Yearly Archives: 2013

Politics

My First Thoughts on Transgenderism

Note: Ten years ago I wrote this as a Facebook post because I wanted to speak clearly and publicly in response to the then new (at least, it felt new) but growing cultural trend of normalizing transgenderism as a means of overcoming or negating biological reality. In the intervening decade, though the irrationality of the transgender movement has become increasingly accepted in our society, my views have not changed. If I wrote the post today, I would likely seek to moderate the tone somewhat, but the ideas themselves I still embrace. I post this here now out of a commitment to speaking the truth as I see it, even though I believe I may someday suffer professional or other repercussions for holding these views. Such are the times in which we live. Following the note itself are a selection of my comments from the discussion thread that followed the original Facebook post. (DL April 20, 2023)

I dislike provoking ill feelings in others, but with Bradley Manning’s transgender announcement today and the subsequent pronoun shift in the media coverage, Wikipedia, etc. regarding him, I feel like it’s time for me to say something clear about my position on transgenderism.

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Books

Neuromancer

Neuromancer (William Gibson, pub. 1984) was published when I was six years old, won a ton of awards, and put a lot of juice in the cyberpunk sub-genre. (All I know about cyberpunk I learned on Wikipedia, but basically I take it as a kind of sci-fi-noir that (usually?) incorporates lots of networky technology.)

I was drawn to the book for two reasons (I mean, aside from the fact that it’s a sci-fi novel. Duh.). First, I wanted something good. I don’t get to read sci-fi very often, so no time for garbage. Neuromancer was the first novel to win all three big sci-fi awards, and it’s on lots of “best of” lists, so it seemed promising. Second, I wanted something dystopian (More Blade Runner than Star Trek); I don’t know, maybe it’s a phase I’m in. Anyways, Neuromancer seemed to fit the bill on both counts.

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Technology

The SharePoint 2013 Distributed Cache Service: A Crash Course

Note: I wrote this on company time (I think; the learning was certainly done on company time) for a company-hosted SharePoint blog at my first IT employer. The blog never really went anywhere. The idea was to demonstrate our bona fides by providing top-quality SharePoint content on our own blog. I no longer have the image that was included in the original post, but you get the idea. I put this here as a record of some of the writing and thinking I was doing at the time. This was pretty cutting-edge stuff in March of 2013 (at least for SharePoint nerds). (DL, Sept. 7, 2021)

The Distributed Cache service is a new piece of SP 2013 architecture that has the potential to wreck your deployment. Here’s some helpful information I gathered while installing a six-server production farm for one of our enterprise clients.

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Politics

In the Wake of Sandy Hook

Note: The Columbine massacre, which happened at the end of my senior year of college, is the first mass shooting that I remember. In the twenty-five years since, it seems undeniable to me that mass shootings of this type have increased in frequency and severity. While I believe the primary cause is not the guns themselves (guns have been been woven into American society since the beginning) it seems increasingly clear that we as a society cannot be entrusted with guns without more effective limits. I wrote this Facebook post in the wake of Sandy Hook to explore foundational principles that we would have to observe and incorporate into our thinking as we explore more effective gun control as a society. (DL, June 10, 2023).

In the wake of the terrible sadness of Sandy Hook, we need to reevaluate the place of guns in our society—specifically the place of the modern weapons that have done so much to increase the average person’s lethal potential.

This is a contribution to that reevaluation. It is a statement of principles that I believe to be true.

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