Quantum Theology

You are elevated to ‘expert’ status simply because you know more than nothing about a subject, which is more than the other people.

I was looking over some Weblogic docs tonight, and I realized that I wasted a significant amount of time implementing handlers which would do message level security for web services in Weblogic 8.1. If I had taken the time earlier to dig through the documentation for Weblogic, I would have discovered configuration hooks that would do the same thing. Yup, expert. Can’t even read docs.

TODO Item 283: Set off hotel smoke detector … at 5:15 in the morning.

Check.

ISTPs are quiet, unassuming people, who tend to be mechanically gifted but withdrawn and reserved. ISTPs often need a great deal of personal space and “alone time,” which may give others the impression that they are aloof; in reality, this time is necessary to hide their secret identities.

The typical ISTP leads a dual life; his outward reserve and quiet masks an inward seething rage at the injustice of life–often, the death of a loved one at the hands of a criminal. In this secret life, the ISTP uses his mechanical gifts to create a terrifying arsenal of bizarre weapons with which to strike fear into the heart of evil. Sometimes, ISTPs may become evil themselves, either slowly over a long period of time or in response to a perceived rejection from the very people they are trying to save.

RECREATION: ISTPs are happiest when they are building and constructing–either new weapons to smite their enemies, or new plots to destroy those who oppose them. They have a very industrial sense of aesthetics, and can spend hours absorbed in the appreciation of works of art such as a 1969 Hemi Cuda retrofitted with missile launchers and ejection seats.

COMPATIBILITY: ISTPs don’t often get along well with their extroverted cousins, Evil Overlords and Mad Scientists. Instead, they prefer the company of INTPs, or perhaps their pets. Romantic relationships with ISTPs tend to be drawn-out, tragic affairs, filled with bitterness, longing, and teenage angst. The sex is usually pretty good, however.

Famous ISTPs include Spider-Man and Q.

Totally, totally me!! ROTFL!!! Now, if only you knew my secret identity!!!  muahahaha!!!

Oh yeah: http://www.xeromag.com/fun/personality.html 

Read this: http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2007/09/competence-is-bad-for-your-career.html

An excerpt:

What they wanted in an executive was someone who says definitively: “Yes” or “No”, even if its wrong. And Jeff was competent enough to know that the answer is never as simple as Yes or No. So less competent individuals made it to the top… and Jeff cleaned up after them.

My boss walked into my office the other day and wanted me to get onto a telecon. She said something to the effect of ‘your going to tell them , right?’ I hesitated and I had the look on my face that said that I was going to say in times 50 words. She walked out of the office and said she would take the call.

Yeah, my career is going to be limited by my straight shooting style. Then again, I don’t define success only in terms of rank and pay grade. I would consider myself to be an utter failure if I sold my honor and integrity on the altar of career advancement.

To be fair, it’s often good to limit things to a simple yes or no - just so long as you know exactly what that yes or no entails. A yes or no spoken in ignorance is a recipe for disaster.

It is one of the facts of life that you can always find something to do, even in bumville Dallas. You just need the right imagination. I know this because I knew a couple of guys from church in my college days that could find something fun out of nothing at all. I don’t have this imagination, so I’m destined to sit here blogging from bumville, hehee.
I was reminded of this because I got a call from one of those guys this week. Jeff is fascinating guy, and oh so very odd. You know, the goth guy. Oh, and he called me because he wants to live alone in the mountains of Colorado. Ahhh, can we say scary? Haha!!! So, now he is the goth guy and the scary guy in the cabin who plots to take over the world! Ok, well that last part would be me if I could only get away from the world of jobs that pay me a ridiculous amount of money in exchange for castrating my life. I could totally see myself writing some code that would take over the world from my mountain cabin!. I digress…

Back to Jeff. Jeff is smart, Jeff is odd, and Jeff is fun. I feel that if Jeff went off to live alone in Colorado, the world would loose something. I don’t know about you all, but I think we all need a friend like Jeff. Also, a friend like Paul. Paul borrowed one of those electric golf carts used by the UCSD staff - for a few days. He drove around campus giving people rides and generally had a good time. Long enough to make the Lights and Sirens section of the UCSD campus newspaper!

Jeff and Paul will be flying into Colorado next month to look around. I just might take a weekend and go meet up with them. Interestingly enough, we are out of offices at work. The boss gave me that annoyed look when I suggested that an office could be found for our new employee if I moved back to Colorado. Hmmm…. I wonder if this is the case where I just ask forgiveness rather than permission. I wonder what would happen if I just never went back to Texas. A lot of people would consider that rather insane. Well, I think I am plenty sane, and I think that most other people are the ones insane. I think sanity is just a matter of perspective. Perhaps it’s time for a change in perspective.

For the first three months of this year, I had my nose buried in ‘War and Peace’. I then turned my attention to ‘The Art of War’. Luckily, you can read all about war in the span of a weekend!

I can see why business people like to read this book. I think engineering managers should read this as well as it has useful application towards managing a successful engineering project.

For example:

To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

…

To see victory only when it is in the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence. Neither is it the acme of excellence if you fight an conquer and the whole Empire says ‘Well Done’. To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear. What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but wins with ease. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom, nor credit for courage.

A final note. In the world of software, the ‘battle’ might be the software acceptance phase, or it could be the experiment you have been tasked to perform, or really anytime your code is viewed by a customer or potential customer.

I think the political aspects of software could be analogous to the use of spies, which is also covered. I think I should gift this book to the owners of my company. Hee Hee!

For the first three months of this year, I had my nose buried in ‘War and Peace’. I then turned my attention to ‘The Art of War’. Luckily, you can read all about war in the span of a weekend!

I can see why business people like to read this book. I think engineering managers should read this as well as it has useful application towards managing a successful engineering project.

For example:

To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

…

To see victory only when it is in the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence. Neither is it the acme of excellence if you fight an conquer and the whole Empire says ‘Well Done’. To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear. What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but wins with ease. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom, nor credit for courage.

A final note. In the world of software, the ‘battle’ might be the software acceptance phase, or it could be the experiment you have been tasked to perform, or really anytime your code is viewed by a customer or potential customer.

I think the political aspects of software could be analogous to the use of spies, which is also covered. I think I should gift this book to the owners of my company. Hee Hee!

My previous post is even more interesting given that the reason I stepped outside was to retrieve a certain book from my car to write this post. The book is Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. My intention was to retrieve the book to refresh my memory as to why I have the tagline ‘Insane according to G.K. Chesterton.’ on the top of my blog. It’s interesting because I wonder if I share a similar style of insanity with my neighbor.

I still don’t remember exactly why I put that tag-line on my blog. But re-reading the first chapter of Orthodoxy has me thinking that either Chesterton is insane, or I am. That is the question of the week for me. Am I insane, or is it the world around me that is insane? The chapter in question is titled ‘The Maniac’.

I’m still in the process of pondering, but here are the sections that interest me

Most of the great poets have been not only sane, but extremely businesslike;… Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic; I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

The madman is the one who has lost everything except his reason.

The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete … or, to  speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable. … If a man says that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. … Or, if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ’s. Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we try to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. In the same way an insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not so large.

Well, I could go on, but I just reached the crux of why it was so apropos that I ran into the old guy who was looking for pussy with a Richard Dawkins book in hand. I shall have to get to the question of my own sanity a bit later I suppose. Having read both Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, I am quite aware of the cold logic of atheism. I am also quite aware of the logic behind their assertion that religion is holding up the human race. I don’t find fault in their reasoning, just that it’s not so large.

I do find it somewhat amusing that Orthodoxy is to Christianity as ‘The End of Faith’ is to the anti-theists, atheists, etc. But, that’s neither here nor there. <– and what the hell does that saying mean exactly???
P.S. Emily … did you make it this far? Great … I’ve resorted to posting inside jokes. Heheee. oh my!

There is this retired guy who lives next door to me. I ran into him this morning, and we had a short discussion about the book in his hand (a Richard Dawkins book). Turns out he is going to a discussion put on by a local unitarian church. That was a rather interesting destination for a follower of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (atheists), so I probed a bit further.

And I quote:  ‘Well, it’s a good place for pussy’

dang, it gets even better.

This was 30 seconds after telling me that religious people just need to shut up because we are holding back the human race, and because we are infringing on his right to read a paper without seeing the word ‘God’.

Dang, that pussy must be really something else!

I’ve just gotten screwed by Dowda Realty, the management company I rented my apartment in Manitou Springs from. My lease terminated at the end of May, and I had been battling them to get my deposit back. Well, 3 months later, I got a statement from them showing that I owe them $100, instead of my check for $400. Extensive pet damage was the word.

The carpet WAS in need of replacement, and I have no doubt that there was some pet damage, but the damage wasn’t from me. It’s tough to have extensive pet damage when I don’t own a pet, and I pee in the toilet. My security deposit was a $400 dollar gift to them to perform some maintenance on the apartment.

Add that to the fact that they refuse to pay a $15.75 bill from the utility that incurred AFTER my lease expired and I had vacated.

Word to the wise, the management at Dowda will screw you if the opportunity presents itself. Given that I no longer live in Colorado Springs, it’s going to be hard to sue them since I would have to file any legal action there. It’s not worth throwing good money after bad. I can just hope that Google picks this blog entry up.

UPDATE: I did some digging around and it looks like one of the members of the Dowda family had her real estate license revoked. Hmmm… Also, according to Colorado law, Dowda has forfeited their right to the deposit because of their failure to send either a deposit disposition or the actual deposit, within 60 days. In cases like this, Colorado law is heavily in favor of the tenant. I feel … vindicated!