Reiisi -- 零石

Ashamed to be human

2012-01-19T18:40:00.001+09:00

Thinking more about the wars now being fought in courtrooms and Congress in the name of "intellectual property", in a society of plenty, where there should be no need to constrain the free human soul with such legal fictions, I am ashamed to call this planet my home.

Tech Companies too Big to Fail

2012-01-18T18:39:00.001+09:00

Another epiphany while I was exercising this morning --

If a company claims it's too big to fail, what they are really claiming is that they are too big to risk being allowed to fail.

In other words, too big to have to put up with the normal viscicitudes of the market.

If they are so big, why do they need our help? (If big is such a good thing ...)

No, I'm not thinking about the banks and the American auto makers today. Lots of other industries are feeling the pains of too much of the wrong kind of big.

What is the wrong kind of big?

It's when you use your influence to your own advantage.

For example, it's when use money and connections to force changes in the law to protect yourself from all the little people who won't do what you want.

And it's when you use your ill-gotten patents to pervert the courts and make them them your battlefield in your wars of attrition.

Let's be straight. If you are looking at the market place as your battlefield and not thinking there's something wrong here, can you be sure you aren't already too big in your own mind?

Being human is so confusing.

2012-01-09T00:42:00.001+09:00

[This is part of a meta-thread on Love and Romance.]

Being human is so confusing.

Some people are raised with the assumption that dance is foreplay. That kind of assumption makes it hard for men to dance with men, or women to dance with women, without people feeling perverted.

When I was young, there was an undercurrent in the popular literature/culture around West Texas, that physical interaction with other people was implicitly sexual. It made it hard to talk about rape as a crime of violence, because violence itself was sexual.

What do you mean, crime of violence, not passion? Violence is passion. Passion is violent.

I thought at the time that it was something that we were brought up with. If one is taught when young, that physical interaction is always sexual, it's hard to untangle sex and violence.

There was also a similar undercurrent that tenderness was a sexual emotion.

But if one is taught that the only "real" love is the kind that makes babies, one is at a loss to explain friendship.

I have since observed that the confusion is not simply intellectual.

The various systems in the unborn baby must go through a process called differentiation, or the organs never form. I read somewhere that, in many cases, the differentiation is not complete at birth. In particular, the circulatory, lymphatic, and endocrine systems tend to remain tangled, even in adults.

And a light came on. The understanding came a little late, but looking back I see that my own systems were still tangled up until sometime after I was married. (Still aren't completely untangled.)

I had a hard time in social situations when I was a teenager precisely because my adrenalin and hormone systems would kick into gear at the same time. Where the psychiatrists talk about fight-or-flight, I found other stimulations present when I was under stress. Some of those felt sexual in nature, which was embarrassing to me.

With experience, the stimuli have mostly sorted themselves out. I couldn't talk with girls about almost anything at all when I was around twelve to fourteen, because my system was charged with feelings that I had been taught I must not let loose. Physical exercise was often difficult for similar reasons. Answering the teachers' questions in class was sometimes difficult for the exact same reasons.

Learning to run longer than a few hundred yards at a stretch helped me straighten some of those out, although I would find myself fighting with a variety of confusing stimuli after about five minutes on pace. Taking modern dance classes at college was even more help. Dating helped, too, not to burn the hormones off, but to help me sort out which stimuli were real and which were artifacts of the tangling.

Dropping out of college for six or seven years to make an attempt on the OS challenge that Linus Torvalds finally succeeded on might have been another of the things that helped me get untangled.

Believing that the systems could be straightened out was essential. That belief is derived from my belief in the teachings of Jesus -- repentance.

(And repentance, itself, can be really confusing.)

[Update: 001: 20120109.0925]

So I woke up this morning about five, to exercise, and I realized that I left something unsaid that probably needs to be said.

I never knew anyone who had the systems untangled during their teens. Near as I can tell, it's a life-long pursuit for most of us.

And, I guess, one more thing I should say, since I don't have time to make another blog today, getting things untangled will help us accept and be accepted in society better, but it does not make us conform to any particular social norms. We all have talents, and having talents requires non-conformance, and part of the business of living is learning to use those talents well instead of running from them.

In fact, part of getting untangled seems to involve first accepting yourself as you are at the moment, for the moment. Once you have done that, you can get a good start on the day. And I will have to continue this sometime.

[end-update 001]

What is love?

2012-01-08T23:54:00.001+09:00

[This is part of a meta-thread on Love and Romance.]

One of the big hits by the band Foreigner was a song called, "I Wan to Know What Love Is." They made a lot of mileage out of the line, but there was a hidden assumption in the lyrics, that the singer would know it when he saw it.

A lot of philosophers have also got a lot of mileage from the question. My teachers in high school spent a not-insignificant amount of time on it.

Sometime during high school, I developed a simple formulation that seemed to work for me.

Love was constructive and hate was destructive.

I think one of my teachers asked me about passion, and I kind of ignored the question.

Another word that caught my attention back then was "intercourse". Without some modifier, it seemed to be understood to mean "sexual intercourse". But there are many kinds of intercourse.

Financial intercourse is not prostitution. Or, I guess I should say that prostitution is not the only kind of financial intercourse. Social intercourse is not a euphemism for sex orgies, or, at least, it shouldn't be. Political intercourse is not ...

Oh, never mind. Look it up if you don't believe me. Dealings, communications, interchange, interactions, relations.

Relations.

Well, if I could use the word "intercourse" without being misunderstood, love is "constructive, or positive intercourse", and hate is "destructive, or negative intercourse."

But something kind of sticks out here.

There is a confusion about love, too. There have been many people, including famous political and social leaders, and philosophers, who seem to have this idea that love is always sexual.

My purpose in this blog is to tell you that is not the case. Pardon my turn of phrase here, but you don't have to screw everyone and everything that you love.

Love is desire, yes, but the kind of love that Jesus teaches us is the desire for the welfare of the other person.

You don't have to be in or under control of someone else to love.

Passion is not the love that Jesus teaches, and the Passion that Jesus suffered is not the same as the passion that causes abuse and failed relationships and crimes. Jesus voluntarily assumed the burdens of our sins. That is anything but passive.

So, if there is confusion, what is the cause?

Love vs. Power

2012-01-08T23:05:00.001+09:00

[This is part of a meta-thread on Love and Romance.]

One summer while I was a student at Brigham Young University, my roommate, my neighbor, and I hung around with a very statuesque young sophomore and her roommates.

Once, while we were riding up into the canyon together to go moose spotting (Great excuse for a hike!) this young lady mentioned something she said her mother had told her.

Power is the basis of human relationships.

I didn't like the idea. I'm always a little slow on the uptake, and that was no exception, so I think I just said, hmm. But it conflicted with a number of things that I believe.

I've thought about that idea on and off a bit, and I have decided that many people really believe that. In fact, I think that many people confuse certain kinds of interpersonal power struggles for love.

Power is an important element of relationships, I'll grant that. Self-control is a kind of power, without which relationships can quickly become destructive.

Moreover, if there is an imbalance of power, where one person is always at a disadvantage to the other, the relationship tends not to be very satisfying to either. The one who believes him/herself in control may get a false sense of satisfaction, but there also remains an emptiness, a lack of fulfillment.

If you think you're powerless, it's hard to maintain good relationships. And if you think you must always be in charge, it's equally hard.

Service is a much better principle for relationships than power.

And, of course, love is the proper foundation of relationships. Even God, rather than force us to believe and behave, loves us enough to give us a redeemer in His Son, Jesus Christ.

(Which kind of begs a question -- what is love?)

Programmer's High

2011-12-31T11:08:00.001+09:00

My son built his own BBS in perl. Got it working somewhat yesterday. Not on my server, on one of those ad-supported "free" servers.

家の息子は自分でウェブ上の掲示板を作っていて、昨日動かせた。ぼくのサーバーにやらせたわけではなく、広告の利益で営業していて、どこかのタダでやらせてくれるサーバーです。

He was high.

とんだ気分だったようです。少し酔っ払ったように思われるほど。

I realized something. Programming is kind of like a drug. When things don't work, you can get really low. When things do work, there's a rush of something (adrenalin? endorphins?), a natural high.

気がついたことがあります。プログラム製作は少し薬物のような影響があるかもしれません。巧く行けないときは落ち込む。ちゃんと動いてくれる時は、アドレナリンか、エンドルフィンか、何らかの自然な好い気分。

You could say this is like just about anything you do -- failures get you down, successes make you feel good. (Actually, I know people who get up for failures, but that's not really the same thing.)

まあ、どんな仕事もこうなると言えるでしょう。失敗しては落ち込んだり、成功するとハイになったりする。（知り合いの中に、失敗の性で我慢を起こす人もいるけど、それはちょっと違う話と思います。）

But getting a program to work requires no outside approval. The computer's functioning the way you intended is sufficient praise.

しかし、プログラムをやっと動かせるときは人の評価が要りません。コンピュータがちゃんと動くのが充分な賞賛になってしまう。

This effect also feeds your ego. This is probably why programmers are known for their hubris.

その影響うぬぼれることもある。これがため、プログラマーたちが自信たっぷりに知られるかもわからない。

This natural high may also feed into the unreasoning belief that, if you can just get this one working, you'll be able to get the computer to do anything you want.

この自然酔いが、今作っているプログラムを、ちゃんと動いてもらうことさえできたら、コンピュータに何でもやってもらえると思わせる気分を追い込む原因となるかもしれません。

Okay, this is not really all that big a deal, perhaps, not all that different from other things you can be successful at.

さて。本当にすごいものをさとった訳でもないでしょう。他の成功とそれほど変わらないでしょう。

Or is it?

かな？

Christmas vs. Christianity

2011-12-30T20:44:00.002+09:00

Some of my friends wanted to know -- this is a simplified explanation.
友達の質問に答えて、簡単にお説明します。

"Christmas" is made up of two words, "Christ" and "Mass".
クリスマスと言っても、２語でできた言葉です。その語彙は「キリスト」(Christ) 及び「ミサ」(mass) です。

Christ is Jesus Christ, of course. (In Japanese, "Kirisuto".)
「キリスト」はもちろん、イエス・キリストのことです。

SLC Christus, Barbaricino 2008

Mass of Annunciation, Adrian Cozma 2008, GFDL

Mass, or "Misa" is the primary part of certain Christian solemn religious ceremonies.
「ミサ」と言うのは、典礼（てんれい）と言っても、キリスト教の、ある厳かな儀式（おごそかなぎしき）の中心部です。英語では「マス」と言います。
"Mass" can also refer to the festivals which are celebrated along with the ceremonies.
引いて、その儀式と同じ時に祝っているお祭りのことも「マス」と言えます。

You might expect Christmas to turn out as "Kirisuto Matsuri" in Japanese, but historically it didn't work that way.

考えたら、「クリスマス」よりは「キリスト祭り」と言っても良かったぐらいかも知れませんが、歴史上ではそうならなかった。


Nativity, Charles Poerson 1667

For many Christians, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
多くのキリスト教徒にとって、クリスマスはイエス・キリストの誕生（たんじょう）を祝う祝日です。
We don't really know when Jesus was born.
じつは、イエス様の本当の誕生日についてはよくわからないことがあります。
Some churches celebrate His birth on the 8th of January.

教会によっては、その誕生日を一月八日にします。

There are some historians who say that the date for Christmas was chosen to coincide with, or replace, winter festivals of the non-Christians.
ある歴史家によって、クリスマスの日にちはキリスト教徒ではなかった人々の冬祭りに合わせて選んだものであると考えています。あるいは、冬祭りを置き換えるものとしてできた、と。

Un árbol de navidad, Jorge Barrios 2007

Coffee in school lunch? 給食にコーヒー？

2011-12-17T20:10:00.238+09:00

Yesterday, I ate with the 1st graders at one of my elementary schools.

昨日、教えに行っている一つの小学校で一年生と昼ご飯を食べました。

The kids get school lunch, but I don't handle refined sugars well.

子供たちには給食ですが、私は精製された砂糖をちゃんと消化できないことがあります。

School lunches here are not actually that bad for sugar. Many days, I'm pretty sure, just from eyeballing and knowing (from what my wife tells me) what is probably in there, that I could safely eat with the kids.

この学校の給食は砂糖がそれほどひどくありません。大体の場合、見た目で、また家の嫁さんに教えてもらっていることで、内容についての予測によると、子供らと一緒に食べてもういいはずです。

But there are days when I definitely could not. Special days with cake or ice cream or sweetened beans and such. (Used to love those sweetened beans! Good stuff.) So I bring my own to avoid surprises. (My wife is a certified nutritionist, and she packs me a mean lunch, so I don't suffer. But it is extra work for her, and I do appreciate it.)

しかし、無理な給食の日もあります。ケーキやらアイスクリームやら餡などが出る特別な日。（恋しいですわ、餡が食べれた昔。大好きだった。）したがって、万一の場合に備えて弁当を持ってきます。（家の嫁さんは栄養士です。おいしい弁当作ってくださるので、ボクには難でもありません。確かに、給食をいつも食べれたら彼女の方が楽になるでしょう。感謝しています。）

Well, yesterday, they had pumpkin soup (looked and smelled good), sausage with cabbage, carrots, onions and some Japanese variation of Indian (I think) spices, hot dog style buns (Yeah, those would probably be not the best for me.), milk, and, uhm, sweetened instant coffee mix.

さて、昨日のことですが、給食には（いい香りのおいしそうな）パンプキンスープ、ソーセージにキャベツや人参やねぎに、多分インド風の味付けと、（アッ！これは俺には危険だ）ホットドッグ用の長いロールパン、ミルク、そして、・・・砂糖入のインスタントコーヒー粉。

I checked the ingredients. Real instant coffee.

パッケージの内容を見たら、本物のインスタントコーヒーでした。

(I know, I know, someone is going to tell me instant coffee is not real, and there is a point to that, ... )

（はい、はい。コーヒーを好む方にとっては、インスタント何て本物ではありません。そういう意見には確かに意味があります。認めます。）

The sweetened instant coffee mix is one of several flavors of Milmake (milk-make?) milk flavoring mixes made by Ohshima Foods and targeted at children. In addition to three kinds of coffee flavors, they make cocoa, strawberry, banana, melon, and caramel. (The wikipedia article references some other flavors, but I don't see those on their current site.)

この砂糖入インスタントコーヒー粉は大島食品工業株式会社さんが製造されているお子様向きの牛乳味の粉のミルメークの一種です。三種類のコーヒーの他に、ココア、いちご、バナナ、メロン、キャラメルを製造されているようです。（ウィキペディアの記事によると、また違う味もあるそうです。現在のウェブサイト広告には出ていませんけど。）

Now, I'm not one to tell parents not to feed their kids sweetened milk unless they ask me why their kids aren't drinking their milk. (Yeah, those kids did not drink the milk-coffee any faster than they drink the straight milk. The difference was that they were trying to convince themselves that the stuff tasted good, whereas they are usually trying to convince themselves that the straight milk tastes bad. And I'm pretty sure I'm not misreading their faces. Milk is not supposed to be cool.)

さて、砂糖入のミルクを子供にあげるなと、私は言うのではありません。もし、子供たちがミルクを飲んでいない分けを私にお聞きになるならば、説明は致しますが。（確かに、ミルクコーヒーを普通な牛乳よりも早くのんだりはしていなかった。何か違う雰囲気があったとすると、コーヒー入りのモノが美味しいと、自分を納得させようとしていたように思います。一方、何の味もない牛乳のときについては、味が嫌なはずと、自分を納得させようとしている様子です。まあ、ワタクシの見ている限り、そういう表情です。牛乳は格好良くあるはずはないでしょう。）

But I saw more than one kid looking at the powdered mix like, "Should I really be drinking this?" And, since there was no option, I did not feel free to discourage them from drinking it. (Yes, I did have some internal conflicts, watching this.)

しかも、”これ、本当に飲んでも、いい?”、のようにその粉をジロジロ見て、考えている子の顔は一人だけではなかったのです。他の選択肢があれば、違うのを飲んだらと、推めたくて、心の中に若干の不和を感じながら見ていたワタクシでした。

I checked with my kids when I got home, and, no, their elementary school never gave them any of the Milmake mixes with their lunches. In some ways, I wish my kids could have gone to the schools where I'm teaching, but in this case, I'm glad they were never faced with the choice, to mix the coffee in or leave the mix on their trays.

家に戻ったら、家の子に聞いてみたけど、こちの小学校ではミルメークのようなものを給食に出された覚えがなさそうです。ある違うことについてはボクが現在教えに行っている学校に、家の子供も行ってほしかったかも知りません。ただ、この場合は、コーヒーをミルクに入れるか、給食の一分だった粉を残すかの選択を直面する必要がなくてよかったように思っています。

I wouldn't be so concerned if these children could ask for other options for flavoring their milk, especially, if one of the options were straight roasted soy flour.

もし、仮に言っていますが、他のミルク味を選ばれたとしたら、これほど気にかかるものではなかったでしょう。特に、その選択肢の内にきな粉があったらよかったと思います。

The world is not an ideal place, I guess.

この世界は理想的なところではありません、ね。

But, coffee? A known psychoactive, habit-forming substance with complex health effects?

しかし、コーヒーですよ。神経に影響を及ぼすコーヒーです。習慣だけではなく、癖になるコーヒーです。健康にも複雑な影響を及ぼすコーヒーです。（残念ながら、英語のウィキペディアページにはコーヒーについての情報があって、日本語のウィキペディアページにはその情報がありません。こういうときは英語を教える必要性について納得できます。とにかく、その英語のページを一目見てください。）

bringing fire to the mortals or burning them?

2011-12-11T21:15:00.003+09:00

My wife had some Japanese blues on the box. X singing, "Say Anything" and Chekkaazu (Checkers, not Chubby) singing "Furete Goran" ("Touch, and See What Happens") among other things. Old stuff, but good blues.

The melancholy matches my state of mind after reading on Groklaw about Prometheus and the Mayo Clinic duking it out before the Supremes on Friday.

PJ is right. This is depressing. This is not just me being a melancholy man.

I hope that the justices were just giving Prometheus rope to hang themselves with. Still, a win for the Mayo Clinic is not the best result here, either. Neither side is arguing for reality.

Anyway, Prometheus invested a lot of time and money in this thing. So, they argue, they should be rewarded with a monopoly, not just on the numbers they were able to extract from nature, but on all the numbers around them. At least, that's what the lawyer for the Mayo Clinic says Prometheus' lawyers have been telling them.

False claims? Confidence games? Fraud? Racketeering? Telling the potential patentee one thing and telling the court another? Or are the lawyers for the Mayo Clinic just confused?

Yes, that's pretty much what the lawyers for Prometheus seem to be arguing -- "No, you're confused, we don't want patents on all the numbers from 400 to infinity, just on 400 to infinity when used diagnosing this particular condition."

Huh?

Let's back up.

So Prometheus spent a lot of time and money on this.

Bad investment happens. Since when is it the duty of the people of the United States of (North) America to bail out every Morgan, Wells, Goldman, and Prometheus who has made a bad bet?

Years ago, I made a bad bet on the M6809 and OS-9/6809, and then on Forth. I wasted 6 good years of my life trying to squeeze Forth onto OS-9/6809 without using other tools to help bridge the gap between position independent coding techniques in programming languages and the assumption that the memory management hardware would handle relocation issues, an assumption that is still fundamental in all the current standard programming tools. Trying to be the code jock and do it all on that poor overworked 6809 on the very limited floppy disks that I had.

My mistake. I paid for it.

Where is the government office I can go crying to with cap-in-hand, saying, I spent the equivalent of (claim top programmer rates, here, for good effect, 24,000 man-hours, USD100/hour) 2 and a half million dollars on the project, I deserve some kind of reward?

Give me a patent on program interpretation via function addresses as intermediate codes, with two stacks, and then let me broaden that to the interleaved stack, and I was doing this in the mid-'80s, so I have the right to control every interpreted language from perl to Java to Ruby to Lua and Python.

Shoot, just a little more broadening and I can reach back to SmallTalk and Lisp, and branch sideways to C, since C imposes a virtual runtime. Who cares that Kernighan and Ritchie put C together about fourteen years before I had a running Forth, and started their work at least ten years before I had any idea what a programming language was.

I invested all that time, and time is money, and I deserve SOMETHING for my efforts.

That's essentially what is happening in the intellectual property market, when you read the court cases with an understanding of the tech and the history thereof.

Won't somebody think of the children, if they can't be bothered to think of the Constitution?

[PS: It may be useful in this context to point to my mistakes. There were two primary mistakes.

I underestimated the ability of the microprocessor to induce hallucinations in businessmen. (Talking at you, Bill Gates.)

But, more importantly, I failed to follow through. At one point, I was ready to build my own 6809 assembler, with the self-relative labels that were missing on the OS-9 assembler. Probably six months of work to my modified figForth on OS-9, but I ended up wasting the next six months trying to get a start on writing a real Forth in C, instead.

My lack of real income scared me into trying to take what looked like a shortcut but wasn't.

The way for Prometheus to monetize their work is there, if they will simply quit insisting on trying to do it the wrong way.]

Mis-Understanding Computers

2011-12-04T01:02:00.003+09:00

Computers are too often viewed as machines. That's not the correct way to see things.

コンピュータというものは機械としてみられるガチです。

Computer memory is just fancy paper.

コンピュータの記憶というものはただ改良した紙です。

CPUs are just fancy pens, with fancy erasers.

CPU 何て特長ある筆に特殊の消しゴムがついたものにすぎない。

The network is just a fancy backyard fence.

ネットワークだって、裏庭の塀が少し拡大されたものぐらいです。

It's really easy to see, in the computer, ways to fulfill your fantasies, especially control fantasies. But that's all just illusion.

コンピュータに自分の気まぐれな幻想を見出す魔法を視るガチでしょう。特に支配の空想を。

しかし、その魔法は幻覚です。蜃気楼です。

キマグレ。

The magic is in language, itself.

魔法があれば、言語というものにあります。語、そのものに。

And there is no way to control that magic, no way to bend it to your own personal desires, no way to use it to enforce your own personal view of the world.

その言語にある魔法を制することはありません。自分の欲張りに枉げる方法はありません。自分の個人的な見解を世界に押し付ける方法としてその魔法を使うのは、本当にありませんよ。

Lots of ways to bend and break yourself, trying.

しようと、自分を枉げる方法、めげる方法は少なくない。

And, unfortunately, lots of ways to inflect collateral damage while you're at it.

悲しいこと、コンピュータを利用して制しようとする序でに、関係ない人に傷つける方法はタップリあります。その試みには色んな間接被害を与える方法は豊富にあります。

Why do people insist on seeing the computer as a magic box for controlling other people? Why do they want so much to control others when they won't control themselves?

人は何でコンピュータを、人を制する魔法の箱として考えたいのですか?どうしてそれほど、自分を制しないのに、他人をあんなに制したいのですか？

Conspiracy Theories

2011-10-24T19:06:00.006+09:00

Had an epiphany while waking up this morning. Not new ideas, deep impressions. (Epiphanies tend to be such, not new information or synthesis, not factuality, deep impressions.)

Bill Gates is not really an evil genius. Nathan Myhrvold seems a bit more evil, but not as smart. Steve Ballmer is a gorilla. These guys are pains in the neck, but not really to be feared as much as to be avoided.

Steve Jobs? Johnathan Ive? Tim Cook?

Well, I would be more concerned about Apple as the defacto monopoly than Microsoft. I've been of that opinion since the days of the Apple II. I like their stuff to a certain extent, but I don't want to live in a world dominated by their tech.

But they are not the leaders of the conspiracy either.

The computer industry has seen more than one might think would be its share of plot and intrigue.There is a reason for this.

Conputers are much more about controlling the flow of information than about calculating. Programmable computers are, erm, programmable. Wonderful for enforcing protocol, if only there weren't that pesky halting problem. And that inscrutable NP complete nonsense. (It is nonsense, of course, right?)

Managerial types who get a taste of programming tend to be more than a little like the proverbial dog getting a taste of egg. And they unfortunately develop a blind streak relative to the limits of computers.

Control, control, CONTROL!!!!

No, this was not my epiphany.

You know, now that I'm back from work, I'm not sure what the epiphany was. (And that's not exactly atypical for epiphany, either.)

Years ago I had an epiphany about conspiracies. If you take the Bible seriously, conspiracies come as no surprise. We know they existed from Cain. And we know who the leader of the conspiracies is, too.

And there is something about the leader of the conspiracies that we know, he can't keep his stories straight. He was a liar from the beginning. If he could keep ever his stories straight for very long, he would quite possibly cease to be the devil.

Management that can't keep its stories straight tends to make for a volatile organization.

Thus, we can be sure that all conspiracies will sooner or later crumble under their own weight of lies.

Jesus said that we should fear God and not man. (He also tells us that God is watching us up close, not from a distance, that He knows when every sparrow falls or something like that.)

We need to recognize that there are conspiracies. We need to be cautious of them. Sometimes we need to take action relative to them. But we must never fear because of them.

Passed the LPIC Level 1

2011-10-23T16:47:00.001+09:00

Since I bragged about the JLPT, I suppose I should tell anyone who's listening: I passed the Linux Professional Institute Certification at level 1 at the end of the summer. (Last day of August, in fact.)

I suppose it was about time. I've been using Linux and other *nix OSses long enough. I really should have passed both level 1 and 2 over the summer, but I let a lot of unimportant things (and a few important ones) get in the way. So I'm working through a level 2 text (in Japanese, Linux 教科書 LPIC レベル2 第3版 on the train home, and trying to squeeze time in on the computer on the weekends to practice some of the stuff I really haven't done yet, like setting up DNS and mail servers. Not squeezing in enough time, though.

Back-Seat Driving Apple

2011-10-23T15:23:00.001+09:00

Or, perhaps, trying to drive from outside the car.

I'm definitely not showing a sense of social protocol here, but I've been daydreaming about this for a long time, since well before I knew Steve Jobs was losing his battle with cancer. (This is more-or-less what I would have posted back in October, but didn't have time to.)

(If the reports of Steve's last diatribe against Android are accurate, I'm inclined to think respect for the dead means something a little different in this case.)

But here's what I'd do, were I in a position to do so, to try to avoid Apple following Bill and Microsoft down the hill:

Start two sister companies, called, maybe, AppleSeed and Crabapple.

The "Appleseed" company would take over from Apple most infrastructure intellectual assets, including the continued development of the OSses and fundamental hardware.

Apple itself would stay focused on customer/end-user issues and on designing and selling the current and next models.
The Appleseed company would also be tasked with setting up and supporting a true open source community around both Darwin and iOS. Not the non-community archival site at opensource.apple.com, nor the para-community you find at www.macosforge.org. A true community, something like the Fedora community that Red Hat supports. Around both Darwin and iOS.

And the Appleseed company would be tasked with moving discontinued products, both software and hardware, into a community supportable state, mostly under the Apple Public License, GPL, and so forth. Include hardware and circuit diagrams for the old 68k and PPC stuff. Part of that would be clearing "intellectual property" issues and releasing the old Macintosh system and (Apple's) application code from the original Mac through Mac OS 9 under open source licenses. And clearing the "IP" issues for re-implementing a desktop manager based on the old Mac UI.

The "Crabapple" company would be a community based prototyping company, where one would be able to buy such things as PPC, ARM, and ColdFire motherboards running DarwinOS and iOS-sans-UI, and other DIY gadgets. You would also be able to buy current AMD x86 processor based systems pre-loaded with DarwinOS and open source desktops like KDE or XFCE. (No need for INTEL systems, Apple itself can maintain its relationship with INTEL for as long as it seems prudent to do so.)

The Crabapple company would also be tasked with maintaining security level updates for the Mac OS X versions that Apple has EOLed. This would not be a free service, but would not be overly expensive, either, perhaps $25 a year as a subscription. And they could provide other fee-based services, such as providing several versions of non-warranteed Aqua UI to load on top of the most recent DarwinOS.

Or, instead of actually maintaining the down-level systems, the Crabapple company could support the MoL/MoM community, officially allowing the old systems to be run under emulation on newer hardware under current OSses.

The Crabapple company would also publish open source hardware drivers for use in the Linux and BSD communities, under appropriate licenses

Why? end-user buzz is not enough, and Apple is too big already. This would help keep Apple small and competitive.

The licensing would allow non-Apple companies to compete with the Crabapple company, which would also build the community.

And the future is in communities, made of small companies.

Linux on iBook redux (not yet)

2011-10-23T15:15:00.005+09:00

My son has been using my old tangerine clamshell iBook with the original 5.6 G hard disk. (There's a lot of water under that bridge.) Mostly, he listens to mp3s, but he also sometimes plays around with ECMAScript and perl. Has some strange interest in the three kingdoms of China, and games based on the old tales.

(Must be a teen-age boy?)

Well, my white iBook G4 died the death. It served me pretty faithfully for about three years after I bought it used and installed a 160G HD in it. Mac OS X 10.3, OpenBSD, and Fedora 12; Mac OS 9 under classic emulation, but not booting from power on, as Apple designed it. (Wasn't interested interest in ex post facto or whatever that was, it did what I needed. I'm kind of looking at the reverse problem, now, more below.)

Then, about a year ago it just suddenly started powering down for no reason. I'd read somewhere on the web about cold solder joints. Found out enough to identify the video controller (maybe?) and test it with pressure, and then re-solder it. (3mm by 1mm flat tip was not fat thirty years ago! It's fat now.) Careful work cleared the slop between pins and it was running again.

About three months later, I dropped the poor thing on my way into the train station. My shoulder-bag strap broke. It took about a meter drop, but it was in the bag, with all my books that I read on the train. Checked when I got to the school and it booted up. Checked it more carefully at home, and the chassis was bent in around the battery. Straightened that out, but now it was powering down unannounced again.

After another three months or so of taking it apart and resoldering again every now and then, it just was getting too much, too often, so I semi-retired it. Recently had a little time and tried one last time. Not enough money (I thought) for a real iron, so I found a cheap hobby iron (ungrounded) with a fine point tip and bought that. Also found some cheap hobby grade braid.

Not a good idea.

I should have been willing to wait until I can afford real tools. Somewhere, I either burned a short in a chip from the lack of grounding in the iron, or I left a piece of braid or a whisker of solder somewhere. A different chip bubbled, I smelled the smoke, and it does not boot. Period.

I wonder if I can find parts, other than a new motherboard. (I have found those listed on the web, used, but with 6 month guarantees.)

Anyway, my son gets the 160 G hard drive, but there's that problem with the limits of Mac OS 9 on the iBook. 120G max per drive. Not partition. Drive.

So, much to my son's distress, I started trying again to get Linux running in it. Tried Debian this time. But the version of gparted currently in Debian is worse than the one in Fedora 12 for walking on the Apple Partition Map. Seems to think formatting the drive with less than it has is an error condition or something. I need to file a bug for this, and add the information to the bug I filed on Fedora.

Dug into the partition map information, found some old stuff around, a somewhat inaccurate mactech article on the change from APM to INTEL's GPT junk, walked the map, and tried patching the map.

Arggghhh. The pre-Firewire iBooks have no target disk mode to allow you to directly access the disk. Can't boot from USB on them, either. (Blast you, INTEL, for expanding USB beyond keyboards and low-speed printers!) I'm going to have to set up a live CD of something really small (openBSD, I suppose) in order to be able to patch the drivers.

Tried various things, botched it all up, re-installed Mac OS X and 9, spent some time bringing it all up to speed. Still missing a few things. Need to finish cutting the partitions and install OpenBSD. (After I get OpenBSD running, I may try loading drivers for the Linux ext3 file system and using OpenBSD's tools to get a beachhead install of either Debian or Fedora 16's highly experimental stuff running.) In the meantime, my son has his iBook back. With the ancient browsers.

I suppose I can call this all lab work for when I go after the LPIC level 2.

But this is a big part of a certain daydream. (With apologies to Steve's family and friends, for touching on his management style so soon after he crossed the stream.)

I sure wish Apple supported their old hardware and software better. They have the money now, and have no need at all to push so hard to get their customers to move to the latest, greatest. It would be a common courtesy to their customers to keep the paths open to all the old data.

First, Mac-on-*nix. That really should be an official product of Apple, and it should run on Linux, BSD, and Mac OS X. If they didn't set the price too high, it would pay for itself monetarily and more than pay for itself in customer good will.
Second, the old versions of Mac OS X. They should try to to at least keep them road-worthy -- security fixes and a reasonably functional web browser. Maybe active support for the authors of some of the better alternative web browsers that still support the old systems.
Third, driver support for non-Apple Libre/Open OSses. Nothing to do with the crown jewels, it's just selfishness, pure and simple, to use closed drivers to try to force your customers to stay with you. Also reflects a lack of confidence in your product. Most important, it prevents your customers from helping you find and fix bugs. (Okay, that's the closed-vs.-open argument and it applies to all technical works. But these are real principles and they sit at the center of the current economic implosion, and they also drive a lot of the excess industrial activity that promotes the global climate changes.)
Fourth, the old system software and hardware. Apple is not using Mac OS 7 any more. Why shouldn't they let students play with it? Publish it for reference, license it for non-profit study use, if they don't want to put it under their APL.

I'm sure that there are "intellectual property" (that old oxymoron) issues that would get in the way. But that could be solved by setting up a sister company, maybe call it Crabapple Computers, or something, to "launder" the IP rights issues and manage the open source projects.

Just make open source projects for all the major elements, and support them the way Red Hat (the real leader in open source, you guys!) does Fedora. It shouldn't be that hard to do.

Expansion, contraction, it's all the same.

2011-10-23T10:28:00.004+09:00

Expansion, contraction, it's all the same.

The Japanese government is all in heat, scrambling for a fix for the aging society.

What's the point?

We can make enough food.

After that, value is what people make of it.

The people. Themselves.

And yes, they have to be free to make it.

Free.

I know freedom is scary, but after all, what else do we have?

Freedom is just another word for recognizing you've got nothing left to lose.

Never had, never will have.

Time to open society back up and let the people fix the economy from the ground up, even if it means scary things like letting non-natives really certify to teach in public schools. As real, certified 教職員 (kyoushokuin), leading classes, setting up curricula, discussing progress with parents, the whole thing.

Principles of Security

2011-08-19T17:20:00.003+09:00

Security. Lots of computer system companies are selling security these days. Ironic, when you think about it, because computer systems are systems, and systems are inherently, well, vulnerable. Not secure.

It's a feature of systems, even though systems designers from the times of the earliest recorded history have habitually insisted their systems are somehow different. (Vulnerability is not just a feature of mechanical systems.)

Security in the usual sense is a red herring, a distraction.

But if you want security, here are the two principal keys:

Know who you are and where you are.

Know what is most important and where it is.

If you don't know the above, what use is building walls?

If you do know the above, chances are you'll have little use for walls. Just enough to keep other people from getting worried.

This all sounds ridiculous, but it has practical application in computer and information science. Systems must understand identity at some level to be secure.

Which begs the question, what is identity?

Entrepreneurship and Trust on the Internet

2011-08-11T12:52:00.000+09:00

Have you seen kickstarter?

Well, it's an interesting concept, and I have wondered whether something like this might be part of the future way of doing business, after the current crop of robber barons and squatters get removed from the public commons that they are attempting to expropriate under the banner of "intellectual property". (This rant is threatening to get side-tracked, too.)

Not content with just wondering, I decided to set up a project, lay my ego on the line, and see if I could get funding for the clean-up work my BIF-C FORTH language project needs. But, ...

I live in Japan.

In order to run a project on Kickstarter, you have to register with Amazon's payment systems. This is good, because you can probably trust Amazon more than you can trust Kickstarter at this point. But that's not the primary reason.

Kickstarter requires you to set a target funding amount and goal date, and, through Amazon, holds the pledged money in escrow until the date set. If you meet your funding target by your goal date, Amazon gives you the money, minus service fees for both Amazon and Kickstarter. (The fees look reasonable to me, FWIW. But you have to remember the fees when you set your target.) If you don't meet your target, the pledges are refunded.

If you follow the link above to my BIF-C project over on sourceforge, you might notice that you can donate money to the project through pay-pal.

But why would you? You have no reason to trust me. Even if I took the time to make it look polished and presentable (whatever that might be), you don't have any guarantee that I would actually use the money to do more work on BIF-C.

You don't know who I am, and maybe it looks worthwhile to you, but you really don't know what anyone else thinks about the project.

If I put the project up on Kickstarter, I'm making a commitment to finish the project to a certain level, which I describe in my pages on the project. I'm putting my reputation on the line in a prominent way.

Moreover, you don't really have to rely on your own judgment alone. If I don't get a certain number of other people supporting me, you get your money back.

There are other ways that Kickstarter supports small-scale entrepreneurism, but these two points are, to me, the most important. Even though I don't personally know them and they don't me, they have provided an intermediary of trust.

But, ...

Amazon requires a USA credit card and address and bank account for their payment system.

(Never liked plastic money, didn't want to see the day it would become de-facto current money. GET OFF MY LAWN YOU YOUNG PUNKS! heh.)

Okay, I could claim a US address. (Have relatives in the States.) I could probably re-establish a relationship with a bank I used to use over there, maybe even get a credit card.

How do I tell the bank I used to use over there that I'm me? Send an e-mail? How do they know that the sender of the e-mail is not just a machine?

How do they tell me they decided to trust me (and someone over there who has an account there and told them that I'm me)?

E-mail is just plain, ordinary text. If you can read ASCII or Unicode, you can read ordinary e-mail. It has an envelope, but, speaking in physical terms, the envelope might as well be clear wrap. It's only intended to carry addressing labels, not keep prying eyes out.

That means that there are all sorts of people between me and the bank who could read that e-mail, people neither I nor the bank know, people that we have no reason to trust: people who work for Sannet (my provider) or the bank's provider, or Google or Microsoft or Yahoo or the North Korean government or some Nigerian ISP. (Sometimes e-mail goes almost straight from sender to receiver, sometimes it takes a round-about route. Otherwise, things tend to get stuck.)

(Oh, and, yeah, people who live in North Korea have to trust their government more than Google. It's not just about coerced preferences, they have no way of knowing enough about Google to trust them. And if you live in Nigeria, you'd better trust your ISP more than Google, or you'd better get a new ISP. Trust hangs a lot on acquaintance.)

And it's going to contain stuff like account numbers and passwords and other things that neither the bank nor I want to trust other people with. In the clear, where a random sysadmin for someone between me and the bank to see.

And that is not the worst of it. Since there is no handwriting in electronic communication, the mail could be intercepted, altered, and passed on. In fact, if someone interested in using my account for clandestine purposes (someone really bad) wanted to, he could invent mail to either me or the bank out of thin air. It's all plain text, and if no one checks my mail server or the banks before the logs are cleared, who is to know that the mail doesn't come from where it says it comes from.

(Handwriting. If you're thinking, pack up a gif of your signature, remember, that image can be borrowed by the same bad guy.)

PANIC! What to do? What to do!?!?!

Well, let's look at what is available. PGP provides some Pretty Good Privacy stuff. Maybe I can use it, but can you figure it out? I mean keys and algorithms and keystores, ...

keystores? huh?

Anyway, it takes two people (at least) to communicate. If you can't figure out how to use PGP, or if you can't afford the commercial contract and the IT support staff, it does you no good to know that it exists.

And it does me no good to know how to use gnupg, a free (as in libre) solution that is also available, at least when I want to talk to you.

Or the bank.

You see, the banks, for some reason (maybe related to "intellectual property" "owned" by Ronald A. Katz? Shot in the dark.), haven't tried to make communication using either PGP or gnupg available to their customers, for the most part. Instead, they rely on some of the hair of the dog that bit us.

You know how the web browser is not secure. You've heard all sorts of people tell you. They are too complicated. They have too many certificates, whatever those are. The have javascript, which is a security nightmare. Real Java, which would be (by no means perfect, but) much better, is not well integrated because Microsoft couldn't own Java (in spite of burning Sun down for it). (Oh, and C#, Microsoft's attempt to answer Java, well, it's better than javascript, we suppose.)

No, you don't really understand why. I could tell you why and you still wouldn't know why. But you do know that the Browser is not secure. At least, I will agree with you if you say you do. And you have seen Microsoft's Internet Explorer do funny things that you don't trust.

Well, a lot of the banks have gone to this company that built, not a single purpose browser, which would be the correct solution, but a clot of javascript that runs in MSIE and Apple's Safari (and, incidentally, Firefox, even on Linux). And they call it secure.

They send it to you in an e-mail, as if that clot is any more dependable than plain text in an e-mail, likely from the parent corporation's IT department, whom you had never heard of until you got the e-mail. And they ask you to trust it. And what it does is send you to their server to get the "secure communication" from them.

If you're like me, you can look up the parent corporation and at least determine that the domain name is legitimate. If you don't know the "tricks" (technology, really) that I know, well, you end up trusting someone you don't know.

And that is precisely what they tell you not to do relative to other clots of code that you've never seen arriving in your in-box from people with names that sort-of maybe look familiar, but you're not sure.

And all it does is connect you securely to their secure server. And you read their message over https (SSL/TLS). Which you could have done anyway. And they call it secure.

And what they use for an initial login ID, no, that is not supposed to be used that way. Puts the customer's data at risk.

And the security theatre with the images they show you to "prove" they are they? PLEASE! That's not even they way that's supposed to be done, if you insist on doing that. There are better ways of proving themselves.

Then, just in case you forget your password or even your login ID, they tell you to specify a couple or three questions that end up being essentially alternative passcodes. And it's either/or, so the attacker gets three guesses instead of one.

And no human interaction. If you have problems, you have to call their toll free number (not toll free from out of the country) and try to work through their automated answering systems. In my case, my phone doesn't speak the same key-codes their machine does. (Are we still on pulse dial? is it still a couple of hundred yen cheaper here? Ouch).

What are they thinking of?

Signing up for Pay Pal is more secure, and more responsive.

(No I am not naming the banks because, from what I understand, most banks do the same thing.)

Maybe I'll figure out a way to use Kickstarter someday. Maybe I'll figure out a way to finish BIF-C on my own dime somehow. Maybe, someday, the mess that is the internet after Microsoft tried to own it will get straightened out.

A Simple Sandbox for Firefox

2011-08-11T10:20:00.005+09:00

[Note: It's working in Fedora 15 after all. Did something get fixed in the last updates? 20120107]

Transferring my posts in Fedora users to my blog.

(Not yet sure how well this works, though.)

Taking a few clues from these old posts by kellyremo:

<http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/2011-February/392134.html>
<http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/2011-February/392136.html>

and doing this one step at a time, to avoid opening holes in my system (Being paranoid, I am not using the actual names from my system here.)

user9 is a user that I regularly login on.

user9-boxed is a user I just added, hardened password, but set to nologin, with home directory /home/boxes/user9-boxed .

user9 is a member of the user9-boxed group.

chmod -R o-rwx,g+rw /home/boxes/user9-boxed

Added a file: /etc/sudoers.d/77_boxers , owned by root, permissions go-rwx

Contents:
----------------------------------------------------
User_Alias USERDOER = user9
Runas_Alias USERBOXED = user9-boxed
Defaults:USERDOER !authenticate, always_set_home, set_logname, !preserve_groups
USERDOER ALL = (USERBOXED) ALL
----------------------------------------------------

I can sudo -u user9-boxed from the command line to my heart's content. Well, okay, tested lightly. I should probably see what gnupg would do.

I was able to do this from the command line:

xhost local:user9-boxed; sudo -u user9-boxed firefox

and get firefox running as user9-boxed. (Downloads to user9-boxed's Downloads directory, etc.) So I made a shell script, firebox, chmod-ed for +x:

----------------------------------------------
#! /bin/sh

xhost local:${1}; sudo -u ${1} firefox $2
----------------------------------------------

and running it as "./firebox user9-boxed http://www.fedora.org" today brings up a nice picture of a cute little dog wearing a hotdog bun. (Hmm. Yeah, the weather's hot these days.) Whatever. Firefox is clearly running.

However, pulling the firefox clicky icon out of the internet applications menu to the panel and editing the command hasn't gotten me good results.

sudo -u user9-boxed -- /usr/bin/firefox %u &

gives a "sorry, you must have a tty to run sudo" error in /var/log/secure . So does using the firebox command. But

xhost local:user9-boxed; sudo -u user9-boxed -- /usr/bin/firefox %u &

as the command gives no error messages in secure, but leaves a bunch of normal-looking messages in /var/log/Xorg.0.log . (Nothing stands out to me at any rate.) And no firefox session starting up.

ps wwaux | grep user9-boxed

doesn't show me any leftover processes.

For me and my children, I have no problem with using the command line version. My wife is not going to consider this fun at all, so I would like to make a clicky icon. Anyone care to offer a clue?

(I suppose I should look at Matt Hansens's comments on using PAM linked in the 2nd thread above, but that will be for another day.)

Then Andre Speelmans clued me in about requiretty, so the defaults lines will look like

!authenticate, always_set_home, set_logname, !preserve_groups, !requiretty

and that seems to fix the problem with setting up a clickable icon in the panels to bring firefox up in a sandbox.

Like I say, I'm not sure this is as meaningful as it might seem. Not sure how much of the user environment leaks into the sub-user environment. Also, it would need a lot of work to be used in a corporate environment. (I'd be happy to do that for pay.)

[note (20120107)
The launcher command line for the icon in the panels looks like this:

./firebox user9-boxed %u ;

according to what I've described above.

I'm not sure it's quite right, but it seems to work. Oh, and I don't really put firebox right in my home directory, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
]

program bugs in context

2011-08-11T10:07:00.000+09:00

A thread in the fedora users list on debugging html pages got me thinking about context, and I ended up posting this. You have to read it in context to follow what I'm talking about (if that's possible), so I'm posting the same here with some explanations:

Ten years ago, Japanese people who used the internet could (more or

less) read English, and Latinized (romaji) spellings of Japanese used

in urls didn't cause many problems either.

Twenty years ago, it was a common assumption in Japan that, programming languages being non-human languages anyway, English was the "proper" context language for all programming. The assumptions was so strong and ingrained that I was never able to sell my idea for a pre-processor for C that would allow the use of Japanese symbols, using headers that would contain suitable mappings between Japanese and English based variable, function, and macro names.

I think I have identified several reasons for that attitude.

One, of course, is that programmers tended to be not overly worried just by the mere sight of stuff that isn't their native language. (Not to say that they are all in love with the English language, just that they are not immediately threatened by discrete foreign symbols.)

Another is that it is (perversely) comfortable for them (and us, too) to isolate the entire technical context from their (our) day-to-day world. And English based symbols helps the isolation when English is not your native language.

These days, ordinary Japanese people use the internet, and the latin

basic set urls are just as meaningless as telephone numbers to them.

Less, perhaps. (Yeah, they get force-fed English in primary grades,

but that doesn't mean it is even comfortable for them to "read" -- and

comprehend -- new combinations of romaji.)

Yeah, that's what I do for a living these days.

(Not much of a living, and, even though I enjoy the work, I have to either change jobs or ask my poor wife to take full-time work. No money in it, no way to certify and get the same pay package that people born in Japan get. Without the bonuses, insurance, Japanese version of tenure, retirement plans, etc., no way to support even just two children through high school. You AET/ALTs who think you want to marry someone Japanese, be warned. You will have to find some other way to make a living, usually just when you get to where you can actually do the AET/ALT job reasonably well.)

Well, I try to avoid the force-feeding approach, but some of the students just aren't ready or interested. There are more teachers like me these days, who can make English less threatening, less of a trial and tribulation, more interesting, more fun. But we each have differing abilities to reach students, and there will always be at least one or two in ten who will not like English. No surprise, there, since even in the US there are students who don't like English.

Heh. I didn't like English in the primary grades. Not until my junior year in high school.

At any rate, the role of Japanese in URLs is not exactly limited to syntactic sugar.

On the other hand, simply allowing Kanji to be used in urls is going

to create as many problems as it solves. It would be almost easy to

fold hiragana and katakana, but not even possible to fold kanji and

kana. As a result, the ads you see in trains tend to show the katakana

or hiragana for a company's name in a search box, with the search

button being clicked.

Katakana is a kind of box-character phonetic writing system. These days it is primarily used for foreign (borrowed) words and emphasis. Kind of like italics are used in English. Hiragana, on the other hand, is more of a cursive phonetic writing system.

The two sets of characters are almost corollary, but native Japanese doesn't have certain sounds that are common in some languages, so there are a few characters (voiced "u", for instance) that exist in the katakana but not in the hiragana.

(I personally would like to research a reformed kana syllabary where all the permutations exist in both sets, but that sort of thing is definitely not in the standard Japanese character sets at this point.)

Just an aside, the roles of katakana and hiragana relative to foreign words sort of reversed before World War One and reversed back after WW II, in the processes of standardization.

And, lest we forget kanji, almost every kanji has more than one pronunciation. And almost every pronunciation that can be mapped to a kanji or a string of kanji has more than one mapping. Endemic one-to-one.

As Paul points out, we should solve our problems in the local context

first, since it's the one we best understand, and the one we probably

need most to work in.

That's such an important rule. It's founded in mathematics, or, at least, provable with advanced mathematics. So many wars and other social problems could be avoided and/or solved if we would all postpone our efforts to solve other people's problems until after we had solved our own.

Not talking about helping other people, taking about trying to solve their problems for them.

And then we try to figure out how to get things working in a broader

context, and at some point we have to resort to a layer of

translations (a human version of an API, perhaps?).

APIs -- Application Programming Interfaces. These are the methods and definitions that a program module presents to the outside world, the interface by which the outside world "uses" or interacts with the module.

And our minds tend

to handle so much of this so well, that it's often a surprise how much

detail you have to add to mechanical rules.

Mechanical, as in a context-free grammar or a state machine, with simple, straightforward rules that can generally be analyzed in a finite amount of time.

And then there are

problems that you just have to leave unsolved (and hope something

works out), like the issues with Japanese in urls. And that's when

there are no bugs.

This is the realm of the real world, unprovable systems that we use because, even though they are not proven, they seem to work.

Which is a long rant, just to say that, no matter how hard we try, the real world is never going to match our ideals.

I'm not saying we should give up on our ideals. But we do need a certain amount of flexibility to get along in the real world, including the flexibility to sometimes refine or even re-define our ideals.

The real world will always have plenty of problems to present us.

Ramifications of economic ethics and morals on the environment

2011-08-01T10:00:00.001+09:00

Finally found the stuff for developing Google Apps (not Android) again. The free business accounts don't seem to have the link. So you have to look under the Account Settings of your personal google account.

Under Services, you'll see the App Engine, and, to the right of that, "My Applications". That's the link.

Waffling between starting with Java, which I have some experience with, Python, which I have played with, and Google's Go, which I really am not particularly interested in, myself, but, .....

SPLASH!

CRASH! POW!!

GASHAN! GASHEEN!

Okay, okay, I'm still a little backwards on the Japanese onomatopoeia. Not reading enough manga, I guess.

Daddy! The turtle's out!

He knocked the tank over!

A family friend who has made an accidental hobby of raising turtles gave us one of the progeny a couple of years back.

Actually, gave us several, but the first two, well, they got stolen when we were keeping them out front. (We hope they went to a good home, anyway.) She later gave us another, and we keep that one on the balconey, and it's getting too big for the tank we have.

So we put water in an old medaka tank and put that on the lid of Spencer's tank, so he can't get out. But today he pushed the lid open far enough to knock the tank off the lid. It was time to go change his water and let him out for some exercise.

Cruelty to turtles. Yes. We can't afford a proper tank, with air pump and filtration, etc. I'd post pictures, but I don't want to get attention from the SPCTA. Bluntly speaking, I don't really make enough money to keep a turtle.

I don't really make enough money to keep a turtle.

There's something wrong in the world when an ordinary Joe can't make enough money to raise two kids and a turtle.

What's that got to do with the economy and the environment and ethics and morals?

Well, we are getting to the point of having so many people that there's no more place for the critters. But the critters are important for the environment.

No, I'm not a tree-hugger in particular. I just notice that further refinements of our technologies are taking is, in every field, right where?

Biology.

And you say, so what?

Well, whether you call it nature and evolution or whether you call it God, we have a world full of advanced technology that we didn't invent. But we have convinced ourselves that,

if our hand ain't touched it, there ain't no point.

So we get tunnel-vision, focusing only on the inventions of our own hands.

But we keep finding that the things our hands haven't touched yet are the things that have the most value to us.

So, there's the conundrum, the dilemma:

If the economy does not expand, it contracts. If it contracts, scarcity reigns, and control freaks take over.

But we are clearly hitting limits.

Do we really dare risking having to re-boot the environment with our own crude technology?

Leaving a whole lot of questions begging, modern apartment buildings are too small to raise pets, even if the rules allowed it. But we have come to a point that the animals have no place besides where we are living.

Sure, we can talk about how vultures in the financials market force all the builders of apartments to do it as cheaply as possible, but that's just an excuse. Look in the mirror when you say "vulture". Look in the mirror when you excuse your corner-cutting on the competition and your investors.

Today's bottom line is important, but so is tomorrow's.

We need apartments with room for pets, because we, as a society, need the pets.

We need them for the future of the ecology, even if we think we can so casually squeeze people psychologically.

We need to move families out of apartments when we can, to houses with room for gardens, because the economy needs people who are somewhat independent, and because the ecology needs more plants.

We need to pay the guys at the bottom of the wage ladder more so that they can do this kind of stuff that keeps our society from imploding.

And we can afford to do it. The extra money is there, if we refuse to be scared of the mirage of the wolf at the door. If we have to see wolves, there is a wolf in the house and it is eating us alive because we refuse to let other people have enough economic room to make choices.

It is our duty to ourselves to quit trying to squeeze every last dime and penny out of every transaction.

Oracle's patent #6061520

2011-07-25T12:03:00.006+09:00

I posted at groklaw on this and I want to keep track of what I wrote.

At the current point in the proxy skirmish that is the patent face-off between Oracle and Google, several patents have been overturned, and one has been allowed, with claims narrowed, as I recall. Several remain in process or waiting in the queue.

The one which I understand to have been allowed, well, for all that the patent office has allowed it, is quite typical of a patent that should not have issued.

US Patent 6061520 describes, rather ambiguously, a series of steps for applying the technique of code optimization known among other things as constant elimination by "pre-playing the code" (or "play executing"), applied to initializing Java classes.

When we write software, we generally include a large number of constants (numbers, text, and other things which don't change while the program is running). Many of these constants are used to set up starting values of stuff the program references (thus, to "initialize variables").

In order to save the computer some calculation time, we often pre-calculate these constants. Say we want to use π. We can approximate it roughly with

22 / 7

but that still is a division the computer has to perform. 3.1416 is much closer, but may not be as accurate as the computer can represent internally. We could also write it as

arctangent( 1 ) * 4

which will be very close to as accurate as the computer can get (without special help).

(Before I go further, I should note that the Java language contains the constant π, as java.lang.Math.PI , so this is a bit of a contrived example when talking about Java, unless we want to talk about the arbitrary precision java.math class, which introduces a whole bunch of arcane programming that this conversation would quickly get lost in. Not entirely irrelevant, but not useful for the conversation at this point.)

But taking the arctangent of 1 does not come completely free.

Wouldn't it be great if we could get the computer to make that calculation once, then use the pre-calculated result everywhere the constant shows up in the program.

Yes, we can. Usually. Sometimes. A lot, with modern languages.

The patent references an example of an array initialization:

static int setup[ ]={1, 2, 3, 4};

and then says some stuff that lets you know why Java has a reputation for slow startup.

In C, that array declaration would be simply the values 1, 2, 3, and 4 stored in sequence in a table of all the initial values constants that the C startup code just reads directly into memory. No calculation whatsoever. No loading constants to the stack just to store them. No dealing with individual values. It's just part of the machine code image and gets loaded en-masse into memory with the machine code for the program.

Pre-calculating 22 / 7 is easy. Most mature compilers of any language, whether byte-code interpreted or compiling down to machine code, have been able to recognize constant expressions like this since time immemorial, or at least since the early-'90s. That is, I used compilers that were developed in the mid-'80s which could do it. If I were in Utah, I have two old AT&T Unix machines there from that time period, which have compilers that do that much. I have with me now a Metrowerks C compiler from the early-90s that does at least that well.

The process is called scanning for invariants, and it often proceeds in two passes. One pass will see the 22 and the 7 as constants and the next pass will see an ordinary arithmetic expression involving nothing but constants, calculate the expression, and leave only the calculated result for the main pass of the compiler to use later.

Calls to functions are a little more difficult, because functions can have side-effects, but some compilers are able to at least work with standard library calls that are known to have no side-effects and are passed constant parameters, and have been able to do so since before Gosling and his friends started working on Java in the late '80s. (Microsoft C claimed it could do proper initialization, but their implementation was incomplete and not really correct during the '80s.)

The language Java is virtual, and is compiled class-by-class to byte-code. Byte code is kind of like standard function calls, and a little hard to predict the side-effects of sometimes. And then there was the question of where the constants should be stored, and, for some reason, with the byte code for the class apparently wasn't an interesting answer. So Java couldn't just generate the constants and store them with the compiled byte code. It had to store them within the instructions to explicitly initialize the array, one element at a time.

If I read the patent right, this patent is a specification for performing initializer invariance analysis in Java by the supposedly cheap method variously known as pre-flighting the constant space, simulated initialization, play execution (Sun's chosen term), and such, and for additional instructions which initialize the various data constructs of Java.

Except it doesn't solve certain difficult problems, just waves its hands about allocating a piece of memory for the initialization code to simulate its work on and building the initialization tables according to the effects on said memory.

I'm not sure why Java needs more than a block copy for the initialization, but they seem to think it helps overcome unnamed issues. Perhaps side-effects, volatile storage, and such?

This may be an improvement on one-at-a-time for Java, but not particularly new to the world of software in general, especially .

Pre-processing the source code for invariants is also conceptually at odds with the idea of interpreting byte-codes. (One of the design goals of Java is to refrain from programming devices like the C macro pre-processor.) In the end, I think it's a culture thing, but anyway, they didn't want to call it that.

At the time of the patent, many of the popular interpreted languages (certain BASICs, perl, etc.) did more-or-less what this patent talks about, and more. Some would set up a limited mock-up of the run-time, and compile the source into the mock-up, turn the initialization code loose, and look for constants that fall out. Then those constants would go into a table.

(Perl has a byte-code compiler, but it has not been very successful, in terms of saving the byte-code and running from that instead of from source. I think they got stuck in the same kind of places Java gets stuck in, and, instead of claiming a -- partial -- solution, just generally recommended not using those features unless you knew what you were doing. Still, Perl does compile to byte-code as it starts up, and it includes initialization constant evaluation as part of the compile phase, as I understand it.)

I re-read their method, and there is nothing either new or original about what they are doing. Maybe it was new to Java, but it was not particularly original. (I suppose I should go dig up the old perl newsgroup posts on the subject to prove it?) And the patent doesn't provide us with any clues as to what specifically was really innovative even if the patent is just to apply to Java as a language (a bit of a stretch) or just to Sun's implementation of Java.

I suppose they could claim that a bytecode instruction that initilizes an array is an innovation, but that would be just playing with words. A bytecode instruction is a function call, and many languages have function calls that do the equivalent. Class and object oriented languages build such functions as necessary for the class instance initialization, as this spec indicates.

Constant pre-evaluation is obvious and part of the state of the art, whether by play (simulated) execution or by the more explicit pre-processing methods of compiled languages. In fact, it is (and was at the time) among the implicit goals pursued as a language matures.

After several read-throughs, I think the innovation claimed is that they pick out the initialization code and execute only that against a pre-cleared, throw-away region of memory. But you still have to track which expressions are known invariant and make sure all the rest get executed after the first constant pass of the initialization. Or you have to limit the expressions allowed in initialization code. Java does both.

As to whether using a throw-away memory allocation to run the initialization code against, coming back from a break bringing in the laundry, I realize --

Any attempt to calculate the results of initialization code has to use a throw-away region of memory. Where else does one store the results?

And, as I said before, it's not really an innovation, when compared to what was available in other languages.

Come to think of it, I remember fighting with the Java compilers and wondering why the code I was writing looked okay by the spec as I read it, but kept being rejected by the compiler as containing non-final code. If I'd read this patent spec first, I'd have had a better idea how far one could go in initializations, and why things I expected from my work in other languages didn't work in Java.

I wonder if the problem is the confusion caused by incompatible use of jargon, as in "pre-flight invarant analysis" versus "play execution". (Or as in byte-code vs. p-code vs. pseudo-code [sic] vs. i-code vs. intermediate code [sic].)

Anyway, that this patent was not overturned is more evidence of the practical results that are making it obvious that software patents are at best wrong in their current form.

Too many software patents are just feature lists lifted from the marketing materials, and dressed up with just enough technical information to make it look interesting and unusual, but not including enough information to implement, and not including enough information to determine the pre-requisites of patentability: originality and innovation. (Whether software patents can be otherwise is a rant for another day.)

What was the Thriller?

2011-07-16T22:34:00.003+09:00

[This is part of a meta-thread on Love and Romance.]

The 8th grade (middle school second grade in Japanese) English teacher I work with this year used Michael Jackson's Thriller in his relax-before-summer classes last week. (Summer starts a couple of days early this year.)

I was watching, and remembering dancing to it way back when. And I was thinking, man, this is chauvinistic.

Well, okay, it was Michael Jackson, struttin' his stuff, being his version of the alpha male. I would have liked it better if his date had been dancing with the ghouls during the credits. (Maybe she was? Too dark to tell. Who was she, anyway? Ah. Ola Ray, and, no she wasn't dancing in the credits. Darn.)

Working through the lyrics,

Cause this is Thriller Night

isn't bad grammar after all. I remember the lyrics always felt bumpy in my head, but I don't remember whether I figured out back then that the lyrics were saying it was thriller night at the theater. Half-memories there.

The Japanese translation we were working from missed the jokes, and plays it, near as I can read it, as straight horror. The line,

To terrorize y'alls neighborhood

is translated with the familiar form of "you", kimi, but ignores the southern sense of neighborliness in the word. (And Vincent Price did such a good job slipping into the drawl and back out.)

And then there's the give-away stanza,

And whosoever shall be found

without the soul for getting down

must stand and face the hounds of hell

and rot inside a corpse's shell.

that just gets completely lost. The "getting down" is completely missed, and the rest is mixed into other places, as if the translator were looking for some relative/conjunctive pronoun and reference that just isn't there.

It isn't there because this is it, the reference, right here. This is the verse the whole thing pivots on, the lines that bear out Michael Jackson's initial assertion that it isn't intended to encourage a belief in the occult.

David Bowie said it more directly, but this is what the whole video was all about:

Let's dance.

And the difficulty that young men have getting that invitation into words.

Well, one of the problems with horror as a genre is that it is usually misunderstood. Much like the rest of art.

this and next

2011-07-06T18:44:00.001+09:00

I was talking with one of the teachers I work with about this Friday vs. next Friday and why it may be best to just avoid the word next in general, when teaching English as a foreign language.

And I realized what the semantics issue is.

When you're in between bus stops, it's a little bit hard to talk about a this stop. Maybe you think, going forward in time is closer than going backwards, but most likely that's just thinking too hard. And if you hear someone trying to argue that the next stop is the one after this one coming up, well, maybe you figure someone prefers arguing to communication.

Now it is true that there is always a this Friday, even when it is today or tomorrow. But the ambiguities are there.

Next has at least two, slightly different meanings, and a conversation could get lost in the gap.

meanings of "love"

2011-06-20T18:39:00.001+09:00

[This is part of a meta-thread on Love and Romance.]

Lyrics to a song by Heart playing in my head on the way to work this morning:

we gotta look right at at each other and say it
turn on the radio and replay it
and fall in love again
we gotta be friends

(I think my memory is pretty close there.)
The lyrics to the songs on Dreamboat Annie cover a broad chunk of the spectrum of the meanings of love in blue collar society, some ("Love Me Like Music") relatively positive and some ("Magic Man") not so much so.

The title cut, of course, ...

good music.

Anyway, I was thinking of the people in the band and how misinterpretations of the principles of love tend to be all tangled up in most of what ails society.

the new greed

2011-06-19T08:38:00.002+09:00

(I've said this before, but maybe I can make more sense this time.)

There is a new kind of greed in evidence.

I'm not talking about food. Not talking about money or material things. Not really talking (directly) about power.

Well, yeah, it's about power, and it's indirectly about the rest, but we've learned to hide all those obviously evil greeds from ourselves.

Bill Gates and company, back around the y2k fuss, started a publicity campaign called "Freedom to Innovate". (Links to this kind of stuff tend to disappear as the people who pull these gaffs realize what they've done in public.)

The first time I saw Microsoft waiving the US flag proudly on their web site and demanding their (not our) freedom to innovate, calling the campaign "grassroots", pretending that this was what "the people" wanted, I about fell out of my chair.

At the time I was avoiding blogging like the plague it is. But I sure wanted to jump all over their "Freedom to Innovate Network" and ask

Where is MY freedom to innovate? I have an OS and a runtime and an application paradigm that make the Mac OS in all its expressions look pale and tired. (Should be implicit that Microsoft's software was not even in the same game.)

Fiscal realities are keeping that locked up in my head. Those fiscal realities include Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviors.

You've had your freedom to innovate, you've had it all over the map, and you've blown it in a non-deterministic loop. (Random. Random.) You've had your turn.

Where's my turn?

Well, Gates's blind spot there could be viewed as evidence that he is, in fact, a geek. Hubris. The assumption that, just because it makes sense to you it must be logical to everyone.

And there is the greed:

I want to do it all.

And the reasoning behind the greed:

My thoughts are God's thoughts.

Okay, no one in their right minds is going to be that blatant. How about this:

I understand what is right and wrong.

Actually, that's not a bad point of view. We all have to believe that to a certain extent. It's the applying the logic of sequence to that when we only have the first example (close to) correct.

This is the greed

To want what is inside our own head to apply to everyone else.
To want to justify ourselves by (1) justifying our understanding of the world around us (our religion, really) by (2) making it apply to everyone else.

Incidentally, this is not what missionary work is supposed to be all about, even though evangelism is often (mostly, in the present tense?) misunderstood to be the attempt to impose one's personal religion on the rest of the world.

What does this have to do with the economy?

Well, it's the wanting to do it all. The unwillingness to share the "jobs that matter" (whatever we perceive them to be) with other people.

The thing that is most scarce in our current economy is not food, not material stuff.

The thing that is scarcest is jobs.

Now you know why.

Exposing myself on youtube

2011-05-22T02:34:00.000+09:00

Just put my first video up on youtube. It's a song I put together last year using Garage Band and Sound It! and the internal mike on my iBook G4 (that has since succumbed to the zombie graphics chip symptoms), together with a bunch of shots I took of my efforts to get Fedora running on my even older clamshell iBook.

The interesting part where I got Mac OS 9 to revive itself didn't fit into the song.

Unfortunately, the 30G hard drive that I pulled from the white iBook G4 and installed on the tangerine clamshell died fairly quickly after the transplant. The G4 has since died, so I may pull the 160G drive I put in it and put that back in the tangerine so my son can use Fedora on it again. (He uses an old Mac OS X for now, with the tiny 5.6G drive the tangerine came with. That tangerine seems to be indestructible.)

Wish I could afford the tools to fix the G4.

Passed the JLPT.

2011-05-02T21:18:00.000+09:00

Just for the record.

Heh. Maybe I should scan the "certificate" they sent me and post it. (Use the Gimp to wipe out the private information. Hahahahahahahah. What use would that be, other than to show the world what it looks like. Maybe not. I'm not sure the testing company would appreciate it. I had to sign an NDA to take the test. Seriously.)

It took about two and a half months to find out, from December 6th to Feb 14th. (Hah? Valentine's day? Did it realy come that day?)

I thought I had maybe just barely passed it. But my score turned out to be, by the curve, a B grade. Not bad for my first and last JLPT certification.

Oh. I went for the top level, level N1, just because I was too impatient. So there's nowhere left to go but the Nihongo Kentei.

Which may not be a bad idea, but I'm going to try to get the LPIC levels 1 and 2 first. Studying for it seems to be a good way to fill in the gaps in my sysad knowledge.

A Little Fantasy about Intelllectual Property Law

2010-12-24T10:38:00.000+09:00

"Counsel for the Experts, please summarize."

Mitsufuku JohnJacobs Sierpinski stood and addressed the court.

"Honorable Justices, Respected Jurors, we have heard argument for the referendum and for the counter-referendum. The parties have addressed their grievances. We have heard the Legislative Counsel declare the intent of the Constitution and of the laws, and the Executive Secretaries have addressed the current state of implementation. We have been briefed by the Amicii.

"The entire case can be summarized as follows:

"Holders of Real Property hold their properties in perpetuity. They have the privilege and duty, under law, to bequeath it to their Posterity, and thus the stewardship over the lands, seas, airspace, and mineral rights is maintained.

"Consumable properties are generated and recycled, and title passes from hand to hand, but when the current Holder of a consumable property yields his stewardships to his Posterity, consumables pass with the Real properties, as they are tangible. Thus stewardship over consumables is maintained.

"The First Democracy established Intellectual Properties originally as temporary stewardships over certain areas of the Public Commons of the Market, as they were discovered. The stewardships were generally assigned to those who could claim discovery, by means of patent, copyright, and trademark. As the First Democracy established the principles of Democratic Living, the laws concerning Intellectual Properties were refined. However, the Constitution declares that those rights must be temporary, and so we have, at the beginning of the thirty-first century of the Common Era, a situation wherein Intellectual Properties cannot be maintained in the same fashion as the tangible properties. Current law limits copyright to two thousand years from the original registration, most of which was taken during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Likewise, patent is currently limited to fifteen hundred years. Trademark can be held in perpetuity, but only by means of active maintenance of the Mark in the Marketplace.

"These limits make it difficult to establish full forward-looking value of Intellectual Properties, and makes their use as collateral for debt, or as capital base for the establishment of stocks and bonds, very difficult.

"Thus we have an imbalance, an unfairness, between the holders of tangibles and intangibles. As the Constitution demands Fairness in all human dealings, according to Amendment 211 section 419 paragraph 23, Something Must Be Done! Either we must amend the Original Constitution to allow permanent holding of Intellectual Properties, or we must declare all titles to have limits similar to those on intellectual properties.

"In any case, when a limit of title has been reached, there is always the problem of establishing a new stewardship over the Property. In truth, since we have extended the limits to their current state, we have not actually been faced with the problem, but the problem exists in theory, and, as I have shown and declared, interferes with the full use of the Properties, going forward, in the present.

"Rather than establish a situation where the stewardships over properties cannot be maintained in orderly fashion over time, we must resolve and repair this inequality by establishing permanent rights to the Intellectual Properties, even though it means amending the Original Constitution.

"As Counsel for the Experts, I direct the court to issue a court order to the Three Houses of the Legislative Assemblies to amend the Constitution to establish the authority of the Patent and Trademark Office and the Library of The Legislative Assemblies to establish permanent rights over all Intellectual Properties. I further direct the court to order further research to discover other forms of Intellectual Properties which may be established, to add value to the Economy."

Mitsufuku JohnJacobs Sierpinski sat down amid applause from the paid gallery. The unpaid gallery was quiet, as usual, as all who had applied for seating there, according to the usual due processes, were under detainment for Intent to Disturb the Peace.

The Chief Justice banged her gavel. "So has it been Said by the Experts, So is it ordered."

"All rise"

The Chief Justice stood, and all in attendance stood, as well.

"Court adjourned.

The Chief Justice stepped from behind the camera and took off the robes of office, and sat down behind her desk. With a smile, she picked up her portable communicator and paged her stock bookie.

Mitsufuku JohnJacobs Sierpinski had also stepped away from the camera in his office when his portable communicator beeped. He frowned and mumbled to himself, "Can't she show even a little patience, here?"

Then he waved his hand in the (patented) User Interface Gesture which set up the link and received the call from the (Let it be noted that she is also now officially off-duty.) Chief Justice.

"Sylvia, you know that, even with the precautions we have taken, it will take at least a few hours to get the amendments through all three houses of the legislatures."

"But, Mit-chan, can't we set up a bond on the time it takes?"

"Sorry, the Free-the-Mind League has already taken a defensive patent on that bet. Litigating the patent will take enough time to eliminate the value of the bond. I've already checked."

Sylvia swore. "I have thirty-five minutes until the first payment comes due on the loan I took out to grease the wheels and push this case through."

"That's not my problem. You can always resort, perhaps, to your skills at the oldest profession?"

"I suppose I'll probably have to. That'll mean I won't be free tonight."

"I'll make do."

"You always do."

"I have another call. Hmm. It seems to be from the Free-the-Mind League."

"Put me on monitor."

Mitsufuku JohnJacobs Sierpinski waved his hands in another patented gesture, checked the channel indicators and the monitor ear plug, and received the call. He recognized the face that was projected before him from the publicity announcement that the Free-the-Mind League put out from time to time."

"This is Mitsufuku JohnJacobs Sierpinski. How may I help you?"

"Hello. This is Richard Raymond de-Brian of the Free-the-Mind League."

"I thought I recognized your face."

"I thought I would let you know that we have obtained warrants to establish a civil case on your breach of patent 3,357,248,999,101,436,000,333."

"I didn't catch that number."

"It's in the official written notice I have just sent, along with the summary."

"Care to tell me what the offending behavior is?"

"Amending the Constitution to allow permanent Intellectual Property Rights. And it covers quite a range of activities pursuant to such amending. We have the public record, and our first count shows 31 incidents of infringement."

Where are the real netbooks? 本物のネットブックって、どこだ？

2010-10-23T09:49:00.000+09:00

I stopped by the Yodobashi Camera store in Umeda today. I just needed a plug to fix the rice cooker. It was a waste of time, no better selection than Kojima, and it just takes a lot of time to get in and out.

Took longer because I checked out the current version of Sharp's Netwalker. Nice. Found a Toshiba Android Dynabook while I was looking, and it looked sweet, too. But, according to the salesman, neither has drivers to hook a cell phone modem to them, so phone activities are limited to Skype via wifi.

Not that I would pull down lots of web pages via a cell modem. I just want to be able to send e-mail from school without wearing my thumb out on my cell-phone's keypad.

Didn't actually ask about Skype on the Android Dynabook. The salesman was telling me, "Of course you can't get on the phone network with these." like it was the only sensible answer: "Oh. You really want an iPad!"

And I just gave up talking to him at that point.

Yeah, the iPad is a sweet machine, too.

Except.

I don't have money to buy a new Mac, and I'm counter-motivated by the processor in the current crop, anyway. And there is no way I'm going to buy an MSWindows box, not until Microsoft is under 50% market share and learning to play by the rules instead of playing the rules. And the iPad is, by design, a peripheral to the Mac, or, in deference to the insensate market, the MSWindows platform. Most of the iPad function is unavailable from a Linux or BSD class box.

I do have some old PPC Macs, but the OS is old, and even if I updated to the last version to support PPC, 10.5, that's no longer supported by Apple. So, if I were to buy an iPad, I'd have to spend yet another JPY 100,000 minimum to be able to get reasonable value out of it.

Now, if I had that kind of money, I could afford to not work over winter break, and I might be able to hunt around and find a cell modem with a driver I could load for one of these two machines. Then I could buy a USB hub and headset and have a portable phone that I could actually send e-mail with, instead of just txtng.

Oh, the Netwalker would need a separate keyboard, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So, they are sweet machines.

Light. Cheap.

Portable.

Linux!

And no use at all when I'm at the school and the wifi is (as it should be until they can tear themselves loose of Microsoft) locked down and off-limits to the teachers' own PCs. (Bite your tongue, boy!)

implementation constraints and software patents

2010-07-15T09:32:00.001+09:00

I posted this on Groklaw, in response to some who were bringing out the Turing argument without thinking about it. I'll post it here, too, with some editing and comments:

--------------------------
PHBs use the Turing Machine argument to justify using cheap CPUs (or simply the CPU "everyone else" is using) in applications those CPUs are not appropriate for.

There is a logical equivalence between CPUs, but the equivalence breaks down somewhat in the real world, where time and memory are ultimately limited.

And then the PHBs can't figure out why the project gets mired in engineering time working out tricks to somehow squeeze enough juice out of said CPU to get at least the most important features of the application to work.

And then they want to recoup the excessive costs of development (that could have been avoided, if they had been willing to use a better CPU) by getting patents on the inventions from the work.

And then, once they have the patents, it's all too easy to think that the patents must apply to any machine that does the same thing, not just to the tricks they used to get their functions running on the hardware they were stupid enough to choose.

This is precisely the reason patents are supposed to be specific. They are supposed to allow control over what has been invented, but not allow the limited control to monopolize the entire market.

Historically, there were a few cases where the patented invention was new and opriginal enough that it seemed to be reasonable to allow the patent (for the limited lifetime of the patent) to virtually monopolize the market for a particular kind of product. Those were supposed to be exceptions. Rare exceptions.

But everyone thinks (without thinking of the consequences) that it's unfair that their patent doesn't get the same treatment. Well, at least in physically embodied patents, the issues with freedom are obvious enough to keep the "It's unfair!" arguments at bay. Or, the issues were obvious enough for a long time. Apparently, the issues are no longer so obvious.

So, the PHBs have succumbed to the siren call of the illusion of monopoly control, and they sue the living daylights out of the market, and the profits from the suits is what enables them to put sell the product at the originally specified price that assumed that the cheap CPU would do the job without the extra development.

And their cheaper product (cheap by unfair means, mind you) now takes over that piece of the market on price instead of actual performance or other merit. (Two monopolies for the price of one, you could say.)

(You wonder what wonderful things could have happened, were the intel CPU not strangling the desktop, market? and now parts of the server and high-performance markets? Someday, maybe I'll have the time and resources to show you. It's hard to explain in the present market where people can't see the future for the marketing schemes of the rich and famous. If not, well, this world has a history of regularly rejecting the better way, so it won't be the first time.)

I'll personally accept the idea of software patents when the patent applications include the source code and hardware specified and the claims are limited to the specified source code and specified hardware and the specified combination thereof.

But patents on source code itself get really tangled up in the fact that source code is automatically transformed. It's hard to set boundaries on the transformations that are covered without being either overly restrictive or overly broad.

And that's why copyright makes more sense for source code. The way it should work is that there should be a copyright on the source code and a patent on the hardware and on the hardware combined with the source code. That is, the patent claims should only be for the hardware and the hardware+source code, and the claims on the source code itself should be copyright claims only.

Thus, dealing in the hardware is controlled by the patent on the hardware. Dealing in the software is controlled by the copyright on the software. Dealing in the combination is controlled by the patent.

Then software functions can be re-implemented (using clean-room techniques where necessary) for other hardware without infringing the patent, and this is as it should be.

I suppose the law may be missing a way to tie patent claims to copyright claims, if so, that is where the law should be changed, but we must be careful to avoid allowing the tying to defeat the intended limits on both patents and copyright.

Otherwise, there is no way to avoid being over-broad.

My responses to the SCO arguments.

2010-07-14T22:49:00.001+09:00

Kevin McBride posted a comment on a Lantham Act case, and Andreas Kuckartz pointed out the possible Lantham Act implications concerning SCO.

Kevin ran out of time to respond to all the people like me who wanted to add their two cents, so I'm adding my two cents here. I wish I had time to do more than express my own opinions and make naked assertions, or even to convert it from the open letter format it became:

------------------------------

Hi, Kevin,

I appreciate your willingness to open up a conversation about the wisdom of SCO vs. IBM and the related law suits.

I thought I'd respond to your "last word", I'm sure I'm not the only one.

One problem we have is that too many of the experts are experts in computers or in the law, but not both, and the odd impression, often not admitted, that there is something very similar between the two.

It's important to understand that there is a similarity, but also that the similarity will trip up an expert in the one field when trying to operate in the domain of the other. However, computer science does allow us, as a race and as an amalgamate culture, the opportunity to understand the intersection between our mathematics and our laws. Well, those are side points that aren't really that far aside, but back to my response to your last word.

IP:

I know I'm picking a fight with your specialty when I ask this, but is "Intellectual Property" really the best word we have for what were originally temporary grants of rights to exercise a stewardship in the commons, that is a right to control a new piece of the marketplace for a time?

Commoditization:

Why should the software industry be any more protected against commoditization than any other?

To the extent that participants in any industry should be protected from commoditization, isn't copyright and trademark about the best we can get without shooting ourselves in the foot? (I reference the fashion industry and admit that copyright doesn't provide nearly the protection that players in the fashion industry currently seem to think they want.)

I know I'm treading awfully close to your toes, but I don't think the present world really is a world without IP protection. As an individual software developer, my point of view (through painful experience with Microsoft, in particular) is that I think I have a much better chance of making any money at all from my software using the GPL or MIT license than I would have trying to work withing the IP framework the big IP players claim.

The GPL, in particular, gives me a lot more control over my projects under that license than any agreement I could make with a corporate steward. (Something of an oxymoron, that "corporate steward" thing.)

Groklaw:

Poisoning the well isn't nice, but there has been a bit of that going around on all sides, so, well, let's leave the issue of poisoning the well aside.

The critical analysis of Groklaw's work is an ongoing process. I suppose there is a bit of rah-rah at Groklaw, but there is also plenty of critical analysis. When PJ is wrong, we tell her so.

PJ is not unbiased, and her point of view is not unflawed. But that's okay. I think I hear you laughing at that and asking why it could be okay, but are you unbiased? Is your point of view unflawed?

The problem here is that we hear plenty of people pounding the drums you pound. We don't hear anywhere close to enough on any other side, and the industry is way out of balance.

Professor Lessig has some odd ideas. Some just seem odd in the present context, kind of like the idea that governments should recognize their dependency on (relatively free) individuals once seemed odd. Others of his ideas are truly way out there.

But how does that tie to the fact that, in the current world dominated by IP holders, the only places I can make enough money to feed my family, pay the rent, and send my kids to school just happen to be places using free and open source software?

Different strokes for different folks, but if Microsoft's dominance of the industry had not been stanched, I'd be faced with real commodity wages building add-ons to add-ons to add-ons to add-ons to Microsoft's latest fads. That's where the world was heading back in the early 1990s, and that's where a world dominated by Intellectual Property is heading.

By the way, don't forget that the Macintosh OS was essentially saved by the FreeBSD community.

RMS:

Stallman is a crackpot. The world needs more crackpots, including more like him. When industry moguls recognize it helps their promotional campaigns, they admit it, but it is true. The pool of crackpots is the pool of talent that moves the industries forward.

But, yes, Stallman understands copyright, and many of us don't. That's something we are working on, getting more people to understand the laws of copyright.

I might add, for what it's worth, many in the "IP" camp fail to understand copyright.

As for information wanting to be free, I think even Stallman admits that the meme might have been a tactical error.

We are, after all, bundles of information, we want to be free, and we aren't always willing to do what it takes to maintain our freedom. Of course, we are fundamentally free, until when we sell our freedoms away.

But that's all a red herring. The real issue is not whether information wants to be, or should be free. The real issue is how do we allot people their stewardships over their intangible properties which they create? How do we do it fairly, how do we balance the inventor's stewardship against the stewardships of others in society?

How do we integrate the stewardships of the various people who want to join in the work developing a particular intangible property when we don't want to make money the gate to the market segment? The GPL works well for that for many people. The ISC license also works well for some people, although it takes more activity and effort.

Money itself is not evil, as long as there remain things that you can't buy with it.

IBM:

IBM has IBM's future in mind in the games they play. Most of us trust IBM only as far as we can throw them, but as long as they play by the rules, we'll work with them.

Linux did not save their faltering business. The kernel and the OSses and the community helped out somewhat, but the attitude helped even more. The fact is that they had gotten stuck in the mode of licensing as their business model, and they shifted to a mode of providing services, and the shift pulled the company out of the dive.

Licensing as an implicit services model has its uses, but it also has its limits, and it will kill any business that forgets the implicit services part.

The idea that IBM violated IP rights of SCO is, well, sorry to say so out loud, but it is just plain wrong. It's re-writing history.

Old SCO bought a business supporting the dying UNIX. It was a valid, athough not extremely lucrative, business model. Novell wanted to go other places, the old SCO figured there would be lots of business opportunities helping UNIX customers switch to Linux.

I remember the ads and the publicity campaign, I am not depending on Groklaw's cache of found documents.

There was more work involved than was expected, and there was more necessity for patience than was expected. Linux was, in many cases, not yet quite ready, and that meant that many of the customers needed a lot more support Unix, more than was expected, before they would be ready for paying for the support in moving to Linux.

And the Unix expertise was a bit harder to come by than the Linux expertise.

And then, when somebody dug around to make sure new SCO had the rights to do the Unix support, it was discovered that an intern had realized that old SCO didn't seem to have the IP rights without some sort of explicit agreement about the "IP". Falsely, because the agreement between AT&T and UCB made the question moot. And so we have a half-baked left over from that in the APA, which, at any rate, was only meant to give SCO the evidence for their customers that they had sufficient rights to maintain UNIX and to move the customers' applications to Linux when the time was right.

And then somebody (sorry to say it this way) got suckered into the old licensing-as-a-business trap.

Darl should have known that Novell would not have voluntarily just walked away from a gold mine. It would be huge hubris to for him to believe himself to be able to see a real gold mine where Novell had not. It would be even stranger for him to have believed that Novell was trying to leave the gold mine alone just to nurture their own piece of the nascent Linux market and convince himself that Novell would have then been willing to let SCO kill the market in Novell's place.

It's hard to see any sort of reasonability in Darl's behavior.

I'm not going to try to read his mind, because it doesn't make sense the way he tells it, whether you assume the IP could really be enforced or whether you understand the implications of the agreement between AT&T and Berkeley.

Dynix or otherwise, there were no protectable methods and concepts left after AT&T and Berkeley settled. This is common knowledge among the Free/Net/OpenBSD community. It's hard to argue with the question of why neither Berkeley nor AT&T bothered shutting down the BSD projects.

Some/most of the early technical users of Unix (engineers) would say that the methods and concepts in Unix were so basic and so understood by practicioners of the art of the time that they were unpatentable anyway, completely aside from the question of whether or not software in general should be patentable.

Copyright cannot be substituted to control an invention that is unpatentable.

There is nothing there, nothing except Darl's insistence that he should have been allowed to say, "No, I didn't really mean it." about something that was, if you have to take the IP point of view, was given away before SCO ever came into the picture.

The Monterey arguments, well, Groklaw raises a lot of questions about the trail any new IP from that might have taken into Linux. To convince any of us, you're going to have to demonstrate that there was meaningful new IP that didn't take any of those trails in.

The standards bodies argument, you're going to have to unpack that one, too.

IP discipline? I don't know. If I were to take any of this seriously, I don't think "discipline" would be the right word. "Fear", maybe.

Now, we are not telling anyone they have to give their software away for free.

It would be nice if the whole world suddenly came to their senses about Microsoft. It would also be nice if the whole world suddenly came to their senses about religion. And freedom. It ain't gonna happen. There will always be plenty of people willing to buy proprietary, non-free software, as long as there is any market for software.

But if it did suddenly happen, I think the problems you are seeing would solve themselves.

You see, there will also be plenty of people willing to buy service agreements for free/open source software. People who pay me for the software I've put out there are not buying the software. They are buying my time, and they pay me the same, whether I slap a restrictive EUA on it or give it to them under the GPL.

The problem of competition is not a problem either because my clients are not buying the software. They are buying my time. And if it comes down to forcing them to buy my time, why should I?

You can have your IP, as long as you let me have my GPL/ISC. Different strokes for different folks.

Still in Panic Mode まだパニックモードです。

2010-07-10T13:18:00.010+09:00

Seriously, what else would get me looking at certifying?

マジで、パニックってなければ、何で資格を取るなんて考えるでしょう？

Well, I was reading material from the Hello Work Hanshin Satellite for the Japanese. They point out that experience without certification is often worth more than certification without experience, except in certain fields. But certification is usually better than nothing, and experience plus certification probably gets rated better than experience alone.

さて、ハローワークサテライト阪神からいただいた資料を読んでいたところ、その資料によると特別な分野以外は、紙資格よりは、経験の方が高く評価されるのです。ただし大概は何もない状態よりは資格ありの状態の方がましでしょう。それに、経験の上に資格ありがベスト、かな、ということを指摘しています。

Okay, okay, I'll take another look at certification. I'll ignore what I know from the inside of the Eigo Kentei. (English Language Certification Test in Japan -- Really, it has improved significantly since they started it.) And I'll wink at the recent (and unsurprising) flap about the Kanji Kentei. (Kanji Certification Test -- The guy in charge was skimming profits or something.)

まあまあ、資格というものを見直すことにする。英語検定について以前の経験によって知ったことを無視しておく。（いや、実は英検は初めのころから結構よくなっています。）また、先ほど、漢字検定に関わる騒動に目を閉じておこう。（上の人が利益を不正にもらっていたとかそんなことやったな。）

(Something about certifications invites abuse of power, okay?)

（資格というものには権力の悪用を招くものがあります、ね。）

Oh, I'll admit these kinds of tests can be useful for two things:

Communicating to the uninitiate one's interest in and theoretical knowledge of a subject -- of theoretical use even in practice;
and providing incentive to study a subject -- of real use, but easily taken way too far.

認めます。こういう試験は二つのところに役立つことがあります。

資格を取っている本人のその科目に対しての関心や理論上の知識を、分野に精通していない人に伝えること。（応用時にも理論的に役に立つのですね。）
また、その課題を勉強する動機付け。（実際に役立つものですが、容易に行きすぎるでしょう。）

I've been looking at the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (in other words, for foreigners), and I'm considering taking it. Either the top or second level should be an achievable challenge for me. Because of my non-canonical (applied) approach to studying Japanese (I study what I need when I need it.), I'll want to study a bit, either way.

（外人向きの）日本語能力試験を以前から見ていて、取ることを考えています。頑張れば、一級でも、二級でも達成できるほどのチャレンジになると思います。ただし、私の勉強の癖は、必要なものを必要しているときに勉強する、非規範的勉強法なのですので、どちらにしてもまだまだ勉強が必要です。

I've also been looking at the Nihongo Kentei. (Yeah, I have a little problem with hubris.) I could get a level 3 on that with about the same amount of study (but different focus) as I would need for level 1 of the JLPT. Might even be worth trying for the preparatory level 2.

日本語検定も考えています。（はい。うちはちょっと自信過剰です。）日本語能力試験に一級を取るほどの努力で、焦点をちょっと変えれば日本語検定の三級を取ることが可能と思います。もしかして準二級を試みてもよいかも知りません。

Actually, any level of the test, from 9 to 3, would be a bit of a stretch. It would give me an excuse to study things I want to study, but,then again, I don't have time to go back to kindergarten.

本当のこと言えば、九級から三級まで、どれの級でも、辛抱しないと取れないかも。それに、ずっと勉強したいと思ってきたものを勉強する理由にはなるが、考え直せば、幼稚園に戻ってやり直す余裕がありません。

That was actually part of the reason I spent four years as an Assistant Language Teacher in the primary grades, but these days they really don't give the ALT/AETs much spare time for real study. Besides, I like the kids and the teachers and I really want to help out where I can.

本に、先ほどのキャリア寄り道、公立小・中学校で四年間を英語補佐として勤めたわけの一一部でしたが、現在の英語補佐の仕事の時間内には勉強できるほどの暇を割り当てていただいていません。また、本当は子供たちも先生方もできるだけ助けてあげたかったのです。

Great, as long as I'm spinning my wheels, why not push one or both of those ahead? When are the tests? The next Nihongo Kentei is scheduled for mid-November, I can register starting in August. The next JLPT is scheduled for December, registration begins in late August, materials available in mid-August. (Yeah, I know those links are going to go stale.)

よし。車輪を空転さしてる間、片方でも両方でも検定を推し進めるではありませんか。試験はいつに行うのだった。次回の日本語検定は十一月の中旬の予定です。八月から申し込みできます。日本語能力試験は十二月なので、申し込みは八月下旬からでき、教材は八月中旬から書店に着く予定です。（ハイハイ、予定のリンクは直に賞味期限切れになるって分かるよ。）

Uhm, yeah, I can pursue that, but I sure hope I have a job by then. If not, I'm going to be working short-term as a guardsman or something (again) and my family are going to have to move in with my wife's folks, since we won't be able to pay rent. (I don't think her dad will be happy.) Oh, and we'll have to take the kids out of juku. No more swimming for them, either.

さよう。試験の準備を追い進めてもいいですが、そこまでになっていると就職していなければ困ります。また警備などのバイトしなきゃいけないのですか。それどころ、家賃払えなくなったらうちの嫁さんの親の家に住み込みに行くのですか。（お父さん嬉しく思っていただけると思わないんですね。）さらに子供らの塾やスイミングスクールをやめさせなきゃいけないことも。

All those low-paying jobs are hard work. I don't mind the grunt work, but I would sure like to be paid enough to feed my kids and put them through school.

給料の低いバイトはみんなしんどい仕事なんだ。筋肉労働は構いませんけど、子供らに食べさして学費を払うほどの給与がほしいと思う。

So I went over to look at the Data Processing Specialist certifications. Erm, Information Technology Specialist. Whatever. Maybe those exams come earlier.

次第に情報処理技術者試験の様子を見に行った。もしかしてそちらの試験がもっと早いうちに取れる。

I have a bachelor of science degree in computer science. BSCS. It's not a brand new diploma by any means, but it should be enough to get me certified, at a basic level at least, right?

僕の持っている理学士のくらいは最新のものではないが、コンピュータサイエンスですし、少なくとも基本のレベルですぐに資格取れるはずでしょう。ね。

So I downloaded the most basic test from last year. They call it the "IT Passport Test"

さて、一番基本の去年の試験をダウンロードしました。いわゆる「ITパスポート試験」。

Let's see. What's the first question? The meaning of "data"? Something about places to find data? Something about distinguishing data that can be processed by a computer and data that can't?

見てみよう。最初の問題はどうでしょう。「データ」の意味？情報が見出せるところについての何か？機械で処理できる情報と処理できない処理を見極める方法の何らかの質問？

Erm, Something about process elements and algorithm construction? About program objects? About the concept of modules?

エエエッと、処理要素と手順成立の関連？~~手順物品~~プログラムオブジェクトについて？機部モジュールの概念のこと？

errrrrm, uhm, (Will they send me a take-down notice if I put even one question in here? I'll re-word it.)

アノーーッ、エエエエエエッと、（一問だけの問題をここに引用したら、そちらから掲載撤退知らせを出されるかな？言葉を変えておく。）

What strategy allows a company to bring in advanced technology and skilled technologists from another company?

どちらが戦略なので、その戦略によって他社の先進技術を自分の会社に持ち込むことができますか。

No way to re-word the answers and keep the meaning:

回答の言葉を変えることは意味がなくなる：

M&A [??? Check the web for buzzwords. Ahah. エムアンドエー。 merger and acquisition]
R&D [research and development, we assume?]
アライアンス [alliance]
技術提携 [technical partnership]

Wait. 待ってよ。

This is not basic IT, this is business. IT business maybe, but business. Comparative interpretation of profits. Management techniques. Buzzwords galore. Gag. Patents in the test, too!!! Strategy, strategy, strategy!!!!!!

これは情報技術の基本ではありません。これは【業務よりも】営業です。情報技術関連の営業かも知りませんが、営業です。利益の比較的解釈。管理術。流行用語たっぷり。ゲッ。試験に特許も出るか？戦略、戦術、兵法、センリャク！！！

Deep breath. Let's go back and see if this really was intended as the entry-level exam.

深呼吸。ちょっと道に迷ったのではないでしょう？戻って、間違いなくこれが入門のレベルの試験かどうか確認しよう。

Yeah, that was level 1, and level 4 is all the individual topics. So this is not the inverted rank like the language tests I'm needing to take, where 1 is highest and 5 or 9 is lowest.

ウムッ。レベル１です。レベル４はそれぞれの科目試験。したがって、これが取らなきゃいけない言語の試験のように、一級が最上級なのに５及び９が最低級になっている訳ではないのです。

They've just made a business overview of the current state of the market the entry level test.

ただ単純に情報技術市場の現状の営業概要を情報技術の入門にしてしまってくれただけです。

Well, I guess I can handle that. I've seen this kind of craziness before.

まあ、いいか？こんな意味不明なのを過去に見たことはあるわ。

I would need to buy a recent book for the test to decode the buzzwords and the context of expectations, but it should be an easy read. Might be useful just to get me through interviews a little better. Don't really have the money, but maybe I can skip lunch for a week.

用語とその想定上の文脈を解読するに最新の資料を買えば。きっと難しい読書ではないと思う。それに、面接をもっとうまく通るのに便利かも。お金はきついなんですが、一週間ぐらい昼ご飯省けるかも分からない。

Old books like I'd find at the library are not going to be useful with these kinds of questions, of course.

無論、図書館にある一つ古い本はこんな問題に対処にならないでしょう。

Let's see, registration begins next week, the new materials should be available, the tests are mid-October. I don't see anything that tells me I have to start with the lower-level tests, I'll have to check the registration forms to be sure.

申し込みは来週からですね。新資料はもう、手に入ると思うし、試験が十月中旬です。低級の試験から取らなくてはならないような案内がないようです。申し込み用紙を見たらわかるはずです。

But it's still not really timely.

でも、十月にしても、僕には適時ではありません。

operetta

2010-06-14T23:01:00.003+09:00

(With apologies to Gilbert O' Sullivan)

In a little while from now,
if I'm not finding any more leads,
I promise myself to treat myself to a visit to unemployment
and, climbing to the second floor,
to throw myself on their mercy
in an effort to make it clear to whoever,
what it's like to be let go --
Left here in the lurch
with no pay
and teachers saying,
OH, NO! it's tough,
how we gonna teach?
Won't you come back in three months?
I could if I'm alive.
How are my kids gonna survive?
Unemployed again,
naturally.

:-/

The necessity of Assistant Language Teachers in Japan

2010-06-04T15:05:00.007+09:00

Many people question whether it is really necessary to have foreigners assisting in teaching foreign languages in Japan. It's a good question.

外国人の英語補佐は何の訳で必要でしょう？

問われる疑問です。

In truth, the Japanese program for teaching English in the primary grades is not bad. If anything, it's too good. (I suppose I'll have to rant about how an education program can be too good. Later.)

正に、日本の英語教育はそれほど衰えていません。問題あれば、好すぎ、とのことです。（さて。教育課程が、どうして好すぎに言われることがあろう？またいつかの話にします。）

At any rate, when the Japanese teachers use the resources they have, and put out a little effort, the program works as well as it might be expected to, even without the ALTs.

実は、日本の先生方がその持っているリソースをあえて使って見て少し力入れると、我国言語教育プログラムが期待できるほど巧くのです。外国人言語補佐がいなくても。

Pronunciation? Grammar?

発音？文法？

Horror stories about errors perpetuated are like horror movies -- they have little to do with the real world. (Or they promote a perverted view of the real world.)

先生の失敗が子供にどれほどの悪影響を持ったかの怖い話は怪談話やホラー映画と同じです。実の世界と関係ありません。（或は、異常な誤った観点から世界を見ることを促進するものです。）

You don't have to be perfect to teach. You just have to be willing to try to help children see the meaning in things.

教える前に完全に完璧にならなくていいです。ただ一つだけのことが不可欠です。子供たちに物の意味が見えるように、助けてあげれば善いです。

Some people question the goal of teaching every student English. That's not the real goal, the real goal is to give them important communication tools that are often best obtained by learning a foreign language. English just happens to be the best choice to standardize on.

全ての生徒に英語を教育させる目標が疑問に思われるでしょう。

それは本当の目的ではありません。英語を教えることの本当の狙いは、外国言語を学ぶことによって得られる大事なコミュニケーションツールを子供たちに差し与えるのです。一つを標準として決めるなら、英語がベストの選択肢でしょう。

(Why standardize? And, really, why English? Those are, indeed, very good questions, and I'll have to rant about that later, as well.)

（どうして標準を決めないと行けない？正になんで英語でしょう？いい質問ですね。これも後の喚きにします。）

So, if the program is good enough, without the foreign ALTs, why have ALTs?

さて、外国人言語補佐無しで巧く行くことあれば、なんで補佐を雇うのですか？

How, indeed, do I justify the humongous salary I was receiving to stand around and spout "native" English in class at the lead teacher's request?

ホンマ。ボクはどういう訳で莫大なお金を頂いて、クラスにうろうろして、本当の先生の指示で「自然な」英語を流し聞かせる仕事をどうしたら妥当にするつもりでしょう。

Number one. I was not receiving huge money. Ten, twenty years ago, the pay was good, maybe too good, and that's something else I want to rant about later. I have never received that kind of pay. I've barely received enough to keep my own kids in school.

第一。莫大なお金を受けたことはございません。

十・二十年前の話にしたら、まあまあの好い給料を受けた人は居ったそうです。もしかして好過ぎだったかも知らない。それはまた、いつか、喚き散らすかも知れない。

わたくしは、そんな給与を頂いたことは一度もない。

自分の子供が学校に行ける行けないか危ない程度でした。

So, why?

じゃ。何ででしょう？

In truth, there are better solutions, many of which involve making it easier for foreigners to work normal jobs in Japan. Others involving giving primary school children more options. I need to rant about both of those subjects sometime, too.

正直に言えばもっと善い方法あります。その方法の内には、外国人が日本で普通な仕事で働けるようにすることもあれば、小・中学校の生徒たちの選択肢を増やすことも在る。これらのことも、またの話にするしかない。

My wife and I tried to raise my son bi-lingual. It worked okay until we put him into day-care at four. (Yeah, another topic for another day.) From that time until he was in the third grade (elementary), he absolutely refused to touch English.

息子を二カ国語のまま育てることにしていた。四歳の時、保育所に入れるまではなんとか巧く行った。（はいはい。また、違う日の話の課題が出てきた。）その時から小学校三年生まで、英語に触れる向きもしてくれなかった。

In the 3rd grade, an ALT visited his class. Finally, he got a chance to see that there was, indeed, someone besides his crazy dad and sometimes crazy mom who talked in those crazy sounds.

Thomas the Tank Engine, etc. didn't do the trick for that. Like magic shows.

三年生の時、英語の補佐が彼のクラスにやって来た。やっとう、気違いのお父んやたまには突飛なお母ん以外に、あの気を狂わせる音を喋る人に出会った。

機関車トマスなどはこんなところに役に立たないのでした。手品の感覚でしか摂らなかったらしい。

Some ALTs really don't do much more than stand around doing the human CD player gig. My first few months, that was almost all I could do.

ある補佐は本当にヒューマンCDプレーヤーの役しかしません。ボクの最初の数ヶ月間はそういう状況に近かった。

After building trust with the teachers, however, I was able to give one-on-one help to the students, both during class and after. I found many ways to earn my wages. There are many of us who do. I think most ALTs who stick with it for long do so.

先生の信用を得てから、生徒たちと一対一応援する方法を、授業の間も授業の後も見つけることが出来ました。給料を頂くほど役に立つ方法をいろいろ見いだした。ボクだけではありません。補佐の仕事を長く続ける人はだいたい、役に立つ方法を見つけて、その給料以上の価値を見いだしていると思います。

Could Japanese citizens be doing the same job?

日本人は同じ仕事できるのではありませんでしょう？

Well, yeah. Maybe. But they don't, and that's one of the points.

まあ。言い方が悪いけど、多分できることは出来るけど、しません。それが問題です。

The regular teachers are overworked as it is.

英語なくても、先生方に課されているしごとが多過ぎる。

In an ideal Japan, no, not necessary. In the real world, you don't want to do the job without us.

理想的に見れば、必要ではない。実世では、課された仕事を、補佐無しではやりたいと思いませんでしょう。

I pad.

2010-05-05T12:46:00.011+09:00

Well, yeah, Apple has hit the sweet spot again with this iPad thing. According to the sales reports, they've hit a good market window, too. They're good at that sort of thing.

ウォッ。アップル社はこのアイパッドをもって今渡こそスィートスポットを当たった、な。売上の情報によると、市場のいい時期を見事に入ったらしい。

And the processor is neither INTEL nor x86. Yay!

CPUはインテルでもx86系でもないワイ！祝い！

Yeah, I want one. A whole bunch, in fact, one for each member of my family.

欲しいな。何台もほしい。家族の一人一人に。

No, my budget isn't going to stretch that far. Not this year.

否。予算が伸びへん。今年は、な。

My wife and children really wouldn't know what to do with an iPad anyway.

まあ、家の嫁さん、子供たちは今のところ iPad なんてそれほど使いこなせないでしょう。

Eh. Wait a minute.

エッ、まってよ。

My children would figure it out quickly enough, and the boss would not be far behind.

家の子らは充分はやくその謎々を解かせるし、上さんも負けへんに思う。

By the time I can afford one, I'm sure they'll have a lot of the bugs worked out.

家計の予算は買うほどの予算が出来るまでは、操作の不都合なバッグったをアップル社が、ある程度洗い出しているでしょう。

Maybe there will even be solutions to make them compatible with Linux machines. (Fat chance of that.)

リナックスとの互換性のためのソリューションも出来上がるかも知らない。（そんな可能には思えへんけど。）

[update -- June 5th]

I was in Osaka last week wrapping up the contract that just ended, and I took the chance to drop by the Apple Store and check the iPad out.

先週、終わった契約の後片付けに、大阪に行った。ついでにアップルストアに寄り道して、 iPad を視てきた。

Erm. I guess my enthusiasm gets a little moderation here.

エッと。その魅力が薄れたようです。

It feels like a large cell phone. Yeah. Klunky.

大きな携帯、という感じだ。ン。不細工。

No, I take that back. It's not that bad.

いや、まあ、取り消します。それほど呪えたものではない。

No way I would put it in the same class as my Docomo-branded Panasonic-built Linux-hidden-in-there-somewhere-and-where-is-the-source? cell phone.

ボクの、リナックスがどこかに隠されていてソースは何処だ！パナソニック製ドコモ携帯の類いではない。

It feels like the iPhone on steroids.

ステロイド射たれて拡大された iPhone という感じだ。

Oh. That's what it is.

あ、そーか！？まさにそういうものだ。

Maybe I still want one, or maybe I want Sharp's NetWalker instead. If I had the budget, I'd probably want both.

まだ欲しいかも知らない。でも、シャープ社の NetWalker を先に欲しいかも分からない。予算あれば両方欲しい。

But what I really want, nobody seems to want to make.

だけど、本当に欲しいと思っているモノ、誰も作ってくれません。

I want the NetWalker with the cellphone radio and headset jack built-in.

携帯無線電話装置と、ヘッドホン・マイクの差し込み口を内在している NetWalker がほしい。

(Maybe an iPhone with a blue-tooth keyboard will do? Oh, and I'd have to buy into the developer program, too. Gotta be able to program it myself. But I want to be able to tweak the programs when I'm on the train, too.

iPhone とブルートゥースキーボートを組み合わせたらどう、かな？ただし、開発者プログラムにも有料登録しないと行けない。自分でプログラムを組むから、な。でも、電車に乗っている間プログラム弄ることができないとダメ。あかん、アカン。)

iPad? Again, I need a physical keyboard. The iPhone/iPad user interface model is too narrow for me.

アイパッドはどうでしょう？本物のキーボードはここにもいる。ボクには iPhone/iPad の利用者接触面が狭すぎる。

I found myself continually wanting to do something the UI architects haven't been able to squeeze in yet.

ずっと、そのインターフェースの設計者たちがまだ対処していない機能を使いたいと、思いつつままだった。

In the case of cursor control, the UI takes too long figuring out I want to edit, and there are places it won't give me cursor control at all.

例えば、カーソル制御の機能を使いたいと思ったら、その機能を見せてくれない処あったりして、見せてくれるところにしても、制御の道具が出るまだの反応が遅れる。

And the developer program, of course. But I haven't checked. Does the developer program provide the tools for compiling on the iPad itself?

やはり、開発者プログラムも要る。しかしまだ未確認の点ですが、 iPad 本体上にコンパイルするのは可能かな？

What I want instead of the iPad is the Macbook Air. Running both Linux and Mac OS X. (Can you really squeeze a useable Parallels install into a Macbook Air?) On a non-Intel processor. (Thank you for your non-support, Intel.) Preferably a multiprocessor ARM, although I'd take a dual G4 PPC. Or even an AMD!

iPad の代わりに欲しいのは Macbook Air かも知れない。ただし、リナックスもマック・オ・エス・テンも平行に稼働しているまま。（Parallels を本格的に、使いこなせる形、 Macbook Air に搾って導入できるでしょう？）それはインテル社以外のプロセッサーだよ。（インテルよ！非応援ありがとう！）望ましくは複合 ARM。 Dual G4 PPC でもいい。さもなければ AMD!

Sigh.

(ため息やな。夢の世界だ。）

silence is not golden

2010-04-04T08:38:00.008+09:00

Time to break the silence. Break ranks, really.

沈黙を破る時期になってきている。列を乱すことになるかも分からない。

(By my contract, I'm not supposed to talk about this stuff in public, but, when conditions become as they are, those terms becomes unconscionable.)

契約上、こういう話を一般的なところに出していないはずですが、こういう状況になって、条件が変わった。常識外れといってもいい。法外にもなってきた。

Hmm. I'd like to break the silence, but I'm not sure where to start.

さて、説明しようと思ったら何を何処から言い出していいでしょう。

When I started working as an assistant English/language teacher (ALT/AET) here four years ago, I had intended to run a regular blog talking about the experience. But I realized that, contract aside, there were moral issues about the information, too much personal information to wash out, and figuring out how to make an interesting blog that doesn't breach someone's right to their own information took more time than I could put in on it.

四年前、外国語補佐として努めることにした時、こういうブロッグで定期的にその様子を話すことも考えていたが、一つ気がついた。例えば、契約に個人情報を大切に守ることが明確に書いていなかったとしても、人のことを勝手に一般なところに喋るのは道徳にかかわるものです。学校で起きることは全部個人情報に染まっている。個人情報を言わずに、人が喜ぶような話だけを残して面白いブロッグを書くのがかなり難しい。個人情報の権利を破ることせずにブロッグすることは時間掛かるばかりです。余裕がなく諦めた。

Working in IT, I understand that sort of thing all-too-well.

元々情報技術ですから、そういうことよくわっている。わかっていないとダメです。

Anyway, I find myself, after four years in a job that I knew was a dead-end, facing a two-month contract and then a three-month chasm, with unknowns beyond that. If I were single, no big deal. If my wife and I had no children, well, it would not be easy on my pride, but it would not be an impossible situation.

さて。最初からこの仕事は行き詰まりに向かっているって言うこと知ってた。四年後、正にそうなっている。今現在の契約は二ヶ月しかない。その後は3ヶ月の深い裂け目を直面しています。その向こうに何の約束もない。もし、まだ独身だったとすると、大丈夫でしょう。たとえば、家の嫁さんとの間に子供二人ができていなかったならば、自尊心が打たれる以外は何とか免れるでしょう。不可能の状況ではなかったでしょう。

But we have two children, and if I don't get work in June, we all don't eat, and they don't go to school.

でも、子供二人います。六月までに別の仕事を手に入れないと家族は食べれない。二人の子供は学校に通えない。

The last several summers, I've made ends meet by working summer or part-time jobs, graveyard shift sorting packages for the parcel post or sorting and checking orders for a cake manufacturer, eight-plus hour shifts as a guardsman waving the red wand around at fireworks displays and roadwork sites, concerts, etc. That way I was able to stretch the already tight budget across an always unpaid August.

この四年間、夏はほとんどアリバイとに過ごして財産を繋いでいます。宅急便で深夜の仕分け、ケーキ屋で深夜の仕分けと検品、花火大会や道路工事やコンサート現場で８時間以上の番、誘導灯を振ったりして、既にきつい予算を引き延ばして、学校の仕事の無い八月の間を無事に渡ってきた。

(See, I'm not really a teacher employed by the shool board. I'm an uncertified assistant, a temporary worker, no less, employed by a staffing agency. A scab by some interpretations.)

あのね。教職員ではありません。教育委員会の下で努めていません。ただの資格のない補佐だけです。派遣社員です。人の意見によってはスト破りにすぎない存在です。

But three months is too long a stretch, and we don't know whether our company will be able to get the contract again in September.

しかし三カ月は少し延びすぎることになるでしょう。また、九月になるとうちの会社がまた契約を引き受けるかどうか分かりません。

There are laws, you see, to protect somebody or other from the evil that would occur if we were allowed to work too long for the same school district.

ご理解していただけるかな？法律があるって。誰かを守らなきゃイケない。つまり、我々外人等が長い間同じ教育委員会の下で努めることがあれば何か悪いことが起きるでしょう。

Well, this is going to be a long rant, and I want to translate it, so I'm going to stretch it across several posts.

怒鳴り散らすか。泣き喚くか。話が長引くでしょう。訳したいし。また後の投稿に続くかな。

Everybody's Beautiful in English Class

2010-02-27T12:36:00.006+09:00

There's a problem with sharing all the interesting and funny things that happen in class. It's called, "personal information". In a legal sense, I have to wash whatever I share of identifying data -- names, dates, places, and all the details that make it a smooth read. In a moral sense, I'm not the only one there, so I really don't have the right to act unilaterally with the information.

(This is the fundamental reason why gossip is wrong, even when it isn't "bad". But that's a rant for another day.)

That said, with care, I think I can share a few things.

For instance, two days ago, I joined the lead teacher for a jr. high 2nd year (8th grade, in US terms) class.

You know the age group. In the statistical mean, they have been struggling for almost two years with their hormones and, at the same time, trying to understand the adjustments as they are being helped as gently as is possible (ergo, not very) to make the transition from the walled gardens we call elementary schools to the adult world. (Run-on sentence, yes.)

Well, the subject of the lesson was, what was it? Oh, yeah. It was a poster made by a Japanese volunteer to help Cambodian children learn to read.

You see, some Cambodian children can't read the danger signs.

Or something like that. (Yes, illiteracy is part of the problem with landmines.)

And the lead teacher was trying to explain the phrase, "You see, ..."

It's easy to confuse the phrase with "... as you see, ..." [ご覧のとおり== go-ran no toori] and similar phrases. It's also easy to see it as just an intensifier. [ほら！ == Hora!]

I thought I'd try to help:

My father-in-law often says, "見てみ" [mite-mi].

(That's actually closer, I suppose, to ,"See!" or "See, here." But, really, we humans are usually kind of sloppy with interjections.)

Your father speaks Japanese?

My wife's father.

ああ。ジョエル先生の奥さんのお父さん・・・

[Joeru-sensei no okusan no otousan, ... == Joel-sensei's wife's father, ...]

ええっ？ジョエル先生、結婚してる？

[Ehh? Joeru-sensei, kekkonshiteru? == Huh? Joel-sensei is married?]

美人なの？[Bijin nano? == She's beautiful?]

Of course.

もちろんって。[Mochiron-tte. == "Of course." (He says.) ]

ポンキュウポン？ [Pon-kyuu-pon?]

If you're familiar with Japanese pseudo-onomatopoeia, I don't need to explain that. I, myself, get confused easily. But I knew what he meant. It would be similar to an American boy intoning "36-24-36", or whistling while drawing the hourglass shape in the air. I think, in fact, this particularly young man did draw the hourglass shape in the air. (From him, it was a bit unexpected.)

Pon -- rhymes with "bone" -- would be the sound a bump makes, kyuu -- rhymes with "Q" -- would (probably) be sound of the para-Chinese reading of the ideogram that means, "steep, sudden". In this case, vertical more than steep or sudden, I think.

Well, my wife (no, really) when we married, was awfully close to 36-24-36. A bit narrower at the hips than that, a bit more shouldered than busty. Something like the reality behind those idealized female superheros we used to see in (American) comic books before the manga invasion. But it's not uncommon in Japan.

She still has a good figure.

I, myself, have rebelled against those overly idealized charicatures of beauty. So I was shaking my head and chuckling a little, thinking to myself something like, "How do I help you really understand what beauty is?"

He, of course, misunderstood my reaction.

ポンキュウキュウ？[Pon-kyuu-kyuu?]

And I couldn't help laughing a little.

キュウキュウキュウ？[Kyuu-kyuu-kyuu?] ポンポンキュウ？[Pon-pon-kyuu?]

And a few other combinations, and I was having trouble not rolling on the floor. Pon-poko-pon, and visions of tanuki playing in my head. I had to do something.

Everybody's beautiful!

Misunderstood, I'm sure. I wrote it on the chalkboard, just to be sure the students got it. Things quieted down a bit and the lead teacher finished explaining the phrase, "You see."

But female figures kept coming up, of course, so I had to keep calling out, "Everybody's beautiful!"

Which is something I really wish I could get these young men and women to understand.

rice shortages

2009-08-30T08:50:00.006+09:00

Saw this old post from last September (August 30 in the States, I guess):

News on the radio this morning about how the rains have destroyed the rice harvest this year for many farmers in Japan.

I don't really listen, so I didn't catch that the problem is the mudslides, not just the water content. So I was thinking, I hope they don't just throw it away, just because it isn't going to be high grade race. We're going to need all the rice we can get this year.

Jumping to conclusions. And as it turned out, the price only went up about 10% for a few months, and now it's back down to normal.

However, I have somewhat of reason to jump, when it comes to throwing food away in Japan. Some years ago, when I lived out in the country in the middle of Hyougo Prefecture, my wife and I were out for a walk and saw a wheat field burning. We were naturally worried, but when we got close, we saw that the farmer was watching it burn, keeping the burn under control.

We asked whether we could help try to put the fire out or something, and he said, no, he had just made a mistake in planting the crop and had to clear his field. It was some sort of 麦 ("mugi" == "wheat", but probably barley), intended for making beer or some other kind of alcoholic beverage.

The mistake? The stalk was too short for the powered (mini-) harvesters he had available. (Should put a picture of one of those miniharvesters up.)

I was shocked. Aghast, really, although probably too polite to show more than disappointment. One of the few things I physically miss in Japan is wheat. There just is not enough, and, what there is, usually has most or all of the germ ground off.

Think of your favorite American brand of starch mislabeled bread.

Well, okay, only about half the bread in Japan is really that bad, but good, whole grain bread is hard to come by. What they think of when I ask for whole grain is the commercial stuff you buy in the States that is basically white bread with about 10% whole flour and cracked wheat kernels added, that usually tastes slightly like cheap vinegar.

Anyway, my Japanese at the time was not up to making the kind of request I wanted to make, and it was a bit too late, anyway. It would have been an awful burden to him to have him stop the burn in a corner of the field so I could come back and harvest a bit of it by hand. But I really was feeling mixed feelings. Even just ten pounds of fresh (unpearled) barley would have been wonderful.

What's wrong with the economy?

2009-06-07T22:35:00.002+09:00

I'll tell you what's wrong with the economy:

Too many greedy people.

And the worst greed of all is when people are making well more than they need to get by, and still insist on working 80 hour weeks.

Chronically working too hard does not display any sense of social responsibity. It's bad for your health and for your family life, too.

It's the same kind of behavior that made Microsoft and INTEL too big. And GM and AIG, too. It's not good for the company either, in the end.

If you have more than enough, be responsible. Share the work.

Fedora on an old clamshell iBook

2009-05-09T17:08:00.007+09:00

I have an old clamshell iBook. I'm editing this post with it, in fact. Firefox 3.5 beta 4 on Fedora 10.93. (Fedora 10.93 is what Fedora 11 release candidate is currently called.)

Startup is slow. No doubt about that. But once things are running, it's quite useable.

I am currently triple-booting it, with Mac OS 9, Mac OS 10, and Fedora. Not in VMs, of course, I have to re-boot to switch, and all that. Here's how I did it:

First, dual-booting Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X on these old Macs is not really difficult at all. You just need installable media.

The last officially installable version of Mac OS 10 that runs on these old clamshells is 10.2, Jaguar. I'm not going to point anyone in the direction of the tools that help run later versions. (Was it post-facto or X-post-facto?) I've never gone there, myself, although, if Apple drops PPC support in 10.6, I may do so. (No love for INTEL from me.)

I don't want to get on-line with Safari 1 or Firefox 2, and I've wanted to keep this clamshell in use for my kids, so I've been trying to get Fedora running on it for a while. But they want to play Bugdom and Nanosaur, and I have some dev I think I may want to get back to that requires old systems, so I want to triple-boot it.

About a year ago, I bought a 160G disk and installed it. (Directions can be found elsewhere on the web, I don't have time to put all the pretty pictures I took up.) Only the first 120G was visible to Mac OS 9, and trying to format beyond that with Mac OS 10 prevented Mac OS 9 from booting. So, I needed a machine with a battery that worked anyway, so I bought an iBook G4 at the end of summer and installed that 160G hard disk on the G4. Runs very nice, have it triple booting Mac OS 10, Fedora, and openBSD. Mac OS 9 runs via classic on it, of course.

The iBook G4 was fairly straightforward. This iBook has not been.

First, Fedora would not install with the 160G drive. gparted would refuse to make a 1M partition and the installer would refuse to install the boot stuff in anything bigger than 1M. (More on that further down.) This was not the case with the iBook G4, only with the iBook G3.

First and a half. You must have more than 192M of RAM to boot Fedora. Live Ubuntu was painfully slow, although it did actually boot. An old live Fedora also was painfully slow, but did boot. Fedora 8, 9, and 10 would not boot. That's okay. You want to max the RAM anyway. Don't get the old 66 MHz RAMs, they're way too expensive. 100MHz RAM works just fine in most cases, and it's way cheaper.

And get 512M. Apple doesn't guarantee it, but it usually works, and you really want all the RAM you can get.

Second, Fedora walks on the Mac OS 9 drivers every way I've been able to install. That means that when you select the Mac OS 9 partition to boot from, Mac OS 9 won't boot. Classic will run, in Mac OS X 10.2, but Mac OS 9 won't.

That means you need to make sure you can boot up Mac OS 9 from something else, and the only other thing available on the old pre-firewire clamshell iBooks is the CD drive. (No booting from USB on these.) Catch 22 if your Mac OS 9 install CD is 9.1 and you update to 9.2.

If you do update to Mac OS 9 9.2, copy the Mac OS 9 partition off to a USB drive and burn a bootable CD ROM with that. (CD-R/W probably will not work.) And don't complain to me if it doesn't work, I haven't tried it here, I'm just speaking from theory. (Yes, I should try it. But I wouldn't have time to post this if I did.)

Third, well, it takes a long time. Even if you have installed a DVD drive in the machine, you probably want to use the netinstall CD. Otherwise, you'll be waiting for the install to finish, and then you'll be waiting forever for the first update to finish. Think in terms of more than 12 hours after you select the packages and start the downloads.

Fourth, well, if you don't have any nostalgia (or other reason to use the old systems), Fedora by itself was quite straightforward. Except for the 120G limit on the hard disk size. (I tried it last summer when I thought I had some extra time.)

So. Procedure:

HD -- 30G or greater. (The G4 had a 30G hard disk in it, so I used that.) Get a USB enclosure for the drive that you'll be removing.

RAM, as I said, more than 256M, recommend 512M.

Mouse. You want a mouse with at least two buttons. I promise you.

Backup your data, of course.

Partitions: 512M is probably enough for Mac OS 9, but you'll want more for the old apps that must be the reason you're wanting to multi-boot it. I used 1.5G, and that leaves enough room for the Mac OS 9 virtual memory space (576M).

I suppose you can put Mac OS 10 and Mac OS 9 on the same partition, but my set of superstitions suggests against it.

For Mac OS 10, you probably want about 9G or more to boot from, with another 1.2G for swap. That makes 10G if you leave the swap on the boot drive.

I used 9G for boot and 1.5G for swap. There are other places you can read up on moving the swap space off the boot partition for Mac OS 10, so I'll set that topic aside, here. Except for one point: drive label issues are much simpler on the clamshell iBooks. Plus side of a minus point, there.

(I have used Mac OS X 10.2 on a 5.6G hard disk, and it's okay, but I was continually watching the freespace and moving stuff off the main drive on that setup. And I only had 192M RAM in it at the time, so I wasn't losing a lot to swap space. I did move swap space off the boot partition for Mac OS X, just to force myself to keep room for the swap space.)

(Oh. The theoretical 8G limit on old machines. That does not cover the clamshell iBooks, even though some people within Apple, even, have been confused on this point. I have the README files to prove it, along with the booting system. 'kay?)

(Hmm. That 8G boot partition limit on the biege G3 desktops. Put Mac OS X in the first partition, cut it to about 7.5G, and you're golden. Mac OS 8 or 9 will boot above the 8G limit, so put that in its own partition, up above the Mac OS 10 partition. At least, that's the way I remember it. But that's got nothing to do with the iBook.)

The order of the partitions doesn't seem to matter on the iBook. Fedora moves things around, by the way.

You'll want one more partition, about 500M, for moving things between Fedora and Mac OS.

That makes four partitions so far. On the iBook, the partition count is important. You don't want more than 7 partitions total. (Or was it 8?) I like to cut lots of partitions, to keep things separate, but I had to give that habit up for this install. Sort of.

Ergg. Okay, no more than 16 partitions, but the drivers (and some other low-level stuff) are loaded in the first 8 partitions in the old Macs. The first partition you cut will actually be partition 9. So, the number of partitions we are cutting here must be limited to 8.

The partitioning software for Linux will allow you to cut more than that, but then Mac OS 9 refuses to boot and there is no way I could find to get around that.

Leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned, for Fedora to do its stuff with.

Install Mac OS 9. Then install Mac OS X. Or vice-versa. Make sure both are booting.

Get your install media for Fedora ready. (Again, I recommend netinstall. It seems simpler that way. If you're going to do this to a lot of iBooks, set up a private mirror instead of trying to install from the 7 CDs in the current install set.) It takes about a half hour or so at 1M ADSL transfer rates.

I'll defer to the Fedora wiki for how to get the install media.

Insert the netinstall CD, (re-)boot, hold down the C key. Fedora walks you through the several selections, pay attention.

Once you are into the graphical installer, you should use the mouse and its buttons instead of the trackpad and its buttons.

The trackpad driver is set up to take taps on the trackpad as mouseclicks (gag), and it's way too sensitive. Far and away too sensitive. If you don't use the mouse, you'll find yourself missing important setup dialogs because the drivers thought you clicked twice. You don't want that. (I really should write that up on bugzilla, but, you know my excuses about time at this point.)

Now, when it comes time to set up the Linux partitions, select the option to let the installer use the un-allocated space and automatically set up the partitions. But,
also select the option to check the partitions it sets up.

Why? It needs to set up two (count 'em 2) boot partitions for Fedora. (Why!?!?!?!?!? I wish I had time to look at the code on that.)

You were wondering why I was worried about the number of partitions? Heh.

Okay, it needs to cut one very small HFS partition to relay the boot from the usual (Open Firmware) Mac boot procedure from the PPC days. (openBSD allows you to do that on a partition you're booting Mac OS 9 from, but they are using a different technique.) As I mentioned above, that's a 1M partition. It's also marked appleboot or something. Let Fedora's installer handle that.

It needs to cut one partition for /boot in the Fedora file system, to handle the actual Linux boot processes. Currently, 200M is sufficient, but, again, you can let the installer take care of that. The next partition can be cut as an LVM partition, and swap space and other stuff (including the root partition) allocated in there.

So, seven Mac OS visible partitions minimum:

Mac OS 9,
Mac OS X,
Mac OS X swap,
HFS shared partition,
appleboot boot relay partition,
/boot partition,
LVM

and that leaves one more possible partition before Mac OS 9 refuses to boot. I don't remember, actually, if number 16 was actually useable, and I'm not interested in going back to check. So keep it at seven Mac OS visible partitions.

Within the LVM partition, of course, if your hard disk is big enough, you can divide the partitions up as you want. With the 30G drive, I felt it was wiser to just let everything fall into the 14G or so root partition. With 60G, I'd have separated out /etc, /var, /tmp, /home, etc., but I only had 30G. No big deal for what this machine will be used for.

I might, later, dedicate this machine to be a server. If so, I'll load openBSD and no X11, I think. And I'll partition it properly.

The install takes, as I said, a long time. Because the CPU is relatively slow, all the dependency checks take about two to three hours, but once you've selected the packages to install and told it to go, you don't need to worry about that. Just start it in the evening, and come back to it the next evening.

Make sure your family won't be tripping over the ethernet cables. Last summer, I got the install started Saturday night, went to church Sunday morning, and came back in the afternoon to find that someone had knocked the ethernet cable loose. (Broken connector, I'm to poor to fix it.) And the install had timed out and there was no way to recover. Oh, well.

Choosing your packages -- last year, there were still a lot of packages that still didn't run on PPC. Open Java was still not quite there, yet, especially for PPC. Most of the packages run okay, although you'll wonder sometimes when initialization takes a long time, and the splash screen doesn't show up until about a minute after you selected the app. But the responsiveness, once the app starts, is not bad. And, once the first run sets up the initial states, the next startup is quite a bit faster.

Yes, openoffice works reasonably well, too. So do the GIMP and inkscape. (wow!)

One more thing. If mono disgusts you as it does me, you'll want to go back and uninstall the mono packages. Nothing really necessary there anyway.

Finally, after Fedora is installed and running, you need to do one more thing to re-enable booting from Mac OS 9. Get your Mac OS 9 install (or bootable) CD and boot it. (Hold down the C key after the chime, again.) You'll notice that the hard disk is not mounted by the install CD. Run the hard disk setup application in the utilities folder.

You'll see that it says the hard disk is unrecognizable. Select it and click the format button. (eek!)

Well, yeah, be careful here. If you don't click more things than need to be clicked, it will take you to the dialog that allows you to set up partitions. There is an "Options" button, click that. (I'm reciting this from memory, I should check it, but I'm running out of time.) There should be either a dialog or menu selections at this point that allow you to refresh or install the drivers. Do that.

Now cancel the format dialog.

(Of course, cancel the format dialog. I mean, it took you two days to get this far, you don't want to go through that again for no reason.)

Quit the hard drive setup utility and re-boot.

Hold the option key down to get the boot volume selection screen. The Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X partitions are visible with the names you gave them when you formatted them. (Unnamed 1 and Unnamed 2? Heh.) They also have icons which help tell them apart. You can now select the partition to boot and away you go.

One little niggle remains. You can use the Mac OS boot select dialogs to change away from defaulting to Fedora. You can't go back, though.

Except, the next time you update Fedora, it will re-select Fedora for you.

Heh. Fun times.

(Now, I'll see if I can get my kids to play with Fedora on this machine instead of playing Marble Blast on the machines I need to work on.)

[update: pictures from the preparation stage on youtube.]

sub addresses to help manage junk e-mail

2009-04-27T17:31:00.002+09:00

RFC 5233 came up in a thread at /. today.

Came up in another thread just a few days ago, but I can't seem to find it right now. I'd link to that thread if I could, because it was the thread that made me aware of the RFC. Oh, well.

Anyway, I posted this in today's thread, and I don't want to lose track of it, because I want to start setting my filters up this way.

It won't be perfect, but it will surely help find false positives among the junk e-mail.

This looks a bit complex, but you don't have to do it all at once.

Until the Internet has a bit better standards for e-mail, and until the ISPs quit being miserly with domain names, RFC 5233 addresses can help a lot, if used wisely.

RFC 5233 describes a way to implement sub addresses for your primary e-mail addresses. Simply put, you hang a "+" on your basic address, and then you tag some string on it after that.

Let's start with an example basic address:

user@isp.example

(Think of exampleisp.com or exampleisp.org or exampleisp.jp or some such, but the example top level domain is reserved for, hey! examples, where the example 2nd level domains are not.)

A sub address could look like this:

user+subaddress@isp.example (or, something like user+subaddress@exampleisp.com)

Another kind of sub address could look like this:

user#boxnumber@isp.example

If your mail provider supports these, they allow you to make the sub-addresses up as you want, and route your mail to you via the base part. That lets you filter the "to" address by the sub-address.

Okay. Now you know what they are. What else should you know about them? Many ISPs do not yet implement them which may be a problem. Google mail does, which helps a lot.

Obviously, if the spammers can steal your user@isp.example address, they can steal your user+subaddress@isp.example address as well. How does this help?

How do use these RFC 5233 addresses wisely?

First, assume that your base address will soon be harvested, if it isn't already. Thus, your base address of user@isp.example is essentially an alias for user+spam@isp.example . Pre-filter it that way.

Second, set up a suffix for bulk purposes, such as user+bulknnnnn@isp.example . "bulk" is okay, but you might prefer something a little more original to yourself, like "klub" (mix it up), or "hanbai" (Japanese for "sales"). The serial number could also come before, nnnnnbulk, or in the middle, like bunnnnnlk, and you might want to use pseudo-random serial numbers instead of just cycling through from bu00000lk to bu99999lk.

Hmm. bu23645lk would be harder to filter than bulk23645 with the simple non-RE filters that are most common. Okay, for this, let's stick with the sequence number after the tag.

Now you can give "bulk" sub-addresses out when you sign up for stuff on-line, instead of your "important" addresses. Write the made-up address down. Then, when you open up your MUA (your mail browser), you can set up a filter to grab that address and filter it to a filter for that kind of whatever it was to be filtered to. The first few mails you get from them, you find out what domains to expect.

If you start getting unrequested advertisements at that address, you can contact them and tell them they're somehow leaking their users' addresses, or you can change your filter to dump all mail to that address in Round File Q. Or you can add the sender address to the filter so that only legitimate senders for that address go to that folder. And then you can add another filter that dumps any mail to that address that comes from any other sender to the SPAM dump for consideration when you have the time, and/or for automatic deletion.

You can set up similar sub-address suffixes for mail lists. For example, user+listnnnnn@isp.example or user+listname@isp@example .

Then you can do the same thing for friends, family, church, school, clubs, etc. Maybe have filters for user+churchnnnnn@isp.example, user+schoolnnnnn@isp.example, and so on. For family and friends, maybe something user+frankl@isp.example for Frank Lemmon.

(You might expect spammers to try things like automatically cycling through user+joe, user+mary, user+john, etc., so you may want a little more than that. Or, you might adjust the address for joe, mary, and john when the spammers start doing that.)

And if Suzanne Roberts's computer suddenly gets infected with something, and you start getting spam for user+suzier@isp.example, you write her and urge her (yet again) to switch from MSWindowsX 10.77 to Ubuntu 12 or Fedora 15 or openbsd 6 or whatever. Tell her you'll send her a new address once she has either re-installed and MSWindows with service pack 109 or whatever the latest is, or moved to a reasonable OS. And warn her that, until she does, you might lose mail from her in the deluge.

Okay, while she is recovering from that, you have set up additional filters on the sender address, so that the spammers have to at least spoof her address as the sender to get into her folder, and that might actually be enough, but at least she'll have a little of the fear of nature in her, and maybe she'll start being sensible and start looking at alternatives to MSLeviathan.

In case you're curious, this is what private white listing works like. It can be controlled, because you have an idea who and where mail should be coming from, by the receiver address it is sent to. Two or three sets of filters for each address or set of addresses, one that white-lists known senders, one that diverts unknown senders to a "probably-junk" folder, and maybe one that (temporarily or permanently) black-holes known offender senders who have latched onto that group of suffixes.

Finally, you have a set of doorbell or knock addresses that you give out at business meetings and other parties: bellnnnnn@isp.example . You enable filters for the one you gave out last night, then, after a week or a month, you disable them again. Or, if the spam to that address is not too bad, you just leave it enabled and keep using it.

When you get legitimate mail at that address, you reply and tell them the real address they should send stuff for you at.

Of course, with a little time, you can actually set up a domain of your own for cheap with a little help from a place like google.com and a place like dyndns.org. Google will run your mail server for you if you have a web server and a domain name pointed to it.

Of course, there's that thing about letting Google spool your mail, but it is possible. Read the terms of use and make sure that's okay for the kind of mail you expect first.

If you understand the way to use sub-addresses, the way to use your own private domain name should be fairly clear. And it should be fairly clear why that's going to work better than sub-addresses.

daydreams

2009-04-09T16:44:00.002+09:00

Okay, so I'm having trouble getting out of the daydream mode. I have to go back to work tomorrow, and I have accomplished none of the projects I had lined up for myself over the break -- drupal, finishing my shiftJIS ctype project, getting my BIF dialect of figFORTH moved to C so I can port it to whatever I use, fixing RanBunHyou and extending it for scrambles, etc.

I did almost get Drupal up on my portable. And I sort of got a start on rebooting the shiftJIS ctype project.

Too many things I want to do.

So, I'm going to list the things I daydream about here and see if that helps me get a better grip on my prioities.

So --

First big dream. Buy Apple. (Where do I come up with a cool 60 billion or so?)

Bring back PowerPC Macs, starting with a dual-G4 Mac Mini. (Let's see just how much "better" Intel's core really is.)
Start a line of ARM Macs, not just iPhone and iPods, but netbooks and ARM Minis.
Add one more ethernet port to all Mac Minis.
Start a line of Macs for tinkerers, cheap, slots for additional ports, breadboard cards.
Start a line of Mac Word Processors, essentially netbooks with built-in thermal or light-weight ink-jet printers.
Etc.

Second big dream. Take over Microsfot. Microsoft, I mean.

Freeze all current products, except for security and other serious bug fixes.
Split it down the product lines. (Some guy who calls himself joudanzuki blogged about this.) Make the APIs all open and free.
Fund the Wine project and a couple of others, and add paid engineers.
Start a new OS product, MSWindows Mars, based on BSD code and Wine, under whatever license Wine is under for the MSWindows interface layers, and keeping the BSD license(s) for the BSD infrastructure. But ACLs (Access Control Lists) will be an add-on. The security model will be based on the Unix model.
Make a real mail system somewhat compatible with Outspook, I mean, Outlook, but designing out the intentional holes. Put the thing under a true open source license, preferably GPL, but at least as open/free as Apple's APL v. 2.
Etc.

Third big dream. (My real dream.)

Start an open source computer company to compete with Apple and Microsoft.

Build and sell systems with free/open hardware design, with drivers licensed under a two-clause BSD-class license so they can be used in either Linux or BSD OSses. Netbooks, home and small office NAS/routers/servers using low power processors (most likely not Intel).

Once that company is up and running, start a new OS project that would borrow significantly from Unix.

The run time would explicitly separate the program flow stack from the parameter stack, and explicitly provide a hierarchical local address space access mechanism (with the means to close it off).
Users in said OS would be effectively virtual systems of their own, running their web, mail, and other external resource browsers as separate (sub-)users not privileged enough to access the primary user's data space or even other browser's data space.
As a benefit of the user model, secure special-purpose browsers would be implemented to access banks and share credit information with stores, etc.
Said OS would need a CPU that would cache the stacks efficiently and efficiently implement the address space separation in hardware, so I'd need to design a family of processors optimized to that kind of run-time.
I'd need to build a language back-end that would take advantage of the OS, run-time, and CPU.
And then build various front-end languages, post-fix, in-fix, and pre-fix. (Yeah, I like FORTH and C.)
Etc.

And while I was balancing those two projects, current information encoding schemes are really messy. That's okay, but the URIs and other stuff that computers process need an encoding that is less ambiguous. So,

Design a new standard for information encoding that would have an international encoding and international display/parsing context for use in things like URIs, and include most of the current encodings shifted, so that you could work with just about any language in its own context and not fight the production rules of all the other languages.
It would also include a binary encoding, so that burying binary data would be less of a problem.
And it would include separate tag characters so that parsing tags would not be such a headache.
Extensible IP type addresses would also be defined in the encoding, although I suppose it's too late to replace IPv4 and IPv6 with extensible IP addressing. High-bit extension could be used, although it would require re-possessing most of the current IP addresses. Another possibility might be to start appending the internal, NATted addresses to the router address to get longer addresses, although that would require some standards beyond NAT to allow nested addresses to be physically independent of the router.
Something like ASN.1 would be built into the encoding, as well.

And while that's eating my lunch and taking more time than a guy my age can manage out of every day, I'd set up a personal data service that would provide e-mail and web sites with a few more guardrails than we presently have. Specifically,

Customers would have their own domains, and the personal data server would provide dynamic DNS mapping, so that the customers could even run their own domains on their own servers if they chose to do so.
Customers would by default be routed IPv6, although I would prefer to use an extensible system, now that the processing resources are available to support an extensible numeric (index) addressing scheme.
A mail system that would take advantage of the customers' private domains, to allow them to define their own mail addresses as they choose. This would help with spam problems, because the customer could even make up new addresses on the spot for new contacts, then go home and register filters for those addresses, and know who is trying to do what with his or her personal information.
An on-server mail viewing system that assumes that the user wants to sort most of the mail before looking at it, and lets the user sort based on header and envelope contents, setting up persistent sorting rules that would, for instance, send all posts with variants of "viagra" and the like in the subject or sender headers to a folder labeled "fraudulent medical ads", and so forth: select the text, right-click for a list of context elements to trigger on, left click to commit the rule, and the sorting rule remains in effect until the user edits it. And the destination folders have rules like, hold one week and then dump, or dump oldest first when the folder hits a limit on size or number of messages. (Google mail does get close to this kind of thing, but, yet, not so close after all.)
Web sites are where I get lost, but the point here is to refrain from restricting the knowledgeable customer, but not expose the less knowledgeable customer to the dangers of letting machines be their proxies. Domain management for customers hosting their own, web hosting for customers who want that, and bulletin boards and blogs for customers who want that. Google already does this one, pretty well, given the technology that's available to them.

Looking back on that, Apple and Microsoft are responsible for their own problems. So I really don't benefit from daydreaming about fixing their problems.

The web services companies, if the technology were available, Google, Yahoo, etc. would be able to do the things I'd like to do. The only issue is whether we can get the ISPs to quit trying to hold domain names and IP addresses for ransom, but I think competition would eventually take care of that.

The biggest problems are

that the underlying information encoding is too cluttered by kludges to efficiently process in the way we need to get this kind of stuff to work,
that the run-times of the various OSses are too cluttered by kludges and cruft from technologies that lead in other directions,
that the programming languages we have are at once too inflexible in expression and too loose in semantics to support the kind of systems I'm trying to describe here.
I'm not sure whether the current crop of CPUs can efficiently run this kind of system. I'm pretty sure the Intel CPUs have too much cruft, and not enough memory support for efficiently managing memory. Most of the other CPUs are oriented towards the limited execution model that the 8086 supported too efficiently, too, as a result of having to compete in a market where the 8086 was seen as the leader.

Hmm. Do I see anything in the above that would help me weed out daydreams I can't or shouldn't reach for, but leave me something to work on?

Can't say that I do.

value vs. price

2009-04-09T07:55:00.000+09:00

The news on the radio this morning seems to be about a big data spill from Mitsubishi-UFJ or whatever's investment. (I'm thinking, I'm glad we don't bank there, then I remember, ...)

I was reading a lot yesterday, cleaning up old stuff, scanning some newspaper articles for possible use in classes, and I notice a theme -- the war on drugs, the war on terror, it's all driven by a disparity in price and value.

Most private data is of perceived value precisely because people protect it. The rest is only of value to the people who protect it. Well, if I take you down that path, you'll scream "Transcendental!" and run away.

Hmm.

Let's see. Sure, spam is a problem in your mailbox. It clogs the internet and wastes a lot of energy and a lot of user and administration time. It draws people into wasting their money and, in many cases, putting themselves at risk.

It took several years to train myself to recognize and delete the bad-ads, and I don't want to claim that I don't regret the time I wasted on that. But the primary problem was/is that I, like most people, am still a little susceptible to the lure of the quick fix.

Yeah, it's easy to get lost in a daydream about what I'd do if I won the lottery. But I'm getting pretty good at reminding myself that I just don't play the lottery, and you don't win if you don't play. Then I can ask myself what I really want to do, what is it that is distracting me from whatever job is in front of me?

After a little bit of thinking, I remember that the primary things I want to do, I have the means.

I don't need to win a lottery and start a company that sells just machines pre-loaded with a Linux or BSD class OS, even though it would be nice to have more such companies in the world. It would be fun, but it isn't the project I need to be working on.

Yeah, I'd like to have an ARM Kurobako to load openBSD on and run as my home server, and free up the Mac Mini for my kids to play with. But, again, my kids don't need to think they are free to load any web page that looks interesting, and I have another project or three that need my attention first. When/if I really need to get Drupal running on my home server (and therefore need to separate it from the family Mac), the Lord will help me get an appropriate server.

It's basically the same with drugs, pornography, private data, etc. Sure, I'm not invincible, but if I get uptight and do unreasonable things to prevent others from doing whatever they are doing, that raises the perceived value of whatever it is they are doing in their minds.

Like the kid in class who insists on disrupting. The more you try to prevent him from doing so, the more attention you're giving him, and the more he thinks that, even though your words say it's wrong, what he is doing is in some hidden sense "right".

What is the reason for the door lock on your car. Is it to prevent theft?

No.

It is to declare that the car is not public property.

If the society in which you and your car exist do not recognize private property (think, slums), the lock does no good. Period.

The real thing that protects your car is that its perceived value is lower than the hot car down the street. Well, the perceived value, less the trouble the potential thief has to go to.

So-called "speed bumps" really are useful, when used correctly.

So, what does this have to do with private data?

Maybe it has a bit to do with one reason why I wouldn't really want to win the lottery, even if I did play it.

The real key to security is to refrain from having things worth the trouble of taking.

Drive used cars, carry a used notebook PC.

Sure, use a password to keep the speed bump up, but don't put important information on the PC you carry around. (Leave it in the office, where it belongs, really.)

Don't use the internet for financial transactions, unless you have an account you can afford to lose money from every now and then.

(Yeah, one of the projects I have on a back burner somewhere is a dedicated internet terminal that could be safely used for on-line transactions, if the stores and banks would cooperate, but even that is relative. It would be more secure than what we currently have, but not unbreakable. You still would not want to regularly access your retirement fund with it.)

drupal on apple

2009-04-07T09:02:00.000+09:00

I was going to install drupal and play with it, see whether it would save me time and otherwise help on my personal website.

Yeah, right. Maybe on a current system, 10.4 or 10.5. I have reasons for trying to install drupal on an iBook running Mac OS 10.3, but, right now, rather than explain to the world why, I want to record what I did and where I ran out of time. (This is from memory, I'm probably forgetting something.)

Drupal can theoretically run on the stock apache+php on 10.3. PostGreSQL seems to run fine, so I should be able to run basic drupal functions.

But there were some critical security issues with both php and apache between the latest updates available from Apple for 10.3 and the latest versions of both php and apache.

Well, the notebook is not a production server, and is generally behind a firewall not configured to show it to the web, so I really don't need to be that concerned about security. (Oh, yeah?) But, I'm installing stuff anyway, and I've become used to the idea in the open source world that there are often less bumps if you go ahead and use the latest versions applicable.

So, I tried installing apache 1.3.41 over the system version. I thought about parallel installs, the way I do with perl, but I looked at all the tweaks I'd have to do to php, and balked.

So, after backing up /usr/libexec, I downloaded apache 1.3.41 from apache.org, unpacked it in a local build directory, read the READMEs and the INSTALLs,

cd ${my local build directory}
gnutar czvf libexec_httpd_old.tgz /usr/libexec/httpd
cd apache_1.3.41
./configure [bunch of arcane parameters that weren't what I wanted]
make
sudo make install

and mod_rewrite bit me. Could not get a valid copy of the re-compiled mod_rewrite to install to /usr/libexec/httpd. More reading, and I discovered that, for some modules, the make file seems to want you to say,

--enable-module=mod_xyz.c --enable-shared=xyz

That effectively doubles what was already a lot of typing arcane parameters anyway.

Deep sigh.

Next place I got hung up was mod_hfs_apple. It is compiled outside the apache source tree, so I had to figure out how. Late last night, with my mind buzzed by lack of sleep, I tried the obvious thing. (Well it was obvious last night, after re-discovering where Apple puts the source for Darwin, not so obvious yesterday afternoon.)

I downloaded the apache_mod_hfs_apple-5 tarball from Apple's darwinsource for Mac OS 10.4.11 archives, unpacked it in the local build directory and, after reading more and just trying configures and makes in various places, I downloaded apache from Apple's archives, as well. They have apache 1.3.41 in the archive directory for Mac OS 10.4.11, as well as in the latest directory for 10.5, and it is buried in a directory containing some (but not all) of their customization work. For some reason, I got the one from 10.5.6. (Late at night, you see.) I'm not sure whether that caused me the problems that have me stumped right now.

cd ${my local build directory}
gnutar xzvf ${my downloads for 10.5}/apache1-697.tar.gz
cd apache1-697
ls

hmm. There is apache_1.3.41.tar.gz sitting there. Okay,

gnutar xzvf apache_1.3.41.tar.gz
cd apache_1.3.41

and I looked around for a few minutes.

./configure [tons of arcane parameters]
make
sudo make install

and, of course, it's not quite there.

cd ..
make
sudo make install

and now I see something that raises my eyebrows: apxs-1.3?

After nosing around the net, I decided to just go into /usr/sbin and

ln apxs apxs-1.3

No, this was not last night, it was this morning. My mind is not as clear. After more fussing around with make files and such,

cd ${my local build directory}/apache1-697/apache_1.3.41
./configure \
--with-perl=/usr/local/bin/perl \
--server-uid=70 --server-gid=70 --with-port=80
--disable-shared=vhost_alias --disable-shared=env \
--enable-module=log_config --enable-shared=log_config \
--enable-module=log_forensic --enable-shared=log_forensic \
--disable-shared=mime_magic \
--enable-module=mime --enable-shared=mime \
--enable-module=negotiation --enable-shared=negotiation \
--disable-shared=status --disable-shared=info \
--enable-module=include --enable-shared=include \
--enable-module=autoindex --enable-shared=autoindex \
--enable-module=dir --enable-shared=dir \
--enable-module=cgi --enable-shared=cgi \
--enable-module=asis --enable-shared=asis \
--enable-module=imap --enable-shared=imap \
--enable-module=actions --enable-shared=actions \
--disable-shared=speling \
--enable-module=userdir --enable-shared=userdir \
--enable-module=alias --enable-shared=alias \
--enable-module=rewrite --enable-shared=rewrite \
--enable-module=access --enable-shared=access \
--enable-module=auth --enable-shared=auth \
--disable-shared=auth_anon --disable-shared=auth_dbm \
--disable-shared=digest --disable-shared=proxy \
--disable-shared=cern_meta --disable-shared=expires \
--disable-shared=headers --disable-shared=usertrack \
--disable-shared=unique_id \
--enable-module=so \
--enable-shared=setenvif \
--add-module=/local/build/apache_mod_hfs_apple-5/mod_hfs_apple.c \
--enable-shared=hfs_apple
make
sudo make install
sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl start

And no go. Now it's hung up on mod_rendezvous_apple. So I go looking around for a more recent apache_mod_rendezous_apple on darwinsource. Nope. Download mod_bonjour_9 from the Mac OS 10.5 archives and try compiling. Lots and lots of errors.

Download apache_mod_rendezvous_apple-8 from the Mac OS 10.3 archives. Just a few link errors, and I might have a hope of actually finding a way to clear them. But I have other things I wanted to do today. I don't really need mod_rendezvous, I think. So I disable mod_rendezvous in httpd.conf and go back:

cd ${my local build directory}/apache1-697/apache_1.3.41
./configure [the list above]
make
sudo make install
sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl start

And apache tells me it started successfully. I suppose I could have used the apachectl test command. Anyway,

sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl stop
cd ..
make
sudo make install
sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl start
sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl stop

And that is how I got apache 1.3.41 on this iBook running Mac OS X 10.3.9. I think it will serve for my development work, but I'll tell you. This is one of the huge reasons I want to leave Mac OS behind and switch to Fedora full time.

The reasons I don't switch now?

I need some time to read up on loading the binary blob to the wireless card. --Bleaugh-- Stupid hardware companies that still believe in security through obscurity.

Trackpad. I need to figure out how to unset some "advanced" behavior for the trackpad and find all those notes that I can't find any more on setting up right-click emulation.

ClarisWorks/AppleWorks. I'm using draw documents with embedded spreadsheets (with randomized lists), and, last time I looked, iWork is not quite there yet.

MSOffice? Are you kidding? Microsoft has no idea how to do this stuff. They just don't know how to get out of the end-user's way any more.

One of these days, I hope to be able to figure out how to load java extensions to openoffice, and maybe then, but openoffice basically inherits the clumsy interface from MSOffice. (Quoth Bill Gates: "Let us help you do things the MS-OUR-WAY!")

I suppose, if teaching English paid enough to squeeze JPY 200,000 out of a year's wages, I'd go for a new Intel macbook and appropriate software, or even the macair or whatever that is. (A light-weight portable would ease some of the stress on my back quite a bit.) Maybe. I prefer AMD or other non-Intel on principle, if I have to put up with x86.

Or, I could spring $300 for a family pack of Mac OS X 10.4 original install CDs from some dubious internet company, and keep using AppleWorks. Or I could get new dictionary software and finish re-writing ranbunhyou to run on Mac OS X and get Mac OS X 10.5 on this iBook for a bit less. Or something.

I have something else in my queue now. Hopefully I'll get back to Drupal later.

A Parable of Drive-in Banks and Cars

2009-04-01T21:23:00.000+09:00

Well, okay, this isn't really a parable. Parables come from the real world, and this analogy comes from an alternate universe.

In this world, there is one major automobile manufacturer. It sells more than 80% of all cars. It also sets a bunch of implicit standards relative to the way cars are built and used. For instance, all cars have a driver's-side window at a specific height, of a specific size and shape, to match drive-in service facilities, and all drive-in service facilities are built to match the standard driver's-side window.

Moreover, all drive-in service personnel are trained, and required by law, to only serve windows of the standard height.

The reasons for this standard are said to be safety and efficiency, but there is one other reason that over-rides the rest. The window also has a special encoded certificate in it that identifies the person who is authorized to drive the car. This certificate, of course, is hidden, so that the casual thief won't have an easy time of copying it.

The certificate was originally intended only for banks and other financial institutions, but they proved so convenient that even the fast-food industry has taken to using them. They weren't supposed to be trained to read them, but you know how it is with secrets.

Besides, it provides another revenue stream for the banks, to handle the money for other drive-in services automatically. It's considered a win-win situation.

This works for a little while, because the "bad guys" go along with it for the most part. They knew that they could get away with copying only a few certificates and using them only occasionally. The banks and other companies are insured, so the customers don't lose money, and if the bad guys don't steal too much, nobody gets overly concerned.

But, just like in this world, not all countries are created equal in our alternate universe. And there are some countries that, because of war, or graft, or by tradition, or other reasons, have a large number of people who have no prospects of finding work, and very little access to the charity hand-outs.

These people have grown up without the traditions that would help them plan ahead and not steal too much. So, now, suddenly, certificates are being copied all over the place, and the insurers are losing so much money that the economy is threatened.

Okay, it's not a really great analogy. Don't try to push it too far.

winning the war against the spammers

2008-11-29T18:23:00.000+09:00

As I write this, the volume of spam in my e-mail accounts has dropped drastically. A couple of ISPs have cut certain of their customers' access to the 'net.

Colocation is supposed to be pretty neutral, but when your customers are sending commands to 'botnets from serveres you are colocating for them, you eventually know what's going on, and your contract does allow you to quit co-locating for them, and even turn their servers over to the police. And if you don't take action, that makes you an accessory to the crimes, so the ISPs that supply your connection are within their rights to cut you off.

So, two levels up, but the co-locators were cut off. Without the command centers, the 'bots don't know what to send to whom, and the volume of spam drops. Until the bad guys find another patsy to host their command centers. Only, this time, they'll find legitimate fronts, spread their command centers out, and so forth.

Junk e-mail is kind of like drugs. The only way we'll win the war against drugs is to quit buying them, quit using them. That means the war is won or lost, one person at a time.

The only way to win the war against junk e-mail is to refrain from doing business with them:

(1) Refrain from sending them e-mail (and thus confirmation that you are reading their illicit advertizing channel).

(2) Refrain from clicking the "Don't send me any more!" booby-trap buttons. (Yeah, right, we won't send you any more! hyuck, hyuck.)

(3) Refrain from clicking on the link to the "hot pictures". (Look at the url blank in your browser next time. See that code on the end? They look that code up in their database, and they know what address the mail was sent to. That's your address, you see?)

(4) Don't even look at the mail if the sender and the subject are obviously spam. (Forget sender notification. IFRAME leaks, anyone? Besides, if you don't look, you won't be tempted to buy, or even to look some more.)

(5) Oh. And never, never send them money or your credit card number or bank account information, etc. Don't send them anything. Not if they promise your next night of love-making will be more fulfilling. Not even if they promise that they have lots of money to give you for reason X, Y, or Z. This is organized crime you are dealing with.

You can win the war for yourself, and then you can encourage your friends to win the war for themselves.

I know that what I am proposing may be easier said than done. Maybe you aren't susceptible to letters that start out, "Dear sir or madaam. I am your long lost friend/relative/employer's ex-husband's cat's manicurist/prince-of-some-vaguely-familiar-sounding-country and I have lots of money from our mutual friend/relative/veterinarian/politician/whatever that is legitimately mine, but I can't get at it because of the weather/wars/economy/fleas on my dog and I need your help."

Maybe you are inoculated against that kind of scam. Maybe designer shoes or rip-offs at bargain prices do nothing for you. Maybe you have no fears about your love-life, or at least are well aware that a pill that may or may not make you sexually excited can't solve your social problems. How about expensive wrist-watches? Or the slightly odd, but maybe-not-so-really-terrible mail list that you suddenly found yourself signed up on?

In a sense, you have to get in touch with your conscience, have to develop a good sense of reality, have to get to know your God in order to tell which mail is legitimately worth looking at and which is not. Of course, now I'm making it sound really hard. So let's talk about it a different way.

What we are talking about is setting up filters in your mind:

(1) Check the sender. Do you recognize the sender? Family? Friend? Co-worker? Someone from Church?

On the other hand, do you recognize the sender as a source of stuff you didn't ask for? You know what to do with that.

(2) Don't recognize the sender, so check the subject.

v1A6or@ is not something you want a special price on, okay?

Free nude pictures of that famous hotty? If there are pictures at the site linked, you can be really sure that they've figured out a way to make you pay without you realizing it until you're out a bunch of money. Besides, she/he is not that hot, really. Not hot enough to expose yourself to even more spam.

And, no, you are not interested in letters that promise to tell you how totally awful the current president or president-elect or the last candidate of the opposition party really is.

Nor are you interested in good deals on designer this or that, credit cards or just credit or loans, or basically anything when you don't know the sender.

(3) Vaguely familiar name and a "Long time no see!" or something similar? That one may require looking at. There is a risk of IFRAMEs or similar ways to leak the information that you looked at it, but once you've seen the mail itself, well, a fuzzy GIF with stock prices or something is also not going to give you useful information. You do understand pump-and-dump, don't you? Nor is a cry of "I'm lonely!" from a girl or guy you don't know going to be legitimate, romantic movies notwithstanding. Most likely the picture is used without permission and the real sender is an ugly man or woman who wants, at minimum, to see if your e-mail address is valid. More likely, he or she wants your bank account information.

I should mention again, by the way, that giving money to criminals often makes you an accessory to their crimes. You do not want to do that.

(4) Sometimes, the sender name is one you really think you recognize. But if you look at the raw source code, you can usually see that the real sender is something else.

Now, if you can do that kind of filtering in your head, why can't we just set e-mail software up do that for us?

Well, we can, sort of. The problem is that the spammers know that, so they use little variations to get past the software filters. (Thus the v1A6or@, instead of viagra.) The automatic filters tend to catch more than you wanted them to. (This is what they mean by "false positives".) And then the automatic filters tend to dump all the probable spam in a single folder, so scanning through the positives for the rare false positive is only mitigated by the fact that you now know that almost all of it is stuff you don't want to see.

The automatic filters would be more effective if you could directly train them. For instance, if you could select a word, phrase or url in the sender, subject, or content fields, and click a "This is spam." button, the software could even make a folder for stuff that has that word, phrase, etc. in it. Scanning through a folder that contains mostly similar spam is going to be much more effective than scanning them all together. It also should reduce the false positives, because the guesses the software makes are more restricted in context.

There are other tricks, trap addresses, door-knocking mail addresses, and more. I wish I had time to program such a mail filter, but I don't seem to have that much time. And I have too many other interests, too.

Looking Back to Go FORTH

2008-08-08T11:16:00.001+09:00

A long, long time ago, back when dinasour mainframes roamed the earth, I was fresh back from my mission to Japan, trying to figure out what all LDS young men just back from their missions are trying to figure out: What do I do now?

But this little rant is less about that and more about one of the things I did. My brother, out of the kindness of his heart, gave me a 6800 prototyping board, I think it was the micro-chroma 68. Basically, it was the Radio Shack Color Computer, but with a 6800 instead of a 6809, or even a 6801. Okay, it was a 6802, but that was just a 6800 with some built-in RAM and ROM.

It's about 4000 miles away, so I can't post a picture, but that's okay. This rant is not so much about that piece of kit, either.

My brother dug up a ROM BASIC somewhere, but I wanted a better language. One of the teachers at the community college suggested FORTH, so I wrote off for the fig-FORTH model implementation for the 6800. The printout did not contain the object dump, so I had to go through the entire assembly listing and add the op-codes that had been abreviated in the listing. I really did not think much of hand-assembling code at the time, writing it down seemed like more work than looking up the op-codes.

I was silly enough to not build a floppy disk controller, but I did build a fast cassette tape controller, which was a little bit more reliable than the built-in 300 baud cassete tape controller. So I had some place to store the results after I typed the the entire model in in hexadecimal code. How long did it take? Don't remember, but it did seem like a long time, when I had friends and teachers playing around with the original IBM PCs, Apple ][s, and the like. Not to mention the time I wasted at Radio Shack playing around with the Color Computer demo models.

I don't think I can explain why I didn't just save up the money and get one of those Color Computers, with disk drive, etc. It sure would have saved me some time.

I think.

I played around with the FORTH, worked out the examples in Brodie's Starting Forth, as far as I could without disk drives. The dRAM was actually 64K, and I used a bit on the parallel port to toggle between banks, but I didn't really have the experience to figure out how I could usefully emulate a (very small, very volatile) floppy disk with it. So I was a little stuck on the disk examples. Also, the model provided hooks for implementing multi-tasking, but no actual implementation, so I wasn't able to play with that.

But I did learn enough FORTH to make me very impatient with other languages.

Fast forward to to when I got my associates and transferred to BYU. Found myself at the end of the BS-CS coursework with three class left, the one where you write a simple compiler, the one where you write a simple OS, and an elective. I was still spoiled by FORTH. (Maybe I still am.) Could not resign myself to stupidly hashing through simple closed algebrae and playing stupid register allocation games when I "knew" there was a better way. Kept trying to synthesize something useful from the two diametrically opposed approaches to computer languages, without the experience to know where the boundaries of object orientation were, to see where the difference between closed mathematical objects and infinite tape were always depositing me during my design attempts at random places in my own undefined memory.

Hey, I'm stronger for it. Right?

Anyway, those were my first flunked classes. I had, actually, a low A average to that point. Fortunately, BYU allows you to repeat classes. I took on the OS class first. Finally got up the courage and the wisdom to invest enough money to buy a Color Computer on sale, with Radio Shack's recommended cassette deck. (Yeah, I know about store recommendations, but it was also on sale. I could have saved another five dollars, but I'd have wasted a day running around.) Wrote screen routines and keyboard routines and time routines, and whatever else I could to pass the class.

The elective I chose was software tools. I went ahead and bought a disk drive and Radio Shack's disk-based assembler package, and implemented FORTH on the Color computer's 6809.

Actually, I got OS-9/6809 before I got the more basic assembler, and tried to do the FORTH in the OS-9 assembler, but found myself fighting with trying to make a relocatable FORTH, without fully understanding that I was effectively trying to define an i-code without actually pinning the codes down to specific values.

No, actually, I really did figure that out fairly quickly, but I just couldn't reconcile myself to the solution, you know, the one that put a 64K code limit on classes in early versions of Java -- Make the i-codes an index into an array, put the actual pointers in that array. Cry when you run out of array. Or not, if you never compile that many words.

One other option might have been possible, using self-relative i-codes. Needless to say, Microware's assembler would not assemble such a beast. For some reason, I declined writing an assembler that would. OS-9/6809's pre-ANSI C compiler might have been one of those reasons, or maybe I was just too lazy.

You have a similar problem when you try to use raw C language function pointers as i-codes. Most modern OSses relocate by keeping a list of addresses that need to be fixed up when the code is loaded. You can't help filling borked when you have to implement your own fix-up on an OS designed not to be fixed-up, and the fix-up table is as big as your object.

So I dropped my attempts to do it in OS-9, and went out and got the more primitive assembler software and worked with that. That way, I didn't have to think about relocation issues.

Once I had a simple enough implementation environment, the port was fairly straightforward. Or it should have been. First, assign the virtual registers of the FORTH model to real 6809 registers:

The return stack pointer, RP, was the 6809's call stack pointer, S.

The parameter stack pointer, SP, was the 6809's user stack pointer, U.

The i-code instruction pointer, IP, was the 6809's Y index, but I would sometimes save it off temporarily when I needed two index registers.

I put W on the top of the return stack, if I remember right. A little weird, but it was out-of-the-way, and still accessible.

You might think I'd use DP for the user variable pointer. But that sure was an awkward idea, DP being only the top eight bits. I ended up putting most (all) of the headerless primitive words in the DP and using DP relative jumps to get there, which was not a good idea, either. Oh. I also put the user variable pointer in the DP, too.

I designed the symbol table structure as a nested binary tree instead of using the more typical hashing techniques. That facilitated a certain amount of information hiding, for modularity and other object-ish behaviors.

Then I wrote the primitives, the inner interpreter, the basic parser, the symbol table lookup, the basic math. At a certain point, I had enough primitives that I could have finished off by just typing in the rest of the fig-forth high level model's compiled form. But the teacher wanted to be sure I was not just copying, so I re-wrote some of the stuff where it looked like 6809 object would actually be smaller than the high-level object. Used a kind of stupid-code-trick approach to shifting between high-level object and 6809 object on the fly (mostly stupid because shifting gears is not really a good idea, other than showing the teacher that you understand what it's doing at some level.

Once I had the 6800 model converted to 6809, with my modifications, I copied the fig editor source into a screens disk and had a running system. Source code was about a hundred 60-line pages, the object a bit fatter than I had expected, just over 8K if I remember right.

Then the teacher asked me to document every word in the model, so I did that. By hand. On paper. Don't know why I did it by hand, on paper. I later typed it into a text file, and that is also a part of the download on my site, linked again here, in case you missed it above. (Just what you always wanted, wasn't it?) All of that took me about six months, working pretty much full-time on the project. (Thanks go to my parents for letting me live in their attic for a while.)

I ended up passing my compiler class with a compiler written on that FORTH. So my education was all FORTH colored. Maybe that's why I just gave up on the industry about two and a half years ago. Maybe I can do something about it [link added 2 May 2011] while I'm taking a break.

tools, OSses, upgrades, and an iBook

2008-07-31T09:45:00.000+09:00

Okay, here's the problem --

I have a vintage iBook, tangerine clamshell. I've been using it in my present job for about a year and a half, making teaching materials with AppleWorks. I should be able to automate some of these teaching materials, where I just have a program and feed it a list of words and it formats things and lays things out, etc., but my Java skills aren't really up to it, and I apparently need to learn a bit more patience with CSS.

I also need to be able to access openoffice at work, since I am not a fan of Microsoft's poor excuse for an office software suite. (There's only so much disappointment I can stand from a monopolist, Bill, Steve.) And I want access to the Gimp, as well.

The obvious solution is to buy a new computer, since this vintage iBook is only 300 MHz, 192 MB RAM, 5.6 GB HD, USB only and unable to boot from USB (no Firewire), running MAC OS X 10.2. But that option really is not available to me. (I have serious financial issues here, just like the rest of the world.) Besides, a new MacBook contains an iNTEL CPU. (There's only so much disappointment I can stand from a monopolist, Andy, Craig, Paul.) I understand I could run AppleWorks on an iNTEL MAC via Rosetta whatever, so the primary issues are cost and, well, iNTEL. If I could afford the cost, I might go pragmatic about monopolies.

Ultimately, I need to move off of proprietary software. (The problem with AppleWorks should be enough explanation why?) That's more reason to run Linux. But that's a separate topic.

A second obvious solution would be to purchase a used iBook or PowerBook with a faster processor. Hopefully, I could find one that can still charge its battery, unlike my iBook, where various abuses have rendered the charger and battery dead.

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to buy the battery charging boards before they become impossible to find any more. They're not that expensive, just hard for me to find in Japan. Although, truth be told, even the roughly $100 dollars the two boards tend to be listed at is a tight squeeze for me right now.

So, I was in Softmap the other day getting a new power supply for the iBook. This time I bought one that has the wires all detachable from the brick, Sanwa Supply part #ACA-A11, so that when I dump it in my bag, the wires aren't put under as much stress. And maybe I'll be able to build a replacement for that lousy shielded head next time the wires break right behind it. While there, I picked up a 160G hard drive for about JPY 7000 (about USD 70). They said that the RAM was no longer available, so I left without RAM.

Then, yesterday, I stopped by Pasokon Kobo on my way back from interviewing for a summer job to help pay the August rent, and they had the RAM chips there. The original spec is a 60 MHz part, but Apple says 100 MHz will do, too. Looking around the web, you find people that claim success with the 133 MHz part, and that was what they had, so I dropped another JPY 8000 (about USD 80) on that.

Very interesting to note that lowendmac says that all of this dance was for nothing. You can't even boot Mac OS X in a partition larger than 8G, and that the partition has to be entirely in the bottom 8G. I'm not sure if that's true with this model, one of the last tangerines with the 64M RAM soldered to the motherboard. I ran Mac OS X 10.2 in a 15G partition on it for a year, using it as my personal web server, and I currently have two separate installs of Jaguar on two separate partitions, one partition is 20G, the other, higher up, is 5G, and there is a 4G partition at the very bottom for booting Classic so my kids can play Bugdom, and I can play with openBSD.

Both of the Mac OS X partitions boot, although the Mac OS 9 partition presently does not, apparently because I did a proper partitioning when I installed Fedora and now there are way too many partitions for Classic too remain sane.

[Update: I have checked the readme file that comes with Mac OS 10.2 and it makes no mention of the iBook in the section dealing with the 8G limit. Apple's current information page on the limi does, however, include the iBook. I'm inclined to think this was a case of collecting all the disk drive issues under one roof.]

Anyway, this is my third option, to simply upgrade the iBook and keep using it. I have to figure out what trade-offs I'm going to make, but, other than that, this appears to be the direction I'm taking. Since this post is becoming long, I'll post the pictures of the process in another blog or two.

My fourth option was to get a VIA ultralight and spend the next month moving all my materials to apps that work fully in Linux. But that has the cost factor, as well. At this point, I'm still sitting at under JPY 20,000 (USD 200), to keep this machine running.

trust and certificate authorities

2008-07-21T12:45:00.000+09:00

Ever heard of a certificate? No, I don't mean a teaching certificate. (Maybe I need to get one, but that's another story.) I mean the kind of certificate you sometimes see your web browser warning you is not up to date, or is assigned to some other url, or something even more incomprehensible.

Bill Gates, several years ago, finally half-grasped PKI and started selling his "web of trust" and his "trusted computing". Like most of what he sells, he borrowed a bunch of jargon from the industry, twisted a bunch of terms until the thing everyone else was having a hard time building became something his company could (claim to) build, sell, control, and, most importantly, sell control of. And the result is less than optimal, to say the least.

(Awfully close to random, Bill.)

PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) standards describe several structures of trust relationships. The easy to build structure is hierchical. The other structures are not just hard to build, but very hard to build and get right. Unfortunately, the hierarchical structure has a lot in common with the false royalism which the US was born in reaction against. Essentially, you trust the guy at the top of the heap because you think you have no options.

Except you don't really trust him, you just behave as if you do. Sort of. At the minimum level. Grudgingly. And every chance you get, you stick it to him. Because you don't really trust him. Or anyone in between him and you.

Hierarchies are good reporting structures, but are not good for much of anything else. Well, there is one hierarchy that is useful, but it's a really flat hierarchy: you and God.

(Now, if you have that hierarchy properly worked out, artificial trust structures become a bit superfluous.)

The actual relationship structures of trust are fairly simple to describe, but not easy to implement --

First, trust doesn't mean that you know the other guy will never let you down. It doesn't mean you know exactly what the person you trust will do. It only means you have a reasonably good idea. It also means that you accept, to a degree, the results and effects of that person's decisions.

You trust people you know. You don't trust them all equally, of course, but you know them, you know something about what they do, when, and how. So you can base your own choices on your expectations concerning them, to a certain extent.

How far can you trust the other guy? Only as far as you can throw him, according to the wag, and there is a certain meaning to that. It might be more hopeful to invert the action, however: Only as far as you don't have to reach to touch him.

People you know well, you tend to trust more, even if you know you can't trust them exactly the way you thought you wanted to.

A friend of a friend can't be given as much trust as the friend, without making the friend of a friend also a friend. Your friend may choose to act as a guarantor of his or her friend, but you aren't going to trust the guarantee more than the trust the guarantor.

You can extend trust, but until you have actual dealings and see the results, the trust is hypothetical.

Can you trust a friend of a friend of a friend? Is there some sort of formula that tells you how much to scale trust back as the relationship becomes farther away? Of course not. You'd be asking for a guarantor in hypotheses.

So, what does this have to do with computers?

PKI certificates are instruments conveying a substitute kind of trust. Kind of like there are sugar substitutes and food substitutes (My father used to call white bread "bread substitute".), you can substitute certification for trust. What they convey is actually (the witness of) a guarantee.

They are issued by "Certificate Authorities" of various sorts. The CAs don't guarantee much with these certificates. What they guarantee is only that someone identifying himself as so-and-so claimed such-and-such. For example, they might issue a software vendor a certificate that asserts that the software can use to claim they are the software vendor. Then, if you believe the CA, you have a pretty good reason to believe that any software that includes the certificate originated from the vendor.

The technology they work by is a separate subject, and worth exploring, but I'll leave that for another day. Encryption techniques make them at least partially useable in the present world. As long as the encryption isn't broken, as long as the person holding the secret key keeps the secret key secret, etc., they do function in conveying the witness of the guarantee.

If you're thinking this sounds a lot like what they call a CPA in the USA, well, you, that's pretty close to the idea.

I could maybe go to a CPA and show him my birth certificate and passport and get a certificate from he saying I should him those things and claimed certain things in front of him. (Or her. I think I know more women who are CPAs than men, but that is neither here nor there. I think. 8-/)

So, what do you do with these certificates?

Microsoft presently uses these certificates to attempt to prevent rogue software from installing itself in your MSWindows computer. (Not mine. At least at the time of this rant, I only have computers running Linux and Mac OS.)

In theory, the OS could be set to absolutely refuse to let a program that can't present a certificate from Microsoft to even run. In practice, getting those certificates into the right places imposes enough problems that it may not be possible to get the stuff you want certified.

That's always going to be a problem, but lets look at the certificates again. Do you know the CA?

Hmm. Well, you don't know the CPA in many cases, either. All you know is that a rogue CPA is likely to lose his or her license. And the certificate itself doesn't contain any means of ascertaining that issuing the certificate hasn't cost the CPA his or her license. You'd have to find the authority that certified the CPA to be sure.

PKI does contain a method for checking whether a certificate is valid and the issuer still certified to issue certificates, but the implementation is problematic. The flow of time, in fact, makes it impossible to perfectly check the certificates.

But the software you use behaves as if it (or you) can know whether these certificates are valid or not.

I'm not advocating ignoring the certificates. However, the infrastructure needs to be fixed, and that is part of the reason I don't bank on-line.

Okay, so how should these certificates work?

Right now, hardware can't be certified. Microsoft's Trusted Computing stuff notwithstanding, hardware can't be verified. Locked, but not verified.

It could be verifiable. Hardware could contain self-test functions, and it could contain the manufacturer's certificate, which it could be programmed to only present if the self-test passes. But, self-tests being tests self-administered, the only meaningful thing which could be known would be that the hardware either claims to pass the self-test, and claims to be manufactured by the owner of the certificate, or it doesn't.

So, all of the following is purely hypothetical. But here's what could theoretically be done.

The system bootstrap boots the various hardware the first time and collects the certificates. It then self-tests, and adds it's certificate to the bundle, in a certificate that claims to have booted and collected the certificates. It can do this because it "knows" the hardware. Each certificate contains a cryptographic token that (should) uniquely identify the actual piece of hardware in place. (Product number and serial number, encrypted against some reasonably complete operational image of the hardware.)

The bootstrap passes the certificate thus generated to the OS, which boots, self-tests, checks the hardware and bootstrap certificatesand builds its own certificate. It discards the hardware certificates when it bundles the boot-up certificate. Again, it adds cryptographic tokens.

If something fails in the process, the failed hardware should disable or limit itself, or be disabled, and the rest of the system should continue to boot as far as possible. Hopefully, enough of the system can boot far enough to tell the integrator (or, later, the user) what failed to boot and why.

The integrator, who should be a salesman you, the buyer, know, checks the certificate presented by the OS, and bundles the OS cert sans the bootup cert with his own, storing the certificate on the computer. Then he loads the optional software, all of which self-test and present their certificates to the OS and integrator for making more certificates. The OS certifies it all and stores another certificate keeping the result of the initial set of installations, bundled with the integrator's certificate. Later installations will again be certified, and all certificates kept.

Before the integrator turns it over to you, he certifies you as the new admin/integrator.

You, as the owner, can view every certificate. But when the computer goes on-line, the network only sees the overall certificate. Software connected to the computer can query the overall certificate and the certificate of the software it is communicating with. But the queries can be refused, particularly when operating on networks or functions where the identity of the computer or user is not required. (For example, browsing the internet, or window-shopping at some on-line shop, or watching movies at an on-line theatre, or practically any normal on-line activity.)

When you get the computer home (or to the office), if you add or remove either hardware or software, you repeat the certification process, since you are now the admin/integrator.

You can also add users, and you can make certificates for the users.

When you need to update stuff, you probably want to go to the guy who sold it to you, because he knows the guys upstream, and you don't really. (Unless you are running Fedora or Ubuntu, in which case, you are effectively your own integrator, and, hopefully, you at least monitor the announcement lists so that you can keep track of the guys upstream in a meaningful way.)

Ultimately, all this does is give the computer an identity and an associated administrator identity, together with a current user identity. Together, these identities can be used, for example, at a store, to help maintain an account, or at an on-line bank, to augment the banks identification processes. But they can only identify an on-line presence, and this is the way it should be. (Forgery is always possible, and it is building faults into any system to attempt to make it prove identity beyond possibility of forgery. I'll have to rant about the forgery issues at some point, later.)

Since your internet browsing computer terminal can't prove your idendity to the bank, how do you prove your identity to the bank?

You need a hardware token to do that. Think USB key, but think ethernet or Firewire, instead. This is because the token has to be able to be a bus master in order to establish a tunnel, and you need a tunnel because you simply cannot depend on a terminal that you don't have general physical control over. (Yeah, that means you need to keep your token in a safe place, just like you keep your wallet in a safe place.)

The hardware token is a very simple device, because the more complex a device is, the more bad certificates could be lurking in it. Preferably, it only has a cpu, ram, flash or some other kind of persistent store, a time keeping device, a small display and a small keyboard, and (in terms of present tech) an ethernet port. It would be tempting to put a calculator or cellphone on it, but that way lies dragons and dwarves and goblins and worse. Well, no, a simple calculator is likely to be useful enough to have on-board, but you have to think carefully about that.

And maybe phone? No. Turn that around. Wireless modem on the token, the primary phone functions on a handset that connects to the wireless network through the token. Well, maybe you have a separate token physically incorporated your phone, but it must have its own CPU, RAM, and flash. Preferably its own keyboard and screen, so that if your phone gets eaten by malware and installs a keyboard eavesdropper, what you type on the token keyboard won't be seen by the eavesdropper. No, just, keep the token off the phone.

If you do put a wireless modem on the token (in parallel with the ethernet port), you would want direct physical switches and indicators, so you could be sure that you know when it is on or off. You'll think you want to believe your token is safe from attack, but in the end (and I will have to rant about this sometime) it's just a piece of electronic paper with an automatic pen, and the more ways for people to connect with it without you seeing, the more time bad people have to attempt to get that automatic pen without you noticing.

Best way to do this is have the wireless phone provide a place to physically plug the token in, that gives the token a direct physical connection to the modem. Always best to keep the terminal separate from the token.

So, what does the token do?

You take it with you to the bank. The bank has a (secure) machine which jointly generates a one-time pad in the token. Jointly, because every one-time pad has to be completely different, or some mathematically inclined bad guy will reverse engineer the generator from the pad he or she is given.

Since you want the token for several different services, it has to have enough persistent (flash or whatever) store to save quite a few. (Credit cards, savings banks, stock brokers, video store, etc.) You browse on a terminal, you load the shopping cart on the terminal, then you go to checkout. The checkout counter software displays a connection url and a transaction code. You plug your token into a spare ethernet port near your terminal, and key the connection url into the token's keyboard. The token connects with the store over a cryptographic tunnel. The token displays the store's connection prompt and you key the transaction code in, and then the token tells you to key in the token's authorization ("pin") code, and the token and store exchange the credit information.

It seems like a long way around, when you presently just do the one-click stuff on Amazon, but the only reason Amazon is not riddled with fradulent transactions is that most of the bad guys are presently intelligent enough to not draw attention to what they can get away with. (As opposed to the guys who generate spam.)

Why?

It's simple. Your bank sort of knows you. The on-line store does not. Your computer at home sort of knows you, but it knows the web better, especially if it's hooked up to a constant-on broadband connection.

Trust is not transitive.

Religion vs. Religion

2008-07-21T12:11:00.000+09:00

In various forums you find arguments about religion, which religion is better, which is less evil, atheism is obviously superior to religion (and the correct way to believe), us vs. them.

It's always at best an approximation to assert binary sets, but there are two kinds of religion: false and true.

That doesn't help the discussion, at all, does it?

Okay, there are two kinds of religion, one which turns a blind eye to truth, and one which seeks truth. And it's always the other guy's religion that turns a blind eye to truth.

Does that help?

Arguing against the other guy's religion is not a good way to communicate. (And I find myself in a dilemma any time I'm talking with someone who claims a religion which includes as a precept the requirement of arguing against all other religions.)

And discussing religion with atheists is a particularly difficult job, because the atheist has often really convinced himself that believing in the non-existence of any God is somehow automatically superior to believing in the existence of any God.

Well, some people resolve the problem by refusing to discuss religion.

I prefer to resolve the problem by looking for points in common. Some people find it threatening to even consider points in common, but it's generally much easier to communicate when there are points you can agree on, and I think communication is generally a good thing.

Well, it's hard to find points in common when you don't know the other guy's assumptions and definitions, so I'll put down some of the definitions and assumptions I operate by, which I think I can sort of hope to find common ground with.

Maybe in another post.