Retirement Ceremony

Below are my remarks (not long enough to be a speech really) from my Navy retirement ceremony.

They were given on Saturday, April 12th 2010.

Good afternoon

I want to thank everyone here, Commander Lund, Capt Whitman and Petty Officer Ward and everybody here, who took time from their cherished Saturday to see some old salt, wax on. I promise to keep my remarks short; for there is cake.

The philosopher Jean Paul Sartre said that “For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it”

But to call the last 20 years of Navy service an adventure is a comical understatement. To call it a challenge daunts the very word, as I was. And yet in all of that, it was also a complete and unmitigated blast. Made so by my brothers and sisters in arms. Thanks to all of you for your trust in me. It humbles me to think that such a high caliber of sailors, would on any day, even consider me a contemporary, but even more so, a friend.

Of course none of it would have been possible without the help and support of my family, my wife Bonnie, my boys Matthew and William, Mom and Dad, and my brother Chris. Your love patience and sacrifice mean everything to me, I am deeply indebted for it.

I wish to leave you with the words of George Washington. At his retirement dinner '...With a heart full of love and gratitude I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.'

Thank-you

Star Trek

Before beginning, let me explain why Star Trek is of such importance to me.

When I was very young, my Grandmother would live her life around Star Trek (TOS). She would lock the doors, take the phone off the hook, and sit me down with her in the living room. Kirk, Spock, Grandma and I would share an uninterrupted hour of exploring the stars. Campy and cheesy as it was, it’s at the core of who I am.

Having said that, it would seem that the new Star Trek movie would be fighting an impossible battle for approval from me and more of my ilk. That’s fair to claim, and it’s something I was mindful of when I walked into the pre-screening on Saturday.

Star Trek is the eleventh movie in the epic franchise’s history. It sets about to ‘reboot’ the continuity, and provide a fresh pallet from which to tell stories. After over almost 50 years, four spins-offs and nearly countless novels, writing a compelling story that doesn’t violate some measure of canon must seem pretty daunting.

This movie accomplishes that, while still managing some measure of respect to all those that came before.

The threat is provided by a Romulan Miner named Nero, who far in the future, witnessed the death of his world at the hands of a star gone supernova. Blaming the Federation for not helping he sets about to gain his revenge in the past. Kirk, Spock, Uhura and all the rest must stop Nero, before the Federation is destroyed.

The plot however, centers around Kirk as he struggles to calm his rebellious side, and gain Spock’s trust all the while convincing his commander that he’s not some unfocused rebel.

The score is fresh and isn’t derivative of anything we’ve heard in Star Trek before. But it’s a bit over the top. It actually reminded me of the musical hyperbole we heard at the closing of the Next Generation episode “Best of Both Worlds Part I”.

The acting is solid (with kudos to Zachary Quinto for his spot on portrayal of Spock) and the much anticipated Simon Pegg as Scotty, was funny, while still managing to convey a sense of competence. But it’s Zoe Saldana as Lt. Uhura, that took just about every scene she was in. Uhura, was well written as a fierce, headstrong woman, and conveyed the no nonsense toughness that Nichelle Nichols had.

Overall it was a fun movie with plenty of action and a few surprises. But the plot holes and the sometimes forced use of the catch-phrases were equally annoying. If your a younger member of the audience I suspect that this is going to be right up your alley. For those of us that remember the days when Star Trek was full of allegory and character development, I’m afraid that those days are gone. But the optimism, and the wonder of it all is timeless.

The New Star Trek

Cross your fingers, I may have a slot to see a sneak preview of the new Star Trek tomorrow.

Hopefully there isn't an NDA or anything, and I can write a big review tomorrow.

More as it happens.

The Digital Divide

Every single day I work here I become more and more psychotic to my users.
I mean violently psychotic.

Every single day I come to work and bust my ass to create new and interesting ways to keep them productive. I ask them for input, and when I provide output, they consistently ignore it.

I used to think that my output was bad. I'd talk with them for hours about how I could improve my work here. Only to be met with hostility. "It works fine the way it is" is the battle cry of the user.

What users fail to see is that "the way it is" is mired in mediocrity. Do you really enjoy the thought of weeks of reading spreadsheets, when just a little bit of filtering could do the work for you? Do you really enjoy printing a document, then standing in line for a fax machine, when all you have to do is merely click "print"?

Such time savers aren't just for you. They benefit our responsiveness to the customer as well. And if you can't get on board with that notion, why are you here?

For that matter, why am I here!?

I Had a Thought

But now it's gone. Swear to god I was gonna post something.


New rule. Write shit down WHEN you think of it.

The website is down.

This better not be a viral ad. for Monster.com

In any event enjoy.




And for the record, this is somewhat close to how my worklife goes. But I don't play games at work. Much.

Wall*E

I saw Wall*E today and I still can't stop thinking about it.
In a good way.

Wall*E, as I'm sure you know, is the latest movie from Disney's Pixar studio. It's the story of a lonely robot left on Earth after humans departed her after rendering the atmosphere completely toxic (I'll give you three guesses how we did that).

For over 700 years, Wall*E goes about dutifully cleaning up after us and discovering artifacts of our "throw-away society". Then, one day, a huge spaceship lands on top of him and the and adventure ensues.

This movie should be required viewing for anybody espousing to be even remotely interested in either movies, science-fiction or science-fiction movies.

Wall*E contains several messages. Obviously the "Green" message is front and center. But so much more is going on here. And to it's credit, the none of the messages are being pounded into you.

Of particular interest to me were the story elements about machine sentience. Many of the machines throughout the movie seem to be divided into two distinct types. Awake and asleep. Awake machines (like our protagonist) exhibit curiosity, affection, and reasoning. Asleep machines, of course, show themselves to be adept automatons, going about their business as they were programmed. They make a perfect analog of human beings.

Overall this is a grand addition to the Pixar hat full of feathers. Even in the nonpareil collection of films that Pixar has produced, this one stands out.

Do yourself a favor. Go to the movie theater, get in out of the heat, and watch this film. Then find people around you and go see it again.

Leo Laporte

One of the things I've missed most since the tech "Bubble" burst, is TechTV.

Specifically "The Screen Savers".

Leo Laporte is by far the best thing going in tech reporting right now. He's always provided alot of great insight and analysis, and quite frankly is nice to just listen to.

Latley Leo has been broadcasting from his offices in CA live on the internet at twitlive.tv.

It's such a treat to get to "see" him again. I highly recommend. And if you are like me, and find him as entertaining as I do, consider donating $2.00 to his cause.

Clinton and the Damage Potential

Ever since Monday's primaries in both Indiana and North Carolina, the news has been awash in the story of Hillary's stubborn refusal to accept defeat and prevent further damage to the party by stepping aside now.

Here, is an article that details financial compensation if she bows out. There is even the added benefit of further support in the Senate.

But more interesting to me is the complete lack of attention paid to the damage she could do not only to her party, but to herself.

By not bowing out, Hillary runs the real risk of ostracizing herself. The Democratic party is not going to thank her for prolonging the fight into what can only be described as a scorched Earth policy. I suppose you could almost claim that she' s playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship.

"Either I enjoy the support of the Democrat party, or I burn this election to the ground."

If her party calls her on the bluff. She's screwed for the rest of her Senatorial term. And then will more than likely never get reelected to anything more than water district manager.

In the meantime, Obama enjoys support from just about everybody (saving the far-right of course). So if Hillary poisons his run, he's still in good standing (probably even better than he is now) to try again in 2012.

This whole thing feels of sweat and fear. And we may be in for a long, dark ride down with her.

Now That I've Seen It

Last night I stayed up late and watched the first two episodes of PBS's Carrier.

I tried to keep an open mind, and not be prejudicial, but sadly, I'm so close to the material in question that I failed miserably. In any event, because I went and made a big fuss in the last post, I feel I owe my two readers, an explanation of how I think.

I like the over-all format. Stick a camera on the USS Nimitz as it deploys, and see what happens. It's pretty honest, and really educational to Navy outsiders. But the show is chock-full of musical montages, and it comes across as a bit "Top Gun"-ish. But they are well interspersed and provide information and action to what would otherwise be just a big collection of interviews, so I consider that element a wash.

I said before that the life being depicted is old-hat to me. It's all as I remember it. I didn't serve on a carrier, but the kinds of people you meet, the dynamics, and the stress are all there. My enjoyment in this series came in answering some of my wife's questions, and seeing her get some clarity on why things are, the way they are. The sailors they pick to follow are pretty typical, and provide a very nice example of the kinds of people that make up the fleet. I especially liked that they opened with the Command Master Chief, introducing him and his job gives a great contrast to all of the junior sailors that we end up following later. The Commanding Officer actually managed to appear to be candid without spewing practiced PR speak. But in the end, it was just appearance, and little of consequence was said. The one sailor they followed that I had any problem with was airman Garzone who is a bit of an amateur documentarian (in his bid to join the Navy's Journalist cadre). The show follows him for a bit in what felt like one filmmaker gravitating to another. A moment I found impressive was the Disciplinary Review Board (DRB), where the chief's mess was dressing down an airman for having alcohol on board the ship. I would have liked to have seen the subsequent Executive Officer's Inquiry (XOI) and the Captain's Mast (that typically follow the DRB). But I certainly understand why we can't. But later we learn the results, and the viewers learn about the concept of non-judicial punishment. I'm hopeful that there are more such surprises later-on in the series.

Finally, I found the program to be well produced, and clearly the labor of love. Big props go for not contriving drama in the editing room (at least not detectably) and somehow getting what would normally be a closed-off group of people (and I'm referring to the entire crew of the carrier) to almost pretend the camera isn't being stuffed in their faces, and that deserves your attention.

I Am Not A Character

This week on iTunes there is a free preview to the PBS documentary Carrier. Maybe I'm jaded, but I'm not a fan of making a spectacle of sailor's lives. On more than one occasion, I witnessed the director of the series mention sailors as "Characters".

This implies to me that they didn't see "5000 stories". This implies to me that they saw "5000 opportunities".

We see time after time, a sailor crying (and not just women). We see them making off-the-cuff remarks about family life and home. I've seen it all before. I've lived the at-sea life. It can be very dramatic. And I very easily understand why the producers thought this would be a great project.

But my brothers and sisters are not characters. The Navy is not a Jerry Springer episode. These men and women have to perform amazingly difficult and dangerous tasks. Allot of them are leaders that have junior sailors who look up to them.

It's hard to respect a Chief's character when he's being treated like one on national television.

New Member

The blog found here, is to be placed on your favorites/bookmarks from now on.

This isn't a request. Nobody asked you if you wanted it. But it's critical none-the-less that you have it.

Go there now and read it. Become familiar and capable of speaking intelligently about posts made there, then do so in the comments section.

And for the love of things holy and pure and right in this world, respect his ahh-thor-ahh--tay.

Grand Central

My apologies for not posting lately, I've been away on business and I've had my nose firmly pressed against the grindstone.

About two posts ago, I mentioned that I had Grand Central invitations for the wanting. But sadly, just about as soon as people began noticing and asking for them, GrandCentral.com removed the invitations in order to stabilize the database and allow them to get some bug fixing done.

As soon as they turn the invitations back on, I will be sure and hook-up those that asked.

Sorry about that gang.

Commodity

Over at Rolling Stone is an article about how the Music industry is under attack from iTunes and Wall-Mart. Odd how an industry would consider big customers like Apple and Wall-Mart hostile.

Anyway the quote that really raised my dander was this one...
"Wal-Mart has no long-term care for an individual artist or marketing plan, unlike the specialty stores, which were a real business partner. At Wal-Mart, we're a commodity and have to fight for shelf space like Colgate fights for shelf space."


To whit I respond. You reap what you sow.

The big music production companies have been in the habit of commoditizing everything about music. The sound, artists, production, packaging (back before digital), marketing, all of it, has been made as predictable as they knew how to make it. As a result, music is just one more commodity in this world. It belongs in the grocery store right next to the Pop-Tarts.

So why, after all the efforts of the music industry to make their product as common and easily accessible would they then bemoan the fact that their product is just as disposable to Wall-Mmart as razor blades or children's clothing?

Grand Central Invitations

Everybody should check out GrandCentral.com. Seriously. Go there now.

Basically, it gives you a new phone number, and allows you to ring up to six other telephones with that one new phone number.

It does a bunch of other cool stuff, but to see for yourself, you need an invitation.

Post a comment to this entry, and if I like the cut of your jib, I will send one your way.

Microsoft Bloviats Again

It's all over the news that Microsoft is going open, from people who apparently couldn't tell the difference between closed and open if they were forced to watch Sesame Street 18 hours a day.

The fact is, Microsoft often times talks the big "We Support Open Source" out of one side of its mouth, while at the same time, talks "Linux users had better be quaking in their boots that we are coming for them." out of the other side.

Microsoft has made countless press releases very similar to today's. And as the EU has so eloquently put it "Have nothing to show for it".

I want nothing more than to say that we will soon see the API and protocols to Exchange, heralding a new era of Exchange interoperability. But we all know that isn't going to happen.

All these press releases do, is get everybody's hopes up, deflects attention from the fact that they are getting their asses handed to them in court, and creates a mitigating circumstance through which a Judge can minimize any sort of punitive damage.

Then someone in the EU opens a new case, and we start this all over again.

And MS wonders why Google has been eating their lunch?

Meta-OS

Just a quick little background.

Virtualization is an exciting new technology that allows you to create a little sandbox on your computer, and run just about any software (OS or application) that you can conceive of.

Are you a Windows user and want to run a program that available in OS X only? No trouble, fire up OS X in VMWare, and execute it.

Are you running OS X but wish to fire up a Linux program. Parallels and Ubuntu are your friends.

The OS is trivial now. There is nothing keeping you from running any or all of the OSs you want. Now we need a meta-OS. A mother-ship for your computer, that keeps everything flowing. Linux would be my odds-on favorite. But just about anybody could create one. Just enough of an OS to provide the security you need, and then some sort of built-in virtualization software that allows you to become OS omnipotent.


And I'm on the short bus of professional tech. I can't conceive that someone else hasn't thought of this already. Keep your peepers peeled for this.

Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Zimbra et al.

Microsoft has made several serious offers for Yahoo over the years. But nobody seems to have ever given much in concern for it before this. Partly because Yahoo has such an independent spirit, partly because Yahoo wasn't hungry.

But over the last year or so, Google has strengthened at the expense of Yahoo. And now that Yahoo has become anemic enough, Microsoft is striking.

One of the serious concerns I have for this is Zimbra. For those that don't know, Zimbra is a serious MS Exchange competitor with both an Open Source and "Network" (for purchase) version that Yahoo purchased last year. Now it seems that all it did was sweeten the pot for Microsoft's offers.

If Microsoft can get it's hands on ownership of Zimbra, it will have an unchallenged path to shut it down. I suspect that the Zimbra crew will probably end up splitting the project into something new. But in the meantime, Microsoft will only end up generating more animosity towards them, by leaving their Exchange product as the only game in town. And everybody who doesn't want to write a check to the Devil, doing without.

Get Thee Into Pownce

Pownce is a great new site that combines the features of social networking with community based news. Get yourself joined up and add me (seanryder) as a friend.

Users share links, news, files, and scheduled events quickly using either the web interface or a really cool Adobe Air based applet.

Do-Over!

Cracked.com has a butt-load of reasons we should sweep this year under the rug.

Enjoy.