I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how great art is made.

When I was young, I thought great art was made by Artists (not artists; Artists). Artists spent their days wandering around in verdant woodlands or flower-filled meadows, possibly while pressing their nose into a leatherbound volume of Sartre. They might possibly talk to passing animals. Then, suddenly, Inspiration would strike, and they would hurry home to pull out a quill pen or a curvy palette with a hole in the middle, and would write or paint or compose or whatever. And they’d create the whole work in one go, or at least large segments in one go. And, if they ever had to revise, they merely moved a word here or shifted a note there.

But the more I read about the circumstances in which great art was made, the more I found writers who were churning out a thousand words a day, or painters who didn’t really like their great art but hey people like it and I’m not going to argue about the money, or composers who wrote song after song after song after song. I realized that great art comes from everyday art, that the great works are just part of the process of consistently and diligently creating more and more work.

After I accepted that fact, I turned my attention to the attitudes of the artists. What separates the great artists from the artists who create one brilliant work and then fade back to banality?

The answer to that question came yesterday as my small group discussed Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. I realized that great artists do not worry about what their work will do for them. I do not mean that they are detached from their work — far from it — I mean that these artists have successfully thrown off the fetters chaining them to their work. They do not seek prestige with their work. They simply place their work in front of the public, and walk away.

I also do not mean that these artists do not want their works to succeed. Far from it; many great works of art have been created out of dire financial need — Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings partly to capitalize on the financial success of The Hobbit — but the great artists don’t seem to worry about any personal fame that their art might bring them. They are content simply to create.

Warning: Today’s entry is a boring retread of my weekend.

Shadrone writes that he doesn’t eat as well as he’d like, since he’s so busy. I was reading recently of an overweight programmer determined to lose weight, and his solution was to cook up a lot of stir-fry every Sunday, then dump it all into individual containers and take two to work every day. Makes a lot of sense. I’m think of doing this myself, since I’m getting tired of PB&J’s pretzels for lunch every weekday.

In other news, my weekend increased exponentially, so to speak. Saturday was quiet, in fact, quiet enough that I managed to read the entirety of Terry Prachett’s Moving Pictures. But then I hosted a Big American Party starting at 7:00 p.m. A tiny party, it turns out; only one person made it (Shadrone, as it happens). We had a good time, though, playing Tokyo and watching Macross Plus and Gasaraki.

I woke up late on Sunday, as usual, dropped by my parents’ house for a few hours, then went to my writing group. That’s a blessing, really. I was completedly blocked on two of my four writing projects, and they gave me solid new directions for both of them.

Then, AWANA, which is getting more and more fun as I get more used to my new duties. We played trivia games and I showed them a bit more of Princess Mononoke (by popular request!) at the end.

I finished up the night with another friend, who came over for a few hours. He whipped me in a game of chess, then blew me away in a game of Tokyo. It was good, though; we got to talk about our plans and lives. Good times.

Okay, everyone, gather around! It’s story time.

The simulator where I work has to recognize NavAids, which (from what I understand) are basically transmitters tucked into the ground at various points around the globe. When flying, the plane monitors the distance to each of these NavAids, and because it knows the actual location of those NavAids, it can triangulate with them to find out where the plane actually is.

Except that sometimes the NavAids don’t show up when the simulator is running. Thus, our intrepid programmer Chris was brought in.

Chris found that our simulator has a list of NavAids. When the simulator starts up, it reads the NavAids list from a file into memory, then as it flies, it uses that list to find the NavAids around it. Or, it’s supposed to; clearly, that wasn’t happening quite right.

Chris looked at the file which contained the NavAids, and discovered that they were not sorted. Or, at least, it seemed that way. After a bit of digging, he found out that the file’s structure had never been documented, so some poor soul had had to figure out how to generate those files essentially blind. And that soul had never figured out what order the NavAids were supposed to be in. Dead end.

So Chris looked at the code which searches the NavAids list for a NavAid. To find the NavAid, it takes the NavAid’s frequency (f) and the number of NavAids in the list (n) and performs the following calculation to get the NavAid’s number:

(f — n * (f/n) ) * 3

Don’t run screaming into the night; I don’t like algebra either, but this is very straightforward.

Okay. Let’s look at the middle of this calculation, which is the part calculated first:

n * (f/n)

Any number is the same as that number divided by one, so the above equation is the same as…

(n/1) * (f/n)

…which is the same as…

(n * f) / n

n divided by n is 1, so we can safely eliminate it, to get…

f

Now, let’s plug that back into the full formula:

(f — f) * 3

Any number minus itself equals? Zero! 5–5=0, 27–27=0, etc. So, this complicated formula always evaluates to 0. Well, 0 times 3. Which is always zero.

But wait. It gets better.

Chris figured that maybe this was all a mistake in coding the formula. This C code was originally written in FORTRAN, so he looked at the original FORTRAN code and found the exact same formula. Weeeeird.

After banging his head against this problem for awhile, Chris started talking about it to some co-workers, one of whom, John, had been working with FORTRAN for years. John looked at the code and almost immediately said, “I know why it’s doing that.”

It turns out that FORTRAN’s implementation of division has a unique property: when performed in a particular way, you get the remainder of the division, not the quotient. This formula was set up in that particular way.

Suddenly, everything came together in Chris’ mind. The original FORTRAN programmers had stored the NavAids in the list using the remainder of the division of the NavAid’s frequency by the number of items in the list. Then they’d used this hack to calculate that number and retrieve the appropriate NavAid from the list. Without explaining this anywhere.

When the code was migrated from FORTRAN to C, the formula was copied over exactly. And it compiled and worked perfectly. But the C compiler happily calculated the actual quotient, not the remainder. The hack no longer worked, so the formula always equalled zero.

Meanwhile, because the file was now being generated by a program that didn’t know how to order the NavAids, they weren’t being put into the list in the order that the formula expected them to be.

So finally Chris understood the problem, and went back to fix the code.

The moral of this story? Ask for help. Your co-workers can often save you days’ or weeks’ worth of pain and suffering.

And never use hacks.

So. AWANA.

Describing AWANA is kind of like describing the stock market. What approach do you take? Brokers? The trading floor? Shareholders?

Conceptually, AWANA is a church-oriented club where boys and girls can come, play games, and learn about the Bible.

Organizationally, AWANA is a weekly hour-and-a-half club meeting that’s divided into three main periods: Game Time, Handbook Time, and Council Time. The kids play physical games during Game Time, they study Bible verses and moral issues during Handbook Time, and they listen to a mini-sermon and receive awards during Council Time.

This can all be very heavy-handed, if done wrong, of course. The goal is to provide a structure that doesn’t restrict the kids. It’s meant to be organized, but not oppressive.

(Heh. “Whereas OUR boys-and-girls club is meant to be oppressive!”)

Anyvay. The club is subdivided into smaller clubs by age and sex. So, for example, I’m now in charge of the 5th- and 6th-grade boys mini-club, which is called the Pioneers. Which is apt, considering my personal theme song is I Am A Pioneer. Anyvay, I’m in charge of them during Handbook Time and Council Time.

Handbook Time is fine, because there are me and three other adults to which the kids can recite verses and try to annoy (both of which they do equally well). I have to keep the records straight, but that’s just a matter of getting used to it. It’s Council Time that’s the real problem, as I have to come up with something to talk to the kids about.

I try to avoid Big Sermons, because A) they don’t work, and B) I don’t like them. I fall asleep while giving them; imagine how an eleven-year-old would react.

Instead, I’ve been playing snippets of anime or reading a Bible passage and asking the kids moral questions. It’s worked well; the kids really get into it, and so do the adults. It’s a good thing.

And now, more of the VR story.

I normally type up my entry during lunch, but today I have to pick up my parents at the airport at that time. So, an entry will be coming later today, including the next bit of the VR story.

Oooh! Now you too can own actual video footage of an alien encounter! Really! It’s on eBay, so it must be true! And the video only costs $1.3M. For the first bid, y’know.

Here’s the auction. Including a puff of smoke that’s actually a ”preSumer Naggas.” There’s a role-playing scenario in here somewhere, I just know it….

Okay. I’m feeling better today, thanks to the support of my Monday Group last night.

Katsucon was indeed fun. I bought a bunch of DVD’s cheaply at the Dealer’s Room, as well as models of the Turn-A Gundam and SUMO Mobile Suit from Turn-A Gundam. Until recently, I never saw any appeal in models, but after trying out a 1/144 scale Wing Gundam model and discovering the amazingly high level of detail and articulation in these models — and how easy they were to assemble to a former Lego Maniac like myself — I’ve begun appreciating the attraction.

I watched the first two episodes of Tenchi Muyo! GXP, which I enjoyed. The series has a wonderfully absurd sense of humor as it follows Seina, a young man with literally the worst luck ever. The show manages to keep this funny without turning it into a painful cliche.

And AWANA is going well. I’m becoming more familiar…hmmm. As I write this, I realize that my comments will make little sense without an explanation of the organization of the AWANA club. Perhaps I’ll write that another time. Suffice to say that I am easing into my duties, and finding ways to accomplish them well.

Tog has a great new article titled “Top 10 Reasons To Not Shop Online,” which highlights all the ways that internet buying can be inferior to brick-and-mortar retailing.

That’s it from me today, alas. I had a relatively good time at Katsucon, though I’m still dealing with a pretty strong case of loneliness blues. I just can’t bring myself to write today.

Steven points out that he prefers iTunes to Magnatune. I understand why; iTunes is a great solution, too. I just can’t get used to buying music through an application. I prefer buying music off of a website. It seems less restrictive, somehow.

I’m…well, yesterday I was having a really bad time. A number of bad things have converged to suck the happines out of my life. I wasn’t horribly depressed; just low. But for some reason, I got into work this morning and started organizing a few things, and now I feel fine.

I think part of it comes from my working a bit on the Syllable User’s Bible, which needs a good reorganization. Though working on Cronan last night didn’t help. Don’t know.

Enough of this. If you like electronica/techno music, you might enjoy Cargo Cult; I’m currently listening to its album “Alchemy,” which I bought yesterday for USD $10. You can listen to the entire thing online (hi-fi or lo-fi).

In other news, I’ve been using Mozilla Firefox at work, and I’m extremely impressed. The only feature missing is the ability to rearrange tabs. I also installed the mouse gesture module, and I must admit it’s a killer feature. Very very cool. You right-click, move the mouse, and release the right mouse button. And voila — forward a page, back a page, reload document, close tab…it’s all there.