Open Source Ecology and the Increase of Knowledge

I feel like I need to defend myself before I can even start writing. As a disclaimer, I do believe in capitalism and competition, but I also believe that there are bigger goals in life than maximum profit. This is one of them.

First, go watch this video to see a quick overview of what the Open Source Ecology people are doing.

This was the original goal of the patent and copyright systems. If you look back at the U.S. Constitution, you find a short section referred to as the copyright clause:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Intellectual property is a recent idea. Before copyrights and patents, knowledge was protected by simply not telling anyone. So, if you had an innovative means to distill alcohol, fold metal, or make violins, you would protect the secrets and sell the results. The reason for this is pretty clear… if people were to make public the methods they spent time and labor engineering, others could profit without putting in the same effort. Because of this, many secrets were lost over time, and even today have not been fully rediscovered.

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Atlas Shrugged – Chapter 1, Part 1

After my (not-so-) recent post on Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, I decided to start reading through the book again to write a real critique. I started writing this over two years ago, but got distracted by things that seemed important at the time, but now seem rather trivial.

My plan is to go through the book, chapter by chapter, and spend time writing about the various issues presented from a Biblical perspective. As I said, not all of Rand’s ideas are trash, and I did want to give credit where she does convey truth, accidental as it may be. Continue reading →

Check Out “Beyond My Front Door”

Anwar is a good friend of mine, and probably my best travel partner. When my family was considering moving to Japan, he took time out of his schedule to trek all the way to northern Japan to meet up with my landlord. I’m sure he had an ulterior motive, since his addiction to world travel is clearly evident from the first time you meet him.

On that trip, after taking care of the boring logistics, he and I set out by train with just a rail pass and the faintest semblance of a plan. Our travels reached a surreal peak when we found ourselves on a two hour ferry from Aomori to Hakodate enjoying the sights of the fishing boats on Mutsu Bay.

Through trips to Tokyo, Japan, Bendigo, Australia, and London, England, we’ve always found our common passion for travel and food would lead us on the best adventures, and I always enjoyed them immensely.

He’s taken a leave of absence from the company, off on what seems to be his best adventure yet, and I’m looking forward to seeing his updates. Check out his page, Beyond My Front Door.

Back on the Horse

I haven’t posted in a while. It’s been a long time. I think Facebook might have done some permanent damage to my ability to be able to read and write for longer than 30 seconds, leading me to consider to suspend my Facebook activities and try focusing more on reading and writing more lengthy material.

I have been looking back through my old blog posts, and see a lot of material that I really wanted to continue, including expanding on my previous article on Ayn Rand, written over two years ago. Where does the time go?

I’m going to commit to writing at least one blog post a week. If you don’t see something from me, please encourage me to write. Even if you don’t care for my writing, just encourage me to do it for the sake of my personal growth. Like I said, my brain is getting fat on the empty calories of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.

Self Promotion is so annoying!

The internet is great and all, but sadly, too many people can go load up WordPress, start a blog, and call himself a writer, or fire up their iMac, record their inane ramblings, and call herself a musician.

There’s no gatekeepers to distribution anymore, and while that can be a good thing, it has horrible unintended consequences, in that the masses that are consuming this drivel are idiots who don’t know how to pronounce “vice versa“. People are idiots, and “success” is defined as anything that appeals to those idiots. The folly of self-promotion is the idea that we need to appeal to mentality of those idiots.

States’ Rights and Cannibas

It looks like California is ready to pass a law allowing local governments the authority to decriminalize and even tax marijuana distribution. Of course, the federal government has already begun huffing and puffing about how the law will not impact them at all, and they will continue to make arrests in the state. Their threats don’t really have much force, since they currently make about 5% of marijuana arrests in California.

The bigger issue is whether this is going to be the crack in the dam, inspiring legalization campaigns around the country. My interest is going to be in how the recent 10th amendment folks are going to react. We’ve been hearing a lot about nullification and states rights regarding “Obamacare”, but are these folks really principled federalists, or just whiners? Are they going to apply their newfound love for constitutional principles to issues they might not agree with? After all, it’s the commerce clause in the constitution that the federal usurpers use to defend control over drug laws and health insurance.

So, I put this as a challenge to the “tenthers” out there. Are you going to be consistent, or are you going to show that your “principles” were mere whitewashed pragmatism?

Identifying a Problem Does Not Validate Your Solution

So, I made an odd discovery and a big purchase a few months ago. While on vacation in the Poconos, I was digging through a collection of books at an antique store in Tunkhannock, PA, and I found a first edition, first print of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. It wasn’t cheap, but I think it was worth more than the store was selling it for, so I bought it. If it doesn’t sell, I can at least use it for an expensive door stop.

Continue reading →

Northern Japan

It’s been an awesome trip so far. Since I was able to meet with the landlord in Goshogawara on Monday instead of Tuesday, we were able to wrap up the necessities a day earlier than I expected and had an extra day to travel around before we needed to be in Tokyo for our upgrade. We left Goshogawara on Tuesday morning and headed by train to Aomori, one of the most northern cities on Honshu. My guide book doesn’t have much to say about the city, calling it a “nondescript” location, and the city lived up to its reputation. It was a nice town, with restaurants and stores, but there wasn’t anything to set it apart from any other city in Japan.

People in Japan do head up north, but generally it’s a winter vacation destination with fantastic skiing and amazing hot spring baths (Onsen). They had a map in the tourist center showing at least fifty different onsen within a thirty mile radius of Aomori.

The one local delicacy we were able to enjoy was the local apples. Aomori apples are known throughout Japan and the rest of Asia as some of the best apples, and they truly were amazing. The countryside was covered with orchards, and each tree was meticulously maintained and pruned, with the fruit individually protected on the trees with coverings.

After spending the morning in Aomori, we decided to head across the water to Hokkaido via a ferry that travels between the two towns. There were a couple different types of ferries, but since we were paying out of our pockets, we decided to go with the cheapest, no-frills option. The cheapest ferries are used to let people going to Hokkaido bring their cars along with them, and the ticket salesman was a bit surprised when we told him we didn’t have a car. He sold us the tickets anyway for about $13 and a few minutes later we were walking through the belly of a well-worn ferry past people in their cars. We carried our bags up on deck, and relaxed in a small room while the rest of the cars were being loaded onto the boat. When the ship was ready, it backed out of the port and we spent the next four hours on the deck of the ferry leaving the Aomori harbor and heading to Hakodate (pronounced “Hah-ko-dah-tay”.

We arrived in Hakodate and took a taxi into town. Anwar and I both have guidebooks, and by their powers combined, we’ve managed to make out pretty well. They recommended a rather inexpensive hotel in Hakodate called the Hotel Route Inn, which, according to the book, had small rooms but an included onsen. After spending the last few days on our feet, and covered in salt spray from the ocean, a free onsen sounded really good.

We checked into the hotel, dropped our bags off in our room, and headed into town. Hakodate is no Tokyo, and the major means of transportation is an old trolly that runs through the town. The town is famous for Mount Hakodate, jutting and rising high out of the water. It’s a bit of tourist mecca, and when you look at the top of the mountain at night, you can see the flashes from the cameras shining like fireflies. We took the trolley to the base of the mountain and rode a cable car up the side of the mountain to the peak. The view was amazing, and it was one of the few sites that pictures really can’t capture. The area is one of the more populated areas of the northern island, and it was amazing to see the lights of civilization leading away from the shore to the base of the mountains, and then just stop, leaving nothing but the dark mountains beyond.

On the way back to the hotel, we attempted to hunt down some food. As I said, Hakodate is no Tokyo, and English speakers are hard to find. We found a seafood restaurant on the way back, and we were invited by one of the waitresses to come in for a set meal (set-toe). Besides the mountain, Hakodate is also famous for their large crabs, and we were served a small, but tasty meal of crab tempura and conch sashimi. Delicious, but we were still hungry. 7-11 heroically came through, and a few minutes later, we were in our room munching down convenience store sushi and cold soba.

By this time, my back and feet were hurting, and the onsen was calling to me. We grabbed our towels and washcloths and headed up to the 13th floor. We were greeted by a small but very pleasant hot spring bath that soothed all the aches in my body. The hot bath is, without any doubt, a part of Japanese culture that is superior to America. Our fear of public nudity limits us to quick, purely utilitarian showers at the YMCA, and precludes us from taking the time to relax and enjoy becoming clean. I’ll probably expand on this in a future post, but for now, I can’t encourage you enough to enjoy an onsen if you visit Japan. (BTW, my friend Billy says the baths in Korea are great as well.)

The next morning, we walked around the local fish market, saw some of the biggest crabs I’ve ever seen, still alive and moving their half-meter bodies around their tanks. Some of the vendors had little grills with crab legs toasting on them. For breakfast, I enjoyed a “Hakodate donbori”. Donbori is simply rice with different kinds of sushi on top. A Hakodate donbori had local crab leg meat (about five inches long), ikura (salmon roe), and uni (sea urchin) on top of rice and seaweed. Delicious!

After that, we hopped on a train and we’re currently heading south towards Nikko, with a quick stop off at Matsushima and Sendai. We need to check into our hotel tomorrow evening, but we have just enough time to enjoy these few sites.

The Smoking Car

So, this train isn’t the idyllic means of transportation I was envisioning. Somehow, I must have missed the phrase “smoking car” on my ticket, and the Japanese don’t go half-way with their smoking.

In addition, I have a suspicion that their air condition is broken or non-existant, which is highly unusual. You can be riding a packed Tokyo subway in 90 degree weather and feel pretty comfortable with the air conditioner blowing on you. But I can’t feel any draft, and the humidity is making my skin pretty disgusting.

I don’t know if it’s really cloudy, or if there is a new moon out tonight, but it’s really dark outside the train windows. It’s about 3am and I see occasional lights on the horizon, and of course, the bright lights from each of the train stations we pass through, but other than that, it’s all darkness. If the humidity is any indication, though, I think it’s really cloudy out. But, yeah… it’s dark.

Anwar has the top bunk in the sleeping car, thank God. I had the ticket for the top bunk, but it would have been an original mix of comedy and tragedy if I tried to get up there. My claustrophobia would have kicked it, and bad things would have happened. As it is, I’m on the bottom bunk, and I actually got about 5 hours of sleep on the train, in addition to the 5 or 6 hours I got on the plane. I should be pretty rested when we finally do arrive in Hirosaki around 9am.

The only food we had since getting off the plane was a decent salmon and cream cheese bagel at the train station. Starting to get a little hungry again, and I know I won’t be getting any food for at least six more hours.

No place to plug in the laptop, and still no wireless connection, so I’m stucking playing with the DS. I’m kicking myself for not picking up Zelda before I left.

Back in Japan and Heading North

We’ve arrived in Tokyo with no problems. Anwar was scheduled to fly in two and half hours before me, but his flight was delayed, so he was only an hour before. We got our big bags shipped to our respective hotels and I got my cell phone so everything seemed to be going smoothly.

We almost has a major disaster. When we came through customs, we flashed our brand new CAC cards which identifies us as being “military” folks, and falling under the SOFA rules. So, when we got to the train station at Narita, we went to get our train passes and the woman took our passports to verify that we were “tourists”. Well, I didn’t know, but people who are in the country under SOFA are not considered tourists, so we weren’t eligible for the train passes.

Anwar and I groaned to each other, but the woman, with even being asked, said “I’ll validate your tickets this time, but technically, I’m not supposed to.” Disaster averted because of one extremely cool person.

We took a subway over to Ueno, and now we’re getting ready to take an overnight train to Hirosaki. I don’t have any internet connectivity yet as I’m writing this post/email, so I don’t know if the Ghents have written back to me. I might try giving them a call tonight, or tomorrow morning when we arrive in Hirosaki. Once we arrive, it’s a quick train hop to Goshogawara.

Real quick comment on movies on the plane:

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull –> Disappointing.
Prince Caspian –> Also disappointing, but I can’t put my finger on why.
The Baker –> Only saw the first half, but it seemed interesting. I like black comedies, though.

Why We’re Expatriating

Paul asked why I was looking for a job in Japan. I think a response is worth a separate post.

My job has taken me to Japan quite a few times (I think my passport has 14 Japan entry stamps in it). Prior to taking this job five years ago, I had rarely left Pennsylvania, and had only once left the United States when we had driven through Canada when I was a kid (I slept the whole way).

My travel to Japan, and other parts of the world, has left with a real exposure to the huge differences in culture between the United States, Australia, England, and Japan. Since then, I wanted to make sure that my kids have an awareness of the different cultures around the world.

When Sarah and I made the decision to homeschool the kids, we both agreed that we wanted to make the most of the kids’ time at home with the family. Not being tethered to a school means that the family can travel with me, and we can move to different locations around the world and have hands-on exposure to the world around us.

Here’s my incomplete list of pros and cons for moving to Japan:

Pros:

  • I did received a promotion to a senior staff position at Lockheed Martin. This usually requires a lot more experience than I have, and I’m excited to be “ahead” in my career.
  • My company significantly reimburses us for different costs, which will allow us to save more money.
  • Japan is a major country that is little known to the rest of the world. There is a lot of potential for outreach to a normally inaccessible culture.
  • Despite the fact that over 128 million people speak Japanese, it’s one of the more little known languages amongst non-Japanese. One reason is that Japanese is a hard language to learn, but when my children learn the language, they’ll find that their skills as native English speakers with an understanding of Japanese will be potentially very beneficial to their careers.

Cons:

  • Being away from my family is going to be hard. Despite Vonage, email, webcams, and other technologies, we won’t be able to just hang out like we do now. Plane tickets to Japan are not cheap either, but hopefully, our families will be able to come visit and have an experience they wouldn’t have otherwise
  • While the weather is just as cold as it is in SE Pennsylvania, they get a lot of snow. They average 35 feet per year. That’s a lot.
  • It’s not Tokyo. In Tokyo, you can eat at a different restaurant for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for a lifetime and never hit the same place twice. The area is pretty rural and poor, so we’ll be traveling by car and when we go out to dinner, we’ll probably hit the same few places.

I’m sure there are more, and I might edit this post in the future to add other reasons. But that should be start.

The Family is Moving to Japan

It’s been a while since I’ve written. Ron Paul mania has died down, we’re members of a new church where there’s a little more peace and quiet, and my month long trip to Australia happened to be to one of the more boring parts of the world.

For the last year or so, I’ve been browsing the Lockheed Martin job boards to see if there were any cool overseas positions. A couple months ago, I saw a position for a systems administrator in a small, remote village in Northern Japan called Shariki (even the Wikipedia page is extremely sparse). I applied for the position, and was rejected for the position, since knowledge of the program was required. I was disappointed, but life goes on.

A couple months ago, I got a email out of the blue asking me if I was interested in interviewing for an overseas position in Japan. The person who sent the email had a subject line that had the name of the program I had interviewed for earlier. I called the guy back and we chatted for a while. A few minutes into the conversation, I realized that I wasn’t interviewing for a systems administrator position, but for an Information Systems Security Officer (ISSO) position at the same site in Shariki. The interview went well, and a week later, I was told they were putting together an offer for me.

After talking to Sarah and my family, we decided to accept the offer.

The position will be for at least one year, but probably more like 2-3 years in Shariki. We’ll probably be living in a larger town further south called Goshogawara. I haven’t been up to the area, but I’m planning on heading up there next month after an upgrade in Tokyo next month.

The next few months are going to be pretty hectic, but I plan on doing a better job of keeping up with blog during the overseas travel. The Aomori area of Japan has some of the more remote and pristine areas of the country, and we’re really looking forward to some rural living over there.

Jeering Jesus on the Cross

“Having appeared on numerous conservative radio shows to promote other projects unrelated to foreign policy, I have had to tread lightly and watch my words, lest the subject of our current foreign adventure might arise. I quickly learned U.S. policy in Iraq is for most conservatives literally beyond discussion. It is not that these people will not debate the war; they literally cannot. Even questioning American actions abroad while our troops are in the field strikes them as a form not so much of treason as of blasphemy. It’s as if our troops were several hundred thousand Christs, and to criticize their mission amounted to jeering at Jesus on the cross.” – John Zmirak

(HT to Lew Rockwell)