A doctor walks past, hears him, and throws a prescription in the hole, then keeps going.

A priest walks past, hears him, and says a prayer, then keeps going.

His buddy walks past, hears him, and jumps in the hole.

The guy says, “what are you doing?! Now we’re both stuck”

But his buddy says, “yeah, but I’ve been here before and I know how to get out.”

came in handy for me today

Current events make this highly challenging. So many people have gotten misleading information on the Fukushima nuclear disaster and overreacting inappropriately, largely fueled by the media’s self-serving actions that work against anything resembling the public interest. And then we see the start of a new war in Libya, which will undoubtedly lead in the next few weeks to the sort of jingoism that sets my hair on fire.

Humanity frequently uses humor as a defense mechanism in the face of incredible tragedy or traumatic stress. But that shouldn’t mean taking it out on other people. Now to see how well I can handle matters this week…

Just as importantly – actually, more so – my new desktop finally came to life. Built from scratch, godel runs Ubuntu 10.10 on a 6-core AMD Phenom II and 16GB of RAM, with a pair of linked Radeon HD 5770 graphics card each holding 1GB of on-board memory, all wrapped in a black monolith Antec Three Hundred case. Yeah, it runs like lightning, although today I need to get audio working properly and perhaps find a way to cut the fan noise. (Plus this monster deserves a new monitor.)

Of course this machine can and will run games (think EVE Online), I didn’t build it like this principally for that purpose. Rather, I want to spend significant time delving back into development, perhaps including Android development or data science projects.

If you play, throw me a challenge or such. Given my current ranking, you will likely win, but we’ll have fun and I might learn something.

Fortunately for me, my dad volunteered to take them for a few days. He focused on museums and March Madness. I focused on catching up on work.

I’ve started trying to use the concept of memory palaces. However, I’ve never done anything like this before – bit of a newb, really. While I have a pretty good head for numbers and useless trivia, generally I resort to mnemonics of one sort or another the memorize lists and whatnot.

So I decided I wanted to remember things that I need to do first, as that tends to cause me problems. An apartment where we lived several years ago had an entry way where you immediately turned left, saw an open kitchen, then cut back to the right to see a den and a living room. I liked that apartment, so it made a perfect test “palace”.

To remember the tasks I needed to carry out, I visualized the entry way completely covered in flowers (send a sympathy bouquet). Turning left, President Bill Clinton greets me (payments due) and I see a cow in the kitchen (need milk for office). Turning back to the right, I see a large black monolith with a two-headed alien phase shifted in it (testing dual graphics cards in a new workstation). An old dot matrix printer sits in the living room (finish a report for the CSO) and He-Man stands nearby with a blue torso like a Pict (call Master Paint & Body).

You get the picture, literally.

Have any of my friends out there used this sort of technique before?

And some of the biggest stories in the news (including on NPR) revolve around a drunken actor and a fashion designer doing dumb things in public.

Well, I’m glad the public knows how to focus on what’s important.

My first instinct, honed over the last 10 or 12 years, is to reach out via my online life. I want to express how I feel. I want to encourage others to make good decisions and always do ‘just so’. I want people to love each other and look out for each other’s interests rather than their own.

But then I remembered a piece I read a couple of years ago in the New York Times. Maureen Dowd interviewed the founders of Twitter, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. One bit stuck with me:

ME: I heard about a woman who tweeted her father’s funeral. Whatever happened to private pain?

EVAN: I have private pain every day.

I suppose we all do. Sometimes we keep it private out of shame. Other times we can’t handle the pressure. Still other times, like in this case, we do it out of respect for other people’s privacy.

Either way, I just need to watch out for the oversharing. But this is okay, it seems to me, because it’s a little more ‘meta’: it’s about the need to refrain from putting too much out there even when we want contact.

I’m going to go give someone a hug now.

My kids, 4 and 7 years old, like noticing valuable blocks (gold, iron, etc.) as we go through the caves, not to mention the dangers like lava and water and such. They also like suggesting ways to solve the ‘puzzles’ that come up: how to reach that block way over there, or how to get out of a hole when I’m stuck.

With the game in ‘peaceful’ mode, we’ve got ourselves a game that involves tension and conflict without violence. And, although it doesn’t even begin to make a pretense of scientific accuracy in any meaningful sense, it does lead to some age-appropriate discussions of geology (ores, strata, etc.)

I should probably let them play a little more, really. If any of my friends out there play, we might even set up a family-friendly private multiplayer server…