Trevor Stone's Journal

Suppose I were to say "Let's play games at my place in Lakewood on the afternoon of Saturday, May 24th." Would you come?

If the answer is "No, I'm hosting/attending a different party, and you're welcome to come," please give me details.

Saturday night will feature drumming at Bob's by Erie/Frederick, assuming the weather cooperates.

Apparently it's a good month for news about destruction: a cyclone in Burma, an earthquake in China, and electronics-eating ants in Texas.

What cruel fate! What torture the bugs will this day put me to! -- Aristophanes

In the last week or so, Myanmar's coast got hit with a typhoon and China's Sichuan province buckled under an earthquake. The governments of both countries like to control information and are often hostile to foreign involvement. On the BBC tonight I heard that China has accepted aid from Taiwan (!) and that the U.N. is still trying to negotiate with the Myanmar military junta to establish a basic aid presence. The international media has provided regular updates on death counts, destruction situation, and other information as the rubble is uncovered in Sichuan. I gather that "people affected" numbers are still quite vague for the Burmese situation.

I wonder if China maintains tacit support for the Burmese military junta because it makes the Chinese Communist Party's policies look rather mild in comparison.

Monotheism is the belief that "God" is a proper noun.

Polytheism is the belief that "God" is a count noun.

Pantheism is the belief that "God" is a mass noun.

Polyatheism is the belief that "God" can be any part of speech as long as it helps communicate.

I've been mentally working on a post with a title like "What's Going On In The World: A Summary" lately, but I haven't made time to write it all down. One thing it'll touch on is the "Global Credit Crunch," which grew out of the "U.S. Housing Crisis" stemming from the "Subprime Mortgage Collapse." I don't have any formal education in economics, but I often find that I can construct a decent sense of the key issues by listening to the language of people who do know what they're talking about. But despite all the news references to this major financial current event, I could tell I was missing key pieces of the puzzle.

Fortunately, This American Life is really good at sharing a full story in a way that's easy to understand in human ways. Episode #355: The Giant Pool of Money looks at people involved at each level of the house of cards which has now foreclosed. They define key terms, explain why otherwise sensible people made bad decisions, and what factors came into place for everything to fall apart. The whole episode will be available as a free download on their podcast for the next week; even if you don't want to listen to everyday people's stories about weird stuff every week, be sure to listen to episode 355.

One thing they didn't really touch on is the question "Where did all the money go?" They said "It's just gone," but money doesn't just disappear; it goes somewhere. Somebody class of people came out on the winning side. I think the answer goes something like this:
Global investors (the giant pool of money) bought shares in mortgage-backed securities offered by investment banks on the assumption that payments would be regular, producing dividends.

Investment banks bought loans from mortgage brokers and commercial banks on the assumption that they could sell shares to big investors.

Mortgage lenders gave money to people (many of whom shouldn't have gotten a loan in the first place) on the assumption they'd make regular payments (or on the assumption that someone would buy the loan before it would matter).

Some people took out mortgages to pay other debts on the assumption that the going interest rate was better than their other interest rate. So creditors are one set of winners. And not entirely coincidentally, creditors like the financial megalith JP Morgan Chase Manhattan were major players in the shenanigans we're now seeing fallout from. So they may not have lost as bad as their current numbers look.

Some people took out mortgages to pay for big expenses like college for their kids or trips to Mexico on the assumption that American housing prices would keep going up and they could use the equity in their home as an ATM. So smart spenders are one set of winners. If someone took out a mortgage, paid for college, then lost the house in foreclosure, they at least funded a good education for their kid who can find a good job (even in the current economy, they hope) and get a house with some extra room for their parents. Of course, dumb spenders are one set of losers. If they bought a big screen TV and took a trip to party on Mexican beaches and then lost their house in foreclosure, the best they can say is "The real titties looked better than the high def ones did."

And, of course, some people took out mortgages to buy houses. For several years, American home construction was a booming industry. So one set of winners is home builders. But then they became losers as they discovered they had vast tracts of cookie-cutter subdivisions ready to sell just as everyone started losing the houses they shouldn't have purchased three years before. But before the home builders moved to the loser category, they paid a lot of money in wages to construction crews. American construction work these days is largely done by Hispanics. A lot of Hispanics send a significant portion of their income to family members in Latin America.

So the flow goes something like this:
American consumers buy cheap goods at discount retail stores -> discount retail stores buy cheap goods from China -> China invests dollars in U.S. mortgage bonds -> mortgage bonds create a demand for unsound loans -> unsound loans promise American consumers the dream of home ownership -> dream sellers build ostentatious subdivisions -> frugal carpenters send their share of American consumer money to poor Mexican families.
It's not so much trickle-down economics as it is Gordian-hose economics. The flow doesn't start or stop where I've outlined, but it's interesting to see how two groups (Chinese factory workers and Mexican subsistence farmers) who at first seem to have nothing to do with $500,000 houses on Shady Hills Lane are beneficiaries of the complex transactions of the American housing market. Of course, with major increases in the prices of food and oil, those benefits may rapidly dissipate. I wonder how much of that increase has come from investors fleeing poor assumptions about the U.S. housing market in favor of assumptions about commodities markets...

Remember kids, when investing or making other important decisions: The past is not necessarily a good predictor of the future. Life is one big Hume problem.

Men charged after skull dug up, used as bong

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Authorities in Texas have filed corpse-abuse charges against two men who allegedly removed a skull from a grave and used it as a bong.

I got an AIM message from cubedsalmon right after making my last post. The content of the message from this fishy user was

The 100th Fibonacci number is 354224848179261915075.

The next few messages exchanged established that the person on the other end hadn't started the conversation and didn't know me. An LJ post about a similar conversation was on the first page of Google results for 354224848179261915075. Adding salmon to the search turned up themissinghat, a community devoted to this and similar AIM bot pranks.

So if you ever get a message from a user with "salmon" in the name, be prepared for a confused LiveJournaler who doesn't know what's going on. Who knows, it could be fun! Here's another post on the same topic. And with nothing to do with chat bots, it's a good week to do The Salmon Dance.


I've occasionally thought about writing an AIM bot that you could send a quote to and it would respond with a random quote from another user. But in today's Internet I'd have to come up with an anti-spam solution as well and I haven't even gotten around to applying my spam knowledge to my own email.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to do." -- my mishearing of "Me and Bobby McGee"

(Read my previous post if you're not into the whole brevity thing and would like a long-winded backstory.)

So here I am with 20 (maybe more) paid vacation days and a summer of high temperatures and high gas prices. What should I do with them? Here's a tentative schedule. Let me know if any look fun and you'd like to come along.

Memorial Day - May 24th through 26th

There's drumming at Bob's place on Saturday night, Boulder Creek Fest, and probably other interesting activities. Or I might take the opportunity to camp at Valley View. If you're planning a Memorial Day party and would appreciate my presence, please let me know!

Apogaea - June 5th through 8th

Colorado's regional Burning Man event. Should be full of colorful weirdoes. I might meet some people and join forces for the full burn. Or maybe I'll get the burning sensation without 2000 miles of driving and a week of dust, making a full burn superfluous.

Tuatha and Kan'Nal at Mishawaka Amphitheatre - June 20th

Tuatha features some of my favorite musicians from Dragonfest. Kan'Nal is a great tribal band. Put them together for a performance by a river on Summer Solstice and it sounds like a good combination to me!

Boulder SolFest (actually near Berthoud) - June 21st and 22nd

Organized by Double Rainbow Ranch and featuring performances by Lunar Fire (the feminine side of Kan'Nal), Tzol (the masculine side of Kan'Nal), Tuatha, and some folks not performing the night before ;-) If I camp the night of the 20th along the Cache La Poudre I can have a fun solstice weekend in Larimer County. I'm not tied to this one, though, so I'm open to other interesting solstice events.

Road Trip? - June 28th through July 6th?

I'd like to visit Glacier National Park before it becomes Ironic National Park. That probably means this year or next. I realize that driving to Montana contributes to the melting of said snow, so I'd like to make this a group (or at least paired) outing. Anyone want to visit the northern parts of the eastern edge of the rockies, stopping at hot springs and mountain vistas?

Dreamtime Festival - July 17th through 20th

I've heard this festival is a lot of fun, with elements of Burning Man, music festivals, and weekend workshops. Should be full of colorful weirdoes. I might start the week by visiting Conundrum or another west slope hot spring. With any luck, Paonia should have some tasty fruit I can ravage while I'm over there.

Dragonfest - August 6th through 10th

I keep saying "By next Dragonfest, I may have moved out of state," but it hasn't happened yet. I'm going to teach an introductory I Ching workshop, visit with friends I see once a year, and dance around a few fires. Who knows, maybe I'll draw down again.

Burning Man or Democratic National Convention - August 23rd through September 2nd or August 25th through 28th

Burning Man will feature tens of thousands of colorful weirdoes in the Nevada desert celebrating the theme of The American Dream. The Democratic National Convention will feature tens of thousands of political partiers in Denver celebrating the theme of electing America's first black or female president. It'd be pretty amusing to say "I'm at Burning man because my hometown is full of chaos," but I feel like I ought to spend less time driving and more time participating in the American dream when it lands on my doorstep. And if I do the latter, I can still go camping on Labor Day weekend. I'm not sure what I'd do outside the convention. I've thought about printing some "FREE HUGS" shirts and sharing human energy without a political message. I'd be interested in participating in some public/interactive political art pieces; I should probably see who got a permit. I could also get a video camera and act as an outside observer in case "Recreate Sixty-Eight" gets taken too literally. (I'm not sure why they named their organization after an event which featured police violence and the nomination of a candidate who lost to Richard Nixon.) How I feel about the convention will probably depend on whether Obama, Clinton, or neither has been anointed in advance.

Alternatively, I could say nuts to both and go berryquesting with mollybzz.

That should be enough to distract me from work for a while.

If I attend Apogaea, Glacier, Dreamtime, Dragonfest, and Burning Man I'll use 17 of 20 vacation days. If I turn Dreamtime into a full week for more west-slope adventures I'll expend them all. I should probably leave a few days free in case I need to fly somewhere for a job interview. So maybe I should ask for more time off as compensation. Or maybe I should put Glacier off until next year.

What would you do if you had a month worth of vacation to spend and might be in your last summer of residence in Colorado?

As I've said before, the freedom to leave is one of the most important. One must feel strongly about the benefits of a situation before giving up the freedom to walk away.

Sometimes it takes me a long time to leave. I'm often one of the last to depart an interesting party. I spent fifteen semesters at The University of Colorado. I lived in Boulder for twenty-four years. I've worked at Tyler Technologies for over four years.

I've been thinking about leaving Tyler for a while. I've learned a decent amount and written some good code, but I've also spent a lot of time writing boring code. Our product has some interesting solutions to typical government software needs, but in the end most of it is "Let the user enter this data into that view and store it over there. Take data X and make it look like Y so we can use the Z that we already built." Once I got that down, most of the interesting bits lay in what this and X are. And while I'm glad to have learned about legal descriptions and property appraisal, they don't hold fundamental interest for me.

I informed my manager a year and a half ago that "my time with Tyler is limited." He said he'd do whatever he could to keep me there, but I told him that the sorts of things I'd like to be working on are beyond the scope of what the company should pursue at this point.

I'd considered quitting as early as last summer, but the times at which it would have been auspicious to leave were also fairly hectic personally, so it was nice to have stable employment at which I'm appreciated (if underutilized). Before I went to China, my manager and I agreed that when I got back I'd wrap up the project I was working on (an implementation of a calculation method which proved to be 10% interesting and 90% tedious) and then work on an interesting module until I was ready to leave, "probably in May or June."

I came up with the "May or June" timeframe by intending to move out by the time my lease is up in June. I could spend March through May talking to potential employers with interesting projects in cool locations and then move in early summer... or perhaps in late summer, after traveling around the U.S. for a while.

Yet again, as the auspicious time for departure approaches, I've found reasons to put it off. My job search progress is nil, in large part because I've spent so much spare time drumming, roleplaying, hiking, and attending concerts. But there are work reasons, too.

Based on dissatisfaction from many customers, the president of our division has said that the module I'm working on is our top priority. I understand the customers' frustrations: most of the original development was focused on our largest client who, after a management change, decided not to buy the module yet. At around the same time, I was moved off that project and my time focused on Utah, sales analysis, big bugs, and other areas varying in degree of interesting. The module therefore never had a complete feedback cycle with clients who actually purchased it. And since the client we originally focused on does some things differently than the ones who are using the module, some behaviors are a bad match to user desires. After collecting complaints, we held a meeting and agreed on a two-phase approach. The first phase will deliver easy solutions to some annoying issues. Phase I will be included in the upgrade to our new release, slated for this and next month. The second phase will feature some more time-consuming but intellectually interesting solutions to some fundamental issues. I've refused to give time estimates on Phase II because I won't know what's needed until we've researched and experimented.

I told my manager and our president that I'm committed to completing Phase I. I've also said that I'm open to staying through much of the development of Phase II, leaving perhaps in September. My reasons for this delay are two-and-a-half fold.

First, I'm interested in sticking around because I take pride in my work. By completing, or at least making progress on Phase II, I'll be able to do a better job on some things I did when I was fresh out of school and didn't know any better. I'll be able to use some interesting techniques from my graduate-level courses on natural language processing and machine learning, the promise of which was one reason I was interested in this job originally. Plus, I figure if I do a good job using interesting computer science techniques I'll have something more worth discussing at a job interview with a prestigious company.

First and a half, my company is looking to hire a smart and creative someone interested in working on this module.* I'd like to work with the new developer on the existing product and design for Phase II so that I don't indirectly hand everything off to someone who spends a month going "What the smeg? Who wrote all this jibba-jabba? Why in Belgium did he do that?" As Eric Steven Raymond wrote in The Cathedral and the Bazaar, "When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor." He was writing about open source projects; it's not as big of a deal in my case (Tyler can hire a competent successor after I depart). But I'd like to perform a quality handoff as a professional courtesy: I don't enjoy diving into weird code without advice from the author and I figure other programmers don't either.

Second, staying employed lets me spend significant portions of the summer having fun while still getting paid (instead of cashing in unspent time off for a lump sum). If I were to start a new job in June I'd only have a couple days saved up by the time the weather was cold and the nights early. I've got enough money that I could afford to put my stuff in storage and take a summer-long road trip, but I don't have a good candidate for the passenger seat in such a performance and I'd feel guilty about using all that petroleum by myself. I'll be able to spend about 20 days of vacation (that's a month of workdays) between now and September and extra vacation is on the table (along with extra money or something else I think of) as an incentive for sticking around through Phase II.

So unless someone has a compelling reason why a three month road trip would be a good idea, I think I'll go month-to-month on my lease and figure out how to spend another month of time off.

What happens to our intrepid programming hero? What sorts of vacation plans does he have? Stay tuned for the next edition of flwyd.livejournal.com to find out!


* If you, or someone you know, is interested in employment programming in Java with a focus on extracting names, property locations, and other interesting data from semi-structured text, drop me a line. I realize that "I'm quitting because I want to work on something more interesting,** want to take over for me?" isn't the best sales pitch, but I think the opportunity is worthwhile. Phase II should involve some really interesting work, there are other cool projects that need someone to work on them, the environment is fun, and you'll be well appreciated and compensated. I'm leaving in part because I want to move to Boulder, the west coast, or somewhere else nifty. I don't have any ill will toward the company or its current employees (at least on most days).

** If you've got connections or leads pointing to computer science-type positions relating to natural language, GIS/mapping, programming language development, artificial intelligence, or unusual human-computer interaction, put me in touch. My résumé is fairly up-to-date.

I wonder if anyone's incorporated a scar from a C-section, bullet wound, or knee surgery into a tattoo in an interesting way.

I think a C-section scar with a hand clawing its way out would be quite interesting.

At least ten bees are very interested in the outdoor carpet on my porch which is in the sun. I don't know why. There are some tree seed droppings out there, but the whole point of flinging your seed on the wind is that bees aren't needed.

It seems like most people thought less of AI: Artificial Intelligence than I did. I wonder if it appeals to me so much because the lead performance feels a lot like a kid with Asperger syndrome and I identify with that sort of kid*. Folks without that identity wouldn't have felt such a strong resonance and their opinions of the film would be less personal. I also wonder how people's opinions would differ if the movie stopped at the first ending point.


* I've never been diagnosed with (nor, to my knowledge, evaluated for) Asperger's or highly-functional autism in general, and I don't think a diagnosis would change anything for me. As a kid I displayed a lot of Asperger traits: language acuity, introversion, empathy challenges, dairy allergy. When I hear descriptions of aspie kids I think "Hey, that sounds like me." Many of the traits are less pronounced for me now than they used to be. Some of that difference may be due to growth and some may be due to practice.

Buddha is 不的.

I just pictured someone like Woody Allen saying "I went to summer school at synagogue. We didn't go on any field trips, just guilt trips."

Speaking of having a life, I'm thinking about camping at Valley View Hot Springs next weekend (May 3rd and 4th, one night stay). Anyone interested in joining? Forecast highs are near 60, lows in the mid- to upper-20s, so you'll want a decent sleeping bag or a reservation for one of the dorm beds.

Some things I've done in the past month or so which don't involve work or sitting around the house alone:

• Hiked around on Lookout Mountain with Thuy.
• Helped Thuy move.
• Realized it was my half birthday and I should see a show. Found out Explosions in the Sky was playing at the Ogden.
• Got started with Thor's GURPS game.
• Made a character and played a game or two at Keith's.
• Watched E-Days fireworks at Mines.
• First Saturday drumming at Witches Brew.
• Ate vegan (seitan) pizza and hiked from one side of Green Mountain to the other with Zaydie.
• Played in the first game of a 4th Edition series with Keith and others.
• Ran the geometry table for Mitchell Elementary's math and science night.
• Took a day off work to attend the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder. Will write up my notes in a separate post.
• Chose the wrong parking lot in Boulder, resulting in a Denver Boot, the loss of $65 dollars, and the waste of half an hour while two people failed to unlock the boot.
• Played games with Thor and his cats.
• Second Sunday drumming at David and Nanette's.
• Monday drumming at the Buffalo Rose.
• Bought well over $100 of used CDs at Twist & Shout and Black & Read on National Record Store Day and 4/20.
• Third Saturday drumming at Spirit Ways. Talked to Doug.
• Purchased (among other things) lotus root, frozen jack fruit, preserved duck eggs, bamboo shoots, a case of basil seed honey drink, and a tea set at Pacific Ocean Market Place in Broomfield.
• Walked up to Green Mountain and then around the neighborhood on Earth Day.
• Saw Kraftwerk at the Fillmore. Found a place to freeform dance near the end of the show.
• Hung out with my brother who's going to Boston tomorrow and then moving to Ireland for a while.
• Danced around to Medeski, Martin, and Wood at Balch Fieldhouse at CU. (Aside from the acoustics, the Fieldhouse is more enjoyable than the Fillmore).
• Served osimanthus tea from Guilin and stir-fried eggplant/lotus root/bamboo/nuts in a sesame marinade over bean noodles to RPG guests.
• Took players through the character creation process and ran a fight in a Goo's Noodles and Dim Sum, the first scene in a one-shot Feng Shui RPG story I created.

I'm pretty happy about the themes of gaming, drumming, and hiking, though I want to significantly increase the frequency of the latter. I haven't run an RPG in quite a while, but it went quite well. I spent enough time rereading key parts of the rulebook and thinking through characters that things went fairly smoothly. Hopefully everyone will be more comfortable with the system next time and a combat of mostly mooks doesn't take two hours.

The following is legal syntax in SQL Server 2005:
select * from my_table t where t.foo = 1

The following is not legal syntax in SQL Server 2005:
delete from my_table t where t.foo = 1

In this example, the table alias doesn't add anything, but it does in the following:
delete from my_table t1 where foo = 1 and not exists (select null from my_table t2 where t2.foo = 2 and t1.id = t2.id)

Table aliases are necessary to do same-table subselects and joins, and SQL Server will happily let you use them to find out what data you plan to delete, but not to actually delete that same data. I instead switched to
delete from my_table t1 where foo = 1 and id not in (select id from my_table t2 where t2.foo = 2)
which takes a really long time because it does the subselect for every row matching foo = 1.

If Microsoft's implementation of SQL were compared to Microsoft's implementations of JavaScript/DOM/CSS, I suspect the latter would have way more annoying quirks, but the former has way more annoying basic problems. The fact that my CD started skipping while sorting this out (and probably need to be returned to the store) adds to the general grumpiness of the moment.

The sun is shining and snow is falling at the same time.

Go Colorado.

The Internet is full of good blogs and you've got plenty to read already I'm sure, but you should consider adding bruce_schneier to your regular reads. An expert in security (particularly in computing), his posts are regularly well-written pieces that point out subtle ways in which we (society) think about security. His is an important voice in the face of "security theater" performed by governments and others. Plus, on Fridays he blogs about squid. Even if you don't decide to read him regularly, make sure to read today's post on The Feeling and Reality of Security.

Also make sure to check out the Bruce Schneier Facts. He could beat Chuck Norris!

After he was neutered, the dog's aggression level was infinitesticle.

Now is your opportunity to get Charlton Heston's gun. May the prying begin.

Hey Denver/Boulder folks:

Colorado School of Mines E-Days fireworks are at 9 PM on Thursday. These are probably the best fireworks in the state all year, surpassing any 4th of July or sporting event display. Some of the best explosions are usually close to the ground on the Mines football field, but if you want to avoid the crowd of drunk engineering students you'll have a good vantage point from one of the parks at the west end of 10th St. Lookout Mountain probably has a pretty good view too, though I can't vouch for it.

Directions, but don't try to park on campus. (There should be plenty of parking around 12th/13th and Washington/Jackson).

My E-Days fireworks pictures from a few years ago. Pardon the fact that several need to be rotated or deleted.

New addition to my travels in China: Daily Luxuries in America and China. Two lists of the little things you don't think about until they're missing.

I got several spams today with the subject "Smart in bed games." I don't know what the 0.6KB zip attachment contains, but I started wondering what games would be more fun with an "in bed" suffix.

Word games are obvious choices because they can be played with the lights out. If you sleep in a weird bed like I do (hammock), a board game would be challenging, but in a standard bed it might be an interesting precursor to pillow talk. And, of course, WoW addicts could play in bed and be labeled complete losers.

What game would you most like to play in bed? What game would be the most challenging there?

Edit 3/26/2008: A water bed would be the ideal place for naval miniature wargames.

A month after leaving Xiamen, my travels in China are on the web in word and image forms. There's more details I want to write and pictures I want to caption, but what's there covers most of what the mollybee and trevorbear did. Please let me know if any links are broken, words are misspelled, or the pages look stupid in your browser.

I kept the piñata hat on all day, including shopping at Borders, Target, and the mall food court.

Some links:

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan. Held this weekend with little mainstream media coverage, veterans and active duty military members involved in the current conflicts in Afghanistan provide testimony on what they did, saw, and heard. The site has several video files from the event as does Democracy Now! for the last few days. The event was organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, so the panels obviously display a selection bias. However, the selection is genuine (anecdotes and systematic observations) and worth hearing (it's not just a warmed-over set of talking points).

Tibet Through Chinese Eyes, which I found through a comment on a recent Boing Boing post. That the Chinese government is engaging in violence with Tibetan protesters less than five months before the Olympics start in Beijing could make for very interesting times. If the games are to effect change in Chinese policy toward Tibet, I think something must happen causing officials to lose face to other Chinese.

Plastic People of the Universe, a rock band that was a beacon and symbol for freedom in Czechoslovakia behind the Iron Curtain. Our military isn't very well received by citizens of countries we set out to liberate. Our human rights moralizing is ignored by the countries we preach to. But rock and roll has been one of the best American tools of social change. Perhaps we should establish the Rock Corps. One division could be the Hard Corps.


I saw Les Claypool's current band, Electric Apricot, at the Ogden tonight. It was a great show with a funky version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond (without a sax instead of a guitar and xylophones instead of keyboards) and a totally groovy drum jam. To start the encore, Les came out with a bass that looked like a banjo. He started playing Too Many Puppies and the crowd cheered. He remarked "I wrote this song when I was an impressionable lad of about 19." It was almost a generation ago. The song is older than some of tonight's attendees. It's a protest against a Middle East war for control of oil started by President George Bush. Sound familiar?

We live in a country that's done a lot of bad things, but we've still got hope. We've still got access to independent media. We've still got the right to protest. We've still got rock and roll. When you have something to say, speak out. When you don't know what to say, rock out.

I'm working on some code to integrate our Java system with a 3rd-party COM object. (Yeah, lots of fun.) The COM object is designed to be used in a very procedural style: all methods return a boolean indicating success and provide values using pass-by-reference. If the method fails, you can call the GetLastError method to see what went wrong. The documentation for that method:

GetLastError

Retrieves the last error generated by the engine.

Syntax

bReturnValue = CalcEngine.GetLastError(ErrorMsg)

Parameters

bReturnValue Boolean/Integer: Returned as TRUE (integer = -1) when the operation is successful, and FALSE (integer = 0) when the operation fails. You can get the last error generated by invoking the GetLastError method.

What happens when you call GetLastError when GetLastError returns false is left as an exercise to the imagination.

Someone tell Ayn Rand about my spam. As are A.

My new phone message. Call 303-980-5148 to be amused... or just to laugh at me.

Picture yourself on a phone with a Trevor
With tangerine rings and marmalade cats
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A boy with kaleidoscope hats

Telephone callers of yellow and green
Cell tower over your head
Look for the boy with the sun in his heart
And he's not home

Lucy on the phone leave a message...