I am just not good at this sleep thing

Or the life thing.

I had a varied day today. Shoveled some snow (very carefully), did some shopping, worked on the computer quite a bit, and laid down and read quite a bit. No pain, no problems, until I try to sleep. Now my right leg is jumping and twitching so I can't sleep. Even sitting is a problem because my leg keeps jerking. Why is it I can go an entire day without a problem but as soon as I try to sleep major problems set it? I am starting to think I have a sleep allergy.

What sort of jobs will there be in the future?

Over the holidays I got a chance to speak to some of my nieces and nephews about their struggles in the job market. I also read a couple of articles about how jobs are changing. It makes me wonder what sort of jobs will there be by the time my 16 year old finishes college (assuming he goes). And how can he prepare for a career that can't be predicted? Some jobs will always exists sure, we will always need nurses, doctors, and fast food clerks but will most IT jobs go overseas like the manufacturing jobs have? Will there be electrical engineering jobs in the US or will they move overseas too?

I have no idea what courses my son should even take because I have no idea what jobs will still exist (and pay well) by the time he finishes college. I do know the US better do something to start keeping jobs here, because this sort of chaos will just drag the economy further down.

Scientific studies

Every month there is a new report about some substance that "causes cancer in lab rats". I can't believe the government still hands out money for this, it is like shooting fish in a barrel. Everything causes cancer in lab rats. What I want to know is what would cause lab rats in cancer! That would be far more useful. Well, maybe not useful but interesting. Okay, more gross than interesting. But at least we have a cure for lab rats.

I get tired of reading about scientific studies that prove things that were perfectly obvious to me when I was 12. Too much radiation will kill you, duh. People who are bad at estimating their weight are bad at estimating other things too, double duh. Why does the government keep wasting money on these studies? I would have told them the answers for a lot less money.

Single parenting

Being a single parent isn't easy. Being a single parent of a high-functioning autistic child is just a bit harder. I am certain I am doing the best I can for him, but is that going to be enough to make him a successful adult? That I don't know, and worry about a lot. What if my best isn't good enough?

I solve problems for a living and it is pretty much a way of life for me. Not knowing how my son will turn out is driving me nuts. I don't know if I have a problem or not and I don't know how to solve it when I have already done my best.

This whole life thingy is aggravating.

Another difficult night

There are nights when I just can't sleep, and this is one of them. So here are some random thoughts.

I don't understand how we can have so many stupid people in the world. Now I am not talking about people who are physically unable to think, I am talking about people with perfectly sound minds that won't think. We have free public education (not the greatest but decent) and I know most of the people I am talking about have graduated from at least high school, yet they don't understand simple concepts like "if you spend all of your money on fancy cars you won't have anything to eat". Several people I have met believe this is due to a government conspiracy to keep the voters stupid and under control, but they shouldn't be this stupid unless the government is putting stupid pills into our drinking water. I just don't get it.

Another thing I will never understand is why a woman will stay with a man that abuses her when there are so many good (but not good looking) men available. Is being married to a good looking man that cheats on you and treats you like dirt truly better than being married to a man that doesn't cheat on you but is ugly or walks with a limp? It seems bizzare to me.

One of the few things I do understand is that the older I get the more I dislike winter. I am tired of the snow and ice. And now my joints hurt because of the cold. It makes me wonder why my ancestors decided to live in Michigan. Sure it is better than a desert, but there are some decent parts of the country. Why didn't they go there?

Do aliens dream?

Dogs dream. People dream. Without being an expert I would guess that most animals on this planet dream in some form or another. But what about beings from another planet? With minds evolved totally differently than anything we have seen on this planet will they have a need to dream? Or is that strictly an Earth oddity. Eventually we will find intelligent beings from other planets and be able to ask them. Meanwhile I wonder.

Living as simply as possible

My life is fairly complicated, so I try to balance that by making it simple where I can.

I don't own anything that can't be thown on the floor. None of my clothing is dry clean ownly, none of it is stylish, and all of it is sturdy so it lasts for quite a while. I don't own a fancy car that I need to worry about getting dinged, but it is fairly new since I don't want the complications brought on by owning an undependable car. I spend less than I make because having cash in the bank means I don't need to worry about what checks can clear when. I buy everything in cash because seeing the money disappear makes it easier to track how much I am spending.

Like most things I take a long term approach to simple. It would be simpler in the short term to ignore the change oil light, but ultimately life is simpler if you do things when they are needed rather than ignore them until it is too late.

Simple doesn't mean primative, I own a nice house and use the heating and air a lot because being comfortable is less wearing than being too hot or too cold. I own several computers because the internet provides a cheap and easy way to learn.

Simple doesn't mean lazy, as I noted above putting things off often complicates your life in the long run making it counter productive.

Simple does mean I miss out on having the latest gadgets and the coolest toys. And without stylish clothes and a fancy car I miss out on being the center of attention. But not having to worry about how to pay a massive credit card debt or what would happen if my house was robbed more than makes up for this.

Some random thoughts

It has been awhile since I have posted. Fall isn't my favorite time of year, the days are getting shorter and I just want to sleep. So here is a fairly incoherent post.

I find it rather sad that every product has to carry warnings of the obvious. Coffee is hot, birth control pills won't prevent HIV, you shouldn't put plastic bags over your head. I guess I wouldn't mind it if the warnings were for children, but these warnings are for adults. The warnings have all arisen from lawsuits where people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. The lawsuit of the man who cut off his fingers trying to use his lawnmower to trim the bushes is the perfect example. He sued and won because the lawnmower didn't have a warning label saying there was a sharp spinning blade inside the housing. Everybody with half a brain knows that, and if they don't it isn't the fault of the lawnmower company. It isn't like the lawnmower company tried to hide the fact that lawnmowers have a sharp spinning blade, nor was their product different than most other lawnmowers. I fear our legal system is teaching people that there is no consequence for their actions, something my parents taught me when I was young.

Speaking of our legal system, a recent post on a paintball forum I follow was discussing what bad shots most police officers are. My position is that we should double the salary of police officers and triple the standards they must adhere to. By doubling the salary we could attract some better qualified people and by tripling the standards they must me (which are pretty low now) we can ensure that only the qualified ones keep the job.

I have spent some time on a database forum recently and am struck by two things. The ignorance of the people asking the questions and the arrogance of the people answering them. The ignorance appears to be because many companies feel that anybody can design a database and often give the task to a programmer who is totally unqualified. The arrogance seems to be just more of the internet bullying that I see on many forums. I do not understand what it is about the internet that makes people act like jerks.

Problem solving problems

I am a problem solver. When I see a problem that I can fix I fix it. Which makes it really frustrating for me when people won't let me solve their problem.

Here is an example I hit in database design all the time. People want their next version of software to have all these amazing new features but they don't want to change the database design to properly support these amazing new features. Sometimes you can support a new feature by just adding a few new tables to a database, other times you have to redesign the entire database because the feature you are adding is so fundamental. But that takes time and adds risk to a project so they want you to support the new feature without redesigning the entire database, even if that is impossible.

A non-database example is when you give the people the solution to the problem but they reject it because they don't understand it or the solution is too different from what they think the solution should be. This is frustrating because I have given them the answer and I know it is right, but the problem continues because I can't convince them. If they would just try my answer they would see that it works, but they won't even do that.

To a problem solver the only thing more frustrating than a problem you can't solve is a problem you have a solution to but you aren't allowed to implement the solution.

Database Design Insights

As I mentioned before I have been spending some time rethinking some of the designs I have done or have seen over my career. I was able to come up with a few insights.

First, not enough companies keep history of who changed records, when, and what the changes were. Keeping this sort of information is critical to reconstructing why a decision was made. You need to be able to tell the state of the database at a given date and time to know why a decision was made the way it was. Another bit of information that is needed for sensitive data is who viewed the data and when. None of the companies I have worked for have ever kept a log of select statements.

Another insight was that most tables fall into basic categories. I usually hate putting things in boxes but had to create these as a way to explain table design to developers. Reference tables contain information that is fairly basic such as units of measure or model years. These tables are rarely updated but often read. Cross reference tables are used to translate one piece of information into another (employee 276 in the old HR system is employee 889 in the new HR system). These tables are again rarely updated and are less commonly read. Master tables contain information about customers, parts, suppliers, etc. These tables are updated fairly often and read fairly often. Transaction tables contain information about invoices, orders, and other event driven processes. These tables are added to constantly and often read.

I spent a lot of time thinking about dates. Dates are often represented with times attached, which is fine if you know precisely when something happened. The aren't as convenient when you want to record a birth that happened in the spring of 1847 or an political movement that occured in the later half of the 1500's. I have found a few ways to represent non-exact dates but they are alien to the database systems we have and therefore not a clean solution. I need to do some more work on this.

While thinking about imprecise dates I considered imprecise data. Suppose you have multiple reports of when an event happened or multiple descriptions of a bank robber? Every system I have dealt with expects one precise record, but that isn't how the real world works. I was able to come up with a system that allows for multiple versions of an event or fact, including a reliability factor. But I need to work on this more and haven't decided how multiple versions of a fact can be accurately reflected on a report.

So, nothing earth-shattering. No cures for cancer. And perhaps I am the only one who cares about such things. Still, here are my thoughts.

Life and stuff

I haven't blogged in quite a while. It has been a rough summer.

I joined a Tai Chi class which I really liked, but had to drop out because of pain. My legs just can't handle the bent knee posture required. Perhaps in another 6 months or a year I will try again, after I have built up my knee and leg strength.

Work has been rough, fortunately I have been able to stay employed although we did have to do a few weeks of furlough. I am hopeful that the worst is over and I can continue to stay employed, but we had to lose a lot of good people and the workload is going to be tough once they start producing cars again.

The only groundbreaking thing I have achieved all summer was in a dream. For the first time in 50 years I saw the sky in a dream. Up until now all of my dreams have been indoors or in heavily wooded areas, but once this summer I dreamed of being outside and actually looked up and saw the sky. Not an earthshaking accomplishment, but it has cleared up an odd omission that has been going on for 50 years.

I have accomplished a few things this summer. Minor things like cleaning up the garage and getting some house repairs done. But even minor things are better than nothing.

I have also done some cool things at work, but can't discuss them due to confidentiality issues. The work led in some interesting directions and gave me some new insights into database design. I have some hopes that I can write about some of the insights in the future.

Some companies seem a bit suicidal

I have noticed a trend lately. Many of the companies I deal with seem to be deliberately trying to annoy their customers. In these difficult economic times I really don't understand this.

I used to do most of my shopping at Meijer. Then they started reducing the number of cashiers so that long lines would form at the register. That was followed by replacing most of the cashiers with self-checkout lanes. While some people like them I hate self-checkout lanes, and so do quite a few others judging by the long lines of people waiting to check out at the few lanes that still have cashiers. The result is that while I used to spend over $100 a week at Meijer I now spend less than $20, and would stop spending that much if I could find another brand of chocolate milk my son likes.

I used to shop at Home Depot a lot, but now you have to walk through a gauntlet of no less than four people trying to sell you roof repairs, some special product, a credit card, or something similar. Now I do most of my shopping at Lowes.

I rarely sign up for email of special offers from companies, but for a few of my favorites I have. Of these I have had to drop out of two thirds of them because they started sending me daily emails. Do they really think they can harass me into buying something?

I realize all of these are attempts to save money and increase sales, but you don't accomplish those things by driving away your customers. The people that run these companies surely must know that, they are customers themselves. Yet the companies do it anyway. Either you can truly harass your customers into buying more or these companies have become so desperate they are suicidal. I am not a retail genius but I am leaning towards the second explanation.

Symmetry

I haven't posted in a long time, I was working a lot of hours on a project at work. But now I am starting to recover so time to post something.

A while ago I told somebody that a particular situation offended my sense of symmetry. It started me thinking and I realized that a lot of the way I think has to do with symmetry. My concept of fairness reflects symmetry in that I believe each side of a deal should be equal. My database designs usually reflect symmetry in the way I design the relationships between tables.

Sometimes however you don't have symmetry. A tree growing naturally is rarely symmetrical, yet it is not any less beautiful. In real life you can't always have symmetry, and certain situations it would be bad if you did (parents should punish a child but a child should not be able to punish his parents).

My need for symmetry puts me at odds with the real world where you can't always get symmetry and sometimes don't want it. Yet my sense of symmetry has served me well in my work and some of my real life dealings.

In a practical sense my need for symmetry is both good and bad. It has allowed me to create great database designs yet has caused me serious frustration in dealing with the real world. How do you deal with this?

The majority are always sane - Ringworld by Larry Niven

When I first started college I studied Psychology. After taking a couple of classes I figured out that the so called science of psychology was a bunch of garbage. So I got into computers instead.

In the book Ringworld a character states "The majority are always sane". If you define insanity as being different than the norm then this is true. If you define insanity as being irrational then this is not true.

The problem I had with psychology was that it tried to define sanity as being "normal". Behavior that was different than normal was something that needed to be treated. I felt this was wrong, that sanity had more to do with rationality than what the majority of people do or think. Over the years I have seen plenty of evidence that I was right, and yet the majority of the population (and I am sure the majority of psychologists) still believe sanity is about being normal.

So let me put out some arguments to explain my reasoning.

The vast majority of people have never killed anyone. Killing people is considered bad and certainly isn't normal. Does this mean policemen and soldiers are insane? If you define sanity as being normal then they must be insane. If you define sanity as rationality then they are sane because they are killing people for a reason, usually a well thought out reason that caused them to accept the position they are in.

Long ago the vast majority of people thought the world was flat. Does that mean that anyone that thought the world was round was insane? People at the time certainly thought so. But the people who thought the world was round had a well thought out reason why the world was round. They were rational, but not normal. It also turns out they were right.

To summarize: Sanity can't be determined by what the majority believe. Being outside of the norm doesn't mean a person is insane. On the flip side, being rational isn't a guarantee of sanity. A person can be rational for most of their life then suddenly slip into insanity. Or they may be rational on some subjects and irrational on others.

To summarize my summary: People are complicated. Learn to live with it.

Argh

I was born a natural problem solver. It is the one ability I have true excellence in. I am happiest when I am given a huge mess and asked to clean it up. The reason I got into computers in the first place was because it was all problem solving.

But right now with Michigan's economy being in the dumper businesses are dealing with problems far beyond my ability to solve like what if our largest customer goes bankrupt, and they don't have the time to deal with the issues that I could possibly solve like giving them a computerized knowledgebase or redesigning their accounting system. My current place of employment has cut IT staff to such low levels we are having a hard time supporting the computer systems we have in place now, so even if they wanted an innovative solution we don't have the staff to deliver it.

What does a natural problem solver do when all the problems are beyond his ability to solve? He sits and gets very frustrated. Lately I have been exploring the very edges of theoretical database design, object/relational databases, design theory, etc. But it isn't the same. I need a problem to solve. Of course due to work agreements and conflict of interest issues that problem would have to come from my employer and that isn't going to be happening soon.

It is all very frustrating.

Why I hate being called sir

I hate being called sir. The term sir and other honorifics are leftovers from a class stratified society. A society where an accident of birth could make you forever rich or forever poor. A society where many talents are lost because of an accident of birth.

I believe very strongly that while not all people are created equal they are all *people* and each person has the same inherent value as another. Some people have more skills in one area than another, some are more clever than others, but that in no way makes them better than a person with lesser skills or is less clever. Each person has unique potential and gifts, and we should respect them for their potential and gifts - but that does not make them better or worse than a person with a different set of unique potential and gifts.

Unfortunately for us some people's talents are truly antisocial (a gifted serial killer is still a serial killer). I have no problems with removing these people from society as long as we review the individual cases and decide on the merits of the individual.

With the exception of destructive individuals everyone has equal merit. A janitor is just as likely to have a good idea as the president of a company. More likely if the problem falls into his area of experience. Similarly the president of a company is just as likely to have a bad idea as a janitor, particularly if the issue is outside of his scope of experience.

I do not like the way corporations have stratified their employees into classes, with the inherent belief that the farther up the structure the person is the more likely they are to be right. This is nonsense. Being the president of a beer company does not automatically make that person an expert in all facets of the company. It is possible that they are, having risen through the ranks, but it is more likely that they are not. If the president is wise he will stick to what he knows and let others worry about the details of running the company. If he is like most presidents of modern corporations he will assume he knows more than anyone else in the company and stick his nose into areas he has no knowledge of, interfering with the people who are truly doing the work.

So to get back to where I started. I hate being called sir because that assumes I am better than the person calling me that and it isn't true. I am not better than them, just skilled in different things. Similarly I refuse to call others sir, because I do not believe that they are better than I am - simply skilled in different things. I respect each individual for their individual talents, but I withhold judgment until I have seen those talents. Titles don't mean much to me, the individual does.

My views on NASA

In my last post (which I finished about 1 minute before beginning this one) I spoke of the lack of innovation in the U.S. That leads me to a rant about NASA. Once, NASA was an organization full of innovators that put men on the moon. Now NASA is an organization lacking in leadership and innovation.

The space shuttle, while technically reusable, failed to meet any of its other design criteria. It wasn't supposed to need two huge booster rockets to get it off the ground, it was supposed to lift itself off the ground. It was supposed to be able to quickly get into space again, but even under the best of conditions the shuttles take months to get a shuttle back into space again. They also weren't supposed to blow up because they launched on a cold morning or a piece of foam fell off.

NASA's satellite launch record is so bad U.S. companies and military depend on other countries to put our satellites into orbit. When your own military goes to another country to get its secret spy satellites into orbit instead of using the government agency designed to do just that you know you have a problem. That alone is an indication on how unreliable NASA's technology and decision making process has gotten.

So what has gone wrong? Have rocket scientists gotten so stupid they can't even duplicate technology we had 40 years ago? Or has NASA management gotten so stupid they can't make the right decisions? I seriously doubt the scientists have suddenly gotten stupid, and internal audits point to NASA management being the problem.

In my opinion the only hope the U.S. has to regain our space technology edge is to fire every NASA employee over the level of supervisor, pick one of the supervisors to lead and start entirely over. We need a space agency that is led by competent people, people who are technically competent and not just professional managers or political appointees.

There is something wrong with the type of society that looks upon the new as suspect

The title of this blog is a minor line from a book I am reading, but it ties in with what I have been seeing for some time. Stagnation. Businesses don't want to hear new ideas, they only want to hear variations on old ideas. The movie industry is remaking movies instead of trying new ideas. The cars on the street look so much alike I can't tell them apart, the houses being built even more so.

The reasons for this are many. One reason is that something new might fail, doing a variation on something or a direct copy of something that is working has less risk. Also people tend to be afraid of new things, something that inherited from our ancient ancestors when trying a new food might kill you. But I think the main reason is that doing something new (and doing it right) require you to think. And not just the person who came up with the idea, it requires everyone involved to think. A new idea for a clay pot only requires one person to think, a new idea for a house requires twenty or so workers to think, a new idea for a car requires hundreds and perhaps thousands to think. And people, for whatever reason, don't want to think.

A hundred years ago the U.S. was full of new ideas and people willing to try them. Now other countries have taken over the role of innovator and we are making movies based on comic books. It is incredibly sad. And pointless. There are a lot of bright people in the U.S. and many of them have ideas or could have ideas if they tried. If the social and business environment would allow them to try. But for some reason we have moved from a nation of risk takers to a nation of apathetic drones.

Who's fault is it? The government? Big business? Hardening of the attitudes? I don't know. I do know we need to turn it around somehow.

More on individuality

There are consequences and costs to recognizing workers as individuals. There are many benefits too.

One of the things that bother me is that people who are outside the norm get treated so badly. I read an article today that a man who was 6' 7" was buried with his legs cut off so he could fit into a standard size coffin. As a fairly large person I can personally attest to the cost of large clothing. Tall, large, or small people have a great deal of trouble even getting around in the world, let alone working in it. All because we design for the average and ignore the individuals.

Along a different track, bathrooms are set up for men and women. Not because the plumbing is that different but because of sexual attraction and most people are heterosexual. The whole concept denies the very existence of gay men and lesbian women. Or hermaphrodites for that matter. Again, we have designed for the average and ignored the individuals.

The cost of building to accommodate people of all shapes, sizes, attitudes, physical abilities, phobias, and orientations would be high. But it is a cost that society should bear to gain the benefits of the individual.

Many of our greatest achievers have been outside the norm. The people who are most likely to think outside the box are also the most likely to live outside the box. Great minds can be trapped in destroyed bodies. If that great mind can't get to work because the office building doesn't accommodate wheelchairs society will lose the work of a genius over the cost of a ramp. If that great mind can't find work because people without social skills can't get past the interview stage then society will lose the work of a genius over a flawed screening process.

I have worked with a quite a few people over the last 30 years, and have worked on a lot of projects. When it comes down to getting things done I would much rather work with a team of people that have any sort of "unusual" trait you can think of but get things done than a team of people that get along well together but are clueless on how to solve a problem they haven't encountered before.

Too much to learn in one lifetime

Today I saw some people making arrow heads from flint, glass, and agate. There was also a man making a bow, starting with a piece of wood. Like everything I see I want to immediately jump in and try it, but my garage and basement already have many things that I am trying to learn. There just isn't enough time in one lifetime to learn all of the cool things that people do. I want to learn metal working, welding, flint knapping, bow making, fire works making (cool but dangerous), electronics, and many many other things. But we have so little time in life to learn.

I have spent my life learning how to design software and databases, and I don't regret it. I have made a lot of people happy with my designs and in return have made a good living. But I do regret not having the time to learn so many other things.

Random thoughts

I have been working a lot of hours the last couple of months, so I am having trouble with deep thoughts at the moment. So let's try some random ones.

Why are people surprised when something doomed to failure fails? Stock prices can't continue to go up, they must eventually fall - yet people are surprised when they do. Housing prices can't continue to go up, yet people were surprised when they fell. I have seen several companies try to implement software that their own tech people say can't work, yet they are shocked when it doesn't work. Sometimes I wonder what these people use for brains.

Speaking of failure why do people continue to build houses in flood plains? Why do the local governments let them? Sooner or later there will be a flood. Why set yourself up for a disaster?

Gun prices have become more than extravagant since Obama was elected. Everybody is expecting another assault weapons ban so they are stocking up. The price of ammunition is up too. It is indeed possible that there will be another weapons ban or restriction. Another silly piece of legislation. Even if the government went totally Hitleristic and banned all guns and ammunition people would still be able to have them smuggled in from other countries. It would just cost more. They outlawed cocaine and you can buy it on any street corner. If they outlaw guns it will be the same story. Every time we outlaw something people want we just make more opportunity for criminals to profit.

The Detroit Free Press will soon stop home delivery of papers every day. They will instead deliver on weekends and give subscribers access to an online version. Since I can get the same information from MSNBC or any of several other free sources I will be cancelling my paper soon. Which will of course mean they will cut back even further, which means even more people will cancel, and eventually they will either stabalize or go out of business. I expect some people will continue to get the paper just to line their bird cages.

I think I have run out of randomness for the moment. Maybe my next post will be more coherent. I have hopes that the frantic work pace will slow back to normal, while still keeping me employed.

Individuality

Having been in the workforce for 30 years I have been in and out of quite a few companies. One of the things that constantly amaze me is that all of these companies want people to think of new and innovative ways save money, solve problems, etc. and yet at the same time they punish individuality and independent thought. One of the more ironic things that I see is when companies celebrate their ethnic diversity, at the same time as they are trying to eliminate all intellectual diversity.

Part of the problem of course is that uniformity is easier to manage, so managers want uniformity even if that is at odds with the long term growth of the company. As I have said before, managers are paid for short term results and not long term.

Another part of the problem stems from the animal part of the human brain. In a herd/troup/gaggle of animals different often means diseased, so the different animal is kept apart from the group for the long term good of the group. So while the upper levels of our minds know that different is good the lower more animal parts still view the different individual with suspicion.

I have seen small but good companies fail because during the growth process they shed themselves of all of their harder to manage people. These were of course the very same people that had made the company a success. In most cases the company went on for another year or two then failed. One company did continue longer, but without its innovators it became yet another mediocor company, surviving but not growing.

I often hope to find some company that looks to the long term, one that recognizes the worth of individuals that are different. I haven't found it yet, but I keep hoping.

Ethics

I have been doing a lot of thinking about ethics lately, and haven't come to any solid conclusions. I think treating others fairly and as nicely as possible is the ideal, but it is also a concept that is at odds with the "natural order" of things (survival of the fittest and all that).

I need to do some more thinking, and will update this post when I can. I have been a bit busy surviving lately.

=======================

Well after a great deal of thought on the subject I can't find any absolutes. It all comes back to do the best you can.

I had hoped to be able to find some universal way of looking at things, but the only way to know that you are doing the right thing requires perfect knowledge and that is impossible.

So I guess I will have to give up on this subject and move on to others.

Swear words

Close on the heals of acronyms comes swear words. I rarely swear. Not for any particular religious reason but because the point of rude words is to express a negative emotion and I find I can do that very well with tone of voice or ordinary words. Actually I find it funny to hear some people swear because similar to acronyms the words themselves have lost their original meaning. If you reconstruct what they have said with the literal meaning of the words they are using you realize they are speaking total nonsense. Emotially loaded nonsense, but nonsense none the less.

Why acronyms are a bad thing

I work in computer systems so I deal with lots of acronyms. I hate them, because they soon stop having a meaning other than "the name of that thing over there". How many times have you heard someone talk about their GPS system? What they are really talking about is their global positioning system system. It is nonsense when you spell out the words, but because GPS usually means "that navigational thing" to most people they don't realize they are talking nonsense.

In addition, because they are typically short acronyms often have very different meanings depending on who you talk to. When somebody says OTC do they mean over counter or order to cash? When they say STD do they mean short term disability or sexually transmitted disease? Do they even know what they are saying or is the acronym just a buzz word they learned somewhere? I have often sat through meetings where people use acronyms that are wrong in the context are using them in.

When I work I often prefer to take the long route and avoid the use of acronyms. It makes things more wordy, but far clearer.

The arts

The problem with staging a performance of "Dancing the Dance of a Thousand Deaths" is that after act one the other 999 dancers don't come back from intermission.

Tired of Michigan

I have lived in Michigan my whole life and I am getting rather tired of it. Every 10 years we have a recession and Michigan gets it first, gets it worst, and is the last to recover. Plus we have very cold winters, and as I get older I like winter less and less.

I don't think I would mind it as much if all the jobs weren't clustered around Detroit. I am more of a small town person and metro-Detroit is huge. A few years ago I lived out in the country and commuted, but when my wife passed I had to move closer to work to better take care of my son. Being a single parent with a one hour commute just doesn't work.

So what am I going to do about it? Nothing for now. With the recession in full gear and house prices down I can't afford to move. But I have decided that the next time I move it will be out of state. I don't know when it will be or where I will move to, but it will definately be out of Michigan.

I have considered moving out of state several times before but have always stayed because of family. But as my family gets older I see less and less of them. Some have died, some have moved out of state themselves, and some have become reclusive. So with less family to consider the only thing I have to worry about is my son. Depending on when the move happens and where he is with his life then (high school, college, or working) I will either move closer to him or he will move with me.

So what's this whole life thingy about?

I have spent a lot of time thinking about life and I still don't know what it is all about. The only thing I am sure of is that we have a brain for a reason, so we should use it. Think about things. Question everything. Come up with your own answers.

I have no idea if there is a god or not. I don't know if there is an afterlife or not. But I am not sure it matters. It is easier to destroy than create. If everyone spent their time destroying things the world would end fairly quickly. If everyone spent their time creating things the world would be a much nicer place to live. So where possible I create instead of destroy. I help instead of hurt. I don't do these things to earn a spot in the afterlife, I do them to make life better for myself and others. So does it really matter if there is a god or not? My actions would remain the same either way.

As I said above, it is easier to destroy than create. I have noticed in life that many times the right answer is often the harder answer. Not always, but very often. Going to college was hard, but I make a lot more money now than I would have if I hadn't gone to college. Learning to build things was hard, but I have used that skill to help myself and others. I am not sure why the right answer is often the harder answer, but it seems to be true.

One of the unfortunate parts about the above truth is that it makes life hard and often painful. I haven't figured out how to fix this yet, but I am working on it.

The week in review

During the past week I have been technically unemployed due to a shutdown at work. During this time I helped a friend put shelves into the closets of his new house, visited with other friends and helped them with their recycling, and helped my neighbors with their snowblowing after our big storm. I also managed to sort through some junk and put it in order, finding an item that has been lost for over a year now. Still can't find some of the other things I am looking for, but I have yet a few more places to look.

It wasn't an exciting week, I spent a lot of it surfing the web or watching TV. But it was an okay week. But I am ready for work again. I really don't do well with an unstructured life.

Short-term thinking

Long ago businesses worked on long term goals. They had plans for the long term and short term losses weren't a dreadful thing. But businesses stopped doing that long ago. Now they only think of the short term. Companies that are on the stock exchange worry daily about any news that will lower their stock price. Companies that aren't on the stock exchange worry more about quarterly returns. Why? Because the bosses bonus is tied to stock options and quarterly profits. The big cheese worries more about his next bonus than long term business growth because he knows he won't be with the company long term. As soon as forecasts start looking bad for the next quarter the big boss starts cashing in his stock options and polishing his resume so he can leave the company before the bad news hits.

And this (in my opinion) is ruining the US.

Short-term thinking has led to our infrastructure falling apart and nobody bothering to save the money for fixing it. It has also led businesses to indulge in practices that ultimately hit the fan, such as sub-prime lending, without worrying about the future. Which is why so many businesses don't have a future at the moment.

Thinking only in the short-term is like walking while staring at your feet, you don't trip but you have no idea where you are going. Thinking only in the long-term doesn't work either, because while your eyes are focused on your long term goal you can walk off a cliff. When you walk you have to look up sometimes and look down sometimes. Businesses run by a single person look both short and long term, but large businesses and governments are run by people who are rewarded for the short term so that is where they are looking.

Can we fix it? Possibly. But we would have to change the way people are rewarded and most people want their reward now, not in some distant future.

Enough winter already

I have had enough winter, no more. We got about 6 inches of snow last night. This morning I ran the snowblower for about 45 minutes, doing my driveway, the ends of several of my neighbors driveways, and the sidewalks for two neighbors. I have a big snowblower so doing the snowblowing isn't a big job once I get going, and I like to help people. But enough with the snow!

I haven't driven today, yesterday's driving was fun enough - I will stay in today. So instead of doing errands today like I thought I would I will have to do them after work this week. Not horrible, but not ideal. I usually like doing errands during the weekend when I am rested up. Having to do them after work saves on gas but doing errands when I am already tired just isn't ideal.

Being a single parent

Being a single parent stinks. I don't mind the parent part, that is a commitment I agreed to. It is the single part that stinks. Since my family is older and don't live close by it is hard for them to help. My friends help, but they have young children of their own and also don't live close by.

So why do I stay single? Because nobody has asked me to marry them, that's why! In the 8 years since my wife passed I have dated 2 women. One was very insecure and the dating didn't last long. The other knew exactly what she wanted in a man and I wasn't it. Of course my being a bit of a recluse doesn't help me meet women, let alone women who share my interests.

But it is hard to raise a child when you have only your own opinion to rely on. Am I being to harsh or to lenient? Without a partner to tell me it is hard to tell. I miss that semi-objective opinion. I also miss having somebody to talk to at night. Somebody to discuss my day with. Somebody to tell me how their day went. 15 year old boys just aren't the greatest conversationalists. How was school? Ok. Did anything happen? No. What did you learn? Nothing.

This whole single parenting thing is tough. I don't see why anybody would do it on purpose unless they had to.

Why good database design matters

Everybody has filled out forms that go into a computer. They typically start by asking for your first name, middle name, last name, and address. Once you fill out the form somebody types it into the computer, hopefully correctly. But even with these simple pieces of information problems arise.

Lots of people don't use the first name that appears on their birth certificate. Someone who's legal first name is Gerald might fill out the form using Jerry as their first name. Or they may prefer to be called Mike or Ron.

Lots of people have multiple middle names. Some have no middle name.

A few people in the world don't have a last name. Many people change their last name when they marry. In some cultures people have two last names and may use one or both depending on how formal they are.

Some of the richer people on the planet have multiple addresses. Some people have no fixed address but can get mail sent to a friend.

All of these real-world complexities don't fit onto most forms, and what gets written on the form goes into the computer. Now the problems start. Is Gerald Jones the same person as Jerry Jones already in the computer? Is Ron R. Smith-Klein the same person as Ronald Klein?

Designing a database that can handle real-world complexities takes a lot of thought. Thought takes time. Time costs money. So many businesses take the cheaper route and design a database that handles most of the situations they see and ignore or manually handle the exceptions. As a result the vast majority of the databases on the planet have incorrect data in them. They then spread this information to other databases, which compounds the problems.

Bad database design is why dogs get credit card applications and voter registration cards. Bad database design means people with health insurance get huge bills from hospitals because the name on the hospital form doesn't match the health insurance records. Bad database design prevents people without a permanent address from voting but allows credit card scammers to have 42" plasma TV sets sent to empty houses.

Good database design is hard work, but in my opinion worth it.

First Thoughts

Well here is the first post of my blog. Don't expect too much, I am new at this whole blogging thingy.

Let's see, what should I say. Hmmm. Perhaps some random information to get things started.

I am a database developer, which means I design how information gets in and out of computers as well as how it is stored. Even among techno-geeks this is a specialty field, so people rarely understand why I get so angry about poorly designed computer systems.

I am a single dad, my son is 15 at the moment. He has a form of autism called hyperlexia, which means he was born with the ability to read but had a hard time learning to speak. Being a single dad gives me little time to do other things in life. I am working on developing a hobby, but so far none of them has stuck.

I have an odd sense of humor, so if you find a post saying small animals have stolen my head you can be fairly sure it is humor and not a lack of medication. Fairly sure.

I like to consider myself fairly open minded. I figure people have a right to have other viewpoints than mine. So I have no problems with other people's religions, how they choose to live, or what they do in private. Be warned however that I am willing to adopt your beliefs should I find them offensive. If you believe you have the right to drive over my lawn you can expect to find me doing donuts on yours.