What’d He Say?

Years ago there was a movie directed by Orson Wells called “Citizen Kane“. It was about a reporter talking to everyone connected to a publishing tycoon in an attempt to discover the meaning of the tycoon’s last words. The movie started with the death of the wealthy man after he says the one word: ‘Rosebud’. No spoilers here, it’s a classic movie, you should see it for yourself.

Through out history when someone of note died, if he had said something great or not so great during his last days, they were quoted and remembered. Books have been written dedicated to the last uttered words of famous people.

Another great man died this week. He was not a tycoon, he was an actor. However his most famous character inspired thousands of young people, me included, to be interested in computers and technology. In my youth I could not miss an episode of Star Trek with Mr. Spock played by Leonard Nimoy. […]

Caffeine in the Morning

You know how you always remember where you were when a life-changing event happens? I vividly remember the circumstances of my first taste of coffee. It was awful. I was about ten. It was a cold Saturday morning in March and my parents and I were waiting in line outside the junior high to sign me up for swimming lessons the next summer. They must have been less worried about stunting my growth than my freezing to death when they handed me a steaming cup freshly poured out of the Thermos. The bitter taste on my blistered tongue made me wonder if “a mother’s love” was an oxymoron.

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Pulling Back The Curtain

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” Those were the words shouted by the wizard when Toto pulled back the curtain near the end of The Wizard of Oz. The wizard did not want anyone to know that all the smoke and noise was only a trick. Now I’m gonna pull back the curtain and show you a few tricks that if you’d been paying attention you would have noticed anyway. […]

Did We Just Break Another Treaty?

You know my thing about seeing patterns. Well here’s another one that’s a little hard for me to ignore.

First of all let’s review. That last round trip to the moon was made in the seventies. This was after a half dozen human excursions were made to fulfill the dream of a fallen martyr and some other unmanned landings. If that is entirely true, than all well and good. Many have asked why no major programs to return have happened since then. Some have answered with the possibility that an agreement was made with those not of that current earth to not revisit our nearest neighbor in space. […]

How to Learn Stuff

The only thing a college degree really proves to an employer is that you know how to complete a four-year long project. Of course for many of us even that takes much longer. I’m sure you all know what the types of college degrees are – BS, MS and PhD – which stand for Bull Shit, More Shit and Piled Higher and Deeper.

The most important thing you need to learn to survive in life is how to learn. Sometimes this merely involves paying attention. Most of the time you need to put in some effort. Never be afraid of learning how to do stuff by doing it wrong. Trial and error is a time-tested way of learning. The most ineffective method of learning is relying on others to help you or even worse, blaming others for your own inability to learn.

I worked in the R&D department of a data warehouse where they hired me to replace an employee who had a PhD. He may have had a degree but he wasn’t able to use facts to make something work. He was always spending so much time writing what he called ‘pretty, pretty code’ he never finished a project that worked.

I was at the data warehouse only a few months and had already designed a user interface for a new product  and re-written code to rejuvenate some old products when someone asked me “Whats your degree in?” After I stopped laughing I said that depended on if he thought an Associate Degree in electronics technology actually counted as a degree.

At one point there was a new product they wanted to develop which monitored microclimates and reported the information to niche customers. I already knew some general knowledge about meteorology from hanging out in the weather department at a TV station helping them with their computer problems. (That’s an example of using the “Paying Attention” method.) When I found out I needed to learn more about the specifics of microclimates I said “I’m going to B&N. I’ll be back after lunch.” I came back with an armload of books which I read drinking in knowledge about things like pressure ridges and downdrafts. A big  hint here is:

Don’t judge a book by its cover – judge it by its index.

I knew that even though I had some small experience in meteorology I was going to need more than that to make the project succeed. I wasn’t afraid of putting the effort in to find out what more I needed to know for the project.

When I was computer tech at another place I was one of three techs managing several hundred machines. One day one of the other techs and I were talking about how files are saved on a disk at machine code level. The third asked how we knew stuff like this. We both said we just read the books and played ‘what if’ with the software code. This goes back again to not being afraid of getting it wrong the first time. To do this there was quite a bit of effort and dogged research. Effort which the third tech some how never managed to put in. There were always too many video games to be played instead.

The three best ways to learn stuff: Books, Books, and Books. Then experience. Above all have no fear to experiment. How else can we expect to keep those Idle Thoughts coming?