Fri, 05 Sep 2008
Another Long Absence
I'm back blogging after being gone for two and a half weeks. I was knocked off line by the phone company (they accidentally disconnected me) for about half that time, and I was just lazy about getting back. At the same time I was having land line problems, I also changed cell phone carriers. So I was out of touch with everyone, a practical hermit. Well, not really.
While I was offline, I was working on the software for a new blogging system. The software I'm using now in Blosxom, but it's been abandoned by its author for some time, My software now passes its unit tests and is ready to be tested online, though not to be used for anything serious. The software has now two parts, a templating system and CRUD manager, though it probably will end up being split into five parts: CGI front end, CRUD manager, persistence manager, site manager, and templating code. For those of you who don't know the lingo, CRUD stands for create, read, update, delete, the basic operations for changing a persistent data store. And CGI stands for common gateway interface, whichis the simplest protocol for tying programs to the web. It all adds up to approximately 2000 lines of Perl code and probably another 1000 or so before I'm finished. That's a lot bigger than the original version of Blosxom (about 100 lines) but there are good reasons for what I've written that I won't go into now.
Here's my obligatory Buddhist content. Another study of Buddhist meditation has been done, the usual drink this radiactive cocktail and we'll watch how your brain metabolizes it experiment. This watched twelve Zen meditators' brains while solving a trivial problem, paired with twelve non-meditators. The conclusion:
Scans revealed that Zen training led to different activity in a set of brain regions known as the "default network," which is linked with spontaneous bursts of thought and wandering minds. After volunteers experienced in Zen were distracted by the computer, their brains returned faster to how they were before the interruption than novice brains did. This effect was especially striking in the angular gyrus, a brain region important for processing language.
"The regular practice of meditation may enhance the capacity to limit the influence of distracting thoughts," Pagnoni said.
So a lot of technology was used to reach a not so surprising conclusion.
Thu, 19 Jun 2008
Self Improvement
I'm taking another class in Tibetan at the Ja Ling Center. It's being taught by Jigme Lodro, one of the Tibetan residents I haven't met before. The first class was well attended. However, after the first exposure to the Tibetan alphabet, attendance dropped for the second class. So I don't know if the class is going to go forward. The Ja Ling Center is in a bad part of town, the "projects" near Hopkins Hospital. I haven't had problems, but Christian almost had his bike stolen last week. The Tibetan language is one of those things I always promise myself I'm going to learn, but I always lose my resolve and give it up. So we'll see if I stick with it this time.
I'm also on a physical self improvement kick. I was putting on too much weight, so I went on a diet. I've lost about ten pounds in as many weeks and I would like to lose about five more. Today I stumbled on the Hundred Pushups training program and I thought I'd give that a try staring next week. Back when I was taking martial arts one of my instructors wanted me to do a hundred push ups a day. I worked up to fifty or sixty, but that was as far as I got. He also wanted me to learn how to do a kip up, but that was another skill I didn't master. Today I tested myself and was able to do thirteen push ups. If I start the six week program I should finish it and my diet about the same time, in August. I figure if I mention all this here, it will shame me into not backing down.
Tue, 05 Feb 2008
Long Time Gone
I've been offline for a while because I came down with the flu. While I was offline a bunch of stuff happened. Khenpo Chokyi Goeccha complained of stomach pains while he was visiting last Fall. The pains turned out to be colon cancer. He was operated on last Thursday and is now recovering. Lorraine Fertch, one of our local homeopaths, has been missing for several weeks. She started using homeopathy to help her eczema, found it helped, and showed up at a couple of study group meetings. She took some training in homeopathy with Andre Saine and started using it in her practice at Ruscombe. She was more of a mixer than a strict classical homeopath. I can't say I knew her well, but I always found her an easy and fun person to talk to.
Sun, 27 Jan 2008
Cloverfield
I saw the film Cloverfield this weekend. If you haven't heard of it, the plot has a monster come and tear up New York while yuppies film it on their videocam. So it was your typical Godzilla film (although they never say the G word, but with the interesting twist that it's told from the first person point of view. From the comments on the film over at IMDB, some people loved it and some hated it, mostly for the same reason, the unconventional point of view.
It's interesting what works and what doesn't in the film. First, the character in the film who carries the camera is "sacrificed" because you only see him when he drops the camera. They handled that by making the camera guy (Hud) a dumb lunk, and thus less of a sacrifice. The single camera point of view made the film seem claustrophobic compared to most films. Usually films will interleave shots of both two characters when they're talking. And in a stage play you see the whole stage at a distance. In Cloverfield the camera is close in on the action. There are no distance shots of the main characters or shifts between points of view, and that's what gives the film its claustrophobic feel.
Somehow a typical film, with its omniscient point of view, seems more real than a first person point of view. This is sort of like how we stitch together our experience with a running narrative, so instead of experiencing things directly, we do so through a story line. Our story about reality seems more real than experience itself. Just a thought.
Thu, 10 Jan 2008
Heathor
Rather than write something useless tonight, I'll pull another quote from Gene Wolfe's novel, The Shadow of the Torturer. It's the mad stammering eloquence of a speech by Heather, an aged space farer.
M-m-mater, when I was on the Quasar I had a paracoita, a doll, you see, a genicon, so beautiful with her great pupils as dark as wells, her i-irises purple, like asters or pansies blooming in the summer. Master, whole beds of them, I thought, had b-been gathered to make those eyes, that flesh that always felt sun-warmed. Wh-wh-where is she now, my own scopolagna, my poppet? Let h-h-hooks be buried in the hands that took her! Crush them, Master, beneath stones. Where has she gone from the lemon wood box I made for her, where she never slept at all for she lay with me all night, not in the box, the lemon wood box where she waited all day, watch-and-watch, Master, smiling when I laid her in so she might smile when I drew her out. How soft her hands were, her little hands. Like d-d-doves. She might have flown with them about the cabin had she she not chosen instead to be with me. W-w-wind their guts about your w-windlass, stuff their eyes into their mouths. Unman them, shave them clean below so that their doxies may not know them, their leman may rebuke them, leave them to the brazen mouths of st-st-strumpets. Work your will upon the guilty. Where was their mercy on the inocent? When did they tremble, when weep? What kind of men could do as they have done--thieves, false friends, betrayers, bad shipmates, no shipmates, murderers, and kidnappers. W-without you , where are their nightmares, where their restitutions, so long promised? Where are their chains, fetters, manacles, and cangues? Where are their abacinations that shall leave them blind? Where are the defenstrations that shall break their bones, where is the estrapade that shall grind their joints? Where is she, the beloved whom I lost?
Tue, 11 Dec 2007
On the Mend
I've been feeling ill and my energy has been low for the past month. There have been better days, but then I would relapse. I think I've found the correct homeopathic remedy and after two doses I'm feeling much better. So now I can get back to my previous activities.
Last Sunday night the Susquehanna Yoga Center volunteered to handle the phones for the Maryland Public Television fund drive. Since they let us use their Center for our Sunday meditations, Lance, Pete and I helped out. It was the first time I'd ever been on a television stage. The station changed the schedule at the last minute, replacing a Barry Manilow concert with a concert by Celtic Women because they had more tickets to give away. Didn't bother me because I thought the Celtic Women were better looking. But we took all kinds of shit from Barry Manilow's fans. I took more abuse in one night than I've taken all year. It was more funny than upsetting and gave a sense of the trivial stuff people get upset about.
Sat, 10 Nov 2007
Strange Beginnings
So I haven't written on my weblog for a week. Nothing dire happened. I upgraded the operating system on my computer along with some software and that took some time. There were no real problems, I'm glad to say. So now I'm running Leopard.
So tonight I thought I would talk about something easy, myself, and reveal a little bit more about myself. My mother went crazy the sumer between my first and second grades. This was full blown schizophrenia. There's a history of insanity in my family. In homeopathic terms, I blame the cancer miasm. This sort of experience is pretty devastating. Everclear wrote a song about it and if you want to understand me better, you should listen to it. They called the song "Why I Don't Believe in God."
So my father moved back with his parents while my mother was being treated, so they could watch us while he worked. It was a big old frame house in a nice neighborhood, but there were no other kids to play with. So after school I spent most of my time reading. I didn't have much to read, so I read the same books over and over. I got my hands on the family Bible. It had some paintings of biblical scenes in the middle. One was of of Jezebel being thrown from the window, her body devoured by dogs. After seeing that, I thought the Bible must be a really cool book. So I started reading it, starting at Genesis. My grandmother saw it and told me, "You can't understand that." I insisted I did. So she pointed to one word and then another and asked, "What does that mean?" When I couldn't answer, she took the Bible away from me. Thus ended my career as a theologian.
But that Christmas I got a children's book with lives of the saints. Each page had a portrait of the saint on the left page and a short biography on the right. So I read about Saint Ursula, who was martyred along with her 5,000 virgin followers. The book helpfully explained what a virgin was, since I was unclear on the concept. (Someone who dedicates their life totally to Christ.) And there were many other saints. I think the book had a big effect on me, though I'm not completely sure what that was. Actually everything I read that year had a big effect on me including the Bible. That was an important year. I'll have more to say later.
Thu, 19 Jul 2007
Forbidden Kingdom
Jet Li talks about his new film, The Forbidden Kingdom, which is currently being filmed. This isn't the film that will debut next month, War, which looks to be a standard revenge flick which has him starring with Jason Statham. Jet Li is an enthusiastic convert to Buddhism who at one time was considering giving up films. What's happened instead is that he's used his clout to land better film roles than the trashy martial arts pictures he started out in. Actually I like trashy martial arts films, as long as the martial arts are good, and I'll probably go see War. The Forbidden Kingdom has him starring with Jackie Chan and looks to be a fantasy loosely based on Jorney to the West.
Mon, 09 Jul 2007
Myths Die Hard
I saw the new Die Hard movie last weekend. The plot has the bad computer geeks crippling America by taking over the computers that run the power systems, communications, traffic lights basically everything. And Bruce Willis and the good geek trying to save the good old USA. So it's a popcorn movie and not meant to be taken very seriously. But since I do computers for a living, I can't ignore the nonsense they put on the screen. First, the evil hackers hire contract hackers to figure out how to hack into all the computer systems. Then, rather than pay them, they upload a virus onto their computer that blows their computer up, taking the contract hacker with it. This is the first clue that we've taken leave of reality and are visiting the world of fantasy. A computer just won't blow up like a Ford Pinto that's been rear ended. If the computer is a laptop with a lithium battery, you might be able to set the laptop on fire. But start an explosion like the computer was packed with C4? Don't be serious.
Second, the hackers want to break into the server room of the Federal Data Authority, unaccountably located at the Social Security in Woodlawn rather than at the NSA. The server room doesn't look like any server room I've ever seen. It looks like Darth Vader's rec room. Before you make a film about computers, maybe you ought to have a look at one and see what a rack of servers looks like? Plus, the hackers are always carrying around a fold up keyboard with them. A server room is not going to lack for keyboards and as long as you've got the password, you can get in. Having your own keyboard isn't going to make it easier. In fact, using your own keyboard is going to be a lot harder, because the servers are probably configured so that you can only get root access from certain terminals.
Third, the film has all the banks in the country uploading all their financial data onto the government's computers when a crisis happens, just so the data is safe. This is wrong headed for two reasons. First, it's private data, not the government's, and the government is not supposed to get their hands on it without a search warrant. Second, it makes no sense to start uploading data after the crisis starts. If you're going to back up data for safety, you'd be backing it up regularly all along and not wait until a crisis happens, right?
We'll ignore the garden variety nonsense, like the Baltimore beltway suddenly growing an upper deck. But this movie is from the people who had the bad guys in Die Hard 2 make a getaway from Dulles Airport on snowmobiles. Someone ought to explain to the screen writers in California what December in Virginia is like.
Sun, 01 Jul 2007
Houston Texas
I got back from my computer conference (YAPC, which stands for Yet Another Perl Conference) but I was too tired to post anything. The conference was at the University of Houston, which seems to be a typical State University commuter college, like UMBC or Towson State. They put us in the student dorms, which provided spartan, but cheap accommodations. The mattress on my bed had a tag saying it was manufactured by inmates of Texas Correctional Institutions, which no doubt provides a useful warning to UH students. The favorite leisure time activity at the conference was staying up all hours drinking and talking. Just an extension of college life, but since I don't drink and go to bed early, get up early, that left me out. I'm just an old stick in the mud, with the emphasis on the world old. Most of the participants were a generation younger than me and I only saw a few gray heads like myself.
Larry Wall (creator of Perl, if you didn't know) gave the keynote talk, as usual, and it was really two talks, the first a talk on scripting languages and the second the story of his life. The first talk had one gem. Larry said, "the difference between programming languages is not in what they can do, but in what they make you do." The story of Larry's life is well known: he's the son of a minister and went to Bible translation school. What I didn't know is that he was forced to drop out by his food allergies, which gives us something in common (the food allergies, not the Bible translation.) After the conference I took the course with Randal Schwartz on Perl Best Practices. Damien Conway was going to teach it, but was forced to drop out because of family problems. Randal and Damien, if not Perl gods like Larry, are at least demigods.
The weather in Houston is hot and humid. This is not too surprising, since it sits on the Gulf of Mexico. What I didn't expect, though, is that the native compensate for this by turning the air conditioning way down. There were rivers of condensation running down the inside windows of all the stores. I had packed for the hot weather, but froze instead of sweltered, as I tried to cope the the Houston definition of what is comfortable. I was a parasitic plant growing in the trees and wondered what it was until I figured out it was Spanish moss, something you don't see in the trees in Baltimore.
I brought along the book "The Master and Margarita" to read on the trip. It's a fantasy about a trip by Satan and his entourage to the Soviet Union and all the mischief they cause. The author, Bulgakov, was heavily censored by Soviet authorities and this novel, unpublished during his life, was his way of getting a back at them. It's a wonderful novel on many levels and was first recommended to me by Yuri, a Russian emigre I once worked with at the Space Telescope.
Sat, 09 Jun 2007
Master Ultan
I can't think of anything to write, so why not quote Gene Wolfe? Here's one of my favorite passages from The Shadow of the Torturer. It's a short speech by Master Ultan, the chief librarian.
We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, for the most part are of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized. We have books bound wholly in metal of unknown alloy, and books whose bindings are bound with thickset gems. We have books cased in perfumed woods shipped across the inconceivable gulf between creations--books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them.
We have books whose papers are made of plants from which spring curious alkaloids, so that the reader, in turning the pages, is taken unaware by bizarre fantasies and chimeric dreams. Books whose pages are not paper at all, but delicate wafers of white jade, ivory, and shell; books too whose pages are the desiccated leaves of unknown plants. Books we have also that are not books to the eye: scrolls and tablets and recordings on a hundred different substances. There is a cube of crystal here--though I can no longer tell you where--no larger than the ball of your thumb that contains more books than the library itself does. Though a harlot may dangle it from one ear as an ornament, there are not volumes enough in the world to counterweight the other. All these I came to know and made safeguarding them my life's devotion.
Sun, 03 Jun 2007
The Simon Family
Today was the annual Simon family picnic. The weather didn't cooperate. Today was the first rainy day in almost a month. My brother Steve flew into town to attend the picnic along with his wife, Cathy, and boy. It was certainly nice to see him. So in honor of the annual picnic, I'll say a few words about where my family came from. The Simon family came from the Rhineland area of Germany. As the name suggests, the family was originally Jewish, but Levin Simon converted to Catholicism in the Seventeenth Century. In the mid 1800's several brothers emigrated to America. Some went to California during the gold rush of 1848. They resettled and bought a farm in Southern Maryland. The branch of the Simon family I'm descended from came to Baltimore, married into the Otterbein family, and trained with them as bakers. For many years there was a Simon family bakery in Baltimore. It's gone, along with the Otterbein bakery. Supermarkets have put most bakeries out of business. The family was and is strongly Catholic, although there never were any priests in the family. It's a big family: my father had seven brothers and sisters. What karma led me to reborn as a Simon? That I don't know.
Tue, 22 May 2007
Cassadaga
I've been listening to Cassadaga. the latest album from Bright Eyes. It's pretty good. Not all the songs are great, but there's enough good stuff to make it worth listening to. Listening to it makes me think of their previous album, "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning." I got that album after my knee surgery and listened to it while driving to my physical therapy. Comparing my circumstances then and now, back then I was much surer of myself. Since last year I've been full of doubt in my practice. Not that I'm complaining, but that's how it is. I've had some hard times too, with my sister's death and getting evicted from my apartment. Hoping things are going to look better by the time the next album comes out.
Sun, 06 May 2007
Server Failure
It looks like Suicide Girls server has crashed under excessive load. Boy, I hate it when the Space Telescope server crashes. The last time it happened was because the server failed to start up properly after a power outage. The servers had been reconfigured because of a disk failure, but we didn't modify the startup files. Of course, running the startup files manually didn't help. I got the bad news first, because I was first into the office. I couldn't figure out why the startup files were erroring out, be we finally got something up. Didn't resolve the problem until Jim got in and told me about the server reconfiguration.
I haven't posted much because I've been tired or busy. The tired part has to do with cutting back on the caffeine. I woke up with a terrific headache Saturday morning as a result. And the usual urge to talk isn't there today. But since I may not be posting the next several days, I thought I should put something up.
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