The Goodness of People

I just watched All the Prsident’s Men with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, a 1976 movie about the journalism leading up to Nixon’s resignation. Insights aside, I enjoyed the film – it was intense, but no car chases, no bullets, just deadlines. What it reminded me of was my one thing I have absolute faith in: people. A person, or a group may do bad things for a time, but people will find out, people will make it right, no matter the cost to the individuals.

It comes down to a concept of the greater good. Soldiers go to war and die for the greater good. Police officers fight crime for the greater good. People lose sight of the immediate to research cures for diseases or alternative sources of energy. I believe that there will always be people, enough people who want to do the right thing so badly that they overcome their fears. it is something I know in my bones.

So your first question should be “Why Will, do you believe in such a thing?” To that, I have no answer. I do not know why a person would sacrifice himself for a larger cause, I do not know who was the first person to start such a tradition, or why it perpetuates itself across melenia of history. The best I can offer is a guess, a guess that our purpose in life is to be happy, and that many of us understand that it isn’t just oneself that is meant to be happy, but that we are all meant to be happy. That one person’s discomfort is worth any two people’s joy. That characteristic of understanding gives those people the extra strength that you do not see in everyone. Sometimes they appear weird, other times they are heroes. There will always be enough good in the world.

Say “No” to Drugs

Long before I was old enough to have any clue what drugs were, I was told to say “no” to them. I got a t-shirt. They told me there was rat crap and poision mixed into drugs. That was way more than I needed. My mom will tell you that I was the kind of kid that only needed to be told something once, and once was enough.

Since then, I reinforced my negative opinion of drugs by understanding that life is hard. Since drugs don’t give you super powers to un-complicate life, that they often just make things more complicated, that’s all I needed to convince adult-Will that drugs were something I could keep passing on.

Lastly, I have never felt that drugs, like alcohol, can offer anything that I can’t already offer myself. There are so many ways to get a “euphoric feeling” that aren’t destructive to the body, that don’t impede reation time or brain function. It takes some practice, but you can be in touch with your f ellings and how they affect the people around you. You can be honest with yourself and others. Drugs don’t give you any super powers you didn’t already have. Nay, drugs are a curtain, something to hide behind, a crutch.

I’m calling “bull shit” on anyone who says “I can’t do/be ____ without being on drugs.” Anyone who makes a career off of being high is a person filled with weakness, a person who has no capacity for growth, a is a person who is unworthy of admiration. However, if a person who himself on drugs, and then removes the drug element, but manifests in himself the qualities that made drugs appealing – that is a man worthy of being a role model for he is a person who can fall to the bottom and still find the strength to climb out, dust himself off, and build himself a skyscraper. That is a man I want to know.

Oops, Almost

So my Linux endeavor has been fun today. At one point I did get VirtualBox running with an updated Windows XP showing a [choppy] Netflix Watch Instantly movie. The difficulty has been 3 fold here:

• My copy is from 2002. There have been three service packs since then and a metric ton of updates. Running Windows Update over and over is not fun.
• Getting an OS to run inside another OS puts all kinds of fun drains on my old-ass computer’s already limited resources. (we’re talking single core AMD 1GHz and less than a half GIG of RAM).
• I keep making space an issue. The first time (start counting) I installed Windows, I went for 2 GB of space, but I checked the “grow automatically” option, thinking it would grow beyond 2GB. The truth is that it would start at 8KB and grow to a max of 2GB. *sigh*. So then I went for 10GB, I didn’t plan to install anything beyond the OS, and even bloated Windows is like 2-3GB, right? No! It’s more like 5 GB. And I still wanted to install C# Express along with SQL Express and those are another couple of gigs each. So now I’m on round three and it’s in a 19GB block, which hopefully will be enough. Hopefully.

Meanwhile I was also trying to point my /home directory to a separate partition which came in handy when I had to trash the partition where my OS lived. Doing the pointing was pretty easy (just a mount command really) but then when I rebooted, Ubuntu was complaining about the permissions and owner on the directory and some files it wanted. I tried my chmod and chown, and they “appeared” to work in that I got no response back, but when I listed the directory, no change had been made.

I’m now convinced that the problem is that my partition with my data that I mounted is a NTFS (Windows) partition and it doesn’t really have a mechanisism for owners and permissions. Some things are just dumb.

Ubuntu Initial Reactions

I decided to go with Ubuntu Linux initially because it was always getting positive press in my news feed. Then I discovered that it was based on Debian, the same distro I had used “back in the day” of 2002. It was “pretty” easy to install. I say that because I was trying to do fancy stuff with my partitions, and if I was any less experienced, I would have clobbered all of my personal files.

Once installed, it boots up quickly. Firefox, Pidgin (IM Client), and Open Office are all here and ready to rock. It found my Wi-Fi card without any trouble too. After running the updater it also had some new drivers for my video card and I was able to select a resolution more agreeable to me.

next, I wanted to use this thing. So I decided to pop in a DVD. The default install didn’t have the stuff for Totem to playback DVDs. So I googled a bit, ran some commands and that was working. Someone else suggested installing VLC instead. Since that was an app I used in the past, and it sounded like it was pretty straight forward, I added that too.

Web-wise, most things seem fine. I still need to figure out why Flash isn’t installing correctly though. YouTube misses me.

Right now I’m chasing down my last two major hurdles: no iTunes for Linux for syncing my iPhone, and no Netflix Watch Instantly on Linux. So I’ve installed VirtualBox which lets you run virtual machines inside of Linux. In this case I’ll be running a Windows XP virtual machine. Then I can install IE8, and and all my problems should go away. It’ll also come in handy if I ever have to do any .Net development at home.

Things I like so far: I have multiple workspaces, so I can have stuff running on one, and watch a movie on the other, and I can flip between ‘em pretty quickly. My system try is pretty helpful and uncluttered. The file explorer is also pretty intuitive. Otherwise, it feels like Windows, but more free.

Windows Tithe Day

I got a virus somehow. After close to a decade of being virus free, I got one. So it was popping up an add every five minutes or so. Somehhow it also interfered with Windows updating itself. And I was able to take care of both items with some anti virus/adware software, but the last straw was when I couldn’t get to Facebook or a couple other sites. I couldn’t figure it out. Other computers on the network could get there. but not mine. So it was time to reformat.

Today I’m installing Ubuntu Linux. I think I’ll keep a copy of XP installed somewhere, but I’m taking this as a sign that i need to relearn Linux for sharpening my job skills. Fortunatly most of my personal info is in the cloud. And the stuff I do have on my hard drive is on another partition, so this should be fairly straight forward. “Should” being the operative word.

“Drunk” Will

Back in college, before I was 21, before I drank (and was kind of an asshole about it), people always said “Will, you’re so crazy sober, I want to see you when you’re drunk! I bet you’d be nuts!”

The truth is that Will + alcohol = sleepy quiet Will. Not what anyone wants at all at a party.

However, if it’s “more Willness” that you’re craving, I have just the thing. Last night I went to see Slumdog Millionaire with Lara – parts are sad and violent, but on the whole, everything works out, so it’s what I call a “fun” movie. Two hours later, when the movie was over, I was an entirely different creature. A creature I know, and one I really love. It starts when I stand up, and I see people leaving behind their empty popcorn and beverage containers.

I turn to Lara and, in a tone loud enough for most of the theater I say “Man! It’s AMAZING how, even though I emptied my popcorn container, IT GOT SO HEAVY THAT I COULDN’T CARRY IT TWENTY FEET TO THE CONVENIENTLY LOCATED TRASH CANS right outside the door!”

This continues for the entire duration of the slow shuffle out of the theater, much to the embarrassment of who ever is walking with me. This is when “drunk” Will has reached his full. Now he starts yelling in the streets about the crazy stuff people do, how we’re lost, or how he thinks traffic signals ought to work. He remembers some of the crazier stories from his life, and has a puppy-like bounce to his steps. “Drunk” Will is extra creative, he could paint, or sing, and loves to dance A LOT. He’ll dance to the music bleeding out of a car driving by, the music in an elevator, or to the music in his head.

“Drunk” Will is fun to be around if you have the right attitude. He can also be unbearable. He’s always happy. If you’re looking for more Will action, all it takes is two hours of movie going.

Gandhi at Work

I have read what little is in history books, and I have recently watched Gandhi, and I am reminded of another man who taught civil disobedience because of the day we set aside to honor him yesterday. Men like this are fantastic in the sense of the word meaning that they are almost as impossible to believe as unicorns, but as necessary for justice as water is for life.

The new thing I am taking away is that people cannot tolerate having their own barbarism exposed. A single person might bear it, but a people cannot endure it. It makes me wonder if the same principle could apply  to a work situation. Agile methodologies teach us that transparency is the key to trust. It makes me wonder if, in a situation where a work environment has become atrocious, exposing that atrocity would indeed lead to justice, or if it would simply get you fired…

Today’s Hard Question

I got a call from a recruiter who had my resume in her hand. In our conversation she said something to the effect of “I see you were at Purdue from 1999 to 2004… a little over five years… was it a five year program?”

I didn’t say this, but no, it was a four year program. Yes, I did transfer after my first semester, but that doesn’t explain the other three semesters it took me to finish. I failed classes. I failed one class twice and only got through the third time with a C. I went to a graduation ceremony when I didn’t actually graduate because I failed that in my last semester but my grandmother was already coming to town to see me walk across the stage.

Yes, I was the president of one of the strongest fencing clubs in the Midwest, and the top club in the Rec Sports program at Purdue University. Yes, I also ran a fencing club on a college student’s income which included renting out a building and buying fencing equipment. Yes, I had a job, and yes I did freelance work. Yes, I played a lot of Spider Man instead of studying for my finals sometimes. Yes, I once wrote my name at the top of a final, stared blankly at it for 20 minutes, and handed it in without any more markings of any kind. No, I didn’t go on a co-op, or an internship, or anything else that would have delayed my graduation.

Yes, I wanted to quit after four and a half years, and not just because I missed the girl I loved. Life was calling me. I had employable skills, I was a likeable guy, I was ready to get the hell out of academia, because sitting in a class room wasn’t half as appealing as putting my hands in it and really understanding that which a professor could only explain via slide show.

Knowing what I know now, I might not have picked college again. I must confess, that all of the things outside of the class rooms at college are the things that I would pick again. If I hadn’t gone to college, I wouldn’t have fenced, I wouldn’t have led a club of 100+ members. I wouldn’t have started a business. I wouldn’t have had all of those [high paying] student jobs as a web developer. I wouldn’t have met Matt Dickerson or many of the other people who have gotten me through the last ten years. I wouldn’t have dated as much, and I wouldn’t know anywhere near as much about myself, who I am, what I like, as I do now.

And yet, five years later, I still get antsy when a stranger asks me why I took so long to graduate. I wasn’t drinking. I wasn’t doing drugs. I was living. I am glad that I did graduate, because trying to talk my way through an unfinished degree would be the most excruciating process I can contrive. Be cool. Stay in school.

The USACFC

In 2005, I wrote about why I hate the USACFC. That entry is the #2 hit that people get when they Google “USACFC”. While I did and still do feel strongly that the United States Association of Collegiate Fencing Clubs fails to be many things, I always feel like I’m doing more damage than good when someone goes looking for a way to join, or find out information, and all they get is what I’ve written.

Now that it is January, I suspect teams have had to submit their initial membership fee which has been $50 per club. In return, those members have historically been left in the dark about the time, the format, what other teams are competing, travel accommodations, etc. until February. Keep in mind this event is held the first weekend of April, which is another useful bit of info that is “understood” by the officers and long standing coaches, but to the rest of the USACFC, they just kind of guess it didn’t change this year. As an additional heads up, this is typically also Daylight Savings Time weekend, tso expect to lose an hour of sleep if you make it to the second day.

Invariably, our web-savvy club leaders go looking for the information that will make their trip successful. They don’t find anything like a USACFC.org or a Yahoo group, or even a results listing. Instead, they get a thread from the 2007 format debacle, and me.

For those happy browsers who have read this and are still looking for information, here’s the best I can offer: Email AND pick up the phone and talk to the USACFC President. That’s how the organization is run. The officers maintain their own email list, outside of any other functional tool like a Google group. What is said on the phone is subject to change, what is said in email is subject to change and may be contrary to what you heard on the phone. By doubling up, you should get a better picture of what you’re about to attend than those that only use one medium. Good luck, and fence well.

No More Words

What if shortly after the world went paperless, it also went typeless? What if everything was an audio or video recording of an idea? Initially it sounds far fetched, but really, if there’s nothing to physically write stuff down on, then why write at all?