Category: observations

A year ago tonight, on the eve of the World Trade Center attacks, I found my eyes drawn to the Seattle skyline for no conscious reason. I had no premonitions, I didn’t have any kind of “bad feeling.”I just couldn’t sleep, around midnight, and as I often do, I stare out my windows at the skyline (no, my view is not quite as good as the photo). A year ago, I just couldn’t stop staring.

I get these randomly generated nuggets from the UNIX fortune(1) file, when I login,create an email, etc. I never saw this one before.

What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to
win wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent?
In independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded
that it takes a coincidence of four conditions, or in Neil’s view, the
simultaneous peaking of four of the many cycles of American life. First, a
base of technology must exist from which to do the thing to be done. Second,
a period of national uneasiness about America’s place in the scheme of human
activities must exist. Third, some catalytic event must occur that focuses
the national attention upon the direction to proceed. Finally, an articulate
and wise leader must sense these first three conditions and put forth with
words and action the great thing to be accomplished. The motivation of young
Americans to do what needs to be done flows from such a coincidence of
conditions. … The Thomas Jeffersons, The Teddy Roosevelts, The John
Kennedys appear. We must begin to create the tools of leadership which they,
and their young frontiersmen, will require to lead us onward and upward.
— Dr. Harrison H. Schmidt

Much has been written about the cyclical nature of societies: I wonder where our communal biorhythm is right now?

Rolling Requiem: Broadcast and Streaming Information

One of the largest Rolling Requiem performances will occur at Safeco Field, in Seattle, WA, conducted by Maestro Gerard Schwarz, and featuring the Seattle Symphony Chorale, where the plans for the event originated. KING FM will come to you live from Safeco Field beginning at 6 A.M. pacific time on September 11th. The broadcast can be heard on 98.1 FM in the Seattle, WA area and streaming online from: http://www.king.org/reg/king.ram

I expect I’ll be listening to this throughout the day. I would like to go to Safeco Field, but that collides with school starting time, and as magical an event as it will be, it won’t reach a 4 and 5 year old just yet. Also, we’re trying not to make too much of the event or its commemoration just yet: it’s too hard to explain, especially if you have no good answers to the inevitable questions, like “Why?”

Find a broadcast/webcast that fits your schedule and listen in as the world remembers.
Continue reading “roll on”

Yahoo! News – Is Gateway’s Profile 4 a ‘Smarter’ Buy than Apple’s iMac?

In the more playful of the two ads, dubbed “New iMac Dance,” the iMac’s igloo-shaped base bobs and weaves while the screen tilts and pans. The effect is cartoonish, but even the most extreme positions could be duplicated with a real-life iMac.

Compare that to the less flexible Profile with a screen that only tilts upward or downward — no height or side-to-side adjustments are possible. The animated Profile on TV looks much more agile, but Gateway must run a disclaimer that says, “base and monitor movements are simulated.”

Coupled with quotes like “Apple has sold the iMac purely on the basis of its design” and you have to wonder how it that so few people understand design as more than just surface appearance.

Is it any surprise that Apple can show you the iMac from all sides while Gateway insists on a single product shot?

The Profile is just a repackaged collection of the same old annoyances and shortcuts. Old wine in a newer bottle.

In my son’s new school, I saw a poster/sign in a classroom, obviously made by one of the staff, and I thought it could be a pretty complete philosophy for life:

• Have you been kind today?
  
• Are you making good choices?
  
• Are you doing your very best work?
  

Ilike that these are questions, rather than imperatives: there’s the opportunity for reflection, rather than just another message being dinned into your head.

I especially like the second question. The extension of that is, what are you doing right now and is what you should be doing?

Some may find this simplistic or childish, but think of all the events in the news or your daily life where a little self-examination might have made all the difference.

I am the Chairman of the contract Advisory Committee
(CAC) of the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Works and
Housing (FMWH). I am seeking your assistance to enable
me transfer the sum of US$16,500,000.00 (Sixteen
Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars)
into your private/company account.

The fund came about as a result of a contract awarded
and executed on behalf of my Ministry the Federal
Ministry of Works and Housing.The contract was supposed
to be awarded to two foreign contractors to the tune of
US$60,000,000.00 (Sixty Million United States Dollars).
But in the course of negotiation, the contract was
awarded to a Bulgarian contractor at the cost of
US$43,500,000.00 (Forty-Three Million, Five Hundred
Thousand United States Dollars) to my benefit unknown
to the contractor. This contract has been
satisfactorily executed and inspected as the Bulgarian
firm is presently securing payment from my Ministry,
where I am the Executive Director in-charge of all
foreign contract payment approval.

So let me get this straight: you have US$16.5 million, skimmed from an overfunded contract and you want me to help you spirit out of the country illegally.

Wow, how much trouble can I get into in one swell foop . . . .

It’s a bit frustrating to follow the rules while other flout them. If this guy is bringing in $2,000 a month and not reporting it, what’s my incentive to play fair?

The Seattle Times: Life after layoff: Dales to sell the house

It also meant taking on a double-sized Seattle Post-Intelligencer motor route — technically an independent business — and putting it in Karen’s name in case Rodney ever needed to collect unemployment compensation. [emphasis mine]

Rodney has been collecting $496 a week in unemployment benefits, and extensions could carry that into next year.

The Seattle Times: Layoff family sells home, adjusts to apartment life

And he continues to drive a double-size Seattle Post-Intelligencer route, an independent business held in Karen’s name. The route takes about 5 hours a night and brings in $2,000 a month. Together, the jobs and unemployment checks add up to $5,000 a month.

It sounds a lot to me like he’s taking some trouble to adhere to the letter of the law without paying much attention to the spirit of it.

The last question asked in the weekly benefits certification process is “Did you work for any employer?” and I would say he is working for his wife’s independently held business. I wonder how he answers that question every Sunday?

My advice to graduates is to do anything except what you are trained for. Take that training to a place where it is out of place and stimulate ideas, shake up establishments, and don’t take no for an answer.

spotted on http://www.onfocus.com/ and attributed to Nicholas Negroponte.

UserLand.Com: What is a permalink?

News sites, or weblogs, begat the need for a concept that would make sense for newspaper websites too — the permalink.
[ . . . ]
Sometimes the time of the post is linked to the permalink.

This is how MovableType handles it, though I confess, it seemed non-obvious to me at first.

Why permalink? do we need a new pseudo word for this? Why not just “link?” As in “where’s the link to this entry?” Sometimes a thing doesn’t seem real unless it has its own jargon. I’m not trying to hold back the creativity of language, but some of it just seems needless.

And as the lads at http://winerlog.inspiredsites.net have noted, permanent isn’t, necessarily.

Daemon News : Fun With Automounting on FreeBSD

Now you have almost all of the info to duplicate my solution to that big noisy hard drive mentioned in the introduction.

This looked like a really helpful article, except the author left out any mention of the amd.conf file, without which amd won’t run.

I’m sure that’s not what he meant by “almost.”

A slightly edited version of the one in the amd.conf man page will work: just adjust the maps at the bottom.

I still haven’t figured out how to make it work for NFS mounts.