I want to be a Programmer Aristocrat

This past Friday night I was reading a story in the Wall Street Journal about the late Brooke Astor and the legal drama of her estate. It mentioned that if her son's wife gains control of her fortune, many charities will stop receiving her regular donations. That when it occurred to me that I want to be an old money programmer.

I don't say this because of my penchant for single malt Scotch Whisky nor any other eccentricity I possess that some might consider snobbish. I say that because I begin to understand why the rich give to charities.

The rich don't give to charities to avoid taxes, compensate for inner demons, or feel altruistic. The rich, such as Astor Brooke, give to charities to achieve control and change in ways that profitable enterprise cannot. Of course I am speaking in absolutes. However, for many people whom giving money away and raising money is how they spend their time, they are doing so to affect change.

This is what I ultimately want to do. I don't think I will ever be Bill Gates rich. However, I think I can have my own small empire. I can gain a small degree of prominence as an open source programmer. I can write a web app that supplements my income. I might not ever be of the stature of Linus Torvalds or Larry Wall, but I could certainly write a popular open source product, or become a major contributor to one.

Surreal encounter in Bellmore, NY

I was driving to work today and my gas light came on. I stopped at exit 25 of the Southern State Parkway. As I was pumping gas the man driving the SUV in front of me came up and asked me how to get to New Jersey. He had Jersey license plates. He was not a native speaker, and asked me if I spoke Spanish.

I in a response to his query I committed most horrible atrocity. I sent him through Staten Island. My concerns for Holland Tunnel traffic are no excuse.

Life imitates Dune, or Justin really likes mail merge

So there I was, a few weeks back sitting in a friends back yard, reading Frank Herbert's Dune. I put down the book for a bit to be sociable and found out that at that very moment an unthinkable sin was being committed on the second floor of the house. A dear friend of my girlfriend was reading addresses from a spreadsheet printout, and retyping them into MS Word to print out envelopes/.

I started foaming about the mouth of the waste of labor, humanity's duty to subjugate computers, (being they lack person hood, self awareness, rights and the like), to do our work for us, so we can do other work. I calmed myself and ran up the stairs to educate her on how to use mail merge.

She would have none of it. I was persistent, but yielded eventually. My girlfriend kept saying, "sometimes the simplest way is the best," This statement was beyond wrong in this case, but I was not going to argue with illogical statements. I went and played with my godson for a bit, and continued to read my book.

Some may be surprised at how upset I got. Others think I exaggerate. A select sew that have witnessed or heard secondhand of my outbursts against ip printing and lack of domain (or novell, ldap, NIS etc) authentication in places that had the means of doing better. The inefficient use of computers really bothers me. My pointless emotional outbursts on the matter might be the folly of my youth, but I doubt such incidents will ever not cause my blood to boil.

Thoughts on Dune's banning of computers

I just finished Frank Herbert's Dune. I've previously seen the Sci-Fi 2000 mini-series and their 2003 Sequel, Children of Dune. I recommend to any Dune newcomers, read the books first, then watch the movies. The novels paint a world in Tolkien level detail, and no movie can ever do it full justice.

The ecological undertones and melange as an allegory to oil are somewhat obvious. The feudalism/corporatism type government of the known universe seems like what would occur in a situation where you had a large expanse of people, and the transaction costs of government were high. I'm sure much was written about these things. I'm sure one day I will read some of them and even write something about such things. What interests me most is the lack of AI, and computers in general.

One could react several ways to the outlaw of computers in the Dune universe. One could simply state that Frank Herbert was entirely wrong about the computer thing, despite being so right about the oil thing. You could also say it will take a long time for AI to get to the point that our leaders must declare "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." One could also state that Frank Herbert's miscalculation was predicting how useful computers could be without any reasoning skills, and their role as communication devices.

I'm sure that Herbert was questioned on the AI questions. He published Dune in 1965 and died in 1986. So one would think I should have done a bit of research before publishing this article. However, I want to continue this line of thought without an "authoritative" answer a bit more. I'll try to write more about it though. after some research.

Steinbeck Reference in Transformers The Movie

I'm not referring to the Michael Bay film, which I do like. I am referring to the 1986 feature length animated film starring Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Peter Cullen and Orsen Welles, who died before the movie was finished.

In this movie the following dialog occurs between Grimlock, and Kup:

Grimlock: Tell Grimlock about petro-rabbits again.
Kup: I'll give you petro-rabbits.

This is obviously a reference to Lenny, the retarded brute from Of Mice and Men who often asked George to "Tell him about the rabbits." Grimlock, and the rest of the dinobots are, like Lenny, mentally lacking brutes.

I've seen this film over a dozen times, and I've both read Steinbeck's book and seen the movie adaptation that has made the line famous. I never noticed this until this past weekend.

Life without a Wallet

I have a George Costanza wallet that my friend is currently in possession of. I went to a party a few weeks ago. He drove and I placed it in his glove compartment. I forgot about it and have yet to retrieve it.

I kept my debit card, New York State drivers license and cash in my pocket when I went to this party. Hence why I have not rushed back to get my wallet. I have no immediate need for the contents of the wallet. If I need to go to a doctor, I can have him fax my insurance card.

One day I will reclaim my wallet. For now I live without it. 

And for the record, I keep it in my front left pocket. It balances out the weight from the three key chains in my right pocket. Some of the keys in my right pocket used to open doors of buildings that have been demolished.

Process Hacker: Thoroughly Awesome TaskMan.exe replacement

Process Hacker is a thoroughly awesome task manager replacement.

I have nominated it for a sourceforge community choice award. You should too.