Author: Leon

Categories
Politics

He Isn’t Atlas, But He Does Need Help

Last March, I noticed a cynical political cartoon depicting President Obama as Atlas. I would have rather seen the producers of the world carefully stepping through a field of booby traps set by Obama.Daily Fitz March 4, 2009

Today, I noticed a new take on this upsidedown theme. This time, Patrick Corrigan shows Obama as pleading for help from the U.N. as the weight of the world bears down on him.Corrigan September 24, 2009

Truthfully, the weight of the nihilistic policies of the people who imagined the U.N. are crushing the wealth-producers of the world. Portraying Obama as Atlas is doublethink. Because it’s the same image Rand used for her famous novel, the misuse of this metaphor is particularly galling.

Categories
Marketing

Tender Victuals

tender-victualsRemember Tender Vittles brand cat food? It was a revolutionary feat of marketing…cat food that bridged the gap between wet, canned food and dry, bagged food. I didn’t think about it until now, but vittles (properly spelled victuals) means “food fit for human consumption”. Was the real purpose of the product to deliver low-cost, low-quality food to humans? It seems crazy. On the other hand, the product was discontinued in 2007 because it contained levels of sugar too unhealthy for cats. That’s what I read in wikipedia, anyway.

The following item description seems to disagree.

Tender Vittles® contains no added artificial colors or flavors, additives your cat doesn’t need. Plus, it has the great taste your cat loves. So you’ll love knowing that your cat is getting only the essential nutrients he needs, and he’ll love every delicious bite.

When it comes to convenience, you can’t beat our easy-serve pouch. It’s a cinch to open and pour and it keeps those delicious, soft morsels moist and tasty so your cat will enjoy every yummy bite from the first to the last.

With Tender Vittles, you simply tear open our easy-serve pouch and pour the tender morsels right in the bowl. It’s fast and easy for you and moist and delicious for your cat.

With regret we must announce that Tender Vittles have been discontinued by Nestle-Purina. Once our stock is gone we will no longer have them available for sale.

Even when I was a kid, I was suspicious of the Purina brand because it made both pet food and breakfast cereal.

Categories
Personal

Glad to be Dad

Henry and Tre

I’ve learned so much about myself since becoming a father nearly six years ago. Constantly striving to serve these two little guys has helped me understand my own childhood. I am honored to be helping them through theirs. It just gives me so much pleasure to be around their joyful creativity. So, with Father’s Day around the corner, I hope all my fellow dads are having as much fun as I am.

Categories
Marketing Programming

Annoying Anti-Piracy for Book from Manning

I bought Zend Framework in Action yesterday because the short tutorial isn’t quite enough to know how to architect an big application. I’m building an enterprise app at work for a client and picked ZF and YUI as core platforms. I’m pleased with the content of the book. Rob Allen is a fine writer and the organization of the text is logical.

Now that I’m about 80 pages into the book, I thought I’d grab a copy of the PDF version for easy reference whichever desk I’m sitting at.  The print edition comes with a “free” ebook. There are two ways to get this free ebook.

The way they want you to do it is as follows.

  1. Cut open a folded paper in the front of the book.
  2. Go to the URL printed on the paper.
  3. Type in a code they ask you for out of 9×20 grid.
  4. Type in another code from the grid.
  5. Type in your name and email address.
  6. Wait for the email to arrive.
  7. Find the email in your spam folder.
  8. Click on a link to start the download.
  9. Rename the file from “gi” (wtf?) to something rational, such as “Zend_Framework_In_Action.pdf”.

However, you could do the following.

  1. Enter “zend framework in action pdf” into Google Search.
  2. Click to some blog.
  3. Click the link into RapidShare.
  4. Wait for your 30 seconds to expire since you are a “free” user.
  5. Download the .rar file.
  6. Expand whatever’s in the rar file. (I didn’t actually go this far).

Typing in codes from a grid is pretty annoying. I threw down $45 to get the book. Maybe they should just trust me and print a direct download link inside the text of the book. After all, we’re all only a couple of links away from downloading it from RapidShare. What would have been really cool was if I could have downloaded the PDF for free first and then bought the print version when I decided that the book was of great value. I had that exact experience with another author recently.

If you are going to buy Zend Framework in Action (and you aren’t in a rush like I was), you might use the Amazon.com link above. It’s a lot cheaper than buying it off the shelf at B&N.

Categories
Objectivism

The Ideas of Ayn Rand

The Ideas of Ayn RandOn my shelf for several years, I recently read Ron Merrill’s book, The Ideas of Ayn Rand. I walked away with one key insight.

Most of the book is a rehash of her history and her philosophical work. It doesn’t hurt to refresh yourself on important ideas, but I don’t feel like I learned much from this part of the book. I’ve read all of non-fiction from her and I’ve read Barbara Branden’s biography. Merrill has a different perspective having been peripheral to the core group in the 1960s.

What I found fascinating was the last part of the book where he analyzes the current state of the “movement” and how it could improve. His advice seems to be a sketch of what Stefan Molyneux is almost over-explaining over at Free Domain Radio. That is, find the people who you agree with on the basics (metaphysics, epistemology, …) and tolerate your differences with the benevolent assumption that one of you errs on the facts not that by corruption. This book was published in 1991. It was a big deal then that David Kelley had been pushed out of the “orthodox” circle of Objectivists. That was a strange experience for me having just recently begun studying Objectivism seriously.

Merrill argues that our focus for change must be cultural not political. I’ve been listening to Molyneux’s work during my commute, and he definitively destroys the notion that “working within the system” is a viable option. Neither through electing like-minded politicians nor through academia can we expect to avert our world’s crash course. The most powerful tool we have is the power over ourselves. If we live morally, we will prosper and by that prosperity inspire others. What I appreciated most from Merrill’s book was the reminder that evil’s power is given by sanction of the victim. I cannot count the times when faced with some frustrating injustice (big or small), I find it started with tolerance for injustice.

I don’t have the context to understand whether Merrill was influential over the ARI, but they certainly have oriented themselves on cultural change, and to great success. At under 200 pages, this book is an enjoyable reminder of that things are better than they were and a fresh reminder to shrug off despair.