Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books I thought I’d read. I’m a Sci-Fi fan,
and ate up a lot of the “masters” of Sci-Fi years ago. I started with Arthur C.
Clarke (Childhood’s End was
my first Sci-Fi read, what a way to start!), and quickly ran through most of
the works of Heinlein, Asimov, and others, including, I thought, Ray
Bradbury.

Apparently not.

My only thought is that perhaps I got sidetracked by the weirdness that is
Something Wicked
This Way Comes, and set Mr. Bradbury aside.

Fast forward some [mumble] years, and I find a reference to
Fahrenheit
451 in the always popular and thought provoking This Is True weekly email.

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If my math is right as I write this we’re coming up on 80 hours without
power after the windstorm that partied on the Seattle area Thursday night.

Various thoughts in no particular order…

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The typeface was smaller than I expected.

But then it would have to be.

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Today’s my birthday.

No big deal, really. Life’s actually too busy to pay much attention to it. It’s not
one of the “milestone” birthdays or anything – that’s next year. And for the most part, most of the time
“on the inside” I feel about half my age.

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I’ve tried to explain this enough times that I decided just to write it up
once and (literally) for all.

We opened my wife’s doll shop in 1994. This month marks the completion of
our 12th year.

This month also marks the end of our current lease. That’s a decision point
– knowing this, last year we started asking ourselves: stay, move, go
internet-only or close down completely? The internet has changed the landscape
of doll selling fairly dramatically in recent years, and the expenses
associated with running an actual retail store don’t quite make sense in
comparison to the revenue generated by in-store sales. Internet sales were
“carrying” the business.

If we were going to be profitable , we needed to reduce expenses. Next to
inventory, which is kinda necessary, rent and payroll were tops on the list.
The status quo wasn’t going to cut it.

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I keep having to apologise to people for taking to long, going dark, and
just generally being so over committed that everything is suffering.

I decided to enumerate all the “things” that are, and have been, going on in life lately – not as an excuse,
more as explanation:

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Really geeky, but for those that might be interested in same, and to the degree that I understand its usage, here’s my GnuPG public key. Using GPG it can be used to validate messages or data that I “sign”, or encrypt messages such that only I can decrypt them.

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I have mixed feelings after reading TWiF. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s
an excellent book, and as you’ll see in a moment, I believe it’s an important
read.

The problem, if that’s what you want to call it, is that it didn’t really
challenge me. I pretty much agree with everything that the author is saying. I
found myself thinking, “yep, yer right” over and over again.

The premise of the book is simply that due to our advancements in technology
– most notably the internet – the world is getting effectively “flatter”. More
people in more diverse regions of the planet are being empowered to
collaborate, and compete, in the global market.

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And it really hurts me to walk away. Unlike most customers, who’d probably have walked away long ago, I have an emotional attachment.

I worked on Expedia. When it first went live, I was the guy who installed the “final bits” in the MSN datacenter where it was housed at the time. My account is one of the first on Expedia. Somewhere within the bowels of Expedia, it’s quite possible that some of my code remains.

And yet, no matter how hard I try, Expedia refuses to take my money.

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February 16, 1916. That’s 90 years ago, and the day my dad arrived on planet
earth. Actually, to be more specific, a small farmhouse in The Netherlands.

90 years and many miles later, he’s living comfortably in a nursing home
about 20 miles and 30 minutes from my home. He’s a long time victim of
Alzheimer’s disease. We joke that he has the “good kind” of dementia, because
he’s content, even happy at times, and still has a positive outlook. “We keep
on trying” is something he’s said for many years, and told me once again
today.

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I’m on the board of a local non-profit agency, Hopelink. There’s a surprising amount of poverty and families in crisis in what most assume is a very affluent community. Just because you don’t always see it doesn’t mean it isn’t here.

So, what is Hopelink? The one-sentence version:

Hopelink helps homeless and low-income families get out of crisis and become self-sufficient.

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In recent months I’ve come to believe, strongly, that it is communication, or rather the lack there of, that is the real cause of 80% if the world’s conflict. Time and time again it seems like the inability to communicate an idea clearly, or the inability to truly hear and understand what’s being said, leads to problems. Be it between family members or nations, in my opinion it’s failed communication of ideas, more than ideological differences, that lead to conflict.

Communication is difficult.

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I originally picked this up on the strong recommendation of several entrepreneurs that I work with. The original goal was to learn more about marketing techniques. I ended up walking away with a lot more.

What’s interesting about reading this book is how often I found myself saying “oh, that’s why!” – it explains a lot about human behavior and why we do the things we do. It explains a lot about not only how we are influenced, but why … and why it makes sense that it might be so. And of course, what you might do once you recognize it.

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Updated in April, 2020.

It comes up from time to time, so in addition to Ask Leo!’s Who is Leo?, and my very out-of-date resume, here are a few words covering what I’m about.

I’ve been in the personal computer and software industry for over 25 years, as a software engineer and a manager of software engineers since 1979.

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