The first step

I've been cutting down on caffeine. A cup at work, then water for the rest of the day.

Maybe two cups. But a lot of water.

At home we've long since switched to decaf. But .. no problem! I've got a tin of instant. It ran out. I didn't get any at the store today because .. well .. I am trying to cut down.

This evening a massive withdrawal headache ambushed [1] me and wrapped my head in a dull cloud of pain.

Me: I'm .. uh .. going down to the gas station to get some coffee.
Her: ?
Me: Well, we're out of the leaded instant stuff and I've got a headache.
Her: What you need is some Tylenol ...
Me: (snarling) What I need is some coffee.

Woah.

The first step is admitting you have a problem. Granted this isn't heroin or booze or snorting dandelions but .. still. I'd be happier not having a headache when I go without.

So .. decaf for me. If you see me with a cup of leaded from here on in, hit me on the head.

Thanks!

[1] In 'A Rumor of War', Philip Caputo related that at OCS one of their tactical instructors yelled at them 'Ambush is murder and murder is fun'.

I don't know about the murder part but I did participate in a training exercise where we executed a hasty near ambush on the Blue team. The look of surprise on their faces was very satisfying. I hasten to add it's not because we were so good but more that we were motivated and they were trudging along wishing they were somewhere else.

Dumb Radicals

What are they teaching young people in school these days?

Assitant Police Chief Bostrom has talked about the St. Paul Standard, and on the anniversary of last years’ critical mass police riot, we saw its true face. The ramsey county sheriff’s dept and the SPPD raided the RNC convergence space and detained over 50 people in an attempt to preempt planned protests of the rnc on Monday.

If you want to be taken seriously you should

• Remember Mrs. Robinson's advice: Spelling Counts. [1]
  
• Employ encryption.

The former makes the adults in the room take you seriously. The latter keeps John Law in dark about what you're up to, so you don't get raided before you can do your thing.

How to encrypt your email.

Encrypt your Gmail.

GNU Privacy Guard.

htpasswd.


[1] Esther Robinson, 8th grade Civics teacher in 1980-'81, Jenks, Oklahoma.

Palin and the Vikings

And I don't mean the Minnesota Vikings, neither.

Not everyone is pleased with Sarah Palin

A former McCain supporter steps forward to voice his displeasure with the pick of Sarah Palin for Vice President ..

Sarah Palin Facts - this thing might be getting out of hand

Sarah Palin Facts - Little Known Facts About the Alaska Governor.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin will send Biden a pre-debate cheat
sheet. The sheet will have tips on defending against Kung Fu Death Grip.

Little known fact: Sarah Palin is on loan from the Justice League.

Little known fact: NFL teams may draft Sarah Palin, if they forfeit all their other players forever, to maintain league parity.

Little known fact: Sarah Palin would have just had an Eagle drop the Ring into Mount Doom.

I say 'might' be getting out of hand. So far we're skating right up to the edge of 'good hearted joshing', but not over into 'unhinged hero-worship'.

Ugly Stick

Jesus Hector and His Disciples in a Sidecar ...



Who went and hit Ubuntu (8.04) with the Ugly Stick?

The default background looks like someone tossed a hand grenade into a bird nest.

Discretion

"Why do the Vickys have such a big clave?" Nell asked.

"Don't ever call them Vickys," Rita said.

"Why?"

"It's a word that people who don't like them use to describe them in kind of a bad, unfriendly way," Rita said.

"Like a pejorative term?" Nell said.

Rita laughed, more nervous than amused. "Exactly."

"Why do the Atlantans have such a big clave?"

"Well, each phyle has a different way, and some ways are better suited to making money than others, so some have a lot of territory and others don't."

"What do you mean, a different way?"

"To make money you have to work hard-to live your life in a certain way. The Atlantans all live that way, it's part of their culture. The Nipponese too. So the Nipponese and the Atlantans have as much money as all the other phyles put together."

"Why aren't you an Atlantan?"

"Because I don't want to live that way. All the people in Dovetail like to make beautiful things. To us, the things that the Atlantans do– dressing up in these kinds of clothes, spending years and years in school-are irrelevant. Those pursuits wouldn't help us make beautiful things, you see. I'd rather just wear my blue jeans and make paper."

"But the M.C. can make paper," Nell said.

"Not the kind that the Atlantans like."

"But you make money from your paper only because the Atlantans make money from working hard," Nell said.

Rita's face turned red and she said nothing for a little while. Then, in a tight voice, she said, "Nell, you should ask your book the meaning of the word discretion."

- The Diamond Age
Neal Stephenson

Readers who are interested the fine details of what Nell and Rita are talking about in 'The Diamond Age' are directed to the book's wiki page.

Briefly ...

The book takes place after the State has been rendered unworkable. Hooray, anarchy! Except that people still need - or at least desire - organization. Thus, people have chosen to divide themselves into Tribes or Phyles. If you're not in a tribe, you're a thete and the lowest of the low.

Vickys' are Neo-Victorians or Atlantans. Neo-Victorians are a tribe that has rejected the cultural excess of the late 20th early 21st century and turned to a polite and well-disciplined culture, based loosly on the Victorian era. When you have a well-disciplined culture that takes learning, morals and manners seriously, you get a lot done. Thus Atlantans and the Nipponese have a lot of the wealth in that world. Plus they dress really well.

Also, at least partly because of cultural repression, Neo Victorians make excellent warriors.

A clave is where people of a particular tribe live.

An M.C. is a nanotube matter compiler.

Diss

Senator McCain: 'Congratulations on your nomination. Job well done.'

Senator Obama: It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

Funny how a fellow congratulating an opponent on a job well done plays well when the congratulatee is busy rhetorically dissing him.

Madame Vice President

Hmm.

I'm not as clever, but I decided to use Google to see who popped up the most. I figure a Wisdom of Crowds approach might provide some clues. I found currently these numbers:

"John McCain" Romney - 4.3 Million web hits, 12,100 News hits, 101,000 Image hits, and 198,000 Blog hits.
"John McCain" Huckabee - 3.2 Million web hits, 1,157 News hits, 79,000 Image hits, and 127,000 Blog hits.
"John McCain" Thompson - 2.5 Million web hits, 1,500 News hits, 82,000 Image hits, and 76,000 Blog hits.
"John McCain" Giuliani - 2.8 Million web hits, 3,300 News hits, 74,000 Image hits, and 124,000 Blog hits.
"John McCain" Lieberman - 1.8 Million web hits, 8,300 News hits, 41,000 Image hits, and 43,000 Blog hits.
"John McCain" Hutchison - 0.5 Million web hits, 490 News hits, 17,000 Image hits, and 4,400 Blog hits.
"John McCain" Pawlenty - 0.4 Million web hits, 10,100 News hits, 11,000 Image hits, and 3,400 Blog hits.

Playing along we have ...

"John McCain" Rice - 3.2 million web hits, 5,430 News Hits, 202,000 Image hits, 33,213 Blog hits.
"john McCain" Powell - 1.6 million web hits, 758 News Hits, 90,400 Image hits, 15,592 Blog hits.

By this measure Ms. Rice is as likely a candidate as Mr. Huckabee, Colin Powell comes in ahead of some other contenders.



Madame Vice President. Has a bit o' a ring to it.

The CycloCrane - Invention, A Dangerous Guest

Ladies, and Gentlemen - the CycloCrane.




The Problem: bulldozers tear up the ground scratching out roads to the logging site. Helicopters can lift the logs out so you don't irritate the local Greens - but rotary-winged aircraft are expensive to operate.

The Solution: A lighter than air craft that rotates the bag for control and lift. The intention was that the operator sit in a cab suspended by cables underneath the bag.

It's a solution for more than just logging. Helicopters aren't just expensive - they're loud. And they have a lousy failure mode. [1] CycloCrane was meant to pick up as much as 35 tons at a time. There should be a lot of business for a machine like that, as anyone stuck on a two-lane road behind half a double-wide can appreciate.





An innovative idea. Too much so. They ran out of funds, the 80s kicked in and fuel prices went down. Aerolift tried to interest the government. The government expressed cautious interest. Then the Cold War ended.





Invention, A Dangerous Guest

For technology to flourish, someone has to take a chance. In the end, the CycloCrane company did fail. That old blimp hangar is now an airship museum. The CycloCrane forms one of its many exhibits. It floats there as a permanent reminder of the almost quality of so much wonderfully inventive technology.

But should it also be a grim warning to us? Don't gamble on five-legged horses? I obviously don't think so. So I begin with the first issue that comes at me out of that Tillamook blimp hanger. It is, "Why do the reckless survive?" Reckless people expose themselves to more danger. Surely that threatens their Darwinian survival. You'd expect each generation to be more careful than the last. But recklessness does survive -- generation after generation.

The hunter who won't face a buffalo starves. The parent who won't risk her life to save her child faces Darwinian extinction. Writer Melvin Konner asks us to look more closely at risk-takers. He explains that psychologists identify four faces of that person:

Click to read more.


[1] If stuff stops working generally what happens is you crash really fast into stuff. If that stuff is water it's worse - the first thing machine does is flip over. Then it sinks. This all happens very quickly.

Abuse

Speaking of attacking itty-bitty women - I'm listening [1] to 'The Diamond Age' by Neal Stephenson.

I don't think it's spoiling anything if I write that the chapters describing Nell's early life as a mistreated young girl are just about the saddest thing I have read in a long, long time.

[1] I've read it before - but listening to it does put some interesting emphasis on parts of it.

Fat tub of lard attacks small woman - film at ten

Big fat white guy attacks an itty-bitty woman on the streets of Denver.

Asshat.

No, really. What happened to politeness and gentility? Gee-zus.

Statistics - food prices and infant mortality

Infant Mortality: Measurements Not Consistent

In international comparisons of infant mortality, the U.S. usually ranks behind most other countries, many of whom have socialized medicine (see chart above, click to enlarge). But do countries around the world measure infant mortality consisently and uniformly? Apparently not, see explanation below from a doctor:

The main factors affecting early infant survival are birth weight and prematurity. The way that these factors are reported — and how such babies are treated statistically — tells a different story than what the numbers reveal.

Low birth weight infants are not counted against the “live birth” statistics for many countries reporting low infant mortality rates.

According to the way statistics are calculated in Canada, Germany, and Austria, a premature baby weighing less than 500 kg is not considered a living child.

But in the U.S., such very low birth weight babies are considered live births. The mortality rate of such babies — considered “unsalvageable” outside of the U.S. and therefore never alive — is extraordinarily high; up to 869 per 1,000 in the first month of life alone. This skews U.S. infant mortality statistics.

Over 100 Years, Food Prices Have FALLEN By 82%

The chart above (at the link) shows the real, inflation-adjusted prices of eggs (in 2008 dollars), annually back to 1890. The price we're paying today for eggs (in real dollars) is about 1/7 of the price 100 years ago, a decline of 85% compared to the price our grandparents, great-grandparents or great-great grandparents paid in the early 1900s.

The Truth About Russia in Georgia

Everything you know about the Soviet - Georgia War of 2008 (might) be wrong.

Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

See also Americans play Monopoly, Russians chess.

The Raven - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge, ''The Raven''

Underneath an old oak tree
There was of swine a huge company
That grunted as they crunched the mast
For that was ripe, and fell full fast.
Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high:
One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.

Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly
He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest jet,
Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet
He picked up the acorn and buried it straight
By the side of a river both deep and great.

Where then did the Raven go?
He went high and low
Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.
Many Autumns, many Springs
Traveled he with wandering wings:
Many summers, many Winters
I can't tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a She
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had, and were happy enow.

But soon came a Woodman in leathern guise,
His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes.
He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke,
But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,
At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak.
His young ones were killed; for they could not depart,
And their mother did die of a broken heart.

The boughs from the trunk the Woodman did sever;
And they floated it down on the course of the river.
They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip,
And with this tree and others they made a good ship.

The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land
Such a storm there did rise as no ship would withstand.
It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast;
Round and round flew the Raven, and cawed to the blast.
He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls--
See! see! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls!

Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet,
And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet,
And he thank'd him again and again for this treat:
They had taken his all; and REVENGE IT WAS SWEET!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Pasty

Rock a little faster in my chair

Travis questioned the economics of podcasts.

I commented

I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts. When I’m in front of a computer working, I don’t need the distraction.

When I’m in front of a computer playing a longish podcast I’ve gotta spend the entire time listening. If I listen in chunks I loose interest.

To which ngvrnd replied

pod- and vod- casts convey lots of out-of-band signals, often of interest to those who don’t suffer from autism-spectrum conditions.

Zing! Well played, Sir.

Ruby as a sysadmin tool: SFTP

My mission tonight - make Ruby SFTP file transfer work.[1]


#!/opt/local/bin/ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'net/sftp'

Net::SFTP.start('hostname.com', 'userid', :password => 'deprecated') do |sftp|
sftp.upload!("/local/directory/output", "/remote/directory/")
end


52 kb of data - copied like that (snap): admirably fast.  Some minor problems to work out.

• Authentication bits in plain text make me itch.  I need to encrypt those values.  This should not be a problem in 2008.  This is not a show stopper on my local disk [2] but it needs to happen for a server.
  
• Error detection.
• The sample above fails if the remote directory exists.

[1] For not good reason except that it's fun .. and I think that Ruby should make an adequate system administration tool. Stuff like this is important if you're going to use it that way.
[2] It should be a problem. Unencrypted anything in 2008 is ungood.

I got this medal for working the Midnight Mall Madness Sale

Dress greens out, dress blues in for Army




Excuse me - which way to the food court?


Via.
Graphic Via.

Acme SAC

Acme SAC. A programmer's editor, shell and user interface expressly designed to make you feel less intelligent than you thought you were.




I skimmed Acme: A User Interface for Programers. Unix terminal windows are really teletypes and are an archaic way of talking to a computer - no argument there. Gotta be a better way - preach it! Basic concepts, explanations, check.





I fire it up at work. Hmm - it needs a proxy to communicate outside the corporate firewall - half the demos and 'isn't this nifty' stuff in the readme are elsewhere! And where do I set a proxy up at? Okay, wait till I get home, then. It comes with a shell - awesome. Or not so much - the shell seems to live in it's own weird little world and I can't get to my files to see them. No wonder when I open a new window with a valid path it tells me I'm full of poo. And so on.

And the point of an editor, shell and so on that won't let me at the files I already have are what?

I can't tell if what I'm looking at is a learning curve that looks like a sheer wall ninety miles high or some kind of practical joke played on an unsuspecting world by minanthropic computer nerds from AT&T.





A long, long time ago I joined the Marines. I was introduced to what was then the brand new M16A2. Guys in the fleet were running around with clapped out 'A1s and we got weapons right .. out .. of .. the box.

The training material was geared to teaching guys who had been shooting the 'A1 about the new and improved A2. Half the introductory material was going on about the differences. They were selling the weapon.


If it's Mattel, it's swell.


I didn't need to be sold. I didn't care that a weapon I'd only seen on TV had feature X and was replaced by feature Y and why it was so much better. Just teach me how to shoot the weapon I've got, and stop wasting my time with bullshit.



A better rifle. And a better looking rifle.

As the M16A2 training material, so Acme SAC.

What I need are not reams of theory and endless mailing lists of smug hyper-smart computer guys running vast arrays of Plan 9 and Inferno networks giving me a long back story on why this is the greatest thing since sliced cheese. I don't want to learn how to tear the motor apart - maybe later, but not now.

Now, I want to get in and drive. How to find the friggin' files I was working on pre Acme SAC. How do I get it to talk through a proxy. Can I use it to SSH to another system - 'cause I think that would be pretty nity. Can it be a better editor than TextMate?

Just a tutorial that is designed with your average ordinary guy, is all I'm looking for.




Please?