In Plain Sight

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

Shawn — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 06:40:00 +0000

Sorry, no turkey pictures this year. Instead, I thought I’d present you with Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation.

Fortune is Fickle

Shawn — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 05:40:15 +0000

I want you to sit back and imagine.

Imagine a man who is at the pinnacle of his profession; he has no equal. He holds the Division I records for wins (409), bowl appearances (37), and bowl wins (24).

He has worked to shape young men for 66 years, two or three generations.

He instituted a paradigm shift in the way many thought about how college football was played out east. The Nittany Lions fought their way to perennial contender status in the 80s, winning two national championships in that decade.

Five-time Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year. Three-time Big Ten Coach of the Year. Imagine that.

Now it’s all gone. The Penn State Board of Trustees has relieved Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier of their duties, and rightfully so. They failed to make the right decision at a key moment and they failed to prevent untold psychological damage to a number of children.

Imagine the magnitude of this fallout. Watergate comes to mind as something that comes close, but I wasn’t alive for that, so I can’t be certain.

They say that no crisis should go unwasted and it’s true in this case. It’s an example of what happens when you trade integrity for comfort and prestige. We should teach our young ones to do the right thing even if it’s not popular or even if they risk losing a lot.

And if you’re so inclined, pray for the victims.

Be Here Now

Shawn — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:56:11 +0000

Amazing video from Blaine Hogan. Be prepared to have your breath taken away.

(h/t Jon Acuff)

The Definition of Courage

Shawn — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 03:48:34 +0000

[A man] must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

There’s a difference between…

Shawn — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 23:43:05 +0000

…being full of shit and not knowing what you’re talking about. The former implies intent.

For Steve

Shawn — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:21:11 +0000

I’m not one to get carried away with remembrances of those I’ve never met. And there are those who could say more about Steve Jobs than I ever could. But bear with me.

The early days of personal computing were pretty wild when you look at it today. You had Commodore, with their one-two punch: the Vic-20 and the Commodore 64, and IBM with their PC and PCjr.

And then there was Apple, offering a little box of a computer, with a single button mouse, called the Macintosh. Very beige, very boxy, nothing that would help it stand out on a shelf. But it came with a wealth of software, including MacPaint and HyperCard, an application that gave consumers their first taste of programming. The Macintosh stepped beyond the bounds of what was accepted in personal computing by encouraging folks to create, to play and to explore.

Because of the Macintosh, those ordinary folks discovered the power of technology. Some of them became extraordinary, the first generation of hackers and tinkerers. It’s folks like them that went on to build Google, WordPress, Facebook…the list goes on and on.

Yes, the devices are wonderful. I have two within arms reach and another in the closet. And yes, Apple is truly a company worthy of envy. But those are just temporary.

Steve’s lasting legacy is his commitment to one thing: we could all be adventurers.

Danny Macaskill – Industrial Revolutions

Shawn — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:36:50 +0000

It’s not so much the tricks that I like, but the underlying motif.

The Future of Storytelling

Shawn — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:32:41 +0000

I’d wager that the next George Lucas won’t be a filmmaker. He, or she, will be a game designer.

Thoughts?

On Our Political System

Shawn — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:22:24 +0000

Surreality of American politics doubled by fact most folks no idea how far behind the rest of the developed world US is falling.

Things Discovered During a Database Rebuild

Shawn — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 05:13:44 +0000

If you re-insert a Drupal webform using INSERT statements, you may discover that, even though you’ve set your components properly, they won’t show up. If so, make sure you haven’t INSERTed the data for the webform_roles table. Drupal will rebuild those for you, otherwise it’ll choke on that data and not give you your components.
Navicat is so fired!

P.S. I should mention #1 involved Drupal 7.