Haitian police - a new start?

Hey - it's been a long time since I felt like writing, or had time for it. However, all I think about lately is political. There is so much going on, and it just burns me up - so maybe I'll expend some of that energy to put it down here.

First on this list is this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012904144.html?sid=ST2010012904231

The Haitian police showing savvy and spunk. I wrote an email to Obama, expressing my hope that our guys on the ground were doing their very best to coordinate and work with these guys. If the situation on the ground there is typical of almost every life situation I've ever seen, they are not. It never ceases to amaze me how simple efforts that could pay off never get used. Let's hope, tho. Of course, the possibility also exists that this news reporter is giving us some very slanted viewpoints. Still, let's hope for the best.

A new year is born

My dear friends;

We are now a week past the winter solstice, and a week farther into the birth of the new year. The days are, once again, growing longer, and the darkness is slowly, slowly, fading.

I ride tonight, with the dogs, so it is not really a ride for me - altho I do get a bit of exercise. The dogs, on the other hand, get a pretty good workout. Klinger is younger, Sara the elder, but Sara loves to run; which helps to equalize the effort. But, Sara is also far shorter than Klinger. Klinger has the body of the German Short-haired pointer that was almost certainly one parent. This means he has a deep chest (space for the lungs), combined with long legs, and a relatively light build. All of which, added to the youthful vigor, mean lots of energy for running.

He definitely has the hunting genes. If I had started training him for it when he was 6-10 months old, he would have gotten the pointing thing going. He did that alert freeze status quite naturally, but we encouraged him to chase the squirrels at the bird feeder, and eventually his instinct to take a point broke. Ever since, I've had to worry about training him NOT to chase wildlife when we are out walking or running.

His training is proceeding quite well, and he exhibits a great deal of control when he knows I'm paying attention. All of which is good, you know. Can't have him jetting about, scaring people, or being rude by going on land where he isn't wanted. Or running in front of cars. Etc.

He's not a huge dog - he's probably 65 pounds now, but he has a large enough look that he makes people cautious when he gets excited. Let's take a look at him for a second - German short-haired pointers and Labs are about the same height. Klinger has a blond Lab's coloration, and we've speculated that the "other" parent was a Lab. Of the two breeds, though, Labs are broader in the chest, and generally heavier in build. Klinger has the lighter build, with the Lab color.

Sara is also true to her roots. I believe that her parents were a Bassett hound, and a blue-tick hound. She has some blue-tick coloration, with a modified Bassett conformation. Meaning she looks like an oversized beagle. Given that neither breed - Bassetts or blue-ticks - are known for being trainable (rather they are known for NOT being trainable), she fits that expectation to a T. She is no more trainable than a stump. She is NOT dumb - she is actually quite smart, and I would guess she is smarter than Klinger. But, she will not train, unless you offer food as a reward, and if she thinks something else is important or interesting, fuggedaboudit. She likes food, sniffing, running, and food, in that order. She is a sweet dog, but does have a tendency to go Alpha at times.

So, when I take them out running, Sara has to go on lead. She will drag me, and the bike, just as fast as I can go to keep up (on this city bike), but only for the first half mile. Then she still will run, but only keeps up, for the next half mile. After that, she would rather walk and sniff, and riding with her is a PIA. Klinger could run flat-out for at least 3 miles, and if we worked it, surely farther. But, we don't get that chance. After the first mile I am stopping, walking, encouraging Sara to run, and sometimes succeeding.

I'm on my city-bike, a mountain bike with comfort refinements, but also much heavier, and with different gearing than a road bike. This means that I do actually get some exercise, just from powering this heavier machine up to speed quickly, to keep up with the dogs, or to get over a little rise in the road.

So the three of us are out there, running along. What a sight we must be! We left the house about ten or fifteen minutes before sundown. We make our way along, me watching for icy spots, the dogs watching for critters or smells to get excited about.

It is a fine evening. We are riding an out-and-back, all on the same road, out and then back on the same route. With the snow and ice, it is difficult to vary this. About a third of the way out, we are facing into the sun as it sinks below the tree line. I'm glad when it finally goes below the trees, since it is quite blinding, being directly in my eyes, but this also means it will be getting colder.

Colder - well, that is relative, isn't it? But today is the perhaps the first truly cold day of this winter. We are down to about 15' Fahrenheit (-9 or 10 C); which is about where I start saying it is really and truly cold. Alone, that temp is not that bad, but we also have 20-30 mph (32-45 Kph) winds. This puts the wind chill at somewhere below 0' F (-17 C). So, I'm actually somewhat worried about frostbite. We're in the range it could happen - ears, nose, cheeks. Fingers and toes could be a consideration - if we aren't properly covered.

Of course, the dogs don't seem to be bothered in the least. But, they do have nice fur coats, and they are getting good exercise. I yell at Sara to keep running, when she wants to stop and sniff, and sniff, and sniff. I'm getting badly chilled, because I am dressed for staying warm with exercise, and I'm not getting the exercise! My fingers are getting cold, stiff, and numb.

The moon has risen already. It is not full, but it is close. It will be clear tonight, and the moonlight is bright.

After we are home, and the dogs have had dinner, they are eager to go outside, into the fenced backyard. They immediately start barking. I grab my flashlight, and shining it across the street, I see why they are excited, as a fox is trotting across the field there. He is quickly gone, and the dogs are just as quickly quiet, although they look hopefully for another sighting of what they must consider to be "exciting"!

My last Linux post, bicycling with the dogs

I believe this will be the last Linux post - or at least the last Linux post classified under discovery. I have gotten to the point where I feel somewhat familiar with it. I've settled on a "distro" that feels comfortable - openSuSE. My server is still running Ubuntu, and I like that choice well enough, as well. I could go on at length - and I have, as you've seen in the past! Linux has been fun, and it continues to be my primary desktop. It is far more secure than Windows, and Microsoft keeps getting more onerous with the anti-piracy bit, and richer, by the day. You wouldn't think the two might be connected in some way, would you?

It is a cold day, today. So far, this winter has been very mild - I'm sure it would be positively balmy if I compared it to Moscow this year! But, that is typical Massachusetts - mild one year, bitter-cold the next. I took the dogs out riding (I'll have to explain this) - and we went what has lately been "the usual" - about 2.25 or 2.5 miles on the roads. They wanted to keep going when we got back, but I was FREEZING. It it wasn't for the hassle of riding with Sara, I would have gone out again, but it is just too much trouble keeping tabs on her.

Here's the scoop on 'running the dogs', and 'taking the dogs for a ride', and why Sara is problematic. We used to take them around the neighboring land preserve for a walk. But I don't often care for taking the dogs for a walk, mostly because the dogs are trying to walk us, not the other way around. Sometime last year I started getting the city/mountain bike out, and riding the walk, so that the dogs had to run.

You'll need to know who the dogs are at this point. Sara we got back in Georgia, a pound mutt, a cross between (I guess) a blue-tick hound and a bassett hound. She looks like an oversized beagle. Her behavior has always been hound-like, meaning she never took to training, but loved to eat and to run. She mostly used the running part to run away when she got the opportunity. Of course she always came back - 4 or 5 hours later, but in today's world, that's not the point. A loose dog is considered a rude dog. She tends to act Alpha with female dogs, and at meal times. Given how little training other people in the family were willing to do, or knew how to do, this meant a friendly, but poorly trained dog, who pretty much did what she wanted. Had to keep her fenced in and on a leash when she wasn't fenced. Sara would be about 7 or 8 years old now.

Since Coco died in California, my wife has insisted that Sara was lonely. My personal belief is that Sara wasn't lonely even a little bit, and she was enjoying being the pet queen of the household very thoroughly. But you can't tell people stuff they don't want to hear - so a couple years back, we went looking for another dog.

Something very good happened when we found a dog in a rescue operation. Not only did we find a dog we all agreed should be amenable to us, but the rescue operation pushed my wife into some free sample dog-training lessons with the dog. Haleluja, now she was getting SOME idea of what you have to do to have well-mannered dogs. Unfortunately, she also quickly assumed that she knew more than I did. LOL. That all worked out, but that last part took some months. My wife got 3 training sessions, which got things started. I started working along with, and within a month, I was the only one doing any training activity.

But the new dog - whom we decided to name "Klinger" (think MASH) - was doing very well. Within a couple of months, I had 100% compliance on important commands - come, sit, stay. Heel was, hmm, ok. A "stay" could be maintained out-of-sight, but not for long. Until we got to distractions. New people, new dogs, critters like chipmunks, or the worst - deer. With distractions, I got 10% compliance, with deer, it was zero. Oh, he would comply fully, after he had investigated the distraction. So, this was cause for much consternation. Especially since one of my objectives is being able to walk with the dog off-lead. I hate having a dog trying to drag me all over timbuktu when we are walking. If they are off-lead, they can sniff happily, and I can walk.

Sara will probably never reach that. She has never even been trained to properly "come", or "sit".

Ok, now you know all that - last year I started running the dogs by riding my city/mountain bike with them. You realize that when a dog is on lead, this can easily lead to a crash. So, initially, I only took one out at a time. I wasn't about to try it with two. And, we went about a mile and a quarter or a half. The dogs loved it. But they always wanted to run together. I had let Klinger off-lead when walking. Not I let him do this while I was riding. We were mostly successful - except the distraction business. But he would come back within 5 or 10 minutes at the worst.

Eventually, I started doing the ride with Klinger off-lead, and Sara on. With a little care, I could handle that. The dogs LOVED this. But, Sara is DANGEROUS to me, since I'm holding on to her leash, when I'd rather have my hands on the handlebars! She's taken off, and pulled me down, a few times. I've gotten some road rash, and I'm still living, hehe. Being on lead, with me having to hold the lead, she has considerable control over one of my steering hands. One time she took off in the wrong direction, and pulled me with. The bike went down almost right away, but somehow I managed to keep my feet under me. And, I managed to step through the falling bike, and continued to keep my feet under me for several yards. When I came to a stop, I was still standing! Whew. I still had scabs on my elbow from the previous time!

To make a long story short - I invested in a good radio collar for Klinger. That was an excellent investment. I was very reluctant, due to the social pressure saying that this is "cruelty". But I tried it on myself first, and now? I think the people saying a radio collar is cruel don't know what they are talking about. You could use it in a cruel fashion, but you can also use it so that it is a long-distance leash. And, it works. Klinger and I are still working on the deer thing, but he behaves marvelously well. I can take him on the street, and I know that when I say "sit", he will, so I can keep him safe from the cars. We haven't seen the deer when we've been riding for the last month. But, I think he will listen, and obey, when next we meet them. We got over people and chipmunks with very little problems, and strange dogs, too, for the most part. If I'm not there, he still runs out in the street to greet them, but at least if I am there, I can stop him from doing this.

So, I get my bike out, and the dogs go crazy. They love to go running. We ran for 2.5 miles today, with the temp about 15' Fahrenheit, and it was windy and miserable cold. And, they wanted to keep going. I was freezing my hands off. My nose and cheeks weren't doing so well, either! Sara slows down after the first mile - she's got short legs, ya know, so I don't get so much riding or fun after that. But, it's still good, we all have fun!

Cheers.

Linux philosophix!

I've been playing with Linux since the beginning of the year. I've been playing harder the last 6 months. I've gotten things to work, but I haven't felt comfortable, so I've kept messing about, trying to find out what it will take to get me comfortable with Linux. I think, to some degree, I won't be quite comfortable until I have the same degree of familiarity that I do with Windows. I recently wrote the following bit on a Linux forum. Thought I might share it. I've actually been writing quite frequently lately, little bits for a daily journal, about my linux experience.

In wandering the various Linux forums, in search of answers, I ran across an interesting Latin quote. I looked the translation up, and viola, I was inspired. Basically, the "free software" advocates have picked up on the quote as a motto for sharing software, as in free software. It struck me that their motto actually could be taken to justify something quite different from "free" software.

"Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur, quomodo habenda est."
English translation:
"For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared."
. . .
This quote can be found in Book I, Chapter 1 "De doctrina christiana" "Corpus Christianorum", "Series latina", Vol. 32, p. 6, lines 10-11. Written 397 AD by Saint Augustinus.
It originally referred to the principle of giving and sharing preached by Jesus but fits almost perfectly on the philosophy of Free Software where one can share without losing.
--from the Free Software Foundation (of Europe) website

**************** The post ********************

I had to LOL on reading the latin quote, attributed to Augustine of Hippo (Aurelius Augustinus). I love it. Not only does it apparently fit the free software philosophy - but it fits the "pay for" software too! The why hinges on this: "if a thing is not diminished by being shared" (and I'll stick with the English translation given, I'll give you no tricks in translation from the original). In the spirit of economics and the market, if a man can build something that someone else is willing to buy, then he can rightfully claim that sale, and make the profit. That, dear readers, is the foundation of the marketplace itself. If, by virtue of being bigger and stronger, another man grabs that product, or the profit, then the marketplace has been subverted, and we have entered the realms of politics and crime. This is the foundation of the anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft!

But, returning to the concept of sharing, and diminishment. In the first thought, when a man builds something special, and is able to derive a monetary profit from same, then the profit can be regarded as a de facto part of that something. If in sharing that something, he diminishes the profit, then the something is thereby diminished. This, by the way, is Microsoft's argument about "lost profit" from pirated software, which is a rich source for a discussion of "what" does diminish mean, and "when" is it applicable! However, the loss of profit issue is akin to any workman's tools, or an artist's productions. When the workman's tools are in use by others - he cannot use them to make his daily living. When the artist or artisan creates a product that is co-opted by sharing, he also is unable to then make a profit from it, since the possession of it is no longer in his hands!

My thought, then, is that Augustine's quote is not so applicable as some people might think. It is, however, a surprising tool for realizing that a balance must be reached, between free and non-free software.
~~~~~~~~~~~~End of original post~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've gotten a couple of comments. One said:

That premise has something very far-stretched. Would you say that bread is part of the baker, or that meal is part of the oven?

Not far-stretched at all. At some point in my earlier years, I recall reading a classical Greek discussion of what a man needed when he created a community - somebody to make shoes, somebody to bake the bread, etc. So, even back then, when Plato was discussing perfect community structures, the concept of task-specialization was old. When a baker produces bread, the first benefit comes to the baker. Whether that benefit is the safety of his life, or a more direct financial profit matters not. The point is that the baker does derive a benefit, and can derive benefits other than just the eating of the bread. While these benefits are not specifically part of the physical structure of the bread, obviously, they very decidedly are a direct result of the bread being made, and are thus, in this fashion, part of the bread. They don't exist without each other - unless you just got conned (hey dude, I've got some really great bread today, dude, give me some bucks, I'll be right back!).

Now, let's see if anybody gets to the deep end of this pool. Sometimes - and this is one of the arguments for no patents on software - a product is so essential to a society, that it is held to be an infrastructure. The importance of this is that it might then receive a special status in that culture. A modern example is our highway system. We taxpayers pay to support it, not the users. A 19th century example in the US would be railroads. Another example, Ma Bell was granted a monopoly on the premise that everybody would have the service available. Same thing.

Patents extend the time when a maker can derive monopoly profit, and may, in some instances, slow development by competitors that directly uses the same "something" we've gotten the patent on. Competitors are still free to develop alternatives. In some industries, that sort of competition can lead to exorbitant pricing - perfect example is the pharmaceutical industry. You have whole pharma companies who will ditch a product as soon as the patents wear out. They only seek products that are saleable in that monopoly profit zone, due to the high profit. And we, the consumer, either get the shaft, or get the benefit, depending on who you talk to. Sometimes patenting can lead to a stronger competition. I believe the only thing that can be said for sure, is that patenting, IF there is a market, will yield a higher sales price.

This is why, sometimes, society chooses to diminish the ability of an artisan to derive profit from his making. At some point, the society can make a judgement, and say "x" amount of profit is enough. While there have been cultures who methodically redistributed wealth (potlatch culture is one), I can't think of much we do today that really fits this definition. One current example I can think of is software pirating. There is a certain argument there that these companies are SO profitable, that they can, and should, be giving more benefit to the consumer. Laws against windfall profiteering would be another example.

Now, consider this question - is an OS a natural monopoly? In other words, will the market continually trend to a situation where a single OS is completely dominant, and where there is very little competition? Our current market is NOT quite there, but it is very close. Microsoft doesn't completely control the price they charge, but they are very very close. Should we consider the OS market as an infrastructure, and support it via our community money supply (taxes)? I believe Spain and Brazil are doing something like this. China seems to be delving into this idea as well.

Oops - sorry, I got to rambling on a little, ya? It's a complex business. Imo, the best answer is the one that will deliver the most benefit for the most end-users.

And that was the end of the post - at least so far. I thought I would get mightily flamed on this forum for these ideas, as many free software believers are quite aggressive about the whole business, but I haven't yet. It's probably not because they agree, more likely because my writing was just plain boring to them - too many words, too much verbal thought involved. [Posters in these forums are usually techies, and as such, are less verbal.] There is always tomorrow.

And now, for something completely different:

And now, for something completely different: as a slight deflection of the subject here, I will offer the following.

After a few years of having received almost no new humor, recently I have received an unusually high amount of humorous correspondence. I decided I will send this back out - but at a more controlled rate, offering a little more even distribution of one of god's gifts to man: laughter.

You must know this - I am a fan of dialects. Having grown up moving around our country, I learned very early to mimic and then adopt the local patois. This has also come in handy when learning foreign languages. I recently was referred to a quick-learn school for Chinese, and after reviewing the initial, introductory, material, I have to agree that it is absolutely brilliant. I don't think I have ever run across a method that offers the same insight! I have copied a bit of the introductory material here, for your enjoyment. You really should read these out loud, for the full impact of the brilliance of these quick translations.

English - Chinese
that's not right - sum ting wong
are you harbouring a fugitive - hu yu hai ding
see me asap -kum hia
stupid man - dum gai
small horse - tai ni po ni
did you go to the beach - wai yu so tan
i bumped the coffee table - ai bang mai ni
i think you need a face lift - chin tu fat
it's very dark in here - wai so dim
i thought you were on a diet - wai yu mun ching
this is a tow away zone - no pah king
our meeting is scheduled for next week - wai yu kum nao
staying out of sight - lei ying lo
he's cleaning his automobile - wa shing ka
your body odour is offensive - yu stin ki pu
great - fa kin su pah
give it to me baby - suk mai dong
who's been eating all the pies - yo fat wan ka
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



hehe

1969 - the crux of time

It's not really a map of us who were of that time (1969), but when you consider the influences that we had - and what eventually turned out - this is very interesting, and more than a little entertaining.

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/

411 – Lit Map of Frisco

I went to the site for just this map link, but ended up staying for over an hour, due to the eclectic and interesting maps!

Cheers;
Mark

Scribbling the Cat - a personal insight to war, and to Africa

Mon Aug 24

I wanted to share this review with my friends. It was written more formally, for posting on an online review, but I decided on a much shorter version there. However, Scribbling the Cat is a remarkable book. The author, Alexandra Fuller, captures vividly the impact of war on its warriors. She gets the warriors to tell us things I've known, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone who has been through war talk about. Read the excerpts I've got here, and see if you don't agree that Fuller has managed to capture something bigger.

The personal story that serves as the vehicle for this insight is an unremarkable story - but very real. The ending, was to my mind, unsatisfying, but absolutely out of real life. There is no great protagonist, and there is no catharsis. The last chapters are anti-climactic when a classic would just be reaching a fever-pitch of interest.

But, the insights into the psyche of war, and into the people and life of Africa rank with the best descriptions of war ever written. "A Red Badge of Courage", and Hemingway come to mind. What the author catches about war is not so much what was done, but what the people felt about it, and in this, she is quite remarkable. Her writings contain many vignettes, some of which also offer snippets of deep insight into why modern Africa is what it is, politically and culturally.

Corwin Linson, in "My Stephen Crane" quotes Crane as saying,before he wrote the classic "A Red Badge of Courage": "I wonder that some of those fellows don't tell how they felt in those scraps. They spout enough of what they did, but they're as emotionless as rocks". Fuller, in "Scribbling the Cat", notes that people who fought in war will seldom talk about it. We see this same phenomenon in veterans of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Now, she has gotten them to talk about it, captured what some warriors feel, why they feel that way, and done it in a way that is universal. These stories could be from Vietnam, Korea, WW1, the French Revolution, Napoleon in Russia, or ancient Greece.

One passage illustrates this: when asked if he regrets being part of his war, her subject responds: "Not like you'd expect . . .My whole life would have been different if it hadn't been for the war so . . .In some ways, the war years were the best of my life. Those boys that I fought with -- there were four of us in a troop, that's it . . .man, I knew them better than I knew myself. You walk into the shateen with three strangers and a month later you walk out with ous" (sic: men) "that you've had to trust with your life and who have trusted you with their lives and you know them so well. You've seen them shit themselves with fright, you've cried with them, you've laughed a lot. . ." "Always, forever after" . . ."you will not forget them."

He continues "We were all in it together, it didn't matter where you came from. . . ."Unless you've licked the arse end of the world with a man, you can't know what it's like to have that kind of relationship with someone. It's closer than family."

When you think of this, this goes back all the way to the classical Greek civilization, and therefore it must be even deeper - back to the beginning of man. The classical Greeks made great warriors in part because they made the warriors INTO family. The men who fought together in that time were intentionally lovers, to increase the binding of them as a unit.

Later in the book, Fuller captures the part of luck in war, in three sentences, from the same man. "I think I've used up all the luck I'm ever going to have against land mines. I've gone over three and I'm not dead yet. Four might be the unlucky number." And, in that small paragraph, I can also taste the fear that would come if this man were to face land mines again.

Real life comes to hit afterwards - the same man houses one of his army mates who is in hard times, only to discover him, later, with his wife, in an affair. Who he becomes later in life is also molded by the death of his son - but these events only worked the metal smelted in the war.

The book is primarily about white Africans, but black Africans are not slighted or ignored. Rather, she talks about the reality of who and what they are. "Places have their own peculiar smells . . ." and here "it was the smell of Africans, which is soil-on-skin, sun-on-skin, wood smoke, and the tinny smell of fresh sweat . . . It is not a romantic smell. It is not the smell of free people, living as they would choose. Rather, it is the smell of people who labor, strain, and toil for every drop of sustenance their body receives from the earth. . . It is the smell of people who are alive only because they are cunning, ingenious, and endlessly resourceful. In theory they are 'peasants'. In practice they are brilliantly versed in the skill of surviving. "
The author's father "once said to me, 'When the world goes up and we're back to square one, I'd bet my money on these buggers surviving. Your bally Wall Street fundi would last about half a day'."

Through Fuller's vignettes and vivid descriptive phrasings, we learn more about what it feels like to be in war, and why things fall out the way they do. While it is not as clear to me, I also felt that I finished reading, having some understanding of the "why" of the mess Africa is in.

The book is a quick read, and I highly recommend it. It is not a classic, but it has bits that are.