Linkstew

My term paper is now officially late, and I'm still plugging away on my CS project. I gave up on trying to get my term paper done on time yesterday when I tried to get a journal article to reference and found out that the volume I wanted was only available through the Bancroft Library.

Before I go any further, there are two important points you should know. First, I was trying to find Volume 72 of the New Mexico Historical Review, which was published in 1997, and Second, the Bancroft Library deals in rare and valuable books. Further, volumes 1 through 71 of the New Mexico Historicla Review were available in the main stacks, available for anyone to defile at their leisure. To add insult to injury, they didn't even have the book on campus -- they had to airlift the book in from their armed fortress order the book from NRLF. So there was no way I'd be able to see the article before today at 3, when the book was scheduled to be delived. My term was due at 3:30 today. So instead of spreading myself thin today trying to finish two projects, I resigned myself to doing a good job on the cs project and turning in the term paper by Friday at 5, which is the first late deadline.

Of course, when I went to Bancroft today at 3 to view the book, it took them an hour and a half to bring it to me. So I sat there, bored out of my mind, because they wouldn't let me bring in my backpack or pens or anything remotely interesting, so that I couldn't damage their rare books. Oh well, so much for dedicating the whole day to the cs project.

There's still the question of why a book released in 1997 was considered a "rare book" though. And it's still my fault for not starting sooner.

While the archives might suggest that this page dates back to 1997, it isn't actually quite that old. The evolutionary process resulting in the LinkStew you're reading right now really started 3 years ago, on March 15, 1998. I had made two or three other attempts at personal web pages before that fateful day, but if they're still on the web, they've long since been relegated to being netropy. I hope they're not still online -- I don't remember the URLs, let alone the passwords to delete them. The archives on the site date to 1997 because I used the date the content was written as closely as I could figure when I merged colder content into the Linkstew engine.

Regardless of that, there's a lot of words on this site -- I'm nearing 1000 posts, totalling 175,000 words and more than 1,000,000 characters. That's how much data is currently available on Linkstew -- not counting all the essays and papers that I haven't incorporated into system yet.

And dating earlier than that, I recently found a text file containing my journal from the middle of my sophomore year of high school up through March of 1998, which contains 500k of me talking about what girl I liked at the moment, mainly. I don't think I'm going to be adding that to the site anytime soon, but maybe some day -- Maybe for the site's five year anniversary, or something. Right now I think I'd still be embarressed by how ridiculously deluded and silly I was back then.

I kind of wanted to have some changes done to the site for today, but between a whole lot of homework, jobwork, and unexpected changes in my life, I've been too busy to follow through with my plans. Hopefully during Spring Break the week after next I'll be able to execute my plans and figure out a game plan for where I want to go with the site.

Here's to another million letters!

Tonight I finally got my laundry schedule back on track. I have about two loads worth of clothes, and every semester up until now I had my laundry synchronized so that I'd do both loads every two weeks. But when I got back from winter break this year, my laundry cycle got off, and I was doing a load ever week, alternating back and forth between the light and dark. I finally got so tired of the weekly chore that I just didn't do laundry last week. So tonight, I'm doing both loads of laundry, and after tonight, I'll return to my regularly bi-weekly laundry schedule.

Speaking of laundry, today's episode of my History of Technology class was moderately interesting; The topic was, surprise surprise, laundry. Well, it was more general than that, but we kept returning to the example of laundry. The actual topic was the migration of technologies to and from the house.

Way back in the day, the women of the house did the laundry (among multitudinous other things) by hand. Then, in the 1850's, commercial laundries developed because those 49er's were too busy hunting for gold to be bothered with clean clothes. The industry grew and grew, until the electric washer was developed in the early 20th century and laundry returned home. Strangely enough, though, other cultures, including France and somewhere in latin america, send their laundry out to be professionally cleaned to this day. More Work For Mother by Ruth Cowan discusses aspects of technology transfer to and from the home in American culture.

Personally, I'd totally go in to have someone do my laundry for me, assuming reasonable prices. It's a pity that commercial laundry was quelched by some aspect of the American culture, because I'd love to not have to deal with laundry ever again.

Last semester it was boat navigation synch, this semester it's indian tribe I've never heard of Synch. First I saw a video about the Nez Perce indian tribe I'd never heard of in my history of technology class. We were supposed to watch a video about Custer's Last Stand, but the video wasn't returned on time to the library, so the Nez Perce video was selected pretty much at random at the last minute. Then, today, in my Linguistics lecture, the Nez Perce language was mentioned as an asside as being a language which had unusual syllable qualities. Yet more evidence that the fact I've never heard of someone doesn't make them not important.

Today in Geography, we were shown a video on nuclear testing done on Bikini Island in the Pacific in 1946. Here is the Navy FAQ on operation Crossroads. Also, here is a nice page describing a lot of the nuclear tests performed by the U.S.

Now first, let me say that arguing over the morality of Hiroshima is a moot point. Second, let me say that Nagasaki should not have happened. Both countries should have known better at that point (Japan should have given up real quick, the U.S. should have said "holy shit", and the U.S. should have said "Oh, Japan? By the way, that was a small one..."). Nuclear testing on that island, however, was downright wrong.

First, they had to evacuate everyone from the island, stranding a culture forever. Then they effectively killed a lot of their own men by having them watch and not considering the effects of irradiating the water. Finally, they left animals there to see what would happen... Not like they were able to find any pieces when all was said and done. The only thing that was at all good about that whole mess was they documented it well. Now people will forever be able to look back and with mouths agape that anything like that could have happened.

The video was very well done. The effect of the carefree pacific music playing as the island was evacuated and the former chief spoke of his confusion was full of pathos. The sudden realization that the navy veteran who was talking about his experiences didn't have any legs (and the description of his leg bursting from the knee to ankle because of his radiation caused cancer) was a little horrifying. And the two notes at the end of the film that the veteran had died shortly after the making of the film was almost as sad as the note which pointed out that the chief and his people would never be able to return to the irradiated rock formerly known as the paradise of Bikini Island.

Hopefully, the collective we will learn from the past.

I remember a long time ago when Mike Drrrr and I were playing Kings Quest VI, and one of the characters exclaimed "Zounds!" Now, Mike and I thought that was pretty funny, because we'd never heard such a silly phrase. Many, many years later, I found out it was apparently a British word.

Even more later, I learned the derivation of the word. A long time ago, there was an exclamation that went "By Gods Wounds!" That was a slightly unwieldy phrase, so it was later shortened to "swounds", which was eventually slurred to become "Zounds!"

Back in my sophomore year of high school, we learned about assembly lines for some reason. I don't remember why. Instead of simply explaining the simple concept of an assembly line in 5 minutes to a class full of "gifted and talented" students, we were subjected to a ridiculous, hour long demonstration. The class was divided into an assembly line half and the craftsman half. Then the craftsmen each copied a picture by themselves, while on the assembly line, which was my half, each member reproduced a small part of the picture. The point was the assembly line works faster.

Why did this suddenly spring to mind? I was packing for Thanksgiving, and I noticed a Gap logo. Then I remembered the flyers about Gap using sweatshop labor to make clothes, and I thought about how much more expensive their clothes would be if they were made in the US. Then I realized that when I thought "made in the US," it meant made by an individual craftsman. However, the US almost certainly uses an assembly line as well, which is what prompted the memory.

You might wonder what those three have in common, besides the first letter. Well, today in the office, I found myself in an exhausted sweaty unproductive state of mind, so I read these two somewhat lengthy articles. The first was Tesla Wireless and the Tunguska Explosion and the second was The Tectonic Interpretation of the 1980 Tunguska Event. You should read these articles if:

• You are interested in Tesla
• You like alternative scientific theories
• You like alternative scientific conspiracy theories
• You're bored at work

It seems to be the news everywhere today -- Apple released the public beta of Mac OS X -- and the opinions of it seems to be pretty positive. But I'm looking at all the pretty pictures, and while I'm irritated by a lot of the things they changed, what I'm really wondering is, What happened to the revolution?

I can't find very much new here. Apple had the opportunity to reinvent the wheel. When all the Rhapsody hoolaboo first started brewing back when Apple bought Next, there were a ton of possibilities that were being flung around the Rhapsody developer lists. Pretty much nothing in the Rhapsody User Interface Document is in OS X. What happened to net boot? What happened to transparent desktop sessions following the user around? What happened to transparent redisplay of applications from other computers? This is not an innovative OS, it's just a rehash of all the same old ideas. What is there for me to be excited about.

And yet, I still want OS X on my forthcoming PowerBook. The blend of GUI and UNIX looks to be done well. All I can do right now is wait for my PowerBook and copy of OS X and hope that the Interface (both the look and the feel) is as infinitely tweakable as it should be, and hope that OS X 1.0 is just the foundations for a coming revolution, because the desktop OSs won't survive the coming storm.

Here are two moderately innovative developments that I've noticed, both mentioned on the "Internet" page. First, Sherlock and it's built in price display system is pretty rad. It's what the web should become -- Applications to find the information you need and then you can look at it with the browser. Second is the integration of WebDAV into the finder. I don't know of anything else that's using this yet. These are small beans, though. I've got ideas about how to enhance browser usability, and I think Mozilla may give me a proving ground for my ideas.

Big problems I have with this interface: they put the trash can right next to where they want you to store your documents. Windows can be jumpy if a dialog pops open (see this movie) (They clearly thought they were demonstrating a feature by showing that, but it's not. It's incosistant GUI). And most importantly, there is no window shading built in. I want to be able to minimize, and then restore without having to move my mouse. Argh!

"Aside from that one problem, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
-- Unknown

A couple of days after grabbing Nero Burning Rom (apparently pronounced Rome) from this site, I read Chapter 11 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which contains not one, not two, but THREE references to Nero and Rome. I'd never heard of Nero before that point, and I still don't quite get it... This site of sightseeing points in Rome indicates that Nero (whoever he was) set fire to Rome and watched it burn. This would explain why the icon for Nero Burning Rom (the program) is the Colosseum in flames.

I went bowling last week with ResComp, and I became very curious about just where this game came from... So I went and found out. Check out this alt.sports.bowling FAQ to find out... Very interesting. Wacky egyptians.