Capitalism, dead? It hasn't even lived yet

One last thing, before you consider capitalism completely dead.....

Laissez-faire capitalism has a definite meaning, which is totally ignored, contradicted, and downright defiled by such statements as those quoted above. Laissez-faire capitalism is a politico-economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and in which the powers of the state are limited to the protection of the individual's rights against the initiation of physical force. This protection applies to the initiation of physical force by other private individuals, by foreign governments, and, most importantly, by the individual's own government. This last is accomplished by such means as a written constitution, a system of division of powers and checks and balances, an explicit bill of rights, and eternal vigilance on the part of a citizenry with the right to keep and bear arms. Under laissez-faire capitalism, the state consists essentially just of a police force, law courts, and a national defense establishment, which deter and combat those who initiate the use of physical force. And nothing more.

The utter absurdity of statements claiming that the present political-economic environment of the United States in some sense represents laissez-faire capitalism becomes as glaringly obvious as anything can be when one keeps in mind the extremely limited role of government under laissez-faire and then considers the following facts about the present-day United States:

1. Government spending in the United States currently equals more than forty percent of national income, i.e., the sum of all wages and salaries and profits and interest earned in the country. This is without counting any of the massive off-budget spending such as that on account of the government enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Nor does it count any of the recent spending on assorted "bailouts." What this means is that substantially more than forty dollars of every one hundred dollars of output are appropriated by the government against the will of the individual citizens who produce that output. The money and the goods involved are turned over to the government only because the individual citizens wish to stay out of jail. Their freedom to dispose of their own incomes and output is thus violated on a colossal scale. In contrast, under laissez-faire capitalism, government spending would be on such a modest scale that a mere revenue tariff might be sufficient to support it. The corporate and individual income taxes, inheritance and capital gains taxes, and social security and Medicare taxes would not exist.

2. There are presently fifteen federal cabinet departments, nine of which exist for the very purpose of respectively interfering with housing, transportation, healthcare, education, energy, mining, agriculture, labor, and commerce, and virtually all of which nowadays routinely ride roughshod over one or more important aspects of the economic freedom of the individual. Under laissez-faire capitalism, eleven of the fifteen cabinet departments would cease to exist and only the departments of justice, defense, state, and treasury would remain. Within those departments, moreover, further reductions would be made, such as the abolition of the IRS in the Treasury Department and the Antitrust Division in the Department of Justice.

3. The economic interference of today's cabinet departments is reinforced and amplified by more than one hundred federal agencies and commissions, the most well known of which include, besides the IRS, the FRB and FDIC, the FBI and CIA, the EPA, FDA, SEC, CFTC, NLRB, FTC, FCC, FERC, FEMA, FAA, CAA, INS, OHSA, CPSC, NHTSA, EEOC, BATF, DEA, NIH, and NASA. Under laissez-faire capitalism, all such agencies and commissions would be done away with, with the exception of the FBI, which would be reduced to the legitimate functions of counterespionage and combating crimes against person or property that take place across state lines.

4. To complete this catalog of government interference and its trampling of any vestige of laissez faire, as of the end of 2007, the last full year for which data are available, the Federal Register contained fully seventy-three thousand pages of detailed government regulations. This is an increase of more than ten thousand pages since 1978, the very years during which our system, according to one of The New York Times articles quoted above, has been "tilted in favor of business deregulation and against new rules." Under laissez-faire capitalism, there would be no Federal Register. The activities of the remaining government departments and their subdivisions would be controlled exclusively by duly enacted legislation, not the rule-making of unelected government officials.

5. And, of course, to all of this must be added the further massive apparatus of laws, departments, agencies, and regulations at the state and local level. Under laissez-faire capitalism, these too for the most part would be completely abolished and what remained would reflect the same kind of radical reductions in the size and scope of government activity as those carried out on the federal level.

What this brief account has shown is that the politico-economic system of the United States today is so far removed from laissez-faire capitalism that it is closer to the system of a police state. The ability of the media to ignore all of the massive government interference that exists today and to characterize our present economic system as one of laissez faire and economic freedom marks it as, if not profoundly dishonest, then as nothing less than delusional.

http://mises.org/story/3165

Gallery: Sci-Fi-Inspired Concept Ships Show Future of Travel

Coolness.

Gallery: Sci-Fi-Inspired Concept Ships Show Future of Travel

K12: K12 Inc. - Home schooling curriculum, public school options, virtual academy schools, virtual charter, distance learning programs for elementary

Man these things are growing like crazy. Homeschooling or non-government schooling is the future!

K12: K12 Inc. - Home schooling curriculum, public school options, virtual academy schools, virtual charter, distance learning programs for elementary & high school grades, in Science, Math, History, English, Language Arts and more!

Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games - Times Online

A new level of realism has been attained for Computer graphics. It looks like they FINALLY got the eyes right!
Awesome job guys over at Image Metrics. This is Emily, which is significantly more impressive than any video I've seen, even from their website. I'm convinced that in my lifetime these will be standard in every digital experience, and even perhaps change how work occurs. What if its easier bandwidth wise to do this: 1. Video my face in standard lighting with HD. Then 2. Send just the coordinates of change over the pipe. The screen renders in realtime. Way easier than piping HD video over the Net. AND my appearance would be consistent without me doing any real work on it :)

Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games - Times Online

June 2008

Just love quotes!

"Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.
- Ambrose Bierce"


Memoirs. Inherently egotistical, but I'm compelled to write one. Partly just to remember, to celebrate, but mostly to review for patterns of successful behaviors and draw conclusions, which usually only come via such experiences. My efforts to draw wisdom juice out of my 40 plus years will undoubtedly bore most people not in my circle of love, but I may have to try it, if just to silence the inner voice that nags me about it. These works ask to be born.

I've been thinking some about resonance, and about patterns. I've been looking at my work and how teams collaborate. I was humming in the public bathroom recently and I always have enjoyed how my lower register resonates in them. I meditated on that effect today, after the terrific Kung Fu Panda movie. Between a three year old boy and a 4 decade old bladder that is more of a gravity feed system now, I spend alot of time in toilets these days. When my voice resonates, its almost like someone else is singing with me. It is as if the voice inside of me has found life outside of me. Its louder clean bass tone. I feel it helping me stay on pitch. I am sad when I stop and it doesn't continue.

Is there a way that software development teams resonate? What patterns are there for effective teams? I recall this last football season. Despite losing the super bowl, the NE patriots were the best team of the year in my opinion. Their victories, 18 in a row, had an aire of inevitability. There were moments when each member of that team would pick up where the others would slack off. Now the Giants clearly had their weakspot figured out -- offensive line. The blitz was the death of Brady, and really in football the QB has to be secured or you can't perform. I imagine if their RB was just a bit more dominating they could have run against that crazy blitz, but I digress.

The Steelers, the 49ers, the Patriots. These teams seem to resonate on the field. Actors, in shows like X-files and MASH, true classics such as Lord of the Rings, Lost, The Matrix ( how about that energy between Neo and Trinity!) and X-files resonate with each other and the audience. Movies are an excellent example since if they do not resonate, they usually fail. Politics, art, science ( read about how those teams cracked the human genome)...every endeavor has some notion of resonance. What stops resonance? What causes it? Ponder I must.

Digg lunatics

I get an RSS feed from DIGG I continuously think of removing since its just a bunch of loonies ranting against Bush. What are they EVER going to do after the election?

Anyway, one fellow commented this, and it is AWESOME:


"My position is very clear: The time has come for decisive action to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. I'm a co-sponsor of the bipartisan Resolution that's presently under consideration in the Senate. Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave threat to America and our allies. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons today, that he's used them in the past, and that he's doing everything he can to build more. Every day he gets closer to his long-term goal of nuclear capability.

Democracy will not spring up by itself overnight in a multi-ethnic, complicated society that's suffered under one repressive regime after another for generations. The Iraqi people deserve and need our help to rebuild their lives and to create a prosperous, thriving, open society. All Iraqis, including Sunnis, Shia and Kurds, deserve to be represented. This is not just a moral imperative. It's a security imperative. It is in America's national interest to help build an Iraq at peace with itself and its neighbors, because a democratic, tolerant and accountable Iraq will be a peaceful regional partner, and such an Iraq could serve as a model for the entire Arab world."

Senator John Edwards (Democrat, North Carolina)
Speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
October 7, 2002

and this:

Impeach Bush? How quaint.

I fully expect the robot Libs to digg this down because the truth hurts too much to acknowledge.

Let's look at what some Democrats said about Iraq and Hussein, some of which were said BEFORE Bush was elected.

Nancy Pelosi: Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons-of-mass-destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

Senator Clinton agreed, October 2002: In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical- and biological-weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members.

Al Gore in September 2002: We know that [Saddam] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

John Kerry, also speaking in 2002: I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force--if necessary--to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.

Sen. Ted Kennedy: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

Bill Clinton himself, speaking in 1998: If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Secretary of State Madeline Albright, also speaking in 1998: Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.

Quite a list, wouldn't you say?

Nice!

Computer Reads Minds

Another one of these Transhuman things......popping up all over the place.

------

Computer trained to "read" mind images of words
Thu May 29, 2008 4:32pm EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A computer has been trained to "read" people's minds by looking at scans of their brains as they thought about specific words, researchers said on Thursday.

They hope their study, published in the journal Science, might lead to better understanding of how and where the brain stores information.

This might lead to better treatments for language disorders and learning disabilities, said Tom Mitchell of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who helped lead the study.

"The question we are trying to get at is one people have been thinking about for centuries, which is: How does the brain organize knowledge?" Mitchell said in a telephone interview.

"It is only in the last 10 or 15 years that we have this way that we can study this question."

Mitchell's team used functional magnetic resonance imaging, a type of brain scan that can see real-time brain activity.

They calibrated the computer by having nine student volunteers think of 58 different words, while imaging their brain activity.

"We gave instructions to people where we would tell them, 'We are going to show you words and we would like you, when you see this word, to think about its properties,'" Mitchell said.

They imaged each of the nine people thinking about the 58 different words, to create a kind of "average" image of a word.

"If I show you the brain images for two words, the main thing you notice is that they look pretty much alike. If you look at them for a while you might see subtle differences," Mitchell said.

"We have the program calculate the mean brain activity over all of the words that somebody has looked at. That gives us the average when somebody thinks about a word, and then we subtract that average out from all those images," Mitchell added.

Then the test came.

"After we train on the other 58 words, we can say 'Here are two new words you have not seen, celery and airplane.'" The computer was asked to choose which brain image corresponded with which word.

The computer passed the test, predicting when a brain image was taken when a person thought about the word "celery" and when the assigned word was "airplane."

The next step is to study brain activity for phrases.

"If I say 'rabbit' or 'fast rabbit' or 'cuddly rabbit', those are very different ideas," Mitchell said.

"I want to basically use that as a kind of scaffolding for studying language processing in the brain."

Mitchell was surprised at how similar brain activity was among the nine volunteers, although the work was painstaking. For an MRI to work well, the patient must sit or lie very still for several minutes.

"It can be hard to focus," Mitchell said. "Somewhere in the middle of that their stomach growls. And all of sudden they think, 'I'm hungry -- oops.' It's not a controllable experiment."

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Monkeys Control a Mechanical Arm With Their Thoughts - NYTimes.com

May 29, 2008
Monkeys Control a Robot Arm With Their Thoughts
By BENEDICT CAREY

Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The report, released online by the journal Nature, is the most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology. Scientists expect that technology will eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries and other paralyzing conditions to gain more control over their lives.

The findings suggest that brain-controlled prosthetics, while not practical, are at least technically within reach.

In previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves and that nonhuman primates could use their thoughts to move a mechanical arm, a robotic hand or a robot on a treadmill.

The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys’ brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one.

Experts not involved with the study said the findings were likely to accelerate interest in human testing, especially given the need to treat head and spinal injuries in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This study really pulls together all the pieces from earlier work and provides a clear demonstration of what’s possible,” said Dr. William Heetderks , director of the extramural science program at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Dr. John P. Donoghue, director of the Institute of Brain Science at Brown University, said the new report was “important because it’s the most comprehensive study showing how an animal interacts with complex objects, using only brain activity.”

The researchers, from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, used monkeys partly because of their anatomical similarities to humans and partly because they are quick learners.

In the experiment, two macaques first used a joystick to gain a feel for the arm, which had shoulder joints, an elbow and a grasping claw with two mechanical fingers.

Then, just beneath the monkeys’ skulls, the scientists implanted a grid about the size of a large freckle. It sat on the motor cortex, over a patch of cells known to signal arm and hand movements. The grid held 100 tiny electrodes, each connecting to a single neuron, its wires running out of the brain and to a computer.

The computer was programmed to analyze the collective firing of these 100 motor neurons, translate that sum into an electronic command and send it instantaneously to the arm, which was mounted flush with the left shoulder.

The scientists used the computer to help the monkeys move the arm at first, essentially teaching them with biofeedback.

After several days, the monkeys needed no help. They sat stationary in a chair, repeatedly manipulating the arm with their brain to reach out and grab grapes, marshmallows and other nuggets dangled in front of them. The snacks reached the mouths about two-thirds of the time — an impressive rate, compared with earlier work.

The monkeys learned to hold the grip open on approaching the food, close it just enough to hold the food and gradually loosen the grip when feeding.

On several occasions, a monkey kept its claw open on the way back, with the food stuck to one finger. At other times, a monkey moved the arm to lick the fingers clean or to push a bit of food into its mouth while ignoring a newly presented morsel.

The animals were apparently freelancing, discovering new uses for the arm, showing “displays of embodiment that would never be seen in a virtual environment,” the researchers wrote.

“In the real world, things don’t work as expected,” said the senior author of the paper, Dr. Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh. “The marshmallow sticks to your hand or the food slips, and you can’t program a computer to anticipate all of that.

“But the monkeys’ brains adjusted. They were licking the marshmallow off the prosthetic gripper, pushing food into their mouth, as if it were their own hand.”

The co-authors were Meel Velliste, Sagi Perel, M. Chance Spalding and Andrew Whitford.

Scientists have to clear several hurdles before this technology becomes practical, experts said. Implantable electrode grids do not generally last more than a period of months, for reasons that remain unclear.

The equipment to read and transmit the signal can be cumbersome and in need of continual monitoring and recalibrating. And no one has yet demonstrated a workable wireless system that would eliminate the need for connections through the scalp.

Yet Dr. Schwartz’s team, Dr. Donoghue’s group and others are working on all of the problems, and the two macaques’ rapid learning curve in taking ownership of a foreign limb gives scientists confidence that the main obstacles are technical and, thus, negotiable.

In an editorial accompanying the Nature study, Dr. John F. Kalaska, a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal, argued that after such bugs had been worked out, scientists might even discover areas of the cortex that allow more intimate, subtle control of prosthetic devices.

Such systems, Dr. Kalaska wrote, “would allow patients with severe motor deficits to interact and communicate with the world not only by the moment-to-moment control of the motion of robotic devices, but also in a more natural and intuitive manner that reflects their overall goals, needs and preferences.”

Web 2.5: The emergence of platforms-as-a-service | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

On the road to the elusive Web 3.0 (something to do with semantics, meaning, and context rather than just data, links, and AJAX), core infrastructure is beginning to move from the edge to a center inhabited by companies such as Amazon, Salesforce.com, Joyent, and now Google with its new App Engine.

Call it Web 2.5, where the platform-as-a-service providers allow developers to create Web applications via the cloud and for users to consume them on any Web-connected device, anytime and anywhere. It eliminates what Amazon's Jeff Bezos describes as the "muck," the undifferentiated heavy lifting, such as setting up and maintaining servers, databases, storage, and networks.

It also leverages data centers from large players like Amazon and Google that were built from the ground up to support Web applications at huge, virtualized scale and with high reliability and relatively low cost. And, it creates potentially giant subscription-based revenue streams for the platform-as-a-service providers. They become utilities providing Web services to the planet and managing the high-value personal profile data.

Google App Engine, which was unveiled tonight at Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, offers similar capabilities to Amazon's EC2, S3, and SimpleDB services. Google App Engine is limited to using the Python language, Google APIs, and a relatively modest amount of storage, compute cycles, and bandwidth per day currently, but you can see where this is heading.

Google could parlay its search and advertising technology, market dominance, and its infrastructure prowess into a powerful engine that runs and monetizes thousands or millions of externally developed applications.

Salesforce.com provides a more mature example today with its Force.com platform. It allows developers to write applications, mostly CRM-oriented, in a variety of languages that can run natively on the Salesforce.com software platform and data centers.
(Credit: salesforce.com)

In many ways it is the Microsoft model--you need a subscription (license in the old days) to the platform to run your application. In this case, "run" means that Salesforce.com provides developers all the software and hardware services in exchange for a fee, which is based on specific metrics, such as Web services calls.

Rival NetSuite, as well as smaller outfits such as Bungee Labs, are seizing on the concept of providing complete cloud-based development and deployment platform services.

Microsoft hasn't yet shown its cards in the platform-as-a-service arena. Nor has the object of its affection, Yahoo. Microsoft has talked about SQL Server Data Services and the grand synchronization mesh, but it hasn't revealed any plans for an end-to-end hosted platform-as-a-service for developing and serving applications from the cloud. Mary Jo Foley has some insight on that topic.

Web 3.0 as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee is not around the corner, but it is busily percolating. In parallel, platform-as-a-service is evolving, the plateau of Web 2.5. When the two meet, Web 3.0 will have arrived.

Liang Qichao on Love - Quotation - MSN Encarta

Liang Qichao on Love - Quotation - MSN Encarta: "Where there is dynamism there is interpenetration; where there is interpenetration there is universal love, so all mutually sympathetic things cannot remain apart."

Liang Qichao (1873 - 1929)

Government

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." -- Barry Goldwater

Well, that says it all.

Had a great birthday recently. We stayed home, rather than the traditional going out to eat, we cracked open the video cases and watched videos from my kid's childhood. It was awesome and I recommend it to everyone who has kids, or just old videos. Its simply wonderful to go back and recollect those moments. It compresses your timeline, it makes the past feel like the present, and it helps gather your thoughts in how the 11 year old in front of you was such a little muffin not so long ago.

Delta Funding -- out

Did I tell this wonderful blog audience that my previous employer, Delta Funding, is no more? They folded a few months ago. I avoided the axe once again. I have a knack at seeing the axe coming, thus my streak of zero unemployment since I was 18 ( save college, which was intentional.)

Its interesting to think what would have happened had I stayed. I'd be commuting to the city everyday, part of possibility the worst grind in the world. I'm fairly certain my life would be orders of magnitude worse. Virtual office, as my current employer allows, is a HUGE plus. It gives me freedom to work when I can, and get away when I need to, and still work effectively. Its huge. The commute? Nary 20 minutes. THere's NO Place in NY I could have that commute. The only option would have been to start my own gig.....which requires funds far beyond what I currently possess.

Playing a ton of Call Of Duty 4 on the PS3. With its easy online features, extraordinary graphics, and great titles, I just don't see PC gaming getting out of this decade as a big player. The consoles rule the world.

TopGun scored!

Went to my son, TopGun, basketball game this Saturday, and it was AWESOME. He shot, and scored, saving the game from certain defeat! It was a lot of fun. The team really needs to learn how to pass the ball, but the play is aggressive and fun to watch.

Other things...we're getting ready for a little trip up to the mountains next month to take advantage of the epic snow up there this year.

Chubbie has found computers! He's relentless about them.....every day playing this or that....miniclip.com or battlefield, which he is dangerously good at for a 3 year old.

ShortStuff, my 11 year old girl, made us breakfast today for the first time. Dressed Eggs....I really liked them. Nutmeg, eggs, and alot of butter. Awesome.

Work is busy and good....need a break. Went to Internet Retailer conference. lots of learning. Love lost....its great this year. House was great with Mira Sorvinio ( sp).

Tax time....paying down car loan. Require freedom!

Wife got a killer hair cut. Blonde.....ooooohhh... :)

Nice

iGoogle: "The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
- Frank Herbert"

Stephen Hawking's Quotations

Hawking's wonderful. I especially enjoy 10 and 2...

10. "Einstein was wrong when he said "God does not play dice". Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen."

9. "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."

8. "My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

7. "I find that American & Scandinavian accents work better with women." In response to a question about the American accent of his synthesiser.

6. "Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales. In the end, however, I did put in one equation, Einstein's famous equation, E = mc2. I hope that this will not scare off half of my potential readers."

5. "My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus."

4. "To show this diagram properly, I would really need a four dimensional screen. However, because of government cuts, we could manage to provide only a two dimensional screen."

3. "Life would be tragic if it weren't funny."

2. "The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired."

1. "Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."

Happy New Year!

Okay, so here I'm supposed to record my resolutions. Well, guess what: I haven't made any yet.

Things, off the top of my head, that I'd like to accomplish this year:

1. I'd really like to get serious about this portal of mine. I think there is something there....but the time! What concrete goal? 2. Fitness. I have to drop about 20 pounds....maybe 15+ muscle.
3. MBA -- I'm foolish if I don't at least start this. Start MBA == success ( take GMAT, get transcripts, etc)
4. The Book -- I've got a good book idea, lots of interesting research. Lets say we have at least 50k words written by the april writers colony thing. ( need to request vac for this)
5. Work - I want to increase my abilites there, and go to conferences, etc. Lets go to agile 08. Lets get some training, join PMI?, and lock down title. ( need metrics here)
6. Finanical -- Get serious about budgeting. I wonder if we could get gazelle intense and pay off this car of mine?
7. Family -- I want to go somewhere cool on vacation with my family. Snow vacation, and summer disney (?)

Just for note, I'm really having a great time in my life. If I was a bit more finanical secure I'd be happier, but other than that, I'm good.

God bless us and protect us for the year 2008!




Thats it for now. I should add some meat to this later....The only way

Year in Review

So, with all that has happened this year, its probably appropriate that during the break I make some entries to record what has happend. :) I really need to find a way to record events as they happen, since right now I'm only remembering the year as a really long blur of events.

Work:
Work has been going very well. I'm a project manager at Boeing, as many know, in IT, and its great work. Web stuff...agile....web 2.0. Good stuff. I feel that i'm adding a lot of value and that I would be difficult to replace, which is a nice feeling. I'm considering an MBA, which would I think increase my value. Paid overtime, some good people, great benes...its nice. The corporate slowness though seems to irritate me. I wish they could be faster. I worry sometimes about my employer's future, or at least IT's future, if we don't get faster.

Family:
2007 is the first full year we spend in our new house. Its a very special home, with wood everywhere. Summer was fine...not too many kids. Life seems so busy now...swimming lessons, homeschooling, everything is up and running and we're not sure where any of it is going, but we're taking the steps we think are best.

B1's, ShortStuff, art is advancing at a good clip. She's got a terrific teacher here who is guiding her well. I'm admitedly confused about how hard to pressure her. Is art like piano and math and other things that you press and press to really distinguish yourself? I think so....so I press. With the world is flat sort of thing, we need to have our little girl well adhead when the time comes for competition. I'll take the action to get her into some competitions this year, and expand her influences, try to work out some sort of career path....at 11 its a bit early...or is it?

B2's, TopGun, doing great...he's got some terrific wits about him. He's smart, logical, with a wonderfully excessive personality. He pushes you...right to the edge. He'll challenge you. He's monster into football. And I can no longer consistently defeat him at Madden...and he's 8. Yikes.

R, Beethoven, is the cutest thing in the world. I mean, funny affectionate, friendly, sensitive, listens to us....he's gold. He's 100% potty trained, before 3. We went to the Messaiah today and he loved it....as we all did. Prior to that we took them to the Nutcracker. My oh my, he never wanted to stop listening to the Transiberian version of that song. Then we went and did our "family shop" were we buy for each other. Went to the to Northgate. It was terrific.

My NY family is doing well. We still all miss eachother very much. Talk of them flyin' out here next year. That'd be really nice. That crazy thing with my sisters kid almost drowning...I mean yikes. I'm sure I'd be a basket case if that happened to mine. I may have had a heart attack and dropped dead right there.




Finances:
A constant worry with me, I worry that we've got too little saved at my age, etc. We'll try to reduce spending next year, keep a good ground game, and take a few passes deep. I'm going work on not worrying so much about this. If I enjoy my job, and prepare for it, I won't really want to retire anyway, just work less. So really, according to microtrends, I should be thinking more about family now, while they're young, and worry about work into the later years. This also could allieveitate the social secuirty crunch that's been hanging over our heads.

Creative:
I'm still writing a book...this time I think its a good one. Of course I'm sure the idea is taken, but I want to tell it and even with the same elements I'm sure mine will be different from others. I don't have the process down to write, but the story keeps playing and advancing inside my head in my subconsious. Ideas formulate, and I write them down. There is a creative thing coming up in April....i think Ill go.

With a potential for an MBA thing next year and if I work on this bbook of mine, plus my crazy job, I'm thinking I'm probably going write even less next year.

Yikes!

-- Joe

November update

iGoogle: "A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. - Robertson Davies"

You know things are crazy. I'm enjoying my homelife, my work life, and I'm keeping the farm in the black. Its rockin' good times. Exceptional are my children. The two year old is so crazy sweet I don't know what to do with myself. The middle is a bundle of energy I can live off of. The eldest, a girl, is sweet and creative and interesting and smart...and getting so tall. She's 11.

The wife is keeping the homefront afloat while I work crazy hours to support same.

Done.

TheRecord.com - Business - Meet IvanAnywhere

This might be a fluff story, but really this or something more "real" could be very useful. The real question isn't if we can 100% accurately recreate a human, but if we can do it signficantly well.

TheRecord.com - Business - Meet IvanAnywhere

Meet IvanAnywhere
PETER LEE, RECORD STAFF

Right: Glenn Paulley, director of engineering query processing at Sybase iAnywhere, walks with IvanAnywhere as it motors down a corridor at the company's offices in Waterloo.
PETER LEE, RECORD STAFF

Above: Ivan Bowman is shown on his video screen (attached to the stalk of IvanAnywhere in photo at right) from his home in Halifax. From there, using the computerized IvanAnywhere, he can observe activities at iAnywhere Solutions Inc. in Waterloo, work on software coding, attend meetings, ask questions -- even gaze out the window. Ivan is little more than a webcam, screen and speakers mounted on a radio-controlled truck.
PETER LEE, RECORD STAFF

The webcam attached to Ivan Anywhere listens -- and watches -- during a meeting at the company's Waterloo offices.
1
PETER LEE, RECORD STAFF

Right: Glenn Paulley, director of engineering query processing at Sybase iAnywhere, walks with IvanAnywhere as it motors down a corridor at the company's offices in Waterloo.
2
PETER LEE, RECORD STAFF

Above: Ivan Bowman is shown on his video screen (attached to the stalk of IvanAnywhere in photo at right) from his home in Halifax. From there, using the computerized IvanAnywhere, he can observe activities at iAnywhere Solutions Inc. in Waterloo, work on software coding, attend meetings, ask questions -- even gaze out the window. Ivan is little more than a webcam, screen and speakers mounted on a radio-controlled truck.
3
PETER LEE, RECORD STAFF

The webcam attached to Ivan Anywhere listens -- and watches -- during a meeting at the company's Waterloo offices.
PETER LEE, RECORD STAFF

Right: Glenn Paulley, director of engineering query processing at Sybase iAnywhere, walks with IvanAnywhere as it motors down a corridor at the company's offices in Waterloo.
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It's the next best thing to being there; He'll write software, attend meetings and even chat with co-workers. Just don't expect this digital marvel to share a cup of coffee during your next break

October

"The world of poetry, mythology, and religion represents the world as a man would like to have it, while science represents the world as he gradually comes to discover it." -- Joseph Wood Krutch

One of the things you can deduce from my frequency writings is that its generally inversely proportional to how happy I am. These years, these busy years with young children and a burdgeoning career, these years will be my fondest memories.

HappyWisdom

iGoogle: "A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment. - Willis Player"

It is done

The Fecarotta family is now complete at five. I've taken to fix myself, with the help of a urologist. Thats right folks, a Vasectomy, the big V. 23rd of August, 2007 my boyz were cut to prevent further Fecarotta's. Its kinda sad, knowing that portion of our life is over, but also relieving knowing that there will not be any surprises. At 41, I'm tired. My style of parenting is 100% in. I am totally consumed by my children when they're around, especially the younger ones, and as such it takes a toll. I have other things to do with my life. I want to make an impact on the world beyond leaving my genetic code.... I want to author books, do more art, theology, politics, MBA, the list goes on and on. God forgive me if He wanted me to have another, but He's given us the ability to choose these things, and I have. My wife of course is pleased that this procedure is done. She's had enough of having things or chemicals put in her to stop pregnancy for 16 years....its time I did my part.

The procedure was not much worse than a dental thing, but unfortunately I did have minor panic attack. I was raised well, but I'm no Spartan. I moved around and groaned a bit. Whatever. But now, a few days later, its quite blue down there, and I still feel it. I'm on advil, no ice.

I'm excited. It appears that inside my mind I carried a bit of fear of pregnancy...now I can never think about it again. Sex is completely recreational, and that's nice.

I've got other things to report. Work is good. I'm a big Agile guy now. Went to Agile 2007 in DC, saw Alan Halac, a Navy friend. It felt like we were 20 again. Very good time. Agile is a terrific career event.

Still mulling the MBA.

House is great. Kids and wife are great. These are the best of times.

Quick update

"The breeze of love blows for an hour and makes amends for the ill winds of the whole of a lifetime."
Naguib Mahfouz

Heading to DC for Agile 2007. I'm very excited. I'm not comfortable in DC. I think its the obvious target for unsavory activity. Additonally, its 2000 degrees there.

Anyway, more updates later.

BTW, for those who are thinking about taking in a pregnant stray cat. DON'T DO IT!

July Update

There are no words for how tired I am here today. Work is great really....I love being a project manager now that we do scrum. I could see the desire rise in me to get tech again, and be directly responsible for stuff, but I kinda do that at the current place I'm at. I play in the design space, interface and stuff. I think its critical that PMs aren't solely just schedule and cost. There's gotta be an analyst or designer in there somewhere.

Big story on the block is how my nephew, Aidan, nearly drowned. We're all so thankful that he is okay, and didn't lose any brain function or anything. My wonderful mother discovered him floating face down in the pool, saving his life. He was blue and struggling, but a relative there with firefighting training saved his life with CPR. Its an extraordinary story that rocked everyones' life from coast to coast.

This story resets priorities. It sends people first to guilt, like my poor sister and her husband, who of course blame themselves. Being a parent is maddening. You simply cannot be everywhere. Sure there are things you can do. Apparently there is technology to help....but really we parents kid ourselves if we think we can stop things like this happening 100% of the time.


To learn life's priorities, I ocassionaly read about Zen. Though I am still a dedicated Christian I think we could and should learn from these other traditions. I read about separating yourself from the worldly bonds. Zen's teachings bring peace of mind and a shield, especially against the materialism of the West. Can one save his mind with this in the face of a loss of child? The author of ZAMM, Robert Prisig, lost his son at 18. He was totally despondent over it, but then had an epiphany that Chris was in the Pattern and lived on. He was unable, as I am, to separate my Soul from my children. This is why I find Christianity more edifying here. Its eternal life that gives meaning and justice to this world. It is what saves humanity. Even with Zen, the idea of a persistent something after death saved Prisig. He details an amazing moment when, at the doctor with his wife to abort an unwanted baby, they had an epiphany, or better, a communication from the Pattern to desist. They listened and they feel that it was somehow Chris, and are happy again.

Christians see this. We know that we are dust, and a wisp of smoke. We are visitors here to Earth, and we can take nothing to our next stop, but we can build it up from here. I'm not sure how that works, but that's not the point. God has lends us everything we have here. Everything is borrowed and must be returned. Our stuff, our kids ( to adulthood hopefully), our life, our buildings, our countries. We come here to turn energy into memes and memes into Beauty and Truth -- then we move on. Everything is a gift. Every day is an extraordinary miracle that we should be agog with joy and awe.

I'm very grateful my sister wasn't given the ultimate test --- loss of a young child. Nothing on Earth is more devastating. There would be no repair, no healing, no closure ever from such a loss. Children our greatest treasure from Heaven, and events like this remind us all of that fact.

"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
- Kurt Vonnegut"

Happy July

It may be that the old astrologers had the truth exactly reversed, when they believed that the stars controlled the destinies of men. The time may come when men control the destinies of stars.
- Arthur C. Clarke
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
- Paul Valery
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
- Thomas Mann".

Love all those quotes today. Not much to report. Work has been very challenging, busy, but rewarding. I've often wondered how to release stress. Stress comes, and then goes. Did I release it, or did I internalize it and did it do a sliver of damage? There is no biometric feedback on stress really..... I can't tell if I've relaxed enough to avoid damage, be it aging, graying, fat retention, or other more sinister effects.

I'm fairly certiain that working out improves things, but I guess I'm just a bit burnt on the whole scene. Its boring. ....but if it saves, extends, and improves your life, why not sacrifice the few hours a week?


I heard about a mite that re-evolved the ability to mate.

Reading a book by a Ms. Scary about Beauth and Truth. I simply can't believe she has to argue for beauty. Its simply bizarre that she has to fight this fight. I think there are horrendous affects of liberalism, post modern reduction, and constructionism. Its an outrage that they've robbed us, in the name of their truth, all that is good in this world, to avoid the establishment of objective standards.

I hope the next book by Ms. Scary is more accessible to the laypersons. This is an important subject.

4th Of July 2007

iGoogle: "Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.
- John Wilmot"

A great 4th. Not much time to chat about it... Chub got a little burn, but otherwise it was fun. I had to buy fireworks, despite my general loathing of that tradition. I actually kinda enjoyed blowing things up. You're literally burning money though, and for some reason I have negative emotions with my dad on this day. I think he ALWAYS got time off, and ALWAYS drank, and then add explosives, and you tarnish my mind. But I had to put all that down for my kids, who want and enjoy fireworks. I am not my dad. I want to do this right.

Gave away a few kittens. What I now realize is this is going to be my kids first experience with loss. It will be a powerful character building event, as hard as it is to watch, and even initiate. We cannot possibly keep 7 cats! My wife caved in and decided to keep one. My lawyer like daughter made the salient point that Midnight adopted us, with Smokey we adopt him.

Going to Boston -- Theology update

Looks like for the first time since my relocating back to seattle I'm getting a chance to go back to NY. I've got a conference in Boston, Endeca, and then on Thursday night I'm blasting over to NY for a fun filled weekend with friends and family, and then back to Seattle.

I've got a very nice life right now. I have a house that I adore, a family that is settling back into life after 2 years of tumult and moving. I've got inlaws that I love and love me back....and healthy healthy kids. That is the prime thing now. The Seattle Times is doing this special every sunday on a Federal Way ( goodness) family that has 8 kids and one of them has cancer. Its really quite heartbreaking. 11 years old -- pretty girl. It seems to me that if God really wanted people to notice he'd come down once in a while and make one of these girls healthy. This is my primary reason that I've gone Whitehead in my belief.... God simply cannot change that sort of thing. His power exists in being the repository and guarantor of all pasts and all futures. Something like a massive dynamic database. ...with consiousness....but not abilty to enter into this space.

This leads to another thinking. Many recent articles are on Intelligent Design. Secular science says this is silly since its so messy ( the genome) and that there is so much detritus in there from the genetic journey through evolution its not at all designed.
A nice discussion on the difference between creationism, intelligent design, and Theistic Evolution.


So nice I'll just snag the whole thing....

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and other organizations have tried to portray intelligent design as another variant of scientific creationism.

For example, when high school biology teacher Roger DeHart, of Burlington, Wash., tried to teach his students about intelligent design, the ACLU of Washington state accused him of "presenting the discredited and illegal theory of creationism." Similarly, they branded intelligent design as "a smoke screen for creationists who have lost in the courts."

Although intelligent design is compatible with many "creationist" perspectives, including scientific creationism, it is a distinct theoretical position. This can be seen by comparing the basic tenets of each view.

Legally, scientific creationism is defined by the following six tenets:

• The universe, energy and life were created from nothing.
• Mutations and natural selection cannot bring about the development of all living things from a single organism.
• "Created kinds" of plants and organism can vary only within fixed limits
• Humans and apes have different ancestries.
• Earth’s geology can be explained by catastrophism, primarily a worldwide flood
• The earth is young—in the range of 10,000 years or so.[1]

Intelligent design, on the other hand, involves two basic assumptions:

• Intelligent causes exist.
• These causes can be empirically detected (by looking for specified complexity).

"This is a very modest, minimalist position," says mathematician and philosopher William Dembski. "It doesn’t speculate about a Creator or his intentions."

In fact, there are only two general views that aren’t compatible with intelligent design: 1) a radical naturalism that denies the existence of any non-human intelligence, theistic or otherwise and 2) conventional theistic evolution.

It may seem surprising that the second view, conventional theistic evolution, is incompatible with intelligent design, since it clearly embraces the existence of God. But the view we generally associate with "theistic evolution" denies that God’s creative activity can be empirically detected. As Dembski points out:

Theistic evolution takes the Darwinian picture of the biological world and baptizes it, identifying this picture with the way God created life. When boiled down to its scientific content, however, theistic evolution is no different from atheistic evolution, treating only undirected natural processes in the origin and development of life.

Theistic evolution places theism and evolution in an odd tension. If God purposely created life through Darwinian means, then God’s purpose was ostensibly to conceal his purpose in creation. Within theistic evolution, God is a master of stealth who constantly eluded our best efforts to detect him empirically. Yes, the theistic evolutionist believes that the universe is designed. Yet insofar as there is design in the universe, it is design we recognize strictly through the eyes of faith. Accordingly the physical world in itself provides no evidence that life is designed.

Regarding the question of whether intelligent design is the same thing as scientific creationism, opponents of intelligent design have made much of a federal court case, Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education, in which the two positions were equated.

But according to David DeWolf, a law professor at the Gonzaga University School of Law, this finding came in a tangential statement in the judge’s decision.

The central issue in the case, DeWolf said, was not intelligent design, but the question of whether a disclaimer about evolution mandated by the Tangipahoa school district constituted an establishment of religion.

"The judge was simply laying out the general landscape of creation theories. In one sentence, he said intelligent design is another name by which you may know creationism."

The judge struck down the disclaimer, and his decision was upheld by a panel of the 5th circuit court of appeals. But in the appellate opinion, intelligent design was never even mentioned.

"There’s no finding in which you can say, ‘Aha! See, the courts have found that intelligent design is just the same,’" DeWolf said. "If you cited that as your authority in a lawsuit, a judge would be pretty mad at you for having misled him into thinking that this proposition had been established."

I like that bit about theistic evolution, to which I lean, but it seems like I could be swayed to ID.

This world is so brutish, so horriblly unjust I simply cannot find God in the design of it. It feels more like the Deists -- he wound the universe and just let it run.

I saw a lecture on biology and evolution. This fellow, a prof at UW, said something that stuck . He said the way life differs from computers and robots is that you can't shut life off without breaking it. So, the best quote was that evolutionary biology is akin to a Wright brother's airplane evolving into a 747 without ever landing. Life knows no other way to do things.....if found solutions and bolted solutions onto solutions...it keeps moving. There is no other way to do life.

So I thought, perhaps this is what God ran into. Perhaps Evolution is the only way to create independent and eventually sentient creatures. Perphaps the Devil chose the mechanism that we came from...that seems more likely given the harsh nature of it. I used to enjoy those animal shows, but animals are so amoral, extremely selfish and short sighted.

I've mentioned in this blog my other thought that the purpose of humanity could be thought of as converting energy to information. Exactly what I'm doing now.

So for me it seems that God is a word appened onto existing natural processes. Is this sufficient? I don't think so. Saying that is like saying sitting on the top of a mountain is just a change of elevation. Adding God, and the best of scripture and experiential information, humans behave generally better. They are better. I heard a story of a family that started skipping meals to give money to others. They lost weight and were able to be all the more generous. That sort of thing wouldn't happen without a sort of religious zeal.

For me it gives me hope that God is the antidote for evolution. God is design, is beauty and justice. In a cosmic connundrum, the very mechanism that God used to create the universe God also corrects for.

God is the antidote for his own creation. Interesting....

May 29th

"It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
- JRR Tolkien"

It seems like Nuclear energy is really the only way out of our energy crisis. I'm not a big supporter of coal since it does horrendous things to the environment, visually at least.

Got myself a little vacation goin' on here. One of those stay at home vacations that go really fast. Checkin' out some movies. Went to Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, and we're up for pirates 3 next. Sense a pattern here ? What is the deal? The only really 'original' movies coming out here are Simpsons and Transformers, both look good.

Looks like I'm getting to visit my ny home here in a few weeks, which is nice. I've missed my sisters and mom very much, and my friends, who were a big part of my fun there. I wonder if the mealoncholy will be as powerful upon my leaving there this time, after having spend 20 challenging months there. I do miss the guys at Delta Funding though....what a great bunch of guys.

I'm reading the book 1776, the non fiction one, it reads like butter. My oh my the things I'm ignorant of astound me. I'm sure at one time my excellent public screwl education gave me some of this information, but I recall none of it, so did it happen?

George Washington hasn't won a battle yet and I'm more than halfway through the story. Its stunning how inept he appears, but really he wasn't ready for the fight. The war machine of America wasn't ready...we hadn't had control of the sea nor did we have sufficient training. It was very impressive how they ran them out of Boston, but I think the brilliance of that came from Knox, not Washington. So far the only good thing I've heard of Washington is that he looks good in a uniform. I'm anxious to learn what events turn the thing around. Its interesting the Congress was so involved...down to specific battle strategies, and they were bad at it. I'm going to try to get to some of the sites where Washington stood down the British.

New Rush album! Ahh, the days that I can say that are not over yet! I'm so grateful for those guys....I should send them some notes on what they've done for me. Its a supreme irony that these atheists are so helpful to a Christian. What comes through so strong in all their tunes, even the most ardently secular songs, is a pure ethical humanism, a hopefulness in the future of humanity despite ourselves.

Family is great.. Chub is so cool....he's getting big though, very strong. He headbutts you and you see stars. Brianna got glasses and they look right on her. She's too pretty. Bryce is fabulous -- he's ramping up on Chess really fast. We bought the passable Chessmaster Challenge version, but I'm not terribly bowled over by it. 3 chess sets in it....? no tutorials. no animations....it just lacks the full features of what I thought the Chessmaster line had....oh well, its fun.

Prisig

"Whenever you kill a human being you are killing a source of thought too. A human being is a collection of ideas, and these ideas take moral precedence over a society. Ideas are patterns of value."
Robert T. Pirsig

I wonder if they screwed up his middle initial, since I bet this is the ZAMM author.

I love this meme.

Random thought

I saw a post by an 18 year-old on a blog somewhere labeled...what is the purpose of life. I loved it. I also had those wonderings....around this age if not before. 18 is not too young to ask it, but its most certainly too early to understand the answer.

I'm more than double this persons' age, and I still don't have it. I've been playing with the idea that humanity has placed upon it the task of finding Truth through experience. Humans turn energy into information. I sit on my chair, burning a small amount of calories, typing information into this page. Energy->Information. As I place information and communicate it, these are disseminated into Memes, small atomic ideas that may or may not have context.

As these memes are disseminated through the consciousness of humanity, for lack of a better term, they either survive or die based on their experiential merits. But is that it? Does humanity keep the "true" memes, or do we follow whatever meme is communicated loudest?

I'm optimistic. If humans were lambs following the loudest voice, Hitler would have succeeded. The West wouldn't not be predominant. China wouldn't have to limit its citizens' information flow. These memes are powerful, they're honed over human history, and resisting them is futile.

I see America as a provider of the Freedom Meme. We penetrated the curtain in Iraq, and we have our blood in the soil. Its not clear as if we should have occupied, but taking out tyranny? That is something I am for. The best way to do it, of course, is in a cold war containment method. Since these radical governments cannot get the best memes, due to their censorship, their economies do not generally work. Thus they are doomed, and it is the West that must determine with great skill how to complete the conversion of the world away from tyranny and to a world of freedom and opportunity.

I owe you words Blogger!

"We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.
- Eric Hoffer"

Vacation is coming. I hope to do some writing and rejuv.

U.N. urges circumcision to fight HIV - USATODAY.com

U.N. urges circumcision to fight HIV - USATODAY.com

I'm not sure of the full history of Circumcision, but I think this is a Judeo-Christian tradition. If that's accurate, we have yet another old-world religious tradition, added to abstinence, that helps prevent very modern new-world problems.

Interestinnnngg...

"God not only plays dice. He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen."

Stephen Hawking

Whitehead

"Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe."

A. N. Whitehead

� 25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part1)

� 25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part1)