@import

I have a lot to say, but with work, marriage, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I don’t have a chance to blog as much as I would like.  For short random thoughts, you can find me on Twitter as @althefierce. I also find lots of interesting links, pictures, and quotes that I want to share.  At first, I thought about throwing those up on my Twitter feed too - which I’ve occasionally done - but I found that I prefer to keep my Twitter feed 140 characters of just plain me.  To fill this gap between long posts about Me vs The World and short tweets of Pure Me, I’ve now added a third leg of the Travis Fischer web presence with @import links.  It uses Tumblr which is an awesome platform to share quotes, pictures, links, and what have you.  I’ve used it before briefly¹ ages ago and the platform has only improved.

So, there you go. Make sure to check out @import links. It’s got its own RSS feed and everything.  If people start clamoring for it, I can even try to figure out how to do a Combined Feed of everything Travis. Seriously though, it’s for your own safety and sanity that I haven’t done that already.

1. Actually, I found that my old Tumblr still exists, blithely copying my Twitter stream happy as a clam, even though it’s completely ignored and neglected.  That begs the question, actually, about why is a clam happy?  It’s just a blind, slimy slab of muscle stuck between two pieces of shell sitting in the dark at the bottom of the ocean waiting to be torn asunder and slurped down alive and whole and die brined in beer within somebody’s stomach. What in that scenario should make a clam happy? [↩]

This is going on my wall when I get home. Great motivation.

Author’s note: I started this entry in December when I first had this realization and got about three fourths of the way through it before I got side tracked by life and other things. At the time it was very helpful in getting over some mental hurdles I had concerning my work and life in general. Three months later, those same difficulties have started resurfacing. Finishing this post has helped me pass that blockage. I hope. - T

I’ve been in a creative funk recently. That’s not completely accurate. That makes it sound like I’ve been in a funk concerning some specific creative project - like writer’s block. The more accurate term for where I’ve been might be a creativity funk. I’ve been feeling a distinct lack of creativity in my life recently. This has been hightened by reading Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders as he re-ivents it from a productivity site to something more akin to essays about the creative process. As a programmer, I’ve always been looking for a creative outlet. After all, computer science is a very right-brained activity¹. If I’m going to live a well-balanced life, I need to exercise both sides of my brain or else things will get lopsided². I’ve experimented with several different things. In college, I did a digital artwork with Photoshop class with mixed results, which even led to my obtaining a nice digital SLR which I rarely use. I also tried sketching, where I realized that even my stick figures are fat. A writer friend has tried for several years to get me to do NaNoWriMo with her. She’s certain that at least one of the myriad extremely bizarre and vivid dreams I have might make a halfway decent story³. Her entreaties are all for naught as I tend to get frustrated with any narrative form longer than a haiku⁴. I’m definitely more of a music appreciator than a music creator⁵. Music’s out, writing’s out, art is out, photography is out. Where does that leave me creatively? In a funk.

It was in this mindset that I found myself working on a presentation for work⁶. The presentation is over Maven⁷, and I was developing a slide that succinctly explained the time-saving benefits that using Maven as a project management tool provided. Without any concious thought to it, I ended up with this simple statement:

Less time spent managing project management == More time spent creating great software

After I wrote that slide, I stared at it for a long time. Why had I chosen that terminology? What I had said is certainly true, but still it puzzled me. Specifically, why had I chosen the phrase “creating great software”? Why creating? Why not writing, programming, coding, developing, or hacking? All verbs traditionally associated with the act of software development. The more I weighed the word, rolled it through my brain, the greater the certainty I had chosen the right word. And why not? After all, what does a programmer do: they write a bunch of code that when compiled creates a program that people can use. Or do they?

Suddenly, my whole lexical interpretation of my chosen career was thrown into question, striped bare underneath the naked light bulb of the creative insight. What was there to do but refer to the great font of knowledge in the ether? Only the collective wisdom of the Google Oracle could set me on the right path. It was time to get back to the basics. First, the definition of a programmer yielded this gem:

person with a natural sense of algorithm

This definition really surprised me. It says nothing, absolutely nothing about what one does with that natural sense. By this definition, a programmer doesn’t do anything, he just sits. He exists in the space filled with a natural sense of algorithm. Very unsatisfying. So, moving on we’ll try the definition for an engineer. After all, my official title at work is Software Engineer.

a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems

Well, this definition is a little bit better. We’ve gone from an abstract thinker to somebody that does something. However, an engineer is solving practical problems, which doesn’t necessarily involve creating something. So, we’ve gone through two descriptions of my field and still haven’t explained the creating that I alluded to in my slide. If my official job title yielded such unsatisfactory results, what about the the dark underbelly of programming slang? What about a hacker?

The term used to refer to someone skilled in the use of computer systems, especially if that skill was obtained in an exploratory way

To create something within a system, you must have skills in that system⁸, but hacking doesn’t suggest that creation. It’s exploring. While the act of creation can be an exploration, so can spelunking or walking through the woods. It’s an experience that doesn’t guarantee a new creation at the end of the journey. Obviously, to find my answer I would need to look outside the terms commonly associated with my field. I surround myself with artists of all disciplines: literary, musical, or physical. What exactly are these artists I associate with?

a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination

Finally, we reach a definition that refers to creation, but more interesting than that was the vagueness of the creative work. By that definition, anything that shows sensitivity and imagination could be considered a creative work. Looking into the world of software, while some applications could be considered fairly utilitarian and uncreative, others - like Delicious Monster’s Delicious Library - can take a fairly mundane concept and present it with imagination and sensitivity to the user. With this in mind, what is a program? It’s a creative work in a digital medium - binary. Ones and zeros sculpted together to make a new and innovative creative work.

With that realization, I reached a new understanding of what a programmer is - some are content to sit in their understanding of algorithms and explore the system, others solve practical problems while yet more creatively define themselves through their programs. I was able to encapsulate this idea more succinctly on Twitter:

Programmers are hackers. Good programmers are engineers. Great programmers are artists, whose medium is bits.

This whole time I’ve been in a creative funk because I’ve been looking for some way to express my creativity, when in actuality I do it every day. Sure some of these creations are ugly and utilitarian, but it doesn’t stop me from making software that could be as creative and beautiful as the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel. To remind myself of this, I no longer consider myself a Hacker, Computer Scientist, or Software Engineer. Starting today and from now on, I am a Software Artist and this is my Creative Manifesto.

1. It is in the School of Engineering for a reason, right? [↩]
2. Let me tell you, having a head that’s shaped like Quasimodo’s back is not the way to win over the ladies. [↩]
3. Side resolution: Somehow do something with Sad Girl on the Moon for no other reason than to get her out of my head. [↩]
4. Writing a haiku./Isn’t this fun? I’m not sure./Bored now! Moving on… [↩]
5. After all, I did marry a musician. [↩]
6. My real, paying job. Not I/O Vortex through which I like to pretend I’ll eventually make money. [↩]
7. If you’re a Java programmer and you’re not using Maven, what’s wrong with you? [↩]
8. Although, if you’re hacking, then you must have skillz. [↩]

I’m a firm believer that technology is a democratizing force.  The more access people have to advanced technology, the closer we get to each other and to providing equal opportunities to all.  That’s why I’ve ranted both here and on Twitter about attempts to slow or derail the advancement of technology (like IPv6 adoption or the delay of the DTV transistion).

Twitter itself is a great example of this democratization, whether you’re just a lowly blogger, a famous NBA superstar, a Newberry award winning author, or a power hungry destroyer of worlds, you’re all equally accessible in 140 characters.  When my mother was concerned about the 3D glasses they’re using for Coraline 3D, did I go to CNN first or a movie blog? No, I went directly to the source and asked Neil Gaiman himself:

@neilhimself Do you know anything about the 3D glasses for Coraline 3D? Are they designed to fit over regular glasses comfortably?

Without Twitter, this would have been impossible.  Instead, six minutes later I had my answer:

@althefierce yup. They look like lightweight oversized sunglasses and fit easily over glasses, robotic LED gunsight eyes, etc.

Thanks Neil! Sunday when I hit the theater, I now know my glasses wearing mother, contact wearing wife, and robotic LED gunsight eyed father can all enjoy the movie equally. Another example of democratizing technology at work.

From 43 Folders:

If, tomorrow morning, you had 60% of the time and resources you needed to start making anything you wanted, what would it be? And, what would you do first?

• Incorporate I/O Vortex

• Learn how to design a decent looking website

• Figure out how to subclass NSControl/NSCell so it actually works

That would be the first three things I’d do immediately, because with those tools I could accomplish 50% of what I currently want to do (and I’d have the tools I need to learn enough to accomplish the other 50%).

What would you do?

My friend Crystal has started a new series of posts at her blog:

My whole life, I have wanted to say something meaningful, something that could inspire, bring hope, maybe even change a life. … I  was adopted at age 10 and the first 10 years of my life were filled with bruises, tears, broken bones and intense emotional damage.  I want to raise people’s awareness that child abuse is real, not just over spanking.  This blog will be for my story.

Everything under the “my story” category  is part of this heart wrenching tale.  As of this writing, there are three entries up with more to follow. Definitely a must read to get a better understanding of a tragic situation that most people never hear about.

This weekend, I finally finished my Cocoa Programming for Mac OSX book. The last couple of chapters were definitely the most difficult for me. Not because of the subject matter, but just the overwhelming desire to get through it.

Kinderbuch has been of major interest to me for several years now. I really first thought about it in the 2003-2004 time frame. My girlfriend and I (now my wife) were in that weird funky time period where you’re pretty sure that you’re going to get married, so you’re looking into things associated with married life but not quite ready to admit to each other that you want to/are going to get married. Anyway, that’s how we ended up in a NFP information class one evening. As I was sitting there, listening to how the charting works and what to chart, etc, etc, I realized, “This is just a database. There has to be software for this!”

One Google search later and nada, nunca, nicht! There was one application that was designed for Windows 95 and looked nice and difficult to use. Ever since that day, I decided I would make my own NFP tracking program. When I jumped to Mac in 2006, this NFP program (the Kinderbuch name is a recent inspiration) was to be my toy program to learn Objective-C and Cocoa. Conceptually, it’s a simple program. I could crank it out quickly and it would be ready to use by the wedding (June 2008, for those who were wondering). Then grad school, back pain, back surgery, and a new job happened, so the program didn’t.

Anyway, once I finally started buckling down and dedicated myself to making Kinderbuch (and hopefully turning the whole thing into some indie free-lance developer geek dream), I realized I would need some outside help. The book has been really helpful, I’ve learned a lot from it and have a very good idea what to do to make Kinderbuch work. The problem is, I really started to fully understand that about a month ago, long before I actually finished reading the whole book and working through all of the exercises.

I almost abandoned the book and decided to run with what I had, figuring out the rest later. I stopped myself though. A marathon runner doesn’t try to run the marathon by herself a month early just because she had a good day at practice. She takes that extra month’s time and hones her skills even more, so when she does run the marathon, she finishes that much faster. Hopefully, spending the last month finishing the book’s exercises have done the same for me. Now, it’s time to buckle down and get to work; wear out my chair as Brent Simmons would say. I’ll be programming in several different chairs, so hopefully I won’t wear them all out at the same time (could be a bit uncomfortable), but expect some more activity and progress around here.

As the first step of that, this website will be changing soon. The blog that has been the focal point of the site is going to move locations and change a bit in tone. It’ll be more of a developer blog focusing on Kinderbuch and the other apps that I’m hoping to produce here at Φ Vortex (I actually have a whole Kinderbuch ecosystem in mind, but baby steps first). While the tone of the developer blog isn’t going to become all clinical, the rants about IPv6 adoption or cold-induced ramblings about removable hands will cease. Those little gems (and more) will be appearing at my personal blog travisfischer.net. (Don’t click the link, there’s nothing there at the moment.) There you’ll also (hopefully) find some pictures, random pieces of creativity, and stories based on the crazy dreams I occasionally have. (Don’t roll your eyes at me! I know you’ve been dying to hear about how the dress maker saved the maiden from the faerie conclave! Or what is going to happen to Dying Girl in Formal Dress on the Moon (someday I’ll actually find a name for her than that. DGFDM just doesn’t have a good ring to it). Bottom line is something is going to happen. Something wonderful. And I can’t wait to make it so.

I’m sick. I should be in bed sleeping, trying to recover from this pathetic cold. Instead, I can’t sleep. I’ve ended up doing the same thing that I do anytime I can’t sleep: staring at my hands in the ambient glow of the digital alarm clock.

I’ve always had issues with my hands. It’s not that they’re particular ugly. They’re fairly smooth, normal pair of hands. They’re a nice and handy - no pun intended - tool when I need to use them for something, but what do I do with them other times? When I’m not actively using my hands, it feels like they’re in the way. This isn’t a new problem, but something that I’ve constantly dealt with throughout my life. I remember as a young boy fantasizing about how I could remove my hands when I didn’t need them. I remember wishing I could just twist at the wrist and my hands would just pop off. I’d put them in a velvet-lined wooden box and carry them with me until I needed them again. No worries about what to do with them, where to put them, what they touched or anything - I’d just have nice simple nubs until I needed to pull out my hands again. There was a clerk at a shop my mother used to frequent who was born without a left hand; her arm just ended in a smooth nub of skin. I remember being amazed how she could balance a pad of paper on it while writing a customer’s order with her right hand. Obviously, hands weren’t always necessary.

This interest or weirdness I’ve felt towards my hands has definitely stuck with me. I remember when I was interning with the Robonaut project, I was by far most fascinated by the hand mechanisms (something that the electrical engineers protected with pride and wouldn’t let a lowly programmer come near). My hands even insidiously worked their way into my fledging art experimentations in college. Every other dreamer in my Sleeper series were peacefully blissful in nature, while I was haunted by demons and ghostly hands.

The problem with being a programmer is without my hands, what I want to do the most would be impossible (or at least much, much harder). ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch summed this up fairly accurately tonight:

As a programmer, my hands definitely are my “money makers,” which might be part of my problem. If my hands are idle, I’m not making money. Without my hands typing away, turning the code in my head into running, existent applications, what have I done? What have I achieved? What mark have I left on the world to show that I, Travis Fischer, was here? I need my hands, my hands need me in a way, but yet I still feel detached from them when I don’t need them: they just sit there, mocking me in their idleness. If you’re confused, dear reader, don’t despair. I just needed a chance to stream some thoughts, make my hands feel useful again. Blame it on the cold.

I’ve been busy with lots of behind the scenes stuff here at Φ Vortex. My outside help has arrived. Also, I’ve been working with one of my good friends Barry Behannon, a super-talented graphic artist here in the Houston area. I don’t want to show off too much of what’s going on at the Vortex, but here’s a sneak preview for my loyal readers.

What? What’s going to happen?

Something wonderful.

Been working on Kinderbuch a lot recently, but starting to run into some hurdles. That’s what happens when you try to do a really complicated application in a language and framework you’ve never worked in before. I broke down and ordered what’s been touted as the premiere Cocoa programming book, which will hopefully help. It was supposed to be a birthday present from the wife, but she was kind enough to let me get it early. I was hoping it would come in before my Saturday night Programming Phase at Antidote (wife’s kicking me out of the house for a “girl’s night”), but the chances of that seem less and less likely. I’ll make due.