On movies...

The earlier post about Click got me thinking about movies some more, and I realized something: Generally speaking, I don't take movies seriously enough to dislike them.

I think this is a specific application of my dad's equation S=R/E (satisfaction equals reality over expectations). When you take something seriously, your expectations tend to rise, and if the reality of the experience isn't sufficently high, satisfaction drops. But if you don't take the film too seriously, you're more apt to enjoy it...

I think it's also a specific application of my preference for imperfectionism.

Smartest Man in the World

Check out Saul Colt's blog - he's "the smartest man in the world," and has some very cool stuff to say about a lot of different things...

And I love one of the comments Andy Nulman made on one of Saul's posts about indie publishing being the new indie rock... Suddenly, I feel 100 times cooler!

Updates

Just a few thoughts and comments, in no particular order:

One of the cool things about Lulu is that it lets you track sales / downloads in realtime. So, I'm excited to report that The Simplicity Cycle book is moving! It's been downloaded over 100 times (whee!), and... people are also buying the print version (whoo-hoo!). That's particularly cool because the downloads are free, whereas I make a little moolah on the print version (emphasis on little). Big thanks to all my blogger friends (new and old) who have helped spread the word!

Watched "Who Wants To Be A Superhero" last week. It was just as corny and cringeworthy as last season. The show is embarrasingly lame. We watched every single episode last season, and even though (just like last year) we said we won't watch anymore, there's a good chance we'll watch the whole thing this time too. It's like a trainwreck - I can't turn away. I also can't believe my lovely wife watches it with me... and I can't believe how badly I want to be on the show...

We're on the road today, taking the kiddo's up to the grandparents for a week by the lake... while Kim and I get to do fun things like 1) close on our house, 2) clear out the basement to get ready for the packers 3) attend a bankrupcy hearing for a lady who owes us money 4) hopefully catch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the theater.

I'm still not quite finished editing the Boomer Sisters #3 - hoping to do that this week too...

Simplicity Cycle Review!

Chet Richards is one of the last surviving "Boyd Acolytes," and is the leading authority on the work of Col John Boyd. He is a regular contributor to "Defense and the National Interest,"and I had the amazing opportunity to hear him present an updated version of Col Boyd's famous "Patterns of Conflict" briefing a few years ago. He's amazing.

So, I was bowled-over to see that he wrote a glowing review of my Simplicity Cycle book for DNI. It's not just the kind of review I wouldn't dare dream of - it's a review I wouldn't have even imagined dreaming of. To be mentioned in the same breath as Sun Tzu, Jonathon Livingston Seagull and The Elements of Style - I can barely wrap my brain around it.

I really love how his review captures what I was trying to do with the book.

Dan Ward’s entertaining little primer on the subject won’t teach you anything about simplicity that you don’t already know, but it may remind you of some ideas you’ve forgotten. One of these, probably the most important, is that simplicity requires lots of hard work, conscious, ruthless, and creative work.

The last paragraph is my favorite:

Ward, in the manner of another system simplifier, Sun Tzu, doesn’t offer up a cookbook for creating systems. Instead, he proposes and, by using clever graphs, illustrates several themes that, if you ponder them, can set you on the path to designing emotionally rewarding systems. Like Sun Tzu or Jonathan Livingston Seagull, or The Elements of Style, this is a little tome that you can keep in the center drawer of your desk and take out from time to time just to glance through. The book is obviously the product of its own advice: simple, functional, elegant.

Presidential Politics and the Web

I wasn't particularly impressed by the CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate the other night... It just didn't seem all that different from a town-hall style meeting (note to CNN: overhyping things is kinda dumb). I guess the idea of people submitting questions from far away doesn't strike me as all that innovative, even if the question is submitted online in the form of a video. Oooohhh - they submitted them online! Wow, I bet they were in full color too!

Anyway, Bill Richardson just sent me an email about his new Ask Bill feature. Here's a short excerpt from his note:

Today we've launched a new feature on our campaign site that we're calling "Ask Bill." I love answering questions, and I love talking directly to people, so that is exactly what "Ask Bill" will be -- direct questions, direct answers, directly to you.

You submit your questions through video, email or an online form -- whatever works for you. And I'll answer them on video -- clearly, honestly, and without any pundits cutting me off.

Now that is what this Web 2.0 / Cluetrain / "Join the discussion" internet thing is really about. Skip the middle man. Go directly to the Man Himself.

Even if I didn't already like Bill Richardson, I'd admire this move. In fact, I'd be glad to see all the other candidates follow suit. I bet they won't...

Click!

When I think of Adam Sandler, for some reason I think of screwy, low-brow humor (in the best possible sense of the term), even though he's done sweet romantic comedies like 50 First Dates, which I really enjoyed.

Anyway, I recently rented Click, looking for a light, make-you-laugh comedy. I'm not very critical of movies - I tend to enjoy just about every movie I see, and I really enjoyed Click. I think Sandler is not only funny, he's surprisingly thoughtful. Christopher Walkin was pretty fantastic as Morty, the guy who gives Sandler the "universal remote." David Hasselhoff had some of the funniest moments on screen, and I didn't even recognize Rob Schneider at first, in costume as "Prince Habeeboo." But despite the impression I got from the previews I'd seen, Click wasn't just a light comedy. It definitely made me laugh, but it did more than that. It also made me want to spend more time with my kids.

Not that I needed much prodding! Even though I really enjoy my job, I make it a point to skip out of work early on a fairly regular basis, to go play with the little fairy princess-artists-munchkins who live in my house. I hope I do it often enough. Not because the work doesn't matter - but because family matters so much more. I also make it a point to take vacation days on a regular, random basis - in addition to the normal Christmas & summer breaks. I'm always amazed to hear of people who have 60 or 90 vacation days stored up... and even more amazed by the excuses they give for not taking a break.

So - it was a cool movie. It surprised me by providing more than just laughs, and it reminded me of what's really important. Maybe viewers with more sophistication than I have would call it cliche'd or have other critical comments, but I'm glad I saw it...

Spreading ideas

One of the most fun things about the internet in general (and the blogosphere in particular) is the way it helps spread ideas. I seem to be having some success in this area on two big ideas I'm pushing pretty hard: distributism and The Simplicity Cycle.

First, The Distributist Review mentioned my "Distributism and Web 2.0" essay (I probably should have come up with a better title than that, shouldn't I?). I'm a little bit surprised nobody else has made the connection between these two ideas before now, but go ahead, google Distributism and Web 2.0. Only 540 pages come back, and 5 of the top 6 links are to my stuff!

Then, my buddy Andy "Surprise!" Nulman mentioned the reverse-shoplifting / International Guerilla Marketing Campaign for my Simplicity Cycle book. It was his idea in the first place, and he's one of the Unindicted Co-conspirators, which I think is awesome. I know his blog gets way more traffic than mine does, so I'm excited to see what this might lead to...

It's an amazing age we live in...

USAF Hunter/Killer UAV

The AF recently deployed a new UAV, the MQ-9 Reaper. Its predecessor, the MQ-1 Predator, was designed as a surveillance unit and later equipped with 2 Hellfire missiles. The Reaper, in comparison, was build to do the hunter/killer mission. It comes off the assembly line designed to carry 14 Hellfire II's.

Ordinarily, I'd be very excited about this. Somewhat to my surprise, it turns out I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I love the UAV concept. From a design perspective, UAV's are smaller, cheaper, simpler (no large, expensive, bulky life support gear) and in some ways are more capable than manned aircraft (they can pull more g's, since they don't have to worry about a pilot's physical limitations). They help keep our guys out of harm's way. These are all good things. I know fighter pilots tend to dislike UAV's, but as a general rule of thumb, I think UAV's rock.

However... I'm having second thoughts. I'm concerned they dehumanize war, by further removing the people pushing the button from the people who are on the receiving end of the munitions. As a wise man once said, "we kill too often because we make it too easy." (that was Batman, from the Dark Knight graphic novel).

Now, I'd love to see a day when our UAV's fight the bad guy's UAV's, and when the robots are done blowing each other up, the people on the other side surrender without any bloodshed. We're obviously not there yet, but wouldn't it be nice?

One other factor is that UAV's tend to be very, very precise. They help us minimize collateral damage, and that's a good thing too. So it's easier to take out the bad guys and leave the innocent civilians alone.

Like I said, mixed feelings...

Work...

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

- The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

In other reading news...

Alongside Harry Potter, I'm also reading an amazing book by E.F. Schumacher, titled "Small Is Beautiful." It's a wonderful exploration of "economics as if people mattered." As you might have guessed, Schumacher's ideas are very distributist (or decentralist, to use the term from the E.F. Schumacher Society's website).

Here's a short excerpt from his essay titled Buddhist Economics (demonstrating that just because he's a Christian doesn't mean he can't recognize the truth & beauty found in other faiths):

The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless.

To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence.

Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.

Imagine what would happen if we had greater concern for people than for goods...

Finished!

I finished Harry Potter #7 last night, and all I can say is wow.

I think it was the best of the series. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say I loved it. Some of my favorite characters died - very sad - but they were brave deaths, good deaths...

Great story, great characters, great message. Yeah, I've always liked Star Wars, my earlier post not withstanding - but holy cow, Harry Potter #7 was fantastic.

Adorable

Took this photo with my cellphone the other day, while we were out at the school parking lot trying out her new bike (that's it in the background). She put on my baseball hat and sunglasses - too cute!

Wish I could take credit for the artful composition. The truth is, she moved (or I did), just as I clicked the button. I like how it came out.

Bottlecap Tripod

I recently heard about a "tripod" that uses bottlecap to connect a camera to a screw-top bottle - it comes from Japan, and costs about $10.

Then I found a DIY site that shows you how to make one for about $4.

There's so much about this concept that is just RIGHT. It's simple. It's inexpensive. It gets the job done. It's clever. It's portable. It's something you can make yourself (very distributist, I might add). It uses existing resources (or more accurately, re-uses them, as in Reduce-Reuse-Recycle).

I just might have to make one myself, just on principle... and I'm sure I'll use it a lot more than the large, heavy tripod I've got in my closet.

PM Boulevard

PM Boulevard, an online program management journal, just posted it's latest issue.

I mention that because they reprinted the risk management article Quaid and I wrote for Defense AT&L (The Pursuit of Courage, Judgment, and Luck: A Rogue Risk Management Rant). It's the "featured article" on the Program Management tab (you'll need to register to read it - registration is free).

The original article is here (no registration needed).

Harry Potter -vs- Star Wars

The final Harry Potter book comes out tomorrow, and I can't wait to read it (after my lovely wife does - she's a much speedier reader than I am). And since young Mr. Potter is in the news, I thought I'd pass along a quick comment.

Some people (Christians in particular) object to Ms. Rowling's positive depiction of magic. That tells me they either 1) haven't actually read the books or 2) didn't understand what they read.

Now, I'm not one of those who thinks the books are covertly Christian or anything like that, but neither do I think they're advocating evil behavior. In fact, one of the things I love about the HP books is fact that evil is portrayed as destructive, unattractive, greedy, ugly, half-dead, etc... as it should be.

And I greatly appreciate the fact that the HP marketing machine hasn't pushed the bad guys on us. You can buy a Chocolate Frog or a bag of Bertie Boyt's Every Flavor Bean, but there aren't any kids running around in Voldemort costumes on Halloween. Nobody thinks Wormtail is cool, despite his shiny silver hand. Nobody aspires to be like Draco Malfoy. That's a very, very good thing.

Compare this to recent Star Wars movie, in which the demonic Darth Maul is clearly portrayed as one of the coolest guys on screen - he's got the best weapon (double-light sabre), and his face is plastered all over t-shirts, halloween masks, etc. Where was the moral outrage over this glamorization of evil? Why weren't there any hand-wringing magazine articles about the positive portrayal of evil in Star Wars, both on screen and (especially) in the merchandise. Not that I want to see more hand-wringing... my point is the people who object to Harry Potter are barking up the wrong tree.

I'll take Harry Potter over Star Wars any day.

Whew!

Did an 8 mile run with a bunch of cadets early this morning... I held up better than I thought I did (and I didn't finish last!). I'm sure my knees will have something to say about it tomorrow, but the weather was wonderful, the scenery was great, and I'm glad I did it (and I'm glad it's done!)

Dan Ward Online - Update

I added a few new things to my Dan Ward Online research page. Mostly just links to interviews and articles which have been mentioned here previously... but there are also a few new, never-before-seen bits, down at the bottom.

Check out Karl's Big Idea and Krog's New Weapon for a little light fiction (with a point). I wrote them with my buddies Gabe and Quaid a while ago, and finally got around to posting them somewhere.

If you're up for something a little meatier, you might enjoy my brand new essay "Distributism and Web 2.0." I just realized that's a terrible title - it's actually a pretty fun bit of writing...

Personal Flying Machines

In one of the concluding scenes of The Boomer Sisters In The City (aka B3) , I wrote that one of the characters flew. I didn't have a particular mechanism in mind - I just wanted him to arrive at Rockefeller Plaza by air.

So, after writing that line, I did a little search on "personal flying machines," and came up with some really cool stuff. The "flying pulpit" in the picture above is the Williams Aerial Survey Platform (WASP), later named the X-Jet. It could fly 60 mph and reach altitudes of 10,000 feet. Holy cow, I can't begin to tell you how badly I want one.

The WASP was developed for the Army in the 70's, and for some reason the Army lost interest. With proper training, I don't see why a civilian version would be much more dangerous than a motorcycle (yeah, I know that's like saying it has less fat than potato chips, but still...)


Another fascinating vehicle is the airgeep, pictured above. It first flew in 1962. So for everyone who's waiting to get that flying car Popular Science promises us every year - we could have had one back in the 60's...

Where have all the bloggers gone?

I've got a bunch of blogs on my RSS feed, which I check pretty much every day. Lately, there's been a noticable decrease in posts, across the board. Is it because it's summertime and people are on vacation? Or are people just running out of things to say? Or did I pick the wrong blogs to put on my Bloglines feed?

I hope they'll start blogging again...

Crazy Horse

Time to mix things up a little and take a break from the Simplicity Cycle.

I just finished listening to a 9-CD book on tape, titled The Journey of Crazy Horse, by Joseph M. Marshall III. It was a fascinating look at not only a great warrior, leader and man, but also at a remarkable culture and a pivotal period of American history.

I learned a lot about Crazy Horse and the Lakota way of life, and really, really loved the book. I think it's cool that Custer hardly gets mentioned - killing a famous white dude clearly wasn't the most important thing Crazy Horse did.

I have to admit I was a little bit irritated by the way Mr. Marshall kept mentioning that the Lakota were perpetually low on gunpowder and bullets. Um, maybe because they didn't have any way of making them? Every single bullet they fired, and every grain of gunpowder, was produced by (and often stolen from) a "Euro-American." An uncomfortable fact, to be sure, but a fact none the less.

The story was tragic in so many ways... and still is today. Like all stories, there are many sides, and I think it's important to at least be aware of as many sides as possible.

And speaking of many sides, I'm also reading Hero Tales, by Theodore Roosevelt (the best president ever!). It's a collection of short historical snapshots of men like Washington and Daniel Boone, Revolutionary and Civil War battles, etc. Reading it alongside Marshall's Crazy Horse is intriguing - Roosevelt uses terms like "indian fighters" to describe Boone and Clark - not exactly politically correct, I know.

These backwoodsmen, who helped expand the American frontier and establish the US as we know it today, were genuine patriots and heroes, and they sacrificed themselves for the good of their people - just like Crazy Horse (although obviously on different sides). I find much to respect in both groups.