Sour Swinger Predominantly follows my Army & Iraq Deployment. Also has some Geek, School, and other talk.

How I Arrived Here
I stumbled upon this comparison when visiting a friends blog. Jessie had posted a comic that summed up, briefly, many aspects of a geek. One of which was libertarianism. Of course the joke related to Ron Paul, but this post is not about what political ideal Ron Paul truly follows. Jessie didn’t understand the relationship between computer scientists and libertarians. Truthfully, I never noticed there was a correlation. Well perhaps I did, I just didn’t ponder much about it.

I began thinking deeply about the question, but failed to formulate any sound idea. Since I am a libertarian and a computer scientist, I was left perplexed. I gave my first gut thought on Jessie’s blog, but it was more of a joke and directed more for geeks as opposed to programmers. Most of my friends are geeks and programmers from school. We’ve engaged in political talk time and time again. Many are in fact libertarian or at least follow many libertarian view points. So it would appear the correlation exists.

The Article
This must have equally bothered Jessie because she dug up a blog post that talked about it. More specifically, a blog post that reposted an article by Stuart Reges. The article is somewhat lengthy, but quite fascinating. He explains how libertarians think so differently from non-libertarians and effectively correlates that with programmers and non-programmers. I highly recommend taking a look, however for a quick over view I’ve written a short summary of the key points.

Summary
Stuart talks about his background briefly and an interesting analysis of results of a computer science AP exam back in the 80’s. He develops a theory stating computer scientists have of model of computation and can “play computer” in their head. Stuart goes on to explain this concept with a typical story seen among his TAs. He then relates this to libertarianism by the same type of connection. A programmer’s model of computation is to their ability to “play computer” as a libertarian’s model of interaction is to their ability to “play society”. He continues by giving examples to back up this claim:

Libertarians are able to look at a given law or government ruling (a piece of code segment) and tell you exactly how it will effect society (overall program). Libertarians will also try to solve the problem not treat the symptoms. This was the classic problem seen by his TAs. Just as a programmer can abstract away certain layers of code, so too can a libertarian abstract away certain layers of government. Libertarians will also follow “top-down programming” principles with their decentralize government thinking. Let higher levels be independent and handle few tasks, while the lower levels handle more of the details. Finally, he states libertarian thinking can be answered with mathematical certitude. If two Libertarians disagree, each asserts the other has a flaw in their logic.

Conclusion
My summary is very simply and leaves out a lot of details. It doesn’t do the main article any justice. I found Stuarts thinking dead on and made perfect sense to me. Perhaps the programmer in myself prevented me to step outside the box to understand how I think like a libertarian or vice versa. If I’m ever faced with this subject again, I will be better prepared in formulating my thoughts. Perhaps when time allows, I’ll make the same connection from a different view point since a non-programmer may have trouble understanding the arguments made in the article.

This weekend, well this extended weekend, I reported to Hamburg for drill. I say extended as it started at 1800 on Thursday which caused me to miss all my Thursday school classes. Thursday was just the pack and bus ride to Ft. Dix, NJ. The ride itself (2-3 hours) involved the bus driving over rumple strips, curbs, and yes…a fire hydrant. It came as no surprise that we arrived with a flat tire. It also came as no surprise seeing that this guy was the driver:

SSG Hornberger (aka Hornpappy or Horny) is the old oldest guy in our unit. Rumor says he served in Vietnam, Korea, and possibly WWII.

Friday started a long and cold day at the rifle range. Up at 0440, with chow at 0530. Nature was kind enough to grant us a day full of below freezing temperature with snow, followed by a slight enough warming to get freezing rain. The precipitation never let up either. A lot of soldiers were having major issues with their weapons malfunctioning due to all the mud. FYI, M4s will start failing with just a little bit of sand/dust.

Qualifying at the range is a timed (per target) event with only one bullet per target with 40 pop-up targets appearing anywhere from 50 to 300 meters. I managed to qualify with a 29 out of 40. Not bad considering every time I loaded a magazine, 2 or 3 bullets would pop out and jam my chamber and effectively loose those rounds. The magazines given were extremely worn out and bad. Another issue everyone had to deal with when firing.

Released at 2130 I went to take a shower only to realized I forgot to bring body soap. As such I was forced to use the hand soap in the bathroom. I found myself continuously walking in and out of the shower in order to get all the required soap. Very annoying. I was so drained from the cold, long day that I hadn’t even realized when I fell asleep. My guess is around 2230.

Saturday, we got to sleep in until 0530. Nature brought better weather, as in no precipitation, but still managed to be below freezing. Since I managed to qualify on Friday, I didn’t have to go back out to the range. Instead I partook in a series of classes. The funnest being reacting to enemy contact. The day was pretty low key, ending with weapons cleaning, and finally being released at 2130.

Sunday was easiest of all the days, which is normal for these types of drills. Basically it entailed barracks and orderly room clean up, packing, and driving back to home station. Followed by unpacking, cleaning of the armory, formation, and dismissal by lunch chow. For some odd reason, we had to clean the snow off all the Strykers too. I think it was just more busy work.

There’s plenty more pics of our training on my Flickr.

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I’m sure no one will agree with the decision but I’ve decided to add some advertisements onto my blog.  I tried my best to keep it as non-intrusive as possible.  Just a list of links on the right panel, and a Google search bar at the top.  I figure if at least one person clicks on it in a month, it’ll be worth it.  Hoping I can get something to offset the cost of the web space and server.  Let me know what yous think.

I put off calling Circuit City until last night because I didn’t feel like dealing with them right away. Honestly I’m not really pissed because I’m very happy with my MacBook and have no intentions to use the Tablet again. However, for the phone call I had to get into “angered” customer mood. It can actually be a fun game since the person on the other end thinks your seriously nuts.

My initial call did not go well for the recipient. I didn’t catch her name, but upon getting her I immediately requested the supervisor. She wanted to first get my case # to pull up my info. Understandable. I acted a bit frustrated because I (seriously) didn’t have the number. Right off the bat I realized she was “fragile” as my frustration caused her to get frustrated. Eventually she found my info and continued to ask what the problem/issue I was having. Yet again, I said I’d rather talk to your supervisor.

Now, I completely understood what she was trying to do. She wanted to get all the info possible and perhaps deflect me from going to management. She went about it all wrong though. If you’ve ever seen The Negotiator, then you’ll understand when I say…never say/imply no. No I can’t right now, I need more info. No if you just wait one sec. Not at the moment, hold on. Her such phrases were all the wrong answer. Had I seriously been pissed it would have further escalated the situation, however to keep with the role I got more frustrated with each no.

Finally, after realizing I wasn’t getting anywhere with her I said “Look, I can either yell at you or your supervisor. Which would you rather?” At which point she half wined/choked “don’t yell at me” and click…I was hung up on. Wow! She was audible very emotional and did the worst thing ever. Sooooo, once again I had to go back through the calling process. Luckily the wait was no more then a minute.

The next person I got was Roman. Roman had a very heavy southern accent but handled my “frustrations” excellently. He came across has very sympathetic to my issues and could understand my frustrations. He never once implied or said no. In the end he successfully deflected me from wanting to speak with management. I left the conversation feeling somewhat satisfied. Mostly because he informed me that if it returned broken again, they would simply give me a brand new Tablet. Go Lemon Laws!

I also qualified for a random survey. Had I not been hung up on, I may have missed the opportunity. Questions relating to Roman, I gave very good responses, however those relating to service and Circuit City I gave horrible ratings. All bad ratings they offered me to state why. (This survey was automated.) Of course I accepted and gave very precise and intellectual as possible details. I also agreed to be called back if they had further inquiries. Hopefully my complaints will go somewhere.

You know, I’m really getting sick of this broken Tablet. Is it that difficult for Circuit City to repair it right? I mean…come on! This will be the third fucking time I have to send it out for repair. At least this time they didn’t break something in the process of fixing one thing. They simply forgot to fix one of my problems.

In case you missed, way back in the beginning of January my Tablet PC was suffering from a faulty DC jack, a broken USB port, and a broken stylus. I sent it in for repairs, waited 2 weeks and got back a Tablet who still had a broken stylus and now couldn’t run for more then a few minutes because the PC fans wouldn’t turn on. So I sent it back again for repairs. Well now the fans work but they totally neglected the faulty stylus!

At this point I have to play the “pissed off customer with a vengeance part”. I really hate making myself mad, but I feel I have no other choice. Yet again, this proves why my impulsive MacBook purchase has really turned into a blessing. Another 2 more weeks of wait, here I come. I just really want to sell the thing and be over it. Since they already replaced the stylus once, I’m wondering if there’s just something more then the stylus that needs fixing?

Well…Circuit City…be prepared because I’m about to get John McClane on your ass.

Misc Pre-Record Talk
Advertising can really do wonders for a website. More specifically proper target advertising can. As such, I’m not one to really advertise my blog unless its relevant to something. Case in point, the 24 Hour Ride of Love. I found it a great opportunity to really use my site for something more than casual talk. Since my main intent behind this (at least when I started) was to blog my deployment, the Ride of Love provided a testing ground to practice the necessary blogging skills.

The process basically entails a lot. Such as the taking and uploading of “good” pictures, as well as how to correctly recall and type an event in some interesting format. To those who truly know me, I’m none of the above. I’ve always hated taking pictures and writing about things. I’ve never kept a journal and only recently started collecting photos. About the only thing I have going for me is my ability to verbally tell stories well, a trait inherent in most my family.

It looks like I’m starting to go off topic, but suffice to say the Ride of Love proved to be an eye opener for me, and I feel have need to really improve. Anywho, since most my teammates requested pictures from the event, I found it easier to send one mass email to everyone pointing to my Flickr page, as well as the links to my blog depicting the event. The best way to do so was through our clubs list-serv. Its mostly used by club members, but its open for anyone to use. Its purpose is to find fellow bikers to go cycling with. Going for a ride Saturday? Email the list-serv and see if anyone wants to join. As such, there probably are a few non-club members on there…at least I thought.

Records
The day I sent the email, yielded a HUGE jump in my stats. My blog saw 53 visiters in one day! I know that’s nothing compared to most, however consider that it shattered my previous record of 19 set by Steev. The page views reached 173! Breaking the previous 53 set by Steev as well. Even the after shock, day after the email was sent, grossed higher stats then my previous Steev records.

The Flickr stats were even more incredible. I attained 1,549 views on the first day alone! Holy shit balls of fire! The after shock yielded 780. My blog stats got me excited, but the Flickr results…left me speechless.

Conclusion
First, it would seem most people are more interested in solely pictures then the actual logged event. Second, the power of advertising to a target audience really seems to work wonders. Third, if I get these results with a simple one day, local cycling event, I can’t imagine the numbers I’ll see when I do this for my Iraq deployment. Fourth, the Pitt Cycling list-serv has more non-club members than I originally thought. Fifth, had I kept with Picasa I would have never known any of this as there is no stat tracking.

“See, as a guy interested in getting a girlfriend, I am looking for a girl who I am friends with and also attracted to. I want someone who I enjoy spending time with, and also want to…spend time with at night.

But girls like to separate those two aspects of their relationship with the opposite sex. They want a guy that they sleep with but hate, and they want to have a guy who they’re not attracted to at all to be their best friend so that they can complain about the first guy to him.

This is the ‘friend zone’ that most people talk about. It’s also related to the idea of a first impression being critical: within about an hour of meeting a girl, and sometimes even sooner, you’ve been placed in one of three categories:

1) Friend
2) Fuck
3) Forget

Once you’re placed in a category, it’s extremely hard to move out of it and into another. If you’re in the ‘friend’ category, a girl won’t even consider sleeping with you…you’re like another girl. If you’re in the fuck category, a girl won’t bother sharing anything with you, she’s got friends for that. If you’re someone she doesn’t care for at all, you’re forgotten and discarded.

Women finally succeed at having long term relationships when they realize that one and two should be combined in the same person, and when they find a person like that, it works out well.

I would say that guys do this too, but if a guy talks to a girl, he’d probably sleep with her. There are very few girls who get kept around who he wouldn’t, and they fulfill some other sort of need. But generally, from the guy’s side, they’re always open for a move forward.”

~~~Steev