Author: matthew

Recently, I had a co-worker lump me into the “liberal” political camp because of my stands on various issues. Yet I consider myself really quite conservative on most things. I was able to pin down a few hotbuttons from a post from a friend the other day to a mutual mailing list. What do you look for in a presidential candidate? This list provided me a few ideas on what I was looking for…

• Bi-lingual education – Against. We don’t have an official national language, but it’s a disservice to the children to educate them in an alternative language than English at this point in time. If the majority of the country begins speaking another language, I’ll rethink that position.conservative?
• Big government – I think even liberals think “big government” is a bad idea. I’m for spending less without gutting the defense budget. Eliminate the stuff that doesn’t have a constitutional mandate wherever you can.conservative?
• Tax cuts – For. See above. conservative?
• Welfare – Been on it. Was glad for it. In favor of it, within time limits. Again, what those are, I can’t say, but a 1-on, 3-off routine sounds reasonable to me.liberal?
• Racial equality – In favor. Forced avoidance of bigotry is still a requirement for operation in this country, and if you think women and minorities aren’t still discriminated against, you probably don’t live in Utah.liberal?
• Abortion – for a woman’s right to choose, up to a point. What that point is, I don’t know. I recently learned of a child that survived at 22 weeks. I think the morning-after pill is totally OK. I think that late-term partial-birth abortions are a terrible waste of a viable life (in cases where the mother’s life is not in danger).liberal?
• Same-sex marriage – That’s a tough one to have an opinion on in Utah. In my opinion, any person should have the right to enter into any sort of contractual relationship with any other individual, as long as the rights of either party are not abrogated therein (death pacts, torture pacts, etc.) I just don’t why two consenting parties shouldn’t be allowed to enter into whatever sort of contract they want, and I should keep my nose out of it, however much the nature of that contract repulses me. liberal?
• Affirmative action – In favor, only where necessary. I think all affirmative action legislation should have a mandated sunset provision within five years, to re-evaluate if discrepancies have been remedied or not.liberal?
• Creationism in schools – Against. Just the facts, ma’am. I don’t see why Christian mythology about creation should be given priority over Aztec mythology about creation, and it has no place in public school science classes. Philosophy, religion, psychology, or social studies, sure, understanding human mythology is crucial to understanding the human psyche. But it’s not science, and shouldn’t be taught as such.liberal?
• Separation of church and state – Strongly for. Avoid even the appearance of evil by avoiding any appearance of state-funded subsidies of religious institutions. Unfortunatley, this puts me at odds with most of the “school vouchers” crowd, because government payments to church-owned schools sure sounds like a government subsidy of a particular religion to me — any religion that runs a successful private voucher-approved school.liberal?
• Strict environmentalism – Against. Sure, I drive a Super-Low Emissions Vehicle. I donate to green causes now and then. But I think our natural resources should be used within reasonable human impact. If we wipe out a few species, darnit, let’s preserve their DNA and some reproductive samples so that maybe they’ll have a chance at life after we’ve built the air force base there.conservative?
• Private property rights – Strongly in favor. A property owner should have ultimate authority over his/her property, period. I should be allowed to do what I wish with what I own, as long as it does not detrimentally impact other property owners, the general environment, or national security.conservative?
• States’ rights – Should supercede all but constitutionally-mandated Federal rights in all cases. No exceptions. Well, the only exceptions would probably be federal court cases where a nationally-recognized judgement is required to maintain a peacable state.conservative?
• Prayer in schools – Tough issue here in Utah. I’m in favor of the right of any person to pursue religions devotion as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others, but I am not in favor of public schools supporting specific religions. I kind of like how they did it in Maryland at my brother’s high school graduation. A Rabbi gave an invocation, and a Christian closed with prayer. As long as equal time is provided when necessary, no harm, no foul.Can’t tell if I’m conservative or liberal — let people pray publicly in school, but don’t allow any one religion to dominate?
• Protection of civil rights, goals of ACLU – In favor. The Bill of Rights has been eroding steadily over the last hundred years, and one of these days I’m going to become a card-carrying member of the ACLU, once I care enough.liberal?
• Use of American forces on foreign soil: Mostly against, but it depends on the circumstances. I really don’t like our country taking over the “global policeman” role, and we need some smart exit plans. But becoming involved when we need to can be warranted, and I think was warranted in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq. But we need to get out soon.too wishy-washy to be either
• Party registration – registered Republican. I’d be stupid not to be here in Utah. If you’re Republican, you can vote at both the Democrat and Republican polls. If you’re a Democrat, the Republican primaries are closed to you.conservative, out of practicality
• Voted in 2000 – for George Bush.conservative
• Will vote in 2004: not for George Bush. Not sure who I want to support yet, but since he’s the obvious Republican shoe-in for the presidential candidate (duh!), looks like I’m probably voting Democratic. As long as Gore doesn’t run against Bush again, if that happens I think he stinks too and maybe I’ll vote Libertarian.liberal?

Where do you stand on the interesting ones?

Here’s an interesting rant on proper resume etiquette in 2004. So much of what the career counselors tell you is absolute rubbish for the clueful hiring manager. If you’re interested in being another cubicle drone, do all the stuff he tells you not to do in this article. If you’re interested in actually getting a good job with a non-technology-challenged company, the simple lessons Joel puts forth may actually be useful.

As a former hiring manager, I speak from some experience here. Resumes stand out best when they are coherent, targetted specifically for the job, and are concise. A resume is an advertisement, not a history of job failures. You put your life on a page and hope someone takes the bait to schedule an interview.

Great freaking read.

Oh, and a tiny little web site has a really interesting discussion about this article as well.

We’re off to the hospital to have a baby this morning. I won’t be posting for a few days.

Wish us luck!

A few years ago, while at excite@home (now defunct — that page you’re seeing is just one of the parts that got auctioned off), I ran across a nifty little script by Steve Fulling called “vircs”. What it did, in a nutshell, was automatically handle RCS-ing a file when you edited it. You’d type “vircs /etc/resolv.conf” (for instance), and it would commit the file to RCS with your comments, and after you finished editing it, would commit the change to revision control as well.

Very, very convenient, and a nifty front-end to make life easier on those people administering your system.

Well, anyway, time went on, and after periodically searching the Internet for a copy of it for a couple of projects I was working on, I finally decided to contact Steve a few weeks ago and ask about this script. It’s gone through a few hands now, but I present it below for your enjoyment. It’s a quick, easy way to integrate any existing EDITOR (as in, EDITOR environment variable in UNIX) into RCS without having to worry so much about RCS commands. Having the file locked alerts other users who might want to edit it that it would be a bad idea — and who to talk to to unlock the file. Automated check-in on changes makes it really easy to keep track of what you’ve changed and why. And when someone forgets to use vircs, you’re notified that the file doesn’t match, and you can compare timestamps to figure out when someone edited it improperly.

All in all, a very handy little thing to have around. So here it is! I just tidied it up a bit — changed paths to work on a standard LSB-compliant GNU/Linux system, and fixed the exit code at the end to work with newer versions of Perl (old versions work fine with an exit code of “\n”, while newer ones want a numeric argument).

You’ll also need to install “Rcs.pm” from CPAN. I usually do it this way:

 perl -MCPAN -eshell cpan> install Rcs 

A few moments later, and you’re done! If you haven’t used CPAN before, it may prompt you for some configuration. The defaults usually work, the only thing I usually do is pick a mirror that’s closer to me.

 #!/usr/local/bin/perl

use Rcs; use File::Basename; use Getopt::Std;

############################################################################ # NAME: vircs (vi using RCS) # VERSION:		2.51 # CREATED: 9/19/93 # LAST MODIFIED: 3/14/00 (toml) # AUTHOR: J. Derek Roller # ORIGINAL SH AUTHOR: Stephen W. Fulling # # DESCRIPTION: this script is used to edit critical system files which # uses RCS to track changes. It assures the following: # 1. File is not previously locked by someone else. # 2. If someone changed the file being edited wihtout checking # it into RCS, the user will be notified # 3. The original file owner and mode iwll be restored after # editing # # All use of this script are logged into a log file as specified by # the $LogFile variable below in the form of: # RealUserName EffectiveUserName File Date #############################################################################

###### # # set up what options the rcs commands will use #

# General RCS defines Rcs->bindir('/usr/local/bin'); # default, but let's be sure...

###### # Look for arguments # if (! getopts('e:')) { &usage }

###### # # Misc variables that are calculated from ARGV. #

if (scalar(@ARGV) != 1) { &usage } $WFile = $ARGV[0]; $dirname = dirname($WFile); $basename = basename($WFile);

# start of our RCS object $obj = Rcs->new; $obj->file($basename); $obj->workdir($dirname); $obj->rcsdir("$dirname/RCS");

###### # # Try to find the users editor as defined in environment variables. if not, # die out of script. if editor is not defined, use vi. # if ($opt_e) { print "\nUsing specified editor: $opt_e\n"; $Editor = `which $opt_e`; } elsif (! $ENV{'EDITOR'}) { print "\nNo default editor specified, using vi\n"; $Editor = `which vi`; } else { $Editor=`which $ENV{'EDITOR'}` }

if ($Editor !~ /^\//) { print "\nSorry, I cannot find the specified or default editor\n"; print "Use the '-e' option, check your path, and/or check your\n"; print "EDITOR environment variable\n\n"; exit; }

chomp($Editor);

###### # # check if file exists. # if not create it, if it can't be created, die. # if the file exists, make sure we can write in that directory, if not, die #

if ( ! -f $WFile ) { if ( -e $WFile) { &usage } if (! open(TFILE, ">$WFile")) { 	die("\nProblem creating file '$WFile': $!\n\n"); } print "\nCreated file $WFile\n"; close(TFILE); } else { if (! open(TFILE, ">$dirname/test.$$.bic")) { 	die("\nProblem writing to '$dirname': $!\n\n"); } close(TFILE); unlink("$dirname/test.$$.bic"); }

###### # # check for RCS dir. if it doesn't exist, create it. if we can't create # it, die. # if it does exist, try to write to it. if we can't, die #

if ( ! -d "$dirname/RCS" ) { if (! mkdir("$dirname/RCS", 0777)) { # mode is modified by umask 	die("\nProblem creating directory '$dirname/RCS': $!\n\n"); } print "\nCreated directory 'RCS' under '$dirname'\n"; } else { if (! open(TFILE, ">$dirname/RCS/test.$$.bic")) { 	die("\nPermission denied writing to '$dirname/RCS'\n\n"); } close(TFILE); unlink("$dirname/RCS/test.$$.bic"); }

###### # # Store uid, gid, and mode from the original work file #

(undef,undef,$mode,undef,$uid,$gid) = stat($WFile); $mode &= 0777; $FileMode = $mode;

###### # # If no previous RCS entry, make one #

if ( ! -f "$dirname/RCS/$basename,v" ) { print "\nNOTE: '$WFile' has never been checked into RCS\n"; print "checking in via 'ci -u'\n"; $obj->ci('-u'); # toml }

###### # # Check for someone else having $WFile checked out. If so, die #

# toml if ($locker = $obj->lock) { print "\nERROR: '$WFile' locked (check out) by: $locker\n"; print " you can force an unlock via 'rcs -u <file>', however you\n"; print " BETTER be sure that they're not really editing it.\n"; exit "\n\n"; }

###### # # Run rcsdiff for bozo changes (someone changed $WFile w/o checking in). # if changes have been found prompt for checkin, quit or ignore. #

@diff_output = $obj->rcsdiff; if (scalar @diff_output) { print "\nERROR: This file has been changed since the last checkin. This\n"; print " means that someone has edited the file '$basename' without "; print "checking\n in their changes to RCS\n"; print "\nHere are the changes:\n"; print "@diff_output"; print "\n\nNOTE: '<' = RCS has information that file '$basename' does not\n"; print " '>' = FILE '$basename' has information that RCS does not\n";

InputLoop: { print "\nHere are your options (in the order you should consider):\n"; 	print " 1. Update RCS per current file - (trust file over RCS)\n"; print " 2. Exit and go get a beer - (and buy a round for "; 	print "the support staff)\n"; print " 3. Overwrite current file from RCS - (trust RCS over file"; 	print " - DANGEROUS!!)\n\n> "; chomp ($answer = <STDIN>); if ( $answer eq "1" ) { 	 print "\n\nChecking in file '$WFile' with unrecorded changes "; 	 print "into RCS\n"; 	 $obj->rcs('-l'); 	 $obj->ci('-u'); 	 last InputLoop; } if ( $answer eq "2" and die "\nGoodbye\n\n") {} 	if ( $answer eq "3" ) { 	 print "\n\nIgnoring RCS changes for file '$WFile'\n"; 	 last InputLoop; } redo InputLoop; } }

###### # # Finally, we get to edit the file. #

chmod 0400, $WFile;			# this one is for steve :-) $obj->co('-l'); if (! $obj->lock) { chown $uid, $gid, $WFile; chmod $FileMode, $WFile; die "\n\nGoodbye\n\n"; } system "$Editor $WFile"; $obj->ci('-u'); if ($obj->lock) { $obj->ci('-u'); print "\nFile '$WFile' has been unlocked\n"; }

###### # # After editing is completed, change the file ownership and mode back to # what it was #

chown $uid, $gid, $WFile; chmod $FileMode, $WFile;

###### # # Log use into logfile #

#open(lFile, ">> $LogFile"); #($rname) = getpwuid($<); ##($ename) = getpwuid($>); #$Pwd = `pwd`; chop($Pwd); #printf(lFile "%8s %8s ", $rname, $ename); #printf(lFile "%s/%s\t %s", $Pwd, $WFile, `date '+%m/%d/%y %H:%M:%S'`); #close(lFile);

###### # # finish cleanup and give the user a useless message #

print "\nThank you so much for using vircs. Brick thyself.\n\n"; exit "\n";

sub usage { die "\nUsage: vircs [-e editor] filename\n\n" }

---

syntax highlighted by Code2HTML, v. 0.9.1

There I was, minding my business, poking along in the slow lane about to exit onto Interstate 215. Since I got my new car, I do tend to drive a bit like a grandpa — slightly under the speed limit, speeding up and slowing down according to terrain as I try to milk maximum miles per gallon out of my tank. It kind of comes with the territory driving a Honda Insight. The on-dash miles-per-gallon displays help one focus on driving patterns that bring out the best from one’s vehicle.

Of course, that means I’ve gotten more used to being passed on the freeway than I used to. A few months ago, I was one of the testosterone-charged, “must do at least 5 over the speed limit” drivers. Since driving the Insight, my road-rage level is noticeably smaller. Unfortunately, not everybody’s is.

I turned on my blinker to merge one lane to the right, looked in my rearview mirrors, and saw that it was clear. I began my merge, when suddenly movement in two of my mirrors caught my attention.

A white Toyota Pickup was doing about ninety-five miles per hour one lane over to my left, and without a signal on, was merging into my lane about fifty feet behind me. His trajectory appeared to be similar to mine: attempting to merge over and get on I-215.

I quickly corrected my steering to remain in my own lane to avoid a collision with the other driver. Despite that correction, he missed my rear bumper by mere inches as he blasted through an impossibly small gap at a ridiculous speed trying to reach the onramp.

After I saw him slam on his brakes in the right-hand lane, safely in front of me, I merged over to that lane myself. I was unhappy that someone was driving so unsafely in the semidarkness of my morning commute. I expressed this displeasure to him with a 1-second treatment of my high beams. To come so close to hitting someone else due to your poor driving is just incredibly rude and dangerous.

Within a second, I noted his response. Inside the cab of his truck, silhouetted by my now-dim headlights, I saw the familiar one-finger salute, extended from his right hand.

Apparently, he wasn’t satisfied with that, though. I think he thought I couldn’t see the ovation on the inside of his cab. So he rolled down his driver’s-side window and extended his hand out of it, pumping the glove-fisted finger up and down a few times so that I got the message.

That marks the first time I’ve received the finger in seven years of driving in Utah. I don’t think that’s saying anything about the drivers here — they are as bad as anywhere else. But it was rather poignant to me that I remembered the last time I’d received the finger, while driving on I-295 in Maryland. Yep, over ten years ago.

When was the last time you got the finger? And why?

I’m taking barnson.org down for an upgrade later today. So you may not be able to get to it for a while. You will get an error message basically saying what this says: “Sorry, not available due to an upgrade, I’ll be done when I’m done”.

See you on the other side.

I went digging tonight for some sound samples for a project I’m working on. The one I was particularly looking for was the introduction to “Gyruss”. I wanted to use it to segue into the development portion of the piece. I found what I was looking for, and then some. Ye flipping gods, that’s an excellent archive. I could lose a week in there. Well, at least several hours.

I was cruising Paul Murphy’s site tonight, even briefly considering clicking the Paypal link to send Anna some birthday money (Hah! Hah! Laughed at myself for that thought, I’m pretty broke at the moment), when I noticed an extremely long quote in Paul’s nifty “Random Quote” block:

“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

— Carl Sagan

Now, I ask you — is the above statement an accurate portrayal of the human condition? Carl Sagan was a well-known atheist, yet he was always apologetic about it, very rarely antagonistic. He was also quite sour on the political system. Does this statement make Carl Sagan an anti-religion, anti-politics bigot, or is that statement accurate?

When’s the last time you changed your mind about a political or religious issue and acknowledged that fact, rather than trying to hide it? What’s your take on science’s changeability vs. religion’s immutability, or politics’ stubbornness?

And perhaps most important of all, how often are major religions or major politicians willing to do a 180 on an issue?

So what do you think of the modified look? I’m trying to nail down the kind of look I want for the site, so that when I upgrade my software here shortly I won’t be trying to design and update at the same time.

Changed things:

1. Instead of background colors, created background transparencies. This took a while; every color I use had to be recreated, except the background color for the site as a whole.
2. Added my picture, obviously. This one was actually taken earlier tonight. I’m not entirely satisfied with the look, though; a part of me thinks I should be sticking my tongue out and grinning.
3. Changed top banner color; I still need to whip out a logo, I think.
4. Limited number of nodes to 5 on front page. The front page was just getting terrifically long.
5. Nuked the sidebar stuff I never used: “who’s new”, “top nodes” “recent recipes”, and “who’s online”. Some things, like recipes, change so rarely, they really shouldn’t have been there anyway. Thanks to Paul for the suggestion; this really is a blog, not a portal to every gee-whiz geeky HTML gadget on the planet 😉
6. Modified a few colors to go better with the slightly more subdued color scheme.

The things I’ve noticed wrong are:

• Internet Explorer has problems with lots of transparent gifs on a page. That’s how I did the transparencies — I created 16×16 gifs where every other pixel was transparent. It works well, but when I initially did 2×2 gifs, IE was so slow it was pathetic. Maybe I should convert them all to 32×32. It’s still kind of slow rendering the page, even on my 933. Conversely, Mozilla smokes through the page like it’s nothing.
• I don’t have a nifty logo yet. I must make one.
• Lost the neat bar that held the menu in up top. Must figure out a replacement. I don’t have <div> attributes for the header as a total unit in my theme, and so without hacking the theme file, I couldn’t readily put back my blue & off-white bar.
• Trying to color-match for that picture in the corner was a bear. It looks OK now, but I had to master the “smudge” tool in the Gimp to get it nearly matched 🙂
• Rounded corners. I want rounded corners. That’s going to be pretty exciting to do in transparencies.

I’m done, I’m tired, got to get up for work in a few hours. I’m glad to have gotten this update out of the way, though, it’s a look & feel change I’ve wanted to make for a while but just haven’t taken the time. I want my site to be beautiful, not just functional.

I used to be convinced that I had only a sysadmin’s soul — that I was no artist. And yet, when I do things like this, there is a symmetry I’m aspiring for, and an aesthetically pleasing goal I’m attempting to reach. It’s almost like when I write music… I go back again and again, because there’s a note out of place that needs adjusting, or a sound that’s just not quite right for the most harmonious appeal. My web site’s becoming a bit like that for me lately, that when I’m done with work for the day and have a chance to be creative, my creativity comes out here instead of in my recording program.

Kind of interesting, that.

For some bizarre reason, I remembered this show. HR Pufnstuf. The “Barney” of the 1970’s, I guess. I loved this as a little kid when it was on TV. I discovered that, for just $14, just like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you can own the entire first half-season of HR Pufnstuf on DVD. All four episodes!

I wonder where the people went who did that show, and where they are today. I think that and “Speed Racer” were my two favorite shows when I was five. It’s the only show I remember from that time of my life, except maybe “Captain Kangaroo” by the time I was in elementary school. What were yours?