It was late on Friday night.
Very late.
Very dark, inside and out.
The sky was clear, and the full moon bathed the empty back yard in a soft, inviting light.
Meanwhile, I was inside, shod in evening robe and bunny slippers, basking in the glow of my small internet communication device. The red, white, and bits of yellow it was emitting lit the room in a light that could only be characterized as a low hanging mist, bringing with it the magical information, knowledge, camaraderie, and Fun one can find online, when they look in the right places.
Aside from that, it was dark. Bits of moonlight leaked in though cracks in the curtains. The light this brought in felt like a soft blanket, warm, comforting, and shielding the home from the outside world.
Part of this shield was the incredible, serene, absolute, silence. The stillness which fell upon the house on this late, late Friday night is indescribable- using words, even written ones, would disrupt it.
I recognized this stillness and started actively listening for sounds. I was only able to pick out one from where I was sitting in the lab- the refrigerator. As soon as I identified this sound, however, it completed it's cycle, and the stillness descended upon it, also.
It was as if the silence of outer space had extended from the high, crystal clear full moon, all the way down to my home here on Earth. I felt the stillness falling on me, also. For a moment, my muscles were entirely still. I then became very aware of exactly how tired I was, and how late it had become.
I gently closed the lid of my internet communication device and considered going to bed-
And there was a noise.
A cat? We have stray cats in the back yard. A raccoon? We have those, also. A previously-stray-cat, named Gizmo? No, she was asleep in my lap.
And there's another noise.
My still, empty, silent back yard- was no longer empty.
I placed my sleeping faithful assistant on top of my comfortably warm closed internet communication device.
I then collected up my always-near-by, highly modified, Nerf Maverick.
My Maverick has no air restrictors. It also has increased springyness, and the entire barrel indexing action is oiled. It's incredibly accurate, it never jams, and it achieves very good distance even when using suction cup darts. On the outside, however, it looks entirely stock.
Maverick in hand, I slipped quietly towards the exit of my lab. From this doorway, I could plainly see the large, sliding glass door, and through it, the moonlit back yard.
I could instantly tell what had disturbed the stillness which had blanketed the house- there was a shadowy figure, at the sliding glass door, attempting to open it!
Therefore I found myself in a very interesting situation. First, there was someone at my back door attempting to open it at a very unusual time. Second, thanks to the lighting, I could see him, but so far he could not see me!
Unaware of my presence, the figure continued, fruitlessly, to operate the bolted slider. In doing so, he continued to disrupt the bubble of stillness, attracting even more attention to himself.
This time it was the aforementioned stray cats coming to investigate, who often get fed at this particular sliding glass door. Fearing that their food source may be in danger, or, perhaps that they were about to get fed at a very peculiar time of day, they approached the shadowy figure and began to howl.
The figure paused his work momentarily . . . to kick one of these feline heros. The deafening, heart wrenching cry she let out as she left the tip of his boot further disturbed the calm- this time alerting the neighbor's dog.
If there was ever a canine version of my Maverick, it would be the neighbor's dog. For fun, this dog hangs, by it's teeth, from a rope hanging from a tree. This dog is no Baby Lulu.
It barked, only once, and that was enough to convince the stray cats to leave. The shadowy figure, quite startled, did stop and look at the beast. Initially, the figure seemed to try and depart- but then he seemed to notice the fence between him and the hound, and therefore had a visible since of relief fall over him.
Some of the quiet had returned. The dog had barked only once, the cats had left, and in the commotion, the figure had stopped his work. In a span of time that was certainly just a moment, the serenity that had existed beforehand returned.
As such, that moment felt much, much longer than it really was- and it was uniquely- and very strangely- intimate, for I had shared it with someone I didn't know. Through all of this, still unknown to the shadowy figure, I was there, watching it all unfold.
The moment came and went, and the figure went back to his work. Determined to get the door open, he pressed his body and face against the glass as he pulled.
Now was the time.
The suction dart left the barrel of the Maverick true and fast, and in an instant later, impacted the glass. Had the glass of the door not saved him, the dart would have affixed itself to the shadowy figure's left eye.
Startled, the figure jumped, and fell backwards, dropping his tool in the process.
The sound of the figure and his metal tool hitting the concrete patio, along with the muffled explicatives stated on the way down, were more than enough to renew the dog's interest in the situation.
The dog took these happenings as his cue to start running, barking, and generally making the ravenous sounds that Hell Hounds make shortly before they dismember you.
At this point the shadowy figure decided it was time to depart. I approached the sliding glass door and turned on the patio light just in time to see the figure vanish.
Shortly thereafter I returned to the lab to find my faithful sidekick, Gizmo, still sleeping on my now less-warm internet communication device. I picked her up and took her to bed. After all, blankets are better to sleep on than plastic.
Slowly, the stillness returned to the house. The refrigerator started it's cooling cycle again. The soft, very quiet drone of it's compressor led me to sleep.
The next morning, I opened the door to find a crowbar left by the figure in his rushed escape. I keep it as a memento of the evening that I defended my house with a Nerf Gun.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Friday, December 18, 2009
Made in China
People Love to talk about how buying products made in China costs American jobs, messes with our economy, and generally encourages lower quality products. That's all very true, but I think it misses, perhaps intentionally, the real problem.
The real problem is that China is Communist.
Everyone knows this, and seems to accept it. After all, they put out an image of being 'moderate' communists, they tell the world that they have a 'free market' and the certainly do seem to have a fair bit of capitalism. Therefore, we're all lead to believe that it's all OK, that somehow China is about as much communist as the United Kingdom is a Monarchy. Unfortunately, however, that's simply untrue.
The concepts that we hold dear are under constant attack in China. What we consider to be inalienable human rights simply don't exist in China, and anyone that tells you otherwise is simply lying to you. This is true from anyone on the street to the Chinese government itself, which often denies it's sickening policies when questioned about them by the outside world.
Don't believe me? Well, go ahead and Google It:
Tiananmen Square [google.com] vs Tiananmen Square [google.cn]
Remember, according to the Chinese Government, they don't censor the internet. They just have "some routing issues."
Free Speech does not exist in China. In fact, if you want to organize a club so you can talk about football, you have to register that group with the government or it will be considered to be an illegal organization.
In China, you do have Freedom of Religion. You can practice any religion you would like to practice, as long as it's listed on the list of government-recognized religions. That list is rather short- Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. Conducting or participating in any service not recognized by the government can result in arrest, detainment, fines, and in some cases, torture. Their judgement on what's accepted and what isn't is also pretty subjective- Catholics are often targeted by the police because they don't think it fits into Christianity, because of the link to the Vatican. Chinese police have also been known to confiscate religious literature and church property, resulting in hundreds of church closures.
It's in your best interest to not do the religion thing, though. Members of the communist party are officially required to be Atheists, so practicing your religion may indicate that you don't support the common good. That could cause problems.
But hey, China won't have this whole religion problem for much longer, because it's also against the law for parents to expose their children to any form of religion until they are 18 years old.
There's plenty of opportunity in China, if you're born in a city. If you're born in a rural area, you have two choices- grow rice, or fill out an application to see if the government will let you move to a city. Unless you have a good reason why, it will likely be denied- and no, wanting to improve your quality of life does not count as a good reason.
Of course the first trick is to Get Born, which is more difficult than it sounds - The Chinese Government also has a very well defined policy on population control. This means that parents are only allowed to have one child. Because of this restriction, parents are often put in the position of having to choose between keeping their baby or getting rid of it, either before or after birth. Boys are preferred by most parents, because they are seen as more useful and carry on the family name. As such, research published in 1990 shows that there are over 50 Million "Missing Women" in China, that is to say, females that, according to the natural ratio of male to female births, should exist, but don't.
But perhaps country-wide, state-sanctioned baby killing is ok for them. Kinda makes sense, after all. On paper.
Killing in general is not an uncommon thing for the Chinese Government to do- China usually accounts for about three quarters of all death sentence executions in the world. In Chinese law, there are 68 crimes that are punishable by death. Included in those 68 offenses are several non-violent, white-collar crimes such as tax fraud and embezzlement.
You DO, however, have a right to a swift (though usually not fair) trial- executions are usually conducted the day after sentencing, but in some cases, the very same day! The current record was set on January 9th, 1993- on that day, 356 death sentences were handed down, and 62 executions occurred that same day.
Chinese Government-sponsored killings aren't limited to China's boarders, either. Want to know the real reason why the US has never gotten involved in the genocide happening in Darfur? Because China is supporting Sudan, the country conducting the killings. China even threatened to veto UN Security Council actions aimed at combating the Darfur Crisis.
So no, the economic problems that are created by buying things from China are really not a problem. They just aren't, the market will decide what products are good and what products aren't. They simply mask the real problem.
The problem with buying things from China is that every dollar you spend is a vote of approval of their government and way of life.
China is Communist, and the reason they are still communist is because it's working out very well for them. The world approves of their actions and proves their support by sending money.
That's why I don't shop at Wal*Mart. The items there cost way too much.
The real problem is that China is Communist.
Everyone knows this, and seems to accept it. After all, they put out an image of being 'moderate' communists, they tell the world that they have a 'free market' and the certainly do seem to have a fair bit of capitalism. Therefore, we're all lead to believe that it's all OK, that somehow China is about as much communist as the United Kingdom is a Monarchy. Unfortunately, however, that's simply untrue.
The concepts that we hold dear are under constant attack in China. What we consider to be inalienable human rights simply don't exist in China, and anyone that tells you otherwise is simply lying to you. This is true from anyone on the street to the Chinese government itself, which often denies it's sickening policies when questioned about them by the outside world.
Don't believe me? Well, go ahead and Google It:
Tiananmen Square [google.com] vs Tiananmen Square [google.cn]
Remember, according to the Chinese Government, they don't censor the internet. They just have "some routing issues."
Free Speech does not exist in China. In fact, if you want to organize a club so you can talk about football, you have to register that group with the government or it will be considered to be an illegal organization.
In China, you do have Freedom of Religion. You can practice any religion you would like to practice, as long as it's listed on the list of government-recognized religions. That list is rather short- Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. Conducting or participating in any service not recognized by the government can result in arrest, detainment, fines, and in some cases, torture. Their judgement on what's accepted and what isn't is also pretty subjective- Catholics are often targeted by the police because they don't think it fits into Christianity, because of the link to the Vatican. Chinese police have also been known to confiscate religious literature and church property, resulting in hundreds of church closures.
It's in your best interest to not do the religion thing, though. Members of the communist party are officially required to be Atheists, so practicing your religion may indicate that you don't support the common good. That could cause problems.
But hey, China won't have this whole religion problem for much longer, because it's also against the law for parents to expose their children to any form of religion until they are 18 years old.
There's plenty of opportunity in China, if you're born in a city. If you're born in a rural area, you have two choices- grow rice, or fill out an application to see if the government will let you move to a city. Unless you have a good reason why, it will likely be denied- and no, wanting to improve your quality of life does not count as a good reason.
Of course the first trick is to Get Born, which is more difficult than it sounds - The Chinese Government also has a very well defined policy on population control. This means that parents are only allowed to have one child. Because of this restriction, parents are often put in the position of having to choose between keeping their baby or getting rid of it, either before or after birth. Boys are preferred by most parents, because they are seen as more useful and carry on the family name. As such, research published in 1990 shows that there are over 50 Million "Missing Women" in China, that is to say, females that, according to the natural ratio of male to female births, should exist, but don't.
But perhaps country-wide, state-sanctioned baby killing is ok for them. Kinda makes sense, after all. On paper.
Killing in general is not an uncommon thing for the Chinese Government to do- China usually accounts for about three quarters of all death sentence executions in the world. In Chinese law, there are 68 crimes that are punishable by death. Included in those 68 offenses are several non-violent, white-collar crimes such as tax fraud and embezzlement.
You DO, however, have a right to a swift (though usually not fair) trial- executions are usually conducted the day after sentencing, but in some cases, the very same day! The current record was set on January 9th, 1993- on that day, 356 death sentences were handed down, and 62 executions occurred that same day.
Chinese Government-sponsored killings aren't limited to China's boarders, either. Want to know the real reason why the US has never gotten involved in the genocide happening in Darfur? Because China is supporting Sudan, the country conducting the killings. China even threatened to veto UN Security Council actions aimed at combating the Darfur Crisis.
So no, the economic problems that are created by buying things from China are really not a problem. They just aren't, the market will decide what products are good and what products aren't. They simply mask the real problem.
The problem with buying things from China is that every dollar you spend is a vote of approval of their government and way of life.
China is Communist, and the reason they are still communist is because it's working out very well for them. The world approves of their actions and proves their support by sending money.
That's why I don't shop at Wal*Mart. The items there cost way too much.
Friday, December 4, 2009
F1 2009 PSP Review
Oh God, it's a game review- and, well, considering how often I write reviews, you're probably thinking that the game in question is Horrible. You're right.
It's apparent to most people that I am an F1 fan. In fact, I've outlasted most of the people around me who are also F1 fans. Most of them have been pissed off by the FIA's recent rule changes, or the dropping of certain races, or the current stock of paranoid drivers, or the recent outright cheating involving not one, not two, but three major teams. Despite all this, my interest in the sport has grown a lot over the past couple years, and I've been looking forward to a new F1 game since I got the very well done Formula 1 Championship Edition (PS3) in 2006.
Before that, I used to play F1 2002 on the PC- They are both Very Good Racing Sims. Very difficult games, but that's to be expected when you're trying to simulate the pinnacle of motorsport. In F1 2002 I only managed to win once- and that was after years of many races on the same track (Indianapolis) - in F1 Championship Edition I'm just now starting to be a championship contender, four years after the game was launched. This is the kind of difficulty that's expected. A good F1 game, heck, a good racing game in general, should be designed to be difficult. I mean, when doing the real thing, one slip and you're dead.
F1 2009 is certainly difficult to play- but that's because it sucks, not because it was designed well.
I had high hopes for F1 2009- but realistically I knew over a year ago that it was going to be horrible- because that's when I heard that CodeMasters had been awarded the F1 license. CodeMasters games have a long history of being very, very close to being good, but having a few fatal flaws (usually with respect to the actual driving feel of the cars) which make the whole game pointless. F1 2009 is no exception.
Upon firing it up you are immediately faced with your first challenge- how to navigate the menu structure as efficiently as possible. Why? The menus themselves are no more cryptic than TOCA 3's menus (which, is to say, slightly-below-average), however the sounds made when moving your selection around are the most annoying sounds in the entire world. It's a cross between the sound made when adding coins to an old arcade machine and large cymbal crash- And it happens Every Fucking Time You Touch The D-pad. The rest of the in-game sounds are pretty much on the same level. The KERS sound is a bit nostalgic, though- it sounds EXACTLY like using a 'turbo' in the old arcade game, Outrun.
After you get your name entered and move down the line a bit you can pick a track and a car. The tracks are pretty well done, they look like something you'd see on a budget PSP racing game. The cars look like they were taken from F1 Challenge (1995- Sega Saturn). Sure, they are licensed cars, and they are painted up right, but the models look Terrible. And before anyone says I'm exaggerating the terribleness, here's a video of gameplay.
But hey, this is a racing game on a portable, right? The graphics can't be that good! The hardware can't do it! Oh, nevermind, I forgot about Gran Turismo. Polyphony Digital has to be the bane of every other developer's existence.
Anyhow, back to F1, where we remind ourselves that graphics are not as important as driving feel and other simulation accuracy points. Surely, as with some other driving games, F1 2009 has traded off graphical prettiness for driving feel and excellent physics!
Sorry, no.
The cars are undrivable. Utterly and entirely. You cannot take the car right up to the edge and push it around the corners. Why? Because, the controls are horrible. If you jump in with the driving assists off, you simply must drive slow because it is impossible to drive smoothly. If you drive with the assists on, the car basically drives itself, meaning that instead of playing a racing game, you get to watch a computer-generated representation of an F1 race that looks like it could have been renedered on a Sega Saturn.
Still, you must be thinking, you can't blame CodeMasters for all of this; The PSP does not have any analog buttons- the gas is either on or off, the turning is either on or off. The PSP does have an "analog stick" you can use for steering, but if you've ever spent time with it, you've noticed it's not really analog. It's just a d-pad with three positions, off, half-way, and full. So it doesn't get you much.
Certainly, any driving games with these kinds of control limitations are just impossible to make fun because you can't relay any fine-tune feel to the player.
Sorry, no. Gran Turismo drives great using the exact same controls. The PS1 versions of Gran Turismo also drove great, with digital controls. There are countless other racing games which were able to make do. F1 2009, no.
I do think that the developers were aware of these control problems, though, because they seem to have adjusted the speed of the other cars in the game to match. The default AI difficulty and speed is laughable. On my first race, I went from Last to 6th in Two Laps- while driving a Force India, likely the slowest car in the field. This wasn't due to my insane driving prowess. It wasn't due to my car being extra special and cornering well.
It was due to the AI cars slowing down on the straights to let me catch up and pass them. Simply unacceptable.
Other high points? Weather? Damage modeling? Just take the above lack of quality and apply it to any other area you're thinking about. The game is garbage.
All of the above being said, though, it will sell well- because it's the only game in town. As usual, specific sport licensing has pushed us into a corner of buying substandard crap or having nothing at all. I, for one, prefer the nothing.
Metacritic says this game is a 68 out of 100. Don't believe them. It's much. much lower.
It's apparent to most people that I am an F1 fan. In fact, I've outlasted most of the people around me who are also F1 fans. Most of them have been pissed off by the FIA's recent rule changes, or the dropping of certain races, or the current stock of paranoid drivers, or the recent outright cheating involving not one, not two, but three major teams. Despite all this, my interest in the sport has grown a lot over the past couple years, and I've been looking forward to a new F1 game since I got the very well done Formula 1 Championship Edition (PS3) in 2006.
Before that, I used to play F1 2002 on the PC- They are both Very Good Racing Sims. Very difficult games, but that's to be expected when you're trying to simulate the pinnacle of motorsport. In F1 2002 I only managed to win once- and that was after years of many races on the same track (Indianapolis) - in F1 Championship Edition I'm just now starting to be a championship contender, four years after the game was launched. This is the kind of difficulty that's expected. A good F1 game, heck, a good racing game in general, should be designed to be difficult. I mean, when doing the real thing, one slip and you're dead.
F1 2009 is certainly difficult to play- but that's because it sucks, not because it was designed well.
I had high hopes for F1 2009- but realistically I knew over a year ago that it was going to be horrible- because that's when I heard that CodeMasters had been awarded the F1 license. CodeMasters games have a long history of being very, very close to being good, but having a few fatal flaws (usually with respect to the actual driving feel of the cars) which make the whole game pointless. F1 2009 is no exception.
Upon firing it up you are immediately faced with your first challenge- how to navigate the menu structure as efficiently as possible. Why? The menus themselves are no more cryptic than TOCA 3's menus (which, is to say, slightly-below-average), however the sounds made when moving your selection around are the most annoying sounds in the entire world. It's a cross between the sound made when adding coins to an old arcade machine and large cymbal crash- And it happens Every Fucking Time You Touch The D-pad. The rest of the in-game sounds are pretty much on the same level. The KERS sound is a bit nostalgic, though- it sounds EXACTLY like using a 'turbo' in the old arcade game, Outrun.
After you get your name entered and move down the line a bit you can pick a track and a car. The tracks are pretty well done, they look like something you'd see on a budget PSP racing game. The cars look like they were taken from F1 Challenge (1995- Sega Saturn). Sure, they are licensed cars, and they are painted up right, but the models look Terrible. And before anyone says I'm exaggerating the terribleness, here's a video of gameplay.
But hey, this is a racing game on a portable, right? The graphics can't be that good! The hardware can't do it! Oh, nevermind, I forgot about Gran Turismo. Polyphony Digital has to be the bane of every other developer's existence.
Anyhow, back to F1, where we remind ourselves that graphics are not as important as driving feel and other simulation accuracy points. Surely, as with some other driving games, F1 2009 has traded off graphical prettiness for driving feel and excellent physics!
Sorry, no.
The cars are undrivable. Utterly and entirely. You cannot take the car right up to the edge and push it around the corners. Why? Because, the controls are horrible. If you jump in with the driving assists off, you simply must drive slow because it is impossible to drive smoothly. If you drive with the assists on, the car basically drives itself, meaning that instead of playing a racing game, you get to watch a computer-generated representation of an F1 race that looks like it could have been renedered on a Sega Saturn.
Still, you must be thinking, you can't blame CodeMasters for all of this; The PSP does not have any analog buttons- the gas is either on or off, the turning is either on or off. The PSP does have an "analog stick" you can use for steering, but if you've ever spent time with it, you've noticed it's not really analog. It's just a d-pad with three positions, off, half-way, and full. So it doesn't get you much.
Certainly, any driving games with these kinds of control limitations are just impossible to make fun because you can't relay any fine-tune feel to the player.
Sorry, no. Gran Turismo drives great using the exact same controls. The PS1 versions of Gran Turismo also drove great, with digital controls. There are countless other racing games which were able to make do. F1 2009, no.
I do think that the developers were aware of these control problems, though, because they seem to have adjusted the speed of the other cars in the game to match. The default AI difficulty and speed is laughable. On my first race, I went from Last to 6th in Two Laps- while driving a Force India, likely the slowest car in the field. This wasn't due to my insane driving prowess. It wasn't due to my car being extra special and cornering well.
It was due to the AI cars slowing down on the straights to let me catch up and pass them. Simply unacceptable.
Other high points? Weather? Damage modeling? Just take the above lack of quality and apply it to any other area you're thinking about. The game is garbage.
All of the above being said, though, it will sell well- because it's the only game in town. As usual, specific sport licensing has pushed us into a corner of buying substandard crap or having nothing at all. I, for one, prefer the nothing.
Metacritic says this game is a 68 out of 100. Don't believe them. It's much. much lower.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Facebook Ignorement.
I received your friend request and I was happy to get it. I'm very happy that you would think of me enough to send me a friend request. I want to be your friend, too, because you are an interesting, knowledgeable person, and you are surrounded by other very respectable people in your family and friends.
Unfortunately for both of us, I cannot accept your request. The problem isn't that I don't like you- as stated above, I do. The problem isn't some silly political worry about who I have on my friend list and who I don't. The problem isn't a personal grudge.
The problem is this: In my observation, you've treated those very respectable members of your family and friends quite poorly, on many occasions. We've all made the mistake of taking a friend or loved one for granted more often than any of us would like to admit, but in your case it seems to be a pattern. Specifically, I've witnessed:
Passing of (what I believe to be) your responsibilities on to members of your family.
Manipulative behavior.
Talking about others in condescending tones, either in front of them or, worse, to their friends.
General lack of support for any ideas or plans that didn't come from you, even when the plans don't involve you. This is closely related to you lack of ability to accept suggestions or ideas from others.
You are quick to give advice (often good advice, as you are knowledgeable) - however that advice very rarely comes without cynicism and negativity.
I believe the above behavior has robbed you of a lot of happiness in your life, our facebook friendship being the latest, very unfortunate, victim. However, I think it's likely the smallest victim. I believe that this kind of behavior has robbed you of much deeper relationships with the people around you, and that makes me very sad- because you, and those around you, deserve better.
I honestly hope you take a serious look at how you see and treat those around you, and learn to accept, love, and grow with the people in your life in ways that you currently are not. Should this happen, I would happily entertain a friend request, though I'm sure that would be the smallest of the joys you would find by making these changes.
-Chris
Unfortunately for both of us, I cannot accept your request. The problem isn't that I don't like you- as stated above, I do. The problem isn't some silly political worry about who I have on my friend list and who I don't. The problem isn't a personal grudge.
The problem is this: In my observation, you've treated those very respectable members of your family and friends quite poorly, on many occasions. We've all made the mistake of taking a friend or loved one for granted more often than any of us would like to admit, but in your case it seems to be a pattern. Specifically, I've witnessed:
Passing of (what I believe to be) your responsibilities on to members of your family.
Manipulative behavior.
Talking about others in condescending tones, either in front of them or, worse, to their friends.
General lack of support for any ideas or plans that didn't come from you, even when the plans don't involve you. This is closely related to you lack of ability to accept suggestions or ideas from others.
You are quick to give advice (often good advice, as you are knowledgeable) - however that advice very rarely comes without cynicism and negativity.
I believe the above behavior has robbed you of a lot of happiness in your life, our facebook friendship being the latest, very unfortunate, victim. However, I think it's likely the smallest victim. I believe that this kind of behavior has robbed you of much deeper relationships with the people around you, and that makes me very sad- because you, and those around you, deserve better.
I honestly hope you take a serious look at how you see and treat those around you, and learn to accept, love, and grow with the people in your life in ways that you currently are not. Should this happen, I would happily entertain a friend request, though I'm sure that would be the smallest of the joys you would find by making these changes.
-Chris
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Tighten Up.
So Calamatas. Sandwich shop just down the street from MasterLink. Run by two guys, Garry and Alfred, both fun to talk to. Garry has like eight kids, Alfred has a son in the Air Force Academy. Very low budget operation, and always seemingly about to go out of business. On bad weeks there's a "restaurant for sale" sign posted.
As typical of places like this- they really do make decent sandwiches.
Until recently, however, they didn't stock decent chips to go with said sandwiches. They only had "Aunt Jemima" chips, which were, honestly, abominations, or Sun Chips, which aren't bad, but lack the Barbecue flavor that I enjoy with a good sub. As such I've been on these guys to start stocking some proper Lays for a while now.
The response has always been
"The supply place I get everything from doesn't have Lays"
to which I've responded "You gotta car, right?"
Eventually I started threatening to just bring them a case of Lays Barbecue and just give it to them. About that time Alfred gave in, and said "I'll tell you what. I'll have some in here on Monday."
"Well I'll be here on Tuesday to find out. I won't be in Monday."
And true to my word, I was there Tuesday, looking for my Club and my Barbecue Chips. There were no chips. When confronted, Alfred had all kinds of excuses:
"Garry had to go to the dentist, I had to take the wife's car into the shop this morning, I had to go to the other shop and pick up more food . . ."
"Man you just gotta Tighten Up."
Not only did I surprise myself by using a phrase reserved for high school football players, I must have used it effectively, because he totally understood immediately. He smiled ear to ear and said "Football."
There were Lays available on my next visit. I saw three bags sell while I was in line. Alfred says they've been selling well.
As typical of places like this- they really do make decent sandwiches.
Until recently, however, they didn't stock decent chips to go with said sandwiches. They only had "Aunt Jemima" chips, which were, honestly, abominations, or Sun Chips, which aren't bad, but lack the Barbecue flavor that I enjoy with a good sub. As such I've been on these guys to start stocking some proper Lays for a while now.
The response has always been
"The supply place I get everything from doesn't have Lays"
to which I've responded "You gotta car, right?"
Eventually I started threatening to just bring them a case of Lays Barbecue and just give it to them. About that time Alfred gave in, and said "I'll tell you what. I'll have some in here on Monday."
"Well I'll be here on Tuesday to find out. I won't be in Monday."
And true to my word, I was there Tuesday, looking for my Club and my Barbecue Chips. There were no chips. When confronted, Alfred had all kinds of excuses:
"Garry had to go to the dentist, I had to take the wife's car into the shop this morning, I had to go to the other shop and pick up more food . . ."
"Man you just gotta Tighten Up."
Not only did I surprise myself by using a phrase reserved for high school football players, I must have used it effectively, because he totally understood immediately. He smiled ear to ear and said "Football."
There were Lays available on my next visit. I saw three bags sell while I was in line. Alfred says they've been selling well.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Space Cowboys
Mechanical things are designed and built with a purpose in mind. They have expectations set for them, and they are built to work best when performing to those expectations.
Advanced mechanical things are a culmination of many mechanical things, each built to their own set of expectations. When you have one of these advanced mechanical things, like a car, or aircraft, or space ship - you have many smaller parts making up a whole - each individual part adding it's expected operating range to the mix. When operating these machines, you can feel when everything is going well, when every part is doing what it was designed to do. You can also feel when the opposite is happening, when the situation is such that only some parts are able to do their job well, and overall performance of the whole system suffers.
Cars, airplanes, spacecraft, and the like are all very advanced mechanical things. And while they are not advanced enough to be sentient, or have a conscious, they do have emotions. Some say they have a soul. Cars like to be driven, they overheat when stopped, they rot when left sitting too long. In addition to that, different cars like different speeds, and different types of driving. It all depends on the sum of the expectations the parts were designed for.
Most American cars are very modular. An engine is taken from one platform, a body and electronics from another, and some new headlights are added and we now have a new model. The parts were not designed and built with this particular application in mind - but they happen to fit, so they are used. As such the resulting car is never really happy, because the engine wants to be pulling a larger load, the transmission was geared for a different purpose only to have the final drive changed to match the new model's tire size, and the suspension parts have been pulled from another car which was never outfitted with the new model's wheel. There's never a time where everything comes together, never a time where every part is performing at it's best.
In contrast, most European cars are built with a specific vision in mind- there are expectations from the car as a whole from which the expectations for each part are derived. This is why European cars have a speed they seem to want to cruise at, a certain amount of steering input which seems to make the chassis set, a confidence under braking which you simply don't find in American cars. European cars are happy, American cars are always conflicted.
Airplanes take the above behavior and magnify it significantly. An airplane on the ground is like a race car in stop-and-go traffic, in the rain. No airplane is happy on the ground. Nothing is performing at it's best. They are hard to steer, hard to stop, heck, hard to see out of, on the ground. Once in the air, they have climb and descent rates they like, bank angles that they will settle into, even mixture and prop settings which just make the engine sound better.
The change in emotion in an aircraft when turning on to a runway and starting a takeoff roll is one of the biggest emotion swings one can experience coming from a mechanical device. It goes from not wanting to move to smooth happiness and pure optimism in about 30 seconds.
The movie "Space Cowboys" summed it up in one line, spoken by an ex SR-71 pilot sitting under one of the retired blackbirds:
"SR-71. This is what a plane's supposed to be. She's ugly on the ground, leaks like a sieve. But up around mach one, her seals all expand, she dries up and leans into the wind and goes like hell."
Most people who love to fly are very in touch with their aircraft. Their plane, being happy, makes them happy. Those who never develop this connection typically stop training while still student pilots- and if they don't, they take much longer to finish.
I've been lucky enough to be able to listen to machines most of my life. I care about them, and in many cases, they care back. The emotion, the commitment to performance designed into good machines- it's not something that I just respect, it's something that talks to me, and adds a level of understanding that allows me to operate those machines very, very well.
I go to the Air and Space Museum whenever I can. Not because I need to learn about Air and Space history- I know every exhibit there. I go because the emotions I feel in that building are indescribable.
Today we lost Michael Jackson. That's a shame, the music he produced spoke volumes to billions of people. Today we're also faced with the likely loss of Space Shuttle Atlantis, due to a very silly, but probably uncorrectable, problem found on the inspection after it's most recent mission.
I love music. I certainly don't like death. I downright like a lot of what MJ has created over the years. And despite all the accusations, bad press, and overall creepiness of the guy, I really don't feel he was a bad person. Losing him is a sad thing. A very sad thing. But at the same time it was time for him to go. He was done, he had completed the work he was built to do. He had changed the world, and decided to stop doing live shows about a year ago. It's sad to see him go, but from a purely logical standpoint it's ok. It was time.
I'm sad about Michael.
I'm sadder about Atlantis.
The emotion wrapped up in the shuttle program, and even that particular spacecraft, is amazing. It changed my life. Yes, it changed my life more than Music. Yes. Airplanes, cars, spaceships, and other engineering feats evoke far more emotion and attachment in me than Music.
Next time I tell you that I can't drive a Honda Fit, or that I feel paying $700 per month for the rest of my natural life for the flight training I've done is the best money I've ever spent, or that driving on track is exactly like painting a picture- and you look at me funny - I want you to imagine the void that you would have in your life if suddenly all Music in your life disappeared.
That's what *it* is for me- working with complex systems and making them work at their very best, and having them share their happiness with me. It doesn't matter if it's a car, or an airplane, or something I've built on a computer or out of lego. It's the joy of seeing it all come together and not just work, but work well.
A side effect of this is the deep appreciation of the systems themselves, hence the sadness over Atlantis. It's a very storied spacecraft, but it wasn't done writing stories yet. It wasn't done with it's work, it had more to do- one more mission this year, and then one or perhaps two next year. More times where things would all come together and Atlantis would get some truly amazing things done. Those times likely won't come now. More from Space Cowboys:
"She's only happy up there, goin' fast. She's not meant to be sitting on the ground. That's a lousy way to die. Sitting around, waiting..."
I wish I could finish this with a positive spin.
Advanced mechanical things are a culmination of many mechanical things, each built to their own set of expectations. When you have one of these advanced mechanical things, like a car, or aircraft, or space ship - you have many smaller parts making up a whole - each individual part adding it's expected operating range to the mix. When operating these machines, you can feel when everything is going well, when every part is doing what it was designed to do. You can also feel when the opposite is happening, when the situation is such that only some parts are able to do their job well, and overall performance of the whole system suffers.
Cars, airplanes, spacecraft, and the like are all very advanced mechanical things. And while they are not advanced enough to be sentient, or have a conscious, they do have emotions. Some say they have a soul. Cars like to be driven, they overheat when stopped, they rot when left sitting too long. In addition to that, different cars like different speeds, and different types of driving. It all depends on the sum of the expectations the parts were designed for.
Most American cars are very modular. An engine is taken from one platform, a body and electronics from another, and some new headlights are added and we now have a new model. The parts were not designed and built with this particular application in mind - but they happen to fit, so they are used. As such the resulting car is never really happy, because the engine wants to be pulling a larger load, the transmission was geared for a different purpose only to have the final drive changed to match the new model's tire size, and the suspension parts have been pulled from another car which was never outfitted with the new model's wheel. There's never a time where everything comes together, never a time where every part is performing at it's best.
In contrast, most European cars are built with a specific vision in mind- there are expectations from the car as a whole from which the expectations for each part are derived. This is why European cars have a speed they seem to want to cruise at, a certain amount of steering input which seems to make the chassis set, a confidence under braking which you simply don't find in American cars. European cars are happy, American cars are always conflicted.
Airplanes take the above behavior and magnify it significantly. An airplane on the ground is like a race car in stop-and-go traffic, in the rain. No airplane is happy on the ground. Nothing is performing at it's best. They are hard to steer, hard to stop, heck, hard to see out of, on the ground. Once in the air, they have climb and descent rates they like, bank angles that they will settle into, even mixture and prop settings which just make the engine sound better.
The change in emotion in an aircraft when turning on to a runway and starting a takeoff roll is one of the biggest emotion swings one can experience coming from a mechanical device. It goes from not wanting to move to smooth happiness and pure optimism in about 30 seconds.
The movie "Space Cowboys" summed it up in one line, spoken by an ex SR-71 pilot sitting under one of the retired blackbirds:
"SR-71. This is what a plane's supposed to be. She's ugly on the ground, leaks like a sieve. But up around mach one, her seals all expand, she dries up and leans into the wind and goes like hell."
Most people who love to fly are very in touch with their aircraft. Their plane, being happy, makes them happy. Those who never develop this connection typically stop training while still student pilots- and if they don't, they take much longer to finish.
I've been lucky enough to be able to listen to machines most of my life. I care about them, and in many cases, they care back. The emotion, the commitment to performance designed into good machines- it's not something that I just respect, it's something that talks to me, and adds a level of understanding that allows me to operate those machines very, very well.
I go to the Air and Space Museum whenever I can. Not because I need to learn about Air and Space history- I know every exhibit there. I go because the emotions I feel in that building are indescribable.
Today we lost Michael Jackson. That's a shame, the music he produced spoke volumes to billions of people. Today we're also faced with the likely loss of Space Shuttle Atlantis, due to a very silly, but probably uncorrectable, problem found on the inspection after it's most recent mission.
I love music. I certainly don't like death. I downright like a lot of what MJ has created over the years. And despite all the accusations, bad press, and overall creepiness of the guy, I really don't feel he was a bad person. Losing him is a sad thing. A very sad thing. But at the same time it was time for him to go. He was done, he had completed the work he was built to do. He had changed the world, and decided to stop doing live shows about a year ago. It's sad to see him go, but from a purely logical standpoint it's ok. It was time.
I'm sad about Michael.
I'm sadder about Atlantis.
The emotion wrapped up in the shuttle program, and even that particular spacecraft, is amazing. It changed my life. Yes, it changed my life more than Music. Yes. Airplanes, cars, spaceships, and other engineering feats evoke far more emotion and attachment in me than Music.
Next time I tell you that I can't drive a Honda Fit, or that I feel paying $700 per month for the rest of my natural life for the flight training I've done is the best money I've ever spent, or that driving on track is exactly like painting a picture- and you look at me funny - I want you to imagine the void that you would have in your life if suddenly all Music in your life disappeared.
That's what *it* is for me- working with complex systems and making them work at their very best, and having them share their happiness with me. It doesn't matter if it's a car, or an airplane, or something I've built on a computer or out of lego. It's the joy of seeing it all come together and not just work, but work well.
A side effect of this is the deep appreciation of the systems themselves, hence the sadness over Atlantis. It's a very storied spacecraft, but it wasn't done writing stories yet. It wasn't done with it's work, it had more to do- one more mission this year, and then one or perhaps two next year. More times where things would all come together and Atlantis would get some truly amazing things done. Those times likely won't come now. More from Space Cowboys:
"She's only happy up there, goin' fast. She's not meant to be sitting on the ground. That's a lousy way to die. Sitting around, waiting..."
I wish I could finish this with a positive spin.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
On the Eve of Chrysler's demise
When faced with adversity it's often good to look back at previous difficult times and try to find some wisdom for handling the one you are currently faced with. Looking at the current folding of Chrysler, people seem quick to forget that they have been here before.
In the early 80's, Chrysler was in trouble. Lots of trouble. Gas prices had recently rocketed and Chrysler had no small cars to fall back on. Chevy and Ford had some small cars, and some international sales, to keep them afloat.
In 1978, the average new American car got 13 miles per gallon. Japanese cars had been in the US since the mid 70's, offering cars with much better mileage- but they were much smaller, and therefore were experiencing slow adoption until the oil crisis. Then, suddenly, people started considering more efficient cars.
Sounds a lot like today's situation. And like today's situation in the early 80s, Chrysler was looking at closing their doors forever unless they made major changes to the cars they offered.
They hired Lee Iacocca, and let him lead as he wanted. He didn't have the time to hire and train new engineers and develop a new product entirely in-house. As such he bet the entire company on a business deal- Chrysler, despite having failing sales and bleak future, bought 38% of Mitsubishi. The result of this new alliance was the K Car, which history has certainly beat up- but fact is- it saved Chrysler because it was the right product at the right time. To this day, many Chrysler cars share parts with their Mitsubishi counterparts.
In 1978, new American cars got 13 MPG. By 1981, there was a Dodge which could get 50. (Video) That's with almost 30 year old technology- no hybrid, no flexfuel, no anything special.
And it wasn't just the O24 that got good mileage. The other cars Chrysler offered were very sensible, also. (Video)
Chrysler didn't stop at just getting themselves out of the grave. They took their new found success and used it to create an innovative product which created a new car segment- the Minivan. The 1984 Caravan got 37 MPG highway, and carried everything you needed to carry. Chrysler did it first, and couldn't build them fast enough. (Video)
This is what happens when one person does what needs to be done to make a company profitable. And that's what Lee Iacocca did, and in doing so kept jobs in America, provided the world with an innovative product, and most famously, did it with style. He was very outspoken and direct with his use of words and vision for what he wanted to accomplish with the company- as seen here, in a commercial from 1984. (Video)
Lee retired in 1992. Since then, Chrysler has returned to rehashing older cars, and has repeatedly ignored customer desires. Now they are in the grave, and what's left of them will be bought up by Fiat. Most major dealerships are closing this weekend.
This is what happens when corporations lose the fear of failing. They fail. Guaranteed money is the surest way to kill a company. When that happens, innovation stops. I've seen this personally even where I work.
The words Lee Iacocca says at the end of the video above are very telling. "Quality, hard work, commitment. The stuff America was made of. Without them, there is no future."
I wonder if he knew he was predicting the future of his company.
In the early 80's, Chrysler was in trouble. Lots of trouble. Gas prices had recently rocketed and Chrysler had no small cars to fall back on. Chevy and Ford had some small cars, and some international sales, to keep them afloat.
In 1978, the average new American car got 13 miles per gallon. Japanese cars had been in the US since the mid 70's, offering cars with much better mileage- but they were much smaller, and therefore were experiencing slow adoption until the oil crisis. Then, suddenly, people started considering more efficient cars.
Sounds a lot like today's situation. And like today's situation in the early 80s, Chrysler was looking at closing their doors forever unless they made major changes to the cars they offered.
They hired Lee Iacocca, and let him lead as he wanted. He didn't have the time to hire and train new engineers and develop a new product entirely in-house. As such he bet the entire company on a business deal- Chrysler, despite having failing sales and bleak future, bought 38% of Mitsubishi. The result of this new alliance was the K Car, which history has certainly beat up- but fact is- it saved Chrysler because it was the right product at the right time. To this day, many Chrysler cars share parts with their Mitsubishi counterparts.
In 1978, new American cars got 13 MPG. By 1981, there was a Dodge which could get 50. (Video) That's with almost 30 year old technology- no hybrid, no flexfuel, no anything special.
And it wasn't just the O24 that got good mileage. The other cars Chrysler offered were very sensible, also. (Video)
Chrysler didn't stop at just getting themselves out of the grave. They took their new found success and used it to create an innovative product which created a new car segment- the Minivan. The 1984 Caravan got 37 MPG highway, and carried everything you needed to carry. Chrysler did it first, and couldn't build them fast enough. (Video)
This is what happens when one person does what needs to be done to make a company profitable. And that's what Lee Iacocca did, and in doing so kept jobs in America, provided the world with an innovative product, and most famously, did it with style. He was very outspoken and direct with his use of words and vision for what he wanted to accomplish with the company- as seen here, in a commercial from 1984. (Video)
Lee retired in 1992. Since then, Chrysler has returned to rehashing older cars, and has repeatedly ignored customer desires. Now they are in the grave, and what's left of them will be bought up by Fiat. Most major dealerships are closing this weekend.
This is what happens when corporations lose the fear of failing. They fail. Guaranteed money is the surest way to kill a company. When that happens, innovation stops. I've seen this personally even where I work.
The words Lee Iacocca says at the end of the video above are very telling. "Quality, hard work, commitment. The stuff America was made of. Without them, there is no future."
I wonder if he knew he was predicting the future of his company.
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