General Bio of: Neil S. Rieck

Brief Summary

I am, or at least strive to be, an open minded skeptic.

I'm a secularist, but not an atheist (I think the correct label for me is "Deist" although others have called me agnostic)

I'm a centrist and reserve the right to vote for (or against) any political party based upon the issues of the day.

I call myself apolitical but I never miss the opportunity to cast my vote.
If I vote for someone (or some party) which turns out to be a mistake, I will not make excuses for my decision but I will vote against the mistake at the very next opportunity.
If the party is caught doing something illegal or unethical, I will not vote for them for the next two elections.
Most political ideologists are idiots whenever they think that their party is the only solution for every situation (How can you have left without right? How can you have up without down? How can you have fast without slow? How can you have liberal without conservative? How can you have Republican without Democrat?)

Contact Info

Neil S. Rieck
224 Stoke Drive,
Kitchener, Ontario,
Canada. N2N 2C1

voice (rez): 519-578-3494 Note: do not call me to sell anything
e-mail (rez): Neil Rieck

voice (biz): 519-571-6303 Note: do not call me to sell anything
e-mail (biz): Neil Rieck

Click community for my geographical location on the planet

Profession

Click "my computing bio" for the painful technical details.

Currently employed by Bell Canada to do the following:
(ranked by volume)

Software design and implementation on large minicomputers (OpenVMS on Alpha, VMS on VAX)
Bell-VDSL (formerly Bell Total Vision; formerly Bell Beacon) Implementation + Support
(based upon technology from Next Level Communications which is now a division of Motorola)
computer hardware and software maintenance on minicomputers (OpenVMS on Alpha, VMS on VAX)
computer hardware and software maintenance on workstations (DEC Alpha, Sun, HP)
computer hardware and software maintenance on micros (PCs + Macs)
Ethernet + Token Ring Network Support (LAN, WAN)

Free Lance Work:

Software + Hardware design of a 68HC11 based controllers for a ground source heat pump manufacturer in Canada (software was originally written in 6811 cross-assembler then rewritten in "COSMIC-C")

Apollo Launches

Mission	Launch	Notes
Apollo 14	January 31, 1971
Apollo 15	July 26, 1971
Apollo 16	April 04, 1972
Apollo 17	December 7, 1972	This was a night launch. We stood in the water (with a camera and tripod) of Indian River in Titusville Florida (near the corner of highways US 50 and US 1 while horseshoe crabs tickled our toes.

Mission

Launch

Notes

January 31, 1971

July 26, 1971

April 04, 1972

December 7, 1972

This was a night launch. We stood in the water (with a camera and tripod) of Indian River in Titusville Florida (near the corner of highways US 50 and US 1 while horseshoe crabs tickled our toes.

Likes (no particular order)

Authors:

Isaac Asimov (he sent me a message!)
Arthur C. Clarke
Carl Sagan
Richard Feynman (and his call for more rationalization)
Richard Dawkins
Philip K. Dick
Gene Roddenberry

Technology:

OpenVMS on Alpha software development (DCL, DEC-BASIC, DEC-C, DEC-C++, Macro-32, Oracle-RDB, Gnu-C)
VMS on VAX software development (DCL, VAX-BASIC, VAX-C, Macro)
MC68hc11 (6811) software development (Macro Assembler, Whitesmiths C)
MC68hc11 hardware development
Stanford's Folding-at-Home

Movies:

Blade Runner
The Terminator
The Matrix
Bicentennial Man
The Day the Earth Stood Still

TV:

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Babylon 5
Star Trek: The Next Generation (and most stuff from Gene Roddenberry)
Sherlock Holmes (of the Jeremy Brett variety)
The X-Files (even though I don't believe in: abominable snow men, alien abductions, "Area 51" being anything more than an American black ops proving ground, astrology, crystal power, channeling, clairvoyance, demon fetal harvesting, déjà vu (deja vu), ESP, hell hounds, little green men, magic, men in black (MIB), millennium movement, new age movement, Nostradamus, numerology, occult, psycho kinesis, pyramid power, red eyed moth men, Roswell, shamanism, telepathy, UFOs, voodoo, witchcraft, yeti, and any other bit of non-sense that I failed to list)
TekWar (by William Shatner)

Games:

Mass Effect 3 (stunning graphics, good sci-fi based story)
Mass Effect 2 (the best shuttle chase scenario I have ever seen)
Resistance 3, Resistance 2
Killzone 3, Killzone 2
TRON: Evolution

Music:

Jethro Tull (the musical group, not the 17th century British agriculturalist). Here is a picture of Ian Anderson who un-cool people think is Jethro Tull
Amy Winehouse (listen to her lyrics - she's lived 48 years of life in her first 24)
Genesis
Sting / The Police
Rush
Saga
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_(band)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYt7dWb2knc - Saga - Don't Be Late (Chapter Two)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKvG3gjlhqE - Saga - Wind Him Up [Live] (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
- https://www.youtube.com/artist/saga?feature=watch_video_title - Saga - other video titles
- http://saga-germany.de/presse/saga_10000days.pdf
- http://saga-germany.de/index.php/saga-links
- http://www.sagaontour.moonfruit.com/

More Information:

For more sci-fi info, click Science-Fiction
For more OpenVMS/VMS information, click OpenVMS/VMS
For more UNIX information, click Computer

Dislikes (no particular order)

pseudo science

people who believe in astrology

people who don't know the difference between astrology and astronomy

Scientologist actors who don't know the difference between "science fiction" and "religion"

that there are daily astrology columns in almost every newspaper but almost no astronomy columns

lotteries and bingo (how the hell have we morphed into a gambling society?)

all the poor dumb bastards who think "they" have discovered a system for winning in the casinos (in the 1600's the mathematician Blaise Pascal landed a contract job for the European casinos analyzing and recommending odds so the casinos always win in the long run)

government run casinos (a real tax on the poor)

horoscopes (and people who believe in them)

people who believe in (alphabetically):
abominable snow men, alien abductions, "Area 51" being more than just a black ops proving ground, astrology, crystal power, channeling, clairvoyance, demon fetal harvesting, déjà vu (deja vu), ESP, hell hounds, little green men, magic, men in black (MIB), millennium movement, new age movement, Nostradamus, numerology, occult, psycho kinesis, pyramid power, red eyed moth men, remote viewing, Roswell, shamanism, telepathy, UFOs, voodoo, witchcraft, yeti, and any other bit of non-sense that I failed to list)

people who believe fictional works are based upon fact (e.g. "The Da Vinci Code", "The Celestine Prophecy", all books by "Carlos Castaneda", etc.)

the new age movement (and Shirley MacLean) (and Deepak Chopra)

cults like Scientology and Amway/Quixtar (just try to have a conversation with an "Am-bot"; within 5 minutes they'll either try to "sign you up" or "sell you some soap")

people who don't wear seat belts (and usually mention that they know a cop who saw an accident where the seat belted contributed to the driver's death)

people who smoke tobacco and are convinced that it won't hurt "them" (even though it has killed millions of others)

people who like to complain about the government but won't get off their fat behinds to VOTE

people who like to cover themselves with tattoos (this stuff is going to look like hell when you grow older)

people who believe that the Canadian Federal Government, with "party enforced votes" and "a nominated senate", is in anyway democratic

people who only vote along party lines (Liberal/Conservative) (Republican/Democrat). These people are F'cking idiots.

people who freely use the political labels "liberal / conservative" but really don't have a clue what they're talking about

people who repeat (almost as a mantra) that the modern media has a liberal bias even though there are dozens of right-wing TV + Radio programs (jeez, Rush Limbaugh types have gone way beyond anything ever dreamt by the Nazi's minister of propaganda)

people who believe that the word "right" in "political right" means the opposite of wrong (you know who you are)

people who believe anything their government tells them (these people are totally naive sheep)

As the founding fathers of the United States of America seemed to be totally aware of: "we all need to be protected from our own government almost as much as we need protection from foreign governments"
As stated in X-Files episode 5x01 (a.k.a. "Unusual Suspects"):
"you think you're paranoid, but you're not paranoid enough!"

people who put "quantum" in front of every other word in order to propagate some unproven or improvable concept. In this context, quantum is supposed to be the trigger which tells our collective "bull shit detectors" to turn off; it makes mine hyperactive.

people who use the phrase "Quantum Leap" in a context which means something very big when it really means something VERY VERY small (distances less than 10^-33 cm which is smaller than an atom's nucleus)

people like Deepak Chopra who use phrases like "Quantum Healing" and don't even realize (or maybe they do because they are probably scam artists) that Quantum forces cannot propagate beyond sub-atomic distances and that quantum mechanics only describes sub atomic events (and quantum singularities which may be a special case)

movies that are passed off as science fiction but are really science fantasy (Men In Black, Starship Troopers, Independence Day, etc.) or futuristic horror (Event Horizon, etc.) Click here for more details.

Future

Life in the 21st century will probably be much closer to movie "Blade Runner" (a synthesis of electronics and bio-technology) but I doubt we'll ever see flying cars although the idea is seductive. But with global warming and pollution there is a good chance that our future will be more like the movie "Soylent Green"