External RAID Arrived
The external RAID box came in today. It’s formatting now. This would easily fit in a small shoebox and it’s very quiet. Formatting will take a while delaying any conclusions on performance or usability. With two GP WD 750 gig drives on idle it pulled ~18 Watts, which doesn’t seem bad for an always-on appliance.
One nice surprise was to see that it has iTunes integration. All of the music can be put on this one box and even if the MacBook is off or away on vacation another iTunes-aware box like the Mac Mini or Apple Airports could play off the RAID. It would be a great relief for the tiny hard drive of the Mac laptop to be lightened of it’s 13 gig load and well expanded to the potential 30 gig plus that is out there.
With the purchase of the RAID the network grew to house 4 gigabit NICs; the MacBook, work laptop, Mac Mini, and RAID. I also purchased a small 5 port Gigabit switch to serve as fast backbone between these devices. It’s not worthwhile yet to replace all of the 10/100 equipment yet with 10/100/1000, but this will offer quick transfer between the boxes that can run that fast.
WebSite Idea
I’ve noticed a certain difficulty in finding good information on garden plants, both common and uncommon. A search on Google might find and entry on iVillage, DavesGarden, Wikipedia, etc. I wonder if I might put together a collection of web pages that aggregate, filter, and paraphrase other texts on the subjects. With photos comming from Flickr or another public online source. To provide an online reference source, which can be read as is or whose links out to various source websites could be followed for more in-depth or up-to-date information.
Income would come from an AdSense in one or two places not to interfere with the intention of the website.
Advertising would come from Google. Through the use of unique words, word pairs, or phrases that push the PageRank of the website up. Due to it’s relevance, links, and fresh content. The goal would be, like Wikipedia, to see this site in the top 3 pages on all relevant garden topics. Particularly, the narrower topics like Yum-Yum or Cocoa Bean mulch as opposed to Tomatoes or Potatoes.
There’s some similarity to Wikipedia, except Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and necessarily low in context. This website would be intended for gardening. Where Wikipedia might list all 400 species of Clover, this site would list those of most interest to someone caring for a lawn or home garden.
Links to the various source materials. For books, a link to Amazon using my Associate account (also an income). For websites, links to the relevant page.
Apple Mac Sales Continue to Show Strong Growth
…
Numbers released Apr. 23 showed Apple (AAPL) started the year on a strong note. Its earnings rose 36% on a 42.5% increase in sales in the fiscal second quarter. The results were boosted by near-record sales of Macintosh computers. Apple sold 2.29 million Macs, just shy of the 2.32 million it sold during the previous period, putting the company on track to surpass an annual record of 7 million units.
…
Apple Continues to Ripen
WP-Cache
I added WP_Cache to the blog. It’s supposed to cache the most commonly hit web pages to make the site faster. Right now, it’s running pretty good. We’ll see what happens one of these times when the server seems to slow down. Cross my fingers that the 90 second page loads are gone.
RAID Server Ordered
I finally decided on a RAID box to hold music and photos in a disaster resistant appliance. A Galaxy 2 drive Network Attached Storage (NAS) with a pair of 750 gig WD GP drives has been ordered. This should give me about 700 gig that can remain “online”, assuming autopower off, all the time like the MacBook. It’ll be setup on a RAID 1, which mirrors the drive contents.
It’s none too soon. The MacBook complains daily of running out of space. I can’t hold my whole music library on the little 80 gig. There are numerous files that need to be shifted off. Things that I don’t want to download again, application installs, video, music that I don’t listen to, Audible audio books that I have finished, etc.
There is already one attached 100 gig for holding this, but it is only one drive. A drive that remains off most of the time, but that one-drive system is how I lost most of everything. The additional RAID box provides always access and a second more resilient backup device.
This is a stop gap. What I would really like is an upgradeable 3, 5, 7, or 10 drive system RAID 5 that scales much better. Such a system would run into a couple thousand dollars very easily. I’m hoping this will reverse itself and a reasonable solution will materialize.
Storage is cheap these days. Storage solutions are not. RAID 5 boxes like this start at $400 and go up pretty quickly. This initial price point is a bit galling. Single external drives are <$100, double JBOD drives are <$100, double drive RAID 1 boxes are >$200, and a 5 drive RAID 5 is >$700.
CH: Behold WordPress, Destroyer of CPUs
Jeff Atwood has a post about making WordPress faster. This is a big concern for my blog, which several degrades at times, but for which I can get no performance data for the machine. He is hosting a new blog locally and measuring the CPU under Win2K8.
…
For a bare-bones blog which is doing approximately nothing, this is a completely unacceptable result. It’s appalling.
As evidence of what a systemic problem this is, there’s an entire cottage industry built around shoehorning better caching behavior into WordPress. Take your pick: WP-Cache, WP-Super-Cache, or Bad Behavior. The caching add-ins don’t work very well under IIS because they assume they’re running on a *NIX platform, but they can be coerced into working.
Does it work? Does it ever. Here’s what CPU usage looks like with basic WP-Cache type functionality enabled:
…
Results from ‘Getting to “I Do”‘
My cousin recommended this book and my brother got it for my off my Amazon Wishlist. And I finished it today. It’s very good. Consisting of advice and explanations human behavior referencing anecdotal stories of many, many couples from the authors’ seminars and professional practice. Roughly, 10 exercises or sentence structures are distributed where appropriate. These facilitate interpersonal communication and provide a structure to face confrontation of sensitive subjects.
Most differences center around Male, logical thinking, giving energy and Female, feeling thinking, receiving energy. One person must be one energy and the other must be the opposite energy regardless of gender. This applies to the relationship and then again to aspects of the relationship. Individuals who choose to enlist both energies are Narcissistic and will not form long term relationships, which is obviously the reader’s purpose.
My own description, to my surprise, is that I am Male energy. With the caveat that I was raised by women. This is similar to being raised by wolves, but less furry and dinner isn’t raw.
Good Quotes:
Another anatomical indicator that modifies and shapes our choices i the lobes of the brain. The left lobe is the thinking, verbal, and actively “masculine” lobe, and the right one is the feeling, nonverbal, receptively “feminine” lobe. Between these is a fibrous mass called the corpus callosum that processes information from both lobes. Because this transmitting tissue is small in right-handed men than it is in left-handed men or in women, generally right-handed men act from either their left lobe (teaching, verbalizing, problem-solving, solution-giving) or their right love (sensuous, nonverbal, sexual), but rarely from both right and left lobes at the same time.
However, a woman, because her corpus callosum is larger, is capable of processing data both from her right and left lobes at the same time, in effect melding her thoughts and feelings. This can cause problems ina relationship between a woman and a right-handed man, when she expects him to be able to speak freely about feelings and he expects her to be logical. Often, a right-handed man is confused about his bright, sensitive woman and says, “How can anyone be so smart and so dumb at the same time?”
A masculine-energy person will say, “I want to go to Alaska for our vacation. I think that will be a great place. How do you feel about that?”
The feminine-energy person will respond, “That would make me very happy. What a great idea.” Or, “That doesn’t make me very happy. I don’t want to go so far away. I’d really feel better about someplace closer. What do you think about that?”
The “male” energy is the giving, initiating, leading, active partner, who elicits surrender, receptivity, and bonding from his partner. When the masculine energy gives, protects, and cherishes, he is penetrating the other’s defenses to surrender to the pleasure of the relationship.
Femaleness is the passive, the receptive, the emotional; it can be represented by the nonverbal energy. Its function in traditional terms is to server as ans outlet for emotion and as a moral brake; it can be seen as the stable center that allows a relationship to develop and be maintained.
Mike the Headless Chicken
Mike’s Story
September 10th, 1945 finds a strapping (but tender) five and a half month old Wyandotte rooster pecking through the dust of Fruita, Colorado. The unsuspecting bird had never looked so delicious as he did that, now famous, day. Clara Olsen was planning on featuring the plump chicken in the evening meal. Husband Lloyd Olsen was sent out, on a very routine mission, to prepare the designated fryer for the pan. Nothing about this task turned out to be routine. Lloyd knew his Mother in Law would be dining with them and would savor the neck. He positioned his ax precisely, estimating just the right tolerances, to leave a generous neck bone. “It was as important to Suck-Up to your Mother in Law in the 40’s as it is today.” A skillful blow was executed and the chicken staggered around like most freshly terminated poultry.
When Olsen found Mike the next morning, sleeping with his “head” under his wing, he decided that if Mike had that much will to live, he would figure out a way to feed and water him. With an eyedropper Mike was given grain and water. It was becoming obvious that Mike was special. A week into Mike’s new life Olsen packed him up and took him 250 miles to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City . The skeptical scientists were eager to answer all the questions regarding Mike’s amazing ability to survive with no head. It was determined that ax blade had missed the jugular vein and a clot had prevented Mike from bleeding to death. Although most of his head was in a jar, most of his brain stem and one ear was left on his body. Since most of a chicken’s reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem Mike was able to remain quite healthy.
In the 18 MONTHS that Mike lived as “The Headless Wonder Chicken” he grew from a mere 2 1/2 lbs. to nearly 8 lbs. In a Gayle Meyer interview Olsen said Mike was a “robust chicken - a fine specimen of a chicken except for not having a head.” Some longtime Fruita residents, gathered at the Monument Cafe for coffee, also remember Mike - “he was a big fat chicken who didn’t know he didn’t have a head” - “he seemed as happy as any other chicken.” Mike’s excellent state of health made it difficult for animal-rights activists to garner much of a following. Even now the town of Fruita celebrates Mike’s impressive will to live, not the nature of his handicap. Miracle Mike took on a manager, and with the Olsens in tow, set out on a national tour. Curious sideshow patrons in New York , Atlantic City , Los Angeles , and San Diego lined up to pay 25 cents to see Mike. The “Wonder Chicken” was valued at $10,000.00 and insured for the same. His fame and fortune would earn him recognition in Life and Time Magazines. It goes without saying there was a Guinness World Record in all this. While returning from one of these road trips the Olsens stopped at a motel in the Arizona desert. In the middle of the night Mike began to choke. Unable to find the eyedropper used to clear Mike’s open esophagus Miracle Mike passed on.
John Adams on HBO
This Sunday will be the last of 7 in the John Adams biography. They are going to run all 7 back to back starting at 1 PM on Sunday. This is an easy way to pick up some history from the Revolution era. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney do a fantastic job. We have constitutional and electoral problems today like they did at the very beginning of the nation. It really puts things in context. We think, ‘This has never happened before’ on so many issues. But we are just the current version of a long line of human error, corruption, and hubris.
ISPs Caught Editing in route Web Pages
Why would ISPs be so willing to filter copyrighted materials when there is a huge exemption written in to law? This has puzzled me for years. I thought and still believe that there are payments from large content producers for just such an action. Another discovery by UoW and the actions of Comcast to filter BitTorrent traffic have also revealed what their intentions.
ISPs are planning to move away from simple connections and intend to edit the web streams that you receive. The University of Washington has reported ads being inserted into to web pages when some view a UoW web site. By injecting adds the ISP becomes a de facto web editor and throws away the legal protections in the DMCA. It’s crazy and very risky, but they’ll do it for the chance to make money in slow growth market.
In a paper, set to be delivered Wednesday, the researchers document some troubling practices. In July and August they tested data sent to about 50,000 computers and discovered that a small number of Internet service providers (ISPs) were injecting ads into Web pages on their networks. They also found that some Web browsing and ad-blocking software was actually making Web surfing more dangerous by introducing security vulnerabilities into pages.
ISPs Meddled With Their Customers’ Web Traffic, Study Finds
Being an ISP is a very static business, as it should be. It’s the equivalent of providing water, gas, roads, etc. Not sexy and with a very slow growth curve. So, how can they jack up growth and revenues for Wall Street. By selling everything and anything. ISPs believe they own you and your clickstream on both ends of the pipe. The monthly service fee is only the beginning. Ten years from now your Internet service fee should be double. Not because the companies have earned it, but because they seek to raise it to the maximum possible rate that the consumer will tolerate. After all, that’s supply and demand, right?
Does your Cat have Free Will?
Well?
I submit your pets are as free as you are. They are just not as aware or educated.
Where there is choice there is free will. The definition of free will is: The ability or discretion to choose, The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will
Cats can be finicky eaters; choosing to eat one food and not another or growing tired of one food. There is choice here to eat or not to eat. If cats were automatons they would respond in the same way to the same stimulus. However, if the cat knows that a variety of foods are available it may deign not to eat and instead beg for something else. Demonstrating two things; knowledge of other choices plus how to get them and a personal preference.
One important thing in this example is education or knowledge. It assumes the cat has learned that it’s owner will feed it different foods and it can make an action that causes a particular food or a change of foods. This is important, because it shows that the difference between man and animal is not free will, but knowledge that other choices are available is passed from generation to generation.
BTW, there is a scholarship program named, Education is Freedom.
The cat has a personal preference or desire or want for something different. Is this any different from man? I want to sleep in a bed and not on the floor? The cat wants tuna instead of Friskies.
So, the cat wants tuna and refuses to eat Friskies until tuna shows up. I know 2 years that act the same way. Who has not experience the individual who refuses to eat mayonnaise on their hamburger until a new, “clean” one is provided?
If a cat has free will, what is different from a cat and a pigeon? Besides the obvious morphologies of birdness and catness. We can understand or be made to understand the cat. We are less familiar with the pigeon. This is an issue of knowledge, our knowledge or bird communication. It’s not an issue of free will.
The question is not, “Why is man special from the animals?” The question really is, “Is man special?”
Let’s compare the closest animal that is not man, the various forms of monkey and the transfer of knowledge from monkey to monkey. Can a monkey learn from verbal instruction from other monkeys? No. Can a monkey learn from written symbology? No. Can a monkey learn from observation? Yes. “Monkey see. Monkey do.” Is true.
That’s quite a limitation. The only knowledge transfer can come from experiences that one monkey can encounter in his/her lifetime and that the experience reoccurs in order to pass along that knowledge to other monkeys. No oral history. No cave drawings. Nothing written.
Imagine a human grown up with this constraint. How would that person seem to us? Savage, barbarian, animalistic? Someone for whom everything learned is learned by observation. We might want to know how they learn to be less animal and more knowledgeable. If you want to believe in ETs visiting Earth, perhaps this is why they keep coming back, “Look Quiquak, the humans are once again setting off a nuclear explosion and threatening another group of humans call Russia.” While the announcer breaks in to say, “Next, on a Animal Planet…”
So, animals can choose, but they may not know this. Their is an inability to transmit knowledge of choices to other members of the species.
How many animals do we really know about? Land animals sure, but whales and dolphins sure seem to have very complex behavior and communication patterns. Whales sing. Could this be a recital of an oral history? Their communication and environment is so different than ours.
Persistence of a communication seems to be the very key. There is no knowledge transfer beyond one individual’s lifetime to another without it.
This satisfies the first definition of free will. Perhaps, I will get to the second definition later. I suspect that the second definition is verbal trickery of something that can not be proven either way, but is a comfortable lie for man to tell himself. A rationalization that justifies the slaughter of other animals for his own stomach. “See”, he says to himself, “they aren’t human. So, it’s ok”. Thus hearkening a very old violent genetic tribal belief from when Man was hunted by lions, tigers, and bears.
Creation Creates
Did you know that you think there is a spark of God in each of us?
What did God do in 6 days? He made all of Creation.
The meaning of Creation is: The act of creating., The fact or state of having been created., The act of investing with a new office or title., The world and all things in it., All creatures or a class of creatures., The divine act by which, according to various religious and philosophical traditions, the world was brought into existence., An original product of human invention or artistic imagination.
What does it mean to create: To cause to exist; bring into being, To give rise to; produce, To invest with an office or title; appoint,, To produce through artistic or imaginative effort.
We reproduce God’s creation in the small every day. Every one of us. You can’t live a day as human without creating something. Whether it is making a to-do list, writing a post, wood working, or just deciding how you will spend your time. The arrangement of activities in order or filtering them is creation of one hour, one day, one month, one year, one life. A human isn’t just creation, he is creating.
Is he alone? Look around at the animals. They certainly seem to have a will as free as ours seems to be. So, let’s assume they do and that any attitudes we have are due to an inability to communicate as fully between human-animal as human-human (yeah, this is sooo easy).
Many people have cats and dogs. Do they not also choose to eat, play, scratch, dig, run, create more of their species,..? Creation using time as the pen and the body+environment for the book. God’s creation is itself creating all the time. You don’t need to see an aura or spark or some other metaphysical/new age crutch. Look at what happens in front of your eyes every minute of everyday from the smallest quasi-living matter of a virus to the largest county size tree.
PS
This proof is based on English. It would be foolish to assume all languages are slanted similarly.
AFP: German schoolboy corrects NASA’s asteroid figures
In a reminder that the experts are not always right..
German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA’s asteroid figures: paper
BERLIN (AFP) — A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA’s estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.
Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.
NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.
The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.
Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth — and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.
If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.
…
Kryon Passage
I was flipping through the second Kryon book and come up on this. Thought I would post it here.
Use love as your power source as you do these things. Love those who hate you. Learn to tolerate the intolerable. Be peaceful when peace does not seem to be at hand. All of these things are possible! This is the key to the engine of karma. Those things which you have created are easily undone. Only you have the ability to deal with each one correctly. Tests are created so they may be passed. It is you who authored your own test, so know this: there is no test which is beyond your knowledge or ability to walk through. the Universe will never give you a problem that is unsolvable. This would not serve any of you, or Spirit. This is a promise to you from Spirit!
From page 105
Kryon Book II: Don’t Think Like a Human! Channeled answers to basic questions ©1994
BH: Do You Care Where Your Comments Are?
Do You Care Where Your Comments Are?
When bloggers are quoting other bloggers and you want to comment on the issue, where do you leave your comment?
There are three different options:
1. Comment on the the original post
2. Comment on the post that quoted the original post
3. Start a new post and use trackback/pingback to notify the other two posts
…