July 2008 – Survivor to Software

Oklahoma Primary Day

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

-John Quincy Adams

One of my life resolutions is to never again vote for a “settle-on” candidate and I don’t vote for progressive liberal candidates (mostly because I actually LIKE democracy.) Nationally, that means I can vote for Ron Paul, two guys from New Hampshire, and a bunch of dead founding fathers. Thankfully local elections still have significant importance to a community, albeit not for much longer, and locally there are some pretty good candidates.

Now if we could only find a way to keep Republicans and Democrats from shitting all over federalism; maybe there would be hope. Sorry folks, but my mood gets this way when I think about November.

Run Baby Run

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

James Thurber

Heather and I finished the City Arts Center Midnight Streak 5K last night. Sadly I am in bad enough shape that I actually had to train for a 5K. My seven week schedule was devised from a couple different sources but ultimately is worked out wonderfully. Here is the schedule I ran:

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
Week 1	Run/Walk 15 Min	Run/Walk 2 Miles		Run/Walk 15 Min		Run/Walk 25 Min
Week 2	Run 20 Min	Run/Walk 2 Miles		Run/Walk 20 Min		Run/Walk 35 Min
Week 3	Run 25 Min	Run/Walk 2 Miles		Run/Walk 25 Min		Run 30 Min
Week 4	Run 25 Min	Run 2 Miles		Run 30 Min		Run 35 Min
Week 5	Run 25 Min	Run 20 Min		Run 30 Min		Run 3 Miles
Week 6	Run 30 Min	Run 3 Miles		Run 35 Min		Run 4 Miles
Week 7	Run 20 Min	Run 20 Min		Run/Walk 15 Min		Run 5K

I have some previous experience running; but I haven’t actually been in an organized event since the half-marathon I ran my Junior year of college. Great date night for Heather and I.

The Weekend Update

Just a quick note to let everyone know I have updated the Scotch list by adding 4 new single malts. I also added a couple headshot pictures of my kids to the family pictures section.

If you haven’t had a good beer in a while I have two recommendations. Konigshaven Quadruple is the only official Trappist beer from the Neatherlands. There are 7 Belgium Trappist beers; the most famous (of course) being Chimay. The second beer is about as strong but with a more of an Irish Red kind of flavor, it’s called Anchor Foghorn. Both of these beers I had after the Bon Jovi concert a couple weeks ago. Pretty good night if you ask me.

Finally, just for summer fun, Good Housekeeping proudly presents Frozen Drink Recipes. Some of them are even drinkable when you are under 21.

Make More Urgent the Necessity

Luck is the residue of design.

–Branch Rickey

After an Dr. Dobb’s interview with Christos Papadimitriou I have been thinking about design, creation, and development of complex systems. Specifically systems that are fundamentally efficient. The most important systems in existence are all amazingly complex (in fact, entirely too complex to ever design) and yet are built (often upon very simply concepts.) They evolve into existence and are created without ever being engineered.

My favorite example is economics, which has as its basis very simple rules. Economics sprout markets; which which are not only insanely complex but suffer from constant attempts to control always with perfect failure. Other example include physics and the universe, computers and the internet.

So my question is, what other systems exist that can be created, but cannot be designed?

Fun Facts

Pulled directly from this website; so you should definately read the original.

Doctors:

(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.

(B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000.

Guns:

(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. Yes, that is 80 million.

(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year all age groups is 1,500.

(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188. Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, “Guns don’t kill people, doctors do.”