Older blog entries for mirwin (starting at number 194)

coding

Have finally settled on Java as my best compromise choice for learning some specific coding and design skills potentially useful in future job opportunities while exploring some specific ideas for an online business.

After reading one entire online book "Thinking in Java" and some online tutorials I managed to get a couple of java classes and instantiated objects to compile and run correctly in Netbeans.

Unfortunately I find most of the modern IDEs rather complex and confusing. It is possible I should drop back to just an editor and stick with slight tweaks to some simple java files while I slowly but surely internalize the nuances of the language.

web server

Way behind schedule here. Got bogged down in installing Debian over and over via different methods. The core kernel (CD one of sixteen) installs well regardless of which options I use for initial installation. However, I have been unable to convince the apt utilities to use either my local cd sets/archives (flipped through for indexing on demand from the installation routines) or online sources via my adsl connection (which successfully picks up vender assigned IP addresses and allows pinging the vender's router/DNS server). Exhaustive forced review of the 7 or 8 unix commands sufficient to bring me through the ghastly 90s (IRIX application support required by engineering clients) not to mention review of apparently applicable online literature, user manuals, and man pages desperately seeking --fizbin switches; have not yet yielded results beyond verification that all the configuration files seem to be present and loaded appropriately.

I am tempted to trademark a new paradigm acronym DNWTRTFM. (Do Not Waste Time Reading The Fucking Manuals). This could be entered into a FAQ explaining to novices the good ol RTFM gag they will inevitably run into within the open source communities online as an initiation rite on various mailing lists, bulletin boards, private flames, etc. Half-seriously, when was the last time you understood anything presented in an alleged Unix manual that you did not already understand? Sort of an inverse recursive inside joke: man is not unix manual.... or ... Not unix manual, not user training system. (NUMNUTS)

The apt man entry is particularly lovely. Dated 92, it clearly states it is not done yet. Does however provide some lovely links to other utilities possibly of service to previously educated users or accomplished master hackers. Somebody will be tempted to say write it yourself if it needs to be updated or written. I suppose I could take notes on all the different ways I have found that apt refuses to work on my current configuration but I am not totally certain anyone will find that very useful. Most people are usually attempting to get stuff to work, not prove that it does not in a specific case. Besides, careful online research seems to imply that apt-get et. al. simply works for everone on the planet except me and an occasional clueless computer scientist who has been restricted to area 51 DARPA superconductors isolated from the internet since 1953.

Its enough to provoke suspicion that somebody flipped an embedded bozo switch upon detecting my download of Debian ....therefore, I hereby sincerely and humbly request permission to apologize abjectly and profusely to any master hackers, influential users, or NSA assholes I may have inadvertently offended with my atrocious attitudes freely projected while playing around locally with the advogato trust metric. Except for kelly. If this apparently successful denial of service attack is a result of the kelly/cert war I absolutely refuse to concede defeat. There are after all other distributions available and I can always revert to Red Hat 7.2 or some other commercially available distribution previously purchased but prematurely abandoned due to misplaced ideology.

Life ... Scheduled tomorrow for dental surgery to remove some wisdom teeth.

Reaction Notes:

bolsh provides this link to some of Simon's work pixelpusher. This might be cool to adapt to some kind of project status indicator screensaver that one could feed project plans and timesheets and watch it build space pyramids or other civilization wonders in near realtime.

Clearly Vab has not thought this altruism thing through thoroughly. Considering what Bill Gates has done with the monopoly that IBM and his mother (allegedly a member of the board when the original contracts for IBM and MS Dos were signed) do we really want him involved in unregulated experimentation in the 3rd world on desperate people with pharmaceuticals and tools which can then be used to establish a monopoly or oligopoly on leading edge health care for lucrative markets elsewhere? If the health care experts could find a way to work without Mr. Gates ill gotten green surely the world would be better off without a Microsoft clone in the drivers seat for longevity?

Thanks Vorlon! You save me some effort here as I was about to play around with BitTorrent while getting a current copy of Sarge to attempt to install. Now I think I will wait a few days until things stabilize or else plan on not burning what I download immediately but rather redownloading in a few weeks after things have a chance for many eyeballs to settle out obvious errors.

I am going to activate my account at robots.net again. Nasa has announced a prize of 250K for some serious engineering for what I will call a soon to be working prototype for a Lunar Oxygen Wanderer/Waystation ... need a good acronym.

Gay 90s Parade, Local Celebration

Started grinding some lenses for either telescopes or microscopes and encountered NASA's why? prize for 250K oxygen generator robotic way station, homework due NLT Jun 08. Started thinking ...

Recentlog Reaction Notes

Thanks to several advogateers whose entries led me to IBM's online journal, the issue dedicated to open/free source issues from the perspective of a participating behometh. Might have been from here provided by baruch

arauzo regarding software patents: The Globus Alliance may be the compromise we are looking for to end the open warfare between ideological extremes of "free" software with viral properties and patented methods which entail royalties and negotiation overhead and legal beagles for all time with no relief or assurance an issue is finally put to bed. It appears to consist of a patent pool which all Globus developers can use to create grid computing components. What is your assessment or opinion? Any work of analysis or evaluation you publish could help establish prior art and will be greatly appreciated. 8)

Coquille Riverfront Greenway

Data for Coquille Riverfront Greenway recruiting drive development effort:

Mik Irwin USPS gravy train stamps c/o General Delivery desired 74 cents postage here Coquille, OR 97423

Coquille Riverfront Greenway c/o Michael R. Irwin 876 N. Knott Coquille, OR 97423

To return, remove staple, fold appropriately, tape, and mail or hand on to an aquaintenance who wishes to participate. Please do not use paper clips or staples as I suspect this has the potential to damage automatic sorting machines. Remember the postage is intended to be profitable for U.S.P.S., NOT to create a loss or help raise postal rates.

This is an Engineering Prototype for public relations planning and recruiting:

Please assist us by redlining or commenting on content, format, or other topics of potential interest to yourself or other possible volunteer stakeholders and then drop in a mailbox at your convenience. Note: Postage for this research task paid for by specific targeted volunteer funding, not public grant funding.

Example redline comment: ----> Why not a natural ampitheator in the park opposite the train trestle or giant stepping stones educational trail?

Please consider becoming a {Amiga} Friend [Amigo] of the Coquille Riverfront Greenway

Who Are the Friends? A group of citizens and residents of the Coquille River Valley with interests in local recreational and cultural attractions and education.

What is Our Purpose? To convert the old Georgia-Pacific mill site and other Coquille City property along the Coquille Riverfront into higher performing assets for the citizens and residents of the Coquille River Valley.

How do we do it? Via volunteered resources such as time, paper, postage, cash, art, data, gas, materials, et cetera limited only by the innovative creativity of our expanding team. We are also getting prepared to pursue some grant funding from various sources. For example: Your time and consideration in reading this engineering prototype and providing comments to help improve our community outreach is highly appreciated. Thank you! Help some more even if you do not wish to redline on this form by mentioning the Riverfront Greenway projects to friends or neighbors and ask for their opinions. Provide feedback either direct to us or via the Parks and Recreation Subcommittee of the Coquille City Government.

What Are Our Immediate Plans? To create a parkway which synergizes with other existing and planned Coquille Valley assets designed to entertain and educate residents and visitors. There are also nefarious plans afoot to squeeze some local economic benefits out of the educational assets and tools created to create the park.

Are Donations Tax Deductible? Yes. We are currently working under the auspices of a 501(c)(3) with which our team leader is associated. [editor's note, next version needs details of the 501(c)(3) here; also add points of contact for the Parks and Recreation subcommittee and/or public meeting schedule.]

Name: ____________________________________________________

Address: __________________________________________________

City: ______________________________ Zip: __________________

Phone: _____________________________ Date: _________________

Email ____________________________________________________

Estimated or assessed value of attached or pledged donation other than comments or suggestions (time is precious friend) $_______________

ideological nightmares

My Redhat system (with admittedly old but at least partially stable and somewhat known {to me} software) went apeshit when I attempted to install my Brother computer on it to print out a prototype production run of flyers for the Coquille Riverfront Greenway Association to distribute at our local founding day celebration ... annual the Gay Nineties Weekend Festival.

Now if I were an ideological purist I would have to crack this interesting Easter Egg or hot pixel or whatever the fuck some script kiddie or NSA asshole calls it before I could get on with the job. Forunately I used OpenOffice on my blasted XP system provided at no cost by my open source sponsor or patron my twin Brother, aka "Mitch the Dick" .... so all I have to do is clean up some desk space, physically relocate the printer adjacent to XP, install (I really hope the default drivers work), and then get on with the production run without the admittedly wonderfully pure open source platform that cannot seem to match the evil empires sabotaged systems (bug releases per SOP to generate Wall Street Quarterly revenue targets .... I wonder if I could sue for fraud and get the 50K license fees I spent over last decade refunded .... better do it after this production run .... nuisance really but I promised I could get these flyers done for a pillar of the community and I really do not need any more credibilty hits since I am already in negative territory with many of the natives and allegedly natural local cohorts.

Maybe someday if my systems ever get reliable enough for me to catch up on my committments, or merely occasionally keep perform one, I can establish a debunking page for the many eyeballs allegations and misinformation floating around.

Gotta go dudes. Pancake breakfast at eight and I assured my Dad I would get at least some sleep ... besides the body has been telling me all day to get some sleep. The fake clarity that comes just before total collapse or complete wild ass manic abandon has set in and I have a ways to go yet to achieve a successful connection between OpenOffice and the Brother computer. Oh yeah, then I have to boringly stamp, collate, and stable the 100 brochures I promised Tim I would have done last week.

Those hospital stays can really be a nuiscance ... allged (by medically trained advisors and surrounding yes people) solutions: 1. Get regular sleep. 2. Start seriously tracking drug and mood trends ... helps if the Dr. can restrain himself to less than one new drug per day .... big story. Tell you later if I decide to forward a grievance to Bay Area Hospital and cc it to my Congressman's staff (I think Oregon Health Plan of which I am repcipent is partially federal funded.) my state representatives, the local newspapers, any one else I can think of ... perhaps a lawyer regarding the liability release I "voluntarily" signed .... perhaps hold off a few years until I have read enough law to successfully pass a bar exam and then .....gasp! ....represent myself.

Yes, I know the old saw about representing yourself but what to do when faced with corrupt conspiring systems that will not keep their ground rules, lie flatout about their ethical analysis, scream foul at opponents and competition while cheating every other possible way that can be devised ....

Wait! Where am I? Was I talking about medical mental prisons or software paradigms?

I hope this parade is as good a therapy as I think it might be. Come 2 a.m. I will get 4 hours of rest (if not sleep then horizontal music appreciation with eyes closed) regardless of the disassembly state of my "computer" "systems". Oh, also: I am missing Stargate for the 3rd friday in a row.

In my experience real hackers and/or software engineers know how to pull the breakers or take a baseball bat to the equipment if necessary before pulling out an authentic pencil or piece chalk and just approximating a solution for safe testing. You would be amazed at what some of these hardware types can do with five or ten iterations if the damn CASE (computer aided systems engineering) software cannot be bribed with more memory for some reasonable looking (forget not correctness or design for knowing it will actually work, seriously, pick the battlefield where you know you can win ... consistently) results that can be foisted off on the customer (internal or external or both).

Later, enough loss of steam. I go to lay down and listen to the radio for a few minutes before I get started. If I fall asleep then I will try to get something in the morning. If nothing can be made to perform I will simply acknowledge yet another failure due to over reliance on "high tech" equipment (the local fish and chips types really like that KISS thing, few of them actually ever take the equipment apart, the millwrights who build and maintain the equipment are not hackers but rather some kind of majickally mystical shaman who has been drinking and bathing in the Coquille River for over 4 decades and thus absorbed sufficient karma to function ecnomically locally) and bear the consequences like a man.

Can you hear them whispering ... Alas Poor Mikal, he learned not that all computer people are Satan worshipers who will feed anyone they can to the plaguess of bugs promised in Revelations near the end of this phase of GOD's (governing ontological distinction? courtesy "24" at Wikipedia.com) plan to intelligently unfold a better planet/universe for those who believe in him and his son and are thus protected and provided for by the holy space ghost coast to coast.

I am back!

Just got out of BAH mental ward with new cornucopia of antipyschotic drugs tried and pulse therapy approach personally preferred updatred to medical team's preferences of fourier series integration of mood management and molestation ... or perhaps dangerously stupid or self serving command edicts ....? Good question. More later maybe.

Interesting jargon tidbit Confirmed with trusted source (myself and a social worker who provided me with occasional read only access to internet in full compliance with a reasonable risk management plan he debited to IT {Information Technology) and/or & V//!& {have to look up de Morgan's Theorems at wikipedi and/or freepedia, think something wrong with previous logic} and/or IS {information systems} ....ready????OLE!

Seratonin reuptake (modified by many antipyschetic drugs with which my medical staff and I have been using to tailor my treatment while engaged in voluntary military research) is a simple feedback loop of the form:

neuron ----| ^ |seratonin ----------|

This basic loop of the neuron talking to itself looks to me like a basic self seeding process. Apparently in me it can go wrong or wild, resulting in sleepless race conditions where I can get trapped within dillema mazes or analysis paralysis. For me a key to breaking out of the rage loops is to do some dishes for my mom. She has after all done plenty for me over the years while waiting for me to truly awaken and find myself and Jesus.

Sometimes it helps to rekindle personal playfulness rather than abuse by purring or mock snarling at the local cats before screaming and leaping. If you try this be careful you know who is watching. People keep talking about putting me in a state institution without internet access (assumed, I do not know inmates rights to personal access to information and internet) for a few months or even years should I skip off the high wire and survive the net.

Even/enough for now, more later. Later fellow freedom lovers.

WOW (What a woman!, TM pending All rights Reserved CP 0mri 2003i^-1/2)

What a Wikipedia participant, ambassador, or travel agent this new American in law at least and hopefully soon full citizen would make!! Too bad I am currently the underground troll ... although maybe I could get away with sending her an anonymous engraved invitation via registered return signature required from an incorrect address with a comically incorrect name, title, and alleged acronym organization. .... A bit of legal research required before I think about attempting it, obviously. Duh! Doh!

Dreaming of California Kimmie? Nope, neither she nor the other jet mechanic ladies. They long gone, delivered loots and scooted or relaxed to the next sequence of MAs....MIAs?? Phenomenal. Was she Northern, Southern, or American Korean? I will possibly let somebody know should we ever meet at a Squadron Reunion Picnic and jointly agree upon a public/private key structure with proper bit rot bozo gradients and artwork overlays to feed preprocessor for ghoscriptiption or laser ectching proper space jamboree dollars. (Fake of course, you get $3 fake for five authentic dollars.) We give you a kickback each time you report karma and/or luck when it is used for coin tosses. Later.

Dream Job or merely a tired man's mirage skipping a few times of the lakebed?