It never ceases to amaze me how vast numbers of people keep thinking the same set of thoughts over and over that turn out to be demonstratively wrong, yet they never change the way they think. Case in point, gas prices.
As they went up, we heard TONs of "explanations" as to why they were ONLY going to go UP!:
- Bush / Cheney / Republican conspiracy
- Big oil companies
- Chinese demand
- Real shortage due to too much demand / instability / Arab control
So, as they go up we see story after story of hand wringing, gloom and doom predictions, discussions about it being a "new era of short supply, change our ways, smaller vehicles, etc, etc". As they go **UP**, Gas prices are a HUGE story, and everyone talks about them!
This week unleaded went below $2 a gallon in MN. Not much of story. Hardly any discussion. All the tons of media and "man on the street" predictions about "they are going to go up after the election" and such are of course completely wrong.
It was HORRIBLE news when they went up, but is it even marginally good news as they go down? No, of course not ... the MSM and most of the sheep simply don't believe in good news.
Some of this is of course just "human nature". It is well understood that we perceive a loss much more acutely than a gain. If asked to take a sure buck or a 50% chance at $2, almost everyone takes the sure $1 because they don't want to risk the "loss" of not getting anything. In the job world, a lay-off or a plant closing is big news, 100's of people being hired every week at good jobs across a lot of companies is harder to pin down.
In a world of "rational reporting" however, we would take some of that into consideration and try to learn from our past mistakes so we didn't sound so foolish the next time around. Apparently, I'll have to live a lot more years to see anything like a wider set of people that learn from their mistakes.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Not A Smiley Smiley
The following is quoted off Wikipedia and written by Jane Smiley about the 2000 election:
For "balance", one should take a look at this.
I suppose that the first reaction of folks that haven't heard of her will be to think that I'm just quoting "some crank". That may SEEM obvious, but she is a PHD Nobel prize winner that would certianly fancy herself an intellectual. (I realize that doesn't exempt her from being a crank, but I'll leave summary judgment to others. After reading Jane, one tends to lose their taste for that particular form of arrogance)
She is quite certain of her superiority to millions of Americans, and she doesn't mind bragging about it. Her description of Bush as "an ignorant, dependent, fragile and rigid person" is especially interesting to me. In many ways, it is a pretty good description of the human condition in general. Jane seems to think that one can get OUT of that condition unless they don't desire to be trained? In the immortal words of Clint Eastwood; "A man's got to know his limitations". I suppose Jane would assume that doesn't apply to women. If you are certain you are the biggest, toughest, smartest hombre in the forest, that usually just means that you haven't looked around hard enough. Even if you have, just stand by, you will age.
Why do I waste my time reading such things? Well, there is always that chance that something interesting of a factual nature will be learned, and it is ALWAYS intriguing to see just how "ignorant. dependent, fragile, and rigid" people can really be.
"The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry...I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 millions have not...Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states...The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America...The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do - they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable...Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are - they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence."
For "balance", one should take a look at this.
I suppose that the first reaction of folks that haven't heard of her will be to think that I'm just quoting "some crank". That may SEEM obvious, but she is a PHD Nobel prize winner that would certianly fancy herself an intellectual. (I realize that doesn't exempt her from being a crank, but I'll leave summary judgment to others. After reading Jane, one tends to lose their taste for that particular form of arrogance)
She is quite certain of her superiority to millions of Americans, and she doesn't mind bragging about it. Her description of Bush as "an ignorant, dependent, fragile and rigid person" is especially interesting to me. In many ways, it is a pretty good description of the human condition in general. Jane seems to think that one can get OUT of that condition unless they don't desire to be trained? In the immortal words of Clint Eastwood; "A man's got to know his limitations". I suppose Jane would assume that doesn't apply to women. If you are certain you are the biggest, toughest, smartest hombre in the forest, that usually just means that you haven't looked around hard enough. Even if you have, just stand by, you will age.
Why do I waste my time reading such things? Well, there is always that chance that something interesting of a factual nature will be learned, and it is ALWAYS intriguing to see just how "ignorant. dependent, fragile, and rigid" people can really be.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Woot! Motorola
For those of you not familiar, Woot! is the "one day, one deal" site that has a new deal to purchase each day. A couple years back I had noticed the Motorola Homesight system and thought it was pretty cool. However, the base system with the computer hookup and one camera was $250, so a little too rich for my blood. Enter Woot!, for $75 I got the base, two cameras, one remote power control module and a door/window sensor. Just too good to resist, so now I can monitor the kitchen or utility room from my office. Bit-Head heaven!
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Wedding at Cana
The scripture at church this AM included the miracle of the water to wine at the wedding at Cana. Since I had happened to be discussing that miracle last night and its special significance to me, and the scripture showed up this AM, I feel led to say a few words.
For those not familiar with the specific text, here is a link. In a nutshell, it is the first miracle performed by Jesus. He is at a wedding with his mother, they run out of wine, she asks him to solve the problem. He is reticent, since it is "not yet time", but she tells the servants that he will take care of it, and he does. Does listening to your mother trump "your fathers plan" even when your father is God? It has to. Christ is FULLY both God and man -- "children obey your parents" in the family of God!
The resulting wine is seen as the "good wine" even though it is late in the evening and everyone had "drunk freely".
The first item of significance to me is that I was raised in a church that proudly called itself "Fundamentalist", and I will be returning to that term a number of times over the next few weeks I suspect. They had "somehow decided" that this "wine" was not alcoholic, because they apparently thought it would be good to extend their definition of being a "Christian" to include required abstinence from alcohol.
I find it VERY hard to imagine how anyone can read this text and not believe that this "wine" indeed contained alcohol. On the spiritual level alone, there is very little "miracle" in turning water into "grape juice"; children do that pretty much all the time with "Kool Aid". The creation of alcohol in the wine is a true miracle, not doable instantly by man even today, but rather one that takes the passage of time and fermentation on the sugars, especially to create "the good wine".
The meaning seems clear enough to me, but I'm not a student of Hebrew and Greek. I thought that this was a good post (other than spelling) on that front for those still doubting.
The miracle is special to me for the following reasons:
1). It gives us a very solid picture that Christ is "fully man and fully God"; he listens to his mother, he helps in a purely social situation that would just be embarrassing, not life-threatening to the people involved. He does something "simple", yet something that is completely beyond the ability of humans. It is "outside of material power". He does "the human thing" but in a way no human can do, AND even though he does it, he has no interest in "credit". It simply looks like the host came up with the good wine to the rest of the people at the party.
2). The question is always Christ. The scripture here is very clear, but it isn't "tidy". A miracle to save embarrassment and provide more wine when it sounds like people may have had plenty already? Much as when Mary the sister of Martha anoints Jesus head with expensive oil that could have been "spent on the poor", and in another case wipes his feet with her hair. Why include such "messy things" in the Bible? Because while Jesus comes to save us, he doesn't have to fit OUR mold of what WE think he should be. His is God, he is Truth. When we make him into the image that we want, we are in danger of missing the message. The Grace of Christ is a SCANDAL. Jesus is not what humans think that God "should be". To those who "live by the rules", Christ is simply shocking!
The essence of fundamentalism, in religion, science, or life seems to be a inability to deal with ambiguity and incomplete knowledge. The human urge for "closure" drives the fundamentalist to "create a model", and then "defend their ground", usually with name calling and judgement against those that don't agree with their model.
For religious fundamentalists, they call what they have "faith", but it is a faith in THEIR model, rather than "true knowledge". Often their position is defended with a lot of emotion and a lot of denigration of those who don't share their model. Something that may seem like a "small issue" ... eg, was it "wine or grape juice", or "was it 6 24 hour days of creation, or does it have to be that precise" become a major stumbling block, and a disagreement is a major breech.
So too for the scientific fundamentalist / atheist. An otherwise intelligent and successful scientist is questioned if they even so much as say something no "worse" than "God does not play dice" on the potential that they have "become weak" and lost the atheist dogma. The fundamentalist atheist materialist scientist can't allow such a statement to go unchallenged, they can't allow any thought that the universe can be other than randomly created to somehow seem to be validated by a person that they thought was a solid atheist.
Our basic models are all "faith based", since we have no proof that we even exist nor that reality is anything even remotely like what we perceive (witness movies like "The Matrix" or the Star Trek "holodeck". We all "live by faith", the issue is only if we have "faith in our perception of the material universe", or "faith in a transcendence beyond matter", we can't "prove" either viewpoint in the scientific sense.
For those not familiar with the specific text, here is a link. In a nutshell, it is the first miracle performed by Jesus. He is at a wedding with his mother, they run out of wine, she asks him to solve the problem. He is reticent, since it is "not yet time", but she tells the servants that he will take care of it, and he does. Does listening to your mother trump "your fathers plan" even when your father is God? It has to. Christ is FULLY both God and man -- "children obey your parents" in the family of God!
The resulting wine is seen as the "good wine" even though it is late in the evening and everyone had "drunk freely".
The first item of significance to me is that I was raised in a church that proudly called itself "Fundamentalist", and I will be returning to that term a number of times over the next few weeks I suspect. They had "somehow decided" that this "wine" was not alcoholic, because they apparently thought it would be good to extend their definition of being a "Christian" to include required abstinence from alcohol.
I find it VERY hard to imagine how anyone can read this text and not believe that this "wine" indeed contained alcohol. On the spiritual level alone, there is very little "miracle" in turning water into "grape juice"; children do that pretty much all the time with "Kool Aid". The creation of alcohol in the wine is a true miracle, not doable instantly by man even today, but rather one that takes the passage of time and fermentation on the sugars, especially to create "the good wine".
The meaning seems clear enough to me, but I'm not a student of Hebrew and Greek. I thought that this was a good post (other than spelling) on that front for those still doubting.
The miracle is special to me for the following reasons:
1). It gives us a very solid picture that Christ is "fully man and fully God"; he listens to his mother, he helps in a purely social situation that would just be embarrassing, not life-threatening to the people involved. He does something "simple", yet something that is completely beyond the ability of humans. It is "outside of material power". He does "the human thing" but in a way no human can do, AND even though he does it, he has no interest in "credit". It simply looks like the host came up with the good wine to the rest of the people at the party.
2). The question is always Christ. The scripture here is very clear, but it isn't "tidy". A miracle to save embarrassment and provide more wine when it sounds like people may have had plenty already? Much as when Mary the sister of Martha anoints Jesus head with expensive oil that could have been "spent on the poor", and in another case wipes his feet with her hair. Why include such "messy things" in the Bible? Because while Jesus comes to save us, he doesn't have to fit OUR mold of what WE think he should be. His is God, he is Truth. When we make him into the image that we want, we are in danger of missing the message. The Grace of Christ is a SCANDAL. Jesus is not what humans think that God "should be". To those who "live by the rules", Christ is simply shocking!
The essence of fundamentalism, in religion, science, or life seems to be a inability to deal with ambiguity and incomplete knowledge. The human urge for "closure" drives the fundamentalist to "create a model", and then "defend their ground", usually with name calling and judgement against those that don't agree with their model.
For religious fundamentalists, they call what they have "faith", but it is a faith in THEIR model, rather than "true knowledge". Often their position is defended with a lot of emotion and a lot of denigration of those who don't share their model. Something that may seem like a "small issue" ... eg, was it "wine or grape juice", or "was it 6 24 hour days of creation, or does it have to be that precise" become a major stumbling block, and a disagreement is a major breech.
So too for the scientific fundamentalist / atheist. An otherwise intelligent and successful scientist is questioned if they even so much as say something no "worse" than "God does not play dice" on the potential that they have "become weak" and lost the atheist dogma. The fundamentalist atheist materialist scientist can't allow such a statement to go unchallenged, they can't allow any thought that the universe can be other than randomly created to somehow seem to be validated by a person that they thought was a solid atheist.
Our basic models are all "faith based", since we have no proof that we even exist nor that reality is anything even remotely like what we perceive (witness movies like "The Matrix" or the Star Trek "holodeck". We all "live by faith", the issue is only if we have "faith in our perception of the material universe", or "faith in a transcendence beyond matter", we can't "prove" either viewpoint in the scientific sense.
Sandy vs Scooter
In the world of thought and opinion, we have very little in the way of "facts" to objectively test how the various parties in the MSM really think or feel. Our best mechanisms are statistics and comparison. That is what I find so fascinating about the contrast between the MSMs treatment of the story of Scooter Libby, and the story of Sandy Berger. The contrast is even more delectable since Richard Armitage came forward and admitted that the Plame leak was his, not Libbys at all.
The WSJ has an article with a few more details on the strange case of the Berger leak, which is of course of zero interest to most of the MSM. Clearly an ACTUAL case of obviously secret documents being taken for "some purpose" arouses ZERO suspicion if the person stuffing the papers in their pants has a "D" next to their name. Conspriacy theories and finger pointing on "responsibility for 9/11" at the Bush administration who was in office for less than 10 months at the time of the attack have abounded. ANY attempt to ask or conjecture about the Clinton administration that was in office for 8 years prior to the attack (even a fictional one in a TV movie) has been met with howls of protest from the MSM and of course the Democrats.
This is just "partisan MSM politics as usual", but the fact that 9/11 really DID happen, and information as to "why, and how it might be prevented in the future"OUGHT to be something that "rises above politics" makes one wish it were different. We see the effects of the media here. With Republicans, the CHARGE that they did something ("punished" Joe Wilson by outing his CIA wife) is converted into "truth" by constant repetition, even though there was never ANY truth to the entire story. It was completely manufactured. On the Democrat side, the FACT that documents were taken by a very high level Democrat and that while we have tantalizing hints as to "why", no investigation is forthcoming.
The difference in personality types is obvious here as well. Republicans don't really even consider "making up a good story and seeing if they can get it to fly". No doubt that isn't entirely due to "superior morals", since they realize that given the MSM, there is no chance that their fabrication would be successful. Democrats, and indeed the MSM often ASSUME on the other hand that WMD, 9-11 itself, gas prices, off-shoring of jobs, and even the whole Islamic terrorist threat itself at somehow "manufactured by Republicans and the corporate media". Since even in the age of talk radio, blogs, and Fox news, the the "dominant media" is still the NY Times and the major networks, such conspiricy thinking applied to the right still gets some significant creedence.
The WSJ has an article with a few more details on the strange case of the Berger leak, which is of course of zero interest to most of the MSM. Clearly an ACTUAL case of obviously secret documents being taken for "some purpose" arouses ZERO suspicion if the person stuffing the papers in their pants has a "D" next to their name. Conspriacy theories and finger pointing on "responsibility for 9/11" at the Bush administration who was in office for less than 10 months at the time of the attack have abounded. ANY attempt to ask or conjecture about the Clinton administration that was in office for 8 years prior to the attack (even a fictional one in a TV movie) has been met with howls of protest from the MSM and of course the Democrats.
This is just "partisan MSM politics as usual", but the fact that 9/11 really DID happen, and information as to "why, and how it might be prevented in the future"OUGHT to be something that "rises above politics" makes one wish it were different. We see the effects of the media here. With Republicans, the CHARGE that they did something ("punished" Joe Wilson by outing his CIA wife) is converted into "truth" by constant repetition, even though there was never ANY truth to the entire story. It was completely manufactured. On the Democrat side, the FACT that documents were taken by a very high level Democrat and that while we have tantalizing hints as to "why", no investigation is forthcoming.
The difference in personality types is obvious here as well. Republicans don't really even consider "making up a good story and seeing if they can get it to fly". No doubt that isn't entirely due to "superior morals", since they realize that given the MSM, there is no chance that their fabrication would be successful. Democrats, and indeed the MSM often ASSUME on the other hand that WMD, 9-11 itself, gas prices, off-shoring of jobs, and even the whole Islamic terrorist threat itself at somehow "manufactured by Republicans and the corporate media". Since even in the age of talk radio, blogs, and Fox news, the the "dominant media" is still the NY Times and the major networks, such conspiricy thinking applied to the right still gets some significant creedence.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The Cosmic Landscape
This book by Leonard Susskind is a very well written and very honest account by an accomplished physicist. He subtitles it "string theory and the illusion of intelligent design", but in many ways it is a half-time speech to encourage the weakening physicists to not lose hope, and hold on to their faith that there is no intelligence behind the universe, no matter how grim it may look for the proponents of randomness.
You can tell that there is some bitter disappointment with a few developments of recent years. The worst is that "Einsteins blunder", the cosmological constant, which he added as a "fudge factor" to general relativity since he envisioned the universe as static. When Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding it was assumed that the constant was zero, and Einstein called giving it a value his "greatest mistake". Unfortunately for the "random crowd", it turns out that it needs to have a value for us to exist, and that value has to be tuned to an accuracy of 10 to the -120. If you believe that would happen randomly, then you are either a regular player of the lottery or a nervous atheist physicist.
It isn't as if this is the only "Goldilocks feature" (not too this, not too that, but JUST right) of our universe. There is the Higgs field, the strong and weak force balances and a host of others. Prior to the late '90s most physicists felt that string theory was going to give them the "grand unified theory of everything" that would allow them to definitively declare that no "watchmaker was needed" (ie. No God or Intelligent Design), but the accuracy of 10 to the -120 was too much for many of them--they either refuse to accept the dead end of string theory as providing the kind of "lack of dependence on special conditions" that would indicate to them that "it just happened", or apparently quietly pray in their closets to prevent guys like Susskind, or worse yet, Dawkins from finding them out.
As Susskind points out on page 355, lest someone think that scientists are "open minded"; "Because as scientists we understand that there is a compelling human need to believe - the need to be comforted - that easily clouds peoples judgment. It is all too easy to fall into the seductive trap of a comforting fairy tale. So we resist, to the death, all explanations of the world based on anything but the Laws of Physics, mathematics, and probability."
Such is the stuff of faith, and indeed, that core decision as to the origin of the universe; intelligent, purposeful, and meaningful? Or random, purposeless and meaningless? is at the core of how humans relate to life, truth and each other. I would argue that a core feature of the human mind, the need for CLOSURE, which drives the need for FUNDAMENTALISM may even be a bigger factor than the random/intelligent divide, one which I intend to go into in the future as I begin to deal with "The God Delusion" by Dawkins.
Susskind's, Dawkins and all atheist positions are fundamentalist ... like the baptists I grew up with, or like the folks that flew into the twin towers. Christ brings freedom if you will have it -- he saves by Grace, allows (even demands!) loving your enemies, and beats up on the fundamentalists of the day -- the Scribes and Pharisees with joyous abandon. Fundamentalists are so fun to argue with since they are so rigid and prone to get unhinged when they find their views questioned in ways they have difficulty defending. Even the religious ones actually have no "higher power", because they fervently believe that "it is all obvious with a FEW easy to understand "facts"" ... just like the scientific or "liberal" fundamentalists. "A small matter of education" and you can be a fundamentalist too!
Susskind pumps up the weakened atheist position by an appeal to the messiness of string theory. He rises to the defense of randomness with the assertion that there are 10 to the 500 UNIVERSES in the "cosmic landscape", so it is really "easy" that we happen to be here. To "strengthen" his position, it looks like such a theory can never be tested, since our universe bubble is expanding near the speed of light, knowledge of the other universes is forever outside our "horizon". Susskind points out that his position is somehow superior to "the God hypothesis", even though apparently not testable, since as he states above, he is beyond that "human need to be comforted".
Apparently he finds the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient being, morally perfect, and beyond material understanding as somehow "comforting". I would imagine that his concept of God would not include the potential for such a thing as "judgment" or "sin", even though given the distance between ours and that of a being that may do fine tuning of the cosmological constant to 120 places of accuracy, it would seem that there would be a slight potential for "differences".
Susskind proudly proclaims with Laplace relative to the idea of God; "I have no need of this hypothesis". Much as he fails to explain why he finds himself beyond human need for "comfort", he fails to explain this leap. Apparently he hasn't figured out yet that he is mortal, and in that, Laplace and Einstein have clearly exceeded Lenny's understanding of their position in the universe. (they know the answer to God)
He DID write an excellent book that I would highly recommend to anyone that seeks to understand physics. He clearly believes that he has produced a work that will be "no comfort to the intelligent design crowd". That may be true in the sense that most of that crowd share Susskind's fundamentalism (just a small "type difference"), which is actually the most comforting of human delusions ... because fundamentalists believe that they know.
You can tell that there is some bitter disappointment with a few developments of recent years. The worst is that "Einsteins blunder", the cosmological constant, which he added as a "fudge factor" to general relativity since he envisioned the universe as static. When Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding it was assumed that the constant was zero, and Einstein called giving it a value his "greatest mistake". Unfortunately for the "random crowd", it turns out that it needs to have a value for us to exist, and that value has to be tuned to an accuracy of 10 to the -120. If you believe that would happen randomly, then you are either a regular player of the lottery or a nervous atheist physicist.
It isn't as if this is the only "Goldilocks feature" (not too this, not too that, but JUST right) of our universe. There is the Higgs field, the strong and weak force balances and a host of others. Prior to the late '90s most physicists felt that string theory was going to give them the "grand unified theory of everything" that would allow them to definitively declare that no "watchmaker was needed" (ie. No God or Intelligent Design), but the accuracy of 10 to the -120 was too much for many of them--they either refuse to accept the dead end of string theory as providing the kind of "lack of dependence on special conditions" that would indicate to them that "it just happened", or apparently quietly pray in their closets to prevent guys like Susskind, or worse yet, Dawkins from finding them out.
As Susskind points out on page 355, lest someone think that scientists are "open minded"; "Because as scientists we understand that there is a compelling human need to believe - the need to be comforted - that easily clouds peoples judgment. It is all too easy to fall into the seductive trap of a comforting fairy tale. So we resist, to the death, all explanations of the world based on anything but the Laws of Physics, mathematics, and probability."
Such is the stuff of faith, and indeed, that core decision as to the origin of the universe; intelligent, purposeful, and meaningful? Or random, purposeless and meaningless? is at the core of how humans relate to life, truth and each other. I would argue that a core feature of the human mind, the need for CLOSURE, which drives the need for FUNDAMENTALISM may even be a bigger factor than the random/intelligent divide, one which I intend to go into in the future as I begin to deal with "The God Delusion" by Dawkins.
Susskind's, Dawkins and all atheist positions are fundamentalist ... like the baptists I grew up with, or like the folks that flew into the twin towers. Christ brings freedom if you will have it -- he saves by Grace, allows (even demands!) loving your enemies, and beats up on the fundamentalists of the day -- the Scribes and Pharisees with joyous abandon. Fundamentalists are so fun to argue with since they are so rigid and prone to get unhinged when they find their views questioned in ways they have difficulty defending. Even the religious ones actually have no "higher power", because they fervently believe that "it is all obvious with a FEW easy to understand "facts"" ... just like the scientific or "liberal" fundamentalists. "A small matter of education" and you can be a fundamentalist too!
Susskind pumps up the weakened atheist position by an appeal to the messiness of string theory. He rises to the defense of randomness with the assertion that there are 10 to the 500 UNIVERSES in the "cosmic landscape", so it is really "easy" that we happen to be here. To "strengthen" his position, it looks like such a theory can never be tested, since our universe bubble is expanding near the speed of light, knowledge of the other universes is forever outside our "horizon". Susskind points out that his position is somehow superior to "the God hypothesis", even though apparently not testable, since as he states above, he is beyond that "human need to be comforted".
Apparently he finds the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient being, morally perfect, and beyond material understanding as somehow "comforting". I would imagine that his concept of God would not include the potential for such a thing as "judgment" or "sin", even though given the distance between ours and that of a being that may do fine tuning of the cosmological constant to 120 places of accuracy, it would seem that there would be a slight potential for "differences".
Susskind proudly proclaims with Laplace relative to the idea of God; "I have no need of this hypothesis". Much as he fails to explain why he finds himself beyond human need for "comfort", he fails to explain this leap. Apparently he hasn't figured out yet that he is mortal, and in that, Laplace and Einstein have clearly exceeded Lenny's understanding of their position in the universe. (they know the answer to God)
He DID write an excellent book that I would highly recommend to anyone that seeks to understand physics. He clearly believes that he has produced a work that will be "no comfort to the intelligent design crowd". That may be true in the sense that most of that crowd share Susskind's fundamentalism (just a small "type difference"), which is actually the most comforting of human delusions ... because fundamentalists believe that they know.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
TerrorByte
Sometime in the late 80's I was working with dasd recovery software for a computing system that was in the process of being built, and we had an installation in the lab that had a terabyte (trillion) bytes of storage. We joked about it being "a terror byte", since if some of your software took that machine down, there was some degree of scrutiny since it took many hours to get it back up from a crash.
As luck would have it, part of the code I had produced re-allocated bad sectors on a drive, and it had to be "absolutely fail safe". I attempted to accomplish this by having a "save area" on the drive itself so that if anything went wrong during the recovery (power failure, other hardware or software failure), the proper state was always written out on the drive and when they attempted to bring the system up again, the sector reallocation process would complete as part of that process.
Unfortunately, I made an error in part of the code, so if certain events happened my recovery code would take and exception in a very restricted state of the machine on the way up, the boot would not complete, and the machine would never come back up again. Suddenly, I was in very high demand. Under a good deal of stress I managed to figure out what the problem was, make a patch to the machine and "wala", the monster trundled on through it's boot process to eventual completion and my "programmer humility" went up a bit. Part of the magic of being an operating system programmer is that when you screw up it takes the whole machine down. At that point, I was one of those special operating system programmers that if I made a mistake, your machine would never boot again ... unless you completely re-installed it from scratch and lost all your data. "Power" ... but with stress.
So what makes me think of this? Well, the machine I am typing this in on sitting on my desk officially has 1.1 terabyte of storage! I heard a lot of conflicting stories about how much the lab machine I crashed was worth, but it was certainly "millions". The grand total for the cost on this? Something around $400, and that is only because one of the 320GB drives is last years model and I think I paid $150 for it. There is another $99 320GB EIDE drives in there and two 250GB SATA drives that I picked up for under $80 each. Things really do change in twenty years. From a room full of drives worth millions to a machine under my desk worth "hundreds"!
As luck would have it, part of the code I had produced re-allocated bad sectors on a drive, and it had to be "absolutely fail safe". I attempted to accomplish this by having a "save area" on the drive itself so that if anything went wrong during the recovery (power failure, other hardware or software failure), the proper state was always written out on the drive and when they attempted to bring the system up again, the sector reallocation process would complete as part of that process.
Unfortunately, I made an error in part of the code, so if certain events happened my recovery code would take and exception in a very restricted state of the machine on the way up, the boot would not complete, and the machine would never come back up again. Suddenly, I was in very high demand. Under a good deal of stress I managed to figure out what the problem was, make a patch to the machine and "wala", the monster trundled on through it's boot process to eventual completion and my "programmer humility" went up a bit. Part of the magic of being an operating system programmer is that when you screw up it takes the whole machine down. At that point, I was one of those special operating system programmers that if I made a mistake, your machine would never boot again ... unless you completely re-installed it from scratch and lost all your data. "Power" ... but with stress.
So what makes me think of this? Well, the machine I am typing this in on sitting on my desk officially has 1.1 terabyte of storage! I heard a lot of conflicting stories about how much the lab machine I crashed was worth, but it was certainly "millions". The grand total for the cost on this? Something around $400, and that is only because one of the 320GB drives is last years model and I think I paid $150 for it. There is another $99 320GB EIDE drives in there and two 250GB SATA drives that I picked up for under $80 each. Things really do change in twenty years. From a room full of drives worth millions to a machine under my desk worth "hundreds"!
McCain Surge
The following is off PowerLine by John McCain. As I read it, I'm reminded of the Otto Von Bismark quote "Politics is the art of the possible". I have my differences with McCain, and often find him to be pompous and self-serving, but on Iraq he is at least reasonable, and maybe correct. My personal view is that we would likely kill less Americans and less Iraqis, and have a shorter time to a handover WITHOUT a "surge", but one has to "do what they can do". The "possible" likely doesn't include "stay the course" for longer than a few months, so even if more must die for the left to get their way, that is likely the only "possible" option available that gives us a fighting chance to avoid the cut and run that the left is after.
Debate in recent days has focused on the possibility of “surging” U.S. combat forces in Iraq. Security is the precondition for political progress and economic development, and we need more troops on the ground. But to make a real difference, any surge must be substantial and sustained.During my recent trip to Iraq, commanders spoke of adding as many as five additional brigades in Baghdad, and one or two additional brigades in Anbar Province. This, I believe, is the minimum we should consider. It would be far better to have too many reinforcements in Iraq than to suffer, once again, the tragic results of insufficient force levels.
The mission of these troops would be to implement the thus-far-elusive “hold” element of the military’s “clear, hold, build” strategy: to maintain security in cleared areas, to protect the population, and to impose the government’s authority. Our troops would work in cooperation with Iraqi forces, and stay in place until the completion of their mission.
The worst of all worlds would be a small, short surge of U.S. forces. We have tried small surges in the past, and they have been ineffective because our commanders lacked the forces necessary to hold territory after it was cleared. A short surge would have all the drawbacks associated with greater deployments without giving our troops the time they need to be effective.
Increasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq will expose more brave Americans to danger, and increase the number of American casualties. Extending combat tours and accelerating the deployment of additional brigades is a terrible sacrifice to impose on the best patriots among us, and they will understandably be disappointed. Then they will shoulder their weapons, and do everything duty requires to win this war.
We have made many mistakes since 2003, and these will not be easily reversed. But from everything I witnessed on my most recent visit, I believe that success is still possible. Even greater than the costs incurred thus far and in the future are the catastrophic consequences that would ensue from our failure in Iraq. By surging troops and bringing security to Baghdad and other areas, we will give the Iraqis the best possible chance to succeed. Our national security, and that of our friends and allies, compels us to make our best effort to prevail, and to do it now.
On a personal note, I want to thank John, Paul and Scott for granting me this valuable real estate on Power Line to make the case for victory in Iraq.
iPhone
iPhone blows away expectations by ZDNet's Ed Burnette -- Once in a while, the truth can be wilder than the rumors. Such was the case today at MacWorld 2007, where Steve Jobs unveiled the long awaited iPhone.
Wow, Very cool .. the phone, the iPod, the digital camera, and the PDA all in one beaufiful package complete with WiFi and Bluetooth!
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
How the West Could Lose
Great little SHORT Daniel Pipes piece
on the obvious. He nets it down to 3 points:
1). Pacifism
2). Self-Hatred
3). Complacency
Well worth the time to read it!
on the obvious. He nets it down to 3 points:
1). Pacifism
2). Self-Hatred
3). Complacency
Well worth the time to read it!
Spinning
Somehow taking vacation always seems to get me too much into a "stream on consciousness" where I fall into reading a number of books that I like at the "same time" (currently "Five Frigates" and "The Cosmic Landscape", as well as trying to find the time to make it through my Sons Science Fiction book on the web), as well as a "set" of other things ... trying new technologies on Firefox for bookmarking, blogging, rss feeds ... installing a bunch of new Spyware detection, registry cleaning and virus scanning to see if I can't clean up my XP installation so Windows Update works ... installing Linux on a 2nd machine in the office ... plus getting in over my head on a number of new projects at work right off the bat. Of course, I'm behind the e-mail daemon due to taking a few days off over the holidays. I enjoy it, I know I need to get it under better control, but a new year always makes me realize how short last year really was and I guess that drives me to over-reach. I have a lot of "great ideas" ... for the blog and other places. We shall see if any of them actually get implemented.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
2007
Eleven days off work have sped by like a couple of days of work time and today was back to the grind. Time with family and friends, a small amount of travel, too much food, nice gifts, lots of working out, and a reasonable amount of reading, computing of one sort or another, watching movies, and simply enjoying life. It does make one wonder how we are supposed to find time for work, I guess that is why we need to be compensated for that.
As I reflect more on blogging / writing, I realize it is something that I happily do for free, and don't really even care about readership. I'd LIKE if there were lots of readers, but I don't NEED readers, nor am I willing to do much to get more. I could easily spend long days reading books of one sort or another and writing in some form. At some point it would be nice to be able to "make a living" doing that, but it is also nice to just do something that is enjoyed for enjoyments sake. In the "over 50 world", that kind of thinking seems to get more important all the time.
The lovely computer I am writing on seems to have acquired some sort of "spyware / virues / etc" that SEEMS to have ended up with the only "permanent problem" being that I can't do Windows Update or install IE7. Neither of these are "huge" since I have other computers, but it irks me to be a "professional" and not be able to "easily fix it". I realize intellectually that being in the field only means that I have SOME more comprehension of what is going on than the "average person". It would likely take a good long while to get to the "right expert" out of the thousands of folks at MS to get me going ... I've gone through all the forums, searches, etc, and no dice so far. It looks like a clean re-install may be in the offing. Technology is fun, but like anything it can also be frustrating.
My resolutions for this year are pretty much "be positive and keep getting in shape". It would be "nice" if 2007 was "uneventful" in our family, but somehow we don't get to pick that, so being thankful for what God has in store for us seems like the best approach. I had shed 35lbs prior to Christmas, but managed to pile 5 back on even with massive working out and lower consumption than "normal". So, I have 25lbs to go to get to my goal. Life always has some challenges.
I find myself with way more things to do than I have time to do them in, but I've always considered that "managing the right problem". One of my maxims is that "you will always have problems, the best you can hope for is to be able to have some say in which problems you have". Most of the left likes to "have other peoples problems" ... they like to point out how this and that has really "messed them up", or is "so unfair", or "needs to be fixed". They enjoy the fact that somebody else got to pick their problems. It is true that some problems get picked for us. A tendency to put on weight, a broken elbow, challenging business climate, etc ... but we certainly have a "say" in all of those as well.
We don't HAVE to be the "victim" of things that are "out of our control", or "water over the dam". The temptation is ALWAYS there as we face reduced eating, going back to work, lack of snow for snowmobiling, or some other "issue" to believe that it is "unfair / others have it better / insurmountable / depressing" or some other thought that takes us out of control and absolves us responsibility. That usually feels good for a tiny amount of time, but the end result of that kind of thought is that you can end up blaming others and thinking like a liberal. Stick with the mental toughness, it CAN be a Happy New Year!
As I reflect more on blogging / writing, I realize it is something that I happily do for free, and don't really even care about readership. I'd LIKE if there were lots of readers, but I don't NEED readers, nor am I willing to do much to get more. I could easily spend long days reading books of one sort or another and writing in some form. At some point it would be nice to be able to "make a living" doing that, but it is also nice to just do something that is enjoyed for enjoyments sake. In the "over 50 world", that kind of thinking seems to get more important all the time.
The lovely computer I am writing on seems to have acquired some sort of "spyware / virues / etc" that SEEMS to have ended up with the only "permanent problem" being that I can't do Windows Update or install IE7. Neither of these are "huge" since I have other computers, but it irks me to be a "professional" and not be able to "easily fix it". I realize intellectually that being in the field only means that I have SOME more comprehension of what is going on than the "average person". It would likely take a good long while to get to the "right expert" out of the thousands of folks at MS to get me going ... I've gone through all the forums, searches, etc, and no dice so far. It looks like a clean re-install may be in the offing. Technology is fun, but like anything it can also be frustrating.
My resolutions for this year are pretty much "be positive and keep getting in shape". It would be "nice" if 2007 was "uneventful" in our family, but somehow we don't get to pick that, so being thankful for what God has in store for us seems like the best approach. I had shed 35lbs prior to Christmas, but managed to pile 5 back on even with massive working out and lower consumption than "normal". So, I have 25lbs to go to get to my goal. Life always has some challenges.
I find myself with way more things to do than I have time to do them in, but I've always considered that "managing the right problem". One of my maxims is that "you will always have problems, the best you can hope for is to be able to have some say in which problems you have". Most of the left likes to "have other peoples problems" ... they like to point out how this and that has really "messed them up", or is "so unfair", or "needs to be fixed". They enjoy the fact that somebody else got to pick their problems. It is true that some problems get picked for us. A tendency to put on weight, a broken elbow, challenging business climate, etc ... but we certainly have a "say" in all of those as well.
We don't HAVE to be the "victim" of things that are "out of our control", or "water over the dam". The temptation is ALWAYS there as we face reduced eating, going back to work, lack of snow for snowmobiling, or some other "issue" to believe that it is "unfair / others have it better / insurmountable / depressing" or some other thought that takes us out of control and absolves us responsibility. That usually feels good for a tiny amount of time, but the end result of that kind of thought is that you can end up blaming others and thinking like a liberal. Stick with the mental toughness, it CAN be a Happy New Year!
Friday, December 29, 2006
Saddam
The news is out tonight that Saddam has been executed. I've not read any articles yet, but a few thoughts.
You won't hear any Republicans say "Well, Bush Sr is still alive, but Saddam is dead", although I'm sure a few others will realize it. Why does this strike me? Well, because after '92, one fairly REGULARLY heard Democrats and MSM folks say with some glee; "Bush is out of power, but Saddam is still there". Even though most of them had been TOTALLY against marching to Baghdad and solving the problem at that point, they really enjoyed the fact that Bush had lost the election but Saddam remained in office. Little things like Bush being the leader in a Democracy and Saddam being a dictator were apparently lost on them.
The "Bush lost, Saddam won" kind of thinking and enjoyment gives a glimpse into the soul of the left. They LIKED Saddam, Saddam "stood up to the US", and they LOVE to see the US "put in it's place". They may live here, but they don't like "authority" ... Castro, Hugo Chavez, Saddam, even Osama are folks that don't "show respect for the authority of the US", and they like that. One might think that it would give them pause to be on the same side as bloodthirsty dictators and petty tyrants, all of which would torture, rape, kill, or otherwise ruin the day of the "laughing liberal" at a moments notice if given the chance, but remember, consistency is NOT an issue for a liberal.
The streak typically goes deeper. As I've mentioned before, there is no limit to what they would like to see happen to a white collar criminal, but for Saddam? They are going to question the morality of putting a butcher that has killed 100's of thousands to the awful death penalty. There are tapes of him having people thrown off roofs, put through plastic shredders, and documentation of him having air hoses inserted in peoples rectums and blowing them up from the inside out. The lefty's hearts are full of sadness at the loss of Saddam, they saw him as a great guy. Bush, they would take glee if somehow he could be abused as the worst of Saddam's victims.
It is likely hard to fully plumb the depths of the lefty brain to really comprehend this, but I believe the core is simply "hatred for authority". They see the US as "authority", and Saddam as one who "stood against authority". They want to see the US and it's "symobols" (flag, president, military, etc) "brought down". Ideally, they would see God "brought down", but in this earthly realm, the US is a good stand-in, so they revel in that when they can.
Oh well, "the little guy" didn't do so well against authority this time. Pity.
You won't hear any Republicans say "Well, Bush Sr is still alive, but Saddam is dead", although I'm sure a few others will realize it. Why does this strike me? Well, because after '92, one fairly REGULARLY heard Democrats and MSM folks say with some glee; "Bush is out of power, but Saddam is still there". Even though most of them had been TOTALLY against marching to Baghdad and solving the problem at that point, they really enjoyed the fact that Bush had lost the election but Saddam remained in office. Little things like Bush being the leader in a Democracy and Saddam being a dictator were apparently lost on them.
The "Bush lost, Saddam won" kind of thinking and enjoyment gives a glimpse into the soul of the left. They LIKED Saddam, Saddam "stood up to the US", and they LOVE to see the US "put in it's place". They may live here, but they don't like "authority" ... Castro, Hugo Chavez, Saddam, even Osama are folks that don't "show respect for the authority of the US", and they like that. One might think that it would give them pause to be on the same side as bloodthirsty dictators and petty tyrants, all of which would torture, rape, kill, or otherwise ruin the day of the "laughing liberal" at a moments notice if given the chance, but remember, consistency is NOT an issue for a liberal.
The streak typically goes deeper. As I've mentioned before, there is no limit to what they would like to see happen to a white collar criminal, but for Saddam? They are going to question the morality of putting a butcher that has killed 100's of thousands to the awful death penalty. There are tapes of him having people thrown off roofs, put through plastic shredders, and documentation of him having air hoses inserted in peoples rectums and blowing them up from the inside out. The lefty's hearts are full of sadness at the loss of Saddam, they saw him as a great guy. Bush, they would take glee if somehow he could be abused as the worst of Saddam's victims.
It is likely hard to fully plumb the depths of the lefty brain to really comprehend this, but I believe the core is simply "hatred for authority". They see the US as "authority", and Saddam as one who "stood against authority". They want to see the US and it's "symobols" (flag, president, military, etc) "brought down". Ideally, they would see God "brought down", but in this earthly realm, the US is a good stand-in, so they revel in that when they can.
Oh well, "the little guy" didn't do so well against authority this time. Pity.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Kerry In Iraq
For those that only follow the MSM and missed the picture posted above, it is worth a glance. It has been linked from a lot of places, but it appears that it originated from the blog of a soldier in Iraq Kerry Visits
I'm sure many of the "free speech loving left" will wonder why soldiers are allowed to do such things, post to blogs, and say anything negative about great guys like Kerry that just happen to call them ignorant slackers (all in a joke, of course!).
On the other hand, when they can find one or two soldiers to say something negative about Bush or Rumsfeld, such comments are covered with glee, and there are no concerns about such criticism of the President or Secretary of Defense, positions that are in their actual chain of command, rather than just a Senator.
As I've said before, the MSM covers the statements made against Republicans CORRECTLY, they ought to cover the statements made against Democrats as well. If it is factual that Kerry's chopper was "Weasel 61", and Hillary was "Broomstick 11", then that is a HOOT for anybody that is even "moderately unbiased". Based on a lot of polls, well over 50% of Americans would agree that Kerry and Hillary are both very unappealing folks with high negatives. While it is true that were we ACTUALLY going to try to "improve our civility", then we should refrain from such "cheap shots", however the situation we have now is that there is no blow that is too low to be leveled against Bush in the continual attempt to destroy him by the left and the MSM, but people that are every bit as unappealing to a wide range of Americans (Hillary and Kerry) get ignored, even when some focus would obviously "sell papers".
Ignoring stuff like this gives the lie to the "they aren't biased, they just report what will sell papers". Seeing a pompous imbecile like Kerry shunned by the people who likes to insult and then attempt to weasel out of it is the stuff that Americans always enjoy. The media doesn't find it entertaining TO THEMSELVES when one of the folks that they like is put in a bad light, so they simply don't report it.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
MSM Remembers Ford / Inflation
The passing of Gerald Ford gives the MSM a good chance to re-write history some more to give the impression that the economy was in deep trouble before Jimmuh Carter, and he "fixed it", with that result happening in the early 80's when some "un-named lucky president" was in the office. Clearly Nixon/Ford were the cause of inflation, and Carter was the cure. It is a tidy lefty world to folks like CNN from which this "respectful" eulogy comes.
The real world is of course a lot less tidy, and a lot less complimentary of the left. Inflation was the result of a whole long list of things including the US moving off the gold standard, rising competition as the global markets came fully back online with more modern methods/equipment as the devastation of WWII faded, the baby boomers coming of age with a giant demand spike, the US Government policy of using inflation as a "stealth tax increase" (which causes more inflation), and etc etc.
Yes, WIN was equally as ineffective as sitting in a darkened room in the White House and telling people to put on a sweater and shut off their Christmas lights as Jimmuh did, but when he dies I suspect that the MSM won't spend anytime discussing that. They will likely focus on the "historic" Camp David Accords, but without the finish "and Israel and her Arab neighbors continue to live in peace".
The MSM never wants to give Reagan any credit, but even in their silence we get "Since then interest rates and inflation have remained relatively low", and they are forced to admit "early 80's". They attempt to remain quiet, but truth has a way of crying out.
Gerald Ford took office in a now win situation where the MSM and the left in this country were in their historic peak. America had been defeated in Vietnam and Nixon had been removed from office at home. In their minds, things were going very well, but of course in reality they were headed for the disaster that was Jimmuh Carter. Ford was an honorable man that was one of the last of the "me too Republicans". The kind that were "fiscally responsible Democrats", the ones that the media liked in their bumbling role. The Democrats got to be Santa, and the Republicans got to be Dad ... they got to harp about deficits and restraint and the Democrats got to do new programs and buy votes. It was a "great day" for the left and the MSM, and the MSM had a joyous monopoly on the information going out to the waiting public sheep.
From the POV of the MSM, Ford served in "the good old days", and their treatment of him is just right. He was the kind of "opposition" that they liked ... not enough to respect him and give him any credit, but as a President that was in the "proper role for a Republican".
WIN proved to be an ineffective step, "both from the public relations aspect and an economic one," said Daniel Mitchell, professor of management and public policy at UCLA.
"Buttons on lapels weren't going to deal with this sort of thing," Mitchell said.
"Up to that time, we'd never had inflation and higher unemployment," Ratkus explained. "It created a stagnant economy and a term that has since entered into textbooks: 'stagflation.'"
President Ford, who inherited many of the nation's economic problems from the previous administration, was defeated in the following presidential election.
Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president in 1976.
Inflation remained a problem throughout the 1970s, finally peaking at an annual rate of 13.5 percent in 1980.
It wasn't until the early 1980s that inflation was brought fully under control.
Many credit the Federal Reserve led by Carter-appointed chairman Paul Volcker with his "tough monetary policy."
Volcker limited the growth of the money supply which resulted in a recession and high lending rates.
Volcker "wrung inflationary psychology out of the economy," said Ratkus, who explained that until then people expected a certain amount of inflation in prices.
The expectation of inflation set the stage for sharp rises in costs and "helped create a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts," said Ratkus.
Since then interest rates and inflation have remained relatively low.
The real world is of course a lot less tidy, and a lot less complimentary of the left. Inflation was the result of a whole long list of things including the US moving off the gold standard, rising competition as the global markets came fully back online with more modern methods/equipment as the devastation of WWII faded, the baby boomers coming of age with a giant demand spike, the US Government policy of using inflation as a "stealth tax increase" (which causes more inflation), and etc etc.
Yes, WIN was equally as ineffective as sitting in a darkened room in the White House and telling people to put on a sweater and shut off their Christmas lights as Jimmuh did, but when he dies I suspect that the MSM won't spend anytime discussing that. They will likely focus on the "historic" Camp David Accords, but without the finish "and Israel and her Arab neighbors continue to live in peace".
The MSM never wants to give Reagan any credit, but even in their silence we get "Since then interest rates and inflation have remained relatively low", and they are forced to admit "early 80's". They attempt to remain quiet, but truth has a way of crying out.
Gerald Ford took office in a now win situation where the MSM and the left in this country were in their historic peak. America had been defeated in Vietnam and Nixon had been removed from office at home. In their minds, things were going very well, but of course in reality they were headed for the disaster that was Jimmuh Carter. Ford was an honorable man that was one of the last of the "me too Republicans". The kind that were "fiscally responsible Democrats", the ones that the media liked in their bumbling role. The Democrats got to be Santa, and the Republicans got to be Dad ... they got to harp about deficits and restraint and the Democrats got to do new programs and buy votes. It was a "great day" for the left and the MSM, and the MSM had a joyous monopoly on the information going out to the waiting public sheep.
From the POV of the MSM, Ford served in "the good old days", and their treatment of him is just right. He was the kind of "opposition" that they liked ... not enough to respect him and give him any credit, but as a President that was in the "proper role for a Republican".
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