Misc. Ramblings

Okay. So just because everyone in the known world seems to be doing one is not a good reason to start my own day-notes type diary. But then, WTF not?

Consequently, this will be an ongoing experiment. I may like doing this or just chuck it and do something more interesting with my (and your) time.

I don't pretend to be a professional writer. As such, expect to see all kinds of grammatical errors. If you let me know what they are, I will gladly throw your email into the circular file.

Everything set forth herein are my own Miscellaneous Ramblings (R&T or Car and Driver, I can never remember which).

And so, on with it then.

My wife and I (She Who Can Not Be Disobeyed - henceforth known as SWCNBD) returned from our two-week vacation in San Francisco and Las Vegas last week. The weather in EssEff was anything but an Indian Summer. Day temps. in the mid 60s. Mostly clear in the city but sometimes light fog.

Stayed at the SF Hilton. Passable as a seminar barn ("Now you too can make big bucks by over charging companies like Sun to come to motivational meetings 99!"). But the darned noisy, vibrating A/C in the room would obviate the need for magic fingers in the bed if it were not for the fact that your back was sore due to sleeping on a lumpy mattress. Then there was the slight problem that the room was just down from the elevators...

We had dinner atop the main tower in a restaurant called CityScapes or some such. 46 floors above this city by the bay ("Live Nude Girls!"). Other than the fact that all of the food was sauted in wine (is there a winery near SF or something?) it was a pretty good place to eat. And the view wasn't bad either (did I mention "Live Nude Girls" already?).

Oh, I almost forgot. We flew United Airlines on all legs of our trip - HNL to SFO to LAS to LAX back to HNL (see here for those not in the know). And therein lies a story best told by others. Suffice it to say that United deserves everything that is signified by it's ranking (number 5 out of the worst 10) on the U.S. Dept. of Transportation Consumer Complaints listing. Hawaiian Airlines here we come.

Vegas was less than overwhelming. I had not been there in over 10 years and I guess the reality is much less than the hype. Yes, the Venetian, Bellagio, and Paris hotels show you where every one of the billions of dollars were spent in their construction. But still, it's Vegas. A one or two mile strip of sun baked dust in the middle of a desert. Here it is October and the temperatures were still in the mid-90s.

By the way. We stayed at the Luxor hotel. The East Wing. You know, take the underground service tunnel heading in a northerly direction to the hotel tower that looks like any other tinted glass building in Anytown, USA. I guess the rooms in the pyramid are for "high rollers" only. The rest of us hovel in rooms with a view of the next hotel down the road. Actually, all was not bad, the bathroom was very spacious. It had a separate shower big enough for two large sized Hawaiians (or five regular sized Egyptians). The tub, while large, loses marks for not having the equivalent of magic fingers. And polished brass everywhere...But the towels were thread-worn and had holes in them!

I was glad to get back home. Even if its now raining something awful (damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!)...

More when I feel like saying more...

I haven't checked yet, but I doubt that anyone has hit this page yet. And that is probably just as well as I get used to doing this and try to find what is sometimes referred to as a "voice." So far, of the people I read often, Brian comes closest to what I would want this place to be. So, if this looks reeeealy like one of Brian's pages, it's because it is! Thanks Brian. Hope it's OK with you.

On the other hand, I find that Bob's place becomes a bit too polemic for me. Talk about theological discussions. On the other hand, he has great experience in computers and therefore is definetly worth a look see. But you have been warned. [OK. I was wrong. He doesn't usually argue just to argue (usually). But sometimes he does. So be prepared. And I'll say it again, I was wrong - updated 12/20/99].

Of course, my hero is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. Chaos Manor indeed. He does all these strange and wonderful things so we won't have to. Recommended.

And then there is Dr. Keyboard. How does one describe the smell of freshly baked bread? Or the sound of paws impatiently scraping the door in the hopes of a walk through the vines? His diary is what writing is all about. Check it out not only for his knowledge of computers, but also of wine, automobiles, and food (not necessarily in that order).

Vacation Part II. While in SF, we visited the Exploratorium (is that how it's spelled?). I had been there once before at least 10 years ago when visiting a cousin of mine who works for, as the Register calls it, Chipzilla (aka Intel). I was not impressed with it (the Exploratorium, not Intel) then, and I'm not much impressed with it now. Maybe you have to be about 10 years old to appreciate what they have. But I think they need to update some of their exhibits and make sure all of the ones they have on display are working (many had signs saying they were in need of repairs). If you are ever in SF, and you have children, by all means go.

Otherwise, perhaps a trip to the SF Museum of Modern Art would be in order. I think the first Tuesday of each month is when they let everyone in for free and by chance, that was the day we visited. Its multi-leveled and full of the regular, and some not so regular artists that one expects to see in a museum of this size. The main exhibit while we were there was photographs from the NASA Apollo missions to the moon. Terrific stuff that. Makes you wonder why we haven't gone back to the moon since.

The bus can take you to most places in SF and I encourage you to use it. They have day passes that you can use to take any bus anywhere all day. Otherwise parking is expensive when you can find it. Recommended. 'nuf for now.

It's Aloha Friday and the weather is clearing. The roof of our garage, which also acts as a second floor deck, has been leaking for the last six months. I almost got up enough energy, not to mention money, to buy enough roofing sealers and deck top-coats to re-do the roof after getting back from vacation. I say almost because sanity prevailed and I figured the rain would stop. And sure 'nuf, it did!

Vacation Part III This is starting to look like a Bruce Willis series, "Vacation Part XVII, the Vengeance Returns!" See Bruce and his trusty aide Will Smith, kick the butts of Asians/Latinos/Germans/midgets who are bent on stealing all of the money held in the casinos. But I digress. The Las Vegas Hilton has an attraction called "Star Trek, The Experience." As far as I can see, its one of those flight simulators in which you don't actually go anywhere, but due to visual and other special effects, you think you are flying though space. On the advice of the cab driver that took us over there, I decided not to go on the ride but to only check out the "Star Trek, The Experience Shops." There you can purchase everything from communicators to leather jackets with the United Federation of Planets logos on them (I lusted after one of those but $270US was a bit much). I did get a polo shirt, three baseball caps, a key chain, and pin. All for the low, low price of $75US. Such a bargain.

Rumors of a shipping strike continue to circulate here. Voting by longshoremen (as opposed to shortshorewomen?) ends today. So at any point thereafter there could be a shortage of just about everything. There are disadvantages of living on an island two thousand miles from any large land mass. Namely, everything from toilet paper to building materials comes by ship. And since only union members can unload those ships, when they stop work, everyone else eventually stops working.

On the other hand, Hawaii was the first state to have a TV station broadcasting a digital signal. Part of this signal will soon be broadcasting directly to your PC. Welcome to the information age.

More on Monday. Aloha!

Top of the morning to you! Another lost weekend. I went to CompUSA to take a look at a 4X 4X 24X CD-RW drive advertised in the Sunday paper for $129US. Only thing is that by the time I got to the store (around 12:30pm) they were already out of the drive. In fact, the last one was held securely in the arms of a teenager still wearing braces just as I was getting to the empty shelf. Sigh. Well, I guess I'll just have to spend my money in some other meaningful way.

Vacation IV: The Ending OK, so you are probably sick of my ramblings about my vacation. Let it never be said that I don't listen to my tens of readers. End of vacation story.

I need to update some proposed legislation. It will probably be introduced in January when the next session of the Legislature convenes but it needs to be worked on now. It went all the way to conference committee last year but died there. Hence, things may be a bit sparse around these parts this week.

This just in. The shipping strike mentioned last week has been averted by the combined efforts of the longshoremen and the shipping companies (pay raises come easier when profits are up 30% over last year...). So I guess we didn't need those 50 roles of toilet paper after all.

Top of the morning to you! It's Monday. I picked up a Viking USB 56K modem last week to replace a Motorola 28.8 that was being used on Keiki (the PC SWCNBD uses). I think I'm going to like USB. A lot. Disconnect the serial cable for the old modem. Plug in the USB cable for the new. Win98 recognizes that the modem is now connected and asks for the drivers diskette. Pop the diskette in and press enter and Bob's your father's brother. The lights on the modem come on and it's ready to go. Way Cool. BTW, this Viking is the same company that makes memory chips. Recommended.

As soon as I find a good scanner with a USB interface I'll by one (anyone out there with any suggestions?). I don't know if all peripherals will work this well, but so far so good.

No sooner asked than answered! This in from Richard Jobity:

Hi. I got on to your page through a link on http://216.102.91.55/bpages/current.html (BPB Graffiti). Your site makes for great reading, along with the other tech journals, such as Dr. Pournelle's.

I haven't yet heard anyone say bad things about Acer USB scanners. HP, as always, are supposed to be quite reliable. Lot of complaints about Umax, though.
Just my $0.02.

Thanks to Mr. Jobity for the kind words (and to Brian for the mention on his site - hopefully he doesn't regret it!) and information. I've been looking (read that drooling) at HP . But PCMag.net recently did a review of scanners and chose the Visioneer OneTouch 760 and the Epson Perfection 636/636/U. I'll have to check out our local CompUSA and see what they look like. As an aside, it is an honor to be mentioned in the same sentence as Dr. Pournelle. That makes my day!

I figured I might get a response from somebody regarding my misadventures with Linux. And sure 'nuf, this in from my friend Brian. He says:

> So the moral of the story my children is that you can fool some
> of the people all of time, and all of the people some of the time,
> but Linux, as a replacement for Windows, has no clothes.

The faithful would have you drawn and quartered. The pragmatic would say, "OK, then don't use it. Stick with a system subject to viruses and the BSOD and the MS upgrade cycle." The strange (including myself) would stand at the podium at the UN, pounding my shoe on the desk and shouting odd and incoherent things :).

So you purchased and installed Caldera OL2.2, huh? Why back a revision level? The version that has a "good" installation rep is 2.3 (the current rev). I am running RH6.0 (haven't seen a need to upgrade to 6.1), X, KDE, Netscape 4.7, WordPerfect8.0, StarOffice5.1, Apache, Sendmail, etc. On a 233MHz PII, 128K ram, SoundBlaster, Creative Riva TNT 16M, tape backup, cdrom, floppy, 5G HD, of which 2.5 G is in use. It all worked (except for sound) on initial installation. Certainly Linux is not vying for king of the desktop, yet. Yet. But things are improving. I am quite happy with Linux as a desktop environment.

Clearly it is still a YMMV product. But I have not been fooled, and I am happy. --

regards,
Brian Bilbrey

Hey Brian! Lighten up a bit. All I was saying was that Linux, or perhaps more to the point, many applications that run on Linux, put forth as replacements for MS products, are not ready for prime time (not that Win apps are). I think Linux apps will eventually get there. And I hope they get there soon because it's better for everyone when there are two strong applications butting head-to-head. Or as they say; "Competition improves the breed."

But as you noted on your own site, applications such as Netscape lockup on a regular basis under Linux. That's not to say that applications for Windows such as Opera 3.60 (which is the browser I use the most) don't lock up on a regular basis because they do. But again, the point is that applications on Linux do that also. And to the extent that they do, the question becomes why change to something else when you have the same problems?

Is Linux better as a network operating system? I don't know for sure because that's not what I was using it for. People who know more than I on this point say that it is. If so, this is great because it gives competition to Windows NT. But I was looking at it from the standpoint of a desktop OS.

As far as installing 2.2 rather than 2.3. Well, at the time I got it, which is a couple of months ago, that's all there was. I would also note that at the time, it was hailed as the easiest install of all distributions. And after seeing a few other distributions I would agree that it is. Notwithstanding that, KDE, sound support, and kppp did not work out of the box.

Compare this with Win98, which out of the box, had all of those things identified, configured, and running without my having to do anything. Does that make Windows a huge program? Absolutely. Does that mean that Windows is therefore prone to bugs? Absolutely. But the chief alternatives - Linux and MacOS seem to be also.

And while I enjoyed working with Linux as an end in itself, at the end of the day, I still need to get my work done. And frankly, I don't care what operating system I am using to do that (heresy you say!). I just want to get my work done and get out the door at closing time...

So, the bottom line is, if you can get your work done better using Linux than you can using Windows, MacOS, BeOS, etc. then by all means continue to do so! I admire your pioneer attitude and your willingness to take on new challenges. As for me, I hate to have to learn a new operating system only to have similar problems to what I had before (sigh).

Thanks for your views and thanks for taking the time to check out my site. Aloha!

And now Tom weighs in with additional information and views about Linux (does it seem like I'm being daynotes ganged-up on? (grin)). First my email to him and then his response:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Seto
Sent: Monday, November 01, 1999 4:31 PM
To: Tom
Subject: Linux and other Sharp Objects

Hey Tom!

I don't get a chance to check out all of the daynote pages so I'm sorry I didn't read your comments on my experiences with Linux until Brian emailed me about it. First, thanks for taking a look at my site. Someday, maybe I will attain the status of the august group known as daynoters. But for now, I just do the best that I can with the time that I have - shuffle shuffle (since I actually have a day job that pays the bills - well, mostly. Bills seem to breed at night faster than I can work...sigh).

And before I start, may I also offer my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Indy car driver Greg Moore. I watched with horror the replays of his shunt. One only hopes that an in-depth finite analysis of the crash will be done and perhaps, changes in the roll cage or other areas of the chassis can be made so that this does not occur again.

With that, I've sharpened my number two pencil and note the following: Linux 2.3 shipped on 9/13/99. I will plead guilty that I was and am not using the latest distribution. But I figured since I've been using 2.2 since at least June of this year (and perhaps earlier, the mind goes as one ages) I should report on that rather than something that just came out. Especially since during the intervening time, I downloaded and installed almost all of the approximately 39 bug fixes and security patches on the Caldera site which gets me at least 90% of the way to 2.3. But you are right, I did not use 2.3 and it could well fix all of the problems noted by me. The reason I haven't "upgraded" (in quotes because there isn't such a thing is there in Caldera Linux? You upgrade by copying your configuration files to another location and then delete everything - or at least that's what Caldera said to do...) is that 2.4 is rumored to be much better and here Real Soon Now. And since I didn't want to get locked in to an endless round of updates, each of which would require more downloading of fixes, I decided to pass on this one.

PR hype aside? Hmmm. I hope you are right when you say that the core Linux community views Linux as an alternative to Windows rather than a replacement. Given the flames coming my way, I'm not so sure that statement is accurate, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt (grin). OK, so if it is an alternative (which obviously it is), how good of an alternative is it? In my experience, not very. At least not yet. As I mentioned to Brian, I sincerely hope that it gets there, and soon. MS, and everyone who uses their products, needs the benefits that can accrue when there is true head-to-head competition. But it would have been a disservice to the tens of readers (you know who you are) of my site to say that StarOffice or WordPerfect 8 for Linux were ready for prime time when clearly they are not.

Finally, someone much wiser than I once said that users don't buy operating systems, they buy applications. In other words, they buy programs that will help them do their memos, spreadsheets, or business presentations. Most people don't give a rodent's derriere (forgive my French) about what OS is best. Just what helps them do their job. And that's all I've been trying to do since the first time I logged into a DEC PDP-11/45 in 1978 to use RunOff so I could write my terms papers...

Thanks again for the mention on your page and keep up the good work!

Greetings Dan, and thanks for the note.

On Greg Moore: I'm not sure the design of modern racing machines can be advanced much more safety wise than they already are. Roll cages are custom tailored to the individual driver, made of titanium, and assembled by the very best in the industry to incredibly exacting specifications and an amazing array of tests. On impact, the cage is designed to separate from the car itself and propel the driver away from the debris of an accident. A CART race has a team of some of the most highly trained physicians in the country seconds away and a helicopter on standby throughout the duration of a race. None of this, however, helped Greg one nit. Driving into a concrete barrier at 350 KM/HR is rarely survivable. Why the barrier was not protected by tires or another shock absorbing device remains to be seen and answered for.

And yes, I know all about bills too. They mutate in the night. I hate it when they do that, but rest assured, Saskatchewan is no different than Hawaii.

Sorry, my friend... I was looking for a topic of discussion and you just happened to be handy on Sunday (g).

Linux 2.3 is a vast improvement over 2.2 when it comes to installation and configuration. So is RH 6.1 compared to 6.0. I wasn't really trying to make excuses for Linux; merely to point out some of the cautions and caveats involved when one elects to go experimenting. Whether kernel 2.4 is "better" or not remains to be seen. Expect it before year's end.

mmm. Core Linux Community. Maybe I overstated my case. The core Linux community tends to be a bit overzealous about their passions. Let me rephrase that: Many of the people I work and communicate with every day who have deep roots in the MS way of thinking and wait eagerly for the day when a true replacement for Windows is here and we once again have a choice. Mmmm. Now I remember why I just said Core Linux Community. It was simpler.

And you are absolutely correct when you mention that people use applications, not operating systems. As a writer I sometime get lost in the underlying structures and loose sight of land. On the other hand, the stability (or lack thereof) of an operating system directly impacts my experience of the applications I'm using. And in the case of Windows 2000, the line between applications and operating system is no longer clear and concise. Which is one reason I have an avid interest in working more with Linux -- the barrier here is still sharp and focused. Which is one of the primary reasons why Linux remains the stable platform it is.

Finally, you are quit right -- WordPerfect for Linux and StarOffice for Linux are NOT ready for prime time. Close, I think, but not there yet. But as I said yesterday, perhaps this is not the best way to use Linux at this stage of it's evolution... And until both the OS and the applications it spawns mature, if you're going to play with Linux, you have to belly up to the bar with a bit of forethought to what you want to drink. How do you get this knowledge? Well, you can spend countless days reading and researching other people's experiences, OR... you can do just what you did -- open the box and find out for yourself. You'll find that most members of the daynotes gang use a mix of both approaches, seasoned to suit individual taste buds.

I could prattle on and on, but I have this screaming baby my wife just thrust in my face, and...

/tom

Quick Notes:
I see that Dr. Pournelle is still working on getting his mailing list sorted out (pun intended). Here's to hoping it works out and he writes a good column about it...

The Jennicam site has some updated photos of their namesake. Be warned that there is some nudity there so don't blame me if you get all bent out of shape (as it were). I can hear the hot headed herds heading her way now...

Other than a couple of charts I need to update, I'm done working on the proposed legislation for next year so I guess I'll see what this week brings.

See you tomorrow!

A bright Hawai'ian morning to you all! It's Tuesday. There's a couple of long discussions about Linux that came in yesterday. They are located above in Monday's notes. If you have the time, check them out.

Of course, a cloud just came over the system and if and when I can get this to the server is in question (sigh). It seems the IT boys are experimenting with adding an Ethernet segment to the WAN. This would be the first such segment since up until lately, this has been a true blue IBM shop. That translates into being a token-ring network topology. Leaving aside debates as to which is the "better" technology, I think its safe to say that the world does seem to be heading in a different direction (read that ethernet). Even IBM seems to have bitten the bullet (just TRY to find a Linux driver for an IBM token ring card).

All during the time I was experimenting with Linux, IBM would refer all inquiries about such a driver to private parties saying that traditionally, in the Linux world, private groups wrote the drivers, not manufacturers. This while IBM flacks were trumpeting to the world that IBM "supported" Linux (big sigh).

A lot of bad things seem to be happening in the world recently. Yesterday was the untimely death of Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton. My condolences to his friends and family. Farewell Sweetness.

On a lighter sports note, the National Basketball Association season begins today with 13 games. Having gone to college in California, I'm always pulling for the Los Angeles Lakers to win another championship. Whether Phil Jackson, formerly of the Chicago Bulls can help them to do that remains to be seen. The glory days of Magic Johnson seem so long ago.

For those who are subscribers to Dr. Jerry Pournelle's site, didn't you think his pictures of his trip to Japan were great? Not in the technical sense, but in giving us a glimpse of what he experienced while there. Worth every penny of the $36US/year to be a subscriber. For those who are not subscribers and have not visited his free site yet, please do so. The more people that go there increases the chances that he will be able to continue to do all those wacky and wonderful things with cutting edge computers and software.

A roller coaster of a morning. But if you are a reader of my page, you heard it here first, seven people killed at 8:08am (HST) in the Xerox building in Honolulu. The gunman was later surrounded by the police several miles from shooting site. ...Very Big Sigh. Welcome to the 20th century.

May they rest in peace. This is indeed a very dark day.

PM Update This very dark day has just gotten darker. We just learned that the husband of one of our employees was one of the seven killed. She is very young and had much to look forward too. While I was merely very sad before, now I am full of sorrow (and anger too).

The events of yesterday are still fresh in the minds of all who work here. And even though I am still sad and angry at the person who did this, I fear that the calls for additional gun control laws will be heard. This, in the state with some of the most onerous (and ludicrous) gun laws in all 50 states. And yet, all the laws man has passed can not stop someone determined to cause harm to others. If it wasn't a gun it would have been a bomb made of diesel oil and fertilizer. Still, it was a very painful and sad day.

Much will be written about this incident. But I will say no more for now other than what an obviously distraught father of the gunman said; "I am gonna bring him another gun so he can shoot himself. I would tell him to shoot himself."

For those who want to read more you can follow this link here. Note that since the link is to the main page, it will probably not be there after today.

On a technical note, I've converted all .gif graphics files on my index page to .jpg, .png, or .mng files. Note that some browsers may not have native support for .png and, as far as I know, absolutely none have support for .mng. So, you will most likely see a lot of empty boxes or broken graphics. If anyone has any better ideas I'm open to suggestions but right now, I can't think of any. Also, if anyone knows of any browser plug-ins that display .mng files that would be of enormous help. Right now, MSIE 5.0 looks like the best browser for viewing my home page (hack, spit, snort) even if it doesn't display .mng files either.

There's a long reply to a short email I sent to Brian yesterday regarding the use of taxes to help those who are less fortunate ("there but for the grace of God..."). Take a few minutes and see what you think (as always, remember the link is correct only for this week). I admire Brian a lot, so pay attention to what he has to say. On the other hand, I respectfully disagree with him.

Below is my email to him. That is followed by my response and then his response back. Interesting stuff, albeit perhaps lengthy. But if anything seems like I'm preaching to anyone, please feel free to checkout the Quick Notes at the bottom of today's diary for other interesting, and less religious things.

Hey Brian!

Just two quick notes. And you don't need to publish this email if you don't want to.

1. The link to Habitat for Humanity came out reading as:

http://216.102.91.55/bpages/www.habitat.org

It should probably be just the www.habitat.org part?

2. Speaking just for myself, and not making any kind of value judgment against anyone, I would just note that I am a Christian. And that Genesis Chapter 4, verse 9 said; "Then the LORD said to Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?' He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" RSV.

While I totally agree with you that we should not be taxed just so that everyone has internet access (which is pure nonsense). I would respectfully disagree with anyone who says that we should not be taxed to feed the starving, or clothe the naked...Because as a Christian, yes, I am my brother's keeper.

In a perfect world, everyone would do what is right on their own and government would not need to get involved (because when it does it screws things up royally). But this is hardly a perfect world...

Aloha

My response was done on this page and then I emailed Brian with a link to it. You can read my response below:

And perhaps this is a good time, to define what I think, a Christian is (exeunt omnes stage left, all those who would be offended). Please note, gentle reader, that many people may call themselves Christians, but just because a pig may call itself United Airlines, doesn't mean he will be making the 7:45 run to Newark anytime soon. Rather, each of us is what we do. Not what we say we do or are.

And in today's time, it always seems to come down to money (I think it was Mr. Gecko that said; "Greed, for want of a better word, is good"). And yet, the more someone loves money, the harder it is to be a Christian (1st Timothy, chapter 6, verse 10: "For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs."-RSV). Note that it says the love of money, not money itself. Money is a piece of paper that two parties agree has some worth to them.

But rather it is the love of money, over anything else, that makes it "...easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Luke 18:25 RSV). Does that mean all Christians must give away all of their money? No, just the ones that love it more than anything else. All God asked of us is to "...render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." (Luke 20:25). So pay your taxes to Caesar, and return a portion of what God has helped you to earn to Him as a tithe. Other than that, you are free to do what you wish with your money.

So, do you need to stand on the street corner preaching the gospel to be a Christian? Hardly. Preaching is a calling that few should attempt. Especially those charlatans on TV whose main function in life is to extract as much money (there's that word again) from you as possible.

Well, what about giving the beggar $5US so they can go and buy more drugs? Absolutely not. That is not taking care of your brother. But paying your taxes so a well run, effective, anti-drug program can help get him on his feet (and reduce the possibility that he will break into your car and steal your cell phone)? Absolutely.

Notice, dear friends (ramp up the sound of the organ here) that you do not need to be a Christian to do these things. Enlightened self-interest should be enough (if the drug addict is "cured", then he probably won't steal from you). But to say I will not pay my taxes become some people will misuse or waste it? No.

The "cure" for that is eternal vigilance of how your money is spent. And that means more that just voting no on everything. That's the easy way out. What it does mean is taking the time to evaluate the programs yourself. And then supporting the ones that work and not supporting the ones that don't.

I see so much hatred in the world. Because someone hated what he was doing he killed seven people. People with wives and children. People who tried to live a good life. And yet one person, filled with hate, ended all that. In the end, the most important lesson of Christianity is that we should love others as much as we love ourselves...

OK. Enough of this stuff. While the title of this diary is Misc. Ramblings, sometimes I think I ramble too far.

Peace and love to you.

Brian came back with the following email:

Dan - A couple of points

1. It is polite to respond directly, and perhaps also publish. If I am in a rush, I am not going to the site, I read my email and move on.

2. I don't see where fundamentally (pun not intended) we actually disagree. But, you do lose me if you quote bible at me. By that, I mean lose me. I don't visit sites that preach, and quoting bible is preaching (by my lights). I don't think you have done any wrong - I just choose not to listen to that mode.

It is your site and you should do what you want - but what you write defines your audience.

Interesting blend, though, references to the Bible, and to Jennicam, all on the same page. Best wishes.

brian.

To which I responded with:

Brian,

1. Thanks for the instructions on netiquette. I thought it was impolite to send huge files back and forth so I figured it would be better to just link to it and give you a heads up that it was there. My error. I will not do it again.

2. I'm sorry you think what I put up is preaching because by your definition, everything that you wrote about Linux is preaching (smile). I am not trying to preach to anyone. I am just trying to express my opinions on the subject. How to do that without quoting the Bible is beyond me. If there is a way to do that, please let me know. It's sort of like trying to explain Zen flower arranging without quoting the Buddha. And I am truly sorry I lost you by quoting the Bible. Some of the wisest sayings in all of history, regardless of your religiosity are there...

3. I agree that what you write defines your audience. What I want is an audience wider than just computer enthusiasts. Not that computer enthusiasts, whether Linux, Unix (which the is the first operating system I used in 1978), etc. aren't interesting people. Put there's more to life than just computers (I will be adding a link to a LA Times article on education and one to Minnesota Governor Ventura's State of the State speech).

Maybe this is just a reaction to what happened in the Xerox building a mile away...It tends to make you think about the big questions in life...sigh

But thanks for your comments. They are appreciated.

Aloha

Quick Notes
Interesting article in the Los Angeles Times regarding what is being described as the most dysfunctional school system in America. No wonder Johnny can't read.

Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's State of the State speech is found here. I urge you to read it for the sense of optimism he portrays because he knows that if people get involved, we will not fail to make things better.

Dan,

Don't worry about using 2.2. I have that same version, for the same reason, I got it when it was hot, and I am struggling with it as well.

When every thing in your box is recognized it is plain sailing. If however the installation stumbles over something you end up in ( endproduct of digestion ). This is no different in Windows, I have at least two boxes here where I cannot get Win9x installed because the installation just crashes (95) or hangs (98).

If you have unsupported hardware Windows is very likely to have a working default for it, for example standard 16 colour VGA. Which works but is not satisfactory and you cannot go in and tweak settings, you have to get the correct driver somehow.

With Linux things are a bit different. Linux itself (the kernel) is almost surely to work but maybe you don't get X windows running using the defaults. This can 'easily' be corrected from a command-line so even if the silly X-manager is too dumb to present some workable default you can pull one yourself. Of course if a stupid installation program insists on starting some X stuff at boot up even when X is not configured you have a problem. Back in (biowaste).

I installed Linux (first 1.3 and later 2.2 from Caldera) on Hinja without problem, well almost. Now with Aria I have a problem. The difference : Hinja has a well known graphic card (Matrox) while Aria has a nameless S3 based cheapskate board.

Don't give up easy is all I can say. And of course don't experiment on a production machine.

Regards,
Svenson

My response back to him is below:

Sjon,

Thanks for the email and stopping by the site. Your email list many good points.

But I haven't given up on Linux. I truly believe that Windows needs competition because it will force both Windows and Linux to improve. I just don't have a machine I can use it on right now. Kane, my production PC is hands off. And even though I talked about installing Win2000 on it on Feb 17, I probably won't actually do that ("Never be the first in something new nor the last in something old...").

Keiki, my wife's (She Who Cannot Be Denied) PC had Linux, but she wanted it back. This after only using it for about six months. Some people just are not grateful for what I do (grin).

And finally, Mo'opuna, is kind of in limbo right now. I could use it I guess as a Linux box, but I think the parts that are in it would probably cause all kinds of problems. So maybe I should buy new parts and build a new one! Yes, that sound like fun. Now if only I can find some money to do that. Any ideas? Other than robbing a bank of course...

But I do plan, when Linux 2.4 with USB (way cool) support comes out I will get a copy and try again. Now if StarOffice or WordPerfect for Linux can get their acts together...

Aloha,

And now back to an earlier topic. John has some thoughts on "helping your fellow man". He writes:

Hi Dan

Use what ever reference material you want to aid in you discussion of your topics of choice. I find it just adds to the character of the page as well as tells me a bit about yourself.

As for the "helping your fellow man" bit I have the following to add. In some other countries the people we are trying to help are in the situation they are because the industrialized nations either took over their countries economy or their government wants to be more powerful in the world so forces the western economic model upon the country ( I realize this does not explain all circumstances, but it sets things up for the point I want to make). This has caused peoples that where once nomads etc. into what is a foreign lifestyle for them. This change in social structure is not easy to take and the social structure they are used to does not mix well with what is being forced upon them. Take for instance a once nomadic people who are forced into farming. As nomads it did not matter where they chose to defecate as they were not in the same place for long. Now they still defecate 20 feet from what once was a camp but is now a permanent home. The water gets fowled, and they do not understand what the big deal is when the aid workers tell them that they must go some distance form their home, dig a hole and only defecate in the hole.

What this all boils down to is that my point is that many peoples will never move beyond their current situation ( which may not be of their choosing ) till they can learn to adapt to the new situation which is very difficult to do. It may not be these people fault the they are in the position they are in, but until they can start to help themselves, all the help we can give them does very little for them. This I realize is very harsh, but it is a part of the reality of the world we live in.

Old world ways rarely work in an modern world, the old must make way for the new. Thus merely feeding the starving is not enough. More weight must be put on helping the people adapt to new ways of life and supporting themselves. I try to support education in all forms, but do not support feeding a starving man without providing a way for him help himself from starving or poisoning his own fresh water supply.

I probably have opened a dozen more points of debate trying to express a point of view.

Now that I think for a moment I believe my point follows in line with the point that you and Brian both made that you do not give $5 to a beggar who says he wants to buy food when you know full well that he will buy booze or drugs. Oh well this has been burning in the back of my mind all day and I had to get it out. If it does if nothing else it shows a view of what is happening in countries other than out own.

Regards
John

To which I replied:

John,

Thanks for the email. But I'm in what Dr. Pournelle calls "short shrift" mode right now. And in either case, I'm not sure I'm the most qualified person to respond. But I will note a few things below because you make some very important points.

I will echo what you say about the effects one culture can have on another when that culture is imposed on another. As always, there are both good and bad effects when that happens. And sometimes, the culture imposing the change does not even realize it is doing so. OTOH, many times it does and it is doing so on purpose. Leaving aside the debate on whether this is moral or not, everyone at least needs to be aware of the effects.

When these effects are made apparent, then as you state, the culture has some decisions to make. Do they try to adapt or do they try to resist, or do they try to flee, or do they just try to ignore the changes? The answer to that question varies as to the particular circumstances that the culture is in at the time. For example, these are the choices that faced the Hawai'ian nation when certain US businessmen decided that, with the force of US Marines, they would annex the islands and depose the sovereign queen. Some Hawai'ians advocated armed resistance. But in the end, the queen chose non-violent resistance and requested that the Congress and the President of the United States restore her kingdom. While there was some support by the President to do this, Congress did not. The rest, as they say is history.

The effects of that culture change is that we Hawai'ians have the worst health, are over represented in prisons, and under represented in the University of Hawai'i. OTOH, we are in the midst of a cultural revival which, if unchecked, will have far reaching effects of its own. But that is a story best left for another time.

Thanks again for your thoughts and understanding. You make some good points to ponder on.

Aloha

Isn't it great to live in a country in which the exchange of ideas is free and open? I am so impressed by the level of discourse that has occurred so far and am looking forward to more in the future. I hope it has been of some interest to my gentle readers. But, as is the case with some, you have thoughts on how to improve or correct my feeble attempt at writing, please feel free to let me know! As promised at the beginning of this quest, all emails will be responded to. And the check is in the mail. Objects are bigger than they appear. Your mileage may vary. The dog ate my diskette.

Have a Good Weekend

Monday Sports Update: The University of Hawai'i Rainbow Warrior Football team won their game this weekend against San Jose State 62 to 41. The score looks more lopsided than it was. Going into the third quarter it was something like 34 to 7. Obviously, a lot of scoring took place in the last quarter. On both sides. The next game, against Fresno State could determine who is the WAC champion. Stay tuned.

Not doing as well is the Hawaii America's Cup Team Abracadabra2000. In the second round, they are 9th out of 11 teams with a 4 and 8 record overall. Prada is still number 1 with a perfect 12 and zero record.

So the Judge has spoken. And while I can hear the Libertarians out there (you know who you are, all ten of you) saying; "Woe is me, woe is me. The government has gotten it wrong again." I would respectfully disagree. The Judge got it exactly right.

The problem, as I see, it is that once a company gets into a monopoly position it's too late to do anything constructive. It's hard to see how the breakup of the telephone, oil, or transportation companies helped consumers. Service is lower while costs are higher. Benefit analysis would call that a losing position.

One can only hope that there will be a last ditch effort to settle (not a high probability) out of court. If that fails, then it comes down to what "remedy" the court comes up with. I'm not going to try to predict what that would be, but whatever it is, it will probably result in higher prices (sigh).

As background, monopolies are a natural progression for companies because it maximizes profits. That is, if you control the supply, you can charge whatever you want. Hence, we should not get all evangelical about it when it happens. It happened in this case, and it will happen in others (e.g. cable companies). The question is, what role, if anything, does government have in these situations?

As a Democrat, I would say the role is to maximize competition where it makes sense. Obviously, there are some advantages to an environment dominated by one company. There tends to be stability since everyone knows what standard to write programs to. Conversely, a dynamic environment in which things are constantly changing tends to create outcomes that are creative and more in tune with what people want.

So, where is that line between stability and change as it relates to Microsoft? Well, as I said above, it probably too late to do something constructive that will foster true competition while as the same time not destroy a company that has created some programs that are good enough for the rest of us. So I would say, separate IE5.0 from Windows. Separate Windows from DOS. And we would be close to where we were before Win95 came out.

The question is, is that better than where we are now? That, you'll have to decide.

This email is dated Thursday, but I didn't get it until today (really, I'm not kidding. Maybe not enough postage or something).

Dan:

I've enjoyed reading your "Misc. Ramblings" for some time and enjoy your style but had not chosen to send you any comments until now. I very much enjoyed reading your thoughts on what a Christian is and find myself agreeing with you. I thought it was a well written description with appropriate bible verses. I'm sorry Brian was put off by the quotes from the Bible but how can you describe what Christians are without quoting from the Bible? I found your site through Brian's and enjoy reading his site but don't agree with his opinion here. Of course that is what makes this interesting, the free exchange of ideas which you don't have to agree with.

It does make for some variety.

Keep up the good work, I'll keep checking in. May God bless you richly.

Jim Crider
www.docjim.com

My response back was:

Thanks Jim. All words of encouragement are gratefully accepted. All others are sent to the appropriate garbage can (grin). But seriously, I'm just doing the best that I can and I am sorry if I offend anyone. But I do have certain beliefs, and I will not hide those beliefs. That does not mean I will hit people over the head and try to convert everyone. On the other hand, I'm not going to hide who I am either.

Thanks again for the kind words.

Aloha

I think that pretty much says it all so I will probably not bring this subject up again. At least in the near future anyway.

I wrote my thoughts above on the Microsoft findings of fact before going over to Byte to read Dr. Pournelle's and Byte Editor Paul Schindler's comments on the decision. After which, I re-read my thoughts and decided to leave them as is. I would note that both commentators seem to begrudgingly admit that, yes Virginia, Microsoft is a monopoly. I guess their concern is how the Judge came to that conclusion and what that means in the future. In that, I share their concern.

Have a good Monday!

All systems are go. Err. Almost. Our IT Division still has to bring up Internet connectivity. So, if this doesn't hit the wires at the appointed time it's not MY fault. Really. It's not. <g>.

So Charles Schultz is hanging up his pen today. And while others lament how he is no longer relevant to the present day, I say that to the extent that is true is the extent of our own loss. His character Charlie Brown had a quiet determination that we should all emulate. I can't speak for others, but as for myself, I think a giant has fallen. Good Grief. Long live "Peanuts"!

Hmmm. Connectivity is back and a check of my email finds *nothing*. Hmmm. Me thinks things are still not right in emailsville. Oh well, stiff upper lip old chum. Matt! Matt!

BlackICE detected a failed TCP/IP scan of my ports at home. I sent off the logs to abuse@rr.com. Actually, I first sent it to support@kc.rr.com since since that's were the attack originated but KC responded and said to send it to the other address. I wonder if rr.com is trying to overtake AOL as the home of the lame (and I say this as a new user of rr.hawaii.com or is it hawaii.rr.com)? Soon after that attack, BlackICE erroneously, as it turned out, logged several attacks it called something like failure to set filter error. A quick check with BlackICE found that this was a false positive and that the latest version, 1.9.4 corrected this. So remember, keep your software updated.

***** Noon Update *****

A quick check of the other Daynoters finds that they are indeed in a philosophical mood. If you are offended by such discussions, do not go there and do not read what is below. If not, check out Dr. Pournelle (see it here now or here later) and [Sorry. Dr. Keyboard has moved his site and this page is missing in action - Ed.] Dr. Keyboard. Not being an Intellectual Giant® like these two, I can only say that Dr. Pournelle appears to be saying, if there is no God, then what is the meaning of life? And Dr. Keyboard seems to say there may not be any. If Dr. Keyboard is right, then the concept of purpose becomes a very slippery thing.

No one, except God, can peer into the souls of humankind and see what lives there. And I won't even try. But I think each of us, who has a sense of right or wrong, came by that sense by being taught it. That is, I don't think there is a genetic coding for knowing right from wrong. We have to learn it and we have do right (if for no other reason other than in the long run, it is in our own best self-interest).

What does seem to be hard coded is a need for direction or meaning and stability in our lives. The noted psychologist, Maslow seems to indicate that before we could move up the ladder to self-actualization, we had to build a stable base that first satisfied the more immediate needs.

But to get back to the original premise, if we need to be taught right from wrong, who is qualified to do that and what is it should we be taught? I will leave for another time who is qualified to teach and concentrate on the what should be taught.

While acknowledging the work of anthropology in our understanding of cultural bias, Christianity seems to say that there are certain self-evident truths. And that these truths span boundaries and cultures. The basis of which is a love and respect for God and our fellow human beings.

If one does not believe in God and the basis for His commandments, then what does one believe in? It seems to me that without the unifying force of Christianity, one can believe in anything they want without anyone having any authority to say otherwise. This path is indeed a very steep, slippery slope. There is no right or wrong without some authority to make it so.

However, does that mean a non-Christian can not lead a moral life? No. One can indeed lead a moral life, by any definition, and not be a Christian. But what if we Christians are right? That there is God in heaven and that He did tell us what is right and wrong and that further; He gave us the option to choose which to follow? And that to make up for our failed attempts at being moral, He sent His Son to die for our transgressions?

The power of Christianity lays in its truth. Whether others acknowledge that truth does not make it less powerful and just because others would believe otherwise does not make it so.

I have great respect and aloha for Dr. Keyboard, but I respectfully disagree with his saying that God does not exist and is instead a construct dreamt up by superstitious fuzzy thinking dweebs. On the other hand, even if Dr. Keyboard were right, even he admits that the world would be a better place for people who follow God's commandments.

Sheesh. Enough of this. You decide who/what is right and follow that.

Oh. By the way. All of our drives spun up fine from their short sleep over the weekend. No reports of bad things happening anywhere on our network. No stiction here. Phantom Menace indeed.

Aloha!

History. This is Black History Month. And on this day, in 1960, four Black students sat down at a Greensboro, N. Carolina lunch counter for a cup of coffee. It is a sad commentary that, that event was worthy of a making the news. See the New York Times (you have to register first) article about that day here.

ET, Call Home. Well, you didn't think I was going to ignore this story did you? Evidence is growing that the Mars lander is at least alive, if not well. Stanford University announced picking up a very faint signal last week. This week, observatories in England, Italy, and the Netherlands join the hunt. However, NASA is saying that even if contact is made, it is doubtful that any meaningful experiments could be conducted at this point. See the story here (this is also from the NY Times so you need to register).

Hollywood Buzz II. First it was the movie "Pearl Harbor" coming in April to spend $130 million USD to film. Next up is "Windtalkers." This one stars Nicolas Cage and is about the how the US, in WWII, used Navajo Indians to send messages coded in their language. A language, that they say, was known only by the Navajo and a handful of others. The locations here will be used to stand in for Saipan. It is amazing that Hawai'i has enough different environments to stand in for everything from Africa (see "Mighty Joe Young") to South America (see "Raiders of the Lost Ark") to Jurassic Park.

Emergency Yikes! All systems stop! Full emergency reverse! What a way to wake up in the morning! My friend Bo Leuf got my heart jump started this morning with his comments about my note on the Illinois moratorium on executions yesterday (see above). Let me clarify by copying my email to him this morning:

From: Dan Seto
To: Bo Leuf
Subject: Illinois
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 08:01:18 -1000

"Yes indeed, when a state executes 25 convicts and later finds 13 of these executions "in error", some form of Quality Control in the judicial process seems highly overdue."

Yikes! Actually, what I was saying (I think) was that of the last 25 people sentenced to die, over half had their convictions overturned before the sentence was carried out. Slightly different meaning from having them dead, then finding out, oops, sorry - made a slight mistake. So sorry. Carry on then.

Sorry for any confusion on my part!

***** Noon Update *****

Back-Channel Backed-Up. I think I need to get some industrial strength drain cleaner and apply it liberally to both the Daynotes mail server and my host site. I tried sending an email this morning to the gang and had it bounced back:

Return-Path: [postmaster@itool.com]
Delivered-To: pop1642544@mail-10
Received: from 207.113.118.44 (mail.itool.com [207.113.118.44])
by mail.9netave.com (8.9.3/8.8.8) with SMTP id NAA00140
for [Dan]; Tue, 1 Feb 2000 13:34:37 -0500 (EST)
From: postmaster at someplace called itool.com
Message-Id: [200002011834.NAA00140@mail.9netave.com]
Received: by mx1.itool.com
for [Dan]
id msg_7c71334d-d8cd-11d3-80a8-0090274ea2ee; Tue, 01 Feb 2000 11:29:06 -0700
Received: by mx1.itool.com
for Dan id msg_7c713343-d8cd-11d3-80a8-0090274ea2ee; Tue, 01 Feb 2000 11:28:42 -0700
X-Sender: postmaster at someplace called itool.com
X-Mailer: APPS IToolMail Version 2.0
To: Dan
Subject: Undeliverable Mail Error
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 11:28:42 -0700

Sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't. As I don't have control over either mail server I can say it wasn't me that done it. But then, I can't fix it either. To Tom/Matt: That's why we cc: people. We know the list fails sometimes and sometimes it's probably our own mail servers. Either way, the mail must go through.

Aloha!

Over the Hump. OK, my PC is about 90% back to what it was before. I do not know why Windows blew up. It had been acting strangely for about a week or two. By that I mean disk I/O slowed to a crawl. Strange error messages about insufficient SPs. Random GPFs of kernel32. And, when I went to reload Win98SE, it said that there appeared to be a disk compression program installed and therefore it would not install.

I assume this last error is related to my earlier experiments with PhatLinux. To recap, PhatLinux appears to use a system similar to what disk compression programs use to create a virtual drive that lives in one huge file. As far as DOS is concerned, it's just another file. But within that file, PhatLinux lives in its own partition. I tried deleting the directory and then re-installing Win98 but it still gave the same error. The last thing I tried was doing a fdisk /mbr. But that didn't work either. So, I ended up formating my C: drive. Fortunately, all of my data resides on D: and, as a backup, on one of our Novell network volumes. Still, I had to reload all of my current applications. Which, for the most part, I've done.

Even though PhatLinux probably didn't cause the root problem (pun intended), it made it more difficult to recover. So, I don't think I'll play with it anymore.

Onward and Upward. Mililani Trask, Office of Hawai'ian Affairs Trustee, is calling for acts of civil disobedience in the form of sit-ins/marches to close down the airports and harbors. I should note that Trask is perhaps the most, how should I put it, outspoken, of the trustees. I doubt most people will listen to her but I thought it would be interesting to note what she is saying. But then again, maybe not.

Merge This. Cap Gemini SA announced agreement to acquire Ernst & Young's consulting business for a reported $11.1 billion USD in cash and stock. Cap Gemini is Europe's biggest computer services company.

Over and Almost Out. Race four of the best of nine America's Cup yachting race ended the same way the first three did. New Zealand comfortably ahead. Today's race (HST) could close the series out if the Kiwi's Black Magic wins.

Oh. By the way. The Lakers beat the Trail Blazers, 90-87 to take sole possession of first place in the National Basketball League. Sorry Doc.

Aloha!

73 seconds to the end. At 0.678 seconds into the flight a puff of smoke is recorded jetting from the aft field joint of the right solid rocket booster.

71 seconds to the end. Cameras record eight more puffs of smoke emanating from the joint. The color of the smoke suggests the grease, joint insulation, and rubber O-rings are being burned and eroded by the intense heat of the burning propellant.

36 seconds to the end. The craft encounters the first of several high altitude wind shears. The wind shears cause relatively large deflections of the vehicle. These deflections are automatically countered by the guidance, navigation, and control systems of the engines. The number and intensity of the corrections recorded set new records for flights to that time.

15 seconds to the end. The main engines throttle up to 104 percent of their rated capacity. At this time, the first flickering flames coming from the solid rocket booster joint can be seen.

14 seconds to the end. The flame becomes a defined plume and the pressure sensors in the booster now detect a differential between the left and right booster. This is the first telemetry data confirming a leak is occurring.

9 seconds to the end. The flames suddenly change in shape and color as they breach the external fuel tank and begin burning the hydrogen therein. Telemetry from the fuel tank confirms a leak.

1 second to the end. The lower strut linking the Solid Rocket Booster and the External Tank is severed or pulled away from the weakened hydrogen tank permitting the right Solid Rocket Booster to rotate around the upper attachment strut. This rotation is indicated by divergent yaw and pitch rates between the left and right Solid Rocket Boosters.

0.88 seconds to the end. A circumferential white vapor pattern is observed blooming from the side of the External Tank bottom dome. This is the beginning of the structural failure of hydrogen tank that culminated in the entire aft dome dropping away. This releases massive amounts of liquid hydrogen from the tank and creates a sudden forward thrust of about 2.8 million pounds, pushing the hydrogen tank upward into the intertank structure. At about the same time, the rotating right Solid Rocket Booster impacts the intertank structure and the lower part of the liquid oxygen tank.

0.86 seconds to the end. White vapors appear in the intertank region. Within milliseconds there is a massive, almost explosive, burning of the hydrogen streaming from the failed tank bottom and liquid oxygen breach in the area of the intertank. At this point in its trajectory, while traveling at a Mach number of 1.92 at an altitude of 46,000 feet, the vehicle is totally enveloped in the explosive burn.

The end. The reaction control system ruptures and a hypergolic burn of its propellants occurs as it exits the oxygen-hydrogen flames. The reddish brown colors of the hypergolic fuel burn are visible on the edge of the main fireball. The vehicle, under severe aerodynamic loads, breaks into several large sections which emerge from the fireball. Separate sections that can be identified on film include the main engine/tail section with the engines still burning, one wing of the vehicle, and the forward fuselage trailing a mass of umbilical lines pulled loose from the payload bay.

NASA Space Shuttle Challenger Crew on January 28, 1986

• Francis R. Scobee, Commander
• Michael J. Smith, Pilot
• Judith A. Resnik, Mission Specialist 1
• Ellison S. Onizuka, Mission Specialist 2
• Ronald E. McNair, Mission Specialist 3
• Gregory B. Jarvis, Payload Specialist 1
• Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Payload Specialist 2

May they rest in peace. Aloha!

Actually, now that fellow Daynoter Phil does occasional longer posts, I don't know if he has relinquished his title of Man of Few Words. But not much of interest is going on over here in the Seto Shack.

However, there are a couple of sports events in town this weekend. First up is the American style football Hula Bowl (see the site here) on Saturday on the island of Mau'i. It will be broadcast on ESPN at 9:00 p.m. (EST).

The second is the National Football League Pro Bowl (see their site here) on Sunday, ABC 5:30 p.m. EST.

On the other hand, school work has heated up a bit as we try to gather information about how other states handle their retirement systems. My eleven loyal readers know that I am in my last semester working on a Masters in Public Administration. Our final paper is a group effort to help the Hawai'i Employees Retirement System increase operational efficiency.

Right now, we're contacting other state systems as well as starting to contact local state agencies that have dealings with the system.

Speaking of graduating, it's amazing how much it costs. You pay $15USD for a diploma, $55 for a cap and gown, $25 for a hood (that colorful piece of material that hangs around the neck and kind of reminds me of a woolen muffler). Then there's the announcements ($1.35 a piece) and thank you cards ($7.50 per 10). And for the high rollers, a custom matted frame for the diploma starting at $105 and going up over $200. Now if I can only graduate.

Speaking of working in groups, it's interesting they work, or don't work as the case may be. In my first year, we had a class in which we were given a test. The test was a list of about 10 questions dealing with surviving in a mountainous region during the Winter. After answering the questions on paper, we broke into groups and tried to combine the expertise of each group member to come up with a list of answers to the same questions.

The point of the exercise was to show that by pooling the experience/education/knowledge of the group, you would come up with more right answers than you did by taking the test relying only on your own knowledge. Well, you can probably guess the outcome of my group. I scored significantly higher on my individual test than our group did collectively. Now, perhaps this is an indication that I was not very persuasive in getting my group members to believe I had the right answers.

Or perhaps there are situations in which the expected synergy does not occur (see just about any of the current NASA projects). But in any case, all that I learned from that experience was that I should probably rely more on myself than others.

Such seems to be the case in the group I am in now. To me, our task is well defined and doable. If I were assigned to do this at work, I would be able to complete it, by myself, in about three months. But with this group, we will be lucky if it's done in six. And when it is done, the quality will be much lower than if I did it myself. Now, I realize this may sound arrogant and self-centered, but it also happens to be the objective truth.

If it is the reality, I am not encouraged by this because committees are how everyone in large agencies seem to organize themselves to solve problems. While I understand and support the assertion that problem solving should include the stakeholders involved, I'm not so sure relying solely on their input and judgment will result in the optimal solution.

In fact, I wonder if it almost guarantees it won't. It seems to me committees, more often than not, end up being a waste of time and resources. But perhaps I am being too harsh. Perhaps the problem is most committees are not led by people trained in facilitating meetings so the meetings do not stay focussed or disciplined. Or perhaps its something else.

Whichever the case, the next few months will be very frustrating for me. But regardless of how others seem to have problems figuring out what to do, I know what my tasks are and I will remain focused on accomplishing those tasks.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!

As I got home this morning my wife was watching something on TV. It looked like a shot of a meteor streaking across the sky. I didn't think much of it until she told me it was a NASA shuttle breaking up.

To say I was stunned would be the understatment of the year. All I can say is our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the crew and I hope they understand that their loss was not in vain. That the struggle to explore and work in space is frought with danger. That the only way to pave smooth that road is to boldly go forward to overcome the challenges that lay there.

To close, I heard the words of the old Simon and Garfunkle song "Homeward Bound" echoing in my head while I watched the news conference from NASA. To have gove so far. To have "touched the face of God." And then to perish while so close to home. Homeward bound.

Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Silently for me.

Aloha

Catastrophic engineering failures tend to follow certain critical paths. One path is multiple failures, which each alone would not cause the catastrophe, but in combination, in a specific sequence, under specific conditions can lead to the failure. This is sometimes known as the cascade effect.

While it is certainly too early to speculate on what caused the Columbia failure, I would not be surprised if it isn't a series of events that may have occurred before, but not in the sequence, or to the extent, required for the failure.

I would not be surprised that the failure began earlier than NASA thinks it may have.

I would also not be surprised if some of it is related to the low level of funding NASA has endured over the last 20 years or so.

Whichever the case, the investigations will begin, reams of reports will be made, and I hope, the shuttle or its replacements will fly again.

Aloha!

I took the day off yesterday to complete some additional medical tests. This after spending some time at the clinic being poked, prodded and x-rayed on Saturday. I've seen the blood suckers so many times I'm almost beginning to know them by first name. Even the CAT scan guy already knows my face and recognizes me every time I come in.

I'm not sure if this is a Good Thing or not but I guess it beats the alternative.

Otherwise, I'm still recovering from the cold that will not die and still working on contacting the various people I need to talk to about my capstone project relating to the employees retirement system.

Aloha!

Not much new going on around here today so why not a short rant? Are you able to increase your salary in anticipation of being busy? Do you raise your price when you think your time will be in short supply? I guess you could if you owned your own business or their wasn't any competition.

So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a gallon of "supreme" gasoline is just under $2.00USD. This, in anticipation of short supplies. Don't you just love monopolies?

In other local news, our governor went out on a limb this weekend and refused to increase the threat level indicator. Even though the federal government went from "yellow" to "orange" (the second highest level), the governor felt it would be counter productive since no specific threat is known, or at least publicly released. Hence, the state, unlike the feds, will not run in circles trying to catch its own tail.

On the labor front, our union is officially at impasse with the state. If nothing is settled by the end of June, we will need to take a strike vote and see where that may lead. While I am not looking forward to it, I think it may be necessary to strike. Just in case, I'm now beginning to save, rather than spend so no new toys for me until after June. I guess the economy will just have to struggle on without me spending my copious amounts of cash.

And finally, I'm almost to where I want to be with the look of this page. I still want to tweak the CSS in a couple of places and I want to research if there is a way of having replies to comments, via email, be automatically entered into the system. Right now, the system notifies me vie email when a comment is left by someone, but if I reply to the email, my reply, as far as I know, has to be copied and pasted into the comments. Surely there must be a better way of doing this?

Aloha!

Move over Dirty Harry, there's a new big gun in town. Smith & Wesson unveiled their 0.50-caliber magnum revolver recently (see it here). Billed as the most powerful production revolver in the world (there are various other makes that chamber rifle rounds, or cut down versions of rifle rounds) it has 2,600 ft/lbs of muzzle energy. So, do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?

The posts for today will have something in common - they will all be obvious to everyone except, it seems, to those involved.

First Saddam, then France. The morning papers says the European Union (EU) is giving Saddam Hussein al-Majd al-Tikriti "one last chance." Until, of course, the next time. Then they'll really, really mean it.

As British Prime Minister Tony Blair put it:

If Iraq is not cooperating fully and everyone accepts they are not cooperating, why is Iraq not then in material breach?

Almost anything, taken to extremes is not a Good Thing. For example, some people refuse to think of themselves as being part of a community because it may imply taking responsibility for more than just yourself ("Am I my brother's keeper?").

So it should not be surprising that the Catherine "Kitty" Genovese syndrome (see one account here) should be repeated, over and over again.

The most recent incident made the headlines over the weekend. A man was shot at a Washington, D.C, area gas station. Sadly, this is not the part that has thoughtful people in a rage. There's more (see the story here).

After the shooting, one witness -- who was just feet away from the gunman -- looked for a moment at Price's body and then turned away. Not only did he finish pumping his kerosene, but the man paid for the purchase and drove off...

For the next few minutes, the [video security] camera records a series of cars pulling away from the station, with at least one new car pulling up to the kerosene pump where Price lay. But it is not until about 9:13, more than three minutes after the shooting, that the gas station's manager is seen approaching the body.

It seem obvious that when someone is shot, and you are in a position to at least notify the police or call an ambulance, that you would do so. But I guess that's not obvious to the people there.

Small things are important. Sometimes they're critical - especially if you are getting an organ transplant. Ask the teenager from Mexico who came to Duke University Hospital to be healed through a heart and lung transplant. Only, people weren't paying attention to the small things - like matching the blood type from the donor to the teenager. After waiting three years for the life saving operation, she is now is near death due to the obvious error. Obvious, that is, except to everyone there.

If we've learned nothing else over the years, know this: Just because something is obvious does not mean people will perceive it, acknowledge it, and then appropriately attend to it. If anything, they will do just the opposite. So it's up to us to point out the obvious, get people to acknowledge it, and then act on it. Because if we don't, it is obvious that no one will.

Aloha!

The home court advantage is more than just an idle phrase. While I can't say it applies to every sport in the world, it does seem to fit most. So when the home team doesn't win you have to wonder if they are up to the challenge. So far, for a series in which it appears the boats are even in speed, we have seen what I can only describe as extreme sailing.

Due to the long weekend in the US, I was able to watch live the second and third races of the America's Cup yacht race (and parts of the first race on tape) being held in the beautiful waters of New Zealand. As of this writing, with the fourth race scheduled for this afternoon, Hawai'i time, the Swiss Alinghi (see their site here) team is leading three to zero, needing to win only two of the last six races to win the series. Or to put it another way, Team New Zealand (see their site here) needs to win five of the next six to win - something no team in the history of the cup has done.

The first twelve minutes of race one looked like it was the start of an exciting series. Neither boat appeared to have a commanding speed difference which means tactics, experience, readiness, and a bit of luck could decide the series.

Unfortunately for the NZ boat, they seemed to be in short supply of all of the above. For some strange reason, they ran their boat heeled so far over that water constantly entered the boat. So much so that they could not pump it out as fast as it was coming in. Why they felt they should angle their deck so much is unanswered, but the result was several tons of water acting as dead weight.

This extra weight, in combination with stiff 20kt winds caused the high-tech carbon fiber boom (the horizontal spar that holds the bottom of the mainsail) to exceed its design specifications and snap like a toothpick. Four minutes later, at sixteen minutes into the race, with the mainsail now dangerously full of air and straining under the force, the titanium tack ring that holds the bottom forward corner of the genoa (a large sail, overlapping the mast) to the deck exploded into pieces. The Kiwi crew tried valiantly to rig up something to keep the boat in the game but it was for naught. Nine minutes later, at 25 minutes into race one, despite the courageous efforts of the crew, the Kiwis retired, something not done in an America's Cup race since 1920.

Race two was fought in much different conditions. The race was postponed seven times, waiting for the wind to pick up. Once under way, the light 10-kt winds seemed to favor the home team, especially on the first downwind leg where they powered back from being 4-boat lengths behind to three ahead. In sailing this is just not done and could only reflect a wind shift that favored the Kiwis. The question is was this luck or superior strategy and seamenship?

Nothing much happened until the final beat where Alinghi decided to force the issue and begin a tacking duel unequaled in the series. A total of 66 tacks were performed by the boats, a new record. But through it all, New Zealand not only held off the Swiss, but increased their lead. This clearly showed the superior boat speed, handling, and seamenship that the Kiwis are justly proud of.

And yet. And yet in the final leg to the finish, after rounding the final mark, Alinghi's decision to jibe set around the windward mark, versus Team New Zealand's bear away and then jibe, may have been the difference. Their respective decisions allowed Alinghi to get inside to the right where the wind was stronger. Even though the Swiss were behind at this point, they ever so slowly moved closer and closer to the Kiwis and eventually blocked the wind from their sails. The New Zealanders then slowed and were not able to catch up in time to get past to retake the lead.

Race three proved the old adage that it is possible to catch up with the leading boat, but getting past them is another thing. From the start, where Alinghi's afterguard was able to position their boat to the right side of the course, where the wind was forecasted to be stronger, the Swiss led the race. While New Zealand was able to nibble away at that lead over the length of the race, things only got interesting near the last mark.

At that point, there was about one boat-length between the two. But after rounding the mark, the Kiwis made a mental mistake and showed their apparent lack of experience. The crew was set for one type of jibe set, but their skipper called for a switch to another very late in the turn. This caught the crew unprepared and resulted in them having trouble getting the spinnaker pole hooked up once on the run. With the finish line a mere three miles (~4.8km) away, the Kiwis were not able to recover sufficiently and Swiss won pulling away.

I don't know how the series will end but I wonder if the Kiwis have the faster boat, while the Swiss have the more experienced skipper, tactician, and crew.

Aloha!

That sound you hear is the seventh seal of the apocalypse being ripped open. National Geographic (see their site here). The phrase brings back memories of the staid magazine with the yellow border that everyone seems to collect years worth of. As a youngster, I can remember that every time I went over to a certain relative's house I would spend hours going through their old copies. If it wasn't the pull out maps, interesting articles, or fantastic photography, it was the hope that a glimpse of a third world bare breast might be seen (I kept wondering why they didn't go to St. Tropez sometime. In fact, I wondered if there wasn't a kind of racism taking place. Namely, it was OK to show non-Caucasian breasts, but not the reverse. But I digress, or maybe not).

Hitting news stands this month is the National Geographic swimsuit issue. I kid you not. The issue takes a look at swimsuits over the last 100 years. I haven't seen the issue myself but the cover shows a fetching female clothed in three sea shells. No, I don't know if they went to St. Tropez or not. You'll have to buy the issue to find out.

Aloha!

Duck Taped

Aloha!