If the history remembers me, I would like to be remembered as someone who constantly struggled against the limits of creativity.  While I have been accused of excessive creativity by many, I am constantly and painfully aware of how incidental creativity is.

My mental model of human brain is a bed of wax on which a steel ball of consciousness rolls about.  The model captures my belief that thinking itself changes the person and affects how the person thinks in the future.  More one travels the same path, the channel of habitual thoughts deepens and thus raises the necessary force needed to escape the channel into new areas.  Events happening around us affect the direction and momentum of the moving ball.

From this perspective, being creative means possessing a oddly shaped mind that reacts in uncommon ways to common events and brainstorming aggregates oddity for higher yield.

I have been consulting for most of my career, but the consulting lifestyle has gotten rather stale over the years.  I have been looking at some job offers lately but I have not seen one that made me jump with enough excitement to walk away from my consulting practice.

So I thought I should make it known that I am wide open to opportunities and see if more attractive opportunities surface whether its a job, partnership, or ventures.

A preview version of Expression 3.3 which Microsoft acquired from Hong Kong-based Creature House last year is available for free download (page say it's for Creature House users, but the installer doesn't check).

Expression is a vector drawing tool like Illustrator and CorelDraw.  Unfortunately, it's UI sucks just as badly so expect to get lost.  Capability-wise, it's impressive.

It seems rather solid for a preview and I haven't noticed any crippled feature yet.  Maybe it's a finished product released as free download under Preview cover to hit Adobe's bottomline.  Turning a market into a desert is another path to monopoly if you got deep pockets.  But then probably not.

Former President Ronald Reagan died today.  A sad day of mourning for me.  I know his policies were controversial but I liked him very much, more than any other American President I had before or after.  He was and still is Mr. President to me.

I felt safe when he was in the Oval Office and I could believe his every words.  Maybe it was because he was the Great Communicator.  Maybe it was because he really believed.  Even when he was saying tough words, I could feel the compassion in him.

I don't feel that way when I hear Bush speaking.  I don't believe his words and I don't feel safe.  Maybe I am just misunderstanding him because he is the Great Miscommunicator.  *sigh*

Farewell Mr. President.

I have read C.S. Forester's Hornblower series, Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, Alexander Kent's Bolitho series, and Dewey Lambdin's ongoing Alan Lewrie series, but I am still hungry so I am starting on Dudley Pope's Ramage series.

I am not buying the reprints because there are, I think, 18 books in the series and the reprints are not yet available for all the volumes.  So I am going to haunt the used bookstores like I did with the Bolitho series.  I hate reading a series out of order though.  Getting all the volumes at once wouldn't be good for me anyway since I am a book addict who can't stop without difficulty once I get going on.

Read, eat, sleep, and repeat until empty shelf.
Exception Thrown: RestroomException

My hours are screwed up yet again so I got up at 3:30AM today.  I felt like having a chicken pot pie for breakfast so here it is.  Yum!  I think it looks better than Dave's Pot Pie.

Tim Oren is now an Armed VC with a little help from Marc Danziger, formerly Armed Liberal, whom he met via Winds of Change blog.  Marc has unmasked his identity and joined Spirit of America as its COO to help spread the spirit of America abroad by sending donated supplies to countries like Iraq.

To be honest, I think the effort amounts to dumping sugar into a sea of hate but it's a Good Thing for our spirit at least.  Maybe I am soured by the spread of anti-American sentiments among young Koreans.  I tried to engage them online but they have constructed a strong echo chamber around them to protect their warped viewpoints.

Iraq will be worse even if Iraq becomes a strong ally of America and Iraqis are drowned in everything American for the next 50 years like Korea has been.  Internet?  It's the very substance their echo chamber is made out of.  Still, we need our idealistic delusions like every Miss Universe needs her beauty sleep.

Update:

Enough people misunderstood me about this post that I think further clarifications are needed.

I like good people and good will.  America is particularly abundant in both which I like very much.  But practicing good will with hope of return in kind is not a good thing IMHO.  So what use is good will?  While dumping sugar into a sea of hate will not change the sea, it does change those who are doing it.  Primary benefector of good will should be the practitioner.

I want to see more people join the effort Spirit of America is making so their daily lives will glow with the warmth of good will.  But I don't want to see people feel the pain of betrayal later when their good will is paid back with terrorism.

If a god appeared and said sacrificing one million Iraqis at his altar will turn Iraq into a peaceful democratic nation overnight, would you be willing?  How about hundred thousand?  Ten thousand?

I've been revisting my positions on the price we are willing to pay for whatever it is we are doing over at Iraq and I am finding our notion of acceptable to be rather disturbing.  How is civilian casualties expected in wars different from ritualistic sacrifices?

How about genocide?  Is there anything that we value so much that we would be willing to commit genocide?  Democracy?  Freedom?  National Security?  Oil?

Is it the bloodshed and sufferings that makes us squirmish?  What if there was a button that could instantly send all followers of Islam to some other place without killing them?  Would you press the button?  What if the buttoned worked the other way by leaving earth to the Islams and sent rest of the planet elsewhere?

If I am told that every single keystorke I made in my life destroyed a planet in some remote galaxy, am I supposed to be horrified?  What if I am the last man on earth?  Is compassion still useful?

More I examine the substance of morals, more it unravels until there is nothing left to hold.

Do you want to feel bad this Friday?  Read this.

There was an incident with one of the cars. We shot an individual with his hands up. He got out of the car. He was badly shot. We lit him up. I don't know who started shooting first. One of the Marines came running over to where we were and said: "You all just shot a guy with his hands up." Man, I forgot about this.

To top it off, read this report about the health of Mother Earth.

I have been thinking about popular P2P networks and how slow and frustrating they can be when the file you want is large or rare.  My conclusion is that current P2P networks cannot be scaled to share large resources in timely fashion without some fundamental changes in the way they work.

One such change is P2P2P (Pay to P2P).  This idea is to use money to make P2P Wishlist more compelling.  If I want something, I share that 'wish' along with 'bid' price on P2P networks.  People with files others are interested in, finds the 'wishes' they can fill at the price they want.

In reality, all this takes place automatically and the prices are not price of the goods but price of time.  If you want it 'now', it will cost you more than if you wanted it sometime between next 36 hours.  Quality of goods also matters but that is taken care of by a rating system.

The neat thing about P2P2P can support streaming such as movies-on-demand or live video of concerts easily where current P2P systems can't.  It could encourage enterprising individuals to become TSP (Timely Service Providers) by setting up a few servers and hustle to serve valuable files and streams to people who are willing to pay for time.

A: You want to see a movie?
B: What's available?
A: Fred's On-Demand has Bambi for $5 at 7PM, $3 at 9PM, and $1 after midnight.  Hmm.  Some guy named Chuck is offering to stream Bambi off his laptop for a dollar at 7:24PM.