Monday - 3 January, 2000
All systems are go. Err. Almost. Our IT Division still has to bring up Internet connectivity. So, if this doesn't hit the wires at the appointed time it's not MY fault. Really. It's not. <g>.
So Charles Schultz is hanging up his pen today. And while others lament how he is no longer relevant to the present day, I say that to the extent that is true is the extent of our own loss. His character Charlie Brown had a quiet determination that we should all emulate. I can't speak for others, but as for myself, I think a giant has fallen. Good Grief. Long live "Peanuts"!
Hmmm. Connectivity is back and a check of my email finds *nothing*. Hmmm. Me thinks things are still not right in emailsville. Oh well, stiff upper lip old chum. Matt! Matt!
BlackICE detected a failed TCP/IP scan of my ports at home. I sent off the logs to abuse@rr.com. Actually, I first sent it to support@kc.rr.com since since that's were the attack originated but KC responded and said to send it to the other address. I wonder if rr.com is trying to overtake AOL as the home of the lame (and I say this as a new user of rr.hawaii.com or is it hawaii.rr.com)? Soon after that attack, BlackICE erroneously, as it turned out, logged several attacks it called something like failure to set filter error. A quick check with BlackICE found that this was a false positive and that the latest version, 1.9.4 corrected this. So remember, keep your software updated.
***** Noon Update *****
A quick check of the other Daynoters finds that they are indeed in a philosophical mood. If you are offended by such discussions, do not go there and do not read what is below. If not, check out Dr. Pournelle (see it here now or here later) and [Sorry. Dr. Keyboard has moved his site and this page is missing in action - Ed.] Dr. Keyboard. Not being an Intellectual Giant® like these two, I can only say that Dr. Pournelle appears to be saying, if there is no God, then what is the meaning of life? And Dr. Keyboard seems to say there may not be any. If Dr. Keyboard is right, then the concept of purpose becomes a very slippery thing.
No one, except God, can peer into the souls of humankind and see what lives there. And I won't even try. But I think each of us, who has a sense of right or wrong, came by that sense by being taught it. That is, I don't think there is a genetic coding for knowing right from wrong. We have to learn it and we have do right (if for no other reason other than in the long run, it is in our own best self-interest).
What does seem to be hard coded is a need for direction or meaning and stability in our lives. The noted psychologist, Maslow seems to indicate that before we could move up the ladder to self-actualization, we had to build a stable base that first satisfied the more immediate needs.
But to get back to the original premise, if we need to be taught right from wrong, who is qualified to do that and what is it should we be taught? I will leave for another time who is qualified to teach and concentrate on the what should be taught.
While acknowledging the work of anthropology in our understanding of cultural bias, Christianity seems to say that there are certain self-evident truths. And that these truths span boundaries and cultures. The basis of which is a love and respect for God and our fellow human beings.
If one does not believe in God and the basis for His commandments, then what does one believe in? It seems to me that without the unifying force of Christianity, one can believe in anything they want without anyone having any authority to say otherwise. This path is indeed a very steep, slippery slope. There is no right or wrong without some authority to make it so.
However, does that mean a non-Christian can not lead a moral life? No. One can indeed lead a moral life, by any definition, and not be a Christian. But what if we Christians are right? That there is God in heaven and that He did tell us what is right and wrong and that further; He gave us the option to choose which to follow? And that to make up for our failed attempts at being moral, He sent His Son to die for our transgressions?
The power of Christianity lays in its truth. Whether others acknowledge that truth does not make it less powerful and just because others would believe otherwise does not make it so.
I have great respect and aloha for Dr. Keyboard, but I respectfully disagree with his saying that God does not exist and is instead a construct dreamt up by superstitious fuzzy thinking dweebs. On the other hand, even if Dr. Keyboard were right, even he admits that the world would be a better place for people who follow God's commandments.
Sheesh. Enough of this. You decide who/what is right and follow that.
Oh. By the way. All of our drives spun up fine from their short sleep over the weekend. No reports of bad things happening anywhere on our network. No stiction here. Phantom Menace indeed.
Aloha!
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Tuesday - 4 January, 2000
Bell-wether n. 1 the leading sheep of a flock, with a bell on its neck. 2 a ringleader. The Concise Oxford Dictionary 9th Ed. How many ways can a word be spelled? And how many ways can we misuse the word? Let me try one more way.
A bell-wether event took place on New Year's Eve. No, not the turn of the century. Well, yes. But in addition to that an acquaintance of mine passed away. Passed away is not the most accurate description for what happened but I'll explain why anon.
I worked with him when I was with the Dept. of Budget and Finance (B&F) years ago. B&F has many functions to perform. Among other things, it "coordinates all of the budget services for the state, prepares the governor's budget for submission to the legislature, coordinates the planning and program analysis efforts of the state, provides technical management analysis staff assistance to the governor and other state agencies."
He did these functions well. Year after year. Even as the state "downsized" and got rid of people, thereby making his burden even heavier than before. But he never complained. And to my knowledge, never even got upset or angry at what had befallen him. He just took on the added responsibilities and performed his job as well as anyone could. Perhaps better than most.
He was the rock of branch that he worked in. Even as others left to work in other branches or departments (as I did), he quietly did his work. He became, I think, the senior member of his branch.
And through it all, he cared. He really cared about what he was doing. He viewed his job as something that was important and therefore was worth doing well. And he did it exceedingly well. If his work output did not meet his standards, it did not see the light of day until it did.
But, even as the mighty oak tree can sometimes bend and crack under the strain of the wind or the snow, he did also. His work just became too much even for someone as competent as he. He could not find any way of doing his job at a level that he felt that it should be. So on the eve of the new year, he committed suicide.
He and I were not the closest of friends. But when someone you know takes their life, it makes you pause and reassess where you are in your own life. May we all not find ourselves where he was on that day. Give a hug to your kids and pray for the strength to make it through the day. And then thank the Lord when you do.
***** Noon Update *****
The Semi-Final races for the America's Cup Challenger Series (aka the Louis Vuittan Cup) are in full swing. The six boats must race each other twice in this round. And since the Hawai'i boat, Abracadabra2000, was eliminated earlier, the boat I am now pulling for is Team Dennis Conner. Yes, I know he has the reputation as being a no good S.O.B. and perhaps that is true. But when his team was here for training before the last cup races, a nicer guy you could not find. TDC is now 2 and 0 in this round, including a convincing win over the Italian team Prada shown on ESPN2 last night.
Eight more races to go before the Final Challenger series. The final series pit the top two challengers to a best of nine races. The winner goes on to race the defending champion, New Zealand. If it ends up being TDC vs. NZ it will be sort of a repeat of the last cup in San Diego. If so, here's to having a different result this time. Go US!
Aloha
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Hump Day Wednesday - 5 January, 2000
Peter Moore sent in a long reply to my posting of yesterday. It's pretty much self-explanatory so I will post it as is. I would just note again that I have the utmost respect for Dr. Keyboard and his opinions. However, in this instance, I respectfully disagree with him. As always, Mr. Moore's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect my own.
Aloha from the great white north (well, upstate New York). I just wanted to comment on your reaction to the esteemed Dr. Keyboard's pontification. I saw that his opinions meshed almost stereotypically with the basic spirit of this age; that is, "all that God stuff was OK when people didn't understand Science, but we've progressed way beyond that primitive stuff by now." This, alas, is a very non-rigorous and illogical dismissal of things that wiser minds than his or mine have profitably explored in days gone by. For Dr. K to assert that he "just knows" whether something or right or not is circular reasoning at its fuzziest. "I know because I know!" ??? Please!
It makes me a bit sad on his behalf; not because "I'm right and he's wrong" or something as silly as that. Hey, we all THINK we're right. It's just that a few have considered matters of faith and spirituality to be ultimate questions--the kind where if you get THOSE answers wrong, none of the stuff you got right matters. As an excellent example of someone with a classical education (Greek and Latin language, history, thought, and philosophy, etc...) who was impelled to subject these questions to the sort of rigorous (in the technical sense of the word) examination, applying relentless logic to each proposition, examining the sources of each presupposition, I would heartily recommend C. S. Lewis' "Mere Chrisitianity." Or his "The Problem of Pain," or "Miracles." In these works and others, he meticulously examines what kind of a world we actually observe, and tries to determine what such a world tells us logically about the things we can NOT directly observe, such as God.
Ultimately, of course, the existence of God is by definition not susceptible to definitive proof. We take what we are taught, compare it with what we experience, and eventually arrive at some combination of beliefs and assumptions that serves us as well as we want it to. It's self-correcting, in that when we stumble over things that make us question our assumptions, we either dismiss the experiences as unimportant or misperceived and carry on as before; or we embark on a search for refinements of our understanding, that will let us reconcile our experiences with our beliefs.
The kneejerk shortcut that's unfortunately all too common is to simply dismiss the whole big question, on the grounds that it's not directly relevant to our immediate activities; or that finding an answer doesn't really matter; or that we've already examined it before, and don't care to go into it again. Because deep down, human beings in general, myself emphatically included, don't want to know something, if knowing it means that we'll need to change. I'd rather not know what the insides of my arteries look like, because if I knew that, I'd find it way harder to ignore what everyone knows is true about diet and exercise. I expect that the good Dr. K has no interest in an open-minded examination of The Big Questions, because like me with my current diet/exercise habits, right now it's not an emergency, and it's all too likely that whatever I found out might make me uncomfortable.
Of course, the thing that's overlooked in the whole intellectual/philosophical debate is simply this: if God exists, why doesn't He just say so? Or to put it another way, will God talk to me? There's no real shortage of anecdotal evidence, since many people at many times have in some crisis cried out something beginning with the words "God, if You're there..." Of course, anecdotal evidence isn't proof, either. But it does have the advantage that one can stack it up against ones beliefs, and see how it measures up.
In my personal life, I would answer the question "Will God talk to me?" by replying "Daily." A religion where a person cries out to God repeatedly, but with never a sense of anyone listening, is a religion well worth discarding. But a faith that results in an actual dialog is another matter. If God isn't real, then people who think He talks to them are no more believable than those who believe they communicate with aliens or departed loved ones. But my experience is of a God who speaks intimately, and who reveals things that people could not know otherwise. I could tell you stories...
Ah well. No one was ever argued into faith, and no one finds God who isn't looking for Him. I'm glad, Mr. Seto, that you have a faith that enriches your life, as do some of the other Daynoters. I concur with your take on Dr. Pournelle's implication that if God doesn't exist, then life has no meaning: Christianity says true things. To believe that all truth is susceptible to laboratory verification is simply silly, as it is silly to assume that anything that CAN'T be tested scientifically MUST be false. Again we go back to the need for rigorous logic, a la C. S. Lewis. To assume that the universe is simply a chain of cause-and-effect begs the question--what was the ultimate Cause? How can we have a middle without a beginning and an end? To refuse to even think about such things is no less an act of faith that to conclude that God is the ultimate Cause, the one who had no beginning.
Well, this is already much too long for an email response, and volumes too short for any real exploration of Big Questions. But it's for such thought-provoking dialogs as this that I most enjoy the Daynotes pages. The world is awash in a surfeit of factoids, but reasoned human interaction is at a premium. May the peace of the Lord be with you.
Peter Moore
Systems Engineer, Entre Computer Services
And my short reply back to him:
And aloha to you from the land of Sunny Winter (sounds like the brother to Edgar. But I digress).
Thanks for your response. In general, I have to say that when anyone enters into a discussion of religion, one must do so knowing that they will probably not "convert" anyone by what you say. So I fully expect that Dr. Keyboard, should he read my posting, will not be swayed by what I've said. Perhaps someone like, as you mentioned, C.S. Lewis maybe, but not I. But, as Dr. Keyboard was, I felt compelled to say something in reply to what he said lest it be mistakenly assumed that everyone agreed with what was said.
But something you mentioned about God talking to people rang especially true. In the sense you were referring to and also in the way He talked to Saul of Tarsus along the road to Damascus. Perhaps those who do not believe will someday have their own journey to Damascus. Perhaps not. But as I said, in the end each of us has the power to choose our path. I choose the path of the Lord. Even as I fail daily and fall short of His glory.
Aloha - Dan
***** Noon Update *****
This in from Dan Bowman.
Dan,
As a reference for interested readers:
Another C.S. Lewis work that directly addresses the issue of "right and wrong" and "why should it be so" is The Case for Christianity. Written as a series of radio addresses during WWII, the first half of the book deals with answers to how we differentiate a unified (cross cultural) code of morality from instinctive or herd behavior.
Dan
My short response back to him:
DB,
Thanks for the info. I will add it to my posting for the noon update. Even though Dr. Keyboard says not to feel sorry for him, I still do. Life can not be as complete as it could be without God in it. But to each his own.
Aloha - DS the First
Speaking of Dr. Keyboard, he has a great link to DaveNet. There are interesting essays there even though the author does sometimes become a bit doctrinaire. From there I got a link to UseIt.com. A site by Jakob Nielsen relating to web usability. Good stuff this. Thanks again to Dr. Keyboard for pointing these out.
Site hosting is an interesting topic. That is, if you have your own domain name or want to set-up a site, where do you go to host it? There are all kinds of questions that arise and the answers may be different for each person. I will cover just two.
The first question is roll your own or have someone else do it. That is, do you have the connectivity and hardware to host your own site or do you want to have someone else host for you. This question is not as far out as many would believe anymore. As long as you have a persistent connection (e.g. xDSL, cable modem, ISDN, T-1, etc.) and an IP address that does not change - known as a static IP address, you have the basic connectivity required to do this. Of course, you must also have a computer, software, and knowledge/time to do all of the other things to get you on the net but that is a discussion for another time.
The second question is pay or play? That is, do you want to pay a fee to someone to host or do you want to use one of the "free" sites that require you to have advertisements on your page. Remember here that at best, you get what you pay for but if you are new to this, or don't want to spend money on a site you can checkout places like GeoCities.
If you decide to pay for a site, you need to know not only how much they charge, but also what you get for your money. Many places charge extra for things like CGI capability or additional POP mail boxes. And all have maximum storage and bandwidth limits. And if you will be doing e-commerce, you need to know about secure servers and credit card access for customers.
Why talk about this? Because the Daynotes.com site maybe moving soon. You, gentle readers, may be affected by this move if there is a temporary (hopefully) loss of service. If all goes well, you may not see any change at all. But if you are at least thinking about your own hosting, know that it may not be as easy as some would say it is. And the old saying about "If you want to do it right, do it yourself" still rings true. Which ever way you decide; "Good Luck!"
Aloha!
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Thursday - 6 January, 2000
Size limits for web pages is one of the topics covered in the UseIt.com link yesterday (go up a little to find the link you lazy old coot). According to Mr. Nielsen, a one second response time is required for users "to feel that they are moving freely through the information space." He notes that this information is from an IBM study relating to perceived response times on mainframes so take the one second figure with a grain of salt (i.e. perception of "fast" or "slow" may not be the same when you are sitting in front of a terminal connected to a mainframe as opposed to sitting in front of your PC connected to the Internet through a 56K modem). As a maximum limit, he states that 10 seconds is the practical limit after which users do not "keep their attention on the task."
| 1 Sec. | 10 Secs. | |
| Modem | 2K | 34K |
| ISDN | 8K | 150K |
| T-1 | 100K | 2M |
I don't know for sure what speed the modem is but I assume it's probably 33.6K or slower. How much less I do not know. You should be aware that the size limits are calculated by adding the size of the html file and any graphics (jpg, gif, etc.) files that are called by the parent html file. To see the page I got the above from go here.
Imagine Los Angeles in a full on Stage 3 smog alert. Then imagine it being [cough] 10 times [cough] worse [cough] than that. That is exactly the environment we had around midnight new years eve according to the State Health Department figures released yesterday. The smoke came from thousands of people popping millions of firecrackers. [cough] The smoke was so bad that the laser light show using the slopes of Diamond Head as a backdrop went up, well, in smoke. That is, no one could see the display through all of the smoke.
And while there is no direct proof yet, it appears that hundreds of birds found dead on the ground the next day died from either the smoke and/or the sound. Is this any way to ring in the new year?
I see in the morning paper that the six year old Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez, will/may be going home to his father. Such an interesting situation. The state of the art is you always try to keep families intact. Always. The family is the best place to be and who else knows better how to raise their children? Except in the case of child abuse.
Since there does not appear to be child abuse, it's the logical thing for the government to re-unite the family. The kicker in this situation is that the boy risked his life to get away from Cuba. But not necessarily his father. So what would you have done? Seems like the right thing to do to me.
There's one in every crowd. OK, maybe not. This in from, I assume, Australia:
----- Original Message -----
From: Don Armstrong
To: Dan Seto
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2000 4:53 PM
Subject: It IS 2000!
It seems to be my week for nit-picking. I'm catching up on Daynotes, on a roughly weekly basis, downloading and reading off-line. I've just hit bilbrey, and now for your turn. I saved your most recent page, and lo and behold the default file name was something including the year 1999. Viewing the source showed HTML:<TITLE>
Misc. Ramblings January 3 - January 7, 1999
</TITLE>Best wishes,
Don Armstrong
OK, I admit it! I am date challenged. The new year you say? Well, who could have known [cough] that it [cough hack] was the [cough spit] new year? Arrrgh! But seriously, thanks for checking on those things for me. Also, if anyone notices any broken links anywhere (and there appear to be some according to my logs) please let me know what page they are on and where they are actually pointing to. Mahalo.
Have you come down with a bad case of affluenza? You know, "...that bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Jones." If so, then go here for the cure.
Aloha!
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Aloha Friday - 7 January, 2000
Thank God It's Friday. Literally.
Web access went down the tubes sometime this morning (HST). I've been trying to call Tech Support to find out what's going on but the phone has been busy. Since I've never had a busy signal before I assume that I am not the only one having a problem. Although mail and ftp still works. Sorry, but the dog ate the OC-3 cable.
OK. Access is now back. I finally got in to Tech Support (Marcus Monroe) after 15 minutes on hold ("And your user I.D. sir is? <clickity click>") and darned if as soon as they took a look at my situation, access came back. I mean within a second of them saying they are looking at it, all is well. "No problem, sir. We are here <clickity click> to help." No explanation as to what the problem was ("Must have been lunar convergence sir <clickity click>"). Whatever happened, I sure do have a lot of disk space now. Arrrgh!
O.S. Sucks-O-Meters can be found here. If you have a minute (but no more than that) you may want to surf over there and take a look. Hint. It runs on a Linux server. Not that that would affect their Altavista search of operating system names followed by the words "sucks", "rules", or "rocks."
Y2K strikes thousands worldwide. Double check your VISA and MC statement when it comes. ICVerify from Virginia-based CyberCash used in point-of-service terminals by more than 100,000 merchants is having problems. Or I should say earlier versions of the software are having problems. The morning paper reports that if the merchant updated the software prior to the roll-over all is well. However, not all merchants did so. So what happens if they didn't? Well, you get charged multiple times for the same item. That could put a crimp in your wallet.
Digital camera on your wrist? That and a bunch of other stuff is on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Casio WQV-1 can shoot and store up to 100 black-and-white images in its 1MB memory chip. Their web site doesn't have any info. on it yet but you can check-out what else they have, here.
Dr. Keyboard's recent postings are very ominous. I can't really say what is going on but I wish him the best. And I would want him to know that whatever happens, he will come out OK as long as he keeps a stiff upper lip (or, ahem, whatever body part he chooses). Peace unto you my friend!
Setoism #1:Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.
Setoism #1a:It's all small stuff.
Aloha!