lm3m

Your science makes my story uninteresting.

Me in conversation with myself while reading some articles

—

Working at home may drive me batty, but on days where I can go out and get a fresh mango and chop it up in my own kitchen it is pretty cool.

And, since the city came out and fixed out water, I can now wash my hands while the dishwasher (or toilet) fills. Sadly, that was not true before. (First world problem I know, but it was my first world problem.)

—

I look at the occupy wall street protests and feel like they are a mirror rather than a movement. I see people pushing their own ideals and views upon them. Not that I think there is much to the protests, seems like the protest done by children brought up in a world where you honor the dead by stacking flowers in great gross piles, minimal effort and picturesque for a bit, but in the end just making a bunch of work and not really changing anything or requiring any commitment. But, is that my own thoughts on my generation (generations? the generations after me, and maybe one or two before mine) in general. But, maybe that is the point of the these protests to just spur on the conversation.

Maybe events, as opposed to revolutions, are like that. They exist and then rather the event being what everyone remembers, the changes it enacted is the the stuff of the revolutions. They are wholly of what ever people remember them as. {As a side note, I wrote this originally a few days after the whole Occupy movement started, before had walked through Occupy Wall Street and before things like the Oakland and NY crackdowns started, I think my assessment is still valid.}

—

How does this all tie into finding infinity?

Well, infinity is the idea of everything, something that goes on forever, something that is all encompassing. But, from math, there are different sizes of infinity, or not all infinities are the same. (My favorite example of this is this: the whole numbers are infinite, they go on forever. No matter how big the number is, you can always add one and have another. And, the real numbers between 0 and 1 {e.g. .1, .2, .3, .4} are infinite as well. But, there is not a single number in both sets, both go on forever, and yet, they share no values.

That is how I think about life. About what it means to be happy. No two people are going to have the same set of things that make them fulfilled (I avoid happy, since that word has a lot of baggage), and for one person it could be something huge, being president, changing the world. For another it could be something simple, a piece of work, a painting or a career. But, for each person, there is that thing, those things, that set of things that is everything for a person. Their infinity. And, those who are lucky or word really hard can figure out what their infinity is and work towards it.

The example I think about, is a grain of sand and all the sand on the beach. One person looks at the grain of sand and could spend a whole lifetime looking at the grain, figuring it out, tearing it apart, coming to understand that single grain. While, another person could do the same with all the sand on the beach, looking the differences, each grain, what else is on the beach. And yet, each person has found something that completes them and leaves them fulfilled.

They both have found their infinity, even though the scope and the nature of their infinities are almost completely different.

And, that is what I hope for, what I continue to do to search for, my infinity, some parts of my infinite set I have found, being a husband and father, but there is more that I want to do, need to complete, things I need change, make better, in myself and the world around me.

And the new twist I have been thinking about is that infinity might also describe the journey. That instead of something you find and poof you are content, happy, what will you, finding your infinity could mean simply finding you starting point. You have identified the direction you want to travel, not a destination but simply the path.

Don’t know if there is a complete thought in there. But, maybe there will be someday.

—

Some days I feel like I have a little girl who we might not be on the same planet, let alone related, those all pink, princess days, where she tells me she know who Justin Beiber is (thanks ballet class, arrrgh ballet class?).

Then other days, like when we put together a imported Japanese robot (direction all in Japanese) who stands himself up. And then order tickets to go see the Mythbusters live, well those days kick ass.

here is video of Stompy (what she named the robot) in action:

—

In an attempt to organize my comics, I am labeling each box not with a name or number, but a QR code. This, thanks to goo.gl, allows me to link each box to its own webpage and easily get there by scanning the code on the box. I have my own domain (technology-hates-you.com) with hosting provided byasmallorange.com which gives me an affordable solution with shell access and the ability to host my own websites and this wordpress install. PC version of Comic Collectorz lets me keep track of the comics and download the covers, etc. I export that data about each box (sadly the Mac does not export to html, yet. But, they appear to be working on it) and put it on a webpage.

So, an overview of sorting my comics as it stands today:

1. Sort box and add comics to Collectorz
2. Generate a new QR code and link for the box
3. Export the details of the box
4. Upload the exported data for the box
5. Print out the QR code and tape it to the box

And, then eventually, I can find and sort and read my comics.

In the future I maybe even able to search the boxes remotely from a store or the con…

here is a link to the list of boxes I have done: Luke’s Comics

(though the page is a bit sparse and the layout/design of the actual comic pages is a bit garish, I will get to those eventually.)

—

Luke W. McCullough | lm3m @ msn.com | 11.17.2011 @ 04:38pm | the new house of chaos, arlington, ma

Wow, not very often you see a company fully admit they are completely jealous of another, but with the conversion of every thing google (reader, gmail, the google header on all google pages, even the search page) to the google+ look (flat text driven with a good amount of white space) they are completely showing their hand. They have metro envy big time. Metro, which has been co-opted by Windows for their Windows 8 release describing the new UI and API. But, it predates that by a good amount of time, first in Zune and Xbox and Windows Phone 7 and the changes and ideas that came out of there. It is not a bad look look, flat and text driven. A bit more angular than the normal web 2.0 rounded corners look. But, sad to see google go the Linux route of playing follow the leader to Microsoft rather than making a stand, right or wrong, for something new like Apple. I always love Apple, not as a fan boy, but as a company that is willing to fail shooting for the moon. Biggest failure I see of the 90’s and the Oughts is Linux not becoming a dominate player in computers for everyone. Instead of taking the multi-user, X windows world and figuring out how to make it awesome for consumers, they spend the next 20 years trying to be Windows. This is a failure, because even if they succeeded, they fail. Trying to be Windows sacrifices everything that makes Linux/GNU/UNIX great. Google is going the same path. Instead of trying to go on their own facing towards consumers and changing the world, they are starting to lap at the corporate trough and like Linux the easy money of enterprises is opiate to innovation. They can only fail if they continue down this path. Sure, they can hold on like Microsoft does, but the will end up a footnote like IBM or HP.

So, again I am skipping NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month), again. I like the ideals behind it, but for me I have two problems. One, I have enough half completed pieces lying around and getting them done is more important to me than creating another 50k that I cannot use. The goal of NaNoWriMo is quantity not quality, and with my goal being publishing something or having something out for review to be published, I need the quality. So, for my personal projects, NaNoWriMo is not a help for me. That and I don’t have the ability to contribute the time. I have to be a father and the main bread-winner, for the time being. So, my writing has to be a secondary concern and 3k words is I would say 3-4 hours of work a day going for pure quantity. But, working full time and being the dad I want to be, I don’t have 3-4 extra hours. That is unless I am not going to sleep and have a meth or cocaine addiction to keep me going. Which, though Aaron Sorkin popularized, does seem like a less than good lifestyle decision. Maybe next year. 

Instead of NaNoWriMo I am working on LuMaGoWriHaMo or Luke Makes Good Writing Habits Month. Which my goal for the month is to carve out 1-2 hours a day to write. When I am home, I am doing this after lunch. I work at lunch and then take an hour after that and get pages done. Now, I think I need to explain my process a bit to explain what finishing pages means. I write rough, rough drafts, usually written by hand or in a minimal editor (like notepad or emacs or such), so no spellcheck, no grammar, no nothing. I shoot for sentences and maybe some spelling, but generally just getting ideas out my head onto the page. After that, I leave it for a bit, usually writing some more, and then come back. I edit, refine, rework, rewrite, spell check, grammar check, etc. Then I leave it again, and rinse, repeat. Until, it is done. No set number of drafts, just getting the pages done one at a time. Though my goals now are to get a chapter up and done, ready for proofreading and feedback (a.k.a.getting the draft to Jodi and Shiri, respectively). Goal is to get the first chapter of the project code names “The Four” to them. All of my projects have names I give them, not really titles but more like code names, just so I have a say of thinking about them while I work on them.

Off to NY for the end of this week and the weekend. Should be fun, get to see Amanda and Ian, and crashing up at Melissa’s. Were going to get a hotel, but the New York Marathon is this weekend. Getting home Sunday might suck.

New section here, words I am going to eliminate from my personal usage. First up, “dunno”. I have no problem with the word itself, and ‘”wanna” and “kinda” are still allowed for me. I just have found myself reaching for “dunno” too often and punctuating random thoughts with it. So, out it goes.

Thanks to my daughter I now know a Justin Beiber song, actually I knew it, I just did not know that I did. So, thank you Auntie Ali and dance class. Thanks a ton. Off to acquire good kids stuff for her. Thinking Muppets and They Might Be Giants.

Luke W. McCullough | lm3m @ msn.com | 11/02/2011 | looking a field on the accla some where between Boston and New York City

Driving in Boston has helped me come up with a new motto. I have been stuck in an overly introspective mood of late and after dropping Jodi off at the train station this morning, I finally figured out why I don’t get driving in Boston: I drive defensively, to a point where I not only react to the cars that are there, but also the cars (and pedestrians and etc.) that could be there. Boston drivers don’t, they don’t seem to react to those cars, they block intersection and make decisions based on the cars that ARE there. Thinking about about it on the way home, I can see issues with both, Boston drivers are much more likely to generate gridlock or cause problems for pedestrians, but taken to the logical endpoint driving like I do, you would get stuck in the driveway. And I guess that I what I am trying to say when I think: “don’t worry about the cars that are not there”. Not so much a schizophrenic way, but one where I am only worrying about what is at hand, and what I can see. For some things at least.

and thus:

Don’t worry about the possible cars.

Luke W. McCullough, after driving in Boston. October, 2011.

—

It makes me sad that DC decided that the 90’s comics and not their own Sandman is the basis for their “New 52” experiment.

—

Need to finish some of my stories. The editing phase is painful. Taking that nugget of ideastuff and turning it into something worthwhile and that communicates that great whatever that pushed the impulse to write it. But, figuring out how and what you can do to a proto-story and not kill its soul, is hard and not always painless for writer. But, I am pushing on through. Gotta get them done.

—

and oh the quality of American higher education, what a wasteland. Or I should say, sad how far the distance between professional and academic pursuits at least in the computer science world.

Luke W. McCullough
lm3m @ msn.com
10.03.2011
my office, house of chaos, arlington, ma

Some days, the fact that my daughter loves to watch Mythbusters with me is about as good as it gets. Doing something right.

—

A long time ago I used to argue about ideals with a friend of mine. Not so much the ideals of right and wrong, but what your ideal mate would be or your ideal job. She would always argue that you are settling or denying yourself if you don’t hold out for your ideal whatever. I would always argue that you perception of an ideal was broken since if you did not experience or spend time with people you could never know what you ideal was. And in the end you would just end up with someone who was completely like yourself (since most people who have hard and fast ideals tend to see themselves, intentionally or not, as ideal), and you would probably end up killing them.

Though on the other end of things, I do feel like I don’t spend enough time working out what I really want, less ideals and more dreams, what would I like to achieve, what would I like to do?

Good thing I am still a kid and not a grown up yet, where it would matter if I had a direction or course I was trying to plot…

—

Quote of the week:

“The constancy
of the speed of light essentially underpins our
understanding of space and time and causality,” said
Oxford University’s head of particle theory. “If we do
not have causality, we are buggered.”

http://harpers.org/archive/2011/09/WeeklyReview2011-09-27

Yep, sounds about right.

—

Typhoon Kills At Least 12 As It Pounds Philippines http://n.pr/rkhnQz

@nprnews tweet

My only thought when I saw the above tweet was doesn’t the typhoon have to kill 16 to “pound” the Philippines?

—

The image with this post was made in COMICBOOK!

Luke W. McCullough
lm3m @ msn.com
09.27.2011
Office @ the House of Chaos
Arlington, MA

So, this weekend we spent a ton of time working around the house, and I only tell you this layout the setting for the rest of this story. Anyway, after painting and rehanging a door and dozen other things Jodi and I are pooped. Andy, my mother-in-law, in her own way, offered to treat us for dinner, not that Jodi and I are that bad off where we need someone to take us out for dinner, but the sentiment is nice. After some discussion, we decided to try out a Italian grocery on the other side of town, described to us as a local, nicer Whole Foods with an Italian flare, somewhere you could pick up organic milk for the kid, some flowers and a cannoli made fresh that day. Along with all the other natural or organic or fru-fru or hipster crap food shite we all eat and love. We get there and though not quite as good as we were hoping for, we had our hopes up for something like a Met-Market in Seattle crossed with Satriale’s from the Sopranos, but it was decent lacking in a few things so it will not be our weekly grocery, but if we ever need a pluot or a tropical fuck fruit, we know where to go. It is a couple towns over, so it took a few to drive there an back. Just long enough for the gallon and a half Costco jug of liquid laundry detergent to plummet to an early death, completely full mind you, and spill all over the floor of the kitchen, where for some ungodly reason the genius who made our house hid the washer and dryer. We have no idea if it was suicide or homicide or even terrorism, I don’t trust the dryer, I think it might be out to get us and breaking off it’s handle might have just been the first act of a violent mind, but all 1.5 gallons are all over the floor. Now let that sink in, that is a puddle of laundry detergent the size of half our kitchen about 2cm think (a bit more than three quarters of an inch for those metrically declined). I walked in and thought it was water, so I walked over thinking that the dryer, said I don’t trust it, had done in the washing machine. And three steps in my feet start sticking to the floor. Was like walking through cold honey.

So, after dinner, since the damage was done and without eating we would have died at that point, and after all the work earlier in the day, the wife and I clean up the floor for hours. Some of the highlights, me using two dust pans to scoop up and pour dingy detergent (who knew soap could be so dirty) into a metal bowl, later me just standing at the sink furiously washing the soap out of the sponges as Jodi throws them back to me after soaking up as much from the floor as she can.

Luke W. McCullough | lm3m @ msn.com | 09.26.2011 | Office @ the clean House of Chaos, Arlington, MA

Always wear a helmet when on a bicycle. F*ck that shit around if there should be a law or whatever, not here to argue for or against the nanny state. I am just saying if you are on a bike, you should be wearing a helmet. Just a simple appeal to logic. Do the math, if your head comes into contact with the ground while moving at almost any speed on a bicycle the chance that that ends badly for your brain is too damn high. {Brought to my mind by my wife telling me about the lady on a bicycle with no helmet who got hit by a woman looking at her phone.}

Don’t use your phone and drive. The studies show that hands free or not, phones are distracting. And don’t even get me started on texting and driving. {Brought to mind again by the lady running over the bicyclist.}

Discourse. Look it up. The point here is that the way to win an argument is by using facts, logic, reason, etc. Winning by silencing your opponent is a cowards way out, it means you don’t have the conviction to hear a counter argument. And just because someone has a different opinion does not mean they are evil or even wrong. Another way to look at it is you don’t understand your point unless you can argue the other side. And don’t fall into the fallacy that every argument is a duality, there are more than two points of view for many questions. {Brought to mind by the following: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/tom-hawthorn/childrens-book-too-hot-for-us-publishers-warmly-received-in-canada/article2165030/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyledettman/6137132373/sizes/l/in/pool-41894168726@N01/ }

And fall is here. Wearing shoes at home for the first time in months and a sweater. Woot, made it through the summer. Might have been a wee bit hot for me.

Luke W. McCullough | lm3m @ msn.com | 09.16.2011 | Office (pictured) @ the new House of Chaos, Arlington, MA, U.S.A., Earth

No yet, anyway.

Survived the snow, the heat, the earthquake and the hurricane (those last two in the last 10 days), so I figure short of lava or meteorite impact we should be good (and though they are my personal favorite, Arrakis style sandstorms with sandworms seen unlikely).

And if you have not seen it yet Luther from the BBC is one of my favorite new shows (and in a year with Justified and Fringe both getting better and Game of Thrones, this is saying a lot). It is Idris Elba (a.k.a. Stringer Bell from the Wire) as a driven police detective, moody and atmospheric the cast is great and Ruth Wilson plays an amazing character. Just give it a try.

Oh, yeah, we decided to get another dog. Because, really, once you have one, tall, gangly, lazy dog, why not get another? (Photos to follow) But, her name is Millie and she is a black/tan brindle greyhound (another rescue). And, other than needing more beds from Costco, we and she are adjusting to each other well.

luke w. mccullough | lm3m @ msn.com | 08.31.2011 | The Office @ The New House of Chaos, Arlington, MA

Sometimes, I take a deep breath and hold it in for a moment.

just lean back, close my eyes and while I think

listen to the room, to the house, to the world outside

server slowly churning away, waiting for the mean time failure

in the other room, the dog, breathing, licking, whining, sleeping

the weight of the house on top of me, its age, its grace

no cars outside, and maybe…

Then, the AC kicks in, the light flicker and I let my breath out. That moment was gone.

So, my new favorite time waster is the Color Of. This site takes a keyword and searches flickr for that word and then averages the images together. The site looks at this as averaging the color, but they are using the whole image so you can get some really strange effect if you choose good keywords. Here are some of my favorite searches.

hdr:

or “Japan”:

or “Mandelbrot”:

or “geometric”:

or “decay”:

The thing I like is finding not a color but the images in the colors. Japan and Mandelbrot are especially interesting. I wonder if you could do something like a edge finding algorithm (or some other way of quantifying the interesting bits) and then mute anything out, before combining them. So, really looking for a image average rather than a color average. Either that, or generating a average (histogram) per image then averaging that, maybe a weighted average based on number of pixels… Oh, well, not enough time too much other things to do.

—

Been thinking about violence, not so much being a part of violence, but how to write violence. So, of course I thought of Conan, not the movies, but the Robert E. Howard stories. The original Conan stories, from the old pulps. The strange thing, is that there is not a lot of violence, there is a lot of talk about violence, a lot of posturing and the such, but real violence is pretty sparse. Oh, it is there, but the thing I am seeing is how much of good action is not about the violence, but the anticipation, kind of like horror that way. Guess it makes sense that both were popular in the pulps.

—

And finally, remember we are living in a Science Fiction future. As a reminder, here is a photo of our President shaking hands with a cyborg-warrior.

“The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”
— Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)

So, things have been pretty awful for me ever since I got back from Austin. About 2 weeks now. Been tired and congested and just generally malaise about life and everything in general. Felt like I was a teenager again, I wanted to spend most evenings sitting in the dark listening to “Pretty Hate Machine” again and again waiting for the cassette tape to break. But, back in high school, I had neither a job nor a family and could fake my way through the day on little or no sleep. But, at the end of last week I went to the Doctor, after finally accepting that this was not normal. And she said that I have bronchitis, which pretty much explains why I regressed to those dark 90’s days.

Working on cranking up the action and plot in my short story “NULL”. Had a nice outline for a much more ambitious story and trimmed it aback to something tractable, now working on revamping the foreground story (the story has a series of vignettes told as flashbacks with a bookend set in the present of the story). Previously the present day story was just some fluff, but I thought about it and needed some driving action there. So, really I have 3 short microfiction stories intertwined in a strong short story. Hoping it comes out well. Sort of a strange pattern, but I have seen this type of story work well, an old Stephen King story about the history of teleportation (where a kid ends up with white hair and unnaturally aged after saying awake during teleportation) comes to mind.

Barney Frank continues to amuse me, I would have loved to have him as our Congress-Critter, but I don’t know that I could take a southie accented daughter. Anyway, now he and Ron Paul are going to offer a bill that would allow states to legalize pot, if they want to. Pretty cool, even as just a conversation starter.

Usually I would add more in here, a few more links or a story but kind of pressed for time. Have to take the greyhound (or as I like to think of her, our hellhound) to the Vet. Looks like she ate a wasp or something and her lip is still puffy. Poor puppy.

luke w. mccullough | lm3m @ msn.com | 06/23/2011 | my man cave @ the new house of chaos, arlington, ma