A Paperless Parent

As parents of three young children, it goes without saying that we get inundated with artwork, schoolwork and other such papers that we "have" to keep. If you've never experienced the tears and recrimination you get when your six-year-old daughter finds one of her prized works of art mushed up and squeezed into the trash can, you won't ever understand why "having" to keep this stuff is so important.

I had files of the stuff. And piles. And files and piles I hadn't filed or piled yet. So I scanned it all into the computer. I let the kids watch. They thought it was pretty neat that their art was in the computer. Then I showed them that after I'd scanned it, I was throwing it all away. But I wasn't, because it's all in the computer. They liked that -- especially the six-year-old. So, from time to time, I'll start displaying their art on this blog.

I know there are sites on the Internet that make fun of kids' art. Well, they're run by snotty people who call kids "crotchfruit" and other derogatory names and sincerely believe they're doing the world a favor by not bringing kids into the world (I have to agree with them on the last one; that'll kill of those genes in a generation, just like the asteroid that got the dinosaurs). But I like my kids' art.

Here's one from the aforementioned daughter. Her mother helped her spell my name:




In case you can't read it, yes, my name is spelled "Boob." It's fitting.

Somehow, I wish I'd saved more of my things like this from childhood. As it is, I have just a handful of drawings and a few minor samples of my otherwise poor handwriting. That's it. And I used to have boxes and boxes and boxes of this stuff. But it's all gone, thrown in some trash heap.

Yes, there are storage problems if you want to keep a hold of this kind of stuff. But that's where I've been using the computer once again. I have an apple box filled with journals, dating back nearly 18 years. They're all scanned into the computer. I still hold on to the paper, yes, but I do have them all copied onto CDs. From 2000 on, my journals are all electronic -- right down to the comics I've cut out of the newspaper to illustrate my days and years. Ditto for the research I've done for the novel I'm working on, and all the creative writing I've done over the years. I used to have binders of the stuff clogging up an entire shelf in the study. It'sll all electronic now, but this time the paper is gone. Recycled, of course. I still have a box of newspaper clippings from my era as a journalist to take care of, but I've been whittling away at it, slowly. So that's going away. It's helped to get rid of the clutter, but keep the memories.

The Peter Pyramid

Been reading an interesting book this week – “The Peter Pyramid,” by Laurence Peter. I’ve written about his first book, “The Peter Principle,” before on this blog.

In Pyramid, Peter proposes that as society advances, our propensity to develop hierarchies that protect themselves with busy work is, in part, what’s killing our society. He points out that companies that start small with a customer-focused base can, over time, evolve into companies that are more interested in preserving inner peace and structure than in serving customers, who provide the money to keep the company going but constantly interrupt the peaceful, non-productive flow that hierarchies tend to nurture.

To quote from a story he writes of such a company: Back near the beginning, Andy was in the grocery business. He did all the paperwork during the infrequent quiet periods in his thriving business. As his business developed into a working bureaucracy, he had less and less to do with groceries and more and more to do with paperwork. Most of the people who work for him now are not in the grocery business, but are rule makers, rule enforcers, and rule followers. The rules and regulations have become more important than the people and the products.

In some ways, I can feel this happening to Uncharted. Elsewhere in the book, Peter writes about companies that become so proficient at making rules, writing memos and status reports and such that they forget to maintain proficiency in what got them into the business in the first place. In Uncharted’s case, it’s getting to the basics of sharing our love of writing about our adventures with the rest of the world. I haven’t written an Uncharted story in a long time. Jason has pointed this out, and, at first, I felt pretty defensive about it. (He pointed out our wavering from what we love.) But he may be right. We’re in that nebulous, evolving stage.

So there’s something we need to talk about. I see Uncharted in a lot of what he writes:

(Page 96) Bureaucrats are not lazy do-nothing; they are busy people. They attend meetings, write memoranda, plan budgets, organize and reorganize departments, and do many of the other things that administration of thriving enterprises do; but they do them with a different purpose.

They write memos because writing memos demonstrates that they are busy, and because once written the memos become documented evidence that the writer has been busy. Bureaucrats attend meetings because doing so gives the appearance of importance and useful activity, even if meaningful action is seldom taken. Rushing from meeting to meeting, and particularly traveling great distances to attend meetings, gives the impression that participation is of great importance.

This comes a week after I wrote en editorial plan and a memo, and traveled to Logan for a meeting that, really, I didn’t have to attend, but that I wanted to attend so I would be seen attending. I feel soooooooooo stupid right now.

Not that Peter says that everything that hierarchies do is bad. He points out that many things, such as the shipment of good throughout the world, the development of jet aircraft, and the invention of the ballpoint pen had to, necessarily, go through their stages of complexity, but in the end, these things are saving vast amounts of time and money. So I suppose what we need to do is grasp the good in what we’re able to do, but throw out the bad, ensuring that we don’t develop a pyramid that’s inverted, like the ones Peter preaches to avoid.

Priorities, Pillows, Sarcastic Eight-Year-Olds

I think it tells something about me, the results of this latest adventure. We acquire a big screen TV with a pretty good surround sound system and a set of bunk beds, and the one thing I have the time and energy to set up after the excursion to get them is over are the bunk beds.

There is some back story. We had to travel 600 miles round trip, pulling a dinky Uhaul trailer over mountain passes and through thick city traffic to get the bunk beds. So perhaps setting them up was a right of conquest. Plus, we had the boys sleeping on the floor because we tossed their old bunk beds out into the alley for the city to cart away a week ago, and we were getting tired of the following exchanges:

Parent: Liam, go make your bed.

Liam: You mean my mattress.

Eight-year-olds shouldn’t be that sarcastic, should they?

An adventure, was this weekend. We got the bunk beds from Carl and Tani. They’re allowing their daughter Tasha to redecorate her room, and she apparently has plans that involve the new Ikea store in Draper. (Last I heard, she’d stuck to her budget by buying the cheapest bed possible, but putting more than $200 worth of decorator pillows on her wish list. What is it with women and pillows? I suppose it’s the same thing as with guys and electronics.) So we had to take the bed apart, firstly to get it out of the house, secondly to get it into the trailer, and thirdly to get it down our basement stairs. The dismantling took about an hour.

On our way home, we swung through Logan, taking our heavy load through Sardine Canyon and really blocking traffic because we could only go so fast pulling eight hundred pounds of bunk bed wood. We stayed the night there, attended an Uncharted design retreat the next day (more on that later, perhaps) then went back to Iona to where our children and big screen TV awaited at their grandparents’ house. Grandpa Griffin already has a new LCD big screen picked out; he was just waiting for the old one to disappear before he bought the new one and brought it in. So we first had to squeeze all those parts in the truck and trailer. That meant taking most of the bunk bed parts out and tying them down in the truck bed, setting the TV on its side and then cramming it and all the speakers and such into the trailer. Poor Michelle had to ride home with the surround sound unit and the DVD/VCR combo on her lap, as the kids chattered endlessly in the “king” cab portion of our tiny Toyota pickup. I got all the talking-to I needed from the kids in that 45-minute drive home than we’d missed in the previous two days.

So yeah, the beds are set up, and the TV and various parts lay strewn across the floor of the living room. I nearly stayed home from work today so I could finish a bit of homework and then set up the TV, but I thought better of it, especially since there’s no way in heck I could pass that idea through spousal Priority Control. So now I’m in a holding pattern of sorts. I think I’ll wait until Michelle is sick of all the components lying around. Then she’ll spearhead getting the videocassettes off the entertainment center so we can move all that stuff out (including old TV, VCR, DVD, stereo) so the new can go in. We’ll likely keep our DVD player – we can store five in it at one time, versus just the one. Don’t know yet where we’ll put the entertainment center. Ooh. Maybe in our bedroom. That’s all we need there, eh?

M.S. in Babbling

It's a year now since I started working on my masters degree. I've spent just over $6,000 on tuition, plus a pittance for books. I've earned 18 credits -- just over half of the 33 I need to finish this program. But I wonder: Do I feel any smarter? The mere fact that I've spent money and accumulated credits shouldn't be the only benchmarks for increasing my intelligence, should they?

Am I approaching work differently, applying what I've learned? In some ways, I think, yes I am. I'm thinking more about the audience, more about the form of the document rather than just the words. I'm looking at Uncharted in a different way as I'm applying what I've learned about document design. But there are many ways in which I have not changed, perhaps have not learned as much as I should. I assume that's the same with everyone. But maybe I'm just making an ass of myself. I want this experience to be more than just jumping through the required hoops. It's up to me to make it so.

But I will continue. By this time next year, I will have finished the masters degree. I'm contemplating now whether it would be beneficial to go for a doctorate. As far as advancement on my current job, not even the masters degree will help -- there's simply no room for advancement, or at least room that I'd take. Who wants to be a tech lead here in the writing group, when at Danny's own admission, he's probably the lowest-paid writer on the staff? (He may indeed be speaking out of the other side of his face on that one; if there's a difference between his salary and mine, it's pennies to be sure.)

What would a doctorate do for me, I ask. Locally, it could help me in applying at the local universities. But do I want to teach? That sounds like such an otherworldly thing to approach. But if I want to make more money and stay local, that's probably the best option. I can always get back on the novel writing as well, but for that to happen, well, I've got to get the head pulled out of the ol' butt.

Second Life as the Metaverse: Similarities and Differences in the Rule of Law

NOTE: This post is from a class I'm taking right now on virtual workplaces.

Neal Stephenson paints the Metaverse in his novel "Snow Crash" as a chaotic, laissez-faire society where laws and computer code suit those who create them and democracy is available only to the powerful or the powerfully talented. It is a utopia – but only for a select few. It is a place of business and commerce – for a select few. It is a place to gather and commingle – but the best gathering and commingling is reserved for a select few. It is a fount of information – for those who want it and can afford it. So it is not a utopia. It is not democratic. The masses do not enter the Metaverse and immediately find themselves on equal footing with their peers. It is, in fact, only a virtual re-creation of the real world Hiro Protagonist and the other characters in “Snow Crash” live in; a society just as ugly, amoral and chaotic as its virtual counterpart.

Second Life, too, is no utopia. But because the society it reflects is more controlled, more serene than the society reflected in the Metaverse, it is a much more pleasant place to visit. Second Life has achieved that pleasantness through creating a basic set of behavioral rules that reflect the accepted norms of our Democratic (with the big D) and capitalistic society.

Second Life’s rules (viewable at secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php) reflect our societies thusly:

1) The “Big Six” rules, preaching against intolerance, harassment, assault, disclosure of personal information, indecency and disturbing the peace.
2) “Global Standards, Local Ratings,” which allow for “mature” niches in an otherwise “PG” world.
3) Global attacks, which forbid disruption of the Second Life universe or servers with malicious scripts or objects.
4) Caveat Emptor, or buyer beware. Commerce is allowed in Second Life, but purchases are made at risk, just as they are in real life.

These rules uphold common Democratic principles, in that localities should impose or lift rules on morals without or with minimal interference from a higher authority while accepting that some rules are universal.

Rules in the Metaverse are harder to pin down, partially because they’re not as clearly spelled out in Stephenson’s novel as Second Life’s rules are on their website, and mostly because the reflected society itself gets along with fewer rules. But there are rules to be followed.

In the Metaverse and the society it reflects, law and order are not provided – they are bought and paid for. In reality, Stephenson’s “burbclaves” pay private security firms or engage in their own elaborate security measures (such as the Rat Things in the Hong Kong franchulates and the Vigilante White Rule/Black Power memes of the segregationist burbclaves) to preserve order.

In the Metaverse equivalent of reality’s “burbclaves,” local rules are again the norm. The Black Sun, for example, employs daemon bouncers to roust out anyone who is “being disruptive . . . anyone who is pestering or taping a celebrity, and . . . anyone who seems contagious. That is, if your personal computer is infected with viruses, and attempts to spread them via the Black Sun, you had better keep one eye on the ceiling (p. 55).” The Metaverse, however, allows for clever hackers like Hiro Protagonist to find cracks and niches to exploit, with the understanding – or at least the tolerance – of those in power who allow his activity to continue. Da5id’s tolerance of Hiro’s “Bigboard” program, which occasionally plays havoc with The Black Sun’s programming, is one example of an individual being allowed to break community rules, such as they are.

Buyer beware is certainly a rule applied in the Metaverse – Hiro, certainly, is wary of any hypercards he’s offered, and criticized Da5id for accepting a hypercard from a “black and white,” or an avatar created inexpensively at a public access kiosk.

In Second Life, law and order is the rule of the day. There exist an equivalent of “burbclaves” in Second Life – areas ranked for mature behavior, and private residences of-limits to those not invited. These areas are offered to allow for truly Democratic use of Second Life and reflects our real societal desire for privacy and relative freedom from offense.

Second Life has a similar tolerance of Hiro’s “Bigboard” in allowing untested objects and scripts to be tried out in “sandbox” areas. Second Life’s rules, however, are unclear if tests in these areas that are disruptive will result in disciplinary action.

This is where two critical differences between the rule of law in Second Life versus the Metaverse comes in to play: In Second Life, discipline is left up to a board of humans that will judge the miscreant on the severity of the offense and levy appropriate punishment. In the Metaverse, discipline is left up to daemons – programs like The Black Sun’s Bouncers – and individuals who take the “law” into their own hands (Hiro’s dismembering of the upstart Nipponese barring his access to Sushi K in The Black Sun and his “disarming” of the Cliff avatar trying to infect him with the Snow Crash virus – both acts performed without consequence – stand out as examples).

Additionally, Second Life applies its discipline universally, both inside and out of its “burbclaves.” In the Metaverse, what rules are outlined seem to apply only in selected areas.

That greater rules of law are applied in Second Life reflects well on the orderly society in which we live our real lives. The skewed rule of law in the Metaverse is merely a reflection of the skewed reality.

I'm Gettin' Old

First, a Norton update: It's gone. Vamoosed. And I did not have to take the nuclear option. I'll give partial credit to the Norton folks -- they offer, buried deep on their web site, a little tool you can use to remove failed installs (or, in my case, failed uninstalls) of their products. It worked like a charm. They point you, of course, to pages directing you how to install new products and even offer them for sale there. Imagine that. But I've got Avast! working, and that's good enough for me.

This will be a brief entry. I think I've strained something in my right hand -- it's pretty sore at the moment. Well, not pretty sore. Just a little achy, as if I've got arthritis or something. Probably has to do with me being at the computer all day. I'll have to train myself to use the mouse with my left hand.

The Curse

I believe I am cursed. In the past month, I have had two different antivirus programs refuse to uninstall from two different computers. You’d think that programs meant to keep harmful stuff off your computer wouldn’t in of themselves cause harm, but these two have.

First was the adventure with PeoplePC’s internet security system. We upgraded (finally) from dial-up to wi-fi about a month ago. Part of that included installing Avast Antivirus on our two desktop computers. We’d used it before and thought it worked just fine – never had any virus trouble. On one computer, PeoplePC bid adieu fairly easily. On the other, however, the tentacles were wrapped and locked. I eventually had to wipe the hard drive and restore everything to factory settings in order to get rid of the thing.

Now the same eerie thing is happening with my laptop. Yesterday, I tried uninstalling a copy of Norton Antivirus in favor of Avast. No go. Not only won’t Norton uninstall, it won’t let Avast install and instead the conflict is making my computer not want to boot up at all. Fortunately, I’ve gotten around the bootup problem, but still have to uninstall Norton. They offer an uninstall program which I’m hoping will solve the problem, but if it doesn’t, I guess I’m looking at wiping and restoring the laptop as well. Frustration. We finally get service that’s capable of letting me use the wireless capability of my laptop, and now it’s vulnerable to viruses because Norton’s subscription is expired and I can’t install Avast over it. I certainly hope their uninstall program works, or I’ll have some choice words to say. I’m not confident, as PeoplePC offered a similar solution, and it didn’t work.

I need the laptop to function, however, because it’s got the best configuration to run Second Life, which I’m involved in now for one of my masters classes. It’s a weird thing to be involved with a pseudo-computer game for a class, but as I’m learning, this is more of a virtual world than a game.

Viva Areva

I, for one, welcome our new French overlords.

Today, French nuclear energy conglomerate Areva announced plans to build a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant in the Idaho Falls area.

The news is good for the economy -- they plan to create about 250 jobs, in addition to the construction work the plant will need before it opens in 2014. Our local paper is calling this the biggest economic news in the past two decades, given the scope of what is coming.

• The news adds to the area's growing reputation as an alternative energy corridor.:


• The Center for Advanced Energy Studies will open soon in Idaho Falls.


• The largest wind turbine array in the state is near town, but will soon be trumped by a larger array near Blackfoot.


• Pocatello recently landed plants to build wind turbines and solar panels.

With Areva's project, of course, comes the spectre of nuclear waste. But given the Idaho National Laboratory's success in cleaning up waste here, I don't see that as a problem. Waste is, of course, a long-lasting problem that has to be dealth with. But so is the carbon dioxide and other pollutants produced by mainstream power plants. Nuclear has the potential to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, while at the same time assuaging environmental fears of opening more land in the US for oil drilling.

But the hard-core environmentalists won't see it that way. They want the castle in Spain, which produces pollution-free energy. Wouldn't that be nice? But, before research can get us there, we've got to have electicity. I'd rather see it produced with nuclear power than coal or oil, which have waste problems of their own but are, in my opinion, much more far-reaching.

The United States has wimped out on nuclear power, insisting instead on fossil fuels and a program of carbon credits that really hasn't reduced pollution, but rather shifted who is producing it. Technology marches on in making fossil fuels more environmentally-friendly, and I applaud that. That research should continue. But at the same time, we have the opportunity to further reduce our carbon footprint -- reducing our dependence on foreign oil -- by bringing more nuclear power plants on-line.

Environmentalists point to the specre of Chernobyl as a reason why nuclear power should not be used. That is a weak argument. What happened at Chernobyl was, without a doubt, horrific. But calling for a ban on nuclear power because of one accident liek Chernobyl is like calling for a ban on jet travel because of the tragedy at Tenerife in the 1970s, when two jumbo jets collided, killing nearly 600 passengers. That nuclear power plants and planes operate daily without a glitch does not make the news; the one, horrific accident is always on page one.

Ah, the irony . . .

A few months back, my brother, who happens to be a bishop in Iona, was interviewing a new couple moving into his ward. He found out they were counselors, setting up a home where they could work with troubled young men. The man began to describe the ramshackle old home they'd bought to convert into their home for wayward boys, and asked Al if he knew the house.

"Know the house," he replied, "I grew up in it."

Yes, the house on Hitt Road where we all grew up is now a home for wayward boys.

Slightly ironic, not even considering that we boys weren't all that wayward, at least by modern standards.

But it got me to thinking about that old house, squeezed between the welding gas supply company and the Kennels -- the neighbors, not, literally, kennels with the small K:

• Does that closet in the bedroom still have the hole in the drywall where the older kids "stashed" money, and where we younger kids, not having money, stashed Monopoly money?
• Would the new homeowners consider letting me go on a pseudo-archaeological dig on the grounds to search out bones of long-gone family pets and the numerous bags of Legos, marbles and other such stuff that we buried as treasure there?
• Is the "guest house" Dad built -- it used to be a chicken coop -- still there, complete with the hand-made four-poster built-in bed?
• Are the chicken tracks still in the concrete in the woodshed?
• Is the woodshed still there?
• Does it still say "W is here" above the door of the bedroom Al built for himself in the garage? (I understand the guy who owns the house now is using that room as his office.) Jeff painted the graffiti there in black model paint; the "w" stands for "woman," one of their big insult words back then. Wouldn't work these days.
• Do the power lines across the street still hum loudly when it's cold and wet?
• Is the shutoff valve for the water still in that little compartment underneath the plank in the laundry room?

I don't know that I could live in that house any more. It's world has diminished. The house, of course, is still the same, or so I imagine, not having been in it in about ten years. But in those intervening ten years, other people have lived there, making it their house, burying their own memories in the back yard and such. The vacant lots across the street and to the north, where we used to ride our bikes and dig and play and hide, are now occupied by businesses. The big hunks of concrete we used as aircraft carriers are no longer there. The enormous hollow metal posts holding up the sign for the Northgate Industrial Park, filled with pigeons and guano, are no longer there. Why do I remember such pedestrian stuff with such fondness? Guess it's because it's where I grew up.

The neighborhood where we live now, where our kids are being raised, feels sterile in comparison. No dangerous businesses to nose around in, to pilfer through Dumpsters for cardboard and other treasures. No fields in which to make bicycle tracks, because everything is such private, keep-off-my-grass anymore these days. But of course that's my adult perception. My kids, when they begin to wander, may see things differently. They may do as we did back then: Play in the fields no matter whether the property owners wanted us there or not. It's all a matter of perception. And my perception is a bit cloudier these days, cluttered with parental responsibility, the same kind of thing I tolerated as a kid, but mostly rolled my eyes at when I knew eye-rolling was an acceptable commentary on the ways parents do things.

And they got dumber, and dumber, and dumber . . .

I do not profess to be the smartest guy in the world. Even in my household of five, there are days when my intelligence ranks below that of our dachshund. But at least I know better than this:



Nazi Germany did, of course, host the Olympic Games, back in 1936:



I don’t mind if people want to protest things. They ought to be bright enough, however, to do a little research before they make their posters. A few minutes perusing Olympics history would clearly have shown this. Apparently, the poster-maker has never heard of Jesse Owens.

It’s good to see that liberals can be just as dumb as the people they accuse of cornering the dumb market. That's the conservatives, in case you're not bright enough to figure that out.

It's kind of comforting, if you ask me, to see that dumbness knows no political boundary.

And how dare I surmise that the poster-maker was a liberal? I admit to no solid proof. But since it seems to be the (American) liberal thing to do these days to make highly photogenic protests that will amount to affecting no changes whatsoever while believing their actions will severely impact the world on a global scale, I think I'm safe in my assumption.

True, conservatives also make ineffectual protests -- and protest material. But they tend to stick to making highly photogenic protests that will amount to no changes whatsoever on the domestic scale, e.g., immigration, English as the official language, and so forth.