Six Degrees

Posted by Void on 07/09/2006

There is a theory of relationships that states that any person on earth is separated from any other person on earth by at most six degrees of separation.

Say that I wanted to get a letter to a friend in Germany but I couldn’t remember her address, only the town she lived in. Obviously I couldn’t mail it to her. I could give it to someone who would pass it on to someone else until someone knew someone else in Germany, who knew someone in my friends town, and within six degrees the letter would have found its way to her. In practice, of course, I probably wouldn’t hand it to the right person immediately, so it might take more than six steps. I’d have to know *everything* about everybody and make a really intelligent – or lucky – guess as to who has the closest ties.

It sounds rather airy-fairy New Age, but a few years ago someone did a social experiment, handing out decks of postcards with a name and town on it and instructions to try to get it to that person through people they knew. To the best of my recollection everyone was able to accomplish the task within 12 postcards. Eh, I don’t remember where I read it. Omni magazine maybe? Well, there are a number of books about it if you’re interested in learning more.

This is where Social Networking is taking us, to a small blue planet where everyone is connected.

There’s even a parody of the concept, a game called “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” in which people trace their connections to the actor Kevin Bacon. *Everybody* is connected to Kevin Bacon.

I guess the caveat would be that the person has to have social contacts of some sort, people nearby who know their real name, etc. Cave-dwelling hermits are pretty much out of the game.

Oh, right, well, here’s the thing. There are people that you’d rather not be within six degrees of. Drug dealers, terrorists, radical fundamentalists, Tom Cruise. Oh, but you are, and that’s the problem.

At least one of the domestic surveillance programs being conducted by “No Such Agency” is intended to find not just terrorists, but their associates, sympathizers, and anyone who might know who the previous three are. As I hinted at above, you have to gather as much intelligence as you can about *everybody* until you have enough to see patterns and relationships.

Every American is within six degrees of Al Qaeda.

Categories: Books, Knowledge. Tags: , .

My Cellphone ROCKS

Posted by Void on 06/22/2006

It’s a Siemens SX66. I reviewed it earlier this year. Read my review.

I’m posting this from it via my home wireless network.

Cingular has their own GPRS network, and I’ll use it in a pinch, but it’s really sssslllllooooowwww, not to mention expensive. I prefer other options.

It is very important that you password-protect your home wireless network. I bet there are scads of middle-aged women driving around looking for open wireless networks so that they can steal bandwidth.

Categories: Smart Phones, Technology. Tags: , , , , , .

Funerary Customs

Posted by Void on 06/18/2006

I decided it was time to drag the intellectual level of my blog up, kicking and screaming if need be, with an anthropology piece about understanding other cultures’ customs. I may have lent that book out. I always feel like I’m blowing smoke if I don’t have quotes to back up my bizarre ideas.

But here goes. The book is called “Magic, Witchcraft and Religion” and I believe the editor’s name was Lehman. So in this piece, an anthropologist is studying a traditional tribal group. One of the interesting things about this tribe is their belief in an afterlife. They believe that the soul is attached to the body, and when a person dies the soul remains stuck to the flesh, leaving slowly as the flesh leaves the bones. In order to faciliate their loved ones’ progress to heaven, the tribespeople build a high platform and lay the body out exposed to the elements, occasionally visiting to leave gifts and turn the bones, or to collect some of the fluids for use in ritual meals. This is known as “endocannibalism” – that’s when you eat friends and family as opposed to outsiders. When the transformation is complete, their loved one is in their equivalent of heaven. The dry bones are interred and there is a celebration.

The tribespeople found it amusing that the anthropologist was so interested in their funerary customs, so at a gathering one night they asked him to tell about American customs. The anthropologist explained about heaven, and they agreed that it is similar for them. He talked about memorial services and mourning, also similar. Then he carefully explained embalming: removing the blood and replacing it with colored and scented preservative, dressing and making the dead up so that they look as if they aren’t dead at all, but merely sleeping. And the tribespeople all fell silent.

When the anthropologist told the tribespeople about burial in a sealed wooden box inside a waterproof concrete grave-liner it was all over. Some wouldn’t talk to him or even look at him. A few started crying.

Why? Because in their minds Americans prevented their loved ones from getting to heaven, and furthermore, the American continent is carpeted from sea to shining sea with potential zombies.

In the end, the only way the anthropologist could get back in the tribe’s good graces was to pretend that he was just making a sick joke and that none of what he said was true.

I think that cremation vs. burial is a similar thing. I’m not hep to the jive, but I suspect that cremation must seem an awful lot like Hellfire and Damnation to certain religious groups.

So what it boils down to is this: pick what you want, write it down and give everyone copies so that there is no mistaking it. That goes for living wills, wills, medical powers of attorney, organ donation. If you feel very strongly about, say, not having your brain-dead remains being petted and fawned over like a beloved companion animal for a decade like that poor Terri Schiavo’s were, make sure your wishes about “extreme measures” are all in writing. Make sure everyone has copies, including the family doctor. And remind them once in a while.

Categories: Books, History & geography, Sociology & anthropology. Tags: , , .

The Void, Nice Cad

Posted by Void on 06/01/2006

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Oh, what, I have to decipher something to get off the list?

Categories: Books, Humor. Tags: , , .

emo

Posted by Void on 05/28/2006

It’s all the rage. Everybody wants to cut and cry and puke and write bad poetry.

Categories: Humor, Philosophy & psychology. Tags: , , , .

Do Meds Make Us Stupid?

Posted by Void on 05/27/2006

From an article on PubMed:
“Patients on treatment with antipsychotic drugs had a lower current full scale IQ, lower general memory scores, and lower working memory scores.”

I submit that psych meds actually make you less capable of effectively participating in your treatment, or even in life.
Why are they doing this to us?

Categories: Drugs, Medicine, Psychiatry. Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Driving to Valhalla

Posted by Void on 05/21/2006

My husband is an electrical engineer like I am. He is a much better electrical engineer, in part because he still has a memory.

His father has been ill and has let his Prius sit for a while. Six weeks or so.

So my husband went over to take him for a ride in the Prius. The old boy wants to go to Valhalla. Or something like that, he’s going on about some non-existent amusement park with ferris wheels and roller coasters up Rte. 413 near the Burlington-Bristol bridge. Valhalla.

I suggested he set the car on fire and push them off the bridge. Where *is* that man’s sense of humor?

So my husband just called. The Prius is dead, he said. The doors don’t unlock. Can I give it a jump without blowing up my car? It’s only been six weeks, it can’t be dead! Is the hood lock electrical?

Yes, ok. Take a deep breath, Leslie.

The car is dead because – well, my classic Prius supposedly uses 75mA when it’s just sitting. But people also tell me that the auxiliary battery will discharge in two weeks if you don’t start the car. I don’t know, I take one-week vacations. The new Prius has all kinds of electronics. Of course the bloody thing is dead. Some quick calculations tell me that it must use around 1 Amp. Seems excessive.

As an aside, lead-acid batteries have more capacity if used at lower currents. Not sure about other types. I don’t *do* automotive batteries, thank-you-very-much. Just errrrrrrr…. never mind.

Of course the doors don’t unlock automatically, the battery is dead. Use the *key*. That would be that ridged key fob attached to the clicker.

Yes, you can give it a jump. The high voltage system is completely isolated from the 12V system. Don’t connect to any neon blaze orange cables and you’ll be fine, at least at fine as you can be starting *anything* through your alternator. You’ll see those high voltage cables, did I mention that they’re NEON BLAZE ORANGE?

Uh, but the car likely won’t actually allow itself to be driven, not until the engine runs long enough to charge the high-voltage system. The gas engine is supposed to switch on – in mine anyway – when the big hybrid battery is providing 20A, but it *does* run when I start it if the hybrid battery is low. I don’t really know the algorithms. It would take me a few hours to find the new Prius manual on-line.

Those Japanese are clever devils. I hardly think they’d make it so that you can’t open the hood to charge the battery if it’s dead. Unless… I recently discovered a hidden auxiliary battery in my trunk. Don’t know, exactly, I’ve never killed my Prius that completely. I know that I can creep three or four miles after I run out of gas, but that’s a different equation.

Ok, I’d better get dressed and start my errands. I probably should leave my phone at home just in case he decides he wants me to drive to Valhalla to slay something. I am *not* a Valkyrie. Or an automotive technician.

Update 5/24/2006:
The new Prius actually started, and after three tries it stayed running long enough to charge up the auxiliary battery. The hybrid battery was nearly at capacity. I don’t know why he doesn’t park it at my bro- or sister-in-law’s houses and have them use it to run out for groceries every week or so. Or drive it to work every day if they’re so inclined. That would be more convenient.
It turns out that there is indeed an old abandoned amusement park exactly where the old boy said it would be. I’ve never seen it, but my husband grew up near there so it’s rather surprising that he hasn’t.
There was no necessity for a Viking burial.

Categories: Humor.

The Big Time

Posted by Void on 05/20/2006

Well, I finally made it to the big time.

Well, no, what I really mean is that the spambots found “Into The Void” this week and they are hammering my WordPress blog with comment spam. I’ve received 500-some requests in the last 48 hours.

Would anyone in their right mind patronize a company that has its people dump irrelevant ads into sites? The most common were drugs and online casinos, followed by mortgages, and then a specific bank’s credit cards. Oh, yes, let me just give all my financial information to someone who uses a fake email address.

Anyway, I installed Bad Behavior.

Let’s see how it goes.

Update 9/22/2007: Bad Behavior, when it isn’t used in the sense of “Leslie’s hobbies,” is a WordPress plugin that blocks spammers from the site.

Bad Behavior works great. See the bottom of the page for stats. FYI, Homeland Stupidity has moved to a new website.
They also have an immensely satisfying project called Project Honeypot. This project identifies bad spiders and reports them for later action including lawsuits against repeat offenders and the occasional witch-burning. See if you can find it on Into the Void and get yourself added to the spam list… NOT!!!!

Categories: Junk Mail, Web, Web. Tags: , , , , , .

Heavy.

Posted by Void on 05/17/2006

The world would be a far more convenient place if everything in it could be hosed off.

Categories: Humor.

Subdreamer Under Windows

Posted by Void on 05/16/2006

Flush with my recent success running Tiki Wiki under Windows XP SP2, I thought it might be fun to try Subdreamer, too. Subdreamer is a Content Management System and is different from a Wiki mainly in the way it organizes and presents data. Subdreamer has the advantage of allowing me to integrate my phpBB forum into it so that my current users have the same user id and password on the new CMS.
In case anyone else wants to smear Linux web apps all over their harddrive, it’s not very hard to do. In this article I’ll walk you through the four main tasks required to evaluate the Subdreamer CMS on a Windows XP box.
You will be using an application called PhpTriad. PhpTriad contains Windows versions of the ubiquitous Apache server with PHP support, MySQL database software, and phpMyadmin. You’ll have no trouble at all getting PhpTriad running.
Next you’ll get the free version of Subdreamer and unzip it onto your hard drive. If you want more functionality when you take your CMS on-line you can buy the full version later.
Then you’ll run the MySQL software and use phpmyadmin to set up the MySql database where the Subdreamer CMS will store the contents of your web site.
Finally, you’ll open the Subdreamer installation file in your browser, work a little magic, and there you’ll be. It’s a little tricky, but I’ve made the mistakes several times so I’ll try to point out the gotchas before you make them.

Ok, let’s do it.

Download and install PhpTriad.

  1. Download and save phptriad r2.2 from the project pages at http://www.sourceforge.net/phptriad/ on SourceForge.
  2. Run phptriad2-2-1.exe.
  3. When the install is done, run PHPTriad -> Apache Console -> Start Apache from the start menu like any other Windows app. A command window named “Start
    Apache” opens. Minimize the Apache window, but don’t exit the program. Apache is now listening on port 80 for browser requests.
  4. Open your browser to http://localhost/ and you’ll see the PhpTriad welcome screen. Great!

Download Subdreamer Light.

  1. Register on the Subdreamer site at http://www.subdreamer.com/, then log in. Go to http://www.subdreamer.com/light/, download the Subdreamer Light .zip file
  2. Extract it into C:\apache\htdocs\. This will create directory C:\apache\htdocs\Subdreamer_Light_2202. Go into this directory, find the directory named upload and move it up to C:\apache\htdocs.
  3. In directory C:\apache\htdocs\subdreamer\includes\, make a copy of the file config.php.new. Rename this file config.php.
  4. Important! Check the properties of folder subdreamer and uncheck Read-only if it’s checked.

Configure a database for Subdreamer.

  1. From the start menu run PHPTriad -> MySQL -> MYSQL-D-NT.
  2. When you point your browser to http://localhost/phpmyadmin you’ll see the phpMyAdmin welcome page. It’s pretty much self-explanatory.
  3. Point your browser to http://localhost/phpmyadmin and create a new database named sdcms.
  4. Point your browser to http://localhost/phpmyadmin and Reload MySQL. It is very important to reload the SQL by revisiting http://localhost/phpmyadmin after every command, so check that out if things don’t work.
  5. Point your browser to http://localhost/phpmyadmin and go to Users.
  6. Select database scms in the pulldown menu Check Database Privileges. Now add a new user sdadmin and with password sdpasswd. Give the user all privileges. Don’t forget to write down that password!

Install Subdreamer Light.

  1. Run the Subdreamer installer by pointing your browser to http://localhost/subdreamer/install/install.php. Fill in the requested data:
       Database server hostname: localhost
       Database name: sdcms
       Database username: sduser
       Database password: sdpw
       Table Prefix: sd_
       Username: admin
       Password: changeme
       Confirm Password: changeme
       Email: you@your.com
    When you click “Install Subdreamer” it should take you to the “Installation Successfull!” page. Hooray!
  2. Now delete the install directory and you’re ready to create your web site.
  3. Go to the subdreamer admin panel at http://localhost/subdreamer/admin/ and log in as user admin with password changeme. You will be prompted (via a pink error message) to enter the full URL for your Subdreamer installation. It is http://localhost/subdreamer/

And that’s it! Experiment with settings, post entries, create and delete users. Subdreamer is suitable for a small to medium website, and that is why it is so easy to use. If you like Subdreamer, by all means buy the full version.
Just remember to periodically export the sdcms database via http://localhost/phpmyadmin. Not only does it protect your data from late-night errors, and there will be errors, but when you decide to go live with Subdreamer you can reuse your local data on-line. Your web host will likely also use phpMyAdmin and you can follow the same steps to create the database, and then import the file.

Categories: Comp Sci. Tags: , , , , .
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