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Welcome to my continuing nervous breakdown. I have some new cynicism that I feel the world would benefit from.

Q: How many C++ programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Ten. Six to explain to the world why C++ was the correct solution and the advanced techniques employed in implementing that solution and four to implement a partially-working solution in twice the time that the lone C programmer got a complete, correct solution designed, implemented, tested, documented and signed off in last time.

Q: How many C++ programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Ten. They all set to work analysing their previous partial and unreliable implementation and come up with a new design based on new language features in the latest standard that have been in LISP for over thirty years but they've never heard of before. They draw UML diagrams galore and fire up Visual Studio It Never Rains But It Pours Cloud Enterprise 365+ Edition. Six months later the project is scrapped and declared impossible.

Q: How many C++ programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: We don't know, about ten maybe, but the new language standard has advanced features that will make changing lightbulbs not just a possibility, but achievable by ordinary programmers. Watch this space.

Donny Hairboy takes the number one spot, as if anyone really thought he wouldn't.

Then again, this isn't anything new.

At the same time, there are those who would disagree with that sentiment.

But it just goes to show that, in fact, practice makes perfect.

That's not to say that others shouldn't get honorable mentions, but Donny is the undisputed king.

Long Live The King!

Since the Great British Public voted by a narrow margin to show its un-wiped bare backsides to our closest, friendliest, most valuable trading partners (Brexit) in order to pursue potential trade deals with the economic powerhouse that is Australia, and to make TTIP easier to get done, I've had much less time and inclination to be interested in technology, unfortunately. Instead, I've been incubating a nervous breakdown playing at slapping the Kipper on the web sites of some national newspapers. My country (the UK) may be on the brink of disintegrating, after all.

We've suffered from simplistic right-wing ideology in government, and our social care systems and National Health Service (you know, that filthy commie thing we have where we pay money to have a free-at-the-point-of-use medical service for the benefit of us plebs and everyone else with no profit motive for corporations and the aristocracy) are. perhaps deliberately, being allowed to atrophy due to mismanagement and under-investment, so that they can be turned over to for-profit companies...

So here's my paranoid-delusional discourse. It applies to PHBs as well, so is relevant to the technology sector.

You have to think like a Tory (Conservative or UKIP) to understand the predicament the NHS and social care organisations are in.

To a Tory, the only thing with value is material wealth and anything that distracts from the maximisation of realising wealth is at best frivolous and at worst evil.

Little People (those not wealthy enough to live off their capital) are a danger to that if they are not work-producing units operating at maximum efficiency. So we have the phenomenon of the Useless Eaters. IDS, Gove and Osborne did their level best to reduce the number of Useless Eaters to protect the wealth.

However, sociopathic the Tory may be, he or she is not entirely stupid. They realise that amongst the population there are bleeding hearts and wooly-minded liberals who have an intrinsic irrepressible compulsion to value their fellow human being for no "rational" (wealth-related) reason.

Two things are implied here. The Tory realises that the "lefty" has a vote and influence on the political process and direction of society and, in order to maintain power, must pay lip-service to this. Hence, the NHS and welfare state is not quite dead yet, and is given almost enough money to limp along.

Secondly, the Tory knows that the "lefty" values the Useless Eater above wealth and so is intrinsically motivated (no money necessary) to provide assistance to said Useless Eater. Therefore the Tory knows that funding can be cut continually because the "lefty" will work itself to death out of this empathy for the Useless Eater.

Your PHB and its superiors may frequently say things like, "You're all professionals, so I know you'll be on board with this. We have to tighten our belts and redouble our efforts. We have to be grown-up about this. The market may be going through some difficulties, but we have to look after our investors." The PHB knows that your Little Person brain that feels intrinsic responsibility to your fellow human being can be used to produce more wealth for Righty with less expense.

Two cheeks of the same behind, as it were.

I don't fit in here. In fact, I don't fit in anywhere. Life's more fun that way. Wouldn't it be boring if we were all god-fearing, gun-toting "free-market" corporate lackey Libertarians?

Something amusing has turned up in my messages today. Someone called Coniptor has made me his/her/its foe. It's quite a list.

Let the games begin.

Today is my birthday. It's also my wife's birthday. Yes, we have share a birthday.

You might be thinking, "Oh, that's pretty neat!". It's not that great. When it's your birthday, you want to be treated even a little special. Maybe have dinner prepared for you, or something like that. Well, when it's both of your birthdays, it becomes just like every other day. After work (yes, I'm working on my birthday), I have to go to the store to pick up dinner. I'll have to help prepare it, and help clean up after. It's not that big of a deal. I don't really like celebrating birthdays anyways.

My wife is still preggers. Her belly is showing now, and it's pretty exiting. The morning sickness is over, but she still feels pretty tired at the end of the day. She goes to be early, and doesn't really have much energy anymore. Sometimes I feel bad because I wish I could take some of the burden off her. The frequent headaches and tiredness must be pretty tiring. I've been trying to help out more around the house and do what I can.

The girl that I talked about in my last entry is gone. I really liked her -- she was smart and sexy -- but I did end up scaring her off pretty much right after the last entry. I wanted (and still do want) a serious secondary relationship. She had just come out of a long term relationship, and so just wanted something more casual. Anyways, she decided that we were looking for different things (and we were, but I would have taken whatever she could offer). Since that girl, I kinda gave up. A pregnant wife complicates things a bit. Catching an STD at this point in the game could result in serious consequences for the baby, and adequate protection and testing to reduce that chance is a lot to ask of a new partner that you just met. That, combined with not really knowing what I will be able to offer once the baby is born, has left me in a position where I don't really feel all that comfortable dating.

I miss it though. I certainly don't miss the rejection, but I definitely miss those fleeting moments of excitement. I love cuddling, and I just don't feel like I get enough cuddles from my wife -- she's just too tired at the end of the day (no, 'cuddles' isn't code for sex. I just want someone to nuzzle into me). It's also summer and I really like getting out to the mountains. My wife doesn't have the energy to do anything strenuous, and so it's been a little frustrating because when we go out, I just want to go, but she can't keep up. Maybe I should just look for a female hiking partner... I don't know...

Don't get me wrong -- my wife is amazing. I have never met anyone more compatible, and there is no one on this planet that I love more. I really want to be clear - I love her to death and she is the most amazing woman I have ever met. I really don't know what this open relationship will look like after the baby is born. I hope I still have the time to date. Maybe the baby is exactly what I need in my life. Who knows?

Overall, things are good. I'm excited for my baby. My wife and I are great and I'm another year older - the big 33.

Maybe it's just me, but I've been getting this vibe (it's strong here, but I'm feeling it elsewhere too) that there are folks who would like to see our entire society come crashing down.

Perhaps they think we can build something better, and like the Phoenix, emerge from the ashes, strong and vibrant.

And I guess I can see the attraction. Our government has been co-opted by the monied interests, our waking lives seem to be either being tracked by corporations or one government agency or another, the same monied interests seem determined to depress wages to keep us docile and hungry for the resources we need to keep ourselves and our families alive. And on and on. It's as if our society has been taken over by greedy, corrupt and amoral scumbags.

And to an extent, all of this is true. Which begs the question: What can/should we do about it?

There is one thing most of us can agree upon: That those elected to administer our governmental systems aren't acting in the best interests of the greater populace. Rather, they seem to be taking their marching orders from those with the resources to command their attention, their wallets and their votes.

There's quite a bit of agreement about that. The problem is that there are large groups of people on various sides of this question with different prescriptions for solving these problems:

Some think we need to strip the Federal government of most of its power and leave things to the states/counties/municipalities.

Some think we need to reform our existing political systems to reduce the influence of money on our elected officials (at all levels of government).

Some think it's just a lost cause and we need to just tear it all down and start over.

The biggest issue, IMHO, is that those same folks who are controlling our political systems for their own benefit use these differences of opinion to divide us. This keeps us from putting aside our differences so we can work together to create the kind of society of which we can all be proud.

Which brings me to the folks who want to tear our system down. With what shall we replace it?

Destroying one of the bulwarks of our society seems like we're creating change. But what are the consequences of doing so, intended or otherwise?

History (cf. all the infighting and problems with the Articles of Confederation) tells us that a strong central government was necessary back in the late 18th century, and (again, IMHO) is even more important today.

Could government be more distributed than it is? Possibly. Should there be stronger controls on how the central government treats its citizens? Almost certainly.

But if we destroy the "beast in DC" to punish those who have so egregiously abused it, who will pay the price when chaos ensues.

Just some semi-random thoughts.

Aristarchus was right. Angry and stupid won the world.

Oh, and before I go any further, if you want any citations you can use google.

Society has become a reflection of the worst features of Internet social media. Memes, sloganeering, doublespeak, the willful and proud ignorance of facts, bigotry, hatred, irrationality, and general meanness have become the order of the day.

The latest manifestation of this is the recent UK referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union, i.e. the "Brexit."

As you know, the Leave side won by a narrow margin. The campaign on one side (Vote Leave) was worthy of an Eastern Bloc dictatorship or a banana republic while the Remain campaign was half-hearted.

The UK is a union of four countries (plus various other bits and pieces), but most significantly England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. We have lived in relative peace and harmony for a few hundred years.

A global financial meltdown and years of right-wing austerity government with no credible alternative have left the UK (as many other modern countries) in a miserable state. Along comes Nigel Farage, a far-right nationalist, who got himself elected to the European Parliament, who openly denigrates foreigners in the course of his official duties (those he's supposed to be working with in order to represent the UK's interests and to get deals done) and offers the disengaged populace that age-old chestnut of being able to blame foreigners for all of their problems.

The right-wing of the Tory Party (the natural party of government in the whole of the UK, pretty right-wing itself) defects in part to Farage's party, UKIP ("the Kippers") and all the slimy bigotry oozes out of the woodwork. The best one was blaming gay marriage for the 2014 floods.

Next thing you know, we're having a referendum (free public vote on a single issue) on the UKs continued membership of the EU.

Farage's henchmen in all this, the official Vote Leave campaigners (even Farage was too extreme to be allowed on the official team) are Iain Duncan Smith, presider over some of the most draconian cuts and changes to the benefits system (for the disabled, sick, old, unemployed, homeless etc.) ever and Michael Gove who was Education Secretary and harboured some paranoid delusional fantasy that professional English state education teachers were Marxists out to deliberately brainwash and ruin the education of the young.

So the gist of their argument was as follows: "This is Great Britain. We are admired the world over. Everyone loves us and wants to do business with us. Only, we have to leave the EU first. The EU will still want to do business with us because we are so great. By the way, if we leave the EU we can keep foreigners out. Foreigners keep taking your jobs. We can also have a bonfire of red tape. The EU gives us lots of red tape. We can get rid of inconvenient laws that make things expensive but limit pollution and protect workers. And we can get rid of Human Rights legislation. You're British, we invented Human Rights, so we don't need them written down."

There was no plan. Just platitudes, slogans, repeated inverted logic worthy of Goebbels, national pride, "Take Back Control" (we already had control), "Take our country back" (we already had it).

The public lapped this up, or at least the more motivated ones did. The Internet is still alight with it. (Hi guys! Keep at it, providing your "balance." Beat those green blood-drinking lizards with your super powers of logic and reason.)

Michael Gove got tired of struggling to answer questions and declared that he was "sick of experts." The experts warned of the great economic dangers that lay ahead. This was hand-waved away as a conspiracy, of the Elite and the Establishment protecting themselves: Project Fear.

The official Vote Leave election literature (flyers, leaflets, posters) contained outright lies. In fact some companies who warned of the dangers to their on-going UK business due to the uncertainty caused by a Brexit decision were mis-quoted. There was also a very dubious claim about £350M per week that we give to the EU that "could be used to fund the NHS - a new hospital a week."

So along comes the referendum which, incidentally, is not legally binding. Members of Parliament must vote laws through. The results of a referendum may be used to influence their decision. More of that in a minute.

So Vote Leave won 52% to 48%. Gibraltar voted by about 94% to remain. 95% of Gibraltarians work in Spain. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. Two years ago Scotland had a referendum on independence from the UK and voted to remain by 60% to 40% on the premise that it would have to remain in the UK to be in the EU. Wales and England voted to leave the EU.

Since the result (which is not legally binding) the value of Sterling has fallen to its lowest in 31 years. Billions (trillions?) have been wiped off of stock markets. Large numbers of workers in the City of London are facing redundancy or being relocated to the continent (i.e. EU countries) to continue their business.

Very worryingly, racism is now overt on the streets of England. The first targets are the Polish, who came over in large numbers to work in the last 20 or so years, and, of course, everyone's favourite ne'er-do-well, the Muslim. Poles have had "Polish Vermin Go Home" cards put through their letter boxes. People have been verbally abused and threatened in the street, even by sweet little old ladies as well as skinheads with swastika tatoos and St George's Cross flags and T-shirs. There are "immigrants out" banners in the streets.

You see, many of the salt-of-the-earth Vote Leave people thought they were voting to kick out the foreigners, and straight away.

Other people from the other nations in the UK are no longer welcome in England by some, it would seem. They want "their" country back. The problem is, this is still the UK. The referendum wasn't about English independence, it was about the UK leaving the EU.

If you listen to the Kippers and Brexiters, the financial downturn is a conspiracy by the Elite and the Establishment to punish the common man for daring to vote. It's not due to uncertainty. Oh no, that would be too simple. It's another manifestation of the Project Fear conspiracy.

England has shot itself firmly in the foot here. Now Scotland is demanding a second independence referendum as soon as possible, because Scotland doesn't want to leave the EU.

Northern Ireland wants to remain in the EU as well and has a number of options, one of which is reunification with Eire. It is very important for the Peace Process (before the Muslim bogeyman we had Irish Republican Terrorism here) for there to be an open border between the two countries. It could choose independence within the EU or maybe an alliance with Scotland.

Vote Leave are currently being sued by some of the companies whose views on the Brexit they misrepresented (they said the opposite, essentially).

The £350M for the NHS was just pure fiction.

Remember that the turmoil in the financial markets is just a conspiracy by the Elite to keep the common man down.

The UK is highly likely to disintegrate. England and Wales (and many of the "take our country back" people don't want Wales) will be on their own.

Meanwhile, millions of EU citizens living and working in the (soon to disintegrate UK) don't know if and when they're going to have to leave and find new jobs etc. Millions of UK citizens who work in the EU are in the same situation, including many retirees who settled in sunny climes such as Spain.

Farage, Gove and Duncan Smith were cock-sure that the EU would be desperate to trade with us if we left, but the EU has basically returned Nigel Farages compliments by saying "No, get lost. If that's what you think of us, we'll manage fine without you." There is a possibility that they'll let us trade with them under similar terms as today (i.e, with all that pesky commie red-tape and free movement of goods, capital and labour) but without any democratic representation, i.e. no Members of the European Parliament.

You know, what? This time I'm in favour of Scottish independence and we'll move there in a year or two and laugh as the Little Englanders spend the next two or three decades clearing up the mess that they made for themselves.

Sick of experts, indeed. "Take back control" "Take our country back."

So, in summary, the UK will disintegrate, England has made enemies of its trading partners, the Weimar Republic has come to town and it looks like they're going to end up still over-run with filthy foreigners from the EU and elsewhere but with no say in how the EU is run!

"That's democracy!!!" Well, if you say so.

Nice one England! Own goal!

PS That nice Mr Putin is a great friend of Nigel Farage (and Marine Le Pen, of France) and has donated money to UKIP (and the Front National). Just so you know.

[Updated to fix some typos.]

After many months of negative pregnancy tests, a couple weeks ago I was woken up to my wife smiling from ear to ear with a positive test in hand. Things are happening and if everything goes well, I should get to meet my son/daughter early 2017. I still have a hard time believing it.

I've since been reading all about pregnancy, and educating myself. I know we have all learned about it in school, but I didn't really care at that time. Now, when I am reading up on everything, it's an absolute miracle how everything happens. It's magical to think that inside my wife is a little grape with a beating heart and that grape will form in to a living, breathing baby.

My wife is so happy. Her breasts are sore, she is eating like a horse, and goes to bed early. We have our first ultrasound at the end of June. It's an exciting time.

I told my mom (things are still early, and the chance of a miscarriage is still there), and she cried with joy. She is having a hard time not telling anyone and keeping it all inside. My dad doesn't know yet (he is on vacation), but I plan on telling him when he returns.

I'm still seeing the girl I wrote about in the last entry. She has been really busy, and it has been tough finding time to spend together. We saw each other last night, and had a great night of talking, play, and cuddling. I let her know that my wife was pregnant (she knew we were trying), and she was happy for us.

I really like this girl. She is definitely someone that I could (and am) fall hard and fast for. She is smart, sexy and level-headed -- the same things that I love about my wife. I think we may be looking for different things though... I am looking for a full relationship. I would like to see her regularly and ideally grow a deep relationship. I think that she is ideally looking for something more casual, but really enjoys the time she spends with me. I think that there may be an imbalance of power (I think I'm more invested that she is), but I just can't stop myself -- I really like her. I'm really enjoying this ride, but I have a feeling that I'm going to have my heart broken.

If you were lucky, you started out in this business writing code because you thought it was fun. You sat down with your first computer ecstatic with all of the possibilities, all of the cool things you could do by programming a computer. It was something to learn and something to master, and you thought, "Wow, this is fun. I can make a great career if I get very good a this."

-- Michael C. Feathers, Working Effectively With Legacy Code, Prentice Hall, 2013.

I suppose they call it a career because you career from disaster to disaster...

Last week I had another first date. I met this girl on OkCupid. We met in the afternoon at a local pub and shared a meat and cheese platter. She was visibly nervous when she arrived. I found her nervousness charming, and it put me at ease. Once the nerves calmed down, we had some great conversation as we picked at the cheese and meat tray.

She is recently out of a multi-year relationship, and isn't looking to get right back into one, so she thought that dating a married person would be a good way to avoid being locked down again. We chatted about stuff and things, and wrapped it up after a couple hours. As we parted ways, we hugged and I went in for the kiss. Her lips were soft and I ended up floating back to my car.

We arranged for a second date a couple days later. We went for drinks and appetizers at a somewhat trendy restaurant downtown. She is new to non-monogamy, so I brought her a present -- a book called "The Ethical Slut". This book is considered by some as the bible for non-monogamous relationships, and as she is new to the scene, I thought it would help. We chatted, ate, drank, and eventually made it back to her place for some fooling around.

This girl has really done a number on me. I can't stop thinking about her. I can't wait to see her again.