John DeHope

I remember seeing an etching of the the trial by ordeal method of torturing people called “the morsel” when I was in high school. I already had first hand knowledge of bad people looking to cause trouble. But understanding the depth of depravity that was the Salem witch trials put my understanding into a larger global context. It wasn’t that some people were bad, it’s that people are bad.

Written 2015-11-19.

This is an idea I had for a sort of distributed, asynchronous, semi-anonymous pen pal letter program. You’d receive a manilla envelope with a few sheets of written or printed paper, and these instructions.

Read The Pages

Read the pages in the envelope at your leisure.

Write Your Own Page

This step is optional. If you don’t feel like writing anything, that’s fine.

If You Feel Like Writing

Write your own page. You’ve seen what others have written, now write what you have to say. It should be about 300 words, or one page long. It can be handwritten, or typed, however works best for you. Try to use the same language though, as it’s unlikely the next person speaks a different language than all the previous writers did.

You can write your name on your page if you like, or the date, or where you’re writing from. Or not, whatever. It’s up to you how much you want to identify yourself.

The pages are numbered. Add +1 to the highest number of all the pages, and put that number on your page.

If You’d Rather Not

You don’t have to write anything. That’s cool. Just pass the envelope along as is.

Out With The Old

If there’s seven pages or less, including yours if you wrote one, then that’s great. Carry on.

If there’s now eight pages, or more, including yours if you wrote one, then destroy the pages with the lowest numbers on them, until there’s just seven left. Don’t count this instruction sheet, always keep it in the envelope. Don’t keep these lower numbered pages, or type them into a computer, or otherwise “save” them. Take a picture with your heart, as they say. They were written for you, and the others who’ve received this envelope before you did, and now they’re finished. Let them go.

Pass It Along

Give the envelope to somebody else. It can be anyone. A friend. A co-worker. Even a total stranger is a fine recipient. Just pass it along.

Keep in mind the audience. They can be any gender, age, religion, ethnicity, profession, philosophy, etc. Do try to give it to somebody who can read the language though. The goal isn’t to keep passing this around within a small circle of people. The idea is to broaden the circle.

Written 2019-08-20.

A honeypot is a fairly common thing, you see it all the time in computing, but it also shows up in normal life too. The idea is simple: to get you to let your guard down, your enemy sets up a “pot” that appears too good to be true, and is actually a trap!

A classic example is the beach condo seminar. In exchange for listening to a short seminar about beachfront condos, just an hour or two really, they’ll let you stay in one for free for the whole weekend! It sounds too good to be true. It is! Either your financial data will get stolen, you’ll be given a very hard sell, or they’ll just keep pestering you with spam and robocalls forever afterwards.

Another is the “anonymous” survey sent to corporate employees. Ostensibly just for open and honest feedback, it’s claimed they won’t know who said what. Do you believe this? Don’t believe it, it’s a trap! Even if they don’t know exactly who filled out which survey, don’t you think your relentless dead-horse-kicking about the lack of Peanut M&Ms in the break room vending machine is going to give you away? Hint: everybody knows it’s you, dude.

The concept even extends into advertising and services. If a service costs you zero dollars, then it’s a honey pot. They’re likely selling your data, or at least spamming you with ads. One thing is for sure, the service is not free, ultimately. Think about it. Who is paying for all of this, how, why?

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Written 2019-07-07.

I am a recovering meta talker. I find it difficult to talk about something without talking about talking about it. When I finally started listening to podcasts, I learned how annoying this was. I hate it when podcasts talk about podcasting: this is my mic, what was that noise, why is my voice hoarse. It’s never anything I want to hear about. (Side comment: just edit all that out, please.) But once I could hear it in others, I really started to nice how often and extensively I do it myself.

In programming we have a concept called meta-programming. It’s a very powerful technique. If you’re familiar with generics, or templates, or macros, then you are already halfway familiar with it. Meta-programming is the same idea, taken into the realm of coding. Instead of just doing the needful, you write code that writes code to do the needful. It can be quite powerful when you actually need it. But usually when I do it, there’s too much navel gazing and self distraction going on.

If you have something to say, just say it. If you have code to write, just write it. There’s room for literary criticism, and talking shop among peers, and telling the rest of the story. But avoid it when you can or else you’ll end up like me: going on for far too long about nothing anybody cares about anymore.

Search for: i’m okay; the bull is dead

Written 2019-08-07.