November 2004 Archives

I thought this was a pretty nifty little bit on banazir's blog (a.k.a. Dr. Hsu).

I do want to preface this by saying: social and political manipulation are not capable of transforming our nation or the world. Only Jesus Christ is capable of doing that. These are my opinions on political solutions, but they do not constitute the primary method by which I see the world being cured of it's depravity.

Here are my responses:

International Issues

Foreign Policy

I don't believe in Globalism, that's just new age politically correct puke. It's not the responsibility of the "enlightened" to make the world a better place through the use our clout. On the other hand, I don't believe in isolationism neither. We should protect our interests so we can continue to export goodness. America will do well so long as it remains "good," in the sense that Alexis de Tocqueville used. Unfortunately, I believe we may be leaving that era of our history behind; time will tell. I do believe, though, that global competition will help us stay good just a bit longer. So, encourage international competition is a little good.

Homeland Security

I don't know about you, but the name "Homeland Security" gives me the heebie jeebies. At this time, I don't really have any outspoken objection to this agency, but the concept makes me uncomfortable.

War & Peace

As a Christian, I hate war. As a Christian, I would also fight in one if my nation asked me to. I believe this is part of my duty in serving nation ("render unto Caesar") even if I don't happen to think the war is just. On the other hand, the Geneva Convention should be obeyed to its fullest. Unfortunately, in this current "War on Terrorism" the enemy cares nothing for the Geneva Convention and breaks all the rules. How do we deal with that? It puts us into a very uncomfortable position. As a result, I'm torn between the fact that we seem to be violating the Geneva Convention (no tribunals for enemy combatants) and yet don't know if a terrorist should be given the privelege anyway.

Free Trade

Absolutely. Taxes are always evil all the time. Taking someone else's earned cash for any reason is wrong (almost). I believe the ends justify the means in a very small set of conditions, but I think governments should avoid levying any tax whenever possible.

Immigration

Immigration is good. The people who are paranoid about our southern borders should be. However, how would you propose blocking up 2,000 miles of border? Shoot anyone cross? No, let them come. In the meantime, force the terrorist to defend their own territory so they're too preoccupied to do something here.

Energy & Oil

Our economy lives on these items. The population of earth is sustained by our use of energy and oil. However, I'm not worries that our "rampant" consumption of resources is going to either destroy the earth or depleting resources too quickly. We're already starting to use alternative fuels as they become affordable and I understand that hydrogen fuel cells are really just a few short years off. Cool. We do need to start building power plants again. Nuclear plants are clean and cheap. We should build them. The amount of toxic waste produced by a modern nuclear plant is far less than the toxic waste created by our coal and oil plants. Let's continue to fund alternative sources of energy as we do! Let's also remove our need for foreign resources by opening up safe off-shore drilling and the fields in the frozen tundra.

Domestic Issues

Gun Control

We don't need any of that. I believe the freedom to bear arms is the responsibility of the people, not the government. I think Americans should own assault weapons, bazookas, RPGs, tanks, artillary, fighter jets, and anything else we can afford. The government exists to serve us, let's make sure it stays that way. If guns in the home are a problem, that's the problem of the home owner, not the government. Tragic, but not a problem to be addressed by the general public.

Crime

Our court system is perverse and our prison system is a festering pit. I don't believe rehabilitation is possible. Depraved people don't change in nature, they are slaves to it. However, the system for punishing them should be equitable and prison rape chambers constitute an inhumane punishment. Our culture promotes violence as any culture throughout history has done. Unless the culture changes, these problems are going to get worse.

Drugs

I'm torn on this one. I don't believe the government should have the ability to do some of the things it does to enforce anti-drug laws. At the same time, I think legalization of drugs will destroy what good is left in American culture.

Civil Rights

God gave us the rights we have. It's not the government's responsibility to guarantee them. It's ours. See my comment on gun control. Vote and be ready to shoot your local officials if it comes to that. (I'm not advocating violence, unless it really comes to worse circumstance, but as Thomas Jefferson said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.")

Jobs

Yes, get a job. Get off your butt and get one, or make one up. It isn't the government's responsibility to "create jobs." Only the people themselves can work because only they can have the drive necessary to actually accomplish anything. I do think it's important to maintain the balance of power between corporations, stock holders, consumers, and employees. All these groups balance each other out. Ultimately, though, the small businesses are the real foundation of our economy, so we must do everything possible to make sure they are protected.

Environment

The earth is a huge. It can take care of itself. God won't let us completely destroy it or ourselves, so I'm not too worried. (God promised to utterly destroy the earth, so I trust that humans won't be permitted to do so first.) On the other hand, I do believe it makes good sense to be conservative in our use of resources. It just makes good economic sense not to waste resources. But, let's not sacrifice our economy for it. Ecoterrorists should be stopped, they are as bad a group of folks as any other terrorist. Also, I am a firm believer that if we want to keep an animal from going extinct, Americans should start encroaching on it's resources or eating it. There are more caribou in Alaska because of the pipelines. There are more salmon out there because we think it's yummy. We should start harvesting whales again and we'll suddenly have farms for raising whales and save them too.

Economic Issues

Budget & Economy

Tell your neighbor to get off his arse and get a job. Produce and consume. The economy is only as good as you confidence in it.

Government Reform

Smaller! I'd say there are about 5 or 6 actually federal departments that are Constitutional. Most of our problems today stem from a power-greedy beauracracy. Trim it and let's let people live their own lives. Power should be localize. Does this mean some places will suck? Yes. However, if it sucks, change it at the local level or "vote with your feet" and move to a place that doesn't suck, as President Reagan used to say.

Tax Reform

Taxes are wrong. Taxes should be easy to fill out. There shouldn't be exclusions or special taxes that punish or reward individuals belonging to different classes. Equality of taxes means that Bill Gates pays the same percentage as me. We can leave the poorest out of taxes, I have no problem with that, but it's terribly unfair that 3% of the people should bear 97% of the burden.

Social Security

Kill it. It shouldn't exist.

Welfare & Poverty

Those of a more liberal persuasion tout the fact that these people are the downtrodden and used. While this is no doubt the case, they are the downtrodden and used of this depraved world and most have chosen this state of their own accord. We should help those who need it, those who aren't able to care for themselves. However, this is a job for charitable organizations, leave the government and it's grimy hands out of it.

Technology & Infrastructure

I'm not certain how these are related to politics, except indirectly. We're all working now, right? Well, technology will come as part of that. Infrastructure is a part of the government's responsibility. It promotes the common defense and interstate commerce. Beyond this, again, the government should buzz off.

Social Issues

Education

Take it out of the hands of the government. The "No Child Behind Left" Act was a serious mistake. In 2010, 90% of children must have passing scores on state tests: NOT POSSIBLE. That's like say, by 2010, 90% of United States residents should be making a middle class income. It's not feasible. There are too many problems with the government being in control of education. Education is a local issue, the federal government has no business in it. Each state can decide to regulate it if they like.

Health Care

Get rid of the insurance industry and lets make individuals pay for their own health care. Let the industry be taken back into the hands of consumers and we won't need the government to regulate so much anymore. Unfair? Yes. Health care is a luxury, not a hand-out. Let charities handle those who can't afford the really expensive stuff.

Abortion

Abortion is murder. Murder can be justified. If a man breaks into your house and threatens your family, the court system will pardon you if you blow him away. Yet, the Roe v. Wade decision made 35 years ago is a little like saying, "Murder is sometimes okay, so let's just legalize it." No, I think abortion should be a crime, BUT I think that it can be handled in the same way as killing in self-defense. Let the doctor document and prove he was saving a woman's life. And don't give me any pap about it's a "woman's body." It is not, it's a babies body that happens to be inside a woman. Adoption is a very excellent alternative to abortion.

Families & Children

Families are defined as a married man and woman who work together to raise children. Anything else is a deviation. I think we need to, as communities, do more to make divorce and infidelity uncomfortable for convenant-breakers. I consider infidelity on par with rape and murder as a crime. I don't know if it should be punished as such, but it has many of the same effects. Sex out of wedlock is also a serious problem. I believe our "loose culture" to be the legacy of "the pill." I don't know what solution we have for that problem, but we need to do more to discourage this behavior.

Corporations

Corporations should be held accountable first by their consumers, their employees, and their stock holders. Corporate execs that break the law should be punished. I consider corporations to be less evil than the government because, in most cases, there is at least competition to harm them. Monopolies are bad, but I don't think it's the responsibility of the government to regulate them—um, isn't the government a monopoly of it's own?

Principles & Values

They are the reason the government shouldn't interfere. Since the government runs public education, it's difficult to teach principles and values because parents all have different values. If the education system is localized or privatized (if a locality wishes to do so), then a parent is free to choose a school and take the principles and values taught into consideration.

Interesting Topics

Affirmative Action

Creates as much strife as it resolves. Racism is still a problem, but I believe AA aggrevates rather than helps.

Death Penalty

All humans live under the death penalty. God instituted death as punishment for sin. As such, I'm not really opposed to giving a criminal an early sentence. I think appeals for the death roe inmate should be expedited though, as it's cruel to give them hope they might avoid their ultimate destination for so long. I also think the death penalty should only be dealt when guilt is completely and totally without doubt—definitely, a rare case.

Drug War

I don't like it. It gives the government too many powers. I don't have a good alternative, but I think we should be seeking one.

Flat Tax

Good, get rid of all this classist exclusion garbage. We can exclude the poor, but no one else gets a bonus for anything.

GLBTPϿ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual, Pansexual, and Piesexual) Rights

Homosexuality is a sin and deserves no special rights. God condemns this sin, but that doesn't make these people anymore evil than anyone else who lies, gossips, disobeys his parents, slanders, etc. (Read Romans 1.) Anyway, I don't think there's any need to punish this sin, but let's not explicitly legalize it either. Besides, it's a deviation from normal, even under a Darwinist perspective. It doesn't make sense that there's a homosexual gene, it would always select itself out!

Illegal Immigrants

Stop deporting these poor people. Let's find a way to let them stay. I don't have a problem with immigrants. They can speak their own language. They can have their own culture. However, let's not given them government hand-outs either.

The Middle East and U.S. Relations with Islamic Countries

On edge. I don't think there's a solution to the relation issue with foreign nations, but I think we should protect ourselves by rooting out the terrorists. As such, I think the war in Iraq is justified.

Right to Die

There is no such right. Death is a punishment. God places us where we are for a reason. If we can't bear it, too bad. I understand the desire to put someone out of their misery, my grandpa's last few months were very horrid, but euthenasia is simply murder. Perhaps if we humans didn't try to hang on to life so desperately, we'd be better comforted in death. That doesn't mean we should seek death, but we should let death come as it does. This doesn't mean we shouldn't seek medical help, but it does mean we should seek medical help in moderation, not in desperation.

Wowsers. Okay, I started working for the Department of Computing and Information Science in October of 2003. At that time, I started as a student employee and had my office in Nichols 118, where Diesel currently lives. At that time, I shared my office with four machines in my office, Kirin, Saru, Kuma, and Printserv. Kirin is the department's backup server. Saru was my workstation and one time application depot and firewall for the Linux lab—when Nichols 128 had need for such things. Kuma was the Unix print server. And Printserv is the Windows print server. Kate Adams became my office mate and a fifth machine moved in, Scorpion, which was her workstation.

After working for the department about two months, Tim Bower, the bossman, got offered a position as Assistant Professor in Salina, which he subsequently took. Seeing an opening for a real job I believed I was qualified for, I applied. This was an internal search for temporary position. They offered me the job and I took it. I then moved into Tim's old office, Nichols 116, and took Saru with me.

In Nichols 116, I no longer had a human office mate, but I shared the office with Achird, Zaurak, Oracle, Remote, and Saru. Achird was Tim's old workstation, which was used frequently by a professor via SSH. Zaurak was the recently (at that point) retired web server, but was removed very shortly thereafter. Oracle is the (since rebuilt) Oracle RDBMS server. Remote is the Microsoft Windows RDP server that acted as Tim's other workstation.

I don't hold to using servers as workstations, as was the wont of the previous administration, so I rearranged the office so that Remote was no longer a workstation. Oracle was in bad shape, so I replaced Oracle with Oracle2, which was a worse machine, but worked better than Oracle. Oracle was briefly put on sabbatical, but both remained in my office. Achird stayed in my office for a few months before I grew tired of it's presence and banished it to the Tower of Not So Much Power in our server room (which is growing to Biblical proportions). Saru, I'm sorry to say, needed a face lift and became Aldebaran, the prototype Gentoo Linux workstation in our department.

Back in my old abode, Cole moved in. He, briefly, shared space with Kate until the summer when we wished her a fond farewell as she moved on to bigger and better things. (Or perhaps more mundane, but better paying and closer to her real interests, according to her description...) Anyway, during this time, another machine was added to his brood, Seer. Seer is the Nagios and MRTG machine used to monitor our network and computer systems.

In April, the search for the permanent holder of the office of Systems Coordinator was begun. The search ended with two interviews, one with myself and one with another. An epic contest ensued and the two of us battled for days on end. In the end, my foe was vanquished and I smote his ruin upon the quad. Er...maybe the staff just decided that even though I might have been a little less qualified it was better not to change administrations again. Whatever happened, I was given the honor of staying with the department.

Since then, I rebuilt both Oracle and Oracle2 to make them a super-combo. That is, the computer formerly known as Oracle is now Catera. The computer formerly known as Oracle2 is now Cougar. These two machines together form the ultimate duo: Oracle Server and Oracle Client. Cougar keeps Catera happily hidden so we no longer have to compromise the quality of our Oracle server in order to keep from compromising security—which had formerly been the bane of our Oracle servers.

In addition to this, I created the initial framework (which Cole has since rewritten) which makes our fleet of Gentoo lab computers possible. In order to prove the concept, Saru, aka Aldebaran, had it's identity altered again to become, DUM-dum-DUM-dum-DUMMMMM, Silverado. I was tired of star names, really tired, really, really, really, really, really....really tired. Therefore, I decreed that henceforth, all CIS managed Linux servers and workstations shall have American automobile names.

Recently, Cole also built another machine, Montecarlo, to replace Kuma, who's age was really beginning to show. Ultra 5's are well beyond their prime. Kuma is an Ultra 5 and due for banishment with Achird, Zaurak, and dozens (literally!) of others.

Anyway, all of this to say, "Holy crap! We have a lot of servers in our offices!" I mentioned before that I don't hold to using servers as workstations. Well, I don't hold to keeping servers in offices at all. They belong in the server laboratory with all of their parallelepiped brethren. I have had the goal, since my start in October last year to get all these freaking servers out of our offices. Today, I have finally, mostly succeeded.

There was a mass migration of servers from offices into the server room. This migration was made possible due to the retirement of several unnecessary servers during the last week. Sarin, Hadar, Izar, and Clinton were all assassinated in the last week freeing up spots to move machines out of offices. Cougar, Catera, Kirin, Remote, Montecarlo, and Seer were all moved into our server laboratory today and yesterday. Awesome!

The mass migration is incomplete because Printserv has not been moved. Unfortunately, it is tethered to the wall in such a way as to make it's migration infeasible. However, it is also in a sorry state, very sorry. We worry for it's health and are afraid it may succumb to something akin to Alzheimer's disease soon. As printing is considered fairly important, we are going to replace Printserv with a brand spankin' new 1U rackmount when it arrives in another couple weeks. When that happens, Printserv will be unceremoniously nixed and tossed with extreme prejudice onto the Tower.

Once that is done, there will be no more servers in the office of any of the systems staff. As of this time, no more servers will be built within the confines of our offices. I will not encourage the breaking of the policy that servers belong in the server room. Humans and their own faithful workstations only belong in offices. Of course, this policy should not be difficult to enforce when I have another policy that states all new servers must be rackmount units. We don't have any racks in our offices, so a rackmount is really not very appropriate in our offices.

For one of my longest blogs ever, I wanted to say, "W00T! Victory is mine!" I am going to spend the evening doing the happy dance of joy rather than sleeping tonight...hmm...maybe I'll just dream about doing the happy dance instead. Cheers.

After reading a friend's blog on destiny and how one must create his own, I began to consider the Biblical basis for the evangelical concept of "destiny." I wanted to know why so many of my fellows have a strong belief that God has one particular plan for their life. So, I did what I despise...a topical study.

Disclaimer: Please, I am no Bible expert, if anyone sees a misuse of a verse here, please tell me so I can make a correction. I've tried to be careful, but I am not perfect.

Starting with Nave's Topical Bible "Will of God, The Supreme Rule of Duty," I found the following (my paraphrase each and parallel passages have been grouped):

• Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2: Lord's Prayer, ask for God's will
• Matthew 12:50; Mark 3:35: The Father adopts those that do His will
• Matthew 26:39,42; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42: Jesus asks the Father for a different way, but accepts His will
• John 4:34: Jesus continues the analogy He presented to the Samaritan woman at the well by making the following of God's will equal to eating
• John 5:30: Jesus is only able to do the will of the Father
• John 6:38-40: Jesus came to do the Father's will; the will of the Father is that everyone should believe in Jesus and be raised by Jesus on the last day
• Acts 18:21: Paul promises to return to Ephesus if God wills it.
• Romans 12:2: Break free from the mold of the world and prove that God's will is good.
• Romans 15:30-32: Pray that God will allow Paul to visit the Romans; Paul believes that to be God's will.
• 1 Corinthians 4:19: Paul promising to visit Corinth, if God wills.
• 1 Corinthians 16:7: Paul hopes to visit and stay a while, if God wills.
• Hebrews 6:3: The teachers want to get to the deeper teachings of God, if God wills it.

I have not exhausted all the possible cross-references to do a complete study. Yet, from this small selection I think evangelicals are on strong footing for seeking God's particular will in their lives. On the other hand, we mustn't underestimate the effectiveness of our own choices. Everytime here, God's will is a choice to be followed, not an irresistable imperitave. We may either choose to do God's general and particular will or we may not. This doesn't even come close to covering the question of whether or not we know what God's particular plan is.

On the other hand, I do believe certain irresistable imperitaves do exist. This study goes beyond this brief look at a few verses. But, I can logically justify the statement. While we have free will, we live within a net of relationships. These relationships determine the limitations on our free will indirectly. For example, I cannot purchase a brand new Hummer H2, even if I might like to, because my relationships do not allow for such a purchase to be made (i.e., no car dealer is going to give me one on my income).

In some ways, you can equate relationships to gravity. Those who are closest to us have the most force to determine our freedoms, yet we are still affected by the force of every other human on earth because of the way all the other humans are related to each other. God is another relationship we all have. He has a much stronger pull than any other and defines even more indirect limitations on our will. Being all-knowing and all-powerful, He can have as much or as little sovereign control as He pleases. He doesn't step into history frequently, but we can see His hand nudging the direction of history too and fro, most notably in the arrival and influence of Jesus Christ.

In conclusion, I would agree with Travis and his postulation that life merely presents us with opportunities and we must make the choice as to which direction our life will proceed in. On the other, I partially disagree with his analysis of destiny. In some cases, I believe certain things that God means to be will be, regardless of our resistance. When the end of all things arrives, this will become apparent. However, from my Bible studies, I don't think that this kind of irresistable destiny is a part of our day to day lives, or even the big decisions of career and marriage—though, Paul's trip to Damascus is evidence that God may intervene directly in even those circumstances.

Rather, I do think there is a "meant to be" destiny for us that is a part of God's will. However, it is "meant to be" not "absolutely will become." It is a part of our lives to seek God's will in the general (knowing right from wrong, knowing God's plan for salvation, etc.) and particular (Where is God leading me?) and then to follow through by doing it. In this way, there is a path for each of us that is "meant to be."

And finally, a bit of experience, I have found that even when I don't follow God's will, it's not like stepping out into the dark with no way to return. Sometimes, I am stubborn or afraid and do not do what I know to be right. However, God's grace abounds. Even from our fallen state, He is able to say, "Okay, you've stepped off the path into the wild, I'll beat you a new path." God is willing to help us pick up the pieces of our lives when we shatter them and rebuild a new life, even though it might not be the same as if we hadn't broken God's will.

Preparing for CIS 450 is, in some ways, very easy. It really doesn't take a lot of time (when I have the time to spare). I spent the last hour to hour-and-a-half to make all the preparations I needed for todays class.

On the other hand, it does require a bit of concentration. Right now, for those not in the class, we're covering how pointer arithmetic actually works out in assembly. I actually find this is pretty rewarding work as it comes together. I decided to cover pointer arithmetic very early in the semester—I started on the fourth class session, third session of C++. Pointers are, in my opinion, the single most important practical computer science any student can learn. They also account for one of the most difficult concepts to grasp properly.

I remember when I was an undergrad taking CIS 540, I had to explain the purpose of C++ delete and why my fellow students' code didn't function because they had their types screwed up, asterisks misplaced, etc. A lot of students seemed to use the, "Um, that didn't work, I wonder what happens if I stick an asterisk here" method of programming. They'd work at it until it compiled and then then, "Aha! I got it." And then they'd run their code and it would promptly result in a Protection Fault.

This is why I think C or C++ needs to be an integral part of the curriculum. Computer scientists shouldn't need managed code environments like the Sun JVM or the Microsoft CLR in order to save them from themselves. A computer scientist should be able to use these to catch their typos and mistakes, not to save their souls 'cause they don't really know how to code. That is, an adequately trained computer scientist should know where to put the asterisk in her code because she knows exactly what it does and why it works that way. That's a computer scientist. Anything less is a mere programmer. (There's nothing wrong with programmers, by the way, we sometimes need those grunts to that work too. Yet, the Computer Science program should be turning out Computer Scientists, not just programmers; programming is only one aspect of Computer Science.)

Anyway, back to my real point...it takes quite a bit of concentration to get these things right, especially because the GNU C Compiler is sneaky. It does lots of funky tricks like using the lea instruction to add integers, sal for mulitplication and sar for division, etc. To compare GCC to the Fire Swamp, "It certainly keeps you on your toes."

Working with a pencil and paper to figure these things out feels a lot more like work than hacking away at my computer does. I'm not sure why this is, but it does. All that meandering, just to say, I actually feel like I've accomplished something preparing for class. Most of the rest of my job working with the systems leaves me with a sort of nebulous, "Did I really do anything today?" feeling. Cheers.

Now that I've finished the bulk of my Master of Science program, it's time to consider the next move for the systems. I've made most of the major changes I wanted to coming into this position, now I'd like to make those changes robust. So, the coming year's theme: stability.

I believe we must examine, to achieve the goal of stability, there are four aspects of the systems (in no particular order):

• Network infrastructure
• Server infrastructure
• Security infrastructure
• Information infrastructure

Network Infrastructure: This is the foundation of our systems. In the Department of Computing and Information Sciences, this is a completely uknown quantity. None of our current staff can state with certainty the current network's history or current quality—we just don't know. The students and myself have not been around long enough to know. Our hardware specialist, Earl has been around long enough to know quite a bit, but still doesn't really know the network infrastructure well enough to gauge it's condition. Before we can really begin to guarantee quality anywhere else, we will need to quantify the quality of the network. Once quantified, we will need to address any problems found. This research will begin this month and should be finished by May. At that time, we make any changes we can to stabilize this aspect of our systems.

Server Infrastructure: Work on this aspect has already begun. Our server systems are actually in fairly good shape, but still require tweaking to bring the system completely into the 21^st Century. We'll be moving to a new web server, the old web server will be handling email services, other services will be moved around, and our obsolete hardware will be retired or placed on standby to be retired in the future. Most notably, our Solaris fleet is made entirely of computers that were never meant for server use and reached End-Of-Life years ago. If we're to continue our use of Solaris, new servers must be purchased. Solaris used to be our flagship system because Sun offered such great support. Yet, as of now, the support offerings from Sun don't look to be that compelling, in my opinion.

Another notable aspect of this issue, is the problem of file services on our systems. For the duration of my time in the Systems Coordinator position, we have been plagued with NFS problems. I intend to resolve this via one of several solutions. The first solution is to attempt to remove the current Solaris NFS server from our systems. It seems to be a major cause of problems on our Linux workstations (it's actually got to be a bug on Linux, but a probable work-around is to remove the Solaris NFS server). This should solve the current stability issues.

Security Infrastructure: Account management and authentication was a major focus of my M.S. Report. These were, really, the largest changes I have implemented on our systems. These have resulted in the most significant discomfort to users as well. Hopefully, most of the pain associated with these changes has ended. The account manager has not been fully implemented. During the next few weeks, it will be set in place. This should decrease the amount of effort spent performing account maintenance and allow us to monitor accounts much more closely than is currently possible.

As mentioned above, NFS is a stability problem on our system. However, while the solution given above will resolve the stability problem, it doesn't address the underlying security flaws of the NFS protocol. The NFS protocol itself has irreparable problems that demand it be replaced. This might be as simple as hoping for full NFSv4 support in Linux soon or as complicated as implementing a different file system infrastructure under Linux. This is, as yet, uncharted territory, so more news will come as we further research the issue.

Information Infrastructure: Communication is a major problem for the systems staff. As such, we're looking at better ways to communicate with students and to put a "human face" on what we do. If we can do this, students, staff, and faculty will be more likely to work with us rather than grumble about us. I have a few ideas that range from improving the support web site, to improving our support tracking system, to posting more information in the form of banners and posters in the labs, and even possibly requesting some renovations to Nichols to make the systems staff hallway more accessible.

I think lots of exciting things will happen during the coming year with the services. I hope we can prove our worth to faculty, staff, and students for the next coming year. Consider this an early New Year's resolution. Cheers.

It has been a long week. Now's my time to reflect on what I've done and where I'm going. For those who don't know, I do not work on Sundays between church and L.I.F.E. group (i.e., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.). Rather, I use this as a time to reflect on my week, rest, and prepare for the next. I define work and rest in pretty loose terms.

Work: In this, I include school work, work work, and most forms of computer work. I do not turn on my computer, except to blog or do something else leisurely. Blogging is borderline work for me, so even this I generally try to avoid. I do not include in "work" the time I spend doing household chores. Household chores are really not that involved and I can usually rest simultaneously as doing them—it also means a lot to Terri that I help her out.

Rest: The general focus on rest is trying to relax. This generally means reading, napping, watching some television, playing some video games, but generally not these latter things. Television and video games tend to be mind-numbing rather than relaxing, so I usually avoid them. Of course, a major component of my quiet time is reflecting on my week and considering what I need to do or do better this coming week. This is my time to be meta-cogisant and introspective. I would like to use this time to study and meditate on scripture as well, but I haven't been very successful in that since I started doing this. In fact, I've usually just napped away most of this time.

Another major component that I find very helpful: make sure my quiet time is quiet. Television, computer, and video games are all noisy. It really helps me relax by being in a completely quiet place. In high school, I used to get a pass to the library just so I could sit in a quiet place for a few minutes. At K-State, I used to go up on to the top floor of Hale library and find a quiet cubicle to sit in when I needed some peace.

I am very much looking forward to our new home as it is very quiet. Also, the loft is far enough isolated that Terri could be working in the basement, have the TV on, and make as much noise as she wants and I should be able to have my quiet time in peace. Our current apartment is too small to escape the noise of the appliances, television, and neighbors, so it's really not as restful as I would sometimes prefer. I should be well spoiled by the peace of our new home.

Anyway, I wanted to reflect on my quiet time, making this a meta-meta-cognisant blog. I suppose talking about blogging makes this a meta-blog as well.

*sigh* It is finished. I have given my final examination and been passed. I'm not done, but all that's left is to finish up my paper and clean-up what's left of the work. But, with so much work concentrated in the last two weeks, there's really not much left.

That's the end of the Play-by-Play column for now. I'm takin' a breather.

Now that I have a presentation and a paper, I've started the revisions. Revisions are worlds easier than writing new stuff out of whole cloth—or based on six months of work. Hopefully, that means I'll be able to go to bed at a more reasonable time tonight and be sure that my presentation looks good, my paper looks reasonable, and that my live demo will function without a hitch.

We'll see...I don't trust exit polls, so I'll wait till the ballot's in tomorrow...har-har-har.

Well, President George W. Bush received the largest numerical vote in the history of the United States. He also won by a majority—which hasn't be done in 16 years. He also won by both popular and electorial votes.

Interestingly, there was very little difference in the actual states carried, but the majorities by which they were carried were very different. Looking at the various news maps, it looks like the only two states to change hands from the 2000 election are New Hampshire and New Mexico. So, it would appear that the major difference between this election and the last election was that both sides were able to get out the vote, but the Republicans managed to get it out more.

As I mentioned before, I really like to watch the election coverage. I do admit I'm one of those hicks that watches FOXNews as my primary news source, but I did quite a bit of channel surfing last night. I mostly flipped back and fourth between FOX and CNN, but I did look at the other channels from time to time, just to see what they had to say. It was very interesting to see when each state was called on the channels. MSNBC and FOXNews were the only two that called Ohio last night, but no one called enough votes to make for a 270 electoral majority. I also noted that CNN tended to call the Kerry states sooner than anyone else and FOXNews tended to call the Bush states sooner. I don't know if this implies bias or just differences of opinion, but I find all of this fascinating.

I do need to correct my Kansas prediction. I predicted that Douglas and Johnson county would vote for Kerry, but I was wrong. I forgot that Johnson is the home of those "Johnson County-types," that is, the affluent of Kansas City, Kansas for those from elsewhere in the country. Anyway, the counties that voted for Kerry were Douglas and Wyandotte (Kansas City proper).

Finally, my rant: I just came from the Union and heard a guy say, "Well, so much for the democratic process." What is that supposed to mean? The democratic process is only good if your guy wins? I'd say that Bush's margin as it currently stands is significant. The people have spoken. If you don't like it, that's just sour grapes. The Republicans had 40+ years prior to Reagan to say such things, now it looks like the tide is turning in their favor—maybe.

In any case, I'm not convinced that the Republicans are going to do anything good with their power anyway. I may vote Republican, in general, but I don't happen to like politicians of any affiliation. Politics is about power and power is and always will be abused. Therefore, I try to pick my votes to count for the candidate that will abuse his power in the least offensive ways. Hopefully, my vote will help get some folks in office that will occasionally do TheRightThing(tm), too...but I won't count on it.

Okay, this is a problem. One of my favorite activities on the first Tuesday after the first Monday every fourth year is watching election results. It's really a form of insanity, but the suspense is comparable to watching a football game—especially, after 2000's fiasco. The anchors all talk about every useless piece of information available every few minutes, so I can't watch it too closely, but I like to at least check in every 15 minutes to half hour to get the latest updates.

But...I'm supposed to be finishing up my presentation. In fact, I was supposed to have the draft to Dan already—my apologies Dan. Yet, I've been working on this project with so much dedication for the last week I'm spent on it. It's interfering with my concentration, so I frequently find myself experience writer's block and staring at the screen trying to remember what I'm supposed to write next. Naturally, I get up to check the latest results, which then further delays getting this thing put together.

Anyway, trying to plod on, "Damn it, Jim. I'm a multitasker not some sort of drone."

All these posts are ending up in more and more categories as I go along and do more and more multitasking. This is a little crazy.

Okay, so I've eaten a late lunch, which will please my wife as she tends to give me dirty looks when I skip meals. I had some excellent left-over mini sausage and mushroom, alfredo french bread pizzas my wife made last night. I think they might be better left-over.

I've made another trip to the local Shop Quik for additional liquid fuel for my IV drip. I also got out the vote and cast my ballot for a bunch of Republicans. Actually, just the ones I knew something about. One of these years, I really ought to do a little extra research and find out what these folks really do. Instead, I just vote on the basis of their claims...which they probably don't follow through on anyway. I do have to admit that voting Libertarian was a little tempting, as Travis, Cole, and Matt likely have, but I can't stomach the idea of John Kerry winning. I'd rather have a President whose character and judgement doesn't turn my stomach, even if he has done so much that is evil. As Mel Gibson said on (I believe) Good Morning America, (my paraphrase), "When the election gives you lemons, you gotta squeeze the biggest lemon for all he's worth." I agree, this election sucks. Nothing but lemons. Anyway, we'll see how the voting goes tonight—not much doubt to whom the Kansas votes will go to anyway (except for Douglas and Johnson counties).

Anyway, I'm running out of time to get the demo working, so I guess I'll just have to do that tomorrow. So, I guess I better get cracking on the draft of my presentation.

Well, I was up until 4:00 a.m. last night before my neurons finally started misfiring—I'd run out of caffeine and the desire to run down to Shop Quik to get more. Anyway, as I couldn't concentrate and had finally got my second test framework put together, it seemed a convenient stopping point.

I resumed work again around 11:00 a.m. today after a shower and another trip to the Shop Quik. I'm really going to need to stop drinking pop for a while after this.

So, now I have two test frameworks. As of right now, I've pretty much completed building test cases for my agent library and then for the agents themselves (each having their test framework). Now, I need to build the third test framework to test my extensions to RT. When I'm done, I should have a fairly nice suite of regression tests for the whole system. I don't think I'm going to construct a system wide test framework as I think I'm both out of time and seems rather needless with the regression framework in place.

I checked KATS today and have found that my enrollment finally went through, so my committee should have a ballot to sign on Thursday (which is good news). I also sent my committee a reminder of my announcement, as per Dan's suggestion.

As a side note, I think I'm going to publish my LaTeX template for my MS Report because the Grad School's info on formatting is sparse at best. Subbu has a template for Microsoft Word posted on his web site, but Word suxors. My LaTeX is way purdier.

Anyway, enough delay. Back to the grind stone.

Microsoft Internet Explorer Sucks describing my Google Map hack problems has moved during a recent update of my web site.

I've spent the last three hours putting together a unit test suite for the agent library. This was to be the first of three groups of unit tests. The next group of unit tests would test the agents themselves. Then the next group would test the server extensions. So far, the first extensions are going slowly.

I can't tell if the hold up is that I'm not thinking clearly because I'm just a bit tired or what. This should be going faster than it is. Oh well, keep on truckin'...

Okay, I'm trying to take some sanity breaks—you may read procrastinate further if you like. Anyway, I thought of a new "column" that would accomodate this break time: Play-by-Play. The idea is, that when I'm working on something, I could give micro-updates on the subject. We'll see how it goes...

I've spent the last half-hour or so, I've been working on trying to get my project revised. I made a few changes to some of my ideas while writing my first draft last week. I also discovered a few missing bits that needed to be plugged in to the system.

I'm designing a "multi-agent" system (I used "agent" very loosely) for use with account management. At the center of the system is RT from Best Practical Solutions LLC. There are different agents for different stages of the process and each agent runs on the system it's made for. Thus, there's a Home Agent that runs on the file server to create home directories. There's a Directory Agent that runs on the authentication server to create user account profiles. There's a Mail Agent that runs on the mail server to add a user to the appropriate mailing lists. My initial demo only included these three agents.

However, as I put the demo together, I realized I really needed a fourth agent, the Sanity Agent, which made sure an application was properly submitted and sane. Some functionality was then stripped out of the Directory and Home agents and placed here.

As I wrote the paper, I realized that I needed a fifth agent, the Verify Agent. This agent is in charge of watching for completed applications and notifying the user of the completion. Ideally, it would also look for errors, but error handling is a little sketchy, so that will not be part of the demo I give on Thursday.

Anyway, I had to add some additional modifications to my RT plug-in to account for specialties these will require. I also had to write these, so that's done. I renamed the agents to match the names I gave in the paper (though, I just realized I need to rename the Sanity Agent again, because I got mixed up).

Next, I need to write unit tests and a system test plan. Then, it's on to actual paper modificiations.

Okay, so I'm supposed to revise my paper and prepare a draft presentation for my major professor and for my committee. What am I doing? Procrastinating. I suppose I need to get into the mood of writing anyway, so I might as well write while I'm procrastinating.

It's pretty exciting everything that's going on right now. I should, if all goes according to plan, be finished with vast majority of my Master of Science degree work by Thursday of this week. I suppose I should say that I am already finished with the majority of my work as I have already taken 30 hours of classes and done all my research already. However, I'm now in the red zone and need to make a touchdown. That's where a good deal of the work lies.

Well, I've gotten my POS completed and signed. I've put in my Add/Drop slip so K-State can claim it's graduation tax. I've put in my "Approval to Schedule Final Examination" and been approved. I've given the Graduate School my title page and abstract. I've told them what name to put on my diploma. I've even filled out my exit survey—in which, I was none too nice either, I might add. I can't says as the Grad School did anything in particular to "assist" me, which is their claimed purpose—rather they provided a number of red taped hurdles to cross and no help hurdling neither...but I digress.

Anyway, that means I could be done graduated here in none to soon. I still need to figure out if I'm going to walk or not. I better decide soon as I have until November 9th to rent my robes. I'm kind of leaning towards walking, mostly because of the volume of work I've done in the last two-and-a-half years to get here. Besides, it'll make my moms happy.

Moving on to home stuff—we plod onward. Our inspections are pretty much done. There's yet a survey to be done/get the report for, but other than that we've finished. The house needs a few very minor repairs including some work on the windows and roof. And, the house doesn't have termites or any termite damage according to the inspection. I'd say the existing owners have done a fantastic job of keeping the house up.

The negotiating process continues and should be resolved in a week or so. Then we're set for the closing date in December. We're beginning the prep work for cleaning up our apartment and packing and are looking at a preliminary date to do the big move on December 18th. We're also looking at some painting we'd like to get done before moving.

Anyway, I suppose I've procrastinated long enough...so...off to my paper...yay. Cheers.

"I am slacker." CIS 450 was a bust today because I can't prepare for class to save my life. I suppose that means I wasted $50 or so of my students' hourly fees.

Anyway, this is just a quick note to say, I'm sorry. I will try to do better by Wednesday. By Friday, prep for class should no longer be a major issue as my presentation is Thursday, but I will try to be well enough prepared on Wednesday.