Lee.org

Why do we send up 7 astronauts in the space shuttle? Why not send up 5 robots controlled by radio from the ground and 2 astronaut/robot-technicians? But of course I don’t know what the heck those 7 astronauts do right now.

This reminds me of an important interview about remotely operated vehicles that I saw on Scientific American (Beneath the Sea: Into the Deep, Part I, May 14, 2002) with Bob Ballard:

ALAN ALDA (NARRATOR) In spite of the spectacular scientific advances that have been made with the use of small manned submersibles like Alvin, Ballard says we don’t need subs like this any more. He came to that conclusion right here on the Galapagos Rift.

BOB BALLARD The turning moment for me was in a submarine just like this one, when we found these unique life forms. And we were down on the bottom of the Galapagos Rift, it was 1979, OK. And biologists had never seen these life forms ever before, and we got them in the submarine and, a scientist by the name of Holger Jannish, who just couldn’t wait to see these creatures. He knew he was going to be famous, just to be the first to see them biologically. And so we got down there and they were right outside the window. And I was sitting over here and I had brought down a new prototype camera system — a digital camera system. And I was looking at the animals and I looked up from my porthole and I looked at Holger, and he had his back to the window. I said, “Holger, what are you doing?” And he said, “I’m looking at the monitor.”

ALAN ALDA That’s amazing.

BOB BALLARD And I said, ” Wait a minute, let me see if I got this right�

ALAN ALDA We came all the way down here�

BOB BALLARD We came all the way down here, and you turn your back to the window — and I went (snap)

My senator wrote back to me today (via email) about how he’s co-sponsoring federal anti-spam legislation:

Dear Mr. Sonko,

Thank you for contacting me about spam. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.

The growth of the Internet and the increased use of e-mail have led to the emergence of “spam,” or electronic junk mail. Numerous marketers have begun to send unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) over the Internet. Because this marketing technique is easier and less costly than traditional direct marketing techniques such as direct mail solicitations, e-mail accounts worldwide have been deluged with this unsolicited correspondence.

Spam is not just a nuisance, but it can also bring consumers higher charges for the Internet as service providers are forced to continually upgrade their systems to handle the increased traffic. Spam filters built into MSN and Hotmail servers, for example, block 2.4 billion messages a day. While proponents of UCE insist it is a legitimate marketing technique that is protected by the First Amendment, Congress should enact reasonable restrictions.

Although 35 States have anti-spam laws, there is no federal law specifically concerning spam. Consequently, I have co-sponsored CAN-SPAM, the “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act” (S. 877), which would do the following: create criminal penalties for the transmission with knowledge and intent of spam messages with header information that is materially false or misleading; prohibit deceptive subject headings; require a functioning return address for the message recipient to submit a request that he or she not receive future messages; require clear identification that a message is an advertisement; and require that message recipients have an opportunity to opt-out, and for the sender to provide a valid physical mail address.

Please be assured that I will continue to support practical, sensible regulations that reduce unwanted spam while taking the concerns of legitimate, honest retailers into account.

Thanks again for contacting me.

Senator Frank Lautenberg
http://lautenberg.senate.gov/

The 500 Coolest Chicks Ever

:-)

The new spam filter is working out great. I couldn’t be happier. Well, I could be, but you know what I mean.

A couple months ago I saw Henry Rollins in concert. I took some notes about his show but never bothered to put them in my journal. Here you go:

“Ramones Fans can’t kill each other. Here’s what you do. Give the Israeli army the first two albums and let them groove to it for a while. Then give the Palestinians the second two albums and let ’em enjoy it. Then one day, they’ll be on the front and one of the Israelis will hear something on the other side. He’ll say, “Hey do you hear that? It sounds like the Ramones but it’s not any album that I’ve ever heard! I’m gonna go check it out. Here, hold my gun.””

[note: blowing a “P” into a microphone makes that cool “poof” noise that you hear in the Jack Flanders audiotapes. Jack Flanders and Ruby R000000000000L!!!]

He’s done 106 shows a year for the last 23 years. Wow.

[I’ve said this somewhere in my journal… it’s nice that Henry agrees] “Bush isn’t connected with his material. That smile that bunches up in the corner of his mouth…. he’s pretending to be human.” [He then went into a thing about his awful pacing as well :-) ]

I get around 40 spams a day, every day… some 13 thousand per year. Happily the vast majority get filtered out. But occasionally one makes it through the gauntlet… making it to the right email address, not stopped by Spamkiller, and not deleted by my unconscious brain. Today I got…. it’s just…. so….

Here, you look at it and tell me what you think:

From: “Clara”
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 11:33:25 -0000
Subject: Letter@5CHBSVDfFy3uqHBs

Hi Lee.
Possibly you are waiting for this inventive mail, is it precise?
Expect yes!
My Sugar buddy I have Nice news for you.
Now you can Look at this page and do your prurient things.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
< < http://dreamsonrealms.org[the rest of the url removed by Lee] >>
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

With love, Clara Young.

Now, I’m sure it’s probably just another porn site, but is this email unintentional poetry? Read it again, with feeling.

In other news, I went over for a visit to slashdot and was befuddled by the dizzyingly low signal-to-noise ratio of the comments that people post there. Though there is no lack of volume! What a weird sub-culture. Their headlines are top-notch though. Thinking back to my previous excursions to the site over the years, I recall that they’ve never had any useful commenters there.

Garry, the guy that prompted that $3k bet showed his true colors when I tried upping the bet. Of course, he’s a kook. It turns out that one core aspect of his theory can be boiled down to, “As long as you drive your vehicle downhill, your engine can be greater than 100% efficient.” Well yea…… but then you’re stuck at the bottom of a hill. Why did I even put energy into having a discussion with him? A lot of other people had similar discussions with him, ending with Subject: lines like “Earth calling Garry . . . Re: Overunity, Back EMF, and Garry Stanley” dropping out several days after I did. To look at the bright side, my bullshit detector started beeping before anyone else’s on the list. You can find the discussion on the power-assist list, starting around message 10,651.

Trav mentioned The Personal Identity Game in his journal. It happily reminded me of college. What with my affinity for D&D’s psionics and such, it’s no surprise that I survived with my wily psychological reductionism.

I recently finished listening to The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I think I’d enjoy writing a doctoral thesis on this work. This is an important book. If I ever get around to it, I -will- write something about this on my Media page.

I’ve been flying the Zagi. I’ve been crashing the Zagi. Oo baby have I been crashing the Zagi. I already started oogling a more powerful motor. But to do it right is to get a $180 brushless motor and controller setup. Jeesh, I can get a whole other plane for that. And I don’t WANT a whole other plane. I just want to fly! I think I’ll just learn how to fly it as it is. Heck, with the dramatic crashes I’ve been having (some due to not having enough power.. hint hint. get the brushless motor!) I don’t know how long the plane will actually survive anyway. I still haven’t found my digital camera charger so no pictures yet.. It’s possible that Julia hid it but it’s been like 3 months so it’s time to buy a new charger.

Flying this thing is frenetic and fun. But I wish it were more stable. It’s got a huge wing, no weight, and only barely enough power so it tends to flitter about uncontrollably. I’d love to give the controls to a more experienced flying-wing pilot and have them tell me what keeps going wrong. But I haven’t found anyone at the club with such experience. So I’m going to teach myself to fly.

I’m 1/2 glad that the plane is so rugged and crashworthy. But at the same time, as Bob at the club put it, something like, “The more crashworthy a plane is, the less air-worthy it is.” He’s got a point.

No, I like crashing. It offers catharsis at this point in my life.

I’m subbing tomorrow: high school biology. Wish me luck.

I’m playing hooky from school tonight. That psych class is … well, if you ain’t got nothin’ nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all.

I’m all happy about my new cable modem that arrived today. So I moved the computer downstairs into my bedroom, near a cable TV hookup. (when my parents arrive in a few weeks, I’ll have a wireless ethernet thingie to connect their computer upstairs). So now I’m sitting on a card-table chair with the monitor teetering on the edge of my dresser and I’ve got no speakers. What’s the use of a superfly net connection if you can’t HEAR the music you’re stealing off Kazaa? Ooo wait, my old monitor has built-in speakers that I’ve never used! I just hooked them up and they’re nothing compared to my Cambridge Soundworks.. but I think the base unit is buried in storage. I’m playing my .mp3s through them now…

A couple friends have asked me, “What’s up?” in email. I referred them here, to my journal. I felt a little bad replying to them with an “RTFM” letter. But I’ve got to say that about 60% of the reason I’m writing this is so that friends can keep up with my goings-on. I highly encourage you to use my journal as a stepping stone! Leverage it! Don’t ask me that painfully general question, “Hey Lee, long time no chat. What are you up to?” You hate it when people ask you the question. It’s like they’re asking, “In 500-1000 words, summarize the important events in your life during the last 3 months. Pay particular concern to how these events relate to my relationship with you.” Instead, you could ask, “Lee, you sound so frustrated with those style sheet things. Why do you bother?” Or, “So how was that reception? Your description only started to get into it.” Or, “Cheese Weasel Day? You’re so weird!” Or, “So where are pictures of that plane, huh?”

Getting the cable modem installed and working feels really good. I’ve needed a personal win for a while. I installed it. It worked. Win. :-)

I haven’t said much about the war in Iraq in my journal. If the first-hand interview that I’m watching on CNN is to be believed, then the Iraqi people are very happy that we’re doing what we’re doing. A reporter and translator are talking to five guys along a highway in Iraq and they’re explaining how removing Saddam Hussein is a good thing. Now I’m looking at an image of a highway, the same highway; the right shoulder is filled with people walking toward the camera. The line goes back all the way to the horizon. I estimate that the camera is looking at about 5,000 people. The newscaster says that they are ex-Iraqi soldiers that were released from the city of Kiffri (spelling?) in northeast Iraq. They are all walking, without any possessions or uniforms south toward… toward someplace better than where they were, presumably.

Noble as this endeavor may or may not be, I’m bothered by the fact that not a single illicit chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon has been discovered in Iraq.

Cascading Style Sheets have me all in a bunch again. It seems that Microsoft FrontPage writes really crappy, non-standard HTML. In order for my Netscape users to see the pretty style sheets, I’ve got to use a DOCTYPE specification. But when I use it, it screws up a lot of the little details on my page… like now color bars go in front of photos instead of behind.. Pain in the neck formatting crap. It’ll get resolved as we go along. Sorry for the inconvenience (to me and you).

Last night I bought a couple things so I can get my Zagi flying wing model airplane in the air for the spring. It should be flying soon.

I subbed today at the High School as a Music teacher. The kids were difficult and I don’t have any musical training to fall back on so it was rough. One class had me keeping the 41 girl chorus in decorum. It wasn’t so bad. But those piano classes were rough!

Yow, in the last month, I’ve seen 15 movies with Netflix! My brain is getting full. Here’s what I’ve seen and how I rated it on Netflix (from 1 to 5). I’ve got no plans to systematically rate and review all of the movies I watch. That’s a bit obsessive, even for me. Netflix begs you to rate the movies so you can get better customized recommendations…

Memento 4, XXX: Special Edition 1, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, Jackson Pollock: Love and Death on Long Island 3, Fight Club 3, Donnie Darko 5, The Royal Tenenbaums 2, The Matrix: Revisited 5, Princess Mononoke 4, Mystery Men 2, Changing Lanes 3, Mr. Deeds 3, Signs 5, Panic Room 2, Minority Report 3

Currently reading:

• In Code: A Mathematical Journey by Sarah Flannery
• Wired Magazine, April 2003
• Baseline Magazine, March 2003
• Medjugorje: The Mission and Medjugorje: The Message by Wayne Weible

Recently finished:

• What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman, et al

I’m getting straight A’s in both my Psychology and Math classes. I like it like ‘dat!

How come sweet and sour sauce is really only sweet and sweet sauce? Was the sour aspect weeded out by American tastes?

—————

I’ve got a call in to Earthlink via email:

The following simple web script doesn’t work. It generates a “500 Internal Server Error”
———————————-
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use CGI::Cookie;
print “Content-type: text/html\n\n”;
print “Hello world!\n”;
———————————-
However, if you were to comment out “use CGI::Cookie;”, it works just fine.
Interestingly, the Earthlink Perl Syntax checker doesn’t see any problem with my code.

Can you help?

I sent it via email because there wasn’t anyone on support at midnight last night.

I’ve noticed that Earthlink’s email support sucks mad cow testicles, while the LivePerson chat support is very respectable. I think I’ll try a chat now…

4:20pm

HA!

Earthlink admitted that their CGI::Cookie module is messed up! 3 freaking days of banging my head against this and I’ve solved all the hard parts!

NOW, I just have to install my own CGI::Cookie module in my own directory and forget about Earthlink’s. Of course, I’ve never installed my own module, but it should be a piece of cake, right? Ugh.

4:30pm

There are 4 different cookie modules at CPAN and it’s not obvious which is the right one. I’m getting unhappy already. You know, there’s a film festival going on this weekend a couple towns over…. Maybe I’ll go to that and when I come back, this problem will be magically fixed (by the Perl Gnomes of course)