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How many people still celebrate cyclical holidays? Most, I reckon. One year in college I was struck with talk about how better the world was at a certain time of the year. I heard people around me and on the media who seemed to think a certain season would make the world a better place. Then, it hit me: I hear this every year.

When is it that the season's effects wear off? What is it about January, February or March that causes the world to return to its hard, mean state? Perhaps the world didn't really change in December, afterall . . .at least, not enough to "stick" the rest of the year. What, then, makes December different from other times of the year, or conversely, the other 11 months different than December?

Some may claim a focus on religious, spiritual, or family values makes December better than the other 11 months. My question is, do not these values hold true in the other 11 months if in December? Or does the earth's relative position to the Sun affect us to such an extent (if so, Astrology may be the purest religion!).

I decided that if something is true in December it must also be true in January--and July. From that point, if it was merely a cyclical observance (and I'm not a farmer) it probably held little or no relevance to me.

Your thoughts?

I switched back to Linux/Windows today, officially, with the sale of my not-too-used Titanium PowerBook G4 550. Sold it $800 less than I paid for it (not bad, really) to a friend and co-worker who is a graphics designer. Very appropriate sale.

"Officially" - because in reality I've been leaving my TiBook at home in favor of my 18 month old Toshiba 2805 running, depending on hard drive installed at any given moment, Windows ME (came with it) or RedHat 7.2. At the office my desktop is Windows XP Pro (rock solid) and my servers are all RedHat Linux. The TiBook has been a great machine for my family to watch DVDs on. But not to do real work.

Eventually the dock, no matter what settings I used (and I tried a lot of things) just became an annoyance. The lack of a real program launcher (vis a vis Windows' Start menu, the Gnome Foot, or the KDE thingy), the annoying lack of coherent Alt-Tab window switching, the lack of a decent terminal program (yes, I bought and used GLTerm after damning Terminal; and, yes, I futzed with XDarwin to use "standard" XTerm but could never get Gnome to work to my liking (Gimp kinda worked)) -- at least on WinXP/Me I've got superfast and capable PuTTY.

The thought of programming in Cocoa was enticing but practically DOA since my corporate users are all WinTel based. I new I would need VirtualPC to support Win/IE users. I just was not prepared for how slow VirtualPC would be (all updates applied, 768MB Apple RAM, All kinds of "settings" tweaked)--unbearable for long periods of time. I'm stuck in a WinTel world (business). Just a reality.

There were a number of things I like about the TiBook and Mac OS X, but I found myself gravitating back to WinTel/Linux. I went most of June without waking the TiBook from sleep mode. I just didn't need it.

Then came the .Mac annoucement and the Jaguar upgrade. I couldn't see paying another couple hundred bucks for a machine I wasn't using. Even with the speed increases in 10.2, I wouldn't be using the Mac to support Windows users. Not practical.

Recently I changed my .sig to reflect my appreciation for the phrase "Under God" in the US pledge of allegience. The .sig read:

I'll stop pledging "Under God" when they pry it from my cold, dead lips.

Remove "Under God" and I rescind my pledge

I've received a bit of response and will post some of it here (and add commentary eventually).

A post from susano_otter :

Regarding your sig: do you really believe that the phrase "one nation, under God", accurately describes the country you're pledging your allegiance to? Or is the pledge for you simply an expression of an ideal state that we may all aspire to, even if it has yet to be established?

My response:

Do you believe subscribing to a lesser ideal will help the the state of our Republic?

When I gave my wedding vows I did not hesitate to pledge my allegience to an imperfect person (as an imperfect person). Nor did I consider that we were imperfect. Rather, I was honoring the covenant of marriage.

When St. Paul called the wayward church in Corinth "the church of God which is at Corinth" was he forgetting that they were divided, litigious, adulterous, gluttonous, etc.? No, but he spoke concerning something higher than their condition: he spoke concerning their position.

Regardless if we live like it or not, whether we believe it or not, we are a nation under God's sovereignty. Saying we are a nation under God is not a reflection of our condition, but of our position.

An email from aaron thorn:

No one said that you're not allowed to go on blathering about your American god. What you do in private is your own business. Why should anyone else have to pledge alegance to your silly god anyway?

Just curious-

A post from SubtleNuance:

So, you are an advocate of oppressive non-secular states?

PLease, I invite you to join the rest of us here in modern reality. Cast away your boogie-men and think for yourself.

You chide me for not agreeing with your point of view and then admonish me to "think for myself" -- which is it?

We have a six month cycle for many reasons. First off, and most important to me personally, it is just the right length so that I do not kill myself. The holidays are nicely spaced for me. Since I am project leader, I must not be permitted to go insane.

Theo de Raddt

Instead of "release early and release often" Theo de Raadt has a 6 month release schedule so he can have a life. What a jerk!

Kidding. But it made me think -- why haven't I had a life now that I'm a reasonably well-paid lead developer for commercial projects? It's because there is always a looming deadline that I'm rush-rush-rushing to meet. Why have I allowed myself to fall into the spin-cycle of development? Strategic advantage.

In university I was taught that technology's high cost and risk was justified by the potential for strategic advantage over competitors. Examples from the Just-In-Time inventory control of the Japanese automakers to the (then) state-of-the-art real-time inventory control systems of FritoLay emphasized the benefits of investing in technology...as long as that investment produced a strategic advantage (SA) for your company. Unsaid was the assumption that you'd have to be the first with the technology in place in order to have such an SA. So, the high cost of technological development was justified by the expediency of providing a SA. Expediency is assumed in this model.

Much of software soution marketing revolves around the notion of speed. From concept to deployment...fast. Microsoft is pushing it's .NET as a timesaver. Oracle sells a 65-day ecommerce soution. Heck, I recommend Perl because of the speed of development.

In the midst of this speed-talk out went my life. I haven't had a 40-, 60-, or even 80-hour work-week in a couple years.

A few years ago I was involved in radio broadcasting, both as a show producer (2 different daily broadcasts: one live 30 minute broadcast; the other requring 40+ hours of editing per 30 minute daily broadcast) and as a on-air operator / program director. We were constantly running to meet deadlines. Chaos and confusion were the norm. It was a way of life. But there was a definite reason: time stops for no one. Sure, better production planning help reduce the confusion but there seemed to alweays be a clamor right before the mics went live. When my production group began a venture into video documentaries, all sembalance of 'life' went out the window. I began staying at the studios over consecutive days to meet deadline pressures. My family life consisted of phone calls home. That's when I left broadcasting for the safe haven of software development.

Now I find myself in an increasingly high-pressure position. Surely it has a lot to do with me, my personality, etc., but there is this "got to have it now" assumption that has been bred into not only me but everyone who learned to justify technological costs as a strategic advantage, rather than just the cost of doing business.

I hope in the next few months to reorganize my work schedule, reduce my commute time (currently an hour each way), etc. But I also plan on educating my clients that their project is not worth my life. Yet I know my first student will need to be: me.

Ignomious, for sure, but this is a beginning to my Journal. Future writings will cover things that interest me -- family, work, thinking, reaction to news, ideas, plans, ramblings...

The first thing - my family - has recently grown. Less than 2 weeks ago my wife gave birth to our second, healthy, son. Our first son is 22 months old and still very "needy", which makes life interesting as I consider the second thing.

My work has changed as well: I'm working for a new company as a lead Internet application developer. No DOTCOM stuff...but using the Internet as a network. While I've investigated other tools (ASP, PHP, Java) I find myself returning to Perl -- extremely versatile and, well, CPAN makes all the difference. I'm well into the second phase of a new project and am enjoying my work very much.

Thinking: with a new baby and a new job there isn't much time for thinking. What I mean by thinking is considering philosophy, history, religion, politics, human nature (a mix of the foregoing...gee, maybe I am thinking...). When the first things settle down, I'll return to this.

This has been a beginning, and, like all things, needs an ending. (I guess that's it.)