JoseB Blog

Stephen Hawking was a great scientist and thinker. I enjoyed watching his science shows on TV. I have been profoundly influenced by him from a philosophical point of view (although Stephen would call it science, not philosophy) and would like to share three things he helped me understand that I think are true and very fundamental. Every choice you make is predetermined, free will is an illusion. This is hard to believe at first but if you understand the concept of a state machine then it is easy to understand. A state machine is a system where given a certain set of inputs and a certain state, the next state and outputs are be predetermined by an algorithm.  A car's 4 speed transmission would be an example. Its has 4 states (gears). Given the current gear it's in, and taking the car's current RPM and acceleration as input, the algorithm chooses the next gear.  Life's choices are like the car's transmission. When you make a decision, you think you have free will, but...

Last week as usual Trump said some crazy things. He said that our dead servicemen are 'suckers and losers' and that the pentagon wants to 'make war to keep the companies that make bombs happy.'  Well, for once, he was right about the following two things: Some of our dead servicemen are suckers. Why do I say this? Think about the Vietnam war. Fifty-two thousand died there for what? They were told they were going to save the world from communism and that was a lie. Look at what happened to communism. It has failed on its own without needing to fight a war. Look at how now we do business with Vietnam and are friendly with them. That proves there was no need to fight that war. Those soldiers died in vain, so yes, you could call them suckers. But it wasn't their fault. THEY WERE LIED TO. AND THEY ARE NOT LOSERS. And that goes for all who died in the 2nd Gulf War to get rid of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction - oops there were none! The 4.5 thousand who d...

Terry, I just learned of Bob's passing. I am so sorry to hear this sad news and I hope that time has helped to heal your loss. As you know, Bob was more than a friend and a coworker to me. Bob was like my 2nd father. When I started working at DMH I was a sheltered boy who knew nothing of the real world. Bob took me under his wing and gave me an education in what the real world was like in all its glory while pointing out its imperfections. He was a funny guy with all his jokes and great to be around, but he could be firm too when I made mistakes and needed guidance. I learned many things from Bob, but one thing that will always stand out was his love for you and his family. I felt a bit like I was part of his family those 3 years that I shared an office with him because of the way he treated me and looked out for me.  My deepest sympathies and I hope that my words bring some comfort.   Love, JoseB 

I met Mike about 10 years ago at the United Way show. We became friends right away. We had a few things in common, we loved music and we were both frustrated rock star wanna be's.  What we lacked in talent we made up for with heart. We were alike but we were opposites too and they say opposites attract, I was the guy in the background and he was a front man, and when he was on, he was on, like when he was the Big Bopper or Easy Rider at the United Way shows, some of the memorable moments he had on the United Way were: • Born to be Wild • Smoke on the Water • Jump • Big Bopper - Chantilly Lace • Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way • The Devil Went Down To Georgia I had some great times with him. Some memorable gigs playing in the InTransit classic rock band with him and Bob. One of my favorite times was when I visited him up in Tampa, with Carlos the guitar player from InTransit.  He cooked me a kings breakfast, we went to a work picnic and took out our instruments and ...

Voy a hablar en Espanol, porque creo que mi mama, que fue una maestra de Espanol, le gustaria. Estamos aqui hoy para celebrar una vida muy larga de 96 anos y muy variada. Cotica, que eso fue su 'nickname', era una Doctora de Pedagogia graduada de la Universidad de la Habana, y fue fundadora y la directora de la Normal de Kindergarten en Matanzas Cuba. Pero despues aqui en Miami cuando las cosas se pusieron dificil, con la familia acabada de salir de Cuba, ella trabajo en la tomatera tirando tomates por minimum wage, haciendo lo que podia para sacar la familia adelante. Ella nunca fur un 'stay at home mom.' Fue muy independiente. Consigio un Masters in Spanish Literature de la Universidad de South Carolina, y fue una de las primeras profesoras blanca ensenando Espanol en Benedict College SC, una universidad de personas de color. Esto en los anos 60's en el 'Deep South' cuando este pais estaba en la lucha de civil rights. Ella fue escritora de varios libros de...

My dear friends and family, thank you for coming out to remember my big brother Mario. Just a few words about Macu, which was the family nickname we gave him.  He was eight years older than I so he was almost like a second father to me.  He had a profound impact on my formation not just as a person, but also the way he fostered my love of music. I would like to tell you about some of the things I remember about him. When he was in high school and I was a kid, he would draw pictures all the time. But he only drew two seemingly disconnected things that made no sense to me. He would draw portraits of beautiful, exotic women wearing long earrings, fancy hair styles, heavily made up eyes.  And the other thing he drew was architectural designs of movie theaters showing the projection room, the seating and screen. That's it, that’s all he would draw. And he drew literally hundreds of these things.  And I would wonder, ‘what is it with this guy drawing women and movie theate...

  Trump is the head of a cult. Some of his supporters worship him the same way others looked up to David Karesh and Jim Jones. They have drunk the Kool-Aid and are convinced he is the savior of the United States. They will follow him to the gates of hell and this is not good. If Trump loses I predict these dire things... Trump will declare that the elections were rigged, that there was voter fraud and the results invalid. He will do this to get his base all riled up to sow chaos and make the transition to Biden as horrible as possible. Trump's militia (those who ride in the big trucks and carry AR-15 assault weapons), will organize and ride around claiming the election was false and inciting riots before and even during the inauguration. We will see much more violent protests than we are seeing now.  His militia is itching for a fight with anybody who opposes them. Trump will not attend the Biden inauguration. He will goad his followers to resist and not acknowledge Biden as t...

Right wing media has a lot of people scared poop-less. They think that unruly mobs are goin to attack their neighborhoods. They think the US is living in a state of siege. The world is ending and all hell has broken loose. Thats very strange because I live in a middle class neighborhood, walk my dog everyday, go to the Publix and everything is normal. I don't see any mobs or violence anywhere.  Want the truth? The truth is that there are a small number of protests about police using excessive force against blacks goin on in the whole country, the majority are peaceful and a few became violent because of left and right wing agitators. THEY ARE FAR AWAY FROM WHERE YOU LIVE. So if you fear for your life - congratulations - you fell for the oldest political trick in the book... FEAR-MONGERING.  -Hitler used it (Jews will destroy the world).  -Castro used it (The US will invade soon).  -Bush Jr used it (Islamic terrorists are everywhere).  -And now Trump is using it ...

Protesting is a fundamental right in this country. Sometimes its the only way to achieve change. In the 60's there were two protest movements. I saw it. The Civil Rights and Vietnam war protests.  Yes, there was violence, blood was shed, but they brought about change. Change for the better. An end to a pointless war and overt discrimination against black people.  There will be more protests because a lot of change still needs to happen in this country.  Those who use the protests to inflict violence on others are to be condemned. And those who protest in peace to take this country closer to the ideals of our founding fathers are to be commended.

There are super stars in every field. After all, you have world class lawyers, doctors, architects, engineers, etc... The same goes for developers. Everyone should be given an equal opportunity to succeed,  but not everyone is equally talented or productive. For this reason managers need to treat their team members differently and even unequally in certain cases. I realize saying this may be controversial, especially to an HR person, so I will clarify.   Early in my career I had a manager who considered himself very fair and he treated everyone the same.  He was a stickler for details regarding punctuality, appearance and rules and regulations and gave anyone (whether junior or senior) a hard time if these rules were not followed to a tee. Eventually this manager lost all his experienced senior developers. Why? Its because they expected better treatment and perks given their superior work quality and productivity. The lesson here is that you give your best peopl...

When I studied weather to be a pilot dew point had to be understood. I recently googled 'dew point' to see what was out there on the topic and I did not see anything that explained it at a 'for dummies' level  so here goes... To understand dew point there are a couple of concepts that need to be understood first. The first thing is that hot air can hold more water vapor than cold air. So if its 90 degrees, that air will hold more water vapor than air that is at 50 degrees. So you can think of the current air temperature analogous to the size of a glass that can hold water.  This large glass here will represent a 90 degree day and it can hold more water than this smaller glass that represents a 50 degree day. 90 degree day can hold more water Now lets look at relative humidity. Relative humidity is a percentage of how much water is in the air (glass) relative to the size of the glass (air temperature). So lets fill the 90 degree day glass halfway. Its 50% humidity here. ...

I believe that the vast majority of the best IT Managers out there were former developers.  In my 41 years in IT, I have worked for a variety of managers and without question the ones who had a technical background were the best. If you think about it, it makes sense. Here are some reasons why: IT Managers are often called upon to troubleshoot failing IT Projects. Projects can fail for different reasons but the root cause is always founded in one of the following.  How can someone with no developer experience know how to figure out where a project is failing? Poor project planning (task estimation, sprint planning) Incomplete requirements Flawed architecture or design Poor quality code Poor testing Poor or no deployment process Non technical managers often focus on metrics to measure project progress and quality (like lines of code, use cases done, bug counts). Unfortunately developers know how to rig metrics 99 times out of 100 in their favor to hide the reality of what'...

The day was Nov 4, 1984 and I had been doing touch and goes with my flight instructor, Alicia Sykes. After one of the landings she said, "OK, you're ready. I'm getting out and you're going to do your solo." Those words caught me completely by surprise because I didn't think I was ready yet. I knew that I was getting close because I had 13 hours flight time and most of that was touch and goes. But I really didn't think that today was the day.  I asked Alicia, "Really, you think I'm ready?" She said, "Yes."  I said, "Why don't we wait till the next lesson, just to make sure, by then I'll be ready for sure." She said, "Nope, you're ready now. Just go up and do what you've been doing, watch your airspeed and you'll be fine." I realized I had no choice, she was not going to let me off the hook (she was a very firm instructor). She got out of the plane (a Cessna 150 aka Midlands 10) by the runway an...

Before I answer that I'll give you a clue as to why it is who it is. If you are into music and know how some of the Beatles songs were written, you will know the answer. Here are among my favorite Beatles songs:  I am the Walrus A Day in the Life Strawberry Fields Baby You're a Rich Man Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for me and my Monkey Dear Prudence I'm so Tired Revolution Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds In My Life And You're Bird Can Sing Across the Universe Ticket to Ride Nowhere Man Hey Bulldog That should tell you who it is. So if you guessed John Lennon you're right. Those are all John songs. A trick to know who wrote which Beatles song is by who sings it. Whomever sings it almost always mostly wrote it.  But here's the thing. I know that Paul is the more musically talented of the two. And Paul has written quite a few masterpieces like Yesterday, Blackbird, Elanor Rigby, Hey Jude, Let it Be, We Can Work It Out, just to name a few.  But there...

Everyone listens to music differently.  Some listen to the words first, others the music, and others listen to both. I am one of of those who just listen to the music, and then maybe later (sometimes years later) I listen to the words.  My brain is wired for sound. I went for many years not knowing anything about the lyrics of many Beatles songs. The melodies and George Martin's production were too powerful for me to pay attention to anything else.  For some reason, I am wired to interpret music as repeating sonic patterns made of melodic note sequences, chord sequences, and bass and rhythm sequences.  If I like the song, I will listen to it over and over and I will dissect and analyze each individual pattern for anything interesting. I will literally play a song in my head over and over each time focusing on a different instrument. The most interesting  songs have new patterns I've never heard before that are pleasing. The more complex the production (with orch...

Its not Trump dividing us - its us.  Its us getting our news from sources that feed the hatred and paranoia about the other side. For example, I'm talking about right-wing news sources that say protesters are all hooligans. I'm talking about left-wing news sources that say Federal troops are all beating up protesters. I'm talking about FOX, MSNBC, Hannity, Carlson, Limbaugh, Maddow, O'Donnell, etc... The list goes on. They spew poison and like brainwashed zombies, we eat it up.  There is no black and white. The truth is not that easy to get at. It takes work. Everything is always complicated and colored in shades of grey that need to be studied to get at the truth. But we are not willing to put forth that effort. We are lazy. We'd rather get spoon fed lies by a talking head that fits our prejudiced narrative.   Sure Trump uses this division to his advantage. And Facebook makes it worse by providing a vehicle for the brainless and uninformed to spread lies that the f...

Every guitar channel person on YouTube has at least one video called 'The Top Ten Guitar Players.' I never watch them because its such a 'click bait' title. What right does anyone have to determine who the top ten guitar players are? Had they titled the video 'My Top Ten Guitar Players,' that I would watch, because its an honest title and I am always interested in other people's opinion on this topic. For me its very important that a guitar player have an original style and sound. My favorite guitar players are the ones that when I hear them play a few notes in a song I've never heard, I know its them. Here they are: Terry Kath - I have another blog post as to why he's my favorite. Suffice to say I picked up the guitar when I was in the 9th grade because of this guy. Terry abusing a Strat    Jan Akkerman - Jan is the guitarist for the highly underrated Dutch progressive rock band Focus which had a minor hit called 'Hocus Pocus' (Yes, the wa...

I see a lot of people caught up in petty social media bullshit like... Oh this BLM guy did this bad thing, so they are all Communists Oh this Trumpist did this bad thing, so they are all Fascists Lets all remember there are bad apples on both sides and stop generalizing. Its wrong. If you are caught up in that, maybe take a break and stop letting social media get you all in a tizzy? The significant issues are things like: How to handle the pandemic The economy Global warming Health care America's standing in the world Education Ending racial inequality

I forget exactly when it happened but I think it was when I was in the 9th grade, 1970 thereabouts. My older brother Mario was one of the writers for the University of South Carolina's newspaper and he was assigned to write an article about the band Chicago who was coming into town (Columbia, S.C.) to play at the Carolina Coliseum. He was given two backstage passes to briefly interview them after the show, and he offered that I come along.  I played the sax at the time, it was the instruments my parents loved and bought for me when I was in the 3rd grade when they saw I had musical inclinations. I knew nothing about Chicago, so I was very surprised at the show to see a rock band that had horns! So cool! Horns in a rock band!  Maybe Mario knew I would be blown away by seeing a sax in a rock band.  I don't remember much about the show because I was not familiar with their music at the time but I do recall Terry Kath doing some 'Free Form Guitar' feedback solo which JUST B...

When I was a kid I believed in Santa Claus and God.  Everything was simple and made sense. God made the world and Santa Claus brought the toys. Then one day I found out there was no Santa Claus. It was merely a trick parents played on their kids to bring them joy and magic at Christmas time. You would think finding that out at age 6 might be traumatic, but my reaction was more like 'Ok, it figures.' But I have to say, that event, of finding out that there was no 'magic' in this world and that everything had a logical explanation pretty much set the course for the rest of my life.  Some time afterwards, I said to myself, if there is no Santa Claus, then why should there be a God as mentioned in the Christian Bible? I mean think about it, Santa brings toys to the good kids and coal  to the bad ones, and God sends you to heaven if you're good and hell if you're bad.  Really?  I might fall for that as a kid, but as an adult? I'm sorry but I just can't fall f...