In one of my joke books as a child, there was a bit of insecure racist commentary disguised as a joke.  The setup was that a man went into his mechanic claiming that his expensive import car was only getting twenty miles to the gallon, compared to the known extreme efficiency of 35 miles to the gallon.

The mechanic suggested that he "could do what all the other import owners did."

"What's that?" asked the customer.

"Lie about it," replied the mechanic.

It is hard not to find a parallel in the Linux/Windows debate.  I use a Windows PC for browsing, word processing, etc., and a Linux PC as my web server (for the site you are currently reading, for instance.)  My Linux PC is probably less stable than my Windows PC.  It freezes and crashes all the time.  And unless I am a far bigger idiot than I believe, this is not my fault.  I am not doing anything fancy; in fact, the machine will crash when the system is simply left at a login prompt (thus, there are only daemons running from time to time.)

Why is my Linux system (and my one at work, by the way) much less stable than what is "known to be the case for Linux?"  I suppose I could ask a newsgroup.  I expect that, if I happen to catch them at a moment of honesty, I would get some very helpful tech support: "Do what other Linux users do.  Lie about it."

Welcome back to school, David!  Have a great year.  I will see you at Christmas if not sooner.

I just discovered, quite accidentally, that if you press Ctrl-V to paste into Microsoft Outlook's main window, Outlook will launch a new blank message and paste the clipboard text as the message body.  While we are on Outlook tips, note that you can right click in an email message window to raise a context menu including a "view source" option.

(Note added 14 April 2003: Today I received a fairly brusque form letter from Roy Rivenburg of Off-Kilter claiming credit for this article and requesting attribution.  So I checked out the column he cites, and, yes, it looks like someone modified his article "Would the DMV Make HimWait Too?" for this email forward.  It's not an exact match: whoever originated the email forward reworded it, dropped some of Rivenburg's less clever bits, and added some of his or her own clever bits.

Regular readers of mcgees.org know that I am extremely diligent about proper attribution on this site, and to research the attribution for this article I did what I normally do: I selected a phrase from the article and ran a Google search on it.  Problem was, the article had been modified sufficiently that my test sentence no longer appeared in the article.  So, Roy, sorry about the confusion, and here you go: your article.  [If you are curious whether or not Rivenburg said, "Hey, cool additions to my article!": no, he didn't.])

I thought I would share a recent email forward I received, followed by my response.

From Mike Halloran, forwarded by Rustan Leino:

>  Most people assume WWJD stands for "What would
> Jesus do?"
>  But according to Scott Ostler of the San Francisco
> Chronicle, the
>  initials are shorthand for "What would Jesus
> drive?"
> 
>  For centuries, theologians have squabbled over the
> type of
>  transportation the Lord would use: Public transit
> or private car?
>  Stick shift or automatic? A sport-utility vehicle
> roomy enough for all
>  12 apostles or an economy model?
> 
>  One theory is that Jesus would tool around in an
> old Plymouth
>  because the Bible says, "God drove Adam and Eve out
> of the
>  Garden of Eden in a Fury". Clearly, this is a
> translation error:
>  The Lord surely would have owned a Sport Fury (the
> powerful
>  sport coupe) instead of the sedate family sedan.
> 
>  But in Psalm 83, the Almighty favors Pontiac and
> Geo.
>  The passage urges the Lord to "pursue your enemies
> with your
>  Tempest and terrify them with your Storm".
> 
>  Perhaps Yaweh favors Dodge pickup trucks: Moses'
> followers
>  are warned not to go up a mountain "until the Ram's
> horn sounds
>  a long blast".
> 
>  Meanwhile, Moses rode an old British motorcycle, as
> evidenced
>  by a Bible passage declaring that "the roar of
> Moses' Triumph
>  is heard in the hills".
> 
>  Joshua, likewise, favored Triumphs and had a sports
> car with a
>  hole in its muffler: "Joshua's Triumph was heard
> throughout the land".
> 
>  Some scholars insist that Jesus drove a Honda but
> didn't like to
>  talk about it. As proof, they cite a verse in St.
> John's gospel
>  where Christ tells the crowd, "For I did not speak
> of my own
>  Accord..."
> 
>  And, following Jesus' lead, the Apostles car pooled
> in a Honda...
>  "The Apostles were in one Accord".

While this is an amusing article, it is clear that Mr. Ostler is unacquainted with modern Biblical research, as he leaves off several popular theories.

Among his theories, the theory that Yahweh favors Dodges is probably the strongest.  Psalms refers to the "Shadow of the Almighty" (91:1), and even compares man's life to a Dodge on the road, saying "his days are like a passing Shadow." (144:4)  [Skeptics note that Yahweh would never favor such a dangerous model, pointing out the reference to "the Shadow of death." (23:4)]  Dodges show up elsewhere as well: there are myriad references to "the Spirit of the LORD".  The chief priests in Jesus' day used Dodges for law enforcement, even seeking to "arrest Jesus by Stealth." (Matthew 26:4)

Calibrating the opinion of the Kings of Israel towards Fords would be easier if we were told how great of a sacrifice it was it for Saul that, when he was told of David's escape, "he gave up the Expedition." (1 Samuel 23:13)  But regardless of Saul's predilections, Ahab, King of Israel, apparently favored Chevys.  At the Battle of Ramoth-gilead, "A certain man drew his bow at a Venture, and struck the king of Israel."  (1 Kings 22:34)  Solomon, in his great wisdom, would certainly not share this view.  He strongly admonished the rich man, whose "riches were kept by the owner to his hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad Venture."  (Ecclesiastes 5:13-14)

The princess of Psalm 45 severely muddles the automobile-versus-public-transportation question when "she is led to the king, with [...] her Escort, in her train."

The theft of one's automobile can be personally devastating, especially when it is an expensive luxury car.  We find God lamenting this (and probably dreaming up elaborate anti-theft devices, such as plagues): "What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose Vigor is gone?" (Job 30:2)

We can absolutely rule one option out: there are very few auto accidents to be found in the Bible, but fully two of them involve the same make of Geo.  Job blames God for his accident, complaining that "thou tossest me about in the roar [is this a misprint for 'rear'?] of the Storm." (Job 30:22)  The Apostles had the sense not to directly blame God for their auto troubles, noting simply that they "were violently Storm-tossed." (Acts 27:18)

Paul prophetically foresaw this very debate, and wanted there to be absolutely no confusion regarding his preference for Hondas: "When you read this you can perceive my Insight." (Ephesians 3:4)

But despite all this valuable debate, I feel there is one, and only one, acceptable answer.  God obviously prefers Nissans.  How else can one explain the overriding obsession of Psalms, the longest book in the Bible, with Stanzas?

I posted the following to a Blogger developers' discussion, and thought it might be useful reposting it here as search engine fodder.

[Donna] doesn't know that [man-made objects in orbit] fall out of the sky all the time.  Once every ten days, as a matter of fact.  Since the first year we started putting man-made objects in space, 17,000 have come back and remarkably, not one person has been hit.
                -- The West Wing, "The Fall's Gonna Kill You"

Thus, we started putting objects in orbit about the time (1535 C.E.) that Henry VIII formed the Church of England.

[I am writing this on my laptop on Tuesday night, but I will not be able to post it until tomorrow (Wednesday).]

Sunday through Wednesday of this week I am in Palo Alto on business.  Today, on my way back to the offices from a recommended lunch spot, I passed a used book store.  Or rather, I attempted to pass a used store, as I have never succeeded in actually walking past one.

I have a few collecting interests in books, among them nineteenth century editions of Concord transcendalists' texts, books on scotch whisky, and editions of The Oxford Book of Carols.  So I navigated to my standard haunts.  Bell's Books did not have any Oxford Carols.  It did have a copy of Scotch Made Easy by Wilson, a book I did not know existed; I picked this up (and, as it turns out, overpaid for it.)  One of the employees retrieved a stack of older Emerson and Thoreau texts, with a ladder, from high on a shelf, and I looked through them at the counter.  I found a Riverside Press edition of Emerson's Essays: Second Series; I remembered that I had a Riverside edition of the First Series, but could not remember which printing (i.e., whether they matched or not.)  I asked them to set the Emerson aside and I would call back after I checked my online book collection.

So this story now finds me standing at the counter with the Perl Cookbook that I brought in, Scotch Made Easy, and a book of Emerson essays.

"This is a varied selection," said the clerk as he picked up the scotch book to ring up.  "Scotch, Thoreau [sic], and Perl.  I'm not going to try to figure out the connection."

I laughed as the oddity struck me.  "Well," I said, "I have a website about scotch whisky written in Perl.  And of course there is the pleasure of pouring a fine dram while reading Thoreau."

"And you said you had your book collection online, which is at least a vague connection," he concluded.

Connections galore.  Perhaps I am not so odd after all.

The following is taken from an excellent paper entitled Between Humanitarian Law and Principles: The Principles and Practices of "Rebellious Humanitarianism" by Françoise Bouchet-Saulnier, Director of Research at the Médecins Sans Frontières [Doctors Without Borders] Foundation.  I encourage you to read the entire paper, read their charter, and consider donating if you agree with their principles.

Humanitarian action and human rights

[The United Nations'] tendency to adopt a more global approach [toward humanitarian action] is an attempt to group humanitarian action together with peacekeeping, the restoration of democracy, and human rights.  …  However, this kind of approach blurs the nature of each organization's responsibility.  …  Indeed, in a context in which human rights are an element of international diplomacy, giving confidential information to human rights groups might be regarded by the authorities as clandestine, suspicious and subversive.  …  With this approach … relief operations become a pawn in a power game that is perilous for humanitarianism.  …

Thus, a genuine conditionality of humanitarian aid has gradually taken hold, in the name of peace and human rights.  However, although the practice of conditionality may take refuge behind these noble objectives, it in fact violates the only absolute principle of humanitarian action: impartiality.

This principle dictates that humanitarian aid obey no other imperative than that of the needs of people, and it provides the foundation for humanitarian organizations' right to access conflict areas.  …  Paradoxically, the most serious consequence of this approach becomes the subordination of humanitarian aid to non-humanitarian objectives.

Humanitarian law and human rights

Humanitarian law … is concerned with periods of armed conflict.  It is enshrined in four conventions signed in Geneva in 1949 and in two additional protocols of 1977.  These laws set out specific rules regarding protection and assistance to precise categories of vulnerable people (civilians, the sick and wounded, and those deprived of freedom) in situations of armed international or internal conflict. Some NGOs see the law only as a source of constraint and limitation. Yet it is thanks to the specific provisions of humanitarian law that NGOs are able to claim independence in their actions with respect to governments; demand access to victims; assert control over the distribution of relief; enter a country's territory without prior consent in order to bring medical relief to the wounded and the sick; and identify and denounce war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Humanitarian law does not, therefore, limit the concrete action of NGOs. On the contrary, it ensures that offers of relief made by independent and impartial humanitarian organizations may not be considered interference in a country's internal affairs.

Rebellious humanitarianism

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the "rebellious humanitarianism" of Médecins Sans Frontières, the Nobel Committee chose to reward the sometimes controversial choices made by MSF, which sees acting and speaking as two inseparable elements of providing relief to endangered people.

Médecins Sans Frontières does not see itself as a cog in the machinery of international solidarity, responding to medical needs like some eager hired hand summoned to deal with the failures of states or of global privatization.  …

MSF is a member of the youngest generation of humanitarian organizations. Created after the Second World War, it is among those organizations questioning the role of humanitarianism with regard to genocide. It refuses to accept that silence is a precondition for its operational freedom.  …  This attitude was reaffirmed in the words of MSF upon the award of the Nobel Peace Prize: "We don't know whether words save lives, but we know for sure that silence kills."

In redesigning my book collection page this evening, I ran across the need for a routine to sort by Library of Congress call number.  This is actually nontrivial, as the following are all valid numbers:

• DA870.F64
• DK602.3.B76 1996
• Q335.P416 1994
• QA76.73.P22W35 1991
• RS75.P5

To add even more complexity, some number fields are sorted in strict ascending order (e.g., in "DK602.3.B76 1996" the bold number would come after 9, after 80, after 600 but before 603) and some are sorted as decimals (e.g., in "Q335.P416 1994" the bold number would come after 3000 and after 35 but before 4161.)  I wrote some Perl code for this, and it understands all call number forms that I am aware of.  If you stumbled upon this page looking for something like this, here it is:

sub locsort ($a,$b)
{
    @a = ($a =~ /^([A-Z]+)(\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\.?([A-Z]*)(\d*)\.?([A-Z]*)(\d*)(?: (\d\d\d\d))?/);
    @b = ($b =~ /^([A-Z]+)(\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\.?([A-Z]*)(\d*)\.?([A-Z]*)(\d*)(?: (\d\d\d\d))?/);
    
    return 
	$a[0] cmp $b[0]
	    ||
	$a[1] <=> $b[1]
	    ||
	$a[2] cmp $b[2]
	    ||
	"0.$a[3]" <=> "0.$b[3]"
	    ||
	$a[4] cmp $b[4]
	    ||
	"0.$a[5]" <=> "0.$b[5]"
	    ||
	$a[6] <=> $b[6]
	    ;
}

From The Industry Standard:

Venture Financing
Kodeos Closes $12 Million First Round
Description: Fiber-optic communications optical subsystem maker secures first round funding led by Jerusalem Ventures and Highland Capital.

Zionist Chieftains to the rescue?

I am pleased.  I spent most of today (Sunday) installing a wall of new bookshelves that I purchased at IKEA.  These Billy bookcases are a fantastic bargain: at 79 inches (2.0 m) in height with six shelves apiece they provide ample space.  The four cost only $430 combined and provide sixty linear feet (18.3 m) of storage space, not counting the cabinet tops.  This means that there is actually some unfilled space!  I would love to post a picture, but I cannot find the serial cable for my digital camera. 

TV notes:

TLC will air episodes of Police, Camera, Action today at 3, 4, and 8 p.m.

MTV are bringing back their acclaimed Unplugged series but (and here is the catch) they will be airing it on MTV2.  If you do not get it and would like to, contact your cable company.  If you have Adelphia, then please contact them because they (my provider) do not carry this station.  Maybe they can get Metallica, Staind, and Tool on this time around.  And of course I would not mind seeing Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots record new programs.

Looking for a web site that does meta-searches on library collections, I was thrilled to find that the U.S. Library of Congress offers a Z39.50 gateway to 381 worldwide library databases.  I still did not find a meta-search site, and the LoC makes you search each of the libraries one at a time, but I wrote a small Perl script that iterates through each library, runs a search, and collates all the results.  If you want a copy just email me.

I tried writing the script such that it forks 381 different processes to run the searches in parallel, but A Certain Something happens.  No, I don't know what.  My guess is that it gobbles up too much of some resource or another, because the machine slows to a crawl, stops accepting user input, and even if I do get it started again all the requests after a certain point simply fail.  So for now it iterates, which takes a long time.

If you change your Blogger weblog from a weekly to a monthly archive format but do not want to break search engine links to these pages, add the following lines to either the archive directory's .htaccess file or (if you are the sysadmin) to httpd.conf, assuming you run Apache:

RewriteEngine   on
RewriteRule     ^(200._..)_[^0][^1]_index.html$   $1_01_index.html [R]
RewriteRule     ^(200._..)_[^0]1_index.html$      $1_01_index.html [R]
RewriteRule     ^(200._..)_0[^1]_index.html$      $1_01_index.html [R]

Line one turns on URL rewriting.  Lines two through four take file names of the form 200X_XX_XX_index.html, keep X_XX, but change XX to 01.  This will redirect, for instance, requests for the weekly logs of July 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29 of this year all to 2001_07_01_index.html.  The reason for the three lines is so that you do not trigger an infinite loop (i.e., the server changes the filename to 2001_07_01_index.html and redirects, the server picks up the redirect, changes the filename to 2001_07_01_index.html....)

If we call XX the "day" digits, then line 2 handles day digits where the first digit is not 0 and the second digit is not 1, line 3 handles situations where the first digit is not 0 but the second digit is 1, and line 4 handles situations where the first digit is 0 but the second digit is not 1.  With full-powered regular expressions, this should be compressible into ^(200._..)_([^0][^1]|[^0]1|0[^1])_index.html$, but Apache does not seem to handle this properly.  Yes, there are other ways to code the regexps.

As I was driving home from work listening to KUSC, Jim Svejda played a hauntingly beautiful piece by Benjamin Britten, a composer with whom I am completely unfamiliar save "having heard of him before."  I arrived home before the piece ended, but I rushed inside to continue listening.  KUSC's RealAudio stream seems to be down, unfortunately, but I was able to get details from the website:

11:00 pm   Benjamin Britten: Hymn to St. Cecilia Op. 27 for unaccompanied chorus
                        St. John's College Choir / Christopher Robinson
                        Naxos 554791

I just purchased this recording from Tower Records, a process that I would strongly recommend if

a) You would like to hit yourself in the head repeatedly with a cinder block but
b) Do not happen to have one available just now.

With all the good e-commerce software available, it is surprising that a national company would have such a miserable online shopping implementation.

Soundex is a classic algorithm for hashing a name, using phonetic heuristics, to allow "fuzzy" matches.  A telephone operator, for instance, can type "John Smith" and retrieve records for "John Smith", "Jon Smith", "John Smythe", and "Jon Smythe".

Curious what buckets "Joshua" and "McGee" hash into?  Here is a sample:

J200: Jace, Jack, Jackie, Jacko, Jacks, Jacqui, Jacy, Jake, Jakie, Jaqui, Jaska, Jaws, Jazy, Jazz, Jess, Jesse, Jessie, Jewish, Jiggs, Jo-Jo, Joac, Joasia, Jochi, Jocie, Jock, Jockey, Jocko, Jojo, Jookie, Jos, Jose, Josey, Josh, Joshua, Josiah, Josie, Joska, Joss, Josue, Josza, Joszia, Joyce, Joycie, Jozsi, Jug, Juice, Juiz, Juke, Jussi

M200: M'sieu, MC, Maacah, Maas, Mac, MacKay, Macci, Mace, Macey, Macho, Mack, Mackay, Mackey, Mackie, Macque, Macy, Mag, Magee, Maggi, Maggie, Maggio, Maggs, Magi, Magoya, Mags, Magua, Maish, Maisie, Maize, Maizie, Maj, Mak, Maki, Makie, Mako, Masai, Masao, Mascha, Masha, Mask, Massai, Massey, Massieu, Max, Maxey, Maxie, Maxse, Mays, Maz, Mazai, Maze, Mazie, Mc, McCay, McCoy, McCue, McGee, McKay, McKee, Meaux, Meche, Meck, Meekie, Meeks, Meg, Mejia, Mesa, Mess, Messua, Micah, Micha, Michio, Mick, Mickey, Micki, Micky, Miegs, Mieke, Mieux, Mieze, Migg, Miggs, Mike, Mikey, Mikha, Miki, Mikie, Mikki, Mis, Mischa, Misha, Misi, Miso, Miss, Missy, Miyagi, Miyaji, Mizzi, Mizzie, Moaka, Mochow, Moco, Mog, Mogg, Mohock, Moisha, Moishe, Moke, Moki, Moko, Moochie, Mooka, Moose, Mosca, Mosch, Mose, Mosey, Moss, Mouche, Mouse, Mousie, Moxie, Moyoko, Moze, Mozo, Mozuya, Ms., Much, Muche, Muck, Muckeye, Mug, Muggs, Muggsy, Mugs, Mugsy, Musi, Mussa, Musso

Neat, eh?  This way I can easily change my nationality ...

• Jose Mejia
• Josue Mieux
• Josza Miyagi

... or get a really cool name ...

• Jewish Moose
• Jock Macho
• Jazz Magi
• Juice Mug
• Jug Miso
• Jiggs MC
• Jockey Mugsy

... and people could still call directory assistance and find me!

The Olive Garden^® restaurant, with the help of Coca-Cola^®, recently enacted a program [archive] to sell more Coke.  Why?  To increase sales for Coca-Cola^®?  Of course not!  To increase revenue for The Olive Garden^®?  What, are they fascists?  They did it "with the goal of increasing overall guest satisfaction."

Before you laugh this off as bullshit, offensive marketing drivel, take a moment to consider the compelling logical argument [archive]:

1. Customers order tap water "not because they enjoy it, but because it is what they always have drunk in the past."  Obviously these customers have never heard of Coke, so
   
   
2. in the interests of customers, The Olive Garden^® established a goal "to influence customers to abandon their default choice of tap water and experience other beverage choices to improve their dining experience."  We know the dining experiences of customers were improved because
   
   
3. the program worked, generating "reduced levels of tap water incidence", which shows
   
   
4. "a strong indication that Olive Garden restaurants succeeded in enhancing the customer's dining experience," due to the fact that
   
   
5. see point #3.

OK, now laugh this off as bullshit, offensive marketing drivel.

(Thanks to memepool for the pointer.)

[Note added 2 August 2001: My my my ... it looks like Coke got a bit embarassed and have pulled the pages.  That's fine; there is still a cache on Google, of which I have made a copy for posterity.]

A small business hoping to appear larger (or at least to have a permanent office) may rent a private mail box, or PMB.  A PMB is an enumerated physical mailbox owned and operated by a private company.  The U.S. Postal Service have been cracking down on the use of "Suite" to designate such a mailbox, with the argument that such use is deceptive.  Some companies continue to do so; some simply list the box as "#x" (allowing one to assume a suite); some actually use "PMB x".  For search-engine fodder, here are the results of a Google search for companies who use a small Mailboxes, Etc. in town their corporate address, along with the method in which they identify their box number (Updated 24 Jun 2002).  This does not necessarily imply deceit on the part of the business, but if you are expecting corporate offices at the address, there will not be.