Once in a while I receive a piece of spam whose combination of words in the subject header I think would make for some very fine poetry or a really cool name like:

Jitterbug sparkle sauerkraut.

“Hi, Tony, my name is Jitterbug Sparkle Sauerkraut…. Yes indeed I was raised in a macrobiotic-eating circus-hippy farm in the backwaters of Vermont run by a band of fun loving, tree-hugging, houligans who loved to make huge vats of crunchy, zingy, sauerkraut, which we gave freely to anyone who wanted.”

Taken from an energetic standpoint alone, pain is a very potent and powerful entity. It is a strange beast that I am sure animates people to produce works of sublime beauty, a foil by which to save oneself from the drowning always at the crossroads of pain. And of course a good many people at some point decide that the pain is unbearable, ending their life by the force of their own hands.

At least once a week, my mother tells me she would rather die than lead the life she does. And much of the time, I am not sure what to respond and my reaction ranges from erecting more protective layers, to silently agreeing that maybe such suffering is not worth it, to trying to skillfully change the subject to keep her mind off her pain and end the torture of hearing such talk from someone who you love. It is frankly some of the most painful words I have heard in my life and yet, I know as my mother’s health declines, there is more in store. The tip of the iceberg is starting to reveal its larger mass.

Years ago in college, I immersed my self in the study of religion concentrating on Buddhism. Since then I only occasionally have stepped foot in a church or temple or have given my sight and mind to Buddhist scripture. While in SF, there was a little more connection through the mere fact of osmosis. It seems like everyone and his cousin as a spare yoga mat in their car and is involved in at least one of the

I decided the title of my last entry is misleading. It is not what Posner is smoking, but what is he NOT smoking. He needs to lighten up a little, and experience some aspects of the world and life (like perhaps suffering and the “poor” as opposed to the “nonpoor” he refers to.),

On the other hand, the Chicago Maroon needs to get a better fact checker or their reporters need to be smoking less dubbie when writing thier articles. This is the third article they have written about SOSHI and this is the third time we will be writing them to tell them they got simple facts *wrong.* So in this article they claim that:

SOSHI estimated that if effective changes are not made, graduate students could pay up to $1,375 for their insurance by the 2009-2010 academic year.

Well, that would be AWESOME being that the basic rate is currently over $1600. Though I wont be here in 2010, it would be pretty nifty if students only paid 1,375 in the future. Fat chance though.

I actually admire the Maroon staff more than I portray here. These kids spend like 20 hrs a week, slaving away unpaid and produce a good solid newspaper. But three times in a row is starting to look like a pattern.

There is a man on the other side of the midway as we say here in U of C, whose name is known in many circles, Judge Posner, and whose theories on medicare are over the top, insane. In a nutshell he believes:

As a matter of economic principle (and I think social justice as well), Medicare should be abolished

Here is the core of his “rosy’ view in which individuals are “free riders’ while corporations and the free market will be able to provide in a way that is just and equitable for those otherwise hardworking Americans.

hen the principal government medical-payment program would be Medicaid, a means-based system of social insurance that is part of the safety net for the indigent. Were Medicare abolished, the nonpoor would finance health care in their old age by buying health insurance when they were young. Insurance companies would sell policies with generous deductible and copayment provisions in order to discourage frivolous expenditures on health care and induce careful shopping among health-care providers. The nonpoor could be required to purchase health insurance in order to prevent them from free riding on family or charitable institutions in the event they needed a medical treatment that they could not afford to pay for. People who had chronic illnesses or other conditions that would deter medical insurers from writing insurance for them at affordable rates might be placed in

System administrators are really thier own breed of people.
Firely independent, they exude a cowboy sensibility, a lone ranger, who fixes the server crash with nothing short of arrogant bravado.

So apparently, some of the HOTTEST sys admins (ie, hot as in can administer a box with no problem) have a little help from the red man below:

It has long been a widely-acknowledged fact among the System Administrator community that fixes to broken servers involve what is commonly known as “Voodoo” — That is, illlogical sequences of actions which, despite their apparent stochiastic reasoning, nevertheless seem to fix the problem at hand.

We here at Satanic SysAdmins suggest a more “scientific”, quantifiable approach. We maintain that there are definite, easily laid-out steps which can resolve various daily problems with a minimum of fuss. All it takes is absolute compliance to these simple instructions and unswerving devotion to our Lord and Master, Lucifer Light-Bringer.

You can muck around with jumper and software settings for hours, but in our experience, the most simple and direct solution involves the ritual sacrifice of a domesticated fowl, i.e. the common chicken or duck. Under a full moon, slay the chicken with a Tongan war club. Setting parapherneilia like candles, bells, and naked nubile dancers is recommended but not obligatory. Drip the blood of the newly-slain beast onto a Tibetan prayer scarf, and wrap said scarf around…

I have been somewhat absent on this blog as of late in part because of teaching responsibilities and I think my absence will only grow more apparent (to be explained soon).

In class this week we read some material on crypto and privacy such as Database Nation, and Steven Levy’s Cryto Rebels. The student response papers really grappled with the many complex issues surrounding ‘privacy’ which as one student noted is such a catch all term that it does not do justice (often in fact occludes) to the very diverse issues that get tagged onto it.

So one student in his response paper decided to tell an ironic story about downloading PGP, worth sharing (with permission of course)..

9:05AM: I download the PGP installer from www.pgp.com and install the encryption program. I am surprised by the interface

Often when I am very tired, life seems even more odd and strange, wicked and wonderful than it probably is. And today it was one of those days when everything seemed to be hang by a delicate string, but that string, no matter how thin, is one that transmits some small bits of wonder, that strike as such only because you really need more sleep. But I happily will take those small bits of wonder even if an artifact of some otherwise troublesome insomnia.

So, for example, today, as a way to keep myself awake I decided I was so tired, I must wear my bright orange sweater and this satorial decision elicited two considerably positive responses (one from a student after class, the other from a Hyde Park south sider while walking home). It seemed to make both of them incredibly happy and I was equally happy that a sweater of a certain color could induce such an effect.

Earlier in the day I also had a long conversation with someone about LISP, one of the geekier computer languages. Apparently this woman’s b-friend was a Lisp-Lover, and free software developer and it was just cool to talk shop with a fellow anthropologist about the arcane world of geeklandia that she knew from her partner. So when I came home only to find out that my friend seth had recommended I listen to a humorous song about LISP I was very excited.

This article discusses the implications behind the massive proliferation of licenses in open source. The issues and problems, as Larry Rosen raises, are very real. One thing I find interesting is how the proliferation of licenses sort of mirrors the redundancy of packages in a distribution. One the one hand, it is great that there are a gazillion (ok maybe not that many) music players, on the other hand, one could easily imagine that if efforts were put in 2 or 3 of them as opposed to spread over 6-7 you would be getting better quality. Choice can only get us so far…

The Economist has a pretty good article summarizing a law school journal article by Benkler, called Sharing Nicely where he argues that we are seeing the rise of third economy based on sharing that exceeds the sharing of intangibles.

I am super excited to read the Benkler piece as he is probably my favorite lawyer/thinker/writer when it comes to issues about IP, speech, sharing etc in the digital domain. His thinking is sharp and his writing style is very accessible, a real plus when dealing with the complexities of this world.

Since I have not yet read the Benkler, I am reticent to comment. But according to the conclusion of the Economist, they state Benkler’s position as follows:

“Mr Benkler does not limit his analysis to computing and bandwidth, but tries to make a broader point in favour of sharing goods far beyond information technology.

Don’t be falling in love, because if you get jilted, you may you, know find yourself in need of major medical treatment and while it may save your life, it may ruin your wallet, leaving you in bankruptcy.