Now I don’t actually care about a single mainstream celebrity, not one bit.  I’m pretty up to speed on their lives due to the gossip magazines my wife leaves around the house (any reading material is acceptable in the restroom) but unless there was a complete debacle like at the end of Miss Congeniality, I would never actually seek out celebrity news.

I don’t care about celebrities, but I had a roaring good time casting Dallas, so I decided to try the same exercise with media I do care about: nerdy programming blogs!  I have my own set of celebrities that are huge in their own sphere but who are COMPLETELY INVISIBLE to normal people.  A normal person, like my wife, would have no idea who any of these people are. So as my gift to everyone who needs any easy way to explain the personality and influence of a programming blogger, I present this mapping of real world celebrities to programming blogosphere celebrities:

Caveats:

1. The ages are hard to match up, because the blogosphere is less than a decade old, while movies have been around forever. For instance, Joel Spolsky is about the oldest on the list in Blog Years, but he’s not that old in real years.  So for reference, 2000-2008 in Internet years is roughly equivalent to 1940-2007 in Hollywood years. The view of celebrities is my personal 2008 view of them, not their contemporary impressions.
2. I know you are going to say “WHAT?!?!? How can you compare X’s writing to Y’s movies?” Well, if I told you that there was a new movie coming out starring Y, what would be your reaction? Would you run out and pre-order tickets? Would you IMDB it? Would you be interested but wait for DVD? Would you just shrug and wait to see if it gets popular? Now imagine you see a link to a new post by X on Reddit. Do you click through? Do you bookmark it for later? Does it not matter because you already subscribe to their feed? Do you skip it? That’s the main criterion I used to compare.

So without further ado, here’s the tentative list – I welcome suggestion, debate, and comments.

Scott Hanselman: Jeremy Piven – not a leading man but extremely capable and will make anything he touches better. Funny, versatile, confident in his role at the edge of the spotlight, lives in a city outside the focus of the industry (Portland/Chicago).

Alternates: Seth Green

Joel Spolsky: Michael Caine -Actively producing since the dawn of time, quality consistent throughout career, impressive longevity. Anyone could learn from them.

Alternates: Jack Lemon

Paul Graham: George Clooney – An undisputed star that people either love or hate.  Aggravates some people because of his politics ($15K to dropout of college/liberal political activism).

Alternates: Sean Penn

Carl Franklin: Jerry Bruckheimer – Makes big hits, big productions, strong emphasis on production values and making quality enhance experience, looked down on by “snooty types” (non-Windows people, art-house movie fans) but quite sophisticated when you take a closer look, undisputed leader in their niche.

Alternates: Michael Bay, Jack Black (humor, music)

Peter Norvig: Clint Eastwood – Long and continuing careers with jaw-dropping resumes that inspire reverence in their respective industries.

Alternates: Robert Redford

David Heinemeier Hansson: Tom Cruise – Started out as a Golden Boy, a hero, a huge star, and quickly gained power and influence.  Has retained star power despite controversy and overexposure.

Alternates: Mel Gibson

Jeff Atwood: Hugh Grant – lots and lots of posts/movies, overall good quality work, generally enjoyable if a little repetitive.

Alternates: Jude Law

Phil Haack: Kevin James – a top-shelf “that guy”, under-the-radar funny, not a big star but clearly happy with his stature.

Alternates: Vince Vaughn

Reg Braithwaite: Laurence Fishburne – Excellent performance without being flashy. Just look at their work and try to find someone as consistently high quality.

Alternate: Morgan Freeman

(note: If you think I picked these two actors because they’re black, you’re welcome to name two actors who consistently perform at such a high level.  They’re my two favorite actors on this whole list and I hate the fact that it’s 2008 and I still have to give disclaimers like this).

Steve Yegge: Robin Williams – Always entertaining, definitely crazy, hilarious but not just about humor, performance improved by controlled substances (wine/cocaine)

Alternate: Jim Carrey

Non-Programmers worth including:

Seth Godin: Yoda – Wise, a little odd looking, and what he says sounds just crazy enough to make sense.

Tim Ferris: Peter Jackson – An outsider who took their industry by storm.  You may not like his methods but you can’t deny his impact.

Who did I miss? Do you disagree? Leave your comments below. If this turns out to be popular, I might move it to it’s own page.

(click for bigness)

Explanation after the jump:

Top Row (all rows are from left to right):

• Hard Rock Cafe Stockholm – souvenir from when I lived there (‘00-’01)
• Epcot Living Seas – home for the summer in ‘02
• Seattle – got on Microsoft Intern interview trip (spring ‘03 – no hire)
• Islands of Adventure – more Florida trips
• Epcot World Flags – ditto

Second row:

• “Jag talar svenska” – interpreter pins sold in Utah for the 2002 Winter Olympics
• Snowboarder – also 2002 Winter Olympics (I was going to school at BYU at the time
• Swedish/American flags – from my time in Sweden, ‘99-’01
• American flag – don’t even need a reason for this
• Shamrock – tired of getting pinched on St. Patty’s
• Raccoon – got while volunteering at Odyssey of the Mind in Tampa

Third row:

• Stockholm city hall – lived in Stockholm 10/00-10/01
• HIF (Helsingborgs Idrotts Forening) – the shield for the championship football (that’s soccer to you Yanks) team in Helsingborg, Sweden, where I lived from 11/99-5/00
• Shield w/keys – shield for the town of Lulea, Sweden, where I lived from 5/00-7/00
• Sverige (Sweden)
• Stockholm
• Question mark – ? not sure
• Moroni – one symbol in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Seagull – state bird of Utah
• Dolphin – another Odyssey of the Mind

Fourth row:

• Mermaid from Copenhagen (blurry) – I visited Copenhagen before I left Sweden in 10/01
• Moose in Finland – I lived in Jakobstad/Pietarsaari, Finland from 7/00-10/00
• Helsinki Cathedral – I got to visit Helsinki (for a couple hours) when I was in Finland
• IB – I was in the International Baccalaureate program in high school
• Stitch playing ukulele – Disney trips, plus I went through a serious Hawai’ian/Polynesian phase
• Guy with sword – Renaissance fair
• Dragon – ibid
• Flamingo referee – another Odyssey of the Mind

Bottom row:

• Cubs jersey – got when visiting Chicago in 10/03 to scout graduate schools
• Red Sox – got visiting my cousins in Boston in 8/99
• UF Gators – got when visiting a friend at UF in summer ‘99
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers – got while riding the bandwagon during the Alstott/Sapp/Dunn years
• “Lighting the Way” – gift for donating to BYU’s annual fundraiser
• Moab, Utah – took a trip there with my wife and mom in summer ‘04
• Dead Horse Point – ibid
• Cougar Y – I’m a BYU alumnus

So there you have it – an abridged history of my life from the mid 90’s through 2004.  Clearly I stopped with the pins since there is nothing (except the Cubs) from Chicago, and I’ve lived here for almost four years.

Do you have any quirky collections that tell your life history?

I’ve always enjoyed music – from playing the trumpet in elementary school, owning a $230 portable CD player in 1993, to being an iPod man today. Practically every spare dollar I earned between the ages of 13 and 17 was spent on CDs. I love and appreciate all kinds of music – classical, rap, rock, alternative, opera, techno, Hawai’ian (especially Hawai’ian), even country (Claire from 9th grade, if you’re reading this (which I’m pretty darn sure you’re not), it took over 15 years and I’m still not a fan, but I can say now that I appreciate country music). But now I don’t listen to music very often. In fact hardly at all. I have my iPod running most of the day, but I listen to podcasts, sweet delicious podcasts of all stripes that keep me informed and help me learn new things. What’s the difference between me now and when I was in high school (besides the notably reduced mental redardation and 70 extra pounds)?

Music and the Brain

My answer has come from my interest in neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Jeff Hawkins’ book On Intelligence (God bless him for writing it) stresses the temporal nature of the brain – how learning, memory, even sensory perceptions like vision and hearing only work on data that changes through time. Our brain works by processing related events connected by the sequence they occur in – kind of like musical notes! Music speaks our brain’s native language! No compiling, no byte code, etc – it operates directly on our abstract syntax tree (that’s my analogy, don’t hold it against Jeff). That is why it’s easier to remember song lyrics than the words of a speech – the lyrics are attached to a musical sequence that burns into your mind.

[Someday I'm going to give On Intelligence a proper writeup, but I don't have it in me right now. It is definitely the most exciting book I've read in the last couple years. Whoops, gotta stop talking about it - my pulse is starting to race.]

Dan Weinreb recently wrote a review of a book called “This is Your Brain on Music” that I haven’t read but am dying to based on his review. Please read his entire review (and the book too!) but check out these nuggets on how entwined music is in your brain:

-When you hear a musical tone, there are neurons in your brain that send electrical pulses at exactly the same frequency as the note

-most people can recreate the exact tempo of a song they know, to within a few percent, even if they’re not musically trained

-your brain can distinguish between musical consonance and dissonance before your neocortex (higher, human level thinking) gets involved

I find all of that ridiculously fantastic, and if you’re at all interested in thought and music enough to keep listening (er, reading) to me, then you should check out those two books.

Example time! Look at the following sentence:

Janet owned a baby sheep.

Just a normal sentence that’s super easy to forget. Now look at this slightly different wording, set to music:

The words form a sequence (same as in the first sentence), the musical notes form a sequence, and each note links to its word, so even if you couldn’t say the sentence exactly by itself, you can fill in missing words if you sing it. It’s a heavily connected graph.

Emotional Amplifier

That’s the mechanics of why music works on our brains, but most people listening to music aren’t trying to accurately remember sentences. What’s more important is that since music talks directly to our brains, it can cause our brains to affect our emotions, hormones, and all of the other chemical goodness that our brain does without us asking it to. So music can affect your mood, and usually, no matter what mood you’re in, you want more of it. When I’m discouraged or wistful, Fade to Black by Metallica captures my mood perfectly. When I’m exceptionally grateful and loving, Con Te Partiro by Andrea Bocelli amplifies it (I almost cried with joy and love for my family when I heard him sing a lullaby version of it to Elmo on Sesame Street). When I’m frustrated and stubborn and need to unlock the power of my brain to triumph over a knotty problem, Beethoven’s Egmont Overture is the key – rarely can I get through the whole 9 minutes without figuring out how to triumph over what was impeding me, or at least get in the frame of mind to solve the problem shortly thereafter. Regardless of what you’re feeling, if you find a song that matches that feeling, it’s like having your best friend there to pour your heart out to. It listens to your heart, understands you, encourages you, and celebrates with you. Because it is directly in your brain, it is also directly in your heart in a way that few people on earth can be.

That’s the difference between the high school me and the modern me. My teenage hormones gave my mood and feelings much more control over me than my rational, hard working life as an employee, father, and husband currently allows. I also feel that I have much more control over my life at this point so I don’t succumb to the powerlessness that is such a big part of being a teenager. I know my purpose now, so music isn’t as necessary as an outlet for unchecked emotions.

Music is a emotional amplifier and an emotional determinant. Since the human experience is largely an effort to either make ourselves feel a certain way or wallow in the fact that circumstance has made us feel a certain way, then it’s no wonder that music is so powerful that poor people will pay for it and honest people will steal it.

Lots of people write their impressions as a first time parent, but there’s not much to them.  Usually it’s stuff like “Babies are small” and “I’m overwhelmed.”  (trust me, I said brilliant stuff like that a couple years ago after my first).  This time I’ve got all of the mechanics down pat (cooking while holding an infant, the proper bouncing to rocking ratio, etc) so I’ve had different observations that I was too blown away to notice the first time around.  Let’s hope they’re useful to anyone contemplating a second child.

• Typing with one hand is hard and slow.
• Watching a newborn is like driving – doesn’t nearly use your whole brain but occupies your body enough that all you can do is think.
• No matter how much your infant cries, if you jump up from playing with your toddler to care for the infant, then the toddler learns that crying = results.  Bad lesson.
• Being able to fall asleep fast is useful, since you never know how long you’ll get to sleep.
• Some items of housework are important (clean laundry, empty sink) while most others are not.
• If you want your kids well taken care of during the day, make sure your wife gets to sleep at night.
• Anything you want done, get it done fast (see bullet #2 for explanation).
• Love doesn’t happen automatically, it needs to be cultivated.  While I’m thrilled about the newborn, I don’t have the same feelings towards her as I do towards the toddler because I have years of memories, experiences, and interactions with the toddler.  But that doesn’t diminish what I have for the newborn – I’m already so much closer to her than I was two weeks or even one week ago.
• Following up the last point, you have to put in the time and effort if you want to enjoy your kids.  Just like you’d never expect to learn something you didn’t work hard at and experiment with, you probably won’t love your kids as much if you don’t put in lots of consistent time in caring for them.

It’s been a great couple of weeks and I look forward to decades more with my two little girls!

Go ahead, try it, it’s fun! (If I’m not #1 when you click it’s YOUR fault for not linking to me more often! )

That was one of my New Year’s Resolutions that’s now resolved (be the #1 search result on Google for my name). Now I’ve just got to lose 30 pounds and get some revenue out of my startup!

Sloths: Natures Loveable Lisper

Thanks to a wonderful naming idea from 50 years ago, we have a mascot:

I don’t know about you, but I’m just a little less proud than I was 5 minutes ago. How about this?

There, I feel a little bit better. A note to all aspiring computational revolutionaries: ask a normal person what your great language name makes them think of. You might be surprised what you find out.

Of course, I think this lesson has been well learned because all of the new languages have cool names. Thankfully, this is one way that new languages are not becoming more like Lisp!

1. You didn’t write it
2. You’re not Seth Godin

Here’s my latest “I’m not Seth Godin so all I can do is comment” thought on his recent post “Workaholics“:

In high school, I had to write a lot of essays (thanks, Dr Yarborough. No really, I don’t remember much I learned in high school but I’m a good writer because of all those stupid essays about iconoclasm and stuff). They started us small with 500 words and worked up to where we wrote one or two 1,500 word essays a week. It was like torture. I hated it. 1,500 words seemed like was writing the entire Encyclopedia Britannica! When we had our final Extended Essay that had to be 4,000 words, I thought I was going to die. (I didn’t.)

Fast forward a decade or so and now I’m writing for fun on the internet. And now I find out that I can’t write under 1,000 words to save my life. Even this post, which was supposed to be one sentence tacked onto the end of another post, is quickly growing. My last post, which was supposed to be a simple response to some comments, weighed in at about 1,400 words and I wrote it in under an hour (including rewriting one part that got lost in a Wordpress accident). What’s the difference? I enjoy the heck out of what I’m writing about!!! I’ve had thoughts like these swirling around inside me with no one to say them to. Let’s face it, you’d have a hard time having that Lisp past/present/future conversation at most university CS departments, let alone at most workplaces. Now that I realized that the internet gives me an easy way to express all these thoughts, and that people will actually listen and respond, it’s exhilirating! I feel like my hands (and wakefulness) are the limiting factor, not my mind. I have so much I want to say that I have to try to limit myself to under 2,000 words one each topic just so I can write more of them. Granted, no one has offered to pay me a living wage to do this, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Seth Godin’s right. Just because the stuff that makes you happy looks like the stuff other people do for work, doesn’t mean it’s work to you.

With that time of the year where people mail in easy posts summarizing the “Top 10 Posts I’ve Written” or their “5 New Years Resolutions”, there’s been something conspicuously absent from reflections on 2007.

Kathy Sierra, one of the best bloggers period, suddenly and completely quit blogging and vanished from the public eye because of threatening messages posted against her.  It happened back in March/April, and 8-9 months is an eternity to remember something in the Internet age, but we’re talking about the disappearance of one of the most entertaining, informative, educational writers on the entire Internet!  In the world of tech writing, imagine if Joel Spolsky or Paul Graham just stopped writing.  Sure, they’ve already written enough to last most people a lifetime, but their new content from them got the internet flowing.  Kathy Sierra was the same way, and she was in my small circle of recommended reading for aspiring developer/entrepreneurs.

Her blog, Creating Passionate Users, was a bright, sassy, well-illustrated light in a field of dim, drab competitors.   In her farewell post, she gave a list of options of where she would go from there, but as far as I know, she hasn’t done any of them.  I wish her well and hope that when she’s ready, I’ll get to read her work again in some format.  There’s a goldmine of information already on her blog (405 posts, according to her), but it’s a real shame that mean and immature people prevented everyone from seeing more of her great work.   This was an unusual and very sad story, and I can’t think of anything that had a bigger real effect this year (at least not in the internet world).

For the first time, I got to play in the snow with my daughter. Sometimes the simple pleasures are the most fulfilling.