Will of the People

All oyschlisn (webcomic) related content as of 2008 (jpegs and GIMP-xcf files) as a bzip2-tarball: oyschlisn2008.tar.bz2 (58M)

(this does have substantial content beyond what's up on the site)

I admire the writing/path of the story arc that just ended in Dresden Codak. The breadth of topics and depth of intellect behind it made it my favourite webcomic not long after I stumbled upon it. Courtesy jwz, I recently stumbled upon Nobody Scores, which is also quite good.

One of the cats, about 2 weeks ago, decided to stampede over my laptop,knocking off the Tab key in a way that I can't reattach it. I've made doby pressing the little plastic thing over the centre of where the key was,but it just fell off. This is inconvenient, because I need a tab key toswitch between windows in the same workspace, and to do tab-completion.So, Pat thinks to himself, "I shall use xmodmap". After all, I've used itto make the sound keys do something useful for me, and have bound thewindows keys to useful ends. So, I decide to sacrifice the caps lock key,which previously was being an extra Control key, for this end, and open upmy .xmodmaprc to find what to do. Hmm, perhaps a keysym will work.xmodmap -e 'keysym Caps_Lock = Tab'No, that still gives me a control. I whip out xev, and find that it still isseeing caps lock as a control key. Hmm.. I could comment out my prior mappingand restart X, but I have some useful programs already running, so I'd liketo fix this without that. I then remember that I need to disable the specialmapping for modifier keys before I change their real mapping.xmodmap -e "remove Control = Control_L"There, now neither capslock nor control work as a control key. Let's..xmodmap -e "keycode 66 = Tab"xmodmap -e "add Control = Control_L"All good. Tab completion is happy.. except then I find that WindowMaker, mywindow manager, doesn't seem to see my new tab key as valid for alt-tabwindow cycling. Conveniently, it doesn't allow me to choose any other combo.I restart it -- maybe it hasn't picked up the change yet .. no dice. Hmm.I doubt it would hardcode the keycodes -- it after all does work on a numberof different platforms, and I doubt it would special-case every platform thathandles keyboards differently. It's probably asking X for the keycode when itstarts up. Hmm.. let's seexmodmap -pk | grep TabI have both tab keys' keycodes in there (the original, and my left caps lock).I wonder.. maybe it only gets the first tab keycode (which happens to be theoriginal one, keycode 23). So, perhaps if I remove that keymap..xmodmap -e "keycode 23 ="I then restart windowmaker, and all is good.So, I now have my caps lock key acting as a replacement for my dead Tab key.It's all good, although, thinking about it, what I did is really pretty crappyif an end-user were to want to do it. I had to deal with one verypoorly-documented and complex section of the windowing system, and intuit howundocumented parts of the window manager work. On the other hand, I've heardabout people who want to disable keys on window in a similar way need totweak with the system registry in ways that might break it.

Behold the mighty works, and despair.

Seriously, about that last link, it really strikes me as odd, and horrifying (although I can't put my finger on why, exactly) when people who are mentallydisturbed in some way end up deciding their disturbance is a good thing. I'malways tempted to pop their bubble.I'd like to think it's because it's because people who take that tack haveeffectively ruled out getting better. However, if there's anything I've learnedabout the way people think recently, it's that people don't really understandtheir emotions and how they think very well. Societally, we expect people to beauthoritative sources of information for themselves, but in reality, they'reonly playing with a few cards that their closer friends can't see, and often,to survive looking into themselves, they might need to become blind to thingsthat their ego cannot stomach.

I found a new webcomic to read. It's funny.

Apparently, in town there's a 15-year old who was arrested for takingnude photos of herself in sexual activities and posting them on the net.She's to be charged with sexual abuse of children (herself, presumably),possession of child porn, and distribution of child porn. This is an interestingtopic -- it's clear that there's great societal harm in many other kinds ofcrime, but child porn is just something that just makes us feel disgusted --coming up with a reason why it's harmful to society and should be prohibitedthat doesn't feel like a pathetic attempt to justify our gut feelings isdifficult. I'll try, though. I'll try to stick to the moral values, and leavethe ethical and pragma framework things out. Understand that this means thatyou're not hearing me speak with a unity of something being bad and somethingbeing immoral.

The reason child porn is problematic, I'll startout by saying, is that it derives from an initial act which is problematic --the sexual explotation of children.

Query: Some people like watching films or news of real people being brutalizedor being beaten up. Is that a problem?Answer: No, unless the film was made with a tie to the production of saidviolence. To make it concrete, it would be immoral to watch films from anorganized crime group that made the films while performing the violence.News organizations and the like, unlike propganda or similar, do not do this.

Query: Is it possible to say that she sexually abused herself?Answer: I don't think self-abuse should bear any kind of legal weight,and so, no, I don't think she's sexually abusing anyone. As to the natureof the concept of sexual abuse that's consentual, that's another discussionfor another time.

Query: Is it morally problematic for her to be making or distributing thisstuff?Answer: From what I understand, the rationale against producing child pornis mainly aimed at stopping adults from coercing, tricking, enticing, orsimilar, children into sexual circumstances (other adults are fair game).Analysis of that on moral grounds can wait for another time. This doesn'tseem to fall into that category -- if she wasn't put into the situation byothers, then the traditional rationale falls apart. If that falls apart, thenthe distribution prohibitation, which is chained from this, falls apart too.

Query: Is it possible to make a public policy argument to close this?Answer: Probably. It would not, by my system, be philosophically just, so Iwould not morally judge people on the basis of ignoring public policy loopholeclosers, but also would not oppose the existence of the law. The rationale isthat it's enormously difficult to tell the nature of someone's participation inporn, and to serve the greater good, it's worth blocking some morally neutralactivity to block a lot more morally bad activity.

Query: So by this line of reasoning, the people who are working on making,using Computer Graphics Generated porn of various types of porn and other thingswould not be on morally risky ground for creating such models that look likechildren, and using them to depict child porn acts?Answer: By this line of reasoning, such acts are not morally significant, sothe assertion is correct.

This answer is somehow dissatisfying. Why is the concept so disturbing? Whydoes it make our stomach turn? I think that it is likely that we have twoconcepts about children, firstly that they're pure, and second, that they'revery vulnerable to being pushed around. The first, if we think back to ourchildhoods, is false. The second is a good claim -- children are protectedfrom a number of situations that would be disadvantageous to them, including(I think) contracts and similar. Further, and this is I think a cultural thing,in American society, there's an expectation (or at least was, probably still isfor some of the more stuffy parts) that sex is to be saved, especially the firsttime, for someone special. The idea of that 'cultural ritual' being taken awayis threatening. Of course, many historical cultures had no such ritual, andin fact had very different ideas about sex.

First, this is funny.I'm mainly going to talk about jwz's response to the legal battleover bones found in the Americas that some Indian tribes have claimed. Theirargument is that it's one of their ancestors, and as such they have thelegal right to claim it under an act called Nagpra. For the record, I entirelyagree with jwz's take on it, and I don't even think his quote is out of line:Hey, I've got an idea! Let's take this scientific treasure, and insteadof using it to learn more about the origin of our whole species, let's giveit to some dumbass and let him dump it in a hole in the ground. Dear Umatilla,Yakama, Colville and Nez Perce tribes: I'm really very sorry that someone I'mnot even related to gave your great-great-great-grandfather smallpox, butfuck you: get over it already.

Someone in the discussion board does make a point, so let's clarify andexpand it -- can not treating the corpse be likened to disrespecting moreimmediate ancestors? In fact, can dead bodies be owned, or have some kindof policy for their use set for them? I understand that a lot of people havean emotional attachment to the concept of their body after their death, andin fact would be uncomfortable with the idea of it being somewhere otherthan the ground until it's indistinguishable from dirt. Personally, I don'tthink highly of said privilege, and think, at least intellectually, thatonce the brain stops function for the last time, that it might as well bea tree stump, with little more concern than that. However, I've learned, overmy years, that when I disagree so strongly with common public views, thateither I'm missing something, this is an area where materialist atheismyields a very different worldview, and/or at the very least, I shouldn'tuse the topic for conversations at a party (not that I go to many).

Apparently the Persians were jealous of BushJr (pbuh)'sfaith-based prisons.

This comic entry reminds me of someone.I'd bet everyone knows someone who's well-described by it though...

Apparently, the next version of Java is now in beta.This is cool -- Java's a neat language, and the new features look useful.I'd like to upgrade our Tomcat4 install at work to 1.5...

An impression: a thick cover of snow, with a frozen top. Walking over it...The most interesting sensation... the initial crackle of the ice on topshattering, and the initial resistance, and then the feet sink into theprogressively softer snow beneath. It pleases me. It pleases me greatly.

I finally went through the trouble of upgrading my laptop to the fedorakernel just now -- I was running a very old kernel from a beta of redhat 9.1,and had since upgraded the rest of the system to Fedora 1, but was wary of thekernel upgrade because the driverloader thingy I need to make my wirelessethernet work does weird things that I don't understand, and because I couldn'tmake ACPI work. I recently remembered that I need to add "acpi=on" to thekernel boot string for the fedora kernels (Which is dumb), so I tweaked/etc/grub.conf to do that, and having verified that that worked by rebootinginto the kernel and making sure the ACPI actually was still working, I tweakeddriverloader until I made it happy. Yay.

I have what I need to start my other BLOG properly now, so within the nextfew days, Isa will have her first entry. I might need to pause later tofill some stuff in, but that's ok.

I think you'll enjoy this comic.

You sometimes don't recognize it until it's gone.... I recentlyrecognized another great thing about Squirrel Hill. There's noMcDonalds or Burger King. Of course, there's still some Starschmucks..

Here's a fun comic poking fun at a certain line of arguments thatsome flavours of religious people like to spout.Of course, such people are too busy to read such things -- they're probablytoo busy complaining about transexual models in the army.South Korea has some pretty freaky America-wannabe-ism going on, fromabandoning their beautiful language for English, to performing mouth surgery ontheir kids to make it easier for them to pronounce English (google for it).Now there's plastic surgeryapparently being rather popular, at least according to the article. I find itdisappointing that people give so much of themselves for competitiveness inbusiness. On the other hand, I guess it is easy for me to say that, living ina country with inflated wages, with a retirement plan, and all that. If thewages for work across the globe were evened out, and the U.S. didn't needprotectionism to protect the way of life it's been able to provide itspeople (witness tech jobs heading to India, and farms .. farms getting enoughsubsidies here to prop them up against basically everywhere else), maybe I'dbe singing a different tune. That's something that, I wager, will be somethingthe U.S. will increasingly struggle with in the next 20 years.

On Sunday, for the second time, I did indoor climbing with Dimitry and friends.It was, again, a lot of fun, although my hands and arms are sore. When it comesto climbing, it's useful that I'm really flexible -- I was able to pull myselfup on one of the bouldering walls from a foothold at about head-height, and it'sgood that I have Texas-sidewalk feet (went barefoot this time), but it's badthat I have very little upper-body strength, and also bad that I again chosenot to use chalk. I think I'll likely make that a fairly regularly sunday thing.

Robert Cringely has an article on Wireless AP availability(The term Wi-Fi is hopelessly lame), which, unlike most proposals I read whereI have some reservations, I agree 100% with. I hope it could work -- heproposes that end-users and businesses, on agreement to share their AP, begiven it gratis (I submit that at reduced cost might also work out), and thatthis would ensure that access points are almost everywhere. If it could workfinancially, it sounds like a good plan.

Strange.Remember Scorched Earth? The classic DOS tank game?There's apparently a Java clone. Cool.

If you're using Fedora and yum, note that you'll do well to change youryum repository to something like this. The main onesare usually too busy.

The U.S. military gave some of its members the boot after theywere found to have seriously abused some Iraqi prisoners and lied to themilitary courts about it. Sadly, although one of them recieved a dishonourabledischarge and loss of 2 months salary, the others got honourable discharges.This really bugs me -- these seem to be really serious abuses of power thatmerit jail time, and instead they're getting off with just being fired. Texasjustice, perhaps? :)

Interesting theories. It brings to mind a recent daydream, oftechnical conferences being held by our primitive ancestors, tens of thousandsof years ago. The reception and Question-Answer sessions for controlled firemust've been fun... Project: Prometheus as a codename :)

Some of the new systems we've been getting at work support HyperThreading.I've enabled it where I could (one of the workstations uses a funky videocardthat needs a kernel module that won't work with the SMP kernel). The idea behindHyperthreading is simple -- there are two CPU cores on a single chip. They'renot as good as two complete CPUs -- they share cache and some other resources,but they're usually better than a CPU acting on it's own. I've been reading upon hyperthreading. I also read that the next version of GTK will have anicer file selector. Amusingly, some of the ideas are things I thought ofyears ago... it just goes to show that it's hard to be original, and actuallyoften it's an overemphasized thing in making things better. Too many companieschant 'innovation' as if it's a mantra, and go on to create really badsoftware. Do you want to buy a toothbrush that's marketed as innovative?Certainly not -- innovativeness is as good as a roll of the dice -- sometimesgood, sometimes bad.

From a conversation on IRC,"I find it very sad that Miguel's broken from most of the GNOME community onthis issue." (C#) "To most of us in the community, Miguel's efforts are slightlyworse than a complete waste of time" (because of its divisive nature)

First, some Klingon TurkeysI am indeed happy to be in love with someone wonderful, and what was lostis found..

Last night, we watched The Believer, a fascinating film,very loosely based off of a true story, of an ex-Yeshiva-boy who, after a badclassroom argument, ends up leaving it, later to become a Neo-Nazi. The filmmakes a lot of interesting arguments about all sorts of cultures, and wasincredibly good.

For when you need your data REALLY secure... well,maybe that's a bit overboard -- if your company isn't still around, what goodis it?Is nothing sacred?I like this too.

Anyhow, it's time for a quiet evening of food and maybe some reading.I wish Coffee Tree were open.

A nod, and the would-be hero stopped, stood still. The normal chaos,hierarchy, patterns in the mind all slowed.. memory present, butno decision-making, no interesting processes.. what little thought therewas... a memory or impression, of the top of his hand over a pyramidshape, soft plastic, a gentle slope. Cradling that odd angle with hishand.

Perhaps a focus on the motion of fluids while stirring a bowl of soup,the intricate folds and flow near the wooden spoon..

I'm presently listening to Daler Mehndi's "Dil Te Churiyan".. it'svery addictive, and there's an amusing music video that comes with it.It seems that one of the consistant themes in Daler Mehndi's videosis that he's convincing an initially reluctant woman that he's cool.I do wonder if I would like his music more or less if I understood thewords... I also wonder if there are any people like him in Americanpopular music -- could his videos fly with a western audience? Couldhis style of music appeal to people here?

Someone I used to know, but now lives far away, recently wrote something thatreally grabbed me... he's someone who I really feel has lived a parallellife to mine, the similarities are really kind of funny. Oddly, I never reallyseemed to get close to him -- perhaps too much similarity, people who normallyplay the same role in social groups, these things make for parallel threads inthe fabric of society..

At work, I finally have a breakthrough in the R to Auton bridge -- I now havethe C side keeping things on its own, and can pass data from R to C. I wasthrown off by the way .C() appeared to work on a function I grabbed from asample C function called showArgs(), but it actually wasn't, the objectswere just being passed back and the R side of the code was displaying them.Nothing like printf() debugging.. Heh. The way I'm cooking these things up,I want to be using .External() ... and the sample function was actually slightlywrong, at least for the version of R I'm using. Anyhow, once I get some simpledata passed back from C into R, all the tricky, experimental work in theproject will be done, and the actual (relatively dull) implementation will beready to be cooked.

Yeah, they got Saddam. So what? It doesn't change anything -- it was a stupid'adventure' for BushJr (pbuh), who should've listened to his dad. BushSr atleast had the brains to understand that occupying the country was a dumb idea,although his adventure wasn't too bright either. I doubt there were anyof the specially nasty weapons (but hey, a weapon's a weapon) in Iraq, I thinkBushJr knew this and lied (his instructions to be dishonest to his ppl don'thelp things), and in any case I don't think Iraq ever posed a threat to theUnited States in either gulf war. Saddam's abuses of power arn't anythingspecial for nonwestern states, and such abuses certainly don't stop the U.S.from continuing to deal with and support other such countries, especiallywhen oil money is involved.

I think, for the first time in a long time, I'm going to have a decent amountof this month's paycheck, beyond the amount I automagically have doing so,to deposit for saving. That's pretty amazing, considering all the car messI've had to deal with, but yeah, I'm happy. All the long-term ugliness leftover from the O'Reilly trip, the aborted vacation, car problems, and other stuffis gone. I have a small cash buffer against emergency now... mmm safe..

Came across this news-ish blog. Amusing.

This article, by Berners-Lee, one of the pioneers of the web,suggests that websites be designed so that documents never disappear. I reallyam at two minds on the issue -- on the anti-side, I'm reminded by the adviceof the extreme programming camp (and some other camps too) thatto think too far ahead is too limiting and time-consuming for software(let's extend it to webpages), where having flexible, simple, easily implementedideas is more important. On the other hand, I do think it's awfully inconvenientthat so much of the web is continually disappearing, or worse, becomingobsolete or incorrect without being marked as such. Is Archive.orga solution, or a red herring? I really don't know.

A friend sent me a sad story. I sent her here for something else.

This is an interesting political-regional framework. A fun quote:Democratic consultant James Carville once described Pennsylvania asconsisting of Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and"Alabama in the middle."

Reality TV for you..A few of the other victims of the holocaust get mention..

Some farming politics..

And something I've always suspected: Powerpoint makes you dumb.That's not my title -- it's the actual NYT article title :)

When I visit Israel/Palestine, I'll probably try to stop by here.

I grabbed the rest of my music from my home system onto my laptop lastnight.. I suspect torgo's going to die soon, so it's time to start doingmore backups... I can't quite put my finger on why it's going to die, it'sjust an intuition.. but my computer intuition is damned good..

A gallop? No, a terrified man running through the woods.. We seeno pursuer, but clearly he's in a panic, his limbs flailing, hiseyes wide, each step a gamble, tiny slips and stumbles are metwith a quick push and he's off again.. it's dark, the snow iseverywhere, the only light being ill-spaced streetlights, providinga small feeling of day in some areas. I passed this shadow on theway to my meal, in my eyes, a playlist.. and a thought...Again, the other Pat's, the other paths... and then of lastyear... a brief moment of cold, and the blur of time.. it's warm,the sharp edges of the snowflakes become a cold plasma, sort enough totouch, the smeared paint...

o/~ Save the world, don't leave the houseA virtual office in a virtual homeSo you'll never have to drive through the wrong part of townPass it along by word of mouse

Ah, where do you want to go today?Ah, Somewhere you could never take me..o/~ -- Chumbawumba, "

Yes, it's Christmas, the time to give the "Bad Religion"Crossbusters Logo a workout, for it's that time of yearwhen Christians wear their religion on their sleeve :)To do my part, I've temporarily changed my desktop background frommy sigil to their logo, and it's visible at Coffee Tree. :)

Oh, by the way -- I'm cleaning off packages from my laptop and fromdachte that I don't need, and notice that.. yes, pax is there. RMSand his GNU Project are normallypretty sane, but in this case, like with GNU Info, they've produceda stupid, pointless program. Info is the result of what happened afterlynx and man (a web browser and the standard documentation viewer on Unix)got drunk one night, and produced an ugly, disfigured child, inferior toboth its parents. And pax? What does it do? Well, it can make and extractfrom cpio archives.. oh, but cpio can do that! Well, it can open tar archivestoo... oh, but why not use tar for that? Ahh, but it can also open gzippedtar archives.. oh, but tar can do that too! Yes, pax is stupid. Likeinfo, it's what happened when two perfectly fine pieces of software,in this case GNU tar and GNU cpio did something foolish, and produced achild that's less useful than either of the parents. My advice? Take thatpiece of junk off of your system. I might see exactly how open the newFedora process is, by suggesting that RedHat remove it from the standarddistribution.

Oh, a warning to windows users -- yet another trojan *snicker*horse is going around.Word on the street is that the "anti-spam" billrecently passed is anything but, and is actually seen as a good thingby the spammers. *sigh*

One of my favourite comedians, Steven Wright, has somenew DVDs for sale. They're, oddly, not on Amazon.

Oh, here's a fun quote by a dead white guy..."Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people... it is true that most stupid people are conservative." -- John Stuart MillI found it on this page.....I really love all the quote collections on the net..

In fairness to the opposition, here's a link to a bunchof christians who've spent a lot of time attacking science that says thingsthat hurt their religion. I found it by stumbling across this subpageon thermodyanmics, and while they're wrong, they're wrong in ways that mostcausual sciency folk won't see through it. Go ahead, my readers, sharpen yourteeth on this (rare) set of sophisticated arguments between Xians andothers.

Here's another comic for you.Here's something that *is* comic.. Some more stuff on pre-Mosaic religion of the Hebrews...

The government grows ever scarier -- now they can demand logs fromservice providers, and demand that they not tell the spied-upon person.You might notice that I don't have a privacy statement on my webpage. It'smy server, and I'll do whatever the hell I want with it. As of right now,I don't actually collect any data that you're likely to need to worry aboutwhat I do with it, and anything I do collect, you'll just need to decide,based on what you know of me, if you want to give it to me or not -- barringany particular understanding between us, I make no promises. However, let metell you this..I, Pat Gunn, hereby do swear on the same standard of honesty and integritythat binds me as a philosopher, that if the government attempts to get mylogs, that I will do my very best to 'lose' them, and that I will make agood effort to tell the world about it, provided that I don't think you'resomeone who deserves to be caught.

Some people are too sensitive. I'd hound such people, if only I knew whothey are. It's called a motherboard, not a mainboard, and I'll do my best toavoid buying disks that use the wrong terminology.. but, alas, one of thethings about markets like this is that if there arn't counterincentives,the distributed cost of irritating millions of geeks with politically correctterminology is less than not being able to do business with a lucrative partner.I guess though, in any bunch there're some .. *characters*. Here's a nod topeople from my ex-party, the Libertarians, who had some peopleprotesting affirmative action by selling cookies to people, at prices that varyby the race of the buyer. For the record, though I'm no longer Libertarian,I still agree with them on this point, and think the symbolism is appropriate,the metaphor apt.

During the cleaning of the bookmarks, I found that Jonathan Brandis,an actor I liked, suicided about 20 days ago. Oh well. I guess, unlike mostpeople, I don't view suicide as being a taboo topic, nor do I think it deservesthe knee-jerk dismissal that so many people give it. The thing is, barringsuperstitious notions attached to it, suicide is not something that can reallybe judged very well from a subjective POV -- in life, we evaluate thingsaccording to our ends, but this style of thought simply has no way toconsider elimination of the self, outside of what one wants for society orothers, and while those factors often do play a large role in how we makebig decisions in life, usually we also pay a lot of attention to how ourexperiences will be altered by our actions. With no meaningful directionfrom there, a type of experience that is at least not silent on every othertopic of life, how can we really say that one can ever judge one's own deathor suicide rationally or irrationally? It is, by nature, a very special typeof decision where the regular practices and rules don't apply.

Heh, amusingly, as much as it amuses me to be doing so, I appear to havegiven you a stocking-stuffer style entry again :O

04:37 - Pat deposits a $10 check into his checking account, at the Oakland National City on Fnord. 04:48 - Pat finishes biking back to his apartment in Squirrel Hill

Step back a bit...Went to India Garden around 23:00, ate, and stopped by work to rebuilda system (moving it from Redhat 8 to Fedora 1). Worked a bit onmy psych term paper, although I left my laptop at home, so it was mostlyconceptual work.

Not very interesting... But I just worked a bit over 5 hours when I'mnormally sleeping.. :)

For all you database junkies, there's a new version of Postgresout -- 7.4. The best goodies are: Autovacuum, better regexes, more efficientsubselects, and some cursor improvements. Yay.

There are some intersting articles in the Jerusalem Post,but because they're being schmucks and want you to register (even though it'sfree), they're not getting a link. Oh well.

You might like this comic. Or maybe this..

The world needs more cute oddness.

This is a good overview of the state of the desktopon Linux today, from a severely geeky point of view.

Things are getting really REALLY interesting in Georgia -- it's not everydaythat protesters take government buildings and make the existing orderflee... Al Jazeera has an interesting (but short) analysis onthe role of Russia and the U.S. in the crisis.

A thought -- I've noticed that in bands, there's almost always someonewho's the leader of the group, who gets pretty much all the focus duringmusic videos. I wonder what it feels like for other band members, andif that's a frequent source of tension..

Here's another step, a bit worrying, in nanotech: self-assemblingDNA-based nanites. It's fascinating.. I hope people are careful with it.

For the many guys out there who have trouble attracting women, well, oneof the big turn-offs, bad breath, might be tied to something much worse.Hell, not that I'm one to talk when it comes to romance, but the guyin that story looks like he has still more things to worry about on thatfront :)

This guy is one of those cool magicians who tells you how it's done.He's selling a book on Cold Reading, a technique that 'psychics'use to fool the poor people who believe in that crap. Another person who doesthis is The Amazing Randi.

This site traces some of the ideas that eventually got compiled together intoJudaism.

I've never had this happen, but perhaps someday I will.

Oh, Today. .. er. .hmm. On Saturday, PUSH met up with the Mormons. It wentpretty well -- we discussed some theology, and then moved into foundations ofbelief, and initial steps. Like the Judaists, the Mormons have a bit of a'Chosen People' thing going on.. Overall, we avoided being too confrontational,although I did feel that some of us were giving them too much of a hard time.It's ok to ask hard questions, but not so good to phrase them in ways thatintentionally are poking fun. I did feel that we learned a lot from thediscussion -- their theology really is very different than vanilla Christianity,and I begin to see the point when some question if they really should beconsidered Christian, although from their POV, the answer's clearly yes..In some ways, it's refreshing, seeing people with such a differentinterpretation, and they were remarkably open, upfront, and willing to saythey didn't know when they didn't, and that things can look stupid from theoutside. We might do something similar to this with other groups.

A thought on China-Taiwan .. the history of the communist revolution thereis interesting. Read this Wikipædia entry on Mao Tse-Tsung,particularly the section starting with War and Revolution. I wonder exactly howextensive the Russian influence mentioned there was, and what form it took.Apparently, like in the Weimar Republik in Germany, the massive social changetook place in a period when the government was falling apart. It's suggestedhere that the Nationalists lost much of their economic stronghold to the Japaneseinvasion, and after the war, the Soviets subtly aided the Communist cause inChina. Chiang Kai-Shek's [http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek after Chengdu fell must'vebeen an interesting flight...

Bedtime.

Assembly, in the halls of white marbleA new ritual, or at least forgotten.A shining metal bowl, shallow, rounded bottomThe water is still..Even as you cut my forbidden hair, you marvel at its lustreEven as you slice away the clothes, you admire their fitEven as you kill me, you can feel my greatnessIt is a lost beauty, a fatal sunset, the last touch of theexecutioner you offer me. We accept our roles, as part of nature,and at the end, disperse.

I'm enjoying the fresh smells of fall... and am amused to occasionallysee pumpkins on teacher's desks.. an amusing parody of the apples.

I'm also dead tired. Last week, it was a Psych midterm (takehome andinclass), and this week, it's two papers due tomorrow, and piled on topof both Philosophy homework and an upcoming deadline with a project atwork... so I'm burning the candle on both ends, and in the middle, sleepwise.Last night though, I got the Psych paper pretty much done (it's not the finalversion due of that anyhow). Tonight, along with preparing for a PUSH meeting,I also need to write the philosophy paper. Well, at least I decided on thetopic last night..

Oh, an amusement:Heh.

Altavista has been hammering my site recently -- it seems they're suddenlyputting a lot of effort into catching up with google. Unlike Microsoft, whosesearch engines I block at every chance, along with rude or ill-intentionedrobots, I don't mind most spiders, although it is a pain in the butt toneed to keep track of these things.

Finally, a few links:Capsteps has more songs up, as alwaysThere are also two comics you might like, ifdark humour's your thing.

I'm finally starting to use a trick I learned in vim some time ago:select-to-search. To delete, for example, all text up to the next doublequote,d/"(enter)

I'm still slowly adding descriptions to my journal topics.Tired, but getting back to work. *sigh*

Today, I made a face out of the eyeball that's the logo of my group at CMU.

I was going to be cleverer yet, but my quota's up for today.. was going tomake a logo for my website by altering an image of an altoid can, changingthe text to say "Curiously Strong Opinions". Maybe I still will, sometime.But now I've ruined the punchline.

Had a long conversation with a friend in Columbus who's in a situationnot unlike mine, on so many levels, except they're coming at it from adifferent perspective. Conversation briefly strayed to someone Ifind cute there who I saw for a bit during my last visit. *smile*

Oh, you might find zis comik to be amoosink, Ja? Ja!

I've been catching up a little bit on my huge backlog of things to read,people to contact, and all. I still have a long way to go...Maybe I should just try to get every single person I know that I've beenneeding to catch up on things with to come with me on the Guggenheim trip,whenver it'll be. .. Hmm.. that might take a bus. *sigh*

Hmm.. it's strange how sometimes muscle cramps can be pleasant.

o/~ There used to be a road.. there might still be o/~o/~ Wasted all the time.. waiting for noone o/~

And here we are, on foot again, another glen left, another trip acrossnew mountains, the highlands. We can't ever go back, and it hurts tocontinue our trek across eternity. All the people we meet, becomeghosts, whispers, that we take in our heads... Sequel upon sequel,spin-off upon spin-off.. Never another actual episode.. Just at most acameo.. What a time it was, the original episodes.. a time when we didn'tactually even look back much to the predecessors.

A line next to the wall, parallel, a divergence like veins on an oldhand. Shrunken skin, an early optimization, efficiency, becomes a cripplingpull. I am forced to stand still long enough for the lobster to take a swing.Extra thoughts, words flow from mind to hand, the message needing buta few occasional glances to maintain integrity. Wind blows in a place that wecannot hear, a shaking earth, unknown caves collapse.

Waiting at home for my laptop to charge back up before I head out for therest of the evening (likely Coffee Tree). Today was an *ahem* interestingday. Did more cleaning, then went down to the Waterfront for the firsttime in awhile. On the way, I stopped by a Penzoil to have all the fluidschanged (it really was an unplanned stop -- I was at a red light, the storewas there, and I was advised to stop there byb my parents last time I washome...). Apparently, all the fluids were low, dirty, and all that fun stuff,so I just had them take care of everything.. It was like $60, but it's worththe peace of mind. They thought the oil and the antifreeze were leakingtogether, and I was getting even more angry at my car (which I loathe, butneed), but then I remembered that about a month ago, I poured some of thefluids into the wrong places before a trip, and that explains it. So, notso bad... I was hoping to get some homework and stuff done at the bookstore,but people were using the plug seats, and I didn't want to get startedbecause I can't really focus if I'm worried about the battery going out.I got some philosophy magazines and the latest Michael Moore book(topic is liberal comedy), sat outside by the river for awhile,and came back here. By the river though, I .. had an interesting experience.

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Anyhow, I'm beginning to put together plans to take a trip to the Guggenheimin New York within the next month or two. Halloween is coming up, and I wantto go to the fest in AthensOhio for that, but some other weekend would work..I just need to find suitable company. I'll probably post something to theZets mailing list, along with PUSH and SFF.. Maybe we'll all stay at theAladdin (which, if Dave's memory serves, is the bizarre hotel Dave, Martha,Aug, and I stayed at on that New York trip 4 (5?) years ago). Of course,we'll see more than the Guggenheim, whoever we is, but I'm mainly thinkingof this as a trip to see museums (might also be fun to see some theatre ormusic).

Oh, here's a funny comic.and another..

A vision -- water pouring from above,slowly filling a goblet... andthen to full, and past. The water flows up, over, and down the exteriorsurface

National Geographic had an advertisement that I found a little bitironic.. October 2003 version, near the front. It has a picture of abeautiful landscape, with the caption (snipped down a bit, emphasis mine): Race back to the Ice Age with a journey to the South Island's Southern Alps region. From the incredible Passchendaele Icefall to the gleaming expanse of the Bonar Glacier, you'll get the opportunity to experience a landscape that has barely been altered since time began. Explore this ancient land in modern comfort by helicopter, 4-wheel drive, or mountain bike. newzealand.com

I'm sure you understand the sad humour in this.Oh, yeah, a libertarian blowhard, who fully admits that he doesn't understandtechnology, still feels the need to post his ignorant rant on the anti-smam legislation.I like how he suggests that there's no way for the law to distinguishmail between people who obviously know each other, and actual spam. He alsosuggests that the actual spammers will be impossible to catch. Well, see,there's this thing called a money trail. The spammers arn't their thingbecause they happen to like the product -- somewhere they're getting paid,perhaps through many steps, by the company or the distributor. Besides,the internet isn't *that* anonymous anyhow, especially to geeks like me,who have a lot of motivation to hit spammers and other abusers of the internetwhere it hurts. Finally, his idea about hiding email addresses from harvestersis simply the wrong way to do things, it doesn't work anyhow. Anyhow, spammers,here you go. His email, which he's cleverly hidden in a graphic that noOCR software could possibly decypher, is ari@co-freedom.com.

Oddly, I got an unusual request from someone recently regarding their webpage.As you probably know, I have a (now somewhat outdated) OS page, with pictures,and all that. I sometimes get emails from OS vendors asking me to add them.I usually do. This time, I got an email requesting that I add a food servicescompany on there. I don't understand this *AT ALL*. Do they really expect mypage to read "OS/2 blah blah Windows NT blah blah Oh, and by the way, here'swhere you can order food for your party blah blah Dynix blah blah" .. Weird.

Oh, check out the 2003 ignobel prize winners. Fun stuff.

I've come to a decision on the Verisign sitefinder thing. I don't have anyproblem with contributing to the distributed attack on it, or at least havesufficiently little doubt that I think it's worthwhile. The IP is 64.94.110.11Have fun pinging them. They're currently being sued by several groups, andit looks like there's another lawsuit due, this one with teeth, from ICANN.It's time for Verisign to be taken down, one way and/or another.

Oh, a funny quote on the matter: "If Hitler invaded hell, I wouldmake at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons" -- Winston Churchill

I recently have started going through old music, changing the mix thatI normally keep on my laptop. I swapped back in some Jarmiroquai, anotherRed Army Choir CD that I had lost, and some Yo-Yo Ma from another CDI thought lost. Right now, I'm listening to yet another CD, specifically, Bach'sDouble Violin Concerto. When listening to it, I feel a strange .. I don't knowwhat... the song used to be very meaningful to me, and I was kind of obsessedwith it.. I still have a little of that in me, I guess. It's hard to describethe feelings when I close my eyes for a moment, listening to it.

I still haven't decided if I'll be visiting Columbus this weekend or not..it turns out that a number of my friends who I would visit while there arebusy or out of town.. I'm not certain if that's a bad thing though -- thismight be a trip I'd rather make alone.. maybe I'll even stay in a hotel,like
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.

Sometime soon I want to make a trip to New York again soon to see the museumsand stuff again.. problem is, that is something I'd rather not do alone.I wonder if it's a pattern that I want to look to the past alone, and thefuture with people.

Here's a condensed story line from a comic..ichi nisan

I'm planning to move my netjournal entries over to the database thisweekend. It's good enough, it'll take less time to update, and I .. justwant to do it. :)

So, what to do with today? I got some extra sleep last night, after havingslept too little for the last while. I guess I'll go take a walk in thepark. Maybe I'll check out Sree's restaurant in Sharpsburg for dinner today.The only downside is that it's only open for four hours, so I can't makeit an early dinner. Oh well.

When I get back, I'll probably work on my website for awhile, do thejournal move, and maybe work on some of the open source projects I contributeto for awhile.

Oh, Israel, in negotiation with the PA, is considering releasing a lot ofPalestinian prisoners, as demanded. For everyone involved, I hope they'rebeing selective, and won't release people who're "kill-all-Israelis" types.

Bush Humour

Some amusements:Real LifeLarry's SpeechReview of NeXTStep

Well, back to struggling with libtool and friends :)

I love singing. People need to sing more -- it really is a great way to get rid of stress, repressions, and all sorts of other stuff. From russian choral music to musicals, I'm singing along. Fun. And now, some amusements...

• International Diplomacy
• A kinda creepy comic

Just got back from programming at Vic's. In a very good mood. Programming and philosophy both make me feel great.

Have been thinking about death. A dissenting, but interesting thought. "Death is not to be feared. You are, after all, a collection of seperate wills, in essense. Will your death kill those wills in all of humanity? Perhaps the combination that forms your incarnation, but not the wills themself. Only with the end of sentience would your essense be truly snuffed."

I went to Meijer today -- James took his space heater (which I was borrowing) back, so I went there and got a new one that's nicer. This one has a temperature control. Spiffy.

Hmm.. I'm still excited about the program I wrote -- it's part of my MoLD project, and it's a creature editor. It's finally fully functional, and programmed for multiple .. ehh.. silly joke. Anyhoo, yeah, I can finally start creating the data content for MoLD. Perhaps next I'll make a map editor. The real thing is, well, my creative moods range widely. Philosophy fits a certain kind of mood, and programming fits another kind of mood. Creating data content for my MoLD project fits yet another mood, so I've found/opened a new outlet for my creativity. Huzzah. It'd be almost like if I met someone and fell in love, I'd have a new outlet for all the love I have that now just kind of trickles to Wally and my Iggies. Hehe. Now I *KNOW* I'm in a good mood -- it didn't get me all depressed to think about that. Hell, I can even say Martha, and not be depressed right now. MarthaMarthaMarthaMartha! Hehe.. this is so rare. I almost am tempted to call her and chat, but at that thought I do feel a remote rumbling in my mind, and must stop lest the beautiful raining stormclouds part and the garish sun boil my mental face. And I do still feel a bit of the me that loves here. But it's not getting me down right now. Woot! Huzzah! Programming!

Perhaps part of it is that finally, with this heat thingy, my room is as warm as I want (well, almost) for the first time that I've been here. That's all. I'm either going to start creating creatures for MoLD, or read, or perhaps go upstairs and make myself a snack. I had some really delicious italian ricy stuff with broccoli in it today -- cooked it with my ricemaker, got it at Meijer a bit ago. I *MUST* remember to get more of it the next time I'm low on ricy stuff. Also, I'm rediscovering oatmeal. Peach flavor. I'm in food and warmth and creativity heaven.

I do worry for a sec -- I shouldn't be this happy. It'll make my normal numbness harder to be achieved. Yet, I can't seem to help being happy. MoLD_Progress + Heat + DrF_Feeling_Better + Yummy_Food = Happy_Improv

Tschau