Aug 24
2011

First, the verdict, because I can not wait any longer to get it out there. This book is freaking EXCELLENT!  There, if you read nothing else, go get the series and read it.

If you want to know why, read on.

I like fantasy books, but after awhile, many of them sort of fall into a rut. There’s elves, dwarves, humans, some magic, an overshadowing force of evil, etc.  Some books attempt to break out of the mold.  Wheel of Time has no elves or dwarves, and the magic system is interesting.  George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire also has mostly humans, and magic is undefined and dark…the evil is less defined, and his politics are absolutely stunning.  But many other works are exceedingly derivative of Tolkien, etc.  Granted, I’ve not read as much fantasy as many people I know, but I’ve read a great deal.  So I am always pleased when I can find a series that breaks the mold, and does so successfully.  Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy is one of these, and is well worth reading.

To begin, there are only humans in this series. Nothing spectacular there.  The books take place (from what I can tell) on a different world, far removed from ours.  The time period is a little harder to pin down.  The people sometimes have things like watches, and the humans’ skill in building is certainly more than medieval stonemasons could boast, I think. However, in Sanderson’s world, ash falls from the sky, and has done so for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Every night, the mists rise, and the people seem to be frightened of them, almost universally. There is what appears to be an omnipotent tyrant on the throne, who rules with an iron fist. Oh, and it’s basically a heist novel.  Intrigued?  I was.

The other thing about these novels that is exceedingly well thought out is the magic system.  However, I don’t want to spoil it, as I feel Sanderson does such a fantastic job of explaining it in his own time. Speaking of being well thought out, that pretty much describes Sanderson’s writing to a “T”. Sanderson appears to me to be a very careful writer.  This is not to say he does not take risks in his writing, but rather, he appears to have approached this novel from the standpoint of developing rules for how his world works, and has been very careful to stick to those rules.  Unlike, say, Terry Goodkind, who seemed to re-invent how magic worked in each chapter, keeping you wondering what his system of magic could and could not do, Sanderson is quite clear (though he may not always be completely forthright about each detail until its proper point in the story) that if anything defined Allomancy (one of the systems of magic in the world) it is rules which are inviolable, as far as most people are concerned.  In reading through the action scenes (which rely VERY heavily on his descriptions of the characters’ use of Allomancy, and are SUPERB), I was struck with how well this system would translate into a video game or even a tabletop RPG. While characters don’t necessarily think in terms of spell points or numbers, the system as Sanderson has written it would translate very well into a numbers-based abstraction of how the magic could be used, and honestly, I would love to play such a game!

I spoke about this novel being a heist novel.  This was, I have learned, his intention.  When I read some of the opening chapters, I immediately thought of some of the early scenes in Ocean’s Eleven. This was definitely intentional on his part.  The characters all have nicknames, as you might imagine master thieves would call each other by when meeting to discuss a new, visionary job. Do you remember in Oceans Eleven when Danny and Rusty get together to discuss the various roles they will need to accomplish this daring job?  Here’s the scene I’m talking about:

Rusty: You’d need at least a dozen guys doing a combination of cons.
Danny: Like what, do you think?
Rusty: Off the top of my head, I’d say you’re looking at a Boeski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever.
(Copied and pasted from IMDb.)

Sanderson has a scene like that.  They’ve got themselves a Soother and a Thug (or Pewterarm), but they’re going to need a good Smoker.  Add to that some well-written, witty dialogue like what you see in Oceans Eleven, and you end up with an excellent author who has written a VERY, VERY entertaining book.  Kelsier (the Danny Ocean of the novel) is running the whole shebang, but doesn’t it seem a little like he’s running something on the side?  Is he ready to doublecross his own crew, or is he just dreaming bigger than any of them can imagine? The suspense keeps up until the very end.

Another thing that I think is AWESOME about Brandon Sanderson is his openness with his fans.  When he writes, he does so methodically.  He is a workhorse, setting goals, and meeting (or missing them) quite publicly.  When he sets out to write a book, he estimates the amount of words he plans to write.  Sometimes the story takes him less or more, but he has that estimate, and with it he sets up a counter of sorts on his website.  Go there now, http://www.brandonsanderson.com, and see the counters on the left side of the screen. This is a tremendous amount of openness that most writers, even when they have a good relationship with their fans, do not usually trouble themselves to attempt. Another thing he does is write annotations on each of his chapters as he writes and re-reads them, and posts them on his website.  This is akin to the director’s commentary you might find on a DVD, but for EACH CHAPTER of his books.  I mention that the Ocean’s Eleven similarities were intentional.  I know this because I read some annotations of the earliest chapters, and I read it from his own hand. He does these chapter annotations so as to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so people can finish a chapter and can go immediately read some of what was going on in the author’s head.  Talk about openness!!  I’ve never heard of another author doing this, and it endears him to me.  He is rapidly becoming my favorite current author for this reason primarily. I love going to read the annotations and see some of the things he was considering, and why he chose to do them the way he did.  Character developments that changed over time, or were dropped entirely, and why.  Some deleted scenes. It provides us with a glimpse into the forge of the author’s mind, and it really is quite fascinating. In an early chapter, when you meet one of the major characters, Sanderson writes that he was pressured by his editor to write out a description of a scene that he let occur “off-screen”. He explains why he chose to resist and why he feels it’s more dramatic for the scene to occur where the reader cannot read it. He also explains a technical reason for omitting the scene, namely that he relies a great deal on detailed descriptions of Allomancy to fuel his actions scenes, and such a scene would have required too much detail in such an early scene. Such a description fits much better a little later in the novel.

Those are the pro’s, and the con’s are relatively few. Perhaps it is because I can’t imagine living without a certain level of trust in my life among the people about whom I care deeply. Maybe it’s because I’ve never imagined feeling any other way, but I feel that trust is essential.  One of the man characters, perhaps the main character in the novel, Vin, is a little too…persistent in her distrust of people.  It annoyed me at first, when the crew seemed so worth a great deal of trust. However, this is a large part of her character development, and as with everything in this novel, it’s done masterfully.  Anything else?  No, not really.

To close, I really enjoyed this novel, and am looking forward to the other two.  I don’t want to give anything away, but not all is as it seems, and the characters of the novel end up with a good many of their assumptions challenged or shattered by the end. I’m eager to see what else Sanderson will reveal about his epic story in the next two books, and which of my own preconceptions and assumption he will shatter, with me as a willing participant in the process. I HIGHLY recommend this novel to anyone who likes fantasy, even a little, as a masterful telling of an excellent, engaging story.

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Aug 24
2011

Originally published in the Institute for Principle Studies’ Principle Perspective, Summer 2011 issue. I am re-publishing the text as originally submitted. This may not reflect editorial changes by the staff of IPS.  In other words all errors, spelling and grammatical, are mine, and should not reflect upon the excellent editorial staff at IPS, an organization for which I have a profound respect. Many of you have heard me talk about the direction of this nation, and my dissatisfaction with its departures from the Constitution and its founding principles. The only solution is education, and that is not happening in public schools.  It is in the government’s best interests to ensure the population remains relatively ignorant of the principles which founded this nation, for then they can take it in whatever direction they wish. The enemy to tyranny has always been the tyrannized, but only when they are educated and passionate about this nation and the principles upon which it is founded. To that end, I beg of you to donate and support the work of the Institute for Principle Studies. Their home on the web is http://www.principlestudies.org.  I thank you in advance for your generosity. Now, the review:

In journalism, it is imperative to answer the “five W’s” (and an H), to ensure the whole story is presented. Who did what? When and how did they accomplish it? Perhaps most importantly, especially in a criminal investigation, why did they do it? As an emmy-winning journalist, meteorologist, and conservative talk show host in San Francisco, Brian Sussman sets out to dramatically answer all of these questions in Climategate.  In turning over the stones and exposing the ugly underbelly of global warming debate, Mr. Sussman cannot help but throw in a few jabs with some vitriolic language, designed to inflame. This is not a tame, dry science book. In the Foreword to Climategate Mr. Sussman immediately reveals his own political viewpoint with a brief, but scathing explanation of Marxism and its creators, Friederich Engels and Karl Marx. Indeed, anyone unsure of the author’s political leanings need only note that the topic of global warming does not appear until page seven of the eight page Foreword. According to Sussman, the genesis of anthropogenic global warming is Communism, and he wants his readers to be informed of the evils of this political system as he begins to unveil his case against the proponents of what he calls “the scam of anthropogenic global warming.” (“Anthropogenic” is a word of Greek origins which means “man-caused”.)

As a primer on Communism, it is not without its own bias. In the first two sentences, Sussman writes that Marx had a “twisted mind”, conceived an “atrocious plot”, planned to “infect the world”, and calls Marx a name which questions the legitimacy of his parentage. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an unbiased book. Sussman aims in this Foreword to show that Communism’s goals are to control and reduce the populace such that the leaders of such a system obtain power in perpetuity. The path to fooling the populace into thinking their actions control what is the realm of God alone is a convoluted one. Mr. Sussman’s aim in answering the Why before all else is for clarity’s sake. In reviewing the large body of evidence that has been suppressed because it did not conform to the concept of anthropogenic global warming, the question arises: Why go to great lengths to create such an elaborate fiction? By giving a brief explanation of socialism and its aims, Sussman provides a framework upon which we can begin to hang the evidence he will provide.

The science he presents usually takes the form of a call and response, using Al Gore (and others) as the call and presenting contrary studies and reports as the response. From the impending doom of the polar bears, to the fact that the 1930′s was actually the hottest decade in the last century, Brian Sussman sets out to show that the evidence presented by anthropogenic global warming is not accurate, complete, or free of bias and special interest. According to Sussman, we are actually in the midst of a slight cooling trend and have seen far hotter years, such as the Medieval Warm Period in which average temperatures around the globe were 2°F higher than they are today despite the lower amount of anthropogenic CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere. Sussman challenges the claims made by global warming promoters and presents a large number of footnotes for the reader to check. (After all, as Sussman reminds his readers, challenging the hypotheses of others is the foundation of the scientific method.)

After having exhaustively attacked the claims of global warming, he moves on to the claimants. Here, Sussman attempts to further answer the Why of global warming, involving politics and money. Al Gore, according to Sussman, is not only a consistent embellisher of the truth, he will make a great deal of money if anthropogenic global warming is the prevailing scientific opinion. Certainly, those who would promote government as the ultimate solution for population control, climate control, and overall control of the lives of all people stand to increase their power significantly if anthropogenic global warming deniers are silenced. In addition, to those who subscribe to the problem and solution created by Karl Marx, global warming is a means to the end of bringing socialism to the United States of America.

Of course, for anthropogenic global warming to become the prevailing scientific opinion, those scientists  who dissent from this view must be converted, silenced, or ignored. Currently, according to Sussman, the game plan is the latter. Despite loud claims of scientific consensus, a significant number of deniers have signed petitions such as the Heidelberg Appeal and the Oregon Petition. The Oregon Petition alone, a response to the Kyoto Protocol penned in 1997, has been signed by over 30,000. There are a number of scientists who do not agree with the concept of anthropogenic global warming, though these scientists do not tend to get much airplay in the media today.

From discussing global warming in terms of its science, supporters and sycophants, Mr. Sussman moves to discussing climate change in terms of an action plan. Not surprisingly, he points the finger at the legislation of obvious liberal politicians, from the Clintons to President Obama. Also not surprisingly, for those who are aware of the shift from national sovereignty to an increasing focus on globalism, the other means for action he points to is the body known as the United Nations. Beginning in 1976, Mr. Sussman points out some of the agenda items and resolutions released by the U.N. that have led the United States down the path of concessions to what is now known as climate change. From these beginnings, he begins to cast an increasingly wider net until the culprits include most of President Obama’s cabinet, including “Energy Czar” Carol Browner, along with quotes from their most climate change-friendly statements, replete with more footnotes.

In an interesting chapter, Brian Sussman also details why alternatives to fossil fuels are not being promoted as assiduously as one might think. Indeed, if fossil fuels are to be eliminated as quickly as possible, one might think the environmentalists would be beating a path to renewable, alternative energy sources, such as wind, solar, and water. This does not appear to be the case, as Sussman demonstrates, since environmentalists have been some of the biggest opponents to wind farms, solar plains, and hydroelectric dams. Nuclear power has been off the table since the late 1970′s, with no new nuclear power facilities being built or planned. Of course, despite environmentalist opposition to alternative energy, coal and natural gas are not considered safe alternatives either. Ultimately, Sussman points out, all of this is because it is not the socialist’s goal for society to have inexpensive power.

The only solution being promoted by proponents of global warming, Sussman concludes, is that of controlling the consumption (and by extension, well-being) of the population. If no currently viable power generation is palatable for the environment, and alternative sources of energy are also untenable to the wildlife, what else is there to do but to mandate control of consumption and Americans are already seeing this plan put into action. Sussman explains that new appliances are already being implemented in test markets that respond to signals from SmartGrids, or power grids that do more than simply provide power. These SmartGrids monitor and, depending on logic built into these monitors, can signal receptive devices that usage thresholds have been reached. Couple this with the proposed “Cap-and-Trade” legislation of which President Obama is so fond, and a pattern of liberty elimination immediately emerges.  All of this monitoring and usurpation of individual liberty, Sussman adeptly demonstrates, is completely unnecessary because it is all predicated on the assumption that climate change is scientific fact.

From a Christian’s perspective, Brian Sussman appears to believe in God, though the substance of that belief is not fleshed out, nor does it need to be in a book of this type. He does make mention of “old-earth” timeframes in discussing age in terms of geology, though this is not unexpected. The book contains very limited swearing, mostly involving the word “damn”. Prayer is encouraged, alongside calls to political action by conservatives. An aspect of the book that could potentially have been expanded is that of the Lord being sovereign over all things, including the climate of the planet He created. However, this book makes no claims to being a religious treatise of any sort.

By and large, this is a book centered around politics. Brian Sussman’s response to anthropogenic global warming is a heated, but eminently readable, rebuttal to the claims made by its supporters. It is loaded with rhetoric and ridicule, to the point where he finally compares the current direction of the United States to Germany’s descent into Nazism. Sussman makes no claims in this book to objectivity, and the politically and emotionally charged presentation of the science and evidence will necessarily turn off any left-leaning climate change-supporting readers. Still, looking past the rhetoric, this book provokes a great deal of thought on a topic that ought certainly be of concern to those who support individual liberty and Constitutional government. Ultimately, this is certainly a book worth reading, if for no other reason than it is one of the most complete expositions of the opposite viewpoint from the mainstream media available. The entire point of the journalistic media is to present the news from an unbiased perspective, but the only viewpoint on anthropogenic global warming one can find in the media is that being pushed by those with something to gain from its broad acceptance.  From what this reviewer has been able to corroborate, the scientific claims made in Climategate are accurate and complete, which is something the alarmist global warming proponents cannot boast. To that end, it is an important work in its own right as one of only a few efforts to stem the tide of mindless agreement with a politically-motivated agenda. It is highly recommended reading for those who would like to see why every climate scientist does not agree with the findings of Al Gore.

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Jul 26
2011

Finally, I am able to say that. With all the problems I’ve been having,there were days where I felt like the bike would be down for good.

Last night,I got started on the caliper rebuild,and it worked great. After a quick victory/shakedown ride, I got some gas and headed home. It was satisfying,to say the least.

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Jul 25
2011

In discussing this potential NFL lockout, on the rare occasion I bothered to discuss it, I’ve always said that an agreement would be reached. The disagreement was, in part, about money. No one makes any money if no one plays any games.  Thus, the incentive is to make SOME money over NO money. Logically, then, it is in everyone’s best interests to come to some sort of agreement, if even a temporary one. Hence the “of course” in my post title. It was bound to happen, and it happened.  I’m not a tremendous prognosticator.  I just picked the obvious horse.

In other news, my bike is still not fixed.  Still waiting on my new brake pads and caliper rebuild kit to come.  It’s supposed to come today, but I’ve not had a ton of great experience with the Post Office of late. In one instance it took like 3 days for a package to get to me from somewhere it would probably take me 8 hours to drive to.  In another instance, a package addressed (clearly) to my town went out for delivery in a location about 2.5 hours north of my town. But we shall see.

The caliper is currently disassembled and waiting for new seals to be delivered.  Once I get the rebuild kit, I just need to install the seals, drop in the piston, install the caliper, and bleed the brakes.  Theoretically, I could be back in business as early as tonight.

You, my reader(s), will know if I am not…

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Jul 22
2011

So when I last left you, gentle reader, I was waiting on parts to fix my tire and shifter.

On Monday, the tire arrived.  Earlier than expected, but I was pleased.  I took it to the shop to have it changed.  I have changed my own tires in the past, but with the way things were going here, I didn’t think that was wise. On Wednesday, my shifter part arrived.  I put it on, and everything was looking hunky dory!……until….

I got a call letting me know that my wheel was done.  So I drove down there to pick it up.  I brought it home, put it on, and….it was a little hard to turn.  I thought that was odd.  Thought maybe I somehow snugged it up too much when I tightened everything down.  I didn’t THINK that was the case, since I torqued all the bolts to the manufacturer’s specifications.  So I asked a buddy what he thought.  He suggested that maybe my rear brake pedal should be pumped a couple times; that maybe they just needed to be re-pressurized, and then they would back off a bit.  So I pumped the rear brakes, tried the wheel, and now it wouldn’t budge!

Yes, folks, the rear brakes were stuck pretty freaking good.  I conferred with the same friend who suggested the last bit of wisdom, and he suggested I remove the bolts holding the caliper to the swingarm and tap it with a rubber mallet.  Hitting things has always seemed to me to be a great idea for solving problems, so I start to remove those stubborn bolts. They were REALLY quite stuck.  One handed removal just wasn’t cutting it, so I grabbed the ratcheting socket wrench with both hands, and pulled really, REALLY hard……..

CRACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The bolt busted loose.  Man, that was hard. Why is my hand bleeding?  And what the heck happened to the rest of my saddlebag mount??? Yup, in my zeal to get my caliper bolts removed, when they unstuck, the additional energy was expended in motion, as my hand smacked hard against my metal saddlebag mount and broke it…

GAH!  So now not only do I have to rebuild my rear brake caliper, I have to go get my stupid saddlebag mount welded. The latter was simple, and done the following day.  As for the former…..well, I have to wait for MORE PARTS!!!!!!

It’s one thing after another, and frustrating.  The shifter has been fixed (I believe), and the rear wheel is certainly good as new.  Now I have to disassemble and rebuild the rear brake caliper, which means bleeding the stupid brakes again. Hopefully, those parts will be coming in tomorrow (Saturday), and I can get my bike back on the road.  I definitely miss riding.

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Jul 18
2011

Over the last week, a ton of crap has just gone completely wrong, and I’m extremely annoyed.  So I’m writing about it. This won’t be political (probably), and it won’t be very complex philosophically or theologically.  This is just a good, old fashioned rant.

Laptop Screen – On Monday, I was working on my (6 month old) laptop, and the screen went completely black.  When I swiveled the screen up to look at what was going on, I got a light blue screen with horizontal lines going across it.  Over the course of the evening, this happened three or four more times.  I contacted some tech support people to find out how I could get my laptop fixed under warranty and got the whole process started. Tuesday, there wasn’t much I could do as I was busy that night.  On Wednesday, I had a bunch of calls to do on my second job, but when I got home, I started the process of backing up my laptop so that if the tech support peeps had to reimage my hard drive(s), I could always return to my backed up image.  It didn’t work. Now, I’m not going to get into the specifics of what went wrong, but I’ve done a ton of this stuff, and it’s always worked.  At any rate, long story made short, my laptop is now on its way to get everything fixed.  Meg.

Motorcycle – First off, full disclosure, I’ve been needing a new rear tire. My plan Thursday was to order one online when I got home and get it put on within the week.  My bike had other ideas…

On the way home Thursday, I was feeling a rhythmic bump, and I THOUGHT it was coming from my rear wheel.  I couldn’t tell if it was that my wheel was out of round, if I had some sort of thing attached to my tire, or if the tire itself had some sort of tumor or something.  My plan was to examine the tire when I got home. About 5-7 miles from home, the ride smoothed out, and I began to wonder what was going on.  I stopped at the stoplight a mile or so from the house, and as I took off, everything felt….squishy?  Yeah, squishy.  Felt loosy-goosy, and it was very weird.  When I tried to turn, I felt the tire fold, and my rear-end kicked out a little bit.  I quickly pulled off to the side of the road, and noticed that there was a large gash in my tire.  Basically, the tire had a bubble, which was causing my bump, and that bump was getting worn down as I rode home. Eventually, the bump wore down and got a hole in it, which caused the tire to go flat.

I waited for quite some time for a tow truck, and when we were loading the bike onto the truck, the linkage that connects my shifter lever to the transmission sheared, and my shifter was completely busted. So now, the bike sits in my garage waiting for parts, which won’t show up until sometime Wednesday.  I am VERY, VERY frustrated right now.

Phone Screen – On Sunday as I got home from church, I got out of the car, my phone slid off my leg, fell on the ground, and the screen shattered. Pretty simple story, but it ends with me ordering a new screen for $30 or so from a seller on eBay.  Of course, this is AFTER my phone suffered a fall from my bike at 25mph with only a small crunch on the upper-right corner of the glass.  i.e. I thought this phone was rugged.  This drop was like a foot, however, and the screen shattered.  i.e. Turns out the phone is actually quite delicate…

Jury Duty – On Tuesday, I’m SCHEDULED for Jury Duty.  I’m going to do my darndest to get out of this, because the court only pays $15 + Mileage from my house, and that’s just not going to cut it. I have to borrow my wife’s car to get to work and jury duty, and it could not have happened at a worse time.

In all, everything seems to be breaking, or otherwise going very wrong.  It’s GOT to get better this week, right?  It’s GOT to….

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May 16
2011

I’ve been pretty frustrated at so-called conservatives shouting that burning the American flag ought to be illegal. This is another issue where a set of principles would take care of the inconsistency, yet it seems that conservatives don’t seem to have these elusive things called principles.

First off, if I can burn a blanket as part of a protest, I ought to be able to burn a flag.  I don’t INTEND to burn a flag, and the concept of a U.S. flag being burned in disrespect makes me angry, but this nation was built on something we call “free speech”.  There is no right enumerated in the Constitution called “freedom from offense”, or “freedom from everything that annoys me”. Read carefully, and that’s what you’ll find.

However, that’s not going to stop conservatives from shouting that burning flags ought to be illegal, or that this guy at LSU ought to have been beat up by the cops for attempting to burn the U.S. flag.  We either have the principle that the U.S. Constitution is the law of the land or we do not.  We either hold the Constitution as binding for the government or we do not.  This appears to be another binary issue.  If we hold to the Constitution, then we recognize that while burning a U.S. Flag is certainly offensive, it’s the right of that guy to do it based on the First Amendment of the Constitution.

It’s about principles.  We are not guided by our emotion.  We are not guided by how we feel each day.  We are guided by the rule of law. Don’t like it?  Then let’s talk about amending the Constitution.  Our founding fathers did not believe they created an infallible document.  They set forth a procedure by which people could amend the Constitution of the U.S.A., and that procedure is not legislating from the judicial bench.

People, we need to read the Constitution, and we need to adhere to the principles set forth within. We either have the rule of law, or we do not.  It’s not complicated.

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May 12
2011

This is my “About” page, but I thought I would post it here as well, to define the “focus” of my writing.

I live a binary life. Much of my life has to do with technology and computers, and that’s all 1′s and 0′s when it comes down to brass tacks.  I wonder, sometimes, if this has colored my way of thinking, because I feel much of life is binary.  People love seeing shades of grey, because that absolves them of any sort of moral responsibility, but the fact is, when you are guided by principles, whether that be the Word of God, adherence to the U.S. Constitution, or any other set of moral principles, the world will fall into the binary colors of black and white.

Am I saying that EVERYTHING is binary?  No, don’t be foolish.  We do live in an analogue world.  However, my worldview requires me to see things in a binary way if possible, and if not, then we can discuss allowances or exceptions. So if you’re here to explain to me how thus and such is not black and white, and for no other reason, then save your breath; I’m aware, and I’m not going to spend every waking hour defending the concept of binary as it applies to life, and if your comment is unnecessarily antagonistic, I’ll just delete it.  Free speech?  Yeah, that’s in the Constitution…but I’m not the government.  Tough noogies.

So what will I write about now that I have defined my blog’s concept?  I will probably write about everything I wrote about before.  Theology, Politics, Economics, Beer…you know, the important stuff.  But don’t be surprised to see the concept of binary appear in lots of posts.  I strongly feel it applies to most areas of life, and that is a large part of what I want this blog to be: An exploration of A Binary Life.

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May 10
2011

Today was the keynote address for Google I/O, which is a developer conference focusing on all of Google’s myriad technologies. This year, however, the keynote was “All Android, All the Time!”

Android, of course, is Google’s smartphone and tablet Operating System (OS). Some have called it Google’s attempt to do what Apple’s iPhone already does perfectly, but in all honesty it’s a mature OS that stands up entirely on its own.  This post, however, is not a defense of the Android OS, but merely a brief discussion on Google’s apparent plans for world domination in light of what they announced today at I/O.

Google Music Beta – People have been speculating that Google would whip up an answer to iTunes at this year’s I/O ever since last year’s I/O, and they were right…to a point.  Music Beta currently seems more like an answer to Amazon’s already impressive Cloud Drive program, where Amazon will host your files and music on their servers, and make your stuff available to any Internet-connected device running the Android OS.  Google’s service, however, kicks it up to 11 by offering FREE hosting of up to 20,000 SONGS to anyone who is able to get an invite to this beta service. Be assured they WILL begin charging for this when it’s out of Google’s infamous “beta” period. Using Music Beta also means you can stream your collection to any device running Froyo (2.2), Gingerbread (2.3), Honeycomb (3.0), and their new version, Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0?).

Ice Cream Sandwich – Yes, that’s the new version name.  Not a fan, myself, but I’m sure they chose the sandwich moniker because it’s going to be a Android-For-All OS release.  Honeycomb (v3) was designed to be released only on tablets, while Gingerbread is the current version of the smartphone OS.  Ice Cream Sandwich will replace them all, and run on everything (smashing the goodness of Gingerbread and Honeycomb together, much like a sandwich.)  It contains features like being able to determine who is talking in a conference call and focusing on their face, face tracking for the camera, and a whole slew of potential device applications like entertainment centers, stereos, and even appliances like washers, refrigerators, etc.  Wait, stereos?

Android@Home – Yep, stereos. Another announcement Google made today was a framework for doing ALL KINDS of things using Android. In Google’s vision, your Android tablet or phone is the center of your household’s entertainment system. Using the Android@Home (A@H) framework, you would be able to use your phone to talk to or control everything from lights, televisions, stereos, and any number of appliances which ostensibly contain some version of Android on them in Google’s future-home. This reminds me somewhat of the old x10 promises, which were later replaced by x11 and Z-Wave, which allowed you to use a single control module to control many different things all around your home. The ubiquity of tablets and smartphones makes today’s Smarthome a much more attainable goal, and Google is banking on that fact.  Using A@H, you will be able to dim the lights, turn up the volume, and otherwise control your stereos and media centers from your phone or tablet.  On the stage, Google demonstrated a couple stereos which could pick up the stream of your music controlled by your phone (think a stereo in different parts of the house, as you walk from one side of the house to the other, where you could shift your music stream to whatever room you were in with your phone.)  They also demonstrated a cool piece of tech where a small device in a CD is activated when the wrapping is removed.  The CD Box is touched to the A@H stereo, which reads the device in the CD, marks that album as owned on Google’s content servers, and immediately begins downloading it to the stereo.  Another tap caused the stereo to begin playing the content…all without opening the CD case. This is the era of the smartphone, folks.

Google announced they’re renting movies to phones and tablets through the Android marketplace, which are streamed to whatever device you want from the Internet, can be “pinned” to your device so you can watch where you don’t have signal (like an airplane), and offers that same pin functionality to Music Beta.

Much of the functionality added to Android in the past has been a response to things that Apple already did fairly well, but I think it’s safe to say with this keynote address, Google is taking the initiative, and giving the people what they want with no techie knowledge required, using simple, usable interfaces. Yes, Apple popularized the “It just works” concept, but Google is offering new, innovative applications of this kind of design methodology, and doing so before anyone else.  Other things announced were new hardware/accessory standards, transparency for developers as to what device their stuff will be used on, and plenty of other cool announcements.

I’m excited to see what else Google is going to do, but it raises the question…at what point can we safely say that Google has taken over the entire planet, and will we be too engrossed with doing EVERYTHING on our smart devices to care?

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Apr 21
2011

I’m starting this post based entirely on the understanding that this country is sliding ever-so-quickly into socialism, that this is a problem, and that it needs to be fixed. I am fully cognizant that some of my readers may disagree with this assessment, but that doesn’t really matter to me. This post isn’t intended to begin that discussion, but rather proceeds from the point that it has been demonstrated, and now we must discuss where we go from there. Those interested in a discussion on what I feel the problems with this country are can read my posts in the past, or else wait…I’m sure the subject will be covered at some point soon enough.

To begin, let me say that I’m almost afraid of the answer to the question I ask in this blog post’s subject. The answer for the colonists in the 1700′s was an ugly one. They sought to correct the problems through all the means necessary to come to the conclusion that armed resistance was the only way.  Let me state unequivocally that I don’t feel we’re there yet.  I don’t feel we’ve exhausted the legal means at our disposal to the point where we can consider what the colonists were considering.  But I will say that it’s close.

Ultimately, those in power now on both sides are proving themselves to be enemies of the Constitution. Even in the last week or so, there has been a budget deal proving that the recently-elected republicans are more than willing to compromise, even though they were placed where they were in order to obstruct the agenda of the left that is killing in this country. Sure, President Obama will veto any responsible budget.  Sure, he’ll veto anything that de-funds his health care garbage. But if the Republicans were serious about what they said they were going to do, they would force him to defend it.  You are to choose your battles, but when it comes to bankrupting this country with the recent health care legislation, that appears to overwhelmingly be a battle that their constituents want them to pick.

So where do we go from here? What can we do to save this once-great nation? For one, the people need to WAKE UP!!!  I firmly believe a large part of the problem in this nation is a serious bout of apathy. We can’t bring ourselves to care enough about the process to do something about it. We certainly can’t care enough to become involved in the process, or to work to learn what our government is doing. The people don’t know what their Constitution says…they don’t know what the limits of their government are. They don’t care enough to inform themselves about the history, influences and philosophy that went into the writing of the Constitution.

What’s more, they don’t care to know what America was like before the government began reaching further and further for power. What was it like when we did a great deal more governance of ourselves? What were charities like when government was not a state mandated charity? These are important topics to consider when considering where we go to fix this nation.

Considering how this nation was began, we could also consider the question of revolution, but I don’t think we’re there yet. Read through the Declaration of Independence and take a close look at the long train of abuses the colonists declare as the reason for their shrugging off the yoke of bondage, and think carefully about where we are as a nation. Taxation without Representation was one of the cries, but it was by far not the only reason. And when you consider the list of crimes laid at the feet of the English king, consider how many of those crimes our own government is guilty of.  However, as I said before, I think what needs to happen first is the people need to wake up.  How could we seriously consider revolution when the people aren’t even using their own constitutional method of petitioning for the redress of grievances? I mean, when you consider it carefully, you HAVE to come to the conclusion that the framers of this nation wanted to create a nation where revolution didn’t NEED to be considered.  They created a government which could not have absolute power, and one where, if the government DID try to seize power, the citizens could legally resist through the government itself to correct the problems.

However, if there is a weakness to a republican form of government, it is that the watchers of the watchmen, if you will, are the People. If the people do not make themselves aware and informed, there is no hope for the republic.

So wake up, people.  Do not get your history lessons only from your teachers. Do not get your news only from the mainstream television networks. Read the books your founding fathers read. Become aware of their vision for the republic, so that you can bring your voice to the marketplace of ideas and right the wrongs being done in your government!

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