Wheaton's Law, Some Thoughts.

This just came up. 

Apparently, Wil Wheaton came up with this suggestion (perhaps not originally his; I've seen it on a t-shirt with stick figures, but we'll let it stand for now): "Don't be a dick." Kind of like Murphy's Law or Godwin's Law, it seemed something worth saying, and to get it into the Canon of the World, it needed naming, and who better...

So, Wheaton's Law. 

Just so you know, I like Wil Wheaton; he did very well as the sometimes irritating know-it-all Wesley on ST:TNG. I'm a know-it-all, too, so I can relate. He's done other things since then ("Mr. Stitch" comes to mind), but I've not heard a lot since TNG went off the air. My TV broke about the same time, so there might be a causal relationship there. What I HAVE heard has caused me to bristle a bit, and makes me think that Mr. W should follow the law that's named for him. Not wanting to start a flame war; just wanting to let you know that my appreciation of him is not unmixed.

Now that that is (hopefully) out of the way, onward.

"Don't be a dick," IS, generally speaking, good advice. One should not be intentionally or unthinkingly rude or hurtful.

On the other hand, it has become well-nigh impossible to say or do something without offending someone. We used to say, "No offense [intended]," after making a statement that could perhaps offend,  and get the reply, "None taken," and conversations and life went on. Sometimes offense was taken, usually because the speaker was being a dumbbutt. Sometimes, though, offense was taken because the offended was too thin-skinned to let something roll off his back. And nowadays we have people who are offended on your behalf (even if you, yourself, aren't), and are willing to demolish the offender to recover your honor. This takes on truly scary consequences.

Example (taken from Malcolm Gladwell's, David and Goliath): a man does a drive-by purse snatch in front of a Hard Rock Cafe in California, but because he thinks (purse in hand) the girl isn't respecting him enough, he sticks the muzzle of the gun he's carrying in her ear, and pulls the trigger.

An extreme example, you say? How about this for extreme:  

A sixth-grade kid shoots a first grader for dissing him by stepping on his shadow! (I do wish I could give the reference for this.)

Never mind the tool used for retribution. Note instead the trivial level of offense that caused it. People are going nuclear on people for being offended by them. This has got to STOP!

First of all, because getting one's feelings hurt over such trivial things is nonsensical: it's just hurt feelings. If your feelings get hurt, understand you have no bruise otherwise.

Am I minimizing the effect that destructive words can have on a person, especially when delivered by a person who has authority over another? Maybe. Rather, I'm saying that maybe we should self-advocate more, if only by saying to ourselves that offender is wrong. It takes time to learn this, and, I must admit, the things that are said to us can last decades. 

More to the point, though, is that we shouldn't go looking for something to be offended at, having our abuse radar set way too sensitively. As the neighbors to the guy with the overly sensitive car alarm can attest, it gets irritating (offensive?) to be awakened by a car alarm in the middle of the night, night after night, just because the wind blows.

Learn to brush off offense.

What does this have to do with Wheaton's Law? 

In the normal give-and-take in society, and in the struggle to accomplish an overall good, conversation needs to happen. One shouldn't 'be a dick', as that gets in the way. However, sometimes things need to be said to point out a problem, or to give proper criticism to what is happening or how things are going (or not going). You may come off as a 'dick' in those situations, despite not intending to be so.

Do you not be a 'dick', and thereby allowing something broken go unfixed, potentially causing much greater harm than the original offense would have caused?

We've all done this a time or two, hoping someone else would pass the word. Other times, we've bit the bullet instead of our tongue and spoken into the discussion something we've felt needed to be said.

Myself, I've been bitten many times when I've stepped in like that that I've gotten quite gun-shy about saying my piece about things out in the open.

Hence, this blog, I suppose.

But, you have to say uncomfortable things sometimes. People will be offended, and they may even call you names. Names like: 'Dick'. 

I guess what I'm saying is, if you can avoid being a dick, without compromising being a truthteller in the arena of ideas, do so. Sometimes, in some person's eyes, it will be unavoidable. Let integrity (not meanness) win out.

Like I used to say, you can call a spade a spade. There is no need to call it an 'Effing Shovel'.

(cue a Flip Wilson/Time Conway comedy bit here.)

No offense intended.

The More I Learn, The More I Am AMAZED!

The more I learn, the more my thought processes are informed by the information (that sounds circular; bear with me), the more I let the free association of ideas, dreams, facts, and 'What-Ifs', the more I let that stew churn...

The more I am AMAZED.

I could never understand people who thought science was BORING! Wonder and amazement lurk around every corner.

A sort of aside: I once read a story (One of Zenna Henderson's 'The People' stories, can't remember which one, they are worth reading if you can find them) where a boy would ask a dad a 'what?' or 'why?' or 'how come?' question, and Dad wouldn't answer him immediately, but days later without preamble would just give the answer. Maybe he didn't know at the time, or maybe it just needed thinking about, but he would just drop the answer in the boy's lap, so to speak, and leave him to his own devices. The boy was used to it; it was just the way his dad did things.

I know, TL/RD: the boy would ask a question, the answer would come later, sometimes days later.

My brain works that way. 

When we were learning about cilia and flagella in junior high life science class, someone asked "how do they spin?" The answer was somewhat vague. I absorbed that as 'I'll get the answer later'; I, too, had by that time questions I couldn't get immediate answers to, so I tabled that question. Every now and then I'd get serendipitous answers, 'A-HA!' moments that would make me smile and say to myself, so that explains THAT!

Today one of those 'A-Ha's happened, trying up one thing, and borrowing explanations from things I already knew. Midway through the episode I found myself grinning.

Another aside: I have learned though experience that if I have a half-smile, whatever I am experiencing is pleasing either the left brain (logical, etc.) or the right brain (artistic, etc.), depending on if the smile was on the right or the left. A broad grin, therefore, involves the entire brain. (Try this yourself, your mileage may vary...)

So here I am, grinning to beat the band, and I ask myself, "Why am I grinning?" and I realized that this episode made my entire brain happy. People are different, so maybe for you this won't be the case, but here is the link:

     "Nature's Incredible Rotating Motor" 

From the SmarterEveryDay (no link) YouTube channel. I ended up subscribing. No requirement that you do so, though.

My life is full of these tabled questions. I'm sure yours is as well. Every now and then we get the wild hare and have to chase these answers down. Sometimes we are content to leave them on the list of "Life's Great Unanswered Questions," and get on with our day.

Sometimes we get a surprise answer to one of those tabled questions that makes us grin. Sometimes, the answer that we decide to chase down brings grins to other faces when we find it. 

That is a good thing.

Each of us have the ability to put a smile on people's faces (resisting the urge to quote Oscar Wilde). However you do it, you can put a smile on someone else's face. if you can include Wonder and Amazement for yourself and someone else, so much the better.

Yes, You Can!

T-Plus Fifty-Five Years and Counting.

It's about time. 

I'm completely unsure whether this needs to be blogged on this page, but I don't care.

Fifty-five years ago today Neil Armstrong set his two feet on a place other than Earth, the first time any human being had done so. He was the first, but he was not the last. 

Then the novelty wore off. just when we were getting the hang of getting there and back, and proving that we could even handle a space emergency of epic proportions, just when we were starting to do some serious science ...

We quit. We got bored. Space flight was no longer a 'new' thing. Ho-hum. 

It's passed time we went back into space, and I mean not just messing around in the wading pool of Low Earth Orbit. Richard Branson and others want to make that the playground of the rich. 

Well, early adopters always have been people that had money to throw at the newest thing. That's okay. When the costs come down, then us middle-class folks can enjoy.

To that end a certain Mr. Musk has been working on getting us back into space, effectively 'on the cheap' (as compared to how the government plan works), with the thought of moving out of LEO and onward back to the moon, then outward to mars and other places that might be colonized. His detractors (and distracters) of course are beating him up for being so bold as to be a non-government business to try to do so. 

Too bad, so sad. More power to him, I say.

I ran across something ... Not true. I went looking for it. Chaos Manor, formerly a column in Byte magazine, then a website. Byte has gone away, but JerryPournelle.com is still present, even though both he and his wife Roberta have passed on. One of the pages that is still alive is: 

    How to Get to Space (https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/gettospace.html)

where he details an X-program to get there. I encourage you to visit and see what else can be found. It is two decades or more old, but since it has only been fairly recently that there has been any sort of effort, it is still pertinent.

As it happens, Mr. Musk has followed much of it and has proceeded to create exactly what Dr. Pournelle had in mind, albeit with variations. With the result of Space-X and the various Falcon Single Stage to Orbit vehicles taking over what the Shuttle can no longer do. And doing it more cost-effectively.

And folks are kicking him in the teeth as he does it. 

He has taken what he has been given and multiplied it. He started with nearly nothing and he has now made more than a name for himself. And he has proved the adage that if you're successful people will be doing their best to beat you down because you bested them.

Your turn.

All you who criticize these start-from-scratch successful folk, quit criticizing and do better, IF you can. At very least try to do as well. If you get even part-way towards a big goal, you will be far better off than you are by yelling at the successes out there. Be the ones the "Poor-Me"s yell at instead.

You can be bigger that they are. You can be more successful than they are. You can be in a better position to help others along the way than they are. You can be more generous than they are.

Yes, You CAN!

THIS is why you'll NEVER hear a voice like Judy's again.

Today is a day for music. And AutoTune. 

And, as long as AutoTune is being used, the natural voice will no longer truly be heard. 

Yeah, I get it, it fixes out of tune voices and creates crazy effects (a la Cher's ' Do You Believe in Love After Love). But a couple of things are lost: the appreciation of voices of people who can really do their stuff, as well as the warmth and expression that a person with talent can give to a piece of music. 

Listen to this fellow:

I think he makes a pretty good case for his hypothesis. Taking away nothing from Kelly Clarkson, perhaps the production crew in the sound booth might serve her better if they let her sing.

Along the way, I'm reminded that really good instrumentalists, and really good vocalists have this in common: they hear a phrase or read the music and it flows through their instrument, whether that instrument is a physical object they interact with, or their voice (or, in my case, my mouth when I whistle) automatically. 

I hear 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', and I can sing or whistle it with ease, only being limited by my vocal (or whistle) range. Well trained instrumentalists, well adapted to their instrument do the same. Their physical actions may be more involved, but it's the same thing. 

And therein lies the beauty.

If you are a musician, keep on being one with your instrument, and your music.

Yes, You Can!

Uncommon Man

 I admit to being lazy. It has been a week of finding my feet and getting them underneath me, again. We've been back nearly two weeks, and I still have not gotten, or even started, getting the pictures organized.

Pictures not as good as seven years ago, and that disappoints me as well.

On the other hand, the sight was as beautiful as before. And it has inspired a jewelry piece that I'll try to put together soon.

Buuut, as I said I'm lazy today. so I'm going to post a poem that I heard, then searched for to make sure I got it right. Ironic, really, it's not a poem to inspire laziness. Rather the opposite.

My Creed

I do not choose to be a common man,

It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,

I seek opportunity … not security.

I do not wish to be a kept citizen

Humbled and dulled by having the

State look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk;

To dream and to build.

To fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;

I prefer the challenges of life

To the guaranteed existence;

The thrill of fulfillment

To the stale calm of Utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence

Nor my dignity for a handout.

I will never cower before any master

Nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect.

Proud and unafraid;

To think and act for myself,

To enjoy the benefit of my creations,

And to face the world boldly and say:

“This, with God’s help, I have done.”

All this is what it means

To be an Entrepreneur.

-- Dean Alfange

I think I'll put that on a poster, or a shirt. It'd be the first addition to www.cafepress.com/clubmushroom in a long time.

Be bigger than you are. Make something to leave a legacy. Live a life you will remember (thanks, avicii). Put smiles on faces. Help people get what they want.

Live as large as you can.

Yes, You Can!

A Slice From the Eclipse Trip

 It's been something of a while.

We visited Texas for the 2024 Solar Eclipse, and it was great. More on that later.

On our way back we stayed in the town of Plainview, Texas. had supper at the Cotton Patch Cafe (highly recommended - I didn't finish my meal, but no fault of theirs - the waiter even managed to get the kitchen staff to scrape the bottom of the pot for the last of the jalapeno gravy for my chicken fried steak. Great stuff!)

But, more about them when I can do them justice.

The Next Morning, we were looking around for breakfast. Apart from a donut shop, there was nothing on this side of Plainview that served a real breakfast. Except McDonald's.

And the McDonald's was GREAT!

This is what greets you when you drive up:

And, true, it's the typical Micky Dee's breakfast menu, but these folks take pride in doing it right. Coffee was great. And they are not afraid to help a body out. When we went up to order seconds, the menu had just changed to Lunch, but they accommodated us by putting together two more breakfast sandwiches (plus hash browns) for us.

This handsome fellow was especially helpful (Corey, by name):

Corey (the Man!)

He was very helpful. He had a pleasant and sunny attitude in a job where, let's be frank, has more than it's share of cranky customers (I should know. Unfortunately, I can be one of them).

All in all, he and they made breakfast a wonderful experience.

And you gotta love a place that doesn't take Ronald too seriously!

McRib on the hoof

If I'm ever again in Plainview, I will definitely look them up!

(Their address is 815 N I-27, Plainview, TX 79072.)

If you are ever down that way, you should look them up. too! 

Yes, You Can!