A Thought From The Wilderness

Enough already.

Nothing can dull the pain of those still grieving? Maybe not. They say time is a healer, and God certainly is.

Can anything justify what happened that day? Certainly not.

But is every single year, re-opening that old wound that has already marked and shaped the 21st century, going to help?

I'm not a believer in conspiracy theories - the idea that "9/11" was constructed by the Bush administration is patently absurd. But now it's all Bush can do to drag people's minds back to the day America was attacked, because nothing but the raw emotion of that awful day can shroud the disasters his policies are making in the Middle East. Only by ensuring the wounds are fresh, the pain is still strong, have his warmongering policies survived six years.

Now, should someone criticise US "foreign policy" (or rather, military operations), Bush just needs to pull out the "9/11" card and he's won the argument.

And what _really_ gets to me, is that the whole thing is framed as some sort of good vs. evil, Christian vs. evil-terrorist-guys battle. A year after the WTC attacks, Bush quotes from John 1: "This ideal of
America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this
harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the
darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it." But note something very significant yet missed by most of the media at the time : Bush has replaced Jesus (the 'light' John was referring to) with the American Dream, a fact that seems to have been overlooked by Bible Belt America. (Stephen Chapman commented on this in more depth, in November 2002.)

I submit to you: America's response to the attacks on September 11th 2001 is not just un-Christian, it is anti-Christian. Bush himself, Sept. 11 2001: "Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded with the best of America."

There are many in America who are not Christian, both supporters and opponents of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't seek to preach to them; my plea comes from Scripture.

Paul writes in Romans: "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." (Rom 12:14 NIV). And from Jesus himself:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that
you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on
the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5: 43-47 NIV)

That is the true Christian response. Nobody said it was the easy response. The easy response was to fight back; if someone strikes you on the cheek, strike him back with your cruise missiles, right? That's human nature. Wait a sec... "Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of
human nature."

We can't escape the fact that we are human, imperfect, even evil. But for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that is all we would ever be; but we as Christians are called to be perfect, as God is perfect - something only possible by God's grace. America chose to listen to America, and not God; and I believe that only God can clean up the mess that this first decade of the 21st century has left.

I hadn't planned to write such a long post tonight; this has been on my heart for a long time. What triggered it was a forum post by "Silentbrick" (a player of the MMO game Eve Online):

Never Forget

Never Forgive.

I'm not going to voice my opinion here. This isn't the place for it.
But the four words above are the ones that will always be tied to this
date for me.

There is still so much anger, hurt and grieving over that day, not just in America but around the world. But I believe there is also a loving, healing God who is waiting for His children to turn to Him for comfort, and through Him and Him alone finding the strength to not just forgive, but to bless those who have persecuted them.

7th Week: London 2012 Logo

Here's a pleasant break from revision... One of these logos is the real London 2012 logo. It cost (apparently) £400,000 and was designed by Wolff Olins (WARNING: Flash-based site, and the little HTML they use is buggy too). The other two were cooked up in about 10 minutes by readers of the BBC News website. Can you tell the genuine one? You may be unpleasantly surprised.

6th Week: The St. Aldate's Leadership React to a Mug of Coffee

Don't ask me how this started... See if you can guess who's who! Some are, ahem, easier than others. (And don't take it too seriously - it's a bit of fun! All who are mentioned below are great people. :-) )



Leadership Team and Staff of St. Aldate's: A Cup Of Coffee

1. I have three things to say about that coffee, but I might only have time for two of them.
2. I think it's a prophetic mug of coffee; I think we should drink deeply of it, I think it talks of our destiny as coffee-drinkers.
3. Is it Starbucks?
4. Could you do it more like, uh... stirry-stirry-stirry chinkchink? (Hint: Risky sound checks)
   
   
5. It's there! But we need to drink it! Download it into you and then something is activated inside of you - the caffeine gets activated - and you know that you know that you've just drunk some coffee! It happened to me! I think there are people here today who need that caffeine activated in their lives. If that's you just come forward...
6. I've called this talk "Return of the King-dom Coffee"...
7. Hi James? I was just wondering if you'd do visuals for the coffee this evening... you can? Great!
8. Coffee? Cooooool.
9. Hey, guess what's cool - Ubuntu Coffee. Based on Java. And I got it installed on my Mac!
10. So, there was this E-mail that was sent... I hate people who start with a joke that's got nothing to do with what they're talking about, but that's got absolutely nothing to do with this coffee. Why not buy someone a coffee later?
11. En France, nous rendons du café beaucoup plus agréable que vous. Mais nous vous aimons en tout cas!
    
    
12. NowI'vebeenaskedtotalkaboutthiscoffeeandI'llmanagetogetatleastfiveheavytheologicalpointsfullydiscussedbeforeitgoescold.



13. coffee
    
    saturday 11am
    
    church
    
    be there :-)
    
    
14. That coffee is disgusting. I bring my own!

5th Week: Well-Packed Cargo Bay

Now, I know I'm not the best at packing suitcases and things. But someone really must be, to minimise space wastage like this...

4th Week: Five wins Neighbours soap fight

It is done, then... the BBC report that from spring next year Neighbours will be moving to five from BBC One.



Thanks to the wonders of timeshifting, the adverts won't really bother me. Were the BBC right to not pursue its most popular daytime TV show? IMHO yes - a ~300% price hike is nothing to take sitting down. five are willing to pay (and it has nothing to do with them being part of the same company as Fremantle Media, Neighbours' distributors, of course) and I'm glad, because I do like to watch the show. Both ways, we win.

4th Week: Note to Facebook...

...contrary to popular belief, not everyone in the world is American.



A few days ago Facebook launched their new Marketplace, which as the name suggests is a place for buying and selling things. In dollars.



Yes, that's right. The only choice of currency is the dollar. It doesn't matter if you're British, European or Japanese, you can only put ads that have a $ next to the price.



I was about to say "and nobody bothers to convert from GB£ to US$ to put the price up" but then I realised, who's to say it's US$? Why can it not be Canadian dollars, or Australian? Pick your exchange rate, people! Then pay up but only the converted amount.



I put to Facebook that this might be considered false advertising on behalf of the sellers, if they demand in GB£ what is being advertised in $. Their response:

Hi James,



Thanks for your feedback concerning Marketplace. We are

working hard to make this product as useful as possible to all

users, and we welcome any suggestions. Let us know if you have

any further questions or concerns.



Thanks for contacting Facebook,



Ryann

Customer Support Representative

Looks like it's going to take a while...

3rd Week: Blair to stand down

The shock news item of the day: BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair will stand down on 27 June





HOORAY!

3rd Week: Own Your Own Integer!

Well, since AACS LA claim to own an integer and are threatening to sue people who use it, lots of people have decided to ensure the security of their own portion of the set of positive integers ℤ.



http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1155



Any attempt to publish or use the number

BA 84 46 1D 08 21 0D F4 9A 7C 2D BA CA 34 A1 68

within the United States (where the DCMA applies) will be met with... aw, heck, I can't be bothered to sue you. In fact, given that generally it doesn't matter where you are but they'll try and sue you under the DCMA anyway: I hereby license the reader to use, copy, redistribute or otherwise modify (including, but not limited to, the operations of "subtraction" and "multiplication") the above Number indefinitely and without limitation, as long as this notice accompanies it.



(If you're reading this and thinking "WTF? You can't copyright numbers!" then you're in good company. Try telling that to AACS LA.)

2nd Week: Update: Microsoft in "We Came Up With This Idea, Really, And Patented It" Shock

On Wednesday I mentioned how Microsoft were trying to claim UAC was an amazing new idea that they had come up with, rather than it being a badly-copied sudo from the Unix world.



Now apparently, it transpires that Microsoft managed to patent UAC in 2000.Except, of course, they didn't patent "UAC", they patented:

a method comprising: executing an administrative
security process under the administrative privilege level; the
administrative security process accepting a request from a user process
executing under the non-administrative privilege level to initiate a
particular administrative method, the user
process calling the administrative security process with parameters
comprising (a) an identification of the particular administrative
method and (b) arguments to be provided to said particular
administrative method; and the administrative security
process calling the identified particular administrative method on
behalf of the user process and providing the arguments to said
identified particular administrative method.

Which, in all but giving it a name, is sudo. (Read the full text here.)



Surely you can't argue now that software patents are anything other than a bloody stupid idea. When there's blatant prior art (sudo was around since the 1980s, not the 70s as I previously stated) a patent should not be given. It's clear that either the people granting the patents are being paid by Microsoft to not investigate fully (unlikely, since almost certainly this has happened elsewhere) or simply are not qualified to make decisions on technology matters.



Worse still: the patent explicitly states that "the invention is not to be limited to such specific examples, and the
inventions
may be practiced in general purpose computers or computers with
operating systems other than Windows.RTM., such as Unix or Linux."



How the f*** did this get through? And why does the European Parliament repeatedly need convincing that software patents are a bad idea?



Sorry about the language. It's been a long week, I've had far too little sleep and I have 25 minutes to do 2 hours' work.

2nd Week: 09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0

Just thought I'd share that with you... (If you haven't a clue what I'm on about, then read up at Slashdot.)

"Again, you've got to ask - what's the point of DRM? It doesn't matter that the average person won't have the ability to crack their HD-DVD software, or that the company will be able to revoke the code using its fancy-dan systems. All it takes is for a couple of pirates to get their hands on it, and all those Aarrh, Jim-Lad! movies are sitting pretty. The sheer number of people trying to crack any security system makes such protection a totally asynchronous battle - it only takes one lucky hacker."

(Richard Cobbett, PC Plus)

Let's be clear, this is no justification of illegal distribution of films. Rather, it is more evidence that DRM is defective by design, that it cannot fulfil its remit but rather imposes unnecessary limits on legitimate consumers.



The other point of interest to bring out of this story is the question of how much censorship is possible, and how much is acceptable, in this so-called "blogosphere".



Oh - and no prizes for guessing the representation, in hexadecimal, of x in the equation

2^6 * 5 * 19 * 12,043 * 216,493 * 836,256,503,069,278,983,442,067 = x. ;-)

2nd Week: Microsoft in "We Came Up With This Idea, Really" Shock

Arstechnica published this post yesterday, quoting Microsoft chief security advisor Peter Watson talking about Vista's User Access Control. If you don't already know, UAC is, in Microsoft's own words:

"a new security component Windows Vista. UAC enables users to perform common tasks as non-administrators... and as administrators without having to switch users, log off, or use Run As. ... By separating user and administrator functions while enabling productivity, UAC is an important enhancement for Windows Vista."

It's similar to, but has some major differences to, the user/superuser model that's been used in Mac, Linux and other Unix-like systems since the 1970s.



Says Mr. Watson:

"If you look at it from an architectural direction, User Account Control
is a great idea and strategically a direction that all operating
systems and all technologies should be heading down."

Uh, hang on a minute... Just read the last two paragraphs again, will you... "should be heading down"? Is this another case of Microsoft taking an idea that others came up with ages ago, changing the name, and pretending it was theirs all along and how silly of others to not have thought of it?



From the blog article:

"This is a new revelation for the company, but let's not kid ourselves:
this general approach to process elevation is older than Windows
itself."

2nd Week: IBM vs. SCO

So, shortly after revealing to us that they own the entire Internet and every device connected thereto, we find out that SCO also have the right to tell Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, that he can't talk about their righteous crusade against anyone who might be using this Interwebbynet for themselves...

"We are also concerned about the statements about SCO's litigation claims made by Linus Torvalds... Because of Mr. Torvalds' position in the technology world, his comments about SCO's evidence in this case are given particular weight in industry and popular press... It is unlikely that Judge Wells would allow ... Linus Torvalds... to publicly comment on SCO's litigation claims..."

Quite, quite extraordinary. Those guys just don't know how to quit... but oh noes! I have a friend whose father works at IBM! Don't tell Judge Wells I said that...



The full letter, from a lawyer representing SCO to a lawyer at IBM, is at Groklaw with the full story here.

2nd Week: Feisty, Xinerama and Myth

Found out what was stopping MythTV from loading under Fiesty: it doesn't like my dual-monitor setup. Trying one more thing, then going back to Edgy on Avenger if it doesn't work.



OTOH, Chimaera is happy as Larry, whoever Larry is.

1st Week: Adventures in ThinkPad Land

I welcomed a new member of the family today: an IBM ThinkPad T41. Came with some second-rate OS installed, but I wiped that straight away. More details later but here's the short of it:

What Worked Out Of The Box

• All of the base setup (once I'd rid myself of the Windoze restore hidden partition)
• Wireless ethernet
• Beryl (whizzy window effects). OK, so technically not "out of the box" because you have to install it, but that wasn't exactly hard.
• Hibernate/resume
• Power management inc. CPU frequency scaling
• Mythfrontend (meaning that the problem on Avenger is localised, and I should look into it further)
  
  

What Didn't

• Suspend/resume

Not bad at all, IMO. Bear in mind I've only had this for a couple of hours and currently the only way I can access the internet with it is to spoof Avenger's MAC address (don't tell Matt...) - hopefully I can find a wifi hotspot to properly test the wifi hardware. And eventually get a wireless router so I can share the connection with Avenger, and even stream TV to the laptop (whose name will be decided shortly by Heather).



More later!

-2nd Week: The Term In Review

Hilary Term 2007: A summary of things, in no particular order or coherence.



I lost something, and gained so much more.



I learned some things - one or two of them about computer science.



Three months - a long time in politics and in Oxford. I've kept mostly quiet about the personal stuff on this blog, but those who know me well enough know what a rollercoaster it's been. But I've learnt that "immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine" is no understatement.



I found some new friends; I lost some old ones. I still run Linux. I gained some facial hair. I still accept no responsibility for any damage you cause to your computer by running dodgy operating systems, but against my better judgement, I'll probably help you sort out the mess you made. Especially if there's a cup of tea involved.



Some people... well, some people need to be taught slowly and painfully how to use computers properly. Others just seem to make life easy for you even when you have to explain things slowly and painfully. And some are even thinking of switching to Linux. Woot.



They ripped out the old college organ, and dumped it in a skip. Dave and I managed to rescue some bits of pipe. They're now standing next to Bob. (Don't ask.)



The bandwidth of pigeon-post is approximately comparable to that of a twisted-pair ethernet connection, if you ignore the effects of the Big Pigeon-Post Pigeon that Eats Pigeon-Post. And his bigger cousin, the Big Pigeon-Post Pigeon that Does Not Eat Pigeon-Post, is just scary.



I was acquainted with the Sock Man of Loughborough (and Andrea, I'm very disappointed you didn't introduce me when I visited you way back). That's a highlight, for sure.



Wow, it seems a long time ago that I was last in Portsmouth. And I'm back there in about 13 hours' time. I should get packing...

-2nd Week: Boris Johnson vs Portsmouth

"Outspoken Conservative MP Boris Johnson has been criticised for labelling Portsmouth as a city full of drugs and obesity," report the BBC. Various figures from the city have demanded that Boris resign/be sacked/apologise/be tortured to death/purple monkey dishwasher.



Portsmouth North MP, Sarah "One Flyer Is An Election Campaign" McCarthy-Fry, seems to think she is both able to determine who is fit for being a front-bench MP (because, you know, she has so much experience of that herself) and that she knows exactly how to "encourage young people in Portsmouth to go on to higher education".



As a young(ish) person from Portsmouth who was fortunate enough to be able to go on to higher education at one of the best establishments in the world, and on behalf of all my like-aged, like-educated friends, I say to her: I laughed out loud when I read the article. Long live Boris Johnson! Ms. McCarthy-Fry, credit for replying to my letter of way back, but go do something useful like representing your constituents, or maybe talking to some real young people before you decide how they're reacting to Boris.

11th Week: My degree is over

I made the mistake of downloading EVE Online on Tuesday. Why is this a mistake? Because it's a really rather good game...

You see, the danger of being in Oxford for so long and hence sitting on top of the rather fast JANET is the temptation to go online and do Stuff. In this instance, after several references in PC Plus (including a whole-page article on how good it is) I decided to see if they had a Linux client. My intentions here were, of course, purely academic.

As it happens, there is no Linux client (though there are whisperings) but there was some discussion about running the Windows one over Wine. Being a Computer Scientist, I could hardly resist the challenge... and as it happens, there was not much of it. Using Wine 0.9.33, it (mostly) Just Works. The sound is a little jittery (as with most DirectSound things under Wine) but the game is just as playable this way as through Windows. Plus, it means I don't affect my uptime by rebooting every time I want to play.

So, these last couple of days have been spent in and out of the Eve world, running a few missions, mining a few asteroids, and generally not doing anything relating to my degree... The possibly good news is that I have 12 days left of the free trial period, which perhaps not coincidentally also will mark the end of my stint in Oxford for the time being (I'm going home for a bit).

After that, who knows...

10th Week: Something for Nothing?

Or at least, for US$3?



I came across a site - www.freepgs.com - that offers advert-free PHP/MySQL hosting for a one-off payment from $3. So, what did I do? I PayPal'd my $3, got signed up, and uploaded the latest SVN of my content-management system (the one that drives the OICCU website). A quick E-mail to them as some of their defaults are a bit too restrictive - by the end of the day they've sorted it and all is working smoothly. Too good to be true? Not so far - I'll keep you posted.

10th Week: In the news today...

I'm ill, so to waste some time here's a few stories that caught my eye, and I'll try and put the world to rights.



Firstly, if anyone still thinks software patents are a good idea, then you will be pleased to know that the linked list has been patented by a Ming-Jen Wang. (For the non-CompSci reading this, know that the linked list is one of the most primitive data structures used in computer science and is used by just about everyone.) Surely it's only a matter of time before someone patents "Hello World"...



Keeping with the computing theme, if any of you still think that Windows Vista is a good idea, then you will be pleased to know that security company Kaspersky Labs have stated "There's a question mark if Vista security has improved, or has really dropped down." Brilliantly, in the same article a Microsoft spokeman is quoted as saying "...[Kaspersky] have one of the best insights into Microsoft security products".



My old Maths teacher once told me, "The best way to picture something in four dimensions? Don't!" Now mathematicians have detailed a 248-dimensional structure with... I don't know, presumably some purpose. The title of the lecture in which this is being presented? "The Character Table for E8, or How We Wrote Down a 453,060 x 453,060 Matrix and Found Happiness."



And finally, if there are any of you who still think DRM is a good idea, know that 75% of customer service problems at a major online music seller are caused by DRM. From the article:

According to Musicload, DRM "makes the use of music quite difficult and hinders the development of a mass-market for legal downloads." The lack of interoperability is unfair to customers and prevents true competition between music services, in other words.

The MS Approach to Security

Don't Let OneCare Eat Your Email - AppScout



"Oh, look, that file might have a virus... AAAGGHH! PANIC! DELETE EVERYTHING THERE! WIPE IT ALL OUT! ... oops, there goes the user's entire E-mail account. Oh well, who cares? Not me. They're paying for me, you know."