Fozzolog

Playing tricks in the past

2010-02-20T08:58:07+00:00

I told this story in the network security class I’ve been teaching this semester. They enjoyed it and figured I might as well type it up for the blog… you know, so everyone else can consume, ingest, etc. the story.

It was in 1994, about sixteen years ago, my wife and I started dating. We had met online, long before eharmony.com or other online dating services appeared on the Internet. It wasn’t via an online dating service, we had both been invited into a kind of virtual party line application on the VMS computer system at Utah State University. A program called PHONE separated the screen into regions, one for each person on the “call.” Each participating user could see what they and everyone else was typing in real time. What happened with Christine and I was that we were both involved in a call with about six people or so and then everyone left except us. The rest is, as they say, history.

But that’s not what this story is about.

Anyway, as Christine and I started hanging out, she explained that one of her best friends had accepted a scholarship to study math at a small private college in the northwest. This school had a student body of around 2,000 students. Where USU had a cluster of DEC Alpha systems running OpenVMS to serve as a central computing system for around 20,000 students, faculty, and staff, this small college had a Sun Solaris Unix system that students logged into to send and receive e-mail and perform other central computing tasks.

At the time, my future wife and her friend had figured out a way to communicate electronically with each other in a manner more interactive than electronic mail. Christine knew her friend’s password on the Solaris system. Christine would telnet into her friend’s account at a prescribed time and they would chat using a program called ‘talk,’ similar to PHONE on the VMS system.

I knew Unix pretty well then. I taught Unix system administration courses for a private training company in Salt Lake City in 1992, had worked as a systems administrator for a couple of companies, and spent a lot of time working in Unix labs on campus. When I found out Christine knew her friend’s password and had gotten to know her friend a little bit, I started forming an idea for an incredibly funny, albeit cruel, geeky prank to pull.

To understand the impact of this practical joke, you have to understand how these computer systems were used back then. The World Wide Web was only barely in use then. The venerable Netscape Navigator Web browser wasn’t to be released for several months. E-mail users at USU and at Christine’s friend’s school used text-based e-mail applications. To access and run these applications, users would use a telnet application to connect to the system and then type in the name of the e-mail application (pine, elm, VMS Mail, etc. Even Mutt — now a favorite among text-based mail applications — wouldn’t be released until the next year.

Christine’s friend, like many at Utah State as well, would go into an on-campus computer lab, boot up a computer, probably running Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Mac OS, and then run a telnet client (most at USU used MS-DOS Kermit because its principal author worked as a professor at USU) to connect to the system where the e-mail application ran.

Telnet has long since been replaced with SSH as the preferred way to log into a remote computer system. Telnet sends all data over the network unencrypted including all login credentials like username and password. Anyone who could intercept (or listen to) traffic between one computer and another could get everything, usernames, passwords, entire e-mail messages, conversations, you name it.

When you telnetted to a remote system, you would generally be prompted for your username and then your password. If you entered the right information, you’d usually then see a command prompt. That’s where you’d type in ‘pine’ or whatever program you wanted to run.

Sometimes, there would be system scripts that ran before you saw the command prompt. The most common would be one that required you to change your password at certain intervals.

Now, back to the joke. I worked for a couple of hours on a shell script that we could upload to Christine’s friend’s account that would get run automatically the next time she logged in. The script would display something like this:

Your password has expired. Please choose a new one.
New Password:

Now, this is where things started to get a little tricky. A real password changing application would not echo the characters typed back when the user typed in a password. My script had to turn off the behavior that normally echoed characters back. This wasn’t that hard. I just had to use the ‘stty’ command in the script to turn the echo mode on and off.

The script notified Christine’s friend that her password had expired and asked that she choose a new one. If I wanted to be really, really evil, I could have captured her password as she typed it and filed it away somewhere, but this was just about fun. After she typed in the password, like any good password changing program, the script asked her to type the password again.

Then, the script said her password wasn’t long enough and prompted her to enter a longer password.

Then, it said her password didn’t contain the necessary assortment of characters, numbers, and special characters.

Then, it called Christine’s friend by name and said, “Oh come on, you can do better than THAT!” and gave her another chance.

I don’t remember how many iterations it went through, but it was at least 4 or so. Then, when it was all done, it removed the directive that made it run when she logged in and deleted itself.

A few hours later, we caught up with Christine’s friend and confessed. She was still frustrated, but began to see the humor in the prank we had pulled on her. She explained that others in the computer lab were puzzled as to why she was yelling so much profanity at her computer screen.

Good times. Good times.

Tricks to getting Fedora 12 and RPMFusion kmod-nvidia playing nice

2009-12-03T23:14:51+00:00

There have been a couple things about Fedora 12 that haven’t been as nice as I would have liked. I finally solved one of them tonight.

My laptop, a Dell Latitude D830(N), has an NVidia Quadro NVS 140M video chipset in it. Fedora 12 worked out of the box with the open source nouveau driver which is an experimental reverse-engineered driver for NVidia chipsets. It works pretty well and I probably would have kept using it if I could get my laptop to hibernate properly. Instead, I could never get the laptop to come back to life after it went into hibernation.

Meanwhile, the RPMFusion folks (a popular third-party repository) usually have the kmod-nvidia package available to install which gives you everything you need to run the proprietary NVidia drivers (Fedora doesn’t include this because they adhere to an all-open, non-patent-encumbered package policy). However, the kmod-nvidia package wasn’t available for Fedora 12.

When it did show up on rpmfusion, there were some caveats. Fedora had done some work to make the nouveau driver work as seamlessly as possible and, as a result, made it a little more difficult to install the proprietary driver. The RPMFusion folks have some errata info on how to get the proprietary driver working. I’ll summarize the process here since it’s a little tricky to execute and understand.

Before you do anything the RPMFusion information says to do, you should obviously install the kmod-nvidia package. Then, run:

nvidia-system-config enable

(I usually do this with sudo.)

Then, reboot into runlevel 3 and proceed with the commands RPMFusion’s page recommends.

The first commands the RPMFusion info indicates should be run are these:

mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

The initramfs-blahblah.img file is a replacement for the old initrd-blahblah.img file. So, we’re making a backup of the original initiam ramdisk image file for the running kernel and adding nouveau to its name so we know this is the initial ramdisk image that contains the nouveau driver (Fedora added the driver to the initial ramdisk so the graphical bootloader can take advantage of the NVidia chipset’s capabilities).

Then, running the dracut command creates a new initial ramdisk image for the running kernel. The dracut command replaces the mkinitrd that has been used traditionally. For more information about dracut check out the Fedora Project’s wiki page on dracut.

Finally, run the setsebool command RPMFusion’s page mentions:

setsebool -P allow_execstack on

If you’re like me, however, you probably have SELinux set to permissive because RPMFusion’s nonfree codec packages have already broken some SELinux stuff. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

Then, reboot again into runlevel 5 and enjoy.

UPDATE: Read below!

Soon after getting kmod-nvidia installed, I noticed some weird issues in KDE. Whenever I would press ALT-F2 to run a command, the UI would freeze for about 10 seconds. I did some searching and found this was a reported bug. I’m guessing a forthcoming xorg-x11-server-* package update will include this, but in the meantime, I installed new xorg-x11-server-Xorg and xorg-x11-server-common packages from this 1.7.1-12 Koji build. Pressing ALT+F2 does not freeze the system anymore.

Ezra Taft Benson on free market philosophy

2009-12-01T16:28:07+00:00

Another excerpt from This Nation Shall Endure by the late Ezra Taft Benson, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and President of the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The principles behind our American free market philosophy can be reduced to a rather simple formula. Here it is:

Economic security for all is impossible without widespread abundance.

Abundance is impossible without industrious and efficient production.

Such production is impossible without energetic, willing, and eager labor.

Such labor is not possible without incentive.

Of all forms of incentive, the freedom to attain a reward for one’s labors if the most sustaining for most people. Sometimes called the profit motive, it is simply the rights to plan and to earn and to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor.

This profit motive diminishes as government controls, regulations, and taxes increase to deny the fruits of success to those who produce.

Therefore, any attempt through government intervention to redistribute the material rewards of labor can only result in the eventual destruction of the productive base of society, without which real abundance and security for more than the ruling elite are quite impossible.

Ezra Taft Benson quote

2009-11-30T07:28:05+00:00

I’m reading this book right now and ran across this great quote tonight.

“If reference is made continually to weaknesses of the private enterprise system without any effort to point out its virtues and the comparative fruits of this and other systems, the tendency in this country will be to demand that the government take over more and more of the economic and social responsibilities and make more of the decisions for the people. This can result in but one thing: slavery of the individual to the state. This seems to be the trend in the world today. The issue is whether the individual exists for the state or the state for the individual.”

— Ezra Taft Benson, This Nation Shall Endure, 1977

Thomas Jefferson quote

2009-11-30T07:14:19+00:00

“… with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens—a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits or industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

— Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, 1801

Thoughts: Government healthcare for the uninsurable?

2009-11-29T09:09:51+00:00

There has been a whole lot of discussion both online and offline about healthcare. Specifically, about government’s role in healthcare and whether that role should be enlarged, redefined, etc.

Personally, I’d like to see the federal government get out of healthcare altogether. If things were done my way, there would no longer be any Medicare or Medicaid.

“But, Doran, what about all those people who depend on these programs for their healthcare?! Do you just want them to wither away and die?!”

No, but I have something I think many who are pushing for more government involvement in citizens’ healthcare do not have: Faith. I have faith in the people of America to provide help to those who really need it. I have faith in the free market to find healthcare solutions.

The U.S. is, by far, the most giving population of any country on Earth. In the absence of government run, mandated, etc. healthcare, I believe the people will step forward.

I have a friend who recently received a kidney transplant and has since relied on a regular dose of anti-rejection medications and regular doctor visits. He also recently was laid off from his job and is now paying for C.O.B.R.A. coverage to maintain the health insurance benefits he had when he was employed.

My friend can not go out and buy individual or family health insurance coverage outside of an employer group because his condition places him in a precarious position called “uninsurable.” Because I am an insulin-dependent diabetic, I am also in a similar position. To my knowledge, no health insurance company will provide coverage for me outside of an employer group either, regardless of how well I control my diabetes and lifestyle.

That’s frustrating, but I know any program provided by the bureaucracy of the federal government will have the following attributes:

Plan will provide a minimum baseline of coverage with few options
Plan will result in my treatment being a paperwork nightmare
Plan will restrict what medications and/or treatments are available to me regardless of doctor recommendations
Plan may restrict what doctors I may consult
Play may require ridiculous amounts of my time to see a medical professional and/or fulfill my obligations in seeing that bills are paid
Plan will suffer from corruption, mismanagement and fraud

I know these things because this is par for the course for any kind of service provided by the federal government.

Now, imagine I am in a situation like my friend could be in if he does not soon find employment with a company that offers health insurance benefits. Imagine, also, that our government offers no assistance to people who find themselves in this position. Who would I turn to?

I would probably first turn to my church. My church has proven itself invaluable to many people in need for food, financial assistance, and other needs. Historically, this is one of the things churches have done in the past. I’m not familiar with people going to their church leaders to help with healthcare needs, but that could be because the government, in one form or another, has become the de facto first place people turn.

I am confident that assistance provided by my church through a church leader familiar with my specific issues and background would provide more than a minimum baseline of coverage and would provide more options that would benefit me. It certainly would not be a “Cadillac plan,” but I’m confident that if my doctor recommended a procedure or a medication, I would not be told, “We’re sorry, that is not covered.”

I am also confident there would be a common sense amount of paperwork and I would definitely not be restricted in what doctor, hospital, etc. I see. And, most of all, I have an order of magnitude more confidence in my church’s ability to run an assistance program that isn’t plagued with corruption, mismanagement, or fraud.

If churches were not sufficient to fill the void, I believe other non-profit and charity organizations would appear to fulfill the need.

One such organization — Volunteers in Medicine — was mentioned in a recent General Conference talk by Thomas S. Monson, the president of the church I belong to. In this talk, President Monson describes the organization as follows:

[Volunteers in Medicine] gives retired medical personnel a chance to volunteer at free clinics serving the working uninsured. Dr. McConnell said his leisure time since he retired has “evaporated into 60-hour weeks of unpaid work, but [his] energy level has increased and there is a satisfaction in [his] life that wasn’t there before.” He made this statement: “In one of those paradoxes of life, I have benefited more from Volunteers in Medicine than my patients have.” There are now over 70 such clinics across the United States.

Prior to the “Progressive Invasion” of the early 20th century, the people of the United States of America never thought of looking to the federal government to aid them in their individual or community concerns. Churches and other organizations ran all kinds of programs for people that would later be handled by government programs. There was a time when churches ran hospitals, schools, and more.

Some people have traced the first progressive shift in federal policy to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 when then commerce secretary Herbert Hoover convinced others in the Coolidge administration that the federal government needed to step in and provide on-the-ground assistance to those displaced and otherwise affected by the flood. Even then, Hoover wasn’t spending federal money as much as he was directing the relief effort at a federal level — telling people how things should be done.

This action got Hoover elected as the 31st president of the United States and under his administration, the country experienced the great stock market crash of late October 1929 that began an economic recession that grew to become the Great Depression and endured through Hoover’s presidency and two terms of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency.

Hoover and Roosevelt both implemented federal programs to spend taxpayer money to provide assistance to those afflicted by the lackluster economy. The merits, effectiveness, and end result of these programs is still debated today, but some believe — and I do — that these programs only lengthened and amplified the recession that began with the crash of 1929 and made it “Great” while other countries’ economies participating in the global marketplace at that time recovered within a couple of years.

Healthcare dictated, provided by, or otherwise governed by the government is perversion of the law as dictated by Frederick Bastiat, an early 19th century French political economist whose essay “The Law” explains.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

In the above excerpt, Bastiat defines the fundamental purpose of government. It is to defend and uphold our rights as individuals. It is to act on our behalf where we can not. It is not to interfere in our rights, something our current system of government increasingly does!

Bastiat continues:

Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.

Bastiat later writes about the difficulty of reconciling this definition of the proper role of government with one that does things to help its citizens.

Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.

But the government’s participation in this socialism, Bastiat explains, is “legal plunder” and infringes on the citizens’ ability to be FREE!

This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.

Patrick Krey, an attorney in New York, wrote a piece titled “Bastiat, Barack and Bail-Outs” for the John Birch Society site this last April talking about this very concept as it relates to our current administration.

How about some relevant quotes from founding fathers? Here are a couple from Thomas Jefferson:

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

John Adams:

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

And don’t get me started with Benjamin Franklin!

Book Review: Masterminds of Programming

2009-11-27T21:37:10+00:00

Masterminds of Programming by Federico Bioancuzzi and Shane Warden and published by O’Reilly and Associates is a large (480 pages), dense book packed full of exposition about language design, software engineering practices, software development lifecycle methodologies, Computer Science curricula, and unique insights into computer and computation history.

The format of the book is straightforward. Each chapter is dedicated to a programming language and contains a series of questions by the authors and responses from designers and creators of the language being highlighted.

I expected the chapters on languages I was familiar with to be the most interesting and those I was not familiar with to be the least interesting but my experience was the opposite. Chapters highlighting languages that I have had no exposure to such as Forth, APL, ML, and Lua were full of intriguing information, especially languages that were designed in the 1960s or 1950s. It’s fascinating learning about how these languages came to be given the relatively restrictive hardware they were developed with.

Other languages highlighted in the book include:

Python
Perl
Java
C++
C#
Objective-C
UML
AWK
Postscript
Eifel
Haskel
BASIC

The book is just overflowing with powerful quotes that carry substantial meaning to developers, language designers, and managers. Here are a few that stood out to me.

“Whenever I hear people boasting of millions of lines of code, I know they have grieviously midunderstood their problem. There are no contemporary problems requiring millions of lines of code. Instead, there are careless programmers, bad managers, or impossible requirements for compatibility.” —Chuck Moore in the Forth chapter

“As processors continue to get faster and memory capacities rise, it’s easier to do quick experiments and even write production code in interpreted languages (like AWK) that would not have been feasible a few decades ago. All of this is a great win.

“At the same time, the ready availability of resources often leads to very bloated designs and implementations, systems that could be faster and easier to use if a bit more restraint had gone into their design. Modern operating systems certainly have this problem; it seems to take longer and longer for my machines to boot, even though, thanks to Moore’s Law, they are noticeably faster than the previous ones. All that software is slowing me down.” —Brian Kernighan in the AWK chapter.

“Software engineering is in many ways a very pathetic field, because so much of it is anecdotal and based on people’s judgements or even people’s aesthetic judgements.” — Peter Weinberger in the AWK chapter

“The software business is one of the few places we teach people to write before we teach them to read. That’s really a mistake.” — Tom Love in the Objective-C chapter

“What do you think the chances are that Microsoft applications get slower and slower because they haven’t managed memory properly? Have you ever met a three-year-old Microsoft operating system that you wanted to use? I actually operate with a laptop that has a Microsoft-free zone. It’s amazing how much more productive I am than other people sitting in the same room with Microsoft computers. My computer is on, and I’ve done my work, and I’ve closed it down before they’ve gotten to their first Excel spreadsheet.” — Tom Love in the Objective-C chapter.

“If you study gold or lead from day to day, you can measure the properties and employ scientific methods to study them. With software, there is none of that.” — Brad Cox in the Objective-C chapter.

“C# basically took everything, although they oddly decided to take away the security and reliability stuff by adding all these sorts of unsafe pointers, which strikes me at grotesquely stupid, but people have used most of the features of Java somewhere.” — James Gosling in the Java chapter responding to the question related to C# being inspired by Java.

“I think architecture is very important, but I am cautious about labeling individuals as architects, for many reasons. Many times I have seen companies with a team of architects that they send to other organizations to work on projects. That may be fine if they work inside a particular project, but companies such as big banks usually have a group of enterprise architects that sit and draw representations of the architecture. Then they throw this over the wall to the developers. The developers just ask themselves: ‘What is this? It’s useless.’ In many companies, enterprise architects sit in an ivory tower without doing anything useful.” — Ivar Jacobson in the UML chapter

“Developing software is not rocket science. Look at the 5-10 million people who call themselves software developers. Very few of them really do anything creative of fundamentally new. Unfortunately, the outside world thinks that programmers are creative and brilliant people, and that’s far from reality.” — Ivar Jacobson in the UML chapter.

“I rarely have met a programmer who understands the principles of computational complexity and puts them into practice. Instead they fuss with all kinds of pointless suboptimizations that are ‘pennywise and pound foolish… I think the most important skill in computing (as in physics and other creative fields) is the ability for abstraction.” —James Rumbaugh in the UML chapter.

“I have found over my career, whether it be researchers or engineers, that in addition to the sort of intellectual skills that they manifest, if they are people who finish what they set out to do, they tend to be much more productive and have a much larger impact.” — Charles Geschke in the Postscript chapter.

These quotes are just scratching the surface.

Many of the interviews discuss history of computer science and computation theory. For example, Charles Geschke and John Warnock gave answers in the Postscript chapter detailing how Xerox PARC came into existence out of ARPA’s emphasis on digital communications which was the result of thinking within the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations.

Because of the simple, straightforward format of this book, there is definitely room for improvement. For example, readers unfamiliar with certain languages would find it immensely useful to see examples of the language in use. One thought is that each chapter could start with a code excerpt showing how a programmer might use the highlighted language to solve a generic problem. Readers could then see, in code, how each language differs in their approach to the same problem.

Each chapter is preceded by one paragraph description of the language which may contain brief history of the language’s history. This could definitely be expanded upon. This book is big already and I don’t think O’Reilly’s goal is to make it a computer language text book, but it would be useful if each chapter started with 2-4 pages of introductory abstract about the language.

The authors have placed biographical information about each of the contributing interviewees in a Contributors appendix near the end of the book, but it would be more helpful to the reader if this information appeared at the beginning of each chapter instead.

Masterminds of Programming is available at a suggested price of $39.99. I rate it at four and a half stars.

The search for a good Linux e-mail client for a typical user

2009-11-27T21:23:34+00:00

I’m almost a text-based e-mail purist. I used to use Mutt as my primary e-mail client application, but decided to go with a graphical client such as Mozilla Thunderbird or KMail so that I could at least effectively read HTML-formatted messages.

I’ve been happy with KMail. I’ve had it configured to prefer text-based e-mail and aside from the fact I don’t use my preferred text editor (vim) inside it, it’s been a good e-mail client. Now, my dad is a more typical e-mail user. While he probably doesn’t care that much about composing original HTML messages, he does receive a lot of them that he wants to forward onto other people that he feels may be interested. He’s on lots of political and family mailing lists that swap HTML messages complete with embedded images, etc.

He has been using Thunderbird at his home and KMail (an old version running on a Fedora Core 6 desktop) at his office. He mentioned to me that KMail runs noticeably faster on his work system than Thunderbird does on his home system. I suggested that we could standardize him on KMail and upgrade his office desktop to a more recent version of Fedora Linux.

Things got more interesting when Thunderbird recently got updated on his home system in a package update to version 3.0b4. The Smart Folders “feature” threw both of us for a loop. It combines multiple Inbox, Sent, and other IMAP folders into single virtual folders containing an aggregate of messages from each corresponding folder. I really have no idea who would want this feature. My parents each have their own e-mail accounts and I had Thunderbird configured so they could check mail for both accounts. The new version of Thunderbird combines both inboxes into one virtual “Smart” folder and subsequently confused the heck out of my father.

I figured out how to disable the “smart folder” behavior (View->Folders->All), but Thunderbird was still hiding other IMAP folders like Sent and Trash that my parents often need to access messages in.

So, KMail. KMail works great for almost all things, but my father noticed right away when he tried to forward an HTML message with embedded images that KMail wasn’t letting do what he was used to doing: Editing the forwarded message to remove the annoying gazillions of e-mail addresses the original message(s) were addressed to.

KMail has two methods of forwarding a message: First, you can forward a message as an attachment. This preserves everything about the original message, but KMail doesn’t let you edit anything within the attached message. Alternatively, you may forward a message “inline”. This lets you edit the message, but it only gives you the text portion of the message to edit and completely omits the HTML attachment altogether.

I did some research online to see if there was a way to get the desired functionality out of KMail, but it doesn’t look like it’s possible. If it does ever happen, it’s a couple versions out at least. It may never happen because it seems there are voices within the KMail community that feel KMail should never take on these types of features because it risks KMail becoming “another Outlook/Thundebird clone.”

Has anyone found other solutions to this problem for a Linux user?

Abraham Lincoln quote

2009-11-27T19:11:44+00:00

“We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessing were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that makes us.”

— Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation for A National Fast Day, March 30, 1863

Hear, hear.

Fix for mobile broadband (aircard) connection problem in Fedora 12

2009-11-27T19:04:06+00:00

I recently encountered a problem when I plugged in my Sprint USB aircard (A Sierra Wireless USB 598) into my laptop running Fedora 12. When I clicked on the NetworkManager applet running in my system tray and selected the mobile broadband (CDMA) device to connect to, it appeared to connect and, then shortly after, disconnect.

I watched the messages sent to the /var/log/messages file to see what was going on and sure enough, NetworkManager was successfully making a PPP connection to Sprint’s service and then PPP was terminated and the connection was closed.

I did some quick searching online but didn’t find anything definite about this. There were lots of links to the Fedora 12 release notes which claimed Fedora 12 had better support for mobile broadband cards than previous releases. That made me wonder if their improvements were actually breaking things for me.

I decided to explore the options dialogs. I right-clicked on the NetworkManager applet and chose Edit connections..., selected the Mobile Broadband tab, selected my adapter and clicked Edit.

Under the PPP Settings tab there is a button labeled Configure methods in the Authentication section. This lets you choose which authentication methods PPP should try. A list of checkboxes next to possible methods appears with EAP, PAP, CHAP, MSCHAP, and MSCHAP v2 as possible selections.

I knew Sprint doesn’t use anything fancy. In fact, you don’t even need to provide a user or password. It authenticates using the device ID or virtual phone number of your device. So, I wondered if disabling some things might work. I figured if it was using anything it was probably CHAP or PAP. I disabled everything else.

Lo and behold, the next time I tried to connect, it connected and stayed connected!

I hope this is useful to someone else.

Recompiling ffmpeg for Fedora 12 to add faac support

2009-11-20T20:24:31+00:00

The ffmpeg package that is available for Fedora 12 via the rpmfusion.org respository does not include faac support. This can be a problem when you want to create H.264 video content that incorporates the AAC (Advanced Audio Codec).

The most straightforward way I’ve found to rectify this situation is to build a new package from the source RPM.

First, download the source RPM using yumdownloader.

yumdownloader --source ffmpeg

This will download the .src.rpm file to the current directory. Install it using the rpm command. (This assumes you have a person RPM build environment set up. This blog post provides some good information on that.)

rpm -ivh ffmpeg-0.5-5.20091026svn.fc12.src.rpm

You probably want to indicate some sort of difference in the version numbering since this version is a modification of the upstream. Edit ~/rpm/SPECS/ffmpeg.spec and modify the Release: line by adding something to the end of it.

Release: 5.%{svn}svn%{?dist}_fozz

Now, you can try building the package with rpmbuild. Unless you’ve already installed all the development libraries and other dependencies ffmpeg relies on, you’ll get some dependency messages. Use yum to install those dependencies and then try building again.

rpmbuild -ba ~/rpm/SPEC/ffmpeg.spec --with faac

This will create RPM packages for you under ~/rpm/RPMS/. Use rpm to install the ffmpeg and ffmpeg-libs packages.

rpm -Uvh ~/rpm/RPMS/x86_64 ffmpeg-{libs-,}0.5-5.20091026svn.fc12_fozz.x86_64.rpm

Patch to FFmpeg::Command to support multiple input files

2009-11-13T16:55:38+00:00

The FFmpeg::Command Perl module is a convenient way to drive the ffmpeg command-line utility for converting multimedia files.

For work, I have developed some scripts that make heavy use of FFmpeg::Command. Yesterday, one of the other developers told me they need a conversion script to be able to merge separate video and audio streams into one file that contains both audio and video. The ffmpeg command-line utility can do this by accepting more than one input file. For example:

$ ffmpeg -i video.avi -i audio.wav -acodec copy -vcodec copy merged.avi

The FFmpeg::Command Perl module, however, assumed there can only be one input file. I made the necessary changes to the module code so that it would accept multiple input files, created a patch file, and sent it to the Module owner Gosuke Miyashita. This morning, I received e-mail from Gosuke thanking me for the patch and informing me that he has uploaded a new version (v0.12) of FFmpeg::Command to CPAN.

I love Perl and open source software!

Home-buying travails and endurance

2009-11-13T16:17:52+00:00

Anyone who’s been through some sort of big deal in their life is familiar with the annoyance that comes from dozens of family, friends, and other people asking for the latest on whatever it is you’re going through. I’m sure anyone who’s been divorced, had a loved one in the hospital, going through divorce, had a family member or close friend be involved in a big court battle, etc. knows what I’m talking about.

Our family has been going through a frustrating situation, but I haven’t really talked about it much, but those who do know about it have been calling me, e-mailing me, etc. to get frequent updates on the status, so I’m blogging about it so I can just say, “Go look at the blog.”

For the last year or so, Christine and I have been thinking about buying a larger house. We bought our most recent house in 2003 when the housing market was experiencing a low period. The house was a HUD repossession and had been trashed — or never taken care of — by the previous owner. We recarpeted, repainted, and repaired damage throughout. Over the years we finished a couple of bedrooms and an office in the basement and put in a yard with a watering system.

That house has served us well, but Christine and I had been looking at some of the houses in the newer developments near our house and wondering if we should upgrade. In fact, we made an offer on a home last year which was accepted. After the offer was accepted, we got cold feet and withdrew the offer because we realized we just were not prepared to commit to short sale moving into a newer, larger house yet. We hadn’t done anything to sell our house so we’d have to pay two house payments until our prior home was sold and who knew how long that would take.

After backing out of that, we finished our family room in the basement and made other minor improvements to the house. We still weren’t complete sure we wanted to sell the house because the family room was a nice addition and gave us a lot more breathing room.

Come Summer, we started seeing a larger home as a wise investment decision. Many of the larger homes near us were being listed at steep discounts by owners that simply could not afford them anymore. We began looking around at what was available and walked through many homes. Christine saw a nice house that caught her eye listed, but when we talked to our agent about it, it had been pulled off the market. Our agent said it hadn’t been sold so it might be relisted. Christine kept an eye out.

Finally, a couple of weeks later, Christine found the house again. It had been relisted a couple of days before. We talked to our agent, got a showing, and decided to make an offer on the house. Our offer was accepted. That was in August.

During the time we were looking at homes and making the offer on the nice house, we put our house up for sale. We had an offer in about three weeks and a closing scheduled for late September.

The closing for the house we were buying was scheduled for mid-October. Christine and I had a vacation scheduled at that time and had it moved to the 22nd of October. As the date approached, the messages we were getting from the selling agent was that they weren’t ready to close.

A little background: As we dealt with the selling agent, the house really started sounding like a short sale because there was talk about them having to get banks to sign off on the sale. But, they never represented the sale as being a short sale. If it was, there would have been additional paperwork, specifically a short sale addendum, involved in the contract.

Well, as 22 October approached, the selling agent indicated they would not be able to close. He blamed it on the bank (or banks). We had arranged to rent our older home from the new owners for the month of October so that we would have a place to live until we closed on the new house. If we didn’t close on the newer home, we’d have to make new living arrangements because we had to be out of our previous home by the end of October.

Nothing happened on 22 October. We gave them a few more days to surprise us with a closing and then proceeded to move everything into storage units. One of Christine’s coworkers said his in-laws would let us live in their basement while we waited for things to come together. We were hoping it wouldn’t come to that, but in the end it did.

We’ve been living in a basement, out of suitcases, since 31 October. We extended the closing until 13 November, but as of today, the selling agent has said they will not be able to close then.

The good news, if there is any, is that the selling agent said today they have written approval on at least one of the banks involved in the selling (apparently there’s stuff between a first and second mortgage that has to be resolved).

So, we’re extending one more time, to 25 November. The selling agent expressed confidence to our agent we’ll be able to close before Thanksgiving.

Our theory is this: The sellers we’re dealing with is a third party to a short sale. They’re working directly with the bank to buy the house in a short sale at a price lower than what we’re offering. As a result, when the sale is completed, they’ll make a few thousand (or a few tens of thousands) in profit. So, technically, we’re not involved in a short sale, but the people we’re buying the house from are.

Should this be legal? Maybe, but I think they should be required to provide full disclosure. It’s a little unethical to paint the sale as not being a short sale when in fact it is. Short sales are historically difficult because the banks involved generally take a long time to move.

We’re very grateful to the Hancocks (the older couple whose basement we’re living in) for their benevolence and hospitality. We’d be in a much worse mess if we didn’t have their basement to call a temporary home.

We’ve been looking at other houses on the market, but nothing really compares to the house we’re set to buy.

We’ve considering renting an apartment in the interim so that we’re not taking too much advantage of the generosity of our hosts upstairs. If this looks like it will go beyond November, we may do exactly that.

In the meantime, we’re crossing our fingers (once again) for a closing sometime before 25 November.

Book review: Superfreakonomics

2009-11-09T19:37:10+00:00

Superfreakonomics is the new sequel to the best-selling book Freakonomics by Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

This book roughly follows the same formula its predescessor established, although the original book seems rough and a bit disorganized compared to Superfreakonomics, which flows smooth and is even easier to read.

The pattern, of course, is to start each chapter with a shocking or strange statement that, at first glance, appears to make no sense. The rest of the chapter leads up to a point where that statement makes perfect sense once you’ve been exposed to the underlying statistical data the authors enthusiastically present. Each chapter contains an assortment of short stories about related events or historical analysis for perspective on each of the studies discussed.

The most memorable parts of the original Freakonomics, for me, were the chapters on Chicago drug dealers and the chapter that suggested that the falling urban crime rates in urban areas like New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago during the 1990s was due less to bureaucrat policies and more to do with the fact that the landmark Roe v. Wade case had occurred roughly 20 years earlier, thereby allowing legalized abortion. This allegedly decreased the number of children born into poor, single-parent homes that would have basically been bred into a life of crime. The conclusion was that crime rates fell in these urban areas because the would-be criminals were never born.

If you read the first book, you’ll remember the stories and conclusions about inner city gangs and drug dealers. The researchers had to employ some unorthodox methods of data collection because of the closed nature of gang society. THat is, members of inner citty gangs are not going to welcome some college professor into their inner circle with open arms. Even if they did speak to a stereotypical economics researcher, it’s unlikely they would provide entirely truthful or reliable data to the researchers. As a result, these studies required much more effort on the part of the researchers to blend in and become a trusted individual. It was, essentially, an undercover operation that revealed some surprising facts about how gangs and drug dealing worked (and didn’t work).

So, what about this new book? This time they’ve brought us economic analyses of current and past practices of prostitution. How is “the worlds’ oldest profession” enduring? Well, it depends. It apparently depends on who the prostitute’s target customer base is. Prostitutes who “work the street” pretty much all make the same hourly rates and have to deal with some pretty serious side effects of their work including violence, disease, and the (relatively low) possibility of being caught and arrested by the police.

Prostitutes that work as high-class escorts, are well educated, and can carry on conversations with wealthy customers can earn hundreds of dollars per hour. In fact, it seems the more they can charge, the longer their engagements are. Their patrons are less interested in engaging in a single act and more interested in living out a fantasy of living with an “ideal” mate.

What else is in this new book? An interesting study on infant and child carseats. My state just made it a law that children under the age of eight must use car seats or booster seats in a car. The studies done by the authors of this book suggest car seats and booster seats may offer no real added protection to children over the age of two compared to plain old seat belts.

In this new book, the authors take on global warming. I found this interesting because I’m what you might call a “skeptic” or a “denier.” I don’t believe man has much at all to do with what some call “global warming” (or, more recently, “climate change,” because there hasn’t been any warming for a while.)

I was a bit disappointed that Dubner and Leavitt didn’t take on the plethora of data that suggest historic warming has actually been caused more by solar cycles rather than emissions of greenhouse gases. While acknowledging there is no real concensus (sorry Al Gore), they went with the assumption that global warming/climate change is a real problem we must solve and concentrated their investigation on the proposed strategies to solve it.

Most governments want to “solve” our climate woes by capping emissions, taxing production, and thereby stiffling economic growth across the board. This will, of course, impact humanity globally, probably much more than any changes in the climate will. The costs for these measures are estimated in the trillions of dollars, most of which will come from developed nations. Dubner and Leavitt suggest that in many, if not most, cases, the best solutions to problems are often the simple and least expensive solutions.

They outline some solutions proposed by a small group in the northwestern US called Intellectual Ventures. One of their global warming proposals, for example, involves putting supposedly harmfull emissions into a higher layer of the atmosphere. Doing this would be uber-cheap and would effectively stop warming (assuming there is warming). They know it will work because volcanoes do it when they erupt and it cools the planet for a short period of time by blocking the amount of solar radiation that reaches the surface.

I applaud the authors for taking on so many issues and showing that the way we typically approach problems is often the wrong way.

Freakonomics is available now in hardcover for a suggested price of $29.99. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Hulu Desktop on Fedora 11 x86_64

2009-10-14T15:39:29+00:00

I installed Hulu Desktop for Linux recently, but could not get it to work. When I ran huludesktop, a dialog box would display saying that the Flash plugin could not be found and that I should edit ~/.huludesktop.

The ~/.huludesktop file has a INI-style syntax and has a section for Flash settings:

[flash]
flash_location = (null)

It’s not obvious whether the flash_location variable needs to be set to a directory or a full path. I tried both /usr/lib/flash-plugin/ and /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplugin.so. Neither of these worked. I didn’t find much help via Google, but kept experimenting until I found a solution that worked:

flash_location = /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so

When the 64-bit Flash plugin is officially released, this will probably become unnecessary. In the meantime, Hulu Desktop works!

Book Review: "Free To Choose" by Milton and Rose Friedman

2009-09-30T06:19:02+00:00

Milton Friedman was a highly visible economist, statistician, and policy commentator during the Twentieth Century. Before he died in 2006, he wrote and co-wrote several books relating economic theory, policy studies, and statistics. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1976.

I just finished reading “Free To Choose: A Personal Statement,” written by Thomas Friedman and his wife, Rose Friedman. The book is dense and full of well thought-out arguments for free markets, smaller government, and how policies that adhere to these principles will result in greater liberty and freedom for the people that live under them.

This book is almost thirty years old and it shows. Many of the numbers the Friedmans use in the book are laughable today, especially those they use as salaries for the common man or the cost of an average home.

It’s fascinating, however, they write at the end of the Carter administration that “the tide is turning.”

The failure of Western governments to achieve their proclaimed objectives has produced a widespread reaction against big government. In Britain the reaction swept Margaret Thatcher to power in 1979 on a platform pledging her Conservative government to reverse the socialist policies that had been followed by both Labour and earlier Conservative governments ever since the end of World War II.

“Free To Choose” is organized in chapters that each spend a liberal amount of print on a specific category of policy thinking. The first chapter, “The Power Of The Market” spends nearly 30 pages covering the ideals of a free market, the dangers of price controls, and the role of government with respect to markets. The second chapter is devoted to governments’ role in free trade and overall liberty and economic growth. Hint: Friedman isn’t a fan of tariffs or any other kind of government meddling with trade between nations. He offers a compelling historical argument for free trade by examining the governance and trade policies of Japan during the latter half of the 19th century and India during the latter half of the 20th century.

The third chapter, “The Anatomy of Crisis,” is perhaps the most relevant to readers today. It examines the modern banking system in the United States from the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the depression nobody remembers from 1920-21, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. For those who believe we are currently at risk of suffering from the same mistakes or making greater ones today in our vulnerable financial status, this chapter offers some brilliant insights.

In the conclusion of this chapter, the Friedmans write:

In one respect the (Federal Reserve) System has remained completely consistent throughout. It blames all problems on external influences beyond its control and takes credit for any and all favorable occurrences. It thereby continues to promote the myth that the private economy is unstable, while its behavior continues to document the reality that government is today the major source of economic instability.

The fourth chapter, “Cradle to Grave,” examines the development of the welfare state beginning in Europe in the late 1800s and then in the U.S. in the 1920s. Friedman spotlights health, education, and welfare in this chapter because at the time the book was written, they fell under a single department within the federal government.

The waste is distressing, but it the least of the evils of the paternalistic programs that have grown to such massive size. Their major evil is their effect on the fabric of our society. They weaken the family; reduce the incentive to work, save, and innovate; reduce the accumulation of capital; and limit our freedom. These are the fundamental standards by which they should be judged.

The following chapter challenges the popular notions of what “equality” means. The Friedmans distinguish between the following:

Equality of outcome
Equality of opportunity
Equality before God

Concerning equality of outcome, they write:

Life is not fair. It is tempting to believe that government can rectify what nature has spawned. But it is also important to recognize how much we benefit from the very unfairness we deplore.

This chapter goes on to examine the effects of egalitarian policies as practiced in the US and in other modern societies.

… a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with greater freedom and greater equality. Though a by-product of freedom, greater equality is not an accident. A free society releases the energies and abilities of people to pursue their own objectives. It prevents some people from arbitrarily suppressing others. It does not prevent some people from achieving positions of privilege, but so long as freedom is maintained, it prevents those positions of privilege from being institutionalized; they are subject to continued attack by other able, ambitious people. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today’s disadvantaged to become tomorrow’s privileged and, in the process, enabled almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a fuller and richer life.

Next, the Friedmans attach “What’s Wrong with Our Schools?”

It’s no surprise their position is that centralized planning is a substantial culprit of the problem with schools. Again, freedom is the answer, they say. Vouchers, for example, tied with freedom to choose public schools, are an ideal way to encourage competition between private and public schools and drive education quality up.

I found this passage about public subsidies of higher education shocking considering what we have observed in 2009:

When we first started writing about higher education, we had a good deal of sympathy for the (justification that public subsidies was an investment in future productivity and economic growth of society). We no longer do. In the interim we have tried to induce the people who make this argument to be specific about the alleged social benefits. The answer is almost always simply bad economics. We are told that the nation benefits by having more highly trained people, that investment in providing such skills is essential for economic growth, that more trained people raise the productivity for the rest of us. These statements are correct. But none is a valid reason for subsidizing higher education. Each statement would be equally correct if made about physical capital (i.e., machines, factory buildings, etc.), yet hardly anyone would conclude that tax money should be used to subsidize the capital investment of General Motors or General Electric.

Milton Friedman is undoubtedly spinning in his grave today.

Following education is the question of “Who Protects the Consumer?” This chapter discusses the development of the Interstate Commerce Commission, The Food and Drug Administration, The Consumer Products Safety Commission, The Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Friedmans raise some very valid questions about the government’s role in establishing these authorities and whether they are effective in their stated objectives.

For example, many are familiar with Ralph Nader’s book, “Unsafe at Any Speed,” in which he supposedly documents the safety risk the Chevrolet Corvair was to its occupants. This book ignited a firestorm that eventually crushed the Corvair out of production and resulted in new government regulations pertaining to the manufacture of automobiles. It’s difficult to argue that the outcome was a bad thing, but what about the original premise? Was the Corvair that bad? My dad was a Corvair collector and had two that he tinkered with, restored, and drove around on occasion. I always thought they were odd cars because the engine was in the back. The Friedmans point out that ten years after Nader’s book landed, “one of the agencies that was set up in response to the subsequent public outcry finally got around to testing the Corvair that started the whole thing. They spent a year and a half comparing the performance of the Corvair with the performance of other comparable vehicles and they concluded, ‘The 1960-63 Corvair compared favorably with the other contemporary vehicles used in the tests.’”

Next is “Who Protects the Worker?” Here labor unions land square in the crosshairs. Also addressed are government interventions into work such as regulations against child labor, minimum wage laws, OSHA oversight, workers compensation, and more.

Chapter 9 is about inflation. This isn’t very relevant right now, but likely will deserve a re-read in a year or so.

Here, Friedman puts his statistician muscles to work and establishes through numbers a strong correlation between monetary control and consumer prices. When the the Treasury and the Federal Reserve flood the market with money, prices respond by going up.

The final chapter is a nice capstone on the book and discusses how the U.S. Constitution relates to many of the policies discussed and how it is eroded by some.

Appendix A is an interesting inclusion. It is the party platform from the Socialist party during the 1928 presidential campaign. The Friedmans go through each of the 14 items in the platform and demonstrate that despite the Socialist Party not having a chance in Hell of ever having a candidate elected, since 1928, just about each and every one of these ideas put forth by the Socialist Party has been enacted.

That’s something to think about.

“Free To Choose” is available in paperback at a MSRP of $15.00. It’s not a quick read, but definitely an informative and educational one.

Book Review: Palm Pre - The Missing Manual

2009-09-29T04:33:07+00:00

Palm Pre: The Missing Manual by Ed Baig

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'll start by saying that this book-- Palm Pre The Missing Manual-- is a must-have for any new Palm Pre owner. Sure, the pamphlet that comes with the Palm Pre is adequate for getting you started and on your way, but there are so many figurative nooks and crannies in the operation of the Palm Pre that you won't even know about unless you've happened across them by accident or you've read this book.

I've owned a Palm Pre since the first week it was available. A long-time user of older Palm smartphones such as the Treo line and Centro, I enthusiastically and anxiously followed the the technology news about the forthcoming Pre. The concept of Synergy -- the Pre's software mechanism for collecting data from various online sources such as GMail and Facebook into centralized databases on the phone -- was incredibly appealing and frightening at the same time. I often wondered if Palm really could pull it off or if the Pre was going to be Palm's dying gasp and I would be left to the mediocrity of Windows Mobile or Blackberry or the cult of conformation using Apple's iPhone.

Thankfully, my experience with the Pre has given me hope. Being an early adopter, I've had my shares of bumps along the way, but generally, the Pre is an awesome device. Now that the Palm App Catalog is filling up with new, exciting applications and there's talk of more operating system updates on the horizon, I'm really enjoying myself with the Pre.

Let's get back to the book. Ed Baig's book seems fairly typical for a "Missing Manual" book. It is fairly short, witty, funny, and packed full of valuable information interspersed with plenty of callouts to "tips" and "notes" along the way.

The book is extremely easy to read and shouldn't intimidate those who are nowhere nearly as geeky as me. My daughter was easily digesting the book before I started reading it she's nine years old.

Had I had this book the first week I owned a Pre, it would have saved me some frustration figuring out the best way to get my contacts and calendar data onto the Pre.

Palm Pre, The Missing Manual is available directly from O'Reilly and Associates and probably from any of your favorite online booksellers. The MSRP is $24.99. $24.99 seems a bit much for this book, even if you're probably never going to pay full price. For what you get, I would think $10 less would be more reasonable.

I.O.U.S.A., a must-watch film

2009-09-23T05:10:56+00:00

I finally got around to watching the documentary film I.O.U.S.A., which I rented from NetFlix. Wow. I recommend anybody and everybody in the U.S.A. watch this film. If you’re not up to renting it or buying it, watch the 30-minute byte-size version available on YouTube.

David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), now President of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, takes on the seemingly insurmountable task of explaining our national debt and does so successfully with finesse.

I learned a lot from this film. I mean, because I’ve been pretty well plugged-in, politically, I knew our national debt was a huge problem, that the federal government’s budget deficits were only making things worse and federal programs like Social Security and Medicare only exacerbate the problem. What I didn’t know was that our trade deficit is so huge, the largest in the world, in fact.

Before watching I.O.U.S.A., President George W. Bush was not my favorite president. While he did a good job responding to the terror attacks in 2001 and going after terrorists where they operate in the Middle East, he and his administration seemed to ignore problems here at home, like the growing problem of illegal immigration and adding more liabilities to Medicare with the Part D prescription drug coverage. Overall, I think he was a mediocre president.

After watching I.O.U.S.A., I’m beginning to wonder if George W. Bush didn’t commit some kind of treason against this country by letting all things economic get so out of hand under his watch!

After watching I.O.U.S.A., I’ve developed an increased respect for the Clinton administration for how they handled economic matters by getting the federal budget under control for a couple of years. Granted, things were easier then with no War On Terror to fund and what-not.

So, what about our present president? Well, he sucks too! Maybe worse than Bush!

Walker is dead on by identifying the four big economic problems facing America:

Federal budget deficit
Savings deficit
Trade deficit

And finally,

Leadership deficit

For example, the Democrats’ healthcare reform proposal does not help our debt situation. The government’s own policy analysts show that it too will only add an increasingly large liability to an already fast-growing balance we owe. Yes, we need reform, but this ain’t what the proverbial doctor ordered.

One big chunk of our trade deficit is our dependence on foreign oil. Our president’s solution is to pull new, alternative energy solutions out of his butt to replace all energy infrastructure. You know, that might be a fine solution if we were already in a good economic situation, where we had economic surpluses to rely on as we went through the painful process of converting to a scientifically, environmentally superior form of energy generation, but in the state we’re in right now, it simply does not make sense.

What does make sense is for the U.S. to start getting more energy production from its own resources. We have lots of it. Oil. Coal. Natural gas. We’ve got gazillions of tons of it, literally, but we’re staying away from it, on principle, I guess.

Leadership deficit! We need leaders that will do what’s right regardless of what’s popular or what their party, platform, or agenda might be. President Obama wants to usher the U.S. into a new era of green-ness, environmentalism, ecological awareness, etc. etc. He needs to realize we’re never going to be able to do that unless we address our vast economic imbalance represented by our debt and unfunded liabilities.

What our government aims to do now is a classic example of cart before horse.

Here’s another tough pill I had to swallow watching I.O.U.S.A.: We probably will need to raise taxes to get out of this mess. But our legislators need to reduce the overall size of government at the same time. We’ll need to raise taxes and reduce spending.

That trade deficit thing just keeps bothering me. I want to know more about why the United States doesn’t produce much anymore. Common sense tells me it’s because other nations can produce cheaper than we can. Why? Is it high labor costs? Is it restrictive regulation?

Why your senator is out of touch

2009-09-14T04:40:45+00:00

At the state capitol rally on Saturday 9/12, a young woman (Nicole Condie, I think her name was) was an unscheduled speaker. She said she had interned for Orrin Hatch and, as an intern, was responsible for handling incoming mail. She said she would prepare responses to letters from concerned constituents and sign them with an autopen. She said she assumed the senator’s staff would at least collect statistics on what issues his constituents were writing in about and how they felt. However, she said, no statistics were being collected at all. She said there were always protests happening near the senate offices, but the senators never heard or saw them and had private entrances to the building that allowed them to come and go without any exposure to these protests.

Is it really any wonder why our senators seem to be off in their own little world?

My, oh my, how times have changed.

2009-09-10T05:57:43+00:00

I’ve been reading Free To Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman. This book was written in 1979-1980 and it talks about many of the important political and economic issues of that time. Friedman explains things so well and his points are still very relevant. However, as I was reading the chapter “What’s Wrong with Our Schools?” something jumped out at me. See if you can pick it out. I’ll add emphasis it to give you a hint.

When we first started writing about higher education, we had a good deal of sympathy for the [justification that public tax subsidies for state schools was an investment in the future productivity of members of society]. We no longer do. In the interim, we have tried to induce the people who make this argument to be specific about the alleged social benefits. The answer is almost always simply bad economics. We are told that the nation benefits by having more highly skilled and trained people, that investment in providing such skills is essential for economic growth, that more trained people raise the productivity of the rest of us. These statements are correct. But none is a valid reason for subsidizing higher education. Each statement would be equally correct if made about physical capital (i.e. machines, factory buildings, etc.) yet hardly anyone would conclude that tax money should be used to subsidize the capital investment of General Motors or General Electric. If higher education improves the economic productivity of individuals, they can capture that improvement through higher earnings, so they have a private incentive to get the training. Adam Smith’s invisible hand makes their private interest serve the social interest. It is against the social interest to change their private interest by subsidizing schooling. The extra students — the ones who will only go to college if it is subsidized — are precisely the ones who judge that the benefits they receive are less than the costs. Otherwise they would be willing to pay the costs themselves.

Wow. Hardly anyone, indeed. Yet, it has happened in the last year and some would argue it was unavoidable because no one in any administrative position (i.e. George W. Bush, John McCain, or Barack Obama) has/had the courage and wisdom to hold back and not “save” failing companies.

Book Review: Your Body

2009-09-02T20:29:30+00:00

Your Body: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

My rating: 4 of 5 stars I was hanging out on Facebook one day and O'Reilly Media sent out a status message saying they needed a few people to review a new book Your Body The Missing Manual (go here for O'Reilly's catalog page for the book). I responded and was contacted by an O'Reilly representative who got my shipping information.

Within a couple of days, I received a box. Inside was a stinky (stinky because of the ink and paper they used) book with a green cover.

I didn't really know what to expect. I had planned to compare this to some of the larger encyclopedia-like books that my kids had that were packed with fancy color pictures and diagrams for various aspects of the body. This book isn't like those at all. It is more exposition and less illustration, although there are some very good illustrations in the book. They're just relatively simple compared to other books.

The writing style is very interesting. It is not clinical at all and is littered with sarcastic and sardonic quips. The first chapter -- about your skin -- starts off, in the very first paragraph, talking about robbing a bank wearing a ski mask. When the author wrote about techniques for removing fingerprints to avoid leaving evidence of your involvement at a crime scene, I was beginning to wonder if there was an underlying, hidden agenda in the book.

The text is packed with fascinating callouts that fit in contextually throughout the book. This lets the author pack each chapter with numerous bits of tangential information.

All in all, however, the book is somewhat light on the coverage. This isn't a tell-all, but it is a tell-a-lot. And what it does tell, it tells well. There is a lot of information about latest research and findings. For example, I learned that stretching (in the chapter on muscles) isn't the recommended activity before an aerobic/cardiovascular workout, but that 5-10 minutes of light warm up activity is better.

I learned a lot from this book I didn't know before so I definitely feel more knowledgeable as a result of reading it.

While the other body atlas-type books I've seen seem to be targeted at pretty much all ages, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone under the age of 16. The reason I would not recommend this book to younger readers is because Chapter 10, the chapter on sex and reproduction, ventured a bit too far out of my comfort zone into sociological and cultural aspects of sexuality than I would ever feel comfortable letting younger kids read. I'm pretty sure my 10-year old does not needs to learn about "Arousal and the Art of Foreplay," "Reaching The Big O," or how to "Engage in mutual exploration."

So, all in all, a good book. It's light, not-very-clinical reading that's bound to teach you several things you didn't already know. You can buy it direct from O'Reilly or from everyone's favorite online bookseller: Amazon.com for $25 or less.

View all my reviews >>

YoManSports.com: What I'm doing these days

2009-09-02T20:22:37+00:00

I think I have finally, really arrived.

I’ve been doing contract work for a company in Provo that is launching a new website called YoManSports.com, which is in beta right now. At first glance, the site may appear to be a “YouTube for sports,” but it so much more than that. The concept is centered around video sharing, but includes familiar social networking elements you’d find on sites like Facebook or MySpace. In addition, there are several applications within the site that are sports-related — things like competition bracketing, scorecards, and groups. Perhaps the coolest feature that rounds out the list is the broadcast feature. This lets a person go to a sporting event with a video camera, even something as simple as a USB webcam, and set up a live web broadcast that anyone with a web browser can watch. The person managing the broadcast can mix prerecorded video, pictures, and even live video from other users into the broadcast. There’s even a news ticker for embedding clickable URL links into the broadcast. It’s pretty cool stuff.

Now, I said at the beginning of this post that I have arrived because we’ve been asked by management to blog regularly about the site and what we’re doing with it as part of our marketing plan. So, yeah, it’s cool to be able to do this and not be wasting my time at work.

My job has been designing and building the server architecture that sits behind the scenes and makes it all work. I was brought in late 2008 when the site was pretty much in a prototype stage. All the code was running on a single server and it really wasn’t designed to scale beyond that one server. So, one of the first things I did was figured out what we’d need to do split things like streaming video, web services, and database services onto their own dedicated servers.

After that, I went through and figured out how we were going to accomodate loads higher than we could with individual servers. In a nutshell: load balancing. That has now been implemented.

Another thing I’ve had a big hand in is offloaded encoding and conversion. The developers had created routines to do all the video encoding in PHP on the frontend of the website. Of course, doing video encoding on the same server Apache is running on can be detrimental to the experience of other website users. I developed a distributed encoding system that handles all the video conversion and encoding on a separate set of servers. I did it with Perl, of course.

I’m pleased with the technology being used on the site. I’m not a fan of PHP, but it’s doing the job well for frontend development. We’re making use of a lot of open source technology in dealing with videos. For example, all our transcoding is being done with the formidable FFMPEG software along with libraries like x264 and FAAC.

We’re leveraging Flash pretty heavily pretty heavily to make the site work so it’s fortunate that Flash support has nearly ceased being a problem for cross-platform compatibility. YoManSports.com works almost seamlessly across Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

Watch this space for more info to come.

Book Review: Glenn Beck's "Common Sense"

2009-06-27T23:05:52+00:00

Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Evolution of Thomas Paine's Revolution by Glenn Beck

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anyone who knows me or has read some of my previous reviews probably knows that I'm one of Glenn Beck's biggest fans, so it will come as little surprise that I now have 4 copies of this book and plan to distribute it to family and friends.

As with his previous non-fiction work, An Inconvenient Book Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, this book is, for the most part, a repackaging of things Glenn says every day on his television and radio shows. It discusses the corruption in government, the loyalty to special interests among those in congress, the amassing of power by the executive branch, and the cancer that is the Progressive movement.

That being said, this is definitely a book you can give to your friends who aren't necessarily one of Glenn's biggest fans. And, encourage them to pass it on when they're done. Sign your name on the inside cover and include the date your read it and encourage others to do the same. This book is a rallying cry to all those who feel their voice is held in contempt or just plain ignored by the political class in America.

I would like to share one of my favorite parts of this book. It is very near to the end of the book (before the Thomas Paine section starts) and addresses religion in a democracy.

So why is religion so important to the proper functioning of a democracy? Well, once again, our Founding Fathers had the answer. In a letter to the president of Yale University, Benjamin Franklin once wrote:

Here is my creed: I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion.

It wasn't about any one particular creed, dogma, or church, but rather about all religions that inspired men to selflessness, virtue. and godliness. Our Founders understood the thing that we try so hard to forget today: there is far more than unites us than divides us. Virtue, honesty, and character aren't the purview of any particular congregation; they can be found in any church that has God as its foundation. We have forgotten this lesson and instead of using religion as our anchor, we use it to shame or blame. To many in this country, those who attend church regularly aren't pillars of their community, they're freaks or extremists.

But that mind-set can be changed by setting an example of tolerance and unparalleled acceptance toward each other. Let's stop using our religious symbols to score political points. Are we that insecure in our own faith that the religious symbols or public prayers of a different religion cannot be welcomed with open arms? As Thomas Jefferson once said:

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homeage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise...

Religions and their followers must stop turning on each other. We are a land founded through divine Providence, a land where, as James Madison said, the "spirit of liberty and patriotism animates all degrees and denominations of men."

Very well said, Glenn.

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Life with my Palm Pre (Part 1)

2009-06-15T08:28:32+00:00

I’ve had my Palm Pre for about five days now and I’m really starting to like it. That’s not to say the last five days haven’t been frustrating and disappointing, but I’ve managed to find acceptable solutions for most of my problems. The experience has turned out a lot better than the last time I tried switching platforms.

The Pre is definitely a 1.0 release so if you’re a techy user like me, you’ll find lots of things to gripe about, but there’s still a lot of promise in the platform. The operating system itself is at version 1.0.2 so it’s really pretty new.

Issues

I’ll start with some of the issues I’ve run into.

PIM data

If you’re a PalmOS user migrating to the Palm Pre, you’re likely to run into some of the same issues I did. First off, when I asked the Sprint sales dude (who owned a Pre and had owned a Centro prior to that) if he could transfer my data to the Pre, he said, “Sure!” and then proceeded to try to get the data off my Centro. A few minutes later, he told me he could not because he just couldn’t get any of the data to transfer over the IR port.

That’s okay, a little reading on Palm’s site told me what I needed to know. I had to sync the Centro “one last time” using the latest and greatest Palm Desktop for Windows (which I installed specifically for this task) and then download and run Palm’s Data Transfer Assistant program for Windows (which is a free download from the support area of Palm’s website.)

This allegedly transferred my address book, calendar, tasks, and notes/memos to my online Palm Profile where the Pre would automatically find them and install them. Within a few minutes, the address book on the Pre was populated with names and contact information that were on my Centro. Yay. The notes seemed to transfer okay too. But when I went into the Calendar application on the Pre, my day was blank. None of the events I had scheduled for the day were visible.

Retracing my steps, I wondered if maybe I hadn’t selected the calendar data to be transferred. In retrospect, Palm doesn’t let you choose which data you want transferred, but the DTA application has icons for each of the types of data (Calendar, Contacts, etc.) and when you click on those icons, they illuminate as if they’re selected. As a result, a user (me) might think clicking the icons somehow activates that stream of data to be transferred to the Palm Profile. So, I went back into the DTA and “selected” only the Calendar data and transferred it again.

Nothing ever showed up in my view of my day’s events on the Pre. Fiddling, I changed to the Week View. That’s when I saw confirmation that the data I had transferred using the DTA did get transferred… twice. In the Week View, I saw colored bars indicating appointments and events (in duplicate). But when I switched to the Day View, I saw nothing. Bleh.

It would be super neat if the Palm Profile was tied to Google Calendar-like web application so you could have a Palm Desktop type app on the Web, but, no, Palm doesn’t do that. There is a web-based portal that let’s you log into your Palm Profile, but it doesn’t let you do much at all except remotely delete all the data on your phone (very handy if your Pre gets stolen and you want to keep your personal information out of the hands of the thief).

So, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Looking at the Palm support forums, it was clear this wasn’t a unique problem to me. Lots of people were having this problem. The seemed to be that people should use Google’s Calendar app as the online storage location of Calendar data. So, I figured out how to export my PalmOS Calendar data and then import it into my Google Calendar. That worked. Now I had THREE copies of every event showing up as colored rectangles in my Week View, but at least now I had actual events in the Day View.

I tried remotely deleting the Pre’s data from the Palm Profile page, but when it booted back up, it asked me for my Palm Profile username and password and then proceeded to load up the duplicate calendar entries again. Buried in the forums, I found information that described how to erase the data in the Palm Profile (Disable backups on the Pre and then reset it.). Then I proceeded to set up the freshly reset Pre to use only Google as my online repository of Calendar data. That worked well.

In the course of all this, of course, I deleted my address book as my contacts data was stored in my Palm Profile. The Pre grabbed my contacts from Facebook and the handful I had stored already in Google Mail’s address book, but I have hundreds of contacts from my Centro that I needed to figure out how to get into Google, I guess. Google appears to only let you import from an CSV file generated from Microsoft Outlook (bleh). I can generate a CSV file, but I don’t know what one generated from Microsoft Outlook looks like, so I’ll need to do some research on that before I do it. So, for now, I’m doing without a fully-stocked address book.

E-mail

The Pre has a pretty decent e-mail client built-in, but I had problems. Again, if you’re using Google Mail as your only e-mail account, the Pre should work with no problems at all. I set up Google Mail, but I have four other generic IMAP mailboxes I wanted to check with the Pre as well.

My first problem was with encryption.

One of the IMAP sites I wanted to check mail with has CA-signed certificates in place for its encrypted IMAP traffic. This means they have purchased a authenticated certificate from a company like Verisign or Comodo. That seemed to work okay.

The other two sites I wanted to check mail with have self-signed certificates. I trust them because I set up the self-signed certificates myself. Where most modern desktop e-mail applications would raise an alert like, “Hey, we can’t vouch for the authenticity of this encryption certificate. Do you want to trust it or what?” the Pre just says, “SSL error Check your time and date.”

I hope this is something they fix in the next update of the OS because the way it works now is just bone-headed.

I discovered, yesterday, there is a manual workaround. You can grab the public certificate file off the server and copy it to the Pre via USB. Then, go into Device Info and make your way to a menu item labeled “Certificate Manager”. There, you can add a certificate, select the certificate file you added to the Pre via USB, and specify that you want to trust this certificate.

I am still having trouble sending e-mail through the two sites I manage. What’s really frustrating about this is that once you try to send e-mail, and it can’t go through, the Pre just keeps telling you there was an error sending that message. Deleting the offending message from the Outbox doesn’t stop the repeating alerts. The only way I’ve been able to stop it from notifying me about the problem is to remove the e-mail account and add it again. Stupid!

More to come. Sleep calls me.

Best. Glenn Beck. Ever.

2009-05-28T07:59:37+00:00

I just watched Wednesday’s (5/27) Glenn Beck TV show on Fox News that was recorded on my DVR and I have to say it was spectacular! Part of the reason it was so great was because he had Thomas Sowell on and Wayne Allen Root who both had really profound things to say.

Checking YouTube, it looks like Glenn has plenty of friends willing to encode and upload. Here’s a smattering of online clips to choose from:

The One Thing - Great analysis on the auto industry
Thomas Sowell
The One Thing - “Failure is good for the soul”
Wayne Allen Root and Joshua Cooper Ramo Part 1
Wayne Allen Root and Joshua Cooper Ramo Part 2
Joshua Cooper Ramo - Is China in a position now that the US was after WW1?

Wanted: a wireless digital photo frame with a few bells and whistles

2009-05-25T08:34:19+00:00

When digital photo frames first became available, I bought one for my parents. It still sits in their living room and when you turn it on, it displays a slideshow of the same pictures I originally loaded onto the CompactFlash card that is plugged into the frame.

Now that wireless digital photo frames are becoming the “next big thing,” I’m interested in getting one for myself, but I’m not sure any of the models available satisfy my (modest) requirements.

It seems these wireless frames mostly work by having some kind of stupid e-mail address assigned to the frame. You send an e-mail message with a picture file attached and, within a few minutes, more or less, the picture shows up on your digital photo frame.

This seems lame to me. Here’s what I want:

The digital photo frame should be able to connect to a local file server via SMB/CIFS, HTTP or FTP and display all images hosted at a specific location. For example: ftp://myfileserver/pictures/.
The digital photo frame should run an HTTP server so I don’t have to use the on-board buttons or the soon-to-be-lost miniature infrared remote control to set it up. Every VoIP telephone, print server, and a gazillion other network devices seem to all have an HTTP configuration interface, so why not a wireless digital photo frame?

Am I asking too much?

Book Review: Lone Survivor

2009-05-10T01:15:20+00:00

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'd heard Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell's story in bits and pieces on the radio and on Glenn Beck's TV shows, but I still had no idea how good it would be. This is yet-another book penned with the help of a professional author, but they really managed to leave the book feeling like it was straight out of Marcus's mouth.

The basic premise of this book is that Marcus Luttrell was a member of a Navy SEAL team -- an elite military force -- stationed in Afghanistan in 2005 and sent on a mission to spy on a remote village looking for a high-value military target and, if seen, take him out. The mission was compromised and, after a prolonged firefight with Taliban fighters, Marcus was the only one of his small 4-man team left alive. A helicopter full of SEALs sent to rescue Marcus and his fellow SEALs was attacked by the Taliban as well making this battle the single most-deadly fight in Navy SEAL history.

Marcus was listed as Missing In Action for several days as his family in Texas impatiently waited for news from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Marcus ran, fell, and crawled seven miles while being tracked by Taliban fighters and made his way to a small village where, surprisingly, he was cared for.

There's an immense amount of backstory about the preparation the typical Navy SEAL has to go through to get to be a SEAL. At first, I wasn't sure why this was necessary, but it makes sense later in the story when you consider what kind of people these soldiers were, what they had to endure in their training, and what their experiences had been prior to fighting America's enemies.

Not only did I learn a heck of a lot about Navy SEALs, I also learned a lot about the terrain, culture, and politics in rural Afghanistan. Marcus spends a good amount of time writing about ROE (Rules Of Engagement), the news media, and other issues soldiers have to take into consideration when dealing with enemies (and potential enemies) in battle. It was very eye-opening.

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Tax Day Tea Parties

2009-04-15T06:56:32+00:00

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything to the Fozzolog and there are some good reasons for that: I’ve pretty much withdrawn from most of my online habits and extracurricular activities to focus on much needed areas of my life, notably my marriage, my family, my health, and my spirituality. My hope is that once I get these all tuned up, I can consider returning to some of my favorite pastimes.

With that being said, I don’t think I can let April 15 pass without at least showing up at a Tax Day Tea Party to show my support for the cause. So, if you’re at the party in downtown Salt Lake City beginning at noon, you may see me there.

Now, let me do my part to dispel some myths about these tea parties.

These tea parties are not about President Obama

While President Obama’s administration is doing almost everything wrong with regards to the economy, it would be wrong to say that people are protesting because of Obama. The problem is much larger than Barack Obama. It is the state of the federal government in general.

These tea parties are not about taxes

They’re not specifically about taxes. While the Obama administration will undoubtedly raise taxes on all of us one way or another to fund all their spending, the Tax Day Tea Parties are more about the federal government’s out of control spending, saddling the country with ridiculous amounts of debt, not allowing poorly managed companies to fail (and subsequently file for bankruptcy), and other issues.

It’s really about not listening to the people and not using common sense

Both major political parties have been actively engaged in anything and everything to gain political power at the expense of any sensible governing principles. You know, the kind espoused by the founders of our great country like “the government should not go into debt more than can be paid off in one generation.” These Tax Day Tea Parties on April 15 are the official shot across the federal government’s bow to send a message that “you work for us, remember?!” and “It’s time to get back to basics!”

Book Review: "Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One" by Thomas Sowell

2009-03-28T06:15:40+00:00

Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One by Thomas Sowell

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
While on vacation in southern California, I hit a Barnes & Noble in Costa Mesa to look for something to read and something for my wife's birthday. I was looking for a book I'd read about like New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America, but the store I was at seemed chock-full of books about President Barack Obama, Global Warming, what was wrong with the Republican Party, and not much of anything that would interest a conservative like me. I did find, however, this book: Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One.

There was one small problem. My B&N discount card membership had expired one month prior. I'd only used it make one book purchase in that entire year and, coincidentally, it was at that same store in Costa Mesa. I wasn't about to blow more money on their stupid discount plan and I wasn't going to spend $35 on "Applied Economics". I bought a different book instead and got something for my wife's birthday and went on my way.

When I returned home, I ordered Applied Economics Thinking Beyond Stage One from Amazon along with some other books, all at much more reasonable prices. I decided to read this one first.

Thomas Sowell is a very interesting guy. He's scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and has taught economics at Cornell, UCLA, Amherst and other schools. He's written several books on economics. This book is the revised (and enlarged) edition and aims to help members of the general public understand complex economic systems.

Shooting for the general public is a lofty goal. I don't think Sowell quite made it. It was hard for me to absorb some of this material and I think I've been exposed to more economics material than the average member of the general public. I think this is a testament to how difficult of a task Sowell had taken on rather than his inability to achieve his goal.

The book is divided into eight chapters, each tackling an issue from the standpoint of pure economics. The first chapter, "Politics versus Economics," serves as a primer for the rest of the book and explains the "stage one" concept in the subtitle. Sowell states that most politicians (and many regular people, for that matter) fail to consider (or admit knowledge of) the long-term effects of economic policies (or any policies, for that matter.) This is, as Sowell puts it, "stage one thinking."

Sowell's intention in this book is to help the reader understand the longer-term effects of legislation and policy decisions.

In the first chapter, Sowell explains:

Laws and policies that will produce politically beneficial effects before the next election are usually preferred to policies that will produce even better results some time after the next election. Indeed, policies that will produce good results before the next election may be preferred even if they can be expected to produce bad results afterward.

As an example, a few paragraphs later:

... it is an open question whether drug prevention programs actually prevent or even reduce drug usage, whether public interest law firms actually benefit the public, or whether gun control laws actually control guns.

Later, he examines the consequences of a series of wage and price controls instituted in the 1970s by the Nixon administration and upheld or carried further by the Ford and Carter administrations. What seemed like a good idea at the time resulted in terrible economic consequences in the long run.

Sowell points out that many politicians just feel an overwhelming need to "do something" whenever there is a crisis at hand.

Doing something almost always seems like such a good idea, to those who do not look beyond stage one, that they see no need to look back at history or to apply economics. The alternative to a "do something" approach is not to have the government always do absolutely nothing but,rather, to recognize that governments can only do something specific-- and that these specifics must be assessed in terms of their specific erffects, both immediate and long-term, as well as the general effects of extended experimentation.

The second chapter, "Free and unfree labor" begins by talking about the history of slavery. It was interesting reading a book by one of the handful of famous black people in the field of economics discussing the pros and cons of various types of slavery. Sowell actually points out that slaves in the southern United States prior to the U.S. Civil War were treated very well compared to other forced labor situations throughout history.

This chapter also touches on crime as an occuptation, and indentured servitude.

The third chapter dives into the economics of medical care. It's no surprise that Sowell makes a strong case against government-subsidized healthcare (i.e. "Universal health care"). His most pronounced argument is simply that government healthcare is another way for saying "price controls" and he already discussed the disastrous effects such controls have on a market in the first chapter. He shows these effects are obvious when you look at government health care systems in Great Britain, Canada, and other countries that offer such programs.

He also discusses the economics of malpractice insurance, pharmaceutical drugs, drug advertising, and finally an extremely enlightening treatment on organ transplants and how much sense it makes to allow a legal market for organs for organ transplantation. That was really eye opening.

Chapter Four discusses the economics of housing and illustrates how government action and regulation affects pricing. He also discusses rent control, creative financing programs, segregation in housing, and other housing issues.

Chapter Five is titled "Risky Business" and is generally about the economics of insurance, but it goes beyond just the business of insurance. Most people, and certainly some politicians, don't consider risk issues when considering an issue.

One of my favorite sections of this chapter discusses how the family was traditionally the main risk reduction instutition in people's lives. This makes perfect sense when you consider how important family honor was, say, 2-300 years ago.

...the family-- the oldest insurer of all -- cautions its members, both when they are growing up and one specific occasions afterward, against various kinds of risky behavior. When families had the burden of taking care of an unwed daughter's baby, there was more chaperoning, screening of her associates, and moral stigma attached to unwed motherhood. All these things declined or disappeared after mean of these costs were shifted to government agencies.

Sowell attacks the issues of risk and insurance from a number of surprising and enlightening angles.

In Chapter Six, Sowell takes on immigration. Expecting him to jump right into the overwhelming costs to the system the illegal immigrant issue burdens our government, I was a little taken back when I a rather comprehensive look at immigration across history. He discusses cultural implications, income implications, health implications, legal and illegal immigration, economic benefits and costs to immigrants and the society they are immigrating to. It is, perhaps, the most unbiased and clearly focused treatment on immigration I've ever read.

In his conclusions, he does touch on some points specific to the hot issues in the US illegal immigration debate. For example, in comparing import of products versus import of labor:

When Americans buy a Toyota from Japan, the Toyota does not demand that the United States accomodate the Japanese language or that Americans adjust themselves to Japanese customs in their own country, much less introduce diseases into the American population. Moreover, Toyotas do not give birth to little Toyotas that can grow up with the problematic attitudes of some second generation immigrants.

Chapter seven is about discrimination. It begins by educating the reader on the distinct differences between bias, prejudice, and discrimination. Sowell points out that bias, prejudice, and discrimination are not "bad" by themselves. There are circumstances, history, and more criteria to consider before we can judge that they are bad.

From there, Sowell discusses anti-discrimination laws, affirmative action regulations and legislation, and the pros and cons (mostly cons) of each. One statement from the summary section reads:

...those who fail to qualify for particular benefits are often said to be denied "access" or "opportunity," when in fact they may have had as much access or opportunity as anyone else, but simply did not have the developed capabilities required...
...a mental test may be characterized as "culturally biased" if one group scores higher than another, as if it is impossible for different groups to have different interest, experience, upbringing, education, or other factors that would lead to a real difference being registered, rather than a biased assessment being made.

Chapter eight discusses the economic development of nations. This chapter discusses the misnomers of "developing nations," the effects of foreign aid, the importance of formal property rights, the geographic issues related to economies as well as bunch of other implications.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, Sowell's book is pretty heady content, but I found it refreshing as it is so clear cut. All of his statements came down on the side of common sense. Isn't that what we all wish our policy makers employed more of?

View all my reviews.

The cause of depressions - an echo from 46 years ago

2009-03-27T21:50:37+00:00

I am reading “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” by Ayn Rand. It is a collection of essays by Rand and other academics from the school of Objectism. One essay, “Common Fallacies About Capitalsm,” written in 1963 by Nathaniel Branden, grabbed my attention in a particularly intense manner.

After typing for quite some time, I would like to present an excerpt from this essay: a section titled “Depression”. Boldface emphasis has been added by me.

Question: Are periodic depressions inevitable in a system of Laissez-Faire Capitalism?

It is characteristic of the enemies of capitalism that they denounce it for evils which are, in fact, the result not of capitalism but of statism: evils which result from and are made possible only by government intervention into the economy.

I have discussed a flagrant example of this policy: the charge that capitalism leads to the establishment of coercive monopolies. The most notorious instance of this policy is the claim that capitalism, by its nature, inevitably leads to periodic depressions.

Statists repeatedly assert that depressions (the phenomenon of the so-called business cycle of “boom and bust”) are inherent in laissez-faire, and that the great rash of 1929 was the final proof of the failure of an unregulated, free-market economy. What is the truth of the matter?

A depression is a large-scale decline in production and trade; it is characterized by a sharp drop in productive output, in investment, and in the value of capital assets (plants, machinery, etc.). Normal business fluctuations, or a temporary decline in the rate of industrial expansion, do not constitute a depression. A depression is a nation-wide contraction of business activity—and a general decline in the value of capital assets—of major proportions.

There is nothing in the nature of a free-market economy to cause such an event. The popular explanations of depression as caused by “over-production,” “under-consumption,” monopolies, labor-saving decides, maldistribution, excessive accumulations of wealth, etc., have been exploded as fallacies many times.

Readjustments of economic activity, shifts of capital and labor from one industry to another, due to changing conditions, occur constantly under capitalism. This is entailed in the process of motion, growth, and progress that characterizes capitalism. But there always exists the possibility of profitable endeavor in one field or another, there is always the need and demand for goods, and all that can change is the kind of goods it becomes most profitable to produce.

In any one industry, it is possible for supply to exceed demand, in the context of all the other existing demands. In such a case, there is a drop in prices, in profitableness, in investment, and in employment in that particular industry; capital and labor tend to flow elsewhere, seeking more rewarding uses. Such an industry undergoes a period of stagnation as a result of unjustified, that is, uneconomic, unprofitable, unproductive investment.

In a free economy that functions on a gold standard, such unproductive investment is severely limited; unjustified speculation does not rise, unchecked, until it engulfs an entire nation. In a free economy, the supply of money and credit needed to finance business ventures is determined by objective economic factors. it is the banking system that acts as the guardian of economic stability. The principles governing money supply operate to forbid large-scale unjustified investment.

Most businesses finance their undertakings, at least in part, by means of bank loans. Banks function as an investment clearing house, investing the savings of their customers in those enterprises which promise to be most successful. Banks do not have unlimited funds to loan; they are limited in the credit they can extend by the amount of their gold reserves. In order to remain successful, to make profits and thus attract the savings of investors, banks much make their loans judiciously: they must seek out those ventures which they judge to be most sound and potentially profitable.

If, in a period of increasing speculation, banks are confronted with an inordinate number of requests for loans, then, in response to the shrinking availability of money, they (a) raise their interest rates, and (b) scrutinize more severely the ventures for which loans are requested setting more exacting standards of what constitutes a justifiable investment. As a consequence, funds are more difficult to obtain, and there is a temporary curtailment and contraction of business investment. Businessmen are often unable to borrow the funds they desire and have to reduce plans for expansion. The purchase of common stocks, which reflects the investors’ estimates of the future earnings of companies is similarly curtailed; overvalued stocks fall in price. businesses engaged in credit, are obliged to close their doors; a further waste of productive factors is stopped and economic errors are liquidated.

At worst, the economy may experience a mild recession, i.e. a slight general decline in investment and production. In an unregulated economy, readjustments occur quite swiftly, and then production and investment begin to rise again. The temporary recession is not harmful but beneficial; it represents an economic system in the process of correcting its errors, of curtailing disease and returning to health.

The impact of such a recession may be significantly felt in a few industries, but it does not wreck an entire economy. A nation-wide depression, such as occurred in the United States in the thirties, would not have been possible in a fully free society. It was made possible only by government intervention in the economy—more specifically, by government manipulation of the money supply.

The government’s policy consisted, in essence, of anesthetizing the regulators, inherent in a free banking system, that prevent runaway speculation and consequent economic collapse.

All government intervention in the economy is based on the belief that economic laws need not operate, that principles of cause and effect can be suspended, that everything in existence is “flexible” and “malleable,” except a bureaucrat’s whim, which is omnipotent; reality, logic, and economics much not be allowed to get in the way.

This was the implicit premise that led to the establishment, in 1913, of the Federal Reserve System—an institution with control (through complex and often indirect means) over the individual banks throughout the country. The Federal Reserve undertook to free individual banks from the “limitations” imposed on them by the amount of their own individual reserves, to free them from laws of the market—and to arrogate to government officials the right to decide how much credit they wished to make available at what times.

A “cheap money” policy was the guiding idea and goal of these officials. Banks were no longer to be limited in making loans by the amount of their gold reserves. Interest rates were no longer to rise in response to increasing speculation and increasing demands for funds. Credit was to remain readily available—until and unless the Federal Reserve decided otherwise.

The government argued that by taking control of money and credit out of the hands of private bankers, and by contracting or expanding credit at will, guided by considerations other than those influencing the “selfish” bankers, it could—in conjunction with the other interventionist policies—so control investment as to guarantee a state of virtually constant prosperity. Many bureaucrats believed that the government could keep the economy in a state of unending boom.

To borrow an invaluable metaphor from Alan Greenspan: if, under laissez-faire, the banking system and the principles controlling the availability of funds act as a fuse that prevents a blowout in the economy—then the government, through the Federal Reserve System, put a penny in the fuse-box. The result was the explosion known as the Crash of 1929.

Throughout most of the 1920’s, the government compelled banks to keep interest rates artificially and uneconomically low. As a consequence, money was poured into every sort of speculative venture. By 1928, the warning signals of danger were deeply apparent: unjustified investment was rampant and stocks were increasingly overvalued. The government chose to ignore these danger signals.

A free banking system would have been compelled, by economic necessity, to put the brakes on this process of runaway speculation. credit and investment, in such a case, would be drastically curtailed; the banks which made unprofitable investments, the enterprises which proved unproductive, and those who dealt with them, would suffer—but that would be all; the country as a whole would not be dragged own. However, the “anarchy” of a free banking system had been abandoned—in favor of “enlightened” government planning.

The boom and the wild speculation—which had preceded every major depression—were allowed to rise unchecked, involving, in a widening network of malinvestments and miscalculations, the entire economic structure of the nation. People were investing in virtually everything and making fortunes overnight—on paper. Profits were calculated on hysterically exaggerated appraisals of the future earnings of companies. Credit was extended with promiscuous abandon, on the premise that somehow the goods would be there to back it up. It was like the policy of a man who passes out rubber checks, counting on the hope that he will somehow find a ay to obtain the necessary money and to deposit it in the bank before anyone presents his checks for collection.

But A is A—and reality is not infinitely elastic. In 1929, the country’s economic and financial structure had become impossibly precarious. By the time the government finally and frantically raised the interest rates, it was too late. It is doubtful whether anyone can state with certainty what events first set off the panic—and it does not matter: the crash had become inevitable; any number of events could have pulled the trigger. But when the news of the first bank and commercial failures began to spread, uncertainty spread across the country in widening waves of terror. People began to sell their stocks, hoping to get out of the market with their gains, or to obtain the money they suddenly needed to pay bank loans that were being called in—and other people, seeing this, apprehensively began to sell their stocks—and, virtually overnight, an avalanche hurled the stock market downward, prices collapsed, securities became worthless, loans were called in, many of which could not be paid, the value of capital assets plummeted sickeningly, fortunes were wiped out, and, by 1932, business activity had come almost to a halt. the law of causality had avenged itself.

Such, in essence, was the nature and cause of the 1929 depression.

It provides one of the most eloquent illustrations of the disastrous consequences of a “planned” economy. In a free economy, when an individual businessman makes an error of economic judgment, he (and perhaps those who immediately deal with him) suffers the consequences; in a controlled economy, when a central planner makes an error of economic judgment, the whole country suffers the consequences.

But it was not the Federal Reserve, it was not the government intervention that took the blame for the 1929 depression—it was capitalism. Freedom—cried statists of every breed and sect—had had its chance and had failed. The voices of the few thinkers who pointed to the real cause of the evil were drowned out in the denunciation of businessmen, of the profit motive, of capitalism.

Had men chosen to understand the cause of the crash, the country would have been spared much of the agony that followed. The depression was prolonged for tragically unnecessary years by the same evil that caused it: government controls and regulations.

Contrary to popular misconception, controls and regulation began long before the New Deal; in the 1920’s, the mixed economy was already an established fact of American life. But the trend toward statism began to move faster under the Hoover Administration—and, with the advent of Roosevelt’s New Deal, it accelerated at an unprecedented rate. The economic adjustments needed to bring the depression to an end were prevented from taking place—by the imposition of strangling controls, increased taxes, and labor legislation. This last had the effect of forcing wage rates to unjustifiably high levels, thus raising the businessman’s costs at precisely the time when costs needed to be lowered, if investment and production were to revive.

The National Industrial Recovery Act, the Wagner Act, and the abandonment of the gold standard (with the government’s subsequent plunge into inflation and an orgy of deficit spending) were only three of the many disastrous measures enacted by the New Deal for the avowed purpose of pulling the country out of the depression; all had the opposite effect.

As Alan Greenspan points out in “Stock Prices and Capital Evaluation,” the obstacle to business recovery did not consist exclusively of the specific New Deal legislation passed; more harmful still was the general atmosphere of uncertainty engendered by the Administration. Men had no way to know what law or regulation would descend on their heads at any moment; they had no way to know what sudden shifts of direction government policy might take; they had no way to plan long-range.

To act and produce, businessmen require knowledge, the possibility of rational calculation, not “faith” and “hope”—above all, not “faith” and “hope” concerning the unpredictable twistings within a bureaucrat’s head.

Such advances as business was able to achieve under the New Deal collapsed in 1937—as a result of intensification of uncertainty regarding what the government might choose to do next. Unemployment rose to more than ten million and business activity fell almost to the low point of 1932, the worst year of the depression.

It is part of the official New Deal mythology that Roosevelt “got us out of the depression.” How was the problem of the depression finally “solved”? By the favorite expedient of all statists in times of emergency: a war.

The depression precipitated by the stock market crash of 1929 was not the first in American history—though it was incomparably more severe than anything that had preceded it. If one studies the earlier depressions, the same basic cause and common denominator will be found: in one form or another, government manipulation of the money supply. It is typical the manner in which interventionism grows that the Federal Reserve System was instituted as a proposed antidote against those earlier depressions—which were themselves products of monetary manipulation by the government.

The financial mechanism of an economy is the sensitive center, the living heart, of business activity. In no other area can government intervention produce quite such disastrous consequences. For a general discussion of the business cycle and its relation to government manipulation of the money supply, see Ludwig von Mises, Human Action.

One of the most striking facts of history is men’s failure to learn from it.

Basic questions about the solution

2009-03-23T21:56:14+00:00

Wow.

That’s about all I can think of. Wow.

John Stossel’s latest 20/20 piece on the so-called economic stimulus features lawmakers, economists, lots of media darlings, and simple, simple questions. After watching this, how can you not wonder what the hell our elected “leaders” are thinking?

(Note: After I posted this, I discovered the video I original watched was only one of six parts, so here you go!)

Part 1 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiUy5n8gkJs

Part 2 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZl9AMnwio0

Part 3 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPTjO3MjdiM

Part 4 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOAzvWB7mHo

Part 5 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA1Y61xdCX4

Part 6 of 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y4Y9(dWMQzE

Back in time via audio cassettes - Digital Village

2009-03-22T07:55:35+00:00

I recently decided to embark on a journey of digitizing a box full of audio cassettes. Those who knew me growing up—especially when I was in junior high and earlier—know I was always goofing off with a microphone and a tape recorder. I operated a pirate radio station at AM 1630 for a while too. It’s broadcast radius covered most of the town of Granger, UT, where I lived.

One of the nuggets I found was actually much later than that. In 1995, I had just published (self-published) a book about the World Wide Web titled Fozziliny George Moo’s Guide To The World Wide Web and was asked by a friend to appear on his radio program.

Now, about this friend: His name is Doran Barons. Freaky, right?! My name is Doran Barton! His name is Doran Barons!

He saw a letter I had written to the editors of Wired magazine a few months before (which was subsequently published in Wired) and sent me e-mail to introduce himself. This triggered a series of e-mail exchanged between us which led to him inviting me on his radio program, Digital Village a weekly radio program on KFPK, 90.7FM in Los Angeles, CA.

Digital Village has an online MP3 archive of their radio program going back to 2000 and they’ve hosted some impressive guests on their radio program like Neal Stephenson (one of my favorite authors), Bruce Sterling (another of my favorite authors), Steve Wozniak (who started Apple with Steve Jobs), Bruce Schneier, and Lawrence “Larry” Lessig. It’s cool that I preceded such giants. :-)

After I did the telephone interview with the radio program, Doran sent me a cassette tape of the program and I’ve digitized it (with Doran’s permission). So, if anyone’s interested in taking a peek back in time to 1995 to hear about the World Wide Web in its relative infancy, here it is:

http://www.xmission.com/~fozz/podcast/19950917-digital_village.mp3

It’s clear I was fresh from doing lots of research for my book. It’s fun listening to me advise one of the show’s callers to contact the “site” he was getting his dialup access through to see if they offered anything like PPP, SLIP, or TIA so he could “extend the Internet to his home computer over his dialup line” or he could use lynx at the shell prompt on the Unix system he was dialing into.

More Sowell: Social Insurance

2009-03-20T05:42:55+00:00

This book— Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell— is just chock full of gems. A lot of this stuff I already was aware of, but Sowell frames it exceptionally well.

Here is another blurb from the chapter on insurance which addresses social insurance (e.g. social security), which isn’t a real insurance at all:

Government-run social insurance programs seldom have enough assets to cover their liabilities, but rely instead of making current payments out of current receipts. These are called pay-as-you-go programs— and sometimes they are called pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes are privately run pay-as-you-go plans— and they are illegal because of their high risk of default and the opportunities for those who run them to take part of the money for themselves. The most famous pyramid scheme was run by a man named Charles Ponzi, who went to jail back in 1920. He used the same principles behind the pension plans of many Western governments today.

Ponzi had promised, within 90 days, to double the investments of those who paid into his program. The first investors who were not deterred by warnings from skeptics were in fact rewarded by having their investments pay off double in 90 days. Ponzi simply paid the first wave of investors with money from the second wave of investors, and the second wave from the even larger number of those in the third wave, as enthusiasm for his plan spread. So long as the number of people attracted to this plan formed an expanding pyramid, both the earlier investors and Ponzi profited handsomely. But, once the pyramid stopped growing, there was no way to continue to pay off those who sent Ponzi their money, since his scheme created no new wealth.

The American Social Security pension system and similar government pension systems in the countries of the European Union likewise take in payments from people who are working and use that money to pay the pensions of people who have retired— paying the first generation who paid into these pension plans with money received from the second generation, and so on.

…

Those who warned that these government pension plans were essentially Ponzi schemes without enough assets to cover their liabilities— that they were “actuarially unsound” in the financial jargon— were either not believed or were brushed aside for having made objections that were theoretically correct by in practice irrelevant. One of those who brushed these objections aside was Professor Paul Samuelson of MIT, the first American winner of the Nobel Prize in economics:

The beauty of social insurance is that it is actuarially unsound. Everyone who reaches retirement age is given benefit privileges that far exceed anything he has paid in… Always there are more youths than old folks in a growing population. More important, with real incomes growing at some 3% a year, the taxable base upon which benefits rest in any period are much greater than the taxes paid historically by the generations now retired… A growing nation is the greatest Ponzi game ever contrived.

By the end of the twentieth century, however, the day of reckoning began to loom on the horizon for these government pension programs, as it had for the original Ponzi scheme. Contrary to Professor Samuelson’s assertion, there are not always “more youths than old folks.” As birth rates declined in the Western world and life expectancy increased, vastly increasing the number of years in which pensions would have to paid to growing numbers of people, it became painfully clear that either tax rates were going to have to rise by very large amounts or the benefits would have to be reduced in one way or another — or both— or the system would simply run out of money.

Sowell on The Great Depression

2009-03-19T02:00:20+00:00

Continuing with more excellent excerpts from Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell.

This one is on Government intervention in depressions and comes from the chapter titled Politics versus Economics:

Prior to the Great Depression of the 1930s, there was no tradition of federal government intervention to get the United States out of depressions. Roosevelt’s predecessor, President Herbert Hoover, was the first President to take on that responsibility, and many of his interventions were later simply carrier much further by FDR, despite a political myth that persisted for years that Hoover was a “do nothing” President. In much later years, even prominent former advisers of the Roosevelt administration admitted that FDR’s New Deal was a further extension of what Hoover had been doing. Herbert Hoover was in fact the first President to decide to “do something” on a national scale to try to extricate the country from a depression, though there is no evidence that what he did made things any better and there is considerable reason to believe that they made things worse.

Earlier in the 1920s, a sharp decline in the economy had been largely ignored by President Calvin Coolidge— and the economy pulled out of its decline in relatively short time, as it had pulled out of other such declines in the past. There was nothing inevitable about a stock market crash leading to a decade-long depression. Moreover, as Professor Peter Temin or M.I.T. has noted, the 1929 stock market crash was not unique:

The stock market has gone up and down many times since then without producing a similar movement in income. The most obvious parallel was in the fall of 1987. The isomorphism was uncanny. The stock market fell almost exactly the same amount on almost exactly the same dates.

Another study referred to the October 19, 19878 decline as “by far the worst precentage decline day in the stock market’s history.” In 1987, however, President Ronald Reagan did not react as Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt had in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash. Instead, like Coolidge before him (whom he admired,) Reagan let the economy recover on its own. Far from leading to a Great Depression, the recovery began one of the longest periods of sustained high employment, low inflation, and general prosperity in American history. At the time, however, President Reagan was sharply criticized in the Washington Post for a “do-nothing, let-the-problems-accumulate, Calvin Coolidge act of the 1980s” and was denounced in the New York Times for having “squandered the opportunity” to take action.

Notable excerpts from "Applied Economics"

2009-03-18T00:56:02+00:00

I am currently reading Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell and have found it full of awesome quotes and data. For example, this from the chapter section on insurance and risk:

As a matter of financial self-protection, both families and insurance companies must seek to discourage risky behavior in one way or another. For a government agency, however, financed by taxpayers’ money, there is no such urgency about discouraging the increased risks that people may take when those risks are covered by others. Moreover, the agency gets its biggest political support from helping those suffering the consequences of the risks they have taken, however unwisely, not by criticizing them.

Stay tuned for more great nuggets.

Book Review: The Survivors Club

2009-03-12T07:00:08+00:00

The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life by Ben Sherwood

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this book at the John Wayne Airport after hearing Ben Sherwood on Glenn Beck's radio show and seeing him on Glenn's TV show.

Sherwood's book approaches survival from multiple angles and I appreciated that. Whatever you might think this book is, it probably is just a bit and a whole lot of what you didn't expect. I found most of it to be anecdotal and a bit fluffy, which made it a very easy read, but Sherwood does shower some dense statistics throughout the book for you to dig through that make the subject matter more appealing to the left brain.

Much of the book is the result of interviews with and stories about people who have encounter dramatic and traumatic events in their lives whether it be an airplane crash, a lion attack, captivity inside a Nazi concentration camp, or miraculously escaping one of the NY World Trade Center towers after the airplane has hit the building.

Combining advice from survival experts, doctors, the survivors themselves, and others, Sherwood comes up with a variety of intriguing possibilities for why certain people survive. In addition, he includes recommendations for people wanting to boost their potential survivability. He addresses the issues of good luck vs. bad luck and how strategic thinking and doing some simple preparatory planning for the worst can save you from freezing or "becoming a statue" when the unexpected happens.

So, in conclusion, a very easy read partly because it's well written and partly because the subject matter is a little superfluous and fluffy. It's less dense than Freakonomics, but just as interesting to read.

View all my reviews.

Engadget editor shows off Palm Pre on Jimmy Falon show

2009-03-10T16:02:07+00:00

I’m very stoked about the Palm Pre. Last night on Jimmy Falon’s talk show, Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky and “Jim” shared love for the forthcoming smartphone. See the video here.

Anti-GOP? Anti-Dem? It's really about PRINCIPLES!

2009-03-10T15:49:02+00:00

Mona Charen wrote an article titled “American Dependence - Where is the responsibility?” that I saw at National Review Online which addresses the issue of which political party to blame for soaring government deficits.

For eight years, the Democrats have entertained us with a great song and dance about deficits. It is now evident that they were, not to put too fine a point on it, insincere.

On the other hand, some of us have been calling out Republicans, in good times and bad, for abandoning principle. In 2003, for example, I wrote: “When it comes to spending, alas, the Republicans are hardly Eagle Scouts either. The ideal of smaller government is in eclipse at the moment. The terror attacks have been seized as an opportunity to lard on new spending for favored constituencies. Citizens Against Government Waste estimates that the federal government will spend $22.5 billion on 9,362 pork-barrel projects in 2003.” And in a 2005 column titled “Who Are These Republicans,” I wrote “And now President Bush, whose greatest sin in his first term was failure to wield the veto pen, has joined enthusiastically in the legalized looting of the taxpayer.”

She opens the article with some mighty embarrassing quotes from Speaker Pelosi in 2006:

“While President Bush continues to trumpet his so-called ‘economic achievements,’ the Bush administration confirmed today that the budget deficit for 2006 will be one of the largest in our nation’s history. President Bush’s failed economic policies have resulted in budgets that are drastically out of balance and skyrocketing debt. Budget deficits translate into higher interest rates, which means that mortgages cost more, credit-card debt grows, and student loans cost more… . Democrats know how to restore fiscal discipline with tough policies of pay-as-you-go budgeting, no new deficit spending … .”

Ahhh. It would be hilarious if it weren’t… you know… our money.

I think every elected official in the federal government needs one of those fancy reset buttons Hillary’s been giving out in Europe.

Thoughts on socialism

2009-03-09T05:37:37+00:00

Beginning in 2007 during the beginning of the 2008 presidential election, many on the right began predicting that the election of one of the viable democratic contenders for president — Clinton and Obama — would result in a significant move toward a socialist state in the US. Some of the more… dramatic ones on the left, including my idol Glenn Beck, have succeeded in bluring the lines between socialism and communism.

Now, I’m sure many pundits and commentators, including the amazing, wonderful and entertaining Beck, really do know the difference between the two, but their flippant banter only confuses people.

This article Cathy Young over at Reason magazine explains the rhetoric pretty well and makes the observation that while Obama’s administration is certainly friendly to larger government chock full of social programs, this isn’t a course change by any means.

A headline in The Weekly Standard warns of “The Return of Big Government”; but big government never left, and certainly not under Bush. Obama may be seeking to reverse Ronald Reagan’s legacy; but, as conservative economist Bruce Bartlett argued persuasively in his 2006 book, Impostor, that legacy was already betrayed by Bush. Many people will tell you we officially became “the U.S.S.A.” with the bank bailout in October 2008.

Since the 2008 presidential election cycle was in full swing, Glenn Beck has been saying that both Republican and Democrat parties were both in favor of “taking us to the same place, only one is taking us in a steam train and the other is taking us in a jet plane.”

It seems any time philosophical labels are brought up on the Internet, bad things tend to happen. I think part of the reason there has been so much back and forth discussion about these labels is due to Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. People have ridiculed Jonah, but I think he’s dead-on.

Many people believe Hitler was the epitome of fascism and that fascism is an extreme form of right-wing thinking — that had George W. Bush been able to go full-bore and do whatever he wanted as much as he wanted, we would have seen the second coming of Hitler. (Note: Bush is a poor analogy since he is, by far, a moderate Republican and not the poster-boy for the far-right.) Jonah Goldberg sets the record straight and I have to wonder why we ever wondered in the first place. After all, the Nazis stood for the “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”. “Socialist” and “Workers” should be the key words there. That’s something to think about.

A nugget of truth about bailouts and unions

2009-03-07T19:06:44+00:00

As President Obama and the US Congress continue to, in my opinion, destroy wealth-production in our country and severely handicap our ability to recover from the economic advertsity we’ve gotten into, I’m encouraged by leaders of business, like Gregory Knox, who obviously get it.

The new administration seems set on continuing to bail out failing businesses and providing support to labor unions — big reasons these businesses are failing!

Here’s a letter from a president of General Motors to his employees in 2008:

Dear Employee,

Next week, Congress and the current Administration will determine whether to provide immediate support to the domestic auto industry to help it through one of the most difficult economic times in our nation’s history. Your elected officials must hear from all of us now on why this support is critical to our continuing the progress we began prior to the global financial crisis… As an employee, you have a lot at stake and continue to be one of our most effective and passionate voices. I know GM can count on you to have your voice heard.

Thank you for your urgent action and ongoing support.

Troy Clarke
President
General Motors North America

Mr. Knox wrote a letter back to Mr. Clarke in December 2008:

In response to your request to call legislators and ask for a bailout for the United States automakers please consider the following, and please also pass this onto Troy Clark, the president of General Motors North America for me.

You are both infected with the same entitlement mentality that has bred like cancerous germs in UAW halls for the last countless decades, and whose plague is now sweeping the nation, awaiting our new “messiah” to wave his magical wand and make all our problems go away, while at the same time allowing our once great nation to keep “living the dream”.

The dream is over!

The dream that we can ignore the consumer for years while management myopically focuses on its personal rewards packages at the same time that our factories have been filled with the worlds most overpaid, arrogant, ignorant and laziest entitlement minded “laborers” without paying the price for these atrocities and that still the masses will line up to buy our products

Don’t tell me I’m wrong. Don’t accuse me of not knowing of what I speak. I have called on Ford, GM, Chrysler, TRW, Delphi, Kelsey Hayes, American Axle and countless other automotive OEM’s and Tier ones for 3 decades now throughout the Midwest and what I’ve seen over the years in these union shops can only be described as disgusting.

Mr Clark, the president of General Motors, states:

“There is widespread sentiment in this country, our government and especially in the media that the current crisis is completely the result of bad management. It is not.”

You’re right, it’s not JUST management, how about the electricians who walk around the plants like lords in feudal times, making people wait on them for countless hours while they drag ass so they can come in on the weekend and make double and triple time for a job they easily could have done within their normal 40 hour week

How about the line workers who threaten newbies with all kinds of scare tactics for putting out too many parts on a shift and for being too productive (mustn’t expose the lazy bums who have been getting overpaid for decades for their horrific underproduction, must we?!?) Do you really not know about this stuff?!?

How about this great sentiment abridged from Mr. Clarke’s sad plea:

“Over the last few years we have closed the quality and efficiency gaps with our competitors.”

What the hell has Detroit been doing for the last 40 years?!?

Did we really JUST wake up to the gaps in quality and efficiency between us and them?

The K car vs. the Accord?

The Pinto vs. the Civic?!?

Do I need to go on?

We are living through the inevitable outcome of the actions of the United States auto industry for decades.

Time to pay for your sins, Detroit .

I attended an economic summit last week where a brilliant economist, Alan Beaulieu surprised the crowd when he said he would not have given the banks a penny of “bailout money”. Yes, he said, this would cause short term problems, but despite what people like George Bush and Troy Clark would have us believe, the sun would in fact rise the next day and something else would happen. Where there had been greedy and sloppy banks, new efficient ones would pop up. That is how a free market system works. It does work if we would let it work!

But for some reason we are now deciding that the rest of the world is right and that capitalism doesn’t work; that we need the government to step in and “save us”. Save us, hell we’re nationalizing and unfortunately too many of this once fine nation’s citizens don’t even have a clue that this is what’s really happening but they sure can tell you the stats on their favorite sports teams yeah THAT’S important.

Does it occur to ANYONE that the “competition” has been producing vehicles, EXTREMELY PROFITABLY, for decades now in this country?…

How can that be???

Let’s see - -

Fuel efficient -

Listening to customers -

Investing in the proper tooling and automation for the long haul -

Not being too complacent or arrogant to listen to Dr W Edwards Deming 4 decades ago -

Ever increased productivity through quality, lean and six sigma plans -

Treating vendors like strategic partners, rather than like “the enemy” -

Efficient front and back offices -

Non union environment

Again, I could go on and on, but I really wouldn’t be telling anyone anything they really don’t already know in their hearts

I have six children, so I am not unfamiliar with the concept of wanting someone to bail you out of a mess that you have gotten yourself into. My children do this on a weekly, if not daily basis, as I did at their age. I do for them what my parents did for me (one of their greatest gifts, by the way). I make them stand on their own two feet and accept the consequences of their actions and work them through.

Radical concept, huh?

Am I there for them in the wings? Of course but only until such time as they need to be fully on their own as adults

I don’t want to oversimplify a complex situation, but there certainly are unmistakable parallels here between the proper role of parenting and government.

Detroit and the United States need to pay for their sins.

Bad news people, it’s coming whether we like it or not.

The newly elected Messiah really doesn’t have a magic wand big enough to “make it all go away” I laughed as I heard Obama “reeling it back in” almost immediately after the vote count was tallied “we might not do it in a year or in four”! Where was that kind of talk when he was RUNNING for the office

Stop trying to put off the inevitable!

That house in Florida really isn’t worth $750,000!

People who jump across a border really don’t deserve free health care benefits!

That job driving that forklift for the big 3 really isn’t worth $85,000 a year!

That couple whose combined income is less than $50,000 really shouldn’t be living in that $485,000 home!

Let the market correct itself people, it will. Yes it will be painful, but it’s gonna be painful either way, and the bright side of my proposal is that on the other side of it is a nation that appreciates what is has and doesn’t live beyond its means and gets back to basics and redevelops the work ethic that made it the greatest nation in the history of the world and probably turns back to God.

Sorry, don’t cut my head off. I’m just the messenger sharing with you the “bad news”

Gregory J Knox
President
Knox Machinery, Inc.
Franklin, Ohio 45005

Learning Perl basics in the Fedora Classroom ... by me!

2009-03-06T05:15:46+00:00

Hey y’all, I’ve volunteered to teach in the Fedora Classroom this Saturday (7 Mar 2009). The Fedora Classroom is an IRC-based classroom environment.

So, at 3pm MST (22:00 UTC), anyone can participate by logging in to #fedora-classroom on irc.freenode.net and I, fozzmoo, will be doing a 1-hour presentation on Perl basics.

I’ve been digging through old presentations and workshops notes from when I used to do all day Perl workshops at USU for the USU Free Software and Linux Club to see what I can distill down into a 1-hour presentation. If there’s enough interest and response, we’ll see about turning this into a regular thing.

A response to the "wiz bang" question

2009-03-03T17:25:11+00:00

(Ryan Byrd)[http://www.ryanbyrd.net/techramble/] blogged recently with a (programming interview question)[http://www.ryanbyrd.net/techramble/2009/03/03/programming-interview-question-of-the-day/] that I thought I’d take a stab at in Perl.

The question is as follows:

when passed in a number that is evenly divisible by 3, return “wiz”
when passed in a number that is evenly divisible by 5, return “bang”
when passed in a number that is evenly divisible by both 3 and 5, return “wiz bang”
otherwise, return the number passed in

My solution exploits Perl’s list type to store potential output as a queue of sorts.

sub function {
    my $num = shift;
    my @output = ();
    unless($num % 3) {    push @output, "wiz"; }
    unless($num % 5 ) {    push @output, "bang"; }
    if(@output) {   return join ' ', @output; }
    return $num; 
}

More on 'Cap and Trade' nonsense

2009-03-03T06:01:15+00:00

I just returned from vacationing with my family in California, a state that is hurting terribly right now economically and is also a “leader” among states in the fight against global warming. While vacationing, we spoke with a few locals and just about all had personal stories to tell about the economic perils of the state. One older couple described how one of their sons had been laid off from his job and wasn’t enjoying being “Mr. Mom.” Another couple told us a story of gettign IOUs from the state in place of a state tax refund.

In a previous post, I presented the notion that “cap and trade” legislation was, in reality, a tax on businesses. Proponents of cap and trade have argued it is not a tax because the revenue from the purchases of carbon credits (the permits required to emit the restricted materials) does not go to the government. But, it’s just the same to the business- a penalty they must pay which is calculated more or less as a portion of their overall production.

Politicians like to say things like “This isn’t a tax on the individual. This is a tax on corporations.” A lot of people buy into that, but people who understand how business works realize a tax on business results in a burden on individuals because businesses aren’t going to eat the cost of those taxes — they’re going to pass it on to the consumer. Cap and trade is no different.

Over the last couple of years, there has been talk about a carbon tax instead of cap and trade. This would be a literal tax and would provide revenue to the government from companies that emit over the prescribed capped levels. Either way, it’s still an additional cost on production for companies that are already struggling in today’s tough economy and operating in a country with some of the highest corporate tax rates in the the world.

What do large companies do when the cost of operations in a region is high? They do what many “evil” American companies do: they move operations to a region where operations can be done under more friendly terms. Case in point: California. Increasing regulations, taxes, and red tape have prompted California employers to relocate to other more business-friendly regions over the last decade. The result: A recent headline indicates unemployment numbers in California around ten percent!

Finally, here’s some food for thought: American companies, whether out of principle or because of the intimidation of the Environmental Protection Agency, generally conduct the cleanest operations in their industry, worldwide. This doesn’t surprise me after I see automotive manufacturers repeatedly include verbiage in their marketing about how little energy they use, how much recycled material they use, or how much they do to offset their impact on the environment.

If you buy into the idea of global warming gradually destroying our planet, you should realize that almost all regulatory schemes like cap and trade are based on older, flawed models like Kyoto. If these regulation schemes force companies to move operations to regions with less cost/regulation or force manufacturers to purchase their raw goods from producers in other countries, the overall impact to the planet probably isn’t going to change. Countries with inexpensive labor costs like China, India, Russia and others have practically no incentive to regulate their impact on the environment whatsoever.

The best policy, both for our economy and for the good of the planet (if you’re an alarmist) is to promote production in the United States where we do things clean, efficiently, and under a watchful eye.

It's coming, folks. Cap and Trade for everyone.

2009-02-24T09:59:17+00:00

I was skimming articles on Real Clear Politics and saw a couple talking about the monster issue conservative talk radio was sounding the alarms about during the 2008 election: Cap And Trade.

What is “Cap and Trade,” exactly? Well, at it’s most basic level, it’s a tax on companies that produce carbon dioxide emissions. At a closer level, it is a system by which companies, industries, and even states and countries purchase and carbon credits on an open market. But, in the end, it’s a tax, because when everything is said and done, the revenue generated by cap and trade transactions goes to… well, nobody really talks about where it goes, but it goes to some government account.

There’s an obvious similarity between cap and trade and the SCHIP legislation recently signed by President Obama: the government maneuvers itself into a situation where it is actually encouraging the bad behavior it was supposedly trying to discourage.

In the case of SCHIP, the legislation signed calls for a large tax increase on cigarette and other tobacco product purchases. The rationale here is that the increased fee will create a burden on those in society that purchase these unhealthy products and, therefore, will encourage them to stop engaging in behavior like smoking. The money collected from these taxes is funnelled into programs to guarantee health insurance for children.

If you haven’t figured it out already, while legislators called this tax increase a penalty on smokers that should decrease the number of smokers, they actually want more smokers in order to fund SCHIP!

It’s will be just the same with cap and trade legislation. Replace a person smoking cigarettes with a company that produces carbon dioxide emissions as part of their operations and you’ve got the same thing. The money collected from this scheme will be funnelled to some program or group of programs that are then dependent upon companies doing something government really does not want them to do.

The conflict of interest here is interesting, but to muddy the waters more, it seems apparent, to me anyway, that the urgency of addressing carbon dioxide emissions is still far from settled.

In one article I read, 10 Ways To Trade Up by Kevin Drum with Mother Jones, Drum compares cap and trade ideas to the 1970 Clean Air Act and uses it as a proof of cap and trade’s inevitable success.

We found out in 1990, when the Clean Air Act was modified to address acid rain pollution caused by sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants. Instead of requiring every plant to install a specific cleanup technology or meet a specific emission rate, the epa simply set a nationwide cap on the total volume of SO² emissions and required power plants to own a permit for each ton of SO² they emitted. Each plant was allocated a certain number of permits, and if a plant reduced its emissions to the point where it didn’t need all its permits, it could sell them to the highest bidder.

The problem I have with this comparison is the “well, duh!” assumption that there’s nothing wrong with comparing carbon dioxide to sulfur dioxide. They’re both bad for the environment, one might say.

The problem is that sulfur dioxide is a poisonous gas that can be used to produce sulfuric acid in the atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide has been well documented to cause a wide variety of health issues in humans and animals. Carbon dioxide, not so much. In fact, carbon dioxide has been shown, time and time again, to improve the production of plant life and has little or no effect on humans.

It should also be mentioned here that carbon dioxide accounts for anywhere from one tenth of a percent to one percent of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (the evil, nasty water vapor being the largest constituent of these insidious chemicals bent on destroying life on earth.)

The global warming alarmists claim rising carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are to blame for seemingly corresponding rising global temperatures. This is intriguing until you match up temperature fluctuations on Earth with temperatures on other planets in our solar system and match that to solar energy output from our sun.

As silly as it may seem to create an ellaborate trading market (to veil a taxation scheme) to plunder companies for generating a mostly harmless gas into the atmosphere, it’s very likely it will happen. President Obama has been consistent in statements about environmental policy and the “rightful place” of science.

Drum writes, “The backbone of (President Obama’s) climate policy is actually an ambitious program (Cap and Trade) that, if done right, will reduce greenhouse gases and raise desperately needed revenue—and, most important of all, has a fighting chance of making it through the congressional sausage factory in one piece.”

The country and the world seem to be slowly waking up, however. Most of the online comments to the Mother Jones article seem to be indicative of this as most of them decry global warming alarmism and question the logistics of cap and trade legislation.

Thoughts on diabetes in a disaster

2009-02-23T10:19:15+00:00

This last Friday, Glenn Beck’s TV show on FOX News involved wargaming worst-case scenarios five years into the future. There was a lot of talk about hyperinflation, world-wide jumps in unemployment, and increasing disenfranchisement and distrust of the government.

Being a Mormon, I’ve heard all my life about how we should prepare for tough times by building up food storage for your family and having tools and supplies that can help you weather tough times.

But what about diabetics like myself or other people whose lives depend on regular doses of medication? In a major disaster, it’s possible your neighborhood pharmacy is not going to be able to get resupplied and it might not even be open or accessible.

I’m fairly certain my health insurance plan won’t cover my purchasing extra insulin and other supplies to stock-up in case of a disaster. I’d probably have to pay out-of-pocket to stockpile these items and then rotate through them with supplies my insurance company will cover so I always have a couple weeks or a couple months extra.

Another problem diabetics and others may have to consider is how to keep medicines like insulin stored at recommended temperatures. If a disaster results in loss of power and/or heating fuel, keeping stored insulin cold (and not frozen) can be a challenge.

I also should make sure I have a good supply of hearing aid batteries so people can talk to me when we’re all living off wheat stores and stale water. :-)

Perl Basics: Using DBI

2009-02-23T04:27:31+00:00

Working with databases is something programmers, especially Web programmers, often need to do. Most (reputable) database backends provide a way to use Structured Query Language (SQL) queries to interact with the database. That’s usually where the similarity ends. Working with MS SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL databases typically means you must acquire connection libraries unique to a specific database backend to interact with a database with SQL.

Since we’re talking about Perl, let’s use PostgreSQL as an example. There is a CPAN module called Pg that gives you a set of subroutines for interacting directly with a PostgreSQL database backend.

Here is the example usage from the Pg POD:

use Pg;
my $conn = Pg::connectdb("dbname=template1");
my $res  = $conn->exec("SELECT * from pg_user");
while (@row = $res->fetchrow) {
    print join(" ", @row);
}

If you wrote a whole application using this Pg module and then someone came along and said, “Hey, I like your application, but we use MySQL,” you’d probably plant your face into your palm pretty hard.

DBI

In the 1990s, Tim Bunce contributed the DBI module to CPAN. DBI is database abstraction layer meaning that it sits between your applications and any database backend and gives you (the programmer) a generic set of facilities for interacting with databases.

Examine at how the Pg example could be accomplished using DBI:

use DBI;
my $dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:Pg:dbname=template');
my $sth = $dbh->prepare('SELECT * FROM pg_user');
my $rv = $sth->execute;
while(my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array) {
    print join(' ', @row;
}

The first thing to notice here is the DBI->connect() line. In many cases, this line is the only one you would need to change to migrate a DBI application from one database backend to another. The first parameter passed to the connect() function is a DBI Data Source Name — or DSN.

Some examples of DSNs that you may use with DBI:

dbi:mysql:database=shoppinglist;host=db1
dbi:Pg:dbname=bookshelf;host=192.168.1.22;port=5432
dbi:SQLite:dbname=/var/db/addrbook.db
dbi:CSV:f_dir=/home/joe/csvdb
dbi:Oracle:host=oracle;sid=oracle

DBD modules

The interface from DBI to each specific database backend is provided by DBI Drivers or DBD modules. In addition to drivers for most common database backends, there are some unusual and unique drivers as well such as DBD::CSV which provides the means to use SQL queries to interact with data in comma-separated values text files.

Stop worrying about quoting

One thing that typically comes up when working with non-DBI database interaction methods is worrying about value quoting. SQL requires that column values be quoted with single-quote characters unless the value is a number. For example:

INSERT INTO TABLE friend (first_name, last_name, age) 
VALUES ('Joe', 'Smith', 15);

This is, of course, assuming the age column is an integer. Think about zip codes. The person who designed the schema for the database you’re working with might have made the assumption that a zip code would always be a 5-digit number and therefore defined the zipcode as an integer type. Another person might have considered the possibility of zip+5 zip codes and defined the column as VARCHAR(10) and values would therefore need to be quoted inside single quotes.

Fortunately, if you use DBI properly, you won’t have to worry about quoting because you can use placeholders and bind values in query strings. See the example below:

my $sth = $dbh->prepare('INSERT INTO friend (first_name, last_name, age) 
VALUES (?, ?, ?)');
my $rv = $sth->execute( $first_name, $last_name, $age);

The question marks in the prepare() call are placeholders and the parameters passed to execute() are the corresponding bind values.

One of the reasons DBI uses a prepare() call followed by an execute() call instead of one call to execute a query is so you can reuse a prepared query with multiple bind values. Notice this example which reads from a CSV file and populates a database table:

my $sth = $dbh->prepare('INSERT INTO friend (first_name, last_name, age) 
VALUES (?, ?, ?)');

while(<CSV>) {
    my ($first_name, $last_name, $age) = split /,/;
    my $rv = $sth->execute( $first_name, $last_name, $age);
}

Fetching data

In the first example above which showed how the Pg module interacted with a PostgreSQL database backend, the fetchrow() call returned an array of values in a row of results. This is fairly limited and by no means provides the result data in all the ways a programmer would to use it. For example, one glaringly absent piece of information is the field names.

DBI provides multiple calls for fetching result data. Below is an example of the fetchall_hashref() call which gives you access to all rows in a result as a referenced hash.

my $sth = $dbh->prepare('SELECT * FROM friends');
my $rv = $sth->execute;
my $friend_hash = $sth->fetchall_hashref('id');

For simple queries like this, it may makes sense to use DBI’s selectall_hashref() call, which results in even fewer lines of code:

my $friend_hash = $dbh->selectall_hashref(
    'SELECT * FROM friends', 'id');

The resulting hashref, when dumped using Data::Dumper might look like this:

$VAR1 = {
      '1' => {
               'id' => 1,
               'age' => 15,
               'last_name' => 'Smith',
               'first_name' => 'Joe'
             },
      '3' => {
               'id' => 3,
               'age' => 33,
               'last_name' => 'Jansen',
               'first_name' => 'Stuart'
             },
      '2' => {
               'id' => 2,
               'age' => 25,
               'last_name' => 'Johnson',
               'first_name' => 'Roger'
             }
    };

In conclusion

This short article only scratches the surface on DBI, but it hopefully gives the reader an idea of the power and flexibility provided by this valuable CPAN module.

For those who are looking for more indepth information O’Reilly and Associates has published a fine book on DBI, co-written by Tim Bunce, Programming the Perl DBI which is highly recommended. And then there’s always the DBI PODs: Type perldoc DBI after/if you’ve got DBI installed on your system.

Is a "Taxpayer Revolt" imminent?

2009-02-22T04:22:49+00:00

I recently received a couple e-mail messages suggesting that our government has crossed a mighty threshold and that it was time for us, as concerned citizens, to take action to express our displeasure with policies architected to bury current and future taxpayers in unprecedented amounts of debt. These e-mail messages suggested the solution was getting a large group of people to simply refuse to pay their federal income taxes.

The logic here is that without tax revenue, the federal government would be unable to fund programs like those in the recent “Stimulus Package.” Plus, what better way to let elected leaders know you’re not happy with the direction they’re taking the country than by pulling the plug on the very means they have to do those things?

I’m not sure I agree with this suggestion. It’s an intriguing suggestion, but it’s a risky move for obvious reasons. If you don’t get enough people to go along with it, then you’re asking to be fined and penalized by the IRS. On the other hand, if you do get enough people to go along with it, it would be virtually impossible for the government to go after all those who refuse to pay.

I did a quick Google search to see what kind of “chatter” there is online about such a tax revolt. There’s a little background talk about it, but mostly people are organizing protests against tax hikes and the Obama “stimulus.”

If the Obama “Stimulus” is just the beginning of similar policy shifts to come, we may very well begin seeing items in the news like this and it will be interesting to see how the administration responds. Will they step back and find peaceful solutions or will we be looking at incidents reminiscent of Ruby Ridge, ID and the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX?

In slightly unrelated news, it is interesting to see how quickly terms like “flat tax” and “fair tax” have all but disappeared from the public radar since President Obama took office.

Change affects everyone

2009-02-21T11:13:23+00:00

I just noticed that a couple sites that aggregate from my blog feeds got dumped on, big-time because my moving blogs modified the "updated" field for all blog entries. As a result, it would appear to the aggregators that while my blog entries have been posted over the last eight years or so, I just updated them in the last week... so you should take notice.

Sorry!

Mourning a tragic passing

2009-02-21T10:43:27+00:00

This is a little late coming, but now that I have my blogs all split out, I'm getting caught up on things.

Nearly two weeks ago, on Sunday, 8 February, I found out a good friend had died in an automobile accident in Orem, UT. Friends and family rallied online, sharing consolation, stories, and memories on Facebook, and on a blog set up in her honor. Even she and I had only really been friends for four and a half months, we had spent a lot of time online chatting with each other about this, that, the other, and that other thing and since I save transcript logs of every chat I engage in, those conversations were, in a sense, immortalized.

While others she knew had memories of her smiles, her beautiful blue eyes, her fashion sense, and other attributes you would notice by being around her, I mostly had text conversations.

So, I went through my chat logs and pulled out a few excerpts that I felt really demonstrated her personality and I sent that to the person who was maintaining the blog set up for her remembrance. I have include that below, titled "Four and a half months."

Four and a half months

Adrianne McBride died in a tragic automobile accident on the morning of Sunday, 8 February 2009 at the age of 23. At the funeral services held in her honor today, family members recalled her sweet spirit, off-the-charts passion and zeal, her clever wit, her love for shoes and shopping with her mother, and her insatiable love of writing, socializing, romanticizing, and pondering the mysteries of life.

I almost never knew this young woman. It was only through my friend Chadd that we knew each other. She worked with Chadd at BIO-West in Logan as an assistant to the editorial department. I don't know exactly what it was she did there, but I know one of her responsibilities was helping with desktop IT support. She was responsible for maintaining the BIO-West website content using applications I had developed years before for BIO-West. Chadd had told me a few things about Adrianne, but it wasn't until I helped her navigate the ropes of the content management system for the BIO-West website that our friendship began.

Chadd had sent me to her blog months before, so I knew she was somewhat of an "English geek" and I can definitely relate to a person who blogs, so I already knew we'd probably get along. Chadd also warned me about her opinions... perhaps that should be "OPINIONS."

As time went on, I coined a nickname for Adrianne: Violet. I called her Violet because she was spending a lot of time online in "invisible mode," meaning she was online, but unless she was chatting with you, you wouldn't know she was online. I think she went invisible because she needed to get stuff done and didn't want to all her friends chatting with her. Sometimes, however, it was specifically because of some guy she liked.

Anyway, I called her Violet because tha's the name of the daughter from the animation film "The Incredibles." One of Violet's powers is invisibility. Adrianne seemed flattered that I coined a nickname for her and shared nicknames with me others had given her.

It's funny that, when I think back, Violet/Adrianne and I were only physically in the same room with each other a handful of times - maybe three or four times. Those were when I travelled to Logan to do work onsite at BIO-West. On one occasion, Chadd, Adrianne, Chadd's oldest daughter, and I went to lunch at a Japanese restaurant in Logan. I think it was Adrianne's first time eating sushi. She was cautious but determined to do it.

As I search back through the history of my friendship with Adrianne, I'm shocked at how short the friendship actually was: four and a half months! Adrianne made me her friend on Facebook on Tuesday, 30 September 2008 at 12:58 p.m. We had exchanged e-mail messages for about a month prior to that about the BIO-West website, but once we became "friends," the topics of our e-mail and online conversations became, well, less professional.

As I sift through my chat logs and watch how our friendship unfolded, I'm embarrassed, to say the least. Some of our early conversations consisted of me going on and on about myself and her issuing one word responses here and there. Others bordered on inappropriate (my fault). Yet, in spite of all that, she stuck with it and, eventually, she began sharing all kinds of personal things with me and, I think, began looking forward to our chats rather than tolerating them. Having heard or read what others have said about her, I think this just goes to reinforce that she was very accepting and forgiving person.

Reading back through these, I can now see wonderful characteristics in her that I never fully acknowledged before. It's a pity we seem to gloss over or fail to notice these things in people until it's too late. In some ways, we barely knew each other, yet she was very concerned about my feelings. She would apologize for bothering, irritating, or annoying me and usually I hadn't even realized a situation had transpired in which I might have had that reaction. She was so sincere and empathetic!

Like I said, she and I spent a generous amount of time talking about her dating life (or lack thereof), relationships, relationship strategies, etc. I'm not going to include much of that here, but Adrianne seemed to just need someone to bounce things off of, it seems.

Our first Google Talk chat lasted about 20 minutes. Here's an excerpt toward the end of it:

(05:29:01 PM) Fozz: Did you ever use the VMS system at USU?
(05:29:18 PM) Fozz: That was "the" e-mail system when I was in school there.
(05:29:29 PM) Andrianne: No, I never used it.
(05:29:44 PM) Fozz: My wife and I met chatting on that system back in 1993.
(05:30:02 PM) Andrianne: Chadd and I use IM quite frequently regarding work stuffs. And it's nice because then we don't have to talk out loud and bother people.
(05:30:30 PM) Fozz: Yeah- when Chadd talks outloud, it tends to bother a lot of people. ;-)
(05:30:31 PM) Andrianne: They had chat in 1993?
(05:30:35 PM) Fozz: It wasn't like this.
(05:30:40 PM) Fozz: it wasn't graphical.
(05:30:44 PM) Fozz: It was all text-based.
(05:30:46 PM) Andrianne: Actually, when I talk out loud it tends to bother people. :)
(05:30:57 PM) Fozz: And it was only with other people who were using the same system.
(05:31:07 PM) Fozz: I've got to run. I'll be back in 15-20 min
(05:31:18 PM) Andrianne: Alright

Already, we can see Adrianne was armed and ready with her wit and sense of humor.

About 90 minutes later, we chatted again. This time, about television shows. A barrage of opinions flew across at me. Anyone who knew Adrianne knows her opinions on television, movies, etc. and has probably been exposed to this barrage on multiple occasions because she never seemed to tire of espousing her opinions.

(07:12:09 PM) Fozz: I was watching Sarah Connor do her wild thang.
(07:12:19 PM) Andrianne: I hear that show might get canceled.
(07:12:27 PM) Fozz: Ah well.
(07:12:41 PM) Fozz: That would suck.
(07:12:52 PM) Fozz: but it seems like all the shows I get into get canceled
(07:13:00 PM) Andrianne: Were you into Firefly?
(07:13:04 PM) Andrianne: Arrested Development?
(07:13:09 PM) Andrianne: Veronica Mars?
(07:13:13 PM) Fozz: I was into Firefly, VM
(07:13:15 PM) Fozz: Buffy, Angel.
(07:13:32 PM) Fozz: Star Trek: Enterprise.
(07:13:46 PM) Fozz: Not so much Arrested Development... but I've had people tell me I'd really dig it.
(07:13:54 PM) Andrianne: It's quite great.
(07:13:54 PM) Fozz: But yeah- I've got box sets of them all.
(07:14:50 PM) Fozz: Are you into Heroes?
(07:15:31 PM) Andrianne: Nope
(07:15:44 PM) Fozz: Good show.
(07:15:53 PM) Andrianne: I hear it took a pretty steep turn down, though
(07:16:01 PM) Fozz: But I'm not impressed with this season.
(07:16:59 PM) Andrianne: Last season, the only shows I watched devotedly were The Office and 30 Rock.
(07:17:00 PM) Fozz: I would hate to be a writer for television.
(07:17:18 PM) Andrianne: My girl crush on Kate Walsh led me to watch Private Practice every now and again
(07:17:30 PM) Fozz: I'm not at all familiar with that.
(07:17:42 PM) Andrianne: This season I'm going to continue the ritual from last season, and now I'm hooked on Pushing Daisies
(07:17:45 PM) Fozz: My brother-in-law, whom I work with, is a big fan of 30 Rock.
(07:17:46 PM) Andrianne: So, 3 shows. Not bad.
(07:17:56 PM) Andrianne: The Office is my favorite show, um, ever.
(07:17:59 PM) Fozz: I've been told I'd like The Office.
(07:18:03 PM) Fozz: I like Steve Carrel.
(07:18:04 PM) Andrianne: But 30 Rock has more laughs per episode
(07:18:39 PM) Andrianne: Do you like Alec Baldwin?
(07:18:44 PM) Fozz: I watch Smallville... and I don't know why anymore.
(07:18:46 PM) Fozz: No, not really.
(07:18:53 PM) Fozz: I don't care for him very much as a person.
(07:18:57 PM) Fozz: He's a half-decent actor.
(07:19:07 PM) Fozz: I liked him in Hunt For Red October.
(07:19:19 PM) Fozz: Can't think of any other films I saw hiim in that I liked.
(07:19:33 PM) Fozz: I thought Harrison Ford was a better Jack Ryan anyway.
(07:19:53 PM) Fozz: A friend of mine got me into SportsNight.
(07:20:08 PM) Fozz: Another show that got an early cancellation.
(07:20:12 PM) Fozz: Same with Studio 60.
(07:20:21 PM) Fozz: Same writer/producer.
(07:20:40 PM) Andrianne: Have you seen Glengarry Glen Ross?
(07:20:41 PM) Fozz: Sorkin did The West Wing, which I never watched.
(07:20:47 PM) Fozz: Yes. A couple times. Good show.
(07:20:49 PM) Fozz: Dammit.
(07:20:58 PM) Andrianne: That's one of Alec's best.
(07:21:04 PM) Fozz: Oh yeah- I guess it was.
(07:21:07 PM) Andrianne: He's seriously one of the funniest men EVER.
(07:21:11 PM) Andrianne: And 30 Rock makes use of that.
(07:21:12 PM) Fozz: I liked Spacey better in that show.
(07:21:18 PM) Andrianne: Mmm, Spacey.
(07:21:23 PM) Andrianne: He's my old man crush
(07:21:25 PM) Fozz: Heh.
(07:21:29 PM) Fozz: American Beauty?
(07:21:30 PM) Andrianne: I saw him on Broadway last year
(07:21:46 PM) Fozz: I think I saw American Beauty in the theater (in Logan) like... 5 times.
(07:21:46 PM) Andrianne: American Beauty is amazing.
(07:21:59 PM) Fozz: I don't think I've seen anything in the theater that many times.
(07:22:00 PM) Andrianne: I wish I could've seen it in theatres
(07:22:07 PM) Fozz: Yeah- you were like 12. :)
(07:22:16 PM) Andrianne: 1999?
(07:22:18 PM) Andrianne: I was 14.
(07:22:20 PM) Fozz: Uhm... Close.
(07:22:23 PM) Andrianne: lol
(07:23:19 PM) Fozz: Yeah- great movie. Great writing. Great direction and just plain awesome cinematography.
(07:23:30 PM) Andrianne: Yes.
(07:23:47 PM) Andrianne: Pretty damn close to flawless
(07:23:55 PM) Fozz: I think a lot of that comes from the fact the director was a Broadway director who was doing his first film.
(07:24:04 PM) Fozz: Sam Mendes.
(07:24:12 PM) Andrianne: He's a lucky man.
(07:24:35 PM) Andrianne: I liked Road to Perdition, too, but not Jarhead.
(07:24:56 PM) Andrianne: (He's married to Kate Winslet, so Sam Mendes = lucky.)
(07:25:05 PM) Fozz: When it came out, it was controversial because of drugs, sex, incest, all that crap.
(07:25:15 PM) Fozz: Yes. Lucky.
(07:25:19 PM) Fozz: Wow. I just saw her in...
(07:25:21 PM) Fozz: What was it...
(07:25:25 PM) Andrianne: Eternal Sunshine?
(07:25:30 PM) Fozz: Yeah.
(07:25:34 PM) Andrianne: Amazing.
(07:25:38 PM) Fozz: And she had not a single hint of an accent.
(07:25:46 PM) Fozz: That was a decent show.
(07:25:53 PM) Andrianne: She made me think about coloring my hair that Raggedy Ann red.
(07:26:00 PM) Andrianne: And then I realized, um, bad idea for me.
(07:26:01 PM) Fozz: Probably the first decent show from Netflix in probably 4-5.
(07:26:12 PM) Andrianne: Ahh, netflix.
(07:26:18 PM) Andrianne: I'm addicted, and I blame Chadd.
(07:26:21 PM) Fozz: heh heh.
(07:26:28 PM) Fozz: I blame Chadd for a lot of my personal problems.
(07:26:32 PM) Andrianne: lol!

Adrianne then shared with me her growing frustration with living in Logan. All her friends had gotten married and were starting families, she said. Nonetheless, she said she liked Logan "even if dating is a suckhole here."

"Men, for a multitude of reasons, are emasculated and wimpy," she said. "They aren't aggressive. If people even make friends with the opposite gender, they `hang out.´

The next time we chatted was 5 days later on Monday, 6 October 2008. I had just returned from taking a certification exam in Phoenix (which I passed) and was concerned about the future of my job. I had purchased some books on leadership and organizational skills to prepare for the forthcoming changes in my life I saw written on the proverbial wall.

(12:01:29 PM) Adrianne: Isn't it a shaky time to think about getting a new job?
(12:01:38 PM) Fozz:I'm contractually obligated to stay at KnowledgeBlue until Jan 1.
(12:01:48 PM) Adrianne: I know very little about the IT job market, so I could be way off.
(12:01:50 PM) Fozz: You're right. It's not a great time to be doing that.
(12:02:00 PM) Fozz: Utah, of course, fares better than the rest of the nation.
(12:02:49 PM) Adrianne: In general, or with IT?
(12:02:55 PM) Fozz: in general.
(12:03:09 PM) Fozz: because our economy is in much better shape than the rest of the country.
(12:06:17 PM) Adrianne: If only our average income was higher...
(12:06:43 PM) Fozz: Sure.
(12:07:44 PM) Adrianne: See, I have this theory.
(12:07:57 PM) Fozz: oh?
(12:12:15 PM) Adrianne: Sorry -- I had to get the phone for a second
(12:12:55 PM) Adrianne: I think that, in order to make things fair, designer clothing should have pricing akin to that of housing.
(12:14:01 PM) Adrianne: See, a pair of Christian Louboutins (running from $600-$3000) are much less expensive to a New Yorker who makes more on average. Sure, they spend more on living and other expenses in general, but a pair of $700 shoes to them is more like a pair of $1500 shoes to me.
(12:14:04 PM) Adrianne: If that makes sense...
(12:15:36 PM) Fozz: $700 shoes? What? Do they make you fly or something?
(12:16:23 PM) Adrianne: No.
(12:16:38 PM) Adrianne: They're just gorgeous, handmade Italian shoes. Mmmmm.
(12:22:28 PM) Adrianne: They used to be in the $300-$1500 range, but the prices have been steadily rising for the last 5 years or so
(12:38:52 PM) Adrianne: Everyone has their "thing" that they like to dream about and sometimes splurge on, right?
(12:39:09 PM) Adrianne: My friends of the male persuasion love spending boatloads on home theatre setups.
(12:39:58 PM) Adrianne: My "thing" is designer shoes (generally Christian Louboutins) and Diane von Furstenberg dresses. Le sigh.
(12:43:08 PM) Adrianne: I have a feeling you probably like to splurge on fancy-shmancy computer toys
(12:59:22 PM) Fozz: I guess so.
(12:59:46 PM) Fozz: Except I'm married... so splurge isn't really allowed to be part of my vocabulary.
(01:12:18 PM) Adrianne: It isn't?
(01:12:30 PM) Fozz: Not really.
(01:12:39 PM) Adrianne: Never ever?
(01:12:40 PM) Fozz: Plus, my wife is all sensible and stuff.
(01:12:51 PM) Adrianne: I think people can still be sensible and splurge.
(01:12:55 PM) Adrianne: It's all about balance.
(01:12:55 PM) Fozz: She buys shoes a lot more than I do, tho.

Ahh, the next of Adrianne's passions is unveiled: Shoes. And not just any shoes... tall, expensive shoes.

(01:16:55 PM) Adrianne: I'm all about the towers.

(01:17:22 PM) Fozz: good. Makes your butt look good too. :)
(01:17:52 PM) Adrianne: That's what they say.
(01:18:32 PM) Adrianne: http://i24.ebayimg.com/05/i/001/08/b8/e16c_1.JPG
(01:18:52 PM) Adrianne: This was my first pair of Christian Louboutins. If high heels make your butt look good, then I'm set for life with those babies.
(01:19:40 PM) Fozz: Oh boy. Those look like they disfigure your feet.
(01:22:20 PM) Adrianne: No way.
(01:23:45 PM) Adrianne: They're spectacular.
(01:23:58 PM) Fozz: Cool.

I still chuckle when I read what happened next in the exchange. I was working on some programming in another window but accidentally typed ":q!" into the conversation window instead.

(01:24:19 PM) Fozz: :q!

(01:24:23 PM) Fozz: woops. wrong window.
(01:25:32 PM) Adrianne: What in the world is :q!
(01:25:33 PM) Adrianne: ?
(01:25:43 PM) Fozz: Heh heh.
(01:25:52 PM) Fozz: That's the command to forcefully exit the vim text editor.
(01:26:10 PM) Adrianne: It looks like a weird emoticon.
(01:26:15 PM) Fozz: Yeah. It does.
(01:26:42 PM) Fozz: Like someone smoking from a bong or something. :)
(01:27:00 PM) Adrianne: You said it. :)

The next time Adrianne and I chatted, she decided to let me me in on a secret.

(05:18:38 PM) Adrianne: Can you keep a secret?

(05:18:43 PM) Adrianne: As in, tell NO ONE.
(05:18:48 PM) Fozz: Not even Chadd?!
(05:18:52 PM) Adrianne: Not even Chadd.
(05:18:57 PM) Fozz: Okay. I'll do it.
(05:18:59 PM) Fozz: (not tell Chadd)
(05:19:02 PM) Adrianne: Lol
(05:19:18 PM) Fozz: You're pregnant?
(05:19:22 PM) Fozz: I just saw Juno on Friday
(05:19:27 PM) Fozz: It was better than I thought it would be.
(05:19:40 PM) Adrianne: Um, that would require having sex or using in-vitro.
(05:19:50 PM) Adrianne: I have never engaged in neither of those things.
(05:19:55 PM) Fozz: Both have been known to happen from time to time.
(05:20:03 PM) Fozz: So, it's not within the realm of impossible.
(05:20:11 PM) Adrianne: So, safe to say my eggo is not preggo.
(05:20:15 PM) Fozz: hee hee.
(05:20:17 PM) Adrianne: :)
(05:20:23 PM) Fozz: What a plethora of quotables.
(05:20:31 PM) Adrianne: I know, and I love every minute of it.
(05:20:49 PM) Adrianne: My tastes lean toward hipster-y cutesy. What can I say?
(05:21:18 PM) Adrianne: And I have a, um, possibly illegal crush on Michael Cera.
(05:21:28 PM) Fozz: heh. it had a Napoleon Dynamite vibe to it too, with the music, the "I'm not popular" characters, and the ruralness of it.
(05:22:36 PM) Adrianne: Except that it was approximately 5,208,639 times better. In my opinion, anyway.
(05:22:54 PM) Fozz: I think it was better, yeah.
(05:23:16 PM) Fozz: Well, except I think the cinematography was more beautiful in ND.
(05:23:22 PM) Fozz: Some of those shots are to die for.
(05:23:42 PM) Fozz: The story of Juno is certainly better. :)
(05:24:01 PM) Fozz: They both have a nice supply of quotables... but Juno's quotables are more sophisticated.
(05:24:41 PM) Adrianne: Agreed.
(05:24:51 PM) Adrianne: Secret:
(05:24:54 PM) Fozz: oh yeah.
(05:24:57 PM) Fozz: Your secret.
(05:25:06 PM) Adrianne: So, one of the veg techs told me that BIO-WEST is going to open an office in SLC. I want to relocate.

That was the first time I knew she was thinking of leaving Logan.

On Tuesday, 7 October, she told me she'd been on the phone with a boy for a couple of hours.

(10:40:57 PM) Fozz: So, what have you been yakkin about this evening? Anything interesting?

(10:41:47 PM) Adrianne: Yeah. It was almost like a first date over the phone.
(10:42:26 PM) Fozz: Who was the other participant?
(10:42:42 PM) Adrianne: He's a friend of a friend
(10:42:55 PM) Fozz: Is he...
(10:43:06 PM) Fozz: Does he have those qualities that are important to you?
(10:43:12 PM) Fozz: Is he aggressive?
(10:43:29 PM) Fozz: Smart?
(10:43:40 PM) Fozz: Complimentary? ;-)
(10:44:03 PM) Adrianne: Well, he added me as a friend on facebook shortly after our mutual friend got a facebook account
(10:44:11 PM) Adrianne: And then he started chatting with me today
(10:44:17 PM) ***Fozz signs onto fb
(10:44:30 PM) Adrianne: And he gave me his number and told me to text him since he had to go to class
(10:44:40 PM) Adrianne: flirty text messages ensued
(10:44:46 PM) Adrianne: And after class, he called and we talked for two hours.
(10:45:12 PM) Adrianne: And I'm supposed to text him now that I'm home, but I don't know what to say
(10:46:06 PM) Fozz: You know what I always say in those cases?
(10:46:10 PM) Fozz: "Meow."
(10:46:14 PM) Fozz: I don't know why.
(10:46:19 PM) Adrianne: Lol
(10:46:28 PM) Adrianne: I don't know...I don't want to freak him out.
(10:46:45 PM) Adrianne: Maybe I'm overthinking it. Perhaps a simple "Hey :)" would do
(10:46:47 PM) Fozz: You could pretend you "accidentally" text'd him.
(10:47:01 PM) Adrianne: Bwahaha. I totally used to do that when I was, oh, 19

We ended up spent a lot of time over the next three months analyzing (and re-analyzing) the interactions between Adrianne and this boy.

The rest of the chat excerpts that follow are roughly chronological from early October until the end of January.

Here's a random amusing excerpt from a conversation on Wednesday, 8 October:

(11:44:13 AM) Adrianne: I feel weird.

(11:49:04 AM) Fozz: I can't confirm that.
(11:49:25 AM) Adrianne: :) It's okay. I don't need any confirmation.

In our discussions about dating and relationships, I shared some bits of a book I had read called "The Two-Step." Here's the first time I told her about it.

(10:11:37 AM) Adrianne: You know, I've gone so long without dating that I'm not sure I really know how to start something anymore. I am definitely good at getting back into the losing sleep to converse part of it.

(10:11:57 AM) Fozz: okay.
(10:13:48 AM) Adrianne: At what point does all the flirting become...reality?
(10:13:49 AM) Adrianne: okay what?
(10:14:11 AM) Fozz: I dunno. Didn't know what else to say.
(10:14:43 AM) Adrianne: you're married
(10:14:44 AM) Fozz: Flirting ?= reality... I dunno... when you're face-to-face.
(10:14:45 AM) Adrianne: You've done that dance
(10:14:55 AM) Fozz: I still do the dance. It's called the 2-step.
(10:15:01 AM) Fozz: it's the only way to stay married.
(10:15:29 AM) Adrianne: This is probably some really great metaphor that I don't get because I'm not a dancer. At all.

Adrianne was, of course, anxious to know what I thought of one of her favorite films and what I thought of the green dress!

(09:51:05 PM) Adrianne: Did you like Atonement?

(09:51:13 PM) Fozz: Not as much as I hoped I would.
(09:51:13 PM) Adrianne: And is that green dress not the most amazing thing EVER?
(09:51:49 PM) Fozz: It is a nice period costume.
(09:52:05 PM) Fozz: Unfortunately, I'm not a big Kiera fan
(09:52:18 PM) Adrianne: lol
(09:52:20 PM) Fozz: If it was worn by someone slightly more... meaty.
(09:52:25 PM) Adrianne: I don't know...
(09:52:30 PM) Adrianne: It makes me wish I was all bony
(09:52:41 PM) Adrianne: stuff that low cut looks sexy on flat girls and tranny on busty ones
(09:52:43 PM) Fozz: Yeah- I don't like that anorexic look.
(09:53:09 PM) Fozz: I thought she looked better in Atonement than any other film I've seen her in.
(09:53:31 PM) Fozz: But I'm a sucker for that period look. Almost a 50s pin-up look.
(09:53:48 PM) Adrianne: I freaking love the pin-up look.
(09:53:53 PM) Fozz: :)
(09:54:00 PM) Adrianne: I love high waisted pencil skirts
(09:54:34 PM) Adrianne: I love all the swing dresses and garden party gowns

I just have to say, the non sequitur nature of so many of our conversations is fun to read now.

(10:51:06 PM) Adrianne: Dag, yo.

(10:51:10 PM) Fozz: Dag?
(10:51:42 PM) Adrianne: I think "Dag, yo" is from Teen Girl Squad
(10:51:50 PM) Fozz: which is what?
(10:52:42 PM) Adrianne: a segment on www.homestarrunner.com
(10:52:48 PM) Fozz: Oh.
(10:52:54 PM) Fozz: I've only watched SB
(10:52:56 PM) Adrianne: I watched it in high school
(10:55:57 PM) Fozz: What's your favorite strongbad?
(10:56:58 PM) Adrianne: Hmmm...
(10:57:03 PM) Adrianne: Children's Book
(10:57:18 PM) Fozz: I'll have to watch that one again.
(11:02:40 PM) Adrianne: Sorry, I had to reset my router
(11:02:48 PM) Fozz: I love it when you talk dirty like that.
(11:03:01 PM) Adrianne: wtf?
(11:03:05 PM) Fozz: hee hee.
(11:03:20 PM) Fozz: Not many girls know how to talk about resetting their routers.
(11:03:36 PM) Adrianne: True
(11:04:15 PM) Fozz: "I had to like push this blue thing on this gray thing and wait for the red thing to do its.... thing."
(11:04:21 PM) Adrianne: Heh

This immediately transitioned into a conversation about boots. She definitely loved to talk about her footwear.

(11:06:41 PM) Adrianne: I wish I was rich: http://www.zappos.com/n/p/dp/42455175/c/38010.html

(11:07:35 PM) Fozz: Hmmm. What would I wish for richness for...
(11:08:28 PM) Adrianne: I could find several more things to wish for richness for,
(11:08:38 PM) Adrianne: but right now I'm thinking about buying some sexy boots.
(11:08:58 PM) Adrianne: The only boots I have are Wellies and (ugh) Uggs.
(11:09:11 PM) Fozz: I'm happy with my Docs.
(11:09:28 PM) Adrianne: I want heeled boots
(11:09:44 PM) Adrianne: And not those cheesy chunky-heeled ones that most girls my age have had since they were 16.
(11:10:28 PM) Fozz: Oh, you want some boots you can gouge someone's cheek with.
(11:10:42 PM) Fozz: Got it.
(11:10:56 PM) Adrianne: Yeah, essentially
(11:11:50 PM) Adrianne: On the non-boot side of things, I'd also like these: http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/3008482/0~2376778~6017238?mediumthumbnail=Y&origin=category&searchtype=&pbo=6017238&P=1
(11:12:07 PM) Adrianne: Whoops: http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2994292?refsid=236954_1&refcat=0~2376778~2372808~2372949~2372953&SourceID=1&SlotID=1&origin=related
(11:12:38 PM) Fozz: ok
(11:12:49 PM) Fozz: Not too expensive.
(11:13:12 PM) Adrianne: Nah, but I have a $25 gift card to Nordstrom's

Many times, Adrianne would post the strangest Facebook statuses.

(04:23:16 PM) Fozz: Diabetes is for lovers?

(04:23:22 PM) Adrianne: lol
(04:23:22 PM) Fozz: What's that crap?!
(04:23:30 PM) Adrianne: That's what David Sedaris wrote in my book last night.
(04:23:36 PM) Fozz: Who the crap is that?\
(04:23:47 PM) Adrianne: One of my favorite writers EVER.
(04:24:13 PM) Fozz: EVER?
(04:24:14 PM) Fozz: Wow.
(04:24:17 PM) Fozz: I mean, WOW.
(04:25:00 PM) Adrianne: Yeah.

Adrianne's decision to leave a job she loved and move back to the Salt Lake area was something she really struggled with. It's interesting to me that she never really struggled what decision she felt was the right one to make, but more how to live with that decision.

(12:36:15 AM) Adrianne: I feel wretched.

(12:36:46 AM) Fozz: I felt wretched about 2.5 hours ago.
(12:36:52 AM) Fozz: I still feel semi-wretched.
(12:37:12 AM) Adrianne: I feel like I've been smacked upside the face with a pillowcase full of bricks.
(12:37:16 AM) Fozz: Why?
(12:38:46 AM) Fozz: Or do you know why?
(12:39:31 AM) Adrianne: Because I don't want to quit BIO-WEST.
(12:39:38 AM) Fozz: Okay.
(12:39:43 AM) Adrianne: But it's the only thing keeping me in Logan
(12:39:57 AM) Fozz: You know...
(12:40:04 AM) Fozz: I know they have people who work remote...
(12:40:09 AM) Adrianne: Just one.
(12:40:13 AM) Fozz: Does Melissa Stamp still work in SLC?
(12:40:18 AM) Adrianne: Yeah
(12:40:24 AM) Adrianne: But she's not a lowly editorial/IT person
(12:40:45 AM) Fozz: So, what's got you down on Cache Valley?
(12:40:46 AM) Adrianne: I mean, I'll talk to Sandra about the possibility of helming the SLC office if there's a need for that
(12:40:52 AM) Adrianne: I hate the winter here
(12:40:57 AM) Fozz: Oh. me too.
(12:41:01 AM) Fozz: I mean, the winter'
(12:41:06 AM) Adrianne: All my friends are graduating, getting married, having babies, leaving.
(12:41:07 AM) Fozz: I mean, the winter's aren't that great in SL, either.
(12:41:13 AM) Adrianne: But at least I'd be near things
(12:41:16 AM) Fozz: Yeah.
(12:41:31 AM) Adrianne: I miss out on a lot of things in SLC that I regret
(12:41:47 AM) Adrianne: And I know this is a lame thing to say
(12:41:52 AM) Fozz: Would you move back in with your parents?
(12:41:55 AM) Adrianne: But really? I hate that I don't have a dating life.
(12:42:07 AM) Adrianne: Oh, heavens no. No no no. I'm also looking at apartments down there
(12:42:33 AM) Adrianne: I wish I could live in someone's basement or something
(12:42:40 AM) Adrianne: But stuff like that is hard to come by
(12:42:41 AM) Fozz: :)
(12:42:47 AM) Adrianne: I have friends who do that
(12:42:49 AM) Fozz: OTOH, in Logan, everyone's got a basement.
(12:42:54 AM) Fozz: (for rent)
(12:43:00 AM) Adrianne: They prefer it because they don't have to have roommates.
(12:43:08 AM) Adrianne: Yeah, but I need to get out of here.
(12:43:09 AM) Adrianne: BAD.
(12:44:30 AM) Fozz: It was really hard for me to leave Logan.
(12:45:51 AM) Adrianne: It's going to be hard for me, too
(12:46:02 AM) Adrianne: But for the last few weeks, I've felt like I need to
(12:46:31 AM) Adrianne: I'm going to pray and fast about it tomorrow.
(12:46:40 AM) Fozz: that's a good idea.
(12:46:45 AM) Adrianne: And it's weird, because I feel like I already know the answer.
(12:46:46 AM) Fozz: My wife would say to do that.
(12:46:52 AM) Fozz: I never think about doing that.
(12:47:20 AM) Fozz: I think you're supposed to make your decision (which you sound pretty solid on) and then get reassurance through prayer.
(12:48:19 AM) Fozz: I'll ask around to see if anyone has a room or a basement available.
(12:48:20 AM) Adrianne: And I reeeeeally hope I don't cry when I talk to Sandra.
(12:48:44 AM) Adrianne: I've been so torn up over the whole situation that I feel like my tear ducts are in a constant state of vomit.
(12:48:52 AM) Fozz: Not pleasant.
(12:49:25 AM) Adrianne: No.
(12:49:35 AM) Adrianne: My mom called me today and I just couldn't stop crying.
(12:49:37 AM) Adrianne: It was horrible.
(12:50:02 AM) Fozz: but, yeah, if you're not in school and not "hitched," it can be tough to exist in Logan. The place can be sorely depressing.
(12:50:15 AM) Fozz: I went through a few periods like that.
(12:50:26 AM) Fozz: That was when i was in school...
(12:50:54 AM) Fozz: so I'd take off for a couple quarters (we were on quarters back then, not semesters), work in SL for a while or just be depressed in SL for a while.
(12:51:06 AM) Adrianne: I just never imagined that I would come to hate this place so much
(12:51:07 AM) Fozz: What did your mom say? Good relationship with your mom?
(12:51:16 AM) Adrianne: Very
(12:51:26 AM) Adrianne: She thinks I need to pray about it
(12:51:31 AM) Adrianne: But she also thinks I need to get out of Logan
(12:51:56 AM) Fozz: I wish my sister had never moved to Cache Valley.
(12:52:10 AM) Fozz: But, I can't really say that...
(12:52:22 AM) Fozz: because if she hadn't moved to Cache Valley, I wouldn't be where I am.
(12:52:30 AM) Fozz: I wouldn't have gone to USU.
(12:52:34 AM) Fozz: May not have gone to college.
(12:52:42 AM) Fozz: I wouldn't have met my wife.
...
(12:54:16 AM) Adrianne: Yeah, I stayed because I had good work
(12:54:34 AM) Fozz: And the more I laught at those who look down their nose at me because I choose to live "in the city." heh heh.
(12:55:22 AM) Fozz: Well, I'll help any way I can/
(12:55:39 AM) Fozz: I'm sure Sandra and Chadd will try to work something out with you if you need it.
(12:55:49 AM) Adrianne: I'm still scared to bring it up at all
(12:55:57 AM) Adrianne: Because I'm perfectly happy with my job
(12:56:09 AM) Adrianne: But not the place I live
(12:56:32 AM) Fozz: Would you be willing to drive up to Logan a couple days a week?
(12:57:38 AM) Adrianne: The thought isn't ideal.
(12:57:45 AM) Adrianne: But with gas reimbursement, I'd live with it.
(12:58:48 AM) Adrianne: I do have places I can stay up here.
(01:01:00 AM) Fozz: I should try to go to bed.
(01:01:11 AM) Fozz: Let me know what happens if we don't chat again before then.
(01:01:22 AM) Adrianne: Alrighty
(01:01:27 AM) Fozz: Chin... UP!
(01:01:33 AM) Adrianne: :) Okay.

Here's another fun, amusing gem to read.

(06:13:39 PM)

Fozz: I need to move all my personal stuff off the Iodynamics servers... just in case.
(06:13:53 PM) Fozz: http://www.sonsofnothing.com/ is huge.
(06:14:27 PM) Fozz: Looks like 2.6GB
(06:15:12 PM) Adrianne: Psh, that's chump space.
(06:15:19 PM) Fozz: For a website?
(06:16:39 PM) Adrianne: Well, you'd know that better than me.
(06:17:07 PM) Adrianne: But we have employees here at BIO-WEST who move more than that regularly for GIS use.
(06:17:16 PM) Fozz: Sure.
(06:17:59 PM) Adrianne: So I was just being a smartass. I do that from time to time. :)
(06:18:05 PM) Fozz: NO!
(06:18:11 PM) Fozz: That's not true!
(06:18:16 PM) Fozz: NOoooOOoooOOOOoooo!
(06:18:19 PM) Fozz: That's IMPOSSIBLE!
(06:18:20 PM) Adrianne: Heh
(06:18:25 PM) Adrianne: I know. It's a shocker.

This snippet is a perfect example of Adrianne's occasional self-deprecation, but she handles it with such style!

(02:30:51 PM) Adrianne: Well, I am REALLY pathetic.

(02:30:56 PM) Adrianne: So I'm just one step away from that.
(02:31:04 PM) Adrianne: Which still puts me in the pathetic area.
(02:31:08 PM) Fozz: pfft.
(02:35:37 PM) Adrianne: What?
(02:36:53 PM) Fozz: Well, telling people you're pathetic. That doesn't help!
(02:37:18 PM) Adrianne: I'm only admitting it to you. :)

Would you find it amazing that Adrianne had things to say about musical artists?

(04:27:41 PM) Adrianne: LOL

(04:27:50 PM) Adrianne: Every boy I know likes Smashing Pumpkins.
(04:27:56 PM) Adrianne: Well, that's an exaggerations
(04:27:59 PM) Adrianne: *exaggeration
(04:28:03 PM) Adrianne: But most of my BFs have.
(04:28:10 PM) Adrianne: Which is fine; I love 'em.
(04:28:52 PM) Fozz: Isn't the band like... disbanded
(04:29:17 PM) Adrianne: They reformed a couple of years ago, minus James Iha.
(04:29:34 PM) Adrianne: Which, on one hand, is a terrible shame. I'm not sure they'll ever generate new material as well without him.
(04:30:03 PM) Adrianne: On the other hand, Billy Corgan is a lyrical genius, so I'm all for his reappearance in the musical arena.

Usually, Adrianne didn't really express much of an interest in discussing politics even though it was a hot topic in October-November 2008. In this chat before the 2008 election, Adrianne told me she was just not going to vote.

(12:14:39 AM) Adrianne: I'm not going to complain about what happens

(12:14:46 AM) Adrianne: That's not how I am
(12:15:02 AM) Fozz: Do you know who John Stossel is?
(12:15:03 AM) Adrianne: So when people tell me I won't be able to complain, I just say, "okay."
(12:15:05 AM) Adrianne: no
(12:15:19 AM) Fozz: He's a reporter for ABC's 20/20 program.
(12:15:28 AM) Fozz: He did this report about a month ago...
(12:15:52 AM) Fozz: where he went to one of these "rock the vote" type concerts... where they were encouraging all these young people to be politically active, campaign, and vote.
(12:16:18 AM) Fozz: and he asked a bunch of these kids who were there- simple questions about our government.
(12:16:34 AM) Fozz: A handful could answer the questions, but the majority could not.
(12:16:46 AM) Fozz: It was funny and sad at the same time.
(12:17:01 AM) Fozz: "What is Roe v. Wade?" "That's like a black person... and a white person?"
(12:17:15 AM) Fozz: Stuff like that.
(12:17:17 AM) Adrianne: sad.
(12:17:33 AM) Fozz: Stossel suggested that maybe we should NOT be encouraging these people to vote.
(12:17:43 AM) Fozz: that their vote would, in fact, be bad for our country.
(12:17:57 AM) Adrianne: lol
(12:17:59 AM) Adrianne: Yeah
(12:18:45 AM) Fozz: I swear, the stupid vote is huge this year.
(12:19:02 AM) Adrianne: Yep
(12:19:03 AM) Fozz: Ah well.
(12:19:13 AM) Adrianne: Aren't you glad I'm not contributing?!
(12:19:19 AM) Fozz: Heh heh. no!
(12:19:19 AM) Adrianne: :)

Here's a random little nugget that makes me smile.

(02:19:40 PM) Adrianne: If I'm Violet, who are you?

(02:19:52 PM) Fozz: Not sure.
(02:20:18 PM) Fozz: Sully? :)
(02:20:35 PM) Adrianne: That's a different movie!

Did you know Adrianne loved to talk about movies? Yeah! Really!

(12:16:55 AM) ***Fozz hums rocky music.

(12:18:15 AM) Adrianne: Turns out, I've never seen Rocky.
(12:18:29 AM) Fozz: Oh dear.
(12:18:38 AM) Adrianne: I've avoided it my whole life due to people making stupid, "yo, Adrian!" comments to me since I was approximately 12.
(12:18:47 AM) Fozz: That's worth a Saturday afternoon alone.
(12:19:10 AM) Fozz: Talia Shire is adorable in that movie.
(12:20:50 AM) Adrianne: Huh. Well, maybe some day.
(12:21:01 AM) Fozz: It won an oscar.
(12:21:08 AM) Adrianne: so?
(12:21:11 AM) Adrianne: lo
(12:21:12 AM) Adrianne: *lol
(12:21:24 AM) Fozz: Yeah- that doesn't mean squat anymore, does it?
(12:21:49 AM) Fozz: academy went downhill in the late 90s.
(12:21:51 AM) Adrianne: not really, no.
(12:22:15 AM) Adrianne: The day that Good Will Hunting lost Best Picture to Titanic...that was when it officially jumped out the window.
(12:22:21 AM) Fozz: heh heh.
(12:22:34 AM) Fozz: I was just thinking that Titanic won- that wasn't so bad.
(12:22:41 AM) Adrianne: It was a fine film.
(12:22:47 AM) Adrianne: But not better than GWH.
(12:22:51 AM) Fozz: I saw GWH with my mom.
(12:22:55 AM) Adrianne: awkward.
(12:22:56 AM) Fozz: that was tough.
(12:22:58 AM) Fozz: yeah.
(12:23:02 AM) Fozz: That was f-in hard!
(12:23:05 AM) Adrianne: My brother had to watch it for a class
(12:23:08 AM) Adrianne: he's 17
(12:23:15 AM) Adrianne: I volunteered to watch it with him
(12:23:21 AM) Adrianne: I think my mom was relieved
(12:23:32 AM) Adrianne: though she'd never admit it because she always lectures me about rated R movies
(12:24:09 AM) Fozz: And then there was the LOTR fiasco.
(12:25:01 AM) Fozz: You should come over when I get the theater finished!
(12:26:20 AM) Adrianne: Can I bring my boyfriend?
(12:26:24 AM) Fozz: Sure.
(12:26:30 AM) Adrianne: lol
(12:26:32 AM) Fozz: (you have one?)
(12:26:36 AM) Adrianne: Nope.
(12:26:39 AM) Adrianne: working on it, though.
(12:26:44 AM) Fozz: (If not, I've got a blow-up one you can use.)
(12:27:11 AM) Adrianne: Eek.
(12:28:00 AM) Fozz: You eeker.

If there's one thing Adrianne could not understand was why people liked the Twilight series of books or the Twilight film that came out in November 2008. I had so much fun giving her crap about that and observing the results.

(10:10:59 AM)

Fozz: heh heh. you should read CVZ's daughter's status updates today on FB
(10:11:21 AM) Fozz: Gretchen VanZanten can die happy because Twilight is everything she wanted and more!!!
(10:11:26 AM) Adrianne: Barfy barf.
(10:11:48 AM) Fozz: Gretchen VanZanten at 2:44am November 21Yeah I know what I want for christmas! Somma those cullen boys! Holy crows they were so so so hot! Meeting the Cullens was the best scene ever!!
(10:15:47 AM) Adrianne: Was she joking?
(10:15:54 AM) Fozz: Hell no.
(10:16:15 AM) Adrianne: Yikes.

Random nugget:

(07:13:47 PM) Adrianne: Yo.

(07:13:57 PM) Adrianne: Sorry about earlier...I hope I didn't seem insensitive.
(07:31:41 PM) Fozz: You suck!
(07:31:43 PM) Fozz: ;-)
(07:31:50 PM) Fozz: What happened earlier?

This random nugget was as Adrianne was getting ready to leave Logan for Salt Lake. She had a date planned.

(05:45:13 PM) Adrianne: Wahoo!

(05:50:17 PM) Adrianne: Man, I'm actually going to be able to leave by 6:00 tonight. That makes me so happy
(05:50:30 PM) Fozz: Wheeee
(05:51:08 PM) Adrianne: I'm so giddy right now. What's wrong with me?
(05:55:44 PM) Adrianne: Welp, I'm leaving.
(05:55:54 PM) Fozz: Welp!
(05:56:14 PM) Adrianne: Welp indeed.
(05:57:23 PM) Adrianne: Bye!
(05:57:33 PM) Fozz: Have fun storming the castle!

We worked together on an e-mail migration project for BIO-West and occasionally Adrianne would need my help resolving some issues. We had fun even when we were chatting about geeky tech stuff.

(01:52:44 PM) Adrianne: Um...can I bug you?

(01:52:51 PM) Adrianne: I mean, I'm sure I'm more than capable.
(01:53:00 PM) Fozz: yeah- you do it all the time. What's stopping you now?
(01:53:29 PM) Adrianne: This time I'm being polite. :)
(01:53:40 PM) Fozz: Sup?
(01:53:47 PM) Adrianne: mcheney
(01:53:57 PM) Adrianne: gets this error upon webmail login
(01:54:00 PM) Adrianne: OpenWebMail ERROR
Couldn't create /home/mcheney/.openwebmail/db (Permission denied)
(01:56:04 PM) Fozz: Corrected.
(01:58:40 PM) Adrianne: Thank you muchly!
(01:59:01 PM) Fozz: And I made sure that problem doesn't exist on any other accounts (it doesn't)
(01:59:53 PM) Adrianne: My hero.
(02:00:26 PM) ***Fozz puts his hands on his hips and looks off to his right as his cape flaps behind him.
(02:00:41 PM) Adrianne: Heh.

Adrianne finally had plans in place for her move back to Salt Lake and she was excited about it.

(01:21:24 PM)

Fozz: So, what is up?
(01:21:30 PM) Fozz: Did you find a place to plunk?
(01:21:34 PM) Fozz: Did you find a place to labor?
(01:21:45 PM) Fozz: Did you find someone to plunk with?
(01:24:20 PM) Adrianne: plunk?
(01:24:34 PM) Fozz: plunk.
(01:25:04 PM) Adrianne: Um, live?
(01:25:11 PM) Fozz: live. yeah.
(01:25:33 PM) Adrianne: I'll be crashing with the parentals until I find something
(02:07:39 PM) Adrianne: and I did find a place to labor
(02:07:50 PM) Fozz: Where?!
(02:08:23 PM) Adrianne: You can't repeat any of this, by the way
(02:08:28 PM) Adrianne: I haven't told anyone at BIO-WEST yet.
(02:08:31 PM) Fozz: heh. okay.
(02:08:34 PM) Fozz: Promise.
(02:08:37 PM) Adrianne: Swear on your life.
(02:08:37 PM) Adrianne: Swear on Linux!
(02:08:43 PM) Fozz: I SWEAR ON TUX!
(02:08:48 PM) Adrianne: tux?
(02:08:50 PM) Fozz: Tux!
(02:09:05 PM) Fozz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux
(02:09:32 PM) Adrianne: Aw, he's so cute.
(02:10:24 PM) Adrianne: I got a job at my dad's office
(02:10:31 PM) ***Fozz gasps
(02:10:34 PM) Fozz: WHat does your dad do?
(02:12:49 PM) Adrianne: Well, he's the general agent for National Life of Vermont
(02:12:53 PM) Adrianne: but he has his own company in the same suite
(02:12:59 PM) Adrianne: and that would be Sovereign Financial
(02:13:06 PM) Fozz: Investments?
(02:13:12 PM) Adrianne: yeah
(02:13:13 PM) Fozz: Where is his office?
(02:13:19 PM) Adrianne: downtown SLC
(02:13:24 PM) Fozz: And what will you be doing?
(02:13:33 PM) Adrianne: Tech writing, marketing
(02:13:38 PM) Adrianne: updating website stuff
(02:13:41 PM) Fozz: cool.
(02:13:44 PM) Adrianne: There's so much to do up there
(02:13:54 PM) Fozz: Well, let me know if you need some outside IT consulting. :)
(02:14:00 PM) Adrianne: You know I will!
(02:14:04 PM) Fozz: Linux file server, etc. :)
(02:14:05 PM) Adrianne: I won't be working with him, really.
(02:14:12 PM) Adrianne: I'll be working with the office manager
(02:14:16 PM) Adrianne: she loves me, though. :)
(02:14:34 PM) Adrianne: when she found out I was moving here, she asked him to find out if I was interested in working with her
(02:14:42 PM) Fozz: nice.
(02:14:46 PM) Adrianne: and he was a little concerned with the whole nepotism thing
(02:14:51 PM) Adrianne: and she said she didn't care one bit.
(02:14:52 PM) Adrianne: lol
(02:26:12 PM) Adrianne: So, yeah.
(02:26:23 PM) Adrianne: I'm not saying anything here until after I get my Christmas bonus.
(02:37:47 PM) Fozz: :)
(02:38:08 PM) Adrianne: What?
(02:38:11 PM) Adrianne: Can you blame me?
(02:38:14 PM) Fozz: nope.

It was time to tease Adrianne about Twilight again.

(12:53:47 AM) Fozz: I went to Twilight last night.

(12:53:49 AM) Fozz: :)
(12:53:51 AM) Adrianne: BARF.
(12:53:52 AM) Fozz: (finally)
(12:54:02 AM) Adrianne: seriously, I don't want to talk about that.
(12:54:09 AM) Fozz: Well made show, but definitely made for those who read and enjoyed the books.
(12:54:24 AM) Adrianne: BARF.
(12:54:25 AM) Fozz: (Unlike Harry Potter - I couldn't stand the book(s), but enjoyed the films)
(12:54:47 AM) Adrianne: I'm this close to logging off...
(12:55:07 AM) Fozz: But anyway- I saw a trailer for Confessions Of A Shopaholic
(12:55:12 AM) Fozz: Thought of you and your shoe thing.
(12:55:35 AM) Adrianne: turns out you're not the first person to tell me that...
(12:55:35 AM) Adrianne: lol

The following is part of a conversation where she was analyzing a dating "conundrum" with me.

(04:59:29 PM) Fozz: heh heh.

(05:01:07 PM) Adrianne: what?
(05:01:22 PM) Fozz: Let me see.
(05:01:27 PM) Fozz: "heh heh."
(05:02:07 PM) Adrianne: what are you "heh heh"ing?
(05:03:05 PM) Fozz: you being all...
(05:03:11 PM) Fozz: waity.
(05:03:12 PM) Adrianne: prudish?
(05:03:19 PM) Fozz: Oooh. You're a walking thesaurus!
(05:03:48 PM) Adrianne: you're a walking smartass.
(05:03:48 PM) Adrianne: lol
(05:03:52 PM) Fozz: heh heh.
(05:07:50 PM) Adrianne: admit it -- that was good

This one still cracks me up.

(09:26:01 AM) Adrianne: can you do me a humongous favor?

(09:26:14 AM) Fozz: I dunno. '
(09:26:17 AM) Fozz: Maybe
(09:26:24 AM) Adrianne: can you call my cell phone?
(09:26:30 AM) Adrianne: I can't find it
(09:26:32 AM) Fozz: Heh.
(09:26:34 AM) Fozz: Sure.
(09:27:28 AM) Adrianne: crap
(09:27:33 AM) Adrianne: I can hear it somewhere.
(09:28:06 AM) Adrianne: got it
(09:28:08 AM) Adrianne: Thanks!
(09:28:11 AM) Fozz: K.
(09:28:13 AM) Fozz: np

Random nugget!

(04:08:06 PM) Fozz: Sup wit yew?

(04:16:44 PM) Adrianne: just wrapping up as much as I can at BeeDub
(04:20:35 PM) Fozz: k.
(04:23:29 PM) Adrianne: crazy, isn't it?
(04:23:37 PM) Fozz: yes. crazy.
(04:35:14 PM) Adrianne: I feel weird!
(04:35:25 PM) Fozz: Well, you look funny too.
(04:35:33 PM) Fozz: ;-)
(04:45:31 PM) Adrianne: thank you.
(04:45:52 PM) Fozz: ;-) ;-) ;-)
(04:46:07 PM) Adrianne: what's with your winkiness?
(04:47:01 PM) Fozz: something in my eye.
(04:54:57 PM) Adrianne: ...okay...

Maybe it was because she was an English snob, but Adrianne didn't like me going into phonetic-spelling mode this time. Then we talked about her moving to Salt Lake.

(12:40:44 AM) Fozz: So... Chuptoo?

(12:40:45 AM) Fozz: Yat?
(12:41:10 AM) Adrianne: yat?
(12:41:23 AM) Fozz: Yat?!
(12:41:25 AM) Fozz: Say it.
(12:41:29 AM) Fozz: hey you. Yat?
(12:41:49 AM) Fozz: "Where are you at?"
(12:41:58 AM) Fozz: Chadoon?
(12:42:06 AM) Adrianne: oh boy
(12:42:18 AM) Adrianne: I'm sitting in bed with my laptop
(12:42:27 AM) Fozz: In SLC or Loogun?
(12:42:34 AM) Adrianne: Logan
(12:42:42 AM) Fozz: When you moovun?
(12:42:55 AM) Adrianne: pleeeeease stop.
(12:43:04 AM) Fozz: wha?
(12:43:12 AM) Adrianne: and to answer your question, tomorrow and friday
(12:43:34 AM) Fozz: Got everything all taken care of?
(12:43:40 AM) Adrianne: with what?
(12:43:43 AM) Fozz: the move.
(12:44:42 AM) Adrianne: heavens no
(12:44:48 AM) Adrianne: haven't done hardly anyting
(12:44:50 AM) Adrianne: *anything
(12:45:36 AM) Adrianne: I tried to motivate myself to pack when I got home
(12:45:42 AM) Adrianne: but one of my friends came over and we watched a movie.
(12:45:52 AM) Fozz: What movie?
(12:45:59 AM) Adrianne: that I won't say
(12:46:05 AM) Adrianne: because it's embarrassing
(12:46:08 AM) Fozz: Wyzat?
(12:46:13 AM) Adrianne: because it's a stupid movie
(12:46:16 AM) Fozz: heh heh.
(12:46:19 AM) Adrianne: and yet, I laughed a lot
(12:46:23 AM) Adrianne: I'd even seen it before...

I learned early on that Adrianne

LOVED "30 Rock" and LOVED Tina Fey. What cracks me up about this, however, is her reaction when I said I didn't have an opinion about Will Ferrell. Chadd shared a story with me where she did almost the exact same thing to him when he didn't care for a band she asked him about.

(01:10:32 AM) Adrianne: reason number eleventy billion why I love Tina Fey: http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/01/12/so-about-those-internet-commenters-tina-fey-mentioned-video/

(01:12:19 AM) Fozz: That dress is a little... extreme.
(01:13:03 AM) Adrianne: you don't like it?
(01:13:26 AM) Fozz: It's a little extreme.
(01:14:07 AM) Adrianne: did you watch the video?
(01:14:14 AM) Fozz: yes
(01:15:23 AM) Adrianne: I love her.
(01:15:35 AM) Fozz: Yeah.
(01:17:11 AM) Adrianne: How do you feel about Will Ferrell?
(01:17:35 AM) Fozz: I'm ambivalent.
(01:17:45 AM) Adrianne: nevermind then

I think this is the only time Adrianne asked

my opinion about politics and not the other way around. And then... she zinged me.

(09:44:25 PM) Adrianne: your thoughts on the newest bailout?

(09:44:33 PM) Fozz: Pfft.
(09:44:52 PM) Fozz: Only 3% is meant to be spent this year.
(09:44:59 PM) Fozz: I'm not sure how that's supposed to help the economy.
(09:45:14 PM) Fozz: In fact, hardly any of it seems like economic stimulus at all.
(09:45:23 PM) Fozz: It's just a bunch of huge pork.
(09:47:25 PM) Adrianne: that's what she said.

I only knew Adrianne as a friend for about four and a half months before her death. That's about as long as I spent doing a college internship back in 1997 and I can't remember most of the names of the people I worked then, but I highly doubt I'll ever forget or stop missing the chats with Ms. Adrianne McBride.

Schizoblog!

2009-02-21T09:51:55+00:00

I have been blogging off and on since 2001. You might even say I was blogging before that because I was posting stuff to my personal website before the word “blog” meant anything, starting probably in 1994.

I suppose it’s a significant milestone when you realize one blog isn’t enough.

Now I have three.

I have split the entries in my archive (whew) into three separate MoveableType blogs pertaining to politics, tech, and general (everything else). But, to accomodate people who are used to coming to the Fozzolog to see everything, I’ve set up a Planet aggregator that parses the syndication feeds from the three blogs and displays a summary of sorts of everything that’s on those individual blogs.

The Planet page is at the same URL the Fozzolog has been at for years: http://www.fozzilinymoo.org/Fozzolog/.

The new blogs are at the following URLs:

Tech Fozzolog: http://fozzolog.fozzilinymoo.org/tech/
Politics Fozzolog: http://fozzolog.fozzilinymoo.org/politics/
General Fozzolog: http://fozzolog.fozzilinymoo.org/general/

Book review: Leadership and Self Deception

2009-02-19T01:48:25+00:00

Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by Arbinger Institute

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. What an amazing, enlightening, inspiring book.

I've never read a book that seems targeted at business management technique or strategy that read like a novel. While the plot of this novel is a bit shallow, it makes the material so much easier to read and absorb.

As I read this book, it occurred to me the authors are really saying the key to all productive relationships is humility. But, that's just too vague of a concept (and would make for a much shorter book), so they broke it down into cause and effect discussions from multiple angles to demonstrate evidence of its truthfulness.

I can't help feeling the urge to purchase a copy of this book for every one in my family and those I work with. It's that profound.

View all my reviews on GoodReads.com.

Book review: "Breaking Dawn" by Stephenie Meyer

2009-02-19T01:48:25+00:00

Unlike many people I know, mostly women for some reason, I didn't go to a August 2nd midnight release party for Stephenie Meyer's latest book, "Breaking Dawn". No, I just pre-ordered it on Amazon and checked for its arrival every day starting on August 2nd. It didn't arrive until the 6th or 7th, those jerks!

This is the fourth book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and it apparently ends the series as we know it. Meyer has hinted we may see some followup books that may repeat the stories in the previous books, but from a different character's perspective. I think the soil is fertile also for future books about other characters from the stories.

So, I liked this book. I think I could have liked it a lot more, but after three amazing, best-selling novels, my theory is Stephenie Meyer knew she didn't have to work that hard. As a result of her laziness, the story isn't as imaginative as the first three and the writing isn't as rich.

That being said, I have to admit Stephenie Meyer could write 750 pages of Bella Swan walking alone on a dirt road thinking to herself and I'd just lap it all up with glee. For the most part, I love the characters in the Twilight series, especially Bella, and could tolerate a lot of stuff as long as Stephenie Meyer writes about Bella.

A couple days after the book was released, my wife told me that one of her coworkers told her they'd seen where someone had fashioned a message using plastic cups in the chain link fencing on a highway overpass that read "Bella dies!"

Well, that kind of spoiled it for me!

This being a vampire story, however, death isn't necessarily the end of a character's story. While I'm sure the sight of that plastic cup message caused a lot of people's hearts to skip a beat, I don't think it's really that big of a spoiler.

The Twilight series is aimed at young adults, but "Breaking Dawn" is definitely more of an adult book. than your standard young adult novel. While the adult themes are vague and lacking in the details you might find in a trashy paperback romance novel, this probably isn't a book I'd recommend to anyone under 15.

That being said, I think Stephenie did a marvelous job of writing more mature material without necessarily offending too many of her virtue-obsessed readers (Meyer is Mormon and has a significant Mormon readership).

There were a few points in the book where I found myself closing the book and mouthing "Holy ****!" because I couldn't believe what I had just read. While some of the other reviews I've read indicated they thought the story was very predictable, I guess I fell right into it and lapped it up so much I didn't see what others plainly saw coming.

I didn't like what happens to Jacob in this book, but I'm not sure what Meyer could have done differently. Maybe she could have let him have what he wanted (Bella) and then kill him. Yeah! No, I can't see her doing that.

I also didn't like the way Charlie was handled. It seemed... too easy.

The "monsters" in "Breaking Dawn" seemed a lot less frightning, with a couple exceptions, than in the previous books and my theory on that goes back to Meyer's unfortunate laziness. Just about every monster-character seems to embody civility and control, unlike in previous stories. That is a bit of a let-down because I found the contrast of behavior between the monsters, the humans, and the exceptional monsters to be a major component of the stories. In Breaking Dawn, not so much. Even the amazing, spectacular, "monstrous" things that happen to Bella are conveniently downplayed and controlled like they're no big deal.

Buy your copy today at Amazon!

Making a difference in people's lives

2009-02-19T01:48:25+00:00

How often do you make a difference in other people's lives? I often feel I don't make much of a difference in anyone's lives, mostly because I often seem to be on auto-pilot, tending to my own affairs and minding my own business. Some people, on the other hand, make it their life's work to help others in need.

I'm not suggesting that we should all beat ourselves up for not being more charitable or supportive, but I would like to share something I did that I know will help someone out who is a tough spot. The good news is that you can do the same exact thing!

Monica Ramos and Patty Compean

I don't think many people have heard the story of Monica Ramos and Patty Compean. Their husbands are serving time in prison, currently in solitary confinement. I believe they were unfairly convicted and sentenced for crimes they did not commit.

I first heard about this story on the radio and Glenn Beck has talked a lot about it. However, don't be misled into believing this is a conservative or Republican issue. No, this is an American issue and a case where the government has conspired against its own people.

You can read the story that landed Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean in jail on Wikipedia or a number of other sites. The short version of the story is this: Ramos and Compean were border guards working the US-Mexico border in Texas. In 2005, they were in pursuit of a drug smuggler who fled after they stopped his van (which was full of drugs). There was a shot fired, and the smuggler ran away. While it appeared no one got hurt, the smuggler was apparently struck in the buttock with the bullet. Later, the US government granted the smuggler immunity for his testimony against Compean and Ramos on charges they covered up the shooting and acted out of order. The immunity included a border crossing pass and while the trial was underway, the smuggler was apprehended again with a another load of drugs, but let go because he had immunity. In addition, it appears the US government paid for medical treatment for his gunshot wound.

After Ramos and Compean were sentenced to prison, their attorneys, of course, filed appeals. Meanwhile, members of congress, talk radio personalities, and concerned individuals in Texas and around the country, started digging up as much information as they could about the case. It was revealed the US district attorney that prosecuted the case lied repeatedly about the evidence and the circumstances surrounding the case. During the trial, he requested and was granted that information about the drug smuggler would be sealed so that the jury would not discover he had been caught smuggling a second load of drugs since the original incident.

The appeal was finally read by a panel of the 5th circuit court of appeals about five months ago. Those in attendance of the hearings said the judges were very concerned that the case was mishandled and chastised the prosecuting attorneys for prosecuting on ridiculous charges, and generally bungling the case so badly. However, five months later, just a week or two ago, the court upheld the sentences and only dropped minor charges against the men.

Many believe these men are political prisoners and that the fault goes clear to the White House. The US attorney general has longtime ties with Alberto Gonzales and President George W. Bush. Congress and others have asked President Bush to commute or pardon these men who were just trying to do their jobs as border guards, but he has done nothing and has said nothing.

Others believe the Mexican government is involved as well. Why? I don't know.

It is terrible that these men are in prison, but many don't realize the suffering their families have been going through. Both men are married and have children. These families no longer have a primary breadwinner and must deal with the stress and emotional trauma of having a loved unjustly imprisoned.

It probably goes without saying, Monica Ramos and Patty Compean are hurting-- financially, mentally, emotionally, and otherwise.

A local talk radio host in Houston set up a fundraiser to help these families and word got to Glenn Beck. He had both women on his radio show last week and asked one how much her rent was that she was struggling to pay. She told him it was $11,000 or so for the year. Glenn told her he would be writing her a personal check for $11,000 and would write one in the same amount for the other family.

I've followed this story for months and was heartbroken to hear that the families were struggling. One of the women said her son had been persecuted at school and that is one of the reasons they had moved. I was ready to donate some money myself even before Glenn announced his donation.

So, today, I wrote two checks. One to Patty Compean and one to Monica Ramos. I don't have the kind of money Glenn Beck does, but I sent fifty dollars and I'm sure it will help with something. Hopefully, I can make this a regular thing, sending a little money every month. I hope many others are doing the same thing. These families will suffer regardless of how much money people send because they can't be with the husbands/fathers they love, but the money will help make it just a little easier.

If you are touched as I have been, you can send a donation as well. Edd Henndee, one of the talk radio hosts in Houston, is collecting the donations and delivering them to the families. He asks that people make out two separate checks, one to Monica Ramos, one to Patty Compean, and mail them to:

Edd Henndee
Taste of Texas
10505 Katy Freeway
Houston, Texas 77024

Maya and Lucy start school

2009-02-19T01:48:25+00:00

Maya and Lucy started school today. Our neighborhood elementary school, Foothills Elementary, is on a year-round schedule, so that is why they're starting so early compared to traditional schools. Maya started fifth grade and Lucy started second grade. Eli will be starting kindergarten, but he'll be on a traditional schedule as he is attending an all-day kindergarten program provided by our day care provider.

Christine went with the girls to school this morning and took a camera, but it had dead batteries, so I went this afternoon and got some pictures after school. You can see those at <http://picasaweb.google.com/fozzmoo/MayaAndLucyStartSchool2008/> or enjoy the embedded slideshow below.

Weird illness

2009-02-19T01:48:25+00:00

This last weekend, I came down with some kind of weird sickness. I woke up Saturday morning, showered, got dressed, and was about to eat a bowl of cereal when I suddenly felt very fatigued. I ate my cereal and then layed down and fell asleep. A couple hours later, I woke up and had a salad Christine made for me. The salad wasn’t very appetizing (it should have been) and I was again very tired, so I went back to sleep. I slept most of the rest of the day, only getting up for short amounts of time and then resuming my slumber.

Sunday morning, I woke up, showered, and went back to bed. I slept until about 2 in the afternoon. When I got up then, I finally felt I had some energy and I’ve been up ever since (blogging like mad, by the looks of it.)

My two daughters have had these one-day stomach “flu” things this last week, but my sickness didn’t seem to be gastrointenstinal. It just seemed to be more... just tired. I had a headache that seemed to be worse when I moved around, but no fever and no distinct pain anywhere else in my body. Very odd.

Hopefully it’s past and I can resume normal life.

Book review: Freakonomics

2009-02-19T01:48:25+00:00

I've been wanting to read Freakonomics for many months and I think I've picked it up at a bookstore or grocery store at least a half dozen times without purchasing it. Finally, a week or so ago, I got it.

I guess I'll add yet-another voice to the choir that resounds there is not a unifying theme to this book. But, that's only a minor complaint.

Freakonomics is written by award-winning economist Steven Levitt and award-winning author Stephen J. Dubner. Without really knowing these two guys very well, I got the impression the end result (the book) is a combination of Levitt's geeky love of statistics and causal relationships and Dubner's pop-culture awareness. Either way, it's pretty good writing.

The book examines a number of surprising statistical relationships in unusual fields of study. For example, the first chapter asks, "What do schoolteachers and sumo-wrestlers have in common?" Yes. What? I've been wondering that since I was 10... not.

Each chapter asks an unusual question and then proceeds to break down the evidence until it arrives at the answer- and it's usually not one you expect.

Most people, when they think of economics or statistics, they immediately grab a pillow and a cup of warm milk. This book, on the other hand, is not a sleep-inducer. While there are a small number of data tables given, the reader does not need to dive into the data to understand what the authors are presenting. In fact, in the one case where data was used more heavily, the authors broke the data down row by row to explain their position.

I found myself reading the chapter on children's names ("Would a Roshanda by any Other Name Smell as Sweet?") out loud to my family because its findings (and predictions) were just fascinating to everyone.

The treatments on crime ("Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?" and "Where Have All The Criminals Gone?") really do an excellent job of making swiss cheese of what we call "conventional wisdom." Whether the results Levitt got from his studies are completely true or not, I think these chapters could be required reading for all kids because it really inspired me to wonder how much of what believe is factually true?

My biggest complaint about this book is that it ended too quickly. The edition I bought is the "revised and expanded" edition, which means the authors have reorganized the main chapters and have added some additional materail at the end of the book which includes articles written for the New York Times in conjunction with the book and a smattering of blog postings. While the extra material was somewhat interesting, I still felt the book was just too dang short!

Stephen Dubner's website states that he is working on another Freakonomics book with Levitt. I hope the next one is bigger because I think they've only touched the tip of the iceberg here.

In the extra material, the authors write a bit about "peak oil" and some of the problems with the theory from an economist's perspective. I hope they give this subject much more attention in their next book considering the price of oil was only about $60/barrel when they wrote about it and has since peaked at nearly $150/barrel since then.

Shatner vs Beck

2009-02-19T01:48:24+00:00

Wow!

About a month ago, my hero Glenn Beck had actor, writer, artist, etc. William Shatner on his television program for an hour-long interview. I missed it and didn't record it so I was very pleased to find out it was re-run this last Friday and got snagged on my DVR.

Wow!

That interview was just amazing and, surprisingly, contained almost no Star Trek content whatsoever. There were some clips from Star Trek shown when they were talking about Shatner's reputation for "overacting" but that's about it.

What did they talk about for an hour if not Star Trek? Some politics, some philosophy, some Shatner history, and alcoholism (Shatner's third wife suffered from alcoholism and it ended up claiming her life.)

Maybe I enjoyed it so much because it was just an almost-informal hour of discussion between two of my favorite people.

It looks like some dude on YouTube has done the honors of capturing the entire hour in six parts. At least he a real job of capturing the video and didn't just smack a Flip video camera in front of the TV like I've seen some people do!

Here are the obligatory links:

Holy cow! Glenn Beck's coming to Utah (and 350 other places)!

2009-02-19T01:48:24+00:00

Get ready to be sick, twisted and freakay! Glenn Beck is coming to a "buttload" of movie theaters around the country on July 17 when his Dallas, TX live comedy stage show performance will be simulcast in HD nationwide to participating theaters.

Take it from someone who's seen Mr. Beck on stage a few times before, met him in-person, listens to radio show daily, and can't stop yakking about how Right he is... you won't want to miss this. Take your family, but make sure you invite someone who wouldn't normally go. You'll enjoy watching them pick their lower jaw up off the floor and wish they had worn Depends undergarments.

Tickets for this amazingly sick and twisted event go on sale a week from the day I'm writing this: Friday, 20 June 2008.

For more information, go here: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/11224/.

"John Adams" by David McCullough

2009-02-19T01:48:24+00:00

I purchased a copy of "John Adams" by David McCullough at a local grocery store a couple months ago and finally finished it this last week. The book was first released in 2001 but, since then, the HBO television network has produced an award-winning mini-series based on the book and a repackaged reissue of the book was released..

I was very intrigued by John Adams after reading about him in the Joseph Ellis history narrative "Founding Brothers." What intrigued me most was his steadfast relationship with his wife Abigail and his on-again, off-again friendship with Thomas Jefferson.

"John Adams" peels away another layer and reveals an incredible amount of detail about the man and his roles in the early years of our country.

What impressed me most in the book was how relatively "solid" Adams was in his beliefs and his philosophies. Around the time he was elected the second president of the United States, there was a great amount of fervor within those involved in politics them to rally around political parties. Adams' political philosophy probably made him more of a federalist than a republican, but he refused to affiliate with either of the predominant movements at that time. This made him both popular and unpopular with both parties, but gave him a tremendous amount of freedom as president to do what he felt was right. Reading about this demonstrated to me just how counterproductive a two-party system can be, especially for executive-branch candidates.

So much of Adams' political beliefs are needed today. He was a frugal, sensible man who didn't see politics and public service as a life of celebrity or extravagance. He never felt he was above anyone else as was demonstrated by his pitching in to help fight fires when they broke out while he was in office. It's amazing to me to imagine the president of the United States standing in a chain line passing buckets of water down so that a burning building could be extinguished. Today it would be called a "publicity event" or some such nonsense.

When I finished the last chapter of the book, which covered Adams' death and the services and recognition paid to him afterwards, I couldn't help but cry for a couple of minutes. After reading the book, which contains hundreds of excerpts of letters and speeches from Adams, I felt I had made some progress toward knowing the man. While I knew from the beginning he had died almost 200 years ago, reaching that part of the book and realizing everything he had done, said, and influenced in the 89 years of his life hit me like a pile of bricks. We owe a large debt of gratitude to this man.

In related news, the HBO miniseries (which I have not seen) is coming out on DVD this Tuesday, June 10, 2008. You can get it from Amazon.com.

Using open source tools to capture my favorite radio program audio stream

2009-02-19T01:48:24+00:00

Listen to any kind of syndicated talk radio program and you'll usually hear about some companion website the program has. Usually, there are a handful of free things you can get on a program's website, but many of these sites have a pay-to-play members' area where the really good content is. This includes MP3 downloads of the shows, access to live audio and/or video streams, special behind-the-scenes content, forums, desktop backgrounds, etc.

The MP3 downloads are very convenient for people who don't have the luxury of sitting in front of a radio (or driving a car) for a solid three hours while a radio program is broadcast (with advertisements). It's also a boon for people who find radio advertisements annoying.

The only problem with the MP3 downloads is that theme music and produced portions of the program can not, by law, be included in the MP3 file because otherwise the MP3 would be a copyright violation.

Live streams, on the other hand, are not subject to the above described restriction because they're like a broadcast in nature. They're not a time-shift of the original program. So, if you listen to the live stream or even listen to a pre-recorded program as a stream, music and produced segments may be included.

I listen to the Glenn Beck radio program quite often. I used to download the MP3 files to listen to in the car, but it got annoying everytime Glenn and his producers would put together a segment like "Sportscasters at the 2031 animal-human hybrid baseball games", or "The History Of the Democratic Superdelegates" and I would hear Glenn say, "Listen to this... [pause] Oh man! That was great! Wasn't that great, Stu? Oh yeah! Alright! Dan? Wasn't that just the best? Yeah. Oh yeah."

I decided I needed to figure out how to save a stream.

I knew it was possible. Lots of software applications exist for any operating systems that will convert audio from a live stream into a static WAV file or similar. The open source program mplayer is one such example.

Breaking it down

First of all, I needed to figure out how the stream content made its way to my computer.

After I've logged into the Glenn Beck website as an Insider, I can click a link to listen to a stream of a particular hour of the program (or the whole program) in Windows Media format or RealAudio format. I figured I'd have better luck extracting the audio from the Windows Media format, so I went that route. Instead of just clicking the link and letting my web browser find some program that could handle the content, I saved the content to a file and then looked at the file.

The file it saved was a fairly straightforward XML file that looked something like this:

<ASX VERSION="3.0">
  <TITLE>Glenn Beck</TITLE>
  <AUTHOR>Premiere Radio Networks</AUTHOR>
  <COPYRIGHT>Copyright 2008</COPYRIGHT>

 <ENTRY>

    <TITLE>Glenn Beck 1</TITLE>

    <AUTHOR>Premiere Radio Networks</AUTHOR>

    <COPYRIGHT>Copyright 2008</COPYRIGHT>
 

    <REF HREF="mms://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/0011/6713/v08060322/glennbeck.download.akamai.com/6713/_!/shows/2008/06/03/GLENNBECKWIN20080603.WMA?auth=blahblahblahblahblah" />

    <REF HREF="http://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/0011/6713/v08060322/glennbeck.download.akamai.com/6713/_!/shows/2008/06/03/GLENNBECKWIN20080603.WMA?auth=blahblahblahblahblahblah
  </ENTRY>

  <ENTRY>

    <TITLE>Glenn Beck 2</TITLE>

    <AUTHOR>Premiere Radio Networks</AUTHOR>

    <COPYRIGHT>Copyright 2008</COPYRIGHT>

    

    <REF HREF="mms://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/0011/6713/v08060322/glennbeck.download.akamai.com/6713/_!/shows/2008/06/03/GLENNBECKWIN20080603_CLIP01.WMA?auth=blahblahblahblahblahblah" />

    <REF HREF="http://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/0011/6713/v08060322/glennbeck.download.akamai.com/6713/_!/shows/2008/06/03/GLENNBECKWIN20080603_CLIP01.WMA?auth=blahblahblahblahandblah" />

  </ENTRY>

...and so on.

This XML defines the MMS URLs for each segment of the show. There are several segments each hour. These individual MMS URLs are what I needed to feed to the application that was going to convert the audio stream to a file. In my case, I decided to use mplayer because it's just so good at everything it does!

The command line for doing the stream-to-file conversion looks like this:

mplayer -vc null -vo null -ao pcm:fast:file=dumpfile.wav \
    'mms://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/blahblahblah...'

The real magic in the above command is where I use -ao pcm to tell mplayer to use the PCM file writer audio output driver (instead of sending the audio to my speakers).

This gives me a WAV file which I'll want to convert to an MP3 or Ogg-Vorbis file.

To convert a WAV file generated by the mplayer command above to an MP3 file, I use the open source lame tool:

lame -mf -q2 dumpfile.wav GlennBeck.mp3

Or, convert it to Ogg-Vorbis (the completely open and better-sounding-than-MP3 lossy audio codec):

oggenc -q2 --downmix -o GlennBeck.ogg dumpfile.wav

I've now covered the basic mechanical components of converting an audio stream into an MP3 or Ogg-Vorbis file. Next I automate it all.

Automation

Because I'm a long-time Perl junkie, I investigated how I could use a Perl script to act as the glue between the components and get the whole process of capturing a stream and converting it to MP3 or Ogg-Vorbis.

In the above walk-through, I manually logged into the Glenn Beck website with my web browser. To really completely automate this puppy, I wanted the script to log in for me. It didn't take me very long to figure out the Perl CPAN module WWW::Mechanize was what I needed to use.

WWW::Mechanize does several handy things for the programmer. It loads and parses web pages and can follow links, populate forms, and other basic kinds of interaction. It keeps track of its own cookies and session data too.

To get into the Insider area of the Glenn Beck website, members must enter their username and password on the Insider login page.

Looking at the HTML source for this page, I learned the form was named "aform", the username field was named "iUName", and the password field was named "iPassword".

I now had all the information I needed for WWW::Mechanize to log in:

my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new(
    cookie_jar  => {},
);
   
my $resp = $agent->get('http://www.glennbeck.com/content/insider');
   
if($resp->is_success) {
    $resp = $agent->submit_form(
        form_name   =>  'aform',
        fields      =>  {   'iUName'    =>  'myusername',
                                'iPassword' =>  'shhhhhhhh!', },
        button      =>  'submit');

Walking through the code above: First, I create the WWW::Mechanize object with an in-memory cookie jar (cookie_jar => {}). Next, I use the object to get() the log-in page. If everything works well so far, I tell the object to find the form named "aform", fill in the username and password fields, and submit the form.

One thing I realized as I was debugging my script was that after I logged in on the Insider page, I was immediately redirected to another page. In order for my script to work, it needed to follow the redirect. This was an easy fix:

my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new(
    cookie_jar  => {},
    redirect_ok => 1,
);

The page I got redirected to has the links on it for the streaming audio, so I'm exactly where I want to be if I want to capture and convert the latest and greatest Glenn Beck Program audio stream.

WWW::Mechanize can find links within the page with a variety of methods. One of these leverages Perl's excellent support for regular expressions. You can also search for links by the order in which they appear. The link I'm looking for looks like this:

<a href="http://www.premiereinteractive.com/cgi-bin/members.cgi?stream=shows/GLENNBECKWIN20080604&site=glennbeck&type=win_show"><img src="http://media.glennbeck.com/images/common/header_media5off.jpg" name="icon5" width="26" height="34" border="0" id="icon5" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('icon5','','http://media.glennbeck.com/images/common/header_media5on.jpg',1)" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" /></a>

So, my script has the following:

$link = $agent->find_link( url_regex => qr/${datestr}.*win_show$/);
$resp = $agent->get($link);

This assumes I have a scalar variable $datestr that contains a formatted date for the show I want to capture.

Originally, I was going to use one of Perl's several XML-parsing modules to make sense of the XML in the stream link, but in the end all I needed was a regular expression to extract the mms: URLs.

my $xml = $resp->decoded_content;
my (@urls) = $xml =~ m/HREF="(mms:[^"]+)"/msg;

This gives me a list of URLs stored in @urls. Now I just need to feed them to mplayer:

$i = 1;
foreach my $u (@urls) {
    my $seq = sprintf("%02d", $i);
    my @cmd = ( 'mplayer', 
            '-vc', 'null', 
            '-vo', 'null',
            '-ao', "pcm:fast:file=${datestr}-${seq}.wav", 
            $u);
    system(@cmd);
    if ($? == -1) {
        print "failed to execute: $!\n";
    }
    elsif ($? & 127) {
        printf "child died with signal %d, %s coredump\n",
        ($? & 127),  ($? & 128) ? 'with' : 'without';
    }
    else {
        printf "child exited with value %d\n", $? >> 8;
    }

    $i++;
}

This little ditty creates an output file for each of the segment streams. These are named something like 20080604-05.wav.

When the loop is finished, I have several WAV files sitting on the disk. Now I need to somehow sew them all together into one big WAV file so I can convert it to an MP3 or Ogg-Vorbis file. For this, I turn to sox. I decided to have the Perl script generate a shell script to run all the sox and lame commands needed.

open FH, ">/tmp/${datestr}.sh";
foreach my $j (1..($i-1)) {
    my $seq = sprintf("%02d", $j);
    print FH 'sox ', "${datestr}-${seq}.wav", " -t raw - | cat >> /tmp/${datestr}.raw", "\n";
}
print FH 'sox -w -s -c 1 -r 22050 ', "/tmp/${datestr}.raw ${datestr}.wav\n";
print FH "lame -mf -q2 ${datestr}.wav ${datestr}.mp3 ";
print FH "--tt \"Glenn Beck Show - $datestr\" ";
print FH "--ta \"Glenn Beck\" --add-id3v2\n";
close FH;

Then, I run the shell script:

system('sh', "/tmp/${datestr}.sh");

Finally, I do a little cleanup:

unlink "/tmp/${datestr}.sh", "/tmp/${datestr}.raw", map({"${datestr}-$_.wav"} (1..($i-1)));

And, I'm done. There are many other ways I could have gone about doing this, but I found a way that worked and ran with it. I'd love to hear from people who have done something similar and how they did it.