Erdos Had The Number First

Against my better judgement (perhaps), I rather like Mike Huckabee. The problem I have the Gov. H is that he is _really_ socially conservative and supports a set of views that I find, well, problematic (to be diplomatic).

However, he shares my views on many economic and foreign policy initiatives. Especially given the current (and prone to adventure-ism) Dude we have now.

The biggest thing I like is that he seems like a straight shooter. Like someone that I can deal with. Unlike the aforementioned Dude, he will not attempt to cloak his opinions in order to get elected. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would claim to be a uniter, not a divider. He is not a crypto-facist. What a pleasant change.

Wrote while listening to: Saint Joe On The School Bus from the album “Marcy Playground” by Marcy Playground

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

OK, so I just got my blog back online. Talk about feeling like an idiot.

I did one of the things that smart admins never do: I upgraded without backups. I thought hey, what could happen. My hosting provider gives me this little button to upgrade wordpress. And I’ve been so impressed with Wordpress that the upgrade should go smoothly.

And it didn’t. Oh boy did it didn’t. It didn’t so badly that it makes me think real hard about chaning blog servers. As you can see, I got everything back, but it wasn’t easy or (quite frankly) intelligable what I did. All I can say is that I thank god I didn’t try to upgrade my wife’s blog, too.

When I was an undergrad, prior to my junior year[1] and having better access to computers in the physics building, I pretty much lived in the public labs in the basement of Fellows Hall. That was also where the Dino Pen was, and it was always better to be closer to the VAX and the RS6000 that I eventually fought to get access to.

Anyway, a lot has changed in the world of public labs since then. I’m typing this at one of the few public labs at GMU where I am currently taking classes. It’s friday morning and there are only two other poeple in here. One of them I think is the lab monitor. So many people have laptops and/or have their own computers that public labs are, I suspect, a dying thing. Couple that with the extensive WiFi coverage on campus and there is really very little reason to have public labs.

Hell, the only reason I’m here is that I left my 15lbs laptop at home to spare my aging back.

So, I’m midway through The Rebbe’s Army.

So far, it’s a really good book. I wasn’t expecting such a positive look at the Chabadniks, but then again I’m not surprised it’s so positive. If that makes sense. Part of this is that I really didn’t know all that much about the Lubavitchers before reading this book.

Now, I know a little more, but I still wouldn’t consider myself “well versed”. The only thing I’ve really formed an opinion on is that the rest of the Jewish Community needs to better understand the Hasidim in general.

The book (many times) talks about how the Lubavitch send out troops, they set up a school, and that school is cheaper than an existing Jewish school and conflict arises. The problem is that Chabad strikes right at the vulnerable heart of many synagogues: the money. The problem (as I see it) is that the Chabaniks understand The Money so much better than the other Jews it’s not even funny.

She even quotes a New Jersey Rabbi[1] who notes that the another school:

…”loses kids every year to Lubavitch.” He claims it’s not because the education they get at Chabad is better. In his opinion, Chabad day schools provide a “narrow Jewish education,” with little Hebrew or Jewish history, no Zionist history, and an overemphasis on Talmud and Hasidic mysticism. It’s just dollars and cents, “so the parents can build another jacuzzi.”

Holy Crap! If this guy was my Rabbi I’d send my kids to another school, too. People do things because they think its the best option, not because they want Jacuzzis. The best option may, in some cases, include a jacuzzi for the family, but that kind of accusation does not help anyone. It is, in fact, absurd.

It is the job of the leadership to lead the congregation. If they are losing their congregants, maybe they should look at themselves rather than at the Chabad.

Having myself had terrible experiences with synagogues I know it is very refreshing to go to services and be accepted, and have people happy to see you there (NOTE: I’m not planning on going over to the Chabad any time soon, but trust me, for men their services are quite accepting and engaging).

My point is, however, that Chabad has the leadership and many of the other synagogues do NOT. This is the root of the problem.

One of the things that made BeOS so freeking cool was the BeOS file system. BFS was, quite frankly, the most advanced file system at the time. It was more like a database than a filesystem, and you could add/manipulate/whatever the file metadata at will. In fact, many applications for BeOS capitilized on the filesystems DB-like properties quite a bit.

For example, document metadata was stored as file attributes. This allowed you to search for a paticular file on your computer using this metadata in a powerful way.

There are a number of problems with implementing a database file system. The book about BFS covers many of these issues but even today there are no real DB based filesystems in broad use.

Enter Google Desktop. It’s funny that the second edition of Managing Gigabytes was relased in 1999.

MG, BFS, and all utilities like them (including Microsoft Indexing Services) are designed to do one thing: Alllow a user to store, manipulate, and find the information they need. GDS succeeds where all of these other fail.

It’s pretty impressive that, yet again, someone from Google has taken tech that was out there, but didn’t really work, and made it no longer out there, but rather it’s Right Here, Now.

Face value | St Lawrence of Google | Economist.com

Even the Economist thinks they’re really trying to build an AI.

I’ve been saying this for a long time. Google is an AI company. I don’t know if they’ll accomplish it, it is certainly a hard problem.

And even saying that doens’t adaquately communicate just how hard a problem it is. I wish them luck, and if they want to hire me, they
already know where to find me.

Maureen Dowd Columnist Page - The New York Times

But not really. I just wish the Op-Ed page of the NYT wasn’t a premium content thing. I want to read her column, mostly to provide fodder for my own, barely coherent rantings (I figure if the NYT pays people for the same kind of drivel, I should produce my own drivel). But I can’t because it’s “TimesSelect”.

Here’s the thing, this is another reason that newpsapers are steadily Going Out Of Buisness in this country. If you are really pushing an agenda, you should give it away. And if you are not really pushing an agenda, then why should I pay you to write things you don’t believe? Hell, I’ve got a Congressman for that.

It’s a brand new calendar year. In the spirit of time, the BBC has produced a list of 100 things we didn’t know this time last year. BBC NEWS | Magazine | 100 things we didn’t know this time last year

It’s pretty informative. Especially #63, that tells us that it takes less energy to import a tomatoe from spain than to grow one in England.
That is good stuff.

So, I went to Kitchen-25 with the American Red Cross.
K25 was a feeding operation based in Lafayette, LA. I met a lot of people, and had an incredible experience.

I haven’t blogged about it, largely because I’ve not yet processed all of the information yet. It will take some time, I suspect. But now, a small (and largely empty) conflict has broken out between one group of X-k25s and another. The biggest problem is, I don’t know which side is which. It amazes me that we ever got along at all, really, when I read the angry emails thrown at me.

I will, almost certainly, not understand the current situation. I will not know what caused it, and I do not know how it will end. The only thing I (think) I do know, is that they know what caused it. I just wish I could get them to tell me.