4D Minecraft?

So there is a 4d platform game that I have been waiting for forever:

http://miegakure.com/



Its taken so long that I've considered making my own.  In fact, I've already wanted to try my hand had a voxel based game like minecraft.  What if I made 4d minecraft?

I would think that no matter what, for convenience you want the y dimension fixed because of gravity (it would suck if x,z,w was being renderer and everything is mysteriously changing as you fall).  Then, either you switch between x,z and z,w and x,w OR you show x,z and use w as some kind of weird dimensional shift.  Either way it would be pretty sweet.

Also, obviously, it would use JRuby for a mod interface so the stupid fucking mods can be loaded at run time, from like a gallery or whatever.

Losing Steerage

Tonight I finally told my business partner that so long as I have a full time job, I don't have the time to do a good job with this startup.  It felt incredibly good to say it, and I'm not sure I realized how frustrated I've been until I said it.  I don't like not doing a good job.  I hate it.

Unfortunately, people who can do what I do and are willing to do it for so little don't grow on trees.  She may meet another business partner.  Until or unless that happens, I'm going to keep working on this.  There is a chance we could get some serious capital from investors, and then just pay one of those stupid app development companies, or hire a real, competent, employee coder for a competitive wage.  As little time as I have, I'll always have time to look at code reviews and boss someone around.

I feel a little guilty;  she really really really really wants this business to work.  She believes in her idea 100% and the only thing holding it back, ostensibly, is my inability to do two full time jobs at once.  Though I empathize with her dream, I really should have had this conversation much earlier...probably about 4 months ago.  Idk.  At that time we were in the middle of waiting for one of the bottom feeder craigslist programmers to fix a bug.   Whatever.  Best time to plant a tree and all that.

There is a chance I will quit my day job (or best case scenario: get fired with severance).  Its a rather small chance though.

So the groundwork has been laid for me to part ways with this startup without sinking it.

Ironically, if my business partner did find a coder-partner to replace me, I would be tempted to do even more work, because I would want to re-write about 70% of the code and delete the source control history before another human being sees what I've done in there.

The best option, really, is that she should just learn how to fucking code, and code it herself.  There is some folk wisdom out there about how its best if the programmer uses his own software, and recently I've become more and more convinced there is truth in that conjecture.  I've been hearing a lot about these new website specifically aimed at helping women learn to program.  The problem is, everybody treats programming like some kind of mystical art that can be performed only by smart or elite people.  If only the general public knew how stupid programmers can really be.

[coding] Making Websites

I've probably already gone on about how I hate making website, and what I think of the right-brained lunatics who do this for a living.  But now I have to do it, so its time to step up.  Naturally, I'd like to start by going over all of the existing web technologies:

• Java applet:  no
• flash:  gay
• silverlight:  fuck no, and fuck microsoft, and fuck netflix for using it
• php:  I hope not
• perl: over my dead body
• python:  lovely little language, but I just can't stomach semantic whitespace
• .NET (VB or C#) - no, microsoft tech still sucks. There are rumors of them supporting linux for real soon, but I can't imagine a company who is not microsoft actually using this bullshit

So..I guess its going to be Javascript[jquery?]/Html5/CSS on the frontend and either ruby or java on the backend.  Maybe this is why I procrastinate so much;  java containers are super expensive (and suck, in the case of Heroku) and ruby typically means ruby on rails which means code generation, which is a poor design.  However, if I limit the backend to just providing APIs that the javascript app calls, then we might be ok.

[coding] Rated Able

I've been thinking about the kind of work I need to do for startups, and it would seem I've allowed myself to become a bit too specialized.  For one thing, the only language I have expert knowledge in any more is Java.  In addition, the only types of software I am accustomed to working on are backend services and android apps.  I would of course prefer to specialize in one thing and be very good at it, but that really only works in a large company.  In start up mode, you need to do a lot.  Perhaps not necessarily everything, but a lot.

Here are the basic skills I need to re-learn:

1. create a JSON-based backend service (quickly)

2. create a dynamic web interface (web 2.0, web app, javascript bullshit, whatever)

3. create an android app



In theory, I should be great at #1 however at these large companies I've almost always worked on existing services using shitty frameworks.  In my entire career I have only create a new service once.  It was fun though.  I need to learn how to spin up a new one quickly, maybe have a skeleton sitting out.  When it comes to the choice of language/framework though, I'm a bit at a loss.  I typically don't have my own hardware (and don't want to pay for the virtual servers) for typical enterprise frameworks, and all of the cheap p.o.s. web hosting that most small website run on only runs crap like php.  At my current provider I can't even do ruby without converting the whole website or something.

For #2, we might as well just assume I have to start from scratch.

I can already do #3, however most of my experience is actually owning a library, and not releasing many apps.  So we'll have to work on that as well.

Achievement Unlocked: Brooklyn Bar

I have found my home bar in Brooklyn.  Its a lovely place, only a short 40 minute walk from my apartment.  They don't serve Captain, so I guess I'll survive on whiskey.

Drinking alone is still...meh.  In addition to attending things that Colleen invites me to, drinking alone seems to be the one other thing I'm supposed to do in order to meet people in a new city.  And, other people are probably great at it.  Maybe everyone else on the planet was born with this social gene that makes it really easy to make friends in bars.  Me, I show up in a bar, and there's like 3 people there.  Like in the entire building.  Including the cook.  Sometimes one of them might want to talk to me, a little.  I don't know.  I'm tempted to read but I've been told not to do that.  The apex of my socialization is often a short chat with the bartender about whether the Gimlet I ordered is going to be more of a Gin or more of a Vodka kind of situation.  And then that's pretty much it.  I stumble home a few hours later, sleepy, $80 poorer and wake up to a terrible hangover the next day.

So, next goal:  find a home bar in Manhattan, so that I can start drinking before I even get on the train.  I mean I also need to ramp up salsa dancing more, start going to a martial arts class (preferably a flavor of karate that is effective against cops), and maybe start climbing again.  Oh shit, and something about volleyball.  We can call those stretch goals though.  I should also probably take up Colleen on one of her invitations, but so far I have misunderstood or forgotten every one of them, so her patience is probably gone where I'm concerned.  I'm pretty sure she's only trying to hang out because she doesn't remember how annoying she thinks I am.

p.s. I was exaggerating earlier.  There's usually like 5 people in the bar, not 3.

Inconvenient Truths

Alright.  Brooklyn--or at least the part of Brooklyn where I live--sucks.  The bars anywhere near my apartment all close before midnight.  If I walk really far, I can go to a real bar, however most of those are cash only.  While I empathize with people who evade taxes and/or need to launder money because they have taken up the noble profession of selling drugs, I also expect to pay for my fucking drinks with a fucking credit card, you fucking losers.

However, I've already signed the lease, so what's done is done.  I can move out of this bullshit next September.  I have found a somewhat..."local" bar...it only takes me 30 minutes to walk there.  They are open after midnight and they take credit cards,

For the record, this is what it takes to be a decent bar:

• does not close before midnight
• takes credit cards
• does not use the word "artisinal"
• drinks cost less than $10
• is near me

Yeah, that's pretty much it.  I would add "stocks Captain Morgan" but bars that claim to be cocktail bars seem to have an aversion to stocking it.  Which is retarded.  I've tasted high class, top shelf rum, and its still not as good as Captain.

Note to self

Next time I go to a protest carry a blade for those plastic cuffs.  Also fuck Ferguson leos.

[fiction] Damaged Goods, Part ?

The rain came down in heavy sheets.  The two officers were soaked, and had to constantly brush the water out of their eyes as they gazed at their...suspect.  The man was on his knees, bound to a tombstone with heavy chains.  His shirt was gone, showing the deep cuts that were still oozing blood that washed down his chest and collected on the ground in red pools.  They took turns punching him.  Good Cop Punches that would make Dirty Harry proud.  One of the officers occasionally gave the suspect more lacerations with a straight blade.

Across a sea of death stones, Snow stood in the unkempt tallgrass next to a white marbled tombstone, in the shadows.  He wore a manta ray hat that--bonus--was water proof.  Rain ran off the floppy wings in little streams.

Snow turned his head and smiled.  Atop the gravestone was a bird.  A big, black, dark, scary looking bird:  a Crow.  The crow cocked its head and blinked.  Snow held his fist out, and the crow pounded it with one of its feet.

Together, they both turned their attention back to the torture.

Leveling Up

In Seattle, I decried ineptitude and dishonesty of Fountain Court Apartments at 4th Ave and Battery, but even though they lied to me repeatedly (teaching me the hard way about getting things in writing), it is true some of my rent checks were, in fact, 2 or 3 days late.  So I guess trying to trick me into losing thousands of dollars is a fair reaction.

The people who ran Crest Apartments on Melrose in Seattle were also lying assholes.  They increased my rent, failed to increase the direct deposit draft, and then started sending me backdated eviction notices (that isn't even the 'lying' part--when I moved out they invented fraudulent move out expenses to overcharge me with the security deposit).  To be perfectly honest though, if I had gone out of my way to double check the amount they were drawing from my bank account, I may have had a 48 hour window in which to inform them of their mistake before they threatened to evict me.

In NYC, wanting to set a better precedent, I have done my utmost to be a blameless tenant or customer.  So, upon moving into my apartment and creating an account with Con Edison for the electricity bill, I wasted no time in making my first payment, immediate, and in full, with a credit card.  In response, Con Edison sent me three service shutoff notices for non payment.

When I grow up, I want to own a monopoly.

[lyrics] The Joker

the mountains have their clouds
and the minotaurs their cows
but wary on a sharp cliffs edge
the dragon stands alone

the farmer has his family
the tax collector his levy
but all along the watchtower
the thief stalks alone

the knights have their maidens
the bishops their formation
but all across the marble floor
the joker bows alone

the kings hold their courts
the politicians their retorts
but far atop the inner walls
the ninja climbs alone

the tower has been saved
his enemies in graves
but despite his narrow victory, the
gunslinger's still alone

the captain has 'is 'tennants
and the master's got his mates
but all along the quarterdeck
the doctor walks alone

the directors have their actors
and the producers their detractors
but books are quite a different lot
the author writes alone

the minions have their plans
and the leadership their scams
but aloft in exponential space
the coder flies alone

the humans have their allies
and the aliens their spies
but seflessly in neutral space
the android dies alone

Close-Hauled

This is who we are

This is what we've got

No it's not our paradise

But it's all we want

And it's all that we're fighting for

Just as girls complain about the boys not reading their OkCupid profile, so I am frustrated by the craigslist programmers who did not actually read my post for a part time android contractor.  I'd be happy to expound on the details, but lets keep this classy.  So I guess its a "numbers game" for them.  Bitches.

I missed another great halloween opportunity.  The thursday that was the night before halloween I was out searching for a new home bar to replace Front Towards Enemy, and ended up drinking way too much at a place that doesnt have Captain.  The next day, Friday, Halloween, was the day I should have been out sitting around in various bars in my Waldo Costume systematically meeting all of the silly people who love to scream "I found you!"  But I didn't do that.  I spent all day hung over and staying late at work wondering why the test software was crashing on the amazon kindle hdx without a stack trace on the last day of the test pass.  Fuck amazon, and fuck their devices.  Then I came home by myself and nursed my hangover.  I had no food so I ended up going to rite aid after midnight where I bought a jar of pickles.  Eating all but two of them made the hangover go away.  Despite this setback, it has occurred to me that next year, despite being forced to adopt a different costume among my friends by the rules of social convention, there is nothing that prevents me from switching back to waldo and going out to a bunch of bars by myself.  I mean I'm totally not going to do that.  I'm just saying I could.

The next night:  Halloween party in Philly.  It was pretty awesome.  I had forgotten how easy and fun it can be to meet people in or around Philly.  In my opinion, the best conversations happen just as the party has reached its apex, when people start leaving and everyone is very tired, very drunk or very sober.  Thats when the conversation flows the easiest.

The Finnish metal band Nightwish is coming to NYC and to Philly in April.  Nightwish is difficult to talk about because I have to resist a strong urge to say "you probably haven't heard of them" -- which is true, but because they are a foreign band and not because they are some lame ass indie hipster band.  So while at the party I hunted down my one and only friend in the entire country that has heard of them.  I attempted to recruit her to attend the concert with me, though I think her enthusiasm was two parts politeness.  Who cares.  There's no reason I can't get stoned out of my mind and go to both concerts by myself.  Call it making up for lost time.

Tonight, I met some of the other residents on the unlit, unheated rooftop deck of our building.  Huddling in the suddenly chill weather that was colder than the wine in our glasses, we made brief introductions and traded notes on our brand new apartments.  For example I learned that the place where we dump our trash is "the creepy place."  I love it.  Then we went to an expensive ass bar, then five guys, and then another bar. It was a pretty bitching start to the new neighborhood.  I'm not sure I remember any of their names though.

Volleyball continues.  Salsa is in progress.

Laundry the Hard Way

I have lived in...9 apartments so far.  The last 6 have always had laundry in the motherfucking unit itself.  I don't go out and "do laundry."  No.  Fuck no.  At some point when I remember that I'm out of socks or whatever, I grab my laundry bin (located next to the shower where I can conveniently peel off the clothes I slept in), dump it into the washer, and let it run.  Obviously no sorting or pocket checking takes place, so its cold wash, cold rinse, and slightly-above-room-temperature drying...the computers at the NSA that illegally spy on everything we do probably think I wear nothing but lingerie.  This usually happens at 2 am.  At some other point in the future, I remember to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer and then walk away again.  When I need some clothes, I dump everything from the dryer into a basket, take the item I need, and leave the basket, still full, on the corner of my bed, where it will serve as a convenient all-in-one dresser drawer for the next week.  Assuming its not the day of the year that I empty the lint trap, a typical laundry run will cost about 4 minutes of my life, spaced out over a 48 hour period.

I have honed this system over the greater part of 10 years in order to arrive at something that requires the least amount of time, effort, planning, or even forethought on my part.  I thought its main weakness was the fact that when I'm planning to invite a girl over, I have to take the time to sort the laundry basket into different drawers to make room on the bed.

However it turns out the biggest problem with this system is that I have become too accustomed to effortless laundry, and have begun making poor life choices in an attempt to cling to my work-free laundering situation.

I chose an apartment in NYC that is at least 25% more expensive because I insisted on having a washer/dryer in the apartment.  Normally when an apartment says "washer/dryer" there is a washer AND a dryer, however in this building I just moved into, they felt that space was so scarce they needed an all in one unit.  This all in one unit appears to do be capable of washing, however the drying cycle does not give you the option to change the drying temperature, and the temperature they've chosen gives the laundry a strange and aromatic burning smell that lasts for days.  Its a weird smell...it smells more like burnt wood and less like burnt clothing.  Reviews of this washer-dryer on Amazon consist of a few outliers hovering over a solid bar of 1 reviews on the bottom.

I signed a year lease on this place.  So...I've really fucked up this time.  Few things in life are as frustrating as carrying your laundry out of  a ridiculously overpriced "luxury" apartment--during business hours!--to a laundromat, costing me two hours of my life every fucking time I do laundry on top of all of the money I'm pissing away on this apartment.  And, this time, I won't have my car nearby to drive across the city to the one 24-hour laundromat.

Again, though, lets be positive.  The wash cycle seems to work.  It may be possible to construct some kind of shape that, when a basket full of wet clothes is dropped on it, will cause the clothes to naturally fall into positions where they will eventually air dry.  That's one option.

Another option is to get 365 each of boxes/sock pairs/t-shirts.  That way, I'll just go to the laundromat once a year and use every machine at once.

Moving Like a Boss

After the disaster that was my previous attempt to move, I was quite apprehensive of this one.  However, I put a lot of time into packing ahead of time, and hired movers this time, and everything actually ended up going quite smoothly.  Wow I really...I guess there isn't much to talk about when things go smoothly for a change.  My new digs:

Moving to Queens from Seattle didn't really feel like moving to a new city...more liking washing ashore after a hurricane that ate 4 years of my life.

This move though, this one feels like moving to a new city...possibly because Brooklyn is basically its own city.  If Manhattan disappeared, Brooklyn would still be there, and would still be more cramped and more expensive than anywhere in Philly.  Speaking of Philly, I would like to believe that because I am "from there" ...ish, I will be immune to becoming a snobby new york asshole.  However, its going to start costing me $250 a month to store my fucking car, so its highly likely that in a few months I won't have a car, and will suddenly be one of those assholes who never wants to leave NYC.

So...now all I need to do is learn to cook, play volleyball, get into salsa, possibly get into a second sport, start seeing an expensive fitness trainer, work on the startup, find a new bar to go to all the time again, and maybe try to implement an RTS in minecraft...all without spending any money, ever, because my apartment is more expensive than any apartment should ever be.  I think I may start eating ramen noodles again.  I also really want to get some kind of music server, or something.  Also some people at my favorite bar in Astoria have told me I need to go to a bar, drink tea by myself, and not play with or read anything on my phone.  Because that's what it takes to look approachable.  I didn't tell these people about the tiger hat, but for you guys, lets just be clear for the record:

Tiger Hat:  1
Sitting Alone at Bars:  0

Also I have no place to hang my clothes now.

App Idea: legal situation advisor

The laws regarding what cops can and can't do to us vary by state.  For example, in NYC the Ninth Circuit said that random bag searches don't violate the 4th amendment.  According to a highly upvoted reddit post, a key reason for this is the fact that people who are subjected to this have the option to leave the subway instead--an option the cops probably won't tell you about and might not even be aware of.  So expect a story in the future detailing what happens when I'm randomly picked for a bag search and I refuse.  It should be a good one, unless they just shoot me in the back, in which case my posts will cease entirely.

Moving on.

In any situation, anywhere, I like to know the exact legal minimum amount of cooperation I am required to give to cops by law.  For example:

If I'm drinking in a bar and a cop asks for my id, do I have to give it to him, or can I tell him to fuck off?  What if its a member of the liquor control board standing next to a cop?

If I'm walking on the street and a cop asks for my id, do I have to give it to him, or can I just tell him my name and city of birth?

Cops who do traffic stops appear to have started to ask for your phone number.  Do I have to give it to these assholes?  What will happen if I refuse?

In my opinion, these are all important legal questions, because sometimes the laws are set up to fuck you over if you refuse certain things.  For example, when you get a driver's license, you a forced to sign an agreement saying that you will submit to those bullshit roadside sobriety tests.  And in this case, everything is flipped backwards.  The cops DO act like you have the right to refuse, except you don't exactly, because you already agreed you would do it, and your refusal guarantees a 128 day suspension (depending on juridiction).

So, it can be rather imperative to know the law.  In fact, you may also find it necessary to quote the relevant court cases to the officer, just in case they don't.

I am thinking of a simple app where you select a situation (they're asking for id, traffic stop, bag search, crossing the border) and it will use your position to look up the state and federal laws relevant to your situation.



Actually, on a related note:  I was also thinking of a different app, where you type in a speeding ticket number and it finds you a lawyer for that precinct.  As I found out during my cross country trip, doing so can be quite the challenge.  Some juridictions (like the middle of montana and south dakota) don't actually have "speeding lawyers" who specialize in getting people out of speeding tickets.

[fiction] Damaged Goods, Part 5

I don't need your help now, you will let me down, down, down...

--Rise Against

Between just the two of them, it was difficult to tell who was more uncomfortable:  the orange-jumpsuited girl who looked moments away from being in tears, or the preppy ponytail who sat stiffly, glancing about the room with deer eyes.

"I was wondering if you could help me," said pony tail girl.  "Its my aunt..."

"You've got to be kidding," said the convict.  Her voice caught.  Again, she was right on the edge of bursting into tears.

"No, not that, listen.  My Aunt's husband beats her.  Everyone knows, but no one will do anything.  My parents know.  They...they just...I don't know.  They won't do anything."

"What are you talking to me for?" asked the convict.

"Her husband is a cop.  It's why she can't get away.  I was wondering if you knew anyone that could, you know, who has experience...you know...with cops."

"Oh, because I'm a drug kingpin, right?"  said the convict.  "Ashley, I don't know anything about that.  I bought 1 gram of weed, once, for a girl I thought had down syndrome.  Who turned out to be a cop.  Who wouldn't even look at me."

Ashley looked down at her hands in her lap.  "I'm sorry," she said.  In a moment of irony, she turned out to be the first one to cry when she looked up with tears in her eyes.  "I don't know what do to," she said.  "My aunt can't even leave the house unless he says its ok.  No internet.  He checks her phone, the credit cards.  Can you just tell me who you bought the weed from?"

"Some some guy," said the teary-eyed convict.  "They're just some boys.  They don't know anything about doing illegal stuff or running from cops.  All they do with smoke week and talk about nonsense and eat.  Sure I can get you in touch with them, I don't think it will do you much good...."












One week later, Ashley stood outside of what was, from her point of view, a ghetto house in the dangerous part of town.  It was only one story, and cheaply made.  The lawn, though mowed, was not weedwacked near the fence.  These details appeared to be signs of pure squalor compared to the five bedroom brownstone her parents owned in one of those developments with deliberately inefficient road layouts.

Ashley knocked.  The door opened.  A young man appeared.

He stared at her through the screen, bloodshot eyes going wide.  After was seemed like an unbearable pause, he finally said:  "hey."  He also nodded up, like a douchebag.

"Hi, I was wondering..."

The boy opened the screen door and motioned her inside, where she found three more boys, gathered around a coffee table.  There was weed in an empty pizza box.  Some kind of sci fi movie with spaceships and glowing swords was playing on the tv.   Ashley stared at the weed like it was green, glowing kryptonite.

Ashley did her best to describe her quest to locate and befriend the criminal elements of the town, but the boys were not particularly loquacious, and were paying more attention to her chest.  They all began several sentences with "Yeah, uh...," each one trying to impress her with random anecdotes of times they had been rude to, or slightly inconvenienced, a law enforcement officer.

Ashley was edging towards the door when she heard a female, eastern-european voice say "hey you!"   Ashley froze.

"...get away from that poor girl," finished Nika.  Nika hurried over and shooed the boy away.  She grabbed Ashley and pulled her firmly, but gently into the kitchen.  "I'm sorry about that," said Nika.  "My brothers friends," she rolled her eyes.

"It was a dumb idea anyway," sighed Ashley.

"Tell me your story again, from the beginning," said Nika.

Ashley did.  Nika's mouth opened slightly at the part where Ashley went visiting at a prison by herself.

"You are very brave," said Nika.  Then she paused.  "And lucky.  My brother may not know anyone who can help, but I do."

"You sell drugs?"  Ashley sounded astonished.  Nika did not look like the kind of villain described by school assemblies.

"No, no.  Of course not.  But I know someone who can help your aunt."










The 16-year-old was pretty easy to spot.  Hers was the table in panera bread that had with the most calculus books strewn across it.  Snow walked up to her and said in a booming voice:  "Congratulations, you've just hired the A-team!"

"What?!?" said Ashley.

"The A-Team?  Get it?" said Snow.

Ashley shook her head.

"Oh right, you're like fourteen or something.  Ashley, right?  I'm Snow."  Snow stuck out his hand.

As Ashley shook it, completing the appearance of an appallingly creepy and underage internet hookup, she could feel the shock and disapproval from several middle aged women at nearby tables, and the piqued interest from some of the men.

"Oh God...Snow, just sit down.  Ok?"  Nika called from the counter, where she was waiting for their food.

Snow sat.  "So...pre-algebra, huh?"

"Calculus B," glared Ashley.  "And I'm Sixteen."

Snow turned and looked into the eyes of an overweight middle aged woman, accompanied by two children, who was still staring a them.  Snow pointed at at Ashley and said, "its cool; she's legal in several states."

It was then that Ashley noticed the hat snow was wearing.  It was a children's hat.  Some kind of monkey.  They sat in awkward silence until Nika arrived with a tray.

"I'm so sorry, Ashley;  he really, really can be annoying.  Snow."

"Whats up."

"Take off the hat."

Snow looked at her.

"I've told you a thousand times it makes you look like an idiot."

"You really don't understand why I wear the hat.  Have I ever told you why I wear th-"

Leaning forward, Nika grabbed his wrist and dug her fingernails into his skin.  She whispered:  "Snow, this girl needs your help very badly.  If you don't help her, there is no one, and right now, you're scaring her and making her think you're an idiot-"

"I am an idiot..." muttered Snow.

"If you don't take off the hat right now, the next time you're coming up to a hairpin on a cliff I'm going to tell you its a '1' and in the other direction."

"You wouldn't dare," he said with mock indignation.

"I'll wait for when we're actually winning, too."

Snow's face was a paragon of expressionless pokerdom, but the hat came off.

Ashley noticed something about his expression, his...demeanor.  He looked at her and gave her a smile.  It was a half-smile, but it was genuine.  Ashley looked into his eyes and the butterflies in her stomach calmed.

Nika was sitting next to Ashley, facing Snow, and that appearance was enough to satisfy the nearby soccer moms that 911 didn't need to be dialed that night, although the non-event would probably be retold in quite a few book clubs the following week.

"What's with the math?" asked Snow.

"I told my mom I'm going to a friends house to study calc."

"Yeah but why did you bring it?"

"Because I need to study calc," said Ashley.

"Wow."  Snow paused.  "How long has it been since you left her house?"

Ashley shrugged.  "I don't know, like an hour?"

"Turn your phone off," said Snow, quietly.

"What?  Why?  My mom might call.  Its not like they have anything-"

"Turn it off," Snow commanded.

Ashley looked at Nika, who nodded.  Then she pulled her phone out, turned it off, and dropped it on top of her homework.  She was officially in the twilight zone.  She was AWOL from studying, talking to strangers, and would probably get home after curfew.  This was the teenage overachiever's version of waking up in a bathtub with no memory and no pants.

"So," said Nika.  "Let's start over then.  Ashley, this is my good friend-"

"Lover."

"...friend only and not lover, ever, Snow."

Ashley couldn't help but smile.

"Snow, this is Ashley.  Be nice.  Ashley, I've filled him in on what you told me but Snow has some questions."

"Do you really do this for a living?" asked Ashley.

Snow shrugged.  "Part time.  Usually I get paid."

"I have money..."  Ashley nervously and suddenly produced an amount of large bills onto the table that would have been more at home in a brothel than a Panera Bread.

"Woah there!"  Snow quickly flipped the book shut on the cash.  "Lets talk about your homework later.  First, tell me more about the husband...."









Aunt Caroline's resolve had been set the moment her niece was forced to climb in a window just to be able to converse with her.  She would leave him.  She didnt know how, or when, but she would.  The current opportunity, though, was far too sketchy.  She only agreed to talk to the man because of the fervor with which her niece begged.

The arranged meet was Caroline's daily bus ride to work.  Ashley said it would be a man wearing a funny hat, which sounded like a very poor way to identify someone, however the direction became crystal clear when Caroline boarded the bus and saw what appeared to be a homeless man wearing a monkey hat.  He ignored her when she got on.  She sat down across the aisle from him and waved goodbye to her husband.

When the bus turned the corner he suddenly looked at her and smiled.

She asked: "Are you..."

"Yes," said Snow.

Caroline moved to sit next to him.  Despite his appearance he didn't smell.

"Look, hi, I'm Caroline."  She didn't offer to shake hands.

"I'm Snow."

"I don't know what my niece has told you, but I'm really not comfortable with this."

"Of course not.  You don't know me at all."  He handed her a business card.  "Have you heard of my company?"

"No."

"Oh, well then give the card back," said Snow.  "Don't want your husband finding it."

"What exactly do you people do?"

"We specialize in helping people who fall down stairs a lot, or run into doors, or get in the way of swinging bats.  Specifically, via relocation.  We are very good at providing people with an exit strategy, no matter whom their are married to."  Snow's apparent satisfaction with himself probably looked like hubris, but he was really just happy about ending a sentence with a preposition.   It was technically correct grammar, just not something most people are aware of.

"Well...that's very interesting," Caroline tried to stay neutral.  "How did you meet my niece anyway?"

"Math club.  Listen, I'm not here to pressure you.  This isn't how we would normally set this up.  I'm just here as a favor to Ashley."

"Heh.  So am I," said Caroline.

"Fair enough," said Snow.  "But since we're here, I took the liberty of bringing along some references."  he pulled a manilla folder out of his homeless rags and handed it to Caroline.

Inside were names and numbers.  Caroline looked at Snow.

"Previous customers.  Most of them with spouses in law enforcement or intelligence.  We even had one vict--customer who was a dude."

"So I'm supposed to just call these numbers?"

"Ah, yes.  Listen, here."  Snow handed her a black phone.  "This is a Tor-Phone.  Reasonably untraceable and encrypted and all that.  Not the greatest reception but it protects you and them.  When you're done with it, just throw it in the trash."

They talked a great deal more about details...purely hypothetical, of course.

"Oh, this is my stop," Snow said suddenly.  "Listen, if you think it over and you are interested in talking more, just speed dial 1 on that phone.  And then throw it away."

"Thanks," Caroline touched his hand.  "Its nice to know that people are willing to do so much."

Snow smiled.  "Seems like you already have some good people."  He tipped his silly monkey hat and left.

 Caroline would of course never go through with it.  She only accepted the phone and the numbers out of...some misguided sense of politeness.  She put the numbers in the shredder without calling any of them.  She did remember the name of the company though, and googled it later.  And what she found made her cry.

Stories.  Story after story.  News stories, "testimony" stories, internet stories...this place was real.   And one of the videos was an early morning talk show segment about this company.  The content of the talk show was just random polarizing drivel...blah blah blah how do police officers feel about this?  Blah blah established channels?  It was the background of the interview that mattered:  the studio was on the first floor of a building, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a busy city street, and for once there wasn't a giant crowd of idiots standing at the glass to wave at the camera.  Instead, a man walked past, wearing a giant yellow hat shaped like an upside down banana, with peels for ear flaps.  The man stopped, turned slowly, looked directly into camera five, and winked.  Caroline recognized that face.  It was the man from the bus.  It was Snow.

Caroline pulled out the weird techno phone from the man on the bus, and speed-dialed 1.

Turning Points and Roller Coasters

First, exciting news regarding the startup:  someone wants to pay for it.  Wait, let me do that again.  Someone wants to pay for it!!!!!!  YAY.  I'm not sure she wants to pay for the subscription option, but she wants to buy the tablet and software off of us.  This person is not a friend, relative, or acquaintance of anyone involved with the project.  Ladies and Gentleman, this skin care software is worth actual money.


At the day job:  In recent months my work has been like a roller coaster.  Some developments make me want to quit, some make me want to stay a little while longer.  Holy fuck this is so boring.  I'm bored writing about this.  If you've gotten this far, well, that's really great for you.

Socially, I have been consistently having adventures outside of my comfort zone.  Sometimes I step out on purpose;  sometimes New York just throws a curve ball and traps me outside it.  None of the adventures are fit for print, suffice to say that I still eat dinner alone, and it still sucks.

TODO

1. Post a picture of myself with fake marijuana plants
2. waste officers' time

http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2gi920/before_and_after_be_careful_with_what_you_post_on/

That Moment When You Know You'll Be All Right

TLDR

Today's Dilbert is spot on

I always assumed Dilbert was about a generic office, but Scott Adams has some surprising insight about politics specific to software development.  Sadly I am guilty of this one.

In this and other Dilbert comic strips, the complaints devs had about the code that was written before they arrived is usually thrown out as a casual personality quirk.  I'm not sure the author understands that there are very strong business reasons that the existing code is always shit, or that constantly rewriting different piece is the long-term scaling plan.

Dissonance

This is an insightful talk.

This is a hilarious comic.

Quick Updates

Tao of the Gauntlet
Crazy time at work has finished.  We are in the middle of releasing to production with our most annoying partner ever and the idiots in charge fired the entire test team.  Also, my project is likely to be canceled.  Also, my project is likely to be uncanceled shortly thereafter.  I am neither surprised nor annoyed this time.  I am getting very bored, very fast. In order to not be a complete asshat (vis a vis the strings my boss pulled in order to let me move to NYC) I need to last another 5 months. One of those testers was put in charge of my project while I was gone, and having me back probably sealed his fate in the layoffs.  So try to image how he is gonna feel if I quit.  But don't get too many feels, because he's one of the apparently multiple people who didn't know you couldn't put mutable fields on enums in the java language.


The Social Dragon
My volleyball team kicked ass last week.  We normally aren't that good.  It was actually kind of shocking...in this co-ed league the men are typically assumed to be stronger players...so much so that there are not only rules about keeping men off the courts, but rules that disallow them from spiking in the back (guess how I learned them).  Being the horny misandrist that I am, I obviously don't mind, but what was truly interesting about our most recent game was the revelation that the girls are actually the strongest players on the team. Some of them can play all positions, including striker.  I may play with the same people again next season, even though I'd probably meet more people if I just signed up by myself again to be placed randomly.

On that subject, I've been told that there are a lot of book clubs here with hot girls.  Not even kidding; the girls on my team told me that.  A promising change from Seattle, where the book clubs literally bared men from participating.

The Purge
I have nearly reached the midpoint of my stay at this apartment I am subletting, and I still haven't unpacked all of the boxes.  At this point, I'm starting to think I should just leave them like that for the next move.  Having my shit lost by uhaul for so long and being forced to live without it gave me an interesting perspective...it kind of proved just how shockingly few physical objects I actually need for my day to day life.  The rest of them...well is mostly all activity related.  Motorcycles, flying, climbing, skiing, guitars & recording equipment, and computer gear.  And legos.  You would think I could start getting rid of a few of those categories, but I can't bring myself to do it.  I have gotten rid of a ton of books and clothes though.

5 Stars
Learning to cook--for reals and not just ramen--has been on my TODO list for a very long time.  We are starting lite:  I do this new thing where I cut up an entire lemon or lime into slices and drop all of the slices into a glass of water.  Its pretty fucking awesome, because when you use the whole fruit like that, you don't even need to add sugar!

Fatass
Aside from joining a shady gym that is probably going to screw me when I try to quit, I really haven't done much in the way of getting more fit, other than cutting out soda...again.  Except this time I actually cut it out (except for when I go out drinking).  Nevertheless, my weight seems to be dropping slowly.  My theory is it is simply all of the extra walking I have to do to get to work.  I do still want to learn proper weightlifting, but that is perpetually getting deprioritized.

Gnashing of Teeth
Getting a new dentist has been on my TODO list for a very long time.  I'm probably overdue for a checkup by about...as long as I've been here.  So like 3 months.  If I had one, that might have been super helpful, because today, at Panera Bread, I apparently ate part of my tooth.  Didn't realize I was eating it.  I just reached into the back of my mouth with my tongue to check for crumbs and discovered a scary, gaping hole where the last tooth should have been.  There was no pain.  At first, I thought the entire tooth (other than the root) was gone, however after trying to look at it in a mirror (difficult) I'm pretty sure that I've only destroyed part of the tooth.  I had been telling my dentist in Seattle that I don't grind my teeth anymore.  Turns out I'm full of shit.

It is, shocking, I guess, to realize that I am stressed, perhaps mostly because the rational part of my brain thinks that I shouldn't be stressed, and therefore refuses to acknowledge it.  However, now realize that I have a terrible habit of teeth grinding, perhaps at its worst when I am awake, because I've been absent-mindedly trying (and failing) to grind my teeth all day.

The Pain in the Ass
I am losing motivation to work on this start up.  It is difficult to focus on two jobs at once, especially when both are demanding.  I do expect the day job to get easier, shortly, so perhaps I'll find a balance.

In other news, my business partner continues to confuse "important" with "urgent," and the importance of something seems directly correlated with how little this person understands something.

[coding] Making the Enemy Come to You

Previously, I may have written about someone that I got in a fight with at work.  That, or I wrote an unpublished draft and then just complained in person at parties.  I do that a lot now.  Anyway.

The person I got in a fight with is kind of a big deal.  He is basically a manager;  that's not his title but that's the basic role he does.  One of the things he manages is an Android app that uses the thing I own.  We'll call his team "Partner #2."  This guy knows nothing about Android.  It got as far as him being on a call with a bunch of super important people, telling people in my organization that we should rewrite the WebView control.  In two weeks.

Anyway.

My real beef with him wasn't actually the stupidity.  I mean, stupidity by itself?  That's just like a normal Tuesday in the corporate world.  No, this guy decided to (or was told to) use the software my team owns in the android apps his team makes.  So I can understand if he's not happy about that.  I mean my team has literally spent a year and a half corrupting our code for partner #1.  However, instead of talking to us about Partner #2's needs, he had his team just take our source code and fuck around with it.  Then he did come to us, to tell us what we should to with our component, and also to tell us that we should use the same development tools as those fuckers, to make it easier for them to fuck around with our code.

Given that I'd had a constant stream of headaches and a six month project delay caused directly by Partner #1 fucking around with our code, I wasn't about to allow a second partner to do it.  I jumped all over this situation, trying to quash it.  Unfortunately, this guy was better at politics.  He called me defensive or embarrassed or something, so I gave him a list, from memory, of every single problem that happened because partner #1 fucked around with our code, and he ended our conversation.

That was then.  Since then, a bunch of bullshit with partner #1 happened.  We are, theoretically, shipping our crap to them a mere 6 months late.  I've stayed at the office past midnight on a number of occasions in order to make that happen.  I still don't believe that it is going to happen.  For example, those layoffs in the news?  Yeah, they fired the entire test team.  During the test pass.  For the release that is 6 months late and which will slip another two months if we don't get it out in a certain window.  Its cool, though, man, because...because "test automation."

So partner #1 is placated for the moment.  Back to partner #2.  According to the PMs, partner #2 was breathing down our necks for an early drop.  So I burn the midnight oil once more and get the feature working a week and a half ahead of schedule.  And this is where things get interesting, and this is how I accidentally learned a very specific political move.

One of the tricks I used to get the feature done earlier was to not use Test Driven Development (TDD) and, to actually not write any unit tests (yet).  I just coded the entire feature in one shot and  ran a few tests by hand to know if its working.  Without unit tests though, I can't check in the code.  I can only provide the built version by email (obviously since M$ didn't write Git we have to use a centralized source control system instead of Git, and this source control system is allergic to java, so...email becomes a surprisingly key component of our build system).

Sounds like a simple detail, right?  It is.  But it becomes very, very important when you are dealing with a team that needs to stop sticking their fat fingers into your source code.  They need this particular feature I wrote, badly.  They need it more than all of the bullshit reasons they made up to fuck with my code without talking to me first.  And the only way they can get this feature is if they integrate with the thing I own properly, using the built jar file I provided.  This, my friends, is called leverage.  

And, sadly, I literally didn't realize that a strategy like this could exist until I did it by accident.

So, I doubt, dear reader, that you will ever need this exact strategy.  I am simply sharing it to add to the knowledge base that you will draw on for your own political battles.

Unless you work in one of those places where all you do is write software.

They should really make a version of the office, but for jaded corporate programmers....

[fiction] Damaged Goods Part 4

There were a number of horse drawn carts in the street that night.  Fog swelled up from the banks of the river, spillover over railings of the bridges and choking the torches that attempted to light the streets.

It was through this murky scene that a dark red kawasaki ninja 650 burst.  It flew along the ground at unbelievable speed, approaching carriages stuck in mud and careening off the path and onto the frozen river, which made for a much less crowded method of access.

The rider wheelied and slammed the vehicle down in anger.  There was fireglow on the horizon.

Many leagues away there was a castle under siege, its outer walls broken by hellish engines, its battered, starved, and tired knights bending under the blows of ugly, foul, and green skinned but humanoid monsters.  The inner keep, once unassailable, was decorated with assault ladders and potmarked from stone projectiles.  It was only a matter of time.

The captains rallied their troops, falling back, back, back from the hellish green tide.  But then something happened which they did not expect.

The previously mentioned sportbike shot through the outmost gates.  Something had upset the delicate two-wheeled vehicle, and both machine and rider were flung tumbling across the flagstones.  The rider, however, caught the upswing of a trebuchet and, by letting go at just the right instant, modulated the force propelling him in order to fly over the inner walls and land at just the right spot in the courtyard.  He landed, rolled, and skidded to a stop, ripping of the motorcycle helmet and bashing it into the face of a nearby monster.  The man underneath worth a strange, silly hat that looked like a money with white patches.  Pom-poms danced around as he whipped his head around, aiming a shotgun at the far wall.  The first blast leveled three of the invaders at once.

The rider ran up the steps to the inner keep, firing his gun three more times to clear orcs out of his path.  He reached the next level and saw an orc standing over a soldier in plate mail, about to strike a killing blow.  The rider blew that monster away and ran.

Above, he could hear the scream of a dragon.

The rider dove into the thick of the battle, engaging the enemy at point blank range, occasionally parrying a black axe with his shotgun.  Over and over again a pack of monsters would turn a corner and be leveled, one or two or three at a time, until the last remaining would  have hit skull blown apart less than a meter from the business end of the shotgun, body in the air and arm still swinging some melee weapon.  The rider fired again and a again, reloading on the run, until he was out of shells.  Moonlight gleamed off of his motorcycle armor as he pulled his sidearm out and began shooting with that.

The dragon flew around a tower and bathed combatants in flame, not really caring which side they were on.

"I'm coming for you," said Snow Monkey.

He ran, up, up, up, through the inner keep, to its roof, up more stairs through towers, more stairs, more towers, and then up to an impossibly high and long bridge.  His quarry was ahead, occasionally appearing out of the black smoke, only to disappear again with the beat of its wings.  He had it.

Snow Monkey reached the edge of the platform.  He readied his gun, sprinted, and prepared to leap, until--

An enormous bright glow ushered out of the clouds, accompanied with a ringtone--10 notes of a poorly synthesized flute.  It was a giant cell phone, and the screen said "Incoming Call ... Dave."

Snow Monkey slipped falling backwards, but he had too much momentum.  The gun flew out of his hand moments before he slid off the end of the ledge, falling face first into the black-

"Snow!"

Snow Monkey burst upright in bed, nearly colliding with Nika's head.  Outside, a storm raged and rain poured down the windows.

"Are you ok?" asked Snow.

"Me?  You were practically screaming in your sleep."

"I was just chasing a dragon."

Nika looked at Snow with that mixture of disbelief and ambivalence that he knew so well.

"If you're having trouble sleeping," he said, "we can cuddle, but you take big spoon."

Nika slapped him, hard.  Then she pointed in his face.  "Go the fuck back to sleep, and be ready tomorrow.  I want top five."

"Good night pumpkin," Snow Monkey called out as Nika left his hotel room via the adjoining door.

One day, he told himself, he would catch that fucker.

Ride or Die

There's not a lot you can do after working 10 hour days at your current job.  But there is some.

Well, really, its 10-12 hours days, plus often 1 day on the weekend for the day job.  Then I spent whatever is left of my brainpower on the startup.  Then, we are also trying to get around to unpacking boxes and buying more shelves.  I literally don't have room to unpack more objects until I buy shelves.  And then, also, we are trying to build a social life, starting almost completely from scratch.

Fortunately, I'm pretty damn sure I can do this.  My current situation at work...well I'm the one who got myself into this.  Yes, we have a demanding client that expects bullshit from an invisible spec, and teammates who didn't know you couldn't really put mutable fields on enums (FUCKING HELL), and yes we have some project managers that seem to be in constant denial.  However, well...let me make an analogy.

Picture yourself coming up to a yellow light on a motorcycle.  You slam on the brakes, stop way faster than a car could, and come to a rest just before the line just as the light turns red.  You watch the cars about to cross the light when BAM some idiot in a car (and not a duck boat--if it was a duck boat...fuck those cunts) runs you over.   Whose fault was it?  It was your fucking fault (again, unless it was a duck boat, in which case we should trade information so I'll have more incidents to report the next time I proactively contact another victim's lawyers).  The universe doesnt care who was legally at fault, and its not going to unsnap your spinal cord just because you followed the rules.  No.  You got on a fucking bike and drove on public roads, with all the idiots in cars.  You should have known better.  You should have checked your mirrors and possibly ran the red instead of stopping.  You should have tapped your brakelights on and off when you slowed down.  You should have sat with your hand squeezing the clutch, the bike in gear, and your eyes watching the car behind you approach in your rear view mirror, ready at any second to punch it and get the hell out of there.  It was your fault.

In the same way, my project situation is my fault.  I knew that Shitty Customer #1 was not going away, and I knew that the mediocre dev who is barely able to absorb their interference was going on my vacation.  I also knew that my predictions were falling on deaf ears.  Still, I made a schedule that would assume I could dedicate all of my time to Customer #2.  Yes, the schedule was padded generously, but generously wasn't good enough.  What I should have done was push my estimates to the breaking point, padding them to such a ridiculous extent that my manager almost overrules me, and everyone--or just the test guys--think I'm  full of shit but can't prove it.  That is what I will do next time, because I will learn from this, and this isn't happening again.

My current predicament will last until the end of July.  That's when my code is supposed to be done for Customer #2.  So, yeah, I fucked up and it cost me more than a month of my life, but you gotta learn from this and move on.  So the schedule after July can be fixed.

Until then, we're gonna have to keep it pretty damn simple.  The programmer I contracted for the start up is...sadly...not quite good enough.  I trust him with small, easy to code features, and that's about it.  So I guess I don't have a great plan for this one.

However, the social thing...that's simple.  Obviously I'm going to continue playing volleyball, and then whatever sport comes next, and after July I'm going to find a salsa or bachatta class.

July is not going to be fun.  I'm going to be overworked, and I'm going to be alone, and every time I feel sorry for myself I'm going to remember that I'm the one who didn't pad my estimates enough, I'm the one who made the schedule, and I'm the one who is about to make overestimating tasks an art form.  Of course, "overestimating" isn't really the right word if the end result is simply working a reasonable 8 hour day.

[coding] Code Crime

Please, consider the following:

public enum EventType {

    SOME_EVENT,
    ANOTHER_EVENT;

    public long timeElapsed = -1; //and this fucking gets set at multiple places in the code
    //and why the fuck does this compile?!?

}


That is all.

When asked why we can't do this, a monstrous, unstoppable tide of righteous anger smashed into an immovable bastion of self control, and I ended up growling "Its an enum" through gritted teeth.

[coding] Fucking Programmers, Part 2

Continuous Integration is a subset of Continuous Deployment, that sexy thing that programmers managers love to talk about getting it.  I actually had a service called Pokey that was fully on Continuous Deployment, and had a checkin-to-production time of 6 minutes.  Unfortunately my manager, Mr. Crankypants, told us to turn it off for unrelated reasons, but I still remember how easy it was to get there.  So, I went ahead and designed a continuous integration system for my current team.  You check in, it auto builds, and it automatically runs the tests.  My manager was super impressed, and this was probably the biggest contributor to a promotion.  Unfortunately (foreshadowing), no one else on the team seems to understand or recognize the point of continuous integration.

Anyway.

I was only gone for three months.  In that time, the team managed to:

• make dozens of sloppy changes without any regard to design
• introduce a feature that only works because of a memory leak
• broke continuous integration, and never fucking checked it, so that
•  we can no longer automatically build the drops to give to customers
• and the tests no longer run automatically
• broke the command line form of the build, which prevents us from automatically generating documentation, and also is going to look make us look like fucking morons as soon as anyone outside the team finds out
• broke the unit tests
• broke the test ads by commenting them out, instead of moving them to the test project
• including a special test ad that I spent a week convincing a team to write for us specifically so we could automate more testing

Again, this shit was working when I left, and it is now broken.    They pretty much broke everything--everything automatic.  There is this test framework that you have to run manually.  Its called "automated test framework," so that's funny.  The manually automatic framework does work a little, except for the broken tests.

I am gaining a very interesting perspective on software development.

[coding] Fucking Programmers

At work:

Intro:  one of the devs--my only dev--seems to have improved considerably during my absense.

Foreshadowing:  seems to

So, he copy and pasted one of my unit tests, and then he uses a FIVE MINUTE THREAD SLEEP in his fucking test.  Who the fuck thinks that's acceptable?  That's worse than a broken test.  When a test is broken, you look at the error message and figure out why.  When a test thread sleeps for a whole 5 fucking minutes, you start to wonder if the ADB bridge went down, or maybe Eclipse put itself in a deadlock, or maybe your fucking phone crashed.  Who knows?  You don't, because you're just sitting there reading reddit with the frozen junit test in the corner of your eye.  The entire test run takes--or should take--less than 5 minutes.

And the most annoying thing is, it doesnt have to be 5 minutes.  I've already written the configuration override gear that lets you change the timing values in the unit tests.  In fact, the lines that change similar config values were part of the shit he copy & pasted from the test that I wrote.

Five fucking minutes.

At the Startup:

The contractor I asked to integrate dropbox functionality has managed to find some kind of mysterious Android SDK that does not appear anywhere on the fucking dropbox website.  I don't even--wait, I just figured it out.  Man that just goes to show:  if you want to solve a mystery, start bitching about it on blogger.

Anyway.  Dropbox thought it would be fun to have one API on their website, complete with documentation, and then another, completely different API, in the .zip file that you download when you download the SDK.  I'm not even kidding.  There isn't a single class file here that matches anything on the website documentation.

Normally, when I write java code, I use a special javadoc website called google, where I just type something like "java InputStream" into the magic box and the javadoc is the first thing that pops up in the search results.  Unfortunately, "java AndroidAuthSession" does not return anything useful.    I'm going to have to actually manually navigate this javadoc folder in order to find the documentation I need.  What am I, Amish?


Conclusions

My accomplishments for the day include fixing the unit tests that someone else broke for the second day in a row, and also finding a javadoc hidden in the bowels of a zip file.

Imagine

Today, one of the devs on my team sent me an IM.  He mentioned a current issue we are dealing with, and then referenced a specific line of code.  For a brief moment I experience some kind of profound joy.  I thought to myself, "this must be what it feels like to write code with other people!  I want to do this more!"

Then my coworker proceeded to suggest that we solve a performance non-issue by introducing a race condition.

I'm going to remember that feeling though, and I'm going to find good people to work with, somewhere, somehow.

Days of Future Entrapment

Image you are at home watching fighting on the TV and hear a knock at your door and you find two obnoxious strangers wearing white shirts and ties who ask you:  "Do you have time to talk about gay people?"

Thanks to some incredibly poor dialogue that is how it feels to watch most of the X-men movies--but not the recent one, not Days of Future Past.  Days of Future Past has actually replaced such preaching with plot and character development.  And don't worry, the plot does still revolve around the struggles of a minority that is different from others.  I could have used more fighting though; there were only two battles of consequence, and they were extremely short.  Still, it was the best movie.  

In other news, I tried to meet some girls on craigslist.  I was both disappointed and intrigued when I found that I was talking to, allegedly, two ladies of the night.  The plot thickened after about two carefully worded emails exposed them as cops.  Now, I don't know what the going rates for a likely STD-ridden blowjob, but  175 "roses" sounds ridiculously overpriced.  I briefly considered setting up a meet with them and bringing, literally, 175 actual roses, however since roses do have a real value, they would count as consideration, and I could probably still be arrested.  So instead I told them that I hope they get shot the next time they make an arrest, and they responded with an email full of curse words, mostly in all caps.

Won't Look Down Won't Open My Eyes

1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 drink

1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 drink

1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 drink

Throw 'em back till I lose count

I've been in NYC for about a month now.  You might be wondering how it is going.  I have ten drafts  of blog posts detailing the misadventures so far.  Unfortunately, the bar for that shit making it onto the open internet keeps getting higher, mostly because I have become sick of my own whining.  The only things that need concern me now are the things that I can change.

On the subject of things I can change, I have made some progress.  Even though my furniture and most of my clothes are still allegedly en route (more likely on the bottom of the ocean or in some police officers house), I have started buying new clothes.  I found some affordable button-down shirts at some store called Uniqlo, and I look pretty damn good in them.  I intend to buy enough so that I can wear them every day instead of my standard short-sleeve-over-long-sleeve-t-shirt look (with optional REI jacket) that I have abused far past the point where it became a de facto uniform.  So, you could say that I have now improved my fashion sense to where it was when I was 24.  Still counts as progress though.

Next, I signed up for some sports league...it was probably volleyball.  So I signed up for that, and also I'm going to start going to a drop in class for On2 Salsa.

I googled something about "best restaurants for solo diners" and I will start going to those restaurants alone.  I don't really like dining alone, but apparently that's what you do when you...are alone.  I have tried drinking in a bar alone recently and didn't like it.

On the subject of friends...I am effectively starting from ground zero here, and I am not sure how to break in.  In Seattle I invited people over to play that Settlers game...unfortunately I have like no furniture and my apartment looks like the battlefield where a war took place among factions of sentient cardboard boxes.  I actually have a number of people in the Philly area that I want to invite up to hang out in NYC but I have nowhere for them to sleep, except for possibly a couch.  Maybe I should just spend a few weekends in Philly.

Work is exhausting.  I spent 2 hours crafting a single email today.  The email was mostly successful in its purpose, but afterwards I felt like I needed a cigarette, and I was too mentally exhausted to get real work done the rest of the day.  Right now, I literally don't know how I will find the time to survive at work and also get this start up off the ground.  At my day job, I have people filing bugs on my team because our software fails to live up to what is effectively an imaginary Feature Spec.  In fact, you could say our feature spec remains in a permanent state of quantum superposition.  You can't know if something is in the spec until a team files a bug about it.  In the future I am going to try to not hold myself responsible for everything that happens on this project, but how do you come home exhausted from all that and then work on a completely different project?

The startup is an even bigger problem.  I can't quite tell you what happened, but there has just been major drama between the founding members, and the one who doesn't do any coding is now taking a 2 week vacation from not coding.

I was at a wedding over the weekend.  My family seems quite distressed that I am still single (I am the last unmarried member of my generation) and they seem to believe that the reason I am single is because I've had no one to tell me who to talk to, tell me who to dance with, or manipulate me into sharing a 10 hour car ride with someone.  Their constant interference caused my wedding game to suffer, although I have to admit that talking to girls is already close to impossible if my family is around.  The reason for this is difficult to put into words.  Anyway, I don't know what my romantic future holds, but it has become clear to me that I must walk this path alone.

But none of that really matters.  You know whats really important in life?  I need to go on a fucking roller coaster.

[fiction] Damaged Goods

Part 1:   Snow

"I see her face all the time," said Jason.  "I can't forget it."  The pensive look on his face was priceless.  He looked like the quintessential pro-army, politically correct soldier sitting there on the bar stool:   broad shoulders slumped but only a little, large forearms on the bar, and a crew cut.  He was every right-wing parents' wet dream.

"So, like, even on the toilet?"  The question was serious, and it game from a man, perhaps we should say man-boy, who looked quite the opposite.  He loomed on the bar stool like a vulture, his muscled yet wiry body twisted as if it was designed by God to be impossible to straighten.  His skin was racially ambiguous: dark, but not very dark.  Possibly just permanently tanned.  Atop his head rested a silly hat in the shape of a white monkey, and it had two pompoms hanging down next to the man-boy's cheeks.  But if you knew him, it was the eyes that gave it away.

"No, of course n--huh.  That's weird."  Jason thought for a moment.  "No, never.  I wonder why."

"So, and this is just an option here, but option 1:  remain on a toilet for the rest of your life.  Unless I've jinxed it though.  The next time you're dropping a live one you'll probably think of her again.

Jason face-palmed.  "You are not helping."

"I'm probably the last person you should talk to about this."

"You're the only person I can talk to.  All of my friends are shitheads, military assholes like me, or just naive dumbfucks.  You're the only one who's morally ambiguous."

"So you ...ah."  Snow leaned in and touches Jason's shoulder.  "It's not your fault," he said, voice thick with melodrama.

Jason shoved him.  For a second something hostile flashed in his eyes.  Then he stared at the bar again.  "Is there anything that will make me forget her?"

"Oh you mean like, substance wise?"

"Yes."

"Of course."

"What, uh...what would you recommend."

Snow waved to the bartender.  "Jameson, for this guy.  Lots of ice; he's a giant pussy."

Jason looked as his new drink.  "I don't mean alcohol."

"Bottoms up!" Snow said, and reached over to click his fruity drink against Jason's glass.

Jason took a careful sip.

"Seriously...there are a lot of substances you might use to forget what you did, and alcohol is just as effective as they are."

"You mean, they aren't effective at all," said Jason.

"Well yeah if you want to be a downer about everything."

"Snow I only shot a single person while I was over there.  That person was an unarmed woman."

"That is bad," stated Snow with the enthusiasm of a fifth grader answering a question in class.

"I could have helped more people simply by not enlisting."

"Well, that's not necessarily true.  Obviously there would have been a different guy in your unit, and he might have shot two women."

Jason glared at him.

"I'm fucking serious dude," said Snow.  "The world isn't full of angels.  Sometimes you can help people simply by doing less harm than the other guy."

"I guess..."  Jason looked around the room.  "There are some cute girls in the corner."  His voice betrayed the awkwardness of the change in subject.

Snow looked.  "Ooooohhh yeah Daddy could hit that."

"Which one?"

"Huh?"

"Which one could 'Daddy' hit?" asked Jason.

"Oh, well I mean if I had to pick just one...the blonde one."

"They're both blonde."

"The blonder one."

Jason squinted at the girls, trying to figure out what Snow meant.  By this time the girls had realized they were being stared at.  One of them smiled back.

"You want to take one home?  I'll be your wingman," said Jason.

"Meh," Snow whined.  "Not tonight.   I mean I'd love to, but my place is a mess, the jacuzzi is broken, my hands are still fucked up from the Harley incident, I have no wine whatsoever, no candles...no oil...no whipped cream."

Jason stared blankly.

"And all of my vibrators are in Florida," said Snow.

Jason choked on his whiskey.  "Holy shit dude," he coughed, "I meant take her home, as in just make out on the couch a little."

Snow blinked.  "Oh people still do that?"

"Ok, just..."  Jason waved his hand around his head a little.  "Back to my thing."

"Yes, back to your murdering spree."

"I only killed one person."

"So not much of a spree then."

"Of course not!  Do you think you're being helpful right now?" asked Jason.

Snow shrugged.  He looked up at the ceiling, eyes darting back and forth, as if he was choosing between two options.

"Here's another way to look at it.  You know who Jenny McCarthy is?"

"The red scare?"

"Oh fuck no, wrong witch hunt.  No dude Jenny here has caused the deaths of thousands of people.  She didn't kill them herself, but she found paper in England or somewhere that claimed vaccines caused autism. The guy who wrote the paper lost his license for fabricating the data, and every study since then has failed to show a link, but..."

"Accusations are page A;  rebuttals are page B."

"Exactly.  This bitch spawned the modern, american anti-vaccination movement.  We lost herd immunity to diseases that have been gone for 100 years.  Children died.  Babies died."

"Jesus," said Jason.

"So you think about all of the little babies who came into a doctors office with their entire life ahead of them--babies too young to be vaccinated yet--and they get whooping cough from Johnny over their who could have been vaccinated but has a bunch of dumb fucks for parents.  And multiply that by a hundred, or a thousand."

"Yeah but she didn't shoot those kids," said Jason.

"Who gives a fuck?  They're still dead.  Have you ever watched a baby die on a respirator?"  Asked Snow.

Jason looked a Snow, searching his face.  Snow's ambivalence was legendary, like some kind of twisted super power.  Misdirection, half-sarcasm and full out lies were his bread and butter.  But the words 'baby die on a respirator' had come out of his mouth with an earnestness Jason had never heard before.

"No," said Jason.

"It's not much better than watching a bitch bleed out," said Snow.  The callous words sounded fake.

"Come on Snow.  Give me something.  I can't block this out.  I don't want to go crazy, be one of those guys-"

"You will block it out, and it will mean you're crazy.  Still might be better than this.  Or not.  I can tell you, if you want to get over it, you gotta ride it out, and it will be awful.  Or, you can bury it so deep you will never remember."

"Does that work?"

"Worked for me.  I have no memories of 2005 or 2006.  None."

"At all?  Where were you?"

"I don't know."

"Where were you planning to be, I mean you remember where you were in 2004, right?"

"I don't like to think about it."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to know.  Becoming a nutcase in order to block out a memory doesn't do much good if you go back and try to remember what happened."

"Was is something you did?"

Snow Monkey shrugged.

"What if someone--someone from 2005--comes after you."

"We're all from 2005.  Except for--"

"You know what I mean."

"I'm more dangerous than I look."

"Snow, no offense, but I could take y-aaaaah!"  Jason's bar stool slid out from underneath him, and he hit the floor hard.  Snow's right foot inconspicuously came to rest on the rungs of his own stool.

Snow got up and dropped a fifty on the bar for what could have been no more than $20 of drinks.  He stood over Jason and said, "I'll leave you to your demons.  Oh, and you know we're not friends, right?  I mean I can definitely do favored acquaintance, but friend is too much."  He might have looked intimidating if not for the swaying pom-poms of his hat.

"Go to hell, Snow," said Jason.

Snow smiled, winked, and left.

Probable Cause

 Any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no
 statement to the police under any circumstances.

--Justice Robert Jackson

I'm not sure what other people call them.  I call them guides:  people willing to drive faster than you, perhaps because they accept more risk, or they are locals and have more situational awareness.  Naturally I have no issues swallowing my pride and moving out of the way so they can take the lead and I can trail a half mile back, hoping that any law enforcement officers will pick on the first guy.  All of this is occurring at exactly the speed limit, of course.

Anyway today, I discovered a flaw in this system, when the guide is willing to go...significantly faster than you were expecting.  So much faster that catching up to them requires speeds you might not risk even with a guide in front (again, this is happening at or below the speed limits).  So just imagine what could happen were you to try and catch up to a guide, but you are too far behind to realize they have slowed down just behind a police car.

In other news, I got my second ticket today.  He accused me of going 93 mph.  However, the ticket is not the interesting part.  The interesting part is what happened between the time I was pulled over and the time I was handed the ticket.

When I pulled over, I decided not to be a dick with the 1" window thing, because, since the cop was moving, I figured he didn't have evidence and it was worth playing nice.  Unfortunately, when he asked where I was going, and I said "East" and glared at him, he told me to get out of my car and come sit in his car.  The cop talked about how a lot of drugs are coming out of Washington now, and...I have Washington plates!  He continued pressing me for more information.  I told him that I wasn't going to answer any of his questions, and I didn't consent to any searches or seizures.  Just like the internet videos said to.

Unfortunately, real life is very different from theoretical courtrooms.  The officer spent roughly forever summoning a second officer and a K-9 unit.  Now, I've never had drugs in or near my car, but for some reason when the drug sniffing dog ran straight up to my car and indicated, I wasn't surprised.  I couldn't see what the K-9 officer was doing;  I don't know if he gave the dog a hand signal to indicate or not.  So then they took all my shit out of my car and started going through it.

So, for those of you who care, this is where the whole "rights" thing breaks down:  drug sniffing dogs apparently alert at anything, and that's all they need for Probable Cause.  They are like 4 legged, barking Probable Cause factories.

And this is where I broke my own personal rules, because they obviously found a lockbox containing some rather important personal documents, and I, picturing those documents catching fire as they cut the box open, elected to tell them where they could find the key.

As I watched them I tried to steel myself for whatever could happen.  Sure, I was technically innocent since I did not (and have never) possess any drugs.  However, as John T. Williams can tell you, bullets still kill you if you're innocent.  And though being shot in the back was [hopefully] not likely, there was nothing I could do to stop them from planting drugs in the car in order to save themselves from embarrassment, and I'm pretty sure we were within 100 miles of the border so they probably could have anally raped me.

However, none of that happened.   They didn't even take my car apart or rip up the upholstery like they did to that black guy from colorado.  The K-9 officer tried to give me a good cop talk about how the other cop was a nice guy and this all could have gone differently.  He also decided to explain that--surprise--these dogs generate a lot of false positives.  I directly insinuated that the false positives called into question the validity of the probable cause generated by those dogs, and he became visibly annoyed.  There was also a lot of talk about all these drugs coming out of washington, and how they didn't profile me based on my washington plate, or based on the fact that I invoked my 4th and 5th amendment rights...it was some kind of other set of things that gave the first cop reasonable suspicion to order a drug sniffing dog.

I think I learned a lot from this incident.  No, I did not learn some gay lesson about being more cooperative with cops.  Fuck those cunts.  I will seek to establish a more nuanced method of asserting my rights.  Honestly, every time I read another news article about some guy getting pulled over and having his car ripped open or whatever, I keep thinking "if only I had been there, I would have not said anything except for 'I dont consent to any searches or seizures' and I would have won the encounter!"  It turns out, I was wrong about that, because I finally had my shot at it and I fared not much better than the colorado guy.  So I feel like I can relax while reading those articles, instead of trying to be an armchair lawyer to a news story.


Obviously I spent the rest of the night thinking about this incident.  So far my best ideas are:

1) get a solid block of steel (or titanium?  tungsten??) and put a fake lock hole into it, so the next time this happens, they will have a hell of a time attempting to cut it open.

2) Sue them for an illegal search.  I'm not actually certain that is a real thing.  I do know that illegal searches aid the defense in court and can cause all evidence gained by and after the illegal search to be thrown out.  However, that doesn't mean the police have civil liability if they perform one.  Still, you could probably sue them for profiling.  I suppose it won't hurt to ask a lawyer about it.

The downside of suing them, though, is this:  the only reason I am not dead, or in jail, is because at least two of those cops were honest.  They didn't handcuff me and choke me, or shoot me in the back, or plant weed in the car and pretend to find it.  They apparently honestly thought a drug runner would carry drugs in a fucking Subaru WRX with a Washington plate and drive 93 miles an hour (their words; not mine).  That notion is actually so ridiculous I almost laughed in the cops face when I realized he thought I was carrying drugs (if I ever decide to be a drug smuggler, I am going to use drones).  Anyway.  The point is I am alive and safe because of honest cops, and if I sue the department in an effort to stop them from profiling Washington drivers, I am concerned that I would be harming the wrong people.  Then again, thinking "I'm not going to answer your questions" gives you Reasonable Suspicion is pretty shitty.

So...in conclusion, fuck cops.

A quarter mile at a time

Its 4:30 am local time and I made it to Sheridan, Wyoming.  Not bad for my first full day of driving.  However I spent 17 hours on the road, and especially after yesterdays moving fiasco, my bad and legs are killing me.  I think I even got tennis elbow from just holding onto the wheel for so many hours straight.  Still, I kind of want to see how fast I can cross the U.S.

Taking a small 10 minute nap, even if you can't fall asleep for most of it, can actually really help with staying awake on the road.

Got my first speeding ticket of the trip in Montana.  The speed limit is 75 but they still make a big deal about going 90.  What's the point, then?

Unfortunately they won.  I obeyed the speed limit (my version of obeying, which is speed limit + 10, in order to exceed the limit by at least 5 after accounting for a speedometer that reads high) until I left the state, since I don't want to get more than one ticket per state--makes it harder to fight them.

I want to investigate mounting an infrared camera on my car.

Coming Home

Its 1:06 seattle time and I am enjoying my last "dicks" burger before I hop in my car and head east.

Moving out was a disaster.  I could write pages upon pages on the misadventure but I only have one hand to type bc I am eating.

So...anyway.

The End of the Internets

The FCC is pretending to listen to the public.  I guess I will also write them an email.  I'm not sure what good it will do, since I don't run a giant corporation and therefore can't promise any of those fuckers a six figure salary in exchange for doing what I want.

Did the FCC make that failed proposal on purpose?  Why the fuck are internet service providers not classified as common carriers?

Maybe the next time one of comcast's marketers calls I'll tell them "I only want to buy internet from a company that is classified as a utility."  Fucking cunts.

That Couch Really Tied the Room Together

Trigger Warning:  couches

and as we wind on down the road
our shadows taller than our soul
there walks a lady we all know
who shines white light and wants to show

I have been packing for weeks, putting more and more of my shit into boxes, and, ironically, the more shit I put into boxes, the worse my apartment gets, because shelves are coming down, and I was surprisingly efficient when it comes to storing an enormous amount of physical objects in a one bedroom apartment.

Until this point though, it didn't really feel like I was actually about to move.  My close friends here keep bringing it up, telling me to stay, calling me an asshole for leaving (its how we show affection).  I've been shrugging it off because what the hell do you say to that?  I can't be honest and tell my friends I will actually miss them...that would single-handedly destroy everything I appreciate about our friendship.

Anyway.

Tonight, I put my awesome couch on craigslist for a mere $100, and less than an hour later I had a giant empty space in my apartment.  And most of that hour was spent trying to navigate the couch through various paths out of the apartment.  I probably should have charged more but thats not the point.  The point is that with the couch gone, it has finally hit me that I'm fucking leaving. 

The falco is probably going next.



*in real life this would totally have been a comma;  I'm just correcting the grammar for your convenience.  You're fucking welcome.

Ideas as multipliers of execution

I'm not sure I buy into this completely, but it is an interesting idea.

Lift Turn Brake

Yeah, so, I went to rally school.  It was fucking awesome.  And it is amazing how a person can have driven so many thousands of miles while being so incredibly ignorant about how cars work.  For example, did you know that it is possible to literally steer with the brakes and not the steering wheel?  I was holding the wheel at a fixed position, but the car was going left or right based on what I did to the brake pedal.  It was surreal.

I could go over the events of the day and embellish things in the write places...like the time I was so bad in an exercise my instructor made me do it an extra 3 or 4 times while the entire class watched, however despite how awesome the experience was it would probably make a boring story.

I got some good pics to make my life looking exciting to NSA spooks and random acquaintances on facebook.  I also got a GoPro video of my performance on the last exercise, however my performance was absolutely abysmal.  There were a few turns that I did correctly, however even they don't look good from that camera position.  So no one is gonna see that footage unless we edit in some european rally cross.

If any one asks, though, I did awesome.  And we had a race at the end.  And I won.  And also Jennifer Morrison and Jenna Coleman were there.

[coding] How to Code Review People You Like

People who visibly save thousands of dollars are rewarded better than those to silently prevent the loss of millions

--me

I originally wrote this as an answer to a question on a reddit thread, and then realize that the poster (or "OP" in reddit lingo) probably has no interest in reading it.  So, I'll leave it for you guys!


In a software company, a Code Review is a development practice that can make one or both participants look good, or bad, and can be used to slow down a check in.  Sometimes people also find programming flaws.



Your true motivations in a code review can very widely.  Maybe you need to subtly delay a co-worker's check in so that you don't have to deal with an inevitably ugly merge.  Maybe you need to make a show about due diligence while  stealthily introducing a "feature" that is going to make another team's on-call really unhappy in about 12 hours.  Maybe you are code reviewing a friend and you want to make him look good.  Maybe you are code reviewing an enemy and need to make him look bad.  Maybe you are code reviewing an enemy that thinks you guys are friends, and you need to make him look bad without him realizing it.  Maybe you need to code review an idiot, but in such a way as to cause him to accidentally learn something without bruising his ego.  Maybe you need to bait someone into giving you a positive or negative story for peer review time.  Maybe you want your team to lose face.  Maybe you are taking salvos in a religious war about code style, or a religious war about SOA frameworks, or a religious war over configuration, or a religious war with some dumbass principle in another org, or a religious war about some dumbass thing a guy wrote before being promoted off to VP where he can't do as much damage.  Maybe you have your own agenda you are trying to push, because if everyone stops doing this 1 stupid thing, you can decrease your servers in production by about 80% (remember:  people who visibly save thousands of dollars are rewarded better than those to silently prevent the loss of millions).  Maybe you need to make sure there are no bugs or other flaws in the system because you are on call next week.


I'm going to assume that you like these guys, and you have no interest in harming their careers, or making them or their team look bad.  I'll also assume that you have no styling agendas you need to push, and there is no bad blood between your teams.  If any of those assumptions are wrong, stop reading, because you would need a completely different strategy.

If that's all true, then you're job closely aligns with the original intent of the CR:  to improve code quality.  That's the benefit of CRs.  The cost is time.  CRs are not magic, and they are not free.

Every good suggestion you make saves time and money (especially if you prevent bugs going to production).  Every dumb suggestion you make wastes time--time spent arguing with you, time spent recoding, time spent retesting, time spent on CR #2.  It can also cost you social or political standing.  Since you have no interest in embarrassing these guys, or slowing down their checkin, you want to be careful not to make any dumb suggestions.

Based on the tone of your question, it sounds like you are unfamiliar with any standard style guidelines at your company.  You should find out if there are style guidelines for the project.  If there aren't, DO NOT make style suggestions (I'm assuming you dont want them to hate you), except in cases of extreme stupidity.  If there are, you might get away with selectively nitpicking the ones you care about.  If you have your own personal style religion, advance it at your own risk.

Next is the design.  In general, Java devs usually have a hard on for over-designing things that will never change, while ignoring things that are about to.  Interns that have just taken a "software design" course will probably be even worse.  Keep a look out for any major flaws, however restrict your comments to things that are both obvious and easy to explain.

Next, look for dumb mistakes.  The tone of your comment should convey a belief that these guys are smart and it was a slip of the keyboard, even if they are idiots (especially if they are idiots).

Next, look for things that are unclear.  If they do anything weird, they need to add a comment, and that comment needs to answer the question WHY.  Most idiot programmers add comments that answer the questions WHAT or HOW, and then get all pissy about being forced to write comments.  However if its a small check in, and they dont need to change any code, and you're not trying to slow them down, it is probably not worth it to ask them to write comments--unless you also tell them that you don't need another CR iteration before they check in (by the way, the 'I don't need to look at it again' thing is how we...nevermind).

You need to review your own comments.  If this is more than a few lines of code, and it is a public CR (i.e. the whole team, or your boss, or the whole org is going to see) you need to make sure you look like you've given a good review--most of the HR "career management" bullshit about what a great developer is at places like Amazon/Netflix/Microsoft/whatever is tied to people (all people, including idiots) thinking you give good CRs.  Go through the code again, and make sure you nitpick according to the beliefs of anyone important that might see your review.  Are we supposed to hate ThreadLocals?  Bust on them for using thread locals.  Are we supposed to love ThreadLocals?  Find a volatile variable and and ask them it should really be a thread local.  Does the Principle dev hate ThreadLocals while your own manager loves them?   Do whatever it takes to make sure that all of the people with political power think that you have the same beliefs they do.

Also, with most corrections, if you are not blindly reciting things, it is always better to ask, because you still look like you believe all the right things, while they are still held accountable for their answer.  If anything goes wrong, you can say you had to "disagree and commit" or whatever the appropriate corporate lingo is.

You know, this makes me wonder if you could make a sort of "House of Cards" with programmers.

For more information on code reviews, programming style, and working for a large corporation, please see this guide on software development career management.