Category: Uncategorized

… kind of a random thought – but I think Apple has officially run out of ideas — e.g. I am seeing ads for a “Titanium” iPhone, which comes across (to me at least) as “how do we convince people to pay us $1,000 for a ‘new’ product that is functionally the same as what they already have”

from a “leadership” point of view – what made Steve Jobs “different” than other CEO’s was that he ran “Apple, Inc” for the benefit of “Apple, Inc” NOT for the shareholders of Apple, Inc stock. That might sound like a minor difference but trust me it is radically different than the “Wall Street norm” (where stock price is taken as a direct indicator of “corporate profitability”/health)

This isn’t criticism of (current Apple, Inc CEO) Tim Cook — just pointing out that Mr Cook has run Apple, Inc as “Wall Street” prefers – trying to maximize “shareholder” value which is NOT the same as doing what is best for “Apple, Inc.” Of course when CEO’s are compensated with “stock futures” it automatically makes them biased in favor of “doing what is best for the stock price” — but that becomes a lesson in unintended consequences not necessarily “corporate leadership”

Unintended Consequences

Some self-serving politicians went after “excessive executive salary packages” years ago – I think at the time they created an artificial $1 million cap on executive salaries of publicly traded companies — which had the unintended consequence of corporations starting to offer more “stock options” as executive compensation- and REAL executive compensation skyrocketed —

e.g. when you see headlines about “such and such executive” making hundreds of millions of $ in a year – it is because the stock price of “such and such corporation” increased – in 2023 the Pinterest CEO received $123 million in compensation – $101 million of that was stock options

umm, I’m not criticizing what ANYONE is paid – my point is that doing what is “best” for the stock price is NOT always what is “best” for the company (e.g. “Hey, how about if we change the iPhone case rather then spend money on R&D trying to innovate! – the stock price will get a bump and our stock options will be worth more! Brilliant!” then I imagine the Apple board of directors throwing huge stacks of hundred dollar bills at each other while shouting “money fight!”)

I don’t care what the boss is making …

I’m not worried about the huge difference in pay between “executives” and “normal” employees – remember there is no guarantee that the stock price will increase, so it is possible those stock options will expire and be worthless – if the “executives” are actually “leading” the company then it is probably hard to pay them TOO much – and if they are using the company as their personal piggy bank it is probably hard to FIRE them fast enough …

hey, if I ever had the “option” of getting “stock options” at a growing company I would take it … e.g. a lot of Walmart, Microsoft, Google, and AOL “normal employees” became multimillionaires because they were there at the right time and took the stock options — ’nuff said

well …

This rant started because the Thursday night game isn’t particularly interesting (for me) – I was contemplating exactly what I expect from an “opportunity” – I’m ALWAYS looking to make a contribution, i.e. the company isn’t hiring me just because I “need” a job, they have work that needs doing for which they are looking to compensate someone for — the ideal “employer/employee” relationship is where the employee makes a positive contribution and EVERYONE benefits (company, employee, other stakeholders)

Again, I don’t really care what “ownership” is taking home – I simply want what have been promised – e.g. if I ain’t getting paid then I am either a slave or volunteer. If I believe on the mission MAYBE I’d consider being a volunteer but I won’t be particularly productive when I can’t buy gas for my car to get to work.

When I read Colin Powell’s book (“My American Journey” – 1995) he pointed out that his job as a brand new Second Lieutenant (the lowest officer rank in the U.S. Army) was making sure that the soldiers under his command got paid and fed — so that is probably good advice for ANY “manager” at ANY level (i.e. if you have “direct reports” make sure they are getting paid and aren’t starving – showing that you care is worth something, DOING something about it is what creates that “loyalty” thing) – that doesn’t mean employees are always getting paid “what they want” but certainly getting what the company has promised.

little things like free coffee and fruit/candy are nice – but nothing says “we value your contribution” like good ol’ cash. The opposite is also true – nothing says “run, the people in charge are incompetent!” more than payroll problems

Greed goes both ways

I will point out that I am not “pro union” AND I am not “anti union.” Maybe I would describe myself as “pro productivity” and “pro cooperation.”

“Unions” are “good” when they are communicating with management and trying to help workers/members. “Unions” can be “bad” when they start to exist for the sake of the “UNION” and NOT as a way for workers and management to communicate. i.e. “Union leaders” can be just as “greedy” for status/power/money as “management.”

The automobile unions in the U.S. in the last half of the 20th century become a case study in “poor communication” AND greed. Yes, I am oversimplifying the issue – but when the company is paying people NOT to work then they have certainly lost sight of the path of “corporate wisdom” and are well down the path of “convenience, expedience, and non-competitiveness” (Google “UAW jobs bank” if interested).

Sisyphus

Of course if the “work” that needs to be done is difficult, dangerous, and/or unpleasant it will be harder to find folks looking to do the difficult, dangerous, and/or unpleasant work.

This tends to mean that wages are higher for work that falls into the “difficult, dangerous, and/or unpleasant” category.

Then some jobs fall into the above category – but also have a traditional/intrinsic value that comes from the “purpose” found by folks in the profession.

To be clear I’m thinking of things like “law enforcement”, “fire and safety”, “health care”, and “education” – but any job that gives a person “purpose” fits this category.

In the United States “law enforcement” and “fire/emergency/rescue” services tend to be paid for by local taxes – so compensation for those positions tends to be “what the locality can afford.” Smaller municipalities may have to rely on volunteers for portions of their fire/emergency/rescue staffs — which again drives home the value/importance of “perceived purpose.”

The important thing to avoid is the concept of “pointless effort” — i.e. if the ONLY reason someone is doing a job is for a paycheck, then they will end up hating the job. If they have a “reason” and/or “purpose” then ANY work/job can fit this category.

The ancient Greeks had a myth about a man named Sisyphus who did SOMETHING bad (versions of the story vary). His punishment was to push a boulder up a hill for eternity. The “poetic” part of the punishment was that just before he would reach the top, the boulder would roll back down the hill and he would have to start again.

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare”

Japanese Proverb

Yes, the myth says a LOT about ancient Greek concepts of labor and productivity, and also has a lesson for modern audiences.

The “management” lesson is simply that YOUR job as a manager (after you’ve made sure your direct reports are paid and fed) is communicating the PURPOSE of the work of the organization.

… my bags are packed …

yeah, so this kind of escalated from a “short post” to “blog post” —

Worth noting is that “real life” had ALWAYS been “boring” to one degree or another. MOST of the time – being “boring” is good for a society.

“Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero!
No, Andrea….unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

Bertolt Brecht

… but that is another story

I achieved “crazy old man” status a few years back — so when I encounter “youthful arrogance” I’m always a little slow to perceive it as “youthful arrogance.”

Googling “youthful arrogance” gave me a lot of familiar quotes – a new favorite:

I’m too old to know everything

Oscar Wilde

Being “slow to recognize” youthful arrogance in the “wild” probably comes from the realization that when someone REALLY irritates me – and I have trouble pinpointing the reason they irritate me – the reason is (often) that they have an annoying mannerism which I share.

Self-awareness aside – most of the time “youthful arrogance” is simply “youthful ignorance.” Having an appreciation that the world as it exists today did NOT all happen in the last 5 years – you know, some form of “large scale historical perspective” – is the simple solution to “youthful ignorance.”

“True arrogance” on the other hand is a much different animal than “ignorance.” Arrogance requires an “attitude of superiority” and isn’t “teachable.”

e.g. imagine someone having the opinion that the entire computer industry started 5 years ago – because that is when THEY started working in the “computer industry.”

Gently point out that “modern computing” is at least 50 years old and traces its origins back thousands of years. Maybe point out that what is “brand new” today is just a variation on “what has been before” – you know the whole Ecclesiastes thing …

If they accept the possibility that there is “prior art” for MOST everything that is currently “new” – then they were just young and ignorant. If all they do is recite their resume and tell you how much money they are making – well, that is probably “arrogance.”

Of course if “making money” was the purpose of human existence then MAYBE I would be willing to accept their “youthful wisdom” as something truly new. Of course I’ll point back to the “wisdom books” (maybe point out that “the sun also rises” and recommend reading Ecclesiastes again) and politely disagree – but that isn’t the point.

SDLC

The computer industry loves their acronyms.

When I was being exposed to “computer programming” way back when in the 1980’s – it was possible (and typical) for an individual to create an entire software product by themselves. (The Atari 2600 and the era of the “rock star programmer” comes to mind.)

It is always possible to tell the “modern computing” story from different points of view. Nolan Bushnell and Atari always need to be mentioned.

e.g. part of the “Steve Jobs” legend was that he came into the Atari offices as a 19 year old and demanded that they hire him. Yes, they hired him – and depending on who is telling the story – either Atari, Inc helped him purchase some of the chips he and Woz used to create the Apple I OR Mr Jobs “stole” the chips. I think “technically” it was illegal for individuals to purchase the chips in question at the time – so both stories might “technically” be true …

Definitions

The modern piece of hardware that we call a “computer” requires instructions to do anything. We will call those instructions a “computer program”/software.

Someone needs to create those instructions – we can call that person a “computer programmer.”

Nailing down what is and isn’t a “computer” is a little hard to do – for this discussion we can say that a “computer” can be “programmed” to perform multiple operations.

A “computer program” is a collection of instructions that does something — the individual instructions are commonly called “code.”

SO our “programmer” writes “code” and creates a “program.” The term “developer” has become popular as a replacement for “programmer.” This is (probably) an example of how the task of creating a “program” has increased in complexity – i.e. now we have “teams of developers” working on an “application”/software project, but that isn’t important at the moment …

Computer programs can be written in a variety of “computer languages” — all of which make it “easier” for the human programmer to write the instructions required to develop the software project. It is sufficient to point out that there are a LOT of “computer languages” out there — and we are moving on …

Job Titles

The job of “computer programmer” very obviously changed as the computer industry changed.

In 2022 one of the “top jobs” in the U.S. is “software engineer” (Average salary: $126,127: Percent of growth in number of job postings, 2019-2022: 87% – thank you indeed.com).

You will also see a lot of “job postings” for “software programmers” and “software developers.”

What is the difference between the three jobs (if any)? Why is “software engineer” in the top 10 of all jobs?

Well, I’m not really sure if there is a functional difference between a “programmer” and a “developer” – but if there is, the difference is found in on the job experience and scope of responsibilities.

i.e. “big company inc” might have an “entry level programmer” that gets assigned to a “development team” that is run by a “senior developer.” Then the “development team” is working on a part of the larger software project that the “engineer” has designed.

History time

When the only “computers” were massive mainframes owned by Universities and large corporations then being a “programmer” meant being an employee of a University or large corporation.

When the “personal computer revolution” happened in the 1970’s/80’s – those early PC enthusiasts were all writing their own software. Software tended to be shared/freely passed around back then – if anyone was making money off of software it was because they were selling media containing the software.

THEN Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple Computers in 1976. The Apple story has become legend – so I won’t tell the whole story again.

fwiw: successful startups tend to have (at least) two people – i.e. you need “sales/Marketing” and you need “product development” which tend to be different skill sets (so two people with complimentary skills). REALLY successful startups also tend to have an “operations” person that “makes the trains run on time” so to speak – e.g. Mike Markkula at Apple

SO the “two Steves” needed each other to create Apple Computers. Without Woz, Jobs wouldn’t have had a product to sell. Without Jobs, Woz would have stayed at HP making calculators and never tried to start his own company.

VisiCalc

Google tells me that 200 “Apple I’s” were sold (if you have one it is a collectors item). The Apple I was not a complete product – additional parts needed to be purchased to have a functional system – so it was MOST important (historically speaking) in that it proved that there was a larger “personal computer” market than just “hardware hobbyists.”

The Apple II was released in 1977 (fully assembled and ready to go out of the box) – but the PC industry still consisted of “hobbyists.”

The next “historic moment in software development” happened in 1979 when Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston released the first “computerized spreadsheet” – “VisiCalc.”

VisiCalc was (arguably) the first application go through the entire “system development life cycle” (SDLC) – e.g. from planning/analysis/design to implementation/maintenance and then “obsolescence.”

The time of death for VisiCalc isn’t important – 1984 seems to be a popular date. Their place in history is secure.

How do you go from “historic product” to “out of business” in 5 years? Well, VisiCalc as a product needed to grow to survive. Their success invited a lot of competition into the market – and they were unable or unwilling to change at the pace required.

This is NOT criticism – I’ll point at the large number of startups in ANY industry that get “acquired” by a larger entity mostly because “starting” a company is a different set of skills than “running” and “growing” a company.

Again, I’m not picking on the VisiCalc guys – this “first inventor” goes broke is a common theme in technology – i.e. someone “invents” a new technology and someone else “implements” that technology better/cheaper/whatever to make big $$.

btw: the spreadsheet being the first “killer app” is why PC’s found their way into the “accounting” departments of the world first. Then when those machines started breaking, companies needed folks dedicated to fixing the information technology infrastructure – and being a “PC tech” became a viable profession.

The “I.T.” functionality stayed part of “accounting” for a few years. Eventually PCs become common in “not accounting” divisions. The role of “Chief Information Officer” and “I.T. departments” became common in the late 1980’s — the rest is history …

Finally

Ok, so I mentioned that SDLC can mean “system development life cycle.” This was the common usage when I first learned the term.

In 2022 “Software development life cycle” is in common usage – but that is probably because the software folks have been using the underlying concepts of the “System DLC” as part of “software development” process since “software development” became a thing.

e.g. The “Software DLC” uses different vocabulary — but it is still the “System DLC” — but if you feel strongly about it, I don’t feel strongly about it one way or the other – I could ALWAYS be wrong.

I’ve seen “development fads” come and go in the last 30 years. MOST of the fads revolve around the problems you get when multiple development teams are working on the same project.

Modern software development on a large scale requires time and planning. You have all of the normal “communication between teams” issues that ANY large project experiences. The unique problems with software tend to be found in the “debugging” process – which is a subject all its own.

The modern interweb infrastructure allows/requires things like “continuous integration” and “continuous deployment” (CI/CD).

If you remember “web 1.0” (static web pages) then you probably remember the “site under construction” graphic that was popular until it was pointed out that (non abandoned) websites are ALWAYS “under construction” (oh and remember the idea of a “webmaster” position? one person responsible for the entire site? well, that changed fast as well)

ANYWAY – In 2022 CI/CD makes that “continuous construction” concept manageable

Security

The transformation of SDLC from “system” to “software” isn’t a big deal – but the “youthful arrogance” referenced at the start involved someone that seemed to think like the idea of creating ‘secure software’ was something that happened recently.

Obviously if you “program” the computer by feeding in punch cards – then “security” kind of happens by controlling physical access to the computer.

When the “interweb” exploded in the 1990’s the tongue in cheek observation was that d.o.s. (the “disk operating system”) had never experienced a “remote exploit”

The point being that d.o.s. had no networking capabilities – if you wanted to setup a “local area network” (LAN) you had to install additional software that would function as a “network re-director”

IBM had come up with “netbios” (network basic input output system) in 1983 (for file and print sharing) — but it wasn’t “routable” between different LANs.

NetWare had a nice little business going selling a “network operating system” that ran on a proprietary protocol called IPX/SPX (it used the MAC address for unique addressing – it was nice).

THEN Microsoft included basic LAN functionality in Windows 3.11 (using an updated form of netbios called netbeui – “netbios Enhanced User Interface”) – and well, the folks at Netware probably weren’t concerned at the time, since their product had the largest installed base of any “n.o.s.” — BUT Microsoft in the 1990’s is its own story …

ANYWAY if you don’t have your computers networked together then “network security” isn’t an issue.

btw: The original design of the “interweb” was for redundancy and resilience NOT security – and we are still dealing with those issues in 2022.

A “software design” truism is that the sooner you find an error (“bug”) in the software the less expensive it is to fix. If you can deal with an issue in the “design” phase – then there is no “bug” to fix and the cost is $0. BUT if you discover a bug when you are shipping software – the cost to fix will probably be $HUGE (well, “non zero”).

fwiw: The same concept applies to “features” – e.g. at some point in the “design” phase the decision has to be made to “stop adding additional features” – maybe call this “feature lock” or “version lock” whatever.

e.g. the cost of adding additional functionality in the design phase is $0 — but if you try to add an additional feature half-way through development the cost will be $HUGE.

Oh, and making all those ‘design decisions’ is why “software architects”/engineers get paid the big $$.

Of course this implies that a “perfectly designed product” would never need to be patched. To get a “perfectly designed product” you would probably need “perfect designers” – and those are hard to find.

The work around becomes bringing in additional “experts” during the design phase.

There is ALWAYS a trade off between “convenience” and “security” and those decisions/compromises/acceptance of risk should obviously be made at “design” time. SO “software application security engineer” has become a thing

Another software truism is that software is never “done” it just gets “released” – bugs will be found and patches will have to be released (which might cause other bugs, etc) –

Remember that a 100% secure system is also going to be 100% unusable. ok? ’nuff said

I use a free service called https://letsencrypt.org/ for my “personal” sites ssl/tls certs. The automated cert install usually sets up automatic renewal at 3 month intervals. I’m honestly not sure – mostly because it has “just worked” for my minimal usage.

THEN – I had an issue with my “classical music streaming” example site (now https://radio.clancameron.us/).

I’ve been “testing” the setup of streaming from 1 server to another server – and again, it has MOSTLY been error free. There is 20ish hours of music on a playlist – and the playlist loops – it seems to work fine 95% of the time with no effort on my part.

BUT the music stops playing on a regular basis – my suspicion is that the “sending” machine freezes up for some reason. Rebooting and restarting the stream seems has fixed the issue.

Since I’m using a “non enterprise” solution – my guess is that there is a small bug/memory leak in the code that isn’t a factor 99.99% of the time. Since this application has always been temporary – I can’t complain too much 😉

HOWEVER – I ran into a problem with the “receiving” machine giving me a “certificate expired” type error and not playing the stream through the web browser as intended.

Yes, the cert did seem to have expired – but then when I manually renewed it the problem persisted. The stream would play when I accessed it directly (i.e. the “sending” and “receiving” parts seem to be working fine). BUT then accessing it through the web page results in the cert expired error.

My next guess was that the cert was being cached somewhere along the line – cleared browser/machine/network caches and tried multiple machines. No luck.

SO then I just combined the “send/receive” on the same machine and and it works as expected. Of course this meant creating a new certificate for the new site – so the original problem is, well, still a problem but not worth the time to troubleshoot …

I probably read Frank Herbert’s “Dune” because of the pre-release hoopla surrounding the 1984 movie. The novel was/is a “science fiction classic,” I was a “reader” so I hunted up a copy and read it.

Dune (1984) has serious issues – but is a fun “80’s movie.” e.g. Sting (who was a full blown “80’s rock star” at the time) was gratuitously inserted into the movie – which I’m sure seemed like a good idea at the time.

The big problem is that the movie makers tried to squeeze a 400+ page book with a large cast of diverse characters into a 2 hour 17 minute movie – which equaled “box office disappointment” (e.g. reportedly a $40 million budget but only $30 million gross in box office).

SO Dune (2021) doesn’t make that mistake. Sure this time around the movie makers have modern digital CGI fx to bring the Dune universe vividly to the screen – but again the real issue with the 1984 movie wasn’t the special effects.

I tend to avoid “movie pre-release hype” so the movie makers may have been explaining that the 2021 movie is really “Dune – part 1” – i.e. obviously they are splitting the novel material between two movies.

The really short review – I mistook Timothee Chalamet for another “young, thin, dark haired” actor but he does a fine job. If you like the “movie experience” then seeing it on the big screen is worth the effort.

The rumor is that Frank Herbert started researching and writing “Dune” in the late 1950’s – then spent a lot of time being turned down by publishers until the novel was published in 1965.

random thought: this “popular book by first time author – turned down by multiple publishers” tends to be the norm for a couple reasons – first: if the subject/style is really something “new” or a “new approach” then the number of people that will recognize the potential of the book is small.

Just the nature of “publishing” is that they tend to look for “something like something that was successful” NOT “something new.”

Then secondly – if someone wrote the greatest novel of all time, and then gave up after the first rejection, well, then the novel would be unpublished and no one would ever read it 😉

While the “science fiction” community appreciated Dune, Frank Herbert wasn’t able to quit his “day job” after writing Dune. I was surprised to learn that Mr Herbert wrote 20+ “non Dune” novels – but that isn’t important at the moment.

Dune covers a lot of philosophical ground – but I’ll call it “speculative religion” today.

dreams

SO it is possible to look at Dune and see a story about scarce natural resources, the wealth possible by controlling those resources – as well as the resulting conflict over those resources. Living in the U.S. the connection between “oil” and the “Middle East” and then “spice” and “desert plant Arrakis” is probably obvious.

But if you want “spice” to be a drug or something else – it doesn’t really change the dynamic of the storytelling – the point is “scarce resource” and “cartel power.”

The “religious” portion or Dune revolves around “dreams.” Numbers 12:6-8 comes to mind – but the idea that having “visions of the future” tends to equal something beyond what we can touch and feel is common throughout all cultures and history.

Of course there is a big difference between “predicting” something will happen and “causing those events to occur.” The motivational poster might be “We predict the future by making it happen.”

Carl Jung (a contemporary of Sigmund Freud) theorized about a “collective subconscious” shared by humanity – which is often useful when talking about “storytelling” across cultures and comparative mythology – BUT is “backward looking” and not prophetic in nature.

“Time travel” also certainly qualifies as a science fiction “component” if not “cliche” – i.e. if you are “from the future” and “living in the past” then “predicting” the future is a matter of memory.

Meanwhile the “gift” of seeing the future tends to be reserved for “gods” or their emissaries.

If memory serves – Odin gave up his eye in exchange for “future vision.” The “blind prophet” that no longer has physical vision but can “see” the future tends to pop up on a regular basis (e.g. “O Brother Were Art Thou?” was a comedic retelling of the Odyssey – a couple characters lack physical sight – the first one is in the clip, the second runs the “radio station” both “prophets” in their own right – and John Goodman is a ‘cyclops’ stand in 😉 )

SO “Dune” becomes speculative religion because of the “prophetic dreams” that the main character is having. If you have read the “Dune trilogy” and think “Paul goes ‘blind’ multiple times” then you know what I’m talking about …

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Hamlet – Act 2 Scene 2

Predictions

ANYWAY – “Science Fiction” as a genre covers a lot of ground – the “classics” of science fiction tend to deal with “present day” issues through the lens of “future speculation.”

The problem is that making predictions about the future is easy, but being accurate about those predictions tends to be much harder.

The “history of computing” documentary (from the late 1990’s) I like to show first year students is great for 30ish minutes – then they start making “predictions of the future.”

No, the “experts” in the documentary don’t make “everyone will own a flying car and have lunch on Jupiter” predictions – what they were expecting kind of happened, just not the way they predicted – i.e. no one could have predicted the iPhone and “mobile apps” and Google was still a new thing in 2000 – again, illustrating the limits of “human predictions” …

SO “false prophets” are also a given if you have “true prophets” running around – the difference being that the “false prophet” is, well, “wrong.”

Well, I suppose the “prophets” could also be intentionally misleading like the witches in Macbeth – i.e. just having visions of the future doesn’t mean you are on the “right side” but it does imply a “spiritual connection” beyond human capacity.

This is where Dune becomes “speculative religion” – i.e. the main character is having recurring dreams that come true – just where do the dreams come from? Just because Paul’s mother and the Bene Gesserit have been manipulating events for hundreds of years does NOT make them capable of “prophecy.”

Frank Herbert kind of makes the “future sight” a genetic trait that Paul passes on to his children – but then loses himself. Which I suppose is plausible – IF “prophetic capacity” was genetic.

fwiw: George Lucas was intentionally going for “quasi religious” with Star Wars – but the most “science fictiony” part of the “Star Wars universe” is probably the “droids with personality”/true consciousness — so maybe the most “science fictiony” part of the “Dune universe” is the “prophecy without gods” aspect.

dream interpretation

The Oracle at Delphi was once considered a source of “truth” – the exact process is lost to history, mostly because it was “common knowledge” back then and not one bothered to document the process. It appears that folks would make the trip to the shrine, ask their question – and then receive a response from the Oracle.

Of course the responses tended to sound like daily horoscopes in modern times – kind of generic and open to interpretation. There is speculation that the shrine might have been built on top of a natural ‘gas leak’ of some kind that caused the oracle to have ‘visions’ but that is obviously speculation.

Nostradamus also comes to mind – folks dig through his writings and try to match up what he wrote to history. i.e. it is easier to sound profound when you speak in “mysterious symbols” – Walmart will sell you “Magic 8 ball” for around $10 this is just as useful 😉

As for “normal” recurring dreams – they tend to be very subjective and personal. If you are having recurring dreams about “famous historical figure” it probably has nothing to do with “history” but a LOT to do with how you feel about “historic figure.”

A subclass of “dreams” might be related to “sleep apnea” or “bad sleeping position.”

If you are allergic to your pillow you might have recurring dreams where you can’t breath – which probably means you need a different pillow, but not much else. If you have a dream where you can’t use an arm or leg – and then you wake up with your arm or leg in a weird position – well, there is probably a direct connection between the two.

The idea that “dreaming about x” means “y” goes back to the old “collective unconscious” thing. Most dreams boil down to your mind processing data in some form OR “sleep fitness issues.”

The “prophets” of the Old Testament had no doubt whom they were representing. They didn’t have a single weird dream and think “I wonder if God is talking to me” – i.e. there was no doubt that their “prophetic visions” were something different.

God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son is in a special category for a specific purpose – so I’m not sure if that falls under “prophecy” or not. So if you hear “voices” telling you to do bad things – well, tell the voices to go away, they certainly aren’t acting in YOUR best interest one way or the other …

Oh, and if your partner gets murdered and it turns out that the woman you love did it, well, that might be the stuff dreams are made of …