News You Can Bruise

and a Seth David Schoen.

Seth is encountering the same problem I did in Brussels, where you brush up on the local language and think you're hot stuff and everyone just speaks English to you because it's faster.

Hi, I'm Seth David Schoen. Not really, but let's say I was. Today would be my birthday! And my friend Leonard would be racking his brain trying to think of a gift that would top 2002's floating-head-fest ksethdavidschoen. And failing, because he totally forgot until the last moment that he needed to think of a present for Seth. Yes, the same problem that befalls people who buy presents also lies in wait for those who write pieces of software to use as presents. He'd have to fall back on the old "I'm Seth David Schoen" gag, that tired prune of a joke.

But wait! Surely the fact that it's such an old joke is the key to how best to use it. In this computerized age, can we not automate the rituals that, while not actually giving us satisfaction, give a sort of second-order satisfaction when we see that others still perform them? Do we dare treat a running gag not with the deference due to age but with the surgeon's eye of the seasoned refactorer?

Indeed we do. Now that I [still Seth] use Leonard's NewsBruiser weblog software, all sorts of crazy plugins are within my reach. If only Leonard would write a NewsBruiser plugin that implemented this bizarre in-joke! Then my [Seth's] birthday would be complete!

Well, far be it from me [Leonard] to interfere with the completeness of Seth's birthday. The Birthday Incompleteness Theorem notwithstanding, I present NB-SethDavidSchoen, the most useless NewsBruiser plugin ever, and the first to come in a standalone package (the two are related). Furthermore, I've flipped the switch on my own weblog for the remainder of Seth's birthday.

As are we all, I'm Seth David Schoen.

This is my reverse-engineering of a dish by that name that Seth had heard about when he was young. I'll present it in lovely CfE format.

3 yams, peeled and diced	Bake on sheet for 30 minutes at 325 degrees		combine
1 cup mixed dried fruit (eg. cranberries, raisins)
1 cup nuts (eg. walnuts)	toast
2 Walla Walla or other sweet onions, diced	saute in olive oil
ground cinnamon
cumin
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 cups water or broth	boil	combine and fluff
2 cups couscous

Discussion: I added more stuff to the recipe than to the dish I actually made, because the awesome expansion power of couscous made the end result look like a desert of couscous which expeditions of yams and cranberries had unsuccessfully tried to cross. Couscous can hold a lot of other stuff. I also added some garlic to the recipe because the couscous I made was too sweet and lacked bite. Put in the garlic when your saute is almost done so it doesn't burn; that's just a general rule of garlic. I used Hawaiian sweet onions because I couldn't find Walla Walla onions.

Not bad, for a first couscous recipe. And until I find a better one, I declare that this has the best name of any dish ever created.

Seth's diary is now on NewsBruiser, after an evening of rewrite rule magic and Apache configuration frustration. Now you too can subscribe to his RSS feed, or just enjoy the superior navigability of NewsBruiser over... HTML files. Yeah, that was hard to beat.

Seth's moment in the AP photo wire limelight. I like making up my own stories about that photo, more than I usually like making up stories about photo wire photos. Eg. Seth and the guy to his left are impeccably dressed Tarantinoid hitmen who have just missed their chance to bump off Attorney Fred von Lohmann. Or they noticed an enormous praying mantis perched on his back or something. Try it! It's fun.

I always complain to Seth that bad laws get passed and laws get passed with stupid loopholes because the people who draft the laws think "This brilliant law will solve our problem!" and don't think about attacks that use that very law for some undesirable purpose. The way good programmers think about hostile-user attacks against every design and implementation decision they make.

I know what you're thinking: "Great, another hacker trying to use the hammer of technology to hit the non-nail of law. Also, he has poor personal hygiene!" Well, hear me out before you judge, hoo-mon. My personal hygiene is actually quite good, and look at this hypothetical complaint constructed by the EFF to demonstrate how awful and exploitable is Orrin Hatch's INDUCE (now IICA) bill[0]. I'm sure my prattling to Seth had nothing to do with this, but it is the perfect example of what I was talking about.

Note that in a twist rarely seen in the technical realm, sometimes the people writing the law are actually using the law as cover to enable some new attack. In that case it's even more important for outside reviewers to find and expose the backdoor in the law. Also, all laws should be written in my Leibnitzian Python wonder-language that contains no ambiguity.

[0] Leonard's Analogue to Leonard's Analog[sic] to Brooks' Law: "Renaming a bad law makes it worse."

Seth and I saw Good Bye, Lenin! last night. Sumana was supposed to come as well, but I messed up the planning and scheduled the movie night while Sumana was at a concert with Zack. The movie was great-- a touching, beautiful film about propaganda and its effects on its makers and consumers. Who could have thought such a thing possible? It even cheated, Kobayashi Maru-style, by stealing a gag from The Big Lebowski, so what can I say? Go see it! is what I can say.

PS: Confidential to everyone. Who do you and I both know who looks exactly like Florian Lukas?

PS Update: Jarno, was it the guy from Denmark we met at EuroPython whose name I don't remember?

I didn't embarrass myself, but I didn't talk a whole lot either. It was a little depressing because I felt outclassed by people who were better than I at public speaking.

Note to self: put more business cards in your wallet. You lost all previous business cards when you put your wallet in the washer. That's just the way it works.

PS: Here's Seth's email advice, which is better than the use I got out of it:

Maybe you should prepare a short list of (as the PR people say) talking points -- or an outline -- that you can use if an appropriate time comes for you to make remarks. ... how you got involved, what technology people at the Clark campaign worked on, the campaign's attitude toward technology, etc.

People at seminars also hate generalities and love gossip. Being concrete (I should say being specific) is very desirable for attracting audience interest. I have a hard time with that sometimes. For example, when talking about trusted computing, I tend to assume that people think that things like "reverse engineering" and "interoperability" are good, and then talk about how reverse engineering may interfere with those abstract classes of activity. But for many audiences, it would probably be more helpful to say "suppose you had some spyware on a Windows machine, and you wanted to understand exactly what kind of personal information it was transmitting...".

Despite much gossip likely being off-topic for your panel, the inside of a presidential campaign is a place most people never get to see at all (like the inside of a nuclear power plant, or the inside of the Library of Congress, or something), and I'm sure many people in your audience would be hungry for general narrative about what it is like to help somebody run for president.

Another thing I think people can appreciate -- especially people who have been subjected to endless amounts of marketing here in the Bay Area during and even after the technology boom -- is a frank discussion of limitations. (It's refreshing to read Peter Neumann's RISKS stuff, for example, as an antidote to boundless optimism about particular technologies.) I suspect this kind of honesty can go very far just on the strength of the contrast with the way professional marketers talk about things. It conveys an honorable sense of "I am an engineer and I'm going to talk to you about what's really possible and what isn't".

When I was in Bakersfield last, we went to see Bakersfield College's production of Richard III, which was really good. Instead of using the auditorium seating, they built a smaller stage on top of the real stage and put bleachers to three sides. This had the advantage that the audience as a whole surrounded the actors. The actors had to act like real people instead of people with a strange biological attraction towards the front of the stage.

The play was good, the actors very competent, and the producers somehow managed to resist the urge to set the thing in the Old West. But the writing was so melodramatic that I find myself receptive to the revisionist history peddled by the first Google results for "richard iii", organizations set up to combat the negative image of Richard III formed by this play. Richard's monologues were all to the effect of "You know, I'm really evil. But what good is my being evil unless I do evil things? I know, I'll kill [x]!"

I think we've found the perfect Shakesperean role for Seth: the Second Murderer from Act I Scene IV.

Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be
damned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.
I'm Seth David Schoen.

Guest weblog is up. I'm out of here.

Seth said I was courageous. I hope I am.

At my going-away party, Seth talked about weird diets. The conversation came around, as it always does, to the USDA's National Nutrient Database. We talked about using the NND data to construct a diet navigator, something that would let you enter some wacky criteria and then create a solid in the 6661-dimensional space of diets, representing the diets that fit that criteria while providing all of your RDAs. This would, eg. allow you to scientifically determine once and for all whether it would be possible to do a vegetarian Atkins diet. Who are you going to believe, some hack on a message board, or linear algebra?

We also talked about making Nethack trendier by adding an Atkins diet conduct. To keep this conduct you could eat all the animal corpses you wanted, but not vegetable-based foods, or potions of booze or fruit juice. Alternatively, there might be a vegetable timeout.

Also check out newCROP, which has an enormous list of food crops, as well as the disturbing list of Famine Foods.

OK, here we go. This catches me up about halfway, not counting the inevitable Game Roundup.

• JavaScriptGraphics uses Javascript to render interactive images. Despite combining multiple things I find aggravating, this is neat. Product of Russia.
• You know what was really cool? The old-school Norton Utilities hex editor. I stopped using a hex editor around the same time I stopped using DOS, because for the stuff I did, having source code priced having a hex editor out of the market. But bdump gives a Norton-esque ASCII and hex rendition of a file. It can't simulate the cool raw-disk view that Norton did, but maybe there's something you can run as root which does. Anyone?
• If your weblog entries are scribbled into dated HTML files, like Seth's, then the Advogato poster will post all those files to your Advogato account. Will probably also work with NewsBruiser!
• spamtest is a web interface to SpamAssassin which lets you probe SpamAssassin for weaknesses. I mean, it lets you make sure that your legitimate, non-spam newsletter won't trigger SpamAssassin. Sorry, but maybe you should consider the possibility that your newsletter actually is spam.
• SQL Profiler tries to find places where you could add SQL indexes to your database tables. Requires that you be using JDBC.
• I've heard good things about Jext as a source code editor/light IDE. Unlike other source code editors, Jext lets you put hot chicks in the background of your code windows, possibly as some sort of motivational tool.
• Principia Mathematica II is a predicate logic proof system and a hyperlink-aware way of representing such proofs. The goal is to build a large distributed archive of mathematical knowledge, each proof being reducible to the basic axioms. Unfortunately, Godel proved that due to limitations of HTTP, there will always exist URLs containing true statements that PMII will not be able to access.
• TEAPOT is a prim, three-dimensional ncurses spreadsheet. A three-dimensional spreadsheet?! Why not? I'll quote from the web page:

  In traditional flat spread sheets, you have to have the ability of hiding columns or rows to hide intermediate results. This indicates that two dimensions are not enough...

  But why stop there? I'd like a spreadsheet of n, nay, even n+1 dimensions!

• Eurobill calculates the checksums on Euro bills. This is pretty cool, but I gave all my Euros to Rachel.
• The Hunting of the Snark Project is what Project Gutenberg should have been called. Instead, it is a hackable Java BitTorrent client. Nice version numbering system.
• ft is a template engine for PHP. You may know PHP as a popular template language.
• Rnews is a server-side aggregator like, but not as good as Feed On Feeds. I don't like the way the interface only displays the titles. However, it's another server-side aggregator, so take a look at it.
• For every successful X, someone is undergoing a quixotic quest to redesign X. The author of NewSQL noticed that "Nobody is trying to clean up the SQL grammar" and sprung into action, creating a language that will either look like a bunch of methods on table objects, or will look like SQL without the "FROM" and "ON" and "INTO" that look friendly until you can't remember which one of them to use to list a table's indexes.
• Satellitarium displays the locations of satellites you have in orbit. If you're not a supervillain, a space agency, or a communications company, it lets you track the satellites other people have in orbit. Ported from OS/2!
• The HP Labs Semantic Web Research page links to Semantic Web toolkits like Jena2 and Joseki, while inadvertently demonstrating that the only people who really use the Semantic Web right now are the people who think acronyms like "HP" should be provided with mouseover expansions.
• ReadySET is Jason Robbins' latest project; a set of HTML templates for documenting development over the lifetime of a piece of software.
• I am still a sucker for map software. Thuban is a GIS map viewer which lets you do TIGER-like things to any GIS data. Thuban links to freegis.org, a bunch of links to map software which deserves a roundup all to itself. I know there's a science fiction story in here somewhere, but do I look like Cory Doctorow to you? Hm, I guess I have to think of another excuse. PS: another pirate joke to complete Seth's "pirate Constitution" series of jokes, two days late and two dollars short for TLAPD:

  Q: What was the precursor to the pirate Constitution?
  A: The Arrrrticles of Confederation.

• memaid is a memorization aid that works with question/answer pairs you provide, using a neural network to predict how best to get you to memorize them.
• HiveConf claims to be a configuration framework, but loyal readers of my paper on configuration frameworks will note that in terms of the terminology of that paper, it is a configuration store capable of supporting multiple formats.
• You know how sometimes in science fiction stories, person A has to do exposition to person B with respect to scientific phenomenon C because at the spaceman academy, person B spent too much time in the class about C thinking about cute classmate D? Well, that's why I don't understand error-correcting codes very well. But David MacKay has a cool site, sponsored by the Gatsby foundation, containing software for generating and analyzing error-correcting and error-detecting codes. According to the website, there are some codes discovered in 1962 which are much better than the ones you learn in class, so maybe I was just engaging in a form of unconscious protest.
• With Read It To Me, you can turn your RSS feed into MP3s for your iPod and achieve ultimate post-dot-com crash hipsterdom. Only works on texts that may be read aloud.

  If you do not have UnicodeChecker, you will likely have some unicode characters read to you. For example, it will say "and number eight thousand two hundred and seventeen" instead of "'".

  Pretty cool that it can say "'".

• doclite is a simple HTML preprocessor for adding just enough structure to a document that you can keep multiple related documents in one file and add sections to the documents which are linked and grouped into a table of contents. The multiple-document thing is something I'd like to see introduced into reST.
• Abeni makes it easier to create Gentoo ebuilds. Sounds really useful.

Together at last!

PS: also a good advertisement for trilobites, if you want one. Many of the trilobites in these pictures are still up for adoption! (People who have already requested trilobites: you will get them, I promise.)

Don't tell Seth about the Java applet version of Set.

I thought I'd have a set of roundups for you by tonight, but I haven't even gotten all the way through the list of new projects on Freshmeat since the last time I checked (May).

The guest weblog was a big success, such a success that I've taken it off the front page to remove the temptation to not write anything in NYCB, instead cynically pretending the guest weblog is something I write somnambulically. I don't know whether to move it to a side spot on the front page like the BoingBoing guest weblog, causing the participants to lose interest as the novelty fades, or to just hide it until the next time I'm gone. Probably the latter, since I was unable to think of a downside for that option. Thanks to all participants for their great entries, especially to Brendan for putting up the first part of his semicanonical Jake Berendes West Covina graphic novel.

More information about my trip coming soon. If you want a trilobite, talk to me. If you want pictures, wait until I get my DSL equipment (I called today and discovered that someone forgot to push the damn button that sends my equipment, so the guy filed a Request To Push Damn Button, and hopefully that will be the end of it), or check out Seth's cool pictures from Germany.

I once asked Seth how much of the literature of antiquity has been translated into English. He said, "About ten percent. I'm Seth David Schoen." But in actuality and not in my fevered imagination, he just said, "About ten percent." Why is this? Mainly because of Sturgeon's Law. It's not worth anyone's time to translate Porcellus' De Re Crapola. Another reason is more sinister: to ensure that students have an unending, cheatproof supply of translation exercises.

Yeah, I've been dealing with the government a lot lately. A couple weeks ago I went to the DMV. The Latin Library and Perseus mainly have the original-language versions of the stuff that's been translated into English, but Intertext has more of the obscure stuff.

What? You say that stand-up-comedy-style segues only work if they have some relationship to what comes afterwards? But if I can connect two irrelevant things with a segue that's only relevant to the second one, why shouldn't I be able to connect two mutually relevant things with a segue irrelevant to either? Sounds to me like you're in the pay of Big Comedy!

Seth will be on The Linux Show!! tonight. Don't forget, that's The Linux Show!!. You can get The Linux Show!! in RealAudio or streaming OGG format. I won't be listening to Seth on The Linux Show!! live, because I'll be having dinner with Sumana to celebrate her new job (Hooray![!]).

I had a blast at Seth's party. Among other things, I got one of the new BBCs (check out the new BBC logo!), and I met Riana. Riana, Seth, and I told lots of pirate jokes. Here are three of Seth's:

Q: Where do they keep the pirate Constitution?
A: In the National Arrrrchives.

Q: How do they protect the pirate Constitution from deterioration?
A: Arrrrgon.

Q: What's a pirate's favorite web portal?
A: Yoho!.

And two of mine:

Q: What was an evolutionary precursor to the modern pirate?
A: yo-ho-homo erectus.

Q: What is a pirate's favorite physical constant?
A: Plank's Constant.

(Apparently I can't remember any of Riana's pirate jokes.)

Also, when I came in, Zack mistook me for Cory Doctorow. Cory did not show up, leaving the nagging question in the back of my mind: could I have succesfully impersonated Cory Doctorow for the duration of the party? Maybe there's a story on the possibility.

I showed Seth and Nick Moffitt my new game, and they laughed uproariously. Hopefully I'll finish the game tomorrow, and then you too can laugh uproariously or not get it.

<--I'M WITH SETH DAVID SCHOEN

Although he's snowed in, Seth continues to dispense pearls of wisdom. Today, he weighs in with a plausible explanation for that part of "Home On The Range":

Couldn't it be "of our star"?

"I looked at Public Knowledge's Internet connection, and I wondered whether its bitrate exceeds that of ours."

The #tron people keep trying to control my actions through clickolinko. Specifically they want me to link to The Advertising Slogan Generator[0] with the input "Seth David Schoen", forming hilarious output like "It Takes A Tough Man To Make A Tender Seth David Schoen." and "Ho Ho Ho, Green Seth David Schoen." Now I've linked, but at what cost? Next they'll want me to post links to CNN bloopers and Engrish captions from The Two Towers bootlegs[1]! What have I done? You've gone mad, me! Mad, I tell myself!

[0] First seen in Tales You Can Bruise, Issue #55.

[1] I found that one elsewhere and was going to link to it anyway, but this forms a useful framing device.

Seth David Schoen presents Heliogabalus: The Time-Constrained Neil Gaiman Comic. Covers much the same ground as the Life I linked to yesterday, only in comic book format, with odd digressions that connect smoothly back to the narrative (actually, now that I think about it, the Life has odd digressions that don't connect smoothly back to the narrative, thanks to the interpolations of later scribes), and lettered so small you can barely read it (or maybe that's just my monitor).

That same page says that American Gods is now out in paperback. "If you've avoided American Gods because of the high price of hardcovers, grab yourself the paperback now." Why, that's exactly why I was avoiding American Gods! I always feel bad buying books in hardcover. I bought The Years of Rice and Salt in hardcover; I used my gift certificate but I still feel bad about it.

Hm, "Not buying some information you are interested in, in favor of waiting for it to be available in a lower-cost medium" sounds like a New Copyright Crime. After all, it's a slippery slope towards wanting to download it off the Internet for free.

PS: Page 13 of the comic has a cool drawing of a crocodile.

Boy, that Seth David Schoen. When he's not talking about the devious plans of The Man to reduce us all to digital chattel, he's complaining that his arms hurt. I tell ya, it's always arms and The Man with Seth.

From a conversation with Seth:

"You're a propagandist!"
"I prefer the term 'semiotic warrior'."
"Well, I prefer the term 'propagandist'!"