Climate Talks

If I'm supposed to feel guilty that our overconsumption in the U.S. has led to global warming, why is it that the focus of climate talks is how much money we need to give poorer countries to help them develop clean energy?

The U.S. has said, basically, "Okay, you're right: our bad on that emissions thing. We'll do better," but that's somehow unacceptable. This is enough proof for me that the sustained and well-organized campaign to make the Earth colder is about wealth redistribution, not the environment.

Flash Fiction: Murder in the Cathedral

In response to Dan O'Shea's call, 1004 words of homage to the Smartass Detective genre:

A Fine Mess

Mickey Doyle draped his field drab trench over the third pew from the back on his way down the aisle. The carpet cleaners would have bigger problems today than the snow melt dripping from his sleeve.

"You look like one of them cheesy olives in that green coat, Mick," called Peter Morelli from beside the altar.

"Italian fag."

"You know, because of your white ass head poking out. And your hair's like the pimento," said Morelli. "What did you say?"

"Italian flag. It's green, white, and red," said Doyle, but he was no longer fully engaged in the ritual of antagonizing his boss. As he approached the altar he was too busy stepping over sticky looking bits of flesh and clothing, trying not to contaminate evidence.

"Crime scene?" asked Doyle.

"On the way. Hope they bring extra film," said Morelli.

Doyle stopped five feet from the altar, pulled a chopstick from the pocket of his jacket, and crouched. He prodded one of the larger chunks of flesh, lifted it gently, then realized it was half of a hand, with only the proximal phalanx of two fingers still attached. On one of the stumps of finger was a gold ring engraved with a cross, a shield, and the words "SIGNO VINCES."

"They haven't used film for five years," said Doyle.

"Okay, smartass. I hope they bring extra baggies then. This guy is everywhere."

"You said on the phone," said Doyle. Now that he had passed the first row of pews, however, Doyle could appreciate Morelli’s words of twenty minutes earlier. "We got another priest, Doyle," Morelli had said without preamble. "Only this one's all over the place."

Doyle stood and scanned the floor and altar, noting at least a dozen chunks of skin and meat on just a cursory glance. In every case, like with the hand he’d examined more closely, the cuts were clean, almost surgical, but at seemingly arbitrary angles.

“This wasn’t done by a machine,” said Doyle. “Somebody cut this guy up.”

“We know our guy uses a knife, genius,” said Morelli.

“This took time, is the point,” said Doyle. “Where’re the big pieces?”

“Back here,” said Morelli, nodding sideways.

Doyle considered his path for a moment and slowly stepped up the two steps and around the end of the altar opposite Morelli. On the far side of the altar a deep red pool clashed with the maroon carpet. At one end of the pool was a tumbled heap of blood, flesh, and black cloth.

“Where’s the head, Pete?” asked Doyle.

“No idea. I know: off the pattern,” said Morelli. “Still our guy though, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. Who found him?”

“Another priest, a Father Snide? Shied?” Morelli looked at the palm of his hand. “Schneide. Father Schneide.”

“You’re kidding,” said Doyle.

“Why would I?” asked Morelli.

“’Schneiden’ means ‘to slice’ in German.”

“How the fuck would I know that?”

“Point taken,” said Doyle. “Where is the good Father?”

“There’s a little office over behind you, by that pulpit. Said he had to throw up.”

“We get up a perimeter quick?” asked Doyle. “Our guy likes to stick around.”

“You do your job, Doyle. I’ll do mine.” Morelli thumped the gold bars on his collar with a thumbnail.

Doyle grunted. “Let’s talk to Father Schneide.”

~~

"Father Schneiden. Mickey Doyle," Doyle said as he entered the clerical office without knocking. Morelli stopped at the door, his bulk occupying most of the frame. "You found the ... crime scene, is that right?"

Schneide stood from his seat in an overstuffed executive chair and stepped around the desk. His cassock was rumpled and his black hair stood up in a prominent cowlick on the left side of his head.

"Schneide."

"What time was that?"

"Uh, seven-thirty or so. Preparing for morning mass," said Schneide.

"Did you know the deceased well?" asked Doyle.

"Not very. Quiet."

"Oh, okay." said Doyle. "The detective you talked to said you seemed distraught. I assumed the deceased was a friend."

"It was a horrible scene. Mind if I sit back down?"

"Oh of course. Of course." Doyle sat in one of the guest chairs and motioned to the other.

"I've never seen anything... it was awful," said Schneide.

"You said 'Father Jacob's been killed' on the phone."

"I honestly don't remember exactly what I said."

"But you knew it was Father Jacob," continued Doyle.

"He hasn't come for mass, he's not in his quarters." Schneide shifted in his seat. "Who else could it be?"

"Father Schneide, what does 'SIGNO VINCES' mean?"

Schneide turned to look at Morelli. "Are you saying it might not be Father Jacob out there?"

"Still waiting on the positive ID, Father," said Morelli. "It could take some time."

"It's there on your ring," continued Doyle. "I know I've seen that phrase somewhere."

"'By this sign you will conquer.' I should try to contact Father Jacob again." Schneide stood, rummaging his pockets as if he'd misplaced something. Doyle remained seated.

"Do you normally wear a full cassock for morning mass?"

"No. The laundry... Why?"

"You have a spot on your collar, Father Schneide," said Doyle. "Is that blood?"

"No."

"No?"

"What I mean is: how could it be?" asked Schneide. "You'll have to excuse me for a moment."
Morelli stepped aside with a mock curtsy as Schneide hustled from the office.

~~

The crime scene photographers were placing numbered cards beside each fragment of Father Jacob when Morelli and Doyle walked back past the altar. The coroner was behind the altar with his arms crossed, looking confused and displeased.

"Have the perimeter boys bring him in," Doyle said as they made their recessional down the center aisle. "He'll try to run."

"I gotta hand it to you, Doyle: you're good. I never noticed the blood," said Morelli.

"Blood? What blood?" Doyle winked.

Doyle lifted his still damp coat from the pew without breaking stride.

Nonsexual Transmission of Internet Syphillis

John Hornor Jacobs infected me. I was asleep at the time, which in a counter-intuitive way makes it slightly less perverse. I don't know what the circumstances were between him and Daniel O'Shea, but I feel no responsibility to track this back to Kent Gowran, who I don't even fucking know, or any of the other predecessors. Patient zero is probably in the eighth grade. It is somewhat of a mystery why we all seem so susceptible to this particular infection, but I can only assume that writers - even part-time hacks such as myself - have little immunity when it comes to talking about ourselves, whether self-gratifying or not.

For both of you reading this who are not clan Jacobs or O'Shea, here are the rules of this meme:

• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. (See below.)
• Nominate some more “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)
• Post links to the blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.

I will follow suit with those what came afore me and withhold whether truths outnumber lies or vice versa:

1. My great great great great Grandfather's brother was Jethro Tull. Not the band – like Luke Wilson in Armageddon, I also get annoyed when people think "Jethro Tull" is just a member of the band – but the Irish agrarian for whom the band is named.
2. When I was 19 I was toweled dry after a shower by a gay night clerk at a ritzy hotel in Innsbruck, Austria, who gave me a room for free because my hair was long and blond and because I was wearing a "San Francisco" sweatshirt.
3. More than 10,000 people in Japan know my face because they have seen me die on screen. I have received fan mail, though not for many years.
4. I was arrested, but not charged, for criminal mischief and disorderly conduct in San Marcos, TX. Even though I had been plenty disorderly that evening, it was a case of mistaken identity for the incident they had in mind at the time.
5. I know 13 computer languages, 3 spoken tongues, and the universal language of love.
6. I was once a member of a communal cult whose leader believes that he can cure cancer and change the weather.
7. In 1986 I got drunk on Jim Beam and Orange Crush with the members of the Delaware Destroyers backstage after a show in Little Rock, AR. George Thorogood made an appearance, but didn't stick around; I'm 95% sure he had a girl from the audience waiting for him in the hall.

I'll add another twist: these might all be true... or they might all be lies.

Scott Osborn and Chuck Plunkett, step to the podium please.

Things I Miss The Most

I hired a guy a few years ago who was a Jehovah’s Witness and was very careful to tell me that he didn’t want doughnuts on his birthday, which is what our custom was at the place I worked before this one. Except I didn’t know why he was telling me that, because he’d never said what his faith was and of course I didn’t ask - I did have that much Personnel Policy sense - and anyway I wouldn’t have known that they eschew birthday celebrations in the first place.

I told him in what I thought was good humor that it was okay: we’d just have doughnuts without him in his honor, which he didn’t think was all that funny. So then he had to tell me why he didn’t celebrate birthdays and why he’d rather the rest of us not celebrate his birthday, either, and it caused a Big Panic about religious discrimination and what would happen if we ever had to fire him – which we did, though pretty clearly for performance issues.

On the rare occasions that I miss being a manager, I think about things like this and feel better.

Big Jesus

The Christ of the Ozarks stands on a hill beside a scenic overlook near Eureka Springs, AR. It’s sort of the same thing as the Christ the Redeemer monument in Rio de Janeiro, except that its proportions are all wrong and it’s not quite big enough to be impressive. Maybe it’s a holdover from my childhood, maybe it’s a fascination with the spectacle of the monument, but I’ve always had this thing for Big Jesus.

I was in Eureka Springs a few years ago doing Quicktime VR photography for some of my web clients there. I used to really enjoy QTVR work – that’s where you stitch a dozen or more photos together into a panorama that can be moved around and zoomed on a web page – both because it’s technologically cool and because you get to be a photographer, kind of. Along with my thing for Big Jesus, I’ve also always had a thing for photography. Photographers, even in this advanced age, still seem to retain some of their romantic image from days past, Paparazzi or not. Maybe it’s just me.

I had been meaning to QTVR Big Jesus for some time, ever since I started doing it, really. (By “doing it” I refer to QTVR, not Big Jesus.) So I was finally there, waiting patiently for the pedestrians to clear the scene. Tourists can be such a pain.

Truthfully, it wasn’t so much that they were in the shot as it was that I didn’t want anyone to see what I was about to do. I had finished all but the last few shots, which were the ones that had BJ Himself in frame. What I intended to do was set the 10 second timer and make a mad dash up the hill and stand in that Big Jesus palms-forward, arms-outstretched pose. I thought it would be pretty funny to see that in a QTVR, but I was also almost certain that anyone else who came to see Big Jesus would think that was a vaguely sacrilegious thing to do.

So being neither very bold nor wont to offend, I just waited. For a long, long time. There weren’t really that many people, but they were spaced out just right not to give me the right window of time. But it was a nice day and all so I took the role of amateur tour guide, standing beside my tripod, pointing out the tops of buildings in Eureka Springs that you can see from the overlook. I’m sure people thought I was a little strange there, but at least they didn’t think I was sacrilegious.

I waited until I had just about had enough, when these four people came down the hill and started asking about the buildings, etc. Obviously one of them, a middle-aged looking woman, was a local with three out-of-staters she was showing around. We talked for a while about what I was doing and wasn’t it a great day and all and when they got ready to leave, the hostess said she wanted to get a picture of the others out in front of BJ.

She pulled out what looked like one of those handy but pathetic little film-and-camera-all-in-a-box jobs and had them pose in front of the hill. I felt absurdly self-conscious of my $1500+ camera equipment waiting patiently for me to get up the nerve to pull off an admittedly pretty childish photographic stunt. These really nice people were using a $6 disposable camera to record what, to them, was a pretty significant moment in their visit.

I have a thing for Big Jesus. It’s earnest. And kitchy. And so, so oddly shaped. But I’ve never been, you know, moved by it. They were.

So I said to hell with it and pulled the camera off the tripod and trotted up to them. I told them to pose and fired off 10 or 12 exposures with the haze filter to bring out the puffy clouds and the polarizer to make the trees nice and green. Then I told the Native to write her name and address down on the back of one of my business cards and I’d just send the prints to her.

They were kind of startled at first, but then really happy, and then really grateful. They made the de rigeur gesture of offering to pay for the film, postage, etc. I said no, of course, that I had to finish the roll anyway and that postage wasn’t worth the effort.

I developed and printed them, and they really did come out pretty well. I sent them off to the address she gave me, a rural PO box in St. Paul, Arkansas, and I suppose the visitors got a copy too. Maybe they thought something nice about our fine state because of it. I never got to shoot my disrespectful but good-natured parody. But what I want to say about this whole situation is this:

I’ve always had good hearing. As I was carrying my equipment back up the hill I heard the guy of the foursome say “That’s about the nicest thing I’ve ever seen anybody do.” It was just one of those things people do, using superlatives where they don’t really belong, as in “You’re just about the cutest thing!” But it still made me feel good. I had that moment of self-indulgent pride that you feel when you know you’ve done someone a good turn.

But then I heard one of the women repeat what he had said, you know the way people will sometimes communicate agreement. But from her it sounded … sincere. Like maybe she meant it. My God, maybe it really was the nicest thing a stranger had ever done for her.

As I lugged my equipment up the hill under Big Jesus’ left arm, I was filled with a sadness I still can’t explain.

SQL Function to quote for CSV

MSSQL doesn't provide any way to text-qualify fields with quotes for CSV output. The SSIS filters will do this for you, but if you're using BCP or something even more primitive :) it can be a pain.

Use this function to throw double-quotes around text fields if they contain a comma:

ALTER   function fn_QuoteCSV
(
 @input varchar(4000)
)
RETURNS varchar(4000)
AS
BEGIN
 declare @rtn varchar(4000) 
 select @rtn=@input

 IF CHARINDEX(',',@input) > 0 
 BEGIN
  select @rtn = QUOTENAME(@input,CHAR(34))
 END

 return @rtn

END

Change Background on Invalid Fields

.NET doesn't provide a way to change the background color (or other attributes) of fields that fail validation when using the built-in validators. I think color prompting is a nice way to indicate bad user input, so rather than going to a whole lot of code-behind nonsense you can just shim on to the .NET validation display routine by putting this javascript on your ASPX page:

var OriginalValidatorUpdateDisplay = null;

function NewValidatorUpdateDisplay(val) {
    OriginalValidatorUpdateDisplay(val);
    if (val.controltovalidate) {
        var ctrlIsValid=true;
        var ctrl = document.getElementById(val.controltovalidate);
        for (var i = 0; i < ctrl.Validators.length; i++) {
            if (!ctrl.Validators[i].isvalid) {
                ctrlIsValid = false;
            }
        }
        if (ctrlIsValid) {
            ctrl.style.backgroundColor = '';
            ctrl.style.color = '';
        }
        else {
            ctrl.style.backgroundColor = '#FF0000';
            ctrl.style.color = '#FFFFFF';
        }
    }
}

if (typeof (ValidatorUpdateDisplay) == 'function') {
    OriginalValidatorUpdateDisplay = ValidatorUpdateDisplay;
    ValidatorUpdateDisplay = NewValidatorUpdateDisplay;
} 

That's it!

The only downside is that as-written there is only one "pass" and one "fail" attribute per page. You could change classes on the fly and accomplish more customization, but that sort of violates the elegance of this approach.

Visual Studio GridView designer bug

There is a bug in Visual Studio 2008 that prevents property changes in design view from being reflected back to source code when controls are embedded in wizards or master pages. For simple controls this is not a big deal, but for complex controls, like DevExpress's ASPxGridView, the designer is a huge time saver -- which is the only reason you pay good money for a nice RAD toolkit in the first place.

Luckily, there is a hotfix:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=17185

Get it.

Move around a transparent AIR window

Some things are made out to be more complex than they have to be. If you want an Adobe AIR application without a standard window frame ("chrome" as they call it) then you have to manage allowing the user to move the window around yourself, as well as a way to close the app. It's harder to find a simple example than it should be.

// $background and $close can be any mouse-active 
//    display object on the stage, of course

// close the app on clicking a button
$close.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, closeApp);
function closeApp(ev:MouseEvent) 
{
 var myWindow:NativeWindow = this.stage.nativeWindow;
 if (myWindow) myWindow.close();
}

// drag app around
$background.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, startMove);
function startMove(ev:MouseEvent) 
{
 var myWindow:NativeWindow = this.stage.nativeWindow;
 if (myWindow) myWindow.startMove();
}

You can do a lot more than that, of course.

Access variables passed from HTML in AS3

In AS2 accessing variables passed into Flash from a web page was as easy as referencing _root.{whatever}. AS3 makes things a little more complicated. Why? Just because. Deal with it.

// myVariable is the name of a var passed to the SWF, as in
//     <EMBED ...>FlashVars="myVariable=Hello"
//        or even
//     mymovie.swf?myVariable=Hello

var myVariable:String = LoaderInfo(loaderInfo).parameters["myVariable"] || "defaultValue";
trace(myVariable);
// "Hello"

While working in the IDE, or if the page doesn't supply the proper variable, the "parameters" object property will be undefined. It's always best to set a default value, which is what that

|| "defaultValue"

bit is about.

If you have a lot of variables you need to access... well first off you should consider reading an XML file for configuration, but if that's too much trouble, try this, just for convenience:

var flashVars:Object = new Object();
for (var name in LoaderInfo(loaderInfo).parameters) {
     this[name] = LoaderInfo(loaderInfo).parameters[name];
     }
// now you can access variables like:
trace(this.myVariable);
// very much like the old AS2 _root.myVariable

Distance

Cottonwood leaves. Cottonwood bark. Steel benches dipped in plastic to seal away rust. Enjoy Heineken responsibly dot com. The thrum of a tugboat. I like that word: thrum. Someone is smoking upwind of me. The tug pushes steel steel steel coal and steel. A tiny spider looking for God knows what on the back of my ring finger. I look into the inside of the blue shell afternoon sky and still I see stars. Afternoon. After hours. In the universe of my creation there will be more stars than space. More hours. More leaf than tree. Or simply less space. In the universe of my creation I can sit here and touch the hazy limestone bluffs across and down the river. I can read the crags and escarpments like braille. I can walk to work in seven steps. On the back of my neck I can feel the air displaced by the migrating ducks overhead. I can heel-to-toe onto the steelbarge with a tiny baby step. In the universe of my creation I can drive three hundred miles in ten minutes.

© Copyright 2008 JD Robinson

River Sun

I am lost without a sunset.
No way west.

I am afraid without your voice
in my ear.

I am black and gray and sand brown,
never green,

never blue, and I am cold here
standing still.

© Copyright 2008 JD Robinson

Palms

Doodle Relaxation Tool

Written in Actionscript 3.0 in Flex Builder.

Church of God

Melon Shed

Hey, how's it going?

Don't you hate this conversation:

"Hey!"
"Hey!"
"How's it going?"
"Good. How's it going with you?"
"Fine. See you later."

Except for the "Hey" part, it's all just crap, right? Neither party really wants to know the answer to the question posed, and neither answer is honest. Well, maybe once in ten times it's honest, but it's usually automatic and crap.

Haven't you always wanted, instead of the socially-acceptable "Fine," to say instead: "Shitty. It's going shitty. This is the shittiest day I've had in weeks. I guess I should be glad you're at least pretending to care, but honestly? that just makes it worse."

I don't think it's just me. I don't think it's just because this was a really crappy day. Therefore, I officially form the Coalition for Honesty in Everyday Small Talk (CHEST). The two requirements for membership are:

• a solemn pledge that if you ask about someone's well-being, you actually want to know the truth, and are prepared to offer assistance if it is warranted, and
  
• you must answer truthfully even to non-CHEST members in order to promote the cause.

Benefits of membership are manifold: advancement of honesty in interpersonal communication, admiration of your peers for being so candid and forthcoming, and maybe possibly having a potential of perhaps on an off chance finding something real out about a fellow human being. And of course, the most important benefit: being able to say "Yes, I'm a big CHEST supporter."

Who's with me?

Oh, I almost forgot one other requirement:

• never ever utter the phrase "Is it [hot, cold, wet, windy] enough for you?"

(Well, "Is it wet enough for you?" is in fact acceptable under certain specific circumstances, but that's a topic for another day...)

After Careful Analysis

If you're not a fan of Elvis Costello you won't appreciate this. As much.

It turns out that my four-year-old son, the photographer, is a huge Elvis Costello fan. I know: odd, but I hate to judge or curtail his interests so I have one of his live shows Tivo'd and we get to watch it a lot. We seldom ever finish it, four-year-old attention spans being what they are.

So we're watching the show and I notice that during one song in particular my son is staring intently at the screen. He sits up straight, squints at the TV, and turns the volume up with the remote. (Oh, yes: he is all about being in control of the remote. American male.) He turns the volume up again, then again. I can tell he's striving to understand something, and I adore this aspect of him at this point in his childhood. I start to really wonder what's going on.

Finally he sits back, looks up at me, and says "Dad? He really doesn't want to go to Chelsea."

Grass

My four-year-old likes taking pictures. He has good instincts—a little bit spooky in fact: he took my profile photo and the one in the header. Here's one of his landscapes.