Nothing, not a damned thing worth doing, ever works the first time. Maybe not even the 100th time. The faster you are proven wrong, the sooner what you are trying might just work. This is taken as Gospel now. Still, people fear failure.
I can say that there is no sense mourning those dessicated, half-baked ideas you kicked into the corner. But you will not understand until failure grabs you by the throat and scares the shit out of you.
There is a caveat: Mostly, the price for seeing your ideas come alive is that they get credited to someone else. If you want credit, ideas will just shrivel up. I'm just thrilled when someone picks up an idea I dropped and takes off like it was their idea all along. You make life happen differently by giving it away.
I guess you can tell I'm not a college professor. They have to take credit, even when someone else does the work. Occupational hazard. Let me tell you, re-inventing something is just as much fun and more likely to be successful. You get to live the experience, but will not get the credit. Your predecessors left plenty of seed around for you to plant. Do not just sit on your parent's couch being frustrated. The real failure is sitting out the game.
"Dry Gardening Success"
Oh look, this stub of a post was a duplicate. I was clearing the "in-process" queue. At some point publish what you have, no matter how poorly written. I did complete this piece. Check lower down.
Just trying not to kick the bucket with a full queue of unfinished stuff. This is so unlike me. I leave unfinished stuff everywhere. In point of fact life is quite long enough. We blink past decades in the mind.
A clean desk? No, let the future sort things out. When your memory releases the objects surrounding you, they will be seen as junk plus a keepsake or two.
I left a thriving Mediterranean garden behind in Southern California. The garden did so very well, thank you, on natural precipitation. Why don't we plant the whole place that way?
Perhaps some day I will tell you how it works and how I learned to do it.
Not really that difficult. But there are additional rules for people who learned to grow stuff elsewhere, in places where many plants can be raised happily. Places we grew up in.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
The Killer Application not Quite Thought Through
Now I Remember is a must-have application for older folks: Talk to yourself in the near future. Stay on schedule. Pretend to remember. Memento for everyone.
Open the application. No, make a gesture. Apps are far too primitive, the result of making too few devices do too many things. Gesture and mutter to yourself. No, simply talk. "Remind me to. . ."
Later, simply ask "why am I here?" A limited sense is assumed.
Say a few words. Whatever minutes later you get a beep. If you've forgotten why you are in this place, on what errand you came, you ask the phone to replay your message to a future self. You are free to disregard, of course. The ap will not just start blurting out loud. Some things should be private.
Open the app. Say a few words. A tap on the glass ends recording. One keyboard tap selects the time for the alarm to go. The same tap, per display location, can select from a few pre-settable time delays. Keep it really effortless to use. I hate that I don't know how to increase the font size on my Droid. I can see the boxes, but I can't read what's written in them. I keep hitting "sleep" instead of "stop".
I should look to see how many versions are already, on the market. Then again, the utility of such an app isn't obvious to the youth who drive the app market.
Giving myself permission to write here today now. It's early in the day, only 12:35.
Can't keep correcting the previous sentence as Now slides along. 12:50 . . . 13:00 But I thought about it.
I have been so involved in our extraction operation. We're in the process of moving from Anaheim Hills to Nampa.
More than that. I haven't felt like blogging. Who cares why?
As I remind myself frequently, I do better thinking about where to steer the present. This trick of attitude produces results.
Prayer For Shooters who Mass-Murder Children
Hate and revulsion seem insufficient and too simple.
Dear Lord:
This day we plead for killers. We plead mercy for shooters who stalk corridors, hunting innocence. We pray for the agents of random personal death. We pray for the planners, mechanics and pilots who rain death without notice. We pray for victims, combatants and civilians, both guilty and innocent. We pray for the collaterally damaged, the burned and wounded
We pray for the tormented and for sound sleepers. We pray for the self-righteous who embrace principles and deal tools that so easily transform suicide into slaughter. We pray for horror's enablers.
We plead for those who transform specific horror into general fear, paranoia and trembling terror. The immediacy of media changes five deaths at 1000 miles into killers lurking in shadows. We pray that these indiscriminate killings, the natural flowering of a society saturated with death tools, sow seeds of understanding in our souls. O Lord limit the casualties of this terrible plague to the necessary. Particularly we plead for those of school age now traumatized by the sacrifice of their fellows. May they reach adulthood understanding that the idolatrous worship of weapons is truly an abomination. May the great hoes of the law be brandished to check the flourishing of these fiery thorns.
We are not innocent, only ignorant. Our parents firebombed entire cities that we might live and not others. Incandescent phosphorous melted into living flesh. Surely there are enough burnt bodies, sufficient stench. Surely we must inherit some consequences. We get through each day like children walking in fog. Worlds of significance are erased with each death. We could not live without the systemic rebirth of ignorance. We move forward uncomprehending. Humans cannot live without faith. Perhaps faith in some future better life. Even if our faith looks like no faith. We wonder anew what life means precisely because those who knew are all gone. Graves of meaning, dust of significance.
Plants and animals don't consider these questions. Life just grows until it does not. The young are cruel out of ignorance. The old are cruel out of disappointment.
As children we learned to sleep well because closet monsters are imaginary. Now we aren't so sure. That quiet kid two blocks over might be buying body armor. Somewhere familiar, people will burn heretics and drown witches again.
Perhaps the, O Lord, we will return to the sanity of earlier times that recognized these rapidly repeating tools of specific death have no place in human society. Save us from the greed of firearms manufacturers and the machinations of their perfidious associations. Let them forge guns into rolls of galvanized, corrugated steel so that we, your children, may have reliable roofing in future to shelter beneath. If not roofing, may they manufacture some equally useful steel form.
O LORD, save us from this plague. Knowing their own deaths are imminent, but having tactical vests like the leather corsets of Gurkhas, killers draw out their last moments for more.
Dear Lord:
This day we plead for killers. We plead mercy for shooters who stalk corridors, hunting innocence. We pray for the agents of random personal death. We pray for the planners, mechanics and pilots who rain death without notice. We pray for victims, combatants and civilians, both guilty and innocent. We pray for the collaterally damaged, the burned and wounded
We pray for the tormented and for sound sleepers. We pray for the self-righteous who embrace principles and deal tools that so easily transform suicide into slaughter. We pray for horror's enablers.
We plead for those who transform specific horror into general fear, paranoia and trembling terror. The immediacy of media changes five deaths at 1000 miles into killers lurking in shadows. We pray that these indiscriminate killings, the natural flowering of a society saturated with death tools, sow seeds of understanding in our souls. O Lord limit the casualties of this terrible plague to the necessary. Particularly we plead for those of school age now traumatized by the sacrifice of their fellows. May they reach adulthood understanding that the idolatrous worship of weapons is truly an abomination. May the great hoes of the law be brandished to check the flourishing of these fiery thorns.
We are not innocent, only ignorant. Our parents firebombed entire cities that we might live and not others. Incandescent phosphorous melted into living flesh. Surely there are enough burnt bodies, sufficient stench. Surely we must inherit some consequences. We get through each day like children walking in fog. Worlds of significance are erased with each death. We could not live without the systemic rebirth of ignorance. We move forward uncomprehending. Humans cannot live without faith. Perhaps faith in some future better life. Even if our faith looks like no faith. We wonder anew what life means precisely because those who knew are all gone. Graves of meaning, dust of significance.
Plants and animals don't consider these questions. Life just grows until it does not. The young are cruel out of ignorance. The old are cruel out of disappointment.
As children we learned to sleep well because closet monsters are imaginary. Now we aren't so sure. That quiet kid two blocks over might be buying body armor. Somewhere familiar, people will burn heretics and drown witches again.
Perhaps the, O Lord, we will return to the sanity of earlier times that recognized these rapidly repeating tools of specific death have no place in human society. Save us from the greed of firearms manufacturers and the machinations of their perfidious associations. Let them forge guns into rolls of galvanized, corrugated steel so that we, your children, may have reliable roofing in future to shelter beneath. If not roofing, may they manufacture some equally useful steel form.
O LORD, save us from this plague. Knowing their own deaths are imminent, but having tactical vests like the leather corsets of Gurkhas, killers draw out their last moments for more.
Safety in Numbers
This is unfinished, maybe not worth fixing, . . . .
All of us live immersed in many layers of backup systems. It appears that our bodies breathe and our heart pumps automatically regardless of our conscious state. However, we do not survive very long without conscious attention, our own or someone else's. Loved ones may depend on us or on someone else acting in our place. One aspect of responsible living is structuring our own backup systems. We need adequate shelter to sleep safely. We keep water and food nearby. We live within strong social systems mutually obligated to the open-ended welfare of the group.
Normal life today would have been incomprehensibly magical to people in deeply prehistoric times. Biologically we are identical. Humans mediate interactions with their environment through tools. We decide whether primate fossils are "human" through the physical evidence of human capability. Did they walk on two legs? Could they produce vocal sounds? Did they use tools?
contemporaneous tools. Our tools are orders of magnitude more powerful.
Humans use tools to mediate interaction with their environment. Our present lives
The largest single difference between human life now and that in deeply prehistoric times is the materials available to make tools.
Much in our modern lives is mediated by
We are surrounded by kin
Many aspects of our lives depend on our normal functioning or on the performance of some backup system.
people we care about
Many vital aspects of our lives depend on our attention.
How can we responsibly minimize the bad consequences if we are plucked from our lives.
We may die or be mentally incapacitated without warning at any moment.
Serious consequences can result unless we pay regular attention to our ongoing commitments, especially finances.
and . our regular attention.
All of us live immersed in many layers of backup systems. It appears that our bodies breathe and our heart pumps automatically regardless of our conscious state. However, we do not survive very long without conscious attention, our own or someone else's. Loved ones may depend on us or on someone else acting in our place. One aspect of responsible living is structuring our own backup systems. We need adequate shelter to sleep safely. We keep water and food nearby. We live within strong social systems mutually obligated to the open-ended welfare of the group.
Normal life today would have been incomprehensibly magical to people in deeply prehistoric times. Biologically we are identical. Humans mediate interactions with their environment through tools. We decide whether primate fossils are "human" through the physical evidence of human capability. Did they walk on two legs? Could they produce vocal sounds? Did they use tools?
contemporaneous tools. Our tools are orders of magnitude more powerful.
Humans use tools to mediate interaction with their environment. Our present lives
The largest single difference between human life now and that in deeply prehistoric times is the materials available to make tools.
Much in our modern lives is mediated by
We are surrounded by kin
Many aspects of our lives depend on our normal functioning or on the performance of some backup system.
people we care about
Many vital aspects of our lives depend on our attention.
How can we responsibly minimize the bad consequences if we are plucked from our lives.
We may die or be mentally incapacitated without warning at any moment.
Serious consequences can result unless we pay regular attention to our ongoing commitments, especially finances.
and . our regular attention.
Faithless Paranoia
Andy Grove wrote "Only the Paranoid Survive." I have not read it. Perhaps his meaning is more subtle. With wolves nipping at his gem-encrusted slippers, Grove must banish sleep, keep moving across the boggy moor.
The paranoid are tortured and lonely. Paranoia quietly drives others away. You might have glimpsed another in the baleful light of false suspicion. They may have overheard you ascribe intention to a rock. So easy to see wicked agency. So hard to realize the plotting is in your head. As I write this piece, clues pop up pointing to the truth, I would prefer to be paranoid, probably am, I cannot let the question rest. I have mislaid Ockham's razor, the statistics of parsimony lie mute. I am without tools and lacking faith.
-0-
Until this very moment it had not occurred to me that something slightly irregular may be going on with <nonprofit>’s finances.
It
could be that people are busy or don't understand. But normal places
will fall all over themselves to help someone with responsibility to
understand any detail that bears on their fiduciary duty. They will at
least try. But this has gone on nearly a year and no one seems concerned. We all gonna do the right thing and make the books look perfect. It's like I'm not here. Silence.The paranoid are tortured and lonely. Paranoia quietly drives others away. You might have glimpsed another in the baleful light of false suspicion. They may have overheard you ascribe intention to a rock. So easy to see wicked agency. So hard to realize the plotting is in your head. As I write this piece, clues pop up pointing to the truth, I would prefer to be paranoid, probably am, I cannot let the question rest. I have mislaid Ockham's razor, the statistics of parsimony lie mute. I am without tools and lacking faith.
-0-
Until this very moment it had not occurred to me that something slightly irregular may be going on with <nonprofit>’s finances.
I understand that people get paid late to cover a cash shortage. Who hasn't when there was no other choice. But it must be a conspiracy and someone could leak. I don't care about proof here, I just want to know how far I can trust everyone involved.
If you fool around with people's pay to cover lack of money you must do something
technically illegal to cover your tracks. Probably cut checks and then
make pretty sure they don't get presented until you can cover them. We can all
wink and say "no foul" if we choose. This cannot be simply my fervent imagination. How could I make up something like
"late pay" when I'm sitting next to <knowledgeable person>?
If I'm going to
misunderstand then I do not need the numbers. I could make numbers up
myself. I could lie and accuse people, much scandal would result, and
no one would ever know if I were correct or just making it up. Like Joe
McCarthy or Fox News. Beneath me, not worth my time.The budget process last fall was so painful. I have come to agree with the best assessment of <person>. She may understand finances when she sees them, but she does not get completely what is supposed to add up to what well enough to create budgets without help. Mercifully, some one must have helped, finally.
Not impressed by the "<income> did not get mailed" explanation for last Summer's liquidity crisis. Very simply, when you bump along at the very bottom in finances, statistics says you will get caught fairly frequently. Are we too stupid to have that explained to us? Maybe someone did not send in their check, but that does not make it the cause. It was going to happen anyway and it will happen again unless we look at the problem squarely and fix it.
Again, probably we are just
doing the best we can. But a few of the <people around> have claimed
statistics expertise. Oh well, statistics is not intuitive and everyone fucks up.
Being too hard, I know. Probably nobody's fault, just collective
ignorance. We did have a tax problem a while back, so bad stuff has happened and could happen again.
Lord, let me be an old fool worked up over nothing. I am willing to be a thorough public fool, but idiot not so much. So much for my reasonable paranoia, my false suspicion.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Link to earlier material
This awkwardly titled blog is not my first. That would be: http://www.davidsdustbin.blogspot.com/ It doesn't always seem important to link stuff together. We can do it tomorrow. Or maybe not.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
My Head, 2005
Wrote this in 2005. Maybe I published it, but easier to re-publish than research :)
I woke up this morning really wanting to work on the website. That's happening more frequently of late. Then the reality. It's been over a year and at least one computer crash-and-burn since I changed anything but this board. So here we are again, settling for speed over beauty.
It's been crazy-busy lately. Work almost to the point of numbness, collapse into bed, wake again, clean up, a little TV with Julie, sleep, at it again the next morning. Fatigue and pain. But the body comes around. One day, like today, you feel pretty good after only 8 hours sleep. Don't necessarily want to grab for the Aleve along with the coffee.
I got a little soft with Sergio around. He was so eager to do the literally heavy lifting. Then I couldn't work a lot as sick as Julie was. Sergio quit just after Christmas. Julie is -- knock, knock -- doing better. With a major career change, you never know the exact price in advance.
I like this work because it's fully engaging. Mentally, physically, creatively. Its hot and cramped, dirty too. But it doesn't hurt you, hard work, that's just a misconception of youth. I have pushed hard since I woke up work-wise around 30. During my career as a successful suit, I toughened up mentally and emotionally. Mostly, my youth supplied the stamina. At 60. that's long gone. Now it takes really physical work too. Never the elevator, always the stairs.
Really, its my strategy for fighting off death: As I age, work harder. So far the body and mind are responding. A life of hard labor wears out your parts, or so I have heard. Starting this late, I think the parts will last as long as I need them. Retirement kills people. That I know for sure.
This life might be healthier, but its really low on the glamour scale. That's been some adjustment for me. At day's end I'm really tired AND tend to smell like diesel and gym shorts. The suit was so COMFORTABLE by comparison. Look sharp, feel good, so easy to be casually intimidating in that armor.
Corporate life is increasingly risky past 50, that's not news. You may have more skill and better weapons, but your world is less forgiving, a little tiresome even. The casual bounty of youth, other people's now, can turn on you instantly. Trading crisp suits for dirty tee shirts? Really not that big a price for independence. The change is more superficial than it appears. You're not in the same game, but its just as much fun if you can keep playing at your level. Added bonus: fuck the politics.
New careers require new skills, which come in recognizable stages. Paying for the training myself put an edge on the process. Will I make it? Was this foolish? You know enough to stick with it until it works, but wonder if the seed money will last.
At first everything is new. Fumbling along, making it up as you go. Getting by on your wits, what books you can find, your education and tricks learned in past lives. Just wanting to work, needing that raw experience most of all. Then you get paid when you work, but work is hard to find. After some indeterminate, long, scary period you get reasonably busy but expenses still swamp revenue. At least you know its going to take.
You wait for the day when at least half of what you see is not for the first time ever. That's a big competence milepost. Eventually it's easier to get going in the morning. You're finally up on plane. There's more work than you can handle. You work more carefully too, paying attention all the time, now its a habit. No more cuts on your hands, no more nicks in the boats, no more tools in the water: more mileposts. I still hit my head on things, so there's room for improvement, but its been years since I stepped into an open hatch.
I'm actually making a living at this, finally. Not like before, but at least enough to pay off the credit cards. I've become a little choosy about the work I start. Some customers are put off by the rate. I don't try to explain it any more. People don't need to understand what it costs to perform at this level. They just need to pay promptly for what sometimes looks like magic. If they understand the value, you'll hear from them again. Anyway, its not as safe working for customers who don't think they can afford you. When you feel pressured to keep costs down, you make more little mistakes.
I've relaxed just a little. The work never actually gets easier. I don't think that's the nature of work. Anyway, its not how I play the game. But its less stressful, more fluid and natural. Another milepost. Four years in and finally, really, up to it.
I woke up this morning really wanting to work on the website. That's happening more frequently of late. Then the reality. It's been over a year and at least one computer crash-and-burn since I changed anything but this board. So here we are again, settling for speed over beauty.
It's been crazy-busy lately. Work almost to the point of numbness, collapse into bed, wake again, clean up, a little TV with Julie, sleep, at it again the next morning. Fatigue and pain. But the body comes around. One day, like today, you feel pretty good after only 8 hours sleep. Don't necessarily want to grab for the Aleve along with the coffee.
I got a little soft with Sergio around. He was so eager to do the literally heavy lifting. Then I couldn't work a lot as sick as Julie was. Sergio quit just after Christmas. Julie is -- knock, knock -- doing better. With a major career change, you never know the exact price in advance.
I like this work because it's fully engaging. Mentally, physically, creatively. Its hot and cramped, dirty too. But it doesn't hurt you, hard work, that's just a misconception of youth. I have pushed hard since I woke up work-wise around 30. During my career as a successful suit, I toughened up mentally and emotionally. Mostly, my youth supplied the stamina. At 60. that's long gone. Now it takes really physical work too. Never the elevator, always the stairs.
Really, its my strategy for fighting off death: As I age, work harder. So far the body and mind are responding. A life of hard labor wears out your parts, or so I have heard. Starting this late, I think the parts will last as long as I need them. Retirement kills people. That I know for sure.
This life might be healthier, but its really low on the glamour scale. That's been some adjustment for me. At day's end I'm really tired AND tend to smell like diesel and gym shorts. The suit was so COMFORTABLE by comparison. Look sharp, feel good, so easy to be casually intimidating in that armor.
Corporate life is increasingly risky past 50, that's not news. You may have more skill and better weapons, but your world is less forgiving, a little tiresome even. The casual bounty of youth, other people's now, can turn on you instantly. Trading crisp suits for dirty tee shirts? Really not that big a price for independence. The change is more superficial than it appears. You're not in the same game, but its just as much fun if you can keep playing at your level. Added bonus: fuck the politics.
New careers require new skills, which come in recognizable stages. Paying for the training myself put an edge on the process. Will I make it? Was this foolish? You know enough to stick with it until it works, but wonder if the seed money will last.
At first everything is new. Fumbling along, making it up as you go. Getting by on your wits, what books you can find, your education and tricks learned in past lives. Just wanting to work, needing that raw experience most of all. Then you get paid when you work, but work is hard to find. After some indeterminate, long, scary period you get reasonably busy but expenses still swamp revenue. At least you know its going to take.
You wait for the day when at least half of what you see is not for the first time ever. That's a big competence milepost. Eventually it's easier to get going in the morning. You're finally up on plane. There's more work than you can handle. You work more carefully too, paying attention all the time, now its a habit. No more cuts on your hands, no more nicks in the boats, no more tools in the water: more mileposts. I still hit my head on things, so there's room for improvement, but its been years since I stepped into an open hatch.
I'm actually making a living at this, finally. Not like before, but at least enough to pay off the credit cards. I've become a little choosy about the work I start. Some customers are put off by the rate. I don't try to explain it any more. People don't need to understand what it costs to perform at this level. They just need to pay promptly for what sometimes looks like magic. If they understand the value, you'll hear from them again. Anyway, its not as safe working for customers who don't think they can afford you. When you feel pressured to keep costs down, you make more little mistakes.
I've relaxed just a little. The work never actually gets easier. I don't think that's the nature of work. Anyway, its not how I play the game. But its less stressful, more fluid and natural. Another milepost. Four years in and finally, really, up to it.
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