Not as much oomph

Day two doesn't have quite as much oomph as day one so far.  I was up late working on securing a site from itself and didn't get to bed until 11:30.  I’m usually in bed by ten.  So 5 came awfully early this morning.  It’s at this point that I have to remember all the wonderful motivation I’d come up with earlier, because now it’s gone.  I can’t say it’s gone completely, but to say it has been highly minimized would not be an understatement. 

So, almost two and a half years later, Seven Days has a cover photo.  I kept thinking I ought to go wandering around, taking all sorts of pictures and then I’d finally come up with the perfect picture.  And I realized since I finished the story, I haven’t really thought of it.  I could probably read the first dozen pages or so, and it would all come back.   But I haven’t done that, and the memory of it is mostly faded. 

Let me tell you about that cover, though.  I combined a picture I took with some horrendous text in Paint.net and slapped it up there.  I’m sure there are Photoshop heroes out there, but I’m not one of them.  Much as I’d like to be able to draw pictures of the things in my head, it doesn't work.  I just don’t have the talent.

I couldn't find the kind of picture I was looking for.  I’d be honest if I said I couldn't describe what I was looking for.  It was always just some vague idea that never formed.  So I gave up on that and went with a picture my kids drew with sidewalk chalk on the patio.  I guess it seems like a stretch, but I have to realize Seven Days was released back on September 11, 2011.  That’s almost three years ago.  So That’s pretty crazy that it never got a cover, though I can see where the indecision of finding the perfect cover lead me to never develop a cover.

I can’t say it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it’s my first story.  And sure, it didn't sell even 100 copies so really why should I worry?   I've sold two copies in 2 ½ years, and I’m worried about whether the cover will be great or not.  There’s some misguided mind-trip crap for you right there.  

day something or other

Day one of waking up at 5 am was a bust.  Sure, I woke up at 5 am, but I woke up and had to immediately leave for work.  I guess that’s better than nothing. 

So, I got rid of Firefox and installed Chrome.  Chrome has a program add-on called Stay Focused.  Stay Focused has something called “the nuclear option”.  Under the nuclear option, it doesn't allow access to any website for a certain period of time.  I suppose this could be a bad thing, but the purpose of waking up this early is to spend time in learning and production.  You can’t spend time learning if you are constantly surfing the net for junk and cat pictures. 

I guess it all seems relevant at the time, but in the end it’s just a method to delay action.  I don’t want to delay action.  I want to produce something as opposed to just consume.  I’ve had that feeling before, when all I wanted to do was produce, produce, produce.    It was an excellent feeling, and I want to get it back. 

I guess part of the purpose of designing this system is to get some of the feeling out of this, though.  Sure, feelings are great but in reality you need to produce regardless of what you feel.  Timelines need to be met, and things have to get done.  You can’t wait on your feelings to get to work, or you will get fired.  Or you will get beat to market.  Or you’ll just lose.  And that is not what I want to happen. 

Hence the nuclear option.  Any research that needs to be done for this blog or anything else I produce has to be done and finished by the time I get up this morning.  Between 5 AM and 7 AM, my computer won’t let me go surfing the internet.  And I have to admit… that “shouldn't you be working?” message is fairly effective.  Simple, elegant, and basic.  It works perfectly to get your brain out of the wandering gear and back to the producing gear.

So here it is, not even 5:20 in the morning, and I've already produced greater than 300 words and the blog is done for the day.  I guess the only side effect to all of this is I will have to set up and schedule this post later today.  But that is a side effect I’m willing to take. 

I guess the point of Stay Focused is to give more power to something other than willpower.  Willpower alone doesn't seem to ever get me very far.  It works much better to have something that provides autopilot willpower.  Maybe autopilot discipline?  I don’t know.  Anyways, as for the first day…  I’m happy with the results.

Side note: I looked at my document on how long it has been since I worked on Causality Crimes, and it has been 22 days.  Before that, it was 20 days.  Before that, 24.  As you can see, the results of what I was trying to do previously show fairly obviously.  Even though you only have to write 300 words per day to reach 100,000 words, I was only writing once every three weeks.  That isn't even enough time to think about the story and get the thing moving.  

If you are only touching something every three weeks, then you have no idea where to even start.  Another good reason to follow this plan.  It will take five days to get the average period between writing under ten days.  That looks to be my goal for the moment.  Get it under ten days, at 300 words per day.  That is how you succeed.  Show up every day, and make effort every single day.

Life: A Systems Oriented Approach

I read this page on the Art of Manliness, and realized what I was missing.  The goal approach is decent approach to things, but the systems approach works better.  The systems approach is different.   In the systems approach, the end result is stated, but is relatively unimportant.  The actions of the system are the most important part.

The entire purpose of the systems approach is to continue doing the same thing over and over again until the desired result is achieved.  Sometimes, we are deluded that doing the same thing over and over again won’t get a different result.  The thing is, we are getting results.  Just not gigantic results like the ones we want.  So the end result is we believe nothing is changing, even though it might be. 

So there is a need to apply the system, and derive joy from the application of the system.  So now I need to develop and apply the system.   I know part of it, but not the whole thing.  I know I want to be a better programmer, and I want to be better at math.  But I need to do some things that will get me towards that path. 

I talked about writing 300 words a day on a story I was working on, but if I looked back at it, I doubt I’ve written anything in more than two weeks.  No output.  Just input, input, and more input.  And that’s not what I want.  I want to produce, not just to consume.

The first part of the system will start tomorrow at 5 in the morning.  There is no point like the present to start applying the system.  Really, there isn’t.  Because if I do nothing, I will continue getting the same thing I have been getting.  And I’m not sure I like what I’ve been getting.  Because I’m much too results oriented.

Living in Tahiti

Another on call weekend, so any attempts I make to do anything get interrupted.  Despite all that, I keep trying.  I’ve made it this far, so that is progress.  I may get this finished before morning. 

The only problem is I have no idea what to say.  None what so ever.  Work is work and it’s a holiday weekend that I will be working.  I don’t know what to say about any of it.  I know I’ve been playing more Fallout: New Vegas than I’d like to admit recently.  I finished Dead Money and I’m moving into Honest Hearts.  I’m far enough in (level 38) where money isn’t an issue, and neither is quality weapons of mass destruction.  The Barret, er Anti-Material Rifle, even does wonders against deathclaws, that problem is solved.  Really, it’s just a matter of finding and examining decent terrain.  I haven’t been killed by encounters in a while, so the game doesn’t frustrate me as much as you’d think by now.  I spent a lot of time dying in Dead Money because it’s got a bunch of sections where you have to find random hiding spots to prevent a collar from blowing up.  Yeah, it’s annoying.

That being finished, you end up back in the Mojave wasteland with more money than you need in the guise of 37 gold bars, snail walked out of the Sierra Madre Casino.  Sure, it took forever to get all that junk back to my hideout ,but with that kind of money…  Well, the game gets kind of easy when you don’t have to worry about money.  It’s about 8,000 caps per gold bar, which equates to an in game amount of about 296,000 caps.  So you’ve got all the money in the world to do whatever you want.

On the fun side, I got bored and wiped out Vault 3.  The Fiends inside made easy prey, but it did get me thinking about the kind of life they are described as having.  Though the backstory is interesting, it makes me wonder how such a society could survive.  That’s generally the description as provided by most dystopian futures, but the Fiends are an extreme example.  They are portrayed as drug users, murders, and rapists who have no clue what is going on due to their constant drug use. 

As with most video games, there is lots of talk, but not much action.  I think it’s the mental picture that fails to capture the true horror of this dystopian future.  The talk makes it sound bad, but the actions are generally the same as the friendlies of the Mojave Waste.  There is somewhat of a desire to wipe them out.  Only the back stories and discussions presented by several non-player characters make them seem despicable. 

The true horror of the situation is far beyond what could accurately be described in video games, or at least by people in civilized worlds.  The Art of Manliness describes such a situation as a trip from Siberia to Tahiti.  In Tahiti, there were no major differences between the sexes because resources were plentiful and there was no need to protect or fight for resources.  As such, the men and women end up in roughly the same roles.  In comparison to other areas, this was an aberration.  In the rest of the developing world, men held the role of protector and provider.  This resulted in a very low survival rate.  The average death age was late thirties to early forties.  So seeing people in Fallout New Vegas who have survived to old age seems weird. 

Back to the Fiends, though.  The Fiends show a sanitized, homogenized version of what happens in the world.  It shows a great disparity between the life in Tahiti and the life in Siberia.  Those living in Tahiti have little realization of what life was like in Siberia.  The Fiends are a good example of what a person living in Tahiti would think of a person living in Siberia.  In reality, the video game description of hell on earth just doesn’t match reality.  It’s much too easy. 

Success is hard

Controlling thoughts is hard.   I wish it wasn’t.  I’m at lunch right now, and if I had my druthers, I’d druther play Fallout New Vegas and spend some time exploring the Sierra Madre Casino in Dead Money.  But I’m not.  Because success is hard.  But it’s worth it.

I guess this is the point where I say you need to spend time working on the things that will get you ahead, to the detriment of your entertainment life.  I’m not saying your family life or your religious life.  Definitely to the detriment of your entertainment life.  Working long term on something is really the goal in all of this, with long term results coming from sweat equity and labor.  Learning to do a lot of things that no one else can do and no one else says is possible.  Because ideas are easy. 

I’ve had a dozen ideas on things that could be worthwhile.  Probably more than a dozen.  But I’ve never put the sweat equity into building those ideas into anything worthwhile or usable.  Or sellable.  But what isn’t easy is slogging through the work after the shiny idea phase is over.  And as such, success is hard.  Because success requires putting in effort that you don’t have the time for to work on something that won’t pay off for quite a while.  Does it help me immediately to go back through the algebra videos on Khan Academy?   No.  Will it pay off some time in the future?  I hope so.  

Why?  Because I have an interest in robotics and building things.  I also have an interest in learning algorithms and getting computers to be more than passive devices.  But in order to understand how to make that work, you have to understand the math.  The math is generally high level calculus.  I passed Calculus 2, but that took three attempts more than a decade ago.  I haven’t looked at major math in a long time.  If I want to understand how to make and produce using mathematical equations, then I have to understand the equations.  I can’t see a summation sign and lose my brain.

So, that’s why I’m writing this instead of playing Fallout New Vegas.  Because keeping some sort of documentation on how things are going is the only way to keep going, and to see progress.  That, and maybe I’ll inspire someone else to be successful.

some thoughts...

So the school problem from a couple of days ago is fixed.  The solution was delete the vlan.dat file and the startup config in the router and switch.   Then, rebuild the router and switch using standard configurations.  About the time I got all that working, the antivirus started eating our business software.  So that was some fun.  Have I mentioned how much I hate Kaspersky?   If not, then I’m mentioning it now. 

Over the weekend, we changed to Kaspersky 10.  About 1/3 of the computers we installed on lost their mouse drivers.   So that was another horrible experience with them.  As soon as the contract is up, we’re jumping ship.  Haven’t decided where to go next.

Enough of that.  Been fighting with various contractors.  I often wonder why some people just don’t listen to what people are telling them.  They have good equipment, but it’s a pain to set up when they don’t listen.  I understand we’re just some small company running a proof of concept, but when you ask for simple things, you should get simple answers.  Sometimes, no is an answer.  But I guess some are taught to never say no.  It’s easy to say no when it comes to networking.  It’s simple: for security purposes, we can’t allow that to happen.  Boom.  Done.  Go find another way.

Enough of that.  I was watching the Dave Ramsey and there was a short commercial from Andy Andrews.  He was quoting Proverbs 23:7.

For as a he thinks in his heart, so is he.

And it struck me.  That’s what I’ve been missing for a while.  I know I knew it at one point, but at the moment I was missing it.  Just thinking back, I realize most of the posts I’ve put up recently have been very negative, and that serves no purpose what so ever.  It doesn’t do any good to gripe about a bunch of contractors who don’t listen.  It’s just a bunch of whining, and it doesn’t do any purpose.   The defeated, whining mentality does not breed success.  It breeds failure.  And that’s not what I want. 

As a man thinks, so he is.  If you are negative, then your life will be negative.  You have to choose to be happy.  It’s not something easy to do.  You have to choose to be positive.  It all narrows down to a person having to choose.

Cisco things

Sometimes, I feel like I stuck in a text book problem.   Because the silly system isn't doing what it is supposed to do.

So!   You have a cable run to two locations that are beyond the 330 feet range of CAT5.  The conduit running through the ground is broken and filled with water.  That will make the pull easier, but otherwise causes havoc.  You run 330 feet of CAT 5 out, and put in a dumb (not managed) switch you bought from the local store just to get this all working.

Run a 2nd cable the remaining 50 or so feet off to your managed switch.   Disable all port security because this is a switch.   End up with a config that looks like... 

interface FastEthernet0/11
 description ==dumb switch==
 switchport access vlan 2
 switchport mode access
 macro description cisco-desktop
 spanning-tree portfast
 spanning-tree bpduguard enable
end



Plug in your wonderful cable.  And get NOTHING.  Set to DHCP, the system can draw an IP address, but it can't ping the gateway.  Plug your laptop into the end of the line (the same line you'd plug into your managed switch) and you can ping all day long. 




Move the line over the your router and set that up like so....

interface FastEthernet6
 description == Dumb Switch==
 switchport access vlan 2
 no ip address
end



Now, you can 1) Get an address using DHCP, 2) Ping/SSH/Telnet the gateway 3) Connect to the outside world. 

Problem is, you can't connect to ANYTHING else in the same VLAN.    What a crock...  

Yeah, my life is occasionally a text book problem.

The Green Lantern Paradox

There is a DC comics character by the name of Green Lantern.  The title is an honorific, held by anyone who carries a ring.  During my childhood, it was Guy Gardner and Gnort.  I wasn’t the greatest DC comics reader, but that was pretty funny.  The main thing about being a Green Lantern is possession of a ring.  Whoever possess the ring is a Green Lantern with all sorts of powers.

Here’s the paradox.  The rest of Green Lantern Corps know that all the power is contained in the ring.  The person is just a container.  Should the ring pass to another person, that person would no longer have any power.  To the outsiders of the world, the man has all the power. 

The Green Lantern Paradox is a paradox of knowledge and perspective, but it is one that is very profound.  Take the argument between Stephen Colbert and Dr. Bart Ehrman.  During the argument Ehrman stated that the tone of Jesus was the same in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and changed in John.  Let me make something very simply clear.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke were disciples of Jesus Christ, and worked with him on a daily basis.  John was not.

Reexamine the question as presented in light of the Green Lantern Paradox.  The first three books (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) were written by other members of the Green Lantern Corps.  The fourth book was written by an outsider. 

Also note that the book following John (Acts) is written by an insider (Paul), and once again returns to the narrative portrayed by Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  So yes, the way Jesus is portrayed is different in John than in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  It’s simply because the perspective of the writer was different. 

So, to complete the Green Lantern Paradox, what in the world is the ring in this case?  That would be God.  Jesus came to Earth as a man, stripped of all his Heavenly power and authority. Jesus said God acted through him.  Remember, Jesus was a man with no power whatsoever.  All the power came from God.