Author: matthew

So back in September, I talked about wanting to make a new rock band because it’s been a long time since I’ve been in one. Well, last week, I was approached by Doug, the leader of a Salt Lake-based rock ‘n roll band named Switchback and asked to audition as a replacement for the keyboardist they have been missing for a long time.

I went to see them in Tooele on Friday night at Tracks… and they definitely don’t suck 🙂 I’d looked up the band on their web site, and noticed that one of their faces was new. I also noticed that, although Doug, Ed, and Randy (Bass, Guitar, Drums) were really tight and had obviously played together a lot, Mark was struggling here and there with getting the right chords and seemed a bit nervous. I later learned that this was only Mark’s second gig with the band, with just a few rehearsals of the setlist

Makes sense. His licks are solid, but he just isn’t used to the playlist or his fellow band members yet.

Anyway, they put on a really fun performance to watch and listen to. Interesting to me, though, that the young crowd at Tracks danced a lot more to the VJ during breaks than to the band. I’m not sure why that is, but it was a pretty plain difference. The band remarked that they liked playing at Tracks a lot because it’s one of the few regular gigs where people do actually get up, dance, seem really into the music, and give some applause and tips now and again. Other places, apparently, people just sit around and watch, with just scattered applause.

Anyway, so I’m looking at the setlist… Holy crap, I’ll have a lot of work to do if I make it. About 150 songs as part of the regular set list, and apparently it changes all the time. It’s been such a long time since I played cover tunes on a regular basis, I’m a little intimidated.

So what would you do to get ready for an audition with a local pro band if you hadn’t played professionally for twelve years and felt rusty as all hell? Apparently, keyboardists who play rock and improv are few and far between. Ones who sing well and can also hold their own on rhythm guitar are a bit rarer. So I am not terribly worried about passing the audition/jam session… but I’m a whole lot more worried about being competent with the set list afterward!

James Randi is apparently expiring his Million-Dollar Challenge on March 6, 2010. It will have run for 12 years, with the million dollars safely earning interest and awaiting a challenger who can demonstrate psychic or any other supernatural ability under carefully controlled scientific testing rules.

Move a pencil with your brain? Win a million bucks!

Bend a spoon with your mind? Win a million bucks!

Accurately predict a series of future events? Win a million bucks!

Demonstrate that you can tell the difference between two high-end speaker cables using only your ears? Win a million bucks!

It’s been a very straightforward challenge, and so far no “psychic” or mystic has been able to prove anything other than random-chance probabilities in the lab. Many have tried. Many who try and fail complain that the testing is unfair, and a large number poo-poo the application process as filtering out legitimate paranormals because it’s not easy to design a test that satisfies both the paranormal investigator and the paranormalist.

Also the Foundation has made it a practice to disallow certain dangerous or untestable claims. For instance, people who claim to be able to survive indefinitely without food… well, some people can take months to starve to death, and the only conclusive proof you couldn’t do it would be your death. So that’s out. Also, claims of miraculous healings are extraordinarily difficult to test objectively because of placebo affect, among others. There are a number of other issues, so there’s a fairly narrow range of things which can be scientifically tested.

It will be sad that the “Million Dollar Challenge” can’t just be automatically extended to anybody who claims a supernatural ability, but after twelve years, well, it’s been a good run I guess.

Well, now the major ISP’s are talking about sifting through Internet packets looking for copyrighted material. The problem is, I host a boatload of fully legal MP3s for which I, or the contributors, hold the copyright. I’d hate to get a Cease and Desist because the name of one of my songs that I wrote nineteen years ago happens to be identical to one released by some teenie-bop group last year.

I think it’s time I just sucked up the fee and moved most barnson.org traffic to SSL encryption. I’ve been concerned for a while that network sniffers could capture passwords when we log in here, and seeing now that major ISPs are planning on sniffing everything for copyright violations, it’s simply time. That information could be too easily abused.

So on my 2008 resolution list: update barnson.org’s look, feel, and code level while encrypting the traffic.

Sam Harris has an interesting quote:

If a person thinks there is something that another person can say to his children that could put their souls in jeopardy for all eternity, then the heretic next door is actually far more dangerous than the child molester.

I know it’s winter, but am I really so dangerous that you look at me nervously when I’m outdoors sporting this beard and ripped-up jeans? I think my charm and winning personality will bring them over to liking me eventually… But from the response of the neighborhood parents when I talk with their kids when they are around, it sure seems like I make them nervous.

That’s it, time to shave and get a haircut and always wear a white undershirt so that I “fit in” with the Mormon mold again. This 1980’s-era ‘do and facial hair apparently scare the crap out of people.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2432676

A construction worker working on the Utah Capitol building during its re-dedication was found dead in the sub-basement during the ceremony.

That’s just weird. And they didn’t interrupt the celebration to take the body out; they just hauled him out the back door covertly during the fireworks. What a strange state I live in.

I ran across an interesting piece today on talkorigins: “Evolution is a Fact and a Theory”. Like so many other words, one word is used to describe two different things:

1. The fact that organisms evolve over time.
2. The theories of the mechanisms by which organisms evolve.

Sure, I’m a little late to the party, where scientists have made this distinction for a quarter of a century. But it’s new to me, and I thought it was a cool distinction. I’ll use it in the future when discussing this with friends who try to lump it all together as “Darwinism”. One worthwhile quote from the talk.origins site:

It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.

The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.

– R. C. Lewontin “Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth” Bioscience 31, 559 (1981) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, op cit.

This ties into a concept that I’ve been toying with in my mind for the past couple of weeks. Daniel C. Peterson, noted Mormon apologist, pointed out on a thread at http://www.mormonapologetics.org/ that writers there often fall prey to the Fallacy of the Beard:

Q: Does one grain of wheat form a heap? A: No. Q: If we add one, do two grains of wheat form a heap? A: No. Q: If we add one, do three grains of wheat form a heap? A: No. … Q: If we add one, do one hundred grains of wheat form a heap? A: No. Q: Therefore, no matter how many grains of wheat we add, we will never have a heap. Therefore, heaps don’t exist!

So the same with the fact of evolution, and the theories of the mechanisms of evolution. Some maintain that, because science can never claim any conclusion with absolute certainty, evolution can never be a “fact”. Yet science is nothing more than the study of the natural world; every thing we can perceive with our senses carries with it information about itself, and these are the facts from which we can base our conclusions. Sure, our conclusions are provisional, but in some cases these conclusions are sure enough, and used successfully across enough disciplines, to be considered “fact”.

Just like I can tell that I have a substantial beard today. And I’m about ready to shave it off because it’s bugging me.

(11:12:59 AM) Brusco: You there ? Got a sec? (11:13:07 AM) matt-aim: Yep, what’s up bro? (11:13:17 AM) Brusco: ITS A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (11:13:30 AM) matt-aim: Dude, I didn’t even know your wife was preggers 🙂 (11:13:49 AM) Brusco: ah – yeah – she is due in May (11:13:58 AM) Brusco: 21st i believe (11:14:32 AM) matt-aim: But hey, someone else to carry on the family name. Future bass player, maybe football player and font of youthful indiscretions like his old man 😉 (11:14:46 AM) Brusco: 😉

So in reading my daily news, I came across a reference to WAF. I was curious, and discovered a page which highlights what I think is a very useful meme: the “Woman (or Wife) Acceptance Factor“.

To sum up: Women have a different sense of aesthetics than men. WAF refers to how likely a woman is to accept a nerdly piece of home electronics or decor. Some men have the uncanny ability to estimate the WAF from 0.0 (total refusal) to 1.0 (definite acceptance) prior to purchasing an item. Those who fail at this task end up with unhappy women in their lives, or else a garage full of their WAF 0.0 qualifying items.

A few examples:

The new Wii we got for Christmas? 1.0 on the WAF, since she was the one who wanted one. The slim, tiny little unit with the blue LED and the sensor-bar were innocuous enough for the benefit they provided: a console that the whole family really gets into. Funny thing is, she hasn’t played it yet. I figure she’s biding her time until the kids get bored (not likely!).

My collection of radio-controlled model airplanes and helicopters? WAF 0.5. She tolerates them indoors, but delivers meaningful looks, exasperated chuffs, and forcible relocations to the garage when I’m not looking.

The 180 pound behemoth server (a Sun Enterprise 3500, if you must know) I inherited from work? I intend to turn it into a refrigerator. WAF 0.0. Said fridge will be permanently relegated to the garage where I keep my other 0.0 stuff.

That garage is pretty full.

A morning in the life of UltraMegaCorp…

DA: Hey Matt. Matt: Hi DA, what’s up? DA: Are you aware of a ticket raised by BO about XQAH003 being down? Matt: Yep, we had a power outage in that data center that affected a large number of machines. Matt: AP tried to repair them, but they had changed the security codes. The guard, rather than escalating to AP’s manager, told AP to just go home. DA: OK, somehow the service request ended up in our Windows queue. DA: I’ll send it back to the Operations team if you guys are already aware of it. Matt: Yeah, we have dozens of tickets in our queue about this, too. Matt: On the plus side… boosting service request counts for teh win! DA: LOL DA: If there’s already a ticket for XQAH003, maybe I should just close this one. Is there? Matt: Yes, there are two tracking tickets… one moment. Matt: YQ-38205728NB Matt: Use that one 🙂 If the user doesn’t have access to the appropriate queue, then just know we are working with all haste… Physical security is the problem at this point, AP is one of the few admins with data center access and they changed the locks. Matt: …and security won’t let him in 🙁 DA: Thanks. Matt: LOL… I just got an email. The Logistics and security teams are also locked out this morning! DA: If it wasn’t so sad, that would be funny! 😉 Matt: Just got the update from KW… even the security guards can’t get into the data center right now… DA: LOL. Wow, now that’s tight security. Matt: They should throw a fire extinguisher through the window and climb in. It would be cheaper than thousands of people standing around talking about why they can’t get their work done. DA: Probably get fired if they did that. Matt: Yeah.

I said I’d never deal with this bloody company again… but now I have to. Even though I am the person who wrote the (in)famous “Qwest In The Dumper” blog entry the day I finally got rid of them and went to Vonage, I’m now buying a home where the only high-speed internet service is through Qwest.

Double damn.

I have dealt with customer service for the last two hours, trying to explain to them using very small words what it is that I require. They refuse to understand. This reminds me why I am glad I do not work in customer service.

I am glad, on the other hand, for the lessons I learned from my friend Matt, the master of dealing with customer service. Keep reiterating what it is you want, and if they refuse to help you out, talk to their supervisor, and their supervisor above them if necessary to get what you want. Eventually, they will relent. Usually.

My experience with Qwest before, though, is lies, runarounds, and more lies to placate me. Then lies on the customer service record when I call again… and then they send me to another department.

So I gave up. Screw ’em. If they don’t want my business badly enough to understand why I want two separate DSL lines to my house, they can do without more of my hard-won dollars. I know the number of the beast, and it’s 79378 (QWEST on your touch-tone dial).

I decided to give a company called Digis a try. Reviews are mixed, but at least my technical support and sales people speak American English, give me what I want, and have a time frame for when I can get it. I’m a little concerned about negative reports on the ISP at dslreports.com, but I find it interesting to note that most of those are 2-3 years old, and they’ve changed from 802.11 (UGH!) to Motorola Canopy in that time.

Wish me luck!