Sailing: An Odd Essay

Trust & Machines

The more I work with computers, the less I trust them.

Please keep in mind that I do adore the things. Photoshop, blogging, video games, eBay. I dare say the course of my life would have been quite different, had I been born 15 years later and had access to all these wonders at the reasonable prices they cost today. I certainly wouldn't spend so many lonely hours trolling eBay for antique typewriters, that's for certain.

Then there's what I've come to think of as the dark side of computers: accounting programs, inventory management, billing software. And at the heart of all these dark applications lies the database.

Simple databases are buggy enough, when you're just using one table to track a single set of data, like a card catalog or an address book. You mis-type things. You don't notice when the cursor jumped to the wrong field.

When databases start to get relational - customer data linked to purchase history linked to inventory - and when you have a whole organization of employees and managers pounding new information into these things on dozens of terminals, they're a nightmare.

Well, maybe you don't have nightmares about these things. But anyone with my low-grade level of OCD can probably sympathize.

What really blows me away is the amount of trust we invest in these systems. "Computer says...so must be true." As if no one could have entered the wrong price for a product, no programmer could have plugged the wrong constant into his code for calculating a tax. As if no hard drive ever degraded and corrupted its contents.

I once worked at a small tobacconist where our system's reports told us we were doing millions of dollars in sales every day. Millions!

We had to throw out months of reports. Eventually we realized the system was multiplying the price of each item by the square of the quantity to give us that item's sales total. If someone bought five cigars, the system reported as if they'd purchased 25.

There's no good reason for that.

There was no easy way to get in to the source code, so we tried calling the software vendor to get them to fix the problem. Unfortunately they'd gone out of business - one month after cashing our check for the next year's tech support. (Oh, how we trust our machines and the folks who build them!)

Also:

A friend of mine was hauled away in handcuffs after being pulled over for a routine traffic stop. An outstanding arrest warrant claimed he had deposited a year's worth of his deceased mother's social security checks into their joint account. Pretty serious charges - you can understand why the officer was so aggressive.

But the bank which had filed the charges had mis-entered the date of the mother's death in the system. They were off by one year. After paying bail and spending a night in the hospital with life-threatening high blood pressure, my friend received an apologetic letter from the bank. Still, there's no reason for that.

And now:

I'm working as a picture framer for an art store. I like it. It's a handy trade and a challenging combination of the visual, physical, and intellectual. We use a stunning pneumatic CAD driven mat-cutting machine and we have software that'll show you what your artwork will look like framed up in the moulding of your choice. This thing does ovals, embossing, scrollwork, lettering, reverse-bevels - you name it. When I saw this thing my inner-child started doing somersaults.

Unfortunately the computer also does our price quotes.

There are some fairly tedious calculations to be made when estimating a framing job: glass, mats, labor, mounting, and linear feet of moulding all have to be considered. The software does speed all this up, which makes things more comfortable when I'm facing an impatient customer. But sometimes the prices are unreasonable. Museum glass often comes in too low, and plexi might as well be plutonium as far as the computer's concerned.

"Where is it getting these prices?" I asked the store manager.

"Well, it's supposed to download them directly from the vendors, but those didn't seem right either so we just went in there and set them ourselves."

"For every possible size?"

"No, you put in for the sheet and the computer figures down for the different sizes. Somehow."

Worse, the system doesn't leave any wiggle-room for when you want to lower your price for a good customer or an easy job, or raise it for some extra-special service. So right now we fudge such calculations with the cryptic "extra fitting charge," which we can't set precisely but usually kicks in at an appropriate amount for that little something extra. If we're really going the extra mile (with custom calligraphy work, or hand drawn french-lines, for example), we can charge for the "extra fitting" two or three times. But every time we do this we have to make copious hand-written notes on every copy of the invoice so that customer, framer, and accountant all understand.

There's no reason for this.

And wait! Once that's all been fudged to perfection, we carry the invoice over to the QuickBooks Point of Sale system and enter the total over there, since the framing computer can't handle all the transactions we need the sales computer to handle. Where the framing computer doesn't allow us the flexibility we need, Quickbooks leaves itself so open to tampering that any one of us can log into any record and monkey with quantities, prices, tax rates - whatever. It's a good thing we all trust each other. (It's a great crew. Like I said, I really enjoy the job.) But the potential for hitting a couple wrong keys and trashing the sales history is immense.

Hmm. This has devolved into a rather dull work-related rant. So here's a deep observation to make up for it: 95% of this millennium's "Modern American Experience" is comprised of these frustrating moments we spend with our machines. We may have wonderful times with them too, but if we're not careful, these petty disasters will come to overwhelm the collective consciousness.

We don't want that, do we?

Anyway, here's my two-pronged reaction to computers. When we use them to create things, I'll embrace them. What artist doesn't want a soft new set of brushes? What carpenter declines a box of shiny, cutting-edge tools?

But when they're applied to record-keeping, administration, or finance: it seems the only logical response to computers is wariness and distrust. I know I sound like an old codger here, and a dated codger at that. "You kids with your darn-fangled computer-boxes!" But it seems like we've grown more comfortable with these things as they got more powerful. We're oblivious to the fact that Moore's law is multiplying the potential for mistakes as fast as it multiplies processing power. I'm not complaining about "kids with PCs." Kids don't scare me. What scares me are the mouth-breathers at the RMV who enter all of our personal information into a database that could get us arrested if they make a single mistake.

We owe it to ourselves to fear the information that's gathered, processed, and displayed in databases. Is that really your bank balance? Have you checked? Has any human checked?
(And just how do they go about calculating your credit score?)

When information is about us, we need to question why it's been gathered in the first place.

Dungeons & Dragons Flashbacks & The Writing Process

Remember when you were young, and Dungeons and Dragons did your world-building for you?

Well, maybe you don't, but I know there has got to be a reader or two out there who understands: those fantasy-gaming books gave you endless ideas about what could happen in a shared, participatory fantasy universe. 

Sure, they offered a few guidelines about what probably wouldn't happen, too.  They were rule-books, after all.  But in the end, they were just suggestions. 

So that was just it: anything could happen.  It was up to the Dungeon Master, and sometimes the Dungeon Master was you.

* * *

I played during the era of the first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) rulebooks.  I had quite a few of them: all 15 hardcovers and over a hundred modules and guidebooks. 

It was the crudity of the illustrations that makes me recall that edition with such fondness.  I never purchased any of the later editions (I think they're selling the fourth edition now).  When I flip through the latest offerings at the bookstore, well, the rules seemed just as complex and earnest, sure, but the art has evolved into this slick, glossy, and soul-less illustration style, and it puts me off so badly I can't read enough to discover how other things have changed.  (That, and I don't have the time to get into D&D again at this age.)

But I do notice that the game designers seem to have shifted their focus away from the role playing and more towards game boards and miniatures.  It looks too much like playing a board game.  What I liked most about AD&D was closing your eyes and listening to the Dungeon Master, absorbing yourself in the story to the point where you inhabit the body of your character in that world, and then rolling some dice with the sense that there were definite consequences to the results. 

And because those illustrations were such crude line-drawings, they merely hinted at what you had to build in the mind's eye.  They didn't fill in too many details.

These later editions make characters and monsters look like slickly rendered cartoons; for some reason I can't take them seriously. 

* * *

The Dragon's Club met every Wednesday at the community college, all ages welcome.  About 14 years ago, a few years after I stopped playing regularly, I hauled my collection of first edition books over there hoping to dump the box on some enthusiastic collector for around $75.  Of course no one who plays D&D carries that kind of money, so I ended up setting up a cafeteria table yard-sale style and spent the evening doling books out for a couple of dollars each.  Lots of the younger kids had to wait for their parents to come pick them up before they could give me any money, so I had to stay late, but not too late.

I understand they talked about my visit for weeks, after.  "There was this guy here with first edition stuff going back to the early 80s!  He was letting it go for two dollars a book and lots of it was in mint condition!"  I ended up making a lot more than $75 and had an unexpectedly good time hanging out with everyone. 

It almost made me consider picking up the dice again.

But by the time I sold those books, the Magic the Gathering card game had grown into a behemoth that dominated most of the Dragons Club meetings.  People weren't telling stories and building worlds at the tables any more.  They were playing cards.  Cards! 

I've never been interested in card games.  They have boring, inflexible rules.  And "Magic" was crassly, if ingeniously, commercial: players had to keep buying and collecting cards in order to "build their deck" into something that gave them an advantage when they played.  It was like baseball cards, on crack, for nerds.  I wanted no part of it. 

Besides, the artwork on those cards was even worse than the second edition rule-books.

Plus, I had a girlfriend by then.  My D&D days were over.

* * *

But I had an unwarranted emotional flashback today that had me remembering them.

Summer vacation used to mean the freedom to write all I liked, and to go for long solitary walks where I could imagine I was exploring the Dragon Lance or Forgotten Realms campaign setting.  I loved hiking the rutted trails through the woods that cars had not used in decades: I could imagine that these abandoned routes had never hosted anything more serious than a horse-drawn carriage, and that some filthy hamlet was waiting over the next hill (with a fully stocked tavern, armorer, and provisioner, of course), and that every hill might be warrened with miles and miles of tunnels and chambers, and plenty of treasure to gather if you were strong enough to fight and had enough potions on hand to survive your wounds.

Then my walks would carry me out to the power lines where I could contemplate the warring wizards who had built all these mysterious towers (if you squinted and let your head play with perspective, they looked big enough to live in, and miles apart) and contemplate about their motivations and how many scrolls and gems they might be hoarding.  Then I'd go home, write it all down, and quantify it into an adventure I could run my friends through when I rode my bike to their house the next day.  (For a kid who played D&D, I was in pretty good shape.)

It was a dorky way to spend the summers, but it was rich in stories and in metaphor, too. 

* * *

Metaphors: I loved the idea that wizards studied hard every night to memorize spells, and that the knowledge of those spells wove patterns in their brains, and those patterns harnessed energy in different ways (from the raw blast of a "fireball" to the subtle domination of a "charm person").  Then, when they cast the spell and the energy was discharged, the information they gained from studying was forgotten until they studied it again.  I liked the idea that casting a spell was this draining thing, this exercise of mental muscle.  I liked the idea that as you got smarter and gained power, the simpler spells drained you less, and more powerful levels of magic opened up to you. 

Wizard magic was wild and hallucinatory, but it had an elegant logic to it which, as a piano student, I really understood.  (Playing a piece of music is draining, but the more times you study and perform a piece the easier it gets.) 

As I watch my mother-in-law succumbing to Alzheimer's disease I'm reflecting on wizard-magic again.  What vast powers has she unleashed throughout her life, that the patterns in her mind now un-weave the way they do?  Why can't she just crack open her spell-book and study to get those powers back again?

Probably because she misplaced the damn thing, is why.

Anyway, I liked that wizards started out their lives weak and vulnerable--practically useless, able to cast just one low calibur spell a day--but as they gained power and experience they came to dominate the game with magic like "fly," "polymorph other," "flesh to stone" (and its rather nauseating reversal spell), until they mastered the ultimate power-fantasy, "wish."

I rarely played wizard characters, though, because you had to earn a lot of experience points before you gained the levels that granted that kind of power.  D&D was all about levels, and a 30th level wizard represented a lot more accumulated experience points than a warrior or a thief. 

And frankly I didn't have the patience to stay with any one character all that long.   That's probably why I usually volunteered to Dungeon Master.   For some reason I did have the patience to draw elaborate maps and type up 60 page adventure modules detailing the contents of every chamber and clearing, including many that players might never discover.  (Lord, how one hopes the die-roll allows one's players to discover this or that secret door.  That's why so many DMs roll their dice behind a screen.  They need to bend the laws of probability here and there when the story demands it.)

* * *

I wonder, now, what it would take to bring that sense of obsessive passion, joy and wide-eyed discovery that motivated me to write page after page of gaming material to more "serious" writing pursuits? 

"Serious?"  Maybe that's the problem.  I'm taking the whole process too seriously.  Consider:  

1. I don't have to invent a universe whole-cloth.  Why not borrow wizards and elves and rogues if I want to--enough other folks are doing it.  (Well, I'm not really interested in writing a fantasy novel, but maybe I could loosen up with some fan-fic.
2. The prospect of sharing a story with a small group of three to five friends used to be more then enough to get me excited about fleshing out this or that villain, monster, or plot-twist.  So maybe a bit of collaboration on my writing projects might get them feeling fresh and exciting again. 
3. I'm not out to change the world.  That small audience of three to five is enough to consider when I'm pounding the typewriter.  A few interesting folks in a rich-enough world will find enough ways to get themselves into trouble if I can just learn to sit back and let it happen. 
4. I do have a day-job.  Rather than lamenting the time that eats up, why not embrace the editorial freedom granted by the fact that I'm just doing this for fun (instead of watching TV or playing video games.)  Paying my own bills does grant the freedom to around in here having fun with my typewriters.

So: embracing terrible fiction in the spirit of Dungeons & Dragons.  How's that for a resolution for the Fall? 

Or maybe I should just apply to get a job with these guys. 

(Don't tell them what I think of their artwork!)

American Prison Culture Proves America Hates Freedom

This is perhaps the most horrifying thing I have read in my life: a full 1% of American citizens are in prison. 

That's a huge fucking number.  Go to a football game and look at that crowd of 69,000 people and think about what corresponding number of American prisoners that represents: 690.  190 people for a concert at the Garden.  The television audience of American Idol corresponds to 355,000 prisoners. 

How many students were in your high school graduating class?  400? 

Four of them are in prison.
   
Over three million people nation-wide.

How many wasted man-years of human potential does this represent? And what does it say about our culture that we value incarceration enough to spend sixty billion dollars a year locking away that many people in horrifying conditions at any given time, while we can't provide health care, education, or even a baseline standard of living to our people? 

I simply cannot believe that three million Americans - one in a hundred - have done something bad enough to warrant being locked away at any given time. 

And when you add in how many non-prisoners are affected by that number: the spouses, children, parents, and friends of the incarcerated - it boggles the mind.  All of those people become part of American Prison Culture.  What percentage of America does that represent?

Something has to change.  Bush can't blather on about how "Terrorists hate freedom" while ruling over the country with the largest incarcerated population on the planet.  (But I'm wrong.  He already has.)

We have more prisoners than China, more than Russia. 

Our prison population is greater than the population of 22 of our states, greater than the population of 86 countries world-wide. 

The outrage over Guantanamo Bay and Abu Grhaib centers around the fact that, whatever horrors your enemy perpetrates, once you perpetrate them yourself you have no right to fight those enemies on moral grounds.  You've come to share their values!  We forfeited our right to consider ourselves the planet's moral compass when these atrocities occurred.  And it was depressing enough when America devolved from a beacon of hope and freedom to a horde of invading executioners in the Middle East. 

How much worse is it to discover the extent to which we are abusing our own citizens? 

The Salem witch trials happened over three hundred years ago, but manifestations of the darkest corners of our imagination are still celebrated, and profited upon, by the prison lobby.  Check out this restraint chair, no doubt manufactured by a company doing just fine in the blossoming prison market while the economy of the rest of the country withers away.

Three million prisoners.  Heironymous Bosch could not have imagined it. 

The dark ages of America are today, and for a centile of our citizens at least, America is Hell on Earth.

Monty Among the Chickens

These chickens grew up around a little dog.

The dog stayed small and they got big.

Royal Blue Baby

It seems I've been on a half-crazed heroin drug induced orgy typewriter binge since The Wife brought me that roadside freebie IBM Electric.  We've since dug my old Smith Corona Portable out of storage and cleaned it up with rubbing alcohol (note to self: do not apply rubbing alcohol to the painted finish of any more typewriters) and brought home an Oliver No. 5 from a junk shop which needs a lot of TLC and maybe a machine shop to get it up and running again.  We've purchased an IBM Selectric I upon which I can type as fast as on any computer but with a lot more noise.  And I've discovered Monda's lovely web-site, for which I blame the full resurgence of this old obsession. 

All of this culminated in the ultimate yard-sale find: a Royal Portable in powder blue, fully functional, in near-mint condition in it's original case.  The Wife scooped it from a yard sale for the grand total price of two American dollars.

 
This thing worked out of the box case without a hitch.  (Well, I did have to adjust the margins.)  The next novel can't be too far off!  And if I can get the rest of my collection to perform as well as this old stalwart, I'll have found an obsolete trade to support me into obscure old age.

She didn't tell me about it, either.  Instead she waited for me to walk up to my desk and discover a mysterious blue briefcase, open it, and discover the surprise.  A happy blessing on a day when I was looking for blessings to count! 

Now, anyone know where I can find a spare ream or two of onionskin paper?