From: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org (eda-thoughts-digest) To: eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Subject: eda-thoughts-digest V1 #147 Reply-To: eda-thoughts@smoe.org Sender: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk eda-thoughts-digest Monday, August 24 1998 Volume 01 : Number 147 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: ET: Poems ["Seth D. Fulmer" ] Re: ET: Re: haiku/80s ["Kevin Pease" ] ET: Re: Re: Re: Re: songs that make you go grrrrrrr... ["Kevin Pease" ] Re: ET: Re: eda-thoughts-digest V1 #130 ["Kevin Pease" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 11:23:03 -0400 From: "Seth D. Fulmer" Subject: Re: ET: Poems That is Soooooo cool! I liked that 40 days without Sun :) Have you ever thought to put music to it?(Just a thought). I think that would be a good song as well if you wanted :=) Anyhow, take care of yourself :) Seth D. Fulmer mailto:kaosking@voicenet.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 10:48:03 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: Re: ET: Re: haiku/80s >> Jon writes: > My all-time fave 80's song would have to be "Don't You Forget About Me" from >the Breakfast Club. How can you not love the song and the movie!?!? :) Well... the song's all right, but I have to admit, for one reason or another, I've never quite managed to actually see that movie. :) (I did mention that I was out if it, didn't I? :) I've heard plenty of good things about the movie, but I've never actually sat down and watched it. Is this something I "absolutely just have to go out and see tonight," or what? :) Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest, So I can be for you what you want to see; I got the gestures, sounds, I got the timing down, It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me; Do you think I should take a class to lose my southern accent? Did I make me up, or make a face 'til it stuck? I do the best imitation of myself..." -----(Ben Folds Five)----- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 10:36:42 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: ET: Re: Re: Re: Re: songs that make you go grrrrrrr... >>kara garbe writes: >okay okay.... i suppose i can forgive you then. ;-) and now I've >got that Wang Chung song stuck in my head.... ahhhhh! Now, apparently, my oh-so-literate response was, and I quote, "". Hmm. Sorry 'bout that, I actually did write a response, promise. My mail server maybe barfed on me? Not sure. So anyway, here's how that response SHOULD have read: There are worse songs to have stuck in your head, though, I think. Wang Chung knew what was going on when they wrote that song. :) Since yesterday, I've had "When a problem comes along, you must whip it..." running through my head. :) It was a good song, but not the sort of song you want to be humming to yourself all day long. :) Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest, So I can be for you what you want to see; I got the gestures, sounds, I got the timing down, It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me; Do you think I should take a class to lose my southern accent? Did I make me up, or make a face 'til it stuck? I do the best imitation of myself..." -----(Ben Folds Five)----- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 11:34:04 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: Re: ET: Re: "perfect" >> Seth D. Fulmer writes: >Ok, take your example of anger and hate. I'm up against someone who loves >me more than anything and lacks anger and hate. If I did harm against >myself, then he would have to stop me and if I did everything in my power >to harm myself then after a while I have either found a way to get past his >"perfection of skill" or I've just: annoyed myself, hurt myself, and will >go onto other things to attack(Note that I'm not attacking anyone...It's >just a demonstration of how lack of something is a fault). ?? First, why would you be "up against" someone who loves you more than anything? I can think of far better ways to pass the time with someone who loves me than fighting with them & trying to make them let me hurt myself. Second, their love for you would obligate them to try to stop you from hurting yourself. However, you are, after all, a being with free will, and no matter how hard they try, they can't impose their will on you if you don't want to do whatever they're trying to get you to do (or not do). I would ascribe their failure to stop you from hurting yourself more to a fault on your part, though, rather than on their part. They can't *force* you to love yourself, all they can do is love you, and try to stop you from hurting yourself. Their lack of anger and hate is still not a fault on their part. Even if they had the capacity for anger & hate, that doesn't necessarily mean they could stop you from hurting yourself. >To be perfect, there can't be any loopholes. What do you mean by loopholes? A (theoretically) perfect human being doesn't have to be able to control his whole environment and everything inside and outside of himself. That's not perfection, that's being anal-retentive. :) There are always "loopholes", whether you're perfect or not - "perfection" doesn't imply a total control, mastery, and domination of everything around yourself. Perfection implies a lack of faults, and that's it. Those who would seek to control, master, and dominate everything around themselves are on a power trip, and that right there is a fault, if you ask me. >Ok, take that example...You're in a situation that you're sumo wrestling. >Lacking those 300 extra pounds would put you at a Major disadvantage and >the chances of you winning would be next to nothing. But still not nothing. The chances may be infinitesimally small, but I could still win that sumo match. In fact, I'd have several things going for me - I'd be smaller, lighter, and MUCH faster than a 500 pound sumo wrestler, and as I result I could use his own momentum against him. To win a sumo match, you just have to wear a big diaper-looking thing and throw the other guy out of the ring. I don't have to lift him up over my head, or let him stand on my shoulders or anything. >Actually, I hate that part of myself. I was talking with my mom this >weekend saying how my head is too big and asking her what she thought and >she said that compared to other guys my head was perfect but compared to a >female it was big...but she said that's normal. I said "Well I hate the >biological differences and I wish to neutralize the biological >differences". I would gladly go through the difficulties that females go >through in life even if so to respect their hardships more. MY GOD, why would you ever want to neutralize the biological differences between men and women? I'm sorry, but I think there's a lot to be said for those biological & physical differences... if men and women all looked the same, how boring would that get? It certainly would take most of the fun out of going to the beach. I hope I'm not alone here when I say that I actually *like* the physical & mental things that make women different from men. I wouldn't want to go through the hardships that females endure, any more than I'd wish them all to have to worry about things that guys have to deal with (in 4 words: wear your groin protection. :) I can respect their differences & hardships without having to go through what they feel. >Yes, theoretically if someone is perfects they lack imperfections in the >semantic sense. However in not a semantic sense, the idea that everyone >thinks of with perfection...I guess I'm saying that's not perfection. I >can find a loophole through that and defeat that being that is "perfect". >Do ya see what I'm saying? :) I see what you're saying, and what I'm saying is that I strongly disagree with your ideal of perfection... your idea of perfection sounds like a completely automated, mechanical, sterile existence. Loopholes can, should, and always will, exist. Life's about more than controlling everything around you and saying, "Hey, there's no loophole there..." Most of all, it sounds awful damned lonely... who's going to want to hang out with someone who loves them and hates them equally? who's going to want to hang out with someone who they can't convince to take the day off from work and go to the beach? Remember, no loopholes... if you're committed to work, you go to work. Not a single loophole ever sounds like a monotonous, regimented existence that I'd rather not have. I like a little order to my life, but if my life is that automatic, what's the point? Replace me with a machine, and have done with me. Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest, So I can be for you what you want to see; I got the gestures, sounds, I got the timing down, It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me; Do you think I should take a class to lose my southern accent? Did I make me up, or make a face 'til it stuck? I do the best imitation of myself..." -----(Ben Folds Five)----- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 12:35:14 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: Re: ET: Re: eda-thoughts-digest V1 #130 >> Seth D. Fulmer writes: >It's like baby steps. To walk 10 feet, a baby needs to make his/her first >step first. That's one small, very insignificant goal, but (s)he's >achieved it. Insignificant? Tell that to the baby's parents. :) My parents still remember my first step, and I think there actually may be a picture of that exciting event somewhere around the house. >However, the baby has not achieved the goal that was >originally set: to walk 10 feet...therefore (s)he has not achieved goals. I disagree. Maybe the baby hasn't walked ten feet, but it has still taken a step, and it is now capable of walking that 10 feet. What's more important (or maybe I should say harder) in your life - learning to take that first step, or taking the 70 trillion steps that will follow it? I bet you don't even have to think about walking to do it these days, I know I don't... it's automatic. Try telling that to a baby who hasn't learned to walk yet, though. >I've achieved a TON of very insignificant goals: getting all As, >being Boy of the Month...with the National Latin Exam, I got 1 wrong. My >goal was perfect. The fact that I failed that goal makes what I "did" >achieve insignificant. No, that's where you're wrong. The fact that you failed at that goal does not devalue the worth of your other accomplishments. I worked my ass off in college, with the hopes of graduating with high honors. I didn't get it... but I *did* graduate with honors. Does the fact that I graduated "only" with honors mean all that effort I put into it was worthless? Not in the least. I still know I worked my butt off, and I also know that my study habits maybe could stand to be improved. I still feel a lot of pride when I see that little piece of paper hanging on my wall that says "Bachelor of Science, Biotechnology." I know what went into it, and I know how hard I worked. My "goal" was graduating with high honors... I didn't make that, but I can certainly be proud of what I *did* accomplish towards that goal, and I've learned where I can use some improvement, so when I go back to grad school, maybe I can improve my study habits a little, and do a little better this time around. >But you said, and it's true too that the majority of computers will not >crash but simply record incorrect data inside databases...or even interpret >old data incorrectly. That's a matter of error checking protocols which >should be with the software and not the hardware. Check that paradigm at the door, please... :) Data is the reason the software exists... incorrect, faulty, or inaccessible data is useless. What's the point of having the Webster's complete Dictionary on a CD if I can't access it? It's useless, albeit fun to throw around. The computers won't crash, but the data will become corrupted, inaccurate, or just plain inaccessible... This is one reason Object-Oriented design is so big these days. It treats data as the most important part of the program (as it really should be)... Bad data = useless programs. >That way, this problem would be simply a problem of software. The problem is "simply" a problem of software. It's not a hardware error, the software with this error just cuts off the first two numbers of the year. The hardware is fine, the software is faulty. >Throw out the old software and recreate it, or fix it if you have the code. Creating new software to access & use old databases is easier said than done. It's easier to fix it most of the time than recreate it. And really, for a lot of these systems, to redesign & start over from scratch would take well past midnight of Dec. 31 1999. Start-to-finish design of software on an enterprise level is a long process. The stuff I'm working on here at my work has been in the design, revision, and enhancement phases for well over a year now, and we *just* received our Shipping Authorization on it from the QA group. >I see what you mean...but they shouldn't have put so much responsibility >with the hardware. Like I said, it's not a hardware problem... the chips are fine. The software that interprets the data which the chips track is faulty. >We would never in the current age put the world in the charge of robots... We wouldn't? Seems to me that we're doing this more and more as the days go by... computers & robotic devices are becoming more and more common and pervasive in everyday life. We've abdicated a lot of responsibility for day-to-day work to mechanical systems. >I tried to put >computer terms to real life political science examples to show what I mean >by my views on the Y2K issue. I don't think I understand your example. We get stupid, frivolous laws passed every day, and we're supposed to make it easier to get laws passed? :) I mean, do we really *need* a National Pork Month? >I say that the chips should have been set to >just give the raw date(2 or 4 digits...it doesn't matter) and the programs >should get the date, interpret it and if it interprets it wrong, then all >you have to do is put a new timer chip in the computer, change the software >in the computer. Even if you know 1900 won't be needed, then you can just >change the software and forget changing the chip. It's that simple if that >would have only been done in the 50s. :) Um... Seth, that is the way it works now. The chip keeps track of the time, and the software interprets the data that chip tracks. The problem is, a lot of the software was written to cut off the first two digits of the year, because "Hey, who needs that stuff? We all know it's the 1900's." The software just took the last two digits. If you're coding a database with a need for a lot of year variables to be recorded, cutting off those first two digits can, over a database of 1,000,000 entries, save a lot of disk space & processing power. When the software needs to access the database, it just assumes the data will be from 19xx, and tacks that 19 on. If you just need to store that 19 once, why store it 1,000,000 times? That's the thought process that led to this point. Now they've realized there's a problem with that older reasoning, and it's being fixed. The Y2K issue is completely a software issue, and the fix should allow the computers to work just fine up until the year 9999... after that, we may see more problems, but that's far enough down the road that I don't think it's that big of an issue for now. Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest, So I can be for you what you want to see; I got the gestures, sounds, I got the timing down, It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me; Do you think I should take a class to lose my southern accent? Did I make me up, or make a face 'til it stuck? I do the best imitation of myself..." -----(Ben Folds Five)----- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 13:58:20 -0400 From: "Seth D. Fulmer" Subject: Re: ET: Re: "perfect" At 11:34 AM 8/24/98 -0400, Kevin Pease wrote: > ?? First, why would you be "up against" someone who loves you more than >anything? I can think of far better ways to pass the time with someone who >loves me than fighting with them & trying to make them let me hurt myself. They would try to stop me and when they were unsuccessful, I can only imagine what else they would try. I guess this about shows that true perfection is improbable for humans but the "human" response is to become frustrated given enough time and then angry, or else (s)he is going against his goal to stop me. It would hurt him that the thing he loves is being hurt....Maybe my logic is flawed...I'm not a vulcan :) >their part. Even if they had the capacity for anger & hate, that doesn't >necessarily mean they could stop you from hurting yourself. Oh, I know they couldn't stop me...unless they pointed out that I was pointed out that I was missing something that I valued more than getting through to their weakness. > What do you mean by loopholes? A (theoretically) perfect human being >doesn't have to be able to control his whole environment and everything >inside and outside of himself. That's not perfection, that's being >anal-retentive. :) There are always "loopholes", whether you're perfect or >not - "perfection" doesn't imply a total control, mastery, and domination of >everything around yourself. Perfection implies a lack of faults, and that's >it. Those who would seek to control, master, and dominate everything around >themselves are on a power trip, and that right there is a fault, if you ask >me. I'm not saying he has to control his entire environment...but he has to be able to prevent others from subvertting himself. There have been times in my past that I say something like "I will never ___________" and someone points out later that I said it. I was caught in my own words...A loophole in my personality would be if I actually listen to that person and stop what I'm doing because of what I said earlier(i.e...anti-hypocrasy in that case). > But still not nothing. The chances may be infinitesimally small, but I >could still win that sumo match. In fact, I'd have several things going for >me - I'd be smaller, lighter, and MUCH faster than a 500 pound sumo >wrestler, and as I result I could use his own momentum against him. To win >a sumo match, you just have to wear a big diaper-looking thing and throw the >other guy out of the ring. I don't have to lift him up over my head, or let >him stand on my shoulders or anything. I see your point, however, taken the law of probabilities, he more than likely will end up landing on you or hitting you sometime. To be hit by a 500 lb anything...That has got to hurt(by the laws of physics - Momentum) > MY GOD, why would you ever want to neutralize the biological differences >between men and women? I'm sorry, but I think there's a lot to be said for >those biological & physical differences... if men and women all looked the >same, how boring would that get? It certainly would take most of the fun >out of going to the beach. I hope I'm not alone here when I say that I >actually *like* the physical & mental things that make women different from >men. Because I hate when people say stuff like "Men, you can't live with them...you can't shoot them" and the fact that females are more caring and cry more often and are more open about their personalities. Also, during that time every 28 days, they're a real #@#$% to guys without a logical reasoning. I think guys need a way to come back against that....Admittedly, I've neutralized the differences like caring, cry more often and more open about personalities and emotions. I am those characteristics...I've incorporated them in my personality. However, it pains me so when my friend Becki has abdominal pains every now and then(I don't keep track of time so I don't know if it's once a month but I wouldn't doubt it). My mom described it as trying to fit a watermellon through the eye of a needle. Plus, I have no clue how to curtsey(sp?), or NOT to lead in ball room dancing. I only know how to lead(whether that's a good thing or not I don't know), or why the freak they go to the restroom in groups or why they go there more times in an hour than therre are stars in the sky. I could go on for hours on this issue. > I wouldn't want to go through the hardships that females endure, any >more than I'd wish them all to have to worry about things that guys have to >deal with (in 4 words: wear your groin protection. :) I can respect their >differences & hardships without having to go through what they feel. I would want to go through the hardships just to understand. I have a skill(I don't know for how long) that I can copy someone's emotions but I can't take it away from them. If someone's mad, it's copied into me(then I do other things with that anger). If someone's sad, frustrated, I am that way and I try to solve the problem and make them happy again. If someone's in pain, I'd do anything to take the pain away from them. Have you ever seen "Powder"...what Powder did with the deer and the hunter guy? Well, I would give anything to have that power in humans and animals so that if an animal or human was hurting, I could take the pain into myself. > I see what you're saying, and what I'm saying is that I strongly >disagree with your ideal of perfection... your idea of perfection sounds >like a completely automated, mechanical, sterile existence. Loopholes can, >should, and always will, exist. Life's about more than controlling >everything around you and saying, "Hey, there's no loophole there..." Most >of all, it sounds awful damned lonely... who's going to want to hang out >with someone who loves them and hates them equally? who's going to want to >hang out with someone who they can't convince to take the day off from work >and go to the beach? Remember, no loopholes... if you're committed to work, >you go to work. Not a single loophole ever sounds like a monotonous, >regimented existence that I'd rather not have. I like a little order to my >life, but if my life is that automatic, what's the point? Replace me with a >machine, and have done with me. Once I'd get there, I'd make everyone else perfect as well...Then we'd all be equal. I won't ever get there...but I'm aiming in that general direction. Seth D. Fulmer mailto:kaosking@voicenet.com ------------------------------ End of eda-thoughts-digest V1 #147 **********************************