We’re spending a couple of days on the eastern side of the Sierras before heading over to Las Vegas for the Apachecon conference. We spent a nice day on the road between Bishop and Bridgeport today, checking out the hot springs near Mammoth and Bridgeport and taking a quick spin up by Twin Lakes where we got some nice shots of the snow blowing off of the tops of the mountains.
Roll your mouse over each image to view the caption.
In the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month … more deaths were reported in Iraq. As it was, shall it ever be: old men send in young men to fight their wars. Occasionally (WWII) this is an appropriate course of action. All too often, however, warfare serves only the short-term interests of leaders (of both sides) who have little if anything in common with the brave soldiers who give their lives in pursuit of ephemeral goals that are almost never achieved. Read more on this topic.
I found the following on the KPIG “squeals” (listener comments) page; worth quoting here:
A missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.
Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a Vet just by looking.
What is a vet? He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.
He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.
She - or he - is the Nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn’t come back AT ALL.
He is the Quantico Drill Instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.
He is the parade riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.
He is the career Quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.
He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket…palsied now and aggravatingly slow…who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.
He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being…a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot,
“THANK YOU”
The Denver Post has a heartfelt piece regarding two wounded vets, and their perspectives on life.
Continuing the effort to fight against comment spam in this blog, I just installed, configured and tested the anti-comment-spam filter known as MT-Blacklist. A quick review of the system reveals some obvious weaknesses, but it will stop simple spam.
Given the aforementioned limitations, I think the greater value lie in its ability to remove unwanted spam, with only one mouseclick, though I hope to not have to use this feature very often. I remain unconvinced of the efficacy of the spam clearinghouse; figuring it to be a case of closing the barn door after the fact. Would love to be wrong about this, of course.
For more information on the fight against this latest variant of the internet pestilence known as spam, be sure to read (and link to if you’re a blogger) Kalsey’s Comment Spam Manifesto.
In addition to some insightful comments on the current Semantic Web Debate, Shelley offers up some mighty fine images of a mineral collection that’s taken years to assemble. The okenite image is very striking, and Sheryl reminded me that we also had to buy our first piece of okenite in order to “pet” it. A most fascinating mineral.
I appreciate the semweb postings as the review and summary of the various points of view and perspectives helps me understand the complexities and issues that continue to engulf this topic. It’s through this reasonable discourse that understanding is gained, and from what I can see, there are at least a couple of valid ways to view the current state of affairs. Both the bottoms-up, grass-roots and the more centralized, standards-driven approaches are valid, in the appropriate time and place.
What seems more critical is that in the small, say amongst mineral collectors*, that a common taxonomy(ontology?) be developed as early as possible, to facilitate whatever data sharing (items, including description; items for sale and trade etc) might be desired.
*(or maybe a level up, amongst “collectors” (oops, “what’s a collector?”) (yes, I do tend to think hierarchically (and parenthetically)))
Hmm, writing the above helped illustrate to me the difficulties inherent in dealing with this topic (what topic?).
Similarly, amongst businesses, the need for a common naming convention seems a clear win, and it shouldn’t be “owned” by any one corporation. But really, what are corps? How do they differ from a small, topic-focused group that’s not primarily focused on commerce? The difference is, I believe, related to the fact that different approaches work better for different groups.
Both approaches are valid, but for other (social?) reasons, the different approaches will work better with different constituencies. As a result, what’s not yet needed is a universal nomenclature across disciplines, groups, etc. Translators can be written as needed, though groups should try, as makes sense for them, to “federate” with other groups of similar interest; as Shelley notes, “you either pay upfront, once; or you keep paying in the end, again and again”. For the time being, I expect both approaches will continue to evolve, over time approaching some grand thing that really is the Semantic Web.
Oh, and seeing Shelley’s fine work reminds me that my own mineral site, focused on fluorescent minerals, hasn’t had any attention for quite some time. Still, if you haven’t visited before, there’s plenty to see, from a description of fluorescent minerals, links to other related sites, and of course, a fair number of photos of fluroescent minerals.
Note to self: if you’re trying to set a terminal’s name via “File->Set Title…” then by all means, please be sure that your /etc/bashrc file does NOT contain code similar to the following:
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}:${PWD}\007"'
If the code is present, then with certainty, the next time you launch the terminal that code will override the setting made using the terminal app itself and equally certain, hours will be lost, heads will be scratched and much frustration will ensue as you try to figure out what’s going on.
On the other hand, don’t underestimate the power of this technique; if you would like dynamic terminal titles based on the current working directory or remote host, they can be easily configured.
Bonus tip: Stop the screen from being cleared after running commands such as vi or man by setting the term type to VT100. More details and a discussion are available in this MacOSXHints article.
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