Entries in Life

Google’s new advertising program seems to be causing some consternation among some of the top webloggers. Google is placing text-ads on sites like blogspot.com and HowStuffWorks.com. I think this is the perfect opportunity for the project Grub.

People are understandably worried that Google is beginning to become more than just a search engine and that this lack of focus will mean the end of Google’s usefulness. If Google goes the way of AltaVista, then it’ll be just another portal or, worse, just another DoubleClick.

What is the real concern, though? People want relevent, useful search without distractions. I’ve personally used Google’s AdWords program and been very satisfied with its ease and speed. I’ve also clicked on several AdWords and, once or twice, even bought something advertised. So, I don’t think the advertisments are bad. In their current form, they are well-executed — they convey information and they are unobtrusive.

Still, if Google does go too far, I wouldn’t look for a single company to take its place. The growth of Peer-to-Peer technology and the willingness of people to participate in what they consider worthwhile, or even fun, collaborative projects mean that a project like Grub could really take off. Since it is Free Software, I would expect a number of companies to collaborate on offering search results based on the collaboratively-spidered content. Would you be willing to run a spider if it meant that you got better search results?

Right now, the problem with Grub is that there is no interface (that I can find) to search the current dataset. They need to do more work to address privacy concerns (if I run the spider, can you guarentee that my private email isn’t going to show up in the results?) while at the same time providing for private uses (like indexing my email).

Tonight, I rode my bike down St. Charles Ave. on the way home. Mardi Gras is clearly in full swing. There was a parade tonight and, on the opposite side of the neutral ground (the area where the streetcars run inbetween the up- and down-river traffic flow), there were crowds of people lined up to watch the parade. I had a lot of fun passing slow-moving cars and barely missing people before I reached Napoleon Ave. where the parade began. Miles of people — that’s how you know it’s Mardi Gras. That, and police on every street corner of St. Charles.

For future reference.

This interview with the OpenOffice.org publicist has the following quote:

You’d be surprised how popular CD’s are at LinuxWorld where everyone sheepishly admits they have no use for broadband.

Which seems about right. I wouldn’t really need broadband if my server weren’t sitting right here.

This past weekend, I set up Bind9 with the LDAP backend on the primary DNS server (binaries compliments of Turbo Fredriksson). It would have been a drop-in replacement, except that it doesn’t seem to support wildcards — something I use too many of.

So, while it almost works, I had to take it out. I could add it back this weekend for a few domains that don’t nave many names in them, but for other domains I would actually have to enumerate the names used and populate the database. Which is something I should do anyway.

Still, for the configuration I use, it looks quite handy. And managing DNS via LDAP allows you to use a lot of off-the-shelf tools to manage LDAP rather than managing text files. Plus, if you have names that are “internal” and “external” on your network (as I do at work), then you can easily add an attribute to your schema to let your DNS server know whether or not to serve up a name.

Here’s my (somewhat lengthy) take on the current situation. What’s yours?

I think war is inevitable and I know G. W. Bush isn’t going to listen to my protest when he ignores world-wide protests. So, instead of dwelling on my anger over meaningless deaths (both of the U.S. military and innocent Iraqi civilians), I’m thinking about what this means for the future of the United States as a nation and for people around the world.

The U.S. is threatening war to avert the possibility of Sadaam becoming a real menace. We now talk about “liberating” the Iraqis (and some people are saying you are either “pro-liberation” or “anti-liberation), but there have also been attempts to justify the war by saying that Iraq (the government) was collaborating with Al Quaeda and those allegations have been disproved.

There is no imminent threat, so this must be a preemptive war. What does that mean?

Doesn’t this help to explain why France (and other “irrelevant” countries in “old Europe”) aren’t enthusiastic about our war with Iraq? The world was surprised when Japan threatened North Korea with a preemptive nuclear strike. We already have troops on the ground (with the final pieces of support coming in another month and a half), massing at the borders of a nation that has done nothing to provoke us, a nation that we have been continuously bombing for the past twelve years. When we act this way when there is no overt aggression against us, what do we expect from our former allies? Support?

So, assuming that we go in, defeat Iraq, even assuming there is a peaceful transition to a stable, independent government, what does this war mean for a nation that ostensibly values freedom?

1. If you aren’t for us, you’re against us.

   The President has lumped a number of nations together as “evil”. His advisors have called those who object to our threat of war “irrelevant”. With this kind of diplomacy, we’re going to have a hard time keeping our alliances going. Even those nations with governments friendly to us will find it hard to live peaceably with us.

2. Another six years of the erosion of freedom.

   Bush and his staff have been successfully chipping away at freedoms. Their allies in the media have much of the nation frightened of boogey-men dropping dirty bombs and gassing us (never mind that these highly unlikely incidents would be extremely localized).

   Meanwhile, the only mainstream political opponents of Bush’s political party have curled up in a corner and gone to sleep. The Democrats have no viable contenders for the election in 2004. Someone could surface or Bush could make a blunder, but it doesn’t seem likely that he will lose the presidency.

3. Continued decline of the values that “make America great”.

   Last year, I lost my license for a few days. A co-worker told me that I was committing a crime by walking around without identification. I remember “Your papers please” being one of the ways we used to mock the USSR, but he seemed to think it was normal US policy.

   Americans are willing to forgo freedoms that they consider peripheral. And, although there will be some libertarian loud-mouths, the majority don’t even seem to need the excuse of “safety” to give up their freedoms. Gun advocates have been saying this for a long time about the 2nd amendment, but with the recent erosion of the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th amendments, there has been no mainstream outrage.

   Assuming Bush is re-elected, we can expect further erosion of rights by other presidents. They will ride on his coat-tails.

4. Decline of the U.S. as a “Superpower”.

   Long term, leadership must be granted by those who are led. The U.S. spends an enormous amount of money on its military, so it can afford to impose its will unilaterally for some time. However, with anti-Americanism growing world wide — both because of the business practices of American-based companies and the military and political maneuvering of our government — support of the U.S. will fall rapidly. The coming unpopular conflict will only exacerbate the problem.

   Conclusion: Senator Byrd for President in 2004

   I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is “in the highest moral traditions of our country”.

   No Comments

    | Posted by hexmode | Categories: Uncategorized |

Paul Graham, uber-hacker and the guy whose piece on Baysean filtering for spam got people interested in building spam filtering solutions using those more effective techniques, just put out a piece on Why nerds are unpopular. It addresses a lot more than just the nerds and popularity, though. He has some ideas on why the current educational system is messed up and how it might be fixed.

One comment, though. He states: As far as I can tell, the concept of the hormone-crazed teenager is coeval with suburbia. As someone who lives in the city near a bus stop for junior high students, I’ve got to say, this is wrong. Those students are just as crazy and uncontrolled as any suburban youth.

Still, his analysis seems accurate when he looks pre-20th century and states:

Teenage kids used to have much more of a role in society. In preindustrial times, teenagers were all apprentices of one sort or another, whether in shops or on farms or even on warships. They weren’t left to create their own societies. They were junior members of adult societies.

And, later, when looking at his experience in Italy:

In Italy, family is the important thing. If school is pointless, so what? It’s only school. If the other students don’t think much of you, so what? What matters is what your family thinks of you.

Probably re-integrating adolescents into society and re-emphasising the family (while de-emphasising instututional “education”) would work to at least lessen the current problems. But, can we do that? Can we find a useful role for them beyond the fast-food shops?

Evidently, there’s been a lot of fear-mongering going on lately — lots of news about what to do in case of a chemical or biological attack. And lots of the information they give out it just plain wrong. Here’s a reality check:

If biological warfare is so easy as the TV makes it sound, why has Saddam Hussein spent twenty years, millions, and millions of dollars trying to get it right? If you’re clean of person and home you eat well and are active you’re gonna live.

LongBets.org is an interesting site even if you aren’t a bettor. According to their rules, the minimum bet is $1000 and the minimum length is 2 years (and you don’t get any money if you win). Some interesting bets (like this one predicting “bioerror” will cause millions of deaths), and some fun speculation.

Also: I love their content-typeless URLs: no .html for them!

Yesterday, I talked for a bit with an Christian Arabic woman who has relatives in Bethlehem. She’s been expecially troubled by the past couple of years: her son was born on September 11th and the obstetric staff at the hospital was barely there during delivery — they were all glued to the TV set.

Anyway, she and I talked for a bit about these things. She is obviously stressed because people she knows are being shot despite their innocence, but she can do nothing. (She related the story of a retarded boy who was shot because he was out after the 4:00 curfew.)

Even more troubling is that there is no real understanding that not all Arabic people in Palestine and the Middle East are radical Islamists, let alone Islamic. Many are Christians who, because of their ethnicity, are targeted by governments and vigilantes.