As it seems, insomnia and nostalgia combined to get the better of me last night - as many geeks know, that is a vicious combination of symptoms. I stayed up until after dawn tracking down some old games to play, and getting reacquainted with the good ol' DOS prompt. 

The game of the night, the initiate of the good old Gold Box Series, Pool of Radiance.

It's no small surprise that when I wake up this afternoon, to see my oldest boy of 13 playing Left 4 Dead 2, that my age ... err.. life experience, left me in a philosophical mood.  When I was his age, back in the good year of 1990, the Pool of Radiance title was only two years old, and no doubt that spring long ago, I was playing either it, or one of it's direct descendants, over the weekend until the wee hours of 6:30 AM.
 
So let's compare zombie killing of my glory days to zombie killing in HIS glory days:



Lacking the old manual copy protection code wheel (lost with the sands of time), I make use of the backdoor the developers left in the game on start.exe "STING", which skips the intro and codewheel programming. ("STING Wooden" on Curse of the Azure bonds, FYI)
 



There we go, right past the intro, and in to the main menu. Points go to the 1988 technology here - there's no way I know to skip the L4D2 introduction movie. Although, truth be told, it's a hell of a lot more mood setting than the text based menu.




Loading my party up, I walk around the simple isometric 3D map using the NumPad until I find the appropriate spot. Like it's modern counterpart of L4D2, it is easy to become disoriented in this game. Although, granted, it's not from getting puked on by a boomer, the disorientation and anxiety it causes when you're party is low on health and flat out LOST is nonetheless an emotional experience.
Points go to the 1988 technology once again; it supports 6 players in a party, whereas the modern implementation supports a mere 4 people.
 




The parallelism between then and now is striking. Half of L4D's story line is a group of ragged survivors trying to find a boat, to get to an island. In PoR, the only place I know to go Zombie Hunting is "Sokal Keep", which is apparently on an island. So I have to catch a boat.
 




 I'M ON A BOAT MOTHAF*****!
 



 Well, no fancy 3D animation or cut scenes here. After pressing Return (this is the ENTER key for you modern types), you're abruptly plopped right on to the Island which is rumored to be full of the living dead. Why the City Council of Phlan (the city you are adventuring for) wants to clear out a dirty old broken down keep on an island that will forever smell like death and decay is beyond my fathoming, but hey, my party is paid not to think, but to hack & slash. (Another modern similarity.)
 
I begin wandering around, wanting to crush some Zombies. The City Council said the Island was flat out overrun with the defiled things. 



Ooh! Sounds spooky! No glorious sound effects or mood music here - you're left purely to your imagination. What's behind that door must be the most shocking horrors that only the bravest, most stalwart adventurers would be crazy enough to face.

Unfortunately, I spend the next 10 minutes wandering around the 3D isometric view until I become horribly lost. No zombies waited behind the door. Eventually, however, I get ambushed.  



By Insects? This isn't what I signed on for. I wanted ZOMBIES. Not bugs!

OK Now I'm ready for that fast-paced, adrenaline rush of combat, of blood, of gore, of heroic sacrifice and deeds ... but what's this?





Oh, yeah, it's that cutting edge, advanced tactical combat system of the 1988-and-on Gold Box series. No real time stuff here, no, it's that tedious (but award winning) combat system that doesn't take advantage of a mouse, or 3D effects, or any of that stuff. This is a tile based 2D overhead view - with extraordinarily thick walls that simulate a 3D isometric view.
Alas, we'll use the interface and smash the opposition - I want to get on to Zombies, after all. But, first, more points to the 1988 tech. Why? Because variety is the spice of life, and getting jumped by some giant scorpions on the way to good old Zombie Killing provides some much needed distraction.

Hitting "A" I get to the aim menu.





 So, each hero and bud guy takes their turn in order of AD&D 2nd Edition initiative. It's all keyboard based. Tedious, very tedious. No jumping around / hiding / covering fire tactics to be found - this is in your face action!

Using "M"anual targeting, I select a bad guy. 



Not wanting to waste any of my magic user's 2 spells, I "T"arget a giant scorpion with a dart. "A DART", You ask?  Yes, apparently the magic users in AD&D 2nd Edition can manage to throw these oversized lawn Jarts to deadly effect, but lack the inherent strength or dexterity (both 18 in this case) to use the more intuitive light crossbow.
 
He misses. Next up is my party's incomparable leader and Fighter, 3rd level, who's living parents named  "Asshat".  

Asshat can't attack right off, he had a bow equipped and was standing next to the bad guys. (AD&D rules.. D&D 3rd edition you can attack in melee range with a ranged weapon and invoke an attack of opportunity - or not, if you have the proper feat.)

But hey, no complaining here, equipping items is a free action and he happens to have a polearm. Another oddity of 2nd edition - evidently they had someone working for them at the time of publication who thought every variation of polearm used in history should be in the game, something that's still quite confusing to me all these years later. I mean, should my hero take the fauchard, the glaive, or the glaive-guisarm??? Does it match his full plate mail (which isn't really mail at all...) 

But I digress.

Asshat has some shit to kill.  











Now, my Cleric has better success and scores a solid hit with his Flail +1. Friar Tuck (a name inspired by an utter lack of any inspiration at 2:30 AM), smacks that bug upside the head for 8 points of damage.









At the end of combat the game asks if you want to continue combat. It took me awhile to remember why this was last night. I mean, if all the bad guys are dead, why would you want to continue combat? Oh, that's right.. gives you a chance to heal or re-equip range weapons before moving right along.



Now.. these scorpions didn't have any Phat Loot, but I did get a few points of experience for my trouble.









OMFG! I found zombies!









Ahh damn, seems that must have been an insult.

At work, we design and build secure networks.  So my guys tend to stay on top of security related issues... One of my co-workers pointed out to me the other day that someone recently invented a plug-in for FireFox that acts as a promiscuous mode packet sniffer, pilfering login packets off of whatever Wi-Fi network you happen to be on at the time.  The simple plug in allows you to then log in as that user on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

We got to discussing this simple technique and I had this revelation of an idea.  Build an embedded Wi-Fi controller that does packet sniffing in a small black box form.  The smallest form factor I can envision it being in is with a 3-4 day battery life is about the size of a deck of cards.  That small, little box could then be dropped anywhere within range of a wi-fi hotspot.  It would log all HTTP POST (submission) requests - logins to unsecured E-Mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc would be captured, as well as all SSL traffic.  

Why nab SSL traffic?  It's encrypted, right?  Yes.. but a VERY large percentage of people use the same password online for everything from Facebook, to online banking.  So if the attacker gets their facebook login, and then also sees them log on to an online bank, guess what... ?  That's right.  Your bank account just got compromised. 

Two data delivery methods are possible.  The more risky of the two is to log the data to an 8GB microSD card.  The attacker would then have to return to the site to pick up the device.  Not so risky if it's tucked in a bush behind McDonalds or Starbucks.  But for corporate espionage, such as one being dropped by a black-hat water delivery guy, pickup is risky.  An attacker wouldn't want to risk picking the device back up again.  So method B is to have the device itself simply transfer the data packets periodically off to a public file repository, and retrieving the files at a later time remotely.

What does this mean for the average Joe or system administrator?  

#1.  ALWAYS secure your home or work WIFI access with encryption.
#2.  NEVER log on to unsecure websites (http:) on a public hotspot.   If the website does not have an https:// option (SSL), DO NOT connect to it until you're back at an encrypted, secure connection.
#3.  NEVER use the same password for social networking websites as you use for financial websites.  Have a one-password-per-bank rule if you use multiple banking sites.  Make any sensitive work or financial password strong (letters, numbers, and symbols, at least 12 characters long - 7 digits can be brute forced too quickly on a normal modern PC now).

As for professional networks and datacenters - Keep your WEP / WPA keys private!  Just because you use encryption over WIFI doesn't mean it's secure.  Any employee, guest, or visitor that is given a WEP key to get online can be a potential source of issues.  IT staff should personally plug in wireless keys to equipment, and not dish them out like candy to anyone who asks.  

Why the trouble of keeping the keys secret?  Because if you hand a key out to someone, they could plug it in to a Little Black Box of their own someday in the future and FedEx one of your secretaries a deck of cards sized sniffer, located conveniently inside a vase of flowers.. penetrating your network, banking websites, and other sensitive information.

Oh, the cost to build such a small, evil box?  About $90 in electronics and an embedded CPU.  That's why they're disposable...

Tags: blackhat

 Getting a little nostalgic today, so I'm compiling a list of "Things I Used To Do."

You would think that only being 33 years old, I wouldn't feel so damn "old".

It is also made all the more humbling - from a looking back perspective - given my chosen line of work.  After all, my generation has caused the most dramatic shift in human civilization since the first cave-man chipped away stone to make a tool.

It's a work in process.

* Rewind video tapes.
* Rewind cassette tapes.
* Rent movies at a video store and get fined for not rewinding the tape.
* Rent movies at a video store.
* Pay a human being for the gasoline I pumped
* Talk to a human being to get cash out of the bank
* Carry cash.  (I haven't carried physical cash, as an everyday fact of life, in 4+ years.)
* Use a phone line to connect to the Internet
* Use a phone line to connect to Bulletin Boards
* Remember when there was no World Wide Web, only bulletin boards.
* Connect a modem to a phone line to connect to the internet.
* Connect a cable to a computer to connect to the internet (wireless... what a wonderful idea.)
* Buy blank floppy disks to copy games from my friends
* Install games off of floppy disks
* Use a computer with no hard drive
* Boot a computer off of one floppy disk, and then run programs off another floppy disk
* Cut a notch with a hole-puncher in the side of a floppy disk to use both sides
* Use a TAPE drive (cassette tapes) to store data on a computer
* Use a computer with NO data storage device, whatsoever, and have fun doing it
* Use a television as a computer monitor (although, surprisingly, that trend is reversing again!)
* Have to degauss my cathode ray tube monitor with an electromagnet, by hand, to remove distortion
* Use a null modem cable to play multi-player games
* Played computer games that were text only.  (Zork, anyone?  Still have the original disk in a box downstairs...)
* Carried a pager, because cell phones were monstrously large
* Drove a car without a computer.  (Ok I technically still do I guess, 73 Mustang... but MOST people don't!!)
* Met the people I'd met online... in person.
* Wrote - and mailed - a letter
* Wrote something important to someone - with paper and pen.
* Used a computer to get e-mail (smartphones)
* Wrote programs in assembly (admittedly, very basic ones, but thank God those days are through.)
* Been paid to hack an online system (it's how I bought my first hard drive, author of C*NET BBS had an outstanding challenge that his BBS software couldn't be hacked, and I hacked his BBS after finding a flaw in the 6502 assembly software that handled text-wrapping.)
* Remember when mainframes were less powerful than my cell phone.
* Remember when my computer was less powerful than my cell phone.  (By a factor of 1000)
* Write database software... without a relational database server.
* Get up to change the channel on TV, with a knob.
* Pull a knob to turn on the television.
* Use a potentiometer (rheostat) to turn up the volume.
* Had four channels to choose from on TV
* Used an RF antenna to get TV stations
* Use a paper map, for navigation.
* Stop and ask for directions to find something.
* Smoke at an airport, bar, etc. 
* Wait at an airport gate to pick up and meet the people departing a plane.
* Flew in a plane without having to take my shoes off.
* Paid 75 cents a gallon for gasoline.
* Walked in to a courthouse without going through a metal detector.
* Visited a shopping mall.
* Went somewhere - physically - to buy things.  (Now the majority of things I buy are online and shipped, movies, games, electronics, car parts, etc etc.)
* Installed a piece of software without going through a painful online registration process
* Set a comm package to redial a bulletin board system to get online.
* Set a comm package to redial the Internet to get online (busy signals).
* Used a comm package for something other than configuring a router or switch.
* Transferred files in speeds measuring sub kilobits per second (let alone megabits, it was inconceivable.)
* Used a computer... without a mouse.
* Wrote software .. without windows.
* Wrote software ... and hit the upper memory limit of the computer I was using
* Debugged a piece of software... off a printout.
* Printed out source code.
* Used a computer without a printer.
* Used a computer that used pins to impact a ribbon.
* Took pictures .. on a roll of film.
* Took a roll of film in to get developed - and waited a week to get the pictures back.
* Took video on film.
* Put pictures in a photo album.  A real one, with plastic sleeves.


Sigh.. I could go on and on.. but that's enough for today.

 

While healing up this summer, I got reacquainted with a few of my old computer games.  While digging through I'd found a copy of IL-2 Pacific Fighters.  This was an interesting event because I remember buying it several years ago but found it was too difficult, and only played it once before giving up.  I figured I have time to learn it properly, and installed it.  (Not easy to get it running on Windows 7, BTW)

Now.. it's been awhile since I played a flight sim on a computer - at least 8 years.  While I was trying to make IL-2 PF work on Windows 7 64-bit, which involved some conf.ini file modifications, I found a DeviceLink.txt file.  This perked my curiosity and after reading the file I learned that the game supports TCP/IP network communications with other devices (or computers) over a LAN to read flight telemetry and set various states within the game.

The programmer geek part of my brain inside of me about stack overflowed.  A couple of years ago a .NET micro framework kit came out called FEZ which I'd been following, and the most recent version (FEZ Cobra) has a full TCP/IP stack, USB support, runs .NET Micro CLR 4, and supports upwards of 80 digital IO ports for controlling servos and virtually any other electronic circuit you'd ever want to build.  Best of all it supports .NET Breakpoints and debugging!  This means you can set a breakpoint and the device stops doing what it's doing so you can debug it just like a Windows or Web program written in .NET!  Anyway, since it's programmed with Visual Studio 2010 C# and is simple to debug, it wasn't too far out of my comfort zone (which native C++ embedded code would be).


Immediately my geek brain put two and two together, and I had the idea to build a virtual cockpit to "ease up" on the massive amount of keyboard commands to learn for flight sims.   That's when I really started researching in earnest, and found out there's a LOT of games which support external devices via various types of connections to custom built hardware (USB, Serial, Ethernet, etc).  And, better yet, I found out there's an entire community of geeks who have already been there, and done that, to the point of making epic scale reconstructions of entire 747 cockpits authentic down to the last widget and rivet.

At this point the project went from "I'm nuts" to "oh I'm not alone".  Anyone who's ever done a large scale electronics or DIY project knows that's an important step to realizing a successful outcome; without a network of support to go to if you get stuck, most home, solo DIY projects have a 99% failure rate.  Yes, I'm making that statistic up but it seems appropriate given my past experiences.  

I figure that any sort of thing like this should be documented.  Part of this is so I have a reference to remember why I did things when there's a gap in the construction phase, but also because I know any big project is best split down in to little pieces, and mid-project it's going to be difficult to retain the original goal. 


The Pre-Build


Several controls are paramount to a flight sim and the most basic rule of engineering 101 is "don't reinvent the wheel."  It's important from both a time and cost perspective.  So for basic flight controls, I went commercial, and found that Logitech has a very good offering in the G940 flight simulation kit.  

This kit contains a rugged Force Feedback joystick with 3 trim controls, 7 programmable buttons, an 8 position hat switch, and an infinitely adjustable hat switch.  Also the trigger doubles as two buttons, pull it in further and it switches from "JOY1" to "JOY9" which you can use to link together two sets of guns.  Handy for flight sims like IL-2 where many planes have machine guns and cannons separately.  Squeeze the trigger a little for machine guns only, and hard to "give them the full 9 yards" (and there's your phrase origin reference that stems from WWII, which bears reference to the length of a belt of 50 cal ammo on a full fighter plane combat loadout).


The second part of the kit is the twin engine throttle controller.  This is a very cool device.  For twin engine planes, a simple button unlocks the two sides so each engine can be controlled separately.  It also contains a lot of stuff to keep your free hand occupied - two more hat switches, two wheeled potentiometers (for advanced mode it can be set to control propeller pitch & fuel air mix).  There's a double row of buttons on the base, which can be programmed to do various things like control landing gear, open/close your cockpit, lower a tail hook, remove wheel chalks, or whatever.   There's four more buttons on the throttle itself; two of which I decided to use for flaps, the other two for time compression.  There is also a mode switch that lets you switch to three predefined "packages" of controls.  I haven't used this yet, but I am strongly considering it given that even with all of these buttons there's still a LOT of stuff I have to reach for the keyboard for.

(A note on time compression... Yeah I know it's supposed to be a realistic flight sim but some missions require 1+ hour of flight time, just to get shot down in 60 seconds to do it all over again.  After the third or fourth time doing an entire flight by hand, I got straight & level flight off instruments nailed good... so time compression & time skip became the only things that have kept me from giving up altogether and have helped the steep learning curve of basic flight and combat!)

The last controller is the rudder.  Having never played a flight sim with a rudder (or flown a real aircraft), this was the nastiest of all learning curves.  26 years of game playing has programmed me to think with my hands.  Getting my legs involved on the input has been, and continue to be, highly challenging.  However, I found that in air to air combat and strafing runs I'm a lot more stable and accurate over "twisting" type joysticks.  Quite frankly, adding a third point of control to the right hand sucks, and it's much easier to use the feet - frees up the hand to be light on the joystick so I constantly don't "oversteer" or induce tail stall with excessive rudder.  I'm not stalling anymore when fighting, can taxi on a runway properly, and land in a crosswind with relative ease - all things that were impossible or highly difficult before.

Summary of the 940: Taken together these three controllers (which are conveniently sold together in one package) will take your flight sim experience to the next level and are about the closest thing you can get, on a budget, to the real input.  There are a LOT of features I've omitted for brevity, but the bottom line is I couldn't imagine trying to fly again with just a single joystick.  Period.



However, the immersion gets deeper.  The single best investment, bar none, hasn't been the geek-candy Logitech 940 control setup.  It was the TrackIR5 infrared head tracking unit made by NaturalPoint.  It's a 6 degree of freedom kit, which allows your flight sim to respond to your head movements.  Lean in, your gauges get closer.  Look left, look right, up & down to pan around.  Rotate your head to keep the horizon level as you turn.  Even though IL-2 is old and only supports X&Y panning, it is still a MUST HAVE to track enemy planes naturally - by looking at them.  I can't imagine trying to control the POV by hat switch.  This gadget makes engaging enemies, landing, flying in formation, etc 100% possible and natural.  I can fly wingtip to wingtip with another plane just by looking out the side of the canopy, line up an attack run on a bomber by flying under them and looking up, line up a strafing run on a ground target by watching them as I circle around (great for attacking trains and convoys of cars!)

The last bit of immersion is minor but super important - surround sound headphones.  The Logitec G930 headphones were my choice - wireless, with 7.1 surround sound capability.  I no longer have to guess when a head on pass with an enemy plane splits left or right - I hear it go past.  I also know by the engine sound where a nearby plane is, how far away it is, and by the prop pitch roughly how fast it's going.  Most importantly I can hear what direction incoming fire is missing me on by the supersonic cracks of it's passage, so I don't turn in to it and get shot to bits!!!  Bad guy missing me on the left?  Go right!  Simple and highly effective for properly engaging.

To give an example of how useful the systems are in combo - I was flying a Russian IL16 in the opening days of the hostilities on the Western Front.  My flight of 8 was jumped by a flight of 4 German ME109's and the far superior German planes were cutting my squadron to little pieces.   I was flying behind and covering my wingman as he was honing in on (what turned out to be) a "decoy" ME109 that was just circling gently, while the German pilots sneaky wingman snuck up behind me and opened up with everything.  I heard the shots to my right and above me - glanced and saw the tracers.

I kicked left rudder slightly, banked left and up, cut the throttle to zip and felt the buffet of almost-stall on the force feedback.  I heard the ME109 behind me pass on my right - he's too damn fast to pull what I just did.  I flipped the nose back to the right, tracked him as he passed by looking at him, and pretty soon my gunsight smoothly appeared from the bottom of the screen - I was tracking the enemy plane so smoothly with my head that I may have well been in padlock mode!  I noted he was about 200 meters ahead of me by then, gave a bit of lead, and pulled hard on the trigger to deliver both cannon and machinegun fire.  The ME109 engine exploded, pilot bailed, and I had my first kill!

(I ended up getting shot down before I got home though, which seems to happen a lot, so the kill didn't count for my career.  When I reflew the mission I got zero kills...).

Anyway enough story telling.  

The final piece of immersion has to do with visuals and environment.  I rearranged the house for this one, and rerouted the kids DirectTV coax line to clear out room for the rig.   Our upstairs living room is 20x40 and is blessed with a huge, blank wall on one side that's 1 1/2 stories high.  The kids now control only exactly half of this living space, while I've laid claim to the other half.  This allows me to use the 1080p projector on my flight sim rig - giving me a 14.5 foot diagonal 1920x1080 resolution screen.  This is driven off of my old gaming computer which has (had) a pair of NVIDIA 8800GTS's in it.  (Unfortunately I cooked one of the pair last night... but that's another story) 


Immersion is complete.  Full flight controls, IR head tracking, wireless surround sound headphones that don't bug the rest of the brood, and a monster sized theater screen that's more than bright enough to play when the sun is out.   This setup is going to make me revisit all sorts of old games (a rehash of MechWarrior 4 is definitely on the to-do list!!!!)

What's in store?

My wife has approved the construction of a real cockpit, complete with hinged canopy, as long as it's done on the cheap (I see lots of PVC in my future).  I decided that a good design up front will save a lot of frustration later, so I drafted out a design that'll meet several criteria.  First, it has to accommodate all of the controls properly - including the head tracker, which requires an overhead piece to be constructed.  Second, it has to be fairly compact and self contained, no exposed cabling (per the wife's decree).  Third, it has to be easy to build - as in, simple construction techniques - otherwise I'll never finish the damn thing!  Last, it has to be adjustable in dimensions so the shorter kids can play when Dad is off doing Dad things and not hogging the system to himself.  

Because the couch I'm using (temporarily) induces some severe back & neck strain after a period of simming, and a normal computer chair isn't going to allow me to have the controllers in a natural position, let alone a bank of dials, switches, and gauges with the .NET embedded device, I ordered a cheap automotive racing seat for a 4th Gen Corvette for $150.  It looks like it belongs in a cockpit (an important factor!), and will allow me to use standard rails so it can be adjustable to some degree.


The base of the cockpit will be made out of conventional timber.  I've got a design for adjustable armrests drafted, which relies on trapezoidal parallelism to keep the control surface level, which should allow me to adjust the setup for the shorter kids in the house.  The top of the frame of the canopy will mount the IR head tracker in an optimal position.  A peg in hole concept to allow the rudder to be moved in and out will accommodate different length legs, while the height can be adjusted a few inches by flipping the platform for the rudder over.

All in all, it's a simple design, redrafted a few times already to make sure everything is "right", and can be constructed for a couple hundred bucks from components sourced at Menards.  The cost includes the racing seat that was purchased from an online automotive racing retailer in California.  


Total project cost... 

Logitech G940 flight controllers - $261.29 (source Amazon.com)
Logitech G930 7.1 wireless headphones - $159.99 (source Amazon.com)
Natural Point TrackIR5 Pro - $149.99 (source Amazon.com)
Optima 1080p Projector (already owned, source Best Buy)
Logitech Wireless Keyboard (already owned, source Best Buy)
Custom Built gaming computer (already owned, somewhat dated at 3 years old, built myself)
FEZ Cobra - $260 (source tinyCLR.com - additional electronic components required though)
Visual Studio 2010 C# express edition - free (source Microsoft)
IL-2 1946 - $14.46 (bought the entire collection of 5 games on 1 DVD, instead of just Pacific fighters, source Amazon.com)
Auto racing seat - $149.95 (source Andy's motorsports)

Cost to date (not counting what components I'm reusing) $995.68.  Considering some of the hardcore people have upwards of 50k wrapped up in their home cockpits (going so far as to integrate original OEM components from the planes), this is definitely a DIY on a budget!

Approximate cost to build including 1080p projector & PC, around $2600.


The 1080p projector serves dual use as it's hooked to my bluray player to watch movies (original purpose), and the PC has already seen a couple thousand hours of gameplay (Fallout 3, Stalker 1 & 2, X2 The Threat, X3 Reunion, etc) so it's been fully depreciated in my eyes..  :)

The wireless headphones serve dual purpose, as I can play MP3s off the computer as I go about the house doing other tasks.  They've got good enough range that I can wander pretty much anywhere in the house and listen to tunes.

The FEZ embedded system is a lifelong desire to do embedded work finally come to fruition.  I've ALWAYS wanted to learn how to control "gadgets", sensors, etc from a computer program, but I've never been able to until now.  I've got plans to reuse the EMX chipset for a home security system replacement (with some home automation tossed in), as I will be able to make use of nifty new concepts like RFID, GSM cell phone modem, and of course since it has an embedded TCP/IP stack I can make the security system fully web-accessible...

Anyway that's enough of a write-up for one day.  To cap this off, I will say that recovering from my motorcycle crash this summer has opened up a wide range of new possibilities with computers and hardware.  I've rediscovered the things that make me, well, "me".  

Tags: flightsim

Several events this week have culminated in a thought exercise this Sunday.  It's typical for me to become reflective on Sunday, to let analytical thought merge with philosophical questions, and this week is no exception on theory, but rather, subject matter.

I've always abhorred large cities.  Even smaller towns, like Pekin - the town I grew up in, strike a nerve within me that I can't seem to escape.  As the size of the town increases, so does my inherent level of discomfort.  Peoria invokes feelings of unease, while larger metropolitan sprawls such as Chicago or St. Louis are such a shocking experience, merely driving through them consumes my thoughts with "get away from me." 

It's the primary reason I moved to the country, the reason I don't travel frequently, the reason I am who I am, in a nutshell.

You can call it a social paranoia, a psychological disorder, an inherent flaw in my programming as a human being.  Call it what you want, but it appears I'm wired differently from the billions of other people around the globe who don't seem to mind being crammed in to close proximity to one another.

I was joking with my wife this week, as we travelled, seeing "one generica after another" throughout Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.  She remarked that as we travelled, things never really appeared different than Illinois.  Of course they don't.  We've discarded our natural state of existence for something quite unnatural.  Wherever we travel, we are fed from food dispenseries that offer the same meals, fuel stations that serve up the same gas, bathrooms that belch for the same stench, advertisements that litter and ruin our view of the landscape cluttering our brains as we drive along.

How can such a stark reality be directly in front of our noses, but so far from our conciousness as individuals?  Are we really that well programmed as people that we accept all of this that we see with relative ease and comfort?  Is it true that our ability to "decide our course" is such an intoxicating drug that we refuse to accept that the activities we can choose from are all so universally aligned across our civilization that we don't see what is happening?

As I drove back close to Chicago on the way home I saw a traffic jam on the other side of I-80 that was appalling, and eye opening.  For 15 miles there were four lanes of cars stopped dead on the other side of the road.  Thousands and thousands of people (motorists, for those wishing to classify them somehow), sitting in their little tin cans, listening to the radio, bitching about how hot it was, frustrated that they were moving two miles an hour, all burning fuel, on their little errands from "here to there".  Going from one identical set of tract housing to another.  Universally accepting this as a fact of their short existence on what we've turned planet Earth in to.

I'm not saying people have lost their individualism, and become mindless automatons, of course, but I *am* saying that we - as a civilization - are truly on the verge of crossing over a boundary from which there is no safe return.  Everyone reading this will have their own opinions which will vary or differ from mine, obviously, and this expression of free will is something that makes each of us unique.  But don't let this feeling of individualsm betray the truth and provide a safety net, or an escape, because free will is no replacement for freedom, it is merely complacency if you elect not to make use of it.

Free thought, or freedom to choose one of X actions to keep yourself occupied on any given night, is not a replacement for true freedom.  It's merely a substitute to keep the whimsical human mind occupied during periods of down-time away from work so you do not grow socially unacceptable in your activities as a member of our civilization.

I have either a weak mind, or weak programming, because I felt the overriding, compelling urge to move away from an urban life to live in the country.  I gave up food delivery service, any semblance of fast internet access, quick medical or fire or police response, short drives for supplies... all for peace and quiet.  I hear no sirens here, I smell no exhaust, and I have wildlife that lives on my property.

And yet, I'm still very much part of the problem.  As society grows, so do the malcontents (like me), who feel the inescapable need to GET AWAY from it all.  We sprawl out in to the countryside, my fellow misanthropes and I, until practically no tract of arable land anywhere on our pleasant resource rich continent are left untouched, unscarred, and unmarred by mankind.

I've lived away from convenience now for two years, and over these two years I have begun to feel a clarity of thought and purpose.  I'm not proposing that my concepts and ideas are gospel, far from it, as I am about as flawed of an individual as you are likely to find.  I am beginning to find a faith, however.  A faith that humankind and civilization is consuming our planet at a rate which is impossible to sustain.  Think of the advances we have made in the last fifty years, think of the devastation our way of life has brought to our world, think of the wars which are being fought over the basic idea that modernization and commercialization are superior to cultural and individual identity.

I have always disliked globalization forces which are at work, such as the United Nations, but I have never truly understood why until very recently.  The underlying feeling that I feel, that I know, to be true is that people will never exist in large quantities in close proximity to one another in harmony.  Not without first giving up that which makes them human animals with distinct thoughts, conscience, and emotions.  Love, hate, joy, sorrow, freedom and fear, all of these things must be tempered and controlled when people are in proximity to one another, packed in like so many cattle within a few square miles. 

What's the population density like in our cities?  What's it to become?  And why are those cities spreading out so rapidly to consume millions of square miles of landscape around them?  What's the optimum storage capacity of persons per square mile before social unrest becomes a measurable factor?  These are all questions being experimented upon, and trying to be answered by our elected government, who in essense serve as large scale shepherds to our growing herd of people.

When diseases are eliminated, and natural lifespans are increased, the population continues to grow, when wars of nationstates driven by fear and hate no longer serve as a natural mechanism to reduce populations, when our resources are optimized with utmost efficiency, when we finally recognize a global hegemony and utopian harmony with city and social planning... what is to become of the individual, the free thinker, the opinions and beliefs diverse? 

Once the entire world is united how long will it take before the world's resources are consumed?  And what happens then?  Do you think these monolithic corporations and nationstates will continue to stand once resources become scarce, and the landscapes filled?  How long before rationing becomes infighting?  

The natural check and balance to this is truly only the strong and lucky will survive, and the population will put itself in check once again through bloodshed, open warfare, disease and famine.  And we as a global civilization will start anew, fragmented.

Unless we truly give up that which makes us human animals, and self-regulate our population expansion and reproduction.  A frightening thought, indeed, but one which is already manifesting itself in eastern civilizations, and being accepted by the populations at large.  Could it even be fathomed, even 100 short years ago, that our very reproductive capabilities may be someday rationed and legislated?  It is happening elsewhere, and it will happen here, as soon as our civilization feels the pinch.  What's worse, is people (as a whole) will ask for it.  They will ask for more control, and regulation, to control their fellow people, so that the great American Dream is not divided up more, so that their slice of the great Apple Pie is not diminished too far.

I don't like the world we live in, I have escaped in so much as I am able to, and in doing so I have become part of the problem to which there are truly no humane answers.  I have elevated urban sprawl by escaping, and I have added to the population problem by having "too many kids."

We are, and we will continue, to give up small pieces our humanity to feed our civilization's social agenda.  There are no clear answers to our problems as a society, only one compromise after another, each generation willing to give just a little more up for security and comfort.

It's a dark reality, and I'm afraid it is not a reality that has a happy ending.  The end is way beyond the course of my lifespan, but it is nonetheless inevitable.  Come together, exceed our resources, fragment apart.. it has happened in the past, and each time our expansion of population and consummation of resources exceed the currently available technology to harvest them, and the civilization fragments.  It's happened before on scales large and small, and it will happen again.

At least I have the freedom to express my thoughts.  I guarantee a time will come when the population exceeds resources to the point we must give away some of that abillity to express ourselves, to control the collective sufficiently to accept lower standards of living in an effort to peacefully coexist... until the day the resources are exhausted.

After all, every program and pattern is flawed to some degree.  It's only a matter of how far it can be refined until it's no longer possible to refine any further, without fundamentally changing the parameters of the worldspace it exists in.

This year is a bit unique among my 33 years.  Normally, Independence day is one of those occasions to which I relish in all things "loud" - fireworks, firearms, and so on.  From the time I was able to first hold a book of matches as a small boy, I would spend the entirety of the day experimenting with fireworks in new and interesting ways.  Various inventions, such as the "rocket powered paper airplane" (very fun), "bunker busters" (ant-hill destroyers), and "modern war" (plastic army men wars with M-80's and bottlerockets in the basement, to my grandparents chagrin).  

Some of the most memorable, charming moments of my childhood were those when I had the crazed look in my eye, oblivious to the world around me, setting up my next feat of destruction.  It only got better as I got older, old enough to drive myself to neighboring states to gain admittance to procure bigger and better displays...

However fate has lead to me being laid up this particular holiday.  While I fully intend to carry on the traditions so firmly established in my youth, I do not have the endurance to make pyrotechnics or firearms enjoyment "an all day affair" - so today I have made use of the power of the Internet to research items of curiosity in to our countries history which I lack direct evidence of in my personal library.  You see, I'm a bit short on books on colonial times, and - as oddly as it sounds - I'm not very well educated on the ways and methods of how, exactly, our country gained it's independence.  I understand the effects, insomuch as every American does, but I am quite oblivious to causal factors leading up to our current state of the Union.

This, I'm determined to change.  I woke up this morning, and with my traditional cup of java, I set about learning about Stamp Taxes, and Tea Parties, and all sorts of things varied and ancient.  You see, it's been 234 years since the Declaration was penned, and I'm a "bicentennial baby", borne during the latter part of the 200th year anniversary of the Declaration.  That's a lot of catching up to do!

One of the most difficult - and perhaps rewarding - parts of embarking on a historical journey is to understand the mindset of those at the time.  This is such an elusive target, for to understand the people, you must first understand the state of their being, the world around them, the customs they have grown up to, and their day to day existence.  Every facet of their life was startlingly different from our own - as stark of a difference as one could imagine.  Predating virtually all of our modern comforts, the industrial age, advances in transportation... what are we left with?

Strip it all away and you are left with a people who are culturally very strong.  One must assume without the "distractions" we face in the guise of television and Internet, daily workload, and infinite demands of time and attention required for our modern existence, that these ancient peoples had time to be socially active, time to think and ponder nuances of what transpires around them, time to plan and grow as individuals.  We, as a people, have dramatically accelerated our lives to the point of barely controlled chaos.  How fast can we, as a nation, push ourselves on scheduling, on efficiency, on activities... we are numb.

You think it's mere coincidence that televesion shows over the last 10 years have grown increasingly shocking?  Games increasingly violent?  Our young people drawn in waves of tens of millions to alternative-reality massive multiplayer games, where they can finally feel as if they are part of something?

As a nation, we are numb.  We don't have time.  I believe as a nation we have erred significantly - perhaps devastatingly - and traded our only finite resources - time and humanity - for technology and progress.  We gain a few days off work each year to spend with our families, rushing to and fro to share these few scant moments to reconnect, breathlessly attempting to catch up and feel, only to spend the next months or year growing distant to one another, yet again, as our normal routine and pressure of living denies us of any ability to catch our breath and care about anything other than the next paycheck, the next bill, the next TV show. 

Our neighbors are the people we see as we leave for work.  Many of our neighborhoods are sources of fear, instead of sources of socialization.  We once gathered together in villiages, towns, and cities because we have a primal draw of belonging, a bond to fellow man for mutual survival and growth.  Now our cities are as a cancer, killing off our youth, our identity, our belonging - serving to isolate us from one another.  "Generica" - the same massive retailers you see in every city, universal emblems of capitolism, lighting the streets near to every street of tract housing, from sea to shining sea.  Our sole remaining national identity is that we are consumers who have reduced our idealism to which brand of laundry detergent or variation of the venerable hamburger patty happens to hot this week.

Ironic, isn't it - the daily pressure of securing your livelihood is the precise and exact reason we have lost our individual identities, cultural and social bonds, and become as opinionated, fanged wolves whenever social engagements bring forth conflicting opinions to clash with one another?  We revel in other people's problems, because our own repetitious existence denies us.  You need look no further than which television shows draw the strongest audience to understand that we, as a people, have a subtle but massively growing discontent to the plain, the normal, the simple.  We revel in those few individuals which appear to have gained some semblance of free-will, of economic independence, those with the ability to move about and make decisions freely. 

For nothing separates the poor from the rich more starkly than the ability to take time out to think.  When the wolf is not pawing at the door, when whim, instead of need, is the core motivator to decisions, then individuals are most able to express themselves in the manner they feel most natural.  And what are our busy-body wealthy independents spending their lives contemplating?  The answer is no further away than your television remote.

Which brings me to the ultimate question - what lies in store for us, as a civilization?  

Will my children grow in to this brave new world as mindless automatons, numb from social conformity to the humanity that is within them, or will they embrace that which makes them free?  Will they have that spark of independence, or have we as a nation in gaining our independence opened the door to ultimately strip ALL independence away from the individual to advance the social good?

We proclaim we are a free nation and people, that we can do what we want, when we want, how we want.  We are free to worship how and what we choose, to travel about freely, to speak whatever is on our minds, to challenge those in power and say proudly "I disagree with you" without (usually) any consequence.  These are all great and wonderful things, and the basis for the diversity that makes us a great nation of individuals.

But, I digress.  Yes we have certain unalienable freedoms.  We are, however, gradually trading one master for another.  The pace at which the majority of us live our lives denies us the ability to properly enjoy our lives, to contemplate matters of importance, and to understand the long term impacts of how we fit in to the world around us. 

Truthfully, it is not our form of Government which us a causal force on our many problems as a nation, or impacts our livelihoods - it is the speed to which we have embraced the rapid spread of technology.  We have - in the span of my short lifetime - uncovered the miracle of computer technology.  Moreover, in an equally short time span, we have had our cultures, our national boundaries, our belief structures, and our traditional methods of commerce completely revamped in favor of technological innovation. 

Our ability to communicate instantly with anyone else in the world, whenever, wherever, and however we choose, has empowered us to replace traditional modes of socialization, learning, and understanding with a new alternative.  We are an enlightened people.

Future historians will undoubtedly judge my generation from the safety of casual retrospection to reflect on the soundness of our decision to become a technologically dependent world.  I claim no unusual ability to predict the future, but if current trends and past history are any indication of what is to happen with our progeny... we are trading that which makes us individual human beings for a world existence that is entirely new and inherently unpredictable. 

We are transcending ALL conventional barriers of geography, language, and beliefs, for the first time in human history.  The events that transpired 234 years ago, which served to provide the foundation for our nation's social and political structure, will be shaken to the core as these ancient barriers become evermore transparent in the age of enlightened globalization.  Previously only those of vast wealth and means could travel the world and experience cultures diverse and distant - but now, even that border is cast aside, as anyone, anywhere, at anytime can virtually experience events happening on the other side of the world in real time.

My argument is simple - informational overload and the rapid pace of acceleration in world affairs will directly conflict the primal instincts of soul and spirit which cause us all universally, to believe "I think, therefore I am."  How else can you explain the many culturally shocking events of the last decade? 

It is only by the disappearance of these culteral borders of thought, religion, geography, and beliefs that lead to conflicts of nations on different sides of the globe.  The expansion of national influence, the clash in the diversity of people in contact with one another, has directly lead to every widespread conflict known to mankind - from the Roman expansion, to the Crusades, to the terrorists which sparked the current era of "war on terror." 

(An aside, if you've never read the book 1984, perhaps it would be a good time, as one of the fundamental catalysts of the persistence of national identity and thus, the root of any long standing system and structure of power, is the communal identity and willingness to trade freedom-for-security brought about by an unending war.)

Prior authors far more visionary and talented than myself already have cast a dark shadow on the future utopian societies, yet by and large people to this day are hesitant to embrace such a vision, even after so many of the warning signs have already come and gone unnoticed.

Will a nation truly be able to survive globalization?  The very question reveals the answer.  I argue that no nation, that no belief structure, that no culture, can truly survive unaltered.  The only relevant question is how many generations it will take, to wear down individualism for societies and cultures to accept the New World Order.

Yes, we have created a technologically dependent society, and when combined with the rate of our global population growth we have sealed the fate of all individuals to be born on this planet over the coming millenia.  I guarantee you that historians will remember my generation above all others - we have paved the foundation for a very uncertain future.   

For we have created the system to bring the entire world together without any constraints - and nary a thought of the consequence.  We, in America, and many other civilized nations view this all with passive uninterest - we are quite numb afterall.

Enjoy Independence Day.  But don't neglect to at least give a passing thought to that which we have become completely dependent upon, the technology drug from which we have all drunk so deeply.

I've been doing some retrospection this morning, on the realities of starting a small business. 

There's a lot of people nowadays who think I got it easy in life.  People think I've got the "American Dream" squarely by the balls.  Have a great wife, 5 wonderful kids, couple of well behaved dogs, a big house out in the country with a scenic lakeside view, a vintage muscle car, a few fast motorcycles to park in the 4-stall toy-stables, and a company that's stable and profitable.  Must be doing all right, right?

People that get envious or think that I am priviledged somehow, well, they don't really understand what it's taken to get here.  They missed out on the long years living in squalor, sleeping on the floor in run down rental properties, over-extending credit cards and going in to deep debt trying to make a living.  I kept falling down, over, and over, and over again.

Whatever people may think, it's been anything BUT easy along the way.   They don't realize that I've failed in startup businesses 6 times now.  How many dreams have I chased down over the years, only to arrive at a disappointing barren landscape after months of work and time, instead of opening up the promised lands of profit and happiness? 

It's also not getting any easier.  We barely survived the economic downturn, taking a 40% overall reduction in revenue in 2009.  I managed to keep my staff employed - barely.  We haven't closed a major software sale since 2008.  Companies all across the country quit spending money on all but the essentials.  I acted (as quickly as my stubborn mind would let me) and we adapted.  Now over 95% of our revenue comes not from software development or sales - but from help desk and networking (communications) services.

Things have turned around now, and we're stable.

Failure is a hard thing for me to accept.  I admittedly got very nervous last year about "riding the boat to the bottom again" - especially when I couldn't see where the bottom was.  I only knew I was deep, and getting deeper.  

I followed my old computer shop in to a black hole of debt and failure - THREE TIMES - before I finally threw in the towel.  I folded, and so did a thousand other computer shops, when price wars in the late 90's between the major players drove down prices of computers to the sub $500 level, and margins - due to the amount of competition - fell below 10%.  You can't survive and make a living making $35 or $50 a computer, when it takes a few hours to build and set up.

Universally, all but a few computer shops closed their doors, distribution channels vanished, and customer bases dried up.  Even major players consolidated (Compaq / HP), closed down and liquidated their computer assembly lines (Packard Bell, Acer), or layed off tens of thousands of workers (Gateway).  Very FEW computer companies emerged in to the new milinium.

Trent's Economics Lesson #1:  The more popular and successful something becomes, the HARDER it is to make money at it due to the influx of fresh, aggressive competition.  Also, know when to throw in the towel!

Towards the end of the third-iteration of the "computer shop" (this third time lovingly named Trent Lawrence Consulting, or "TLC" for short), I was coerced by a friend that there's "big money to be made in the sign business."  Things were slow at the time - it was summer time, and computer shops historically got VERY LEAN during the summer months.  So I acquiesced after a month of this friend constantly nagging me (we'll call him Jake), and purchased a plotter, some sign-makingn supplies, got a new company registered, sales tax forms filled out, etc.

Trent's Economics Lesson #2: Conventional Service Businesses - whether it be sign making, auto repair, housecleaning, day care, or computer repair shop - is no quick trip to fame.  In fact, the limited local scope of these types of conventional service businesses guarantees an absolute ceiling to growth and income, and you will be one of a very fortunate few if you merely manage to pay your bills and stay afloat.

Now, the sign business was destined to be business failure #5 (three computer company failures and a short stint trying to sell a commercial software package).  I was to ultimately get ripped off of all the materials and equipment by this now-ex-friend Jake, but at the time, of course, I didn't know it.   I had blinders on.  I was Mr. Big, now trying to juggle the responsibility of trying to operate TWO companies at once, as well as raise a son, all by myself.

Four months later the drain on my time, energy, and resources, combined with a major hiccup in the computer market due to the price wars mentioned above, effectively caused the shutdown of both businesses.  Depression set in pretty hard.  I had an out with my longest standing customer (hadn't been spending enough time with them), and I walked off the one remaining paying contract I had left.  My grandparents started raising my son, and eventually he went back to live with his mother.  My engagement fell apart and my fiancee moved away to live with another guy.  I had zero income, no savings, a mountain of debt, and a totally ruined credit score.  All of my "friends" vanished.  Funny thing, that.

I became a recluse, spending the winter of 2000-2001 in a run down basement house owned by my grandfather, that had lain vacant for about a decade.  No working shower, sink, nothing.  Just me, the floor, and this roach infested 350 sq. foot basement house with broken windows and a couple of computers with games to keep me occupied.  Whether by unconscious choice, or by circumstance, I don't remember much of that time.  I drank alone.  I missed my son. 

One day I woke up with a massive headache, a 45 caliber handgun aside an empty bottle of Jose's finest tequila on the floor next to me.  The magazine was empty.  Luck or fate?  Either way, I was quite sure I'd found rock bottom.

Trent's Economics Lesson #3: Failure hurts.  When you've finally held on to the sinking boat long enough to become officially "ruined" in every sense of the word, Credit scores are ruined, debt accumulates, family and friend structures fall apart, and everything in the world turns an ugly shade of gray.  Going in to business, EVERYONE has "the perfect plan", and they cannot possibly fail.  But it never really works out that way.  Admitting you are wrong after a failure takes a tremendous blow to any semblance of self-confidence that may be left when the dust settles.

It was time to fix some things.

I patched things up with the client that I'd been absent from for a few months.  Fortunately, they were glad to have me back on board, things needed fixing (and they couldn't find any single person that could do all the various things I knew how to do).  I had no shortage of work to keep myself occupied.  I became consumed by it, but at the same time, sort of felt like a ghost walking around on autopilot.  I was there, but not really there.  I would laugh when someone would tell a joke, but not really feel it.  I kept to myself.  I made changes.  Everything became a "means to a change."

I didn't drink anymore.  I started learning again when curiosity (for lack of a better term) re-formed.  Over the next year a deep hunger and ambition returned slowly.  It was insidious.  It snuck up on me, and eventually consumed me.  I was going to change the way I lived.  I rented an apartment duplex in Morton.  With the restored income, I bought new furniture.  I bought new clothes.  I quit sleeping on the floor.  I started chewing away at some of the debt that'd accumulated.  I started taking better care of myself.  I started rebuilding myself one step at a time.

Two years later (2003) I incorporated a software company.  I was alone, but at least there was something on paper, and an idea to cultivate.  I was burning 90-100 hours a week not just doing my day job, but also writing code, calling potential customers, trying to break in to a market and expand my income.  I didn't go out anymore.  For two years I didn't see movies, I didn't have Cable TV, I didn't have any friends that I hung out with on a regular basis.  Moving to a different town helped me get a fresh start.  I was consumed by work.  I woke up, I worked, I went to sleep.

I still didn't get any new accounts.

I had a heart attack.

Time to make some more changes.

Two years later (2005) I was still alone - work wise - but I had moved back to my hometown and built a family.  A good, solid family.  I became a father - not merely a guy who'd happened to have children.  I was still working 70-80 hours a week, sometimes more.  I'd remarried, had another child, fought and won custody of my first two children.  I rented an office so I could "focus" on work more - the rental house we lived in was getting too crowded and noisy for a home office! 

That December, 2005, I interviewed my first employee.  I had an office, maybe 1000 sq feet, but one desk, one computer, one trash can, one phone.  The office was totally devoid of any furnishings or decorations beyond my one, lonely desk.  Work and home had became separate.  A regular schedule began to form, although there were still far too many 9 AM to 2 AM shifts.

Trent's Economics Lesson #4: Don't hire the first person that comes your way!  (Also, from a past lesson - Do not hire friends or family, that's the most sure-fire way ever known to mankind to end a friendship or distance family relationships).

But, despite the continued hard work, out of state trips to call on potential customers, and mounting debt, I still hadn't been able to land any new accounts.  Four years I've tried to get an idea, a concept, to lift off and I hadn't yet made dollar #1.  I'd written several programs, after thousands of long hours, tried to market them, and they all fell on their faces.  I was consumed by it.  I was obsessed with it.

Then the dam broke.  I landed an account.  Then another.  Then another.  Things started rolling along fast.  Too fast.

I grew - too fast.  I got cocky, spent too much, and fell down a little - but not all the way.  Momentum was in my favor.  I put my nose down and pushed.  Hard.  I've failed before - but I'm not going to fail again.  We've got income, and I've got grand plans.

Trent's Economics Lesson #5: Don't get cocky.  Just because things are going good, doesn't mean they'll always be that way.  Use caution, but stay determined.  Learn to trust your gut, look at things from the worst possible perspective, and sleep on any major decisions.  If it's bad, and it can happen, it probably will.  So plan accordingly.

I hired, fired, and weeded through people with total discompassion until I had a solid, stable team to work with.  I learned that business is business, and if someone is not working out, I can sleep perfectly fine the same night I fire them.  My job became to provide stability for the company and for the workers - in general.  If someone doesn't make the cut, or starts to fall apart - putting the operation in jeopardy - I can turn off my emotions and become a heartless bastard with the pink slip.

My team grew in ability and talent.  We learned to chisel off the rough edges that grated on each other, and function together.  Everyone knows that we're in this together, that all of our collective incomes are at stake with the decisions that each individual makes, and we do a great job.

Trent's Economics Lesson #6: You're not alone.  If you don't have good help that can get things done, make changes until you do.  There's a LOT of talented people out there, and much like a personal relationship, you'll get along good with some, bad with others.  Don't get "stuck" on someone who merely has a good resume, or merely "shows up to work", without any passion.  If you can't relate to them on a personal level, and get along, or if they aren't involving themselves with the company, you're all in for a bad time.

I'll probably write more in the future.  This is all I have time for right now.  Still need to cover business failure #6 - the doomed gun shop, the side business I started in 2006 that was a true and resounding failure.  More a controlled experiment to understand retail better, it was where I've learned a great deal about business, because I was able to dispassionately observe and control the cause and effect of how things fall apart for the very first time.

 

Ouch.

I went out to the garage to machine spacers for the gixxer calipers tonight. Went to turn on the lathe... nothin. Shit. So I tear it open, find out the fuse holder was broke. No biggie.. I can run without a fuse. So I clip the ends of the wires off, twist them together, get the soldering iron warmed up...

... I'd walked out to the garage in my house slippers, through wet grass, and I was standing on wet slippers on a concrete slab...

Pick up the solder spool in one hand, iron in the other, touch them together and

OOOOOOOOOH SHIT OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWWWOOOOOOWW

Finally got my hands pulled apart. THAT ain't supposed to happen.

So I grab a pair of rubber handled pliers to hold the solder with..

..didn't see the hole in the rubber sheathing that's touching my palm...

BANG OW OW OW OW OW OW OW {lights dim}

Sonofa... 110 volts are a bitch. I can deal with it tho. Been hit by 110 plenty of times.

OK so I put on a pair of neoprene gloves, and get it soldered. Found out that when ripped my hands apart earlier to break the shock, I'd knocked the faceplate of the lathe off to one side, pulled two cables out of a switch. One hot, one ground.

Hmm... got a 50/50 shot right? I plug them back in to the switch. Switch was on already - I usually leave the switch on, "turn" on the lathe by dialing up a potentiometer that controls the motor speed.

Plug it in, turn the potentiometer, fire up the lathe, it works!

For about 30 seconds.

Motor slows, then stops. Scratch head. Notice hair standing on end still. That's kinda cool.

Go to flip the power switch off, to cycle it..

BANG OOOH SHIT OW OW OW OW OW {sparkly vision} {lights really dim} {almost blackout}

Hand pulled away and broke the connection as my knees went weak.

I'd reversed hot and ground earlier when plugging in the switch, so hot was running through the metal switch housing, the metal switch itself, through my body, through my wet slippers, in to the concrete slab.

That 110 circuit wasn't so bad. This 220 stuff packs a hell of a punch, though. My thumb is STILL tingling where I'd touched the switch to flip the lathe off.

So much for turning those spacers.... will go to my uncle's machine shop tomorrow and borrow his lathe, think I fried my step up coils tonight by running in reverse polarity at high speed.

Goddamn what a night.

Wet slippers suck.

I haven't blogged in awhile, but I'll sum up the last few months.

Wake up.

Go to work.

Come home.

Play with the dogs.

Chase the kids.

Watch TV.

Play Games.

Annoy the wife.

Go to sleep.

Repeat.

Kind of a straightforward process.  A winter-time feedback loop that was broken up by only four or five notable events.

Lets see... there was Christmas, then New Years (which involved sitting at home doing the above stuff until 3AM).  Then a trip to Barber Motorsports park.  I went deeper in debt, put my house and three cars up on a short term note to build a bunch of really fast servers for a customer.  Aaaaaaand that's about it.

When your life gets to the point that every day feels like Groundhog day what's the point in posting anything?  For any hardcore Steven King fans, the phrase SSDD comes to mind.  The odd thing is I'm not even all that excited about Spring getting here, because all that means is I've got about 2,000 hours of yard work and chores to do that I've been putting off all winter.

I'd actually planned on writing a novel this winter to pass the time.  I got started a few times on a few different ideas, but never worked on any given book-start more than one evening.  I get bored too quickly and I'm overly critical of my own work, resigning it to the recycle bin before getting past the 20th page.  I released a partial non-fiction early about track days & motorcycles, and it met with some good reception on forums, but I haven't taken it further.

My big problem is I've got this extremely narrow focus and when I'm home, I tend to disappear in to a book or game to avoid distracting myself from my real work.  I've found through experience that when I get involved with any longer-term project outside of work, it makes my day job suffer, so I try to stay focused.  But I've been focused on the same thing for 12 years now and .. well, I'm getting a bit burned out on all of it.  A bit jaded. 

It takes a hell of a lot of geek-coolness in a particular gadget / system / software to get me remotely amused at this juncture in life, with regards to computers.

Guess I'm a bit depressed right now, just finished teaching myself all about iSCSI, Storage Area Networks, Multipath I/O, Enterprise Failover Clustering, and high availability virtual servers with Live Migration, and I have nothing left to explore on Windows.  Oh, and for the record, Microsoft's documentation on all of the above flat out sucks. 

Maybe I should write a book on THAT and make some side money.

Nahh.  Too lazy.

Trent Sr. Vs. Trent Jr..day 2 report.  Day two saw heavy fighting for control of the center of the region.. I've lost three mechs, with three more forced to retreat due to heavy damage.  Trent Jr. has lost 5 mechs, with three more forced to retreat, leaving us with a 6 (dad) vs. 4 (Jr.).  410 tons vs. 260 tons.. Think the battle is pretty much over at this point, although with as many mechs KIA or forced to withdraw, I think it'd be a marginal victory at best.

The funniest moment was when one of my mechs (Charlie 1, a 75 ton Penetrator), attempted an alpha strike (firing all weapons simultaeously) at one of Trent Jr's bravo mechs.. It managed to hit only one out of 8 weapons fired... then during the heat phase, the mech had generated enough heat to cook off the anti-missile system ammo in the Mech's center torso.  Kaboom.  Whoops!  Although .. I think that points out to a serious design flaw with the Penetrator.  Why put the ammo right next to the fusion engine on a mech which can easily wrack up 30 excess heat in one turn when there's so many other open spots to mount the system???  Or why even include the system at all?  Really dumb design.

Anyways.. a 24 mech fight done by the book .. 15 hours of play, to get through 10 turns of combat.  This game is exceptionally sloooow to get through, even with the software damage resolution assistance and the straight-line laser serving to make line of sight faster.

This game really needs to be a turn based software game .. if heat, ammo, line of sight, to-hit modifiers, mech damage assignment, crit rolls, and piloting rolls were all handled automatically, we'd be able to get through a game this size in well under an hour.... or ramp up and complete some much larger games of 100+ mechs in under a day realtime.

Sigh.. so much programming to do.. so little time.. :-)