Clint Sharp’s Blog an’ Vlog

So, it seems that a group of Christians has given up on trying to outlaw abortion, to preach Christianity in schools, to display the Ten Commandments in public institutions, to convince America homosexuality is an abomination, and to convince America that legal marriage of homosexuals somehow affects them. So what you say? People have gotten fed up before. However, they’ve come up with an innovative idea. Take over the state of South Carolina and secede from the union to form their own government.

They’ve determined that if they can move 50,000 people to the state, they can, with focused moving into the proper districts, take over 25% of the legislature. They somehow think that the rest of the state would rally to their cause. I’m wonder if they’ve considered exactly what running your own country entails or how difficult it would be to get the rest of the 4 million people in South Carolina to go along with that, but I guess they figure it’s a good idea. I figure if the Mormons don’t have their own country yet, they’re probably not likely to get one either (there’s a buttload more Mormons concentrated in Utah than Christians who are right-wing enough to agree with everything these people are preaching). All I know is I’d have to believe pretty damn strongly in something to move to South Carolina. If they think they can do it, and Gay Marriage offends them that much, then I’m all for them trying. In fact, it’d probably be easier if there was some place for people who felt that strongly to go that’s still in continental North America so they could move there and stop griping so much (I feel the same way about the environmentalist wackos, maybe we should give them Wyoming or something).

Anyways, if you wanna sign up, you can do it at ChristianExodus.org.

Today has been a good day. Mostly. I would like to note that I am not posting because of my husband’s post - I just happen to have something to say.

Good thing #1:
So this morning I went to a new doctor. Actually, I went to a nurse practitioner because I couldn’t get in to see the doc ’till July but they got with me with the np because of my special circumstances. Those circumstances are that we’re trying to get pregnant and pregnant women create a lot more revenue than women merely wanting pap smears. This is only a guess - I just know that when I say “well, see my husband and I are really trying to get pregnant and I’d really like to get something sooner” all of the sudden, appointments not previously available are magically open to me. So anyway, I went to the np and it was a lovely meeting. I found that my doc in Arkansas may not have been on the cutting edge of fertility treatment and I now have many tests - I think you could say a “battery of tests” to look forward to. It seems that the good people at the Swedish Medical Center are quite committed to getting me pregnant. My parents were both quite moved by the mention of the word “Swedish” in conjuction with my plans to make them grandparents. My father said, “ehhh…. hmmm….. hehe…. ehhh…. those Swedish people know a lot about baby making.” And my mother said, “Oooohhh, the Swedes are on the cutting edge of fertility.” I really don’t know what either of them were talking about but both seemed dissappointed that out of all the people I encountered, none of them were actually from Sweden. But anyway, it was a promising experience and I think that someday Clint and I might actually manage to produce little people with good hair and a flair for computers.

Good thing #2:
Those who know have talked to us since we moved have no doubt heard us speak of Wayne the Maintenance Man. And you know that he is crazy - not in an amusing way…. crazy in a scary way. Well two weeks ago Sunday we saw him and he reported that he had recieved some bad news but didn’t want to “burden” us with it. He was obviously expecting us to encourage him to tell us so that we might give him a beer, or three, and provide some sympathy. Well, we didn’t encourage him - we just said “oh, that sucks” and then went inside. I know that sounds heartless, but you don’t know this person. A couple of days later he came by our apartment to try and get me to take some crap that he found in some empty apartment and he also mentioned that he knew that Billie was coming here in a day or two (He *really* likes Billie). On around Sunday (last Sunday) we realized that we had not seen Wayne in a few days. Clint noted that Wayne’s car was not in his parking space. By Wednesday I started to get excited. I hadn’t seen Wayne in a week. We thought maybe he had quit, or gotten fired, or just left in the middle of the night. Regardless, I had been hapily Wayne-free for an entire week. I still have not seen him. Today, as I drove into our crappy apartment complex I saw the following things:

A car I did not recognized parked in Wayne’s space.
The front door of Wayne’s apartment standing open.
A man I’ve never seen before standing in front of said apartment with a box.

It was a clear sign - Wayne is gone. Now, don’t mistake me, I wish no harm or distress upon the man. I’m just relieved to think that I might not have to worry about him getting drunk and yelling outside our apartment, leaving random junk on my doorstep, dropping by asking if we have any beer, rejecting invitations to accompany him to bars where he will just get very drunk and try to fight Clint, and a variety of other offenses we’ve dealt with over the last few months.
So it seems my day was going quite well… then.. the best thing happened.

Good thing #3:
As I pulled into my designated parking space next to the burgundy Buick belonging to our despicable neighbors I saw something confusing on the patio of our repulsive, crack-head neighbors. It looked like a bunch of white towles lying on the ground. I make it a point not to look at their apartment too long so I came inside and went upstairs. From my upstairs window I saw the following things on the patio of the evil neighbors (whom I hate in case you weren’t aware):

Cardboard boxes, several.
White packing paper, tons.
Trash bags, full of junk

This could only mean one thing - They Are Moving
And I’d be willing to bet they’re moving soon. These don’t seem like the kind of people who are overly prepared. Oh Joy! I can quit smoking now! I can enjoy my outdoors now! I can stop grumbling about basketballs landing in my flowers! I can also, with any luck, never hear a converstation I’ve been hearing from their front door since I moved here:
*Ding Dong*
Inside manly voice: Na man, she asleep.
Outside voice: Fo real? She asleep?
Inside manly voice: Ya man, she asleep.
Outside voice: Fo real? She asleep? It fo o’clock in da noon.
Inside manly voice: Ya man, she asleep.
Outside voice: Fo real?
Inside manly voice: Ya man, fo real.

This can go on for up to 10 minutes… and I swear I am not making this up.
So today shaped up to be a pretty good day. The only bad part of it was when my father detailed his recent kidney stone debacle in which many euphenisms for vomit were used. Alright, one this high note, I’m going to bed. I must get up early tomorrow so as to have enough time to make an angel food cake for Clint (he’s 24 tomorrow).

I don’t honestly know the answer to that question. Perhaps because I’m lazy (in fact, I’m almost certain it’s because of my laziness, but I’m also in denial about it ). Of course, that means my wife must be lazy as well, since we’re both responsible for posting to this blog, and this will be my second post since her last one. I’m sure she’ll read this and feel it necessary to respond, which is sort of why I’m being antagonistic, because unlike me, who only does stuff after she yells at me, she does stuff because she thinks I’m telling her she can’t or won’t :).

So what have we been up to? Lots of drinking. Ok, well not really alcoholic levels of drinking, but we have been going out places recently. We’ve been to several interesting places in Seattle, and I’ve even begun learning how to navigate my way around there. I’ve learned the names of some of the districts and where they are, etc. We’re slowing it down a bit though, because contrary to popular belief (ok maybe not), going out all the time is fucking expensive! Dropping like $70/night on alcohol adds up if you’re going out every other night. So, needless to say, back to our boring life at home.

So speaking of the boring life at home, we’ve uploaded some pictures of our crappy apartment to our Gallery. I don’t think these pictures tell the whole story of how crappy this apartment is (or Redmond in general for that matter, make sure you don’t stay out too late kids! Everything closes at 8 here…). I guess Microsoft decided to move here because, well god, it’s so quiet here nobody will ever bother our programmers! It’s quieter than South Park here, but there’s no Tom’s Rhinoplasty or stand where Chef sells his salty balls.

So enough bitching, go look at the gallery. Hey, maybe send me an email or something (if you don’t know my address, I’m not going to do one of the non computer-readable address interpretation things, because I hate that, and if you can’t figure out my address based on where you’re viewing this blog at, you probably don’t need to email me anyways). I’ll try to write more often :).

So I promised I’d post about this a week or two ago. This post is going to be a combined rant against current developments in technology, where Apple isn’t and should be, and why Linux can’t compete yet in the desktop space. In short, it’s going to be a rant as to why I’m still using Windows and probably will be for some time to come. Blasphemous, I know! Prepare for a long post (if you’re one of those non-technical readers, here’s a good point to bail out ).

Currently, I use Windows for 90% of my daily tasks (I have two Linux desktops, one at home and one at work). Most of the reasons I use Windows are because of ingrained corporate mandates on software and document formats, and are not related to whether other open source or Mac-available software are or are not “good-enough.” In fact, I think the majority of the Open Source apps for the daily tasks I perform have reached the “good-enough” phase, but I’m unfortunately locked into using file formats which are proprietary (which later in this post we’ll get to the one point I agree with Sun on, that open standards are far more important than Open Source). Here’s a quick list of why I haven’t blown away Windows on my machine for Linux or why I haven’t bought myself a Powerbook for daily use:

• Only important on the Linux front, as Office can be had for the Mac, but 100% Office file format compatibility is a must. I have to modify complex file formats with macros etc enabled because for some lame-brain reason people decided that Microsoft Word was a good way for people to submit forms rather than doing a nice web interface.
• Visio. Microsoft was smart to buy them and ensure they remained a Windows-only software package
• iTunes. Again not a problem on the Mac, but Rhythmbox isn’t iTunes, that’s for sure.

And the real kickers:

• Outlook/Exchange. I’ve considered moving to IMAP for email, but the integrated calendaring is pretty essential for me. Evolution offers a plugin for exchange ($70! what a rip) and I’ve heard iCal and Mail.app are offering Exchange compatibility, but neither are as good as Outlook.
• SQL Server Enterprise Management tools. Our billing vendor uses Microsoft SQL Server and FoxPro for their DB backend and development language, and having the Enterprise Management tools local to my machine saves a buttload of time. I could work around this by using RDP to access the individual servers to run queries, but still I really like having the tools locally.
• Nortel Contivity VPN Client. Netlock makes versions for other platforms, but frankly they suck. The MacOS version might be better than Linux, I don’t know, but the Linux version crashes anyone but RedHat’s kernel (possibly the reason everyone is decrying RedHat’s “fork” of the Linux kernel, which, unless your running binary-only kernel modules like Netlock’s, isn’t really a problem).

I’m sure I could probably come up with some more reasons, but frankly, there’s lots of small issues that, besides applications I can’t run. MacOS’s eye candy is appealing, but Apple has really fallen behind the times in terms of UI design. None of the applications they produce are consistent (and don’t even get me started on Brushed Metal), and the Finder is just appalling (Gnome’s new spatial browsing goes back to what I actually like about the Classic Finder). The Dock is the worst excuse for an Application Launcher/Task Manager I’ve used (I much preferred OS 9’s Application Menu). I know I’m just reiterating old complaints here, but I’d like to make it known that I don’t think Apple is innovating on the UI front. In fact, I think they could really take some notes from Microsoft on making their UI consistent throughout the OS and bundled applications.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are things the Mac does well. However, it’s a dieing platform, and thusly, even after using the most recent Macs, I can’t see paying a premium for a platform that with every passing day becomes more and more irrelevant. For the Mac-addicts out there, this amounts to pure blasphemy, but take it from someone who’s owned a Mac for the last 14 years, I’ve seen the ups and downs of Apple Computer, and there’s nothing Apple has left to give us. I may be surprised, but as everyone knows they’ll never be more than a niche player and that niche is only going to get smaller. For a home media PC, which is what the Mac is gearing itself towards now, there is no compelling reason for me to buy it at a premium over a Windows Media Center PC. While Apple’s iDVD, iMovie, etc, are very easy to use, I don’t see them as that much better than the competition to warrant paying the premium for the hardware, especially since other than iTunes, none of the applications interest me much (I’m not really into Video at the moment).

Now that we’ve established that I don’t think Apple is innovating much, it’s time to start complaining about Linux. As Bill Joy says, re-implementing the same OS that has already been written is not innovation. As much as I applaud Richard Stallman and the GNU group’s goal of truly free (as in speech, not as in beer) software, and it has given us a great base from which to build an operating system, GNU programmers have continued along the lines of merely re-implementing the software which is already there. GNOME and KDE are just starting to innovate after spending the last 6 or 7 years of their existance merely trying to copy Microsoft’s UI. While this stands to ease the transition for existing Windows users, I don’t believe that’s necessarily the way to bring about change. People don’t switch platforms because they’re cheaper. You can buy a complete bundled Windows system for $500, and the OS is only perhaps $45 dollars of that at OEM level. Thusly, the OS is not the factor that’s going to bring PC prices down (they’re already about as cheap as they can get). The reason people would choose Linux over Windows is a compelling technological innovation, either in the way they use the computer or something the computer does for them that it doesn’t do on other platforms. Linux is a disruptive technology on the server side, not because of the technology but only because people are beginning to realize that it’s easier to standardize on one OS, because the OS for the majority of users or administrators is irrelevant. It’s the applications that count.

Currently, Linux is not offering innovations in the way I use my computer. This doesn’t detract from it’s use a server platform, where innovation is actually occurring. I think Linux is a vast improvement over Windows in terms of both administration and reliability, although Windows 2000/2003 is quite reliable as a server platform not withstanding its security problems. However, as a desktop platform, Linux still considerably behind both Apple and Microsoft in usability. They’re catching up, but it’s still hasn’t advanced beyond a playtoy for geeks at this point. It could be used in areas such as call centers or retail Point-Of-Sale, where there is generally only one application running, but that’s not innovation, as UNIX desktops have had a role there for quite some time (this is where SCO made it’s bread and butter before they simply became a litigation company). There are some exciting projects in the Linux world, such as Storage, but they’re probably still a year or two off.

So I’m not happy with alternative platforms to Windows for my corporate use. Obviously this would be much easier if the industry would come about and implement standards based document formats. I’ve always felt that if the software was better it wouldn’t matter if you could easily open documents in a competing product. If Microsoft’s software was that much better than StarOffice or OpenOffice.org, then they’d have nothing to worry about with having others be able to easily read their document formats. Office 2k3 has allowed users to save their documents in XML format, but it still stores large portions of the Office data as blobs which are still basically unreadable to third parties, not to mention they’ve patented the formats so they could potentially block users from reading the formats w/o a license. This is truly where I think Microsoft shows their monopolistic behaviors! I really wish Microsoft would compete in the market place instead of trying to force the marketplace into staying with them. They’d truly endear themselves more to the marketplace if they’d allow people to easily migrate away from their software, because they’d probably find that as long as their software continued to be the best that the users would stick with them or the ones that left would come back if their software was truly worth the dollars they charged. See, I’m not a tried-and-true Microsoft lover, although what I’m about to say will probably make it look like I’m smoking Bill’s pole.

The scary fact of the matter is, no one is innovating in technology right now, except Microsoft. That is blasphemy you say! However, I’m not alone in saying this. Miguel de Icaza, founder of Gnome, agrees with me. .NET, as confusing a marketing ploy as it has become, is truly innovative. It’s almost what one could consider a disruptive technology. Java had the potential to be what .NET is going to become, but for desktop applications it’s failed for years because of performance issues (I’ve been told this concern is largely elimated today, however Microsoft seems to have gotten it right on the first go-around). The Common Language Runtime allows developers to use whatever syntax (as long as it can be compiled to the CLR) to interact with the Frameworks that Microsoft has provided to interact with the operating system and thusly the user. Obviously, the value is in the Frameworks, as the languages are just a way to express the program in whomever’s preferred syntax. The Frameworks and APIs lock someone into a particular platform, as unless portability is a design goal from the outset, it’s very expensive to build and much more expensive to retrofit. The Mono project is working on re-implementing the Microsoft Frameworks and an Open Source implementation of the CLR which could potentially bring true cross platform development to both Linux and Windows. Another example of following, but one at this point which is probably necessary to remain competitive.

Longhorn stands to bring many more improvements to the way we use our computers and especially in the way in which applications are deployed. This is the first time Microsoft will be innovating on the desktop in years, since the years of 95 and NT, IMHO. WinFS stands to bring to the mainstream a meta-data based Filesystem. This would bring customizable attributes stored on the filesystem to allow all kinds of new possibilities for displaying data, and with the advent of improved search technology, would make where you store your files irrelevant. This stands to bring vast improvement to the way users use their computers, as while the Hierarchical Filesystem makes sense to you and I, many users find it incredibly confusing. File management, with today’s ideas and technologies, should really be a thing of the past. Search is the thing now. Obviously, this isn’t the first time someone has implemented this idea, BeOS and many other experimental OS’s have implemented this type of filesystem previously, but this will be the first time it will brought to the masses with the potential that everyone could be able to figure out how to use it. Where’s Apple on this front?

Also, and even though this stands to put more into vendor lock-in with Microsoft, Avalon and XAML present very cool deployment technologies for applications. I have to say I’ve only read the hype, but basically from the way I understand it, XAML and Avalon provide a method for describing user interfaces in XML (much like XUL, but it will probably not be incredibly slow) and providing the needed .NET code in bytecode form to execute proper actions when the interact with the interface described in the XML. This basically would allow a web browser to display applications which to the user would look and interact just like a local application. Basically what Java and ActiveX were supposed to provide but never quite could.

Obviously, all this remains to be seen as to whether Microsoft will deliver on its promises. It rarely does, and its never met a deadline it could meet feature-intact. However, with the $7 billion a year or whatever they spend on R&D, it’s going to be hard for others to compete.

So, now that I’ve said that and pissed off all my friends for blaspheming the beloved Apple and praising the hated Microsoft, let me put this in context. If someone can point to something that’s innovative coming out of the Open Source world that’s ready for production, or something from Apple that’s innovative outside of Eye-Candy and easy-to-use digital image cataloging and video editing software, then I’m all ears. I just don’t see it, and I’m really looking for someone to change the way I use my computer at the basic levels. I’m not talking voice recognition, but at least something that makes my daily life easier like a database-driven filesystem or an email program like Gmail that’s local but still doesn’t require me to spend time to cataloging my email. Search should be powerful enough I don’t need to think about that stuff anymore. Maybe I’m just selling myself on search, but I’m believing the hype around Google and the search business. I think Internet search is important, but I think the most important aspect of search at this point is improving the way we use our PCs, as I think the Internet search thing is approaching mature and commodity level. However, as much as people have tried, I don’t think PC search is there yet. Maybe in the next few years I’ll be happy.

Can someone please point me to something which will pique my interest and show me that there’s something interesting in technology? Can someone show me someone who’s innovating and implementing new ideas for production OSs (academics don’t count, it rarely is ever usable) outside of Microsoft? I’m ready and hopeful to be proven wrong.

PSYCHIC GIRL! Possession Protectors
This has got to be a sign of the world coming to end. For just $30 you can get a little charm to protect your possessions - Am I the only one wondering why Kali, Buddha, or Jesus for that matter would be interested in protecting your wallet or palm pilot? Maybe if you’re really tight with Jesus he might watch out for your luggage, but I’m guessing if that were the case, you wouldn’t really need a little picture of him dangling from a ring to get him to help out.
Sheesh……

Believe it or not, one of my favorite things to do is to sit outside with a cup of hot tea and watch the sun come up. I rarely get to do this on good terms. Usually, the events leading to such a treat are unfavorable at best. I can think of only a few times when I’ve seen the sun come up under the right circumstances. A few times when I was a kid, my family drove from Southern California to Arkansas to see my Dad’s family for a couple of weeks during the summer. These trips were fairly exhausting as my father does not believe in silly things like stopping at a hotel for the night. No, we drove all day, right through the night, and through the next day. We stopped for gas and food - and little else. Despite the rushed nature of the journey, the insaity of my dad’s family, my inability to sleep in a moving car, and the fact that my sister suffers from accute motion sickness, there were certain elements of these trips that were fantastic. One such element was stopping for gas in the middle of the night. When we’d stop for gas during the day it was an inconvenience. The truck stops were hot, they were dirty, they were crawling with people and the smell of gasoline was sickening. But at night, these same places transformed into something magical. No longer were they crowded - only the most devoted travelers and Knights of the Highways were to be seen. No longer were they dirty - cleaning crews had swept away the day’s mess and no one was awake yet to litter it up again. The temperature was still high, but without the sun they seemed almost chilly. And the smell of the gas… I’ll swear to my dying day that fluorescent lighting combined with moonlight and a light breeze must cause a chemical reaction that makes gasoline smell positively divine. These trips also provided me with my first sight of the phenomenon that is lightening bugs. Once, while making a rare stop for the night in some small Oklahoma town, I spied some fuzzy lights in a field across the highway. I spent the rest of the evening catching lightening bugs with my mom and dad - some were placed in glass jar. They died the next day - quite dissappointing, but amusing nonetheless. There were other things I liked about these trips. I liked being cooped up with my family for 32 hours straight, I liked the glowing lights of semi’s parked for the night at a rest stop, but most of all, I liked watching the sun come up. Because I didn’t really get any sleep on these trips, in the early morning, I usually got the front seat, while my mom, and later my sister, slept in the back. It always seemed that we managed to time our trip so that we were driving through New Mexico in the early morning. I can’t think of anything I’ve seen that has rivaled the beauty of the sun rising over the mountians in New Mexico. I know to many people, the desert is an ugly place. But to me, it’s an empty canvas, and an empty canvas holds endless possibility. Nothing illustrates this like a sunrise. When the sun rises in a city, the only colors you see are in the sky - up above. In the desert when the sun rises, you see every color imaginable all around. It’s breathtaking. My mother used to tell me a story about Father Sky and how he had this beautiful quilt of deep reds and oranges and golds. In the evening he gathered up his quilt to prepare for bed and that was the sunset. In the morning, when he awoke, he threw off his quilt and shook it out to prepare for day. And that’s what the sunrise is - a huge, gloriously colorful quilt. I think of this story every time I’m up at the break of dawn. Even if I’m up due to some unpleasant circumstance such as I haven’t yet fallen asleep, I enjoy the sunrise immensely. This morning. I got out of bed around 5am because I knew that I wasn’t going to fall asleep. I got up, went downstairs, made myself a cup of tea, and realized as I glanced out the window, that the sun was just about to make its appearance. I went outside thinking that later I would sit down and post something about how irritated I am with this whole not sleeping thing. As soon as that blanket of reds and golds starting spreading out all around me my entire mood changed - I thought myself quite lucky to witness such an event. So what started out as an idea to vent my frustrations has ended as a fond recollection of the delicate odor of moonlit gas stations, the awe of bugs with light bulbs in their asses, and the beginning of my love of an everyday occurance that I don’t get to see as often as I’d like.