Governments: Boost Your Credibility with This One Weird Trick!!! *

Yo, government (Fredericton, NB + Ottawa):

The fact that people don't trust you (or the resource extraction industries you're so cozy with) is your problem, not theirs.  Own it.

You need to do a lot more of this:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/pre-shale-gas-water-quality-to-be-studied-1.2737559

To have less of this:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/n-b-fracking-protest-raised-fears-of-copycat-rallies-1.2738921

Any questions, call me. 

xoxo,

Doreen

* Apologies to my Gentle Readers (of the non-governmental persuasion) for the skeezy Newsmax-esque ad headline.  I'm fighting the urge to boil my laptop in bleach after typing that.

Frivolous Friday, 2014.08.15: Molly-arty

By this point, Dennis is no doubt regretting the day he ever convinced me to try out the BBC series "Sherlock."  At the time, I thought he was referring to CBS's "Elementary," which frankly sounded gawdawful.  Plus, there was that Robert Downey Jr. monstrosity still lurking about, which didn't help matters.

Now, I remember seeing what happened the last time Hollywood modernised The Great Detective, when Basil Rathbone was suddenly dragged forward in time from fin de siecle London and dropped off in the 1930s.  It clunked.  Besides, to me, Jeremy Brett will always be Sherlock Holmes. 

But Dennis insisted that the BBC reboot was "smart...sexy...funny," and he went so far as to snag the first two series on DVD.  So I sat down to "A Study in Pink," and was *hooked*.  Uh-oh.  I snagged the original A.C. Doyle canon, and have only left one short story unread (saving it for a special occasion), and know the rest well enough that I can re-watch episodes and go, "Aaaaaah--I see what you did there!" when the writers slyly sneak in references. 

Like most good nerderies, the A. Conan Doyle canon has the selling-point of a limited supply:  Four (short) novels and fifty-six short stories, plus a few extra-curriculars for the hard-core fans.  (Mercifully, we're not talking "The Dresden Files" here--he can't write more.)

But if the original canon is limited, BBC only produces three "Sherlock" episodes every two years.  And they've left each season on a cliffhanger.  Jerks.  Worse, they loooove to tease the fans--witness the 6-minute mini-episode released Christmas Day.  The two principal actors, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, are hot properties on both sides of The Pond, so we'll be lucky to see Series 4 before 2016.

That's a lot of time for speculation--and by "speculation," I mean terabytes worth of fan-fic, YouTube mash-ups, and the obligatory online food-fights.  Team Johnlock, Team Sherlolly, Team Sheriarty, and whatever you'd call Sherlock plus Irene Adler.  Even rumours of a for-charity mash-up of "Sherlock" and "Dr. Who."  ("Sherlock" co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis are also writers for the latter series.  British show-biz is nothing if not incestuous that way.)

*** HERE THERE BE SPOILERS ***

So if the hot question in 2012 was, "How did Sherlock survive jumping off a tall building?", in 2014 it's "Is Moriarty really back from the dead himself?"

It's already been pointed out that when Sherlock turns back to Moriarty's corpse sprawled on the rooftop, the gun with which Moriarty committed suicide is still in Moriarty's hand.  The gun should have gone well afield when Moriarty's body hit the roof (literally).  (There's also some noise made about "Richard Brook" being right-handed when "James Moriarty" is clearly a southpaw.)

Yet, just as Sherlock is leaving the U.K. on what is guaranteed to be his last service to his country, Moriarty's face is on every screen in the country--the Max Headroom of the 21st century--asking, "Did you miss me? Did you miss me?  Did you miss me?"

So, for the record, here's my over-obsessive fangirling on the hot question of 2014.

Naturally, we eliminate the impossible to arrive at the implausible truth.  So let's start with the basic premise that we have absolutely no reason to believe that the person who put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger on the top of St. Bartholomew's Hospital was in fact the person known as "James Moriarty."

One thing that's bugged me since S1E3 ("The Great Game") is the killing of the blind hostage.  All the hostages are wired with explosives which will be set off if the hostage deviates from her/his "script."  Because Moriarty can't communicate with the blind woman by text, he has to speak to her--stepping at least partly out of the shadows, as Sherlock points out at the time.  But after her "puzzle" has been solved, she starts to describe Moriarty's voice to Sherlock & Lestrade, and Moriarty has the trigger pulled.  That made absolutely no practical sense, simply because that was information she could have given to Scotland Yard once she'd been rescued and defused.  Conclusion?  She was still reading from the script until the very end.

Thus, we don't even have any guarantee that Moriarty is actually a dude.

Which leads to my premise that Series 4 will uncover the real "Moriarty," and she will wear the face of pathologist Dr. Molly Hooper.

Yep.  Molly-arty.  Better yet, Molliarty.

If you're familiar enough with the original canon to know that "Moriarty" was "Professor James Moriarty," you can make a case for it being Dr. Mike Stamford, but I think Molly's more plausible.  Here's why:

• The "Jim Moriarty" we see doesn't have many interactions with Sherlock that couldn't be scripted.  Molly is present at the first meeting in Bart's lab.  Moriarty briefly exits during the poolside meeting, and then receives a phone call when Sherlock takes things in an unexpected direction. Moriarty pretty much controls the script in the flat, and basically pwns Sherlock in the cab scene.  For the rooftop showdown, Sherlock had already worked out his plans, and was coordinating with Molly as well as his brother Mycroft and the Homeless Network.
• When Irene Adler monologues Mycroft and Sherlock, she says that Moriarty calls them "The Iceman and the Virgin," suggesting a character read that could only be had first-hand.
• Molly has a sociopathic streak herself.  When we first meet her (and Sherlock), she's wheeling in the corpse of a former co-worker, "I liked him; he was nice.".  Sherlock then beats Mr. Nice with a riding crop to test for bruising after death.  Molly's response is to smirk, "Bad day, was it?" before asking Sherlock out for coffee.  Also, at John's wedding, she sticks a fork into the back of her fiance's hand to shut him up.
• When Irene Adler fakes her death, the body in the morgue just happens to be shown by Molly, who claims to have nothing going on on Christmas Day.  Molly very, very quickly produces the corpse "double" when Sherlock fakes his own death.  That suggests connections that NHS pathologists are unlikely to have.
• When Sherlock deduces that Mary Watson is not who she claims to be, he notes both her "orphan" status and that her friendships have been formed w/in the last few years.  Molly also seems to lack close relationships, particularly after her engagement to Tom fails. (See above.)
• When you're in the consulting criminal business, working in a morgue (not to mention being the person who officially determines the cause of death) comes in really handy.  'Nuff said.
• Molly is conveniently on hand when Sherlock decides to face Moriarty head-on.  She has already let him know that she guesses what he is contemplating; he would have been stupid to refuse her help.
• When General Shan (sp?) is trying to excuse her failure to Moriarty, she is talking, but "he" is typing, and then under the screen name of "M."  The "M" could also stand for "Molly," and indeed, balance of probability suggests first name, rather than last name, is more likely for a screen handle.
• Actor Andrew Scott is openly gay, but we have no reason to believe that Moriarty is--even with the "Jim from I/T" performance.  When Moriarty first contacts Sherlock, "he" addresses him as "Sexy."  Later, Moriarty says, "You and I were meant for each other."  That sounds suspiciously like Molly's (apparent) feelings for Sherlock.
• At the beginning of S2E3 ("The Reichenbach Fall"), Mycroft confesses to John that to get any information at all from Moriarty when they had "him" in custody, he had to trade tidbits about Sherlock, including their childhood.  We later learn that the young Sherlock was left emotionally scarred when their dog, Redbeard, was euthanised.  Yet somehow that information finds its way into the hands of blackmailer Magnussen.  Given their personalities, the likelihood of them working together is absurd.  However, Magnussen would have paid handsomely for Sherlock's "pressure points," giving Molliarty more capital to rebound for Round III with Sherlock.
• Moriarty only returns when Sherlock is being sent on a kamikaze spy-mission, but also after Sherlock has whacked the only other criminal with the resources--notably a media empire--to be viable competition.  Bonus points for a strategic double-cross there.

Conclusion:  The person claiming to be Jim Moriarty could have been threatened into acting as a front for Molliarty.  After all, hostage-taking was all in a day's work for Moriarty.  The Reichenbach Fall played out slowly enough for Molliarty to move the bulk of her assets to safe havens, leaving a brittle shell for one-man-traveling-band Sherlock to take apart.  (Tellingly, Mycroft is skeptical of Sherlock's achievement.)  Molliarty may or may not have contrived to have Mary meet John.  But she probably instigated Magnussen's picking the first fight with Sherlock/Mary/John.  That seemed to happen far too soon after Sherlock's return for it to have been organic.  And setting up Sherlock so that killing Magnussen was the only way to protect John, Mary, and their child effectively signed Magnussen's death-warrant.

Which, with the exception of John having unwittingly married a trained assassin, pretty much sets the same pieces back on familiar squares for Series 4.   Except that if I'm right, it means no more Andrew Scott, which would suck because he's riveting in that role.

*** END SPOILERS ***

Unless I splurge on the full Jeremy Brett "Sherlock Holmes" from the 80s/90s, it's gonna be a looooooooong time until Series 4.  For, I suspect, Dennis as much as me.

Entrepreneurship is too important to be left to professionals *

Tonight the Moncton, New Brunswick Public Library hosted an "Ask an Expert"...uhhmmm...thingie.

I say "thingie" because I can empty the pockets of 21st century English and not find a word that accurately describes the format.

It wasn't a seminar or symposium because there were no presentations, either from the end of the table or behind a podium.

It wasn't a roundtable, though, because two of us were the designated "experts," and one the facilitator.

That being said, it wasn't strictly a Q&A session, though we went around the room introducing ourselves as context for our one or two most pressing questions.  Plus, it doesn't count the cross-pollination of ideas/resources.

Except that's not quite a true statement, because there were two folks from the CBDC (Community Business Development Center) and one from Universite de Moncton.  And they didn't have questions, actually.

You can't call it a "hackathon" because no one was expected to emerge with a fully-formed business plan inked in adrenaline and Red Bull.

And it certainly wasn't a "Shark Tank" VC beauty pageant.  (Small mercies, yo.)

Thus, "thingie."

 This was apparently the first time that the Library has done this.  I don't think it should be the last.  The balance of the low-key format with two veterans of business-building was about perfect.  Particularly for folks who are still in the "What-if"? phase.

Thumbs up to the MPL for the idea/initiative.  And certainly thanks to experts Natacha Dugas (STRATI App Labs) & Jon Chandler (Terra Verde), and a thank you for the generosity of their time and insights.

As for the terminology, I'm perfectly happy with "thingie."  You can pretty much guarantee no one will turn that into the next SXSWi anytime soon.

- - - - -

* Title is tongue-in cheek.  Mainly because, to my thinking, the term "professional entrepreneur" is an oxymoron.  Simply due to the sheer amount of they-don't-teach-this-at-MBA-school improvisation required.  And the only "certification" is longevity.

A thought on not living down (or up to) stereotypes

You can say what you like about the stereotypical programmer, but suspicion of all things new is not among the standard character flaws.  Like our idols Mister Spock and Sherlock Holmes, we can dispassionately dispense with the human bias for the comfortably familiar.

And yet.

I had to add the login feature to a web application today.  There's nothing particularly exciting about that.  Until you factor in the adrenaline-kick from sheer paranoia.  Login pages, after all, are the gateway into the castle that is someone else's data.  As a programmer, you want to do your due diligence and make sure that not only is the door itself is strong, but also that the portcullis is down, the drawbridge is up, and the moat is fully stocked with hungry crocodiles.

One of the recommended ways to go about this is to integrate something called a "stored procedure" into your web code.  If you're not a code or database geek, don't freak out:  I promise not to be too nerdy.  What you basically need to know is that this code actually resides in the database itself.  Mainly that's to take advantage of the database's own...shall we say..."immunities" to potential troublemakers.

So I started going through the usual motions of cranking out typical login code.  Then it occurred to me to check in with the database's documentation to see whether they'd upgraded the functionality which encrypts text so that passwords are rendered unintelligible to humans.  As luck would have it, a new and improved encryption function was waiting.  (Which is good, because the old standard had been compromised awhile back.)  The new function was slightly different, so I tweaked my in-progress code to deal with that and finished up the stored procedure.

When I called the procedure with my login name and password, however, the database had never heard of me.  Plus there was a semi-useful warning about data being truncated (which basically means some of it's being chopped to fit a smaller expected length). 

Weird... 

A sanity-check of the documentation and some extra poking-n-prodding says that I'm using the new function correctly.  I also have enough space for the encrypted password.  Maybe I didn't correctly encrypt the password when it was added to the database.  Whatever--let's do that again, just to make sure. 

Still no joy.  Huh.

So I copied just the relevant code-snippet into a fresh query window and executed it independent of the surrounding code.  The good news is that the snippet finds a match for my login/password; the bad news is that it won't do it inside the larger procedure.  Oh, and that warning about truncated data is still there.  Wat?

As it turns out, the problem all along was with my login name.  See, I'd set up the procedure to assume that login names wouldn't be any longer than 25 characters.  But then I used a (longish) email address to log in.  Result?  The chopped-off email address didn't match what was in the database and thus wasn't recognised. The password, on the other hand, was perfectly kosher.

But because this was my first outing with the new-and-improved encryption, I reflexively targeted it as the cause of my woes.   I have to chalk up the afternoon as a net "win," because I won't forget what I learned about the encryption feature while debugging its non-existent problems.  Though it looks like I will be still aspiring to Spockian/Sherlockian dispassion when problem-solving for some time longer.

Linked blog post

(Marie-) Arzel was gracious enough to give me the green light to cross-post something from her chef-oriented blog. Power to the People...with Passion!

Btw: If you read take the time to read the "bitter" post, it's worth your while to check out the more upbeat, and very practical stuff that keeps it company. The fact that she can rebound from a dented dream to craft occasionally dreamy, occasionally hard-nosed prose for others is only part of what makes her amazing.

Frivolous Friday, 10.14.2011: Gaming the system

At work, the conferencing software's reach definitely exceeds its grasp. This was ably demonstrated on Monday's "Area Staff Meeting," originating in the Chicago office and streamed out to the provincials in the region. What you need to understand about our office's "big conference room" is that: 1.) "Big" is a relative designation, and 2.) It was designed when a mere handful of old-timers were movin' on up to that dee-luxe office suite in the sky-hi-hi.

Cut to 2011, and we're spilling out into the adjacent breakroom, with the latecomers bringing chairs in tow. Which means that, to someone in the back, what comes out of the conference-call speakers is more than slightly reminiscent of the "Wha-wha-wha-wha-wha..." of Charlie Brown's teacher. I suppose that could be a boon for anyone needing to sneak in some writing under the cover of note-taking. Except that's far too productive. See, I figure that when a company goes to such great lengths to waste your time, the only responsible response is to take ownership of such wastage. Maybe--dare I suggest?--even profit from it.

Naturally, I mean having the foresight to set up a betting pool, with the winner having the best accuracy in predicting:

1. Number of minutes between the official start time of the conference and its actual start
2. Number of inside jokes that only the "host" office understands
3. Number of times the video connection freezes or freaks out
4. Number of times one or both ends of the voice connection drops
5. Number of phone calls taken or hushed among the Powers That Be
   
6. Number of PowerPoint slides that contain the word "vision," "opportunity," or "strategic"
7. Number of remote workers dialing into the call who forget to mute their end of the connection
   
8. Whether or not corporate I/T will push out a Windows update that requires a reboot in the middle of the presentation
   

(Belatedly, it also occurs to me that the above could be trivially adapted to a college drinking game. Uh-oh. Needless to say, I won't be mentioning that to my co-workers: Given how our "keeper"--and I mean that in a good way--no longer bothers to lock the liquor cabinet, that could be exceedingly bad.)

A humbling thought for content creators

The end of an NPR segment--to which Dennis & I were tuned in on the way to see The Ladykins on Sunday--ended with a clip from Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" single. Serious as the segment's topic had been, I (naturally) couldn't help but smirk, thinking of Weird Al's send-up.

Exposing yourself to parody is, doubtless, a mark of character--but it's also a bizzare badge of honor in the music industry...at least to my way of thinking. But Dennis made a more sage point when he wondered aloud, "How many of the people he's lampooned are here and gone, and he's still around."

Ouch. For someone with pretensions to being a "content creator," that's more than a little sobering. (That despite the poetry/song filk that's whiled away any number of my Frivolous Friday evenings.) But in the unlikely event that writing superstardom awaits your faithful blogger, that's one problem worth having.