The most disciplined man I ever met was a piano tuner. And I know he was disciplined because I wasn’t able to hire him.
It was while I was working for Microsoft. My lovely wife and I had just finished building our dream house. We’d spent ten years designing it and 18 months building it. It was a wonderful place to raise our kids. It was in the middle of a 5 acre forested lot. My neighbors also had 5 acre forested lots. The leftover old growth stumps were scattered amongst the 100 foot tall second growth firs, and hemlock and vine maples. (Well, the maples weren’t 100 feet.) Our backyard looked like a park.
We had a lovely music room. We installed my lovely wife’s 105 year old stand up grand piano. This piano, while over a hundred years old, had been hard used. It was missing one of the pedals. It was missing multiple hammers. Several of the keys were either stuck in the up or the down position.
I decided that as a gift to my lovely wife, I’d arrange to have it restored. I could repair and refinish the exterior, but I needed a professional to do the inside. I knew that it would cost more to repair it than it would be worth. Kind of like a restored Ford Mustang that costs $20,000 to restore and is worth $15,000 when you are done.
I assumed the piano would cost up to $1000 to restore. I expected it would be worth several hundred when we got done. But, it was worth it as a gift to my lovely wife.
I arranged for a piano repairman to come to our home. In preparation I stripped the exterior panels. The piano looked a little like a halloweeen skeleton that had been used as a pinata. With the interior laid bare the broken pieces were obvious. In fact, in some places, someone long ago had taken another hammer and glued it in place of one of the broken ones.
If anything, I was excited about the prospect of what a transformation it would be. I could hardly wait for repairman to show up. When he did, I eagerly led him into the music room.
Before even putting down his toolbox he turned to me and said,
Not at any price.
What do you mean?
Not at any price. I can’t fix your piano.
Is the damage too great?
It’s not that. But, I won’t do it.
I still don’t get it.
Look, obviously it will take a lot of work. And that will be very expensive.
Right.
But, when I get done, you won’t be happy with it. You’ll be upset that it was so expensive.
Okay, I get it. Don’t worry. I promise I won’t be upset.
Yes, you will.
I expect this will cost $800 to $1,000.
It won’t be worth nearly that much when you are done.
I know. But, it’s kind of a family heirloom.
But, you will still not be happy spending a thousand dollars for a piano worth half that.
But, I’m telling you, I will. In fact, just tell me how much it will cost and I’ll pay you in advance.
Not at any price.
And with that, he turned and left my house.
I was dumbfounded. In fact, even now, years later, I cannot think of anything I could have told him to make him take the job. And I honestly would have been fine with any price.
We eventually sold the piano (still broken) at a yard sale. We put a sign on it that said,
MAKE AN OFFER
We eventually changed the sign to “$50” and it sold in about 30 minutes.
I’ve often thought about that piano repairman. When I’ve been presented with an opportunity to take on a job, I wonder about him. I wonder about myself. Are there jobs that I would turn down no matter the price? Are there tasks that I could walk away from regardless of the offer?
I’ve taken some jobs I shouldn’t have. And I’ve passed on some jobs I should have taken. But, it’s the times I walked away from a job that I shouldn’t have taken that I have been most proud of myself.
I assume that piano repairman felt the same way.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
– Charles Dudley Warner
If you thought it was Mark Twain who first said that, don’t worry, so did I.
I live in a desert. Here, water is life. And not just water, all forms of percipitation; rain, snow, lakes, rivers, resevoirs, snow pack, even ground water levels.
I follow several weather accounts on Facebook. There’s the Utah Snow Forecast. They publish reports all year round. Of course, when the snows start in the Fall, the reports become more detailed. It’s not just a listing of snow levels. The writers use multiple data models to chart not only where this year compares with past years, but what we can expect for the coming months.
Talking about the weather doesn’t change a thing, of course. So, as Mr Charles Dudley Warner said, why talk about it?
Because in a desert, water is life. We get as little as 10 inches of snow in Southern Utah to as much as more than 400 inches at some of the ski resorts.
Utah has very “dry” snow. The moisture content is very low. It makes for the greatest snow on earth. (Ski Utah!) Ten inches of Utah’s great snow contains an inch of water.
Like many parts of the country, we have a monsoon season. The rains come in fall and the snows throughout the winter, of course. And that water needs to get us through the spring and especially the summer. It’s important because, in the spring, when the snow starts to melt, it fills our rivers and our flows into our resevoirs.
There a surprising amount of forecasting and planning that goes into an annual water plan. If the water managers expect a large spring runoff, they will let the resevoirs get low, to make sure there’s room for it. If they leave too much water behind the dams, in the Spring they will have to let too much water downstream and overflow the banks. Let out too much and the resevoirs won’t be full enough in the summer and fall.
The forecasters use history, science, current conditions and a little bit of “finger in the wind” estimates to chart the water estimates for the year.
Data, Big Data feed the forecasts. Various bits of data, each incomplete in itself, are fed into the models. Forecasts are compared against actual conditions and the results are fed back into the computer models.
So, despite Mr Charles Dudley Warner’s words, there actually is a lot we can do after we’ve talked about the weather.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I was asked that question recently. A friend was planning to send me a book and wanted to know what I might like.
I have three favorite authors: Orson Scott Card, Louis L’Amore and Clive Cussler. I also like classic science fiction: Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ben Bova, Heinlien. I enjoy biographies, especially political ones.
I then realized that what I was really interested in weren’t Westerns or Science Fiction or even the short stories that I read.
It’s really management books. I have dozens. Possibly hundreds. I can rattle off my favorites like some iTunes playlist.
My top five are
- First Break All The Rules
- Dale Carnegies’s How to Win Friends and Influence People
- Influencer
- Never Eat Lunch Alone
- Crucial Conversations
“Purple Cow” and “Stealing The Show” are a couple of my favorite marketing books.
On my bookshelf at work I have four books. They are visible for a reason. They are designed to make people think.
- The Art of War by Sun Tzu
- The Prince by Machiavelli
- The Art of The Deal by Donald Trump
- The Seventy Habits of Highly Successful Mercenaries by Howard Tayler
I’m not sure what impression people will get with those particular titles, but I like the story they tell.
I have the list of books that I don’t like:
- The 4 Hour Work Week
- Leadership and Self Deception
- The Traveller
I’ve read books that everyone thought were great, but failed to impress me.
- Good To Great
- Who Moved My Cheese
- Our Iceberg is Melting
I’ve read run of the mill management books that made some excellent points but didn’t make a huge impression
- The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
- Crucial Confrontations
- The Mythical Man Month
- Business at The Speed of Thought and The Information Super Highway by Bill Gates
- Everything I Know About Business I Learned At Microsoft
- 13 Mistakes That Managers Make
I have several books on my current reading list.
- Mind Rules
- Getting Things Done
- The Power of Habit
- Crucial Conversations (again)
I have dozens more that I don’t remember the names of without looking. But, I realized that as much as I love fiction, and short stories, I couldn’t name dozens of books off the top of my head and what impressed me about each one.
What kind of books do I read? Until he asked I hadn’t really considered it.
I’m not sure what kind of a story my reading list tells. If it weren’t mine, I’d say it was boring and nerdy. But, it is mine and apparently “Management books” is my favorite reading genre.
Weird.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
– The Three Laws of Robotics, from 1942 “Runaround” Isaac Asimov
The brilliant science fiction writer Isaac Asimov gave us the Three Laws, but we have to look even further back to find the origin of the word ROBOT. The word, and concept was introduced nearly 100 years ago.
Robot – a bio-engineered worker without a soul
Introduced in 1920 play “RUR” or Russum’s Universal Robots” by Czech playwright Karel Capek
The word itself is from the Old Church Slavonic word, robota. The word means “servitude of forced labor.” And as long as robots have inhabited literature or our imaginations, that’s what they have been, servants.
Robots came to life, real life, in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1948 William Walter invented two robots he called Elmer and Elsie. They didn’t do much, but they were able to mimic lifelike behaviors and could crawl back to their charging stations when they started to run out of juice. In 1954 George Devol invented the first digitally operated and programmable robot. The first industrial robot. It was called Unimate. In 1961 it was introduced to the factory floor in a GM plant in 1961.
I think 2019 will be, in many ways the first true year of the robot. Today robots take many forms. There are industrial robots that don’t look at all like a person. And there are hyper life-like robots that are . . .very lifelike. We have self-driving cars. We have self-propelled vacuum cleaners. We have robots that don’t move, such as Alexa, Siri, Cortana and whatever you call the “Hey, Google” persona.
The line between robotics and artificial intelligence, or AI has continued to blur. AIs have become more and more sophisticated. In fact, AIs, while lacking true sentience, have managed to beat the masters in nearly all games of chance and skill. When left to “learn” by themselves, AIs will also cheat in order to win. Not just games, but ordinary tasks as well.
And that’s the problem. Robots, powered by AI are only as good as their programmers. Robots, and their underlying AI have a heart of code, not flesh. It means that robots don’t make moral judgements. They simply do what they are programmed to do. Sometimes this is with tragic results.
Industrial robots don’t think twice about crushing a human worker if he, or she, happens to get in the way. Automated cars, which have ventured tentatively out on the roads in 2018, will quickly join in droves.
In 1811, a group of men in Nottingham England, formed a secret society dedicated to protesting the use of machinery in the textile industry. They were called the Luddites. And their name has become synonymous with anti-technology. In 1816 the Luddites were eventually surpressed by military response.
We can expect similar responses as we witness 2019s rise of the machines. Last year, in Chandler, AZ, a self-driving car hit and killed a pedestrian. The company Waymo (owned by Google) is testing self-driving cars in Chandler. Tensions are rising. Twenty Waymo self-driving cars have had their tires slashed over the past two years.
Alexa and similar digital assistants have raised privacy concerns. Security hasn’t kept up with the exciting advances in robots and artificial intelligence.
But, like the Luddites, those who oppose the coming robot invasion are destined to fail.
At some time in the not too distant future artificial intelligence will reach a point at which it will achieve true sentience. It’s called the singularity. If a “dumb” AI will cheat to win a game, what will a “smart” AI do? It’s a question that technologists and science fiction writers have debated for a hundred years.
Asimov created his Three Laws to address the issue.
Too bad for now they are just fiction. Because no matter what happens, the robots are coming whether we are ready for them or not.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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2017: RESOLVE
2018: FOCUS
2019: . . .
I’m not sure I make resolutions. I have goals, and the beginning of the year is a time to reassess my goals. Just as the end of the year is a time to reevaluate my goals. I write them down. But, I’m not sure I’d say they are resolutions.
However, I do choose a word of the year. It’s as close to a resolution as I get. I started it in 2017. The word was RESOLVE.
2017 – RESOLVE
In 2017 I felt like I had several goals that had drug on for too long. Some I’d worked at, some I’d just considered. I found myself drifting. I was reacting instead of acting. I decided to make a conscious effort in 2017 to RESOLVE things.
I don’t know that I accomplished any more of my goals in 2017 than I did in previous years, but I certainly was more deliberate in my decisions.
Last year the word was FOCUS.
2018 – FOCUS
Why FOCUS? I found that as I was working more deliberatly in 2017, I was struggling to stay on task. I have Adult ADHD. It’s popular for people to talk about having ADD or ADHD. In a similar way people joke about having OCD.
I don’t joke about either. Both are a mental condition that can be debilitating. I fortunately don’t suffer from OCD, although I have friends who do.
ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyper-activiety Disorder, is a condition that prevents people from focusing on a single event. That’s awesome, right? It means that ADHD people are phenomenal multi-taskers. . .doesn’t it?
In a word, NO. Imagine you were baking a cake. You really need to get this cake done and in the oven at 2:00 so it will be done by 3:00 when you have to leave to pick up your son at school. You start off just fine, gathering the ingredients. As you go to get the eggs out of the refridgerator, you notice that you have some spoiled lettuce that got forgotten in one of the drawers. You pull out the pack of black, greasy sludge that used to be lettuce. No way are you putting that in the inside garbage. You quickly high step it out to the outside garbage to keep it from dripping on the floor too much. But, the kids didn’t bring the can in from the street last night. You go out and put it into the can. On your way back you pick up the paper. (Yes, I still get a paper, I’m old like that.) Not going to read it now, but if it stays out here it will get run over. On the way back through the garage you start to put it down on the workbench, only to realize that yesterday’s paper is already sitting there. You pick up both and decide to take them inside. You notice that your son has been working on his bike and has “forgotten” to put the wrenches back in the tool chest. You set the papers down to quickly collect up the scattered wrenchs and move them back to the tool chest. That reminds you that the doorknob on the main bathroom door is loose. The screws are coming out and you keep forgetting to tighten them. You grab a phillips screwdriver and while we’re on the subject of bathrooms, the master bath door squeaks when you come to bed after your wife is in bed and it disturbs her sleep. You grab a can of spay silicone. (No, WD-40 is a TERRIBLE choice, but that’s another topic.) The main bathroom door only takes a moment. Good to finally have that task done. The master bath has towels hanging on the back. You have to move those or the silicone spray will get all over them. The spray works, but it does mix with the existing oil on the door and makes black streaks down the door. You clean it up and collect the can and remember to not forget the screwdriver and return them to the garage. On the way back to the garage you walk past the kitchen and wonder why someone left the refridgerator door standing open and there’s water drops leading to the garage? After all, you’re the only one home.
Welcome to “multi-tasking” with ADHD.
Drugs help. Ritalin and adderall are the perscription strength versions. You can also use caffeine. All three are stimulants.
But, in addition to drugs, it’s important to actively train you brain. To attempt to notice when you are getting distracted.
In other words, FOCUS.
I FOCUSED much better at the end of 2018 than I did at the beginning.
For 2019 I’ve chosen the word ACT.
2019 – ACT
In addition to ADHD which I’ve coped with for years, I noticed issues with anxiety last year. Once I was FOCUSING on issues, I would still sometimes be moved to immobility. Sure, I was FOCUSED just fine, but I had trouble taking the first step of a task. More drugs and therapy and dealing with some issues that have been stressing me for the last few years and I found it easier and easier to move. This coming year, I’VE RESOLVED to FOCUS on deliberately ACTING.
Like I said, it’s the closest I get to a resolution. Hope your coming year is wildly successful and happy.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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The #1 post from 2018 was about a meeting I attended back in February. It’s strange because as a result of that meeting I lost a good friend (The Wrong Way To End A Friendship.) I didn’t know it at the time. I guess I’d already lost my friend by this time, but, that meeting exposed it.
I didn’t know it at the time. At the time I was trying to learn more about the Black Lives Matter organization. It wasn’t what I thought.
Originally posted 2/23/2018
=================================
You know the saying, “these are my people”? Well, these were not my people. Last night I attended a Black Lives Matter meeting in Ogden, UT. I don’t know what I expected. Whatever it was, the meeting failed to meet any of my expectations.
Let me explain how I ended up there in the basement of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ogden. My daughter recently moved to Ogden. She doesn’t know anyone. She’s getting out of a bad relationship and Ogden is the place that has the services she needs right now. She’s also black. I live in Pleasant Grove, UT. It’s about 70 miles South of Ogden, on the other side of Salt Lake City.
Through a friend, I noticed that the BLM chapter in Ogden was meeting in the Unitarian Church just three blocks from where my daughter is staying. I told her she should attend. She can meet people. She can volunteer. She can start to network.
She’s very shy. And she is very uncertain of herself right now.
I decided that I should go. I’m not shy. I’m not uncertain of myself and I’m not too bad at networking. The meeting started at 6:00. . .on a workday. The commute to get there took me through the heart of Salt Lake City rush hour. Oh, and we were in the middle of snowstorm. I left my house at 5:00. I eventually got to Ogden at 7:00.
What comes to mind when you hear Black Lives Matter? No doubt you have some ideas. So did I. But, I was here to support my daughter and help her meet people in her new city. I decided I could check my own feelings at the door. “I’m here to listen and learn,” is a phrase I practiced on my way there. I needn’t have bothered. No one cared.
The group was nothing like what I expected. I expected politics. There was none. I expected firey speeches. The meeting was about as agitated as a sunday school lesson.
The Ogden chapter of BLM was there for three purposes. First, they were planning the coming year’s events. They split up into committees: An events committee, an education committee, an LGBTQ outreach committee. Each committee worked on a plan and then presented it to the group.
They were also there to talk about protests. Okay, here we go. Here’s the militant side coming out. I steeled myself to be tolerant. I needn’t have. This week there was a case at a local high school where a black student was spit on, called a racial slur and attacked. He defended himself. The school interviewed the white kid he’d had the altercation with. The school then informed the black kid that he was suspended, couldn’t attend prom and might have charges brought against him.
The BLM and its sister group the United Front initiated a calling campaign to the high school. “Be polite. Don’t curse. Don’t threaten.” The school is refusing to reconsider the punishment, but is doing an internal investigation. BLM has decided they are going to hold a protest.
For how many of you will this be your first protest?
I, along with a dozen other people raised our hands.
Can someone please pass out the protest rules to the new folks?
Ever wondered what the rules of engagement are for a BLM protest? They are pretty simple:
Do not respond to racial taunts
Do not step on school property
Do not curse
Do not touch another person or any sign or flag they may be carrying
Record everything
It was about as mild as you could get.
The third activity for the evening was building comfort kits for the homeless. The attendees had brought gallon ziploc bags and snacks, toiletries, hand warmers and supplies for the homeless. The 30 people in attendance made nearly 100 comfort bags. The remaining supplies were then donated to the food pantry at the church. Included in every bag was a “Know Your Rights” card, explaining what to do if stopped by the police.
I met several people. I made sure my shy daughter made some contacts both with the church and local BLM leaders. Most importantly, I changed my perspective. I came prepared to set aside my differences. What I didn’t expect was that we would unite behind common causes.
The Unitarian Universalist Church is not only non-denominational, it’s non-dogmatic. They welcome Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddists, Pagans and Atheists. A granola bar doesn’t have a religious affiliation. A packet with a toothbrush, razor and feminine pads, doesn’t come with a tie to a religion. Unless, it’s the universal religion that says we should take care of each other.
Last night I met a lot of people who were living that sermon. They didn’t change my political beliefs, but they didn’t try. It’s not at all what I expected.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2017 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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The second most popular post from 2018 had a very patriotic theme to it. One of the coolest things I got to do all year was be involved with the Follow The Flag organization. They displayed the largest free flying US flag in the world across the mouth of Grove Creek Canyon.
Well, that was the plan. It didn’t go according to plan.
Originally posted July 4, 2018
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My feet hurt. You are supposed to break in new boots before you go hiking in them. I went on a fairly agressive hike today. But, I didn’t mean to. I also didn’t mean to be hiking up Grove Creek Canyon in a long line of men, boys, women and girls hauling a 450 lbs flag. No, today, definitely didn’t go according to plan. My little town of Pleasant Grove, Utah dreams big. Three years ago, a local man named Kyle Fox decided to surprise the community by flying a flag on the Fourth of July . That might not sound so suprising, except he was flying it suspended 600 feet over the mouth of Grove Creek canyon. You might think it would be hard to see a flag that high off the ground. To compensate for that, Kyle got a big flag. A really big flag. In fact, at 75 ft by 155 ft, it’s the largest free flying United States flag in the world. That’s a big flag. What started as an amazing gesture to his community has turned into a weeklong series of events directed by the Follow The Flag Organization. (followtheflag.org.) The main event is the unfurling of “Big Betsy” as the sun peaks over the tops of the Rocky Mountains on July 4th. Things didn’t go according to plan. The flag failed to unfurl fully. The problem is the canyon winds beat at the flag in it’s compromised state. It ripped. It tore. It literally twisted itself into knots. And then, it came down. Actually, the volunteers brought it down. The town held it’s breath as the volunteers assessed the damage. One challenge was how do you manage to lay out a flag that large? Well, you turn a blind eye to the “flag shouldn’t touch the ground” rule and you use the local high school football field. 
(Photo Credit: David N Junod)The rips were not as bad as at first feared. Three seamstresses were called in to work their magic and like Rumplestiltskin, spin treasure. But, these ladies didn’t have all night, they had three hours. Kathy Sweat ran a professional Brother sewing machine.Gaylyn Dalley ran a 1932 Pfaff machine that looked like your great grandmother might have used it. Liz Vincent provided expert direction drawing on her years of experience, much of it working with Kathy and Gaylyn at Pykes many years ago.Pleasant Grove Vikings football is a pretty good team, but these ladies were a literal all star team. I know this because I watched them repair one of the 5 foot tall white stars. When the sewing was done, it was time for the packaging. Twenty five people line the edge and slowly pull the flag toward them, one 2 foot wide fold at a time. When it’s finished, it’s wrapped in it’s green carry case and like a giant anaconda, snakes it way, supported by volunteers to the waiting truck. Next, it’s off to the mountains. Typically, the team spends from July 1-July 3 prepping the flag for display. Today, we had a couple of hours. It was still early enough in the day that we appreciated the “shady” trail as we formed a human train. On one shoulder was the flag, in the other hand was my walking stick. My knees are bad and that’s not an easy trail. We went up the South side of the canyon switched back toward the West as we crested the top 1000 feet above the canyon floor. We then came down another 400 feet on what might someday become a trail for goats. I love my little town. We turned out to enjoy a free show and then many of use ended up working. And working hard. However, I didn’t hear a single complaint. I didn’t hear a single cross word even. This was our celebration at risk and we each felt that it was our responsibility to fix it. We may end up a day late displaying in the world’s largest free flying American flag. That’s okay. The day might not have turned out the way we planned, but that’s also okay. And I now have blisters on my feet from hiking in new boots. But, considering the cause, I guess that’s okay too.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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The third most popular post from the past year had to do with the idea of not alienating your potential audience. No matter how popular you are.
Originally posted 6/11/2018
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Yesterday was an entertainment industry award show. It was the Tony Awards for outstanding performances on Broadway. At least I think it was. Like many Americans, I don’t watch awards shows.
In 1974, when the US population was 213 million, about 10% of them watched the Tony Awards. It was actually 20.03M, or 9.4%. I’m told that in television numbers, that is a big deal.
The year’s Tony Awards were watched by 6.3M people. Down a lot from 45 years ago. The numbers look even worse when you consider that the US population today is 327M. That means that in 45 years the veiwers dropped from 9.4% to 1.9%. There are lots of reasons why. We have more ways to get the news. We don’t have to watch the show to know who wins, for example.
This trend is not unique to the Tony’s. All awards shows, and television in general have lost viewers.
Donald Trump’s popularity currently stands at 41.7%, according to poll tracking site, fivethirtyeight.com. That’s really close to where Ronald Reagan and Barrack Obama were at this point in their presidencies. Actually, that’s not saying much. Because Reagan and Obama both took over failing economies, a year and a half in, neither had seen their policies start to turn the economy around. Trump on the other hand inherited a strong economy.
But, that’s not the point of this post. The point is that more than 40% of the American public approve of Donald Trump’s job as president. We all know he’s never been above 50%, not even on election night when he only garnered 46%, losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton who also didn’t garner 50% of the popular vote, but beat Trump by earning 48%.
But, that’s also not the point of this post.
The point is that 134,700,000 Americans give the president a thumbs up on his job performance.
It’s typically not a good idea to criticize your employer. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” comes to mind. I enjoy my job and I receive the accolades that my company offers those who do a good job. But, I have no doubt that were I to bad mouth them, or worse, if I were to insult our clients and customers, the people who pay us, I would be quickly given the opportunity to go be successful SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Robert De Niro spoke at the Tony Awards on Sunday night. In fact, the only reason I know the Tony Awards were on is the news coverage that Mr De Niro caused. I don’t know if he was hosting or just a presenter. Like I said, I, along with the vast majority of the public, don’t watch the awards shows.
De Niro departed from whatever prepared remarks he may have had to go on an expletive-laced tirade against the president. The show was broadcast live and the censors had a time keeping up with where to insert the *bleeps*.
A friend suggested that De Niro was brave for using his influence. She’s a good friend, but I think she’s wrong. No one watching the Tonys came away thinking, “I was okay with Trump until I heard that Bob De Niro didn’t like him. I’m out.”
And De Niro has made no secret of his desire to “punch the president in the face.” Okay, we get it. You don’t like him.
Here’s my issue with De Niro. If you are in an industry that relies on the public to pay you, why would you essentially alienate 40% of your audience? No one is going to quit watching the Tonys because of what De Niro said. In fact, he got a standing ovation from the glitterati in attendance. Sure, he was playing to his crowd.
But, you certainly are not going to build audience that way. De Niro is primarily known as a movie actor. The YTD domestic box office receipts for movies in 2018 are about $5.2B. It’s about on par with previous years. But, take out the three super hero movies (Black Panther, Infinity War and Deadpool 2) and that numbers drops to $3.6B. It’s not been a particularly good year when you consider the depth of the field. A few stars and a lot of less popular fare.
Whether you are part of the 40% that thinks President Trump is doing a good job, or the nearly 60% that thinks he isn’t, if you business depends on earning $5,000,000,000 by selling tickets at $9 each, you should be interested in attracting, or at least not driving away your audience.
So, to Mr De Niro, or Meryl Streep, or Hollywood’s talking-head du jour, we are your employer.
Shut up and sing already.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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The fourth most popular post from 2018 was a Star Trek Attack Wing post. WizKids, the makers of Attack Wing banned a group of cards. It was the first time they’d ever done that.
I wrote about it.
Originally posted March 8, 2018
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- Fluidic Space
- Inversion Wave
- Quantum Singularity
- Quantum Slipstream Drive
- Spatial Distortion
- Subspace Vortex
- Transwarp Conduit
- Warp Jump
This post is about Star Trek Attack Wing. (Find a introduction to it here.)
WizKids, the manufacture of Star Trek Attack Wing recently posted an online notice banning not just a list of cards, but all cards of a particular type. (Read the notification here, or scroll down for the full text.)
This has never happened before. Unprecendented. Unheard of. This is something new.
Actually, if you consider it, every new release of a ship we’ve never seen before hasn’t happened before. With the new set of releases we have been introduced to Gold Pressed Latinum. It was unprecedented. We also got a Klingon/Ferengi b’rel ship. That was unheard of. We’ve had a flurry of W.O.R.F. rulings this month clarifying long standing rules questions. That was new.
My point is that even though WizKids has never banned a card before, we shouldn’t be shocked. They do new stuff all the time. And actually, they have banned a few cards.
Let’s look at some of these banned cards. I’m not sure what it says about my obsessive personality that I own multiple copies of each of these cards.
Fluidic Space
Faction: Species 8472
Ship: Bioship Beta
Instead of making a normal move, you may discard this card to remove your ship from the play area and immediately place it back anywhere in the play area, but not within Range 1-2 of any other ship. You cannot attack or perform any Actions on the round you use this ability. This Upgrade costs +5 SP if purchased for a non-Species 8472 ship and no ship may be equipped with more than 1 “Fluidic Space” Upgrade.
Inversion Wave
Faction: Independent (Ferengi)
Ship: Quark’s Treasure
Instead of making a normal move, you may discard this card to place your ship anywhere in the play area within Range 1-3 of your current position. Remove all Tokens (except Critical Hit Tokens) from beside your ship and place an Auxiliary Power Token beside your ship. You cannot attack on the round you use this ability. No ship may be equipped with more than 1 “Inversion Wave” Upgrade.
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Quantum Singularity
Faction: Species 8472
Ship: Bioship Alpha
ACTION: Discard this card to remove your ship from the play area and discard all Tokens that are beside your ship except for Auxiliary Power Tokens. During the End Phase, place your ship back in the play area. You cannot place your ship within Range 1-3 of any other ship. This Upgrade may only be purchased for a Species 8472 ship.
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Quantum Slipstream Drive
Faction: Independent
Ship: U.S.S. Dauntless
If you reveal a maneuver with a speed of 5 or greater, before performing the maneuver, you may discard this card to remove your ship from the play area and discard all tokens from beside your ship except for Auxiliary Power Tokens. Then, immediately place it back in the play area, but not within Range 1-3 of any other ship. You cannot attack during the round you use this ability.
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Spatial Distortion
Faction: Independent/Mirror Universe
Ship: Kyana Prime
ACTION: Discard this card to remove your ship from the play area and discard all Tokens that are beside your ship except for Auxiliary Power Tokens. During the End Phase, place your ship back in the play area. You cannot place your ship within Range 1-3 of any enemy ship. This Upgrade may only be purchased for Krenim weapon ship.
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Subspace Vortex
Faction: Independent (Xindi)
Ship: Weapon Zero
ACTION: Discard this card to remove your ship from the play area and discard all Tokens that are beside your ship except for Auxiliary Power Tokens. Immediately place your ship back anywhere in the play area, but not within Range 1-3 of any enemy ship. You cannot attack during the round you use this Action. This Upgrade may only be purchased for a Xindi ship.
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Transwarp Conduit
Faction: Borg
Ship: Soong
ACTION: Discard this card to remove your ship from the play area and discard all Tokens that are beside your ship except for Auxiliary Power Tokens. During the End Phase, place your ship back in the play area. You cannot place your ship within Range 1-3 of any other ship. This Upgrade may only be purchased for a Borg ship.
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–
Warp Jump
Faction: Federation
Ship: U.S.S. Hathaway
At the start of the Combat Phase, before any attacks have been made, you may discard this card to remove your ship from the play area. At the end of the Combat Phase, after all other ships have attacked, place your ship anywhere in the play area, but not within Range 1-3 of any other ship. All Tokens that were beside your ship are removed. You cannot attack during the round in which you use this ability.
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Warp Jump-Like
All of these cards have been lumped under the category of “Warp Jump-like” cards. Rather than limit themselves to a specific list of cards, WizKids banned a functionality.
From this day forward, all cards that grant Warp Jump-like effects are now banned from tournament play. A Warp Jump-like effect is any effect which removes a ship from the play area and then places it in the play area in a different position either immediately or at a later time.
WizKids then listed the current group of banned cards sans the Transwarp Conduit card. First let’s address the Borg Transwarp Conduit. It should be allowed, right? I mean, it’s not on the ban list, so it’s good, right?
Wrong. WizKids didn’t ban individual cards. They banned “all cards that grant Warp Jump-like effects.” Here’s what Warp Jump says:
At the start of the Combat Phase, before any attacks have been made, you may discard this card to remove your ship from the play area. At the end of the Combat Phase, after all other ships have attacked, place your ship anywhere in the play area, but no within Range 1-3 of any other ship. All Tokens that were beside your ship are removed. You cannot attack during the round in which you use this ability.
Here’s what Transwarp Conduit says:
ACTION: Discard this card to remove your ship from the play area and discard all Tokens that are beside your ship except for Auxiliary Power Tokens. During the End Phase, place your ship back in the play area. You cannot place your ship within Range 1-3 of any enemy ship. This Upgrade may only be purchased for a Borg ship.
“But, Rodney, they aren’t exactly the same. We are a game of details. Transwarp Conduits has ships come back in the End Phase, not the Combat Phase. They are different! It shouldn’t be banned!”
You’re right. The text isn’t exactly the same. Maybe they wanted it done differently. Except, let’s look at the Spatial Distortion Upgrade card.
ACTION: Discard this card to remove your ship from the play area and discard all Tokens that are beside your ship except for Auxiliary Power Tokens. During the End Phase, place your ship back in the play area. You cannot place your ship within Range 1-3 of any enemy ship. This Upgrade may only be purchased for a Krenim weapon ship.
That is a direct cut-and-past from the Transwarp Conduit card text. All I did was swap out the Borg ship with Krenim weapon ship. Obviously, WizKids wanted to ban Transwarp Conduit. It’s why they banned a type of card. For example, Quantum Singularity also has the exact same text. Except it says Species 8472 ship.
“But, it’s still not on the list! The list is the thing! We live and die by our lists! Only cards on the list are banned!”
Not exactly. Think about Subspace Vortex. We showed it above. It is on the list, so it should be banned. No question. But, what about Subspace Vortex? No, not that Subspace Vortex, the other Subspace Vortex.
The second one is on the list. Should it also be banned? Nope. The 5SP Subspace Vortex is clearly not a Warp Jump-type card. It helps you go fast, but doesn’t let you remove your ship from the play area. I think this is why WizKids banned the functionality, not just a specific list of cards.
Why do this?
Several online posters have asked “Why would WizKids go to this extreme?” Are these cards really that dangerous?
In a word, yes. These cards, especially Warp Jump, break the game. With the addition of Gold Pressed Latinum and the ability to bring back discarded cards, the problems get even worse.
Recently I wrote an article about “Unbeatable Builds.” The Warp Jump build was simply called “The Build.” Some of the best players in the game set out to test if Warp Jump could help you win in a way that was unbeatable. Robert Fletcher, Tucker Coby and Joseph Van Der Jagt playtested it extensively. They determined that Warp Jump would not only allow you to win every single time, but you would do it in a way that was really, really boring.
Essentially, you could steal a card from your opponent and then use Warp Jump-like cards to run away until the time ran out.
WizKids sponsors regular tournaments, including National and World championships. It’s terrible for a tournament if you know coming in that a particular person is going to win. Sure that was okay for golf when Tiger Woods was still a golfer, but for the most part, you want some balance. And the game is called Attack Wing. Not steal something and run away and hide for an hour Wing. The Warp Jump-type cards let people win games, and tournaments without actually attacking anyone. That’s not how the game was designed to be played.
“But, Rodney, banned? They’ve never banned a card before. Banning doesn’t fix anything. I built my entire fleet around these cards. I spent a bunch of money to buy multiple copies of the USS Hawthorn (the ship that Warp Jump came with.)”
Actually, WizKids has a long history of banning cards. They’ve banned over 30 of them. They ban a card every couple of months. Most recently they banned Condition Alert.
The next card to be banned will be Scan Cycle.
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Everyone accepts the idea that Resources get banned. Sure, we call it retiring them. But, there is no real difference between a banned card and a retired card. Neither type is playable in tournaments. In all other ways, you can choose to use them. If your friendly local game store likes to use Warp Jump-type cards, they can do that. If you want to play with your friends, and use these cards, you certainly can. But, in a tournament, you cannot use these type cards. Just as you cannot use retired (banned) resources in a tournament.
Is it new for WizKids to ban upgrade cards?
Of course. In fact, I can completely sympathize with those players who bought extra ships to try to get these cards and use them in their fleets. In fact, here is my personal collection of newly banned cards.
I have a few. They are all now obsolete.
What doesn’t grow dies. There have been many exciting additions from WizKids in the past year. Some of the changes have been easy to adopt. Some have been more challenging. Some are still causing some headscratching and frequent double checking of the rulebook.
What doesn’t grow, dies. It’s exciting to see Star Trek Attack Wing growing, alive and well.
Here is the complete text of the WizKids announcement. Read it on the WizKids site here.
Welcome Star Trek: Attack Wing Fans!
Since the inception of the new rulebook we’ve paid great attention to the buzz amongst the community and the feedback our play-testers have given us. More frequently than anything else, we often hear about Warp Jump-like effects as well as stealing cards.
For those of you not familiar with Warp Jump-like effects, they allow you to remove your ship from the play area and place it back either immediately or at a later time. With strategic planning, a skilled player can both negate the positioning aspect of Star Trek: Attack Wing and completely avoid combat while forcing opposing ships to maneuver through Cloaked Mines. Both of these things are bad in a dogfighting game that’s built around combat and maneuvering. Furthermore, the way in which scoring for stolen cards works in conjunction with Warp Jump-like effects means a player can steal cards from a ship, earn points for them, then avoid combat for the rest of the game. By using this tactic via Warp Jump-like effects, they ultimately win with the handful of points they got from stealing a card. This is a problem that goes against the spirit of the game.
Today, we’re going to do something about both Warp Jump-like effects and stealing. While looking for an appropriate solution to these problems, we looked at multiple solutions such as making all Warp Jump-like effects unique or making it so that stolen cards don’t reward points to anyone. After discussing and testing we found that some of these solutions were too much and others were not enough. Ultimately, we settled on the below solutions.
From this day forward, all cards that grant Warp Jump-like effects are now banned from tournament play. A Warp Jump-like effect is any effect which removes a ship from the play area and then places it in the play area in a different position either immediately or at a later time. This DOES NOT include docking and launching shuttlecrafts because docking and launching are two separate abilities. Below is a current list of cards that are now disallowed in tournaments:
• Warp Jump
• Quantum Slipstream Drive
• Fluidic Space
• Spatial Distortion
• Quantum Singularity
• Subspace Vortex
• Inversion Wave
In regards to stealing, we are now treating it like discarding for the purposes of scoring. Now, instead of points being scored per card stolen, any card that is stolen, assimilated, discarded, removed from play, or otherwise removed from a ship will only be scored by the opposing player once that ship is destroyed. This means that if you steal my Mr. Spock Crew Upgrade from my U.S.S. Enterprise, you WILL NOT earn points for him until the U.S.S. Enterprise he was previously equipped to is destroyed.
We truly appreciate all of the constructive criticism and patience we’ve received from all of our fans. We’re very dedicated to making Star Trek: Attack Wing the best that it can be so please continue to let us know how YOU, the fans, think we can make Star Trek: Attack Wing better and better!
Live Long and Prosper,
-The WizKids Team
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Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2017 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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It’s time to countdown the biggest stories of 2018. Actually, no, just my little corner of it. Here is the 5th most popular post from the past year.
I typically avoid politics in this space. But, Bret Kavanaugh was such huge story it dominated the media for weeks. This was my attempted non-partisan take on it.
It’s All About Balance (Oh, And Bret Kavanaugh) Originally published 10/5/2018.
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This is a post about politics that is not political. Well, that’s my plan anyway. You don’t come here for politics. You can get that many places online.
But, sometimes politics can teach us lessons about business and life. That’s my goal today. If I fail, just trust in the fact I don’t talk politics much.
Brett Kavanaugh
Unless you are someone with no connection to the internet, and no radio or newspapers. . .or any friends, you know who he is. He was nominated by the president for a position on the Supreme Court As they do for all Supreme Court nominations, Congress is required to provide “advice and consent.” So far so good.
Yeah, that’s about where it all went off the rails. I’m not going to offer an opinion on whether Bret Kavanaugh should be on the Supreme Court. That’s for those other political sites. What I want to focus on is the process and offer insights on why people are so passionate about this nomination.
Maybe it’s because Liberals will simply oppose any nominee that this president offers. And in fact some Democratic senators indicated their intention to do exactly that. Conservatives will claim that the Democrats are opposed based on the fact that he was nominated by the president as well.
It’s not true. How do I know? Justice Neil Gorsuch. He was nominated by a Republican president and fairly easily confirmed. It was largely along party lines, but a few Democrats voted for him.
Why was Gorsuch confirmed so easily and Kavanaugh is hitting so much resistance? To find the answer, we have to look back a few years. The fight isn’t really about Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, or even Merrick Garland, the judge nominated by President Obama to fill a vacant Supreme Court position. As most people know, the Republican Senate leadership utterly refused to consider Garland.
Was it because the Republicans were going to oppose all Obama nominees? No. Because Justices Sotomayer and Kagan were both nominated by President Obama and confirmed with some Republican support.
So, why Sotomayer, Kagan, Gorsuch and not Garland and Kavanaugh? It’s all about balance. As Americans we love balance in our government. It’s why the most productive periods of the past 40 years have typically been when the president was of one party and Congress was the other.
Think about it, President Obama spent most of his presidency with a Republican controlled congress. Just as President Clinton did. And President Reagan spent most of his two terms with a Democratic controlled congress. As Americans we want to balance power between the two parties. That’s why we typically change the party of the elected president every 8 years.
– Obama, Democrat, 8 years
– George W Bush, Republican, 8 years
– Clinton, Democrat, 8 years
– Reagan/George HW Bush, 12 years
– Carter, Democrat, 4 years
– Nixon/Ford, Republican, 8 years
– Kennedy/Johnson, Democrat, 8 years
– Eisenhower, Republican, 8 years
– Franklin Roosevelt/Truman, 20 years
Other than the Carter/Reagan/GHWB period, we pretty much switch out the party of the president every 8 years. What’s this have to do with the Supreme Court?
The Court is also balanced. Sure, justices are supposed to be impartial. They aren’t. No human is. No one is surprised that Justice Ginsberg is a Liberal, or that Justice Alito is a Conservative. We knew they were when they were appointed. And since the presidency has been switching back and forth politically, we’ve actually maintained a reasonable balance as Democratic presidents appoint Liberal justices and Republian presidents appoint Conservatives.
Occasionally a justice will turn out to be not as Liberal or Conservative as the president who appointed them thought they would be. And that’s also part of our system. But, we’ve had a fairly balanced court. It leans slightly left on social issue and leans slightly right on gun rights issues and business.
That brings us to the nominees. President Obama’s nominee Sonia Sotomeyor, a Liberal was nominated to replace Justice David Souter, also a Liberal. Likewise Elena Kagan was nominated to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who was also a Liberal, despite being nominated by a Republican president. When each of these women were seated on the Court, the balance of Liberal/Conservatives was largely unchanged.
That brings us to Merrick Garland. He was nominated to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most Conservative justices. Had Garland been confirmed, the court would have shifted significantly to the left. Republicans were determined to use any stratagem possible to prevent that. And we ended up with the embarrassment of a standoff between a president putting forth a nominee and Congress refusing to hold hearings.
You would think that Democrats would have been anxious to get revenge two years later after the next president nominated a Conservative. You’d be wrong. Justice Gorsuch was confirmed 54-45. Three Democratic senators crossed the aisle to vote him in.
Why? Because it didn’t change the balance of the Court. Gorsuch, a Conservative was replacing Scalia, also a Conservative.
And now we come to Kavanaugh. Why the fierce resistance to him? Because he is replacing Justice Kennedy. Technically, Kennedy is a Moderate, but that just means he’s biased in ways that don’t match a political party. On social issues, Justice Kennedy has voted very Liberal. He sided with the majority in Obergefell vs Hodges, better known as the Gay Marriage case. And yet, he also sided with the majority on Heller vs DC, the landmark gun rights case.
Kavanaugh is much more consistently Conservative than Justice Kennedy was. And that will disrupt the balance of the Court. So, even though Democrats had little chance of stopping his confirmation, they have worked tirelessly to try to prevent it.
The last time we had a Conservative replacing a Liberal on the Court in a manner like this was 1991 when the elder President Bush nominated Conservative Clarence Thomas to replace the more Liberal Thurgood Marshall.
It looks like the vote on Kavanaugh will be this weekend. Fifty Senators have stated they intend to vote to confirm him, virtually assuring he will be our next Supreme Court Justice. And while people will claim that the fight was about drinking or lying or allegations of abuse, the root of all those efforts is the fact that his appointment will shift the Court to the right.
Justice Ginsberg has suggested that she intends to retire sometime in the next five years. If Trump is reelected president he will appoint another Conservative to fill any vacancies on the Court.
If a Conservative is nominated to replace Ginsberg, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved