the frig blig

I just published my first app in the android market: SFD Mobile. Since I work for the Seattle Fire Department, this was a natural idea for an app. Thanks to data.seattle.gov for making it possible.

Since it’s my first real app in droid-space, I’m very curious how folks like it and what they think. Of course it’s only of interest to Seattleites and/or fire buffs.

I certainly learned a lot of J stuff writing it, mainly JSON and Java. I’m looking forward to writing future apps, after our next home improvement project is complete.

Surprisingly, the Android Market category list does not include ‘public safety’ or even ‘government’ so I chose, pseudo-randomly, to tag my app ‘travel’.

I was a freshly-graduated freelance graphic designer and was hired to design a marquee poster and “one-sheet” ads by an independent filmmaker. His film had recently won an award and as a result he got a distribution deal, but had to provide the advertising. I was hired because I did the film’s original titles and credits, and subsequent brochure, all of which he liked.

This was a bigger contract. My design included a full-color photograph with special effects (special for the 1970’s). I hired a professional photographer as subcontractor who provided the 4 x 5 transparencies which I included in the packet which went to the printer. I did the original design, the layout, and provided camera-ready copy for the printer.

After accepting the job, the printer’s rep called me and said “We’re sorry but we can’t handle the size you specified for the job. Our presses are too small for that. Would you accept posters which are 2 inches shorter?” I told him I’d call him back after consulting with the client.

I called the filmmaker and explained the situation, and asked “should I accept the printer’s offer and change the size?” He said to go for it. So I called the printer back and gave the nod.

A week later the printed posters arrived. They were beautiful. Custom typography, eye-grabbing design, in rich vibrant color. I delivered them to the filmmaker who gave me my check.

A couple of days later the phone rings, and the filmmaker on the line is furious. “These posters are too small! The theaters won’t display them because they don’t fit in their cases!”

I gently reminded him that the printer had told us they couldn’t print the original size, and that I’d authorized them to print the smaller ones. “Who told you to tell them that?” he demanded. “Uh…you did,” I replied.

To which the filmmaker said, quote: “Don’t listen to me!”

And he was right. I was the professional and he hired me to make the right decisions. I should have found another printer. But instead I had brought the decision back to the client who only knew he wanted the job ASAP and wasn’t qualified to make that decision.

It was my bad. I learned a lesson, the hard way. This customer never hired me again.

Let’s start with a disclaimer: I am not a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim. Or a Hindu, or a Sufi. Maybe I have some Buddhist sympathies but I don’t practice any organized religion, and don’t believe in a God other than admitting that there is much about nature and the universe that we don’t understand, and trying to treat all living things with respect.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s proceed to today’s thesis: speculation about the origin of the origin of Christmas.

Christmas itself is a holiday for commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, and is the first of the twelve days of Christmastide. However, many non-Christians also celebrated traditional holidays around the time of the winter solstice — for instance Saturnalia (Roman), Yalda (Persian), Hanukkah (Jewish), Diwali (Hindu), Yule (German), and Bodhi Day (Buddhist).

Why are there so many holidays scheduled around the winter solstice? Because, clearly, the shortest day of the year is also the gloomiest. Sunshine tends to cheer people up, whereas darkness has the opposite effect. So, creating a big hoopla on the gloomiest day of the year would counteract the depressing force of the season and help folks make it through to springtime.

This has both logical and emotional appeal. But lately I am annoyed by the extremes to which this strategy is taken. I believe it’s overdone.

“The most wonderful day of the year” croons the darned radio, that just flips me over the edge. Ai-yi-yi! Some years I can handle Christmas songs better than others. Sometimes I even enjoy them. Not this year.

It reminds me of the way my mother likes to make sure she arrives at the airport with plenty of spare time in advance of her flight’s boarding. She probably feels more secure that way, so she doesn’t worry about missing her plane. But the consequence is, you spend lots of time sitting in the airport.

Overdoing the Christmas spirit is like waiting in the airport hours in advance of your boarding time. Both strategies are well-intentioned. But both are just too much for this cranky old codger.

Namaste.

It’s interesting timing. This year’s Nobel peace prize has been awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a champion of free speech in China who was imprisoned by the Chinese government for his outspokenness.

Meanwhile in the U.S. aka ‘America’, aka ‘The land of the free’ and all-around champion of human rights, the federal government is doing it’s damnedest to crack down on Wikileaks, trashing founder Julian Assange and pressuring providers of internet services such as DNS and payment processing firms to refuse their services to Wikileaks. The crime? Publishing documents authored by the U.S. government.

Um, what was that about freedom of speech being good? In the real world, it’s good when you’re outing the other guy’s government. Exposing your own government, however, is evil (not to mention darn embarrassing) and must be punished lest you set an example for others to follow.

At first glance, reading about the court-martial of Spc. Jeremy Morlock, it seems like the Army is attempting to make a responsible investigation and take potentially just punishment if the crimes he is accused of are found to be true.

But let’s slow down and take a closer look. Army Specialist Morlock is facing murder charges for allegedly killing Afghan civilians. Morlock, a U.S. soldier, was sent to Afghanistan with the job of killing Afghani soldiers. You can usually tell soldiers from civilians because they wear uniforms. Soldiers’ uniforms can be considered, abstractly, big bulls-eyes. In a war zone, civilians take care not to wear these uniforms.

The military makes a big deal about playing by the rules. The rules say you cannot kill people unless they are wearing the bulls-eye uniforms. If they are not, and you want to kill them, you have to send in the drones.

So assuming Spc. Morlock and his friends made a mistake and killed Afghanis without bulls-eyes, they broke the rules and will be punished.

But what is so different about the person underneath the uniform? Why is it OK to kill people wearing bulls-eyes and not OK to kill people wearing other clothes? Is it because the bulls-eye Afghani soldiers are also trying to kill the bulls-eye U.S. soldiers? That sounds like team sports, where two teams fight to decide who wins and who loses the game.

But the military’s game is played with life and death. Injuries are expected, and so are deaths. The players on these teams are informed of this when they sign up.

It just strikes me as a little scary when the clothes you wear determine whether you are considered a target for murder or not. And the teams’ schedules, I don’t like who determines the schedules and why. The league seems to be crazy, the match-ups too often unbalanced.

By making a big deal about punishing players who disobey the rules, like court-martialing Morlock and friends, the Army is legitimizing the killing of all the players wearing the correct uniforms. And this bothers me, big-time. Do not the families of killed soldiers grieve as much as the families of killed civilians?

The U.S. State Department is scrambling mightily to negotiate a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. But it doesn’t seem to be working.

A lasting agreement can only be forged if both the Israelis and Palestinians truly want peace. If, for instance, Israel is more interested in land than peace, peace will be harder to attain.

I suspect that behind the scenes the U.S. is attempting to use carrots and sticks in this process. As the biggest beneficiary of U.S. foreign aid, one stick against Israel would be the withholding of said aid. But, I suspect too that Israel may have a few sticks of it’s own to use on the U.S.

The bottom line is, even if the U.S. can convince these two parties to sign an agreement based on U.S. supplied carrots and sticks, such agreement will not last until, as stated above, the two principles themselves truly want peace with each other, regardless of what third parties such as the U.S. offer them.

I can deny it ’til I’m blue in the face, and my standing may be open to question, but I most assuredly belong to the following families:

Seattleites, ex-Tallahasseans, musicians, sons of Jewish mothers who have renounced Judaism, U.S. white males, go players, pool players, geeks, freaks, coders, voters, married guys, homeowners, breathers, writers, composers, bloggers, sloggers, performers, workers, note-takers, list-makers, mammals, skeptics, smilers, pouters, doubters, losers, tip-toers, listeners, pluckers, fuckers, guys who say ‘wow’, sufferers, ecstaticats, questioners, shavers, bathers, distracted ones, dreamers, sleepers, weepers, insomniacs, cooks, lovers, the angry, the pissed, the clever, sneezers, wheezers, squeezers, schemers, the regular, eczemites, shitters, quitters, singers, whistlers, finger snappers, clippers, flippers, shouters, pooters, wankers, bicyclers, hikers, touch-typists, card makers, risk takers, jokers, and smokers.

To name a few. What families are you in, perchance?

If I were a genetic engineer dabbling in DNA I would definitely want to attempt mixing chromosomes of dogs and cats.

Of course it would not be easy, but if the resulting creatures lived and were able to reproduce, I would quickly patent them and begin marketing them to pet-lovers as super-pets, containing all the best and none of the worst qualities of each species.

This would certainly confuse many people, especially cat lovers who despise dogs and dog lovers who despise cats.

But it would appeal to the exotic pet crowd, and would eventually grow a legitimacy and constituency of its own.

The first person/company to successfully enter this market will make history, and a killing.

You heard it here first!

I like Doc Searls’s post about Daniel Schorr’s death:


Sad news

He was 93. We should all live so long, and well.

My wife and I have been discussing the possibility of retiring, eventually, to Florida’s Gulf coast. But now that, thanks to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, the Gulf of Mexico contains a hundred or so million gallons of oil, not to mention toxic dispersants such as Corexit and methane gas…I’m wondering if Florida’s Gulf coast will be such a desirable place to live in upcoming years.

I’d really like to see some serious scientific forecasts of the extent of the effects of the oil plumes, dispersants, and methane on Florida’s Gulf coast. This information could (and should) bear on our decision to spend years of our lives there.