Wicked Fragments

Hm.

Let's consider something outside of photography for a moment... perhaps it will strike some of the emotion from the conversation.

I play trumpet and have for about... jeez, almost 30 years now. Damn, I'm old. I happen to have a fairly nice horn... a Vincent Bach Silver. Can't remember the model number, but it ran about $2500 new a good 20 years ago. Beautiful instrument.

Anyway...

(by the way the following course of events has happened to me NUMEROUS times, so I'm not making this up... I'm just condensing it into one representative example)

Imagine the scenario with me and someone who has been playing for just a few years. (or even 5-8 years, for that matter). Assume the person is playing a standard old ~$300 Brass Yamaha or King student horn. Good, solid workhorse of an instrument. Nothing wrong with it.

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"Requirement: A requirement is an essential attribute or characteristic of a system.  It is a condition or capability that must be met or passed by a system to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed document or need."

"Let me here call attention to one of the most universally popular mistakes that have to do with photography - that of classing supposedly excellent work as professional, and using the term amateur to convey the idea of immature productions and to excuse atrociously poor photographs. As a matter of fact nearly all the greatest work is being, and has always been done, by those who are following photography for the love of it, and not merely for financial reasons. As the name implies, an amateur is one who works for love; and viewed in this light the incorrectness of the popular classification is readily apparent." -Alfred Stieglitz

I simply cannot believe that after 8 years of pure and absolute hell that it is finally over.  (Well, almost...)  Buh-bye Bush.  Buh-buy Neo-cons.

Now, of course, we just need to try to make sure we don't go totally crazy spending government dollars on millions of social programs.

Either way... thank whatever may be considered holy.

Won't someone please think of the customer.

Here we find ourselves in an odd situation, where I am going to suggest to you that the customer, or at least what the customer is asking for, is not always the right way to go.

What's more, is that simply prattering around saying "Oh, you are a horrible person because you are not giving the customer what they are asking for," is absolutely retarded.

We have a situation where we have an extremely sensitive system that lacks certain functionality.  (well, tons of functionality, actually... the system really sucks)  We have limited staff and have all agreed (including the customer) that the primary focus will be investing time to get off the system... and all changes to the existing system will be shelved.

This is no small accomplishment, by the way... this is a ridiculously demanding customer with absolutely no sense of reality when it comes to staffing and priorities.  Fix it all, fix it now, damn the cost, damn the people...

So some developer pops up and says (in a room with everyone including the customer in it)  "Pfft!  That's easy to fix.  Here, let me whip up this code here..."

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Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away recently at age 69.  This has been generally regarded as a fairly tragic event, except for this guy, who pretty much goes off on Gygax and D&D in general. 

I don't have much of significance to say that hasn't already been said, but it has been such an integral part of my life that I do feel it bears comment. 

I don't personally lionize Gygax as the creator of all fantasy or the perfector of role-playing as a genre.  I have never really believed that the "first guy" to make a concept successful is necessarily either the true innovator, nor irreplacable.  Look at the history of people like the Wright Brothers or Henry Ford and you'll see what I mean.  Sometimes it's just a matter of hitting the timing right, or sometimes its inventing or implementing something else; something seemingly secondary; that makes the new concept or idea the real success.

I also certainly do not make Gygax out to be some kind of moral poison.  Saying that Gygax is somehow to blame for the moral failures of our world because its fun to throw our usual morals to the wind and hack up a bunch of orcs and steal their juicy booty is just silly.  It's a game, people.  If I've said it once, I've said it a million times... it's a game.  If you cannot see that doing that in real life would be a problem, than you have no business walking free on this planet, let alone being allowed to play potentially violent games.  Gygax has spent his life being blamed for people's foolish actions and activities, though, so I see no real reason why this would stop now.

I really can't see making Gygax out to be some kind of pariah to role playing games and fantasy either.  Some would harken him and his creation to a Microsoft of the RPG world.  This gigantic juggernaught that crushed everything that would dare compete.  This is patently foolish.  If anything, D&D was crushed under its own issues and was well into its death throes before Wizards of the Coast saw fit to pick up TSR in a sort of "Child saves the grandfather from death" kind of arrangement.  Since Wizards is a fine example of a company that likely was spawned directly from inspirations of D&D, and in the end was all that saved D&D's ass... well, you figure it out.  I shouldn't have to draw you a picture.

Still, there it is and there it remains.  Gary's creation (co-creator, yes, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll call it his).  Since being revitalized and essentially re-written from scratch, D&D continues to be a significant player in the RPG world and remains a significant influence in so many things that we deal with today.

For my part, and I believe for most people who consider Gary's passing a sad event, that is where the loss is truly felt.

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I heard the term "New Impossibilities" somewhere and it kind of struck me...  What an interesting idea.  If there are new impossibilities, wouldn't that imply that there were old ones?

It would seem to me that impossibilities are never new.  They are, in fact, just undiscovered.  After all, impossibilities would have entirely to do with the physical realities of things, particularly if you believe that people and their emotions and whatnot are entirely based in the physical... which, in fact, is exactly what I think.

This is interesting because it is kind of depressing in a way.  There are a whole variety of impossibilities that are like stones in the ice cream.  They are there, there's nothing you can do about them, except to do your best to eat around them, or miss one accidentally and break a tooth.

Yet, if you think of it another way its somewhat reassuring.  In time we will work our way through many, and possibly even all, of these impossibilities.  Perhaps one day we will have them all sorted and mapped out, know exactly what we can and cannot do, and be allowed to live out the rest of our time as humanity somewhat more peacefully knowing that certain things simply aren't possible, and that we should focus our attention somewhere else.

Our current election system is pretty screwed up.  Consider if you will...

• Electoral College can over-ride popular vote.
• Electoral College may sometimes elect a president that does not have the popular vote.  (see: Bush Jr., aka Satan)
• Electoral College makes it so that if you vote in a state that generally votes differently than you that you may as well not bother voting since your vote has no impact.
• Primaries pre-dispose people to thinking their candidate can or cannot win, swaying their vote.
• Polling can sway results by convincing people that their ideal candidate can or cannot win, forcing them to pick a different candidate so their "vote is not wasted".
• Paper-based and/or piss-poor shoddy electrical systems that do not take advantage of current technological advances. (not all states and districts, but most)
• Candidates who are not insanely wealthy unable to effectively compete in any election.  Elections wind up being "bought".
• Relatively low voter turnout.

So I have a new idea to resolve these issues.  I'm totally serious about this.  Fox, give me a call if you want to talk about licensing the right to do this from me.

The answer?  We do the elections in a hybrid American Idol/Apprentice style.

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I was thinking about my current work predicament and comparing it to all my other past work experiences, specifically with respect to change... since, after all, change is basically the core of what I do.

Each place has been somewhat unique, so I was thinking I would try to articulate change in terms of certain video game challenge mechanics, since for no other reason that games are also something that I do.

Since I have little else to do right now, since this place is change averse, I figured I would try to write it up in a journal that no one reads, since that is also something I occasionally do.

I have ordered these from most effective long term/least entertaining/most likely to allow you to keep your job, to most effective short term/most entertaining/most likely to get you fired very quickly.  Obviously as a professional I'd have to recommend the first of these, but I have to say I desperately miss my Quake days.

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I find this whole "how dare you check me out!" thing that women do to be wildly hypocritical.  If you really don't expect men to look at you, then why in the name of all things logical are you dressing like that?

Let's be reasonable here.  Men and women were put on this earth to make more men and women.  It's built into our DNA as a survival of the species thing.  If you're going to take your assets and put them on display, we men are going to look.  Telling us to do otherwise is not only hopeless and futile, but it's also really rather stupid.  If you don't want us to eat the donuts, then please don't wave big heaping plates of them in our face.

Here's an example.  There has been this recent trend of putting words on the ass of women's shorts and sweatpants.  Here's a tip... words are for reading... if you print something on your ass, I'm going to stare at your ass and read it.  Now those of you wearing these things... do you really think for even a moment that men (and women, for that matter) are not going to read your ass?  You do realize that reading your ass requires our actually looking at your ass, right?  I assume that had to be clear to you when you purchased the item.  Right?

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