faded picture of luke
a semi-random photo | click for the full photo gallery
click to browse photos
homepage navigation

Luke Melia

Church and State

I liked Sandra Day O’Conner’s concurring opinion in the just-decided McCreary County v. ACLU:

Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?

More on the decision and it’s counterpart, Van Orden v. Perry, as well, as insight as to how articles about this topic get written, at ReligionLink – Split decision on Ten Commandments

To the Graduates

Namgi, Eunice, Isabella, Melissa, Wayne… all you graduates this year… congrats!

The commencement address Steve Jobs gave at Stanford made the rounds last week, but I just got around to reading the text. It’s a good read… notable for it’s authenticity, and for the irony of a college dropout delivering a commencement address at a preeminent university.

It was a heck of a lot better than the speech I listened to at Jeanhee’s brother’s graduation from Kellog this past weekend. Perhaps the valedictorian’s speech at my sister’s high school graduation this Friday will be better…

Anyway, Jobs’ talk of dropping out of Reed reminded me a lot of my own college dropout days. Like Jobs, I had trouble with my mom spending so much money to send me to school considering I didn’t know what I planned to get out of it. But I liked high school, and was good at it, and had this feeling I wanted to keep learning. So I said no to Brown, and went down to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville — much less expensive, and still a top school, I reasoned.

My dad’s friend John Fogg let me put my layout and design skills to use at his company, and as a result, I found myself surrounded by entrepreneurs. It awoke the entrepreneurial genes passed down from my folks, and before I knew what happened, I had started up a software company with a few partners that was later named Kaizensoft.

I continued to attend school full-time, lived in student housing, though I paid less attention in class, and my grades declined. I petitioned to be granted resident tuition, and was approved on account of the fact that my company was employing Virgina citizens and paying state taxes. That saved me eight grand a year, and I assumed my own tuition payments, which saved me from a lot of guilt over squandering my mom’s money.

One day, I was sitting in a Japanese literature class. We were studying The Tale of Genji. That is, the rest of the class was studying Genji. I was making notes for an agenda for a board meeting later that afternoon. In that moment, I realized I was being ridiculous. At the end of the semester, I went part-time. As part of an honors program I had earned with my high school record, I had no requirements to fulfill. So I took a theatrical lighting course. A course on religion in modern drama. I enjoyed them a lot.

During this time, I worked as an entrepreneur, but lived as a student. My bedroom in a house shared with 6 other students was furnished with a futon on the floor. I can’t remember where I put my clothes. I slept mostly at my honor student girlfriend’s house, though rarely got there before three in the morning.

I loved it all at the time. Took it very seriously. Pushed myself. It was a sleep-deprived daydream fueled with adolescent invincibility, entrepreneurial passion, youthful love and the work-hard/play-hard ethos of college. In retrospect, I see that I was out of balance — working too much for my body and my relationships to get what they needed. But in that chaos, I got a lot of skills and education I would need later on.

Jobs talked about connecting the dots, and how they aren’t connected forward, but backward. I always liked computers, and had a clear aptitude, but I went into college sure that I didn’t want to be a programmer. My computer science class did nothing to dissuade me from that position. But learning about object-oriented design for the first time from our lead developer, Mike Hill — that planted some seeds in my mind, unnoticed.

Three quarters of a decade later, I’m working as a software development manager. I’m using software and ideas I was first introduced to as a punky young president of a start up. Sometimes I wonder if I’m collecting the skills I’ll need later to start a company like Kaizensoft, but to do it successfully. (Kaizen ended up a dud after three years, one and a half major versions and a cool hundred grand and change.) Maybe I’ll discover a reason to finish school. Jeanhee’s job extends to me some incredible tuition benefits, so it’s crossed my mind a lot lately. Some of the dots have been connected, but there are lots of lines still to be drawn.

So what can I say to the graduates? I don’t know. I feel like I’m still on the path, and it’s a hard place to give advice from (not that you asked anyway). I can tell you this: have fun along the way! Commencement is a really great name for graduation, and the cool thing is, who knows what exactly it is that’s beginning?

Mercadito

Dessert at Mercadito

This picture is from a dessert in mid-May, when Jeanhee and I had dinner at Mercadito with Sanda and Farhad, who were shortly thereafter bound for London; Kendall, who was shortly before a mother for the first time; and Tamar, who, with the rest of us, really enjoyed the company and meal.

Our waitress mentioned that the Alphabet City spot was doing so well that the owners were planning on opening a bar across the street with 100+ types of tequila and 11 kinds of guacamole. Might be time to check it out again.

Signage

IMG_1197.JPG

Among our pictures from Korea are some good shots of signs. Mostly, the enjoyment is in the English translation, but there are some good icons and more, too.

Here’s the photo set.

Wiki and the L.A.Times

I recently introduced a Wiki at Oxygen, and it’s been a quite useful tool for my team. I’m convinced of wikis’ utility as “collaborative grease.” The wikipedia model of large scale use baffles me somewhat, but it does seem to function. A new experiment started on Thursday when LA Times Chief Michael Kinsley introduced the paper’s first wikitorial”:

The “Wikis,” which were first announced in a reader’s note last weekend as part of a major shakeup in the Times editorial page approach, are based on the popular Web Wikipedia – an online approach that allows users to edit entries and contribute views and facts on any subject.

It seems they had a bit of trouble, but also some very creative participation. Interesting experiment and a nice angle to the “we know best” attitude of the unsigned editorial column! via Romanesko

Update: Wiki is down. Too much goatse got ’em.

Solar Subway Station

A new subway station in Coney Island has gone green. The roof of the new terminus at Stillwell Avenue is covered in photovoltaic cells, generating enough power for the whole station, excluding “traction” (which I assume means the stopping and going of the trains themselves). Awesome! via Treehugger

More info about the environment and NYC Transit. Urban living can be so right on.

Hype Against Hype

After our prenatal appointment mid-day today (Huck and Jeanhee are both doing great, btw), we stopped by Whole Foods to pick up some lunch. Along with my Tofu Tikka Masala, I grabbed a bottle of The Switch, Watermelon Strawberry Flavor. The Switch is an all-natural soda that my mom’s company used to rep. On the underside of the bottle top, I noticed a URL. Get Off The Hype is one of the cooler product marketing sites I’ve seen lately. It figures I’d get a kick out of it — under my picture in my high school year book, it said “be young, have fun, don’t drink pepsi”.

The Wire

Over at WFMU’s blog, an odd Orthodox Jewish thing I didn’t know existed: “Why My Hometown Wears a Wire”. The whole thing with goys doing things that Jews couldn’t on holy days always struck me as weird, but this takes the cake. In following up on this strange subject of eruvim, I came an entertaining email response “Eruvim are worthless.”

This irrationality fits in with the eating of the communion crackers (the body of JC, dontchya know), the idea that the Koran must not be allowed to get dirty, the insistence that evolution is bunk, and the giving of large sums of money to one’s religious leaders. I may say gently that they all increase my skepticism of religions and religion.

LukeMelia.com created 1999. ··· Luke Melia created 1976. ··· Live With Passion!
Luke Melia on software development freelance web development how to contact me Luke Melia, Software Developer letters and more from my travels photo gallery personal philosophy