepherds, Labrador Retrievers and Poodles, had the highest possible ranking in both of those categories; Malamutes, on the other hand, had the distinction of being the only breed with a 5 for problem-solving and a 1 for obedience. Most sled-dog breeds share those tendencies. (I once showed my Mom that book, and she said “it’s no surprise that you like Malamutes so much.”)

There’s an anecdote in one of Susan Conant’s books (which prominently feature Malamutes) that I had it on the home page of my web site for a while in the late 90s. I have no illusion that I’ll ever be in a life-or-death situation with my dogs, but the general attitude of this story is something I agree with:

A young man asked a seasoned musher, “wouldn’t it be easier on everybody if the northern breeds were more obedient?” The musher answered carefully. “Well, there are times that would be nice. But when I’m about to head across a frozen lake deep in the woods, all alone and many miles from the nearest person or shelter, my priorities are a little different. At that moment, if any member of my dog team senses a microscopic tremor in the ice that might mean it isn’t safe, I want that dog to speak up. I want to stop and argue about it.”

When I’m trying to get Jamie to walk with me, and he’s trying to pull in some other direction, I’m more inclined to be curious about what he’s thinking than to be concerned with “correcting” anything.

Being a Social-Media Dog

We post several times a day on Jamie’s page, and that probably adds an hour or so to the time we already spend every day on dog-related chores: walking them, feeding them, taking pictures of them, playing with them, sitting around gazing at them, and all the rest. We both have full-time jobs, but we’ve found ways to fit in these posts by employing a variety of tactics:

We take them to work some days, and they sleep in our vehicles. They’re never in the car for more than a couple of hours straight, and we often hand them off to one another at noon or between meetings.
We sometimes take pictures in the morning before work and then post some of them later in the day, to break up the long stretches when we’re too busy to be taking pictures. We’ve never crossed the line into posting pictures on a different date than when they were taken; at the rate they’re growing and changing still, that might look strange.
We make the dogs part of everything we do, and that creates many photo opportunities. A simple trip to the grocery store or gas station can result in the best photo of the day sometimes.
We use our cell phones to post photos whenever possible, and that makes it easy to get a quick shot and post it without really taking any time out of the day.

A few things have fallen by the wayside, due to all the time this takes. I’ve nearly stopped posting on Twitter, for example. And there are things people have asked us to do that we never get around to, such as posting videos. Everyone has their interests, and I must admit that “motion pictures” really don’t interest me very much. For example, I’ve flown more than anyone I know in recent years, and I’ve never gotten around to watching a movie on a flight; maybe someday. So the concept of spending time recording and uploading videos just doesn’t appeal to me much.

There’s some irony in the fact that spending so much time with our dogs, and representing them via social media, has significantly reduced our available time for socializing with humans. We see this as a positive side effect, actually – the things we do with the dogs are generally much healthier and less expensive than the things we do with humans.

There are some aspects to Jamie’s online voice/persona that we’ve settled on:

We try to stick to what the dogs actually experience each day. So the photos are usually from their eye level, and Jamie never mentions news or politics or how bad the traffic was, or other things that only humans care about.
We’ve stopped trying to answer questions that are clearly directed at us, since we can’t speak as ourselves and also because we don’t think Jamie’s followers are interested in watching us humans have discussions with other humans about human topics such as “how to raise a dog.”
At first, when Jamie was just on Twitter, we referred to ourselves by our Twitter handles (dmahugh and ikofish). But that’s not consistent with this being Jamie’s voice – a dog surely wouldn’t know that sort of trivia. So we’ve moved to using “Mom” and “Dad” consistently instead. I’ve been amused to learn that some people think that means we’re anthropomorphizing the dogs into human children or something. But more accurate terms like “alpha male” and “alpha female” are too clumsy, so we’re sticking to Mom and Dad.
We try to accurately convey Jamie’s whimsical carefree attitude, such as his utter lack of concern when he makes Alice scream, or when he (or she) is near some sort of danger. In keeping with our goal of helping the dogs learn to live without fear, we certainly don’t want to correct that attitude.
We don’t cover potentially disturbing things that happen, or might happen. For example, Alice recently swallowed a 2-inch bone which fell out of a pack of larger bones. We were very concerned, and never let her out of our sight until she threw up the bone the next day (rather smaller due to being broken down by her stomach acids – she’s a tough dog!). And Jamie was so cool, not pestering her at all while she was acting a little different from usual. But we didn’t say a word about it on his page, because we know that many people have developed a strong sense of caring for our dogs, and we don’t want to upset them needlessly or add negatives to his page. Sure, we’d cover it accurately if something bad were to really happen to one of the dogs, but it has to actually happen first.
When it comes to the captions, we try to write things that he might actually think and stay “in voice.” That usually means including at least one exclamation point in every post, because Jamie’s usually excited!

Megan’s much better about sticking to Jamie’s voice than I am. If you see Jamie say something that sounds out of character, I probably wrote that one.

Jamie Turn Pro? Never!

From time to time, we’ve been the lucky recipients of insightful advice about how to drive more traffic to Jamie’s page, how to get more followers, and so on. It seems that many people can’t imagine spending time an online activity that isn’t headed toward some sort of get-rich-quick scheme, or at least a get-famous-online scheme.

But we’re doing this for fun, not profit, and it’s extremely unlikely that another person – especially one who doesn’t spend hours each day posting photos of their dog – could ever dream up some new approach that would be more fun to us than what we choose to do on our own. We have a great group of people following Jamie online, many of whom clearly love him like a dog of their own. Jamie just passed 200 followers on Facebook, and I have no desire to manage that number or proactively work to increase it.

And truthfully, Jamie already has so many followers that it’s a bit of a burden to live up to the expectations we’ve created. One two recent occasions, we didn’t post a photo for most of the day, and people posted comments of concern about how whether the dogs were OK, or comments about how much they missed them. I understand those feelings, and I feel some responsibility for satisfying them, but I don’t think I’d ever want to have an order of magnitude more people following our pups. We’re busy enough just keeping up with what we’ve started.

We’re very grateful for all of the people who participate in the fun of having wonderful dogs like Jamie and Alice. Their followers include people who have experience with Samoyeds, people who do great work with animal rescue operations of various kinds, people who just plain love dogs, and many others. Thanks to all of you who give me and Megan fun surprises every day with your comments. It’s great to feel like our dogs have a huge diverse worldwide pack.

OK, enough rambling as “Doug.” Time to get back to being Jamie!

The Education of Alice

2010-11-07T20:18:00.001-08:00

It’s been two weeks since we got Alice, our second Samoyed puppy, and she and Jamie are already bonded like siblings. They play together constantly.

One of the fun things to watch is the process of Alice learning things from Jamie that he once had to figure out on his own. She’s growing up much faster than he did, because she has a teacher who speaks her language, and he’s a great combination of role model, coach, and cheerleader. Just last night, for example, when Alice was hesitating to walk up the stairs to our bedroom (which are steeper than the front steps she knows well now), Jamie ran down to her and pulled on her leg, then sprinted back to the top of the steps and barked while she climbed to the top. He does things like that all day long.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from their first two weeks together …

Good help is hard to find

2010-09-19T18:01:00.001-07:00

When we bought a new truck this year, just three months after getting a puppy, we knew the seats were going to take a beating. So we opted for the simple gray interior, and had the dealer install Toyota’s recommended seat covers, also in gray.
The seat covers have been great, but after several months of a wet or muddy dog, as well as chewed bones and the occasional stick (or worse), they were due for a good cleaning. So while I was in Tokyo on business recently, Megan called up Pro Sports Club Auto Salon and made an appointment to get the truck detailed. (I should have done this myself ages ago, but for some reason we seem to get caught on chores most often when I’m not around.)
They told her they’d leave the seat covers on during the detailing, but when she arrived to pick up the truck afterward, the seat covers were off. They said they had removed them because they were too dirty to get clean while installed, which was no doubt true. They also said they couldn’t get the covers dry fast enough and she should install them later after they were good and dry. Seems slightly odd, given that they can get the seats themselves dry and the seat covers are just a thin piece of canvas, but whatever.
So today I finally got around to installing the long-dried-out seat covers. I did the front seats first, no problem. There are straps that hold them down, and you have to reach under the seat and fiddle around to get the straps in place, then cinch them tight. After getting some practice on the front seats, the back left seat was a breeze. Then the back right seat … problem.

From what I can see it looks like somebody cut off the straps on that one. Those straps are over a foot shorter than all the other straps on all the other seat covers, and their ends are badly frayed while all the others have tidy heat-sealed cuts on the ends. There isn’t even enough strap to reach the fittings that they need to go through, so that seat cover is currently just sitting on the seat, with only one of the four straps secured.
It seems one of two things has occurred here …
Scenario #1: the mechanics at Parker Toyota, who install these seat covers all the time as part of their job, slashed up a brand-new seat cover and made it impossible to secure it on the seat, but somehow it never came loose through the first few thousand miles of driving around with a rambunctious puppy in the back seat, and the folks at Pro Sports Club Auto Salon removed the cover, but didn’t notice or mention the damage to us.Scenario #2: somebody at Pro Sports Club Auto Salon is going to have a bad day tomorrow.

Lens Lust in Abeyance

2010-09-02T23:30:00.001-07:00

Ever since I got my first modern SLR, a Nikon N90s in 1998, I’ve been constantly lusting after more lenses. I’ve always known of one or two lenses that I was planning to rush out and buy the next time I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket, or could convince myself that I did.

My first lens was the versatile 28-200mm AF-D, which I took on a 5-week trip to Cambodia, Nepal, and India shortly after purchasing it. It was a great initiation into the world of modern 35mm lenses, and it whetted my appetite for more.

I bought a 50mm F/1.4 next, just because that’s the one you’re “supposed” to have. And like. And use. I did none of those things: my first 50mm F/1.4 went right over my head, and I never appreciated what it could do. I didn’t discover the joys of fooling around with depth of field, especially the joy of less depth of field instead of more, until years later, when I bought my second 50mm F/1.4 (having sold the first one because I wasn’t using it).

Over the years 2000 through 2003, I picked up several more lenses: the massive (by my standards anyway) 80-400mm VR model, a 10.5mm fisheye, a 70-300mm G series, and a few other cheapos I don’t recall at the moment. Then I moved to digital in 2004 with a D70, sold a bunch of lenses to Adorama, and bought the workhorse wide-angle 12-24mm. In 2006 I picked up the versatile 18-200mm VR, and those two plus the fisheye were my entire kit (well, plus a D40 and 18-55mm VR for a backup) until 2008, when I took the plunge and moved from DX to FX with the Nikon D700.

I bought a 14-24mm F/2.8 (nicknamed the Big Kahuna) with the D700, and it’s so fun that it’s intoxicating. I use it way too often, with no regrets:

In the first year I had the D700, I picked up two more lenses, both F/1.4 primes: the 50mm and the 85mm. The 85mm is the ultimate portrait lens for cats and dogs, and both it and the 50mm have wonderful bokeh in the out-of-focus areas:

Then, this spring, I finally got a fast telephoto: the 70-200mm F/2.8 VR II. What a lens! I love it for wildlife, pets, landscapes, flowers and most anything that is more than a few feet away:

I hadn’t really thought of what’s next, but this summer, after taking a three-week vacation full of non-stop photo fun, I realized that I’m satisfied. That familiar lens-lust feeling is gone – I honestly don’t want any other lenses right now. Well, I’d take a truckload of expensive lenses, of course, if somebody were kind enough to deliver it at no cost to me. But I don’t know of a lens that I want bad enough to actually buy it with my own money. Not even at half price.

Here’s a graphical overview of what I carry with the D700 these days, showing (on non-linear made-up scales) the range of depth of field and focal length that these lenses cover:

I also have a D40 as a backup, and two DX lenses with it. Here they are, overlaid on the D700 lenses I carry:

Truthfully, there are some gaps in there. The 24-70mm F/2.8 is a wonderful lens, and probably the one I’d get next if I had to pick one. As the middle lens of Nikon’s big three, It fills in the gaps in my FX lens lineup like this:

But I agree with Ken Rockwell’s take: it’s probably the perfect lens if you only carry one, but if you carry wide-angle and telephoto zooms you don’t need it. I’m glad to haul several lenses around, slung over my shoulder in a big canvas bag, and that makes the 24-70mm seem unnecessary. Having hauled a golf bag for many years, a bag full of lenses feels like a super-lightweight set of clubs on my shoulder, so I’ve never understood why some people find that so off-putting. Maybe some day I’ll get old and frail enough to care, but right now my 20 pounds of camera gear seems a small price to pay for all the fun I have with it everywhere I go.

A more likely next lens for me would probably be the 10-24mm DX model, to fill out the range for the backup D40:

But that feels forced, since it’s my backup camera that I carry in my laptop bag and rarely feel a need to use with anything other than the 35mm. And the Big Kahuna is so fun, why would I be taking wide-angle shots with anything else? I’d rather keep the money.

Sorry, Nikon, but until you come out the that mythical 9mm FX model, or a 14-400mm F/1.4 VR lens for less than the price of a car, I don’t think you’re getting any more lens money from me.

On the other hand, I should probably check out that silent mode on the D3S soon, and there’s the D700X rumors, and …

Dog and Cats

2010-04-28T23:04:00.001-07:00

It’s fun having both a dog and cats. I had a dog (Collie) and a cat as a kid, but haven’t lived in a feline/canine household since. And the dog and cat I had as a kid didn’t really interact or pay much attention to one another.

But Jamie has plenty of interaction with Fish and Ike. This evening, we came home and Jamie bounced into the living room with his latest beef marrow bone, very excited. He went to hop up onto Megan’s chair in the corner, but when he saw Fish there he plopped down on the ottoman to chew on his bone.

It’s as if Fish has a pet dog. Which he does.

Nikon 70-200mm F2.8 VR II lens

2010-04-22T20:32:00.001-07:00

I picked up a new lens today, the telephoto I’ve wanted for some time. I rented one a few weeks ago, and after that it was just a matter of time. It’s an amazing piece of engineering (as Thom Hogan, Ken Rockwell, and others have covered in detail), and it just works, quickly and reliably, for a wide variety of situations.

I woke up this morning having decided that I should get the old VR (instead of VR II) model of this lens, which would have cost about $800 less. But I sought out some advice. Not unbiased advice, mind you — this was more or less in the spirit of a girl who wants to keep her baby, so she asks a priest whether she should get an abortion. Father Brown counseled me to go for it, and I appreciated his sage guidance on this matter.

I got home too late to take many pictures this evening, but this weekend I’ll probably start using it way too much. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of it:

And here’s the first picture I took with it:

Here are a couple of the picture I took when I recently rented the same model of lens:

Shooting from the car

2010-04-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

We've been planning and talking about a road trip this summer (Montana and the Dakotas), and this evening just for fun I stepped through every photo tagged "from car" in my Flickr photostream. A few faves below.

By the way, here are a few tips for staying alive while taking pictures from the car:

Never look through the camera – just wave it around and shoot, while keeping your eyes on the road
Let the wife drive whenever she's willing
Stop in the road to snap a picture if that's an option (max sharpness, too)
No from-the-car shot is "important"; if it's not easy, don't bother
Expect most from-the-car shots to suck, because they do

Jamie’s Bath

2010-04-12T22:17:00.001-07:00

I’ve had four sled dogs (two Samoyeds, two Alaskan Malamutes) and a Collie. And tonight was the calmest, simplest, lowest-drama bath I have ever given a dog. Go Jamie!

Lenses: going minimalist for a few weeks

2010-04-11T18:50:00.001-07:00

I love my Nikon 14-24mm AFS f/2.8 G ED wide-angle zoom lens. Most of the photos I’ve taken in the last year were taken with it.

And today I dropped it. Damn! So tomorrow it’s going in for repair, and since I’m a low-priority non-professional in Nikon’s way of looking at the world, I may not have it for six weeks.

I had also been planning to sell a couple of lenses so that I could get a 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, so now when I sell those lenses I’ll just have the 50mm F1.4 for a while. Oh well, Henri Cartier-Bresson made a career out of shooting that lens, I suppose it’s truly more than I need. Who knows, maybe I’ll learn a thing or two by having fewer options.

After the dust settles in a few weeks (late May? June?), I’ll have the repaired 14-24mm F2.8, the 50mm F1.4, and the 70-200mm F2.8. Oh, and the kit lens (18-70mm) on the D40, my backup camera. I’m really looking forward to having that setup, but today’s badly timed lack of mindfulness has made it even more expensive.

What is it with me and wide-angle zoom lenses? I beat the hell out of my favorite DX model, and now I’ve moved on to FX.

Jamie’s Truck

2010-04-05T18:03:00.001-07:00

We bought a new truck this weekend, for hauling Jamie to trailheads, going on dump runs, and all the other fun stuff you can do with a truck. It’s a 2010 Toyota Tacoma TRD, and I love it – it has the smoothest and quietest ride of any 4WD vehicle I’ve ever owned, and it has so many cool features that I’ve barely scratched the surface in learning about it. In fact, I’m really looking forward to spending some quality time with the user manual tonight.

I had been driving a 1999 Ford Ranger (right) since early 2004, when I bought from a wholesaler at the auto auction in Spokane (DAA Northwest, where I was working at the time). It was a great truck, but it was very simple and basic; it didn’t even have power windows or locks, for example. And it had really gotten rough in recent years. The gas gauge didn’t work, but I didn’t think it was worth $300 to fix it; there was a 2-foot long crack in the windshield, but I didn’t want to spend money on fixing that either; the tires were badly worn, but … you get the idea. It was still running OK, but was slowly crumbling and I just couldn’t stand to put more money into it.

Then we got Jamie this year, and getting a new truck became more urgent because he’s growing so fast. He can still sit on Megan’s lap, sort of, but the old Ranger had an extended cab with just a small space behind the front seats, and no seat for him to lay down on back there. No sled dog should have to live like that, right?

We ordered the new truck a few weeks ago from Parker Toyota in beautiful Couer d’Alene, Idaho. And this weekend, we went over to pick it up. I took a few photos, of course, and some favorites are on Flickr here.

Here’s Jamie greeting Bob Chandler, the sales manager who worked with us on the deal:

Bob was awesome. He made the whole process so simple and hassle-free that we drove away Saturday afternoon feeling like we had forgotten to do something important. It was just too easy. If you’re in the Pacific Northwest and looking for a truck, or a Toyota of any kind, check out Parker Toyota. They’ve been in the Couer d’Alene area for a long time, and I first knew them as a favorite customer of the auto auction over in Spokane when I worked there. Sure, it’s a bit of a drive from the Seattle area, but it’s a great excuse to stay at the Couer d’Alene resort!

Here are a few photos from the ride home …

This morning, I had to be in the office pretty early but I was really excited to be driving so it was no big deal. It’s been a while since I felt that way about a car … decades, frankly.

This weekend we’ll take it on its inaugural hiking trip. I’m going to have to do some research to find a hike with a really lousy road to the trailhead, so that we can check out the offroad performance. But first, time to go home and read the owner’s manual. I may get a bit lost and take the long way …

Home from Stockholm

2010-03-28T22:34:00.001-07:00

Just got home from my first trip to Sweden a few hours ago. I was in Stockholm last week to attend the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC34 WG4 meetings as well as the SC34 plenary and WG6 meetings. If you don’t know what that means, believe me, you won’t find it interesting (even I struggle with that at times). I’ll be posting a work-related overview of my trip over on my work blog after I get back to the office this week.

These meetings take place in a different country every three months, and give me a recurring opportunity to shoot pictures of many new (to me) places. The work and the associated socializing (hey, somebody’s gotta do it) usually occupy every daylight hour during the week, but I often fit in a day or half-day on the weekend before or after for photo safaris. And having a D700, I do many photo safaris at night, too. The structure of these trips is one of the reasons I moved to a camera that excels at low-light photography, actually. Standards work, to quote Jim Carroll entirely out of context (as is traditional in certain disciplines), “is just another nine-to-five gig in the end, only the hours are a bit more inclined toward the shadows.”

I’ve created a set of Stockholm photos, which contains my favorite shots from the trip …

And I also created a separate set for favorites from the Vasa Museum, which I visited yesterday …

My escape from Stockholm was a bit more exciting than intended …

Yet Another Doug’s World

2010-03-20T11:50:00.001-07:00

This is my first new post on this blog, which is the current and future home of my personal (i.e., not work-related) blog posts. I say first new post because there were already 69 posts here prior to this one. Those are from the old Doug’s World blog that was hosted by Textdrive, which I used from 2005-2009 but am shutting down now. I manually copied my favorites (about 10% of the total) over here to preserve them.

I had barely used the old blog in the last year, because it had become riddled with Wordpress problems. As one of several examples, I had a virus that was inserting spam links into posts, and despite repeated upgrades to Wordpress and various tactics I tried at the suggestion of various people, it never quite went away. Those problems are all behind me now, and with the new approach (hosting my personal blog on a service, rather than hosting it myself) I should never have to waste another hour screwing around with such issues. This makes me happy, and frees up some time to write fun blog posts instead.

OK, time to get out and enjoy the great spring weather, and wait for inspiration to strike …

Last Sunset Of The Summer

2010-03-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 9/21/2009:

Like thousands of other Seattleites, I took a picture of the sunset this evening. King5 News and a few other people were kind enough to re-Tweet my shot from the bridge at the north end of Beacon Hill …

Another shot from earlier this evening …

The First Words Of "The Last Word"

2010-03-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 02/25/2009:

There are a few readers of this blog who knew me way back when. That is, way back when I quit a good job at Boeing to work on a project so urgent and timely that it just couldn’t wait. In January of 1982, the world needed the ultimate guide to playing Defender, and I was just the guy to write it. (Note to current employer: don’t worry, I learned my lesson. And I didn’t have a mortgage way back when.)

So I spent a few months writing a book about playing Defender. It was around 50,000 words when I was done, and I had the best video-game player I knew read it and critique it. (Hi Tad.) Then the March 1982 issue of Playboy came out, and I bought a copy so that I could read the interview in it with Eugene Jarvis, lead designer/developer of Defender. I learned he lived in Chicago, and I called information (think “Google for landlines,” boys and girls) and found there was only one Eugene Jarvis in the 312 area code. Soon I had talked to him, secured his mailing address, and I sent him and his partner Larry Demar a copy of my manuscript (printed on a borrowed Epson MX-80, written on a Heath H-89 in WordStar, CP/M version). Larry read every word, and wrote copious notes in the margins. They thought I was a freak.

And I guess I was. I was nearly out of money by then, so I had moved back into my parents’ basement and was living cheap, writing and editing all day and playing Defender until the wee hours most nights. I spent my last $400 on a trip to Chicago, having never been there, and after one memorable night at the Hotel Lincoln (where the couple in the next room kept me up half the night), I slept on Eugene’s couch for a couple of nights and hung out with Larry and Eugene during the day, discussing the details of my manuscript and polishing it up. They were amazed at how much I knew about the game, but slightly skeptical of my claims about my scoring, so they had the best Defender player they had ever seen, a 15 year-old kid from Mount Prospect, come to their office on Halsted in Boystown to play a match with me. I beat him mercilessly. Hey, I was 24 years old and desperately broke, and he was just in the way.

A couple months later, a publisher in Skokie named Lou Weber decided to start a video game magazine called Joystik. They interviewed Eugene Jarvis for the first issue, and he suggested they should check out the Defender freak from Seattle. Soon I was on a plane to Chicago again, copy of my manuscript in hand, to be photographed (hi George) “keeping the mutants at bay” (Hi Scott). Later that day, I met with Mr. Weber. He opened my manuscript to a random page (page 12, as it turned out), and read aloud this paragraph:

The smart bomb cannot be used indiscriminately. You can only use smart bombs when you have one or more bombs accumulated in the bomb display register, located to the right of your score at the top of the screen. If there are no bombs displayed there, the smart bomb button has no effect. You’re given three bombs at the start of the game, and an additional bomb is awarded for each 10,000 points scored. Smart bombs don’t harm the men on the planet’s surface. In fact, that’s how smart bombs got their name – they’re smart enough to distinguish friends from foes. In many games of Defender this makes smart bombs the most intelligent participant.

“Are those your words?” he asked, with what I heard as an accusatory tone. “Did you write that?” Although it wasn’t a paragraph that I was especially proud of, I answered “yes.” An hour later, I had accepted a $17,000 per year job offer. A week later, I had moved to Chicago, where I lived for many years.

And the manuscript was never published. We published a couple of excerpts in articles in JoyStik, and that was it. So the manuscript, in hard copy and hard copy only, has been following me around for 27 years, hanging out on dusty shelves, hiding in packed boxes, pages turning off-white over time, ink fading slowly.

Until a couple years ago, when my lovely wife (hi Megan) decided to manually type it all back into a file for me. Her labor of love is nearly done, and I can’t wait to finally publish my Defender manuscript. I’m proud of the extremely detailed and accurate information about the details of Defender playing, although the more zealous passages make me cringe a bit now:

… video game players, bored with repetitive pattern games, have found in Defender a truly honest game, where the final score is always a reflection of the player’s skill, knowledge, and practice.

I’ve lost all interest in making any money off it (and coincidentally, all such opportunities, if any ever existed, are long ago dead), which gives me complete creative freedom. I’m going to put it on Mahugh.com, exactly as it was way back when, with the only change being that I might have Tad over to re-create a bunch of situations and take photos to replace the crude dot-matrix graphics I had in the original manuscript.

I’m not ready to roll the whole thing out yet, but for those who might be amused by it, which is roughly everyone who’s still reading at this point (hi Mom), here’s the introduction to “Defender: The Last Word” …

My first impression of the game of Defender was probably typical. I had stopped at Arnold’s, an arcade in Seattle’s University District, to play a few games of Radarscope and Berzerk, the only video games I could stand (or understand) at the time. While my friend and I played Radarscope, I noticed several University of Washington techno-twits crowded around a new game that one of them was playing. After finishing our game (it was a good game for me and lasted perhaps two minutes), we walked over to see what they were so excited about. After watching for several minutes, I still didn’t know.

The machine itself looked like many other video games I had seen. It had a colorful TV screen at about a twelve year old’s eye level, and a small ledge below the screen supporting a lever and a few buttons. The player was frantically pushing and slapping at those buttons, breathing hard the whole time and occasionally darting a free hand up to brush his sweaty hair out of his eyes. I decided, from the player’s wide eyes and look of intense, almost painful, concentration, as well as the steady stream of advice from his friends (”swarmers behind you”, “kill the mutant”, baiter coming”, “nuke the pods”) that this game wasn’t for me – I liked to think that I played video games to relax and have fun.

The TV screen that showed what was happening in the game only added to its hectic impression. There were dozens of brightly colored and strangely shaped objects flying around the screen, including a small white spaceship. From my experience with other video games, I assumed that the player was trying to control that spaceship. When the ship collided with another object on the screen, there would be a loud explosion, with the ship bursting into a hundred pieces. Just when I thought I had figured out the object of the game – to avoid all of the objects on the screen – the ship ran into a small white rectangle, and instead of an explosion, a little number flashed on the screen near the ship. As the ship flew away from this encounter, the white rectangle hung from its belly. As if that wasn’t confusing enough, occasionally the ship would fly right through what appeared to be the mountains. To top it all off, there was a constant barrage of squealing, buzzing, whistling sounds coming from a small speaker above the playing screen. Just above that speaker was a bright red and yellow sign proudly proclaiming that game’s name: Defender.

That was my first impression of the game of Defender, in March of 1981. And although it may have been a typical first impression, my involvement with the game since then has been anything but typical. Two months after deciding never to play the game, I was playing Defender up to ten hours a day. Two months later, my average game was over an hour in length and I was practicing for a regional Defender contest. Two months after that, I had won the contest’s $1000 first prize, and was able to play as long as I cared to on every quarter (24 hours on one occasion).

In those first six months, I spent hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours playing and studying the game of Defender, and I met other Defender players around the Seattle area who had also spent all of their free time and money on the game. Some of these players were very good, some were stuck in a rut, playing again and again every day without improving, but there was one thing that they all had in common: regardless of their degree of success in the game, they were obsessed with it. Defender, because of its complexity, can remain challenging and enjoyable to a player far longer than any other video game.

Many of the players I saw remained challenged by the game of Defender for a very negative reason: they were not getting any better. The problem seemed to be a lack of information; many Defender players assume that they already know everything about the game, and further progress is just a matter of practice. This is seldom true. There is so much to learn about the game of Defender that any single player can have gaping holes in his understanding that will go unfilled until he is exposed to the ideas of many other players.

This was never more obvious to me than one day when I saw two young men playing the Defender machine at a sandwich shop where I had stopped for lunch. One of them was showing the other how to play.

“Now, you just fly real low here and shoot these white things before they get you”, he explained. The “white things” he was shooting were the men that the Defender player is supposed to be defending; the loss of all ten of those men causes the game to go into free space, a much more difficult situation than regular play.

The player quickly shot down all of his own men, carefully dodging his real opponents. Just as he shot the last one, sending the game into free space and plunging his ship into a sea of deadly mutants (with a total score of 0 points), he clenched his teeth and began firing rapidly, muttering to his friend, “That first attack wave isn’t too bad, but after you finish it the game gets pretty fucking hard!”

The intent of this book is to make you a better Defender player. Whether you’re completely new to the game or you’ve been playing every day for a year, there’s plenty of information here to help you improve. These ideas, however, must be practiced many times before they will be reflected in your score. Good Defender playing is never the result of shortcuts, but that’s part of Defender’s appeal – video game players, bored with repetitive pattern games, have found in Defender a truly honest game, where the final score is always a reflection of the player’s skill, knowledge, and practice. (Well, the machine’s settings also affect your score, but we’ll look at that later.)

The best way to derive the full benefit of the ideas contained in this book is to practice them perfectly, over and over. Since perfect practice is, in the real world, an unattainable goal, most of your practice while learning these ideas should be mental, away from the game. Once you can mentally recall all of the details of a particular move quickly and flawlessly, the step to real-life performance (if such a phrase may be used in reference to video games) is a small one.

Chapter 1 is a short and simple beginners’ course in playing Defender, and Chapter 2 is a discussion of the controls used.

Every game of Defender presents new and unique challenges, but there are certain situations that come up very often. These situations are the subject of Chapters 3 through 7, which explain the behavior of the game’s opponents: landers, mutants, swarmers, bombers, and baiters. Each chapter describes the behavior of a particular opponent and then gives specific advice about how to take advantage of that behavior. The solutions given are not the only ones that work, but they are the techniques used by most successful Defender players.

Chapter 8 describes when and how to catch falling men and set them down. Catching falling men is difficult for beginning players, and even an experienced player can have trouble trying to catch a falling man when many opponents are on the screen. Chapter 8 has an added section on catching men when there are swarmers on the screen, a particularly dangerous maneuver for all players.

Chapters 9 and 10 both assume that you have mastered all of the maneuvers described in earlier chapters. Chapter 9 explains how to deal effectively with free space, the biggest challenge in the game of Defender. Chapter 10 covers strategies for getting through the higher attack waves. Both of these chapters give you several different approaches to choose from; individual limits and abilities will determine which one should be used.

Chapter 11 is a collection of tips and observations that are not easily classified. Some of the tricks in Chapter 11 might not help you get a higher score, but they’re so much fun that I included them anyway. There is also a section on very long games (over 1,000,000 points) that will be useful when you decide to set the world record, as all Defender players eventually do.

Like The Godfather, Jaws, and Star Wars, Defender has spawned a sequel. Stargate has roughly the same concept and controls as Defender, with a handful of new opponents and special features thrown in. It appeals mostly to experienced Defender players, although Stargate is actually a little easier than Defender for beginners. Chapter 12 covers the differences between Stargate and Defender.

The next and last chapter is not specifically about playing Defender, but the ideas covered in it are important to anyone who wants to play to the best of his individual abilities. Chapter 13 is a discussion of the psychology of consistent and successful video game playing. Many players are capable of much better playing than they realize, and it is my hope that Chapter 13 will help these players to achieve their full potential.

Before you plunge headlong into the world of playing Defender, I should warn you that good Defender playing is intense. Not only is the game itself intense, with its fast and overwhelming action, but the lifestyle of a hard-core Defender player is often equally intense – if you have a rampant imagination, you’ll catch yourself living the game as well as playing it.

When I first learned the swarmer follow move (described in Chapter 5), I used to practice it while riding my motorcycle. I would follow the white bumps between lanes of the road, mowing them down by fluttering my right hand against the handlebar. One night, while leading my brother in the car behind me to the Spot Tavern in South Seattle to practice Defender, I was so busy shooting swarmers on the road that I missed the break in the curb while turning into the parking lot, and bounced over the sidewalk at 25 mph.

The motorcycle skidded to a stop at the front door, with me miraculously still on top. My shins and hands were bleeding where they had dragged across the footpegs and mirrors, but I just walked inside to the Defender machine and put down a quarter. When it came my turn to play, the blood on my hands had dried enough that I could get a firm grip on the controls, so I pushed the start button and roared into the world of Defender. By wave 2, when I shot the first swarmers of the game, I had completely forgotten my injuries.

Guiness Can Be So Interesting

2010-03-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 12/27/2008:

Flickr has an ever-rotating group of “most interesting” photos called Explore. Their patented interestingness algorithm considers a variety of criteria — if you’re into those sorts of details, here’s a good overview.

They don’t email you to tell you when one of your photos makes it into Explore. Instead, there’s a web app called Scout that summarizes the Explored photos for any Flickr screen name.

Late last night, I was browsing the latest interesting photos on Flickr, and got a nice Christmas treat: I saw one of my own photos listed. It’s a shot of a pint of Guinness, framed in out-of-focus Christmas lights around the front door of Columbia City Ale House. I walked there in the snow (it’s about 3 miles away), for a Guiness and a cup of their trademark gumbo last weekend.

The photo has been inching its way up. Has it peaked at #289? We’ll see.

Election Day Pictures

2010-03-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 11/5/2008:

I hope everyone had fun on election day. We did.

Lusting After Lenses

2010-03-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 11/01/2008:

Megan and I have been doing a lot of thinking about what lenses we need next. We can’t actually afford to buy any of them right now, but that means we have an opportunity to do some careful planning, and the move from DX to FX is giving us many issues to think about.

We currently have no telephoto FX lens(es), but from 70m out to 14mm we’re in good shape:

The massive 14-24mm F2.8 (aka “the Big Kahuna lens”) covers the wide end of the range out to the equivalent of 9mm in the DX world. example
The 50mm F1.4 is small, fast, and fun. I had one years ago, and had no understanding of how to really enjoy it then; now I keep it on aperture priority mode, spin the dial to one extreme or the other (F1.4 or F16), and can’t get enough of it. example
The 28-70mm F3.5 that I picked up on Ebay a few weeks ago gives me a mid-range FX lens. It’s not quite as fast as I’d like, but it cost a hundred bucks, and in this economy that’s a compelling feature. example

So what next? We’re selling off the DX lenses that still have some value (the 10.5mm fisheye, the 12-24mm wide-angle, and the 18-200mm VR), and that gives us $1000 or so to spend on a telephoto FX lens.

The logical choice, if we had twice that much money, is the 70-200mm F2.8 VR. What a lens. It’s sharp, fast, and built like a tank. And unaffordable in the short term. We rented one from Glazer’s a few weeks ago for $30, and we’ll probably do that a few more times before we can buy one.

Getting more realistic, there are a few options that are less expensive, and also slower, flimsier, or missing various features of the 70-200mm. I’m too lazy to go to a manual focus lens, but there are two good 70-300mm autofocus options: the 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 VR model, which sells for $550, and the 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G, which sells for a mere $140.

The latter, like the 50mm F1.4, is a model I owned a few years ago but sold when I went from FX film to DX digital. Is another one in our future?

I Have The Best Wife In The World

2010-03-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 08/30/2008:

Today is a big day. I think, if I’m remembering accurately, that the last time I made an impulse purchase for this amount of money was … never. But with my wonderful wife’s blessing (and her help in writing the title for this post), I have moved up to a Nikon D700, and a lens to match. We won’t be able to afford going out to dinner nearly as often this fall, but that’s just fine with me because I’ll be busy taking pictures.

It’s an amazing camera, the second-finest DSLR that Nikon makes today (after the D3, and there are actually a few firmware updates in the D700 that surpass the D3 at the moment, although the D3 is still superior in battery life, autofocus speed, and various other details). It uses the full-frame FX lenses, which means all of my lenses just became obsolete. They work on this camera just fine, but they don’t begin to take advantage of its capabilities, and they’re all effectively 50% longer/narrower because they’re mere DX lenses that send a smaller image to the CCD than the FX lenses do.

So I got the fanciest new lens Nikon makes, to go with it: the 14-24mm AF-S F2.8 ultra-wide angle zoom. This lens (above) has more glass in it than all of my other lenses combined, and it has an effective range of 9-16mm in DX terms. In other words, it’s actually wider than my trusty 10.5mm fisheye (example). It’s also super-sharp even in the far corners, at every aperture.

Two first impressions, having been using this combo for all of 10 minutes: it’s extremely heavy, and the shutter click is extremely loud. I’ll probably have more insightful observations with a bit more experience.

I’m still in shock. Time to RTFM, slowly and carefully. Thanks for four years of good times, Mr. D70, but it’s time for you to think about retirement.

And to all my Nikon DLSR-toting friends who have made me envious with their D80s and D300s in the last couple of years … who’s going to continue the arms race and be first to get a D3? Osrin? Orcmid? Nic? Hey, Greg in Sydney — it’s not too late to order a D3, I’ll be glad to receive it here in the states for you.

Finally, Reluctantly, Flickr

2010-03-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 08/24/2008:

I’ve been posting my photos online for a while now — since November 1996, to be exact. Every photo I’ve ever posted has resided on Mahugh.com, and with the exception of some header images and other structural sorts of things, every one of those photos is in a very predictable location under the Mahugh.com folder structure, based on the date that the photo was taken. For example, the 7th photo I posted from February 17 of this year is at http://www.mahugh.com/images/blog/2008/02/17/image07.jpg.

That consistency and simplicity has many benefits. It helps me keep my backups organized, and makes it very easy to find photos when I want to re-use them. And since I mirror everything on Mahugh.com on my local hard drive (and all of my ever-rotating backup drives), I have instant acccess to all of my photos at all times, as a few poor souls who’ve sat next to me on intercontinental flights can attest.

Are backups overrated?

That ability to take complete responsibility for my own backups, independent of all other people and systems, is an attitude that seems to be becoming old-school. Back in the 80s and 90s, I did lots of development work for customers who had no clue how to maintain their backups and provide the types of redundancy and verification processes that would assure they’d never lose critical data or software. So I had to take that responsibility myself, and I’ve never had a disastrous backup failure of any kind in the last 20 years. If I had a document in the 80s and have never decided to get rid of it, then I can put my hands on it right now today.

These days, though, people seem to be growing more and more comfortable with the idea of their data and documents being “somewhere out there on the internets,” backed up by wise men in white jackets working from unknown locations.

Now, just to be clear, I can’t imagine that I will ever embrace that approach. I sleep better knowing that every computer on earth can disappear, including my own, and my house can burn to the ground, and I’ll still have every silly photo I’ve ever taken, organized and ready to go. But I am coming to the realization that my view is at odds with the rest of the planet (a familiar feeling, sigh) and so I’m going to make some changes. Starting today.

Entr Flickr

A few years ago, many people started using Flickr to post their photos online. I considered moving to Flickr in 2005 when I started this blog, but it had a few things that I didn’t like and I thought would change over time. So I’ve been waiting and watching, checking back every now and then to see whether Flickr was something I might be able to use, and waiting to see whether “Son of Flickr” or “Flickr Done Right” emerged eventually.

One thing that I thought was just plain silly about Flickr’s approach was the “photostream” concept, where the default view for anyone looking at your photos is to see them in the order that you’ve uploaded them, regardless of when they were taken or their context within your photos. This is an aribitrary design decision, not a “technical limitation” (no matter what their marketing people claim), and users have been complaining about it for years. But nothing has changed. When users question this approach, the Flickr apologists patiently explain that they just don’t get it, and they need to look at the world differently. Here’s a typical example of how that works — as you can see, in the Web 2.0 world, the wisdom of crowds is aggregated for the collective benefit of all involved.

So on that particular measure, Flickr’s still a Losr in my book, but they’ve added a bunch of other features that I must admit are very useful. The collections concept, for example, which was introduced last year, allows photos to be organized for easier browsing and simpler long-term maintenance. And the sheer popularity of Flickr is a benefit — there are so many people commenting and linking and tagging and annotating photos on Flickr that it’s easy to browse from photos you like to related photos that you’ll probably like.

Making the switch

So I’ve started using Flickr. (Quick aside: they say that the longer you work at Microsoft, the more likely you are to start sentences with “so.” Seriously.)

I’m created a Flickr account, gave myself the requisite oh-so-clever name (Dougerino), paid for the Pro option, and have uploaded some pictures. For starters I put all of the pictures from our recent road trip in a set, including everything I had posted on the blog and a few dozen others I liked. I’ve also created a set of cat photos, and started a set for photos around the house/yard.

Regarding the choice of Dougerino as my handle, I did a quick search to check for who else is using that name and found it’s not used much, and not by anyone on Flickr so that’s good. There is that one reference to slimy scallops and all, but it’s a different Doug M so I don’t think there should be any confusion.

What this means to you and me

Many people are already used to Flickr, so for them this means my photos will fit into the approach you already know. And you’ll now be able to comment on specific photos, or even on specific areas in the photos.

Believe it or not, though, there are people who aren’t up to speed on Flickr and probably never will be. Including some people who are pretty important to me.

Mom, I think you’ll find that viewing my photos just got much more complicated. Instead of looking at picture pages with exactly three options (next photo, previous photo, return to the blog), you’ll now have dozens of things you can accidentally click on from every photo. So if you follow the links and end up looking at some soft-core porn that somebody else posted on Flickr, please remember to check whether the address says Mahugh.com before being annoyed with me, OK.

I’m planning to get my photos organized into sets and collections with lots of appropriate tags. But that will take a while, and for now you can either subscribe to the RSS feed at my photostream to see everything in the order I upload them, or check out my sets page periodically to see what’s new in a more organized and understandle presentation. And if you want to get a feel for the level of tagging I’m planning, check out my tags.

For me personally, this new approach should take less time overall, and that sounds good after a couple weeks of uploading photos from hotel/motel rooms. I won’t ever again create thumbnails manually (Flickr does that automatically), and I’ll never again generate a batch of HTML pages and upload them. The tradeoff is that it also splinters my photos into two locations online: Mahugh.com and Flickr. I may consolidate those over time, but I need to take a good look at Flickr’s APIs because I sure won’t do it manually. And I’ve set up a structure to include everything I post on Flickr in my backup stream, so at least I’ll still have 100% of my photos (and everything else) handled there as it always has been.

King's Cross Station

2010-03-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 07/23/2008:

I still haven’t made it more than a few blocks from my hotel, but I walked over to the nearby train station this evening and found I liked the inside much better than the outside.

Turning 50

2010-03-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 05/07/2008:

Hard to believe, really. A bunch of my friends have turned 50, and now I have too. In the last hour, actually: I was born in the evening, if I remember the story right, during uncle Irv’s 25th birthday party. (I’d check with my Mom, but she’s galavanting about in Turkey right now, as I’ll explain in my next post.)

The “years that end in 0 are more important” concept has never really registered with me, but wow. Half a century. That’s a lot. for example, check out the knees above: those knees have lived a long time. Doctors who said I should take better care of them have died of old age by now, I think.

To celebrate my 50th, I came home to an unbelievable dinner Megan prepared for me. And since I’m one of those middle-aged white American homeowner types now, I mowed the lawn. It’s what we do, and besides I’ve let it go for several weeks. Which makes it a good workout. I mean, even with that massive 16-inch mower, the side yard still requires three passes across the full 40 feet of it. When you add up the time it takes to get all the clippings into the yard waste container, it’s easy to kill 15 or 20 minutes mowing this lawn!

I’m a child of the Space Age, and so I noticed a few weeks ago when Vanguard 1 turned 50 years old. Now me. Prince comes just a month after me as usual (June 7), then Madonna and Michael Jackson in August. The cool guys turn 50 in the spring, as Prince and I like to say. And Jeff — he said it first. Scott and Caroline Kennedy, on the other hand, they think December’s the month.

Thank God I’m not a virgin. Although I am in a screw-the-internet mood this evening, and not handling any email on principle. Must be the scotch. Cheers.

Glasses

2010-03-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 05/04/2008:

Doctors have told me for decades that I’d wear glasses eventually, and they were right. But I made it 49 years without, thanks to clean living and a constant focus on taking excellent care of myself.

After getting my prescription this week (20/60 in one eye, 20/70 in the other), I ordered reading glasses, a pair of bifocals for day-to-day use, and a pair of prescription sunglasses. I picked up the reading glasses today (shown), and the other two pair will arrive next week.

Man, glasses are expensive. I had no idea.

Dad's Slides

2010-03-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 01/31/2008:

I installed my slide scanner for the first time on the “new” laptop I moved to at work last summer, and scanned a few of Dad’s slides. I think these are all from 1950 to 1952. I didn’t bother to clean these up or fix anything, I just wanted to scan a few to show Mom. The first picture is my Dad’s family: (back row) Don, Don’s wife Ruth, Dick (my Dad), Lorna, Irv, (front row) Vern, Arley & Mary (Grandpa & Grandma), and Lowell.

Dough!

2010-03-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 01/18/2008:

OK, this is something I’ve wanted to complain about many times. Today’s the day. Finally.

My rhetorical question is very simple: why the hell do so many people call me “Dough”?

Not out loud, mind you. Only once, in a Chicago courtroom long ago (don’t ask), can I recall somebody saying “dough” out loud. Dough Mao, actually, and I rather like the name; I can still hear that stern portly court clerk barking it out.

No, I’m talking about email, where people often address me as “Dough.” I just did a search, and at this very moment there are 46 such emails in my in-box. That’s quite a few, especially when you consider that I sometimes delete them without reading beyond the damn “h” when they start that way. (You think I’m non-responsive on email now, just try starting your emails with “Dough.”)

I thought at first it was an English-as-a-second-language thing, sort of like how everyone in France calls me Doog. (I like that, actually.) But there’s no pattern to this abuse. I have all kinds of people emailing “Dough,” from many countries, speakers of many languages, everyone from peons to upper management, including people with advanced degrees in everything under the sun. And it seems to be getting worse. I’ve even noticed people who had emailed me as “Doug” suddenly switch to “Dough,” as if somebody got to them and told them what to do. “It’s a little thing we like to do around here, keeps him humble you know.”

Microsoft takes a lot of pride in being an accepting, diverse, culturally sensitive place, so I sure hope this stuff only happens to us white males. Otherwise, we’re in big trouble the first time somebody not named Moohammed or Songjay files a lawsuit. Well, not “we” … I’ll take the other side and get even for this daily indignation, by golly. “Yes, your honor, it’s demeaning and makes me feel abused and worthless, but I just thought it was best to keep turning the other cheek. Maybe I’ve just brought this on myself by dressing like the Pillsbury Dougboy … I should probably stop wearing the chef’s hat.”

I better stop writing before I think of anything else that pisses me off this much. It’s time to delete 46 emails and call it a day.

The Fog of Redmond

2010-03-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 12/11/2007:

This morning was one of those mornings there’s a dense fog covering Redmond, behind the skyscrapers of Bellevue from where we live across the lake. It’s weird … the sky can be crystal-clear over the lake and over the mountains, while in Redmond it’s so foggy that people can’t see a damn thing.

Odd place, Redmond.

Snowed Out After Nine

2010-03-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 12/01/2007:

This morning, it looked like the Cascades were the place to be. The sun was shining on the mountains beyond Bellevue and Redmond, and Megan still hadn’t tried out her new irons from months ago. The solution seemed clear: we headed to Snoqualmie Ridge Golf Course in Fall City.

Oh well. Megan did get in a few great shots with the new clubs before the blizzard drove us to the comfort of the car.

For those who know the area, those last four photos are westbound I-90 (the Kennedy), northbound 148th, eastbound 8th, and southbound 148th.

A Slight Change In Plans

2010-03-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 10/31/2007:

I have a long history of really getting the most out of my knees. I tore them both up pretty good when I was young, and I have a nice 8-inch scar from the surgery that removed a big chunk of the meniscus from the right one.

I was just thinking recently how nice it is that I’ve not had any knee problems in years. Famous last words …

I walked out on some slippery rocks along the shore here in Phuket (Thailand) to get a picture of some colorful crabs two days ago, and fell hard in part because I was protecting my camera instead of my body. No big deal, I’m used to this, I can shake it off … I even went out and played a round of golf immediately afterward.

But after two days of increasing swelling and deteriorating attitude, I’ve given up. I can’t even walk this morning, so I’ve booked flights to head home. I won’t be going to India this trip after all, in the interest of getting my knee elevated at home ASAP. Although since flights are a mess for some reason this week, “ASAP” means fly to Bangkok this afternoon, spend the night there, then go to Narita (Tokyo), Portland, and Seattle.

For everyone’s amusement, here are a few photos …

Big Brother is Watching

2010-03-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 10/11/2007:

Man, I have all the luck. As faithful Doug’s World readers know, I got a pretty silly traffic ticket a few months ago. And now this: a ticket for running a red light, from a hidden camera monitoring the intersection of Rainier and Orcas.

OK, so I did in fact push the light a bit, because I was running late to meet my friend Eric for a beer. But still. This is America. And in the America I grew up in (cue the “Star Spangled Banner” here), if you knew for sure there were no cops around, you could run red lights all you wanted.

And more importantly, in that same mom-and-apple-pie America, when you got a ticket the process started with an opportunity to talk your way out of it. But how can you negotiate with a camera? One you don’t even know is there?

I love the corner of my Nine Inch Nails bumper sticker in the license-plate closeup. That’s probably the real reason they wrote me up. I should replace it — anybody know where to get an “I heart cops” bumper sticker? Maybe one in the shape of a fish or a badge or something?

Party Mode

2010-03-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 09/23/2007:

Xorge taught me this one years ago, and it’s still my favorite setting for snapshots after dark: “party mode.”

The basic concept is that you have a much longer exposure than the usual flash photo (1/60th second, typically), and that lets the background colors really come through. A subtle burst of flash lights up the foreground right at the end of the exposure, but the long shutter lets the low-light background come through much stronger than in the standard faster-shutter flash photo.

Here are two shots showing the difference, taken a few seconds apart with only one setthing change: “S” mode versus “P” mode. They’re both photos of the birdhouse on my Mom’s deck, with Puget Sound and the sun setting over the Olympic mountains to the west.

The photo on the left is in “P” mode (auto-everything), with the flash up, so it’s a 1/60 shutter speed. The photo on the right is in “S” mode (shutter-priority mode, meaning you set the shutter speed and the camera adjusts everything else to match), with a 1/5th second shutter speed. The flash is still up, so it lights up the foreground at the end of the 1/5 second, throwing less total light than in the 1/60th exposure because after that long 1/5h exposure the background has already contributed quite a bit of light to the overall exposure calculation.

As you can see, the longer exposure makes the background come out much more. And you can adjust this all you want — instead of going to 1/5th second, you can simply spin to 1/20th second, or whatever, and press the shutter again.

That’s “party mode.” I use this mode most of the time at parties, and it works great. I’m often surprised at the cool effects. One thing to know is to set “rear-curtain flash” (meaning that the flash fires at the end of the long shutter opening), so that the trailers of light end in the crisp flash-lit image, rather than starting there.

The combination of properly exposed background and flash-filled foreground can create photos with great balance between background and foreground. And if things are moving (the photographer or the subjects), the background can have long trails of light while the foreground is crisp and clear from that rear-curtain flash. I love this setting.

The Complete Polysyllabic Spree

2010-03-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 09/23/2007:

The pace of blogging around here has really slowed down lately. This is primarily due to the 24-hour nature of the day on this planet … after trying to get a bit of exercise (I have a new bike to ride, you know), maybe hitting a few golf balls (the season’s almost over and we haven’t begun!), doing some work (lots going on in Redmond these days, and I’m trying to catch up from so much time on the road), and other things that seem to come up every day, it’s hard to find the time to post anything.

But it looks like rain today, in which case maybe we won’t get to the golf course after all, so I might get a few things posted.

Oh, another thing that has interfered with blogging time lately: reading books. I’m usually an avid reader, but I’ve been so busy this year that I hadn’t read many books, and now in the last month I’ve started to make up for lost time.

I finished “Napoleon’s Egypt” yesterday, the inspiring story of an imperial power’s attempt to invade and conquer the Middle East and their discovery that slaughtering the brutal leadership of a country can lead to even more brutality instead of less; who knew? And I’m most of the way through several work-related books on XML topics (Philo Janus’s InfoPath book is pretty good), and tonight I hope to finish up Malcolm Gladwell’s entertaining “Blink,” which is a book about why the shallowest and simplest of salesmen tend to be better putters than highly educated scientists and engineers. (Well, Gladwell doesn’t actually mention putting, but I know what he’s really talking about, and will probably explain in tedious detail in this space before long.)

But the book I’d like to ramble on about today is Nick Hornby’s “The Complete Polysyllabic Spree.” I finished it the same day I started it, reading the whole damn thing (well, a trim 270 pages) on the flight across the Pacific last week. The last time I read a book in a day was also a flight over the Pacific Ocean: “Killing Pablo” between Sydney and Los Angeles. When they don’t have working electrical outlets in business class I read a book, because my Toshiba M4 laptop has 8 minutes of battery life these days — I’ve timed it — so it’s not even worth booting up without an outlet handy.

I bought “Spree” in Kinokuniya Books at the Petronas Towers shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur. I can’t really explain why. I think it was the garish cover. And the sub-title, I guess: “the diary of an occasionally exasperated but ever hopeful reader.” I was wandering around the bookstore, checking out the cute cashier and stern security guard, and after passing the religion section and noting that Christianity was up front but the Islam section was much larger, I came upon a few “best-sellers” and there it was. Sold.

Nick Hornby wrote a column for Believer magazine called “Polysyllabic Spree,” and this book is a collection of two years of those columns. Each column starts with a list of books purchased that month, and books read that month (usually a bit of overlap between the two lists), and then offers some rambling, disjointed, often outrageous thoughts about the buying and reading involved. To call these “book reviews” would be a bit of a stretch; they’re no more book reviews than, say, the things construction workers say to one another when a nicely dressed woman walks past are “fashion reviews.”

Hornby is a real writer, who has written novels and reads the classics. So the first chapter’s list of books bought, full of Salingers and poem collections and so on, scared me a bit. I wondered if I’d have the patience to actually finish the thing, but I took heart in seeing Joseph Heller’s “Something Happened” on the list, a book I’ve purchased myself, although I misplaced it after reading a couple chapters and have never missed it. But the Salinger … I tried to read “Franny and Zoey” many years ago (and even claimed to have finished it, because that seemed to be important to somebody I wanted to impress at the time), but I sure didn’t get it.
But the good news is, this book isn’t about literature. It’s about reading. For example, here’s the paragraph that starts the second chapter/column:

If you write books — or a certain kind of book, anyway — you can’t resist a scan around the hotel swimming pool when you go on holiday. you just can’t help yourself, despite the odds: you need to know, straight off, whether anyone is reading one of yours. You imagine spending your days under a parasol watching, transfixed and humbled, as a beautiful and intelligent young man or woman, almost certainly a future best friend, maybe even spouse, weeps and guffaws through three hundred pages of your brilliant prose, too absorbed even to go for a swim, or take a sip of Evian. I was cured of this particular fantasy a couple of years ago, when I spent a week watching a woman on the other side of the pool reading my first novel, High Fidelity. Unfortunately, however, I was on holiday with my sister and brother-in-law, and my brother-in-law provided a gleeful and frankly unfraternal running commentary. ‘Look!. Her lips are moving.’ ‘Ha! She’s fallen asleep! Again!’ ‘I talked to her in the bar last night. Not a bright woman, I’m afraid.’ And at one point, alarmingly, she dropped the book and ran off. ‘She’s gone to put out her eyes!’ my brother-in-law yelled triumphantly. I was glad when she’s finished it and moved on to Harry Potter or Dr. Seuss or whatever else it was she’d packed.

Hornby takes us through dozens of books and the experience of reading them, often latching on to a little detail like that and writing about it instead of the plot or the characters of the books themselves. For example, in Woodward’s “Bush at War” (yes, he does cover a bit of non-fiction), the author found it disturbing to read of the President being “woken up by the Secret Service at 11:08PM” on 9/11. ‘If it had been me, I would have been up until about six, drinking and smoking and watching TV, and I would have been useless the next day.’ Nick Hornby for President, I say!

Oh, he can’t be President because he’s British. As he constantly reminds us. In fact, I think nobody in his own country reads him at all, because he always assumes the reader is American. For example, right after saying “it would be great to be you, sometimes” he goes into a rant about how Americans like to read Johnathan Livington Seagull’s message of “don’t abandon your dreams,” but contemporary British culture is based on the “more truthful” motto “ABANDON YOUR DREAMS.” The word “you” means “you stupid Americans,” everywhere it is used in this book.

Other recurring themes include the comic relief provided by autistic kids (he has one himself, so he should know), religion (not a reverent perspective, as you might imagine), soccer (much reverence here, though), and biographies of famous people (ranging from Dickens and other literary bigshots to Nikki Sixx, whose tale of “naked groupies, endless combinations of class-A drugs, and booze” Hornby finds to be “weirdly, not a bad book”).

Having lived in Spokane for a few years, I especially enjoyed his comments about “Citizen Vince” by Jess Walter, including an excerpt that starts like this:

Eighty-seven bars in greater Spokane, serving three hundred thousand people. One taxicab company: eight cabs. So on a Tuesday morning just past two a.m., last call, the economics are clear: more drunks than the market can bear. They leach out onto the sidewalks and stagger and yawn into their cars — those who own them and remember where they’re parked. The rest walk from downtown to the neighborhoods, scattering in all directions across bridges, through underpasses, beneath trestles, up hills to dark residential streets, solitary figures beneath thought bubbles of warm breath and cigarette smoke. Rehearsed lies.

Megan and I are familar with that long drunken walk up the South Hill to which the author alludes, and all the other details of this passage ring true as well. Maybe it’s not true that Spokane only has one cab company (I recall having two cab companies’ numbers in my wallet, actually), but it’s entirely believable that Spokane would, and that’s really the charm of Spokane: there’s nothing so base or crass that one couldn’t imagine it happening there. So when Walters’s book comes across a late-night argument in a gravel parking lot between a john and hooker who ask a passer-by his opinion on whether it’s possible to deliver exactly half a blow job, and the passer-by helps calm the hooker down and sends her on her way, then tries to sell the john a bag of pot, that sounds like Spokane, too.

Enough rambling. Read the book. I think you’ll like it.

Of course, first you have to buy it. And that’s a bit tricky, if you’re not in Malaysia at the moment. It seems that Amazon.com only has an older version which was published before this one. I guess that’s why it says “THE COMPLETE” on it, because mine contains a bunch of material written after that version was published in 2004. There’s a “complete” version on Amazon UK here, although the cover’s different from mine, and the ISBN is different too so I’m not sure that’s the same content. Although it might be better, who knows.

OK, I finally found where to buy the version I have, from a UK bookseller. Here’s the link. Enjoy!

Back in Taipei

2010-03-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 09/13/2007:

Hey, I’m in the Taipei airport when lots of other people are here, in the evening. Makes the place downright cosy.

I left Malaysia this afternoon, and wrote this post on the plane somewhere off the coast of Vietnam. I’ll upload it from here, and then it’s on to San Francisco, where I’ll arrive just 4 hours after I left Malaysia, due to the phenomenon known as the International Date Line. (Actual elapsed time will be 19 hours.)

Malaysia is a beautiful and friendly country. Well, I’m sure I could find somebody there who would beat me up or worse if I really tried, but everyone I dealt with was great. The counter people at the airport and hotel were my favorites anywhere I’ve been: smart, friendly, hard-working, and all speaking better English than I usually bother to. And the flight crews on Malaysia Airlines are consistently great, too.

The picture above was taken yesterday morning when I took a long walk near my hotel. It was great having the Microsoft office and convention center within a block of the hotel, and also the 50-acre park right next door. The picture to the right, from my walk back to the hotel last night after the TechEd speaker/MVP party, shows how close it all was.

Speaking of the party … it was at Bosso Nova, and they served churrascaria, the swashbuckling style of tableside sliced-meat dining that’s popular in Brazil. After dinner we had a surprise: drinking games, pitting randomly selected teams against each other. Well, not entirely random — they had a rule that no team could contain more than two Germans or two Australians. As a proud American, I took offense at that rule, of course. I focused my indignation enough to briefly return to 20-something form, but our team (three Americans, a Sikh and a Malaysian) lost in a playoff to a team that just seemed to want it more than we did.

In the puritanical United States, I’ve never heard of organized drinking competitions at a company-sponsored event, unless the company was a bar. So when I headed for the door at the end of the evening, I teased a few of my Malaysian colleagues and told them “in the US we’re taught that Muslims are ascetic and have no vices.” They responded by making me join them for yet another round of drinks. Thanks, Fai, that’s just what I needed.

Anyway, here are the pictures that explain why this morning I slept a little later than usual (or at least tried to):

Shiver Me Timbers

2010-03-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 06/27/2007:

I’ve always wanted to see one of the infamous bootleg software markets in India that I’ve heard so much about, but every time I’m there I either run out of time or don’t know where to go. Today, thanks to a brief reunion with two friends I’ve not seen for a while, I got my chance. Pali and Tarun remembered that I wanted to see something like this from a conversation in Bangalore last year and made it happen. Thanks, guys!

Delhi’s biggest and boldest pirated software marketplace is Nehru Place. It’s in a busy part of town, out in plain view and not hidden in any way. You can find everything for sale from motherboards and memory and other hardware items, to software (name it, you can buy it), to services ranging from hardware repair to refilling printer cartridges. Most of the technology products are on the 1st floor, in stalls along a walkway above the courtyard.

The software vendors have photocopied lists of products in alphabetical order, and you can purchase a collection of items from the list, or a single product if it’s especially large or popular. Vista or Office were advertised many places, but I get those for free at work so I wasn’t tempted. Xbox games seem to be hot items as well.

There are two packaging options, depending on whether you need a counterfeit package in addition to the bootleg software. (For resale, for instance. :-))

If you just want the software, you get a disk in a CD sleeve, with the product name written on the disk in a permanent marker. The other option is packaging that is a clone of the original retail package, with full-color copies of the original artwork glued to the box. These are very realistically done, right down to the certificate of authenticity that appears on Microsoft products.

Quality control isn’t what it could be on the simple unpackaged disks, but for these prices what do you expect? For example, I bought a disk full of Lotus products, or so I thought, but when I looked at the disk in my laptop I found it included a “Loan Spread Calculator” as the first program, and the last program listed in the readme file, Lotus SmartSuite Millennium Edition Release 9.8, wasn’t included. So apparently somebody was copying products to disks alphabetically and made a mistake on where the Lotus entries started and ended.

The price is usually about 100 rupees (a little over $2), although it seems to vary based on popularity of the specific software included. I paid 300 rupees for Adobe CS3, 200 rupees for a bunch of handy graphics utilities, and 50 rupees for the Lotus collection shown above. I could have purchased CS3 from a different vendor for 100 rupees, but he needed 20 minutes to burn the DVD. A classic case of just-in-time inventory creating savings that are passed on to the consumer, but I paid triple the price (about $8) to avoid waiting.

I was told that most of the software comes from Singapore. There are occasional raids by the police, but things get back to normal pretty quickly afterward. Sounds to me like the war on software piracy is about as effective as the war on terrorism and the war on drugs. Cocaine has never been cheaper or more plentiful in the US, suicide bombings have never been so common in the Middle East, and in India a disk containing ready-to-install copies of all the products to the right costs less than the price of lunch at the nearby Subway, Sbarro, or Starbucks.

As we wandered past the various shops I found myself remembering that book “Off the Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls, and Ganja.” Its author, Amit Gilboa, paid for a child prostitute to collect material for his book. This earned a predictable reaction from most quarters (Amazon banned the book for a while), but the author insisted it was “investigative journalism” since he didn’t actually have sex with her.

I have a similar rationalization regarding the three disks I bought. Sure, I helped support the software piracy economy with my transaction, but these disks are just souvenirs as long as I don’t follow these simple and enthusiastic instructions …

Joys Of Bureaucracy

2010-03-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 05/21/2007:

I had a wonderfully bureaucratic morning …

7:30AM: I stopped at an ATM to get some cash, and the receipt said “Card retained. Contact your financial institution.” After a few phone calls and a couple of escalations, I discovered that my recent purchasing habits have been suspicious (hey, who doesn’t do the Kiev-Beijing-Seattle-Chile-Colombia restaurant/bar tour occasionally?), and it set off my bank’s automated fraud detector. A new debit card will arrive in 48 hours, just in time for the next trip, and I get to pay $50 for the privilege.

7:40AM: I turned right (north) on 3rd Avenue downtown, meaning to go around the block to park on 2nd. Hmm, “no right turn 6-9AM.” So I went another block; same sign. And block after block had these silly signs. Finally, as I approached Virginia, it looked like I’d be able to turn left soon … but a traffic cop stepped out in the street and motioned me to the curb. And he then started writing me a ticket for driving more than one block on 3rd during rush hour, a privilege restricted to buses during that time.

While I watched him scribble away, I looked around to see the sign I had missed. Nothing. So I hopped out to walk over and politely ask him to show me the sign. RED ALERT! There were a bunch of other cops nearby that I hadn’t seen, and they all started screaming as if I was going to kill this guy. Soon I was discussing with three cops the question of whether this silly little law is well-marked on the signs. Let’s just say we disagreed. Then, as a sign of appreciation for my thoughtful questions, they wanted to see my registration, my insurance card, my last emmissions inspection, the usual BS. I noticed that the insurance card was expired, so when I handed them all the paperwork I said “take your time, guys, I’ve got all day” … and then they rushed through it and didn’t notice it was expired, he he he. Showed them! (Tip for dealing with traffic cops: they’re like kids, you should always insist they do the opposite of what you really want, and their natural uncooperativeness will usually make them comply with your wishes.)

8:00AM: after all that bureacracy, it was nice to finally arrive at the federal building (915 2nd Ave), where I went through the metal detectors and on up to the 9th floor passport office, with its huge photos of Dick, George, and Condi on the wall. After filling out the wrong form and then the right form (it’s “additional visa pages,” not an “extension,” idiot!), I finally had a nice bureaucratic experience. Charles Drake was a sweetheart: polite, efficient, respectful, cooperative … how he got a job in the State Department I’ll never know. Seriously, if you ever go to that office, wait for the big white guy with the beard.

Anyway, courtesy of Charles, here’s my tip for those of you who fill up your passports and need more visa pages: have them do a “double.” Seriously … it costs no more, takes the same amount of time, and you can get twice as many additional visa pages just for asking. Just say “Supersize Me, America!”

I’m due to pick up my new much-fatter passport tomorrow. What could go wrong now?

Guillermo's Guided Tour

2010-03-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 05/13/2007:

When a taxi playing loud dance music screeches to a halt in front of your hotel at 11:00PM on a Saturday night in Mexico City and Guillermo hops out … well, you know the rest. The name of the place was Butterflies, or El Butter, and it’s in the old central part of town. We were there early (i.e., before midnight), so we got a table. We started with a bottle of rum, the last drop of which disappeared some time between the midnight and 3:00 shows. (They have shows at 12, 3 and 5, and close at 7AM.)

I didn’t know what to expect, and I was a bit worried we might not fit in. Ha! Everyone was so cool, and we felt very welcome. I wish this place was in Seattle, we’d go all the time.
WARNING: these photos are bit different from the usual Doug’s World fare, in that they include partial nudity, sexual ambiguity, and hundreds of Mexicans having a good time. If any of that offends you, please don’t click here.

Megan, Can You Undo This?

2010-03-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 5/5/2007:

I sure hope so.

Mauricio and I had dinner at the restaurant here at our hotel in Santiago, and we got to talking about Second Life. I offered to show him how it works, which of course I barely know since my wife handles all the heavy lifting in SL.

I stumbled around our house a bit, then showed him a few other places, and then I decided to buy something to leave in the house to surprise Megan. So I bought a Roland keyboard similar to the one we have at home, and put it in the corner of the living room.

But it was a bit too close to the wall, and the seat stuck through the wall. So I moved it toward the middle of the room, but there was a remnant of the seat sticking out of the wall. I thought it was a copy, so I tried to delete it. I got a message about deleting multiple items, and I thought “well, the keyboard and the seat are multiple items, that makes sense,” and I said to go ahead.

And the entire house immediately disappeared. All of the furnishings Megan had so carefully set up are still there, but the house itself is gone. And based on what I’ve read, I think it’s not undo-able.

Here’s a picture of Orcmid commiserating with me in the new open-air living room a few minutes later …

Another Perspective

2010-03-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 04/19/2007:

On the flight from Seoul to Seattle last Sunday, I sat next to a person who seemed a little different from the usual people I find myself next to on these flights. It’s usually a fellow Microsoft employee on the trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific business-class flights. But when I asked this guy what he did for a living, he said “oh, I’m basically a tent salesman.”

After a while it became clear that was a self-deprecating way of avoiding the kind of pestering questions that people would ask if they knew what he really did for a living. He works for a major supplier of hi-tech equipment to military markets, after a 20-year career as a sergeant in the Army paratrooper ranks. (The 82nd Airborne division.) I won’t say his name or the company name — let’s call him “Joe” — but he was gracious enough to talk to me at length about many aspects of the military and his view of events in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Joe’s view of Iraq and Afghanistan was different from that of other people I’ve talked to, because he has been there, several times in each place, as a soldier. So when we talked about the Green Zone, which is just an abstract concept to me, to him we were talking about a specific place with specific buildings and entrances and so on. When we talked about the caves of Afghanistan where Osama Bin Laden slipped away from US forces, Joe showed me photos he had taken of caves in that area. When we talked about Gunatanamo, he showed me pictures of him guarding captured and handcuffed Afghanis who are now in Guantanamo. To Joe, all of these things were tangible and real, not just stuff you read about in the paper.

He is also a pretty well-connected person. As one of several examples, when I asked him what he thought of General Petraeus, who is now in charge in Iraq, Joe said “I’ve known Dave a long time, and he’s a great guy, but there’s no one person who can clean that up.”

Here are a few of the things he talked about that I found most interesting …

How the US will get out of Iraq. He said he feels there’s no way to avoid a disgraceful withdrawal that looks like a defeat, other than staying there for decades to build the kinds of relationships it would take to “win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.” But that’s not a politically viable option, so the only question now is when we leave. His theory: Bush will succeed in avoiding dealing with it, but the next president will withdraw remaining US forces as soon as he or she is in office, because they will have been elected in part on their promise to do so.

Why we don’t have Osama Bin Laden. When Osama and his buddies were trapped in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan, he felt there should have been a low-tech operation involving large numbers of troops to scour that valley and find him. Instead, a reliance on high-tech options (”and Rumsfeld’s general disdain for the army”) led to a needlessly clever strategy that didn’t get the job done.
What went wrong in Iraq. I was very pleased to hear a military guy talk about the tragedy of the looting of the museums right after the occupation, since I’ve read things that make it clear some in the military didn’t think that was any big deal. Joe thought there were two big mistakes: not enough boots on the ground right after the occupation, and disbanding the Iraqi army. Of the two, he said the former is the worst mistake, because it could easily have been avoided “if somebody other than Rumsfeld were calling the shots — he was always trying to replace soldiers with technology, and that’s more about theory than reality.” Disbanding the Iraqi army, he said, was a mistake in hindsight but it made sense at the time. “We did that because of bad intel — same reason we went to Iraq in the first place.”

Why he carries a 50-year old rifle. In all the pictures Joe showed me, he’s carrying an M14 from the 1950’s, instead of the newer M16 models. The older rifle has a much larger and slower bullet, “which is much more effective against those guys who are all hopped up on kat over there, the smaller slug doesn’t really stop them unless you get a well-centered hit.” When Joe was in Afghanistan, he managed to get approval for an M14 to be included in each unit, and he felt those guns saved lives. “That’s a detail I’m pretty proud of, getting those older rifles deployed.”

The most important technology in the military today: GPS. “Friendly fire has always been a huge issue, and these days you can realistically know the relative positions of yourself and all your buddies. That saves a lot of lives.”

Another exciting mission: Panama. Joe was a jump leader on one of the first planes into Panama’s airport when Operation Just Cause was launched to take out Noriega. He told of the ping-ping-ping of bullets hitting the fuselage, and sticking his head out the door to check their position before telling his crew to jump. “The pilot puts on the green light, of course, but when you’re taking fire the younger pilots sometimes just hit the light because they’re freaking out, so you gotta look out and make sure we’re really over the drop zone, make sure there’s no planes behind and below us, stuff like that, before telling your guys to jump. Basic common-sense stuff, really.”

Blackwater and contractors. Joe told me that the story of what happened to those four Blackwater employees in Fallujah wasn’t publicized and the public story leaves out the most important fact: that some uppity young Marines had disarmed them shortly before they were ambushed. I told him I’d read Scahill’s “Blackwater” book, and it sounded like corporate profit motives had led to bad decisions there. “No way,” Joe said, “Blackwater doesn’t cut corners like that, or guys like me wouldn’t go to work for them.” He said Blackwater and others have offered him jobs many times.

Who do you respect? I asked Joe which countries have military that he respected the most. He said every country has winners and losers, “but in general the paratrooper units and special forces are top-notch pros in every country. Those guys are always good, no exceptions.”

The future of the US military. Joe was bummed about what Iraq will do to the military long-term. “Colin Powell was right about one thing, the army is broken. We have a whole generation of NCOs who are going to leave and not come back, and they’ll tell their sons not to sign up too. So we now have 19% non-high-school grads coming in, the highest since Vietnam, and those less capable guys will be the leaders in 10 years. So after we get out of this mess, and it’s time to rebuild and remotivate the army, we’ll have the weakest leaders we’ve ever had, so I can’t get real optimistic about how they’ll handle all the tough decisions that will need to be made.”

A heart-warming CIA story. Joe showed me a picture of himself next to a box full of bundles of opium that they had found in a sweep of a village. “We found that stuff, and they said that the guy who owned it is gone to Pakistan — they always say that when we find drugs or weapons, the owner is always gone to Pakistan.” The CIA told Joe and his team that they had to give the opium back to the village, because it would be a financial disaster for the whole village if they took it away, and that would just make more enemies in the area. Now, Joe was disappointed in that decision, but I really liked hearing about it. It’s nice to know we have people there who are thinking that way, in my opinion.

Getting married on the run. Joe got married a few years ago, in a country I won’t mention. “I had been whacking a lot of Muslim bad boys from their country, so I was a bit worried about whether anyone would recognize me. So we just stayed at a different place every night. Most people won’t actually track you down if you do that — they see you, think maybe they should do something, but if you’re not there the next day they forget about it.” I told Joe that the week of my wedding had a different tone to it.

After a few hours of these sorts of conversations, we fired up Office 2007 and Joe asked me some questions about it. We swapped business cards, and agreed to stay in touch. It’s nice to have a friend like Joe — I don’t run into many guys like that.

As we arrived at Sea-Tac, we were among the first few passengers to walk off the plane. At the end of the offramp, there were two uniformed security guards yelling “passports out, be ready to show your passport photo” and they were quickly checking every passport that went past. I commented that I’ve never seen that before, and Joe said matter-of-factly “they’re looking for somebody specific, somebody they have reason to believe will arrive at Sea-Tac today.”

Same As It Ever Was

2010-03-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 04/15/2007:

Hanging out in SL isn’t much different from hanging out in RL, really.

Revolution: Nyet

2010-03-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 04/06/2007:

The protests in front of the capital weren’t quite what I expected. The photo above is the one and only time anybody raised their voice or showed any passion or excitement.
The guy on the right — who was obviously drunk — was yelling to the crowd, giving what appeared to be a fire-and-brimstone sort of speech, and whenever he paused the little guy in the hat with the thick glasses and orthopedic shoes would yell “nyet!” and stamp his foot. Then the guy giving the speech stamped his foot back and laughed, and suddenly the two of them were dancing while the crowd broke into laughter. After that moment of excitement, everybody went back to drinking, text messaging, and playing kick-the-bottle-cap.
The protestors had tents pitched right on the square in front of the capital, with big tent stakes pounded into the gaps between the stone tiles. That was sort of cool. But seriously, it was just a bunch of guys sitting around drinking and waving flags. The bar I slipped into when the rain really started coming down was scarier than the revolution, and that’s not saying much. What does a guy have to do to get in trouble around here?
It was rainy and cloudy, so I didn’t get any spectacular pictures, but tomorrow’s another day, for both the pictures and the trouble. Maybe I’ll try to get out to Chernobyl — how far is that, Dennis?

You Say You Want a Revolution

2010-03-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 04/06/2007:

My work in Kiev is done. Sure, I could spend the next 12 hours on email no problem, but I won’t. Just as I decided I needed a few hours of photo safari in Prague, and again in Munich, so too today it’s time to get out of the hotel and see the world. And the world I’ll see today is central Kiev.
I delivered a 3-hour “CIO workshop” this morning to a bunch of executives, government officials, and press. It was cool: they had the event right here in my hotel, so I just had to take the elevator down to the first floor. I slowed way down, compared to yesterday’s 9-hour session across town, and the translators were actually smiling when we finished, unlike yesterday when they threatened to walk out if I didn’t slow down. I’m learning, guys.

Then I had lunch at the hotel restaurant, my first meal in the Ukraine outside my hotel room or a meeting room. I sat there looking at the menu, and hearing Paul McCartney sing “Get Back” made me think of how there are only two pop-culture references to Kiev or the Ukraine that we Americans know: the line from “Back in the USSR” about “the Ukraine girls really knock me out,” and Chicken Kiev. (Is there a third? I can’t think of one.) So I ordered the Chicken Kiev.

And I was so glad that I did. It was spectacular! Seriously, I wished I had brought my camera to lunch. Colorful steamed vegetables, juicy breaded chicken, creamy mashed potatoes, a sauce to die for, and interesting garnish of green onions. Oh, and red wine by the glass so good I suddenly realized I had had three.

And, then after “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” (Beatles greatest-hits album?), suddenly there it was, the opening riff of the white album “flew in from Miami Beach BOAC” … I found myself listening to “Back in the USSR” while eating Chicken Kiev, in Kiev. The busgirl with the huge painted-on eyebrows didn’t seem to understand why I gave her that knowing smile during the signature line, but I was enjoying it so much I just didn’t care.

Anyway, I’m headed out to take pictures for a few hours, and I’m ignoring all the advice I’ve received. Valeriy, Kateryna, Oksana, I know you all meant well, but you must understand: when I hear “don’t go near the capital, the demonstrations Friday afternoon could be dangerous for a tourist,” that just seals my fate. Orange Revolution II, here I come!

Watch CNN tonight, Megan. I’m the one in all black with a shaved head. If the protests are anything like the meetings I’ve attended, I’ll also be the only man present who isn’t wearing a leather jacket.

“Let me hear your balalaika’s ringing out …”

Greetings from Greenland

2010-03-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 03/24/2007:

That’s right, I’m fleeing Redmond again. Frankly, after the kind of hours I’ve put in the last few days, anywhere else sounds like a break.
I’ve pre-posted these maps from Kazakhstan in January and Fiji in February, now it’s March and I’m enjoying springtime 35,000 feet above Greenland.

I’m on the way to Prague to deliver an Open XML workshop. After two days in Prague I’ll be in Belgium for a couple of days, and then on to Slovenia. So I have a week to learn how to pronounce Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia, where I’ll be doing a workshop Friday) … wish me luck.

Second Life

2010-03-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

03/22/2007:

Well, we’ve taken the plunge: we bought a house in Second Life. Nothing fancy, and Megan has prettied it up a bit since we were snuggling in the beanbag chair above. But we have a home base to operate from. And I’m going to spend some time next week learning how to make clothing, so that I can pass out a bunch of orange Open XML t-shirts to all those people on the nude beaches who can’t seem to afford quality clothing. I want to help, in whatever way I can — Second Life is like that, it makes you want to reach out to strangers.

We played Word of Warcraft a bit over the weekend, but it requires a ton of disk space to install the client software, and my laptop is full of other stuff so I had to delete it. Besides, we just weren’t as cute in that world as we are in SL:

Plata o Plomo

2010-03-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 02/24/2007:

A few years ago, I read Mark Bowden’s “Blackhawk Down,” the story of the disastrous incident in Somalia in 1993 that effectively ended American military operations there. (Tom pointed out to me that Amazon has cleaned up the entry for Jimmy Carter’s latest book, so I guess I’ll start linking to them for books again.)

I thought “Blackhawk Down” was great (and from the Pulitzer Prize that Bowden received for coverage of that incident I guess I’m not the only one), so when I was looking around at the Sydney airport yesterday for reading material for the SYD-LAX flight and saw another book by him, “Killing Pablo,” I bought it. I figured I’d just start it on the flight, but I liked it so much I wound up reading it straight through.

It’s the story of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian druglord whose name is generally associated with the Medellin cartel. Most of the book, as the title implies, is the tale of the hunt for him and how he was eventually found and killed, covering events that took place between 1990 — when Escobar was the 7th-wealthiest person in the world, right up there with Bill Gates and the Sultan of Brunei — and his death on December 2, 1993.

The sheer magnitude of Escobar’s criminal success is something I hadn’t appreciated. As he did in “Blackhawk Down,” Bowden makes only passing references to the gory details (only a few sentences in the entire book mention Escobar’s legendary sadistic cruelty, for instance) but masterfully conveys the personalities and interactions of all the characters involved: ruthless bad guys, naive fools, corrupt cops, military hardasses, fathers and sons, husbands and wives, and many others.

The tale of Escobar’s final years builds like carefully crafted fiction. First he amasses this amazing criminal empire, while conning a large percentage of the Colombian public into believing he’s an idealistic socialist revolutionary like Che or Fidel when really he’s just a self-centered thug with a knack for manipulating the media. Then, after his true nature is exposed in a way that instantly kills his political ambitions, he starts a campaign of terror that eventually brings all of Colombia to its knees. The daily killings leave leaders of business and government literally begging for him to stop, willing to cut any deal he’s willing to accept.

So he “surrenders” — on terms he defines — and checks himself into a jail of his own design, where he lives like a king until a bizarre escape. That’s when the intense manhunt begins, and the Colombian and American governments are eager to find and kill him because everyone knows there will never be justice for him if he’s captured alive. His violent tactics flare back up, and soon there’s a nationwide vigilante backlash. After a while an average of 20 people a day are dying violent deaths in Colombia’s big cities, for many months in a row, all related to the hunt for Pablo.

For those who don’t remember the punch line, I’ll give away the ending: the authorities find him and kill him. By that time he has gone from wealthy mafioso-style kingpin to a hunted animal hiding in the city, and Colombians of all types are so tired of his antics that the government, the citizens, and competing criminals are all trying to bring him down, each in their own way.

I just noticed the reviews on Amazon for this book, after writing my thoughts above. Very entertaining. A Colombian nitpicks a bunch of little details in a way that reminded me of Escobar’s lawyers constantly debating the syntactical details of laws while ignoring their obvious intent. An American reviewer sadly observes that it may be “overly optomistic” to think that this book “might help America rethink its drug startegy.” And another reviewer complains “while this will definitely whet your appetite for knowing about Escobar, at the end of the book you would not know much more than what was done to kill him.” (Gee whiz, and to add insult to injury Bowden had the nerve to entitle the book “Killing Pablo.”)

Speaking of titles, the title of this post is an expression that means “silver or lead,” and was widely used in Colombia to describe Escobar’s style of doing business. For example, he would offer a judge the silver (a bribe) and if the judge didn’t immediately accept it he’d get the lead (a bullet).

Man, there were sure a lot of bad guys named Guillermo in this book. What’s that all about?

Cold Beer

2010-03-19T11:27:00.001-07:00

Originally posted on 02/20/2007:

On The Road Again

2010-03-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 02/17/2007:

G’day from Fiji air space! By my calculations, as of 9:30AM Saturday morning (Seattle time) when this post appears, I should be passing over Fiji as shown here:

That’s right maties, it’s fair dinkum that I’m headed for Sydney. I’ve flattened my on-the-bung laptop recently, so it’s in good nick and ready for a bunch of presentations to all the blokes and chicks I’ll be meeting with down under.

Can’t wait to sample the Vegemite sandwiches and cleanskin wine. And I hear the sheilas tend to not wear swimsuits. Hmm.

Delhi Pictures

2010-03-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 02/04/2007:

I got out and took a few pictures yesterday afternoon. Click on my friend’s face to the right to browse through them.

And speaking of my friend Mr. Singh (yeah, I know all Sikhs are named Singh, but he didn’t tell me any more than that and I didn’t push) … I really must vent a bit about what it’s like to be a tourist in India. For those of you who were on the email list during my trip to India in 1999, this will sound familiar. Sorry, it’s still true.

Meals at the Hotel

First, about the meals at the hotel. Consider room service. If you order up room service, they bring delicious food promptly. Great. But it comes with a young man in a suit who wants to serve it to you. And you have to push fairly hard to make him leave. He wheels in the cart, folds it open, pulls out the food from the insulated container under the tabletop, sets up silverware and little folded napkins and piles of plates (an amazing number of pieces of china for one person’s meal), and so on. Then he tries to get you to sit down so he can serve it to you. Then you tell him you’re busy, you don’t want to do that, he offers to cut up your food, no to that, he offers to pour your coffee or water, no to that … you get the idea. And it’s all I can do to not scream “LOOK AT ME, DO I LOOK LIKE I NEED HELP FEEDING MYSELF? I’VE EATEN THOUSANDS OF MEALS WITHOUT YOU LORDING OVER ME, AND I’M GOING TO EAT THIS ONE WITHOUT YOUR HELP, TOO!” But I control myself, and smile while saying “I’m quite busy today and would prefer you leave the food for me to eat at my convenience, please. Thank you!”

Then he wants to know when to come back to get the dishes. You’re not supposed to put them in the hall — no, that would be “inconvenient” for you to have to do that yourself. So you give him a time to come back (”give me an hour, OK?”) and then when the time comes some girl from the front desk calls to ask if it’s OK for him to come get the dishes. Of course, you don’t know that’s why she’s calling, because she starts the call like every call from the front desk (say, the one where they told me they were raising the room rate because apparently I hadn’t complained enough about the previous rate), with “excuse me, Mr. Moo, but I want to be sure that I’m not disturbing you right now and that this is a good time to call you, and I hope you’re enjoying your stay and will tell us of anything at all we can do to make your stay more comfortable, and …” … and the first few times I went through that routine, I politely went along for the ride, but the last time I just barked “PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT” at her. Sorry. I’m a jerk. And even then, she offered to call back and re-interrupt me some other time when I’d have more time to listen to how much she hoped I was enjoying my stay, but I decided to bite the bullet and had her send the suit for the dishes, and he was promptly there and offered to help me understand the channels on my TV, which I’ve not turned on yet after five days in this room, and I said “no thanks” and he asked if there was anything else I would like and hoped I was enjoying my stay and please let us know how we can help and so on. And I gave him 100 rupees and was extra-nice because I felt bad about yelling at the girl who called.

Man, that was sure a lot more convenient than pushing the dishes out into the hall like I do at the Holiday Inn back home.

So yesterday afternoon, an hour before meeting Mr. Singh, I decided to go eat in the restaurant. They have a buffet, so it should be a peaceful way to have a meal, right? And it started out that way. I walked through the buffet and grabbed a dozen different delicacies, everything from lentils and roti to fresh rambutan, coliander soup, and cottage cheese pancake. Good stuff.

But back at my seat at a table, the convenience of my dining experience was just beginning. I had one guy come by and offer tea or coffee, and he wanted to bring me juice as well, so badly that I relented and said “orange juice.” Then, while he was carefully pouring my tiny cup of coffee (for frequent and convenient refills, no doubt), another guy brought me a bottle of mineral water, and I said sure, and then another guy brought a basket of bread — the very same bread I had just walked past in the buffet line, mind you — and there were eight hands on my table, including my own. And I told the bread guy, while he was presenting the plate of butter with a flourish, “I’m not going to eat that, so it really seems a shame for it to go to waste,” and he grabbed up the bread and butter and scurried away like I had hit him or something. And later, just to be a jerk, I grabbed the bottle of mineral water and poured some myself, while the water man rushed to my table and explained that he’d be happy to pour my water at any time, and he too, like everyone here, hoped I was enjoying my stay.

And so it went, and when I left I was in such a hurry to get out of there and back to my usual inconvenient routine that I forgot to sign the check, but a suit chased me down at the elevator and had me sign it on a convenient little tray, and I felt bad so I gave him 100 rupees too.

Taking a Walk

Then I decided to go out for a walk. Now, I had no delusions about this. I knew that as soon as my big white head appeared on the street, I’d have a rikshaw or two shadowing me. (Remember when we tried to take walks in 1999, Mom?) But I was determined to simply walk around a bit, take some pictures at India Gate, maybe head over to the capitol building or down to Lodhi Gardens. I put on my boots, put the camera and lenses in my backpack, and strode briskly down the driveway of the Taj Mahal Hotel to Shah Jahan Road.

There was Mr. Singh, across the street, and he yelled as if he just noticed a long-lost friend. By the time I had gone 20 feet up the deserted sidewalk, he was puttering along beside me, imploring me to get in his rikshaw (or tuktuk as they often call it). But I smiled — feeling bad about how I had behaved earlier in the day, I was polite to Mr. Singh the entire two hours I spent with him — and said no, I just wanted to walk. But walk as I did, he just followed along beside me, glad to have a prospect to work on.

“No need to walk, I wil drive you to many places. You can ride in comfort!”

I explained that I needed some exercise and rubbed my stomach with a smile. He rubbed his rotund tummy and laughed, “I am needing exercise too, I am like you so come ride with me!”

I stuck to my plan, but as we talked and headed north up Man Singh Road, I heard footsteps rapidly approaching from behind me. Then suddenly a young man was walking beside me, and he smiled and said “hello, do you understand the Sikh man is wanting to help you?”

I explained that I understood, but I just wanted to walk, and he told me he was a cook from the hotel where I’m staying. I asked what me made today, and then lied and told him that the chicken curry was my favorite of everything I had for lunch just now, and then we chatted about things like his sister who lives in Chicago, and what a great mustache I have, and how my earring makes me look like a movie star, and other things people often talk about while walking up Man Singh Road. Mr. Singh followed at our side, smiling and asking for my business in countless ways.

Soon my friend the cook was explaining to me that the street ahead was quite dangerous, with many shoeshiners and pickpockets and “brown-sugar smokers,” and I thought “wow, you can buy smack on the street two blocks from the Taj Mahal Hotel?” I told him I’ve traveled many places and I don’t really worry about pickpockets, but he kept talking and told me that it would be best for me to let Mr. Singh drive me. “The Sikhs are very honest and noble, he will take good care of you and charge you very little, maybe 100 rupees for two hours.”

Rikshaw Ride

And I gave up. I thanked my friend the cook (I think his name was Rami, but he said it so fast I’m not sure), and hopped in with Mr. Singh. Then Rami helped me out by explaining to Mr. Singh that I wanted to go to India Gate and the Presidential Palace (as I had mentioned), and also the large beautiful “emporium” which he knew I would like very much. And I said “no, I have no interest in shopping, that’s not for me,” but I was already in the rikshaw and it was just a matter of time now.

We went to India Gate and the Presidential Palace and snapped some pictures. And I really liked Mr. Singh. He told me about his nephew in New York, and asked if he could come home with me, and he was laughing and smiling the whole time. He sang while driving, and I told him that back in the United States not even the most expensive limousines have live music like he has in his rikshaw, and he laughed. We were having a great time, Mr. Singh and I.

Shopping for Carpets

Then, suddenly, we were at the emporium. I told him I didn’t want to shop, he said I could just look, I said I just wanted to take pictures, he said you can take beautiful pictures in there, and again I just gave up. I trotted up the steps into the place with my camera in hand, resolved to not spend a single rupee no matter what.

Soon I was in the Kashmir carpet room, and a man was throwing carpets on the floor in the usual style. (Mom, I’m sure you remember the routine, and this was the same as all the other places we went in Varanasi or Agra or wherever.) They’re always very tidy when you come in, then the salesman throws carpets down all over the place, man-handling them as if to show off their rugged sturdiness, spinning them around with a flourish to show how the look different from different directions, and so on until the floor is covered with a mozaic of carpets.

Then, like a smoke after sex, it’s time for tea after some carpet-throwing, and you do that on a nice padded couch while a young man rolls up all the carpets and puts them away, except a few of the most expensive ones that he slides over near where you’re sitting. And the salesman gets out the book with all the addresses of where they’ve shipped carpets, to reassure you that people right in your hometown have left their money here before you, and we talk about the features and benefits of various carpets — “this one will last 700 years and this one will last only 100 years, maybe 110 years, so for two thousands dollars the other carpet is a much better bargain, your grandchildren’s grandchildren will think of you when they walk their bare feet on it” — and we look at pictures of the sweet dirt-poor families who make the carpets (”and most of the money goes to them, that is how we are different from other stores” — which is sort of cute from a guy with expensive Italian leather shoes on), and on and on and on.

Then we got into something I hadn’t anticipated. This man, this Muslim man from Kashmir who had told me stories of selling carpets in Lahore and Kabul and Baghdad, he suddenly starts talking about what a great man George Bush is. He said the amount of terrorism in Kashmir had dropped significantly, thanks to Bush’s war on terrorism. And he said that it was a great thing America did, getting rid of Saddam Hussein, and then he told stories of Saddam having dinners with 300 dishes on the table (and hell, I probably had 15 dishes on the table the last time I ordered room service so I can see where Saddam was coming from), and then a story of how Saddam used to have a pool full of naked beautiful girls to swim with. “George Bush got rid of a very bad man, I don’t think Americans understand that.”

I tried to be tactful. “Well, I think some people in America are angry that he told them Saddam had scary weapons and that’s why we had to kill all those people.”

His eyes lit up, and he grabbed the big book of shipping addresses. “Saddam, you see, he was like this book, and the whole world could not see into this book and see what was in it, but George Bush” — and here he flung the book open and dropped it to the floor with a loud thud — “he opened the book for the world to see that it was empty!”

“Yeah,” I said, “but we killed maybe half a million people to get that empty book open.”

And on and on it went, and soon we were back to the carpets. And frankly, I’ve gone on way too long here so I’ll leave out all the stuff about how he could tell which carpets Megan would like best because he felt he knew me and would know what the woman I would love would want in a carpet.

After sneaking in a couple of photos, I stood up and shook his hand firmly and told him “I have enjoyed our conversation very much” (the truth) and headed out to Mr. Singh. He was smiling and happy, but as soon as I told him I hadn’t bought anything he was a new man. Mr. Singh’s suicidally depressed cousin or something. We rode back to the hotel in silence, no live music, no laughter, not a word of small talk.

And it just drives me nuts, this whole carpet-emporium nonsense. I would gladly pay a rickshaw driver $100 to drive me around all day just taking pictures, but that’s simply not an option in my experience. I’ve told other drivers the same thing I told this guy — “please, just take me to the places I ask for photos, and I’ll pay you well, I DO NOT have any interest in shopping.” But because of his approach, the same approach used by every single rikshaw driver I’ve ever hired in India, at the end of the day we’re both disappointed. I understand the economics (think of how Americans would behave if Indian tourists came to visit with hundreds of thousands in cash in their pockets, which is a reasonably accurate analogy), and I know it’s not Mr. Singh’s fault any more than it’s the fault of young Mexican men in Cabo that taxi rides come with a free trip to a high-pressure condo sales pitch, but still. It drives me nuts.

I paid Mr. Singh 500 rupees instead of 100 rupees, and he offered a hint of that smile I had enjoyed earlier in the afternoon. Just a hint.

Anyway. Enjoy the pictures.

Somewhere Over Kazakhstan

2010-03-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 01/30/2007:

A great circle path is the shortest path on the surface of the earth between two points. If you spend a lot of time thinking about the world in terms of where the people are (and most of us do), great-circle paths violate your view of the earth on long flights, by going over the areas around the north or south pole that we tend to forget about.

I’m headed to Delhi this week, and I have two flights on the way there, Seattle-Chicago and a very long Chicago-Delhi flight that goes up over part of the Arctic Circle.

At the moment this blog post appears, I should be somewhere over Kazakhstan. I can’t post from there myself because there won’t be anything like Boeing’s Connexion system, so I posted this on Sunday from my office in Redmond. Asssuming I made the flight and it’s on time (and my math is correct) … greetings from Kazakhstan air space!

(If you want to check my math, the flight is 14:45 total, it left Chicago at 7:20PM CST, and I’m estimating that I’d be in Khazakstan air space around 6:00AM PST on Tuesday.)

Goodbye, Wikigate

2010-03-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 01/27/2007:

The Wikipedia flap has finally died down, as this graphic of Technorati search results shows. The same trend appears (albeit with larger numbers) on searches for Microsoft/Wikipedia, Jelliffe, and other related phrases.

It has been an interesting experience, but I’m so far behind on everything else now that I can’t see when I’m going to have time to get a good night’s sleep for a while. I’m off to India Monday for a busy week there, then I’ll be presenting at TechReady the week after that, and the list goes on and on. I was already buried with work before this 72-hour tornado ripped through my week, and now the backlog is even bigger and the time to handle it even shorter.

One thing I won’t be able to do is spend any more time in the various debates I’ve been in the middle of the last few days. I’ve heard many opinions and learned from some of them, and I’ve said what I have to say. Others have more insightful things to say about Wikipedia and standards than I do anyway.

But since I have friends who have asked how I’m doing and what I think about the situation, I’m going to go over a few conclusions and thoughts here. If you’ve sent me an email of support I haven’t responded to, this is my response. And if you want to debate any of this, there are blogs standing by as indicated in the graphic above, and that’s the place to do it. I’ve only deleted one comment ever on my blog (a nasty racist one), but I’m going to have a pretty heavy hand moderating this post, because this place is for my friends and family.

Speaking of friends, I feel like I have more friends than I started the week with, including people I’ve worked with or known casually who took the time to write a brief note of support, as well as people I’ve never met who took the time to write. I’ve met some new co-workers at Microsoft (via email), and they’ve all been helpful and supportive and professional. Thank you to all of you.

Bashing Rick

I don’t like the way Rick Jelliffe has been dragged through the mud by some people. It’s bizarre: I’m the one who suggested the deal, so the bashing of me makes some sense — if you are outraged at what I did, then I’d expect you to bash me. But all Rick did was publicly describe what I had asked him to do, and ask the public what they thought of it. That’s all he did. He didn’t edit a Wikipedia entry or anything else. He just said “hey, Microsoft asked me to do this, what do you all think?”

Well, I guess he knows what people think about the idea now. The aggression of the comments on some of the threads is hilarious. Some people seem to feel such power when hiding behind a keyboard (or a steering wheel, for that matter). Phrases like “evil” and “bribery” roll off their fingers without any consideration of how silly people look while foaming at the mouth.

Now, I can understand (if not condone) why companies with huge investments in a specific file format might be frightened by the concept of Rick participating in the file-format debate and therefore attack him: he has lots of experience and expertise in this area, and a tendency to say exactly what he thinks. But I don’t understand why there have been so many personal attacks from people who don’t even have a dog in this race.

In my opinion, Rick probably catches some heat for being the funniest person in the conversation. That can be very upsetting to other aspiring comedians.

It’s ironic that the Wikipedia entry on Rick has been corrupted as a result of this week’s fiasco. Somebody decided to add a link to Microsoft ‘tried to doctor Wikipedia’, a very amateurish and unprofessional writeup of the story. For example, the article includes a butchered copy of my offer to Rick that deliberately omits this section:

“Feel free to say anything at all on your blog about the process, about our communication with you on matters related to Open XML, or anything else. We don’t need to “approve” anything you have to say, our goal is simply to get more informed voices into the debate … feel free to state your own opinion.”

So now that that nonsense is on his Wikipedia page, Rick can’t edit it, and maybe somebody else will add a more positive link. But the garbage will still be there, and I’m reminded of the concept that you can’t always get to the truth by averaging extreme positions; sometimes one extreme is true and the other is BS. This is the fundamental problem with the concept of Wikipedia, in my opinion: how can you prevent corporate interests from turning definitions into trash-TV-style debates?

Bashing Doug

The criticism of me in this matter seems to mostly fall under the argument that it’s simply not appropriate to ever pay anyone to do something like edit a Wikipedia entry. Even if Wikipedia’s conflict of interest policy doesn’t actually say so, it seems some people can just feel it in their gut. Like pornography, they know it when they see it.

I’m not convinced by that argument. I don’t look to Web 2.0 celebrities for ethical guidance (as they seem to have ethics that vary rather a lot depending on whose actions they’re judging), and I don’t agree that it’s better for a Wikipedia page to be wrong than to be edited by a person being paid to do so.

The argument I am open to, and the thing I most regret in all this, is that I didn’t fight harder for cleaning up the Office Open XML entry before we turned to somebody outside Microsoft. I’m not 100% convinced that would have worked, but I am convinced that having done so would eliminate some of the fiercest criticism now. I can make plenty of excuses about why it didn’t happen, but they’re just excuses and I wish I had pushed much harder. Live and learn — I’ll handle that differently next time.

Core Issues

I think there are two fundamental issues that drove all the talk about this situation: conflict of interest, and editorial guidelines. Well, there’s also the “hip to hate Microsoft” angle, but as Megan says, the whole “Microsoft is evil” thing is getting really, really old. Name a metric — professionalism, honesty, intelligence, fashion, enthusiasm for our products, personal hygiene, whatever — and I’ve seen a broader range of it at Microsoft than anywhere else I’ve worked. We are not controlled by a single master brain, regardless of what you’ve read about that.

Regarding conflict of interest, I’d love to see a statement from IBM that says “we have never directly or indirectly contributed to the definition of Microsoft Office Open XML on Wikipedia.” And if they have influenced that definition in any way, it would be nice to see the exact language of any communication about that activity, like the straightforward language I’ve shared with the world this week. We conducted ourselves with 100% transparency — the first step was to agree that we’d have no oversight of Rick’s work, and to publicize the plan.

Regarding editorial guidelines, I’ve worked for a publisher before (Consumer Guide) that published many product reviews in various categories, and we had simple editorial guidelines for things like handling of proper nouns. But on Wikipedia these things are left open to debate. Why?

Why not enforce the same editorial guidelines that most publishers use, and let people work within those parameters? It seems strange that something like the name of a specification, a proper noun, is determined on Wikipedia by debate and consensus. Regardless of how “open” that process is, it strikes me as a colossal waste of time that will never improve on the basic concept of using proper nouns properly. If everything from Reuters and the AP to high-school newspapers can respect common editorial guidelines, why can’t Wikipedia?

Evil guys have families, too

When I searched for who’s talking about me on Technorati as shown above, I was surprised to see a post entitled “My Uncle DID NOT screw wikipedia.” Thanks, Paul! I appreciate the support. (I won’t include a link to your site here, since there are very few cute teenage girls among my regular readers.)

My nephew Phil posted a comment on Paul’s site apparently making fun of me:

Once upon a time my friends and i were screwing with wikipedia. it was quite fun until wikipedia is like “NO! THAT IS SPAM! NOT REAL INFORMATION! DIIIIIIIIIE!!!” then it wasn’t fun anymore.
The End

Gee, thanks Phil. I’ll watch for that “screwing with Wikipedia” quote on a future IBM press release entitled “Phil Mahugh acknowledges Uncle Doug had evil intentions.” Shhhh.

As I said on my work blog earlier this week, “I have confidence that most people are reasonable, and will reach reasonable conclusions from the facts.” That has clearly happened, as evidenced by articles like this one, this one, this one, and many others. Even a person claiming to be “the random nobody who posted this to Slashdot” posted a comment this morning on Rob Weir’s blog saying “… I would apologize to Rick. I misunderstood his original blog posting …”. Thanks for saying that, RN — I’d have handled this a bit differently based on what I know now, too.

As a final comment for those who’ve expressed concern at how I’m handling all the negative attention from some quarters: don’t worry, this was my favorite week at Microsoft to date. Next week has a tough act to follow.

What A Day

2010-03-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 01/23/2007:

My decision to come work for Microsoft a little over a year ago has led to some interesting times, and today takes the cake so far. It’s a long story which I don’t have time to tell right now, but there has been some “controversy” around something I did last week. I’ve covered it briefly on the work blog, and here’s a little more detail …

The story starts with some stuff IBM said, and then I reacted a time or two on the work blog, then I also enlisted the help of a guy in Australia, which caused all hell to break loose:

Computerworld: Microsoft said to offer payment for Wikipedia edits
Infoworld: Microsoft pays for Wikipedia edits
IT Business Canada: This Wikipedia entry brought to you by …
Microsoft Seeks Experts to Corrupt Wikipedia Information on Open XML
“Microsoft PR Paying to “Correct” Wikipedia” on Slashdot

On that last one, I posted a comment to confess my role in things.

And so it stands.

I’m not going to say anything about the details here, because the last thing I want is to debate work-related stuff on the personal blog, but I thought some friends and family might find this interesting so there it is. Welcome to my new life as Mr. Evil Microsoft. Hey, it’s a great way to see the world and meet lots of interesting people!

One Inch Of Snow

2010-03-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 01/10/2007:

That’s right, one inch of snow …

4:15 - Megan calls me to say it’s starting to snow, maybe we should go home and beat the rush
4:17 - I leave my office, get in my truck in the parking garage; everyone is fleeing, the garage is a zoo
4:39 - I give up on the gridlock in the garage, re-park the truck and walk to Megan’s building
4:45 - we leave in Megan’s car
6:00 - we make it out of the parking lot; decide to go to Redmond for dinner to wait out rush hour
8:00 - we leave Desert Fire
9:30 - we get to the on-ramp to the freeway, about a mile away
9:51 - here we are back at the office, swapping Megan’s car for the truck; time to head home and “beat the rush”

Seriously, one inch of snow. There are abandoned cars lining the curb of 159th on the way into the campus, some up on the sidewalk. And the whole time we’ve been in the car, the radio announcers keep soberly warning us that another inch may fall tonight.

Good grief.

Added later:

10:58 - home. The cops had the I-90 on-ramp at 148th closed, but we drove down through Factoria and got on I-90 there.

The Incredible Shrinking World

2010-03-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 12/28/2006:

The world just keeps getting smaller. And it’s so easy to get online and search for people now, especially because many of us are leaving lots of digital tracks for the search engines to find.

When I first set up my personal web site back in ‘96, I heard from a friend I had completely lost touch with 15 years before. JJ Holiday and I went to junior high and high school together in the Seattle area, then he moved to Los Angeles to join a band, I moved to Chicago to play video games for a living, we both got busy, and we completely lost touch. But he found me online as soon as I stuck my head up, digitally speaking.

Now in the last month I’ve had three similar surprises, all people who found me through this blog or my work blog.

First I got an email on December 6 from Richard Brown, who works in the Applied Research section of NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Richard happened to find on my web site a photo that I took from his condo’s front door a few days after Hurricane Katrina had destroyed his home. His family also experienced Hurricane Camille in Pass Christian, just like Megan’s family did, and like them he said Katrina was much worse.

Then on December 19 I got an email from Byron Huff, the author of one of my favorite golf books, “Be The Target.” He had found me through my blog, where he noticed I had said some nice things about his book. This was pretty exciting to me — “Be The Target” is a book I’ve read and re-read many times. There’s a whiteboard putting drill based on that book which I’ve often shown people, and the whole concept of putting your awareness at the target instead of on the mechanics of your own swing is something I work on every time I play golf. And now I have Byron’s email address, so I can nag him if I have a question about any of that stuff.

And then today, a great holiday-season surprise: I just got a comment on my work blog from Jack Biddison, a guy I collaborated with on a bunch of custom-software projects in the late 80s and early 90s. Jack and I would drive all over northeastern Illinois selling our services, and we also put together a system he used for a traveling auction of parts for race cars.

Some of my longtime friends will remember all the work I did with Chicago Data between 1988 and 1995 — Jack is the person who introduced me to the owners of Chicago Data way back when. I’ll never forget Jack and I walking into John Mengel’s office and sitting down, and John saying “now what exactly do you guys do?” Jack looked him in the eye with a big twinkling smile and said “whatever you need done, that’s what we do.”

Jack must be in his 80s by now, and I had wondered many times over the last 10 years whether he was still around. I remember how he used to talk about the old days of computers in the 60s — Jack, I know how you felt because now I’m the gray-haired guy telling the kids at work about computing back in the 80s. Kids these days, they have it so easy!

One final example of the fun of having a web site: when one of my brothers recently had the annual review of his top-secret security clearance (as required by his job at a major defense contractor), they asked him about my web site. I feel strangely proud.

Megan Blogging

2010-03-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 12/26/2006:

Nurse Mahugh, I Presume

2010-03-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 12/01/2006:

A Dr. Livingstone reference, of course. Because Mom has been found in Africa …

Hi, Doug and Greg,

I’ll explain what I did wrong when I get home — but feel I may finally send an e-mail. We just arrived in Nairobi this afternoon and have finished dinner and need to pack for our five days on safari, which starts early tomorrow.

In South Africa we stayed at a nice hotel in Cape Town — which could be any large American city. Modern and affluent. While there we took several day trips. One to Robben Island where Nelson Mandella was incarcerated for 27 years. One was a drive around the Cape of Good Hope — had our picture taken at the southernmost point of the continent. We visited a colony of African Penguins — much smaller than the Emperor Penguins. One trip was out in the wine country, but I wasn’t feeling well that day and just sorta laid back. I found a picnic table in the shade by a nice serene little lake and read and worked puzzles. Jim and Cari went to a cheetah place and Cari got in the cage and petted the little cheetahs.

And of course we toured the city of CapeTown and learned a lot about its history and how the Apartheid standard developed. We drove by miles of “squatters shacks” — mostly corrugated metal rectangles without any plumbing or electricity. I have never seen such a contrast of affluence and poverty so close together.

We were told the story of “District Six,” which up until 1996 had been a residential area of working families of very diverse backgrounds (religion, skin color). And they had lived together peacefully for many generations. Then Feb. 11, 1996, the goverment passed an ordinance that District Six would become a “white” neighborhood. All the blacks and coloreds were forced to move to “blACK” OR “COLORED” TOWNSHIPS. Their homes (some of which had been in the same family for four or more generations) were bulldozed down. Today (ten years later) District Six is a weed patch. The whites didn’t want to live there and the people who had roots there, can’t live there.

How a person’s race was determined was left mainly up to the local police. That many times was young men 18 to 25 years old. They devised some “tests” to try and be fair. One of these “tests” was the “pencil” test. They would put a pencil through a person’s hair and if it fell out that person was “colored” and if it didn’t that person was “black.” This test resulted in some families being broken up with some members sent to a “colored” township and others sent to a “black” township. Some pretty sad stories.

We are in a very nice hotel in Nairobi, but our tour director said Nairobi is nickknamed Nar-robbery, and with good reason. I guess there is a lot of crime — but then the unemployment is between 50% and 70% depending on whose statistics you believe. And half the population lives in poverty — a wage of $2/week. So what can you expect?

I must get packing. I feel like I have figured out the internet finally — but don’t know if it will be available at Amboseli or Maisai Mara. We will be back here Friday night and head for Egypt early Saturday.

Love,
Mom/LaVonne

My Friends Don and Sam

2010-03-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

Originally posted 11/16/2006:

I’ve spent all my time lately immersed in Open XML. Makes your skin itchy after a while, all those tags and attributes.

Anyway, there’s these two guys: Don and Sam.

Don, he likes order in the universe. He thinks in terms of the big picture: where is everything, who is everyone, go there and do this to that, you know the type. Controlling. In charge.

Sam, on the other hand, he’s a free spirit. “Just tell me what to watch for, and what to do if I see it.” Then he wanders freely around.

Funny thing is, for some tasks Don has the best approach, and for other tasks Sam does. And it’s sometimes surprisingly hard to predict whether Don or Sam will do the best with a givent task. Sometimes you just have to try each of them and see who does a better job.

Don is the DOM API for programming with XML documents, of course. And Sam’s the SAX API.

OK, enough levity, back to Open XML …

Foggy Friday in Freising

2010-03-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 09/29/2006:

I took a walk around Freising this morning and snapped a few more pictures. It’s a nice town for pictures — lots of color and texture and cute architecture. But I haven’t really seen it in good light yet. I’ve been coming and going when it’s dark for the most part, and the times I’ve been here in daylight hours it’s been foggy.
Here are a few photos from this morning:

There are lots of spider webs around Freising, so I guess they haven’t had much wind lately. I remember my Mom, who grew up on the windswept plains of North Dakota, talking about how striking it was to see little piles of snow on the top of picket fences as an adult, since where she grew up the snow was constantly swirling around and didn’t stay on top of things. Where were those picket fences, Mom? DC?

This is my first time in Germany, and I like it. You’re right, Megan, we need to spend some time here together. Here are a few first-time visitor observations:

It’s clean. Damn clean. Oddly clean. I’ve walked all over this town, and I don’t think I’ve seen a single can, bottle, or paper bag anywhere. Hell, I don’t think I’ve seen a candy wrapper or a toothpick. Last night I walked past a tree hanging out over the street, and I realized there wasn’t even a leaf in the street under it. It’s not the wind sweeping these streets clean (as the spiders can attest), so how do they do it? I’m tempted to toss some trash in the street and then watch to see what happens to it. Anyway, there’s a pervasive tidiness to this town. Is all of Germany like that?

The people are tall. In Asia, I’ve always found it a bit annoying to stick out so much. I’m six feet tall, and in places like India or Vietnam people see me coming from a mile away and know I’m a foreigner. But here, there are lots of guys my height or taller, and I fit right in. I’ve had a couple of people talk to me in German, assuming I know the language — believe me, that never happened in Vietnam. OK, maybe that’s not just a height thing.

The stereotypes about Germans’ focus on engineering and a generally results-oriented approach seem to be true. For example, there are monitors down in the lobby of this hotel (a Marriott) that show the gate assignments and departure times for flights at the Munich airport, so you can see whether your flight is on time while you’re checking out of the hotel. Why aren’t there monitors like that in the lobby of US hotels?

I had an exchange with a taxi driver named Stefan last night that struck me as somehow very German:

Doug: I’m going to Octoberfest tomorrow, do you have any advice?
Stefan: Don’t take a taxi, it takes too long. Take the train.
Doug: Is it hard to find the Octoberfest place from the train station?
Stefan: No, you get on the train and follow the crowds of lederhosen. Get off where they get off, walk where they walk. If you follow the lederhosen, you’ll arrive at Octoberfest.
Doug: Have you seen a weather forecast for tomorrow?
Stefan: I pay no attention to weather forecasts, because I am in my taxi every day and I control my weather. My forecast for tomorrow is 21 degrees, same as it was today.

Everyone speaks perfect English. Frankly, people here speak English better than people back home. I felt the same way in India, although in India they all have that sing-song delivery that sounds like a comedy routine, and here they have that gruff gutteral delivery that sounds like a stern father lecturing his kids. No disrespect intended to my friends in either place, I’m just honestly saying how it sounds to me. Anyway, I wish Americans studied the English language as much as many non-Americans obviously do.

Oh, and here’s some advice for others who haven’t been to Germany: if you’re a guy, use the restroom with an H on it. The one with the D on it doesn’t have urinals, and after a bottle of fine German wine you might not even think about that detail until you’re walking out and a woman is walking in. Theoretically speaking, of course. I don’t know what those letters stand for, but my new rule of thumb is “D means DON’T!”

That’s what I’ve noticed so far. I’m sure I’ll have even more profound observations after Octoberfest.
I was planning to visit nearby Dachau today, like Steve did earlier in the week, but after taking a walk through the local cemetery I decided to skip it. I’d rather go watch drunk Germans laugh and carry on. A German tourist would rather visit the Super Bowl than Guantanamo, right? That’s how I feel, too.

OK, time to work for a couple of hours and then head for Octoberfest in the afternoon after the fog has burned off a bit. My buddy Francesco the waiter told me what train to take last night, and Stefan told me what to do after I get on the train: follow the lederhosen. What could go wrong now?

One Year After Katrina

2010-03-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 08/29/2006:

A year ago today, hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. It also caused damage in nearby New Orleans, but the most intense portion of the storm — and the most severe damage — occurred in the area around Bay St. Louis and Waveland, east of Pass Christian. Several members of Megan’s family lost their homes and everything in them: Granny, Marsha, Gloria, Lyndon, Buster, and a few others I’m not remembering right now.

Is it just me, or does Katrina seem like a lot more than a year ago?

A few days after the hurricane hit, Megan and I went to Gulfport to help relatives in the area.
In hindsight, it was fun for us in some ways. We spent our days touring the area, taking thousands of pictures of unbelievable destruction, helping dig through the debris for a few mementos, and taking trips back and forth to Mobile for gasoline and other supplies. In the evenings we returned to Melba’s house in Gulfport, where we all hung out and talked about what had happened by flashlights and candlelight, saving the generator’s power for the fans that would run all night. When National Guard helicopters landed nearby to drop off fresh water and ice, we ran to the park and watched the scene unfold.

We also met various people who had survived harrowing ordeals. Like Greg Campbell, who rescued Diane Brugger from a tree she was clinging to after her husband Tony had been swept away along with their home. To walk through the wreckage with people like that and hear them calmly tell their stories was an emotionally powerful experience that I still can’t properly describe.

The ugliness of New Orleans was most of what we heard about on the battery-powered portable radio, but in Mississippi all we saw was people pulling together and helping each other through a tough time. There were many random acts of kindness and compassion, and we never heard a single story of anyone being attacked in any way or losing anything to looters. When I got back home and saw all the coverage of the thugs of New Orleans, it pissed me off so much that I wrote angry letters to a few editors about the sleaze they sell.

Here’s the link to the photos I posted after our first post-Katrina trip to Mississippi, and here are the photos from our return three weeks later.

Our trips to the Gulf Coast after Katrina included a lot more laughter and smiling than you might imagine, not least because we were lucky enough to not lose a single life in the family. Even Lyndon’s dog survived. Check out Lyndon’s house, and imagine what that dog experienced. Lyndon suffered a heart attack last week. He had surgery and last we heard he’s doing better. Hang in there, Lyndon — after all your family has been through, a heart attack is just a bump in the road.

The day Granny left Pass Christian, she talked about Katrina as if she were a person. “Katrina, that hussy, she took everything.” Granny’s family had lost everything to hurricane Camille back in 1969, too. But after Katrina, Granny decided that two once-in-a-lifetime hurricanes are enough for one lifetime, so she and Marsha moved to Atlanta.

Happy birthday, Katrina. You bitch.

Is A Number Prime?

2010-03-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 08/24/2006:

How can you tell if a big number is prime? The number 23,571,113,171,923, say: is that prime? Where do you start?

Sure, you could write a program to check every integer up to the square root of your number, and if none of those divide evenly into it then you have a prime. But suppose you wanted to figure this kind of thing out without a computer? (Really, people used to do stuff like this.)

10 and its close cousins 2 and 5

I’ll bet if the number above ended in 0, most folks would intuitively know it isn’t prime. Ending in 0 is a sure-fire clue that the number is probably divisible by 10, don’t you think? (Assuming base-10 notation, of course.)

And if the number ends in 2, 4, 6, or 8, most folks would intuitively know that it’s even, divisible by 2, and therefore not prime.

When you’re checking whether a number is divisible by two, did you ever think about why you only need to check the last digit? One way to look at it is that you only need to check the last digit because that’s how much greater your number is than a known multiple of 10, and 10 is divisible by 2. That same sort of thinking applies to determining whether a number is divisible by greater powers of 2.

It works like this:

To check if a number is divisible by 2, you only need to check whether the last 1 digits are divisible by 2, because 10 is divisible by 2.
To check if a number is divisible by 4, you only need to check whether the last 2 digits are divisible by 4, because 100 is divisible by 4.
To check if a number is divisible by 8, you only need to check whether the last 3 digits are divisible by 8, because 1000 is divisible by 8.
To check if a number is divisible by 16, you only need to check whether the last 4 digits are divisible by 16, because 10000 is divisible by 16.

And for identical reasons, since 10 is 2 times 5, this sort of thinking works for checking whether a number is divisible by powers of 5:

Check the last 1 digits for divisibility by 5 (because 10 is divisible by 5)
Check the last 2 digits for divisibility by 25 (because 100 is divisible by 25)
Check the last 3 digits for divisibility by 125 (because 1000 is divisible by 125)
Check the last 4 digits for divisibility by 625 (because 10000 is divisible by 625)

Well, that’s just dandy. But what about checking for divisibility by numbers that aren’t factors of 10, the base of our numbering system?

Divisible by 3 or 9?

Many people know this one: to determine whether a number is divisible by 3, add up the digits in the number. If the result is divisible by 3, then the original number is divisible by 3 too. You can use this as a quick way to show that the number mentioned above is not divisible by 3.

Note that you can also add up the digits of the result of the calculation, to determine whether it is divisible by 3, and continue collapsing your number until it gets down to something that’s obviously divisible by 3 or not. So in our example above, the digits of 23,571,113,171,923 add up to 46, whose digits add up to 10, whose digits add up to 1, which is not divisible by 3, so neither is the original number.

Divisibility by 9 works the same way: if the digits add up to a number that’s divisible by 9, then — and only then — the original number was also divisible by 9.

As it says in all those math books, “proof of this assertion will be left as an exercise for the reader.”

Divisible by 7?

This is a personal favorite of mine: remove the last digit, double it, and subtract that from the remaining number. This manipulation preserves the 7-divisibility of the original number. (Proving this one is even more fun than the 3s/9s rule.)

For example, is 142857 divisible by 7?
Take off the 7, double it to 14, subtract that from 14285: the result is 14271
Take off the 1, double it to 2, subtract that from 1427: result is 1425
Take off the 5, double it to 10, subtract that from 142: result is 132
Take off the 2, double it to 4, subtract that from 13: result is 5
And 5 isn’t divisible by 7, so neither is 142857.

Divisible by 11?

For Divisibility by 11, you take the first digit, subtract the 2nd digit, add the 3rd digit, and so on, all the way to the end of the number. The result of this process will be exactly as “divisible by 11″ as your original number. Specifically, the result has the same remainder when divided by 11 as your original number has when divided by 11. (Proving this one is a bit simpler than the case for 7 above.)

Is 121 divisible by 11? Yes, because 1-2+1=0, the remainder when 121 is divided by 11. Is 142857 divisible by 11? Yes, because 1-4+2-8+5-7=-11, the “remainder” when 142857 is divided by 11. (If the remainder is divisible by 11, so is the original number. Prove that, Pythagoras.)

Divisible by larger primes?

There are many more of these types of tricks for larger primes factors, but they grow increasingly complex as the factors get larger. Well, some are simple, such as the rule for 19, which is like the rule for 7 except you add the doubled digit instead of subtracting it. I used to know these up through 29, but don’t use them much any more and can’t remember 13, 17, 23 and 29. Here’s a page with the rules for testing divisibility by all the primes less than 50.

“On the factorization of large numbers”

The French mathematician Marin Mersenne made an assertion in 1644 whose validity was still being openly debated over 200 years later. I’m not going to bother to explain it (check out Mersenne.org if you’re really interested) except to say that it involves predicting whether numbers of the form 2 to the N minus 1 are prime.

As of 1903, it was still unknown whether M67 (Mersenne number 67), which is 2 raised to the 67th power less one, was a prime. If it was proved to not be prime, then Mersenne’s conjecture would be disproven. The problem is, Mersenne’s numbers grew very rapidly, and it could take a person months to do the longhand arithmetic involved in searching for divisors of large numbers. M67, for example, is over 20 digits long.

So when mathematician F. N. Cole demonstrated that M67 was not a prime in 1903, it was an impressive achievement. And there’s a great story of how Cole announced his finding, which was written up by Eric Temple Bell in his essay “The Queen of Mathematics.” I’ve quoted Bell’s description below, from my copy in James R. Newman’s 4-volume hardcover book series “The World of Mathematics,” published by Simon & Schuster in 1956. (My Dad had these books in the living room, and so do I. They’re great stuff if you like math stories, and they’ve been re-issued in a Dover paperback edition.)

Anyway, here is Bell’s description of Cole’s feat from Newman’s book:

I should like here to preserve a small bit of history before all the American mathematicians of the first half of the twentieth century are gone. When I asked Cole in 1911 how long it had taken him to crack M67 he said “three years of Sundays.” But this, though interesting, is not the history. At the October, 1903, meeting in New York of the American Mathematical Society, Cole had a paper on the program with the modest title On the factorization of large numbers. When the chairman called on him for his paper, Cole — who was always a man of very few words — walked to the board and, saying nothing, proceeded to chalk up the arithmetic for raising 2 to the sixty-seventh power. Then he carefully subtracted 1. Without a word, he moved over to a clear space on the board and multiplied out, by longhand,

193,707,721 x 761,838,257,287

The two calculations agreed.

Mersenne’s conjecture — if such it was — vanished into the limbo of mathematical mythology. For the first and only time on record, an audience of the American Mathematical Society vigorously applauded the author of a paper delivered before it. Cole took his seat without having uttered a word. Nobody asked him a question.

Man, if that story doesn’t give you goosebumps, what does?

Megan's Bigshot Coworkers

2010-03-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 08/11/2006:

I was waiting to pick up Megan in front of her building Wednesday, and a Humvee limo pulled up next to me to wait for somebody.

I’ve heard there are some really important bigshots in Megan’s building, but given the current security climate I probably shouldn’t name them. Let’s just say they include a big bald guy who talks real loud and a little geeky guy with a squeaky voice.

Per TSA regulations, I removed the license plate before taking the picture.

Golf Books

2010-03-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 08/01/2006:

I’m one of those people who reads a lot about whatever I’m currently studying, so in the years after I started playing golf I acquired many golf books. I think it was about 60 books when I did a major purge a couple of years ago. I got down to 10 golf books, and I carefully picked the ones I kept. Here are my thoughts on a few of my favorites ...

“Extraordinary Golf: The Art of the Possible” by Fred Shoemaker

The book I’d keep if I could only keep one is Fred Shoemaker’s “Extraordinary Golf.” It’s a book that changed the way I feel about playing golf, and after that change I played better golf than I ever had before. But, ironically, the change this book engenders is to stop caring about score and instead take pride in being part of an elite group of golfers, the ones who stand over the ball committed to swinging freely and trusting their swings.

Fred describes the culture of golfers in a way that rings true with me: a culture where the implicit social contract is “let’s all agree that there is something wrong with our swings and we want to find a way to fix it.” But suppose you just decided you have a natural genius for golf, but sometimes you think too much and prevent yourself from playing up to your potential? Suppose you just chose to feel that way every time out, and accepted the possibility that you might shoot 70 today, or you might shoot 110, and in either case you’d just trust your swing and play with joyful wreckless abandon? Suppose you embraced your inconsistency, and instead of aspiring to shoot a mediocre acceptable score every time, you were thrilled to know that everything from a pro-style shot to a complete miss were possible every time you swing a club?

Too California for some, but I loved it.

My favorite part of the book is when he shows photo sequences of the swings of a scratch player, a low-handicapper, and a high-handicapper when they’re hitting golf balls, and then when they’re throwing their golf clubs at the target. Most people take a much better swing when they throw their club at the target, releasing it in the follow-through, rather than trying to hit a ball. The high-handicapper throws clubs like the low-handicapper hits golf balls, and the low-handicapper throws clubs like the scratch player hits balls.

I strongly encourage everyone to do this whenever they can. Not just because it’s a good drill, but because it’s fun! Just go find a big open space with soft grass for your clubs to land on, and start throwing them until you can smoothly swing a club and throw it straight at the target. Then hit a golf ball with that same swing. Great stuff.

“Golf is not a Game of Perfect” by Bob Rotella

This was the big hit among the golf-psychology books of the 90s, and it led to a series of books by Rotella on the mental side of the game. I’ve read all of his books, and I think this first one covers 90% of what he has to say, and the other books re-tread this content with an occasional something extra thrown in.

At the time this book came out, many golfers didn’t know that top players are pretty serious about concepts like visualization, positive expectations (regardless of recent results), trusting their swings, and and having a calm uncluttered mind while swinging. And although that’s all common knowledge now, most golfers do these things inconsistently, if at all.

Annika Sorenstam was coming on strong when I first read this book in ‘96, and I remember seeing something really cool one day on an LPGA tournament. The commentator (I think it was Johnny Miller) showed Annika walking away from a particular green on two consecutive days: one day she eagled that hole, the other day she double-bogeyed it. She had the same pace, the same expression, the same mannerisms and tempo and demeanor, on both days. That image sums up what Rotella teaches: you can choose to have a positive upbeat attitude when you play, and doing so tends to make you play your best over time. You can squint your eyes and breathe hard and grunt your way to success in sports that are about pushing your muscles hard, but golf is about pushing your mind hard and most minds don’t acheive peak performance when they’re experiencing big surges of adrenaline and intense thoughts and moods. Easy to read, hard to put into practice.

My favorite concept in this book is “conservative strategy, cocky swing.” When I’m hitting 2-iron off the tee and talking trash to my friends with drivers in their hands, or deliberately laying up in the fairway from 150 yards, I’m trying to do what Bob taught me.

I’ve given away several copies of this book. I think it’s the best book for somebody starting out, and also for anyone who gets angry on the course about anything other than the drink-cart girl being out of their favorite beverage. But it’s not a book that helps everyone; I’ve known people who couldn’t stand Rotella’s tone and let that keep them from studying his message. You can lead a horse to water …

“Getting Up and Down” by Tom Watson

The bible of the short game, from a guy who was one of the best at those shots. Watson also hit one of the most famous chip shots of all time, holing out from the deep rough on #17 at Pebble Beach to beat Jack Nicklaus in the U.S. Open. A photo of that shot adorns the cover of the book, of course.

Anyway, Watson covers it all here: putting, chipping, pitch shots, bunker shots, trouble shots, and everything else you’d do within 50 yards of the pin. He also describes how to think your way around a golf course, setting up the shots you want to have around the green instead of aiming at the flag every time and desperately hoping for miracles.

The full swing has changed quite a bit over the years, but the fundamentals of these types of shots haven’t changed in decades. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Michele Wie hit the same shots Watson hit around the green, and they’re all explained in this book. No shortcuts are provided, you just have to put in the hours, but for my money Watson covers the basics of the short game better than anyone else. I could read this book every year, and usually do when I’m playing a lot of golf.

“The Four Magic Moves to Winning Golf” by Joe Dante

This is the only book on how to swing a golf club that’s on this list. All the other books are about playing golf, but this one is about swinging a golf club. The two activites are only tangentially related.

I’m convinced that everyone’s optimum swing is unique because everyone’s body is unique, so I’m not saying this book has anything to offer anyone else, but the four moves it describes all seem to fit my swing. When I follow the instruction in this book, I hit better golf shots. In general, Dante is all about an early wrist break and a late hit (i.e., do nothing conscious with your hands in the swing), with an emphasis on timing and tempo and rhythm. My friend Tom’s swing is a good example of what Dante teaches. (Sorry to ruin the mystery for those who haven’t seen it, Tom.)

Dante’s style is very dated, not least because this book was first published in 1962. I just noticed it was re-released in 1995 when I searched for the link above, so I’ve ordered a fresh new copy.

Harvey Penick’s “Little Red Book”

A classic. Harvey Penick was an old codger in Texas who was a teacher and mentor to both Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite. This book is full of cute little stories about lessons Harvey taught, mostly mental-game and course-management tips, but also plenty of specific instruction. Two things come to mind when I remember this book, which I’ve read a few times.

First, the time he wanted to teach students how to hit high flop shots around the green. Rather than telling them what to do, he gave them a task — a tree or something to hit over — and then made them go at it until they figured out how to get the ball up high quickly. This makes the technique the student’s own, and they’ll trust it more than something they’ve been told by a third party like a teacher. I hit a 50-foot pitch shot over a little tree next to the #5 green at Carnation last weekend, and was thinking of this lesson when I did it.

Second, I love his comment “it takes just as long to play your way out of a slump as it took to play your way into it.” That rings so true to me, and not just in golf.

“Extraordinary Putting” by Fred Shoemaker

More of Fred’s creative thinking about golf. This time he talks about putting, but as always it’s a metaphor for the full swing, and life itself. The emphasis is on awareness and being in the moment while putting, soaking up everything from the sparkle of the sun on the dimples of the golf ball to the area all around the hole (not just the area your putt will roll through) to your perception of the details of your own putting motion. I read this book in the last two weeks, and I really liked it, but that’s not too surprising since Fred’s other book is my all-time favorite golf book.

There’s a Eureka moment in this book, like throwing golf clubs in “Extraordinary Golf” — the discovery, through a drill used with hundreds of golfers at the Extraordinary Golf schools, that most people sink more short putts if the ball is moving when they hit it, rather than sitting still. Think about it: if you’re like most people, you’ll have a better chance of making a 3-footer if somebody rolls the ball toward you and you hit it while it’s moving.

Fred goes on to test this same concept with full swings, and finds that most people find the sweet spot more often if the ball is moving when they hit it. How cool is that? (It occured to me that this concept sheds interesting light on the trick that Tiger and many others do, hitting a ball out of the air while it’s falling.) Fred’s conclusion is that we need to find a way to be as loose and smooth when hitting a stationary ball as we’d be if the ball was moving, and he has some drills for working on that concept.

Anyway, I’ve not practiced my putting much since I got the clubs out of storage a month ago, but I’ve taken 12 or 13 putts in 9 holes a few times since I read this book.

“The Plane Truth for Golfers” by Jim Hardy

This is the book I’m reading right now. It’s by Jim Hardy, with a lot of support from Peter Jacobsen. Jacobsen and Fred Couples are the two PGA Tour pros close to my age who grew up in the Pacific Northwest as I did, so I’ve followed both of them pretty closely over the years.

The book covers the difference between two-plane swings, where the hands and the shoulders turn in different planes, and one-plane swings, where the hands turn in the same plane as the shoulders. The premise is that either type of swing is fine, but the author and Jacobsen have an obvious bias toward the one-plane swing. That’s OK, though: I’m a two-plane swinger and am getting a lot out of the book.

One-plane swingers include Ben Hogan and Ernie Els; two-plane swingers include pretty much everyone in the old days (Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, etc.) and modern players like Davis Love and Phil Mickelson. Tiger was a two-planer, but he has moved to a one-plane swing in recent years.

The key concept of this book is that you should be aware of which type of swing you have, and then that will help you know which types of swing advice to embrace or ignore. For example, a two-planer like me should never try to get the club inside the target line early in the backswing, or to lead the downswing with the shoulders. But lots of golf instructional material puts forth concepts like those as “swing fundamentals,” as if they applied to everyone.

This book is helping me understand why Ben Hogan’s “Five Lessons: the Modern Fundamentals of Golf” always screwed me up. It was such a respected book, and I’ve known players who improved by studying it, but any time I try to do anything in that book other than the grip, it makes me play worse and not better. Now I know why.

So that’s my list of favorite golf books for now. Anybody have a golf book I should put on the reading list this year?

The Charm Of Tyee

2010-03-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 07/29/2006:

We played Tyee Valley Golf Course today. It has changed quite a bit from how I remember it in the 90s. It was always rough and ragged, but I felt its location at the south end of Sea-Tac airport, with 747s taking off overhead, was sort of charming. Of course, I grew up a couple miles away — I went to school in an area where many times a day teachers stopped talking to wait out the roar of a Boeing jet taking off from nearby Sea-Tac — so I may be biased.

But now Tyee is in bad shape. On its last legs, apparently: gutted, slashed and bleeding. They’ve started chipping away at the edges of the land in preparation for airport expansion, and the course has been modified to keep an 18-hole layout even though several holes or sections of holes have disappeared from what was already a small golf course.

Holes 12 and 13 — two of the best in the old days — are gone altogether, and a good chunk of the next two holes is missing as well. The former 18th is now the 8th and 9th, having been split into two holes including an uphill little afterthought of a par-3. The formerly fun par-5 14th is now a narrow little hole with a ridiculously tiny green on a lump, and right now it’s all a patchwork quilt of rectangular chunks of bentgrass sod. The 3rd, which was a fun short tight trouble-laden par-4, now has some type of brick building in the fairway at the landing zone, with a 50-foot wide path between the left side of it and OB, or a route around to the right that adds 100 yards to the hole and requires hitting your approach shot from in front of the 5th tee, which can be logistically challenging.

The grass is mostly dead, the ground mostly rock-hard and rock-infested, except where it’s rancid cesspools of standing dirty water. A deep ditch flanked by a large drainage pipe run across the course (requiring a long detour between the #5 fairway and its green), a huge hole surrounded by heavy equipment has replaced the first half of the 8th fairway, and a sign across the fence warns “CONTAMINATED SOIL.” Amidst all this new chaos, the longstanding charm of Tyee remains: 747s take off overhead, so close you can feel the whoosh and the roar of the engines shakes your teeth.

Here’s how bad the conditions were: I put a big dent in my 60-degree wedge today, caused by a buried rock I hit in the fairway. On the fairways or off (and how can you tell the difference any more?), there was so much trashed ground that it would be simpler to just mark the areas that are “Ground NOT Under Repair.”
As Megan said after a few holes, between 747s, “somebody should put this place out of its misery.”
But we had more fun as the day wore on, not least because it’s an incredible bargain. For $10 each (and $2.50 per Mike’s Lemonade), we golfed over six hours, including walking 27 holes and some chipping practice around the 7th green. Megan hit some great 6-irons, including one while we were playing #13 with three guys. (You see, the 13th and 16th are now the same hole, so since they were three holes ahead of us we all arrived at the 13/16 tee together and played it as a fivesome.)

There were plenty of motley characters on the course: the hipster, the Jerry Garcia look-alike, the guy with the two whiny chicks who talked loudly and rudely during Megan’s backswing, old guys playing alone, and beefy young guys with tattoos drinking and laughing. And, of course, us. Everyone was very friendly, which was a good thing because the messy crowded layout gives you plenty of chances to get to know the other paying customers.

So we’re averaging 26.5 holes per day this weekend. Did I mention we also practied putting and hit a big bucket of range balls at Maplewood earlier today? Nice to have Megan hooked, I’m riding this for all it’s worth.

Oh yeah, scores. Too tired to enter them in Golftrak, but let’s just say Megan had a rough day and I played with a vaguely familiar but nearly forgotten consistency, shooting 43-43-43 on three nines in a construction zone. I’ll bring the camera next time and get some photos for the archives, but it was fun to focus on the swing today. No shanks, a couple of snap-hooks, one slice, a lot of acceptable shots, and a few real schwings. The 2-iron was continuing its hot streak, and I hit one about 220 to plug into the soft turf at the front edge of the #8 green.

Then I took a big swing with a wedge to gash open the turf behind the ball and pop it out, advancing it inches. It felt good to stab that dying course, I must say.

Snow Lake Lovebirds

2010-03-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 07/16/2006:

Megan and I took a hike this afternoon up near Snoqualmie Pass. We went up to Snow Lake, in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. It’s the most popular hike in the Washington Cascades, for several reasons: close to I-90, not far from Seattle, and you can get into what feels like wilderness within an hour of the car. Well, if you can ignore the hundreds of other people doing the same. But it’s great exercise, and more fun than hanging out in the gym.

The photo shown here was not taken today. I took that one in February of last year, two days after I met Megan. I was hiking alone in the deep snow, and when I stopped for a snack these birds swooped down to see what they could get. I reached up and snapped a picture of them before they backed off. Later that night, when I sent Megan an email asking her out for our first date (dinner at the Space Needle), I attached this photo because it was, well, two birds. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today I finally took Megan to this spot. We brought a bottle of cheap screw-cap wine and enjoyed it in the shade above Snow Lake before hiking back down to the car. Here are the photos from today’s hike:

Where Were You On 9/11?

2010-03-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 07/10/2006:

Everyone has their 9/11 story.
I flew a red-eye from the VFP Devcon in San Diego to the automotive trade’s I-Remarketing conference in Chicago, only to arrive that morning shortly before the planes hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon. They quickly closed O’Hare. Then they cancelled the convention and told everyone to get home if they could. Then there was speculation about whether Flight 93 had been headed for Chicago’s Sears Tower, the world’s tallest building at the time.
The safe and sane thing to do was obvious: rent a car (we got one of the last ones Enterprise had available), check into a hotel out in the suburbs near a golf course, and play golf for a few days. In the interest of national security.
The course was Indian Valley, since deceased. (Subdivision development.) My opponent was Chris Heck, and we trash-talked all week, starting a tradition over the next two years of me playing Darth Vader to his Luke Skywalker.
Hole: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Par: 4 5 5 3 4 4 4 4 3 4 3 4 5 3 3 4 4 6 71
9/11: 8 5 6 4 8 7 5 8 4 7 4 6 6 4 4 4 6 8 104
9/13: 5 4 7 4 6 4 6 5 4 6 3 7 5 4 4 6 4 6 90
9/14: 6 6 7 3 5 4 5 7 4 6 5 5 5 4 4 4 5 7 92
9/15: 5 7 6 5 4 5 5 6 4 6 5 5 7 4 3 5 4 6 92
9/16: 5 8 8 5 5 4 5 5 4 7 4 5 5 3 4 6 4 6 93

Chris shot 117, 106, 105, 108 and 104 that week. We all did what we could. Then we flew back home to Spokane.

Fibonacci, Phi, and Kepler

2010-03-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 06/18/2006:

Happy Father’s Day to Tom, Dave and all the other fathers out there. I hope you’re all having a good time doing fatherly things today. My father was a math geek, so in honor of him I’m going to ramble on about math for a while, as he often did.

Did everyone see the Da Vinci Code? If you didn’t read the book (as I didn’t), the movie is a bit confusing at times. One thing that isn’t very clear is how Tom Hanks guesses the secret bank-account number at a key point in the plot. The number is 1123581321, and if he doesn’t guess it correctly then the movie would be over right then. (Having said that, I do wish the movie had ended a little sooner, as I’ll explain shortly.)

The Fibonacci Series

That account number is actually made up of a series of numbers, joined together. And that series is known as the Fibonacci series, Fibonacci being the nickname of Leonardo da Pisa, the 13th-century mathematician who wrote about it quite a bit. He didn’t really “discover” the Fibonacci series, since it already existed in many natural structures and had also been studied by Indian and Vedic mathematicians. But just as Al Gore will always be remembered as the inventor of the internet, Leonardo will always be remembered as the inventor of the Fibonacci series.

The definition of the Fibonacci series is very simple: start with 1, then next term is 1, and then each term after that is the sum of the previous two. So the first 8 numbers in the series make up the 10-digit bank account number mentioned above, like this:

•1
•1
•2 (1+1)
•3 (2+1)
•5 (3+2)
•8 (5+3)
•13 (8+5)
•21 (13+8)
•… and the account number is 1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21

There are many places where this series occurs in nature. One of the most common is in the branching of leaves. Some types of plants have leaves that cluster together only in groups of 2, 3, 5, or 8. Flower petals and seeds are also arranged in groups like this sometimes. Look closely at various types of plants, and you’ll find examples of the Fibonacci series. It even occurs in the spiral patterns on the surface of a pineapple, as explained here.

The Fibonacci series is also related to growth in some types of animals, such as snails. When a snail grows, its shape stays the same even though it’s constantly expanding. The new growth on the outside of a snail’s shell is “added to” the previous growth, and each year’s growth is related to the previous year’s growth in a mathematical series. We could get bogged down in the equations, but you don’t need to see the equations in order to see the pattern. Look at a snail, and look at the stalk of a bushy plant, and try to see how each is growing in the style of the Fibonacci series, adding the most recent numbers together to get the next number each time.

If you’re the type who loves getting bogged down in equations, here’s an analysis of how the Fibonacci series appears in the growth of conch shells. by the way, it’s worth noting that lots of people have force-fit Fibonacci numbers onto various natural phenomenon, in an effort to create some order in the universe. Fibonacci numbers appear many places, but they don’t explain everything.

Phi, the Golden Ratio

As the numbers in the Fibonacci series grow larger, the ratio between them becomes more and more constant. In other words, you can estimate the next number by multiplying the previous number by a special ratio, instead of adding them together. That ratio is between 1 and 2: around 1.618, to be exact. The ancient Greeks thought this special number was very important, and they called it the golden ratio. They also gave it another name: phi, pronounced “fee.”

If you make a rectangle with the lengths of its sides in the golden ratio, that rectangle is called a golden rectangle, and some people believe this is the nicest looking, most “esthetically pleasing” type of rectangle you can make. Phi also has a unique property in that it is 1 greater than its inverse (1/phi = phi-1 = .618…). And if you’re ever in need of Phi to some degree of accuracy, take the square root of 5, divide it in half, and add a half (.5).

You can combine squares whose sides are the numbers in the Fibonacci series to make an approximation of a golden rectangle, and the pattern that emerges is reminiscent of the Fibonacci-based spiral that appears in snail shells:

If you just can’t get enough of Phi (I understand, I’ve been there), check out GoldenNumber.net, a web site devoted to nothing but the “phinest” information on this topic. Dig deep enough, and you’ll find an interesting connection between Fibonacci, Phi, and my friend Tom (Kepler): Johannes Kepler, he of planetary-laws fame, was the person who first proved that the ratio between consecutive terms in the Fibonacci series converges to Phi.

The Da Vinci Code: Math=Lame, Ending=Bad

As a final observation about the Fibonacci series, I must say that bank account number in “The Da Vinci Code” seemed pretty lame. I mean, there was nothing about the particular random arrangement of Fibonacci numbers in the clue that would lead one to concatenate the first 8 Fibonacci numbers. Now, if they had thrown in a non-Fibonacci 45, say, and then used the 45th Fibonacci number (1134903170) as the account number, which just happens to be a 10-digit number starting with 11 (a nice clue), that would have been cool.

But no amount of mathematical cleverness could ever make up for the sheer lameness of the last half-hour of that movie. Some of those lines, like when Jesus’s hot French great-grand-daughter says she can’t walk on water “but maybe I’ll do better with the wine,” made me want to run out and join the Catholic Church in demanding that the movie be banned. I mean, when the bad guys are all dead, it’s time to wrap things up and run the credits. Right?

Today's Special Number: 7

2010-03-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 06/16/2006:

Like all bloggers, I like to review my stats and see which threads are getting the most traffic. And this one — National Pi Day — is a doozy by my dismal standards. 35 comments! (Note: the original comments on that post were lost when it was migrated to this blog platform in 2010.)

So, thinking I’ve spotted a trend, and being the politician that I am, I offer: 7, my favorite Special Number. If math sells around here, I’m the next Paul Erdos baby.

But seriously, 7 has quite a bit to recommend it. For example, it’s pretty simple in binary notation (111), and its inverse (notice the it’s-its distinction there, kids?) is .142857, repeating ad nauseum.

And what’s so special about that, you might ask? Well, check this out …

If you add 142857 to 142857, you get 285714. The same digits, re-arranged. Add another 142857 to that, and you get 428571. The same digits, re-arranged again.

Add 142857 again, and you get 571428. Ditto. Same with 714285 and 857142. It’s always the digits 1-4-2-8-5-7, re-arranged in some way. Then add 142857 to 857142 and you get 999999, and that just happens to be the 7th time we added 142857.

Here’s another way to say the same thing:

1/7 = .142857142857142857142857142857142857142857142857142857
2/7 = .285714285714285714285714285714285714285714285714285714
3/7 = .428571428571428571428571428571428571428571428571428571
4/7 = .571428571428571428571428571428571428571428571428571428
5/7 = .714285714285714285714285714285714285714285714285714285
6/7 = .857142857142857142857142857142857142857142857142857142

Seven. Dig it. No other prime comes close.

Schizophrenia Setting In

2010-03-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 05/16/2006:

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”
- Walt Whitman, Song of MyselfI said recently that I would never have separate blogs for business and personal topics. I lied. I’ve thought about it some more, and have decided that that’s exactly what I need to do.
The main reason I’m doing this is that I’ve felt sort of like my hands are tied lately. If I post a bunch of personal photos and family/friends stuff, then I’m diluting the experience for those who come here for information about Office 2007 and related technologies. And if I post a bunch of technical information about Office, then I’m making Mom and everyone else wade through that stuff to see what they’re interested in.
So I’ve created an MSDN blog, and I’m going to start putting all technical content there, and all non-technical posts will continue to show up here. But first I need to get a bunch of things organized, and this week isn’t looking good for finding the time to do that, so it may be next week that the split will actually take place. Meanwhile, here’s my MSDN blog address: https://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/
The Walt Whitman quote above is an in joke for my JoyStik Magazine buddies. Long story, you had to be there …

SB600 Wireless Flash

2010-03-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 04/23/2006:

I spent some time today cleaning my Nikon D70 and lenses, getting ready for the week ahead. I moved out of the small camera bag and into one of my bigger ones, a black tattered Lowepro that I’ve had since February of 1999.

I also set up an SB600 flash for wireless use. This is a very powerful technique: once you have it set up, you just set the flash to point at your subject and fire away. Here’s an example of what you can do, with no thinking, no details, just point and shoot.

Anyway, the following is a summary of D70/SB600 wireless info, for my own reference and also for the reference of all my friends who have D70s. Nic, Greg, Mauricio, Kit Kai, and everyone else who has a D70, if you haven’t played with wireless flash check this out. The SB600 is a great deal, and in stock in Seattle this week at Glazer’s Camera for $199, or $185 from Adorama. I also have an SB800, but it doesn’t handle the wireless mode as easily as the SB600. (At least in my experience — if you have a D70/SB800 and disagree, please let me know how to do this with the SB800.)

Setting up the Camera

Shooting Mode. My D70 is nearly always in Program mode: auto-everything, but you can over-ride various settings easily. The procedure below works in Program, Shutter, Aperture, or Manual shooting mode.

Full-Detail Menus. These instructions assume you have the full-detail menus turned on. The setting is CSM MENU, and it’s under the yellow wrench icon in the D70 menu system. That must be set to DETAILED, or you won’t see some of the things described below.

Press the Menu button, scroll to the purple pencil, then go to #19, “CSM Menu.” Set this to “Commander mode,” and select “TTL” within that option.
Click on the built-in flash button so that it pops up. This is important — the wireless mode won’t work if the flash isn’t popped up!

Setting up the Flash

Here are the steps to set up the SB600 flash to work in wireless mode with your D70:

Press the ZOOM and “-” buttons at the same time, and hold them for a second to enter the CSM settings.
Press the “+” button until you see the Z-shaped arrow, then press MODE until it shows “ON.”
Tap the power button to exit CSM mode.

After you follow these steps, you’ll see the display shown here on your SB600 flash. You’re ready to shoot with wireless flash — just set up the flash to point at your subject, and fire away. The exposure is automatically calculated “through the lens” in TTL mode, and you can concentrate on the picture you want to take, while ignoring the complicated details.

Reverting to Normal Mode

After you set the settings described above, the ONLY thing you can do with flash is take wireless flash shots with your SB600. You can take no-flash shots just fine, but if you want to take a “normal” flash shot with your D70’s built-in flash, or with your SB600 mounted on the camera, you need to un-do everything and set it back to normal flash mode. Here’s how to do that …

•On the D70, go to CSM setting setting #19, Flash Mode, and set it to TTL. (Not Command mode, but the Flash Mode setting itself!)
•On the SB-600, go back to the Z-shaped arrow (see above), and set it to OFF.

I first learned these techniques at KenRockwell.com, a great site for Nikon camera users. Here’s the page that covers SB600 flash technique.

Chef Bob

2010-03-16T18:02:00.001-07:00

Originally posted on 04/15/2006:

Back in 1999, when I start developing SERVIS (a line-of-business application for DAA Northwest auto auction in Spokane), I was still living in the Chicago area. During those months I flew back and forth, I stayed at the Ramada across the street from Spokane International Airport many times, and I usually ate breakfast at Remington’s, the Ramada’s in-house restaurant.

So I got to know the help there: the waiters, waitresses, bus staff, manager and chef. Bob Katzaman, the chef, was a 50-year-old teenager in many ways. A recent arrival to the Spokane area himself (from Arizona in the mid-90s), he lived alone on the northwest side of town, and his hobbies were golf and weight-lifting. He was muscular, usually laughing about something, often with an evil grin, and he would walk through the dining area of Remington’s periodically to look for customers he knew. He’d stop by the table and talk, usually too loud, usually about golf, usually staying a bit longer than the wait staff would have liked. But that was Bob.

He and I played golf a few times over the years I lived in Spokane. We’d play in the summer, and we’d also drive to warmer areas like Pasco or Yakima to play in the winter when Spokane had snow on the ground. Bob could hit the ball a ton: I can remember hitting a solid 5-iron to the green and then watching him hit a 9-iron from beside me to the same green. He had a little superstitious ritual about not tying his shoes until he got a birdie. So his shoes were always untied when he stepped up to the first tee, laces flopping around on the grass, and he’d stay like that until he got a birdie, at which point he’d slowly tie the shoes, savoring the accomplishment.

Bob had quite a temper when the game wasn’t going as he liked. If his shoelaces were still dragging through the grass on the 18th hole, you could be sure Bob would be in a surly mood. I liked to play golf with more Zen-like approach, taking pride in my calm acceptance of everything that happened, and sometimes the two of us were like the Odd Couple, snapping and snarling at each other on the course. I’d be over the ball, getting ready to hit, Bob would be yelling across the fairway about what went wrong on his last shot, I’d step away and start over, we’d do this a few times, then I’d get pissed and step up and shank one into the rough, then Bob would switch from talking about his terrible shot to talking about my terrible shot.

Remington’s had a more varied menu than most hotel restaurants, especially in Spokane. Bob experimented with combining the Tex-Mex styles he knew from his time in Texas and Arizona with the staples of the Inland Northwest restaurant scene such as barbecue and salmon. Every year when the Copper River salmon were in season, Bob had specials on the menu featuring it, and they were great. I usually ate pretty simple fare there, but I thought the Ramada’s reuben sandwich was the best in Spokane.

In 2002, I had Bob help me put on a team-building dinner at my house for my co-workers in the little computer department at the auction. Four of us, all guys, cooked a fancy multi-course dinner for our wives/girlfriends, and the rule was that Bob could instruct us but neither he nor the girls could do any of the work. Guys like myself who had rarely cooked anything fancier than a ham sandwich found themselves carmelizing walnuts, making exotic sauces, and doing other things that we never knew we could do, and we all had a great time. (Those who’ve read a lot of software management books may recall Demarco/Lister’s “Peopleware” recommended an exercise like this for helping teams to gel: yes, that’s where I got the idea.)

Bob’s brother died after a long illness in 2004, down in Texas, and Bob went there to clean out his house and handle matters. He came back with a computer that his brother had bought but hadn’t set up before he died, and I went over to Bob’s house and taught him a bit about it and helped him hook it up to the internet via Qwest’s DSL service. Bob had heard that the internet had lots of pictures you could just download for free, and the first thing he had me show him how to do was to locate a photo of Shania Twain in tight jeans and make it his desktop wallpaper. When I left him that evening, he was happily downloading the infamous Paris Hilton video.

I hadn’t seen Bob since moving to Seattle last fall. A week ago, Megan and I had planned to stay at the Ramada when we visited Spokane, and probably would have seen Bob in the morning at the restaurant, but the hotel was full so we stayed elsewhere.

Anyway, Chef Bob died yesterday. He dropped dead of a heart attack at work, and that’s about all I know so far — there hasn’t been an obituary notice yet, although I assume one will run in Sunday’s edition of the Spokesman-Review. When I searched for it this morning, I did find one article about how Bob’s arrival at Remington’s brought some new influences to the menu in the spring of 1996.

Rest in peace, Bob.

Programming in Structured English

2010-03-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 04/01/2006:

It’s a gray Saturday here in Seattle. We get quite a few of those.

I was planning to take a hike today, but my goal wasn’t really the exercise. Hikes, like many things I do, are just excuses to go take some cool pictures. And on a cloudy day, with rain a possibility, and no good light for getting creative with pictures, I decided to wait until tomorrow for a hike. If it’s not gray then, too.

So I’m spending the day in Visual Studio instead. I’m working on learning the System.IO.Packaging API, and frankly I’m working on learning C#, .NET and Visual Studio (VS) better too. I want to get together some code samples to publish on OpenXmlDeveloper.org soon, and my lack of VS experience definitely slows me down.

I’ve dabbled in VS many times, but I’ve never delivered a line of production code in it. As a longtime FoxPro developer who worked exclusively in assembly language before that, and in Fortran on big iron before that, I always found Visual Studio a bit claustrophobic. I’m used to a top-down creative process, starting with a high-level view and then filling in the details as I go. And I’ve been doing things this way for a long time. For example, here’s a story from the summer of 1979, when I was a young Fortran programmer at Boeing …

I needed to write a program to read data out of some files that contained acoustic data from a flight test. The acoustic data was essentially a three-dimensional matrix, with axes for time, frequency, and decibels, and there was one of these matrices for each test case. A guy at Boeing Computer Services had written a Fortran library for manipulating this data, and I wanted to use his functions in my program. But I was struggling a bit to understand how they should fit into my design, so I took my design notes over to the 10-71 building in Renton and met with the guy. (Can’t remember his name — let’s say it was Bob.)

Keep in mind that this program was eventually going to be “written” on punched cards. So I’d get my notes organized on paper, then when I thought I had something that would work, I’d punch cards for each of the statements, go submit that card deck to the girls in the computer room downstairs, then go back to my desk and wait for them to call and say the program had run. Then I’d go downstairs and pick up my card deck and the printout of the program, 14″ wide greenbar paper that either contained my hoped-for results or a massive core dump of what happened to be in memory, byte-by-byte, when the program crashed.

So I was definitely in the “envisioning” stage when I sat down with Bob to discuss his library. I told him what I was trying to accomplish, and how I wanted to use his library. I kept talking, wondering if I was making a fool of myself, intimidated by this man and wanting his help. He said hardly a word; we had the social dynamic of an eager young student and a stern old master.

Then he saw my notes written on a tablet of graph paper. There were just rough notes about the flow of the program, pseudo-code as we all used to call it.

“Ahh … I see you have some Pascal experience” he said, in a tone of camaraderie that I hadn’t heard from him up to this point.

“No,” I started, hesitant to let go of this assumed connection that might soften him up. I had never written a line of Pascal, hadn’t even seen one.

“Oh … Structured Fortran, then,” he responded with certainty. Now, “structured” Fortran was the latest greatest variation of Fortran, but I was actually working in mundane Fortran 66. I hadn’t moved up to structured Fortran ‘77. But one of the advances in structured Fortran was the IF/THEN/ELSE concept (it was all IF/GOTO before then), and I had used the word ELSE in my notes, which had apparently caught Bob’s eye. Such an unusual word to use, you know.

“No,” I said, reluctantly exposing my lack of experience in cool programming languages. “Just structured English.”

Bob turned to a co-worker. “Hey, this guy’s working in structured English, you think that will compile?” They snickered at my ways, but Bob was actually very helpful after that and I got what I needed from him that day.

So that’s how I’m used to working. In those days, I wrote my structured English on paper. Then in the 80s, working in assembly language, I wrote it in a text editor, usually WordStar although I got into Brief in a big way later. In FoxBase and FoxPro, I just typed “modify command” and started typing notes, roughing out the flow of my program, sketching in details of classes and procedures I’d need, making notes about interactions between components, and so on. I might spend hours in that text window and write lots of code before my first attempt to compile or execute any of it.

I’m convinced, from many years of experience, that a deliberate disconnect between thinking creatively and focusing on syntax is what really frees up your brain to see interesting possibilities and new approaches. And it’s not just a programming thing: look at how many good writers make it a point to never think about grammar, punctuation and word choice until their vision is clear and complete. Nitpicky little syntactical details need to be kept out of the creative process until late in the game. Anyone can see that, right?

But Visual Studio doesn’t want me to work that way. Like old Bob, Visual Studio doesn’t recognize structured English. So it nags me about what I “should” be typing, or what’s “missing” from my code, or — most annoying of all — it “helps” me by adding references to DLLs that I’ve never heard of or even writing code in places where I thought I hadn’t written any code yet. Working in VS often doesn’t feel like I’m designing or creating a program, it feels like playing a complex video game or something (which I certainly enjoy, but I enjoy programming, too!).

Then this morning I learned that I’m not the only one who feels this way. Here’s what I’m talking about — a great transcript of a talk by Windows programming guru Charles Petzold last fall. Thanks, Charles, you’ve made my day! If a guy can understand and teach C# and .NET programming at the level he does, and still feel that way about working in Visual Studio, maybe there’s hope for me after all.

I’m headed for my favorite breakfast spot with a tablet of graph paper and a ballpoint pen …

Creating a DOCX Out Of Thin Air

2010-03-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 03/31/2006:

Suppose you were stranded on a desert island, and you wanted to create a document. A “Hello World!” document, just to let the world know you’re out there.

And let’s say you’re going to send it to a bunch of people back at the office who are all running Office 2007. (You’ve been on this island for quite a while, see, or maybe you work in DPE.) Office 2007 can open anything from a text file to a DOCX, but you’d like to send a DOCX, just to look cool and to show your support for open non-proprietary technology.

But you only have a crude computer with no application software installed. Maybe it’s running Windows XP, or maybe even Win95. Or it could be a Mac, or a Linux box, or even some old DOS machine or an Apple II or something.

Sounds like you need to create a DOCX out of thin air. No problem. You’ll need three things to do it:

1) A folder-based file system. CP/M or TSO won’t do — ideally you want something designed in the last 25 years or so. I used XP.

2) A text editor. I used Notepad.

3) Some way to compress a ZIP archive, and it needs to be a version that handles folders within the archive. I used WinZIP.

Here’s what to do …

First, create two folders. On my XP laptop, I just put them on the desktop. These folders should be named _rels and word.

Next create a text file at the same level as these folders (e.g., also on the desktop), and type this chunk of XML into it.

That’s just some XML that defines two content types: package relationships and a WordProcessingML document. Save the text file, and rename it [Content_Types].xml. You should then have two empty folders and a content-type file, all in the same folder or on your desktop.

OK, we’ve create three of the five things we’ll need to make this document work. We’re over half done!

The next thing we need to create is the relationships file. Create a text file in the _rels folder, and put this content in it.

That’s some xml that basically says “this officeDocument’s outermost part is the document.xml file in the word folder.” Save this text file, and name it .rels. (Yes, just an extension — note that in the content types we said, in essence, “anything with a rels extension defines package relationships.”) If you’re running Windows, you can’t rename a file to an extension only from the GUI shell, so you’ll need to go to the command prompt to do this or find some other way. Deal with it.

The final step is to create the document.xml file in the word folder. That one should contain this chunk of WordProcessingML.

Note that we could also have a _rels folder within the word folder, to define relationships to document.xml. But we didn’t bother, because there are no other parts in this document for document.xml to have a relationship with. When you have no relationships, life’s simple.

That’s it, you’ve created the contents of a DOCX file. Now you just need to package it up. Go back to your top level folder and ZIP the three pieces (the two folders and the content-types file) into a ZIP archive, then rename it something like HelloWorld.docx. Then open it in Word 2007, and it should look something like the image to the right.

If you have the Word 2007 beta but don’t want to bother with the steps above, here’s a link to a HelloWorld.docx that was created exactly as outlined above.

This document has many key parts and items missing. It has no document properties and no application properties. It has no support for most common content types. It has no headers, footers, styles, themes, tables, fonts, or other typical document elements. But it’s an Office Open XML document, and Word 2007 will open it without complaint.

Suppose you want to add an image to this document. That gets a little messier. You have to add a content type for the image format (jpeg, say), then you have to define a relationship for the image and insert some WordProcessingML into document.xml to add the relationship to the document. You also have to put the image file somewhere in the document — Word puts them in a media folder, which is a good idea, but you can just throw it in the word folder if you’re feeling lazy, and make the relationship point to it there. If you do all of those steps, you get a document something like this one, which looks like this in Word 2007.

So you can create a DOCX that Word 2007 (or any other Open XML consumer) will open, and you can do it without Office 2007, or prior versions of Office, or any other software written in the last decade for that matter. You can create it right out of thin air. This isn’t the easiest way to go about things, of course, and it’s certainly not a best practice, but it demonstrates the openness of the new Office Open XML file formats in a simple and straightforward way.

The obvious variation, to create a DOC file from thin air, will be left as an exercise for the reader. :-)

The World Is Flat

2010-03-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 03/31/2006:

As longtime readers know, I used to review the occasional book. Because I used to read a lot of books. A book or two a week, sometimes. Then I got a job at Microsoft. I’ve only read a few books in the last few months, mostly about C# or .NET.

But last week Megan got me a copy of “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. And somehow it made it to the top of my “to read” pile right away, and I’ve actually been reading it.

It’s a cool book. Several people I know have read it already, so I feel a bit late to the party. And after the way I’ve spent the last few weeks in my job at Microsoft, I can see why people would be recommending this book to me.

The opening paragraph starts with a description of a tee shot on the KGA golf course in Bangalore. Here’s a picture I took of that tee shot, during lunch break at an Office 2007 workshop three weeks ago. Friedman describes aiming at Microsoft, and my photo is a shot from Microsoft back to the golf course.

I was there in Bangalore for the Office 12 workshop (where I met Pali, Tarun, Raja, Amol and others), but I also met on Friday with Sonata. Datta and Sanjay are working on some content for OpenXmlDeveloper.org.

I also took a picture from the new Microsoft building, which is nearly ready to be occupied. Looking across the golf course from the open deck outside the cafeteria, you’re looking right down the middle of a runway of the nearby airport. Looks like it will be a cool place to hang out and watch planes taking off, hauling loads of software developers to and fro.

The premise of Friedman’s book has been discussed a lot on many forums (check out the Amazon comments), but here’s my synopsis. Friedman’s premise is that the business world has fundamentally changed in the last 5 years, while most people were distracted by things like the war on terror. Individuals can now collaborate effectively from anywhere around the globe, there is inexpensive high-speed internet connectivity to previously untapped markets (such as India and China), and there is a growing body of people who look at international business in a completely different way from how previous generations viewed such possibilities. That’s the thesis, and the book is full of anecdotal and statistical evidence that supports this thesis.

My own tangential experience of some of the people and places in this book is interesting, at least to me. For example, on page 206 he tells the story of how the state of Indiana outsourced its unemployment operations to Tata. Tata is a huge Indian tech consulting firm, a competitor of Sonata. When governor Joe Kernan discovered what a political brouhaha had been hatched by outsourcing the unemployement department to an Indian firm, he squelched the deal, but not before Tata had made roughly a million dollars on the deal.

So check out this picture, which has been on my web site since 1999. Mom and I were traveling in India, and we had bumped into a couple of ladies in Nepal the week before whose itinerary overlapped with ours for over a week through Kathmandu, Royal Chitwan National Park, and Varanasi. One of those ladies, Maggie Kernan (on the right in the foreground, black shirt with flowers on it) is the wife of Joe Kernan. She wasn’t the First Lady of Indiana when we met her — Joe was Lieutenant Governor then, but governor Frank O’Bannon (who had signed off on the Tata deal) had sudden health problems that catapulted Joe into the governor’s office.

Today I was on a conference call with Microsoft’s XML MVPs, to tell them about the site that I’ve been working on with Sonata. Shortly after the call, I got an email from Jeff Julian, an MVP on that call. I followed the link to one of Jeff’s blogs, EntrepreneursWithBlogs.com, and there I saw that Jeff had a very brief review of “The World is Flat” in which he recommends reading the first 100 pages and then skipping ahead to the last 3 chapters.

I’ve made it to page 207, but I’m going to take Jeff’s advice from here and skip to the last three chapters. I’m too busy to be reading this book. I mean, (at 11:34pm) I just got off a conference call with Sonata!

Anybody else who’s read this book want to comment on it?

OpenXMLDeveloper.org goes live!

2010-03-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

Originally posted 03/21/2006:

Well, it’s finally public: OpenXmlDeveloper.org is live. It’s a web site that will serve as the portal for a community of developers working with the new Office Open XML file formats, and I’ve been working with a wide variety of people to pull it together over the last week or so: the folks who built the site at Telligent, our PR people at Waggener Edstrom, a lawyer from LCA, various DPE colleagues, a few people from the product group (including Brian Jones, who has a post on his blog today about the site), Office marketing, IWPMG, and others. I’ll be the moderator of the site, as well as the proofreader, mediator, and janitor.

Bill Gates announced this community and web site in his keynote at Office Devcon this morning. I was pleased to see how much XML played into his presentation, but I’m a bit biased. He said “the cool thing about this community is it includes three of my favorite words: open, xml and developer.” In the middle of Bill’s speech, Jay Paulus gave a cool demo of various Office 2007 functionality, including opening an Open XML Format document as a ZIP file and showing how easy it is for developers to bind Office documents to XML data.

There are 40 organizations that have already signed up for this community including Apple, Intel, Toshiba, and others (see the full list here), and we’re expecting a lot more. And there are a bunch of people working on content for the site, which will start to show up over the days and weeks ahead. Right now there are a few submissions already on the site, including a cool example of building a Word document from scratch in Java (developed by the team at Sonata), and an example of how to work with embedded documents from Stephen Peront at Xinnovation.

Man, I could use a nap … but we have a full day today, including the file formats track of Office Devcon this afternoon and social events with some of the OpenXmlDeveloper community this evening. So I’ll go get a latte instead. Tonight’s meeting should be interesting, and we’re going to have even more ideas for content on the site after talking with a room full of developers about what they’d like to see.

There should be a video on Channel 9 later today with more info about the site, featuring Brian Jones, Kevin Boske, Mauricio Ordonez, and yours truly.

National Pi Day

2010-03-16T17:34:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 03/14/2006:

Today, 3/14, is National Pi Day. For obvious reasons. (Well, unless you live in a country where today’s date is represented by 14/3, in which case it might not be so obvious.) I heard some info about Pi Day on the radio on the way to work today, and it reminded me of how much I was into pi as a kid.

You see, back then, things were different. For example, I had a slide rule, and aspired to an even better one. Dad’s slide rules, which he used in his job as a Boeing engineer, had real glass in them, but mine was a plastic cheapo from a shop at brand-new Southcenter Mall. Mine had the standard C and D scales (log scales, for multiplication and division), and the A and B scales used for square roots, but I wanted one with all the more esoteric scales, for calculating cube roots and tangents, sines and cosines, and other fun numbers.

But one thing my slide rule couldn’t do was calculate pi, at least not to any significant degree of accuracy. So I memorized pi. First I memorized the first 10 digits or so, and I recited it for Dad one evening when he came home from work. He continued from where I left off, adding another 20 digits or so. Crushed, I hit the books and soon knew 100 digits.

Then I read, in the Guiness Book of World Records, that the record for memorizing pi was 700 digits. I can beat that, I thought. Soon I was up to 200 digits, and the record was up to over 1000 digits. No problem, I thought, I can kick it up a notch and smoke these guys. I’m young, I’ll add a hundred digits every few months, and by the time I’m 30 I’ll be king of the pi-memorizing jungle.

Then in 1975, some Canadian geek named Simon raised the bar: he memorized 4000 digits. Enough, I thought, I have better things to do. I stopped practicing, and settled for knowing the first 100 digits, which I’ve hung onto ever since. These days, I sometimes recite it to myself when I want to clear my mind, like a little meditative chant.

The official record is now over 40,000 digits, and a Japanese man unofficially recited over 80,000 digits from memory last summer. Makes me feel quite normal, to hear about guys like that!

In celebration of National Pi Day, I’m going to recite the first 100 here, just for fun …

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679

Happy Pi Day!

One Bad Apple

2010-03-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 03/05/2006:

I’ve heard a few variations on the joke “throw a rock out a window in Bangalore, and chances are it will hit a software developer.” And it seems to be true; last night I was leaning against the wall at the Mumbai airport at 2:00AM, waiting for my flight to Bangalore, and struck up a conversation with a young man next to me, and he turned out to be a software developer from Bangalore. Balak works for Caritor, and he gave me some tips on Bangalore night life and tourist attractions.

When I arrived in Bangalore, it took a long time for our bags to come out and I was thinking about how different were my baggage claim experiences in Bangalore and Mumbai (where I cleared customs), compared to my experience in Varanasi a few years ago.

That prior trip, I had to physically push guys out of the way in an every-man-for-himself free-for-all to get at our bags coming off the conveyor in Varanasi. But at both Indian airports I came through last night, people were very polite and quick to help each other out. Sure, the airports were more chaotic than anything you’ll ever see in America or Europe, but the tone felt very cooperative and friendly. Is this a difference between crowded, poor North India and the more progressive and wealthier hi-tech South India? A sign of changing times in India in general?

Who knows. But whatever the reason, it felt good. Then I ran into a guy who killed that good feeling, at least temporarily.

I needed to change some dollars to rupees, so I walked up to the money exchange counter in the Bangalore airport at 6:00 this morning. The guy inside the booth had his back to me, and I said “excuse me, sir, are you open?” He didn’t respond, so I said “is there any place to exchange money at this time of day?” Again, no response. He was three feet away, obviously ignoring me, not even willing to turn around and tell me that he was closed. Oh well, point taken.

So I walked over to a nearby police officer and asked him the same question. He pointed at the window I had just left, and I said “I tried, but he doesn’t answer when I ask.” The cop just smiled, so I returned to the window. An Indian man had arrived at the window now, and when he asked the same question I did, the young man in the booth turned around and said “how can I help you?” The customer turned to me and said “you go first, no problem.” I thanked him, thinking once again of how friendly and cooperative everyone seemed to be here in India.

I slowly counted out ten $20 bills and asked for them to be changed to rupees. The young man took my money and turned around, huddling over his desk while I waited. Then, after a while, he turned around and said “you didn’t give me $200, this is just $180.” I glared, incredulous that he was trying this, and he slowly counted out nine $20 bills for me.

I responded with a tone, volume, and selection of words I felt was appropriate to the situation. In other words, I lost it. Nobody in the general baggage claim area was left unaware of the fact I believed I had just been ripped off. When he said “are you calling me a liar?” I said — quite loudly — “yes, sir, I am saying that you are a liar!” He pointed out that he was right there the whole time, I said no, you didn’t count my money in front of me until after you had walked over to your desk with it and turned your back to me for a while.

Soon there was another employee there, and the other customer nearby, and the cop watching from across the room although he never made any move to come over and get involved. The young man tossed my $180 back through the slot in the window, and I pushed it back and said “do your job, change that to rupees, all $180 of it!”

He told me how rude I was, and added “I’ve seen this often with Americans,” to which I responded “do Indian people respond well to being ripped off, is it just Americans who find that offensive?” You get the idea. One thing that I realized later was that he never actually said “I didn’t take the money” or anything like that, he just focused on how rude I was. Which was true, of course.

Anyway, I finally got my $180 worth of rupees and went to the hotel, where I only had time to take a quick shower, have a cup of coffee, and head for the Office 12 workshop. I’m running on a couple of 2-hour naps to get me through 48 hours, so tonight I’m thinking I may hit the sack a little early.

I only snapped one picture on the cab ride over here, but I’ll take a bunch more later of course. I saw a cool scene of a bunch of women in colorful saris standing around a cow in the road with traffic whizzing past, but by the time I got my camera out we were in an area without much going on. Lesson learned — I’m keeping my camera handy!

Now I just need to stay awake all day. Patrick’s being very energetic in his presentation so far, that should help.

High Expectations

2010-03-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

Originally posted 03/02/2006:

People expect a lot from software. And that’s a good thing — those high expectations push developers to come up with creative ways to make software easier to use, more flexible, and more reliable.

But it’s interesting to notice how much less people expect from hardware than software, especially in terms of ease of use. The same folks who slam software for minor variations in user interfaces (”why can’t they just make it easy to use?”) seem quite tolerant of complexity and inconsistency in other types of products.

For example, I’ve heard many people point out subtle variations in the layout of various software use interfaces, but I’ve rarely heard anyone complain about similar issues in automobiles:

Headlights and turn signals: the control may be on the left or the right, you might have to turn it or push it or pull it or move it up or down.

Filling up with gas: could be on the right or the left, it might require that you flick a lever inside the car, which is usually on the floor next to the driver’s seat, but it may go up or down (and pushing it the wrong way might do something else, like pop the trunk).

Setting the time: this has improved in some newer models, but there are still millions of cars whose owners have no clue how to set the time and it’s not obvious at all.

And the list could go on and on. Why doesn’t anybody ever say “I refuse to drive a Ford until they straighten this proprietary nonsense out!” like they would if Microsoft made automobiles? Or what about elevators? Which floor gets your feet on the ground? G? 1? L? What about elevators that have all three of those buttons? WHICH ONE IS IT? I just want to return to terra firma. (Speaking of which, in some countries the ground-floor button is T. Really.)

Anyway, I came across a device at Sea-Tac the other day that is a good example of society’s tolerance of complexity in hardware devices. It’s a phone charger with 12 different connectors, and you can pay for a half hour of charging on your phone. Why do all these phones have all these different connectors? And why do we consumers tolerate it?

Rise up, people! Rebel! Stand up for your rights! Don’t accept this nonsense.

OK, I feel better now …

Carnival Photos

2010-03-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

Originally posted 02/27/2006:

For everyone who has expressed interest in the parade photos, here they are: a few dozen of our favorites out of the 600+ photos I took during the 9 hours we were at the parade in the Sambodromo.

I don’t have time to arrange these in any sort of artistic fashion, so there are just a few pages, each with a bunch of photos on it. And organizing these into categories is open to lots of debate — is that a picture of a cool costume, a fleshy female, a parade float, a she-male, a cute guy, or all of the above? I just went with my first instinct, mostly because I’m really busy this week and this is the only way I’ll get them up on the web site for everyone to see.

So here are the categories …

Fleshy females. The most-requested category first — Paul and Phil, DON’T LOOK AT THESE! (OK, so that’s probably not going to stop them. Charlie and Nick, you guys should probably take cold showers, too.)

Cute guys, for Guillermo and the girls. Sorry if my definition of “cute” doesn’t match yours!

Parade floats. This is the biggest page, so go make yourself another drink while this one loads. Brazilian engineering at its finest.

Clever costumes. Every act had hundreds of costumes, usually appearing in waves of a few dozen of these, then a few dozen of those, usually with a fleshy female or two in between. Sort of like a palette-cleansing sorbet between courses of a fancy meal.

The fans in the stands. The guy in the white shirt and the girl in tight jeans and a white top (behind the railing) were our favorites. They should have taken a bow at the end of the night.

Interesting facial expressions. Of these, there were many.

Divas. Frankly, that word applies to a pretty high percentage of the women (and “women”) in the parade, but I thought these three should be included and I couldn’t decide where to put them.

She-males. I could be wrong about some of these, of course (sorry about that!), but others seem pretty clear.

Parade organizers. These are the people who help keep the parade moving, running around amongst the dancers and singers and pushing them into line or prodding them along. Their exuberance was fun to watch. I’ve also included here people like the street-sweeper girl who dressed up in various outfits and danced while her colleagues cleaned up after each act. Note her official Sambodromo photo ID card, like all the other employees.

Hey, if you appreciate all the work it took to get this together, feel free to post a comment. (I’m just trying to build as much traffic as Scoble so I can be an A-list blogger.)

Oh yeah, we were there, too.

Ben-Vimdo a São Paulo!

2010-03-16T16:58:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 02/19/2006:

… as it says on a banner over the highway coming out of the airport. I’m guessing that means “welcome to São Paulo,” but when you don’t know the language it’s hard to be sure about things. As became quite clear in my first few hours here …

I arrived Sunday morning, and the weather was hot, hazy and humid. On the cab ride from the airport to the hotel, I thought São Paulo looked a bit like Southern California. There’s gang graffiti all over the place, and lots of billboards using flesh to sell consumer products. Sometimes both at once.

I checked in to the Crowne Plaza hotel, where I have a view of some typical São Paulo architecture. I wanted to get on-line right away to see whether there was any email related to the preparations for tomorrow’s workshop, but connectivity is limited here. You can do wireless in the lobby, or use a funky little computer in the room for internet access, which costs about $15 per day. I paid for 24 hours, but it’s pretty lame because the virus software is out of date but it can’t download an update, so it tries 50 times and then shuts the computer down. But I’ve figured out that gives me about 5 minutes of internet access while it’s trying to update the virus definitions, so I can turn it on, check email, maybe send an email or two, then the computer shuts off. Better than nothing, but just barely.

I found no email about the setups, so I got a cab to take me to Microsoft at 1:00 this afternoon, to meet Marcio — the local network tech — as we had planned. We (Ted and I) are staying at the Crowne Plaza because the World Ophthmalmology Congress is in town this week and all the hotels close to Microsoft are full.

The cab driver was an elderly man who didn’t speak a word of English. He drove me through a tunnel, over a bridge, along the side of a canal, and then it started raining. He would only turn on his wipers once every minute or two, which was a little nerve-wracking when we could barely see through the water on the windshield. Eventually we arrived at our destination, or so he thought: he pulled up in front of the World Ophthmalmology Congress.

I knew it was the wrong place, because it was a 2-story building and I was to meet Marcio on the 31st floor. So I politely but firmly explained that this wasn’t my destination, and after he consulted with another driver we took off in a new direction, looking for Microsoft along Avenue Das Nacoes Unidas. After a mistaken turn that took 5 minutes to correct (going around a huge block in heavy traffic), we drove past a Hilton that I recognized (from a photo I had seen) as the one that’s next to Microsoft’s office in São Paulo.

I knew we were close, and I was getting tired of watching the meter climb while we drove around in circles, so I had him drop me there. I ask at the Hiton check-in counter which direction to Microsoft, and a couple minutes later I was at the reception desk of the Microsoft building.

The guy working the desk didn’t speak a word of English, of course. And to make matters worse, he smirked the whole time as if he was extremely amused by this silly American who couldn’t communicate with him. He placed a phone call, and after a long conversation in Portugese with somebody he made me a temporary single-access badge that I could use to get past the turnstiles and into the elevators.

Up on the 31st floor, there was nobody around and my temporary badge wouldn’t open the main doors, nor would my permanent Microsoft badge from back home. I got back in the elevator and checked out floors 32 and 30, but nobody was on those floors either. So I returned to 31 and started swiping my badge on every card reader I could find.

Apparently this showed up on a monitor somewhere, because a security guard arrived shortly. He was a muscular young man with tight slacks tucked into these really cool shiny black leather boots with little pockets in the sides of them. I want a pair of those boots!

Anyway, he was not amused by my predicament. I tried to explain that I was looking for Marcio, but — of course — he didn’t speak a word of English so that didn’t do any good. He sternly pointed at the elevator, I got in, and he escorted me back to the reception desk in the lobby.

Now Mr. Boots and Mr. Smirk started talking about me in Portugese, while I stood there waiting. They were like kids laughing at an animal in the zoo, freely staring at me while laughing and talking. This did not help my rapidly deteriorating mood.

I said “I’ll be back” and headed for the Hilton next door. I wanted to find a phone to call Marcio’s cell, and I was so annoyed at this point that I figured a short walk in the rain would cool me off a bit. That’s a nice thing about not having hair, rain is just a cooling process and has no other ramifications.

The staff at the Hilton desk did speak English, so they dialed the number I gave them and I found myself talking to Marcio. He seemed very nice, and he said he could meet me in the lobby of Microsoft’s building in 5 minutes.

I walked back and explained this to Mr. Smirk, then stood on the other side of the lobby waiting for Marcio. A minute later, a handsome young man in a suit and tie came walking out of the elevators toward me.

“Marcio?,” I asked, and he smiled. I shook his hand, and said “I’m sure glad to see you.” He replied “I am sorry, I don’t speak English.” He was being overly modest, I thought — we had communicated just fine on the phone.

Then he stepped behind the reception desk, where he picked up a phone and started dialing. I asked if he needed my badge, but he held up his hand, obviously annoyed with me, as if to say “calm down, you stressed-out type-A American jerk.” His demeanor seemed so different from our phone call a few minutes ago!

Then he handed me the phone, and I realized what was happening. This guy was some security schmuck (Mr. Smirk #2?), and he had Marcio on the phone. Or so I thought.

“Hey Marcio,” I began, but I was startled to hear a woman’s voice say “hello, I can’t hear you very well.”

“Who’s this? Who am I speaking to?” While I said this, Mr. Smirk #2 lived up to his name.

“This is Marcio’s wife,” she said. “I am helping you because he doesn’t speak English very well.” (Precise use of pronouns and indefinite articles is one of those things people tend not to do when speaking a second language, but I didn’t think about that at the time.)

So this is Marcio standing here with the shit-eating grin, I thought. And he’s not even going to talk to me, although he spoke English pretty well in our brief phone conversation. Asshole.

I explained to Marcio’s wife that I needed to get in to check the classrooms. She said “but he says you don’t have clearance and he can’t let you in, so you can’t do that today.”

I’d been fairly calm up until now, but I felt my self-control suddenly slipping away.

“Listen,” I said, glaring at Marcio, “I need to get into that classroom, and it will be a big problem for your husband if he doesn’t let me in. Big problem for his job. Big problem!” I knew that wasn’t really true, that I probably had no leverage at all, but I was just pissed at this point.

While I was yelling, another guy walked up to us. Dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, he looked a lot more like a network tech than Mr. Smirk #2 did, and when he said “Doug!” and shook my hand vigorously while slapping my back, I realized I had finally found the real Marcio.

Marcio got me a badge from the Smirk twins, and we took the elevator up to the 31st floor. I told him about yelling at his wife and apologized for it, but he just laughed.

When we got to the classrooms, it was as if the sun had come back out. Everything was fine.

The VPCs were all installed, the presentations were on the C: drives, and the VPCs were actually running on most of the machines. Marcio and I chatted while he finished booting up the VPCs on the final workstations, I snapped a picture of the view from the lunchroom, and 15 minutes later we were done. I had expected to spend hours getting the setups done, but instead Marcio had already done everything and there was nothing for me to do.

My driver for the cab ride back to the hotel was a young guy who drove like a bat out of hell, and he took a much more direct route than the old man had, so the return to the Crowne Plaza took took a quarter of the time (and money) that it had taken to get there. I asked “do you speak English,” he said “no, sir” and I said “good, I think that’s best.” :-)

I love it when a plan comes together.

One Year Ago Today ...

2010-03-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 02/18/2006:

I got up before 4:00AM to take a hike with my friend Scott. We started in the darkness, then the sun rose on a clear, cold morning as we approached the summit of Mount Kit Carson. From there we crossed the saddle and went on up to the top of Mount Spokane, where our workout was rewarded with a spectacular view in every direction.

A few hours later, I drove to Seattle (280 miles) to attend a Paul Westerberg show with my brother Brad and a few of his friends. It was a casual affair, so I didn’t change out of my my hiking clothes. Tanned and unshaven, I showed up with the mud of Eastern Washington still caked on my boots, wearing ski pants and a sweaty fleece pullover.

Brad had invited a co-worker named Megan, an editor I had heard about a time or two but had never met. When she arrived at the Green Door, I awkwardly extended my hand to introduce myself, spilling my wine all over the floor.

Now, one year later, Megan and I are living together in Seattle, working across the street from one another at Microsoft, and engaged to be married this spring. I’m writing this from DFW in Dallas, on the way to Brazil on business. Megan will meet up with me in a few days, and we’ll attend the opening ceremonies of Carnaval, South America’s biggest party, in São Paulo, the world’s 4th-largest city.

I’m a lucky man. Happy Anniversary, Megan! I can’t wait to spill more wine with you soon.

Microsoft Town Hall Meeting

2010-03-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 01/20/2006:

I just got back to my desk from a “town hall meeting” across the street, where Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer discussed Microsoft’s plans for this year and answered questions from audience. Questions were also submitted via email, and of course it was being webcast on the Microsoft intranet. It was a standing room only crowd in the cafeteria where the meeting took place, as you can see in the photo.

Steve wasn’t as high-energy as he often is, although he got a excited momentarily on a few topics, especially related to flexibility and pace of change. I enjoyed hearing Bill mention Office 12 and Sharepoint early and often, although it made me feel like I should be back at my desk working! (Since Office 12 and Sharepoint evangelism is my main focus these days.)

The questions weren’t softballs. I won’t share it all (hey, it was a Microsoft employees-only meeting, come work here if you want to know all the details!), but suffice to say that people were directly asking questions on the topics of the day, including things like the recent furor over MSN’s agreement to cooperate with the DOJ in requests for search records. Ballmer fielded that one, and although I certainly don’t 100% agree with his reasoning, I appreciated his straightforwardness in explaining it clearly.

My favorite moment was when Steve answered a question about losing the AOL search deal to Google with a long explanation of how Google put so much cash on the table that it wouldn’t have been a wise business decision to compete on those terms, and Bill quietly added “well, we cost Google at least $500 million.” After the laughter died down, Steve added the prediction that Microsoft’s market share in web searching will go up this year, “with or without AOL!”

Book review: Freakonomics

2010-03-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 01/17/2006:

I used to have a bunch of book reviews on my web site, Mahugh.com. But in the last couple of years, I stopped writing new reviews, and then when I started my blog last fall I reorganized my web site and decided to remove the Book Reviews section that hadn’t changed for so long.
But now I’m going to start it back up, in blog form. I read a lot of books, including many I just know a few of my friends will find interesting or useful. I’ve got a stack of books on current Microsoft technologies that I’m plowing through, so I’ll be covering some of those soon. But first, a quirky irreverent book that was a surprise bestseller this Christmas season.

I’m talking about “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt, of course. It’s a short interesting read; I read most of it on my flights from Seattle to Dallas for this week’s Office 12 Ascend workshop.

Levitt is described as a “rogue economist” on the cover, and inside the book he comes across as a nerdy intellectual with a passion for clear thinking and a constant desire to debunk the sloppy logic of his peers. His style reminded me at times of the physicist Richard Feynman, who famously dropped a rubber O-ring in his ice water at the Congressional hearings on the cause of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Like Feynman, Levitt has a burning desire to understand cause and effect, especially in those areas where “conventional wisdom” leads others to invalid conclusions.

Freakonomics looks into a wide variety of economic incentives and how they influence behavior. His interests range from the management hierarchy of a Chicago street gang (remarkably similar to the structure of McDonald’s franchises, he finds) to how Roe V. Wade affected urban crime rates in large American cities, to why real-estate agents consistently get more money for their own properties than the properties of their clients.

Levitt’s style is sure to offend many people, because he sees all human activity in terms of economic incentives and he analyzes the underlying data without regard for questions of right and wrong or good and evil. For example, he casually observes, in a discussion of how demand affects the value of various skill sets that “an architect is more likely to hire a prostitute than vice versa.” Or he analyzes reams of data on how kids perform in school, and shows that one can prove it matters far more who a child’s parents are than what they do. He points out that no studies have yet proved that drinking lots of water makes one healthier, or that children of divorced parents are any less happy or successful than children of happily married parents.

Such irreverent and unemotional observations constitute the appeal of this book. The bizarre comparisons and correlations that Levitt finds through his statistical analyses are fresh and mind-opening. He points out that if you have both a swimming pool in your backyard and a gun in your house, the swimming pool is roughly 100 times more likely to kill a child (as I quoted recently below), or that an inmate on death row in Texas is less likely to die in the next year than is a typical crack dealer. He analyzes the names parents give their children, and finds that a first name like Benjamin or Alexandra is likely to indicate that the child’s parents are rich, whereas a first name like Cody or Amber is more likely to be chosen by parents who are poor. He also looks at racial patterns in given names — Molly is the whitest first name for girls these days, for instance — and he shows how the favorite names given by wealthy persons tend to trickle down until the poor have the same names as their favorites a generation or so later.

If you find those sorts of observations interesting, this book will be an enjoyable read. If you find it disturbing that, say, abortion reduces crime because a high percentage of abortions occur in families that tend to raise criminals, then you might want to skip this one.

But wait, there’s a way to have your cake and eat it, too. Levitt is apparently dead wrong about the link between abortion and crime, due to — drum roll, please — a programming error in the computer model that he and co-researcher John Donohue used to analyze the data. Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston showed that Levitt and Donohue failed to correct for non-abortion factors as they believed they had. The story was first covered in detail in my favorite magazine The Economist. After explaining their methods, Foote stated unequivocally “I am simply not convinced that there is a link between abortion and crime.”

So Levitt is wrong on his most controversial and disturbing conclusion, but apparently right on most other things. He is simultaneously a brilliant senior statesman and an undisciplined amateur, both working in the same field. The Economist said it best: “for someone of Mr Levitt’s iconoclasm and ingenuity, technical ineptitude is a much graver charge than moral turpitude. To be politically incorrect is one thing; to be simply incorrect quite another.”

I still enjoyed the book, though. And although I can’t find any specific information about it, I’m guessing that programming error was in an Excel macro, probably an errant line of VBA. Anybody know whether that’s right or wrong?

Last Book of 2005

2010-03-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on 12/31/2005:

We’re cleaning up the house for a little New Year’s party tonight, but I’ve been a bum because I’m also trying to finish a book I’ve been reading over the holidays: “We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs” by Nasrin Alavi.

I read Anthony Shadid’s excellent book “Night Draws Near” earlier this year, and “We Are Iran” reminds me of it in some ways. They’re both books about countries that the current U.S. administration has dubbed “evil,” and they’re both full of real words from real people on the street, instead of pontifications from pundits and politicians or the view from inside American military hardware through the eyes of young soldiers or the oxymoron of “embedded journalists.” With all due respect to those sorts of perspectives, I’m a lot more interested in what real people have to say about the things happening in their own back yards.

“We Are Iran” is mostly about the blogs coming out of Iran during the last two years. There is a rich, vibrant blog culture in Iran that has been a huge thorn in the side of the idealistic and disconnected regime. While those in power recite religious platitudes and make excuses for their corruption and ineffectiveness, men and women are risking their personal safety to get the truth out, and doing so under conditions of constant surveillance and heavy-handed “anti-terrorist” tactics employed by shady and unaccountable government and military organizations.

Oops, I digress. Back to Iran …

Iran’s blogging counterculture is largely unknown in the West, in part because many of the blogs are written in Farsi. Farsi is the fourth most common language for blogs worldwide, and there are more Iranian blogs than Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese or Russian blogs. Another reason for the lack of awareness of Iranian blogs is the fact they’re mostly opposed to the non-elected clerics who run the country, so there is no coverage of these people in the official Iranian media.

The book presents little summaries of political and cultural events in recent Iranian history, followed by excerpts from blogs that have covered those events. The format works very well, because many of the blog posts are things you’d not understand unless you know the background of the events being discussed.
A sense of humor is prevalent throughout many of the blogs, such as the quote on FaranGeopolis that translates into English as “God invented war so that Americans can learn geography!” Or this great post on “How to Liberate Iran” by Sharif N. Mashi. I felt much more hopeful for Iran’s future after reading the book, not least because it’s clear that the current generation has no respect for the hard-line Islamic fundamentalists who have presided over Iran’s economic decline. As in Cuba, it’s hard to keep the people happy with talk of anti-imperialism if the average family is worse off 20 years after the revolution.

After I finish this book, I’m going to read “Come Back to Afghanistan” by Said Hyder Akbar, the teenage son of Hamid Karzai’s chief spokesman Said Fazel Akbar. This guy was a Californian of Afghan descent, had lived in the U.S. his whole life, and then was thrust back into Afghanistan as part of the new post-Taliban power elite. Hyder’s perspective has been described as “heartbreaking and hilarious” — I hope that’s true. And as long as I’m studying the Axis of Evil, anybody know where I can find a funny political book by a North Korean these days?

OK, I can’t hide from the vaccuum cleaner any longer … finished the book, even blogged about it … nowhere left to hide, time to get cleaning …