Stephan Rubin's Law Blog

What is good service worth?

2008-12-03T17:01:00.001-05:00

I don’t like going to the deli counter at the supermarket.

Not because I don’t like my local supermarket deli’s selection (it’s fine) or because I think their meats and cheeses are too expensive (they’re fine too, I suppose. I always get the same thing.) It’s because the service is so deplorable, and I hate waiting in line.

Supermarkets at some point apparently realized this, so they came up with the self-serve deli kiosk. It eliminates the need for human interaction for people who don’t want it. Tell me what you want, I’ll take care of it for you, pick it up whenever.

Yesterday, when I was at the supermarket, I used the deli kiosk, like I always do.

And the deli people got one of the items in my order wrong. So now, since there are other people waiting in line, I have to wait in line with them to get the food I actually ordered. So on top of not giving me what I asked for, you are forcing me to participate in a process I deliberately set out to avoid. Talk about a broken system. How do you suppose I, as a customer, was compensated for the time I lost and frustration I endured because of this ordeal?

If your answer was to discover when I got home that the other item in my order was just absolutely horribly prepared, you would be correct.

I don’t like going to Starbucks.

Not because I don’t think the drinks are good (I think they are) or because I don’t like what they ‘stand for’ (I don’t really pay that much mind.) I dislike it mostly because, for me, the cost of a drink at Starbucks isn’t worth what I get out of it.

Today, however, I discovered a Starbucks gift card buried in my wallet. And the first thing I could think of was how excited I was to be able to go into Starbucks and get a Peppermint Latte. Like it was some sort of privilege. Starbucks has chosen to ignore me with their marketing, and that’s fine, because nothing short of free coffee would get me in their stores. But when I am there, I am so overwhelmed with how positive the experience is, and how good it leaves me feeling, that I actively THINK about when the next time is I can feel that good again. All this has absolutely nothing to do with coffee. Talk about great marketing.

If I am paying money in exchange for you doing something for me, I have every expectation that you will do everything in your power to leave me as satisfied as I can conceivably be in the situation, regardless if it’s deli meat or gourmet coffee. Not because I’m worth it (you don’t know if I am or not) or because I feel entitled (even though, as a paying customer, I am) but because you (the service provider) don’t get to decide what satisfies me.

Maybe for me, the wait is worth it because you sliced my cracked pepper turkey* just the way I liked it, or if I know you’ll stagger the cheese slices so they don’t all become one bug clump in the fridge. Maybe the wait has turned me off so much even giving the turkey away wouldn’t satisfy me. Maybe I hate your coffee, but I’m only here because it’s free, so that cheerful smile you flash my way doesn’t register with me.

Wise people say ‘you only get one change to make a first impression.’ But what they don’t tell you is that, while you may have some control over WHAT that first impression is, you have no control over WHEN it is. Maybe I form my first impression the second I walk in the door. Maybe it’s when you ask me if I’m being helped. Maybe it’s whether or not you ask me how I like my turkey sliced. You have no way of knowing, so they only way to win is to do it all. Be perfect. Sure it’s not easy. But in a world where I can get my deli meats and my coffee wherever I want, why would I settle for anything less?

The worst thing we in the Service business can do is wait until our customers are unhappy to treat them with respect and tell them how important their business is to us. I’m not suggesting we water it down by saying it every time; this is just as bad, if not worse. When I was working for a notable local pharmacy retailer, we actually had to do this. When we answered the phone, we actually had to say, ‘Thank you for calling ----, where the customer comes first.’ Most of the time, people didn’t even hear us, and if they did, we said it so fast they didn’t understand us. This sort of hollow rote does not build goodwill with customers. Making them feel special, however… well, everyone likes to feel special.

"It'll Never Work"

2008-12-02T11:19:00.005-05:00

How many times have you heard that?

People seeking to exercise leadership hear that a lot. Representatives of the status quo has a laundry list of reasons why the way things are being done is Fine, Just Fine™, not the least of which is that asking them to change what they're accustomed to represents no small loss for them.

We don't think of these concessions as 'losses,' but that's what they are. To try something new means to concede that what's old isn't working anymore. And the people responsible for what's old will doubtlessly fight tooth and nail to keep it relevant, even if all evidence is indicative of the contrary. This is an important distinction, because this is almost certain to not be the direction the discourse surrounding new ideas will take. People will focus on the concrete and the technical; all the 'practical' reasons why staying the course is an acceptable solution. But when you realize that 'staying the course' got us to the current state we're in, you realize that the only true practical solution is to do the things we haven't been doing. When someone tells you something 'will never work,' it's a safe bet they stand to lose something if it does work. The challenge is to pace that loss at a rate they’ll be able to withstand.

Someone very close to me was recently laid off from their job. You probably know someone who has suffered a similar fate. When I spoke with this person about the circumstances surrounding their layoff, they mentioned to me all the systemic issues within their organization which, had they been addressed, may have saved their job, and the jobs of others at the organization who suffered the same fate. This person was especially distraught because it seemed to them that no effort had been made to address these systemic problems; the organization simply let people go to cut costs.

And my friend is not alone. When you look at how downsizing is handled from an organizational perspective, the level of work avoidance present is blinding. For one, it’s never, EVER, discussed at all, in any sort of open forum. It happens unexpectedly, a quick fix to right the rocking ship. It is done with little regard to the effect it will have on the organization (read: the people who make up the organization), both present and now-former employees, not to mention investors (a wise man once told me that, when an investor sees a company downsize, he gets his money out.) Downsizing and layoffs are stop gaps; they don’t stem the tide of inefficiency. They skirt around the problem, they don’t tackle it head-on. What a shame. What a waste. Sure, all the organizational think tanks in the world won’t stop the economy from nosediving, but that doesn’t let us off the hook for doing whatever is in our power to ameliorate the situation as best we can. Now is not the time for technical solutions, nor is it the time to look to others to solve our problems. What if we all got together and had a talk about little adjustments we can make to save our companies money? What if everyone came up with three ideas for how to be more efficient? People may be quick to say it’s a bad idea, and I’m sure they’ll have lots of perfectly good reasons why.

What if you try a hundred little things, a hundred new ideas, a hundred different ways to change?

What if every single one fails? People are often quick to say 'we failed. It didn’t work.'

What they may not realize is that you just succeeded in finding a hundred things that don't work. And knowing what doesn't (and won't) work is just as important as knowing what does (and will) work.

So don’t be afraid to fail. Weigh your interpretation of the problem against competing perspectives. Ask the tough questions. Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. The easy way out is usually not a viable long-term solution; how can it be? If the problem were an easy one to solve, we would have solved it already.

So keep on failing. Keep on being wrong. Eventually, if you’ve been paying attention, and with a little luck, maybe you’ll be right.

Who shut the dogs down?

2008-11-07T09:21:00.004-05:00

John Keller nails why Question 3 was such a disaster, and its passing spells trouble for all of us, which my friend Cody summed up in a rant he posted here. We Bay Staters can all expect a nice big tax hike to cover the revenue the states dog tracks were bringing in form gambling and alcohol sales. Combine that with the passing of Question 1 (whether or not to repeal the state income tax), and the only conclusion one can come to is that we Massachusetts folk just looooooove to pay our taxes.

Because our bridges and roads are in crackerjack shape.

And Boston Public Schools? Don't kid yourself, best in the land!

And don't forget, those police officers who sit and drink coffee and talk on their blackberries while on 'construction detail' aren't going to pay themselves.

I'm ranting, I know. But what we have here is a sort of moral relativism (save the dogs!) combined with a pragmatic naivete (not being aware of the fact that a huge chunk of state revenue was coming from these tracks, and that we're going to foot the bill for the difference.)

The 'No on 3' people ran a campaign which was rather obviously doomed from the start, as its appeal was only to those who were affected by it (they ran on a platform of unemployment; that passing the question would put track employees out of work).

My opinion is they could have fared much better had they taken a page from Jess Bachman from WallStats.com, and done a pictorial, numerical representation, of how much money the tracks brought in to the state, how taxpayer revenue would be used to pick up the slack, and show each taxpayer about how much they would be expected to pay.

It is a privilege to fight

2008-11-07T09:15:00.000-05:00

Thank you to everyone for the comments in my post on Prop 8. Please keep the dialogue going; change cannot happen in silence.

As I mentioned in that piece, I think the first big step the community at large needs to take towards mobilizing the change they with to realize is to get everyone on the same page, and put an end to the splintering which seems to hold the community back. The dialogue I saw there is a positive start, and it is my hope that conversations like this are being carried on across the country. Prop 8 has woken everyone up to the realization that we are not ready for legislation on this issue yet. The issue is like a green banana; it is not yet ripe. Our question should not be 'how do we peel the banana?' It should be 'how can we expedite the ripening process?' A yellow banana is far easier to peel than a green one. And even if we were to force the peel off the green banana, we may find that in doing so, we have made the fruit undesirable.

While you all are here though, and I have your attention, I'd like to share something with you which I hope will both a) give you some perspective on where I as the author of that piece am coming from, and b) Give you a tool which you can bring back to your respective factions to wield in the fight against bigotry.

As the first sentence of my piece on Prop 8 indicates, I think Prop 8 serves as a fantastic study in a concept known as Adaptive Work. While everything that adaptive work entails is beyond the scope of this missive, if you feel that there is some truth in what I've penned, I strongly encourage you to take 10 minutes or so and peruse some of the other things I've posted on this blog under the tag 'leadership' (pay special attention to the post labeled 'Boogers of Truth.' How did attack ads play out in this process? How could the community have approached this problem differently to defang it?)

If you'd like to know more about this concept of Adaptive Work, you may also enjoy this article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review. It was co-authored by a man named Ronald Heifetz, A man whom I have quoted often in this blog. He is the 'inventor' of this concept of Adaptive Work, and his eloquence and writing style are superior to mine in almost every way.

Be mindful of where Heifetz says problems are born, and who is responsible for solving them. What does the word 'leadership' mean in the context of Adaptive Work, and how has the gay community failed to exercise it? What is a 'leader?' What does leadership carry with it? Is the problem the community faces a Technical one or an Adaptive one? One of the anonymous commenters mentioned that people have been 'speaking out' for years... Within the context of Adaptive Work, is this a Technical Solution?

If you have any questions about Adaptive Work, or would like to know more, please feel free to leave a comment in this post. I will answer it as best I can, and if I cannot help you, I will do what I can to find you an answer. Just do not let the embers of passion in your souls burn out. There is too far much at stake. This fight is too important.

Some thoughts on Proposition 8

2008-11-06T10:40:00.003-05:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about Prop 8 out in California lately, and I think this is an interesting case study in Adaptive Work. Let’s take a look:

Prop 8, on its surface, was a referendum on Same-Sex marriage in the state of California. My thesis however, is that it goes much deeper than that. It was a referendum on the gay community’s ability to affect adaptive change. And, as the polls indicate, they have failed in a big way.

I for one am glad Prop 8 passed. Not because I am in favor of banning same-sex marriage; I have and always will consider myself an ally of the gay community. I believe that this change is inevitable, that the acceptance of gays, and subsequently, their marriages, is only a matter of time. I am glad Prop 8 passed solely for the reason that it is a great example of democracy working in symphony with change. Or preservation of the status quo, as the case may be. You can debate me on the semantics of this all you want, how the LDS church basically bought themselves the verdict, how black voters were instrumental in the result, but, and I aim to explain this in more detail, assuming that position not only misses the point of Prop 8 entirely, in the latter case, it intimates that the democratic opinion of those first-time voters, who came out in record numbers to make their voices heard, does not matter. It borders on passive disenfranchisement, and hints at what I believe is a toxic undercurrent in the gay community.

I mentioned in the previous paragraph that I believe mainstream acceptance of same-sex relationships and marriages is only a matter of time, but this position comes with a very noteworthy caveat: The gay community cannot and will not gain acceptance until they:

Create unity within their faction and get everyone, EVERYONE, on the same page.
Be unafraid to create and sustain disequilibrium.
Focus everyone’s attention on the issue, and not let them off the hook.

Before I address the above points, let me comment briefly on the notion that this decision is merely a function of time and money; that Prop 8 passed solely because the LDS church (ironically enough, an institution which supported polygamy) pumped cash into a campaign, and that was enough. Because it wasn’t. That’s an incomplete worldview, and I suspect a lot of people who believe this deep down know that it isn’t true. The worldview of a person or group of people was there long before the marketing ever got there. These people believed what they believed before Prop 8 was even on the table; I highly doubt anyone was seriously contemplating the sanctity of marriage, saw one of these ‘Yes on 8’ ads, and suddenly had an epiphany that marriage is sacred. And if there are any people who honestly DID have this experience, it is very unlikely that they alone would have been the difference. Unless of course, they told their friends. This marketing merely gave these people who ALREADY BELIEVED gay marriage was wrong a story to tell, and a vehicle to spread it. And I believe that here is where the gay community is hurting the most. With that in mind, let’s look at the 3 points above:

The gay community is not united. At least it doesn’t appear united to me, someone on the outside (and I’m not even too far removed). This is a very serious problem the community needs to address, and they needed to address it yesterday. I have a friend who is a gay black man, and he once told me about the pressure he feels within the gay community as a gay black man; that there is an undercurrent of passive racism within the gay faction. Now I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, but regardless of whether or not it is, is perfectly represents my point: Not everyone in the community is on the same page. Yes, most, if not all of them, want equal rights. But there are various interpretations of what 'equal rights' means, and probably just as many arguments over how best to achieve it. This divisive infighting is toxic, and is probably the biggest barrier to equality the community must overcome. The best way to overcome this, from an adaptive perspective, would be for someone to step forward voluntarily (it cannot be someone elected in any kind of democratic process) to stomach the discontent of the community, quell the infighting, get everyone on the same page, give the work back, and focus their energy outwards on creating the unrest needed to affect the change. The status quo does not need a figurehead upon which to pin their aspirations of entrenchment; the LDS church can remain faceless (as it did) and do what the people running this campaign aimed to do. The gay community, however, cannot. They need a face, a person, upon whom to hang their hopes, and that person has to be someone who is unafraid to disappoint their followers. And it cannot be Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or any other elected official, so to pin it on these people is both unfair to them, and dangerous to the gay community, as they are letting themselves off the hook. These people can work in concert with my mythical figurehead (As John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson did with Martin Luther King), but they cannot be the person. These people can be silent enablers and allies of the community, but they have their hands in a lot of jars right now, and being too vocal compromises their ability to be successful leaders in other areas. So don’t pin it on them.

Which brings me to the second point of creating and sustaining discomfort in the greater community. In order to get everyone to pay attention to the struggle, you need to make people uncomfortable. Put the problem in their faces and force them to look at it. The gay community has so far been very ineffectual in this regard. The civil rights struggle of the 60’s and 70’s was so successful because, when people turned on their televisions, they saw protesters being hosed, beaten, arrested. They could not ignore the struggle of their fellow Americans. The gay community has hardly come close to matching this level of disequilibrium. They had an opportunity when Matthew Shepherd was murdered, but they squandered it by making it a matter of policy and legislation, which is as Technical a solution as you can get. In a big way, Fred Phelps won that battle, because, in attacking him, the community took their eye off the ball, and as a result, became marginalized. If the gay community hopes to realize the shift in American values necessary for true equality, they must make their fight one of passion and emotion, not of legislature and policy. The fight will be long and uphill, but if someone from the community steps forward and can get everyone to keep their eye on the ball, there is no reason why they can’t be successful. Prop 8 is not about policy; is never was. It represents a failure on the part of the gay community to make their struggle an emotional one for people whom it doesn’t affect. This is what allowed the LDS church to play on people’s fears and get then to the ballot box; the gay community didn’t do enough to challenge this notion and display their values as truly being in line with those of the people who would seek to make them second-class citizens. Scapegoating the LDS church allows the gay community to let themselves off the hook for not doing enough to being the change to the hearts and minds of their fellow Americans; it’s a copout. Sure, they had something to do with it, but remember what I said earlier: Those prejudices in the hearts and minds of the voters were there before the LDS Church. The Church managed to put those fears in play. Gays did not do enough to quell them.

They need to make people uncomfortable, and be in control of moderating the level of discomfort; know when to turn it down if tensions are running too high, and when to turn it up if people are losing interest or getting complacent. I don’t have my finger on the pulse of the gay community, so I have no answers for them on how best to do this, but this is their last big obstacle to affecting change. Once again, we can look to comparable struggles throughout history for how best to do this. When Martin Luther King Jr. assembled 200,000 black Americans and spoke to them from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, people paid attention. But what often goes unnoticed are the endless hours he and people like him put in to get to that point; speaking, lecturing, writing, doing the hard work to unite the black community and convince them that the pain they were being asked to endure was a worthy price to pay for equality. No one in the gay community, as far as I can see, has even come close to that.

So where do we go from here? What can we do to help move this change along? We on the outside can continue to offer our support to our embattled friends; and vow to stand with them in their struggle. But we cannot solve their problems for them.

The community needs to unite themselves. Without widespread unity, the cause is lost. End of story.

The community needs a leader. Someone upon whom they can hang their hopes, but at the same time, someone who is unafraid to disappoint them, and pace the work, both internally and externally. Someone who can work with allies in legislature to move things along from a policy perspective, but does reminds their constituents of their ultimate responsibility for the change.

The change is possible, but it won't come from legislators; it has to come from within the gay community. They have to affect people in a way that makes them WANT to change. The LDS church did this with Prop 8. I hope, for the sake of my recently married cousin, my coworkers, and our country, that the gay community has the fortitude and the dedication to rebound. The shift can happen, but not without them.

They tell me you're good with numbers. How nice.

2008-10-30T10:39:00.004-04:00

This morning, American Express announced that because of the credit crisis, they're going to lay off 7,000 people.

This exact same morning, ExxonMobil announced that its quarterly profits were a record-setting 14.8 Billion dollars

Let's have some fun with these numbers, shall we?

Let's assume that each of the 7,000 AmEx workers who are in danger of being laid off have an annual salary of $100,000 (which is a completely unreasonable assumption, seeing as how it is far more likely they will be blue-collar workers, but $100k is a nice round number, so we'll stick with that.)

The aggregate annual salary of these people is 7,000 * $100,000, or $700 Million.

If we were to take that $14.8 Billion in profits and ExxonMobil just posted, and pay the annual salary of each of those 7,000 AmEx workers, ExxonMobil would still have $14.1 Billion dollars in profits.

And remember, we're talking PROFITS here, not revenue. Profits means what they have after they spent all the money on production, manufacturing, shipping, paying their employees, taxes, debt, everything. This is all gravy money here, folks.

So even after paying the salaries of 7,000 now unemployed Americans, ExxonMobil has more than $14 Billion left. What can you buy with $14 billion?

- You could feed 2.7 Million families for a year (assuming a family spends about $100/week on groceries. I know I spend between $40 and $60.)

- Build 20,000 Wind Turbines, each producing 700 Kilowatts (source: http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/index.htm). 700 kilowatts times 20,000 wind turbines

-Cut each of the 9.5 million other unemployed American workers in the country a check for almost $1,500. That's about half the amount every American taxpayer is expected to contribute to the Government-backed bailout bill.

Meanwhile, we have a Republican Party trying to convince us that government oversight isn't necessary, unless there's a crisis. John McCain implies that, because Barack Obama wants to prevent a situation like this form happening again, that he is somehow a socialist.

I consider myself an economic conservative, but even a free market shouldn't get this out of hand.

Perfect Failure

2008-10-21T09:36:00.002-04:00

I have a lot to write about. I've not forgotten about this blog. Life has just been busy. There is something I want to get off my chest, however, before yet another day gets wholly consumed.

I had a conversation on my way to work this morning about how the first step in adaptive work is to focus everybody's attention on an embedded problem in a community. get people to sit up and pay attention. Then, and only then, canyou begin the process of mobilizing change.

My conversation this morning started about whether or not Barack Obama would be able to do this, and, after gaining people's attention and getting everyone on the same page, keep us focused long enough to give the work back to the people, to prevent us as a society and a nation from becoming globally irrelevant.

My conversation then moved on to September 11th, and how this was a shining example of an event, as catastrophic as it may have been, which immediately and completely, got everyone on the same page mentally. Almost overnight, every single person across the country had their attention focused on the very real issue of a problem. We were there. We were ready. We were paying attention, and we all knew SOMETHING had to change. And we were prepared to work towards that change.

My conversation then devolved into me pontificating about how the Bush Administration took this golden, once in a lifetime opportunity to affect change, and squandered it as wholly and completely as one can squander an opportunity laid before them. Their incredible success in focusing people's attention in the aftermath of September 11th was erased unilaterally by their unprecedented failure to hold and maintain our attention. As a student of leadership, you cannot find a better example than 9/11 of a situation which is conducive to affecting change, and you cannot find a better example than the Bush Administration of a person (or persons) in position of authority squandering that opportunity so completely. This should be in every single major written work on leadership, specifically Adaptive Leadership. As you can see, this was a failure on every level.

In closing, and the real reason I started this rant, please take a second to read this quote from Donald Rumsfeld. This is from a speech he gave to the staff at Whiteman Air Force Base on October 19, 2001. Chronoligically, we can assert that Rumsfeld said these words while he still had our attention; while our minds were still open to the idea of change. You can read the complete address here, but the quote which says the most to me is this one:

We have two choices: Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter.

When you think about what it takes to mobilize change using the mechanisms of Adaptive Leadership, you really have no choice but to stand in complete awe of how Rumsfeld misses the point.

It's a perfect failure.

Bruins Preseason Thoughts

2008-09-27T16:03:00.000-04:00

I really hope Milan Lucic doesn't have a sophomore slump/isn't a flash in the pan/becomes a P.J. Stock redux. He's brings so many good things to the table
Stephane Yelle should help the Bruins in the face-off circle, but I don't know how much offense he's going to bring to the table in other areas. I liked him with the Avs in '01 though.
Speaking of offense, if Ryder is a hit, how great will Peter Chiarelli look?
Even if Ryder ends up being a bust, the B's have a lot of good young people who can both fill that role (albeit not as well) and develop their play to the next level in David Krejci, Vladimir Sobotka, Blake Wheeler, and Nate Thompson.
I get the feeling from watching Blake Wheeler play that he could be to the Bruins what Jacoby Ellsbury was to the Red Sox in 2007. Spend a fair amount of time in the minors developing his skill, and as the season wears on and people get hurt, he can bring that youth energy, grit, and production to jumpstart the team and get them focused on winning down the stretch and into April.
Manny Fernandez should be interesting. All that money to share the stage? I see him as a one-year placeholder until Rask is ready to make the jump. His salary is ridiculous, you could get two decent young puck-moving defencemen for the money you're giving him, and develop them in the organization.
This year is probably do or die for Phil Kessel. I think it's time for him to step his play up. I feel confident he can do it. I want him to do it.
I think the same thing for Andrew Alberts and, to a lesser extent, Mark Stuart; these guys need to hone their puck-moving skills. They are the forerunners of the 'new' Bruins, and their success will probably be an indicator of how the B's as an organization are faring with regards to developing talent from the ground up.
Who is this Martin St. Pierre guy? I for one am excited to watch him play

Ok, enough speculation. Drop the puck, it's time to go.

Professional vs. Passionate

2008-09-24T09:26:00.003-04:00

Which would you rather be?

Which one is more likely to cause people to feel good when they hang up the phone/leave the store/sign off/otherwise end the interaction? What about if you're asking them to change the only reality they've ever known?

If you're too passionate, you'll drive people away, right? You look like a whacko, like a flake. You get pushed to the side; marginalized. People may doubt whether or not you can deliver the goods. No one wants to hang their hopes on a halfass.

If you're too professional, then you blend in. You're boring. You're invisible. No one likes a stiff. No one waits in line to speak to someone who is boring. No disequilibrium = no change. And no empathy = no disequilibrium.

Which comes first in the customer interaction, professionalism or passion?

Which is more conducive to long-term relationships with your customers/constituents? Which one allows you to get the most mileage out of every person you interact with? People love to line up behind a person of passion, but not if they believe that person will lead them off a cliff.

And where do these people fall, the ones who are intimidated by passion? Are they on the edges? How likely are they to tell their friends about what they just experienced? Do they serve to focus attention or divert it?

And the ones who are turned off by professionalism? What is their value? Their long-term potential?

As I'm writing this, I can't help but notice the parallels between this riff and the upcoming choice many of us will make on November 4th. Professional vs. Passionate.

Where do you stand?

(I don't have the answers to any of those questions, by the way. Not even close. Just positing the questions. Maybe you have the answers. I hope you do.)

What the Scarecrow should have asked for.

2008-09-24T08:59:00.004-04:00

Last weekend, I went apple picking with two of my friends at an orchard whose name I don't remember (more on that in a second) in Danvers, Massachusetts, which is about 45 minutes from Boston.

The orchard had a corn maze that, when viewed from above, looked like a scarecrow. And leading into the maze, there was a scarecrow wearing a Hillary Clinton mask reminiscent of the one worn by the bank robbers in Point Break. Scary indeed.

While this may not be something which makes you sit up and pay attention, it certainly raises a few eyebrows. A corn maze that looks like a scarecrow. A scarecrow that looks like Hillary Clinton. Interesting.

So today, on my way to work (I work near Kendall Square in Cambridge) I walked by an 11"x17" flyer for this very orchard; the one with a corn maze that looks like a scarecrow. Featured prominently on the flyer was a picture of the maze as viewed from above.

The rest of the flyer was filled with a description of the orchard, its hours of operation, and, get this: detailed directions on how to get there.

I want to know what person, working in Cambridge Massachusetts, walks by a flyer such as this on their way to work and is so moved by the image of a corn maze which looks like a scarecrow (and by the way, you only realize its a corn maze when you get right up to the flyer. From any distance greater than two feet it just looks like a crop circle) that they feel compelled to do the following:

stop
read the flyer
process the image of a corn maze that looks like a scarecrow
realize that this is the solution to their problem of what to do this weekend
make a note of the hours of the orchard
reach into their bag for a pen and paper and write down the directions to the orchard

Bear in mind that the only reason I even stopped to read the flyer in the first place was because I had already been to the orchard and recognized the image of the corn maze which looks like a scarecrow, and even then, I didn't notice the name of the orchard; I still don't remember it. Had I not JUST been to the orchard last weekend, what do you think the odds are that I would have even noticed the flyer, let alone pay attention?

The scarecrow was asking for me to do three or four things in one interaction, and he doesn't even know me. 3/4 of the real estate on this flyer is wasted with perfunctory garbage. When your story (the corn maze that looks like a scarecrow) is remarkable enough to get people to stop and pay attention, your best bet is to leverage that into a relationship; introduce the other information on the flyer gradually, AFTER you have some level of permission to talk to me, or after I express an interest. Throwing it all on a flyer is ignoring the curve completely, and as such, I am going to ignore you.

So what should the scarecrow have asked for? Not brains, but permission.

Boogers of truth

2008-09-17T09:46:00.006-04:00

(I know the title is gross. I have a point to make, I promise.)

Scott Adams, creator and author of cubicle champion Dilbert, on the results of a survey he recently conducted of economists, and the feedback he received from his readers:

Everything we know about human nature tells us that people are usually rational when the choices are relatively simple and the data is known. For example, your choice of a grocery store is probably a rational decision based on things you easily understand, such as distance, price, and selection. But tribe loyalty tends to take over when the data is less clear, such as choosing a religion.

You can read the survey/results here, and his Adams' reaction here.

So simple choice + known data = objective analysis, and obfuscated data forces people into tribe mentality. Explains a lot about how sleazy ads and ad hominem attacks play into the worldview of voters. Distraction makes the data less clear; the issues more marginalized. It's easier to cling to an ideal than it is to cling to facts; facts are static; ideals are volatile. Witness Bill O'Reilly's sudden 180 on how teenage pregnancy should be handled in society. So don't make the decision one based in fact; make it one based in ideals. If you're voting for ideals, and not a policy, then your candidate can never perform poorly.

I hate that Republicans choose to play this game instead of fighting out on the hard line. And the Democrats are no better; they play right into it, which is why they are so damn good at losing elections; they're telling a story which conflicts sharply with the worldview of the people they want to reach. They're trying to out-Republican the Republicans. Which is why we were all subjected to that godawful image of John Kerry in a wetsuit in 2004 (an image which I can't find a copy of, but rest assured, even if I could, I love you all too much to subject you to that.)

I believe it is the responsibility of the people on the edge; the people for whom the data is clear and unobfuscated, to do everything within their power to undermine these attempts at marginalization and keep the important things front and center. They are the sneezers of objectivity.

Who have you sneezed on today?

Step right up and greet the Mets

2008-09-15T12:44:00.000-04:00

(The title of this post has absolutely nothing to do with what it's actually about; I was simply thinking about how long the Mets can keep up this charade that they in fact won't have a season ending implosion.)

I was reading a piece in the Globe this morning called Seeing Through Obamanomics. And it's obviously a popular piece; it's the #1 most e-mailed story on Boston.com. for those of you too lazy to click, it’s basically a rip on Obama’s tax plan, a tax plan which I’m not particularly crazy about either.

But the thing that kills me about all this talk of and focus on taxes during this election is the fact that it trivializes the problem of the economy to a purely technical problem; that if we just shift the numbers in the right way, all this malaise will go away. Never mind the fact that two major banks went under last weekend, or the fact that the average American Household with at least one credit card has almost $10,000 in debt, you need those extra $50 in your paycheck, dammit!

Actually, no, you don’t.

This perspective misses the problem entirely, in my opinion. The problem isn't that you need that extra $50 in your pocket because you're living paycheck to paycheck, the problem is that you have grown accustomed to a lifestyle which your income cannot support. That’s why you’re living paycheck to paycheck.

And for those of you compelled to argue that you don't have a lifestyle, and you still are just scraping by, just can it. Can it right now, because you're lying to yourself. ‘Lifestyle’ is not synonymous with ‘glamorous.’ If you're not on welfare, you have a lifestyle. End of story. Do you have a nice watch? How about jewelry? Do you buy organic food? fancy cooking utensils? Pay $3 every morning for a cup of coffee? Do you smoke? Drink? Eat out at a restaurant? Drive when you could walk, or take Public Transportation? How many pairs of shoes do you have? How many cable/satellite TV channels? You have a lifestyle. And if you have credit card debt, then every time you spend cash on something, ANYTHING, you are spending borrowed money. And not only that, but you’re spending it on things which have no long-term value, and certainly will never INCREASE in value.

The way to get out from the paycheck-to-paycheck mindset is not to clamor for the right policy from a politician. McCain and Obama both have never and will never experience anything close to what you and I experience day in and day out, McCain especially; holding out for that next paycheck to get you over the hump; anxiously hoping your account will fatten in time to pay your cell phone bill; cringing when you hand the rent check to your landlord. They don’t even KNOW the problem is, so how can you reasonably expect them to know how to FIX the problem? They say they know what it is, but the sense of urgency on them is practically Nil. If their darling policies fail, and we get squeezed even tighter, well their $400,000/year salary, plus a $50,000 expense account, a $100,000 nontaxable travel account, and $19,000 entertainment account are all probably safe, don’t you think? (And for the record, only two presidents in the history of the office have not accepted the office’s salary; George Washington refused it, and JFK donated his to charity in its entirety.)

And what kills me even more is how wholly paycheck-to-paycheck people buy into this tax-anchored way of thinking. We eat it up, we love it!

Today, I will receive my first paycheck from my new job. Which means I am now officially living paycheck to paycheck. But I'll be damned if I place an ounce of my faith in John McCain OR Barack Obama to fix that problem; how can they? If I don't want to live paycheck to paycheck (and I don't know many people who do) then I should probably take the time to be realistic about minimizing my expenses and maximizing my worth. That’s another rant for another day, though.

The burden of ‘solving’ the problem of paycheck-to-paycheck living falls squarely on the shoulders of those who are in fact living paycheck-to-paycheck. This is not a popular opinion at all, which is why you will never hear a politician profess it, but it’s true. Because solving the problem for ourselves involves a shift in thinking; we need to adapt our lives to a new set of circumstances, which is something we would much rather not do. We would rather drive our country, the country to which every single one of us owes a tremendous amount, further and further into debt so we can all have that extra $50/week in our pockets. Because that takes the burden off of us; we’re no longer liable for coming up with a solution. Except now, our country is in debt and 40% of the population is STILL living paycheck to paycheck. And so, in our frustration, we turn on the leader we chose, because they didn’t solve the problem we entrusted them to solve, even though they were never in a position to actually solve it, and couldn’t solve it even if they were.

We’re not bad people for thinking this way; it’s a totally reasonable perspective to take. Living on a wire is scary business, and tax cuts provide an easy, convenient solution which requires no change on our part. We’d be stupid not to demand it, right?

It’s only when we realize that measures like tax cuts and ‘economic stimulus packages’ are merely changes in routine, and do not address the more embedded issue of American families living a lifestyle which is not commensurate with their income level, that we must demand more of our elected officials.

The urgency is there; everyone knows this is a problem. What we need is someone capable of moving it from the individual to the generalized. Someone unafraid to NOT shoulder the burden of the problems of the people, but who instead will empower the people to develop solutions for themselves, and give them the tools to do so.

Hiatus

2008-09-10T20:08:00.002-04:00

I haven't forgotten about this blog, not by a longshot. All I ever think about anymore is things I want to write about. I have more great ideas than I know what to do with and all I want is to share them with all of you.

But I haven't really hit my stride yet as a full-time working professional, and until I can find a good balance between sleep and work and manage my creative energy such that I have enough left when I come home from work to put out some quality stuff that's really worth reading, I've decided I'd be better off saying nothing. I hold myself to a very high standard, and I like to think that you all expect that of me. So I won't bore you with badly worded. poorly thought out writing. I'll just say I have some really great stuff in the oven, and when I find the balance in my life, which should be very soon now, I look forward to sharing them with you.

Operation Overland: Epilogue

2008-08-30T09:29:00.003-04:00

So I had every intention of writing a fair amount on a daily basis while I was down in Virginia, but I grossly underestimated just how much time visiting these sites would take, as well as how thoroughly exhausting an undertaking such as this would be. Every night I got back to my hotel room to write about the things I'd seen and experienced, and I was so exhausted I couldn't focus my attention long enough to write anything of any real significance. So now, at the end, while I sit in the Coffee Break Café in Quincy, I'll pen a few retrospective lines to give you an idea of how I spent my time down here, what I saw, and what I was feeling. I have plenty of pictures, which I hope to upload when I get my Mac Mini up and running.

The hotel I was staying at gave me one of those little complementary pads of paper, and I carried it with me the whole time was down there, scribbling down notes, observations, and reflections. Here are some of these, in no particular order:

Let's all take some time out of our busy days to thank Hillary Clinton for allowing her ambition to keep the democratic party divided and jeopardize Barack Obama's nomination. (DNC recap was on TV my first morning as I ate breakfast.)
There are a LOT of vanity plates in Virginia. Like, so many to the point of being sad. And some of them are really lame.
Contrary to what Leann says, Virginia is very much the south. Maybe not geographically, but certainly culturally. With that in mind...
There are fast food restaurants EVERYWHERE in Virginia. Like, more than I ever thought possible. There is literally a fast food joint on every corner. Strip malls of nothing but fast food restaurants. It's insane. People in New England like to pontificate about Americans being overweight. When you drive down the Jeff Davis into Richmond, it's not hard to see why. The stuff is *everywhere*.
Religion is everywhere too. I have never seen so many churches as I saw in Virginia. There were five (five!) evangelical radio stations broadcasting in the Fredericksburg area. Speaking of religion...
I wore my Zahal shirt my last day in town, and maybe it's all in my head, but it felt like I got a lot of funny looks. Perhaps people down south don't care much for Jewish folks?
I've never been a big fan of Eminent Domain, but visiting these battlefields, and seeing just how threatened they are by private development has at the very lest caused me to reconsider my stance on the practice. Not saying I'm changing my mind, merely that I'm reconsidering my position.
I cannot say enough good things about the National Park Service Rangers who staff and maintain the grounds for people like me. Theirs is a thankless job, but the good they do is immeasurable.
My rental car was the Toyota Yaris. Never have I had such a love/hate relationship with a moving vehicle.
Virginia is definitely McCain country. Those little McCain bumper stickers were everywhere.
I did not see as many confederate flags as I'd hoped. Although one home was flying the original Stars and Bars, which was kinda cool. My favorite occurrence was a bumper sticker bearing the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia with the slogan "I'd rather be hunting Yankees."

So that's all the random stuff I wrote down. I'll talk more about exactly what I dd with my time in Fredericksburg in a forthcoming entry.

Operation Overland: Precursor to a Journey

2008-08-26T17:02:00.004-04:00

I just got settled into my hotel room here in Fredericksburg. I wrote this blog entry while on the train, but there was no WiFi so I couldn't post it. Just pretend I posted this at like 8 in the morning today.

A couple of people have asked me why I have chosen with my last few weeks as a man truly bound by nothing to traverse the countryside of Northern Virginia, as opposed to a more exotic and glamorous destination, such as Europe. And since this trip is not merely a random manifestation of a subconscious desire to travel to an arbitrary destination, and is the deliberate product of no small amount of contemplation and planning, I feel compelled to respond to these inquiries in a public forum, in the hopes that other might read my justification for leaving, and perhaps be inspired to undertake a journey of their own.

There is a growing infatuation among Americans, especially Americans in my generation, with the lifestyle and culture of Europe; Christian Lander satirizes this love affair (predominantly caucasian) American Twentysomethings have with Europe in his blog, Stuff White People Like. I suspect this is influenced in no small part by media glamorizing European culture and society; juxtaposing it with American mores and making it appear different and exotic and foreign, in stark comparison to our culture, which is portrayed as dogmatic, polarized, and uninspiring. People my age love to make assertions such as, 'Europe is so much better than America.' 'There is so much more to see, so much more to do' they say. I have even heard people go so far as to say, 'I'm ashamed to be an American.' America, in their eyes, is a boring institution. I have no doubt that perhaps a lot of those things said regarding European society are true, that it is fun and exciting and different. But I think before I can pass judgment on and condemn my own country, perhaps some due diligence is in order.

I believe very strongly that history plays an integral role in establishing the identity of any country or society, and, to truly gain perspective on a society, one must trace its lineage through its history. I also believe very strongly that one cannot truly appreciate a foreign culture until one has a complete picture of their own, because beauty without perspective is not really beauty, it's an elaborate illusion; a lie we choose to tell ourselves. That is to say, I cannot in good faith experience a foreign lifestyle until I can give some meaning to my own; where it came from, and how it came to be what it is, and how that informs where it is headed. I'm sure the Eiffel Tower is a beautiful sight, yes. But can I confidently assert that it is more beautiful than what may very well be sitting in my backyard, as so many of my peers have done? Not without due diligence I can't.

It is this philosophy which has sparked my interest in the American Civil War, as I believe it is perhaps the second most clarifying chain of events in the history of the country all of us call home; the first of course, being the American Revolution, another war which has always fascinated me.

So I have set out on this journey into the hallowed past of the country I, and most of you reading this, call home. People here in New England like to condemn overtly patriotic thought and language; they see it as being representative of a dogmatic loyalty to a culture and society they believe is imposing and bullyish; they refer to this sentiment as 'Republican.' Whether or not this sentiment is accurate or not is not why I am penning these lines. I am suggesting, however, that before we condemn our country and all that it stands for, before we glamorize and idolize a foreign culture, we would be wise to take a closer look at exactly WHAT it is that OUR country stands for; take a look inside the furnace in which our values were forged, and perhaps, take some time out of our lives to see the glorious and indescribable beauty which resides right here; a beauty that perhaps we often overlook. As I look out my window right now, I see a vast, beautiful green field. Near the tracks here there appear to be a number of small pools filled with dark grey, foamy water. Each pool has some kind of rotor in the middle, churning the water. What they are doing, I haven't the slightest idea. And I may never know. But it is unlike anything I have ever seen in my life, and in its own inimitable way, is beautiful.

I do intend to travel to Europe some day, and it is my sincerest hope that it is as beautiful as everyone has led me to believe it is. But before I do that, I think I'll take in some domestic majesty, in the hopes that the foreign will be that much more meaningful.

...That, and the fact that this trip cost me about a quarter of what a trip to Europe would cost.

Operation Overland

2008-08-23T16:12:00.004-04:00

Next week I'm going to be taking a 5 day-long trip down to Northern Virginia to visit some battlefields from the American Civil War. My plan is to traverse the part of Virginia where Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia battled Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac in the summer of 1864. This campaign, dubbed the Overland Campaign, marked the first time during the American Civil War when a Union General refused to retreat from Lee's much smaller, yet very tenacious army.

In honor of this, I have dubbed my own personal campaign through the heart of Virginia 'Operation Overland.'

The Overland Campaign is important for a number of reasons. From the perspective of military history, the Overland Campaign is important because it is the first time we see opposing armies creating static entrenchments from which to fight their opponents; the Overland Campaign, and the subsequent siege of Petersburg, were the forerunners of the Trench Warfare which characterized World War I. It is a horrific, bloody way to conduct war, which is already a most sanguinary prospect in and of itself. Within the scope of just the Civil War, it marks the first sustained offensive effort (read: more than one battle) against General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia in three years of bloody war.

I cannot tell you how excited I am to stand upon ground where the identity of this country was forged; where American lifted up rifle against American; where this country truly became one by tearing itself apart.

I will blog about this trip here as best I can, and take as many pictures as my camera will allow. You can follow just my trip updates by using the 'Operation Overland' tag. I may also make the occasional tweet about it; you can follow my updates on Twitter in the sidebar on the left.

I hope you'll follow me on this journey into the identity of the nation we all call home.

"Sorry, that's our policy"

2008-08-22T11:25:00.003-04:00

If there's one thing that makes me angry, it's bad customer service. And bad customer service representatives. I've written a lot on here about my opinions regarding customer service because I feel, as someone entering the service industry, it is so important for me to be clear on what I believe, and what I find to be exceptional, so that I might be fortunate enough to deliver that to other people with whom I interact.

But there is one thing that burns me in a way that even the worst customer service can't touch. And surprisingly, they're not that far apart.

Bad policy trumps bad service every time.

Say it with me: Bad policy trumps bad service every time.

Say it again. Say it out loud. For the love of all that is holy, say it a hundred times.

Bad policy is a symptom of a broken system. And if you're system is broken, you're done. End of story. I (the customer) am long gone, and am busy telling my friends how broken your system is.

I've always believed that the worst thing a customer service representative can say to a customer is the title of this blog entry. But the catch here is that sometimes, the policy is flexible. Fees and add-ons can be negotiated (see my riffs on add-ons here.) Service can be expedited. Exceptions can be made.

When you have a customer-oriented policy that has no room for exception built into it, I believe that policy, and thus, the system it defines, is broken.

The event which sparked this tirade of mine is AT&T wireless' text message plans. The most basic plan is $5 for 200 text messages, which is really 100 messages when we remember that text messaging has now become a legitimate medium for discourse. This is, in my opinion, an unreasonable policy, but not nearly as unreasonable as what comes next.

The next step up from this plan is 1,500 text messages for $15.

If you are AT&T wireless, how on earth do you justify this ridiculous policy to your customers?

This infuriates me in a way I'm not comfortable discussing in an open forum. And I'm not the only one. There's really no excuse for a policy like this, and I feel for all the CSR's who have to defend it to angry customers like myself with the tepid response 'Sorry, that's our policy.'

People tell me I'm good with metaphors

2008-08-21T10:05:00.006-04:00

This is why I need something to occupy my time: When I get bored I start reading things and opening my mouth.

Let's say a guy is sick; he can't stop coughing up blood. What does he do? Your answer would be probably be to go to a doctor. So he goes to the doctor and says, 'I'm sick. Make me better' Doctor says, 'Sure. Let me run some tests and we'll figure out what's wrong and we'll patch it right up.' This is, by any measurable standard, a typical and reasonable response. This is, as far as I can tell, how medicine works. Find the problem, fix it.

Now let's say, for the sake of this discussion, that there was no such thing as health insurance. Everyone pays all their medical bills out of pocket. Our patient's next question could reasonably be,'Well how much are the tests going to cost?' To which the doctor replies, 'Well, depends on how many we have to run. Could be one, could be ten.' Clearly the patient's symptoms narrow down the possible causes, but the human body is a funny thing, and all sorts of problems can present in all sorts of ways, as anyone who watches 'House' knows.

So our patient, like most of us, isn't exactly rich in pocket; he can't afford to write a blank check in exchange for a clean bill of health. So he says to the doctor, 'I can't afford too many tests. Just make me better.' Well, any sane doctor who's taken the Hippocratic Oath isn't going to blindly begin treatment without having any idea what's wrong with the patient, so he tells our patient, 'I can't treat you if I don't know what you have; treatment could kill you.' Our patient calmly replies, 'Well, I'm sorry, but I just don't have the time or the money for all these tests. Just give me something to take away my pain, and let me be on my way.'

Before I continue this little parable of mine, here is where I got the inspiration from it. Money quote, emphasis added is mine:

I'm concerned that a growing number of voters in this country simply don't get it. They are caught up in a fervor they can't explain, and calling it "change".

Change what?, I ask.

Well, we're going to change America , they say.

In what way?, I query.

We want someone new and fresh in the White House, they exclaim.

So, someone who's not a politician?, I press.

Uh, well, no, we just want a lot of stuff changed, so we're voting for Obama, they state.

So the current system, the system of freedom and democracy that has enabled a man to grow up in this great country, get a fine education, raise incredible amounts of money and dominate the news and win his party's nomination for the White House - that system's all wrong?

No, no, that part of the system's okay - we just need a lot of change.

And so it goes. "Change we can believe in." Quite frankly, I don't believe that vague proclamations of change hold any promise for me. In recent months, I've been asking virtually everyone I encounter how they're voting. I live in Illinois , so most folks tell me they're voting for Barack Obama. But no one can really tell me why - only that he's going to change a lot of stuff. Change, change, change.

I have yet to find one single person who can tell me distinctly and convincingly why this man is qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation on earth - other than the fact that he claims he's going to implement a lot of change.

We've all seen the emails about Obama's genealogy, his upbringing, his Muslim background, and his church affiliations. Let's ignore this for a moment. Put it all aside. Then ask yourself, what qualifies this man to be my president? That he's a brilliant orator and talks about change?

CHANGE WHAT?

Asking what you're going to change is like asking what your treatment is going to be when you go to the doctor; you don't know until you know what's wrong.

My story about the patient in the doctor's office was inspired by the author of this missive. The patient is America (in case you didn't already know). This man seems to either a) believe nothing in wrong with the current landscape of the country, in which case he doesn't even need to go to the doctor, or b) Thinks he already knows the answer to what's wrong, and just wants treatment, or c) Doesn't care, and just wants his discomfort to go away. With that in mind, let's continue:

The doctor insists he can't/won't treat the patient unless he knows what's wrong. So the patient relents, and agrees to one, and only one test: a CT scan.

So the patient has the scan, and it reveals that the patient has Stage II small cell lung cancer. Turns out, our patient is a heavy smoker. So the doctor delivers the news to the patient; you have cancer. It's advanced. If we don't begin treatment now, you'll probably die. Patient inquires about the prognosis.

Our doctor tells our patient that the first thing he has to do is stop smoking. Right now. Then comes chemotherapy. You'll feel weak, and it'll probably hurt. It's a long shot, and it's not going to be easy, but anything less than total commitment means a likely death.

How do you think the patient would react? It's a big change to undergo, but what's the alternative? To perish from the earth?

The patient doesn't want to hear that he's going to have to change his habits, and endure a long, painful course of treatment. But that's what needs to happen if you want to live, says the doctor.

Well, the patient is hearing none of that. He decides he wants a second opinion. So he goes to another doctor. This new doctor takes a look at the test results and says 'don't worry, you'll be fine. I'll take care of you.' 'Is it cancer?' the patient asks. 'Let's make you comfortable. Don't fret.' is the doctor's reply. So our patient dies a quiet, painless death, hooked up to a nice morphine drip, a cigarette still dangling from his smiling lips.

No change. No pain. Just death. The doctor did exactly what the patient asked; he took away his pain.

Which doctor would you rather have?

Ok, enough of me opening my mouth. I'm going to price hockey gear.

The Power of the Middle

2008-08-21T09:15:00.003-04:00

As an ardent fan of the concept of Adaptive Leadership, it thrills me to see Barack Obama in the running for the office of President of the United States. He is as capable an exerciser of leadership I can ever recall in my lifetime. Obama focuses attention on the issues, does not allow himself to be sidelined or marginalized, and reminds all of us that the onus is on US, the citizens of America, to embody the change we wish to see in our government. Obama believes in pacing the work, and has never claimed to have all the answers. I would be shocked if he wasn't familiar with the tenets of Adaptive Leadership; his style embodies them so wholly.

So it disappoints me greatly to see political ads from Obama's people aimed directly at discrediting his competitor, John McCain. This sort of mudslinging has become the status quo over the past 12 or so years in the political landscape, but if there's one thing capable exercisers of leadership are good at doing, it is challenging, and getting us to challenge, the status quo. It is no surprise when these ads come from McCain; I have long since acquiesced that the meaning of the word 'Republican' has shifted in my lifetime, a shift which I doubt will ever be reversed. 'Republican' used to stand for small government. Contemporary Republicanism in absolutely no way, shape, or form resembles that indoctrination. But that is another rant for another time. Back to Obama's mudslinging.

What upsets me about these ads is not that Obama is doing them, although that is troubling. What is more troubling, and what should be troubling you, the reader of this blog, is that this sort of name-calling is the status quo because it works. This sort of appeal is effective. What this means for you as an American Citizen is that these sort of attempts at marginalization appeal to people you ride the bus with. Or eat lunch with. Or stand in line behind at the coffee shop.

Now you as an individual may think perhaps you are able to see beyond the diversion, and perhaps you are; I'm not in any position to say. But there are people who don't. They chose to believe the story told to them by political marketers (and what are politicians if not the marketers of policy?) And these are the people we all should be very, very afraid of.

The U.S. has about 304 million people. Most of them reside in California or Texas. Now we may be able to induce and generalize the political leanings of these two sub-populations, and we can perhaps reasonably do the same for people up here in New England and in the Southeast. I realize I'm generalizing here; it's deliberate and it aids me in making my point.

So for general purposes, we have party lines drawn over about... 90% of the U.S.

Now here's the bombshell: What about the last 10%?

If we were to graph the political leanings of the U.S. population, I believe it would probably resemble a bell curve, with the 90% I was just talking to out on the edges, and the apocryphal 10% in the middle.

I believe that it is this 10% who REALLY decides who is going to lead our country every four years; Everyone else more or less knows where they stand. These 30 million or so people illustrate the power of the middle. It is at these people that Obama's (and McCain's too, I suppose) political ads are aimed.

Think about it. 10% deciding the fate for all of us. If we can generalize just a bit more, these 10% are probably relatively uneducated, unenlightened, not terribly wealthy, and susceptible to being influenced. Their worldview is most likely narrow, and their actions are informed and dictated by short-term gains and losses. Contemporary Republicans have exploited this for years by reminding people living paycheck to paycheck that a vote for a Democrat is a vote for higher taxes. It's the only reason Romney won the governorship here in Massachusetts. McCain is doing it as we speak. Meanwhile, affluent people in Weston and Wellesley get more free money than they know what to do with.

It seemed to me in the beginning that perhaps Obama could overcome this obstacle. He had a message, and it was one which could easily spread. This is never more evident then when you look at where Obama was at the beginning of the Democratic race and where he is now; he is where he is because he had a message which spread. I believed initially that perhaps Obama could 'cross the chasm' without compromising his image or his message. Apparently, I was wrong. Obama had to change his image and his worldview to reach the people he needs to be able to reach to win. He had to debase himself by referring to George Bush as "John McCain's President," a move which I think was boneheaded by any standard, regardless of whether or not you think it's accurate. I believe it should cause all of us, regardless of where we stand politically, some concern that this is/was the case.

Being out on the edges is only good when you can spread to the middle. Mike Huckabee couldn't do it. Hillary could, and in many ways did, but then proceeded to throw all that away by undermining the intelligence of the people she needed to stay there, which is actually an interesting riff in and of itself.

So Obama has a message which really gets people like me going. But those 30 million eyes and ears in the middle don't get it. So instead of taking the time to get the people out on the edges to help people in the middle, he goes about muddling his image, compromising his message, and committing blunder after blunder. Ever notice how Obama didn't really run into difficulty with his message and his image until it became obvious he was going to be the Democratic nominee? Until then, his message was strong enough and viral enough to reach the people it needed to reach. Now it isn't. And I'm not lamenting that, I'm merely pointing out the fact that no candidate, Republican or Democrat, can win the Presidency of this country without compromising their message. And it's all because of those people in the middle.

And that is what should scare all of us.

And now, A rant which is too long for Twitter:

2008-08-20T09:32:00.005-04:00

If one more goddamn hipster doofus wearing big noise-canceling headphones and not paying attention while riding a fixie down the MIDDLE of a two-lane road shoots daggers at me when I honk at him to get out of the way of my two-ton automobile, I swear I am going to cut him off and stop short so he runs into the back of my car.

We are supposed to share the road, you arrogant jerk. Stop riding on it like you own it and then get all annoyed when someone controlling a machine which can cripple you has to honk to avoid hitting you because you can't be bothered to look behind you, or heaven forbid, take your headphones off.

I'm not usually one to rant and get really frustrated about little things*, but the conduct of bikers in this city is elitist and arrogant at best, and flat-out dangerous at worst. Granted, I don't think Bostonian motorists help by having the patience of five year-olds, but if you honestly need someone to tell you that riding a bike down the middle of a street with fast-moving cars while both not wearing a helmet and simultaneously wearing a device designed to block out external noise is a really bad and dangerous idea, then maybe you shouldn't be allowed to own a bike.

_{*hahahahahahahahahahahahaha}

I think it, and he writes it!

2008-08-09T11:15:00.006-04:00

I have a post currently in queue that I've been working on for a while, called '1 vs. 100.' It's a riff about breaking the 'rules' to deliver an exceptional customer service experience, and how, if you're lucky, the fact that you 'broke' the 'rules' will make people feel so good that they'll tell their friends. But then of course you have a situation where you (or your company, product, service, etc.) gain a reputation for being a 'rule breaker,' and the 'rule' becomes harder to 'enforce.' (Did I mention I hate people who type in quotes a lot? Man that's annoying, huh?)

I got the idea for this riff when I was walking by a pharmacy retailer I used to work for, and I was reminded of all the customers who used to bang on the door after we'd closed because they 'needed to grab one thing real quick.' We faced a conundrum; do we let the customer in, or don't we? If we let them in they feel great, sure, but we broke the rules to provide that level or service. If the customer then goes and tells their friends, might perhaps their friend come banging on our door at 10:03, with the expectation that he/she will be let in? Next week we might have a hundred people banging on our doors. All because we let that one person in.

I was reminded of this problem again the other day when I was looking to buy a new phone and saw that the activation fee on the phone I wanted was $36 if you were a new customer, but only $20 if you already had a contract with the provider. This irked me, and I felt compelled to write about it, stating that I would demand the lower activation fee. I've accepted that activation fees are simply a necessary evil and no amount of complaining seems to make them go away. If enough people believe a lie, it becomes the truth, I suppose. Does anyone have any stories about getting a service provider to flat-out waive activation fees? I've love to hear it.

Anyways, imagine the extreme levels of vindication I felt when Seth Godin published this little nugget in his blog this morning. Money quote:

The problem with charging $95 to deliver a $10,000 purchase is that all the buyer remembers is the indignity of the add on.

Here's my advice: have all the add ons you want. But waive them early and often. Waive the charges for great customers or for customers that make a face or just because it's Tuesday.

As a customer, nothing irritates me more than add-on fees, and they really can ruin the whole experience for me. Apple makes insane profits on BTO hardware add-ons, and I hate them for it. And it's the sole reason John Siracusa's apocryphal xMac will never see the light of day.

Reflections on Ramírez

2008-08-01T08:13:00.004-04:00

I don't think I can in good faith criticize other people's reaction to the trading of Manny Ramirez without at least making my perspective on the matter public. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think I can accurately sum up why I feel Ramirez had to go with a picture far better than any number of words:

This picture was taken in the second inning of a 4-2 Red Sox loss to the Anaheim, California Angels of Los Angeles via Anaheim in California (yes, it's a joke). Youkilis has just hit a two-run homer to put the Red Sox on top 2-0. Look at the look in Youk's eyes as Manny goes to give him a high five. I think that look says more than I ever could about why Manny Ramirez leaving Boston had gone from possible to necessary.

The game in which this picture was taken was the second game after the All-Star break. My opinion is, when you are in the heat of a pennant race, and you hit a go-ahead home run against a team which soundly spanked you the night before (an 11-3 loss), the look on your face should in no way resemble the look on Youk's face in this picture. Clearly, there are emotions coming into play with these men in Red which have nothing to do with baseball, the sport they are paid to play.

For the record, I am not updet that Ramirez left. I think he had to go; it was a matter of necessity. I will miss him greatly, as both a baseball fan and a Red Sox fan. He is a joy to watch when he is playing well, and the Red Sox are certainly a less offensive team now that he is gone. He has brought two championships in four years to our beloved ballclub, and for that we should always keep a special place in our hearts and our minds for Manny.

What upsets me is that the situation degenerated to a point where Ramirez's departure became a necessity.

The Red Sox under Theo Epstein have always seemed ot be able to deal with malcontent ballplayers internally, and dump ones who simply cannot be brought back into the fold. It was a shame they couldn't resolve things with Manny. We may never know exactly what is or was going through Manny's head over the past month, but I think the reality of the situation is this: Happy ballplayers, professional ballplayers, don't act like Manny Ramirez acted. Contract year or not, I think Manny is smart enough to know that being a malcontent is not the way to get what you want in this town and with this organization (ref: Mike Lowell, the consummate professional baseball player).

Senior Thesis Log #22: End in Sight

2008-07-29T19:03:00.004-04:00

Things have been going much, much, much better since last Sunday, when I nearly lost my data. I was fortunate in that I lost only two weeks or so worth of work, and it was work which was not too difficult to make up. However, the lost time, in addition to some other things, has forced me to rearrange my project somewhat (yet again).

I'm now using OpenSSL to generate both keys and CSR's, s the whole process is now being done locally via a shell script as opposed to the web. This deviates slightly from what I'd initially envisioned, but the attempt was without a doubt a very valuable learning experience, so if for no other reason, I'm glad I attempted it, even if it means my grade suffers slightly.

The shell script now successfully generates two keys, public and private, and dumps out a CSR based on those keys. Here it is:

#!/bin/bash

#first thing we need to do is generate some keys. we'll put them in a PKI directory the user's home directory
cd ~
mkdir pki
cd pki

#Next, let's get a new private key. We want to be beefy, but not too beefy. 1024 should be plenty
openssl genrsa -out privkey.pem 1024

#Public key from private:
openssl rsa -in privkey.pem -pubout -out pubkey.pem

#now to get a CSR
openssl req -new -key privkey.pem -out csr.pem

After generating the necessary keys and request, the user then mails the CSR off to the CA (in this case, my gmail address). I sign it, and send the signed certificate back to the user. After placing the certificate in the LDAP, the user is ready to use the PKI by connecting to the LDAP and selecting a user with a certificate.

I think tomorrow I'll shave off this scruff I've been nursing... I told myself I wouldn't shave until my project is finished. I just need to figure out how and what I'm going to demo and I'm home free.

Friendly Reminders

2008-07-27T14:09:00.009-04:00

Here are a few things I'd like to remind you, the readers of my blog, of. Regardless of who you are, what you do, where you work, how old you are, what you believe, how much money you make, or what color your socks are. You will find both of these suppositions to be unilaterally true:

Nobody cares about you.

It's true. They don't. It doesn't matter if you're the janitor, the person who answers the phones, the executive assistant to the regional director of managerial leadership or the CEO of the wealthiest company in the world. People could care less about you, what you do, what you say, what you think, or who you are. What they do care about, however, is themselves. I care about me, myself, and I. We are a society of big fat narcissists. And that's okay. But it is what it is. I cannot tell you how many people I know, good close friends of mine, who think that, whatever it is they're saying, doing, or thinking, is about them. It's not about you. It never was, it never is, and it never will be. The sooner you come to this realization, the better. 'What have you done for me lately?' should be the motto of our society. If you are a whiner, weeper, downer, complainer, one-upper or sycophant, you have lots work to do. Think I'm wrong? See where those characteristics gets you (Hint: I'm betting my money on 'marginalized'). If you are talking to hear yourself talk then you are irrelevant. No one is listening, no one is caring. You may think you have the greatest idea ever. I don't care. What it's gonna do for me is all I care about. Looking for a job? No one cares how great you are. No one. All they care about is what you're going to do for them. I think everyone my age is guilty of this trespass, myself included. When we begin to think it's about us, we think we are in control; we think we know. Which brings me to my next reminder...
You are not as smart as you think you are.

Doesn't matter who you are or what you do. However smart you think you are, the absolute smartest you can actually be is half of that. Usually less. Doesn't matter if you invented the wheel. You may be the expert. People might call you a 'guru;' doesn't matter. Someone out there gets it better than you do. And if they don't, then they'll find a way to use it which you didn't expect. They now understand it in a way you don't. Whatever you think you know, someone knows it better than you. This nugget is especially hard to stomach because we (humans, Americans, whatever) like to be right so much. And it's even harder for people my age, because we've gotten USED to being right. I am especially guilty of this. Old habits die hard. The change isn't an easy one, but it's an incredibly important one. Get ahead of it while you still can; while people are still listening.

The people I look up to most and the people I go to when I need help are the ones who a) know and understand that my request is not about them, and b) The answer I need might not be the one they know. I didn't ask you for help to hear you talk about whatever it is I asked you about. If it isn't going to help me, it's white noise. And what's good for the goose is not always good for the gander (I don't know who coined this phrase, but I wish they'd though of something less... weird). I need a solution to fit MY needs, not YOUR knowledge.

As engineers and technologists, this applies to us more than most. We harbor delusions that a) our 'stuff,' whatever it is, is the bomb, and b) we understand it better than you do. We are almost always, without question, wrong on both counts. So instead of finding people to listen to whatever it is you have to say, we'd all be better off if we spent our time thinking of something to say that the people listening to us WANT to hear. And I don't mean 'want to hear' in the sense that people should be placated, I mean we should listen to where a person is coming from, and let that frame our approach to the dialogue. Doesn't matter so much if you don't like it, or think it's wrong; what matters is the person listening.

My mother used to tell me that God gave me two ears and one mouth because he wanted me to listen twice as much as I spoke. I wish I could remember to take that lesson to heart every day.

In closing, if you're an older person reading this, and you think that I'm wrong because I'm 22, just a kid, and I don't know anything, then you're probably right. But you're also definitely wrong. For the reasons why you're wrong, see here.

Senior Thesis Log #21: Freaking out

2008-07-27T10:38:00.004-04:00

The Firefox crash I had in class the other day, and the subsequent ones I had trying to figure out why Firefox is/was crashing have corrupted the filesystem in my VM.

Fortunately, I use a Mac (suck it, Pandi) and I have Time Machine backups of my VM. It's possible that these backups are backups of a corrupted system as well, but they should be functional enough at least for me to get my work (specifically, the LDAP) evacuated, so I can keep working on a fresh install.

Senior Thesis Log #20: More progress

2008-07-27T09:54:00.003-04:00

OpenSSL's key generating abilities is making tying this project together easier than I ever though possible. In fact, I wish I'd discovered it sooner. I still think I won't have enough time to properly implement a working web interface; generating the keys over the web using either tool (GPG or OpenSSL) is (and probably always was) simply too complex to properly implement in the time I had, but now I can write a shell script to interface directly with OpenSSL, and handle both key generation and CSR generation in one interface. The last remaining issue (which only becomes an issue if I want to automate the process) is mailing the CSR off to the CA (in this case, the CA is my GMail address.)

The other 'issue' I'm having is getting the signed certificates back into the LDAP. This is only an issue because Firefox on my VM is behaving in a way that no sane application should behave (last time it got so slow it slowed my host OS to a crawl as well, and I had to cold boot. I was furious, to say the least.) Right now, a local solution will suffice; I just need a way to move the file from my Mac to the VM. I'm hoping to logistically figure this one out today.

Senior Thesis Log #19: (Another) Breakthrough

2008-07-26T16:00:00.002-04:00

I can generate RSA keys using OpenSSL, the same tool I use to sign and generate CSR's, which means I can do everything with one tool now.

There's hope for this yet!

Rubin on the Run

2008-07-25T15:32:00.007-04:00

If you're wondering what the single greatest running playlist looks like, it's something like this:

'The First Single' by The Format
'The Warrior's Code' by Dropkick Murphys
'Kill The Lights' by David Usher
'The Middle' by Jimmy Eat World (I'll say it before, and I'll say it again: it is imposible for this song to get old. It's just too damn good.)
'She Wants to Be Alone' by Ingram Hill
'Kick Start my Heart' by Motley Crue
'Tennessee' by Tim Blane
'Misery Business' by Paramore
'99 Problems' by Jay-Z
'Rescue' by Eve 6

Senior Thesis Log #18: Reflection and Projection

2008-07-25T08:31:00.000-04:00

I feel like the past few weeks have been wrought with frustration, which I think is due in large part to the essential complexity of the work I'm trying to do and the environment in which I am doing it.

Working in a virtual environment is rarely, if ever, as simple as working in a production environment. I've had to negotiate problems with the virtual network card and virtual server not behaving like a 'real' server would, and a virtual machine behaving differently depending on the state of the host machine.

More importantly, however, I've had to deal with the logistical difficulty of using platforms and programs which are traditionally used locally to work over the web. If I had to pinpoint the time where this project became as logistically complex as it is now, it would have been the decision to put the interface in a webpage. I think that, while that sort of interface is more in line with ultimately what a PKI *should* be, the time required to successfully implement that sort of interface is more than I have.

With that in mind, I'm going to shift my focus towards a more self-contained solution, as this allows me to not only make good on my commitment to deliver a high-quality working product, but will eliminate a lot of the logistical complexity this project has accumulated.

Purchasing vs. Permission

2008-07-23T13:25:00.004-04:00

I recently placed an order for the office I work at for some pens to promote a new leadership program we were/are working on. Part of the order process is e-mail correspondence with a customer service representative about things like proofs, pricing, billing and shipping.

I placed the order about 3 weeks ago. Today I received an email from the 'President' of the promotional company (even though the e-mail it came from was a 'donotreply' email address, nice touch) With the following:

'To welcome you into our family, you'll be getting a special Blue Box(R) in the mail within the next 2 weeks. The box is literally blue and tucked inside you'll find some nifty free samples. It's the first of many Blue Boxes you'll receive throughout the year as a 4imprint customer.

First off, I don't think you have a trademark on the phrase 'Blue Box,' so to act as if you do is both misleading and probably illegal in some way (Disclaimer: IANAL). Secondly, (and this is my real point) just because I've done business with you in the past does not give you permission to talk to me and send me stuff. When I was advising Wentworth's Events Board, I received countless mailings addressed to the person who held the role before me because permission was a) not granted, b) not sustained, and c) hard to revoke. This is not only bad marketing, but bad customer service. Permission should be, amongst other things:

Explicitly asked for; 'Do I have your permission to send you this box of stuff?'
Referenced when exercised; 'we're sending you this box of stuff because you've given us permission to.'
Easily revoked; 'If you'd no longer like to receive boxes of stuff from us, click here.'

It's worth the good faith you get in return to explicitly ask for permission, as opposed to assuming it comes with a transaction.

Leading Off

2008-07-21T08:15:00.004-04:00

The Red Sox have an interesting problem in the twosome of Dustin Pedrioa and Jacoby Ellsbury.

In Ellsbury they have perhaps the best baserunner since Ricky Henderson. Even in his youth, he's displayed a lot of smarts on the basepaths, a skill which will only improve as he learns to better read and anticipate pitchouts, which have been his Achille's Heel thus far when it comes to swiping bags.

However, his prowess while on base is matched, if not surpassed, by a baffling lack of control at the plate. In short, he strikes out. A lot. He swings at bad pitches. A lot. And it seems like he's walking a lot less.

Immediately following him in the batting order, we have Dustin 'The Elf' Pedroia, who is in an all out dogfight with Texas two-bagger Ian Kinsler for the honor of 'most badass 2B in Baseball' (Kinsler is also in a dogfight with Kevin Youkilis for the honor of 'most badass Jewish guy in Baseball'). Pedroia is producing at a torrid pace (he was 3-4 yesterday in a 5-3 loss against the Halos. 3-4!) at a time when J.D. Drew has regressed back to the mean. However, because of his... stature, Pedroia is not the same threat while on base as Ellsbury (only 9 stolen bases on the year, compared to Ellsbury's whopping 35).

Pedroia's OBP is not significantly higher than Ellsbury's (.365 vs. .332), but his OPS is considerably higher (Pedroia is.832; Ellsbury is .695) So while the two get on base about the same, Pedroia is grinding out more bases than Ellsbury when he *does* get on. Combined with Pedroia's ridiculous production (.322 BA; .467 Slugging) and the fact that the purpose of the Leadoff man is to get himself on base, it presents a very strong case for Dustin Pedroia being the Sox leadoff man going into the second half. If you put Youk in the number two spot behind him, (.314 BA/.380 OBP/.562 SLG) and follow those two with Papi, Manny, and Mikey, you have a lineup whose badass-ness I cannot quantify.

These forecasts come with a few caveats, however. The two big ones being Youk's second half production, and Ellsbury's plate discipline.

Youk's Second Half Production: Youk has been notoriously streaky in the second half of the season; if he can't continue to hit consistently for average, putting him behind a hit machine like Pedroia might not work (or at least not as well). One option is J.D. Drew, who is still hitting well, albeit more like a human and less like a baseball god. But putting him in the top half of the lineup leaves the bottom half completely void of consistent production (Lugo? Tek? Crisp?) No, I think Drew would be a real asset in the 6th or 7th spot, someone to get on base, get hits, and push the Sox back around to the top of the order.
Ellsbury's Plate Discipline: If Ellsbury can hone his eye, then this whole argument becomes moot, because he'll be swinging at the right pitches and walking more. If Ellsbury can get on base more, then keeping Pedroia behind him means a single is just a good as a double or a triple, and a double is almost always an RBI. This sort of thing takes time though, and with the Rays and the Yankees playing like they're playing, time is a luxury the Red Sox may not have.

Faith inverted

2008-07-19T13:17:00.002-04:00

We as humans often talk about our faith in God. We say things like, 'God will show us the way,' 'it is in God's hands now,' and 'God willing.'

Perhaps we're looking at this relationship wrong. Perhaps it is God who has faith in us; faith that we, the sentient creatures God has fashioned, can and will put the tools which we have been given to good and proper use.

Yet another Adapive Marketing failure

2008-07-19T12:23:00.001-04:00

From An article in yesterday's Globe on textbook piracy. Emphasis added is mine:

A 2007 graduate of the University of Texas who requested anonymity said he routinely downloaded pirated copies during his four years at college. "Textbooks were massively overpriced," said the student, who graduated with degrees in anthropology and English. He added that many books were rarely or never used in class. "All of these things . . . lead me to pirate textbooks off the Internet whenever possible," he said, adding that he continues to download illegally copied books.

McCoyd said publishers have begun offering less expensive paperback versions of some titles, and are themselves selling many legal electronic editions, or e-books, over the Internet. For instance, McGraw Hill Cos., a major textbook vendor, offers most of its titles in electronic form, at lower prices than printed editions. A McGraw Hill physics textbook that costs $135 in hardcover can be downloaded for $80 at the company's online retail store.

Here is a failure that in my opinion puts the music industry's failure to harness the power of the Internet and the sharing of music to shame: here you have an audience that HAS to purchase your product. HAS TO. I cannot emphasize that point enough. Here is a constituency which is hamstrung if they don't invest in your product. I cannot think of a single industry where this is not the ideal customer base. Not only do they have to, but in many cases, they actually WANT to; some people enjoy textbooks. Imagine that. An audience which HAS to purchase your product, with a sizable contingency which WANTS to purchase your product.

The great thing about the Internet is that it's a great equalizer. One of the reasons for this is it eliminates overhead, so even the little guy has a chance to compete. The overhead for an electronic book is practically ZERO. That idea is the linchpin in the success story of the Amazon Kindle; that you buy one device, and the books cost next to nothing. You can take them with you wherever you want; the rules of the game have changed.

...and you're going to charge $80 for an electronic copy of your product. I want to know how many and what kinds of drugs over what period of time you have to ingest to think that this is a good idea.

...I'm being facetious, of course, but my point remains valid: You're playing the new game but you're playing by the old rules. The old rules were publishers held all the cards because they controlled distribution. Since that distribution had such a massive overhead, (production, shipping, etc.) all the power was concentrated. The Internet has made this paradigm a thing of the past. People don't want that anymore. Sure, some people do; they like the idea, the story, of a shelf full of well-thumbed books. But those people often have the money necessary to purchase those books. Poor college students not only don't have that mentality, many of them don't want to. The name of the game for them is 'is it cheap?' Publishers have the capability to align their product very nicely with the worldview of this constituency, and yet it seems, they are hellbent on clinging to the ways of old.

Publishers are charging $80 for an eBook because they can; because they think we, the constituency which invests in textbooks, are conditioned to pay 'too much.' This notion is flawed because, again, it assumes that the power is consolidated; that the publishing firms still have the authority to establish how much 'too much' is.

But they don't. Not anymore. And instead of examining the validity of this new paradigm, and doing the work to construct a new business model, (How about a subscription service? Pay one flat fee, and you get all the books you need for a semester/academic year. I couldn't sign up for that service fast enough!) it seems they're simply going to cling to the old status quo, and demonize this new paradigm; call it 'piracy.'

They have apparently not been reading the newspapers, as the recording industry has failed in this capacity as well. They have not stopped the problem, they've just driven it underground, where it is now even harder to stop. And I fully expect them to just keep pushing.

Extra Miles and Free Prizes

2008-07-19T12:00:00.005-04:00

Going the extra mile is one of the hallmarks of remarkable customer service. Cracker Jack realized this in 1912, and we owe them a great deal of thanks for giving us the phrase 'Free Prize Inside.' Seth Godin gets the nod for bringing the phrase back from obscurity, but he is by no mean the harbinger of this radical idea.

But what if the effort is poorly executed? Does this oversight offset the good intent? Sure there's a free prize, but what it it's a piece of junk?

When I was a kid, Kraft tried a marketing campaign where they put pop-up (as in pop-up book) baseball cards in with packages of cheese slices. I never tried harder in my life to convince my Mom that I LOVED grilled cheese sandwiches. Nevermind that the baseball card broke in two if you pulled the little handle too hard...

To take this literally, lots of credit cards offer frequent flyer miles with certain (or all) purchases. But there are often restrictions on when and how those miles can be used. Clearly the extra miles are an extra mile, but does the faulty execution offset the free prize? Can a customer's faith in your ability to deliver quality be broken by an extra, or a perk?

Thank you notes are another good example; does a poorly worded thank you note offset that good intent of the effort?

What about customer callbacks? e-mails? Promotional items? I cannot tell you how many bad investments in promotional items I've seen.

Is your 'extra mile' a mile forwards, or a mile backwards?

Senior Thesis Log #17: Slipping Sanity

2008-07-15T08:41:00.001-04:00

I am so insanely close to figuring out the syntax for this one define command which might break this script/project wide open and I am absolutely losing my mind trying to figure it out.

Senior Thesis Log #16: Show Stoppers

2008-07-13T09:46:00.002-04:00

You'll remember from my last entry that I'm working frantically to get this wretched perl script to work in the CGI environment, as it works fine when run locally as a perl script but keeps croaking when its run in CGI.

In my last post I had a breakthrough in the sense that I'd overcome the major obstacle of GPG not having keychains to write to. However, my script still won't generate the keys when run in the CGI environment.

I'm pretty sure this line is the culprit: protocol error: expected SHM_GET_XXX got at /var/www/cgi-bin/perlpg.cgi line 67

I googled this error and found a couple bug reports filed with the maintainer of this module, as well as a dump of the module's source. I read over the code which generates this error and of course, it's not documented at all.

Long story short, it looks like this problem might be a bug in the module I'm using. Which is a Bad Thing. I'm going to give it a break and come back to it later, but I should probably start coming up with contingency plans in the meantime.

Net Neutral(point of view)ity

2008-07-10T08:25:00.003-04:00

I think anytime someone wants to make a scholarly reference to a Wikipedia article, they must first read every letter of the talk page for that article twice. And they must also cite at least one standing reference in the talk page as a testament to the article's neutrality (or lack thereof).

I personally think it's a good idea to review the talk pages of Wikipedia articles anyways before committing anything contained therein to memory as fact. The article is the end result of an extensive discourse, and we as the seekers of knowledge and information have an obligation to obtain as full an understanding as we can of the origin and direction of that discourse, not merely the content which stems from it.

Senior Thesis Log #15: A Breakthrough!

2008-07-09T14:30:00.003-04:00

Apparently, the GPG wrapper for Perl has an argument you can pass to the constructor called 'trace.' Trace forces GPG to spit any error-related output to STDERR, or the standard error output. Since I'm running GPG through Apache and CGI, STDERR is the error.log file for apache. So I modify the constructor to set that flag to true, run the form/script, and here's what I get:

gpg: DBG: mapped 4k shared memory at 0xb7fd9000, id=622605
gpg: fatal: can't create directory `/var/www/.gnupg': Permission denied
secmem usage: 0/0 bytes in 0/0 blocks of pool 0/32768
GnuPG: reading from status fd 4
GnuPG: got from status fd: [GNUPG:] SHM_INFO pv=1 pid=7106 shmid=622605 sz=4096 lz=4096
GnuPG: reading from status fd 4
GnuPG: got from status fd: EOFGnuPG: closing status fd 4
protocol error: expected SHM_GET_XXX got
at /var/www/cgi-bin/perlpg.cgi line 67

So it looks like all I'll need to do is create that directory, make it writable by apache (changing the group which owns it and giving that group permission to write to it, most likely)

Senior Thesis Log #14: Way Overdue

2008-07-09T14:18:00.002-04:00

I am way overdue for an update. I can do better.

So I've made progress on fitting the square peg into the round hole, but It's still a square peg I'm working with. The script I wrote about last time has been modified to run in a CGI environment, but it's no longer working. Here it is as it stands now:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";

use strict;
use warnings;
use Carp;

###
#Commented out; deprecated interface
###
#use GnuPG::Interface;

###
#use GnuPG LIbrary
###
use GnuPG qw( :algo );

###
#use CGI; necessary for reading vars in from HTML form
###
use CGI;

###
#create new GPG object. The object is the interface to the program
###
my $gpg = new GnuPG( ); #pretty sure the problem is here
###
#New CGI object
###
my $cgi = new CGI;

###
#Just for fun, let's read some vars in from the keyboard.
#We can change this to read from HTML/CGI later.
#CGI input lines are below STDIN lines
###
#print "Enter your name:\n";
#my $name = ;
my $name = $cgi->param('name');

#diagnostic print
print "name is $name\n";

###
#not having this caused me an HOUR of aggravation!!!
###
chomp($name);

#print "Enter your e-mail:\n";
#my $email = ;
my $email = $cgi->param('email');
chomp($email);

#print "What is your senior project?\n";
#my $comment = ;
my $comment = $cgi->param('project');
chomp($comment);

#print "Enter a passphrase for your key pair:\n";
#my $passwd = ;
my $passwd = $cgi->param('password');
chomp($passwd);

#Pting variable for diagnostics
print "\npassword is $passwd";

####
#Generate keys. parameters are local vars now, but will be replaced by HTTP POST/GET vars
####
$gpg->gen_key( name => $name, email => $email, comment => $comment, passphrase => $passwd);

####
#Output keys. Output is to stdout now, but will need to be altered to be HTML-compliant? How?
####
print "Your heys are ready. Here is your PUBLIC Key:\n\n";
$gpg->export_keys( keys => "$name", armor => 1 );

###
#Output PRIVATE keys
###
print "\n\n\nHere is your PRIVATE Key. Guard it carefully!\n\n";
$gpg->export_keys( keys => "$name", secret => 'true', armor => 1 );

The script croaks at line 67, the line 72, the line which generates the keys. The diagnostic print statements tell me that not only are the variables successfully being handed off from the HTML form to the script, but that they're assigned correctly and the script is executing to that point, but it's not running that command.

Adaptive Failure

2008-06-30T11:23:00.004-04:00

Man, you know you suck at exercising leadership big time when you approach an issue from such a skewed and self-aggrandizing angle that you somehow manage to alienate people who actually agree with you and share your perspectives.

If ever there was a shining example of adaptive leadership failing on every possible level and in every conceivable way, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better example than Andrew Johnson's handling of postbellum Reconstruction. What an absolutely appalling display.

(More on this is almost certainly coming later. Holy cow.)

Vacation

2008-06-30T09:42:00.005-04:00

Some current thoughts, in no particular order:

The Boston Public Library is a beautiful building. It saddens me a bit that an institution as fabled and beautiful as this has been supplanted by the sidewalk bistro as the preferred place of work for people my age (and older too, it seems.) I suppose that's just a reflection of the culture we live in? It's a saddening affair, regardless... all these resources, available for free... and people would rather pay $6 for a soy latte and and a Louie Armstrong CD. OK, I'm done being judgmental.
I found a PBS documentary on reconstruction and I am totally jonesing to watch it as soon as I finish this post... there are like 8 Civil War documentaries on DVD here... I may never leave.
Weather-wise, this has been absolutely the WORST summer I can ever recall having to endure. Rainy, humid, cloudy... it's awful

OK. Reconstruction time.

Lugo Liabilities

2008-06-27T08:38:00.003-04:00

I think the necessity of dealing Julio Lugo becomes much more urgent and apparent when you consider that the Red Sox have no less than 3 starting pitchers who are groundball-heavy (Wakefield, Masterson, and Lester) and two bullpen pitchers who are the same (Hansen and Lopez).

Senior Thesis Log #13: Wasting Time

2008-06-26T07:57:00.000-04:00

Figures the most embarrassing thing I have to say about this project to date would come in my 13th log...

if you remember from my last log, my GPG Perl script was little more than a load of comments and one function call to generate a key for a hard-coded user. Since then, my script has matured considerably. Of the 3 things this script needs to do (generate a new key pair, export the key pair to a file, and read the keys back in) I have gotten it to do the first two; generating keys and exporting them from the keyring. Here's what the script looks like now (bold emphasis added is mine; you'll see why in a second):

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;

###
#Commented out; deprecated interface
###
#use GnuPG::Interface;

###
#use GnuPG LIbrary
###
use GnuPG qw( :algo );

###
#create new GPG object. The object is the interface to the program
###
my $gpg = new GnuPG();

###
#Just for fun, let's read some vars in from the keyboard. We can change this to read from HTML later
###
print "Enter your name:\n";
$name = < STDIN >;

###
#not having this caused me an HOUR of aggravation!!!
###
chomp($name);

print "Enter your e-mail:\n";
$email = < STDIN >;

print "What is your senior project?\n";
$comment = < STDIN >;

print "Enter a passphrase for your key pair:\n";
$passwd = < STDIN >;

####
#Generate keys. parameters are local vars now, but will be replaced by HTTP POST/GET vars
####
$gpg->gen_key( name => $name, email => $email, comment => $comment, passphrase => $passwd);
###Want to display output if function doesn't croak. How?

####
#Output keys. Output is to stdout now, but will need to be altered to be HTML-compliant? How?
####
$gpg->export_keys( keys => "$name", armor => 1, output => "pubKey\.pub" );
#keys needs to be uid?
###
#Output PRIVATE keys
###
$gpg->export_keys( keys => "$name", secret => 'true', armor => 1, output =>"secKey\.sec" );

You'll notice that when I export the keys, I identify which key(s) I want to dump by name. When I first wrote this functionality, Perl was creating the files, but there was nothing in them. I spent an hour trying to figure this out. Then I realized that I wasn't chomp()ing* the name variable when I read it in. So the variable I was working with to export the key was different from the one I'd used to create the key. Pretty embarrassing.

My next job is going to be to get those exported key files (pubKey.pub and secKey.sec) back into the script, and somehow get them back to the user.

I'm going to write a cron job to delete the keys from the keyring every time I boot and to clean out the export files on shutdown.

*When Perl reads a string in from the keyboard, it adds a character to the end of every string; it's essentially a newline character. the chomp() function removes that character.

Dialogue

2008-06-25T11:26:00.005-04:00

Actual dialogue between me and another Wentworth student, who was smoking a cigarette outside the steps of Beatty:

Me: Excuse me, would you mind not smoking there?
Student: Why?
Me: Because you can't.
Student: Says who?
Me: *points to tobacco-free community sign* this is a tobacco-free campus.
Student: So?
Me: So, would you mind taking your tobacco off campus?
Student: *gives me the finger*

...I have no words. How can an adult think that this sort of behavior is appropriate? Resistance to change is one thing, rudeness and disrespect is another matter altogether.

What do you do when the population you seek to change doesn't recognize your authority? The leadership dynamic is one of mutual respect; what happens when that dynamic becomes a one-way street? Perhaps an appeal to formal authority is the only way if people refuse to be respectful to one another...

Square Meters

2008-06-25T09:53:00.003-04:00

Question: The area of the contiguous United States is over 9.82663 × 10¹² square meters. Which of these square meters is the most important?

Answer: this one

It is not possible to underscore enough the importance and significance of this seemingly microscopic piece of landscape in the history and culture of this country which we call home. Upon this small sliver of soil, the fate of this country as we know it was decided, and its identity forever changed. As Foote would say, we went from 'The United States are' to 'The United States is.' All upon a piece of ground about the size of your living room.

One little word. One small parcel of land. One immeasurable change.

It is the pale blue dot of this country.

Just something to think about.

Senior Thesis Log #12: Configuration, and good news

2008-06-23T21:18:00.004-04:00

I've spent the past few days trying to set up Apache and get it up and running to serve up the forms users will need to get their keys and generate their CSR's. I was trying to set up CGI to run in Apache using the ScriptAlias directive, and specifying a directory to hold all the scripts, but Apache kept looking in another directory. After tearing my hair out trying to figure out why Apache was looking in a directory I hadn't specified in ANY config file for ANY function, I finally discovered that, because of the way Apache splits up its config info between multiple files in Ubuntu, the ScriptAlias directive was already defined in an obscure config file.

So after getting CGI configured, I started playing with Perl, and its GnuPG wrappers/interfaces. First, I had to install the modules using CPAN, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. CPAN is a global repository of Perl modules. After fighting with CPAN for a good 20 minutes (CPAN needs a compiler to compile and install modules, and I didn't have GCC, the Gnu C Compiler installed) I got the GPG interfaces up and running, and wrote a basic test script:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use GnuPG qw( :algo );

my $gpg = new GnuPG();

# $gpg->encrypt( plaintext => "file.txt", output => "file.gpg",
# armor => 1, sign => 1,
# passphrase => $secret );
#
# $gpg->decrypt( ciphertext => "file.gpg", output => "file.txt" );
#
# $gpg->clearsign( plaintext => "file.txt", output => "file.txt.asc",
# passphrase => $secret, armor => 1,
# );
#
# $gpg->verify( signature => "file.txt.asc", file => "file.txt" );
#
$gpg->gen_key( name => "Joe Blow", comment => "Key to test GPG-Perl Module", passphrase => secret);

Upon running gpg --list-keys, I get the following:

srubin@thesis:~$ gpg --list-keys
/home/srubin/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
-------------------------------
pub 1024D/9A5B33BE 2008-06-17
uid john doe (not in thesis class)
sub 2048g/6D0B5A09 2008-06-17

pub 1024D/08257D24 2008-06-24
uid Joe Blow (Key to test GPG-Perl Module)
sub 1024g/BAA5F7D3 2008-06-24

Success! the key has been successfully added to the keyring!

From here, the next steps are to a) figure out how to get at the keys newly added to the keyring, b) get those keys to the user, and c) destroy them once they've been disseminated.

a) is already sort of solved for me; the GPG interface gives me a function export_keys() which I should be able to leverage to dump keys from the keyring:

$gpg->export_keys( armor => 1, output => "keyring.pub" );

b) is going to be a matter of leveraging the output of that function; getting it into HTML and ensuring its security, and c) is as simple as a cron job of 'gpg --delete-secret-and-public-key'

Baby steps though these may be, they're steps in the right direction. My hope is that by vacation's end I can have the key generation part of this script taken care of.

Senior Thesis Log #11: Tools and Time

2008-06-22T12:47:00.004-04:00

I've spent most of this week researching the tools necessary to create the hypothetical web frontend for key and CSR generation. Here's what I'm staring down the barrel of:

Apache2: Apache2 is the de facto webserver on all open source operating systems. Which is by no means a bad thing; it's robust, functional, stable, and relatively easy to configure
mod_ssl: The SSL module for Apache. Since this web interface would involve the transmission of highly sensitive and confidential information (i.e. a user's private key) a secure connection using the https: protocol is necessary. mod_ssl facilitates that.
mod_cgi: CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface, and it is a protocol for external applications (called CGI scipts) to interface with a webserver. Perl is the language which has the most robust GPG library, and since Perl cannot be embedded into HTML pages the way PHP can, the scrips will need to be run on the local machine, and their outputs piped into an HTML file. CGI is the protocol which allows this to happen
Perl: Lots of people will tell you Perl stands for 'Practical Extraction and Report Language,' but they're lying. It doesn't really stand for anything. It's an interpreted scripting language optimized for use with text streams. Working with Perl (as opposed to PHP) makes my life slightly more difficult, as it involves using the CGI which I just spoke of, but its GPG library has the functions I need (namely, those involving key generation) so I'm hoping that the trade off will be worth it.
PHP: PHP is another interpreted scripting language which can be coded directly into browser pages. PHP has OpenSSL libraries which I can use for CSR approval and generation.

Clearly, this new array of tools means that the scope of my project has since expanded considerably. The question is not one of feasablity, because I know that I could implement this system successfully, but rather one of time: With little more than a month remaining in the semester, will I be able to finish the project with this added component? I'll hopefully have an answer by my next update. At this point, I think the web interface can be done, but I'm pretty sure the mailserver component of the PKI will suffer considerably in terms of time.

Senior Thesis Log #10: Corections, Web Interfaces, and other options

2008-06-18T13:26:00.003-04:00

So I was wrong about my last post. GPG *can* run in an automated environment. Not only that, but Perl has a library which I can use to interface with GPG directly. So, if I decide to go the web interface route, it looks like Perl is going to be the scripting language of choice to cobble the whole thing together. Whether or not this is also doable with OpenSSL has yet to be seen.

Unfortunately, I know little to no Perl, However, I hear it's easy to learn. So my short-term goal is to spend the next week seeing if the web interface is going to be a viable option to follow for getting users their keys and CSR's. At the end of a week's time, I'll make a decision on whether or not it's worth pursuing. If it's not, I'll consider other options, such as running the whole thing locally in a VM, or on end users machines.

Senior Thesis Log #9: Automating GPG key generation

2008-06-17T15:48:00.003-04:00

Generating key pairs with GPG looks to be a primarily interactive process; when GPG generates keys, it asks the user for real name, email, and a comment about themselves, as well as other information (key strength, expiration date, encryption algorithm, etc.) It also asks for a passphrase to protect the keys. Given the nature of public key cryptography, this process can neither be automated, nor passed as command line arguments (as well it shouldn't be, in my opinion... would you want to pass the passphrase to your private key as a cleartext command line argument?)

I'm still researching other possibilities, but since it doesn't look like I'll be able to automate the GPG key generation process, this makes the possibility of developing a web frontend for it range from very unlikely to impossible. I'll need to research other solutions to see if there's a way to handle key generation (and subsequently, CSR generation) over the web, or if I'll have no choice but to do it client-side.

It looks like rain; I'm going to pack up and move. Maybe I'll write more when I settle down again.

Senior Thesis Log #8: User Keys, CSR's, etc.

2008-06-16T08:54:00.000-04:00

So it looks like my LDAP is in great shape. I can finish populating it at my leisure, but the next big question I'm facing is probably the biggest and most challenging, and that is going to be figuring out the mechanics of the PKI: distributing the keys to users and generating CSR's.

The term 'distribute' is somewhat of a misnomer in this instance. If you remember, the entire integrity of the PKI is contingent upon the security of the private key. So simply generating keys on my machine (either real or virtual) and transferring them to end users is out of the question. Furthermore, a user will need access to the OpenSSL tool in order to generate a CSR. While both GPG (the tool which handles keys) and OpenSSL (the tool which handles CSR's and certificates) are commonplace on UNIX-based systems, such as Linux and Mac OS X, not everyone has access to these systems and as such, it is unreasonable to put the impetus on them to generate their own keys and CSRs.

When I posed this problem to my classmates, they suggested building a (secure) web interface into GPG and OpenSSL on my Ubuntu VM, which the end user can access and use to generate keys and CSR's. Their proposed solution would be for the web interface to take the necessary info from the user in a form, verify it against info in the LDAP (to ensure the user is in the system) and then use GPG to generate a key pair. The private key would then be securely sent to the user (using the https protocol), and the public key would be retained to generate a CSR server-side. That CSR would then be sent to the user, who would then send it to the CA to be verified. Upon verifying the user in the LDAP, the CA would sign the certificate and insert a copy into the LDAP to be used for communication.

As you can see, this is a complicated solution at best, will take time to set up (time I might not have), and fails in the sense that it does nothing to illustrate the mechanics of the PKI to the end users, which is/was one of my principal goals with this project.

My roommate Pat suggested using a Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange to facilitate getting the keys to the users, but then I also have to deal with the issue of facilitating the secure communication, but I don't know much about this, so I'll have to look into it.

Right now the leading candidates are to a) do everything locally in my Ubuntu VM (i.e. each user has an account in there. Keys are generated, certs are generated, and communication is facilitated) or b) Find a group willing to download the necessary software (GPG and OpenSSL) and be active test subjects to running the process client-side. At this point, I'm leaning more towards the latter.

I have a meeting to go to. More later

Senior Thesis Log #7: LDAP woes resolved, and more

2008-06-10T18:02:00.003-04:00

So it looks like my initial LDAP woes were being caused because, in my slapd.conf file, I had the suffix as dc=loc, when it should have been dc=thesis,dc=loc. So I changed my binding DN to cn=admin,dc=thesis,dc=loc and it looks like everything is working; my LDAP browser isnt throwing 'no such object' errors when I try to browse the tree. Still can't add users yet, even though I have a valid base DN and a working OU... not sure why, but definitely going to figure that out tonight. Think the problem has to do with the fact that none of my nodes at this point has the 'top' objectClass... will hopefully figure out what 'top' is and what it means tonight. I know it designates the top of the class chain, but I don't know where it goes or how it works.

I can even access the LDAP server on my VM using Directory Utility in Mac OS X... I think once I figure out how to get it populated I can start using Directory.app

attribute userSMIMECertificate in ObjectClass inetOrgPerson is the attribute in which I will store users' Public Key Certificates

Goddammit

2008-06-10T15:58:00.004-04:00

FSJ says it better than I ever could:

You know what? I hate each and every one of you. There. I said it. I've wanted to say that for years and now I have. You smug pricks, you phony hippies, thinking you're all so cool and smart and hip because you're sitting there at an Apple event when really you're just a bunch of poser frigtards who don't know shit about technology and haven't the slightest idea of how these products are made or how much work goes into them or the huge effort involved and how hundreds of engineers have given up years of their lives so that you can have your pretty little toys.

Can we please talk for just ten seconds about the TECHNICAL merits of TECHNICAL products? I realize this is a lot to ask, seeing as how WWDC is a DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE and all... I was dying to hear all about Snow Leopard and how this new Grand Central technology was designed and implemented. Instead I got two hours of iPhone fanboyism and a single lousy press release

Is it wrong of me to want Macworld to be a conference for the glitz and glamour, and for WWDC to be, oh, I don't know, more developer-oriented? I mean, don't get me wrong, iPhone SDK is pretty awesome. But us OS nerds got totally left out on this one.

Double Tweet

2008-06-10T15:31:00.002-04:00

Cable companies asking the FCC to deregulate communications is like two petulant children asking the parent in the room to leave so they can play, even though the only reason the parent is watching them is because the spoiled, greedy brats couldn't behave themselves in the first place.

Senior Thesis Log #6: LDAP woes compounded

2008-06-09T16:23:00.003-04:00

I have two LDAP clients on my VM. One can connect to the LDAP without incident. The other cannot even find the server. The Base DN's and Binding DN's are the same on both. How is that possible?

Senior Thesis Log #5: Activity 6/6

2008-06-06T08:02:00.003-04:00

I need to add a new tool to my list of core utilities I'll be using to implement the PKI.

I was initially under the impression that GnuPG can handle all certificate-related tasks, such as creating a CA, and generating and signing CSR's. This, however is not the case. I will be using another tool, OpenSSL, to handle the creating of my own CA, generating any CSR's, and signing off on the CSR's of others.

Mac OS X's Keychain Access.app has a utility called Certificate Assistant, which is an incredibly functional and easy-to-use front-end for the OpenSSL components I will need to use. The OpenSSL command line interface is rather tricky and verbose, as even the simplest of commands require three options, each of which usually has at least one parameter. I'm actually thinking of using my Mac and Mac OS X as the CA (as opposed to running it in the Ubuntu VM) to create a more realistic partitioning of responsibilities. Rarely is the CA dealing with certificates on the same machine where its dealing with keys; since CA's sign CSR's with their private keys, and the integrity and authenticity of the whole system depends on the absolute secrecy of the private key, most CA's keep their Certificate-generating machines in locked rooms with no internet connection.

So my Mac will serve as the CA, and the Ubuntu VM will hold the LDAP and the Postfix mailserver. I still haven't addressed the logistical challenge of getting my classmates key pairs, and how they will interface with the mailserver. Will all mail have to take place in the VM? Perhaps the Mailserver is superfluous, and all someone needs to use the PKI is a key pair, and an LDAP of public key certificates. if that's the case, is there another way I can add to this project to make it more complicated and/or challenging?

Senior Thesis Log #5: Activity 6/4

2008-06-04T14:53:00.004-04:00

FINALLY figured out the problems I was having with the LDAP.

I downloaded a GTK+ LDAP client called GQ for administering the LDAP, and it works pretty nicely. Lets me search, brows, and modify with relative ease, even add extensible entries if I want.

The original error I got was because it looks like the slapadd command was expecting LDAP entries after I defined the Base DN and OU's. When it didn't find any, it spit out an error, but the previous operations (adding the Base Dn and OU) were successful. I assumed, since LDAP is a transactional protocol, it was an all-or-nothing deal, which apparently was not the case.

So I set about adding a single test entry to the LDAP. Dan, a classmate of mine, gave me some old LDIF files from some work he'd done on co-op to play with, and it is from these files that I'm constructing the LDIF file with all my classmates info in it. Here is the initial entry I tried:

dn: uid=kinsleyd, ou=People, dc=thesis, dc=loc
objectClass: person
objectclass: organizationalPerson
objectclass: inetOrgPerson
uid: dkinsley
sn: Kinsley
cn: Dan Kinsley
telephoneNumber: 860-254-6004

For whatever reason ldapadd didn't like me using uid to qualify the distinguished name (DN). Since I haven't mentioned it yet before, the Distinguished name in an LDAP entry is the field which uniquely identifies the record in the directory. It's like the primary key in a database. The first line in the above entry is the Distinguished Name (hence the 'dn:')

It kept kicking my attempts at adding entries out because the uid in the DN and the uid in the entry didn't match, which I seriously did not realize until I looked at the entry I copied and pasted above, and for that, I feel quite foolish. I switched to using the Common Name (CN) attribute instead though, so my DN's will look like this: dn: cn=dan,ou=people,dc=thesis,dc=loc

Now that I have the LDAP up and running and can actually do something useful with it, my next steps are going to be:

memorizing the entire user manual for GnuPG forwards and backwards, so I can deal with creating my own CA and issuing certificates, and automate as much of the process as possible
since I'm going to be using my classmates as the participants, each of them is going to need a key pair. How do I get them their key pairs without compromising the security of the keys?
I know next to nothing about how Windows handles private keys, and since that is the dominant operating system, I should probably figure that out as well

That will all have to come later, though. My battery is dying.

20/30 hindsight

2008-06-03T10:56:00.001-04:00

Hey, remember when I wrote this?

Could I have been any more wrong?

Words to live by

2008-06-02T21:16:00.003-04:00

Some curious maxims from the founder of my school, Arioch Wentworth (emphasis added is mine):

Invest in real estate
Always pay 100 cents on the dollar
Never pay 100 cents for a dollar
Relax the mental tension once a day
Pay all bills when presented
Don't shoulder others responsibility
Work every day till the day's work is done
One vacation a year is enough
Be sure, then invest - in real estate
Lead if you can; follow if you must
Leave business at the office
Reward fealty with fealty

Sustaining Permission

2008-06-02T12:23:00.007-04:00

Let's say you have a great story to tell. Or at least, you think it's great. You wanna tell it to some people. So you get their permission to talk to them, and off you go.

Thirty minutes later, you're still on point one of the five points you wanted to make. Do you think you still have permission to talk to the people you're talking to?

An important part of storytelling and exercising leadership is not just getting permission to talk to people, but sustaining it over a period of time, as the process inevitably needs to be sustained if it's to be successful.

So what do you do when the permission and attention conferred upon you is revoked?

Why has your audience stopped listening to you? Are they bored? Or are your words hitting so close to home that they'd rather not hear?

Fundamental Differences

2008-06-02T08:32:00.003-04:00

From Peter Bright's three part exposé on the fundamental differences between Win32/.NET/MS development flavor of the week, and Cocoa in Mac OS X:

As a developer, the best code is code you don't have to write; anything you don't have to write, you don't have to debug and you don't have to maintain. If the framework can do something for me, then it means that I don't have to do it myself, and that's what frameworks are for.

And people wonder why I like having GUI's for managing GPG and OpenLDAP. Why use a pen and paper when a rock and chisel still works?

Senior Thesis Log #4: Activity 5/31

2008-05-31T15:33:00.001-04:00

Here is the initial command I was using to attempt to add info in LDIF files to the LDAP:
sudo ldapadd -h thesis -D cn=admin,dc=loc, -w [password omitted for confidentiality] -xvf people.ldif

I added BASE and BINDDN variables to ldap.conf, no longer need to specify info in command line args. New command would be: sudo ldapadd -Wxvf file.ldif

I need to add base DN to the LDAP. After that, can add OU's and subsequently, entries.

Talked to Gabe, created a file with some base DN and OU info:

## Build root node
dn: dc=thesis,dc=loc
dc: thesis
objectClass: dcObject
objectClass: organizationalUnit
ou: thesis

## Build the people ou
dn: ou=people,dc=thesis,dc=loc
ou: people
objectClass: organizationalUnit

Tried to add base DN info in the above file using the command: sudo slapadd -vl /home/srubin/Desktop/BaseDN.ldif

I received the following error:

/etc/ldap/slapd.conf: line 125: rootdn is always granted unlimited privileges.
added: "dc=thesis,dc=loc" (00000004)
added: "ou=people,dc=thesis,dc=loc" (00000005)
Error, entries missing!
entry 3: dc=loc

The operation didn't complete, an ldapsearch of objectclass=* returns no results. Will research error message later. I've been in Trident cafe all afternoon; I need a change of scenery and to clear my head.

Senior Thesis Log #3: Progress to date

2008-05-30T13:05:00.003-04:00

I'm going to glaze over a lot of the implementation details in this entry; I'm on the free municipal wifi connection here in Brookline and only have an hour to work, and I just spent at least half of it googling for answers.

I have my principal VM up and running. I'm using VMware Fusion to virtualize a Ubuntu server. So far I've installed OpenLDAP and Postfix. GPG comes pre-installed, so there will be no need to install it; Ubuntu even has a great frontend for it (GPG).

Most of my time right now is being spent configuring and setting up the LDAP. Since this is not an exercise in directory structures, I'm simply going to put everyone in the same Organizational Unit in the LDAP. I've decided that the best test group for this infrastructure would be my classmates, so I whipped up an LDIF file with all their info in it. I will have them all generate key pairs and CSR's (haven't quite figured out how that part is going to work yet) and compare the info in their CSR's with the info I have on them in the LDAP to verify their identities to issue certificates, probably using a perl script and some basic regex matching. Ideally, the script will compare the info in the CSR with info in the LDAP. If there are discrepancies, they will be dumped into a file and formatted, and I will manually reconcile them. So, for example, if Austin is Austin T. Lauria in my LDAP but his CSR identifies him as just 'Austin Lauria,' that is a record which will need to be reconciled manually. I, acting as the CA, will have to 'verify' his identity.

My problems are all LDAP-centric at this point. Since the LDAP is the bedrock of this project, it needs to be up and running first. It's also going to be the piece which gives me the most problems (behind Postfix probably.) I have the LDIF file with all the necessary info in it, but I can't get it into the LDAP. the ldapadd command is having trouble connecting to the LDAP, whihc is strange because the Ubuntu directory frontend can connect with no problems; it just won't let me add entries, since the LDAP doesn't have any Organizational Units yet.

OK I'm out of free WiFi, so I'll update more later

Senior Thesis log #2: Description of Technical Processes

2008-05-30T09:25:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I laid out the map for creating, configuring, and implementing a Public Key Infrastructure, or PKI. I talked about what it is, how it does, and the subsystems it incorporates. In this entry I'm going to talk in more detail about two key technologies which make up the 'engine' of the PKI: Public Key Cryptography and X.509 certificates. The resources located on Wikipedia are very helpful for explaining these concepts, so I will rely on them heavily.

If you aren't at all familiar with cryptography, don't worry, you don't really need to be. Cryptography is basically the practice of manipulating (encrypting) messages into another representation so they can only be read by people who know how to turn them back into the original format (a process called decrypting.) The canonical example of cryptography is an algorithm called ROT13. In ROT13, each letter in a message is replaced with the letter 13 letters in the alphabet after it. So 'Hello' becomes 'Uryyb.' So that's a basic example of cryptography.

With that basic concept in mind, let's look at the grandfather to Asymmetric (Public Key) Cryptography, symmetric cryptography. The following image is an example of symmetric cryptography:

In symmetric cryptography, the algorithm (or key) used to encrypt the message is the same as the key which is used to decrypt the message. ROT13 is an example of symmetric cryptography; there are 26 letters in the alphabet, so the algorithm you use to encrypt the message is the same as the algorithm you would use to decrypt the message. In symmetric cryptography, there is only one key. In the analog and real worlds, this might not be such a bad thing (i.e. if only one key opens the vault at a bank) but in the digital world, this poses a very real and (hopefully) obvious problem:

If only one key unlocks the secret, how do you get the key to the recipient in a way which doesn't compromise the integrity of the key?

Enter Asymmetric Public Key Cryptography.

In Public Key Cryptography, there are TWO keys instead of one: a PUBLIC and a PRIVATE key. A ridiculously large prime number is thrown into some kind of factoring meat grinder, and it spits out two keys which look something like this. This is Daring Fireball author John Gruber's Public Key:

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: PGP 8.0.3
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=B/Ia
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

What makes Public Key Cryptography asymmetric is that the two keys used to encrypt and decrypt are always different and inextricably bound to each other. Each key, either public or private, has one and ONLY ONE counterpart. So if a message is encrypted using a given PUBLIC key, it can only be decrypted using the corresponding PRIVATE key, and vice versa. In Public Key Cryptography, a user's public key can be given out to anyone the user desires; in fact, this is beneficial to the system; the more users who know your public key, the more people can send you encrypted messages.

In the example below, the RED key represents a user's private key, and the GREEN key represents the user's public key. in Example A, a user (let's call him Austin) wishes to send an encrypted message to someone who has his public key, who we will call Brian. Austin encrypts the message with his private key, and Brian decrypts it with Austin's public key, which he (Austin) has made publicly available. Since each private key has only one corresponding public key, this also acts as an authentication check; if Austin's public key decrypts the message he sent Brian, then Brian can know that the message came from Austin, and only Austin, and was not tampered with during transport.

Example A:

This, however, is an atypical example. Since the security of the whole system depends on the secrecy of the private key, it is not often used to encrypt messages sent to others. The modus operandi in Public Key Cryptography is to encrypt a message using the recipients PUBLIC key, so that the recipient can decrypt it using their PRIVATE key. But this creates another interesting problem: since public keys are widely disseminated, what's to stop me from publishing a public key (for which I know the corresponding private key) and claiming that it is Mr. Gruber's public key (as in the above example) or, for that matter, anyone? since the public key is widely distributed, the identity of the owner of the corresponding private key cannot be verified.

This is where Digital Certificates come in. In short, Digital Certificates bind an identity to a public key. Digital Certificates are issued by a Certificate Authority (CA) and, in essence, is an assertion by the CA that the private key which corresponds to the public key in this certificate belongs to this person.

In order for a user to obtain a certificate from a CA, they must generate a document called a Certificate Signing Request, or CSR. A CSR is in essence a request a CA to sign off on a certificate stating that a public key belongs to a user. To generate a CSR, a user must first generate a key pair; a public and private key. Then the user inputs the PUBLIC key, as well as some additional personal information (name, address, email, etc.) a program (I will be using GPG) to encode the necessary information into a CSR. The CSR is then sent off to the CA.

Upon receipt of the CSR, the CA will most likely want to contact the individual to verify their identity, and ensure that the individual on the other end of the wire is in fact who they claim to be. Upon being satisfied beyond any reasonable doubt that the owner of the public key in the CSR is in fact who they claim to be, the CA generates a certificate which contains the personal information and public key which were encoded in the CSR, and signs off on the certificate, asserting that they believe that the public key in question belongs to the individual.

So that's a brief (famous last words) summary of the mechanics of cryptography, certificates, and PKI as a whole. In my next entry, I'll explain how these systems will be implemented in my PKI, how the various workflows will be constructed, and how the various tools will be implemented and configured.

Senior Thesis log #1: project overview and terminology

2008-05-28T15:23:00.005-04:00

For the next couple of months, this blog will serve another purpose, in addition to the dumping ground for the various topics I feel compelled to write about: I will log my process on my senior thesis in accordance with my professor's wishes. I suppose other folks might be interested in this as well.

My thesis project is to design, develop, and implement a Public Key Infrastructure, or PKI. Wikipedia has a pretty in-depth article describing the mechanics of a PKI here. My PKI will be a bit different, however. It will be simpler (in the sense that many roles and machines will be combined into one) and focus more on secure communications (namely e-mail, and perhaps other forms of messaging) and less on role provisioning.

I think it's important to mention before I go any further that, when we talk about Public Key Infrastructures, several of the core terms and technologies we talk about are expressed as acronyms. I will do my best throughout this initial post to define as many of these acronyms as I can, what they do, and what their role in the system is, but I may miss some. I will try to devise a way to maintain a working glossary of acronyms and key terms, since this stuff can be complicated.

The 'Infrastructure' part of my PKI can be broken down into three principal components: The Mail Transfer Agent (MTA), which will be responsible for handling and delivering e-mail. The directory (henceforth referred to by its protocol name, LDAP), which is exactly what it sounds like; a directory of people and their necessary information. And finally, the Certificate Authority (CA), which will be responsible for handling Certificate Signing Requests (CSR's) and generating Certificates to verify the identity of users.

I will be using free and open source software for each of these principal components. The MTA will be Postfix, the LDAP will be OpenLDAP, and the CA will be created and maintained using the GNU Privacy Guard, or GnuPG and OpenSSL. The operating system for the platform will be Ubuntu Linux.

Here is a list of the various acronyms I'll be using throughout this documentation, their meaning, and their context to the project:

PKI: Public Key Infrastructure: In short, this *is* my project. A PKI is a system which creates an infrastructure for secure (read: verified and encrypted) communication between parties within an organization. User identities are verified using X.509 Certificates, and encrypted using Asymmetric Public Key Cryptography. Since these technologies are both central to the functionality of the PKI, an explanation of both will be forthcoming in a future post.

MTA: Mail Transfer Agent: The MTA is responsible for transferring an electronic message from one computer to another, and, to a lesser extent, responsible for delivering it as well. Oftentimes in large systems, a dedicated Mail Delivery Agent (MDA) is used to deliver messages, but in a small, integrated solution such as mine, the MTA will serve as delivery agent as well. MTA's use a protocol called the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, or SMTP.

LDAP: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol: LDAP is a protocol which defines how directories of information should be stored, represented, modified, queried, and accessed. The LDAP protocol is ideal for storing and representing information which is accessed (read) very frequently, but not modified (written) often, as the directives for writing using LDAP are very resource-intensive. LDAP is technically a protocol, which means it defines how information should be stored, represented, and accessed, but in vernacular, the directory itself is often referred to by many (including myself) simply as 'the LDAP' (as opposed to, say 'the LDAP directory.') So when I say 'configure the LDAP,' I really mean 'configure the directory I am using which is being built using the LDAP Protocol.'

CA: Certificate Authority: A CA is responsible for granting certificate signing requests and issuing digital certificates against them for use by users. The certificates issued by a CA are used in electronic communication and consist of a Digital Signature (to verify the identity of the sender) and the user's public key (to encrypt the content of the message). The CA also acts as a trusted third party, and digitally signs the certificate issues to the user with THEIR (the CA's) private key. In short, they are saying 'we (the CA) assert that this person is who they say they are.' This aspect is more important in larger-scale operations.

CSR: Certificate Signing Request: A CSR is a formal request for a Digital Certificate submitted by a user to a CA. A CSR contains information about the user, such as name, email address, and other relevant information found in the LDAP, as well as their public key, and is signed using the user's private key. The user then submits their request to a CA for review. The CA will review and verify the information, and, if they (the CA) are willing to assert the identity of the user, grant the request and issue a Digital Certificate containing all the information in the CSR, and sign it with their private key.

If there are things about this process which are not clear (especially about certificates and public key cryptography), my next entry will detail these processes, and their mechanics.

Vox Populi

2008-05-21T08:55:00.000-04:00

I recently switched from using Google Reader as my primary feed aggregator to NetNewsWire, the free feed aggregator for Mac OS X from NewsGator. I'm very happy with the transition, but I had some strong reservations at the beginning.

Like many young technologists, I've been bred in the mindset that the web-based application is often preferable to the local application, and that the best local applications are ones which interface with the proverbial 'cloud' of the Internet in some way. Think about all the programs you run locally on your computer... with the exception of perhaps of applications used to create content (think office suites, graphic design, and audio/video editing) how many of them access the Internet in some way?

Fortunately, NewsGator offers a free online reader similar to Google Reader, and it allows me to sync the state of my reading list with the NetNewsWire client, so changes made in the client are pushed to the server in real-time. As someone who reads feeds on multiple machines, this is definitely a Good Thing™

So I now have the benefit of the rich user interface of a local client combined with the universal access of a web-based application. My friend Brian, (alias Big B), upon hearing of my satisfaction with NetNewsWire, wanted to try its windows counterpart, FeedDemon. He found it to be usable, but it lacked some of the functionality which initially drew me to NetNewsWire

The Operating System as a platform has largely become irrelevant as more and more of what we do moves to the Internet. Many of us have more than one computer, and the trend is moving more and more towards parity across workstations, and that means parity across platforms. Many folks, especially college students and young professionals, use a computer at home which differs from their workstation at work, so information stored and accessed on the internet, ideally, will be platform-agnostic.

So if the Operating System is irrelevant, and the cloud is the new medium for content storage, retrieval, and access, it stands to reason that the platform whose applications interface with various Internet platforms the best will probably become the dominant platform. I think this is why Mac OS X and Free™ platforms (one of which forms the basis of Mac OS X, so in some ways, it's sensible to think of them as one and the same) are going to be the future of desktop computing, since this/these Operating System(s) have been designed from the ground up to interface with other machines across a network since their inception. (Microsoft knows this, which is why they're chomping at the bit to get a piece of the cloud and move away from the desktop.) Apple has leveraged this capacity, however, in a way that Microsoft hasn't (at least not up until this point), and in a way that I don't think free/open software makers, can: They have created a sense of identity and fostered a community with their developers. This has allowed them to develop a dialogue with their developers about how applications should look, feel, and behave. So applications by third party developers can, and do, behave the way applications written by Apple for Mac OS X do, because there is a published set of rules, and a dialogue amongst the people who create, so the process isn't disseminated (like it is with Free/Open Source applications) or hierarchical (like it is with Microsoft.)

This notion of listening to the people is an important facet of exercising leadership. There MUST be a dialogue, and rules dictating that dialogue, if change is to be mobilized successfully. If you seek to alter the way things are done, listening to and talking with those who are going to ultimately be the gears of change is of the utmost importance. The role of the desktop computer is slowly but surely being usurped by the mobile device; I think it will be interesting to see how the manufacturers of handsets and devices develop a dialogue with their various factions with regards to creating a more perfect platform.

Off the Hook

2008-05-07T10:53:00.000-04:00

When we find ourselves in a situation where we need to counsel or console someone who is in an unpleasant or unfavorable state, we often try to assuage them. We'll often tell them 'It's not your fault.' It could be a friend having trouble reconciling differences with their contemporaries. It could be a co-worker who thinks their supervisor to be incompetent. It could be a classmate who got a bad grade, or someone who got hit especially hard this tax season. We think that, if we just make them feel better, everything will be okay. Our friends are upset, and we want to mollify them. It makes sense, right?

To me, this is both unfair and dangerous.

We as human beings are generally not very contrite; we don't like to be wrong. Especially when we're convinced we're right most of the time. And most of us are just that; convinced of our own superiority. My generation is especially guilty of this infraction to an extent that is really just ridiculous at times. However, it is through these self-examinations that we are able to identify the cracks in our moral framework, and consequentially, begin the process of addressing and rectifying them. We must fight an uphill battle against mother nature to reach this point, though, as we are hard wired to avoid confronting these demons. So we let ourselves off the hook. We project the unfavorable situations we find ourselves in onto others. We project them onto our environment. We say things like 'If my professor wasn't such an ass, I would have gotten an A.' or, 'If only we had the right leadership, things would really get done around here.' 'How was I supposed to know taxes would be so much this year?' 'I can't be expected to do physical therapy three times a day; that's unreasonable.'

The little lies we tell ourselves to avoid seeing the person staring back at us when look in the mirror. It's that fog on the mirror when you get out of the shower. You don't have to admit to owning shortcomings if you can't see them.

When we exculpate people, however, we are complicit in their projection of their shortcomings onto others or their environment. We are the silent partner in removing the impetus for change. We are the restorers of equilibrium. The Hoover Dam on the Colorado River of change. And what happens when that dam of quixotic sentiments and a false sense of reality finally breaks...

Tell me, where is the sensibility in that?

I'm as I'll always be

2008-05-01T11:42:00.000-04:00

MTV says that Jim Adkins, the lead singer of Jimmy Eat World, 'seems like the chillest, most non-A-hole-ish guy in alternative rock.'

My friend Jimmy and I have more or less been echoing this sentiment for the past 6 years at least. There is something about the way he, and really the band as a whole, conduct themselves onstage, (and privately, I'd imagine) that we find eminently respectable.

Jimmy and I went to see them last night, and it was nothing short of amazing. It's always a very thrilling experience to watch someone do something which makes them truly happy, and to see how much they enjoy themselves doing it.

And they go about it in such an unassuming way, which is what, in my opinion, makes them remarkable. An example of this is how they develop a rapport with the audience. Their opening act, a band called Paramore, which I had never heard of but apparently has a song on the radio, prefaced their last song (and presumably their most popular one) by stating that everyone who didn't get up and dance to it was 'too cool;' they dedicated it to 'everyone who is too cool.' They did that whole 'let's develop a dialogue but really it'll just be me taking at you' thing, which I find to be a little condescending.

Jimmy Eat World, on the other hand, was very humble and passionate. Most of the time spent not playing music was spent thanking us, the fans, for coming out to see them perform, and wishing us well and encouraging us to dance and have a good time. When they closed with 'The Middle,' Jim Adkins remarked, 'this is kind of a dance-y number, so if you wanna grab a partner and get down, well you go right ahead.'

Can you see the difference in these two approaches? Which of these sounds like a prototypical rockstar, and which sounds like a guy whom you'd love to just sit down at a pub and have a pint or two, and just talk about life?

Five Words

2008-04-30T11:45:00.001-04:00

Question: What are five of the most important words in the verbal arsenal of someone who seeks to exercise leadership?

Answer: 'I don't have an answer.'

By remembering that we exercise leadership not to solve the problems of others, but to challenge others to shift their thinking, we must remember that the solution or perspective WE think is best may not always be right for the group. We must withhold our judgement, and give them the freedom to do their own reality testing, and arrive at their own conclusions about what is appropriate.

The pressure on you from both sides to provide answers to the tough questions may be high. And perhaps rightfully so; they're tough questions because we'd probably rather not answer them. But if answers equal certainty, and if leadership is all about maintaining a level of distress and uncertainty that forces people to come to their own conclusion, then in a way, we sabotage our own efforts by placating the very people whom we seek to help.

Granular Leadership

2008-04-29T15:26:00.000-04:00

I was recently approached by a friend of mine who sought my advice on a problem she was having with a friend of hers. My friend (for the sake of this piece, let's call her Sarah. That's not her name, but I hate writing using concurrent streams of pronouns.) Sarah was recently approached by her friend (who, again, will henceforth be referred to as Leah.) Leah has asked Sarah if she could 'tone down her personality.' Leah felt like Sarah was dominating the dynamic that existed within their circle of mutual friends, and that Sarah wasn't allowing Leah an opportunity to 'shine.'

Your moral interpretation of this situation may differ from mine, but my moral thesis is that it is both unfair and unreasonable for a friend to make such an imposition on another. It is from that perspective which I will write. If you disagree, then you may not find this piece of writing to be a helpful one.

This singular situation affords us a great opportunity to examine the mechanics of exercising adaptive leadership at the individual level, which is ultimately where adaptive leadership must take place if it is to be successful.

It is easy to throw around buzzwords and and phrases like 'revolutionizing the paradigm' at the organizational level because accountability is very disseminated. Ultimately, however, if we seek to generate distress surrounding an issue, and keep that level of distress productive, we inevitably will find that the bulk of our energies must be focused on disrupting the status quo for the individual. Any group, wether it has 10 or 10,000 constituents, is made up of individuals. Individuals are hard-wired to avoid change, so creating that pervasive sense of urgency within the group is only a means to an end to a certain degree. If we focus our disequilibrium-generating energy on the individuals within the group, we may find that those individuals begin to form factions, and will themselves become the voices of leadership and change. We can then shift our efforts from generating the distress to protecting those who are now the voices of dissent.

So let's examine more closely the situation with Sarah and Leah. Leah has imposed on Sarah and attempted to deflect the blame for her social shortcomings onto Sarah. Whether or not Leah is cognizant of the reality of the situation (that reality being that she is projecting her inadequacy onto Sarah) is irrelevant. We must withhold all assumptions, lest we act on a perception of the situation which is prejudiced or incomplete.

When tensions arise in close personal relationships, emotions will invariably run high. With that in mind, there are three cornerstone concepts we ought to examine when discussing mobilizing adaptive work at the individual level:

controlling the conflict and level of distress
absorbing personal attacks and preventing marginalization
focusing attention on the issues

I will first articulate these principles in general terms, then frame them in the context of the situation with Sarah and Leah, and finally offer my take on one possible way to proceed.

Controlling the conflict and level of distress means easing into the hot tub. If you jump right in, you may find the sudden change in temperature to be... uncomfortable. But if you just stick a toe or two in, or even worse, don't get in at all, then you lose out on the experience. Since the task we're seeking to undertake involves helping someone else change their perspective on a situation, we must always be mindful of how strongly they are clinging to their current way of thinking. In the case of Leah, we can assume that, since she is only human, she will at the absolute least be reluctant to assume ownership of such a serious shortcoming, and at worst, refute the notion entirely. As such, someone who wishes to facilitate a change must be careful and deliberate in how they bring the issue to the table, and what the level of discomfort in the present situation is. How receptive is Leah to the notion of some of the blame for the current state of things is with her? Sarah must at all times be aware of the level of this metaphorical 'pressure,' and whether it is in need of raising (Leah is not getting into the hot tub quickly enough, and is becoming satisfied and complacent) or lowering (Leah is getting in too quickly, and the level of discomfort is getting out of control.) Leah and Sarah are close friends, and Leah relies heavily on Sarah for companionship and advice. So one way Sarah can raise the pressure and, in a way, allow Leah to decide how high that pressure will inevitably rise, is to tell Leah that she needs a break from the friendship for a spell. This has the benefit of creating some discomfort and forcing Leah to ponder the source, and putting the burden for controlling the distress on Leah's shoulders. How long should this break be?

The Prince of Denmark once asked himself, 'Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing, end them.' While the phrase 'outrageous fortune' may seem contrived and out of place, the choice of suffering and absorbing an attack as opposed to taking arms against it is a very pertinent one for this discussion. As we see in politics every day, when an individual resents or opposes an argument or perspective their opponent is bringing to the table, it is all too common for them to attack the individual instead of the position they represent (Hillary, I'm looking in your direction.) When this happens, and rest assured, it will, we as the harbingers of a new perspective have two choices: we can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or we can take arms against a sea of troubles. However, we must consider the crucial caveat that, by opposing, we may not end them. In fact, by opposing, we often not only unnecessarily raise the pressure, but we divert attention away from the issue at hand, and instead focus it on things which have no bearing on the issue at all. We allow ourselves to become the issue, and now the change we sought to realize is lost. So when Leah lobs personal attacks at Sarah, she must let the attacks roll off her, and not let the discussion digress into arguments over quality of character. As such Leah will be hoisted by her own petard, and forced to talk about the issue at hand, which is her feeling of inadequacy in comparison to Sarah. The cardinal rule to remember when we talk about withstanding personal attacks is when you get angry, you lose. Sarah must maintain an agile mind if she is to be able to identify these personal attacks, and sidestep them, so as to not get sucked in by them. One way she can do this is to remain calm, and simply counter Leah's venomous words with 'that's not what we're talking about right now.' It's also important to remember that, the more evident it becomes that the issue cannot be avoided through marginalization, it is not uncommon for desperation to set in.

When desperation sets in, people's thought process begins to degenerate. I'm not a neuroscientist, nor am I a psychologist, so I cannot articulate the physiological or psychological forms this breakdown takes, but I know it happens; I've seen it. Often times, when a subject has run out of ammunition to try to assassinate the issue, or the person representing it (metaphorically speaking), they will simply try to sidestep it by walking away or ignoring it. If we allow them to sweep the issue under the rug, or walk away from it leaving it unresolved, then we seriously hamper the progress of the change we seek to realize. The two points I spoke of above together culminate in the notion that we must at all times focus the attention of the person (in this case, Leah) on the problem they are faced with, and not allowing them to sidestep it, ignore it, divert it, call it something else, or exonerate themselves of responsibility for it. In our scenario, Sarah ought to be able to do what I refer to as, 'holding the mirror up.' Holding the mirror up is a big part of leadership, especially with regards to ensuring that the change remains the topic of discussion. We hold the mirror up by asking the person we're engaged with to examine themselves, examine their values, examine their thinking, and examine how they approach a given situation, and by placing the burden of elucidating the cause of the problem on them. While the existence of a gap or a problem may be clear as day to us, rest assured that the person (or persons) who have the problem have constructed any number of elaborate justifications for why the responsibility for the problem lies not with them, but with everyone else. Our job should be not to browbeat them into seeing things our way, but to empowering them to feel comfortable assuming ownership of at least some, if not all of the responsibility for the current state of things. Sarah can hold the mirror up to Leah by asking her about the true source of the social inadequacy she feels. Does it make sense for Sarah to be responsible for changing the way Leah feels? If it does, how is that fair to Sarah? How would Leah feel if someone asked her to change who she was? As a Mastermind role variant, I am more inclined to favor an appeal to logic and reason, but an emotional appeal can be just as effective, if that is what an individual may be more responsive to.

When we seek to mobilize change within a constituency, (and a single person can be a constituency) I think one of the long term goals should be to sow the seeds of change within few key members, and allow the chemistry between them to gel, and the momentum of change to build. The best way to sow those seeds is to ignite the flame urgency within those key constituents, and, once that flame is burning, protect it so that it does not get extinguished. Assisting others in realizing their own adaptive change is no different.

Ps plese if you get a chance put some floers on Algernons grave in the bak yard

2008-04-29T10:06:00.000-04:00

The Globe has titled this recently published article, 'the revenge of e.e. cummings.'

Perhaps a more appropriate name would have been 'the revenge of Charlie Gordon...'

e.e. cummings was of liberty to break the rules because he knew them intimately. If you don't know the rules, you aren't breaking them, you're Charlie Gordon. You don't know any better. And whether or not this new way of communicating becomes the norm, I don't think proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation should go the way of the hula hoop.

If we think in words, then we think in language. So the quality of our thought can only be as good as the quality of our language.

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----

2008-04-28T11:59:00.000-04:00

Is it possible to use SSL public key cryptography to secure content WITHOUT going through a CA? I've used OpenSSL to generate a bunch of key pairs and for whatever reason they just don't seem to want to play nicely with Mail.app, and I can't find any good howto's out there. Anyone? I can use OpenSSL to encrypt and decrypt locally, but I can't seem to get they keys to work with mail.

accidental evangelism and a sea of Purple Cows

2008-04-28T10:29:00.000-04:00

A purple cow is something you look at for more than 10 seconds.

A purple cow makes you stop and say 'what?'

A purple cow is something you tell your friends about.

This morning I took my friend and classmate Brian to my preferred morning coffee stop, Sami's, and he remarked that it was one of the best iced coffees he'd had in some time.

The nice thing about Sami's is that it is remarkable not due to a gimmick or a change in the process, but simply because its product is the best available (in the opinion of this author.)

But what happens when everything is a purple cow? The name of the game in the job hunt has always been differentiation; make your resume different from the thousands of other resumes out there. But what happens when everyone is playing the game at a remarkable level?

Perhaps you change the rules of the game...

Hockey redux

2008-04-23T08:01:00.000-04:00

I will only make one more imposition on the readers of this blog with regards to the Bruins, and that is to ask all of you to read this denouement of this season by John Bish, beat writer for the Bruins. Even if you don't like the Bruins or don't like hockey, it is a masterful piece of journalism that will inspire you.

Finally, one more hockey imposition:

I have never been a fan of Alexander Ovechkin. But I now think he is just as valuable to the NHL as Sidney Crosby, if not more so; him, Crosby, and (I'd like to think) Phil Kessel (or Milan Lucic? Maybe if he gets better at moving the puck) are the future of the NHL; they ARE the 'New NHL.'

With that said, it disappoints me that:
a) Ovechkin's team was eliminated last night by the Phriggin Phlyers, of all teams. (has any team in the NHL ever been more undeserving of victory than the Flyers?) and that
b) neither of these players (Ovechkin and Crosby) are on Original Six teams.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if the NHL wants to re-emerge as a major sport in American culture, Lord Stanley's mug absolutely cannot be making its home in such places as Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Anaheim, (where it doesn't even snow!) It needs to be with an Original Six club. The Original Six are and should be the nucleus of hockey fandom in America. Granted, Crosby plays for a '67 expansion team, which is not entirely without merit, but I still maintain that the core of American hockey should revolve around Original Six teams.

A satisfying defeat

2008-04-21T21:36:00.000-04:00

It's 9:40 on April 21, and the Boston Bruins 2007-2008 season just came to an end in the form of a 5-0 shelling by the Montreal Canadiens in the Bell Centre in Montreal.

As a lifelong Bruins fan, I am absolutely demoralized. I feel very let down by the team I followed religiously as a younger man, and I feel titillated because of how long this series was drawn out.

But at the same time, my heart (yes, my heart. I do have one) is so full of happiness that I really can't help but smile.

This game was a thorough and utter disappointment. The Bruins had every chance to keep this game competitive and even win it, and yet they were unable to put the biscuit in the basket. Carey Price had no small say in the matter, but I'm not clicking away here to dissect the mechanics of tonight's rout.

I am, as my colleague at the City of Boston once said, being with my emotions. And I know that in the not so distant future, I will be able to revisit these feelings, and they will make the inevitable success of the Causeway Street Crew taste that much sweeter. Make no mistake about it, this series was 6 of the best hockey games I have ever been privy to in my entire life. And it excites me more than words can say that I may be fortunate enough to witness such grace in the future.

I was playing catch with some friends today, and we were remarking on the current state of affairs in Red Sox Nation. As native Bostonians all of us, we were very disheartened to see our city and our beloved ball club the subject of so much shock and awe. We were dejected at the proliferation of Red Sox fans who revel in the present incarnation's successes, despite not having been through the countless letdowns and disappointments which those of us who grew up with the Red Sox have had to endure. And bear in mind that I am only 22 years of age, so the sorrows I've endured pale in comparison to those of the Red Sox fans of the 60's, 70's, and 80's.

And it is for that reason that tonight's demoralizing loss brings a smile to my face. Because this year the Bruins rekindled the fading embers of what was once a bonfire of passion for hockey and the Bruins in this fair city, a bonfire which was just in its final throes when I first heard names like Andy Moog and Don Sweeney as a youngster, and was unquestionably exterminated when 'Jumbo' Joe Thornton headed to San Jose.* And I for one am of the opinion that, as an Original Six team, it is only proper that the Bruins be in the hearts and on the lips of sports fans here in Boston.

Tonight was a chance for Montreal, and indeed, the rest of the NHL, to get a glimpse at the future of the Boston Bruins hockey franchise. When I was a younger man, the name of the game was the big trade. And with Mike O'Connell at the helm of the good ship Bruin, it was commonplace to see talented young players shipped off in exchange for one or two marquee players (the 'marquee' being optional). I cannot count how many times O'Connell (and to a lesser extent, his predecessor, Harry Sinden) mortgaged the future of this hockey club for mediocrity, or worse. But now Sinden and O'Connell are gone. And a former Harvard Crimson hockey captain by the name of Peter Chiarelli is in charge. And the NHL is changing. The salary cap means that managers like O'Connell can no longer simply trade for big money players; they have to draft players, and then commit to developing them, the way baseball organizations do. I touched on this in a previous entry.

The Bruins took the best team in the Eastern Conference to 7 games with a second line anchored by two players under 21 (Milan Lucic and Phil Kessel.) The man centering their first line is a month YOUNGER than me (David Krejci.) And all this without Patrice Bergeron, who is unilaterally the teams single best player, the the man the team needs to be built around.

So as I sit and mull over tonight's loss, I have a great deal to be frustrated and sad about. But I am hard pressed to contain my excitement. And I look forward to the day when tonight's heartbreak will give tomorrow's successes a whole new dimension.

_{*I still think Marco Sturm is the baddest mofo on skates, however, and I friggin love him in Black and Gold.}

2008-04-15T15:08:00.000-04:00

Why are such a sizable contingency of Boston sports fans so completely repulsive?
I was at the Bruins gem of a win last sunday over the Montreal Canadiens, and was both amused and appalled at the audacity of some of the Bruins fans (who are presumably from Boston) whom I encountered. It reached a pinnacle for me when, after Marc Savard (take note of his place of birth) scored the game winning goal in overtime, a sizable cadre of Bruins fans, as they were exiting the Garden, began chanting 'USA,' I was amused, not just because of Savard's nationality, but also because of this and this and this.

Should I keep going, or has the absurdity of this situation been made clear?

And it seems like this kind of thing happens only here in Boston. It's much worse with the Red Sox, who have gone from fabled baseball club to breeding ground for some of the most obnoxious specimens of sports fans you will ever encounter. Of course it's easy to be belligerent when your team has won 2 championships in 4 years, but I suppose I'd always secretly hoped Bruins fans would be of a higher caliber than that. They'd be wise enough to not be pugnacious and arrogant since their team has toiled under mismanagement for so long... apparently not. Oh well, c'est la vie.

If I have to endure one more nice day which is being ruined by heavy winds I am seriously just gonna snap.

Today an evangelist from Microsoft came and spoke to my Ethics class. It was kinda nice; challenged a lot of preconceived notions I had about Microsoft.

There are fewer things I find more repulsive than the stench of second-hand smoke. I am currently sitting at a sidewalk cafe on Huntington Ave. and there is someone two tables over smoking and I can smell it. It's an olfactory offense of the highest order.

A call to educational arms

2008-04-12T15:58:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the hiatus. This semester has been busy, although not as busy as I would have you believe. The truth is every time I feel compelled to write something I find myself unable to muster the mental energy to focus on an idea enough to flesh it out and put ~~pen to paper~~ keys to pixels. I don't like that though, so I am just going to stop making excuses and do it, and write about something that's been on my mind for almost the entire semester.

Do you think teachers, professors, and the like, think of themselves as salesmen/women? Do you think they think of themselves as marketers? I think it should be an integral part of their introduction/training to the profession.

If you are a teacher, you are a salesman/woman. You are a marketer. The product you're selling is knowledge, and the item you're marketing is an education. I think that if teachers and educators cannot/do not identify and own this cornerstone concept of their profession, they will find themselves constantly fighting an uphill battle against an army which always has the high ground; the high ground of ignorance.

Sure, there are the students who will elect to take an education/knowledge, as opposed to waiting for you to give it to them, but I'd imagine such people are in the minority of those who seek to learn. As I have so embarrassingly illustrated with this blog, things worth having/knowing/doing usually don't come easy. So you need to persuade your audience to WANT to hear what you have to say. Otherwise, you become white noise. Most people don't really want to learn, they want you to teach them. There is a world of difference.

So how to educators an instructors market their product more effectively? Well finding people who WANT to listen is usually a good start, but educators don't have the luxury of being able to select their audiences the way conventional marketers do; educators have a built-in audience, and there is no negotiating. Their goal, then, should be to engage as much of that audience as they can. It is here that educators can have a bit of an advantage over a conventional marketer; it's probably a safe assumption to make that individuals in a class seeking to learn have at least SOME degree of interest in the material being taught (not always... Exhibit A: High school algebra. But as you progress towards an older student body, I suspect this is more so the case.) However, just because an individual is interested in what you have to say, doesn't mean they'll automatically listen. I will say this now, as loud as I can, in the hopes that educators everywhere will take heed:

IF YOU TURN OFF THE LIGHTS AND TURN ON THE POWERPOINT, YOU WILL LOSE EVERY SINGLE STUDENT, ALMOST GUARANTEED. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP DOING THIS.

(and remember, 'educator' is not synonymous with 'teacher' or 'professor.' If you're preparing a presentation for your board, or explaining your work to a superior, or communicating any piece of information you know which your audience doesn't, you are stepping into the role of educator.)

If you do this, you are unceremoniously severing any semblance of a bond between you and the people you wish to reach. We will tune you right out. Because you are no longer teaching, you are reading. And we all know how to read. If we can read it faster than you can say it, why are you here? What are you bringing to the conversation (or in this case, complete lack thereof) that we can't get by just looking up? Forget it, you've lost.

One of the classes I'm currently taking is a class on the Civil War, which is fast becoming one of my favorite topics. And on the first day of the class, the professor proceeded to insult us. For 10 minutes. He told us about how lucky we as a generational demographic are (which is true) and how ignorant we are of our past (which is also true.) In that brief span, he captivated about 90% of us for the duration of the semester. I have never been more interested in what someone had to say. And remember, I'm a technical person at a technical school. And this man, in the span of 10 minutes, sold me on the Civil War, hook, line, and sinker. And now I'm just reading everything I can get my hands on pertaining to the Civil War, and begging my friend to fill her netflix queue with every single long-winded Civil War documentary I can find (and yes Leann, you're going to have to sit through all of them. Deal with it.)

So what made this class/professor different from all the other courses I've taken during the past four years? Why was I more interested in what my history professor had to say than any of the professors for my technical courses? Sure, it could be that I've always had an interest in the Civil War, and all I needed was for someone to tell me about it... Malcolm Gladwell rather wonderfully articulates this kind of phenomenon, the phenomenon of not knowing you like something until someone shows it to you, here. I think that might be part of it, but I don't think that's it. I think he did 3 things which made/make him remarkable

He told us stories
He made us laugh
He gave us the tools and challenged us to take an education

The emerging trend in marketing is for good marketers to 'tell stories.' To move away from spouting facts, figures and statistics, and to give your audience something to hold onto, an idea which they can relate to their existing intuitive framework. My history professor tells stories. And he makes them count. He makes us laugh. Someone can't laugh at what you say if they aren't listening. By making us laugh with the first thing he said, he ensured that we would, at the very least, be listening to the second thing he said. It was then up to him to make the second thing something we wanted to hear. He told us a story. We listened.

He challenged us to take the education he was offering us. By insulting us and telling us how ignorant we were, he was almost drawing a proverbial line in the sand... daring us to be 'man' enough to cross it. When I actually sit and think about it, it's really quite genius; if you want to ensure someone does something, tell them they can't do it. He, in so many words, told us we couldn't bring ourselves to a higher level of intelligence. Well I for one was only all to happy to prove him wrong.

He gave us the tools we needed. At the beginning of class, he gave us a notebook full of note sheets. The note sheets had names, dates, events, and places, all pertaining to the Civil War. That way, we could match up the stories he was telling us with the aforementioned names, dates, and places. There was no ambiguity about the knowledge, and it made studying for his tests very easy.

I'd like to issue a challenge to professors everywhere; be more like my Civil War professor. Put away the PowerPoint. Think of stories to tell your students. Don't give them a lackluster education; dare them to take one from you. We'll love you for it.

In closing, I'd also like to apologize for any typographical errors in this post... I'm outside and it is hellaciously overcast out. I can barely see my monitor, even with my brightness up all the way. If i take my sunglasses off, the glare from the aluminum of my computer is more or less blinding. And as we all know, checking for spelling and grammatical errors is for losers.

"Like a Firebell in the night"

2008-03-10T16:30:00.000-04:00

Something has been bugging me for a while, and I think I have some time to write about it.

And no, it's not that the Bruins got absolutely annihilated by the Capitals last night, only to fall to the Panthers in OT the other night, a game which I attended and subsequently ended 45 seconds into overtime WHILE I WAS IN THE BATHROOM. That's another rant for another day. (p.s. Marco Sturm you absolutely rocked the bitch with those shots from the outside. You've got to be one of the most underrated versatile wingers in the NHL. But I digress...)

It's this nonsense that was floating around the technosphere a while ago when Steve Jobs, President and CEO of Apple boldly called the Amazon Kindle eBook reader a flop because 'no one reads anymore.' From the New York Times:

It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” [Jobs] said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.

Any bookworm worth his salt would instinctively take offense to such a criticism of one of our most beloved pastimes, but in this instance I am somewhat inclined to agree with Jobs. I would add, however, a crucial caveat of my own. If I were to go on record echoing Jobs' sentiment, I would have to add the operative word: books. No one reads BOOKS anymore. And as much as it pains me, a self-proclaimed bibliophile to say this, I think there is some truth in that statement.

The reason for that is that user-generated content has replaced books as the principal focus of literary interest for most all people, both people who like to read and those who don't. Lawrence Lessig will talk at great length to anyone who will listen about the power of user-generated content, and for the most part, I agree with him. When I think about the things I really enjoy reading, except for Sherlock Holmes mysteries, they are all what Chris Anderson might call 'Long Tail publications;' periodicals and columns which cater to those of us who live out on the edge. People with specific interests which are both eclectic and esoteric. People with interests they are really passionate about. Seth Godin writes the number one marketing blog in the world. And I really love reading it. I don't just like it, I love it. And I wanna be able to read it anywhere. Take it with me, like a book. Granted, Seth has published books in the past, and they're really good. But his blog is what people keep coming back to. Guy Kawasaki and Garr Reynolds are other good examples of bloggers-turned authors (or vice versa?) Who have built a dedicated and devoted readership.

So people DO read, Steve. Probably moreso than ever before. Because now there are more things for them to read than there have ever been in the history of society. There are an infinite number of publications for them to read about an infinite number of topics. Even people who say they 'don't like to read,' like some of the people in my major, enjoy their car forums and ESPN columns.

So how can we put this wealth of content in the hands of the on-the-go user? I have a laptop, and most of my leisure time spent on it is spent in Google Reader, burning through my various subscriptions, or on Ars Technica, poring over journal entries and forum threads. But my laptop is heavy and bulky. I can't walk down the street or sit in a park and read this content on my laptop. So a laptop is not a feasible solution. In addition to being big and bulky for this specific purpose, a laptop has a boatload of other functionality that I could care less about if the only reason I'm using it is to read. Maybe an XO, or a similar device might serve this purpose, but that's still a device with functionality not pertinent to reading.

So with that in mind, I propose a solution; a marriage of the wealth user generated content and 'Long Tail' publications which now exist on the internet with the concept of the eBook reader; an ultra-slim, stripped down computer whose sole functionality is to display text (and maybe images) for users to read., preferably on electronic ink/paper. Let's call this device the AirBook. I realize this makes it sound like an Apple-centric product, and I suppose in my dream world, such a device would call Cupertino its birthplace, but truth be told I chose the name because I like it; I think it effectively captures what this device is, how it works, and what needs its meant to meet. Besides, it Steve Jobs thinks the Kindle is a bust, he isn't likely to start his developers working on a competing product. (Another name might be the Wafer.)

The AirBook would be about as thick as the MacBook Air or the Lenovo X300, but not a clamshell form factor. Something with an interface more like the Kindle. Maybe with a touch screen. The interface needs to be as simplistic as possible; the fewer buttons, the better. The Kindle's keyboard makes the user experience clumsy and awkward, in my opinion. The only reason a device like the one I'm proposing would need a keyboard would be if the owner was themselves a content creator, and wished to publish content on the go. I suppose some basic search functionality wouldn't hurt either.

This kind of device could beget a glorious revival of one of my favorite literary genres, a genre hence untouched in the realm of user-generated content; the short story. Lots of people have blogs, and lots of authors write books. But how many people write short stories anymore? I think the short story is the perfect literary genre for the AirBook/Wafer/Whatever name you think sounds badass for the device I've described. Bloggers who otherwise wrote several short entries/columns over a given period of time could consolidate their individual ideas into one coherent arc, which encompasses several ideas and concepts and ties them all together in a neat little package to present to the reader (ahem, John Gruber.) People love to be told a story. Why not link some ideas together and form a more complete piece of writing? Or, even better, write something completely original; don't just offer an opinion, perspective, or account... tell a story.

That's just like Tennessee

2008-02-24T13:34:00.000-05:00

Ok I will attempt to muster enough mental energy to put some words down.

I have been transiently sick for the past month or so; as I mentioned earlier I had two cases of gastroenteritis within a month of each other, and ever since then I've been waking up around 5 every morning with a rotten nauseous feeling in my stomach. I never throw up, I just squirm around on my bed and try to put my head down and power through my morning until it eventually goes away (usually sometime after I get out of the shower.) Anyways, the whole 'being rudely awoken at 5am' part of that equation has just absolutely destroyed my ability to stay energetic throughout the day; if I don't take a nap around 3 then I'm pretty much a zombie for the rest of the day. The school physician was nice enough, but because I'm on my school's health care plan, which is the 'if it isn't the flu, we don't cover it, asshole' plan, I couldn't see a real doctor without seeing her twice then getting a referral; So there was two weeks I could have been treating myself gone. So she referred me to a gastroenterologist, who was generous enough to explain my condition to me while simultaneously insulting my intelligence, inferring that because I'm a college student, it's my own fault that I'm sick, and picking at his nails... just because you spent $200,000 on a white lab coat doesn't give you the right to be disrespectful to me, you arrogant jerk. The whole ordeal left a really bad taste in my mouth, both about being on Wentworth's health care plan, and the state of health care in this country on the whole. But I really don't think one experience is sufficient grounds to form a truly informed opinion, so I will abstain from ranting.

The point is, I have no energy because I'm waking up at 5 every morning and dry heaving for like 20 minutes.

I will write something with more actual substance later. Probably about adaptive work.

For the Record:

2008-02-19T08:34:00.000-05:00

I have not abandoned this blog.

I have been sick for the past couple weeks and as such have had almost no energy.

Also, the fact that the weather has been relentlessly abysmal has not done much for inspiring me.

I have a couple things I'd like to write about in a mental queue, and now that I'm beginning to feel better (and the weather looks like maybe it's trying to get a bit nicer out) I'll do my best to post some new content here.

An open letter to my Aunt Nan

2008-01-29T16:44:00.000-05:00

Nan,

I have by my own admission been not as diligent as I would like in getting done some of the things I need to get done, and for that I apologize. But I have been seized with such an uncontrollable urge to write that now my fingers can't move fast enough. You'll accept my further apologies if this letter suffers from spelling erors or digressions of thought... The cauldron is bubbling over, as they say (do people really say that?)

First and foremost, greetings from the world of Mac OS X! My mother was gracious enough to get me a new laptop for the holidays, one which I am looking forward to getting many good years (read: like, 2) of service out of. She informs me that my family was generous enough to make a contribution to this purchase, and for that I would like to offer you a very sincere and heartfelt thanks. In short, this thing is so frickin' cool.

I've always been intrigued by Mac OS X, and it was just last year (right after the Intel-PPC transition started, go figure) that brought my first Mac; a mac mini, a computer which I still use to this day. It was with this initial purchase that I was bitten by the Apple/ Mac OS X bug, and have since developed a burgeoning obsession with the technology powering this operating system, and understanding at every level what sets it apart from its competitors.

As I became more and more interested in the technology behind Macs and Mac OS X, I began to follow more closely things in the news regarding the computer and its flagship operating system. I guzzled down about 10 white papers on the PowerPC architecture, and became driven to understand why Apple had chosen to develop on this hardware platform, and what it means for the consumers. As the switch to Intel was announced and became more apparent, I began to see more clearly the constraints of zigging while the whole world zagged. And that zigging versus zagging was not a battle of good versus evil, it was just... different. Technology marches on.

Then came virtualization. And I knew from the second I saw the first review that this was going to change the way we long tail-ers thought about computing.

Oh, and that I HAD to have one (so much for not thinking like a consumer... oh well.)

So I suffered in silence on my Lenovo ThinkPad T60 running 64-bit Windows XP (fuck all that Vista noise) Waiting patiently for news from Cupertino about something called 'Leopard' (I had plenty of time, given the abysmal speed of the 32-bit compatibility layer in 64-bit Windows.)

Then Leopard was released. And I started reading everything about the OS I could get my hands on. Thread-level kernel tracing. Virtual workspaces. 64-bit Graphic APIs. Integrated backup. And of course, fully certified UNIX. I was sold. And then came the holidays. And my new MacBook Pro.

My first order of business (after installing the in-box operating system upgrade) was to set about turning over every last stone of this operating system and breaking everything the OS would let me break. Some guy named John Siracusa helped out a little bit. It was glorious. Terminal hacks everywhere. Pages upon pages of notes.

My second order of business was to learn everything I could about the NeXT-derived, Object Oriented (newly 64-bit!) Application Development framework which was allegedly what sold all those pretty black NeXTstations back in the late 80's and early 90's (oh, and I've developed an affinity for NeXTSTEP amidst all this. Pretty cool stuff for its time.) Something called 'Cocoa.'

And then classes started. And my intellectual energy waned somewhat. I found my schooling interfering with my education. I would come home at the end of the day with enough mental energy to maybe read a chapter in whatever book I was currently reading, but not much else.

I have realized now that it is simply time for me to leave the place where I currently am. In a number of ways, it's simply no longer the place that's best for me. I feel I have learned all I can from my time at Wentworth. I begrudge the school nothing; I feel confident that I took what others see as a mediocre and incomplete education and allowed my own curiosity to fill in the gaps. I wonder if perhaps that is the true challenge and mission of higher education; to empower and train students to fill in the gaps, and contextualize a common framework of knowledge. Not to have the way shown to us, but simply the methods that are used and the values which are held. And we provide the rest. And if we don't, then we innovate; we push forward. We take the old and make it new. Or we take the unknown and make it known. And then we realize that we probably never needed school in the first place. But it still feels good to say you accomplished something, and did a decent job at accomplishing it. Perhaps it's time for me to leave Boston for a spell as well; there is much to be learned elsewhere in the world, and I would be remiss if I didn't at least make an effort to get my hands on SOME of it.

I have recently been spending my time watching some of the talks given by some truly remarkable people at a conference called TED. As I mentioned earlier, these talks are the intellectual equivalent of crack cocaine, and are not for the faint of mind or the dispassionate. This talk, given by Larry Lessig, founder of the Creative Commons, especially reminds me of you.

So in conclusion, Thank you. I miss you bunches. I really hope you're coming up for Passover this year; It's been a while since I've seen you... and your stories never fail to disappoint.

I hope you're doing well.

Your Nephew,
-Stephan

odds, ends, and SafeSleep by Apple

2008-01-28T10:54:00.000-05:00

I am 21 years old, and I have never in my life needed, or gotten, a flu shot. This winter, I have had two cases of moderate to severe gastroenteritis, one of which had the unfortunate distinction of happening on January 31st. I think next winter will be the first time in my life I'll be getting a flu shot. I've also lost my faith in alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

Yesterday it snowed here in Boston. It was what I've coined a perfect storm of beauty. It was the right amount of snow and the right consistency (think perfect powder for skiing/snowboarding.) The temperature today is just right and the sun is out, making it almost picturesque outside. It's really quite a sight to behold.

Recently I have been almost obsessively watching the talks and presentations on TED. TED is the intellectual equivalent of crack cocaine. It has stimulated my mind in a way only one or two other things can. I emphatically recommend it to anyone with even the slightest bit of intellectual curiosity. This is Tikkun Olam at it's best; These are the people who are, literally, changing the world we live in. I would give almost anything to be as remarkable as some of these folks. These are the greatest minds of our times, in my opinion. Please view even just one, I promise it will inspire you.

Speaking of which, If you have not already seen Juno, Please go do it right this second. If you don't absolutely love it, I'll give you the money you paid to see it back. Well, not really, but that's a non-issue since it's pretty much impossible not to love this movie.

There was nothing I liked about this whole Tom Brady boot debacle. For as fickle and unlikable as Dan Shaugnessy often is, I think he's right on this count: come on, people. There are much more interesting and important things to talk about than Tom Brady's foot.

I really dont understand why Arrested Development was canceled. I honestly think it's scientifically impossible to get tired of this show.

My roommate and close friend Pat Cable has the good fortune of working for the Boston Globe photo department, and recently wrote a great piece about some of the 'behind the scenes' work he does at sporting events. I recommend it to sports fans (or aspiring photographers) who want to learn a bit about what really goes into the pictures you see in the newspaper everyday. Because of this job, Pat gets to go to a lot of sporting events, like the World Series and the Super Bowl. It's pretty cool.

Enough odds and ends. Time for some real writing.

...I was going to write about OS X's 'Safe Sleep' feature, but it turns out that a bunch of people have already written about it, and I really don't have anything to add. So if you own a Mac laptop, and you carry it around a lot like I do, do yourself a favor and read a couple of those. And make sure that light on the front of your mac is blinking before you shove it in your bag.

Am I the only one...

2008-01-22T12:53:00.000-05:00

...Who likes the way Donte' Stallworth looks in a Patriots uniform, and would like to see him hang around?

Morning Rituals

2008-01-21T16:15:00.000-05:00

I'm having a really lousy day, so I'm going to use the 15 minutes or so I have before I need to be somewhere else to have my expectations yet again not met and my frustration compounded to write about something positive, in the hopes that it will lift my spirits.

I've recently started drinking tea, a practice which in the past routinely met my ridicule, in the effort to find a social potable that won't leave me wired the way coffee does. The results have been mediocre.

It was a combination of this new practice, and a book of Tao meditations which I got from a friend of mine for the holidays which has inspired me to write about morning rituals, and their sanctity (at least for me. As always, YMMV.) As someone who dislikes most everything about his current living situation, it's so nice to be able to begin my day in a good mood.

I am one of the few people who openly identify as a 'morning person.' I love mornings. I have always felt there is something very peaceful and encouraging about bearing witness to the world and the people in it waking up and beginning their lives.

Most people I know, especially college students, despise mornings. Their dream world seems to be one in which you are of liberty to sleep until 10 or 11 and lead a very leisurely day. A day, which, I'm sure in most cases, ends with more than moderate consumption of sub-par alcohol. I don't think I could in good conscience lead a life like that and consider my existence fulfilling. It sounds like such a boring way to spend your time. But I digress (as always.)

I think perhaps one of the reasons I am a morning person is because I have developed a routine, and I have learned to find the joy in the things which make up that routine. I usually wake up very early and while I may still be tired and lethargic, I hit the ground running and will myself out of bed and straight into the shower. No snooze button, no 'ten more minutes,' none of that. My alarm goes off, I'm up and into the shower, before the lingering lethargy has the opportunity to suck me back to bed. And from that very first step, I have managed to enjoy the things I do as I wake up. I hope in the shower and drum out whatever song happens to be stuck in my head on my chest while I wait for my conditioner to work. I play games where I see if I can clean both my arms before I reach the end of the song. Sure, it may sound juvenile and naiive, but it makes my shower just a little fun. I look forward to hearing whatever song is stuck in my head that morning as I get dressed.

Once I get out of the shower, I shave, an activity which only recently have I been able to really find joy in (as my friends can attest to.) I received a razor and boar bristle brush shaving kit for the holidays, and it has totally restored my faith in shaving. I love using it. I used to view shaving as a chore, but I genuinely look forward to it now. I love working up a lather in the soap dish, and I love brushing the lather onto my face. It really makes all the difference in the attitude I have as I walk out the front door. I get dressed and listen to my daily podcasts of Pardon the Interruption and Globe 10.0, my favorite sports shows.

I've also found that if I take a brief walk in between leaving my house and going to wherever I'm going, it lets me begin my day with a clearer head. Even though my apartment is adjacent to my school, I still take 15-20 minutes or so every morning to walk to this little green cart to get what I consider to be the best cup of coffee in the City of Boston. I put my headphones on and just absorb the music. It's almost like meditation; for me at least. I've always said if I don't have my morning cup of coffee I'm just not myself, but in reality I think what really invigorates me is that walk, and the coffee is just to give myself somewhere to go (lest I feel like I'm being unproductive and wasting time.)

The power just cut out at the JP Licks I'm currently sitting in, so I will post this when I get home. I think I was out of things to say anyways. C'est La Vie...

Top 5 Records: A Brief Musical Interlude

2008-01-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

Top 5 intros:

'Baba O'Reilly' by The Who

'Zak and Sara' by Ben Folds

'The First Single' by The Format (only the 'Interventions and Lullabies' version though)

'Cadence to Arms' by the Dropkick Murphys

'If You Want Blood "You've Got It) by AC/DC

Top 5 outros:

'Phantom Limb' by The Shins

'You Can't Always Get What You Want' by the Rolling Stones

'Just The Way' by Tim Blane

'A Jack With One Eye' by Texas Is The Reason

'23' by Jimmy Eat World*

Top 5 choruses:

'Fall Away' by The Fray

'Monkey Wrench' by the Foo Fighters

'Mrs. Potter's Lullaby' by the Counting Crows

'Sweet Steps' by Junction 18

'Don't Stop Believing' by Journey

Top 5 solos:

Synth solo in 'Jump' by Van Halen

The main solo in 'Black Dog' by Led Zeppelin

Riff in 'Narcolepsy' by Third Eye Blind

Banjo solo at the beginning of 'Drunken Lullabies' by Flogging Molly

Bass solo in 'You Can Call Me Al' by Paul Simon

Municipal WiFi vs. free private WiFi

2008-01-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

One of the areas of psychology which interests me is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI. The MBTI is a psychological indicator which, when administered correctly* (key phrase), allows the taker to identify their preferences with regards to certain psychological functions, such as how we take in, organize, and process information. My Myers-Briggs type is INTJ, and I have strong preferences for all of those functions (a full explanation of what that means is outside the scope of this entry. Click the link if you want more information.)

Anyways, one of the weaknesses of being a strong INTJ (according to this site; scroll down to 'Potential Problem Areas') is that you run the risk of, literally, becoming a 'slave to your intuition.' For me, this means when my head begins to circle around an idea or concept, I hyperfocus and lock in with it so intensely that my brain begins to move way too fast and I begin to synthesize ideas faster than I can process them. Which is why I'm currently sitting in the JP Licks at Brigham Circle, a destination which is in the opposite direction of where I was initially going, clicking away furiously on my keyboard, trying to get the idea which is currently in my head out of my head before I either run out of steam or the key points I want to write about fall out of my head and into /dev/null. In short, it means I write when my brain tells me to write.

Today's topic is Municipal WiFi, a concept I admittedly know next to nothing about, and it is that disclaimer I will ask you all to keep in mind as you read this.

The reason I feel compelled to write about Municipal WiFi is not due to the fact that Boston is looking to implement it, nor is it because I worked with people who work in this area.

It's because, on my way to my destination today, my runaway intuition grabbed hold of my psyche once again, and I felt inextricably compelled to write about a concept which escapes me now even 20 minutes after I initially conceptualized it (I think it was respecting the pains of change?) I looked for a place where I could sit for a bit and hash out my ideas on my laptop. My search proved fruitless, however, as every wireless access point I found was either secured or not free (i.e. the joyless marriage between Starbucks and T-Mobile from which no one benefits.) My frustration led me to think, 'wouldn't it be nice if I could simply sit outside (on this beautiful day in early January!!) and hash out some of the ideas currently occupying all my mental CPU cycles while simultaneously taking in this wonderful morning?'

Enter Municipal WiFi.

Municipal WiFi is a concept that is still in its infancy, and already it's got more angst than a teenager. To summarize the situation as succinctly as I can (and within the limit of my current scope of knowledge), Municipal WiFi is at an impasse because, financially, it is a massive undertaking, whose financial burden is far too large to be shouldered entirely by a municipality. So many of these municipalities wanting to implement Municipal WiFi have turned to private organizations (specifically EarthLink, in many cases) to back the project. For one reason of another, these private backers have since rescinded their financial support, claiming that the endeavor is a fiscal dead end. So many of these municipalities (Philly and Chicago especially) were left out on the cold.

Boston has elected to take a different approach to the Municipal WiFi problem, and as a result they have made significantly more progress than their sister cities (I think?), but they still find themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to that elusive 'last mile.' Boston has elected to fund its Municipal WiFi through a non-profit established specifically for the purpose of funding this project, called OpenAirBoston. But even with the backing of an NPO, Muni WiFi is just too big a prospect to be cleanly funded and truly have no Bottom Line. Sure, municipalities could raise taxes, but good luck convincing paycheck-to-paycheck folks like my mom, who not only don't have a computer, but may not even know how to use municipal wifi if they did, to pony up the extra money. Such a course of action is, in the opinion of this writer, a fool's errand, and I think most people realize that, which is why it hasn't really been a talking point. But it does raise the question: who's going to foot the bill for municipal wifi? Private companies are out (thanks for nothing, EarthLink.) NPO's are an option, but there are all kinds of legal issues that come with that ticket, legal issues which I can't even begin to fathom. The only other option I can think of is Venture Capital (VC) money, which is as easy to find these days as a penny on the sidewalk. But VC's are notorious for hoarding their money until they're sure the Bottom Line is a safe bet. And we don't even know if Municipal WiFi can (or should) HAVE a Bottom Line, let alone if it's 'safe' from a VC perspective.

There are people who think Municipal WiFi is a huge security liability; there was a story on 7 News a couple months ago about being secure on wireless networks, and they made mention of the possibility of Municipal WiFi, and the opportunities for identity theft and data compromise such a network might present. It even inspired me to start writing an article on SSH Tunnels, an entry which is still in queue as I have yet to finish it. But the real losers in this scenario are a) people like me, who are tech-savvy enough to know how to protect themselves (and perhaps more importantly, educate others on how to protect themselves) and b) Everyone who owns an iPhone, or some other wireless-capable device. These folks, who may want to do everything from check their e-mail to download the latest Fallout Boy (sp?) single, are forced to go through the WAN data network of their wireless carrier, a network whose reliability varies greatly from square foot to square foot.

So back to my initial point: those of us who would otherwise welcome Municipal WiFi as a means to a number of ends are forced to fend for ourselves, an endeavor which is considerably more difficult, and, in some cases, unethical. It is that ethicality (is that a word?) which was to be the initial focus of this entry, prior to the brain dump of a digression you all just endured (assuming, of course, you haven't completely lost interest by now and you were able to follow the hopelessly tangled web of my thought process.)

The Ars Technica article linked above is a good starting point if we're to have the discussion about ethical use of free (as in beer) wifi. There are two specific scenarios I'd like to address here, one of which is touched upon in the aforementioned article more than the other: using an open Wireless Access Point (WAP) which is owned/operated by a person, such as an unsecured WiFi network being broadcast from a home router, and an open WAP being offered by a business or organization for the use of its customers, such as the one JP Licks offers which I am currently using to write this entry.

I think the second one presents more of an ethical dilemma than the first, as I personally am of the mindset that ignorance is no excuse, and if you don't want folks coming into your house ad hoc, then you should buy a lock for your door. Some people leave their networks open deliberately, because they believe in the honor system and they don't mind passers by using their bandwidth, perhaps for some of the aforementioned tasks (checking e-mail, getting maps, etc.) I think calling it 'stealing' by default, however, serves only to stigmatize the practice and ensure that an objective discussion an an open forum is less likely to take place. People don't have open, enlightened discussion about burglary or bank robbery for the same reasons; if a practice is socially ascribed a negative value judgement, and that judgement is widely accepted, then the topic is never discussed because no one wants to stand on the 'other' side of that fence. So my INTJ value system says that the use of a personal unsecured WAP for occasional intermittent tasks is acceptable. I think the only time such use crosses the ethical boundary is when is is either a) for a bandwidth intensive task, like torrenting or b) for an illegal task, like downloading music/movies/pictures of Paris Hilton which are copyrighted.

The second scenario presented above, however, presents us with a more interesting ethical situation, however, and it is that scenario which the Ars article seems to avoid. Whether this avoidance is deliberate I'm not sure. Using the free WiFi network of a private organization is sometimes the only option for the BlackBerry user who just wants a quick check of his e-mail on the go, and it almost certainly is the only option for someone like me who wants to sit here for an hour or so and hammer out some 10,000 characters, while simultaneously checking Facebook, talking on IM, and maybe even Skyping a few people, all of which accumulate to a non-negligible amount of bandwidth being used. JP Licks offers free WiFi more likely than not with the explicit intent of attracting customers. Want to work on your thesis? Grab a coffee while you work. Wanna read the New York Times? Why not have a muffin or scone as you read. Wanna write a blog entry? How about some ice cream, or a hot chocolate? There is a young woman sitting not to far from me reading a PowerPoint presentation about Hematology and drinking something which smells deliciously cinnamon-y. So we then must ask the question: is deliberately failing to meet an social expectation unethical, if said expectation is implicit, and not explicitly stated? I'm currently using JP Licks' free WiFi, and I haven't bought anything. And I could probably just as easy finish my writing and leave here without spending a dime. It makes sense to assume that one of the reasons for the aforementioned agreement between Starbucks and T-Mobile is to deter such behavior. My opinion, however, is when you're an international multi-billion dollar business and you charge $5 for a cup of coffee, looking to gouge your customers a few extra dollars for WiFi is kind of a shitty thing to do. I don't think it'd be difficult at all for Starbucks to unshackle their WiFi hotspots and simply put a per IP throughput cap in place. C'est la vie, I suppose. Since JP Licks is both a reasonably priced shop, and a locally owned business, I personally have no reservations about purchasing a drink before I leave, and have every intent of doing so, because my value system tells me this is the right thing to do.

But what about the folks who don't share my sense of right and wrong; a constituency which I suspect is in the majority of WiFi users? Are they 'stealing?'

As I said before, I think calling it 'stealing' by default isn't fair, as it ensures a discussion regarding this issue will never take place. With that said, however, I don't think that makes the behavior ethical. I think this is a business providing a service in exchange for something. If they weren't getting anything from the deal, they wouldn't do it. They're a business, and business has a Bottom Line. This is not a Bad Thing™. Trent over at The Simple Dollar actually made a post whose value-based underpinnings I think summarize my sentiments on this issue rather effectively; The post is about excessive frugality, and when it may constitute 'stealing.' Trent defines stealing as:

[Stealing is] taking something from anyone - a business, a person, even a pet - an item that they’re not freely giving or selling.

He goes on to talk about how this exchange of goods, one where there is the potential to be no tangible benefit for the business, can in fact have an intangible benefit: the good will and potential evangelism of its customers. I love JP Licks, not just because their Oreo ice cream is the absolute friggin best, hands down, but because they're a good (kosher!) business, with good prices, that happens to be locally owned, and is nice enough to offer free WiFi. As such, I routinely sing the praises of this establishment, and always take my out of town friends here when they come to visit. I personally don't patronize Starbucks, not only because I can't afford to pay $5 for a cup of coffee, but because I disagree with their pricing, and I STRONGLY disagree with their practices regarding Wireless hotspots in their stores. Starbucks has replaced the library as the gathering place for industrious youths and twentysomethings (a paradigm shift which I think is reflective of our societal tendency to be consumption-oriented, but that's another talk for another day. I was actually going to write about that the other day when I was at the Boston Public Library until I realized that I'd forgotten my library card, which I needed to get on the BPL's wireless network,) and they have the nerve to charge for the use of their wireless network? I think it's outrageous.

And so, in the meantime, I will suffer in silence. JP Licks will continue to be the place I go to when I want to work on something and am tired of sitting in my stuffy apartment.

_{*Part of the correct administration of the MBTI means consulting with a professional who is qualified to administer the indicator, so you can be briefed on what your results mean and what the indicator means about you. This means NOT TAKING THE INDICATOR ONLINE. If you're interested in learning more about the MBTI or taking it, please consult a Professional Development or Mental Health professional for more info. Don't take it online, you'll ruin it for yourself.}

The rules of $10 bets: an homage to Mike and Ed

2008-01-03T00:31:00.000-05:00

One of the shows I enjoy most is a show called 'Ed,' about a New York City lawyer who, upon losing his job at a big city law firm for one misplaced comma in a 300-something page contract, moves back to his hometown of Stuckeyville, Ohio, to start his life over, which, for him, means buying a bowling alley and opening a law practice inside. Unfortunately, 'Ed' is no longer on the air, but I have the entire back catalogue in great (read: crappy) low-quality TV Rips from 2001, so I can enjoy a little bit of Ed Stevens whenever I want. (Devotees will remember that 'Ed' is the show which first introduced me to comedian Michael Ian Black.)

Anyways, Ed and his best friend from high school, a doctor named Mike, have a tradition which I found to be most amusing; a tradition I would like to see resurrected: they would bet each other ten dollars (or, as they liked to say, 'ten bucks') to do something silly and embarrassing. Such acts included:

Ordering your meal at a restaurant in rhyme.
Touching a strangers bald spot
Hugging a giant chicken
Referring to lettuce as "leh-TOOS'
Asking for a single french fry to be wrapped up 'to go'
Calling a reverend 'Padre'

and my personal favorite,

riding one of those spring horses they have in parks while exclaiming 'look at me everybody, I'm a cowboy! YEE-HAW!'

As someone who frequents a pub in an area populated primarily by college students, it makes me a tad disappointed to overhear wagers like 'ten bucks if you chug the rest of this pitcher of Molson,' or, 'five bucks if you slap the waitress' ass,' where the wager is not only uninspired, but in some cases, dangerous, or just plain rude.

My friend Kera and I were discouraged by the sad state of betmaking amongst our so-called contemporaries, so, in an effort to give a breath of fresh air to betmaking in bars and pubs everywhere, we decided to adapt the rules by which Ed and Mike governed their wagers to our own. It was soon after that we realized we weren't even really sure exactly what those rules were.

So, in the name of clarification, I sat down and watched almost every episode of 'Ed' wherein Ed and Mike make a ten dollar wager. And from these clips I was able to extrapolate a series of basic rules which surrounded the ten-dollar antics of Ed Stevens and Mike Burton in the hit TV show 'Ed,' and I post them here, in the hopes that you all will carry them with you to your local bars, pubs, and clubs, and resurrect the tradition of the slightly embarrassing, yet chiefly benign, bar wager.

So, without further ado, my interpretation of the rules regarding ten-dollar wagers between Ed Stevens and Mike Burton; adapted for general use.

1: At no point during the bet can you or any member of your party disclose to any unwitting third parties that your actions are subject to the terms of a bet. This is of the utmost importance. Observers and accessories must not be aware that a bet is taking place.

2: The person executing the bet must see the bet through to completion. No giving up halfway through. Failure to meet the terms of the bet means you will not receive due compensation.

3: The terms of the bet must be clearly defined; if there's an embarrassing way to interpret the bet, that's more likely than not what the bettor meant. The person performing the bet has the right to ask any qualifying questions, but asking said questions implies acceptance of the bet.

4: Regarding the exchange of goods: Goods cannot be exchanged until any unwitting third parties are no longer present to witness said exchange, lest they become aware of the fact that said actions were done under the terms of a bet. If necessary, this may mean withholding payment until after leaving the location in question.

5: You must never bet someone to do something you yourself would not be willing to do. This includes dangerous bets, bets which are against the law, or bets which may be grounds for ejection from the present venue. This is a fun tradition meant to be enjoyed amongst good friends; don't spoil it by being a jackass.

6: The act in question must be deemed funny by at least 1/2 of the people present; lame bets are considered an insult to this tradition and will not be tolerated. Infantile and childish bets, however, are wholeheartedly encouraged. Embarrassing bets are ok, but see Rule 5.

7: the standard exchange must be clearly defined between friends and is not negotiable. Ipso facto, if the standard exchange is one beer, one may not make a bet of any more or any less than one beer.* If one is not able to provide the standard exchange, one is not allowed to make a bet.

8: At no point during the bet can the person performing the bet laugh at the absurdity of the act taking place. The act must be done with a straight face. Laughter negates any obligation of payment.

9: Any third parties who are aware that a bet is taking place, however, have every right to laugh as much as they want. In fact, said laughter is encouraged. Failure by complicit third parties to laugh is indicative of either a poorly executed or poorly conceived bet. They are not, however, allowed to disclose that the action in question is under the terms of a bet (see Rule 1.)

10: A bet may be made in absentia under the following terms:

The bet is handed in writing to the person executing the bet
The person delivering the bet is aware that such a betting tradition exists among friends
The person delivering the bet has not seen the contents of the bet prior to delivery, nor has any other person who may be present upon execution of the bet.
Someone familiar with the terms set forth in this document is present during execution of the bet to ensure that all terms are adhered to
Arrangements have been made for the person executing the bet to receive payment on behalf of the recipient upon completion of the bet

11: No bet may be made twice in the same company. You are encouraged, however, to share some of the more creative bets you may encounter with your various circles of friends.

12: Random patrons may participate if they are made aware of the rules, and generally seem to be good-natured people

and finally...

13: Do not sully the tradition of the bet by overusing it. Bets are best saved for situations which easily lend themselves to the maximum amount of embarrassment with the minimum amount of effort. With bets, the rule should always be: quality over quantity.

So there you have it. That is everything I could come up with in one sitting. If you have a rule or stipulation you would like to add, or a suggestion to improve this list, I encourage you to leave it in the comments section of this entry. Who knows, maybe next time you're sitting somewhere, enjoying a pint or a cocktail, you may be fortunate enough to overhear someone say to their friend, 'Ten bucks if you ask for a Cosmopolitan when you order your next drink.'

_{*Mixed drinks and cocktails are subject to group approval. Don't push your luck with Long Island Iced Teas though, or you may find yourself ordering your next drink in Pig Latin}

One Trunk I wouldn't lean against

2007-12-18T09:21:00.000-05:00

I have this lingering problem where I'll start writing about a concept, and I'll get maybe 2/3 of the way through the piece, I'll flesh out the ideas, establish a logical flow to my points, and write most of it, and then I'll either get distracted or run out of steam, so I tell myself I'll finish it later. Then later comes and I reread what I wrote, and I try to pick up the strands to tie them back to my initial concept and I can't for the life of me bring it all back together. I'm hoping that, in writing more, I'll be able to make more of a 'clean cut' if you will, if/when I stop writing mid-piece, so I can pick it up again later and not be completely lost on what I was writing about.

The cause for this observation is I was reading a piece by Penelope Trunk this morning, and was reminded of how much this woman's opinion makes my blood boil, at which point I remembered I had an article in queue about how much I dislike Penelope Trunk, as I think her advice is a perfect match for unimaginative simpletons who are content to shoot themselves in the professional foot with a goddamn shotgun. Anyone who thinks skating by on $40,000 a year is a reasonable goal to set for ones self is, in my opinion, both unambitious and uninspired. That's not to say there's a problem with doing so, I just think that it's an unreasonably low expectation to set for ones self.

You'll notice the word opinion is bolded above. That is because, unlike Penelope Trunk, I make every effort to state as explicitly as I am able to which parts of my writing are my opinion and which parts are fact. If I am referencing a fact, I make every effort to back that fact up with concrete primary resources. Maybe it's the INTJ in me which is inherently skeptical, but If you're purporting a fact and you don't have hard, indisputable evidence to back it up, as far as I'm concerned, you're trying to feed me either your opinion or a line of shit. Either way, I won't have any of it. Witness as I link to Penelope's many blog posts in which she will cite a fact and her reference will simply be another piece written by her stating her opinion.

(As a totally irrelevant aside, I am amused by the blatant vandalism of her page on Wikipedia.)

Compare, if you will, Penelope's writing style with that of Red Sox pitcher, devout Christian, and dyed-in-the-red family man Curt Schilling.

Penelope laments the fact that her career has taken away from her ability to be a mother, handle mundane household tasks, and spend time with her kids. Curt, on the other hand, travels more or less endlessly for about 9 months out of the year (from Spring Training in February until the end of postseason play in October) and somehow still manages to find the time to raise millions of dollars for a cause he cares deeply about, and to help his wife do the same.

I disagree with several of Curt's opinions. I also disagree with most of Penelope Trunk's. So why do I have a near unlimited amount of respect for Curt, and a near unlimited amount of contempt for Penelope? (And don't say because I'm a Red Sox fan, although it is possible that that's a part of it.)

Because Curt is both respectful of the opinions of others who disagree with him, and is inspired in his writing. Penelope is neither of these things. Even points I agree with are articulated in a way that is condescending and insulting. (Also, you'll notice that the one piece I agree with? Not even written by her. So there you go.) Curt's writing is thoughtful and reflective; he articulates his ideas and illustrates his concepts as his personal interpretation of what he sees, thinks, and feels. He doesn't claim to be an expert on anything (except maybe the split-fingered fastball.) He seems to say, in a way that is both elegant and simple, 'Here's what I think, and here's what I feel. And if you agree with me, I encourage you to check out these links or come to this event or donate to this cause and show your support. And if you don't, well, this is America, and you can do what you want.' The song beneath Penelope's words, however, is a more condescending one. Penelope's writing seems to draw a line between her and her readers; a line which creates a tangible gap between her and her constituency and a line which has very little blur to it. She says 'here are the way things are FOR YOU, and here is my opinion to back it up.' She excels at speaking for other people and holding her opinion as being factual. And she does so in a way that is convoluted and, by my standards, rather narcissistic.

This stream of contempt for Penelope's opinions and how she says them originated when I read this piece written a few days ago for the holiday season. I was actually originally going to make that post the centerpiece of this post, but then I started putting my words on paper and realized that this article makes me furious in a way I'm not comfortable writing about in a public forum, as the use of such venomous language in the public domain would inetivably come back to haunt me. So I will elect simply to link to it, and let you the reader come to your own conclusions about it, and perhaps contemplate why such a perspective might enrage me so.

UPDATE: Penelope has delivered yet another benediction from the balcony! Her mantra this time: Doing what you love is a bad career move. From the article:

One of the worst pieces of career advice that I bet each of you has not only gotten but given is to “do what you love.”

Forget that. It’s absurd.

This is another piece of writing which has made me so livid I am electing to say nothing about it, as I think vocalizing my opinion on this piece and making it publicly available leads nowhere good. How's that for career advice, Penelope?

I would like to close this entry with two thoughts:

1) I encourage those of you who are more voracious readers to read a few entries from my personal finance blog of choice, The Simple Dollar. Juxtapose Trent's ideas and values with those of Ms. Trunk. How do they compare? Read between the lines of Trent's pieces and identify how he has structured his life and his financial plan around and in congruence with his values. Do you think Penelope done the same? Or perhaps, has she inverted the process, and adjusted her values to fit her situation. What do you make of this lifestyle paradigm? Take a step back and think about how Trent speaks to his audience. How does he sculpt his ideas from words? What kinds of language does he use? Can you see him as a guy you'd like to have a pint or two with? What about Penelope?

2) If you do read Penelope Trunk's blog, I would encourage you to look elsewhere for your career advice. Or at the very least, read another journal which embraces a competing perspective. Whatever topic of interest I feel compelled to read about, I will always try to have at least two sources from which I cull my information. This of course makes my Google Reader queue very clogged, but for me, it's worth sifting through the extra words to know that I'm doing what I can to get a more complete picture of the current state of things, even if the competing blogs tend to be in agreeance more often than not (e.g. mile high hockey and inthecheapseats.)

The Hub of Hockey

2007-12-17T14:51:00.000-05:00

(It makes me angry the degree to which I haven't written recently. I've had so many things to write about, such as how much I admire Tim Blane's musical prowess, and how my beloved local burrito joint, El Pelon, burned down recently, which was a devastating blow to Mexican food lovers of the greater Fenway area.)

I'm a really big Boston Bruins fan; hockey has always been my favorite sport, and there's always been something about the Bruins I've liked. Even when they were/are mired in mismanagement and mediocrity, they came out and played hard every game, and there was a sort of under appreciated dignity in it; they remind me of what the Red Sox were like in the early to mid-90's, before all this bandwagon bullshit which makes me ashamed to be a Red Sox fan. The Red Sox were perennially just barely a wild card, but John Valentin, Tim Naehring, Troy O'Leary, and yes, even Mo Vaughn came out and played every game, and even though they stunk it up in the AL East, they were playing a game they loved to play, and were so much fun to watch. I see a lot of that in this years iteration of the Bruins. But, unlike the Red Sox, who eventually turned their fortune around, the Bruins have been swimming in a sea of 'just good enough' for about 13 years now. So the question then becomes, what do the Bruins need to (finally) push themselves over that threshold from 'just good enough' to flat-out good?

From my perspective, this solution has three parts:

The 'sexy' management entourage
Grow your own talent
Get a Kevin Garnett

Let's break these components down one at a time, talk about what they mean and examine what the Bruins need to do to realize them:

The 'sexy' management entourage: I don't know why and I don't know how, but apparently, people in Boston like it when the people who manage their sports clubs are kind of a big deal. Think about it: The Red Sox roll 5 deep with Tito Francona, Theo Epstein, Tom Werner, Larry Lucchino, and of course, John Henry. The Patriots have the holy trinity of Robert Kraft (and son), Scott Pioli, and 'Hobo' Bill Belichick. Even the Celtics have Grousbeck, Danny Aiiiiiiiiinge, and the smooth talking Doc Rivers (and his fanciful ties.) The Bruins have... can anyone out there name the owner of the Bruins? (I had to look it up; it’s Jeremy Jacobs, a man who, apparently, really really sucks.)

What can the Bruins do?: The Bruins have taken a step in the right direction on this front. Former GM Mike O'Connell, who made so many bad trades during his time here I'm beginning to suspect that he in fact makes his home in bizarro world, where overpriced, overrated players are highly sought after, has more or less been run out of town by the 5 fans he didn't completely turn off from the game with his awful decision making. Now at the helm of the good ship Bruin is a man named Peter Chiarelli, a former Captain of the Harvard Crimson who seems determined to get the team back on track (with the exception of that whole Manny Fernandez thing... but maybe we'll forgive him just this once. I mean, after all, Theo traded for Eric Gagne. 'Nuff said.) He's a breath of fresh air in the previously stagnant attic of Boston hockey. And this year, he put another link in the chain by stopping the revolving door of Grady Little impersonators behind the Bruins bench and hiring Claude Julien, the maligned former Devils coach whose reason for termination can still be seen on old reruns of 'Unsolved Mysteries.' So the Bruins are very close to having an administrative entourage on par with the Red Sox or the Patriots, but only time will tell if Boston fans will pay attention. I think the best way to realize this goal is for Jacobs, Chiarelli, and Julien to start making statements and appearing together, to start to build an image in the public mind of these three men as one cohesive unit, not just rungs in a ladder. Most people I know who follow the Red Sox don’t know (or don’t really care) about the pecking order of the Sox administration; they think of the whole gang as just that; a gang. Of merry men. With wooden bats. And Theo has a blackberry.

Grow your own talent: The Red Sox are one of the few teams that is responsible for the seemingly instantaneous paradigm shift in baseball from trading for big names to growing your own talent within your farm system (the Colorado Rockies and Minnesota Twins deserve mention here as well. I mean... the Rockies took it all the way to the Fall Classic. That's pretty epic). Granted baseball's farm system is much deeper than most other sports, giving players more time to develop, but the principle remains the same: when an organization adapts a perspective and instills it in their players from day one, those players develop more consistently than minor leaguers who get moved around constantly. Football doesn't really have a farm system per se, but College Football is huge pretty much everywhere but here, and the football draft is just as big a deal as drafting in any other sport. Witness the ever-familiar mantra around these parts: "Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round."

What can the Bruins do?: Although no one knows it yet, the Bruins have kinda been doing this for a while. Thanks to the aforementioned incompetence of Mike O'Connell, however, Bruins fans have watched in agony over the last 5 years as all our young prospects such as (CALDER TROPHY WINNER) Andrew Raycroft, Hannu Toivonen, and Nick Boynton have all felt the sting of O'Connell's scathing idiocy. But now that the bad trade demons have been excised from our beloved hockey club, a new breed of prospects such as Patrice Bergeron (not really a prospect anymore, but holy cow is he good), Phil Kessel (aka Mike Lowell on skates), Milan Lucic, and Vladimir Sobotka are actually staying here in Boston are being given a chance to grow, under Julien's watchful eye. And don't look now, but the Providence Bruins, Boston's minor league affiliate, are sitting pretty with the most points in the AHL.

Get a Kevin Garnett: The Celtics gave Boston basketball fans a rude awakening last offseason when they signed Minnesota Timberwolves phenom Kevin Garnett. Overnight, Boston's long dormant love of the Celtics (who were 24-58 the season prior; a whopping 23 games back from first place at the end of the season... beat that, Tampa Bay Rays!) was reignited. The sports headlines were ablaze with speculation about how dominant the Celtics would be now that they had both superstars to score big points (Pierce, Garnett, and offseason acquisition Ray Allen) as well as young second-tier players to grow and provide support (Eddie House and Kendrick Perkins). Acquiring a big name revitalized the team, and gave the fans a figurehead to pin their hopes on.

What can the Bruins do?: This is the last big hump the Bruins need to get over to be ready for the big time. A lot of people thought current captain Zdeno Chara could be that kingpin acquisition, but he has assumed a more pedestrian role in coach Julien's defensive coaching style. The big reason Chara wasn't the KG of the Bruins is that, unlike Garnett, Chara isn't a goal scorer; he doesn't bring big points. In fact, except for Bergeron, whose head is still spinning from a grade 3 concussion, no one on the Bruins really does; their anemic scoring stands as proof of that. A lot of people, especially the media, seem to be pinning the Bruins lack of offensive production on Julien and his coaching style and to me that's not only not fair, but completely misguided.* The reality is that the Bruins need that one man, who's both fast and tough, that the youngsters (Kessel and Lucic) can take their cues from and the playmakers (Kobasew, Bochenski, and Reich) can get behind. And I think it needs to come in the form of a trade. Otherwise the media will simply not hype it up the way they did with Garnett (ref. Marc Savard, who was dangerously close to being that missing link, except that he signed as a free agent and came on only 2 months after Chiarelli). The media made the Garnett trade a big deal because it illustrated the intelligence of management; it was something the C's brass could hang their hat on. I suspect once Chiarelli makes such a deal, a deal that lets the media paint him as a hockey savant they way they have with Epstein, people will start to pay more attention. And now is as good a time as ever, with the B's hampered by injuries and in need of offensive prowess. For my money, I'd like to see Keith Tkachuk in the black and gold, but then again, he's my favorite player. So I'm biased.

So what to the Bruins need to do? Chiarelli needs to make a trade for an offensive player the media can talk about. And it needs to be big. The oft-repeated maxim of Bruins fans is that, with the Red Sox and the Patriots (and now the Celtics), hockey has always been at the bottom of the Boston sports food chain. But that’s no excuse for not taking our cues from how they’ve gotten to where they are (superior coaching, developing prospects and timely trades) and try to do the same. With regards to Julien catching flak for his coaching style: When you have two guys like Tim Thomas and Alex Auld anchoring you in goal, there is nothing wrong with defensive play. It wins championships. Just look at the (defending Stanley Cup champion) Ducks. Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer? You won’t find more hearty defensemen in the NHL.

_{*I’m no NHL coach, but I think the trick is to play defensive hockey with offensive players. Julien is having trouble because his playmakers are struggling. They need a catalyst. They need that big trade. They’re so close, and already this year has been leaps and bounds better than I think anyone expected. Even Bob Ryan asked in his daily sports show on NESN, "Are the Bruins for real?"}

The Art of Self-Assassination

2007-12-05T11:30:00.000-05:00

One of the areas of adaptive leadership which fascinates me the most is the concept of assassination. Now when we think of assassination, we think of theaters and warehouses,* but just as often, if not moreso, assassination takes place in conference rooms and corner offices. Assassination of character is probably the biggest restorer of equilibrium in a situation requiring adaptive work because it gives the constituents a handy vehicle to create a scapegoat. People will often try to make the issue about the person, as opposed to the perspective or opinion that person represents. Character assassination takes place every day, but it is at its most damaging when it is self-inflicted; assassination of character by ones self is a fantastic way to ensure that your leadership potential is never realized and that whatever opinion or perspective you bring to the table will be hastily repressed by the group in favor of one that doesn't cause so much distress.

I see self-assassination every day in meetings, e-mail correspondence, non-verbal discourse, and a hundred other ways people sabotage their opinions and marginalize their voices without ever having a clue that they've been benched and are no longer on the playing field.

(Speaking of playing fields, the Patriots defense last night... what the hell was that? More on this later, perhaps.)

So how does self-assassination happen? How do capable, intelligent, insightful men and women shoot themselves in the foot?

Maybe we should ask the Son of Steinbrenner... I swear he's on a mission from God to destroy the second greatest legacy in professional sports (the first of course being Les Habitants).

In short, people exercising leadership become victims of self-assassination when they fail to distinguish self from role.

Next to getting on the balcony, distinguishing self from role is probably the most challenging part of doing adaptive work, and it's certainly the most taxing. True leadership is rarely welcome with open arms. To paraphrase Heifetz in 'Leadership on the Line,' 'True leadership is rarely, if ever, embraced with open arms. People will not welcome your new perspective. They will boo. They will throw stones.' When you force people to look at the status quo and really ask themselves if their isn't a better way, it's all but a certainty you will become a lightning rod for their frustration and resistance.

If we hope to be successful in our leadership, the most important thing for us to be mindful of is that the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are not directed at the individual, they are directed at the questions that individual is asking. And as the person asking those rather unpleasant questions, the leader becomes the magnet for criticism of the idea, since they are the one championing it.

So what does all this have to do with self-assassination?

When a leader fails to distinguish self from role, all the stings and barbs and harsh words lobbed at their idea suddenly become theirs. They take ownership of the community's pains and anger, and this invokes a primal reaction. As human beings, when we feel attacked, it is only natural that we feel compelled to defend. So when we are bitten, we bite back. We throw harsh words and criticisms of our own. We despair at our community's lack of enthusiasm for our vision for a brighter future. We own the shortcomings the community has ascribed to our ideas and all too often, we let them get the best of us. We begin to believe the bad things being said about us. We get caught up in our emotions and we lose our sense of purpose. And now that the microscope is on us and not the issue we've noticed, all is lost.

Distinguishing self from role allows us to dissect the hostility directed at us and identify it for what it is; resistance to examine and discuss the perspective being raised. If a leader wishes to avoid the trap of self-assassination, it is imperative that they be able to withstand the heat, and absorb the confusion and enmity of the people they seek to mobilize. Making this very difficult distinction also has the added benefit of being a method of maintaining the level of disequilibrium in the group. By assassinating yourself, you take the issue off the table, and with it, the disequilibrium that issue created. If a leader can learn to absorb the resistance, they can ultimately learn to deflect it; to give it back to the people generating it.

_{*...It's a Booth/Oswald reference, in case you missed that one}

Divine Leadership and the subtle genius of James Mercer

2007-12-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

I have a co-worker who happens to be Jewish and a couple days ago he gave me a small prayerbook for use in Mincha (afternoon) and Ma'ariv (evening) prayer. He is more spiritually connected than I am, and as such takes the time to pray every day. I'm not, but I was perusing the prayerbook he gave me and as I was reading the introduction, I happened upon a most interesting passage:

...we have grown up thinking of prayer as man's need exclusively - that it is our way of asking God to provide our necessities and needs. We look to God as the Provider of health, wisdom and safety, and the list goes on and on. We beseech God, therefore, to answer our prayers with a one-sided stream of bounty.

The book goes on to muse about how prayers fulfill God's need as well; the need to have a people and '...nation on earth that will recognize and proclaim him as the Creator and Master of all.' To me, sounds like God's a little insecure. But I digress... being the perpetually cerebral person that I am, I began to contemplate the nature of a person's relationship with God, whatever that person's faith may be, within the bounds of leadership and adaptive work. Can faith constitute a facet of adaptive work? Perhaps on the broader scale of social change, faith is not a catalyst as much as it is a source of 'formal' authority by providing orienting values. This can clearly be seen when we examine the bitter struggle over gay marriage our nation faces today. But God does not create or maintain disequilibrium, God does not identify gaps in values, nor does God protect those who seek to mobilize the change. In fact, God is often the rationalization people use for killing those who would seek to create change, and thus makes a handy scapegoat. (ref. George Carlin).

So is God a leader? Can God be a leader? What about an authority figure?

My contention is that God can be a leader. But in order for God to truly exercise leadership, God must exist and be thought of as having absolutely no formal authority at all. God is the paragon of non-authoritative leadership.

In the spiritual sense, we are turning to God as the person in a position of authority to do the things an authority figure is supposed to do; direct, orient, and protect. But really, how can God do those? How can God direct? Sure, Fred Phelps may have you believe that God speaks to us through him, but I get the impression that if God were to give us direction, it would be something perhaps a bit more... inspired, than to picket gay rallies. The truth is most people spend their time either thanking God for the things they have, or asking God for the things they want. When people are presented with a problem for which no known solution exists, a common aphorism is to 'turn to the power of prayer,' prayer of course being the de facto standard medium for communicating with God. But what answers does God really provide? Nothing concrete to speak of since the parting of the Red Sea. God provides no answers.

The other thing I'd like to pretentiously pontificate about is the music video for the song 'Phantom Limb' by The Shins. It is quite possibly my favorite music video ever. I love the juxtaposition of children, the canonical symbols of naivety and innocence, with the brutality which Man is capable of. See if you can identify the specific atrocities the video alludes to. Some of them aren't hard, but others require a bit more thinking. Pay special attention to the end. Think about God, and what I wrote about earlier... what kind of maladaptive work may be at play here? The song isn't bad either. Enjoy:

'The Taco Story' and other amusing anecdotes

2007-11-30T09:23:00.000-05:00

Last night Kera and I went to see Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter at the Sommerville Theater.

Stand-up comedy has long been one my favorite ways to be entertained. I'm always fascinated how these women and men are able to take the minutia of existence that most of us don't think twice about and from that are able to cull some of the funniest things I have ever heard. And I've been enamored with Michael Ian Black's mannerisms and body language since I first saw him as the delightfully scheming, yet hopelessly naive bowling alley manager Phillip Washington Stubbs on NBC's 'Ed.'

I had never been to the Sommerville Theater before, so I was surprised not only at how small it was, but that it served beer. I was even more surprised to find that it sold GOOD beer; I enjoyed a pint of Harpoon Winter Warmer (by far my favorite seasonal brew of all) for only $4. Which, compared to $7 for a pint of lukewarm Bud Light at a Red Sox game, was heaven.

We were seated in the fifth row from the stage on the left wing of the orchestra, which were surprisingly good seats. I originally thought that these two Stella alums would be largely performing in tandem, but instead (and much to my surprise) the majority of the show was them doing independent sets. Showalter opened, the jokes in his set were very much enhanced by his delivery, his awkward cadence and body language highlighting the nonchalant ridiculousness of what he was saying; lines like, "I'm looking at my notes... I have written here that 'Penises are wierd...' hmm..." delivered in a shaky monotone. And affectionately referring to penises as 'warm' and 'sweet' (sweet like your grandmother, not like candy) were wrapped beautifully in the timing and intonnation of a man who could be selling something on the Home Shopping Network.

Showalter then proceeds to walk us through an online scrabble game in a universe where 'reunshat,' (not shitting again like that time before when you decided not to shit) 'penissocksers' (people who make penissocks) and 'paaarty[!]' (the exclamation point was a blank letter) are not only words, but are a juicy 50 bonus points for being bingos.

After some transitional material involving the two Michael's playing off one another to transition us into Black's set, Black goes into his routine, which consists of gems such as various things that he wishes he could ejaculate and a little place in Wisconsin called the Taco Palace which failed to meet his lofty expectations (there was no court jester.)

While the jokes on the surface may sound uninspired and typical for comedians playing to my demographic, one of the things that set this show apart form others for me was the fact that both Showalter and Black worked to build a dialogue with the audience throughout both their sets, and played off each other to keep that dialogue moving. At one point, while Black is musing about his affection for candy corn, a fan who earlier in the show had yelled out something which the two Michaels found commendable, hollered, 'CANDY CORN SUCKS.' The duo proceeded to express their disappointment in the fan, stating 'you could have been anything... you had so much potential... you could have been a senator, man...' They both let their improv roots show as well as they fielded both serious and semi-serious questions from the audience towards the end. Their unique blend of pre-prepared jokes and improv which engaged the audience in an inclusive dialogue (as opposed to a more traditional approach of using the audience as simply a repository for material and ideas, then shutting them out and going back to a routine) made this show one of the most enjoyable comedy shows I have been to in a long time. I daresay I enjoyed this show more than seeing Lewis Black at the South Shore Music Circus last fall.

Mens Sana in Corpore Sano

2007-11-29T08:34:00.000-05:00

Mens sana in corpore sano: A healthy mind in a healthy body. -Juvenal

Many people don't know that I studied Latin for 5 years in Middle and High School, and that on a personal level I am very much a fan of the classics, and feel a strong connection to the classical Greco-Roman way of life. The above quote, from the Latin poet Juvenal (who, along with Ovid, is my favorite Latin poet) is one of my favorite classical maxims, and is one of the defining pillars of belief I've made an effort to adapt in my own life: To maintain a healthy mind and a healthy body, and to strive to have both above wealth, fame, or money. Now that's not to say that I don't want wealth, fame, or money, but I've always been of the belief that, without a sound mind or a healthy body, those things can never be enjoyed in their fullest (I wonder if some of these beliefs are inherent in Judaism... perhaps I'll research that and write about it some other time).

Most mornings, when I get off the T to go to work, I’ll get off one stop before my office and walk the rest of the way (unless it’s precipitating or bitterly cold). This is one of my favorite times of day, when the sun is still just coming up and all the people around me are hustling and bustling; I put on some music and just let the moment seep into my every pore (or at least in this season, the ones that aren’t covered by heavy coats and hats). This morning was one such morning, and it got me thinking about the aforementioned aphorism, and how that virtue; the virtue of intellect and fitness, and a harmonious balance of these with the other facets of life, has largely been lost in our society. Now that’s not to say that there isn’t a soul on earth that abides by that code, but those values have largely been lost in favor of a more sensationalized and hedonistic way of life. That sounds pessimistic, I know, and I don’t mean it that way, but in a way I do. Most of the people I work with are in their mid to late-30’s, at the youngest. They are not active people. They, as I’m sure many people do, spend most of their day in front of a computer screen. I cannot vouch for what these women and men do once they leave the concrete jungle but from a purely statistical perspective, it is more likely than not that many of them don’t make the commitment to keeping both their mind and their body in peak condition, even with The Boss Himself pushing ever so hard to mobilize the constituents in his fair city to realize the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

I often like to take scenarios like these and try to frame them within the context of adaptive work and identify the components of adaptive work present here, but, unfortunately, I think the opportunity here is very slim. I personally could not be in fuller agreance* with the Mayor, and I think he’s doing many of the things a leader attempting to mobilize adaptive work should be doing; he has identified an adaptive challenge in his community, he is framing the issue, giving the work back to the people, and protecting the voices of change within the community by using the formal authority conferred upon him to bring community members representing this issue to the forefront. However, I think that Mayor Menino has failed in what may possibly be the most crucial component of adaptive work: Maintaining a productive level of disequilibrium. Now this isn’t all Menino’s fault; I don’t think it’s fair to pin the blame squarely on him with regards to this issue; that reeks too much of work avoidance for me to be comfortable with it. I think the problem, at its core, is that there is no gap between the people and their values.

As I mentioned, mens sana in corpora sano is not a shared value of this community; it is not a virtue this constituency has elected to retain in its perpetual adaptive quest. And certainly blaming the authority figure for a group of people discarding a given value can be a method of work avoidance? So while Menino’s quest is noble, and his intentions are good, I think he will run into a great deal of resistance form his community in his efforts to mobilize them because he is effectively trying to narrow a gap that doesn’t exist. If the people of Boston rallied around the values of mental and physical fitness, THEN proceeded to pine only for panem et circenses, I think the Mayor would be able to make his leadership more effective. But since there the value system present in Boston (indeed, in most of America) does not include these virtues, creating and maintaining disequilibrium is much more difficult.

Since Mayor Menino has been around Boston for a long time, he has the benefit of having a very strong (and probably pretty resilient) holding environment with his constituents; the various accomplishments he’s achieved over his Mayorship (is that a word?) have strengthened the bonds between him and his constituents: there is probably just as much informal authority there as there is formal authority. So then the question becomes, what can Mr. Menino do to turn the pressure up in his community about the issue of healthy minds and healthy bodies?

Certainly, I don’t have the answer, but I think over the years Mayor Menino has proven himself capable of exercising leadership. It could be interesting.

_{*Both Firefox and MS Word don't think agreeance is a word... they're wrong.}

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T09:13:00.000-05:00

I have about 7 or 8 articles in queue on specific topics, but I'm going to forgo finishing them in favor of transitioning this to more of a collecting ground for the munitia of my life, and the various thoughts I have while living it. Isn't that a quaint little notion?

I'm at David's Cape house for Thanksgiving, and I'm currently sitting in a lovely chair overlooking one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen; high tide on a sprawling marsh here on Cape Cod. The marsh is so full it almost looks like a lake; you can just barely see the tips of the tallest stalk of grass poking up above the water. If I had a camera I would doubtlessly take a picture, but I don't even think that would do it justice; it's really just one of those things you have to experience for yourself. For me, it's really rather humbling; it reminds me of how small we really are and how powerful a force the world really can be.

I was watching a PBS documentary last night with David about World War II, and how the citizens of four towns in various parts of America experienced the war, at all its levels. David was commenting about what a 'simpler' time it was back then, and it got me to thinking. Because the phrase 'simpler time' is one that seems thrown around a lot, especially at my generation; the generation of the Internet, the iPod, and (gulp) the blog. How do we as a society define a 'simple time?' Surely each of these places in time had significant events and norms which would serve to disrupt the cultural equilibrium; the Greatest Generation had World War II; the Silent Generation had the Great Depression and the Suffrage movement; the Baby Boomers had the advent of the television and the Vietnam War. So what sets my generation apart from all these other groups of people; what qualifies those times as 'simpler?'

I have a few possible answers, but those are based largely off of my perceptions and my opinions, many of which I'm sure wouldn't hold water in a real discussion simply because I wasn't alive to experience the dynamic that existed in those times.

I feel strongly motivated to write about something, however. Maybe I'll write something on my way home.

Curt Schilling vs. Joe Torre; the REAL battle of good vs. evil

2007-11-06T08:51:00.000-05:00

I haven't written in a while, I know.

The short answer to this problem is that I've been very busy, but another big reason is that there hasn't been much that I feel strongly compelled to write about. A great deal of my mental energy in the past week has been devoted to a major project I'm working on here at work, so then when I come home and the gears start turning, there's nothing there because I'm so mentally drained. I will remain vigilant, however, and attempt to string a few words together about something that makes me really happy, and that is that yesterday Curt Schilling agreed to a one-year deal with the Red Sox.

Now this is exciting for multiple reasons, the obvious being that the Schill-Dog is back in red for his curtain call, something I think he's earned, given what he's done for this team. There is a subtle beauty to this arrangement, however, one that Dan Shaugnessy of all people wonderfully articulates in this Boston Globe article; and that is that, in the opinion of this young sports fan this deal is what baseball should be all about. This is the kind of deal that would make Hammerin' Hank and old Pudge proud.

Here's a guy who was instrumental in ending an 86 year drought in a town with a fabled baseball history. He was a god in this town, and would probably remain so even if he left for greener pastures. But Curt had the stones and the strength of character to step up and say 'I can still do better.' As a closet perfectionist and a self-proclaimed Mastermind, this makes me so happy to see in professional sports.

He could have easily walked away for more money, for more glamour. He's probably still good enough to be the ace of a less prestigious and developed staff. But over the past 3 years he's done the work to create a situation here in Boston that was good for him, and (just as important, if not more so) good for his family and his children. And he made the commitment to not piss all that away just for more money. Curt Schilling isn't in a Red Sox uniform because it's the top dollar place to be; he's here because it's the right place for him. The right place for his family. I cannot say enough good words about the strength of character and commitment of a person like that. He's a performer on and off the field. He's put his happiness and his family before money. We should all be so lucky to have that strength of conviction. (Alex Rodriguez, are you paying attention?)

On the other hand, we have Joe Torre. Now before I begin, let me say that I think Joe Torre is a very talented manager. I think he did great things with the Yankees, and it's a shame that George Steinbrenner's moron offspring are going to fuck up all the fine work he (Joe Torre), their father, and Brian Cashman have done over the last 11 years.

That said, Joe Torre is an idiot. Why, you may ask? Because in this writers opinion, he let his pride and his complacency get in the way of a mutually beneficial arrangement, which I think was ultimately all about trust. Joe Torre left New York because he found their offer (an offer which was for less money and very incentive-laden) 'insulting.' Now from where I'm sitting, this says two things about Joe Torre:

Unlike Curt Schilling, Joe Torre shuns the idea that he is in some way responsible for the team he is a part of performing below an explicitly stated expectation. Since he doesn't own the problem, he can't own the solution. He is basically spurning the idea that he can improve on what he does.
Unlike Curt Schilling, money is more important to Joe Torre than managing a team of players who adore him in a city that would stand by him through thick and thin. This not only makes him an idiot, but a tactless professional.

When Joe Torre walked off the Yankee Stadium grass for what would be the last time, the Yankee faithful gave him a standing ovation, and called out his name. In the ensuing fallout, multiple players in the Yankee organization (Pettite, Rivera, and Posada, just to name a few) contended that they would leave if Joe Torre left. Now I think this show of bravado is a little melodramatic and perhaps uncalled for, but its point is clear: these players like playing for Joe Torre. And the fans? They think he is a stand-up guy as well. Too bad all that wasn't enough for Torre.

Joe Torre thinks an incentive-laden contract is 'insulting.' In saying so, he is refusing to accept his share of the responsibility for the Yankee's underperformance. In addition to not owning the problem, Joe is denying that there is, in fact, a problem. By rejecting an incentive laden deal, Joe Torre is saying that What he's doing right now is good enough. What this tells me, at the very least, is that Joe Torre isn't a competitor.

I don't know about you, but if I work in professional sports, an industry where competition is its most fundamental value, I don't want a team full of people who think that whatever they're giving me now is good enough; who won't strive to do better. I don't want a team of people who won't hold themselves accountable for lack of production. And I certainly don't want that kind of person managing the men or women on my team.

I want Curt Schilling on my team. Not Joe Torre.

My hat is off and my prayers are with Curt Schilling and his family; he made the tough decision to act in the best interest of his heart, not his wallet. When you think about it, that's really not a tough decision at all. And to Joe Torre; I issue a challenge: Own your actions. Humility goes a long way in proving to people that you're serious about the work you do. If you can illustrate that you are serious about committing to perfection, and owning your shortcomings, people will not only respect you, but they may be more forgiving of you when you fail.

Take a page from one of Curt Schilling's many notebooks; I know I am.

Living in the panopticon...

2007-10-30T15:14:00.000-04:00

I have an aunt who works in digital preservation of media (you can check out a video of a talk she gave about it here). Basically what this means (or my understanding of it) is preserving all the media we have now in a format that will still be relevant in 100 years. This is analogous to a paper you wrote in high school, but stored on a floppy disk. Sure, the floppy disk may be a viable storage media, but will there still be floppy drives in 10 years? 50 years? 100 years? They're few and far between as it is. Anyone remember ZIP Disks? How about the old school 5 1/4" floppies (you know, the ones that were REALLY floppy) that I used to play 8-bit Number Munchers on when I was in 2nd grade. All these storage media have largely been replaced by CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs. But how long will those last? What will the Next Great portable storage media be? I certainly don't have a crystal ball so I don't know, but I'm pretty sure Google and Microsoft would love it if their massive server farms and data storage capabilities factored into the mix.

Anyways, some time ago I referred my aunt, the digital preservation savant, to this article on Ars Technica. The article talks about a professor who posits that the digital age and the advent of the Internet has made remembering, also known as data preservation, easy. In fact, it's made it real easy. Too easy, he says. We have created a system of networks that, quite simply, never forgets. Google has hundreds of servers which crawl the internet day and night archiving EVERYTHING. THEY. SEE. Now of course website owners can opt out of that, but it's a long and obscured process. I could opt out of Google caching my blog, but the honest truth is, I don't know how.

Forgetfulness is something our society has made use of for as long as we've known how. It's easy to hide your indiscrepancies when they aren't cataloged and documented except by anecdotal recollections. I'm sure every president or politician we've ever had has had more than one skeletons in their closet they're thankful no one knew about, however benign it may be in retrospect.

So let's combine that lack of forgetfulness with how current generations (my generation, and to a greater extent, subsequent generations) approach discretion.

In short, they don't. At all.

My generation very much lives in a society which places social emphasis on self-publication and self-transparency. In short, it is now a societal norm to make everything about yourself public. Good or bad, right or wrong, legal or illegal, everyone now has the ability to broadcast every aspect of their existence to the world through social networking sites and blogs.

Now I'm a user of such sites, so I'm not going to knock their usefulness. I think they're a great way to keep in touch with old friends and make new ones. And as for blogging, I think to some extent it has answered the adaptive challenge of giving the power or reporting back to the people.

But it also creates a panipticon; a transparent system where everyone can watch everyone but no one knows who is watching them. I write in this blog, but I don't know who is reading it or what they do with what they read; and you can be damn sure that any job I apply for will invariably result in an employer stumbling upon these words via a simple Google search for my name. (Note to any potential employers reading this: Hi!)

What this means for us as a people is two things:

The 2057 Presidential elections will be an interesting spectacle indeed, when the MySpace generation starts touting 'radical social change,'
As the societal ramifications of this self-transparency (and complete lack of discretion) become more salient and prominent, free speech will bear the brunt of the societal backlash; people won't speak openly, for fear of Big Brother finding out.

The professor of this paper posits that the best way to prevent this from happening is to train our computers to forget; to put limits on how long things like MySpace pages and blogs can be cataloged and archived. To me, this whole situation reeks of... you guessed it... Adaptive Work!

I think this having computers forget is a textbook technical solution. It means we as a society don't have to change the way we do things, and people in position of authority are responsible for making the decision and enforcing it. No learning is taking place anywhere along the spectrum, no new norms have been established, and the stakeholders, the people publishing everything, have no say in what happens. Not only is learning NOT taking place, but the exact opposite is happening... we're forgetting! I'd say of all the maladaptive behaviors one can engage in, forgetting by and large HAS to be the most damaging. If we are framing this issue within the context of Adaptive Work, then the problem we have is that our society is not aware of the potential ramifications of frivolous self-publication; the issue is not ripe. As I mentioned before, I think the 2057 Presidential election will do a lot to ripen said issue, but the question then becomes: will we recognize the need for adaptive work when it knocks on our doors, or will we simply apply a technical fix and start training our technology to forget everything?

The adaptive work at stake here clearly is educating the public about selective and responsible self-publication, but try telling that to an eighteen-year old who just can't wait to blog about her boyfriend and how much she loves smoking pot behind the woods of her church...

All leadership implications aside, this is a bad idea from a pragmatic perspective as well; enacting legislature which imposes limits on how long we as a society can 'remember' is a two-edged sword; we forget the bad, but we also run the risk of forgetting the good, or even worse, the completely neutral. A plan like this would destroy all the hard work my aunt and hundreds like her have done to preserve our society.

In my opinion, a forgetful society is the first step towards a Harrison Bergeron-like existence

As a closing, I'm at work right now and I can hear the Red Sox rally from my desk. It makes me very sad.

Dear God, I will never eat fast food again. Just make it stop.

2007-10-26T13:50:00.001-04:00

Today I had to go on a site visit for work; the City of Boston is planning to pilot a municipal WiFi program in the Grove Hall/Roxbury area, and I had to head down there to mark some light poles where they need to install additional radios.

For those of you not familiar with the Area, the Grove Hall/Roxbury area is really touch-and-go when it comes to the quality of life and the people who live there. Some of the houses and streets are really nice, and some of them are very clearly lower income communities. Lots of public housing. And finally... lots of low-quality food establishments; lots of fast food.

Anyways, me and the person who was on the visit with me began to get deathly hungry around 11:45, so we began to look for a place to eat. Since we're in an area that's predominantly low-income housing, a lot of what we found was fast food, as I mentioned earlier. Whether this is cause or correlation is another story for another day; I think it's a classic chicken and egg problem.

We were dying, and we had to eat something, so we stopped at McDonalds. As I mentioned in this blog post, eating right and taking care of myself have become values and virtues I've made a commitment to living by, and as such, I quote literally cannot remember the last time I had fast food.

Well I had some today, and now (I always hate people who do this because I think they're being melodramatic, especially that SuperSize Me asshole, but) I feel sick. I really feel like crap.

Later: Getting on the balcony: My favorite component of exercising leadership that I was recently reacquainted with, and why I love it.

Also, what the hell was with last nights episode of Scrubs? Can you say 'copout?' If JD really ends up with Kim I will be very disappointed...

My love affair with Google Reader (and not finishing things)

2007-10-24T09:37:00.000-04:00

I have this rotten habit of getting an idea for something to write about, then writing part of an entry and never finishing it. Here's a sampling of entries I've started writing and haven't finished:

Why credit cards can be okay (really!)
A completely biased review of Jimmy Eat World's new album, 'Chase This Light.'
Living in the panopticon: Why my generation loves voyeurism and how I feel about it
Reason #39 Penelope Trunk can go to hell: I go to Wentworth
(I just got this idea!) Why Microsoft Exchange is the worst thing to happen to business since the conference call
100 reasons I love Amalie Benjamin (ok I made this last one up... but I could easily think of 100 reasons why I would love nothing more than to have a nice dinner and a pint or two with Ms. Benjamin and enjoy a spirited discussion about Hideki Okajima's WHIP)

Anyways, I'm going to attempt to actually finish this specific piece, which is all about Google Reader and why I love/hate it.

The Internet has turned many of us (especially people in my generation) into a group of de-sensationalized information addicts. I suspect that a big part of this is residual fallout from September 11th, when so much was going on so quickly that we as citizens became addicted to information. Lewis Black (by and large my favorite comedian of all time) actually has a really funny routine about our dependence on constant information, and how the 'crawl' on networks like FOX News and CNN has given us all Attention Deficit Disorder. I'd link you all to the YouTube video of it, but I'm at work and YouTube is blocked. Maybe I'll edit this post when I get home.

Anyways, I'm just as guilty as the next person of being probably a little to dependent on a constant stream of information. When I am bored, I am constantly checking Facebook to see whose updated their profiles (man, I feel so unclean saying that out loud...) Sherlock Holmes once said, 'My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence.' I think that in a way, we are all like the greatest fictional character ever penned; we are constantly looking for ways to escape an otherwise boring existence, hence our craving for information. I think what makes us unique however, is the kind of information we crave. Some people want to know the latest celebrity gossip, others are interested in the latest GreaseMonkey script to make their web viewing experience more exciting. Others (like my friend Kera) are all about the latest and greatest recipes. I personally like reading about finance, healthy eating, and the Boston Red Sox.

It used to be that I would have a number of widgets on my Google homepage to keep tabs on updates to all the websites on topics I find interesting. But as my interests grow, so does the amount of space these widgets take up. Furthermore, what about websites that don't update very often? Like the blogs of my friends, seasonal sports blogs, etc.? Certainly these more sporadic periodicals don't warrant their own piece of real estate on my already cluttered homepage...

Enter Google Reader.

Google reader is a completely web-based feed aggregator developed by Google. Since it's entirely server-side (i.e. not a local application) I can access it from anywhere, as long as I have a computer. And since it's developed by Google, it snaps in flawlessly with the other Google technologies I routinely use, such as Google Calendar and GMail. It let's me search all the posts from my various feeds, 'star' posts I find most interesting, and share posts with whomever I want.

As much as I like Google Reader, and as useful as it is for me, I hate it at the same time. I think it reinforces this constant need for information that is beginning to define our society.

MacHack: Using GarageBand to crack DRM/Proprietary music

2007-10-23T18:55:00.000-04:00

I am a huge Jimmy Eat World fan. Like, a real big Jimmy Eat World fan. Most people who know me know this is a pretty big part of who I am.

So of course, the day their new album Chase This Light came out, I ran down to Best Buy to buy it. As a way of saying thank you for pissing my money away at their store as opposed to any other, Best Buy packages an additional free song with the CD. All you have to do is go to a website, enter a code, and download the song.

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I have two computers, a Mac Mini desktop and a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop. I use the Lenovo for work-related things, and I use the Mac for surfing the web, chatting on IM, listening to music, and other home things. And before I go any further, let me say that you'll need two computers for this hack, and one will have to be a Mac with GarageBand.

Now of course since this process (obtaining the free song) is managed by Big Content, there's all kinds of DRM shackled to the song. For one, it's in the WMA format, so forget playing it on my Mac Mini, which is the computer I use to listen to music. It also needs to be licensed for every machine you play the song on, at a maximum of ONE. For comparison, when you buys a song from iTunes, you can 'register' it with a maximum of five computers.

Needless to say, I was pissed about this. The music industry should be grateful I even BUY CD's anymore. They're lucky I care enough about this artist to spend the money on a CD. I got a leaked copy of the album a week or so before it came out, but since I like Jimmy Eat World and I want to do my part to support them, I went out and bought the CD (I also bought tickets to see them when they come to town in November and will probably buy another copy of the record at that show whut whut.)

So anyways, I was pretty angry that the music industry had such a fucking chubby for controlling how and when I listen to my music that I vowed to find a way around their DRM scheme. So I booted up GarageBand on my Mac. I added a new track, and made it the default Line In (Microphone jack). Then I took a 1/8" Cable and ran it from the Line In on my Mac to the Line Out (headphone jack) on my Lenovo. I played the song on my ThinkPad while simultaneously recording the line in track in GarageBand. I ported the song to iTunes, and voila! A DRM-free copy of a song that's playable anywhere.

I suppose in theory, this method could also be used for grabbing songs off of sites like MySpace and YouTube. Simply queue up GarageBand and add a new track, play whatever you want on one machine and pipe it into a track on the other. In fact, Junction 18 has a new song on their MySpace page. I think I'll go grab that...
(I'll try to add images to this post later to make the process clearer; I know my description isn't very clear.)

It's raining in Adelaide...

2007-10-21T20:20:00.000-04:00

Today I happened upon what I think is one of the best breakfasts ever.
It also makes a dandy replacement for ice cream as a late night
snack/nosh:

1 Banana
1/2 cup nonfat french vanilla yogurt
A handful of grape nuts cereal

cut up the banana, mix it up with the yogurt, sprinkle with grape
nuts. Viola. I'm eating it at the moment and it's perfect.

And now, why I think the Red Sox will in game seven:

Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched absolutely awfully in his last outing

In Japanese culture, there is this concept of face. We have it in
American society, but nowhere to the degree that it permeates Japanese
culture. Face is basically your social reputation and credibility. As
history suggests, Japanese culture and society is chock full of
behaviors and customs ties to this concept of 'face.' Anyone who has
ever given a gift to a Japanese person knows that, by their social
customs and norms, they are BOUND to give you a gift back in return,
and one of greater value than the one you gave them. Gift-giving is an
important part of Japanese culture that is tied to this concept of
face, and more importantly, losing face. The ancient act of Seppuku is another
tradition whose ties with 'face' run deep; the idea that there is more
honor in ending your life than to fail ones master, or acquiesce to
perceived tyrants. This ancient ritual presently takes form of
Japanese men (especially business men) committing
suicide. To quote the aforementioned article:

Many Japanese regard suicide as a show of sincerity to expiate
their shortcomings, and view it as an act that would restore honor
to their name, their family, or organization.

Matsuzaka-san has had many bad outings this year, but in every one of
those outings, he has had another outing available to him to redeem
himself and atone for his athletic shortcomings.

That is not the case with this game. Matsuzaka must win tonight or
win tonight, or lose face, both in the eyes of Red Sox Nation, and the
incredibly scrutinous Japanese media. His behavior after his last
outing (sitting in silence for over an hour after going 4 2/3 innings)
is very indicative of the mindset Matsuzaka is in right now; he has
already lost a considerable amount of face, and must have no doubt
about what he's up against.

Now for most of us, A poor outing by Matsuzaka tonight would be bad, but it wouldn't be the end of the world... there's always next season right?

I suspect there is much more on the line for Matsuzaka than simply a ballgame. Failure tonight is not an option. And I think Daisuke will do whatever he has to to get his team a win tonight.

In other news, been listening to a lot of Ben Folds recently... goodness what a talented musician.

Adaptive work in our own lives

2007-10-19T21:56:00.001-04:00

(I'd like to begin by saying that writing in this blog has not only gotten me more comfortable with writing again (something I never, ever, ever do for school) but it's also reconnected me with all those HTML and CSS skills I thought I'd lost. So thank you, Internet.)

Today I stumbled upon the blog of a young woman I had dated some time ago with whom I'd had a rather embarassing and eye-opening falling out, and that, in conjunction with a long conversation I had with a good friend of mine a week or so ago, has compelled me to take stock of my life, and the challenges (adaptive challenges?) I'm currently facing.

Anyways this young woman has a condition which often finds her in the hospital, receiving treatment so she can continue to do the things msot of us don't even realize we do. I remember in my old journal some time ago, I wrote this:

"Imagine your whole life being forever transformed because a single ion can't move a fraction of a nanometer.

Because a few of the atoms on a key base pair of a critical amino acid got a little confused.

Because science didn't obey the laws of science.

Because we are all at the mercy of sub-microscopic particles whose very existence we can barely substantiate; because they don't behave the way we have theorized that they should.

Maybe the loss of one electron, a particle so minute in size it can barely be measured, causes a genetic cascade which leads to a lifetime of hospital visits, regimented medications, crippling disabilities, premature death, or agonizing pain.

How can you not feel comepletely insignificant after coming to that realization? That the tiniest shift of the tiniest particle we have conceptualized could be the difference between watching your grandchildren walk down the aisle and spending the entire three-day span of your life in a hospital bed."

Anyways, all the melodrama and humbling epiphanies aside, this young woman is a person whose life is affected by the aforementioned genetic anomalies. And one of the things I envied most about her was her ability to adapt her life to the unkown. She never once, in the brief span of time that I knew her, relied on authority for an answer. She never once colluded in work avoidance. She had unwittingly exercised an incredible amount of leadership regarding a situation in her own life, and, in many ways, identified and overcame her own adaptive challenge. This did, and continues to, absolutely leave me speechless.

So this person and another close friend of mine (and maybe a little bit of my work in Capstone) have inspired me to attempt to identify the adaptive challenges I face. Now, this is going to be an incredibly watered down process analysis and if anyone who knows anything about the true nature of adaptive work saw this, they'd probably tell me I'm doing it wrong, but whatever.

Adaptive work in its most basic forms consists of three steps:

Identifying personal values
Ascertaining the current state of things
Finding the gap between them

Now one of the things I know about myself is that I am a fiercely private individual, so I'm not strongly inclined to disclose personal details of my life at great length on the internet, but I will disclose a little. First off, I'm a private person. Really private. I also value intelligence, independence, integrity, and putting forth the best possible effort in every situation. In short, always being the best without excuse or exception. I also value the album 'Clarity' by Jimmy Eat World. I think it's one of the best records produced (since 1990). Those are my values. Now we look at how those values manifest themselves in the current state of things:

I know that I am someone who sets unreasonably high standards for himself, idealizes situations and people, goes to great lengths to keep people an arm's length away, blatantly pushes people away without hesitance, has a debilitating fear of letting anyone into his life, and is incredibly prone to simply walk (or in some cases, run) away when a situation doesn't live up to my expectations, or I am no longer able to handle it. As such, I am often overly caustic or stoic, and have a hard time empathizing with anyone about anything even remotely emotional (a colleague of mine recently gave me some harsh words because I was essentially unable to empathize on any level with a serious problem she was having).

The most obvious gap there, to me, is that I often leave from a situation when I can't handle it. But that is in direct conflict with my value of putting forth the best possible effort. So I have in essence identified a need for adaptive work; I have identified dissonance between my values and my reality. What this means for me is that I need to adapt my life; I have to discard those values which are hindering me and adapt new ones.

In my case, I like to leave situations when they get too intense. It's easy for me. It's something I know how to do. But I know that simply walking away won't cut it anymore, that solution is no longer relevant. So I need a new one. I need to develop a new solution. This solution would probably be to talk these situations out and be more open about what I'm thinking and feeling instead of just pushing people away. So again, we find more dissonance between values and reality; that behavior goes against my values of independence.

So my problem is that I push people and situations out of my life when I feel that my current repetiore does not equip me to handle them, and instead of learning new skills to handle new situations, I find myself in the same situations repeatedly.

I could keep going, but I'm running out of intellectual steam.

In closing, I am so incredibly sick and tired of seeing everyone I know spend money they don't have on things they don't need. At some point in the near future I will write an easy how-to for young people on creating a personal cash flow so you can actually SEE what you're spending, and if you can afford that shiny new iPhone.

I will also write about how Tim Blane is by and large one of the most undeniably talented musicians I have ever heard. Almost as much so as Jim Adkins.