The American form of government

My Dad sent me this link http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/ that has a pretty good video on the current state of our government. It's pretty telling if you've been paying attention the last few years. It would be nice if we could go back to what the country was supposed to be founded on but I guess the almighty dollar speaks louder than truth. I've been very disappointed of late as two values seem to have emerged in this country. One is an overdeveloped "sense of entitlement". We no longer get what we deserve, we get what we can extort at the expense of anyone but ourselves. It's one thing to pick up a dollar bill off the ground. But the lies people go to that absolve themselves of any accountability. Pretty sad. The other is entropy and "striving for mediocrity". We have become so lazy and spoiled that we spend all our time staying exactly where we are. Don't rock the boat and don't focus attention on yourself. People might actually expect you to do something. People will achieve goals you set for them. But this society has worked so hard to protect us from ourselves that we no longer even have the opportunity to get hurt. I thought you learned from making mistakes? Guess not. It's like that movie Idiocracy. Terrible execution, great concept. Pretty soon we'll all have the IQ of 10. I still think this is a great country but we need to get our heads on straight. Own up to a few things and make them right.

You Should Listen To Your Parents More

I was doing research for work and came across some things that tie the whole "circle" back together. When I was applying for colleges I got accepted into the U of I engineering department. At the time I didn't go because my dad really wanted me to go there. For me, it was enough that I had been accepted. Challenge met! And besides, you need to blaze your own trail in life. Now, I work with Engineers on a daily basis and wish in some ways I had stuck with it. My wife calls me a nerd and I suppose she's right. But, for those of you out there that get it, this excerpt from Frederick Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month will make you all warm and fuzzy inside. This is what I love about the possibility of ideas.

Why is programming fun? What delights may its practioner expect as his reward?

First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God's delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially different from the child's first clay pencil holder "for Daddy's office."

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning. The programmed computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ultimate.

Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the nonrepeating nature of the task. In one way or another the problem is ever new, and its solver learns something: sometimes practical, sometimes theoretical, and sometimes both.

Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. (...)

Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separately from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.

Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.

Welcome to Mother Earth

Greetings! Today marks the first day of this inaugural blog. All the thoughts running through my head (on multiple tracks) will be recorded here for posterity. Always wanted to write a book based on my experiences and maybe this is the right way to do it eh? For me, ideas are the fruit of life, the endless possibilities of what may become and what it takes to get there. As a consummate task-master, ideas are what gives my kinetic energy a place to call home. Hopefully you will enjoy reading this, or get inspiration to achieve. I know I will.