Ch-ch-ch-changes

My wife and I own a small business that for eight years has resided at one place, and consisted of a design office and a woodshop, for building custom tradeshow and retail displays. My education is more in the design and CAD end of things, and we bought the company with the woodshop already integrated into it (I worked at the company for 12 years before we bought it).

This last few months we have had to close down the woodshop half of the business, and it has been a painful thing. My wife helped time and organise things so we are getting out without crippling debt, but the simple fact was we had to borrow money to keep it all going. It was, in essence, costing us money to continue operating, and that's not a business, it's a hobby with too much paperwork.

I blame myself, really. I love design, and having the capability to produce just about anything I designed was a big kick. But I didn't really love building things. I ignored that half of the business, and with that neglect, it stopped making money. In the later years, I let control of things slip. In cleaning things up to sell them, I'm finding things that I know I asked to be taken care of years ago, stockpiles of raw materials and redundant tools that cost me money because I had to re-buy them several times. But the most basic thing was that during lean times, the overhead killed us, and the lean times were getting longer and longer. Even before the economy nose-dived, the writing was on the wall.

There may be personal advantages to this. My wife and I could never take a vacation together, because one of us always needed to be at the office. It took seven years for us to arrange a week off (we went to Italy), and other than that we have only had the occasional long weekend (which were frequently interrupted by business matters). Now, we might look forward to having some vacation time again, together.

Now I'm going to focus on just design, which I know I can control, and which has very little overhead. I'll be working out of my house, and a warehouse that I'm using for storing my client's materials. I still have enough tools to do basic things, but I'm going to be focused pretty tightly on design, illustration, product development (my degree is Industrial Design), and tradeshow consulting and services. I am hopeful, looking forward. My wife is behind me the whole way, and that's the most important thing. Now the company is much smaller, and my wife will likely have to find a job outside, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. One down side to us both working at the same place was that if money was tight it was tight on both our paychecks. A little financial diversity may help, especialy since a freelancer's income is notably unstable.

I am hopeful, but it is still a painful process, deconstructing eight years of my life. I'm just glad my business partner is still with me.

Missed a week

Sorry, my laptop died and was reborn, but I missed a week. Hopefully it's all better now.

My God's bigger than your God

I don't really understand the biblical literalists and people who endorse 'intelligent design'. It's like they want to believe that God is so small that he can't encompass something beyond their ability to easily comprehend. They don't trust God to be greater than they can conceive. God has to fit inside their limitations. To them, God can't use evolution to create life because it doesn't make for a spiffy special effect in their head. No wand waving, or sudden big budget bangs, just a slow process that takes millennia. And for some reason they don't see the awesome majesty of a creator that can do that. Personally, I think God is all the greater without the razzmatazz and shiny bits. I know I can't comprehend a million years. I can understand it in the abstract, I can do the math, but I can't really grok it. But to God its just a heartbeat. I am perfectly willing to admit that God is so very far beyond me.

I understand that the Bible says creation took 6 days, and scholars say that happened 6000 years ago. But for crying out loud, it was an oral tradition passed down for countless generations by people who had no concept of timescales longer than a few (short) generations, who thought the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it. I think the Bible contains great wisdom, and is worthy of contemplation, but it is not a science text book. Science has opened our eyes to a greater and larger world, and our refusal to admit God into that larger world is at the heart of this debate. The pursuit of an understanding of the fundamental laws of nature is a pursuit of an understanding of Gods laws, using the gifts He has given us. It is not sacrilege, but as sacred as any endeavor of man. Nothing in science has invalidated the divine, but rather the reverse.

I do believe in God. There are moments in my life where I wish I didn't, but I do. In my heart I do. I just don't believe in organized religion. It seems that all a church is good for is providing a source of income to spiritually minded people. Not a bad thing, really, but it seems they take the minutia of ritual more seriously than the eternal mystery of God. They claim to have the answer, but they debate those answers back and forth more vehemently than any scientist and his theory. And they can't provide any way to test their answers except to die and ask the source. And I ask you, one mortal to another - would the words of Jesus be any less true, any less worthy, if he couldn't walk on water? Is his sacrifice meaningless without the ascension? Are the miracles really necessary to your faith, or are they just there to catch your attention, like fireworks? Is your concept of God really that small?

Santa's Importance to Critical Thinking

I have had a debate before about the cruelty of the Santa myth. My position was: why tell a child a lie when the truth can be just as wonderful. People give gifts because it makes everyone feel better, both giver and receiver. That's about as optimistic a thought on human nature as any I've ever heard, and makes a good moral that could stand to be reinforced once a year. The inclusion of an improbably generous elf just junks it up. Even as an avatar of human kindness, he just competes with your religious icon of choice. The only use he serves is as an implacable judge of Good vs Bad. One who is unassailable by whining and begging, but whose eyes are everywhere. Apparently God needs a heavy, and Papa Noel is it (Santa is the carrot to Satan's stick). But I've had to rethink my prior position. I think Saint Nick does serve a purpose, and an important developmental one at that.

After careful thought, I realized that Father Christmas is not about generosity, and certainly not about Christian faith, but he is definitely the incarnation of Judgement. And not just the good and bad list thing either. He is an important milestone in a child's life, an early lesson in critical thinking. Because at some point, all children learn that he's not real, and suddenly they are forced to acknowledge a painful truth: their parents have been lying to them. Not only that, but everyone else in the world has been lying to them. That forces them to think, what else are they lying about? Is there an Easter Bunny? Am I adopted? Where will it all end? Suddenly, the child is no longer a passive recipient of knowledge but a thinking being, evaluating data based on self-created criteria. Babbo Natale is all about doubt, and the deconstruction of authority. They are becoming the evaluators of good and bad. They have eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and are turning into Santa themselves.

Sure, it's a painful lesson. But so is finding out that hot things burn. You hope children find out with bath water instead of a house fire, so you let them play with the taps. You don't let them play with matches. The same goes with Mr. Kringle. Even after the initial let down, you're still left with a popular holiday, and that pleasant thought on humanity. So there is the attention focusing pain to drive the lesson home, but not too much. Not enough to threaten a normal child's psyche.

Plus it gives them a small ego boost of being 'in the club' with the other grownups who are in on the secret, a glimpse into the higher mysteries of the complicated world of grownups, who apparently lie to each other all the time, constantly. It sets them on the path of figuring out when someone is telling them the truth or not, and whether it matters, of evaluating truth in a social context. Lying is fine, even necessary, in so many situations, and the jolly old elf is the key. It's all very modern day Joseph Campbell: a myth that serves the growth of the individual in society.

So my advice is this: Don't leave Santa out of Christmas! Sure, he's a modern commercially inspired symbol subverting a religious event, but he has his place. Sing his praises, and throw in the flying reindeer. Stuff the gullible with tall tales till they eventually puke, it'll be good for them.

IMHO

What is it with the overuse of the expression IMO or IMHO? I understand what it stands for, but why use it? It's like an excuse to say something truly terrible, and then draw back a little bit with a polite euphemism. For all intents and purposes it says, "If you react badly to this I will mock you as overly-sensitive." It's like the Southern expression: Bless his/her little heart. You know if a Southerner 'blesses your little heart' they hate your guts, because it always follows some insulting observation. Example: "He's dumb as a bag of hammers, bless his little heart." It is a cowardly evasion.

Personally I find it contemptible. If you are delivering criticism, you can either aim to hurt (in which case you are usually merely trying to look clever to your peers), or aim to improve something, in which case it should be constructive, not destructive. Using an 'escape phrase' to try to shuck the emotional baggage of making someone feel bad is just lame. Either make them feel bad because you hate them, and own up to your pettiness, or offer something constructive. It takes someone of true and rare wit to deliver witty and sarcastic comments without merely looking like an immature tool. If you have the intelligence to make a worthy observation, you should also have the smarts to deliver it in a way that might actually affect the change you want, instead of alienating everyone involved. There are damn few Oscar Wildes and Mark Twains in the world, and odds are you are not one of them.

And lastly, just about anything that comes out of my cake-hole is either a fact/fiction or an opinion, and it's usually easy to tell which is which. If I say, "I can't afford that Ferrari", that's pretty much a fact, with just a smattering of opinion (because I could sell my house and buy it, but that's just stupid). If I say, "I hate Ferraris," it's either fact or a fiction (because it's obviously sour grapes), but it is definitely a statement of my opinion. If I say "Ferraris are great cars," that is again my opinion. Is anyone really confused by this? Do I really need to label these things with an IMO?

About the only time it has any use is when you are differentiating between statements of someone else's opinion and your own: "Everyone thinks Ferraris are high maintenance status symbol cars, but they're really an excellent tribute to a long standing racing tradition." Now either God's own truth is spilling out of my mouth, or it's my opinion there at the end. You decide.

It irks me when I see it used constantly on forum debates, because 9 times out of 10 it's a pointless add on. It doesn't increase the value of the message, or refine the meaning. And usually, it's just a way to insult someone and try to be polite about it. At some point, the rules of etiquette have to catch up with the digital age, and I for one am hoping we ditch this cowardly abbreviation. 

Expletives and taboos

There is a show called Inside the Actor's Studio where the host asks, among other things, the same ten questions to each guest. One of them is "What is your favorite curse word?"

Mine is f**k. It's short, attention getting, and best of all, onomatopoeic: it sounds just like what it means. Picture this scenario. You get up in the middle of the night to pee, you're walking across the hall and stub your toe on some piece of furniture that shouldn't be there. What sound would be more appropriate or descriptive? You were doing fffffine, ffffeeling good, everything is ffffabulous, when it all comes to a sudden stop: **k! See? It means exactly what it sounds like.

You could argue that the real definition of that word has nothing do with any of that and you'd be right. But we're not talking about real words, we're talking about curse words. An expletive is an ancient psuedo-verbal vocalization of distress, not real speech. It's halfway between a grunt and true communication. "Meaning" is irrelevant. No one is thinking about intercourse when they just stubbed their toe. They just want to invoke a taboo, which is why curse words have to be impolite. And most importantly, cursing needs to be reflexive, requiring no thought whatsoever. Speech requires thought, which might take too long.

Here's another scenario: In prehistoric times, a group of hunters spread out to flush some game from some tall grass, shouting and beating the grass with their hands. One of them comes across a tiger. Now, time is of the essence, so saying something like "TIGER!", would be optimal, but something like "Hey guys, its one of those things with the claws, what was that name again..." would mean getting eaten. A wordless cry might work, but everyone is yelling, so the message might get lost. A random word might draw attention, but it would confuse everyone for a potentially fatal second or so. But a taboo, something forbidden, shouted out brazenly, would draw attention. It would focus thought on the fact that something bad just happened, and need to be reacted to. Most likely by running away, but that's another matter.

Another proof that cursing is handled differently in the brain from speech is provided by sufferer's of Tourette Syndrome, specifically those with coprolalia (which means almost literally "potty mouth"). For those too lazy to look at the links, it's a disorder that, among other things, causes sufferers to curse uncontrollably, often in very inappropriate settings. The point here is that they don't shout random words, they shout curse words. They invoke taboos. These words must be stored in a different way in the brain. They have no meaning, just a purpose. A genetically encoded need to focus attention on a pressing and immanent problem. The exact taboo and the words are determined culturally, but the internal mechanism is universal.

And therefore, the need to suppress extraneous cursing is also universal. A taboo that is acceptable to the general ear is useless. It has to shock, or it subverts the survival mechanism it sprang from. So, for the good of society, I'll try to limit my f-bombs to actual emergencies, like when I'm driving in heavy traffic or playing video games.

Why I'm bored with MMORPGing

The main problems I have with MMORPGs fall into three categories: roleplaying (complete lack thereof), the character's insignificance, and other players.

For a bit of background, I was an AD&D geek in high school and college, where I also took up Champions (now called the Hero System). For any number of years it was my cheif social outlet, a ready excuse to get together with friends and socialize. We could get together and create our own mythos, a collect body of stories and characters, from the Blue Moon Killer to Aegus, Defeeeeender of Los Aaaaangeles (cue theme music). I have fond memories, and a mental post-it note to get back into it, write up that fantasy city I've been thinking about, all that. But I haven't had the time, and that just doesn't look like it's going to change.

Enter MMORPGs. My first experience was looking at Asheron's Call on a friend's PC and thinking 'that looks utterly cool'. My wife and I tried to load it on an old PC we had. We tried to upgrade it to play, but it was so buggy we abandoned it. We had to sit through hours of AC talk any time our friends got together. They were creating stories without us, and it felt weird.

At some point we got a new computer and played City of Heroes. Now that was cool. As of this posting I still haven't seen a better character creator (at least in tems of individualizing your avatar). Then we all tried World of Warcraft, and then D&D Online, and even Lord of the Rings Online. We jumped from one to another seeking some elusive quality of play, new sights, new gaming mechanics. The number of nitpicks I could make with any of them is large, but that would miss the bigger picture: essentially, MMORPG's aren't much fun without the close knit social group, which would be fun even without the game.

Much of this perceived shortcoming is because I'm trying to recapture some vitality of my youthful experiences, the way things were so new and open back in the day. Nothing would fill that ticket; the games I grew up with don't seem to either, so why should I expect computer graphics to do what my own imagination can't? You kids today, they don't make em like the used to, the good old days, yada-yada-yada. But there are several things that I consistently run into in these games that limit my enjoyment. The first is the lack of roleplaying - the RPG in MMORPG. Others have noted this, and perhaps I just haven't encountered the tenacious underground of RPers under the layer of video-gamers. But it seems any time I go into a mission with strangers, they have the entire adventure pre-configured and optimized, min-maxed and planned out. I understand the idea of party and character balance, but if there is really no reason for a character to select sub-optimal choices for their character, why even have them? You can't make a character with an unusual background, or reason for adventuring, because it means nothing. You have no personal goals or secret demons - you are a part of a pre-made story line, and if you don't like it, tough. If I'm not allowed to really make my own character, why try to give me the illusion that I can.

Which segues nicely into the next bone to pick - your character is insignificant to the game-world. Everyone does the same quest a hundred times. Failing the quest means nothing, because they're not going change anything just because you lagged at the wrong moment and failed to save the princess. No, you just go back to the bar and get the quest again. In most games, you can't even build a base. 90% of everything around you is like a movie-set, and you can't explore beyond the confines of what they could create. What if everyone made their own dungeons, or taverns for brawling, or even shops for those people who get into the whole buy-low sell-high gold-gardening thing. There would be no end to the content because the people would make their own content. In WOW, you can be a good guy or bad guy, but you can't make a castle for the other guys to storm. You can't even chop down a tree. And none of that matters because the over-arcing story line of the world is written without any consideration for your character. No matter how powerful, you're just one account among thousands. You're not the hero of the story, because stories only have a few heroes, and everyone else wants to be the hero too. Maybe if each server only had a couple of dozen players on it, that might change things, especially if the end-game for each server was different.

And that brings me to the third thing. Since they're Massively Multiplayer, most of the games are written so you have to join a team to do anything. But your team-mates are complete strangers, some of whom may be newbies, some may be serious gamers, some may be just farting around. I have yet to get into a team that I clicked with. I've gotten into a few that made me want to scream. It's like high school cliques without all that adult supervision. Maybe I haven't put in the time to find like minded players, but I really am not inclined to do so. And you always hit a wall where you really can't progress your character without getting in a team.

Obviously, I'm in a minority. These online worlds have millions of players, and I'm sure they won't miss my participation. It just seems these things could be so much more, but that's probably fodder for another post.

<2008> I have to admit I've gotten back into WOW. I have a hunter that I play with my wife's cleric, and we've gotten into the fifties. I do enjoy playing, but it still feels like a replacement for table top games, which I just don't have the time to prepare for. It's a fast-food sort of entertainment, but enjoyable for all of that. I do still miss a sit down dinner though.