They say the surest way to ruin a dinner party is to talk about one of the taboo subjects of religion or politics. My wife has added computers to that list. As I have a whole category dedicated to that subject I was bound to hit on religion or politics at some point. Here it is: today is the day that I spoil the dinner party with politics (religion will just have to wait its turn).
As some of you may have guessed, I was unhappy at the results of the last national election. It wasn’t just that I was opposed to Bush. He won the election, and I’ll abide by that. I was mainly miffed that Democrats and Republicans alike ran the candidates that they did. Bush made it to and subsequently won the world series because he could “unite the base.” Kerry got to play because he had good hair, looked presidential, and didn’t scream on stage. No wonder people felt like it was a losing battle.
The politics in this country have become hugely polarized (and for good reason!). The stakes are high and the country is roughly split between left-leaning and right-leaning folk. There is no longer room for dissent in the ranks because any cracks in the Republican or Democratic monoliths could cause catastrophic losses.
I believe the current course of politics in this country almost guarantees a majority loser! The Democrats talk of being a “big tent” and the Republicans play up being the “party of inclusion.” Unfortunately, the bigger your tent or the more people you include, the greater your chances that some people will want to take their toys and go home. In recent memory there have been painful instances where both major parties have suffered total losses as the result of becoming diverse.
One could argue that, in 1992, Perot elected Clinton. Again in 2000 one could argue that, had Gore received a majority of Nader votes, the last 5 years would have been very different. The Democratic response in 2004 was the wrong response, they vilified Nader—in some states attempting to block him from the ballot. What could be more undemocratic than that?
Candidates, for fear of splitting their base, have to be uncontroversial, politically bland, but personally charismatic. Ideas, while a nice… idea, are not high on the list of qualifications. Otherwise maybe we’d have seen a match-up between McCain and Kucinich in the last election. As it is, we’re in a death spiral of popularity contests.
You’re thinking, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” You’re in luck. It just so happens that I’ve got a bit of the backseat driver in me tonight. Montanans, of all people, have the power to save the world.
Instant Runoff Voting.
It’s no secret that Montanans love ballot initiatives. We’re politically active here. We’ve got one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the country here in the Treasure State. It’s relatively easy (though not as easy as it used to be) to get some signatures together and get something on the ballot. We generally pass voter initiatives too. From the last election, here’s what I’ve learned about Montana via our voter initiatives:
- We like the environment (no to cyanide leech mining!)
- We are homophobic (how do you reconcile this with the others that passed?)
- We like marijuana
Or maybe we just like voter initiatives. Whether or not you agree with the initiatives, you can’t help but feel a little pride that Montanans are so interested in self-government.
Montana is an ideal candidate for trying Instant Runoff Voting.
- Montana is politically active.
- Montana is historically neither staunchly Democrat nor Republican
- Third party candidates (both liberal and conservative) have traditionally done better here than they have in other places.
- Montanans would pass a ballot initiative for Instant Runoff Voting.
I believe that the quality of political candidates would improve very quickly. With spoilers no longer an issue, more dissent would occur. More dissent would mean an expanded marketplace of ideas. In a larger marketplace, the products are the stars. The current “brand loyalty” system would enjoy competition. Nobody wants to see the same teams play in the world series year after year.
The rest of the country would be able to see the full political spectrum of Montana. More Montanans than ever would be represented accurately. Then maybe the rest of the country would become jealous and want to join the fun.
Today, my friend Ben said he’d be interested in helping try to get a ballot initiative passed. Both of us are incredibly busy, however. If any Montana readers out there would be willing to give a hand, let me know. I think we’ve got a real shot at getting this passed in 2006.
For a full description of Instant Runoff Voting check out instantrunoff.com. Be sure to check out the cool multimedia flash demonstration.
Remember, with Instant Runoff Voting, everybody wins. Democrats and Republicans no longer have to fear spoilers, and the little guys get to be heard too.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Monday, November 7, 2005
New jujitsu colors
This weekend I passed my second Danzan-Ryu jujitsu rank test. I don’t feel like I did nearly as well as my first test, but I was told it was nevertheless a good test.
As of next Saturday, I will have an orange belt. I’ve never really felt a desire to chase rank in either judo or jujitsu, however, I must confess that it is nice to have some recognition of achievement. Though I’ve only been doing jujitsu for about 5 months, I feel like I’ve been advancing very rapidly as a result of my more extensive judo training and a smidge of aikido.
Advancement may only seem quick in comparison to judo where I’ve felt some stagnation of late. I’ve still got my trusty yellow belt after nearly two years of training in the style. So, given my relatively speedy advancement in jujitsu, I have to wonder if I’m A) very slow at judo, B) quick at jujitsu, or C) my judo dojo just doesn’t care much about advancement. I don’t particularly care about rank, however the lack of parity between the two styles definitely has me wondering if I’m at the right place in my judo training.
I’ve been enjoying jujitsu more than judo lately, I think it may have to do with the more rigid class structure. For whatever, the more clearly defined parameters and the practiced repetition of kata forms in jujitsu has made me feel much more creative in judo of late. I also feel like I’m past a barrier of perpetually worrying about injury. I feel like I can take most falls these days, and so I’m less inclined to tense up when being thrown.
With a bit of excitement at having passed a test, and a little trepidation with my judo rank, I continue to train in both. Nothing is changed, I will just look a little more colorful on the mat.
Comments (archived)
John G, on Feb. 10th, 2006 wrote:
Sounds like your head is at the right place.
keep up the good work.
I study in Boston MA, please check out the basic site I built for my Professor http://www.traditional.ws
As of next Saturday, I will have an orange belt. I’ve never really felt a desire to chase rank in either judo or jujitsu, however, I must confess that it is nice to have some recognition of achievement. Though I’ve only been doing jujitsu for about 5 months, I feel like I’ve been advancing very rapidly as a result of my more extensive judo training and a smidge of aikido.
Advancement may only seem quick in comparison to judo where I’ve felt some stagnation of late. I’ve still got my trusty yellow belt after nearly two years of training in the style. So, given my relatively speedy advancement in jujitsu, I have to wonder if I’m A) very slow at judo, B) quick at jujitsu, or C) my judo dojo just doesn’t care much about advancement. I don’t particularly care about rank, however the lack of parity between the two styles definitely has me wondering if I’m at the right place in my judo training.
I’ve been enjoying jujitsu more than judo lately, I think it may have to do with the more rigid class structure. For whatever, the more clearly defined parameters and the practiced repetition of kata forms in jujitsu has made me feel much more creative in judo of late. I also feel like I’m past a barrier of perpetually worrying about injury. I feel like I can take most falls these days, and so I’m less inclined to tense up when being thrown.
With a bit of excitement at having passed a test, and a little trepidation with my judo rank, I continue to train in both. Nothing is changed, I will just look a little more colorful on the mat.
Comments (archived)
John G, on Feb. 10th, 2006 wrote:
Sounds like your head is at the right place.
keep up the good work.
I study in Boston MA, please check out the basic site I built for my Professor http://www.traditional.ws
Friday, November 4, 2005
iPod “Zen” Alarm
Waking up in the morning is never a pleasant endeavor, and I’m rather picky about how I do it. I didn’t always use to have troubles dragging myself out of bed. Once upon a time, I had myself so well trained that I woke up consistently about a minute or two before my alarm would go off—in time to shut off the alarm before it made a sound.
But now, being a bit older and having a wife to sometimes forcibly pull me back into bed, I’ve developed some bad waking habits. I’ve decided to try to break some of those habits.
What I have in mind is a 4 point process:
1. Go to bed at roughly the same time every night of the week.
2. Wake up at exactly the same time every morning.
3. Forever abandon the snooze button.
4. Get out of bed immediately upon waking up.
Simple, no?
Well, the first and second points are relatively easy. That is, you can either do them or you can’t based on your schedule. As it so happens, I can. That isn’t to say I’ll be abandoning friends at midnight for fear of turning into a pumpkin, it’s just that the overwhelming majority of the time, I plan to go to bed at about the same time.
I intend to be a little bit less flexible on the second point. Experience dictates that you can almost always wake up at the same time—even if it means paying for the previous night’s revelry. You just need an alarm clock and a little willpower.
The snooze button is a little harder. Almost every alarm clock sold has one of the damned things. If your alarm clock has it, you will use it. I have never used the snooze button and not felt generally tired throughout the day. I’ve actually used the snooze button before and forgotten that I’d used it until I was scrambling to get to work.
If your alarm clock doesn’t have a snooze button, why bother to lay in bed? It seems that is just tempting fate,
Though I have disabled snooze buttons on alarm clocks before, I truly hate the sound that most alarms make. So, how about waking up to the news? That too is a bad idea. Since I tend to listen to NPR, I found myself waking up in a bad mood when waking up to the latest Iraq body count.
Music? No way. When you pick a song to wake up to, you think, “This is a great song. I’ll always wake up happy!” Nope. You’ll just start to hate your favorite songs.
I have a friend who has a zen alarm clock and swears by it. I love the concept, but the bell on it is a little high pitched for my taste. So, the other day I thought maybe I could find a pleasing tone to use as my own “zen” alarm. And I did.
I found a lovely high-resolution sound sample of a tibetan singing bowl being struck once. Pay dirt.
Using (okay, abusing) a nifty open source audio editor called Audacity, I repeated the tone along something approximating a decreasing fibonacci sequence. The result? A bad-ass zen alarm for my iPod.
So far, I’ve been been pleased with the results. I find the tone pleasing, yet forceful enough to make me want to wake up. When I hear the first tone, I’ve been trying to immediately get up and start stretching. This seems to help stave off sleepiness.
Feel free to download this audio sample. It’s in AAC format, but I could probably be enticed to cut an MP3 version. Feel free to request in the comments below if anyone wants such a thing.
Here’s the attribution info for the tibetan bell sound I used to make the alarm:
File:
Name: “bowl_struck.wav”
Url: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=2166
Date of upload: 2005-05-18 09:03:54
Designer / Creator / Uploader:
Name: “suburban grilla”
Url: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=3310
Description:
By “suburban grilla” : Tibetan singing bowl struck once with a wooden mallet
Download Zen Alarm.m4a
Comments (archived)
Devin, on Nov. 5th, 2005 wrote:
That’s awesome, Peter! Very well written as always, and very funny. You rock!
Levine, on Jan. 2nd, 2006 wrote:
Peter, you have such a precise understanding of waking up, and you may have found the ultimate solution to it. Thanks!
suburban grilla, on Feb. 9th, 2006 wrote:
I am very happy that you found such a creative use for my humble recording.
Peter, on Feb. 10th, 2006 wrote:
That’s excellent! Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for the excellent audio sample. As I said, this was exactly what I was looking for. I suppose this is what the Creative Commons license you chose is all about.
suburban grilla, on Feb. 10th, 2006 wrote:
Indeed, I find the philosophy behind Creative Commons most appealing. The sample has been downloaded in excess of 1000 times from Freesound and other sources, but, your Zen Alarm is the only use of it that I have been able to track down. Simply because you included the attribution data in your article. So thanks to you too for entering into the spirit in which the sample was shared.
But now, being a bit older and having a wife to sometimes forcibly pull me back into bed, I’ve developed some bad waking habits. I’ve decided to try to break some of those habits.
What I have in mind is a 4 point process:
1. Go to bed at roughly the same time every night of the week.
2. Wake up at exactly the same time every morning.
3. Forever abandon the snooze button.
4. Get out of bed immediately upon waking up.
Simple, no?
Well, the first and second points are relatively easy. That is, you can either do them or you can’t based on your schedule. As it so happens, I can. That isn’t to say I’ll be abandoning friends at midnight for fear of turning into a pumpkin, it’s just that the overwhelming majority of the time, I plan to go to bed at about the same time.
I intend to be a little bit less flexible on the second point. Experience dictates that you can almost always wake up at the same time—even if it means paying for the previous night’s revelry. You just need an alarm clock and a little willpower.
The snooze button is a little harder. Almost every alarm clock sold has one of the damned things. If your alarm clock has it, you will use it. I have never used the snooze button and not felt generally tired throughout the day. I’ve actually used the snooze button before and forgotten that I’d used it until I was scrambling to get to work.
If your alarm clock doesn’t have a snooze button, why bother to lay in bed? It seems that is just tempting fate,
Though I have disabled snooze buttons on alarm clocks before, I truly hate the sound that most alarms make. So, how about waking up to the news? That too is a bad idea. Since I tend to listen to NPR, I found myself waking up in a bad mood when waking up to the latest Iraq body count.
Music? No way. When you pick a song to wake up to, you think, “This is a great song. I’ll always wake up happy!” Nope. You’ll just start to hate your favorite songs.
I have a friend who has a zen alarm clock and swears by it. I love the concept, but the bell on it is a little high pitched for my taste. So, the other day I thought maybe I could find a pleasing tone to use as my own “zen” alarm. And I did.
I found a lovely high-resolution sound sample of a tibetan singing bowl being struck once. Pay dirt.
Using (okay, abusing) a nifty open source audio editor called Audacity, I repeated the tone along something approximating a decreasing fibonacci sequence. The result? A bad-ass zen alarm for my iPod.
So far, I’ve been been pleased with the results. I find the tone pleasing, yet forceful enough to make me want to wake up. When I hear the first tone, I’ve been trying to immediately get up and start stretching. This seems to help stave off sleepiness.
Feel free to download this audio sample. It’s in AAC format, but I could probably be enticed to cut an MP3 version. Feel free to request in the comments below if anyone wants such a thing.
Here’s the attribution info for the tibetan bell sound I used to make the alarm:
File:
Name: “bowl_struck.wav”
Url: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=2166
Date of upload: 2005-05-18 09:03:54
Designer / Creator / Uploader:
Name: “suburban grilla”
Url: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=3310
Description:
By “suburban grilla” : Tibetan singing bowl struck once with a wooden mallet
Download Zen Alarm.m4a
Comments (archived)
Devin, on Nov. 5th, 2005 wrote:
That’s awesome, Peter! Very well written as always, and very funny. You rock!
Levine, on Jan. 2nd, 2006 wrote:
Peter, you have such a precise understanding of waking up, and you may have found the ultimate solution to it. Thanks!
suburban grilla, on Feb. 9th, 2006 wrote:
I am very happy that you found such a creative use for my humble recording.
Peter, on Feb. 10th, 2006 wrote:
That’s excellent! Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for the excellent audio sample. As I said, this was exactly what I was looking for. I suppose this is what the Creative Commons license you chose is all about.
suburban grilla, on Feb. 10th, 2006 wrote:
Indeed, I find the philosophy behind Creative Commons most appealing. The sample has been downloaded in excess of 1000 times from Freesound and other sources, but, your Zen Alarm is the only use of it that I have been able to track down. Simply because you included the attribution data in your article. So thanks to you too for entering into the spirit in which the sample was shared.
Thursday, November 3, 2005
Linux missing the ‘sudo’ boat
Having been out of the game for a while, I’ve been doing a bit of playing with Linux lately. My exposure to Linux over the past couple of years has been limited to back-end system stuff. It’s true, my trusty Apple PowerBook has relegated desktop Linux to a mere footnote in the evolutionary track of my technological development.
Every so often, I get a pang of regret or guilt that I use great deal of commercial software these days. It’s not an overwhelming feeling, and it soon passes. But on certain crisp autumn evenings when the wind is blowing through the trees, I hear Pete Seeger faintly singing “Die Gedanken Sind Frei”. Then, I have a vision of our dystopian, DRM encumbered, thought controlled, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (you damn dirty apes!) future, and I think that maybe I should step up and be part of the solution.
After one of these visions, I used my commercial toe jam licking PowerBook to download and burn a DVD of OpenSUSE to see if 2006 will be the year of the Linux desktop after all.
Overall, I’m very impressed—particularly with the polish and simplicity of Novell’s GNOME desktop. (KDE: what happened to you? You look awful these days!) However, one thing stuck out that made me question whether or the Linux folk “get it”: What is with asking me for a root password all the damn time? Do you have any idea how horribly wrong this is? Let’s play with a common scenario to illustrate:
Suzy Q is a systems administrator at a university managing a number of OpenSUSE desktops for three chemists, a budget analyst, and a secretary. The three chemists share three workstations around the building. The budget analyst has a laptop and likes to connect to wireless networks when she is traveling. The secretary loves playing solitaire and has an insatiable appetite for downloading new variations on the game.
For the chemists to do routine operations such as changing the screen resolution, or installing a package, they must either hound Suzy to come do the work for them, or they must know the root password. The budget analyst must know the root password to simply join the network at her local neighborhood coffee shop. The secretary is in the same boat as the chemists for installing new versions of solitaire.
Suzy doesn’t want to be a personal servant to the chemists or the secretary. And Suzy certainly cannot be everywhere there is a wireless access point for the budget analyst. So, she has no choice but to give out the root password to these people.
The sneaky chemists start using that root authority to start spying on their coworkers who use the same computers. The budget analyst has no clue what a “root” is. And the secretary immediately roaches her system by changing a configuration file.
Using this model:
violates the principle of least privilege
requires a person to know two passwords.
requires a person to understand the concept of a “root” user and when to invoke it’s name.
The Macintosh did away with using a root account entirely. The root account on my PowerBook is locked. That isn’t to say that the Mac is perfect. For example, a person is either an administrator or he isn’t—thus violating the principle of least privilege. However, a person only needs to know his password. And there is no concept of a root user in sight.
Finally, the plumbing is almost certainly there if and when Apple decides to add more granular control over administrative functions. Furthermore, the user interface paradigm doesn’t have to change to accommodate such a move.
Current Linux distributions use an “su” model to elevate user privilege. Both KDE and GNOME have graphical replacements for the old command line utility. Why, then, could they not pick “sudo” as a model? Sudo already supports allowing users to use their own credentials for privilege escalation. No two passwords. No root user.
Furthermore, sudo already supports granularity. If Linux distributions used sudo instead of su, Suzy could allow the chemists to install packages from an internal package repository, but could deny them access to each other’s files. She could allow the budget analyst to change her wireless settings without being able to install new software or modify startup scripts. Our secretary could download new versions of solitaire to her heart’s content, without being able to muck with her system settings. Even better, sudo can *log* the commands that each user runs!
To keep things simple, I suggest two levels of sudo access initially: a “power users” group that allows members to install packages, change screen resolutions, run a wireless configuration tool, etc. Generally speaking, a “power user” could run specific programs that don’t impact other user accounts. An “admin” group would be similar to the “su” model, allowing any administrator to run anything as root—but using only one password. In the case of OpenSUSE, certain YaST modules would be open to power users, but others would be closed to all but administrators.
Speaking of OpenSUSE, I have to wag the finger of shame at SUSE. Your sudo configuration is broken. Configuring sudo to ask for the root password negates the value of the utility. Why even have it when su does the same thing?
It seems I’ve been picking on SUSE a bit, but in reality, overuse of su is pandemic in the Linux community. Fix it. Use sudo instead. It’s a small thing, but Pete Seeger would want it this way.
Comments (archived)
Pingswept, on Nov. 5th, 2005 wrote:
You’ve got a legitimate gripe about using the root account. As a solution, take a look at Ubuntu Linux. Like OpenSUSE, it uses GNOME as its desktop, but they’ve taken exactly the approach you’ve advocated. As someone employed at a Mac-rich company, I’m always looking for free alternatives to the “commercial toe jam licking PowerBook.” Ubuntu isn’t perfect, but it’s frighteningly good for free.
Peter, on Nov. 5th, 2005 wrote:
I otherwise like OpenSUSE. I think the desktop is pretty attractive and functional, but maybe that is just par for the course with desktop Linux these days. Having poked around at Fedora and OpenSUSE, I was generally happy with both—minus the su issue. I hope they will buck up and go the Ubuntu route!
Every so often, I get a pang of regret or guilt that I use great deal of commercial software these days. It’s not an overwhelming feeling, and it soon passes. But on certain crisp autumn evenings when the wind is blowing through the trees, I hear Pete Seeger faintly singing “Die Gedanken Sind Frei”. Then, I have a vision of our dystopian, DRM encumbered, thought controlled, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (you damn dirty apes!) future, and I think that maybe I should step up and be part of the solution.
After one of these visions, I used my commercial toe jam licking PowerBook to download and burn a DVD of OpenSUSE to see if 2006 will be the year of the Linux desktop after all.
Overall, I’m very impressed—particularly with the polish and simplicity of Novell’s GNOME desktop. (KDE: what happened to you? You look awful these days!) However, one thing stuck out that made me question whether or the Linux folk “get it”: What is with asking me for a root password all the damn time? Do you have any idea how horribly wrong this is? Let’s play with a common scenario to illustrate:
Suzy Q is a systems administrator at a university managing a number of OpenSUSE desktops for three chemists, a budget analyst, and a secretary. The three chemists share three workstations around the building. The budget analyst has a laptop and likes to connect to wireless networks when she is traveling. The secretary loves playing solitaire and has an insatiable appetite for downloading new variations on the game.
For the chemists to do routine operations such as changing the screen resolution, or installing a package, they must either hound Suzy to come do the work for them, or they must know the root password. The budget analyst must know the root password to simply join the network at her local neighborhood coffee shop. The secretary is in the same boat as the chemists for installing new versions of solitaire.
Suzy doesn’t want to be a personal servant to the chemists or the secretary. And Suzy certainly cannot be everywhere there is a wireless access point for the budget analyst. So, she has no choice but to give out the root password to these people.
The sneaky chemists start using that root authority to start spying on their coworkers who use the same computers. The budget analyst has no clue what a “root” is. And the secretary immediately roaches her system by changing a configuration file.
Using this model:
violates the principle of least privilege
requires a person to know two passwords.
requires a person to understand the concept of a “root” user and when to invoke it’s name.
The Macintosh did away with using a root account entirely. The root account on my PowerBook is locked. That isn’t to say that the Mac is perfect. For example, a person is either an administrator or he isn’t—thus violating the principle of least privilege. However, a person only needs to know his password. And there is no concept of a root user in sight.
Finally, the plumbing is almost certainly there if and when Apple decides to add more granular control over administrative functions. Furthermore, the user interface paradigm doesn’t have to change to accommodate such a move.
Current Linux distributions use an “su” model to elevate user privilege. Both KDE and GNOME have graphical replacements for the old command line utility. Why, then, could they not pick “sudo” as a model? Sudo already supports allowing users to use their own credentials for privilege escalation. No two passwords. No root user.
Furthermore, sudo already supports granularity. If Linux distributions used sudo instead of su, Suzy could allow the chemists to install packages from an internal package repository, but could deny them access to each other’s files. She could allow the budget analyst to change her wireless settings without being able to install new software or modify startup scripts. Our secretary could download new versions of solitaire to her heart’s content, without being able to muck with her system settings. Even better, sudo can *log* the commands that each user runs!
To keep things simple, I suggest two levels of sudo access initially: a “power users” group that allows members to install packages, change screen resolutions, run a wireless configuration tool, etc. Generally speaking, a “power user” could run specific programs that don’t impact other user accounts. An “admin” group would be similar to the “su” model, allowing any administrator to run anything as root—but using only one password. In the case of OpenSUSE, certain YaST modules would be open to power users, but others would be closed to all but administrators.
Speaking of OpenSUSE, I have to wag the finger of shame at SUSE. Your sudo configuration is broken. Configuring sudo to ask for the root password negates the value of the utility. Why even have it when su does the same thing?
It seems I’ve been picking on SUSE a bit, but in reality, overuse of su is pandemic in the Linux community. Fix it. Use sudo instead. It’s a small thing, but Pete Seeger would want it this way.
Comments (archived)
Pingswept, on Nov. 5th, 2005 wrote:
You’ve got a legitimate gripe about using the root account. As a solution, take a look at Ubuntu Linux. Like OpenSUSE, it uses GNOME as its desktop, but they’ve taken exactly the approach you’ve advocated. As someone employed at a Mac-rich company, I’m always looking for free alternatives to the “commercial toe jam licking PowerBook.” Ubuntu isn’t perfect, but it’s frighteningly good for free.
Peter, on Nov. 5th, 2005 wrote:
I otherwise like OpenSUSE. I think the desktop is pretty attractive and functional, but maybe that is just par for the course with desktop Linux these days. Having poked around at Fedora and OpenSUSE, I was generally happy with both—minus the su issue. I hope they will buck up and go the Ubuntu route!
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