its been ages since an update so I will cut the the core of the new news -- and not so new news too.

Married. Nora is my lovely wife. - you can see some things about the wedding here (http://norajeff.net). and pictures of it here (http://norajeff.net/pix) Our wedding was December 3, 2006.

HAPPY MAY DAY!

workers of the world unite ... you have nothing to lose but your jobs!

I am all for worker solidarity and such but I think the best thing about may day is just that spring is really here and it means generally nicer weather is here for a while.

what a day!

Last login: Tue Apr 18 18:59:29 on ttyp3
Welcome to Darwin!
1906 San Francisco earthquake
1934 First Laundromat opens, Fort Worth Texas
1955 Einstein's Death
1981 Yes breaks up after 13 years
Independence Day in Chile and Zimbabwe
Omer 21th day
jeff@whitecastle jeff $

#!/bash shell history relativity

the ! in bash is a weird thing. new shells (or logins) have a common history but a different offset along it. where the size of bash history forces a "wrinkle in time" to occur - time measured in shell commands ( or bash history entries )

# you can tell i've been working too much

yesterdays news was so lame it inspired me to add these semi-lame points just for fun.

getting "knocked down" is not the opposite of getting "knocked up".

a cooler is not the opposite of a heater.

I really don't post often enough to make this an exciting blog. In fact this is the lamest post yet.

It is now November and that is at least worthy of a new blog post. Sometimes there is a lot to say and other times there isn't. No judgements however. I am grateful for the unseasonable mild weather we've been having here in NY - its been great.

Yesterday Mike Bloomberg won another term as mayor of New York. I have a feeling that's the right thing, but we shall see what the future holds. Its actually odd to think of New York as a Republican town, but there you have it. I hope he can help keep the mild weather around - then we'll see if he really is a good mayor!

Happy Yom Kippur

sounds sort of funny.

What would we say about some child whose favorite holiday is Yom Kippur? Whose favorite of ALL the holidays in the hebrew calendar. No food all day while you reflect on all the things you've done wrong in the past year and to pray to God that you and those you love will be 're-enscribed in the book of life'. There are other holidays that are more fun for certain. Holidays where you wear costumes, or eat candy, or make loud noise. But surely we would think there is something peculiar about a child whose favorite holiday was Yom Kippur. And yet it is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Does being the holiest then make it God's favorite holiday?

Happy Attonement Day.

http://mgno.com/ <-- the most incredible account of Katrina I've seen.

Hurricane Katrina's damage covers 90,000 square miles. (that's 233,100 square kilometers)
(Source: NBC Nightly News)

That's very nearly the entire land area of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the lesser UK islands combined. (241,590 square. kilometers)
(Source: The CIA World Fact Book)

so today New York was not selected for the 2012 Olympics. I suppose its a sort of loss - but its a loss of something that we New Yorkers didn't have, but were trying to gain. I have to admin that I am very glad the West Side Stadium Plan was kaiboshed by Silver - I would reluctantly agree to my tax money going to build a football field iff I as a funder would gain unlimited access to go and play football with my friends. Not Likely.

What else - I got caught in a thunderstorm on my way home from work today. I walk to work so I suppose I deserve it but the rain stopped as soon as I got home. What's one to think?

Speaking of thunderstorms , we've had

1. judicial allowance of liberal interpretation of "public good" when allowing municipalities to sieze private property (eminient domain ?)


2. Ruling against Software companies - threatening to chill technical development by holder developer/distributer liable for misuse of products by third party end users.


3. Civil Disobedience against a judge ruling that a reporter has to give up confidental sources.

sheesh. Is this what the Rove-ites mean when they talk about activist judges?

or maybe this whole thing is just in the wrong order - its like the whole issue of "top posting" in your email replies.

gosh - I really should have posted those last 3 posts in the other order.

at least for a little while.

I'm going to see that's not the case.

Its been a long time since I last posted in the blog.

on Demographics and the future of humanity: If you are wondering why it seems that there are more and more people who support the far right and fewer and fewer who are of progressive and open mind I believe that you can thank the feminist movement for this demographic - the smartest, most progressive women tend to not want to get married or have children, leaving the less-smart, less progressive ones to seed (or rather egg) the next generation -- to say nothing of the religious ones who reproduce as if god hath commanded them to so -- Apparently then, the smart progressive ones really aren't all that smart or progressive. They are just selfish and short sighted. They always said that women had weaker math skills than men, and maybe this is just a related phenomenon.


Hear me oh liberated women of the world - Learn to not fear multiplication.

NYC Terror Haiku

best to live while living unafraid,
Mr. Terrorist, if you want to blow me up...
Here I am

( but I'm not free till next week! )

Almost Spring Snow Blues
-----------------------------------------
Standing in a puddle of slush
at the end of a long hard day

Spring is finally here

it snowed all day today
Probably the last snow for a while now

Should be seeing a lot of sun soon

good old sun

illuminating sun
nice to see you again

Its funny -- you can go years and years sticking by someone through thick and thin and then in one night you can realize that they would not have done the same for you. Funny how fragile friendships are.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Honeymooners marathon
while blackhawks loudly prowl
(beneath a perfect half moon)
up and down the island

HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL TO THINK?

today a "global terror alert" was issued

Prepared = someone has already written speech for after the next attack on US soil.
There are likely several of them, depending on the severity of the attack.

Fall Down Blues
-----------------------
stuck in a hole
in the middle of autumn

must wait for spring

sun came out today
first time in weeks it seems

hardly see the sun anymore

still know its there though
good old sun

Summer Solstice
------------------------

sitting on a fence
the first instant of summer

can't wait for winter

it rained all day
its been raining alot lately

hardly see the sun anymore

still know its there though
good old sun

I just read this article on ABC news.com about how the RIAA (recording industry Association of America) sued a 19 year old information technology student for creating search engine. They claim that people were using the search engine to pirate music. He settled with them for $12,000 -- but did not have to admit to any 'wrong doing'

So the RIAA is blaming piracy for the slump in record sales -- WHAT ABOUT THE FACT THAT POP MUSIC TODAY JUST PLAIN SUCKS ASS? Sales slumps becuase the product sucks -- I personally have not bought a CD from a contemporary artist for more than 9 months (it was the White Stripes) -- mainly becuase everything is re-hashed re-purposed heard-it-already derivative drivel.

Anyway -- you should do what you can to educate yourself about what the RIAA is doing. This case is a classic example of how big business can use its influence to stifle innovation, invention and progress -- all to try to protect its financial interest -- rather than examining them selves and their products to figure out how to increase sales -- they are blaming the internet for all their problems. By the way - the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is doing a very similar thing with DVD movies -- watch out America -- the Robber Barrons are back on the block and they want your money one way or another.

and on the seventh day he made a backup copy

OK - 2 entries in 1 day after none for a month -- when it rains it pours - and it has been raining alot lately. Anyway --

Lately I've been reading a book called Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First . The book is the first book of a political nature with a strong anti-left leaning that I have read. Up to very recently in my life I have largely been in agreement with the Left and Liberal thinking in general -- but this book has led me to start questioning my beliefs (or is it my questioning of beliefs that has led me to the book?)

First off I would totally recommend to everyone that you go out and buy and read a political book that presents something from the other side -- there are any number of benefits of it -- it will cause you to re-examine your beleifs and its always good to know how the enemy thinks.

Some of the things I learning in this book have really shaken up my worldview -- take for instance -- the Vietnam War , or more generally, America's involvement in South East Asia in the late 60's and 70's. -- there was a large and well known anti-war movement that contributed to America's pull out. Following the pull out (c. 1972 -- I was 3 years old) I guess the impression was that the war ended -- that there was peace -- but in Cambodia, more than 2 million people were killed by the Communist backed government -- and there was no moral outrage from the same people in America who had fought so loudly against violence.

Its something that I kind of noticed in the eightys as a kid-- during the cold war -- Americans were outraged when US troops went into Grenada but werer silent when the Russians went into Afghanastan -- and during the 80's we (leftists) were all about Total Nuclear Disarmament - and believed that unilateral disarmament (of America) was a good idea -- Now that the USSR has fallen and their archives have been opened we know that they were spying, lyeing and attempting to gain world supremacy ... in other words, Regan wasn't paranoid - people really were out to get us.


Why do (and I hate to use the label like this but.) liberals believe any statement from the Cuban Government at face value but immediately assume that anything the US Government says is full of lies?

Things like this have really made the position of the left one that I feel I can no longer fuilly embrace ... and yet this indictment of the left has not fostered any love of the right at all ( the environment, the right to choose abortion, preventing school prayer, are all things that I strongly disagree with the right ) -- I very much feel that both sides are too wrong to fully embrace either side. I imagine that this is a sign that we will have a new political landscape in America soon with some new poilitcal parties (or old parties adopting new positions) soon.

IMAGINE...

What we could be doing with all the money we spend for "entertainment" in 1 weekend

all the movies ( up to $200 million dollars )

all the sporting events ( who knows how much especially if you include what would have been paid to the athletes )

all the music concerts

all the alchohol and drugs

IMAGINE...

How much faster we could cure cancer...
       or

Reduce the nations budget deficit
       or

Provide medicine and food for impoverished people
       or

Learn how to talk to the whales

it just boggles the mind how much good potential energy goes to waste in the name of entertainment...

IMAGINE

GenericActionListener implements ActionListener

haiku?
or java?

Here is a great example from a unix man page. Even if you don't know anything about unix you can see a humor an a spirit in these paragraphs that . This bit is the documentation for a function in Perl called fork. It exemplifies something I really like about working with computers. The second paragaph should be able to make almost anyone crack a smile.

I can't believe that the US House of Representative starts each day with a prayer delived by a "House Chaplin" and then recites the pledge of alledience. Surly the oath that a Representaive takes when elected supercedes the common pledge of allegience. I wonder how much that chaplan is paid to deliver the 5-10 minute address at the start of each day and where that money comes from. I can hardly imagine a more obvious intermigling of church and state. I fear that this activity will be seen in the future as a precedent for further erosion of the Constitution of the US. I guess the thing to do is to take pen in hand and let your representative know that this is wrong.

The last day of March. The Smoking Ban has gone into effect here in NYC which I am hoping will be a good thing. I had breakfast in at St. Dymphna on St. Marks Place which used to allow people to smoke -- but not anymore. I had a very nice "vegetarian breakfast" there. There were some reports on the News (fox and NY1) that tried to make it look like business was obviously lighter than usual at local watering holes. We shall see. We Shall see.

---

Today was something like day 9 of the second gulf war. Its looking like the expectations are now that the war will take longer than initally expected. Reports from Iraq say that 4000 people from 23 different Arab nations (!) came to Iraq to volunteer as suicide bombers. It is claimed that the family of so called martyrs are given somewhere in the neighborhood of $14,000 US (one caller on CSPAN today suggested we offer more money for them to NOT) -- I can only image the oppressive conditions a person must be made to live under to actually want to sacrifice their life, knowing that the "life insurance payoff" will insure that their surviving family members will benefit from the money and prestige. I am sure you would need to offer Americans at least 10 times that amount to get them to even think about engaging in something like this. Does this mean that life in America is less oppressive than life in Iraq by at least a factor of 10? I wonder exactly how volunteer it really is all cases? I imagine that it would not be difficult to imagine other forms of coersion used to recruit "volunteers'

These volunteers must feel that they have quite literally "Nothing Left To Live For" -- and that seems to me to be testament to the fact that somebody better do something to improve the situation these people are living in -- and do it soon! -- waitaminute -- we are doing something about it...hopefully its not too far gone to eventually recover but I fear things will get worse before they start to get better.

Other news today was that at 19 year Palestinian boy blew himself up in a cafe in Netanya (Israel) but he failed to kill anyone else. Islamic Jihad took "credit" for the attack, presenting it as their "gift" to the Iraqi people.

This whole business of suicide bombing is so incredibly flawed. I don't mean to make light of the situation but it seems so obvious as to at times border on being absurd. The logical extension of a policy that encourages these attacks would be for the entire population to self destruct - and (in that tragic-sad-absurd way that seems ubiquitous these days) that would be a resolution to the conflct -- but it not a solution that even us "infidels" wish upon our "enemies". If Tariq Aziz is happy with 4000 volunteer martyrs then he would be overjoyed beyond belief if all 25 million Iraqis volunteered.

There is new music available in the "Squeak" section or click Here