minsky quote of the day [from 1974]

I cannot state strongly enough my conviction that the preoccupation with consistency, so valuable for mathematical logic, has been incredibly destructive to those working on models of mind. at the popular level it has produced a weird conception of the potential capabilities of machines in general. at the "logical" level it has blocked efforts to represent ordinary knowledge, by presenting an unreachable image of a corpus of context-free "truths" that can stand almost by themselves. and at the intellect-modelling level it has blocked the fundamental realization that thinking begins first with suggestive but defective plans and images, that are slowly (if ever) refined and replaced by better ones. -- marvin minsky [conclusion to AI memo no. 306, a framework for representing knowledge, june 1974]

recently noted quotes

i have invented some very powerful ways of wasting time. -- john d. conway

we have no idea what "the center of our being" is, but i hope it is chocolate cream. -- penn gilette [penn & teller bullshit]

brevity is the handmaiden of force. -- jack hart [a writer's coach]

"Intelligent design" is a science stopper. Once something is explained as "designed" by a disembodied invisible "intelligence", we can proceed no further in our inquiry. Intelligent design proponents themselves state that science is not allowed to pursue the identity or motivation of the designer. -- jeffrey shallit

sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known. -- terry pratchett [going postal]

If you feel exhausted, it's not necessarily because there's something wrong with you. Maybe you're just running fast. -- paul graham [is it worth being wise?]

we don't stop questioning because we grow weak; we grow weak because we stop questioning. -- anon [based on a quote by g. b. shaw]

songs are simple. voices aren't. -- simon cowell

I assume goosebumps are good. -- melinda dolittle

I feel like one big goosebump. -- paula abdul

recent bookish disappointments....

ruby on rails, up and running: away, for the most part. like spolsky, bruce tate continues to be taken seriously while remaining voluminously underwhelming. this is basically a weak how-to book; there are many authors in computing, like pulp authors of another era, who can produce these mediocre volumes during their coffee breaks. these people do not lack technical skill; they just lack imagination, depth and rigor. i am barely keeping his beyond java not because it is well written (it is not, though hard to tell if you go by the google found reviews) but it is a classic of what i these days call nudge, nudge, wink, wink critique, a mixture of proof by repeated, unsubstantiated assertion and appeal to nodding masses. we all know what we are talking about here, aren't we? heh heh heh. nudge, nudge. let's ask john about it, shall we? ...

core python programming: i have rarely come across so much verbiage for so little effect. it is like having a proverbial fire hydrant nearby that spews wet sand. this is not a bad book, just a small one stuck in a very large one. wesley can do better with a good editor, and python certainly deserves it.

two mac utilities - an ounce of prevention

my dual g4 mac started locking up lately; i had some fleeting indications that one of the two disks was not entirely healthy. first i installed julian mayer's smartreporter to monitor the s.m.a.r.t. status and get alerts with email. when it finally started reporting that (sigh) the boot disk was getting close to failure, i brought in mike bombich's carbon copy cloner [essentially a wrapper around asr apple software restore] to make a bootable clone of the failing boot disk. [not wise to wait as long as i have] an hour later, a bootable clone is created and the system is running from the second disk.

phew. both utilities are free (ccc is donation-ware), simple to deploy and are recommended.

more images from the phone

quote of the day

found in david mamet's bambi vs godzilla: on the nature, purpose and practice of the movie business

A duck decoy does not need to look like a duck.
It needs to look like a duck to a duck.
Wisdom, therefore, lies not in the phenomological question "What does a duck look like?" but, rather, in the practical "What is a duck looking for?"

[i sometimes wish mamet wrote about computing too...]

doctorow's "pwned" lectures on podcast

doctorow's first six lectures from his undergrad class at the University of Southern California, "pwned: is everyone on campus a copyright criminal?" are now available.
feed
podcast subscribe link
internet archive repo

images from the phone...

sometimes, all i have with me is the 2mp camera built into my sony/ericsson w810i...


square crop, minimal color correction and sharpening in photoshop.

funny quote of the week

What is sticking in your foot is a Mitzy "Pretty Lucretia" four-inch heel, the most dangerous footwear in the world. Considered as pounds per square inch, it's like being trodden on by a very pointy elephant. Now, I know what you're thinking; you're thinking, "Could she press it all the way through the floor?" And, you know, I am not sure about that myself. The sole of your boot might give me a bit of trouble, but nothing else will. But that's not the worrying part. The worrying part is that I was forced practically at knifepoint to take ballet lessons as a child, which means i can kick like a mule; you are sitting in front of me; and I have another shoe. Good, I can see you have worked that out. I'm going to withdraw the heel now. -- miss dearheart (terry pratchett, going postal)

i like pca.

using a new tool to analyze some of my legacy sol8 systems for their patch levels. of all the patch tools i have used in the past [that of course includes sun's own tools that come and go with some regularity] martin paul's pca script is one of the nicest and easiest to use.

Patch Check Advanced (pca) generates lists of installed and missing patches for Sun Solaris systems and optionally downloads patches. It resolves dependencies between patches and installs them in correct order. It can be the only tool you ever need for patch management on a single machine or a complete network. Just one perl script, it doesn't need compilation nor installation, and it doesn't need root permissions to run. It works on all versions of Solaris, both SPARC and x86.

nice.

# pca
Using /var/tmp/patchdiag.xref from Feb/08/07
Host: xyzzy (SunOS 5.8/Generic_108528-13/sparc/sun4u)

Patch  IR   CR RSB Age Synopsis
------ -- - -- --- --- -------------------------------------------------------
108434 05 < 22 R-- 999 SunOS 5.8: 32-Bit Shared library patch for C++
108435 05 < 22 R-- 999 SunOS 5.8: 64-Bit Shared library patch for C++
112396 01 < 03 R-- 301 SunOS 5.8: /usr/bin/fgrep patch
108987 08 < 18 RS- 296 SunOS 5.8: Patch for patchadd and patchrm
111111 02 < 07 R--   4 SunOS 5.8: /usr/bin/nawk patch
108528 13 < 29 RS- 999 SunOS 5.8: kernel update  and Apache patch
108569 05 < 08 --- 999 X11 6.4.1: platform support for new hardware
108576 14 < 52 R-- 490 SunOS 5.8: Expert3D IFB Graphics Patch
108604 16 < 35 --- 999 SunOS 5.8: Elite3D AFB Graphics Patch
108605 15 < 37 --- 519 SunOS 5.8: Creator 8 FFB Graphics Patch
108606 10 < 39 --- 519 SunOS 5.8: M64 Graphics Patch
108693 07 < 28 --- 199 Solstice DiskSuite 4.2.1: Product patch
108714 05 < 08 --- 999 CDE 1.4: libDtWidget patch
108723 01 < 02 --- 284 SunOS 5.8: lofs patch
108725 09 < 25 R-- 143 SunOS 5.8: st driver patch
109147 14 < 43 RS-  24 SunOS 5.8: linker patch
119067 -- < 05 RS-  73 X11 6.4.1: Xsun patch
108773 13 < 27 RS-  37 SunOS 5.8: IIIM and X Input & Output Method patch
108806 04 < 21 R-- 301 SunOS 5.8: Sun Quad FastEthernet qfe driver
108808 30 < 44 --- 984 SunOS 5.8: Manual Page updates for Solaris 8
...

[wow, there is even a nawk patch. be still my heart...]

fat construction workers and opera

what kills me is those software commentators whose limited observations and twisted metaphors border on postmodern literary drivel. take joel, for example, who writes amusingly and even convincingly about fat construction workers whose interest in structural matters include external and internal human elements in the service of entertainment, either in swimming or singing form. [one obviously involves a wish to participate, the other, to procreate, but joel does not clarify which is which]

What kills me is the teams who get into the bad habit of holding meetings every time they need to figure out how something is going to work. Did you ever try to write poetry in a committee meeting? It’s like a bunch of fat construction guys trying to write an opera while sitting on the couch watching Baywatch. The more fat construction guys you add to the couch, the less likely you are to get opera out of it.

very funny stuff. it seriously confused my cat.

enough noise...

no, this is not about iphone critics. i am just referring to the increasingly nutty number of pixels on those wee sensors of digital point-and-shoot cameras. the photographic result of this numbers game is a disaster and an embarrassment to photography: at ISO 400, many of the latest crop of 8 and 10mp cameras produce images that are inferior to what we can [still] get with a plastic throw-away film camera with the same rating film. as always there is a silver lining to this cloud: given the usually mediocre sharpening algorithm in these cameras, at higher sensitivity, one gets lovely watercolor impressionism without needing silly photoshop filters. who needs sharp detail? just look at those blotches of color: a family picture where you can only guess who is who.

sure, i exaggerate, but not by much.

it would be really good to have a pocket-size digital camera for half-serious photography, say something with nearly as good images as a kodak one-use camera...

recently noted quotes

mmmmm, i love the smell of commerce in the evening! -- francis [player vs player]

a mature society is one that reserves its moral outrage for what really matters: poverty and preventable disease in the third world, arms sales, opression, injustice. -- a. c. grayling [the form of things]

think collectively, not selfishly. -- karim rashid [design your self]

zen, which i must treat with skeptical care, is a relatively conscious kind of skating on thin ice. -- david vestal [from an essay on intuition]

necessity is the mother of self-delusion. -- thomas lang [hugh laurie, the gun seller]

everybody's got a gris-gris. -- penn & teller [bullshit!]

since we played chess, you got a better child. it is a miracle! -- eren yigit [jan 2007]

we possess no positive term to describe the man who does not worship phantoms of the imagination. -- michael onfray [atheist manifesto]

if hellfire is the stick, mystery is the carrot. -- dan dennett [breaking the spell]

friends don't let friends use raid-0 -- richard elling

practice simplicity with constant repetition and you'll do all right in your life -- john wooden [quoted by hoops coach dale brown]

quote of the week

from michael parsons review of iphone on times online:

I want one. All the geeks I know want one. Once it's been delivered I'll wager long odds we'll discover some tragic flaws: perhaps battery life, perhaps screw-ups with carriers. Maybe one of the sensors will fail, and there will be mass recalls. Who cares? It won't matter. I'm on my third iPod. The first two broke. But I keep going back for more because I, along with several million other love-lorn geeks, have been utterly, utterly had by a sweet-talking billionaire in a black polo neck. We love him. He completes us. And he had us at scrolling.

[i want one too, as soon as possible. neat: we are finally getting near those ST:NG tablets...]

haiku

evening train -
the only dialogue
between the pages.

[oz/06. sigh, my conversational skills apparently no match for da vinci code.]

mr head, meet mr wall...

console output of my freshly booted thumper...

SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_118855-19 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2006 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Hostname: unknown
NOTICE: /: unexpected free inode 140193, run fsck(1M)
NOTICE: /: unexpected free inode 134712, run fsck(1M)
The / file system (/dev/md/rdsk/d10) is being checked.

WARNING - Unable to repair the / filesystem. Run fsck
manually (fsck -F ufs /dev/md/rdsk/d10).

Dec 20 18:44:50 svc.startd[7]: svc:/system/filesystem/usr:default: Method "/lib/svc/method/fs-usr" failed with exit status 95.
[ system/filesystem/usr:default failed fatally (see 'svcs -x' for details) ]
Requesting System Maintenance Mode
(See /lib/svc/share/README for more information.)
Console login service(s) cannot run

Root password for system maintenance (control-d to bypass):
single-user privilege assigned to /dev/console.
Entering System Maintenance Mode

Dec 20 18:47:16 su: 'su root' succeeded for root on /dev/console
Sourcing //.profile-EIS.....
root@unknown # fsck -F ufs /dev/md/rdsk/d10
** /dev/md/rdsk/d10
** Last Mounted on /
** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
UNALLOCATED  I=134708  OWNER=root MODE=100644
SIZE=55460 MTIME=Nov 29 05:31 2006
NAME=/boot/solaris/filestat.ramdisk

REMOVE DIRECTORY ENTRY FROM I=135778? y

UNALLOCATED  I=140193  OWNER=root MODE=0
SIZE=0 MTIME=Nov 29 05:31 2006
FILE=/platform/i86pc/boot_archive

REMOVE DIRECTORY ENTRY FROM I=140097? y

** Phase 3a - Check Connectivity
** Phase 3b - Verify Shadows/ACLs
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
LINK COUNT FILE I=134712  OWNER=root MODE=0
SIZE=0 MTIME=Nov 29 05:30 2006  COUNT 0 SHOULD BE -1
ADJUST? y

LINK COUNT FILE I=139940  OWNER=root MODE=0
SIZE=0 MTIME=Dec 20 10:03 2006  COUNT 0 SHOULD BE -1
ADJUST? y

** Phase 5 - Check Cylinder Groups

CORRECT BAD CG SUMMARIES? y

CORRECTED SUMMARY FOR CG 0
FRAG BITMAP WRONG
FIX? y

CORRECTED SUMMARY FOR CG 29
FRAG BITMAP WRONG (CORRECTED)
DIR BITMAP WRONG (CORRECTED)
FRAG BITMAP WRONG (CORRECTED)
CORRECTED SUMMARY FOR CG 93
FRAG BITMAP WRONG (CORRECTED)
CORRECTED SUMMARY FOR CG 112
CORRECTED SUMMARY FOR CG 133
FRAG BITMAP WRONG (CORRECTED)
CORRECTED SUMMARY FOR CG 134
CORRECT GLOBAL SUMMARY
SALVAGE? y

Log was discarded, updating cyl groups
239603 files, 5443874 used, 5654583 free (80551 frags, 696754 blocks, 0.7% fragmentation)

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

mere words fail me. prehistoric guttural utterences and primeval screams are called for.

recently noted quotes

splunk: all batbelt. no tights. -- splunk page

i can deal with all your girl stuff taking over my bathroom sink. i can deal with not farting for another week, but i will not tolerate microsoft in this house. -- brent [player vs player, 14/01/04]

skull: what is the difference between a normal sorcerer and a supreme sorcerer?
brent: well, a supreme sorcerer comes fries and a shake. [player vs player, 22/08/04]

we live our lives in America, now, in fits that involve many snarks, possible boojums. -- adam gopnik [from the introduction to the annotated hunting of the snark, the definitive edition]

The reviews I've gotten in the science fiction universe were some of the longest and most thoughtful critiques, closer to something you might find in The New York Review of Books. I would like to show those reviews to mainstream critics and academic literary scholars and say, 'Look at the kind of discourse that's going on around this book in a community that you think cares only about Buffy.' -- james morrow [on the reviews of the last witchfinder]

shaw, like many witty men, considered wit an adequate substitute for wisdom. he could defend any idea, however silly, so cleverly as to make those who did not accept it look like fools. -- bertrand russell

popper is not a philosopher, he is a pedant. -- paul feyerabend [three dialogues on knowledge]

to establish and to sustain an advanced culture, we need to avoid being debilitated either by error or by ignorance. -- harry g frankfurt [on truth]

flying machine...

amusement for the day: google patent search discovers that the flying machine patent belongs to one oltville wright...

hottest/coolest box ever: x4500...

blogging live: i have just unpacked a thumper with 48x500GB disks. oh, how far i have come since my first sun3/160 at york u dept of computer science...

empty resources, everywhere.

if you were bored enough to google for (say) "python networking tools" you would end up with numerous impoverished ad-pusher "programmer" resource sites as top hits. for additional humor, you may want to follow into that top hit "bigwebmaster" and take a look at Python/Scripts_and_Programs section. [i'll spare you the link, and deny the additional hits to this hole] corner indicator: 0 resources and growing! [note the exclamation!] a whole page of pedestrian classifications, all empty: Contests (0), Countdowns (0), Counters (0), Customer Support (0), Database Tools (0), Development Tools (0), Discussion Boards (0), E-Commerce (0), Education (0) ... ad nauseam

increasingly, casual googling resembles smashing one's head to a nearby wall to improve one's vision...