Bradezone

Look, I’ve got no beef with Greenville, generally speaking. But what in the wide world of sports is the deal with our electrical infrastructure in this town? Every stinking time a rain cloud comes through, not only do massive wads of the city lose power, but the traffic lights on MAJOR ROADS routinely malfunction. When is the last time I have cruised down East North Street during rainy weather with the traffic signals operating normally? WRONG! It was a trick question, the answer is NEVER. And once you hear the crack of thunder, you can forget it, brother. Cars piloted by oblivious ne’er-do-wells will be flying through intersections as if they are avoiding roadside missile launchers.

The situation has become a complete joke. Greenville desperately needs to get its act together and improve our ability to sustain the mildest of summer storms without becoming the prototype for post-apocalyptic turmoil. All we need is ominous blue light throughout the city to complete the effect, but unfortunately that would require electricity, something we’re not great at producing in adverse conditions (if you define “adverse” as “not perfect”).

Perhaps one problem is the overabundance of traffic lights that need power. Witness the fact that 80% of the signals on East North are blatantly unnecessary and may actually include several private driveways (this data is currently unconfirmed). I advise getting rid of these lights and instituting a more sane solution that involves posting STOP signs at insignificant side streets. Seriously, what have some of these roads done to merit their own traffic signals, and why do they so often generate red lights for the main traffic on East North? I realize that 90% of the residents in this town prefer a driving pace somewhere between “leisurely” and “clinically dead,” but some of us tend to prefer a more efficient approach to travel.

I have said my piece. Now I challenge you, Greater Greenville Area, to step up to the plate and generate a solution. HINT: see previous paragraph for tips on a possible solution.

In the mid-80’s a cartoon series was broadcast that shaped a generation of dudes who needed the occasional break from people to watch a bunch of big honkin’ robots fight each other and transform into cool crap in the process. I am one such dude from that generation, and the cartoon I speak of is none other than The Transformers. Many years later a live action flick is now on the way, and as a lifelong fan of Autobots and even some Decepticons, my opinion on the matter is needed.

Wired magazine’s newest issue features an article about the new movie and its director, Michael Bay, who has put out various unimpressive tripe over the years. In response to the article, I wrote the following letter:

I suspect that the final question posed in your Michael Bay article best captures what Transformers fans such as myself are wondering: will we even recognize Optimus Prime (or anyone else) when we see him in Bay’s live action experiment gone awry? I have tried to remain open-minded about the new movie, hoping that it will deliver something for me to get excited about, but it’s starting to look like Megan Fox might be the only surefire reason to check it out. I don’t demand much from the story. I just want the characters I grew up with to look like themselves. Bay’s supreme arrogance and disregard for fans’ memories came through strongly in your article, and that type of attitude could spell disaster for the film, which really only needed to portray the original character designs faithfully to ensure success. These new bots look no better than those cheap knockoffs that used to be foisted upon us by Family Dollar and the like. Even as a kid, I knew they weren’t good enough. Why should things be any different now?

That sums up my feelings at present. I will watch the movie, and I will try to latch on to the entertaining aspects of it, as some are apparently able to do. But I have little doubt that it will fail mightily to live up to the 1986 animated movie that my fellow Transformers fans and I remember so fondly.

Battles came to Charlotte and executed a concert for the ages, replete with intense concentration, melodic whimsy, and maximum energy. Before the show John Stanier plopped down on the couch next to me, and for a few minutes we discussed matters such as the Helmet days (which apparently featured an acrimonious split) and the super-high cymbal of respect, among others. At this point I knew that I was in the process of experiencing some extreme radness, which was supplemented in overwhelming fashion by the performance of the band. These guys worked hard to deliver the goods and sounded absolutely incredible. Their precision and multi-layered sound is beyond unique, and the vibe between band and fans was strong all night. When they played Leyendecker and Race: In back to back, I felt I had reached the zenith of music itself and that there was nothing left to conquer. But then they just kept bringing the power, so I simply continued to soak it in.

I came away from this event with a green t-shirt and some deluxe memories. If Battles decides to pay your town a visit, don’t ask questions. Just go.

The inaugural Chuck Norris Memorial Hike in CA has been somewhat documented on its own blog, and photos have been placed on Facebook. I will write more later, but for now I’m stuck in the Atlanta airport whilst waiting for a severely late return flight to Charlotte. Basically you just need to know that this trip kicked butt.

Before I set out on the inaugural Chuck Norris Memorial Hike (as it has randomly been named) in California along with four others for the next 10 days, I’m just gonna post some crap.

First, shout out to my peeps for an entertaining Memorial Day. Much grub was grubbed, much drink was drunk, and much entertainment was provided by Kammer’s outfit The Redemption of Sans Foy. Thanks to them I now know the feeling of experiencing a concert from a living room couch, and they brought their A-game. Subsequent prolonged conversation about life, religion, music, sex, and film with fellow Christians who “get it” was heartily welcomed and enjoyed.

I’ve watched several quality films recently, including The Foutain, Dreamgirls, and Babel. Perhaps we can discuss the first of those in more detail later. For now I merely want to offer that while Jennifer Hudson was quite deserving of her Oscar for an incredible portrayal of Effie White in Dreamgirls, for my money I was utterly blown away by the amazing work of Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko in Babel. My heart was wrenched for her character, and still now I am in awe of how the actress handled the difficulties of her role—not only was Chieko deaf and mute and thus forced to convey her feelings solely through body language and a few written notes, but her desperate desire to be accepted as a beautiful woman and not regarded for her disabilities required several nude scenes, all of which I believe advanced the character and made me feel great pity towards her. Her performance left me with much to think about, as any outstanding acting performance should. Later I read an interview with Rinko and was truly struck with how intelligent and insightful she seems to be. I certainly hope she gains even greater notoriety through whatever future performances she has in store.

So the aforementioned hiking excursion in Cali begins in just over a day, and I am ready for it. This will be my first time west of Missouri, not counting my birth date in Texas (we moved when I was still 0 years old) or my time in Alaska when I was but a lad of age 2. We will be hiking through Yosemite and Sequoia parks, checking out Monterrey Bay and Big Sur, and hitting Napa Valley and San Fransisco for good measure. I anticipate hijinks and hilarity, great views and great fun, and that something unexpected yet enriching will probably occur. Pictures to come, I’m sure, but for now I bid you adieu.

The difference between my line of work—software development—and others is the fact that the consequences of imperfections are far more drastic though they are just as inevitable. Just about any other occupation affords one the opportunity to recover from mild screw-ups: a dentist can mistakenly scrape your gums, an actor can stumble over a line, or a dump truck driver can blow a tire. But with a little improvisation and ingenuity, these folks can amply recover and still accomplish the task at hand.

The experience of the software developer is a bit more vexatious. The hope is that we (or our IDE) will notice a mistyped letter or slightly flawed logic before we unleash imperfect software on the masses, but unfortunately “bugs” are a fact of life. Witness the number of major companies such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft that release software tagged with the word “beta”—a term that in the world of software programming I would describe as politically correct. It absolves the software provider of responsibility and is roughly an open admission that things might not work as intended.

With computers, everything is black and white, ones and zeroes, pure logic. This fact actually appeals to most programmers and provides us with a constant challenge as we write software. But without shades of grey, we are bound to continue producing otherwise exceptional products that are ever so slightly tainted by the stain of human error. The average citizen has used enough software at this point that they almost expect problems to occur, and as a result software developers are often viewed with some degree of suspicion. What can we do about this problem of error-prone software, and how do we improve? Certainly testing mechanisms are already in place on development platforms, but even then we are limited by our inability to foresee all the possible scenarios that might result in errors. Testing techniques have improved, but so too has the complexity of software skyrocketed, leaving us in roughly the same position.

The harsh reality is that this problem will never disappear completely. I anticipate that significant strides will be made via new automated testing methods, new programming languages, and simply better documentation and training. But as a software developer I know all too well that my mistakes, however scarce, will always be prone to unveiling themselves in a most garish fashion and to my enduring chagrin.

Even now I feel the sting of defeat. Oh sure, I won my ESPN fantasy basketball league handily—an impressive feat given my previous lack of success with this particular sport. ESPN will be mailing me a t-shirt for my efforts, probably by the time we are using automated hover-cars for transport. But never has winning a fantasy sports league felt so empty. You see, I managed to finish 4th overall in the universe on ESPN’s final leaderboard. This would rank me squarely outside consideration for the major prizes, bestowed solely upon the top 3 players. So any hopes of winning $500, $1100, or even $3000 flew out the window the moment the NBA regular season ended.

Oh, but it gets worse. For those of you familiar with rotisserie leagues, you know that each team earns points based on how well the actual players do in the actual statistical categories of the sport. As you can see, my team’s weakest category was free throw percentage, in which I trailed the next player by 13/10000th of a point. Yes, lucky number .0013 indeed. If I had managed to squeak out the victory in this lone category by simply hitting a handful more free throws, not only would I have ranked in the top three overall, I would have WON THE WHOLE FREAKING SHOW. Not that I am bitter or disappointed or bitterly disappointed, or what not.

Anyway, if you check out my team stats and decide that it deserves some sweet loot, you are more than free to tap that friendly Paypal button on my site and let me know your feelings via cash. In the meantime, I would like to thank Shawn Marion, Vince Carter, Pau Gasol, Marcus Camby, Carlos Boozer, Lamar Odom, Chauncey Billups, Ricky Davis, Jason Richardson, Mo Williams, and the other bit-players for their magnificent efforts. But man, y’all need to learn to hit some free throws.

So you may have heard that Amazon created this weird new website called Askville, wherein users ask questions that will hopefully be answered by fellow users knowledgeable of that topic. Feeling wacky, I posted a question of my own and promptly forgot about it. A week or so later I receive an email informing me that I got some replies, and indeed I did—along with a forum discussion that has apparently become one of the more popular ones on the site.

It’s nice to see there are other people who are willing to have a bit of cheeky fun with these random web startups.