Philosopher-Engineer

Interesting Historical Article on Diets

2012-01-21T13:06:00.000-05:00

Europe has been sticking to this Calories-In Calories-Out / Calorie counting theory since 1850, even though it works against human psychology and requires people to starve themselves to work. William Banting wrote a book that would have stopped this mandness, but unfortunately for obese people everywhere, the calorie counting theory had gained traction and even though Mr Banting lost weight easily on his low-carb diet without needing to exercise, he was just dismissed without getting the attention he deserved. Gary Taubes recently took up the banner and put some better science behind it. I agree with Gary on a basic level, but his diet just doesn't seem very balanced. His obsessive avoidance of carbs results in very little vegetables, and we need that fiber to keep going (sorry, bad pun). However, his basic point that obesity is linked mostly to insulin and over-indulgence of carbohydrates seems to ring true to me. True, calories-in does match calories-out, but that assumes the body has no control of this. For myself, when I eat extra fat, I get hotter, and when I eat less, I put out less heat, so my body seems to have a set-point weight.

God and the Turing Test

2009-05-09T22:16:00.002-04:00

I don't remember how I got to thinking about this, but I've been thinking about how a person comes to a belief in God, and I think the atheists are coming at the problem in the wrong way. To say that since I haven't actually seen God's face, God does not exist, is like saying I believe your computer is an intelligent being just because I've heard its voice. Computer Scientists know that intelligence is more interesting than that, and much more difficult to pinpoint. A very smart computer scientist came up with a test called the Turing test, where if a person that interacts with the computer can't tell that it isn't another person, then the computer program has reached artificial intelligence. I think the process of reasoning that God exists needs to follow the same lines as that persons search for intelligence in a computer program. God isn't a thing that can be touched, just like intelligence isn't a thing that can be touched. What I'm really trying to say, is that us computer scientists can only prove that a computer is "intelligent" through a relationship with that computer. We relate, and if we can't tell we are not relating with another intelligent being, then we must be relating with an intelligent being, even if that intelligent being happens to be artificial. The scientist just begin with a leap of "faith" that allows the "relationship" to start. We have to keep talking to allow the Turing test to work. What if we apply this test in a relationship with God? Just like above, we need to start with a suspension of disbelief, so that the relationship can be tested. Perhaps God is like an intelligent software program with no hardware requirements? (I know I'm lisping here... because God is much more, but perhaps you can start there...)

Candidate Matching Results

2008-09-03T22:34:00.000-04:00

68% John McCain 64% Mike Huckabee 60% Chris Dodd 58% Tom Tancredo 57% Mitt Romney 57% Ron Paul 55% John Edwards 54% Hillary Clinton 54% Bill Richardson 52% Joe Biden 52% Barack Obama 51% Rudy Giuliani 49% Mike Gravel 49% Fred Thompson 41% Dennis Kucinich 2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Ron Paul 2008

2007-11-29T20:50:00.000-05:00

I'm lovin' the Libertarian slant of this guy... FREEDOM!!!!!

Execution of a Teenage Girl

2006-08-14T23:33:00.000-04:00

On August 15th, 2004 a 16-year-old girl was hanged in a public square in Neka, Iran, a small industrial town by the Caspian Sea. Her death sentence was for crimes against chastity. Her name was Atefah Sahaaleh. The only evidence against Atefah was her own forced confession. Atefah railed against her judge in court for its unfairness, but this was her undoing. Judge Haji Rezai, who was also the local mullah, prosecutor and head of the city administration, personally obtained permission from Iran's Supreme Court to execute her, and put the noose around her neck himself before she was hoisted on a crane jib arm to her death. Using undercover footage, eyewitness accounts and drama recontruction, this film tells an unforgettable story of the life and tragic death of an ordinary teenage girl under Iran's mullahs.

Moving!

2006-04-27T19:24:00.000-04:00

So those color choices a couple of posts back... that is what I chose for my new condo. I'm moving this weekend. Packing tonight, first trip tomorrow (GR to Holland!). Much thanks to a good friend from work for tomorrow's trip.

Then an old friend is borrowing his dad's pickup and I can move my queen-size bed (its a monster, but my feet still hang off the edge... I sleep diagonally... thanks to my dutch heritage.)

Gotta pack.

(I'll be offline for a bit during the move, but I doubt I'll let that last too long.)

Soul as Software

2006-04-23T17:44:00.000-04:00

What if soul is software? If the soul is software, then it can be much more integrated with the rest of the human body. Software includes functions, data, and configurations. The soul would then include skills, memories, and personality. Software is infinitely malleable, and the same would then be said for the soul. Ever new memory would change a soul. Every new skill would add dimensions to the soul. Harmful happenings could cause the personality to change. If the soul is software, then immortality could be implemented by a perfect backup system. Every skill, memory, and personality quirk would have to be backed up for the soul to be recreated at resurrection. Immortality would then be a sort of data integrity guarantee. Perhaps then the transfer of a soul to heaven is simply an awakening of the backup copy, as the primary copy disintegrates into electrical noise. In this case, heaven could be a sort of cold storage of the tape backups, or a reunion of the saints, in some sort of temporary memory, or a time for reflection on the life that has been stored. Resurrection would be a download to new hardware, and a chance to add new experiences to the ones already stored. Comments?

Soul as Supernatural Other: What about Memory?

2006-04-23T17:18:00.000-04:00

See my earlier post on the soul. For the purposes of this discussion, I am assuming that the soul is a supernatural thing, separable from the physical dimension. If the soul and body are separate, where are memories stored? Are they stored in the physical body, or in the soul. I don't think all memory is stored in the soul, because if the soul contained all memory, then Alzheimers would be different. Alzheimers patients are not soul-less people. They are simply people that have lost memories. If all memories were stored in the soul, then the act of losing memories would involve the loss of contact with the soul. If memories are stored in the physical body then this opens up some interesting possibilities:

Memories and computer data are only different in their storage medium.
Memories can be erased by removal of parts of they physical storage medium.
Destruction of the physical storage medium causes permanent loss of the memory/data unless a backup copy is made.
Without a physical storage medium there is no memory/data.

When we apply these computer data principles to the human soul, we see some interesting conclusions emerging:

The disembodied soul (upon death) has no memory (or at least loses some memory)
We can't remember each other in heaven.
The dead soul does not have state, and thus has no concept of time.
The resurrection means so much more, because a soul without a body is actually missing something.

I assume that God keeps a backup copy of our memories... Perhaps that is what is meant by the final judgment - the soul was temporarily experiencing the results of their lives on earth, but at ressurection reunites with the body, and remembers all the sins of their life, and then God can lead them through them all, and give them their final review. (By the way, I doubt their will be a wait before the final judgement. God is infinite in processing power, so the final judgement probably happens in a massively parallel fashion.)

Soul and Consciousness

2006-04-23T17:00:00.000-04:00

I am reading a book by William H. Calvin called "How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligence, Then and Now" (It is part of a Science Masters series), and Calvin is talking about human consciousness. I am a Christian, and am firmly convinced about the idea that the soul is immortal. However, given this new data, I may have to change how I percieve the soul. I always thought of the soul as an other element. This is supported by C.S. Lewis's strong metaphysical construct of the difference between Nature and the Supernatural. This sort of thinking brings one to believe that the mind is like a radio for the soul... or perhaps a spiritual access point from which the soul can retrieve information, and through which it can interact with the external world.... but... What if the soul is like software. Software is not something separate or magical, but more a configuration of ordinary atoms into an idea that can then be transferred to another set of ordinary atoms unchanged, and still the same software. Then, perhaps when God says the soul is immortal, he means that he is taking an incremental backup of our soul's software, so that the data can then be transferred back into another body. There is the obvious problem that comes with software.. which is that it can be copied... but no sense confusing the issue... I think however, that we don't have to choose between the two. I think the will is more than mere matter, but the soul is not human unless it is in contact with a physical body. This brings up another interesting question... Is memory stored in the soul or in the body?

Dollars per gallon (or the silly cost of living...)

2006-04-22T18:51:00.000-04:00

If you click on the header of this post, you will be taken to a Google search that uses Google's amazingly useful unit handling calculator built into their search engine to tell you what I pay per mile I drive. (I love my toyota... 36 mpg yeah!... and it isn't even a hybrid) For all you poor saps with old domestic beaters... well why don't you tell me how much it sux. Here's what you do.

Reset your trip meter next time you fill up (assuming it works..).
Drive for a while.
Note what the trip meter says the very next time you fill up.
Note how many gallons you bought.
Replace the 372.9 miles with the number on the trip meter.
Replace the 10.334 gallons with the number of gallons you bought.
Click Search.

What comes back is how many cents per mile driving costs (I got 8 cents per mile). Then you can multiply by the number of miles you drive in a week (currently 300 for me), and you can find out how much it costs to maintain the American love affair with the automobile... (I got $24.941)

All this figgerin' is assuming the cost of gas is $3/gallon. Adjust that part as you wish.

Perhaps these prices will finally get public transportation properly funded in America! But still... we need a better energy source than oil.

V

2006-04-16T21:54:00.000-04:00

I am a technophile...

I always have been, and probably always will be... but recently I have been rethinking technology and its influence on the world around us. A while ago I finally watched Braveheart... this is a story about a man in a very backwards time where there was very little technology, but still there was enough to produce an unbridgeable gap between the peasant and the noble. But the tyranny that existed could not be tolerated by the people, and with the crystallizing power of a great leader, the people turned their world around. The technology of the day meant that many had to die, but eventually the people prevailed. Today we have much more powerful technology, and a much larger gap between the people and the rulers. The great technology I am thinking about is not the great nuclear weapons or laser guided bombs, or chemical warfare or biological vectors. The weapons I am talking about are much more fluid. I am talking about the incredible advances in the power of persuasion. In the days of Braveheart, the people may have been bound, but their minds were always free. Now we have the powers of advertising... these are the powers that can shape the way we feel. And those who control the minds of the people are already in control of their actions. Utopian novels and movies like Aldous Huxley's brave new world, or 1984, or even V is for Vendetta are attempting to warn us against this sort of control, but the problem is that they paint a picture where those in authority have absolute and draconian control.. but these people don't really need to have absolute control, to change the way things happen. They only need to make sure that what the people trust is what they tell them. Allowing a story to leak out into an untrusted source is actually better than trying to keep the story from leaking at all.... because that source, by telling the story, reduces the story to what that source always says, and the common man (the one who actually rules this country) dismisses it as gossip, and nothing more needs to be said. The source may even have evidence, but since the story originally came from an untrustworthy source, it will forever be an "untrue" story. Image is everything. How something is spun is reality. What the people believe is reality (or it will be soon enough). You shape the mind of the people, you shape the world. The absolute rulers have never been those who have the most swords, or the most money, or the most power, but those who have the most influence over the minds of the people.

Color Choices

2006-04-09T22:00:00.000-04:00

Kitchen Colors

Counter

Bathroom Colors

Counter

Languages

2006-04-08T09:52:00.000-04:00

I think I'm going to learn spanish... just to be able to understand Shakira...

Does anyone else think that Whenever, Wherever (an English song by the way) has a positively Australian twist to it? When I heard it first, I didn't think Hispanic... I thought Crocodile Dundee...

Anyway, I took 2 years of spanish in High School, and very little stuck with me, but listening to spanish lyrics, like in La Tortura helps to bring it back (It helps to NOT be watching the music video though... I've always found thinking rather difficult in the presence of beautiful women...

An Informative Email I got - Evidently Incorrect?

2006-03-18T17:18:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: I understand from a helpful commenter that this is fraught with errors... I guess that is why a blog is better than an email campaign. Emails are hard to control, and correct, once they are forwarded... Emails are natural rumor spreaders, whereas blogs are negotiable, and allow us to dialog towards the truth. Here is a post from Raymond S. Kraft, a California lawyer, that seems to present the "Big Picture"" in the right manner.....This is something all (North) Americans should read!......It is a long, thorough

and invaluable document......Please retain it for future reference.....This

is definitely a "keeper."

<><>

******************

Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had sunk more than four hundred British ships in their convoys between England and America for food and war materials.

Bushido Japan had overrun most of Asia, beginning in 1928, killing millions of civilians throughout China, and impressing millions more as slave labor.

The US was in an isolationist, pacifist, mood, and most Americans and Congress wanted nothing to do with the European war, or the Asian war.

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, which had not attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.

France was not an ally, the Vichy government of France aligned with its German occupiers. Germany was not an ally, it was an enemy, and Hitler intended to set up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, it was intent on owning and controlling all of Asia. Japan and Germany had long-term ideas of invading Canada and Mexico, and then the United States over the north and south borders, after they had settled control of Asia and Europe.

America's allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia, and that was about it. There were no other countries of any size or military significance with the will and ability to contribute much or anything to the effort to defeat Hitler'sGermany and Japan, and prevent the global dominance of Nazism. And we had to send millions of tons of arms, munitions, and war supplies to Russia, England, and the Canadians, Aussies, Irish, and Scots, because none of them could produce all they needed for themselves.

All of Europe, from Norway to Italy, except Russia in the east, was already under the Nazi heel.

America was not prepared for war. America had stood down most of its military after WWI and throughout the depression, at the outbreak of WWII there were army units training with broomsticks over their shoulders because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have tanks. And a big chunk of our navy had just been sunk and damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England that was the property of Belgium and was given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler - actually, Belgium surrendered one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day anyway just to prove they could. Britain had been holding out for two years already in the face of staggering shipping losses and the near-decimation of its air force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later and turning his attention to Russia, at a time when England was on the verge of collapse in the late summer of 1940.

Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany.

Russia lost something like 24 million people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow, 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a million soldiers. More than a million.

Had Russia surrendered, then, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire campaign against the Brits, then America, and the Nazis would have won that war.

Had Hitler not made that mistake and invaded England in 1940 or 1941, instead, there would have been no England for the US and the Brits to use as a staging ground to prepare an assault on Nazi Europe, England would not have been able to run its North African campaign to help take a little pressure off Russia while America geared up for battle, and today Europe would very probably be run by the Nazis, the Third Reich, and, isolated and without any allies (not even the Brits), the US would very probably have had to cede Asia to the Japanese, who were basically Nazis by another name then, and the world we live in today would be very different and much worse. I say this to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. And we are at another one.

There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world, unless they are prevented from doing so.

France, Germany, and Russia, have been selling them weapons technology at least as recently as 2002, as have North Korea, Syria, and Pakistan, paid for with billions of dollars Saddam Hussein skimmed from the "Oil For Food" program administered by the UN with the complicity of Kofi Annan and his son.

The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs - they believe that Islam, a radically conservative (definitely not liberal!) form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world, and that all who do not bow to Allah should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, purge the world of Jews. This is what they say.

There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East - for the most part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation today, but it is not yet known which will win - the Inquisition, or the Reformation.

If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, and the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies, the techno-industrial economies, will be at the mercy of OPEC - not an OPEC dominated by the well-educated and rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis.

You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want jobs? You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.

If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away, and a moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.

We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda, the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We cannot do it nowhere. And we cannot do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle now at the time and place of our choosing, in Iraq.

Not in New York, not in London, or Paris, or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we did and are doing two very important things.

(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is a terrorist.

Saddam is, or was, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million Iranians.

(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad guys there and the ones we get there we won't have to get here, or anywhere else. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in theMiddle East for as long as it is needed.

The Euros could have done this, but they didn't, and they won't. We now know that rather than opposing the rise of the Jihad, the French, Germans, and Russians were selling them arms - we have found more than a million tons of weapons and munitions in Iraq. If Iraq was not a threat to anyone, why did Saddam need a million tons of weapons?

And Iraq was paying for French, German, and Russian arms with money skimmed from the UN Oil For Food Program (supervised by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and his son) that was supposed to pay for food, medicine, and education, for Iraqi children.

World War II, the war with the German and Japanese Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before America joined it. It officially ended in 1945 - a 17 year war - and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again .. a 27 year war.

World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP - adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars, WWII cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.

[The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $160 billion, which is roughly what 9/11 cost New York. It has also cost about 2,200 American lives, which is roughly 1/2 of the 3,000 lives that the Jihad snuffed on 9/11.] But the cost of not fighting and winning WWII would have been unimaginably greater - a world now dominated by German and Japanese Nazism.

Americans have a short attention span, now, conditioned I suppose by 60 minute TV shows and 2-hour movies in which everything comes out okay.

The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain,and sometimes bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.

If we do this thing in Iraq successfully, it is probable that the Reformation will ultimately prevail. Many Muslims in the Middle East hope it will. We will be there to support it. It has begun in some countries, Libya, for instance. And Dubai. And Saudi Arabia. If we fail, the Inquisition will probably prevail, and terrorism from Islam will be with us for all the foreseeable future, because the Inquisition, or Jihad, believes they are called by Allah to kill all the Infidels, and that death in Jihad is glorious.

The bottom line here is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away on its own. It will not go away if we ignore it.

If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an "England" in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war is merely another battle in this ancient and never-ending war. And now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons. Unless we prevent them. Or somebody does.

The Iraq war is expensive, and uncertain, yes. But the consequences of not fighting it and winning it will be horrifically greater. We have four options -

1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.

2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).

3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.

4. Or we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France andGermany and maybe most of the rest of Europe. It will be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier then.

Yes, the Jihadis say that they look forward to an Islamic America. If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.

We can be defeatist peace-activists as anti-war types seem to be, and concede, surrender, to the Jihad, or we can do whatever it takes to win this war against them.

The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.

Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.

In the 20th century, it was Western democracy vs. communism, and before that Western democracy vs. Nazism, and before that Western democracy vs. German Imperialism. Western democracy won, three times, but it wasn't cheap, fun, nice, easy, or quick. Indeed, the wars against German Imperialism (WWI), Nazi Imperialism (WWII), and communist imperialism (the 40-year Cold War that included the Vietnam Battle, commonly called the Vietnam War, but itself a major battle in a larger war) covered almost the entire century.

The first major war of the 21st Century is the war between Western Judeo/Christian Civilization and Wahhabi Islam. It may last a few more years, or most of this century. It will last until the Wahhabi branch of Islam fades away, or gives up its ambitions for regional and global dominance and Jihad, or until Western Civilization gives in to the Jihad.

Senator John Kerry, in the debates and almost daily, makes 3 scary claims:

1. We went to Iraq without enough troops.

We went with the troops the US military wanted. We went with the troop levels General Tommy Franks asked for. We deposed Saddam in 30 days with light casualties, much lighter than we expected.

The real problem in Iraq is that we are trying to be nice - we are trying to fight minority of the population that is Jihadi, and trying to avoid killing the large majority that is not. We could flatten Fallujah in minutes with a flight of B52s, or seconds with one nuclear cruise missile - but we don't. We're trying to do brain surgery, not amputate the patient's head. The Jihadis amputate heads.

2. We went to Iraq with too little planning.

This is a specious argument. It supposes that if we had just had "the right plan" the war would have been easy, cheap, quick, and clean.

That is not an option. It is a guerrilla war against a determined enemy, and no such war ever has been or ever will be easy, cheap, quick, and clean. This is not TV.

3. We proved ourselves incapable of governing and providing security.

This too is a specious argument. It was never our intention to govern and provide security. It was our intention from the beginning to do just enough to enable the Iraqis to develop a representative government and their own military and police forces to provide their own security, and that is happening. The US and the Brits and other countries there have trained over 100,000 Iraqi police and military, now, and will have trained more than 200,000 by the end of next year. We are in the process of transitioning operational control for security back to Iraq.

It will take time. It will not go with no hitches. This is not TV.

Remember, perspective is everything, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.

The Cold war lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany.

World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50 million people, maybe more than 100 million people, depending on which estimates you accept.

The US has taken a little more than 2,000 KIA in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 Killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism. In WWII the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week for four years. Most of the individual battles of WWII lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.

But the stakes are at least as high . . . a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms . or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).

I do not understand why the American Left does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis. In America, absolutely, but nowhere else.

300,000 Iraqi bodies in mass graves in Iraq are not our problem. The US population is about twelve times that of Iraq, so let's multiply 300,000 by twelve. What would you think if there were 3,600,000 American bodies in mass graves in America because of George Bush? Would you hope for another country to help liberate America?

"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate where it's safe, in America.

Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places in the world that really need peace activism the most?

The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy.

If the Jihad wins, it is the death of Liberalism. Everywhere the Jihad wins, it is the death of Liberalism. And American Liberals just don't get it.

**************

Raymond S. Kraft is a writer and lawyer living in Northern California. Please consider passing along copies of this to students in high school, college and university as it contains information about the American past that is very meaningful TODAY - - history about America that very likely is completely unknown by them (and their instructors, too). By being denied the facts and truth of our history, they are at a decided disadvantage when it comes to reasoning and thinking through the issues of today. They are prime targets for misinformation campaigns beamed at enlisting them in causes and beliefs that are special interest agenda driven.

Self-referencing tables

2006-03-18T15:12:00.000-05:00

Self-referencing tables are an evil data construct. I know they represent real relationships and all... but if you need to do a batch update of a table, it is practically impossible, because you have to do your inserts in a very specific order, and there is no guarantee that the data doesn't have some sort of circular reference... I wish Access would allow you to turn off relationships for a little while...

Email Receipts to QIF

2006-03-12T00:28:00.000-05:00

If you are like me, you love iTunes, and if you are very much like me, you use some sort of personal financial tool, to keep a handle on the ole' finances. I got sick of importing the digital email info into my financial program, so I found a way to import an email receipt into my financial program. I used the awk tool along with the amazingly expressive power of regular expressions to turn an mbox file (The file Thunderbird uses to save your email) into a QIF file that is ready for import. Peep This!

function getField(src, headerRE, valueRE) 
{
 if ( match( src, headerRE valueRE)) {
  headerStart = RSTART
  valueEnd = RSTART + RLENGTH
  match( src, headerRE )
  headerEnd = RSTART + RLENGTH
  valueStart = headerEnd  
  valueLength = valueEnd - headerEnd
  return substr(src, valueStart, valueLength)

 }
 else 
 {
  return " false"
 }
}

BEGIN {
 RS = "From - "
 apple = 0
 movielink = 0
 now = systime()
 getline
 start = match(FILENAME, "\\\\[^\\\\/]*$")
 output = "EmailReceipts" substr(FILENAME, RSTART + 1, RLENGTH) ".qif"
 print("using " FILENAME " as input.")
 print("outputting to " output)
 print("!Type:CCard") > output
}

/Apple Receipt/ { 
 print "D" getField($0, "Receipt Date: ", "[\\/$.0-9A-Za-z]*") > output
 print "T-" substr(getField($0, "Order Total: ", "[\\/$.0-9A-Za-z]*"), 2, 100) > output
 print "PiTunes" > output
 print "LLeisure:Tapes & CDs" > output
 print "MOrder #: " getField($0, "Order Number: ", "[\\/0-9A-Za-z]*") > output
 print "^" > output
 apple++ 
}
/Subject: Movielink Order Confirmation/ { 
 print "D" getField($0, "Date : ", "[\\/$.0-9A-Za-z]*") > output
 print "T" substr(getField($0, "Transaction Total:[ \t]*", "[\\/$.0-9A-Za-z]*"), 2, 100) > output
 print "PMovieLink" > output
 print "LLeisure:Movies & Video Rentals" > output
 print "M" getField($0, "Movie Title Player Format Store Until Price\n", "[\\\\\\/0-9A-Za-z$.() ]*") > output
 print "^" > output
 movielink++ 
  }

 END {
 print apple " apple reciepts."
 print movielink " movielink reciepts."
 
}

Tree Size

2006-03-05T13:28:00.000-05:00

I was running out of space on my hard drive, so I used this tool to find out that most of my space is in music. 23GB worth! Oh yeah... I'm a music lover. Check what I have been listening to lately here or for more info go to my last.fm account.

Fatboy Slim

2006-03-04T11:51:00.000-05:00

Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim, Music Video featuring Christopher Walken...

It really takes off at 2 minutes and 53 seconds...

Pleasure Theory

2006-03-01T22:11:00.000-05:00

Humans have a finite capacity for pleasure, but an infinite ability to adjust the the way things are. If your life was really bland, all the time, and you always ate tasteless (though filling) food all your life, you would find a loaf of simple bread to be a better experience than if you always ate the finest foods, and had chocolate cake every day.

Have you ever been really hungry? And then did you ever eat something you normally found bland, and find it amazingly tasty? The experience of pleasure is relative. A gourmand's daily death by chocolate is the same experience as the ascetics daily rough bread.

Since man has a finite capacity for pleasure, discipline is most important. Our pleasure sensors have a limited range, so it is important to keep the baseline low, so that the increases can be felt. (Or... as Vanilla Sky put it... Love is about sweet and sour, and without the sour, the sweet is not as sweet...)

Perhaps it IS better to never love at all then to raise your expectations, and never be able to be happy again...

Perhaps love is like cocaine... it is only terrible because it ruins us for the everyday pleasures...

Just a little dirt on it...

2006-02-25T22:01:00.000-05:00

The secret to living on this planet is learning to live with dirt. Everything we touch is dirty on some level. All the food we eat, all the water we drink... it all contains some pollution at some level. All the things we touch are dirty. All the social structures show cracks, all the people we meet are broken. The key to surviving, and perhaps even thriving, is to find the pearls in the muck.

I remember a sermon illustration about morality that I heard once, where this guy wants to teach his son that he should flee any appearance of evil, by asking his son if he wants some of his brownies that have a little bit of dog poop in them...

but... you know... all brownies have a little bit of dog shit in them... at some level. This whole world is submerged in shit. The only way to move forward, is to pick out the bits of chocolate... and hope you can taste the difference.

Everything is broken. Every action has a bad motive somewhere. It is the nature of the curse, that everything is sullied...

The best we can do is minimize the shit, maximize the chocolate...

The best we can do is fix as best we can, in the time we have left...

The best we can do is try to make the people around us better, and forgive them when they aren't perfect...

The best we can do is to do our best, and forgive ourselves when it isn't good enough...

The best we can do is move along, when the shit takes over...

Evil = Broken

2006-02-12T12:46:00.000-05:00

Hollywood and writers of today, and yesterday have warped the concept of evil until it has basically no meaning. In fact, popular culture equates evil with mischief, but evil is something much different. Evil is a measure of how broken something is. Corruption is not an addition of a malevolent force, but rather a good thing that has broken. I've been reading Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. In it the Arch-Angel Foster is talking about an alien species with a "tripolarity" and he says:

I have it on High Authority that Don Juan himself could not manage to take Earthly interest in any of their three polarities... that's not an opinion; he was borrowed as a test. He screamed, and prayed to be returned to the solitary hell he has created for himself. Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land Pg 343

It is sorta in passing, but the statement "created for himself" I think explains alot about how hell works, and why people are sent there. These people are broken, and could hurt others, like a Black Hole. The only way to repair a Black Hole is to wrap space around them, so it consumes itself. Evil people are that broken... that they have to be cut off so they can't consume other people. Hell is not a luxury that an all powerful God gets to indulge in so He can give these terrible people their "comeuppance" for eternity. Hell is a necessity to keep these broken people from harming the people that God has chosen to fix.

I don't need Ecstasy, I've got Electronica

2006-02-11T11:07:00.000-05:00

I don't need Mary Jane... I've got Peter Paul and Mary

I don't need to Jack-Up... I've got Jack Johnson

I don't need Jones... I've got Norah

I don't need Ice... I've got Vanilla

I don't need a Brick... I've got Brickman

I don't need Doobies... I've got Dido

I don't need Ecstasy... I've got Electronica

Music, My Anti-Drug

Dont work so hard - Google Video

2006-01-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

I love this video... it defines me!

9/11 Conspiracy Theory

2006-01-28T18:43:00.000-05:00

EDIT: This video is not mine, but came from Google Video. I embedded it, using their "Put on site" feature.
At first this made me think.. and wonder... Especially the stats about the temperature of the fire not being high enough to melt steel (melting point of steel 1535 degrees C vs. heat of hydrocarbon fire 825 degrees C), and the fact that the building exploded outward so uniformly as it came down (almost as if it was demolished), but then I went and verified their facts.
While it is true that the melting point of iron is close to 1500 degrees C (actually 1510), steel is an alloy and can have a melting point much lower, like 1370 degrees C.
The fire could have gotten hot enough according to this research the temperature of an enclosed hydrocarbon fire can reach 1350 degrees C (look at the RWS curve... almost there... so maybe). Also, the explosions we saw outward could be caused by the water in concrete heating and causing the concrete to explode.
However, the video does raise an important point. We cannot allow our leaders to be given the opportunity to take any of our personal liberties away, just because we feel unsafe. Especially if they are the people telling us we are unsafe.

Remember:

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.Benjamin Franklin

P.S. Notice the powerfully moving use of contemporary music throughout this particular piece... interesting choice... perhaps they also had a bit of an agenda here, and it seems their audience is our generation...

Curry-N-Rice Girl - Google Video

2006-01-22T18:49:00.000-05:00

Curry-N-Rice Girl - Google Video

A little curry for ya!

The video was made by Fobbed Out Entertainment

Depression

2006-01-10T21:55:00.000-05:00

Non-depressive people don't understand why depressive people don't mind being sad. Of course someone who is used to warmth will pull back from icy water... but someone who lives in the cold and dark reacts differently. They pull in and curl up in a ball. Instead of struggling to get out, they stop moving, and curl up in a ball to conserve their strength. Instead of expending their strength to get out and find help, they curl up and dive deeper. At least down here it isn't frozen.

Jona

2006-01-08T22:40:00.000-05:00

I am starting to see myself in this man. I too am running from God (1:3). I too am headed the other way. I too am causing harm to those around me, by my destructive rebellion(1:5). Am I going to be cast overboard? (1:12) Is that what it will take? Am I to be a witness by my mistakes, like Jonah? (1:16)
I too only call on God from the belly of the whale...
I too have a flair for the dramatic (4:3). I too am discontented with the way God runs things. I too have a tendency to go away and pout (4:5).
And I too need His mercy(3:10), and patience(4:6-11), as I learn to walk His way.

Evidence

2006-01-08T22:31:00.000-05:00

Before I forget, I was talking to a new good friend over the new year and we talked about alot of things, which was very helpful. It helped me move past the content of my last post. It seems that we as believers are God's evidence. We are the proof that God exists... we are not perfect by any means, but we are so much better, and the only explanation is God's existence. God could have made magical proofs, or lightning to strike down anyone who doubted His existence. After all, he made us all... and he could easily un-make us... but He said let there be light, and earth and animals, and man, and He doesn't like to go back on His Word. So now, since we have decided to crack His perfect creation, He chooses to develop ordinary proof of His love and mercy, in people that are uncharacteristically unselfish, or unbelievably dependable. Our discussion ended with me realising that I was a rather poor proof of His existence... I actually was showing doubt myself. However, I know He exists, because I know who I am, and I know how awful I should be becoming, but He has intervened... and lifted me.

Running

2005-12-31T19:19:00.000-05:00

I am running from something... I turn up the music whenever these feelings come, but they keep coming back. I just want to feel happy all the time... but this loneliness won't let me. Other people are too much trouble. I just want to live the way I want. I just want to dance for my own enjoyment... I just wanna wear stuff that clashes... I just wanna define my own destiny, at every moment of my life... I just wanna make myself happy... and if that means no one will have me... then they are too much trouble anyway...
I am running from:

my expectations of my life
my loneliness
myself
my own knowledge of how I could not be lonely, but I don't wanna pay the price.

So until I decide to pay the price:

I will keep playing music that stops me from thinking.
I will keep watching fantasy and science fiction movies.
I will keep reading books that transport me to another world... a better world.
.. and never books, or movies, or music that makes me think about this one...

I will keep myself so busy I never stop to think about my life...

Until I finally go crazy and

then

made

world

never

ends...

Writely

2005-12-31T12:24:00.000-05:00

I just found this cool editor ... Just testing it... Maybe I will post in the future using it..

Robot Airplanes, Computer Games and Boy's Toys

2005-12-31T11:53:00.000-05:00

This Wired article makes me remember the warnings my parents used to give me about playing violent computer games. It isn't real, I would always say, and I would never do this in real life. But now the army has a computer game interface on a real weapon... Have you ever seen how violent us kids get in a computer game? What if we don't know (or forget) it is actually real?

What if we are Alone

2005-12-29T23:00:00.000-05:00

I don't really have any evidence of God's existence that is harder than my own fleeting impressions of divine influence, and the human brain sees what it wants to see. I need to believe that God exists, because then the world might make a little sense, and the happy endings I long for might be possible... but I don't have any hard proof that God exists... Maybe my family, church and friends are all lost in the same self-delusion...

What if we are really alone in the Universe?
What if what I thought was God's influence, and concern was only my own wishful thinking?

What if the world is not following a perfect plan?
What if I am the only one who is looking out for me?
What if I am the only one who really cares?

What if when we die, we really end?

If there is no God, then it only makes sense to:

Live for me alone...

Dive into hedonistic pleasure...

Just get doped senseless...

Live. Love. Laugh. Listen...

but hurry... cause you are going to end tomorrow...

Mad World

2005-12-29T22:28:00.000-05:00

I've been watching Smallville Season 2, and at the end of Episode 11, it almost had me crying with the song Mad World by Michael Andrews...
The link above is to a music video with this song...

So There!

2005-12-24T11:06:00.000-05:00

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.Oscar Wilde

One of my mentors once told me that I was about as reliable as a fart in a windstorm, and I have finally come up with a comeback...

Andy Said It... I'll believe it

2005-12-23T23:20:00.000-05:00

I am a deeply superficial person.Andy Warhol

My kinda Cooking!

2005-12-22T21:39:00.000-05:00

Now this is my kinda cooking... Bachelor style - Marvelous!

Freedom of Information

2005-12-20T22:04:00.000-05:00

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. Clarence Darrow

As long as knowledge can be owned it will never be free. Aron

As long as a man can be owned, no man is free, so as long as information and knowledge can be owned, no information will ever be quite free... The problem with the english language is that we don't distinguish between ($)free($) and freedom. I suppose a man's freedom is not sold and bought anymore, and so it is free, but this is because it is priceless, not because its price is nothing... Certain information (like the knowledge that all man are created equal) is also priceless, and must also be free... but unfortunately, I fear that Americans will find a way to put a price on it, just as we are quickly putting a price on other valuable things (like clean air and water, and open land, and natural resources, and even love...) Why can't we value something without putting a price on it? We even put a price on life itself (actuary tables anyone?)

We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free. Epictetus (from Discourses)

Pisces - All about the sun sign pisces

2005-12-14T22:26:00.000-05:00

I just watched "Alot Like Love", so I had to find out what my sign was.
Traditional Pisces Traits

Imaginative and sensitive
Compassionate and kind
Selfless and unworldly
Intuitive and sympathetic

On the dark side....

Escapist and idealistic
Secretive and vague
Weak-willed and easily led

... This explains alot...

War

2005-12-13T13:05:00.000-05:00

When the rich wage war it's the poor who die. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Devil and the Good Lord (1951) act 1

...We drew our own constellations...

2005-12-12T22:19:00.000-05:00

Just listening to Jack Johnson...

It was just another night
With a sunset and a moonrise
Not so far behind
To give us just enough light
To lay down underneath the stars
We listened to Papa's translations
Of the stories across the sky
We drew our own constellations

The last line made me remember a love long past, and how one night we really did draw constellations together... Will that ever happen again?...

Color Schemes - Too Complicated for Me

2005-12-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

I just don't get color schemes and what matches... The link above shows a color scheme dreamed up by my super-sister Lydia. I added it to my website (along with a list of my last 10 played songs are, using Audio Scrobbler. Pretty cool that... RSS and php and stuff is simple compared to the rules of color matching... (Maybe I only call it complicated because I am just so bad at it...)
Aron

Color Matching

2005-12-04T17:23:00.000-05:00

I do website design for a living as well as a hobby, which means sometimes I have to come up with a color that blends well with others. I am really just a computer geek and have no sense of style whatsoever... Sometimes I put Navy with Black... which my sister tells me is an absolute no-no. My creative out-of-the-box thinking side rebels against these sorts of absolute rules, but I guess I should submit to the fact that I am not an expert in this area.
Anyway... I found a color blending tool that just might help me for my web design... Now if I could only find a way to integrate this into my closet, and I will never need a women's help again...

Now you know...

2005-12-02T18:26:00.000-05:00

be sorted @ nimbo.net

Car Trouble

2005-11-28T10:27:00.000-05:00

Over the thanksgiving weekend, I drove up to Canada to visit my parents. (Thanksgiving and Christmas is about the only time I see them...) So on the way there, the weather was sorta bad... but I made it OK, once I got out from under the Lake Effect. I was heading home on Sunday afternoon, and I'm cruisin' along with my cruise on, and my tunes when suddenly, the car shudders a bit, and then I start slowing down...
Thankfully, I am close to an on ramp, so I can pull over and not be directly in the path of on-coming traffic. Then, since I don't have AAA, or anything else, but my cell phone still works, I call 911 (I know it wasn't an emergency, but what else do you do?) I am still in Canada (actually only an hour into a 6 hour trip) so this super nice Canadian trooper pulls up behind me (after a sorta tense and cold wait) and after taking my info (why? It wasn't like it was an accident...) and then he calls a tow truck. The tow truck guy (Ed) is also super nice, and gets me pulled back to the nearest Canadian Tire (18 miles back) which results in a rather steep towing charge...) He wants cash, and I don't carry that much, so I mosey on over to Canadian Tire to see if they can give me a cash advance.
I hear from the cashier lady that I have to buy something first, so I pick out a set of tie straps (always handy to have around) and wait in line at the checkout. When I get to the cashier, she tells me that she can only advance me half of what I need... so I ask her if there is an ATM around. She says there probably is one in the gas station.
I jog over to the gas station (remember, my tow truck man is still waiting) and don't see any ATM... I ask the gas station attendant, and he tells me that their is a bank across the street. I learned from him the actual meaning of kitty corner, as I have to cross the street twice. I walk up to the drive-up ATM, and get my cash, and then jaywalk back across the street, and back to Canadian Tire. By this time Ed has gotten bored of sitting around, so the Canadian Tire guys page him.

"Tow Truck driver to the service desk"

He hasn't wandered far thankfully. I slip him the hard-earned wad from the ATM, and he is on his way. By this time, it is 4:45 and once I finally get to talking to a service guy, they are closing up shop. I guess I am lucky they were open at all...
I called my Mom and Dad, and they give me the number of the closest relative. I call my Uncle, and he picks me up a bit later. Super good family... they open their house to me and let me crash on the couch.
So now I am just waiting for Canadian Tire to call me and let me know what is up with the car...

I'm OverReacting

2005-11-20T16:07:00.000-05:00

I just discovered Magnatune. Good stuff there.
According to "Brad Sucks", I guess I am overreacting...

When theres no place you feel at home
And you think you'd be better off alone

When you think there's no reason to try
And you hate yourself and wanna die

When you're filled with anxiety
And everyone's your enemy

When you wish you were someone else
And you wanna go out and kill yourself

OOOOhOOOOhhh you're overreacting
2x

When you get yourself depressed
Because you think you can't do your best.

When you write yourself a stupid song
To remind yourself that you forgot

OOOOHOoooo you're overreacting
2x Brad Sucks

I'm a Quitter

2005-11-20T13:06:00.000-05:00

I am a quitter.
I love escapist music, books, and movies, because I don't have to do anything, so I can't mess it up.
I am in love with myself and no one else.
I don't think people should love me so I don't act lovable.
Most people would rather like you, but we have to make that possible... I work as hard as I can to make myself unlovable, so when people reject me, I am still in control, because I did it.
Plus, when I say I have no friends, I sound really dramatic, and I like drama. If my day goes a little awry, then I give up on the rest.
I give up quickly (Is it really worth it to apologize about being late? Just don't go and then no one can give you grief).
I think the world has given me a bum deal, but that is because I have been deluded by the unrealistic world painted by my music and movie choices.
The universe is mostly a cold and dark place.
But I love myself... and I'll never hate me or leave me. I'll always forgive me, because I can't live without me.

Space and related stuff

2005-11-19T21:19:00.000-05:00

I wrote about the open source project Stellarium in a previous post. Today I found another star mapping program that allows you to leave the earth, and zoom off to Jupiter for a look at its moons... Its called Celestia and you will probably again need a decent video card and system to run it.

Speaking of stars... I just saw Zathura and loved it! Its harmless and innocent adventure. More please!

The Living Things - Bom Bom Bom

2005-11-13T13:44:00.000-05:00

I was looking for the lyrics on the net for this song, and couldn't find them, so I transcribed them myself...

Bom Bom Bom

We're gonna wake this city tonight
Oh, Watch it burn into the twilight
I said, Hey, Hey Hey this is our birthright
To be bought and sold, shipped off ready to die
We're ready to fight

We're gonna bom bom bom
Bom bom away bom
bom bom, bom bom
2x

I can't drink but drive a tank at nineteen
So, I set off to join the U.S. Army
The first time I left my country
I felt the desert sand marchin' under my feet.
Come march with me

Refrain 2x

We're gonna take this city tonight
We're gonna shake this city till broad daylight
We're gonna take this city tonight
We're gonna shake this city till broad daylight
Shake it...

I said
No NYC, Los Angeles
No Saint Louis, No New Orleans
No U and Me, No U and Me, No Sympathy
Cause we're gonna bring them, bring them to their knees

Refrain 2x

We're gonna take this city tonight
We're gonna shake this city till broad daylight
We're gonna take this city tonight
We're gonna shake this city till broad daylight
Shake it...

The Living Things

EDIT: Thanks to the anonymous comment, I have changed the OR to BUT

Native American proverbs - Wikiquote

2005-11-13T11:20:00.000-05:00

We do not inherit the world from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. tribe unknown

Native American proverbs - Wikiquote

2005-11-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

'Those that lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.' Blackfoot

Self-Help doesn't work...

2005-11-13T10:54:00.000-05:00

Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it. But it's a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, these things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that's really chewing on us. Jessica speaking to Thufir Hawat

What sources now?

2005-11-12T13:32:00.000-05:00

"For the first time in history..." Weather Girls

"I love this song!!!.... but that means I'm gay... Shit!" Aron

I strongly object to being labeled... but I just love the infectious happiness of this song more. The words actually turn me off, because I am not gay... but I do have some coming out to do...

I was with some friends over the weekend, and, as the custom is in most places, we got together over dinner. I ordered the vegetarian "burger". (notice those quotes... that was exactly the way it was on the menu.. we were in a place famous for its ribs...) Of course, people asked me why, and I had to explain. They were really shocked, and later I realized that I had just gone through a "coming out."

I haven't talked about this before, but I just can't hide it anymore...

I am a vegetarian. A vegan actually. A predominantly raw vegan...

I feel so much better now...

Cure for Depression

2005-11-06T15:59:00.000-05:00

This one is much more happy. (WARNING: Some innocent playing around involved - may offend prudish sensibilities.)

Ghost World is depressing..

2005-11-06T15:53:00.000-05:00

Ghost World tells a story of two girls graduating from high school. It is a coming of age story that accurately describes the experience of thousands of high school kids. It is a story that I totally identify with, and that is why it depresses me. I am just like Enid... and maybe now I am becoming like Seymour... But at least I have my family... and my faith, which is significantly better than Seymour's plight...

The last post was optimistic...

2005-11-05T10:32:00.000-05:00

It turns out that the first 3 digits are an area number, so if you know what state someone was born in, you only have to search from 1 million (15 minutes at 1 millisecond per check) up to 24 million combinations (which is 6 hours at 1 millisecond per check). The Social Security Administration needs to hire some paranoid security people fast! (BTW, this didn't take me very long to find out... it isn't like I am a cracker or something... I just know a little bit... so what about other people who are better at it than me?)

The Social Security Number is TOO Short

2005-11-05T09:58:00.000-05:00

The American social security number as a security device is much too short. Because there are only 9 numeric digits, there are only 1 billion combinations. This seems short, but remember that the U.S. population stands at 297 million (and counting), which means that the numbers will have to start being re-used after less than 4 generations. Plus, using this number as a security device means that more than 25% of the search space is valid. If you pick 9 numbers at random, you have a 25% chance of it being a valid number. I hope there isn't a national clearinghouse that allows viewing of personal data with only a social security number. Now matching that number to a name is still rather difficult, but still totally within computational limits given a validity checker. Modern computes are running in the Gigahertz range, which means they can do something every nanosecond. What they can do isn't much though. They can do something useful probably once a millisecond (that is actually probably on the slow side...people should optimize more). Lets say there is a service somewhere that checks the validity of a social security number if you also give it a person's name and birthdate. Name and birthdate isn't that hard to find. Once you have that, you only need to hammer that service for 12 days (max) before you know someone's social security number. Now, hopefully, someone somewhere would notice your continuous hammering and cut you off before you got to the number, but what if you tried it spread out more randomly over a longer period of time? I tested it with once a second and thankfully, it would take up to 30 years... so as long as someone is watching the service for thousands of failures from one IP address, we should be safe... We are in more danger from people using our info flippantly. For example, my school used to use the social security number as an identifier for everyone. They have since stopped... but we have to watch our services for security gaffes like that. Keep thinking people!

Pakjes Avond

2005-11-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

Our family (like many families) has a Christmas tradition of picking names and buying presents for each other. We do it on a different day than Christmas, because Mom and Dad want Christmas to be about Christ, not gifts. We call the celebration Pakjes Avond, which is Dutch (literally) for "package open." When we were young, Mom and Dad would to do all the gift giving, but now our family is growing up. We used to pick names from a hat at thanksgiving dinner, but now because of us growing up and getting families of our own, and the fact that half of us live in Canada and the rest live in the U.S. we don't get together for Thanksgiving anymore, so the hat is hard to pass around... We do alot of our interaction using the internet or telephone becuase of the distance, and though it loses alot of its "gezellig"-ness, I am developing a virtual hat, which I have named Pakjes Avond... though I think I need a better name... and maybe a brand or logo... So far I have the name picker done, and I am working on automating another part of the process that we used to do by email, namely the wishlists. We would just send our wishlists using the "Reply All" feature, but the problem is that the lists would get out of sync, and someone would have to maintain the list, and that made things less jolly... so I am hoping this will make our season a little more simple... What I would like is ideas to make this better... and if you want to implement this for your family, let me know... I won't let you into my family's implementation, because that would make our little private family place less cozy, but I would be willing to let anyone interested see the source.

God and Sovereignty

2005-11-01T20:30:00.000-05:00

Is God embedded in Cause and Effect? Is the reason for God's sovereignty over bad effects yet his lack of responsibility the fact that God is the glue that holds the logic together? Or that God is in or under the logic? This seems sorta pantheistic.... Is reality a simulation or illusion maintained continuously by God? Is God a computer that is running the simulation? Is God playing a part or is He the director?

Wake On Lan (sparkly Magic Packets)

2005-10-22T08:20:00.000-04:00

I just found a way to start up my computer remotely. The problem: I have a computer at home that is my personal repository of all things Aron. I don't normally leave it on (because the best security is the "off switch"... and to save power) but sometimes I want something off of it. I have an always-on network connection, so I have the necessary technology to get there, but what if my computer is turned off? Most people would give up at this point, but not me! My computer is equipped with WakeOnLan technology. You may have heard about WakeOnLan (or WOL) technologies, but if you haven't, here is a short synopsis. Most modern computers never really turn off unless you unplug them. When you shutdown the computer, it lies dormant, but a WOL enabled machine maintains some power to the network card, which is listening... (you can tell because the network card light continues to flash even when the computer is shutdown). The network card is listening for something called a "magic packet". This packet consists of the MAC address (a low level factory assigned hardware address) of the network card repeated 16 times. If the network card hears this packet, it immediately starts the computer. The network card is listening, but only on a very low level. (The computer is sorta "sleeping" but if it hears its name often enough it will wake up...) The IP address (which is assigned at a higher level than the MAC address) is how you would usually address a computer on the network, but it doesn't apply when the computer is off, because it requires some "higher brain functions" of the computer, so the magic packet must be broadcast across the network (just like your mama "broadcasting" your full name on saturday mornings when she wants you to do something and you just wanna sleep!) This morning I found a way to start my computer remotely. Requirements:

WOL enabled computer (most newer computers have the technology, but just need it turned on in the BIOS or the operating system.)
Magic Packets enabled on your network card
Verified ability to start your computer within the local network
Router
An open port on that router
DDNS service running (if you have a dynamic IP address)

There are three steps to actually setting up the remote start.

Retrieving the MAC address of your computer
Setting up router to forward the "Magic Packets"
Sending the magic packets to your computer

Retrieving the MAC address:
To retrieve the MAC address of your computer, you would open a command line window (Start-Run-"cmd") and type "ipconfig /all". This will give you lots of info, but the important part is the 6 hex digits which is your MAC address. Copy that down for later. Setting up the router:
This will vary depending on your router's make and model, but what you want to do is point that open port to the broadcast address on your network (On my network this is 192.168.1.255). The local broadcast address only works within the local network (which is a good thing for the health of the internet) so you hafta be on the local network or have a friend on the local network (which is what the router is for) that will broadcast your packet for you. Sending the magic packets: You can find a utility to send these packets here. Near the bottom of the page is a link to the AMD magic packet utility. This utility will ask you for a broadcast address (which is just the DDNS name you have registered) and the MAC address you got in step 1 to send a "Magic Packet" to your computer. Finally you don't have to worry about leaving your computer on when you need to remotely access it. As long as your broadband is up, and the router is properly set up and working, you can always get to your computer.

Chronicles of Narnia

2005-10-16T20:05:00.000-04:00

C.S. Lewis's Miracles is a good book to read before (or after) you read Chronicles of Narnia. It gives a philosophical basis for why the story could actually happen and shows the mind of the man (C.S. Lewis) rather well.

Sunday Wisdom

2005-10-16T19:25:00.000-04:00

This sunday evening our pastor preached on John 19 especially vs. 25, 26, and 27. John was the only disciple represented at the foot of the cross, but he also ran away when Jesus was taken. The pastor had many points, but the most important, to me, was this one. John wandered from Christ (actually ran away). You would think Jesus would chastise him for it, but instead, when he came back, Jesus had an important job for him. This applies for me lately. May path lately hasn't really been straight. Actually, my whole spiritual road hasn't really been straight. Bunyan wrote of a man traveling on a journey as an analogy of the Christian's life, and the image is a powerful one. Sometimes I think of this path as a straight one. As if once you pass through the right gate you have a straight (though uphill) path to heaven. I am evidently mistaken. The gate may be straight, but the path sure hasn't been in my experience. This should not be. When we want to get somewhere, we don't take the "scenic route"; we plot a straight line. The ultimate joy is in the destination, not the journey. Side trips only slow us down. How marvelously patient is our guide, who waits on the path for us to return. What mercy, that he comes to get us when we cannot return to Him. What love, that He cleanses us again from the dirt that we have gathered in our wanderings off the path. What redeeming love, when He binds up the wounds that have been caused by our refusal to stop and turn around. What we should do is ask for directions as soon as we realize we are wandering. What we really should do is read and follow the directions he left us, to get to His house. There is the party that never ends, all to His Glory as He deserves.

Starchy Wisdom

2005-10-11T20:14:00.000-04:00

You can learn a lot from starch...

Rice: Don't sweat the small stuff.

(or maybe I am just a little O.C.D..)

Pasta: Life is supposed to be messy.

It is more fun that way.

Potatoes: Good things take time.

Assuming the potatoe is baked...

Hmmm... anyway... I should be headed for great things... I spell potatoe like a vice president.(and I am consistent too!)

count(Blessings)

2005-10-09T21:06:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been feeling sorta down, for reasons that are entirely preventable. I chose to hack code instead of going to social events, and this ended up taking over my weekend. I am starting to see that something is not necessarily worth doing just because (1)it is cool, and (2)I can think of a way to do it...
Anyway, because of these happenings, I feel sorta down.
(The rather pathetic part of all this is that I don't know if anyone is reading this... so is this even worth doing...?)
Most of the reason I get feeling _down, is that I am afraid I will end up all alone and no one will ever love me... I wonder if maybe I am a person only God could love... but then my compulsive honesty kicks in, and I have to qualify it with:

Mom
Dad
6 siblings
3 (soon 4) brothers in law
3 nephews
2 nieces

... so I guess I am pretty blessed really. Then there is the people at church... (why did I skip today? Listening to a sermon at home is NOT the same as joining a congregational body...)
But family love is different. Family loves because the common ancestry holds us together (blood is thicker than water). Church members only see you at church and don't really know the real me. Only one member of my church really knows me and she hates me now...
I need to know if there is someone besides God that could know me and still love me... I am starting to think it would take a miracle. Of course, being a social gimp like I am... and not being able to remember people's names, and not being able to carry a conversation in a bucket...
It. would. take. a. miracle!
So while I wait.. this represents the life.

while (!getGirl()){
   count(Blessings);
}

Value of Things

2005-10-08T11:50:00.000-04:00

I just got a job, and it is a 40 minute commute, so I've been thinking about moving. Whenever I move, I use the opportunity to throw out stuff I haven't used in a while. This hurts my Dutch/Packrat side, but I have built an elaborate philosophical reasoning to allow me to throw things out.

Things don't matter, memories matter.
```
Matter = Energy + Information
```
All matter in the universe is essentially energy. This is what E=mc² means, (though the formula doesn't show that information is lost in the transition). The only difference between gold and lead is the information that the energy contains. If the information in the matter could be extracted, then that matter could be reconstructed with "different" energy and still be the same matter.

This theory also solves the dilemma about ressurection. The body is made of matter which is really energy and information. When we die, the energy from our bodies is returned to the system to be reused (some of the information remains), but a complete copy of the information is saved by God to allow our bodies to be reconstructed at the last day. Thus the resurrected body is the same body, even though it may not be the same information. This is just like saving your word document on a floppy, and storing it for a few years, and then restoring it later. It isn't like the document takes up the same physical sectors of the hard drive after restore, but it is the same document. Information is not a soul, though. The soul goes to God from whence it came, but a soul is not of this natural world, and therefore can't be quantified by natural mathematical theories. Ok, back to my original point... I don't have to be a packrat and hold onto things that have sentimental value, because the formula can be restated as:

```
Things = Energy + Memories
```

The boxes and boxes of pictures of old friends are only valuable because of the memories they contain. If we save the memories, or save the information contained in them (like digitizing them) then the pictures are worthless. The only other use is as a back-up to our mental or digital memories, as well as a form of pointer that allows us to retrieve information from our brains, that we have lost our reference to. Forgetting is not really losing the information from our brains, but rather losing references to it. I don't think the brain is limited in space, so there isn't any reason to run any garbage collector. The information stays there, but there is no way to get to it, unless we have an external pointer to it. More on this later...

Speaking of Universes...

2005-10-02T20:08:00.000-04:00

The Real universe has a few wonders of its own.

I got a job.... I think that's pretty wonderful. But beyond my petty little achievements are the stars... (You will need a properly powerful computer, and a pretty big screen to truly appreciate the wonder of the thing, but the install should only take a moment, and let me tell you, it is worth it.)

Metaphysical Change

2005-09-27T13:06:00.000-04:00

In the Metaphysical universe, minds are like automobiles.

We can move ourselves, and this auto-mobility is called the Will. A decision (force) causes a metaphysical change. Debate (collision) with others may cause a change in position and motion depending on our experience or knowledge (mass), conviction (velocity), and viewpoint (direction). Internal resistance to change (friction) slows our progress. Knowledge (mass) can increase with age. Resistance to change (friction) is almost certain to. This is why we must establish a strong conviction (velocity) and positive viewpoint (direction) at the beginning of our lives.

Habits (Inertia) are a combination of conviction (velocity) and viewpoint (direction).
Decision (Force) = experience (mass) x change (acceleration) - A certain decision causes an acceleration that is dependent on your previous experience.
Acceleration = change in conviction over a time period (dv/dt)

Friction

Decisions (forces) have a limited long-term effect because of internal and external resistance to change (friction). Decisions that result in a lasting change in habit (inertia) are not made instantaneously. Some decisions don't have any noticeable change in our convictions (velocity) because of our current experience (mass) and the strength of our convictions (current velocity). In order to really change, the decision (force) must be a continuous one over time, to counteract friction, requiring a continuous input of energy.

Habits

Decisions (forces) change habits (inertia) incrementally. This is why a habit (current velocity and direction or inertia) is hard to change. Every decision we make (force we exert) changes our conviction (velocity) in a certain direction, but if we have an initial strong conviction in a certain direction, it may take alot of energy to change applied over time. Instantaneous change would require infinite energy.

Metaphysical IS LIKE Physical

2005-09-27T12:20:00.000-04:00

The metaphysical world has physical properties, and we can use our knowledge of the physical to make analogies to the metaphysical.

Each of us has a position, and forces change that position.
Instantaneous change in position is most likely impossible.
(Newton's First Law) A mind in motion will remain in motion unless acted on by an external force.
Observation may change the events we are observing. (I thought this was Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle, but it turns out I was wrong.)

Narcissistic Enabler's Gordon Lightfoot Reference

2005-09-21T23:21:00.000-04:00

After reading the second chapter of this book, I got distracted because of the Gordon Lightfoot reference, so I had to go to iTunes, and hear him for myself... and now I am discovering the good melodic pleasure that is Gordon Lightfoot. I like that old folk sound. It is easy on the ears, and goes down smooth and sweet.

Oil prices (a more refined look)

2005-09-04T19:40:00.000-04:00

Gasoline prices have been really high around here lately... and some might be quick to assume this is because of a lack of crude oil supply... If that were the case then this would be the answer: Let it go up. I pay for gas too, but we might as well let it slowly go up, so we can continue to use our cars, while we move closer to work, and buy more efficient vehicles, (or tone up our bike-riding muscles)... But most of the problem is not with crude oil supply (or price gouging, or anything else). Most of the problem is with refinery capacity. Prices per gallon of crude went up 10 cents, while prices per gallon or gas went up 78 cents. Hurricane Katrina knocked out refinery capacity in the southwest by either destroying them directly, or knocking out power to them or their pumping stations, so they couldn't get the crude to the refinery. So, what I say is... build more refineries... and start laying rails (or invest in other alternative transport), because we need a cheaper way to get around!

Depression

2005-08-21T14:33:00.000-04:00

The root cause behind my depression is starving myself of good food (eating only easy food, or not eating enough...) and music that messes with the emotions... This I must remember. But I am not about to change...

Cyborgs and Synthetics

2005-08-20T19:30:00.000-04:00

I am strangely attracted to fembots, and man-made women... I don't think that is so much because I am so in love with technology as in love with the idea that I could have something that would be self-aware, and intelligent, and a little beyond my control, but devoted to me (or even created entirely to serve me). That is why the robot in Flubber is so attractive... her image is attractive and curvy sure... but it isn't solid, and so is really just that.. an image... but it is the intelligent being that is devoted to the doctor that really makes her desirable. Perhaps this is connected to the way we imitate our creator (albeit in a limited fashion) and are made in His image. He created a race of self-aware, intelligent creatures, and then tested them to see if they would be devoted entirely to Him. Or... maybe man-made (or at least synthetic) women are interesting because they are so simple and logical, and naive. They aren't connected to alot of family and they are so wonderfully logical (but that gets back to the created for us part...) Wow - major megalomania... too much science fiction. But finding a woman that isn't complicated (internally or by family ties), but is intelligent... very difficult to find indeed.

Hungry

2005-07-30T21:06:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been hungry. I mean rreally hungry. Like hungry like you haven't eaten in days not hours... or you haven't eaten enough in days. Where you are looking at your shoes, and wondering if they could be chewed... Like where you are looking at tree leaves, and all you can see is a caesar salad... Where roadkill smells like pot-roast... Well, I am that hungry... but not for food... And it seems to me that every where I look all I see is apples, and bananas, and cherries, and loaves of bread, and cake... and juicy juicy mangoes... Am I that bad of a person if I look twice? Or am I bad if my looks are just a little longer than they should be... or a little more intense...

iTunes and PHP (Solution)

2005-06-12T16:53:00.000-04:00

After working on trying to re-encode the input text in a format that matched PHP's native system, I googled a bit and found Richard James Kendall's iTunes XML Playlist Reader. With this, I was able to export the playlist in xml instead, and then let his code parse it and then comment out the sample HTML output part at the end, and replace it with a for loop that copied each of the files from their diverse locations to a directory I give it. The final code follows:

<?php

  // change this to suit you
  $file = "Good Calm.xml";
  $copyTo = "C:/Documents and Settings/Aron/My Documents/GoodCalm/";

  /*  iTunes XML Playlist Reader v1.01
  By Richard James Kendall
  Bugs to richard@richardjameskendall.com
  Free to use, please acknowledge me

  You need to change the $file variable to point to the right XML file.

  To get iTunes to generate this XML file select the playlist you want and goto
  File > Export Song List and select the XML format.  This DOES NOT WORK on full
  library exports from iTunes but it may do in the future.

  It loads the data into an array structure as follows:

  Array {
     [0] => Array {
        [TRACK ID] =>
        [NAME] =>
        [ARTIST] => (may not exist)
        [ALBUM] => (may not exist)
        [GENRE] => (may not exist)
        [KIND] =>
        [SIZE] =>
        [TOTAL TIME] =>
        [BIT RATE] =>
        [SAMPLE RATE] =>
        [PLAY COUNT] =>
     }

     [1] => Array {
        .
        .
        .
     }

     ...
  }

  I have provided code to format it as HTML (very simple formatting) and a function
  to get the track length in mm:ss instead of milliseconds.
  */

  $tracks = array();
  $track_counter = -1;
  $action = "";
  $k = "";
  $content = "";
  $mode = "GETTRACKINFO";
  $play_order = array();
  $playlist = array();

  function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs) {
     global $action, $k;
     switch($name) {
        case "KEY":
        $k = "";
        $action = "GETKEY";
        break;
        case "STRING":
        case "INTEGER":
        case "DATE":
        $action = "CONTENT";
        break;
        default:
        $action = "";
        break;
     }
  }

  function endElement($parser, $name) {
     global $action, $k, $content, $track_counter, $mode, $tracks, $play_order, $playlist;
     switch(strtoupper($k)) {
        case "TRACK ID":
        if ($mode == "GETTRACKINFO" && $action == "CONTENT") {
           //print ($action . " - " . $k . " - " . $content . " - " . $mode . "<br>");
           $track_counter++;
           $tracks[$track_counter][strtoupper($k)] = $content;
        }
        if ($mode == "PLAYORDER" && $action == "CONTENT") {
           $play_order[$content] = count($play_order);
           //print ($content . "<br>");
        }
        break;
        case "PLAYLISTS":
        $mode = "PLAYORDER";
        break;
        case "NAME":
        case "ARTIST":
        case "ALBUM":
        case "GENRE":
        case "KIND":
        case "SIZE":
        case "TOTAL TIME":
        case "BIT RATE":
        case "SAMPLE RATE":
        case "PLAY COUNT":
        case "LOCATION":
        if ($mode == "GETTRACKINFO") {
           $tracks[$track_counter][strtoupper($k)] = $content;
        } else {
           $playlist[strtoupper($k)] = $content;
        }
        break;
     }
     if ($action != "GETKEY") {
        $k = "";
     }
     $content = "";
     $action = "";
  }

  function characterData($parser, $data) {
     global $action, $k, $content;
     if ($action != "") {
        switch($action) {
           case "GETKEY":
           $k .= $data;
           break;
           case "CONTENT":
           $content .= $data;
           //print ($k . " => " . $content . "<br>");
           break;
        }
     }
  }

  $xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
  xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
  xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");
  if (!($fp = fopen($file, "r"))) {
     die("could not open XML input");
  }

  while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
     if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
        die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
        xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
        xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
     }
  }
  xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

  // this is the comparison utility funtion used by usort to order 
  // the tracks in play count order.
  function track_cmp($a, $b) {
     global $play_order;
     if ($play_order[$a["TRACK ID"]] > $play_order[$b["TRACK ID"]]) {
        return 1;
     } else {
        if ($play_order[$a["TRACK ID"]] == $play_order[$b["TRACK ID"]]) {
           return 0;
        } else {
           return -1;
        }
     }
  }

  // turns a real number into an integer
  function getint($number) {
     if (strpos($number, ".")) {
        $bits = explode(".", $number);
        return $bits[0];
     } else {
        return $number;
     }
  }

  // formats seconds as mins:secs
  function secs2minsasecs($secs) {
     $secs /= 1000;
     $minutes = $secs / 60;
     $seconds = $secs % 60;
     return getint($minutes) . ":" . $seconds;
  }

  usort($tracks, "track_cmp");

  // simple HTML formatting
  /*
  print ("<html><head><title>iTunes XML Playlist Reader</title></head>\n");
     print ("<body>\n");
        print ("<h1>" . $playlist["NAME"] . "</h1>\n");
        print ("<table width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"1\" border=\"1\">\n");
           print ("<tr>\n");
              print ("<td align=\"center\"><b>Name</b></td>\n");
              print ("<td align=\"center\"><b>Album</b></td>\n");
              print ("<td align=\"center\"><b>Artist</b></td>\n");
              print ("<td align=\"center\"><b>Play Count</b></td>\n");
              print ("<td align=\"center\"><b>Track Length</b></td>\n");
              print ("<td align=\"center\"><b>File Size</b></td>\n");
              print ("<td align=\"center\"><b>Location</b></td>\n");
              print ("</tr>\n");
           for($i = 0;$i < count($tracks);$i++) {
              print ("<tr>\n");
                 print ("<td>" . $tracks[$i]["NAME"] . "</td>");
                 if (isset($tracks[$i]["ALBUM"])) {
                    print ("<td>" . $tracks[$i]["ALBUM"] . "</td>");
                 } else {
                    print ("<td>~</td>");
                 }
                 if (isset($tracks[$i]["ARTIST"])) {
                    print ("<td>" . $tracks[$i]["ARTIST"] . "</td>");
                 } else {
                    print ("<td>~</td>");
                 }
                 print ("<td>" . $tracks[$i]["PLAY COUNT"] . "</td>");
                 print ("<td>" . secs2minsasecs($tracks[$i]["TOTAL TIME"]) . "</td>");
                 print ("<td>" . $tracks[$i]["SIZE"] . " bytes</td>");
                 print ("<td>" . $tracks[$i]["LOCATION"] . "</td>");
                 print ("</tr>\n");
           }
           print ("</table>\n");
        print ("</body>\n</html>\n");
  for($i = 0;$i < count($tracks);$i++) {
     print ($tracks[$i]["LOCATION"]);
  }*/

  for($i = 0;$i < count($tracks);$i++) {

     // following puts the path in $matches[1] and the filename in $matches[2]
     preg_match("/file:\/\/localhost\/(.*\/)(.*)\/$/",urldecode($tracks[$i]["LOCATION"]), $matches);
     echo "\n\nCopying file:".$matches[2];

     //echo $matches[0];
     //echo $buffer;
     if (!copy($matches[1].$matches[2],$copyTo.$matches[2])) {
        echo "\n\nCopy Error";
        echo "\nFrom:".$matches[1].$matches[2];
        echo "\nTo:".$copyTo.$matches[2];
     }
  }
?>

iTunes and PHP

2005-06-12T16:22:00.000-04:00

I have a laptop and a desktop, and I use iTunes as my Music Service, but I don't have an iPod. I wanted to move a certain play list from my Desktop to my Laptop, through my network, but didn't want to have to go find all 280 songs. I noticed, though, that you could export a playlist to a text file, and the text file had the path to the file in it. Since I have a little experience in PHP, I wanted to see if I could quick hack together a system that would copy all the files in a given playlist file into a given directory. I tried to use the plain text file output for a while, until I discovered that the text file that was exported was UTF8 encoded (I think...), and I couldn't get php to read from the text file properly. My code is shown below...

<?php
   // doesn't work...
function decode_utf8($str){
       # erase null signs in string
         $str=eregi_replace("^.{10,13}q\?","",$str);
       # paterns
           $pat = "/=([0-9A-F]{2})/";
           $cha="'.chr(hexdec(";
       # to decode with eval and replace
         eval("\$str='".
                 preg_replace($pat,$cha."'$1')).'",$str).
                 "';");
       # return
           return $str;
       }

   $copyTo = "C:\\Documents and Settings\\Aron\\My Documents\\CopyToDir\\";
   $handle = fopen("AirPlayList.txt", "r");
   while ($buffer = fgets($handle,4096)) {

      //$buffer = decode_utf8($buffer);
      $buffer = html_entity_decode(htmlentities($buffer, ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8'));
      
      //$copyTo = iconv('ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8', $copyTo);
      preg_match("/\t([^\t]*\\\)([^\t]*?)$/",$buffer, $matches);
      //echo "\n full path:".$matches[0];
      //echo "\n\n\npath:".$matches[1];
      //echo "\n\nfile:".$matches[2];
      
      //echo $matches[0];
      //echo $buffer;
      if (!copy($matches[1].$matches[2],$copyTo.$matches[2])) {
         echo "\n\nCopy Error";
         echo "\nFrom:".$matches[1].$matches[2];
         echo "\nTo:".$copyTo.$matches[2];
      }

   }
   fclose($handle);
?>

Fun Stuff...

2005-05-09T01:40:00.000-04:00

I took this test... and here are my results, which I am quite frankly rather proud of...

Wisdom - Redeemed by the Word

2005-05-09T01:13:00.000-04:00

Wisdom….(Only comes from God, so let a man ask of God who gives to all men liberally)

Each of us are CEO’s of our lives. We have executive authority, but the real owners are all those who have invested in us. (This sounds sorta Hallmarky... and is really heresy, since if we are Christians, we are owned by Christ, who bought the controlling share with His precious blood)

Home is where the memories are. (Or maybe Home is where we make the memories)

Great wealth easily gained is more of a curse than a blessing. (Abram was the notable exception where weath was a blessing....)

Hope = 1pint of delusion+ 1 gallon of determination (This is sorta sarcastic... and not entirely Biblical)

Three rules to life:

1. Nothing stays as it is. (Change is constant, just look at Joseph's life... I doubt he saw it coming, the life he was going to lead... going from favored son, down to slave, and then up to powerful servant, and then back down to prisoner, and then up to second in command over the most powerful nation on earth [at that time])

2. Nothing is perfectly pure - Not good nor evil. (In the world of men, this is true. No man (or woman) is perfectly good, but thankfully, in this life, no man is ever beyond repair [through salvation by Christ] either.)

3. To be different is to be lonely. (Gen 2:18 - it isn't God's plan... but taken another way: "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." John 15:19 NKJV)

Most of us would rather take a sweet lie than a bitter truth, but we don’t realize the lie has a bitter aftertaste or that the bitterness of the truth only makes it that much sweeter afterward. ¹⁴that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ-- ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Ephesians 4: 14-16 (NKJV)

Points to Remember from Miracles

2005-01-30T16:35:00.000-05:00

Page 115, Miracles by C.S. Lewis - "Horrid Red Things" 1. "Thought is distinct from the imagination that accompanies it." - This means when we think about something, like the United States, our imagination might dream up an American flag, or a many colored map, but that isn't what we really believe the U.S. is. 2. "That thought may be in the main sound even when the false images that accompany it are mistaken by the thinker for true ones." - A child might say that the blue state is close to the red state, when looking at the map of the U.S., and that child would be right, if the blue state is meant to be Michigan, and the red state is Ohio. But of course, Michigan is no more blue than Ohio. 3. "That anyone who talks about things that cannot be seen, or touched, or heard, ot the like, must inevitably talk as if they could be seen or touched or heard." - We can't talk about "supersensible" things without using metaphors of some kind. Information doesn't really spread, but how else can we talk of rumors? Networks aren't actually being impeded in their motion when we say they are "bogged down". We use metaphors because they help us make sense of concepts that we cannot sense with our 5 senses.

C.S. Lewis

2005-01-30T16:24:00.000-05:00

I am reading a book by C.S. Lewis, and in my Xanga, I have made a previous entry, but it is down now, so I have moved here. The book I am reading is called Miracles. I am loving it. It shows from a metaphysical point of view why the Supernatural is necessary to allow for real reason. If we believe in Nature as being all there is, then we must also be a part of Nature. If we are only a part of Nature, and we seem to be noticing that all of Nature is governed by regular laws with Causes and Effects, then our thinking is also governed by Cause and Effect. If so, then we can explain why we think certain ways. We are thinking because some molecules have been set in motion, and our experience is simply a side effect of Nature's machine. This invalidates our logical thought. Basically then every thought is because of a Cause, instead of a Ground. Grounds are logical basis for Consequents in metaphysics. If an action has an external cause, then it is not because of Grounds A,A', and A'' that we conclude the consequent B, but rather because of some external event C (or events). In order for our reason to be real, there must be something outside of the machine called Nature that causes thoughts, and allows us to conclude B given A, despite some external influence C.

Energy and Memory

2004-11-17T17:37:00.000-05:00

If I could come up with a really great advance in either energy generation, or energy storage, or long-term and fast computer memory storage, I would probably be set for life. For Energy generation, the idea I most like (it is not my own) is Lunar Solar Power. Industrial Physicist article

My Human Model

2004-11-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

This is my personal model of the human... and the modules that make him up... This isn't any more scientific than my personal observations...

I have a Personal Blog too...

2004-11-10T22:39:00.000-05:00

I have joined the XANGA network. I have some friends there, so this will now be the place where I talk to myself... http://www.xanga.com/avandermeyden

Fun fact

2004-11-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

My first name is the same as the original spelling of Elvis Presley's middle name. In case you wanted to know.

On Mental Disease

2004-10-30T11:04:00.000-04:00

Many members of my family have been diagnosed with mental disease, mostly bipolar, but I am wondering... Is it chemical imbalance or just chemical diversity? Is it just that there is more variety to normal than the psychologists want to admit? What if normal included those who live a roller-coaster ride of life, or normal included artists and writers? Maybe instead of making everyone flat and featureless psychologically speaking, with very powerful medication, we can learn how to integrate them into our lifestyle, and help them have happy, healthy, and at times more and then less productive lives.

2004-09-03T19:05:00.000-04:00

My nephew Gabriel and I wade in the Muskegon river.

Social Structures and Software - Links

2004-09-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

I am interested in the link between social structures and software. For instance, there is an interesting link between operating systems and government structures. For example, in the American government, one could say that the federal government is a bit like the kernel of an operating system, and that the state and local governments are modules that are necessary at some point, but are not always (or in every physical location) in memory (in power). It is interesting also, how the Federalist debate mirrors the debate over how much to put into the kernel of an operating system. The Federalists, if writing an operating system, would use the Mach approach and keep very little power in the hands of the kernel. The current government is evolving in the opposite direction, where soon all rights and responsibilities will be in the hands of the kernel. This mirrors the way Windows is developing, in its centralizing of all features (the browser is now a part of the operating system, as is many other features that used to require separate applications. An application could be compared to a different social construct, like a corporation, or non-profit entity. A corporation or non-profit entity can only exist as long as the operating system doesn't provide the same or the same quality of service.

Who/What am I?

2004-08-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

I am Body, Mind, and Spirit. But most of me is the spirit. The body is a machine... It has inputs and outputs and predictably(if one knows its state) maps one to the other. The same with the mind, though considerably more complex. However, the Spirit is the only thing about me that is not machine. It is not deterministic (unless it believes it should be). It is not even a state machine that changes with time. It is a will. It can decide to take the hard road even when that way is illogical. This is the one thing that is the difference between real and artificial intelligence. AI may fool us into thinking it is intelligence, but this is only the result of an input by a programmer. It is always logical, and given the knowledge of the mapping function, and the state of the machine at the time of the input, the output can be deduced and repeated. However, this is not so with the Spirit. Not realizing this fact causes Fatalism, Despair, as well as Laziness. Once one realizes that just because one choice is logically the right one (or the easiest, or all around the best choice) doesn't mean we have to take it, then one can be freed from one's inputs. Then one can cease being a product of one's environment and begin making our environment a product of our will. Written Friday August 20 (on my Palm) after watching I,Robot. These ideas are not really the point of the movie, though the movie got me started thinking in this direction.

Love, Actually

2004-06-02T19:34:00.000-04:00

I rented Love Actually today. It taught me that love is not in the grand or the majestic or the honorable but in the normal and the predictable and the regular everyday. Love is more in the husbands and children and mothers and brothers and best friends than in the heroes and lovers.

Socialism for Children, Democracy for Adults

2004-01-01T10:32:00.000-05:00

I think that mixing the two systems would work out rather well, but the implementation method is key. A strong reason for the poverty gap between our country and others is due to the lack of educational opportunities for children in these countries, so what I would like to see is that children everywhere have access to a necessary nutrition supply, and to as much education as they can handle. This nutrition need not be tasty but it should be just enough to keep them able to learn. If all children were given this equal opportunity, then more of them would be able to pursue educated and (I think) better careers for them and their country. I would then propose that we wean the children off of this "free lunch", so that they can learn personal motivation and by their 20th birthday, they should be paying for thier own keep, and if they don't bother to work, then at that point, they should see that they will not eat. Thus they would either become semi-productive citizens, or die of hunger. This may seem harsh, but not letting them ever learn this hard lesson would be equally disastrous, for the rest of society. Exceptions: For medically verifiable disabilities, we could extend this subsidy period, or for permanently disabled persons that can't provide for themselves, we could continue this subsidy indefinitely, but always with the eye to finding them a job. Man needs to work for his own mental health and self-worth. P.S. This was originally written on my Palm(I don't remember when exactly so I chose the first of January) and has been "adapted to fit your screen".

Tragic isn't it...

2002-09-29T10:50:00.000-04:00

I love to be sad. I am addicted to being sad. I buy bittersweet albums and watch sad movies because I love feeling sad. That is why I can never really truly cry or be mournful for too long. I like the feeling too much. Being sad makes me happy. I suppose this is a good thing, because in my chosen occupation I am destined to be lonely, and as much as I hate destiny, it is probably going to happen. It is just as well because I like it........ but I can't lie for long. Especially to myself. I just like feeling and if I can't be happy that at least I can feel sad. It beats being cold and feeling nothing, which is really my native state. I feel nothing. When I get sad like this and people used to come and talk I would just give them what they wanted to hear, to make them go away. But people don't come and talk anymore. I just can't even pretend to just keep carrying on, because nobody is coming to rescue me. No one stops me when I take a dive. No one comes to find me because I have pushed them away. I remember when I was younger, living at home, running away and then hoping my Mom or Dad would come and find me so I could go home. I didn't really want to run away, but I wanted to be sure someone loved me, and now it seems to me that no one does. That is my destiny... to be unloved because I don't love... or don't know how, or maybe I don't care. In movies or books there is always this sureness about people finding each other. You can pick out the people that will someday fall in love, and it seems to be such a sure thing. How can you find this sure thing in real life? I don't think there are any sure things in life. Above 50% and you are doing good. 80% is expensive, and 90% only happens to the lucky. I no longer believe in destiny. I only believe in high probability. At least from our perspective... I have never been God so I don't know how He sees things.