August 2003 Archives

I don't have much time to blog, but I had my birthday party yesterday and I received aĵoj multegaj bonegaj. More to come later.

I do not deny in the least that I do not proofread any of these post. In fact that is part of the allure of this site. It is an entirely unedited record of live streams from my brain into bits on a linux box somewhere. Some people find this bad, I find it good because I do all the part about editing and such everywhere else except for here. So I take your criticisms as complements.

I'm finished with what I am calling release alpha 2 of my research paper for the OCH (Oregon Council of Halfwits). There will be two beta releases (tomorrow and Saturday), a release candidate (Sunday), and then a final release on September 1st... probably. If the OCH can't clean up their act or if they really, really clean up their act to an unimaginable degree, then it will be be September 1st. If they sort of clean up their act, then it will be after September 1st. In any case, I will start distributing copies at request in PDF format on September 1st. I might even put it up for download here!

This may very well be the most monumental work (in terms of relative size, scope, quality, and man hours) that I've ever written. Currently the page count is at 20 pages (total, including bibliography), with 10 tables and graphs (maximized not for prettiness, but for elegance and readibility! None of this 3-D junk!), and even equations to glom everything together with indestructible logic. The more, the merrier!! Well, I can't say for sure that it'll be good but I think it's at least headed away from badness. If nothing else, I had fun writing it. I get immense from pleasure teaching myself production formulas and using them to slam things (like the USSR) for incompetance. I think I even giggled once today while I was writing page 16.

Enough of that. Things are going at a positive pace. On a more depressing note, I think that I have already slipped into my unilateral ([sad-face here] it seems that all of this war-rhetoric vocabulary is in my mind to stay; would you know! I used "regime" twice today!) school mindset of work: I was writing a list of things to do before I leave for Portland and after I arrive in Portland but before school starts (comprising an unfortunate 27 items), and I created a separate list for things to do in Portland only if time permits, in which I put "do something fun for birthday". My only retrospective consolation in this matter is that I put "birthday party" on my list of things to do before leaving. It's time for a sigh of acceptance that the on set of such a mindset is truly inevitable.

I haven't blogged in a while.

I've been working hard on other things that are more important. More important than blogging?? In short, yes. More important even than blogging. Forgive me for using sentence fragments, but Victor Hugo does, so why shouldn't I? Anyway, I've been consumed in a right state I think. The Soviet Union was a sad and sorry place that occasionally makes me laugh. So that's what I've been doing. Writing about the USSR (RIP). I am in the middle of page 16 now, just where the good stuff starts about the lack of A in Y=A(L^α)(K^β)(N^γ) α+β+γ=1 assuming constant returns to scale (I know, it's bad. I give them the benefit of the doubt and even with that things look ugly). It seems very lyrical; you could write a song about it. If there's two things I like, they're definately proving examples of moronism, and lowercase Greek characters.

Well, I was sitting here writing a research project, and in the middle of page six I received an email from the grant coordinator (she doesn't know about this site, so I can drone on in any fashion I like!). The subject of the message was with regards to the final presentation/celebration thingy at the end of the grant period. In listing the proceedings, she mentioned a "roundtable discussion" where "the summer's successes and trials" were to be discussed, and, among other things, we are apparently going to "discuss your [that being mine] plans to bring your [again, that being mine] project into your school and community." I can't wait to see how people in my school react to "The Implications of the Five-Year Plan Economic Development Model on the Soviet Collapse". It sure is a very community-oriented topic too! (Detect sarcasm here) For the general masses (note: not including me, I think it's really interesting!) I think I could market my paper as a 100% all natural sleep-inducing drug. I can see fortune on my horizons! I swear, I think these dreamy humanities types are out of their minds.

Let me just say that I despise their criminal worthlessness. Of all linguistic evolution, articles are just about the worst mutation. Latin did not have articles (about the only good thing about it), Chinese does not have articles, why do we have them? In the Romance languages, article evolved from demonstratives (definate articles), and from unus, una, and unum (indefinate articles). Here is where I am especially annoyed. If articles evolved from demonstratives and the number one, if it became necessary to use them, certainly demonstratives and the number one would suffice. I loathe articles for their uselessness... almost as much as French vowel sounds, and English spelling and diphthongs.

I haven't been blogging for a long time. No, no, it's true that I've posted recently, but I have not blogged, in the pure sense of blogging. To blog is not merely to write and post in a blog, but real blog, true blog is something very different and very beautiful. Admittedly, it is a nebulous concept to which no literal definition can be given. Yes, only a metaphor can define such a grand design... blog is—we mean real, true blog, the immutable blog!—the drippings of the brain which are as those that are used for basting a cooking turkey. That is blog: The excess fluids which make the brain tender and toothsome! (In a metaphoric sense, of course)

It's probably time for a brief status report of sorts. I've been working away on my grant, and am on page 6 currently (it looks like it's heading for 12). I still haven't gotten in touch with my mentor, despite the fact that at least three people are trying to find him. My bicycling has been well; about a week ago I beat everyone to the top of the hill and when I stopped I proptly collapsed from exhaustion (I've probably got some more work to do on that front). "Les Misérables" I can say is at least my second favorite book that I have ever read, and statements that people make about it being the greatest book ever written are not unlikely. I am on page 901 and I have one and a half weeks to read the remaining 359 pages. I'll have to step up the tempo a hair. Yesterday I ordered "An Economic History of the USSR", perhaps the most useful book ever written on Soviet economics of which there were numerous reprintings between the 1960s and 1990s. Despite this, there are only two copies in the Peninsula Library System: one that is missing, and one that is in a library where holds seem to be uneffective. I bought it for $2.95 used on the internet and paid $5.49 shipping. My birthday is also approaching!! On September 2nd it will arrive!! I have purchased for myself a pair of Ascend Acoustics CBM-170 speakers, which are resonably priced and apparently sound really, really good. In addition, my Grandparents have given me a spare receiver of theirs, so thanks to them I will have a whole stereo system ready to go when I return to Portland. Indeed, my return to Portland is immenent. On September 1st I will return, and on September 4th school will begin. That is all the latest news.

"Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty."

--Plato

Many people will hate me for doing this, but I'm going to do so anyway because I want to. This is a short course in Esperanto. This part will focus on the pronunciation of the language.

Alphabet:
The Esperanto alphabet consists of 28 letters: 5 vowels, 2 semivowels, and 21 consonents.
Aa, Bb, Cc, Ĉĉ, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Ĝĝ, Hh, Ĥĥ, Ii, Jj, Ĵĵ, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Ŝŝ, Tt, Uu, Ŭŭ, Vv, Zz

Pronunciation:
Each word is pronounced as it is spelt, and each letter has but one sound that it represents (excluding diphthongs which have logical pronunciations). IPA pronunciations are given in brackets.
Aa - [a:] father
Bb - [b] ball
Cc - [ts] cats
Ĉĉ - [tʃ] church
Dd - [d] dog
Ee - [ε] met
Ff - [f] feet
Gg - [g] get
Ĝĝ - [dʒ] jet
Hh - [h] hat
Ĥĥ - [x] loch (Scottish pronunciation)
Ii - [i:] meet
Jj - [j] yes
Ĵĵ - [ʒ] pleasure
Kk - [k] cook
Ll - [l] lame
Mm - [m] meet
Nn - [n] nook
Oo - [o] note (without English diphthongization of "o" to "ohw")
Pp - [p] pig
Rr - [r] lightly trilled r, somewhere in between Spanish "r" and "rr"
Ss - [s] soup
Ŝŝ - [ʃ] ship
Tt - [t] take
Uu - [u:] moot
Ŭŭ - [w] water (slightly lighter than English w; only occurs in diphthongs)
Vv - [v] Victor
Zz - [z] zoo

Diphthongs:
aj - [aɪ] tie
ej - [eɪ] may
oj - [ɔɪ] boy
uj - [uɪ] fooy (not in standard English)
aŭ - [aʊ] how
eŭ - [eʊ] "eh" + "oo" slurred together very quickly (not in standard English)

Accent:
The accent always falls on the penult (second to last syllable) of a word, unless of course the word is monosyllabic, in which case their is only one syllable to accent.

What is all amounts to:
Try to pronounce this sample sentence: La landoj de la Eŭropa kontinento laŭ la Mediteranea maro estas tre belaj landoj, kiuj multaj homoj enloĝas. Mi skribos pli je poste por ĉiu, kiuj estas eninteresas.

Dank'al la tutaj ĉiuj de la mondegoj!

"All we talk about is computers... we're losers."

--Helen Casabona, referring to the subject matter of our family's conversations

Last night, for the first time ever, I had the quintessential late-20th/early-21st-century-modern-popular-average-young-person-American cultural experience. I watched a full episode of "The Simpsons" for one half hour at a real TV (I'd watched an episode before on my friend's computer, but that doesn't count). It was indeed humorous but indeed absurd and flagrantly lacking any sort of depth either in meaning or humor. I am slightly curious how people can watch the show on a regular basis: it seems that most of the humor is derived from the usual oddities like Marge's hair, or Homer's idiotic voice which would get old after a time. It would be a lie to say that I did not enjoy it, and perhaps I am enjoying critiquing it even more, yet most of the show is what I would characterize at being of the apex of stupidity. Die-hard Simpsonites would probably cry foul if they heard my blasphemizing remarks (this is no exaggeration), but in order to prove my point let's go a little deeper into the episode that I just saw.

Homer Simpson is a security guard at the local nuclear power plant and his "econovalue" stool breaks. He notices that the other security have leather massage chairs. As it turns out, two of the other guards belong to the "Stonecutters", a secret society that covertly controls the world for their own personal benefit. Homer tries to get it, but can't until he discovers that his insane father was a member of the Stonecutters. Once inside Homer must be paddled several times in the rear and is then a full member. But after numerous blunders Homer finally uses the sacred parchament of the society as a bib when eating ribs at a meeting. Homer is stripped down naked and ordered to walk home dragging a giant boulder behind him by the neck. When he is stripped down naked everyone sees a birthmark that is in a certain shape and identifies him as the "Chosen One". The Stonecutters then worship him until he starts making them do community service at the whim of his 6-year old daughter, at which point they create a new society called the No-Homers club. Homer then repents and decides that the best club in the world is his family. His children then proceed to paddle him in the rear.

I can't say that it was entirely devoid of humor, but perhaps the correct word is "lame". And there are people who like lameness, apparently quite a lot.

In my mind among the annals of obscurity resides a certain question which arose on a pleasant bike ride through the coastal country of the Bay Area. I share it here because it vexes me, and writing things down has a tendency to help work them out. Let me pose the thought. Humans have been selectively bred through evolution for intelligence, among other characteristics. This is a fact. If you don't believe it, get over it because you're wrong. Humans are remarkably underdeveloped in many characteristics: we have very little hair (there is a very interesting theory on human evolution that I have heard which explains this phenomenon), our body strength is not impressive, we are omnivorous but this habit grew mostly out of necessity when humans began to migrate far out of Africa and had to adapt, we have unimpressive defenses, but yet we are among the most sucessful of beings. This is of course because we have created artificial adaptations (tools, etc.) which have let us achieve natural sucess. Clearly the most intelligent individuals were the most sucessful because their intelligence let them adapt the best, and hence they reproduced the most offspring, and through natural selection the more intelligent percentiles on average tended to survive the best. (As a subnote, I have been made aware of a theory that explains the reletively low human physical development, which also suggests that the very most intelligent human individuals were not the most sucessful because of higher infant mortality rates related to enlarged head size. This factor of course implies that biological sucess is not dictated solely by intelligence (indeed this would be oversimplified), however my personal belief is that more intelligent individuals tended to be more sucessful, from a general standpoint.) Now what I wonder is if we are still evolutionarily selected today primarily by intelligence; that is, do the more intelligent individuals have a greater chance of living longer and producing offspring. It is my personal observation through a series of logical steps that natural selection in the sense of "survival of the fittest" has largely voided itself from human society: in the more developed world we have achieved a standard of living which makes survival hardly dependant on intelligence; if one is of nominal intelligence one can easily survive; that is, more intelligent individuals may have a higher average of becoming more wealthy in society yet differences in wealth in most common degrees have little correlation with life expectancy and fertility (indeed poorer classes tend to have higher fertility!). The issue that we are now dealing with is something that may best be characterized as "social selection", and which seems to bear more resemblance to sexual selection than pure selection based on survival-benefitting attributes. And now the question becomes: does this so-called "social selection" select intelligence as a primary characteristic? I would reckon the answer to be "no". Certainly the least intelligent people of society are weeded out, but I don't think that the general inherent intelligence of people is being selected by society in such a manner as to indicate a trend toward greater creative, analytic, or other capabilities. The overall amount of knowledge that people have may increase, but intelligence (the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, not aggregate knowledge) in my opinion is not being naturally selected for an increase. The intense (and growing I reckon... Brave New World --Aldous Huxley, my friends) superficiality of a large spectrum society seems to indicate a trend of sexual selection becoming a great determinent in my idea of so-called "social selection". Human society is one of the great frontiers of science, and no wonder because it is such a scary place sometimes. I have to go help find Dad who is locked out of his car in SF. Ciao!

There exists no PPC CPU emulation for the x86 architecture.

There are few things that are as humorous to me as the Academy of Esperanto and the word "Esperantujo", which I have seen twice today.

I would like to remind the world that this site has a message forum called /dev/null, to which there is a link under the "Discussion" sidebar.

Is my subheading: "Mundi über-homum domus" grammatically correct Latin? I'm not even going to pretend to be good at mucking through 5 declensions and 6 cases. What an awful language Latin is.

I'm now corresponding in Esperanto with a person from Le Mans, France, someone from Rengo, Chile, and a person from Hokkaido, Japan emailed me today. He went to the 1972 Universala Kongreso de Esperanto in Portland, OR (on of the three UEA congresses in the US ever; the others were in Washington DC in 1910 and San Francisco in 1915. San Francisco's congress had the worst turnout ever for a UKE, but that was probably because of WWI). I can say for certain that I am starting an Esperanto society at school next year. It is an amazing tool.

From the people at ThinkGeek comes the Ambient Orb Device. A color-changing orb that changes colors to indicate various conditions in the world, such as the level of the Dow, NASDAQ, or S&P 500, or weather in certain cities. In addition, there are premium channels containing more data at the price of $1/week. All information is updated via a nationwide wireless network, which covers 95% of the US.

This is post #199, and as the previous post attests, I am still perfecting the technique of blogging. It's been hard work getting here to post #199, but everything has been well worth it. Throughout my blogging existance I've refined my technique constantly, and I think that things have improved. The difficulty of the blog is surprisingly dynamic. One can choose to make their blog based on a single topic, but that's no good because then you automatically chisel your reading audience way down. On the on the hand, you can make your blog sine thema, but this is still hard because you must keep some kind of focus, otherwise the blog becomes random and muddled (which I certainly admit has happened here). Reader feedback is of the utmost importance. Hence I am going to work on making my blog less "self-depreciating".

It seems like I should have more ideas and reflections for writing, but to be honest I am just itching to go report a killer bug in Mozilla Firebird to Bugzilla. Ah! And yet another reason for the inferiority of Microsoft Internet Explorer: there's not a database where you can freely report bugs that you find, and (at least in theory) get them fixed. I chose to exercise my freedom of choice, so I don't get stuck with the kind of web browser that gets the Lamo Web Browser of the Year Award from Adams Blog.

"It's a little too self-depriciating."

--John Anderson, referring to the content of my blog

There's not a lot that's new with me. I've made progress with my project, but I'm waiting for my silly mentor to get with the program. He's either a flake or he gave me wrong contact info. Or both. It has been impending for a while now, but I think that I'm falling into a state of what is often referred to as nerddom or über-nerddom. My strong interests in entomology, physics, Linux, OSS, Esperanto, language, blogging, and heavy literature can show nothing short of über-nerddom. I mean who uses the instant messaging client Gaim running under a windows port of GTK+ from Linux (all Open Source of course), and runs experimental builds of Mozilla's bleeding-edge implementation of their calendar software? Me, and a few other people. By the way, Gaim is the best instant messaging client for Windows and Linux that I have seen. It does AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr protocols. Very cool. It's true, you do have to use a windows port of GTK+, but the total space that it takes up is negligible. In the search for the perfect IM client that does all protocols, Gaim is the winner for me. That's about all that's new. The usual continues...

Well, it appears that you and I have been living our lives sine blog for the past couple of days. Every now and again these breaks are kind of necessary. The news from me is as follows: Yesterday I broke my record on the Loma Mar ride which I now do regularly. My new time is 1:12:00 (slightly rough; could be off ±20 seconds maybe). This is the strenuous part of the annual road race that has been called one of the most difficult races in America. Of course, they do a 30 mile loop 3.7 times, and I only go out and back across the most difficult 7.7 miles (a total of a perfect 15.4 mile ride), but that is good enough for me. I'm attempting to get a hold of my mentor for this grant that I'm doing because we've had communicational difficulties. So much for our world's alledged interconnectedness. The other void into which a great deal of my time is being sucked is Les Misérables. And believe me, that is a void: 1260 pages of void. But it's a "super-wicked-cool" (I've been informed by a close relation that this is a common phrase used in Boston to denote something that has immense appeal) void. It is the epitome of historical fiction with fiction hardly outweighing the history, and a gorgeous tale (I mean epoch (pun intended)) of corruption, human decency, and intrigue. I think it may be headed toward my favorites list.

The weather has been cloudy here for the past few days. I think all of the great weather we've been having in La Honda has caught up with itself, and we now get to experience all of the fog that we've narrowly avoided all summer. I've decided that I'm going to make an award called the "Adams Blog's Lamo Windows Software of the Year: Web Browser" which goes to Internet Explorer for having elegantly surpassed the lamo level of any other similar windows product which has a strong presence (exempli gratia Mozilla, Mozilla this, Mozilla that, et cetera, at 1.6% global usage share), and for embodying the meaning of the word "lamo" in the purest sense. I'm not an expert in the field of browsers, but the Adams Blog awards are based merely on my personal experience.

That's about all I have to say for the day.

Here's what my correspondant had to say:

"Bonan tagon,

Mia nomo estas Emmanuel kaj mi havas dek ses jarojn. Mi estas francano kaj mi deziras korespondi kun esperantistoj de la mondo. Mi estas lernanto en liceo.
Mi vivas en la urbo "Le Mans" (apud Paris) kaj mi amas legi librojn, iri al kino, uzi komputilon...
Mi ankaux sxatas la naturon, la sciencon, la historion.
Mi multe deziras korespondi kun vi, retposxte aux paperposxte.
Gxis.
Emmanuel Pasco Viel"

Translation:
"Good day,
My name is Emmanuel and I am sixteen years old. I am French and I want to correspond with esperantists around the world. I am learning in lycée [French grammar school].
I live in the town of "Le Mans" (near Paris) and I love to read books, go to movies [?], use computers...
I also like nature, science, history.
I very much wish to correspond with you, internet or mail.
Until. [Maybe "till", or a French idiom]
Emmanuel"

This is very exciting news. I have wanted to be able to use Esperanto somehow with other people and I can now do it!

I have very cool news! I am now corresponding in Esperanto with a guy in Le Mans, France. He is sixteen and I share many interests with him. There will be more on that later. I get to go see "Finding Nemo" now. Aurevoir!