::::: : the wood : davidrobins.net

My name is David Robins: Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner, libertarian (voluntaryist), and student.

This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site.

PSCU book club

News, Political ·Sunday April 5, 2009 @ 20:55 EDT (link)

Went to initial Puget Sound Conservative Underground book club meetup at Jersey's in Shoreline (1630 to 1700 to pick up our books, for those that didn't already have them, and arrange future meetings: bi-weekly, starting April 19). We're studying The 5000 Year Leap. It's my first book club (not counting an abortive attempt at a Word book club reading The Sun Also Rises), so we'll see how it goes. Afterwards I stayed to watch Media Malpractice ("How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted"): not bad, but I'd probably seen all the individual clips before during the election coverage.

Books finished: Keys To Investing In Options and Futures.

Second Amendment Day #2

News, Guns ·Saturday April 4, 2009 @ 19:08 EDT (link)

It was a beautiful sunny day for shooting with the Microsoft gun group (not the Gun Club, just a group organized via an internal e-mail list about guns). This was our second "Second Amendment Day" celebration. A good time was had by all, everyone was safe, and plenty of ammunition was expended and targets destroyed.

We left around 1130, got to the pit in Sultan at around noon, firing lines were set up (with bright orange tape), targets placed, ear protection installed, and firing commenced. Had a great time; got to meet some people in person that I'd only communicated with via the mailing list. Two other people from Word were there (developer SI and tester DP… no representative from program management). Note that this was around tax time and we'd just finished our taxes, so I brought the 1040 instruction booklet for some catharsis (middle, top).

This is only the second time I had the AR-15 out (Honey is shooting it in the bottom of the first set of photos, I'm shooting it in the last photo—thanks Stoyan for taking the picture—and Stoyan is shooting it above me; Drew also shot with it, but in the photo he's shooting a different rifle). It was a lot of fun to shoot, and it eats cheap Wolf ammo just fine (of course I cleaned it afterward). DM's video of the "all-out assault" at the end.

Percentage taxes are already unfair

Political ·Saturday April 4, 2009 @ 01:30 EDT (link)

So-called "progressive" taxes (higher percentage rates for higher incomes, not just a larger total) are immoral and unfair: why should those that make more be taxed at a higher rate? But (again, so-called—not my labels, the liberals won this naming round) "regressive" taxation (taxing everybody at the same rate) are also immoral and unfair. The argument usually goes that if you make more, then you're using more government services, so you should pay more (as a sum), but that really doesn't hold much water. Many things are already pay for play (also known as "pay as you go"): for example, people that don't drive don't (directly) pay gas taxes. But there are still plenty of things that people are taxed for yet do not use (schools for the childfree, unemployment or welfare for the continuously employed, etc.). I doubt very much that the government services people use are proportional to their income.

The libertarian ideal is "pay as you go"; but a fairer way than now would be to take the cost of government and government services, divide it among all adults, and assess them an equal portion. Presumably this would be fairly high, probably in the tens of thousands, due to the current mulcting of the "evil" rich. For those that did not pay, it would be counted as a debt like any other, subject to garnishment etc. If that were done, several good things would come out of it. Politicians would find incentive to reduce cost of government (and as a side benefit, most likely make it smaller). Expenditures would directly relate to every person's bottom line (versus selling the country to China), and politicians would also have incentive to start cutting back or making programs opt-in.

Coke vs. Pepsi blind taste test

News ·Friday April 3, 2009 @ 20:02 EDT (link)

Honey got 4/6 in a blind taste test of Coke vs. Pepsi (with inflamed allergies). We used the shot glasses we'd got from a wedding a while back (we'd managed to snag 6).

Books finished: The Inefficient Stock Market.

Fifty dollars

Political ·Thursday April 2, 2009 @ 23:30 EDT (link)

I recently asked my friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day.

Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?"

She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people."

Her parents beamed.

"Wow! What a worthy goal." I told her, "But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house."

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

Her parents still aren't speaking to me.

Goodreads API randomly failing

Technical ·Thursday April 2, 2009 @ 21:44 EDT (link)

Strange—the goodreads API is randomly failing (401 Unauthorized with content Invalid OAuth Request); the same code run again will succeed, so the access and consumer keys are certainly valid and unexpired. Perhaps it doesn't like the nonce? It seems fairly certain the signature is being calculated correctly.

Went to the library to return books and pick up holds.

Books finished: Pillars of Prosperity.

I encourage my fellow patriots to trust their government

Political ·Wednesday April 1, 2009 @ 11:59 EDT (link)

Note the original post date (and apologies to KA, who didn't, at first).

I was thinking last night while curled up with my copy of Capital that perhaps this libertarianism stuff is a bit extreme. Sure, people have rights, but they exercise those rights by voting in rulers that know better than they how to control the country. After all, these rulers have studied government and law at our finest educational institutions, and always have the nation's best interests in mind. Perhaps we should not complain when asked to give up some liberties, because the trade-off is less anxiety about the future, a future that is safe in the hands of our duly elected officials such as President Obama. Leaders such as he, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Al Gore have been given a mandate from the people and it ill behooves us to tie their hands by constantly protesting and complaining.

I haven't studied finance, and nor have most of you, I'm sure. If the experts in our government think that bailouts are necessary, that these titans of industry that they're saving for the sake of our nation are essential and too big to fail, I'm sure they're right, and I applaud them for doing what's necessary to ensure these American institutions remain and can hold forth as beacons of American ingenuity, independence, and self-sufficiency by giving them the resources they need to succeed-and taking temporary ownership to help undo bad corporate decisions of the past. A trillion seems like a lot of money to you or I, but we don't own a printing press and don't understand that some loans are necessary to help people get on their feet. Suggestions like a stable currency or return to a gold standard would unfairly hamper our government and Federal Reserve in their efforts to fine-tune the economy in times like these. Speaking of loans, how would you feel if you were a high-school dropout and couldn't get a house of your own? Wouldn't that be fundamentally unfair? I love that we have a government compassionate enough to ensure that everybody, big or small, can get the money that they need.

So in conclusion, I would like to encourage my fellow patriots to trust their government. To paraphrase Vice-President Joe Biden: sometimes the things the administration is doing will seem strange, and you may begin to question, but trust them: they have your interests at heart. Give the government the benefit of any doubts you may have, and they will exercise their vast powers for good.

Governments are very good at squandering wealth

Political ·Tuesday March 31, 2009 @ 23:01 EDT (link)

More about Obama's War on Prosperity. We (CLAMS) were discussing taxation; the main point is a post from Victor Rosu, below, but first some context, starting with this post from KM:

Face it, if you wish to contribute to a cause, then you are welcome to do it! You are even welcome to start up your own 501(c)(3) organization and solicit contributions to do that "so much that could be done." Hell, you could create a charity that counsels cats on abortions!

Instead, you prefer the theft of my earned income, to support socialist programs that would never be considered viable if they had to stand on their own merits and run on the contributions of those who support it!

Reply from (admitted socialist) PM:

The mere fact that you believe that contributing to society is theft means that we have no common ground in this discussion. Your POV seems to consider your needs above those of the country and society. I'm not sure there is much we could do with a nation of people who feel as you do.

The main post, by Victor Rosu, posted with his permission:

Paying taxes ≠ contributing to society. That may be the primary intention, but poorly managed, poorly applied or abused can result in only a small fraction of tax money collected actually "contributing to society."

Let Y be the $ amount to be taxed, X the % rate of taxation and Z the outcome (measured as overall "contribution to society"):

Z = Y × X%
Y increases to Y₁, X increases to X₁:
Z₁ = Y₁ × X₁%
Then X₁ increases to X₂, Y₂ ≥ Y₁ ≥ Y.
Z₂ = Y₂ × X₂%
Z₂ > Z₁ > Z; Obama, PM and beneficiaries of Z₂ (which include Obama) are happy.

The producer of Y, Y₁ and Y₂ is a compassionate conservative and says: "Well, I have $500 less in my pocket, but at least PM (and Obama) are happy". But, he's not upgrading his laptop just yet, because well, he's short $500. So he'll do it 3-4 months later (and that's not the only outcome, the final outcome of this particular situation is that he's upgrading his laptop every 40 months instead of 36 for as long as Y and Z stay roughly the same).

Hmm, that's $500 not going to, say, Best Buy, HP and Microsoft (and the local government for sales taxes) and some other 3rd parties. But they did go to Fedzilla.

So BB, HP and MS have a little less income to play with. And what's one of the outcomes and the purpose of their game? Less profit, less growth, less money to pay employees or hire more employees. Who are the employees? Employees are tax contributors (Y) of all sorts:

the ones hit by X (rate) increase, the filthy rich that deserve it and can live with it,
but also the other ones the innocent Joe and Jane (as long as they're not plumbers)
and though you think some are beneficiaries of Z, in practice there are none or a negligible quantity.

So by the time you get to (brackets) Y₃ and Y₄, they're < Y so Z₂ and Z₃ < Z₁. Who's happy now? Only Obama because he's the only beneficiary left standing (he's increased his and the government's power).

You may argue that the money is not lost, it's still gone somewhere—to Fedzilla and for a good cause, to help the vulnerable and in the process they get spent so some other part of the economy is "stimulated."

Which means that you believe that:

The government is spending the money efficiently.
Giving money to the unemployed is preferable to preventing the unemployed from getting there in the first place or,
Creating make-work projects to delude the unemployed that they perform a useful function and they actually earn fair income, is a solution.
Any other artificial, social-engineering swindle resembling the above would work.

In reality there is such a thing as "wealth creation" and there also is "wealth squandering." It's being proven beyond any sane and reasonable doubt that:

businesses and industrious individuals are very good at creating wealth (for everyone —just look at your country, yes, yes, even today, amidst "the worst economic crisis since the great depression") and,
governments are very good at squandering wealth (everyone's—just look at most other countries).

Where businesses fail and start squandering wealth are those instances where they grow so big that they resemble a government—in which case, just let them die because on their own they don't and can't last long. Economically speaking, everything that functions in a corrupt or artificially propped environment is wilting. The choice is to either let the sick (companies) wilt or corrupt the whole environment and everything wilts.

On another note [speaking to various liberals]: as an atheist, a proponent of the theory (nay, scientific evidence!) of non-design, 0 creationism and in perfect harmony with the theory of evolution, how do you reconcile that view, with the need to have a priority in deciding that someone is vulnerable and needs help?

There is no rational link between a perfectly scientifically objective view of a world without God (or a higher calling that is placed outside of the survival of the species framework) that can philosophically sustain any charitable cause. Just curious….

Even if government was efficient, it doesn't give them the moral right to steal money from productive people and redistribute it for any cause, no matter how well-intentioned.

Database management systems class

School ·Tuesday March 31, 2009 @ 22:10 EDT (link)

CSE P 544: Database Management Systems starts today; as with Programming Languages, the first class was fairly remedial: administrivia and basic SQL; fortunately I had my laptop and a book to keep me entertained. And I'm not really enjoying having to drive to Seattle (last quarter my class was remote-broadcast to Microsoft building 99, but this time the class I wanted is only on-site).

Using the Goodreads API

Technical ·Monday March 30, 2009 @ 23:51 EDT (link)

I was playing around with Goodreads' API. Their only example uses Ruby, which is way to schizo a language for my tastes. So I looked around on CPAN and found Net::OAuth, which I had some trouble with, but then I found OAuth::Lite, which was easier to use. OAuth is "an open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications." It's only necessary for calls that need to modify data; read-only requests just need a developer key.

I ended up using WWW::Mechanize (and WWW::Mechanize::Gzip) since I needed to do some screen-scraping, or thought I did. One thing I noticed when looking at the source is that Goodreads' site is much better organized (cleaner, better URLs, less badly-written Javascript) than weRead. I looked at the source of the Ruby OAuth module to find out about some defaults, and came up with this OAuth::Lite constructor call:

my $oalc = OAuth::Lite::Consumer->new(
  consumer_key       => YOUR KEY HERE,
  consumer_secret    => YOUR SECRET HERE,
  site               => 'http://www.goodreads.com',
  request_token_path => '/oauth/request_token',
  access_token_path  => '/oauth/access_token',
  authorize_path     => '/oauth/authorize',
);

I had a lot of trouble since Goodreads was randomly failing my authentication attempts; first I thought it was timing out the access key really fast, or that I was sending invalid requests, but then I determined (through much experimentation, and showing that the same request can both fail and succeed) that it just randomly fails (401 Invalid OAuth Request, without a WWW-Authenticate header). When that happens, you just need to keep trying.

For the first (OAuth) request, you need to get a request token which can be parlayed into an access token:

my $reqt = $oalc->get_request_token;
my $url = $oalc->url_to_authorize(token => $reqt->token);

The user has to go to that URL and approve your application (if it's a web application, you can redirect them there and pass a callback URL for it to send the user to afterward). When it's approved, get an access token:

$oalc->get_access_token;

This token (available as $oalc->access_token) can be persisted (e.g. to a file or database: save the token and secret data) and then next time used to create a token to use to authenticate:

my $acct = OAuth::Lite::Token->new(token => $token, secret => $secret);
$oalc->access_token($acct);

Now you can make requests, using code like this, which returns a hash of information (id, link, name) about the current user:

sub get_user {
  my $res = $oalc->request(url => 'http://www.goodreads.com/api/auth_user');
  unless ($res->is_success) {
    print "Failed to get user: ".$res->status_line."\n".$res->content."\n";
    return;
  }
  my $u = $xs->parse_string($res->content)->{user};  # id, link, name
  return $u;
}

Even after the first successful request, subsequent requests can randomly fail. I have no idea why this is happening; I've asked Goodreads in the developer forum and elsewhere, but they aren't saying anything, although they were very helpful with some other requests, e.g. documenting some undocumented functionality for adding a read date to a review.