tail -f access_log

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A geek-fascinating look at traffic as a new weblog is discovered.

I’ve only ever run web sites on Apache or one of its ancestors, and this lineage of web servers has always written its statistics into a file named access_log. I think anyone who’s running a Web site, or who cares about the Web, ought to, on a regular basis, spend some time watching the access_log in real time.

Too often we get this image of the Web as a vast well-oiled machine, with glossy browser screens in front and masses of gleaming software in back. Watching the access_log is like a window into the side lobby of the legislature, or a tour of the fermentation vats at the brewery.

(Via Dave Winer)

Snowflake pictures

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A single snowflake

Gorgeous pictures of snowflakes at this site, along with more information than I ever thought there would be about the little buggers.

My parents have often teased me about how long it would take me to walk the three blocks to school when I was a kid, usually assuming that I had to examine every snowflake I saw to see if they were really all different. In normal Alaskan winters, of course, there are a lot of snowflakes. Even in only three blocks.

That said, though, I never got quite this into examining snow. Probably because the downside to examining snowflakes was being out in the cold, and at ten years old, I was a bit short of the capital it would take to build my own laboratory for experiments like this. Bummer!

(Via /.)

Credibility Gap

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The Bush Credibility Gap: The Photographic History of the Bush Administration Putting Its Mouth Where Its Money Isn’t

Very interesting just on its own, but take a moment to note the web address — this is coming from the House of Representatives server, and was created by the Democrats in the Appropriations Committee. In other words, this isn’t just some random Bush-basher airing his griefs. These are very specific Bush-bashers!

Tongue-in-cheek comments aside, it’s nice to see something like this coming from the Democrats on Capitol Hill. Mayhaps we’re starting to see a hint of Democratic backbone again?

(Via Dori Smith)

Letter of Resignation

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U.S. Political Counselor John Brady Kiesling, stationed in Athens, Greece, has resigned his position, outlining his reasons for doing so in a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.

…until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America’s ability to defend its interests.

I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share.

On the one hand, it’s heartening to know that there are politicians like this out there. On the other hand, it’s a shame that they feel forced to resign because of the current administrations policies and goals.

(Via MeFi)

Pledge ruling upheld

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Back in June, when the Pledge of Allegiance was ruled unconstitutional because the words “under God” encroached on the division between church and state, I didn’t think that the ruling would stand. In a nation where if you don’t support the President’s holy crusade you’re just another one of those damn dirty traitors, I expected the public outcry would end up pushing the courts into overturning the ruling.

I was quite pleasantly surprised to read yesterday that the appeals court has rejected the request to reconsider the ruling, letting it stand as-is.

From the New York Times:

A federal appeals court stood by its ruling that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because of the words “under God,” perhaps setting the stage for a U.S. Supreme Court fight over a decision that prompted a nationwide outcry.

Bush administration officials strongly condemned Friday’s ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though they stopped short of saying they would appeal to the Supreme Court.

[Judge Steven] Reinhardt lashed out at the “disturbingly wrong-headed” dissent that public outcry over the pledge ruling should have persuaded the circuit to reconsider.

“The Bill of Rights is, of course, intended to protect the rights of those in the minority against the temporary passions of a majority which might wish to limit their freedoms or liberties,” Reinhardt wrote.

And from Reuters:

In defending the ruling, defiant 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt said that the court would not be swayed by public outrage over one of its decisions and did not consider the “importance of an issue” good enough reason to rehear a legal ruling that it considered correct.

“We may not — we must not — allow public sentiment or outcry to guide our decisions,” Reinhardt wrote.

“It is particularly important that we understand the nature of our obligations and the strength of our constitutional principles in times of national crisis,” he wrote. “It is then that our freedoms and our liberties are in the greatest peril.”

Not terribly surprisingly, Attorney General John Ashcroft has sworn to appeal to the Supreme Court.

“THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT will spare no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance to the American flag,” Ashcroft said in a statement issued in Washington shortly after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco declined to reconsider its ruling. “We will defend the ability of Americans to declare their patriotism through the time-honored tradition of voluntarily reciting the pledge.”

John, John, John. I’m no legal expert, but I haven’t gotten the impression that the Pledge of Allegiance has been banned outright — only that it is not to be a school-sponsored activity. All Americans still have the right and the ability to voluntarily declare their patriotism any way they want to whenever they want. They just shouldn’t be forced to do so in ways that may conflict with their personal beliefs. I have to admit, the mental picture of a man like Ashcroft — who’s likely to equate Wiccanism with ‘Satanism’ — trying to cope with the concept of a “patriotic Witch” makes me laugh. A lot.Atheists and Agnostics can be patriotic, as can Muslims, Hindus, Baha’i, Buddhists, and so on. Heck, I’d bet that even Jehovah’s Witnesses and Wiccans can be patrotic! But they don’t believe in ‘God’, and shouldn’t be required to profess a belief that they do not hold.

Anyway, the original ruling was made. That ruling has now been confirmed. Now it appears that it may fall to the Supreme Court to finish this off. We’ll see how things end up if this does end up heading their way, but in the meantime, congratulations to Judge Reinheart and the rest of the Court of Appeals.

(Via MeFi and BoingBoing)

Yawn!

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It’s 8:30 in the morning, and I’m at work. Ugh.

On the bright side, there aren’t too many other people here, so I’ve been able to snag the stereo, drag it over to my area, and attach my iPod to it, so I’ve got good tunes without having to have my headphones on all day.

Gotta take life’s pleasures where you can, right?

Especially at 8:30am.

Search improvements

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I spent some time last night working with the search software I have installed on djwudi.com, tweaking and improving it so that it gives much more useable results.

While MovableType does include its own search function, I’ve chosen not to use it for djwudi.com because I have a number of pages that live outside of my weblog, which MT would not be able to search. However, I’d run into a bit of a problem with the search engine I am using, and I think I’ve finally got it solved.

The issue that came up was simply that because the search software had indexed the text of every page on the site, there were certain words that were essentially useless to try to search for, because they’re repeated on so many pages. For instance, I was trying to find a page where I’d written up a short description of the MT TrackBack functionality — unfortunately, a search for ‘TrackBack’ returned hits for every single page on my weblog, because they all had the word ‘TrackBack’ on the page.

Digging through the documentation for the search software yesterday (yes, I know, actually reading the instructions is so uncool, but it really does help sometimes…), I discovered that there is a very simple way to tell the search software to ignore certain areas of a webpage. So, some tweaks to my templates to ensure that the software only pays attention to the actual content of each page, and ignores all the navigational or presentational mumbo-jumbo, and I’ve got a far more useable search feature than I did previously. Woohoo!

Dive! Dive! Dive!

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Interesting editorial over at Wired today: Go Deep! The US needs a NASA for exploring the oceans.

NASA has had its day. It’s given us technological marvels from cell phones to SETI screensavers. But we’re not mining the moon. We’re not terraforming Mars. And we’re certainly not finding any aliens. We’ve gotten completely off track: choosing to look for long-dead microbes 390 million miles away on Europa, while neglecting undiscovered life just miles off the coast of North America.

About 94 percent of life on Earth resides in the oceans. We’ve seen only about 2 percent of this vast ecosystem – the uppermost layer (home to fish, whales, scuba divers, and most known marine life). Beneath this warm lens lies a cold, dark, and life-rich realm of grand proportions. It’s home to creatures as far removed from the sun and human biology as any alien imagined by science fiction.

This is something that’s been bouncing around my brain for quite a few years now. While I certainly don’t want to see space exploration stop (and I am excited about some of the new ideas being proposed), it’s amazed me that we’re basically ignoring such a huge expanse of unexplored territory, right here on the very planet we live on. Surely some of the advances made in our exploration of space could be adapted to serve in an underwater environment, since some of the same concepts apply (such as keeping a standard pressure environment stable in an environment with a vastly different pressure — much more, rather than much less).

What new technologies could be created as we explore the new problems? Or what current technologies could be adapted and improved? We’re already seeing more and more work in hydrogen-powered automobiles — why not incorporate some miniaturized desalinization plant with a hydrogen-powered engine, and then any submersible could have a nearly infinite supply of fuel (think of a Bussard Ramscoop for a sub)? The linked Wired article mentions some of the odd chemical processes that are ocurring naturally by undewater thermal vents — who knows what kind of chemical tricks we could learn by studying these?

I just think there’s a lot to be explored in a frontier very close to home, and it’s a real shame that so little has been done in this direction as yet. Yes, I still think we need to go up — but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be going down, either.

By the infinite dick of God

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I first found this on the ‘net ages ago, and used to have a copy somewhere on my hard drive. I’d forgotten about it for a long time, then the phrase “by the infinite dick of God” popped into my head tonight, and I decided to search this out and preserve it for posterity. Enjoy.

I am forever astonished by how many mistakes could be avoided if people would just think about what they are saying. This is especially the case in religion. An example of this is the assumption that God is male. Obviously God is a woman, because God doesn’t have a penis. The proof of this is by omission: nowhere in the Bible is there a reference to the “Divine Penis,” and I am sure that if God were a man He would talk about it somewhere. No real man could go on for hundreds of pages about himself without mentioning that thing once or twice.

Upon remarking on the above observation, I was notified by someone that he heard the oath “by the infinite dick of God” around Caltech, though “semi-infinite” would be more precise. Unfortunately, this further muddles the issue. I am thankful that the ancient theologians did not realize this point, otherwise they would have wasted much time in debating this actually nonexistent part of God. I can see it all now…

During the fall of Rome, St. Augustine referred to “God’s mighty male member, wider than the Coliseum, more powerful than Zeus’s tool, able to take Athena in a single bound.” Then in the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas, in an attempt to reconcile St. Augustine’s remark with the rediscovered writings of Zeno, declared that the length of God’s immense organ must be semi-infinite. But then Rene Descartes, after spending a lifetime in philosophical thought, stated that since God is greater than that which can be conceived, God’s measureless masculinity must be truly infinite, because an infinite length is much longer (in fact, infinitely longer) than a semi-infinite length.

However, the followers of Aquinas immediatedly countered with a simple argument: “If God’s tree is infinite, then what holds it up? Certainly one end of God’s tremendous tree must be firmly rooted in his loins.” Also, a minor philosopher (whose name I forget, but who liked perfect islands) argued “If God’s monument to life were infinite then there must be a fig leaf whose extent is also infinite. But then there is something infinite that is not part of God, which contradicts the assumption that God is the greatest. The only solution is that God’s rod must be semi-infinite, so that He can hide it by turning His back to the world and looking over His shoulder.”

Since both sides had such valid points, for a while the discussion reached a stalemate.

Then the great German philosopher Hegel attempted to reconcile the issue with his sword-plowshare theory, where he proposed that the infinite and semi-infinite are actually two manifestations of the same thing. Though it seemed impossible, Hegel claimed that God does occasionally beat His infinite sword into a semi-infinite plowshare. This theory gained great popularity, but it didn’t really solve anything primarily because no one could understand it.

Some time afterwards, the rise of non-Euclidian geometry seemed to favor the Cartesians when it showed that God’s wondrous worm could be infinite in this dimension, yet be attached to Him in a higher dimension. However this solution was not totally satisfactory either, because then there isn’t a preferred direction to God’s protrusion in this dimension.

The answer to the debate had to wait till the beginning of the 20th century, when Georg Cantor, attempting to cope with his strict religious upbringing, proved that a semi-infinite member is just as long as an infinite member; therefore God’s member may be semi-infinite and yet be no shorter than an infinite member. Cantor’s colleagues ridiculed him by showing that his theorems also proved that a finite real dimension is commensurable with an infinite one, suggesting that anyone’s piddling plow is just as long as God’s prodigious pecker.

This paradox was solved only with the advent of quantum theory, which demonstrated that the real world corresponds to the set of integers rather than the set of reals. In that case Cantor’s theory showed that the finite phallus was infact infinitely shorter than the infinite one, though the theory still retained the property of the commensurability between the infinite and the semi-infinite. So today mathematicians agree that Cantor was correct, finally and conclusively demolishing the central argument of the Cartesian theory.

Thus we see that if St. Augustine had thought about the nature of God’s member, only after several centuries of the application of logic and mathematics and physics would a definite answer be reached. And even then the answer would be wrong, because the very basis of the argument is nonexistent. For the reason described at the beginning of this treatise, we the faithful know that by simply examining the Word of God it is obvious that any discussion in this area is meaningless, since God hath no member.

— Robert Mokry