Hunting The Muse

SSH, ProjectBuilder, CVS

Doing some interesting research regarding OS X's project builder.

I've got a client that has a bunch of php code in a cvs repository - a lot of which is stuff I've already committed. I've been using vim for a while and I'm getting bored of it. I know a lot of macros and can use all sorts of split-window commands, so I've always convinced myself that I'm fast at it. But who knows, maybe I can be faster.

So I started playing with Project Builder. First problem I ran into - it's hard to integrate cvs over ssh. SO, here's what I worked out.

First, make sure that your CVS_RSH environment variable is set to the path of ssh on your system.

Then, make sure CVSROOT is set to :ext:login@server:/cvspath . Unfortunately this needs to be set every time as ProjectBuilder isn't smart enough to look it up in the CVS directories in your hierarchy. I set it in a separate file.

Then activate ssh-agent. I do, in my .cshrc:
eval `ssh-agent -c` > /dev/null
And in my .logout:
eval `ssh-agent -k` > /dev/null
(otherwise the ssh-agent will not die and a new redundant one will happen each time you start a Terminal window.)

Well, there are a couple of better ways as well. Unfortunately I have to cut this blog entry short as blogger is messed up AGAIN. I have to move to a new blogging server soon - not sure what I will use because I don't like Radio's non-portability, and I'm not sure I like movable type's license and lack of xml.

AppleScript Blogging

This is a test to see if the applescript blogging functionality is working. I'm just typing in any old OS X application (currently Terminal), I will select and copy, and then click, and it should show up.

Trade Your Wife For A Good Whine

Coffee, Tea, or Should We Feel Your Pregnant Wife - I'm as concerned about our loss of rights as a lot of people, but articles such as this one don't help matters. Here's a guy that went in ready for a fight, abandoned being there for his wife in favor of escalating a disagreement, notes that the escalation is what made his wife become even more upset, and then tries to blame his wife's breech on the trauma. Serious lack of responsibility being taken here. I think the guards should definitely have been told that they should offer privacy for searches that may be embarrassing, and the woman could even have asked (she comes through this blameless in my mind), but this guy let his indignation - which in my mind is unexpressed, fermented, pre-existing anger - rule his behavior.

U.S. Defends Torture

U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations (washingtonpost.com) "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job."

Christmas Day Thoughts

(These thoughts originated on Christmas Day, but I actually blogged them 2/19/03 and later reassigned them to 2/25/02)

I read a lot of stuff that really made me think today. It's Christmas Day, perhaps not the most appropriate time for thinking, but I got a couple of really good books. One is The Tipping Point, which Peter has been bugging me to read for months now, because evidently all the things I talk about and believe are right in line with the philosophies in this book. After reading it I don't exactly feel transformed, but I do feel validated, and comforted, and a bit more crystalline in my beliefs, due to seeing them distilled down into printed form. But it really got me thinking about a couple of basic things that just really need to change.

One part that struck me is the section about smokers. The basic point wasn't that teens smoke because it's cool, or because it will make them cool. It's because they are cool. That's of course a gross simplification, but when they studied the trendsetters that smoke, they just had different personality traits - more intense, more dramatic, sexier, etc.

So it brings up a question in me. And it's not an original question, many others ask it too, but it's this. Why do these "cool" acts have to be destructive? What is it about these cool kids that are drawn to destructive behaviors?

Well, I have theories. I think there's a dynamic in culture that reinforces itself, and that everyone would realize they hate if they took a look at it. Basically, this dynamic, this force, is one that thinks it is fun to destroy itself. It's all over the place, and hides itself behind such terms as irony, satire, post-modernism, self-referentiality, and cynicism. All these techniques of thought and act are ways to distance oneself from emotional essence.

Modern-day irony and satire in particular are perversions of what they used to be. I'm not a literary scholar but I know that real satire always used to come from conviction. It would be conviction and advocacy disguised as humor, usually to protect itself from a government.

These days, satire is used as a term to describe anything critical that has a humorous edge to it. It is often indistinguishable from tea-party gossip. Jay Leno's monologues are routinely described as satirical. But the essence of these so-called satires, the conviction that was once the source and seed of real satire, is absent. Instead of satirists that speak from conviction, we have armies of people that reconstruct the form of satire just for the entertainment value, without stopping to fill the emptiness inside. The social value of satire was the conviction, it was what earned the form. Now it's all too common for the form to exist without its essence.

A few months ago, a kid left home and start driving through the United States planting pipe bombs. It was eventually discovered that he was trying to make them in the shape of a big smiley face. This is a kid that experienced enough rage to plant bombs, and yet beyond that was even more afflicted with a force to make fun of it. And on some level, our culture recognizes his choice as funny. But what it really is is an emotional conspiracy to turn away from itself. It is rage, rage that is potent enough to kill, but that even beyond that wants and needs to disguise itself as something that can be recognized as cool, hip, witty, satirical, ironic, cynical, post-modern, meta. It is rage that needs to exist and yet still isn't allowed to fully exist as true essence. This kid felt rage, but was so unable to process it that he had to attempt to make it appealing to himself by layering a demented commentary on top of it. By stylizing it, he was able to convince himself it wasn't truly rage. He was able to weaken the link between actions he took and the essence behind it. He was disconnected.

It's the stylishness of negativity. It's the judgment that positivity is naive and emotional essence is square. It attempts to prove that positivity is naive by using the circular proof of "look how shitty things are!" Positivity knows it's circular reasoning but doesn't know how to break the circle without negativity accusing positivity of being even more naive. Negativity stays in its circle, denies emotional purity in favor of layers of corruption, and gets louder and louder, finding new forms while denying essence. Form without essence folds in on itself and becomes self-destructive.

But there's a weakness to these forms of negativity that is going to become more apparent as time goes on. And that's that they're chickenshit.

Modern satire. Sniping. Cynicism. Some forms of Irony. It's all related to rage. Rage is GOOD when it can be accessed and expressed and understood and transformed. But the thing is, in these cases, it's gutless rage. It's chickenshit. These forms, the people practicing these forms, they are all tiny little people making noise, squabbling together, all working as hard as they can to distract their audience from the absence of essence in their forms, while distracting themselves from their rage. And that will be noticed as they burn themselves out. It's already being noticed.

The secret is that while these behaviors are reactionary, they are not reacting from a place of essence. It's really just laziness. When one needs to rebel and become more individual in action, there are two ways to rebel. One way is to react more against one's environment - to find a way to contrast one's behavior from what everyone else is doing, to extrapolate an external trend and do something that is either opposite, or when that is impossible, something that is simply grotesque. And when it takes form just from being reactionary, it folds in on itself and becomes self-destructive.

But the other way to show individuality is to further actualize the Self. And this is much harder.

But it is where essence can be discovered, manufactured, grown. And this is really what it comes down to: the weakening of essence in man, the weakening of integrity. Without essence, form crumples. And there are people being cynical, ironic, and satirical everywhere, and far too many of them are doing it because they're lazy and chickenshit, and people will notice as they crumple.

People don't like being told they are lazy and chickenshit. And when they realize they're being wimps, they'll wake up and realize that growing a little bit of integrity can be stylish again. They'll realize that conviction and compassion have a place in entertainment and the popular arts again. Our society will finally shake itself out of our junior-high-adolescent stage of thinking self-destructive habits are witty and cool, and move forward with a new outlook that seeks a measured balance of possibility, reassurance, and reality; an outlook that has a measured acceptance of the potential of life.

Creative Commons Cartoon

Creative Commons Explanation - this is a cool animation describing how Creative Commons works. This is very cool. I'm considering releasing a couple of my songs under this license.

Heads, Tails, or Edge?

Other NFL funniness: The NFL's tiebreaking procedures have a provision to resolve a three-team tie... with a coin flip.

Winning Makes It Worse

Here's a real-world example of strange voting behavior.

If the NFL playoffs started today, the Denver Broncos would have the final wildcard spot. If they ended today, they make the playoffs.

Despite that, the Broncos are not in control of their own destiny. They could win next week, and then NOT hold the final playoff spot.

I wonder if it's possible for them to be in a situation where they'd prefer to lose.

Radio Free Software

Salon.com Technology | Radio Free Software

Charity Ideas

Offbeat gifts that do a world of good - this describes several charities that are in common with one of the charity ideas I had.

AFC Playoff Seedings

The AFC seedings for the NFL Playoffs, in regards to the Patriots playing the Titans on MNF tonight.

Before MNF	If Pats win	If Titans win
Miami Oakland Indianapolis Pittsburgh Tennessee New England	Miami Oakland Indianapolis Pittsburgh New England Tennessee	Oakland Tennessee Miami Pittsburgh Indianapolis Denver

That's so weird. And cool.

Supreme Court and Cross Burning

Absolutely fascinating article on NPR yesterday about the cross-burning case that is before the Supreme Court right now.

So, do you think cross-burning should be illegal? Think on that. Okay, now. Do you think flag-burning should be illegal?

That's what stopped me. Reflexively, I answer "Yes" and "No". That's the knee-jerk inconsistent liberal in me. Well, that WOULD be assuming that the two subjects are inherently similar enough that I need to be consistent between the two. But maybe I don't.

And that's the legal argument - that the two issues are substantively different in some way. And the justice comments that I heard yesterday are really hammering on that to see if the argument holds up. Really interesting.

One issue they have trouble with. The issue is challenging an existing statute banning cross-burning because of its "intent to intimidate". The "intent to intimidate" has to be proven for conviction. However, it's also held that burning a cross proves "intent to intimidate" in the first place. It's circular logic. That's what law is like, they remove the emotionality and check to see if there are things like circular logic.

Other comments:

"So you burn a cross on a hill outside the city, everyone in the city is intimidated?" - Justice Kennedy

"It's not just speech. It's action that conveys a message. Surely your state can make it a crime to brandish a weapon?" - Justice Scalia

"Suppose he burned a circle?" - Justice Stevens.

"So even if a cross is burned in a desert somewhere, it's enough to sustain a conviction?" - Justice Stevens.

"It sounds like you're defending the statute because the message it contains is particularly obnoxious." - Justice Stevens.

"One can always burn a cross in the sanctity of one's bedroom." - Justice Scalia.

(paraphrase:) "Why is burning a cross protected speech when brandishing a weapon and saying 'you're next' isn't?" - Justice Scalia. And here's a funny section from an article, describing the shocking occurence of actually hearing CLARENCE THOMAS say something:

Out of nowhere booms the great, surprising "Luke-I-am-your-father" voice of He Who Never Speaks. Justice Clarence Thomas suddenly asks a question and everyone's head pops up and starts looking madly around, like the Muppets on Veterinarian Hospital. "Aren't you understating the effects ... of 100 years of lynching?" he booms. "This was a reign of terror, and the cross was a sign of that. ... It is unlike any symbol in our society. It was intended to cause fear, terrorize."

Dreeben, who fears he has somehow been insensitive, tries to recover. "It was used to intimidate minorities ..." he begins. "More than minorities," booms back The Voice. "Certain groups." It's not clear what, precisely, has set Thomas off about Dreeben's presentation or why he's attacking the deputy SG rather than the guy defending the Klansman. But as quickly as he wound up, he winds down, and resumes his standard posture of staring fixedly at the ceiling.

To which I say, Yeah. Weird. Dreeben was the guy DEFENDING the statute that outlaws cross-burning.

More fascination:

Smolla argues that every KKK rally ends with a cross-burning; that it's inconceivable that this actually scares people. Ginsburg points out the "huge" difference between burning a flag, which symbolizes political protest, and burning a cross, which signifies "a threat to life and limb." Again Scalia wonders why brandishing a gun differs from burning a cross. When Smolla notes that guns kill, Scalia says, "An unloaded gun then. It's nothing but a symbol!" Smolla insists that guns are actual threats and adds, "What's the difference between brandishing a cross and a torch?"

"A hundred years of history," replies Stevens.

Stone Age Technology

Norsam Technologies - HD Rosetta Data Preservation - Cool thing of the day. Sometimes I get morbid and wonder what risk we have of losing all accumulated discovery and wisdom if "something catastrophic" happened. What would we be able to figure out by ourselves? What are the absolutely essential things we need to know to, given time, re-approximate the abilities we have now? Would those essential bits of knowledge fit on one of these platforms?

See Dick Bike

Study links biking, male infertility - Maybe I should thank the criminal who stole my mountain bike.

On the other hand, yet another example of how statistics might not tell the whole story. Maybe the explanation is that already-infertile men are more likely to want to start mountain biking. You know, they have nothing better to do.

Why Do We Vote, Again?

So, here's where I'm at on the group-voting/social-choice thing.

1. My own interest behind this is researching what it would take to have the government represent the people's views as closely as possible
2. To fix the counting of single-winner elections, a stable counting method is required, which is what got me looking at IRV versus Condorcet versus Borda versus Approval, etc.
3. Even if a a stable counting method is found, a vote can still be flawed if all participating voters do not equally feel they have an available candidate that represents their views. This begs the question of how to increase the pool of candidates.
4. Even if the candidate pool is "perfect" as described in #3, there is a point where picking a single-winner to represent all people among a geographical district just doesn't make sense, which leads to my curiosity of multiple-winner elections and representation, such as direct representation (where people can just choose their assigned representative regardless of geography and assign their vote/pledge to them).
5. Even if direct representatives are elected, there is the matter of how that body of representatives will come to decisions among themselves (which might take us right back through steps 1 through 4)
6. And finally, even if we did end up having a government-counting solution that represented the public's views EXACTLY, it begs the question of if that is what we really even want? To a point I agree with the philosophy that a representative is actually a compromise between what the public thinks it wants, and what the representative knows the public needs due to inside knowledge the public wouldn't have the patience to learn! In other words, if we all had the power to actually assign where in the government expenditures all our tax dollars would go, I just can't help but believe we'd be in an extraordinarily huge mess.

So I guess I have gotten stuck because I can't actually identify what my actual objective is here - it's elusive. To a point it seems that reflecting the public's preferences too exactly would actually be counterproductive.

In terms of single-winner voting, I'm still mulling over the interface. There are a lot of things to consider, like whether to force users to rank every candidate, whether to let them specify a cut-off point, above which is only the candidates they would really like to win, and whether to let them specify another cut-off point, below which are the candidates they really hate...