...more recent posts
Years from now I'll probably still be telling the story of how Mike and MB saved New Years Eve 2000. The last thing I remember was MB poking me in the side and saying "look at the light." I peeled an eyelid open and saw an incredible hazy orange dawn sky out of the window. That was all I could manage. The next thing I know it's a few minutes before nine and I hear Mike and MB come bouncing into the apartment laughing. They are both completely covered in snow. They have the look I don't often see here in New York of people satisfied with having completed a tough physical job. Out the window I can see 6 or 7 inches of snow on the fire escape already, and it's still coming down heavily. Looks like we're in for a big one. And then it all clicks in my mind. There had been some concern about getting the party to the party in such a storm, but I hadn't taken it too seriously. "The wine?" I ask. "It's all set" I am assured. They had moved the whole stash from Mikes to an undisclosed location very close to the party. With people like this on the job we will not be foiled. A tip of the hat to the New Years elves, working hard to insure out intoxication. Cheers.
The New York Times (Friday) has a full page obituary for W.V.O. Quine, an American philosopher, who died Monday at age 92. I wanted to be able to say something more on this occasion, but I just don't have the time today. If you have the NYTimes maybe you should check it out. It's fairly lengthy. He was very important to me, and to the path I took with my college career. I read the essay "Two dogmas of empiricism," which the Times talks about, in my freshman year, and it really set my mind toward philosophy (at least as it was presented in that context.) Not sure how it turned out, but I was surprised to see all the space the Times lavished on his obituary. I guess he was important to some other people as well. I'll have to find that essay and read it again. I think its in my storage space. Yikes. That would be quite an adventure. I haven't been there in years. Anyway, I wonder how I would find it now. Perhaps I'll report back.
MB took the neice and nephew (10 and 11) to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and they didn't like it. It all makes sense to me now, but I wouldn't have expected this (at least from the boy.) His complaint? The flying looked stupid. And indeed, I see what he's saying. I think it's beautiful, but I guess it could seem a little hokey. He thought they should just flat out fly around. Why all this jumping and skipping, and almost flying? For me it was brilliant because I'm not convinced that (some) people can't fly, and if anyone can, I think they probably do in a way similar to what Ang Lee shows us (as opposed to, say, the way superman flies which I doubt any human can do.) Anyway, here's an interview with Mr. Lee.
When I wrote about having monitor troubles I was refering to the fact that mine was refusing to wake up from sleep unless it was unplugged and left to sit for many hours (not too nice when you crash in the middle of the day.) But during my trouble shooting session yesterday I was carrying it up and down the stairs to test it on different machines, and I completely threw out my back. Is this the first shot of middle age? Seems a bit early if you ask me, but I'm hobbling around like an old man, that's for sure. I could barely get out of bed this morning. If I lay flat on my back, or sit or stand straight up, there is no pain.
So I've got that going for me.
How long does it take a back to fix itself? (Maybe I don't want to know the answer to that one.)
I haven't had much time lately for posting, and the spare moments I've had have been plagued by computer monitor problems. Oh well. I took a short trip to see my sister and her husband and my little neice and my mother for Christmas. This is a tradition I am appreciating more and more. Before I left Mike taught me the Penn Station trick to figure out the departing track number of your train before it is announced, and crouched in front of the one key computer terminal - downstairs, all the way in back behind the construction - I entered a secret league of expert New York travelers who have access to this sacred knowledge. This league was confirmed with just the slightest nod from the two other people who knew and were likewise waiting for the display to display. Finally it did, and the three of us were off, and on the train (seated!) before it was announced to the general public. Thanks Mike.
The ride up was on the new Accela train. It made the 4:50 minute trip to route 128 station Boston in 4 hours flat. It didn't feel any faster while riding, but that extra 50 minutes makes a big difference. Returned for a Christmas night meal here, and then was off again for the long ride up to fetch MB's neice and nephew from north of Albany. This was my first bit of driving in quite some time. I had forgotten how fun it is to drive a car. Powerful. It reminded me that I had a short episode of flight in my dream from the night before. This episode of dream flying consisted of me thrusting my finger in a pointing motion at my destination, which would start me flying along that path, as if the momentum of the pointing motion was propelling me toward the goal. I always want to fly in my dreams, but seldom do, or seldom remember, so I consider this a great treat.
Took a quick stop at Rockefeller Center last night with the kids. I hit it off with the security guard who was stationed at the base of the big tree. I guess he overheard me saying something sarcastic about how nice it was that they cut down this beautiful old tree so that we could use it as decoration for a week of so. It was as if he was beginning to suspect he might be crazy for harboring a similar misgiving about this tradition, and I had confirmed his sanity with my remark. Memo to whoever is in charge of these things: it might be better to plant one tree in that spot which could then be enjoyed year round, rather than killing a beautiful old tree every year. Or maybe that is crazy. I'll have to consult my tree expert on the feasability of growing a giant conifer in midtown Manhattan.
Anyway, I'm gearing up for the really big celebration, which is New Years Eve, and to that end I have been compiling some mixed CD's of music in the hopes of controlling the sonic aspects of the evening (which will take a back seat to the gustatory and oenophilic aspects of the evening, but will nevertheless be important.) It is a fun project, but the sheer volume of music needed for the whole night is making it rather slow going. Perhaps I'm over thinking the whole thing, but the order and build of the music seems important, and I'm trying to get it just right. Whether I'll be able to retain control of the stereo for the whole evening cannot be predicted (except maybe in the negative by the people actually having the party,) but I'm going to be ready. So back to my burner I go. Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho Ho Ho.
Well, it must really be the Christmas season now. We went to a party last night in Brooklyn that turned out to involve everyone being assigned a part in the play "A Christmas Carol" which we then proceeded to read aloud. One act before dinner and one after. I'll admit to rolling my eyes and feeling slightly trapped when I learned of the evenings entertainment, but like so many things it turned out to be fun once we got going. I was Fezziwig, the second businessman, and the boy at the end to whom the transformed Scrooge gives money to buy a big fat turkey for the Crachets ("The one as big as me, Guv?") I kept thinking of Alex's appraisal of the story as one of the classic conversation tales of our culture. And it really is pretty good. I think Alex also said something about not being able to screw it up too much - due to the strong story line - but I'm not as convinced about that point. Fourteen unreheared rather drunken party-goers can do some dramatic damage. Still, thanks to a very good Scrooge and Marley we managed to hobble through. Certainly we all nailed that last line: "And to all a good night."
Another very bad idea for protecting digital content. Sounds like the big players are onboard (et tu, IBM?) but I'll eat my hat if they can get this through. Full backwards compatibility seems like a must, and I don't think this plan has it. (from HTP)
It's mid-month time, so that means the new crypto-gram is out. This month Bruce Schneier (the encryption and computer security guru) talks about voting and technology (plus a bunch of other stuff.) He points to this site by Rebecca Mercuri, calling it "...*the* web site on electornic voting...." As I thought, the experts are all horrified at the thought of computer (and especially internet based) voting schemes. As Schneier puts it:
"Online voting schemes have even more potential for failure and abuse. We know we can't protect Internet computers from viruses and worms, and that all the operating systems are vulnerable to attack. What recourse is there if the voting system is hacked, or simply gets overloaded and fails? There would be no means of recovery, no way to do a recount. Imagine if someone hacked the vote in Florida; redoing the election would be the only possible solution. A secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers."This is a really hard problem to think of a solution for.
Lots of people seem impressed by the new google toolbar which plugs into Internet Explorer 5.x running on Windows. If I ran Windows I would probably check this out. There are some privacy concerns, but Google is very upfront about what it is tracking, and they have such a good reputation that it's hard even for someone usually suspicious (like me) to get too worried about this case. And anyway, you can turn off certain features that work by knowing your surfing history and the toolbar will still be useful without any sort of tracking (even anonymous) going on. Let me know if anyone tries this out.
Magical weather day here in NYC.
This site is very cool. Inspirational even. Sort of like a jodi.org creation (is it?) It's amazing what can be done with so very little (bandwidth-wise) if your stuff is good. Or maybe all that dancing is going to my head. (via metascene)
I don't know if it's the holiday season or what, but these are some strange days indeed. I keep finding myself at dance parties. How does this happen?
Here are my two computer gripes of the day:
My video card is too fast when scrolling text - I can't stop it at the right point, because the text is flying by in a blur. And why does Navigator pop up a box when I try to reload a page that contained some sort of form data which gives me only 'repost form data' or 'cancel' as options? Where's the option to reload the page (obviously what I meant to do since I clicked on 'reload' to get to this point) without the form data? To do this I have to cancel, then click in the location field to make that active, and then go to my keyboard and press enter. That is not acceptable. Does IE do it differently?
Great interview with Eban Moglan, the Free Software Foundation legal counsel, and Columbia University law professor. Kind of long, and a little technical, but you really should find the time to read this. He is very clear about many very difficult to think about issues.
"What we have here are two different structures of the distribution of cultural product. You have a set of people whose fundamental belief is that cultural products are best distributed when they are owned, and they are attempting to construct a leak proof pipe from production studio to eardrum or eyeball of the consumer. Their goal is to construct a piping system that allows them to distribute completely dephysicalized cultural entities which have zero marginal cost and which in a competitive economy would therefore be priced at zero, but they wish to distribute them at non-zero prices. In the ideal world, they would distribute them at the same prices they get for physical objects which cost a lot of money to make, move and sell, and they would become ferociously profitable. They are prepared to give on price, but at every turn, as with the VCR at the beginning of the last epoch, their principle is any ability of this content to escape their control will bring about the end of civilization."From what I can see, Moglan is the main legal mind behind a huge change in society of which the Napster story and the Decss case (making DVD's play on Linux machines despite industy efforts to stop this) are just the tips of the iceburg. Some people think he goes too far (for instance, in another place he makes the very curious argument that all digital content, by virtue of being digital, exists as long strings of zeros and ones, or in other words, all pieces of digital content - things like programs, music, movies, ebooks - are really very long numbers, and it shouldn't be possible to copyright a number) but I think it would be more true to say that most people aren't aware of how fast, and how radically, the world is changing. Of course I could be wrong. I don't think Richard Stallman is a crackpot either, so what do I know? Anyway, read this article, I think Eban Moglan knows.
The "trusted client" is upon us. Wes is right on it as usual. First he points to the classic Richard Stallman piece The Right to Read. The key passage in this dystopian short story is: "Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger." And then Wes points to this fine print on the Adobe eBook (a new format for publishing books in electronic form) website:
" If you are a software programmer, you should note that the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader's security implementation does not allow program debuggers to be executed on the machine while the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader is running."Not quite threatening prison terms yet, but the idea that Stallman's fears are looking a little more reasonable is very scary indeed.
Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress as it is commonly known, is the first plant to have its entire genetic sequence read by scientists.
Massive list of links concerning the intersection of Art, Technology, Science & Culture.
Been thinking about Montana a lot lately. My father's side of the family is from the big sky country. My great grandfather was a homesteader in Paradise Valley. Despite the promising name, there is a good reason why they were giving away that land: you couldn't grow enough food to make it through the winter. But thanks to a little side work on the newfangled railroad, my ancestors survived, although the land was lost - in good cowboy fashion - on a hand of poker. Tough life, or so the legend goes. I "lived" there briefly during my college years, but only through the good will of some real westerners. It's beautiful country, but it's cold. The people have to be tough. I, on the other hand, am clearly from the east ("the concrete jungle" as my grandfather would say) where you just have to be loud, and maybe a little pushy. That's a survival skill too, I guess, but it's different. Anyway, it seems like a few lucky (where 'lucky' means 'crazy') modern people are going to experience the real thing: frontier.
More planets discovered in the "habitable region."
We saw the new Ang Lee movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" last night. I heard somewhere (NYTimes?) that you want to break into applause at the end of the first fight scene, and that's exactly what happened in our theatre. Really impressive. They managed to capture exactly what "flying" feels like in my dreams. Not so much Superman-style all out flying, but an almost weightless running, bounding, hopping, floating. Good stuff. Highly recommended.
Space.com has this article about NASA's contact with the 35 year old Pioneer 6 spacecraft.
"NASA successfully contacted Pioneer 6 on Friday, nearly 35 years to the day after the space agency’s oldest working spacecraft was launched into solar orbit on what was to have been a six-month mission. NASA used its 231-foot (70-meter) dish antenna in Goldstone, Calif., to lock onto a signal from the spacecraft’s 8-watt transmitter at 7 p.m. EST. 'We have made contact with the spacecraft and have a downlink from it,' said Washington Downs, the Deep Space Network operations chief at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), halfway through the 2.5-hour tracking period. At the time, the spacecraft was 83 million miles (133 million kilometers) from Earth."(via /.)
More on Tim Berners-Lee's semantic web vision.
Brenda Laural, Brad Wieners, and Douglas Rushkoff on "What ever happened to the cyber revolution, part II."
"My overall point, even though I didn't set out with this as my overall point, isn't that the world needs an Etymologizer, although it desperately does..."
Inside has a long article on the future of copyright law (or, in other words, the future of digital content, or even just the future itself.) This is a good one to read if you are still unsure what all the fuss is about.
Why hasn't the more like this style of blogging caught on? The more I think of how I want my blog set up, the more I come back to something like this. I want each post to have a category (or categories) that it falls into. Then the page becomes more like a database. You could choose to only see web related links, or only see personal posts, or only see posts about travel, or apache, or space, ect... Simple, really, but maybe it is not simple enough? Can you really categorize your interests in a rigid way? Maybe the simple "newest post at the top" blogger style is the most sophisticated thing we can do that still gets lots of people involved.
Looks like Ricoh has a new camera with some of the functionality I've been looking for. With an optional communications card it can do email, ftp, http, fax, as well as create html files containing your pictures. I can't find a price, but probably not cheap.
A little something for the future: the rosetta disk (from eatonweb.)
Postal experiments. Another good link from robotwisdom.
Send GET requests to your server toll free from any phone.
The IOC is trying to put a 10 year ban on the showing of any olympic video footage on the internet. I think someone hasn't been paying very close attention.
Great site. Sort of a slashdot without the unix (huh?) or, in other words, a cool science story blog. Great site (did I say that already?)
Oh yeah, it's World AIDS day. Some bloggers are, once again, doing the day without weblogs thing. I'm not, but I support their goals. As an incredibly lazy gesture, here is a very good list of AIDS links that someone else put together. [memo to Mark M.: it is only a day without weblogs - I think there might have been some misunderstanding here.]
"Garry Winogrand is famous for having exposed three rolls of Tri-X on the streets of New York City every day for his entire adult life. That's 100 pictures a day, 36,500 a year, a million every 30 years. Winogrand died in 1984 leaving more than 2500 rolls of film exposed but undeveloped, 6500 rolls developed but not proofed, and 3000 rolls proofed but not examined (a total of a third of a million unedited exposures). This is the kind of dedication that you need to bring to a street photography project if you hope to achieve greatness."Alex, I think you might be slacking up there in the park.
NEC, and now Sony, are both recalling some of their Transmeta powered notebooks because of a bug in the 600 Mhz version of the Crusoe processor. Intel, of course, is having problems with its P4, and Apple/Moto/IBM have already been taking heaps of scorn for over a year due to flagrant violations of Moore's Law. Damn. On the other hand, The Register (insert small grain of salt) is reporting that
"AMD has been quietly producing test chips using a new, pure version of silicon with greatly enhanced thermal properties....California-based Isonics produces an isotopically pure silicon which has much better thermal conductivity than natural silicon, meaning that heat can be removed more effectively. Isonics won't confirm it's working with AMD, stating only that 'a major microprocessor manufacturer has modeled isotopically pure silicon wafers and has told us that the peak temperature of their advanced 1GHz microprocessor was reduced by 35 degrees celsius.'"Beware of the vapors here, but 35 degrees! I'd love to see AMD pull this off.
Slashdot has two interesting space stories. First up is Mars, and the on again off again debate about signs of previous surface water on the red planet. In analysing data from Mars Global Surveyor, NASA has found an ancient sea bed. They are going to make an official statement in this weeks Science magazine. NASA and the European Space Agency are both planning to reroute future missions to this area (the Europeans plan to land on Boxing Day, 2003.)
And the International Space Station should be visible with the naked eye now that it is getting those big solar panels. This site tells you when to look up depending on your terrestrial location (it also tracks Mir and other satellites.) Here's the New York City start page, and here's when you can see the ISS from NYC. Nice site.
I've been experimenting this morning with a very basic caching scheme for this site. I have a very crude version working for my page. You can see the difference between this dynamic page, and the cached static page by following either of these links. In most cases, as would be expected, the cached page is tremendously faster. The downside is that it is not being configured for known users (i.e., no indication of new posts, and while you still see how many comments, you don't see which ones are new to you, plus, seeing posts on the static page won't effect the number of new posts shown on the main page - in other words, the system will keep telling you there is a new post until you see it on the dynamic page.) Also, for most browsers, you won't see any updates to the page unless you consciously reload the page. Overall I think the speed gain is probably worth it. I'll be doing more tests on this, and we could deploy this change rather quickly if we wanted.
Oh yeah, slightly new (anti-)design. Wooohooo.