I wonder if she has plastic dreams...

I'd really like to start weeding out some of the electronic toys from Ellie's collection. Would I say she has a plethora of toys? Yes, El Guapo, I would... Many of them are great little toys that she can stack, knock over, carry around, drop on the cat, bounce, roll, etc.. However, there is a proliferation of plastic toys that bleep and bloop and sing and move at the push of a button. The problem is, that she doesn't stick around to finish what she started with these toys. She gets all worked up into a button pushing frenzy, running from bleepy-bloopy toy to bleepy-bloopy toy setting off as many as she can.

On top of which, the audio circuitry in these things is so incredibly bad that much of the speech is all but unintelligible. There's one that sings a little song about each letter in the alphabet when you press the corresponding button. Here's what it sounds like: "There's a 'dzgjzee' sound here to greet you a 'dzrgrghh' sound to greet you. There's a 'dzgjzee' sound here to greet you, a 'dzrgrghh' as in 'applesauce.'" I'm afraid my daughter will grow up sounding like a wax paper-comb kazoo when she speaks.

Signed, Waxing Nostalgic for Tonka...

The early results are in...

So, I played the Bears vs. Colts tonight on the Xbox 360. The result: Bears 73, Colts 0. I assume that this score is probably not accurate, but that would be cool. The keys: Lots and lots of Thomas Jones up the gut, a handful of defensive scores as a result of much pressure on Manning the Elder-ish, and a Devin Hester return for a touchdown. Given the relative scoring values based on my Bears-Saints experiment... I'm hoping for Bears 31, Colts 6. I'm still nervous... Go Bears!!!

Puzzles, Mysteries, and Lies

I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's opinions of the Enron collapse on the New Yorker's site. Mr. Gladwell all but acquits Enron senior management saying that, of course, they obfuscated the truth through questionable accounting standards because that's what they needed to do to preserve the value of the company. He sites Gregory Treverton's distinction between puzzles and mysteries to make his point.

Mr. Treverton has defined puzzles as being problems with incomplete data sets and mysteries as complete but confusing data sets. In other words: to solve a puzzle, you must infer a missing but crucial piece of data; to solve a mystery, you must simply connect the dots. Mr. Gladwell asserts that, while the boys from Houston were convicted for creating a puzzle, they were actually guilty of creating a mystery.

The part that sticks in my craw (and yes, despite overuse, I still have a craw), is that Gladwell makes the distinction between puzzle and mystery as if all the facts of the case could be tracked in a simple checklist - that if you had a clipboard with all the facts necessary to solve the problem listed, you could go right down the list and place a tic mark next to them all. The point he seems to miss is that context is, in and of itself, a data point. Enron management not only failed to provide context for some data points, but out-and-out lied about the context in some cases.

As his kicker, Mr. Gladwell sites the case of Cornell University students reviewing Enron's financials and posting a recommendation of "sell" on the University's website as proof that the dots could be connected. The truth is, just because someone was able to solve a puzzle doesn't make it a mystery.

It's just one o' those days...

... where I feel like putting the BlackBerry on vibrate, dropping it in my front pocket, and sending myself a whole slew of emails.

We went to see Wicked last night. I'm not a big musical theater guy, but it was enjoyable. The first act was much better than the second. The second act just seemed kind of slapped together. All of the performances were solid, but they seemed like they were in a hurry to get through the remaining plot points.

It's funny that we were really looking forward to a night out with just the two of us, then the majority of our conversation was about Ellie. It's hard to deny the awesomeness that is our little girl.

What's your story?

On tonight's episode of the Daily Show, Jon Stewart made one of the most salient points regarding the current war in Iraq that I have yet heard. His guest was retired British army general Rupert Smith, who was hawking a book he's written. General Smith's assertion is that up through World War II, global change was affected in a serial fashion (crisis, conflict, resolution, diplomacy) and that, in the modern world, force is just one facet of the engines of change (all of those things are run in parallel). Basically, he was saying that this war was a modern war, but was handled in the old school, serial fashion. He posited that the real objective of the war (to install a government elected by the people of Iraq which was to our liking) got lost in the focus on exercising force to resolve the crisis.

It was at this point that Stewart made his point - that the U.S. storming in there and toppling the Hussein regime and writing their constitution for them robbed the people of Iraq of their ability to tell a patriotic story. Since the beginning of the conflict, I've asserted that regime change shouldn't be our business; at least not overtly. The fact is, the Iraqi people didn't feel the need to topple Hussein burning in their blood enough to do it for themselves... Who are we to make that decision for them. Worse yet, we rob them of their national identity in the process.

What do we leave them with? Their ethnic and religious identities - that's what burns in their blood. So, naturally, it's now Shia vs. Sunni vs. Kurd. That's the story to tell. How they rose up against the others and the occupation and finally created an Iraq to their liking. They could give a shit about what kind of government we like. Why should they?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't think of a single viable nation that prides itself on being the pet project of another nation. Look how well the Soviets did with that shit. If you can think of one, let me know. Rome did a little better, but it was primarily a religious ideology that toppled the Empire. Why? Because that was the story that burned in people's blood.

Enjoy your vacation, Tom Brady

You can spend it extracting your member from the mouths of every sportscaster in America.

Really sorry about that hurricane and all, but...

BEARS!!!

I don't want to gooch it, but...

I just played Bears-Saints in Madden 07 on the Xbox. The result was the Bears squeaking out a victory, 84-9.

The keys to success were a steady diet of pounding the ball to the right of center (Jones racked up 280 yards), 3 defensive scores, and a Hester return for a touchdown. The defense was stifling, as well. They held Deuce McAllister to 89 yards rushing (70 of which came on a draw play for their only touchdown), and sacked Brees 4 times.

Now, if only Sean Payton can fall ill and they put an Xbox 360 in charge of calling plays...

Citizen Soda

A few times a year, our company holds revival tent - get the whole crew together, All-Hands meetings. This year, yours-truly had his mug selected as the large, sepia-toned face of innovation within the firm. I couldn't resist the Citizen Kane-esque photo of me in front of me.

In reality, I know that I was chosen as the token "non-threateningly edgy" guy. I guess we want potential recruits to know that we even hire guys with crazy facial hair... But, what the hell, that's pretty cool anyway.

This meeting was particularly stressful because I offered (and taught) a class to my coworkers on the subject of usability. It wasn't the subject matter that scared me (I've been living it for almost a decade and a half). It was the fact that if I screwed it up, I'd have to see many of these people on Monday. It's the same reason I've avoided workplace romance my whole career. That and the fact that nobody who has ever worked with me would ever date me.

Fortunately, the class was a success. That made spending Friday imagining I was as large as my photo and could chomp the head off everyone on stage even more enjoyable.

Artist's interpretation...

But, I have to admit a pretty good one...

Go Bears!

Gators... Wow.

Let me put this in perspective: If Ohio State started on their own 10 yard line and used all of the offensive yards they accumulated in the game, they still wouldn't score.