Month: August 2008

Heath Ledger? Tim Russert? George Carlin? Tony Snow? Estelle Geddes? Bo Diddley? Sydney Pollack? Charlton Heston? Bobby Fischer? Evel Kneivel? Robert Goulet? Pavarotti? Merv Griffin?

And Now Bernie Mac?

What is up with the last 365 days? Maybe its just a bum year, but these were folks I kind of followed at one point or another.

(Not to mention the losses of people I cared about, knew, a Matriarch in my family, beloved members of others families.. people who touched my life personally as well – but, I mean, look at that list – and that doesn’t even include Bhutto, Hinkley, or other niche celebs)

Just too weird not to say something:

A cloned dog Mormon mink-lined handcuffs tantalizing mystery.

Yeah. When I served a mission, just about every male missionary talked about this old story (over a decade after the fact).

OK, folks, I’ve been taking some flak at work for opposing hydrogen-powered cars. For a thorough look at why hydrogen is currently an awful choice to drive your car around, I refer you to here:

http://mb-soft.com/public2/hydrogen.html

To sum up:

• It costs seven times as much power to generate the hydrogen — usually via coal-fired power plants — as you can get out of it driving around.
• Without substantial investment in energy-producing infrastructure (read: solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear), a hydrogen economy is not possible.
• The storage requirements for hydrogen are awful and extremely heavy. Smart people are working on this via hydrogen gels, but at present, it’s still a pipe-dream.
• Methane (natural gas) is a better choice for the short-term, and we have abundant resources to create it in a renewable fashion, unlike gasoline.
• Hydrogen, ultimately, is an immensely expensive, dangerous, and inefficient method of producing power for cars. The only net benefit versus alternative powering systems is cleaner air around cities… which may be a useful goal in itself, but is not the goal being pitched to the American public.

So John McCain, whom I will now refer to as the “Greater Of Two Evils”, launched an attack ad at Barrack Obama…Huh? Wassat? No, Ms Coulter, I will NOT address him as B. Hussein Osama. Go hang out at Fox News or something…

Anyway, here’s a link to the ad:

***Note to Blog Daddy Barnson( usually, I would put one of those <break> thingies here, but I can never remember the syntax. Can you put that in the bullets below the textarea here so I can be lazy and not have to keep looking it up? Please?***

I know politics are harsh and brutal, with everything in your closet becoming fair play, but comparing your opponent to Britney and Paris? That’s low. That’s mud-slinging in its most evil form. Especially considering the Hiltons are one of McCain’s campaign contributors.

For Obama, this election is really similar to ending up on a blind date with a nymphomaniac. All he has to do is not screw it up, and he’s in. Don’t make premature victory trips to Europe or waffle on your energy plan, and you’ll be President Obama in three short months. The country is so sick of the war, the economy, and Republican stupidity, and when you couple that with McCain’s campaign ineptness, it would take a monumental gaffe for Obama to lose.

Perhaps he should look to SNL for campaign guidance. They got Paris to shoot this rebuttal ad:

If Obama would have made something tongue-in-cheek like this, the conservatives would have made a stink (“I said SHUT UP Ann!!! Back to your rock!”) but it would have been a massive hit with the populace. But like I said before, Obama’s best plan is to do nothing that might jeopardize his sure thing

My $.02 Weed

EDIT by matthew: As requested, try "<!–break–>". Also added this information to the blurb when you submit a blog (at the top, not the bottom).

My brother, Jay Barnson, made the front page of Slashdot today. That means that I may be shutting down other services — including this personal web site — if traffic gets too high.

Anyway, I’m really excited on his behalf. The Slashdot article is Why Game Developers Go Rogue, while the original article on The Escapist is Going Rogue. Check it out!

I originally posted this on my blog, but since my readership is primarily my wife and I, I thought i would post this out here as well.

I have been a big Washington Redskins Fan for a long time (going on 23 years or so). When the skins were in the previous stadium (RFK) season tickets were the mythical unicorn. They were left in wills to families, they were difficult at best to get a hold of. Today is much the same, although it is somewhat easier to buy season tickets at FedEx. I have wanted to be a season ticket holder for as long as i can remember. I think it would be awesome to be able to go see the game at the stadium (which I have always liked) – and know the seats you are getting will be the same seats you will have next time. I haven’t looked into how much other teams charge for season tickets, but Danny Snyder has our fans paying through the nose. I received an email from the skins this morning about a ticket offer

“A very limited number of great seats recently became available for our pre-season opener against the Buffalo Bills on August 9th at 7 PM. These seats are located in our Club Level and are only $250 for two seats. This offer includes a premium parking pass* and wristbands to our exclusive Tailgate Club**. The retail price of this package is between $700 and $1200 based on seat location.”

What’s that again? So to purchase 4 tickets (enough for the whole family to go) to a “pre-season” game will run me $500 before food? I don’t know how people do it. I don’t make a lot of money – but in the same breath i don’t make chump change either. I can not comprehend how one would go about spending that kind of money on a weekly basis for a football game. Some quick math shows me that if I were to go to a full 2009 season (Home games only) I would end up paying

$1500 for the 3 preseason (using the offer given above) $15,200 for the remaining 8 home games (using the avg. retail price given above) for a total of $16,700

That is just insane. I guess i am going to have to depend on “lucking” into tickets again. Hasn’t been the best method historically, but it doesn’t cost me anywhere that kind of money.

OK, I am a big fan of stating flat-out what it is you’re saying. I am not a fan of innuendo. So when I recently watched “A Video Portrait Of Barack Hussein Obama“, I was incensed at the baseless use of innuendo, error, and mis-statement.

This video offends me. It’s a racist, anti-Muslim, mean-spirited attack that cannot stand unanswered.

• Repeated use of Obama’s middle name — and emphasis on his middle name, “Hussein” — is calculated to equate Obama to Saddam Hussein, widely reviled in the USA as a despot, dictator, and war criminal. Anne Coulter’s insistence on calling him “B. Hussein Obama” and “President Hussein” is particularly irritating.
• Videos of political leaders accidentally saying “Osama” instead of “Obama” is calculated to encourage viewers to believe Barack Obama is a terrorist.
• “Fact: Obama’s father is a Muslim from Kenya, and his mother is a white American.” This statement is a blatant play on racist sentiments in the USA, and should be recognized for what it is: a ploy designed to ignite racial hatred and bigotry. Say what you like, but a black man marrying a white woman in many parts of the USA is not only taboo, but sufficient cause for many to consider violence were it not against the law to act on that impulse.
• “Fact: Obama attended a Muslim school for two years in Jakarta, Indonesia”. If a presidential candidate attended a Hebrew school, or a Christian private school, would people be this upset? No. This is a play on the current anti-Muslim religious sentiment in the USA, and yet another racist attack by the extreme right.
• “Fact: Obama has a vague voting record.” As justification, they cite his number of “present” votes. I am a huge believer that we pass too many laws as it is, and there is no chance for an individual Senator to fully read every single bill presented to the Senate. The majority of senators ignore the content of the bills and vote based on the executive summaries. This way lies abuse of law like the USA PATRIOT act. Is it vague to vote that you do not have an opinion on a bill? I say no, that’s a stronger statement than a rubber-stamp Yes or No vote according to party politics. I wish more senators would be willing to refuse to vote when they are ignorant about the bill.
• “Fact: A large flag, featuring a portrait of Communist mass-murderer Che Guevara hangs on the wall of Obama’s Houston office.” Ronald Reagan was endorsed by the KKK. A low-level staffer in a tiny recruiting office in Houston decided to put up a decoration that many consider tasteless. The break of the Che Guevara “scandal” picture was the first Obama had heard of one of his supporters putting that picture up in a short-term rented campaign office. Presidential candidates, as mentioned above with Ronald Reagan, collect all kinds of supporters, and in this case, Obama apparently did not micro-manage the Feng Shui of his supporters. Yet another attempt to paint Obama as a terrorist. They are really reaching at this point.
• “Fact: Obama refuses to wear the American flag as a pin.” Well, so do I; I avoid wearing tacky novelty pins as a general rule. What’s the point? I put my hand over my heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. Does a presidential candidate really have to wear a novelty pin to show he’s loyal? If that’s the case, apparently all the previous presidents of the United States have been disloyal at one time or another. If you want to wear a flag on your body, who am I to stop you? But the moment you try to tell me I have to wear a flag on my body, you’ve over-stepped your bounds.
• This one is split. The words on the screen say “Fact: Disrespects Nat’l Anthem”, while the announcer says “Fact: Obama has refused to place his hand over his heart during the national anthem”. Well, first, the real “fact” is he’s never “refused”. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. Second, when was the last time you placed your hand over your heart during the National Anthem? I’ve always just stood respectfully and taken off my hat if I was wearing one. Hand-on-heart is generally reserved for the Pledge of Allegiance. Isn’t that the way it is for everybody? Why the brouhaha? I’d never heard of a requirement to place my hand over my heart during the National Anthem until commentators made a big deal out of Obama not doing it.
• “Fact: Obama has attended Chicago’s United Trinity Church of Christ for over twenty years.” We have no religious test for office in the US. Some presidents offered simple affirmations rather than oaths on the Bible due to their religious convictions. When one’s choice of church is more important than one’s stance on foreign policy, I’m concerned for the state of politics.
• Written: “Fact: Unpatriotic Sentiments.” Spoken: “Fact: Obama’s wife Michelle implied that she hadn’t been proud of her country until her husband started leading the race.” I am not proud of my country right now. Blooming national debt, numerous wars abroad, a despotic President, spiraling inflation, a deplorable public education system, politicians easily bribed, economy in the toilet, rampant violation of civil liberties, steady increases toward a police state, and more… right now, things look grim. I love my country, but right now I’m not proud of where we are. We must improve, shrink government, reduce our involvement in wars in foreign countries, stop spending so much, eliminate rampant corruption among our Senators and Representatives via campaign contributions, focus on renewable resources for our energy needs to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and fix our healthcare system. That sentiment is not unpatriotic. That’s realistic.
• “Fact: Wright was Obama’s mentor.” I had a lot of mentors through the years. Once again, Wright’s opinions do not equal Obama’s opinions. The only reason for them to attempt to harp on this point AGAIN is to try to paint Obama AGAIN as a terrorist. How ridiculous can you get? A peace-loving, life-long public servant with no record of any violent activities a terrorist due to his pastor? Come on! By the way, the sinister drone in the background at this point was an excellent way to make Wright, preaching, with a picture of Obama below and out-of-context damning statements flashing to the side, seem supremely evil. If you were interested in facts, why the sinister music? Right, because you’re not interested in facts, you’re interested in doing whatever vile thing you can to put McCain into office.

Let’s take a break here. Let’s spend the next several minutes analyzing Reverend Wright, and try to attribute all of his negative attributes — including “rude” — to Obama.

Have some popcorn.

Have a cookie.

• Sure, yeah, that’s fair: put a hammer & sickle next to Liberation Theology. So in other words, Obama is now a Terrorist Unpatriotic Muslim Christian Cuban Kenyan Kanasasian who’s white mother got knocked up by a black man and he’s a COMMUNIST. Dude.
• “Pope John Paul condemned the Humanist doctrine, which had produced numberous socialist revolutionaries throughout the region.” Say what? I know Catholics dislike Humanism, but does that have anything to do with Obama’s Christian church?
• “The task of Black Theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community.” I think that stands on its own as an example of the ridiculous lengths to which this documentarian is willing to go to try to slander Obama. What was this fellow smoking?
• “Can Democrats expect to elect a man who disrespects the National Anthem?” Debunked already. Worthless argument; you STAND for the Anthem, you place your hand over your heart for the Pledge. Their argument is pure idiocy!
• “Can Obama honestly expect Americans to believe he doesn’t share his pastor’s views?” Well, yeah. When I was Mormon, I didn’t share Brigham Young’s anti-black sentiments. I did not share Spencer W. Kimball’s distaste for interracial marriages. I did not share Ezra Taft Benson’s love of the John Birch Society. Although I have read his works, I do not share all — or, probably, even most — of Richard Dawkins’ beliefs regarding the role of religion in society. George Washington went to his grave with no membership in a specific church, though he shared a bench with his wife, Martha, for decades. The religion of prospective presidents did not become a significant issue in US election races until the 1880s, when a religious furor swept the nation, the fires of which are still burning today. Being a member of a congregation does not imply blind acceptance of the beliefs of the leaders of that congregation. I would venture to say that the best, most involved congregations are those in which there is a healthy skepticism present among the congregants. America is renowned for its diversity of opinion.

And after all this, I learn that this video has already been repeatedly debunked and shown for the fraud it is. Perhaps I should not have dignified it with a response.

It is videos like these that make me question my membership in the Grand Old Party. I am ashamed to share a party with such an example of patent bigotry as this extremist Christian hate-monger. Ultimately, I am just as believing of the claims of this video as I am of the claim of its producer, aired twice during the segment.

“I am Lorne Baxter. And I invented the Internet.”

Yes, yes, Jason Mitchell, absolutely, I’m sure you did. Your name is Lorne Baxter. You invented the Internet. When someone starts off a production with two lies, how much more should you believe?

I was recently hired for a lateral move within OmniMegaCorp to another department with slightly different duties. I’m really excited about this move, because I get to get more involved with an area where I think computing is going: grid or “cluster” virtualized computing. These fault-tolerant, highly-reliable systems bring some amazing benefits for computing in environments that don’t demand the very highest performance from bare-metal machines. That said, they still offer substantial performance for very large infrastructure projects that tolerate latency well, and the systems-management and uptime benefits alone are enough for many to be willing to sacrifice a little performance for immense reliability.

As part of my transfer — which will involve sitting at the same desk I’ve been at for nearly half a decade — I was asked to write a job description of what I do in order to aid my current management in finding a replacement. I thought it might be entertaining for you, too.

Duck Soup Wrote: > 1. Projects that you are currently working on or soon to be involved with > 2. Functions that you are the primary contact for > 3. Days and duty at our failover site

To be honest, other that deployments, I have very few “projects” since so much of my work is standard duties and firefighting. That’s one of the things I look forward to in this move: more time to oversee projects from beginning to end, rather than being so reactive all the time.

Projects: * Linux/Solaris deployment wave 2. Given that our mass-deployment product doesn’t seem to be working on these subnets for Linux systems, this can be very on-site time-consuming. Check w/E. Honda for exact times. Main jobs are configuring the DRACs, ensuring network port requests go through, DNS coordination, making sure power/network is set up, assigning/labeling machines, installing base OS. * Ongoing migration of various Phase 1 and legacy machines to Xen/VMWare and alternative operating systems.

Standard duties: * Failover payment site backup rotation and maintenance (~2-3 hours per week), usually Thursday mornings. Roger Giggley and I shared this duty before, and they are production systems. I volunteered to do it each Thursday because it’s on my way to work, and quite a bit out of his way. * Backup monitoring, maintenance, and rotations: 10+ hours/week. About 3-5 hours actually rotating tapes. * Restores. This requires an on-site person to swap in tapes much of the time. 2-10 hours per week (depends where we are in the build cycle). * One-time backups. Often requires short-term ejects. Averages just a few hours per week, around 2-3 hours. * Service request queue. Rest of the week, performing miscellaneous on-site Linux/Solaris/HP-UX/AIX troubleshooting and maintenance. (~20 hours/week) * Attend Friday morning coordination meeting @ 10:00 AM US/Mountain. Provide reports and status updates for coordination with Logistics, IT, and Space/Power. Also report on downtime, if any. (~1 hour/week) * Provide support on general Linux/UNIX questions to peers/managers/directors in other development areas (~1 hour/week) * Provide on-site support for remote members of my team and other UNIX, storage, and backup teams who have encountered difficulty administering systems remotely (up to 10 hours/week) * Provide on-site support for other teams that require UNIX expertise, though not necessarily intervention (2-3 hours/week). * Handle auditing duties gracefully with external auditors. (a couple times a year) * Interface with vendors for hardware replacements and repair. (mostly OtherBigVendorCompetitor for backup systems and NAS)

Duties recently removed: * NAS administration (went to storage team) * SAN administration (went to storage team)

Useful skills for replacement: * Thorough understanding of Netbackup, robotic tape libraries, and fibre-channel architecture. * Linux, AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris administration abilities (though maybe the Linux stuff could be shuffled off to the new Linux team) * Demonstrate ability to automate processes with at least one scripting language (Perl and Posix Shell or Bash a plus) * Show familiarity with kernel rebuilding, performance tuning, and basic performance troubleshooting (familiar with “top”, “free”, “iostat”, “find”, etc.) * Be able to write an init script from scratch, including case() statements to handle at least stop/start requirement on Linux/Solaris. * Be familiar with at least one UNIX rapid deployment system (AIX: NIM, Solaris: Jumpstart, Linux: Kickstart, HP-UX: Ignite) * Familiarity with Xen, VMWare, and other virtualization technologies. * Self-directed with ability to work under severe time pressure and while juggling many equally-important high-priority items. * Able to communicate effectively via electronic mail, instant messenger, and phone. * Must be willing to carry mobile phone 24/7 and be available for on-call duties on occasional weekends. * Must be able to lift seventy pounds. * Willing to work strange hours occasionally to handle joint issues with staff in India.

So what does your job look like?

Matt’s top reasons to wear an undershirt:

* If I’m wearing a polyester/acrylic shirt, I’m actually much cooler wearing a cotton undershirt than not. * I’m cooler wearing a T-shirt than going without a shirt at all. The cotton Tee wicks away perspiration without letting it drip down my butt-crack. * I have kind of large, long nipples for a guy, and I really, really hate “poppers”! (That is, poppers on ME, I think they are fantastic on women) * I can throw away cheap T-shirts with yellow pit stains rather than my favorite shirts which end up with yellow pit stains if I don’t wear an undershirt. * I can do double-duty on a favorite shirt before washing it ‘cuz the undershirt stinks instead of the nice shirt. Laundering a shirt less also prolongs shirt longevity. * Collared shirts without undershirts look tacky… particularly if you are prone to Poppers, as mentioned above. * My nipples chafe if I sweat much and don’t wear an undershirt. * I sweat… a LOT, even just sitting in this chair right now. If you don’t sweat much, dude, you don’t know what it’s like. A sweat-soaked shirt is unattractive.

There you have it: reasons to wear an undershirt. I stay away from the wife-beaters (also called tank-tops) because they don’t solve the pit-stains problem.

What about you? Undershirt-wearer or undershirt-hater?

Pete Ashdown, owner of Xmission Internet Services in Salt Lake City, former senatorial candidate, and all-around good guy, penned a piece in response to recent efforts to expand oil extraction in the US. Here’s an excerpt:

Carter proposed that U.S. automakers attain a whopping 48-mile-per-gallon fuel efficiency by 1995. He demanded that we curtail imported oil by imposing fees. Finally, Carter proposed windfall taxes on oil companies to fund alternative energy and a goal of generating 20 percent of our power from solar by 2000. What happened? It would be nice to see an explanation from Hatch, since he was a three-year senator in 1979. His explanation not forthcoming, my presumption is Carter’s visionary energy goals were tossed on the trash heap, along with the solar panels he’d installed on the White House, when Ronald Reagan moved in. America then increased dependency on foreign oil and forfeited automobile innovation to Japan. Middle East oil-rich dictatorships went on to become even wealthier and more entrenched… A small patch of Alaskan wilderness, coastal drilling, oil-shale magic, nuclear power subsidies, less regulation on fabulously wealthy companies – these will make us energy independent and gasoline inexpensive again? … This country retooled its entire industrial sector nearly overnight in order to fight World War II. America fulfilled President Kennedy’s challenge to land on the moon in under a decade. Yet become energy independent with renewable technology in the same amount of time? Sorry, we’ll leave that kind of innovation to advanced countries like Brazil, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. Solving our energy problems by loosing the reins on the oil, gas and coal companies is a deal that requires us to forget 30 years of history. This bargain ignores the hidden health costs of polluted air and water and insists that consumption of energy is not correlated to the price. In spite of their feel-good commercials, these companies are not here to solve our energy and pollution problems. They’re here to make a profit.

Unlike Ashdown, I believe nuclear power to be a viable, effective, clean method of power production with minimal environmental side-effects. I think we need to be spending more money developing nuclear power.

But like Ashdown, I believe allowing oil companies free reign on protected reserves is not a long-term solution. Demand for oil is outstripping supply. We live in the age of Peak Oil, and we must create new technologies based upon renewable — or at least extremely-abundant — resources to power our needs for the twenty-second century and beyond.

Additional US oil exploration is a Band-Aid on the severed artery of oil independence.