The best things in life aren't yellow

It's amazing the number of things that are yellow in color that are unappealing. Lemonade is pretty great, but I wouldn't say it's a best thing in life. It's not even that yellow and it's liquid, so there's no chance of it looking like a banana. There might be a banana-shaped drink pitcher or beer mug, though. Closely related to lemonade, but produced in a completely different manner and lacking lemonade's appeal, is urine. Sure, you can pee into your radiator or write your name (poor penmanship included) in snow or even drink it if you are lost in a desert, but it's not considered a good drink. I doubt chilling it or adding sugar would improve the taste. Then again, some people go gaga over coffee beans that a cat shit out. 

When I was still a kid and living in Knoxville, I went to summer camp in Virginia. We had a huge lake with a diving tower and about a dozen sailboats of all sizes. I loved sailing. I was a skilled enough sailor to be able to solo a 13 footer that was yellow and shaped like a banana. That was a best thing in life, but not because the boat was yellow. All of my best moments on that boat, tiller in hand, ducking to avoid the boom while tacking, trimming the main for speed, were all spent where I couldn't see the yellow hull. Also, people say red makes things go faster, not yellow. 

There are plenty of unpleasant or unfortunate things that are yellow, though. 

RE: I already support progressive causes. Stop spamming me.

Dear Progressive Friends,

Look, I like you. I'm glad you're working to get the insane Citizen's United overturned and the entire raft of other things we'd all like to see. It makes me feel good to know that I'm not alone, and I appreciate that there are more than enough people to create all manner of organizations that champion our causes. 

What I don't appreciate, however, is all of the spam. I already spend enough of my time every day working on the same things you people are. I don't need to be endlessly distracted by cleverly worded emails or calls to help avert potential disaster. I, of all people, know exactly the precipice on which we are delicately teetering. 

I suggest that you try a little harder to figure out ways to treat those who work as hard as you do on the same issues with a little more respect. That way, I don't have a mark your crap as spam or unsubscribe. Maybe I might even get to see something useful on occasion, after spending 2 hours combing the newsosphere and blogosphere for anything on Bernie.

LOL. As if. 

Thanks a bunch!

Hey, MSM! Something to say? Just say it!

The flowery language. The academia polished until the shine is almost unbearable. The suggestion of an opinion. The metaphor, obscure references, and sardonic wit. These are all hallmarks common to most pundits, and it annoys me to no end. 

Can we please just get to the point?!

In a piece published on the MSNBC site today, Irin Carmon discusses the hand gestures Bernie Sanders' makes while talking. This is how she sums up that piece:

Male politicians can face potential minefields of their own, at least when campaigning against a woman. In 2000, when Clinton ran for Senate in New York, the image of her male opponent crossing the stage during a debate and wagging his finger in her face, demanding she sign a campaign finance pledge, came to define the race. The gesture, which many saw as sexist, or as one of Clinton’s aides put it at the time, “menacing,” was credited with helping her win by 12 points. 

There have been no such moments so far in the Democratic primary debates, as Clinton runs for president for a second time. Sanders has been careful to express his respect for the former secretary of state and to keep it professional and largely amiable. He’s also kept on his side of the stage. 

Unless you're a political junkie and/or live in the State of New York, you might not recall this event. Back in 2000, when HRC was running for the open Senate seat in New York, her opponent, Rick Lazio, left his podium, walked across the stage, handed her a piece of paper, and wagged his hand. Hillary went on to beat Rick by 12 points because the HRC campaign machine pushed out the clip repeatedly, suggesting that Lazio was being menacing and that the act was sexist in nature. I don't disagree. It was a terrible mistake to make on Lazio's part, and he paid the price for it. 

Now, read Carmon's conclusion again. She states a known fact, that Sanders has been respectful of Clinton, and then references the Lazio event. From 2000. From a state Senate debate. Aired on C-Span. So, why not state clearly that Sanders hasn't been threatening, tried to get her to sign some dumb pledge, or wagged his finger in her face?

Ego.

You've been educated. You did 4-7 years in college for just a degree or stuck around to get your Masters. You've penned a dissertation or two. You've been working as a journalist, analyst, and/or pundit for years. You are recognized as an expert in your field. Now you get called to go on MSNBC or Fox News or CNN once, twice, a dozen times. You have arrived. You are a nationally recognized leader in your field. 

So, rather than face the difficulty of determining the awareness level of your audience, you just crank up the academia, pound in the complex terms, leverage your most obscure references, and lay down some deftly complicated metaphors and hope that your readers are up to the challenge. What you won't do, however, is just say what you mean.

This might surprise you, but being clear and excising complexity from your prose is not condescending. You won't talk down to your readers. They won't feel like you've abandoned your educational and professional background. To the contrary, they might just thank you. Life is difficult enough to deal with. We don't need Dianetics-grade journalism that requires a dictionary to read.* 

Now, it's clear that Carmon's piece isn't anywhere near the L. Ron meter, much less high on it, but she remains unclear about what she's saying, all the way to the end. It's an opinion piece! You CAN make clear the points you want to get across. There aren't any rules, but that's the POINT of an opinion piece; share your opinion! Don't make people work hard for it. 

The last thing we need in America now, at a time when class division is at an all-time high, the filters have been yanked off and tossed away, and both major political parties are embroiled in their own version of a civil war, is for our news outlets and primary voices to be unclear. We need to speak clearly, make our points crystal clear, and cut it out with the silly bits that fly over most people's heads. 

* my own obscure reference to L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics book which was famously difficult to read without an Oxford dictionary that I explain here because it's the nice thing to do. Not everyone recalls this. 

NBC's Grimm is freaking amazing

Peg me as a media nerd, and I'll nod and thank you for the compliment. I love media. The various types of media I consume are just different methods of telling stories. I love books and music and anime and comics and movies and television, but more specifically what I really love is a good story. 

NBC's Grimm is a good story.

Instantiation, a short story

The area around me is dark, but there is enough ambient light to see that there is nothing around me. When I breath out, I can see the vapor. It's cold, but I can't feel it. I touch my left forefinger to my right arm and I can feel the hairs rise to meet the fingertip. I think that means there's a slight static charge in the atmosphere. I can't wrap my mind around the idea that it can be cold enough to see my breath, but not cold enough to discomfort me. 

"Hello," I call out in a normal, conversational tone. 

There is no echo, but my voice isn't tight and small. I'm in a large, open space. How large is anyone's guess. Well, my guess, at least. Nobody answers. I opt not to try louder for fear... of. I'm not sure. I dwell on that for a moment and realize that I can't think of a single thing that might threaten me. Ever. I start thinking about that point and try to establish some context, but nothing comes to mind. Eventually, it seems pointless to continue dwelling and move on. I haven't moved from the spot I found myself, so I try a tentative step. 

The best Science Fiction is on TV right now

Science fiction has been on a downturn over the last decade. Sure, we get event movies a few times a year, but a lot of that audience has been taken over by tales of comic book heroes. Marvel is a hugely dominating force in film these days, but the real core audience for science fiction used to be found on the small screen. Science fiction fans demand longer, more complex stories, deeper character development, and to have their thoughts poked. Star Trek is most commonly trotted out as prime exemplar. 

Aside from the original series which was ended prematurely, there have been five other series, the animated one most people don't recall, three huge series with seven year runs, and one aborted attempt at going back in time that ran for only four seasons. If you look beyond Trek, however, you see that TV used to be riddled with all manner of scifi shows. Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Wild, Wild West (one of my personal faves that started in Black & White), and more recently Futurama, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Andromeda, the much loved Quantum Leap, the even more loved Firefly, Sliders, the amazing run of Dr. Who, Babylon 5, and that magnum opus, the new Battlestar Gallactica. 

Then something happened, and science fiction seemed to become less important to TV producers. Sure, there were the periodic stabs at it, but TV became a police drama/reality show wasteland. Even SyFy, that staunch stalwart of science fiction, wasn't producing as many series as it was running more horror-based content and live action shows that just weren't interesting. 

But then things started to pick up. 

A few years ago we got the phenomenally quirky and dark Orphan Black, the very dark re-imagining of the classic The Twilight Zone called Black Mirror, the look at the what it means to be good that is Dark Matter, and the perfectly cast Killjoys. These are all really good science fiction shows, but each of them lack something; that one thing that would make them great. Like The Expanse. 

I'll let the Wikipedia entry explain the plot, or at least as much as you're going to get: 

Two hundred years in the future, in a fully colonized Solar System, police detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane), born in the asteroid belt, is given the assignment to find a missing young woman, Julie Mao (Florence Faivre). Meanwhile, James Holden (Steven Strait), the Executive Officer of the ice trawler Canterbury, is involved in a tragic incident that threatens to destabilize Earth, Mars and the Belt. Far away from their struggles in space, Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a United Nations executive, works to prevent war between Earth and Mars by any means necessary. Soon, the three find out that the missing woman and the ice trawler's fate are part of a vast conspiracy that threatens all humanity.

Watch in the opening moments of the first episode when you see Julie Mao's hair floating as if in real zero gravity (you'll find out who she is later). If you think they blew their budget on some sweet effects simply to make the first episode more compelling, you will be pleasantly surprised. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, the set work and effects are mostly top notch. Much of what you see in the series would find itself more at home in movie theaters, not TV screens. 

The series is tight, unpleasant, unforgiving, brutal, and shatters your calm as you watch. It is as distressing and engaging to watch as mobster dramas. The violence, the language, the abidingly deep lack of care for human life rips at your soul. You want them all to go back home, knowing in the end that they can never step foot on Earth again, more likely to die in the vacuum of space or at the hands of killers. The glaring eye of the camera gazes unflinchingly at the characters on screen as their animal urge to survive at any cost is tested again and again. Death is around every corner. 

The Expanse is not Star Trek. It's not Star Wars or Dune or even the more recent iteration of Battlestar Galactica. There are no heroes or angels. There are no good guys and everyone has the spark of badness in their darkened souls. This is a dirty, hurt, and torn Solar System, touched and corrupted by the corrosive hands of mankind. 

Welcome to The Expanse. 

There is only one option. Vote.

I've been struggling against the Right for months now, and I'm already feeling burnt out by all the hate and subterfuge. While it would be enormously fulfilling to me to find my words having an affect on a single, solitary conservative, I am convinced that day will not come. If I might use a regional metaphor, we are the coast of Southern California fighting against The Wedge of the Right Wing. The Pacific may be vast, but those who spend their entire days railing against positive human progress are the most entrenched of radicals. They will never be turned, but... you might find this amazing, they don't need to turn.

We simply need to vote.

It doesn't matter what the issues are, who the candidates are, which side you're on, what you believe, where you are from, whether you're a veteran, were born here, or became a citizen after immigrating. It is our right, our duty, as citizens of the United States of America, to vote for our government. It is our duty to determine the path of our country and who should lead us there to make it happen. The only thing that matters is that we do it as a nation, together, regardless of ideology or where we land on the spectrum.

We simply need to vote.

Right now, our country is represented by a small percentage of Americans, and those interests don't necessarily reflect the interests of America as a whole. In reality, we don't even know what America wants. Little more than half of us vote to select a President, and the turnout is far smaller in the mid-terms. That means roughly 40-60% of America decides what America looks like, how criminals are treated, what happens to big corporations when they break the law, how poor people are helped, how much workers should be paid, what taxes are fair, who we go to war with, and much more. If we want those things to change...

We simply need to vote.

From here on out, that's all I'm going to talk about in relation to politics. I may personally support Bernie and hope and pray that our country just gives a damn about people again sometime soon, but for purposes of politics, I will remain neutral. My aim, my goal, my aspiration is to simply get people to vote. I don't care what party you align with, your politics or beliefs or associations. I just care that you go to the polls this November 8th and vote. Vote for your country. Vote for your conscience. Vote for your family and friends. Vote for a better world, whatever that might be.

It only takes an hour or two every two years.


Dwelling inside the persistent shadow of creativity

I am a writer. 

This is what I do. For a living. Well, not so much lately, but it's the single most salient job I identify with. Back when I was a kid, being introduced to new stuff like Brave New World and Dune and Catcher in the Rye, I fell madly in love with the idea of becoming a writer. 

It didn't take long to discover that it wasn't going to be easy. 

In fact, it wasn't until 1996, when I was a mere 27 years old, that I started writing professionally. It was work, not something I wanted from writing. With my new wife, before our daughter was born, I edited and updated technical books for a publisher named Sybex. The imprint still exists, but the company is long gone, absorbed into another, larger publishing group. I've always like technology and was good with it, but it wasn't what I wanted to write. 

It wasn't science fiction. 

My heart sang when treated to the works of Isaac Asimov. I wanted to write about the life of mankind through the filter of a possible future. I wanted to examine artificial intelligence and fear and desire and pain and joy through the lenses of distant stars. I wanted my words, my ideas, to be cherished by someone, anyone else. 

Writing as a job didn't work out so much. The computer book publishing industry kinda tanked and consolidation changed things, and not for the better. It became harder and harder to secure editing work, and none of my books ideas were gaining traction. My agent wasn't very helpful, either. She didn't believe that the Blackberry was going to be worth the effort anymore or that small business owners would want to bother learning about how IT people work (I'm still working on the latter, albeit slowly). Lo and behold, Blackberry has a hit with its new Priv handset running Android. It just goes to show that it doesn't matter if you're right if you don't have enough influence. 

Eventually, I actually wrote a complete book, all by my lonesome; Getting An IT Help Desk Job For Dummies. It was published last year and hasn't done well. That said, I think it's a pretty damn good book, and I'm pretty hard on myself when it comes to self-review. Sometimes, I think back to when I was writing that book and realize that I wrote 99.8% of those 288 pages (the rest is just filler from Wiley). Those are all my words, which represent my personal experience and observations about the IT industry from 20+ years of being a consultant, engineer, and writer. It was the second book in the series, as well, and it should have been promoted better, but it wasn't. 

Que sera, sera, or as the kids say it today, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't have a unified, clerical definition about the state of the writer in America these days. I just know that I always feel as if I'm living under an enormous shadow. I am shaded by those who have come before me, and I wither. The collective accomplishment of these men and women greater than I am resilient is a terrible burden for one to carry, especially for me. Those aren't issues to talk about in public, though. Everyone's had a difficult family life in some fashion. I'll freely allow you to let your imagination go wild. 

So I keep slogging along. I have two books of fiction I am working on now, and I haven't touched them in months. One would be my first novel and the other is a collection of short stories I had written and writing now. I assigned myself a deadline for last year, and I missed it. It's not the same doing it to yourself as it is having a living, breathing editor huffing down your neck. 

So, in the meantime, I write here. I can't even write on my actual blog anymore. It feels like a time capsule of shame and failure, and it has my name plastered all over it. Maybe I will go back to writing there, but for now I'm going to do the deed here. 

Posthaven, indeed. LOLZ.

Linux, as a desktop, missed its window of opportunity

Don't troll me, bro. I'm no Linux hater. I used Linux for years. I started with Caldera back when we didn't know that SCO was evil. Despite lacking coding skills of any kind, I hand-crafted my system from the ground up. At that time I was so tired of Windows that I ran Windows apps from a server to my desktop machine just so I could use Linux as my daily driver. 

Linux is a fantastic OS. It's powerful, capable, efficient, and dynamic. You can make it do anything you want, as long you A) have the nerd chops and B) you don't work a job which requires mainstream applications. There are the standard arguments, though. Linux has plenty of apps that are like Photoshop/Microsoft Word/whatever. Linux has peerless security. Linux is more reliable. Linux is a lot of things, and most of them are good, but it's no bed of roses. 

Blogging is a lot like... well, something, I can tell you!

I don't know why, but it always seems like when I'm confronted with the need to develop an idea for a post, I think about blogging. 

Weird. 

When I write, especially here, I am blogging, so what's the point of writing about blogging as I write on a blog? Not sure, really, but it seems like the thing to do. So, here's some writing about blogging. First, though, an image for no real reason.

The TKN Media Empire


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