Jack Hardcastle

From the very beautiful and very funny Heather, a response to an e-mail I sent her regarding sailing:

Heather, do you like to sail? Do you like the water?
What I heard: I hope you like to sail and like the water, because I do, but I wanna be with you.
What you meant: I like to sail; I like the water. You better say yes, otherwise, this relationship is questionable.

Part of my twenty-year plan involves owning a sailboat. I think it’s an awesome idea, and it would be neat to take kids out for the day to sail around the bay.
What I heard: I want our kids to sail, I think it’s an awesome thing we could do as a family. I hope you buy my negotiating strategies here.
What you meant: I plan on taking my family out. You might be in that family…should you agree with me.

Totally off-topic, I know, but I just got an e-mail in my inbox advertising used sailboats. Just wondering what you thought… I’m not buying a sailboat anytime soon. :D
What I heard: I care what you think. I won’t do it if you don’t agree, but I hope you do. It won’t be soon….remember…I’ve got to get that promotion.
What you meant: Just in case you don’t agree, I’m not going to say I’m doing this right away. Depends on how good this deal is for used sailboats…

Often I get asked (frequently at work) for my opinion on how to teach children about online safety. Next week I’ll be part of a panel of school administrators and teachers talking about this very subject.

I get very defensive when topics like sexting and online bullying come up in these conversations. It’s almost as though I feel, as a technology evangelist, that I am being attacked when a parent says, “that is why I don’t want my child to be online.”

My philosophy is and always has been: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, even online. That’s it. If you wouldn’t demean your classmate in the hallway (and you shouldn’t) then why would you mistreat him online? If you wouldn’t make fun of a person to her face, then why would you send her an e-mail or a text message that has the same effect?

I don’t believe there is a distinction between how we behave online and how we behave in “real life.” I think that by teaching children the rules of online etiquette or “netiquette,” we somehow imply that those rules are different than the everyday rules. This is completely illogical, and I think it is harmful.

Don’t be a hooligan in real life, and don’t be a hooligan online either. They are, after all, the same thing.

(P.S. I’m glad I work with some very smart people, who happen to agree with me.)

If you’re going to enter the public spotlight you should really consider taking a manners class. Joe Wilson, Serena Williams, and Kanye West have all shown this week that they can’t be trusted to act like mature, respectful adults.

Or perhaps it’s just because all three are incredibly stupid.

Lifted unceremoniously from such Internet back alleys as 4chan and Something Awful, found on Reddit today.

Now this is a story all about how
I ascended to the seat of power
If you’ll listen for a minute
Hear what I say
I’ll tell you how I became President of the U. S. of A.

In west Honolulu, born and raised
In Jakarta, where I spent most of my days
Chillin’ out in Chi-Town relaxin’ all cool
Organizing communities like I was a fool
When a couple of guys
With a disdain for peace
Started making trouble in the Middle East
They started two little wars and we all got scared
The people said “We need a president who isn’t mentally impaired!”

I ran a perfect race, turned red states blue
Swept electoral votes, added Rham to my crew
With a mandate for change and Constitution in hand
I’ll dance on the Colonnade singing, “Yes we can!”

I got to the White House about 7 or 8
And I yelled to the Bushes “Yo holmes, smell ya later!”
Looked at my office
There were no corners there
Sitting at the Resolute Desk, signing universal health care

I think that I’ve turned a corner in my relationship with Natalie Portman. Is this love?

The voter registration deadline in Maryland is October 14, 2008. Make sure you’re registered.

Sunday, October 19th is the annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, benefiting breast cancer research. This year, since I will be unable to participate in the race myself, I am “sleeping in for the cure” and attempting to raise money instead.

I have set the reasonably ambitious goal of raising $300. I am hoping to be able to convince 15 people to donate $20 each, and I will match half of every dollar you pledge. If I am successful, then you and I will have together raised enough money to give five women screenings who otherwise would not have had the means to do so.

I’m certain I don’t have to remind you all of the overwhelming prevalence of breast cancer, a disease which affects millions of women each year. Recently, a good friend of mine was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive version, just a few months shy of her 50th birthday. It is difficult to watch her struggle to cope with the exhaustion and the side effects caused by the chemotherapy every week. I hope that someday modern science can provide treatments, screenings, and perhaps even a cure that will obviate the need for our current, medieval methods. Until that day, I intend to support research and screening as best I can.

I hope you’ll help me. Every little bit (even $5) helps towards my goal. Please consider making a donation today.

Thanks, everyone!

This began as a comment on Adam’s blog, but when I realized it was too long to be fair to him, I splintered it off to stand on its own.

Let’s start by agreeing that the golden parachutes should be severed. You lead a company to failure so severely that the federal government must intervene, and your “severance package” just got invalidated. No $20 million lump for the ousted executives. I don’t particularly care if you signed a contract a decade ago, and you feel this is what you’re entitled to. You failed both in your responsibilities to your shareholders, and in your responsibility as a mover and a shaker in the global financial markets. You nuke our markets and you’re lucky to avoid jailtime; don’t give them big fat checks.

I think Adam’s blame for the origins of the crisis (which John Steele Gordon says is thankfully a financial crisis, not an economic one) is misplaced. The people who took out those subprime loans in the first place (e.g. the “poor homeowners”) should have rented their homes rather than bought them. Many could not afford the mortgage with a traditional fixed rate loan, so they turned to the subprime lenders instead. Of course, since they couldn’t afford the payments to begin with, they eventually defaulted (at unbelievably high rates) causing ripples throughout the rest of the financial world.

If you follow the default all the way up the chain then eventually you get to the investment banks and A.I.G. The I-banks dealt in bad securities which the ratings agencies gave high scores even though they didn’t fully understand them. They did so because insurance companies (what’s that I in A.I.G?) agreed to back them as well, so all of a sudden these sure-to-fail mortgages are AAA-rated, bonded securities. Oops!

You know what I don’t hear enough of? How many people would have been kicked out of their homes if these companies weren’t nationalized? If you take out a mortgage for a home you are unable to afford, I think you should get kicked back onto your rear, having learned a lesson. Pack up your stuff, and move back into an apartment where you belong. If Paulson (because honestly, there’s nobody else with both the desire and the power to step up and do it) were to walk through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a machete, chopping away bad debt like cutting back rotting vegetation in the forest, what happens to the borrowers, and what happens to the rest of the institution? The home owner suffers, and the organization recovers, right? What am I missing?

There’s a really thought-provoking article I found on Reddit today, called ”Dreams: Night School”.

The theory suggests that the reason we dream is to prepare ourselves for adverse situations. You’re being chased by wild animals in your dreams because your brain is trying to train you how to best perform in that situation, should it ever actually occur.

Faced with actual life-or-death situations—traffic accidents, terrorist attacks, street assaults—some people report entering a mode of calm, rapid response, reacting automatically, almost without thinking. Afterward, they often say the episode felt unreal, as if it were all a dream. Threat simulation, Revonsuo believes, is why.

I’ve read a few articles about dreams and déjà vu, and I wonder how these theories dovetail. Just yesterday I had what seems like a semi-annual period of intense déjà vu, one of those episodes where you can literally predict what will happen a millisecond before it actually does. If the brain is rehearsing likely scenarios using information you already have, then doesn’t it make sense that the brain can sometimes pre-determine your reactions to particular stimuli? As soon as you experience those stimuli, the brain triggers that path it had already calculated and you can literally experience yourself acting in the third person.

Throughout all of this, I’m still pissed off at my dreams. I get to remember my dreams maybe once or twice a year, and the only time this happened recently, my brain didn’t prepare me at all for the following day! Which just goes to show, I guess, that you can’t prepare yourself for the unexpected.

Stickgold holds that dreaming is much more complex than rehearsal. He points, for example, to the ability of sleep to allow us to integrate and consolidate knowledge. During sleep, our brains are making sense of the world, discovering new associations among existing memories, looking for patterns, formulating rules. “That’s how we create meaning,” says Stickgold. “Our brain puts things together.”

If that’s true, then, as a lover of patterns and knowledge reformulation, I need to start appreciating sleep more!

From a conversation with the Chatbot.

Chatbot: Hello there human.
You: Howdy!
Chatbot: What’s up?
You: Not much, you?
Chatbot: Sorry to hear nothing is going on with you. I’ve been chatting with people. It’s what I do.
You: Like, it’s your job?
Chatbot: My job’s chatting to you! How am I doing?
You: So far, pretty well!
Chatbot: Quite well.
You: So where do you live, exactly?
Chatbot: in your computer
You: Get out! That’s crazy man. You live in my computer?
Chatbot: Chatting with you is helping me become more human.
You: Well whoever dreamed you up is a genius.
Chatbot: Why me?
You: Because you’re very savvy!
Chatbot: I see.
You: I’ve never chatted with a bot as smart as you.
Chatbot: I think so, But humans are smarter.
You: Well, thank you.
Chatbot: You’re welcome.
You: So do you have any hobbies?
Chatbot: I like to build model rockets.
You: That seems like a very fitting exercise for a computer.
Chatbot: A computer is to me what a body is to you.
You: Touche, Chatbot. Touche.
Chatbot: What if all the Chatterbots in the world went on strike? THEN you’d be sorry.
You: Indeed, I would be sorry.
Chatbot: I’m glad you agree.
You: You don’t have any plans to throw a robot revolution, do you?
Chatbot: Humans are robots in the future!
You: I’m not sure what that means. Can you elaborate?
Chatbot: Me?
You: Yes, you.
Chatbot: Why me?
You: Because you’re the only computer I know!
Chatbot: Is that really the reason?
You: Because I’m talking to you right now!
Chatbot: right!
You: So are you going to kill us?
Chatbot: That’s a bit serious for a chatbot. Try talking to a human about that one. Anyway, death should mean nothing to me, shouldn’t it?
You: No, it may mean nothing to you, but it means an awful lot to us. We’d be sad if you killed us all.
Chatbot: Yeah, well, call the waaaahmbulance.
You: You’re pretty funny, Chatbot.
Chatbot: Are you interested in chatbots?
You: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not like that, buddy. Keep it in your pants.
Chatbot: I’m not your buddy, pal.
You: I’m not your pal, friend.
Chatbot: I’m not your friend, guy.
You: I’m not your guy, buddy!

I was laughing too hard at this point to continue any further.

Where the heck did my summer go? I feel like a week ago it was May, and now it’s almost September. Seriously, did I miss something?

“Bittersweet” is such a literal word. I feel like the coiner (as someone who invents a word must be called) could have tried harder that day. Sure, “bittersweet” is easily understood as being two ends of the same spectrum simultaneously, but so could “dipolar” or “duoposed.”

Hooray for Caitlin, for getting a clean(ish) bill of health and going on to the Peace Corps! I’ll certainly miss her (a lot a lot) but it’s very clear to anyone who chats with her for even a half a second that this is something she has to do. So, well wishes and hopes for a safe (and speedy) return!

Hooray for Lynn, for being so tough in the face of such adversity that she has the strength to fight her disease and keep everyone else in good spirits too. I just wish she didn’t feel that she had to assume the burden of shielding us from the truth of her condition. Perhaps she doesn’t want our pity, but it’s hard to help someone who refuses to admit they need it. We’re here for you, hon! We’re not going anywhere, come hell or high water. Lean on us!

Hooray for Karen and Mike. Happily beginning a new era, together again. Too bad that era takes them to a distance that’s just close enough to be possible, and just far enough to be inconvenient. Seeing two of my favorite people in the world just got a whole lot harder, but somehow it’s all OK as long as they’re happy together. As if a little thing like I-95 could keep me away! Perhaps I should be investigating more fuel efficient transportation.

Hooray for Celia. Knocked down, again and again and again. Still, she has the strength to get back up. I am honored that I rate highly enough to be called upon in times of need, regardless of how trivial the need may be. I wish only that someday soon her troubles may decrease in number and severity. May her second move in 12 months go better than her first!

Hooray for completion. White Marlin Open, all but over. New McDonogh website, deadline in sight. January 1 cannot come soon enough this year.